In a certain light
you look like Elvis,
In a certain way,
you remind me of Jesus.
Elvis Costello, the Delivery Man
I haven't told my friends who comment here how much I appreciate them lately. I am saying so now. We gravitate towards those who think like we do and add to the layers of thoughts, taking them further, higher, in another direction, one I might not have thought of or slipped away unmentioned. I appreciate what you say, and each of you say it differently. Interestingly, there is a problem other blogs get sometimes where people who comment say the same thing as said in the original post, juggling it slightly, but a rewording nonetheless. We don't have that problem. Correct me if I am mispeaking. The glue that binds the people who say something here is, as seen in a certain light, the diversity of lifestyle and sense of irony shared. Very cool. The opening subject matter is pretty much the same, subjects of commonality, but the commentary is not. You never know what you're going to get, or who is going to put up a line that takes you into space way out there in billowy thought clouds ... and you leave links, too, ladders to climb, the cyclical concept for which the internet was originally intended. Of course, that's what the Blog List is all about, here anyway, its the Chrome concept where your Favorites are actually stored on your blog's sidebar, not resident on your laptop.
I don't think the Chrome plan is actually the best, it has its drawbacks which you discover when you have a hard drive crash, oops! Suddenly, its Cave Word out there. Ah, hmmmm, perhaps we should restart that old LA Times subscription, oops again, in the mountains? In this economy? Seriously. Not until the WorldX OS sees things our way. I need to hear from them like 20 years ago that the planet has a little climate issue and the easy oil was gone, which I did not. They save these things until is too late. Then they run the patch-up vids, but they waste the effort and expense, reality catches up and along comes Mister Karma.
I could go into some analytical detail about what the Illusion is up to recently, but you would have seen the same things. I'm afraid I'm just too skeptical now to take most of what I see verbatim. I take that back, make that everything I see. There are many brilliant writers around, but each comes from a unique perspective. Ultimately, you must depend on your senses - the vibrations felt by complex vegetable matter.
They never fail to affect. If they do anything well, it is to effect. In addition to the broadbrush effect we are only too familiar with, I do not like to think of them or how they do what they do. The only way out of a negative situation is to change your mental channel to a positive channel, call it healthy diversion if you like, the diversion chosen is the yardstick of your character.
In this chapter we remain concerned with the Apocalypse. How will the incessant revealing of minutiae combined with the surreal resources grab and depletion partnering with climate and economic disparities affect the corn syrup set overall since they are experiencing growing financial and privacy calamities and see the war bills snaking in transit through the system, increasingly hearing one thing but seeing another? The holidays and all its accompanying consumer purchasing statistics will distract for a few months and then reality sets in and then, well, we shall see and make of it what we will. Be honest with all and do no harm. Visible always says Everything is under control. When you are in control of your being then everything else is under control.
17 comments:
At these times my mantra has become
"keep it simple".
and "trust awareness".
Watchwords to live by, Su-nami. And to stand by. To meditate in your garden greenery by. To raise children with. Simple like newborn bunnies in the palm of your hand. The minute we open our mouths expressing our critical thinking, complications set in. Simplicity and awareness is all that we require to breathe naturally. Like your trees, I love them too.
My CPU executive control system has given me a "performance review." Nice hour long chat with the boss. He told me that his son has told him that he mainly focuses on the negative, or what needs improvement. So true. His ex-wife told me once that he is like Spock on Star Trek... Don't worry, I still have my job. But I have some improvin' to do. I also need to learn the company vision statement and motto, pronto, in case the CEO pops me the question again... seriously.
I have to be honest here, my main problem is that I lack motivation, and I can't manufacture it.
People really like me at work, though... that helps.
It all made me think of Tom Waits' "Franks Wild Years":
Frank settled down in the Valley,
and he hung his wild years on a
nail that he drove through his
wife's forehead.
He sold used office furniture out
there on San Fernando Road and
assumed a $30,000 loan at
15 1/4 % and put a down payment
on a little two bedroom place.
His wife was a spent piece of used jet trash
Made good bloody-marys, kept her mouth
shut most of the time, had a little Chihuahua
named Carlos that had some kind of skin
disease and was totally blind.
They had a thoroughly modern kitchen;
self-cleaning oven (the whole bit)
Frank drove a little sedan.
They were so happy.
One night Frank was on his way home
from work, stopped at the liquor store,
picked up a couple of Mickey's Big Mouth’s.
Drank 'em in the car on his way to the
Shell station; he got a gallon of gas in a can.
Drove home, doused everything in
the house, torched it.
Parked across the street laughing,
watching it burn, all Halloween
orange and chimney red.
Frank put on a top forty station,
got on the Hollywood Freeway
headed North.
Never could stand that dog.
El Lay, anything can happen there and does, regularly, like clockwork. Its always worse on holidays. It never fails, someone goes berserk and takes down the family and the house. At the root, surfacing after long, tedious investigations, there was depression brought about by money problems and helped along with antidepressants.
* * *
You've got a lot of patience Publius. I hope its getting you somewhere.
Publius_ Time to strap on the cross country skis, get a few miles into the new snow where the sound is muffled way down, brew some chocolate over a can of sterno, add a shot of bourbon.
Sit there for a while until a raptor drifts by. Write your name in the snow, man-style. Let the chill bite a bit before skiing back to the trailhead. Take a hot bath at home.
Did this one night on a full moon and it was magic.
Knowing why you bust ass to pay for the house is a good thing.
Garrison Keilor says that winter camping is the secret to family happiness and while I have done very little of it I'm also very unhappy. If you've got the gear; give it a go.
WV_micali, my california indeed
Pango: I have actually been talking up winter camping with my 3.5 year old. He already has a high metabolism, and keeps his heat up nicely... I think he'll be into it.
Nina: Regarding my "patience," and getting me somewhere: that comment kind of let me down, as though I might have too much patience. Perhaps. Perhaps. At the same time, I decided to write to an old high school classmate today, and get her help in seeking a teaching job in way up north in my home town, at the college. My plan would be to do that, and find some cheap land, and build a cabin, and get moving on it.
The unknowns: how will my wife react to the plan, and what will I do when, not if, she refuses to go along. There's a chance that the whole shebang (the US OS) might crash in the next half year, in which case she might be all for it by then... Regardless, I'm going to start pursuing my goals & dreams as if there won't be any domestic opposition.
Finally, some of my patience, Nina, comes from the desire to see my family fed, clothed, housed, and warmed. There's really nothing more to it.
Ever read the Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn? Sure, the modern corporation is kind of a work camp, but at least we get to go home at night and frolic.
Everything is temporary.
I'm going to look for secondhand x-country skis today at the thrift store. Thanks for the idea, Pangolin. Any luck with your computer? I fix those things, both Mac and Windows... Strangely, I hate them more and more. I want to go back to using my old Commodore 64.
I'm going to start pursuing my goals & dreams as if there won't be any domestic opposition.
You are the only one you need answer to. When all is said and done, its only you living your life and did you live it being true to yourself? Or did you always live it by bending to the wills of others in order to please, in order to survive within an imaginary framework? I would not say these things if I didn't know how great the man inside of you allows nonesense to run him through hoops. You don't need to defend yourself, you are incredible as you are and deserve the very best, which you tell us you really do not receive. Somehow, you have gotten the idea that you are a dreamer and need improvement and this just is blatantly, cruelly, false. It breaks my heart to see so much potential denied by the Zombie Food Court opinions of others. You are so much stronger than you know Publius.
Speaking of greatness, Publius, I'm not the only one aware of your potential. Heh, so there. You are an inspired young man with plenty going for you, that teaching job is your super highway, keep on it my friend. I love that plan for you. You have so much to share and a lot more coming your way.
Many thanks to Charles. Great timing, too! Your heartfelt essay is required reading for all artlifewesters, actually, all effected by the desperation of the wheezing econocracy.
I recall reading about Solzyenetsin going through a period of extreme tension as to whether the Soviet prison system was going to reach out again and re-swallow him. His work had been smuggled out and published in the West. A flow of money and comfort had finally entered his life, with some fame that was helping to protect him. He was on the razor's edge. One day he was again called in for questioning. He left his comfortable house, and paused for a moment to pick up just one thing-- a bar of soap-- knowing that if he were about to be imprisoned once again, he would at least have the luxury of a few more days of being clean.
wv: i stor it
Hi Brian! Okay, okay, I'm more than convinced, I must read that book. Thanks fellas.
Pangolin, how can I help you? Its been on my mind. Really, I went way out there thinking are you unhappy because you are lonely, is the experience of lonely actually the experience of being unhappy and so forth. Of course, it led to all sorts of observations, like people who are in long, long relationships feeling unhappy, but not lonely exactly, just unacknowledged. Is that also being unhappy? You are the only one who can create your own happiness, yes, the whole planet might be going the other way and you may be the last oddball, but you choose your experience. Happiness is just being comfortable in your skin. Just switch your outlook. Try it. Give it all you've got for one week and then tell me you are miserable still.
I went to Dance Church last Sunday and I was frightfully alone. In a room of fifty people dancing so hard the sweat slicked the floors and fogged the mirrors I was a hungry ghost, paper thin with envy at those around me who seemed to have friends, partners, lovers, and playmates. None of this seemed to touch me.
Literally swimming in the essence of my fellow humans I struggle to contain a horrible pain that is without name. i ACHE for the bardo.
i am a hungry ghost.
i can consume but not be nourished.
i am there but not there
not here
there is no door, no mountain, no herb, no song, no mandala, no dance, no joy, no justice, no labor, no rest,
no love no love no love
failure to thrive
this is the story where the Buddhas third cousin sat under a fig tree
and the leaves withered and fell around him
and the wind blew the ground bare
and rain chilled his bones and washed the salt from his blood
and the beetles wandered through the paper husk of his skin
where his dust was forgotten
and the light of his passing wandered the abyss never to fall on the watching stars
what to do?
chant gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha
chant dada dada, babala, babala na sha na na
facing southeast,
v'word: troirdi,
Shit, you asked I typed. Bits of my soul sticking to the keyboard like flakes of black dandruff.
FWIW, I sent a copy off to the local white witch and social queen in a pathetic and rather mystical cry for help. I just can't find the story where the fairy godmother rescues the woodcutter by reaching in and pulling the big bad wolf out from him and buttoning up his belly like a shirt. She's got wings and a wand though; s'true. P'rolly red sequined slippers if you peeked in her wardrobe.
I just don't buy that "you make your own happiness" crap. A terrible geas was put on me before I was in school that I cannot escape. Shit happens to people that simply
does
not
shake
off
easily.
v'word: liestylo, that's U.S. indeed.
Hmmm, Pango Pango, has a tropical palm breeze ring to it, doesn't it? Skin goes gold, eyes squint in the perfect sun. A hard core case. First you have to come down to my level and promise me you will try it for one week. Then, we'll see where you're at. I would never trifle with someone's soul. You will balk, but just give it a little time. It doesn't matter how far gone you think you are, you can right the ship at any time you make up your mind.
See yourself as part of a whole, the crowd scene in a play, a dream, leave your baggage at the station, its not about you, or me, or any individual, its everyone. Perhaps you fell into bliss, as hypnotic as that is, falling out is equally traumatic. There is a happy medium you will come to eventually. It is a very common condition, well documented in all the arts. At some point you will see it as a memory and be wiser for it when you discover that you have the potential in you to bore yourself with your suffering. And then ... let the good times roll.
Pangolin,
Check out this video by Charles Eisenstein:
It's titled "The Separate Self."
"Come on baby let the good times roll" Radio Jamaica and Redefusion.
RJR. They rented out little boxes that picked up the station hence Redefusion. Hmmm maybe MKUltra was broadcasting too. Anyway they brought Yank and Brit music to amaze us in the midst of Roots. Sometimes Mozart after Elvis. Eveything stopped for cricket. Now track.
Pangos Dance Church used to pass us in goaning trucks full of Pocamania people tranced out singing and drumming.
Lord, Yard not easy. Whenever the plane approaches tears fill my eyes. The peril of a visit is that you're not going to want to leave. It's a sanctuary for those who can take our little ways. It was for my Sephardic side; from the Inquisition. The Columbus family never allowed the courts of the Inquisition in Jamaica. My Africans and Celts came another route. The Taino had been here 1,500'ish years. Columbus was blown away by the fecundity and sweetness. Time to bring it back.
The roads are jammed with semis going at net now. Development and business. The recession has calmed things a bit. Fortunately there are still places where there is no human sound for a few miles.
I feel it for y'all born into winter and felt it in a bad spell last year in BC, survival takes on a whole different side. Everyone has family, friends or a way to make it back home. Even in zinc shack's most are smiling and will share a meal or a spliff anytime. Winter is some cool breeze and lots of trade.
The new chapter is about Plant Time, still far from Geological Time. The first introduction to it is 'No Rush'.
It took me 7 years to induce hawks to a 1 acre previously dry and abused spot in Kingston.
Compost, trees, walkways, groves, outdoor art and then the birds came back. Food for the hawks. Plant Time. Then, Canada time. Hmm 7 years too.
I dreamt my son before he was born Publius. He was in his mothers arms and gave me a cautious sideways look. 25 years later he is my Bredrin. After 7 years, my ex and I talk. Time does it's thing. I had to learn patience, I was already born stubborn and one pointed when the point made sense.
Best to All.
turey.
'c-u-en-apr'. That gave me shivers. How does WPG know such things?
Shiver #2: 'c-owel-i-c'
Such toys you have Nina.
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