She-Ra; plus, Masters of the Universe

   
   "She-Ra; plus, Masters of the Universe"
   
   While attending Southern Baptist school in the nearly deep south of Arkansas, I was amazed, or marveled at their constriction of so much truth--even then, knowing, yet not knowing.
   One girl wasn't allowed to watch The Masters of the Universe, because there was only one Master of the Universe--the Multiverse really, but no details here baby.
   We were also forbidden rock and roll, dungeons & dragons; moreover, the uncouth, metaphorical grope of a woman's firm and symmetrical breasts as might suggest the adulterous fabric of country music.
   I still learned.  King James still the most poetic of them all.  But was ashamed for being there, due to the fact that I was Catholic, or as they said with implying insult:  Roman Catholic.
   And their constant weirdness over the Virgin Mother really pissed me off--as if she is nothing but a creepy witch.
   Alas, nope, I hold no grudge--that is a fool's negative eternity.  And there were sublime times, such as when in the 5th grade our teacher read aloud to us the work of C.S. Lewis; specifically, THE MAGICIAN'S NEPHEW, which is actually the first book in the series, or at least as the history and nature of the theological theme goes.
   So, God Bless them.  But God Bless all my Catholic teachers too.  The Nuns with the "I'll kick your skinny ass" guns.  Them tough, no-nonsense sisters of hungry humility.

The metaphysics of abnormality

   
   "The metaphysics of abnormality"
    
   Indiana Jones was no geologist.  University of Chicago and all that hyped shit.  An atheistic gravedigger finding the Holy Grail.  Get schooled.  Find your inner autodidact beyond the classroom, like the twisted yet honest Gore Vidal.  Verily, unlearn what you have learned in the quintessential bullshit of it all.  
   We don't know.  Leading causes of death in the States:  Physician and Nurse Error.  Yup,  That's how it goes.
   What did William Blake, a mere tradesman, say about the Industrial Revolution:  "Satanic slave mills that rob men of their imagination."
   Joyce, the Count, the Virgin--14 years to publication.  T.S. Eliot may not have had to encounter the whimsical whimper; indeed, Lord Bertrand Russell and the secretive affair, driving to make a dandy daisy.  What would Doc Holliday proclaim:  "You're a daisy if you do."
   We don't know the truth; we don't look for it.  It's all pseudo-science and the bizarre beyond, yet so cunning and true--if involved.
   But make that Johnny Football dream--make the millions and forsake your integrity.  That is the soul of man.  Reptilian-washed by invaders and the promotion of a Pineal Gland disturbed.
   This is life, and if Rose Quartz assists in the meekest of terms; then, LET IT BE!
   Crystals, communication--the ancients knew this.  Slave labor and copper chisels to forge the pyramids, right.  And a simplistic Hebrew anointed by Law and severe truth--is it too much?  Is it too much for you?  The mercy, the love, or Noah's release of the platinum dove?    

14 years of sublimity

   
   "14 years of sublimity"
   
   James Joyce, the 20th Century's most brilliant bard, fancied himself as a type of Count of Monte Cristo; specifically, an Irish slave to the imagination, hitting the English Queen's Language hard in the sanctimonious gut with his epic brilliance and admittance of his own corporeal truth through the wandering Jew, Leopold Bloom.
   Anyway, he would not kneel down and pray for his sick mother; nevertheless, Catholicism was always on the tip of his stream of consciousness quill, dipped truly, in the Blood of Christ.
   And was not the Virgin Herself mystically enchanted before Her Inviolate Ovaries were touched by the supernatural around Her 14th year?  Forged beforehand in the Book of Genesis, whether the mystical scribe was Moses or Ezra--who cares.  She steps on the adder's venomous bite; next, put in a holy sanctuary by Her parents due to revealing angelity and those scratches on the Godsmack that melts the cold hearts of men into marching Christian Soldiers, armed with benevolence and tamed by the Holy Spirit Herself.     
   What the French should call It:  La Saint-Esprit; indeed, Saint Jerome and his Latin tongue to camouflage dancing woman might have been a bit hasty.  But hell, he campaigned for the celibacy of the Priest, ascetically probing:  "Are these men afraid of sleeping in their beds alone at night?"
   And there is no hatred of femininity in Catholicism; moreover, the reverse.  They honor the Virgin with dignity.  They know She formed the fabric of Christ's Genetic Material in Her Sacred Womb; indeed, She is the egg-giver.  That was Her Blood and Tissue upon the cross at Calvary as well.  Yet possibly, only a celibate man, one who mimics Christ can obtain for the masses the divine art of the Transubstantiation.  
   Again, I will quote Jack Burton himself, the truck driver wisely knowing:  "Never can tell."  Save for the knocking mystic, that is.  

Guns N' Roses - 14 Years - Indiana '91

A Star-Spangled Heist

   
   "A Star-Spangled Heist"
   
   When you foolishly, or by extreme circumstance, get invovled and fall in with rednecks--you never know.   These folks I hung with during adolescence weren't complete hoods, mostly; regardless, there was this one Nordic kid.  Glimmering blue eyes with a prankster personality.
   Look, I was just the driver--if this happened.  And possibly, or possibly not.  Anyway, an XR 200 was involved.  A small level of cc's you think; on the contrary, that thing ran like a scalded dog.  Had plenty of low-end torque, a force that manipulates and causes rotation; plus, with dirt tires, you could lose any cop going off road or through someone's suburban backyard.
   So, this Nordic kid comes to me--we're about 16.  He says there's an American flag up the street, about a mile away upon the asphalt ballet that ran through the suburban-like vibe of it all with a country golf course and that kinda cosmopolitan shit.  Says he wants me to drive the motorcycle; next, he'll hop off and grab the flag, jump on back, and we'll speed away with rolling thunder, Old Glory blowing in the midnight air, underneath the effulgent Moon circling around Terra's toughness.  
   And we hung out with Vietnam dudes--our friends had Green Beret fathers.  So, Nordic kid scolded my first look of conscience and that of lacking adventure.  Told me:  "Boy, I'm gonna make a Veteran proud with what I do with that flag."
   It went down as planned.  I had the bike all the way open, throttling with an escape artist's determination, dodging danger with dexterity by way of the Honda-crafted dirt bike's wiry muscle.
   Nordic kid hung the flag on his wall.  Decades later he has further encased it within divine ornamentation, and it is in his living room, hanging on the wall, proudly on display for all the local ladies to glimpse before a patriotic shot at his privates.  Sex is big and sleazy in America.    
   Hell, it's America.  It's not about being depressed and being a robot.  Brave men honor the katana they took off the adversary during battle in WW 2.  Yup, it's different, yet all things are relative.  
   And as Christ axiomatically stated about your incoming karma:  "Blessed are the merciful, for they too shall obtain mercy."  Are you picking up what I'm putting down?  Get me?  

Slinging nocturnal newspapers in Nashville

   
   "Slinging nocturnal newspapers in Nashville"
   
   When they were passing out stupid--I thrived with excitement for some "no common sense" reason that has always been a piece of me.  And when the Nashville Banner offered me the position of District Manager for the Circulation Department in Williamson County, eagerly so--I turned it down to be the Assistant District Manager, out of humility and stupidity.
   As I walked out of my warehouse office on my first day, I met the "in charge" District Manager, an elderly, hard-drinking Tennessee guy named Jack.  In a gravely, chain-smoking voice he swiftly told me:  "Mark, I've been working for the paper for 30 years and ain't never had a vacation--I'll see you in 3 weeks."
    So, I was the quasi-District Manager anyway, but reaping less of a green harvest.
    As the Internet exploded due to Al Gore's technological architecture, he invented it, so I was informed by my Democrat brother, the paper folded, and as today goes--print media is dying with a withering whimper.
   So, I started working nights.  I'd listen to Coast to Coast AM, enjoying Art Bell and his spiritual science, like Einstein shaking hands with Aquinas, and the Good Doctor's synergy with modern erudition births a peace into the true fabric of space, time, and beyond--God, residing over yonder, within the Sublime Perimeter, keeping Heaven clean in meticulous and OCD fashion, washing with the fiery blade of Saint Michael all the iniquity from the House of the Lord.
   Nice times.  Poverty and her lovers, the Catholic Saints, know this suffering fact brings you closer to nature.  Not Hemingway shooting bulls, or the whole man against nature thing, but a reverence to gregariously gel and mystically merge with your moonlit surroundings.  
   I saw plenty of counterpoised skunks in their coloration, protective bucks, rabbits galore; however, my favorite sightings were of foxes and coyotes.  The coyotes always scrambling in a seemingly skittish manner, shy or skulking secretly, while the foxes liked to sweetly display their meals, the Vulpes vulpes (red fox) I witnessed for weeks in a row, giving me the most comical look with a big chicken in its mouth as I tossed the Tuesday news over his head, hitting the driveway perfectly.
   I used to love the comedy of my route list.  My favorite bizarre instruction for a newspaper toss was:  "Throw up in driveway."  And technically, my stomach contents never obeyed, yet as I take most things literally, I was tempted to puke upon the suburban sprawl of it all.  

The Anchorite

   
   "The Anchorite"
   
   Bobby didn't need the world; nonetheless, the world was nothing without him.  To imbibe the flesh of a demigod merged with True Authority, Papa; plus, that of the energy-flowing laser of love--the Good Ghost, that spirited aspect of the determined dove, seeking, behind the observing raven, so keen in its hope of foretold futurity.  Verily, God chose not swiftly, but wisely.  
   Bobby resided in the Pacific Northwest; specifically, North Portland, also known as the 5th Quadrant, where freedom determined by the King lived highly, that mighty David, slaying giants for mere blasphemy against his God, a true love, an ignited love for all things under that gifted and awesome authority--this is freedom's axiomatic right to rule.  
   But Bobby was no King David.  Who was?  The most read bard; plus, the best fighter without learning the hard way, like incarceration, but infused with meek neck break of an adder influencing the thoughts of men.
   And the Virgin, stepping on the head, adorned and ornamented in electric blue, so divine with aspiration to be included on the shamrock design, when it glowed azure before the healing peace of brilliant green.  Verily, Ireland deserves their freedom and respect.  Do not they have the most brilliant bard of the 20th Century in Joyce, admitting, admitting, admitting, that love is greater than the simplistic illusion of a mind haunted by gregarious girth-laced pea soup?  
   So, Bobby blessed himself, making the sign of the cross over his forehead; next, stumbled out into the streets, emaciated and keen, forged brilliant by the hardcore purity of himself, now.