Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Wait and you'll see...
'But you have to get up an do something.'
just sit still.
'But don't you see, there's so much to do, so much to accomplish, it has to get done and it has to get done now. You gotta get at it. Get up. Get up. You gotta get at it.'
still.
'Don't you want to taste it. Don't you want to have it. Don't you want to have her. Don't you want to get out of here. Don't you want to go there. Look there. Not here. Don't you...'
still.
'But don't you see. Its all there. Times running out. It'll all be over soon. You better get on it. You better get over it. Its gonna be gone and what'll you have then? What'll you do then when you'll be them and then you won't have this and that'll be gone and what'll you do then.'
nice try.
'damnit, don't you see. You gotta get it done. You can't just sit here. Its there to do. You gotta get to it. Look how busy it is. You are. They are. You gotta keep up. You can't stop.'
why?
'Why? You ask why? What kind of silly question is why? Why what? Why what are you talking about? Why don't you just stop and start thinking. Just start thinking. Look around and catch yourself up. Catch up. Get to it. You gotta get to it. Just start thinking. And don't ask why. Just get to it.'
no.
And that's when it was there.
Monday, August 30, 2004
Why do they make crappy vacuum's?
Yesterday I bought a vacuum cleaner, vacuumed my house, and then returned the vacuum cleaner.
Today my roommate decided that I sucked her ring up when I vacuumed under her bed.
Tomorrow I have to go to the returns department and explain to them that I need to get a ring out of a vacuum cleaner that I returned two days before because it didn't work.
Yeah, its gonna be a lot of fun.
Saturday, August 28, 2004
Yeah, it did occur to me to use the title: 'of mice and monks' for that last post. But i resisted, and you should thank me.
This is crazy. Its 7 o'clock in the morning and I can't get up and go brush my teeth and have a shower because there's a monk in our kitchen. Its just too early to have to make conversation with a monk.
I'm finding this very stressful. The other day i was watching an old episode of homicide life on the streets when they came home. He asks me what I'm watching. How do you tell a monk that you're watching a show about someone who was autoerotically asphyxiated? You can't. You turn off the tv and go to bed.
On top of this, I can't sleep at night because there's a mouse in the house. I saw it a couple days ago in the kitchen. But we can't kill the mouse because of the monk. Meanwhile I can't sleep because every time I try to fall asleep I think of the mouse that's probably skittling around on the floor. And last night I almost died of thirst because I didn't want to go to the kitchen where I might have a confrontation with the mouse.
In all, between the monk and the mouse, I'm not sure if I'll ever leave my room again.
Friday, August 27, 2004
I still don't feel like writing stories so I'm going to write about something less important:
Why we shouldn't be worried about how little we understand
We shouldn't be worried about how little we understand because really all there is to understand is that nobody else has a clue either.
There are a few good example of this. Let's look at economics, the area that's supposed to be king, that dominates the decisions of our society and it happens to be something that interests me.
In the past week or two there have been the following articles: The Wall Street Journal has explained how Chinese manufacturers don't expect higher oil prices to dint their productive abilities and how we shouldn't expect a slowdown in China any time soon. Reuters has explained how the Chinese economy may continue to grow at 10% in 2005 even with the government trying to put on the brakes. An article in the Economist points to both JP Morgan and to Lehman research that suggests that the Chinese economy is actually slowing down rapidly, perhaps only growing at 2-3%. Meanwhile, the data coming out of China suggests that they are engineering the perfect, textbook slowdown with inflation stabilizing and industrial production softening just enough.
The bottom line? Nobody really knows what's going on with one of the most important economies in the world. The journalists don't. The analysts don't. The economists don't. Its the engine of growth and probably the single biggest reason that our western economies aren't deflating, and nobody knows what the hell is really going on over there.
Another example. Oil. About the only thing that anybody can agree on with regard to China is that China is using a lot of oil. There's numbers on that, so its pretty hard to miss.
But while everybody agrees on this, nobody seems to have been able to correlate what this means to oil prices. Most think that oil prices are too high. The wall street analysts, the economists, all these experts nod their heads in unison and agree that oil is coming down. There's lots of talk about this 'terrorism' premium which is keeping oil prices up. Eventually they might be right. But here's the rub: the analysts, economists and experts have been consistently wrong on oil prices for the last 30 months, so you have to take their opinion with a bit of skepticism.
This particular example is quite remarkable. I mean when you think about it, you're supposed to have the best and brightest minds out there on wall street and in these research think tanks, and these best and brightest minds are spending all their day, probably at least 8 hours 5 days a week, scouring over loads of data to come up with a number, a prediction on what the price of oil is going to be in say 3 to 6 months. And they've been wrong for over two years in a row. 2 years! For 2 years they've consistently been predicting the downfall of oil, predicting lower forward prices, and just as consistently they have been wrong, wrong wrong!
Its elegant really. To be that wrong.
And it goes to show that nobody really knows anything. Experts are just people that have access to lots of data. It doesn't mean they can make sense of that data. It doesn't even mean they have common sense.
So anyways, I could list other examples, but it would get redundant. The point is clear. Nobody really understands very much about the world, even the people who are paid to understand it. So we shouldn't worry too much that it baffles us too.
Thursday, August 26, 2004
So I've got this fellow staying at my place and I have a few things to say.
I don't know if there's a god. And I don't know if there's an afterlife. That's all I can honestly say. The rest, it seems to me, is just a bunch of conjecture.
I wish there was some religion that was based on this. I wish there was a religion that would admit it doesn't know. I wish there was a religion that would come out and say, 'you know, maybe there's a god, maybe there isn't. We don't know. We don't think anybody knows. We think its impossible to know. All we do know is that you're here and I'm here right now, and that we might not be here tomorrow. So come on in and we'll try to make the best of it.'
Why can't there be a religion like that?
I want to follow something as much as anybody. We all hate to be alone. Its rough feeling all alone. Sometimes it sucks you down deep, and you really feel how pointless and hopeless life can be.
Life is going to end some day; it would be nice to be able to say at least we were a part of something while we were here. But all we have are these silly faith's full of gods and angels and bodhisattvas and whatever crazy being that's supposedly floating around there in heaven or nirvana or paradise.
I just can't bring myself to believe in them.
I would much rather have a religion that told me something like this: 'we don't really know for sure what's the best way of anything, the world's pretty complex after all, but we have a few ideas that seem to be pretty solid.'
That's what I want religion to say. But none seem to. I guess its just too much to ask.
I don't know. I'm just frustrated because my house is jam-packed with too many people and I'm getting claustrophobic. I want them to all be gone. I want to be alone.
But not really.
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
A Letter to the West
At times, when one is alone a bitterness creeps in, and so it was that in the dim light of the motel room, mostly lit by the fluorescent neon sign outside, he put his pen to paper and wrote away his contempt for him.
'You know, I'm tired of you. I'm tired of you and your problems. Your silly problems. Your problems at work and your problems with your parents and your problems with your friends and your problems with your relationships. I'm sick to death of them all.'
'Here you sit, with all of this, living here, in this wonderful place, and all you do is complain. Complain about how hard done by you are, how unlucky you are, how unfairly treated you are. How hard life is, what a struggle it is, how terribly difficult each day is, what with all these awful circumstances with which you are forced to contend.'
'Well I'm tired of you. I'm bored of you. I really want nothing to do with you. Let me ask you, just for a moment, to stop looking at yourself and take a look at what goes on in the world. Look across a few borders or a few blocks and see what others go through. Think of the man who just heard his wife was shot in a robbery. Think of the girl who was just shot in the crossfire while going to the store. Think of the woman beaten to a pulp by her drunken husband. Think of the child lying in the hospital with his arms blown off from the shrapnel. Look and see the death and the horror. Look and see your death. And then, if any of it sinks in, and it dawns on you that every one of us is going to die and that all that matters is to let us live, then please, write it down, and use it to remind yourself every time you think of complaining. Because you're making me sick.'
He felt better, but he knew it was not him and it was really himself. He tore up the paper and threw it to the fire.
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
my mission statement?
This is the origin of the cheez-whiz kids:
-----Original Message-----
From: L
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2002 2:40 PM
To: J (E-mail); R (E-mail)
Subject: Whiz kids
I read that in the 1940s there was a group of young professionals, all very intelligent and with excellent education, that were engaged by the US Army. The US army used these young people to help develop and provide a strategic vision that eventually lead to an American victory in WWII. In many ways these youngsters were responsible for the outcome of the war and for the birth of the world that developed in its wake. After the war the youngsters, abandoned by their former employer, reintegrated themselves back into American society, becoming doctors, entrepeneurs, politicians, and the heads of corporations. They have continued to alter and effect the course of American history since that time. At the time of the war these youngsters were referred to as The Whiz Kids.
With this in mind I am going to start a collective that will encompass bitterness, hopelessness and wasted intelligence. We will be known as The Cheez-Whiz Kids.
Monday, August 23, 2004
My cubicle neighbour just pulled his shirt tight and asked me if I could see the bandaids over his nipples?
That's my cue to go home.
So there's this monk staying at my place. Please don't ask me why. Its a long story. But anyways, its making me all wigged out. Cuz he's like a monk see, and I'm not, and I do a lot of none monkish things. And now I'm feeling like all worried, because this monk could come home at any time and there i'd be, singing culture club in my underwear.
Sunday, August 22, 2004
take two of a shitty post
The bench had a tall back, so the boy hadn't noticed him when he had sat down. He was too busy looking around with suspicion.
The old bugger was sleeping on the back side. He was dressed in clothes more ragged then those. He had a long beard, but very bushy, and with longish grey black hair.
It was not the same man. Of that much he was sure.
‘Who the hell are ya?’
It was the old bugger. He slurred his speech, and was, or had been so, and was still feeling some of the effects.
The boy didn't say anything back. Always wary, he made ready to run.
‘Ach! Who the hell cares anyways...’ The old bugger swatted his hand at the air.
‘Hey boy, come ere and have a seat. I dint mean to scare ya. Ya frightened me, staring down at a sleepin man and all. You ought not to do that. You could give a man a seizure by waking him in this state.’
The boy decided not to run. He would wait for the train to whatever the consequence.
The old bugger laughed and told the boy about his night’s carousing; the purchase of a fine bottle of cheap whiskey, and the river where he went to share his treasure with a number of his friends. It was an ugly tale, but not so sad.
After his story the old bugger looked down at the ground. He had been getting more excited as he spoke, but now the color drained from his face and he slumped back into his stupor. The boy had listened not sure if he should believe the ramblings. Now he watched the old bugger put his head in into his hands, then rub his eyes slowly with dirty palms. He could hear him sobbing as he slipped away.
The boy was shaken, and he looked down the track, hoping that it would come soon. And his wish was granted. He heard the sound of the whistle from not too far off, and then soon the train was visible. He looked back, the old bugger still sat with his head in his hands. When the train slowed down to a stop the boy quickly slipped on unnoticed.
Saturday, August 21, 2004
Do you know the Devil?
Late into the night the old vagrant staggered up to their table. He was obviously drunk as well; he braced himself against the corner of that empty chair to help stop his fall. It was a while before any of the boys noticed him swaying in place. It was Rene who did, but the aged man looked past him and paid him no notice. His eye were glazed but intent, and he was looking at the two fellows on the other side.
‘What do you want old man?’ said the one loudly, his attention caught. When he said nothing, the boy reached into his pocket. Picking out a few coins, he tossed them toward this stranger. Some hit him in the chest, but he did not move, and they scattered about the hardwood.
‘If he wants them bad enough, he can get them!’ the young man said, and he laughed. The others joined in, but Rene was not sure.
But the vagrant made no motion for the coins. Quickly, the others laughter died, quieted by the stillness of their intruder.
'What do you want old man?' said John, but his voice cracked just enough when he spoke. There was no reply.
And for second time, but now John stood up and faced the old vagrant in the eye, perhaps with courage brought on by the drink. 'I said, what do you want old man?'
The vagrant looked down at the floor. He did not know why he came, but he knew he must see it through.
‘This will do no good, but it must be out,' he finally said. It was calm. ‘It is you who brings this blight. It is you who keeps my music silent and makes me prefer death. Damn you for that.’
‘Nobody’s forced you to nothing old man,’ one of the party yelled out.
‘Your brought it on yourself,' said another.
The fervor quickly built. There is no question that they would gladly have escalated the scene.
The vagrant, perhaps coming to his senses and realising this, and not being of much conviction himself, turned around walked off. A couple of the young men sitting by Rene yelled some obsenities at him as he left. But the vagrant, if he heard, paid them no attention and did not even turn around. He just walked on out of the room and back down the crowded way.
Friday, August 20, 2004
Bill Barker was a straight man without a side kick.
Billy would stand outside of a dozen and main, on twelfth that is, and he would tip his hat and give a good morning to everybody who went by. He'd look expectantly at the fellow would pass by, they were usually a little wary, but it was never the case that he got anything in return.
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Billy would get quite dejected after that. You would notice his shoulder shrug and he would stare at the ground. He would stay this way for sometimes a moment or sometimes a day, but he would perk back up as soon as he heard the sound of steps on the pavement. Billy had a house around the corner but he wasn't there much. He lived alone except for his sister who no one saw anyway. There was one day, about ten years back, that Billy brought out Marie onto the corner with him. Before the sun even came up she was spooked and ran to the house crying and yelling that Billy would ever do something so mean. |  |
After that, Billy was all alone on the corner. This went on for maybe twenty years. Maybe still does. A year ago I close down and moved myself to Tulsa. I don't know what became of Billy, but I doubt he ever did find his partner.
Thursday, August 19, 2004
We all just got new cell phones. No one knows how to use them. The default ring is the William Tell Overture. I've heard it about 50 times today.
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
Sick and hallucinating and I want to go home
I see vines. Long, green vines. Twirling around me, engulfing me. They pulse. The constant movement is deafening. I cannot hear a thing. All I can do is see, and all I see are vines.
They have no leaves, these vines. They have no end. They are green, and they are movement, and nothing more.
Their web occurs to me. There is a pattern I cannot see. If I could stand back, I am sure that I would see this pattern. This web. I am sure of it. But I can't stand back. I am too close. I am held tight. There is no end to the vines in my sight.
But even here, this close, I begin to understand. There is a web. It is movement. It is green and it is movement. For a moment I catch it. But its gone. The fever hits again. I fall back into a dreamless sleep.
Monday, August 16, 2004
It was the greatest season Chad Curtis never had.
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He was the reason why the Angels were well over .500 at the all-star break. He was the reason why they only trailed the White Sox by a mere 4 games in August. They were the California Angels then. The 1993 Angels were a hideous team that finished with a terrible record. Over 90 losses. They were a bunch of bums. Nobody would have suspected that they could even approach .500. They brought in a new manager. A young guy, some guy nobody had ever heard of, who’d learned what he’d learned from some other guy nobody had ever heard of named Mike Gimbel who was at the time pioneering what is now so eloquently written about in the book Moneyball. |  |
The young man was all about statistics. He knew them inside out. He saw potential in those 93 Angels, and he was ready for the challenge.
He did it with Tim Salmon out for the season after the third game. He did it with Mark Langston on the disabled list twice before the all-star break.
Those were still the good old days. No inter-league play. 2 divisions. Only the best team in each advanced.
And yeah, there were others.
There was the bullpen. Mike Butcher setting up Joe Grahe. Joe Grahe, given the full-time closer role and told to run with it, finally becoming the arm everyone thought he was, stunning the baseball world with 20 saves at the all-star break.
There was the clutch hitting from Luis Polonia, his atrocious defense and weak throwing arm forcing him into a pinch hitting role. Not taking it as a grudge, he excelled and came through with 9th inning hit after 9th inning hit.
Then there was Torey Lovullo, inserted at 2nd base on a whiff of genius by the young new manager, jumping at the opportunity and hitting in the high .290’s.
There was Ron Tingley, the Crash Davis that couldn’t hit, squeezing everything out of his rickety old body, putting up .250 numbers while playing everyday.
And who can forget Gary Disarcina, batting 9th, hitting over .300, and making plays at shortstop that nobody else could.
So there were others. But it was Chad Curtis’s team. He was the heart and soul. He hit leadoff every game that year. He took walks when they were hard to come by. He stole bases that were impossible to steal. He hit over .330 for more then half a season, had an on-base percentage over 4. Hell, he even hit home runs, and was second on the team to Chili Davis in RBI’s.
He took that team, that bunch of has-beens and never will be’s, and turned them into contender's.
It was an incredible year, and one that I won’t forget.
Sometimes I regret that the season was never finished. It didn’t end cuz of a strike or nothing like that. It was school. Going away for school.
Sunday, August 15, 2004
'Judas!' - yells a rusty anchor from somewhere in the mass. And they cheer.
So he looks out at you didn't deserve him and says, probably all nasally like, he says, 'I don't believe you. You're a liar'.
Then he turns to the band and says, 'Play it fuckin loud.'
Can you get any cooler than that?
listening to A Love Supreme and thinking about inflation.
a world of low inflation
Inflation has not been a significant problem for more then a decade. Often this is attributed to the Federal reserve, which has become proficient at adjusting interest rates to ward off potential rises in inflation.
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But this alone does not fully explain the benign inflation we have experienced of late. Alan Greenspan, in one of his recent speeches, admitted as much, attributing the weak inflationary forces as being the result of a 'transitional period' for the economy where there has been historically high productivity. what does that mean? It means this. Productivity is the rate of output per unit labour cost. When productivity rises substantially, the economy is able to incur greater growth without there being significant upward pressure on wages. This is because goods and services are being produced more efficiently without the need for additional labour that would put upward pressure on wages. |  |
The net result is that an economy experiencing high productivity can grow more strongly then one that is not before it begins to experience inflationary pressure.
The reason productivity has been so high can be partially attributed to technology and the efficiencies that it brings. It can also be attributed to the use of low wage labour, which has lowered the labour input needed to produce goods.
the effect of outsourcing
I want to focus on the latter for a moment. Let's seperate what has been happening to inflation in the services sector from what been happening to inflation in the manufacturing sector. Inflation in the service sector has been managable, but not ridiculously low, of late. Its been roughly in the 3-4% range on average. In comparison, inflation in the manufacturing sector has been negative. So there has been deflation in the manufacturing sector. This is because of the movement of manufacturing jobs to low wage labour locations. The low wages these companies incur give them the ability to lower the prices of their manufactured products. They lower the prices to outbid the competition and gain market share. This is why I can buy a toaster with my spare change.
The questions that this begs are: A. how long will it last, and B. What will happen when the exodus begins to slow and the efficiencies that these companies were able to incur begin to stabilize?
I don't know the answer to the first, though it seems that the manufacturing sector exodus is becoming mature. At some point there just aren't anymore jobs to outsource. The service sector exodus may be just beginning. I'm not sure. Its in the papers a lot, what with India supposedly taking over the IT industry and such, but just how significant this is I haven't gotten a handle on. You have to watch it. A lot of publicity is more due to politics then it is to actual economic impact. Bottom line, the service sector shouldn't be as vulnerable as the manufacturing sector to outsourcing. You can't outsource a lot of services jobs. Big Macs can't be shipped overseas.
The answer to the second, is more obvious. It makes sense that as this process matures, the productivity that it produced will slow, and with it will the deflationary pressure that it exerted.
the forgotten effect of raw materials
| There is another factor that contributes to inflation that is often overlooked. Its overlooked because its been benign for so long that people assume that it will always be benign. This is material costs. Goods and to a lesser degree services require two inputs. Labour and raw materials. Labour I've discussed. Raw materials are overlooked because for so long labour was the primary driver of high prices. Raw material prices, particularly energy and base metals and even food, have been abundant enough that there hasn't been upward price pressure on them. |  |
But this is beginning to change. For one, growth in China and India are raising demand for oil, for copper, for steel, for aluminum, and on and on, as these developing countries build the infrastructure they need. They are like the US or Canada at the beginning of the last century. For two, some of these resources, particularly oil and natural gas, are beginning to come into shorter supply. The result of these two effects is an increase in demand and in some cases a decrease in supply. The result is upward price pressure.
For two, as companies outsource, the wage input side of the equation decreases. This increases the effect of any changes to the raw material input. So suddenly raw material matter more.
so what does this all come together to mean?
I believe it means that inflation is going to make a comeback. The shift of manufacturing and service industries to low wage labour areas will mature and the deflationary effect that this shift has precipitated will begin to lessen. In addition, the low wage labour areas will begin to experience upward pressures on wages as they grow, which will cause inflationary pressure. Raw material costs will continue to creep up as demand from these developing nations increases and in some cases the supply of these resources decreases. This will also increase the input costs to produce goods and service. All of these factors will contribute to rising inflation.
The only thing that can prevent this is recession, probably a prolonged one, which of course would decrease demand and eliminate these upward pressures. But that's not good for anybody.
ok, we have higher inflation. that just means the fed raises rates to fight it right?
This is the intersting part. In a perfect world, yes, the Fed raises interest rates to ward off the inflationary pressures. But what does the Fed do in a country where debt is sky high? The US is so far in debt that the Fed has its hands tied. If they raise interest rates substantially to ward off inflationary pressures, as they did in the early 80s, there would be some serious pain among the people who suddenly couldn't pay off their credit cards, or more importantly, their mortgages. The Federal reserve has to be very careful, particularly when it comes to the housing market. A steep rise in interest rates would undoubtably cause some home owners with big mortgages to sell their homes, as they wouldn't be able to pay the additional interest. This could cause a decline in house prices, which would be chaos. So the Fed has to watch it. And they aren't stupid. Greenspan knows that higher inflation would not be good, but he also knows that killing the American consumer with high interest rates would be disaster.
Anyways, those are my thoughts. I think it will be pretty interesting to watch how this all unfolds in the coming decade. Its an interesting time to be alive.
Saturday, August 14, 2004
Ineluctable modality?
Life is good but it is nothing. Nothing there that can be touched. Nothing in itself itself, but to its end, itself itself, it can be so much more.
| You bring to it a drop of dye, a touch of red, a blast of orange. A sketch to nothing something more. First with frightened, unsure strokes, something of a line is woke, of one then two, then maybe more till all do form a single point.
When life is kept a drop of art, of one then two then maybe more, then suddenly that pasty blur fulfills its passion, grows its clothes, and bursts itself to something more, so very more. Still we tremble, still we cower, and lose ourselves in mundane beats. We hold instead to ashen ground as life is put to stilts. But here i say start! Release! Let go of that blasted grey. It must be done, it must be done!, for only then, from this uncertain nothing, will something then begin. |  |
So troubling though the act may be, that terrible beauty to which he spoke, its frightening burden is agreed. And with that shake is took the dare to take the pallet in one's own hand and stare the canvas fearlessly. To look upon its likeness now not as a foreign, pallid shade, but admit of it for what it is, and where it does exist. Inside of you and me and him and she, and nothing more and nothing less. The single burden that we hold, that we may choose, as its author, to bring its beauty to our stage.
That is what they said. He and he and they and she and all of them worth their salt they tried to say in so many words or none at all. Its all the same and not at all and that is what it is is art.
Friday, August 13, 2004
On the computers at work if you press cntl-alt-del once you can unlock your computer and log back in. Today I found out that if you press cntl-alt-del three times really fast you lose 6 hours worth of work and get to order take-out vietnamese for supper.
Thursday, August 12, 2004
I am so freakin busy its not even funny and everybody is on vacation right when everything is due and everything is due in two weeks but there's nobody here to work on anything except for me and her so we're both freaking out cuz we're silly busy and i've spent the last day spec'ing all these parts that I have absolutely no clue how to spec so I'm pretty sure this thing is going to blow up when we build it and i can't believe they are actually going to stick this in someone's ass. so everybody is going to be mad at me because i'm sure i chose the wrong parts which means some poor guy is going to have a sore ass but i don't have a choice cuz nobody is here and everyone who is doesn't know what they're doing just like me. good times.
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Why i shouldn't swear
I would like to take a moment to point out the difference between literal and figurative in their common use. To say something literally means to describe your subject as it actually exists. To say something figuratively is to use some sort of comparison, a metaphor, an analogy, any of the sort, to describe your subject.
So when you say that the fat guy sitting next to you is literally eating like a pig, you are speaking incorrectly. Because its not literal. You are, in fact, making a fool of yourself. For unless the guy has his nose in a trough and is shitting out the other end as he eats, its not literal.
And above all, it really doesn't make a lick of sense when you say 'and I mean that both literally and figuratively.' You're not being subtle and intelligent by saying that. You're not. Nobody is wondering whether that the juco degree on your wall is really a harvard diploma. When you say this, the only thing you're being subtle about is in pointing out that you're a idiot. So stop doing this. Please.
Incognito
Paul and Beetle. Beetle and Paul. Together at last. That's what they were. And all the better too. Yes-siree. All the better. Paul and Beetle. Beetle and Paul. And no one heard a word.
Monday, August 09, 2004
Sunday Night Dinner
A dingy old bar down in a ghetto of Recife. Leon and PJ, if you had asked them, wouldn't have been able to tell you how they got there, or where they had met Carlo. That was the name they'd been using on him. He was sitting across the table. They weren't too sure if it was actually his name. He answered to it.
| Drinking cheap mexican beer, it wasn't even cold, tasted like piss, but it staved off the crushing hangover that loomed over the young men. Carlo was telling Leon about his soccer days. Leon was too gone to do anything but listen. PJ wasn't there yet, instead he was trying to meet the eyes of the pretty young waitress that had been serving them. She wasn't so young and not really very pretty but to PJ. Except he kept dozing off.
When the officers came in they went straight to the table. There were two of them. They kicked the table over without saying a word. |
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They were tied up and then they carried Carlo out. One of the officers held his feet while the other grabbed him by the shoulders. When the one with the moustache came back in with Carlo he had a bag in his left hand. He held up like second prize. Leon thought he had remembered two but he couldn't see straight enough to be sure.
There were cold steel bars on three sides and a mud and concrete wall on the other. There must have been 15 of them in the cell, most of them as drunk. They sobered up pretty quick though. Looking pretty out of place in their clean t-shirts and PJ still had his Teva's on. Carlo hadn't moved during the wagon ride and they hadn't seen him since.
Jesse got the call around the same time PJ got his first boot. He was there in Rio when Leon took it with his guard down. They liked Leon.
Jesse was good at what he did. He hadn't gotten to where he was by losing a bargain. He made sure not to look too wealthy or they'd smell him ripe and he'd be out a wad. He put on a tacky hawaiian shirt and a pair of speedos under his pants before he left La Guardia. He took the pants off in Rio. He looked like a schmuck, but not a rich one.
Both of the officers were feeling pretty good about themselves and they went straight to the strip from the deal. Jesse left with a mostly full clip and a couple young punks. PJ was just glad he got there when he did. Leon would never be the same.
Sunday, August 08, 2004
year twenty-seven
it's hard to believe that a year ago i was writing a novel, moving in with a girlfriend, and thinking serious about marriage. now i'm living with a buddhist in the ghetto and writing diddies on the internet. i'm not too sure this is progress.
Friday, August 06, 2004
The End
'the reality is this and nothing more. it is the nature of capitalism, and of the institutions which comprise it, to maximize their profits. therefore it follows that it is their nature to exploit wages, working conditions, and societal conditions to the degree to which they are most profitable. I understand that reality.'
'And you say they are not evil?'
'yes, i say they are not evil.'
'I don't understand you.'
'You think too much of good and evil. This is not middle-earth. what are good and evil? look at them and think of what they are. Good and evil are, in their essence, value judgements. They are a matter of opinion, unless you want to talk about some supreme being who determines set values for us, are not innate to the thing in itself.
'What does this have to do with the corporation?'
'A corporation is nothing. It has no bias. It is amoral. it does not even know or recognize morals. It is nothing more then a tool, waiting to be used. It is not evil.'
'But look at the consequences!'
'Look at them and accept them for what they are, and refer to them as evil if that is what you see, but do not pass judgement on the knife when it was the hand that did the killing. The evil exists in the act, and not in the thing.'
'Then what do you suggest?'
'When we are willing to look objectively at the nature of a corporation, we can accept what it is. What that is, is a profit maximizing entity which bows to the gods of efficiency and productivity. That is what it is. It achieves these goals very well. I doubt whether it could be replaced by another system more effective to those specific ends.'
'If we accept this definition, we will no longer be deluded by any naive conceptions of other attributes that a corporation may have, like a moral conscience, environmental concern, loyalty, or any of these other ridiculous notions.'
'Then it is up to us as a society to decide whether these attributes, on their own, are an acceptable compass for our future. And if they are not, it is up to us to make adjustments that make it acceptable.'
'We do this already. But unfortunately we do it less and less of late. We seem to have begun to take Adam Smith quite literally with his talk of the invisible hand. We act as if it were a prophecy, rather then a simple metaphor for the way that markets tend to work. There is no prophecy. There is no perfect destiny that we should expect if we only just follow the hand. If you want a prophecy, you'll be more satisfied with a preacher then an economist.'
'But that is another story. For now, let me say this. I believe that a corporation can be used positively. Too many people get caught up in ideology, which misses the point of making things better right here and now. Corporations are what they are, which is profit driven machines. This isn't going to be changed. They are also not going to be done away with or even should be done away with, as they are quite effective in doing what they do. What we need to do instead is to realise the corporation for what it is and work to maximize its positive influence and minimize the negative.'
Thursday, August 05, 2004
Sticky Chins and Cheap Upholstery
'Shit Bob, I don't know if I can do it tonight.'
'hey you just do it'
'I know, but I don't know about tonight, man.'
'and then what'
'Well, I don't know. Its just one of those nights. I just want to lose myself. Go find an empty booth in the corner at the Husky and bring my pen and a couple pieces of paper. But not to write or nothing. I just want that cute blonde chick that just came in with her friends to look at me and make eye contact because I look all mysterious and all, writing there in a corner booth with bad lighting and cheap upholstery, but I want it to be a fucking joke, because I'm not writing shit, I'm just shooting adjectives at random. You know?'
'yeah i know'
'I just want to be fraud, man. I want to be a fuckin fraud.'
'it gets old man'
'Yeah, I know you've been there.'
'it all gets old'
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
Street Addict
'its an addiction. just like any other.'
'and yeah, its like gambling. but its not gambling. gambling's when you're guessing. gambling's when you don't know. this is when you know. you know you're right. everyone else might think different, but you still know you're right.
'yeah, at first you're not sure. you're not sure, but you got a hunch. but a hunch isn't good enough. so you do the work you need to do. you learn and you read and you work through numbers until all your dreams are in red and black. because you need to know for sure. you need to know if you're right.'
| 'you wake up every morning and the first thing you want to do is check the markets. you want to check the news. suddenly, things that seemed boring are interesting. things that are boring are interesting. now you want to know how electricity is delivered in the midwest. now you want to know why the telecom act was legislated and who michael powell is. you want to know how oil comes out of the ground. now you want to know how much silver china has left to sell. now you want to know all these things about the world. because suddenly, in everything, you see the chance to know something someone else doesn't. and in that chance there's the chance to be right.'
|
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'when you begin to place your bets, you don't sleep well. you'll bet too much and you'll always think you don't know enough so you'll worry and fret and end up spending the nights running through the scenarios again. going through the numbers again. always you're asking yyourself - am i right? could they all possibly be wrong?'
'and stuff happens to feed your doubt. an article comes out. it says you're a fool for thinking what you do. its written by someone well respected. it's backed up by others equally well respected. you sweat. who are you anyways? little ole you. a nothing. you think - how can all these people be wrong? how can i be right? you doubt yourself. you question and become agitated. there's only one thing you can do. so you do it again. you think it through again, you work it through again, you check the numbers for the thousandth time. and when you're done you look at it all with determination and say no, i'm right. they are wrong.'
'but at first, the market doesn't agree. you lose at first. and here you truly are wrong. if only for a moment. here is the only place you are really right or wrong. all the theories and speculating and possibilities don't matter at all. all that matters is that one little number, clicking across your screen. and if it goes up that day, then you are right. and if it goes down, you are wrong. hours and hours of work and labour all come down to that point. to that number. to that single decision and the chaotic movements that follow.'
| 'So again you question yourself. are you right? the number is red. could you be right if the number is red? now the voices are screaming from all directions that you are wrong. But are you? At this point you take the leap of faith. the faith in yourself. and you say once more, even more emphatically - they are all wrong. for the moment the market is wrong. but i will be right. i am right.'
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'so yeah. its an addiction. its an addiction because when you're finally right, when it turns out just as you had suspected, when all the stuff starts happening that you've been saying was going to happen, when all the things that you've been saying suddenly begin to be said by those same respected opinions that were scoffing at you before, well, you can't beat that. its better then any high. its the high of power. its the high of being right.'
Monday, August 02, 2004
Because I can't fuckin sleep
A flame begins to flicker. A tiny, indistingishable light beads its way through the harvested bales. Soon the mulch shall catch, and the new crop will burn brightly too, again, perhaps even glimpsing the heavens with its ash. And though it is too bright for most, and they shall hide their eyes from its tidy glow, it will still grow with intensity, burn in its solitude, until it is fit to consume the landscape. Once the flame is lit, it will refuse to be extuingished.
...if I had been born 2000 years ago at least i coulda gotten hired to write the bible.
Sunday, August 01, 2004
'shorty was my supervisor. we all called him shorty because he was kinda short.'
i can't do this justice. i should stop now.
'...well, he hadn't been around for three days. so i went to see his supervisor. i go into his office and tell him i haven't seen shorty for three days. he looks at me and tells me that shorty's passed away.'
'i told him i wasn't surprised.'
'he was an alcoholic?'
'i caught him drinking once too.'
'was he a mean guy, a nice guy? what sort of guy was he?'
| 'he was sort of shifty fella.'
'...why didn't you say something? he says.' i say. 'i says i didn't want to be a squealer.' i nod. so he just did his job for him. every day without a word. not a sqeauler. until shorty didn't show up because he was dead. what's honour? |
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'he asks me if shorty had been drinking on the job. i says yes. i knew he'd been drinking on the job because i went into the backroom once and found all the bottles.'
'how long was shorty drinking for?'
'oh, since about when I started i guess.'
'oh.'
'..can you do his job? he asks me. and i says i've been doing his jobs for years. so they give me a desk job.'
but i just can't do it justice. you can't write this. some stories have to be told.
or lived.
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