Plague Journal #6

Having a hard time assembling coherent thoughts, but that's okay. Everything seems to make sense later. I didn't know what to write and considered improvising a poem or song. It began:

Every day begins with Munchausen syndrome,

In the arms of a toxic toupee,

Dangling a dead rabbit,

Pulled from an asshat.

That means nothing and it means many things. It could easily be political. It started political. But it could also be fabulist, historical, retentive gibberish. Most definitely the latter. I've never been able to focus on politics for very long, but the past few years have seen a gradual change. I never used to wake up angry about it. I had more private reasons for being angry. Now, NPR is playing in the house for hours every day. Is this what growing is? Is this a bad cover version of my life? 

I have nothing to say. People are getting sick and dying worldwide, in a way that most of us have never experienced. At the same time, the sense of panic (at least in this household) is sedated at best. We wash our hands and profusely sanitize if we need to go to the store. Other than that, things are relatively status quo. But this new and interesting fear is like having canine senses when a bad storm is brewing.

For the fun of it, lets bitch the black cloud and watch Tiger King

Plague Journal #5

"You been eating long enough now, stop being greedy"

Arf, arf! Woke with this song in my splitting migraine skull, flopped on the couch after chugging last remnants of milk, stared with dull shivers at any un-angular dark spot I could locate, further reconnaissance decoding birdcalls (I know their games), pilfered through opium memories, turned on news, turned off news, closed eyes (is this the magic turd?), food tasted septic, the hours flew.

919 people have died in Italy in the past 24-hours. Hundred-thousand expected infected in Spain in next few days. 323 deaths in Germany. Millions of tents in Turkey/Syria, where infection spreads rapidly. Mass suicides in Pattaya. A 17-year-old in California was turned away from the hospital for not having health insurance, he died soon after. No one gets a funeral. America infection rate surpasses everywhere else(#1!!!)

About me: I have a wife, I drink every night (never before 5), smoke cigarettes (though on day 3 of Chantix), used to make music, now I write and have completed 3 novels, one of which I am editing and will attempt to get published, currently writing a 4th, currently not sick, masturbate or sex once a day, try to read and write every day, currently reading Gravity's Rainbow (quarantine is a time for big novels), cinephile (currently going through Sion Sono's catalogue), in and out of jails, mental hospitals, rehabs, and Scientology indoctrination centers throughout my teens and early 20's, I have psoriasis, it's pretty bad right now, I live in Tennessee and miss the beach.

Plague Journal #4

Kamikaze petal whites careening outside the window, disturbing the cats. What is out there? What am I missing, Pazuzu thinks. DeeDee is less curious. Well, an angel of Death has seen fit to prime the street for domesticated retardation, Pazuzu. You might could just thrive out there, long as a fat starving hawk doesn't crosshair your rather weak camouflage coat. Your glinting bumblebee eyes.

Busted open old DVD wallets today, between group texts with irate co-workers scheming to whip the authorities, caffeinemare writing, walking, smoking, reading, bleeding a little, cleaning dried blood from fingernails, witnessing Disney-esque window stories in horror/bliss, pushups, pontificating, masturbating, contextualizing abdominal pains as figments of imagination, and snuggling with DeeDee and Pazuzu. Watched Taxi Driver and SAFE. Both get better each time. 
Taxi Driver I've seen probably 20 or 30 times, but hadn't watched it in many years. I've learned far too late in life that empathizing with Travis Bickle isn't a positive trait. 

I used to be a rapper. Two of my favorite lines: 
Spit bars straight through you like a fraction.
I've got bigger nuts than mental retardation. 

Plague Journal #3

Letter from Boss

Aside from writing my father's eulogy, these are the hardest words I've ever put down on paper.

On Tuesday, the decision to close the doors was made to protect the safety of our team. Of course, guest's health and safety is important, but to me, nothing is as important as my family, which is my Mom, ____, ____, and of course, the ____ team, which has been my family for 30 years now.

Those who have chosen to know me more as a person and not just a person who signs the checks and deals with business matters know that transparency has always been the way I have chosen to work and run the business. People before profit.

That said, here are some facts:

Before leaving town on March__ all rent, phone bills, and other essential payments were made to our vendors, as always. That left us with the normal amount of money in the payroll account...as we expected to have bang-up weekends ahead which would pay the remainder of the payroll.

That did not happen. We did not expect the world, especially our hospitality driven city to come to a screeching halt. But it did. As we are a day-to-day business, all monies that come in, go right out to pay our staff and then our bills. It's been a tough few years, and profit has been slim to none. ___ has worked painstakingly to assist me in reorganizing our business plan moving forward. Then this...so all I can say is I hope ____ is able to reopen and have a future.

____ calculated the payroll from 2/16 - 2/29 as usual. As there is only the money that was previously in the bank, we have put everything into the payroll account, and you will each receive 72% of what your actual Net paycheck was calculated by ADP to be. (please see below)

s/b $1504.70   Paid $1083.39   Owed $421.31

That leaves the last payroll (3/1 - 3/17). With no income to the business, there is no output. I will be applying for SBA loans, every government stimulus package and grant allowed by law. Any monies that we are able to receive will go to paying you all FIRST (for this paycheck and the percentage of the last), and hopefully we will be able to open the doors again. We are not alone in this. This is a global crisis. It's a real thing.

Please know that this is not going to go away in a month. Our business is 70% travel based and I strongly believe this will unfortunately get worse before it gets better. But I am optimistic. If we are able to reopen, I'm sure it will be a slow process as it will certainly take the market time to recover. I hope you will understand that this is a time to support each other, not for anger. We are all totally confused and unaware of what is coming next.

Please keep each other in your thoughts as I will be keeping you in mine as I attempt to get assistance for our team.

Warmest regards,
______


"all rent, phone bills, and other essential payments were made to our vendors" ... "all monies that come in, go right out to pay our staff and then our bills." 

She also failed to mention that she had just returned from a cruise, which she left for during the outbreak. Where did that money come from, stupid? 

She has apparently left the country. 

At least I'm not peein' out the butt anymore... 

This is report #3, but I've been homebound for just under 2 weeks now. Go out once a day to walk, see what Spring grows, interpret confused facial expressions, drive evermore desolate arteries, make noise to intercept encroaching shotgun silence. 
Crave pickle juice, sickle cell anemia. Dreams of being a gun owner. Play bookshelf Tetris. Avoid too much technicolor brainrot. Blood city is clotted. McDonald's and CVS, basal Hobo Camp ganglia. 

4:17pm. Administered 1 Varenicline (0.5mg) dose orally. Quad Roses expected to last... Whatever good Islay Peat is left remains shelved for full collapse.  

Plague Journal #2

Sunset tore a brushfire through the dirty city chrome. Heralding the gloam. In the twilight, sippin Rye from my wrought iron perch, spotted a tail-clipped rabbit. Little rhombus, still as a broken thermometer. Frozen in terror? The longer I stared the more sinister the aspect. Who's terrified? 

Today nothing stirs. Rainy throughout, reminding me of the three bouts of odd hour diarrhea a few nights back in which I woke my wife to news of probable infection. Isolated myself on the couch with tummy bubbling seltzer and read until things cooled. Symptoms have subsided for now.

Mail arrived early today. The census, the hospital, my last check. Pay came along with a typed note informing me that the tourism-oriented company I work for is too dry in the till to pay laid off employees in full. Therefore I received roughly 76% of what was owed. Furious group texts between co-workers ate up the rest of the day. 

Medicine of Four Roses (1.75 L) slackens the solipsistic noose. Screaming Merry Christmas. They ain't gon' split up the family. They ain't worth a dead hooker's last queef. Nothin' but the devil's business. And how!

Plague Journal #1

The sickness has arrived here just in time for Spring. Each new daylong shower sprouts ungray hues, purple, yellow, majestic white blossoms that remain untrammeled. Unjogged paths now only tickle four-legged paws and hoofs, spray them with kamikaze spores. Glo-Gang woodland creeps.

Training wheels beat the sidewalks with poor black plastic or rich rubber. Inflatable medicine, parents wearing backpacks, eyeing me hazardways. Machine gunner eyes and perked ears, as if the Can't Quit Now choir is just over the hill. Eyeing my cigarette, the poacher, a pressure sequence between us.

From the stair to the car is only metal and stone. Hard living that knows this house better than me or my betters. Once a day I check for frozen arteries, holes underfoot, new responses to my atrophy. The drive is quicker every day. The hustle, less so. Only need to move and make up a life for Ms. Whatsherface, why she's shying from her dying garden. She told me her name once, soon after I moved here. She might be on a dead bed in a white room.

The neighborhood is ... all the houses feel closer together. A lingering spiked ozone nips at everyone like electric minnows. To the park to walk. Fill my ears with oblivious obsolete. Don't really listen, monitoring the Pod People too. Each beating heart is a cause for concern.

The cat before the screen door before the dead potted nothing before the unlit window on the house next door. My daily cinema until sunfall. Rarely a thought. Bulbs burn out. Computer computer's music. Occasionally walk to another window.

It's like bobbing for apples in ice water with sealed lips.

Phase IV

Mystics predicted earthquakes, and the end of life as we knew it. Nobody presaged that devastation would be wrought by such an insignificant form of life.

Purge 1

PURGE 1

Review: FOUR CIRCLES by Meg McCarville

If Harmony Korine and Max Hardcore made a film about a budding modern day Aileen Wuornos it would probably watch a lot like Four Circles reads.

Meg takes on a ride through a handful of choice chapters from her life, from rape to crack den to rape to suicide motel to miscarriage to trailer park to rape. And all with a wild sense absurdity and humor, aided no doubt by the plethora of street-level drugs she's on. Given the subject matter, it's a feat that the book punches along like a Hannah-Barbera cartoon on crack.

I would say reading Four Circles is akin to repeatedly skinning your shin while eating fruity pebbles. This book somehow feels warm and nostalgic while still being utterly real and nightmarish. Maybe it's because I dropped out of school and ran with similar ne'er do well's that this is the case. Some of these adventures feel ripped from the periphery of my life and especially the lives of people I've known that are now either dead or worse. Given what McCarville has gone through, it's really a wonder that she's still here and coherent enough to write a very good book.

All this is not to say that Four Circles is for everyone. Please don't think that. I imagine many readers will relate the book to being repeatedly flicked in the nuts or clit. This is a trashy book written for trashy people. It is gratuitous to a level bordering on rape-revenge porn. It even comes with a kind of trigger warning on the back. Which, coming from the publisher Amphetamine Sulphate, says a lot.

Some might find Four Circles overblown, gimmicky, or childish. And well it sort of is. If addiction, depravity, and constant sex crimes (written with a flair for the absurd) is a gimmick. McCarville isn't going to win any awards for her prose, but she is damned funny in the midst of real American sickness. No clue what Kafka would have thought of this book, but it definitely aims to stab and wound us.

Review: PERIPATET by Grant Maierhofer

Major self-loathing, doubt, guilt. Portrait of the artist as an open bleeding conduit of influences attempting to cauterize via oblation. Diary of critiques, search histories, and borrowed texts. Excavation of a bottomless malady.

I'm trying to make my review more coherent and sequential, but I find that that betrays the substance of the object. This is an intimate version of the author's reality as he tries to wrestle with writing the thing you're reading, as you're reading it. He includes samples of literature, criticisms, and whatnot written by other people. This method is apparently called "ambient nonfiction," a term I had not come across before reading this book. It is interesting, like receiving spurts of oxygen while being drowned. When it works, it nicely breaks up the torrent of intensity that is Maierhofer's id. There are large portions of quoted passages from Melville's Pierre; or, The Ambiguities, which I have not read. Maierhofer points to this book as his aspirational ideal for Peripatet.

"If there's a literary work I'd most like to live within it might be Pierre..." 

Throughout this exploration of life as a teacher, writer, husband, father, we are mostly with Maierhofer in the Now. Walking side-by-side with his neurosis as he sometimes flashes back to show us the ills of his childhood. The death of his father, which haunts him. His current state screams with malaise and guilt. He's:

"...moneyless and fucked...depressed and anxious and certain you're an evil person."

Maierhofer writes almost pleadingly about the struggle of the writer to want to feel what his idols and inspirations felt. To writhe in blood with Yukio Mishima, or crunch needles under boot in the Cabrini Green projects. He is also a goddamn great crafter of sentences.

"I don't know the extent of the mistakes I've made but they are likely the mistakes you've made and maybe worse I'm not exactly sure. I don't know what to make of them and I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do about mistakes. I want to confess. It's a part of my disorder." 

"The process of generating nonfiction is like peeling back a phantom wound." 

Maierhofer is an English teacher, I believe, and Peripatet does occasionally feel like reading through articles on the Craft & Criticism section of a literary website (albeit all written by the same self-hating graphomaniac). It offers only questions though, no answers, which opens up possibilities. You can take what you want from his struggles. You can take nothing and simply bask in the miasma.
He tells us numerous times what the work is trying to do, with a different goal each time. He claims the book is about literary praxis here, his own death there... to my mind he never hits any of these scattered targets, but that's probably, definitely, the point. He even acknowledges this (directly after stating yet again what the work is here to do):

"An author's intentions become irrelevant when spread as thin as this." 

Then on the next page

"I do not seek or hope to put forth anything like an answer." 

I thoroughly enjoyed most of Peripatet, and I think it will mainly appeal to other artists. It is a long book, even though the font changes and pictures make it a much quicker read than the size suggests. I think that some of the perfunctory padding (ambient sampling) could have been cut out. I get the feeling that this is Grant spilling the last of his guts, with the remains not quite filling the hole. But this is the end, he wants to write himself empty. It's a recurring motif:

"I want my next work to be final and then I'll go off and fish with my kids. I want to go to sleep for the next thirty years. I want to spend the days with lifers."

It has the contradictions and pains and manic confusion of most grown artists who still simmer with forms of preteen angst. Being one of them myself, Peripatet often made me feel better and worse from sentence to sentence. This is affecting in a significant way.


Very minor reservations aside, Peripatet is one of the better dives into privileged misery. I have a feeling that anyone under a certain age, or with artistic ambitions, will connect with and appreciate the majority of what's here. Some other's might find it painfully entropic. The deft prose, however, is unquestionable.

http://www.insidethecastle.org/peripatet/

Review: BABY KILLER - Frank Cassese

It's rare to come across a work of fiction that is as surprising as it is, on afterthought, inevitable. Generally a book like that would be about a standard subject written in an unusual style, or a book about an atypical subject written in a plain or straightforward style. Baby Killer is definitely the latter.

Written from the point of view of an overeducated observer and harsh critic of modern culture, as we've seen throughout the certified echelons of Literature, we hang out and sink slowly with the Killer of Babies in this first-person confessional.

To tell you the truth, for a book about a killer of infants, the story starts off rather slow. In fact, I became a bit bored until things picked up after about fifty pages of living with yet another well off homebody.

The protagonist carries a bit of the "Stupid pleb's and their alcohol and loud music and sex." A missionary here to stop the Idiocratization of our world. He loves to be alone, and long walks. He loves to read and proselytize. He listens to Radiohead, Leonard Cohen, and bebop jazz. He is, in a deeper vein, the perpetual man-child that is jealous of the effortless attention and love bestowed upon newborns. He is what many grown men fear of becoming, or simply are (and in denial of).

The Killer of Babes, safe in his cocoon, hates society's urge to change:

"They brag about how lightly they can pick up and create new beginnings, a new life for themselves, a new self for their lives."

But the big Butt is that this guy kills little babies. This does happen. He slaughters them with occasional remorse and well-articulated (some might say convincing) rationale. This is a problem that  ends up being the most interesting aspect of his soporific personality. Because outside of some light family trauma, the Babe Killer is quite mundane.

"I would rather do nothing than have any sort of stricture imposed on my time, and most days I did quite a bit of nothing."

I won't expound on the actual depictions of his extracurriculars except to say that each instance is unique, vivid, heart-wrenching, and often hilarious.

But this is, when it comes down to it, a character study. The Baby Killer is outwardly pathetic and inwardly God's Gift. He is as much a mirror on our cultural moment as Patrick Bateman was in the 80's. Whereas Bateman went out everyday and overachieved in order to be seen and noticed, the Baby Killer avoids people, jobs, and social interactions at all costs. He's rich (you'll have to read it to know how), so he can do that, but even if he didn't have his golden cushion of wealth, I could see him figuratively being that 30-year-old that still lives in mama's basement, antagonizing true achievers through his digital curtain of anonymity. There is even a hilarious section involving a katana that reads like a neckbeard's wet dream, and the narrator actually says, "It's nothing personal."

This book is such a binary for me that it's hard to judge. If you took out the specific acts it would be as tame as some Austen, but we must include the acts. This isn't Sotos on a diet or anything. Those familiar with transgressive fiction will have nary a feather ruffled (though maybe I'm a deathly numb sociopath). But it is a work of thrilleresque appeal. A work of the moment that I don't think could have been written at any other time. It probably says something about consumer culture and apathy. It definitely holds a mirror to doughy rich mama's boys that are afraid of commitment. It held my attention in the way that a horror movie by Wes Anderson might. An oddly comforting read that I bet you'd enjoy.

*I realize that this review comes off a bit negative and vague, and the novel did in fact go down slightly lukewarm, but I want to state that I do highly recommend it to readers of transgressive (for lack of a better term) literature. It is an important book.*