Pierwalker Log: June 17, 2019

Writing start: 8:56 A.M.

Finish: 3:05 P.M.

Total new words (est.): 400

Edited (est.): 14400

Tasks

1. Failure: First primary edit of chapter twenty-six

2. Book Three Melody: Off

3. Angel: Book Three: 400 new words
Notes: This chapter is like a race horse wanting to chomp down on the bit. I want to take it slow and easy so I can get the details right.

4. Random Chance Book Two: Off

5. Port Story: Fifth primary edit of chapter two

6. Hidden Bookmarks: Off

7. Rumpel: Second primary edit of chapter four
Notes: This is a really good chapter.

8. Zelena (Secondary Edit Two): Part Two

Special Projects: None today

Extra notes: We've started watching Galavant on Netflix. It's the short-lived musical TV series that ran two seasons on ABC (2015 - 16, I believe).

It's pretty good. I've had some nice laughs so far. I'll let you know what I think as the show progresses.

------

Memo to suburbans: Buying a car won't make you "authentic," or courageous, or hip. It won't make you all "cool" and weirdly mysterious like Matthew McConaughey.

You're not going to drop your new Subaru into four-wheel drive and go tearing up a field somewhere, spewing mud behind your spinning tires while a bull watches enviously from the sidelines. You're not going to take your Forester out on some camping trip, foregoing the regular highways for wild and woolly back roads. You're not going to take your new all-electric Jaguar out at night and race it daringly up and down deserted docks and "roar silently."

Your children aren't going to be happier seeing you pull up in your new Chevy or Ford, regardless of model. They aren't going to be better adjusted, either. Your new Mercedes or BMW isn't going to give meaning to your meaningless suburban existence. Just accept it.

What's genuinely grotesque to me is that these car commercials work. I know they do, because giant car companies audience-test the shit out of them before releasing them. And you miserable fucks just eat it all up. These commercials work. You buy the hype. You buy the bullshit. And in fact, you want more, more, more!

Is it any wonder at all that the world is burning up, that humanity is set to a course of extinction? The ignorance on display vis-a-vis these commercials, the ignorance and unwillingness to rebel against the blatant consumerism pushed, pushed, pushed via them ... it's all pretty goddamned ugly.

Car commercials are pretty much the canary in the coal mine for herd behaviors. You can get a pretty good read on what suburbans are thinking about via them. That's so because a car represents a big financial investment, no matter how cheap the car, and so what you get by way of that investment are the underlying beliefs of those who buy them. Those are brought out by the advertisers, who plum the depths of your soulless lives to find out what you think about yourself and what you want for yourself and how you want to be viewed by others.

It's all pretty goddamn gross, really.

Your new car isn't going to help save the world, asshole. And it's certainly not going to save you, either. And if you manage to get laid because of it, well, how pathetic is the individual who can be turned on by such shallowness? And how pathetic are you that you want someone who can be turned on in such a manner?

Here's to hoping he or she has a scorching case of herpes.

Enjoy your new ride, suburban.

You're still not Matthew McConaughey.

~~*~~

Enjoy Haadiyah's Jazz Mix on Spotfify!

I have listened to this mix many times. It's quite good!

Get into some really great music from:

John Coltrane

Miles Davis Quintet

Claude Thornhill

Glenn Miller

Thelonius Monk

Dizzy Gillespie

& more!

Enjoy!

~~*~~

At the Moment of Surrender

At the Moment of Surrender

~~*~~

Enjoy Selected Poems from Fractalverse: Volume Two!

Download it here, or subscribe
and get access to my entire library!

Note: If you would like to see the associated fractal that goes with each poem,

please do me the honor and buy the book! Thank you!
One more note: the formatting for each poem may be messed up,
depending on your browser and its settings.

~~*~~

A to B,
a sand sea,
a setting sun, a clearing sky,
steel and rubber and white dashes blurring by.

Miles like waves or a mother’s love,
miles like dreams or a pair of gloves,
a sand sea,
A to B.

The sun dies.
Night is its over-painter. The lights above like those here,
racing by, lonesome cries,
a desolate race for the starry fainter,
a vantage point atop a crumbling tomb,
a dusty womb,
a sand sea,
A to B.

❧

A star: my guide.

A mood. A feeling.

“Voice.” That’s what I call it.

“It.” What a blunt word for something that is and isn’t,

that waits for me to gaze into the wide skies of my spirit,

that sometimes hides behind the clouds there,

that sometimes lights, not sounds, a path of fear, or loss, or grief.

Light. Voice. Sound. Shadows. Paths. Skies and clouds.

From where I exist, they appear many times as one.

To see them as they are requires time, and quiet, and solitude.

To spy my guiding star, I must both divide and consolidate;

I must burrow and fill; I must flow and step discreetly.

I have apologized for being who I am far too many times,
and in so doing damned this precious bit of myself.
Others had no lasting or serious care for me;
they had merely destroyed their own Voice long ago,
and now sought that I should do the same to mine.
A day passes. Today. My ship sails on, rightly coursed.

❧

Life without this or that: unacceptable.

This or that,
this and that.
This must be, and then that.
This or that makes you a man.
This and that make you complete.

Deemed a failure because no this and no that.
Left to die.
This or that gets the job.
This and that get the women.
Raise the kids to believe in this or that
above all other things, including their own beings.
Make them feel worthless unless they devote their
lives chasing this or that.
Make them feel inadequate if they don’t
worship this and that.

You want me to tell you what this or that is.
You want me to explain myself.
I won’t.
You already know what they are.
I won’t help you get honest with yourself.
I won’t help you save your dying soul.
Only you can do that.
Only you can do this.

❧

If I should have to spend a lifetime impoverished and isolated,

alone and abandoned,
forgotten and scorned,
made to suffer endless abuse and discouragement,
kicked into the dirt, and beaten there,
bloodied, torn, left to rot,
I would still not walk from this vision, this grace, this time, this place.

I stand on a summit far greater than yours in your multitiered suburban palace.
You have your bricks and precisely cut grass,
and your precisely cut children,
and your perfect trophy wife.
You’ve got your career,
and your skank affair downtown,
and the kickbacks,
and the offshore accounts,
and the timeshare in Vail.

I’ve got this.

Take your so-called life and build that glorious sand castle

before the incoming high tide of your mortality.

I wouldn’t trade what I have for any castle, not once, not ever.

My soul is intact.

Yours will be gone the moment they stuff you in that fine crate.

~~*~~