Here's to you Zach

A tribute to my friend


Once upon a time an outsider was led by a strange being through time and space to an alternative paradise on earth.

In this paradise people spoke the language of the swaying trees and were capable of understanding their intense love. They spoke to those trees and looked at the stars, and talked about the stars to each other with an immense knowledge that was higher and deeper than any scientific knowledge could fathom. These people were unconcerned about how they were perceived – they had an incredible gift to not incite jealousy and envy in the outsiders who interacted with them, for, the people that lived in this alternative paradise came so close to being altruistic that they made the outside braggart and liar kiss their feet and cry tears of amazement – perhaps most amazing to the outsider that interacted with the people in this paradise was how they were not tempted to impress or impart himself; to boast or forcefully show off whatever relatively small talents or knowledge he had. In short, the love in Paradise to the outsider was immediately contagious, and all around was an environment of service. The people did not worship, but were constantly aware of an uninterrupted living union with the Universe at large. Their love was a song of appreciation for nature, earth and sea. The words they used were almost unimportant, trivial, or maybe beyond the grasp of reason. No matter, the meaning behind them somehow sank unconsciously deeper and deeper into the hearts of outsiders. And the harmony was enchanting and beautiful and so intensely true. They were playful, high-spirited with gentle, self-sufficient, and contemplative rapture, even when confronted with death.

after some time, the outsider does, in fact, manage to corrupt the people in paradise – they begin to understand the lie, from that, know sorrow and treat shame as a virtue. Isolation brings about injustice which in turn brings about law. Alliances and countries form as proportion and harmony begins to weaken. Finally, suffering is glory. The outsider, aware he had caused all this just by being around the people for some time, witnessing this evolution over thousands for years, demands to be crucified – for sorrow and martyrdom entered his soul with such force he was uncourageous, incapable of killing himself – for it felt like he was already dying.

Then the outsider awakes, all this was, simply, a dream. And who was once a ridiculous man who wallowed like a nihilist through life imagining the world as place only his conscience, now a man who knows the truth. The Truth: People can be happy and beautiful without loosing their ability to live on earth. That truth can be so simply realized: simply by loving thy neighbor as thyself. And that was only in his dream. As such it is a living image of hope that leads a previously ridiculous man on the right path, even if such a dream can not be put into words or communicated to others, It can be realized immediately, the world could be rearranged in an hour, if only we truly wanted it to be - only if we loved our neighbor.

The incredibly poignant and somber existentialist allegory aforementioned is Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Dream of a Ridiculous Man. 

I’m going to be honest, and say that after I read “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man” I cried.

I cried for someone I consider my friend, Zach. I’ve always believed that in life you count your friends with your fingers. Zach has always been non-envious, non-scornful, non-lying breed. Truly supportive, truly joyful truly appreciative, all-embracing love for that which is around him. But it does not matter what his relation to me was when I cried just then. My tears of joy, though not sad, were excruciating – I anguished because I felt touched in a contemptuous world that hasn’t allowed me to be, in my moment of vulnerability, but protected privacy, I experienced true love for a friend, the real love, and for the briefest of moments with that love I realized his words, “too busy spending too much time placing consciousness above living, too busy placing knowledge above happiness, too busy dismissing states of happiness as fairy tales” – it was not elitism, I was intimidated by this love, so much so that I bowed my head down in a sort of shame as the tears fell to the desk. And what was my intense feeling of love for Zach in that beautiful moment? A sort of fond appreciation of who he was, and how he was, how he to me represented the people in the place Dostoevsky describes. Someone who truly does love thy neighbor – who looks out for others, who has indeed reached out to me. And as I, James O’Keefe, wandered through Rutgers, from a Freshman year ridiculous-man roommate who scorned and lied, I stumbled into somewhat of an angel disguised as Zach. I cried also because hopefully this will enable me to look for the good in all people, all it takes is a desire to choose to serve, to be virtuous. And I have only a couple true friends, people like Zach, I cried because I realized their truly beautiful qualities are disguised to the world and as a result, unappreciated, maybe because people like us are too busy feeling ashamed, maybe because us outsiders are too caught up in the wrong impressions of dress, style, manner, or taste, that beauty becomes wrongly relative – maybe because good people truly are aloof (most beautiful people have a tendency to be) that we take for granted our potential best friend: a person who is wise, who cares, who gives. We surround ourselves not with our friends but with those who are powerful, witty or attractive. While these qualities may overlap, they are not correlated with what we know to be true.

After my moment of intense tears, it was like I was before without much of the fervent passion I had acquired in that intense moment, it was then I realized living like the person I admired was simple, but not easy. For a heterosexual man to love a woman neighbor without sexual thoughts, or to love a man without being accused of being gay, in this world, is tough. All the more reason to look up to the men that are capable of feeling it all the time – that are capable of being too busy loving to even care about what we think of them.

So here’s to you Zach.

A man who never once thought about himself – and to someone that studies how to be a better person, focuses on truth rather than form. Although me met each other recently, I have never known someone so selfless and so decent. You're one of the more honest and sincere people I've ever met. And thankfully, I got to know you well. I've never been happier with you as my roommate. It's just a pleasure to be with, you are a positive, optimistic, person - and one that made my Rutgers experience a positive one.

Once we got past the politics, or the quarrels, debates, funny as they were, I got to see the real man, still entrenched in his beliefs, his passions, such as LBJ, but having “good times” all around.

I can not tell you how proud of you I am. you are going to graduate school, graduated with highest honors and part of Phi Beta Kappa amongst other awards. I know that one day you will achieve your dream (you've probably already achieved a few) and change from the little engine that could to the little engine that did - and your students and the university you teach at will be better for it. And for one of the first times, I am not envious, I am truly happy for all that you are.

You are an example to the world, and you will make the world proud.

Your friend,

James

NJO: Originally posted on the blog Feathers of Steel at liberabit.blogspot.com.

Tolerate This

By James O’Keefe

Note: This is an authentic “slam” poem written in the Winter of 2003 in my passionate, reactionary response to Annie DiFranco.

It is to be performed in the spoken-word/hip-hop format.

Very few people at Rutgers are about to agree with what I have to say

But because you believe in acceptance and diversity

I’m ‘bout to say it anyway

You think you’re all Peace?

You think I’m all war?

You don’t know what it is we’re fighting for

It’s kill or be killed and we’ve been killed before

You don’t seem to understand the fundamentals of war

Like anxious butterflies behind closed doors

You imply utopia, logic you ignore

You disagree with dieing hard likes its

Some choice to make

You defy society like it’s some claim to stake

Hurry up and bitch because tolerance won’t wait

But we can’t let impatient hippies determine our fate

You blame this nation

For what madmen have done

On the Eleventh of September, 2001

You Support Palestine

But ignore about their laughter

Emanating from their celebrating the hating of Jews and destruction of America

On the day after

You use shady language and class dividers

You label suicide bombers as “freedom-fighters.”

You’re pro-harmony but never stop causing noise

Still

Against Capital

Against Capital punishment

Against Capitalism

On the Steps of Capitol

Hill

Sometimes it seems from your unpatriotic screams

You’d rather be in chains

In a Communist nation where a dictator reigns

Your ignorance just thrives when you describe

Bush as a Texas cowboy running astray

You stereotype him so I can stereotype you

Smoking weed and drinking your double cappuccino latte

How does it feel?

Just deal

No blood for oil but gas prices to high for sale

No tax cuts but stash the cashed check in the mail

You won’t make sacrifice for homeland protection

You often question but never offer suggestions

You’re in constant defense of criminals somehow

You persecute people for not being politically correct

Who’s hypocritical now!

You make up slogans and accusations

Believe anecdotes without a single citation

Brand me a racist with an agenda to gain

Hand me your bluff but I’m tough not insane

You spit on our honor cause division and pain

When you say the victims died in vain

Sitting on your pedestal of judgment

So-called “tolerance,” progressive, cosmopolitan, comfortably, cool, seriously doubting

Whining and pouting

Shouting against Inequality for the disunited States

And rising crime rates

You don’t care about the cause, just want the effect

You Dine in the paradigm the military you hate is trying to protect

You think I wouldn’t die for this country you’re wrong

I realize America’s where I belong

So you can stab me with your words

Protest me to the ground

Call me a fascist, racist, selfish clown

But I wont’ let hypocrites put me down

I’m American and I realize how fortunate you are

Why your teacher made you salute those stripes and stars

It’s ok to criticize but think before you speak

Think about the rights you have

What happens when the shuttle crashes?

Instant gratification

No more space exploration

We put a man on the moon 40 years ago

But now it’s too soon to send

A man into space?

A slap in the face

Of our imperialist plot to conquer a lot

Don’t rebuild the WTC higher

Simply build a tiny spire

It’s time to abandon all structural endeavors

Hide under our beds and cover our heads

Like the sissies you are

Don’t salute those stripes and stars

Fire Bill Maher

Because he told us we’re cowards

And we’re afraid that we are

We all care about our civil liberties being taken away

But only some parts of the constitution are ok

Not the electoral college part?

It works both ways doesn’t it?

The FBI, CIA should have done its job then

Its got all the evidence now

But you don’t care

You want infinite proof there

You wouldn’t sacrifice one fraction

To Save Millions of lives and when

Those lives are lost you blame those who didn’t take action!

The least I can do is ask you

TO not use sugar coated language and abuse our sensitivity

Our communication

Please do not call killing babies equipping young women with a choice

Don’t defy those who protect us

You’re making the enemy rejoice

It’s easy to hate

To accuse me that I discriminate

But to those who raise their fists

Answer me this

When the bomb is dropped by Iran (rhyme with bomb)

You look up and see the mushroom cloud

In the Sky

With forgotten rebelliousness and futile messages at your side

The day, when perfect hindsight is suddenly all around

And a billion tear drops fall to the ground

The day when you look into your child’s eyes and have to explain

More innocents have died

And your pedestal, your ability to be free is taken away

Then you’ll see something other than a President’s blue blood royalty

Tell me THEN your opposed to war

And the reasons for which we’re fighting for

Tell me THEN we’re imperialist clowns

Who operate on fallacious grounds

So if it’s true, your division’s still tall

Then perhaps the most powerful truth of all

Is you’d look the families in the face

Tell them one-by-shun

You helped cause another 9/11,

2001.

NJO: Originally posted on the blog Feathers of Steel at liberabit.blogspot.com.

Illiteracy Count: 9

1. Annie DiFranco
2. dieing hard
3. like its Some choice (apostrophe?)
4. gas prices to high for sale
5. Who's hypocritical now! (question mark?)
6. our honor cause division (comma?)
7. die for this country you're wrong (comma?)
8. wont’
9. Its got (apostrophe?)

For *Paul*

This story will make you believe in Karma

("My freshman year I was kicked off the Paul Robeson floor by Kelly Hennessey. "

http://www.rucenturion.com/gallery.php)

This week I graduated, and thus came to an end 4 productive years. Interestingly enough, most of my friends, activities, glee club, centurion, etc began in my junior year. Thus formulated my college experience. My freshman year and the beginning of my sophomore were the dark ages looking back, a time when I was very alone, lost without purpose, constantly on the phone with a high-school girlfriend, indeed, I spent most of my time alone in isolated sadness with no friends....

My freshman year of college I was placed in a triple room on the second floor of Campbell. One of my roomates was gay. The other was just bizarre. Two months in I volunteered to leave and was put on an all-black, floor, the Paul Robeson floor, on Mettler 3 in November. I was placed with, no joke, an Indian midget named "Hashish" who smelled like shit. Then he transfered. I had a single. For the month of January, I never left my room. Then on Valentines day, the one year anniversary of James/███████, in came a greek kid named Paul. Paul was an absolute nightmare. From the get-go, he told me he wanted a single. He told me he would do whatever it took to kick me out of th room. Paul lied, planted his girlfirends underpants in my bed, poured granuals in my keyboard destroying my computer, threw my internet box on the ground. In a climax of frustration, I put an article from The New York Times criticizing Greece on my door. (He had told me he plans to go back to Greece and soon as he's done "milking" America for our education system.) He made up some lie about me physically harming him, planted evidence and called the police, as well as his "lawyers." Paul was openly racist. He had referrred to everyone on the "Paul Robeson" floor as "monkeys." Then, to my horror, he actually said to the all-black RAs that I called everyone on the floor "niggers." - a complete lie. It was my word against his. I was lead out of the room crying and screaming at him and my situation, no friends, no one one to talk to., forced to go in front of a black man, Dean Tolbert, to defend myself and help explain that I did not call anyone any names. Paul then told Kelly Hennessy, the multicultural dorm director, that I "touched" him. (We shook hands the first week). in April Paul then did the unfathomable- he actually went ahead and logically took my confession of having shook his hand as a confession that I "Touched" him. Kelly Hennessy bought the bullshit. I was Out-witted by a manipulative fuck of a Greek. And all I wanted to do was Transfer from Rutgers- the god-awful place that did all of this to me.

In short, My freshman year Paul Torinidis had me kicked off the Paul Robeson floor by lying to Kelly Hennesey. Hennessy and Tolberd heard accusations of racial bias and didn't give me a chance to defend myself. After I was kicked out, Paul then flew a huge greek flag in the window where I lived.

Three weeks later, Paul failed out of Rutgers.

I wrote this in March, 2003 in a pool of my own tears. Because words could not express what Paul had done to me, I was just confused and cheated. What do I do, who do I talk to, where do I go from here? Is this what college is about?

The subsequent poem I wrote was a national finalist.

My roomate and I haven't spoken in two weeks and now this. Some people arepurely evil. Some people are so deceitful, manipulative, hurtful and cunning, thatit makes you feel that when yourwith that person the world isn't even worth fighting for. When you encounter a situation where your dignity is being held against your will, when someone threatens your emotional well-being for their own cheap advantage, when that same person uses you and violates your mind in ways you didn't know it could be violated, it forces you to reavaluate who you are as a person. This could be in the form of aninjustice, such as a wrongful conviction, it could come in the form of abetrayal from a friend or an ex-lover, whatever it is, it leaves you helpless bracing that reasurrance deep inside yourself that comforts you. I haven't really ever experienced these people in my life. for the most for the most part people are inherently good and there are some invisible laws and trusts and principals that are always upheld. People i've always been associated with have never crossed that line into the realm of irratioanlity, and if they have, It's easy to distance yourself from them ,it's easy to isolate them in your mind, your capable of realizing that they're wrong and your right. Right?

Not with PaulPaul has fucked with my mind, broken the rules of interaction that you deem unnescary to even lay out, gone beyond irrationality to the point he is evil in a rational way, destorting reality while maintaing the truth, threatening me and making me feel like the shit on his shoe, and then celebrating another victory. Why did it come to this? Why?


Because I fought back. Because when he called me an ass hole and said that i smell, i said i didn't like that language, and his girlfiend smells. When he retalitated by saying America sucks, i said Greece sucks. When he Told me not to plug MY COMPUTER into the interent socket (Becauseit happened to be on his side of the room and he's territorial) I did it anyways, when he throws my computer part on the ground in rage i told him he was going to have to pay for it, in defiance i stood up and screamed athim and told him I'm NOT swallowing my pride for you, I respect you even though you don\'t respect me, I speakto you kindly, i treat you decently, I've made compromises, taken your accusations, AND YOU ARE WRONG. Paul called the police, told me his daddy was going to arrest me, he had his lawyers ready to file charges of assuault, threats, SEXUAL ABUSE,RACISM, GREEK BIAS, and he even threatened to have me kicked out of the university in handcuffs. He told everyone he knew lies and manipulated everythign i have ever said, sometimes even jovially; into serious accusations , and worst of all, he made up shit about my pyscholgical history and started telling everyone he knew that his safety is in danger and James needs help.

From once making me a cd and offering me a slice ofpizza, he now holds that against me saying he treated me like a king. He now says i sniff his girfirend's underwear, and he told his girlfirend's parents who are out after me, he told me his lawyers would hang me, and he's got proof, evidence angainst me in "a court of law"he has taken statements i have made, purpously embellished them into theworng context and used them against me, trying to kick me oiut of myroom. this is the person who has treated me like shit from day one. WHOCWOURLDNT EVEN LET ME PLUG MY COMPUTER IN!!! but i have no evidence, i'm not a sneeky rat, and my quick wit doesn't come in false accustaions orsadistic threats, and i certainly do not document his actions, even though he spends everyday in my room with his girfriend all day for hours, I respect them and leave them alone always-- i ran out and he told me not tocome back. So instead of punching him in the face and having him win (i seriouslywould have done it) i ran outside, crying hysterically not knowing who to call or what to do, i simply have neverfelt so terrible before, at least in the last couple years, never felt so alone inside myself or so captured by another human being, all i wanted todo was have someone anyone know the TRUTH, i didn't even want a hug,becuase i was set up, and i still feel inside captured by his evil trap, and I've never encountered anyone so manipulative, so decieveing, so pernicious, in Paul. He's very sick. If you have encountered someone like this in your life, you can relate, you know how it feels, it feels like cancer, it drains you completely, t ohave someone attack you in such a awful way, and have people beleive him and hear him tell them whacked-out sick things about me,and i guess thats what scares me, i need to get very far very very veryfar away from people like that in my life. I need to be around peoplethat love me for me, and will not attack me in such a way. This is a warnign to you that people like this exist out there,sometimes in the beginning camouflaged in jovialness or laid back-ness butbe careful what you say, be careful what you reveal, and you don't have to sacrifice yourself for these people you don't have to become evil tocompete, you just have to stay far far far far far far away and know thatyou are loved

Thanks for listening.

For Paul

There's no way to Summarize People Like You
Putting me Down and Loving it too
I wasn't born knowing the Color of your skin
Your Deep-rooted hate
The way you manipulate
Your bitter angry conscience
Or your national origin
You can abuse my innocense
But be forwarned
I don't have your quick-wit
I got more
The Wind is my only friend
Through the Air I soar
I burn like a fire
And fight for my right to roar
You want to spit and lie?
Soak me with despair??
Slander my character find solace there...
Magnify my weaknesses and fuck with my mind?
Look for an evil in my you can't find?
Behind closed doors you run and you hide
And you scream so loud it hurts inside
Because beneath your pretending and all that you sell
The man that I am
Scares you like hell

NJO: Originally posted on the blog Feathers of Steel at liberabit.blogspot.com.

Goodbye Switzerland


Arrivaderci Svizzera

Mention the names, Lugano, Ascona, Locarnoand Bellinzona located in a region called “Ticino,” and the listeners might naturally assume they’re inItaly.
Send them a postcard and it might not set them straight: palm trees, mimosas, Mediterranean red roofs, loggias, azure waters with bellagio fountains piercing through indigo skies, surely this must be either the coast of the Adriatic or that of Sicily. But behind the waving but stiff date palms and velvet lilacs are telltale signs are freshly painted crosswalks, manicured gardens, punctual trains, a 6 PM curfew and men traipsing around train stations with machine guns wearing berets. You’re not inItaly anymore, Toto.

Coziness under guarded control, anarchronism versus state-of-the-art technology, strange bedfellows in an isolated, majestically storybook fantasy land with no natural resources but rock and earth. Cautious but Resolute, Welcoming, but alien, claustrophobic and prudent; clean, rich, stingy, prudent, orderly, beautiful and sparsely populated, comfortable and as transparent as a disengaged glass cable car rising up above the clouds; as quietly paranoid as a red-bellied hummingbird, with the fervent militarily mettol of Braveheart.

These are the Swiss.

Walking paradoxes, whose principal national aesthetic pitches rustic Alpine coziness against high-tech efficiency. Proud, sober and self-reliant, the Swiss have maintained so much independence and neutrality, yet remain some type of microcosm of Europe, composed of alternative French, German and Italian types. But don’t dare call them one of those. “They’re…… Swiss!”

Painfully neat and rigorously prompt, shabby and the slipshot, the Swiss have a weakness for cuteness. They indulge in coy diminutives. A German Biertsube becomes a Stubli, a Wurst become s a Wurstli. And as they fly off mountains with sticks attached to their feet they yodel in their predominant dialect, the pseudo-German dialect of Schweizerdeutsch, crackling with “K” emphasis in a innocent yet raspy Alemannic rebellion of the Country that gave them their language. Don’t dare call them German. Fur-clad socialites raise jeweled fingers at Geneva’s quai du Mont-Blanc, as the women of Appenzell stand beside their husbands on the Landsgemeindeplatz, raising their hands in the purest form of direct democracy on the planet. (They were only given that right to vote since 1991!) But don’t dare call the French.17 year-olds party their asses off in Bellinzona at a “Discoteca” for Carnivale. But don’t dare call them Italians.

And there are perks to them not being French or Italian or German. For one there is the infrastructure. Trains are always on time and seem just too clean. Hiking trails are equipped with freshly manufactured signs every 35 feet telling you your exact coordinates. The cable car has gone through myriad inspections. Curtains are broiled, hotel rooms are spotless. Cheapness isn’t offered as an option. Your clocks are all made by Rolex, and your bed linens are tossed four times a day, with a slice of chocolate turned back at night. The smoke that accumulates in the cafes are aired out, as the soil is turned in the flowerboxes in the quiet town of Goeshnen. Men with mustaches and recessed cheekbones air out their cottages each and every day to allow mountain air to flow through.

Wealthier than Sin, the Swiss are also stingier than a Mormon at a strip club. Shots are measured with scientific precision as if it was poured in lavatory beakers. Towels in your bathroom will be straightened, spaced, toes pointed in the same direction, as orderly as little Soldiers. Glass, Steel, Concrete, and the electronic turbocharged engines in the Mercedes and Alfa Romeos are cleaner than a Virgin’s honeypot. Law Enforcement agents look more like tourists, strolling through their safe, clean, boring cities making sure pedestrians aren’t deviating from the crosswalks.

In Beogoius, Zurich, behind closed doors mysteriously sly little Swiss gnome bankers rub their hands and manipulate world currencies by sitting on top of their gold, then return to their homes transient of their wealth.


Then, take a yellow “Postbus” 2,000 meters above sea level and the country is transformed. Amidst the Alpine whiteness find rocky trails and brisk clip, cheeks glowing, eyes as icy bright as the glaciers, and the healthy faces disappearing behind mirrored goggles and war-paint sun block. A Horse-drawn plow peels back thin topsoil on an impossible steep hill above the clouds in the country where the government spends as much on subsidies to maintain their farmers harvesting cheese and chocolate as they do on manufacturing.

The German-Swiss cross through the Saint Gotthard pass and emerge in blamy Ticenese Sunshine, vacationing in the Italian portion of their country. They drink Merlot and eat gnocchi while resting assured that the hotel they are staying in is strictly regulated by the Swiss Hotel association, and they are spending the Franc, not the euro.

The Italian-Swiss only constitute a mere 8% of the population.They are geographically cut-off from their northern countrymen by a mountain chain, and have a minature geography that allows from constant sunshine amidst stunning foothills. The people are more rustic than their fashionable Milanese counterparts, old women putting on wigs and lipstick like they were 7 year old Americans playing make-up. Ticino is the most glamorous of regions. Along the water promenades of Lake Lugano or Locarnoyou’ll see pollards, rododendrons, and bobbying yaughts. You’ll even see sailboats in Janurary. The mountain villages are scattered with stone huts and castles, church towers that serve as a testament to latin Dukes of Milan, from whom they gained independence from in 1798.

NJO: Originally posted on the blog Feathers of Steel at liberabit.blogspot.com.

Y'all caught that one simile, right? About what the fucking car engines are like? I KNOW RIGHT.