Wednesday, February 22, 2006

In vedantic literature, there is a beautiful analogy.
The bowman has already sent an arrow and it has left his hands. He cannot recall it. He is about to shoot another arrow. The bundle of arrows in the quiver on his back is the sanchita; the arrow he has shot is prarabdha; and the arrow which he is about to shoot from his bow is agami. Of these, he has perfect control over the sanchita and the agami, but he must surely work out his prarabdha. The past which has begun to take effect he has to experience.

"Mud Fight"

It has indelibly proven to be ironic; this global “hoop la” over cartoon images of the Holy Prophet (pbuh), somewhat surreal even. The fact that the entire world has been surrogated the back seat on an issue that was forever imminent, but only recently brought to light in the most confounding manner, is somewhat laughable, considering the it took us so long to see what was already there

If looked at objectively, (which of course seems rather impossible) this situation has been taking root, quite intermittently over the past decade, only now has the “bullshit bravado” been put aside and the gloves finally come off. “We are in a fight, ladies and gentlemen!” a proverbial brawl of ideologies, which contrary to all appearances is not recent, it is ancient, archaic even. However all the current derivations have proven is that the battle is just getting “uglier” and “muddier” than it had been in the past.

Yet when we consider it, how is that really any surprise…the fact that our disputes are no longer “noble” or clear-cut? Gone are the days of honourable swordfights and “obvious” victors, gone are the days of altruistic intentions and gentlemen quests…we are now in a “dog eat dog” world, the only rule today is that there are “absolutely no rules”, just end games, which require one winner and one loser. So why be surprised that massive forums, and vast reservoirs of information and communication are giving voice to such heretic heresy?

Rather than spending all our energy in condemning the forums that express the opinions that “unfortunately” many around the world share, shouldn’t the logical step be to “step-back”, re-examine our conduct and change those opinions instead of perpetually reinforcing them?

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

An Ode to coke

Having, of late been doomed to disapprove of my reflection in the looking glass, hence spurting on the bloody dreaded "D" word, it seems all i want to do is eat. The word "Fry", " Food" and "Sugar" have taken on an increased reverence, hitherto only reserved for the likes of Keirkegaard, Dylan and my quasi-post-existential beliefs...but i no longer believe in sweating the "small" stuff. Bring on the grub....grub, a dub, ab.

Yet out of all the confectionary delights i am abstaining from in my non-quintessential quest for martyrdom (apparently being thin is the modern equivelent), the one i miss and cant live without remains the same. The only non-evasive, undisputed love of my life....my ode to a bottle, can, fishbowl....... anything of Coke.

Oh my blessed, beautiful, friend.
How i LONG to reunite with thee.
Feel your cool, glass (what do you know it was bottle after all) primzms
and taste your fiery, gasseous depths.
I long, and pine,
all in vain.
Not to worry though my childhood friend, my adolescent sweetheart, my eternal soulmate
Bloody 6 more days till perdition
Until you and I are together again.

Looming Chasm

It has proven quite indefinable this recent struggle cropping out moralistic nuances: “to believe or not to believe” ironically this quest is anything but superficially pervasive as most believe it to be, it is in fact imminent for my eventually being scribed as an individual.

In a day and age of “atheism” and agnosticism, what is the rational minds “logical” pirouette to spirituality, pray tell? For those of us who long to believe in some manner of a higher altercating, “All powerful” entity where is the ability to question?
Have we left it behind in the dungeon where our proverbial curiosity now lies? Dead and buried six feet under carpeted frenetically behind layers of subtext and subconscious meanderings or have we simply forgotten it ever existed, that divine spark of wonder, which we now side-step, tiptoe, revel round…avoid on every front save head on.
What am I left with? My generation, and my age where do our answers lie, in the quest or in the silent acceptance of “age-old” acronyms, which we bluntly accept in lieu of the truth. Despite all crusader quests I have often found myself questioning whether it might just be so much simpler to put all the questions to rest and walk the banal broken road of customary tradition.
The trouble is it has proven impossible to do, how does one not ask the question that already exists? More to the point, how does one get an answer to a question, which has yet to be given voice to? See my consternation….this ephemeral “merry go round” of fate, seems all I have left to believe in.
Often I have tried to give a category to my catechism of altercating opinions regarding the divine, and have failed miserably, and between all the “theisms” that exist today I have found my views floundering, there are things I love about many modern and ancient traditions, and similarly there are things I hate in equal measure.
It isn’t the first time someone has asked me….“So who are you, then?”

“Atheist?” Nope. I definitely give way for divine supremacy or is it simply a yearning to believe in the fantastic, the un-ordinary, the intermittently ineffable?

“Agnostic?” Yes, No Maybe…Perhaps. The profundity of never knowing and admitting it. Still deliberating.
“Buddhist?” nope, with the perpetual waning of “theisms”, no help from above, struggle solitary struggle.
“Zen?” Nope. Proverbial “peace be upon you all”…wholly unrealistic realism.
“Hindu?” Nope. Grandiose glamour, crocheted colours and beauteous befuddlement.
“Kabbalist?” Nope. Cosmological , megalomaniac with a fetish for sacred cults
“Wiccan?” Nope. Tree-hugging, fire walking, frit, ardently adapting to non-existent nature.
“Communist?” Nope. Cynical sage of absent allegiances.
“Mystic?” Flower child freak barring any besotted logic. Perhaps.

The voice in my mind pushes me to pick one and so be done with it!
Pick a side!
Pick an “ism”!
Pick an “ist”!
Just do it. Let it be written, let it be done.
Yet I altercate, I deliberate, I relocate.
Anything to avoid making a choice.
Making “the” choice
The choice defining the “who” and the “what”.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Dear "Grime"

Sweet surreptitious grime
do collect
do select
do reflect
do deflect...

All lifeless, life forms
All catechisms of metropolis modernity
All illusions of grandoise grandeur

"Day" dear Day, do end
and "Grime" dear Grime, do send...

Silent odes to passer's by
Silent smiles to black, crevice digits
Silent lauds to working-class heroes

Silent morse code, codes
of what fingernail grime bodes...

Capitalist Seas

Yet another one of "those" days in a string of "these" days. I am perpetually amazed at the insipid-ity of my people... have seen the worst of Lahore this week. Definitely the best of worst times.
High pitched/OFF key note, have offically become a cog in the under-paid, under-appreciated mis-under-stood, undercorporate machine....am as of Monday, feature writer at Daily Times. Jes jes am snipping off all "blissfully" nonchalant ties with the freelance business and am venturing into capitalist seas....

Dont smoke, dont drink tea
Miserable in my foregone trade
Am I bound to be

Afterthought to foreself:
Glass be half empty...however laced with black, carbonic acidy linings

Second afterthought to foreself:
CRAP! Diet starts monday, carbonated linings frizzling away, glass plain half-empty!

Third afterthought to foreself:
But glass is clean....
(Dare anyone insinuate I dont try)

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Table for two

Global yo-yo's spin tops on glass surfaces of eloquent moons
Us sad, lonely hearts sit and sigh our ever-impending gloom

Have never been one for romantic overtures,
but what can you do...

Looking for my lobster, at my fabled table for two.
Sans mirrors, sans history books, sans future maps
No dumb blondes, no jaded vixens, no sycophant saps
Just you and me and our self-excecuted mishaps...

"Table for two"
What can you do...'
Tis a sad, sad tale
told by an even sadder idiot.

Oblivious Monk

The sheer audacity of nameless punks
To smite my core with jealous jaunts
To dye my moods with impervious colours
And rue my existence with frivolous flavours...

They rock my foundations to vaudeville acts
To frame my sensations with frivolous pacts
They shade my shame with satirical salves
To polish my character in rhetorical halves.

Of all the burlap salts in the world
Of random twinks prostrating in the cold
Of countercultural, vicodin addicted shrinks
And antiseptic emulsion so jaded it thinks...

My arcane asylums of overzealous fury
My posthuman judge and pre-human jury
My altercating reality packaged in chunks

To my everwatchful hoodlum
and my oblivious monk.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Valenshmine's

What does one do on this unholy of holies?
Valenshmine's bloody day, my perennial excuse to mourn the fact that I am not yet one of the insipid hoppity hop- shlops who live for candy hearts and woo-some woes. Have missed yet another day of pink flowers and prettiness, have missed the chance to mock, which is a massive miss indeedio. Am angrier at bloody maulvi's for choosing today to get all their bloody turbans in a bind, wherefore I have even "missed" out on the grandoise opportunity to shop myself silly and alleviate all morose morosity.

'Tis a sad sad sad tale,
told by an ass.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

"Some" girls

Sulking in this faded prosthetic of fate
"trashed" somewhere between "nowhere" and "somehow"
.Awaiting my trepid moment of scalentic glory
Fervently seeking my sojourn from battling beasts.

I have been neglecting my brain lately,
its cerebellum layers misting over with candy floss molasses.
I have been drowning my soul lately
its truant projections ever-evading my forever-grappling grasp.

"Some" girls live by the brunt of their silly love songs
How fortunate they are in their recluse of fairy tale knights.

"Some" girls dance to obtuse 'static' ricocheting off the walls in their skeptic skull
How favorable such monotone serenades.

"Some" girls preach the holy trinity gospel's to neanderthals of heresy
How idyllic their obsidian reprieve of reticent faith.

"Some" girls pervade Calliope's sky and mitigate dream- debauchery
How frazzled their bedlam visions and Jehovah’s witnesses.

"Some" girls perennially doomed to "walk the walk" and "talk the talk" of facile mortals
How tragic their apathetic transgresses; sensei's of sanguine lies and smoked mirror's.

"Some" girls play with perfection, high atop pedestals of philistine prophecy
How gaunt their pretty faces of tableau reflections,How lurid their porcelain houses.

"Some" girls swim the winds, fly the rivers and ride the fire, all the while marching to a band all their own, in worlds of rapscallion over tides and iron gates.
How smugly content their unitone existence.

"Some" girls fade through this world, caught and plundered amidst the inertia of past, present and pitfall.
How the underdog strives
and strives
....And strives.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Don't!

"Don't! look at me in that tone of voice" you mandroid imp's of incontrovertible imperfections. Tread cautiously past my svengali of honest reparte'e. For here be dreagons!

"Don't! try to satiate the God in me" you philistine fanatics of ignorant fury. For I am my own woman- I am the Gurkhas in Nandu, the Hindu Atman, the Prarabdha and the zen catechism.

"Don't! move me to tears, you vivisecting demon of failed romances". Ephemeral "Georgie-Porgie" of my flaccid fantasies who kisses all the girls only to make them cry.

"Don't! bend my back and gnarl my hands, to see if I will falter" you sadist serpents of servile dominions . I bellow my boast- I won't!

so "Don't"!

Ka-fucking-buddi

Eloooo,
Am back again, as have just waded and shuffled my way out of muddy layers of subtext. As few of you know, subtext when used as frequently as I do, becomes this gooey, slushy gunk that is hardly pretty and more to the point tastes "quite" stale. Needless to say I fully intend to keep using it as the gooey, gunky familiarity is comforting, and it is hard to get dirty when you're already in the mudpit. Kabaddi, kabaddi, ka-fucking-baddi.

Am currently battling my own cess-pool swamp mud fight that has been christened across time as a "friendly family get together". Am now beginning to think that such trials and hurdles are put forth so that I can emerge triumphant and sling my own brand of smut (which has yet to fuse into a pro-active fertilizer variety, and is currently still slushy and hence disspiates before reaching its target, leaving behind a mess, which I , 'thankyou very much' need to clean later) with effective ease and winning smiles. So, no 'swamp thing' roars, or HULK howls- mine is the mantra of ascetic "polite bitchiness" in the face of karp "blatant bitchiness" which unfortunately is sadly lacking in quality lustre. Since all effective "bitchiness" is taking place in my head and all I expunge from my mouth is politeness.....note to self; must take lessons.

After note to self: dirth of inspiration to pick and choose from.
2nd after note: even a dirth of styles and accents.

Am "thunking" that I shall keep the allegorical ' "piano/anvil/ boiling oil" falling on prospective opponents, in my head" as it is all I have at the moment and has proven remarkably "un-effective" in the past. Am mourning the fact that "inner" hulk and hyde are such bloody wuss's, (Hulk turns blue instead of green, and Hyde is 3 feet tall!) and can therefore not be presented in dis-respectable society as yet.
am deliberating my stance between martyr and marauder.
Zillionth after note to present self: What deliberation... Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) trumps Gandhi any day, even though poor gandhi ji tried going it shirtless and scoring the points.

*Beeping inner bitch*....."Are you there? Wherever the hell you are, wake the f**** up! Please, please be there!"
As I walk through the valley of death i fear nothing save life.
I trust nothing save distrust.
I believe in nothing save disbelief.
I mourn nothing save happiness.
I crave nothing save hunger.
I ask nothing save answers.

Monday, January 30, 2006

Black-holes

Eclipse my life away at the zenith of its quintessant perfection.
Hurtling headlong into the black-hole foray of hounted-house echoes...splinter- shard snows of past subservience.
Steely silhouettes and sodden pirouettes of daydream dances and karmic trances.
Lose my thespian whiles in the sordid asphyxiation of romantic delusions and fairytale knights....each one prognosticating my tread-step alone down fate's free-fall. Deep, deep down.
Cry my way through life's lurid satire, 3-inch split wide grin eclipsing my face.
Tip toe my rapscallion jabs at consorting philistines and jehova's witnesses , from behind a safe miasma of tapestries.
Bellow my illogical gospel to their bloated logic, throat scraped shriek-raw.

Seek, seek, seek...
Speak for God's sake!
Of the absolution in imperfection.
Sway my durges on dreamy clouds of repressed consiousness.

My one and only saviour....
My one and only fight.
A telepathic soul
and stone-blind sight.

Saturday, January 28, 2006

Am sordidly struggling. Floundering really... to find a finite balance between two morose words "ideas" and 'ideals".
What inane bridge must we cross to enter a realm where a "good idea" loses all significance unless it is supplanted with a hapless crusade, masquerading as an ideal?
When is it that a good thought needs dogmatic legitimacy to be valid?
More to the point WHY is it?

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Blood Sport

I sits my life away on the sidelines of ‘em rings, jeering and cheering his every move, I see’s the past thirty years flicker us by, fuckin’ clown-riddle of jabs and jaunts. Faithful, did I worshipped him every moment. Every shimmy of his plexus, every damned curve of his fist, every flight shift of his toes. Now I see’s my life as his shadow, them Peter pan hokey’ poke reflections- all my win’s is been his, all my lose’s been his too, all his. Funny... he never asked for my racket, my gushin’ prayer’s, he never even spoken it. How easy it is for them God-men to forget us vapor, ‘us’ is small men. I is just his foil, his side-dish that he carries to all them shows. I is what them fancy folk’s calls his carriage.

All I am is the mouth to his poundin’ fist, none of ‘em gets it, me neither. There ain’t even a name for what I do, what I spent my life doin’. He be the leader they all worship and scream themselves silly over, and I is just one more chump who can’t run off him. He gives me a restin’ place in his shadow, and i rested there and i ain't a never stopped. That shadow is sheltered us both- but now its is all fadin’, even the darkness…and all we doin’ is float about in a vacuum. Today we is nothing but two black- old farts smutting in the past he is created and is I swimmin’ in.

He, now is the ‘fallen giant’, they all whisper’s and looks at his shakin’ bones, and all em “tch tch tch” aint’ worth a farthin’ shit to boss, he still says he is “prettier” than anything that walked this damn earth and that mean everything will work’ out. Them “ugly” don’t got nowhere to go, says boss. “Has been” they say, them sodder’s... “But there was a time when he could really knock ‘em down”, them shit-faced smurfs ain’t got no clue. So I is the self- appointed “black-boy” cheerleader, that dances behind his-self. I is who they never see’s, but they hears…oh they hears me al’ right, my bullshit bravado when boss was takin’ em hits, my lion roars when he creamed every sucker in the ring, I is belled his every fight he ever fought.

I is the one who nobody knows, who is lovin’ him most… I is who he makes me, when he’s jabbin’ em jerks- I is ‘Muhammad on the mountain’, when he falls it flat- I is Judas.

Move em up on boss”
“You show that big-ugly ape, you the man”
“Buck up boss, you now gonna whoop the ‘ugly’ off-a him”
“You’s is a gonna bury him up deep, now boss-deep, deep, deep boss- six feet under deep”

I is spent all my time always a yellin’ and ramblin’. I has rided on his heart thumpin’, through his cage-bear breath, every drop of blood that a' falls, is me. I was born’d the day he was born’d- one of us inside the ring and one outside. And I died the day he died, again in the ring…the smack- crack of his knuckles, only I heard- and now we is both outside.

Today boss and I, we fumbles along the side-walks and some of them white- folk still sees him, but he’s a stopped lookin’ long time ago.
No more does we float like a butterfly, no longer does we sting like a bee.
Boss, he sits and laughs about them’ glory days- the prettiest one of em’ all he always calls his-self, “true boss, true that is” I says. Today we both sits in the same chair, he’s is a little older than I, he’s is a little weaker than I- but still I sits lower. I take out all them ol’ pictures and papers and string them pearls for him, I sing him all his songs, still I sing his songs…

When he cracks his knuckles I pipe… “Whoa boss, now don’cha scare me now, them rocks is gonna break walls , they is”

When he fries an egg I strut “Boss them eggs gots’ ta be them greatest eggs is ever been made”
When he stumbles over his cane to the bathroom I babble “Boss yous’ is still- a dancin’, them feet just aint a gonna stop, never”

When we is eating cake I pep him “Them black cake boss- “devil cake”, we’s a still eating them “devil cakes””


Folks call’d me his lap dog, they never sees how much more I is to boss. I is the slave, caught by his shadow, I is. I ask’d to be his man…and boss never did say them “no’s” to me. His past is mine, he's a given it to me: I’ been in his body and fought his fights- all of them is my fight’s too, His right hook, his left hook …all is my damn punches.

Them tiny scores of his life I is kept and I is keepin', he never needed them angel scribes to hold out them’ lists to the Lord, all I ever did was write them damned lists. Stupid ass’ money-men today say it’s all a “blood sport”! All humanitarian shit, they sass us with. None of ‘em had no problem sending them little white boys to kill with ‘em guns, they stupid shit’s thinks metal ain’t blood.

Boss he always says that boxing ain’t no “blood sport”- its what’s is makin’ us human. He say’s we all is’ come into the world fists locked, screaming for a fight. He’s a just fought his one, without all ‘em lies. Without all ‘em “Big’ people tellin’ him how to jab and bounce…He’s is fought em’ all in plain sight to his time.

He’s is fought ‘em fair and he’s is fought ‘em straight…
And he's is still a' fightin'...
and so I is still a fightin' .

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Lucifer’s letter to the Lord

8th January 2006,

Well... it seems we have now reached an impasse , yet again, my Dear (I always get frazzled at this point , excuse the quasi-offensive endearment)... let us just say my "respected" nemesis and creator- it shall work, as it has in the past.

I must acknowledge...you have made your point. Clearly I could not help but observe your nocuous attempts to get their attention, yet I have to say (pardon the rapscallion jab) but you are losing your touch, my friend. No subtlety ...absolutely none at all. They must have really done something this time, or is it me again? or are you just getting desperate?

The past few years, none can really refute, not even you- have proven to be in my favor...since I assume we are still keeping score. The perpetual nomenclature of "one-ups" chalks up to me, I believe. Gabriel so much as outright admitted it to my face. We both had a fair musing on the irony that I somehow manage to start such deliciously capricious feuds, completely in "your" name, we both know I have my gifts, you always said I was "rather" good with irony. However I can only assume by your most recent actions that you mean to teach them a lesson, put them in their place, per se.

I confess I am rather confounded, I really would have thought even YOU would have learned your lesson by now. They never 'do' get your subtext, if it was hard for Abraham, trust me 'they' wont get it, they hardly even listen to anything...He sat listening "only" for you! I bet you miss that, even though your stubborn self wont admit it! However I must bow down on this, the spectacles have been grand- as usual, mammoth was always a good look on you. Hurricane- followed by tornado's capped off with earthquakes...finally playing, are we? Granted you always manage to "one-up" me on "carthage" when the gloves really come off, but then again it isn’t as if I've disputed the point- your prerogative, I figure.

However I am writing simply to confirm something, how much longer are we to wait on this? I thought you had already decided to close-up shop? I’m thinking since I haven’t been informed otherwise- that the dates are still set. So I ask, what is all this then? going out with guns blazing, or are you still hoping for one last moment of enlightenment on their behalf...sigh, your faith in them never ceases to amaze me! But I suppose we both need to get going, then. As for your "let's stay out of this now, give them space, "sit-back-so" diatribe", I don’t think you ought to be surprised to find that I fear I cannot go along with you on that one. Call it my "Hippocratic Oath", I fully acknowledge I need to work twice as hard as you do, so call it my grudge against divine superiority, if you will. Just call it, ok?

I do have one request though..."do" stop with all the inducted theatrics, we both agree this is "your" epoch, I don’t need the fireworks to prove it... I hear you, loud and clear sensei. We both know you have dibs on the "special effects" conundrum, and it’s disconcerting to see you play my game. No really, it is! I grant you, I did not see it coming, you've been so chilled out for so long.

As an added afterthought I was wondering if the whole "women/ feminist" thing is going to come into play in the finale... or do you choose not to disclose? See …I do need to work harder, since you invent the rules, breaking them always requires an added ingenuity on my part. No worries, am FINALLY getting used to your wiles.

Btw (do you know they're actually "formally" using the abbreviated versions now? of course, you know! but its still worth mention...whatever you say, I still think the internet worked more in my favor than yours- btw...HA!) you must catch "Day after tomorrow" I had oodles of fun seeing how 'they' thought it would fall "out" of place, you might get some new ideas, although come to think of it you already inspired those ones...for the record, I’ve seen you do better.

Catch you at the finish line.

PS: wont be able to make it to the next meeting, I’m kind of working on a clock, seeing as you don’t work with "time" I know you'll excuse me on this. Plus we always end up arguing anyway and it’s getting redundant, even I get bored now...we need to spice it up, what say you?

xoxoxoxo (how trite of me)
signed
Beelzebub, Lucifer, Satan

Still reigning ...Prince of Darkness

All hail Moon Night

Am just contemplating the ironic hilarity that is being re-illustrated by the assorted moaning, baa-ing and moo-ing of numerous cows, sheep and goats today, all of which are to be tomorrows lunch fodder.
Funny story... all these animals are being oh-so ceremoniously "put-to" slaughter so that 'one fine day' btw i dont see this day as being particularly 'fine' cause its called "judgement day" which sounds kinda oozy. Anyway on this 'fine' day the afore mentioned "mass cattle carthage" will enable me to ride on my choice of animal...although cursed family heritage might ensure that i end up on a cow! (ephemeral and elusive curse known as the 'gujjar' virus or birth defect and as i am considered a "thoroughbred" version im assuming that makes moi a type A, 'dead on arrival' variety) and cross the fabled "pul seraat" as in seraat bridge to reach ....drumroll please.......PARADISE. Hoop la!
All this pervasive struggle only to have my dear Lord stand at the pearly gates and say "Sweetie didnt you get the memo, no-admittance zone" where i will have to ceremoniously "dis-mount" and let the bloody cow, goat or whatever manner of beast pass through as i look on forlornly...much resembling "All dogs go to heaven/ Hercules" flashbacks of the perpetual outsider, quivering pout and all.
THEN will have to make my way back... dare i say it - ON FOOT!

Sunday, January 08, 2006

We all fall down

Have been thinking much about abstract crossroads that life keeps throwing my way.
when did I cross the thin line where family and relationships go from being merely 'annoying' and ' weird' to overwhelming, unadulterated torture?
Am deliberating choices and options to twist paths....hmmm, just one wrong step on the merry-go-round and we all fall down.

Monday, January 02, 2006

Doctor 'Who' and Mrs 'What the ****'

Back again!
Am still awaiting stupendous dose of intellectualism to hit- but so far no such luck. My "after-self" is as inane as my fore-self. So much for new-years and new beginnings!
Although we HAVE been carrying on scintillating conversations with Doctor 'Who" and Mrs "What the--" and somewhere between "nowhere" and "anyhow" i'm thunk-ing that we shall manage quite well with this new "solsctice"...How's that for new age?!
Although considering we dont know any dates for the actual solsctices- the bullshit bravado is endearing...atleast we like to thunk so.

Note to to After-self: We have decided to use "thunk" full-time instead of "think" cause we always do it in past tense and "thought" is just too pretentious.

Second after-note to after-self: Am speaking in "third" person to formally acknowledge and accomodate my "hyde", poor thing never gets any credit and has recently started to act up. have three "fresh" strategically placed zits on my face to prove it.

Am solemnly contemplating the decline of the human race- and am therefore thunking we should switch from writing as a career and aim for a PhD in "Reverse Darwinism'.