Ocho-puss

I knew something was to blame-- some nefarious freewheeling menace outside my jurisdiction of responsibility was out to get me. We're just not safe you know, without helmets, vaccines, supplements and regulations.

For some time I'd been wondering why I wavered from ecstatic to mournful to perplexed to grateful to contented to enraged to mournful to pleasant. That's when the doctor diagnosed me as Octopolar.

Thank goodness that Merck, the ever generous biopharmaceutical giant, had graciously donated research funding to uncover this disease. Incidentally--they also had a remedy for it!!

I'm sure this malignant mentality was genetic, but my parents were deprived of the powers of modern medicine that could have pinpointed such illness. Hell, back then they didn't even know there was good cholesterol!

Nonetheless, I myself now have a way to lead a productive, normal life, outside the horrific ring of octopus wrestling.

Thank you Merck!!!

Puppet Race

All this commotion, this counting and competing, spectating and speculating on a race for two. Billary Clinton.....Obama Sin Laden.....Who will win?!?!

Not much at stake here- the worst either can do is get second place. Runner-up still puts you on the podium and in the winner's circle- well, at least in a real race.

Second only hurts in boxing.

Not to belittle the candidacy or jeopardize the security of the Homeland, but whoever gets to head up the Republocrats or the Demblicans holds zero entertainment for me. With only 50/50 odds it's not even worth gambling on.

In the bigger picture, we might be about to swap Punch for Judy in the next act of the ongoing puppet show. Even a child suspects the real players are wearing the party leaders for gloves.

The real players aren't fighting each other, they've thrown the match--right on the gasoline.

And you'd be warm, if you thought they were laughing all the way to bank; burning hot- if you knew they ran the bank.

(Wholly unrelated fact: MBNA, now defunct, was both the largest independent credit card issuer in the world, and.....the #1 campaign contributor to George W. Bush. Foreseeing the current credit meltdown in hundreds of billions of dollars, from creative leveraging of inflated mortgage and other repackaged debt, MBNA coincidentally rewrote the new bankruptcy law, don't you know....the one imposing greater restrictions on the desperate, binding back the suicidal- those who, if they could only have had a "clean start".....)

Bet the farm on the horse, put the X on the ballot, wear your heart on your sleeve. Get the sticker on your car, the sign on your lawn, get right with God.

But know the roster, know the league. It isn't Elephants vs Donkeys. It's not the NBA, the NFL, or the NHL.

Skip the sports page, the player trades and get down to business--the insider trades: the MBNA, the CITI, and the BofA.

Designer Wordplay

photo simon sollberger
















Forms are pushed, accelerated, restrained or diminished. Shapes made angular, organic, or feminine. Form-Before-Function? It-Is-What-It-Is. Corners get smoothed or left stark. Edges are examined, intersections inspected. Recess the surface? Make it proud. Make it positively royal - through crowning. Dictate color, determine material, define texture, and describe process.

The haphazard, the neglected, the overlooked and heavy-handed; the ball dropped, the opportunity missed. These weigh much and are difficult to bear. Yet, happy accidents tumble forth through missteps made in earnest. Divine hand or damn luck, transgressions are soon forgiven.

We intend, emulate, borrow and hope to return. We see beauty and elevate it. We find good or fabricate it. And emerge, it does, seemingly newborn, though breathed upon, having already endured growing pains, and reached maturity. Another product conceived.

Does it further us, the further we take it? Do we embrace nature or break it? Privatize it, publicize it? Obsess to possess? We accumulate awards and parking tickets. We collect favor and debt. We gather wisdom and dust.

Spatially speaking, time is fleeting. It flees fore and aft. It's not on our side. Budgetarily, it's upside-down. Having the time of our lives, we pretend progress on solid particles, in allotted blocks of time, while physicists prove neither exists.

But the essence, the emotion, the experience does. Mindfulness, intention--in harmony or contention? Energy flows where attention goes...

The world is moving--moving its focus. Moving towards the flow of information and ideation. Moving away from the making of stuff ...that no longer moves us. As we become information, do we become passive receptors of propaganda and not-so-hidden agenda? Or, instead, generative sources--authoritative forces--that elect to perfect the way forward?

This business of motion, this passing of time, is best conducted with presence of mind.

The Human Condition

photo - Simon Sollberger

I decided I could be happy on one condition only,
That I be in love......happily.
And thus I began to condition,
My hair, my leather, my air.
Everything in top condition,
As of yet, at no apparent cost,
To my financial or physical condition.

Given the right conditions I'd meet her.
It's true of course I would,
And in due course I did.
Fall.......
Fully.....
With all my heart -
On certain conditions.

That she dress just so,
She behave as such.
This conditional love, conceived unawares,
By conditions on my happiness.

It was only then I was made aware,
Of what I'd developed,
Wholly undeservedly and out of the blue:
A heart condition.

The cruelty, the timing and injustice.
Yet I would rally and I would focus,
On advisement received.
Condition yourself - new pills new food.
Physical conditioning must now appease,
And reclaim top condition,
From random disease.

Crowding my thinking, this health condition,
Precariously conditional on every move.
Inward dismay and outward decay,
To be loved unconditionally - beyond my fate.

With steady descent I watch the dissent,
Of my love from conditions given her.
In time we part and as part of the plan,
Happiness too acts a stranger.
I suffer and blame and am sure you'd complain,
Forced to live under such conditions.