Too Much Too Soon

You must find your spiritual guidance where you can. You never know where the questions, or where the answers will originate. The Lovely Carla came back from a yoga session last week and told me, "you must accept your fate," before you can "change it." I put that in my spiritual pipe and smoked it good. I've been practicing the fatal embrace ever since.

Some folks look to this guy for insight, (he looks good in a flowing robe), but I prefer this wizened rock and roll dude for a more worldly perspective (have you ever seen another guy rock so hard in high-heels and pearls?):

"It's the self that finally reconciles effort and effortlessness, injury and forgiveness, control and surrender, conflict with others and accpetance of them, awareness of defects and unconditional love. You know why the self does this? Because it is pure unconditionality, which is all-inclusive love." - David Johansen.

Co-Conspirators

I have two great musical co-conspirators...this has been a fairly recent development that came out of Black Forest's last full-blown theatrical production, "Free Henry Goodbar, Telepath"

The first spinoff was a songwriting partnership with TPM in the form of this band: The Telepaths. If you have the time and the inclination, please turn your speakers up loud and check out our signature cut, "Area 51," as well as our newest stepchild, "Susan Sontag."

As a band we've already gone through three drummers, a couple of guitar players (we're ready for a VH1 Behind Music episode already!), it's just basically TPM and I keeping the r&r dream alive. Look for more good stuff in the future. We don't know where these songs come from, but it is our duty to channel them and bring them to the world!

Also, the Lovely Carla and I have been seriously (and not so seriously) been writing songs together. We're developing quite a catalog, and you will find some examples of our oeuvre here.

It's been a marvel and a pleasure to see the Lovely C. emerge as a songwriter and singer. Check out the beautiful, "Behind Closed Eyes," and the rocking "Her Stars, Her Wings."

I'm just basically going along for the ride...these two creative souls have been taking me in directions I didn't even know existed. It's really fun, exciting, truly the good work!

Strange Birds

After all this time, I'm finally venturing out of the Cro-Magnon phase of blogging to actually provide links in some of my posts. I just didn't know how, and I didn't worry about it, but I think it's a cool way of sharing info, and it's a tool used widely by most of my favorite bloggers. Sorry it's taken me so long to join the parade. Of course, once I realized how easy it really is, I feel kind of stupid. I'm not sure how often I'll really do it, but this morning, I decided to take the time to figure out how...

This morning, I'm listening to some new discs ("I am a Bird Now" and "Poses") that I purchased; two amazing performers, Antony and the Johnsons and Rufus Wainwright.

Two unique and inspiring voices. So delicate, so beautiful, sad too (especially Antony - his voice almost sounds too beautiful too affected to exist). Two strange birds too. I saw them both perform in the Leonard Cohen movie, I'm Your Man

I'm a big rock and roll fan, and I've learned to love performers who don't necessarily have wonderful voices, but when you hear Rufus and Antony, (both use strings and keyboards to great effect), you are reminded again that there are some vocalists who really can transport you to other realms of beauty just by how they hold a note, how a quiver, a catch in the voice, a certain phrasing, can change your world. Listen to Antony's delicate, otherwordly trill, listen to Rufus' powerful but delicate vocalizing bring something uniquely beautiful to Lennon's "Across the Universe."

Baby, it's cold outside, but with this music playing on the box, I'm feeling toasty all the way down to my strange bird soul...

Storm System

I'm not going to write about the weather, or well, hell, it's everywhere you look today, we're in the midst of a "major midwest storm system." Not all that bad if you have a home office and you've mastered your French Press, and you have a good supply of coffee beans to last for quite awhile.

Commandeering my computer, I've already visited Washington D.C. and British Columbia this morning. I 've conducted a teleconference bringing people together from Illinois, Wisconsin and California. I feel productive, although, it's the deep freeze, and well, I haven't ventured out of my humble abode yet today.

I had an incredibly long and restful sleep last night, which frankly can be all the difference. I feel a little more in tune with the rotation of the planet. Everything seems fine to me, even the snow and ice and wind gusts up to 50 mph. It's winter, in Chicago, and what else did you expect?

It's actually kind of reassuring that the weather, the natural world still has great influence over us. It's somtimes great when Mother Nature asserts herself (sometimes tragic too, I guess). In fact, those times when we tune it out, are really illusory times. We can fool ourselves with our other worlds. We are nature, and just like that falling snow, nature is us.

If we forget, it won't be long before we are reminded once again. And well, sometimes it's a hard lesson and sometimes it's a liberating rush...it depends on how it all manifests itself and who and where we are in the process.

Blow Shit Up

I'm working from the neighborhood coffee shop this morning. Free WiFi don't you know? I'm fuelled up, I'm lit up like a pinball machine this morning. I worked on some music tracks last night, and I got so hyped up, I couldn't sleep. Music was dancing in my head all night long. Restful sleep eluded me, so I'm a little edgy, a little briny, a little salty this morning.

I'm still going through my torture phase. My best laid plans have come up snake eyes. I'm kind of at a loss of what to do next. I'm thinking I must change my life, but not sure where to start.

I feel like I have made some poor choices, I threw my lot in with some very bad (okay, maybe not bad, just totally fucked up) people, and it is coming home to roost now. You must be very careful what you choose to do, who you choose to be with. These choices help determine who you really are, what you really do.

If you're not careful, if you're like sunny jimmy and you sometimes just wing it, you can end up in some deep shit. I'm in up to my chinny chin chin at the present moment. So, like Beckett's character, I'm buried up to my chin. Do I deny it and carry on? Do I pretend that I love being in this predicament, do I imagine another reality and try to forget? Or do I somehow explode the whole damn thing? If I do the exploding, how to make sure I don't damage myself in the process?

Chase the Day

I've decided not the chase the day today. Usually I rise, have a few cups of coffee (the Breakfast of Champions), lace up my running shoes and go for a lively jaunt on the lakefront. I don't recommend this behavior for anyone else. It probably breaks many rules for health and nutrition, but it's how I live, it seems to work for me. I start my day by running after, or running from something, or no, maybe I'm just running, but something compels me. It has been my routine for many, many years. It sums up my life in many respects. I'm on the run, on the chase, I keep moving just to prove to myself that I am alive. My body has held up remarkably well. I must just be made right for long distance running.

So, today, I just decide, no, I'm not going to chase the day, I will let it come to me. Lately the chasing has not been so rewarding. Whatever I try to grab and pin down, seems to slip from my grasp. So, I sip coffee, I write some incendinary e-mails, I field some phone calls. I'm going to be a passive container today, like this coffee mug sitting next to me. I fill it up, I empty it. It sits content either way.

Bobby

In 1968 (I was 13 years old), I lived in Wisconsin. My father had gotten a "promotion," and we all packed up and moved up there. We arrived before the furniture, and I remember sleeping on the newly laid carpet in the living room, my little family unit huddled together like refugees. It was not a great time for me. Moving from the suburbs of Chicago, to a little conservative town known for Kleenex was an uprooting of major proportions, and I kind of sank back into my shell of unhappiness even deeper. I took up golf, it was the perfect sport for a lonely kid, with no friends, and no intentions of reaching out to anyone nearby.

I had only one golf club, it was nine iron, and there was a great open field where I spent many hours hitting a golf ball or two. I learned the special golf club grip, I actually had a flip book of Tony Jacklyn who won the British Open or something. I was an avid reader of Sports Illustrated and I was fascinated by some of the figures I discovered in the pages of the magazine: Jean Claude Killy, Muhammad Ali, Carl Yastrzemski. If I happened to whack the ball good, I could spend a lot of time wandering around that big, lumpy field hunting down my golf balls.

Anyway, last night, the Lovely Carla and I went to see "Bobby," a movie focused on one day in 1968, it's a really extraordinary movie, I believe that Emilio Estevez (remember Repo Man?), should be honored for his absolutely superb script and sure-handed direction. I mean, I really, really love this movie, eventhough, ultimately it is absolutely heart-wrenching.

So, I'm remembering Bobby Kennedy, I remember we went to bed before Kennedy was announced the winner of the California Primary, I remember things were looking good, my whole family was excited at the prospect of young Bobby winning. The next morning, my mom is driving me to school, (a big lonely monolith, I was the "gangster" from Chicago, I clearly did not fit in), and the news came over on the car radio that Bobby had been shot and killed. I remember my mother screamed out in pain, like she too had been shot. I was stunned. It did not seem real. It couldn't be real. I cried too.

I think I sunk even deeper into that protective shell. When some of the kids in school made fun of the tragedy, I knew that I was not like them, or at least, I didn't want to be anything like them. The year got even weirder later that summer at the Chicago Convention. Things did not go well - cops beating up long-hairs. Everything seemed to be spinning out of control. I bought my first album, the Beatles White Album. There were strange new sounds in the air. The world seemed like a big, crazy, hard place and at the same time there were hippies and flowers and love, and a counter-culture and I started to let my hair grow long, (I didn't cut it for a many, many years)...and things got weirder and weirder...and weirder...

Nixon Won...etc.

Let Go...

I've only read one Thomas Pynchon novel, Vineland. I don't remember much about it. I'm pretty sure I liked it, but it did not make a profound impression. Pynchon has a new novel, Against the Day. It sounds amazing, but coming in at 1,085 pages, I'm thinking I'm not gonna even attempt tackling it. Going in I'm thinking I just won't finish it. Do I want to punish myself like that? I have an unspoken rule, which I try to stick to, but, in fact, I have broken it many times - if I start a book, I finish a book. Those times I haven't finished, I look upon as some kind of defeat. My library of books is a record of my successes and my defeats.

Did I really just write that? Are even my reading choices my personal record of success and failure? Maybe I judge myself too harshly? I started out as an English Major and finished as a Psychology Major - there is certainly some confusion in that journey. And after I graduated, I realized I wanted nothing to do with Psychology. My fellow students and teachers seemed to be an extra-pernicious lot...and the trend had already started - psychotheraphy morphing into pharmacology, and hell, if you're gonna do drugs, it seems to me the only ones worth doing are the "recreational" kind.

So, I look at many books on my shelf and I see that what I thought I was seeking, turns out to not be what I was seeking. Or something like that...

Ok, so I'm reading a review of Pynchon's new novel (the review goes for pages too), and I come across this quote from one of the characters and it completely, profoundly resonates with me this morning:

"Let go, let it bear you up and carry you, and everything's so clear because you're not fighting back anymore, the clouds of anger are out of your face, you see further and clearer than you ever thought you could." - T. Pynchon

French Press

Recently, when I was in New York, The Woman Who Would Be President, (yes, I'd vote for her!), the Lovely Melissa, asked me, (rhetorically?), as we were walking down the avenue, after our feast of mac and cheese, how to make great French Press coffee. I demurred at the time. It had been a while since I worked a French Press, I had grown lazy, grinding coffee beans, dumping them in our automatic coffee maker, and letting the machine do all the work.

Well, two days ago, my coffee maker died. So, desperate for a cuppa joe, I hastily dusted off the old French Press and went back to the fundamentals. Here is the secret to a great French Press:

1. Purchase a package of Fair Trade Coffee. It's essential to support a positive social movement dedicated to small environmentally sustainable local producers. The coffee will be good, and you will feel better about yourself and the future of the planet. (I prefer a dark roast such as French or Italian).

2. Grind the beans. You want the grind to be course, not fine. This is all feel. Your result should be asymmetric.

3. Boil water (filtered if possible) in an old kettle. It's best if it has a whistle, so the kettle lets you know when it's ready.

4. Pour the hot water into the glass container first. I like to fill it just below the spout.

5. Put 8 teaspoons of the coarse grind into the glass container. (I like a bold, potent cup!).

6. Stir Vigorously. I suggest you use a wooden spoon. I don't know why. A wooden spoon just seems to work best. I stir until a nice brown foam rises to the top. Again, this is an art, not a science, you must stir with style, panache, and most importantly, love. The more love you put into this process, the better the coffee will taste.

7. Take your pressing contraption and slowly and evenly press down until you can't press any more. Be gentle.

8. Pour into a favorite coffee mug, preferably one that you've used for a time, one that you have a certain connection to, maybe something with a witty saying, or maybe it was a gift from someone special, or maybe it just a plain old mug, friendly and stable.

9. Fill the mug about two/thirds. I then add about 1/3 vanilla soy milk. No cows have been harmed or milked the making of this cup of coffee! I'm a big fan of soy. It's amazing what they can do with that little bean. Although, how they actually milk a bean is a mystery to me.

10. Sit back and enjoy. Maybe listen to the news on the radio, or put a good CD on. If all went well, if you brought enough love and attention to the process, you will enjoy a great cup of coffee. Maybe you'll have another. And you'll wonder why you started using that automatic coffee machine in the first place.

All Done!

I Cry

My world is topsy turvy. I cry easily. Every movie I've seen lately makes me cry. I cried at The Queen, The Fountain, I'm Your Man. I cried when I heard that Robert Altman died. Actually, whenever I hear that anyone died (which is a frequent occurance), I kind of tear up. I'm thinking I'm on the verge of a nervous breakdown. This could all be characterised as major "dumps" behaviour.

I'm a man, so I've lived with that "boys don't cry" ethic. I do most of my crying alone, or in the darkness of a movie theater. I usually wear sunglasses, day and night, which comes in handy if the tears start to roll. I'm good at crying without others knowing. It's not a public crying, it's a private, deep-type of sadness that I feel. I mean I don't feel it all the time, it just comes over me very quickly, unexpectedly. I've always been the sensitve kind. It's just my nature. If you knew my mother and my father, you'd know where I got it. They were/are very sensitive souls.

This crying has been very cathartic, cleansing. I think it's a necessary thing. I haven't reached for a life preserver, or a prescription drug, I'm sticking with coffee - nothing like drinking coffee alone in a kitchen, listening to the news of the day to bring on the flow of tears.

Of course, I laugh alot too. It's part of my divided nature. The tears are hard, the laughter is light. I laughed at times during The Queen, I laughed at I'm Your Man, I smiled thinking about all the great movies that Robert Altman made (McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Nashville, the Long Goodbye, MASH, California Split). Right now I'm listening to a new release, Neil Young and Crazy Horse at the Fillmore East in 1970 (they shared the bill with the Miles Davis Group and the Steve Miller Band), and their great music fills me with energy and joy.

Now, those times are gone (Danny Whitten died early on), and that was another era, but still the music sounds so good, so alive now...makes me smile...and tear up at the same time.

I've Been Here Before

Yes, well, I'm reading Oswald Spengler, and it's slow going, I read and re-read passages. No, I'm not just reading passages, I'm trying to absorb them whole. Spengler's trying to look at culture and civilization with new eyes. And as a reader, I want to see what he sees, to understand what he understands. I don't just want to read the book, I want it to change me.Spengler talks of "destiny," of doing the possible, which he posits as what is necessary.

Yesterday, I watched the Leonard Cohen movie, "I'm Your Man," once again, this time at the family get-together. Something in Cohen resonates with me. I see him as a teacher, someone who has something to impart to me. I need to hear his Zen message.

I want to change everything in my life. I want to drop all preconceptions. I want to be different. I'm in the process of giving up, letting go, and trying to fill with other necessities. I'm completely at a loss. It feels very odd...but, I have been here before...

What I Seem to Be

What if Ahab would have given up on the whale? For one thing, it would have made for a shorter book. I'm not Ahab, but sometimes I see myself reflected in that character. My job is primarily chasing after deals. Much of my life I have been chasing after larger and larger deals. Kind of like chasing after shadows or dreams. After awhile it's just the chasing I remember. I've landed a few, but usually by the time you've brought the sucker into shore, it kind of resembles Hemingway's big fish in the Old Man and the Sea - all skeleton bones.

So, I saw a movie about Leonard Cohen, and the striking thing about him (besides his incredible catalog of songs and poetry), is his Buddhism, his Zen monk demeanor. There is a kind of sad fatalism in his eye, but at the same time a real joy at the absurdity of a life of struggle. Of course, all life is struggle. Is it possible to live fully without the struggle? Is it just another whale to chase? Another shadow, another dream?

And if you give up the struggle, if you let go, if you stop the needing, wanting, grasping, what then? So, the last few days I suffered a major defeat at my job. I have been driving hard on an opportunity and now, my enemies have taken the reins, they have undercut me, they have checkmated me. At first I raged. I tossed and turned, I fired off reasoned arguments, trying to retake the flag. All to naught. So, now I must resign myself to living without, to giving up, to letting go. I must find the Zen way...

It's difficult, it plays into my weakness, my fear of failure. Would Ahab have won if he had given up the chase? It seems so, his quest for the whale led to his doom. If he would have taken up a prayer mat, brewed some herbal tea and meditated on the great cloud of unknowing would he have been a winner? Are the only winners those who give up the game? I want off this wheel, but I fear it's built into my genetic code. How not to be what I seem to be?

Christ

On March 4, 1966 John Lennon said this: "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. ... We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first-rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."

I don't know about more popular. But hell, the Beatles wrote better songs and got more chicks than Jesus any day.

In 1969 Lennon wrote the Ballad of John and Yoko with the following chorus: "Christ you know it ain't easy, You know how hard it can be. The way things are going, They're gonna crucify me."

Lennon is displaying a little "christ complex" here, methinks. I mean, we're all crucified by something.

At the moment, I feel crucified by my own contradictions. I had a sleepless night. Tossing and turning over silly business battles. At 4:30 a.m. I awoke to what I thought was a loud knock at the door. I laid awake in bed and started to compose an e-mail to my business cohorts.

I have this incredible sense of wanting JUSTICE! I hate when I am misquoted or misrepresented. I have to get the last word in. So, yes, I'm on this cross - the thorny cross of success and failure. I seem to be nailed to it, maybe I nailed myself to it. I want to get off the damn cross. I want to blow up the dichotomy...still...I heard the knock...I wrote the e-mail, I got the poison out of my system. Now I'm toasted...like a big, old slice of wheat bread...kind of crunchy, maybe not too tasty...you know it ain't easy...you know how hard it can be...the way things are going...hmmm, well... how about another tune?

Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream,
It is not dying, it is not dying

Lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void,
It is shining, it is shining.

That you may see the meaning of within
It is being, it is being

Love is all and love is everyone
It is knowing, it is knowing

That ignorance and hate may mourn the dead
It is believing, it is believing

But listen to the colour of your dreams
It is not living, it is not living

Or play the game "Existence" to the end
Of the beginning, of the beginning

John Lennon

Another Path

"I didn't find the girl. I didn't get rich. Follow me." - L. Cohen

Germs

Hey, did you ever wake up with a cold, and think, well, at least I'm not alone? I mean, there are germs residing in your body, they are living organisms, yes, they sort of make you uncomfortable, but they look at you as a friendly host, they take up residence for awhile and go through a set routine. So, you have company, you have other realities manifesting themselves, inducing your bodily tissues to respond in new ways. And suddenly you have become a factory of phlegm and mucous...

There's also a new layer, a layer of distance from the world that comes with sickness...I guess you could call it the "sick layer" which gives everything a new feel. For instance, right now, I feel like I have a pillow in my head. A sort of soft and fluffy pillow that takes up space in my head which is usually just a ball of confusion. The world seems all a little more distant with this pillow-reality in my head. I'm thinking the germs have kind of put another layer of distance between me and the hard reality of my life...so, sickness is a companion, it has it's own agenda, but it's content to go through the motions of the day with me, as if it's interested in me and all the silly things I have to do as a human being. We all just have to do what we have to do - human and germ alike...

Carry On

How is it that a malicious, well-placed word can punture our little happy bubble of existence? A word is not a dart, or knife, or spear, or bullet, but sometimes all it takes is a word to do damage. I identify with the sensitive souls, those for whom sometimes the world and a word, is just too much. You come to understand that there are many, many people who do not wish you well. It's an important realisation, but you can't let it overwhelm you. There are also many people who just don't give a damn whether you live or die. There are also those who would miss you if you were hit by a truck tommorrow. It's a big world, with billions of human beings all doing their human being thing. It's a strange existence, and I guess, we all just need to make the world in our own image, or come to some happy co-existence, or rage into the night, or let it all pass, or, well, hopefully you don't have to harden yourself too much, because that hardening is kind of a deadening, and we are here to live, and I think it's best to use all that we have to use. So yes, a heightened sensitivity to the world, to the word is an important tool, it can come in handy, but then there's the wound, the sling, the arrow - we must take the blow, bind the wound, and carry on...

Quotes

"Mankind has no aim no, no idea, no plan, any more than the family of butterflies or orchids." - Spengler

"What's important in life is life and not a result of life." - Goethe

"I see world-history as a picture of endless formations and transformations, of the marvellous waxing and waning of organic forms." - Spengler

A Spy

What happens when you mix Eddie Fisher's sperm with Debbie Reynolds eggs? You get...Princess Leia Organa! Puts one in mind of someone sitting in an orgone box with big muffin-like mounds of hair sticking on each side, doesn't it? Well, maybe not.

Anyway, Ms. Organa is known as Carrie Fisher in another galaxy far, far away...a strange place called Hollywood. She has a new one-woman show about her life. Here's a line that sounded oh so true...

"I'm a spy in the house of me." - C. Fisher

The Wind

The wind is blowing out of the North today, 24 mph or more. I went for a run and the first half of the trip was directly into the wind. It was like running with a refrigerator tied to my leg. What an amazing power. The lake looked like a roiling sea, the water kind of slate-gray, with a greenish tinge. I ran past the beaches of Evanston, and there was a mini-sandstorm. Little grains of sand pelted my face...I felt like Lawrence of Suburbia!

The trip back was like having wings attached to my feet, or like having the hand of some god or devil kind of pushing me forward. There were times I felt I was gonna be blown off my feet. Now that's what we Chicagoans like to refer to as "The Hawk." There's nothing like a north wind blowing across the lake...so much wind kind of takes your breath away.

It felt great to complete the trek in one piece. There were only a few brave souls out on the path today. A small tribe of runners willing to take on the elements. Another day in the life.

Spengler's Giving

I'm reading Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West...just started, already it puts me in a worldly frame of mind. We are citizens of nature, and of history. Cultures are too. Spengler talks about how a man is born, lives, dies, there's young age, old age, a lifetime. The same can be said for a culture. History is the meaning we derive from these natural events. Do we live in a personal world that lives and dies with us? Or are we part of a larger historical reality that spans centuries? If it's the latter, we transcend our humble bodies via our consciousness of this greater reality, and we can derive meanings from this world narrative. This gives us a sense of connection to things larger than us. This also points to a symbolic understanding of the events of the world. We can see ourselves as one player, cut off from the rest, with no greater purpose, except our natural function, or we can see ourselves as a historical characters, informed by events past and present, which enrapts us in a symbolic or metaphorical suit of armour. We can derive meanings from this greater reality, we can invest our humble world with these grand understandings. We can read history, and the world, like we read a poem; the more you give to it, the more you receive from it.

Old Voices

Old voices are calling out to me this morning. Reading about comedy, Plato and Aristotle rear their hoary heads. Plato tells us that there is a metaphysical realm where perfect abstract forms exist. Reality is just a copy of a copy. Art and theater are then, copies, of copies, of copies - in Plato's retreat this is not a good thing. Aristotle takes a different tack. He tells us that art and theater help us reach a state of catharsis, a purification or cleansing through laughter or tears.

And then there's this: "The tears of the world are a constant quality. For each one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh."--Samuel Beckett

It's time to brew another pot of coffee...

Eliasson Haiku

The latest New Yorker has a profile of an Icelandic artist named Olafur Eliasson. He's a great fan of Robert Irwin and Lawrence Weschler's biography of Irwin, "Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees." I am too, it is one of those books that can change your life, change the way you look at the world. Elisasson was so inspired, he actually decided to follow in Irwin's footsteps. The whole article is worth a read, but these particular lines, which I kind of took out of context, really captured my imagination, the lines are almost a haiku or are at least in the spirit of a haiku:

How high is the water?
How deep are the trees?
In warm weather,
people could bring
their sandwiches here.
In winter,
they could ice-skate.

"I'm just doing it." - Y. Ono

Last morning at the Essex House...yesterday we walked over to the Dakota, it's kind of like going to Lourdes or Chartes, our secular saint (no, he was just a man, flaws and all, but that makes him even more admirable, right?) lived and died here...

Central Park was alive with people and fallen leaves...bikers, roller bladers (Watch me spin and twirl and skate backwards...Why do I do it? Because I can.), the human comedy in all it's vibrant glory.

We took the subway to Williamsburg, dined with friends...every meal has been a pleasure, it's all too much...can you have too much fun? This is the good life. But even as I'm in it, I question whether this is what I want...what is it little ole sunnyjimmy is looking for? Beats me...I'm just doing it...going through it...enjoying it too, but always questioning, wondering...

This morning in the NYT Sports Section (yes, words of wisdom in the sports section!) I read:

"True success is waking up every day realizing what a great life you have." - A. Quindlen

"It's what we do that determines who we are. It's not our past, it's our present." - J. Angelo

The City

We went from Brooklyn to Manhattan. We're at the Essex House fronting Central Park. There's a TV channel in the room that gives you a panoramic view of the park. What an amazing resource. Olmstead was a visionary.

Last night we saw a Broadway show, Martin Short in his "Fame Becomes Me." It was superb, not a false note, very funny, a satire of one man shows (in Short's version, there's a full, very talented cast who help carry the show), poking fun at our celebrity culture, the burn-out and comeback saga of celebrity, TV talk shows, Broadway musicals, and the bloated ego-based culture celebrated in NY and Hollywood.

Anyway, we always do a lot of walking when we're in this town, we figured we must have walked about ten miles yesterday, from the Whitney to Times Square to the theater district and back and forth (this was after doing the trek back and forth over the Brooklyn Bridge). The endless waves of people, the ocean of energy from tourists, theater goers, hip-hoppers, music blaring, horns honking, a sea of humanity bursting from every nook and cranny, every street corner alive with every variety of human being. Kind of exhausting.

Today, a little less action, maybe hang out at the park, find a good restuarant. Dine with NY friends...it's the city life in all it's glory.

It's Just There

Yesterday I ran the Brooklyn Bridge. It is one of the greatest things to do - I mean it's not hard, it's just an awe-inspiring experience. I mean, it's exhilarating, and inspiring, and unbelievable. First, the bridge itself is an amazing engineering feat. Plus the human labor and dedication (how many men died building it?), is mind-boggling. The human animal is the kind creature that says, "hey wouldn't it be cool to build a road from Brooklyn to Manhattan?" It must have seemed impossible, "wouldn't it be cool if we could sprout wings?" And then years of hard labor, and finally, it's there, it's just there, like an inevitable, essential element to the landscape. And then, finally, it's taken for granted, or just accepted, it's just there.

Coming to it new, (every time I come here, it's almost like the first time), it blows your mind again. So, yes, it's just a bridge, but it's also a symbol, and then it's a symbol that is a reality that you can actually run across, and the journey itself is a nice workout, but it's also an example of the human spirit, nothing will stop us if we really put our minds and muscles to the task. We will find a way to get to the other side!

So it was sunny, blue skies, and the bridge was alive, with people, kind of like a community of bridge people, tourists, runners, bikers, cops, pretty girls, punk rockers, moms with strollers, shoppers going from one town to the next. And there's a journey that we all share, a slow incline, you reach the high point, and then a slow decline. If you run it, you multiply it all by two. You rise above the city, the car traffic, you look down on the bustling metropolis, and then you slowly come back down to street level. Running the bridge...it's time in a life...it's a reminder of what life is...and then again, it's just a bridge...it's just there...

Mac and Cheese

What's the line from Richard Farina, "I've been down so long, it looks like up to me?" There's a little of that feeling as the reality of the new political tide splashes across the land...one thing I've learned, democracy is messy, and inefficient, and oh so vunerable to the inducements of power and money, but once in awhile you get a glimmer, a breath of fresh air, that gets your adrenaline pumping, and you get filled with happiness and hope...but of course, you wonder if it could really be true, and well, when is the carpet going to be pulled out from under our feet? But, even with those doubts, it's good to see people kind of rise up and make a statement, even if it's basically "we've had enough, let's try something else."

I'm perched at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, enjoying the sights and sounds of Brooklyn and Manhattan. Here for an energy conference - "energy is eternal delight." Last night, the Lovely Carla and I dined with the Lovely Melissa and her husband at Sarita's, a restuarant that serves one thing, (in infinite varieties), macaroni and cheese. There's something to be said for doing one thing well. James Brown once talked about songwriting - something to the effect - take one good idea and run it to the ground.

Anyway, I'm guessing Manhattan is one of the few places where you can have a successful restuarant featuring one thing on the menu. I hear it's a trend - a place for french fries, a place for pickles, a place for rice pudding. There are major benefits to having such a hugely diverse concentration of people on one small island. Anything, and everyting goes...now that's a great, American-type beauty.

Post Election

I'm blogging from the Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge. Kind of in a post-election haze...I have the TV on and the gloom from some of our highly-paid commentators is palpable...

Is Bush back on the sauce as of last night? Does Cheney look in the mirror this morning and say, "Maybe I am an asshole." George Allen is maccaca! Sometimes the news is good.

Yes, well...Vote!

Yes, well, all power corrupts. Rust never sleeps. Revolution is not a dinner party. We get the government we deserve. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. Waterboarding, it's not torture, it's entertainment!

Today we can vote the bums out...how about it?!

Eternal Waking

Somewhere around age 5, this realization came to me, whether I could really verbalize it or not:

"The world was a cheap and shoddy scam, a bad cover for something deeper and weirder and infinitely more strange." - Neil Gaiman

Gaiman is the writer of a series called "The Sandman." I haven't read it, but from what I can glean from accounts about the writer and his work, I think I can affirm that I have lived his concept of "eternal waking" -- "every time he thinks he is rousing from a dream, he has simply woken up in a new and different delusion from which he must again wake up, and so on into infinity."

Scar Tissue

Sometimes I drink to excess. William Blake in his Proverbs from Hell wrote that the "road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom." It's important to be able to live to tell the tale. I have wondered if my binge drinking, (how many beers, glasses of wine, etc. can I consume, in the shortest time available?) has been some kind of search. Search for what? God? Nirvana? Oblivion?

Most of the time I live on a pretty straight edge. But, I have my moments, and when I indulge, I can't just dip my toe in the pond, oh no, I must plunge in head first, and hit bottom, and curl in a fetal position deep in the water, and see how long I can live without taking a breath. Sometimes I think it has to do with being a Catholic. But it's probably more or less encoded in my DNA. I come from a long line of broken men. Good men, but in some way broken too.

Anyway, I was reading Anthony Keidis' memoir, "Scar Tissue." Anthony for those who don't know him, is the lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It's a long, sordid book, (not exactly deep reading, I know, it's kind of like eating a bag of potato chips, kind of an unhealthy indulgence), a record in excruciating detail, of one man's life of debauch. Anthony has smoked, snorted, injected, inhaled, ingested every illicit drug known to man. I haven't read St. Augustine's "Confessions" but from what I've heard of it, Anthony's descent into hell sounds deeper and more complete.

Anthony, rose from very humble, and not very promising beginnings to become a fairly accomplished singer and songwriter for a very entertaining and enthusiastic, funk-punk-rock & roll outfit. I'm sure you've heard "The Bridge," and who could forget, "Party on Your Pussy!" ?? Anway, it turns out the book is sort of insipiring, just like I'm sure St. Augustine's account might be too (I never read the old Saint's account, but I'm pretty confident Anthony gives the same old story a nice contemporary update.)

Anyway, the bottom line, by the end of the book, Anthony is living alone in the Hollywood Hills, with a dog, and lot of empty rooms, but he's meditating, and working on the holy grail of recovery --- the twelve steps! You put the book down thinking, "I hope he makes it." Later you look in the mirror, and you think, "I hope I do too."

A Spider's Web

The twists and turns of a life...yes, we are like that spider spinning a shining golden web, and then we sit back and try to derive meaning in the pattern of the filaments. We create the world, or we are in collaboration with what we call world. It's a strange alchemy. The web has all the purpose and meaning we want to invest in it. It's really a simple formulation and sometimes so hard to do...

So, lately I have pulled back from the battle field, I took my own advice...let it come down...don't fight, don't resist, be humble. Smile and create. Create a new reality, a new web. I have been re-entangled, and it feels good. My little web-world is a replica of a greater universe...very much like the one all around us...but in my web, there's a lot of smiling and laughter, genuine, not sarcastic. This old spider has banished fear, leave it for another day...hell, everything is as it should be, I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Death of an Anthropologist

I read NYT obits once in awhile. Sometimes people you wish you had met turn up. Clifford Geertz, a Cultural Anthropologist died at 80 years old. A good, long, life, it seems.

I like this quote, it seems oh so true:

"Believing with Max Weber that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun..."

Yes, we are like the spider, spinning our own little worlds, and then we look around and try to derive meaning from the slender, near-invisible threads that surround us.

Is it a fool's game? Clifford concludes that antrhopology is "an excellent way, interesting, dismaying, useful and amusing, to expend a life."

The Loner

One day sunny and warm, the next dark and brisk...the weather has such a changeable nature...it is our teacher.

So I'm a little stiff and feeling the Chicago chill, walking to the 7-11, I open the door, and well, there's Neil Young's voice, and the words of "The Loner," from his 1969 debut echo across the shelves and linoleum of the store.

"He's a perfect stranger, Like a cross of himself and a fox. He's a feeling arranger, And a changer of the ways he talks. He's the unforeseen danger, The keeper of the key to the locks. Know when you see him, Nothing can free him. Step aside, open wide, It's the loner."

I think, well, yes, he's singing my song...the loner is someone who feels most alone in the middle of a crowd...and I think of a young Neil Young, driving from Canada to Hollywood in a hearse, looking to make rock and roll history, oh those many years ago.

I leave the store, kick on down the alleyway, singing the song myself..."nothing can free him. Step aside, open wide, it's the loner." This is time-tripping - the most exquisite kind...and it feels so good.

Something Ain't Right

Sometimes you have to get out of your little aquarium to really see the strange world we've created. I'm on a little jaunt to Grand Rapids, Michigan, staying at a hotel in the shadow of the Gerald Ford Museum. How odd to see the glorification of a man known for occasionally bumping his head (also playing football without a helmt),and pardoning Nixon.

The Lovely Carla and I are on a business-based road trip. It's not often that I'm behind the wheel anymore. It's strange to see the artificial, pre-fab, car culture in full force. Grand Rapids seems to be a false-front city. It's drab and kind of creepy - corporate mall land.

There's very much a sense of "we don't belong here." This is America, but it's another America, not the one that I know and love. This has a distinctly Republican odor to it. Of money, of the hustle, the scam, an eerie Stepford-like optimisim that probably betrays some really dark, creepy reality. David Lynch excels in depicting this type of land.

Is it really so different than from where I come from? Yes, and no. I truly identify with a more gritty urban land, a place where the culture is, or pretends to be multi-cultural. It's times like these that you begin to realize that we still adhere to some kind of tribal identity. This seems to be one the centers of the tribe of Red State Capital, we're actually staying at a shrine to Amway...I can't wait to get back on the road, turn the cd player up loud and point our Dodge Charger homeward.

Kick in the Pants

I went on an odd little excursion last evening. The Lovely Carla and I went to a restuarant with another couple. We are all basically contemporaries, although we all had so little to talk about...it was kind of depressing.

Yes, well, we could talk about the food. The Cafe is one of those new agey kind of health food places. Everything is organic, clean, vegan, it doesn't exactly taste all that good, but it's all so good for you. The kids who work there (yes, for me anyone in their twenties now looks like a kid), had their requisite nose rings, dread-locks, hemp belts, etc. Everyone was so gentle, and kind and, well, I guess, spacey and grounded at the same time.

I ate like a man who hasn't seen a meal in a week, everything from the brocoli-mushroom soup (pureed!), to the apple-brocoli-wheatgrass drink, the chicken-portobello sandwhich (don't worry - no chickens were harmed in the process!), to the mint chocolate cake (even the dessert seemed so good for me - if you know what I mean?!). It wasn't all that edifying, but it did fill me up.

Anyway, I felt like I had fallen in a glorious, rainbow-hued hole, and I just couldn't get out. The lack of connection with other people, especially our dinner companions, threw me into a state of consternation. It's a state very unlike Kansas, Toto!

The only saving grace? They were playing a CD on the stereo system, first cut to last, that transported me to another reality. It was Television's first album, the stark rock masterpiece, Marquee Moon released in 1977. The dark and beguiling Tom Verlaine singing edgy and strange songs, and trading beautiful electric guitars lines with Richard Lloyd. It was a blast of New York, of post punk underground music, and it was exhilarating. I don't think anyone at the table even noticed.

Here I was connecting with voices from another time and place...I was transported into another dimension...the guitar lines came to me like long-forgotten friends, Verlaine's voice, brittle and harsh, was like a siren song of an alternate reality. Sometimes you never feel so lonely as when you are with other people...and so connected to others not there, except in memory, or through sound waves, on a little spinning silver disc...now isn't that just a kick in the pants?!

Whew!

Whew! I just talked myself out of a major jam...I've been on a collision course, outnumbered, out-ranked, it was me traveling at full speed into what seemed to be an inpenetrable wall. I was on course to be crushed. I saw no way out...none...just bleak, black...failure.

Well, I live to fight another day. Somehow, some way, I turned on the charm, my gift of gab, came through. I think my male ancestral line, that long line of talkers, were cheering me on...shades of Smooth Connors! But, it was just one wall, one battle, one day, one conversation...I can only celebrate for a moment...that moment is already gone...

Who Knows?

There's work, and then there's the good work. For me that means creative work, acting, writing, playing guitar, yes, even singing. I've been recording quite a bit lately. It's amazing what technology has wrought. With a computer, a microphone, some cables and instruments and presto-chango, you are master of your own little recording studio. What would Mozart and Beethoven have done with these kind of tools? Maybe they would be doing raps and mix tapes and sampling...then again... maybe not...

Good Medicine

I was feeling sort of lowly yesterday...I thought that maybe I have been a little too obsessively sober lately...so, I picked up a six pack of Guinness Stout, that magical, Irish brew and had a little kitchen rehearsal and singing session with my creative co-conspirators. It was a nice, theraputic get-together. Today, everything seems a little lighter, brighter...you must choose your medicine wisely, but choose it you must.

Behind

I've been running to catch up to the day today. Running to catch up to myself. I feel like I'm a few steps behind on everything...

It's a cold, cloudy day, kind of raw...this is the kind of day, you wake up and just hope you can make it to lunch. At lunch you start hoping you can make it to dinner, at dinner, you're thinking about making it til bedtime. When you plant your head in the pillow you just hope you can make it through the night without having one of those long, disturbing dreams that have haunted you lately. I think this is what's referred to as a "well-rounded existence."

Sunday's Questions

1. To live without any fear whatsoever...is it courage or blind stupidity, or a combination thereof?
2. If I see connections that no one else sees, does that mean they don't exist?
3. If you're one of those who thinks everything "happens for a reason," and you don't know the reason, are you any better off than the person who thinks that everything happens because, well, because everything just happens?
4. Is it really that odd to think that we have descended from monkeys, and that we invented a great big all-powerful monkey figure who looks down on us and sometimes moves us around like little monkey chess pieces?
5. What's so hard about imagining the birds and the bees and the monkeys as spiritual beings too?

Wisdom of the Witch

According to the Witches Almanac, (this info via the Lovely Carla): today is a day to "rest and watch." Who am I to defy the wisdom of the Witch?

Lennon & Darwin?!

Beware the Utopians...the builders of utopias also sometimes are builders of prisons too. Where else to put those who don't see themselves in another's dream?

The best dreamers are those who stick to the realm of dreams. As soon as those dreams are made reality, well, shit, it seems all hell breaks loose.

As I've grown older, I have begun to respect those with small plans, those who refuse to impose their visions upon others. J. Lennon imagined a world without a heaven, without a hell: "God is a concept by which we measure our pain." He sang about a better world, but he was a citizen of this one.

Darwin saw the same world: "We thus learn that man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in it's habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World."

Lennon: "Everyone's got something to hide, except for me and my monkey."

Darwin: "Our descent then, is the origin of our evil passions! The Devil under form of Baboon is our grandfather!"

Lennon and Darwin, they were dreamers, but they always kept their feet on the ground...their eyes on the world around them...for some reason I'm thinking Lennon was a Darwinist...he wasn't a utopian...he was just a smart rock & roll monkey!

A Cowboy

It's my birthday today...it's an odd thing, thinking about the world before I was here, all those many billions of years, no sunny jimmy, no dumps either. But I've been here for awhile now, walking around on this spinning rock, some times I've actually been conscious and aware, a lot of the time I've been sleeping, or inebriated, or crazy with hormones. Today I feel fully alive and awake. The air is brisk, dead leaves are everywhere, the wind is out of the north, the lake is choppy and full of action.

I put on a shirt today, it's kind of a cowboy shirt, I just grabbed it said out loud to myself, "I want to be a cowboy." Then I thought about how being a cowboy was probably one of the first things I "wanted to be." There's a family picture of me, on one of my early birthdays, with a cowboy, a six-gun, perched atop a rocking horse, a big shit-eating grin breaking across my face. I was quite well outfitted. Just to make sure the sunny/dumps dichotomy was in force early on, I also wanted to be an Indian and I remember being on a trip out to Colorado on a family vacation and I ended up with a full Indian headdress which I wore proudly, yellow and green feathers blowing in the wind, I was probably practicing my Indian love call. Of course, on the road trip, that headdress ended up flying out the window of our speeding car...I probably cried over it, realizing my Indian days were over.

There's lots of things I've wanted to be: Cowboy, Indian, Baseball player, Football Player, Basketball Player, Rock Star, Holy Man. I tried my hand at some of these, I can't say any of them really worked out. I'm just me, here, now, wearing my cowboy shirt, thinking about what could have been, what could be...thinking I'm one year closer to something, one year farther from something...

CBGB is Dead

No, instead, it's being dismantled and shipped to Vegas...I'm looking forward to the the Joey Ramone wedding chapel...

I never went to CBGBs but I listened to bands that made a mark there, the Talking Heads, the Ramones, the Patti Smith Group, Television. I saw the Ramones and Patti Smith when they made their trek across the heartland. These bands were so cool, so New York, tough, and poetic in a basic rock and roll way, and they were supremely democratic too...

They came from the streets...they were city folk who liked to bash away on electric guitars...

Here's Patti Smith, who played the last two sets on the last night of CBGBs:

"Kids they'll find a place that nobody wants, and you got one guy who believes in you, and you just do your thing. And anybody can do that, anywhere in the world, any time."

This sounds like a credo to live by.

And then this:

"WHAT REMAINS IS FUTURE." - P. Smith

The Divided

We are divided beings...or at least that's how it seems, or maybe it's just an easy way for our brains to hash things out. There's a this and a that...this isn't that...and by looking, comparing, discriminating between the two, maybe we figure something out.

So we say we are body and mind...meat and spirit...it sure feels like that sometimes, although mind seems to be a product of body, spirit kind of hovers over meat...we can measure the meat, we can't really see the spirit, although, of course you can; watch people on an EL platform, or on the street, you can see some people animated by something, you can see others who look like dead men walking...to me that's spirit coming out in spades.

So we have this body, we lug this meat around and then we wonder, "what happens when the meat stops moving?" Does spirit take flight? Are there other realms? Are the string theorists full of shit? Are there actually a multitude of universes? If so, what's happening there? Do they have MTV? Are there creatures with divided natures, or with dividing minds working overtime there too?

Sea Change

I took a day off...listening to Beck's "Sea Change," (by god, he almost sounds like a hipster Gordon Lightfoot), Laura Nyro (what an amazing voice, soulful, joyful, really overpowering) and Sparklehorse (kind of edgy, moody, I hear a little bit of Yo Lo Tengo). Three discs on random means one long, rambling album that jumps from mood to mood. Perfect for a cloudy, rainy day in Chicago. I'm still trying to play things close to the vest. I actually took the day off so I didn't have to talk to anyone at work. I have tried to set some things in motion that could radically change the playing field. What the hell do I think I'm doing?

Crazy Horse Died for Your Sins

Is the world of humanity getting progressively crazier, or has it always been so? I think it's hard to tell, especially since those doing the "deciding" are crazy too.

I don't wish to be a member of a club that will have me as a member, but of course, that just means that I'm a member of a club of those who don't want to be members of a club.

If you're not crazy, you start to realize that you are crazy, which means you're not crazy because you know you are. Please check out Yossarian in Catch 22 for a much better examination of this conundrum.

I find the internet to be this amazingly useful tool. I also spend an inordinate amount of time in a virtual world of information. Much of it is seemingly useless, or even, basically disinformation, intentionally misleading or false information. Some of this is for the purpose of entertainment, some of it is actively intended to deceive or obscure.

We have developed this incredible tool that makes us more connected, but which at the same time shows us how disconnected, or unconnected many of us are. Lately, I've felt like a "fractured" being...in some ways I feel like I'm mirroring the world I connect to. Connecting to a fractured world makes one feel more fractured. Would unconnecting make one less fractured, more connected to something else?

To embrace or retreat from the world? To do both each and every day?

Beautiful Obsession

Every once in a while I get a bee in my bonnet, and well, I just can't get the sucker out...lately battles on the work front have led me down some strange hallways, and then I get a notion in my head, and I just worry over it like a dog with a bone. Times like these, I don't really sleep so good. This is how to break someone. I get this strange, edgy sensation that starts at my fingertips and goes all the way to my addled brain.

Anyway, there's some interesting radio shows at 5:00 a.m. One is called "Speaking of Faith," and another is called, "Beautiful Obsession." Or no, now that I think of it, it might be called "Strange Obssession." It's a show about recovering druggies and alchoholics...it's interesting to hear how some people totally destroy their lives drinking and doing drugs...maybe it works for rock stars, but the average joe is looking at bankruptcy, living out of your car, alienating your kids, destroying your marriage, etc. The show is basically people who tell their tale of woe, but who have now pulled out of it...they are on the road to recovery...

So, this is a long, round-about way of saying my latest "beautiful obsession" is music. Everything music. I've been buying Guitar Player and Guitar World magazines every month for months now. I can tell you the history of David Gilmour's stage setup, I can tell you the secrets of Tom Morello's wild guitar sounds, I can list Peter Frampton's key recording techniques, I can tell you how many guitar players Axl Rose has tried out and pissed off...instead of porn, I pour over the lovely curves of Les Pauls, Fender Strats, and old, collectible Danelectros.

Yesterday, I stepped over a line, I opened a door deeper into the obsession, where will it lead me next? I actually bought a copy of Bass Guitar...what's next Microphone Almanac, Cymbal World, Mallet World, Organ Player, Drumstick Review, Organ Grinder, Pet My Monkey?!?

High on the Drift

Well that familiar feeling of being lost has descended upon me once again. It's a frequent occurance, this feeling really has been my best and most trusted companion since I was a small child. I've done so much drifting, it's actually evolved into my main modus operandi...it's how I write plays, and compose music, and well, it's even how I approach my job...

I drift from one thing to the next, I go with what feels right, or I try to distance myself from what doesn't...I bounce along on the feeling, expecting that somehow that will lead me to some kind of dawning light.

I'm not so good with plans and maybe that has been to my detriment.

I'm not complaining, I'm just noting what's happening in the world of sunny. If someone asks me how I'm doing today? My reply would be: I'm adrift my friend...I'm high on the drift...you want a hit?

Hey a Music Store!

Check out my new music store! I joined this thing called SnoCap...it allows you to upload your songs, set a price, (they take $0.45 cents off the top) and then other people who join up can download the songs. It's .mp3 format...I've been working with Garageband since last December, the tracks listed are pretty much me on guitar, bass, drum machine, vocals too, with a few loops thrown in to make it interesting...anyway, I've decided to put it on my blog site, I think it kind of brightens up the place. You can listen to the first 20 secs. of each song for free by clicking on the play button. I'm wondering if anyone will actually go to the trouble of buying and downloading? Well, we'll see...it's a little experiment...the days of Top Forty radio are dead!

Devil or Angel Be Damned

I've always been on the wheel...most jobs I've had, I've been expected to "make things happen." My income is usually based on how much business I can bring in. Very rarely have I just punched in and out on the time-clock. The two major exceptions to this was working as a guitar tuner, and as a bike messenger. They were my NirvanaLand jobs, the only downside, they barely fed me, I really only survived on the kindness of friends and family...

So, just like my father, I've always been on the wheel, crucified on the cross of "success" and "failure," (see Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman for a primer). I've always tried to explode the dichotomy, play by diffferent rules or just settle on a zen-like path. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

Lately the wheel has been grinding me down. All my issues - guilt, doubt, (my greatest endowments from Catholic grade school) vs. validation, certainty (my endowments from meditation school) are out in full force. I'm like that character in the cartoon with the devil dog on one shoulder, the angel dog on the other. So I'm just the battlefield where the dogs do their fighting. This can be exhausting.

Last night I woke up hearing my father's voice say, "don't forget me." These are words he actually said to me a few months before he died. Obviously, there's no chance of forgetting him, I see him in the mirror every morning...I don't want to forget to him, I just don't want to find myself strapped to that same damn wheel forever. Ultimately the wheel wins...devil or angel be damned. I'd like to watch it explode into flames, walk away unscathed...somehow, I don't think that's how it goes...

These Days

"You become too different, then you become a subversive mother." - Miss America in Woody Allen's "Bananas."

What if you become such a subversive mother, even you can't stand yourself?

I used to have a fantasy of waking each morning as a different person: a Chinese laborer, an American corporate titan, a poor girl in India, a Narco-Trafficker in Peru, a Thai massuesse, an Afghan Jihadi, etc. Each and every morning I would have a different body, a different mind, a different set of circumstances. Kind of like reincarnation on a daily basis. In my fantasy, there would be some little spark of continuity, a vague sense of "being here before," an odd deja vu, that hinted at other lives, other masters.

Would this ever-changing, transitory existence lead to a humbleness, a state of grace? Or would each day be a free pass to "do as you pleased?" Would it essentially be the same thing? I don't know. I never did anything with the idea...some mornings I think about it in a sort of wistful way...

"Why are you wearing that silly human suit?" - Frank in Donnie Darko.

That's the question for the day...and who will I be, and what will I do, and who will be watching, and what does it all add up to anyway? Yeah, I guess it's gonna be one of those kind of days...

Being There...

It's the sunny/dumps dichotomy in full force...last night we performed for a packed house at our humble theater space as part of a triple bill of acts for the Ravenswood Arts Walk. We were smack dab in the middle of the bill. We did our combo of music and theater. We are always a little rough. It just seems to be our nature. Never as polished as we could be, and maybe that's how I like it. There's always some sense of hollowness even in the moment of accomplishment. The audience responded, nothing really went wrong, there was just an unsatisfiedness that kind of hung over me.

It's me, not the world...I know it, but, it's a sense I can't shake...an unfulfilled aspect...maybe that's really what propels me forward. You never quite "get there," you're always, taking the next step into the void that ultimately we have to fill with something...so, another night, another performance, and today, well, now what?

Foul Actions

There are some wild-ass rumours flying around on the internet. It may be just wishful thinking that the black heart of corruption within our political machinery will finally be revealed, and then the complete house of cards will come tumbling down in one big heap. Wouldn't it just be so sweet if the powerful cadre of sanctimonious hypocrites that rule the roost meet the fate they so richly deserve? I know it's bad form to wish for the worst for someone else, but in this case, our fragile democracy may demand that the powerful be brought low. It would be sweet if this came about because of their own foul actions.

Tick!

This morning, getting ready for work, the Lovely Carla said to me, "time is running out." I hugged her and replied, "we've got to live in the moment." We both paused, kind of took it in, then we went back to our typical morning routine. I guess that's how it goes...

Skullduggery

Well, it looks like sunny jimmy is involved in a little "skullduggery." Gee, I just love that word. I looked it up, just to make sure i knew what I thought I knew:

Skullduggery - (a noun) - trickery, hocus-pocus, slickness, hanky panky, jiggery-pokery.

AND THIS:

Skullduggery (uncountable) - activities intended to deceive; a con or hoax.

AND ALSO THIS:

Skullduggery may mean:
Skullduggery (album), an album by the band Steppenwolf.
Skullduggery (movie), the 1970 movie starring Burt Reynolds.
Skullduggery (event), a historic Orientation Week event established in 1896, held annually at the University of Adelaide.
The English name for Kinkotsuman, a character from Kinnikuman.

Things are brewing in my little business world. There are forces seen and unseen working in concert. Where's my James Bond 007 cologne when I need it?

You Betcha!

"Talking, it's real dangerous." - David Lynch

The Crazies

Someone near to me, pointed out that lately I've been an "angry blogger." I guess I have been letting off a little bit of steam here. It may be necessary for my mental well-being. As someone once said, "you gotta let it out, Captain!" I think that as the Myth of America continues to diverge from the Reality of America, the crazies will cling to the Myth even tighter. Look for more madness ahead. What is that famous Chinese proverb (from the famous Chinese proverb factory)? "May you live in interesting times." Well, I think it's safe to say, we are there.

Dropping the Scales

Knowing that whatever allies you may have are few and far between can be a refreshing eye-opener. When you realize that even though all of us here on the planet are connected, we really are in it together, but at the same time when it comes down to issues of life and death, we are alone, is (to say the least) bracing. And hell, it's liberating too. Dropping illusions or delusions can be scary, but the clarity gained is probably worth it.

Arrogant Fools

Yikes! The putrid stench of corruption comes wafting out from the corridors of power in Washington D.C. I think our politicians are just a microcosm of a greater sickness. Yes, it seems power does corrupt, but really, aren't we all culpable? How is it we have given power over to such a lying, thieving, bunch of arrogant fools? We call this a Democracy, so I guess we must assume that our elected officials, human beings just like us, are representative of the population at large.

What has happened to us? Have we always been such fucking assholes?

I wish I had an answer, I can point to certain culprits - money, greed, hate, fear, arrogance, stupidity.

We're all gonna die someday. You'd think that would make us all a little more humble, but I guess, you'd think WRONG!

The Human Mind-Fuck

My father used to quote Vince Lombardi (I think, as he got older, it was with more and more irony), that "when the going gets tough, the tough get going." Yeah well, just when it looks like it's really getting dark, there's a little shaft of light to give you a fleeting hope. At least that's how it's always been for me. If things get bad, you start thinking how it could be so much worse. Sometimes the converse is true too, things are good, you start thinking how things could be so much better, or no, I mean worse, I mean, when things are good, they're just good, but you know it won't last, and you think how everything could turn bad in a blink. So no matter what, good or bad, it could always be worse. I guess there's some kind of comfort in that idea. Cold comfort.

Lombardi also said, "run to daylight." This seems like a good idea. Running in daylight is a good idea too. Running in the darkness...well, that seems like a good metaphor or something, right?

So yesterday, I'm thinking about being tortured, and I'm wondering how quickly I'd be shouting: "I'll say anything you want me to say...just make it STOP!" Does this mean that I'm weak? If under torture I agreed that 2+2 = 5, that yes, up really is down, that really I think President Bush is a courageous leader, that I really do love Big Brother, would I be less of a "good person"? If I was willing to denounce my loved ones to make the torture stop, would I be unprincipled? A coward? A raving bowl of jello?

In my heart of hearts would I still be me? Am "I" defined what I say? Under duress? What if what "I" say is contrary to what I believe - but really only I know what I believe - and just how did I start believing in what I believe? Is that what we call education or indoctrination, or brain-washing? How much pain would make me believe whatever the torturer wants me to believe? Would I be broken, a tortured husk, that even I couldn't trust? And how about the torturer? Would he really be a monster? Or just a guy with a job, a kind of shitty job, that well, when he gets home, after a couple beers and a session with the boob tube, and maybe he can just forget about it all and go to sleep just like a little baby.

Being a human is just such a mind-fuck...

The Dim Sense

Wikpedia: "Fascism is a radical political ideology that combines elements of corporatism, authoritarianism, nationalism, militarism, anti-anarchism, anti-communism and anti-liberalism."

Sounds familiar?

"Nothing could be less American than a government that can indefinitely hold people in secret torture cells, take away their protections against horrific and cruel abuse, put them on trial based on evidence they cannot see, sentence them to death based on testimony literally beaten out of witnesses, and then slam shut the courthouse door for any habeas petition," said Christopher Anders, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. "But that's exactly what Congress just approved."

Ah yes, well, I call it the Torture Bill, it's being called the Detainee Interrogation Bill by others. Whatever. It truly is a disgusting piece of shit. I do believe this is a threshold issue. Our country has been degraded again, by those who claim to love it. I do think our country is run by very, very corrupt people. They are using the fear of terror to pass really bad, authoritarian legislation. They can't even stand up for some basic human decency. I know some Democrats voted against. I saw Hilary Clinton ("when we torture, we lose" - s.j. - WE HAVE LOST!) and Barack Obama give strong speeches against parts of the bill. There are voices of dissent. I'm disappointed someone didn't go to the mat (filibuster?!) on this one.

Maybe those who voted for the bill would be willing to visit a secret CIA interrogation facility for a weekend and sample some of the techniques first-hand for themselves. We'd call it "participatory democracy."

Anyway, the deed is done...maybe the Supreme Court will review down the line. Maybe a future legislature can fix it. Maybe monkeys will fly out my ass...

Anyway, shifting gears, here's Helen Mirren speaking of playing Shakespeare's Caliban: "I just got into it, of living in this wonderful, exotic world, of a creature locked in this awful physical prison but with a dim sense that there was something else out there."

Yes, well, some of us base our lives on this "dim sense."

Enemies of the State

Hey isn't it interesting to think that maybe we're seeing the beginning of the end of the Empire? A ten year war in Afghanistan, (plus the machinations of that man with the mark of the beast on his head), helped bring down the old USSR. Could our little excursions into the baffling lands of Afghanistan and Iraq, be the precursor to our own demise as a hegemon? Although, when the house of cards starts to tumble, I suppose it could get even uglier for a lot of us. Tomorrow's "enemy combatant" could turn out to be today's angry, anti-torture, left-wing blogger. What happens when the beast turns inward? Or maybe we are already using foreign lands as a stand-in for the homeland fight. There really is an entrenched authoritarian strain that runs right through the land of mega-malls and fast food franchises. Freedom ain't what it used to be - freedom now is the ability to shop where we want, when we want. There's a war against people who look and think different than us. Oh yeah, they are here among us right now. We talk of bombing countries, building walls, re-making the world in our own image. Anything to be more secure. Too much security is called prison. But whose image are we re-making and what are we re-making it into? Freedom and democracy have been turned up side down. There are some who are raising their voices...although it looks like anyone pitching for the rights of a "detainee" is by definition giving comfort to the enemy. This seems to be a zero-sum game, where ulitmately we all can be judged "enemies of the state." Yes, any "free-thinkers" are already on thin ice. Throw global warming into the mix and that ice is getting thinner by the day...

Fuck Torture!

Yes, dammit, I've "lost my space," to the torture debate. Sometimes a song gets in your head, and you just can't get it out. Or a co-worker pisses you off, and you rack your brain trying to figure out how to respond, or...well, you put yourself in the place of some poor dude stuck in a prison cell somewhere, with a cattle prod up his ass, or stuck to a "waterboard" to simulate drowning, or well, whatever horror you'd probably call "torture" if your mother or father, or brother or sister were subjected to it. What is it that Walt Kelly's Pogo said: "We have met the enemy, and he is us." I think it's not so much what the terrorists will do to us that we should worry about, instead, what will we do to ourselves in the face of the fear of terror? And how is it that Evangelical Christians can endorse torture? What the fuck? No more more lectures from those scum-sucking pricks! And then there's this from our noble-fucking political class, as so eloquently put by another blogger: "If the Republicans are now the Party of Torture, the Democrats are now the Party of Torture? Yeah, I guess so." No, I am not proud to be an American...I'd rather be considered a Citizen of the World...this is Authoritarian Bullshit of the worst kind. We are all Winston Smith now.

Expansiveness

I guess I'm always running to, or runnning from something. Maybe both at the same time. This morning, it was bright sunshine, shimmering water. I run on a path that snakes through the Northwestern campus. I can't really convey the beauty, the incredible expansiveness that opens out at certain points on the path. It's amazing what a less than pristine body of water, a bold, brilliant sun (hello, old friend), a big blue sky with little cloud wisps, and an open horizon can do for the soul. I could feel the expansiveness, the clarity, the smallness of being a human being overtake me. It was something folks. I actually thought, "everything is in it's place." Now that is not the usual sentiment when I'm back in the land of buildings and storm clouds. How did all of this come together? How is it that we find ourselves here on this little spinning rock? I have no answers. I just keep running.

Do the Right Thing...

Quotes from Dave Von Ronk, the Mayor of McDougal Street:

"Music is punctuated silence."

AND

"Sometimes you have to drop your principles and just do the right thing."

The Good Guys

As an aspiring "Dog Philosopher," (or maybe it should be Philosopher Dog), every day brings another confirmation of the degradation of our state. This must be what it was like in the early stages of the Stalin era, or dare I say it, Herr Hitler? You know something is seriously wrong, it's in the papers every day, another outrage, another counter-intuitive piece of information jumps out and smacks you upside the head. Do we pray for guidance? What big dog do we bow down to? Rin Tin Tin, Lassie, Snoopy?

Today we find that the National Intelligence Estimate has concluded that the Iraq war has made us less (not more) safe from terrorism. No Fucking Shit, Sherlock! And the torture bill looks like a cinch to pass through the hands of the nodded out drones in the House and Senate...I guess, at least we can't say that the leadership isn't being honest with us. We torture, we kill, (and dammit, we're proud of it, don't you know), because...well...because we are the good guys.

"Dogs Run Free...Why Can't We?" - B. Dylan

Is there one Democratic Senator willing to stand up against torture? Is this Republic so terror-crazed that we've decided terror really is the only answer?

"Cynicism was an ancient Greek philosophy, primarily concerned with virtue, whose followers were known as "The Dog Philosophers." They believed that virtue was the only necessity for happiness and that it was wholly sufficient for attaining happiness. They followed this philosophy to the extent of neglecting everything that did not further their perfection of virtue and their attainment of happiness. Thus the title cynics, from the Greek word for dog, kuon , was assigned to them because they lived like dogs; neglecting society, hygiene, family, money, etc. in order to lead wholly virtuous and happy lives."

They say every dog has it's day...maybe the only road to virtue and happiness is to emulate the Canine? Sometimes it's hard to admit to being a human being...we degrade ourselves, our planet every damn day...

Madness By Degrees

I've taken my lead from Buckethead. Sometimes madness comes gradually, by degrees, you can actually watch it unfold, and in it's step by step unfoldment, it actually makes some kind of sense.

So, I located my sock puppet (of course I have one, a relic from another show - it's an actual sock, with silver buttons for eyes, it's got a red flap for a tongue, it's got red lips, dark eyebrows, and blue and green string sprouting out like hair - it's kind of happy and friendly looking - the artistic type), and tried it on, just to see how it might feel. Fit like a glove. So, I have a conference call coming up, I'm expecting fireworks, I need to be calm, detached so I prepare myself, I get myself situated, something to drink, find a comfortable chair, have my phone at the ready, and well, maybe, oh hell, no one's looking, I'll just use the sock puppet just this once. During the call, when I speak, I make the sock puppet's mouth open and close like it's talking. I get off the phone - okay, that went well.

I have to make a trip to the dentist, getting a new tooth, don't you know, and well, maybe I'll just bring the sock puppet along for the ride. I put it in my pocket. On the El, every once in a while, I put my hand in my pocket to make sure the puppet is still there. On the trip back, (I've got a new tooth in my head!), I snake my hand into the sock puppet. I keep my hand in my pocket, but I'm wearing my sock puppet on the way home. My hand is warm, I feel just a little less lonely. I've got a friend.

I do take it off to prepare dinner. I leave it on the table. It looks up at me with those twinkling silver eyes. I know I might be projecting, I know this is sort of crazy, but it actually looks like those eyes are twinkling at me - it almost looks like love.

Drugs Don't Do What They Used To...

Word is Keith Richards has finally given up drugs. Just when the pharmacuetical industry has convinced the rest of the world that taking drugs is the answer. Keith says:

“I really think the quality’s gone down. All they do is try and take the high out of everything. I don’t like the way they’re working on the brain area instead of just through the blood system. That’s why I don’t take any of them any more. And you’re talking to a person who knows his drugs. I don’t take drugs unless I have to under great duress with my brain open. (Note: Keith fell out of a tree in Fiji and needed brain surgery.) I’ve had a couple of weeks on morphine. I did try to squeeze a little bit extra out of the night nurse. She was very accommodating."

So there you have it...from an expert. "My coat is torn and frayed...it's seen much better days." - Jagger & Richards

The Inspirers

Sometimes the Inspirers come from very unlikely places. Lately I've been listening to two dudes who have really opened my eyes. One is Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips. He's one of the Fearless Freaks of Oklahoma. Who would of thunk that a guy who worked for 12 years at Long John Silvers as a cook, would be one of the most charismatic rock and roll singers on the planet? Well it's true. The Lips are a long-running post-punk-psychedelic-rock outfit that combines a self-made, do it yourself work ethic, with a dreamy, questioning, space age consciousness. Backed by a Bonhamesque backbeat. Superb.

Next up is a guy who plays guitar like a crazed wizard. He wears a KFC bucket on his head, he's been known to speak only through a sock puppet. I don't know his back-story, but he plays guitar like a dream...I've been listening to his instrumental disc "Colma," and it contains quiet beauty, exquisite fretwork - soulful, austere...not exactly what you'd expect from a guy known only as Buckethead. I don't plan on emulating Buckethead's guitar playing, but I'm thinking a sock puppet could be just what I need in my work situation.

It's amazing where you might find inspiration...it's all out there, sometimes all you have to do is open your eyes and drop the veil...

Nice Try

James Lovelock, he of the Gaia Hypothesis (the earth is a self-regulating ecosystem), the man who predicted a hole in the ozone layer, now tells us that we're cooked. Global warming is here, it will accelerate, it's unstoppable, it's inevitable and we will begin to see cataclysmic effects within 10 years. Our ice caps will melt, our Amazonian forests will burn up. It seems the end for us will be fire. Lovelock figures there will be a mass migration towards the artic, because the rest of the planet will be too hot for human beings. Maybe 200 million survive (?), to try to remake the world - got any ideas? It will then take 1,000 years for the planet to readjust. Now, I don't know if he's right in his projections or not. I suspect he may be. So, here's my song title for the day - Nice Try Uppity Monkeys...But, No Cigar!

Ray of Light

Last week, I sat in a Starbucks just on the perimeter of Chinatown in Washington D.C. I was drinking an iced latte, and finishing up the Timothy Leary Bio by Robert Greenfield. I was on the page where Leary is close to giving up the ghost, and he's saying that we are "light-bearers." Now it just so happens that just as I was reading those words, a ray of light was breaking through the clouds, was refracted through the window of the shop, and a glimmer of light was magnified by my reading glasses. I looked down at the page I was reading and a tiny spot of light danced on the page in front of me. I had to be sitting just so or it would not be possible. My glasses had to be perched at that exact angle, the window had to be facing that exact side of the street, it had to be that exact moment at that particular time of day, etc. A million (?) factors all had to converge at once, for me to be illuminating the page with my glasses as I was reading the words "light-bearer." I did not fall to my knees. I did not praise the Lord. I did not rejoice. I noted all of this, I paused, lingered over the moment and wondered what it all meant. I remember I did say to myself..."I'm light too." I guess that is what we call an "epiphany" (a sudden comprehension, or realisation of something). Although in this case, I didn't just comprehend, I experienced, I manifested the thought. I finished the book, I walked back to my hotel. I went back to my day to day existence. But, I haven't forgotten this moment...I don't think I will...

Time of the Snakes

I don't mean to demonize the snake. Good God, Snakes on the Plane!?! It just seems like useful shorthand. All figures of authority, "the leaders" of the world (Church, State, Corporation) seem to be SNAKES. You know, powerful, slithery, primitive, brutal, single-minded, linear, without conscience (I'm projecting now), dedicated, reationary, deadly, cold-blooded, legless.

When the leaders of the "free world" are in the halls of power debating the merits and demerits of torture, you know the Snakes have dropped all semblence of pretense...

You can't go "head to head" with the snakes...I think you must "out-think" or out-manuever them. We must design a new reality. What are our weapons: amusement, meditation, creativity, love. I think we need to figure out how to be snake-charmers...there is no land, no island where the snakes don't reside. We need golden armour...impenetrable but permeable too...we've left the land of rocks and mud and entered the realm of magic.

A Struggle, Indeed

A couple of days ago this headline ran in the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Times: "A Struggle for Civilization." I didn't read the articles, I figured they reflected a recognition that our Torturer in Chief had finally overstepped the bounds of civility. What to do with the Texas Barbarian in the White House? Of course it was a phrase the Barbarian himself had used...the truth only oozes from his head inadvertantly...

"No, no, he's outside looking in..."

Back home. In my own little space capsule. Glad to be back from D.C. Not sure if I accomplished a damn thing. I schlepped my body from place to place, life is just so much schlepping...to the airport, to the hotel, to the taxi, to the subway, to the convention center, to the restuarant, to the coffee shop, back to the hotel, back to the subway, back to the airport, to the taxi, to...well finally home.

I finished the Timothy Leary bio...what can you say about a man? He lived. Timothy was a showman, a charlatan, a madman, a stoolie, a drug wreck, a poor father and husband, a visionary, a nation of one, an asshole, a fool, a celebrity, a "stand-up philosopher," etc.

In his last interview, a skeletal husk in a wheelchair, he said the following:

"We are the light. We are the light bearers. Our purpose is to shine the light on others. I have sought the light to use the light to be in space. Light is the language of the sun and the stars where we will meet again."

Timothy Leary's last word: "Beautiful."

Ring that Bell

At 8:00 a.m. at the Four Points Sheraton on K Street in Washington D.C. the church bells ring. Or no, maybe it's a digital tape of church bells. There's a nice little sequence of music, ringing bell tones, a chiming, mettalic sound clanging out some medieval-sounding ditty.

It's my third day here, another cloudy, rainy morning. So far my visit has been a sort of gloomy excurision. I'm armed with a load of business cards, a smile and an easy manner. It hasn't really gotten me very far. I'm looking to "make something happen," and the world seems a little cool to my plan. I'm mean, do we ever really "make" anything happen? Or does the world just happen, and we happen to be in it?

I had a long sleep, in contrast to the night before when I tossed and turned. Being on double-super-secret-probation has kind of gotten to me. I mean, I know it's ridiculous, but I guess I sort of dread it too, or as Eric Burdon once said, "Oh lord, don't let me be misunderstood."

I sometimes seems to really get in trouble when I "try" to do the right thing. I am also sometimes honest to a fault. This does not go down well with some of my business collegues. I've been told I need to be more "collegial." I find that mildly hilarious. I guess I feel I don't really belong here. I'm on a mission improbable...the bells remind me that things haven't always been like this...there are other times, other realities here with us always...

The Truth

Washington D.C. does have it's charm. It was a beautiful day in D.C. yesterday. Everything went smoothly into Ronald Reagan airport (oh how clean and efficient, Ronnie would be proud!), and I took the metro (very clean too) to my hotel on K street. The place smells like money. This is where all those lobbying firms who work so hard for their clients by helping Senators & Representatives write bills, taking into account the needs of big Pharma, and Big Oil and Big Insurance, making sure that their interests are considered. Who is lobbying for Grandma? And the trees, and the birds, and the little homeless man on the corner, and well, shit, who is looking out for you and me?

Anyway, I had time to just walk around the town, and it was kind of cool, somehow I found myself in Chinatown, and it was lively and funky and sort of fun. It's amazing to be in a city all alone, not knowing a soul, living on an expense account. It's kind of strange, and lonely, and well, I actually kind of like it too.

So anyway, later in the day, I find out that all my battles at my job have now led me to "super-secret-double-probation." Yikes! I am on thin ice. I'm not even sure I'm supposed to talk about it here. Obviously, I believe I'm the offended party, I have the facts, the truth on my side, but in my political battle this does not seem to be helping me. Oh well...what are they gonna do next, revoke my library card?!

There's a picture of Honest Abe in my room. I remember we say of George Washington, "he never told a lie." Somehow in our mythology of America, telling the truth is supposed to be important. Well, then, there's the myth and then there's the reality, and then somewhere in there there's supposed to be this thing we call the truth. It's supposed to set us free...hmmm...there's freedom and then there's freedom...and well, is anyone really free?

Maybe

A travel day today, I'm going to an energy show. Heading to our nation's capital. I don't really like the place, even with all the famous buildings and monuments. It's supposed to be a great town for tourists. I've never liked playing the role. I've always mistrusted power. I know our government is supposed to be a group of public servants serving the public, but I've always suspected that these public servants always seem to serve themselves first. I've always looked at even our own government as authoritarian. It's not supposed to work that way, but there's entrenched power that serves itself first, and democracy, and responsibility and accountability seem to come later, if ever. I do think I'm visiting the center of the empire, in another time it would be like visiting Rome, or Moscow, or Berlin, or London or Constantinople. I'm looking for someone interested in energy conservation...I'm heading to the great corporate feeding trough, looking for someone who wants to do LESS in this land of plenty... am I nuts? I always end up on these strange, hopeless-seeming crusades...but hope is my currency...maybe I will have some luck, maybe things will get better, maybe people will open their eyes and actually...do the right thing...maybe.

The Super-Stellar Range

It was a dark, rainy day yesterday...I went to visit my mom, we lunched at a local diner and then went back home and watched "The English Patient," a film made in 1996. I saw it when it orignally came out, I always wanted to revisit it, it seemed like a perfect time. It's an epic, it's a classic "weepie", it was perfect for the day. What can I say, I totally submerged myself in the beauty of the images, the doomed love story (is every true love ultimatley doomed?), the excellent acting, the strangely spiritual, uplifting nobility of a story about people living a life of passion. Does the horror of war, seperation, boredom, betrayal, death only stoke the fire? Well, yes, I think it does...as one of the characters says: "the heart is an organ of fire." I also thought I heard a character use the phrase - "super-stellar range." Now that's where my heart lies.

I read a book about the film editor, Walter Murch. I was looking for the little sublties he talked about in the book, how the sound of one scene would bleed into another. You might not notice it if he hadn't pointed it out. It helps bring some kind of mystical, or magical sense to the film. There's another through-line, tying one event to another. It leads me to the thought that that's what we must do too...find the through-lines of our lives...no matter what lies ahead, what lies behind us, there is some line, some continuity, some sense or spirit that we carry with us through each scene.

Drunk

Someone said to me yesterday..."you always look drunk." Now, do I take this as a compliment? Maybe I'm intoxicated with life?!

The Man

Okay, so sometimes, or make that most of the time, or hell, maybe all the time, this blog is just me basically talking to myself. If I wasn't typing furiously on a keyboard, if I wasn't letting this out, I'd probably be walking down the street muttering this stuff to myself. Which is a great way to "get my space," but would probably make the rest of the world even more skittish around me. I hear these voices in my head, usually sounding like me, sometimes not, I guess I'm like arguing with myself, or testing out the words, or maybe I just like to hear the sounds, try to fill up the silence. So, stuff that resonates with me, ends up here, whether it's entertaining or not, enlightening or not, interesting or not, etc. I'm still reeling from a conversation I had a couple of days ago, some really cool things were passed onto me, that basically blew up some old ways I was thinking, and kind of opened up a new vista...I've always had a problem with "the man." It's been my rebel mode...fight the man, fuck the man, off the man, etc. Now this can be turned on myself, if you know what I mean. What if I am the man?! So anyway, all I really have to say today, with no adequate explanation (please bear with me): sunnyjimmy, be the man, trust the man, you da man!

The Disillusionist

Someone I know and admire told me I was like the "Disillusionist," always looking for the lie behind the smiley face. This seems oh so true to me. It's been my mode from early on in my life, (think Catholic grade school) when the big powerful adults were happy to shovel their line of shit to a group of little defenseless kids.

Add in the lies of the government (remember my political consciousness arose during the Nixon years), and the discrete white lies within the family pod (we all just wanted to be happy), and well, that's pretty much the trifecta: Church, State and Family...what else ya got?

Oh yeah, there's the corporate world...don't even need to start the catalog of lying there, let's just say, whatever it takes to make a buck...and well, it's a life-long quest to slog through the shit to try to get to some honesty and truth...

Now, the trick is to not get too cynical, or more cynical about it all...there's forgiveness, compassion and amusement...isn't all just so funny how we spend so much of our time walking around on this planet handing each other so much bullshit!? And we know it's just shit too...anyway...even the disillusionist has some illusions he can cling to...for instance...hey it's kind of fun seeing the lie over and over and over...we're such a silly bunch of knuckleheads...makes for comedy, tragedy -- hell it's all just theater...

Zen in a Package

I found a new coffee...Zen Blend...I guess it's just packaging, little coffee beans, I pour the water in the coffee maker, I put the beans in the grinder, I grind vigourously, pour the results in the filter, push a button, and about ten minutes later my dark, Zen, liquid is ready for drinking. I add in a healthy dose of soy milk, (no fat antibiotic cows sully this brew), and presto chango, the caffiene begins to course through my body...this is sometimes how dumps transforms into sunny...

I guess this probably isn't all that good for me...the evidence from the scientists is contradictory...certainly the quanities I'm ingesting, are not recommended...what is this stuff doing to my arteries? I know it's a way of kind of jogging my metabolism. My engine starts revving...getting ready for another day of something...I suppose it's better than heroin, or crack, or methamphetimine...you must pick your vices...there's probably some kind of bill due, later down the line...but, hell, no one said this ride was gonna be free...

No Labor

Labor day...there will be no laboring today. It's a rainy day, slept in late, made a second pot of coffee. Listening to John Coltrane on the radio...he left us so much wonderful music...he died at 40. Unbelievable. Just kind of floating in genial haze today...it's OK.

Illusion

Last night the Lovely Carla and I saw "The Illusionist" featuring Edward Norton. It was a quite enjoyable film. Very much a classic story. As we left the theater, I remarked, "sometimes you just have to fool them." We both agreed this was the right message, at the right time for so much of what's happening in our lives at the moment. Sometimes it just doesn't pay to go "head to head." There's something to be said for creating an illusion, which can be used as a ruse, a distraction, to create space for the real work.

The Possible

There's something to be said for "being onto the next thing." In fact, it may be the only way to be. There's the continual creating and destroying, filling the space, and emptying it out. It's the only way to stay fresh, alive, in the moment. The hard part is to always realize that no matter what you make, it can't be carried forward, in order to create something new, the old must be left behind. Why does it always feel like starting over? That's when the possible becomes possible...

A Lot of Stabbing Going On...

Is this sunnyjimmy or jimmydumps speaking?

"There are two kinds of friends. Those who stab you in the back, and those who stab you in the front."

John Lennon once sang: "No one knows you when you're down and out, no one knows you when you're on cloud nine..."

It can get lonely at the top, lonely at the bottom. We come into the world alone, exit alone too. Man, that's a whole lot of lonely...

I think only love and compassion can make us less lonely...but these are passions that descend on their whim, not ours...