The War With No Name

I died in a war with no name, in a place no one knew what to call it, because it had been bombed a lot and the last thing I thought is that the scream of the shell was running away from me.

My country had no name, because I had no country, not anymore, and that was what the war was about.

I was placed in a common grave, because so many had died there was no place to put them.

I believed in our cause and the reasons given, but the reasons given weren’t the real reasons, we knew this, we knew there had to be reasons.

If there ever were a memorial, that would be good, and they could put it here where I died, in a place with no name, because they would have a name for it now, and the war in which I died, and there would be more reasons because peace grows reasons from acts seeded in war.

If there ever were a memorial, that would be good, because then war would be over and people could go to the memorial, for whatever reasons they had, perhaps just on their break for lunch, and sit in the shade and read what it says.


And what the memorial should say is: Life is sweet.




TURN #73: WEEK 59; WORDS: 64,174
NEXT BY 9 AUGUST 2006

Lifeguard of the Black Beach of Hell

Unable and powerless to circumvent my miseries, daunted, discouraged and unable to face reality alone, now that she had left, I drew upon my last resources; my will, however, was poisoned, I had no strong figures to identify with, I had no pride in myself and from my own people I could only expect disgust and disappointment; I was alone and desolate, with no one to draw upon; perhaps worst of all I had come to despise my only virtues: my intelligence, good humor and sense of obligation filled me with disgust; they were not enough to keep her (no, quite the opposite, I thought) so I deemed them unfit to keep me alive. I had a simple choice, I could give up love or give up living and so, drunk with so many things, but mainly pain, I thought it brave, so very brave and rare to choose the latter and died.

For my many crimes, my lack of shrift, pilfered cheeses and incomplete papers, I was sent to Hell. And on that sunless shore I became a lifeguard.

Hell is very different than the living imagine, except that it is hellish. There are a surprising number of children. And the sort of lines you'd expect.

Hell, like the army or the bursar's office, has its own logic and way of doing things. You begin with a series of interviews, which are off-putting to say the least. It’s probably for the best, people carry on in the worst way just lining up. The questions are really unexpected and there are a lot of them. Many people try and use the interview to their advantage, thinking that if they say they love loud noises, they’ll be put somewhere quiet, or be given steak if they say they are vegetarian. There is no advantage: this is Hell.

Most of the dammed feel relieved. Those that don’t are a pain in the ass.

My personal disappointment was the lack of answers. Here, too, God is silent; the Devil is loquacious and equivocal.

I express that I thought the soul was a metaphor: “A metaphor for what?” is the reply.


One day I am simply given some black, black swim trunks and a whistle that sounds like a Stuka dive bomber. More: in life I was bespectacled and bookish and at best a poor swimmer. In Hell I was given a firm and powerful swimmer’s build, with a swelling chest, keen eyes and a permanent erection. I try to understand what has happened, to fathom my sentence. I am only told that it was never about punishment, or reward. That was a story for simpletons and children, those who needed it. Not in the previous world, either they say. Or the next.

The thing about Hell, though, is that nobody is what you would call “credible”.

Literary work that most accurately portrays Hell: Une Saison en Enfer, Rimbaud.

Hell is also other people. And their dogs.

Hell has several bodies of water, some of them quite immense, even if frozen, so there is some need for lifeguards. Infernally, in some cases the job of the lifeguard is to prevent the damned soul from rising to the surface, but usually we mind the shores for the same reasons as above. We have to be trained in CPR, mouth-to-mouth and Gregg’s or the Pitman Method. In Hell, mouth-to-mouth is always done inappropriately and for the worst of reasons. For this reason we have permanent erections. It is not unusual to see a gang of lifeguards descending on some poor soul. This is Hell.

I sit in the lifeguard chair, under a black sky that burns bright with no light, but darkness visible, the reverse sunscreen blacking out my nose making me look like a skull. Perhaps I am, I haven’t looked. In my high chair I am relaxed and vigilant, at ease with my naked muscles and erection, cooly cruel beneath my long hair, flicking the ashes of my cigarette on the naked pale narrow shoulders of the dammed as they are dragged by on the barge. I sit above them, as though in judgement, and the new souls do not realize that this is as much judgement as they are likely to receive in Hell. Or I do so in reflection, if I am, in an infernal manner, stationed at the bottom of the river, glaring at the bottom of the barge, seeing their woeful eyes seek out their own reflection in that blackest of waters.

There is beer, but the beer is not cold.
There is no recycling.

After work I usually drive an awesome muscle car to a local bar. I do not know what it is called, only that it has an enormous engine that sounds like a growling bomber wing impatient to take off. It was apparently so cool when first designed that it never went into production. It went straight to Hell. The Devil himself drove one for a while, until he wrapped his around a Christmas display. Yes, Christmas is celebrated in Hell. It is celebrated year-round. This is one of the ways you know you are in Hell. Of course, nobody calls it Christmas. They just say “Happy Holidays” and then they stab you with a corkscrew.

The bars in Hell are a fairly rough scene. There usually isn’t ice, and so the bartenders tend to fill your glass with bits of jagged glass. Many people opt for beer, though it isn’t cold and is only jagged glass.

Karaoke: about the same. The words tend to scroll a little faster and are hard to read, as in a dream. Sometimes you look up and your high school music teacher is there. Naked and masturbating.

On the karaoke screen, the words crawl over each other like voices in one's head. The words may seem different, transposed and wrong, depending on the song. For songs that originated in Hell, or from artists whose souls were bought, these are the true lyrics, which on earth are sung backwards. This basically covers most Rock n'Roll.

Drinks: expensive. You might as well get top shelf. I cannot even begin to talk about the well-brands here.

Even though I am a lifeguard, I find myself at the beach a lot. Here’s what I like to do: I find some scrawny kid with his date sitting on a blanket. I stroll on up to him and kick sand in his eyes, causing him to drop his copy of Schopenhauer. Then I ridicule his scrawniness and his lack of faith in German Idealism. I smack him around a bit. I make fun of his poor French. Finally, I rip off his trunks and shove them in his mouth. I walk off with his girl on my arm, laughing. Or, I like to find some kids and help them make a kite.


I am the lifeguard of the black beach of Hell, the sand that is all pumice and bones, the tide that is stinging remorse, the wind that is screaming, screaming, and the eternal sunset that is the glory of pride, Hell’s emblem.



film adaptation: The Surf Inside Me

The Encouraging Voice of the Labyrinth is the journal that takes you places without return.

TURN #72: WEEK 58; WORDS: 63,943
NEXT BY 2 AUGUST 2006

Notice to Quit

to MLM

1. I ride around every where in this little place on my bicycle, which demonstrates what a little town it is and that I’m a little fit. I was telling a pastry chef at a party how Poe died –I know, it's horrible when no one knows and you have to break it to them, and I’m old, so horribly old, now that I no longer really enjoy myself, or get drunk, but instead start helping people find their glasses with a little flashlight I carry –I know. Anyway, there’s nothing much to say about the party except that before going I had written your initials on the back of my hand –no, not to hit anyone, but because I carried a message for you.

2. But I couldn’t deliver the message right away because it was a long bike ride and I was a little tipsy, what with helping everybody.

3. I had also run out of ex-girlfriends to call when you’re slightly tipsy from helping everybody at four in the morning. Well, I haven’t really run out, but most of them either call too often or not often enough to be bothered at this hour for that kind of phone call; which is to say that I’ve either called them when I was slightly tipsy from helping everybody at four in the morning too often, or not often enough.

4. What would say is: I have belatedly discovered I am the same height as Nietzsche.

5. You know what this means.

6. So I spent a good week and a half becoming infatuated with Wagner’s music so as to better break-up with Wagner.

7. Falling asleep was a real problem.

8. When you think about it, Wagner basically invented disco.

9. In Tony Palmer’s ten hour Wagner, Wagner at Bayreuth struggles, as always, with his production, with money, with his unbaptised conductor, with his unfinished festpielhaus, and most of all with his orchestra that he has stuck in a giant dungeon oven (this is a German word) beneath the stage whose violins are melting in the subterranean heat. The twilight of the gods is hard to organize. As he is wandering through the vast empty tuning darkness of the stage, a man calls him over. “An instrument to replace the orchestra,” he says. It is an accordion.

“Come here, Richter,” says Wagner “this may be the end of the world.”

10. The world can basically be divided into Wagnerites and Anti-Wagnerites, with the exception of those who are both or neither.

11. Mahler gets classed as a Wagnerite.

12. Mahler’s wife, Alma Mahler went on to date Walter Gropius, Franz Werfel and Oskar Kokoschka.

13. Her first kiss was from Gustav Klimt.

14. Stop me if you’ve heard this one.

15. Kokoschka was really obsessed with Alma. That’s her in Bride of the Wind.

16. I saw this painting as a child in my Junior Brittanica.

17. When Alma left Kokoschka, Kokoschka became so obsessed with her he had a life -sized doll made to look like her by the Munich doll maker Hermine Moos.

18. The doll does not look so good in pictures.

19. Kokoschka liked it well enough. It was said he took it to the opera.

20. Kokoschka explicitly denied this.

21. Of course, this is a man who slept with a life-sized doll.

22. I slept with a mannequin for a while.

23. The thing you learn about sleeping with a mannequin is that everybody who comes to visit you tweaks or punches the doll sadistically. You end up dressing the doll, overdressing it, really, in the most outrageous costumes.

24. All this is part of our way of compensating and revenging ourselves on the doll’s lack of animation.

25. I was just going through my virtual mail and

26. You’ve written some great letters. Like when you wrote about saying “Spasibo” to the Sbarro guy.

27. Nobody writes anymore.

28. Or –they write too much.

29. I’m a whore and I’ll reuse parts of this in my writing and get by, by dedicating it to you.

30. With your kind permission.

31. I miss you.

32. Here is your message:

33. I am going back.

34. Where?

35. To Chicago.

36. To the U of C.

37. Yes, to graduate.

38. I know.

39. I know.

40. I don’t believe it either. In fact, that’s why I have to go. I started to become suspicious myself. I started to think it was a cover story. I asked around. I thought: what do I really know about this guy?

41. I always have my acceptance speech ready. Last words aren’t important, in fact they’re usually kind of brief. The acceptance speech, by definition, has a lot of people standing around and somehow it’s really important, even if you’ve got a pretty solid grip on the award. It’s like when you or someone says “I love you” or “is it safe?” The next few seconds are going to make a difference for somebody. So in my acceptance speech I was going to acknowledge just how circuitous my path had been and thank my many kind friends and indulgent instructors –the people who had believed in me.

42. Only this time I have to add something: I also am deeply indebted to really didn’t. I decided to return because one friend noted to another friend that I was on a leave of absence. The other friend replied: when’s he gonna give up that fantasy?

43. I was so pissed off I wrote the dean right away.

44. It was Superman and Batman. Yes, super friends.

45. Superman had said as much to me, but not so directly. We talk late at night on the phone. I talk about Chicago. He talks about Krypton. Sometimes I get him to try and remember, because he’s very different when he talks about Krypton. Not like Superman, and not like Clark. A guy from another world, but who’s never been there. “My freaking super dog Krypto is more Kryptonian than I am” he said. I try to get him to talk about the spires and those spinning things, the sound of the white nights, the overture of the oldest stars. He yelled at me once: “You don’t get it, do you? It doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter if Krypton was, or if it is, or if I even could go back in time! All these freaking crystals with my Mom and Dad –it doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter if it lives in this real miniature city with real miniature Kryptonians I keep on my frickin’ desk! Krypton is just a fantasy to me! Superman is just a stupid hobby. I’m freaking Clark Kent already! I live in Metropolis! I owe forty-six thousand dollars in student loans! There’s not a single person I respect that I see every day, least of all myself. I’m cursed with a work ethic and X-ray vision. I would blow my fucking head off, but guess what –whereas every supervillian –and I mean all of them -have figured out a way to kill Superman –Nobody has the slightest clue how to kill Clark Kent!” He had just fought with the Insect Queen again. He was probably still drenched in webs, poor guy.

46. I wasn’t angry at Batman for what he said. It was the greatest favor anyone could have done me.

47. You know where you stand with Batman.

48. That Batman, he has problems.

49. Part of my problem is that I really hate going anywhere or doing anything. My fondest daydreams fill me with dread. Deep down, I even really dread going to Disney World.

50. I lost my nerve. Someday I fear I’ll lose my nerve to go to Disney World. Then what will I do?

51. The other thing that I always think of –actually, it’s something I start to feel, is that the minute anything changes, the minute I start a new relationship or travel, when I start to live, I think of what’s her name.

52. You know who I’m talking about.

53. And I can feel myself getting an alcoholic-like thirst –oh, not for drink.

54. For laughter.


and to my many friends, skeptics, belivers and agnostics alike

TURN #71: WEEK 57; WORDS: 62,826
NEXT BY 26 JULY 2006

My Lines From My Porno Movie

pruient pics by crookedletter



-Go and tell your Master that his Masters are here.

-You will pay for this impudence.

-May I introduce my friend, Baron Skin-Eater?

-Good, good.

-Why, hello! Your mommy and daddy aren’t home, are they?

-Yes, I’d like it if you came next Thursday.

-I’d like to open a new bank account, please.

-Oh, about six weeks.

-Get whatever you want on your half.

-Good, good.

-Strip them. Arouse the Mongoloid.

-Oh, nothing much, how about you?

-Strapado: S-T-R-A-P-A-D-O

-Yes, you may borrow it.

-Okay. I am going now.

-One Adult and one Senior Citizen’s Discount please.

-Yes, I would like butter. A lot of butter.

-Good, good.




TURN #70: WEEK 56; WORDS: 61,456
NEXT BY 19 JULY 2006