A Sapien Son

Fortune

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 00:45:00 -0700

Og and Awk were cavemen. One day Og saw Awk standing in a field, spinning in circles with his arms outstretched.

“Why are you doing that?” Og asked.

“It’s fun,” Awk said. “You should try it.”

Og tried, but he couldn’t keep going as long before he fell, while Awk kept spinning like a top.

“It’s okay,” Awk said. “It takes practice, and I still enjoy doing it.”

So Og sat and watched as Awk spun and spun. Sometimes Awk would lower his arms, and sometimes he’d raise them over his head. Og would clap and laugh, and it brought more people from the hills where everyone lived. Awk didn’t notice, but after awhile, almost everyone had come to see him spin.

“Again, Again!” they cried. But Awk was tired, and the sun was setting.

“Maybe tomorrow,” Awk said.

The next day, the village was gathered in the middle of the hills where everyone lived. “Please, spin for us, Awk! Spin for us!” Awk smiled and happily started spinning. The people clapped and pointed. Some laughed at Awk, which made them happy. Some tried to spin themselves, which made them happy. Some sat and watched, which made them happy. When it was over, everyone walked away.

“I wish we could see this every day!” one caveman said.

“I wonder when he’ll do it again?” A cavewoman said.

“Og, you’re his friend… can you ask him to spin tomorrow?” a cavechild said

Og went to find Awk, who was rubbing his feet. “Everyone wants you to spin some more tomorrow. Can you?”

Awk looked at Og wearily. “I’d love to, but I wasn’t able to get food while I was spinning today, and my cave needs to be cleaned.”

“I could share my food with you,” the caveman said.

“I could clean the cave for you,” the cavewoman said.

“I could get you booked at Red Rocks at 8% commission and a quarter of the merchandising revenue.” the cavechild said. But to them, it just sounded like babbling, so they ignored him.

Awk perked up. “Okay, I will spin tomorrow!” and everyone was happy.

That morning, the Awk went to the house of the caveman and got his food while the cavewoman cleaned Awk’s cave. Then, Awk went to the middle of the hills where everyone lived. Everyone was there again and he started spinning. Everyone cheered. Some laughed at Awk, which made them happy. Some tried to spin themselves, which made them happy. Some sat and watched, which made them happy. When it was over, everyone walked away.

Later that night, they heard about the things people did so Awk could spin. “I could do that!” they said. Soon, Awk had more food than he could eat, his cave was spotless, and everyone gave him gifts because Awk’s spinning made them happy. All he said was, “Thank you, but I do it because I still enjoy doing it.”

Turg was another caveman who watched Awk and how he spun. He liked Awk’s spinning, but he also liked all the things Awk got for spinning. “I don’t want to cook or clean anymore,” Turg said. So Turg practiced spinning. He raised his arms high and low like Awk. He learned to teeter and totter, which Awk never did. And soon, he went to the middle of the hills where everyone lived and spun for everyone with Awk.

The crowd cheered. Awk was happy that Turg liked spinning. When Awk was done, Turg kept going. He spun and wobbled, teetered and tottered, and finally, when he stopped, the crowd cheered, “Again, again!”

But Turg said, “Someone has to get my food and clean my house, then I will spin.” Everyone agreed, and soon Turg and Awk were spinning everyday in the middle of the hills where everyone lived and they were all happy.

One day, the word of the Awk and Turg’s spinning reached the forest people. They travelled to the hills where everyone lived and saw them spinning for everyone. Turg slowed to a stop when he saw the crowd of forest people gather. He frowned and put his hands on his hips.

“I can’t keep spinning until they me give food and gifts and clean my cave,” Turg said.

Awk stopped spinning and thought about what Turg said. Then, Awk looked at everyone and said, “Let’s all spin! Every one of us!”

Soon, everyone was spinning! Young children, old couples, tall cavemen, short cavewomen. Everyone spun while the forest people watched.

Turg pouted and yelled, “Awk, this isn’t right! How will we eat?”

“Tomorrow, I will go out and get my own food again, and I will spin if I can,” Awk said, and kept spinning.

Turg yelled again, “Who will clean our caves?”

“The next day, I will clean my cave, and I will spin if I can,” Awk said, and kept spinning.

Turg stomped his foot, “What about all the gifts? Our fortune of gifts?”

Awk stopped, looked at Turg, and said, “My fortune isn’t the things I got for spinning. My fortune is that everyone saw me and it made them happy. My fortune is that I like spinning, and that I can.”

And then, Awk kept spinning.

"If media companies could charge you for playing your own guitar in your own house, they would...."

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 22:23:21 -0700

“If media companies could charge you for playing your own guitar in your own house, they would. They’d have copyrighted every one of the twelve notes if they’d been early enough for the opportunity.”

- Me. Just Now.

The Obscure Few

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:38:30 -0700

I scribe to abide. I’ve tried to describe feeling lied to, derided and make viable for use by fleeting humors, reclining on title of “The Obscure Few”. Maybe you approve of loose basis in hazing carefully restating your placing in the lower rung, but my truth won’t require I start a fire to hire others’ blindness as a sly disguise. Insecure is what you are, a bar I won’t leap over, because if by folly I volley back, I retract with tar and gore: a sore spot upon your glory, but I’d score a scar of a centrifugal poor sport; reaching every direction to reckon my returned investments as worth against the best kept failures when I was tested. Messing with hypocrisy is a shame when your only advantage is your knowledge of names.

A Battle of Wills

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 05:21:00 -0700

Awake again. Full of Denny’s… some kind of sugary hush-puppy bastardization drenched in high-fructose maple-flavored corn syrup. I’m in for a horrible 12 hours to follow, digestively speaking, but it was worth it.

One of my roommates told me that a woman came by the house recently looking for “Double-You”. I’ve never gone by “W” before, and no one I know would call me by the letter of my name. I’m not going to know who it was, but it’s fun to consider someone coming along with a letter for W garbed in a dress, sunglasses, and a voice, each one a little darker than the last.

I’ve gone by a few names, and I love playing with words. The meanings, sounds, and implications of them carry the weight of suns; and I’d like to think that, given the right magnifying glass and at the right time of day, they can burn a lot longer and stronger.

“William” was the first. Classic, proper, no room for nuance. A good place to start, and it’s how my family growing up knows me. There wasn’t any informal side to William, and he didn’t care a whole lot about making one. The gravity and orbit of words, even then, was magnificent. They seemed dangerous and alluring. I only later found out, through my Acting 1 class, that the best definition of communication was “the process by which we attempt to affect the behavior of others.” In short, it was the way to get what I wanted in a world where no one gets what they want. I believed this definition before even I knew what it was.

Now, I liked William. He seemed princely. He went to private school, and scored high in class, but had a hard time concentrating. He read at a 5th grade level in pre-school. He also tripped a teacher, inflicted himself with bite marks, and lived in a house where every pot in the house got used when it rained. William even tried going by his middle name in middle school. It seemed appropriate, but, Tom, Tommy, and Thomas didn’t stick around long enough to form into anyone real. He doodled in margins of math tests, which were the only redeeming parts for him, and avoided everyone’s eyes, which all seemed either persecutory or aggressive. In the end, William wasn’t sustainable.

Since then, there were a lot of other names. Sibling names that somehow annoy and endear at the same time like “Billy”, “Billy Bob”, or “Bilbo”. Given nicknames like “Will the Thrill” or “Wailin’ Will Whalen”. Pet names like “Bunny Bear” or “Easy”. Even a name I accidentally stepped in like so much gum: “Liam”. Each one a different label and a different set of ideas and experiences. Each one is a different person.

I chose, and continue to choose, Will. It’s familiar in the places “William” wasn’t, and it’s disciplined in the ways he was lax. It’s stronger and more certain. “Will” itself means to make something happen through one’s own volition. To propel with aim toward a goal with calm confidence and stoic certainty.

“William” means “protector of many; shield”, but I see “Will” as more of a spear. My struggle will probably always be between these two: who I want to be, and who I can easily be; between receiving damage, or dealing it.

“Thomas” means “twin” (or a double-you, if you like.)

“Whalen” is “little wolf” in the Irish Tradition

I had an assignment where I had to write a piece using only the letters in my name a while ago:

William Thomas Whalen

Name an intent with a hiss. What is it? Who? When will it hew into this tet-a-tet, into a latent haste, into this ana?

Now, an’ all the time.

Am I a mole with the wit to wist, twistin’ in its nest? Am I an ant on its hill, a white whale in its sea, a nit in a lion’s mane? The lion alone? A slow sloth with no sense to hasten, a salmon swimmin’ solo to Maine? I’ll wane, as I sense this lesson wants me to, as I animate me some anima in ethos, some emotions to show as inane as oats an’ wheat.

See, I’m tonal. I whit the when an’ how to listen. I am not Tom Waits. (I wish!) I am also not Owen, Leo, Helen, Noel, Sam, Mel, Emmitt, Nathan, an’ Tim. I am not Lot, not Satan, not Solomon, an’ not Moses. I am not Mae West, an’ I am not Einstein. At times, I was Tom, an’ I was Liam, too. Attention: this is the thesis, an’ the intent. Names an’ meanin’, names an’ meanin’. I am Wailin’ Will Whalen. The name is mine, as the will in me is, too. It is the will in the men an’ women that I mime.

All the while, I mean them all well an’ honest. We all see what imitation is.

Also, I am not Walt Whitman. That’s neat to me.

A hometown was mine one time. It’s a hellish stone toss into that mean, wet heat; it’s the most honest statement that it’s an “as is” town. Then, I went on a tale, lost inno—
—sent West to an alien mesa. It was time to wean the low, moist sea on a melanin tan with a soot heat, a lawless ash, almost too hot. It tells me still, lies in wait, listens to sell me a million watt shine to sail on an’ let this town lie. It smells with sweat in its sonnet while I stow me some solemn emotion. It hems an’ haws, it entwines at the waist with a motion, an’ with ease at the senses. It mates with a slit in the loins.

Then it slew me to the tallow. Now, I owe it one in a million. I was neonatal in a nonsense home.
Wasn’t I?

I wasn’t an ill inmate with a neon tome.
Was I?

It’s all nonsense. This ethos is swan shit. So I seal it with the whims an’ sass an’ waste with the sea-salt taste. It satiates me, in time.

These notes let me lie to the sweet miles in the soonest times.
Aloha as in hello.
Aloha as in to let lie.

-W

A Composition On Competition

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 03:20:26 -0700

I woke up a bit ago thinking about somewhere I haven’t been in years.

I was working for a concrete company (or Erosion Control and Soil Stabilization was what they wanted us to call it). They would send us on trips around Florida putting in abutments here and retaining walls there, and it was good work. Hotels were paid for when we had overnight work, and a decent per Diem made sure we ate at some higher end restaurants now and again. This particular restaurant was a seafood shack whose specialty was “bleu cheese buttons”; small, upside-down mushrooms baked in something like a mini-cupcake tin with bleu cheese across the top. There wasn’t much better than ending a long day in southern Florida humidity and strain with a meal that was paradoxically expensive and free.

Anyway, after I ate, I walked around the restaurant. It was right on the river; the outdoor patio stretched into a pier with a few other tables and an open area for viewing the sunset. If you haven’t seen Florida sky in the evening, you’re missing out. The pastel and neon streaks trailed into the distance and mirrored into the river while the humidity pressed down to settle on the grass for the evening.

While I stood there, I started hearing a SLOOP! SLOOP! sound. I looked down and the water around the dock was boiling without heat from the eager bodies of catfish (or some other ugly-brown relative) that had learned where the customers would bring their bread to feed them. Their awful writhing stuck out from the scene and made me wonder what other loathsome things were skulking around under the cotton candy reflection.

Just then, one of the guys I worked with, O’Neill, came up. “Man, it’s really nice out,” he said.

“Yeah, except for the fish,” I said.

He looked at me for a second and grinned an asshole grin. “They’re fine, man, you just gotta feed ‘em,” he said. O’Neil leaned back and made a primal rumble in the back of his throat, hocked up a giant gob of spit, and dropped it into the fishy mosh pit, where it disappeared.

I stood disgusted at first, I admit, but after a few moments, I was spitting right along with him. I think somewhere along those lines, I decided in the scenario of my life, I’d rather be on the dock than in the mob. I also realized that none of us gets to be as flawless as that sunset unless we’re also as fleeting.

artbyjp: Daily Doodle #102:...

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 03:42:54 -0700

artbyjp:

Daily Doodle #102: KARMA!

https://www.facebook.com/ArtByJP

http://jpzilla.deviantart.com/

Future Timeline

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:27:00 -0700

Future Timeline:

One of my favorite “what if” websites. Based off of population, climate, political, technological, and other trends. The most-likely scenarios of our prolonged existence.

Zielschmerz

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:55:57 -0700

dictionaryofobscuresorrows:

n. the exhilarating dread of finally pursuing a lifelong dream, which requires you to put your true abilities out there to be tested on the open savannah, no longer protected inside the terrarium of hopes and delusions that you created in kindergarten and kept sealed as long as you could, only to break in case of emergency.

What's All This Then?

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 01:34:59 -0700

A writing major writing a blog? Why, yes, I’d love to solidify my financially unstable future.

That’s a joke. Well, mostly. I do like the blog idea. Chronicling the salient points of my life indelibly on the Internet like wet cement in some storage basement of a giant skyscraper… It looks like all of us are moving a little closer to immortality, whether we want to or not. There was a time when only the greatest writers had the ability to print their works. Now, the YouTube comments of today could live on for generations. One day, a man will be able to trace his family lineage back through their Facebook posts and YouTube comments and know, with great certainty, that when Great Grandpa Shane was 14, he thought that “JUSTIN BEEBR SUKS FAGZORZ OMG LOL!!1!!!1!”

A little about myself: I’m 26, in college, and the world is my Rubix cube. I see patterns everywhere; mundane to divine, subjective and objective. I have a lot of difficulty remembering faces AND names, so the surest bet is to do something memorable while I’m around.

Huh. Hadn’t really thought about it before, but I’ve always felt guilty about not remembering those things. Maybe a majority of people are just really boring.

Anyway, I grew up in Florida, moved to Colorado, and I’ve done other things before and in-between. I’m a dedicated musician, a published journalist, an actor, an instigator at heart, and a nice guy by force of habit. I’d tell more, but exposition’s a bitch at 1:30 in the morning, and I really should start studying for finals next week.

This is my Basement of Wanton Wayfaring.
(Or Wanting Wayfaring, depending on the day and disposition.)

-W