Matters of Life and Death in an Aide de Camp

It's not your business -- a nursing aide in his degree of over-involvement

David Niven would decease just shy of a decade after starring in Vampira, a mindless piece of camp the dowager took solace from despite Prime's superfluous generosity, her bad leg an unremitting source of discomfort. Not a matinee idol of my time, he nevertheless radiates the humanism of the British Empire at its finest, cheapening himself in the decade of me, the decade of youth, with herein a breast and curvature patriarchal fantasy quite worthy of Hugh Hefner, who lasted with remarkable tnacity into the digital era. Beneath its superficiality, however, Vampira does for Niven what Assassination Tango does for Duvall with its much weightier center of gravity, allowing old dogs the assurance of relevance. Whatever feminine critics might say of the opening kill shot of the babette while the tourists wade in on the joke, Duvall plays the same game with December-male trophy status as Niven's handlers do 28 years before, scoring a few bimbo points on cross-ethnic sexual intimacy to boot, while the dowager misses making her own coffee, being alone and sleeping until six pm if she wishes, her surly breast desirous of making her male paraprofessional go away. Right now I don't feel like characterizing him through a pseudonym. I just want him to find another job and get the fuck out of my life, despite his sensitivity to my humiliation and my constant inquiry about my feelings and even unanticipated sparring matches. I can eject myself, at considerable inconvenience, as I've written, but it will be more for the worse.

I did an idiotic thing, and told him about Tassoni, buried in my archives, the instances of my Tassoni episodes, and to my utter chagrin, Galahad friended John on my phone, and more bloody awful still, John friended me back. Who wants the past tense of bittersweet losses to of a sudden have contemporary currency? I've posted things here about my undergraduate life which would undoubtedly antagonize the man I never got over, in this half-quasi sing song space with a minority who went one or two quarters with me towards the finish line of a turbulent spring. As I've also written, I am not huge on Facebook virtues, don't do selfies or announce events or floral arrangements, instead grilling my way into a fabulous family annihilator, but nevertheless, John and I are in feed, because I let a hip hop minstrel tap dance on my memories of the deepest longing for another Italian American I ever had. What the fuck is it with men? Act, don't reflect, never mind mortification, a way of stating you're saying fuck you and help me at the same time, remember? I epigrammed his 2002 email, and suggested he and Galahad could bromance on their respective tie-in, namely me. Yes, I am furious, and said I love you, now a second time, to a man passionately insisting he isn't my boyfriend.
You must remember this, a kiss is but a kiss. Judy Dench may offer up the inference that it's all in the incipient detail of domestic charms. God save the Queen.

Towelettes For Allergens

You had better apologize man!-- my fraudulent paramour on the subject of flaming my family on Facebook

Only writers and authors who are truly dedicated to their work can understand the inimical frustration of always losing ground to the chaos of limited mobility. How I got to Diamond Park from the aunt’s rowhome and the vaunted dormitories of the sprawling urban campuses which were unforgiving in the transverse, I mercifully cannot remember, but getting to Riverside from Diamond Park in 1994, that was buck a day with poppa, losing much more than manuscripts and textbooks. He left me in the middle of the floor, abandoned me and my 2005 deceased cat Oliver, cursing, a rickety bedframe left as it was, I had to sit in an armchair most of the night, lost a day of work, and not much has changed since, even though back then, the manager of this nut house was a white woman named Peggy, and she had nothing to do with the egalitarian games between me and the other manager, Terri Way. I can’t put those losses on Presbyterian Homes and its fraternal collusion with HUD, but everything else? Aside from an internet addiction and my asinine marital affairs, and whatever lie I’m engaged in now in my charming tug of war between a scurrilous spastic bigot and her minority ball and chain, yes, all my losses are directly attributable to Riverside, and it is a lie, with this caregiver, except for the incidental chemistry, an accident at best. I’ve let it go, though Galahad and I are still encoding, a freight car moving with inimitable rumblings. Only in the dowager’s wondrous solar eclipse can she play okay fuck the nigger nurse and still loathe everything about Ice Cube and Barber Shop and African American norms. I’m worn out, bored, and past the desire to assert myself on his body. We’re playacting a relationship, like Jonathan Rhys Meyers playacting the fortuitous husband who got away with killing his mistress in Allen’s stark post-Mia Farrow project, Match Point. African Americans could never make such a devastating film as this, one which exposes the underbelly of Caucasian privilege as hollow when we discover we cannot have it all, punishing my 56 year old body so I can post, make sure the work the technician salvaged will be safe, get my collections published, then honestly, I am done. My sister-in-law rebelled, the dowager is all gloom and doom while she is at the mall with her granddaughter. Well, I cannot go to the mall anymore, unless I plan it with the dark knight in question, and I can’t live like that, even if I care about him, despite my toxic psychology. I wept, on April 15^th, because I had never been so in a man’s arms as it might have once mattered, when I was young, in all that longing, I never had anything last long enough, and Frank? His disability regressed him, I never wanted him, and here, I asked a provider for a male aide. I never intended to feel a physical attraction for him, wind up having such a battle about sex over fifty. It is not enough, not if I cannot reclaim my level of independence and self-determination. It’s unlikely.

The Vulva of Russia

"I think the results speak for themselves," a grieving father

I had a terrible headache Wednesday morning, my sister messaging me later, before the American dinner hour, that she wanted to give me money. Fuck that. Between our aunt and our father, the debits for the fact that I paid my younger siblings mortgage from the bowels of my nigger habitat twelve years ago have been paid. She has four children. Two have had significant conditions. I told her to let it go. The headache was a trade off in concession to my age: I had been running the air conditioner, to which my Mediterranean constitution rebels, believing a stroke was imminent. I shut off the machine, and the cranial tension eased.
 While Otto's comatose body riled the fourth estate, I evaluated Oscar Isaac's death scene as reasonably effective in Ex Machina, though my immediate objection resides as it always does in empirical observation. We attribute anthropomorphic characteristics to artificial intelligence, perhaps for dramatic anxiety, but this is Deep Blue against Kasporov, processors, circuits, pulses. Conditionally, its future self awareness may not contain a minimal personality, so why is Google hurling along? Why do we desire machines to survive our eventual extinction? I was merely revising an old piece, stopped myself, logged on for archaeological data, made an FB page and appointed my baby half brother administrator, just hitting his forties. I may have adapted to Twitter's utility, but social media is dangerous, and I hate it. I really do.

Promethean Appendix

[Yes, I wound up approving Cheryl, since we knew each other slightly twenty years ago, and no, I have not been rude, reducing her to her pigmentation and superficial biological characteristics, but I've ignored her, almost absolutely.]

I despise Facebook to the point that getting an account suspension means next to nothing, quite honestly. The social media giant only magnifies my contempt, which is held in check only when I care about a group, or topic. Do not listen to your brothers if they tell you to open a Facebook account. I am nearly a 360 degree rotation opposite from Ebert's species optimism for Facebook and its models. What I see is innovation going static, the beginning of our zombie apocalypse, as opposed to a world's end diverted.

Rare Winter Trots

"Is it that bad?" Stephen Dixon

It would have been nice to crawl on the belly of Mr. Morales, taking a rare proactive step of inserting him in my shaggy wolverine public hair, breathing freely. He made a marked impression on me, with his romantic force of mind. Is he dead? Retired? If my sole literary colleague on the face of the earth is still among us, it may be reasonable to assume a pompous trade journalist with avuncular smile, dimpled cheeks, black rimmed glasses, might still linger, if not in DC, then somewhere. I evidently cannot find a fucking soul on Facebook, not in terms of people I actually once knew, which means my paranoia on utilizing FB is overblown. I have no damn idea how to use the site to my benefit, embittered writer, lonely woman, whichever bovine Pulcinella I rake in the mulch toward the blades of April.

Why is the poet Robert Thomas my friend? Me drooling dowager retart toldshim between us I would not stir this up, but it boils down to a few simple things: He does not attract me, no slight to his wife intended. I am, in point of fact, fond of the image I hold of Robert's spouse, and regret I actually couldn't adopt her as a new chick clique to chew the fat-- that is another issue. Secondly, my contemporary colleague wisely never bestowed to my phone his number. Even if he had, it is too expensive to behave like my mother in domineering twenty minute conversations between me/they in Oakland. Thirdly, though I've no idea what he may have said behind the scenes, if anything, I do not blame him for my ban from Speakeasy, and I doubt he would have tolerated me this long if he sided with the ban camp. Fourth, and most importantly, I respect his craft. It is fine. It is polished, worthy of American celebrity certainly not disposed on any of us.

Then stop running your mouth and work. Yes, of course. Well, I do, but I have a lot going on, and cannot sit back quietly let Presby destroy what's left of my spirit. I'm working too, a rebuttal on libertarian dark sides, if you will. As to Cecil, whatever happened to him, I did not mean for my adamant stance to make him feel threatened. That was the extent to which Josie Byzek wounded me. I never tried again, after what she did, to take a chance with ambulatory accommodation with who I am. I wish she was dead, Josie, but know that in itself, wouldn't change my scars, this infantile hit list of mine. I even know doing things to fuck up Josie's domestic tranquility wouldn't affect much, but feel it is a legitimate issue to stop her from adopting or fostering third world Asian children. After more research, I may press that.

Death Knell of the Knell

If anything killed my appreciation of the digital  medium, it's Facebook. Much like Yabberz, I don't like it, though most of my feed is my family behaving like the American Catholic class. I understand it is like anything else, account links and feed, but it's rather killed the internet for me, all tacky, flashy, bread and circuses. I prefer Twitter, though we all have to resist that to some degree. Yet I am uneasy, because there is spillover, and not just the Chicago attack. People do horrendous things, thinking what, that they'll get a following for engaging in victimization?
Craig Brittain and I make an unlikely alliance. I followed him first, primarily because Uber models intrigue me, and anything I might apply to make independent living less static is worth paying attention to. He complained this afternoon about leftist troll accounts, and I waded in without need of reference, without backing down either, and he kindly gave me permission to explore opportunities with him, so I sent him a LinkedIn connection request. I'm not partial to LinkedIn either, but it is necessary for me to maintain a presence there, even if I find work-- but I am unsure indicting Twitter's administrators to crack down on bogus accounts solves our freewheeling problems with  the online wild west. I myself am getting slightly over my head with libertarian factionalism, addressing Adam in the familiar as though he's remember the hard bitten wheelchair woman in her skirts, but that's neither here nor there. He proselytizes well for those who adore him; my alienated dissonance is of another timbre, however. Disaffection probably means I need some breathing space. 

Back In The Highlife

It used to seem to me
That my life went by too fast-- Steve Wynwood

The most effective censors aren't necessarily powerful boys who allegedly parade their victories wearing Hulk Hogan costumes. My mother's side of the family has corralled me on Facebook, my eldest niece only a partial, if tender, anodyne, and I have even less love today for social media, my chest pounding at three am, I was ready to tweet "fuck you" or "fuck off" to some new franchise authors, which would have gone over splendidly. It is not their fault I am more piecemeal, less sustained, than a novelist, and they are only doing what market forces compel them to do, and if I am solicited to read and review, well, I've been able to do that, whether or not I wish to continue in that vein. I spoiled my New Years take out, dropping part of it, so even with small disruptions, I pay the price, and perhaps it was for the best, as I am slowly cleaning up under the table. Let it go. 
I know, but only desired to enjoy my meal, over a tolerable broadcast channel. Found out just this afternoon I sold a poem. Or, had one accepted, for a byline, and it would possibly be detrimental, or unwise, to convey more than that, but this is a piece with history, taken to a public library workshop, where the facilitator pressed me a little harder than the rest of her group: my skill level was too advanced; I snubbed them, rolled out, "I am not coming back," I emailed her, and revised, and revised, over time, on my own, forgetting what her issue was, no, vaguely remember, the juxtaposition of classical with urban, and here we are. I have published enough work for at least three books by now, and what have I been doing? Sparring with nigger nannies in life or death battles.

I cannot retreat back to literary zine culture and sit there licking my wounds while my artery plague tortures me. If I wanted to pass muster to join Jeffrey Tucker's cache of freedom thinkers and failed because I did not allow myself to percolate, it was a lesson learned. He cannot pay anyway, not now, and as I respect Freeman, I do what I can for it. Get up and skin my damn knees and keep taking the egg. I persist in the belief in my own acumen, even if it makes me loathe, well people, yes, but communal sensibility, and on excruciating days, low pressure isotherms sucking in your ankle fluids, telling you sister was right about heart disease, then let the day be bad. Let it go.

What my underlying argument with Marie's preservation instinct comes down to is a debate about mercy. I buy Clint Eastwood's argument about kill shots, as opposed to what both Marie and my father are doing, for brother and spouse, respectively. My Uncle Joe is suffering. He has dementia, a deadly bacterial infection, and now, diabetes is taking his vision. If that was my situation, I'd put a Glock in the hands of Adam Kokesh, and say "pull the damn trigger you Southern fried poke!" I would not mind a grave in a magic mushroom compound, and what disability activists would never tell you is this: Quadriplegia is suffering. We cannot go jogging, clear our heads, or ride a bike, and too many of you rely on the state to solve our problems. Back to my straightening up, letting the day be bad. 

Inverted Pulcinella

This juxtaposition of proud, cunning thief from the upper class and loud, crass pervert from the servant class is one that is key to understanding Pulcinella's behaviors.-- traditional characteristics

George Ciccariello Maher and Pamela Taylor show an incurious lack of balance, as pertains to their economic interests. Spastic has conveyed nearly a free speech absolutism, to the point of letting vacuous threats against individual enemies stand, but that is easily enough done for a woman who has had nearly every aspiration defeated. If spastic finds a news organization willing to provide a contract, this account may go into mothballs, but she has also been very cautious in her diction about the sitting President and First Lady. I am still a little too smart to give myself tapeworm from raw muscle torn hot and bloody from the rib, and even if  Taylor can be taken at her word about the context of her usage, she had to realize the reactive connotation between "ape" and Michelle's skin color, and writing a post like that on FB?
Statisticians say 1 in 3 people utilize Zuckerberg's Harvard yearbook monster, and everyone else followed suit, mimicking either Twitter or the other behemoth. For a sitting director to exercise that kind of language in a social media post might tell her bosses something about her lack of acuity and ability to compartmentalize.
I defend her. If I should have the right to allow my corrosive, sometimes explosive pain, sock it to the ambulatory world, then she can say what most Europeans feel about blacks. Not all Europeans-- but Pamela's voice is indeed a refection of aspersion, one which forgets the shield of her responsibility to her employer to reflect before she posts. Development corporations do not want to be in the position of defending pot shots at national figures.
Ciccariello is more mundane in the annuals of academic controversy. My mentor went through a similar steam bath with the dean of my college, but if an assistant professor can be so blithely acerbic, should he be teaching at an engineering school like Drexel? I placed his account in my new folder, adversaries, and the administrators removed it. Why is is so wrong, in this context, to acknowledge we have adversaries in the world? I do not know Ciccariello, and assume the real impetus behind his barb is unhappiness with his course load; his case illustrates that accreditation is not always a just winnowing process. With the appropriate sedative, a little preparation, I could roll to his lectern and eat his students for lunch, but alas, most of you look at me and see a savant, a phantasm suitable for Lord of the Rings emaciation. So I have 3 dollars in the bank, intimidating a bingo-eyed African building manage out of her career, willing to go to jail over black authoritarianism punishing me for my inner city victimization.

Vanities

I have not self-published a manuscript to kindle yet. I do not feel quite confident enough to do so, and do not know if I should, nor what I'm even worth, be it as a poet or columnist. I am also not sure how to ask advice of anyone who has self-published through Amazon's distribution model. I've read complaints on the Good Reads site about delayed commissions, but I only ever had a problem with one Amazon seller, long ago, before I understood how the retail giant is an Intranet unto itself, partnering with other businesses. I have always received payments promptly, however.

I have, this after 34 years as creative writer later journalist, one, mind you, one poetry manuscript of strongest work about ready to go, and I will not tell you how much money I've lost on contest fees and contributor copy support, I who cannot afford to enter all that many to begin with, over the years, with this one manuscript always ready to go, but I've now slowly developed a rhythm for electronic submissions, finally found formula, as it were, even if, my sorry slaving for Examiner aside, my most powerful essay on urban poverty I gave away to a woman named Bianca for her Appalachian area journal which I haven't yet added to my CV because yours truly doesn't know what Karina K did with my contributor copy, and I cannot get this Karina K back on the phone, and the one editor who liked my deaf pitch before that, I failed. And this is the stuff who opines for legacy media, with a select hit list for disabled members of the Philadelphia activist community, except for the fact that I've been published in established media, but not lately, since I am Anthony Elonis with a sometimes more insidious, or entertaining menace, not quite so puerile.

No husband to murder, and my scar tissue has throbbed on past my long ago supervisor's departure, c'est pas? I haven't read Elonis's posts. I suppose he reads like ISIS in an inflammatory state, but if he was writing his *puerile* invective against wife in a journal on paper, would we be here? I am as savage as he is on my bad days, teetering precariously toward brutal, and I mean brutal, institutional indigence. Barring a miracle, I know exactly how much control a nursing home will impose on me if I go from section 202 housing into a Medicaid home. I've lived it and earned a living from it. Established journalists even publish about it these days, and we take out the violins. I very seriously do not want my remaining years to linger in such a circumscribed fashion, and I'm back to submitting poems again, after all this time. I am a fool people, to let a resource center which was never very good to begin with, cause me so much damage, not as if the system offers disability entitlement recipients all that many options.

Optimistic Warps

"I trained to be an English professor, and now I'm a sociopath," a spastic dowager line that made a black bible thumper, one whom spastic doesn't want to reengage, laugh.

I am not a real journalist, (though it can reasonably be argued I am in expert in disability journalism) just declining in recidivist fashion to 11th grade journalism studies to try to earn a little from my content, and 3000 USD is too diminutive, but it may surprise you to learn I disagree with Robert G. Kaiser about the outcome of the cratering legacy media. His essay is excellent; his essay is heart-breaking, and I wept over the last printed edition of The Bulletin, which employed mio padre-- and after the Philadelphia Inquirer's fiascoes, the Bulletin's exit was dignified. Kaiser's piece received 4 votes on Beacon Reader Writersblock, and 4 is something of a consensus in that quixotic community, but we need to remember that mass literacy is still a novelty in the annuals of human history. Had I been born in 1863 I doubt I would have been taught to read, let alone transform into a bitterly overeducated sewer rat-- but I think human thirst for news will survive the death of physical newspaper circulation and the diminished power of broadcast, even if most astute players see the beginning of a self-fulfilling human apocalypse just ahead of the curve. Technology seems to increment its own collapse, but the human animal invariably adapts, freedom and authority in continual tension. Facebook models, for instance. Everyone tells me to open an FB account and I won't do it, despite my small, sometimes incendiary, mostly incendiary, foot print on twitter-- but I do not test the limits of a twitter ban because I do not argue with individual account holders, at least I believe this is why my twitter account isn't flagged-- and secondly, I don't care about tweets and don't see them as valid news content-- though we all use them as such-- I take it or leave it, in other words, though my platform would suffer from a suspension or departure-- but I do not trust Mark Zuckerberg. I do not like his biographical footprint, and only barely understand the usefulness of Google Plus--harboring most of my family which is why I don't post my Blogger urls there, and Linked In makes me feel paranoid-- but this will also evolve, and change, and people like Mike Levy are conduits to new traditions via which the public will stay informed.