The Sanity Klaus

Now isn't that interesting? There's a condition called apophenia, "the experience of seeing patterns or connections in random or meaningless data."

Holy Mackeral Bat Man! Don't tell me that my creative method is a type of psychosis! Did Klaus Conrad cook up this condition to make me think I'm mad?

"Another RoadSide Attraction" - T. Robbins

Hey, if this story is on the mark, if indeed, archeologists really have found the tomb of Jesus, and well, the dude is in the casket...some peoples gots lots of 'splaining to do.

Wow, another eye-catching story this morning: Beaver in NY!

"Got a smoke?" - Napoleon Wilson

The last two days, I basically fell off the face of the earth, I mean, I'm not trying to be overly dramatic or anything, although, drama is in my blood, it's all just theater don't cha know?! I mean, I came down with a really bad bug that totally flummoxed me. I could barely walk, talk, or see straight. This really cuts down on social interaction. The primary actitivty? Sleep. In my few lucid moments I watched a couple of DVDs.

I discovered a classic film, John Carpenter's "Assault on Precinct 13," (not to be confused with the re-make of the same title released in 2005). Carpenter is a true auteur (Wikipedia: In film criticism, the 1950s-era auteur theory holds that a director's films reflects that director's personal creative vision, as if he or she were the primary "auteur" (the French word for 'author'). In some cases, film producers are considered to have a similar "auteur" role for films that they have produced.)

Carpenter's contributions to the film include: writer, director, music composer, editor. That about covers it. It's a really great movie, in a small, unassuming way. It's low budget, low tech, no-name actors, no flab, no flash, basically one set, with a few exteriors. It's an existential piece, something that Satre or Camus could recognize and endorse. No wonder there's a cult for this movie in Europe. I guess it's Carpenter's homage to Howard Hawks "Rio Bravo." (Another classic: any movie with John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson and Walter Brennan in the cast has to be considered a classic in my book.)

So in Carpenter's movie our existential heroes are a cop, a killer, and a girl. They all do what they have to do, when they have to do it. They are "out of time." They are drawn together because they want to live. There is no judgement. There are no status games, or maybe well, it's all one big status game, but the players are on their own, they can't blame anyone else for where they are, who they (mom, dad, god, devil -- they are blameless) have become, what they do. There is the moment and the action, and each man or woman is responsible to each and every moment and action. They are free actors in a world of crushing responsiblities, free to make a million choices, some sublime, many brutal or absurd.

The film is pure, clean, exhilarating. It's a "genre" movie. It's not claiming to be profound, but then, isn't that when a piece can really sneak up on you? So, I don't mean to praise it too much. I went in with low expectations, I could barely move, I was laid up, wrapped like a mummy, I wanted to see action on the screen, but of course, by the time the credits rolled, I had seen so much more.

Two Discs

Isn't it inevitable? You have a great trip, you get back into town, and you get blind-sided by a germ? Last night was all fever dreams and chills. Today, my head feels like a watermelon.

Anyway, I bought two cds on the trip. And I've been listening to them today. I highly recommend both:

Wilco's "A Ghost is Born"



And Beck's "Guero"



Great music. Highly recommended.

The Impossible Place

Back home from a whirlwind trip to NY. What a fantastic, impossible place. It is a shining example of the great American experiment. It's a wild, multi-cultural stew. Hard not to love it.

The Lovely Carla and I dipped our toes in the pool of artistic inspiration, taking in Richard Foreman's new play, Wallace Shawn's one-man show, a retrospective of Saul Steinberg's drawings, and a photo exhibition featuring Henri-Cartier Bresson's amazing, in-the-moment photos.

Somehow, everything seemed connected, or somehow everything kind of leached into each other. In Foreman's play, you are lost in a sub-conscious world where everything seems to be something else. It is striking, unique theater, beyond criticism, it just is, like a dream, a cloud, a mountain, or your favorite aunt or grandfather. Wallace Shawn (we got to share a glass of champagne with the man himself) examines the connectedness of us all. We live in a world of rich and poor. We are responsible, and accountable to each other.

Steinberg fled Romania, escaped the Facist hordes and brought his wildly inventive eye to the shores of America. He became a great commentator of New York and America. He brought a light touch, a great sense of humour to the absurdity of the modern world. Bresson was captured twice by the Nazis, he buried his camera,(he retrieved it after his second escape), and then dedicated his life to capturing the fantastical and strange world we have made for ourselves. He documents a world long gone, Piccasso and Giocometti, the slums of Mexico, of Spain, the boulevards of Paris, the streetwalkers, the food vendors. It's all there in gorgeous black and white. Bresson had a eye like no other.

Anyway, it was a total feast. We also ate quite well, I highly recommend Pure Food and Wine, it's gourmet, raw cuisine (you cannot make this stuff at home, I promise), a nice, clean, comfy place where the animals are not on your plate, only on the walls around you -- ducks, cows and sheep smile down at you in appreciation. You won't want to eat them. And you will still enjoy the meal and get your fill and well, yes, you will feel good about it too. It was a great trip. Now if only we could make each day a vacation day - now that's something to shoot for!

Too Much Coffee to Be Sleepy!

The Lovely Carla and I are heading to New York City later today. There are many compelling reasons one might go for a visit, but for us, Richard Foreman's Ontological Theater takes the cake. He's been putting on shows at St. Mark's Church for something like 30 years. He's a true inspiration, I've only seen one of his pieces, (Carla has seen a couple), but I've read quite a few plays, essays and interviews with the great man over the years, and I must say, he has opened doors and helped free my mind to pursue my own wacky brand of theater. You must find inspiration where you can, so anyway for us St. Mark's beckons.

I've been posting some videos from the Black Forest archive at YouTube. You can now watch videos at the jimmydumps/sunnyjimmy video ranch. I will continue to update with videos from our illustrious history, as well as new works as they emerge. It's kind of cool to set up your own YouTube Channel. It's easy too!

Plus, we now have a MySpace site for Black Forest Theater. I will post photos and videos there too. Also, as our Rock Opera unfolds, I will post songs on the site for your listening pleasure.

Finally, I also wanted to reveal another one of my valences, (a well-rounded individual should have many) jimmymthehermit. You might say he's an empty suit, but at least it's golden. Here is where I will post some of my very own quirky music. Right now, I highly recommend you check out "The Spook," my ironic ode to the CIA torture atrocity. As Dick Clark would say, it's got a good beat, and you can probably dance to it. Maybe the Funky Chicken?

So, I no longer own a laptop, so blogging on the road the next few days might be sporadic. But still, I've got that blog monkey on my back, so who knows?

The Sun King

The age of Kings is over, but hopefully not the age of the Sun. It's another gloomy day here in the heartland. I came across this from Louis XIV, the Sun King, and I wanted to bring a little sunshine into my blog today. You have to admire the chutzpah of a King taking on the glory of the sun, but well, it was a reflected glory.

"Because of the light it shines on the other stars which make up a kind of court around it, because of the just and equal distribution of its rays to all alike, because of the good it brings to all places, producing life, joy and action, because of its constancy from which it never varies, I chose the sun as the most magnificent image to represent a great leader." - The Sun King.

A Small Bright Thing

This is from the Emerald Tablet: "That which is above is like that which is below and that which is below is like that which is above, to achieve the wonders of the one thing."

I've been thinking of the concept of enlightenment lately, maybe because I have spent a lot time in darkness. Darkness in my head, darkness in my world. So, I'm drawn to the light, kind of like a moth knocking itself against an illuminated orb.

I've spent much of my life thinking that enlightenment is a big thing. That the sky will open, that lightening will strike me in the head, I will fall to my knees and presto chango, all will be illuminated.

Lately, I'm thinking I've been missing the boat on this completely, that instead, enlightenment, is a little thing, it's a small feeling of bliss, or calm, and actually, I experience it almost every time I meditate.

Maybe I'm dense, or slow, or well, blind, but it has finally dawned on me, that enlightenment isn't an idea, not really, it's a feeling, it's an experience, a knowledge that cannot be put into words. Because I value words so highly, I have devalued or discounted the little, fleeting feeling of calmness, of oneness, of well, bliss, that comes over me naturally when I sink into a deep meditation.

So it's a little thing, this big thing that I have been seeking. It's like a little golden shadow that kind of hovers over me, or it's a warmness that completely floods my body, or it's a silence that fills my head, or well, here's the thing, and it's key, it's the thing that I can't really spell out in words, it's something that overtakes me, but just barely, almost imperceptively, but completely. It's a small thing, but it's really, really big. But here's another thing, it's not something you can hold onto or cling to, it's like a little butterfly, if you hold it too hard, you kill it, so it's there, floating around you, it can land on you, you can admire it, but it flies away too, in a blink of the eye. And well, really, you can't really explain it, even to yourself. And maybe talking about it, or writing about it, is just another fool's errand, and if you're compelled to write it or verbalize it, of course, you turn off the light just like a switch!

"When it gets bad, all us freaks have is each other." - HellBoy

How the hell did I miss HellBoy? I guess the movie debuted in 2004, it came and went, and well, I had no clue. I finally caught up with it, and man, do I have a new hero or what? Hell Boy is the man, or no, I mean he's part man and part devil (who isn't?), and he's working with the good guys to fight the bad guys and bad girls. In the HellBoy universe, God seems to be on vacation, or out to lunch, or well, just maybe completely bored with the shit going down on planet earth. So, instead we've got Nazis and, Rasputin, and a host of strange and creepy creatures that want to devour us and bring on the new apocalypse.

HellBoy eats Baby Ruths, he smokes cigars, he drinks Budweiser, he's in love with a girl who, when she gets upset, is a fire-starter. I see HellBoy as a combination of Tom Waits, Charles Bukowski, and the Incredible Hulk. He's big, he's red, he's strong, and he likes to work alone. He's not too happy with his looks, he files down his horns, he thinks he wants to fit in, but, well, it just ain't gonna happen.

Anyway, the movie (based on a comic) is directed by Guillermo Del Toro who made the exquisite "Pan's Labryinth." HellBoy is a kick of a movie. Lots of battles with monsters, cool bad guys, it's pretty funny too. HellBoy wants to be good, although, he is a child of hell, and well, when it comes down to it, aye, there's the rub.

The Organ Grinder

Well, the poet, John Keats once said something about how the world we live in is basically a school for souls. And well, since we really live in a world of hard knocks, you end up with a lot of lumps and bumps and bruises along the way. So this school, really, is a school of hard knocks. Maybe that's what makes us supremely soulful?

Then again, back in the day, there was a "pseudo-science," called Phrenology, which tried to predict personality traits by the lumps and bumps on a person's skull. So, a Phrenologist, might measure your skull and conclude that your "organ of wonder" was very big, and your "organ of veneration," was noticeably small.

So, I'm sitting here this morning, sipping some coffee, running my hands over my skull, trying to decipher just what's going on in that big mushy brain of mine. I've been in the process of re-thinking my little world. I've taken a few lumps to the noggin lately, and well, what does that say about the dumps/sunny dichotomy?

Is there something to be gleaned from a discredited, pseudo-science? I'm not really a scientist myself, so in some ways, everything is pseudo to me. I've always been baffled by this brain thinking about a brain conundrum. I mean, we've got this organ, and it's kind of a grinder, and there's a monkey somewhere in the picture, and well, like Chico Marx once asked, "how can I find out, what I got to find out, if I can't find out, what I got to find out?"

Questions & Coffee

Questions for this morning: is consciousness a "primitive," like space and mass? Does consciousness reside in everything in the universe, from the smallest atom to the largest star? Is human consciousness just one little pebble in the universal consciousness continuum?

My Cocoon

It's been the deep freeze here in the heartland. If there is a heart here, be assured dear Pilgrim, it is frozen. So, how to toast the soul? Rub some sticks together and dream of fire? I guess, I'm all for hunkering, hiding deep inside my cocoon and waiting for the right time to emerge fully-formed. I have been going through major gyrations lately. I have been in open war on the work front. This has not been pleasant, and well, I'm on the losing end of this bargain. So, then again, I have learned the lesson, if you are in business with sharks, you will get bitten! So, I retreat to my little redoubt and start to strategize. I know there's another world out there somewhere, and I must have a place in it. Or well, that's my story today, and I'm sticking to it!

The Crossroads

I kind of feel like I'm at a crossroads in my life. Not sure where I'm going. This happens from time to time. I mean, I can look back and see where I've come from, and by looking back, I might get a clue where I'm going, but today, from where I stand, I'm looking at two roads (maybe more) and well, I'm at a loss on which road to take, which way to turn. Usually, I'm thinking we come up to these decisions all the time, and we just take a left or a right without really thinking, like of course this is the only way to go. You can spend a lot of your time just going, without thinking. It might be the best way.

Then again, sometimes, you're dumbfounded. You find yourself at an intersection, and you wonder how you got there, and well, you haven't any good idea of where you're going. That's how I'm feeling today. I'm thinking of Robert Johnson selling his soul at the crossroads so he could play guitar and sing the blues like no other man alive. Maybe not such a bad deal. I think of Little Bobby Zimmerman taking the road out of Hibbing, Minnesota and making his way to Greenwich Village. Or Jasper Johns waking up from a dream and painting a big American flag. These were choices, in the moment, that then set a tone for a life. I'm sure I've made of million of them myself. And how did I get here, how did I become the person that I have become?

I think of Robert Frost and the "road not taken." So, that's the thing, each decision means that another one is not acted upon, I take a left here, I can never take that right again. And who could I have been, and what could I have done? Then again, maybe we all have only one destiny. I mean, the road we take is the road we take, and there really was never a chance that we'd take the other. Can it be so? I know there's a physical highway, a genetic freeway; once you're born you can't get off the merry go round, your body will do this and not that, you will have blue eyes and not green, etc.

I mean I'm not gonna sprout wings, but yes, I can fly. I can imagine another me. I can imagine another life. I can put myself there, I can make my choice at the crossroads. That is a cross we have to bear, and I guess if we are crucified by the choices we make, at least let them be our choices, not those handed to us by someone else. So, I'm standing at the crossroads waiting for a sign, or a man, or a demon, or a bird, or well, something that will give me a clue, an inkling on which way to turn. I wait. As Tom Petty reminds us: "the waiting is the hardest part."

50 Cent vs. Ghandi -- Who'd Win?

I've been reading this book called the 48 Laws of Power, by Robert Greene. I mean, if it's good enough for 50 Cent, it's good enough for me. I have always had a strange relationship to power and men & women of power. I usually recoil from the Strong Arm Types. I have a deep resistance to authority. And I guess this may have meant that I've had a somewhat estranged relationship to my own power. Often-times, I have felt completely powerless in the world. Most of my efforts have been in the creative realm, and it's there that I feel I have some mojo, but when it comes to the world of men and women (boys and girls), and actualizing myself in the world, I sometimes "have no hand." I'm no Machiavelli. The book tells us that the world really is a Zero Sum Game, and in order to get ahead you must always be looking for advantage, everyone is on the make, and ultimately, everyone (I mean everyone) is your enemy.

It's not exactly the philosophy I've grown up with and applied to my own life, but, well, if you look around you, there might be a little truth in the Machiavellian world view. Of the 48 laws, I've basically broken each and every one of them. In some ways, I think the book is ridiculous (could this be my own powerlessness talking?), but it's also beautifully written and laid out. There are many great stories from world history; from the great Chinese dynasties, through various kings and queens, to Emperors and Presidents and Prime Ministers and warriors and diplomats to a wide-ranging cast of charlatans and hustlers. Quite the human thing, don't cha know?

Anyway, I've been living in my own little world of power games and relentless back-stabbing, and most of the wounds that have been meted out have been meted out to me. Some of course, have been self-inflicted. I have transgressed the laws of power and well, if you break each and every one, don't come to the door, hat in hand, looking for any sympathy from the wolf pack. So, as I lick my wounds, I wade through the book, I note how I have overstepped here, talked too much there, exposed myself unnecessarily here, etc. It's all kind of humbling and well, maybe I will learn something and take my first tentative steps back into the big boxing ring of life with a new set of gloves.

So, I read, and try fit some of this info into my noggin. And the stories well, they are circular, they go round and round, it's the human game, it just keeps going and repeating, and well, do we ever learn anything? We spin around just like the little planet we are riding, and well, there's really only one Ghandi, one 50 Cent, and maybe I can take a little from both and just kind of skate without getting hurt too badly?!

The Boss Meets Buddy Holly

Peter V. the drummer for the Telepaths is a walking encyclopedia of music and music trivia. He's more than a decade younger than me, and still our musical tastes often converge. Peter turned me onto a band called The Hold Steady. I've been playing their disc ("Boys and Girls in America") almost non-stop for days now. The ghost of the Boss (I know he's not dead), circa Asbury Park is all over the disc.

I mean, this album (do we still call them albums?), is like the lost disc somewhere after "Greetings from Asbury Park," and "The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle," and before "Born to Run." There are Telecasters, and keyboards, and ringing major chords, and the lead singer, well, he's got the Boss's range and timbre. But, then again, this band brings something new to the mix too. Not sure what, I mean, these songs stick in your head, they will hook you, or at least they hooked me, a big fat juicy rock and roll worm - I've gone for it hook, line and sinker! The Hold Steady; they are a caffiene rush of rock and roll adrenaline.

This morning I went to their site and watched a few YouTubes, and the real funny part of this, and the clincher, these guys look like accountants and telemarking reps; hard-working guys who have found salvation in the rock and roll trenches. No Hollywood, no bandannas and scarfs, just bad suits and stringy ties, nerdy glasses, (The Boss meets Buddy Holly?), I mean, I guess their nerdiness could be their brand of "off brand," but man, they look too weirdly normal to be poseurs.

When does inspiration become a ripoff? When does a formula transcend it's elements? How does it all work? Well, I guess that's up to the ear of the beholder.

Purple Rain

Well, that game last night was basically a real bummer. I mean, it was great to have the Bears in the SuperBowl, but no one dreams of going to the SuperBowl and losing. My team was basically kicked up and down the field. Being a fan is a strange phenomenon, I mean, I didn't throw one pass, make one tackle the whole season, but well, I watched, I cheered, I rooted, I expended energy on those dudes. Somehow, some way, a part of me is invested in the Bear tradition.

What would my father and his father (plus Halas, Lombardi) have made of Prince during the halftime show?

Actually, for me, Prince's perfomance was the best part of the night (except for Devin Hester's opening kickoff return for a touchdown). He opened up the great American songbook and gave us snatches of "Proud Mary," "All Along the Watchtower," and of course, "Purple Rain." He's a strange, ambi-sexual looking dude, he was up there prancing on a massive version of his own "symbol," playing killer guitar licks in a driving rain (how did they ground him to make sure we didn't witness some kind of royally purple electrocution?).

My favorite part was when Prince pulled out a custom made purple guitar, cranked up like some shred guitarist's royally twisted wet dream, and then a large billowing white sheet engulfed him and projected his image, larger than life in the center of the field. The way he held his guitar between his legs made him look like some strange little demon with a strangely twisted sexual accoutremont. How bizzare. How decadent, how gloriously PAGAN!

I guess that made it all worthwhile. The game was a soggy grind. But hell, the Purple Rained!

Inland Empire

The Lovely Carla and I went the Music Box Theater (what a great movie house!) yesterday to catch David Lynch's "Inland Empire." I've been on a Lynch kick lately, reading and really enjoying his book on meditation (see preivous posts) and the movie business. Anyway, his latest movie is a stunning masterpiece. I mean, it's maddening, baffling, hallucinatory, abstract, spooky, creepy, beautiful, haunting, non-linear, rambling, extraordinary, inspiring, spiritual, mind-bending.

I'm thinking it's a movie you will either really, really love, or really, really hate. If you like to figure movies out, or if they must be "plausible," plot-driven, and make some kind of rational sense, you will probably be dissappointed, or pissed off, or just plain bored. On the other hand, if you can just kind of let yourself go, you will find a wildly rich treasure-trove of a movie.

I love the audacity of an artist at the height of his powers fully realizing his quirky and strange vision and damn the torpedoes. It is absolutely sublime. I came out of the experience alive, on fire; my imagination spinning like a circus wheel.

I mean, I've seen many movies in my life, this ranks up there with the best of the best. I mean, it seems to match something in me perfectly; the way I see the world, the way I create, the way things seem to connect and reflect. It's a complete mind-blower. What a strange world we live in... you know something, something strange and unnameable is beckoning just beyond the next door and you can't wait to open it, although there's some dread there too, because really you don't know, until, well, it's too late, and then what you thought you knew, you don't, and what you do, well you just can't really explain.

Playing the Flatiron!

I was out late last night, playing with my rock and roll outfit the Telepaths. It was a loud and raucous set at the Flatiron building (the one in Chicago), which my brother (he has a studio there) tells me is like Paris in the 20's. Not sure about that, but it is a funky place populated with artists and other roustabouts. The wine and conversation always flows like a roaring river. The whole building resonates when you play. I mean, you're not just playing your instrument, not just that particular song, you're playing the hallways, the stairs, the three floors of artist studios. You're playing all the people that pass through too. We plugged in and did an expansive set, some numbers we know well, and some not so well. I got lost on the fretboard a few times, but there's something about jumping in and trying to catch the tail of the beast. There were moments of pure joy, Peter V. banging on the drums, TPM singing about Susan Sontag, me flailing away on the guitar like a one-armed paper hanger. It was not elegant, but it was exuberant. I've always been a believer in the "group dynamic." Although, I'm basically a "loner," (the Lovely Carla tells me as we lay wrapped like mummies in bed this morning- "you want to be like the other boys, but you just aren't."), I've found that in theater or in music, it's the combination of different energies that takes it all to another level. Yes, well, I'm a little older, a little more fragile, a little more something (fucked up? twisted? naive?), than some of the others, but I'm well past the point of trying to fit in. Finally either you plug and play, or you don't...I like to plug in!

A Fantastic Game

Well who would of thunk that David Lynch would be such a great advocate for meditation? I mean, if you've ever considered taking up the practice, and it's all seemed a little intimidating, or boring, or well, just not a Western-type thing to do, let good, old David kind of take you through the paces.

I mean, this guy's up there with the Dalis and Yogis, the holy men, the madmen, the fools. All those crazy, edgy folks who make it all worthwhile. I've read many a book on meditation, from Alan Watts to Herman Hesse to Peter Mathiessen, (the Snow Leopard is one of the great books on Zen), to Eugen Herrigel (Zen and the Art of Archery - a classic) to Krishnamurti to Thomas Merton to Jack Kerouac to Ginsberg to Gary Snyder to well, a cornucopia of Japanese, Indian, Chinese and Tibetan sages. But how many of those guys manuevered in the land of agents and femme fatales and movie moguls? How many of those guys made movies as bad as "Dune," and as disturbing and sublime as "The Elephant Man," "Blue Velvet," "Eraserhead," and "Mulholland Drive"?

Here's the Dali Lynch on Transcendental Meditation: "it's a simple, easy, effortless technique that allows any human being to dive within, to experience subtler levels of mind and intellect, and to enter this ocean of pure consciousness, the Unified Field - the self. It's not the intellectual understanding of the field but the experiencing of it that does everything.

You dive within, and by experiencing this field of pure consciousness, you enliven it; you unfold it; it grows. And the final outcome of this growth of consciousness is called enlightenment, which is the full potential of us all." D. Lynch "Catching the Big Fish."

The Donut

David Lynch has a new movie, which I haven't seen yet, but which I plan on seeing ASAP, and a new book about meditation, which I'm reading now.

I heard him on the radio, and he talked about some tough times he went through, and then he said this: "don't focus on the donut hole, focus on the donut." I know exactly what he means.

UPDATE: Lynch's actual quote: "keep your eye on the donut, not the hole." -- So much more concise!

These Boots

Lee Hazelwood is the songwriter who wrote these great lines: "these boots are made for walking, and that's just what they'll do, one of these days these boots will walk all over you." Nancy Sinatra made it a hit in the swinging 60's, the bass-line is one of the great driving riffs in pop music. Listen to it today, and it will stick in your head like an ice-pick.

Anyway, Lee is 77, he has cancer, he's getting ready to die. Here he is reflecting on the hereafter: "I think that any part of you that's good or interesting might go back to this collective something that started it all off. And that's as deep of an explanation as I can give you."

A Champ Passes

I want to tip my cap to a great athelete who passed away today, Barbaro. An amazing, beautiful thoroughbred. He has a special place in my heart because of his stirring win in the Kentucky Derby last year. It was the first time I actually backed a winner in that race. It's a very difficult race to handicap, I've been betting and losing for many years, (I've won plenty of other races, just not the crown jewel of the triple crown!), three year old colts and fillies, still growing, maturing, usually facing an overflow crowd, going a mile and quarter for the first time.

It's a real challenge for the horses, the jockeys, the trainers and the handicappers. There's skill and luck and well, to have any kind of success, a lot of factors have to kind of come together. Kind of like life, I guess. They call horseracing the "sport of kings," but in this era, there are very few royals in the stands on any given day at your local track. A lot of "broken down horse-players," but maybe in their way, those down and outers are the royalty of the modern (or is it post-modern, or post-post-modern?) era.

Nothing like the excitement of the horses loading up into the gate, waiting for the bell, and then the roar "they're off." Some of my best days have been spent at places like Santa Anita, Arlington Park, Sportsman's, Maywood, El Caliente, Gulfstream, Calder, Long Champs...I hope to get to Saratoga, and Del Mar down the line...

Anyway, thanks Barbaro...what a great performance, those two mintues at Churchill Downs in Kentucky made you a champion, and made me feel like king of the world, for a brief flash!

"I didn't know it was Jesus, I thought it was a monkey." - Larry David

Larry David. I love the guy. I mean, he really, really, makes me laugh. I love how he's always pissing people off, usually when he's trying to do the right thing. My favorite TV show, hands down, is Curb Your Enthusiasm. Larry David basically plays Larry David, and I guess the show is kind of a controlled improvisation with a cast of characters including Jeff Garlin, Richard Lewis and Shelley Berman.

We don't get HBO, so I have discovered this show via DVD. One disc holds 4 shows...it's great to watch one after another in one sitting, kind of a CYE jamboree. Larry David was one of the original creators of the Seinfeld show. I never watched Seinfeld, I mean, I've seen episodes periodically, I recognize that it was a very funny show, but for me, I never quite got hooked, it never really grabbed me, it lacked any kind of biting edge.

Curb Your Enthusiasm is all edge...there's something about Larry David, he's not a schlub, he's smart, he doesn't back down, he's not afraid to offend. He lives in a strange world, he circulates in the stratosphere with the super rich of Hollywood, an unreal and ridiculous world of plenty. Larry tries to navigate and make sense of the "rules of the game." Usually, he's on the wrong side of the fence, I mean, he's a man alone, always out of step with those around him. He's well-intentioned, but no one else sees him that way. He's constantly being misunderstood. But, Larry is never deterred. He forges ahead, living by a code of his own. And the laughs come in waves.

Failure is an Option

Contrary to what some prominent gasbags want us to believe, yes, indeed, failure is an option. Maybe what they mean to say is that admitting failure is not an option. If you can't admit a disaster that is unfolding right before your eyes, it seems to me that you just make it all so much worse (it may even be at least criminal and maybe even immoral). There is no virtue in stupidity.

One diplomatic (think weasel!) way out of this kind of thing is to declare failure a success and just move on, but even that seems to be beyond the pig-headed power mongers at the helm.

Failure is always an option. It happens every day, to all of us. It's okay. It may even be necessary. It's how we learn (sometimes painfully) what works, what doesn't. It's how we get experience and (admittedly, it may not be the most efficient way, but I think it's certainly effective) how we grow as human beings.

I guess it's a cliche, but yes I think failure helps build character. It's how we handle it, it's what we do after the pieces have fallen around our ears that defines who we are as human beings.

Unicorn Hunters

Hey, maybe the best stuff in life is kind of like chasing after a unicorn. I mean, you think it might be out there, or it would be cool if it was out there, or well, hell, what's the harm in letting our imaginations run wild building fantastic worlds, populated by beautiful beasts? And if you could hop on and ride such a creature? Where would we go?

So, the chase, the search, the possibility of a glimpse of the magical is enough to keep us engaged, to drive us forward...

And sometimes, unaccountably, a certain "magic" just kind of seeps into things (the big, the small) we do...

But we can only glimpse, not grasp...

Now , of course, if we were "Zen" hunters we wouldn't be chasing at all, we'd just sit under a shady tree and let the beast come to us...but well, that's a different story.

Ethiopian Proverb:

"When the great lord passes, the wise peasant bows deeply and silently farts."

The Team Endures

Most of the stuff I'm obsessed with usually has an author and a body of writing that goes along with it. For instance, take football. I've been a football fan since about 5 years old. I played "widget" or "midget" football when I was kid. I spent many a weekend afternoon chasing the pigskin...(my father would loft the ball as far and high as he could and I'd run as fast as I could trying to make what he'd call a "circus catch."). In my head, I was another Raymond Berry, a Dick Gordon, a Paul Warfield. In reality, I was kind of a clumsy, gawky kid, stumbling around in a field, trying to impress my dad.

I wasn't really much of a football player, I think I peaked in about fourth or fifth grade. By high school, I was too small, too slow, and well, my hair was way too long to be on the team anyway, and well, at that point, I was not going to cut it for the coach under any circumstances.

Being born and raised in Chicago meant that I have always been a Chicago Bears fan. Just like my father, and his father and his father...it's strange how a sports team, an organization, becomes a symbol, a tie, a tribal identity, that binds you to your past and your heritage. There's great amount of energy invested in a team that transcends specific players and times. There's a continuity across generations. The team's successes and failures somehow carry over to you.

I remember watching Vince Lombardi and George Halas coaching on the sidelines. I remember going to Wrigley Field with my father to watch a Bears/Lions game (Bobby Douglas threw a 54 yard touchdown - with a broken wrist?!). I remember when football players had other jobs in the off-season, working for Insurance companies and Car dealerships, because their football salaries were not enough. Man, is that another world or what?

Most of the time I've been a fan, the Bears have not been very good, although, there were always great players like Gale Sayers, Dick Butkus, Walter Payton, Richard Dent, Dan Hampton, Wilbur Marshall, Doug Plank, and the not so great, Virgil Carter, Bob Avelini. The 1985 Bears team was the one great exception. They were clearly the best team in the league that year, and they and we, and the rest of the league, knew it. Those Bears were big, and loud, and wild, and hell, they flaunted it (Super Bowl Shuffle indeed!).

Anyway, the Bears are going to the SuperBowl (hell, I remember when there wasn't a SuperBowl!) and you don't get to write something like that very often. This is a group of underdogs who have not gotten a lot of respect. And instead of a snarling Cro-Magnon as their Coach (Ditka! Gibron!), they have a sweet, gracious guy named "Lovie," at the helm. I have been a skeptic this season. I've vacillated between, "they're not as good as they look," and "they can't be as bad as they look."

So, anyway, the author that I associate most with football is Frederick Exley. He wrote a novel about his "doppleganger" Frank Gifford, when Gifford was the star of the New York Giants (Gifford played offense and defense!). The book is called "A Fan's Notes." It's about football, success and failure, fathers and sons. A great read. I mean, it's truly one of the great American novels (all of Exley's novels are great). It's about another time and place, another world...a world that's gone, and then again, one that's strangely still with us too, eventhough it's evolved, changed, morphed with the times.

So, well, times are different, players come and go...but well, the game, the team...endures. Go Bears.

Ordinary Decency

I'm reading Robert Stone's memoir of the sixties (it's really good), and I came across this about politics...

"I had always been interested in politics. Belief fascinated me, because of my own experience of lost faith. But somehow, as I lived along with the century, the more interested in politics I became, the further I moved from accepting any kind of transforming ideology as an answer to my fundamental questions. I was never able to advance (if that's the word) beyond the old boring liberalism of the two-cheers-for democracy sort. Like most people, I never trusted anyone who offered a formula that transcended the instincts of ordinary decency. Ordinary decency, I thought, was about the best of which I, and again most people, were capable. And it was not so easy at that, not so ordinary." - R. Stone, Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties.

Mysteries

Okay, so I've looked into the abyss, the dark void...and well, what can I tell you, it's dark, and well, like, you know, there's not much else to say, I mean, life goes on.

What do you do when someone you know and trust, tells you they've seen a ghost, and when they're telling you this, your whole body kind of tingles, like it's been electrified or something, and well, you take the information in, and well, even if you're sort of skeptical, you don't really know what to think, and really there's nothing to do, so you just kind of process the information and then either forget it, or file it away, or well what? I guess, you just figure it's just another mystery added to all the other mysteries that make up your life.

Doom

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said something about intelligence being the ability to hold at least two contradictory ideas in your head simultaneously...I'm not so sure...

Looking at the big picture you might say things are kind of fucked up. The Doomsday Clock moves closer to the end! I mean, the ice caps are melting, the rainforests are disappearing, the polar bears are dying, the Muslims and Christians are locked in a death struggle, powerful nations are led by madmen and idiots, multinational corporations are raping and pillaging for profit, the Long Emergency is coming, the universe is expanding, the sun is slowly dying, an asteroid could knock us out of orbit any minute, the corrupt and powerful push around the weak and defenseless, the peacemakers always get assasinated, the corrupt always get promoted, the population is exploding, our resources are dwindling, we are always stupid and arrogant, the food chain is contaminated, there's a hole in the ozone layer, the oceans are rising, good topsoil is being blown to the wind, the general public is either dumb and complacent, or pissed off and dangerous, nuclear non-proliferation is a joke, war is one of our favorite pastimes, the selfish and greedy are lavishly rewarded, the poor are despised and stomped on for entertainment, etc.

On the other hand, hey, things aren't that bad, right? I mean, I'm trying to do my part. I vote Democratic, I recycle, I'm a vegetarian, I give money to the Streetwise Guy, I walk little old ladies across the street, I don't own a car, I think positive thoughts, I meditate, I try not to hurt myself or others...hmmm...not alot to put on this side of the ledger, really...

Only a few minutes from doom...so, okay, when does the party start?

A World Wide Generalization!

"The world wants to be deceived." Kierkegaard.

Whiteness

I had this vision, or maybe better to call it a daydream, I saw myself walking in a snowy landscape, I was trudging through heavy white snow. My big rubber boots made dark footprints. I could look back and see where I had come from, but ahead of me all I could see was undifferentiated whiteness. There was no path, no clear direction. I paused to take the scene in... there was a certain past (although it was already fading) and an uncertain future. I existed in the tiny point between.

Positive Thinking

I'm sitting in my favorite coffee shop, doing some reports, and next to me are two dudes doing their bible study. They are going line by line figuring out "what God thinks." Jesus, what a load of shite!

I think one of them just said, "God thinks we're all criminals. Sin makes him impatient." I think this is probably true, he must be getting really fucking impatient by now, don't you think?

Anyway, as soon as I write these words down, the two of them get up and move away and set up at another table. Could be a coincidence, or maybe a manifestation of the power of positive thinking. I didn't actually say the words out loud, but if you could read my mind, it might translate into something like this: "take that musty old book and stick it where the sun don't shine!"

Don't know why the Holy Bible pisses me off so much...maybe it's not the book, it's the interpretations and the interpreters that really gets my goat all in a lather. You look at all the horror and stupidty that religion has helped unleash upon the world, and well, I guess, put me in the camp with Richard Dawkins...

Plus, don't you think that in the Bible, the Almighty comes off like a real, Type A, power-mad asshole...? Kind of like Donald Trump on steriods? Maybe with better hair? And Jesus, well, he was a nice guy and all, probably a little too full of himself, sort of a downer, took himself way too seriously, I mean he really went out of his way to suffer, didn't he, and really, when it comes down to it, I'm with Patti Smith, "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine!" I mean, instead, give me Billy Pilgrim, Yossarian, Dean Moriarty, Randle P. McMurphy, or Holden Caulfield any day.

When Do We Build a Temple to the Great Algorithm?

"Here then is Darwin's dangerous idea: the algorithmic level is the level that best accounts for the speed of the antelope, the wing of the eagle, the shape of the orchid, the diversity of species, and all the other occasions for wonder in the world of nature...Can it really be the outcome of nothing but a cascade of algorithmic processes feeding on chance?" - Daniel Dennet - "Darwin's Dangerous Idea."

Robyn Hitchcock on being human:

A happy animal/a sick god.

My World, My Dystopia

Bob Dylan has a famous line: "I'll let you be in my dream, if I can be in yours." I think I'd like to amend it to read: "I won't make you live in my dystopia, if you won't make me live in yours."

I saw another movie about a "dystopia" which, since "utopias" are idealized places that "don't exist," the only "topias" available to us are the "dys" type. They are the places where flaws flourish, worlds very much like our own. First it was "Idiocracy," (see previous post) and now it's "Children of Men," a truly powerful, mind-blowing experience. It's not just a great movie, (you will never think of "homeland security," and "immigration reform" in quite the same way), it brings a few key trends and just slightly pushes them forward to reveal the deep cracks in our world that are already with us, tearing our societies open wide as we sit here today.

I guess, all I really want to say about the movie is: go see it! It's filmmaking at it's finest. Great direction, great acting. A perfectly realized vision. I loved the music, especially the late sixties British psychedelic music that comes to us from another world, far, far, away, promising a golden, trippy, time of love - a glimpse into a utopia that couldn't quite stand up to the light of day. The Court of the Crimson King, indeed.

Idiots Is Us

I finally saw Mike Judge's very funny (and sadly, oh so true) movie Idiocracy. I prefer the original title: Amerikwa. It is supposed to be about the future of our little paradise, but of course, it's about now. I do believe we have dumbed ourselves way down - we are fat, stupid, complacent. I believe that every time we listen to this guy (evolution? devolution?) speak, our collective IQ automatically takes a nose dive. Just listening to him babble on (I mean about anything) makes us profoundly dumber! What the hell happened to us?

P.S. I finally caught up with Green Day's American Idiot...what a great song...the anti-idiot-anthem...I love Billie Joe Armstrong's buzzsaw guitar work!

P.S.S. This post from MaxSpeak says it all in regards to Commander Codpiece's latest (ahem - did anyone say fuckup?!) stratergy....

To Schlepp

Well, the movie promises that "all you have to do is dream." I'm afraid it ain't so. I mean, I do believe in the creative visualization thing, I do think you need to dream, to envision what you want to do, who you want to be...you have to imagine the world and then exist in it, but if you really want to do anything, to actualize it, to make it real, to keep a job, put on a play, be in a band, well, truthfully, "all you have to do is schlepp!"

Maybe not the best movie tag-line, but there it is...

I mean, you don't want to be a schlepp, although, that might be inevitable, it might just come with the territory, (is there a specific gene that dictates that you will be a clumsy or stupid person?!), who knows, you play with the cards you are dealt, and that means, lugging that guitar through the turnstyle, that means making the arduous, difficult journey across the city, that means standing on an el platform with the cold winter wind cutting through you waiting for a train, that means getting chilled to the bone, so you can set up and plug in and jam with your band mates for a few hours.

So you dream, and then you schlepp and well, that's what you have to do.

On the Sideline

Adam Gopnik has an article in the latest New Yorker about professional football called the Unbeautiful Game. I'd link to it, but I came up empty. Anyway, here's the last paragraph, which smacks of worldy wisdom...wisdom even a Bear fan could appreciate.

"The essential experience of watching sports is experiencing loss; anyone who has consoled a twelve year old after a Jets loss, or been a twelve year old in need of consolation, knows this. Since loss and disappointment are the only fixed points in life, maybe the best we can say is that pro football, like anything else we like to watch, gives us a chance to organize those emotions into a pattern, a season, while occasionally giving us the hope of something more. The Jets don't always lose - just nearly always. When they do better, we feel better. That's the margin, or sideline, on which we live."

The Minutemen

Well, you wonder as per Wikpedia, how many bands out there really were influenced by the Urinals? I have never owned a CD by the Minutemen, but I have been aware of Mike Watt, their bass player for a few years. I know he's considered to be one of the great bass players in rock, or punk, or well, whatever category you want to slap on his output.

I rented a DVD about the Minutemen and it's one of those enlightening and inspiring little windows into a fairly obscure little subculture (Punk California Style?), with it's own roster of prophets, poets and madmen, and there are interesting interviews with people like Henry Rollins, Richard Hell, Jello Biafra, Lee Renaldo, and various ex-members of Black Flag.

It's a classic tale of outsiders, kids who had few prospects, but liked to hang out together and bash away on their instruments, making music that was crude but exciting. Over time they became quite adept at a certain approach, in fact, they finally became masters of their own wildly original genre of music. They broke all the rules, except, being true to their own do it yourself ethic.

D. Boon the lead singer and one of the principle song writers is one of the great oddball, eccentrics. He was a mammoth man armed with a sizzling Telecaster, and uncommon grace and wit. The movie is ultimately a love story of three guys who banded together to do their particular thing, damn the torpedoes...they blazed like a comet, and then, well, one of them met their demise, and the Minutemen were no more.

7th Ward Snoop

Words of wisdom from 7th Ward Snoop (as per Triksta: Life & Death of New Orleans Rap): "The grind is what defines your character, that's where the magic is...real success isn't what you crave. It's what you already have."

"All we've got is skin and our souls." - Nik Cohn

I think a sign of a really good writer is the ability to bring alive a subject that might not, at first glance, be of interest. I think of Melville and whaling, or David Foster Wallace and tennis, or well, a good example, I just finished Nik Cohn's great book, "Triksta: Life and Death of New Orleans Rap," which brings alive another world.

The book was written before Katrina, and the soggy Death of New Orleans, which makes the story he tells even more haunting. Nik writes about being in love with the City, not the tourist trap of Bourbon Street, but of the tenements, the low-down, burned-out neighborhoods, where Hip Hop, Rap, Crank and Bounce thrived, as practiced by ghosts with names like Supa Dave, Sinista, 5th Ward Weebie, P-Town, K-Gates, Bigg Ramp, King George, Lil Mel, Soulja Slim, Bass Heavy, Hot Boy Ronald, Tek-9, and many, many others.

It's a complex tale, with strange connectors and well, what's a white British dude doing hanging out in the hardest and bleakest of hoods anyway? It's a fascinating tale, and character study of people struggling to live and make their mark. Of course, we read the tale knowing that many of these neighborhoods and people were washed away and displaced, refugees in America, neighborhoods that will most likely never be re-built. It's a heartfelt Rap for those on the margins, those looking to have something of the great American Hustle for themselves...it's a sad and noble tale too. And the music, in whatever form, even if it's a beat box, a scratch record, a machine gun burst of staccato verse, whatever, it will not be denied.

A Mouse Click Away

The internet really is a cool space, isn't it? It's amazing what you can find, who you can discover. In the late seventies of the last century there was an explosion of new bands out of New York that captivated me. They included: Television, the Patti Smith Group and the quirky, edgy and funky Talking Heads. One of my favorite blogs is written by David Byrne, former lead singer of the Heads. David writes about music and philosophy, and well, I guess just whatever he wants to write about. He always seems to have something unique to add to the conversation. I guess this was evident the first time I heard him at the microphone - there was an adventurousness, an intelligence in his lyrics that was unsettling and inspiring. It's kind of cool to be connected to him with just one little mouse click.

A Silly Red Hat

The NYTimes on Tuesday highlights the debate going on in science on "free will." I love the picture accompaning the article, a little monkey (representing our conscious thought) riding a tiger (our unconscious thought). The monkey holds a steering wheel, (connected to nothing), and well, he's looking backwards as the tiger surges forth. I think basically the picture says it all, although the whole article is worth a read. Could it be that the best stuff in life, the stuff that makes it possible to get up, put our shoes on and face the day with a smile on our faces, is illusory?

My favorite line is from Dr. Dennett, who tries to reconcile the dilemmna of free will and determinism: "We have the power to veto our urges and then to veto our vetoes. We have the power of imagination, to see and imagine futures."

And well, maybe that's enough...I think it explains why that little monkey is wearing a silly red hat. He's kind of like us, he's imagining himself as a player in some kind of circus drama well beyond the world of the tiger. But of course, we're not just the little monkey, we're the leaping tiger too...looking forward, looking backward, ferocious and silly, working together, trying to survive in a world we didn't make.

Each Day a Gift

Speaking of mantras, this new year I've adopted a new one, which I am determined to repeat to myself every morning, it goes exactly like this: "each day a gift." Maybe sans quotation marks.

There's a great book by Lewis Hyde that illuminates "the gift" in our lives and imaginings. I'd like to be as expansive as possible and say that whether there's a loving god or not, whether, we can look to randomness or chance, or some benign or malignant force that's overseeing our every move, or not, we have been given, or we happen to inherit or, well, whatever, we are alive and it's a state of grace, I mean this life that we have can be snatched from us at any time, we might as well enjoy it, embrace it to the fullest, it's a gift whether there's a giver or not.

There have been times when life has seemed like a burden or a chore, or a punishment, but really these are cracked visions...life is only a gift...whether we like it or not, whether we want it or not...it's ours...to do as we please. But as Robert Stone reminds us, this gift comes with attachments, it is not free, and that is our dilemma, our challenge, we pay the price every day for a gift we didn't ask to receive.

I was reading a review of Robert Stone's new memoir about the sixties "Prime Green," and this passage really caught my eye, it seemed to sum up a certain credo that may have outlived it's usefulness: "In our time, we were clamorous and vain. I speak not only for myself here, but for all those with whom I shared the era and what I think of it's attitudes. We wanted it all; sometimes we confused self-destructiveness with virtue and talent, obliteration with ecstasy, heedlessness with courage. Worshipping the doctrines of Hemingway as we did, we wanted constant grace under constant pressure, and stoicism before a disillusionment that somehow never went stale. We wanted to die well every single day, to be a cool guy and a good-looking corpse. How absurd, because nothing is free, and we had to learn that at last. We were the chief victims of our own mistakes, measuring ourselves against the master of the present, we regret nothing except our failure to prevail."

The Big Ideas

It turns out the David Lynch, the writer and Director of such dark and surreal masterpieces as Mulholland Drive, EraserHead, and Blue Velvet, is a dedicated meditator. He practices Transcendental Meditation as popularized by this well-robed, and abundantly bearded fellow. I understand that the good Yogi is still alive and well. Good to hear.

Lennon wrote a song (Sexy Sadie)about the Maharishi, back in 1968, after he (Lennon) was disillusioned by some overly friendly contact that the Yogi supposedly had with Mia Farrow.

Since I'm one of those who thinks that the "saints" among us are really flawed human beings just like everyone else, I'm not surprised or disillusioned to find that the good Yogi might be in same the club with Sinatra and Woody Allen - men attracted to the lovely Mia.

Anyway, I too, tried the Transcendental Way. Back in something like 1978 or so, my cousin and I went to a TM house, we went through the ritual, we agreed to refrain from smoking pot for a week or so, we received a mantra. I can remember coming out of the intial session supremely serene. My cousin took one look and thought that I had been transformed.

It didn't last, I ended up dropping it all, it wasn't until I found Invision (see link) that I re-affirmed my life of meditation. Now it's a daily ritual. Instead of a mantra, I now create visual images, which I use to focus and "clear." It's pretty much the same concept, just a little bit different technique. This is in contrast to the Zen way, where you try to still and empty your mind. I find this to be very difficult, if not impossible, I mean I think it's a struggle to find emptiness...using the the mantra or creative visualization as a point of focus seems to be a more fruitful technique, with practice it becomes almost second nature.

Anyway, I've always been a great fan of David Lynch's work. It's validating to hear that he too sits in the silence, looking for that "quiet alertness," finding a stillness so that the "big ideas" can find a place to settle.

New Year, New Look

This is how the journey begins. One feisty Spermatoza meets up with a fat shiny egg. Ain't it so strange?! We all have come such a long way. Wonder where we're headed...

Well, I was gonna go with a new design, but I decided to revert back to my standard. This is how I'm going into 2007, seeking the new, but bringing some of the old with me too. For some reason I have great expectations for this coming year. I am very surprised that I made it, and I'm looking forward to a rocking good time. I expect there will be ups and downs, that's how it always seems to work. You don't get to experience the highs without enduring the lows. I've posted a picture of me with my doppleganger over to the right. I will leave it to the reader to decide which one is sunny and which is dumps.

Happy New Year!

"There is no success like failure." - B. Dylan

"You have permission to fail."

I was at Invision yesterday for an endings and beginnings seminar, it was one of those "out with the old, in with the new" kind of rituals, and that line about failure kind of stuck in my head.

If you write stuff, or sing and play music, or do any kind of acting or performing, there's always a "fear of failure" in the back of your mind. If you really think about it, it's an irrational thing. People will tear you down, they will sneer, or reject you, or maybe just shrug their shoulders, or whatever. It just goes with the territory.

Think of any artist or writer or singer and you will find people who criticize, who knock them, who make fun of them. In fact, it's usually the really creative, unique, artists those who try something new, something different, who are in for the greatest negative on-slaught.

I've written things that have kind of been met with contempt, or indifference. I think the key is to continue to work with heart, with love, with passion. If you do, you will find people who will connect with you. I believe that the passion, the love for the work is inspiring, and will inspire.

As Bjork says, "It takes courage to enjoy it." And yes, well, joy and love, and passion are worth taking a chance on. And if you "fail" in the process, good for you. Pick yourself up and go for it again! Let's bid 2006 a sweet goodbye, and embrace 2007 with passion, love...and no fear!

A New World

The last two weeks, the Lovely Carla and I have been living in a little creative idyll. It's kind of a self-made paradise. We have been working on our various projects, painting, writing, song-making, and at the same time we've been going to movies, floating, meditating, all the stuff that hopefully feeds the soul. Soul Food.

Last night we went see the film Pan's Labyrinth, and it is a very beautiful film. It works on many levels, at it's most basic level there's the split between the brute human realm we've descended to, or maybe in a way, we are married to, and the realm of magic and imagination. They co-exist side by side. Kind of another reminder of my insight in the tank (see previous post) of multiple realities crowding in on us. It is wonderful to be able to sink into someone ele's beautifully complete vision.

What's really great about the film, is that it is "true" to both realms. It leaves you exhilarated and devastated simultaneously. And well, that's a profound insight right there. That the exhilaration and devastation are somehow linked and maybe unavoidable. What's amazing also, is that a story about the right and left battling in the forests of Spain in the 1940s is oh so relevant to what's happening today, in so many excrutiatingly profound ways.

It's a Spanish film, (I think it's true they don't make them like this in Hollywood). It was great to see a packed house for such a clearly superior effort. We walked home afterwards and the streets were quiet. The trees and the sidewalks looked different. We talked as if something really profound had happened to us and we were still in the process of taking it all in. There was a numinous glow around everything surrounding us...now that's when you know a work has truly touched you. You can actually see the world with new eyes. And you know that not everyone is looking, that not everyone sees. And sometimes, you must spare the blood of the innocent...

"It takes courage to enjoy it." - Bjork

The Lovely Carla and I have a year end ritual that we have taken up the last few years. We visit Space Time Tanks for a massage and a float. It is truly an earth-shattering experience, at least, that's how it's worked for me within the confines of my own little noggin.

Hell, it takes courage to enjoy it, just like that little Icelandic fairy goddess so exuberantly tells us. By the way, maybe I'm a late-comer to Bjork, but this woman is an amazing little sprite, a mystical channel, a spiritual, dance-inducing singer-songwriter. I'm thinking she's some kind of genius. I've lately been listening to her first album and it's a beautiful and inspiring third-eye-opener.

Anyway, John Lilly used to take something like 10,000 micro-grams of LSD and float in an isolation tank for hours; our experience hasn't been anywhere near that extreme, just an hour or so, with a fairly clear head, floating in a briny soup. Time-tripping in our heads, doing some weird kind of "astral projecting," looking for space and, dare I say it, "enlightenment?"

So, yes, I started out with a "deep tissue" massage, very liberating, and oh so physical, and then, on to the float. And well, how do I say this, yes, I received a message, a voice in the darkness came to me. Was it a star? A cosmic dolphin? A god? A demon? Or maybe just an eruption of static from my own cerebral cortex? Who knows? I distinctly heard these words boom out across the salty water in that dank little tank: "There are too many fucking realities." Wow, wouldn't you know it, even the voices that come to me are profane!

Hmmm. I thought to myself, "great, what do I do with that?" I mean, I think it's true...and that may be a source of much of my confusion, and pain, and worry, and well general lack of focus, but well, now what?

So anyway, I float some more, I seem to be beyond time and space, I travel through the cosmic spider webs in my head and then out of the void, the voice comes again with a one word kicker: "SURRENDER!"

That's it. No explanation. No footnotes. No guidebook. I float some more, and then, well it's over, I get out, shower, dress. And sit in the lobby waiting for the Lovely C. in a kind of stunned silence.

We get back home, both of us in a renewed, rejuvenated state, silent and glowing. We sit and watch a Bjork DVD and well, that's when her words hit home, they kind of complete the line of thought started in the tank..."it takes courage to enjoy it." And I guess, all I can say is, "well, yes, it does..."

I'm With Bobby

"I've conceded the fact that there is no understanding of anything - at best, just winks of an eye - and that is all I'm looking for now, I guess." - Dylan (speaking around the time he tracked this joyfully rollicking masterpiece).

One Shit Sandwich Too Far

Today, declare yourself a Satanist, and well, you'll be the life of the party, an Athiest, you might get a yawn, an Anarchist, a giggle, but to declare yourself a Raw Foodist, ah well, that's one bridge too far, one toke over the line, I mean, that's as bad as calling someone (Rufus T. Firefly anyone?!) an Upstart!

We live in a tottering Giant of a nation, a Superpower that isn't so damn super anymore. I mean, if all we can do is blow shit up, aren't we really a pathetic beast of a nation? We are at most now, a Fast Food Nation (if you haven't seen the movie - see it - if you dare!) "You can't face the truth!" I mean, if you see it, you either have to dismiss it, or you might have to change your life.

Could we really change the world for the better by being more discriminating about what we put into our bodies? How simple, how radical! If we all stopped eating shit sandwiches (go visit a meat processing plant if you really want to suppress your appetite!) would our poor little pyramid economy come tumbling down? Bring it down! I mean, really, this empire truly is built upon shit -- with the right packaging, a friendly name, and slick ad campaign we will surely eat a shit sandwich (the meat industry feels it's their divine right to feed cows chicken shit, and well, dead cow brains too!) daily, and say it tasted good too!

What a fat, stupid, bloated nation we have become! Is there hope for us? Well, Studs Terkel tells us, "hope dies last." So, yes, I guess there is hope...but it is amazing how full of shit we really are...we eat it, preach it, and even start believing in it...where will it all end?

"Take two turkeys, one goose, four cabbages, but no duck, and mix them together. After one taste, you'll duck soup for the rest of your life." - Duck Soup

A Writer

Since a very early age, rightly or wrongly, I have thought of myself as a writer. Even when I wasn't writing, although, I think it's true, that you are a writer only when you are writing. I wear the overcoat of alienation that a writer requires. I think a writer requires alienation from others or themselves, the better to observe. All good writing, I believe, comes from observation. All good ideas float in from the ether, and a writer, collects and filters. Imagination is a mirror.

Writing is solitary. It's a lonely activity, but really, when I'm writing, lonliness is an ally. Even if the world is knocking at your door, finally you gladly close it shut, and write, although, it's true, I can write in the middle of the chaos. When I was a bike courier, I used to write in a little notebook, I'd be sitting in the middle of a frenzied city plaza writing notes for my first play. Still, finally, you must find an oasis, a little corner in your head, to let the stream flow.

I'm enamoured with the flow. Sometimes you can stubbornly work your way through the text, I know some writers wrestle with every last sentence, but for me, it's best, when I can catch a wave and just hang on for the ride. I may go back and edit later, but when I'm riding that wave, editing is counter-productive. The worst censorship is self-censorship.

You trust that if you're true to the text, that something true will come out. Even the most ridiculous fabrications. You write and then, the words and sentences are on their own. They are not you, they have their own life. It's almost mystical or magical, and anyone can do it.

Isn't that true of just about everything?

River Deep, Mountain High

It must be the holidays...stayed up late playing music (me on guitar and my brother on harmonica), and exchanging presents with the family...I guess it all has something to do with the baby Jesus -- as John Tuturro's character in the Big Lebowski says, "don't fuck with the Jesus." So, well, I have no problem with the Jesus Man, I mean, he seemed like a peaceful dude and all, kind of met a violent end, and well, ain't that the way of the world? The peacemakers always seem to get the shaft. I don't buy the rising from the tomb thing (roll away the stone!), unless we're talking metaphorically or something, I mean, we all get laid low sometimes and yes, well, hopefully we'll rise again!

You've got to watch out for those who use the Jesus Dude to justify all their greed and hate and general bullshit...which also seems to be the way of the world -- someone comes up with a good idea, "love thine enemies," live with "love and forgiveness," and somehow that gets turned into a worldwide institution that beats the shit out of you, trying to make you conform to a weird brand of malevolent twistedness. Yeah, well, that's the way of the world too, right?

Anyway, I'm listening to some great soul music this morning, the Supremes, Smokey Robinson, Ike and Tina Turner ...I also throw in a little Rude Boy Reggae to mix things up a little. Right now, Tina Turner is singing River Deep, Mountain High...and well it truly is a miracle, ain't it? I mean eventhough Tina and Ike had a sort of dysfunctional relationship they really created an incredible catalog of
explosive tracks...and there's some kind of lesson in the music, methinks...

P.S. The Hardest Working Man in Showbiz has thrown in the towel. Goodnight Sweet Prince...and remember...you may have passed, but I'm really thinking it's just a case of "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag!"

P.S.S. Check out the the great Trickster for an excellent little profile of the Godfather of Soul.

Better Than Prozac

If you're feeling low, I have a recommended course of action for you... drink three of these...and watch one of these...I promise you will feel much better at the conclusion of the session.

My Dinner with Wally

"It is astounding that America does work in the same way that an open dictatorship works, in that a handful of people really seem to be able to dominate an entire country.

If you go to a foreign country, and somebody looks at you frankly and says, 'Your country is going around terrorizing the world,' and then you say, 'Well, I'm against Bush myself. I didn't vote for him.' They look at you blankly. That's not enough. They know that's not enough. They know that you are benefiting every day, you are paying taxes, your money is actually paying for these things, so come on, that's not good enough."

Wallace Shawn (One of our greatest living playwrights).

The Creed

The Orange County Creed (as per Robert Greenfield in S.T.P. a Journey through America with the Rolling Stones): "We're gonna make this American Dream work. Yessir, we are. By God, yes. Even if we have to kill everyone to do it."

The Raw Life

I'm on vacation, which means another tempo, I have downshifted into a very creative cul de sac. It's amazing how happy I can be all by myself, reading a book, writing a play, recording music, running on the lakefront, soaking my old bones in a hot bath, drinking kick-ass coffee, eating raw. Yes, I have a new obsession, I have adopted the raw lifestyle. This is about as radical a step as anyone can take, I mean it's so fundamental, so contrary to the thinking of our modern conventional herd. I mean, being a vegetarian is one thing, you're already bucking the trend set by our fat, artery-clogged consumers of fast food, bloated livestock and overprocessed crap.

But to be a raw foodist is taking that contrary, looney stand to it's furthest extreme. I mean whole cultures have built their identities around cooking. Italian, Greek, French, Japanese, German, etc. To turn your back on anything that has been cooked, is to turn your back on thousands of years of culinary exploration.

So be it. I've been eating raw for about a month now, and I think it's been good for me. I'm not going to go into a rant about this, instead, if you want to find out why it's a good idea, and how it can make you happier, healthier and "more beautiful," I suggest this book. Beauty here is more than skin deep, in fact, the key idea seems to be that our internals spend a lot of time and energy digesting the crap we put in our bodies. We are basically JUICERS and some food is easy to juice and some isn't. The closer we can be to the raw, the live, the unprocessed, the better. Also, as a side benefit, by giving up meat, we may help save the planet, I'm convinced that our factory farms, the animal processing plants are brutal, ugly and dehumanizing. They're not so good for the environment or the animals either.

Anyway, it all makes some kind of sense to me. I can be quite disciplined when it comes to what I put into my body, although I have had my moments of debauch, where really anything goes, I'm speaking here of controlled and uncontrolled substances. Lately, I've been grazing on nuts, seeds and uncooked veggies. It hasn't killed me yet. Which I guess could be some kind of recommendation...