Deadly Virus + Human Stupidity = Sickness & Death

I am not one to "run scared." But scary news this a.m. The folks who have refused to get vaccinated here in USA are now putting us all at risk, even those of us who have done the right thing and have been vaccinated. The virus is mutating & evolving. It has the potential to get more transmissible and more deadly. The vaccines that scientists have developed to fight Covid-19, are the best way to avoid sickness and death but the humans who refuse to play along are now helping the virus find new ways to infect all of us, vaccinated and unvaccinated.  

If all of us were vaccinated we could end Covid-19 as a threat to our health, we could put this scourge behind us. But the Anti-VAXX folks are keeping it alive, and they may end up defeating the vaccine, and giving a long life to a continually evolving virus.

Deadly Virus + Human Stupidity = Sickness & Death.

So unnecessary, so needless, so stupid. The Tricky Monkeys have tricked themselves into a pickle.

Long & Short...

Long Question: Is it wrong to blame folks who refuse to get vaccinated for the new crisis in America, the crisis of the Delta Variant, which is more transmissible, and maybe more deadly than the original strain of the Covid-19 Virus, you know deadly enough to put folks in the hospital, in the ICU, on ventilators and in the grave?

Short Answer: Hell NO! Blame away! 

You know, anyone refusing the vaccine today is an idiot who is endangering themselves and others. WTF!

Seeking Validation...

Validating activities. You know, activities that are rewarding & make you feel good to be alive? Best to fill yourself up with as many as you can.

The Invalidation comes from all corners. Both Friends and Foes. You need to protect yourself. Find a calm center. Ground yourself. Run Gold Energy thru the cells of your body. Imagine a safe space, a Secret Garden, a cozy hide-away inside. Go there in times of stress. Stress is the great killer and it is the aquarium in which we swim.

Everything counts. 

Breathe. It is good to be alive. Living is the thing. Living well is it's own adventure and reward. Validating. Moment by Moment.

It is Pretty Easy To Spot The Death Cult

Yes. We had the radio on yesterday morning. Listening to NPR and the testimony from Cops who were besieged at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. You know, the brave Police Officers who were defending the Congress and the count of the Electoral Votes in the Senate to certify Joe Biden's landslide election.

What was our reaction to the testimony? It was all quite disturbing. Words that bubble up: horrifying, gut-wrenching, heart-rending, emotionally-draining. 

We relived moments of that terrible day. A day when the MAGA-hatted, White Supremacist, American Fascist movement tried to impede and destroy our little Democratic experiment. All based on Trump's Big Lie.

All the testimony was riveting and disturbing. Everyone should take the time to listen. We came so close to an even more horrific day. Luckily, the MAGAs were repelled and expelled, and now many of them are facing major jail-time. A crime against the  America Dream committed by the Trump Fascist Nihilistic Death Cult.

The one question that hangs over the whole hearings, one that is still resounding in my head this morning:

Officer Hodges: "I need you guys to address if anyone in power had a role in this, if anyone in power coordinated, or aided or abetted, or tried to downplay, tried to prevent the investigation of, this terrorist attack."

I do think we have a few of the major culprits on our radar. Let's hope they are identified and prosecuted.

BTW - That Trump Death Cult also is anti-Vaxx and takes it's orders from Fox News. This cartoon, is so brutal, so true, and so sad too. People are dying from Political Stupidity and Hateful Nihilism. You know it is their choice to live in a bubble of White Supremacist Hatred, but we don't need to cater to them. We need to move on, with a better idea, a better America.  

Voices & Choices

Yes. We are in the era of "Voices & Choices." That's the way it should be. We are all here, on this little blue planet, this little spinning globe; we have a short window to do what we have to do before we melt back into the great unknown. So while we are here, might as well speak up, say what's on our minds, feed our heads with the best and brightest from the hearts and heads of our fellow humans. Plus don't forget the non-human sources of wisdom. I am thinking of the flora, the fauna and all the other pretty and not so pretty creatures with which we share this space. So many lessons and examples of how to live, to think, to feel, to see. I mean, check out an old, looming tree or the backyard garden; learn how to grow, how to stay alive, how to always be ready to improvise & evolve, and  how to turn to the light and soak it in.

Moment By Moment...

Maybe you don't usually think of it like this...

It is actually life-affirming, to have "shit to do." You know. A reason to get up. It can be simple things like: feed the cats, or the little birdies, or water the plants, or make a pot of coffee, or do the mundane tasks that will pay you a few shekels and get you to lunch. Reasons to move, to keep busy.

Besides your JOB, you can fill your days up with all kinds of activities. Some of them are "cooler" than others: play your guitar, sit on a bench, watch the waves roll in, ride your bike, read a few pages of a Roberto Bolano novel (one of my new obsessions), or put your amazing, high-fidelity, headphones on and listen to a Grateful Dead live show (another one of my latest obsessions).

Yes. This has been the summer of Bolano and the Dead. I have been filling my head, my ears with words and sounds. Long, rambling novels, such as "2666," (2013), "The Savage Detectives," (2012) and my latest shimmering, incandescent head-tripping discovery the Grateful Dead's three CD concert: "5/8/77 - Live at Cornell" (released in 2017), and, of course, a long-time favorite album, so vibrant, alive, graceful and majestic, the two CD "Europe '72" (1972).

Our lives are made up with little things. Lots of little things. Add them up and it can all be quite fulfilling. Transformative. A life, well-lived, moment by moment. It really doesn't take much to make it all compelling. A Helpful Tip: all of your little obsessions come in handy.

Blank Mind, Blank Page...

Blank mind 

blank page 

this morning. 

I type anyway

Words

tumble by 

I grab a few. 

I want to fill the void. 

An impulse. 

A habit. 

Words. 

Sometimes

most times 

they just flow.

This morning

head is empty

feel a bit like 

Richard Hell's

___________

Generation

Heat Dome...

The Weather People are telling us that the "Heat Dome," is coming to the Heartland. A Dome of Heat and Humidity is projected to settle over most of USA and cook everything. Yikes. Yesterday we got a preview: blazing sunshine, high humidity, lots of sweating, dizziness. It is summer, so, well, not totally unexpected, but this heat trend seems to be pointing to a new normal. 

What is a Humble Pilgrim to do? Hydrate. Add Electrolytes to your water. Drink major quantities of cold beverages: water, tea, kombucha. Stick to the shade. Hang with the greenery. It also helps to have a "cool room." One spot at home with A/C.  You need to find time to chill out. Wring out the sweat from your t-shirt and your socks (!?!).

You know, it's just the Weather. But the Weather dictates so much. We just take dictation. Go with the flow. When it's this hot, the flow is slow, muggy, hazy, & lazy. We still have so much to do. That's life. Sweating is just part of the deal. Can't help wondering if the Tricky Monkeys have outsmarted themselves. 

Did we fuck it all up? Just wondering.

Chaos and it's Synonyms are Winning...

"Chaos is winning!"

That was me speaking to my companion late yesterday afternoon. 

We had a fine day, but all the news was pretty much disconcerting & disturbing, and we both have that uncanny feeling that everything is coming unglued & unmoored. 

I think of Roberto Bolano, (I am so happy  to have "discovered" that amazing novelist during the lockdown and post-lockdown, up to today, I have read 2666 & Savage Detectives  - to read them is an  exquisite, life-changing experience) and, you know, taking off from Bolano, it's like we are now lost in the Sonoran desert in the mid-1970's, riding in a borrowed, dusty, rusty-old Chevy Impala, traversing hard, dirt roads leading to a grand-nowhere-infinity, chased by hard-boiled, snake-bitten, killers, with a long-lost, finally-found, but now dead, poetess in the back seat of the car.

You know, it feels like the center is not holding...

I went to the great Google this a.m. and typed in: What is the opposite of Chaos? 

The answer (not unexpected): order, orderliness...

But how about synonyms for Chaos? What a fabulous cornucopia of cool terms:

Synonyms for chaos chance-medley, confusion, disarrangement, disarray, dishevelment, disorder, disorderedness, disorderliness, disorganization, free-for-all, havoc, heck, hell, jumble, mare's nest,
mess, messiness, misorder, muddle, muss, shambles, snake pit, tumble, welter

These are the days...

Mother Nature on the Run...

Those of us who have been "alive, aware & awake" over the last few decades know that, as Neil Young once sang in "After the Gold Rush" (1970): "Look at Mother Nature on the run, in the nineteen seventies."

I mean, I don't want to be alarmist, but signs of the GREAT UNRAVELING of our Wonderful, Interconnected, Life-Supporting, Ecosystem is happening RIGHT NOW.

The evidence is everywhere. Floods. Fires. Locust. Ungodly Temps. Rainforest Dying. Permafrost Melting. Species disappearing at an unprecedented rate. Crazy-ass new viruses jumping species. 

OK. Maybe I do want to be alarmist. The amazing web of life that spawned us is DYING before our very eyes.

It's like we are all that dumb COVID patient who refused to get vaccinated, being wheeled into the ICU, gasping for breath, just about to be intubated because the virus is destroying him from the inside, and asking "Can I get the vaccine now?" And the Doctor or Nurse looking into their eyes, sadness welling up, and replying "Sorry. It's just too late."

We are getting awfully close to that situation Planet-Wide. Yikes. Human Beings you are fucking up, big time. Wonder when the "Cascade of Failure" kicks in? I am praying for an intervention for all of us.

Always Moving, Always Radiant...

Yesterday...

A classic, Midwestern, Summer Day...

It's hot, it's humid, the air is thick. Sweating is a given. A busy day, riding your bike to your appointed rounds. You take a break, buy yourself a bottle of mineral water, and you find a shady spot and sit like Buddha on a plush green lawn facing the lakefront.

You try to take a photo of your classic Motobene 10-speed, and instead, you reveal the underlying mystery of our always moving, always Radiant Universe.

Not Healthy!

This opinion piece from Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times is absolutely brilliant.

The fucking understatement of this still-young century: "A socially healthy society would probably never have elected Trump in the first place."

What would an "Everyday Kind of Pilgrim" say to that? "Fucking A!"

Also, Billionaires Blasting off into Space for a few brief minutes of a cheap and expensive thrill is another sign: Not healthy!

That Kind of Universe...

Sometimes you forget

but you should remember

that we live in a Universe

that encompasses & embodies

everything

all life

everything

animate 

inanimate

And CHAOS

and DISORDER

and ENTROPY

are features

not flaws

It's that kind of

UNIVERSE...

Best to 

get your

head 

around it...

Right...

I don't know, for some reason, Buffalo Springfield's Stephen Stills' lyric from "For What It's Worth," is running through my head this a.m. It is sort of a "go-to" posture...

"There's something happening here

But what it is ain't exactly clear..."

Pandemic of the Unvaccinated...

There is now a Pandemic of the Unvaccinated in parts of the country where there is plenty of vaccine to go around. Talk about the height of stupidity. We have reached a new watermark. There are the fear-mongers, the grifters, the shysters, the blow-hards, the conservative confidence men & women, the liars, the political opportunists, the disinformation merchants, the sowers of chaos; they are selling ignorance, fear, stupidity, anti-science, anti-common-sense & bad juju. They are selling Illness & Death.  I am amazed that many of my fellow Americans are buying into the con.  WTF!?!

Of course...

I suppose it might sound a bit trite, easy, obvious, and cliche. It's just a riff off of Joseph Campbell's great line: "Follow Your Bliss."

But, you know, our time on this planet is limited. We all are on a journey. A journey of self-discovery and self-actualization. We are all heroes of our own long and winding narratives. We are here to figure out what we can figure out, and to do our best to live with heart, soul and love.

We are here to experience life to the fullest.

We aren't alone. We share life with life-forms of all kinds. We are important to ourselves, and at the same time, if we are fully awake, we realize that life is a gift and the Universe is a hard, intimidating, awesome place that is not "all about us."

So, yes, "Do what you love," is probably the best advice you can give anyone. Find what you Love, and do that. As much, and as often, as possible. Maybe you love many things? If so, you are lucky. 

Fill your life with the things you love to do. I know, simple.

A Vanished Time...

Late afternoon yesterday we went to the movies, something we haven't done for more than a year and a half. It was a bit strange, surreal. Time-tripping to a past that doesn't really exist except in our heads. There is no normal, so it wasn't "getting back to normal," but it was a jaunt to a time when we did things we "used to do," like taking the train, and going to the big movie theater in the big city.

It was all a bit of a ghostly trip. We wore our masks, even though we are fully vaxxed. The train was pretty much empty. Late afternoon empty, but even emptier. And the streets of the city were deserted. So many boarded up spaces. So many missing businesses. So many missing pedestrians. There was a deep emptiness in every step. Not exaggerating. There was a profound void in the city streets that seemed to expand and swallow up what used to be there.

The theater is located in a big city mall. Totally empty except for one lonely hair salon. We trekked up the stairs to the little black-box theater spaces. Big empty theater. 5 lonely souls seated and waiting for a late afternoon movie. They renovated the space. The cramped theater seats are now plush barcalounger-type seats. I refused to push the button. Reclining back in a barcalounger just seems so uncool.

What did we see?

"Summer of Soul (... Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)" (2021)  a totally fabulous film directed by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson. 1969 in Harlem, NYC. A pivot point in our culture. A pivot point for "Black" America. A pivot point for the music of our lives.  

Just totally knocked us out. So many great performances: Mahalia Jackson, Mavis Staples and the Staples Singers, Sly and the Family Stone, Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, the 5th Dimension, B.B. King, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Hugh Masekela.  Astonishing.  

A vanished time. But, still, so many resonances with today. A history of where we've been and where we are now, and well, maybe where we're going. Racial injustice. Violence. Drug abuse. Fighting in the streets. Protest. Hope. Joy. Craziness. Beauty. Music. Inspiration. Soul. Blues. Funk. Community. The amazing, contradictory human story.  Essential viewing. No doubt.

"Pretty Out There."

Funny conversation last night in our little creative, dream-bubble. I found myself reassuring my main collaborator & partner in crime that when someone describes our band's (whitewolfsonicprincess) music as "pretty out there," it is not a knock, but a badge of honor. You know, we need to own our very unique & strange brew of creativity. Whatever flaws or limitations we have need to be incorporated and accented. Those quirks and flaws are features. Really. You know... Kick out the Jams, Damn the Torpedos. We need to be us to the absolute MAX. It's the only way. And that "Pretty Out There" comment validates that we are actually on the right track.  No doubt. Rock On!

Zero-Gravity = Cheap Ego Stroke = Whitey On the Moon!

Billionaires blasting off into space to float around in zero-gravity for a few minutes, seems to be the stupidest & costliest of cheap thrills ever. As someone else pointed out, maybe it just perfectly demonstrates the ridiculous, unsustainable income disparity between rich and poor? Maybe it's time to adjust the tax code for filthy-rich billionaires?  WTF. The planet is burning. The people are jumpy. Lots of problems on terra-firma that need to be addressed. Some rich dude burning cash and fuel on a mad ego-burnishing-quest.  This is not a positive new trend. Reminds me of that great Gil Scott-Heron tune inspired by the first Moon Landing: "Whitey on the Moon." Yikes. Come on Humans, we can, and must do better.

Whitey On the Moon

A rat done bit my sister Nell.

(with Whitey on the moon)

Her face and arms began to swell.

(and Whitey's on the moon)

I can't pay no doctor bill.

(but Whitey's on the moon)

Ten years from now I'll be payin' still.

(while Whitey's on the moon)

The man jus' upped my rent las' night.

('cause Whitey's on the moon)

No hot water, no toilets, no lights.

(but Whitey's on the moon)

I wonder why he's uppi' me?

('cause Whitey's on the moon?)

I was already payin' 'im fifty a week.

(with Whitey on the moon)

Taxes takin' my whole damn check,

Junkies makin' me a nervous wreck,

The price of food is goin' up,

An' as if all that sh*t wasn't enough

A rat done bit my sister Nell.

(with Whitey on the moon)

Her face an' arm began to swell.

(but Whitey's on the moon)

Was all that money I made las' year

(for Whitey on the moon?)

How come there ain't no money here?

(Hm! Whitey's on the moon)

Y'know I jus' 'bout had my fill

(of Whitey on the moon)

I think I'll sen' these doctor bills,

Airmail special

(to Whitey on the moon)

by Gil Scott-Heron - 1970

The Class of No Definition...

I refuse to be defined by others. Really. I will define myself. Human Being. Citizen of the World. Earthling. Radiant Being. Player. Poet. Prophet. Maladjusted Creative.

And don't put a number on me. I am not a number. Really. 

I am living here, now, in the moment. I can look backwards, I can get reflective, tell a story or two, but my past, and my stories, don't define me either. I can look forward, but it all looks misty and uncertain to me. And you know, I'm fine with all that.

I don't sum myself up, and I refuse to let anyone else sum me up either. I don't pine to belong. I am happy not belonging anywhere except in my "Own Private Idaho."

Alive. Aware. Awake. Ready for what's next. That's about it.