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Rod Amis - Unbound

kabuki theatre of the mind

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PHOENIX, AZ, USA -

... Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer. -- Bertrand Russell, from "What I Lived For"

13 November, 2004: It was difficult beginning to compose this week's journal entry for a number of reasons. There was, first, the pressure of reading the quite eloquent recap of the events that led to the beginning of the online version of the Telegraph (UK) by its first Editor. Then there was the pressure of the worsening situation here on the ground: more economic pressures (still seeking a stable and reliable job), more uncertainty about the future, learning to deal with the rolling and roiling emotional landscape.

Even naming this 400th edition was more difficult than doing so for regular editions. I went through an entire series of proposed titles before doing what can be considered, even at this writing and with the rest of the edition completed, a "settle for."

For the first time in many months, I was only able to put together snippets of entries for even this "Glass House." My mind was elsewhere: sending out or revising the CV, trawling various lists for jobs, setting up appointments with temporary employment agencies, walking the neighborhood looking for "Help Wanted" signs in promising windows.

So today, when I finally sat down to compose this week's journal entry I was faced the proverbial "Wall" that all writers so dread. I could not focus my thoughts on some central theme that I wanted to elucidate. E-mails and the news seemed a cacophony that only distracted from collecting my thoug hts. Reading the writing of others seemed a distraction that exacerbated my lack of focus ...

There was the germ of a "simple plan" in my mind, of course. Taking a page from other Editors in my position, I could begin by looking back had what I had focused on under similar circumstances in the past and draw a contrast between my thinking then and what obtains now. It's a tried-and-true old dodge for writers with very little pressing or new say. Why not?

I certainly know all the topics I don't want to engage today.

So where was I on the event of edition #200? I was in Baltimore, Maryland, at the time. It was January, 2000, during my period of pounding out two or three columns per week for various other online publications, starting to roll in dough but not in time. I seldom had less than $500 (USD) languishing in my bank account. I was itching for a redesign of the magazine toward a more graphics intensive look. The column for the 200th edition was called "My Wicked, Wicked Ways" after the Errol Flynn autobiography of the same name. It slipped into a reminiscence of my youth in Cairo, Egypt, which became the opening chapter of the "Glass House" book that now sits on my agent's desk ... Life was good, though I had to kvetch about the radiator in my little apartment there being a blast furnace.

Issue 300 came two years later, almost to the day. This time it was January, 2002, and I was living in New Orleans, after returning from Europe following the dot.com meltdown. That meltdown took me out earlier in its progress than some of the writers I knew then sucking at the teat of America's online gold rush.

I had wanted to go to Europe for the two preceding years, since the war in Kosovo actually, and being jobless with few prospects and undecided where I wanted to live -- but convinced it was not Baltimore, Maryland -- I did so. My hope was to find connections in Eastern Europe that might lead to a job. A post I wanted in Hungary failed to materialize and I was forced to return to the States.

In an e-mail, my friend from San Francisco, Matt Stowell, suggested: "Well, if you don't really want to live in America again but you have to come back, New Orleans is the farthest thing from America you can find in this country. I think you should move here. Besides, I think I need a roommate."

So there I was in the Big Easy fresh off the boat, so to speak, with few resources and facing the beginning of what would ultimately become a long slough of desperate penury. A penury that has obtained until this very day.

In the journal entry on that occasion, entitled "Best in Life," my concerns were basically economic, as they would be for my entire sojourn in New Orleans. Already, too, I was starting to intuit that I would despise the place. I was struck, as Mardi Gras commenced -- a Mardi Gras I would spend working fourteen (14) hour days on Bourbon Street and drifting through an exhausted haze -- with the banality of New Orleans' celebrated revels and decadence. I felt totally foreign to the place's idea of "fun" and its worship of slovenliness. Worse, I could already see that it would be a place where one could easily starve both physically and intellectually.

The cover of that edition featured a picture of Arnold Schwartzenegger in the role of Conan the Barbarian and was among those, because of the other cover photos, that would lead some people to comment that my covers had become risqué.

That was also the edition that would feature the second installment of the article by Binyavanga Wainaina that would go on to win that year's Caine Prize in African Writing and one of the first where we listed when the magazine would next be updated.

Thing eventually got so bad in New Orleans that the more intuitive among my readers realized, earlier in this year, that if I did not leave New Orleans I would probably not want to go on living. The Louis Armstrong Bridge began to look tempting indeed. I was exhausted by struggle and misery ... It is no exaggeration to say that I went through some of the most awful experiences of my adult life during the three years I lived in New Orleans.

Has Phoenix proven any better? I'll leave that to the jury of my peers.

I have been here for a bit over two months now. The job I believed I'd acquired has evaporated under my feet like so much melting ice. I still have the keys to the office and the building but I haven't heard from my putative employer in over two weeks now, though I have repeatedly left messages with his answering service.

I have less than $3 to my name and no prospect of more coming in. I have applied for at least two jobs a day for months and only my obsessive going to market nearly every day, when I had an income, accounts for having food. Don't have cigarettes, the mainstay of my writing and pacing and I drank the last tankard of coffee -- the early morning engine of the writing -- this morning. So-o-o, as we say, I'm not celebrating this "new life" in Phoenix very much right now.

I did have rudimentary support system of friends and acquaintances in New Orleans. In Phoenix, I'm stuck in a desert in more than one way, as we've discussed, Luv.

I often sit bemused when I receive compliments from others about how well I seem to hold up under unremitting adversity. Bemused because the truth is, I do not. How could anyone assert that they are "holding up" under the experience of near-constant deprivation, pain and anxiety? It is simply not possible. I am not holding up, in truth I am being ground down like grain, I am am beaten down.

At the very time when, by rights, I should have my best writing efforts to offer, too often I am simply too exhausted by anxiety and worry to even think, let alone take a reasoned thesis from inception to conclusion. Nothing is more maddening, for me, than this latter fact ...

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7 November, 2004: I go shopping nearly every day. I pick up supplies like paper towels, toilet paper, soap, but I also always buy food. Buying food so often is a neurotic habit of mine.

I buy food, pile it up, because of all those days when I did not have the money to buy food living in New Orleans. I buy food because of all those days when even a $1.00 (USD) bag of rice would have seemed a Godsend.

A small, independent and outspoken magazine like this one can't reach you every week without the support and patronage of its readership. As our way of thanking those who have committed to keep your World's Magazine here on your desktop through their generous donations, we feature their names and cities here in our Roll of Honor. SUSTAINING PATRONS CHERYL HILL NATION, West Fairlee, VT, USA DARHL STULTZ, Largo, FL, USA DRAGAN & DRAGANA VICANOVIC, Belgrade, SERBIA TERRY TERRIAN, Sebastopol, CA, USA TIMOTHY MEADOWS, Anaheim, CA, USA Supporting Patrons BARBARA ATWELL, Berkeley, CA, USA BECKY ALTEMUS, Houston, TX, USA IAN CRYSTAL, Ph. D, New Orleans, LA, USA LARS KEFFERSTAN, New York, NY, USA MATT STOWELL, New Orleans, LA, USA RIC WILLIAMS, Austin, TX, USA STEVE VIVIAN, New York, NY, USA STUART ALTMAN, ESQ., New York, NY, USA We encourage you to add your name to this Roll of Honor. GENERAT OR 21 cannot continue and thrive without your support. Thanks in advance. To support G21, please send checks or money orders to: G21: The World's Magazine Attn: Rod Amis 2332 W. Glenrosa Avenue, #249 Phoenix, AZ 85015-7039 To donate by credit or debit card, please go to the Western Union website by following the highlighted link. Should you donate via Western Union, please notify us via e-mail. Please make all remittances payable to Rod Amis. Again, thanks.

I know that this compulsive food-buying is neurotic. I can't make myself stop doing it. That is part of the damage I have suffered under the violence that is extreme poverty. I never throw food out. I remake meals until they become the proverbial porridge that the serfs used to rhyme about.

Peas porridge hot,
Peas porridge cold,
Peas porridge in the pot,
Nine days old.

I am a peasant.

Perhaps that is why the sensibility of the magazine resonates over 400 times, in 400 ways, with people in far-off places like Africa. That is why I found myself so comfortable in Eastern Europe. The idea of this life as a hard push up a steep hill is not unknown to "Second -" and "Third-World"ers. They know what it is like to wonder about your next meal, defer doctor's visits and food and a those shoes you need because you have to pay the landlord or some school fees your kids might need. They laugh when I call myself the King of Deferred Gratification because I live in America where people don't appear to defer a damned thing.

As I read over the submissions for this historic edition, it was driven home to me more than ever how my own sensibility has shaped the product you review each week. From KEVIN CAREY's time-honored analysis of the intersection between media and history to MPUTHUMI NTABENI's self-revelatory tale of his recent visit to Johannesburg: I have encouraged this kind writing with an electic vision of what should be expected in an electronic magazine. I fully understand this direction has left some nonplussed and others delighted.

In the process, the toll for this experiment in an alternative history of our world has been heavy. It continues to be so ...

ROD'S PLANET-FRIEND QUIZ

This is a very simple, unscientific, completely-for-fun quiz that might give you things to think about. All answers should be YES or NO. If you are unsure, use your best guess.

1 - Do you own and drive a car (or other motor vehicle such as a truck, minivan, van, SUV -- hereafter simply referred to "vehicle")?

2 - Do you drive your vehicle at least four days a week?

3 - If you drive, are you the only occupant of your vehicle more than 30% of the time?

4 - Does your vehicle travel less than 18 miles on a gallon of gasoline?

5 - Do you eat beef?

6 - Do you eat beef more than once per week?

8 - Do you regularly throw away food due to spoilage?

9 - When you eat out at a restaurant or fast-food establishment, do you have food thrown away (or throw it away yourself) because you ordered more than you required?

10 - When eating out, as above, do you have food thrown away (or throw it away yourself) because the portions were larger than you expected?

11 - Do you own a power boat?

12 - If you live in a place that gets very warm during the summer, do you leave your air conditioner on 24 x 7?

13 - If you live in a place that suffers severe winters, do you set your thermostat above 74 degrees?

14 - Do you think composting is a filthy, disgusting habit?

15 - At the supermarket, do you request paper bags or containers when they are available?

16 - Do you smoke tobacco (cigarettes or a pipe)?

17 - Do you smoke tobacco more than once a week?

18 - Do you read product labels when shopping?

SCORING: Give yourself 5 pts for every NO answer.

Scoring Categories:
90 - 70: Good on you! You are truly friendly to the planet that sustains you! You're almost saintly!

70 - 60: You're trying to be helpful, but maybe you should consider the effect of your choices on your grandchildren.

60 - 40: You're fooling some people but you're not trying very hard to help out, now are you?

40 and Below: You are part of the problem. Face it! Get with the program.

---

12 November, 2004: I needed to e-mail some friends of mine, people who usually drop things over the transom of interest or write to ask my opinion on certain topics, asking them not to talk to me about this last U.S. election. I had heard enough, my own life was in turmoil and I didn't need the constant drumbeat of post-election angst and outrage, the finger-pointing ("Hey! It was San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's fault for his gay-marriage stunt!" "Hey, it was Alexandra Kerry in that see-through dress at the Cannes Film Festival!" "Hey, it was Shrum-Carville and the Clintonista's who wanted to replay 1992.") I'd had it.

I had also already stated in this space that, though of was dubious of the actual numbers reported, I did believe that the American people got exactly what they wanted: the creep they did know.

So let me state my position more clearly. Am I apathetic about the results of this election, the glaring proof of voter suppression -- especially minority voter suppression, intimidation and invalidation? No. Do I think that with a "serious" investigation or a recount the election results can be changed? Again, no. The four words that most often come to mind are "The Fix is in."

That second conclusion makes the petitions I've been invited to sign, the letters I've been encouraged to write, et cetera, exercises in futility and I don't have time for those when I need to find a new job and make sure I can pay my rent again at the first of the month. I just don't. Right now I'm worried about issues of basic survival.

So, to all those of you who are outraged out there and want to fight back and believe -- even demand -- that the rest of us do so, I'm sorry. No time. When 1 December rolls around you won't be as vehement about whether I can keep my apartment or not, after all ...

---

I needed to cheer myself up a bit, I figured, so I went over the the Sorry Everybody Web site where lots of Americans have posted their photos and "sorry" messages to the rest of the world for the results of the last election here in the U.S. What was especially nice was that there are also photos, invitations to move ("I've got a bed in my attic.") and "Don't worries" from people in other parts of the world.

I needed that. I needed something to feel good about.

ROD ON REAL ANSWERS

One of the most important elements of success in becoming a man of genius is to learn the art of denunciation. You must always denounce in such a way that your reader thinks that it is the other fellow who is being denounced and not himself; in that case he will be impressed by your noble scorn, whereas if he thinks that it is himself that you are denouncing, he will consider that you are guilty of ill-bred peevishness. Carlyle remarked: "The population of England is twenty millions, mostly fools." Everybody who read this considered himself one of the exceptions, and therefore enjoyed the remark. You must not denounce well-defined classes, such as persons with more than a certain income, inhabitants of a certain area, or believers in some definite creed; for if you do this, some readers will know that your invective is directed against them. You must denounce persons whose emotions are atrophied, persons to whom only plodding study can reveal the truth, for we all know that these are other people, and we shall therefore view with sympathy your powerful diagnosis of the evils of the age." -- Bertrand Russell

Wherever I turn these days, America has gone into self-analysis mode. The vanquished are asking themselves how they could have missed -- something, the zeitgeist, the mood, an opportunity -- and the victors are either cheering, "I told you so!" or delivering thinly-veiled threats about collecting spoils.

It was a habit of my youth, in fact I practiced it up until four years ago, to go back to Bertrand Russell whenever I thought my mind needed to be washed clean of cant and slogans. Russell, for me, was always like diving into clear, cold water and coming to the surface refreshed. I've commented on that feeling and that inspiration in another column here.

So I turn to Russell again now when I feel most bombarded by either muddy, shallow or plain bizarre thinking about what is really going in the nation and the world. As I commented, the desert culture here seems to germinate conspiracy theories, cult-like trains of myth-based conclusions and other forms of superstitious "analysis." What passes for received wisdom would do any Medieval cabalist quite proud.

Thus, if you are prone at all to being the least bit heretic, not to mention skeptical, you find yourself at the bad end of the examples that Russell provides above. You are adjudged both ill-bred and peevish; a truly uncomfortable position in which to find oneself.

Outside of this desert haunt, where radical self-analysis is eschewed at all costs, the part of the country that comprises the disappointed and the punditocracy who service them has returned to a soul-searching mode unrivalled since the days after the terrorist incident of 2001. The hymns are the same, only the verse(s) is different. Instead of "Why do they hate us?" this time the question seems to be "Are we really that different from the other people here?"

Like the first question, of years ago, the second question is an exhibition of either blinkered thinking or self-inflicted ignorance.

In fact, it could easily be argued that the first question, this time kept domestic, would serve equally well for the exercise that is going on. That is why I have, in so many ways now, said, Thanks but no thanks. I don't have time for this.

In ways large and small, the "progressive," or "leftist," or "New Age" or "Liberal" or whatever appellation they wish to apply to themselves this season -- anything but radical or dissident, right? -- collective in this the United States continues to want to have it two ways that are incompatible:

1. bask in the benefits of consumerist society while denigrating its outward signs and emblems and
2. insist that the very system they wish to "reform" is corrupt and destructive and needs to be entirely dismantled and overhauled.

As I've stated in this space once before, the problem of Liberalism is that it maintains the belief that a toxic appliance in your kitchen threatening the lives of your family merely needs to be fixed. The fact is, any rational person would throw it out!

By those lights, the Electoral College system in the United States would have been junked and replaced after the 2000 debacle. By those lights, the U.S. Senate system would have been junked and replaced with something more representative of actual population density. AND by those lights, the dire need for a new Constitutional Convention would have been recognized for the giant elephant sitting in the middle of the living room of America that it is.

The band-aid that liberals are attempting to place on the hemorrhage of foundering democracy in the United States is simply ineffectual and liberals need to become radical, open their eyes, and accept that.

The alternative, in this view, is to stand by and watch the slide toward empire and away from republic that has become self-evident. From the New York Times to The Nation to Mother Jones you can bandy around words like "theocracy," "police state," "corporate government," et cetera but without the recognition that these are inherent tendencies in the political discourse BECAUSE the system is toxic, those words are little more than descriptions of the symptoms while ignoring the disease.

Perhaps it is time for the loyal opposition to learn to stand up on its hind legs and seek real, fundamental change rather than ad hoc measures and tweaking. In that instance, the words freedom and justice might again have some currency in the discussion.

Thanks for coming back this week. Keep me in your prayers as I keep you in my own ...

THINGS I NEED THIS WEEK

1. A paying job.

2. Respite from constant worry.

3. Developing a circle of good friends here in Phoenix.

"Work like you don't need the money,
"Love like you've never been hurt,
"Dance like no one is watching ... "

Love,
Rod

ROD AMIS has published this magazine since 1990. It first appeared as a hardcopy 'Zine. In March, 1996, he launched it here on the Web. Rod was a Contributing Editor at Suite101.com, where he wrote the " 'Net Publishing" feature. His work has been featured in the San Francisco Bay Guardian Online, NRV8, and at WebLab's Reality Check site. Rod was also a contributing writer on technology for Faulkner Information Services. He wrote on Web issues for MethodFive.com's Hyper newsletter.

Rod was a columnist for the Andover News Network, where he wrote over two hundred articles on web design and development issues. He was also principal writer and Editor for IT Manager's Journal, where he reviewed technology issues weekly, producing 383 editorials. He became the Managing Editor for Electronic Mail/Newsletter Publications at Andover.net at the end of February, 2000, and left in September of the same year. He was a contributing writer for ACCESS magazine, which appeared both on- and offline for 10 million readers in 100 newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Post, Boston Herald, Austin American-Statesman, Denver Post and Orlando Sentinel, among others. Rod was the US reporter for Silicon.com, a division of Network Multimedia Television in London, UK, reaching 3.5 million European readers, until May, 2001.

In 2002, he worked as Assistant to the General Manager of a Big Easy company that does restaurants and nightclubs. He did stints as the Resident Philosopher at three separate gin mills in that city in the French Quarter and the Marigny, earning his stripes during two successive Mardi Gras seasons. Oh yeah, Rod's had Day Jobs working construction. Mostly renovations of old New Orleans structures, houses and a bar. Sometimes he designs Web sites for other people so that he can get his creative juices flowing the way he can't at a staid publication like this one. And he's been the instructor in Editing for Internet Publications at the Novi Sad School of Journalism in Yugoslavia. Our Resident Philosopher is now looking for creative ways of re-inventing himself in the Valley of the Sun. He works during the day in a real estate office in downtown Phoenix and spends his nights dreaming of a better life. In his spare time, he chases women in the manner that a fly pursues a spider.

Rod plans publication of the first Glass House book before the end of the year and is already working on the second, sequel, manuscript.

He continues to be committed to integrity, chastity and a dose of humility.

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