Killer Birthday Party! (or Birthday Party Killer?)

Cooper
@ Twenty-two

Yesterday was my friend Cooper's 22nd Birthday - a time in life sometimes sparked by hedonism. Things can get complicated when planning a party with/for friends, sometimes things get a little carried away - people can even get carried away - literally!!!

It started with a text at 7am. William decided to throw a party for Cooper and needed some help: (A) I had to cancel my plans with Cooper for dinner and make him think I couldn't make it, and also that none of his friends could be there (ouch, no dinner with Cooper at Chili's?) (B) I had to get Cooper out of the house for the evening, while William (who was supposed to be working late) got things ready for the party, (C) I had to be at William's at 5pm to help him get things ready for the party, and (D) yes, there was (D), we had to go on a run to pick up people for the party and then get a few necessary things, a cake or two, drinks, balloons, and handcuffs?!

William, who would not take no for an answer, even if he had to get a little carried away, determined to get Cooper's friend Corey out of his house and get him to the party. As soon as Cory opened the door, William picked him up to carry him outside before he knew what's up. After some encouragement he agreed to go with us, and we picked up a few more people on the way who needed a ride (and a little encouragement) to get to the party, along with my daughter, Ariele. Other friends also showed up. Luckily, Cooper's friend and band mate, Ben, called just in time to get Cooper out of the house and they went to meet his mom for dinner at Chili's while we came back to get things ready.

By the time Cooper showed up again with Ben everything was ready. William met Cooper outside and talked with him privately, then managed to get him handcuffed to the lamppost in the front yard without the feared bloodshed. I think his words went something like this: "I don't have time to explain, but I've been through hell today, so if you resist me it's only going to piss me off, so it would be best if you just cooperate with me and let me handcuff you to this lamppost." Whatever he said, it worked like a charm and Cooper, who still had no idea what was going on just said, "what the hell?... um, ok dude" *lesson: never piss off a tired drag queen/'big brother'* The rest of us came outside on cue from William and lined up with water balloons - one for each of the 22 years - along with a few extras. William insisted that I had to go first, so after getting Cooper's okay I picked up the smallest one. I didn't throw it hard enough, so it bounced off his chest and broke when it fell onto the grass, "sploosh," significantly like when a mom's water breaks when a baby is about to be born. After that, Cooper was treated 'execution style' by a water balloon from each of his friends, until the 16th year turn came up, which was my turn again. Cooper told me he was only 16 when we first met, but he was actually 18. He and Ariele told me that story so I would let him in the house, ha. William helped me throw the balloon by grabbing my hand to direct my throw, so it broke over Cooper's shoulder. When the 22nd year came up, it was William's turn - which, instead of a balloon, he used a small, round pink cake that he threw at Cooper and got a little carried away at the end with rubbing it in. Afterward he uncuffed him and presented him with a large birthday cake with his name on it that we could all eat.

The idea was to be a symbolic way of shedding 22 years of bullshit and getting a new start. I was "kinda lame" about the idea at first, as Ariele put it, because I didn't understand the significance of being handcuffed and getting things thrown at you by friends you trust - until we did it. I kept saying I didn't want to do anything that could make someone feel torn down or hurt in any way, I knew Cooper had been through hell already. William said, "What?! did you think I was a NICE person?! Did you think this was going to be a NICE birthday party?!" And he had to explain things to me so I understood the significance. It was acting out, basically. I had to re-learn, due to my own past 'bad' experiences that it's okay to get wild, play and have fun. Not that I don't have a wild side and have fun, but I realized I had been robbed of a lot of fun in life by fear, trying to stay "safe" from my past abuse by not taking any "risk" where I was not "in control" even when it was a matter of trust and fun, so it was a symbolic and freeing experience for me as well. Cooper agreed to go along with it and was totally blown away by the whole thing because it was so unexpected. Cooper didn't expect that anyone was going to do anything special or show up on his birthday. His mom didn't show up for their dinner, which wasn't supposed to happen, but she did make it by the party, and other than that, Cooper had a killer birthday.

To view the famous lamp post, see youtube video at http://www.youtube.com/user/williamawilliams

William & Cooper - 2 Geminis!

William Burroughs: Cuts You Up

My recent experiment on the cut-up method used by William Burroughs has been an interestingly creative learning experience. It's like dissecting a frog in biology, except the frog is alive in this case, the frog being a chosen text, what Burroughs refers to as a pre-recorded coded slice of the universe, to reveal its inner beating heart, the implicit true meaning within the text. It's not too far off from the artists (Nitsch, Pollock, etc.), and those who smeared dead carcasses onto their canvases in an effort not to mirror life, but to act it out, even with their own bodies, using painting as a performance. Here is a link to my project:

William Burroughs' cut-up method: Experiment

The cut-up method was also used by many music artists in their recordings and lyrics, such as David Bowie's lyrics (The Laughing Gnostic: David Bowie and the Occult) and Kurt Cobain's lyrics, guitar feedback and distortion.


David Bowie: Outside


Peter Murphy: Cuts You Up

Are you mad?

"the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time." Jack Kerouac

am I mad... or just 'beat'? a "beat-ific" vision of exalted exhaustion.

notes:
experiencing the "anxiety of influence" Harold Bloom writes about, struggling to free himself from his affinity for the work of a writer he'd admired, is a sign of finding your own literary voice.

Karouac: "I don't care what anybody says, but I'm pulled out of my shoes by wild stuff like that ("crazy jazz") -- pure whiskey! Let's hear no more about jazz critics and those who wonder about bop: -- I like my whiskey wild, I like Saturday night in the shack to be crazy, I like the tenor to be woman-mad, I like things to GO and rock and be flipped, I want to be stoned if I'm going to be stoned at all, I like to be gassed by a back-alley music..."

i want to be pulled out of my shoes by wild stuff like that... I like things to GO and rock and be flipped...

"write only what kicks you, and keeps you overtime awake from sheer mad joy."

"kickwriting"

this is the start to my beat movement assignment, view link to my Karouac webpage, currently being developed: http://sites.google.com/site/jackkarouackicks/

"Goofing at the table"

Ariele and Cooper

My family - Reunion:


When friends fall out it can be brutal, especially when you have been like a family for so long. After a year and a half of keeping the two poles from collapsing in on each other, peace is finally here.

Well, peace and anarchy! (My work here is done.)

Right about now, I could use a hot tub and a corona... better bring your shades, its going to be a bright summer!

Week before finals:

To relieve stress and participate in an activity for an adolescent psychology class presentation today, we were asked to identify the shapes below and write down an object we imagined that matches the shapes:









These were my answers after just taking a really long math test with not much time for sleep (or meals) this week:

Circle = Table

Square = Table

Rectangle = Table

Pyramid = Freaky hotel in Vegas

(I hope I did better on my math test!)

P.S.
My Poe book of poems, short stories, and essays went on a walk-about a couple of weeks ago. I was pretty sure I left it in the classroom after my presentation, but it wasn't turned it. I kept thinking it would show up, but I never could find it. Today I thought I'd stop in the bookstore across from the campus just in case it showed up there. Sure enough, it was behind the counter! It seemed so much like Poe to go missing and find him on an adventure. The bookstore across the street from the school used to be a tavern and still has a dark interior and the same counter. The manager knows me because I buy textbooks there often (and occasionally have to part with them). He sold it back to me for what he paid someone for my book, $5.00. It had all my handwritten notes inside, so it was easy to identify. My book now has a "Used" sticker on it, even though I first bought it new; it's another mark of ownership in the life of my book. As soon as I left the store and waited at the stop light, the local church bells, which are nearby but are very loud, began to ring, it was 2pm. How precise. And our last reading assignment for the Poe class this semester was "The Bells." I guess Emerson was right, he is "that jingles guy." The book arrived just in time to begin my class on The Beat Movement.

Euphoria is "3 degrees above zero"

This Hubble photograph of an hourglass nebula has a strange looking center...



...compared to this picture of my eye, which looks similar to me (except this is not Hubble, it's my cell phone camera, which is not as clear even so close up and my eyes are hazel green):



I also read a description while doing some research recently which reminded me of the picture of the hourglass nebula:

In Chapter XVII of the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, the opening passage reads: "I am Tem in rising. I am the only One. I came into being in Nu ("Nu, of the dark waters." Nu was the incomprehensible source of all things -- Chaos or Space.). I am Ra who rose in the beginning... The pillars of Shu were not as yet created (the division of heaven and earth). It is Ra, the creator of the names of his limbs, which came into being in the form of the gods, who are in the train of Ra" (i.e., the gods who personify his phases) -- fourteen Spirits, seven dark and seven light..."I am the Bennu bird (the Phoenix, type of resurrection) which is in Anu, and I am the keeper of the volume of the book of things which are and of things which shall be." In the eternity of his being occur vast cycles of activity followed by equal periods of rest: "Millions of years" is the name of the one, "Great Green Lake" is the name of the other, the "Lake" representing the cycle in which are swallowed up all things produced by "The Begetter of millions of years." In Chapter XLII he "who dwelleth in his eye" is beaming in "the solar egg, the egg to which is given life among the gods." In Chapter XV he is "Yesterday," "Today," and "Tomorrow," the one "who reposeth upon law which changeth not nor can it be altered." In Chapter LXXV he is the self-created god: "I gave birth unto myself together with Nu in my name of Khepera, in whom I come into being day by day. I am the creator of the darkness who maketh his habitation in the uttermost parts of the sky ... and I arrive at the confines thereof. I sail over the sky which formeth the division betwixt heaven and earth... None sees my nest, none can break my egg."

(Is it customary for all the gods to "speaketh" thus, or is it just the translators?)

The Book of the Dead, or as I prefer, the book of "Coming Forth by Day," was written long before Hubble, since now we can at least see the uttermost parts of the sky, and breaking the egg sounds similar to cracking a code to me. I like the idea that, as we are peering into space, someone would be looking back, "Would you like your space eggs solar fried this morning, or heat wave scrambled at 3 degrees above zero?"

I also heard an interesting description on PBS regarding astronomical measurements of the universe in waves which are expanding, the red shift theory, and blue shift, and the discovery of "3 degrees above zero," which was calculated in a laboratory in Princeton at about the same time the actual waves were being discovered by scientists working on radio and microwave measurements to pick up data that was outside of the range of light, as heat waves in areas of space void of stars, and where they expected it to be void of substance, and was expected to be cold, even colder than the space inhabited by stars. What they discovered was a presence of heat, 3 degrees above zero, which is described as being evidence of the afterglow of the big bang, a kind of cosmic "euphoria," and if that was as many billions of years ago as they have calculated, that was quite a bang to have such a long lasting afterglow(!). Oooo, he is a god!

The red shift is a measurement similar to the doppler effect of sound, like when a siren on an emergency vehicle passes by, blue being relative to the higher pitched sound as an object farther away moves toward you, and red being the lower pitched sound as the object passes and moves away from you, even though the speed itself has not changed if you are riding within the moving vehicle, the sound waves shorten with the approaching sound (blueshift waves) and then lengthen as it moves farther away (redshift waves), since frequency and wave length are related. Astronomical physicists and scientists are using this technique to study deep space and to measure what cannot be seen as light. If you see a duck swimming in the water, the wave frequencies in front of the duck are pushed closer together, and the waves behind are stretched out and longer, which, consequently creates an egg-shaped oval of frequency in the waves.

Does all this make your head spin? Its not spinning, its really only a reflection, or you could call it a phase of "lunar libration."


"Euphoria" by The Vera Violets:

I sooo want to do this!

Friday night, I went to an art show near the OU campus in Norman, Oklahoma which was being held by some local artists and musicians. One of my friends who owns a used book store, "Book Beat & Co." was one of the artists with artwork on display and also playing music for the venue. He's known musically as "Bloody Ol' Mule," Shilo Brown from Oklahoma, a "Hell-bent honky tonk stomp hillbilly blues one man band kickin' your teeth in since 1976." He mixes banjo, guitar and drum, and other sounds all on his own, and who apologizes to me for his use of bad language if I'm around, although I tell him I'm not an innocent bystander and its not necessary!

While I was there, I started talking to one of the women standing by, who turned out to be "Rebelline," who, in addition to having some of her artwork on display, is one of the OKC Victory Dolls, a roller derby team in Oklahoma City. It turned out that many of the girls at the event Friday night were on the roller derby team. I ended up meeting some of them while hanging out for the evening, which included as much as you want to drink and ended with Rebelline inviting me to join their roller derby team. They seemed tolerant enough of my not drinking, which at the most usually involves me carrying around the same half-empty drink all evening, sooo, it could work...right? The next game is on May 15th, so I guess that leaves plenty of time to practice?

I wonder if it would be possible to wear a latex suit that is too slippery for anyone to catch me and bump me off!


Latex option



Speaking of latex, Rebelline is also friends with a local side show artist named "Boobzilla," from The Carnival of Cleavage, a female side show that is a combination of body modification and "Jim Rose Circus" type of stunts. They are planning to do an event together with the OKC Victory Dolls in the next few weeks. I recently met Jim Rose, which opened up an opportunity to perform in a sideshow, but his show is not local. The Carnival of Cleavage, on the other hand, is local.



Either way, if I were to consider it, I would need to come up with a stage name, a costume and an act - preferably something sci-fi, or an approach that isn't being done, since most of these ladies are three times my size. Jim Rose's wife, puts a large scorpion in her mouth. I would need something to give me an edge, but something more my style... Ziggy Stardust meets Rob Zombie comes to mind, as well as an aerial show, climbing ropes or silk sheets, doing stunts and falling in mid air to be caught at the last moment as: "the woman who fell to earth." What more can you do for fun, living in Oklahoma?

So many alternate destinies, so little time.

Bloody Ol' Mule


Something more along my idea:

The man who fell to earth: