Chapter Two

“I think of art, at its most significant, as a DEW line, a Distant Early Warning System that can always be relied on to tell the old culture what is beginning to happen to it.”                Marshall McLuhan  
  
I attended Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania because my father was incarcerated at the prison located in the same town.  My tuition subsidized to a large extent by G.I. Bill, still a significant means of financing an education for generations of emotionally wasted war veterans. “The United States Penitentiary (USP Lewisburg)” is a high-security federal prison for male inmates. An adjacent satellite prison camp houses minimum-security male offenders. My father was strictly high-security, convicted of various crimes against humanity, unindicted for sundry others. My father liked having me close by, someone on the outside he trusted, who also happened to be on his approved Visitor List. As instructed, I became his conduit for substances both illicit, like drugs, and the purely contraband, a variety of Italian cheeses, salamis, prepared baked casseroles of eggplant parmesan, cannoli, Baci chocolate from Perugia, in Tuscany, south of Florence, and numerous bottles of Italian wine, pungent aperitifs, Grappa, digestive stimulants and sweet liquors. I remained the good son until the day he died, the source of most of the mess I got myself into later on, and specifically the main caper at the heart of this story.

I must confess: my father scared the **** out of me.  Particularly during those years when he was not in jail, those years he spent at home, years coinciding roughly with my early adolescence.  These were my molding clay years, what the amateur psychologists write off with the term: “impressionable years hypothesis.” In his own twisted, grease-ball theory of child rearing, my father may have been applying the “guinea padrone hypothesis,” in his mind, nothing more certain would toughen me up for whatever he and/or Life had planned for me. Actually, his aspirations for me-given my peculiar pedigree--were non-existent as far as the family business went. He knew I’d never be either a Don or a Capo di Tutti Capi, or an Underboss or Sotto Capo.)  A Caporegime—mid-management to be sure, with as many as ten crews of soldiers reporting to him-- was also, for me, out of the question. Dad was a soldier in and of the Lucchese Family, strictly a blue-collar, knock-around kind of guy. But even soldier status—which would have meant no rise in Mafioso caste for him—was completely out of the question, never going to happen for me.

A little background: the Lucchese Family originated in the early 1920s with Gaetano “Tommy” Reina, born in 1889 in Corleone, Sicily. You know the town and its environs well. Fran Coppola did an above average job cinematizing the place in his Godfather films.  Coppola: I am a strict critic when it comes to my goombah, would-be French New Wave auteur Francis Ford Coppola.  Ever since “One From the Heart, 1982”--one of the biggest Hollywood box office flops & financial disasters of all time--he’s been a bit thin-skinned when it comes to criticism.  So, I like to zing him when I can. Actually, “One From the Heart” is worth seeing again, not just for Tom Waits soundtrack--the film’s one Academy Award nomination—but also Natasha Kinski’s ***: always Oscar-worthy in my book. My book? Interesting expression, and factually correct for once, given what you are reading right now.

Tommy Reina was the first Lucchese Capo di Tutti Capi, the first Boss of All the Bosses. By the 1930s the Luccheses pretty much controlled all criminal activity in the Bronx and East Harlem. And Reina begat Pinzolo who begat Gagliano who begat Tommy Three Finger Brown Lucchese (who I once believed, moonlighted as a knuckle ball relief pitcher for Yankees.)
Three Finger Brown gave the Lucchese Family its name. And Tommy begat Carmine Tramunti, who begat Anthony Tony Ducks Corallo. From there the succession gets a bit crazy. Tony Ducks, convicted of Rico charges, goes to prison, sentenced to life.  From behind bars he presides through a pair of candidates most deserving the title of boss: enter Vittorio Little Vic Amuso and Anthony Gaspipe Casso.  Although Little Vic becomes Boss after being nominated by Casso, it is Gaspipe really calling the shots, at least until he joins Little Vic behind bars.
Amuso-Casso begat Louis Louie Bagels Daidone, who begat the current official boss, Stephen Wonderboy Crea.  According to legend, Boss Crea got his nickname from Bernard Malamud’s The Natural, a certain part of his prodigious anatomy resembling the baseball bat hand-carved by Roy Hobbs. To me this sounds a bit too literary, given the family’s SRI Lexile/Reading Performance Scores, but who am I to mock my peoples’ lack of liberal arts education?

Begat begat Begato. (I goof on you, kind reader. Always liked the name Begato in the context of Bible-flavored genealogy. Mille grazie, King James.)

Lewisburg Penitentiary has many distinguished alumni: Whitey Bulger (1963-1965), Jimmy Hoffa (1967-1971) and John Gotti (1969-1972), for example.  And fictionally, you can add Paulie Cicero played by Paul Scorvino in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, not to be confused with Paulie Walnuts Gualtieri played by Tony Sirico from the HBO TV series The Sopranos. Nor, do I refer to Paulie Gatto, the punk who ratted out Sonny Corleone in Coppola’s The Godfather, you know: “You won’t see Paulie no more,” according to fat Clemenza, played by the late Richard “Leave the gun, take my career” Castellano, who insisted to the end that he wasn’t bitter about his underwhelming post-Godfather film career. I know this for a fact from one of my cousins in the Gambino Family. I also know that the one thing the actor Castellano would never comment on was a rumor that he had connections to organized crime, specifically that he was a nephew to Paulie Castellano, the Gambino crime family boss who was assassinated in 1985, outside Midtown New York’s Sparks Steak House, an abrupt corporate takeover commissioned by John Teflon Don Gotti. But I’m really starting to digress here, although I am reminded of another interesting historical personage, namely Joseph Crazy Joe Gallo, who was also terminated “with extreme prejudice” while eating dinner at a restaurant.  Confused? And finally--not to be confused with Paul Muldoon, poetry gatekeeper at The New Yorker magazine, that Irish **** scumbag who consistently rejects publication of my work. About two years ago I started including the following comment in my on-line Contact Us, poetry submission:  “Hey Paulie, Eat a Bag of ****!”

This may come as a surprise, Gentle Reader, but I am a poet, not a Wise Guy.  For reasons to be explained, I never had access to the family business. I am also handicapped by the Liberal Arts education I received, infected by a deluge, a veritable Katrina ****** of classic literature.  That stuff in books rubs off after awhile, and I suppose it was inevitable. I couldn’t help evolving for the most part into a warm-blooded creature, unlike the reptiles and frogs I grew up with.

Again, I am a poet not a wise guy. And, first and foremost, I am a human being. Cold-blooded, I am not. I generate my own heat, which is the best definition I know for how a poet operates. But what the hell do I know? Paulie “Eat a Bag of ****” Muldoon doesn’t think much of my work. And he’s the ******* troll guarding the New Yorker’s poetry gate. Nevertheless, I’m a Poet, not a Wise Guy.  I repeat myself, I know, but it is important to establish this point right from the start of this narrative, because, if you don’t get that you’re never going to get my story.

Maybe the best way to explain my predicament—And I mean PREDICAMENT in the sense of George Santayana: "Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament." (www.brainyquote.com), not to be confused with George’s son Carlos, the Mexican-American rock star: Oye Como Va, Babaloo!

www.youtube.com/watch?v...YouTube Dec 20, 2011 - Uploaded by a106kirk1, The Best of Santana. This song is owned by Santana and Columbia Records.

Maybe the best way for me to explain my predicament is with a poem, one of my early works, unpublished, of course, by Paulie “Eat a Bag of ****” Muldoon:

“CRAZY JOE REVISITED”  
        
by Benjamin Disraeli Sekaquaptewa-Buonaiuto

We WOPs respect criminality,
Particularly when it’s organized,
Which explains why any of us
Concerned with the purity of our bloodline
Have such a difficult time
Navigating the river of respectability.

To wit: JOEY GALLO.
WEB-BIO: (According to Bob Dylan)
“Born in Red Hook, Brooklyn in the year of who knows when,
Opened up his eyes to the tune of accordion.

“Joey” Lyrics/Send "Joey" Ringtone to your Cell
Joseph Gallo, AKA: "Joey the Blond."
He was a celebrated New York City gangster,
A made member of the Profaci crime family,
Later known as the Colombo crime family,

That’s right, CRAZY JOE!
One time toward the end of a 10-year stretch,
At three different state prisons,
Including Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York,
Joey was interviewed in his prison cell
By a famous NY Daily News reporter named Joe McGinnis.
The first thing the reporter sees?
One complete wall of the cell is lined with books, a
Green leather bound wall of Harvard Classics.
After a few hours mainly listening to Joey
Wax eloquently about his life,
A narrative spiced up with elegant summaries,
Of classic Greek theory, Roman history,
Nietzsche and other 19th Century German philosophers,
McGinnis is completely blown away by Inmate Gallo,
Both Joey’s erudition and the power of his intellect,
The reporter asks a question right outta
The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie:
“Mr. Gallo, I must say,
The power of your erudition and intellect
Is simply overwhelming.
You are a brilliant man.
You could have been anything,
Your heart or ambition desired:
A doctor, a lawyer, an architect . . .
Yet you became a criminal. Why?”

Joey Gallo: (turning his head sideways like Peter Falk or Vincent Donofrio, with a look on his face like Go Back to Nebraska, You ******* Momo!)

“Understand something, Sonny:
Those kids who grew up to be,
Doctors and lawyers and architects . . .

They couldn’t make it on the street.”

Gallo later initiated one of the bloodiest mob conflicts,
Since the 1931 Castellammare War,
And was murdered as a result of it,
While quietly enjoying,
A plate of linguini with clam sauce,
At a table--normally a serene table--
At Umberto’s Clam House.

Italian Restaurant Little Italy - Umberto's Clam House (www.umbertosclamhouse.com)
In Little Italy New York City 132 Mulberry Street, New York City | 212-431-7545.

Whose current manager --in response to all restaurant critics--
Has this to say:
“They keep coming back, don’t they?
The joint is a holy shrine, for chrissakes!
I never claimed it was the food or the service.
Gimme a ******* break, you momo!
I should ask my paisan, Joe Pesci
To put your ******* head in a vise.”

(Again, Martin Scorsese getting it exactly right, This time in  . . . Casino (1995) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0112641/Internet Movie Database Rating: 8.2/10 - ‎241,478 votes Directed by Martin Scorsese. With Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci, James Woods. Greed, deception, money, power, and ****** occur between two  . . . Full Cast & Crew - ‎Trivia - ‎Awards - ‎(1995) - IMDb)

Given my lifelong, serious exposure to and interest in German philosophy, I subscribe to the same weltanschauung--pronounced: veltˌänˌSHouəNG—that governed Joey Gallo’s behavior.  My point and Mr. Gallo’s are exactly the same:  a man’s ability to make it on the street is the true measure of his worth.  This ethos was a prominent one in the Bronx where and when I grew up, where I came of age during the 1950s and 60s.  Italian organized crime was always an option, actually one of the preferred options--like playing for the Yankees or being a movie star—until, that is, reality set in.  And reality came in many forms. For 100% Italian kids it came in a moment of crystal adolescent clarity and self-evaluation:  Am I tough enough to make it on the street?  Am I ever going to be tough enough to make it on the street? Will I be eaten alive by more cunning, more violent predators on the street?

For me, the setting in of reality took an entirely different form.  I knew I had what it takes, i.e., the requisite ferocity for street life. I had it in spades, as they say. In fact, I’d been blessed with the gift of hyper-volatility—traced back to my great-grandfather, Pietro of the village of Moschiano, in the province of Avellino, in the region of Campania, Italia Sud. Having visited Moschiano in my early 20s and again in my late 50s, I know the place well. The village square sits “down in the holler,” like in West Virginia; the Apennine terrain, like the Appalachians, rugged and thick. Rugged and thick like the people, at least in part my people. And volatile, I am, gifted with a primitive disposition when it comes to what our good friend Abraham Maslow would call lower order needs. And please, don’t ask me to explain myself now; just keep reading, *******.  All your questions will be answered.

Great Grandfather Pietro once, at point blank range, blew a man’s head off with a lumpara, or sawed-off shotgun. It was during an argument over—get this--a penny’s worth of pumpkin seeds--one of many stories I never learned in childhood. He served 10 years in a Neapolitan penitentiary before being paroled and forced to immigrate to America.  The government of the relatively new nation--The Kingdom of Italy (1861)--came up with a unique eugenic solution for the hunger and misery down south, south of Rome, the long shin bone, ankle, foot, toes & kickball that are the remote regions of the Mezzogiorno, Southern Italy: Campania, Basilicata, Calabria, Puglia & Sicilia. Northern politicians asked themselves: how do we flush these skeevy southerners, these crooks and assassins down South, how do we flush the skifosos down the toilet—the flush toilet, a Roman invention, I report proudly and accept the gratitude on behalf of my people. Immigration to America: Fidel Castro did the same thing in the 1980s, hosing out his jails and mental hospitals with that Marielista boatlift/Emma Lazarus Remix: “Give us your tired and poor, your lunatics, thieves and murderers.” But I digress. I’ll give you my entire take on the history of Italy including Berlusconi and the “Bunga Bunga” parties with 14-year old Moroccan pole dancers . . . go ahead, skip ahead.

Yes, genetically speaking, I was sufficiently ferocious to make it on the street, and it took very little spark to light my fuse. Moreover, I’ve always been good at figuring out the angles--call it street smarts--also learned early in life. Likewise, for knowing the territory: The Bronx was my habitat. I was rapacious and predacious by nature, and if there was a loose buck out there, and legs to be broken, I knew where to go.
Yet, alas, despite all my natural talents & acquired skills, I remained persona-non-grata for the Lucchese Family. To my great misfortune, I fell into a category of human being largely shunned by Italian organized crime: Mestizo-Italiano, a diluted form of full strength 100% Italian blood. It’s one of those voodoo blood-brotherhood things practiced by Southern European, Mediterranean tribal people, only in part my people.  Growing up, my predicament was always tricky, always somewhat bizarre. Simply put: I was of a totally different tribe. Blame my exotic mother, a genuine Hopi Corn Maiden from Shungopavi, high up on Second Mesa of the Hopi Reservation, way out in northern Arizona. And if this is not sufficiently, ******* nuts enough for you, add to the child-rearing minestrone that she raised me Jewish in The Bronx.  I **** you not. I took my Bar Mitzvah Hebrew instruction from the infamous Rabbi Meir Kahane, that’s right, Meir “Crazy Rebbe” Kahane himself--pronounced kɑː'hɑːna--if you grok the phonetics.

In light of the previously addressed “impressionable years hypothesis,” I wrote a poem about my early years. It follows in the next chapter. It is an epic tale, a biographical magnum opus, a veritable creation myth, conceived one night several years ago while squatting in a sweat lodge, tripping on peyote. I

now i know why i might engage with writing obscene
poems, chauvinism included, but still there
is no burning excuse in my mind with the way
western society actively desires censorship of certain
words, i already attributed censoring obscene
words as worse than what this tactic precipitates into:
the apathetic spread of *******, and violence
in general... it crosses my mind that sparring with violent
language cushions people from violet action...
to utilise violent language with that: pardon my French
attitude does more good than evil on the users...
how many road rage incidents could have been avoided
if people were unable to watch their tongue:
somehow we're making language sterile, by actively
pursuing this sort of censorship: which is not even
remotely politically related / motivated, we're bringing
an anaemic status quo in how fluidly we speak -
we desire to not hear the sometimes funny and the sometimes
awful... but we choose to see the god-fearing horrific...
ask any blind-man about music and he'd say:
well, i can dance to it in a nucleus position, centrally
gravitational pull - but ask the deaf man about
what he has to say when seeing **** written to counter
obscenity, as in cartoon-like: f&%£! it's just plain silly,
pocket-sized expression of psychotic behaviours,
rummaging through them i find only one source of inspiration:
the fact that we're in this blind-man's garden of innocence,
somehow dressed in the camouflage of censorship such
a tiny problem, that it does indeed require 23 mattresses
for the princess to not feel the frozen *** agitating her...
this sort of censorship in its application is under
a false sense of purpose, it really doesn't change people's
behaviour for the better, it doesn't pacify them, in does
the reverse: it infuriates, it makes violence more potent...
i'm still trying to figure out why such words
will make our perceptions saintly... unless of course
that's the reason behind them, as way of invoking an
anaesthetic placebo, a placebo that's actually active rather
than passive - presuming the anaesthetic placebo gives
way to an aesthetic active apathy-inducing ingredient...
meaning we can't bare to hear swear words, but we can
gladly watch 20 hours of 20 : 1 ****... censoring **** ****
**** **** will not escape Newtonian physics...
given our current scenario, Newtonian physics is far
more important than Einstein's relativity, i'd hate to be
in denial about cause & effect... as began with Socrates,
i too abhor moral relativism... of course Newton got
the gravity bit wrong, but i like the simpler version...
plus... there was no Romance with Einstein...
no apple, no tree, no Voltaire... meaning we don't necessarily
write history collectively, with all of us starting from
the big bang or the view from the Galapagos islands...
we don't... we continue writing history not from a
collective consciousness genesis... or from the collective
unconscious genesis - that's Jung with his archetypes
(devil, god, wise man, mother, father etc.) rather than
dreams (Freud) - we can chose were to write the future...
it's not so much ignorance as arm-chair intellectualism,
it's not about the safety of understanding something,
but the comfort of choosing to understand something...
which is pretty much to my excuse for my previous poems...
Heidegger... and that concept of Dasein -
i never bothered to understand it to the point of
reacting subjectively to it, by that i mean an interest
in writing about it, an interpolation of the subject with
alternative variations... i objectified it, i also countered it
when objectifying the concept turned out to be an
everyday object, shortening my quest.
the counter? hiersein, i.e. being here, here denoting a
solipsistic classification of awareness with / in the world -
which is basically me in my room, admiring my library,
my record collection, my torn sneakers, everything that
is classified exclusive to what dasein evolves into
when all its grammatical weaving only express a verb,
i.e. concern... so i thought, given this what can hiersein
(being here / nonchalance) actually show me as
my lack of interest in: "changing the world".
it became obvious yesterday, i had a hard time when i
didn't read the day's copy of the times (more on this later),
instead i had to suffice with construction site media,
you might have heard of this newspaper: the daily star,
at 20 pence a pop, you will see what £1.20 makes to
your psyche... but that's basically it, i objectified Heidegger's
concept and made it into an everyday object, in this
case and as the only case available: a newspaper -
and the trick is? well, with a newspaper like daily star
you don't actually experience dasein - it's completely
missing in this style of media, and that's worrying given
my barbaric poetry of yesterday... it's missing, not there,
such object-for-object chirality is what gives birth to
hiersein (being here); but today i returned to my usual
media diet, a flicked through the times and the natural
balance of personal objects and a fresh impersonal object
coexisted - the newspaper is truly the most adequate
compounded expression of Heidegger's dasein -
which i attribute to the constant need to emphasise an
empathy with others... empathising is a neutral form
of sympathising, since sympathy is sourced in shared
experiences: **** victims (e.g.) - therefore empathy is
something that in the ontological structuring of dasein,
which opposes the ontological structuring of hiersein,
which is structured by apathy; there is nothing else for
me to write, apart from the compendium proof
of the disparity of sources, i.e. headlines and subheadings:

- prior compendium -

i will never understand the point of autobiographies,
the majority of autobiographies are written
on a p.s. basis, after the facts / actions,
never immediately, concerning ideas /
solidified thoughts, thoughts condensed into idea
that allow thinking / cognitive narration to
continue regardless with what's being achieved...
i haven't anything autobiographical dissimilar
with something biographical...
Plato wrote that wonderful biography like
Shakespearean theatre, but i guess his critics felt
the claustrophobic tug & pull of mermaids...
still the problem ascends heights unparalleled -
even with ghost writers doing the leg-work...
cheap-buggers never learned to write, let alone read,
and here they are writing biographies...
ah, **** it... they're only sketches... whether biographic
or autobiographic... they're still mere sketches...
if this was the art world the revenue would come
posthumously, when it comes to literacy
nothing really distinguishes poets from
those prescribing pedestrian signs...
the Olympians can moan at the vacant stadium...
that there's a hierarchy in sports,
with the favoured monochrome idealisation
of where the bunny money is in the whirlpool
of the rabbit hole investment: football, volleyball...
but the literary events are the same...
people love to lie that they read the bestseller to
its full extent... but treat books like chairs and tables...
inertia prone half finished, sat on for 2 weeks of
the entire year... the Olympians are very much
like poets, and i care to distance myself from either
demand for more interest being invoked...
i like esoteric sports, i like esoteric writing...
but that's how it stand: poets are Olympians where
novelists are footballers, who retire at 30 and
then think about what to do with their wages
that are 10x higher than the everyday labourer...
start a restaurant, buy a strip of houses in Liverpool
like Michael Owen? good guess, here's to exploiting
youth disgracefully... that's what they're getting,
and these are the dilemma points to consider...
they're the equivalent gladiators of our time,
Rome was just a sleeper before it awoke once more...
but i'll never understand why these
people decided to exploit literature for gain...
all these academics with their pristine purity of discovery
are pacified when dictating print,
what poet, has a chance in hell, to appear gladly
excavated from Plato's cave of television?
about none.
i too was focusing on 20th century literature,
before 21st literature came about...
and i thought, oh god: they're really going to create
a totalitarian democracy, every artist will be
strip-searched for adding cinnamon and chilli to their
writing to bounce away from conformist
sober and sane extraction of alter wordings...
this 21st scene will become polarised...
we'll have the extinction of One Direction over a joint,
while the Rolling Stones drank a keg of whiskey
and pulled off a show... we'll have moralisation
of the fans to subdue the artists, which will mean
no artist will ably create a zeitgeist to rebel... everyone
will suddenly experience a weird sort of communism...
the worst kind... it will mean having
all the mental freedoms without the ability to
economise a coup... basically an inertia, an immediate
fatality... we can't economise a coup...
which boils down to why so many autobiographies
aren't really biographic, but rather consolidating,
by the meaning: autobiographic i intended to relate
the everyday... the most secretive account of life:
the everyday... this is stressing Proust,
even though i preferred Joyce over Proust i keep
the everyday the prime ideal: the only detail,
so that an autobiography can make sense,
automation of writing, like breathing or sneezing...
not some monetary-spinning device 20 years after
the facts... 20 years later you're pretty much writing
fiction... i am all for the biosphere of expanding
Alveoli... but when did you ever read an autobiography
that mentioned the taste of weak coffee
from the Friday of 20th of August 2016? never;
you read autobiographies
like you read self-help books...  waiting for
all that experience regurgitating motivational talk
about reaching a plateau of comparative success...
i can understand autobiographies written by the elders,
i understand biographies written about people
posthumously - but the tragedy is, given the spinning
wheel of money? we're getting "auto" biographies
written toward their 3rd volume renditions of
people aged 30... let alone 40... so much for
western society having the upper hand on political matters...
just saying: sort your own **** before trying
to sort other people's problems...
i could understand if these autobiographies were written
as described: automaton solo... but they're not...
before the compendium it's this everlasting presence
of a desired body of power being depicted:
prior the monopoly of knowledge, there was a monopoly
of literacy... given that 99% of us are literate, it
actually doesn't mean a third donkey's *******
whether we can read, or write, we got shelved in controlling
this once priestly vanity, we got taught bureaucracy alongside...
but the monopoly of literacy is way past us,
we're being convened in the ability to monopolise knowledge,
(oh please, don't let the paranoia seep in,
remember yourself when reading me, once in a while,
i don't drag you to phantasmagorical heights, even if i could,
i'd prefer you being agile in learning how to be bored
than letting your repel the same boredom i too share,
well... but **** me if you want to be the next Lenin) -
and the easiest way to monopolise knowledge? the media...
you basically need a lot of facts, and an evolved version
of dialectics, dialectics being the prime enemy of democracy
(it's not an alternative political model like despotism as
we are held to believe, it's actually dialectics,
suppressing other forms of collectivisation is the one
sure method of suppressing the attempt at dialectics
(individualism) - by making people overly opinionated,
ergo: the inability to engage with opinions, blind-alleys
throughout all plausible attempts to do so) -
so once you have enough facts to fiddle with the Rubik's cube
of juxtaposition, you end up with the ultra-scientific
form of dialectics... the matter of opinion in relation
to truth without a relative uniformity that prescribes
the status quo stasis is a debate about how accurate
we all are: i.e., is that true to the closest centimetre,
or the closest millimetre? it's a bit like watching a Zeno
paradox:
                 10.1                           and 10.01
      which one's tortoise and which is Achilles?
well, you know; ah ****! the compendium of the two
newspapers which got me slightly depressed...

- the compendium -

a. daily star

- B. BRO SAM'S SECRET 'NERVOUS BREAKDOWN'
- Laura & Jason's baby joy
- Robbie (Williams) £1.6M a night!
- BREXIT BOOST ON JOB FRONT
- ANGE DAD BACKS TRUMP
- JR'S wife Linda set to Holly
- Edd's no Beverly Hills flop
(Lana among cow *******)
- LAURA: OUR TINY TROTTS WILL BE WORLD-BEATERS
- FURY AT BAD LOSERS' SLURS
- 'Jealous sis' jibes
- MAKE YOUR KID AN OLYMPICS ACE
- Peaty: I want to be a rapper
- TV girl really ill
- **** SAM, 'ON THE BRINK OF BREAKDOWN'
- COSTA ***** HELL
- CAGING ANJEM WILL INSPIRE NEW JIHADIS
- POG'S LOADED AGENT BUYS CAPONE'S LAIR
- I'll make Kylie a pop star
- JEZ DOESN'T KNOW ANT FROM HIS DEC
- GUILTY OF DEMONIC SAVAGERY
- Great British Rake In
- Britain is *******
- BAYWATCH U.K.
- Va Va Vroom
- JUST JANE: My lover snubs plea to get wed
- HART: I'LL DECIDE WHEN TO GO.

b. the times

- Boy victim becomes a symbol of Assad's war
- US Olympics swimmers invented robbery tale, say Rio police
- Make us sell healthy food, supermarkets implore May (P.M.)
- Lost weekend of the lying best man
- fears over free speech delay law to silence hate preacher
- Met's 'commuter cops' live in France
- Husbands happiest when they earn half as much as wives
- Socialists plot to drive Britain left
- Fake human sacrifice filmed at European high altar of physics
- Officers investigated over ex-footballer's Taser death
- Number of pupils taking languages at record low
   (Mandarin @ 2,849 - % decrease of 8.1,
    alarmingly religious studies 27,032 up by 4.9%
    and psychology of status 59,469 up by 4.3%....
    meaning the mad will soon be diagnosing the sane
   as mad, just because the curriculum said so)
- Top grades add up to 100% at the school for maths prodigies
- Deprived sixth formers thrive on competition
- European students rush to get into British universities
- DVLA earns £10m selling driver's details
- Mystery over Kenyan death of aristocrat
- Journalist who voted twice reported to police for
  'fraud'
- Tomato tax threatens European trade war
- Love story of the Pantomime
- Homeless conmen fleeced widow, 81
- Brownlee brothers at the Olympics...
- Hopeful shoppers give sales a lift after Brexit vote
- MoD guard could be stood down despite terrot threat
- Owners spit mansion after failing to sell
- The job with international appeal: saving our hedgehogs
- Finch warns unborn chicks if weather gets warm
- Migrant violence rises after decline in policing around Jungle
- Longest road tunnel promises a relaxing ride under Pennines
- Mothers step up to drive Tube trains through night
(rowdy teens ageing exponentially on a Saturday night
when not getting a lift, ******...)
-MP's deal with bookmaker to be investigated
- Ebola nurse 'hid high temperature'
- Shoesmith's ex-huspand kept child *******
- Morpurgo war tale springs into life
- Supergran fights off teenage muggers
- IVF is more successful for white women
OPINION SECTION
- Great political fiction is good for democracy
- the BBC is leaving its audiences in the dark
- airline food? just pass me the gin and tonic
- Modern Olympics began on the fields of Rugby
/ greasy polls, holding firm, tongue tied,
  call for compulsory targets to tackle obesity,
second in line, mindfulness course, cost of planning,
puffins v. ship rats.... and all future letters to the editor /
- Moscow presses Turkey for access to US airbases
- Hundreds killed each month in Assad's jails
- Putin bans celebration of defeated KGB coup
(another James Bond movie on the cards,
i'm assured, and with a moral carte blanche) -
Hollande clams Carla Bruni spied concerning his
use of diapers...
- Euthanasia tourists flock Belgian A & E from France,
  where a revival of ****** made people dress shark-fin
  sharp on the catwalk...
- Mosquito pesticide linkage application = intersex /
   East German women
- Haiti cholera linked to Nepalese **** and ***** via
  the

Sitting in a room alone. It is clean, brightly lit but peaceful. A cup filled with water sitting upright on the table to my right. A stack of papers rests in front of myself. The sun shining brightly through the window, refracting off of the glass of water creating beautiful dancing lights across the paper. Glancing at the top page reads “Report of Psychological Evaluation” in ******* letters. An ominous feeling in the pit of my stomach imitating a thunderstorm is on the rise. The heading continues to cite my name, age, birthdate, dates of the evaluation, Psychologist’s name, and acronyms that are unfamiliar. Grasping the paper it feels smooth, sliding my hand across feeling the ink slightly raised off the page. Following the words as they describe myself at eighteen years of age.
Intelligence is complex. Some are off the charts brilliant, some are average, and others are below the standard of society. People live their entire lives obsessed about their IQ score because humankind accepts this as a universal standard of intelligence. Not everyone’s IQ can be measured accurately as it does not conclude someone’s motivation, creativity, curiosity, innovation and kindness are all key components of character traits that are admired and desired. Unfortunately people, like myself who are dyslexic, have a different method to measure our intellect as we must sit and talk with a psychologist for hours in order for them to determine how our brain works. This system consumed twenty-one hours of my life thus far. Repeating the same test throughout my life with various puzzles, a complete biographical timeline and questionnaires all to be summed up into thirteen pages. Strapped to my ankle like a ball in chain, my thirteen pages are forever in mind.
Looking at my evaluation form my name is written on the top of the page dismissing any doubt. Gazing at the pages on the table with a combination of anxiety and annoyance running through my mind. Reaching out to grasp the pages feeling the significant weight that it holds over me. At first glace the text blurs together. Reading closer the text becomes words but the language is different. The tone of the paper is distant and disconnected. Descriptions of my life begin to form, mapping out every milestone. Since the age of seven, my life has been a roller-coaster from changing school every two-three years, being bullied for being different, to finding salvation within myself leading into proactive accountability to finally rise above all odds. Growing up was not easy. Especially before the No Child Left Behind Act, children with dyslexia were over looked, as many teachers did not know how to teach them. Even now many teachers in public school are not equipped to recognize when students are struggling. Imagining a life where I am not dyslexic, how different it would be.
Turn over the page to expose more information. Written in the text is a comprehensive account of my life. Plainly scripted describing one milestone at a time. Reading a biographical novel, one familiar yet no emotional attachment. As though I am reading my life through the eyes of someone else’s words. The formality of the writing is distant and concise. Leading the viewer to see me as unremarkable.
Reading on, the narrative of my life changes into graphs and floating numbers that are meant to define my intellectual abilities. Staring at the numbers pondering what it means. Acronyms appearing left and right like popcorns. Confusion starts to set in as the suspended numbers start to dance. I was diagnosed at the age of seven in 2000. Nearing the end of first grade, a year I barley remember as I hardly learned anything substantial. My teacher never showed that they cared even after I told them that I was dyslexic. Looking back, I feel that my teacher never understood what I was trying to tell her; instead my teacher brushed me aside not even thinking twice of the ramification that she caused.  
Lifting and flipping the next page, but the weight feels heavier than the last. Pressure on my chest begins to build with my anxious mind. Acronyms begin to pop up out of nowhere like popcorn. Like setting sun the words and uses of language slowly start to become unfamiliar as the biographical aspects starts to fade. The terminology shifts to a different standard that is foreign. Lacking the understanding language that is formal academic style.
Remembering when my mother told me that I needed to change schools because the public school I was currently attending refused to help me. She continues to explain that I would not get the proper guidance unless I was behind four grade levels. As any rational person would think it was unacceptable. Over the next five years I attended two different schools still skating by, making little to no progress. Glancing back at the evaluation form it does not show the hardship and suffering that I endured trying to get an education that everyone has a right to. Reading the form, seeing my life plainly written with little to no emotion. Remembering, how I cried everyday, because I did not want to go to school. Daily kids would call me dumb and stupid because they could not understand how someone like myself existed. Ostracized by my peers I never felt so alone yet surrounded by so many people.
Before transferring to another school I never met anyone else with dyslexia. My salvation was around the corner; before I knew it I was attending a school in a different state in the middle of nowhere. Once more, I needed to update my evaluation, six more hours of my life to prove that I needed all the help I could get. This school on my evaluation form should get more credit to my success. My time there is summed up into one paragraph but the effect will last a lifetime. The three years I attended this school was difficult but absolutely necessary.  
Imagine yourself at twelve years of age but you only have the capacity of reading at a third grade reading level. I was so far behind it did not seem possible to catch up to where I was supposed to be. Spelling was broken down into phonics in my first year. I was encouraged to read and test my comprehension daily. Math was the only other class that wasn’t reading. Later I was introduced to science and writing. In my last year I took a history class and proceeded to complete high school level classes, as I was technically a freshmen. After attending this school I gained six grade levels within three years, ready to transfer once more as a sophomore entering into officially as high school student.
Once again turning the page, unable to resist the temptation of reading just a little more. Despite the paper feeling light to the touch the information generates the feeling of a lead weight. The popcorn of acronyms begins to intensify as the biographical section comes to an end. Test results are the next section of the evolution. The psychologist also examines my personality in detailed written notes. The movie of “Stranger Than Fiction” comes to mind as a “big brother” feeling psychoanalyzed.  
High school was no different as I was still surrounded by my fellow peers all in a similar boat trying to survive. Three years pass once more, sitting in a small room with a different psychologist recounting my life. Explaining my story, completing puzzles hopefully for the last time. Graduation is around the corner, I feel different. Six years ago I was at the bottom of my class. Now, I am at the top of my class, graduating with high honors, straight-A student accepted into college. I’m on top of the world. It’s amazing what can happen in in six years.
Flipping to the next page, the lead weight transitions into a dumbbell. Dancing numbers mimicking the illuminating refraction of the glass of water. The numbers seem random at first glance, as there seems to be no pattern to correlate it. The acronym popcorn begins to explode with every other word with no end insight. Words begin to merge and brake down. The written text transitions into gibberish. I recognize my name in a sea of unrecognizable babble. A pain of needle ****** start to add pressure onto my chest.
The dancing numbers suddenly vibrate as the insanity of the acronym start to multiply. The splattered numbers represent what is inside my mind. A roadmap filled with blockade and detours constantly shifting in my head. Breathing becomes difficult as it feels someone has placed a cinder block on my chest. The acronyms start to plateau nearing the end. The text becomes legible once more.
Jolting up, I close my eyes and rest my hand against my forehead. Looking up at the window at the peaceful beautiful day. My brain starts to hurt and becomes numb. Mentally taking a step back from the stack of paper I push it across the table unable to finish. My brain is about to explode with the new information that I am still processing. My name is attached to this document as its littered throughout the evaluation. My academic life is detailed out for anyone to read at my school. Realizing this document defines me as a person. Ball and chain strapped to my ankle forever defining my intelligence.
I am incapable of escaping this documentation process to only be confirmed as someone with average intellect. The education system only documents ones ability on English and mathematical skills as deems more important in our growing society. The problem is people like myself rely on other forms of intelligence to compensate. Forever in our back pocket our evaluations sit there until it become irrelevant. After pondering this notion the bell rang and it was time to leave.
  The evaluation form that I hold today was completed when I was eighteen years old, still ringing true, pointing out my flaws, and exposing my weaknesses to anyone willing to read. After all of this time, I often wonder do these thirteen pages still define my intelligence? Having risen above my challenges and surpassing anyone’s expectations, who holds the key to the ball chained to my ankle? It is debilitating having a physical reminder of my limitations after I have accomplished so much. Struggling constantly, as I continue to fight battles even into adulthood. Graduating from college is the greatest accomplishment thus far. Imagining my next graduation is next year is unbelievable. No one knows where your life will take you but one day my evaluation form will wither away into oblivion as I stride everyday to not let it define me.

Did you expect it all to stop at the wave of your hand?
Like the sun's just going to drop if it's night you demand.
Well, in the dark we're just air, so the house might dissolve.
But once again we are gone. Who's going to care if we were ever here at all?
Well summer's going to come; it's gonna cloud our eyes again.
No need to focus when there's nothing that's worth seeing.
So we trade liquor for blood in an attempt to tip the scales.
I think you lost what you loved in that mess of details.
They seemed so important at the time,
but now you can't recall any of the names, faces, or lines;
it's more the feeling of it all.
Well, winter's going to end. I'm going to clean these veins again.
So close to dying that I finally can start living.

"Hi, we're back. This is radio KX and we're here with Conor Oberst of the band Bright Eyes. How are you doing Conor?"
"Fine, thanks. Just a little wet."
"Oh, it's still coming down out there?"
"Yeah, I sort of had to run from the car."
"Well we're glad you made it! Now, your album 'Fevers and Mirrors'... tell us about the title. I know there's a good deal of repeated imagery in the lyrics; fevers, mirrors, scales, clocks. Could you discuss some of this?"
"Sure, let's see... the fevers..."
"First, First let me say that, this is a brilliant record, man, we're all really into it here at the station and we get lots of calls, it's really good stuff."
"Thanks. Thanks a lot."
"So talk about some of the symbolisms."
"The fever?"
"Sure!"
"Well, the fever is basically, what ever ails you, or oppresses you... It could be anything. In my case it's my neurosis, my depression... but I don't want it to be limited to that... it's certainly different for different people. It's whatever keeps you up at night."
"I see."
"And the, and the mirror's like, as you might have guessed, self-examination, or reflection, or whatever form. This could be vanity, or self loathing. I, I know I'm, I'm guilty of both."
"That's interesting. How about the scale?"
"The scales are essentially our attempt to solve our problems quantitatively, through logic or rationalization. In my opinion it's often fruitless, but... always, no, not always... And the clocks and calendars it's uh... is just... time... our little measurements, it's like, it's always chasing after us."
"It is. It is. Uh, How about this Arienette, how does she fit into all this?"
"Um, I'd prefer not to talk about it, in case she's listening."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize she was a real person."
"She's not. I made her up."
"Oh, so she's not real?"
"Just as real as you or I."
"I don't think I understand."
"Neither do I, but after I grow up I will. I mean a lot... a lot of things are really unclear for me right now."
"That's interesting. Ah, now you mentioned your depression..."
"...No I didn't."
"You're from Nebraska, right?"
"Yeah. So?"
"Now, let me now if I'm getting too personal, but there seem to be a pretty dark past back there somewhere. What was it like for you growing up?"
"Dark? Not really... uh... actually I had a great childhood, my parents were wonderful. I went to a Catholic school. They have... they had money, so... it... It was all... easy. Basically I had everything I wanted handed to me."
"Really? So some of the references, like babies in bathtubs, are not biographical?"
"Well I do have a brother who died in a bathtub. Drowned. Actually, I had five brothers who died that way."
Chuckles
"No, I'm serious. My mother drowned one every year for five consecutive years. They were all named Padraic, so that's... they all got one song."
"Hmm."
"It's kinda like walking out the door to discover it's a window."
"But your music certainly is very personal."
"Of course. I put a lot of myself into what I do. But it's like, being an author you have to, free yourself to use symbolism and allegory to reach your goal and, and a part of that is, compassion, empathy for other people and their, and their situations. Some of what I sing comes from other people's experiences as well as my own. It... It shouldn't matter, the message is intended to be universal."
"I see what you mean."
"Can you make that sound stop, please?"
"Yes!

...and your goal?"
"I don't know. Uh, create feelings, I guess. A song? It never ends up the way you planned it, though."
"That's funny that you say that, do you think that..."
"Do you ever hear things that aren't really there?"
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Never mind. How long have you worked at this station?"
"Oh, just a few minutes. Uh, now you mentioned empathy for others. Would you say that that is what motivates you to make the music that you make?"
"No, not really. It's more a need for sympathy. I want people to feel sorry for me. I like the feel of the burn of the audience's eyes on me when I'm whispering all my darkest secrets into the microphone. When I was a kid, I used to carry this safety pin around with me, everywhere I went in my pocket. And when people weren't paying enough attention to me, I'd dig it into my arm until I started crying. Everyone would stop what they were doing and ask me what was the matter. I guess, I guess I kinda..."
"Really? You're telling me you're doing all this for attention?"
"No, I hate it when people look at me. I get nauseous. In fact, I could care less what people think, about me. Do you feel that? Wanna dance?"
"No, I'm feeling sick."
"I really just wanna be warm yellow light that pours all over everyone I love."
"So, uh, you're gonna play something for us now. Is this a new song?"
"Yeah, but I haven't written it yet. It's one I've been meaning to write, uh, called, "A Song To Pass The Time."
"Oh, that's a nice title."
"No it isn't. You should write your own scripts."
"Yeah, I know!"

I want an after dinner poem
Because they are so delicious
A poem on a pillow
And one after I do the dishes

I want a poem for breakfast
Cause they are so mentally nutritious

But most of all
I want you in my poetry
Because you are the best
Poem I could read

Form in figure fitting perfectly
Moving and talking to me
You are poetry in motion
You are artistry in thought
You are the queen of my desire
Because you make my poems
Shockingly hot

So write me a love poem
A poem of love lost
A poem of philosophy
Of such sweet sophistry
And what you have gained
And all that it cost

Give me a biographical picture
Or a nature walk

I want a poem
That is the truth of you
And in exchange
I will give you the poetry of names
And call you humanity

That 1 lengthy and detailed conversation we had as I fixed her a hot bubble bath, it was very necessary to figure out the pattern in which each of our souls orbited around one another's life. Life. It seems that in the seams of this biographical regime, we get lost in between 2 wings, steering without a true tale, leading with our beaks instead of our two feet. Finding elation through impatience. Determination to fly without defining our own matrix. At that particular time I just wanted to slowly sit your soft body down into that pool of lavender scented steamed water, but everything you had to say nearly drowned me. The invisible crown I continuously placed on your head suddenly vanished as my imagination panicked. I always thought that my mind was backed up by my heart which was backed up by your art. Oh how gentle you scribble. I have to erase line by line, direction by direction, affection by affection, disconnect on top off disconnection. Difficulties I'm having while looking at you lather but no longer seeing you in the picture. Watching you lave as you give me your take on how our relationship was shaped was a bit unfitting. In my mind "it's inevitable that she's open for bidding". I'm lounged against the sink in a bind. Bonded by your fondness, then detached by your honest responses. How blunt you are and how drunk I'm soon to be. Wasted vibrations, my mouth began to tremble. Somehow I find an idea to cause the both of us to tickle. Temporary bliss. Moreover all of my hard efforts that night turned out to be the worst shift. I went from pleased to please. Expectedly you never tried to appease by appealing to my needs. Draining water like my decaying heart. Drying off reminds me of my suffocated feelings. Lotion as I drink this 40% potion. Hoping of hydrated coping. Can you leave? So I can shower, attempting to rinse away the most beautifully devastating hour.

In account of extreme conditions
The biographical sketching of
A Father spending all for the family
I fear the unknown & embrace

Essential to fail for the risk in
The end is the only true thing
That matters more than the world
Hold my hands dear child - Jump!

Inheritance of a soul
The body left behind
An entrance made of coal
On the horizon rests the stayed' line

A tending breath
Upon a supple breast
Where the young tests its best
Only to see history squirm
In its placid need for unrest
A night is only known
When the sun sets for its own atone

A breath for the naked
For the weary know no love
I press a kiss upon foggy
And see my mother's ancient face
She is young - no - she is old
She is everything that mother before
Her needed and wanted

Have I gone mad in these invisible words?
Do I press my own peoples lodged' souls
Within the caverns of my made body?
Are we in control anymore?
Have we ever been?
Are the questions of the age to Frank to
Be answered, for the youth is to young?

And the pressing of the wicked witch
Makes the toes of the frogs of centuries lore
In forgotten mythology of Crumbs masterpiece
Accept all that was forgotten from a mailbox of scrutiny
In turns we take the sisters we did not want
For mormonism is for the buyers of sires

The horn of the forgotten taxi driver
Whistles as they hear the virgins weep
The bottles bash against the dead of the street
And the neat clink their deadliest China
So all in all we are the same in the eyes God

And the only thing I need
Is a one way ticket to the bar
And the thing I see isn't too far
I gotta' keep on moving baby
I'll get there, it won't be very long

So take my heart, you see it there?
It's the one with the whiskers and
The eyes of pearly blue
And you know my mother? Her
Name ends with the sound of Sue

In the wind is the way of the forefather's
I make what you want if you got the price
We argue and we swear
In a world of injustice, we strive to be fair
Take a dollar from my pocket, see if I care

I'm alone now and without voice
Bear a child and see if you have choice
I'm no veteran, the bullets doth not know me
When the sun rises, assign my heart to flee
The night rests upon my weary shoulders
And the Parisian night falters in mine own view
It's majesty flickers upon my tongue like a  lightning bug

Poetry is a dangerous dance where the God's lead with left feet.

Two hours till Kentucky-
The world is on fast-forward around us
The side of my forehead is flat
against the passenger side window
Trees crowd behind guardrail for miles - 
protesting highway pollution.

Two hours till Kentucky -
On the eighth round about this CD.
about around the fifth listen, songs began to blend into one another, morphing into ambient noise
that filled the empty moments between conversation
and the struggle against waves of tempting sleep.

Two hours till Kentucky-
I pause the song to explain
the biographical significance
of a particular lyric.
You're too focused on
the nerve-wracking traffic to indulge me.

Two hours till Kenricky-
My seat reclined, I am watching the clouds
creeping briskly across the sky
through the panorama of the windshield -
a silent movie.

Two hours till Kentucky -
an eternity of moments
gone as soon as they happen.
Evaporating into the air

We'll be there
in no time.