XXXII

A little over a year ago I found myself at Cordova Mall, looking to fill a void.  I ended up in Urban Vibes, a shoe store that would find itself out of business within the coming year.  As soon as I rounded the corner into the store, a pair of purple lizard Baby Phat ankle boots caught my eye and melted my heart.
I stood there looking at the $170 price tag (you're paying for the name at that point), when out of nowhere a grizzly bear of a black man walked up behind me and bellowed out "Hey there, white woman."  Noticing that I was the only white woman in the store, I turned around and greeted him with bright eyes and the biggest closed-mouth smile.  He started to mumble something but then turned around and walked out of the store. 
Not three minutes later, as I was trying on my purple BabyPhats, the same man returned.  He meandered over to a lady with ham hocks for thighs.  She was looking at some yellow heels.  I heard him slowly say to her, under his breath, "Girl.....my dick hard.  What's it gonna take for you to come home with me?"  She didn't look at him, but promptly retorted with "You buy me dees shoes..."  a few seconds passed and he said "oh-kay."
Sadly enough, I didn't get the boots.

XXXI

Telegram to Hip Hop: 

Dear Hip Hop (stop) This shit has gone too far (stop) Please see that mixer and turntables are returned to Kool Herc (stop) The ghettos are dancing off beat (stop) The master of ceremonies have forgotten that they were once slaves and have neglected the occasion of this ceremony (stop) Perhaps we should not have encouraged them to use cordless microphones, for they have walked too far from the source and are emitting a lesser frequency (stop) Please inform all interested parties that cash nor murder have been added to the list of elements (stop) We are discontinuing our current line of braggadocio, in light of the current trend in "realness" (stop) As an alternative, we will be confiscating weed supplies and replacing them with magic mushrooms, in hopes of helping niggas see beyond their reality (stop) Give my regards to Brooklyn.

-Saul Williams, Telegram

XXX

Brief Illustrated History of Mankind

XXIX

Can you buy Ché Guevara shirts in Wal-Mart yet? I really hope so.
His face is the corporate logo by which university students identify like-minded non-thinkers/non-readers.
Whenever I see a Ché shirt hanging in the mall or on some hipster's person, it's like seeing "All The News That's Fit To Print" in the New York Times- I use it as a gauge to make sure I am still alive. Just who the fuck are these pompous bastards fooling? Does this still annoy me? It does? Good. I am still alive.
Say what you will about the mentality of the person who not only seeks out things to be annoyed by, but finds comfort in his annoyance. I attribute the Ché Guevara t-shirt and the New York Times slogan to adding years to my life.

XXVIII

Your mind cannot create a facial image from scratch. Any face you imagine or dream up is a direct withdrawal from the ol' memory bank. The faces you see in dreams are those of strangers you've seen in real life (whether you noticed them or not) throughout your life.

XXVII

The Hollow Earth theory has been supported by a not-so-surprising range of groups: from UFO theorists to neo-Nazi groups and conservative Christians, many tinfoilists have worked it into their ideologies. It might have started with Frederick Culmer and his 1886 pamphlet The Inner World, which presented the theory in its definitive form and attempted to prop it up with a few shaky scientific buttresses. You can find the pamphlet in its entirety here. The work is rather long and wordy, and to be honest, I only read about two thirds. An excerpt gives it all in a nutshell:

"The earth is a rotating crust of uneven surface, open at the North and South, through which openings our sun shines by direct and refracted rays beyond their interior equatorial line and the light and heat thereof supplies the interior, the diurnal rotation causing every part to receive in its turn, the genial warmth and light. Thus they have their days and nights, their seed time and harvest, their summer and winter; and they have their sky overhead with its clouds, rain, waterspouts, thunder and lightning. The diameter of the interior is so great that the opposite side cannot be seen, being six thousand miles distant at the equator; our moon sheds her light likewise on them, and the Polar Star is always theirs. The thickness of the earth's crust is one thousand miles, making the diameter at their equator six thousand miles, and diminishing it to one thousand at either pole."

I have faith man's future.

XXVI

"Where did you get that hammer?" I asked as I glanced over at the Scarecrow riding in the passenger seat of my '58 Catalina, complete with power steering and mascot Rat Fink perched atop the dash. Scarecrow was, at that moment, sitting with a half-gallon jug of bottom-shelf gin between his legs. After carefully slicing a lime in quarters, he was using a hammer to jam the wedges into the bottle of sustenance. The lime was a critical element.
We may have been cruising around at midnight on our way to another tavern, after being asked in a less than nice tone to vacant the previous one, in a blemished old Pontiac, taking swigs of a half-gallon vat of rot-gut gin, but we weren't Troglodytes.
Scarecrow did not respond, needing pure concentration to guide his remaining motor skills to finish the task at hand.
"Where the fuck are we going?" A pointless and purely rhetorical question, we both knew that. Sure, I probably should have turned the headlights on, but let's be honest, they wouldn't have helped me see the road any better. We were using the force as we had become accustomed. Just point me at the sky and we would get there. Our destination point was decided upon arrival. Any other way would be Fascist.
Three spikes and four destroyed cassette tapes later, we were there, much to the chagrin of the homeowner whose pool we were in. At last Scarecrow spoke up, "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke!" Then he promptly keeled over and passed out into the pittosporums. I went inside to search for more gin and some horseradish. The cops didn't get the joke either.

XXV

As most of you probably know, I recently had the privilege of touring the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in the Tallanasty. This field trip was the highlight of being in the Engineering Club. For four weeks I counted down the days to seeing the 45Tesla magnet in all its glory and power. When the tour finally came around, our guide showed us each magnet over 20T they had, saving the mother of all magnets for last. After waiting 4 weeks, riding in a van for 3 hours, and walking around the lab for 2, we got to the wing of the lab where they keep the 45T monster. We walked down the hall, rounded the corner, and were greeted by this


That's right. 45 Teslas of disappointment. "Researchers are using the Magnet, so we can't let you go see it..."

It seemed fishy that they would just happen to be using the magnet when we were there to see it, and that they would just happen to have stuck it behind the corner, when all their other magnets were in plain view. How do I know the magnet even exists?

The level of disappointing coincidences in my recent life has been uncanny, if anything. This is especially true when it comes to things standing in the way of earning this engineering degree. If something can stand in my way, it will; it doesn't have to, in fact it'd be more convenient on its part to not stand in my way, but it goes ahead and takes advantage of the opportunity . The rate at which such obstacles have been happening has been slowly, but surely, turning me into a solipsist. So until further notice, only I exist.

XXIV

Thank God for the La Place Transform!

XXIII

I was five when I saw my first sunrise. During the winter months, my mom and grandfather would get up at the ass crack of dawn every Tuesday morning for breakfast at The Coffee Cup. I went with them a few times, but only for the amusement of knowing I'd be up before the sun was. Once seated, I'd sit and stare in amazement at the waitresses weaving through a maze of white collar workers, tables, and chairs, with eight or ten bowls of grits all up and down either arm. I knew what I wanted to do with my life!

As we were heading out of the restaurant one morning, an old woman stopped me, told me I was pretty, and asked me to smile big for her. Always obey your elders. Yes ma'am, and I smiled big. She plopped her dentures into her hands and smiled back. I didn't know how to react, so I laughed. As soon as that happened, she garbled to me, sans dents, that I shouldn't laugh at other peoples' losses, and that I'd be lucky to live long enough to see my teeth fall out.

Today, a blind man asked me if I had two hands. I had to look at both hands before I could give him a sure answer.

XXII

The first time I ever BS'ed an assignment was in first grade. Since it was Friday, it was show-and-tell day. Show-and-tell was invented by The Man to ingrain into the soft minds of American children that consumerism relieves the pangs of being a human. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition! Seeing as how I caught onto this at age six, show-and-tell was never anything I got hyped up over.

Inevitably, I forgot to bring something to class one week. Thanks to my mother's unwavering will to pump me full of potassium, I had a banana in my lunch box. The poor thing had been suffocating in the PVC entrapment for 4 hours and as a result it was all spotted. When it was my turn, I held up my spotty banana in front of the whole class and declared, "I know this is just a banana, but I brought this to show everyone today, because I call this a dalmatian banana."

"How clever!" my teacher exclaimed.

XXI

I'm sitting in Starbucks. Two tables down a man in his mid thirties is reading The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats. He's not really reading. He's been on same page for the past 20 minutes, and keeps glancing up. Yes, that's right. Our friend is sitting at Starbucks, pretending to read, in a desperate attempt to attract women.

Back in the day when a man wanted a woman's attention, he would spill a drink on her at a show, hook her up with drugs at a rave, or make sure she had beer at all times at a kegger. If he was really committed, he would break into her house and climb into bed with her parents.

I do not agree with this new mating ritual at all. It's sad and boring.

XX

You scream, I scream, we all scream for ice-cream!

XIX

Forty years ago, cogs rain on Brooklyn...

I've just spent the last thirty minutes staring at a picture that was taken exactly a year ago today.

There's a party. I'm on a couch with someone, and another person is sitting across from us. I remember we were talking about art and belly dancing, right before the picture was taken. I had known the person on the couch for about a week, and the person sitting across from me for about fifteen minutes.

An hour ago, the person I was sitting next to on the couch told me that he's going to take the person sitting across from me out on a date this weekend. When their date rolls around, it'll have been exactly one year since I went on the first date with the person sitting on the couch.

...well, I thought it was kind of eerie.



I'm sitting here looking at this picture, thinking of everything that's happened since it was taken. All the people, all the places, the ups, the downs, the disorienting hurdles that jerk your neck back, causing whip lash. And then I think of things that have happened outside of my life-with-blinders. All the politics, the wars, the epidemics, the menial-yet-still-important scientific discoveries... I couldn't even begin to count.

Every year we all end up saying something to the effect of "this year went by faster than last year." It really does feel like just last weekend I was sitting there, beer in hand, discussing belly dancing with this stranger, turned acquaintance.

I've always been told that the closer we come to Armageddon, the faster time will seem to pass. My theory is that the older we get, the more aware of time's passage we become. It's not that we, as a whole, are getting closer to Armageddon; rather, we, individually, are getting closer to our own eminent demise.

XVIII

The term serial killer is widely believed to have been coined by FBI agent Robert Ressler and Dr. Robert Keppel during the 1970s. Serial killer became a household term largely in part of the wide media coverage of Ted Bundy and David Berkowitz (aka "Son of Sam") during the mid '70s. The term allows criminologists to distinguish between those who kill several people over a long period of time, and those who kill several people during a single event.

Something has been irking me, lately. You people tend to pin the honorary title on just anyone who takes out more than one person. With that being said, let's take a look at some definitions, and set ourselves straight.

A serial killer is someone who commits three or more murders over an extended period of time, with cooling-off periods in between. In between their crimes, they appear to be quite normal, a state which is often called "the mask of sanity" in the psychological field.

A mass murderer, on the other hand, is someone who kills four or more people in a single event and at one location. The perpetrators sometime commit suicide shortly after their killings, meaning knowledge of their state of mind and what triggers their actions is often left to speculation, rather than fact. Mass murderers who are caught sometimes claim they cannot clearly remember the event.

A spree killer commits multiple murders in different locations over a period of time that may vary from a few hours to several days. Unlike serial killers, however, they do not revert to normal behavior in between slayings.

The US Bureau of Justice Statistics defines a serial killing as "involving the kililng of several victims in three or more seperate events." This definition is especially close to that of a spree killer, and perhaps the only thing seperating the two is the cooling-off period in between crimes. For example, Jeffery Dahmer commited his second murder nine years after his first, but his last eight victims were killed in a span of just seven months. Spree killers, on the other hand, do not have this cooling-off period, and are in a state of constant hunting until they are caught or killed.

All of the above types of crimes are generally carried out by solitary individuals. Of course, there have been instances in all three categories in which two or more perpetrators have acted together. There are other types of multiple killings as well, although they often involve larger organizations, i.e. genocide, terrorist attacks, etc.

The more you know...

XVII

Since 4th grade, I've always fallen into the hands of teachers that force students to chose either history or science fair. When given the choice, I've always done science fair. The only time I've done history fair was when I was forced into it- those years being 5th, 7th and 8th grade.

In 5th grade, the theme was "GREAT inventions."

I paired up with Amber Evans, who would later write me a note using different colored gel pens telling me that I was too strange of a person to be her friend. Amber was a missionary's daughter, who had lived all but that one year of her life in Africa. In retrospect, I should have seen said note coming from a mile away.

We ended up doing the fair project on the great invention that is air conditioning.

When we went to be judged, all three judges told us that our project seemed to be too science-oriented. Next time, include a time line.

Thus said, we won nothing.


7th grade rolled around and I did my project on several failed attempts up Mt. Everest, why they failed, and why the first successful attempt to the summit was, in fact, successful.

I made a really nifty board, which included little mountain climbers scaling the side, each with a tag....that was the most badass time line ever.

Both judges told me I did too much focusing on failed attempts and should have honed in on the first successful venture. Next time, work on specifics.

I won nothing.


The following year, after deciding that History Fair was a waste of my time and energy, I spent a grand total of 4 hours slapping pictures of Pearl Harbor to an old refrigerator box. When I got to school the next morning, I found out that 40 other students chose the same topic. The judges grouped all of the Pearl Harbor boards together in the far corner of the gym. Next time, come up with something original.

We Pearl Harbor kids won nothing.


Science fair was easier to win because virtually no one wanted to participate. I won first place twice, and second place every other year I participated. Save 5th grade, when I was disqualified for having samples of mold. Apparently mold is hazardous to children with Asthma. God damned Asthma kids, always cramping my style and ruining it for the rest of us. I say population control.

XVI

As a child, my parents always told me never to trust strangers, no matter how nice they seem. The prime example that was generally given was that of John Wayne Gacy. For those of you too caught up in MTV's hit new show Bromance, I'll quickly fill you in:

John Wayne Gacy (b. 1942) was a Polish High School Dropout with an alcoholic father who beat up on him and called him gay.

Like all good Poles, he hurriedly married the daughter of a KFC franchise owner. Through the marriage, John was promoted to manager in no time. There is no doubt that the marriage was arranged. "Father knows best" isn't just a saying, it's the truth. John's father was the first to realize his son was queerer than a $3 bill. Teachers and classmates recall John's affinity for contact sports, i.e. wrestling. It was no secret in the neighborhood that John's favorite part of the football game was the lockerroom interviews.

The Gacys settled in Waterloo, Iowa and had a son and a daughter. Gacy worked hard at his KFC franchise but still found time to kick back and party with the Jaycees. Despite his Polish heritage, John enjoyed the finer aspects of life (prostitution, porn, and hard drugs). To nobody's surprise, John grew tired of his role as a father and a husband and opened a boys' club in the basement of his home, where he provided them with booze in return for everything a Polish KFC manager could ever need.

Soon thereafter, two Waterloo boys, aged 16 and 15, accused him of sexually assaulting them. In retalliation, John hired some punks to beat up on the accusers, but was quickly snitched on, found guilty of sodomy, and sentanced to 10 years in prison. His wife divorced him, his father died on Christmas day, and he never saw his children again.

After being released from prison, John moved in with his mother and got a job as a chef in a Chicago restaurant. With the help of his mother, he bought a house with a four-foot deep crawl space under the floor. John remarried and had two daughters. Within the next several years, John was arrested a number of times for making sexual advances to children and teens, was divorced, and had become a political activist for the local Democratic Party, volunteering to clean the party offices.

With the bitches out of his life, John eventually earned the title of precinct captain and had the honor of having his photo taken with First Lady Carter, who was in town for the annual Polish Constitution Day Parade that Gacy was directing for the third year in a row. Carter posed for pictures with Gacy and autographed his photo. In the picture, Gacy is wearing an "S" pin, indicating a person who has received special clearance by the United States Secret Service. During the search of Gacy's house after his arrest, this photo caused a major embarrassment to the Secret Service.

As if he weren't weird enough, Gacy started dressing up as a clown, using childrens' parties and block parties as an excuse to act out on his alter ego.

From summer 1975 till January 1977, several of Gacy's employees and aquaintances mysteriously disappeared. Dear reader, I hope it isn't too hard to guess that he was raping and killing the men (in no particular order), then stuffing their bloated decomposing bodies under the floorboards.

The kidnappings and rapeings and killings went on for a couple of years. Gacy's victims were all male, ranging from 14-21 in age. Gacy grew tired of stuffing hacked up bodies under the floorboard so he did what any sensible Pole would do- he hired a teenage boy to do the job for him. Eventually, said handyman waltzed into work one evening to find his employer dressed in his clown suit, drunk off his ass, and with a set of handcuffs. Somehow, Gacy was able to convience his employee to get into the handcuffs. Unfortunately, the genepool wasn't cleansed that night, as the teenager managed to find the key and escape.

On December 21, 1978, one of Gacy's employees told police that Gacy was bragging about killing 30 people. Shortly thereafter, Gacy was convienently arrested for marijuana possession. Police took out a second warrant, went back to his house, and easily found the decomposing bodies in the crawlspace.

After being informed that he would now face murder charges, Gacy confessed to some 25-30 murders, telling investigators that most were buried in the crawlspace and on his property, and that he threw the last five bodies, after the crawlspace was full, off the I-55 bridge and into a river.

Gacy spent 14 years on death row before being lethally injected. During that time, he took up a hobby and painted his days away. Many of his paintings were signed by athletes, celebrities, and political figures such as Richard Nixon, the sold to charity. Usually, the famous signers were not informed that they were signing "Serial Killer Art."

His last meal consisted of KFC, strawberries, and deep fried shrimp.
His last words were "kiss my ass."


...But all of that is beside the point.
John Wayne Gacy's artwork sucks.




















SERIOUSLY.

XV

I spent $4 on triops.
The packet contained about 30 eggs.
I did everything right, including buying fancy spring water, working like Sisyphus to maintain the water temperature at 80F, and making sure that everything was done according to instruction booklet.
Only two hatched.