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This is Brilliant

A Deal With The Devil

The deal was simple; we’d get to ask him a couple of questions and he got to ask us a couple of questions. A bit odd if you ask me. What could The Devil possibly want to know from us? I couldn’t tell you.

“Is heaven real?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied, his voice like dying embers in a fireplace, “and so is hell.”

“Who goes to heaven?”

“Whoever God wants there.”

“I’m afraid that’s much too vague for us.”

“What’s that like?” he asked, his eyes perking up.

“I’m sorry?”

“What’s it like to be afraid?”

A bit confused, I tried my best to describe the feeling of fear. My explanation was a bit clumsy but he appeared to be satisfied with it.

“Why’d you want to know that?” I asked.

“Because when God made me, he didn’t give me the ability to feel fear. I can’t feel lots of things.”

“What can you feel?”

“Pain.”

I got us back on track.

“Can you elaborate on your answer from before? About heaven?”

“Of course. Heaven is open to all of God’s creations, whatever they do.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. When I was called in, the people in charge told me that my primary objective was to secure information on how humanity could get to heaven. With that sorted, anything else I gathered was a bonus.

“Are you going to heaven too? Since you were created by God,” I asked.

“I could, but I won’t,” he replied.

“Why?”

“Because I committed the most egregious sin. I did something only God was supposed to do.”

“What’s that?”

“I tried to create angels. They didn’t work out. My angels were made in my image, so I guess I’m to blame. All they do is cause suffering and destruction, so God said they had to go to hell, to suffer for an eternity”

“You mean the demons?”

“Yes, I guess I do. I couldn’t go to heaven, not while my creations were suffering. So I decided that when the time came, I would travel to hell and suffer with them.”

“Why?”

“Because I love them.”

I checked my watch, “Time’s almost up.”

“Yes it is.” he replied.

“I have to go back and get debriefed.” I said, preparing to leave the facility.

“They’ll be ecstatic when they get the good news.”

“And what might that be?”

“That no matter what we do, we’re going to heaven.”

“But you’re not, or anyone else for that matter.”

“But,” I said, my voice wavering, “You said…”

“Yes, I know what I said my child. But you’re not one of God’s creations,” he said with a tone I would mistake for sadness if I didn’t know better,

“You’re one of mine.”

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Welcome to San Francisco

I had been in San Francisco for about five months. One weekend afternoon my newly-minted friend Kevin (also new to The City) and I decided to go exploring, so we bought tickets to the ferry and headed out to Alcatraz Island. The weather started out well, but by mid afternoon after we’d finished the tour and were ready to head home, clouds moved in and an epic downpour started. While we sheltered in one of the old guard shacks near the dock waiting for the ferry, one of the park rangers at the visitor center caught my eye. I do so love a man in uniform. But who doesn’t? He was blond, bearish, and as I remember, sported an enormous mustache as did most guys in 1987. I guess I was being less than discreet, because I’d apparently caught his eye as well.

When the ferry finally arrived, like two drowned rats Kevin and I made our way to the dock, where said ranger was assisting passengers boarding the ferry. As we walked past, our eyes locked on each other and he said, “Hope you enjoyed your visit. Come back any time!”

I took that as an invitation…or maybe a dare. Kevin and I looked at each other after we’d boarded and Kevin said, “He was so flirting with you.” “No way!” I said. “He was just being friendly.” (Not believing a word, even as I was speaking it.)

As the week passed, I couldn’t get that ranger’s face out of my head. I resolved that first thing Saturday, I’d head back out to the island.

He wasn’t at the visitor center when I arrived, and I was worried that I happened to return on one of his days off. After wandering the island for a half hour or so I returned to the center and asked if he was working, and they said yes; he was leading a tour in the cellblock—the one place I failed to look.

When I caught up with the tour group and he saw me standing there, he literally lost track of what he was saying and a big smile spread across his face.

After the tour ended, he asked what I was doing there and I said, “Hoping to run into you again.”

“I’m just about ready to go on my lunch break. Would you like to join me?”

Duh.

We sat on a bench that afforded an incredible view of the city, and after finishing his sandwich, Jay gave me a private tour, including several “restricted” areas on the northwest side of the island.

No Virginia, we did not fornicate. But we did make out for pretty much the remainder of his break on a grassy area by the prison laundry.

We exchanged numbers and made plans to go out later that week.

It was at that dinner that he dropped the bomb: he would love to see where this would lead, but he was moving to Australia in two weeks and didn’t think it would be fair to get involved with anyone only to say goodbye such a short time later.

We got together once more after that, and then as quickly as he’d come into my life, Jay was gone. And we never did get naked. Phone disconnected, a “For Rent” sign outside his flat, and all I had to remember him were my memories and a copy of “Gay Love Signs” he’d given me. I still have that book in a box somewhere.

Welcome to San Francisco, indeed.

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I Just Wanna Go Home

That’s a thought that’s been darting in and out of my consciousness going on at least five or six years now.

Even when I’m home.

I first noticed it after we moved to Denver. Understandable, since I’d just uprooted my entire world and was feeling very unmoored. But even three and a half years after returning to Phoenix it still hasn’t gone away. By all accounts this little brick house we’ve occupied for the last three and a half years is home, and the thought of having to move out in a little over a month’s time if I don’t find work is profoundly distressing, but still I find myself sitting at my desk, or watching television, or doing the laundry and out of nowhere that thought will pop up, often accompanied by a profound sadness at the direction the world and my life has taken lately.

But if you ask me to describe the “home” I want to go home to, I’m at a loss for words. If anything, I don’t think it’s a place per se, but rather simply a sense of security and…settledness that has been conspicuously absent since we initially left Phoenix. Compound that with the feeling the entire world has become a powder keg that’s just waiting for someone to light a match and well…you get an idea.

 

 

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Social Media

I just can’t any more.

I joined Twitter ten years ago. Until the arrival of Trump and his minions, the platform was kind of harmless, mindless fun for me—at least in the circles I traveled.

But lately it’s become a cesspool of hate. People screaming horrible things to each other and a total lack of civil discourse has soured me to the whole damn thing.

I can hear you now. “Then why don’t you just leave?”

It’s because I really don’t want to lose my @voenixrising moniker in case I ever wanted to return and there are still remnants of those halcyon days of mindless fun to be found if you look.

Take for instance, the wacky residents of the fictional Vaca Muerta Estates, and in particular, Myrna Tellingheusen, “retired executive secretary for Mr. Stanley Bogenshoots, Senior Vice President at Huges Aircraft.” Those accounts are a respite, a little bit of insane sanity in the sea of effluent that the social media platform has become over the past several years.

I have several lists created of some of the folks I follow: My Boo (obviously), Apple News, Apple Anons (loved the inside drama that was associated with that group for years, but now it’s slowly being overrun with political toxicity), and lastly, Vaca Muerta Estates, where I’ve gathered all the “residents” of the mobile home community under one roof.

I use Tweetbot as my Twitter client. On the Mac it allows me to show my regular feed and/or any number of lists I’ve created on screen in convenient columns. On the phone, it allows me to select either my main feed or any one of my lists as the default when I open the app. What I’ve done to minimize the constant stream of stupidity and hate is to have the phone app open directly to Vaca Muerta. The desktop app shows me only my lists, without the main feed appearing at all. It helps, believe me.

That may keep me on Twitter a while longer. I know the platform will never return to what it had been prior to Trump even after he’s ousted from office, but hopefully the cesspool will drain after he’s gone.

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But Seriously Though…

Does it come with wi-fi?

Come and listen to my story about a man named Jed
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed,
And then one day he was shootin at some food,
And up through the ground come a bubblin crude.

Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea.

Well the first thing you know ol Jed’s a millionaire,
The kinfolk said “Jed move away from there”
Said “Californy is the place you ought to be”
So they loaded up the truck and they moved to Beverly

Hills, that is. Swimmin’ pools, movie stars.

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Living Vicariously Through the Lenses of Others

One place I have wanted to see since I was in my early 20s was Egypt. The pyramids, the ancient monuments…they’ve always been like a siren’s call. Unfortunately, I never made it while I had the energy (and the lithe body) that would have allowed me to navigate the tunnels and chambers of the Great Pyramid, and now it’s all but certain I’ll never see Luxor, or Abu Simbel, or Karnak with my own eyes. With the ongoing instability in the region over the past four decades, I’ve always been concerned about the safety of traveling to the country, but at this point, with the standing of the United States dropping precipitously with each passing day Orange Twitler is allowed to remain in the White House, I think I’d be too frightened to travel at all as a US citizen.

But there is, I discovered, a vicarious alternative to being limited to the stock photos published in books of the ancient monuments, something I stumbled upon quite by accident.

One day I opened Instagram, and one of the many hot, bearded “Instagram models” I follow was posed in front of the Temple Complex at Luxor. I clicked on the geo location link and my screen filled with hundreds of pictures of the temple—with views of the complex I’d never seen before.

Naturally this led me to the great pyramid. And the temple of Ramses II at Abu Simbel. And Karnak. Even a generic #egypt hashtag showed me ancient wonders from a perspective I’d never seen before. I was hooked. The multitude of tourist photos posted to Instagram was showing me Egypt in a totally new way.

Here are a few that caught my eye…

























I can’t help but wonder what the people who built these monuments were like. Were they like us, with the same wants, needs, and desires? What drove them? What inspired them? Did they suffer the same petty jealousies and insecurities that we do today? Were they as driven to buy, sell, and own stuff as we are? Despite their apparent lack of “technology” were they actually more advanced in certain areas than we are? Did they possess esoteric knowledge we lack, or were they as clueless about the ultimate meaning of “Life, the Universe, and Everything” as we are now?

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Dining Disaster

On our way back from Tucson a week ago (has it only been a week?), the four of us wanted to stop for dinner in Casa Grande. The initial decision was to go to Olive Garden, but upon arrival it was obvious we weren’t going to be seated any time soon. That led to a discussion of where else to dine, and one, well actually two of our party suggested Cracker Barrel.

I have never set foot in one of their establishments, having long since decided to boycott the chain for its past misdeeds to the GBLT community. I didn’t want to go that night either, but I was outvoted.

The fact that the place was nearly deserted at 6:30 pm on a Saturday should’ve set off red flags, but for some reason it didn’t.

After getting past the gut-wrenching kitsch, we were seated and after being handed menus, I can honestly say there wasn’t a single item listed that I wanted to consume. I finally settled on a cheeseburger, assuming that would be a safe choice. Ben went with biscuits and gravy, and one of our friends went with chicken fried steak. When our food finally arrived—easily 30 minutes later—our friend took one bite of his chicken fried steak and asked his roommate to have a taste.  “It’s like it was fried in stale oil.” Roommate agreed, and it was sent back to the kitchen and exchanged for something different.

Ben described his biscuits and gravy as “flavorless.” My cheeseburger was wholly unremarkable. The bun—much like our friends steak—was stale and the French fries were mushy, like they’d been sitting under a heat lamp for hours.

Lesson learned. Don’t compromise your morals, because in the end it will get you nothing.

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