Just finished Susan Sontag’s early journals from 1947-1963 Reborn as compiled and edited by her son David Rieff. The first sentence we read is a proclamation she wrote when she was 14: “I believe that there is no personal god or life after death.” Then at 15 we read her thoughts on reading Andre Gide, listening to Vivaldi and learning to drive from her stepfather.

As she gets older, has her failed marriage, has her son, has her lovers, she gets very introspective as journals should be.

The orgasm focuses. I lust to write. The coming of the orgasm is not the salvation but, more, the birth of my ego. I cannot write until I find my ego. (11/19/59)

My desire to write is connected with my homosexuality. I need the identity as a weapon, to match the weapon that society has against me…

I am just becoming aware of how guilty I feel being queer. With H, I thought it didn’t bother me, but I was lying to myself. I let other people (e.g., Annette [Michaelson]) believe that is was H, who was my vice, and that apart from her I wouldn’t be queer or at least not mainly so.

I connect my feat and my sense of guilt with Philip, with his publicizing it to everyone all over the world, with the prospect of another custody suit next summer. But perhaps he only makes it worse. Thus, why do I continue the deception with Jacob [Taubes]?

Being queer makes me feel more vulnerable. It increases my wish to hide, to be invisible — which I’ve always felt anyway. (12/24/59)

Need to finish up with Fernando Pessoa’s Book of Disquiet. Need to re-read Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov.

Earlier this year I saw that the Church of Satan had a 40-question survey for applicants for an active membership, and I thought it was pretty funny. I was going go through these 1 or 2 at a time, but stopped for some reason. But here it is in its entirety.

1. What are your impressions of The Satanic Bible?

First of all, just a style note. “The Satanic Bible” should be either underlined or italicized since it does refer to a title of a book. For me, I prefer book titles to be italicized.

As for the book itself, you see, I haven’t read it in over a decade. I would have liked to brush up on it recently, but an aunt of mine just donated the bulk of my book collection to charity mistakenly. So there is that.

But from what I remember of it, it’s basically an extension of Nietzsche’s renunciation of the concept of god. It realizes that god is a human construct, and it forces humans to be self-reliant. There is no divine intervention. There is no fate. It’s just us. Of course, I’m doing this from memory, and that memory has been taxed with fun and party and drugs back in my 20s.

Of course I have questions about it. Like how come there are rituals when it emphasizes man. And without a god, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of creating a “church”? But once I buy the book again, I suppose I’ll find such answers.

2. What do you expect to accomplish through membership in the Church of Satan?

I honestly have no idea. I’m sort of doing this as a laugh/writing exercise, so I really have no expectations.

3. If you were granted three wishes, what would they be?

1. I would ask for unlimited financial resources. The one thing that causes a lot of stress in people’s lives is money and the lack thereof. So why not eliminate that stress for good? That doesn’t mean I’ll spend my life doing nothing and lazing about. It just means that I won’t have to do something soul-sucking and thankless.

2. Peace in my family. Some people in my family are just cunts. I would like them to be civil and decent to one another so they don’t drive me to my grave earlier than I want.

3. No more bad sex. That’s pretty self-explanatory.

4. What is your attitude toward animals? If you have any pets describe them. What is your ideal?

I love most animals most of the time. I can’t say that I enjoy seeing a rattlesnake when I’m on a trail. I can’t say that I enjoy seeing a deer jump out on a highway in the middle of the night as I’m driving at 80 mph. But it’s not like I wish them dead. I just wish they would avoid me at those instances.

I don’t have any pets right now since my grandmother is allergic to cats and doesn’t like dogs. I know, a Korean who doesn’t like dogs — ha ha. But I am a cat person. I love they are independent and you have to work for their love. They don’t just give you unconditional love. You have to earn it.

5. Are you satisfied with your sex life? Describe your ideal of a physically attractive sex partner.

No. As a live-in caretaker of my grandmother, I’m limited in what I can do. However even before then it’s not like I had gratifying sex. For the most part it was boring. Hell, I even had one guy tell me to quiet down because I was talking too much. I would have rather he just slapped me across the face.

My ideal physical partner is older than me, 6’5″ or taller, completely burly — or at least burly enough to throw me around on a bed — a nice thick 7 to 8 inch cock and arms I could use as pillows. The guy could be completely hairy or smoother than a baby’s ass. Blonde, brunette, bald, silver — again it doesn’t matter.

6. What is your life’s goal, and what steps have you taken to attain it?

Jeez. This is like those what-do-you-want-to-be-when-you-grow-up compositions you have to write in kindergarten. Look. I know I’m 36, but I still have no fucking clue. I guess I want to write and be happy. Write, well I do that. Be happy? Well, I haven’t been happy in a very long time, so I don’t know how in the hell I’m going to get there.

As for a particular vocation, “shitstarter” would be an apt description.

7. Do you find any of our tenets objectionable? If so, which and why?

Again, since it’s been a while since I’ve read The Satanic Bible, I don’t remember finding anything reprehensible.

8. How many years would you like to live?

No more than 65. Sooner if I’m sick or feeble. And that’s a maximum. I’ve learned through taking care of my grandmother that I don’t want to linger. Dallas Aunt and I talk about this all the time, and she has some stupid idea that we have no choice in the matter. Of course we have the choice.

In my mid-30s I already have back and leg pains. Constantly. Things only get worse as you get older, and if it gets too bad, see you I’m out of here.

9. What are your musical tastes? Provide examples.

My musical tastes can be all over the place. Lately they’ve been a bit more experimental with COIL and EINSTURZENDE NEUBAUTEN. I’ve also been listening to a lot of industrial music like SKINNY PUPPY and FRONT LINE ASSEMBLY. The rock-and/or-roll does move me too, like SLEATER-KINNEY and PJ HARVEY. The only time I really touch pop music is when it really challenges society and genre like MADONNA’s Erotica or anything by DEPECHE MODE. Of course there were the 90’s-00’s indie bands like UNWOUND, MILEMARKER, DEERHOOF, LIARS. Oh and 80’s college rock like BUTTHOLE SURFERS, SONIC YOUTH, BIG BLACK, SACCHARINE TRUST, MINUTEMEN, HUSKER DU.

10. Cite four motion pictures you consider your favorites, and why.

1. Natural Born Killers. This is perhaps a 90s version of Badlands except more quotable, more drug-influenced and more fun. Mix in a killer soundtrack, and it’s a wonder I loved this movie when I was a teenager.

2. Melancholia. I love Lars Von Trier films, and this one is my favorite. A portrait of debilitating depression, it is spellbinding and gorgeously shot. It shows how those undiagnosed with mental illness and living seemingly perfect lives can crack easily under pressure.

3. Female Trouble. This is the best John Waters film. Divine seeks fame by any means necessary including murder and culminates in her getting the electric chair. It also has the best rape scene in film history: female Divine getting raped by male Divine.

4. Breathless. I just can’t.

11. What are your food preferences?

I like nearly everything except shellfish and eggplant. But my favorites are fruit and anything deep fried.

12. Cite four books you consider favorites, and why.

1. Tim and Pete. Two exes get kidnapped and involved in a radical queer plot to bomb a Republican gathering and giving Ronald Reagan AIDS. I love the anger in this book.

2. Infinite Jest. An epic book that this is probably the easiest classic to read from the 20th century. Drug addiction, tennis academy, esoteric films and a hint of dystopian fiction.

3. House of Leaves. The scariest book.

4. The Brothers Karamazov. Perhaps the most perfect book ever written. It actually angers me that I haven’t read this as often as I should.

13. If you own an automobile, describe it. What is your ideal automobile?

I own a 2002 Toyota Camry, the quintessential soccer mom car of the last decade. It works, and that’s what matters most to me. I don’t really see cars as status symbols.

14. As a child, what were your favorite pastimes? What was your disposition?

I loved to read. Mostly I just wanted to be left alone unless I really liked someone, but that didn’t happen too frequently.

15. Of which country other than the one in which you now reside would you prefer being a resident?

I could see myself in France. They’re rude for no reason, smug and love arts. It’s like my homeland!

16. In what type of dwelling do you live? Describe your ideal home.

I live in an apartment. I would love to live in something that is airy and open, lots of windows, lots of glass.

17. Describe your political philosophy.

I’m an economic socialist and a social libertarian. In short, the government should help the poor and disadvantaged but shut the fuck up about who I can fuck.

18. What is your personal definition of magic?

A shitty table-top roleplaying card game.

19. Do you feel oppressed or persecuted in any way? If so, explain.

Not really. I might hyperbolically joke about it, but not really.

20. Are you self-sufficient or are you most productive in a group?

You know, I hate these binary questions. I can do both.

21. Do you make friends easily if you so choose?

Yes.

22. What is more important to you, self-satisfaction or approval from others?

Self-satisfaction is more important. Sure, I would love for other people to just die over the things I make and do, but it would be useless if I don’t like what I do.

23. Would you rather influence or be influenced?

I would rather influence. Bitch, puh-lease. Anyone who knows me knows I don’t like following people.

24. Do you feel you have leadership abilities?

I think I would be a good dictator.

25. Do you consider yourself a good judge of character?

This reminds me of a quote from Roseanne Barr: I consider myself a pretty good judge of people — that’s why I don’t like none of them. I find that hilarious.

The people I choose to keep close to me are good people, so yes. I think I’m am excellent judge.

26. In what organizations do you hold membership?

Again, another quote from a comedian. Groucho Marx: I don’t want to belong to any club that would accept me as one of its members.

27. Have you possessed or used illegal drugs or been convicted of a crime? If so, explain in full.

Crime, no. Drugs? Acid, pot, mushrooms, cocaine, meth, heroin and crack. Jeez, that really makes me look like a drug fiend, but none of these were done in the name of addiction. Purely recreational.

28. Describe a significant experience in your life bordering on what you would consider the paranormal or demonic, if any.

Some people might think my life is demonic, but no.

29. What forms of entertainment do you prefer?

I watch a lot of TV and movies. I need to kill a lot of time while babysitting the Grandmother.

30. Tell one of your favorite jokes.

What is the sound of a water truck colliding with a vinegar truck? Doooooooooouche!

31. Have you served in the armed forces? If so, provide pertinent data.

No.

32. How long did it take you to join the Church of Satan?

I ain’t joining.

33. Are you a smoker? If so, to what extent.

No. I smoked cigarettes for 16 years but quit four years ago. Cold turkey. As for other things, I haven’t smoked pot since around 2004. I smoked heroin once. Oh. I also smoked crack once.

34. Have you accomplished anything important or significant? If so, what?

My most important accomplishment is not having a boring 9-to-5 job.

35. Which parent do you admire most and why?

My dad because he’s dead.

36. Do you drink alcoholic beverages? If so, to what extent? State preferences.

I don’t drink much. If I do, I’ll sip a beer, a whiskey or something.

37. Do you have any tangible services or resources which you would care to contribute?

My bubbly fucking personality.

38. Are you free to travel? To what extent?

I am free to travel. My passport has expired, but that’s an easy remedy.

39. Define Satan.

St. Louis Cardinals fans.

40. Provide your signature attesting to the above, and enclose photograph.

Y’all know what I look like.

Tonight’s supermoon eclipse was sort of a bummer because of the clouds and haze. But it was nice to stand on the sidewalk for an hour or so during the total eclipse and wait for the moon to become visible. So now to wait for the next total lunar eclipse on January 31, 2018.

I cannot wait for this coming weekend — the next Jimmy Gone Wild weekend! Who knows? Maybe I’ll actually have a wild weekend! That would be something novel.

I don’t know what it is. I can’t remember if this happened yesterday or on Tuesday, but I found myself overcome with emotion at the mere mention of the pope. Don’t ask me why this atheist was getting teary-eyed hearing reports on the radio about his visit. But it happened.

I don’t need a lecture on why it’s stupid to get all worked up. It’s not like I’m extolling all the virtues of the pope and the Catholic Church. Sometimes I just like succumbing to the emotions of things. The best part is that I don’t have to take part of the dogma and beliefs and all that stupid shit. Win! Win! Win!

Today I was a bit transfixed by the pope in the popemobile heading down 5th Ave towards St. Patrick’s Cathedral. I kept thinking that a Latin American being driven through Midtown Manhattan while not wearing a seatbelt, shouldn’t the NYPD be beating him to within an inch of his life?

Today I suddenly experienced an absurd but quite valid sensation. I realized, in an intimate lightning flash, that I am no one. No one, absolutely no one. (p. 19)

I don’t know why I never heard of Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935) until now, but here I am reading Book of Disquiet. It’s part journal, part fragments, part fiction. It’s as if he was a blogger back in the early 1900s, a proto-blogger.

I’ve been a bit obsessed with journals lately. I also got Susan Sontag’s Reborn: Journals & Notebooks, 1947-1963 and can’t wait to delve deep into that. I guess this is slightly more high brow than using the Wayback Machine to read a former escort’s blog.

Some guy named Richard Dawkins apparently wrote something insensitive over the weekend. Several of my friends on Facebook bemoaned it, but I was wondering one simple thing: who is Richard Dawkins?

I posted something cheeky on Facebook wondering this, but no one answered my curiosity. So apparently he’s a British biologist who wrote a book in the 70s inventing the term “meme” and promoting a gene-centered view of evolution. He is also an atheist and apparently is very serious about it. I mean, I’m an atheist but at least I smile.

So I don’t know what this Dawkins fellow said, why anyone should pay attention to him or why I should care. I don’t know why others do, but I guess I’m choosing not to bear that cross.

This morning, I also posted a question to folks wondering who like the new Ryan Adams cover album of Taylor Swift’s 1989. Now I know several people whose music tastes to ignore. I don’t like Ryan Adams. I don’t like Taylor Swift. ‘Nuff said.

Over the last couple of weeks I went back and reread an old blog of a San Francisco-based hustler Devon Blackwell. He blogged regularly, had a complete meth-aided breakdown, moved to Houston and closed up shop. Actually that is an overly simplistic way of putting it. I wonder how he is doing now, over a decade later. Did he finish his degree? Has he found someone who compliments him? Is he all right?

I Peanutized myself!

Most of the news I read is thanks to a link via Twitter or Facebook. If a headline doesn’t move me, that’s pretty much all I know. So when I saw the David Cameron headline yesterday about him and a pig, I figured it was some stupid news agency mistaking the first episode of Black Mirror for real life and reporting on that. Given how many people are duped by The Onion, it a fairly plausible explanation.

So I look on the Twitter machine last night, and people were still going on about David Cameron fucking a pig. I was shocked to see how many people still haven’t seen Black Mirror, but I decided to search the story anyhow. Cue the New York Daily News:

How’s this for a pig in a poke?

A soon-to-be-published book makes a shocking claim that British Prime Minister David Cameron put a “private part of his anatomy” in a dead pig’s mouth as part of a student initiation ritual at Oxford.

Say what? That wasn’t in the Black Mirror episode.

So let’s get this straight-ish. The current British Prime Minister and conservative leader willingly stuck his dick in a pig’s mouth?

Allegedly?

Straight rich white folk are nasty. It’s bad enough these motherfuckers don’t use washcloths, but they have the strangest initiation rituals. There’s the Skull and Crossbones where everyone jizzed on you while you are lying in a coffin or something stupid like that, and now this pig fucking thing at Oxford? The sexual repression amongst rich white folk is pretty ridiculous.

It might have appeared that I watched both Monday Night Football games last night, but I didn’t. Not one bit. I didn’t actually witness the mismatched 49ers uniforms or Trent Dilfer yelling at me all night or anything this Australian guy was writing about in his liveblog of the game.

Instead I watched this documentary on the Paris v. America fashion battle at the Palace of Versailles in 1973 which is far more interesting than a bunch of wannabe obese heterosexual men in tight clothing running around for 10 seconds then falling down.

I knew it was supposed to rain overnight. When I first saw the alerts late last week, the National Weather Service said to expect about an inch of rain. Then the estimates went down. Down. So I wasn’t expecting much more than a few sprinkles.

When I woke up this morning, I saw that we got over a 1/2 inch of rain here in the Pedro, and close to two inches in Downtown LA. That certainly was surprising.

However in its wake, we are not left with a nice crisp day. Nope, this was a tropical system meaning now it’s hot and muggy, much more like Louisiana than Southern California. Hopefully local water districts have plans for retaining all of this water. I doubt it though. So, really, this doesn’t do much for the drought especially since there was no snow.

Couldn’t they find at least one gay person in San Francisco to tell them their hats clash with their outfits?

Today I had to go and get The Grandmother’s monthly allotment of Vicodin. New state laws dictates that a written prescription needs to be given to the pharmacist. No automatic refills. No fax. No email. No phone call.

So to Downtown LA I went to pick up the prescription from the doctor and I remarked how great the traffic was what with Rosh Hashanah. I got to his office in 20 minutes and was really excited about getting all of this done early. So back to San Pedro I went to get the prescription filled at Target by my apartment. Backup Pharmacist was there whom I’ve never met, but I didn’t think much about it. I’ve done this once a month this entire year with no incident.

But then the clerk comes back to me with the prescription saying that two of the 4s written down didn’t match. Wow. I didn’t know Backup Pharmacist was a handwriting expert, too! I asked if they could call the doctor since I didn’t want to have to drive back down to Downtown LA, but both the clerk and Backup Pharmacist refused. I guess that’s what I get for being happy about the traffic.

So back to Downtown LA I went, and thankfully the traffic wasn’t any worse. I had to wait a little at the doctor’s office while he finished with a patient and called Backup Pharmacist to ask what her damage was. And then back I went to the Pedro to fill the prescription, slowed down by slow-driving expensive German import luxury cars.

I first left the apartment at 10:30 am and finally got back 2:15 pm with the drugs. It would have been easier to score some smack or buy the Vicodin on the street than to do this all legally. It’s sad that rather than trying to actually care about patients and their needs, the main role of doctors and pharmacists and everyone in this healthcare cartel is to minimize their liability at all costs.

That’s why I’m not kidding when I say I’m not getting old. I’m not going to be stupid like The Grandmother and get old and linger. I’m offing myself before that happens. Any. Means. Necessary.

To blow of steam I decided to go for a run on this humid day. I got back home and was still just as angry — now I was just hungry since I didn’t have time to eat.

I guess it also didn’t help that I saw this during my run. I’m so proud of my stupid little town sometimes.