Eric's Rant

Derivative

Small pieces of you lay sacrificed on cold stones

Scattered about rotted piles of broken pier logs.

Grave markers that mark waves' lives

And Crabs' corridors

Their rooms and houses

If only the sand might be made to be something more

(August 2000)

Magic and Music

For me, there has always been two mystical forces. And for those of you who know me, you will understand how my use of the word "mystical" might differ from your supernatural definition. There is magic, a word we use to describe a feeling of wonderment at a thing of which we do not have an explanation for but that evokes an emotion nonetheless. (Aside, nonetheless is one of those magical words like thisclose.) And there is music, the force of sound set to melody and rhythm. We see many forms of magic around us each day. A friend, who has long since disappeared into the mist, returns in the form of a phone call. She brings inspiration and reminds you of another time when inspiration came easy. Isn't it funny how inspiration always used to seem easy. Or that thing you have been thinking about recently that has been raising your ancient feelings of inadequacy, or that thing that you might get fired over if you don't figure out, or that thing that you know you could deal with if you could just remember how you dealt with it last time, or that thing that you know the answer to but have simply forgot, or that thing that reminds you not to write run on sentences. And then there is music, sweet music. There is music everywhere. But I Dead-gress. For me, music has always made sense. Poetry laid over rhythm. It Move the poetry beyond the surface of the page gaining three dimensions in sound. I have always been able to sense just how those two bastard cousins relate. The beauty comes in where the magic and the music intersect and that is where I exist.

Mathematica

One and one makes... Well it makes us. Imnot tauking bout bodinsoul. Im tauking bout, well younme, but its not that. The one is bout that evrchangin thing thats me. Thother is u, or in true, how I see u and how that makes me change whats me. Now, stand this from the get, u may have taken notice that the language is all wrong but that aint what this here is bout. I, a man of more than two decades of advanced edcation, one that included grammar,diction and the best lessons in syntax one could envy, taught by the very best American practicianers of the art, could prove THAT i am fully capable of spaking the Queen's. And yet , while i(cummings was a fag capitalizing on case) am fully ca(ul)pable of either,, (think Sloanie and pronounce in your head as like),, I chose to not obey niether the tight rule of the grametician nor the ridicule of lauguage that is the art of cut up. Like my g-g-g-g-generation, I coment on Many people have tried to make me into things, - mis padres - first pu tme thru Med school and then law, always hopin that I turn up professional in the end(and surprisingly disappointed when I did not). My wife- oh? (he says with the ingenuous inflection of a wirter). Did I not tell u my reader and my liguistic masiquist, that I was of the matrimonial persusion. aside - aside : Well

Its six AM

Morning's here again

Gotta get up and put my business suit on

Meeting at ten

Like good businessmen

Making money gives me such a hard on

I live my life at the speed of light

You'd never see me rest

Lucky if I ever see daylight

But I guess that it's all for the best

For Those Before and Those After It comes to me in a most vivid dream. On a dark, flat rock shelf hung under a midnight blue sky and lit from above by a pale half moon and from the ground by a roaring bonfire, dancers gyrate to the ecstacy of the the change of the millenium. They are mostly unlike each other and sway to unlike percussion, to such an extent that what similarites they share become highlighted. They are all of similar age. They are what is called a generation - people whose formative experiences all occured within a similar time frame. They are the children of the Cold War - they have been given a name , or actually many names, by the chroniclers. They are offspring of victoroius United States world war veterans made furtile by prosperity, they are the Baby-Boomers. When they were young, they marched around the high, firm , thick walls of the Establishment, sounding their horns until great cracks appeared in the at the ramparts foundation threatening its collapse. They then stood back to admire their work and, overcome by the damge they wrought, decided that they'd rather shore up the foundation, becoming a part of the Establishment. And now they celebrate as the cries of their youth for revolution fall away from memory excused by claims of immaturity. And on the hills surrounding dance floor, their chorus sits crossed legged and sings their dance tune. The choirs sameness is like that of the dancers in a way. They to are a generation, though as yet unnamed. The time of this new millenium shall be the making of their school day memories. While mankind begins to inhabit the new worlds inside microprocessors and phone lines, the young singers do so with the advantage of having never known a day when computers did not exist. They will enter the new electronic frontier able to swim its depths from birth.

So many men have spent lifetimes trying to find significance in existence. Of course none has succeeded since there is no significance to existence. Yet, don't let this worry you. This also means that your insignificance is insignificant.

Avery Mann busied himself with some spot cleaning of the living room of his two bedroom flat. Finally satisfied that all was in it's place, he started to sink down on the sofa but, was caught in mid-motion by a knock on his door. The thick wood door stood widely open. Outside the screen door stood two of Avery's friends, Michael and Lisa, each with a large bottle of white wine and a plaintive grin. As Avery motioned them in, Michael grabbed the bottle from Lisa and thendisappeared through the swinging door into the kitchen. Lisa slipped down on the couch next to Avery as he turned his attention to the TV. With a thoughtless movement he turned it on with the remote. As he aimlessly channel surfed he turned to Lisa and said, "So what brings you Greeks over bearing gifts here." "Today's the day, isn't it ?" Lisa replied. "Today's what day ?" Avery asked. "Its not my birthday. I hope its not yours or Mike's cause I didn't get you anything." "Fuck off!" Lisa exclaimed. "You know what I mean. Today's the day your ad for a new roommate hits the classified, so we decided to come over and provide moral and vineological support." "Which you know I'll need if its anything like last time", Avery said as he turned back to the tube. Michael poked his head through the door. "Hey, Ave. Where's the corkscrew?" Avery glance over his shoulder at Michael and replied, "In the drawer next to the fridge." Mike disappeared again and Avery's attention was swiftly pulled back to the TV as Lisa screamed, "stop!" "Stop what?" he asked. "Stop changing channels. Go back", she demanded. Avery flipped back one channel to a religious network. "What this?" "No, further back." "This?" he asked now watching real estate ads on local access. Lisa turned and gave Avery a silent fuck off look. Avery flipped back one more station and Lisa grabbed his arm exclaiming "This!" A commercial flicker it's last couple of seconds and was quickly replaced by another. "You jerk," Lisa said, "that was my boss." An observation whose importance to me is ... ?" "Is that I wrote the copy. A fact that any of my so called friends would know had they listening to me last night at the bar instead of hitting on some blonde waitress bimbo." Correction. A brunette waitress bimbo, Avery muttered fishing a crumpled up napkin from his pants pocket and straightening it out. He handed it to his friend as he remarked, A bimbo christened with the appropriately slutty moniker Lisa. Michael reappeared from the kitchen carrying a pot filled with ice and a open bottle of wine in one hand and three mismatched wine glasses in the other just in time to see Lisa punch Avery's shoulder. As he flopped on the sofa on the other side of Avery and unloaded his burden on the coffee table in front of him, he laughed, What did I miss? Nothing, answered Avery, we were just talking about Lisa. The waitress from last night

One Then Two Now
one fell then
then when hearts could be broke
then when men could cry
then when lesser men died
the one was not the one
at least not in his life
nor not for the ten
years leading to his life's end
he became the one one day
sitting cross-legged
beat down on a beat-up uptown flat's rug
he dicovered the sync
and he did flow
whenever the wine hit his sole
but it was the job of those who heard
whenever he spoke the word
that did not rhyme with
anything
to tell the world
both hip and not
that he was here
though he was no longer so
long gone drunk was he
when fame evil crossed him
leaving him dead at mothers' feet
his friends, the two
one teacher, one taught
left to carry on
the teacher was the hard case
junk filled at first
second by loss and perversion
or so he seemed to say
the one taught spoke
freely so gay
of pain and Jewishness
ever the twain sahll meet
and now they have passed
The Present Working List of Books Under My Care
Romp on the Lilies - an attack on beauty
A Player To Be Named Later - (Gok follow up)
A Conservative Way of Repetitive Life - my only comment on Rushism
Wildest Dreams - exactly what the title says
Our Savior - (Saints Part 2)
Unholy Mary - (Saints Part 3)
Conclusions - A Cutting of Strings
Simple City - (Formally Known as "Moody")
Freak
Dumb struck and bounded
Awe struck
Fragile
Felt felt up by crisis
Written in lines
Lost
Poured into air
Floated
Questioned wrongly
And the rightly
Closely Far
Stood against
Not standing
Fallen
For goodness sake
Our rice wine
Away and abrupt
Nearer my God
By me now
Forever
 
Less then
I am
I am knot
Forever now
Within or with not
Stings me
Loves
And does not
I lie.
I lie regularly.
I lie in the most deceiving ways.
I lie because you lie in far less deceiving ways.
Lies have meaning.
 In lies we find truth.
There are levels into which our lies fall.
First there is the flat out lie. The lie most lacking of truth.
Then there is the straight out lie – the lie devoid of truth.
Then there is the lie which is based on belief. The lie we admit we tell.
Then there is the lie we say to our selves. The lie we try to hide.
Then there is the lie that is but a lie.
Then there is the lie that rings of tuth.
Then there is the lie that is the truth, but it sound like a lie.
Then there is never the truth.
Forage through the morn and forage through the night
Awake into the dawn, awake unto the sight
The singer has a song, he sings about the light
He sings for miles long, he plays it nice and tight.
Fingers play the tune and tune as they do play
Dancing under moon and picking on the way
Coming in too soon and beating to and sway
Soaring like the loon and swinging as they lay. 
Blame is the name, the name of the game. The game where we flame and we seek to defame the acts of the lame. Or maybe we maim, or so we claim, its all the same.
 
We sit and we shout, we lash all about at each drunken lout whose esteem we rout. Within or without,  we are fighting about our personal clout and the rules that we flout.
 
The truths that we share, even when we're aware of the terrible stare that we see when we dare look into a flare with delicate care of a sun unaware.
(The previous rant)
What is left for man to do?
(A rant dedicated to Paul's highly successful party.)

Just how do we find a reason to continiue on this insane path? I mean, one day you're just one of the many freaks seeking bliss and the next, you wake up painted head to toe in silver with a large welt on you upper left deltoid that weeks later turns out to be a BEE GEES RULE! tattoo. Forget for a moment that what you remember was generally favorable. What concerns you now is that not only did your memory lapse, but it did so in such a way as to leave the bad parts and, for that matter, the interesting parts, in the dust of shared pleasure. And now you stand witness to your avatar surging forward on autopilot seeking favor with those whose only claim to fame is homo-pyro-technics set in God's own blast furnace...

But then, digress. 
(The even more previous rant)

Recently, as I was putting together this web page, I decided to read several 'expert' web authors' views on what makes a good web page. Rather than offering helpful advice, these pleasant persons' pages simply spent most of their text poking fun at the amateurs. Specifically, there were attacks on the use of busy (interesting) backgrounds, large (beautiful)  graphics, and odd (other than black) colored type. The general consensus was that in a world of low band width, it was amateurish to choose content over the speed of download.

I say, why use any color at all. Yes, were both text and background of the same color, just think of the download time we'd save. And while we're at it, let's get rid of graphics all together.

No wait.. why bother using text. I mean, words are so long and character filled. Wouldn't we all be better off if we just we could agree to use one letter and make it mean anything.

"... sooner than he wished to rise. And Byron said, "If the reader has patience to go through his volumes, he will be more improved for literary"
---Robert Burton. 1576-1640.

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