Heaven is NOT Infinite

More familiar with psychology than much of anything else, I tend to be conscious of my mental state. Even more and because popular American culture, I adopt a personal nomenclature. We all do. Let’s be objective and agree Sigmund Freud’s been ascribed, as has Jesus, many catchy phrases he’s never said. I’m not misquoting Freud today, or the good Lord. I’m distorting the Kübler-Ross model. That’s a hypothesis the mortal Elisabeth Kübler-Ross introduced and called the Five Stages of Grief. The woman apparently anticipated my writing trials and my preordained lack of tribulation.

My three-plus years of lacking success in all aspects of my politicized life have taken their toll. If I were a younger and dumber man, I’d be ripe for the onerous machinations of cults such as Scientology, or God forbid, the Tea Party. Lucky, I’m debatably wise and recall a lexicon – a map, I believe it’s been implied – of my subjective reality. Dr. Kübler-Ross would say I tread five distinct paths.

That first step off my front stoop has been taken with unkempt with feet. And there, I’ve met Denial. The fact is plain in all those overlooked typos and grammar errors. Yet today, I insist I scrub them out with each revision and only grow new pimples to which I’m curiously blind and don’t see. Before I find them – and many times after I do – I get angry.

My Anger comes expressed as righteous and useless threats. Convenient or not so much, its vitriol has been especially cast toward Republicans. Now, if I were to adhere to fairness and meditation, the blame truly rests with the Tea Party. I like RINOs. But a funded band of retired, SSI-collecting racists has yanked responsible leaders ever Rightward. Or, more accurately described with every adverb: backwards, downhill or Southward. Here it is 2012 and the Confederacy rises again in the plugged hearts and senile minds of a once United America. Gop-inducted citizens (pronounced a coined ‘gawp’) act as the evil Moral Majority buried last century. And that just makes my skin burn and itch – which I’m sure had been their everlasting intention.

There is no debate anymore. Who can I possibly strike a Bargain with? I don’t talk to myself. I’m sure many people do and I safely assume they find there is no solution other than the conclusion they are truly helpless. Then comes a cornucopia of flimsy coping mechanisms. Not me. I can’t afford fresh fruits and vegetables – not living in a small apartment at the corner of the largest sprawled metropolis of the United States. Instead, I apply gray muscle and manpower and re-write. All those revisions are evidence of my mental state – especially those nine manifestations of my Pazuzu Trilogy. Alas, rejection from the field of professional publishers make me Depressed.

I fight away that unproductive dismay tooth-and-nail. Many artists embrace such sour reflection and insist they grow. Yet, personal revelation is not my goal. At my age, I want evidence of my living efforts. Something tangible must exist before I die. In that respect, I’m like the pharaohs and prepare for a corporeally-present afterlife. We all do and most fall short and merely dream for a lazy heaven. For me, death and Depression are as being asleep. Nothing gets put on paper.

Hardened by fear and urgency, I can’t Accept failure. The prospect doesn’t exist – ask any successful someone in the field of Business. The prospect is simply unrealistic and the only “out” is to die trying. Me at this point, I’ll likely die depressed or angry. That’s depression making my options flowery. I’ll very likely die angry because I haven’t gotten my revenge. That what’s my life is really about. It’s the same for everyone, isn’t it? Vengeance has been an American value since 9/11/2001. It’s new – Pearl Harbor was a whole other scenario and only old, wayward voters really remember WWII. We live in a different world.

More modern-day and personal, I once had a roommate who had already made arrangements for vindication in his afterlife. The man planned to crest a burning hill in Hell and piss upon all his enemies. He assured me they’d all be present and there with him. I’m sure Jerry Falwell is there already and prepares a place for me. I’m certain no one’s awarded his wickedness. Anyway, heaven is said to have no vacancies. The Jews, Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses have all made their reservations and have taken the full limit of the available space. Infinity my butt, mercy and justice are incompatible. Someone has got to stand forever at the bus stop – or the shore of the Styx, if that’s one inclination. The Bible even says God won’t bother to build subdivisions. And after an eternity, I suppose one’s soul will be motivated to walk itself into everlasting furnace just to get warm. So therein is your reason to help a brother. I’ve heard there’s some incontinent and harried fiend waiting for us all atop a sodden brimstone hill. You folks really should read my writing. God only knows my plans for any one of you.

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Purchase Pazuzu Trilogy Pocket books and Hardcovers at LULU.

I Did Build This

That short-sighted RNC slogan “We Built This” has certainly met plenty of rational argument. And the unyielding position of Tea Party-pandering Republicans isn’t false. It’s quite possible a single person has built his or her own business and all the infrastructure underneath. Although unlikely, it is possible and let me show you the results. I’m talking about my writing. I can safely say “I Built This.” I am that lone businessman and I suffer for the fact.

Despite my begging and pleas for assistance and support, I’ve been honest and forced to admit “No one’s helped me.” Nobody but readers have touched my writing. And even that number has dwindled. In all my work, there have been no editors, no proofreaders, no professional artists… and what I’ve generated is full of typos, grammar errors, false starts and tangential story lines. My return are poor scores (if any feedback at all) and an absent audience.

Sure, there are people I can pay who can help me reassemble my chimeric Frankenstein monsters – if I had that extra cash. But I don’t. I write because of love and necessity. I hoped I’d find someone who shares my principles (aka situation) but the climate in the United States has polarized everyone. We all want money and are stubborn when we insist opportunity exists. Unfortunately, that translates into a bleak life for everyone below the shrinking Middle Class. And if you’re not there yet, don’t expect a party when you face inevitable foreclosure and bankruptcy. The trodden poor have one honed thing – a memory of faces. Don’t think you’re hidden behind a boot heel. America is decidedly an un-Christian nation. It has always been – especially in the 1950′s and truly godless throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. We all say otherwise and print so much on money, have made our kids utter meaninglessness every school weekday and forced them to go to wholly reprehensible Sunday schools. BTW, this is where schools have failed. Stop making qualified teachers scapegoats.

But enough of my bleeding-heart, Liberal, socialist, Communist, Fascist threats. In truth, I am an intemperate moderate. On the Republican side, my heroes are Wisconsin’s Fighting Bob Lafayette and the ghost of Clint Eastwood. Sadly, Mr. Eastwood is no longer that man I idolize. I suppose it was inevitable. Did you see his speech at the 2012 RNC convention? Now there’s an old man I insist needs regular testing if he’s to carry a valid Driver’s License.

If you’ve just met me, ‘moderate’ and even ‘intemperate’ are not words I expect you’d associate with my hostile personality. And if you’ve known me for any stretched period of time, don’t blame the head injury that nearly killed me on Mother’s Day in 2007. I admit I’m a knee-jerk Reactionary. I’ve always been. It’s likely a mental illness I’m conscious about and seek no help. When I look around, I see my same symptoms in every other person. What I don’t do is own a gun. During my stunted trial in Army Reserves, I did my mental math and foresaw the danger of giving myself a firearm. And like my father, I prevent myself from harming others. (So don’t get any ideas. In the interest of being fair, I’ve warned people and some days I look for excuses.)

Half of America is populated by “balanced men.” That’s how see us and I have the sense to remain polite. So little pushes us either direction. Me again for instance – and this is why writers are accused of always speaking about themselves – I’m pulled to the far left because the uncooperative orneriness of the Tea Party. President Obama has been pulled, too. But let’s be honest. He is a responsible man. He’s remained presidential and in the middle of the road. Examine everything he’s done these past four years. Healthcare is only a Democrat issue because it’s a convenient distinction between political parties. To be fair, President Obama is closer to the dead and buried President Reagan than both subsequent Bushes.

We need centrality in the Presidency of the United States – especially because what it means for the Republicans to win is that someone must lose. They speak of sacrifice and wave flags, but they not talking about themselves. They specifically mean whole classes of people (women, minorities, the poor) must have their throats cuts. And it’s not God they want to appease. They want to satisfy pagan and gladiatorial blood lust. For instance, Karl Rove already kids about killing his own – and Jeebus, VP Cheney shoots his buddies in the face! But those facts are glossed and nearly forgotten. But that sadism is still there – you see Republicans gesture toward their throats and bellies in their speeches. That concealed guns are popular in this unregulating nation is evidence alone. No, it’s not sacrifice the GOP talks about. That is apparently a codeword for “Hunting Season is Open.” And the most dangerous prey is man – a fictional, leftward, liberal man. Christ, that’s me! How am I to react?

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Debbie’s Exasperated Hellmouth

Debbie’s Hellmouth is the book I’ve been shopping around to Old World publishers and I can’t get one interested, so f*** those guys. I just need readers, people who buy self-published stories. And if I can’t get those, then f*** you too. My stories die with me. And so goes the world. Everyone sees I write horror stories, right? Visceral horror, and that’s part of Debbie’s Hellmouth. And an expansion of my Wister Town stories.

My Wister Town forays expand my Lovecraft-inspired mythology into the real-world – Southern Wisconsin, in fact. Wister Town is a fictionalized version of my hometown. How it got that name is another story – a two-sided tale. I won’t say but I’ll toss clues. Think Lovecraft’s ghostwritten The Mound, my pseudonym and derogative nicknames for Swiss immigrants. Put them together and you’ve got a mystery. With some detective work, readers can discover who I really am and assume my thoughts. That is, of course, if people are interested. To that I reply “I’ve warned you about me.”

What have folks to worry about? Well, Debbie Menon is a real estate agent back in her hometown, Wister Town, Wisconsin. She finds herself ensnared in a Hellish mess when she attempts to sell a damned house – damned as in evil. I’ve tried appealing to young women with Debbie; an independent, artistic spirit who is slightly mad and blasphemous. I had hoped a professional publisher would help me tell the story – give me legitimacy as an author, but alas, I am still a suspicious, unknown author.

So what is this story about?

Debbie Menon has a unique pseudo-Victorian house she must sell – because her soul is held in proxy for that same disowned portal into Hell. Yet the evil nature of the place makes it un-sellable. Fortunately, Debbie’s not totally helpless – she’s been to Art school.

Locally, the place is known as the Witch’s house and stands in gossipy Wister Town. The house is named for the mysterious Betulha Dohrman, whom no one has ever seen. The old woman had vanished with an unannounced debt. That debt becomes the onus of the Mikelmeier Real Estate office. The selling agent, Debbie Menon, too, once lived near the house in this small, Swiss-themed city.

Debbie had moved away to Los Angeles so that she might utilize her Art education and find work, but that didn’t work-out. Consequently, she’s moved back. Home again, she falls in love with a city alderman, Jerry Leutenegger then quickly establishes a career selling real estate. The Witch’s house becomes the bane of her otherwise successful and happy life back in southern Wisconsin.

Debbie learns her soul is held in proxy until an owner is found. This is where the story of Debbie’s Hellmouth begins. The house – or specifically the tumorish and displaced widow’s watch atop the faux-Victorian home – wants to break loose and spread evil. Elements of that evil already pester the residents of Wister Town.  What happens now with this cursed house only worsens the situation.

The Pocketbook is currently available from my storefront on LULU – here.

Ebooks available from Amazon – here.

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Ordinary Citizen Health Records

The plight of the uninsured, Obamacare, complicated and digitized insurance records put my mind in a restless daydreams. I dream of younger, healthier days when most of life’s complexity was easily reduced to the simplicity of a tabletop, pen-and-paper role playing game. I wake and yet imagine their mechanics make practical life skills. Hit Points, for instance, as drafted in Wizards of the Coast’s Dungeons and Dragons, are easy to understand and are crucial. The equivalent are called Heat Sinks in FASA Corporation’s BattleTech. Although, players don’t die in BattleTech when their Mech runs out of Heat Sinks. It’s a little more complicated than that, but I’m trying to make life simple.

In that respect, I’ve cobbled together self-help health forms for ordinary citizens. In peril of sounding Socialist, especially in this far-Right, politically Luddite climate, I was purposely egalitarian and awarded everyone the same amount of points, circles or whatever you call them. Oh, that’s right, you can copy these sheets hosted on Deviantart. They’re generic and practically sexless. You can call those circles whatever you like – my only rule – once they’re filled-in, you’re done. Finished. That means whether you’re dead or exhausted, hungry, you can decide. You’re in charge and manage your own health care. That rings especially true in the USA.

I did make separate sheets for males and females, as distinguished by the images. Most of the human population is old and saggy. And because everyone is getting poorer, they don’t wear the nicest clothes. These two are in their Sunday-best.

Because we’re in America, I’ve included the option to purchase extra points. Extra points are useful if you make those circles represent life-points. Your life is your own hands.

Premonition of War in America

“One of the most disturbing aspects of the religious mind is this strange detachment the devout impose upon themselves. They claim God speaks to them. They claim they ask Him and He speaks back to them through influencing their emotions. The devout say things such as “He fills me with joy and I know my decision is correct.“

That is truly frightening. I wonder and do suspect the need these people exercise is some projection of co-dependence. In time of indecision, they seek a closeness and the affirmation a presence implies. And that’s fine, it’s a productive coping mechanism. But it is a state of vulnerability.

I fear the perversion encouraged by the dissociative thinking – that has been encouraged. I fear the absolution of personable responsibility. Faith is a gateway drug – in borrowing popular nomenclature. If there is another Civil War in America. This will be that avenue. Certainly, politics will be the start, but the most devastating conflict in America will be a war against faith, the spoiled Good faith.”

- Matthew Sawyer

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Purchase Pazuzu Trilogy Pocket books and Hardcovers at LULU.