The Return of the Amazing Dr. Funkenstein and his Psychedelic Paraphernalia

What shall I writer here? ...Consciousness is subjective, I guess. I mean, what you notice is how you perceive life. Consciousness could be defined as your own individual perception of things. (Unless Professor Tougaw tells us otherwise, the I agree with him.) Like how do I perceive this moment, right here in this class, scratching at this crumpled paper with my jittery hand? Hungry. (Gee I was hoping for something more metaphysical,philosophical, and, you know, cool.) But even in the face of overwhelming demand for something else, I'm hoping one of those books in that stack would turn into a peanut butter and jelly sandwich--grape jelly, the philosopher's choice.

Day 35-

Still afraid of examining my own consciousness. The thought of writing my thoughts down in this blog terrifies me. It's as if by examining my head I'll ruin it. Like sticking a q-tip too far into your ear and popping your ear canal--there's gotta be irreparable damage that can be done by trying to psychoanalyze myself. (Although I do play a doctor on TV.) But I should probably get over it. (After all, I have to in order to pass this course.)

I found this old Richard Nixon mask of my father's in the closet once and decided it was cool. So now I keep it on a stand in my room and wear it every once in a while. Like at parties. I impersonate Richard M. Nixon at parties.

There was this one party, a short while ago, at The Bowery Poetry Club. I was there as a special guest of Bob Holman (the club's owner and a fairly famous poet in his own right). And we were watching this woman create some interactive poetry (I forget who she was, she's unimportant to my story) using us to create a happening. So (to create the poem) we were all going around the room asking each other to tell another person something you've never told anyone before. Bob Holman turns to me and asks me, so I get up and announce to the room

- I impersonate Richard Nixon.

And everyone laughs. I pull the Nixon mask out of my bag and put it on. Bob becomes hysterical. He stands up next to me and yells to the guy in the sound booth to put on some conga music. A hot little number starts to play and I yell out

- Conga with Nixon!

I swish my hips around to the beat. Bob puts his hands on my shoulders and follows me as I start groovin' down the center aisle of the club. In a matter of moments everyone in the club is lining up behind President Nixon as we were shaking it to the beat, 'round and 'round the club 'till the music stopped.

"There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet"
- T.S. Eliot "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

And that face must be perfect, or not at all. If I can't put forward a mind-blowing effort, that will earn me much praise, I have to blow it off entirely. Pretend I made no effort. I'm just slacking.

I love excelling, and there's been so few times this semester where I've had time to do something noteworthy with my work. (Or even do my work, at times.)

I do try, but if I can't be the best I feel I should be lousy. In this way my face is always perfect. I make all the proper reactions. I'll never let you know.

My eyeballs feel like they're floating in hot gasoline that's constantly evaporating through my eye sockets. My brain is shriveling up and the back of my brain like a charred piece of lunch meat. I just have to make it through this class. Don't let them see my hands shaking. Don't let anyone know that "The Mask of the Red Death" is upon them. I'll just look down at my book. No one will see me.

- Are you alright? Professor Tougaw asks. Your eyes don't look like they're your own.
- They shouldn't. I bought them off some guy in Chinatown this afternoon, I muster.
- Is it contagious? Arielle asks.
- Well, I licked your water bottle and all your things, so you'll find out.

Everyone laughs at that. Hopefully that'll take the focus off me and get us back to class.

- Are you sure you can make it through this class? Tougaw wants to know.
- I'll live.

That was close. Tilt in your chair. (But don't fall out.) Don't let anyone know you can't focus your eyesight to see properly. Act like you're actually looking at your book. Don't let Andrew see your hands shaking--grab your pen. Look like you're doing work. Just make it through these two hours. (Class is only two hours, right?)

I ate too much. (Although, it is Thanksgiving, so it might be redundant to say that.) It's that time of year my sister does the one thing she's good at (aside from complaining, being bitchy, and knowing everything) which is making turkey. A twenty-pound bird- stuffed, rubbed with butter, marinated a champagne (although I think my sister gets more of the wine than the bird does) and wrapped in bacon before being roasted golden brown. (Man, that reads even better than it eats.)

But the sides are becoming very pedestrian to me. Same stuff every year. Bland mashed potatoes. Greasy stuffing. The affluent concept of shrimp cocktail. I tire of holidays and their "traditions". I say if the routine bores me I should do something else. I should do something else. Move out of my parents house and live like a bohemian, where I won't be forced to uphold any traditions. But I'll just roll over in my over-sized holiday sweater (engineered entirely to stop food from landing on my pants) in this coma. I don't even like turkey. Why did I eat so much?

Every freakin' holiday I have to go into the attic closet and drag out the appropriate boxes and bags corresponding to the time of year, drag them down the stairs, and put them up--with little or no assistance. (Perhaps this would go faster if some helped... or if they didn't send their asthmatic son into the dusty closet so his allergies can flare up.)

The closet's tiny--(yes, there's a room in the house smaller than the space I share with my brother)--and against the side of the house, so the roof is severely slanted on one side. So instead of conserving space we continue to get new crap without getting rid of anything that hasn't disintegrated into particles. (And then we try to glue the dust back together before we get rid of it.) Freakin' pack rats of sentimentality. (I get that way with my things too, but I have limits--I can throw things out... Of course my parents, on one of their whims, made me throw out things last summer--but the closet must stay!) I'm waiting for the time when everyone celebrates Festivus and I can just bring a metal pole out of the closet. (I'm still constructing a plan to have one set of universal wreaths for outside the house.)

But that's not what I came here to talk about. (I didn't want the title to mislead y'all if I stopped here.) Christmas is the worst time of year for closet activities (Dominik) because that holiday has the most crap. And because of the shape of the closet, everything has to be taken out to retrieve Christmas from the seventh circle. I call this The Shift. Everything gets carried down the stairs to the living room and most of it goes back up. My brother used to help me with this stuff, but he has a job now, so he works until evening hits then he drinks until morning.

So I'm doing it myself this year. (Again.) It'd be nice if I didn't have to put up the majority of the stuff that I take down. (Especially because I don't care.) My mother takes on little pet projects, like putting out a snow globe on the coffee table, but in the end it's still me climbing ladders to put up garland and lights on the roof. (And I really don't like heights.)

So you can imagine my shock and alarm when my sister, who was sitting on the couch not helping me bring boxes out of the closet, states that it is actually her who decorates the house, not me. Gee, I don't remember seeing you on the roof last year. (I would have considered pushing you off.) She's so busy with her Full-Time Job (for which she earns constant praise) and her boyfriend that I only see her a few hours a week. (Which is probably the nicest part of this blog entry.)

Point is, we don't have the same schedules like we used to when we were kids--my parents included. The past few years I've just been leaving the boxes out in the living room and we decorate the tree in shifts. (We're getting a punch card system this year.) Why bother?

Remember all those times when you tried to clear your head to meditate or free-write and you just couldn't do it? Well, I've come up with the solution. Introducing The Zen Waiting Room.

Here's a real-life testimonial from some strange man I found off the street.

I was waiting for my friend Joel to get out of rehearsal. And I'm in the atrium of The Goldstein Theatre. So I says to myself, alright, John, time to entertain yourself to pass the time. Let's use that brain to think of something. And I just couldn't do it. Nothing was in my head--now that I needed there to be. Ain't that a kick in the teeth?

Now that I've discovered the secret to true inner peace and quiet I'm going to pass on this service to you. For one payment of $250 I will make you wait for me in a cold, dark room by yourself for an hour--so you can truly focus. What's $250 (plus delivery fees) when compared with clarity of consciousness? Call now! Operators are standing by!

I like to sit in the library at school in those little wooden booth-desks they have lining the walls. Real hermit-style. (In fact I wrote a poem about it once--which uses the phrase I've included in the title, so don't any of you writer-types think about stealing it.) And without fail, there's always something written or scratched into the walls of those cubicles.

I've gotten to sit at many of those seats throughout the library. And I've seen quite a few things decreed there. (And, judging by this, there's quite a few incredibly dumb, racist students attending this university.) What makes a person vandalize something? Do they think they're enacting wide-scale social change by doing this? I hate to break this to you all but the Kennedy family does not visit the Queens College library, there has not been one Rockefeller in the bathroom stall of the second-floor men's room of Hunter College, North Building, and W. H. Auden does not rise from his grave at night to wander into the bathroom of King Hall to see you misquote him on that tile right above the third urinal (on the right).

So I thought, as a community service, I would take the time to respond to some of the queries that have been left for more important folks.

How do you tell someone you can't stand that you don't love them?
I'd think this one would be pretty easy. Try running them over with a car. If they don't get the hint by then, back up.

Kill all Niggers and Jews
Apparently the most ethnically diverse borough still needs more humanities classes. (Or a man with a shotgun. I haven't decided which.)

I Wiz Here
Thank you. You're delightful...

I fucked Pamela. Pamela fucked me. 9.6.06
Good for you. I'm glad charity is still alive and kicking today.

Yea, I fucked her too. She's got big titties and no ass.
Well, we can pretend, can't we?

Shut the fuck up
Make me.

The Futurists across the street have stopped working their jackhammers into the asphalt.
There is only night outside.
The plastic tarp on the elephant skeleton across the street is sticking out at a ninety-degree-angle
with the wing blowing
a constant sheet of uncooked short-grain rice at my bedroom window.
Denis Johnson plays guitar on the corner for the paparazzi.
I sit at the Ming dynasty palace I have constructed out of the loose papers on my desk.
My cat leaps up to the looseleaf north tower
and looks outside at nothing.