RE:

Friend, are you there? Can you hear me? Come in Friend. The static is running high, between my temples, between my legs... Wait, what? Between my legs? That doesn't sound right. Scrambled eggs with jellied slug for breakfast. Bagels with cream jizz. A bleak bleak sort of morning. That's the theme. Cynical, too. Oh God, what an infectious disease cynicism is. More viral than AIDS, and only slightly easier to cure. Recession occurs in 98% of the cases. But you know that. You know because you lay on your bed unwilling to get up and face the litany streaming through your head.

Never good enough, you are never good enough, you are Never Good Enough. The insecurities run cracks through your core. Slide their claws into one, apply a little pressure, and VOILA! They have split you open to be served like Maine Lobster. Are your insides cooked? I think they are raw. The cold. The snow turned grey slush by dawn, and the infernal wind threatening to overthrow your grip on self control.

High Tensile Fencing

The fear, tension, and anger are too much. I didn’t want to get up today. I should not have had coffee today.

My brain. My brain is buckling. I am balking. Like a pack mule on a trail I am balking, and the cliff’s edge is there. I am balking, stubbornly, but I have the consciousness of the passenger on my back. I feel the terror and the stubbornness. So I am human. Adult human at that, bearing witness to dichotomy. But the anger is quickening between the salted capillaries in my chest. Hardened with bad health. I do not want this. I do not want that. If I had something to say, I would be saved. Some vision to pass on to the world. But it would kill me to make a living by just stringing adjectives together.

Do I have writers block? Is this writers block? I don’t have anything to SAY!!! It makes me miserable. I do not want to bend my talent around pretty sounds. I want to be Billy Holiday, she made pretty sounds that communicated her soul. She lent her depth to the material. She was more than a crooner. More than Conor Oberst’s poet. I don’t want to be that poet either. Dickinson, yes. Plath, yes. A person who’s sensitivities only serve to heighten the pain of their own demise, NO! The joy in pain, I think that is what he fears. I will follow his example, I will fear it, too. It seduces me so. The pain that I stroke like a soft kitten in my chest. I nurture it and relish it, and it makes me ugly. In Jesse, I finally found a good mirror. I look at myself like that, and I see the warts on my face, the pink membranes sagging beneath my eyes. That is why I will follow Conor Oberst’s example and despise that poet, too.

I would have no problem bending characters to my will if I only had a message for them to deliver! Gumby dolls with a soft wire skeleton. I could manipulate, I could create, I could deliver life, if I only had a reason to. And you cannot fake it. You cannot fake a reason. In desperation, I tried. The attempt zapped part of my soul into paralysis. I will not try again. Though I cannot escape the feeling, all ugly and strangled inside of me, I do not want to communicate it with the world. How will I get it out? Like TB, it is. Constricting my chest.

I Loathe Lazy Pit Bull Owners

Pit Bull owners who don't believe that Pit Bulls are more aggressive than most dogs, offend me. There's no way to verify this, but I suspect some GIGANTIC percentage of the Pit Bulls who attack people belong to these owners. There's nothing inherently BAD about the breed, they are simply more aggressive than most dogs. If you are unable to reconcile this fact with the image of your precious pet, I suggest a nice toy poodle.

This is for the edification of you non-believers.

These statistics are derived from the Merritt Clifton report on dog attacks. While he has his critics--and I do think you can effectively argue that he has at least some level of bias against Pit Bulls--his raw data is just fact. The data is drawn from media reports and only includes instances where the breed was definitely identified. Thus eliminating the proposed "media bias." The data also excludes cases where the dogs were trained specifically to fight. "Attacks" refers only to humans, and includes all fatalities, maimings, and other injuries requiring hospitalization.

Of the 2,209 attacks recorded 1,110 were committed by purebred Pit Bull terriers. There were 90 other species and mixes in the data. Just over 50% were committed by ONE BREED. Even if you allowed for a 10% margin of error in favor of Pit Bulls (an extremely generous margin), the data is still definitively in support of the "Pit Bulls are aggressive" theory. In fact, you'd have to argue at least a 30% margin of error to disprove it.

Those of you who love to argue will point out that Pit Bulls are large and extremely popular. Therefore, such data is skewed against them. "They attack more because there are more of them. They hurt more because they're strong." However, Pit Bulls are no larger or more popular than Retrievers (Golden and Labrador). Retrievers committed 32 attacks. A whopping 1% of the data.

Let's try to arrange the data in the Pits' favor. We include only the popular breeds on the list: Retrievers, German Shepherds, Beagles, Dachshunds, Boxers, Poodles, and Rottweilers. In which case, Pits were involved in 67.2% of the attacks, Retrievers 1.9%, German Shepherds 3.8%, Beagles 0.1%, Dachshunds 0.2%, Boxers 1.9%, Poodles, 0.1%, and Rottweilers 24.8%.

Well this data is very telling. Compared to other popular breeds, Pits are way, waaaaaayyyyyy more likely to attack a person. In fact, the data could suggest that Pit Bulls are popular BECAUSE of this. Hmmmm, maybe this all relates to how Pit Bulls are valued as effective guard dogs.

So we have a strong counter-argument to the inevitable claim that "statistics don't tell us anything" about dog attacks. Yes, they do. They tell us that otherwise comparable breeds are not involved in anything even remotely close to the number of attacks that Pit Bulls are. This is the kind of definitive empirical data that scientific theories are based on. In fact, the data is soooo conclusive that a theory shouldn't have even been required. Common sense should have sufficed.

So let's conclude. Love your Pit Bull, cherish her, hug her, and snap adorable pictures of her taking a nap with a kitten. But for fuck's sake be honest about what you've got. You've chosen to love a high-maintenance dog. That's fine with me as long as YOU take responsibility for her. She requires more supervision, work, and money than your average dog. If every Pit owner would just ADMIT that, there wouldn't be so many goddammed news articles about Pit Bull attacks, and no one would be pushing for BSL.

PS:
YES small dogs probably bite people three times more often than Pit Bulls. However, they don't make the news because no one gets seriously injured when their miniature dachshund snaps at them. Therefore, small dog aggression is a non-issue, and no one cares. And, Yes, there are many aggressive breeds that I have not mentioned: Chows, Sharpeis, Akitas, etc. Again, their behavior is not relevant to the argument that Pit Bulls are aggressive.

PPS:
My mutt is a Pit Bull mix, and he's a wonderful pet.

Interlude

Well, since the only inspired things I have to say are attacks, I may as well become a song-and-dance gal, eh? The fat bear in a bowler on a bicycle. Danny-O Pianny-O.

It would be better, is all I'm saying. Harboring bitterness is like holding a cobra by the tail. Sure, it's lithe muscley figure gives you power when it's striking outward, but what about when you're alone with it? When the muscles contract and whip backward, teeth first. And the thing is, those sessions alone with you are what give your bitterness it's bite. So now we arrive at the image of a snake eating itself. Infinity. Hopeless infinity, not wondrous infinity.

Now you see why I should be Danny-O. Because the bear is not bitter. She's a buffoon. She lacks the iron ribcage, sinks inward into drool and blubber. But really, that's a step backwards after all, isn't it? Better to be the cynic. The critic. Bitterness is a crutch. Crutches hurt. So they're a source. That's why it's so easy to depend on them.

What's a step forward? Carson McCullers. Except that she's bounds forward. Not one measley step. The step forward and the step back look so similar when you're standing right there on the path, that's the problem. Either way, the bitterness must leave before it consumes you whole. That is unquestionable. I can't name the step forward, it's so miniscule. We'll just have to say Carson McCullers. She is forward, beautiful.

I remember the first time I understood that not everyone believes that having a beautiful soul is the most important thing in the world. I don't remember the person, but the reverberations are in me still. They manifest as doubt. They have to because I don't understand. If I can't understand, I can't know. Of course, feeding yourself could be the most important thing in the world, if you're more practical. But I'm speaking of ideals, not necessities. Only it's a fact that the two intersect, no matter how much I like to imagine them as parallel. It is not so simple when your family is starving, or being slaughtered, or being fucked out of existence in a million different ways. Generous as I'd like to be, I'm insulated from all that. I cannot speak to it. And if you're insulated like me, and you don't believe in the importance of your soul, then I don't understand you.

Too many of us are too weak to live up to our ideals, though. How did that happen to us? Nature or nurture? I'm learning that questions and writing are useless if you can't live it.

Newsflash Luke Wilson: Your Acting is Mind-Numbing

Idiocracy. The Wendell Baker Story. Whatever-the-fuck movie it was that I saw you in last night. You play one role: Luke Wilson. And you know what else? I don't mind if you insult me in a comedy, so long as you make me laugh, too. Let's just say that I'm not going to be developing a six-pack by watching your boring dead pan.

Hey, you know, I'm boring, too. Dead pan is my first choice if I'm telling a joke. The difference between us is that, I don't have jowls of steel, and I'm not trying to pass myself off as a comedian. You know when you're good? When Wes Andersen has the good sense to cast you in roles where your characterless silence can be interpreted as depth. We all want to believe that your true-blues harbor a deep and generous soul. You just gotta know your strengths, Luke. And you should know this right now: comedy is not it. Heart-throb could be, but you clearly aspire to more. Create yourself as you will, but please stop releasing these gawd-awful humorless "comedies." I can't even imagine that you laughed when you were making them.