Bad Poetry: Election

 

Election

Why the fuck

Do we have to go through

This shit again?

America once again has a choice

That shouldn’t be a choice at all.

On one side

With have stupidity,

Venality,

Conspiracy,

And sloth.

On the other,

We have someone

Who can speak in complete sentences

And who is promising

To continue democracy.

For nearly a decade,

I have wasted

Mental energy

Contemplating how someone

Could vote for a two-bit grifter

Who wears make up

And speaks in a vernacular

That you’d have to be an idiot

To understand.

Why is it close?

Are we as dumb

As we appear to be?

I fucking hope not.

Please, come November,

Let us have a small redemption

And vanquish the sins

Of a country.

Writer's Block: Mercy, the Waiter, and the Rabbit

 

I've written close to 8,000 words in my novel about a washed up rock star named Mercy Maddock. My method is to write at least 250 words every morning. I remember reading something where Stephen King said that if you can't sit down and write at least five pages, you'll never be a writer. Steve, I ain't got time for that! This little excerpt is about the devil that Mercy frequently hallucinates.

...

It’s 2009, and Mercy Maddock sits outside in a courtyard at the Fig Leaf, an upscale restaurant in downtown Chicago. A half a bottle of Maker’s Mark stands in the middle of the table, its bronze contents shimmering in the midday sun. He’s wearing sunglasses, and a cigarette dangles from the edge of his mouth, his cowbody hat tilted downward, as though he’s taking a siesta. The woman across from him looks like Debbie Harris in a red dress, but she’s not. Mercy mumbles something suddenly, some incantation, perhaps a half-remembered lyric, his lips parting just enough for the cigarette to fall down his barely buttoned dress shirt. Motherfucker he screams, in a voice heavy with ruin. The outburst jolts the woman awake, and her doll-like face contorts into pure contempt. You’ve fallen asleep she says while Mercy halfheartedly pats himself down, trying in vain to remove the burning cigarette. Why am I even here? He finally manages to find the cigarette, but his sunglasses have fallen to the table and his eyes, which are bloodshot and heavily bagged, are visible. He stares at the woman in confusion. What was her name? Debra? Mebra? Is Mebra even a name?

“Where in the hell is the waiter?” she complains. “I need a margarita.”

What is French for waiter? Garcon? Serveur?

“Waiter-man!” he bellows, head thrown back.

The waiter is a man with a thin mustache and sallow completion. Rather than an air of servility, he conjures a mood of everlasting sullenness, as though every request compromises the integrity of his soul. He gives the couple a look of utter loathing, then asks whether he can do anything for them.

“Margarita,” says the woman, barely looking at him.

“I need an aspirin, a pot of coffee, and sure, a margarita,” says Mercy.

“Sir, aspirin is not on the menu,” says the waiter.

“The other stuff, then,” replies Mercy.

The waiter does not move immediately; instead, he gives them one more long stare before slowly turning around.

“What the fuck is that guy’s problem?” asks Mercy.

“Who cares,” says the woman. “As long as he brings us our drinks.”

Neither of them notices, but the waiter pauses and turns his right ear. He lives alone in a crummy apartment littered with half-consumed cans of diet coke. His bedroom is covered in stamps, and the whole place inexplicably smells of neoprene. No one besides himself has ever entered his apartment in the past five years, and this fact bores a holes so deep into his soul that he has fallen into said crevice, and it is unlikely he will ever be able to climb his way out. He prepares the margaritas himself, going light on the tequila, almost entirely omitting the triple sec, and overdoing the lime juice with a bottle of nearly rancid liquid. The olives that he selects are slimy things the color of rotting turtle flesh.

“Your drinks,” he says, moments later.

The margaritas resemble defiled offerings. Mercy, even in his highly-inebriated state, recognizes this.

“Mate, what the fuck is this?”

Mercy picks up a glass and twirls its contents, sloshing margarita all over the table. He takes a sniff and wrinkles his nose.

“My teetotaler mum could do a better job than whatever the fuck this is.”

The waiter replies with a reptilian stare. Mercy doesn’t look at him. He thrusts the glass in his direction.

“Take it back, garcon. Bring us something drinkable, for chrissakes.”

“Let’s just leave,” says the woman.

“No!”

Mercy slams his hand down on the table, spilling the other margarita.

“It’ll take fifteen to twenty minutes at least to go somewhere else and get a proper drink, and I’m not leaving until the man brings us something we can imbibe without immediately vomiting. I have given him a personal quest. This is now his life’s work. The question is: can he do it? I don’t know, honestly. I have my sincerest doubts. I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you a Benjamin Franklin if you bring me a drinkable margarita. It doesn’t even have to be good. Just drinkable. Do you think you can do that, mate?”

The waiter’s eyes have a sort of heat behind them, a smoldering fire that threatens to erupt from his sockets. He turns without a word and leaves. His customers are, from the viewpoint of a sad little man, everything that’s wrong with the world. They are the embodiment of the forces that depress him, that prevent his having meaningful human contact. They are evil, vile, morally deficient. The woman is a whore; the man a Lothario. The values of his youth are gone and replaced by vulgarity and consumerism. He doesn’t recognize the modern world, and he has no way of interpreting it. He will present them with poison, and they will drink it with great vigor, and then he will take their money and light it on fire before them, a futile gesture, perhaps, but one that he must do in order to feel like he is a force and not an interloper.

In the kitchen he grabs as many bottles as he can find. Some of them are full of alcohol; others are full of cleaning supplies. He pours it all together in a big bowl along with a generous quantity of the triple sec that he had originally omitted. The various liquids mix like water and motor oil—there is an iridescent sheen to the thick skin sitting on top—but he pours the concoction into a cocktail shaker and gives it a merry shake. In the margarita glasses it festers like a poison. They can choke on this and die he thinks.

When he returns, the margaritas are presented with a little flourish, as though the cocktails are the result of honest labor and expertise rather than a misguided attempt to demean two insufferable customers. The woman doesn’t even look at it—she has enough sense not to even engage the waiter at this point. Mercy’s sunglasses are back on his face but resting just on the tip of his nose, and his eyes roll upward to stare at the waiter with extreme skepticism.

“The thing about waiters, mate, is that they’re not supposed to get offended. You suffer a little abuse, and in exchange you get a nice tip. Do I look like the type to stiff you? Have I ever stiffed a waiter?”

“I don’t care,” says the woman.

“It was more a rhetorical question,” says Mercy. “I’m gonna be honest with you, mate. This doesn’t look like a drink. It looks like a glass of bullshit. So that makes this the second glass of bullshit you’ve served me today. What am I to do, eh? I’ve made a solemn vow to not leave this establishment until I get a proper drink, but you don’t want to play along. Who is at fault here? Have you not violated the sacred code of the waiter? There is no honest desire to serve the customer. The customer is an object of contempt and ridicule. That’s fine, mate—go back and joke with the boys at my expense—but serve me with a smile on your face, or at least an expression of professional neutrality. You aren’t playing the game, mate, and while as a rock star I respect that, as a customer I am incensed. So what is the proper reaction?”

What is the proper reaction to a life of endless petty humiliation? The waiter says nothing. He has nothing to say.

Mercy is about to get up and kick the table over in an act of adolescent rebellion—adolescent in spirit if not actuality for a man pushing thirty—when he sees him cavorting down the courtyard. Six feet tall, with ears dangling, his cheap fur costume a mottled shade of pink. He smiles as he approaches, revealing large brown teeth stained from years of cigarette smoke. It’s the eyes that really get Mercy—they’re the brightest blue he’s ever seen, and all the mirth they hold has a meanness to it, as though he can only laugh at you, you stupid motherfucker. The man in the bunny suit stands right behind the waiter and leans his head on his left shoulder and grits his teeth. Suddenly a rancid carrot appears, dangling in between those grimy chompers, and Mercy feels his libido draining away along with all of his zest for life. He hasn’t seen this bastard since the Summer Fest ‘02 when the crowd parted like the Red Sea and the pink rabbit waltzed toward the stage, resulting in his forgetting of the lyrics and subsequent stage fright. Mercy doesn’t know what he is—a demon, Satan, a harbinger of doom—but the fact that he has appeared now to perch on the shoulder of this rebellious waiter can only mean that disaster is coming, and he won’t be able to stop it.

“Fuckin’ blimey,” whispers Mercy. “I see it. Do you see it?”

“Just get us the check, please,” says the woman.

Mercy grabs his large cellular phone and pulls his arm backward. He feels that throwing the phone at the bunny would be like pelting a lion with a pebble, but he has always been a believer in action over impotency, and he feels strongly that demons must be cast out rather than fled from, lest they realize that they have the upper hand.

“Do it,” says the rabbit. “You’ve always been a pussy shit fuck. I know singers with more talent at the local bordello. Your mother’s got the highest pitched voice I’ve ever heard.”

The rabbit has a five o’clock shadow that appears impenetrable. There are cigarette burn marks on his pink suit.

Meanwhile, the waiter has realized that this situation has gone amiss. There is fear now in Mercy’s eyes, an emotion that seems inappropriate, and he’s holding a cellular phone like a bludgeon. He takes a step back, but there’s something behind him, some heavy, dark force, and it pushes him forward, causing him to stumble into the table, upsetting the margaritas and spilling their contents all over the dress of the woman. Mercy screams—a yell of primal horror—and all of a sudden the waiter sees stars dancing in the sky as he lies prostrate on the concrete, blood trickling from his forehead. Why is he here? Why do we do the things that we do? Is there any sense in it all? He finds no answers as he loses consciousness.

New Music: Time

 

I've had the chord progression for Time for ages. E to F#minor; C#minor to G#minor; G#m to Gm to F# minor; then A to B to resolve on the E for the verse.For the chorus, I'm moving a second inversion triad (the E major figure on guitar) from G to F# to A to E while the top E and B strings drone on. To finish the progression, I walk the G figure down chromatically to an F/G before resolving. Not super complex, but maybe a little more sophisticated than your typical rock song. As for the time signature, I believe it is in 11/8, or 5.5/4. It's a Bo Diddly beat, or something like it, but to program it into a drum machine, I had to utilize 22 bars, which would break down to 11/8. For the arrangement, I leaned into the clean tones of my stratocaster, which is just the perfect rhythm guitar, especially when set to the neck and middle pickup. The bass line is a little busy, but with guitar and bass panned to the right and left channels, they compliment each other nicely. This was a fun song to work on, and I think it sounds pretty sick.

Writer's Block: The Resurrection

 

The book is about a rock band, not Jesus, heh.

I started a new project, a book called The Resurrection about a middle-aged rock star trying to get his group back together. It's going pretty well as far as my projects go. The challenge is always trying to find enough time and motivation to write. Here's a little preview of the very first chapter (a sermon, really).

...

Sermon Numero Uno

I’m gonna let you in on a little secret, luv: every rock ‘n’ rolla sells out.

The Stones. Sold out. DC-wee-see. Sold out big time. The Stripes. You hear their music in car commercials.

But what the great ones have, luv, is a certain factor. A coolness. A winking eye that says “I’m above it all, friend. I might’ve shat in the corner and got a lump of coke stuck in me left nostril, but I’m a cynical sage for a cynical era. You can trust me. I’m cooler-than-thou.”

They say it, and their powers of persuasion are so immense, that you believe it.

I’ve always been of the opinion that a lie isn’t a falsehood if you really believe in its truth. What did the space wizard say? “It’s true, from a certain point of view.”

But you can’t sell out if you never had anything to sell.

Nobody epitomizes this fact better than the Back. You know the Back. The Paddle Pop Lion wrote about how he likes the trousers of his lady friend around his feet. He doesn’t want to go to San Quentin because it would probably be an unpleasant experience for all parties involved. You know that scene at the end of Blues Brothers where the band is playing “You Ain’t Nothing But a Hound Dog” for all the prisoners? Can you imagine a bunch of lifers listening to the Back? Imagine that you had the misfortune to be born on the wrong side of the tracks, and maybe you had to rob a liquor store because you were all out of boxed wine, and the goddamn flunkie behind the counter wouldn’t take your Euros even though the exchange rate was favorable, so you had to give him a slap or two as befits his station, and all of the sudden the place is surrounded by bobbies, and because you’re drunk you grossly misjudge the situation, and unzip your pants to prove to the entire crowd that yes, you are packing, and so you end up in prison for much longer than you should be, and after months of rubbing shoulders with hardened criminals you are rounded up in the atrium, only to learn that your live entertainment is the fucking Back of all bands? Can you fucking imagine?

It’s not that the Back are especially bad compared to other post-grunge groups. They took the sludgy Seattle sound and pulled a Black Album and shined it up. And I’m not jealous of their success. I’ve done alright for myself, but I’ve not sold 60 million albums. You can’t begrudge them their success.

It’s just they never had it, luv. They never had Jagger’s swing. You never believed that they were on the Highway to Hell. None of them ever studied taxidermy and inserted little notes inside upholstery. Far as I know, the Paddle Pop Lion never dated a transsexual or suffered electroshock therapy for his sexual proclivities.

It was like they were spawned in a Clear Channel laboratory, with their shiny, gelled hair and designer faded jeans. They all looked like put-together frat lads, the sort that you might not initially object to being your daughter’s boyfriend, provided that he prove himself. Sure, he played guitar, but he had nice shoes and no visible tattoos, and he sold cellphones for a major wireless carrier.

There ain’t any danger in that, is there, luv? If the music is perfectly compressed and all the guitars come in on time, and every three minutes somewhere in America someone is hearing the song about the trousers around the feet, then you’re not part of the counterculture, are you now, Mr. Paddle Pop Lion? If you’re the very subject of “In Bloom,” can you be a rock ‘n’ rolla? You’ve mastered the stylistic underpinnings but you’re totally lost on the internal subtleties. It doesn’t matter, though, does it? It didn’t matter for Jovi. For Joel. Or for that bald guy who won American Idol and went by his last name like he was fucking Prince or Cher or something. Not a fan of that guy, luv. We can do better.

So here I am. My band has fallen apart. My personal life is the kind of questionable morass that befuddled biographers while enticing them like the siren’s song. My cultural relevancy has decreased exponentially, to the point where your average lad or lass doesn’t know my name. “Mercy Maddock? Who’s that? Did he have a crime program in the eighties?”

But life is about come backs. Jesus Christ came back from the dead, and now I’m in charge of the Resurrection. I’m on a mission from God, but without all that what-would-Jesus-do crap. I know what Jesus would do. He would get the band back together, and then he would fucking party.

We’re gonna find it because we had it and once had, it can never be truly lost.

Video Game Review: Black Myth: Wukong

 

Black Myth:Wukong is this year's Jedi Survivor. It's a souls-lite with stunning graphics and compelling exploration that'll challenge you without making you beat your controller against your desk like a pathetic man-baby (not that I've ever done such a thing). You play as the reincarnation of a monkey deity referred to as Wukong the Destined One, who is set on reclaiming his former powers while taking out his anger on yaoguai with his dexterous staff skills as well as magical powers. Supposedly based on Journey to the West, an epic Chinese novel, the story isn't so much a linear tale as a collection of folk fables. At the end of every chapter, you'll be treated to an artful film sequence that has some relation to the monsters you'll meet. My favorite featured a kitsune (a fox yaoguai) who is rescued by a man from a trap. The man has a dream that the fox turns into a beautiful woman who he then marries. Years later he comes home to her transformed, feasting on their children. When he wakes, the man skins the fox to prevent the dream from becoming reality. You'll later stumble upon her pelt, and you can grant her revenge.

Black Myth:Wukong has gameplay that will be familiar to Souls fans. You have a light attack and a heavy attack, and you build up Focus by dodging and hitting enemies. Holding down the heavy attack button charges a heavy attack, which spends Focus points. A heavy attack can stagger enemies, and special moves, triggered by hitting the heavy attack button at the end of a light attack combo, can chew up enemy health. Realizing when to use your Focus points can be the difference in a boss fight, along with your spells. Immobilize is one of the first you get, and it freezes enemies for a few seconds, allowing you to get some damage in or use your healing gourd. Cloud Step makes you invisible while leaving a decoy, so you can sneak behind the enemy and attack. Transformation spells let you transform into certain bosses, complete with a new health bar. Pluck of Many spawns a few copies of yourself to keep foes busy. Potions and various gourds with drinks and soaks allow you to customize your temporary buffs. There is a lot of complexity here, but it's simple enough to be understandable. Also of note are your three staff stances. There's a heavy stance, which launches a typical heavy attack, a pillar stance which lets you sit high above on your staff before swinging it downward, and a thrust stance, which treats your staff like a spear. I prefer the first two, but different play styles will gravitate to different stances.

As far as difficulty is concern, Black Myth: Wukong is a hard game, but on the easier side of the Souls-like spectrum. Think Jedi Survivor on the harder difficulty modes rather than say, Lies of P, which I couldn't complete. The spells, potions, and stances give you a lot of options, and you can always grind levels if you want in order to upgrade your gear, although I only had to resort to that method for the Whiteclad Noble, the first true skill test. If you've played Elden Ring and made it most of the way through, you'll not have too much trouble. If you're expecting something like God of War, you might be in for a rude awakening. One notable difference between Wukong and other Souls-likes is that you don't lose experience points (Will) by dying.

Graphically, Wukong is one of the best-looking titles of this generation, along with Cyberpunk and Alan Wake 2. Utilizing Unreal Engine 5, Wukong features dazzling environments of jungle, snow, and rocky desert. I'm currently making my way through chapter 4 (Wukong has 6 chapters), and the underground spider-filled caverns are startlingly realistic. Only a few low-resolution textures and some overly-shimmering shadows mar the experience. Performance-wise, my Ryzen 7 5800x had no problems, for the game isn't at all CPU-bound like some other more recent titles. My 12 gig RTX 3080 was more than capable of higher settings at 1440p with DLSS Quality upscaling enabled, with frame rates usually in the 60 or 70s, with only a few drops. Unfortunately, there are Unreal Engine transitionary stutters, along with a few shader compilation stutters that the initial compile didn't catch. It's not Jedi Survivor bad, but it's noticeable, especially in Chapter 3. As for ray-tracing, it's only usable on top of the line GPUs and CPUs, so don't bother unless you're rocking a 4090 and a 7800x3d.

All in all, Black Myth:Wukong is a thrilling action RPG with great graphics, gameplay, and exploration. Definitely check it out. I've already put more than 30 hours into it, so it's a fairly long game. Screenshots below:

 

Bad Poetry: Things I Want to Remember about My Kids

 

Things I Want to Remember about My Kids

How Harrison looked at the digging machines;

How curly his baby hair was;

How he would stare at the children playing on the hillside,

Curious and longing.

I want to remember how he flapped his hands when he was excited,

as though trying to fly

And how pleased he was

When he learned how to swim.

I want to remember how Theo

Carried a glass container of paper clips

And collected shells and acorns;

How he wanted to build

A giant mechanical T-Rex

Out of junk.

The sounds he made

While he played with his Lego collection

On the dining room table.

There really is such a thing

As innocence.

Is it cruel

To want them to hold on to it

For as long as possible?

Or am I doing them

A disservice?

I recall my older neighbor Mark

Telling me he missed

A little hand

Reaching into his.

Harrison has big, sweaty paws

But he still

Reaches them into mine

when we walk the streets.

I want Theo

To always be fascinated

With what he finds in the world.

I want Harrison

To discover his place.

Most of all,

I want the child in them

To be there, somewhere

Forever.

Bad Poetry: The Reward

 

The Reward

Is this the reward

for all of those years

of loneliness?

Standing outside

in the night

scrambling after

the poky-little puppy

as I desperately 

plead for her

to take a shit?

Yes,

I suppose it is.

 

Coffee

is the elixir

of life.

 

The Feeling

you get

late at night

when you've spent hours

decompressing

by playing video games

or watching junk tv.

It takes you

right before bed

and you scramble back

to the computer

to type a few words

and make yourself feel better.

It's not

enough.

 

Kids

are a joy

a burden

a shackle

and a gift.

They stress me out

beyond belief

but I wish I was young enough

To have another.   

New Music: You Look Real Fine To Me

 

A vampy rocker with some creepy vibes, a la Queens of The Stone Age, perhaps. Wrote this many ages ago and decided to give it a more polished go than my original attempt. Everything is run through Propellerhead Reason; the guitars were recorded plugged into my USB preamp, and effects were added through the DAW rather than using amps or pedals. I spent more time arranging the drums than I usually do, and I think it paid off. A cool track, if I do say so myself.

Weightlifting: 315 Deadlift for 16

 

I haven't hit any PRs since losing over 15 lbs, but I just managed to hit a one-rep record with 315 lbs for 16 in the deadlift. I'm feeling it today; my traps are so sore I can barely move my neck, and my ass and hamstrings are toast. Still, it's nice to hit a PR again. Middle-age is coming for me, brother, but I'm trying to be prepared.

Going to My Local Kroger Is Like Being in Idiocracy

 

I walk up to the butcher. He's a middle-aged bald guy with a ragged beard. His fingernails are that bruised sort of blue that comes from repeated injury or poor hygiene. He sort of looks like a serial killer. "Can I help yah?" he mutters, and I order my meats. While I'm waiting, an old fucker with considerable jowls (he resembles the Gungan King from The Phantom Menace) meanders up to the counter and asks "Did you watch your girlfriend last night? Cam-al-a?"

"I didn't even bother," says the butcher.

"You know it was a coup, don't yah?"

"It wasn't very democratic, her replacing Biden. That's what gets my goat."

"You know the military's gonna put Trump back in?"

They talk about election conspiracy theories too stupid to comprehend. I take my meat and flee.

The store is full of the elderly and people who seems to be operating at a frequency well-below optimal. Their movements are lugubrious, ponderous. They take the steps of people who do not plan to step much longer. I try to keep my impatience in check, but it is a real struggle not to swerve past every old biddy that stares vacantly down the aisle, blocking my path as her CPU stalls, no longer capable of multi-threaded operations.

In the check out line, I ask for paper bags. The bagger sighs and says "I guess. They always rip."

"Don't overload them," says the cashier.

He overloads the bags to prove his point, and they do rip, as he predicted.

I pay the cashier in fives. She miscounts them three times. In my impatience, I correct her on the third try, and she gives me a dirty look.

"That's how they try to get you. By interrupting your count. I used to work at the casino. I don't care, I just count it as many times as it takes."

"Is that what they do?" I say. She still hasn't counted the money right, but she shoves it in the drawer all the same. I briefly contemplate going on a tirade about how she's caught me red-handed, that I'm trying to quick change her and save five dollars, but I don't, because there's no reason to argue with stupid people, and I'm trying not to be an asshole.

The parking lot is full of pickup trucks so humongous that if they ran you over, they'd never realize it until they pulled up in their driveway and found the splattered giblets of your mortal form. What the fuck am I doing at this place? Isn't there somewhere else to be?

Aldi's? Wal-Mart?

I shudder at the thought. At least no one dropped a deuce in the aisles.

Weightlifting: Observations on Lifting While Lean

 

This is what it feels like sometimes.

After slimming down from about 200 lbs to 185 lbs, I've got a couple months of training under my belt at my new weight. Here's what I've learned:

I've lost a lot of strength--I've went from bench pressing 250 lbs for 8 reps to benching 250 lbs for 2 reps. I've yet to deadlift 405, although I did do 315 for 10 last Friday, so I think that's in the bag. As far as the squat goes, I've been squatting utilizing a high bar beltless style which is the hardest way to back squat, so any prospective strength loss in that lift hasn't really been noticed. I'm still trying to increase my main lifts, but I'm also doing a lot of bodybuilding work, and I've really been paying attention to my squat form, which means using pretty light weights. Just don't expect to lose weight and maintain strength.

I feel a lot better being lighter. I recover better. I move better. I sleep better. This is why I'll probably stay at this weight. The health benefits are undeniable--my blood pressure is in the 110's now. It's also nice seeing my abs, I'll admit.

Maintaining my weight is easier than losing it was. I went on a pretty strict diet for my initial weight loss. Tried to stay away from processed carbs, cut out snacks, hardly drank any alcohol. I've really loosened up on this now. I've been keeping my alcohol consumption closer to 7 drinks a week as opposed to the 4 I aimed for at the start, and I'll enjoy a junk food snack every now and then. I'll still have good days where I'll eat only about three meals or so and not drink, but there are less of those days than there are ones where I indulge. My high activity level probably helps a lot, since I'm in the middle of my harvest season.

Bodybuilding training is more sustainable. Although I did perform that 315 for 10 deadlift set last week (A PR attempt--17 is my record for 315), I've mostly been sticking in the rep range of 8 to 12, with one day for the squat and deadlift where I'll work up to a heavy double or single. Just using a weight and smashing out clean reps in a lift, like say 135 lbs for two sets of 12 in the barbell row, results in hypertrophy without excessive soreness or fatigue. I'm 39 now, not 29. Although recovery has improved since my weight loss, I can't do the marathon heavy training sessions anymore, due to my age and lightness.