Bad Rubbish

Where do they all go, the lost socks? A parallel universe? Behind heavy furniture into the dust traps of the world? (There, my lost True Love, Princess Lintguard lies, lovely and virtuous. Her chaste legs guard dried, powdery loins that will now never know my passion. I will never again kiss her dust-caked lips, and the Kingdom of the Dust People will know no Lord, who might sit with the Lady in the Chamber of the Cobweb Thrones, ruling beneficently, where she, heartbroken, now governs with neglect.

I want to part those dry legs. I want to bury my engorged cock amidst the pubic lint that lines her cunt. I want to lap at her dry, flaking nipples. I want to lick her dirty ass. She is everything to me, the Princess of Dust. But she is lost.)



So I’ve stumbled onto another weekend on earth. That’ll make for approximately 1827 weekends I’ve spent, variously, suckling at the Teat; (as both infant and sexually active adult—funny how you come full circle like that;) attending college football games; spending the night at the homes of my childhood friends; getting tanked; staying sober; smoking pot; renting movies; (including, but not limited to pornography, martial arts extravaganzas, foreign “art house” stuff, low budget independent features, documentaries, Hollywood blockbusters and classics, and Italian zombie flicks;) playing video, computer and/or role-playing games; attending parties; taking in live performances of various kinds of music and theater; cooking; walking dogs; camping; traveling; cleaning; sleeping in; studying; delivering newspapers; (The New York Times AND The Flint Journal;) working in a juice bar, a coffee shop, University of Michigan dorm food service, the equipment checkout facility of the School of the Art Institute’s film department; (to name just a few distinguished places of employment;) practicing the guitar; balancing the checkbook; reading; sledding; canoeing; masturbating; crusading; jihading; impaling vampires on wooden stakes; shooting lycanthropes with silver bullets; destroying the brains of the walking dead; repelling Gojira from Tokyo; doin’ the Jughead; and most importantly, competing in Quiz Bowl. Mustn’t forget that.

Whatta life it’s been! And if I achieve the average lifespan enjoyed by the inhabitants here in these glorious United States—where we not only live better, but longer than the rest of the world—and only at the expense of our immortal souls!!!—(Thanks for all that slave labor, you little brown people out there! Thanks for lettin’ us mow you down, trees! Thanks for sucking on a club, baby seals, ‘n’ wolves, ‘n’ elephants, ‘n’ stuff!) (Fuck—whatta a set of stupid, hypocritical hippie clichés!!! I'm turning into Sting or Bono or some other idiot. My apologies to anyone who’s still reading this sorry shit.)—then I’m not even halfway through my allotment of weekends!!! ‘Course, about 1/3 of ‘em will probably be spent crappin’ in my drawers and trying to hear when my aid’s already turned up to 11.

Yep. Gotta whole lot to look forward to. And with that, my ungrateful ass bids you adieu.

Next Time: Maybe: If I ever update this thing again: (Note the regularity of my recent postings:) In commemoration of my 35th birthday: I may, may, may try to talk about my 35 favorite record albums: Which may be followed by my 35 fave books: and the my 35 favorite films: Or maybe I’ll just glom into one list of my 35 favorite things that have kept me around to see my 35th birthday. Or maybe I’ll just hold forth on the plight of our noble native people here in the U.S., or of the rapidly dying oceans, or the sorry state of our public schools, or the terrible legacy of colonialism in Africa. Hey!!! I could make a list of my 35 favorite things to whine about!!! #1: My Hard Life. But that would just be too heartbreaking for anyone reading (anyone???) out there, I’m sure. Or I could record a lotta dumb adolescent fantasies of a scatological and/or sexual nature. That’d be different.

Anyway, as you can see, there are a lotta laughs on the way. Stick with me...

The Tragical Blistery Tour

Sorry, Sloth. I've been MIA for a while. Business got, well, busy. Anyway, now I'm back, and it's time to talk about one of the greatest musical phenoms of all time. We're talkin' John Cale droning away on viola, organ or whatever else was at hand. We're talkin' Mo Tucker tap-tapping into some primal rhythmic vein on her drums. We're talkin' Sterlin Morrison's prismatic, serpentine lead guitar. We're talkin' Nico croaking out love songs like some drugged but randy frog. And of course, we're talking about Lou Reed, speaking, in his insectival buzz, of previously unspeakable things.

We're talkin' the Velvet Underground.

So let's get down to it: For years I’ve listened to their music—in various moods, in various states of consciousness, in many different people in many different places. I can’t begin to assess what these records have meant to me.

Still for the life of me, I can’t figure out Loaded. To quote Lester Bangs’s remarkable piece “Kind of Grim,” which dealt with the similarly chameleonic—and problematic—career of Miles Davis: “Perhaps an expository dissection of my confusion can be instructive to you, if you care.” (With considerable emphasis on that last phrase, since I ain’t no Lester Bangs. I lack his insight and so wouldn’t presume to instruct anyone else. But what the fuck…)

I can’t understand why so many people find it to be a great record. I mean, maybe it is a great record—of its kind—but is it a great Velvet Underground record?

The answer to that question depends entirely on what you think the Velvet Underground was or meant as a band. During the group’s very brief existence, it radically changed directions. You can split its recorded output almost perfectly into two pieces: The first two studio albums are a striking experimental assault on the forms and subject matter of popular music. It’s some of the most powerful noise ever made—thrillingly, deeply alive—like nothing that came before it—and its influence on punk and various other types of “alternative” music can’t be calculated.

(Hate that label. It’s lost all meaning. Alternative to what? At this point, most stuff that’s set aside as “alternative” sounds exactly the same as all the other shit on the radio.)

For the most part, the last two albums revel in exactly the mainstream conventions that their predecessors attempted to subvert, with Loaded pushing this trend toward its most extreme point. At best, this approach sought to perfect the pop song, and it resulted in very good music: achingly beautiful ballads, e.g., “Pale Blue Eyes,” alternating with warm, infectious rock and roll like “Cool It Down.”

Now the Velvets were not the first indie-type band to self-consciously pursue a hit record after toiling away in obscurity for some time, as it seems Lou Reed was doing here. And we are talking about Lou, who had absolutely taken over the band at this point. He’d always been responsible for the songwriting, but, depending on who you believe, John Cale had just as great an influence on the sound of the Velvets’ first two records. It makes a lot of sense, when you consider how, increasingly, the band pursued a more commercial direction thereafter. (Except for maybe like, “The Murder Mystery,” but I think that’s just an atavistic fluke—and not particularly relevant to what they were doing at that point.)

We’ll never know exactly why—it could’ve been insecurity about losing his authority, disagreement about the direction the group was going in, or just a simple personal grudge—but ol’ Lou issued an ultimatum to the band’s other two members, Maureen Tucker and Sterling Morrison. Cale was out, or Lou was leaving. They reluctantly complied with his wishes.

Of course, the Velvets weren't the first band to undergo such a dramatic change in personnel either, but with a mere four record discography, and one member dropping off per album, the stability of the band’s sound was never really great. (Count with me: Nico, Cale, and then Tucker. Andy Warhol’s influence, of course, had also abruptly faded, which may or may not be relevant.) When you look at it this way, it seems odd that listeners often point toward a Velvet Underground influence in the music of other artists. They’re usually referring to only one of the records.

Luna, for example, came so close to the sound of the penultimate Velvets album that they asked Sterling Morrison to guest on a couple of tracks. It’s a nice homage, but they could have just as easily requested permission to sample him, because his leads sound exactly like the ones he plays on songs like “Pale Blue Eyes,” “What Goes On,” and “Beginning to See the Light.” (And of course, this might tend to answer the question of which of the band’s guitarists played the leads in the first place.)

As such, it skirts the dangerously pathetic territory of playacting—creating a Velvet Underground Revue, sorta like Beatlemania and/or that Stars on 45’s Beatles medley that you might remember from your worst nightmares of the 1970s. (And obviously, that's not the only parallel between these two bands that were more than the sum of their parts. When you consider the spotty solo careers of, say, McCartney and Reed, on one side, and Lennon and Cale on the other-- with Harrison, as always, somewhere in the middle-- this principle becomes a given.)

It’s an endeavor that makes everyone involved look a little desperate. Here’s Sterling Morrison, holding onto that one shining moment when, by being caught up in creative forces (not to mention egos) he probably didn’t even understand—he was actually, momentarily relevant in a larger sense. Yep. Bet he never lived that shit down. And worse: here’s Luna franticly clutching someone else’s golden moment like some kinda cultural ghoul and/or little children pretending they are the Velvets in the same way that you or I might have imagined ourselves to be Batman, the Lone Ranger or the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. (Sorta the same way in which, in their later years, the Velvets often pretended they were a doo-wop group from the 1950s.)
But that’s probably material best left for some other consideration.

Anyhoo, back to the Velvets themselves—and here comes that cynical studio hack Doug Yule, replete in black top hat and cloak, twirling a well-waxed mustache as he creeps in to finish off the band through a cruel exploitation of Lou Reed’s escalating hubris.

The change in direction seems even more shocking and painful when you consider that the Velvets were such a breath of fresh air on those first two records—a challenge not only to the increasingly decadent pop music of the day, (and yeah, I know there were lots of great things being done in, say, psychedelia and Motown, just to name two random examples,) but to the increasingly oppressive and elitist hippie subculture. They were an utterly unique squall of noise and words that shifted, abruptly, in the last two albums to insipid warblings like “Who loves the sun?/ Who cares what it does/ Since you broke my heart?” backed by overproduced folk-lite or quasi-white-R&B grooves.

It’s not that the Velvets couldn’t produce a reasonably affecting love song in their later years—for instance, Loaded’s “New Age.” Maybe that’s not even the point. It just seems that they settled into this middle of the road groove, cranking out insipid pop songs, as lifeless and forgettable as most of the other crap on the radio. They’d become the Dan Fogelberg of their day, except the radio still did not notice them, which is sorta like poetic justice, I guess.

Ah, fuck it. I don’t know what to say that doesn’t sound like some stupidass cliché—as bad as the worst late Velvet Underground song. That’s why I can’t get at the later Velvets. I can’t even express it. I’m sorry, if you care. It’s beyond me.

We were driving to the grocery store with the iPod on shuffle, and “Oh! Sweet Nothin’” came on. There were the trilling, pseudo-soulful lyrics, (“Say a prayuh fo’ Jimmy Brown…” (What th’ fuck is this, Amos & Andy?) There was the meandering arrangement—while it might have been great primal noise making when the Velvets went for, like, 10 minutes in the old days in songs like “Sister Ray,” here, it had been cleaned up and emasculated, it just seemed simply bloated and indulgent. All of it sorta made me want to puke, frankly. It left me cold and added to my distaste for Lou Reed, who’s repeatedly insisted that the Velvets were his brainchild—his genius. Yeah—whatever. That’s why the last two records blow.

And let me acknowledge that the first two records had some pretty saccharine stuff on 'em too-- "Femme Fatale" and "I'll Be Your Mirror" spring immediately to mind, but come on, freakin Nico sang 'em, which in and of itself forced you to reasses them as songs. Her flat, hoarse rendering is so unexpected, so refreshing, that the songs become simultaneously parodic and touching. It's a remarkable achievement.

Meanwhile, "Sunday Morning" sounds nice and pretty and all that, but there's a lurking paranoia there. Sorta makes sense when you consider Reed's admission that the song is about walking around outside after dropping acid.

So here’s my gist about the Velvet Underground: Don’t make excuses for them, no matter how thankful you might be for those first 2 records and what they did for popular music. Listen to something else—something that’s at least sort of emotionally real and not just an inept bid for a hit by someone who should really know better. I’m talking about Reed—in case that’s not obvious—who would go onto a spotty solo career—not that I’d express much appreciation for what Cale’s done since. (Though he did offer some remarkable turns as a producer of artists like The Stooges, Patti Smith and Nico herself.)

At the outset, I said that all of this was about which Velvet Underground you embrace. I had a friend once, (I no longer do—and while our opinions about the Velvet Underground weren’t the thing that caused the demise of our relationship, I do think they were indicative of a gulf between us,) who, after a rant like this, asked me if we couldn’t have both Velvet Undergrounds. He would never say so, but I believe he preferred the last two records. That was his Velvet Underground. Whenever he’d mention the songs he dug, this was the body of work from which they were drawn. If he put a Velvets record on, it’d be one of these.

Of course, the answer to his question is that you can have both, if you like. But for the most part, I don’t see much reason to waste my time on those last two records. If they’re what get you, have at ‘em. Nothing personal. There’s no accounting for taste. I only speak for myself, but those first two records are some of the best music made, I think. As for the other two, if I’m being honest, I think they are a sneering hat trick with a dead, brittle core—and redundant in the face of better, more heartfelt pop stuff.

I suspect that if these two albums hadn’t followed The Velvet Underground & Nico and White Light/White Heat, the Velvets wouldn’t be a towering archetype in the history of rock. They’d be an obscure footnote—sorta like a band you might find on Nuggets. You’d hear “Jesus” and think, “Hey, that’s not a bad little song,” and that’d be the end of it.

If you wanted to hear good, emotionally raw pop music, there was certainly better stuff out there. (If you want my free advice, that is.) Try the Supremes or Wilson Pickett; try Nick Drake or Joni Mitchell. Try strychnine or the frickin’ neutron bomb, but do yourself a favor and see these records for what they are: utter crap by a great band—or by the remnants thereof anyway, since, apparently, it was less about a group of musicians working together and more like an ever-shifting franchise, like the Detroit Tigers or McDonald’s hamburgers, that’s really nothing more than a brand name.

(Interestingly enough, Doug Yule went on to make another “Velvet Underground” record sans Reed, which, is, I think, only appropriate.)

Try music that was so powerfully delivered that you more than forgave any triteness or cynicism in the lyrics. ‘Matter of fact, it was so powerful that you forgot who you were, listening to something so scarily fucking real. (Where were you the first time you heard, say, “Dock of the Bay?”) No, you embrace those words as emblems of your own human pain.

At it’s best, music’s about heart, and the late Velvets stuff seems virtually heartless.

OK, so having thoroughly bored anyone who might be reading this, lemme move onto a coupla blog-related matters before I go. First, I am gonna change the poll question soon. The old one's been up for, like, ever, and I'm sure any of you returning visitors are probably damn sick of it, if you've seen it at all. (It's way the hell down on the bottom of the page. There's a guestbook down there too, if you're inclined to let me know you were here. All of it may be moved to the top of the page soon, if I ever get off my lazy ass.)

If anyone (hello? anyone?) has an idea for a new poll question, I'd be exceedingly grateful to hear about it, as I haven't been able to come up with dick. (Well, OK, I have been able to come up with dick, but only my own, sadly.) Just post a comment to this entry, if you will, or sign the guestbook. Thanks much.

My second and last blog "annoucment": (Ha! How dumb does that sound?) I've found a place that'll house picture for free, so I may put a few up soon. Consider that a warning or a joyous pronouncement, as you will.

Till next time, Steve Forceman's on the road again...

(The Point of) Diminishing Returns

Sorry, Sloth. I haven’t updated in a while, because I was sucking that glass dick. Yes, I’m afraid it’s true: Steve Forceman has become addicted to crack cocaine. And opium. And peyote (which, technically, I know, is not addictive and is, in fact, viewed as sacred by many cultures that are just as valid as our Western European-derived model—possibly more valid. Do you see Native Americans deforesting the planet or re-making Solaris without even acknowledging the existence of Tarkovsky’s original? What’s more, that movie repeatedly demands that you look at George Clooney’s ass, which I find really irresponsible, as I’m also addicted to George Clooney’s ass and have conscientiously tried to avoid looking at, fantasizing about, making sculptures and/or other artistic renderings of, smelling, licking, devouring, fucking, pissing on, picking my nose and wiping it on, fondling, kissing, writing sonnets and/or light or heavy operas concerning, producing video games or reality TV shows or music videos or documentaries about George Clooney’s ass. Oh yeah—and Western culture also refuses to provide adequate care for its sick and elderly.)

And crystal meth. And methadone. And Malomars. And porn featuring road kill— prominently featuring road kill—because until you’ve shoved your dick into a flattened raccoons corpse during the height of summer, when it’s especially fragrant and draws a sweet cloud of flies—slide it right into that rotting asshole, amidst internal bleeding and the compacted turds that were part of its last bowel movement, but didn’t quite make it out, because its death was so sudden and violent—you haven’t lived, buddy.

And smack. And PCP. And nicotine gum. And chewing gum. And bubble gum. And spirit gum. And the mysteries of Agatha Christie. And chocolate. And dangerous sex with complete strangers. (Last night, sans DentalDam, I sucked a Hassidic rabbi’s cock in the middle of a blizzard in front of the American Nazi Part HQ, here in Chicago. But no one noticed, so all I got out of it was a mouthful of semen and braided pubic hair.)

And Valium. And Librium. And laudanum. And alcohol. And earwax. And CNN’s election coverage. And collecting stuff from the Franklin Mint. And hashish. And shopping (at stores, off television or online). And gambling. And skiing. And belching. In fact, the only thing I don’t feel a compelling need to compulsively immerse myself in and/or take into my body is cigarettes. That habit, I’ve finally kicked. Unfortunately, with all the other habits I’ve added in kicking cigarettes, the doctor’s only giving me 6 more hours to live.

Which reminds me of this dream I had about actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, star of, among other things, the classic French New Wave film, Breathless (of which there is also a shitty American remake, BTW). I’d been thinking about Belmondo a lot lately—mostly flashing on Pierrot le Fou—I kept finding myself quoting his line about how “There are days, it seems, when one meets nothing but squares.”

So then I had this bizarre dream, in which fascinatingly ugly Belmondo was leering at me without a cigarette protruding from one corner of his mouth. It was ridiculous! But see, there was the doctor, telling Belmondo he’s gotta quit smoking, or, you know, Belmondo’ll die. And macho as he is, Belmondo’s a little squeamish about cancer. See, he’s known a person or 2 who’ve clamped their lips to that fetid monster’s in a long, agonizing kiss of death, and, well, he’s not so sure he’s up to that. So he decides he’s gotta quit.

Now this is no small thing—not nearly as light a decision as it was or would be for you or me. Nope. This Jean-Paul Belmondo. Smoking isn’t just what this motherfucker does; it’s what he is. And he’s not just a man, he’s an icon of cool—almost godlike, in spite of or because of his awkward widow’s peak, his sad sack demeanor, and the fact that he’s French and about as suave as Al Bundy. (Well, OK, a little more suave than that.) And in my dream here, Belmondo’s he’s still youngish. It’s not like his iconic days are over. (Wonder if ol’ Belmondo really has quit by this time.)

Anyhoo… There’s our Belmondo, and he knows it’s over either way. If he goes on smoking, he won’t even enjoy what time he has left before he gets sick. He’ll be too busy anticipating the end—too busy living with the fear of death. And if he quits—well, he can’t live with the world watching him become uncool. He doesn’t wanna go out like Marcello Marcello Mastroianni, who was less cool to begin with, (though maybe more suave,) and who, by the end, was often reduced to these cuddly teddy bearish old man parts, and that’s, like, pretty degrading. Besides which, though he’s cooler, Belmondo just isn’t as cute and/or handsome as Mastroianni, which would be kinda important as he aged and made his transition to the lovable old fart roles, so his career would doubtlessly founder anyway. I mean, again, who the fuck wants to look at a smokeless Belmondo? It’d be like looking at a Jimmy Durante without a huge nose or an Aquaman without his bumpy orange, skintight shirt, black trunks, and finned yellow boots (which, come on, you gotta admit, is pretty hot. I know it gets me goin’). It’s an abomination—or worse, it’s an act of anemia. (And yeah, Steve Forceman knows that anemia is not active at all, but OK, it could be the result of an act of vampirism, say, and that’s pretty active. So fuck off.)

So Belmondo knows what he has to do. He packs up a few things, and without a word to anyone, he hops in his corvette and drives to the airport. He charters a plane to America—Phoenix—and here, he rents a car. Not a convertible, though he woulda preferred it. It wouldn’t do him much good in the desert. Without a map, he just drives—eventually moving from freeway to two-lane highway to small rural route to unmarked dirt road. As he moves. In the rearview mirror, his eyes channel back a deeper desolation—needs that will never again be filled.

Then he sees it: a roadside diner. There are no signs outside, but when he pulls up outside, he can see a large piece of cardboard in the window. It’s black and bears a bright orange legend: NO SMOKING.

Belmondo sighs and gets out of the car, reflexively reaching to his breast pocket, where his cigarettes aren’t. He walks up to the place, opens the door, and from the cool, shady interior, they greet him in a depressed chorus: Bogie, Jackie Gleason, Lucille Ball, The Duke and so many others, their sallow skin almost glowing in the shadows. A heavy, dark eyed waitress with orange hair steps forward, chewing on a piece of gum, to take Belmondo’s order. Behind him, the door closes. Forever.

Cage Match: Peter Cottontail vs. Ema Saiko!!!

Leo Tolstoy wrote: “The aim of art is to infect people with a feeling experienced by the artist.” My own experience has borne out the truth of this statement. This’ll sound really cornball, Sloth, but there is something profound and damn near inexplicable that happens when I connect with a piece of art. I encounter an idea or feeling that has been expressed so accurately (according to my own experience of life) that I am overwhelmed with gratitude. I feel as though I’m taking part in a kind of communion, or if you prefer, like I’ve been infected with a virus, because isn’t that more or less analogous to the potential for life—a mingling of biological materials from two different sources? So art makes life. And when your own personal lust for life is beginning to run low, that’s when a booster shot of the old art virus can be quite valuable. Take the day when I stumbled across Ema Saiko.

It was about 2 years back, when I was still living in Pilsen and hadn’t yet become a private investigator. I had settled in to spend the afternoon writing. Not that I could see the point. My sense of literary purpose had been flagging lately. I mean, who the hell cared what I thought? Like there weren’t thousands more of me out there to parrot the same semi-masticated pulp of half-ideas and proto-feelings.

I’d been out of college for a while, so there was no one paid to argue that literature mattered to me. And while I still loved it, was in awe of it, I wasn’t sure that the feeling was reciprocated. And besides, literature was most assuredly not putting a tiger in my tank or a steak on my table. I had a crappy job temping in the mail room of a sinister n’ monolithic ad agency; a lot of stories floating around in the slush files of various literary magazines; a psychotic cat; a classically dysfunctional family back in Michigan somewhere; a romantic companion who was actually kind but not boring, but to whom I felt my mood swings, insecurity, poverty and general lack of sex appeal were probably just a burden; and few friends left. Much as I wanted to believe that writing mattered, I was having a hard enough time believing that life mattered.

Still, I sat at my desk, and I tried to write. Just to amuse myself, I tried to come up with something really ridiculous. Sometimes I’ve had luck with that when my ideas were running low or not at all. I envision the most absurd situation possible—preferably one that called for tremendously bad writing—and somehow, I relax to a point where I can just enjoy the act of writing again. But on this day, nothing was working. A gaggle of men in cowboy outfits—no pants, just chaps, with gun belts and ten gallon hats—hip-hop dancin’ to beat the band and all wearing Groucho Marx glasses. Nothing. Not even a smile.

I looked out the window, hoping that some detail from somebody else’s life might strike me as noble somehow, or at least less futile. The street was empty. It was one of those shitty autumn days—the crisp leaves and warm tones were gone. From here on out, it would be mulch, cold rain and winds that carry an ache with them. You can feel winter lurking somewhere in front of you, and with it, the end of another year, in which your accomplishments had fallen a little short of what you’d envisioned, when, at the beginning of the year, borne up on a wave of self-hatred, you’d told yourself (and actually believed, which is the kind of naïve optimism for which you were always dismissing the masses around you,) that you were going to consciously make an effort to change for the better. And here you were—a little heavier, balder and older—wondering just where the fuck your passion and sense of faith in yourself had gone.

And inevitably, at some point, your eyes would brush one of those rejection letters that you always stupidly leave lying around, as if you need some further reminder of your mediocrity, some objective, external voice to tell you what you already believed in your hearts inner core of cores—that you don’t matter, are superfluous, just more surplus population. That if you measured you net worth, say in terms of resources consumed—clothing and other goods squeezed out by various sweat shops in various desperate places that you had the good fortune to not even have to think about if you didn’t want to, (and why the fuck would you want to?) oxygen consumed from an atmosphere that’s already befouled by the exhaust fumes generated in the name of carting around your flabby ass to buy even more goods, food consumed, including, but not limited to the butchered remains of various living creatures, that, for all you know, had appreciated life as much or more than you do, and produce plucked by starving migrant laborers from field and orchards saturated in carcinogenic insecticidal agents, tons of garbage sitting permanently in landfills all around the country—if you were to weigh all the riches you were taking and all of the poisons you secreted or excreted or that were being produced on your behalf against the dubious good that you’d done for the world or its inhabitants—there was that bum you gave a dollar to so that he’d shut up, say, or the letter you wrote your lonely, fragile grandmother in her dusty, boxlike home on the outskirts of lovely Flint, Michigan, the balance might be a bit shaky.

Because you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, and what is an egg, but a symbol of life—maybe a fun Easter trophy? And here comes Peter Cottontail, a clutch of rotting eggs hidden away in his basket, which has of course been lined with plastic grass that will not break down in your lifetime. And he’s got some candy for you. Maybe a six-pack of Bass ale to take your mind off of all this morbid free-associating on a topic that is so clear in a mathematical sense. As if you need to question your worth, whether in a net way, you are good or bad for anyone but yourself. You’re bad, motherfucker—not to be confused with a bad motherfucker, because you sure the hell aren’t that—and you know it.

But no, drinking alone in the middle of the day is no answer. (Nor is suicide, unless you have the balls. And you haven’t.) So Peter Cottontail will have to peddle his wares somewhere else on up the bunny trail. (And notice, as he hops away, how suspiciously his skin drags and flops, as though it were a costume. Like, maybe, that isn’t a bunny there at all, which you had to kind of wonder about anyway, given his roughly human height. Like maybe it was all just a con—whose, I couldn’t say. The government, the media, corporate America are all suspect. It lacks the drama of an al-Queda type action, but then those guys are pretty hostile toward Christian symbols, and is not Easter one of the two most significant days on the Christian calendar? And viewed from that perspective, what is old Peter Cottontail, but sort of like a goodwill ambassador for Christ. Sort of like his spokesperson for marketing purposes. Sort of like the Trix rabbit is for the Kellogg Corporation.)

No, while I recognized that on this day, writing was getting me nowhere, even if I was going to take a break, I was going to have to find a healthier way of doing it. TV, beer, mescaline, internet porn, computer games would all just lead to further self-loathing, which would lead to further paralysis, which would lead to no writing done, which would lead to further anxiety, which would lead to further feelings of pointlessness. And you do the hokey pokey & turn yourself about & C… It was a vicious cycle, and I needed break out of it. I needed clean, healthy inspiration. And I knew I couldn’t think in my apartment. I’d been alone there for too long and was beginning to feel not just irrelevant, but non-existent.

Although going outside sounded like a terribly laborious prospect, I needed to get away. Movement would be good, might even feel good, I reasoned, once I built up some momentum. At the time, I lived in a low rent, crime-ridden Chicago neighborhood. There were holes in the sidewalk through which you could glimpse garbage and lost toys lying in the dirt below. It was not uncommon to meet an unattended dog wandering about, weaving occasionally into or out of traffic. While this area offered plenty of fascinating sights, sounds and smells, it could be sort of a downer if you were already feeling inclined toward melancholia or morbidity.

I decided to head into the Loop, thinking I’d hit the Art Institute or something like that. Maybe someone else’s inspiration would inspire me. After all, it’d worked before. I’d gazed at a sculpture of, say, Vishnu, dancing on a demon’s head—something wrought by someone living in India about a thousand years before—and something in it somewhere would speak to me, in spite of the gulfs between me and the artist.

So I headed over the subway, doing my level best to look at and think about nothing, to just be Zen.

Before long, I was on the El platform. I lived near the end of the line, which meant that trains did not always arrive and depart in a timely fashion. It was cold up there, exposed to the winter wind. A pigeon was rooting about between the boards at my feet, finding very little, it seemed. It was fat, and its feathers were falling off in patches. Unsettling—only a moment before, I’d been studying the carcasses of this bird’s relatives decomposing in the gap between the platform and an adjacent building behind me. It was like a guano-encrusted mass grave for pigeons. And now, this live bird is looking at me with confused anger—a gaze not unlike those of seemingly every human being I’d passed on my way to the train. I imagined my own eyes weren’t that different.

We stood there, staring each other down for a while. Then the bird abruptly launched itself into the air, still level with my feet, heading toward the opposite platform at a terrific speed. It flew over it and would have gone past, but the Plexiglas barrier behind stopped it with an audible thump. The bird just sat there. I thought it was dead, but then it stood. Its bleary eyes found me again. Then it waddled off, up the platform, not in any kind of a hurry at all.

I rode into the city, the train leaning in close to the walls around me. I watched the sunlight glinting off of the skyline, making everything look cold and hard. I really needed that Indian sculpture now, or maybe a decent van Gogh. Thing is, when I got to the museum, there was a really long line outside. Tourists in salt-stained winter coats fended off the street vendors, their breath showing in gray clouds.

Screw that. I’d had enough depersonalization for one day, so I headed up the street, without the slightest idea where to go. This little field trip wasn’t working out at all. If anything, it was just confirming my feelings of alienation and futility. I had to find some comfort soon, or I was going to hurtle myself into the Michigan Avenue traffic, and there wasn’t a cab in the city that would hit its brakes. I came across a Border’s, and in desperation, went inside.

Usually, I avoid bookstores. They’re dangerous places for me, because I often have trouble controlling my enthusiasm. I’m immediately transformed into something like a sugar-addled ten year old, jogging from one section to the next with an ever-taller stack of books in my hands. I can’t even stand still long enough to read more than a sentence or two, but that, sometimes abetted by my standing admiration for an author, is enough to compel me to buy a book. I feel an undeniable need to take it home and tear it apart, read every word, (even the preface and introduction, if any,) shred the binding, underline phrases that I find awe-inspiring—(when I come down later, my enthusiasm in this area often seems a little unbalanced)— spill coffee on its pages and otherwise begin building my personal relationship with it.

It’s only when I hit the register and watch the cost of my purchases rise to some truly alarming number, that I have any second thoughts. However, I’m far too easily embarrassed to back down at that point. I just take my bloated plastic bag and head home, assuring myself that I will never buy another book, that I already have too damn many of them and have no idea where I’ll put more, and that it’s hard to read anyway when you’re distracted by inconveniences like eviction or starvation because you’ve spent all your money on things you don’t really need and have nothing left to put toward your bills.

I could already tell that this visit to the bookstore would be different, and that worried me. I felt nothing—or so it seemed. I really wasn’t sure. It was like I didn’t have access to myself—like I was invisible to my own eyes—a concept, rather than a person—something without blood and arteries and neural impulses—or viewed from the other end of the spectrum, a soul, mind, or heart to be affected by the expressions of others. I was beginning to think I might just dissipate right there in Borders, that I’d lost enough cohesion to even exist anymore. Whatever else you wanted to say about my friend the pigeon, at least it was clearly alive. It might be sick, crawling with parasites, freezing, hungry and unable to write a sentence, (which at the time, didn’t seem to like a very valuable ability anyway). He could hate. He had viscera, and therefore, he had feelings. It was beginning to seem that I did not.

Well, OK, that’s not entirely true. There was some small, tenuous fear of dissolution left. I was trying to hold onto it, to nurture it as a means of making myself move. I was getting a little too comfortable standing there, about 5 paces through the anti-theft gates, disappearing. I couldn’t feel my arms or legs already, and I was pretty sure I’d imagined it, but some matronly, fur-clad Michigan Avenue type had seemed to walk through me only a moment ago.

And there were the walls of books, but they were just objects, subject to the same physical principles as everything else. (Except, maybe, for myself, the reality of which seemed to be dissipating.) Truth and beauty and all that jazz did not necessarily dwell in them. Might do just as well to go looking for hope (or whatever the fuck it was I was looking for) in a slab of concrete or a pile of dog shit or one of those plastic caddy things they put in the middle of a pizza when they deliver it to you. Mightn’t you?

I couldn’t escape the feeling that knew that if I didn’t do something fast, I really was going to fade out. I stepped into the closest aisle and picked up the first book my hand touched, grateful that my extremities still seemed to be there, for the moment. The title was Breeze through Bamboo, and the name of the author and illustrator was Ema Saiko. (‘Course, I’ve no idea what the original stuff reads like, but translator Hiroaki Sato rendered them beautifully.) I’d never heard of her. I opened the book and read from a page near the middle:

Solitary Living in Early Winter

This innermost room with little to do,
is adequate to commit my plain life to.
Drink a bit, and I forget my clothes are thin,
an idea, and I let my brush run aslant…

I can’t say what it was exactly, but something in these words and the ones that followed them stirred me. To me, they seemed both musical and vivid. What’s more, they were marked by a personality, something that gave them greater weight than their literal meaning or their phonetic sound. It was that same feeling I’d mentioned earlier—that connection. As absurdly sentimental as it may sound, I felt that for a moment, long dead Ema Saiko, who had lived in a way I could never conceive of, as a woman in Tokugawa Japan, had reached out to touch me. She had infected me with her point of view. I felt that I was no longer seeing my day through my own bleary eyes—blind to color and shape, kindness and stupidity; finding only mud and ashes—but with eyes that were clean. They were not Ema Saiko’s eyes—(come to think of it, that woulda been sort of disturbing—me walking around with some dead chick’s eyes in my head)—better than that, they were my own, cleared by her influence, strengthened by her insight and rejuvenated by her compassion. It’s hard to express my feelings about this without waxing rhapsodic, but I assure you that my gratitude and my relief were genuine.

I went on to read more of Ema Saiko’s kanshi poetry. It tells simply of the life she led. She finds beauty in the domestically mundane and joy in the subtlest movements of nature. I won’t lie and say I don’t still have a tendency to become morbid, pessimistic and/or jaded, but I have managed to remain corporeal since I ran across this book. I like to think that the infection has spread throughout my person, making me calmer and more appreciative of the world around me. It’s like a gift that Ema Saiko gave me, though as Denis Johnson once said, “She probably couldn’t have imagined me.” It mingled with other influences, drawn from various points of view, cultures and circumstances, but nevertheless, contributing to my understanding of myself.

That’s a consideerable strength, I think, to cull from a single poem. And in this way, there is a real and positive process of infection in art.

Well… BURRPP… That was certainly profound, wasn’t it? If there’s anyone left out there who hasn’t fallen into a diabetic coma, or just plain dozed off, I’m gonna say goodbye for now. Steve Forceman sez: Over & out.

The 666 Layers of the Abyss

The 3 R’s. Then there’s just plain ol’ the R, a.k.a., Rakim, of Eric B. & Rakim. Peace to the Nation of Islam, the racist goombahs. & we out.. out... out… out… (Oops! Sorry, I meant “the prejudiced goombahs.” ‘Cause as Spike Lee once explained, African Americans can’t be racist—only prejudiced. It’s real important to get yer terminology good.)

Then there are the 5 W’s—the questions every reporter must ask: Who? What? When? Where? And how? Doggie style? Missionary position? Standing up? Sideways? Upside down like a coupla randy bats? Inside out? Kitty corner from the bank? And how many inches ram into that steamin’ hot aperture o’ looove. (As the late, great Barry White might dub it.) 4”? Was this guy, uh, a bit handicapped? 6” you say? So he was just an average Joe? [Or so I’m told. I don’t check out other guys’ dicks. Ever. Even when I get curious at the public urinal, and that is just curiosity. Perfectly normal. It’s not even a little bit homoerotic and…

What’s that you say? How big is my dick? Well, that’s awfully personal, don’t you think? Not to mention blunt? Besides, what does the size of my dick have to do with my impression of an average sized dick? Oh… right… what other standard of comparison would I have, seeing as I’ve categorically refused to look at other guys’ dicks? OK, my dick’s pretty freakin’ big. And I’m not bragging. Still, I can’t say how big, (without breaking into a vaudeville routine anyway, and nobody wants that,) because I’ve never measured it, (cf. Eddie Murphy’s scholarly observations in this area,) and I wouldn’t want to mislead you.

Rest assured though, it’s a large one. I know for a fact, because every girlfriend I ever had told me so when I asked her. (And yeah, sometimes they disavowed this later, but that was always during a breakup, when we’re all at our most disingenuously hurtful.) You just have to know how ask the right way to get an honest & satisfying answer. And that’s where those reporterly skills I spoke of earlier come in handy, kid.]

Except, wait! There were more than 5 questions there! (Before I began my insightful parenthetical musing, I mean.) And at least one of them didn’t start with a W! So you can’t really call ‘em the 5 W’s, now, can you? (Though one might also point out that one of the 3 R’s does start with a W, not an R, and you still call them the 3R’s.) Shit, you’d think a reporter would have a better understanding of simple matters like the alphabet, wouldn’t you? There are just no standards for anything anymore.

And now that I’m thoroughly depressed by the lack of professionalism in contemporary journalism and its larger cultural implications, I will turn to a visionary experience I had whilst I was on my way to a stakeout last night. (Another divorce case. Man, I tellya, if I don’t get some good honorable work soon, I may drink myself to death…)



I was walking past the corridor of singles bars that lines Division Street just west of State, & the crowds were out in full force. It was a warm, windy night, and both younger and older women bore lots of flesh. All of the bar goers traveled in groups or pairs. For the most part, the couples were visibly conjoined. The groups were so loud and self-absorbed that it would’ve taken something along the lines of a tactical nuclear strike to get their attention. Laughing and yelling theatrically, (or so it seemed,) as the doormen pitched free beers with each shot to the attractive ones, they came close to trampling me many times. It was like I was invisible, or at the very least, a non-threatening apparition, which didn’t really bother me.

So I watched them unselfconsciously. And while I couldn’t know what they were experiencing, it all seemed so externalized, even dramatized. (By really bad actors, but that’s what alcohol & lust’ll do to you.)

Then, at the corner of Division and Dearborn, I saw a middle-aged couple—the only African Americans in sight. They were dancing and laughing, and they made me smile, because they really seemed to be having fun, though it might’ve been at the expense of the crowds around them and the somewhat sad scene it created.

It was all about desire—mostly, it seemed the desire to be wanted by someone else—to be noticed. All of them seemed to pose and perform. I passed slabs of pale, creased flesh that turned out to be faces—lonely and bored, watching every passerby through the open windows of the bars with a kind of desperation. Can this person change my life, remove me from the dull hell it’s become? Can this one?

In particular, I’ve carried the image of these 2 middle aged white men—clutching their mugs and staring—with me ever since—like a vision of the damned, as cornball as that sounds.

Not that it was all not-so-quiet desperation. There was that dancing couple, and there were many groups of young people out laughing, drinking, and yes, probably lookin’ for love in too many faces. Not all of it felt wrong or sad or empty to me. It just felt like more life. Unremarkable, but it’s all there is. It had this elaborate raucousness, (izat a word?) sure, but it only seemed negative, really, when I saw those faces that suggested that their owners were looking for something significant in all of it. They were really just spending an evening out—not searching for god or the perfect lover or to be the star of their own movies. The people who were hoping for these things were just foolish and sad.

Like me. I could understand these faces, because I’d experienced the same feelings—the stunted desire, the terminal discontent with my life and my relationships and myself. And like most of them, I expect, I’d found nothing, except maybe some perspective. (Here’s hoping they were finding it as well.) Because, as I moved past some guy trying to sell me pot, and on into darker & quieter areas, I began to feel some kind of equanimity, if not exactly an abiding peace. Not enough to keep me out my flask during my stakeout, but enough to help me find sleep later, when I got home.


So as he departs, Steve Forceman wishes you well—not that anyone reads this shit anyway…

The Enduring Schtick

Hello, kiddies! It’s that purveyor of putrid poltroonery, the Crap-Keeper. I’ve got a supremely savory saga of sickness for you saps today. It’s a yellow yelp yarn I like to call… SHIT FOR BRAINS!

Thoughts about “Ghastly” Graham Ingels: There’s very little information available about him, really. What there is creates only a sketchy, but suggestive impression of who he was & from where his formidable gifts came. I believe that Ghastly was an artist of the highest order. That he happened to work in the medium of comics is incidental, as in my opinion, his images of evil, decay & madness easily rank alongside those of, say, Bosch or Grunewald.

Maybe it’s a sign of the limitations of my imagination that I can’t think of more disturbing graphical images than these guys provide—at least, not at the moment. The almost medieval sensibility of Ghastly’s E.C. stuff becomes especially apparent in the magnificent black & white reprints from Gemstone Publishing, where his drawings become something like demented woodcuts. His vision that elevated the often-simple stories he illustrated to the level of a pervasive myth—a universal vision of his culture’s obsessions & fears that, nevertheless, bore his unique, personal stamp.

(I’m writing, of course, of his best stuff. As a working illustrator, Ghastly had to churn out drawings. So plenty of tossed-off mediocrities bear his signature, as well as the really stunning stuff,)

But, so, Ghastly the man: Who the fuck was he? Here’s what we know: He was a devout Catholic, forced to enter the work force in his early teens, due to his father’s untimely death. During World War II, Ghastly serves in the Navy, but sees no combat (or even makes it to sea). After his discharge, he bounces around as an illustrator & somehow ends up in comics. He even lands a few editorial gigs. He has a dense style with lots of line work.

He finds his way to E.C., just before Bill Gaines restructures the company. Then along comes the New Trend. As Gaines rotates the artists to see where they best fit, Ghastly illustrates his hand at a horror story or two. Gaines & Al Feldstein are pleased with the results, though they haven’t quite solidified into the style seen in Ghastly’s best work. He becomes a regular fixture in all 3 horror books—netting the lead-off story & cover of The Haunt of Fear—as well as a frequent contributor to the suspense titles. He evolves quickly & is soon producing some of most disturbing images that E.C. will ever churn out.

Behind the scenes though, Ghastly has a problem or two. There’s no way to establish how deeply these may have run. All we have is office party pictures, in which he lurks, sad-eyed & tight-lipped, smiling shyly, & the remembrances of his co-workers, none of whom ever got to know him. They did know that he was drinking—a lot. Feldstein routinely set fake deadlines for Ghastly that were 7-10 days early to make sure his stuff got in on time.

It seems to’ve been an act of kindness on the part of the editor. Before that, he’d call the Ingels residence, wondering where the artist was, as a deadline had come & gone. The lady of the house would tell him she didn’t know where Ghastly was. Feldstein knew damn well that Ghastly was passed out in his bed, sleeping off another bender.

This way, Ghastly would show up 3 days “late” & apologetic, when really he was early. On the surface, he was mild-mannered & quiet, but Feldstein says he sensed an underlying core of anger, & so he never pushed him. Ghastly began to express some misgivings about the growing degree of moral perversity in the horror titles. He was repelled by stories in which the violence was gratuitous. He liked stories with an emotional basis—a heart, of sorts.

After EC imploded, Ghastly disappeared. For years, no one could find him—not the cult of fans or even Bill Gaines. Once he did turn up, in Florida, where he gave art lessons in his own home, he refused to discuss his time at E.C. He would not give interviews or attend conventions. Eventually, he agreed to do a few E.C.-themed paintings, but soon after, he died.

Part of what fascinates about him is this: Did his anger & alcoholism fuel his art or inhibit it? Did his inability to accept what he was, the form of his genius, limit his happiness? No way to know, though it seems sorta plausible to me…



New case. It wore me out. Haven’t posted in a while. I feel bad. ‘Cause, like, I’m so sure that people sit around thinking carefully about my insights & lauding them to friends, relatives, & anyone else who might pass them on the street or whom they might run into in a public restroom.

Like, say it’s a day during which my friend P. has really bad diarrhea. It’s embarrassing, because he keeps getting this horribly urgent jolt of pain & pressure, as though a large, strong hands were holding his prostate & wringing it like a damp rag, which, when you get down to it, is sort of a turn-on for P. Takes him back to those days in the ‘Nam, when sexuality was fluid, both literally & figuratively. Old P’s prostate took a pounding on a coupla memorable occasions back then.

In this case though, he’s lacking the excitement of a partner, & the only fluid here is the steaming shit that’s filling up his rectum. What a parody of the acts of love he knew in the ‘Nam, in which other, more beloved fluids pumped into the same fleshy corridor!

Thing is, in spite of his troubles, P. has to be out of the house today. See, he’s got some important errands to run. So he’s repeatedly obliged to find a public restroom, if he doesn’t want to noisily mess himself, because, as grumpy ol'Ingmar Bergman once wrote of his own digestive difficulties, the attacks come “like lightning, & the pain was difficult to endure.”

Now to make matters worse, P. is stuck in traffic court for most of the afternoon. He’s there to contest a parking ticket some overzealous cop stuck him with, when his meter expired just as he was pulling away from the curb. The bitch just walked right up & stuck this ticket on his window. P. had called after her—fat piece of white trash—but she’d just kept walking, like he wasn’t even there.

So now P.’s in traffic court, & it’s really backed up. He’s been waiting for 2 hours, & they’re finally ready to hear his case. He’s got no evidence. It’s just his word vs. the cop’s, but P. plans on winning the day through eloquence. He knows he can speak beautifully. It’s just a talent he has. When writing fiction, he’s tried to bring this same gift to the page, but so far, he’s only been able to capture brief glimmers—reflections on a rippling lake.

But when he speaks, it’s different. He can feel the power issuing forth. He’s seen it grasp a listener’s head, turn it toward him & then hold it rapt, as he held forth on, say, for instance, Dostoevsky. In writing workshops, he’s knocked ‘em dead with his Crime & Punishment routine. At times, he’s been unable to resist pushing it a little with some of his classmates, adding a sexual charge, which, he knows, makes them want to fuck him, & there are always at least a few of either sex he’d like to be fucked by.

But then, when he’s done speaking, he’s too spiritually depleted to want to fuck. He finds himself aware of a growing alienation—a yearning hatred for all of their stupid, listening faces, their sweating bodies hidden under lifeless clothing. Then he can’t stand them, let alone, dream of being fucked by them.

Nevertheless, every time he’s in a public bathroom this day, & there are many times, he can’t help but admit that he's lucky to know me, because I’m a real clever soulful genius & an all around swell human being.


Yep. Say that happened…

A Meanness in this World

Then this morning, I wake to find a naked Liz Phair sitting on the living room floor, playing my Xbox. At first I think that’s pretty cool, but then it occurs to me that the “H.W.C.” in her hair doesn’t look so hot any more. In fact, it seems to be forming a light crust, not unlike dried cake frosting, & it kinda stinks in a not particularly fresh, rancid sorta way.

And then I realize that I didn’t fuck Liz Phair last night, that in fact, I’ve never met her, & that she could very well be leaving a serious skid mark on the carpet. (Given her disregard for the hygiene of hair, I can only imagine what state her ass is in.) And come to think of it, I don’t own an Xbox, so where did this one come from? This mystery is getting more mysterious by the minute!

I’m about to demand an explanation, but Liz apparently just lost her last man in Super Mario Kart, because now she looks up. She has to tilt her head pretty far back to get a look at me through her artfully tousled hair. I’m not sure if her gaze is supposed to be solicitous, but I am surprised to find that it’s neither blank nor wholly intelligent. There’s some kind of idiot glint there—a consciousness that I’d hesitate to label as animal cunning. Maybe it’s sorta insectival, though I hate to do my simple nerve-stem bearin’ brothers & sisters a potential disservice through this comparison.

Let’s face it: I have no standard of comparison for what I see fermenting in Liz’s eyes. In all of my experiences, I’ve encountered nothing like it. Not even at the movies. It’s not an absence. It’s not even an absolute darkness. It’s not exactly feral or dead. It’s alien, but not in any imaginable extraterrestrial way. It’s almost Lovecraftian in its blasphemous suggestiveness of things outside normal human concepts of morality, physics, biology or mass marketing. In it, I recognized that which we all know in some primitive part of our minds, but strive never to recognize.

And my mind gives.

I don’t pass out or have a seizure. I don’t recall screaming or running. I seem to encounter an area of Hot White Oblivion. Under the circumstances, it is a blessing.

When next I become aware of my surroundings, it is as though Liz was never there. The Xbox is gone. The air is no longer redolent of sour butter. The floor is dusty, but, thankfully, unstained. And yet, I know it was no dream…

I have been given a glimpse of what is to come if humankind continues to explore the shrieking, nighted gulfs of its ignorance. I write this warning down because I hope, with little conviction, that my voice might help persuade society to renounce its quest for ever-greater control of the universe. Already, the phone rings, (Hang on a second... I don’t own a phone either! Just what the fuck is going on here?) & I can hear the buzzing voice of a telemarketer on my answering machine. It is already too late, I know, but desperately, I carry on. I can only hope that you who read this will turn back from the precipice as well…

No word from anyone, except for Laura… & M! See? And I thought no one cared! But around 7 p.m. or so, the phone rings, Actually, it’d been ringing all day, but the caller never left a message. Finally I star-69ed it. It was a 708 number that I tried to look up online. No listing. It was almost certainly M. So at 7, he does leave a message.

He’s mumbling in a secretive tone that would be comical if it wasn’t bringing out all this oiliness in his voice. He sez he’s going to be taking me up on the “favor” we spoke about. (That I be his cover story while he’s out boinking other women. After contacting me for the first time in, like, 6 months a while back, he’d sprung this on me with no warning whatsoever. I’d been so fundamentally caught off guard that I’d stupidly said OK, though I knew I wanted no part of it.) He finishes off his message with, “We should really go get a drink ‘some time soon.’”

My revulsion is great. So’s my anger. It’s all so sleazy—toward both his family, (most importantly of course,) & to myself. How could you ask such a “favor” of someone to whom you haven’t spoken & with whom you’ve made no effort to maintain a friendship?

I guess it’s in the air, meanness of spirit. Look at the photos of those Iraqi P.O.W’s being tortured by leering American G.I’s—something that’s been haunting my waking moments ever since I saw them. It seems we are solidly inside an era of bald-faced cruelty & apathy. People wear their sadism & callousness proudly, like badges of honor. Popular entertainment venerates assholes. And I don’t mean ironically, like, say, South Park, where you're supposed to think Cartman is funny, but stupid. More along the lines of Seinfeld or Curb Your Enthusiasm: where malicious, infantile glee is celebrated as though it were a state of grace. What the fuck is wrong with Larry David anyway?

And for the record, (not that this will probably be read by anyone but me,) I don’t think I’m any better. Far too often, I have been cruel or turned a blind eye & deaf ear to the suffering of others. I do, however, think there’s a difference between acknowledging your weaknesses & wallowing in them.

Maybe this brave new world is better than that. After all, at least no one’s pretending to be good. Maybe all this effort to overcome our shabbiness is somehow detrimental. Maybe in embracing our vileness, we evolve to the next level of human society—whatever nightmare vision that might be. I’m guessing that if it goes in that direction, I won’t be around to see it anyway. I can’t say I regret that too much.

In the end, it may be my own weakness that’s bringing me discomfort. The world is what it is. Much as you might like to think otherwise, you can’t change it anymore—unless you’re really rich. (And then I suspect you wouldn’t harbor much interest in changing it.) If you’re consuming air & water, creating massive amounts of waste, feeding corporate greed at the expense of lives, then you’re part of the problem, which, I guess, means that I & everyone I know are some of the bad guys.

If you do still regret your complicity, lemme tell ya, you’re a thing of the past, like the blues or cassettes or roller skates. You’re a ghost, a fossil, a tar-pit dinosaur. You’re already dead.

And now Steve Forceman must be off. ‘Cause I make you laugh, & you make me cry. So I believe it’s time for me to fly...

Like It Matters

Something is happening to my brain. (Or has it already happened?) I'm out of control. My emotions are volatile. I can't sleep for very long, though the good news is that I don't feel very tired really. (And no, Linda, or any of you other psychotherapisser-vampiric-assholes, lemme just paraphrase the not-so-great David Bowie here: May all your vilest nightmares consume your shrunken heads etc., I don't think I'm freakin' manic.)

I get angry alla time, but almost immediately, I swing back to humor and noisy enthusiasm. I can't sit still. I pace constantly, kick my legs and grind my teeth. I feel like I'm on methamphetamine. (So I guess I should be grateful! Whatta rush!) I can't focus on one thought or activity for very long. It's hard for me to fuckin' finish anything. I can't stick to a plan. When I'm supposed to be writing or reading or whatever, I'm figuring out how to convert AAC to MP3, posting @ Zoetrope, or downloading and configuring Mozilla (including the Herculean task of importing and organizing all the cock-knocking bookmarks).

My reading habits have become similarly erratic: In addition to Infinite Jest, which I'm 'posed to be reading, I'm in the middle of both Lester Bangs books again. For, uh, "bathroom reading," I'm stuck in the middle of Chapter 2 of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and I just took Affliction offa shelf 'cause I needed a good laugh and so went straight to that truly hilarious routine about men beatin' their kids in the Teutonic Village of the soul, (or whatever,) and how it all comes down through the generations like some sorta biological predisposition to illness-- like a... well... hmmm... Really need a simile here... What's a good word? Like. A. Congenital Earache!!! Yeah! That's perfect! (Or you could just go with, "It's like an affliction." I guess.)

Anyhoo, I'm happy to say that Russ delivered the laughs, though I must admit that my memory of this passage was even funnier. But see, I had this idea-- probably from alla the Lester Bangs-- that I should write an essay about how Affliction is, like, the worst book ever. And though you sorta have to respect that in an Ed Wood kinda way, (while acknowledging that there really are many books that are worse,) I'm also disgusted with the way in which ol' Russ passes himself off as a "literary" author, when the truth is that what he's peddling here is a cornpone Yankee-toughguy-cop thriller with some clumsy, pretentious sociological and self-reflexive musings thrown in to make it all seem like art. Gimme a fuckin' break, Russ! Why dontcha just write a dimwitted New England version of Walker: Texas Ranger for TV or some shit? Your dalliances with Hollywood seem to've rotted your brain. (Not to mention what they've done to your integrity.)

I mean, I know you've always been an overrated hack with a serious strain of narcissism that runs through your work like urine in a public swimming pool. (Wo! If I fixed the meter, that could be, like, a haiku! Rad!) Sorta like that presumably autobiographical tale about the chubby-chaser in Success Stories, in which you wax rhapsodic about your own body for fuck's sake!

I've seen you run your humble-craftsman-niceguy con in person, back in Ann Arbor, when I was but a timid writing student in '89 or '90. (Can't remember which one.) I swallowed it then-- hook, line and shrinker, as Zappa sez-- or maybe you've since become more cynical. One thing's for sure: if we were to graph the literary growth you've displayed between, say, Continental Drift and Affliction, it'd look pretty much like a straight line. Which means, humble craftsman schtick aside, that I don't think you've challenged yourself much. And niceguy or not, you ain't no Dostoevsky, lemme tell ya.

And who am I to make that judgment? Touche. A fine point. After all, Russ is published and agented and optioned and so on, and I'm not. I won't quibble with that glaringly obvious truth. ('Cause that's not an arbitrary standard, is it? Checked the bookshelves or lit. 'zines lately? Whoever's supposed to be separating the chaff from the wheat seems to've fallen asleep at the switch. Or some such mixed metaphor.)

Still, I don't think this is just sour grapes here. I think it's genuine esthetic disdain. Not in the least, because just as the Chicago Cubs recent efforts have suggested about them, I don't think Russ is trying real hard. I think he's laughing all the way to the Bank. But I could be wrong about the sour grapes. (As wasting so much time thinking about a yahoo like Russell Banks might suggest.) Can you trust your perspective in matters like this? You could've crossed over into Rashomon territory without even realizing it.

I know for a fact that I am much crueler as an appreciator of creative efforts than I am as an artistic peer. (Not, of course, that I'm anywhere near Russ's vaunted plateau.) I mean, I think I'm a good and encouraging friend to the other artists I know. But I think we should expect more from someone who the NY Times is always (patronizingly) lauding as the Great White Trash Scribe. ("Isn't it fascinating that he's able to string words together like that, in spite of his lack of breeding? Of course it's probably just onomatopoetical, sorta like a trained parrot.")

Anyhoo, Happy Memorial Day weekend, me-- and anyone else! (Like anyone else even reads this stuff.) Steve Forceman's outta here like Vladimir. (The Impaler, that is.)

"This City Is Afraid of Me. I Have Seen Its True Face."

Couldn't sleep last night. Bad stomach. Wicked thunder storm. Existential angst.

When life hands you lemons, though, you pop in a tape of Puppet Master: The Legacy, break out your flamenco guitar and, for the 547th time, try to perfect your execution of the finger picking on Cat Power's "Baby Doll." At least, you do if you're Steve Forceman, PI.

(I know what you're thinking, Sloth. Cat Power? Well, Steve Forceman, PI is tough, not callous. There's not just a difference there; there's a roaring, windswept gulf. Besides, there was a fridge fulla beer, but Steve Forceman's stomach wasn't having it. I sucked up that eighth beer, in spite of acridness in my throat and an insistent gag reflex, and I played away with pride. F#, modified Bm chord/ F#, open A, B/ F# modified Bm chord. And so on.)

(What's that, Sloth? The flamenco guitar seems a little suspect. Well, I might point out that Chan is clearly Tapping OUT the beat on her guitar, flamenco style, at the beginning of "Baby Doll." And a man of action like Steve Forceman, PI always uses the instrument that is most appropriate to the job.)

Now about that Puppet Master: You've heard of a clip episode, right? Well, this was a clip-freakin'-MOVIE! And of course, I hadn't even SEEN a prior entry of the Puppet Master series in its entirety-- only the bits & pieces I positively could not otherwise avoid. I'd only rented this one on random impulse. Sort of. Actually, my cat thinks the Puppet Master films are terrifying, but I think the catnip has addled her brain.

Anyway, the only new stuff-- which was also the only stuff that made any sense whatsoever-- was about 10 minutes of "framing" footage, in which some leather clad cupcake tried to extract the secret of Toulon's puppet-animatin' magic from some b-movie Topol clone by threating him with a little, tiny pistol. The only good violence here was this part where she shoots him in the foot, and that was over in, like, 2 seconds. But she was easy on the eyes in her form fitting black espionage jammies. I looked her up on IMDB. Her only other credit was in a late period Buffy, in which she was flirting with Xander or some shit.

(Now if Steve Forceman had been trying to get the same info out of this withered old hack, he woulda done something REALLY sadistic, like make him WATCH a late period Buffy episode in its entirety-- Geneva code be damned!)

The verdict: two enthusiastic thumbs up... my ass. I fell asleep in front of an infomercial hosted by twin dwarves in suits. Really. They were pulling some sorta Carlton Sheets schtick about buying property with nothing down. All of the testimonials were provided by persons of a subtly bizarre appearance. (Can something BE subtly bizarre, Steve Forceman wonders?) Like, this one guy who had a clearly fake little, almost Hitler mustache glued to his face.

So Steve Forceman is signing off. I wish something would happen. All this sitting around wears on a man...