Life - It's Organic!

Organic growth. That's one way to think of your life. "Of, relating to, or obtained from living things."  Your life is organic in itself. A slow unfolding. No artificial ingredients

Also, no plan. Lots of aimless wandering and spinning. Sometimes spinning out. A few dead-ends. Hard stops. Detours. You emerge, as you emerge.

Early on you may have been attracted to the odd cases, the wizened souls, the interesting characters. And then, one day, you realize you are all that, and more, or less. But not exactly what you imagined you would be.

And you are still living, growing, emerging. At least as long as you breathe...

whitewolfsonicprincess on WGN Radio - The Nick Digilio Show - Weds Morn!

I just don't have the R&R lifestyle thing down. Stay up late. Play music on the big-time Chicago radio Station! Yes whitewolfsonicprincess (3 of us) were on WGN, the Nick Digilio Show... and still up early with the sun and the birds. 

It's that damn coffee machine. It calls me from the kitchen, "Get in here, brew a pot of coffee and let's get started."

I will sleep later. I have coffee to drink and plans to hatch! BTW- Nick was just the best - funny and cool!

Go Woman!

Yeah. This election will be an easy one for me. The first Woman nominated to run for President by a major U.S. political party VS. A Confirmed, Over the Top, Racist?

I can vote and sleep easy, no matter what happens after election day. I will vote my conscience, I will vote enthusiastically. I will hope for a better tomorrow. Go Woman!

Scam-Artist, Flim-Flam Man!

You can call the guy names. But that doesn't really get to the heart of it. He really is a scam-artist, a film-flam man, a human being totally unqualified to seek the office he is supposedly seeking.

Even his intention to be the Big Kahuna seems like some kind of scam or bluff. It's hard to believe he really wants the job. Actually, it's hard to believe he wants any job, except being himself, he is just a brand name, seeking things in which to slap his brand upon. What an exquisite blow-hard extraordinaire. A blow-hard of epic proportions.

And there is a deep ugliness about the whole scam. But maybe it is that ugliness that he is really selling us. And the ugliness is latent in our politics. The deep ugliness is a feature, not a flaw of the man, and the "movement" (Neo-Reaction?). So if you point out the racism, the misogyny, the xenophobia, the authoritarianism and bullying, well you are actually pointing out the strong points of this particular phenomenon.

Doubt, Fear, Guilt, Worry.

Doubt, fear, guilt, worry. 

Sometimes you think it would be better to live without these things.  Clear your mind. Drop the baggage. Live clean.

But then again maybe they are useful tools. Tools that must be used wisely. It's all about proportion and balance.

Clear skies, cloudy skies.  Each has their benefits and positive attributes. So guilt can be useful. Worry, fear, doubt too...

"I aint' got no quarrel with those Vietcong..." - M. A.

I heard the news today. Decades of my life flashed inside my head. And the tears, they fell like rain...

"Floats like a Butterfly, stings like a bee..."

Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali - 1942 - 2016

“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years.” M.A.

"It just doesn't matter..."

Bad Day? An astrophysicist explains why "It just doesn't matter."

Yes, the immensity of space does freak me out. Toss in the immensity of time too. Space and time. Both immensities totally do freak me out. Against those two mind-boggling immensities there is me/you. Tiny, insignificant, me/you.

It can be overwhelming. And ego-deflating. 

"Sure, space is unimaginably vast, and you're just a tiny speck of speckiness in the vast wheeling cosmos. But does that mean you're insignificant and unimportant? Yes, it does. And that's awesome because what that means is you're off the hook."

This astrophysicist advises us to embrace our insignificance. No matter what happens, at our level of tiny-ness, "It just doesn't matter." I suppose this totally contradicts one of my core ideas - "Everything counts." But then again, maybe not.

How about "Yes, everything counts and, yes, guess what, it just doesn't matter?!?"

A Leap to Goat!

You think transgender is a leap? To go from male to female, or female to male, or to be indeterminate? Not such a big deal.

How about going from a man to a goat? Or a badger?  Now that's a leap. I have to say that I thought Joshua Rothman's article in the New Yorker was funny. Super-funny.

Not sure if trying to live like a goat in every way possible is ridiculous, fabulous, silly, a pathology, or what. Maybe a bit of all of that. Once we go past imagination, observation & study and try to make the leap into another species, I think we are entering some kind of zone of madness.

Still lots of interesting ideas surfaced in the reading. Especially the concept of "Umwelt" - a "self-centered world." Each species is coming from a completely different world, dictated by their environment. When we as human beings talk about other species, and try to measure them in relation to human beings, we do them a great disservice.  Our worlds are so different. 

"Literally, Umwelt means “surroundings,” but those surroundings can be cognitive and existential as well as physical. “Umwelt stresses an organism’s self-centered, subjective world, which represents only a small tranche of all available worlds,” de Waal explains. A reindeer’s Umwelt includes forests lit with ultraviolet light. An eyeless tick’s includes not just the smell of butyric acid, which wafts from mammalian skin, but the years-long wait for a moment of succulent opportunity. "

Our Job on the Planet!

Yes. So what is our job here on the planet? Be aware. Be awake. Pay attention. Cultivate compassion & empathy. Tell stories. Good stories. Stories others want to hear. Stories that inspire. Take nothing for granted. Remember that every step, every thought, every action counts. Remember you are in charge of yourself. You are the boss of you. You are connected to everything and everyone. You are unique. You are like & unlike any other being that lives, or has lived, or will live. Unlike and alike at the same time. Enjoy your time. It's precious.

The Heart of the Matter - Atoms vs. Stories!

Our lives: 3 Billion Heartbeats (give or take)... 

"Poetic Naturalism." -- The universe is made of atoms. We are made of atoms. But our understanding of the universe is a story. For us, the universe is a rollicking mass of stories.

"Purpose and meaning in life arise through fundamentally human acts of creation, rather than being derived from anything outside ourselves." - S. Carroll

The world is the world. We get to choose how we decide to talk about the world. We choose the stories we tell...

In the Past, Now in the Moment!

The last few weeks, the past keeps slapping me upside the head. The longer I live, the longer the past gets. Usually, I am not a backward-turning type. I would rather look forward, than back.

What am I gonna do today, not what did I do yesterday. 

Of course, I don't want to forget the past, or at least not most of it. And it's all probably written in my bones whether I want it to be or not.

I am the past. All those events over the years add up to me now. It's a process. I can look at it all as a strange, crooked, path: missteps, false starts, dead ends. But I can't imagine really changing the past.

I mean, that's not right. Sure, I'd like to change some events in the past, but it's not possible. I can choose to forget, or I can re-interpret, or re-imagine, the past, but knowingly doing that would be a lie. Right?

Better to remember where you came from. Helps you understand who you are now. And what I am in this moment is informed by what I was over the years. 

So yes, don't need to wallow in the past, the past is all around me, like a halo, every moment. I am the past now in the moment.

Always a Better Day!

Put your finger on the problem? I would say, a crisis of spirit - a deficit or lack, or a deep unmet need. Not a spiritual crisis - typically caused by a spontaneous spiritual experience.

We don't have enough spontaneous spiritual experiences. Or if we do, we don't recognize them, or accept them, or just don't see/feel them.

Speak to the people. Meet and greet. There is a great yawning need. A gap. A burning churn. A great lack -  of belief, of meaning, of purpose.

I am not big on the "religion thing," but I am all about spirit. I am pretty sure we must believe in the power of belief. We must be careful of what we choose to believe. We must choose wisely.

There are some basics to my belief: We are more than our bodies. We are all connected. There is a mystery underlying our existence. We are a small part of a much bigger puzzle. Everything counts.

We are everything and nothing. It's complicated.

We get to choose our belief, our meaning, our purpose. Surprisingly, mysteriously, no matter what, I believe in a better day. Always a better day... laughter, love, wonder... and that's enough...

The "Meg Thing!"

I was talking to a friend about the "Meg thing," (see previous post), and he thought the whole thing was childish. To break up a band after an argument about Meg's drumming style... "They're acting like 8 year olds!"

I thought to myself, but didn't say, "No, you don't get it!" 

Aesthetics. What is good. What is beautiful. A disagreement on fundamentals is the most intense and important kind of disagreement. It can be fatal to a group. 

It helps if people are on the same wavelength - a shared vision, but, of course, differences can also feed the collaboration and make a group stronger. It depends, right? 

But, no, not childish. Or not only childish, deeply important too.

It Came Down to Meg!

A friend's band, an up and coming outfit, just broke up. They did some nice shows. Did a little tour. Appeared on a big time radio show. Why did they break up? 

Artistic differences!

It all came down to an argument about the White Stripes. Remember them? One band member absolutely loves Meg White's intuitive, innocent, child-like and musically crazy drumming skills. Loose, sloppy. Short of technique, but pretty amazing. Feeling trumps technique.

The other band member thinks her sloppiness, her loose-ness, is messy and terrible. No skill, no technique. Sinks the Stripes sound. Technique trumps feeling.

Put me, of course, in the first camp. Love Meg!

UPDATE: As for Jack, no question. Meg and her intuitive approach to the drum kit was the heart and soul of the White Stripes. Check out his conversation with Kot & Derogatis on Sound Opinions to hear it first-hand!

"We don't want a revolution..."

A good friend reminds me - "We don't want a revolution." As Chairman Mao once said, "Revolution is not a dinner party." We don't want fighting in the streets. We don't want to ratchet up the chaos. We don't want beheadings, car-bombs and herding people into holding tanks.

We don't want to ban people. And build walls. We don't want a Strongman shaking things up. Really.

We might want health-care for all, free college and a more equal society. We might want to end political stalemate, but things can go really wrong, really fast.

Empower a clueless rabble-rouser and see what kind of havoc and malice can be released. That's not the future we want to see. No kidding. Really.

A Stark Choice!

I for one would be totally happy with a workaholic, a "tough as nails" woman, a super-wonk who knows the issues intimately, who does policy and process, and revels in the doing of politics. Serious.  Super-qualified. A woman of substance. Progressive. Intelligent. 

The alternative is a bloated, big-man, who believes that the world revolves around him. An American Putin. Hair-challenged. In love with his own brand. Lazy. The man is lazy. And has no clue what he doesn't know.

Or as Elizabeth Warren tells us: "a small, insecure, money-grubber..."

Pretty stark and easy choice. Wonder what America will decide?

Tribes...

Tribe. If I'm a member of a tribe, it's a very loose affiliation of creators, odd-balls, mis-fits, underdogs, dreamers. The tribe of outcasts from other tribes. It's a wide-open, open-arms, kind of tribe. We welcome free-thinkers, seekers, searchers, those who are lost and just don't feel welcome anywhere else.

"You're not from around here, are you? Welcome."

That's It. Life!

You unplug from social media, you unplug from social contact. You turn the radio off. You don't turn on the TV, you don't put on a CD. You sit in silence. You go for a walk. You look at the blue sky. You watch the day fade to black. You look at the big, fat moon. It's up there. It's always been up there, doing it's thing. You realize you could fall off the face of the planet and no-one would notice. At least for awhile. It's almost like you disappear. You are in your head, but you can even sort of turn off that constant internal monologue. And you are left with space. Silence. The beating of your heart. One breath after another. That's it. Life!

A King for Sure!

I'm staying at a big mansion a block from the shores of Lake Michigan. Tom Petty's song "It's Good to Be King," is playing. I'm here with a four-legged friend. I am the care-taker for the weekend.

I am living like a King here. Sort of a low-rent, temporary, just for the weekend King, but a King none the less. I'm in charge. No one is around to contradict or disagree with me. A King. A lonely King. A King with no real subjects. No one around to subject to my whims, unless you count my four-legged friend, but him, I give a pass. He's just such a good buddy. He's a bit like my own furry Court Jester.

Here I do what I want, when I want. Play guitar. Sing songs. Make pasta. Eat frozen yogurt. I'm on my own time-table. I am a master of myself. The weather has turned for the better. So even the sky, the sun, the stars and moon seem like they belong to me.

No problems. No effort. No feedback or noise. A sort of weekend paradise. So yes, a King of no consequence but a King for sure. 

"It's fun being scum, too." - J. Lydon

I saw that Johnny Rotten/Lydon has a new book out called "Anger is an Energy." I put it on my wish list immediately. In the meantime, I went back to re-read (yes, really),  his "No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs."

It is a rollicking good time. Johnny is one of the all-time great R&R characters - a bit of Oscar Wilde, a bit of Olivier's Richard III, a bit of Iggy Pop, another Anglo-Irish rogue in a long line of Anglo-Irish rogues, think J. Lennon and Steven Morrissey too.

One look, one quick listen, and you immediately got  the whole Rotten/Sex Pistols thing. "Anarchy in the U.K." Johnny is funny, intelligent, and oh so quotable. Came across this and it seems just as true today as when he wrote it in the 1990's.

"That's the trouble with working-class people throughout the world. They always try to spur their hatred onto what they see as being lower down the scale, rather than going for the fucking jugular of the upper- and middle-class bastards who are keeping them down in the first place. We were the Irish scum. But it's fun being scum, too." - J. Rotten/Lydon