The Guilt of Satisfaction
	Hedonism Feature

Hurt So Good   Overdulgence is the badge of hedonism. Hedonism is its own reward.	I started to do a real journalistic piece on hedonism, until I realized that I'm NOT a fucking journalist; I'm an artist! (You see, I've been fussing lately about folks not being true to themselves, and here I was about to front.) What I can do—and which is what I always do—is give my two cents on the subject.
	Hedonism is figuring out what you enjoy and doing it until it no longer satisfies. It's learning and knowing one's self at the same time. It's reading and fantasizing at once. It's giving in to evil thoughts and not regretting it later. That's why it's thought of as immoral and bestial. Because us humans are supposed to have self-control. It's taboo to overindulge, supposedly, in our American culture. But we do it all the time. In order to explain someone who weighs 500 pounds we must acknowledge that they indulge in their pleasure (of food) often. That's why gluttony is a sin.
	Most highly religious folks (in the traditional Judeo-Christian sense of the term) consider sexual gluttony far more sinful than a widget fetish. (Even though, we all know that religion offers its own form of sexual—and psychic—satisfaction.) Even if the widgets are crowding the person out of their home, they can come to church with their widget problem and not be judged as harshly as if they have an ongoing and irresistible urge to have sex all the time.
	After all, most folks make it seem like only immoral people participate in hedonism, when it's most of us that sit in front of the boob tube for 10 hours a day. And many of us actually ENJOY working 16 hour days. What's that if not an obsession; a hedonistic pursuit?
	Well, I'm happy to say that I realized my commitment to hedonism a long time ago. And, though I do not enjoy abuse, drugs or widgets, I do enjoy my fair share of having my ego stroked, being in charge and creating (in many aspects: written, visual, ideas). I also have an office supply fetish. (My office is like an Office Depot annex or something!) I learned a while back that to deny those urges is to live in a state of constant unhappiness. And, though I am generally unhappy, it is an unhappiness that helps me create more and not the kind of unhappiness that can drive a girl to cancer. —Oh yeah, I also enjoy basking in the glow of sexual paraphernalia, as well as engaging in flirtation, suggestive attire and serial sexual fantasies. But that sounds like a topic for another issue . . . .
	If you started reading this article to find out any more about hedonism, I would like to suggest that you don't know me very well. I would also like to suggest that you consult your local library on the subject, seeing as though I'm not an expert on anything ‘cept my own damn self! I did, however, enjoy choosing the poetry for this section. (After all, most of my favorite poets engage in and write about their life of hedonism.) So, check it out.

"There is no virginity left in sex, no power locked in its secrets." - Mark Stevens, New York Magazine, July 21, 1997, p. 41

Hedonism: Devotion to pleasure Forms of Hedonism: Autoeroticism Sadism/masochism Physical Spiritual (worship can be a source of sexual pleasure) Pleasure can be derived through use of the 5 Senses: Taste Sight Smell Touch Hearing

Hooked on Poetry   "In 20 years when you die of bad breath, BO & gas, you'll be sorry about the marble cylinder crack. My crack is closed forever, I thought. Then, I met YOU." - Alice Olds-Ellingson from poem "That Nouveau Greaser, Charlie at the Lena Cafe"

‘58 if anita ‘o day can shoot so can the pretty boys of jazz run collapse with a drummer who ties off and scores like a pr man hell bent for press only news releases and psa's can't capture the sickness of not coping and hitting the stage with vomit and blood stains - Lawrence Welsh ___ COUNTING THE WAYS HE LOVES ME (or, this petal, that petal) She counted the bruises thought of aging peaches banged about in careless packing. Tracing each with fingertips she carefully remembered the sequence wanting to impress those smacks swats into her memory. Additionally she tried to fit his words with each. And where possible the grimaces or snarls, grunts accompanied. - Paul Weinman ___ HOOKED One girl gave me cigarettes another, although fun was into turning her skin brown and got me hooked on sun. Another lover gave me Ecstasy and filled me full of gin A curvy pervert stole my heart and then sold me heroin It s probably by mothers fault she left me oversucked and set me up for other sins that leaves my head all fucked. - Mike Hoy ___ TO THE INSIDE Mama I'm just waiting waiting to slip over the border. Its blue lights and 50 cent toll. Its cement river and Che Guevera chalk. We'll dance to anything and slip so far out of reach no one will know. To discover a single room worn like the back of a graveyard stock clerk. Like lovers drifting in the wind we ll dive into Saturday night swinging and parading in the dirt forgetting rain and rusted steel the ruin of everyone wanting more. In morning sunglasses we'll toast the day and move further to the inside. - Lawrence Welsh ___ MIDNIGHT AT THE LOST AND FOUND Blue smoke cigarette smiles. Classic rockin' jukebox tellin' stories of glory days. Conquering night moves. Wine lipped kisses. Whiskey tongue embraces. Making promises tomorrow cannot keep. Vagabonds and Gypsies never stopping. Low lights, lower lives slipping past pool tables, dart boards, beer signs billboard echoes to lives hoped for yet never attained. - Wayne Wilkerson ___ A Statement on Myself, or Modern Art, or Both... I went to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and spent more time looking at the women than I did at the pictures on the walls. - William Taylor, Jr. ___ RIO BRAVO you as wild and polluted as youth still running down the names who came to drink to drown to disappear at the font of muddy existences and flood-ravaged tomorrows - Lawrence Welsh ___ JUNCTION 24 it wouldn't happen. she had me out. she'd unzipped me between junctions 23 and twenty four. i was driving. she was massaging, tugging at my dick. she tried everything. the cars sped by. we cruised on at fifty-five, in the old mini, sometimes naked in the lights of a passing lorry, sometimes not. "do yourself up," she told me. it was kind of a relief. i wanted to be anywhere else. christ knows why. one of us was sick. definitely. i just can't work out which. it's just sometimes some things mean more. a can of lager. a warm bed. a quiet night. just the ordinary things. that's all. - Jon Summers ___ THE FLESHEATERS fleasheater girls swing tambourines hips offer back-up vocals dragstrip 66 flesheater boys wait on cash never arrive cars burn oil put on wax offer prayers for westside breezes eastside palms music scene mystics and skid row cryptic - Lawrence Welsh ___ Stranger of Beauty Stranger of beauty looking at me Subliminal messages In those seems Talk to me with your eyes Don t speak to me Or tell me lies Boost my ego Fill my head Tell me you want to Go to bed My bulge says pleased But my mind says wait How do I know You're not diseased Masturbation's getting old How I hate those showers cold Stranger of beauty Where have you been? Stranger of beauty Could do me in - C.D. Moody ___ Prince Albert In A Hand Everyone tried to talk me out of my latest piercing citing dire consequences: You ll have a hair trigger You ll drip down your leg until your shoes fill with pee It ll throb for days and bleed gallons. In the time since the 12 gauge lance perforated the wall of my urethra to make way for the 3/4" ring I ve discovered they were all wrong. The procedure and healing were painfree I am physically whole and wholly functional The only difference is now I taste metal when I come. - Erwin Karl ___