It Used to Be Called a Highway

What's that saying? "The best laid plans of mice and men." Well in this case, the mice won. My plan to arrive for the 7th race at Santa Anita went awry. Back in Chicago our plane had a leaky gasket, so we had to deplane and replane, and so my excellent adventure became a long slog of a travel day. As Vonnegut would say, "And so it goes."

I landed into an alternate reality, (LAX), where I was motoring in a red Toyota, zipping along the Ventura FREEWAY, (I was doing 70 mph, and cars were passing me by like I was coasting), listening to John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, passing palm trees, the Sierra Madre mountains, Pasadena, Azuza and then finally arriving in sleepy little Arcadia (too late to visit the track!). I checked the schedule and realized that I've missed my chance to try my luck with the horses (No mojo to be found there)this trip. It's kind of like going to Rome and finding out the Pope isn't home.

So, it's business today and tomorrow. I'm in the business of business. Must be busy, and business-like, and see if my misplaced mojo is somewhere in this strange place, so foreign, so familiar.

Don't Forget First Time Lasix!

I'm off to the City of Angels later this morning. I wonder if that's where I'll find my (still missing) mojo? My ultimate destination is Arcadia (not the mythological Greek Island, not the Stoppard play, not the band formed by Simon Le Bon), a sleepy little town in California, where dreams are born and dashed in two minute increments. I'm of course referring to the major attraction in Arcadia, the Santa Anita Racetrack, one of my favorites places on the planet. Is it one of the Seven Wonders? By some odd Cosmic Convergence, I'm to attend a business conference in Arcadia on Monday and Tuesday. So, I'm taking an early plane today, timed so that I'm trackside for the seventh race and beyond. I envision that I'm already ahead of the game, limiting my exposure to 3 or 4 races, not enough to get into really serious pocket-emptying trouble.

I'm leaving in the wake of a really nice autumn day in Chicago yesterday. The Lovely Carla and I went for a long, rambling walk, and we talked of everything under the sun. We have both entered a "phase of unknowing," wondering (in both a large and small sense) "what's next?" We had dinner with a friend, I'll dub him the Great Dr. Woo, who told us that one's path is basically "what you believe." The Lovely Carla and I heard this and nodded our heads as if to say, "Yes, that's what we needed to hear." Now if only I could pinpoint what I really, truly, deeply believe..beyond the cosmic primacy of weight, distance, class...

The Cheese

I enjoy these Saturday mornings, listening to music, drinking coffee, surveying the news of the world. No appointments, no demands, no obligations. Big and little things have happened. The big: the first tentative blast in the wall of a corrupt, deceitful White House. The little: I've misplaced my MOJO! We watched a silly DVD last night, "Flirting with Disaster," which seems like a prescription, or a prediction, or a predicament, and it was just the ticket. Sometimes laughter just sneaks up on you, and watching Mary Tyler Moore chasing George Segal around with a slab of stinky cheese, struck a chord somewhere inside. The laughter came in gales. It was a complete mess of a movie, and it seemed to reflect some kind of truth. Sometimes the truth is hard, cold, painful; sometimes the truth is gloriously and inexplicably, funny! How exactly does that work?

"The Waiting is the Hardest Part" - T. Petty

The Lovely Carla reports to me that the Witches Almanac advises this morning: "trust your instincts." OK, so you gotta trust something, right? I need to have a "come to Jesus" with my instincts! Except this morning I feel at sea, floundering about, unable to latch onto anything. Ala Austin Powers, I believe I may have "LOST MY MOJO!"

"Fearless Speech" - M. Foucault

Neil Young has a great song, to be found on "Tonight's the Night," called "Speaking Out." The latest Washington drama (TraitorGate?) shows how one man, standing up, telling the truth as he (Joseph Wilson) knows it, can bring down an empire. Now, I'm not predicting, a complete victory for truth, justice and the American Way, but, it's clear that suddenly alot of people, including a hard-working prosecutor, a group of dedicated citizens (the grand jury) and a newly energized contingent of journalists (and bloggers) are hot on the trail of a great and twisted story of lies and skull-duggery in high places. Cue a little "Fanfare for the Common Man!"

What's especially entertaining, is to see, an honest prosecutor, armed with a trusty briefcase, methodically sifting through "the evidence," taking testimony, checking it twice, pitted against a group of "Public Servants," who got just a little too full of themselves, acting more like a corrupt oligarchy straight out of Shakespeare (think MacBeth, Richard the Third). Little Bush doesn't exactly fit the role of the Mighty taking a fall, (instead he's a very little man, thinking he's a very big man), so I guess this is more of a comedy with tragic overtones, as opposed to a tragedy with comedic overtones.

There's a great movie, called, "The Insider," about the tobacco industry, and one man, who stood up and told the truth. He ends up losing his job, his wife, his children, house, etc. How many of us would be willing to risk it all to do the right thing? How many of us go along with lies, large and small, just to "get along?" Let's honor those amongst us willing to speak up, when speaking up is not the safe or smart thing to do.

"Don't Go in the Basement!"

It was William Burroughs (I might be paraphrasing) who once said, "a paranoid, schizoprenic, is just a guy who's figured out what's what." The closer you look at something, the more you see. Sometimes there are connections, or you make connections, that seem to reveal deeper truths, and/or deeper mysteries. It's kind of like those Robert Anton Wilson books, describing the secret history of the Illuminati, where new patterns and coincidences reveal a vast conspiracy that seemingly explains the unexplainable. Or maybe just points to a greater mystery, which rings true, because it's our experience on so many levels (physical, spiritual, etc.).

This PlameGate Leak case is a good example. If you delve deep, and brother, I am so deep into this one, my eyeballs are spinning like tops, you find a connection from Iran/Contra, to Italian Fascists, to Iraqi Fraudsters, to Israeli Intelligence, to powerful NeoCons (American Fascists?!), to skullduggery and backstabbing, to lies in high places, to an illegal war, to a high-jacked democracy. You begin to realize (or fantasize?) that there's another level of activity, below the surface, under the radar, of secret plans and agendas. You begin to believe that our day to day view of events are just SHOWBIZ! Things (Operatives?!) that aren't supposed to see the light of day are working for other purposes and other outcomes, we're just the stupid pawns being manipulated in a much bigger game...hmmm, one starts thinking there are things in the dark that can come out and bite you in the ass!

The VEEP is a CREEP!

It's pitch dark, raining cats and dogs this morning, but I'm sitting here, shining brightly. I know it's not good to take pleasure in someone else's troubles, but I can't help being tickled pink by the news that Big Dick Cheney is now implicated (see the NYT this morn) in the CIA leak case. I've been waiting for this big, floppy clown shoe to drop for quite some time! The Intrepid Fitz has been on the trail of the the Great White Dick all along.

It's amazing, the public face, the private lies. All I can say is, I hope Cheney, Rove, and Libby (Hardrock, Coco and Joe?) GET WHAT THEY DESERVE!" As Sy Hersh has pointed out, a small group (a cabal?!) of neo-conservatives conducted a disinformation campaign to get the U.S. into a war. A war that never made sense, that has become a huge foreign policy disaster. Men, women and children have died, for no good reason. Little Bush has been insulated from most of this secret insider stuff, his defense? "I'm an IDIOT, I didn't know anything?"

There is hope, in that our big, lumbering system, sometimes does a little self-cleansing. The criminal justice system (think Watergate, Iran Contra, yes, Sexual RelationsGate) is the last bulwark against complete dishonesty and corruption. I guess the tension is between a messy, transparent, democracy, and an efficient, secret, Fascism. Give me the inefficient, transparent democratic messiness! Can we live in the world with an ethic of public and private honesty?

Through a Glass Darkly

I don't get to quote Vladimir Nabokov that often, and I'm not sure if he came up with the line himself, or heard it somewhere else, but this morning, I'm in a ruminative frame of mind, where if I recall it correctly, (I doubt it), he said something like this: "our lives are but a brief moment of light, bookended by great immensities of darkness." Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure he didn't say it exactly like that, I'm just "recreating," but, that was the basic formulation.

This time of year seems to be a validation of the point. The interval of light between darknesses is brief. A day or so ago, I saw the sun dancing in the clouds and it looked very "moon-like" - small, pale-white (A whiter shade of pale?). Darkness decends early, and lifts late. So above, as below... A day is a mirror to a life, a life is a mirror to a world, a world is a mirror to a universe, a universe is a mirror...to what?

"Taking Care of Business" (TCB) - ELVIS!

Slept in late, brewed up a great cuppa joe, sitting at my keyboard, surfing all the political blogs (I'm thinking big things are coming this week, maybe we see the unmasking of the Cheney Cabal - wouldn't that be sweet?), kind of reveling in the afterglow of our muscial performance last night, listening to Otis Redding on the box ("Try a Little Tenderness"), taking it slow and easy.

Yes, we unveiled some new stuff last night at the Gallery. The Lovely Carla did a monologue that I wrote, (also a piece from Sam Shepard - now that's good company!) while I played a sort of spacey guitar accompaniment. We had a small audience, but it all went off well. Kind of rough and off the cuff. It's kind of my mode of operation lately. Then, for the finale (we went from the sublime to ELVIS), our very own Johnny Pilgrim, dressed as the Prime-Time Las Vegas Elvis, came out and sang three songs. It was a rip-roaring set, highlighted by that Lieber/Stoller masterpiece, "King Creole."

From Shepard to Presley, in one fell swoop. Now in my book, that's supreme entertainment ("It's ART, it doesn't have to be GOOD!") - S. Jimmy.

A Chocolate Chip on my shoulder

I'm kind of in "suspended animation," this morning. Does that make me "cartoon-like?" Caught between hopeful/optimistic and hopeless/pessimistic. This applies to any subject you might want to come up with this morning: politics, the world, the environment, enlightenment, arts, entertainment, personal survival, personal hygeine, personal personality traits, etc. I'm not really prepared to commit to one viewpoint or another, either, I'm just kind of holding both in my head simultaneously. Didn't F. Scott Fiztgerald say something about "intelligence is the ability to hold two contrary thoughts in your head at the same time," or something like that? Now I'm not claiming any kind of superior intelligence or anything, in fact, I'm not claiming anything this morning. It's cloudy outside, sunny inside, want to make something of it?

The Shadow Knows!

I was thinking of my father yesterday...

When he was a child he listened to the radio, one of his favorite shows was "The Shadow." The opening of each broadcast started with a question and an answer: "WHO KNOWS WHAT EVIL LURKS IN THE HEARTS OF MEN? THE SHADOW KNOWS!" I believe it was Orson Welles, who intoned those thrilling words in deep resonant tones. My father loved to do his "Orson Welles," by speaking these prophetic words himself.

Now, according to C.G. Jung, all of us have the "shadow," as part of our psychological makeup...so really, we all know what evil lurks in the hearts of men (and women) because that "evil" resides in us too. Maybe the word "evil," is a little harsh, maybe not, look at the world, what do you think? But at least we know there's light and dark (see Obi Wan Kenobi!). So when something really goes bad, when people seriously take the wrong path (think White House Cabal!), there's always a little twinge of recognition, isn't there?

We all need to be honest with ourselves, and try to keep each other honest too. We must expose the darkness to the light, and so, transform it! HA, HA, HA!

"I've got nothing Ma, to live up to..." - B. Dylan

How about this for a crooked path to happiness? "The key to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible." - Bertrand Russell. I laughed out loud when I read this quote. Partly from surprise, and partly from the recognition that it seems so right. It's kind of like "Apocalypse Now, Redux" in reverse. Instead of a big, bloated, bald, Kurtz (think Brando in a kimono) whispering "the horror, the horror" at the end of the movie, just before he up and dies like a stuck pig, what if, you started the journey, at the mouth of the river, on your way to the "heart of darkness" (or go way back to the moment you popped out of the womb) with "the horror, the horror" on your lips? "I've been down so long it looks like up to me!" - Richard Farina. If you start with the horror, you are assured to find something to love. There will be some light in the dark. You will find the beauty beyond the brutes. Even if it gets bad, and it will get bad, it can't get that bad, can it? I'm thinking Russell had it knocked...it's the low/no expectations frame of mind. Once you accept the hard fact, you can spend the rest of your life melting it, moulding it, transcending it!

Sunny Jimmy Version 7.0

In 1955, Eisenhower was President and West Germany was admitted into NATO. On October 19, 1955, "Love is a Many Splendored Thing" by the Four Aces was the number one song in the U.S. ("The Man from Laramie" by Jimmy Young was number one in the U.K.) and I was born in a hopsital in Chicago. I was born premature (I have been since), not quite ready for prime-time, and if I remember correctly, I came out feet first (I couldn't even do the birth thing right!) My mother never complained about this, she always just wanted me to be happy, I attribute my sunny smile to her. My father told me how he looked at me, a tiny new being, in an incubator, unable to be out in the world on my own. It's now 50 years later...a long strange trip, and strangely, a blink of an eye. They say that every seven years all the cells in your body "regenerate," so by my calculation I'm Sunny Jimmy Version 7.0. I feel more of myself than I've ever been, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, this morning, the Lovely Carla (the lucky ones have someone they can share the journey with) has left a little card at my keyboard, I open it up, and there's an ultrasound picture of her heart, and the following note...I think it gives you a flavor of some of my life (our life together)...

"James, I knew you were the one when...

you wanted to show me your rock collection
you played, "the kids are all right" for me
you let me read all your Raymond Carver novels
you explained what a trifecta was to me
you took me to see "The Deer Hunter," "Last Tango in Paris," "The Passenger," "Mean Streets," "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest", "Midnight Cowboy," and "Easy Rider," (over and over and over), Allen Watts "The Art of Meditation," and so on
we enrolled in Fencing Class, Acting Class and Psychic School together
you drove the paddle boat in Wisconsin
you took me to the Pat Metheny concert for my school paper
we walked the streets of Paris, Madrid, New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas, New Orleans, Dublin, Edinburgh, Boston, Miami Beach, and so on together
we slept in Big Sur with the fire blazing and the next morning we walked on the beach
we tried Indian, Thai, Middle Eastern, Italian, German, Japanese food together
we sat on a park bench in the square in Merida and watched the people and the birds together
we meditated on several mountains and under many trees together
you hiked around the castle in Majorca with me
you say "Carla"
you put the goat in Carolyn and Donald's tent
you went with me to put my dad's ashes into the ocean
you listen to me talk about my latest germ paranoia
we went to get Miles and Satchmo (the birds)
we laid in the shade of the monument at Chitzanizta and looked up at the big blue sky
we watched the moon rise and pretended the moon beam was our shining carpet to the next realm
I've been with you for over half of your life now, I hope it's been something for you too...
Your Soulmate
Carla"

"Are we there yet?"

It's amazing how much of our lives are spent getting to and from places. It's amazing how much time is spent waiting for something to happen. It's amazing how gnarly the trip can seem. The Lovely Carla this morning: "Jimmy, you're a tree...your leaves are turning!"

Stray Lines

Here are some stray lines threading around in my head this morning:

1. What happens happens.
2. Go with what amuses you.
3. Forgive the Universe.
4. Disobey.
5. There's no discipline like anti-discipline.
6. Wake Up!
7. Your aura (do you believe in an aura?) is your reality, your body is your experience.
8. Maybe you're already doing what you should be doing.
9. Maybe not.

Dreaming of Potter's Field

I've been avidly following the Plame/Traitor Gate scandal, which threatens to expose the intentional lies, the concerted dis-information campaign run out of the White House in the runup to the Iraq War. Can it be that Dick Cheney (think Lionel Barrymore as "Potter," in "It's a Wonderful Life") and some of his lackeys could go down in flames? I'm a believer. In my heart of hearts I think that the "truth" will out, the evil-doers amongst us (these are the more dangerous threat to our teetering Democracy) will face the music. I'm hoping to see indictments maybe as soon as this week. Rove and Libby are toast...the big question, is whether the intrepid Fitz has the goods on Cheney. Why not? I remember seeing Richard Nixon resign in disgrace less than two years after winning an election in a landslide. It's the classic story, arrogance and hubris overtakes the powerful (they begin to believe they are above all those Poor Schlubs in the heartland, they are above the law), and a sharp prosecutor, the Last Honest Man (What drives him? Doesn't he have a price too?) intent on pursuing the truth, intent on exposing the lies, intent on revealing the corruption, can not be deterred. It's a nice dream...let's see if the reality catches up.

The Worm is Turning

Man, I think I've fallen into a "worm-hole." I finished reading some stray philosophical ramblings of Philip K. Dick, (Look out, I'm moving onto a biography about Aleister Crowley), and I'm in the speculative frame of mind, where everything is suspect. Here's Dick on reality: "reality is what's left over, after you stop believing in it." And what's left over when you stop believing in that? If you can't trust your eyes, your ears, your nose, your hands, your head, what's left?

Anyway, this actually kind of kicks the door open to new possiblities, and I'm all for new possibilities. What's that old saying? "There's nothing new under the sun." I don't believe it. I think we're locked in some grand cycle, we all play our little part, each part is actually essential. It's just that being human means we can't get our head around the thing. It's the context of no context conumdrum.

So, I'm skating along, wondering what the new day will bring, trying to make sense out of the incomprehensible, which is not to say it's all incomprehensible, we can comprehend some of it, we just don't know whether what we comprehend has any substance...maybe it's all just..."fairy dust," which isn't to imply that we're all fairies, but wouldn't that be a kick, something to rile up those wacked out "born againers?"

"This Crumbling Pageant" - I. Kant

I fell into an emotional "cul de sac" yesterday afternoon. I have one of those jobs that sometimes doesn't feel like a job, or instead, feels like a job with no purpose, no trajectory. I end up talking to people who don't really want to talk to me. We end up talking about what we don't want to talk about: what didn't happen, or what's not going to happen. We end up in a kabuki dance around the truth: in our hearts we know what we are talking about is meaningless, pointless, but we talk as if there is a point, a purpose, and we really care. This describes much of our human experience. I guess it's important to find a zen aspect in the pursuit of futility. Instead of pursuing futility, maybe we should just let it come to us. If we practice complete futility, maybe there, within the complete lack of meaning, we find the little nugget of a truth that we can stake our lives upon. Then again, maybe not.

"All the leaves are brown..." - J. Phillips

The story goes that John Phillips woke up in the middle of the night with a tune and a fragment of lyrics for a song. He woke up Michelle Phillips and had her write them down for him on notebook at their bedside. The song was later recorded ("California Dreaming") and became a number one hit for the Mamas and the Papas. Michelle shared the royalties (She wrote it down!). You can still hear that song on radio stations across the land today.

Last night, I was visited by the Sci-Fi writer, Philip K. Dick. We were in conversation. He turned to me and imparted a nugget of wisdom. The words were so startling, so profound, I woke up with a start. I repeated the sentence silently to myself, and then went back to sleep.

This morning, my mind is blank. I can't for the life of me remember Philip Dick's words. One man's "solid gold," is another's "blank slate." And so the story goes.

Carpe Diem - Of Course!

Joan Didion has written a book called, "The Year of Magical Thinking." I haven't read the book, just an excerpt, and articles and reviews, but since it's about death and grief, it has great resonance for me in light of recent events in my life. What I find interesting is how, "magical thinking," and a "super-rationalist" or "realistic" views of the universe leads to much of the same philosophy regarding how to live life now. Whether we believe in other realities, other worlds beyond this one OR NOT, this from Didion, seems to be simple, essential wisdom.

"You are obligated to do things you think are futile...it's like living. Life ends in death, but you live it. I'm not telling you to make the world better, because I don't think that progress is necessarily part of the package, I'm just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave's a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. No do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that's what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it."

Whether we believe there is anything besides the moment or not, there is transcendance in seizing that moment NOW!

Birdie Love

Birds...I don't think it's an accident that the Lovely Carla and I live with two little birds. The ranch here, is basically the "bird house," with four birds (2 of the bird kind, 2 of the human kind) - delicate, flighty, high-strung, sensitive, quirky, skittish, odd. Lately none of us are really happy unless we're all together. The Lovely C. and I sitting at the kitchen table, the little birdies, running around on the kitchen floor. Last night it was "Fiesta Night", tofu tacos, yum, yum. Time seemed to come to a standstill, the radio was spewing the latest news of the world (one catastrophe after another), we talked about everything under the sun, the warmth and laughter (yes, there's still laughter) kind of enveloped us in a genial haze. The birds waddled around, fascinated by the patterns of the tile, pecking at the kitchen cabinets, running up our legs, sitting on our shoulders (Shades of Long John Silver!). They say "birds of a feather, flock together," and like most cliches, I guess it's true.

"A Vat of Jello"

Last night, after an intellectually-confusing, emotionally-bruising conversation, I craved a lobotomy, I dreamed of an ice pick strike, deep into the center of my cranium, taking out my medulla oblongata. Sometimes it just does not pay to engage, especially when you are locked in a debate about the unknowable. In the old days, with major quantities of cannabis at hand, Led Zep on the phonograph, a deep, existential conversation on the nature of "reality," would have resulted in distant smiles, far away eyes, and statements like: "Wow, man." "Dig it." "Blows my mind." Last night was more of an existential "death dance."

Put two amateur philosophers in a room, with vague notions, and fragmentary lines of reasoning, grappling with "reality," the universe, fundamental "truths," etc. can be a pointless, silly, and sort of ugly exercise. Kind of like wrestling in a vat of jello. It was something about (I'm fuzzy on the details now, as I was then.), is there one fundamental ground (truth, reality, universe), are there multiple "realities," do human beings "make their own reality," is what we call "reality," (you always end up putting quotes around the damn thing!), a dialogue between this fundamental ground and the human perceptor? Plus throw in the "WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE DIE?" subtheme, and you have a big fat stewpot of a conversation, over-spiced and undigestible.

As I laid me down to sleep, just as I closed my eyes, I see a picture of that guy on Monty Python, holding his head in his hands, declaring: "MY HEAD HURTS!"

"How Low Will He Go?"

Rumblings from the Temple of Doom: our "Torturer in Chief" is threatening to veto the anti-torture measure that has passed in the Senate.

This would be the first bill our Dim Wit President would veto in his dark reign. Wouldn't it be great for our failing democracy if the corrupt hacks in Congress could actually muster up some courage and override such a veto?

If not, this Empire is seriously fucked.

Cotton Land

I'm listening to a mix of music this morning, and Bob Dylan's voice, ragged, croaking, definitely a voice that wears many years sings..."Wish I was back in the Land of Cotton..." Right, in the land of cotton, there would be no sharp edges, everything would be soft, puffy and white. We could play, (yes, even frolic) and the land would be our forgiving friend, embracing us with big cotton swabs...(remember J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye?"), in this case, there'd be a Catcher in the Cotton!

Wouldn't it be cool?

What if there was a heaven, and it was really easy to get in, populated with all the kind, cool, forgiving, beautiful people that you've met in your life (you've met some, right?) instead of the Super Elite Country Club, populated by the creepy bunch of sanctimonious assholes, as per my native creed (am i projecting here?).

What if we had a world where love, truth, beauty, forgiveness, were the highest ideals? What if we acknowledged the beauty and creativity in every child? What if we constructed a society that rewarded the kind? What if we valued people's contribution to the world by how much they gave, not how much they had? What if...anyway, you get the idea...I'm dreaming this morning of the land of Cotton, where it's easy, sweet, soft and cool...

Of course, I think it's better to just be dreaming of such a place, it wouldn't be a good place to actually live, not as a human being, too boring, (we need that constant play of dark and light), but it'd be a great place to visit once in a while, a counter-balance to the Land of the Knives!

By the way, I'd like to honor one (two) of my heroes: 50th Anniversary, Howl, In loving memory Allen Ginsberg 1926 - 1997

"Because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace things, but burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes 'AWWW!'"

Jack Kerouac
On the Road
1957

UPDATE: I read this post to the Lovely Carla (I'm really flying this morning), and her pithy response, "Dude, you are so old!"

"Ride the snake, to the lake..." - The Doors

So, I did the whale hunt yesterday (see previous post), made the long trek, it took almost three CDs to get there: Dylan's "New Morning" ("Brighton Girls are like the moon"), "Cream Live" ("I'm a sleepy-time boy, I live a life of joy."), and "Jugula" - Roy Harper and Jimmy Page ("I'm stoned...out of my bone.")

Turns out, everything is still as clear as the murky mud. I saw the white whale, I swear, it leaped in front of me, it looked me in the eye, by god, I think it smiled and winked! I realized I am not to kill the beast, instead, I must ride it, (Just like Jim Morrison, riding that snake to the lake.), I am not the "whale slayer," no, I am the "whale rider!"

I must be gentle, I must be patient, I must be humble...and yes, I must be brave!

Here's the vision: I will let it all go, I will enter the water, I will swim out into the deep blue, I will wait (all alone) for the beast to come to me. I will offer myself up, I will latch on, gently, silently. I will try to guide this white immensity into calm waters, we will ride together, we will dance with the moonbeams, we will chase the sun...

"I still haven't found what I'm looking for..." - U2

That lyric was dancing in my head this morning. Never really thought the line was all that musical, but I've always endorsed the sentiment. My days lately have seemed like an extended, "search," for something, but in my case, not only have I not found what I'm looking for, but I don't even know what I'm looking for. It's an odd existence, but I call it "mine."

So, I'm on the hunt, looking out for anything that might "grab" me. I'm the hunter and inexplicably, the hunted. Kind of like in that early 1960's show, "The Fugitive." A man (a cultured man) on the run from the law, falsely accused, (he looked guilty of something!) seeking out an elusive truth, which dances in front of him, and continually evades him from episode to episode. Think also, "The Fugitive Kind," (T. Williams - Brando in a snakeskin jacket!)...that's the ticket.

So the fugitive, the seeker, is on the run...is he running to or from?!

"You can be invisible too!"

I was so jazzed up last night, I could not sleep. It might have something to do with the heat and humidity. It's like a switch was turned on, and there was no turning off. Yesterday, I kind of floated through the world, without being able to latch onto anything. There were moments, all alone, waiting for a phone call, when I actually felt I had finally acheived invisibility. My job expects me "to make things happen," but sometimes I get the distinct impression that things "just happen;" I am less of an actor, and more of a witness.

"And what did you see my blue-eyed son? And what did you see, my darling young one..."

I saw a world, spinning on it's axis, it went around so fast, I couldn't even tell it was moving. I walked around on this little planet, wondering if there were other worlds spinning too. I wondered if there was anyone else out there, silent, invisible, wondering just like me.

El Jaguar

Yesterday was kind of a lost day for me. I'll chalk it up to the barometric pressure. My little "house of cards," kind of came tumbling down around my feet. I plugged into my walkman (Led Zeppelin III!) and watched the lightening show. Electricity is my life!

Up early this morning, working on a pot of "El Jaguar," special organic coffee from Nicaragua. Oh Sandinista!! I'm thinking about our corrupt money politics. There's this from Benito Mussolini: "fascism should more properly be called corporatism since it is the merger of state and corporate power."

We live in the belly of the corporate fascist beast! Can we possibly kill the fucker from the inside out? El Jaguar says, "YES!"

"Let's Play God!"

Lately, I've had this idea, that I'm searching for "the next thing," that there's something waiting to descend upon me. In a recent conversation, I was offered the idea that, "maybe you've already found it, you're already onto the next thing."

This kind of took me by surprise, and you know what, I think it's true. I'm already in the midst of the "next thing," eventhough I don't exactly know what it is, kind of like that ancient concept (see Plato) that what we are "learning" is really just a process of "remembering," as if we are victims of some grand, metaphysical amnesia.

So when we "wake up," we are waking up to what we already know, or at one time knew (Is this encoded in our DNA? Are we rediscoving our own "God-like" properties?). Maybe our process of discovery, is a process of re-discovery. Maybe we need to find this out for ourselves? Maybe our education, our society, our civilization has been erected to make us dumb, stupid and blind?

It sure would explain a lot.

Space, Mass, Consciousness

Yesterday, late afternoon, I'm out on the the street corner, waiting for the light to change, one of those moments where you're just waiting for red to turn to green, and I'm thinking, it's a great day to be alive. Better than the alternative. Or at least that's the conventional wisdom.

We don't really know do we? And where were "we" all those many millions of years that preceded "us?" Where will we be many millions of years hence? I guess it's all idle speculation, the kind of thing that can get you from one moment to the next.

Then it's green -- time to go. So, I step into the road, the sun is setting, it's Friday, September 30, 2005. Tick, Tock.