Unedited Rant from 4/25/2008

The blank page. The bespactled realization of thinknot, of thinklessness, of self-referential immobility, stuck in a self-aggrandizing spiral of writing about not writing, which is the most boring writing of all, the sad back-up default postermodern (and postmortem, for all I care) fallback for the stupid, frustrated and enraged colleagues, dilettantes, amateurs, professionals and dogs; a fallback for morons and geniuses but a sad excuse for the purity of creativity, the real explosion of unfiltered open doorways and real progressive states of intelligence not surpassed by pathetic desperation. How do I askew my platitudinous fallback into the self-reference, the poor meta and onco-metastizing future to which I’m doomed.

I want to write about something funny, something sarcastic. But the trick is it has to be evident right there in the words – I can’t whip the end of my sentence with the over-credulous alto, no sign or punctuation for the fledgling chirp of sarcasm. How do I accomplish this? I can just tell the reader. The following is sarcastic: old people are the sweetest people of all. Or would that sentence stand on its own because of its saccharine little qualifier and mawkish content. It is far from true of course: there is no aging gracefully. Old people are not sweet but some of the ugliest and mentally disturbed (and disturbing) creatures on gods fucked-up blue sphere. I went to shadow a doctor a week ago and got to see a nice span of white demented people. In comes the old lady and the doctor bangs her (knee) and she has a reflex and everything. She puts out her had. She has arthritis, rheumatoid and the other kind – whatever that is. Her pointer finger kinks at the end like a sling-shot twig where one of the bifurcated legs is removed so it is one misaligned stick. I just want to jump up and grab that gnarled phalange and crack it back into place. The woman is demented too. What year is it? Um… 2000 she says. Some people can’t take gore. I can. But what I find most disgusting of all is witnessing the out-of-touch blathering of a demented.

The old judge comes in wearing a tweed jacket stinking of a classical conservatism and telling jokes about it: “Well my friend says, when he talks about Ann Arbor, he calls it ‘The People’s Republic of Ann Arbor’ because it is so left wing.” The doctor and I get out the wood boards and hammers and nails and various other appliances and begrudgingly build a little smile so his joke doesn’t go straight down and plunk through the linoleum floor into the neurology clinic directly below us and kill any of the half-dead geriatrics that don’t know who they are. The man is a judge and they demoted him out of the courtroom to just review cases. Why? Because they noticed his memory wasn’t what it used to be. Tap-tap on the patella, walk, push forward and back, follow your eyes with my fingers, what is the date? Remember these three objects: red, soccer, California, count back from 7 starting from 100, draw the pentagon, write a sentence, read this and do what it says – mini-mental complete. He is not demented (>23 on the mini-mental) but he ain’t fit for seeing cases.

Yesterday went to the doctor for sleep disorders. Old red-necked man, burned hard by the sun. Big arms. Midwestern—football build. He was having a dream that some intruder was standing over him and he’d sit-up mumbling or saying “I’m gonna get you” and thrash around like a maniac often smacking his wife. Diagnosis: parasomnia, an REM sleep disorder. He cites the fact that his neighbor, with whom he’d had a dispute, opened up machine gun fire on his house. But that’s not why he was having the bad dreams.

Pertaining to a Dream, by Danny Boy

Has it ever happened that when you looked into a mirror you simply were not you? Not as if you were cloaked in costume - disguised - or otherwise unable to recognize yourself for seeming older, younger, disfigured or abstractly recombined, but as if somewhere in the space between yourself and your reflected image you became disassociated and aware of a dissonance. The person staring back at you does not reproduce your movements like a twin copycat. His movements do not knowingly match your own. Instead, they are sickeningly changeling-esque. The expressions you feel the muscles in your face make are not reflected in the portal; your excitement does not register properly, your smile is perverted. You are either masked or unmasked, but which is impossible to tell.

Our Time, by Danny Boy

You may call the title of this post cheesy and I agree with you, it is. Or you may choose to label it corny, and by golly, I concur. But don't you dare call it cheesecorny, because, well, frankly that just sounds downright nasty. Like something you get at a carnival tent from an impish vendor whose presenting hand is disconcertingly small and discolored.

But you'll have to excuse the sloppy sentimentalism because the truth is that I'm finally genuinely excited about something. As President-Elect Obama (actually that sounds like total shit - let's just agree to call him President Obama from now on) trumpeted last night, his election represents the triumph of hope over fear, of democracy over tyranny, the coming of change instead of the faltering of grinding gears.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. As the old adage goes, Easier Said Than Done, and President Obama is and always will be a marvelous speaker whose sonorous and oh-so-pleasing-to-the-ear oration can transport many, but can also at times carry little in the way of substance. He has talked the presidential talk, and now he must walk the presidential walk. And while I have no doubt that the Obama administration will be an instant and remarkable improvement on The-Administration-That-Must-Not-Be-Named, the political pragmatist (read as: pessimist) within demands that I consider the challenge of surmounting such extraordinary hype. Indeed, only so much is possible. In his own words, we are confronted with "two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century," and that's merely naming the obvious. As I said before, I have no doubts about his sense, strength, or skill, but (and I apologize if this bursts anyone's bubble; the last thing I want to be is a bubbleburster) in all probability, Barack Obama is no seraph divinely sent from beside the lord's celestial throne to restore American values and standing, although that is the Herculean task with which we've charged him.

This all being said, I told you that I was excited, and so far, admittedly, my tone has been rather grounded. Allow me to continue and it is my hope that you will follow the direction I'm headed.

I've voted in the only two elections for which I've been eligible. By most people's definition, and indeed according to my own (please indulge me, or else I'll be inclined to punch off your nose), I am a young man. As such, I am a member of the generation that is poised to take over, to assume the hefty and Atlas-like responsibility of holding up the world. For better or worse, each generation inherits the mantle, and each relies not only on its own unique creativity and talents, but on the experiences and history from which said creativity and talents are derived, to carry the weight.

In the nascent and crucial stages of our own worldly awareness and reckoning, we've forcibly grown accustomed to an abominable aberration. They may be the current status quo, but I contend that The Bush Years are not the norm, much as they may seem to us. Simply by the accident or providence of timing, our views and thoughts have been sculpted by the frustrating and stifling environment in which our consciences developed. There are many of us, I believe (myself included), browsing for an excuse for our indolence and apathy, and I think we need look no further. Our generation, the I-generation, as I would call it (for what may perhaps be obvious reasons, but I will save that lecture for another time), has often, it seemed to me, been characterized by the unique jadedness and insouciance that are the product of an age of instantaneous information and shameful, alienating politics.

But with the election of President Obama and the dissemination of his message (even if it be somewhat trite or a bit contrived) I, for one, believe I've experienced a moment of awakening. It was one of those internally exciting moments - like the first sprout of hair on your chin or being confused for your father on the phone - when you realize that you are on the inexorable path to manhood. Just as those constitute signs, I believe this was the summoning. And while the "Yes We Can" cliche would be off the charts in Disney Points were such a thing to exist, President Obama has authentically galvanized us, and his moment is ours.

It would take a cynic (and one with a predilection for breaking hearts, at that) to suggest the possibility that last night might have been the high point of the President Obama era. That after so much time spent campaigning and so much money and hope raised, the Obama movement has reached its apex and will abide by the Newtownian, tried-and-true rule - what goes up, must come down. That President Obama will merely be ordinary. That despite all his talent and promise, he will ultimately disappoint. And if we chose him, and he represents us, what does that suggest about us? Was our hope misplaced? Will we disappoint as well?

Personally, I don't believe such cynicism. But even if it were true, if it were the case that last night's coronation will be our most glorious moment for the next 4 or 8 years, if all that Barack Obama has accomplished has been to spark a glimmering flare of possibility and shepherd in a new generation - our generation - isn't that more than enough? The fulfillment of his promise - the prospect of change - is up to us, just like it always has been.