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SWIPE MAGAZINE
What part of "didi mau" don't you understand?
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Friday, April 30, 2004
Catullusian Epic
Let us cast off our common propriety
Bid farewel to our daytime sobriety
Let the night take control
Of our spirit and soul
That our bodies should thrum with impiety.
Let our bodies consume with abandon
Ever scar, pore and freckle at random
Every inch of our skin
Shall be polished for sin
For our tongues and our fingers to land on.
We have talked of the sacred between us
Now the profane can make its appearance
You can feast on my cock
Thick -- and hard as a rock
While not caring who's heard us or seen us.
And I for my part will not linger
Over eyelid or elbow or finger
But will dive for a bit
Of your glorious clit
Ever closer to ecstasy bring you.
It's an easy effect that I'm after
To convulse you with pleasure and laughter
In your radiance squirming
While my tongue keeps on churning
On your clit, launching you to the rafters.
Deep inside you both secret and hidden
Lies a chamber where no one unbidden
May approach much less enter
Yet it's right at the center
Of the mystery you leave unridden.
Step aboard on the chariot -- Treasure
Where they serve only indiscrete measures
Of orgasms delightful
Every nerve-ending frightful
Of catching on fire with pleasure.
Then your vaginal juices come pouring
O'er my prick as it's heedlessly goring
In your tight sugarwalls
Take me right to the balls
As I rush to catch up with your soaring.
Then like animals panting and sweating
We will lie side by side on the bedding
Soak it through with our musk
Many times before dusk
Start again while the sun is just setting.
* * * *
How you like that, ya punkasses?
La Poet, Scantman
10:45 AM
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
Doggerel
The less you worry
The less you do
The more your girl
Falls in love with you.
Her heart is a lab'rynth
Turning about
And no mortal man
Could e'er make it out.
The walls are all shifting
With polished reflections
And the floors drop away
To unbalance affections.
It trembles and beats
And is swallowed in fear
That you'll go way to far
Or come much too near.
Because there at the center
At the "heart" of it all
Is a single round room
With a single round wall.
There is only one door
And it locks from without
So whoever's inside
Can never come out.
But come out she wills
And bangs her insistence
So the wandering man
Can keep on with persistence.
For she hopes that you find her
Through the spinning and clatter
And can locate that small room
Wherein lies the whole matter.
Inside the small room
At the center of things
There sits a small girl
She just sits there and sings.
Of dragons and knights
And rescues most daring
Of weddings and rings
And trumpets all blaring.
But she cannot get out
This sweet little thing
Cuz the handle's outside
And you've not brought a ring.
But still you persist
In your heart's sacred quest
To unlock that door
And against her be pressed.
So wander in silence
Be guided by song
And know that your steps
Can never go wrong.
* * * *
with thanks to one Mr. Seuss, Ph.D.
Cheers you scallywagged dogs, Scantmopey
11:51 PM
Tuesday, April 20, 2004
Longer vs. Thicker
Have you noticed that we all go around comparing our HD MP3 players as if they were our cocks -- but in reverse?
Male #1: Hey, check mine out! It's really thin -- which the chicks love! --- but it's too long.
Male #2: You think you've got problems --- mine is short, which is awesome, but it's too thick!
- themedog
6:54 PM
Tuesday, April 06, 2004
Goddam transcendance, again!
In The Abyss we read:
In The Book of the Damned, Charles Fort wrote: "Our whole 'existence' is an attempt by the relative to be the absolute, or by the local to be the universal." And he said further: "A seeker of Truth. He will never find it. But the dimmest of possibilities--he may himself become Truth."
He may himself become truth. Does this shit absolutely blow your tiny fucking mind or what? Anti-dogmatism. . .savor the flavor, cuz it's a taste of the future!
Clearly mad, Scantman
9:54 AM
In Absentia
It's been a dog's age since I've talked to you freaks on this little connection of ours. But this pirate's life has been anything but dull. Just ask the Themedog who's had the privilege/misfortune to hear the twisty turns of this little ape's trials and travails.
As quickie samples of my state of mind I offer up a poem and it's work-in-progress cousin. Read up, fuckers, and feel the burning of my insatiable desire. But not in a good way. ::snigger::
The Plan
Let's make a plan then you and I
Across the miles and time
A plan for us to be as one
Where I am yours and you are mine.
Come down from your hut in the elder wood
Hid in the hills by the sea
With your shining eyes and your skin aglow
And run to the desert with me.
There's a city lit up all day and all night
Where the lucky and hopeful all flow
It is ringed with golden, ineffable hills
And there only the hottest winds blow.
These winds are like the breath of your mouth
The sun's furnace the beat of your heart
Your eyes are twin emeralds of nuclear fire
And your lips sharply sweet like a dart.
Yet for all your inferno and glinting blade lips
I would eat you alive and delight in your moans
Reveling in bites of your savory-fruit flesh
Crunching with glee on your mystical bones.
But one meal of you surely cannot suffice
I will eat you again for the taste
Your pleas to continue like gravy for meat
And reminders to never be chaste.
Your love has undone me and consumed me whole
I can do ought but return the favor
As time will unfold to reveal our new roles
It's each moment that we both can savor.
Ride on your steel steed my new rising bride
With the desert wind licking your skin
I will fly right beside on my golden machine
Together our life to begin.
* * * *
So that's that with that, you voyeuristic little animals.
And now for something in progress. Themey, feel free to add or comment. . .lemme hear your thoughts.
Your heart is a hammer smashing my shell
Forcing the hell of new choices on me
Burning with voices and lust for your body
Prying and pruning your layers of silence.
Our love is a muscle -- flexing and breaking
Taking our efforts and healing in silence.
You rein in my wheeling and snorting and kicking,
As I reel in the bandages stifling your feelings.
I am impatient, you are resistant
Yet time is our ancient and faithful assistant.
Moving in tangents crissing and crossing,
Tossing assumptions windward and backward.
Coiling and melding, falling and failing
Cresting and wailing like moon-maddened oceans.
Waves rushing in to swoon on your beaches;
then, out of reach, sighing with longing.
Threads of the future spun and re-spinning
Weaves on the loom done and undoing.
Destiny's tapestry slowly emerging
Colors and fingers merging new patterns.
We are becoming: beautiful, shining;
Roaming through boundaries made by mere mortals.
Power is ours to make our own Eden,
Seeding its loam with joyful fulfillment.
Still it is night before a new morning
Darkness and chill envelope the seed pods
Buried in earth but awaiting the sunshine
The heat of desire awaking their promise.
We slumber with inklings, dreams of the sunrise
Opening our eyes, seeing each other
We are awake to dreams of our making
We have arrived at love's promised oasis.
* * * *
Right then. That's my update. Brain as full and numb as ever.
Ku-ku-ka-fuckin'-choo, Scantman
8:40 AM
Friday, April 02, 2004
Spelling Bee
I realized this afternoon that even though I'm Jewish, I always misspell "Judaism" (i put the i before the a).
Oh yeah: THINK PINK!
Quasi-introspectively,
- themedog
4:56 PM
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
BEST IMAGE EVER:
- themedog (who else??)
5:08 PM
Thursday, March 25, 2004
Goodie Bag
Folks, for some time I've been surfing the Asian thumbsites and collecting my faves. And luck you: I've compiled a little list o' linkies for your enjoyment. So enjoy, bitch! They're in no particular order, and may not seem that hot to you, but each of these girls means something special to me:
purgatory's too good for me,
- themedog
7:09 PM
Tuesday, March 16, 2004
 From an online "attraction" test that I just completed:
Your choices show a consistent interest in a wide variety of Asian women. These women really stood out to you as being very appealing. You found 60% of the Asian women in this test physically attractive. You found 35% of the Asian women in this test "date-able".
Sweet. You've certainly got my number! And:
You seemed especially interested in women with brown eyes. In the test, you may not have even noticed eye color on a conscious level. However, those smoldering brown eyes apparently stood out to you on an unconscious level. Supposedly, brown eyes give the impression of softness and mystery.
Gee... I wonder why... and:
Although you liked women with a variety of hair styles, you seemed to have a special interest in women with straight hair.
Yes... keep going...:
Deep black hair really catches your eye. In the test, you picked a definite subgroup of women who had a variety of different features and "looks," but many had black hair. This seems to fit with your overall interest in beautiful WOMEN, not girls.
Right about the black hair, wrong about the "women" thing (hate women). And:
The choices you made in the test suggest you have strong, automatic preferences for certain types of women.
Ding dong! And:
Note: We are continuing to gather research and photos of Asian men/women. Over time, we will be improving this section. Thank you for your patience.
Well then,
I guess I'll be back.
Cheers, fuckers!
shamelessly,
- themedog
6:10 PM
Monday, March 15, 2004
 (1) My secretary was telling me that her husband needs to undergo knee replacement surgery for both knees. He's a doorman, and was heavily into sports when he was a wee lad. I told her that with the amount of sitting I do, on the job and off, I'm liable to need a fucking ASS REPLACEMENT -- both cheecks! -- any day now.
(2) MEAT FUCKER: new epithet. "Hey, that's guy's a total meat-fucker -- don't even talk to him."
(3) i’m getting to be around the age where people start doing things with their lives; the little bolded numbers next to peoples’ names in the gossip rags (Steven Hunter, 38... Gail Shaminasi, 24...) are set in blink tags. And yet how can I expect my name to be on the marquee, before I’ve even done anything of note. right?
back to wizzork,
themedog
2:36 PM
Friday, March 05, 2004
Well Paid Scientist (old Dead Kennedys song)
You're a well paid scientist
You only talk in facts
You know you're always right
'Cause you know how to prove it
Step by step
A PhD to show you're smart
With textbook formulas
But you're used up
Just like a factory hand
Something is wrong here
You won't find it on a shelf
You're well paid
You're well trained
You're tied to a rack
Company cocktails - gotta go
Say the right thing
Don't fidget, jockey for position
Be polite
In the pyramid you hate...
Sip that scotch
Get that raise
This ain't no party at all!!!
Something is wrong here
You won't find it on a shelf
You're well paid
You're well trained
You're tied to a rack
Cringe and tense up
Grind your teeth
And wipe your sweaty palms
Close your windows driving past
The low life company bar
They're making fun of youuuuuuu!
Ahhh Even you
You've gotta punch the clock
Too scared to punch your boss
When will you crack
When will you crack
When will you
Open your eyes
Open your eyes
Open your eyes!
Pull up to your sterile home
You're drained
Bite the heads off of your kids
Chew them well, they taste like you
Just slam the door
Assigned here cause your company owns the land
All your colleagues live here too
Private guards in golf carts
Keep you safe at home?
Something is wrong here
You won't find it on a shelf
You're well paid
You're well trained
You're tied to a rack
When will you crack
When will you crack
When will you crack
When will you CRACK!
The dark shattered underbelly
Of the American dream
Avoid it like the plague
It stares you from the bathroom mirror...
Drown!
love,
themey
3:46 PM
Saturday, February 21, 2004
The new PKD
Just read a great new story by Cory Doctorow.
Read it. It's excellent. The next 100 years will be getting to this. Enjoy it while it's fresh.
The Old Prometheus, Scantman
2:14 AM
Saturday, January 31, 2004
ADAM
I could deprive you little joy-monkeys of the following site: MDMA.NET. Go here, read everything, skipping only, if you must, the highly technicaly chemistry-related parts. In short: HOLY SHIT!! Everything you could want to know about our close friend ADAM: his past, his optimization and his potential, post-Darwinian future. Check it out, ape-heads.
And while you're at it, don't miss the money quote about 80% of the way down the longest page ever in web history:
The existence of lives animated by gradients of well-being should be distinguished from lives spent in a state of uniform well-being. Chronic heavenly bliss, like chronic pain and despair, is a condition that's technically possible to implement in the vertebrate CNS. For good or ill, such uniformity would be a recipe for stasis. The intra-cranially self-stimulating rat or monkey - or human wirehead - isn't going anywhere. By contrast, if a predisposition to gradients of ecstatic well-being is ever genetically encoded as our default mood-spectrum, then critical discernment can be functionally retained, and self-motivation enhanced, without sacrificing the humane ethic of a cruelty-free world. This conjecture isn't idle. Some bioethicists would argue a world without suffering is the precondition for any civilised society. Plausible or not, the lack of any inevitable tradeoff between happiness and critical insight undercuts one ideological obstacle to global mood-enrichment.
Enjoy the joy flow, little freak-aloops.
Peace, Scantman
9:35 PM
Monte Carlo
Tomorrow I'm going to Monte Carlo. And the Sweet One is coming with me. An invitation made before the current time of troubles. Say a prayer for Scantman as he braves the Old World with his old girl.
And while you're down on your knees jawin' with the Lawd, throw in a couple of "help a brutha out"'s for Scanty's current emotional upheaval. You know the one, where his whole life is being remade, an old love is on the way out, a new love is moving towards her own realization that bliss with Scantman is possible, and where work is heating up to a million degree boil. Say a hearty and intense prayer for the sinner-man his own self. I'll need all the help I can get, Oh my brothers!
I'm re-establishing connections with my family dormant for too long. I'm seeing with fresh eyes the world of possibilities around me. I'm quaking with some good old fashioned terror of what's to come in the near future. So say a prayer for me. I'll get you back. . .
Peace, Scantman
8:43 PM
Sunday, January 25, 2004
At this rate, I will never change the world. (Brotherhood of Pain, Part II)
Reading a story about a 36 year old U.S. educated Russian lawyer, who led the Rose Revolution in Georgia.
I am 31. Scant is 32.
At this rate, I believe that I will never change the world. And no matter what you tell me about how I've changed peoples' lives -- my family, my friends, my lovers -- you know, you KNOW that that's not what I meant at all.
There was a time when I believed that I had the potential of a king, a god-damned conqueror. That there were powers buried just underneath my sallow surface, sometimes dark powers, but powers nonetheless; and that there was something either OUT THERE or IN HERE that would catalyze the reaction, that would reveal these powers. The feeling that I would either be chosen, or choose myself. That I would choose life over death, or at least, choose capital-D death over lower-case l life.
I have neglected to make a choice, and have thereby defaulted. I am living the default life.
And now, it's just tough for me to get out of bed in the morning. (Although I almost always seem to have the energy to screw my girlfriend -- that is, when I'm not simmering in a chunky stew of jealousy and self_loathing.)
And now, it's just tough for me to lie about the reasons for which I won't be able to get the project in on time.
And now, it's just tough for me to be honest to myself when I look in the mirror. A life of lies to others has turned me into a Soul Liar.
And Scant, thank you for what you wrote below --- your death trip is inspiring me to be honest. Brothers in pain are we, and I would never deny it. The trick for us will be to leverage the pain.
That's always the trick: use what you've got.
Blame yourself, and then move on. It's our own fucking fault, man. It's not God or Jebus or anything but our own fucking lazy selves. It's our own fucking fault. So speak up about who you are and what you need, speak up all the time. Each of us has about 40 to 50 years left (we are reaching the midpoint, can you believe it?) --- yes, despite being the goutish debaucherer that you are, you have 40 to 50 years left, OK? The hand on your shoulder, as you well know, was not *THE* angel of death.
And it was just your dad's time to go, and your grandmother's time to go, just like it was time for both of my grandfathers. Sickness strikes us all, and at the very least it should remind us to take as good care of ourselves, physically as well as spiritually, as we possibly can. Let it out, blame yourself for that which is your fault, accept responsibility for your failures and you triumphs (you can't have the latter without the former) and move on. "Keep walking." (Cribbed from a liquor ad.)
The worst thing about life is that it's in real-time. :)
Keep Writing.
Best regards,
Your brother in pain,
Themedog
1:00 PM
Friday, January 23, 2004
Federal Initiative
Did you hear that Michael Jackson is sponsoring a new Bush initiative for kids' education?
It's called "LEAVE NO CHILD'S BEHIND."
HHHHAAAAYYYYY OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH!!
Thanks to Themedog for his wit and initiative. Now go write something more substantial, dummy.
Sweetness and yearning, Scantman
12:52 PM
Sunday, January 18, 2004
Pain Brothers
This is going out directly to Themedog, my brother.
We are Pain Brothers, you and I.
All that we touch becomes a desolate plane however much we wish it otherwise. We begin here and we end here.
Forgive me if this is painful. Indulge me if you can. I'm writing as much for me, perhaps mostly for me.
Tripping completely on shrooms. The music keeping me company. Writing. Letting you know about the majesty of the moment. So thank you for putting up with my craziness at this moment.
But who can know us if they do not know our pain.
Not the pretend pain of cartoons and politics, but the pain of Nine Inch Nails. . . .
Oh yes, my brother, you know what I'm talking about: Head like a hole, black as your soul, I'd rather die than give you control.
But the control is never with us. So we give it up and let it take us where it will.
Drugs.
Or Women.
Or Art.
Or work.
Or family.
Or the body.
While we lie festering already. Don't we. We can hear each other because we're speaking from adjoining graves. Our poetry is that of the dead men laughing with each other because they're finally at the punch line of the joke. It's punch out time.
And fucking is our way of connecting to life. So we aim to fuck. And if we can't we push through because we know that otherwise we are dead. We're fucking for our lives here.
Delete this if you want to tomorrow. But thank you for reading this first. Spitting or shitting on it then letting it go. But I had to say it and I wanted you to at least hear it. My pain brother. And there's still so much pain.
All the games and caffeine and work and family and fucking won't change that. The pain of death and loss that all around us and clings to us. As if we weren't carrying it around with us all the time. Thanks for the reminder, God. Thanks for caring enough to send the very best. Your angel of death is here, but let's take your grandma and your dad first. And thanks for not changing your eating and working habits. I'll see you 20 or maybe even 30 years too soon. Thanks for coming to me sooner, fucker. You lose. It's been the fucking pine box for you for a long time. And now it's just about here. Climb in. . .
Anyway, thanks
4:51 PM
Saturday, January 17, 2004
Fuck a duck
After the past two weeks including EMDR counseling, a national tradeshow and week long company sales training all I want is to un-make my life and re-make it again kinda differently. Oh yeah. No more big wedding, but a Vegas wedding. And not to the Sweet One but to someone completely different. And buy a Honda S2000. The new girl, my wife after Vegas, would buy a Mini-Cooper S Turbo. Right. And after all that: non-stop fucking. Those are my new goals.
Just a heads up to all you semi-curious voyeuristic freaks that do come around every now and again. Right then. Now back to porn surfing.
Toodles, dummies, Scantfreak
11:36 AM
Wednesday, December 31, 2003
Epiphany
"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." -- Ludwig Wittgenstein (1891 - 1951)
Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus(1921) concludes with the above quote summarizing the view he developed that only statements of natural sciences are meaningful. Therefore one could not speak of anything other than the natural sciences. Yet. . .I quote him contrafactually to the passage below that tells the story of Shams of Tabriz, the inspiration for Rumi's later stage of sufi poetry and wanderings. One must in fact speak perhaps ONLY of those things that one cannot easily voice or simply explain. Else why speak at all?
When Shams of Tabriz was young, he perceived that the accustomed words of transcendence of his time had turned into idols and that the people around him mouthing these words had lost contact with the higher reality they formerly indicated. When he set forth to find his own way to truth, he was taken as unmannerly, overbearing and incomprehensible.
In his Maqalat, Shams tells us:
"I have been a misfit since childhood. Nobody used to understand me. Not even my father, who once said: 'You are not a madman to be put in a madhouse, nor a monk to be put in a hermitage. I don't know what you are.'
"I said: 'Listen to this, father. My case is like that of the duck egg that was put under a hen. When the egg hatched, the duckling walked about with the mother hen until they came to a pond. The duckling went into the water. The hen stayed on the bank. Now, my dear father, after having tried the sea, I find it my home. If you choose to stay on the shore, I am not to be blamed.' "
Who reading this is not that duckling? This begins to get to the heart of my misunderstanding with my father as well as give sense to my feeling of constant "apartness" in the world. Yes, I swim this ocean of the "the abyss" or "the mystery". It's okay not to be a chicken; it's just that I'm a duck.
Thank you, he says smiling.
With great relief and joy, Scantduck
5:55 AM
Monday, December 29, 2003
Thought and Concept
I hate it when I get all sentimental and reflective and kind of intellectually masturbatory around here. Here's my great insight for all to enjoy, please give me mounds of opprobrium, aren't I witty. Not that I have to implement this insight in my own life or anything, just something pithy from Scantman Central. Feel free to send your tax-deductible donations hither.
Fuck all that.
Today I've got a quick little aphorism that came to me while watching M. Night Shyamalan's excellent film "Signs" as well as a story idea I'm laying out mainly for myself and Themedog but what the hell, if any of you other insomniac degenerates wants to chime in feel free.
Here goes. . .
I. Care for the Self is the beginning of Faith.
The first act of devotion to God is caring for God's first gift to us: our life on Earth. This includes our body, our desires, and our seemingly impossible dreams. Mother Teresa cared for strangers because she was moved to do so. Donald Trump buys and sells real estate for the same reason. The point is not to be great like someone else, but to become the best "us" we can be.
Does this seem trite? Well, it may be. But it is all too easy to lose sight of this simple truth in the course of a life spent satisfying the demands and needs of others. Does this seem to excuse hooliganism and other sorts of "bad" behavior? It does not excuse it, it simply makes allowances for it. If drug-taking, cheating and murder are on someone's path, then it is theirs to walk. We cannot judge the soul of a man. Only the behavior and position in society can be determined by mortals. (This is one reason I am against the death penalty.)
Usually caring for oneself is doing the opposite of what one is used to doing and exactly what one truly desires to do. In my case, it is not jerking myself off into oblivion at every spare opportunity or playing video games to cover up the periods of temporary stillness, but diving in to the true and sweet desires of my heart: slowness, naturalness, gracefulness. Sleeping comfortably, eating lightly, exercising for a fit body, writing for a calm mind. Moving ahead intentionally not necessarily quickly. Taking the time for seemingly aimless action that allows for attention to return to the core of my being.
Respecting the messages our body and our True Will send us is a major step on the road to Faith in the Divine, in God. Without the self-care there can be no true Faith because there is no true gratitude for God's gifts to us.
Thanks for listening.
II. Story concept
So I've been carrying this weird little story around in my head for a while. The ending has not yet materialized so I figured I'd lay out some basic elements here before writing the fully fleshed out version.
The action begins at a fifteen year high school reunion. A sumptuous ballroom has been rented out and couples are sweating their way through the '80's favorites reminiscent of their high school years. The view from above is like magic tea cups ride at Disney world except instead of cups there are couples whisking and whirling around one another. Sweating, regretful yet hopeful, beginning to feel the bite of disappointment as another year draws by without becoming famous or rich.
Through this crowd ventures a taut man making a straigh line for the bar tucked away in a corner. He waves easily to old acquaintances as he passes them and gives out smiles all around. As he moves his eyes keep scanning the room section by section, he's looking for someone but not finding them.
At the makeshift bar he orders a gin martini and settles for the house brand gin with only a slight shrug. Here he catches the eye of the girl tending bar. She is a senior in the local college working her way through as a bartender and picking up extra money at events for nostalgic returnees. The man ordering the gin martini catches her attention: he makes casual eye-contact without leering and smiles easily as he slips a ten dollar bill into the plastic cup set out hopefully on the plastic bar-top.
She makes conversation: how's the party, you live around here, how's the drink; that sort of thing. He introduces himself: Aris London (short for Aristotle, he explains). She gives her name in return: Trance Blake. He gives her a quick look over, just to familiarize himself with her in a new light now that they've exchanged names. She can tell her phsyique arouses his interest not because she is beautiful, no doubt, but because she is clearly built to athletic proportions: standing 5'11", broad shouldered, callous handed, and from what Aris could tell when she turned around for the gin, very firm thighed. Built for power, not for speed, she jokes, she plays volleyball on the college team. She's played competitively since she was 10. It was track before that, and swimming.
She doesn't know why she's talking so much. Her feet ache from practice in the morning and standing all night serving drinks. She's embarassed by her motor-mouth. But Aris keeps smiling at her, as his eyes sweep the room back and forth. His own story he keeps equally short: moved out West after high school, travelled quite a bit for a few years in a military position (?) then settled down to making money as a trader, currency. The sun is brighter over the Pacific, he jokes, you should come see it. She joins in his joke with a giggle, but begins to consider what it would be like to visit Mr. Aristotle London on his home turf.
As their conversation is beginning to falter, a particularly red and sweating man in a rumpled gray suit slops over Trance's bar and asks for a double scotch, neat, and a white wine spritzer. He greets Aris hazily and makes eyes at Trance through a jowly wolfish face taking her measure. Her practiced server smile goes on full wattage. She pours the drinks and as he begins to lean over the bar to grab at her, Aris engages him in friendly conversation. The man is put-off but Aris won't be put off and see's the man's wife approach and steers them both with their drinks away from the bar and onto the dance floor. Trance is grateful. Aris waves off her thank you's and says nothing happened, just catching up with an old friend. As Trance begins to suggest she return his favor with an after-reunion drink, Aris' eyes lock on their target. He looks at Trance transformed by a beaming smile, thanks her for chatting with him and moves off.
Trance sees the object of Aris' search: a golden-haired woman, thin and with chiseled features. The woman's face also lights up as she sees Aris moving towards her. A black longing grips Trance's heart, a hope dashed in its tenderest infancy. This stranger may not be available tonight, not after that look he gave to the woman, but Eric, her co-bartender who's constantly at her to join him in a spliff, will certainly be ready for a toke and. . .well, for diversion after their shift. As Trance pours drinks she is distracted: how hot is the Pacific sun on the western beaches and on Mr. London's well-kept skin?
The object of Aris' attention and obvious affection is Liza. She's the blond, gray-eyed wippet he's been looking for. They walk arm in arm out of the ballroom and head out of the hotel. They walk slowly and aimlessly. As they catch up about their current circumstances, Aris remembers the last time they saw each other. Prom night, 15 years ago.
Aris had come with his Janice, his best friend's sister, who had needed a date preferring not to go alone to her senior prom. Liza had gone with Eric, a friend from the spring production of "South Pacific". Eric had played the lead and Liza one of the girls in the chorus. In April Liza and Eric thought they would be getting to know one another quite a bit better between the wrap party and prom. They had in fact spoken to each other exactly once since then and that was to confirm that they were in fact still planning to go with one another. Liza had toyed with the idea of asking Aris, but thought it would be rude to refuse Eric. And in some way was glad to not having to ask when Aris hadn't asked her first.
But what Aris was remembering was not the build up. It was his first look at Liza as he and Janice walked into the ballroom. There had come in a limo with 4 other couples. The champagne had been abundant and the gang of them were laughing as they walked in together. Even before they had found a table, Aris saw that Liza and Eric had already arrived and were sitting by themselves at a table for 10, presumably waiting for the other 4 couples that would join them. For Aris it was like walking through air that had gelled: the air shimmered and his movements became languid and slow. Liza's hair was done up in a bun and she had dusted it with glittering silver. Her face was in sharp relief against her stark hair and simple black sheath dress. Aris felt his own breath catch as he saw her dress, her chiseled jaw line and achingly beautiful cheekbones. She did not turn to see him as he came into the room, but sat rather stiffly not speaking to her date.
Then Aris and his date were at their table and off again for drinks. He remembered dancing with Janice as she talked to her girlfriends and feeling more like a prop than a date. It was not until well after half the evening was gone that Aris happened to look over again at Liza's table. There she sat, not talking, sitting very still and a puzzling half-smile on her lips. Charles, Aris' best friend, also noticed Liza's sad state and nodded of Aris to go over to her. "Go over there and play the knight in armor, she'll appreciate it," Charles suggested.
Aris nodded and headed over towards Liza. As he neared her table she turned sensing his approach and for an instant a broad smile escaped onto her face. A radiant glow of sun to show the forces of night that the cavalry had indeed arrived. Then Liza tucked the smile away as quickly as it had broken out. It would not be seemly to appear so eager at another man's approach after all. After introductions and pleasantries, Aris asked, "You won't mind if I steal Liza away for a dance. I extracted a promise from her to save at least one for me and am being quite the Shylock demanding my payment."
Eric chiseled a smile and nod out of his stiff frame and off they went.
Aris and Liza danced as if they were the only two people on the dancefloor. They build up to a heated and passionate sensuality that is barely a dance so much as making love on the dance floor. Yet no one says anything or apparently even notices them. Aris' hands roam all over Liza, hers are all over him without stopping for propriety or even modesty. When the music stops for a momentary announcement they rouse as if from a dream and Aris walks Liza back to her table. Where Eric is waiting, stone-faced.
Back at his table Aris spends the rest of the evening in a fog, on auto-pilot. He steals glances back at Liza. She and Eric continue to sit impassively together not speaking. Aris debates going over to her to ask her to go home with him. To leave with him, to be with him. But he continues to sit with his date and their friends. When the last song ends Aris and his date get up with their friends and head for the door, they're headed for an after-party. Liza and Eric leave at the same time. As Liza and Aris pass each other time freezes and their gazes meet for an eternal moment. Their unformed desire binds them there. The moment is frozen in time but only for the two of them. No one else notices that forever-look on their faces wrapped up as they are in their sublunar thoughts and concerns. Their gazes are a black hole pulling the other in closer and closer, yet never meeting. Caught in that forever moment that only they know exists.
Fixed forever in the moment they move again as their bodies are pulled apart by the Fates and Obligations, or friends and acquaintances. That night Eric brought Liza straight home and let her out at her front door. She got out of his car, went into her house, up to her room and into bed. She laid awake all night in her prom dress hardly breathing or knowing where she was. That night Aris went to the home of one of the myriad friends he and Janice were with. Vaguely he remembers a drunk Janice pawing his crotch, slobbering into his ear and clumsily kissing his mouth. He stayed in his tux until daybreak then went home and lay in bed unsleeping.
Prom night 15 years ago plays out in Aris' mind as he walks with Liza and listens to the story of her life. Her husband and three girls. Her brief stint as a mathematical actuary. She mentions that her husband passed away a little more than a year ago. It was winter, they hit black ice and skidded into a tree. Liza made it, but Ron did not. Aris is stunned and sympathetic. The horror of it, how could Liza bear it? As he expresses concern Liza lives that moment again.
Eliza's story was a brand burned into the flesh of her heart and seared into the neurons of her brain. The moment was the apotheosis of their whole lives together. Ron was always kind to her and wanted children as much as she did. The loved each other and with Ron she felt safe, like she had come home and realized everything was where it should be. She continued her work as an actuary for awhile, but left when their first daughter, Rachel, was born. Their lovemaking had never been frequent but it came to a sudden halt after Rachel's arrival. When they finally talked about it Ron burst out: "You're a mother now! It's just not the same." Rebecca and Kathleen were conceived in darkness on New Year's eves two years apart. Their lives were busy and comfortable. Liza raised the girls and Tom moved up the ranks. He hoped to make submarine commander before 35.
One night they were driving to a reception for promising officers. It was dusk and the light washed everything out. They hit ice. Ron hadn't been driving too fast, he hadn't been drinking and they hadn't been arguing. Just plain bad luck. Liza could remember the look of intense concentration as he tried to steer the car and keep it on the road. He had no idea they were about to shoot off the road and into an immovable and unforgiving oak. She thought, "Just relax, we'll be okay." Later she would find out her airbag had saved her but Ron's had failed to deploy. The insurance and settlement money would put the girls through any college and grad school if they wanted.
That was almost the whole of the story. It was what she told her parents and Tom's parents, and their friends at the funeral. But there was one moment she had told no one about. She hardly dared herself to remember it. Though it was more than a memory for her, it was a place within herself, like a snow globe scene captured for all time in the theater of her mind. The oak anchored the scene as a lodestone, drawing them to itself. Sliding forever sideways was the car -- an accidental extra in the drama with scant credit towards its equity card. Ron sat behind the wheel-- intent and focused, looking forward, his expression barely readable. He was undaunted in the face of the future whatever it may bring. He was like a baby, an innocent, a soul without the ballast of doubt and desire. In the foreground of the scene, the lead in the snowglobe drama was Liza. She thought of the girls, and how grateful she was to have brought them into the world. Her purpose was fulfilled as was Tom's. They were free to go now, they could go home together.
On the heels of that acceptance and resignation, Liza thought to herself -- in the private meadow she gave only herself access to: What if I live? Ron may have to die, but what if I live? Will my heart shrivel from grief or will a new door spring open at his passing? There was no time in Liza's snowglobe, everything was clear and in dramatic relief. She felt the grain of her leather seat, the recycled motor-kissed air on her skin, the smooth creaminess of her lipstick. She could see the marks of dirt and ice on the windshield -- the particles her eyes had learned to edit out. Even the line of hair at Tom's ear cut straight as a ruler with his skin shaved close enough for an official inspection. Liza loved the feel of his freshly-shaved skin on hers.
While her senses drank in her final time quanta before the crash, she observed another moment held in the snowglobe just like the one she was in. It was the night of her senior prom. And she saw Aris in it.
"If this door closes," she thought, "will another door open?" Then there was the oak. After the oak -- nothing.
As they talked and remembered, Aris and Liza found themselves outside the hotel on a small rise overlooking the picnic grounds used for July 4 festivities. They looked at one another, then up at the stars. Liza held out her hand and Aris took it. With the music thrumming somewhere far behind them they stood still and gazed at the stars.
Inside, the DJ was pulling in to the home stretch. That last set of happy-happy-slow-goodbye songs that meant, "You don't have to go home but you can't stay here, folks." Eric, Trance's co-bartender and "Events lead" announced Last Call minutes before. Trance had filled a final scotch-rocks order and let out a long breath. Another half an hour of clean up and she could finally give her feet and throbbing back a break. Even her head pounded tonight like she was exhausted. She decided she was just in bad shape after the season and needed to hit the gym a bit more regularly. With a body-weary sigh she began to put away the glasses, drinks and garnishes.
Clean-up had become a blur of habit and as she tucked the last half-full bottle of vodka into the secure case Trance saw the ballroom all but empty. The DJ was still putting away his amps and lights, Eric was done and strolling over to her.
"That was some kinda night," he said. "I'm tired as hell and stressed as hell. These reunions are like a nightmare of a balding, sweating, stank-ass future. I don't know how late it is, but it feels like 420 to me." And he raised his eyebrows at her to emphasize his invitation.
"Yeah, I am beat," Trance answered. "It feels like 420 hit me before I knew it."
A look of triumph passed over Eric's face. His eyes sparked and he licked his lips. "Alright, we're all packed up here, come on out back with me. We can see what time it is together."
Trance followed him to the back of the hotel. He lead her through gray concrete hallways intended for hotel staff. "No one will notice us going out the back way," said Eric by way of explanation.
He wasn't a bad guy, Trance thought as she followed Eric out of the hotel and into its rear parking lot. She didn't normally go for his type, but he wasn't a bad looking guy. A bit too tall with awkward hands with a crown of wavy red hair and watery black eyes. His skin was freckled and otherwise pale. Inwardly Trance shrugged to herself: if she was destined to only have glimpsed for a moment the possibilities of an Aristotle London, a California dream man, then she could at least act on her urges with an Eric Showalter, her "team lead" and connection.
Eric fished out a silk drawstring bag from the pocket of his jeans. Slowly and very precisely he looked inside and fished out an especially fat spliff. He smiled again in a self-satisfied way an offered the doobie to Trance. She took it and he tucked away his magic bag back into his jeans.
"Now this is something I've been saving for a very special occassion," Eric began, "and you finally accepting my offer, well, definitely qualifies tonight as special."
Trance rolled her eyes but was rather pleased that anyone would thing of lighting up with her as a special occassion. Even if they were behind dumpsters in a hotel parking lot after a night of serving drinks to a bunch of washed-up nostalgia-maniacs.
"Could you give me a lighter, Mr. Special Night." Trance held out her hand. "Or should I eat this special occassion shit?" Eric stepped back as if slapped by her direct reference to the pot, but recovered quickly and turned the step into a reach into his back pocket for his high pressure butane lighter.
She took the lighter and expertly lit the joint taking a long pull on it. The flame ate greedily into the paper and the pungent herb. Holding the smoke in her lungs for long moments, she deliberately passed the lighter and the joint back to Eric. She exhaled a cloud of acrid smoke that evaporated in the night air.
"Smoke up, Mr. Special," she taunted, "this may turn out to be a night to remember after all." Her blood seemed to come alive at that moment with the pot and her own slowly uncoiling desires.
Meanwhile, Aris and Liza begin to take up where they left off in the ballroom. Soon they are in the middle of the picnic grounds rolling around on the ground like beasts. Liza feels herself come alive, her body burning with sensation and she gets hungrier and hungrier for her senses to be filled. Aris meanwhile feels like a man wandering in the desert who have finally been given water. He drinks from Liza's body as though trying to empty the ocean. His ever swallow and sip bringing him closer to her essence: her blood and her life.
They feed on each other. Liza bites and nibbles at first then more aggressively on everything from Aris' ears to his neck and then his chest. Aris continues to drink in her kisses and gorge himself on her breath, but he begins to feel himself pushed back harder and harder onto the grass as Liza pins his arms and sits on his thighs so that he can't move his legs. Her arms are steel cable pinioning him and her pelvis is a vice squeezing him to the cold earth. Her mouth eats at him so that he can't even catch his breath to get her to slow down. Though he feels himself fully alive on the liquor that is Liza fulfilling his long-held fantasy, his body is sending him signals that he has gone too far. He is in a place he cannot control the action. Aris thinks to himself that the petite woman sitting on him and writhing on his manhood cannot possibly keep him down if he wants to move, but try as he might with all his strength he cannot in fact move off the ground.
"Liza. . ." he whispers in alarm. But he knows that all she'll hear is a word of desire. Her eyes glow brighter at the sound of her name.
He tries again, "You're. . .crushing. . .me. . ." That's all he manages.
She nods to him. "Yes, I want to crush your flesh into mine, to devour you whole into me." But she is serious. Her desires are exploding within her. Instead of travelling up her spine, they remain trapped in her pelvis which burns with lust now. With the need to feed and consume. This holy god-man, Aristotle, her desire of long-ago and her substance for tonight lays beneath her and she feels nothing but joy. Joy and need. He will give everything to her, everything of himself. He has wanted to give of himself for so long and now he will give everything to her.
Aris sees the leaping fires in Liza's eyes. His own desire is reflected back at him but something more as well. Boundless need and hunger. His thirst now seems paltry compared to this creature's he finds atop him. He knows enough now to fear. He cannot drink anymore; he is full. But she will pour herself in him and around him until her drown in her to be consumed by her. He does not think this but only knows it as a torture victim knows their end will be preceded by unendurable pain.
"I am yours, my love," mouths Liza. It is a guttural noise to Aris' ears, raw and grating as a rock slide. And as unstoppable.
Then her arm leaps up from his just for a moment and descends again twice as fast her nails biting into his bicep drawing blood. Her mouth follows only an instant behind sinking teeth into the muscle of his chest and tasting the salty spray of his blood. Just as her pelvis presses against his cock and forces it into her.
Overloaded with nerve-ending firing and conflicting sensory input: lust, fear, pain, quivering expectation; Aris howls with reserves of air long-forgotten from lungs used only to shouting on the phone or keeping pace in a 5K charity run. At that moment he understands that cry will be his last, there is no more air left for him. Like a male preying mantis his moment of supreme ecstasy will be his final one.
Through her own fog of pot and lust, Trance hears the inhuman cry echo across the dark lawn. The pot has down its work and it coursing through her system and through Eric's. Trance's spine seems alive like a rainbow but with deeper and more vibrant colors. Flowers bloom out of every vertebra and she sees her back like a snake-ladder leading to her own future and backwards into her past. None of this makes any sense to her, but she's certainly willing to let Eric put his oafish hands on her. Caress her thighs tight with muscle. Slide over her back -- tensing and relaxing with the energies pulsing and wriggling through it. Even tolerate his mouth on her belly; his licking, sucking lamprey mouth marauding like a catfish hoping for nutrients on a lake-bottom. "He's just feeding," she thinks to herself. "He's fed me this magic mana and now he's feeding on its fruits. It seems only fair. . ."
By the time she hears the scream Eric has his flaming red head buried between her thighs and his fingers adroitly working her panties down. His tongue rasps across the skin of her massive quads and inner thighs. No one has worshipped her body in a long time. She indulges Eric's desires like a beast's, but then the spell is broken.
Trance leaps up when she hears the raw scream of distress. Eric looks up at her with lust clouded eyes and a complete lack of comprehension. She looks down and sees he has undone his pants and they've slid around his knees. His underwear is being stretched by his erection. "Put your pants on and come on," she tells him.
Her own pants are pulled up and closed in one fluid motion as she begins to head for the sound. Did someone else sneak out here for a quick one and the guy is going too far?, she wonders to herself and begins to sprint into the field towards the sound of the scream.
Liza continues her feeding. She has scored her nails across Aris' face and chest opening gashes that blood trickles from. His chest is a minefield of her toothmarks -- sharp and bloody. She looks into Aris' bewildered eyes and feels such love for him, such a need in herself for his dream, it is almost like he has brought himself to her tonight to become one with her. And now she will make him her own. She grips his head and pulls it sideways to focus on the blood-gorged carotid artery. "I know you've wanted this for so long," she says as Aris struggles ever more weakly beneath her.
As Liza leans back to gain momentum for her maw, something hard and fast hurtles itself into her. She is knocked off Aris and goes flying and rolling along the grass. This force becomes more distinct as a younger girl. It's the bartender and she's holding Liza's hands in a calloused Amazonion grip. A mighty fist like a hammer comes out of the moon itself and hammers the side of Liza's head. For a brief moment Liza is brought back to herself and is horrified. She tastes blood on her tongue and on her lips. Then she loses consciousness.
Trance crawls over to Aris. His arms, face and chest are bloody. His eyes are wide and he is trembling. As Eric comes running up Trance yells at him, "Call 911 for an ambulance! Now!" He stops and stares at the scene. The unconscious woman with blood on her face and hands and Trance leaning over a shaking man with bleeding wounds. He looks again at Trance. "Now!" she yells at him. "Cell phone, 911, now!!"
Eric dials and begins to ask for emergency services. Trance returns her gaze to Aris.
"What the hell happened to you?" she asks. "I thought she was a friend."
"Yes, she was a friend," Aris says still shaking. "She said I wanted this, but. . ."
"Yeah, but. . ." Trance shook her head. "You're lucky I was out here." She wanted to talk now to fill the air something besides screams and her own lust. She must have reeked of sex and hormones, not that Mr. California would notice through his own fear-stench.
Aris nodded. "Lucky, yeah." Then he seemed to come back a little to himself. "Yes, very lucky. . ."
He looked at Trance again as though seeing her for the first time. "Oh, yes, we spoke earlier. . .thank you. God, thank you for helping me."
Trance looked over at the sprawled form of Liza. She was still lying on the ground knocked out. "Watch her, Eric, I'm going to get him inside."
"The EMT's are on their way," said Eric. "What do I. . .?"
"Just stay here," Trance told him. "I'm going to help Mr. . . .London, get cleaned up." She knelt down beside Aris and looked her question at him.
"Yes, I can move," he answered. Leaning on her shoulder Aris struggled to his feet. The adrenalin rush of pain and fear was beginning to ebb and nausea came in its wake. His wounds still oozed blood and pulsed in an angry and demanding rhythm. "I hurt," he said weakly.
"Lean on me," Trance offered. Together they walked back into the hotel. She cleaned him up in the men's bathroom by the exit. For her trouble she didn't even get a kiss, but the squeeze of his hand in gratitude was enough.
Fond regards, Scantman
12:45 AM
Saturday, December 27, 2003
Product Lust
After such a hiatus, you would think I'd have something better to write about than the sleek new iPod I got for Christmas. But in point of fact, unless you want to hear about yet another in a prolonged series of uncontrollable crying jags brought on by memories of my dad, then yeah, the iPod's what you're gonna get.
The story begins with a package arriving from one of the vendors we do business with at work. They create and deliver our company logo'd items and are very good at their work. I receive a number of packages from them a week with proofs, samples and final deliverables. It was no surprise to receive a package from them but I couldn't for the life of me remember what I was waiting for. . . The prints had come in earlier that day, samples had arrived the day before. . . Oh well, figuring I was just too crazed to remember everything I dug in and found. . .a colorfully-wrapped box with a bow and a card. The card was a very sweet and genuine holiday wish and the box contained. . .oh yes, the object of my product lust for at least six months: an iPod.
I opened it on Christmas morning but Apple thoughtfully did not include the all-purpose cable with the player, only the Firewire cable and connector. I waited patiently for the following day and headed to Fry's. Among other techno-paraphernalia I picked up the all-purpose cable in the same freaky white as the player.
It was a surprising chore to get music into the player and the messages on the player were little help. "Do not disconnect" is not terribly instructive all by itself. Was the playing charging? Loading music? Downloading updates? Who knew. I actually had to dive into the troubleshooting section of iPod's user's manual. User's manual? What the heck kind of design if that, Apple?
Despite it's exterior beauty I must admit to slight disappointment to the out of the box experience from Apple. The buttons one must guess at, the cable included was for Mac's only (despite the player clearly being for PC's and Macs both), and the user interface is less than clear. Also, Apple's painfully obvious way of trying to trick buyers into giving up their personal information and sign them up for all manner of stupid newsletters was ham-handed and smacked of 1997's internet advertising mania. Opt *in*, Apple, *double opt-in*. Get with the new century, Mrrs. Think Different.
So that's a quick update. For now.
Now fuck off.
All sweetness and light, Scanty
3:18 AM
Friday, December 05, 2003
Understated Image Links of the Day:
* New innovations in the calendar industry
* Goddam motherfucking flamingo gourd
* Sharing is caring
* Marginal
* Trippy doodle
* Our house is a very very very fine house
- themedog
12:58 PM
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