Poetrue

No soggy blog, no lost salute, just me and you. Bon Jour.
No time to spare, no where to go, you say goodbye, I say for sure.
His gently weeping guitar gasped.
Released upon us as a gift like Emerson or Monet,
it is hard to see the Quarry for the men (boys).
They were there. But swallow them whole
without the math of division--Jean-Paul Harrison Ritchie.
Not a note has changed across the universe.

All you need is all you need is...
Your lungs. Release grief from your lungs. Did you know?
Breathe. Precious breath. Bated? Be careful. Breathe.

Have we found the uninterupted serpent swallowing its tail? Yes.
Do we remember? Sometimes. Does it matter. Yes. Do we need to hurry?
Certainly. No.
Isn't it amazing, the playfulness of God? What a prankster.

It's been a long time comin'

When I looked today at "Broomsticks", it was apparent to me that some time has passed since I dropped in to see what my friends have been thinking about, and sharing with our little gang of thieves. In words of the venerable outlaw Willie Nelson: "ain't it funny how time slips away".

I have been so absorbed in my own obsession, that I have neglected a transcendental truth. To borrow a quote from one of my favorite authors, "don't fuck around with friendship". Powerful words; and cause for me to reflect. I suspect, no, I'm sure, I'm guilty of fucking around with friendship, and I am pledged to being a better friend to those that call me friend, in the time I have remaining. You've got a friend... sing it James.

One final attempt to assuage my guilt. Oddly related to the subject of time, and it's passing, I have given some thought to certain elements of quantum mechanics that suggest that the universe is not static, but vibrates at the speed, (or more appropriately, the frequency), of light. Our reality literally comes and goes so rapidly that we, the observers, cannot percieve the "off" condition. One school of thought suggests that is that 'space in between' where our true conciousness dwells. I have been trying to focus more of my energy on that space in between. Note to friends - if I seem to you to be somewhere else, I probably am. Bonk me on the head and I'll return - or better yet, join me in between.

Rick

Auf Wiedersehen, goodnight

Have you read the lyrics to So Long, Farewell, from the Sound of Music? I hadn't until just now.

There's a sad sort of clanging From the clock in the hall...ahhh. So sad! But alas, I agree it is time to go. We gave her a try but it is silly to come here and submit posts which aren't read. Might as well just write in a notebook.

An absurd little bird is popping out to say coo-coo.

So long!

The Shake Man

You know it is way too early in the morning (what do you call it when you feel like it is the middle of the night and from too much coffee during the day, you rise and frustrated--you go to the computer to compose? But you're really in no shape to write well. Shit you're sleep deprived! Much better to write fresh, like after a full and wonderful deep dream filled night!!!). I'm terrible with words. Let me say it simply. It is 5:15 but I've been up since 3 and on the computer for well over half of that. Awful.

Oh well, I'm here and determined to tell you, courteous reader about The Shake Man.

Specifically here is the quote. And I'm not going to go to Google to get it exactly right, so please be lenient with your judgement. I'll screw it up a little but I think you'll get the general idea.

What he said (well duh, he said way more than I've ever read and probably way more than can ever be digested by all the Harvard Literature experts--face it the man was a Space Freak, an anomoly (is that the word?), a poet like no other. A marvel of word beauty. The Shake Man...

back to the story. What he said which is one of my favorite lines to return to again and again in those corridors of my mind is....drum role please.....

Those friends thou hast and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel!

My God I'm trembling right now and I teared up as those little pixels, those mega what the hell are they, you know what i'm talking about, the measurement of electronic data, that take the form of the "written word" but really are magical instant combinations of ones and zeros in the shape of alphabetic symbols. The point is, The Shake Man moves me but more importantly at this moment what I'm trying to say is...don't fuck around with friendship. It is precious and vital and those few people--because yes dear and courteous reader, your true friends will be few....but the ones who have stood the test...oh that reminds me, the first part of that speech who by the way The ShakeMeister attributed to a real schlock head...Laertes or Polonius, I always confuse them, one the father--the schlock meister, the other the son, and it was the father, the jerk face who got to give one of the most impactful and beautiful and wise short speeches of all humanity of all time in the space of about 13 lines or something...the first part of that is...yes, another drum role if you please....

"Don't dull thy palm with every new courage..." Ha! What a masterpiece. Is he telling us don't shake hands with people? No not at all, but he is masterfully teaching us that don't let the mere act of shaking hands qualify the person connected to the other hand put you in some stupid feeling that you've somehow committed to a true friendship.

You know, now that I think of it and read people's comments who we encounter here in blogoland, I have just now realized how many opportunities I've had to dull my palm! How many friends have I really collected here though? Hmmmm. According to my FaceBook page it is up to around 70 or 80. Of those on my page I wonder how many I should grapple to my soul with hoops of steel?

A few. And you are there baby. connected in a band of very determined metal!

Peace.

Friends

I'm looking out the window in my home office. We've had so much rain that the grass in my neighbor's yard has gone to seed. I can actually feel the juice of that biomass as I spy on the green canvas. They aren't blades of grass but an orgy of Springtime. A field of wheat in miniature.

I let myself and my eyesight go to soft focus and there is honestly a connection to my own sexuality. I feel it in my loins! Isn't that bizarre?!! Don't ask me what that has to do with friendship. Its just that I looked out my window when the subject came to mind.

I love my friends. (Bet chu can't just eat one). I'll take more!

These last few weeks have been about rebirth. Maybe it is connected to the cycles of the universe and the season. But faces are popping out of the past like that game where little heads pop up out of holes, except these heads you don't want to bonk. You want to grab them and say, "Wait, don't leave yet! Where have you been? What have you been doing? How's the family? God, I know, where have the years gone?!!!!

Have you given much thought to your last few minutes? Your last breath? I have. And it seems to be pouring down on me, this feeling of....Man, get everything squared away, don't allow any lingering hard feelings, don't hold on to any disappointments, no regrets. NO REGRETS!

And friends! Wow, what a sacred blessing. Naturally we all have family (oh how I wish those of you who sadly don't would have!) and we love our family and cherish them and those blood connections are as sweet as milk and honey. But what a lonely hole would be left on that part of my extended self if it weren't for those few friends I have. Sing it James....Shower the People you Love with LOVE. Show them the way that you feel!

OK, so come here all you friends. Hugs. Big strong hugs. Now get outta here you big lugs, before I bonk ya!

Experiment

i want to write without words and without "trying" to impress anyone. ok, the first part will be a little tough. let me try..... rrrstrng fretslobberheist, non chipper smorgen. did you get that?

hey i inadvertently did the second part! i was reading an op-ed on op-eds and the quote that stuck with me was "opinion can be so interesting." i fear i'm stuck in this groove of wanting to be interesting. what is this, a new twist on my mid life crisis i've been dealing with for the last 2 or 3 years?

and all my arm twisting to recruit fellow warriors...well, let me spend a little time here.

it came on gradually for me, this understanding of how toxic is the whole corporation thing. i don't mean like small business corporations. i even have a few of those (though it bugs me because it feels so hypocritical at times). i'm talking about large corporations which are literally destroying the planet and creating very difficult lives, as a result of the economic outcome, for most of civilization (including for their own workers).

and then there is this spiritual revolution at play. a big departure from organized religion (or it can be--though i know some people who are very active in organized religion who have tapped in to deep spirituality in the midst of that mind fuck). my take on it is that God (for lack of a better word, as Lao said about Tao) is playing a tune and the music has us bouncing behind like a bunch of (let's say bunnies and create a better image than some other rodent) rabbits. Except instead of heading to our certain drowning death, we're hopping to a promised land. But not after we're vaporized and so only going to get to the gates of heaven as ghosts, but actually making a way to harmony, in balance with all of creation, right here on our blessed planet--Gaia!

the big joke in all this is it feels like we're hovering somewhere around 50% that we're going to turn the curve toward sanity. some say we've got a slightly higher chance. some predict we've got a little bias against us to survive. some argue we're way weighted toward the negative. then of course there are those who swear that Fox News tells it like it is...

SANITY? if we throw in the whole illusion/reality thing, and insist like i do that the road to sanity means a total flip-flop on how we run the world, and that what we try to hold on to as reality...(insert the lyrics to Nowhere Man here).

so anyhoo. on to the experiment. i haven't erased a word or letter here and plan to not change a thing. what i'm going to attempt for my next stunt is some kind of experimental poetry. bear with me. i'm going to unplug here for a second and close my eyes. see you on the flip side....

shibby dee and shibby doo, he's smiling
the embrace he has for you will make everyone cry a kind of laughter which shatters
no. just shatters.
swallow softly and share fruit
this dance is fucking crazy--aint it fun?
why am i such an ass hole most of the time?
i wish my dad was still alive
hvren stotter slggn--rss. Rss.
we almost touched at sunset.
TOMORROW!

Beyond Religion

The Essential Rumi is always a good choice of books to take on trips. I was fortunate to take it again on this trip to Las Vegas. There were nights in my room and an afternoon at the pool, before my daughter and grandkids joined me that I was able to snuggle up to it and vanish in the mystery of his art.

I've tried before to understand the Persian mystic from eight centuries ago. To "get" him as a son of a scholar or as a Sufi poet living in a violent Muslim world, harrassed by Genghis Khan. It is always after I've emerged myself in the ocean of his timelessness, the blinding light of his revelations, the swirling trance of his magic spells that later I demand some explanation of who and how and why he achieved the impossible. Ha, the folly of the intellect!

"The impossible" he achieved is his rare skill of delivering the reader directly to a sublime experience. This isn't morality or dogma but direct understanding of essence. Even as a feeble egoist with an unfair portion of delusion, I'm temporarily transported to a depth of exhultation which should be reserved for the most avid bottisatva.

One morning just before I read his masterpiece about "Surrender" called Omar and the Old Poet, I was aware of my arrogance, and then I read this line:

"Don't be a searcher wrapped in the importance of his quest. Repent of your repenting!"

Wow--he put me in my place....AGAIN!

Even now, as I reflect about the space (or vacuum?) that I disappear into (or from?) when the pages are open to the translations of Coleman Barks, the edges of reality (illusion?) get blurred, and the odd sensation of slipping in to a hollow vibration that seems to resonate at some submolecular level reminds me how I love to love being in love with God.

So here is my puny rendition, my salute to the master...

A Whispered Response to a Rumi Reflection
What is my love of God?
Formless ecstasy, lost in
the internal bliss of a symphony of laughter,
which is never remembered, never forgotten and can not be contained.

What is this union with God?
Finger to hand, hand to arm, arm to chest and chest to heart.
There is no finger, no me, no God. Only union.

What is this feeling? This dance? This gratitude? This beauty?
Flaws on a blemish of a gnat’s wing,
Which I swallowed….by mistake.

Boston Calling

Well, here it is - April, 15; tax day. I will admit that I am one of those who tend to put off that distasteful chore until nearly the last minute. Perhaps because until the second week of April I simply have better things to do, or, more likely, because I know I will spend a considerable chunk of time feeling an ever-increasing level of frustration as I try hopelessly to decipher the instructions, and fill in the blanks on my federal return. It all culminates with the box indicating how much of my money I am about to write a check for and send off to the IRS. That's when the frustration turns to anger. I've all ready been well primed with the frustrating part. The anger, when my new tax wizard software reveals the bottom line, is nearly explosive. "What the... I paid in how much? ...and I owe how much?". This always causes me to go back over my receipts and figures, which only leads to more frustration. Eventually, exhausted, I sign the check, feeling defeated.

No wonder the evening news was filled with stories of the "TEA" parties that took place all across the country today. People are pissed. Most of them aren't even sure what they're pissed ABOUT, but they're angry, and they're frustrated, and they're mostly scared. A lot of us are looking for someone to pin this mess on, and we want somebody to know just how mad we are. The safety and security of our world is beyond threatened; it's under siege - and not by terrorists, or ideologies we don't understand - but by the confrontation of our own greed and avarice.

To put a slightly different spin on the leading question of this blog, "Man, how did we get here", the answer that comes to mind on this particular tax day is "we did it". We, the people, in order to form a more perfect money sucking machine, do hereby establish institutions designed to collect the wealth of nations, and establish laws to protect those institutions from the scrutiny of those of us handing over our money, and from having to answer too many embarassing questions.

So maybe a TEA party is just what the doctor ordered. We can all get together and blame one another until we figure out that there is no turning back. That is, after all, what I think most of us really want. Give us back that safety and security of our perceived prosperity. Can you do that Mr. President? Don't blame US if we're angry, and frustrated, and scared - mostly scared.

I think putting tax day so close to Easter was a particularly cruel joke. But then I recall some wise guy once said "Render unto Ceasar what is Ceasar's". So I signed the check, and I hummed a little tune by another wise guy -

"Father forgive us for what we must do - you forgive us and we'll forgive you
We'll forgive each other 'til we both turn blue - then we'll whistle and go fishin' in heaven". - John Prine - 1970 something.

I see dead people, oh and Happy Easter

My internal debate to expose my spiritual views met with resistance from the smarter of my two selves. "Who cares what you think? The point of your internal "journey" isn't to go spread your insights. The insights are for you," the voice reminded me.

"But how can I give my heartfelt wish and blessings which are intricately connected to the cycle of Earth energies which brings out the bunnies (literally) in our back yards, the tulips in their glorious robes, the many buds of trees in a rainbow of pastels--and a philosophy that actually embraces and celebrates a "rising" of what I'll just agree to call Christ Conscioiusness?," I defended, being the ever stuborn debator.

So first with the confession. No I'm not a Christian. Crucify me. My bad. Pray for me and thank you for your concern. Honestly, if when you find out that I'm not a Christian and you want to go pray for me to save me from the pit of the devil and banishment from the eternal salvation and paradise of the dead, then my heavens--THANK YOU! It is such a sweet thought. And if you truly harbor concern for me in that way, you are blessed. Blessed to care for a fellow human. I hope you care for the bunnies as much, and the trees, and our poor distraught Mother Earth who presently is in such peril.

You know as I mowed the lawn (with my motorless, fuel-less, dispenser of green house gasses-less) push mower yesterday, and saw the remnants of "our" squirrel's walnut lunches, and felt the SPIRIT of our flowering crab tree, trimming little grass hairs at her feet, I realized that all of us, which are living in this time--the bunnies and their families, the entertaining squirrels (we have two, I watch them all the time), our plants, our towering walnuts, my neighbors, all global citizens are really spirit. It is an important time to realize this. We need to all be working together right now, and especially asking the spirits of the squirrels and bunnies and trees to support us in our effort to come together as one living organism.

I like to think of God as consciousness because it is consciousness which is alive in us. As to the matter in us, the molecular material, it is alive in a different way. It (the matter) changes by the split of the second, in accordance with the planetary dance and cycle of the universe, and taken as a whole, each separate bio-individuals are "aging" or dying (declining--however you want to think about it, but in a process of dust to dust). But there is a non-aging part of us, of everything, which is exactly as it was and ever will be. The Beatles liked to just call that thing LOVE. I really haven't seen that far into the mysteries to know whether LOVE is all encompassing enough, but I like to think it is.

I don't know the whole story about the dude. Did Mathew, Mark and Luke (John's version is the most different) have some political agenda? Maybe. Did they get their stories from a verbal tradition based on facts of some water walking super hero? Hmmm. OK, Maybe. I say maybe because really inside me, I go no to that one. But again, who's to say. And does it really matter? If some cat like that was really out there making sick people well and even bringing back the dead--righteous! Right on. Go Super Jesus.

Has he stood at the foot of my bed, in a way that there is no question and said, "Get your shit and come with me--we're going to go work miracles?" No. At least not that I recall. And I would tend to think that the dude who my wife and daughter are in church worshiping right now would easily have that power. The fact that he hasn't done that and doesn't work that way makes me wonder, "Well, why wouldn't he, if that is his schtick?" I mean, what's stopping him?

Sorry, didn't want to get in to all that. But there are some nuggets in those books. Like some really nice, nice stuff. As good as you can find anywhere. Including in the Old Testament. Some breathtaking wisdom and beauty not even surpassed by Shakespeare.

One of the really cool sayings attributed to the Jeezmeister is this one. "Before Abraham, I am." Those four words are packed. Like with volumes. For one thing they work like a Zen Koan. You sort of go, "Whaaa?" Smack. It is one of those slaps, or blasts of cold water slung in your face. Meant to wake you up from this lazy dream. So if there was a dude who said that, or if it was just a bunch of writers saying it through the character they invented, then I say it was the same author. And here you Christians...I'll even submit to your suggestion. It was written by GOD. But I've already ruined my pious reputation by explaining my view of God, which is even more twisted than my view of the SuperJeez, according to the world view of most Christians.

"Empty thyself and I shall fill thee," is another jewel by the thorn crowned Maestro. Oh Holy Sweetness. What rapture and beauty lives in that concept. We are so full of SHIT, most of us, especially me, that it is of radical importance that I empty myself of all that clutter. And to be filled with beauty and LOVE and the undying spirit of... Christ Consciousness (for lack of a better phrase for this particular blog entry,

on this particular Easter morning,

on this particular year three years prior to the Easter that will precede December 11, 2012 by exactly 237 days,

on this particular phase of peak oil,

on this particular phase of the ice cap melt,

on this particular time of our evolving consciousness as a human civilization,

on this particular time which SPIRIT consciuosness DEPENDS on human awareness--

(IF it is important to survive as a species, all those animal spirits for the first time in the history of our planet actually depend on the correct choices we make to secure a chance for our great great grandchildren to wake up to bunnies in their backyard, smile as they find the empty walnut shell, merge with the spirit of the flowering crab tree, observe the migration of the whales, breathe the sweetness of clean air),

is such a better thing to be filled with. Wow. Certainly, give me a fill up (would you mind touching up the windshield?).

So let us all push open that vault and move the huge stone so that we can discover that Christ Consciousness has risen! And let us dance and sing for we are welcoming the new day!

Praise God!

Birds of a feather

So good to see cousin Danny joining in. I'll join the chant - Rey... ah, Rey... ah, Rey... ah!!! Actually, I'm more than willing to cut her some slack for feeling "blogged down". It seems there is no end to our cyber, (tinker), toys. Between email, facebook, my JaCo music site, this blog, and You Tube, I sometimes feel like that little white dot in Pong - the first electronic game I believe I ever played.



A few days ago I got an email saying that someone I know wanted to follow me on twitter. I thought this was curious, since I had managed to avoid going anywhere near twitter, (up until now). I went ahead and created an account at the urging of a piano player friend of mine. After three days, I'm still not sure of the purpose, or the usefulness, of any of it. Twitterers incessantly "tweet" in short blurbs limited to 140 characters. To carry the analogy further, it is something akin to a blind man stumbling into one of those huge aviaries filled with birds of every species that the zookeeper has managed to net. They are all chirping, (or tweeting), at once, in an effort to be heard, ...or perhaps calling out in search of other birds with similar coloring. I haven't done much tweeting; prefering, instead, to stretch my wings in the open sky alone - or in the company of my fellow loons :-).

I have to admit however, I was a bit intimidated to find out that Reya proofreads EVERYTHING. I'm pretty sure I have not posted anything to date that would pass muster, and not come back looking like a bad accident, running red with ink. I suspect that my computer has contracted an insideous virus, (I have named Dislexicor), that activates an "error injector" tied to my submit button. Fifteen minutes after posting, words become mysteriously misspelled. Some disappear altogether, only to be replaced by prepostitions at the end of sentences. Dangling participles abound. I swear it was not that way when I clicked submit. I imagine Reya slowly shaking her head... "Alas, poor Rick. We knew him well.".

I have to sign off so that I will have time to proofread this before Danny's radio show. I'm out to prove my virus theory.

Later Loons

Now let's make it four

OK brother Mousers. We need to put on the full court press and get sister Reya to bless us with more than just her comments. We're talkin real life post here. Like official dude. Hey, even if she cross posts one from Goldenpuppy, we'll be happy, right?

So hit those comment keys and join me in the surround mode and let's lift our compadre (ette) up in the air by making one of those chairs with our arms. Then we'll toss her up...once...weeeee, then twice....weeeeeee, then really high this time....weeeeeeeeee. Oops honey, better not wear a skirt next time...

Ray...ah.....Ray....ah......Ray....ah.

Just wanted to pop in and say hi to all and apologize for my non-participation. My life has not been my own for the last couple of weeks. I have been desparately cleaning my studio and guest room for a guest who is now not going to show up like I had thought. I'll make her pay for it though. I made her promise to bring big city ethnic bread products to us here in Hooterville when she does come to visit as penance for her transgressions.

Things have been breaking around the radio station because of all of the storms and it's my job to make all of them work again. Florida is the lightning capitol of the US and we got our fair share here in the last few weeks. We had 10+ inches of rain in 4 days during some extreme thunderstorms. We got 5 1/2" in one 24 hour period. Things got green, so it's not so bad. The weeds in our sand lot grew to 2 feet high. No big deal. Fix the dormant lawnmower, mow the weeds to the ground...yard looks green...we call it a lawn.

I have also taken on several new guitar students lately, so the house needs to be cleaned almost every day. We have a black dog and a white cat with dark carpet and white tile floors. An endless and thankless task to keep all in order...and...I...must...have......order!!! It's a brain thing. Rick, I'm trying to remember to take my medication too, but it's difficult to remember to take medication for your memory. I'll explain some other time. Wives with good memories are a good thing...most of the time?

I do read everything you guys post and am enjoying the insight about my old friends. Although I don't get too angry about political crap anymore. Dubby, just breath in deeply and out slowly and watch Rachel Maddow and laugh about all of the stupidity you see. It works for me.

If anybody cares and can join me, I will be live on: http://www.30aradio.org/ from 3-6pm tomorrow with 3 hours of some of my favorites from the '70s (1st hr.), '80s (2nd hr.), and '90s (3rd hr.). I'll be looking for your comments on facebook, and email if the station's fb screws up again like it did a few weeks ago. Tomorrow night, I'm judging a Guitar Hero contest at the Seaside amphitheater. I get to play Simon Cowell. I got booed the last time we did it. It was fun!

BTW, I don't know what it's like where you are right now, but we have our double french doors open, are listening to the Gulf waves, and smelling the salt air. I love it down here. The seafood is amazing all year round. You're all welcome any time.

Love and blessings to you all

Thank you

You know it is so simple and luxurious to feel gratitude. You feel instantly refreshed and clean, like stepping out of a cool river or like basking in the sublime euphoria of a rushing waterfall. The squeeky cleanness of the morning shower is just an abbreviation of the soul cleansing of grace.

Sometimes when I don't know what to say to someone or when I find myself kind of topsy turvy and out of synch, I'll remember to turn my attention within. Even if it is just for a few moments, it is so therapuetic to take stock of your breath and to observe the rhythm of the inhale and the exhale.

For me, and I suspect it works for everyone, whenever I do that, inevitably a smile will take charge of my facial muscles and I'll feel relief. Then, everytime, inexplicably this feeling of gratitude permeates the spaces of my being and for that instant, I am amazed at the complex beauty of existence.

Then boom. Gratitude. It seems to be presenting itself with the explanation "Hey, you are soooo lucky, dude."

hmm

It struck me the other day, as wandered aimlessly, idly, in cyberspace, how often I ran across a "hmm" launching an observation or comment. For a "non-word", or at least one void of vowels, it's a very powerful, (and flexible), expression. It can mean pretty much anything you want it to, but most commonly interpreted as some contemplative thought process on the part of the hmmer. You can deepen or lengthen your contemplation by adding the appropriate number of m's. "Hmmmm", I've given this more serious and prolonged thought. Any more than four or five m's probably indicate an epiphany. Of course you can drop the H and change the meaning completely. "Mmmm" that was good. Some stimulation of any or all of the five senses just occurred.

This morning I read Dub's letter to the editors of Newsweek. "Hmmm" I thought. "Passion - I smell passion, (symbolism solely for the reader - you can't really smell passion unless it's the kind that comes in a bottle). "Mmmm - smells good". The fire in the belly. The call to arms. I responded to his letter on facebook with a single word, "passion". I left off the "hmmm". By that time I was no longer contemplating. Dub replied with a link pointing to the lyrics of a song entitled "Passion".

Many years ago, in another life, Dub asked me to write him a song. This was long before I had ever written anything. I should say, it was more a directive than a request. "Rick - write me a song.", was the way I recall the telling. So, many years later, I did. Without boring anyone with the entire lyric, the first verse/bridge pretty much captures the sentiment, and was written:

If the measure of a man is to leave the world a better place
have you done all that you can to make it so?
Have you opened up your hand to your brother in a different space
to make your peace with him before you go?

Time's what you make it
but it won't last too long
Be carefull how take it
Will they miss you when you're gone?

I thought about how remarkably similar the lyrics are to the lyrics of "Passion" - not in rhyme or metre, but sentiment. I resolved to re-record the song. I now have a project. Thanks Dub! Have you ever considered a career path as a professional muse? Hmmm.

Rick

Greengrich?

Dear Editor: Naturally, as a green minded American who reads Newsweek cover-to-cover each week, I was thrilled to see the special section Free at Last, kicked off by Fareed’s story. Then soon little twitches started occurring and I felt muscles ache in my neck and shoulders as phrases such as “opening the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve” and extracting billions of barrels of oil from shale, and treating nuclear energy as if it is totally safe, clean and green (we’ll all watch this debate rage since Patrick Moore endorsed nuclear).

“Who, what…?,” and then I saw it, bi-line Newt Gingrich! Please…Yes, let him contribute if you must, but as an expert on green energy?!!! How disappointing to find him in this group in this section. What a sham and so unlike Newsweek! We have scientists and experts, geophysicists, biologists and environmentalists and visionaries.

Why not have brilliant contributions from the likes of Paul Hawken or Amory Lovins who make a living by helping corporate American solve our energy and environmental challenges? We have hundreds and even thousands of qualified story tellers to help the masses understand the predicament and recommend a proper and responsible course of action.

It is shameful to see this blemish, Drill Baby Drill, with a disgusting image of oil pumps like dinosaur robots, poisoning the mountain landscape, and having it shoved in our face in a special section about achieving genuine energy independence! For those of us who know the score, we’ll scoff and hurry to throw it away. But for the millions of people who still need the facts and trust Newsweek to deliver, why take so many steps backward when it is so painful and so long coming to find ourselves in a position to enjoy the momentum???

Please fire the editor of that section who blundered so horribly.

The Devil's Playground

You know, musicals are so wonderous. Even as opera, or perhaps I should say, especially as opera. But the thing is, I don't know squat diddly doo about opera. I read Mozart's biography, or probably one of many. But from that I learned that he was pretty good at creating. Of course most of us saw Amadeus. Aha--back to the musical I'm talking about. The modern musical--a movie, or a stage play with a story, incorporating music.

But Amadeus isn't technically the kind of musical I'm talking about. (begins the sounds from Fiddler on the Rood) "If I was a rich man (dada daduda, dadadadada...finishes the sounds)"--"Maria. I once met a girl named Maria--(careful guys, this one can get me in heeps of trouble, because I married HER)"--"These are a few of my favorite things (was tinker toys one of them?--seems like it)"--"There is nothing like a dame"--Rogers and Hammerstein, Ira and George Gershwin, Lerner and Loew (another one I'll mention in a minute...)

Surely just as it was necessary that the Beatles sang Black Bird for us to be where we are today, the musical was also one of God's perfect poker hands. Speaking of the Beatles, their version of "Till there was You" was pretty doggon amazing. I wasn't 10 years old yet when my folks took me to the Kansas City downtown theater--what was it the Empire? to see Robert Preston and Shirley Jones sing that song to each other across the skyline of River City.

My mom was determined to get me culture. She had season passes to Starlight, the outside theater in Swope Park for just me and her and I saw everything there. Guys and Dolls, South Pacific, West Side Story, Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof, Music Man (which got me in to all this and to this day I can still give you most of Harold Hill's lines...((in fact, it is probably what made me be the romantic con man that I am today!!)) hmm, I think you're still suppose to close the first parenthesis, so here).

Anyway, to play off of Rick's words, I don't think except for the musical (yep the other guy who I bogarted his name before) by Meredith Wilson, I would have known the expression, Idle Mind's the Devil's Playground except for Harold Hill's convincing the people of River City that the pool hall was going to be TROUBLE!

I got the part of Winthrop when the play finally came to Ruskin. I was too small and couldn't sing so I didn't get to play my hero. Even though I was fantastic (still am) at the whole Trouble with a capital T schtick! Didn't get to do "Oho the Welth Fargo wagon ith a comin down the thweet" though because instead of making it to practice I was out conning 16 and 17 year old chicks to dig me. That is the first time I got fired, come to think of it...

Google just edumacated me. The words in the lyrics are "An idle brain is the devil's playgound," so Rick either has to rename his essay or I have to think of something quick, because the double entendre won't be as effective if I screw up the punch line.

I've got it. Remember Lilly Tomlin? Never Mind.

idle minds

I see Dub has been up early this morning. While I was up early myself, unlike Dub, I devoted the bigger part of the morning to being purposely idle; something of an oxymoron. I was pondering Dub's April Fools post, and when I listened closely, Yes, I heard that drum. I thought about the kind of idleness Jean-Jaques described - that of a child with boundless energy and imagination. Dub used the word "tinkering" to more aptly describe that activity of idleness - unlocking the imagination, and setting it free to create what it will.

The word tinkering has an almost musical quality, doesn't it? The alliteration in the first and second syllables make it roll off the tongue in a sing-song way. It's a great word, and sent me back to another happy time, and what may be one of mankinds most profound inventions - tinker toys.

A stonemason by the name of Charles Pajeau is credited with the invention of the tinker toy in 1914. The invention was inspired by Pajeau's observance of children playing with pencils and empty spools of thread. Unbridled imagination at play. Designed around the concept of the Pythagorean progressive right triangle, at the center of the invention is the wooden hub, connected by sticks of varying length to other hubs. Like spokes in a wheel, they can be connected in infinitely many ways.

In my purposely idle state this morning, I began to imagine the universe as a gigantic, bottomless tube of tinker toys, there for us to dip in to and create whatever our idle imaginations can conjur. Spokes and hubs - particles and waves - building our reality in the perfect order of chaos. One of my favorite components of my tube of tinker toys is the green, cardboard, trapezoid, when connected to a spoke and a hub, make something akin to the blades of a fan. When acted on by the unseen forces of nature, the whole thing can be set in motion - turning like the circles of the sun. Imagine that.

Circles - with no beginning and no ending - but always coming back to whatever point of origin you choose. Like a pebble on the water - or like skipping rocks - another of my favorite childhood idle past-times. I think I will resolve to be much more idle much more of the time - but unfortunately, my tube of tinker toys seems to be missing one of those green trapezoid things and I'd better go in search of it for fear the world will stop turning.
Rick

Home Alone

None of us seem like we're really alone. Even hermits have visitors sometimes. And our minds are full of memories of others. If you think about it, those images as memories are no less real than images of living experiences.

Stay with me. Someone walks up to you and shakes your hand. You arrange to have lunch with them and later they move in. You become life long friends and do everything together. Now you can't get rid of the person. So you've got a companion. Has that person merged with you? Are they some real part of you?

Now let us take the hermit. This person has lived under the bridge (in an abandoned village, 7,500 miles from anywhere) for 14 years. Lived on bugs and roots. Pretty much gone totally whack but still has memories of her brothers and sisters who she hasn't seen since Nixon resigned. Those memories of playing London Bridge and Peek a Boo are vivid and clear. Her brothers and sisters seem to be part of her. Are those images less alive than the companion in the example above?

Does someone else live in our bodies with us? Except as memories and living experiences of friends and family ($19.95, includes a free phone), we're alone in our bodies. What we think we own, such as furniture and a car and clothes and cd's don't live with us in our bodies. The stuff isn't actually attached to us. When it comes down to it, the only thing we really own is our behavior. That is really the only thing we can actually change also.

Home Alone. Free to be our authentic self and free to try to be someone else, not our authentic self. No one to blame. No one to come to our rescue. No one to take credit. No one to feel guilty.

Naturally lots of people care. But the work is within. And oh, what hard work it is.

April Fools

I was reading Reya's blog earlier and also the comments--wow, lots of comments! I think our little splat is kind of a private interchange. The concept was to feed off of each other, so I will push on. But it seems funny now to me about the whole April Fool's joke. If the Gods so will it, I'll make sense of those last sentences. Somehow they're related, but frankly, even I'm confused.

Rick mentioned the theme coming home. For any visitors, the four of us go back over forty years. In the case of Rick and me, if I'm not mistaken, it has been nearly 50! So old friends is a good description. We're all artists so we like to think of ourselves as...well, as ourselves. Which doesn't seem to have much to do with age. I guess what I'm trying to say is--we're not THAT old!

Some commercial on TV has something to do with baking and the smells of fresh baked rolls, playing off the theme of coming home. You know that's not bad. The comfort smells, the comfort feeling, the secure and confident awareness of being surrounded by love--if these be the qualities of coming home, it is no wonder that it is a nice feeling. So in that symbolic essence, to return to that feeling, whether it be to the land of your forefathers or the place that you feel to be your most authentic self--going home is something that is a good thing.

Paul Simon may be may favorite balladeer. In certain categories, there is sacred ground that no one may tread. For all round God of Gods, Lennon. For wit, Dylan. For roundness and pudding like vocals James Taylor. But for touching me with his stories, Paul Simon. Anyway, on the going home theme, The Boxer just crushes you with emotion...

I have squandered my resistance, for a pocket full of mumbles such are promises. All lies and jests. Whoa. I just want to be smashed by the diamonds on the bottoms of his shoes, and get all mashed together with whatever else he steps in. And then I just want to hang there, in his mud room and get put back on in the morning.

But you feel it when he says it. Going Home! And you know he knows. That it is a reward. A safe place. A place to return to.

It feels like coming home to me to be reunited with Rick and Reya and Danny. And others too. There's Lowell. We had so much fun riding his "V-Dub" to school in the morning. And the stupid thing didn't have a heater! We froze on those winter mornings. But we laughed all the way. Telling stories and being so ALIVE! Now Rick Britton has joined fb (we'll have to get him over here--have you others added him yet? Let's get him to post!). And Greg Rainwater and Moe Spitskofsky. And all of my neices are here now! This virtual hangout. Gang have you thought about it recently how young this information age is? But we are able to hang? Like we're actually in a room, having a conversation!!! So cool and so vital!! Especially in the time we're in...

OK, so I'm off point. Reya has a client in a hospital. And her blog recently has been partially devoted to describing the experience. You can feel the energy of her visits. You can sense the nurses in the ward and you can hear the beeps and buzzes of technology and you can smell the sanitizer. Mostly you empathize with the patients who are separated from all the natural world. As it turns out, Reya's client is going to be ok, but some of the others who were there are REALLY going home. Like to the home of homes. Which makes me appreciate the feeling of returning to a safe LIVING place or a safe living state of mind.

To act like some kind of common thread and to stitch this whole puzzle together, I went back to Rick's last entry and reread it and wanted to "bounce off of it" and I noticed his was sort of a rebound off of mine which was called Ship Hattins. Which, even though I hadn't thought of it at the time, was written on April first. His was called "All Aboard." and the theme was "How did we get here?"

Having nothing almost to do with any of that, I recently added a post about idleness and when I thought of the author and his theme, I remembered a poster which was hung in my army barracks wall near my bunk, that I brought with me from home. The fool. I didn't even know anything about Tarrot cards then. But I had the poster.

So a search on the computer quickly found it for me and voila, it accompanied my post. Just a day or two after April Fools Day.

This is the joke of jokes I think. But I don't get it.

Idleness

Some of you have heard me say how much I have enjoyed Rosseau's Confessions. Since finishing it I've learned that there is debate about the accuracy of all his "confessions" and he did die insane, afterall. But still the guy is just cool.

You know it is interesting that he continually reminds the readers of his ineptness in conversation. He never had a ready answer and often fumbled with replies. He didn't think of himself as witty and he was always embarrased in public for his lack of social skills with regard to language. Which is just amazing given his fantastic skills at turning a beautiful phrase in writing.

Anyway, if you get a chance, Google the guy, he is very interesting. Toward the very end of the book he addresses idleness. Really what he was talking about was "tinkering." I think of idleness as being a couch potato and vegging out to the TV. But here is Jean-Jacques at approximately my chronological age now...

The idleness that I love is not that of an idler who remains with folded arms in a state of total inactivity, no more thinking than acting. That which I love is the combined idleness of a child who is incessantly in motion without ever doing anything, and that of a dotard, who wanders from one thing to another while his arms are still. I love to busy myself about trifles, to begin a hundred things and finish none, to come and go as the fancy takes me, to change my plans every moment, to follow a fly in all its movements, to try and pull up a rock to see what is underneath, to undertake with eagerness a work that would last ten years, and to abandon it without regret at the end of ten minutes--in a word, to spend the day in trifling without order or sequence, and, in everything, to follow nothing but the capirce of the moment.

Yeah. That's what I'm talking about!

Today that would earn you the reputation of a loser.

But honestly, I hear that drum beat.

All aboard

man, how did we get here?

Seems to be a recurring theme. I should probably tackle that question just a little at a time. I'll begin by clearing one little mystery for anyone outside this circle who might be reading these posts. My lifelong friend, Winston initiated this blog. In the earliest years of our childhood friendship, he was known to me, and all of his friends, as Dubby. As we grew a little older, it became simply "Dub". You may see Dub refered to as any of the above - Winston, Dubby, Dub. They are one in the same. Just wanted to avoid any confusion, as going forward, I will refer to my friend as Dub - the moniker I am most comfortable with.

So, back to the thread. In an earlier post, Dub referenced the fact that I have been busy reinventing myself as a videographer. Judging from his most recent post. He has been doing some of his own reinvention - off on a new entrepreneurial adventure, more in tune with his nature. It occurs to me that perhaps neither of us are reinventing ourselves, so much as rediscovering some purpose that hitherto we have ignored, or least kept at bay while we busied ourselves making money, creating images, raising families and such. Not that there is anything wrong with any of those things - all of them chock full of experiences that are part of the answer to that question - "man, how did we get here".

So maybe this chapter in the journey should be titled "coming home". At least it feels that way for me. A couple of months ago I walked away from a fairly lucrative management postion with a major telecommunications company to pursue my love of music full time. I should say, this decision was not on a whim. Recent events in my life seemed to have been guiding me that direction. It seemed increasingly clear to me that this was the thing I must do. Others, including my family, were convinced had, (have), completely lost my mind - a possibility I have considered myself. Whatever the reason, I find myself driven to realize a vision. I'm reminded of Richard Dreyfus in Close Encounters, building Devil's Towers from his mashed potatoes.

In my defense, I should tell you that vision I spoke of is not about me being a rock star at age 56. It is about promoting local, (mostly), music and musicians. It is about providing an opportunity for those people who make, and love, music to come together and share their passion. I was playing one day, some years ago, with some friends of mine. We had just finished a song, (can't recall what it was), and it was one of those rare moments when we looked at each other with that "where the hell did that come from" look. Someone commented that some of the best music in the world will never be heard on the radio, or on any stage for that matter. I thought at the time how true that was. There were people all over the country, (and the world) making music in garages, barns, around the kitchen table, anywhere and everywhere, that is solid gold. I began to feel the need to document some of that spontaneity and spirit that makes this music what it is -real.

To that end, I invested a considerable chunk of my savings in the construction of studio outfitted with audio and video recording gear. The intention was to provide a place to bring people together to make music in an environment that they would not typically have access to, or be able to afford. I should note that, to date, I have not made a dime off of this venture - but that was never the point. In conjunction with building the studio, I began hosting a web-site called The Jackson County Music Preservation Community. Please stop by and visit me at http://jacomusic.ning.com.

So here I am reinventing, rediscovering, or perhaps just finding my way home. There is a lot more to answering the question "man, how did we get here", but there's plenty of time for later. In the mean time, I have mashed potatoes to tend to.

Ship Hattins

Man, how did we get here?

btw, it is probably self indulgent folly to imagine that someone wants to hear more about my frolicking in the Amazon, so I won't post the second chapter to the start of my last blog. But if anyone out there would like to hear about my conversation with the Snake (actually close encounter but not full on) and other adventures with the spirit realm, email me and I'll write you a private account.

I had the most interesting email exchange with a new acquaintance. She is the founder of a company called Sustainable Sourcing Organics and she has done incredibly brave things in the business world. She seems to not sit still and wait for other organizations to solve ecological problems, but with her own entreprenuerial instincts and hard work, she is building a company based on solid environmental and social principles.

So for this new endeavor which is starting to materialize which involves starting a trade association and also a new food company, I have a new email address--ecofma@gmail.com. But so that I will spot new emails, I have them also forwarded to my scrollingsales address. Now, not to air my dirty laundry in public, but my hope is that within a year I can spend most of my work time between the new trade association and the food brand, and not find myself working for (even indirectly) large corporations which have done so much damage to people and planet.

Well, as it so happens, when the email is forwarded, the natural instinct is to just reply to the email in the window you're in. So here I'm trying to be this "green socially conscious" guy, answering the email of Melissa Kushi, who originally saw mail from me from the Ecological Food Manufacturers Association, as the Executive Director.

After a short trail of emails I realized she is now hearing from the President of Zuni Scrolling Signs, who by all appearances couldn't give a flip about people or animals. In fact, if you search him down by the links, you'll find that his company is blatantly involved with advertising and of all things "the outdoor advertising" industry, which is partly responsible for the blight of scenic road ways.

After I switched over to the new window and my ears regained their normal skin tint color from the bright red throb they had going on at the time of my discovery, I found myself stumbling around like some kind of guilty cheerleader who tried to explain to the enthusiastic fans in the bleachers that she usually has panties on for the routine and the few minutes she was gone, visiting some of the team members didn't have anything to do with her missing underwear.

The fact that I'm dealing with the situation and in a totally freakish accident had to take over this company, and we've honestly done some pretty cool things, including inventing the Zuni brand and are creating a kind of advertising network which helps other small businesses have a shot at the cash usually reserved for CBS and AOL, is something which doesn't cease to amaze me. How in the world do we find ourselves in the darndest places?

The good news is, I'm working my way back home. My goal is to figure out a way to make a living without leaving a footprint the size of Godzilla and to be able to wake up every morning excited about my work.

One other thing, kind reader...I hope you had a wonderful day!

My trip to the Amazon

Two of my fellow mouse users have expressed the same concern, namely, what is the purpose and what is the goal we are seeking, as collaborators on this mighty blogosplat. Funny, it never occurred to me. I have always been this spontaneous and perhaps that is why so many people get irritated by me. "That's fine for you," I'm accustomed to hearing, "but that doesn't appeal to me."

I've been having fun on facebook but it isn't really designed for longer blurbs and rants. I just thought if we had a community blog we could post to it and see what comes of it. At least we'd have a readership of four that way.

We all have the same tic-tocks going on in the background, at exactly the same speed, but the stuff that fills our bags is different. If we look at the stuff and talk about it, my guess is we would be interested in each other's bag. That could be like the stuff itself, or the reflection on the stuff or the symbolism of the stuff or the creative outcome of the process, which comes from observing the stuff.

For instance, I know I'm interested in Reya's day as a bodyworker and her various applications of the mystery arts. Rick has been reinventing himself as a producer for these last few years. He just went out and bought an expensive camera one day and started loading up on recording equipment. Danny came out of nowhere but it hit me like an early spring rainfstorm when I tuned in to his life.

So I figured, we can write about it and then maybe "bounce" off of each other. Gives our fingers something to do, while we're waiting for the phone to ring.

I filled up three little notebooks on my last six week trip to Peru. I've told people how magical it was. The experiences were really unlike anything in my life until then. In the future, my plans are to spend a lot more time down there. But I've barely even reviewed my notes, let alone done any serious writing about it.

I'll start here by saying why I went. It started about two years ago, that I remember the jungle first inviting me. There was a very interesting artist who I'd met on the internet. She lives in Puerto Rico and I'd seen one of her computer paintings. It was so full of primitive and raw passion. We started exchanging pleasantries and eventually more personal information. It was months before I learned that her soul mate and lover had died in a motor cycle accident about one year before.

She was a very spiritual person and probably because of losing her lover in the prime of her own young life the big questions about why and what for and who am I and what now seemed to haunt her to the point of fully consuming her.

From someone, I don't think she told me, she learned about Ayahuaska and she changed drastically after having a ceremony. She started from that point, finding peace within herself and in the world. "What is Ayahuaska?" I soon asked or perhaps I didn't even ask, but just googled it the moment I saw her words.

And from the exact moment that I started reading about it, the jungle (La Selva) started whispering to me--come. Come to me. And it was a woman's whisper. A mother's call.

In my spare time I would do more research about Ayahuaska. Lots of scientific journals, lots of adventure travel experiences. You don't have to go to Peru or even South America, though that is where the plant is from. For instance, my friend had it locally in a ceremony, in which the Shaman was in Puerto Rico with the "brew."

Later I discovered it was the jungle calling me, but at the time, I thought it was the plant. It was a non-ending invitation, which included dreams, even dreams of my father. I knew eventually there would be a plane ride but the details weren't something that bothered me too much.

After months of research I stumbled one day onto information about the 4th Annual Conference on Shamanism, in Iquitos, Peru. After doing some initial fact finding and checking my calendar, I wrote to the organizer and explained that I wouldn't be able to be there for the first few days and "anyway," I explained, "I don't care so much about the conference."

I was just sure there would be people there who I was suppose to meet and things would take care of themselves. So right after vacation last year, I flew to Peru. No hotels booked, without knowing Spanish, just an address for the conference.

That first trip went very well and it was a big adventure. It was way too short though and the full meaning of the four ceremonies I had with 4 different shaman (those who work with Ayahuaska are called Curenderos, which is really a more specific kind of medicine worker) was just sort of a chaotic mumbo jumbo in my head. There was a lot there. I knew that. I just hadn't grasped what the Spirits were trying to tell me. In my own way, I felt as if I hadn't properly prepared for the significance of the experience.

When I arrived back in Missouri, all I could think about was getting back to Peru. I wanted to go study with only a few Curenderos and I wanted to have some focussed intensity to the study. It took quite a few things to happen to create the opportunity to return in the same year.

For instance, I knew if we didn't get the house sold, I wouldn't go. I knew if a few windows weren't opened within my work schedule, I couldn't go. But I set a date. October 1. I said, if all things are worked out by then, I'm gone. If not, can't go. About 2 weeks before October 1 the planets lined up and I called my wife Anne and said I'm booking the flight, tell me now to not go or forever hold your peace. "OK," she said reluctantly, knowing I planned to be gone for 6 weeks, "if you're sure it is necessary."

And boom. I booked it.

Just now the phone has rung in my office and I'll end this first installment. The picture of the man I'm smashing the vine with is Orlando. I worked with him in the jungle for 3 weeks, learning about plant medicine but also with him as my healer. He works very hard and takes his craft very seriously. He's been doing it for over 30 years.

I'll just give you a taste by saying that his work mostly involves the Spirits which surround us. His purpose is to protect his patients. He had grave concern, with me, especially about certain bad spirits. More later--

ciao.

Reflections

I returned home, (to my computer?), this morning to find an invitation to become a contributor to this blog. The invitation had come from my friend Winston, whom I have known since childhood. The obvious questions played in my mind - "what is this about?", "is there an agenda?", "what are the expectations?", etc. The curious thing is that I found myself clicking the link to create an account and become a contributor.

It occurred to me that this action pretty well defines the relationship between Winston and I. None of those swirling questions required an answer. It was reflex. I'm in. Considering some of our more colorful adventures, a more cautious approach may have been prudent, but that has never been who we are. I suppose it never will be.

So here I am, for better or worse, refelcting on what brought me, and in the bigger picture, how this diverse little gathering came to be where we are at this stage of our lives. I am struck by how far the pendulum has swung from projecting to reflecting - speaking personally. In my idealistic, (and often mis-spent), youth, I was filled with passion, outrage, and a sense of limitless power to change the world we live in. Time is insidious - much more reflection these days. Perhaps that is the product of, what seems to me, more frequent reminders of my own mortality, and deeper consideration of my legacy. I suspect that this migration is not unique to me. After reading Winston's first blogs, I am reminded that there is a current of common experience that helped shape the four of us, though we chose distincly different paths. We survived the tornado of '57 that Winston spoke of, the age of aquarius, and the Vietnam war, to name just a few.

As I sit here "window shopping through the past", (in the words of John Prine), I feel the slightest stirring of that passion and outrage from days gone by. Perhaps it is not dead - but only taking a little nap. Is it time to wake? Maybe, but it's so warm and comfortable here.

After the tornado

The faces on these sword carrying crusaders belong to four people who can't possibly think any other way than what it was like to grow up with stories of surviving a big tornado. Cars on water towers. My next door neighbors, Steve and Craig were thrown from the car and their father died. At reunions, there are tables of middle aged people huddled toward the center, and there is at least one person at the table--ALWAYS--whose house was destroyed.

What else defines us? We saw the same images of Vietnam, had the same presidents. Marveled that our short principle was a basketball star and some of us knew him by the name our older brothers and sisters called him by--Stubby. Stubby Steck.

Some of us sniffed glue and smoked mountains of pot later (hey not me, I'm just a reporter!). At least two of us are Vietnam era veterans and one of us saw action there--Rick. We're all fairly literate on computers now, two of us are pretty techno oriented when it comes to electronics. Both have education concerning the passage of teeny bits of energy conducted along wires and other fibers. One of us was a rare beauty--still is I guess and one of us lives in about the happiest places I can imagine for vacation. We all are music lovers and we all think of ourselves as artists.

But that Ruskin tornado has more to do with us than we probably let ourselves remember. This big fucking mean wind came ripping through our young lives, just after our parents had pretty much thought they were home free. They'd survived the great depression (or they still remembered the stories their parents told), and they survived World War II. We were all growing up in a housing experiment which still hasn't had rivals to this day, from the standpoint of little boxes all lined up in square neighborhoods, at Volkswagon prices, that they could all claim for their very own. And along comes the great grand daddy of sucking sounds which made Dorothy's seem like the exit valve on a whoopi cushion, but later was the symbol for Ross Perot's description of jobs moving to Mexico. How and why are we so the same, the four of us? If we could compare the dreams and nightmares that we can't remember, or the sketches just below the surface which haven't quite manifested, or the pain and empathy that we repress, or all the SNL sketches that tickle us in the same way, or the joy we show to be reunited on fb or over the radio waves--I'll bet that whirling twister, that devil of destruction, that freaky spiraling funnel cloud has planted itself so deep inside us that just about nothing can ever hurt us again.

We might not be in Kansas anymore, but we sure are lucky we took that magic carpet ride. Toto! Get back here!

Sunday Morning

Like I wrote the other one, this blog entry won't be done well. In other words, I'll write it, totally stream of consciousness, without one singel rewrite. The research will be on the fly, jumping from the primary source to Google searches in another window. So please kind reader, be lenient in your judgement.

Last night on TV, American Beauty starring Kevin Spacey and Anette Benning was on TBS. The retired Army colonel tells his son, "The country is going to Hell," as he reads the paper. Turns out he's dealing with repressed homophobia and he eventually blows Spacey's character's (Lester Burnham's) brains out. The movie is really all about repression. Quite a masterpiece actually.

Interesting that today's interview has a strange and eerie connection to American Beauty. I think all things have this mysterious connection, even more poignent than the thin and nearly dried-up squirt of glue which fastens these seemingly unrelated phenomena.

I returned to one of the interviews in the double "X" issue of the mossless gathering catalogue (in 2006 it published its 1000'th issue) Rolling Stone. It was with Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden. There won't be too much to write about but it is vastly important to reflect upon. I just tried to find it on-line, unsuccessfully. If you actually read this and want to see it, ask me and I'll scan it and email it to you.

The connection by the way is three years after the article, Hayden and Fonda were divorced (if my math is right, they were married for 20 years) and she later married (I guess for a little while?) Ted Turner. I watched American Beauty on TBS. I know, a lame connection, but it is there. And if I'm not mistaken, it has way fewer than 6 points of separation. There's a bunch of other connecting dots to the interview, but I'd have to unravel way too many cobwebs....

I look at the black and white of the couple, smiling cheek-to-cheek, with their perfect teeth and their inherited good looks, her jazzersized shoulder and his two top buttons openned intentionally and it is hard for me to admit what warriors they were. They weren't the man standing in front of the tank in that unforgettable snapshot or the naked screeching Vietnamese girl racing away from the napalm, but they were there, sacrificing their own reputations to tell the story with trips to Hanoi. They were there behind the camera and in front of it, campaigning for the truth.

Here are a few striking snippets:

HAYDEN: As a generation we've been through more traumatic and important change in these twenty years than most generations in American history. And it's not over. It's hard to know whether the twenty years is a prelude to something biggeror whether it's just a subject for nostalgia and rumination.

RS: Which one do you think it is?

HAYDEN: Prelude.

uh, yeah.

Later, we read this:

HAYDEN: The key to progress in the Sixties was when you had the possibility of an alliance between a movement, say, for civil rights, and an administration that gradually would support the objectives of the movement. One without the other leads to despair or stagnation. The deadly quiet of the Eighties can be related to the absence of anyone in the White House who cares.

We're only a few months into Obama's administration. Curious how so much importance is poured into each passing day for which to judge his effectiveness (see http://1461days.blogspot.com/2009_03_22_archive.html). But we supporters seem to be well rooted in our confidence, even though the extent of the damage will require supersonic ability. Not to mention the puppet masters are hard at work switching cables and inventing new puppet skills, while messing with the eye glass prescription of the audience, who may actually see something quite contrary to what appears to be the first and second act.

Still, let us take a sip of that refreshing wine which Hayden served us, namely the prediction that progress will come when there is an alliance between a movement and the administration. I guess the question...the bigger question is, does even the alliance and the administration have a large enough faculty to interpret the devious nature of the forces at play?

It isn't just greedy (Wall) street-walkers. It isn't just the absence of WOMD. It isn't just over-inflated home prices and melting glaciers. It is the foggy haze of distorted vision, the crisp inability to walk away from a world heading nowhere except toward perpetual self-esteem, self-respect, self-importance, self-love. Narcissism. Ah yes, Vanity of Vanities. All is Vanity.

Stop. Someone throws water in his face. Slaps him around. Asks him where all that joy went. All that skill at making people laugh. Knock knock. Are you in there Dubby? Peeks through his eye windows. Looks in his ears (ooh waxxy build-up!). Pries open his mouth. Looks up his nose. Knocks again, until finally I say. Huh? What? What's going on? Oh, back to the interview...

HAYDEN: The pertinent thing is that the shadow of the Sixties seems to prevent people from taking on lofty projects, because they think those will fail. Many kids think their parents blew it. They think it didn't work. For others, the Sixties have been reduced to an image, a graphic. The Sixties graphis sound and fury signifying nothing. All you saw on television and experienced in your life was a clash. I think that curbs people's level of utopianism--their sense that everything is possible. If you don't have that, then you're maybe more realistic, but you won't entertain the same ambitions that our generation was fueled by.

there is quite a bit of bite to his very last quote--"All the recent scandals, from Irongate to the religious right to Wall Street, have diminished the magnetism of the conservative agenda (oops--guess the poles got all charged up again later). I sense the public wants change in 1988 (sounds familiar). We've had twenty-eight years of failed presidencies and wrong roads. We've lost some of our better qualities. Much of our thinking has become obsolete. The world is more desperate (like by a thousand times more since then brother). We need to restore our idealism. It will take new leadership at all levels, but we'll never succeed without an effective presidency. Only our generation can make it happen.

Well we're here. I guess in the 50th anniversay issue, our great grandchildren will read about how we did. God help us.

Rolling Stone 20th Anniversary Issue

I was cleaning up my office today and found The Twentieth Anniversary issue of Rolling Stone (I thought it was just yesterday I bought it) dated Nov 5th, 1987. The interviews will be the research material for this post. The author takes no responsibility for any fault found in the philosophy. The author takes full credit for any interesting, amusing, shockingly disgusting, or otherwise just fucking outrageous synicism associated with this blog.

Believe it or not, the pages are brittle, as if it was an antique book. There is no musty smell but the familiar brown tint has spread like a cancer, and even the shiny necklace around the close up of the hairs on "the Boss's" chest seems like it might have been cast from metals mined near the Parthenon or the Sphinx. The two "X's" (signifying 20th) which make the logo of the magazine and also the masthead for each of the 33 interviews (Bono to Sting, Pete Townshend to Brian Wilson, McCartney to Jesse Jackson, Lou Reed, Dylan, Edward Kennedy and Walter Kronkite) seem to be a stamp of counter culture meets Madison Avenue, where the later is trying to be the former and the former has fallen in to the lap of the later with abandon and great ease.

There's a Revlon ad featuring the undeniable beauty and voluptuous cleavage of Liza Minnelli, post whatever trainwreck hit her just before her last public appearance and a Smith Corona Typewriter advertisement with not a whiff of suspicion that they were advertising a dinosaur, which even though not yet extinct, would be long before the future sister-publication (Rolling Stone XLII, due out in a few weeks no doubt) hit the Amazon cyber stand.

Jessie Jackson says that everywhere he goes he finds the big troubles of wide use of drugs, babies making babies, violence and suicide. Searching through the rest of the interview, I spot the question, "Are you optimistic about the country's future?"

"We will survive," he predicts. He even suggests we'll survive getting locked out of the White House (he is speaking about race here). "You get your stars from your scars," he explains in the last line of the interview. Go Barrack!

Ralph Nader pointed out that when he was at Harvard, and you worried about issues of right and wrong, justice and injustice, you were considered soft intellectually. Hard intellect was analyzing securities regulations (hasn't that been proven to be an oxymoron now?), tax rulings, et cetera. Of course he then went on to become...well Ralph Nader. Do you think we'll pull his predictions out of the dust bin now? Na.

Jane Fonda & Tom Hayden. Skip. Some astounding images by Annie Leibovitz including Brian Wilson, draped in a shimmering blue habit, holding a surf board on some nameless beach. I wonder if lots were cast for that robe yet? Springsteen with dingo boots near his ass, bent kneed, head thrown back, at an altitude which only pole vaulters ascend to without the benefit of electrical rocker infusions and screaming fans.

John Fogerty said It's easy to be cynical, though, when you turn on your TV and you hear "Revolution" being used to advertise running shoes. (How many people know that Lennon really wrote, You can count me IN!?)

Bono with a big hair and no glasses, Joan Baez looks like she should be the publisher for Vogue, with her starched collar, sytlish short hair showing traces of gray. "Maybe there aren't as many clear choices now as there were back then," she says referring to a time of Make Love Not War. The quote of hers they put in the art directed box in the center of the page was: If your goal is serious social change, it is going to be measured at some point by the risks that people are willing to take for it."

Brian Wilson's interview was all about what made his music tic. "The Beatles beat us, in a way," he said. "Their songs were more original." More images. Madonna, just sexxy, no Sefer Yetzirah or signs of Buddha. Just thumb to lip with a lit cigarette, wearing a 1940's brassier and a sideways glance which said, "I know you want me, who doesn't." Sting, chisseled and fresh, like a college quarterback, just out of the shower and Sean Penn, pissed. Cyndi Lauper, fit to be tied, a collage of chains and glitter, layers and brown lipstick and Boy George immitating Cyndi Lauper, except with more make-up.

Daniel Ellsberg tells us in the subtitle of his interview that "A pattern of government deception has been part of our national life for twenty-five years." All I would add is tack on 25 years since he said it originally and then about 5,000 more prior to his birth. When will we learn to admit male domination and spirituality exempt of the Divine Feminine?

Little did he know about "W" when he said "To their credit and good judgement, the American people do not want to be aggressors. They do not want to be terrorists." As we kick through the debris of the world chaos we've created, it would be hard to find his sentiment written in another language, concerning an American population which has come to be defined by the years between 2001 and 2008.

"Every person who took acid has his or her own story to tell," reminds Timothy Leary. "You simply cannot understand psychedelic drugs, which activate the brain, unless you understand something about computers." As I search for the next punch line, I ask the computer to match up key words and cross check them with our present dilemna, in order to predict the smartest next move. Then I hear Hal say, "Sorry Dave, I can't do that." (Er, I mean Dubby).

Hunter Thompson predicts that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours and Jack Nicholson says he still gets high and still likes to have a good time with the women, even though he says that's not where it's at today...darn. Bridging the gap between Leary (acid), and Nicholson (reckless behavior), we read about how Michael Douglas brought Ken Kesey's Cuckoo's Nest to the big screen..."It was magical. It was pure. Because we did it outside of the system, and we didn't know what we were doing, and there was an innocence on the part of all of us." Since then he's either produced or been in all of these:


2007 - King of California
2006 - The Sentinel
2006 - You, Me & Dupree
2003 - The In-Laws
2001 - One Night at McCool's
2001 - Don't Say a Word
2000 - Wonder Boys
2000 - Traffic
1999 - One Day in September
1998 - A Perfect Murder
1997 - The Game
1996 - The Ghost and the Darkness
1995 - The American President
1994 - Disclosure
1992 - Basic Instinct
1992 - Falling Down
1992 - Shining Through
1989 - Black Rain
1989 - The War of the Roses
1987 - Wall Street
1987 - Fatal Attraction
1985 - The Jewel of the Nile
1985 - A Chorus Line
1984 - Romancing the Stone
1983 - The Star Chamber
1978 - The China Syndrome
1978 - Coma
2006 - The Sentinel
1997 - The Rainmaker
1993 - Made in America
1990 - Flatliners
1985 - The Jewel of the Nile
1984 - Romancing the Stone
1978 - The China Syndrome

Profitable? Oh yeah. Magic? Not so much.

Wow, here's a line, by William Burroughs: "The biggest danger now is a fascist takeover under this pretense of the war against drugs." Remove drugs and insert Terror. Bingo. God, I hope that is behind us!

Here's Tina Turner on Jagger's saddle and Bono with big hair, saying, "Perhaps the Sixties was the product of a generation of spoiled children who could afford to drop acid and set off for Peru." Hang on, I've got to take a call from my friend in Iquitos who is planning the 5th annual Amazonian Shamanism Conference...

Don Henley is prognosticating...a very radical way of thinking..."Believe me, America is not back on track. People are still homeless, people are still out of work, the farmers are going out of business, and we're experiencing the biggest deficit in history." Uh-excuse me, we have a few more zeroes to show you Don...

And Lou Reed seems to be at the same table when he blares out, "Think of what's going on in the world today. If this was the Sixties, the college kids would be in the streets tearing the buildings down." All I can say is "and the colored girls go doo do doo, do doo, doo do doo..."

Sting predicted that "The power of rock & roll is gone. There's nothing rebellious about it at all." When asked by the interviewer if he consciously decided to use the system, he shamelessly admitted, "I used it to the hilt." Chaching.

They saved a frowning eyebrow and mussed hair clad Dylan for the last interview. Asked if Life gets complex as the years go by (duh), Dylan seemed thoughtful. "Yeah. You get older; you start having to get more family oriented. You start having hopes for other people rather than for yourself."

Toward the end of the interview, Kurt Loder asks Dylan, "Do you think there's any point today in people getting together--the way they did in the Sixties--to try to change things?" He answers with some hopeful thoughts but goes on to say "...but there's so much evil. It spreads wider and wider, and it causes more and more confusion. In every area. It takes your breath away."

"Like living your life just to make money?," asks Loder. "Yeah," answers Dylan, who already seemed, even then, way less Freewheelin, "But it isn't really accepted. Maybe in America it is, but that's why America's gonna go down, you know? It's just gonna go down. It just can't exist. You can't just keep rippin thing off. Like, there's just a law that says you cannot keep ripppin things off."

And many people laughed when they read that.