the offing

Love Struggle

2011-06-04T14:38:00.006-04:00

One look.
More affection
Than that son-of-a-bitch ever gave in thirteen years.

I want you everywhere.
Park, beach, grocery store.
Under my right arm.

Nothing but the fanciest feasts and the cutest little outfits.
The things I do.

Scooping fresh, hot poop off the pavement.
Thin plastic the only separation from my bare skin.

But who’s the bitch now?
I yank that throat-noose taught whenever you wander
Ahead, behind - don’t sniff that - left.

That look.
I could never live without
Those eyes.

The Loko Life

2011-02-22T08:37:00.018-05:00

A bathroom tile alarm clock,
cold...wake-up...
arms wrapped ‘round porcelain again.

The residue, the film on my tongue,
a stomach-turning taste,
a smell I can't scrape off.

Jeans at my ankles,
shame in what's unknown,
who saw that and...fuck when where why did I...here?

Shameless texts -
unsurprisingly unsuccessful,
never dare say that to her face.

Slew of new debits,
just how much can four pitchers, chili fries,
and a basket of masochism cost?

I am powerless. I am unmanageable.
Jail, liver failure, or the both.

Middle East Might As Well Be Mars

2011-02-06T13:28:00.009-05:00

The sun also rises
Off the parkway, exit 42 on the right,
As always, a double half-calf
Venti lies in wait.
My Inbox holds 14 new unread.
And Seinfeld's on at 19:00.
Hope it's "The Puffy Shirt" tonight.

They're rioting in the streets?
Meh. Hadn't noticed.

(until I saw the gas prices)

That's News To Me

2011-01-16T15:17:00.007-05:00

Since when did taking pictures of oneself in a bright red G-string pressing a Glock to one's butthole make one crazy?

I thought we lived in an age of open-mindedness...

I thought we had become a live and let live society...

Flaming Lowercase t[ruth]

2011-01-15T10:22:00.030-05:00

Suburbanites imitate the easiest things, the cosmetic things:
music, clothing, and culture.
It's progress. It's living
The Dream.
Or so we can claim.
Does our coexistence equal understanding? Is it equality?
Or just an excuse to postpone one big, painful debate?
The motherland remains a moving target, and
Reciprocity turns in a shallow Ethiopian grave
40 acres wide.

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T19:20:00.000-05:00

Dear _____,

Just a subtle reminder that the restart of our numerically arbitrary time-measurement system does not guarantee that your meaningless, sucky life will begin to suck any less.

Cheers,
Tyler

American Piety, Pt. II

2010-12-30T09:45:00.008-05:00

Some claim his fate was cemented when he flunked 7th grade pre-algebra. But, in truth, it was written long before that.

Uneducated, impoverished, desperate, and now fully grown - Euthyphro's Son stood before The People, who brandished stones and sticks. He was accused of fighting pitbulls for sport and for profit, and he did not deny this accusation.

After all, he claimed, musn't he find a way to support himself and his poor mother, to provide the basic necessities of food, shelter, and a basic cable package? Job options were scant in this economy, especially for the lowliest of society. The manager at Farm Fresh never returned his calls. Were not the animals his property, to do with as he saw most fit? If consideration for the rights of animals should rise to the level of people, are not people who treat other people as animals (or worse, wash hands of them completely) still guilty of the worse crime? Should they not be held to task for their Mistakes?

But The People did not find this argument pleasing. Before Euthyphro's Son could finish, they beat him to death.

American Piety, Pt. I

2010-12-26T14:34:00.015-05:00

In the fecal-flecked stall of an Applebee's bathroom, Euthyphro begat his only Son.

Yet when this Son came unto the world, Euthyphro's mind was jolted by thought of sippy cups and Sesame Street that was to replace cold-activated-wide-mouth-vented cans and college football. He resisted this blood-tie and the responsibilities of it. After all, Euthyphro claimed, he was blitzed out of his fucking mind at the time, and who should have to bear one druken Mistake for the rest of his life? The People sided with Euthyphro. For, surely, they decided, such raw desperation must be pleasing to all Gods.

Euthyphro lived out his life unfettered. The Mistake lived alongside his birth mother, a common Hollywood-starlet-cum-waitress, and a dirt poor one at that.

Journals (Cobain)

2010-12-24T08:58:00.004-05:00

I hate myself and want to die.
I hate myself and want to die.
I hate myself and want to die.
I hate myself and want to die.
I hate myself and want to die.
I hate myself and want to die.
I love myself and want to die.

Peerfection

2010-12-22T07:54:00.011-05:00

This wallpost better be on point,
witty as fuck,
'cause somebody's gonna see it
and she might be fuego.

Morning Run

2010-11-21T11:39:00.012-05:00

Tightening up. not. going. to make. it.

Like a white lighthouse
cutting through the pre-dusk dark:

Porta Potty

Explosion

Attention

2010-08-28T12:27:00.028-04:00

nod

The cartoon chimp flails
wildly my dangling mind bananas.

And that's exactly why I wrote this dissertation -

I just couldn't agree with a theory that claimed...

Nottttttt quite there, lil' buddy.
He pouts his chimp jaw.

nod

...because, really, I think it's quite clear that
the process begins with integration, and then...

I bite back a smirk.
Can't. Betray. - try eye contact

nod

Advice In A McDonald's

2010-08-13T12:59:00.019-04:00

"Do you know what integrity is? It's
What you do when nobody's looking?"

What do I know?
I sit at the table beside them
Shamelessly sipping Diet Dr. Pepper
From brown-tinged styrofoam -
Three weeks straight I've reused this thing.
Be damned if I'm gonna pay $2 for a new one every day.
Highway robbery.

What's it called when the shift manager's looking?

Eden

2010-08-08T14:10:00.046-04:00

“Do you have a personal recommendation? What’s the house specialty?”

He returned a blank stare, then pushed his finger into the menu.

“Noodle.”

He flipped the page.

“Rice.”

And with that, he walked back towards the kitchen. Line upon line, each entrée as delicious as the last. I wished for divine guidance, for some light to shine down on the dish. Naught.

I pulled my head up to survey the restaurant.

Suddenly conscious -
a foreigner.
Welcome loneliness,
novel disorientation.

I put my head back down.

GỎI NGÓ SEN TÔM CÀNG
Young Lotus Root Salad w/ Giant Freshwater Prawns

Succulent, two-finger-sized head-on prawns speckled with maroon and gamboge spices; pale lotus root, reminiscent of a semi-sweet starch or water chestnut, submitting its satisfyingly crisp crunch; hearty coarse peanut chunks; a captivating assortment of verdant greens and herbs, within which the bitter bite of mint(?) sporadically makes its presence felt; garlic/chili fish sauce, held to the side as an ever-present option in an ornate mini dish.

Visual stimulation. Textural variation. Perfection.

24" Triumph

2010-08-04T18:25:00.014-04:00

Doubt began to creep in when they presented us with an official waiver.

We figured it was just the equivalent of a Medium apiece. Until we remembered that A = πr². Turns out it was more than an Extra Large apiece. Geometry sucks.

We went with tomato, spinach, and chicken. Chicken was sautéed in olive oil and a proprietary Italian-style herb blend. Exquisite stuff. The crust was tough and generally lackluster, though. Certainly didn't make things any easier.

Crisp outside, juicy inside - the chicken was simple but perfectly prepared. Did I mention I liked it?

After a couple pre-pizza sprints, it was time to go to work.

Finished my half in under 25 minutes (I credit the sprints) and turned my attention to spurring Mike onward. At the 40 minute mark - with two slices left - he asked for help.

Win as a team, lose as a team. We won. 45 minutes all told.

Won what? Our picture on a web site. T-shirts would have been nice, but it was about the experience anyway. Memories well worth the indigestion. And there was a lot of indigestion.

Free Muffins

2010-08-04T12:20:00.022-04:00

the wagon
collapses
under
bright Costco lights

as I shovel
another greasy fingerful
onto the thick moist mouth mushpile
chocolate-smeared lip corners
turn upward

Newton's guilt will push them back soon

**********

last night I spurned
mom's pasta salad

All those carbs will make you fat.

I knew she noticed and I knew
it hurt
and I did it anyway

**********

vegetable shortening has trumped love

wagons are cruel, irrational things

Twiddling

2010-07-12T12:06:00.006-04:00

Refresh (F5) Refresh (F5)

Refresh (F5) – nothing
give me something, anything, doesn’t matter
tedious, sweaty, impossible, whatever I
just need to do

Refresh (F5) they’re flying by
when was the last time I seized them
there’s only so many left

Refresh (F5) not many left
Refresh (F5)

think it's prostate cancer?
see symptoms

it is prostate cancer

that, or hemorrhoids

anyways,
Refresh (F5) – nothing

FASH

2010-06-08T13:21:00.007-04:00

I've been sitting on this for a while, debating whether or not to post it. It's the end product of a second semester senior year Screenwriting elective. And to say that it's rough around the edges is like saying that Kim Jong-il is just a tad...quirky. Hell, I'm not sure I even spellchecked this thing. But anyway, I figure why not throw it up here?

It's a semi-biographical screenplay based loosely on the life of Justin Fashanu, the first footballer (that's soccer player to us Yanks) to publicly announce his homosexuality. He also happens to be the last player to do so, probably because he was shunned by everyone in his life - including his own brother - and eventually hanged himself in a London garage. Compelling stuff.

The one thing I can say about this project is that it developed in me a deep respect for the guys and gals who do this for a living. It's one thing to produce a creative work that's ten lines long (poem). It's quite another when you're talking hundreds of pages. They probably don't get paid enough. But, then again, who does these days?

FASH

On "Adaptation"

2010-04-18T17:07:00.005-04:00

“To begin... To begin... How to start? I'm hungry. I should get coffee. Coffee would help me think. Maybe I should write something first, then reward myself with coffee. Coffee and a muffin. Okay, so I need to establish the themes. Maybe a banana-nut. That's a good muffin.”

Director Spike Jonze and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation is a highly entertaining, if difficult to characterize, semi-autobiographical comedy/drama about a screenwriter of the same name. The neurotic Kaufman – played shockingly competently by Nicholas Cage – attempts to adapt The Orchid Thief, a bestselling novel by author Susan Orlean (Meryl Streep), into a movie script. Throughout the film, Kaufman faces a private inner struggle to organize his scattered thoughts into some sort of coherent screenplay. Exemplified by the excerpt above, Adaptation offers the viewer insights into these thoughts via Cage’s thought narration. I could relate much of my experiences throughout this semester’s screenwriting process to the stream of consciousness Cage delivered; I empathized with Kaufman as he spent hours creating and scrapping, cycling through plans to open his movie with scenes ranging from the inception of life on Earth to himself, Charlie Kaufman – lying prone on his mattress, speaking into a tape recorder as he labels himself bald, fat, and ugly.

Of Adaptation’s colorful characters, the role played by Charlie Kaufman’s twin brother Donald is most intriguing. He serves as Charlie’s polar opposite – whereas Charlie is (at least initially) established as a professionally serious and successful screenwriter who struggles with romantic/interpersonal relationships, Donald (seemingly naively) hopes to make it in “the industry” with a clichéd psychological thriller but suffers no shyness around the opposite sex. Ironically, Donald’s script becomes a massive hit as Charlie fruitlessly labors to make headway on his adaptation of The Orchid Thief. And at the film’s denouement, Charlie finds both the mental clarity to complete his script and the courage to finally tell his on-again-off-again “girlfriend”, Amelia, that he loves her.

Exactly why did the real-life Charlie Kaufman choose to place Donald’s character, someone so blatantly opposite Charlie in personality, professional success, and overall character arc, in Adaptation? Perhaps it is a satirical jab at his fellow screenwriters’ use of stereotypical narrative devices (the foil, the internal struggle, pyramidal plot structure, etc.) in the feature films of today. This might explain why Donald scores a commercially profitable and popular hit with his thriller script, a script Charlie consistently denounces as cliché. Is the real Kaufman speaking through Cage’s character when he tells industry exec Valerie Swinson, “Okay. But, I'm saying, it's like, I don't want to cram in sex or guns or car chases, you know... or characters, you know, learning profound life lessons or growing or coming to like each other or overcoming obstacles to succeed in the end, you know. I mean... The book isn't like that, and life isn't like that. You know, it just isn't. And... I feel very strongly about this”? But if that is the case, then Kaufman – whether with tongue in cheek or not – abandons that sentiment in the plot his own film; Adaptation does include guns, it does present action scenes, there is sex and nudity, and the protagonist does “overcome obstacles to succeed in the end”. Ultimately, I’ve found myself thinking so much about these possible intended ironies and ironic sincerities and twists on reality that I have no final conclusion to put forward. My thoughts as to the screenwriter’s intentions are utterly convoluted. And I have no choice but to recognize that Kaufman, like the dexterous puppetmaster, has manipulated me to this end.

I think that’s what I liked best about Adaptation. Sure, there were various parts within the movie that I found pleasurable for various reasons: some for the relateability, some for the action, some for the humor, some for the darker opportunity to sneer at a character as self-loathing as Kaufman. Yet I most appreciate Adaptation’s ability to keep me contemplating the film (and the film within the film, and the intent of the screenwriter in molding both entities) long after its credits have rolled.

Reflections

2010-03-22T20:19:00.003-04:00

One foot in the beartrap –
Pinch. Flex. Jiggle. Twist.
And the jaws get tighter.
Not tight enough.

“You look like hell.”
Agreed.
But, as it turns out,
Your hell is nothing like mine.

Eating Away At Me

2010-03-15T08:13:00.011-04:00

3 eggs w/ bacon
a pound & a half of turkey
that leftover ground beef
two pork chops
and a gnawing emptiness
that
i am man
and
i am dying.

Daze

2010-02-22T10:29:00.004-05:00

Dude –
I just wanted
to say,
man,
that you’ve...
changed.

New Episode of "Iron Chef"

2010-02-01T22:14:00.005-05:00

Amaranth mackerel
Flesh grooves grained like its maple
Stained purgatory

Ulysses Christmas Morning (Part II)

2010-01-04T10:20:00.011-05:00

Father held the golden bowl aloft. Ahead of Stephen, a young boy swayed uncomfortably. Every few minutes, the boy dipped a hand into his pants pocket and jerked the crotch forward.

Oh C’MON man. Subtlety, subtlety. I was young once. As many Sour Cream & Onion Lays in my mouth as I could fit. Made a game of it. The mushiness. Bliss. Could do that in heaven forever, never get fat. Nickelodeon and cynicism, negatively correlated. Crying before football practice. Most improved player. We had no expectations for you to begin with.

“…and peace be with all of you.”

No.No.No. Not that hand.

As the congregation turned to exchange handshakes, Stephen stood awkwardly sideways and avoided eye contact with the boy.

A child of God. A shout in the street.

Mental Calisthenics (On A Ulysses Christmas Morning)

2009-12-28T18:33:00.018-05:00

Stephen heel-toed behind his parents, into the old pew. As he squirmed in his seat - against the stiffly angled wood pressing his tailbone - his eyes followed lines in the gold altar tablecloth and he tuned into, out of, and into a conversation behind him.

“…in Hawaii with some friends for a couple weeks. Taking a little break before he starts work. He’s doing good.”

Everything rosy in Peachtown. Fantastic. If Princess is 10 miles behind car B and they’re going 40 and 30 miles per hour, respectively, how long until car A is 15 miles ahead of car B. Rate equals distance over time. Add the distance. 25. Divide 10. There’s the answer. And Princess always wins, assuming no banana peels. I’ve still got it. 1, 2, 3, 4, 16, 182.

“But I told him, I said: ‘Now we’d be happy to have you back in the house for six months or a year, but if you come back, you have to come back as an adult. You can’t leave your socks out and expect clean ones to magically appear on the bed every day.’”

“Is he good about that?”

“Yeah. Well, he’s getting there.”

“And what about the dishes?”

“…”

Yes. What about the dishes? God help us all. Come back. Comeback. Back from the dead to tell you all, I shall tell you all. What? Hardly appropriate for church. If PETA were here, hurling red paint and bloody animal spleens on old ladies in their furs and their diamond necklaces and their smugness. The shock on their wrinkled faces. Incredulous. I-n-c-r-e-d-o-. D-u-l-o-u-s.

You're No Saint

2009-12-07T18:38:00.015-05:00

Rum & coke. A double.
Sweat, lights and chatter, the bar blurs,
then – black...
pierced by an airbag wakeup
and a cold, hard sinking.
They say you never forget your last.

Be honest - it won't be the last.
You struggle doubly
and overcome, only to sink
again on an innocent Tuesday afternoon that blurs
into weekend dawn, still up,
with wide-awake fingers grasping at bloodshot black

explanations. In that baffling black,
pleas for the last
breath well up
uncontrollably as, doubled-over,
you grip the tear-blurred
porcelain sink,

vomit blood, and pray for help. Sunken-faced
friends in the church basement smoke Marlboro Blacks
end to end and drown in coffee. Their alcoholic stories blur
with debt, divorce, destruction, God, salvation. Somehow you outlast
the need to run, a need that doubles
with every tale of a man upstairs.

Your choices: look up
to years of watered-down coffee or sink
at the bottom of a bitter vodka double.
It's boredom or blackout
because moderation never lasts.
The days blur

together as thoughts of a blurry
blissful drunk relentlessly rise up.
These desires outlast
the sinking
sunlight, and when the black
city nightlights shine, stakes double.

Wandering uptown, your black mind doubletakes.
Some nights you grit a smile and count minutes from your last.
Others, you sink – contented – into blurry oblivion.

River Psalm

2009-11-30T22:26:00.008-05:00

Pray for the boys
Whose feet scratched Burnside’s Bridge.
Floated red down the Potomac
Like hope in a Nile basket.

Think of the boys
Face down in the Rhine.
Never saw sunset at Le Havre
Or tasted iron in the Tiber.

Cry for the boys
Tangled with the Red,
Wasted along the Mekong,
Claimed by a rice field.

Spit your cries to the Mississippi,
Your thoughts to the Missouri,
Your prayers to the Rio Grande.
They’ll rush toward old Atlantic,
And never come back again.

Now spit once more for mothers
Who bore sons as eternal as spit.

No Paradise

2009-10-26T20:59:00.003-04:00

At four : fiftysix,
With fingers dirt-bleared,
The hardhats know paradise.

Let's hit it, fellas!
And brown faces gather
At four : fiftysix.

Dusty pickup in the distance,
A race toward her figure.
The hardhats know paradise.

Earthy smiles,
Her packd bed scrapes the tires
At four : fiftysix.

In visions of embrace,
Warm shower, recliner,
The hardhats know paradise.

Forgotten shovel aches,
Concrete far (gone in the rearview).
At four : fiftysix,
The hardhats know paradise.

Finger To The Remote

2009-09-28T16:58:00.011-04:00

Behind surgical cover,
A bromide smile.
Fish out of water.

Litigation lifestyle.
Bloodhungry attorney
On the right side.

Flies in a starved infant eye.
Finger to the remote –
Insufficient sympathy.

Coma dream rewrite;
The plots twist themselves.
Satisfying, if rote.

Retort! Talking heads shove
Politics out loud,
Terrorize impressionable housewives.

Pregnant and bitter and lewd.
Taunts resound;
A pastime for the crowd.

Millionaire ambition.
Up, up, up and under,
Ladders consume the horizon.

The homogeneous monster,
The homogeneous romance.
Godzilla's Frankenstein culture.

Technological trance,
Luminous youth zapper,
Fall leaf pile indifference.

…

Children knelt before tuck-in,
Land of milk and cookies.
Merciful nuclear holocaust.

After Julian Grenfell

2009-09-14T10:45:00.003-04:00

The narrow alleys make canals,
And run with black trash sludge.
Ash-smog stone walls echo with
Old rumors of adultery.
But the modern medieval town
Shouts simply in spraypaint:
If I had two lives,
I’d give them both to you.

The proud man shall from his town
Take pride, and hope to return it

In a stadium, a theatre
With crumbling pillars,
And splintered seats,
And sunset-rust bolts,

Furled banners, brushstrokes dried,
Take surging arms for their canvas.
And bundled flares quietly accept
The scarlet flashes of looming death.
They bid him be ready:

"Brother, brother,
If this be the last song you shall sing,
Sing well, for you may not sing another;
Brother, sing.”

And when the burning moment breaks,
And only song will do,
And proud brothers stood left and right
Guide his voice, and give him strength,

In endless color – sound - light

He shall know passion and struggle.
And his cry will shake stone walls,
His force will rush down the alleys.

Ultras

2009-08-03T15:36:00.017-04:00

Surrounded by fences of modernity,
They riot, revolt, stand on their seats.
United in rich voice and blazing color.
Colors are everything.

On weekdays they are uniformed.
As builders, butchers, thieves, businessmen.
At the weekend they are uniform.
Colors define them.

Confined at a distance, their riot
Is made marginal. Still they shout.
Passion is innocent. Or is it?
The fence thinks not.

To A New Nation

2009-07-27T13:50:00.007-04:00

I pledge allegiance
to nothing.
But never to Nothing;
nihilism is a belief –
and like all others,
a frail attempt to pretend
that something counts.

I accept that my scratch,
regardless of breadth,
regardless of depth,
regardless of fury,
will – in time – be smoothed
as if never made.

I embrace temporality
and worthlessness
for what they are.
That is, endemic.
For a life of limits is
unhappy, yet satisfied.

And I recognize:
I am not special.
I am not special.
I am not special.

A Comfortable Discontent

2009-06-29T19:07:00.008-04:00

Sink or strive or – if lucky –
Discover mediocrity.
Not stuffed but not starved;
Filling space economically.
How little ambition
Before it's no longer ambition?
Engaged but not actively.

Sisyphus

2009-06-15T10:08:00.002-04:00

Meaning begins and ends
With a capital 'G'.
Willing blindness cured,
Wishing perspective into life,
We see pointless torture or
Heroism of absurd spirit.
But never nothing – never just
A man and a rock and a hill.

Together, We're Special

2009-06-01T23:05:00.019-04:00

Most twentysomethings will never cop to it, but we’re still children with an addiction to attention. Maybe it’s only natural when we’ve suckled from a cultural nipple oozing gold stars for that C+ in math and shiny plastic trophies for piss-poor commitment to a winless soccer team. At some point, it becomes socially inappropriate to bawl and flip the Monopoly board over. At that point, we Big Kids use the Internet to provide what a full-on tantrum or an after school dime bag once did – a reaction. Times change. The need does not.

The only person who cares less than you about my latest whiny poem or about which sexual position Facebook quizzes say I am or about what I’m Twittering on today is…me. Yeah, you read that right. I'm aware that my Internet activity is a flag stuck in a mountain of leaves, a staked claim to permanence and prominence that will last until the next breeze blows. But, naturally, I will keep posting. And I’ll comment on yours if you comment on mine. Because – when it comes down to it – we can't scratch the attention itch by ourselves. Like the chimps, we'll pick ticks off each other. Means change. The end does not.

2nd Grade (Part II)

2009-05-25T19:19:00.002-04:00

The Leprechaun

If I were a lucky leprechaun I would buy a Toys R Us and all the fast food restaurants in the world. I would be mean. I would have black hair and green eyes. I would put my Toys R Us on my rainbow. My rainbow would be ice so no one could get my Toys R Us. This made the other leprechauns very mad. The leprechauns tried everything to get across the rainbow but all they did was slip. They made ice skates. Each got across the rainbow. I came and found the other leprechauns and they got punished. I kiked them off my rainbow. They ate my food. The end.

Untitled

I have a spider.
He only eats flys and worms.
But once he bit me.

Curious George

One day Curious George saw a yellow hat. George put the hat on and a man dressed in all yellow came out and put George in a bag. He got on a boat with George and they sailed away on the boat. The man in yellow said to George, “I am going to sleep for a while, do not get into trouble.” But, it is easy for little monkeys to forget. George went up on deck and he saw seagulls flying around. George thought it would be easy to fly so he tried but he fell into the water. The sailors looked and looked and looked and they finally found George. After that George was more careful. The End.

Worthwhile?

2009-05-11T21:44:00.005-04:00

It’s one thing to accept the ugliness.
Halfhearted line after demeaning lie,
Answered with a you-know-I-know-
but-I-don’t-have-the-heart-to-call-you-
on-something-that-bad
Smile.

It’s quite another to face it honestly square,
Alone and unemployed.

An Experiment

2009-04-20T00:05:00.007-04:00

Validated parking,
A pat on the back.
Rats scurry through my skull.
In an ear, out another,
Back around again.
Off to the checkers
And cheese, or banana,
Or banana nut. Caffeine.
Sweat-soaked stained
Cotton over coarse, ugly hair and
Uglier self-advancement –
Make sure my name’s on it too.
Pointed meaning,
A meaningless existence.

Wasted

2009-04-13T19:14:00.033-04:00

I (Romance)

In theory, I’d settle for something to fuck and someone to argue with – anything to dull the boredom. In reality, I only remember you listing every one who had had you. Your honesty was admirable, though I could never love you for it. We swore on no judgment. My thoughts aren’t mine to control.

II (Grind)

Are there haves and have-nots, or just never will? We treadmill toward elusive finish lines with endless sweat and – in the end – we leave exhausted, dehydrated, and generally short on time. Work Brings Freedom...but control or sanity? Headfucked and faithless.

III (Plans)

I would be cliché to dwell on the cliché of meaning in life. Hand me the TV controller. I’ll use it as I please – actively and vicariously – answering trivia questions and undressing the stars, imagining how hard we’d fuck. I’d hit that (assuming I could get up and stay up). If I got my chance, I would take it. Probably.

IV (Certainty)

There are three options: believe, do not believe, and silence. The third gets lost in the debate. Or maybe it’s that no claim holds no appeal. Keeping quiet might be most sane, but the others offer a reality to control, a rallying cry, and some serious fucking vitriol for good measure. The enemy incredibly stupid. And immoral. And hypocritical. And...

V (Devotion)

As fewer and fewer raise their hands, they’ll soon discover who Spartacus is. And you can be sure he will suffer. Were I honest, I might admit lack of commitment isn’t the trouble. Rather, it’s that fucking creeping suspicion that they probably have it right. Why slave for reward that has to be shared?

VI (Status)

The root of evil? Spending, spiraling beyond control. Gone broke saving money. Class quo is the self-confidence end all; it will be the death of us, if that perfect emerald lawn we once had doesn’t do it first. No more rain and it's fucked.

VII

Control? I’ll only know fragments. And it’s a fucking shame. Or something like that.

Sic (It's All About The He Said She Said)

2009-04-06T14:57:00.003-04:00

Step back from that ledge my friend
He drinks a whisky drink, he drinks a vodka drink
New beginning from some other beginning’s end
She drinks a lager drink, she drinks a cider drink

He drinks a whisky drink, drinks a vodka drink
Inside you’re ugly like me
She drinks a lager drink, a cider drink
And it opened up my eyes

Inside you’re ugly, you’re ugly like me
Cold, shamed, lying naked on the floor
I saw the sign
I’ll see if I can use it

I am cold and I am shamed, lying naked on the floor
And I swear that I don’t have a gun
But I’ll see if I can use it for the weekend or a one night stand
I’ve got a feeling I’m not the only one

I don’t have a gun
Wish you would step back from that ledge, friend
I’m not the only one
Every new beginning comes from some beginning’s end

Served In The Family Room

2009-03-16T09:48:00.016-04:00

“So, they took us up to this lovely Tuscan winery, family-run.
Yes, the sunset! Dinner and all-you-can-drink, reds and white.
We strolled through the vines, came back and the kid was Gone.
On the dancefloor, girls swung him round, pawned onto the next.
We considered stopping it; ‘apologies; nothing to see here’.
But the slow dance called us. Besides, he had to learn.”

“Figured the worst was over, once we got him on the tour bus.
What an ambiance that was. Smashed to hell,
Fifty-three retirees belting out Dino’s Greatest Hits.”
Whennn theeeeee moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie
“Next thing we know, look over at him –
Head pressed into the headrest ahead, we tried to call him.”
It was impossible, trying to focus on a swirling floor,
Thinking if I try to answer, It’s. All. Over. Thinking I
“It was Ugly.”

“The driver – what was his name?”
Piero. His name was Piero. Whenever I forgot,
I’d remember il capitano di Juventus.
“Anyway, not important. So, we get the driver’s attention,
Had to use broken Italian and gestures – yeah, like this –
Hands gushing from the mouth outward, he caught on quick.
And he was Not Happy. We carried the kid back to our room.”

You were up all night. Cleaned me up, watched me sleep.
I owe you for the public reminders
Whenever I think myself bigger, better, more complete.

I Argue, I Love

2009-03-09T20:55:00.013-04:00

If I wanted to explain why the idea of strength in numbers is so scary, I might choose the case example of a Jonas Brothers concert. Thousands of impressionable young minds uniformly yelping, bawling, jumping, harmonizing – anything to support their favorite musical trio. A trio no one knows anything about.

Well, I take that back; we do know some things. We know they’re cute, we know they’re wholesome, we know they’re virgins, we know that if we happen to be a Wal-Mart patronizing parent of three, we can feel safe quenching little Sarah’s thirst for popularity and possessions with media bearing their name. But these messages are planned, controlled, tactical. There’s no human reality. No figurative (or literal) nip slip – no glimpse past the perfect, shimmering plastic packaging to a shocking post-op surgery scar. No addiction, no tactlessness, no frailty. The Jonas Brothers are a meaningless pastiche of sanitized revolutions, revolutions devoid of meaning to start with. In essence, their fans scream for nothing personified. Scream loudly too.

----------

Mock them we may – but in one way or another, we are one of those screaming fans. We’ve all got our own Jonas Brothers, our own living testimonial to the nauseating power of the pack. Young Democrats, Terrell Owens Fan Club, Darfur Awareness Group, Walk For The Cure. We could argue for varying levels of some objective value, perhaps rightly or perhaps wrongly. On another level, that value is irrelevant. The cause is a rallying point, a reason to find a mutually agreeable meeting time, a medium for like minds to reinforce the value of like-mindedness. The cause is the rationale. Groupthink, uniformity, and headnodding are undesirable...until the cause is introduced as an end justifier.

“Isn’t it just awful?”
“Terrible. How dare they?”
“It needs changing.”
“That’s why we’re here.”

----------

I don’t see the beauty in unity I used to. Where once I saw heroism and sacrifice for a greater communal good, now I see Lemmings. Those little green drones trudging dutifully off the cliff, one after the next. No break in stride.

It is an honor to be argued with. The points of debate and the ideas discussed aren’t at the heart of the matter. It’s the sentiment: I care. And because I care, I’m going to spend my time – the single most valuable (and totally unrenewable) resource I have – on you. I’m going to spend it making sure you don’t become a Lemming, a nameless victim for the groupthink cause. If you dissent, you’ve done a favor. You’ve jerked someone, no matter how temporarily, from the ranks of squealing Jonas fanatics. And that is a worthwhile cause.

Good Ol' Boys

2009-03-02T18:58:00.008-05:00

To whom it may concern: regards, sincerely
“My solitary weakness is my perfectionism”
Wary of some damning individualism.
It’s tongue-biting bloodsport and quite merely
Not saying Something, doing it clearly.
Never confess underlying capitalism,
Or rhetoric filtered through a salary/shit prism.
I can suffer for a hundred thou yearly.
In the boardroom war room, freedom’s illusion.
Black or navy, white collar, red repp tied.
No sudden movements, no signs of confusion,
No ad libs – no sort of, maybe – no uncertainty implied.
Obvious, safe choice: their ideal conclusion.
Ultimate reward to Something denied.

Class Envy

2009-01-12T22:28:00.003-05:00

Once the hors d’oeuvres, always the aftertaste.
Glasscased class quo stunts any moment of clarity.
I’ll riot a t-shirt or two to charity and bliss,
I’d be remiss not gifting myself the mental quiet.
Once the cushy velvet plateau, never anything lower.

Return Policy

2009-01-05T01:25:00.005-05:00

My regrets linger on lost receipts.
I’d regift Confucius, throw Getz/Gilberto to the wind.
Denim jeans would tear romantically.
If only to pack it all up,
Drive possessions into dust, toss the keys aside,
And walk (and to drink in the sights slowly).

I needed a prompt, but nothing served me.
Held nothing but straws when blunt sexuality was it.
In the backdrop, under nightlight and over your lips –
Indifferent lips ready to scrutinize the response –
Accumulation crumbled, and nothing remained to push on
(and worth revealed itself).

The 'A Paper' Recipe

2008-12-22T20:13:00.033-05:00

Ingredients:
Impending deadline
Stock thesis broth
Pinch of pandering
Five to ten minced sources

A smart base thesis is the key to authoring that academic pièce de résistance – the ‘A paper’. What makes a smart thesis? It should be interesting and compelling, but not so interesting as to be controversial, and not compelling enough to be perceived a challenge. A classically pirated interpretation, with an added semantic twist or swapped sources, should suffice. In writing, remember that evenhandedness is nice, but conciseness is nicer. Every page, every paragraph, every sentence should stir ever so slightly around the thesis, never straying too far, into possible counterpoints.

As the concentrated thesis soup simmers, Dean’s List chefs really earn their keep. Nuance is crucial in sucking up – too much information regurgitation and the paper is ruined; blatancy spoils the broth. Humans can’t not prefer ideas that sustain their own, but professors would rather feign inhumanity. The successful writer knows this, and can butter the subconscious without searing into consciousness.

Lastly, the factual garnish: sources. Never mind that the excerpt is out of context. Never mind that it undercuts the idea behind the original work. Never mind that you’ve never even read the original work (nobody has) or that you could probably use the same technique with the same source to support the polar opposite to your thesis. As long as the requisite references are tacked on the side, you’re golden, and so is your paper. Bon appétit!

– – – – – – –

People are explainers. We need reasons, need causality, need anecdotes, and something always trumps nothing. Students skilled at narrating that something are handsomely rewarded and positively reinforced. Narrators get the grades, attend the whitebread graduate schools, and float into the cushy executive chairs by doing what they were trained to do best. While we continue to breed convincers, we can expect to stay comprehensively convinced. And duly vulnerable.

The economic shithole in which we find ourselves is home sweet home for narrators, those thriving semi-graduates still writing the ‘A papers’, still explaining our crises into the known and the accepted. All the while, we eye potential terrorists in the airport departure lounge, we indict smokers over our Big Macs, we watch as a profiteer governor is crucified by the architects of hundredmilliondollar bridges to nowhere, and we pour life savings into low-risk portfolios. As an honest chef might admit (but only in private), an ‘A paper’ is little more than an ‘F paper’ on explanatory fine china. Unfortunately, we're being served everywhere.

Lemonlight

2008-12-15T09:51:00.009-05:00

Madonna in alternate uniform is Madonna no more.
Just another hostage to the cell phone, forcing a nod,
An obligatory half glance in tailored Gucci.
Unfulfilled suits filling swivelchairspace.

Someone somewhere did it better, and will do.
With more ‘talent’, more ‘passion’, who ‘wanted it more’,
Whose epitaph reads: Crushed under a buckled tower of ivory chips.
Fall where they may, fall brutally, without rhyme.

The least to be done is to admit it;
Highest elevation to the humble amongst you.
But the peaks are remarkably barren because
With the fame turns the act, and the act, the fame.

From Innocence

2008-12-08T23:43:00.024-05:00

I stood at arms length from a loaded gun in the first week. And I handled domestic abuse on my first night without backup. (I also watched five minutes earlier – clueless at the time – as a blood-soaked drunk stumbled into law enforcement’s Ronnie Lott).

There was a gang shooting two blocks away. There were four consecutive weeks where Teen Nite ended in a fist fight or knife fight. There were rubberbanded bankrolls that would make T-Pain blush. There were drugs and booze and sex, and lots of it. There was an elevator ride with two drunk girls swapping their ice cream sundaes. There was the proposition from a Russian immigrant in Housekeeping. There was a discussion of dildos with a thirtysomething, Marlboro-toothed mother of two – over (free) pizza. Her husband was in jail.

I covered for absent minds, and they covered for me. I remember the tongue-lashing my coworker took, as incredulous shrieks on the other side of The Desk demanded to know how it could have been booked for next month instead, what do you mean there are no rooms left tonight, what do we intend to do about it, demanding to know where Tyler was, I want to talk to Tyler, I booked with Tyler, I even wrote his name down – right here: Tyler. I remember keeping my eyes down, thanking fuck that I had forgotten my nametag and that someone had my back. She had no reason to protect me, all the easier to turn and point and say, “There he is.” But she didn’t.

Those were the best days at The Desk.

I’m not sure how I ended up in the job. Lethargy probably – opening the classifieds, scanning quickly, settling quicker. Oceanfront Hotel…Front Desk…that sounds alright for the summer, interesting even. I applied, and started the next Monday. Besides the movielike caricatures who strolled into and out of the scene and the heroism in solving the problems they caused, what kept me interested was the personal selling. There was something alluring about sizing the customer up, deciding what they could pay, what they would pay, and how I could best reconcile the two – all before they were five steps through the door. Sure, some parts sucked, mostly repetitive phone calls and paperwork, but it was bearable when split, the pay was decent, and I was posting record sales numbers. Gravy, baby.

Flash forward one and two-thirds summers. Sheepishly wiping my face on the standard issue Hawaiian shirt uniform, I watched my shoes roll over sand on the concrete step below. No way I was looking up, couldn’t risk meeting the glance of an innocent tourist. Waves crashing against the gray six-thirty horizon, one after the next, ebbed with the same question washed to my feet. Where did this come from? I don’t cry, I’m better than that. Yet here I was, and I was decidedly not better than that. I struggled to make sense.

At the top of the learning curve, I had reached the numbness of muscle memory. I could do my job well, very well, without thinking. But with my thoughts freed, I began to think critically – mostly about comparative outputs. I thought about how I might be playing the mark. Initially, I had done more of the busy work because I needed to learn the ins-and-outs. Eventually, I started cycling through new excuses. I don’t smoke regularly so there's no reason for me to take a break. They covered for my mistakes the first few weeks here, I owe them. These courtesy calls never get done unless I do them. I know he hears the phone ringing…don’t you dare pretend to be busy now…this is absurd...fine, I’ll just answer it. I bet she does other stuff you don’t see (that’s a lie and I know it – everything is in plain view). I don’t want to fight with people I have to see every day. If I just bear down and do all of it now, it’ll take an hour and a half, but then I’ll be free and I won’t have to worry about whether or not it gets done. Whatever, forget I even asked. I could handle massive customer service crises, but daily paper folding loomed, mocked, angered, reminded.

That unremarkable day immediately became memorable when the Front Desk Manager stormed in. On her best days, she was confrontational. Today, here on her off day, she was furious, commanding, and unquestionable. She slammed the door to the back office behind the three of us.

“I called here and hung up ten different times. TEN TIMES. And Tyler answered. Every. Single. One.”

The next few minutes were a blur of excuses and back-and-forth. She commanded my coworker to The Desk and directed me outside. Before she told me to go take a break on the beach, she gave me a speech. I can’t recall exactly what was said, something about not letting people walk over you and standing up for yourself and burnout and heart attacks. Cue the waterworks.

On the beachfront steps, my mind continued to race with the tide. What am I to take from this? Work ethic will put you here? I was just ordered to take a break. Ordered. To stop. Working. I could have said something long ago, but would it have changed anything? Is friendship preferable to equality or not? Can't there be both? I work honestly, work hard – why is it on me to change? Is this my fault? Was it wrong to do more if I could? To do it with a smile? Did they see me as a sucker or a saint? Or just deluded?

I wish I could say I found answers in the sand.

A Review: Happy Hour Is for Amateurs

2008-12-01T23:18:00.021-05:00

In the end, it’s probably your story as much as mine.

Some punters might find this book little more than a loosely threaded timeline of debauchery. Others, a polemic indictment of the American legal system. Still others may discover a social critique of the decisions we make and the post hoc revisionism used to justify them. All would be correct, to an extent. But they would miss the larger point.

Throughout his story, Philadelphia Lawyer tricks and numbs and excuses himself into a career he ultimately hates. Money is the rationale for staying in, sex & drugs & rock & roll the means of requisite day-to-day retreat. Ultimately, frustration and luck synergize into an opportunity to swap law for a career of passion, thankfully before it’s too late.

Happy Hour Is for Amateurs: A Decade Lost in the World’s Worst Profession could as easily be the narrative of Detroit Human Resources Manager as it could Philadelphia Lawyer. This book has little to do strictly with law, and much to do with The Wrong Job, in whatever profession that may be. It is about time, and how circling the professional square robs us of it. It is a parable – a lesson that permanent escape is possible, but preemptive avoidance is preferable.

For the pragmatically majored college student, it is a lesson to learn. Quickly. Whether one's interest is in Law or Philosophy or Women’s Studies or Finance or Disinterest, the autobiography of Philadelphia Lawyer demonstrates how swerving away toward a ‘safe choice’ - past ominous flashing lights - will drive one straight to the cliff’s edge. Easier said than done in steering clear, as a passage from the book (inadvertently) illustrates:

“At one point in the morning we met with a publisher who said she had a friend practicing at a law firm in Philadelphia. ‘So a lot of lawyers would like to know who you are.’ She grinned.”

“‘Really? What do they think of my stuff?’ I half expected her to laugh and admit something like, ‘Well, they don’t really like it,’ assuming it asked the sort of questions people coping with the career would rather keep buried. That, or most didn’t read it at all, Philadelphia being pretty much resigned to its situation, and most locals not too interested in being reminded about it.”

“‘From what I know, I think most of them would like to buy you a drink.’”

The author finds validation of his new career choice here, but the reader might find something else crossing the mind; perhaps the past two hundred pages of distancing and ‘othering’ was too egocentric, perhaps there are far fewer True Believers than he would have us suppose, perhaps many more actors who think just like he, just as secretly, who fell into an ill-fitting career just as innocently. Perhaps the cliff’s edge is the habitat of the practical cynic and perhaps it is a very crowded edge. Had the possibility been considered, Happy Hour Is for Amateurs might have become considerably more disconcerting – in a good way.

Undersight aside, this book is a worthwhile read for those not yet at the fork in the road, assumedly a piece of empathy for those well past it, and a lesson in competent storytelling (equal parts hilarious and pointed) for all. In short, it is a relevant book written by a writer who clearly enjoys writing, who would push us to stop rationalizing and start doing what we enjoy doing too. Highly recommended.

Why I Can't Care

2008-11-24T10:08:00.043-05:00

In the recent Presidential elections, I have allegedly played witness to a momentous historical/social/race-relational development, to a testament of American spirit, and to the unquestionable worth of the individual in the voting process. And. I. Couldn’t. Care. Less. This is why:

1. NO, IT ISN’T MY DUTY AND, NO, MY VOTE DOESN’T COUNT.

If voting was truly an American duty, then our elected political leadership would have long ago established a law making it compulsory. They have not. (Though they have, throughout history, attempted to disqualify and discourage the voting of some citizens). Because I like living in this country, I abide by the existing laws corollary to residency. Voting is not one. So, choosing not to vote is neither the neglect of a duty to nation nor corroboration of un-Americanism. Whatever being un-American actually means…

I would accept voting 'duty' in one situation: a perfect, total numerical tie. In that case – where the ambiguity of a nonresult could cause chaos – I would gladly break a deadlock with my individual vote. It would never come to that, though. The sheer number of voters at play makes it a statistical improbability approaching impossibility. And unless a vote serves to end a tie, it only counts in the sense that it is a certifiable, referential fact with utility in its application for bragging (as we love to) that one voted for the winning candidate, that one didn't vote for a politician who has recently fallen from favor, that one does differs from the public majority, etc. Unless a vote breaks a tie, it counts to pick a side – nothing more, nothing less. The critical reader might rightly point out that I have no way to foresee when an election might end as a draw, so I forfeit my chance at determining an outcome if I do not preemptively vote in every election. I’ll take my chances. In the meantime, I can depend on other, 'real Americans' to do my 'duty' for me. Note the sarcasm.

2. I’M NOT THREATENED.

The twenty years of my life have been marked by relatively unparalleled liberty, security, and prosperity. Francis Fukuyama went so far as to call this post-Cold War modernity “The End of History”. Liberal democracy and the freedoms it entails is without a strong competitor. Americans have not faced any comprehensive assault on their freedoms from internal sources (read: the elected judicial, legislature, and executive) either. I would be motivated to cast my vote if a candidate represented a true threat to freedom. But could you see a Presidential candidate promising the people that he will do his best to, say, limit freedom of the press? Let alone do so and have any chance at election?

That unlikely possibility aside, I am unmoved by the slight variations between candidates and/or incumbents. An elected official’s term may, depending on the official and the topic in question, fall slightly below or rise slightly above an accepted American norm. But, eventually, things slowly return to the norm or the norm itself shifts. A tax hike here, a break there, a policy shift here, a law change there; it's minor fluctuation about the average and none of it will comprehensively transform my day-to-day. I have been threatened by adults who promise the ‘real world’ will change this view, but – and I fully admit my life as a student is pretty sheltered and inelastic – this promise is offered too frequently, too conveniently, and without sufficient anecdotal proof for me to buy it.

Basically, it dovetails: because I am blessed to live in modern America, I do not find threat to my essential liberties in the differences between election candidates and, therefore, lack motivation to invest time and effort in exploring and acting upon those differences.

3. RATIONALITY IN EXCHANGE OF IDEAS IS USUALLY NON-EXISTENT.

There is wisdom in knowing how politicians operate. Their aim is to make black and white of grey, to distort, to create belief, to cast into doubt, to commit without commitment, and to concisely create maximal appeal to the day’s target audience. Political candidates are marketers, and they are usually good ones. Recognizing this fact, it becomes impossible to rationally accept political dicta. Not surprisingly, I am alarmed at how often political propaganda is cited to support an argument, because this means one of two things: that one is naïve enough to accept political marketing-cum-platform as ‘fact’ or – far more probably and much more tellingly – that one is willing to feign the acceptance.

Political debate has become a pissing contest of ever-increasing strain and odor. It's all a foil to reason. In these competitions of upped antes, where the best bluffer of their irrefutable correctness wins a zero-sum game, my immediate, ingrained reaction is to stand up and walk away from the table entirely.

The Lemmings

2008-11-03T09:30:00.005-05:00

We marched forth and back.

We marched on the Bastille.
Secretly hoping that someone would pull me aside and
With a clandestine shake of hands, The Cause
And my straw kingdom for a fire engine red Ferrari.
For a lease on contoured leather and 8500 rpm
I’d go to the guillotine a thousand times over.

We marched throughout Troy.
Many fell to Achilles, many to Hector,
Many to the lesser, and many to himself.
Dirges of Sacrifice and Honor and Dedication.
With the pleasantries said or left unsaid, regardless,
The cake was eaten, the wine drank, all promptly forgotten.

We marched over The Desert.
Forty years are nothing to keeping up with Mr. Jones.
As the lawn goes, so go I,
And the altar upon which I offer my lifetime.
Faith – possessions make the Religion
And break the sidewalk beggar, opportunity cost.

I stopped and I felt nothing.

Change It Is Not

2008-10-27T03:05:00.004-04:00

The few with enough sense and ability
Are disillusioned before the word go.
Latent hostility takes its toll in the form of
Ambivalence, bare minimum and quid pro quo.

You can do anything you want with your life
As long as you’re closed and single-minded.
Take ignorance of counterargument as your mistress,
To have and to hold, blindfolded ‘til death do you.

We're Not Winning

2008-10-06T08:31:00.022-04:00

Forget the war, it's just finding time
To fight the battles.

Ant invasions and box scores and co-
workers and customer service and
embarrassment and fashion sense
andgasolineandlovehandlesand
prescriptionsandstandards
andstockpricesand

There’s not enough time to do the dishes.

Modern Football

2008-09-08T22:03:00.014-04:00

Thousands have become millions
And millions have become billions
And billions are no longer enough.

Once humble servants – memory’s gallant – are no more.
The peeping toms can scarcely afford capricious whores,
Who moan with silky palm up, expecting further reward.

The trembling mass of a crowd in full voice is comprehensively crushed
Quietly down into assigned seats by gravity and price and regulation.
Those who can afford their plastic throne relinquish it early to beat traffic.

What once I loved, I must find again.

In the narrow streets of the favela, where joyous feet find their space to mourn.
In a sleepy Italian town, where the butcher becomes the poet and the general.
In sunshine and tango, where concrete sways in rhythm with its people.

What once I loved, I will find again.

Only Old Beginnings

2008-09-01T22:41:00.004-04:00

Chi parla in faccia non è traditore.
Mal comune, mezzo gaudio.
Let me share, friend.

Árbol que nace torcido, jamás su tronco endereza.
No por mucho madrugar amanece más temprano.
Can a straight tree bend in the privacy of the evening?

Voz do povo, voz de Deus.
Zurros de burro não chegam ao céu.
It is not for us to find the answer upward.

C'est le ton qui fait la chanson.
Tout nouveau, tout beau.
The conductor is a conformist, and the conducted.

Seek and ye shall find nothing.
And expire, having said nothing.

Answers

2008-08-11T22:07:00.008-04:00

How many years have we spent chasing? How
many tracing and retracing and imagining and
revising? Why never bracing, though we well
know reality will pale, will fail, will dismantle
words, phrases, and all the looks we’ve planned?
Can we crooks learn, or – rather – unlearn? Is
the murky torment in thinking of it or in the
knowledge of its repetition?
Might we find salvation in release, yet bind
ourselves to damnation in the concentrating?

Vice

2008-08-04T21:57:00.004-04:00

The sirens call:

Convenience –
Reposed on contoured leather, legs crossed at the ankle
Shifts with a thoughtless groan as
Cowardice –
At her side, braiding her hair with eyes locked downward
Recoils to avoid contact; meanwhile
Corruption –
Leans at her cliff vista, a faint smirk the only indication
Of complete and total contentment.

Modern man fights the current without his raft
And he must rely on his arms, choosing either
To cover his ears or to paddle and wade.
In time, habit is his rocky death.

[Untitled]

2008-07-21T00:43:00.011-04:00

The choice is yours, son.
Die soon for the sake of legacy
Or bargain. Settle, settle. There’s
No shame to hold your head with the masses.
Logic and reason should dictate when choice abounds.

9-to-5 plus overtime,
Sunday service,
The electric bill,
And turkey (or ham)

A straight swap for:

Minutes,
Regret,
And a bit part player to be named later.

You can’t expect a Little League life
Of gold-tinted glory, long in the memory.
The choice is obvious.

'Educated'

2008-06-30T09:55:00.010-04:00

Our fingers have brushed the dust off rediscovered pyramids,
Stood eye to eye with gesturing protagonists of watercolor,
Tasted bitter teas at daybreak, alongside interested pigeons.

Our body has never known a day’s work,
Brow never creased, smile never forced, spirit never broken
By the grinding monotony of the customer.

Never trapped in same, with same behind and same ahead,
In the phalanx, same brothers to left and to right trudging
Toward the victory of today’s end and baseless expectation
Of better tomorrow.

We’ve no need for the common;
Its men and its women have nothing to offer
But more of the common, for which we have no need.

Class Uprising

2008-06-23T00:01:00.005-04:00

The silver spoon used to touch
The lips of few, and such, etc.
These days we can find it on eBay
For half what your forefathers paid.
From faraway corners, designer fashions
Flood forward in familiar 'exclusive' lines.
Rumblings of an advent and advance –
Polo for $20, a cue of the final dance.
I’ve got it too, so you can lower that nose.
I suppose that, finally, now I get you.

Match Report: West Ham United v Aston Villa

2008-05-12T13:35:00.006-04:00

At a club like West Ham United, expectation saturates the summer air each season. Ups and downs (mostly the latter) are certain to follow, but the last match of the campaign is greeted with a sigh of relief – be it the relief of lesser competition awaiting below in the Football League Championship, the relief of avoiding relegation to the very same Championship, or the simple relief of not having to suffer through another week of mediocre football. The relief of this season would fall into that third category.

Despite suffering a number of long-term injuries to key players, West Ham were able to hold a position in the top half of the table for the majority of the season. However, a push for a European place never really materialized and the final stretch became increasingly painful. The month of March began inauspiciously with three consecutive 4-0 defeats (to Chelsea, Liverpool, and – worst of all – Tottenham) and ever since, most of the squad had put in a number of half-hearted performances. Lately, manager Alan Curbishley had inexplicably resorted to monetary motivation, reminding the players through the media that they stood to lose out on bonuses if the team slipped into the bottom half of the table. Unfortunately, recent losses to Portsmouth and Bolton and an unconvincing victory at home to Derby County indicated that even this tactic was not having its desired effect. It appeared the players were as ready for the season to be over as the supporters (some of whom even – inexcusably – began booing their own players onto and off of the pitch).

To be honest, though, this term was never going to compare to the drama of last year. The signing of two world-class Argentines, a takeover, a manager change, the departure of one of said Argentines, the emergence of the other, accusations of illegitimate transfers, and demands for point docking, all culminating in a final day 1-0 (Tévez 45) victory at Old Trafford to ensure our Premier League survival. Looking further back, the previous five seasons or so have all been dramatic, with each involving relegation or a gutting play-off loss or promotion. If nothing else, this season provided a little stability and a chance to catch one’s breath. Yet there has been more dissatisfaction with this term than recent others, owing mostly to criticism of Curbishley’s bland style. I don’t expect West Ham United to win the league anytime soon, but I do expect them to play the stylish, attractive, attacking football they always have, and it’s not something that they have done regularly under dear old Alan. Personally, I’d rather see the club playing attractive football and battling in the relegation zone every year than playing route one football at mid-table or in Europe. For me, marginal success should not come at the expense of club identity. Here’s to hoping Curbs sticks around (I do like him, after all) and that he has his squad play the open style they showcased in the final few matches, even if that was only when there was, admittedly, nothing to lose.

There was one last match to be played at Upton Park and it happened to be against one of the better sides this season, Aston Villa. Villa were still in with a chance at a European spot, while West Ham were playing for…uh…pride? Oh, I almost forgot about those bonuses. Logic would say this was only ever going to finish one way, but football can be a 'funny game'.

Anton Ferdinand passed fit to partner nineteen year old James Tomkins in the center of defense. George McCartney and Lucas Neill filled out the rearguard in front of first choice goalkeeper Robert Green – who was deservedly named Hammer of the Year before kickoff. Luis Boa Morte, Mark Noble, Scott Parker, and Nolberto Solano composed the midfield, with Dean Ashton and Bobby Zamora the starting strikers. The Villa squad read: Carson, Bouma, Laursen, Knight, Mellberg, Barry, Reo-Coker, Petrov, Young, Carew, Agbonlahor.

Nobby Solano opened the scoring within the first ten minutes, on a freekick taken just outside the 18 yard box. Solano curled his shot around the wall and toward the upper right hand corner of the goal, where Scott Carson – who was standing almost exactly where the shot went (his line of sight was probably blocked by the wall) – managed only a slight touch as the ball flew past into the back of the net. Aston Villa answered quickly on fourteen minutes when Nigel Reo-Coker’s through ball found Ashley Young unmarked on the right. Young proceeded to coolly slot the ball far post past a poorly positioned Robert Green. John Carew failed to capitalize shortly after, as a low cross from the right found him on the edge of the 6 with Tomkins on his wrong side, but the Norwegian’s flick went well wide. A lazy pass out of the West Ham defense fell right at the feet of Agbonlahor, who cut into the box and saw his shot stay wide left. Just before the break, Luis Boa Morte played the ball onto the left foot of Zamora, who hit a shot on the turn that bent just right of the post.

In the fifty-eighth minute, Villa pulled ahead. Gareth Barry played Reo-Coker into the box on the right and the former West Ham captain fired a shot that Green did well to save. Unfortunately, neither Ferdinand nor Tomkins had picked up Barry, who had continued his run to the penalty spot, where the ball fell fortuitously onto his favored left foot. It was a simple goal. The Irons (somewhat surprisingly) refused to capitulate, however, and saw Dean Ashton’s header cleared off the line and Bobby Zamora’s effort clank off the crossbar. With two minutes of time left, Ashton cut back from the left channel to meet a deflected pass from substitute John Paintsil just outside the 18. His thunderous right-footed drive gave Carson no chance. 2-2.

On the balance of play, a draw seemed a fair result. Villa saw their shot at direct UEFA Cup qualification vanish, while Tottenham’s 2-0 loss to Liverpool meant that West Ham finished in 10th, just above their London rivals.

If you believe anything you read in the papers, West Ham will use the summer to consolidate the squad, cutting fringe players and checking a massive wage bill. Curbishley and new technical director Gianluca Nani will undoubtedly look to add at least a few players, but just having quality internationals like Craig Bellamy and Julien Faubert fit again will prove to be as important as any new signing. The best bit of business management can do in the summer is to secure Robert Green and Dean Ashton to long-term deals. The Englishmen have been mainstays in the squad and they would be crucial players in a push towards Europe. Here’s to hoping we see that push. Bring on next season.

Grand Theft Autobiography

2008-05-05T00:06:00.008-04:00

Greeted by a band of sunlight across my eyelids and a bulging mattress spring against my ribcage, I push dingy sheets aside and swung toes to greet linoleum. A moment of madness takes hold, as I sense cigarettes and smog in my pores. No time to shower, though. I let enough of the day escape my grasp already. Down the hall, past empty boxes that once held something and graffiti pleas that never meant anything, out into checkered radiance and shadow created by metal structures overhead.

Strutting along the checkerboard, shouldering past nondescript citizens, the glint of a freshly waxed automobile arrests my being. Glancing around, out of habit more than anything – it’s not as if any of these pawns could break from their self-absorbed routine long enough to notice – I jolt elbow to window. Adrenaline and the dreariness of sheer repetition cause my memory to fast forward, to the green light a street block down. Inside my jet black sedan, I drown the grating sound of modern infrastructure in blared hip-hop.

Cheap sex is the remedy to pacify; it rests on every park bench and against every abandoned wall. Quickly the deed is done, and even quicker I stand over a cold body, my money returned to my palm, one new fingerprint on the stolid countenance of a once-important president. But I sense I have been spotted, see the flashes of red and white, and sprint back to the comfort of jet leather, thumping bass, and a pedal firmly under my boot.

I can remember a time when police chases were a novelty, a delicacy to be savored, not the gulped soggy hamburger they are. The hollow thud of moving masses against my hood and the breathlessness of ramped flight are all that make it worthwhile. And, thus, through tunnels and bridges and corridors and alleys the dance meanders. Abandoning my sedan a few blocks away, I amble back toward the familiar checkerboard and the patient cot at its end. That’s when it happens.

I watch from cement as my jeans swerve around me, pulling my torso with them further across gravel. Stunned, my eyes focus on an opening golden door, a checkerboard (but not the one I remember), the words “Liberty City Taxi”, and the motions of gushing, mumbled apologies. I greet his apology with a bullet. Nobody looked twice.

The people of this town are too incompetent to keep their folly to themselves. With a pounding headache and stinging knees, I return to bed. That taxi driver – with his absent attention and worn brake pads – ruined my entire day. He had reminded me. And that was all it took.

No Ideas But In Words

2008-04-07T00:17:00.007-04:00

words, the bricks under foot
laid parallel
worn into one by the masses.

what can I say that was not once
desperately scrawled
across the walls of a dark prehistoric cave?

how to break from this brick path?
how to say
what has yet to be said? how to?

damned, the poet must seek solace in a brick
red wheel barrow
and in reproduction of the caveman’s drawing.

Delusion

2008-03-31T10:21:00.010-04:00

With effort beyond our share, we’re kinder, gentler,
More temperate and forgiving. Imagine
What we might see, were we not human.

Would we just turn heads, open eyes to the humbling truth.
In damning hypocrites, we are damned. Careful
Not to slice our toes on cul-de-sacs of shattered glass homes.

But to err is to be human.

Blame the Gods for this trick.
Pride pulls the wool over on
Reality and Epiphany.
Fault is a shameless nymph. Feigning an
Affair with the enemy for a fortnight,
She still lies at our side until last breath.

But to err is to be human. Just keep it status quo.

Walking Home At 3AM

2008-03-03T00:00:00.007-05:00

Ascending the ashen cigarette stairs, voices melt with fading bass.
Diffused streetlight dusts the concrete like snow.
This underground den infuses rhythm that seeps
Through bone and sinew into the neon light.
A buzz of fluorescence, a distant siren, scuffled steps,
And mumblings of a passing conversation
Layer the numb bassline of coursing blood.
The haunted vocal of a wailing muse
Chopped, slurred, incomprehensible
Still rings in your ears.

On The Path

2008-02-04T03:02:00.008-05:00

A long gaze aside into woods.
Or a stare at something in the palm.
A direct head down approach works, too. Counting bricks
Below, rigid bodies quicken and avoid contact.

Sip of vodka,
Cigarette,
Pounding bass,
And hollow company:
The weekend recipe to ease
Awkwardness.

Accelerating toward a lonely end.

Live: Wu-Tang Clan

2008-01-21T20:06:00.006-05:00

I’m not typically interested in live music. My cynical side asks why I should pay a lot of money to listen to tunes that sound clearer in studio form, despite the energy and atmosphere a live performance might add. But for whatever reason, when I heard Wu-Tang Clan was coming to the area, I immediately jumped at the opportunity. A supergroup of nine highly skilled Staten Island MCs, the Clan has seen its members earn commercial success both as a group and individually, standing apart in a genre that has recently devolved into little more than glorified, hook-riddled dance music. But I digress…

Due to the Clan’s renowned propensity for tardiness, I confidently arrived at the concert nearly an hour after the 8:00 PM door opening at Richmond’s Toad’s Place. The venue’s strategic placement within the city, industrial-chic exterior/interior, and two-tiered design that maintains a cozy atmosphere with decent capacity all explain its quickly rising reputation. My positioning in the center of the ground floor provided quality visibility and proximity to the stage, but also, unfortunately, kept me equally as close to the full bar opposite the stage, from which streamed row after row dancing inebriates. Two hours on, as the host assured us that Wu-Tang would show and as the speakers continued to blare commercial dance/pop hip-hop, these drunkards continued to jostle, spill, grind, and (occasionally) hit on the friends I had come with. One turned to me and said: “I think people forgot why they came.” No doubt.

A very forgettable opening act and a few more assurances later, the Wu-Tang Clan finally took the stage, around 11:15 PM, kicking off without either the RZA or Method Man. Affiliate CappaDonna, however, was a surprise addition to the stage, as he was not listed on the billing. Despite having a new group album from the Clan and a solo effort from Ghostface Killah to promote, the group treated the crowd to a lot of older material, including nearly half the tracks off of the classic “Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)”. Tributes to O.D.B. (“Shimmy Shimmy Ya”, “Brooklyn Zoo”) and the missing Method Man went down smoothly too. Each member’s individual style was as apparent on stage as on record, but they all came to entertain. They kept the crowd enthralled as they systematically ripped a non-stop hour and a half session of quality hip-hop. The star of the show, though, shockingly enough, was the one MC nobody expected to be in attendance. Donna came hungry. He enjoyed the lion’s share of time on the mic and flawlessly delivered no less than three minute-long a cappella verses. Though his lyrical ability is occasionally faulted, his energy, on this night, could not be.

At the end of the show, I was left, jaw-dropped, to consider the display of lyricism and stage presence I had just witnessed. To reconsider, too, my stance on concerts. My only regret of the night was choosing not to pursue the Clan’s open offer to Ghostface’s birthday party at the local Embassy Suites. A party, indeed.

Rerun

2007-12-31T10:57:00.005-05:00

Another year of
unmistakable aroma.
Vomit and regret on a
Saturday morning.

In a familiar room with
posters on square blocks,
(smirking)
I remember the next line.

An Overwhelming Question: T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock"

2007-12-03T19:16:00.018-05:00

"It’s strange that words are so inadequate. Yet, like the asthmatic struggling for breath, so the lover must struggle for words." T.S. Eliot’s words reflect a self-realized reality upon which "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is built. An inability to express and act on his sexual desire proved a cause of enveloping unhappiness for Eliot circa 1915. This source unhappiness, which partially tailored the opinions of and views on love encountered throughout the Eliot canon, finds its exposition in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." For its glimpse into the poet’s sexual psyche, this particular poem is unparalleled.

With his first line, "Let us go then, you and I," Prufrock (Eliot) sets the scene for the private revelation to follow. Critics have debated for years about who the "you" in the poem is, but, for me, there’s only one answer. In this line, Eliot speaks to his poetic creation, a reflection and representation of himself. Surely, for the compromising, personal nature of the thoughts throughout, this poem can only be addressed to oneself. This idea is echoed by the epigraph, taken from Dante’s Inferno, wherein Guido speaks candidly to the poet Dante. He may, "answer you without any fear of infamy," because he is sure his words will never escape Hell and "return to the world." Similarly, Eliot may unleash his innermost musings upon the paper without shame because he has created Prufrock, his double. By diverting attention from himself to his character, T.S. Eliot is able to slightly distance himself from his thoughts, lest they come under any criticism. But in this distancing, there is a corresponding increase in candor. A poem entitled "The Love Song of T. Stearns Eliot" would not have been quite as revealing, for fear of ridicule. With the diversion created, Eliot may continue his musing relatively unchecked.

J. Alfred Prufrock thus begins his stroll through the streets, past, "The muttering retreats / Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels." The diction of these lines is particularly intriguing, because for all his posturing, for his fixation on trying to ask a woman to go to bed with him, here appears an admission that the sexual experience he so desires is doomed to be disappointing. From what the prostitutes and their solicitors are retreating, it is not clear. But Prufrock assures us that they will find no satisfaction in their purely physical expression. This is one of few instances where Eliot expresses his yearning for more of a sacred, saintly love, as opposed to profane love. There is a sense that the poet fears his sexual fall from innocence will ruin any chance of a more satisfying sacred love, but also that this higher love may never come and, therefore, he might as well lose his virginity as soon as possible. Perhaps this feeling is the source of the ambivalence, smothering inability to ask the "overwhelming question", and ultimate sexual frustration Eliot communicates through Prufrock.

In the next stanza, "In the room the women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo," the reader is given a voyeuristic glance into civil society. This setting is the foil to the cheap hotels and, assumedly, where one might stumble upon sacred love. However, Prufrock seems neither willing to undergo the trials necessary to attain a purer love, nor sure that a purer love is more desirable. Prufrock appeals that someone as preoccupied as himself can’t be bothered to play the game, to endure the platitudes, to craft small talk, to say all the right things. This refrain really echoes the underlying idea that "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is a tale of two choices, neither of them favorable. He continually runs the merits and drawbacks of the two polar forms of love through his head, finding, "time yet for a hundred indecisions, / And for a hundred visions and revisions."

The options afforded him leave Prufrock paralyzed by his ambivalence. By the end of his commentary, Prufrock is so riddled with self-doubt that he cannot even answer straightforward questions. "Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?" Such debilitating reservation stemming from a common inability to push a moment to its sexual peak may strike the average reader as bizarre, but it is something Eliot definitely experienced. In The Letters of T.S. Eliot: 1898-1922, the poet expresses his frustration at still being a virgin, also stating: "I am very dependent upon women (I mean female society)." Exactly what is meant by this is not apparent. Perhaps he is trying to say that the approval and adoration of female society is, for him, an all-consuming goal. Perhaps, too, that despite his lack of success, he recognizes being able to love a woman - in one way or the other - as necessary for psychological survival. Perhaps that without the affirming love of a female, Eliot is incapable of being an effective, efficient person, as is Prufrock. In this way, his biggest weakness became his crutch, in a "can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em" sort of way. It may be what Eliot is trying to communicate through his poetic protagonist.

Despite his admitted dependence on females, however, T.S. Eliot was shockingly bad at communicating with them. The detached wording throughout the poem creates a sense of complete inability to connect with the opposite sex in any way, a sense echoed in many other Eliot poems. With the recurrent lines, "That is not what I meant at all. / That is not it, at all," Eliot portrays the gap in understanding between himself and the opposite sex. Despite being able to imagine having sexual intercourse with a woman, Prufrock is unable to imagine himself holding a simple, civil conversation with her.

The poet sees himself as a cross between a prophet and the biblical figure Lazarus after his imagined sexual encounter. "I am Lazarus, come from the dead, / Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all." Tell us what? If it was worth it, surely. There is an obvious desire to just get it over with and lose his virginity, so he may escape his vacillation and have his answer. He imagines his death (a word which means "orgasm" in the Shakespearean sense) as giving himself perspective. But then, just as the question appears resolved, he realizes that he - like Tiresias, his alter ego - will never be able to share his knowledge. As Tiresias struggled vainly to impress upon Oedipus the gravity of his impending suffering, so Eliot struggled to properly communicate with women. Each is fated to endure his own crucifying impotence, an inability to properly say what needs to be said. Again, Prufrock is cast into familiar doubt.

In the final stanzas, the antagonist yet again embraces a glimmer of hope before immediate dashing. He envisions himself among, "sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown." Mermaids are, in fact, a perfect choice here. Eliot probably saw the common woman as such a fantastic creature. They are stunningly beautiful, enchanting, and sensual, but ultimately elusive; they’re only caught when they want to be. Clearly, Eliot did not feel himself the one destined to catch them, as Prufrock whines, "I do not think that they will sing to me." Mermaids can be cruel, too, as the sirens of the Iliad, whose song lead sailors to their deaths. Perhaps the antagonist would settle for this deadly result, if only to have been sung to. Nonetheless, Prufrock finds temporary bliss with these mercurial creatures, until, "human voices wake us, and we drown." Only in fantastical daydreams can he attain the desired mixture of base and high love. With the sounds of the true world around him, J. Alfred Prufrock snaps out of his dream and back to the reality that he will never be satisfied. A bleak note to end on, yet fully representative of Eliot’s frustrated views on love, especially earlier in his life.

Looking through a historical lens, one can understand why T.S. Eliot may have felt the way he did. For all his high learning and education, Eliot found himself impotent when it came to the primal act of sexual intercourse. To see the lowliest portions of society as more successful in this domain must have been increasingly disconcerting with the passage of each day. Eventually, Eliot married Vivienne Haigh-Wood, a governess from Cambridge to whom he probably lost his virginity. Their relationship was extremely forced and was never to satiate the yearnings of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." Eliot was depressed with the state of affairs, so much so that (allegedly) out of his unhappiness with Haigh-Wood spawned the poem "The Waste Land." Apparently, Eliot had his answer to Prufrock’s proposition, "Would it have been worth while," and it was not the answer he might have hoped.

T.S Eliot’s young outlook on love altered every relationship and poem that was to be. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" offers a lucid manifestation of the mental state of one of modern poetry’s most important artisans.

Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey Protein: Banana Cream

2000-01-01T00:00:00.017-05:00

Remember Runts, the fruit-shaped candy with hard shells? I do. The banana ones were my favorite. They were nothing like a real banana, yet unlike any other artificial banana, too. I’d pick them out of the bag and save them for last. Apologies, I digress…

Well, not really. Because I could be forgiven for thinking that the folks at ON kidnapped Willy Wonka and beat him mercilessly until he spilled his secret banana Runt flavor formula. The similarity is uncanny. The difference? Twenty-four grams of protein per serving.

A light, airy banana aroma floats from Banana Cream. Pale yellow powder turns neon as the protein mixes with ease into a smooth, silky froth. An ever-so-slight hint of cream is the only thing that separates it from the level of exact Runt replica. Like the candy, it's strongly sweet and artificial – not in a bad way (granted, that depends on how you feel about simulated fruit flavors), just…very distinct.

As such, Banana Cream is not an everyday protein flavor. Even taking into account the banana Runt love affair of my youth, I can’t sip it day in, day out. If you have a choc/van/straw powder already on lock, however, this is well worth a look. A dash here or there can add some fantastic range to another flavor. Recommended in oats as well.

Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey Protein: Vanilla Chai

2000-01-01T00:00:00.016-05:00

[first sip]…Understated as a decent vanilla should be, yet with a faint zip all its own…[second sip]…consistent topnote of thin milkiness, subtle…[third sip]…undertone of crisp cinnamon-esque spice...[fourth sip]…with an abrupt, clean finish…[fifth sip]…refreshment, pure refreshment. Wait. Damn. Did I finish it that quickly?

I raise my shaker to Optimum Nutrition. Vanilla Chai is heavenly. Only downside: distinctive flavor means it’s good by itself and pretty much only by itself. The exception being one scoop in an icy Diet Coke. Nevertheless, I find myself digging deep into this plastic tub more often than not.

Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey Protein: Cake Batter

2000-01-01T00:00:00.014-05:00

Mixability, texture, proprietary protein blend are on point as usual from the Gold Standard. Flavor is another matter entirely.

My relationship with Cake Batter blows hot and cold. One day she treats me to a dulcet sugar cookie/white cake/vanilla palate massage. The next, she turns so sour I’m forced to consider breaking it off for good. Fetid foot-like aroma (yes, I just said it smells like feet) and a wholly chemical taste at its worst.

I can’t sort it out. I have tried shaking the tub up, scooping from the middle, scooping around the sides, closing my eyes and tapping my heels together three times – you name it. None of it lends any certainty as to what kind of day I can expect. And sorry to say, I have had far, far more of the latter than the former. Despite an expiration date at 01/12, I assume bad luck and a bad batch. A glance at the label reveals a few ingredients uncommon in other ON’s 100% whey flavors:

"Creamer (Sunflower Oil, Maltodextrin, Modified Food Starch, Dipotassium Phosphate, Tricalcium Phosphate, Tocopherols)"

and

"Gum Blend (Cellulose Gum, Xanthan Gum, Carrageenan)"

Now, I’m no scientist, but my eyes fixed firmly on Sunflower Oil. Overheated in the FedEx delivery truck, perhaps? Who knows. It’s just a shame it had to be this way. Because when things are good, they are very good. Divine, even.

Muscle Gauge Nutrition Pure Isolate Whey Protein: Cinnamon Bun

2000-01-01T00:00:00.013-05:00

Calories: 103

Total Fat: 0 g

Total Carbohydrate: 1 g

Protein: 25 g

Five pound tub: $34.99

That’s 44¢ per serving for a twice-filtered, ultra-pure isolate. Little wonder why supplement newcomer MGN’s name is on the rise. The real question here, of course, is how does it taste?

When I think cinnamon bun, I think Cinnabon fare – doughy delights that just aren’t authentic unless they come slathered in gooey, tooth-meltingly sweet icing. This Muscle Gauge isolate is no Cinnabon. Cinnamon Bun comes through heaviest on the bun, lightish on the cinnamon, and almost non-existent with regards to icing. Its mild essence, in terms of both aroma and flavor, is highlighted by an easily mixed, thin texture.

Each time I sip this isolate, though, I appreciate how it never attempts to overpower more and more. In retrospect, a concentrated attempt would come off as artificial, something I can't possibly accuse Cinnamon Bun of. Not the full-bodied, sugared Cinnabon flavor I expected, yet pleasurable nonetheless, it strikes an even balance of spicy and sweet. An ideal option for people who prefer a subtler sip from their powder.

Optimum Nutrition 100% Casein Protein: Blueberries & Cream

2000-01-01T00:00:00.012-05:00

As I unscrew the top and pop open Blueberries & Cream, a lovely soft aroma wafts to my nostrils. Aroused, I rush my scoop to this white powder and dump a heap of fine ground white powder into the shaker. I blink. Again. Again. Again, amazed by the visual lightshow performed before my eyes – the white powder turns powder blue, and scarlet and azure flecks of color float throughout it. I shake. These colors blend to a uniform periwinkle. Before my first sip, it’s very clear this promises to be a distinctive protein odyssey.

Mellow is the word to describe Blueberries & Cream. Creaminess is a focal point throughout, unlike in the thinner, stronger, sugary banana whey. Heavy cream compliments a semisweet tart-free blueberry to restrained perfection. Blueberries & Cream features a thick, custard-esque consistency (almost grainy in the review standard 250 mL water) that drinks like a dessert. A hearty taste and texture that lingers on the palate, truly sticks with you. Not a fit post-workout. Pre-bedtime, on the other hand…

Give it a try mixed super-dense in a bowl, adding just enough water to dissolve. Blast chill in the freezer. Add fresh fruit to keep it light or sprinkle in cocoa powder to create a lush blueberry chocolate ganache. Bon appétit!

Muscle Gauge Nutrition Pure Isolate Whey Protein: Ice Cream Sandwich

2000-01-01T00:00:00.011-05:00

Whilst the orange-tinted bits settling out in your shaker and the phonetically spelled label might be curious, the taste is not. Ice Cream Sandwich – someone really should tell MGN there’s only one h in there – is a liquid carbon copy of Skinny Cow's scrumptious treats. Also, check out the cow on that web site. Doesn’t “she” look a little…brawny? Dude looks like calf looks like a lady. Uh, nevermind. Sorry.

Fragrance from this white base and black flecked powder (the orange ones make an appearance after dissipation in water) strays deceivingly towards a cookies and cream and, to some extent, the flavor does as well. Yet the aftertaste boasts excellent longevity with a distinctive je ne sais quoi that separates it from the average C&C pack.

Like other MGN isolates, this powder is on the light, thin side; probably won't be savored by those who prefer an over-the-top gustatory encounter. It does tend to get lost in oats. Otherwise, however, Ice Cream Sandwich stands as a breezy and indisputably authentic option.

Nature's Best Zero Carb Isopure: Cookies & Cream

2000-01-01T00:00:00.010-05:00

Cliffs: Looks like an animal cracker, smells like an animal cracker, tastes like an animal cracker.

Finer points: Finely ground tan/beige powder that releases a temperate aroma. An effortless dissolve. Noteworthy foam to a paper-thin consistency. Flavor is just as thin, and flits between an unhoneyed graham and floury vanilla animal cracker finish. Lactose free, fat free, carbohydrate free. Glutamine enriched.

Less-fine-but-still-valuable(or not) personal musings: How much kick can you expect from an animal cracker? Still, there’s something to be said for that comfortable, meek essence. Cookies & Cream does no wrong per se, particularly if understated is your preference in a protein. Different strokes, and all that. I only question long-term versatility. And it is a shame Nature’s Best couldn’t fashion the powder into tiny lions and elephants. Biting those heads off used to be so…satisfying.

Try it as a thick, concentrated sludge drizzled over shiny Red Delicious slices – if you don’t mind defeating the purpose of the whole "no carb" thing.

Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey Protein: Double Rich Chocolate

2000-01-01T00:00:00.009-05:00

Make no mistake, Double Rich Chocolate won’t knock you on your ass. Nevertheless, it submits a solid taste that isn’t quick to wear thin.

Dependably low key. A true utility man.

Semisweet aroma and a flavor that registers as mid-high cacao dark milk chocolate; Double Rich Chocolate retains a certain smooth, milky quality without all the saccharine. An easy mixer, albeit to a minor grainy texture uncommon from ON’s Gold Standard. This texture leads it to stick on the tongue and create an aftertaste with bona fide endurance.

Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey Protein: Mocha Cappuccino

2000-01-01T00:00:00.008-05:00

If you want coffeehouse taste without the wait on some ponytailed hippie barista to provide it, Optimum Mocha Cappuccino could well be your cup of tea…er…coffee. It froths heavy on the mocha – a rich-ish milk chocolatey foundation similar to gourmet hot chocolate/cocoa – with just a bit of cappuccino bite. Towing the line between coffee and milkshake, it is much like the chilled beverages on offer at a certain trendy Seattle-based chain.

A half scoop in the routine morning mug or iced coffee goes a long way. Not ideally suited for mixes otherwise.

Nature's Best Zero Carb Isopure: Pineapple Orange Banana

2000-01-01T00:00:00.007-05:00

Vitamins A, C, E, K, B6, and B12; Calcium, Iron, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, Folate, Biotin, Pantothenic Acid, Phosphorous, Iodine, Magnesium, Zinc, Selenium, Copper, Manganese, Chromium, Molybdenum, and Chloride.

Is this a whey protein or a box of Flintstones Vitamins? Regrettably, Pineapple Orange Banana's taste didn’t do much to help me answer that question.

Aroma and aftertaste have a “chemical” feel to them. Orange – the middle child – announces its presence at full volume with an artificial, candylike, faux fruit tang. Pineapple/banana are tough to locate. It's one-of-a-kind, hate-it-or-love-it flavor. I happened to hate it. Others may not. Definitely try before you buy, though.

On the positive side, two scoops equals fifty grams of ultra-pure isolate. Factor in the aforementioned bonus ingredients, and this option is a nutritional powerhouse. Just a shame it tastes like one (unless employed in a smoothie loaded with fruits that can mask the intensity).

Optimum Nutrition 100% Casein Protein: Chocolate Peanut Butter

2000-01-01T00:00:00.006-05:00

The Prep – Clumpiest powder I’ve ever encountered. Full-bodied scent dominated by a chocolate like dry cake mix. Minimal suggestion of peanut butter.
The Shake – Aroma shifts after dissolved. A generic nuttiness is present, not necessarily peanut butter nuttiness. Thick but, thankfully, not grainy.
The Sip – A semisweet experience. Smacks of a dense pudding-esque chocolate and dull (a positive in this context) nut. As with aroma, doesn’t strike overtly as peanut butter.
The Finish – Throat-coatingly thick. Sticks to the tongue and the sides of the shaker.

Chocolate Peanut Butter is strongly flavored, yet unlike other stout options, it is not strongly sweet. Personally, I like this one. A lot. It was responsible for a never-before-never-again supplement binge incident that involved four heaping scoops downed in less than ten minutes. For a dangerously addictive dessert, chill a scoop with respective tablespoons of Smucker's Natty PB and MaraNatha Almond Butter or comparable products. Stellar in oatmeal, too.

Nature's Best Zero Carb Isopure: Creamy Vanilla

2000-01-01T00:00:00.005-05:00

Vanilla proteins come a dime a dozen and they're often, well, vanilla. It isn't the supplement producers’ fault. That flat, bland, and plain are synonyms for the word says something about how inherently difficult it should be to make a vanilla flavor stand out. It has to be light, otherwise it’s not vanilla. Too light, though, and it’s monotonous, muted, or nonexistent. With a super-benign "lite" flavor, Creamy Vanilla typifies this vanilla protein dilemma.

It sports a chemical scent akin to Pineapple Orange Banana and the powder shakes to an offputting, almost urine-esque pale yellow. And it tends to leave behind grains in the final few sips. Taste-wise, Creamy Vanilla does little to offend. But, truthfully, it just does very little in general. Not Nature’s Best’s finest.

Did I use apostrophe properly there? Eh, whatever.

Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey Protein: French Vanilla Crème

2000-01-01T00:00:00.004-05:00

Modest baker’s flour aroma. Charming vanilla tone quite like a nondairy coffee creamer. Feathery and light, yet uncompromised. Exactly what a well-executed vanilla should be. In short, superb.

That says it all, really.

Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey Protein: Delicious Strawberry

2000-01-01T00:00:00.003-05:00

The name instantly raised suspicions. There's no Optimum Nutrition "Lip Smacking Chocolate" or "Yummy Tummy Vanilla" whey. Why Delicious Strawberry?

I found out after a gulp, when this protein proved itself to be anything but. Its vivacious neon pink hue is matched by the force of its taste – an embittered, chemical Nesquik without either the faux strawberry drink’s overt sweetness or the genuine fruit’s palatable, watered-down sugar. A serviceable flavor modifier in strict moderation, it must be blended amongst other sturdy tastes. If you take it alone, expect bitter beer face. You've been warned.

By and large, the Gold Standard proprietary protein blend sells itself. Mere nomenclature-cum-puffery should not be necessary. Delicious Strawberry is the exception. With a zing like that, ON needs all the help it can get to move units of this stuff.

BSN Syntha-6: Chocolate Peanut Butter

2000-01-01T00:00:00.002-05:00

Syntha-6 is the back of the class protein badass who shoots spitballs at nutritional nerds jotting copious notes in the front row. Fifteen grams total carbohydrates per serving. High (relative) cholesterol and sodium levels. An ingredient cocktail that reads like an essay. Most hardcore bodybuilders will claim its twenty-two gram “multi-functional” protein blend is far from ideal; not enough isolate to use post-workout or sufficient micellar casein to be suitable for the P.M.

So what? Do somethin bout it, nerd. Nerd.

Nerd.

All Syntha-6 does to answer the critics is provide one friggin’ delicious protein in Chocolate Peanut Butter. It serves up a thick, ultra-smooth consistency that is flawlessly suited to the flavor category. Picture homemade peanut butter cups – a Reese’s imitator that swaps sucrose overkill for natty PB and light milk chocolate – whipped up in a blender. Yeah, it's goooooood.

Kids may knock him behind his back, but when you're strictly talking taste, everyone knows who owns the playground.

AllMax IsoFlex: Chocolate

2000-01-01T00:00:00.001-05:00

Muscle heads on even the strictest of contest preps could please both palate and conscience with IsoFlex Chocolate. Quite extraordinarily, a top-notch ingredient profile doesn’t prompt massive sacrifice in taste.

Sizeable chocolate chip floaters compliment a moderately solid, wheaty commercial cookie flavor (think a semi-bland Chips Ahoy or Keebler). Not a standout, yet well above passable – impressive if you consider how pure the macros are.

Gaspari Nutrition MyoFusion: Delicious Vanilla

2000-01-01T00:00:00.000-05:00

Let me immediately establish that this is not vanilla. But it is damn delicious.

Gaspari’s Delicious Vanilla boasts a thick and creamy texture to compliment its decadent dulcet flavor. What flavor exactly, if not vanilla? It’s a challenge to pin – I’d offer Cool Whip essence that features a consistent butterscotch hint. Whatever you call it, it’s good; feels like a cheat.