Being Hip To Time

March 14, 2011: I'm a bit confused why no one told me they were spinning the clocks forward today -- not angry, just confused. Had I been in possession of that information, I like to think I would have warned the people around me -- close friends and family at least -- that life as we know it was about to change, and they had damn well better get prepared.

Of course, none of this helps me now. It's 1:15 in the morning and I'm wide awake. I've got no one to thank but myself for taking that two-hour nap this afternoon, but had I known I'd slept in to 10:30 and not 9:30, as my clock had claimed, I might not have devoted additional hours to finding my bliss (or at least more of my bliss) in dreamland.

Still, if anyone's equipped to handle the precarious, hallucinogen-like experience of a lonely sleepless night, it's me. I have a long history with late nights, and not because I've led some sort of romantic life of early-hour parties and spell-binding sunrises. Ever since an early age I was drawn to staying up late. I remember always wondering what it was like later and later into the night -- what it felt like and what went on in those mysterious small hours that one was strictly forbidden to visit. I think I was seven when I somehow ended up awake until 3:15 on a weird night of television and childish antics. By junior high I'd done my first all-nighter, and had found it uniquely invigorating for some stupid reason I still can't explain. In high school, I developed this strange compulsion of staying up all night on a regular basis and cleaning my room. I led such a disorganized life, it seemed that every couple of months I needed to stay up all night and reassemble everything (as if it really ever helped!). This, in turn, led to some confusing beliefs that I may have been meant to live by the moon cycle, which still kind of makes sense to me because the moon rises about 50 minutes later each night, and so one logically sleeps in another 50 minutes each morning until they work their way around the clock in 29 days ...

Which leads me to comment on the churlish construct of our whole narrow-minded conformist world, which requires (or seems to require) that we keep our timetable in strict alignment with Washington and the World Bank and all the other Right Wing institutions. (That's why they even have Daylight Savings Time; it's merely a method of testing our obedience to the arbitrary whims of the Power Elite (or P.E., as they're known).

It's unnatural is what it is, and when I finally realize some significant income from my book, cartoons and clown paintings, I'll start living right, smash my alarm clock (or my wife's alarm clock, since mine isn't even plugged in) and get back to the natural cycles as the Universe (or at least the moon) intended them.

Meanwhile, I'm happy to have killed a good 25 minutes on this entry -- now being that much closer to sleep, as well as my death. Ironically, the experience vividly reminds me of that great Peter Fonda line, as heard in that sketchily constructed classic movie "Easy Rider" -- "I'm hip to time."

Remember, all you readeres who thought you could escape that gruesome image and idea -- Naked Peter Fondas! We're all just Naked Peter Fondas trying to stay on schedule ...

The Fear Is Real

May 20, 2010: Let's start, while I remember, to note that those little shit heel manipulators at Haagen-Daz have done their part to help mind screw us all, just like the Chapstick people I so eloquently blasted in a previous entry. (If I wasn't so tired, I'd bother to look up the date and title, and reference it, but I'm hoping you'll help a little with this effort by looking for it yourself.)

You probably haven't noticed that, what was once their standard "pint" of ice cream is no longer that. Without any word, that sneaky little bunch of Scandanavian bastards markedly reduced the size of their ice creams containers, roughly from 475 fluid ounces to 410. Now you weren't likely to notice this because, OF COURSE, the price wasn't reduced. Luckily a sensitive consumer (meaning ME) who periodically devotes long, thoughtful moments to studying the Haagen-Daz and Ben & Jerry's offerings at the local market, caught this, and has since vowed to never buy their shitty ice cream again. I strongly suggest you do the same, because as good as it may be, especially late at night when you're depressed and thinking about how awful your life is, it's not so much better than any other brand -- certainly not so much better that we should put up with their petty, greedy little mind F'ing. There are enough strange, mind-mutating pins being stuck in our collective psyches without having to get another from your bloody ice cream man. (Dirty heart-breaking F's!) And who else would report this? No one! And that's why I even write this stupid Blag, and so if for no other reason than respect for my ... Oh, never mind. You people never listen to me anyway!

This brings me to the other side of my mind, which is willowing with fear as we speak (or as I write ... and I don't even know if "willowing" is a word -- that's how debilitated I am!). You see, I've been up all night coughing with the remnants of my awful sickness. Not only that, my stupid cat (who I wouldn't be surprised to learn is in league with Haagen-Daz) has been carrying out all her ridiculous middle-of-the-night cat acrobatics, which mainly consist of making as much noise as possible and then racing around the house like a rocket when I try to throw things at her (little shit). Worse than all that, I distinctly heard a buzzing around 5 a.m., and as I just killed TWO SEPARATE WASPS IN THE HOUSE this week (can you imagine!), I'm sure there's another one somewhere about. (This is why I hate summer, AND Easton.) Worse, worse, I can't find him anywhere, but I keep thinking he's on my back, just sort of hanging there in that cold-weather dumbfounded way stinging insects have when they're not mad with heat orgy, but still languidly alive, thinking up their next awful plan.

So, you can imagine what a terrible morning I'm having. Thoughts of 1984-style ice cream methods, and now a deadly venomous insect clutching to my pajama top. And my hearing is so hallucinatorily acute, I keep thinking I hear the buzz again, but I can't be sure. You wouldn't believe the things I'm hearing. It's awful and disconcerting, and vaguely fascinating too. The problem is I'm so terribly tired, and still rather sick, so I can't even enjoy being all disoriented, I just have to sit here in this gut-wrenching fear and fight off the powerful feeling that I may die at any instant, or worse, be angrily stung by some stupid hornet. I hate bugs, and especially the angry ones that cling to your clothes. Just the thought makes me feel like I've bugs all over me ... and the really awful, awful thing is I can't be sure I don't!

I don't know what else to say, except I urge you to join my flat boycott of Haagen-Daz (despicable wretches). They should be ashamed, and if you eat their ice cream after reading this revelation, you should be ashamed too, and I sincerely hope you get stung by bees.