Filed under: thoughtful trips
Everything is a spinning chair, and the landmarks have trails. Something like that is going on, a bunch of voices saying things that don’t make any sense, a bunch of voices on phones communicating, or at the very least, trying to. Is it supposed to be gibberish? Who the fuck knows? There was one person that might be worth consulting, but the process is so arduous it seems better to just stagger from moment to moment, hoping for the eventual road sign. It could be a selfless expression of unity, but it isn’t. Like a chorus repeating the bridge of a song, the same words echo down a hallway only to stop at one of the walls. Upon striking the surface it condenses from wave into dried ice, forming a slick sheet where the light dies and fades to a dim reminder of the bright form that used to shine.
Nothing about this new moment makes sense. I can’t read this manuscript for directions, so I’ll admire it for the beauty it might contain. All the while events intercede on my happy little existence, forcing someone else’s ethics onto my actions. The brew is hideous. Neither scent nor taste matches the golden color, another inside joke passed around like burnt out roach. Nobody wants to kill the thing, or admit they pulled the last bits of goodness out from under the group, so the charade goes on. Maybe forever, even though words that imply concepts like forever frighten the fuck out of me. Nothing is ever forever. As far as I can tell, each piece is another pane of glass or (to use the popular expression) another piece of the puzzle. I’m just scratching my head and trying to reconnoiter the borders of this piece. My hands are tied when trying to analyze without the context.
As the chair turns, the view changes repeatedly, consistently, a riff here or there on a subset of the action as a whole, but for the most part approaching dependability. There is something that can be trusted, something that compels deeper questions, flaked method subservient memory storing the results, able to compare on a small sample size as long as the requirements aren’t too severe. Hard work in a time capsule, left for later. I am secure in the knowledge that the very vessels of transfer, the choice words carved from the secret place where idolatry generates a super-being. The question seems bound by an indeterminate question of responsibility. I love it, it makes those racing for credit having to defend the very passion they so clearly exude when it is time to be judged by the slaves. The marketing department works overtime, and to balance the payroll, the logic division works only one day out of every five. (My guess is that they come in on Wednesdays, both for those minds most selfless as well as those most greedy.)
With that said, my opinions on the long term remain positive, while the short term must remain a net negative to anyone paying attention to the story of how a nation founded on an ideal must, and will, pursue that idea no matter where it goes. Stepping back from investor to casual observer is not highly recommended for most people, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t reasons to try. What difference does it make? Entire religions are founded on syllogistic logic. Nobody here is trying to start a religion! Wait, I like this song.
Having carefully considered exactly what was said during the previous twenty or so minutes, the verdict remains the same as it would have been even if the verbiage had taken us on a completely different path. In this case the journey doesn’t matter at all; an indictment as well as a liberation. Two distinct methods leading to the same end result. The next hour has got to be one of those quiet times where the humor is so thick that laughing out loud would be an insult. Much of the day was spent reviewing procedure; amidst the robotic reactions to continual stimuli was the realization that my own requirements had passed into the realm of reasonability. I have to stick to that story, because when my eyes start to open, everything starts to look ridiculous, like living in a dream world where it’s always dusk. Of course, that would explain a shitload of things. Deserves checking into. Later.
Filed under: Huey Lewis, Sir Marshmellow Trowell, the lost children of the bokonists
How does anybody manage to get anywhere in a world with three feet of quicksand covering pavement? I am fucking mystified. The train wreck continues unabated, but the psychology of the moment seems almost inhuman, except that it can’t be. We are all prisoners to the limited means of communication, and soon it may not matter how many new words we coin. That’s funny, in case you couldn’t follow the rationale or the irony of slow motion change suddenly picking up speed. There’s nothing to be scared of, everything has happened before, and given enough time, everything will happen again. We are the latest expressions of a movement billions of years in the making, lucky enough to live in interesting times. By definition, our own efforts to secure stability provide the best possible growth medium on which instability can appear.
I have been telling people for years that one of the chief problems in trying to force a pre-approved outcome onto what can only be described as an illusion is madness. Expectations and the psychology of my species being what they are, this has to end in disaster. Late night exculpations with like minded individuals seem to confirm that the revolution will be televised, but only on pay-per-view. Everyone is in on the joke but nobody laughs. I don’t believe for a moment that the average joe has any real claim to ignorance, not in the truest sense of the word. Without any evidence of conspiracy, all you have is the sense that something isn’t right, something so amorphous and ill-defined that to speak of it with any confidence is a true fool’s errand. Nobody can grab hold because the size we are dealing with is the same as the size of any complete set.
This spreading illness of the mind is a welcome development. Diamonds may be hard, but achieving penetration of the dissonance that envelops most of modern day American society is harder. Slowly but surely, this is being achieved. While it is unfortunate and troubling that such a large dose of fear is required to break through the wall, my understanding of humanity interprets this fear as a self-defense mechanism. For those that are prompted to make further inquiry into the events and possible reactions that might be undertaken are the people who make the greatest use of fear. The turtles amongst us will always be turtles. Nobody has ever helped anyone who refuses to help themselves. Let us not quoth Aerosmith. It would be tawdry and cheap. Hookers need not apply.
With such stunning metamorphism on display, it will almost be a tragedy to watch the end of this movie. Whatever your own persuasion and carefully considered context, the same rules do apply to us all. Would it be cynical to question how dedicated the culture around me is when it comes to pursuing an equitable resolution to our current crises? It might be, but there is never a good reason to listen to the judgments of others. Much like my own judgments, they might well be wrong. If we listened and accepted everything that everyone said every minute of the day, we would never get anywhere. Because we never do, I have to question the underlying assumption based on these pitiful conclusions. When will it come together? Unknown. Disaster struck just after the moment that we stopped asking the important questions. If we’re really fucked and without leadership, we still only were given what we deserved.
None of the above should be taken as a complaint. Times might be uncertain, but take another step back and see the meta. My mind? Blown. Instantaneously events are both dire and meaningless, and what seems like hypocrisy is only insanity writ large. The terms are set in what at first looks to be stone, but upon closer examination is revealed as foam and paint. Expectations are in need of management. Labor went on strike and returned to find they had been phased out of the equation. You want to laugh at how ridiculous things have become? Americans are so short sighted that they offshor jobs in search of cheaper employees in an effort to improve the bottom line of the corporate stocks they own in lieu of a retirement savings account. Why would that be dumb? Because in a few years, the sales these entities rely on fall apart when demand is destroyed by millions of jobless folks without the income to feed the beast that betrayed the flag waving in the parking lot. It is a cluster fuck of epic proportions, though our gravestone will still read Here Lies The Empire. It Got What It Deserved.
The citizens eventually decided to join up with Nero, and the itinerant fiddle player has the largest backing bank of any fiddle player in history. Tomorrow we’ll rebuild the city. Today we’ll watch it burn. Bummer. It was never preordained to fall, unless my inestimable friend is right. How much power does built in bias have? Another question that deserves an answer but will be limited by the edge of knowledge. Can’t we get someone on these projects? Everybody wants to be Han Solo, and nobody volunteers to be Luke. Perfect.
One of is too tired to think, the rest are too dumb to to try. Sounds to me like the status quo is safe for another day. Amen.
(Huey and Trowell are off somewhere singing songs and soon I will be too. The moment that my Katrina Check arrives, we’ll make reservations. Anyone need a ride to Connecticut? Half gas on me. If we catch those two rotten bastards, we’ll demand a cut of whatever they’ve managed to put together. If they pass out, steal it, then bring it to me. Everything must go!)
Filed under: Uncategorized
Fantastic journey of the highest caliber. Exhaustion that feels akin to finding something that might have been lost in a town I hadn’t seen in over a decade. Too many interwoven reasons, each insignificant on the face, but combining to formulate the same hysteria and alacrity missing these last few months. Being able to participate at a level of coordination between audience and performers was the light of the frenetic sun.
Now, with the beginnings of a brief period of freedom before acquiescing to the most necessary of recoveries from the exertions of the last 24 hours. Too fucking tired to be this fucking tired. Will we meet again in West Virginia on Friday? Not a goddamn clue. Let’s see what BAC has to say, and from whence to eternity. Fucking A. Every great while we blunder into something so perfect that any explanation will only cheapen the vibe and memory of this kind of happiness. Thanks to the gang back where i used to be, and thanks to the two gentleman who deigned to share a few moments helping out a stranger and making a friend. That is all.
Filed under: thoughtful trips
I wanted this at a much faster pace than was currently available. I wanted some sanguine notion of ease and wealth that would dovetail with the concurrent harsh reality of a blind man struggling to cross a busy street. It would seem convienient if this was a simple morality ploy, the kind where some mongoloid is congratulated for putting forth the effort rather than a more results based orientation. I have long disdained that kind of thinking , mainly because the focus seems wrong. Philosophically, why bother coming up with the ends if what matters is the means? That whole hippy bullshit argument, paraphrased with foolhardy quotes usually capped of with “it’s the journey not the destination” is psychotic. You can find the same baseless calculas in much of the pop psychology currently in vogue throughout the lands. Again, why pick an ending if the transient journey is the storehouse of value?
I emphasize this only to illustrate a greater point that has been busy encapsulating every attempt to alter the baseline fundamentals that seem to coagulate suddenly, and without notice. This kind of alternating current of dualistic tendencies is a constant source of irritation. Frustration mounts, plans are developed only to be tossed aside due to any number of issues and polemics taken as gospel but revealed as mere marketing. The results feel washed up. Somewhere, a battery is leaking acid and new rules are being proposed to curtail whatever unkempt theology remains, still masquerading as the newest of the new. It isn’t anything of the sort. Lacking identifiable characteristics does not, and never will, constitute the same breath of fresh air as a truly innovative challenge to the status quo. Does it really matter? Unknown, but it could go either way.
Maybe the real delineation of these hideous problems is yet to come. It would hardly be the first time I was late to the party, and the esoteric nature of any kind of conversion process makes it difficult to ascertain the boundries between status quo and newly designated policy changes. In many ways, it is mostly a contrivance of related issues. Without more work on articulation, nothing makes sense, and as communication falters the process continues to move on, feeding the disconnect between sensation and illumination. Sooner or later a breathless face peers back from polished glass and insists that whatever the risks of cross contamination, there is a fundamental requirement that things settle into a comfortable new regime before anything else can upset the applecart.
Between the hordes of people feeding off of the scraps tossed around by as of yet non-desolate ideological soldiers and the distinct feeling that something wretched and distorted has entered the building in the guise of a helpful interpreter, this is more of a bind than can be dispelled by words or ideas. From whence does this cancer grow? Also unknown, but its existence is verified by the typographic conundrums vying for attention from the Panglossian crowd. Proposals are proffered, but without the time or money to study the situation, chance alternatives become life lines to the nether. Reflected coronae begin to look more and more like the sun, a mistake that can only be compounded by acceptance of the image as such.
Trepidation is isolated in moments with enough time to ponder fate as well as the leftover energy to spur curious transactions unconfirmed by notation. Pertinent statistics suggest a rebalancing is in the wings of the day. Hounded by the temptation of something newly aquired, one can only wonder what the “something” is. Turning the vapid logic inward towards the middle of the guts and gore, finding some glint or gleam transferable into foreknowledge of whats to come. Rarely does it make much sense to attempt circumnavigations of the known mono-verse without some kind of deeply rooted desire to see where the road goes. At this precise moment, it is the destination, and not the journey.
Now if only the destination could reveal itself; even a posthumous elegy would suffice. Desperation never accomplishes anything except more desperation. We’ll wait for the storm to clear before setting off. Now what?
Filed under: Uncategorized
How does it feel to be the last question on a long survey? By the time the question is posed, the subjects seem disinterested with assembling quantitative answers. Whats one more question after dozens of others? Unable to pretend to be something other than what it is, the final question is less a search for an answer than a final barrier before the subject can escape to another task or the next adventure. The late evening is almost a question, but more properly a coda; the brief interlude before the music begins. We are horrified at the proposition of a moment glued into place such as this. Standing guard like some manner of early intention alert system was not mentioned in the guide book. Darkness can respond faster than my ability to distinguish meaningless shadow from vital transference. It’s like I’m blind, but nobody will take my word for it.
Even without this kind of convalescent notation, the fear of purpose first emerges from a hole in the ground before establishing itself as a driving force behind ostensible actions during unanticipated situations. That fear is made of solid stuff; it will never alter its own formulaic tension or respond to logical and prescient arguments. Is it something the average person learns to live with; something that can be discounted with repetition and practice? The hope remains a buoy, a marker of possibility. Late at night, it is the dream of those asleep and a fantasy of those still fighting long ago battles. If vision is a gift then this hope is a prospect. Even without light it remains visible.
Such fantastic notions relocate themselves without regard to hierarchy. In the most temporal manifestation, it is the salve able to calm ragged nerves. Denial of the busted feeling of lost theoretics would be a sham that could be seen through from a mile away, so no time need be wasted on that. All questions are the same intrinsic component parts. The one asked last just suffers from the position it occupies. Standard devotional hymns from the choir. Another batch of late night exuberance rendered powerless by a visiting deity.
Filed under: thoughtful trips
Even Mayan treasure hunters had the occasional blow down. Time slowed, then paused as if it might be gathering its thoughts, then decided better of starting again. With the stoppage of time came thoughts and fears, anger at the strawberry blond of Western origin, and a deep and abiding desire to see a tornado eat the landscape that had somehow stagnated under the sun. I have yet to learn how to turn off the faucet spewing impossibly angry lines, and by now, even the guy bearing the colors has learned to fear and respect the power of such an emotion to cause misery and despair. Even the ocean seems like its farther away.
Locked and roiled in some arcane episode of black and white hues with fractional breaks of color, another unknown precipitating the tragedy so feared yet called into existence by the repetitious actions mourning the long ago. Fictitious doesn’t go far enough to describe the scene. It is the strange allure of the metastasis in such an insecure environment that the virus still spreads, irregardless of the inertia that preceded its first display. Today is a pretty standard J curve. Plots are formulaic and every beginning seems in an awful hurry to disgorge the ending without any pretense of thrill or surprise. The mirror tells the whole story…clean jaw lines, the seashells, those dark eyes.
Following the last procession, the time comes to decide whether or not we are safer here than out in the street. I’ve got nothing to take, or at least not anything valuable or irreplaceable, and much like the deterioration in overall progression, strange characters dance with the movement of the sun. I am close to positive that the figures are just a few kids yet to figure out that this show runs daily, and qualifies as forever when measured on a human timescale. Rapid hurricanes, somnombulous fissure’s, upset apple carts, miles of testimony all repeating the same theme, the same panicked appeal for help combined with a total inability to decide what would constitute the help so desperately sought. It is running in place at a thousand miles an hour. When the litany of what if questions speak too loudly, or demand too much attention, there are few avenues that can slacken the pressure of decision. Why anyone should ever apologize for methods appropriated I will never understand. Nobody gets hurt at times like these.
Small wonder that approaching doom feels like the greatest high in the world. Claims of harmony aside, it helps to remember that there is a defined rationale that explains all of this and more. Something first emitted in the raving and somehow congruent speech heard while wandering downtown, first frightening then more reassuring. The man in the wheelchair said that judgment was coming. He even had a sign, though some of the spelling was off and the grammar could have been better. When I asked him how he could be so sure that judgment was rolling our way this very second, he simply smiled and said he had it on good authority that strangers in ripped jeans asking questions were to be counted as evidence of his theory and a cause for optimism. It didn’t take much to make that cripple smile, that I can tell you. The rest of our discussion was boilerplate BS wrapped in kind words, but I could begin to see how he was able to twist the entire conversation into the evidence he so dearly sought. The power of the mind to conjure into existence the needed principle at the correct time is just a survival skill. That’s our reptilian ancestors talking in the voice of a Midwestern used car salesman. In a tweed jacket.
Waking up alone in a place I hadn’t fallen asleep brings the same incredulity to the morning greetings as ever. Patterns, epic thought experiments, a certain sameness numbing the senses while beguiling the supposed genius in his native environment. I fought another set of dreams from sleep to waking, and upon awakening, found to my own horror and amusement that dreams were no longer distinguishable from the narrative. Living out on the horizon is a tiny house, but the fortunes and opportunities of the inhabitants are so far out of my sight that whether or not they exist is still open to debate. All that is certain is that time has slowed it’s pace from breakneck speed to astute passerby. All of the double talk, the whole cock tease that an answer is to be found somewhere around this rupture, the whole shit and shinola, seems a tawdry bit of busy work rather than continuing to walk and explore. Billy Bragg said fear is a man’s best friend, but in this state of panic and parabolic excitations, the fear of what just happened is just a motivational tool to keep moving. Slash and burn until something new really does rise from the ashes and capture the hearts, minds, and attention spans for one more trip around the mountain of faith.
The days ebb and flow, but movement remains. Moving on from here, but letting the events of time wait a little longer. Trailing just a little behind the top quality troops, I can get a few extra seconds to think before acting, and a few extra acts before committing. The chaplain tells me we’re beyond saving, but won’t tell me exactly what “we’re” refers to. I think he is a double agent, and what’s more, I am almost certain he doesn’t have God’s ear any more than I do. If he does, he probably cut it off as a souvenir. Crazy fucker is just the type that would do something like that. Is anyone even positive he’s a chaplain?
