Friday, September 3, 2010

CombatWords, September 3, 2010: Delusion

CombatWords, September 3, 2010: Delusion

The word delusion suggests that we are animated by conscious, subconscious and unconscious motives. It's a word for cognitive dissonance. It's also a damned judgmental word, as if it's normative to be in full congruence with conscious, sub & unconscious motives. I call bullshit. Delusion is one of the fuels that makes this world run; indeed, Schopenhauer would argue that delusion makes LIFE possible, because it's foolish to be hopeful. I don't really care which approach you take; you can even be dismissive of delusion, but that's a rather deluded perspective in my opinion.

Combat Expiration: 9/5/2010, 12am PST

Critique Expiration: 9/6/2010, 12am PST

Bonuses: +3 for posts made by 6pm PST 9/3/2010, +2 if posted by 9pm PST 9/3/2010, and +1 if posted by 12:00am PST, 9/4/2010.

The Rules: http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2010/07/official-rules-for-combatwords-updated.html



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91 comments:

  1. Assumption

    The rose I gave you
    is still where you dropped it,
    on the table next to your
    untouched champagne glass.
    I made good use of the bottle,
    and the ring is returnable
    since you never opened the box.
    I wish we could have eaten
    because this reservation
    was not easy to get:

    Café Mirage
    Table for two 8:30 PM

    Huh.. that’s funny.

    ReplyDelete
  2. @StevenMGrant, 3:28pm:

    Pro:
    Liked it +1
    Pacing, details & rhythm were strong: +1
    Ending was hilarious. This part:

    "I wish we could have eaten
    because this reservation
    was not easy to get:

    Café Mirage
    Table for two 8:30 PM

    Huh.. that’s funny." +1

    What a crazy ass break in incantation. It worked though.

    Con: Nah, there's really nothing bad about the poem. I'm sure some people will hate the ending, but I loved it.

    Misc: Yeah, this is the shit.

    +3 - 0 = +3

    ReplyDelete
  3. Saint Francis of 64th Street

    Every day Emily drove the same route to work down 64th Street, two lanes flanked by big houses built back when the middle class could afford to live there. Every couple of weeks she would come across a dog wandering down the road looking hot and extremely lost. If it had a collar and tag, she'd stop and try to nab it, call the owners, take it back home and go on her merry drool-covered way. Once she chased a mini pinscher back and forth until finally she cornered it at a house where it pawed at the windowsill and she rang the doorbell and sure enough it had run all the way home to get away from her. The meaty woman who owned it was grateful in a surly way but it was enough. Another time Emily held onto a shih tzu with a broken electric fence collar and rang the bell at a gated house and the dog got away but didn't get far and a woman in an SUV pulled over and shouted, "That's Ginger, she gets out all the time!" and out her owner came from behind the wrought iron gate to reclaim her now-filthy possession.

    But the last dog Emily saved was Buddy, a black labrador retriever who slobbered all over the inside of her car as she drove around with him waiting for his owners to return her call. She was on the way to work and she couldn't bring him into the building but she couldn't leave him in the car. She stopped at a vet but they wouldn't take in strays, not even for a day or a few hours, and she had about decided to keep driving when her coworker offered to let the dog stay in his backyard. She drove to his house and ushered the dog into a shady side area with a nice porch and gave him a bowl of water to drink, everything was perfect, the owner called her an hour later and she told him all about how good Buddy had it there in his temporary yard sanctuary and they made an appointment to trade him back. Emily was ecstatic. She was delighted. She was proud. She was Saint Fucking Francis of Assisi saving animals right and left and she deserved a statue of her ugly mug with a beatific smile, gently laying a hand on top of a dog's head while a cat curled around her feet, maybe a bird perched on her shoulder or maybe they'd leave that off so actual birds could perch on the shoulder and complete the effect. At lunch time she drove to retrieve Buddy from his animal Shangri-la and when she got there she saw the hole in the loose dirt just under the fence and her heart shot up to her throat, banging into her stomach on its way down to her knees. Buddy was gone.

    Why hadn't she kept him in the car? Why hadn't she put him in a safer yard? Why hadn't she left him out on 64th Street so at least he'd be in an area he knew instead of a strange neighborhood miles away with a busy road nearby just waiting for him to dart into traffic and find his way up to doggie heaven while Emily drove around in circles shouting out the window for this dog that wasn't hers but had become her responsibility since she'd deigned to pick it up. She wasn't Saint Francis, she was Hannibal Lecter, Charles Manson, Adolf Hitler sending an innocent creature to gas-guzzling death at the hands of a speeding Hummer and now she had to tell the owner that the found dog was lost again and it was all her fault. Emily made a right turn on a red light and a uniformed cop stepped in front of her holding up his hand and forced her to pull over, gave her a lecture about paying attention to clearly posted signs prohibiting right turns on a red light, told her to stop crying because it wasn't going to get her out of the ticket. She tried to explain but it didn't matter and she couldn't find her proof of insurance so he gave her another ticket for that even after she finally did find it at the bottom of her purse, but this was clearly a day for finding things and getting fucked at the last minute anyway so she took it without protest.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Her phone rang. It was Buddy's owner.

    Someone else had found him and taken him home and thanks for trying anyway but all's well that ends well, eh? Goodbye.

    And that was the last time she ever drove down 64th Street.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Delusional:
    I was born an individual
    within a tribe, albeit
    then teacher says
    buy new pencils for school
    mom says ok, and marks them with my name
    teacher says, no, no, take them home
    and buy new pencils, because all pencils go
    into the 'community jar' for class to share
    mom says tough shit
    teacher calls mom
    mom calls teacher idiot
    teacher says mom isn't being nice
    mom says teacher still idiot
    I get suspension for being born
    to uncooperative parent
    this began my long history
    of half-assed
    appreciation

    Don't rate me, I suck.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Valerie wins Eyore award:

    "but this was clearly a day for finding things and getting fucked at the last minute anyway so she took it without protest. "~ Valerie.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Rational Thoughts

    “The monster under the bed doesn't exist,” reassured my mom as I crawled into her bed in the middle of the night and she sent me back to my own room. I trusted her but I knew she was lying to me. It was there, waiting to grab me if my fingers or toes slipped over the edge of the bed in the middle of the night.

    “The goblin in the woods is all in your imagination,” stated my grandmother as she pushed me back outside to play. She didn't believe me but I knew the creature was out there waiting for me; I'd seen it more than once. It had more scraggly facial hair than my cousin Stevie. It glared at me with red eyes as it clutched at the branch of a spruce tree with claw-like hands. It hissed, baring yellowed fangs and tossed pine cones at me and my sister.

    “There is nothing living in the basement,” laughed my father as he opened the door and urged me downstairs to retrieve his tape measure. He was wrong. There was a shadow living under the stairs. I felt its urge to grab my ankle and trip me every time I ventured down into the darkness of the basement.

    All three repeated the same phrase whenever I expressed a fear of something beyond the mundane: “You'll out grow it.”

    But I didn't.

    I see shadows where there is nothing to create them; I hear voices when there is no one near. I remember living in the past and being people other than who I am now. I can change the weather and help heal the ill.

    “And you've felt this way since childhood?” asked my psychiatrist as he scribbled on his prescription pad. “Try this,” he said as he handed me the slip of paper. “It'll help you sleep and stabilize your emotions. Eventually those thoughts will go away and you'll be a normal, rational person.” I took it from him with a tentative hand.

    “Oh, and don't forget to schedule your next appointments with my assistant on the way out. I want to see you twice a week. We need to monitor your situation carefully.”

    He didn't look up from the notebook where he was writing furiously when I left the room, the prescription for Zyprexa clutched in my hand.

    ReplyDelete
  8. "I see shadows where there is nothing to create them"~vandamir

    Now that's cooool. There's a whole movie in that one line.

    hmmm, this comment is not very combatty, is it? Ok, you suck. (but I really like that line)

    ReplyDelete
  9. K wrote, "Delusion is one of the fuels that makes this world run; indeed," Indeed. No. Wrong. Maybe in your delusional, four-walled, apartment mindset, but in my bear country jamboree world of nature clashing in an interface of 4 am chicken raids everything is pretty much cause and effect. He/she/it who has the best game plan eats he/she/it who doesn't. There's no delusion. The logic of natural order spinning with geocentric pragmatism renders the delusional compost. Step outside, fair Khakjaan, turn of the half peeled ideas of internet provocateurs and stick your feminized paws down a raccoon den trying to tear back the half eaten game hen you gave a pet name and now deem worthy of ritual burial. That pole slagger is gonna rip the tendons off your delusion. Mind you, serendipity saves lives.

    (Is that meet the 'rules' criteria? I don't want to upset anyone. But then, rules suck. Except when I make them up myself in my stratego playhouse. I'm wearing a kilt because I'm engaged to the Queen of Siam.)

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  10. I like to believe I will never find my soul mate
    Realists say I am delusional
    That I should stop being so naive
    Because soul mates find each other
    Since they were made for one another, duh

    But I like to think that I was not made for anyone
    My friends say that's silly, that everyone is made for someone

    Sometimes I hate being such a dreamer
    looking out my window hoping there is no one for me
    I wish I could just be like my friends, jaded to the reality
    That we will all end up with our soul mates
    Growing old together
    Never really knowing what it's like to be alone

    ReplyDelete
  11. Oh my gawkity gosh! I can't believe it. What do you guys do? Use pony express? Ur all delusional--this is not combatwords. K, you oughta be marched up a forsaken tibetan hilltop and left auming for a month. Where do you get your language? What'd you do? Wank on cammo red in college and trip face first in Oxford's leatherbound finest? Words don't make the man/woman/transgendered person, use of them does.

    Delusion is what everyone's living in, even me cause I sucked down the pipe in to Aristotle's reason scheme like every else did: sunrise, sunset, earth go round, spin, change, mark the calendar, go to work, eat, watch the tube, type some crapperoo and go to sleep. Get up do it again, pace the day, repeat, rinse your glass, go to sleep, do it again, do it a million times, then buddy? Die.

    Cause everybody's looking at the world from cause and effect, cause and effect, do this, do that, think back, keep on track, but listen----read---that's only one perspective, a little perspective. Some trend that seemed good a long time ago, because we could plan. Egor drop rock, hit toe, no, no, no, don't do that again. Bing, now we have the past---but that's an oxymoron, the past doesn't exist. Never has, never will. There is only now. Not the future, it doesn't exist either. You might think it will, but it never will. There is only now. And now travels along this continuum in your mind like a needle on a line, a long line, like a piece of spaghetti, (elongated, tubular, grain-based, nutrient extrusion---for Khakjaan), and the now just floats along that line, floats along that line. Easy to see, isn't it, plotting your birthdays, and futures, and tomorrows, planning, planning, lots of planning---but it doesn't exist? Oh but the now does. That's easy to see, it's now. The pinpoint, the excruciatingly passage of existence, coursing along at the speed of light along the line of extrusion....

    ReplyDelete
  12. Well, well, we haven't been there yet, you might say, of course the future doesn't exist, but we're gonna get there---right? No buddy, we're not. We live in the now and sure, when you compare to a long piece of spaghetti, it does look like we're truckin' along, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. But we're not. When we exist, we exist in the now, and only then. How do I know this? Well I'm delusional enough to wanna look down that tube of spaghetti. It's all there, everything's happening now. I don't know what you're gonna do in the morning, but I know what I'm gonna do. Cause I can see it. Little blossoms of joy. And little holes of despair. (Joy's concrete in the now---cement fades. Despair's like major road repair.) I can pretty much see the trip as long as I can pick up the ripples of the significance of what is--the big events, for me that is. Anyway, plan your day. It doesn't exist. Create a little now for your self.


    Real DDDDDelusion. I see it all the time. Not personally, but in the tortured, pained grimaces of hard-assed, closed in boxes, walking along a pain tightrope and the clouds are screaming "No good worthless piece of shit!" That's all over. People muckin in fringes trying to scrape two bucks to pay Bill to pay Rob to pay Leane to fix the frick and scam on more ball to climb back in the box. Living on the edge, no connection except to some waif who's half something like the image of your sister, except for the choke scabs on skinny neck 8 weeks since good protein. And worse, the delusions of the freaks and preds who suck the life juice out these stray babes. They missed the shot, no internet, no serious couch, no hey, let's chill. It's hunting, hunting to fill the box, fill the void, fill the hole, fill the hollow. Fuck you Aristotle.

    ReplyDelete
  13. So I read your delusional posts. Gawwwwd your delusional, primed, primmed, primped, "oh toits and hoits, the articulated randomness of the thematic nuance doth whisk ones machinations betwixt frought and nought" Holly shiit you guys! You have this chance........

    READ MY LIPF

    You have this chance, not tomorrow, not yesterday, right here. Don't sit on your ass and be delusion-----oh gee I'll right way, I'll write a poim, I'll stroke my ego, I'll fleece my fears and fuck yours. Don't do it. Don't get sucked in. There are no rules, never was, only the rules that you know, and I know. And we both new them from the beginning. Alpha/omega dudes/dudettes. So don't waste time on tomorrow. Build for it, set your self up, but don't waste time there when it doesn't exist. Here is where we are, and where are you? Memory? Wishes? Melancholic habitus? What if's?

    Uh,uh not me fair and trues. I'm in the now. Always been, always will be. I was in the now from the start and will end in the now. Lookin' down that spaghetti, babe. Gardening joy.

    Slicing and dicing of each of your prissifications....

    ReplyDelete
  14. K, buddy, you're frikken delusional. I'm on IQ outreach program, I've got the absorption rate of Dyson Ball Vac, I mean they sent dog teams to find the end of mine in school, but dude... ur so frikken far gone, takes frikken Hubble team to tame it down. Speak to the masses buddy or are you just wanking out of fear because if you did get on a conversational clip you might find out that you DO make mistakes, and you DO have homo sapien sapien dna? Chill dude, you don't get your word wings unless you can convey the message to five year old with chromosome 7 slightly untangled. ReAd My TyPiNg... RePeAt aFteR Me... I, Khakjaan, have my own now, and will not get so wrapped up looking at the future that I forget to address the slack jawed pitchfork toting neighbor who plants my spaghetti.

    Steven MG, you know buddy, I'm not gonna rip on ya. Besides that your little rosy posy kinda looks like a wine glass, and I always had a soft button for chick poetry---I would simply make you cry.


    Valerie! Holly Krap, get a carriage return, sista. Look don't bore readers with long winded anecdotes about how your pet had some serendipitous happenstance that affected your twice removed friend of who the fuck cares. Get to the point. You win the award so far for delusional if you think somebodies gonna slog through that unless they're as lonely as you are. No shit. We're all lonely if we're sitting in this dump reading spazzooola coming out of my brain. Get a life, Live, break free of the wire....

    ReplyDelete
  15. Vandimir. VAnDAMHAMMER. Hey, bud, wake up. Ding, Ding, Ding. How old are you? Because if your under fourteen and got this far, you're already to hooped to turn back the ideas, but you best run cause I'm gonna lay it out for you. Penis enters vagina and ejaculates and one, or three, (I just heard a mom cringe) swim up the spagazooola and do what a slow and steady for nine months and then---poof, you popped out. That's it buddy. No more or less. Except if you look at the seriously frikked up shit your parents stuck in your S. Freudian.

    My self. You know how flipping delusional I am? I didn't even read K's line right, contrarian, controsparian position, I dunno. I don't even know what the firk he's on about cause I haven't eaten MEAT protein in 200 flipping days. My brain's rotting from the inside out on beans and soy and rice and wheat, and plants, and flora, and flora, and frikking plants, geeesh. My kid had lobster thermidore and prime rib the other night and I nearly passed out. I look at gold fish in buddy's foyer and I'm sushi baby, smoked, pan fried, light lemon olive sauce, smack.

    Crash. I'm delusional for being here. To think this would have any affect on my outcome of now.
    I'm just lonely, well, not really. I actually just finished a violently passionate love making session with my wife in the rush of beating off a raccoon trying to throat slash my prize rooster, who plays guitar. Google it. Seriously, Chicken plays guitar. Do it.

    Oh Humanist, oh humanist. Of all the people here. I thought at least I could lean on your grounding in social myopia, your hilltop vista as we rats race on the track. But no, you're off, merrily deluding yourself in some quasi-related allegorous thematical on human relationships, growing old together, blissy, fissy, blissy. Damn you, make every friking moment count. Live like you'll never see, or hear, or find that person again. Hold them like they're dead tomorrow. Because tomorrow doesn't exist. Don't blow it, whining to us on metaphorical illusory happenstance. Don't suck into the delusion. Conquer your ego, bend to the soulmate, humble thy self and just be nice.
    Genuinely nice. You know, flannel nice.

    ReplyDelete
  16. And dream, dream because it crosses dimensions and dream because you can share your dreams and glimpse the future, reveal the know. You and Steve have a chance. Van will grow up and see it. Val and I are too far gone, we are either last ditch of first in line for new horizons, and K? Buddy teletype you delusion in four letter words....cause then I'll frikking understand you, you mensa freak.

    I'm off to read the rules.

    ReplyDelete
  17. SLAM

    Everyone always claps
    so
    politely
    at these baby wannabe poetry
    competitions that
    aren't
    because this isn't the NYC
    it's a crowd of ten
    old ladies and teenagers and
    me
    clutching notebooks like pamphlets
    like Jehovah's witnesses
    ready to proselytize
    spread the good word
    bad word
    no
    words are toy blocks only
    bad when combined
    to build a skyscraper
    without windows
    full of vanilla cubicles and
    no people
    words are dull knives that cut
    nothing
    scraped against unmarked arms
    plunged into unwounded chests
    look
    at my blood my heart
    laid bare
    but
    the floor is clean and
    everyone claps so
    politely
    for each voice that stutters
    trembles
    whispers into the microphone
    booms with confidence and
    me
    walking the green mile
    choking on humility
    ready for my
    standing
    fucking
    ovation
    after an hour of boredom
    at this slam
    that hasn't slammed anything
    and I read and
    read and
    read
    and slowly
    from the depths of a well
    of silence comes
    the faint
    sound
    building
    to a crescendo
    of everyone clapping
    politely.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Gaboo, you have a nice flow. Timed like a menstrual train in Fascist Italy, but the result is not as bloody as you may dream it to be. I saw no real go for the throat gusto in your overblown reaction, you still have a lot to learn from that guitar hating raccoon.

    There was much too much talk about life being like spaghetti, and too much over thought ignorance to say only the now exists. You actually said there is no past, there is no future. Step back and look at how fucking retarded that sounds. You used the very words themselves when saying they don't exist, which is why it fell completely flat and lifeless, like your wet noodle analogy.

    For anyone contemplating reading Gaboo's run on 'rant', don't. Just skip to the cliff notes: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/delusion

    You do get a point for sticking to the topic, even at the risk of your own embarrassment. +1

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  19. Yeah, gaboo wins the copious taunting award for this competition. I shook so hard in my boots that they fell clean off. He taunted my ass right back in here to write something else. Rock on.

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  20. LoL Valerie, you scared me for a moment, but then redeemed yourself at the end. Very nice +1

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  21. Gaboo, you can't get through to the living dead. They win every time. It is their privilege and their comfort.

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  22. Gaboo, don't be a fucking spaz. Are you going to try to write or aren't you? I will killfile you if you keep this shit up. It's lazy. It's stupid and if I wanted more Ernie-lite shit I would have asked for that.

    Are you incapable of following rules or do you just take glee in writing lame shit that's far below the bar? I said 'Play' as in, try it. If you can't actually make an effort, go join Mather in a seat and compulsively masturbate on the side. I can't believe what a fucking twat you've been since I went to sleep last night. Are you a writer? Seriously? Act like it.

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  23. Ah, of course, threaten to "killfile" him because he came in fighting. It is called combatwords, right? This is the real reason you left TWAK, because you couldn't "killfile" anyone you didn't like. I thought there was more passion and poetry in gaboo's rants than I have seen from any of your regular sheep.

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  24. K, I lower the bar and you try to limbo, can't do it buddy, I'm a backroom, barbrawl reject from the yahoo boards. Nice effort though. Here's and ebandage for the knee scrapes.

    Val, love your moxy, shame you haven't found your true calling in auto mechanics.

    Humanist, I sink, you follow, slinking. I win.

    Mather, buddy, you get one of my signed bookmarks featuring an enlarged closeup of Lou Grant's eyeball.

    This was pussy foot, let me drink some of your cammomile tea and bust into song. Here's to getting banned---from combatwords! Ha, I rock.

    g (on wife's comp, forgot me password) love you guys, ick. NeVeR StOp!

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  25. ps. K, after your weekend pout, don't forget I need one of your prissy poems for the magazine. Make it good, something sentimental about summer happy. g

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  26. If my true calling is auto mechanics, I have a lot of catching up to do. Wouldn't know a spark plug if it bit me in the face.

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  27. Did you feed him spaghetti? I'm down for some noodles.

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  28. Gabby, I like your spirit, but don't like your anonymity, it is cowardly.

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  29. K, why don't you just call this something like "a few friends sitting around writing poems for each other to love" instead of this video-game-mentality name like combatwords? Speaking of delusion, good grief.

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  30. anonymity? on wifes comp, can't help it, m. She don't need my baggage.
    Val, ur poem is what I like, in my face, real. Maybe ur a poet in a 454.
    Humanist. No troll here, just a street journalist with mandate to stir the pot.

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  31. ps. mather, go to my site, read about, link to what is a 'gaboo', explains all. g

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  32. Yeah I read it and enriched myself with the hipster meaning of the word "gaboo". Wow, that explains everything! Do you think that makes you less cowardly, protected, comfortable, or pathetic?

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  33. when I release my book, a thousand rancid fans will clambor for my real autograph... ur copy's free. g

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  34. Yeah, well, you can go ahead and donate my copy to the local thrift store. But, to get back to the business at hand: trashing Wessington and his flocky flock: Marty, that poem is so full of cliche any criticism of it is bound to be trite. The ending is a kind of pat on the back, I guess. The fact that Wessington liked the ending should tell you that it is bad, bad meaning unnecessary in this instance. If it's funny the reader will know it, if not then saying it's funny doesn't make it funny.

    Valerie: dog saving story was terrible. Sorry, but lost dogs just don't do it for me. Those lost dogs live more in the 2 or 3 days before they're splattered by a car than most of us (or our dogs) do our entire lives. I have had women like the narrator try to "save" me too, and told them all to fuck off. Oh, shit, did I turn off the stove before I left? I'm not sure. Did I? Did I? What torture!

    Vandamir: why do you think this is a story other people would care about? So, you can't grow out of your fear of monsters? Maybe if you met some real monsters in real life you would snap out of it. You make me sick. Of course the narrator might not have been you, but still you think this story is somehow interesting or compelling for the rest of us. It is not.

    Humanist: what the fuck are you talking about? What "realist" is going to tell you to wait for your "soul mate"? A realist is going to tell you to find someone with at least a couple of things in common, who you are at least mildly attracted to, and just make it work if you want a relationship, because relationships are for people who WANT relationships. If you don't want that, or you just can't do that, then that is fine, being alone can be a beautiful thing.

    Gaboo: keep your pencil. Stick it up your ass for all I care.

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  35. ebay: auctioning one pencil extruded from gaboo's ass. Bidding starts at $5000. Oh yes, and a lucky latecomer with wonderful find at a thrift store of all places, signed by gaboo... let's say...$10,000 to start. Ready bidders? Begin. Mather sits in his 20x20 rainwater collection depot called a low budget condo, wearing his Tilley. Rent's overdue, buddy, the fourth of September already. My time flies. g

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  36. G: wrong. Rent is due on the 5th. I have over 24 hours to get it together. No condo but low rent Mexican ghetto two bedroom apartment. Don't know what a Tilley is but will google.

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  37. Oh, no, I hate those hats. I prefer straw hats, go through 2 every summer. Walgreens, ten bucks.

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  38. I dont worry about that shite, I don't even have a credit card. My staff do, tho. I just take a draw on revenue, buy real estate and raise the rent. A Tilly is a wiffy hat eco wannabe's wear to look bush hardened. But they're the first one up a tree when something over 20 pounds wanders into the site. g

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  39. It's amazing to me how many anonymites want to make fun of my appearance or job status simply because I am HONEST about it and put it out there. It's happened to me so many times, and because I don't know anything about the accuser, what am I to say? Wow, you got me! You outsmarted me! You outwitted me! Do none of you see the reality behind this creepy lowlife behavior?

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  40. The fact that you knew what a Tilley was and I didn't should tell you something. I was born in a barn, had an outhouse until I was 14 years old. I can pick up a live rattler with my bare hands and stare down a cougar or a javelina until he turns and wanders off.

    Oh, so you're a slum lord, eh? Here goes the rambling dishonesty of the anonymite. Because no one knows the truth he can embellish without consequence. Neat.

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  41. That's your egocentric attitude, look at me, look at me, me, me, me. You told me to shove a pencil up my ass you hypocrite. I don't want to know who you are. I don't care. All I care about is the spark inside your shell and the fire in your belly. Don't be so narcissistic. Maybe I'm frikking Paris Hilton for all you need to know. Judge me by my ideas, cause when we are dead from this plane, I'm a behemouth swirl. But just for you... I'm humbled dog. Smacked down and dragged in the dirt with bullet holes to prove it. The fact I'm even typing to you is a miracle. Read my blog, I preach life. Life and joy. Why? Cause I've seen the other side. g

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  42. I'm no slum lord. I buy up your human wreckage and reclaim the land for animals. Humans. Get out of your shell. I love kicking mall rat consumers to the street, leveling it, and let the brambles grow. They are a better species. g

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  43. The fact that you are begging me to read your blog is ME ME ME. I told you to shove your pencil up your ass as a response to your poem about your precious pencil and those mean old socialistic teachers. Judge you by your stolen ideas? Oh, I already have. Bullet holes? Great, so now you're implying you're a war vet. Are you a war vet?

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  44. ppppps. How many addicts, prostitutes, drunks, losers, schizo's you drag off the street and straighten out? I have frikking army of reborn, readjusted and reorientated. I've done more to set a positive spin in the bowries af sodom than you can comprehend. I've earned my anonymity because only scumbag dealers and pimps and freaks care about who I am. And I don't break the chain, my loved wife made me swear never to let her wake up to find a gun barrel of some whacked vendetta waving a piece in her face. Piss on your pride, and your who are you, who are you? I'm nobody. Don't know me. Cause if you do, you're on myside or collateral damage. g

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  45. I don't steal ideas, wad. Everything that rings true, you knew already, I'm just reminding you. Don't be so forgetful. My words are mine. Sure we share 26 letters, but I talk about the hidden one, between m and n. Besides this conversation is mootible. I already know you'd think I was the cat's meow in person. The only reason you're so inflammed is because I'm stirring up your reality, cutting through the delusion you've been sucked into for x months or years. I'm your fresh air, your breeze, and man that air is sweet. You know it too. You feel alive around me. g

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  46. So, you're not a war vet. You're a fucking world saver. Like the hero in Valerie's story. How is putting your real name and history on the internet gonna put a gun barrell to your wife's head? The people who want to kill you, if there are any, don't sound too appreciative of the saving you've done. And if they want to kill you, being honest on Combatwords isn't going to help them get any closer. You're full of shit. I love this "reoriented" and "straightened out" crap. God help the weak!

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  47. I feel alive around you? I felt just as alive arguing with Wessington.

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  48. keep up buddy, combatwords, remember, or do you need a sauve? g

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  49. of course you feel alive, I'm stringing you like a roadie. g. ps I'm eating a sandwich.

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  50. "don't sound too appreciative of the saving you've done" The pimps and pushers never do. But the families of the fallen love me for the no bullshit interventions....clueing in yet? g

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  51. Sauve? I'm glad you're eating a sandwich, you need your strength.

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  52. Clueing in to what? All you've got to do is be straight and noone would have to guess what the fuck you're talking about. But, by leaving out information you can make fun of me for not knowing that information. Very, very clever.

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  53. ps I get more hugs in a day than most get all year, shame, tho, trying giving a shit with all your high and mighty. Lotta talk buddy, but in the end your no action., just talk. Well, Mr. social passenger, I walk.

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  54. now I have to pee. hold on.

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  55. So, what's a sauve again? A city in France?

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  56. Mr. Social passenger. Oh, brother. Is this Dhan Shaulis?

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  57. don't lose focus, balm yourself. Look, mather, I'm playing you like a bassoon. In this whole thread I'm laying it on the line, I always do. You get me, 100%, passion man, you said it. I stick my neck out and drag the pained and broken back to something they can cling---Knowing they aren't alone. And I'll do whatever I can to prove it. And you know that, probably same breed, creed. I'm not anonymous. You know me, and you respect me. I'm not a face, I'm your frikken brother, and you know that. So give up the high face and come down to reality, stop deluding yourself----are you a warrior against pain, or just another naive consumption king? g.

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  58. My peeps need attending. Think on what I wrote. And Mather............




    peace be with you. and joy.g

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  59. Lose focus on what? How am I going to lose focus on a person who is deliberately portraying himself out of focus? What I see is a person who is so proud of himself for saving the derelict that he just can't help but giggle every time he thinks of how cool he is. That's assuming any of this is true, which it probably isn't. Is this Mike Powers? Are you fucking with me? "Warrior against pain", ha ha, oh, Gordon. Yeah you'll do whatever you can to prove it, while finding time to post anonymouse bullshit on Combatwords. Any time you want, Goopy.

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  60. search buddy, search for a name, cause that's all you got, deluded names, I don't know you. Never met you, I don't even know K. Our paths will never cross. Think on my words. I laid it out. Others reading will get it. You are lost in self. Grow.

    signed,
    GABOO

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  61. You don't know me? But, I thought I knew you, and if I know you then you surely know me? Right? You can't even be honest in a simple conversation, but you're going to save the world. Well, you know me now, even though I still don't know you. That's the way you like it, so you can continue to sabatoge sites without accountability. I mouth a lot but at least I am not hiding. In fact I'd give you my address if you wanted to come over and save me, goopy.

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  62. Well, the readers are now wondering who to hate more, me or him. Fun stuff, eh Wessington?

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  63. "Think on my words. I laid it out. Others reading will get it."

    So, does anyone else "get it"?

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  64. The children aren't delusional, just lied to
    Told by parents who don't know any better
    That when they grow up they can be
    President or movie star, hero or king
    Anything but themselves, anything but boring
    Like being able to cry from laughter
    Or working hard for a living
    Are such bad things

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  65. Pandemonium Rising [CombatWords, September 4, 2010]

    Each time a devil obtains its own pitchfork
    An angel is learning to die.
    Now populations of seraphim plummet
    While newer and stronger gods rise.
    No evil germinates without a fertile
    Black soil, so the roots might unfurl
    Out from the inky and smothering blackness—
    From mineral, up to the top.
    Rage grasps their hope. Pandemonium rises:
    Huge. Modern and filled with the hope
    That lives in avarice, laughter and throttles—
    Yes, murder and paranoid hate.

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  66. Steven, I would lose that part at the end. The Cafe Mirage thing puts way too fine a point on it.

    I wish we could have eaten
    because this reservation
    was not easy to get:

    +1

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  67. Valerie, the first one w/the dog, I didn't really find all that compelling to be honest. Not my cup of tea.

    Your slam poem, I did enjoy. I had a few issues with some of the line breaks, but all in all fit the theme very nicely.

    Suggestion:
    like Jehovah's witnesses
    ready to spread the good word

    "Proselytize" just seemed a bit much.

    standing
    fucking
    ovation
    +1

    It really picks up steam at the end--You might even say it builds to a crescendo of everyone clapping politely. +1

    Sorry about that lame joke.

    +2

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  68. vandamir, I see what you're going for, but you didn't give yourself enough time to fully develop it. The length makes it come off as a little simplistic.

    +1

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  69. I like what Gaboo was trying to do, going all meta with the Combat and pointing out everyone's delusions. +1

    "And now travels along this continuum in your mind like a needle on a line, a long line, like a piece of spaghetti, (elongated, tubular, grain-based, nutrient extrusion---for Khakjaan)"--I'm sorry, but that's funny. +1

    All in all, the best Ace Ventura impersonation I've seen on the web. +1

    +3

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  70. @Steven, I agree with Jeff. Lose the end, it's too cute. It needs something else but that's not it.

    Good use of champagne +1
    Cafe Mirage -1
    Overall zip

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  71. @gaboo, I think your poem is better than you think it is but not as good as it could be.

    "community jar" idea +1
    too expository -1
    mom says teacher still idiot +1
    Overall +1

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  72. @Vandamir,

    more scraggly facial hair than Steve +1
    I've seen this plot before in much the same fashion so the ending was expected -1
    Overall zip

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  73. @The Humanist, you can do much better than this. It's all tell and the idea is only vaguely interesting. Brainstorm some more images for this or maybe make it a narrative or something; as is, it's not there yet. It's a seed, so throw some shit on it so it can grow.

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  74. @Sickboy, same as what I said to The Humanist. Tiny poem without enough of a kick. Take us through the lives of these theoretical people, show us what that looks like and we'll get the idea without you having to hand it to us.

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  75. @Khak, I am frustrated by the brevity of this piece that seems to beg for richer images. I want to see Pandemonium more clearly. I'm also not totally clear on the characters and who is involved in each section. The gods?

    First two lines +1
    Not much else catching my eye so overall +1

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  76. Humanist:

    Funny. +1
    I liked it. +1

    Doesn't move far enough & stagnates/stews in its symmetry. +1

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  77. Humanist, that should have been a -1 for a total of +1.

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  78. Sickboy, not much of an image. More of a sketch of a movement of thought.

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  79. Vandamir: Two things: one, pacing. Too slow. Two, in media res: do it. Works better.
    I'm going to minus you for the above issues, but give you a plus for throwing down some prose.

    +1 - 1 = 0

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  80. Yeah, I can see what Gaboo was going. It just annoyed me, because I had just gotten two e-mails complaining about the lack of wit. I invited a guy who will be able to raise the bar next week for that sort of thing. I hope he shows up. If you wanna troll, do it right--he's funny, cutting AND makes his point. I'd like to see you do that Mather, but pigs shed their bacon and fly into my mouth first. Well this other guy will be instructive like dat. I really don't mind shit talk, but lazy shit talk has gotta go. I don't want this to turn into a mental hospital where all the internet's palookas go to get their heads pounded in for fun.

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  81. Gaboo, I'm not going to score your posts. I feel I'm the wrong guy for that. I just know it annoyed me, but everybody else seemed to enjoy it. No wet blanket from me.

    +0

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  82. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  83. Ah yes, you talk shit about the game, but you still want the readers. Hilarious on multiple levels.

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  84. You can laugh all the way to nowheresville, K. Of course I will try to redirect your readers to my own work. What the fuck do you think I've been doing all this time? If they hate me, fine, but they will not forget me.

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  85. What's to recommend them? A guy who claims to be a writer, has ample time to spend on the thread w/ his shit-talkery, but no writing? Your posts ARE your writing and your writing sucks. It is not your writing that is memorable, but your palooka-ish personality. When I spend 8 hours in front of the computer, I get writing done. When you spend 8 hours in front of the computer, you get whining done.

    Post as much as you want, even though you're actually a traffic detraction, rather than the attraction you think you are. You're a cautionary tale. You act & write like every other no talent & bitter about it writer I've ever run into on the internet. You admire my promotion skills, you admire the writers I've helped bring together and you're too much of a dick to admit it.

    So what do you offer? Basically, you're a stupid, lazy, bitter guy who tries to write. A jester.

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  86. It's so easy to be hateful from behind a curtain, isn't it?

    Everything you've said is wrong, and some of it pretty stupid, for instance accusing me of never writing anything except blog comments, when I just put up a link to a published poem. Yeah, I know, you can write ten poems to my one. Each one of them perfectly stilted, metered and forgettable.

    Trust me, K, or whatever your name is, there is NOTHING about you that I admire. You jump around like an alto-voiced knight in Monty Python playing your "combat"! Nobody cares about your specialty learning, your precious history lessons or your poetry, which is about as tasty as a wooden plum. Each reader is here for their own selfish reasons, not because they admire you. Do you ever actually LISTEN to yourself? Do you not see the humor in someone taking this whole thing (the combat in particular and poetry in general) as seriously as you? How is it that someone who takes it so seriously can be such a gargantuan failure at it? You're a grease spot, Wessington, a grease spot under a square black hat. That's why I come, because it is astounding to me that you exist. And it cracks me up.

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  87. Oh, and as for what I have to offer, I'd say you summed it up pretty well: "Basically, you're a stupid, lazy, bitter guy who tries to write. A jester."

    That's exactly what I am, in fact.

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  88. Mather, play the game or fuck off. I've given you ample chances for constructive engagement, but you don't want it. I've got a couple of threads w/ your dickery memorialized in them, so now I can use you to point out what ban-able behavior is. Without me, nobody will hear you. Your website doesn't even come up on Alexa with a traffic ranking. NOBODY reads you. I believe in giving people 2nd chances, but you're on your dozenth. Don't bother replying. I will delete all new comments you make from now on. Congratulations! You're permabanned!

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