Reflections On Subversive and Malignant Behavior Which Further Reflects Subversive and Malignant Behavior

It is probable that as I sit here hunched-over, my willingness to change and learn further petrifies. Too many years of simple hedonism and sloth has sickened my body, weakened my mind and crippled my spirit. I need stop whatever it is that I’ve learned thus far. Large portions of the damning associative/reflexive patterns people exhibit are often derivatives of painful and highly traumatic events. I am no exception. Still, these painful events are not incredible, uncommon, or unnatural—-- yet my associations, and the behavior born of such associations, have indeed been very unnatural; even malignant and subversive. In order to relinquish this habitually detrimental behavior I need to totally and repeatedly discredit it. I see only two possible ways to abandon my memories and contest my mental/emotional insubordination and that is through immersing myself in activities that are contradistinctive to my usual ones. Different equations do lawfully yield different results, results that are foreign and new to me. If I cannot accomplish this formidable feat within a reasonable amount of time I cannot help but fear the worst, which incidentally would be the alternative, sure-thing, plan to relinquish my memories and incapable disposition. I hope a big tree falls on me (or better yet I hope light falls on me). As I am now I need tragedy to excuse my fruitlessness and unforgivable otiosity, or at the very least, remove me from the equation entirely.

Boxing Day 2004, Lungtan, Taiwan.

(pic and *photoshopin' by Goos)
(*HINT: da girl der - no lower-half)
Some of us were told a very very sad story before the picture was snapped. Some were not.

(picture above is from the self-titled album)

For the Sake of the Song
by Townes Van Zandt

Why does she sing her sad songs for me, I'm not the one
To tenderly bring her soft sympathy, I've just begun
To see my way clear and it's plain if I stop I will fall
I can lay down a tear for her pain, just a tear and that's all
What does she want me to do
She says that she knows that moments are rare
I suppose that it's true
Then on she goes to say I don't care and she knows that I do
Maybe she just has to sing for the sake of the song
Who do I think that I am to decide that she's wrong


She'd like to think that I'm cruel but she knows that's a lie for I would be
No more than a tool if I allowed her to cry all over me
My sorrow is real even though I can't change my plans
If she could see how I feel then I know that she'd understand
Does she actually think I'm to blame
Does she really believe that some word of mine
Could relieve all her pain
Can't she see that she grieves just because she's been blindly deceived
By her shame
Maybe she just has to sing for the sake of the song
Who do I think that I am to decide that she's wrong


Nothin's what it seems, maybe she'll start someday to realize
If she abandons her dreams then all the words she can say are only lies
When will she see that to gain is only to lose
All that she offers me are her chains, I got to refuse
It's only to herself that she's lied
She likes to pretend there's something that she should defend with her pride
I don't intend to stand her and be the friend from whom she must hide
Maybe she just has to sing for the sake of the song
Who do I think that I am to decide that she's wrong

A seemingly unreasonable suicide (with/and nameless invisible characters)

He walked to his car and fumbled about, his keys were lost again. The time had come for a sharp remedy. He walked back into the house and fished a knife from out of the sink half-full with rinse water. He flicked the excess water from the knife and lowered the blade to his inner thigh, up high, inner thigh. With a fast push and slow stiff pull he sliced open his pants and his skin. The blood first raged and then meow-shyly wondered out. His fading leg no longer hurt and he would never forget or remember anything again.

His wife came home a bit late and found him there in a dark pool of cold blood. She found the site revolting. As such she ran out from the house and started to cry. Mm, she lost her wits. She walked up and down the road awhile and the sun began to set. She fell to the curb and felt her husband walking behind her, bending beside her and putting his hands on her warm open back, comforting her. She jerked forward, leaning heavily towards her knees and the pavement, folding her back in-half, away from his touch, still angry that he would be dead to her.

A living neighbor saw her on the curb and he called out to her; she did not respond and was obviously upset. The neighbor went back into his house and asked his wife to find out what was wrong. His wife found out and she told him to *"“call the ambulance!"” She also insisted that he go over to the neighbor’'s house and check on the man-- just in case. The grieving woman stopped crying and began to repeatedly bob. The neighbor's wife held a glass of inadvertently warm tap water—---for the bewildered hunk at her feet to drink.

Instead the neighbor reached for the glass of water from his wife'’s fat hand and drank half of it down in childlike, concentrated, swallows. Some lines of it ran out from the corners of his mouth and met again under his chin. Drip drop. He told his wife that the water was warm. He exhaled a bunch and walked to the dead man'’s door. When he inhaled, the air went in little by little-- semi-audible shots, each time sputtering thinner and faster near the end . He was bothered by the idea of seeing a dead man. Also he still had not known the means by which, or even if, the dead man was dead. He thought it was a fairly dangerous idea; perhaps the man was not dead and was just waiting to kill somebody before he actually would kill himself; one of those ‘murder-suicides!’ Maybe there was a mad-man on the loose. A killing! A killer! On the loose! He grimaced hard and blew even harder from his nose, and with that he felt suddenly brave, brave like in his tough-riggin’ days, fighting anybody and lots of girls-- and he walked right into his neighbor’s house and twice called out his neighbor’s name. Even though the dead man’'s name was one syllable alone the neighbor said it using two definite syllables: __-____? ___-____? Silence. The dead man did not answer and this relieved the inspecting neighbor . This unanswered title meant the dead man was truly dead. True enough. The nighbor walked into the kitchen and saw his dead acquaintance on the floor; on the floor, in blood. He was surprised by how much blood his dead neighbor was laying in. He thought about checking the pulse of the dead man but he really didn’t want to. What if suddenly the house doors shut and the wind howled and a baby screamed and the dead man’'s head bolted up and tried to bite him? No, he didn’t want to check the dead man'’s pulse. As he made his way from out of the house he worried that somebody below the stairs or under the bed was going to swipe his legs out from under him and drag him back to somewhere much like Hell, even though he was not walking on any stairs or near any beds. He had his fore-arms up high, pressed to his sides. He walked fast then faster and kept his crooked arms way up as he was terribly afraid. Outside the ambulance was sounding and he was grateful to be outside. He walked over to his wife and told her not to go back to the dead neighbor'’s house. She thought his suggestion was untimely and queer. She thought her husband looked tired. The wife of the dead husband heard nothing and wobbled her head about; she was groggy and retarded by grief-- the shock.

Before the paramedics arrived the police came. The police were singularly represented by one police man. The police man talked to the scared neighbor who informed him not to go into the house because the neighbor was already dead, but most importantly just not to go into the house. The police man recognized the neighbor'’s fear but considered going into the house “part of the job” and so without hesitation he walked towards the house. By this time more neighbor's were creeping out of their houses and onto the street and the sun had fully set. The moon was rising. The clean children played with the dirty children on the excited, festive street. The clean kids with knowing parents had freshly washed hair that was still wet and combed; parted to the side-- they wore pajamas. The poor kids were skinny and dirty and had ugly parents; they were still in their swimsuits and bounced on hardened bare-feet. The police man walked towards the house and paused for a moment, he then looked back at the crowd and pointed (hand shaped like a pistol) to the door and back to the crowd as if to say, “"This the house? This the one?"” Many members of the concerned neighborhood crowd responded, nodding their heads and a few said “"Yeah"” meaning, “"Yeah, that’s the house"” or "“Yeah, that one."” The police man walked in and found the man in the kitchen. The police man had his gun out-- just in case. The police man squatted down next to the dead man and felt for a pulse. The dead man was dead and had no pulse. The policeman was left-handed and looked at the knife lying on the left-hand side of the dead man’s body and thought, “"I bet he’'s left-handed'" and he felt pretty good about making such a sleuthy deduction. The police man pressed his index finger and middle finger on his dominant hand together and he touched the pool of blood. For a minute it seemed as though he was going to taste it, maybe even rub it on his gums to see if it was pure-cocaine---an old cop-trick, see. The blood stuck to his fingers and the coating was shiny and a thick red. The police man stood up and splashed his blood-laden hand around in the sink still half-full with rinse water. The police man used his radio. It was nearing 8 o’clock and the evening air was hot. The radio sounded back to the police man, it was another police man giving him procedural advice or perhaps telling him what to do without being too pushy.

...

* as opposed to "call an ambulance!"

thai.doc

You might come back from your 3 week vacation and realize that you have very few pictures as the presence of mind required to photograph was mostly absent, and justly so. Your time spent in Thailand was so spontaneous that it rarely seemed appropriate to stop and fish out your camera to capture anything at all. Also your camera batteries were of the ‘made in Taiwan’ and very light variety which rendered most of your few photographic attempts useless. You may have traveled with your mother and your brother for the first 2 weeks and your final week with just your brother and newly arrived old pal friend pal. On your travels, specifically the Island paradise section you would meet some other friends that were instant and perfectly fleeting; they were in the same frame of mind as you sharing the paradisio-bubble. Anywhere else you would’ve never looked up at all. Koh Wai. You might swim a bunch in the clear and green water and near the end of your week there you’d feel pretty confident in your newfound swimmin’ skills. Your brother and your mother cherished lying under the visible waves of sunlight—you refused it. For you, the Island was a real heaven, like ‘died and gone to heaven’ heaven. Ah but then you must remember it is contrasted and relative to the scrapping and scraping city of Bangkok. Bangkok yes, poor and loud, dirty, underhanded. The local river passes slowly, warm and murky. Plastic and shit-germ garbage, it all heaps and heaps upon the muddy banks below the wood and found-scrap shacks disguised as kitchens and houses. The cheating taxi drivers smile at every foreign face saying “Tuk Tuk(Tri-wheely taxi)?” “Ping Pong show?” or “Hey man, where you go? Where you from?”-- they all need money. Another Thai man sits under the lights of a Happy Mart, he points at his leg and is proud to show off a wound on the top his foot, well closer to the ankle really, it’s a gouged-out wound, maybe a centimeter deep and about 6 cm in diameter. The dirt coats it in some places in other places the wound still looks fresh and wet. The guy looks truly injured and pitiful the 1st night you see him showing off his wound for loot but but but the same wound on the 19th night? well that tells you of a more appalling tale; he’s obviously picking his wound every day and not allowing it to heal—his main source of income. Some poor and pretty little girl begs for pennies/peanuts just down from her poor and ugly mother’s dirty face as clean knees scrape past her nose and folded hands. You feel both guilty and guiltless; it’s not your fault you were born clean and she was born dirty—ah but keeping yourself clean and another dirty might be blameworthy enough—humbug, enough thinking! Thinking is for the guilty. The vendors like to barter. You do not like to barter. The guesthouse walls are smeared with handprints and food and grimy sexual escapades. The food is cheap and everywhere. The fulfilling street vendor delicacy of papaya salad and sticky rice is 30Baht or $0.93(CND). There are some stray dogs playing and fucking around. The goofy twosome playing are an odd couple, the passive hound is very blind and very old and very pleased to be roughed up and the aggressor is muzzled and friendly and bounding and not unlike some good dogs you might know back home. The Hookers in Pat Pong like to rub your hairy white legs and venture near your long, weighted, long waitin’ balls-- and that’s just for walking in the door! You entered the bar/strip club/brothel as a drunk. You and your pals followed the funny little Thai-man that offers you no less than the world and a specifically a sex/strip-show specialty called “Pussy Cat Banana”. In the end there is no ‘Pussy Cat Banana’ to be seen/had so you and your friends just settle in for a beer and the whores love that you’re there, why they must think you’re a real wonderful guy, husband material even. “Whore” might be too simple of a term, cuz they’re more like greeters or hostesses but you’d have to give them money ‘cause they’d suck your dick in an instant. If you don’t want sex but just the leggy, creeping rub down and winning company they’ll say you gotta go. If you refuse they’ll say “but Mista, we rub you for long time!” and then you might say “yeah, but I never asked you to and I don’t think I should have to pay, I’m just sitting down and the beer is so overpriced, we all bought one…let us drink this and then we’ll go…no, I never asked you to rub my leg…no…no…shoo, go away…pussy cat banana…go away…forget it, I’m not paying!” and then the one with the sideways-crooked teeth would say “You leave!” and you would leave as she powerlessly tries to yank you up. The lady-boy on the right would still be trying to convince you that you would be better off if her square-jaw could ‘finish you off’ in the back room. Then you go to an after hours party and some bitch is being a bitch. She demands early in the night that you let her sit in your seat simply because she’s a woman(you refuse) and then later as you wait in line to use the washroom upstairs she honestly and belligerently thinks you should allow her to cut in front, again because she’s a girl(you refuse). Eventually you tell her in mid-argument that if she says another word that you’re gonna throw her down the fucking stairs! Then she really respects you. Really! At 4:50 am you get on the bus that takes you to the airport and 7 out of the 11 passengers are all exhibiting signs of cold or Avian flu: coughing, sneezing, clearing a probable sore throat, and all the while you are saying to yourself “Come to think of it my throat does kinda hurt…”

shacks in BK 

fuzzy pic: Owen in grime-walled Guest House...he loves the roses 

my mom and my brother on Koh Wai--just finished chasing crabs on the beach 

fried bana 

papaya salad w/sticky rice and new/used book 

Reef rock Kow Wai---the pics of KW are bad...I really shoulda made more of an effort 

strays: muzzled and blindy. pause in play. 

lil' Begger Girl...Bangkok 

Hammock in Koh Wai, just in front of our hut. 

Bangkok River Waste w/Shack 

Final Words of Flight 261

This is an excerpt taken from the official NTSB transcript of Flight 261, which crashed on January 31, 2000, off the coast of California. This excerpt contains an exchange between Captain Ted Thompson and First Officer William Tansky and the Los Angeles Route Traffic Control Center (LAX-CTR).

4:09:55 p.m.	Thompson: Center, Alaska two-sixty-one. We are, uh, in a dive here, and I've lost control, vertical pitch.
4:10:33	Thompson: Yea, we got it back under control here.
4:11:43	Tansky: Whatever we did is no good. Don't do that again...
4:11:44	Thompson: Yea, no, it went down. It went full nose down.
4:11:48	Tansky: Uh, it's a lot worse than it was?
4:11:50	Thompson: Yea. Yea. We're in much worse shape now.
4:14:12	Public address: Folks, we have had a flight-control problem up front here, we're working on it.
4:15:19	Flight 261 to LAX-CTR: L.A., Alaska two-sixty-one. We're with you, we're at twenty-two-five [22,500 feet]. We have a jammed stabilizer and we're maintaining altitude with difficulty...
4:15:36	LAX-CTR: Alaska two-sixty-one, L.A center. Roger, um, you're cleared to Los Angeles Airport via present position...
4:17:09	Flight attendant: Okay, we had like a big bang back there.
4:17:15	Thompson: I think the [stabilizer] trim is broke.
4:19:36	Extremely loud noise
4:19:43	Tansky: Mayday
4:19:54	Thompson: Okay, we are inverted, and now we gotta get it.
4:20:04	Thompson: Push, push, push...push the blue side up. Push...
4:20:14	Tansky: I'm pushing.
4:20:16	Thompson: Okay, now let's kick rudder. Left rudder, left rudder.
4:20:18	Tansky: I can't reach it.
4:20:20	Thompson: Okay. Right rudder, right rudder.
4:20:25	Thompson: Are we flying? We're flying, we're flying. Tell 'em what we're doing.
4:20:33	Tansky: Oh, yeah. Let me get...
4:20:38	Thompson: Gotta get it over again. At least upside down we're flying.
4:20:54	Thompson: Speedbrakes
4:20:55	Tansky: Got it.
4:20:56	Thompson: Ah, here we go.
4:20:57	End of recording

Click here to read the full transcript (PDF) of Flight 261.

---
rjb says: the full PDF transcript starts off slow, there is lots of shit dealing with the opening of the black box, I skipped most of that, also there may be a bit too much tech. jargon throughout but you can feel most of it, the gist--but besides that it reads like a thriller, which, I guess it genuinely is. By reading it I sickened myself. The pilots tried buddies. I maybe have just wrecked the ending by posting it above, but fuck, it's not like anyone besides myself would actually attempt the full transcript.

I hate flying (the dying).