Crucially, there is only one Angel.

Whenever an outrageous claim is kited, you know there'll be a survey to follow up. Here we asked a random sampling of women bloggers what they thought about RageBoy's brag that he is the "Babe Magnet of Blogdom." The results were unsurprising.

	I dream of RageBoy every night. He's so hot. I cream just browsing EGR. Listen to this... "the power of business is based on a bad metaphor: incorporation. It means: to become flesh. And pretty clearly, companies don't do that. Therefore, corporations have no heart, I say. I get blank stares. No, I don't mean how much your company gave to the fucking United Way or fucking Save the Children. I mean literally. Here, try this, I say: corporations have no sex. No balls. They've never gotten laid. Never fallen in love." Oooo, I think I need a pee break.
	Razhe Boy ees not like zee men in my country, who are so fool of eet I would like to puké. He ees zee real existentialist, not zees pees of shit poseurs we have in Paree. I want to have ees child.
	If elected, I will put an end to this prurient filth we are seeing today on the Internet, especially from these self-styled "web loggers." The worst offender in my view is a man, if we can call him that, who calls himself "RageBoy." He is nothing more than a psychologically arrested adolescent with serious mental problems. However, personally speaking, I do want to have sexual relations with him.
	Are you kidding? RB is a trip! When he was down here last time, we got so messed up on ayahuasca I couldn't find my goats for a week. He understands about how things are, not like those clueless gringos who only pretend to help. He's is more like us. He doesn't give a shit. I don't know how he gets so many girls, but he is definitely a motherfucker in that department, oh yes.
	That RageBoy come round here again, he gonna get a faceful a hominy. He a bastard, just like all these kids he leave me with. The man jes no damn good. Fuck him. He come back, thas precisely what I gonna do, too.
	Oh RageBoy, yes. He rings my bell bigtime. He's so cyberspacious, you know what I mean? And so, I dunno, smart and all. I don't really understand that stuff he writes, but who cares! When he gets me in the back seat of his '55 Impala, all I can think of is when I was a Candystriper at St. Luke's and me and these guys I knew used to ride around and around in those big dryers. Wheeee!
	Aesthetically, he is very sensitive. Very attuned, I would have to say. At times, he comes across as the worst sort of philistine yahoo, but this is a carefully maintained pose. In bed, he has the feel of a Stradivarius and the touch of a Yo-Yo Ma. I never meant to get seriously involved with him, but he does have a way of sneaking up on you. When we first met, he told me how deeply he was moved by Beethoven's later quartets. After that, things seemed to go all haywire for me. But no, I have no regrets.
	Yo, girlfriend, you believe what this honky motherfucker is saying here? There gotta be some kinda law against that shit, don't there? Have to admit, though, he do have kind of a cute butt. You see a telephone number on that blog anywhere?
	I am very worried about the RageBoy. Is he taking the bad drugs again? Is he messing with the women? He has no sense about the women. He gets himself in trouble every time. One day, I think the policia will catch him and then it will not go well. He is a good boy, but he has no intelligence. He is kind, but a fool. I like him anyway, though, and have hidden him on several occasions.
	My productivity is up up up after just a few rolls in the hay with RB. My PowerPoints are all pointy. My flow charts are flowing. My pie charts are all busted cherry. My manager says I've never been so on the ball. Little does he know! Fortunately. True, RB's not very deep, but he sure knows how to get a girl going. I have a meeting right now, but I could tell you more later.
	Oh yah, dat RagerBoy be so much fun! I love him all the time he come around here. The children love him too because he is always laughing. I tink maybe crazy. But I tell those kids get out of here, shoo! Me and Mr. Boy got some business to conduc. He know about that, jah love he do. I wish he wouldn't go away so soon, but he say he got this "blog" something, and some clients. Prob'ly he lying. But that boy make me very happy, yes. You see dis smile on my face. Where you tink dat come from?
	RageBoy has been very good to my family, especially our young daughter. He takes her to the Europe one time and buy her many things. When she return, she was so happy but also crying tears because he must go to "EGR HQ" in "Yucatan Pennisula." He write these things for my husband, and give him a good watch and a new wheelbarrow from Poland. He say it once belong to Marek J, so take good care of it. The little one is having her baby now, so I must go.
	He is the fire of my loins, the light of my eyes, the cool of evening after the long day, the gushing spring in the desert's thirst. It is simple. I am a woman. I would kill for this man.
	RageBoy? I really can't talk about it. Well, maybe just a little. On the other hand, maybe I better not. Some girls get upset when they find out we're together. How can anyone can be so petty? Just because he chose me, that's no reason to get all weepy. He said he was buying me a Porshe. If you see him, tell him Mina says hi and hurry back!
	If that asshole comes back to my village, I will chop his dick off. I will be proud to hang the dick of RageBoy outside my tent. You see this child mutilating my tit? He is number 23. I don't know why I let him in when he comes here stinking drunk and reeking of the bad drugs. He promised me he was going into rehab, but of course he was only lying again. That is why I always carrry this large knife today. Let him come. This time he will be sorry. I love him, though, so I hope he is OK.
	If you're asking would I fuck him, well, I guess the answer would have to be yes. If you're asking if I already did, I'd have to take the Fifth. I'll only say this: he's been running this two-for-one sale that's really hard to beat.
	Minga! That fuckin RageBoy will be the death of me. He came here last month and now all the young girls are pregnant and none of them will confess to the priest. He is the devil in human form. He is pure evil. However, sometimes he can be generous. He brings me the green olive spumoni from Roma. Blessed by the Holy Father, he says. Of course he is lying, but it is a charming lie. If I were a little younger, may the Virgin forgive me, I suppose I would fuck him myself.
	Why doesn't he ever turn his cell phone on? One of the top-50 business gurus, my ass. He doesn't know shit about technology! He leaves me out on this goddam beach, says he'll call. Oh yeah. Sure. And right after I got my hair done.
	He loves me. He loves me not. He loves my Work. He loves my Work not. He loves my ravens. He loves my ravens not. He loves me. He loves me not... Oh, fuck this!
	I could crush him with one hand. His balls anyway, for what he did to me. I never thought I'd become a lesbian, but I'm not about to risk that again. And he seemed so sweet and harmless at first. Almost tender. Then the degrading things he made me do! "You want me to suck WHAT?" I'd say. But he'd just laugh, as if it was a big joke or something. I did come a lot, though. I sort of miss that part.
	Let's see... now what's he saying? Oh, this is just too too good! Wait till I tell Brenda and Phillip. God how I love being first in our country club to read the latest EGR!
	Intellectually, the man is a midget. Not to mention a shameless misogynist and a throwback racist. Nonetheless, he does seem to have captured a certain postmodern je ne sais quoi. Would I fuck him? Absolutely.
	When RageBoy enters my meditations, I become full and moist. In fact, right now I'm so horny I could fuck a fire hydant. Oh Isis, please help me overcome these defilements! On second thought, please materialize RB in the ever-present present of your prescient presence. Maybe call in a fire alarm. I dunno. Something!
	WOW!

I would like to extend a very personal note of thanks to all the brave and wonderful women who participated in this important study.

My resume looks like the routing manifest for some displaced person after WWII. I am merely a high-tech migrant worker, following the harvests like Sisyphus rolling his rock. Rocking his roll. Locking and loading and finally going postal from the high bell-tower of a mind at once unhallowed and unhinged.

the following is part of an EGR I wrote on May 3rd of this year, but never finished, never sent. Been listening to Santana all morning, trying to kick the same old poison blues. Which is strange, because I'm in love today, so much to be glad about. She say I got nothing to fear. I tell her that too. We pass it back and forth. Say there's no monster living under our bed, whispering in our ears. It's a question of faith, or courage under fire, of love. So hey now, all you killers, put your lights on. Put your lights on...

Valued Readers:

Last night I went out and had a T-bone steak and eggs at Denny's. Because nothing else was open at that hour. Also because I love slumming with the underclass. Not bad. I was hungry, hadn't eaten all day. Forgot. So I ate and left. Not a lot of small talk.

On the way back, I figured I better pick up cigarettes, running low. So I go into this gas-and-groceries place near where I live and this thing off the Santana Supernatural CD is playing. Quoted above. Because that's the line. Beat of the street. Macho guitar, that voice. Uh! When you got nothin' and the world is burning: strut. Hot nights, straight-up love, no compromise. "I could change my life..." and the towering sneer as he lays it down: "to better suit your mood."

Or is that just me? The sneer? I mean, it was a huge hit, a Latin love song. Everybody grooves on those. I don't know. I'm reading my own trip into everything these days. Maybe it don't mean shit. Is this stuff in my head or really happening? Real, or the monster under my bed? Ah fuck... just forget about it.

Gimme your heart.

I was trying to remember the name of that gas-and-groceries place this morning. Go there all the time. Open 24 hours, etc. Couldn't remember. Today not anything like yesterday. Yesterday was overcast and I felt pretty good. Almost past it. Today it's sunny, perfect weather. The kind of day you want to be out there with someone. And I'm trying to sit on the speed. Check the rearview. Panic racing up the outside lane. So I get in the car to go get the name. That's all I'm looking for. A short ride. Nothing else to do. PDQ. That's what it's called. So there. Now you know. For completeness.

I go in. Might as well get something. Don't want anything. This time it's Nirvana doing Come As You Are. As you were. As I want you to be. Christ, I gotta get outta here. I grab a quart of Gatorade, the most artificial color I can find. Looks like anti-freeze, tastes like catpiss. As a friend. As a friend. As an old enemy...

Outside I walk to the edge of the store (just typed "to the edge of the story"), the grassy verge along the highway. A little stone table and bench to sit looking at the mountains. God, the mountains! What a day. Too beautiful. The ache in my chest is back. She's gone. For good. For ill. Why won't this stop? Let up?

I keep telling myself I've gotta get to work. On something productive. Bring in the bacon, put food on the table. Yeah, but then I say, what if there's nobody there to eat it? Be kind of a Pyrrhic victory then, huh? So I cop that my work right now is to write and keep writing. My work this week is to save my life. And what if it's not just this week you gotta worry about? I ask myself these questions. What if it goes into overtime? I keep thinking I've come to the edge of the world. Come to a place I can stand, if not quite yet stand still. But there's more. There's always more. Everything I know, I learned on acid. It all comes in waves, so roll with it. Roll with it. Let them pick you up and put you down. Feel into the swells. Keep rolling.

---

All those words I wrote said I love you come back. You know me, they said, but not all the way down. There's more to go. And I know you, but not all the way in. You say I don't know you at all. That I'm making it up. That I'm using your words and your silence against you. And in public. With strangers. With everyone looking. And this works against conversation.

What conversation?

"i'm out of time tonight, we spent three hours in the maternity ward getting tests done - everything's ok, just first pregnancy jitters

he should be locked up."

Blogging will get you through times of no sanity better than sanity will get you through times of no blogging.

This wisdom adapted from Fat Freddy of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. Here's a brusque interview with Gilbert Shelton, the creator of F³B as well as Philbert Desenex, Hog of Steel, a.k.a. Wonder Warthog. Ah, sweet memories of youth!

"Also," I said, "since you're not paying me jack shit, I don't much care what I say. So this should be pretty relaxed."

Of course, it was no such thing. I proceeded to rave, froth and fulminate non-stop for over an hour. I told them I wasn't really Chris Locke -- they wouldn't know -- but that I'd just bumped into him downtown, and he'd promised me 20 bucks if I'd come here tonight and say whatever came into my head. I told them that the secret of my success was lying and making shit up -- and that there was a fine line between those two. Even I had no fucking idea what I was talking about. Not that that's anything new. I delivered strong opinions on matters I know nothing about, fabricated a revisionist history of the world economy since 1983, and laughed at all my own jokes. Sometimes the audience laughed along. I suspect to pretend they had the least clue why I was laughing. I sure as hell didn't.

We all learned something, I think. Me, that I can extemporaneously pontificate on any totally x-random bullshit and make people (or at least myself) believe I'm a bloody genius. They, that I should have been sedated and taken to a quiet place.

I found this email waiting when I returned to my cold, empty lair.

Dude,

You were fabulous, and I'm not blowing smoke up your Ying Yang either. That's was AWESOME! I hope we can get you again somewhere on down the line. I got so busy I didn't even get to buy a book from you, so I may be bugging you to buy one of your signed copies someday. Too bad you don't drink beers anymore, or I'd buy you a round or 20 and really pick your brain.

Ciao,
Sam Grothe
BWA Prez

I told him, no, I didn't drink, but that I do accept free dinners in 5-star restaurants.

By the time I got home, everyone I know was either asleep or under surveillance, so I couldn't indulge my growing phone jones. However, I did fill up several voicemail boxes from London to Lahore. As the Rolling Stones once noted, it's not easy living on your own, Jagger artfully underscoring the point: and it's a pretty hard thing....

However, I observe that this relatively minor complaint in fact represents a significant step forward in my glacial recovery. Having finally accepted that the fantasy world is my friend, I feel an orgasmic surge of unwarranted self esteem. Shit, a month ago I wanted to kill all sentient beings and stuff them for target practice. I wanted a bumper sticker that said "I Blew The Dalai Lama," contemplating with joy the fatal traffic accidents it would cause here in Boulder, Colorado. Which is btw where I live. For those of you who are new.

Apropos of nothing (see previous paragraphs), will somebody please send me some interesting fucking email before I go fucking batshit over here? Like I'm already not. But thanks in advance for understanding.

He writes: "One also assumes that RB and Her Anonymousity are okay with this teasing!"

Ask your momma, Frank. She told me it was cool.

"And of course," he adds parenthetically, "the underlying assumption to all of this is that the tree is actually falling in this particular forest."

Unsure as to which particular forest Frank has been frequenting of late, I can only surmise that he is speculating about whether "Her Anonymousity" a) exists, b) is a figment of my imagination, c) is the erstwhile newage artchick, d) is Dave Winer in drag, e) is sweet little Gretchen Pirillo, f) I have forgotten to take my meds again, or g) is my virtual dream lover for real with whose various body (mind, and other ineffable) parts I have unexpectedly yet utterly fallen in love.

The answer will be fully revealed (over her dead body, she says) in my forthcoming Dunghill Trope interview, on which I am already hard at work. No, really.

"Back to my bond analysis," Paynter ends the item.

Good idea, Frank. Glad I'm outta the market.

Relax [relax, relax...]
I need some infor-ma-tion first.
Just the basic facts:
Can you show me where it hurts?



CAPTION: coyote wants to help. he is skillful at finding pain. he thinks this is good. he does not understand that people do not always appreciate his skill. then they see him as an evil demon. coyote is lonely. coyote is sad. he has been looking for someone who is not afraid of his medicine. now he has found her. coyote is happy. he will give her many blessings. though some may seem a little weird at the time.

- Eugène Ionesco

"We that are true lovers run into strange capers."

William Shakespeare
As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 4

When you know
that you know
who you love
you can't deny it.
Or go back
or give up
or pretend
you don't buy it.
When it's clear this time
you've found the one
you'll never let him go.
'Cause you know
and you know
that you know...

And it's time
to come in
from the cold.

- Shawn Colvin

before the fall
the air so bright
traffic, mountains
coffee tasting good.
these rushes lifting me
they could be fear
perhaps once were
but run through my heart
so many times now
feel like breathing free.
Your eyes this morning
holding me. Your white-sailed boats
giving me harbor, lending me joy
your passion for the world.

sorrow flowing like good methedrine
red light, green light, shadows falling
children playing in the street
just before the lights come on
Stones playing from an upper window
it is the evening of the day.

And we
from our different worlds
make one. share hands and lips
and beating hearts.
touch a sadness in ourselves so deep
indistinguishable from coming home.

Coyote howls. Dreaming me so long so far.

Against the shoulders of the mountains, mighty thermals rise, swept up along a thousand miles of jungle sloping off below. Every day for a million years clouds mass as this tropical wind rises toward the glacial peaks, darkening into thunder until lightning rips their bellies out. It rains.

Torrential flooding as if the world had turned upside down, oceans pouring from the sky. For hours, then it stops. The wind comes up, shredding what's left of the clouds. Sunlight breaks again across the forest canopy. A bead of water like a teardrop runs down a green-veined leaf. Falls.

On the shadowed jungle floor tiny rivulets form, connect, connect, begin to rush together into boiling streams, raging over rocks and fallen trees, leap out a hundred feet into thin air, plunge among rainbows into the cauldron heartbeat of the world. Desire is an endless river.

I was in it with her for a while, joined it seemed as if forever. Flowing together, the river opening out, always and everywhere her mind my sky, her eyes my fire. And then... and then the film broke. No sense, no reason, no way to stop her going. She swam to the far bank, walked away without a backward look. But I was caught in the current that had carried us, too weak to push against it, too broken to escape. What had filled my heart now emptied it. No use in trying to stop the river. I did try, but it was too strong. One man alone against such loss, such sorrow. Hopeless. In despair.

I prayed for night. For a darkness so deep I would disappear. The ache dissolve. Life end. Exhausted, I lost all hope, one by one cut the threads of this life, whatever had held me here. Desire once so deep now like a poison flood that carried me away. Away forever, never toward. I let go and let the river take me, to drown me, to grind me on its rocks, to leave me for the raptors circling down, sky closing in, love ruined.

I came to on the shore, washed up, battered but alive. I checked to see if the pain was gone. It wasn't. After the first shock, I was afraid, and I lived in the fear of an emptiness I came to recognize as myself, my heart a vacant mirror.

I made a fire on the edge of the river, watched it as the moon rose, forgot to count the days. Slowly I learned to breathe again. A little. Then drowning in memory. Then opening my hands to the earth. Then clawing the ground. Then parched and crazy. Finally drinking the water of my fear from the river itself. And I knew then why I could not leave it.

I don't know how long I was there. Day blurred into night and it made no difference. I sat and watched the river. I began to listen to its many voices until they merged into a single music. Began to move with its rhythm. Here is a rock, a stick. Here is time divided into beat. Strange song came from my mouth, a new way of breathing. Air mountain burning skyfall open heaven. Thinking about this love. Coyote dreaming me. So long. So far.

One day I saw a small boat drifting toward the place I was. I waded out up to my chest. I felt the river's pull, reached out my hand, grasped the top edge of the boat. Looked and you were in it. You were asleep. I drew the boat to shore, wedged it against the rocks. You awoke, opened your eyes then, looked at me. I'd never seen you before. Then why...

...do I recognize your face, your eyes, your voice. How can I feel your heart so deeply? Some magic growing in the space between us. Some impossible joy. Echoes of a future not yet lived.

"Were you dreaming?" I ask.

"I must have been."

"Was there a coyote in your dream?"

You look at me for a long moment. Time stands still. You say, "Push the boat back into the current."

I am sad to see you leave so soon. We have just met. I push the boat back out. But don't let go. Not yet.

"A coyote, yes," you say. "Get in."

Time starts again, beat of my heart the beat of yours. Thinking about this love. Adrift with you clouds mass above, the rains begin. Lying in the bottom of the boat, I touch your face. Blue fire flickers between us, lightning feeling its way to a strike. On the bank a thousand year old tree explodes in sparks and splinters, no time at all between flash and thunderclap. Our lips meet, tongues speaking a secret language so easy suddenly to understand. They say desire is an endless river.

Recycling...

Everything is full of gods: the first word to go out from the pre-Socratics, though they didn't call themselves that of course. Logic and his sister Paradox coming in later to clean up a bit. Dionysus disgraced, slinking off to get wasted by himself. But the underground was deeper than Hades even in those days and something lingered. Hermetic arcana disguised as Christ and the Virgin, subaltern coniunctio, sacred pornography more shocking than we can imagine now that sex has finally been sterilized. (Thus the necessary importation of homeopathic diseases, the last great 20th Century balancing act. Ebola sez: Mr. Kurtz, he dead. And means it this time.) As above, so below. Paracelsus stumbling onto rosy crucifixions just before the Age of Reason fucked it up. John Locke farting at Atalanta Fugiens. Carl Jung building Gnostic castles in the air and listening very carefully to Wagner. "Gott ist tot" said Nietzsche trying for a revival but getting only demons in the bargain. Goethe laughing, saying hell, I told you so. Ah well, it's history now.

But not all lost. Perhaps. Just sleeping it off somewhere. After the descent. After the change that never came. When you take the world apart, hang on to the directions. How she looked in morning light, smiled at nothing in particular. Santeria Botticelli. Voudon horse. Her voice was soft and cool. Her eyes were clear and bright.