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March 12: I Took A Class About This, But I Forget How It Ends
They color-coded the alert statuses today. It's "Axis of Evil for Dummies." I remember when I was growing up, we had a lot of air quality status reports on the news, and it was assumed that even the dimmest elementary school kid could figure out that a Stage Three alert was higher than a Stage Two. Now, we get a visual. All righty, then. I'm so tired from rolling my eyes that I find curiously that I'm most irritated they couldn't figure out that green follows blue if you're moving from cold to hot tones. I mean, geez. Get a color wheel, people.
I don't even want to bother to sort out which of the various bellicose agencies and their assorted guys named Tommy are at it now. It's all one to me. I guess I’m shocked at how fast it happened, how fast everything changed, how fast everyone just handed over their proxy to The Government Man. This smirking alpha-fratboy who, I would bet good money, is less well-read than Dan Quayle and has likely never had a long, dark night of the soul wrestling with moral uncertainties, stands as figurehead for our nation. Seventies'-era Cold Warriors re-deploy the only strategies they know, the only expertise they possess. This state and mindset of constant warfare seems to gladden our current administration. They are busy making plans for the foreseeable future, and they really are into it. It's the "into it" part that gives me the fear chills. This "war" should be a filthy, necessary, and brief business, at most, not an opportunity to show off how well you can organize your warroom. I don't want or need Martha Stewart with nuclear capability in my lifetime, thanks all the same.
I remember taking "Utopia and Dystopia in Literature" senior year of high school. Of course Dystopia gets pride of place in my memory. I mean, nobody remembers "Paradiso," it's "Inferno" that's the grabber. Comparing and contrasting "Brave New World" and "1984" was a big part of the class, of course, it's simple for the teacher. The terrifying vision of a technology-spawned race sating itself on soma and feelies versus a bleak vision of an impoverished working-class vainly struggling to retain sanity and dignity in spite of an ever-intrusive, controlling government force. Either/or, they're very different visions. Both scenarios couldn't happen at once. How could they both happen at once?
But somehow, I think they have syncretized, Orwell and Huxley. I think we are in the borning stages of something quite new and awful: anesthetized totalitarianism. Brighter minds than mine will no doubt state this better, with greater clarity, perhaps even with meaningful dissent that could rouse the public from their thoroughly entertained, NIMBY torpor. I just wanted to say something, because it feels as though not screaming aloud that the world is going mad is just about the worst form of denial. You can always put Crazy Aunt Bernice in the attic when company comes to call; I don't know what we, the American Family, are going to do about Crazy Uncle Ashcroft.
03/12/02
March 11: Kuda is from Mars, Kuda is from Venus
I spent most of last Friday in a foul mood, one of those "Warren Zevon's playing in my head" days, woeful and dour for no good reason. Pity Party, your table for one is ready. No triggering event, no calamitous recall of previously buried trauma precipitated this fall into funk. Just plain old crying-at-commercials, updating-enemies-list, blues in the night, human condition crapola.
Yes, I'm well aware I am extremely privileged and have precious little cause to complain. And yes, I'm also keenly certain that the occurrences of this mood would chart nicely on a calendrical grid. If some churlish lout were to scoff "Aww, it's just the PMS talking," I'd be less inclined to punch him in his sexist neck than ruefully agree, "Too right, friend of mine. Too fucking right. Now give me some candy."
I grew up in a household where reason's beacon was held to be the light of the world, where soft, squishy, emotion-based outbursts were frowned upon. I was raised to believe that all of my positions had to have a solid, well-articulated logical foundation to be valid, even if such position was: "Resolved: succotash is grody and I'm not eating it." I later spent most of adolescence's emotional roil in the company of male peers, whose response to a sudden bout of tears was a sock in the shoulder and a jaunty "cut it out, ya big baby." I'm glad for this, this necessary skin-toughening and upper-lip stiffening. Without early stoical training, my naturally hair-trigger temper would likely have landed me in the pokey by now.
So now I'm literally of two minds about uncontrolled, illogical emotions. It breaks down along gender lines, if you are a follower of the loathsome John Grey. By Dr. Grey's accounting, I am my own unfeeling boyfriend, my own unstable girlfriend. Yes, I contain multitudes, and sometimes they disturb the neighbors.
"Shut up, I'm just upset, okay? There doesn't have to be a reason."
"Oh, you're right, I forgot. They repealed the law of cause and effect. God, I sure hope gravity's all right."
"First of all, your sarcasm isn't helping my mood. Second of all, if you're supposed to be so logical, why are you conflating a faith-based principle and a cardinal tenet of physics? Ha! Pass me that roll of toilet paper. God, why don't I even have Kleenex in this house? I don't have anything nice."
"Why don't you stop crying and do something that will make you feel better? You could organize the laundry. Maybe it'd give you a sense of accomplishment."
"Ri-i-ight. 'Maybe eet would geeve you a sense of blah blah blah.' Why don't you fly up your own ass there, Supergirl?"
"Why are you attacking me? I'm just trying to help."
"Because you're like a ROBOT. You have no emotions, you're cold and unfeeling."
"OK, first of all, that's too much television talking. There's no reason you couldn't program a robot to experience emotion. It's all electrical impulses anyway, you could totally posit circuitry that could –"
"—You know what would make me feel better? Killing you in your sleep."
"I'm sorry, Dave. We both know you can't do that. You need me in your head. What I can't fathom is why I need you in mine."
"I think the very fact that you can't fathom why IS the reason why. Robot."
"Crybaby."
I know that the above makes no sense. But it feels right, you know?
03/11/02
March 9 and March 10: *@#$&@!!!!!
Due to the comatose state of my new iMac (see if I ever early-adopt again), I have been forced to retreat to my previous method of venting my feverish spleen: scribbling in my scented, floral-fabric-backed journal. If for some reason you have a fetish for crabbed, illegible writing, I'd be happy to photocopy the pages and send them to you. What? Yeah, I thought not. I'll write from my office, on officially sanctioned breaks only, of course. Hopefully, the Apple Support-chosen repair place will deign to return my messages at some point.
In the meantime, go see "Monsoon Wedding," it's very, very good.
March 8: Contingent Conservatism
-- CONFIDENTIAL -- NOT TO BE DISSEMINATED --
To: Paul H. O'Neill, Secretary of the Treasury
Cc: Alan Greenspan, Chairman, Federal Reserve Board
Re: Response to Request for Proposal No. XNGNC/Operation Red Sky Morning
Gentlemen:
Kudastani Incident Response Specialists, a wholly-owned subsidiary of KudaCorp Global Industries, Inc., is pleased by this opportunity to respond to the RFP fully-entitled above (henceforth, the "Response").
We understand the sensitive nature of this project and have taken the necessary precautions to ensure that confidential data has been provided only on an as-needed basis to the properly briefed and secured
employees. Rest assured that we do not anticipate another premature
release situation.
Admittedly the materials we have been provided to date regarding the needs of the new and exciting provisional federal government have been skimpy on the details. While we understand that this is no doubt due to escalating security concerns, we must preface our Response with the caveat that much of the following is informed guess work based solely on computer modeling and professional experience. However, KIRS' strategists are the best in their particular disciplines and have used their unmatched
expertise to draft this outline . The following is for
discussion purposes only. All work product is the sole and legal property of KudaCorp Global Industries, Inc.
KEEPING THE FREE MARKET IN PLACE IN THE EVENT OF CATASTROPHIC GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN
I. FUNDAMENTALS OF CAPITALISM
A. Supply/Demand
B. Exchange of Goods and Services for Like and Appropriate Material.
1. See KIRS White Paper re The Argentinean Experiment: Successful Collapse of Test Economy, Future Field Testing Laboratory
II. CATASTROPHIC EVENT(S) ELIMINATE(S) CENTRAL CONTROL
A. Stage One: The Involuntary Shutdown of the Grid
1. Crisis Management Via Bullhorn and Church Services
2. Military Deployment
3. The Role of Idaho: See attached list of indefinite detainees and guests of the government.
B. Stage Two: The Increasing Inutility of Cash, the Inavailability of Credit
1. Increased Military Deployment
2. Calming the Public via Restoration of Limited Television Services
3. Community Outreach by Local Volunteers (see attached list of civic and religious organizations)
C. Stage Three: The Establishment of the Federal Barter Exchequer
1. Promulgation of standardized list of rates of exchange (see Section III)
2. Distribution to every household and workplace in U.S. and territories of the prerecorded tapes of Katie Couric reciting the standardized list of rates of exchange
3. Increased Military Deployment
III. PROPOSED STANDARDIZED LIST OF RATES OF EXCHANGE (ROUGH DRAFT)
A. Foodstuffs for Foodstuffs
1 TBD (Greenspan)
B. Land for Foodstuffs
1. TBD (Pacific Lumber)
C. Services for Foodstuffs
1. TBD (General Mills, Deloitte Touche)
D. Batteries and Clothing for Foodstuffs
1. TBD (General Electric)
E. Sexual Services for Foodstuffs
1. TBD (Amber, Brandi, The Hoover Institute)
Please look over this outline and the attachments in advance of our meeting next week. Also, kindly give Chet a call and let him know your entree preference for the luncheon.
Best regards,
K. Buxington
CEO, KIRS
03/08/02
March 7: An Aesthetic of Facing Reality
I have a degree in Film from a pedantic university. What this means is, while I have no technical training in the design and manufacture of any sort of cinematic product, I have read a shitload of books by the illustrious high priests of film criticism, and am therefore capable of watching movies without Junior Mints in hand. Most of them French. In other words, I have a degree that is the educational equivalent of going on a lot of cheap dates with opinionated foreigners.
I have participated in the making of various films, mostly for the viewing pleasure of gas and electric workers who might stumble upon workplace hazards, or to caution those in more white collar establishments not to look at Vivian’s breasts too pointedly. Industrial video is the bread and butter of the film school graduate who can’t get a gig in porn. Even a cinephile as woefully lacking in technical skills as I am could land a short term contract, based on my people skills. While Lance, playing the role of “meter guy“ enacted what could happen if he’s in the neighborhood as a SWAT team takes down crack house, I kept busy redlining schedules and making chit-chat in the trailer. I enjoyed most the time I got to spend talking to that project’s advisor, a former crack addict who kept murmuring wistfully of the lure of the sweet rock. By the end of a week of 16 hour days, I was starting to crave a taste myself.
I also got to experience the rich tapestry, the exercise in absolute futility, that is making independent films if you don’t know Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. Wild-eyed but resolute, fighting for the uncompromising artistic vision of my brilliant friends and a couple of well-heeled dentists in search of a tax write-off. I still possess a particularly revealing frock which won the unfortunate (and I apologize in advance) appellation “Will Secure Saudi Financing.” I wore it with idealistic pride and profound shame. In any case, I believe our feature film, two years in the making, can be screened on Malaysian cable, if you’re a night owl. As all the kids at the credit card company say, priceless.
I have travelled many miles away from my filmic roots, into the lucrative world of putting things into folders for lawyers. I liken any movie-making endeavor outside of Los Angeles to be the equivalent of taking vows in a religious order: you better be prepared to put away any other thing you find enjoyable and be fervent and monomaniacal in your cause. You better hear the voice of God or at least one of the major seraphim telling you to do so. Either way, you’re nuts but at least if you’re having ecstatic visions you’ll get some validation. Meanwhile, this big pile of paper isn’t going to get in chronological order of its own volition.
03/07/02
March 6: Touch My Gun But Don’t Pull My Trigger
My workplace has been in a renovation state of siege for the past two months. Previously a shabby, dark place of worn carpeting and pieced-together furniture, it is now under the stern guidance of a top-flight interior design firm, being turned into a showplace of bisque, rustic ivory and desert tan. This has been fairly arduous for me, in that I have been forced to pack and relocate twice, and I don’t like change, much less change that involves me breaking a sweat. I am now back in my quasi-permanent office, but I’m not unpacking just yet. I’m still acclimating. And I’m grumpy. And I’m fixing to be mighty sick.
One of the problems with this whole process as it relates to me is the fumes issue. Redecoration is a stinky process, redolent of bad eggs, backed-up sewers and neurotoxins. Shortly after the plan was first announced, I swung by the office manager’s desk to advise her of a couple concerns I had.
“Hey, G, what’s shaking? Yeah, I had a couple concerns I wanted to advise you of. See, I have some chemical sensitivities. Yeah. See, for me formaldehyde is a migraine trigger."
Blank, but helpful look from G. She is nothing if not helpful, she is a very good office manager, but I could tell I’d stymied her. Apparently I was under the misapprehension that we would be enbalming cadavers in the hallways. She waited for me to clarify.
“Formaldehyde is usually present in new carpeting and fresh paint, you see. So I was hoping that I wouldn’t be moved into a renovated space until it has a chance to outgas for a week or so.”
“Uh huh.”
“Also, I get a rash.”
G smiles, her professional, compliant-with-OSHA smile. “Well, I don’t see how that could be a problem, accommodating your issues. Sure. No problem.”
And it wasn’t, not during the first move. The space I was relocated to had been renovated about three weeks back; my sensitivities were dormant. Sure, the Southwestern view of bridge traffic sucked in comparison with my usual, glorious Bay vista, but I was a relatively contented worker bee. The next six weeks passed uneventfully, until G came by to tell me that I was being returned to my previous workspace in two days. I was a bit apprehensive, as the last time I had sneaked into the construction area my office still consisted of torn-out sheetrock and rebar. Still, I dutifully repacked my boxes and labeled them.
Come Monday, I arrive at my firm and head to my office. The built-in furniture is nice-looking. The desk is a little low, I make a note to ask for a monitor riser. And then it hits me.
The smell. That ammonia/sulfur aroma that signals the presence of formaldehyde. I touch the wall. The paint is still tacky. Pretending to tie my shoe, I sneak a whiff of the carpeting. It smells like cheap perfume and chlorine combined. I close my eyes. I take a preventative dose of ibuprofen as my computer logs into the network. I make mind-over-matter resolutions.
By noon my eyes no longer focus and my fingers have gone numb. My neck is hot and itchy. It’s not a productive workday.
I don’t like being environmentally sensitive. It reeks of New Age hypochondria. I worked with a chemically allergic client once who was so knowledgeable about her triggers that she had a photocopied list of them to hand out to whomever she encountered. We had to meet with her out of doors, having used only Ivory soap in the shower, bereft of deodorant or any other unnatural chemical product. No dry-cleaned clothing, no artificial fibers. It was a chore to deal with her, and I preferred not to. To be honest, she was a full-on nutjob, but I shouldn’t have mocked her health issues, regardless of how they intersected with her psychiatric disturbances. Because someday, when I’m forced to live in a ceramic teepee in the remotest Sierras, drinking only rain water and eating only organic lentils, I’ll need a pal.
03/06/02
March 5: Last of the Red Hot Loafers
I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost the last of my burning ambition to become something noticeable to the public-at-large before age 40. I have already rationalized that this is to my good, but the “why” of it is not forthcoming. Certainly with that arbitrary deadline looming, I should be frantic to make something, anything, of myself. At least marry and divorce well and scandalously enough to meet Dominick Dunne, I tell my listless self. To no avail. I’ve even lost my capacity to make myself feel guilty.
When I was a child, I scored quite highly on the standardized tests of the day. I have since come to realize all this really reflects is my preternatural ability to ace standardized tests, but at the time I believed that this result augured great things for my future.
This testing led to my being channeled into “The Lyceum Program.” I’m fairly certain The Lyceum Program was a declassified Nazi protocol that came into the Allies’ hands after the fall of Berlin and subsequently wormed its way into the California public school curriculum. The Lyceum Program offered a variety of “enrichment opportunities” to the qualifying student, such as Ikebana, square dancing and horseback riding. But mostly it involved seminars.
These seminars, designed to shape us, America’s future best and brightest, into leaders of men, were held in the San Jose Elks' Lodge. I had eagerly learned to swim at this Elks' Lodge, so it was comfortable, familiar territory. The seminars themselves, however, were terrifying. The various coordinators, paid to shape our predestined young minds into the appropriate cognitive balloon animals, took very few prisoners. The daylong courses were rigorous and we were encouraged to be ruthless in our critique of our fellow students’ sloppy thinking.
The main focus of this rigorous training was to separate our tender, illogical, emotional responses from the diamond-hard, crystal-clear decision-making that would inevitably be required of us as adults. This was engineered through a series of “ethical queries.” The one that seared itself into my memory, so much so that I still sometimes repeat in my mind the various options presented by this scenario, was called “Fallout Shelter.” I have searched for it on the Internet without success. I believe that it has been disappeared for a reason.
The premise was simple. You are with friends at your home. There are twelve of them, their vital information provided by a Xeroxed handout. An alarm sounds, announcing the imminent arrival of an atomic bomb. You and your friends rush to your fallout shelter. The bomb falls. The next few minutes will determine the fate of the human race. You see, your shelter can only support eight of your friends and yourself. If you all attempt to stay long enough for the radiation to clear, you will all starve. Using the materials provided by the seminar coordinators, you have one hour to decide which four of your friends will be cast out of the shelter.
A couple of the decisions are gimme’s. Stuart is charming and of good breeding age, but is a hopeless alcoholic. There is no alcohol in the bunker and he’s already seizing up with DT’s. Annie is sweet, but retarded. Even at our young age, we can see that these two are liabilities. But what to do about the others? How to decide whether an advanced degree in Chemistry outweighs a good personality and child-bearing hips?
I don’t remember what I finally decided. I know I still feel really badly about Stuart and Annie. If any of the above sounds familiar, please contact me. We can get a two-fer on therapy.
Perhaps this is why I have not done a thing, not a thing, with my life that might inadvertently put me in the way of determining who lives and who dies. I don’t even want to decide who has to sit in the middle seat when a group of pals go to the movies. If push comes to shove, please take my bunkbed, my can of hash, and remember me fondly as you battle the radioactive mutants. I’ll go sit quietly outside and await the bright light.
03/05/02
March 4: Dance with the devil what brung you.
We here at the Kudastan Institute for Advanced Cogitation have many theories on how to improve the governance of this fair nation. We are not of that smash-the-state ilk: we stare blankly at the empty page, but give us a template to monkey around with, a rough draft to mark up in red ink, and we're in tweaker heaven.
One idea we have had kicking around in committee for the past couple of months is, at least to our audience of patient enablers and housecats, a corker. Let us sell it to you, a la our fellow outside-the-box envelope pusher, H. Ross Perot.
Our proposal is GUARANTEED to do the following:
* Eliminate the National Debt. And we'll do it without tapping into Social Security's lockbox, no harm to the head of sacred cow Medicaid, we can even afford Amtrak, if we cut back on those pesky mohair subsidies a wee bit.
* Completely do away with the federal income tax system. You heard right: not reform, not re-paradigm, not more smoke-and-mirrors from the fat cats on Capitol Hill. The Flat Taxers can go join the Flat Earthers. Put a fork in yourself, IRS, because you're done.
*Foster honesty and straightforward dialogue between constituent and representative. Bear in mind that, due to a hinky little provision known as "corporate personhood", this constituent may not be poor Widow Jenkins so much as poor Amalgamated Phosphorus. Again, though, taking the discussion between representative and he/she/it that is represented above-board can only be seen as in democracy's interest.
Are you ready? Are you excited? Because Chet and I sure are. Today we unveil a new model of governance, sure to set a standard for the First World and provide an example to our Third World brethren…okay, okay, here it is:
CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP OF EVERYTHING
That's right. If some cheeseball municipality can garner big bucks from Staples for its arena, if some podunk incorporated area can squeeze the local bait'n'tackle to name the dog track after it, why not supersize the concept?
We aren't fishing for minnows here, people and corporate personhoods. If you don't have the benjamins to talk about sponsoring, at the very least, Utah or New Hampshire or one of those other less-popular states, you can go watch "Montel" now. This is where the big dogs eat. If you can't envision a world where Conde Nast touts "Tropical Splendor in ArcherDanielsMidland's Hawaii," where your cousin Midge shows slides of her trip to Merv Griffin's Reno in Hewlett-Packard's Nevada and you don't have the scratch to play poker with the big boys, you can move on while we move up.
Oh, but wait! We're just kidding. Hold up there one second, Citizen. As for you, the average Joe and Jane Worker-Unit, this will save you money, and that's always good, right? This is the future. Why sell your birthright for a mess of pottage when there are lucrative sponsorships to be had? What's pottage anyway? Get Big Government off your teat already. Don't you think the National Parks Service should be on the horn with Nike about now?
We can finalize the proposal over a series of white paper luncheons. We welcome your input. Chet and the rest of us are very excited.
03/04/02
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