The Always Unraveling Shit-Show, Right Now...

"People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state on innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.” - James Baldwin

Folk #1: Yes. Indeed. Are you watching the relentless, always unraveling Shit-Show perpetrated by the Trump Adminstration? Sure. You want to fucking tune it all out. But it is your duty to watch, observe, note; to take in all the idiocy, corruption, & banditry of this grotesque collection of fucks, thugs, & creeps.  It is astonishing. The level of incompetence & depravity flowing from this crew is absolutely breath-taking. It is happening in all departments, all levels. You want to turn away. You don't really want to take in the carnage. But you must take it in. It is your responsibility as a thinking Human Being.

Human Drama & Trauma. Oh, Well...

"He tried to do his best, but he could not..." - Neil Young (Tired Eyes).

Folk #1: Aye. There's the rub. Here we are. Born into Paradise. Taking it totally for granted. Still, doing our best to make it day to day. Sometimes hitting the target, often falling short. That's the Human drama & trauma. There is something noble in trying to be a good person, despite the odds & circumstances. Keeping perspective. Being philosophical. Aware, alive, awake. Classic dichotomy we traverse: Failure vs. Success. Ultimately we are all graded on a curve. No perfection here. Every win is a loss too. Strange how that works. Knowing when to jump into the fray, knowing when to refrain. Noise & Silence vying with each other. There is "Yes," and there is "No."  Picking & choosing. Being careful, and boldly passionate too. Cool, calm, collected. Totally engaged & committed. WTF. Embracing Life, no matter what. Yes.

Ridiculous...

Folk #1: Question of the morning: How did it all get so ridiculous? The news, the humans, the freaking world? It's a head-scratcher, The Theatre of the Absurd writ large. One can't help feeling like a Samuel Beckett character trapped in a Shakespearean tragedy. It's an odd life, in an odd world. There are people in positions of great power who are supposed be smarter than me, who are definitely not smarter than me,  doing really stupid, corrupt, silly shite. Still, one must carry on, one must pretend that it's all going to work out fine. Why? Well, just because. "I can't go on... I must go on..."

A Long-Form Collaboration with the Universe...

Yes. This book by the "legendary music producer," Rick Rubin: "The Creative Act: A Way of Being," is a good read. Anyone "being creative," which includes all of us, will get something from it. It is a bit of a philosophical/spiritual tract, a manifesto, a long-form essay, a unargumentative argument for being a Creative Being & Being Creative & living a Creative Life. Rick makes the case that we are here to manifest ourselves in collaboration with the Universe. When we create anything, a conversation, a building, a novel, a song, whatever, we are dipping into, and bringing forward, ideas from the Source, and manifesting that inspiration forward into the world. I like to say,  doing the creative work is "the good work;" a discipline, a process, a mission, that gives our lives meaning & purpose. And by doing the work, we transform our selves, and our lives. Powerful shite. Rubin delves deep into the subject, and shines a light on all its various, angles & contradictions. It's a pretty definitive discussion of the subject and shows the way that creativity can emerge, be channeled, & ebbs & flows. It's a bit of a "how-to," manual, but it's put forward as a long-form suggestion, "take what you need, and leave the rest." I took most of it in. Most of the book totally resonates with my own lived experience. For me there were no great surprises, I feel like I have "lived this book," throughout my very own long-form, creative journey; writing stories, poems, plays, putting on plays, performing, directing, and then, writing songs, organizing bands, rehearsing, performing & recording. It's a way of Life a way of Being. The best kind. So, yes, for me, this is quite the validating book. Rubin also brings a Zen-like quality to his Life & his writing, he embodies a kind of spiritual practice that shines through every sentence. Yes. And his dedication to meditation, to observing & learning from Nature, hits home too. I too use this two-pronged approach in my creative practice. Anyway, I do recommend the book, I think it will appeal to pretty much anyone. My only little quibble, this kind of all encompassing, grand vision seems a little too neat. I tend to retreat to the shadows. I don't like to over-think my creative process. My creative process is sort of a mystery to me, and I want to keep it that way. Some how, some way it works for me. Every time a riff, a lyric, comes, it's a surprise. It's an organic method, inspiration just emerges. Usually my best work comes from my subconcious pool of being. I am always trying to get out of my head & into another realm, the realm of pure creativity. Rick acknowledges that approach too. The book is quite magnificent in it's very own unique way.

The Ever-Unfolding Train-wreck America...

Folk #1: Their total incompetence & blatant corruption is going to catch up to them.Welcome to Trump-land. It's an ugly, cruel, violent, stupid place. Remember it is the Republicans who insist everyone should be armed with weapons of every kind. It is Republicans who support ICE terrorizing folks, shooting folks in the street, and hustling kids, grandmas, and hard-working folks off to concentration camps, or deporting them to distant lands. The rest of us can see the deep immoral flaws and inhumanity in those ideas. It's getting crazier by the day. We are definitely living in a Banana Republic. One can only gaze in wonder at the relentless, on-going unraveling of America. A violent train-wreck every day & night. 24/7 madness. Yikes.

How to Be Decent?

Folk #1: You know, I don't think it's that hard. What does it take to be a decent Human Being? Kindness, gentleness, awareness, a sense of responsibility, doing what you said you were gonna do, basically, being reliable, truthful, feet on the ground, open to learning, being curious about the world and other people, being creative, improvisational, willing to admit you are wrong when you are wrong, willing to change your mind in the face of evidence & reality, being humble, willing to help others, trying your best to do a good job, staying busy & engaged, being vigiliant about your biases, your prejudices, your blind-spots, keeping your shit together, guarding against your own bloated sense of importance, learning from Nature, spending time mediating, or contemplating the passing scene, taking care of yourself and others. Leaning to the Light, finding meaning in your Life & the Universe. Sure, it's a day to day proposition. Never take anything for granted. Watch your step, always hold the rail going down the stairs, be careful to nuture yourself with good food, drink, being super-vigilant about the drugs you put into your body. Hone a reliable sense of humor, don't take it all too seriously. It's Life. A Life. Do your best.

Clear the Noise, Take Care...

Folk #1: Supposedly, we humans are born with two innate fears: fear of falling and fear of loud noises. All of the other fears that we carry around with us are learned behaviors. Can we do a reboot? Can we clear our internal space of all these other learned fears? How do it? Who knows?! Maybe just knowing that those are the two go-to fears, the primal, essential ones, the basics that we need for pure survival, we can evaporate all the other noisy fears out of our personal space? Living with less fear, more clarity. Most days I have a go-to mantra that I repeat to myself: "Don't hurt yourself." Most of my wounds & scars have come from self-sabotage; poor choices, bad luck, wrong-place, wrong-time, you know, accidents & incidents. Taking care of ourselves should be priority #1; trying our best to eat well, sleep well, being fully-engaged in the Universe, aware & progressively-woke, avoiding the toxic people, toxic ideas and toxic scenes all around us. Living well seems essential to a well-rounded existence. It's a process, a long-form improv, a day to day experiment. We must do our best to take care of ourselves and the others close to us as we navigate this tricky, complicared world. It seems that it is easy to lose ourselves; to fall off the path, to get stuck, to take stupid, self-defeating detours. Often we are our own worst enemies. It is easy to become fractured, disengaged, clumsy, unthinking, lonely, isolated, on automatic-pilot, just going thru the motions. That is not the way to do it.

Best to Turn Away...

Folk #1: My partner and I listened to the radio yesterday. Folks were dicussing the latest lying idiocies of our President and his administration. We both concluded that just by listening to the stories, trying to understand, or make sense of, to decode all the lies & the idiocies coming from the mouths of these corrupt imbeciles, actually makes one very, very stupid indeed. You know, swimming in the pool of lies & idiocies is a fruitless, debilitating, disheartening exercise. Trying to make sense, trying to discern some intelligence, or truth, is just a silly, pointless, brain-numbing game that burns brain cells. Much of our media is consumed with this madness. Yikes. Best to turn that shite off. There are signs of intelligent life on the planet, but they are few and far between. Somewhere else. Better to head to the lakefront bench and take in the blue horizon and lapping waves.

Masters of War...

Folk #1: Hmmm... I wonder why these lyrics from Bob Dylan's great song, "Masters of War," are ringing thru my head this morning?

"And I hope that you die

And your death’ll come soon

I will follow your casket

In the pale afternoon

And I’ll watch while you’re lowered

Down to your deathbed

And I’ll stand o’er your grave

Til I’m sure that you’re dead"

Bad Karma?!

When?

Folk #1: Oh my. We are in the "monkey flinging shite around his cage" phase of this Presidency. A frantic, desperate Fat man careening around, shouting, cursing out his aides, realizing he has totally fucked up. And his boot-licking minions are scurrying around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to clean up his mess. But, of course, it's a mess not easily cleaned up. Their go-to solution, lying about it all, doesn't really work. Yikes. Starting a war in the stupidest way possible, and now the stupidity, the idiocy just continues to multiply. It's like watching a really stupid car crash over & over & over again. One wonders: "When will this craven, corrupt, immoral, idiocy end?"

What to Value?

Folk #1: Yes. We turned away from the Black Cloud of Shite hovering over & around us, (see previous post), and had a good Sunday anyway. That's the trick. Even though I basically felt like crap I carried on. I played my guitar in late morning, maybe came up with new riff, a seed for a new song. I read a few chapters of a book by Rick Rubin "The Creative Act: A Way of Being."  My partner cooked a fabulous mid-day, vegetarian meal. Then we trekked to a neighborhood bar & community meeting place and enjoyed a late afternoon of music, laughter, love, friendship, joy, crazy fun. We didn't play, we were just a small part of the audience. The bar was stuffed with an incredible array of creative humanity in all it's forms: musicians, teachers, artists, poets, interesting characters all. There was no talk of the shite, the doom, the Idiot, the War. All of that fell away. We got a bit silly, a series of comical conversations; we just luxuriated in the good vibrations. It was all quite life-affirming. The current "leaders," of our country are not worthy. Let me just put down a marker: The Folk, The People, The Common Ones are so much better than those trying to remake the USA into a cruel Fascist Hellscape. A line out of the blue stuck with me: "It's all about values." Yes. What to value? Here's a pretty good list: https://jamesclear.com/core-values. We live in a world of darkness & light. Better to lean to the light, it's good for the heart, the head, the soul. There is goodness everywhere around us. Just need to be open, choose well.

A War on All Fronts...

Folk #1: What is America in this moment? Corruption & Lies. Wild. If you want to know what's happening in the latest chapter of President War Crimes war, you must tune into the statements coming from the Iranians. Crazy. I used to think that Trump's superpower was his ability to lie shamelessly. But I now think his inability to tell the truth ever, is his fatal flaw, and that fatal flaw is harmful to all of us. Trump is at war with the Iranians, the Europeans, the Press, the Pope, Democrats, Sanity, Rationality, & with Truth & Reality. It is an all encompassing war that he can't win, but his relentless raging & engaging in it means that we all lose. Fuck. We are trapped in a doom-loop with President War Crimes, and the Republican Party is sitting on their hands, enabling all of this disastrous dysfunction. We are well, & truly fucked...

Carry On My Wayward Son...

Folk #1: There is a certain peace that comes with the retreat to silence. Overloaded to the point of saturation. A turning away from the insanity & B.S. (see previous post). Processing through the noise. We are onto other things. Carrying on in the face of a decidedly grim reality, and pushing through to another, sunnier, perspective. Picking & choosing where to put one's attention. A survival tactic, a way of Life. Concentrating on the small, near to hand things. The way of Zen. Stripping things down to the essential. A clearing, a healing. 

The Breaking Point...

Folk #1: Yes. It was the week that broke our Lie Detector. Or maybe we should call it our Bullshit Detector? Let's say the terms are interchangable. We are living in the Era of Lies & Bullshit. We are swimming, & drowning in the face of a torrent, a raging river, of Lies & Bullshit. Of course, the tone is set by the over-amped example of our very own President War Crimes and his disgusting, corrupt administration of cowards & fools. Their Lies & Bullshit come fast & furious. Unrelenting. And if they are called out for their obvious idiocies & untruths, they double & triple down. It is quite astonishing & astounding. One cannot encompass the depths of bad faith, bad action, and damned Lies & B.S. of this bunch. Yikes. But, turns out, the Lies and the Bullshit come from every corner, every direction. All the major institutions are suspect. Everything seems unhinged from reality. One must be vigilant, willing to swim through the garbage to try to discern any semblance of truth or fact. It's exhausting. Debilitating. Finally your Detector is over-loaded. You just have to turn it off, & turn away.  "No more, I've had it up to here." Sure, it's a retreat, an abdication, but it seems necessary, just to survive, we must put our awareness somewhere else. So we trek to the waterfront, sit on a bench, bathe in the sunshine and watch the waves crash into the sand. We take a deep breath, and another. Oh, yes. Life.

Leaving Normal Behind...

Folk #1: We left "normal" behind. There is no normal. There is only the ever-present NOW. And it's wild, strange, weird. I have this sneaking suspicion that it has always been so, thinking, maybe, the Human Drama is always unhinged? But, I'm not really sure about that. It could be that at this time we truly have reached some kind of peak abnormality. The Universe is extraordinary, mysterious, unexplainable, no doubt. We Humans are just one little example of Life displaying itself in it's many-splendored forms. Nothing really all that special about the Human Species. We are full of ourselves, we tend think we are the Center of the Universe, we are  pretty much misguided, clueless, arrogant, ignorant. I suppose I am a bit skeptical of my Species. Skeptical of myself too. Can I get it straight? Can I find my way? Can I get through a day without fucking up? I am left with: Doing the best with what I have.  You know, Leaning to the Light & Damn the torpedoes.

A Houdini Act...

Folk #1: "Having it," and "Not Having it," Aye, there's the rub. The uncertainty, chaos, and unhinged nature of our present circumstances, plays havoc with our sunny disposition and general well-being. It's a balancing act, a psychic battle, where the forces of "unbalance," seem to be ascendant. It is important to "have" the moments of  one's Life. Each moment is precious. At the same time, the bad deeds, the insanities, the corruption, the stupidites, and total B.S. of our current very fallible Human drama, demands a bit of a retreat, a decided step back, an abdication to a place of silent stupefication and contemplation. "Not having it," is very important, totally essential to good mental hygene too. This Hurly-Burly nonsense is a confluence of confusion, noise, idiocy & deviancy. How to confront these forces of madness, and ungoodness, head-on, and let them go simultaneously? A bit of a Houdini Act.

From the Get-Go...

Folk #1: Yes. It's always been a rigged game, from the get-go. Still, you have to play, find your spots, that's Life. Not fair? Too bad. You take your chances. Damn the torpedoes. Roll the dice. Pull the card. Play. Yes. You Play as if your Life depended upon it. Because, of course, it does...

Undermining the Dolt, the Fool...

Folk #1: Two great stories this weekend. 

First: Democracy & People Power won in Hungary. So beautiful, and feeds Hope for a better day & better way all around the globe. The Authoritarian/Autocrat Orban was defeated in a landslide after 16 years of "illiberal rule." Endorsements from Trump & JD Vance seem to have worked in reverse, the Kiss of Death for the wanna-be strongman. The opposition won by promising to clean up the system, refortify Democracy & Inclusion,  to confront corruption. Not a bad example for the forces of Democracy here in USA. People Power. All it takes is organizing, educating & voting. 

Second: Our Idiot, Failing & Flailing President directly attacked Pope Leo in a post last night. So, so funny. Talk about someone punching out of their class & league. In a battle between Trump & the Pope, my money is on the Pope. As Donald Fagan might put it: Leo is a "Major Dude." Is the Pope "soft on crime?" Hmmm. Remember that other Dude, the one nailed to a cross, one of his last acts was to forgive a thief. Yes. Jesus too was "soft on crime," he was all about "Love & Forgivness." There are 1.422 billion Catholics in the world. Not all of them are politically aligned with the Pope, but I think it's safe to say that the majority of them have great respect for Pope Leo. If you were looking for an "anti-Trump," you couldn't do better than Pope Leo.

Yes. Two great developments that undermine Trump and his misguided adminstration here and around the globe. The sands are shifting under Trump & his delusional MAGA movement. There is no longer any sold ground under that man's feet. Collapse. Yes. One can see it out on the horizon. I say, "Let it come down!"

State of the Folk...

Folk #1: Take it from a well-situated Folk. The Folk are unhappy & restless. Sure, we all can still party; music, laughter, joy, enthusiastic displays of comaraderie, bounded by the bleakness; all that positive hubbub is bounded by a few deep & dark conversations about "What's going on?" There is a weird head-game we are all playing, two competing states of being, fighting it out in our head-space: "We're fine, everything is OK." Vs. "Holy Shit, how did it all go so wrong?!" Then, back to music, funny stories, giddy laugher. We are dangling over a cliff, thanking our lucky stars that we're at least still dangling... until... well... who knows what the future holds?

What Next?!

Folk #1: What happens next?! The Fat Man is going to try to bullshit his way through it. He is convinced that his relentless stream of gibberish can help him bend reality to his will. The Press will eat it up like happy little suberviant lap-dogs. Most of us, the senisible ones, will try to ignore him, and if we catch a stray word or two, we will step away, spit, make the sign of the cross, dance in a circle, curse a few times, laugh & shake our heads "No!" I mean, "Good Lord!"