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January - June 2003
April 21, 2003
Have been struggling
to get over my cursed ulcer/ gastritis. I don't know which - I can't bear
to swallow that awful tube, and it won't change the treatment in any
case. It started in February after a ploff and vodka party with my piano
duet partner Olim and his Uzbek music web portal crew, just as the US
campaign against Iraq reached a fever pitch (thanks, GB), and I did
acupuncture and antibiotics and bland, bland diet. I thought I was better
but after the US 'victory' and another tense celebration with the same
crew, I had a relapse. I realize by now they couldn't really give a shit
about the war, though when pressed will admit it's very wrong. I'm
beginning to get a bit worried - it looks like I'll have to cut out the
Pakhtakor and Maxim Gorky can rushes and cigarettes, and try to shut out
the horrible international news or I'll never get well. Oh, and no
midnight tokes. God, life looks more and more bleak each day.
Another run-in with
the cops at P. This time, a guy propositioned me and I gave him a blow
job, only to be accosted by him outside in a friendly way, asking about
meeting again, etc. I demurred but he persisted and then flashed a badge
and showed me a tape-recorder (a free-bee from a junket to Germany on a
NATO Partnership for Peace training – ha, ha!). He explained I was the
3rd fish they had caught that day and tried to refuse my offer of 'help',
as we were witnessed. My pleas failed to move him, but I politely refused
to go. This went on for a half hour while he tried phoning his boss from
the metro, but I finally prevailed, pressing the wad of bills into his
pocket and descending the escalator to freedom. Whew!
The week before, I'd
met Furkat, a student at the Railway Institute with a huge, every-hard
dong, with whom I began a bit of an affair, swimming at the public pool
with him and teaching him Fur Elise. But I've refused his last 2
entreaties (one with a friend, aw shucks!) due to my stomach. No question
that that style of sex is very hard on the constitution (not to mention
the psyche).
Marlen tried sex with
me a few times though I can't find any pleasure there anymore. I think
he's found someone else, as he has disappeared a couple of Saturday
evenings and is a terrible liar, so his embarrassed lack of explanation
is a pretty good sign. He is not ready to abandon his goose of the golden
eggs though, and I can't bear the thought of being alone here anymore, so
I'll try to bear up. He's too neurotic/ spoiled to get a local job. Our
routine is me reading and writing while he does some renovations on his
apt or goes 'walking' everyday, and I come over for dinner most evenings.
Very dull. We're both vegetating.
I suspect many if not
most gay couples have much the same problem as we do: one-sided sex,
interest palls after a few years, but the need for an intimate friend
remains. Being passive is by nature frustrating for a guy and leads to
resentment, cheating as revenge, feminine deception (unless the passive
partner is overtly feminine and truly embraces the housewife role). It's
very hard for gays to have a truly mutual relationship, especially one
that lasts, as there are no off-spring, the binding element in a str8
marriage. The frenzy to legalize adoption merely confirms this. Conrad
sums up the human dilemma for me well in Victory: being totally
cut off leads to the conclusion that suicide is only right and
permissible (Schopenhauer). Rather you should hook yourself to the world
by means of a girl or a friend, in order not to fall off completely
(Lichtenberg).
Meanwhile, the insane
actions of the Bush clique continue to astound one and all (except the
gullible, brain-dead US 'public'). The left is actually nostalgic for Nixon
as compared to Bush, though I think it's more a question of an unadmittable
nostalgia for the Cold War/ Soviet Union, which kept even the insane
Nixon in check. There's even a comparison of Bush’s ‘doctrine’ with Nixon’s
"madman" strategy, the image he apparently cultivated to coerce
Hanoi while still withdrawing U.S. troops -- a theory of the intimidating
power of "brutal unpredictability" (Kissinger's term). But it
can be argued that Nixon-the-strategist and Kissinger-the-tactician's
machinations were ultimately self-defeating and that their "brutal
unpredictability" and deceptive ways undercut the domestic political
base for support of South Vietnam among the American people. In the short
term, however, this suggestion that he could be provoked into fits of
irrationality that might lead him to use nuclear weapons had a lot of
people shaking in their boots. Sound like Bush, wittingly or otherwise,
with his threats to use nukes to 'prevent' terrorism?
The only other
explanation is that Bush etal are like schoolyard bullies, with the other
countries too divided and weak, having bought into the WB/IMF/WTO US-run
world economy. I can only continue to mourn the collapse of the Soviet
Union, which with all its faults was still able to provide a
counterweight. Can the American public be roused to kick Bush out next
year and provide the world a few years breather to do something to arrest
the madness? Are the elections really being rigged by Republican computer
companies? The Bush cabal are just waiting for another 9-11 type screw-up
to put the finishing touches on their putsch.
Combining the
'personal and political', I realize that my role in sex and politics is
much the same: I support rather than take the lead. Does that make me a
coward? I am lousy at nonviolent resistance, as my ulcerous condition
these days confirms. I'm more the feminine principle (unite, nurture,
relate) as opposed to the more aggressive male principle (take the initiative,
fight, lead), both in and out of bed (though I can fantasize both
sexual and political utopia!).
My health problems
reminded me of the anecdote about the Buddhist priests crossing the
stream, one carrying a stranded girl across, the other shocked, the punch
line being 'I put the girl out of my mind when I put her down. You're
still carrying her.' We shouldn't let ourselves be weighed down by negative
guilt. In his writings on war prompted by Einstein in the 30s, Freud
posits that there are 2 basic instincts for mammals: love/sex and
aggression, which can be projected outward or introjected by humans. Love
introjected leads to religion/ spirituality, self-awareness, and
consciousness. Aggression introjected leads to conscience/ guilt. This
separation of humans from the animal world is the source of our greatness
and vileness and we must return from this destruction and domination of
nature through trust on both personal and political levels to a reunion
with nature. Einstein devoted his entire life and even his last hours to
this striving for trust between nations to avoid war. Freud
clearly saw the need to channel aggression through conscience to the arts
to avoid war.
July 5, 2003
A signal day - I'm
finally updating my diary again after 2 years. I've been putting my
writing energies into online post-911 polemics in the meantime:
http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=657
http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=880
http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=1087
http://www.counterpunch.org/jones03272003.html
http://www.rense.com/general37/father.htm
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles4/Jones_Palestine.htm
http://www.newsinsider.org/commentary/we_are_all_jews_now.html
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles5/Jones_Tashkent.htm
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles5/Jones_Kissinger-Neocons.htm
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles5/Jones_K-Proxy.htm
http://www.newsinsider.org/commentary/
http://www.counterpunch.org/jones07072003.html
but my/ our love life
has ground to a halt (see Jones Tashkent.htm). Am I officially impotent,
or is it just the meaningless world around me draining all my sensuality?
Don't know. Stay tuned.
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