Filed under: Philosophy
All of my recent mornings have begun to creep into the later part of the day. Some might need help adjusting to the ethereal notion of beginnings as a core value acting as a base from which to attack the later hours, but all I can offer is the intangible but somehow corporeal support expressed as that “I think I know what I’m talking about” confidence. It is not really a plain vanilla concept, more of a closely held belief system. Of course, there is no doubt that a morning of such split conceptions is bound to lead to fracture sooner or later. Whether or not it is a violent spasm or a gentle swell is up to the user. Someone of my, ahem, experience, in matters of expansionary principles would be allowed to skip ahead of the minutiae; excused from participating in deference to my many hours spent expanding and contracting in perfect rhythm. You know, for a white guy and all.
Anyhow, the factor that most influences the fashionable dress and irreconcilable confidence is music. Sometimes I cna execute total control over the inputs, master of destiny for the briefest of time, picking and choosing that correct accompaniment for a given situation. Pick your own damn music, but lets imagine that for a given moment, already hanging heavy with whatever other bullshit happens to be in vogue, is coupled with something that audibly captures the message of the moment to gring everything to a higher perception. That’s secret code for peaking.
Most of the time, the control is illusionary, or, even worse, the illusion disappears and the realization of the implications of a total loss of control become apparent. The disinterested observer that occupies most of my time is almost sobered up by the chance occurrence of cause based events. The shit hits the fan, and everything spins until context can be established like a beachhead on the nazi controlled shore. (My analogies are really suffering under the load of strange fortune shaped like a crushed spinal cord.) Sooner or later, stasis is found, but the volatility tends to rise until the moment reaches a point of mutual satisfaction between the fates.
Trying to explain all of this is hard even without a head full of chemicals and the aural manifestations of Tallman is difficult. I suppose there are a few valid reasons why that might be true, though you’ll never convince me that any of them are really valid or true. It’s all in the mix; its all a part of something else, visions of movement, of waves in mountains, that sort of thing. Tallman knows his shit, and that is admirable in this day of mid-level heat. Supposedly the crossing over of ideas will pay off; existing as it does as international exchange. Getting above the problems, or around the staccato “I I I” is a wage of sin, even though there is no such thing as sin. Anything that amorphous violates the rules of existence. I am not sure anyone has the right to pose a question without an answer. Does the preacher still preach of an unknowable truth? Someone should make him stop.
This is a long way of trying to say that Tallman talks a good game, but it is well worth listening when he speaks. I find it surprisingly simple to find the cosmic connection espoused and expressed. Despite my own difficulty as described above, the communication issues all revolve around using non-shared terminology and symbols, which means context has become the juxtapositioning of ideas, a sublime way to utilize an increasing number of words to get a handle in a diminishing quantity of ideas. Somebody watching from the distance might conclude that we are the smartest of the down syndrome kids, a distinction that is apparently lost in terms of humor on the non-existent crowd seemingly filled with people of serious means. This might be why nobody talks friend-ship style in plain sight of the vultures. On some level, we must all worry that our confidence in the open exchange of ideas will lead to raping and pillaging. We won’t do it….but the vultures will, and they are all vultures on the open air market.
Filed under: thoughtful trips
There is something strange watching athletes from two countries I didn’t know existed playing a sport I never realized was played at such a level all while listening to an announcer speaking a language I can’t understand. Some days are indeed a full on clusterfuck. Luckily, this is not one of those days. I woke up looking for a feeling I couldn’t describe without any notion of how to get from hence to thence. This is occasionally a source of great frustration; the frustration is usually expressed as that mixture of denial and contempt that spills out into public discourse. I was saved from any such prostrate emissions by the secondary realization. Since I had no clue what I was looking for, there was a high probability that I wouldn’t know for sure if I had stumbled upon it. There is no feeling in the world as seductive as rationalization of failure. In terms of abuse, it sits between lying and heroin abuse on almost every top ten list of the subject.
That left around 99.5% of the day to be used for something. After failing to come up with anything more compelling that eating blended Tropical fruits, I came here. This would be another way of saying that I am caught in one of those mental finger traps, pulling adventurously in two directions but stuck to the source. When splashed on paper, this sounds fairly ridiculous. This is like those arguments between friends at the bar trying to picture so-and-so’s head on so-and-so’s body with so-and-so’s rack. It’s all ephemeral until the telephone rings. All of the conundrum is a carefully constructed display, meant to wow the crowd and avert their eyes while rabbits jump into top hats and scarves are swallowed. Telemundo doesn’t give that kind of bang. Or perhaps they do… Whatever it is they do, they do not do it in English.
Having established a baseline for the morning, the few calls that show up are all invitations to places to far to get to. Nobody does easy anymore; wasn’t that what this whole great Nation was supposed to be about? While it is a truly great thing to listen to foreign tongues describing Pelau and Cameroon play what looks to be lawn tennis, is that the limit on this particular day? All of the shuttlecocks in the world still doesn’t explain how several dozen people designated into geographically autonomous teams have obsessed for years about being the best damn lawn tennis player in the whole fucking world! While the draw of top level amateur lawn tennis has an allure all its own, there seems no reason it needs the major Spanish language cable station type of notoriety. Like many other times in life, there should be a reason for this, but there isn’t. Having spent a good portion of the morning sorting out the subject, I cant help but wonder if even the Fool can call this “progress.” Considering the manifestations of thought that were required to autopsy the subject to this extent, I am going to have to say it is made of the same things as progress without all of the chemical flavor. That much is certain.
Now the washing machine has managed to sync itself up to the drums in “Fool Button,” something I wish someone had been here to notice. The machine shimmies and begins to dance. Thankfully the damn thing doesn’t move much in terms of distance. Considering the rapid bangs and crashes, it does well enough in a limited environment to do any technophile proud. That it managed to find the rhythm of a somewhat obscure Jimmy Buffett song is even more amazing. Sooner or later, that may end being a feature available in cell phones. I have been assured by a cursory and somewhat haphazard census of friends, neighbors, and locals that nobody would want a cell hone that could “only” make and receive phone calls, and I have been keeping my eyes open to the next big thing; this could be it.
It is with a mixture of humor and chagrin that I let the television continue to misinform my ears before a channel change is made a prerogative. All the same, I don’t have the sound on so there is always that to consider. With the arrival of the floor sweepers, the court is cleaned. I can’t take any more of the shuttlecock, it is time for something new.
It was a dangerous place to lay your head, and that was when the sun was out. Don’t buy any of that rainy day bullshit propagated by those who think all of the NW corner of the continental 48 is emerald green. Get out of the Western third of the state and all you’ll see is dull brown mountains percolating tiny dying towns full of farmers and nazis. Tons of sunshine, a vicious wind, all in a day’s work. It is an essentially unkind environment, seething with the petty hatreds and jealousies arising from ignorant citizens trying to understand just how badly they’d managed to bend themselves over a barrel. Maybe it was just a reaction to living on an Air Force bombing range. Maybe it was the dull brown mountains, the long winters, or maybe the people had simply segregated themselves from kindness with an eye towards protecting the white girls from minorities. Shit, they’ve been doing it in the South forever, and even New England does all that it can to protect the blue eyed blondies from the Mandingo dicks. Honestly, it shouldn’t even surprise me any more. I don’t know why it does.
Strategy has nothing to do with a people like that. A people like that probably don’t take to kindness because hatred can only exist on solid bed of ignorant malevolence. Of course, I can’t deny the hatred didn’t rub off, at least to some degree. I would say it is comparable to a shared addiction. You show me how tough you are by jamming a needle into your arm and passing out. You tell me that is “fun.” I smile, and try (fruitlessly) to show you how tough I am by ripping out pieces of my spinal cord. I also pass out afterwards, so we smile at each other and say “Hey! We’re all the same after all. We both pass out after having fun. I’ll be willing to bet you’ve got a few black and blue marks in the shape of knuckles, and maybe even passed out post-coital rumination.”
The whole discussion was watched by some of the whack job zealots. My ears were ringing, and I couldn’t hear what the crowd was saying. Odd thing was, I knew what the were saying from the familiar body language, the furrowed brow, the disapproving eyes and tongues. They weren’t at all impressed by my new friend’s ability to smile while jabbing dirty needles into his veins. (It was immaterial that I wasn’t impressed either.) They didn’t think it was cool to fling body parts into a dirt field while jabbering on about meltdowns and broken things. (By this point, I wasn’t so sure it was cool either. This is also immaterial.)
The crowd was your normal amalgamation of itinerant farmers, Mexican coke mules, coed’s from the local sorority, and a few drunks waiting for someone to throw a few dollars down the ladder of socio-economic rungs for piety and good karma. Would you believe me if I told you the entire crowd was occupied with rictic movements and quiet speech falling out from under the tongue with little air or gumption to provide volume? As soon as my friend and I stopped bleeding from self-inflicted wounds, they seemed to tire of the whole show, forgetting that the crowd is at least as much responsible for the outcome as participants. Nobody gets off that easily except the girl who left her number in the highway rest stop bathroom under the words “Don’t Call.” (I heard she was HIV positive, and those who called out of some dirty desire for carnal enjoyments were usually left wishing they hadn’t. Life’s a bitch everywhere, but always moreso for someone else. Another terrible side effect of relativistic morality.) (later note – it was HepC, not HIV. Sounds like someone’s lucky motherfucking day!!!)
I wanted to leave the whole scene, but there wasn’t anywhere I knew of that didn’t showcase the same features, the same idolatrous desire to dirty the sheets of the bed without the owners permission. The only time I was scared was when I got to wondering if standards and behavior were collapsing or had simply always been the same dirty game, idealized in the past as the “good old days.” The people who espoused such malice as an ethos (including my friend the NW nazi who only existed because it was convenient for him to do so) were a danger to us all. Having chosen to become a garbageman rather than murderer, it was not my job nor desire to cleanse the land. I just took the garbage from the cans to the compactor. That was my limit back in the good old days. Just kidding friends and neighbors. Those weren’t the good old days. Don’t shoot.
Still, all of this is a madness ends with screaming pain in what was once a fully functioning spinal cord. I’ve told the same story hundreds of thousands of times, and my own frustration and context is the only thing I’ve managed to change. The audience will dictate the reaction, the performer will at best obtain a reaction. It’s a circle-jerk in many ways, following the rhythm set in some other place, refracted a few times then sent onward, sent to us to do with as we might. I find the whole shit and shibootle as funny as anything I have ever seen, like getting caught in some reverse oubliette. Does that mean we are all watching from just behind the glass? Tinkerbell never showed up to give away the answer. From where I stand, everyone is surprised. We all laugh and giggle.
The moral of the story, the ethic to be gleaned from this juxtaposition is thus; the imposition of narrative is a base desire. The pain is only a facet of the laughter which is a subsection of the cynicism which is but a part of the joy which expresses the sadness stemming from the resolute satisfaction revealing the confidence that even amongst six billion lottery winners, we all get luckier than the next asshole every once in a great while. And that, my friends, is why we laugh until we cry. Wait…what were we talking about? This will be the third course of surgery (hopefully much later) and I am…confused.
That’s wicked awesome compared to the first few times. The first time was mostly fear, the second mostly anger. My guess for the fourth is laughter and appreciation. Shit, we better laugh, the shit hasn’t even hit the fan yet. It’s me versus the magnets tomorrow, better get the laughing gas and the secret weapon hidden in the super secret place. Minions…don’t fail me now.
Filed under: thoughtful trips
Bunch of meaningless letters at the top of this page. The realization came at me like something out of a stereotype manual, expectations set entirely by historical precedent. Utter fucking chaos, except clothed in the normality of calm creation. I love it when that happens. For a brief moment, it was probable that my situational awareness had reached all time lows. Nobody likes to be attacked when feeling defenseless, much less held to a standard there is no intention of meeting. Maybe the mistake was a personal one; driving blind is no excuse for driving a car into a tree. Whether or not you knew the tree was there prior to contact is immaterial as well. This is no kind of situation to be searching for rationale after the fact. After the damage is done, somebody has to clean up the poop on the freshly washed sheets. Some people laugh whenever that subject is broached.
This day held the taste of lemon from the moment I woke up. My guess was that it had been factory built rather than naturally grown. My hunch rested on the memory of lemon and lime trees dotting the backyards of almost every California homestead, a place I wandered before wandering off somewhere else. Clearly, we are thousands of miles away from free citrus fruits growing in the backyard, so the imprint of citrus on the day could only have come from a package of dehydrated powder thrown into the mix as the night assembled the pieces of the day to come. Not much in the way of natural in this vicious landscape. There are people you can call who will bring the chicken and broccoli right to the door, but real lemons and limes swaying in the breeze do not share the same availability. That is a bummer. Still, nobody knows the reasons for the charade. If they do, nobody has told me, and I have been persistently asking for what feels like forever.
At any rate, the swell and fall of the tides are temporarily sweeping towards a direction vaguely disquieting. I won’t lie and report that the right adjective is struggling to get noticed on the tip of my tongue, but ever since the April Alert ideas that would live peacefully together seem intent on hacking each other into distorted logic, an old illness that strikes only when my peaceful Kingdom (still protected by the Yellow Fortress, if anyone was curious!) is sullied by the ripples of rocks thrown angrily into a pond. It should be water off a ducks ass. It should be, but it isn’t. There is only so much time in the world, and having already failed in several other foolish quests over the last few years, it feels much worse to have to spend additional time resolving long settled debates. There are perfectly valid reasons to maintain a folder for those “Life’s a bitch” moments. Just because nothing is coming to mind doesn’t change the validity. I kind of assume the same rationale is responsible for annual collections of follies and foibles that clog the airwaves at the change in year. Things are so odd in convenience-burg. Who said you can’t have it all, right? {Insert deep and guttural laugh here.}
In totally separate news, in between the highlights and commercials that inhabit the landscape made out of endless combinations of zero’s and one’s (you’d think this would produce some fascinating behavior; unfortunately it actually does the opposite. You might think a tiny failure rate would be something easily overcome. The good people at Countrywide are ready to provide plenty of evidence that this is not true.) are the keys to the highway, as it were. Everybody claims to be engaged in finding the proper balance and tension to apply to the floating equations, leading me to believe progress is being made. The relativists are probably the next big thing. This should scare the shit out of anyone who understands the crucial relation between relativity (of context, not physics) and behavior. While my species may fight against being labeled lazy, they have a propensity to utilize the path of least resistance. We may be about to witness the flipside of the progressive movement. It is not written in stone…yet. The epitaph should read “Bitch-slapped by dualism.”
The good news is the pace of these changes is very slow. Much of what is termed normality can be explained by mapping major events against a series of lifetimes. The long term ebb and flow is written about in history books, but there is no way to study something so massive made up of an ever changing cast of characters each acting on their own brand of rationalism. Nothing makes sense to the outside world, so we play Lingo. Everybody relax. It turns out everything is normal after all. What the fuck were we thinking? Oh, that’s right. We all thought this was the future. We should all laugh, maybe find someone to talk to about the time we thought the world was ending. How was anybody supposed to know the sun comes up tomorrow? We should go find the damn manual. It will save us from bad headaches later.
That’s a lovely dream, isn’t it? I choose to term it a thing of beauty because it is as far from observable as I am able to get. The time requirements are great, but this is a negative only if the task is less than enjoyable. It never is. It was chosen for the same reason I would choose anything. The requirements were non-existent, and the field thinly populated. Destiny would be far too strong a word. That would be laughable. The only things carved in stone are the channels of water dug with the infinitely patient hands of the onrushing water, cued by gravity to seek out the channel. Fuck us all in the ass with lead pipes sans lube… does that mean everyone has a boss? How many turnkeys do we need? A conclusion like that is a nonstarter. Forever is a long time. Hope is plentiful, just not always justified. It makes no sense, because hope implies a solution. What if there wasn’t a problem? This kind of thinking is quicksand. I think I smell a lemon tree.
