In the continuing quest for inspiration in writing my science fiction book Aqaara, I was recommended the graphic novel series Saga by Brian Vaughn and Fiona Staples. 
I was most interested in its apparently profound treatment of sexual themes and imagery, and yet was disappointed to realize that it is neither thought-provoking nor titillating. 
The work is nothing more than a morass of simplistic morality propped upon a landscape of superficial sexuality in which – surprise! – a transgender character recently appears. The story-line is vapid, the dialogue interminable to say nothing of the farcical content. 
But worse of all are the references to the authors’ own process themselves, their love of books and killing off their babies.
Which they never did and really should have.
The Poetry of Spam
I’m diplomat Rev Augustine david I have just arrived at the Los Angeles
International Airport with your valued consignment box of $4.5 million
dollars 45 minutes ago, please reconfirm.
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I GOT YOUR CONTACT FROM SYRIAN – AMERICAN ARMY OFFICER WHO WAS INJURED IN THE ONGOING SYRIAN WAR BUT DIED LAST WEEK WHILE RECEIVING MEDICAL TREATMENT. I WANT TO SEEK YOUR ASSISTANCE
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Do you remember me ? I m Maria,25 yo. We changed messages last year on facebook. I have some new photos for you,I m on-line now.
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Ahahahahaha….seriously? Why do you refuse to gain more…
Hey ! if you don’t want to talk to me, just say it.
Bio Tuesday: The Sacred Whore
The Sacred Whore is my first novel, the story of a group of prostitutes who kidnap a college basketball team to air their views on the dismal morality in the United States. It has its moments, mostly characters realizing themselves. 
But more than that, it was the dogged focus of getting those 446 pages written. And then transcribed to 706 pages, typed, double-spaced. And then edited down to 432. And again down to 365. And then adapted into a screenplay. And to have both rejected again and again. A harbinger of what writing would come to be.
Dead 101 – Eternal Return
My first Grateful Dead concert – March 1983, Virginia – was much like the last, my 101st – September 2017, Central Park – over-excited to start, a moment or two of some kind of imbibed perfection in the middle and a loss for what happened at the end. 
An Essential Trilogy: Davis Drinks
Part One: So? Another? Three old friends sit at a bar. Davis finishes his drink and asks, “So? Another?” They nod.
Part Two: Not Drunk. Davis, alone at a bar with empty glasses all around, orders a drink. The bartender asks if he is all right. His reply is simply: “Not drunk.”
Part Three: Just One More. Davis stands at a bar. A remote wilderness can be seen out the window behind him. He calls out to the bartender, “Just one more.” He is refused.
Music for the End of the World
Music to end all music:
10.When I Go Deaf (Low) I’ll be all right. I’ll be just fine.
9. And the Gods Made Love...(Jimi Hendrix Experience)
8. A Thousand Year Formation (Off the Sky) For the beginning of the world too. 
7. Somewhat Damaged (Nine Inch Nails) Too fucked up to care any more.
6. Thursday Afternoon (Brian Eno)
5. Come in Alone (My Bloody Valentine) Believe what you see.
4. Big Brother (David Bowie) Some brave Apollo, someone like you.
3. Anamorphose (Stereolab) There is nothing more real than breathing. 
2. Disintegration Loop #5 (William Basinki) At 53 minutes, it is almost long enough.
1. The Heavenly Music Corporation at Half Speed (Fripp and Eno) Should be at 1/8th speed for full effect.
Publishing Dream
I had a publishing deal. That was the dream. Or almost. It was a dream, but it wasn’t quite a deal. It was a letter from an agent who had expressed interest in the past and had replied again. That was something. And then I blew it. I complained to her about my years in publishing hinterland – or Neverland – never having published a thing. I searched through my old titles. I couldn’t even remember what they might be about. But they did intrigue. 
I only needed them in print, with well designed covers and just the right font. And so I had a short series run, gave copies to my family and friends, and told one about complaining to this agent who had interest, but he was on the phone, or there was an event, and he forgot to even take the book when he left. That was the dream. Not publishing anything, just writing, like now, this.
Ice Friday: Michel Foucault’s “The Use of Pleasure”
What one must aim for in the struggle to control the desires was the condition of “ethical virility” according to the model of “social virility”. In the use of male pleasures, one had to be virile with regard to oneself, just as one was masculine in one’s social role. In the full meaning of the world, moderation was a man’s virtue. 
To be immoderate was to be in a state of nonresistance with regard to the force of pleasures, and in a position of weakness and submission. In this sense, the man of pleasures and desires, the man of non-mastery (akrasia) or self-indulgence (akolasia) was a man who could be called feminine.*
*Taken with a grain or two of salt.
Ice Friday: Ballard’s “The Drowned World”
He had been born and brought up entirely within what had once been known as the Arctic Circle – now a sub-tropical zone with an annual mean temperature of 85 degrees – and had come southward only on joining on of the ecological surveys in his early 30’s. 
The vast swamps and jungles had been a fabulous laboratory, the submerged cities little more than elaborate pedestals. Apart from a few older men such as Bodkin, there was no one who remembered living in them -and even during Bodkin’s childhood, the cities had been beleaguered citadels hemmed in by enormous dykes and disintegrated by panic and despair, reluctant Venices to their marriage with the sea.
Their charm and beauty lay precisely in their emptiness, in the orange junction of two extremes of nature, like a discarded crown overgrown by wild orchids.
That CNN Hurricane Guy
Why does he stand out in the rain? 
Is it to help the man with the three-legged dog get safely home? 
Or is it just to say he did?