Eli's Regulator Month Entry #1

Eli's Regulator Month Entry #1: I'll start off by saying, this month isn't just about saying 'YES', it's also about saying what you feel, and that includes calling people out. First, know that nothing short of stop or I'll shoot is going to quell my surge towards destination. Second, Stop learning safety from a manual kids, common sense doesn't translate from paper. Third, don't ride my ass, pass me. When I ask you if we have a problem, don't go all passive-aggressive rubbery, just fuck of...

Deregulators, Mount Up

It would seem that society has reached it's cultural and commercial denouement, we've crescendoed; oh how the mighty have shown no remorse. I suppose if I had a boat payment or a sixty-thousand-dollar car, I would be sweating right now. The path I'd taken to even consider those endeavors might be paved with the conquest of fiduciary worth and the transcendence of moral and emotional anchors. When you get to the mountaintop, it's just you, there isn't enough room for anyone else, and the minute another hand comes over that last ledge, you have to kick the person attached to it, just to maintain your tiny piece of real estate at the pinnacle. That is the nature of our deregulated systems and industries.

But things are promised to be on the mend, getting better is a constant, apparently. Only I'm seeing none of it. Oh I'm still delivering packages for companies like Brown Brothers Harriman, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley et al. But the quality of my life is seeing no improvement, the volume of work I depend on, is still in steady decline, and the manner with which I'm treated is still of the second-class, or no-class ilk.

In the wake of this BP disaster, I'm hearing calls from all over the globe, for more regulation, more accountability, more oversight, less lee-way. The fundamental problems of the state of society and commerce at present are friendships, cronyism, nepotism and plain old-fashioned egomania. You want more oversight, but you're going to get fraternity brothers hunting down college roommates, in-laws etc. The elite classes are in cahoots, not because of some great conspiracy, but because they move in the same social circles. They may not even want to do each other any favors, but at the risk of not being invited to some party, soiree or benefit and losing face in the world of business, one good favor deserves an endless well of unregulated favors. I work at an oil company, you run a commercial construction company, help me make my shareholders happy three weeks early by turning your back on crucial safety checks and tests. Just friends doing each other favors.

With this in mind, the time has come to question the tactics of other corporate entities. Many moons ago, before Fedex drop boxes and UPS stores, there were couriers, messengers, just plain people, with conveyances to carry them from place to place. Single moms driving their mini vans, weekend warriors in muscle cars, and kids (literally children, including Andrew Carnegie himself) on bicycles. Charged with time-sensitive, globally crucial materials these souls would trudge through every weather, through every hardship, holding up the pillars of society. In medieval times, these brave individuals would shave their heads, have messages tattooed on their scalps and regrow said hair, carrying secret messages between neighboring kingdoms in times of war. They carried the will and longing of those wishing to escape the iron curtain across enemy lines for the sake of freedom during the Cold War. Couriers have always been there when called, and we're still here. However, in the light of the revolutionizing of information technology, our jobs have been outsourced; not to other countries, but to faceless, corporate entities, with little regard for their own employees, never mind the cargo they escort. They overcharge to offer the convenience of a uniform, corporate charge accounts and never having to interact with the individual who is responsible for the packages' safe passage. This unregulated industry of giants in a world of hard-working people have too much power, to swallow up small business, devour the streets and based on daily conversations, mistreat their own employees. It is a sad state of affairs when we as a society can shut our eyes to injustice not only while sitting atop it, but while contributing to it daily.

So this is a proposal of a new green movement, away from giant delivery trucks that spew poison fumes into the air, away from 'brown shirt' uniforms of militaristic and inhuman, sterile banality, step out of the shadow of corporate irresponsibility and give your business some momentum. Call a courier, call two couriers, call them all, get a quote, say hello, have them deliver some same-day packages for you. You won't regret it, the knowledge of contributing to small business, keeping the little guy afloat, inspiring hope and adaptation is well worth the cost of an envelope. Ensure the safety and surety of the cargo you transport by sending it with a human being. Ask not what 'brown can do for you', ask what you can do for the underdog.

No Rest For The Wicked

So I started feeling sick on Friday, I knew I was coming down with something, I had a moderate sniffle, my face felt flush and I had that mysteriously spicy feeling on the roof of my mouth, as if I had just consumed a barrel of citrus fruits followed by an entire shaker of salt. So I took it easy Friday night, matter of fact, I took it easy all weekend, I barely left my house, I ate soup, took lots of meds, drank Orange Juice and slept whenever possible. Where did this leave me? With a missing recovery day, because whilst most people I work with had the glory of Columbus day to wallow in their own hangovers, I had to be downtown at eight sharp, already holding two downtowns, five giant social law books, pretending not to be cold in the beautiful shade of Winthrop Square with only Bill and BG to keep me company. Gradually others showed up, it seemed that every company was represented by one or more of it's folk and we all commiserated about the fact that there was no work, it was cold as hell for October and we'd all rather be having a ditch day at someone's house. But, to our own surprise, we held fast, we endured, we got jobs, we made deliveries on a day when no banks, no post offices, few law firms and zero government buildings were open. At about one, I was given the option to leave early, which I jumped at, even though in reality, and I knew this to be true, leaving then meant I would be leaving at three, which I did. So I set off to make a productive day of the remaining sunshining hours I had left. I managed to; buy a box of Emergency, get a cup of coffee I easily could have made at home, peruse records I didn't need and didn't want, smoke a bunch of cigarettes, buy new pedals, take a bath, eat a candy bar and ultimately screw around on the internet for what may be the better part of an hour. Meanwhile, I need to; do the dishes, a load of laundry, install the new pedals I purchased, eat some real food(probably soup), and pick a creative endeavor to begin commencement upon. Why do we put off the easy things in favor of time-consuming difficult shit? Because we need failure to inspire us. Not really, because we fear not having the energy to do them later, which we ultimately don't. Instead, we burn ourselves out on useless shit leaving nothing done and plenty of self-loathing to go around. Hooray, I'm a slapass. Fuck.

Stumped and Rooted

Being in a creative rut is kind of like having your foot stuck in a bear trap. It hurts, terribly. No matter what you do, it will take something awful and painful to gain your freedom, the equivalent of gnawing your own foot off or severing it with the trap itself are two of the less graphic options for forward movement. I suppose the best thing to do would be to try and walk with the trap attached and reach a place where you can get help removing it. Though, to be sure, you would be dragging a painful, bloody useless limb miles before you reached any signs of help. So now, for the past few months at least, I've been dragging a bloody limb of creative limbo everywhere I go, and though I loathe the cold infinitely, I know the sheer trauma, pain and aggravation of it, not to mention my tendency to dig in and hibernate when not working, will hopefully create some form of inertia for me to regain the inspiration I'm yearning for. This is not an invitation for anyone to amputate any of my limbs, or remove my organs and leave me in a bathtub full of ice in a strange motel room in Burlington. Simply a very complicated excused for why this page has been left so desolate and empty for such an extended period of time. If I were a bear, I would have eaten the friendly gentleman who was making a documentary about me and/or become a decorative floor covering where a wealthy ivy-leaguer would currently be banging the lady friend he rufeed at a Manhattan nightclub in the ass. Either way, I suppose I'm better off with a bloody stump.

Bear Chesting

As far as science has come, it has yet to surpass the rowdy superiority of pop culture's endless influence and misguided trajectory through modernity. Take, for example, the detective drama; for years, from Murder She Wrote to Law and Order, we've watched murder deconstructed, reconstructed, explained and itemized, one would think we as a culture had learned how to 'get away with it'.

A Canadian car model, who was in California at the time, was found with her teeth extracted and fingers severed, leaving seemingly no way for anyone to trace or track down the poor woman's identity. However, allow us to site item two on our tour of science's short comings in the face of pop culture, the breast implant. Said woman was identified solely by the serial numbers implanted below the surface of her skin, an area, though penetrable and retrievable, not scoured by our poor victim's assailant.

Now I've heard of serial numbers on all sorts of transplants, synthetic hips, knees, shoulders, pig heart valves and such, and I'm pretty sure I knew breast implants were numbered for the purpose of tracking manufacturing failures. Though, never would I think that this would be the way authorities would track the identity of a murder victim.

It really makes you think twice about the things you decide to do to yourself. Bearing in mind that at any point you could wake up dead, or find yourself in a bathtub full of ice with an important organ missing, do you really want to be remembered as the woman identified by her breast implants, or the guy with a tattoo of a dinosaur copulating with a toaster oven. What if you were found in a foreign hotel room in ladies underwear hanging from a rope? Or hanging from your own belt?

Famed unabomber Ted Kazinski was found on the floor of his prison cell naked from the waist down with his underwear wrapped around his neck, someone jokingly mused at the time, "Either he tried to hang himself or he got lucky." But that would have been his memory. The more I think about it, the things I do on a day to day basis, make my death kind of sad.

If I were in a fatal accident tomorrow at work, they wouldn't find drugs in my system, no regrettable tattoos, nothing sordid in my past really, what they would find is a truly destitute individual with a stomach of iced coffee, bread and acid reflux, a bloodstream flooded with nicotine and the remnants of my thoughts, the physical manifestation, without any electric impulses, no ideas, just mass. I would be inanimate mass, and that is what I would leave behind.

I think the moral of this story is to get more shameful or regrettable tattoos, do as many terrible things as possible, be remembered as the most horrific trainwreck who ever walked the streets, endless head-shaking and tooth-sucking, shameful testaments to a life lived to it's utmost.

So from now on, I make this pledge, no longer will I be caught without food in my stomach, or the mar of drunk-decisions across my body, I vow to live out loud, to sing my own fucking praises and most important of all, to get breast implants, I haven't decided where yet, I'm thinking my feet, if they get long enough I'll have my pick of the best shit at City Sports Basement. Yep, it's going to be awesome.

Horse Puckey

I woke up early with plenty of energy, the sun was guarded and diffused by lime green curtains casting a euphoric glow over my bedroom. A beeping was going off on my dresser and I stumbled, bleary-eyed to end my early-morning suffering. Though I was awake and alert, I couldn’t seem to abide the constant nagging and ringing of an alarm clock that couldn’t take a hint. Alarm clocks should know when to shut the fuck up.

I walked into the kitchen to make some toast and put the kettle on for coffee. I settled down at the kitchen table and read some news from the internet, not much good in it and the bad wasn’t much better. The kettle whistled up a boil and I filled the French press with water. I buttered my toast and read about distant troubles, domestic miracles and a mysterious horse holocaust in Florida.

Having recently been in Florida myself, though not being a horse, it seemed interesting to me and I researched onward. It seemed that immediately before a polo match in West Palm Beach, a slew of the horses began dropping dead, some of them dropped dead later in the day on their way home and a total of fourteen were dead by the end of the day.

This makes me wonder if a horse is a horse of course of course and if it is a horse, it ain’t foaling anybody. Somebody had run afoul these foals, for what purpose? To what end? I know about doping racehorses and sending bad investments off to the glue factory, but polo is a game invented and played by the idle rich, who obviously do so to counteract their idle nature for the opposite of idle is galloping down a field wielding a mallet whomping giant balls from one side to the other and looking rather dapper doing it.

Naturally I always assumed the wealthy and privileged classes always had the best stuff, took care of their possessions and always spent the money regardless of personal cost, but maybe this isn’t the case. Maybe they cut corners, squeezed pennies and in light of the current economic climate killed their horses to escape some form of financial obligation. Maybe it was a pre-arranged club or cabal of struggling socialites who categorically decided to assassinate their own horses for the insurance money. Double indemnity pays off triple on business trips and these horses were at work, on the job, gearing up for the game of their respective careers.

I’m reminded of Alfred Hitchcock, a kind of The Birds meets Strangers On A Train. A kind of ‘you kill my horse, I’ll kill yours’ engagement and so it goes. I eat out fewer times a week, make far fewer indulgent purchases and a gaggle of debutantes off their ponies. Is this art imitating life or life imitating a poorly written serialized television program? Is it not enough that the proletariat feel the crunch and gnash of the economy’s teeth as it chews up the workforce, must we punish the upper classes too? And what of the horses? Where is their bailout? When their owners are in financial ruin, will the dog food factory be the euphemism for where thoroughbreds go to die? No mausoleum for Seabiscuit’s brood? Those mighty Clydesdales, the poster-pets of beer-drinking, blue-collar escapism, I fear their respective manes may well be on the line as well. An ad campaign, launched in memoriam for the brave horses that gave their lives, to feed the masses of starved brewmasters all over America.

In all seriousness, it is a very sad state of affairs, I have had many a pet myself and am greatly saddened by the loss of prized polo ponies poignantly pricked from polo-nial platitude. And so it is with a heavy heart I ask for a moment of silence, an ode to the loss of these fourteen dedicated athletes and the ultimate gift to which they gave their lives. I only hope someone has checked on Mr. Ed, for when a horse turns in its grave, everyone within reach and earshot turns in theirs, because of proximity. Hi ho silver and farewell

Pigeon Politics

When one hears the word pigeon, we naturally think of stout birds, wiggling their way from bread crumb to bread crumb waiting for the sudden stagger of a stranger’s leg so they can break and take flight. The word pigeon also refers to an adaptation, an evolution and a breaking of a chrysalis as in pigeon language. To watch a pigeon is to understand the process of being a hungry lion lying in wait, sifting through tall dried grass, inching your way closer to a breathing meal. Pigeons are naturally distrustful of other living things, though quick to eat your discarded bagel or nibble on forgotten fruit, they remain wary of the possibility that one day, we may stand up and eat them. There are places in the world where pigeon is part of the everyday diet, I wonder if pigeons there are as docile. The cautious, guarded, yet evolutionary nature of the word pigeon brings me to an interesting question; are we witnessing the end of pigeon poltics?

The nature of pigeon culture dictate that the fattest pigeons usually eat the most, they usurp most of the surplus food, they intimidate smaller pigeons and scare them from their bounty, in the roost they take up the most room and chase out underlings with their bilious stature. Sound familiar? AIG was built on pigeon policy, they exacted change around the globe simply by gobbling up as much as they could and forcing the small folk out of their roosts. They waddled their fat, expensive asses all over the backs of the working class and cackled or tweeted, twittered or whatever when they were bailed out. The fat pigeons feeding themselves when the smallest birds are starving to death.

However, it is in the tradition of adapted language and the recontextualization of words, phrases and specific pieces of policy that pigeon interpretation will eventually reform the twisted system to which we have been shackled for so long. Our cooing and cawing had silent screams for fifty years and finally, it seems, our day of being fed may come again. A day when the largest pigeons can wait their turn and watch the tiniest bird eat first. Tiny birds, wherever you are, I know you’re starving now, I know you’re without a roost, many without jobs, without hope, but rest assured, this is not the fault of the current administration, it won’t be resolved without this administration and if it weren’t for the pigeons exacting change, evolution and revision at this moment, this great nation would starve indefinitely; without a crumb, without a coo, with broken wings and pigeon toes.