A Point of Collapse

They lied to me.

My job didn't get eliminated, I merely got demoted and transferred to another department and one of my clerks was given my job. The Help Desk has been extended.
I found this out via the grapevine, so I asked a a trusted co-worker if he knew anything as to why such a change would be made. He mentioned a particular document that I had badly mishandled a couple of days ago. He had been told by our mutual boss that I got shit-canned for botching that document.

Damn. It wasn't that big a deal, I found the mistake and fixed it myself before it left the office, so why would I get demoted for that? Then it dawned on me that the document mishap occurred the day after I was demoted- it was part of the transfer process- so that couldn't be the cause. So why the demotion? My work was good- it's well-documented, fer chrissakes, but there's a rumor going around that I got dumped for a fuck-up that happened after I got dumped. The chronology was left out of the scuttlebutt and I'm looking like a total chump as a result.

Today I was given the task of sitting at a empty table and doing nothing. For awhile, I helped another clerk stuff envelopes, but our boss came over and made him sit at a different table, leaving me to sit and wait for Godot.

I used to be deeply involved with the office flow and, until recently, I have always had something to do...but now, I have basically been told to go sit in the corner until told otherwise. I can't read a book or do puzzles, just sit. It's pure, unadulterated hell. I cannot stand enforced nothingness.

I endured this until 1:15, by which time I could feel the rather high ceiling closing in on me, and I wondered what it would be like to have a full-out panic attack at work, a panic episode that occurred while consumed with rage, depression, betrayal and self-doubt.

I'm pretty sure that if I had the sort of meltdown described above in a Federal office, the consequences would be intrusive, severe and long-lasting, so I asked permission to leave work early.

It was granted. It's going to hurt my paycheck, but I can't put a price on self-preservation.

I went home, changed clothes and walked around the neighborhood, trying to decide if I should go back to the office tomorrow or not.

Failure Is The New Salvation

Bear With The Technical Mumbo-Jumbo

Our Help Desk phones are supposed to interface with our computers by using software that tracks the minutia of each call routed through it. The software is a micro-manager's wet dream, e.g, a manager in a remote location could observe that a particular clerk in some distant office was taking an average of 6.8 seconds to answer their phone. The manager could then broadcast a morale-crushing memo requiring all phones to be answered within 5.0 seconds...the software is capable of generating endless gobs of statistics and there is nothing in the workplace quite so dangerous as a power-obsessed long-distance manager with access to vast amounts of statistics.

Luckily, the system crashed on Day One and hasn't shown so much as a flicker of life since.

Pants On Fire

I missed most of it, but there was a incident today that went like this:

A field agent came in with a boxful of "broken" computer gizmos that belonged to his crew and said he had spent three hours on a Help Desk call. No one at the Desk had any knowledge of such a call and at some point my Boss got involved in the exchange. My Boss asked Field Dude for his ticket number from the call, seeing as how our Ticket system does work...the agent gave my Boss a bogus number and a search by name and other info turned up nothing- at which point the field agent admitted that he lied-LIED!- about the three-hour phone call because he thought he'd get faster results if he submitted a falsified complaint in person.

My Boss was still in a state of disbelief when he told me what happened. I thought he was kidding, but he wasn't- the guy really did make up the whole thing and get caught red-handed in his web of lies. There's a great deal more to the story, but the point is that once someone has admitted to lying on a critical issue, it's impossible for me to give credibility to their words regarding anything that follows. This is true in all situations, not just work.


Dude, Where Is My Car?

Last Friday I went out back to fetch something from my car. My car was nowhere to be seen.
On a hunch, I called the company that tows unauthorized vehicles from our building's lot.

Me: I think you stole my car.

Them: Where was it and what make and model?

Me: [answers questions]. It had a parking decal on it. I live here and I pay for that parking space. You stole my car.

Them: Can you get it today? It will cost $650. We have had it since Wednesday and it is $100 per day to store it.

Me: You stole it. I'm not giving you money, in fact, I'm getting ready to call the police...who told you to tow my car anyway?

Them: Well, we will waive the $250 processing fee.

Me: Great. I'm suddenly $250 closer to hiring an attorney.

Them:...why?

Me: To sue you.

Them(squirrely-like): Um, it was your, um, er, Property Manager who called.

So I called my landlord and he adamantly denied having my car towed. He sounded genuinely angry over the incident and said he would call the Towing Trolls. I had my car back on Monday, no charge to me...now I have to clean it out and sell it to make room for my new car.

Anybody in the market for fifteen gallons of gas and four new tires? I'm asking $750, which I know sounds like a lot- but it comes with a free* 1990 Volvo 780!


*If I waive the $250 processing fee and the storage charges.

Confucius in 2008

A disciple once asked Confucius what would he would do to reform a corrupt State.

"We must correct language," replied the scholar, "if language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant , then what ought to be done remains undone; if this remains undone, morals and art will deteriorate, justice will go astray. If justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion.
Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said.
This matters above everything."

Confucius, who was a skilled diplomat and political adviser as well as a philosopher and teacher, was making an argument that society's leaders must, above all, be honest and forthright; and that the consequences of deceit and miscommunication would include moral entropy and societal decay.

Confucius disliked 'spinning' the truth.

Confucius would have loathed George W. Bush and his forked-tongued cabal of serial liars.

1) "...if language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant..."

Here are some of the major arguments used to support the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq:
We need to invade Iraq because Saddam has WMD...we are spreading freedom... we need to stay the course, otherwise all the pointless death and destruction that has already occured would be even more tragic and futile than it already is...

What those words really mean:

There were no WMD and we knew it. We are using the war as a means to redistribute the nation's wealth upward and outward- for instance, we'll give billions of dollars to war profiteers like Halliburton, who will then re-locate to Dubai in order to avoid paying taxes on the $22.6 billion in annual revenues generated by the no-bid contracts awarded to them as a result of this unjust war...we will also give billions of dollars in tax subsidies to oil companies who are already experiencing record-breaking profits - this war is too profitable to consider halting . BTW, you will never pay less than two dollars for a gallon of gasoline again, ever.
Vote for us.

2) "...if what is said is not what is meant , then what ought to be done remains undone..."

K-A-T-R-I-N-A . Undone.

Stem cell research. Undone.

What we should be doing is building schools, hospitals and factories in America. We need a Health Care plan that works and the $15 billion dollars we just gave to Exxon, Conoco et.al.
ought to be enough money to pay for that. We don't need to cut spending on social services, we need to curtail funding on war, warfare being essentially an anti-social disservice to humanity.

We can also extrapolate this from #2 : 'what ought to remain undone gets done'.
The endless occupation of Iraq would be a good example of something that should have remained undone. Monetary gifts to the world's wealthiest corporations would be another.

3) "... morals and art will deteriorate, justice will go astray."

Morals? Modern morality is dictated by self-appointed arbiters like Ted Haggard, a self-loathing , homophobic cock-sucking meth-sniffer; Tom DeLay , an unrepentant money-washing embezzler and all-around political tool and William Bennett, a gambling addict who blew over $8 million dollars on slot machines and call girls before declaring himself America's "Values Czar."

Our chronically moralizing President is an alcoholic whose re-election was , in part, due to the fact the more Americans would rather "have a beer with" Dubya than with John Kerry.
Drinking with alcoholics is a bad idea. Electing them is worse.

Art? Who needs art? We have entertainment. If we ignore art and concentrate on entertainment , we can simultaneously dismiss and ensure the deterioration of art.
One of the most popular entertainments of our time is little more than a glorified Karaoke contest, punctuated with petty insults and laden with contrived and grossly undignified debasements and humiliations, self-inflicted and otherwise. Americans know more about their Idols than they know of their Congressional representatives...another famous ancient philosopher warned us against the worship of false idols, but today few pay more than self-serving lip service to that man's words.


Justice? In my estimation, the only noteworthy accomplishment of Paris Hilton's entire lifetime is her inadvertently calling attention to the obvious inequity of our Justice system.

I have my own experience with Justice:
In 2000, I was facing 25-125 years in prison based on some seriously trumped-up Federal drug charges- I had five charges arising from possession of under .8 of a gram (two roaches) of marijuana.
My expensive lawyer told me flat-out: " If you were black, I could probably get the minimum sentence- 25 years- for you. Since you're white, I may be able to get you off."
I served 18 months of supervised probation- which I violated twice without serious punishment- and was discharged. It's not fair, but it did work for me.

Since then, I've had no illusions about the 'justness' of our Justice system.

4) "If justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion."

Confucius didn't mean that the people would literally come to a halt and stand in the streets, scratching themselves. He meant that people would lose sight of the Way, that they would lose the ability to think critically and act effectively and would therefor be defenseless against the machinations of malevolent leadership. In essence, they'd be too busy tracking the irrelevant activities of their False Idols to notice what their leaders were really doing.
Confucius would have hated 'reality' TV.

5) "Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. "

Modern leaders aren't just arbitrary- their words are surreal, inarticulate and incoherent.

"There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns."
-Former BushCo Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, on those elusive WMD's, and why we went to Iraq in the first place.

"Success is not no violence."
- Current Resident George W. Bush, using a double negative to describe his Iraq 'strategery'.

The prognostications and observations of Confucius were not couched in ambiguity and political doublespeak.
What he said would happen, has happened.

Is that clear?

Dear John

John Hodgman has hurt my feelings. Deeply.

He didn't bother to notify me that he has a "blog". Mr. Hodgman is an expert in organic and electronic message-sending , so I can only take this oversight on his part as the emotionally devastating personal attack that it so clearly is.

I have feelings, you know. Or you would if you were really the expert you claim to be. John.



Back at the end of 2005, I recorded a radio interview with Mr. Hodgman and his book-tour partners , David Rees and Jonathon Coulton.

We were upstairs at the bookshop where the traveling trio was giving a performance and I (who, like most people at that time, had no idea who this "Hodgman" character was) started leafing through his book. Hodgman and Rees were embroiled in an incoherent imbroglio with the store owner about the number of backstage lavatories and something about a contract rider... jesus, these dudes are worse than a thousand guitarists, I thought, thumbing Hodgman's tome as the argument gradually lurched into an interview.

Hmmm... HMM! I reached over and clicked the voice recorder off.

"Cut."

"Wha... huh?" Hodgman looked puzzled. Rees and Coulton looked for a bar.

"You stole my idea."

"I did what?", asked the Man Who Would Be PC.

"You stole my idea. I invented the idea of being an expert on everything. I even have a blog about it. I make stuff up and people believe it. I am the expert expert. You are stealing my fame."

Hodgman tried using facts , copyright notices and expert opinions to prove that I was wrong, which only served to make my case because, as we both knew, an expert is someone who makes stuff up.
And he, said I, was making stuff up . The internet just wasn't big enough for two experts. What could be done?

Secrecy ensued. Whispers were shouted.

We reached an agreement. A magical ritual was devised.
I would give Hodgman 15 minutes of my Fame, and in return , he would deface a copy of his book, crossing out his name and replacing it with my own. After a suitable period of time ( six to eight weeks was our verbal agreement) had elapsed, the Fame I had loaned to Hodgman would return to me seven-fold, giving me nearly two hours return for my 15 minute investment.

That was in 2005.

I see Hodgman everywhere.
He lies to John Stewart on TV.
He's a celebrity punching-bag for some trendy kid named Mac.
He's even showing up on the Internet.

OK. He's had his fifteen minutes. Where is my two hours?

We had a deal.

So I dug out the book that we had used to seal our negotiations.

To my shock and horror, his name had mysteriously appeared where mine used to be. It was a Dorian Grey moment of clarity.



I should have known better than to make deals with a gentleman who is an expert on "common short and long cons" (pg. 148)

I'm not famous and my book is ruined. Some deal.

Hobbies and Lies

" Make a left here- the side street- now kill the lights."

"Kill the...why? Oh. Right."

I never was able to lie to Kathy- she was smarter than me and besides, she knew every trick- but this was different. Earlier that evening I had told her a story that would have caused most women to flee in justifiable panic- but not Kathy.

Her response was : " We can take my car."
I loved her.
I had lied to her.
Now we were in her car heading downhill through the darkness towards a quiet suburban cul-de-sac and that lie was on my mind as I gave her instructions. It's for her own good, I told myself.

"Let me out here- kill the engine and coast down to the circle. Turn the car around and park in front of one of the houses they aren't finished building yet...turn the motor on but keep the lights off and watch for me in the street."

"Watch for you? Are you planning on leaving in a hurry?"

"Yes."

"I'm unlocking the backdoor then. Don't waste time running to the passenger side, just bail in the back."

I loved her alright. She knew all the tricks.

A kiss for luck later and I was standing in front of a dimly- lit rancher, a much older house than most of the cookie-cutter prefabs that were encroaching on it.
Those newer dwellings were not here the last time I was in this neighborhood- they looked vacant, unfinished, unoccupied.
Good.
Neighbors might ruin my plan.

Not that I had much of a plan- Kathy was the planner and I couldn't tell her about this- I wanted her to be able to pass a polygraph if it came down to it, so she couldn't know what I was going to do. What I thought I was going to do, anyway.

From the front, the ranch house seemed empty and dark, but as I crept closer I could hear the noodling, vaporous notes of a Grateful Dead guitar solo, and as I rounded a carefully placed cluster of tall shrubbery I saw that the rear of the home was well-lit, illumination pouring out of the sliding glass kitchen doors and into the ill-kept backyard. It sounded like a small party was in progress-damn!- and there was a tall wooden fence that wasn't here last time.

Last time. That was supposed to be the final visit, but here I was again. Lies had brought me back.

The gate was locked.

I found a plastic trash can outside the garage and gently rolled it towards the backyard. The contents of the receptacle clattered and rattled as I inched it along and I was glad that the music inside house was so loud.
I placed the can next to the fence and climbed onto the sagging lid.

Crap. There were two hippie kids sitting at a wooden table on the back porch, one boy , one girl. The music was coming from a boom box on the table between them.

They looked to be a few years younger than myself, they probably should have been in High School. They hadn't seen me or heard my approach, the boy was engrossed in rolling a joint and the girl was talking - I couldn't make out the words, but she was speaking in vacant and reverential tones...probably extolling the virtues of Ralph, the man I was here to visit.

If I timed it right, I could probably drop onto the porch and sneak into the kitchen without either kid seeing me. I pushed myself up off the wobbly trash can and scrambled over the fence.

The momentum from my push was too much for the unsteady wastebin and it fell over backwards with a clatter, almost drowning out the loud thud I made when I landed on the wooden porch. The two kids turned around in stoned surprise.

"What's up?" , asked the boy.

"Are you OK?", the girl followed.

Jesus, I thought, I must look like one of them except I'm wearing all black and grey sneakers; not tie-dyes and barefeet like them , my shoulder-length hair is tied in a perfect Kathy-made ponytail much like the one the boy has- a few years ago and I could have been that kid. Not anymore. Things had changed since then.

Why are they so relaxed? I don't have a disguise- can't they tell what I am? Don't they know why I'm here?
I hadn't expected a calm response. I hadn't expected any response.

This wasn't supposed to be that sort of visit. I had murder on my mind and these dumb kids were asking me if I was OK, as if it were normal for other kids to appear from out of nowhere in the middle of the night.

Knowing Ralph's "hobbies", it probably was normal.

Still, I had come here to kill Ralph and it pissed me off that these Deadhead kids didn't find me threatening. They should be scared.
They should run.

The boy puffs up the joint, offers it to me.

"No thanks, I'm here to see Ralph."

"Oh. He's inside, upstairs."

"Upstairs? There is no upstairs in this house."

"Yeah, man. The attic, ya know?", the boy looks at me suspiciously, offers me the joint again. "You aren't a cop are you? You have to tell us if you are."

"Yeah, maaaaan", I answer, mocking his stoner drawl while I lie to him , "I am a cop. This place is getting raided in five minutes. You have 60 seconds to get away."

"Whoah..." says the boy.
"But our stuff is inside," protests the girl.

"45 seconds", I reply and they vanish into the night.
The backyard gate is now unlocked.
Good.

I enter into the kitchen- empty. I peer into the darkened living room- there are heavy blankets on the windows - for privacy, I'm sure; cocooned bodies slumber on the two sofas and most of the floor space, probably teenage runaways. The room smells unclean.

Like I said, Ralph has "hobbies".

Halfway down the adjoining hallway there's a pull-down trapdoor staircase leading up to the attic. Another tangle-haired hippie boy sits there, he's awake but he's just sitting there- I don't even know if he's aware that I'm watching him.

What the fuck is wrong with these kids? Have their lives been so full of fucked-up craziness that they don't even blink when a killer crosses their path? Is it so bad for them that they consider this house to be a 'safe place'?

I can't allow myself to worry about that right now.

When I approach him I notice the boy's wide pie-eyes. He's tripping really, really hard; no wonder he doesn't respond- I'm an hallucination.
He should be scared.
I'm terrified of myself. Why isn't anyone afraid of me?

I can't get upstairs without moving the hippie and I move him rather roughly.
I want him to be afraid.
I want him to be hurt, but all he does is roll on the scuffed wooden floor and look up at me with eyes that are larger than his universe.

"Oh man, what're you doin'...can't go up there... Ralph is busy...whoah..."

Oh hell. This pitiful kid is on sentry duty for Ralph. That means Ralph is probably fucking this kid's teenage girlfriend right now.

Hobbies.

Ralph is evil but he's not stupid. Halfway up the rickety folding stairs there's a hanging bead curtain with metal wind chimes tied to the beaded threads. It's going to be impossible to get through it without causing the chimes to ring.

So much for a surprise attack.

The kid on the floor starts yelling.

"Hey! Hey!..." , his voice trails off, I look back and see he's noticed something cosmic in the woodgrain of the floorboards and is staring intensely at nothing.

Nothing left to do but rush upstairs.

For a moment I'm lost. The upstairs grotto is a patchwork nightmare of every tacky piece of pseudo-counterculture trash I've ever seen: psychedelic paisley tapestries, Che; Mao; Lennon and blacklight Hendrix posters vie for room on the crowded walls, incense fills the air - and of course there's plenty of Ralph's paintings - stupidly, I find myself wondering how they are affixed to the sloping interior walls of the attic hideaway...
I barely notice the two naked girls on the mattress across the room and they don't seem to notice me either- but Ralph has seen me.

He's scared and naked, his eyes only need one glance to know why I'm here - he starts scanning the room for something...his clothes? A weapon?

Finally, someone who is afraid of me.

To the children in this house, Ralph is a savior; a messiah; a God; a Prophet; a Shepherd who loves his flock.
He is their Family.

To me, Ralph is a pedophile who can't find his pants.

To Ralph, I am The End.

There's nothing in the room to use as a weapon, this is a fuck-chamber of pillows and mattresses. I should have brought something with me.

If I hadn't lied to Kathy, she'd have known what to bring and what to do with it after I was finished, but I had lied to her and now it was just me, my bare hands and a naked Ralph.
I hadn't even worn gloves.
My fingerprints are all over the murder scene and the victim isn't even dead yet.

So much for plans.

Ralph starts telling me lies. He is really sorry. He didn't know. It was a mistake. Let him explain...after all, he's known me since I was little boy, he's my Mother's friend, he didn't mean to hurt her...Ralph has just said all the wrong things and he suddenly knows it. He knows.

He stops lying and the room is silent except for the muffled weeping coming from one of his teenage 'brides'.

I haven't thrown a punch in years- I am no warrior- but I get really lucky and knock Ralph down with one blow to the face.
He whimpers in unison with the girls he had been molesting.

His penis attempts to retreat into his greying pubic hair and I assist it with my right foot, wishing I'd worn my hiking boots and not my sneakers. More lousy planning. Kathy would have made sure I had boots, gloves and other proper tools for the job.
Why did I lie to her?

Frustrated, I kick Ralph in the balls. Something feels squishy under my foot and Ralph suddenly gets pale and sweaty- I'm almost certain that he's lost track of what is happening to him - it's hard to separate the sounds he makes from the noises the girls across the room are making- pure animal sounds of fear and suffering. Some are coming from me.

This is the fear that I wanted. This is the suffering that I felt.

Feel this, Ralph?

In the teeth. This is for my mother.

In the nose. This is for the girls up here.

In the ribs. This is for the children downstairs.

I grind the sole of my sneaker into his face and that one is for me.

I am done.

I've been here too long. Kathy will be worried. Again, I wish I hadn't lied to her.

I told her I was coming here to buy cocaine and she knows people sometimes get hurt in the course of such transactions- I don't want her coming in to see if I'm OK. She doesn't need to know about Ralph. She doesn't need to know this much about me.

Ralph is moving. He's shakily reaching for a wooden box and I think he's probably got a gun in it- I don't care anymore.
I am done. I need to move but I can't.

Ralph opens the box and reaches into it.

I brace myself for the inevitable impact.

Ralph's hands reach towards me. He's holding a wad of cash and a bundle of cocaine packages.

The bastard thinks this is about money. He thinks it's about the drugs. He thinks I'm robbing him.

He knows who I am and he knows what he has done and he still thinks this is a robbery.

He thinks it's about anything except what he is.

This isn't about money .
I scream this at him- or I try to, but I have no voice left. I am done.

I slap the contraband out of his hands and start towards the stairs when I remember the lie I told Kathy. I reach down and gather a handful of twist-tied cocaine bundles and place them in my jeans pocket before I leave. I don't touch the money.

Without thinking, I walk downstairs, past the broken tripping boy and exit through the front door- the lost children are stirring a little bit, but no one is awake or alert, probably drugged or drunk.

Kathy is waiting outside in her blue Mustang, the headlights off. I walk around to the passenger's side and get in.

"You get it OK?" , she asks.

"Yeah, sorry I took so long...you know how it goes with this stuff..."

"So long? You were only in there for a couple minutes."

"Oh. It seemed like a long time."

When we get home she asks me again how the deal went. Was it OK?

"Of course it was OK- check this shit out. It's pure rock."

" You are lying to me."

"No, I'm not. Everything's cool."

"Then why do you have blood on your shoes?"

That was the last time I lied to Kathy.