Invenginosity

It’s hard to be stimulated when you can’t find anything stimulating. It’s seems like everywhere you look things are lacking substance, stability, god damn ingenuity. When is the last time you heard about an invention for some kind of rocket ship that’s powered by dirty diapers? Never! Because society has lost its inventiveness, or at least I have, and that counts for at least 0.73% of inventions by people who actually have a clue. I’m beginning to rant. I’m just frustrated that since I began my Intellectual Hiatus there hasn’t been a single technological advancement, that I can think of. Sure, they fired up the Large Hadron Collider, but that was invented years before I began my Cerebral Spring Break, and has yet to show us anything we can rub in the noses of Big Religion. That, hopefully, is about to change. I have invented “The Invention Machine”. Now at first glance The Invention Machine doesn’t look like much. It doesn’t look like something that could take the most boredinary mind and make it extraboredinary. It doesn’t look like the kind of thing that could turn scrambled eggs into a Western Omelete. What it does look like, is a four foot by four foot chunk of yellow shag carpet.

You might ask yourself, what the hell does yellow shag have to do with omelettes, intellect, and ingenosity? I’ll tell you. Have you heard of Ben Franklin? Did you know his eyesight was so bad that he had to invent eyeglasses just to be able to reach his laudanum? That man was an addict.

When I step on The Invention Machine it’s like stepping on a small expanse of live sheep’s back in wool socks, because for reasons that will soon become clear, standing upon The Invention Machine works best in wool socks.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. The Invention Machine is not the ShamWow. You don’t have to give your credit card number to some crackhead who talks a good game but has obviously never done a hard day’s work in his life unless you count sitting on the toilet all day at truck stops waiting for somebody to nudge his foot from the next stall. The Invention Machine can be made from simple household items. Here’s how:

First, find some shag carpet. Next, cut out a four foot by four foot chunk. If you’re too young to use a knife, you shouldn’t be reading this.

Double next, take the chunk of carpet and lay it down on a hard surface, preferably not carpet. Stand on the carpet chunk. Very important; you must be dry from head to toe. Do not try to use it straight out of the shower. You may think this constitutes a fresh perspective, but really you just look like an idiot, standing naked on a patch of puke coloured carpet.

Second, wear wool socks. The variety doesn’t matter. Pretentious Mountain Equipment Co-op wannabe’s will tell you that Merino Wool is the only wool, but don’t let’s be silly. Before Al Gore invented the wind, oil was the only power that held any sway, and we all know that day has come and….. well never mind.

Shuffle your feet. Shuffle your feet in place like you’re in the Speed Walking event at the Olympics, except you’re doing it faster than an Actual Walking pace, and it’s not a pathetic excuse for somebody who skipped gym class in high school to be an athlete for a day.

Once you’ve been shuffling long enough that your feet feel like two fleshy lightning bolts, stop. Raise your hands, and simultaneously place the tips of your index fingers against your temples. If executed properly you should be incapable of reading further.

Now that you’re awake you should drink some fluids. Electrocution can be draining. You also probably shat yourself. Pull yourself together!

Now, before you lose sight of the point of this exercise, try to think of something. Think of anything, but bear in mind that the more outlandish the idea you try to think of, the more inventive the idea you may…think of…

I am going to zap myself.

So anyway, here are some starter ideas for the beginner. See if you can zap yourself into expanding on these static brainstorms:

1) Some kind of mind enhancement device.
2) A unicorn with plates like a stegosaurus.
3) A couch that is so comfortable you never have to leave it, to work, or to piss.
4) A way to piss on your couch without consequence.
5) A tent with a TV/Satellite dish built into one side so that you can watch Setanta Sports in the morning. Also, some way to wake up to hot sausages while camping. Gay or otherwise.

To conclude, drink rum. It’s a great way to end up writing a rambling piece in the middle of the night about inventing ways to invent shit. Then put that crap on the internet, because if Stephen Colbert ever reads it you might become famous.

Have You Seen This Boy?

Self Induced Insomnia

I’m just not writing these days. My mind is aclutter with useless thoughts. There’s nothing in there worth a tirade of late. There was a time I was filled with irk and ire, intellectual brimstone and fire, and I put it to good use. But lately I’m the cerebral equivalent of an old fortune cookie. I don’t taste very good, and you won’t find anything enlightening inside. So what’s happened? I have a pretty good idea. I’ve been drawn out of my hermitude. I used to have it pretty good; not many friends (that I talked to anyway), and a job that didn’t require conversation. But now… now I’m playing soccer again, which is good in that I’m playing soccer again, but bad in that I’m part of a social circle again, and have less time to do nothing but wonder, surmise, and study quantum physics. I also now have a job that flies in the face of all my hermitic beliefs. I answer a phone for a living, and spend all day every day talking to the kind of people I spent previous years attempting to avoid; the drabbest minds on the spectrum of smarts, the "<" to my ">", those hobbled by crippling inanity. At the end of the day I find myself brooding over the stupidity of my surroundings, instead of postulating, conjecturing, and studying quantum physics.

There was a time I did all of those things with the fervor of an Evangelist, and I’d like that time to return, so I’ve come up with a plan. The last time I found myself in this state it was a dire state indeed. I wasn’t sleeping much at all, drinking cappuccinos like Gatorade, and generally shuffling through my days like a blind deaf mute with his shoelaces tied together. I hit rock bottom. Eventually though, I had a re-awakening, a renaissance if you will, and my mind came racing back like a death proof car, smashing conventional wisdom to bits, and leaving gory, severed limns all over the information highway. My plan now is to plummet back to those depths. I need to hurl myself into the Loneliness Chasm with only my wits and a small pocket knife for protection. I need to immerse myself in my pain once more, to feed off it, and let it feed off me. Maybe a little water boarding of the brain is in order. Then, when I’m convinced I’m drowning, I’ll pick myself back up and write a novel, or maybe a magazine article, that will literaturely blow your minds.

River of Thought

My stream of thought is immense. It’s a vast flowing river. It has many tributaries, bringing with them knowledge from the Far Reaches. It is slow moving, but ever changing. It meanders to and fro, always searching for new sources, always threatening to burst its banks. My river of thought is warm and inviting, clear and refreshing. You can frolic at the water’s edge, or let yourself drift away on its gentle current and be whisked away to witness wonders beyond the scope of your Mind's Eye.

My river of thought is deep, its true depth as yet unrevealed. It is a seemingly endless torrent of contemplation, analysis, and introspection. Most dare not venture far from the surface, for the warmth and clarity that are at first so inviting soon fade to blackness and cold that pervade the soul. My river of thought is deep, much deeper than it might seem at first glance, and the depths are not to be plumbed without due care. There are things in the deep that are best left undisturbed.

Many streams are shallow. They may move quickly, but they don’t possess any significant depth. Many of these are the recipients of few tributaries, and meander very little. As a result, these streams of thought carry with them precious little nutrients. They don’t have the capacity to sustain an abundance of life. Most peter out in lakes or small ponds, never contributing to much more than the local tadpole population. Some are so lacking in substance that they run dry when things heat up, and many are so polluted and befouled by the course they take that they spread only evil thought, contaminating everything in their midst.

The final destination for my river of thought is unclear thus far. It could dry up like so many others, but I do not think this is its fate. Its thirst for knowledge is too great, and its sources too substantial for such an insignificant end. More likely it will soldier on, surviving drought and hardship, and eventually achieve that which all streams are meant to achieve; the Holy Grail of streams of thought, the Sea of Enlightenment.

Bare Knuckles

I get excited a lot. I dive right into things and do them whole assed, as if they were the very things I was meant to do. But then I get bored. Once I’ve done it a little I want to do a new thing. I need a new love, a new fancy, anything else to pique my interest. I throw it away (insert apology to every ex-girlfriend here), but it’s not because I don’t like it anymore. It’s because I love it. A long time ago, perhaps in a dream, I decided that I don’t deserve happiness, so I actively seek the things that make me happiest, and cut them out of my life. I’m a psychopath. I torture my victim. I promise him escape and then take it away. I serve him a feast, and spit in it right before his eyes. I love my captor. I trust him. I’ll do anything he asks, even though I know he hates me beyond reckoning. I’m the venomous snake who slithers through a room full of mice, jubilant that he’ll never have to hunt again, right before he bites his own tail. I’m the most self destructive person I know.

I have a new motto that I’m really excited about. It goes; “Never get excited about anything because you know you’ll only let yourself down.” I’m really going to try to stick by this one, because it’s the only motto that has ever rung so true. I do that. I get excited about lots of shit, and I always quit. I don’t do all of my favorite things; read, write, play drums, watch/play soccer. My life is like a steeplechase, except that every obstacle is a mirror that punches me in the face and tells me it hates me, and I’m always in last place. It’s a bare knuckle bout against my shadow that I have no intention of winning. I’m just waiting for myself to tap out.

Re-New Chapter

Have you ever been in the middle of a really good book, but for reasons unknown you just stop reading? You think about it occasionally, and say to yourself, “I really should start reading that book again,” but you don’t. It can take a long while to get back to reading again, and by then you’ve forgotten where the story was going. When that happens, I usually read the last chapter over, to refresh my memory, and remind myself of where I was. That’s sort of what the last year of my life has been like. I stopped moving forward, started stagnating. Eventually I forgot which way I was headed, so I skipped back a chapter to try to remember. The thing about re-reading a chapter though, is that nothing is new. There are no surprises, and the more you read, the more you realize you always knew what happens. I’ve been re-reading that chapter for some time, but I’m finally on the last page. I know how it ends, and now all I need to do is power through so I can begin a new chapter, and get on with this book. That’s always exciting.

Idle Hands

Lately, writing has taken a backseat to another of my strengths (and not a good backseat, like my proverbial driver, he’s been quite silent of late). The strength I refer to is the result of a life of complacency and/or malaise; slacking. Now, I’m not a slacker in the conventional sense, the Costanza sense. I’m a hard worker when moved. Give me a shovel and I’ll dig a tunnel to the moon if you want me to. My inner sloth however, bears its claws when it comes time to use my mind. Let’s say, for instance, that I have a blog, which I use to hone my writing skills, in hopes of one day penning a children’s book or some such thing. Let’s imagine I have loyal fans, all of whom wake up salivating each morning, thirsty for a healthy word shake in blog format. And let’s make pretend, just this once, that I try to always have something new there to nourish them. I spend most of my days trying to think of something sweet to write that night, so my fans can begin the following day with a nice warm word lump in their brain bellies. But that’s when my mind so often plays possum, or sloth, or whatever. Anyway, I’ve been a very lazy boy lately, in a literary sense.

I’d like to say I’m going to turn that back around again post haste, but let’s face it, I’d like to say a lot of things. “Professor Fingerbottom,” but that’s just fun to say. I have had a few ideas for blogs lately, like the one where I compare my life to that of Jesus (by the way, can anybody think of any reason that I may be a martyr?), but nothing stuck with me, other than this pesky Tinea. Maybe I’m out of ideas. Is the mine played out? Are there no gems left to dazzle my readers? I’ve done zombies, done birds, done gymnastics…what’s left? My mind is a blank canvas and I feel as though I’m out of brushes, or paint, or whatever. How can this be?

There is actually one reason I can think of for my lack of limn of late. I’ve pretty much become a Guitar Hero hero. I’m a Rock God on the small plastic button guitar. I can play Paranoid flawlessly behind my back, behind my head, pretty much behind any part of my body. I used my Linus to play Welcome to the Jungle, and even lit the guitar on fire to play Knights of Cydonia, but liquid plastic dripped onto my sack and I had to smother the fire with the soil from a house plant and dip my danglies in yoghurt for about two hours (hey Catfish, what would that be called?) I also suffered a rotator cuff injury trying to “drop the needle” mid-Mississippi Queen. It was an ugly incident. I’m just not as spry as I once was. I don’t have the cute, nimble fingers of a Kevin Shen, but I do pull shapes and make guitar faces like Mick Jagger (if Mick Jagger played Guitar Hero…or guitar) while I shred through Dragonforce’s Through the Fire and Flames, on medium difficulty. Perhaps I am spending a little too much time on this.

I guess I can justify all of it by saying that in spending my time playing Guitar Hero instead of doing something productive, I have, in effect, been physically training to be a writer by nimbling up my fingers for prolonged writing sessions, and virtuosic word sprints. Now I’ll be able to shred through a stream of consciousness odyssey with nary a worry about writer’s cramp. I’ve basically trained my way from amateur writer to Olympic writer, in that I’m still amateur, but that much more fit. And now that I’m back to “lean writing machine,” I can concentrate on the mental aspect, and try to shake that sloth off my back, or monkey, or whatever. First up: some quality hammock time with my newest writer’s reference, The Writer’s Journey – Mythic Structure for Writers. Stay tuned.

The Serpent and The Chimp Entertain

The Serpent and The Chimp woke up very excited. They had decided to live together, so they were moving The Chimp’s things to The Serpent’s house-barn in the country. They ate oatmeal, loaded all of The Chimp’s belongings onto The Serpent’s back, and began their long journey home. It was a very long journey. First they missed the bus, then they missed the ferry, and then they paid $3.65 for Mr. Noodles. It took the whole day to get home. They were both tired, hungry, and a little cranky when finally they arrived at the barn. All they wanted to do was slither into bed and say goodnight. But when The Serpent opened his door he found a very distressing scene. It seemed Mr. Moucifer had thrown a mouse party in The Serpent’s absence, and left little kernels of evidence all over the house. There was poop on the table, poop on the fridge, poop on the counter, and poop all over the gigantic pile of dirty dishes. There was poop on the bookshelf, poop on the couch, and The Chimp discovered Mr. Moucifer had even pooped while he slept in the bed. There was nothing that didn’t have poop on it. It was a very large party indeed. Realizing they couldn’t touch anything, and had nowhere to sleep, without getting all poopy, The Serpent and The Chimp set about cleaning up after the messy little mice.

“I set some live traps before I left” The Serpent told The Chimp. “Mr. Moucifer is just too clever. And I don’t like using death traps. It’s not very sporting.”

They continued cleaning long into the night, and even began to see humour in their situation. It was after all, The Chimp’s first night living in the barn. After a few hours The Serpent suggested they take a break. The couch was clean by then, so they had a place to relax. He went to his secret stash of homemade chocolates for a treat to cheer up The Chimp, only to find Mr. Moucifer had a sweet tooth. “Funk and Wagnall’s!” cried The Serpent, adding with a hiss, “I’ll kill the motherfather.”

The Serpent was especially upset about this. He’s a chocolate miser, and those special homemade chocolates can only be acquired once a year. It would be almost twelve months before he could get more. So he went to the cupboard and produced a rusty old blood stained guillotine, and smearing it with peanut butter said, “Let’s see our little friend outsmart this shall we?”

The next six nights were dark ones for the local rodent community. One soft, doe eyed cutie was killed each night. Bodies were piling up outside. The Serpent justified this killing spree with a twisted Darwinian logic.

“It’s survival of the fittest” he explained to a distraught The Chimp. “By pooping where we eat and sleep the mice were, in effect, attacking us, biologically, and we have a right to defend ourselves.” The Chimp was convinced, but The Serpent suspected it was just because she too loves chocolate. After a week of deaths word had gotten out. Mice stopped coming to the barn, and things began to go back to normal. The two lovers continued to scour and disinfect every cubic inch of their nest until it was almost safe to eat crumbs off the floor again, and as the weeks went by they even caught up on all the dirty, poopy laundry. Intimacy flourished once more, and they began acting as two honeymooners should; kissing, snuggling, and watching old episodes of Arrested Development, without a care in the world. At least not about rolling around in crumbly bits of feces.