"Kumbaya" and the Anti-Empath

The United States is a culture so rooted in the isolation of the individual and the disdain for community and social values that people's attempts to bond with each other and to express empathy have earned their own derisive idioms – such as, "holding hands and singing Kumbaya," "social justice warrior," and "do-gooder." What has always remained in fashion in the United States is the detached and glossed stare of the anti-empath. Whether in his guise as a CEO, political operator, gunslinger or gangster, this emotionally wretched creature is held up as the model human we must all aspire to become. It is no wonder that those of us who reject this mad archetype are relegated to the margins of society and often exist in a state of bewilderment and unease.

Su Muro Bello / His Beautiful Wall (letras/lyrics)

Vamos a explodir su muro bello

Y crear una tormenta con el polvo

Vamos a tomar los ladrillos

Para formar un puente fuerte

Vamos a quemar los muros feos

Que se nos forman en la mente

Para demolir las fronteras

Que corren por dentro y por fuera

Música instrumental

Vamos a olvidar ese sueño

Que se llama lo americano

Que nos obliga a destruir el mundo

Para poder realizarlo

Vamos a caminar por el sendero

Que solamente se ve vagamente

Vamos a cantar en las montañas

Pa’ despertar lo que haya en los bosques

***

(Translation)

Let's blow up his beautiful wall  

And make a storm with the dust

Let’s take the bricks  

And make a strong bridge

Let’s demolish the ugly walls

That form inside our minds

And demolish the borders

That run inside and out

Let’s forget the dream

They call the American

That forces us to destroy the world  

In order to achieve it

Let’s walk along the path

That is seen only vaguely

Let’s sing in the mountains

To awake what lies in the forests

The Man Is Special

The man is special.

And if he is destructive,

lurching from one glorious

disaster to the next,

he is very special, indeed,

and will be accorded

certain permissions.

The special man

will be allowed   

to deceive & to form

baroque honeycombs

of madness for his

lovers to dwell within.

The man is special,

but the women are not.

They are as annoying bees,

buzzing in realms of viscous,

amber lunacy

that the special 

man creates -

a truth,

an entire reality,

withheld

and then revealed,

but only vaguely;

a promise offered

to a desperate heart

rendered more desperate

by the shocking actions

of the special man -

these the bees 

must process

while the special man

pursues the roguish, tortured

aspect which affords him

his unique permissions.

Finally, the special man

will set fire to the hive

and witness the bees

fall earthward,

spiraling plumes of smoke 

like machine-gunned

World War I bi-planes.

If the bees awake,

stunned and woozy

after the fall,

and point to the special man,

he will assure us

that they are crazed,

whirring insects

seeking to silence him

and his important work.

The People Tire of Capitalism

The people tire of capitalism. It no longer dazzles. It appears now as a sad and brutal beast lumbering across landscapes, destroying everything -- other creatures, the beautiful, people's souls and their will. The people tire of capitalism.

An Unending Election or a Culture Ending?

Why does it feel as if the election is not over? The deluge of information about political creatures - foremost among these, the great charlatan Donnie Tynahands, but including the cipher beings Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton - continues. It is sordid, baffling, contradictory, always courting incredulity and always straddling the line between coherency and incoherency.

Perhaps what we are experiencing is not properly the sense of an election that is not over – but rather the sense of an empire and, indeed, a culture that is buckling and finally collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions. The three ludicrous and terrifying founding fictions of the nation - that humans are somehow distinct from and superior to the rest of nature / that there are separate "races" of human beings / and that the purpose of existence is to pursue one's own personal greed to its always vanishing endpoint - were never a recipe for success. Are we now witness to the endgame of these wretched beliefs? One thing is for sure: the show, the spectacle is utterly mad.

The Sacred, The Profane

The objective of consumerism is to commodify Everything. To desacralize Everything, to remove the sacred nature from All. The objective of consumerism is to make Everything profane. A head of lettuce ceases to be a wonder and a miracle birthed through eons of mystery to merge with your body. No: it is just a another dead product to be consumed. Now is the time to wrench this sinister power away from the wicked. We affirm: The world is alive and is charged with wonders beyond all of our imaginings. Sacred wonders.

Orioles of Baltimore

The orioles of Baltimore fly off of the caps and jerseys where they have been caged and declare, “We are not mascots! We are soaring, swooping creatures now rarely seen in the city which gave us our name! We leave the purgatory of stadium stalls and return to the skies!”