The flies

When I was a boy
between seven and ten
Years old
I had a reoccurring problem.
Flies would fly
into my
ears.
And as bad as that
sounds
Think of it from
my perspective…
The first time, I was
standing on the front
porch of my
childhood home.
I looked to my
right
and saw a fly,
clear as a slow-motion
black bullet
heading my way.
And because I could
not have
conceived
that it could
happen,
I turned my head
forward.
And then
a
"FLUMP", noise
like a door closing
inside my
head.
And then-
Thebuzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
How to explain
such a thing
to the people around
me?
I know that I
said,
"BUG IN MY EAR!!"
but why was
it
necessary
for me to have to say it
more than
Once?
And why was everyone so
calm?
I was taken upstairs to
the bathroom with
visions of the fly
burrowing deeper and
deeper into my
brain
and my mother trying to fish it
out with tweezers
or some other
eardrum puncturing
utensil.
But instead she turned my
head
sideways and
poured water into
my ear from
a glass.
And the insane buzzing
bubbled and
stopped.
She then turned my
bug-ear
floorward and
a warm flood of liquid
ran down my cheek and onto
the floor
the fly in the middle
of the puddle.
For the next several nights
I was plagued
by surreal nightmares. I slept on
my side
with a finger jammed in one ear
and the other ear buried in the pillow.
The sound of the pillowcase
crinkling Under my ear
a million bug eggs
falling out.
To think such an event is traumatic
is an understatement, so
when it happened
AGAIN
I felt that there bugs could smell
how scared I was.
The second bug
(a fly)
landed on my ear-lobe
and then
crawled into my ear!
Once more I was in a
panic!
I ran into the house
through the living room, into the kitchen
where my mother was
washing dishes.
She was calm.
Too calm for my liking
as she got a glass
Of water and
led me onto the back
porch.
I tilted my buzzing ear
skyward
She poured in the water.
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
gloop gloop
A Sound of being under water
Bzz brzk-
…
And when I tilted my water
filled ear down
and the warm waxy water
flowed down my neck
I looked to the ground
at the puddle on
the porch-slats.
Water but
no FLY…
But I felt nothing in my
ear.
The bug must
have fallen
through the
Slats…
?
It made no sense.
Once was horrifying.
Twice was impossible.
So the third time…
I was climbing the big
oak tree in
my grandmother’s backyard
with my friend
Ben, when the
fun was inturrupted by
A loud flurping
Burzzzzszzzzzzzzzzzz…
I looked over at Ben
and said
calmly
"Excuse me a second. I got
a fly in my ear.”
With that, I haul
myself down from the tree
across the yard
into the house
past family
up the stairs
down the hallway and into
the bathroom.
The whole time
Brzzzz, brzzzzz, brz…
I turned on the sink faucet
tilted my head
and scooped water into
my ear. And listened
to the underwater sound
and the end of the buzzing.
I tilted my ear
floorward and
the water ran out.
The dead fly in a puddle of water
on the counter.
I examined it.
It was just a fly.
I went back outside.
Ben had left.
It was okay though.
Real men knew how to
go it alone.

Am I wrong in drawing/thinking this?

An email I received re. this story: https://www.flickr.com/photos/alfrankenstein/sets/72157633531028771/
"Although I liked your drawings, I didn’t like the comic book you gave me.
It was a terribly sad story about how you used that poor girl, took her dignity and then were ashamed to be seen with her. The weird thing is that you were the one crying in the book because you felt that all you could get was a fat girl and you had no problem disregarding and using her. Thanks for sharing  your literary works and psychology theories with me. You are very smart. Best of luck to you with your creative works.”

My response:
"You completely missed the point of the story, which is that at the end I realized that I was a piece of shit. Self-awareness allows me to realize this, and let other people know about it. People that can’t admit their faults, and keep their mistakes a secret (in my opinion) are deluding themselves, and deceiving other people."

Any thoughts?

Pics from the David McGhee photoshoot!

Andy Kaufmann

Up until I was about six
years-old, and
figured out I wasn't crazy
for not liking
it, my father
and I would wrestle.
We'd play on his
bed, and all
was fine and
dandy, but
it usually ended
with him
putting a pillow
over
my face and
pinning me down
so that I was
unable to
move or breathe.
And I would
scream and
panic and lose
breath from
screaming and
struggling, and would
be waiting
to die.
Then he'd pull the
pillow
away, laughing. But
seeing that I was
crying, would
get angry and
say, "I was just
playin' with you. You knew
I wouldn't hurt
you!"
Then he'd chase me away
disgusted.
I'd wander away feeling
confused.
Upset at myself for
being scared. For making
him so upset by
not getting the
joke.

6/12/14

Yup

Art and science

The difference between artists and scientists is that artists work by intuitive process. They discover things more quickly, but they tend to get more exploded glass in their eyes.

-Dr. F

How to Make a Monster

The story I've been trying to write since 1985. I hope you get something out of it.
Click here for story

-Judgement Day

The judgment day is not some far off moment with a giant white man on a throne, a book of names and a movie of your life. The judgment day is today and tomorrow and everyday we look at ourselves honestly to see that we're acting like pieces of shit. That is how we attain the Kingdom of Heaven.

Six albums with which to be stranded in Nueva-Austin:

 AUSTIN as we knew it is gone. Happy weirdo reject people blotted out by Trustafarians, hip artists with credit, and people who wanted to be here, while having no idea what the city was about (Which is pretty much Don Walser sitting on a front-porch couch off Enfield, talking about the migas con queso at Tamale House on Airport), at least to me.

 Arise Poseurtown! Long live MTVania! Fuck yeah SXSWicity! 

But anyway, being stranded in this now lifeless husk has made me think of how Austin was once an oasis in the horrible desert that is Texas. So when I want to pull the reality-blinds and sequester myself in a point of light, I need some good music to build an auditory foundation. These are five albums which do the impossible job of being good from beginning to end AND never getting old.

6) Pixies- Surfer Rosa: Somewhere along the line of the great culture war of the 90’s there was a schism between the 20 somethings. The younger set fell in love with a young Seattle troop known as Nirvana. Along with the rest of the Sub-Pop label they went on to transition America to music that was a bit less happy and a bit more ugly. The older 20’s hadn’t yet lost their sense of humor and were entranced by the Pixies. The pixies were what the hippies thought the Beatles were, plus their music was actually not for infants.

5) Devo- Freedom of Choice: Robot men on the march. Smile the future is here and it's brought some badass music for you to listen to. 

 

4) B52's- Self-titled: There was punk and there was New Wave and there was the B52's. This album of screaming, cranking, madness is like a mix of pure MDMA and a young Traci Lords telling you that you're "cute".

 3) Bus Boys- Minimum Wage Rock n Roll: Rock n roll soul. A promise of coolness that the 80's failed to deliver on. Oh you thought the 80's were cool? Imagine how much cooler if this checkerboard weave of black and white aesthetic had been allowed to fully manifest. 
 

2) Gary Numan- The Pleasure Principle: The first album post Tubeway Army. Numan had mastered the synthesizer. A bunch of them in fact. He sometimes plays 3 or 4 in a single song. That sound was the sound of science fiction personified and endless possibilities. 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akLKrd7zlS0&list=PL373D04E2616E65E8

 1) Unknowns- Dream Sequence: I stumbled across this ultimate work of genius at Ralph's Records, in Lubbock Texas, in about 1989. It was used and the cover flashed-back to a Mod 60's band that should have but never existed. The sound? Western/surf/ska. Like the feeling you got on Saturday night when you could stay up late and watch the monster-show.

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Man

Casanova Frankenstein
beauty ugly
love hate.
duality
man
in a name.

Y'know, it would be terrible if I were to snap and start serial-killing Goth-kids... but the cops would probably give me a pretty cool nickname.

Help us get VincentPrice a postage stamp!

http://greggorysshocktheater.tumblr.com/post/77224298957/help-get-vincent-price-on-a-us-postage-stamp

Notes on the Psychological Impact of Wearing Sunglasses After Dark

Notes on the Psychological Impact of Wearing Sunglasses After Dark

Premise: At the age of 17, I discovered something ground-breaking. I’d been bullied for the previous four years (since eighth-grade), but I was able to stop this based on the use of a common-item; dark glasses. I was diagnosed as near-sighted at the age of 16, and was forced to wear corrective-lenses. During a visit to the optician, the next year, I saw a display of gradient-tinted glasses. I managed to have a pair purchased, I believe the funds were a gift from a cousin.

The effect of these simple lenses was extraordinary. I was no longer bullied. It came to a very fast stop. Here is the psychology involved;

When a mother scolds her child she stares into the child’s face, using her stare as a form of dominance. The child, on the other hand, will look away (submission) when being scolded, often leading to the statement, “You look at me when I’m talking to you!”

In my experience, bullies are extroverted, non-reflective types (cyberbullying, not withstanding, is an unrelated phenomenon. It draws from the security of anonymity to engender aggressive tendencies. It also posits no visual physical cues to go along with the communication-dynamic) and extroverts, when speaking, follow the exact same mode of dominant eye-command as a parent. In addition, the “Alpha ”*, (replace for ‘parent’ or ‘bully’ from this point”) bully much like the parent, looks away from the speaker when listening. This sets in the mind, the very clear (yet subconscious) message, “When I speak, it matters, when you speak, it doesn’t” dynamic.

(Please note that the terms Alpha and Beta are used to denote power-dynamics, and  are not necessarily indicative of only Alpha-Beta relationships solely,  and can include Alpha-Sigma relationships, in which the Sigma experiences neither intimidation, nor desire to participate in the psycho-social heirarchy, but will used the underlying methods to avoid the psychosocial-games, which the Sigma sees as a waste of their time and energy. 

Introverts, on the other hand, are the exact opposite in their usage of their eyes. When listening, the introvert will stare at the speaker’s face, trying to read visual cues. Conversely, when speaking, the introvert look around, (not at the person’s face, which the introvert feels is rude and too intimate) making them appear nervous and submissive, thereby cueing the alpha to dominate them.

This hind-brain behavior can be easily corrected with use of a pair of mirrored, or darkened glasses. With use of dark glasses, the Alpha’s gestures and movement become a cue to the

introvert (Beta) that the Alpha is nervous and unsure. Conversely, with use of dark glasses, the

Beta’s smooth of non-existent body-gestures, cue the Alpha that the Beta is more confident than they. Social-dynamic: balanced.

Negative connotations of sunglasses after dark:

1) Person is high

2) Person is blind

3) Person is a liar

4) Person is “trying to be cool.”

Note: In the statement “trying to be cool” we see an obvious distaste for the sunglasses after dark (SAD) wearer, as though an attempt to be cool is a negative thing, or an attempt to be better than the viewer. Also inherent in the statement is the suggestion that the person is failing the task of “coolness”, and are in a constant present-tense state of ‘trying’ yet never achieving.

5) Person is mentally ill.

6) Person is lacking in self-esteem.

The eyes, it seems (and eye contact) are filled with a deep psychological power and have an intimate connectivity to others by nature.

Among men, the eye contact works as a sort of mechanism for measuring aggression and therefore insuring proper placement in the pack. By blocking eye contact (not avoiding eye contact) the male SAD wearer cannot be placed according to perceived strength. He becomes an unknown-quantity. This is psychologically unnerving to other males on an animal level.

When a woman, on the other hand, sees a man wearing SAD she may feel an additional intimidation, as women use the eyes as a barometer as a person’s feelings. She may be repelled yet strangely enough captivated by the challenge of trying to get the SAD wearer to remove his shades.

Positive aspects of wearing SAD:

1) By avoiding pack placement you tend to avoid male conflict and contests of aggression.

2) The masking effect lends a bit of intimidation, which adds power to your side.

3) You have the ability to scan a room for danger without appearing apprehensive, which is viewed as weakness.

4) You have the ability to scan your surroundings for females without appearing to do so.

a) See who is looking at you (they feel more comfortable looking because they don’t think you’re looking at them if your face isn’t turned in their direction).

b) See where the attractive women are, whom they are with, and if they have a boyfriend that will return in a few minutes, this makes it safer for you to approach.

5) An unreadable expression may lead to discomfort in others, yet this discomfort is not directed outwardly. The reaction given toward the SAD wearer is usually neutral.

6) The way the brow furrows is similar in both anger and sadness. The SAD hide sadness and intensify an angry brow, as the brain is attempting to make eyes out of dark lenses the psychological effect is that of angry brows over large black eyes.

So the perception of the glasses is greatly disparate between wearer and viewer. Interestingly enough, the act of wearing SAD seems to have quite an impact on the viewer, yet the viewer’s feelings/opinions have no impact on the SAD wearer. Thus the SAD seem to give the wearer a seeming “evil- (eye) power” over the viewer.

-CNF