Identity Schmisis

Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven far journeys, how his capacity for staying still to attend to a quiet interchange of question and answer amounts to less than nothing and possibly even subverts our understanding of what it means to mean something. I look at the blue sky and the flower patterns in the countryside with his mind.

How many nights have I found myself listening to Londoners’ diatribes on the sheer weirdness of the American citizenry?

You couldn’t find the sphere on a globe, they complained. Or Your love is suffocating me because it is filled with conditions based on your beliefs of how I should live my life.

I told them our country is noble and strong. We love what is right, and we hate what is wrong!

But it never does me any good to be proud. Because then I’ll start being happy with myself and then I’ll stand still and then I’m old news, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. O Mama

always said life was like a box. Any man who dares to be young, or to grow, or to be original, must expect to have the world set upon him and pound him unmercifully! You get pistol-whipped, booty tapped, face scarred. Your future may be happy and productive, but you’ll have to collect power-ups, such as oxygen and flaming tar to emerge victorious. As the years draw to a close, you still won’t know what—if indeed anything—is going on.

But don’t be afraid of change. Just be yourself.

But who am I? That certainly is difficult to say.
I’m very patient, but I’m also very impatient.

When I was a child I used to run races with the wind. The world was inhabited by buxom, bottom heavy, voluptuous nymphos who used to pass around pictures of me with the words ‘teeny weeny boy’ on them, which was my nickname. Now when I see a woman I’m afraid of her. I’ve been so bad with women that I fear if I go near one she’ll hit me. Perhaps she will kill me. That’s why I got into a relationship with a wonderful, beautiful, amazingly sexy (is it getting hot in here??)
transsexual man. Despite 53 marriages he says he is a one-woman guy. Unfortunately, so am I.

Now all ports are open to my immediate desires, but also subject to my long term vices, like Gucci shoes, and certain chemical stimulants. I can barely see the road from the heat comin’ off of it. And I hear there’s always bald tires at the end of the fast lane. Gah! I’m so sick of this! Why,

O mighty armed, is the mind so hard to restrain and restless? There will be some things that people will see. There will be some things that people won’t see. And life goes on!

So let’s break out of the horrible shell of wisdom and throw ourselves like pride-ripened fruit into the wide, contorted mouth of the wind! I’m talking some new kicks, ones like you ain’t never seen.
Open your eyes, Muse, now you realize. Now put on thigh highs. Tie your boots up tight, very tight with all your might and add perpetual tenor to my rhymes.

The greatest number of people are never taught anything properly or accurately.

And only you can make it a wonderful day for a has-been who never was.


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Sources

1. Homer, The Odyssey, Book 1, lines 1-2, Richmond Lattimore tr.; and
Plato, “Theaetetus,” line 179e6-180a1, Francis Cornford tr., The Collected Dialogues of Plato, Princeton University Press, 1989, pg. 884; and
Luke Mitchell, “Grand Old Inquisitor,” Harper’s, November 2004, p. 67.
2. Arthur Rimbaud, “Mauvais Sang,” Bertrand Mathieu tr.

3. Salman Rushdie qu. by Oliver Libaw, “View from Abroad,” ABCnews.com, Feb. 2, 2002.
4. Original
5. Unknown

6 and 7. Peter Enns, “What Do We Tell the Kids?”
8 and 9. Pat Tillman, in an interview with Tim Layden, “A Cut Above,” Sports Illustrated, December 8, 1997.
10. adapted from Eric Roth, Forrest Gump screenplay.

10. adapted from Eric Roth, Forrest Gump screenplay.
11. David Grayson, Hempfield, Doubleday, New York, 1915, p.207.
12. Kool Keith, “Little Girls.” Sex Style. Funky Ass Records, 1997.
13. Unknown; and
an adaptation of video game reviews including www.gameover.net/reviews.php?id=24&page=ps2reviews.
14. Your Future Now, http://www.bikereader.com/solo/future.html.
15. Unknown
16. Lizzy, grade 5, http://www.kidnews.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=47.

17 and 18. Roshan Matthews, “Who Am I?” http://pugg.symonds.net/roshan/writings/whoami.html.
19. Jerry Jones, Dallas Cowboys owner.
20. Thomas Duncan, Big River, Big Man, J.B. Lippincott Co, Philadelphia, 1959.
21. Gracie and Zarkov, http://www.deoxy.org/gz_texp.html; and
Letter from www.sandy123.com.
22-24. Zakaria Turay, quoted by Tom Masland, Newsweek, 5/13/02, “Voices of the Children,” Newsweek Inc., New York, p. 29.
25. lynnie, http://transpartners.tripod.com/lynniesgeneticwomansguidetotransgenderism/id1.html.
26. AP article, CBSnews.com, “Marrying Man Weds for 53rd time,” Oct. 6, 2004.
27. generic

28. Nigel Coates, Ecstacity, Princeton Architectural Press, Princeton, 2003, pg.119.
29. David Lee Roth, “Panama,” 1984. Warner Brothers, 1984.
30. original
31. generic
32. adapted from Bhagavad Gita, tr. unknown.

32. adapted from Bhagavad Gita, tr. unknown.

33-35. Donald Rumsfeld, Oct. 12, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing.
36. F.T. Marinetti, “The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism,” Le Figaro, February 20, 1909, tr. unknown.
37. David Lee Roth, “Mean Streets.” Fair Warning. Warner Brothers, 1981.

38 and 39. adapted from Kool Keith, “Intergalactic Lover,” Black Elvis/Lost in Space. Ruffhouse Records, 1999.
40. Kool Keith, “Intergalactic Lover,” and;
Ovid, “Metamorphoses,” Samuel Garth tr. 1717.
41. L. Forbes Winslow, Mad Humanity, M.F. Mansfield and Co., New York, 1898, p. 138; and
Johnny Oates, Baltimore Orioles manager.