yes really

She said it's like there's this sticky black film that covers everything & **am's ears perked up. He loved the way she sat on her hands but didn't bother to cross her legs. Her hands were calloused from carrying loads of bricks. "Brick by brick," the President had told them, "we will rebuild our nation." "They tell us," she said meaning the television, "that we're all equally as filthy. But it doesn't seem like we were always." A**m argued that the soap we use now is substandard & that's why no one ever gets clean. They talked abt the dark spaces that you never get out of & how knowing makes you even more alone. "Two. Twooo. TWOOOO..." Ad** exclaimed suddenly. "What do you think?" He was having money issues & had taken to trying out diff. neuroses. "The way we're always in each other's way," *v* continued. "but not even conscious of it. Like we're programmed to irritate the fuck out of each other." "TWO!" **am blurted out. But it was too late. They were already looking at one another suspiciously & thinking, "Maybe you're just as filthy as the rest." Luckily, the moment ended when the robots came. It was time to talk abt Race. They both knew from experience that the robots would not go away until they had spent exactly one hour feigning concern over the various ethnic issues that were believed to plague them. So, for the next 60 minutes, their dialogue was replaced by performance.

the sound of one fist bumping itself

*da* got tired of picking up discarded paper towels from the bathroom floor at the store where he worked. Men would use towels to protect themselves from the deadly infestations of germs on the doorknob of the bathroom & then throw the towels on the floor behind them. **am's solution was to hold one hand over your eyes while using the other hand to open the door. Doorknob germs are only harmful when they are percieved. **am's idea made him a hero in the Green Movement at 1st & then, like a virus, it was applied to all facets of life. People would cover their ears while berating one another & plug their noses whenever the Gov't was addressing them. This was called A*a's Meme & it allowed people to live their lives more fully than they had in decades.

magasin des entendres

"Ohhh. Zat iss a nice entendre. I sink I may have one more just like it."
"No, really. That's okay."
"You know... Zee uzzer day, I was tossing a salad, no?...for a friend..hehe..who had just dropped zee kids off at zee pool..."
"Excuse me?"
"Are you sure you would not like one more entendre?"
"I really just need the one."

compromise

by chad_wthrfrd | Create your own Cartoon at www.toondoo.com

The Elders prayed to a deity named Compromise. They would take all of their toys, high school football trophies, old pictures, love letters, or anything else that might remind them of their youth to an altar that was hidden in the basement of the largest skyscraper in the City. While standing before a marble statue of a schoolmaster w/ ruler in hand, they would banish their memories w/ fire & gasoline. In the same basement, they had built replicas of the Berlin Wall & the Great Wall of China. They also had an impressive collection of velvet ropes- the kind that are used to distinguish the cool from the uncool. Their religion was abt discipline, order, & esp. Architecture. Ambiguity was something that they had invented to draw their lines even darker. What they had not counted on was that their children would be empowered by this golem. The Order of the Stone Heart begat The Order of the Green Fuse & hated it even more for being its own child. I remember when, in grade school, the teacher would suggest that the bully who was antagonizing the poor defenseless girl was actually infatuated w/ her.

10110011101100001 etc

Every one of our idiosynchrasies had its own software. Thinks The Whole World Is Out To Get Him 4.0, Hates Your Ugly Face 5.2, & Laughs Incessantly To Keep From Crying 5.7 were only a few. That awful sucking sound that your husband made while eating was more than likely the invention of some overpaid computer geek. Human qualities that we perceived as being sinister, corrupt, or just impractical were all a part of the landscape. One of the things that made **am's job so irritating was always having to search for unknown titles of books. What no one knew was that the books were never given titles. Search engines were programmed to create titles from the criteria that was entered into them. It was never incidental. What we saw was what was there- there was no forest, only trees.

help yourself to some nothing

The guy must have been tailgating S**ve for at least 2 blocks. **eve swerved abruptly into the next lane while lowering his window. As soon as the man was within earshot of St**e, he shouted into the guy's open window. "Hey! You win!! Help yourself to some Nothing!" Then he gave the guy the 1-800 number that would allow him to collect his prize. What the man had taken for Sarcasm was actually quite generous. Later, he was pleased to discover that although his prize was Nothing, it was a rather large quantity of it.

you are incomplete

One of the girls, Kathy, was reading Let's Face It, Men Are S@#t by Joseph W. Rock & Barry L. Duncan, while the other girls read celebrity gossip magazines. Kathy looked at the other girls while throwing the book down on her desk. "Let's face it! Men are s@#t!" she exclaimed. Another girl, Desiree, wrinkled her forehead and replied, "I don't know. I feel incomplete if I don't have a man." E**, whose face had been buried in her laptop, looked directly at & pointed at Desiree's prosthetic right leg. She had lost her leg years ago in a nearly fatal automobile accident. "Yeah, but you are incomplete," said **e. The girls laughed & returned to their reading.

bloody hell

S*ev* knew there had to be more to the guy than what everyone saw. He might not even be human- programmed by our own gov't to do something that absurd. The man stood abt 5'6, probably weighed 160 lbs, had a mop-top haircut that completely covered his eyes, a lit cigarette perpetually hanging from his lips, always wore a long gray trenchcoat, and kept one hand in his pocket while the other held a cup of coffee still billowing smoke. The role he played reminded one of Bong Boy- for anyone familiar w/ the Upright Citizen's Brigade. He would neither offer solutions nor exacerbate the situation. But smoking a bong would have been more proactive. This gentleman would show up at the scene of any tragedy or disaster. It could be a terrorist attack, a domestic squabble, or an armed robbery. He would appear only to observe for a brief second (we could only assume that his hair did not hinder observation,) then exclaim in a thick Cockney accent, "Bloody hell!" After that, the man would wander off out of sight. If *te** had met *da* at that point, he would have heard the story abt how the man had appeared at the scene of a 3-car pileup & said "Blood" twice before his head exploded. Immediately, another man looking exactly like him had appeared, let an audible yet subtle "Bloody hell!," then quickly disappeared.

it's over

So there was this show called Super Awesome Pop Star that featured young, "attractive" people singing "popular" songs. Just as everyone was beginning to lose interest, the show threw a curve ball. They featured an older, overweight, unattractive woman who could outsing all of the previous contestants who had been on the show. No one but **am understood the significance of this woman. Super Awesome Pop Star was trying to tell the American public that it was over.

brave new sex

Decades of social conditioning had produced bizarre abberrations in people's sexuality. For women, sexual fulfillment came from a practice that was known as "charging it," & consisted of sliding a debit card up & down the slit of one's vagina while exclaiming, "Wee-yoo!!," thereby invoking the sound of a cash register. For men, gelding was the fashion, since the penis had been replaced by the debit card. Women were therefore the only gender that purchased pornography, which consisted of someone going through a shopping mall w/ a digital camera & making various high-dollar purchases at each of the stores. There were only two men who had retained their testicles. This was more of a testament to their inability to adhere to fashion than anything to do w/ virility. Their names were **am & St**e. A girl named *v* was the only woman left whose clitoris had not atrophied from lack of use.

smile

Although we are all equally capable of malice; acts of cruelty, when committed by those who are aesthetically pleasing, tend to be inoffensive. I can think of worse things than being stabbed to death by a beautiful debutante. So before you exclaim, "Oh the humanity!," ask yourself- "Couldn't I just as easily say, 'Oh how precious!' ?"

moment of zen (yesterday)

Helping a sweet little old lady find a book that would tell her how to save her poetry on a new laptop. Just when you think you are becoming a monster like everyone else. She reminded me of my own grandmother, who was just learning to send e-mail when dementia got the best of her. She never would have written poetry; she thought she was too stupid. Of course she didn't have to- she was poetry.

knowing is half the battle

"Excuse me. Do you have War & Peace? Rutabaga."

*d*m knew the score. He knew the score because he was on the Internet.

"Yes, we have War & Peace."

He had seen the top-secret videos on YouTube.

"Yes, but do you have War & Peace Rutabaga?"

Underground training labs where our own gov't trained people to be more difficult. It was rather impressive.

"No, I'm afraid we don't have War & Peace Rutabaga."

"Perfect. That's just what I was looking for."

Knowing made **am's job slightly less antagonizing. But knowing is half the battle.

"I'm sorry. What were you looking for?"

"Exactly."

excerpt from Elvis: What Happened? by Red West, Sonny West, and Dave Hebler

"Anyway, we are driving back from Arizona. Now in those days many of us used to follow Elvis in popping those damn amphetamines just to keep us high. But, I swear, on this day I hadn't taken a thing. I was very straight. Now we are talking about some of this heavy psychic stuff, and Elvis is talking about how he believed he was destined to do something very big in his life apart from show business. I'm agreeing with him. Anyway, suddenly just to show me what he is talking about, he says, 'Hold on, Red, stop the trailer. Look up there, see what I mean?' Anyway, I look up and I'll be a sonofabitch. There is a giant cloud formation above us, and I don't know whether it was auto-suggestion or what, but this cloud formation is formed in the shape of two very definite likenesses of two heads. One was Elvis Presley and one was Joseph Stalin."

Concerning The Thing About Which It Is Concerned

This post
is the only thing
of substance
to occur to me
today

This post
is the snarling jowls
of a wolf
spotted by James Frey

This poem
is the stubbed toe
of a musician
whose slide guitar
& song abt
a slightly tarnished
silver spoon
failed to move

This post
is a shiny red apple
presented to the teacher
in the bulletproof vest

This post
is the existential crisis
keeping the college sophomore
from writing
a Philosophy term paper

This post
is being written
during much-needed intervals
at work
then later
at home
watching Night Gallery
sober for the first night
all week
because I’m continuing
the conversation
I started earlier

This post
is my conversation
& the only
meaningful interaction
I’ve had
In awhile
I feel a lot
less lonely
when I’m alone

This post
reminds me of
what Krishnamurti says
abt the difference
b/w being alone
& being lonely

Which allows me
to return to
my list
of silly metaphors

This post
is like a painting
of a President
which was inspired
by the negative space
in a previous painting
of a previous President

(the background dotted
w/ startled expressions
as the constituents realize
that their own shadows
are Black)

You could read this post
stick it in a folder
or up yr ass

We are all
unattainable
in spite of
our debit cards

This post is trite
I’m pretty sure
Billy Collins or somebody
wrote a poem abt itself

Ya gotta do something
this is what
I’m doing

This post
just wants
to hold your hand
it would have better luck
holding you at gunpoint

I could
scratch chalkboards
pull teeth
be politically incorrect
fart in church

But I bet
you’ve been confronted
already

This post is that
anticipated
awkward stare
that we nevertheless
find every
superfluous word
in our vocabulary
to avoid

This post
is everything
that we talk abt
write abtargue abt
torture ourselves w/
that either
doesn’t deserve
or doesn’t require
articulation

This post
is whatever
the hell it is
that’s wrong w/ that guy
the one
you can’t or won’t
stop staring at

This post
goes out
to all of those things
that haunt you
when drunk or asleep
or watching children play

Those things
you thought you had buried
in that rite of passage
known as Compromise

This post
is as conspicuous
as watching
the instant replay
of a Crisis

(I heard
Big Bruh
Has Tivo)

This post
is not responsible
if I fall off
of the wagon
& neither am I
since I am not
responsible for Gravity

This post
is not a fan
of the Twilight series

It is our jobs
& responsibilities
& obligations
that suck our blood
rather than
fall in love
with us

This post
is bitter
& will therefore
end abruptly.

more of this kinda thing

A**m's estranged father Ju**s had the epiphany that started a movement which evolved decades later into the Order of the Stone Heart. As he was walking down Wall Street, talking to his broker on his cell, sending a steamy text message to one of his girlfriends, and still finding time to daydream (cuz that's the kind of Dude he was,) J*da* tripped & fell off of a curb. It was then that *ud*s decided that the physical laws of our universe are no longer compatible w/ our way of life. But it took decades of this sort of this sort of thinking and numerous self-help books to give birth to a spiritual movement that sought to turn people into architecture.

hierarchy

In many societies, there is a very definite hierarchy that is to be followed. The caste system in India would be one example. Monarchy would be another. In America, there is a different hierarchy for nearly every social situation. Take a celebrity out of Hollywood and put him or her in a federal prison and you would see said celebrity having to adapt to an entirely new hierarchy. Our hierarchies seemed to be based on ever-changing qualities- aesthetics and social capital. Yet we like to think that we are more libertarian & less oppressive than most societies. But maintaining the illusion of there being no hierarchy while constantly having to adapt to ever-changing social norms is just unnecessary burden. Our politicians, if they are ambitious, feel pressured to be hip & cool, even though this has nothing to do with politics. We deny the authority that our government has over us as long as they convince us that they did in fact inhale & as long as they wear designer outfits. Our way of life would be less stressful if we had a clear idea of who our superiors are & knew how low we should bow.

we got screwed

You ever wonder if
the moment
you were conceived
somebody got to
have more fun
than you ever have?

It wasn’t subject to
life-threatening untreatable
viruses

It hadn’t been depicted
& reinterpreted
& overstated

It wasn’t trite

It wasn’t something you had seen already-
digging through yr old man’s porno mags & videos
or whatever else
he was thinking abt
trying to relive
that moment
when yr unfortunate ass
came to be

Didn’t you run across
some of those same images
the 1st time
you logged on?

I bet you wished that
all you had to contend with
were yellowish stained pages
instead of
beating yr brains
for the right keyword

The old man’s stale memories
are better than the dead horse
that you’re left with

Man I bet there were taboos
in the 60s &
maybe even
on into the 70s

“We shouldn’t be doing this”
or, “This is unheard of”

In Zen Buddhism
there is a concept
called to us
beginner’s mind
where you assume
that you are always a beginner
& know nothing

But now that I have told you that
you already know it & the next person that you tell it to
will have to believe
that you knew it first
rather than me

None of us are beginners
because they experienced it
first

Perhaps we are empowered
by walking in their shadows
but empowerment
can be very boring
like beating every game you have
for your PS3 then having to get
the Xbox or GameCube
or a job w/ Homeland Security

Could we ever be overwhelmed?

Could we ever
penetrate anything
when all those
dark places in your head
are now a part
of the landscape?

Sometimes I wonder
if it’s voices in my head
or just crumbs
of the old man’s neurosis
“Give in to it. It’s all you have.
Might as well before
they make you do it anyway”

Man
they even had a war
kinda like ours
& still got to pretend
that they weren’t all
completely alone

I swear I saw a magazine
from back then
& a naked woman was smiling

This is why we never connect-
our Universe doesn’t exist
because of
its stars & planets & inhabitants
She exists
in spite of them

Her physical laws
are no longer compatible
w/ our way of life

We have only
a few epiphanies left

And then-
there will be no more sarcasm
nothing will be figurative
everyone will be
naked & smiling
in some manner

We won’t have to
dance around one another
anymore.

We won’t be able
to bleed each other dry

We don’t know
when we’re bleeding anymore
anyway
Might as well
wait
for that moment
you were cheated out of
when you came to be.

ain't got no home

http://www.woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/I_Aint_Got_No_Home.htm

this song resonates on so many levels. first of all, a song written during the FIRST depression. secondly, the irony of a supposedly all-inclusive multi-kulti utopia that in actuality leaves us all feeling displaced & alone. lastly, me being what i am. but most importantly, that harmonica is badass.

yup.

“To hold a vase filled to the brim,
without spilling anything,
is impossible; better not to fill it so.”

Lao-Tzu, I am certain
has never heard of
diabetes insipidus
which is caused by
having not enough
antidiuretic hormone
and keeps one
forever thirsty

What is a brim
anyway if not
Whitman’s hat & boots?

Would that any man
who expresses disapproval
over that which was
born already
filled to the brim
begin to understand Time

And if he wants
to find said brim
he may begin to ask people
what time it was
rather than what time it is

And when that man
spills over living as if
nothing begins or ends

Perhaps Lao-Tzu’s
Philistine epiphany
will hold him in

Maybe the elements
will have mercy on his brim
and not wear down its edges
until gravity pulls out
that which was always
feral

Our own universe
of which we have drawn maps
still contains
black holes

Some say that Desire
the cause of all suffering
should be yielded to
for its own sake
like a current

I find this problematic
since all suffering
could just as easily
be fetishized

It was Porn
rather than democracy
that we found
in Iraq

Have you ever
fantasized abt
doing a love scene
w/ someone
and getting off
before anything
is actually
experienced?

Without a brim
we would just
stare in one
another’s eyes
all day long

“Better not to
fill it so,”
says Lao Tzu

Since
being a sage
keeps one from ever
singing the blues

Lao Tzu
never sung
the Underwhelmed Blues
or the Never Quite Enough Blues
or even the Insufficiently Distracted Blues

Walt Whitman
being a whore
and not a sage
was well aware
of his own brim

“O Christ! My fit has mastered me!”

He would have been
damned by sages
for refusing
to calculate

“What is less or more than a touch?”



The Ill-fitted
tend to be
lousy at math

Whitman had not reckoned
a brim any more
than he had reckoned 1000 acres
or the earth

“Logic and sermons never convince,
The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.”

So what that means
children
is hear not their sermons
you are the sermon
& you will never spill
any more
than you already have.

See previous post.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dystopia

"Moreover, in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, the protagonist Dagny Taggart struggles to keep Taggart Transcontinental thriving in a world that spurns innovation and excellence. All of Dagny's opponents cite 'equality of opportunity' and the 'public good' as their justifications for opposing free market capitalism and competition."

Scratch Workshop

Have some unscratched vinyl? Know a teenager? You're in luck.

Open Scratch Lab and Workshop - Teens learn how to scratch records. 415-2700. Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library 3030 Poplar Memphis (Midtown) 415-2700.

See next post.

bad pun...or literary gold?

Motif

Latacia Davis is an aspiring novelist who suffers from ADHD. Her unfinished manuscript has generated some interest, but an agent tells her that it is too unfocused to be published. Latacia recently quit her job at the post office to work on her novel. As a consequence, she has no dental insurance and cannot repair the missing incisors that resulted long ago from grinding her teeth while cranked up on Adderall. Can Latacia Davis find a central theme for her novel before she loses any more of her pearly whites?

and wave them like you just don't care

ever think abt how the word "hip" used to imply subversion? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus

hence "hippies."

whose lifestyles were seen as subversive but eventually became status quo. huxley's characters in brave new world were neither tuning in, turning on, nor dropping out when they took soma.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_mind_(science_fiction)

all they ever had to do was give us enough rope.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egregore

architecture

It seems too haphazard
to be architecture

But once you really note
how we hover
suffocate
impose
but never touch

You start to see columns

Intimacy could only be
evidence of erosion
the erosion that occurs
when fleeting glances
form cracks
between empty words

That occurs in silence
especially when awkward
& not so silent
after all

With the right kind of eyes
we would see that
it was all written in

Nuanced moments
must be built around

Sound structures
must erode

Too much eye contact
leads to quips
abt sporting events
or sex that never occurred
or whatever makes a girl
laugh blush or
feign offense

There is always
enough mortar

The Sphinx
w/o a nose
is still the Sphinx

The dead silence of prayer
can be awkward
though clearly it was planned for
even allotted a specific
no. of seconds before
the next hymn

Early in my day
I was told that I have
beautiful intense eyes
in a brief lapse
b/w carefully structured moments
of customer service

“Who says to someone?”
I asked my Self

“Exactly,”
answered Self.

googling myself

i'm amazed by what i find googling myself. my old poetry that i distributed abt the internet willy-nilly in my mid-twenties which i'm now embarrased of cuz it's a whole lotta angst & not much art. others seemed to like it though. the other chad weatherford who has a page on blogspot & forced me to use my middle name on this one. the chad weatherford who was a delivery man on an episode on melrose place. no record whatsoever of my amazing work as the forehead & spot of short reddish hair behind david straitharn at the bar in my blueberry nights. there's a surfer chad weatherford. i'm proud of the other chad weatherfords actually. of course, googling that other name of mine is just as interesting. you get the teenage killer in omaha, a main character in a post-apocalyptic drama, & a really funny comedian.

It was when Ad** was on tour with his band End Construction that he started getting on the Internet and researching his Genealogy. *u**s had a great-great-grandfather, Dr. H*lm**eirkeche, who had Americanized his name and started our American greeting card industry. The Doctor saw no reason for us to express sentiments to one another personally and was therefore inspired to create a way to pay others to do it for us. He battled constantly with Asian thugs from Fortune Cookie Industries, but persevered and effectively designed a way for Americans to simultaneously Feel and Not Feel. He would have been proud of his descendants, who brought Us robots programmed to enforce Sarcasm on the streets of America, Inc. centuries after his death.

A**m saw some random, possibly homeless guy carrying something relatively lightweight. He couldn’t quite tell, but he would have sworn that it was just a stick. The man was hunched over at the waist and making his walk so laborious that it looked as if he was carrying a suitcase full of bowling balls rather than a stick. “Maybe it’s a stick of some as-yet-undiscovered element,” *d*m thought to himself, “Something with, like, a hundred pounds more mass than it would appear to have.” It was then that **am knew. He understood the guy’s burden. He knew that he had had that same pained look on his face.

The Brave New World wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. A**m had become aware of this at his job. He worked for one of those bookstores that also sold CD’s, DVD’s, soaps, incenses, candles, purses, had a restaurant inside, and provided babysitting services. Each cash register at his store was equipped with an enormous robotic arm designed exclusively to prevent customers from having to do menial tasks such as getting the receipt for their purchase out of the shopping bag so that they could record the transaction in their checkbook, or reaching to get an ink pen out of the coffee mug in front of the register where the pens were kept. There had been litigation over arthritic conditions caused by customers having to reach inside a brown paper bag for a small sheet of paper. The arm itself was a thing of wonder. It moved impossibly slow, made a noise so loud that you could hear nothing else in the store until it was finished, and it often required so much power that the lights in the store would flicker and the other registers would freeze up. But customers would endure all of this rather than reach into the shopping bag to grasp the receipt. And the technological advances didn’t stop there. There were robots to perform almost any task or remove any burden from their owners. There were robots to teach your children the birds and the bees, robots to combine peanut butter and jelly for a tasty sandwich, and even robots to operate machinery which had been designed to keep its owner from having to perform a particular task. Calluses were obsolete. No one perspired. A certain ancestor of **am’s would have been dismayed to learn that greeting cards were written in binary code, leaving only the name of the relative or acquaintance receiving the card. A typical greeting card would read: “Dear Aunt _____: 1001110011110001110011111.” Even subversion was designed to be less problematic. It had long been known that the sarcasm of the younger generation was the intended result of a government program. The consensus was that we had met the Buddha in the road and killed him. Life didn’t have to be a constant cycle of suffering- life could be a Never-ending Groove of Fabuliciousocity!

The conspiracy revealed itself in interesting and phenomenal ways. We were discovering that there were Others among us. Many of the people that we thought were our friends, relatives, coworkers, teachers, and politicians turned out to be a race of shapeshifting bag-shaped creatures from a planet called Duu’ootsche. People realized that so much of the human interaction that had conditioned them to become the people that they were was actually interaction with one of these baglike creatures that had dwelled undetected among us for God knows how long. For all we knew, anyone of us could be one of these alien beings. People started to behave more and more like these creatures, for fear that one of them might think it had been discovered and react violently. There had been several unfortunate incidents that no one wanted to see repeated. American culture was evolving in a way that was designed to appease our visitors from the planet Duu’ootsche. Rock and roll begat hip-hop. Sitcoms begat reality television. The discovery of extraterrestrials on our planet had effectively turned us all into Duu’ootsche bags.

life is a ponzi scheme

baudrillard says that we have created a world where everything is a representation of something else, but our representations have taken on a life of their own to the point where we have no memory of the original. i wonder when we'll finally be so overwhelmed by our war & chaos & terror & crisis that we'll stop studying history altogether. i think we already place more importance on consensus than we do on truth. i remember when they changed the taste of coke, then supposedly changed it back & called it coca-cola classic. my mom had stockpiled some coke, so we had that to drink & knew that coca-cola classic was not the original taste. now of course it's been so long that i have no memory of what the original taste was.