Month: November 2019

Manifest Young Scion Chapter 3

I guess I’m saying people relate to others through themselves. And that that is always the case. They will always see a bit of themselves in that person. And it isn’t how similar the stranger is to the judge; it’s how similar the stranger appears to the judge, because it all lies in how the judge sees them. Once again, this is all inside the judge’s own mind and he is using himself as a platform to relate to people. I suppose it’s slightly existential. -Kurt

Donald had an issue. He agreed with the entirety of Kurt’s response. He could pretend to play Devil’s Advocate, but then he would come off as cranky. Donald hit this wall on occasion. The mental corner of an argument run dry. A frustrated response wouldn’t be the solution. He knew he would need to sit on his thoughts for a moment, maybe propose a new theory.

Maybe, he would run into Dagny again. She had added Donald on Facebook about three major parties ago. He had hoped her circle would be in attendance to no avail. He desperately needed to speak to her. Was she her name’s sake? Was the ghost of Ayn Rand blocking Donald from calling her number?

Donald met Ayn Rand in junior year of high school — a copy of “Atlas Shrugged” in the back of a friend’s car while on a film shoot. The back posed the question, “Who is John Galt?”

Donald wanted to know. He wasted a week of reading to find that John Galt was no one he wanted to know. He read “The Fountainhead” and found it could possess a faded beauty. Rand, Donald decided, was a poet with the sense of a duck. Stalin had that effect on people.

Donald heard the rap on the door. It was time for him to head out with the Commander for food before a day of spliffs. The Cook was welcome to join, but you didn’t see him before Dusk on weekends and sometimes not until after midnight.

The Beacon Street dining commons have a patio conquered in the 90’s by the musical theatre majors. Freshmen rehearse midnight to dawn dreaming of the day they are awake enough to enjoy Sunday brunch. Their dorm is on the opposite end of the commons over on Tremont. The College of the Stage and the College of Letters are housed downtown and share the flagship location along with The Tower, which focused on communication theory. The College of Visual Arts and The Conservatory are down in Back Bay by the old symphony hall and the Castle. The Technical Institute was housed in South Boston by the warehouses and mafia-run gay bars.

Everyone was a double major. Donald worked with the College of Letters and The Tower (Literature and Media epistemology). The Blond Commander was a member of both the College of Visual Art and the Technical Institute (Fine Art and Installations). The Cook was of the College of Letters, the Conservatory and the Technical Institute (Playwriting, Music Theory, and Culinary Arts). The Cook never stopped like some Alaskan day.

Donald blushed as he thought of how he damned his chances to explore the city. A student could live at any of their majors’ Colleges. The Blond Commander lived by the Castle but trekked to the gardens all the same. The Cook lived downtown across the Gardens and Common on the corner of Boylston and Tremont. The family dinners he cooked for his friends made their alcohol poisoning survivable. The Cook’s bike got him to back alleys of Southie and whisking in the school dining hall where he worked by dawn. Playwrights haunted the halls as they scavenged evacuated stages to splinter their skin and gain their desired ethereal connection. The Cook’s people fought the sun and he marched onward for everything one marches for.

If Dagny was about brunches on the street level patio, Donald could aspire to mimosas and all the discarded yolks his heart could withstand. It was good to be a faceless author.

The Trio however did not dine inside the building or outside on the street level patio. Rather the dining hall staff permitted The Trio to dine on the roof and lent a blind eye to the strange juices camouflaged by fine China. The roof overlooked the Public Garden and had been empty when they first gained access to it, but now the surface looked like a well-furnished coffee shop. The tables had been gained on a truck ride to New Hampshire and the chairs made in North Adams. The sofas from Craigslist. It was a luxurious set up with personal loveseats, end tables, main tables, and lanterns.

A Midwesterner like the Commander had his uses. The Commander had also wrangled table side service into the bargain. The Cook worked the occasional shift and stored a minifridge for personal requests. They rigged a buzzer system to prevent any unwarranted visitors.

The leaves had begun to pile. Donald had purchased a set of rakes and shovels. They had attempted to turn a Pacific play tunnel into a garbage shoot as to avoid the long walk up and down the stairs.

The weather had begun to grey and the leaves began to murk. Their palace faced severe issues, it was built for summers.

“The snow is going to be an issue,” Donald said as they hauled down garbage bags of leaves. Tax deductible donations were Donald’s folks’ game and the Brahmins concurred with their opinion. The money must flow. Damn the building codes.

“I’d say the cold gets us first,” said the Blond Commander as they sat back down on the couches on the roof. His speech slowed from the climb up the stairs. He pulled out a blunt and lit it

“I thought you had rewired the heating lamps down stairs, the staff said we could use them if we fixed them”.

“That’s a ton of energy to blow; we can’t be sending miners down to die for that”.

“What if we built something like a sun porch?”

“You go on your sun porch in the winter?”

“What if we throw some ventilation into a greenhouse? Would the lamps would work then?”

“That’s some cash.”

“I can swing it in a few weeks”

They smoked for a moment in silence. Family wealth can be a sensitive subject in these times. Donald estimated the green house worth budgeting into his ten million a year investment based income. The dreaded moment of being responsible for his own wealth was approaching. He avoided the subject.

“What do you think I am?”

“Not sure. Outwardly you’re quite blank,” said the Commander.

“Blank?”

“You still dress in the clothes your mother bought you”.

“What gave it away?”

“That’s Billy Joel, Donald.”

Donald had never shopped for himself or anyone else on any other occasion. He had no patience for it. Clothes were to cover your shame if his teachers were to be believed. God will provide for all; nuns don’t recycle. He just needed enough cover to get him service at most chains.

“What’s my style then?”

“You tell me.”

“Not sure.”

“We need some shrooms,” said the Commander.

There comes a time once or twice a year when man (in the Tolkien sense of the word) must break his mind in order to restore it. Donald turned off his screens and ventured into the wilds of New England. When the day had the dying warmth of August with the breeze of the coming fall, one could decide without the pressures of history, with the knowledge that clouds still moved and rivers would flow. The fear of self being ignored for Donald now lived past the age of Myspace when social media was a Wild West of Freedom and Expression. In the age of the minimalist Facebook and Twitter, only crafted responses need reply. Tumblr would kill Blogger and turn WordPress into a Land of Would and Might Be’s. Original expression was something to fear. Donald needed less sleep. Dreams killed.

ᴥᴥᴥᴥᴥ

Donald would never intern and he thought that must say something. Somehow the idea that a 30 million budget can’t find 8 dollars an hour to pay a servant struck Donald as un-American. A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s labor. It built the Pru and that was something to talk about. Instead, he volunteered in service to his community. Fahrenheit 451 was written in a library. No one wanted to build America anymore these days, except Donald and he had too many living relatives to fund anything. Too many John Galts.

“People relate to others through themselves.” Kurt’s words explained the appeal of Personal Objectivism, the core of every notion was the Self. Most people just got over it.

Donald buzzed for coffee.

“We should get a Mr. Coffee up here. I think there is an old one in the basement”, said Donald. The Commander and he still relaxing on their private rooftop patio on the dining commons.

“You don’t need to keep covering up with that frugal stuff. It’s okay to be rich. I’m not here on scholarship either.”

“What?”

“Who said I wasn’t rich?”

“You certainly don’t dress it and you always try to hide your purchases, not that I don’t appreciate this setup.”

The Blond Commander pulled out a massive Sherlock pipe and his grinder. He dug into his messenger bag for a freezer bag. The Commander selected five long buds and brimmed the seasoned wood.

“I did buzz a few moments ago, maybe we should wait to get high until after the coffee is delivered. We wouldn’t want to be kicked out before midterms,” said Donald.

“Maybe the library needs a new wing to go with the restoration, we can get a little high and the school can get a little nicer to overcharge tuition”.

Maybe it did. Donald lit up to a smooth sensation. These were not the Midz he was looking for. White as snow to the average eye. Everyone comes from somewhere and some come from a long beginning.

“Does the Cook know?” asked Donald.

“Nah, and does he need to?”

“I guess not.”

The numbed throb of the past night’s alcohol poisoning held Donald in limbo. Existence tore at his bones and robbed his mind of speed and function. He’d hold on for the next 12 hours til the poison returned to his body.

The door opened and the dining hall worker, DHW, delivered two towering thermoses of relief. One of the chefs from Jersey had shipped in some good porkroll. According to the chef, it was apparently one of America’s national treasures and a secret that was in part guarded by Nick Cage, at least according to the DHW’s sources. Donald knew the follow up.

“Can we get that on the usual breakfast bagel pile with a mellow mushroom pizza?”

“Yea dude. That might take some time though,” said DHW.

“No problem, I can get you cash later or give you a half of Diesel now,” said the Blond Commander. He took over as head diplomat, it was his birthright. The Genteel Rancher, a man of action and elegance.

“Half an O?”

“Pound,” as the Commander passed over the bag.

“I can accept this as proper payment.” With that DHW disappeared from behind the girl, hopefully to arrange for the shrooms and more importantly a taste of what this porkroll was all about. Donald was a patriot at heart after all.

“You overpaid. It would be cheaper to cultivate them yourself,” said Donald

“Usually is and who says I don’t,” said the Commander.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to offend,” said Donald.

“Don’t worry; it can be a dangerous topic in certain circles. I could show you how it wasn’t that big of a loss, but let’s not discuss it here or now or for a while,” said the Commander

“I get my trust when I turn eighteen in a few weeks and wouldn’t mind making some lifestyle investments; I figure I got some cash for a foundation without hurting the core,” said Donald.

In the noon sun on the roof, they enjoyed their coffee and burned deeper into the mound of green. The clouds soared past. Donald enjoyed when one could easily notice the movement of clouds, across the sky – a billboard advertising the flow of the universe.

But it still moves…the statement that shifted Donald from his scientific pursuits for a life of beauty. As much as Donald confessed, he still couldn’t achieve anything more than cafeteria status with the catechism.

Their breakfast arrived. Donald’s brunch consisted of a bagel with cheddar, bacon, ham, porkroll, and 3 eggs. He usually ate it with a breakfast burrito on the side, as he preferred his sausage intake in tortilla format. His mother believed in Pepsi for hangovers and Donald believed in being dutiful.

Pancakes got involved shortly after. Donald hoped that the shrooms would arrive post midafternoon burgers and wings and the supper of barnyard burgers, a fusion of bacon, chicken, and beef which he had dreamed up. Donald hoped it would be a wicked midnight. A romp through the cobbled Northend and a splash or two in Columbus Park. Had the pollution in the harbor made the jellyfish glow? He could only hope. The Gypsy Bar had glowing jellyfish, but that bar was the insect zapper of the city. The jellyfish trapped the people within the dress code of the vacuous.

“We need to get a library up here and a projection screen,” said Donald.

“Mass expansion”.

“I’m looking to invest.”

“Decadent,” said the Blond Commander.

“Maybe, we should get a house in Allston out by Harvard Ave. They have some nice basements out that way. The top can be a gallery. And maybe get another house to have offices and studies. I want one for digital purposes and another for more serious matters. A shared study for discussions. A kitchen and offices for the Cook. Whatever studio space you require and same for study. Emergency bed space,” said Donald.

“Two Ten-bedroom houses should work with enough porch space and backyard space to have some outdoor events.”

“I will miss our breakfasts here”.

They sat silent for a moment

“The Cook awaking before dusk would be travesty, he sleeps too much. I only ever see him at night” said the Commander.

“He might be a vampire or maybe secret daylight friends who he isn’t embarrassed to be seen with. Should we expand the Trio?”

“I don’t think the Cook is embarrassed to be seen with us, I think he just runs out of booze and crashes. I would support inviting someone to join for the morning hours while the Cook sleeps or where ever he spends his daylight?”

“An addition to our circus of ideas with one day degreed clowns,” said Donald.

“It would be a pointless search, the Cook is irreplaceable. I just wish he wouldn’t sleep all day long. I thinking living with him could cure that,” said the Commander.

Donald lit a cigarette, an American Spirit Light. The yellow box matched his disposition and he preferred his smoking breaks to be marathons. 20 years ago, he could have smoked indoors and he would have no need to take breaks.

“Back to the place in Allston. Maybe we need a third house that is a library with a media playback room as well.”

“It would be an uninsurable tinderbox but it isn’t bad to support the arts”.

Donald smiled. He would have his books. He may still be tabula rasa in fashion, but he would not be alone. Donald stretched out on the sofa beneath the clear autumn sky and curled up so that couches arms blocked the breeze.

Sofa naps are a time honored tradition to be protected above all obligations on an autumn weekend.

“Fireplaces.”

“In every room.”

They would not be barbarians.

Donald closed his eyes, comforted by the knowledge that the Cook would be there with DHW’s surprise upon awaking.

Donald dreamed his eventual message in a form close to the final.

Kurt,
I believe I can agree with your statement of “people relate to others through themselves”. I think that might be a good conclusion to this topic for the moment possibly. If so, I have a theory for you:
Opposites can’t succeed as a couple. Sure opposite attract only until the novelty of the differences wears off. Then the pair is sure to fail due to the lack of common ground.

Donald

Manifest Young Scion Chapter 2

To a certain degree, I think people relate to each other as extensions of themselves. They see some of themselves in others and, depending on that, whether consciously or unconsciously, they decide who they like and who they don’t. Like the murder example. Maybe if the guy sympathizes with the murderer because he could see himself doing the same thing under slightly different circumstances. Maybe he believes that if he had turned out slightly different, he would’ve ended up that way. Your idea of the dark side is very interesting. Maybe it all depends on whether or not people can accept that part of themselves.– Kurt

Donald got the idea that Kurt didn’t really pity the murderers rotting in Walpole, but the kid could be too vague and oblique when he needed to get something off his chest. Donald just asked for help when those times hit him.

The scene was all right, as the kids said these days, or something like it. The Blond Commander passed Donald the blunt. They were the age when all comments alternative were worth stating frequently. Clinton was a brief memory, and their awareness came when Bush roamed the Earth. Everything was black, white, and grey. Weed was great, could be made into everything. The conspiracy was long and vast. Straight to the Top, all of them. Goddamn, this is 70 a slice shit. Donald killed his beer. Too weak. He needed Mr. Boston, the burn that thoughts are seared from. His gait was much too straight for his liking. The Cook had the correct bottle filled with red sugar and barely distilled grain liquor, the kind one couldn’t buy in this town. The three had fused their stashes, which seemed to be a milestone or bond of a kind. A co-op of the wasted sort.

Their dealer was having a shindig and the three thought it best to show face at that kind of event. A bazaar of illicit objects to be traded for gold, paper, or anything that could be fashioned into a value. The drugs are experiences to be shared; not products for market. A tip for the procurement of wonder was a simple gesture of gratitude.

“Shall we not dance?” spoke the Cook.

“To what?” said Donald.

“To drugs and the autumn wind.”

“Let’s kill this first” said the Blond Commander holding up the blunt. They had just crossed from Allston into Brookline at Harvard Ave.

They were at the border of Suburbia, where cops roam. In many ways, modern Boston was a sprawl similar to Los Angeles. The main urban center was Boston Proper with the various outlying liege urban centers: Allston, Cambridge, Somerville, Brighton, Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, West Roxbury, Dorchester, Mattapan, Back Bay, and parts of Brookline (but not really). The T expanded into the suburbs of Watertown, Charlestown, Newton, Wellesley, Quincy, Malden, Everett. Real Green Day shit. Donald wished for Metropolis.

The Cook snuffed the roach and slid it into his cigarette case. He began to mimic a trumpet and snapped his fingers, swinging the music in his arms. The Blond Commander did his waltz. Donald hesitated. His main dance moves came from a wedding in 7th grade and his staple was the sprinkler. In the dark, he baltered in a desperate prayer for mystical release from the poetry of the ages. Donald’s companions nodded at Donald’s sincerity. The Men Without Hats never said one had to dance well as a requirement for friendship.

They straightened up as they passed into the burbs, their slouches gone and any sign of booze or drugs disappeared into their backpacks. No need to blow up the party host’s spot. The house was in its usual place. Inside there was a sea of beards and a haze of glitter. Donald regretted putting down the gasmask at the Surplus earlier. House parties never meet expectations, so the best escape from the Beirut table was the New Englander back porch. The smokers were the only people one needed to meet and the stillness of the street encouraged conversation. The Blond Commander and the Cook greeted the various tribes gathered before them. The Commander and Cook in turn were greeted as ambassadors of their wider circle, whose membership fluxed. The Blond Commander, the Cook, and Donald swerved their heads as their names were forced across the noise by drunken vocal chords rising to meet the challenge.

“Well isn’t it The Trio,” this greeting came from a sophomore whose original marijuana connection had the audacity to graduate the previous May and “The Trio” opened their contact lists on their cellphones as a sign of comradery.

During their short time at school, the Trio had become the anchors of a crew of nomads: The Lovers (Jan and Jim), the Metal Heads too stoned to find more of own their kind, a lost Sorority Sister, and a gallery of lazy artists. The Trio explored the wilds of Allston and Brookline for drugs to feed their motley flock. They were the public school kids. Outside The Trio their friends were private school kids who relied on second hand sources. They could afford the premium and the illusion of safety, drinking in dorms with dubstep blasting. Sure, Donald had that kind of cash too, but that wasn’t his kin’s way.

Donald preferred his Rackpack inside of which sat a 30 of Busch Light fresh from the cooler courtesy of his Irish brethren. Often they fled to the serene banks of the Charles to drink the evening away. Donald hated the feel of fluorescent light.

The Blond Commander huddled the crew.

“The Mentor is out back”

“Who?” said Donald repelling interlopers from breaking The Trio’s circle.

“Donald, she brought us to the lantern and showed us where the cops like to search at night,” said the Cook.

“She can introduce us to Peddlers,” said the Commander.

“Screw this song.”

“Fuck it, to the Porch”

The make shift dance floor in the living floor proved to be a difficult current to navigate; it was like moving through a spell, Black Tentacles flailing all around. Donald failed his social grace save as he moved through the crowd. He clutched the Rackpack as a buoy. The Cook shifted through the dancers and his phone was pickpocketed. The Cook shrugged.

Donald wondered how many new contacts would appear in the Cook’s phone. Donald doubted he’d have the same luck the girls took Donald’s Rugby shirt the wrong way.

A girl grabbed him from the depths of the dance floor. The call of Cthulhu.

She moved her mouth and Donald took the shapes of her lips to be her name, but the beats of Kanye West kept the words a mystery. The lightless living room kept her face a mystery.
Donald nodded and said “I’m Donald.” She nodded in return. Donald figured he could always extend his hey instead of calling her by her name if they had a second conversation.

“You play lacrosse, bro?” said the girl as she scanned Donald’s body, narrowing in on his rugby shirt and processing his being into the categories that built her world view.

“Haven’t touched a stick in years,” said Donald, the girl and he were not quite phreaking as their bodies attempted to groove, “I prefer to think of myself as The Boy who Lived, some people say I look like Harry Potter in this.”

Donald didn’t mention that the people, he spoke of, referred to his mother.

The girl pulled away for a moment.

Donald spun her around, so their eyes connected again.

“Don’t worry; I don’t think I’m a wizard. I just find clothes shopping painful,” said Donald.

“I find your fashion sense painful, perhaps we could help each other out,” said the Girl, she took Donald’s phone from his pocket.

While she clacked on his phone’s keypad, he eased his arm around her lower waist. She paused and nuzzled his neck and returned her focus to the phone.

The Cook waved Donald towards the backdoor, which Donald ignored.

“I think a friend of yours wants to talk to you,” the girl said as she exited the cave of a dance floor into the hallway where she joined a cluster of well-dressed girls.

Donald joined the Cook and padded his pocket, where he felt the bulk of his phone.

The Trio found the porch to be empty, but a trickle could be heard echoing in the dark.

“What do you guys do?” said Donald.

“Get high mostly” said the Blond Commander.

“Like Majorwise, I don’t think we’ve brought it up.”

“You might have blacked out that night. I roll the blunts, the Cook bakes, and you pack the bowls”

“I doubt we’ll read that on the diploma”

The Blond Commander shrugged.

“We’re all classicals,” said the Cook.

“What?”

“Classicals references our majors reside in the classic mediums. I’m in the playwriting program”, the Cook spoke as he passed around red cups, “the Commander is something of a painter/ sculpture. You scribble as well.”

“I guess.”

“Ha, this isn’t the kind of place to guess,” the Mentor appeared from the dark recesses of the yard, where the sounds of urination created a gentle ambiance for those outside.

The Blond Commander unslouched and shook the Mentor’s hand and a full round
of shakes and pounds and rocket ships began. She was a sophomore at Brahmin.

“Do people care about being a Classical? I mean movies have been pretty big for a hundred years now and I’d bet there are a few photographs in the Louvre,” spoke Donald.

“We screenwriters are still in the New Media catalog even after we got shifted into the College of Letters, post ‘Dances with Wolves’,” spoke the Mentor.

A blunt was lit. It was only proper.

“100 years ago, screenwriting was similar to tweeting. Even today, I feel it would be a scandal to see the Dean of Letters at a picture show. What do you write Donald?” said the Mentor.

“Short fiction anthologies mostly and critique. The standard philosophical essay as well,” said Donald.

“One would be in New York otherwise” spoke the Cook.

“Are you still guessing?” said the Mentor.

“I couldn’t imagine a stable career, so I figured creative writing was a safe choice,” said Donald.

“Ah, an honest rugby shirt! True to the Ivy slacker. Let us drink to disenchantment,” said the Mentor.

They chugged a beer. Donald finished last. He went for a piss in a room with a lock. The one in the kitchen had a working one. The walls oozed with a mix of lust, joy, fear, and desperation. Donald pushed his way through. One could wait too long on occasion.

The kitchen of the party is a good spot to veg if one didn’t wish to get sweat on. It was the well, where everyone must go for free booze and to piss. Stay long enough and you can get your chair on. It was simplest play setting of being a college socialite.

Of all the movie lines in all the medium, Donald couldn’t think of a better cliché when he saw the Ex sitting in a flimsy Ikea chair at an undersized kitchen table that was debating collapse. There was a firm grip on his Ex’s waist. It belonged to a sea green Mohawk. Donald grew one of his own sophomore year of high school. He shaved it off when all his friend’s parents thought it made him a queer and banned him from sleep overs. Good Old Catholic homophobia. Mohawk had the studs to prove his willingness to torment middle aged white citizens. Probably vegan too.

Donald found the bathroom down a short hallway off the kitchen and fortunately, the hall was away from where the Ex sat. The bathroom line was long as people group puked, snorted, fucked, and occasionally pissed. At least the lighting undersold its own existence. The hall’s light source was the kitchen as Donald progressed to the door, the details around him shifted into shadow. Donald needed the Cook’s moonshine jar that was a drink for reactions.

A face pressed against him.

“Don’t be sad.”

“I’m not, I just need to piss,” said Donald.

“Use the yard like a civilized person.”

“I get shy.”

“Yea?” said the face.

An alien hand slipped down Donald’s pants. He sent out an exploratory force with his hands. He needed to get an image of what he was working with. Donald began at the waist and confirmed this was the girl from the dance floor. The face smelled out something from Macy’s, the scent was a frequent visitor to Donald’s nose. He liked the scent; it reminded him of fond kisses past. She felt human, which at this moment was good enough. Substance could be discovered later.

Donald heard his zipper and looked up, they were in the yard. Dark enough that he still couldn’t see her face.

“I won’t look,” said the Girl.

“It doesn’t really matter”

It was a solid stream. Donald wanted soap, he always wanted soap. It was important to clean. The Unknown Face didn’t share his scruples or at least Mr. Boston didn’t. It was a shitty hand job, but then the hand job is inherently flawed. Jacking off was a celebration of self and self-love. Other people just get lost. Donald removed the hand and pressed their faces together as he zipped up.

“You get stoned?”

“Yea, but not when drinking. Gives me the spins.”

“Ever had moonshine?”

“No, I only drink Absolut.”

Donald lit a Winston. The Cook had them shipped from a friend down South. Fuckin’ legit. The Unknown Face reached for a long gone bag. Donald lit a second one. He managed to catch her smile, the kind of teeth that cost a second mortgage. He bet she had a sweet name. Why did he lose it on the dance floor?

“I’m Donald Guntherson.”

“Yea?”

“Yea, figured I should probably mention it again.”

She leaned into him.

“Dagny, again,” she smiled.

“Your dad a CEO?”

“How’d ya know”

“The Frats are a few streets over,” said the Mohawk.

“That isn’t a future MBA,” said Jess, the Ex.

The Ex was always civilized. The Mohawk turned to the side and pissed. His stream flurried and sputtered and raged.

“You might need to see someone about that,” said Donald

“I think I am.”

Donald figured there were about 20 decent paces between him and the porch. If he sprinted, he would just seem wasted trying to play red rover with the Mohawk and Jess.

“Guess we’ve been to the same Doctor.”

Donald knew that statement lead to sleepless nights and morning confessions.

“Fucker”, his Ex scratched Donald’s face, “Where’s your lacrosse stick?”

Donald glared through his cigarette and tossed the butt. He hated lacrosse; he hated the Ex for acting as if she didn’t know where his clothes came from and why he wore them.

The porch knew it was time to bounce and Dagny tagged along for safe measure.

Commonwealth Ave has great late night lighting and Dagny had a Rogue streak in her hair and looked like she probably didn’t dig her name right anyway. Who didn’t read Rand in high school anyway? If Donald asked for numbers, he’d probably ask for her’s.

In his room, the question wasn’t to add her on Facebook as Donald believed the number she added to his phone was real. He thought of his rugby shirt, the lack of image he had for himself. Was he a man without personality?

He dressed like a sportsman, danced like an amputee, drank like he was a writer even if he never made it to the keyboard.

Donald ran every morning after finishing the Globe and breakfast. Praise the 24 hour Catholic dining hall. Donald awoke sharply at 5 to begin and showered by 7:30. Daily eggs and bacon marred his reflection. A longer run would be needed. Catholicism, the religion where drunken confession was praised for its honesty on occasion. The New England October ranged from freezing rain to gentle winds. On the best days, there was the slight crisp that meant a light wool sweater to class. It was the crisp that foretold of the rich smoky haze of burning wood. The dew turned the grass slightly blue in the morning. His mother would be burning the beef covered in flour and chopping potatoes, carrots, and celery for stew. Who would accompany his family’s lab, Sol, in circling his mother making sweeps for morsels left behind or dropped? Was glutton the best descriptor of Donald? Was glutton even a social category?

He returned uncertain of where his opinions came from. From what source did he draw his “self”?

How could he discuss morality without an understanding of his own “I”?

He typed anyway.

Ok , I see the angle you’re looking at this from. So you’re saying that people relate to others through how they are connected to each other, rather than how they are separate. I agree with that statement, which is why people can get so passionate over a random stranger. It isn’t who the stranger is, but rather how the stranger is similar to the judge.

Donald

The End of an Era: Thoughts on “The Deuce”

HBO’s The Deuce is one of my favorite TV shows of all time. The final episode aired a few months ago and I am ready to speak my thoughts. Please stop here to avoid spoilers.

The Deuce was about the golden age of porn centered on Times Square. I know some feel it represents the end of an HBO era with the coming of HBO Max but I believe HBO will always have a home for art house television among the superheroes and fantasy warlords. A few years ago when The Deuce premiered it did seem like there was too much art house television with streamers flooding the market and it outdid them all. The Deuce was rawer than the others, less about Emmy moments. Instead each season examined a period in a slow built to a breathtaking conclusion. To me, the show told narratives about a period of freedom, we can never return to. Times Square was a playground for desire in all its forms. The dark and the light while it never romanticized any aspect of the brutal realities, it separated justice from judgement. I know that lack of judgement frustrated some viewers but freedom will always have a dark side. The Deuce never asked you to forgive anyone for their wrongdoing but it never let you forget their humanity either. Bobby wasn’t a good husband or man but refused to physically assault the sex workers who quit his parlor. Great moment in humanity, no. But it was an important one for Times Square where that was status quo. It was a show that didn’t give a fuck about next week. I will be honest, I watched seasons 2 and 3 after they had finished their initial airing because watching one a night for ten days straight gave me a preferable pace. Narratives were almost all seasonal arcs. It was a beautiful experience in television. More than traditional episodic and far from the decade long questions of Lost and Game of Thrones. In many ways, it reminds me of Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City without the hippie grace of San Francisco.

The reason I started this was to discuss the closing scene of The Deuce. The final scene of a series is a hard feat to pull off. In particular, a series about how the cesspit of NYC became the main tourist drag. Vincent returns to NYC in 2019 and goes for a walk down the old way. In an elegant bar, we learn Candy has died (but important enough to get an obituary in a major New York daily). He then walks the hazy fake daylight of the LEDs that make up the neighborhood today. He sees the ghosts of all the dead characters. Most are in their 60’s rock bottom era costumes. At first I hated this scene but I grew to love it. One the final moment is Vincent meeting Frankie in front of an Olive Garden. There’s a wonderful joke in that shot. The two Italian American New Yorkers both forced out and the corporate vision of their culture which matches the corporate vision of Gotham around them. I know a lot of people who hate it, people whose 70’s New York was Manhattan which kept to the parts where polite company gathered. In Simulation and Simulacra, Baudrillard discusses Disneyland and particularly the emptiness that hits in the parking lot after. We see the illusions that we have created in our lives. Times Square is a similar space. In the 60-80’s, it was the illusion that you had to go there for your taboo desires. In 2019 it is the illusion that we no longer have those desires.

-E.C. Fiori

Manifest Young Scion Chapter 1

In a new feature, I (E.C. Fiori) will be self publishing my novel “Manifest Young Scion” on The Radical Centrists. Over the next few months, I will publish a chapter every Tuesday

“The days of infinity are coming to a close,” said Donald to Kurt.

“Kurt, you need to do something for me when you ship off to your next life,” said Donald.

“Alright. Shoot,” Kurt said.

“Keep in touch primarily through philosophy. I’ll start the chain.”

Kurt nodded his eyes on the ground.

“Actually, why you don’t start it? You’ll get to school before me,” said Donald.

******************************************************************************

Philosophy From Boredom

People relate to others through themselves. People see parts of themselves in others and that is what causes them to like/dislike their peers. For example, if someone sees a murderer and they can say to themselves, “Well, if I was in a situation like that, I might murder someone too” then they will like the murderer more and sympathize more than if they can’t relate to the murderer at all.

Tell me what you think. It gets deeper. Feel free to dwell on this.
–Kurt’s first message to Donald.

At the threshold of his new home at The Brahmin University in Boston, Donald stared at the name carved into the granite doorway of the dormitory for students of the College of Letters: Emerson Hall.

Donald’s Orientation Leader, the keeper of the old ways and gatekeeper to the Academy prattled while Donald kept pace during the tour. “The stone of Emerson Hall was cut from the quarries by Medway and the granite exterior crafted in New Hampshire. The Boston Brahmins wished for the house to reflect those who stayed within the walls. As each new medium entered culture, so too did a new hall spring up in the Academy to guide the future within the traditions of those who built Boston. Each brick laid by devout masons honoring the Lord by building Him halls, where His beauty could be contemplated. Whereas Harvard held the vast array of science and law across the river, we at the Academy seek God in his rawest. The annals of Brahimin’s library houses prints and manuscripts lost to other collections. Dig through and you will find your twin soul preserved through ink and wood pulp,” As Donald had skipped acceptance day the previous May, the rituals of the new pupil would need to be observed before Donald could lie in his new bed, his first new bed since he left the crib.

He awoke a week later with a throb in his head.

“Should’ve gone to Spain,” raced through his brain as he lay in bed.

Derrida. Donald felt the only other experience on a similar level to first reading Derrida was when he first got high and he always assumed it was the aluminum. Then he met Derrida and later that night: Her. Who was She? She is late night cigs on a stoop for hours. A mutual friend invited them to see a movie. She went to school and lived in the same hall as the Ex. She came to Donald from the mythical Los Angeles. California had always been a hobby of Donald’s; it began when his family made the trek to visit his Godfather. The weed, the gays, and the graffiti were all things his parents had a strong stance against at times. His mother cried the first time he smoked weed. He never knew why. She smoked and so did his father. His family smoked. The world smokes, maybe not all the time, but everyone had to inhale at least once.

Anyway, that was before they filled the SUV with his life and gave his room away. He now lived where America began. He strolled along the dirty waters at night, his cigarette acting as a warning light.

Back to She. She wanted to smoke and he decided his penance complete. Hempfest was a proud Boston tradition where people smoke openly as undercovers attempt entrapment. Some face arrests are made and shitty metal is heard. Donald knew his chances of actually buying weed were slim plus it was just bad rally etiquette. Instead, he purchased Salvia. It was a hell of a time. He doubted it was a strong as the man said, but he lit up anyway.

He yawned, legs shaking. Don’t obey the shuffle. Enjoy it. Negativity has no home here. Don’t focus, one will see the cracks. Fuck it. He came back into being in an alley in Allston from the brick buildings, Donald assumed he was between Harvard Ave and Kelton.

The road from Allston to downtown is a single street with a slight curve. It was made for stumbling and down Donald went. Along the way, a friendly man offered him the drugs he was looking for.

Sit down. He put his hand in Donald’s pocket. Put that shit away. Whistle at the girl passing. Donald slipped the bill into the ragged denim and caught the next gust passing by.

Chronic. Laced. Good.

The pipe was back in his hand, his room miles away. For a city of colleges, the town shut down pretty early. Donald pissed on a door; the basement steps gave decent cover. His Dell DJ was broken; he would have to provide his own sound track.

He had shit to consider anyway. Kurt’s message was a thought, a reason, a quandary, but there had to be a reason why everyone doesn’t sympathize with every murderer?

Were some acts just in another world beyond understanding?

He had the avenue to himself and he paused to consider the space. The sounds of life were echoes not too different to the small town he came from. In this moment, the city was his. Donald didn’t enjoy the sensation for long. The emptiness ate at him.

The Ex was a block away at her dorm. Donald went for his phone to find the battery drained. It wasn’t her number he needed to dial anyway. He could call She, but he knew that moment had passed as well. The number he needed didn’t exist. His friends had moved south or west. The kids so far at school were squares and so what if they drank. Everyone did. Donald saw his mom puke a few times.

It was time to find a smoke circle. Not the drumming kind or the rapping kind, but a Salon. The kind, they had when the world tried. The members haunt the streets with a bag of fun. People fighting the apathetic state of sleep with beer, weed, cigs, and anything else they picked up along the way. Common threads stitched bridges.

The traditional Brownstones of Boston were a queer sort of neighborhood: pricey, but not as unreasonable as some of the gaudy condos lowering property values up the Hill. The Brahmins made this city in their academic image. Donald’s University had sold their Brownstone classrooms within the past decade. The other arts needed larger classrooms for demonstrations.

The College of Letters should have kept those traditional halls and not just the dorms. The modern chic design of the new buildings was no place to house discussion of literature. Donald’s tenure as a student had been a disappointing lesson in the stubbornness of academia. The College of Letters was founded with the University in 1880. Donald believed that the course descriptions hadn’t changed since. His fellow writing majors dismissed Hemingway and praised the commercial drivel stamped by Oprah. The kids in his phonebook squealed and dreamed of Perez.

Donald could never objectify money or fame as he was born with a larger bank account than he had any right to spend and his surname carried the weight of an Egyptian sarcophagus. His parents built a reasonable middle class life to give Donald a sense of balance and a level of understanding. He took the bus to the tax funded school down the road and not the private citadels that start the class separation while young. He had no need to rise within the ranks of the masses. His parents for all their middle class ideals, did have a few items in their budget. His parents believed in tithing and funded the complete upkeep and restoration of the St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The local library benefited from their patronage as well. The definition of the 1% of America with about a fifty million a year income, but besides those two exceptions lived a traditional middle class budgetary life style. His family’s wealth began before Versailles was signed. His parent’s remaining charity, and there was a large remainder, supported the various classical Art organizations: the opera companies, the public broadcasting stations, the art museums (plaque, not wing material). Donald felt terribly bourgeois, a word from James, Donald cousin, who lived in Boston as a public school teacher. James gave Donald books by Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Bob Woodward, and Howard Zimmerman. Donald wanted to be a man of the people, perhaps one up his parents and give away his inheritance. Yet, he could not leave the box seats of the opera behind. With wealth came true culture; if he entered the land of no savings accounts, Donald would stagnant in the swamp of television and new media. To be ethical was one ideal, but to be cursed to a life of Lolcats was not Donald’s intention.

He inhaled. Otherwise the smoked weed would be a waste of his last twenty dollar bill until he hit eighteen in a few months. Kerouac met Ginsberg and company at Columbia. Donald assumed his prestigious surrounding would have been filled with mirrors. The spawn of the Yuppies who dreamed of the vapid 80’s when the bricks of oligarchy were laid. There were plenty of fake punks and hippies and other ghosts of revolutions past, all consumed by the Hipster machine. Donald knew he lived a similar life, cannibalizing the writing of others. A thief.

He came of age when Olympus stood. An age of symbols faded in the current time, a centerless culture drifting due to inertia into the edge of dark matter never to connect again. Objects without source or destination. Each moment valued as the moment before and after. The act of creation denied order and expanded entropy in the contextless universe? Could such an act be deemed ethical?

He’d been reading any manifesto he could google for answers. Donald had the Futurists on his bedside at the moment. They wanted the classics to burn. The world needed room for new pieces according to Marinetti. The futurists got gunned and gassed in the trenches. The world turned without them.

He sat on a stone wall and rolled a cigarette. The tobacco littered the sidewalk as Donald fumbled with inexperience; Donald was used to the convenience of the prerolled products of Winston Salem. The harsh charring smoke produced a hack. The second drag went smoother. Things were changing. The pouch would be dry soon and his 18th was months off. A child, still. A visiting friend attempting to impress his girlfriend had bought Donald the tobacco. Now he was running dry and lacked a local source.

In his small town, he had often fled into the woods for isolation, but here in the city, Donald couldn’t escape the nothingness. Donald’s inability to make friends began as a child when he was watching strange kids play on the beach and they dragged him into the festivities. Donald managed to flee, but they tracked his steps back to his family’s umbrella encampment and asked for “Dylan” to return and play. Donald couldn’t remember the event himself, but his parents loved to tell it for him. In middle school, he was placed into the trouble kid courses (because of his mellowness according to his mom) and joined their fun after a day of being spit on. The school framed his klepto habits as an omen of violence. Donald’s actions inspired his old classmates in the gifted courses to steal trading cards from shops. Donald accepted his acceptance. People talked to him after the bell and that was good enough for Donald.

Donald’s stumbling returned to a normal swagger as he entered the Gardens. A copper Washington defended the Brahmin’s legacy: the labeled trees. A curfew had been cast over the Commons and Garden due to recent shootings, but Donald had no time for right angles. He hid the bud in his ratty sneaks next to his ID and keys. He hadn’t skated since he was single digits, but he kept buying the shoes. More space, more drugs.

The arch shined across the street, this was another Brahmin dorm. Donald couldn’t recognize the stone of the building. Donald rolled a cig as he waited for the light to change at the crosswalk. The archway of this dorm was filled with light and life. Comrades in arms about to ship out on a mission to get high. Donald drafted himself alongside the crew. He had seen a few of these people before one was Blond Commander, an ex-gamer with a stockpile of Camels. The other student, Donald recognized was the Cook. He petitioned for ovens in the dorm lounge, to free his fellow students from the dining commons. The admins rejected it on principle, but shielded themselves in articles of fire code. As much as he spoke of his culinary talents, he funded his blunts through busking during closing time. He breathed musical notes.

“That a joint?”

The question came from the Blond Commander,

“Nah, cig, but I could roll one if you guys wanted,” said Donald.

“Word,” said the Blond Commander.

“We’re about to rip at the docks, you’re welcome to join,” said the Cook.

The other troops were day players and honorary members looking for a weekend.

They marched into the former marshes. Donald couldn’t roll for shit, but he could pack a bowl. His parents searched the mail and his friends overcharged for head shop purchases. The circumstances forced Donald to grind with his hands and not a doodad.

“Super Bowl,” spoke the Cook.

“Football hasn’t started yet,” said the Blond Commander.

“No, this bowl has gone around like fifty times,” said the Cook.

“Hmmmm,” said Donald.

“You’re a quiet fucking dude,” spoke the Blond Commander.

“Sometimes.”

“Oh yea?”

“You like Marley,” and with that the Cook and the Blond Commander led an acappella rendition of “Is This Love?”

It quickly descended into a discussion of the FBI’s stalking of feared cultural icons in the 60’s.

The bag ran dry and the exodus to their beds began. As the group splintered by building, the Blond Commander and the Cook remained behind with Donald. They pulled out their hidden bags and discussed the problems of modern counter culture.

“Empty symbols, man,” spoke the Cook.

“Cannibalistic surbanites,” offered Donald.

“Astroturf independents” ended the Blond Commander.

They sat and shared Camels. Sharing the fire. They left as the sun returned. El Jefe, the fuzz, would be coming.

He then scribbled down his response on a fast food wrapper in a nearby waste bin with a borrowed pen.

Kurt,
People’s feelings about each other are based on the qualities the other person has. A person will be liked if they have qualities that the judge has or desires. A person will be hated if the judge sees their less favorite traits of their in that person. No one likes to be reminded of their dark side. Except when they do.
It should be noted that even though a person can relate through emotions, this does not guarantee, they will agree with another’s actions. A man could understand the murder, but still think it wasn’t a reasonable action. Think about a pacifist, they could understand the rage, but still couldn’t condone the use of violence.
This topic is very broad and I can only touch some of the different ways this can be interpreted. And they are all correct in the facet of humanity they address. The human mind is too complex for one master universal answer to your idea.

Donald

E.C. Fiori

Day 1019: You Spin Me Right Round

The Deadspin revolt of 2019.

Last week, the owners of G/O media fka Gizmodo fka Gawker Media told the staff of the sports vertical Deadspin to stop publishing non sports stories on the sports site. The staff reacted by quitting.

The chattering class was outraged at the owners for telling the staff of a sports site to stick to sports. No killing of controversial sports stories just no more political clickbait.

This is insane. If the order was to say only write positive things on these teams who are paying us for the coverage then taking a stand for integrity is righteous. This was not that. To say that someone must pay you for content other than the content you were hired to write is not true. If the staffers wanted to write politics they could have made their own site on their own time.

In August, a former editor claimed in an article the political content got better views than the sports content. What does that matter? Should the ny times stop publishing journalism because op-eds get more traffic? The worse part of being an employee is you are the ship not the captain.

Was the staff wrong to quit Deadspin? I don’t think they were. They didn’t want to be sports writers. This was a story with no heroes no villains. The owners want a sports site, the staff wanted a name brand playground. What was slimy was for the former staff to act like martyrs. In a time where mass layoffs in media will only become more common, they threw away an union job because they wanted their anti trump rants to have the deadspin banner instead of their blogs. They will argue Deadspin died before they did this but it won’t be true.

I hope G/O media gets Deadspin restaffed asap with writers who are grateful for the rare gift of paid work. The media industry has become too small for tantrums and is only getting smaller.

-E.C. Fiori