The Volley, the Crash, and the Whirl

The room capsized
And gave way
To the weight of our howls.
I couldn't decipher it
As much as I strained
To wade the water
Of the depths of it all.
First there was penetration of the surface
Then it sunk
Deep
Past the light shallow;
I couldn't view
What lied
Beneath the pressure
Of seconds, minutes, hours,...what?
Comply to the...
The dark.
I have no choice
But to inhale the few pockets
I can catch
With an alien...
Breathtaking.

Pissant

Pressure at the tip
And release.
A clear stream
Arcs over the bound,
Joins the pool
And I stare at it.
Nothing.

Untitled

Fear is locking your doors.
I chose to walk
Through the power outage
And into the woods.
I felt the teeth of myths
Sinking into my throat.
Stalkers snored from the bushes
As I crept on by.
And though there was nothing at all
Breathing down my collar
I still shivered
And looked behind me.
A mouth opened up before me
And I fell into its gape,
But it was fatigue which took me away
To shelter and to bed
Where I would finally awake.

A Light Ring Over Horror

Three shots of whiskey. Apple grape juice. With this concoction, I will channel the spirit of Emmett J. Wispy.


Trail tunnel lopsided sunrise
Gleams on the slicked coats
Of disease with dented teeth.
An abyss the size of a nickel
Where Sun tangles branches of voice
Escapes a cutting shriek.
Distant cratered orb
Creams on an amorphous black thing
Sharpening its leaves:
A light ring over horror
Which God gave reprieve;
Does not look to let alone;
Does not look to let be.

Courier New

Courier New is a font with the perpetual existence of fasting and contemplation. The thin lines, the slightly jagged pixels, the short tails and ends exude minimalism, protest flamboyancy and opulence, and take on the monk’s robes of quiet humility and a fortified inner peace and strength. Courier New does not boast a loud personality, does not put on a showy edginess like that of the reluctant youth, but it contains within a sharp wisdom grinded by experience and hardened by time. Each letter is defined, fulfilled, and stands apart from one another, and each word is firmly separated from another with enough space to retain their own individual potency, but not too much space so that they stray from the context that stems from their contingencies. Courier New is the ideal font for the expression of thought, of remembrance, of dreams, of nostalgia that follows from remembrance, of nostalgia that follows from dreams, and of nostalgia that precedes remembrance and dreams so that it may not properly be called nostalgia anymore – although it remains just as profound and nebulous, if not more. This is why I possess a preference for the font – Courier New – for its very appearance and non-appearance is ascetic.

For only the thin and haggard remain closer to God.

August 27th - Exercise 2: Tommy's Super Fantastic Diary, July 22nd, 2008

Well, this was fun to write. Just wanted to see if I could get the tone of a child down right. Well, a child who's too smart for his own good, anyway. Take note: My own childhood has no resemblance to this at all.

When Mommy told me she was taking me to the doctor's today to get a checkup, I wanted to scream and cry and kick my legs. But I didn't. Because I did exactly that the last time I had to go to the doctor and Mommy got angry and started yelling and told me that I was being difficult. It made her cranky that day so I didn't get any cookies or McDonald's or anything nice, plus I ended up going to the doctor's anyway because Mommy picked me up and carried me to the car no matter how much I tried to wriggle like a caterpillar out from her arms.

So instead of being difficult, I just gave Mommy a pouty face and crossed my arms so she would know I was not happy about it. Seeing my pouty face and crossed arms, Mommy compromised with me and said she would get me ice cream afterwards if I behaved and wasn't difficult. Ain't I such a smart nine year old to know the word “compromise”? It's a grown up word Mommy taught me and it's a thing grown ups do to get along with each other. Daddy taught me the words “selfish” and “society”, which have to do with the word “compromise”. Selfish people always want things their own way and never compromise and nobody likes selfish people because if people never compromised then society, which means all the people living with each other, would be a disaster like earthquakes or tornadoes, which are obviously not good things.

Mommy and Daddy tell me lots of things and talk to me like I'm a grown up just like them. When I don't get something they say, they try to explain it to me. I like that very much. I very much hate it when a grown up talks to me like I'm stupid, like I won't get anything they say. Just because I'm nine years old doesn't mean I don't have eyes or ears! I'm living in the same world as them!

Anyway, I am “digressing”. Another grown up word! My teacher used that word when she read my diary. She likes reading it and tells me I should keep on writing. The word “digressing” means to not get on with a story and talk about lots of things that have nothing to do with it and aren't important. But I think the things I am digressing on are things that are important! But my teacher said I shouldn't digress too much when writing so I will stop and get on with the story.

So after Mommy compromised with me, I decided that I would behave real well since I really like ice cream! We went to the garage where the Chevy Lumina van was and I didn't have to be carried this time. We got in, put on our seatbelt, and zoom! We were off!

On our way to the doctor's, Mommy took out a pack of her favorite Camel cigarettes and then started smoking one of them with the windows open. I didn't feel good about it. Because I remembered my friend Cody's grandmother, who was our neighbor and coughed a lot, and how I always saw her smoking cigarettes (her favorite was Marlborough) in her front porch. Then one day, poof! She disappeared! I overheard Mommy and Daddy saying that she was in the hospital for lung cancer, which happens when you smoke a lot of cigarettes. And then later I heard that Cody's grandmother died. I remembered watching Cody's parents, who looked really sad, move stuff out of her house. Then the house was empty with a big sign that said “For Sale” in front of it. It was like somebody took a big eraser and wiped it over Cody's grandmother.

I didn't want Mommy to get lung cancer and then have a big eraser wipe over her. So I asked her, “Mommy, why do you smoke cigarettes?” She said, “It makes me feel relaxed.”

We went back and forth like tennis balls.

“Aren't cigarettes bad for you, though?” “Yeah, it is a nasty habit.” “Then why don't you stop?” “Oh, I will, sooner or later.” “So what if I started smoking?” “You will absolutely not, not while you're around me, anyway.” “So why can you smoke and I can't?” “Because I'm a grown up, dear. We can make these decisions.” “But isn't part of being a grown up learning not to do things that are bad for you?” “Yes, but-” “Isn't that what Daddy said?” “Yes and he's right, but listen-” “Aren't you going to get lung cancer?” “Now, wait a minute, who said that?” “Isn't that what happened to Cody's grandmother and then she got erased?” “Well, yes, but you shouldn't say the word erased, hun. That's actually quite morbid of you.” “So why don't you stop?” “Like I said before, I will, soon, okay?” “Why don't you stop now?” “Oh GOD! I feel like I'm being interrogated by MY mother.”

The way Mommy said that last thing, I could tell she was becoming annoyed, like she does when I'm being difficult. So I shut my mouth and felt a little sad. We were both quiet for a while until Mommy did something that made me happy again. She took the pack of cigarettes and threw it out her window, although there was a lot left! She then smiled and said to me, “You know, you're right, hun. I should start quitting right now.” I felt like hugging her with lots of love, but she was driving so I didn't.

Oops, well I didn't write about the doctor's or the ice cream, but my hand is starting to hurt and I want to watch TV. The ice cream was really good, though! I got mint chocolate chip, which is the best flavor.

Okay, well, that's the end.

August 25th - Exercise #2: Passages

In today's published exercise, I wrote short blurbs experimenting with different tones.

Today, it's around the time of noon, and the sun is high and its beams are strong. The air is as dry as the dust of the earth. The heat is oppressive and inescapable. We are resting in the shade of a tree, but it gives little relief. Nature, at times, bids man to suffer; suffering is as holy and pure as God's will. Our chests are heaving with long, parched breaths. A crown of sweat builds on the dome of our foreheads and over the squinting eyes gazing out at the field. The field: there is work to be done. But the bodies are tired from the extinguishing effects of the heat. Chapped lips open revealing dry mouths that utter low groans at the idea of labor in these conditions. The work must be done, however; the field must be maintained. If not, then the sun will turn it to dust. “So let us move beyond the shade and into the field.” At this command, we stagger out from the shelter of the tree and we sweat and we moan amongst the crop like beasts...

An ominous chord from the belly of a rummy organ coupled with the click clack of industrial percussion – this is the sound of the phantom train heard, but never seen, miles away, following its predestined route through the track near Los Feliz, gliding past dilapidated warehouses and sketchy strip joints, and skimming the rusty fringe of downtown Los Angeles. I hear it howling through my window only at nighttime, never during the day. It is because during the daytime, the space is crowded with the noises of daily life: the rumbling and roaring of cars streaking down the street, the chirping of old Armenian women taking their healthy walks, the buzzing lawnmower, the chit chitting of sprinklers. All these sounds, evidence of the day's vitality, reverberate through the hours. Eventually, the sun retires folding itself gradually beneath the veil of the horizon and then the day noises filter out. And as the beginning of the day brings awakening to one world, the coming of the night is followed by its own set of creatures and designs. Time enters the realm behind the closed eyelid. Things of the night operate in the negative space – the unseen, the stillness. Like the howl of the phantom train, spirits float through the shadows like hallucinatory echoes. Dreams emanate out from profound pits. And in the realm of the night, I am often visited by dim images from a life I once had. These ruminations of the past are obscured by their own shadows so I can never recall them to completion, but only in fragments...

George exits the apartment and fumbles for the set of keys in his pocket. Now this action would be simply done with and disposed of in the narration of more usual lives with more usual people and would not give way to the extensive description that proceeds, but George is not making this a banal act, rather, he is executing a strenuously long scene that reveals many things about this classic buffoon of a man as if he were engaged in a silent monologue. The keys are deep inside the large left pocket of his oversized khaki pants; he always keeps the right pocket empty, finding a peculiar comfort in keeping his right hand within it while he promenades. The passage to his keys are impeded by the various other objects that are always attached to him like a habit wherever he goes: four Werther's Original caramel drops, a swiss army knife, a small package of soft tissues, and loose change. Now the abnormally long time it takes for George while he grunts and sweats to get to his keys should not only be attributed to the obstacle course of objects in his left pocket, but also to his very physical build. His fingers are like knobs and clumsy in functions that are simple to the sleek and elegant fingers of whom he refers to boorishly as the “snobbish bourgeoisie intellectuals.” There is a certain absence of grace, not only in his bulbous fingers, but in his whole figure. Firstly, he is of a disadvantageous weight, a result of all the rich and hefty meals his mom serves him lovingly, three times a day (he still lives with her, and at the age of thirty-two, can you believe it?). The second thing one would notice about him is his terrible posture, which his mother tries to correct by smacking the center of his back and screeching, “Stand up straight like a proud man! Oh your father wouldn't have this at all, no, not at all!” - but to no avail, for George continues to sink his shoulders and hunch over, which produces the unfortunate effect of emphasizing the rotund shape of his body, and gives him the appearance of a round ball. His short torso and legs are another addition to this living, breathing caricature...

August 21st - Writing Exercise #3

Memories of Santa Monica in the late night and early morning, sometime back then:

We saw bums lay out rags and tattered jackets so they could hug the shore and listen to the sound of the water – the steady rhythm of the ocean waves that roared coming in and then purred when receding. There was a certain feeling of warmth at seeing them sleep in the sand for they sunk into it so that the grains retreated and then conformed to their bodies. Against the unchangeable and indifferent form of concrete upon where I would usually see them sleeping within the city, they would shiver and squirm. Along the shore that night, they were perfectly still. You brought a half bottle of wine for my pleasure and I was faithful taking periodic gulps from it while looking at the pier that struck out into the water. The ferris wheel was on top of it, as it always would be, blanketing the shore with an alien glow giving it the ethereal quality of a dream. It filled me with an unexplainable nostalgia that made me contemplative. Time passed with silence between us, but I did not feel anxious; I looked at you; you looked peaceful staring out; I followed your eyes looking for the divide of the horizon; it was not there. The sky blurred into the water, an infinite congruous mass. When I stared long enough at a singular point of that expansive darkness, I felt a divine sensation of weightlessness and I swear I would have floated up into it if my eyes did not adjust their focus. Around us were other visitors who would enter and exit the scene only as silhouettes. Their words were undecipherable. The voices seemed to come in from another plane only to exist in our world for a fleeting moment and then volley back into theirs. Only the sound of the ocean remained constant. And as I listened to the waves, my thoughts took on the ambiguous shape of my existence. I concentrated hard on the shape. The lights of the ferris wheel started to dim. The lapping of the water eased away. Santa Monica melted into the void. Then as I became immersed into nothingness, the shape transformed; then, there was clarity. I saw my mother's gentle face lit up by the aura of the living room television. I saw the crows feet at the corner of my father's eyes. A parking lot that descended into a creek. Two hamsters in a glass cage on display at a garage sale. His angel face and a tuft of golden hair. A maze of sidewalks bending around towering brick apartment buildings. Sewer tunnel entrances tagged with ominous graffiti: “Welcome to Hell”. My mother aging, blemishes starting to spot her face like bruised fruit. Lines drawing themselves at the corner of my father's eyes. A U-haul, then whispering spirits beneath a dark red stucco rooftop. Weed persistent growing beneath the persistent lawn mower beneath the dome of apple tree branches. Wind chill burning up faces till they turn pink like frozen raw meat. Scribbled love notes put inside desk compartments with hopes of returned scribbled love notes. Falling leaves, then snow, then melting snow, then summer sticking to the skin with dew drops. Sticky love notes of hand jobs and blow jobs. Fucking. Scarfing down porno three-ways with hot fries and cafeteria meatball sandwiches. Another U-haul. Another unfamiliar place. Unfamiliar saliva and tongues and hands and sweat. Hurry up and roll that spliff, I'm wanting to ride. Fades, trips, wastes, shocks, buzzes, fiends, hits and can't feel good no more... Bruised fruit... Crows feet... Come down... Melting ice cream cones. Pink strawberry liquid streaming down tiny fingers dropping onto stove top asphalt. Strange pink strawberry blobs. An ambiguous shape... The pale lights of the pier ferris wheel came back in with streaks. I returned to Santa Monica at the bottom of the bottle and with a sadness settling in my body as lukewarm as the wine. A cigarette felt good between my lips and I found myself having another, then another, and more until my pack was fully dispensed. My legs felt stiff so I took a walk close beside the water, kicking sand, dipping my toes in – the water's chill was refreshing. I came back to you and you were wrapped in a blanket with your eyes closed. Your chest was rising and falling gently as you breathed. Another rhythm humming along with the waves. I felt the time ticking away with the completion of each of your breaths. And each present moment came in with a roar and receded with a purr, back into that vast black space. And there would be a certain measure of breaths, of waves, before we would no longer be figures on the shore. The sun would come and quake the bums from their stillness. Grains of sand would collapse into the imprints of their bodies disappeared. The ferris wheel would stand in the sun casting only a shadow. But time would go on, a relentless force, and cycles would not be hindered. The night would come on again blending the sea and the sky together. Figures would again stalk the beach and sink into it. And the glow of the ferris wheel would again embrace the darkness of their dreams.

An Event of Nothingness

During the time between this post and the last, I tried to write something with meaning and I have failed to. When I came to the realization that I have nothing to write about, I wrote this. This is not a finished piece and I will post up the finished work later.


I wake up and it is today, Tuesday May 20th, 2008. And this is all I know at the moment. My initial disorientation with sudden consciousness goes away when the light sets in and the room materializes, instantly familiar. I hear the artificial blaring of the alarm clock and I realize my duties. I tilt my head to look at the alarm clock (which is dark red, I tell you this because I remember this) and it reads 8:00 am. My first class is at 12:30 pm so I know that I have time and then I feel no motivation to get up because my body is tired and I have no reason to feel urgent. So I remain in a state of half-consciousness, lapsing in and out of the room, for roughly two hours - I say roughly because it is an estimate and it is certainly not an exact figure.

When the room sets back in on the second hour, I regret lying in my bed for so long because my head pulsates with great tension and the rest of myself feels sluggish and I also feel guilty with the idea of laziness. When I fully awake and sit up, my leanings towards romanticism makes me look out the window and stare at the road and the houses and the yellow mustard patch and it brings me some form of happiness when I observe that the Sun is a half-circle cut by the horizon and this position of the Sun produces an effect with the light so that it seems bright yet washed dimly over all that it touches. This moment is poignant to me; it is only at a specific time of the morning that you can see this.

When I get up to put on my sandals, my roommate walks in from the living room and sits at his laptop - we usually do not speak in the mornings...

A Holy Man Encounters Lust

The poems are just filler, really. I'm not confident in the medium, but I enjoy exploring it. Will get back to some real sweaty pieces when I'm out of this slump I'm in.


I look at her.
She is across the street.
She bends down
To adjust her heels
So that they fit comfortably.
I do not look away.

I notice these details:
Her heels are red,
She is a wearing a dress
That cuts neatly
Far above her knees;
I can see her full leg.

This moment lasts
No more than four seconds,
But I think of Job.
There has been an agreement
Between Devil and God
To test me: A woman.

I see demons in her soft hair
Parading around the delicate roots.
And I see more crawl down
The long of her neck descending
Into a forbidden crevice.

When she bends down,
There is a shape.
I want to see and feel it,
Even if I know it is sin.
I think of her lower back -
Touching the gentle dip: A pit!

Out of the shape comes her legs.
Her thighs induce in me
Evil imaginations -
Fantasies of the flesh.
I recite the Lord's Prayer.
It is a useless gesture.

Because I am weak:
The calves curve
Down to the ankles
Which feign innocence,
But fail to conceal
The total creature
Of my most ungodly temptation.

Sleep boy, give up the night.

He set the heat level
Of his electric blanket.
It was at a comfortable level.
He creased the window open
So that only a small cool breeze would set in.
He changed into his loose pajama pants
And lied on his side facing the window.
He closed his eyes;
Couldn't go to sleep.
He could only linger
In an unwavering consciousness.

She slept in the room close to his.

He gave up his rest
Craving more time with her.
In a fit of playfulness nurtured by his impulsion,
He took a box of loose change
And a cigarette.
He leaned half-way out the window
And he lit the cigarette.
He picked pennies from the box
And took aim at her window.
He threw six of them.
Three were caught by the wind and didn't make a sound -
Only plummeted.
The other three were slightly off
And met the wall
With a light tick.

He smoked his cigarette thinking.
He licked his lips.
He felt foolish.

He started whistling -
The notes oscillating between high and low.
He tried whistling like a bird
Improvising melodies.
He blew staccatos.
He attempted songs.
But he couldn't whistle well enough
To wake her up.
After one last good try,
His mouth was dry, his lips were chapped.
He felt light-headed.

He flicked the cigarette
And leaned into the cool air.
He wondered if anybody was observing him
And his little game.
Any witnesses remained undeclared;
The moment was confidential.
He looked at her window for a moment
And he withdrew.
He lied on the couch.
He wrote
And then he forgot her.

Student 76156899 - PBLs and Grief.

This was an e-mail I sent to my Bio 9D professor.

PBL stands for "problem-based learning" and "PBLs" are basically worksheet assignments. Story is I missed out on a bunch of 'em unknowing of their value to the course grade. So, I tried to write myself out of the situation.

It was a failed attempt promptly met by rejection, but on the plus side, the professor was thoroughly entertained by the e-mail.


Dear Prof.,

I have committed a series of small follies, reckless and stupid, that have amounted to a great burden of stress. Not exactly the model individual of academia, I missed out on numerous lectures due to a thoughtless cocky action of signing up for your 9 o'clock lecture (which I can hardly wake up for) and working about 20 hours per week (some of the shifts being late night). This has led me to becoming one of your more dysfunctional students; I am wobbling insecurely on the track of this course. Because of my confusion and general disorganization, I have missed out on four out of the five PBLs you assigned. And looking at the syllabus again, I've realized that PBLs are actually worth 30 percent of the course grade... Woh!

Please don't mistake me for being lazy or unconcerned with furthering my intellect and knowledge. I am very grateful for my college education, but at the same time, my devotion to my own personal ambition (which is writing) sometimes makes me stray from the going-ons of my courses. I may not be very disciplined, but damn it, I am severely invested and impassioned in the one thing that gets my blood going - materializing my mind's ventures through the pen. But anyway...

Normally, I would suck it up and take what I righteously deserve. But, in my current situation, a bad grade's not just a bad grade. Already having made my GPA rather shaky through the antics of my first year, the situation stands that if I screw up again this year, my financial aid will seriously suffer and thus unload a burden onto my parents - a truly dishonorable act. I have been improving this year and my GPA's on a steady climb up to the 3.0+ safety point. A D or an F, though, would really knock me down a good couple of steps. Don't mistake me, I am not asking for your pity, but I am asking for some generosity that can come from human sympathy.

Let's get to the meat of it already: Is there any way you can give me a personal assignment to make up for perhaps two or even three (if you're feeling it) PBLs? You don't have to be easy on me either. Make me suffer for my missteps, make the assignment hard. Hell, give me a good diseases-related paper to write. I might even enjoy writing it and in turn, make it enjoyable for you to read. Guaranteed, I won't half-ass this assignment. Looking back, just doing the PBLs would've been much easier. But lost time is time lost. Can't do anything but shrug it off.

So I only ask that you give me a little boost out of the fire pit and make me feel a bit more comfortable. Anxiety's a bitch, excuse my cursing.

At the mercy of your decision,
Thomas Lee

Two Men and a Mountain

Two men met at the base
Of a mountain.
And they gazed at the rock-
Aged millions of days.

One man said,
'A man can surely climb to the top."
The other agreed:
'And for certain, man can build something taller.'
So the two men nodded
And concluded that man was great.

The two men left.
The mountain stood.
Man or mountain:
Which is absolute?

Independence, Missouri

This is the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant. It is located in Jackson County of Missouri.

Built in 1941, Lake City is operated by Alliant Techsystems, a multibillion-dollar weapons company headquartered in Edina, Minn.

It is the primary U.S. military supplier and it has the potential of pumping out 1.5 billion rounds per year.

That's a lot of bullets.

Anyway, this is little peek at my upcoming short story.

It's gonna be good.

The Great Conversation

Originally written on paper. A passage that flows weightlessly with the fluidity of the pen.

Relax yourself and read this out loud. Pause at the commas. Inhale at the periods. Get into the rhythm of it. Let it go by itself.

The air is hyper electric, the sensation is inescapable. Exaggerated gestures, wild eyes, God-man personified in the truth of an orgy of ideas that moves the cigarette smoke to tumble and weave fluidly - an improvisation that will never be governed by natural laws and can only possibly go to infinity ascending the bone, flesh, and skin that can tear and rot and break and ruin, collisions of the souls of you and me and her that impart waves which bounce off walls and ceilings never deaccelerating, never losing momentum, seeping out the window and straight into the sky and more and more into the vast space of dark matter reaching the mouth of God as it inhales and exhales as we feel it.

A. Prolonged. Breath.

Late night hours and cups of coffee but no dark circles around our eyes nor the body tired nor the burden of the body itself felt, but we are up in the air in that infinite space between our glowing eyes staring right into each other as we laugh and feel alive, but not just simply alive, but alive in that we can feel and hear and see and taste the warmth of our most intimate unification - our spirits dancing and tangling and flowing into one another producing a matter with limitless potential, waiting to explode and explode indefinitely, never to be exhausted.

Slow times at the cigarette lounge.

I hate to look at the date of my last entry. Having not published anything for that long of a time guilts me. It nudges me and gets in my hair and yells in my ear - it's discouraging. I can't pump out solid stuff every week, I've tried. I'm invested into every individual piece I write. When I'm writing, the moment I feel forced and uninspired, I drop it. Right now, I have seven different incomplete letters, thought pieces, even some flow of consciousness crap. They all started fresh, but as they went through, they went right to some real rot. Not publishing that shit.

Perhaps this public blog shit wasn't a good idea after all. People are demanding!

Look, I've got my own pace. This ain't no hobbies blog with daily updates and whatnot. This is a fuckin' literary blog. Let me be, hungry readers. I'll update when I've got something I actually want to publish.

An Excerpt from the Preachings of an Angry Man

"Embrace your headaches! Your sores and your bad days! Learn to love the perpetual emotions of anger, frustration and discontent! Reject the illusions that comfort you! Become intense in your loathing of all the wrong in this world! And claw your way out of the stale womb!

Never accept low-key! Never hold a position of subservience! Never be meek! Never be shy! Choose to explode and avoid fizzling out! Inactivity is your greatest enemy! It will cause you to atrophy and rust and crumble! Pathetically.

Suffer hard for the sake of expansive consciousness! Destroy your ignorance with great prejudice! Engage your mind in the most impassioned violence - against complacency, against fear, and against all that is responsible for the devolution of the human!

And always keep in mind that the first thing a baby does when it enters the world is cry."

EDIT: Angry men shout.

Fuck da po-lice.

http://www.whittierdailynews.com/ci_7938419

Give me one good pig and I'll give you two exceptions.

I know this isn't entirely appropriate to my blog, but it feels fucking good to just even type "Fuck da police."

Territorial Minds: Intellectual Property and the Public Domain

Since I haven't posted anything up for a while, here's an article I worked on for the upcoming Forest Fire issue. This is the first tasty raw draft of the article before it goes to the slaughterhouse to be chopped up, nicely packaged and released to the public. Truth is I didn't know shit about intellectual property laws before writing this article. A couple of nights' worth of research and a spoonful of bullshit made this entirely possible.

And be easy. This is my first attempt at serious journalistic writing.

But if you want to do me a real favor, rip it apart.

Intellectual Property is the umbrella term for the exclusive rights writers, musicians, inventors and other creators have in relation to their product. Laws include copyrights, patents, trademarks, industrial design rights and trade secrets. The term “intellectual property” was first notably used on October 1845 at a Massachusetts Circuit Court ruling in a patent case in which Justice Charles L Woodbury wrote that “only in this way can we protect intellectual property, the labors of the mind, productions and interests as much a man's own...as the wheat he cultivates, or the flocks he rears.”

Intellectual Property regulations exist to protect the personal interests of the developer and to ensure credit and rewards from a product rightfully goes to the maker. Without these laws, theoretically, creators would be under compensated for their ideas and other contributions to the public domain. Thus intellectual property policies take the same approach to abstract products of the mind as policies that are applied to physical property – only the creator should be able to reap what he has sowed and do what he like with it.

Many of America’s bureaucratic systems have a trend of providing supposed rights and protections to the public, at the surface, but when implemented are flawed, unequal and unbalanced as to who receives the most benefits from the system. The IP system is not guiltless of this trend. It also holds its fair share of rough edges and blemishes that need to be smoothened and polished by debate and improved policies.

To apply concrete, cold regulations to abstract “properties” conceived by the mind is a flaw in itself. Because of this, a problem lies in the “monopolizing” power of patents and copyrights often utilized by large companies and corporations. For example, a dominant pharmaceutical company gains proprietorship of the patent for an extremely effective cure for a widespread disease. It is costly and developing countries that may need it the most can’t afford it at the price set by the company. Due to the legal restrictions of the patent, companies in developing countries are red taped from creating and distributing the cure at a more affordable price and are instead limited to less efficient generic medicines and treatments. The patent successfully fulfills its selfish duty.

Although ideas, unlike physical property, are indefinite and can be re-used and duplicated indefinitely, the public domain is at the mercy of the companies who hold the intellectual property – products that could benefit all of humanity. Only those who have the money actually benefit from the discovery. This unfortunate situation can also be applied to many other corporate-owned intellectual properties like college course books, efficient car engines and other essential designs, inventions and innovations.

Many copyrights are directly tied to large corporate entities that have the power to enforce the policies, but may also hinder creativity and innovation due to the influence of corporate ideologies. Musicians are especially affected by this when they agree to work with major labels that obligate them to a set of policies that dictate what they can and cannot do. Also, major label contracts tend to contain a mile-long list of technicalities pertaining to royalties that weigh heavily in the favor of the company. So in the end, the musicians can get screwed over while the company cut-and-runs with the money.

With free global information exchange made possible through the internet, precedents set in the music world by Radiohead through their optionally priced album In Rainbows, and the start of the community-based licensing group Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org/), the masses are starting to take back the power of intellectual property from the rich few. However, the issue remains full of complexities that cannot possibly be covered in this one article. It’ll be a long while before we attain the ideal equilibrium between the interests of the public domain and the creator, and a world in which great ideas can be freely distributed, used and improved by the people.

Updates are a' comin'.

A letter to a close friend. Speculations on human sympathy, fate and free will.
Thoughts on the failures of my and our generation.
An introduction to a short story - a project that's been boiling in my head for a while.

So just wait. Don't phase out. It'll all materialize soon.