The People's House

I

It is true that we can fall upon our own swords. The ascent of the self is the highest cliff we can climb and crumble upon. It is a very real possibility that we will appear to our future selves as derelicts do to us today. I grew up with a sensation of loss, very, incredibly real to me. It was not a lost toy, but a lost life, repeatedly. In these fires, great things are fuzed, and some joints that need to always be pliable became fixated by the same heat. It may be this way for some part of you, people.

II

The consequences of these precise and obtuse mechanisms of the psyche working together make for an interesting engine. The way that resources get used seem manifold, but it is analogous to the variations in the color of garbage, or salads. It is how there are many different products, but they are all different shades and colors of convenience. This dynamic exists on an individual level, and reflects in our international community. We see in the wars and disturbances man cannot help but create--we've basically allowed a defining trait of our species to be subjugation and war amongst itself--we see in this eternal struggle, the reflection of common individual struggle.

III

Man preceded civilization, and yet both function with different dynamics that overlapping, neither necessitate, and often invalidate, one another. The individual struggle that reflects in this civilization, and in many before us, of "wanting-ness"leaves man always begging for more. A society of beggars clothed in the convenience of life reflects the feelings of individuals that base satisfaction on the exercise of will in a personal vacuum. This is a way of being, not of thinking--it speaks to it's opposite. It reflects the communal desire for joy; running up against different definitions that come into focus once one is back beneath the clouds.

IV

Yet neither necessitate the other, and both may invalidate the other. Man can be soaked deep in his own heart, "free from greed and wanton needs" as Lao-Tzu says in the Tao Te Ching concurrently with a society that is critical of such a man--naming his unconventional ways as the root cause of the societies issues. Conversely, many unlearned people blame society alone for the snakes writhing within themselves, and society in turn points back with blame or shame. It is never this clear cut, it is always both. This is the Yin and Yang I suppose.

V

Thus, pointing in the direction of the other, we are in part pointing to a part of ourselves. By that perspective then, we begin upgrading our processors made in the fiery experience of spongy youth. We ping off the other, that which we point to shamingly, and increase our own bandwidth. This is all theory, though I have seen a great amount of difference in the stages of being and I am still very young, so I don't even fully comprehend the meaning of 'change,' or 'difference.' Like the Grand Old Master said, "He who feels punctured, must once have been a bubble."

VI

The answer to the ascent of the self; the way up the rocky crag is brought about then by neither pointing away, or pointing at one self solely as both are reflections off of one another. It is instead, what the conversation hangs within. Life hangs in the balance, and what it hangs in is where the minds must rise and float to be able to ascend the valley. It is how, as said by The Madness, the ground appears as the top of a mountain. To play it out practically, this means a mystical approach to the conversation about practical and pressing matters like slavery and the privatization of natural resources in an increasingly demanding world.

VII

Language creates reality, and reality influences the creation of language; after all, the sounds of primitive man were responding to something--whether it be a call for the moon to send rain, or the desire to convey the first experience of what fire was when lit by the angry lightning. These old tales and myths that flow into the fabric of cultures create the intellectual soup our minds rise up within, and become entrenched with. On a macro scale, these change, and if we think consciously about the macro scale, pointing to it, we see it pointing back to us on a micro scale--so perhaps we begin our species ascent with communal individuality. We must blend the two, not just prickle against what in the other, is deficient in ourselves, certainly not dismissing the concept of unity because the language creates an oxymoron. 

VIII

These answers are long, and never complete. If they would be, they would not be the correct answers. We are carrying these forward and dipping them into every generation. For their struggles were, and will be like ours, they will just have different names, and different problems--but the struggle is defining to life; as such, as long as our species can experience joy, it must find the pain, and when it knows that both are neither tied to them alone, or to society away from themselves, then we can begin the delicate and necessary process of caring for all variation of our species. 

IX

We are sold on the delusions created by language--that blessing and curse of our species. We can communicate finite concepts, yet the way in which we express them, the context of the epoch the communication is conveyed in, and the subjective understanding on the receiving end, all make for an enterprise doomed to fail if left to itself. It is trying to talk a person who is grieving out of grief, or just allowing them the silence or histrionics to grieve and experience that with them to lessen the load. Introducing what is commonly understood as the mystical approach would allow the scrutiny purported by the inquiry, of 'what is better?' Better cannot be narrow enough to be only what is best for the individual--come commonly to mean 'the most'--and cannot also be only what is best for society, else you end up with an impossible ideal.

X

The answer is undulating, it does not hold on to itself, it doesn't hold on to anything but basic understandings that all should eat, sleep, and drink water. That we must reduce suffering caused by the definition of life, and that we should look never to impose suffering on others in our species; understanding that we are really just pointing at ourselves. To introduce a previously 'mystical' word into the mix, would be to allow all able, to experience affection.  If we can even start with such a basal experience of joy, then perhaps one day, far away, we can attain the ability to love--one another, and ourselves in a manner which enables and promotes the same in others. In closing, if the modern intellectual revolts at the thought of love as a tired and overused and misunderstood answer, then perhaps we should begin our inquiry and common goal with a concerted effort for the experience of affection. It will change the world, already has, and will again.

Gravy

The real meat of the matter, is that we're free to do anything. 

Thanksgiving.

My brain is moving right now. It feels fantastic. Creativity really is the key to moving deeper into the treasure room of inspiration. "The Madman Laughs at Everything," my seven year attempt at a book is coming to a head. It's been accepted as my final project so I can kill two birds with one stone.

I want to write to you about how everything is an opportunity. It sounds boring, I hope it is not. This is fundamentally, a  primary aspect of personhood that the majority of our species is endowed with--the ability for self-correction.

This includes necessarily, our ability to perceive our surroundings. So this primarily defining opportunity for man lies in  his perception--that is to say, the way the raw data of human lives is processed. It's using 'Emotional Sonar' to use a term from, "The Madman Laughs at Everything" -

Emotional Sonar: Triangulation against anything processed by the primary agent.

Emotional sonar exposes, with muddy strokes, where we stand in relationship with our plod towards the grave. We can use questions about how we feel cyclically with similar relationships. Like how much do I think of food now versus when I was sixteen? What do I think about it--am I still not really thinking about it much? Way more than I think of other things? etc. etc. Questions along this vein can ensure a tilled psyche. This is not necessary for joy--just another tool to be used when the experience of life's confusions are too confounding to just let be, play with, or laugh about.

The trait that sets us apart from smart chimps is the ability to ask 'why'--it's our blessing and concordantly, our curse. These kinds of questions are in the employ of one concerned with adhering to the common religious understanding of, "Love your God above all things, and love one another like you love yourselves." All the different iterations of what 'God' or 'Love' implies is particular to the religious context it's coming from--even if it's the church of the secular, which claims to be nowhere, and is simultaneously everywhere.

It can be difficult pluming the depths and heights of one's constantly changing dynamic. A conception of God, or Love, or anything that seems larger than life, is a triangulation that affects everything. As our understandings about our relationship with these concepts opens up, so too the concepts themselves continues opening up, and in return, our ability to love ourselves, and finally our ability to love others.

'Love' is like 'God' to us because both take a bit of belief and both come with a myriad of applications, understandings, and cynicism; often getting in the way of one another, right when they propose to be one and the same.

Opportunity abounds when one knows how free they are; and freedom is never anarchy, it's always secured in order. Part of that freedom is the sonar of life helping guide us through the deep crags in every part of life's ocean; from the glittering surface, to the unfolding deep.

Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you feel thankful all the time.

Karn
  

The Roaring Twenties

Check it out in HD

Hot and Cold

I think often of living overseas. I am very concerned about the oil crisis lately. Europe, England, and some previous lands the British colonized have infrastructure that was created before the oil boom. America on the other hand, is a country that won it's power, and was raised to heights because of oil. The difference in highways, cities, and rural areas compared with the majority of the rest of the world is a clear indicator. Though those countries have now much macadam, the underlying architecture in many areas still lends itself more to small communities. You see this still in city areas, but suburbia is a goner. I think we'll still have some electric before I die, however everything we can think of when we think forward--or perhaps just this idiot writing--runs on oil. Some part of it's history, somewhere on the road to potentially available, involves oil, and usually some kind of human slavery. Forty million slaves, roughly, now days--unseen and sequestered from the real world. Did you know that motions that have anything like the word, 'inequality' in their title don't usually get sponsored financially? Christyia Freeland recently wrote a book about it. Take this and scale it beyond reasonable, and you have some idea of the difficulty we face as a species.

In all history, there is a subjected group, and a benefiting group - these are my terms, and reflect idiots understanding. The wider the base of subjects, the more the benefit. Rome is a clear example, however so is Babylon, Ur, and especially ancient Egypt.

The picture of these slaves represent the gold used in making products like the computer I type this on, and the smartphone I'll read this later on. It's the only way these electronic devices work so quickly and cheaply. Gold is a magnificent conductor, so we better get it cheap; but it's hard to claw from the ground after the burst in population (mimics oil use) and the idea that everyone should have it all. So the answer? Subject your own species through fear, and keep it obscure enough that the majority doesn't have a revolt in their consciousness, and we're pretty trapped deep. I mean writing about how it sucks, is being done on a device made through and through with oil (plastics, transportation, etc. etc.) and simultaneously supports slavery. That's my computer...you know, those devices that are more than a passing fad?

Back to the narrative: after Rome, France, Germany, England, then, America grows--and she discovers the use of oil. When this spreads to the other worlds, all reeling from not being the ruling super power anymore (Greece anyone?) then we see oil based empires rise across the world. The old war of Greeks and Persians is today played out for oil, and still uses the reasons we as a species created in the Middle Ages. The turn to Humanism was born from intellectual cross-pollination during the fifteenth century, so all the rampant 'individuality' and 'choice' that people love in their redefined, temporary epochs, would be totally lost without the Muslims that came up through North Africa into Spain. Where do you think St. Augustine and St. Aquinas got their understandings of the Greeks?

So we stand here today, or generally sit--for more than four hours a day in the 'developed world' (the new nomenclature for the last centuries, '1st world') and we have this whole history of perspective available to us, just like the people before we breathed this air, yet we play out their roles. When the printing press was invented by Gutenberg in the Fifteenth Century, there was a devastating affect to the spread of materials as seen by the ruling body (this mirrors, prefigures, and is incredibly important to the rise of the Protestant sect of Christianity and the subsequent divisions thereof). This was their internet, this was their smart phone, this was their tablets.

As they had workers and slaves, we too have those, just on an international scale thanks to cheap energy. By the way, if you don't think energy is cheap, a gallon is about eleven dollars in India, and three to four dollars in America - then imagine a gallon of Starbucks coffee - it would be like fifteen dollars with current prices of a grande at $1.95 with a personal cup discount. Three to four dollars explains our defense budget almost single handedly when compared with world oil prices--think of it as really cheap liquid...even bottled water at roughly two dollars for sixteen ounces would equal about sixteen dollars a gallon!

The places that have oil available cheaper? We war with them and simultaneously sell them our older weapons; cause you know, oil makes everything you and I take for granted. That hot shower in a tub? More people than not don't have that luxury. Heat? Ever heard of a blanket and suffering through the cold? Even our cancer, horrible, saddening, miserable, disheartening, soul-sucking, and who gives great joy in beating away, is a problem that comes after we've sufficiently secured clean drinking water. It is why THE FRESHWATER is the name of everything I do; it's basic, and a lot of people don't have it. We look upon history and our own parents and wonder why they didn't contribute to the same end--the security of the species--and as we have this thought, we remember to "be the change we wish to see in the world" and suddenly my love of all things Apple makes me complicit in murder. A diamond? Ha! There is one place I've heard of in Canada where the miners aren't basically slaves. In fact, in ninety plus percent of the cases our diamonds come from actual slaves--families held hostage, wives and daughters raped in front of their husbands and fathers eyes who have their eyes held open at gunpoint and threat of death to their other smaller children, limbs cut off, tortured or 'disappeared.' They probably don't think about a heater going out, or a constant lack of money--the idea of even owning to them is lost; they think only of being able to be another day, and some think of escaping (though often found the torture is inflicted even worse upon their homes and extend through generations that are not able to be generative anymore).

You know how we are arguing about social security for the elderly and presuming that our generation will have to deal with the economics of its failure? Well, when it was written, taxes were in the seventy percent for the wealthiest. We scaled personal wealth, but kept the legislated sharing up to the kind hearts of money hoarders; then we convinced everyone--everyone and anyone that we could, in any way that we could--that they should also do that. We became the oil for the markets engine, and the engines of our lives, run entirely on the depleting substance.

So I was born in the heat, and mostly raised in the cold. If I don't make a decision in twenty years, I may be paddling across the Pacific when I'm seventy. The Atlantic would probably be better. The sense of adventure and danger would have to re-enter man.

The Age of Boldness would necessarily be ushered in.

I hope we are the ones that bring it, and not the ones that need to react with it. Our species is generally reactive, and I think C. Jung was right, if we can begin moulding these ideals on micro scales, we can finally--as cohesively as possible--make macro shifts in our relationship to one another, and especially to this life-sustaining rock, wholly unconcerned with the people upon her; gently responsive to all of the activity, and who will outlast us more than any lack of oil, and speed and intensity of war, or any plague. The information we make is ultimately only as long as life, and on a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero. 

So I think of moving back to the heat, or near the equator. I like the inland not because I don't love the ocean, but I believe the coast is the first to sink. The culture will have to spread inwards. Swarms of culture is an easy way to visualize it.

Another Record for Life Lived

I'm thrilled to introduce you to the second of a three album arc -

On October 30th, 2012, at 9:30, I'll be playing at Canal Street Tavern to commemorate my 'Roaring Twenties' and look ahead to the fourth decade of my time here (to commence mere hours later on October 31st). ROSEBUSH & THE PURSUIT OF DREAMS will be available, with digital release scheduled for Q1 2013. If you can make it, I hope to see you there, I'll be playing for a potent 30 minutes. I'd be honored to entertain you, sharing some new and old songs with you. 

For those interested further, here's a quick story about this album: 

Throughout 2011 - from March, through November, I woke up at 5 AM and drove to Nashville, TN. I would arrive around 10 AM Nashville time, and begin recording nearly right away. We would go relentlessly, with few breaks, till 8 PM when I would get a copy of our work that day, and listen to it repeatedly on the way back to Ohio at around 1 AM.

We only had the honor of playing this circus out five or six different days throughout the year--but those days were deeply lived, and all the juice from the always over-ripe fruit of life was relieved through our thorough mastication of time. This album is a record of those days, and the songs on it point to days before, during, and after its studio capture; it's about a three year effort, and we think you'll really enjoy it. Hope to see you at Canal Street Tavern in Dayton, Ohio, on October 30th at 9:30.

Wandering

I'm just writing a long paper about interesting things. It's super tiring.
I've also been reading scripts and looking for the architecture. I have some good notes as fun guidelines, along with clear cues for casting, sound, movement, sets, director, producer, and actor.

Writing this paper has me with the blessing of a random song selection and my courage to let any feelings rush in and out of my heart (not getting much sleep and working too much can have a meditative quality, I assure you--it's just to be used sparingly is all). That said, Wandering, by Johnny Cash comes on--I've written about it before, but it led me here, wandering around in my mind.

I'm going to help my mom set up a blog unless she already has. She's the most righteous. Surmounting the self is the highest peak we all climb and die upon.

My beard is strong these days, it takes only few days to grow.

1   EXT.  A DESERT - SANDSTORM - DUSK               1

A body silhouetted by the sand carries a dead child. We can hear wailing. Grains of sand swirl in tornadoes threatening to choke the whole world breathless. There is a stillness amongst the chaos. 

The silhouette fades around an imposing figure. ASH. He looks like he's been on fire for decades. A broken pillar of ideals. Sand caked to his lost mouth. He's not sure if he's still alive. 

OLIVIA (O.S)

I never met a man I hated as much as Ashlyn Joseph DeZousa. 

Better wander back to my homework. 

Goodnight. 

Harry gets a letter

So, as said in my previous post about enjoying the process. I found video editing software for a mobile device and stayed up for an hour between three am and four am to make the following trainwreck.

What's fantastic, is that just one project focused on doing--with no intention of sharing--led to the discoveries that will make the next video just a little better; at minimum I'll at least have a plan for what song and what images to use.

This was comprised of a song from over two years ago, where we're off pitch in a few sections. The sketches are from six years ago and some of the videos are from March and others from just sending stupid messages out to friends because in the future, videos can be shot and travel to your friends while you drive. It's pretty neat. Basically, whatever was loaded on my iPhone and iPad was used in this tester to see how cross-fades and camera movements and frame-by-frame refinements could be made. This was more for the creator than the end user, but I'm still going to enjoy sharing it.

Maybe I'll take this down, but right now, after a long three weeks and a long two more coming up, I'm feeling frisky and am focused on the importance of process. Without further hesitation, here's the video.

Enjoy:

Loudly, on Silence

I will tell you why I have little to say. It is because I am very, very little.
One can use the term insignificant, it means nothing to me anyways.

I want to create more than I consume.
The thing about creation is that you do so much of it that sometimes you have to take a break and decide what you want to share--that break is not really coming.

The process of creation is simply a process, and it starts with about a years worth of observations and attempts from me before my creations begin looking something like what I thought.

The process is also dynamic as any creator would tell you, so unlike God, often I'm being transformed by my attempts.

Daily I write a script, or a story, or some freakish hybrid of both--the idea is just writing, not outcome.
I take a character, and put him or her in a place. I give them a series of adventures, and let me tell you, some of them are just terrible, and none are really any good, yet; of course, that isn't really the point--and isn't that the point?

If you begin reading movie scripts on a regular basis before you watch the films they became you find the importance of nuance, and the great trepidation from which creation can be born. Conversely, bold creation is also a blessing--and for me, that exists mostly with songs.

Film takes time, a lot of time; even a music video for a few minutes takes a shit load (technical term) of time to plan, storyboard, capture, manipulate, edit and process. All of those steps stand on the throat of creation. The love of digital capabilities grows accordingly.

For the really great stuff, I will use film. I'll be lucky to do that even once in my lifetime. Hopefully many times, but really, I'm no filmmaker, yet, not even in practice. I'm interested in the medium's ability to capture and train imagination so that it forces the unsuspecting deeper down into Wonderland. I believe that trip down is what helps us enable joy.

The future is always new, because any conception of it is based on our previous and current processing; the future, however, will not be so tame. It is unknown, and the very nature of speculative thought is impossible to convey articulately. It's what the ancient world knew before The Age of Reason kicked emotions out of the room of rhetorical value.

Dreams of the future therefore also consist in a series of end games. In a land of Capitalists, the consumer is inundated with the best 'new', and as the tired old tale is becoming, with a shorter attention span; as if philosophical training is anti-American--though when considering our national proclivity for pragmatism, at once one understands what Alexis de Tocqueville is driving at in the first sentence of his second volume of "Democracy in America."

The fact that most Americans wouldn't even read this, let alone wonder why the quote referenced above isn't linked easily here is exactly what I mean by the pragmatism of our industrial model superseding the desire to explore and discover. Discovery takes a relinquishment of the end, and I know some of us have been saved from this, and I have supposed that it's why we feel like outsiders, or as I like to refer to a thinker and a lover, the Mad ones.

Being sold on the end goal, humanity forgets the importance of how that end is reached. People these days are more concerned with their branding than their products viability; and the viability of the product is only important if that is also considered to be a value of the brand. If someone has a shitty brand name, perhaps KIA motors, but a substantial product, then it makes sense why we're still not so sure about those 'Korean Import Automobiles.' If something has a great brand, say the iPhone, then even though there are more powerful devices, there is a security in purchasing Apple (ps. I'm still a fan boy for Apple, so my bias must be taken into account.)

In the end then, the celebration of process gets lost among the glitz and glamour of the end result. It's the subtle pincer that disables our creativity and keeps the majority of us solely consumers. From clicking around the internet to watching television, we are all passively taking in, yet not considering the latent affect on our imaginations--many look at media to quell too-busy minds, instead of using this amazing proliferation to sniff out desires. If you're reading this, then you're one of us that do this to varying degrees.

Perhaps that's why I've not been writing on here very much. I realized how much of it is self-serving shit, and I can do that elsewhere before taking my mind public. What you, internet stranger, read here, is the process, and yet it appears as the end result.

Hopefully I'll get over myself enough shortly (I'm certain I will) to put up some more of my process here. The next steps are pedantic music videos. So that ought to be a blast to laugh at and enjoy--which can be mutually exclusive if I do my job half-properly and focus on stretching my limits to the point of surfacing glaring deficiencies for future refinement.

Exposing your process is a weird and fulfilling feeling. The future may have a greater appreciation for it, I wouldn't know, my imagination--like yours--is filled with the end results. Perhaps being insanely ourselves, the being and becoming of the 'it' and the 'I' is the new future.

It's also so funny how much like Man I am. The process includes so much speculative thought about oneself, that it dichotomizes  the person from nature; that is to say, in conclusion, that it separates the process from the product.

Come then, let's make the future today, and be concerned primarily only about the next step in our macro evolution, created on a micro scale.

Karn

Rock, and roll.

Playing Canal Street in Dayton, Ohio again on September 25th at 11:30 pm (no one expects you to come) and October 30th--which will be a big bash, because it's at 9:30 pm, and 2.5 hours later I'll be thirty years old. I'll also have albums available that night.

I hope you enjoy this song; would love hearing your comments and see you soon.

Rock rock. 

Recognize

Certainly we can speak about Truth and Absolutes and the historical context of our science of interpretation giving rise to its own need for narrow proliferation in scientific principal, but I think we should have that conversation while staring, completely awestruck that one another is being. 

The Great Wave of Kanagawa

He loved the act. All his passion raged towards it, alone in any environment. In any form he wanted the act. The bang of the keys on a keyboard were his impressions on the saxophone during dangerous jazz-songs from upstate New York in the early nineteen-sixties; he ached for the scratch of the fountain pen on thick paper and the stroke of a brush; the mechanistic nature of a typewriter, and the pedantic technology in a word processor were his fetish.

He was in the woods, in a dream, and his fingers dug into the dirt around the roots of the tree he leaned his head upon. His loin cloth was his only covering but for mud over all the rest. His hair was strangely familiar and matted beyond fashionable.  He writhed and his eyes spun beneath his eyelids; grabbing a clump of clay as he feels the heat from a freshly printed page and the final ding on the typewriter singing cautiously that only a few more characters and he’ll be typing in outer space. The sniff of a book, the dust of ancient thinkers and crowded places enchants him, and he wakes up.

The sun is on his face and blinding him, the air is humid, and messy; covering his eyes he sees there, in the dried mud on his arm, a faded note from before he slept. He turns his head and the world seems to fall on its side again, the note is written backwards. He stumbles up, goes to a freshwater stream, drinks copiously—making sure to keep his forearm dry so as not to lose the message—proceeds to wrestle the most beautiful man he’d ever seen with matted hair, nearly drowns since he was fighting one-armed, and then uses the freshwater's surface to read the reflection of the old message on his arm. It read, “You're never really awake when life's such a dream.” He looks down, at his feet, and then he's gone.

-The Madman Laughs at Everything

Legception

Venus and the Solar System

Listen, I know I’m supposed to be doing homework, and I’ll get to that in just a few minutes; if you know, then you know I simply have to write. You see the thing is that there is this remarkable glow outside; I’m almost always working when the day becomes a spinning loom of vibrant blonde, and today I was lucky enough to be allowed off work a few hours early.  I will perhaps go back to work after I complete this pressing schoolwork—in any event, actions.

            Yesterday Venus passed over the face of the sun for the last time in our century. It will be the twenty-second century before she appears again.  I looked, and even created a pinhole camera to view the sun with safely.  Alas, Dayton Ohio’s spotty clouding and my relentless need to work had my observation relegated to the experience of speaking with a friend about it, downloading an app that told me the time it was passing over based on my location (on my twenty-first century ‘smartphone’) and finally watched it on the local weather on my twenty-first century television and cable system. 

            Today is the rest of our century; we will never see Venus in the same way.

            Isn’t it the same truth for every moment? My Madness speaks of this in its second chapter.  “Every moment is a funeral and a birthday.” – 2:2

             The next set of people that want to see it but can’t, will have their own ways of experiencing it, and we will live with them.  It is remarkable how naked we are and how little we have to lose—the trick really is that we don’t have a damn thing to lose.  Life has no prescriptive method towards itself in the same way psychologically that it does fundamentally in the psychical world.  The fact that we need water is not the same as we need success, especially considering how much more complex the simple emotion of satisfaction is. 

So too, the conception of ideal as defined by our current Western culture—and predominate majority of international media—and as such, its definition of success is fundamental only to its particular context; even if the current context is reviewing an aggregate of other reviews—the language contains the code to be broken, and the actions must come first.

What is really amazing to me, here in the final spinning gold of the day after yesterday, is that when lazy Venus again dances where we can see; when she again seems to seductively graze the surface of our solar systems sun, on that day, she'll be very similar to who she is today, and we'll be nothing; and while we're nothing, she'll hold the same face, the same slow crawl, the same promise to appear in a pair (last time she was visible to us was 2004) and then disappear to another place until our century catches up.  That far out, they'll never know us, they couldn't, only what it seems like to them from the perspective they see their history--and who knows if we'll even be in there? Venus though, she'll be there, watching them, waiting for them to fade into the solid past. Eventually the sun will eat everything and then let loose it's swelling storehouse of hydrogen and helium, the solar system colder, and a planet sized diamond where once our source of energy was. 

Pray that we be bold. My Madness speaks of this in its first chapter, in the first section, and in fact in the first slot of apothegms. “Be.” Madness 1:1

            Pray that we go and do likewise. We have only dreams to lose. The world is our crucible; we may enjoy the martyrdom or die in agony. 

Sometimes Dreams They Don't Come True

Honey, when you doubt my love for you
Look into my eyes what I'm going through
Even if we change and fall out of
You hold my hand and it's better than love

Save me from myself
You got my back when I need help
It's no one else in the world
You will always be my girl
You will always be, you will always be
You will always be my girl

Sometimes dreams they don't come true
I was scared that night when I met you
Well, I stayed patient and I was kind
Telling you to take your time

Turn my life around
You made it okay to let you down
There's no one else in the world
You will always be my girl
You will always be, you will always be
You will always be my girl

So when I'm walking down the road and feeling bad
Can't understand the things you do
Nothing turns out the way we planned
You're still my baby and I'm still your man

Save me from myself
You got my back when I need help
It's no one else in the world
You will always be my girl
You will always be, you will always be
You will always be my girl

- Griffin House 

'Better Than Love'

Cliff Martinez: He had a Good Time

By twenty-nine, a man should begin to keep some significant record of his history; a fundamental requirement is only a basic understanding of his personal historical context. To see the cycles in humanity and see him or herself rolled in one and a few.  It is possible that women may write these sooner and there will always certainly be those that attain this kind of necessity earlier on in their lives.

Music is very important to this endeavor, as well as instructions going forward.  One must, and almost naturally does--as necessity is the mother of invention--to synthesize what they hear and read, what they know, and first begin by questioning inquisitively after their own knowledge's foundations.  The giants whose shoulders we precariously balance upon; and our giants have their own giants--who do they stand on? So on, and so on till life begins birthing the prefrontal cortex more earnestly.  This is why this kind of writing could perhaps be done sooner by women, and major experiences for them, like periods, come sooner than male's passages, which almost require young women and older men; the former for an understanding of one's sexuality, and the latter to help guide that sexuality to positive expressions that enhance manhood and self-worth in the young man.  The opposite players play for women, young men and older women; both assigned to similar roles for women.  The difference is the relationship being made with the body at such a young age and it's practical importance since memories reside partially in the nooks and crannies of our neurological system.

There is something beautiful in the teenage pang, where one doesn't eat or sleep and all thoughts go through the same drain that has the name and face of the most perfect partner the world could ever serve up.  Real love, I think, is a bit more practical than that, however it retains some of the former charm that sparky teenage love provides.  It is a lower rumbling flame, but a more sustainable one, that gets hotter with time. Without the sparks however, the rumbling flame and ever-warming coals would have no beginning.  It is required, and it is important. My goodness how much magnificent life I felt wasted on those manifold teenage loves. Yet it was important, it helps give perspective; I'm young enough to guess that this perspective is perhaps useful, but still too young in intimate experience to see if this matters practically in adulthood.

At thirty, my own theory goes, we inherit the world; at seventy, we are asked to give it up.  Before the former, they call us too young--and after the latter, they call us senile, and say the world is no longer the one we knew.  It's only half true; the colors have changed, the canvas is the same, and all that we are all painting is a mere dash that is fated to dissolve into a nearly invisible point on an eternal line--only God's eye to ever perceive it.

Or maybe it's all just written on our foreheads. 

501: A Thing of Beauty

The last post, in all its massive volume and bad grammar was the five-hundredth one on my blog. Neat huh? This is a good way to start the next five-hundred, lest death take me first, or the internet dies. 


"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: 
Its lovliness increases; it will never 
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep 
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. " 

- John Keats 

Memories, both painful and sweet, sting with varying force.  The force is particular to the memory, not the sweetness or bitterness of it. The periods of my past lives are things of joy forever, whose loveliness increases, unable to be allowed to pass into nothingness--at least not yet.  Old memories sometimes act like quiet little cottages where I am sometimes found looking over the frozen and forever solid past with ever new and old eyes. I can feel the opening of my chest and the spirits flying in and out like Rumi tells me to do. I can remember how my body felt through different points of it. The firmness of connection in my chest and the hot liquid of my heart dripping sickeningly down into my acidic stomach. If humanity can remember that the present, with all of it's own spikes and valleys, will too pass into a solid state of eternity by becoming a part of the frozen past, then perhaps we can already begin enjoying the quiet sweetness of a passing life, instead of appreciating it only when it is gone. 

I wrote an aphorism about this in my Madness six masks ago when I was still a saint. 

Save and Continue

You see the thing is, lately--I've been kind of out of it. I am cloudy and tired. I've run myself so far that I'm actually not only not producing, but actively not producing; that is to say that I'll hold my books while I have a conversation about other things, or I'll be watching a movie while I read.  In the attempt to take a break, I've found myself unable to.  It seems the secret is to work relentlessly. To make this the destination itself.  It's like Stockholm syndrome for one's self.

I know what comes next, the six to nine--the cycle itself is in the upper quadrant--also depends on the angle with which we view the cycle.

Enough.

I came here because it is beginning to function in the way I require--the blog is beginning to create a feedback loop and become wholly my own.  It is interesting that it's taken nearly two years to really feel wholly at home here.  Some people tell me they read it--people I don't even know have told me this.  It is what always startles me--it's like my privates, get to share with their privates--and so the internet becomes one of the closest things to us in our generation.  For those of us who use it.  The fact that the American south refers to searching online as "Googling it," quite similar to the fashion in which they call nearly all colas "Cokes" is one way that we can look back on how entrenched in our lives this creation of Al Gore came to be.  As an aside, it must be noted that Gore stole the plans with which he created the internet from George W. Bush.  Further, whereas different sections of the US call the same sweet sweetish chemical liquid things like soda, pop, cola, Dr. Pepper, and Coke, all the sections predominately call use Google as a verb.

Isn't it amazing--George W. Bush was our President once.  Being an American is a pretty cool time right now, there is a change that has to come, it has to be us that brings it--our hubris would have it no other way! Let's do it as a planet this time though.  In fact I can think of changes that not only would bring help to the world, but also help reorient our identities.  The latter is crucial, because a lack of cohesive and certainly collective positive identity, leaves us a collectively diluted force of humanity...perhaps nature intends this pruning process of growth and decline. I digress.

I think we could all work for 'change' tirelessly and it would yet seem like we haven't done enough; which brings us back to the idea that the work itself becomes the vacation.

Andrea and I, my lady--lovely long suffering woman that is convinced she loves me (another kind of Stockholm syndrome perhaps?)--we move in sync, only no one knows the music we're listening to, and even we listen close to hear it's beat.  It's a neat way to get closer to God.  In the Church we have three vocations, the Religious life: like Deacons, Monks, Priests, Shaamans, etc. the Single life: I can't think of any but my mom right now--maybe St. Monica, perhaps my Aunt Marion after the death of her spouses physical presence; and the Married life--the latter, so common, and yet I often wonder if anyone remembers how amazing marriages are supposed to be.

"Let's just jump right in!"

Myself coming from some split up families, perhaps I began thinking of marriage in idealistic terms, and then later my anger gave way to my religious reasonings--however what is truly amazing, are the marriages that make it after the inevitable trauma.  A life so long together can simply not exist without different stages. My friend this evening said it in passing, but only because he's already passed by considerably more stages.  

This is behind and beside the idea that the work is the vacation.

Love is the key that unlocks everything. In acting, one looks for the love in every scene. The more complex or simple the love can be found, the affect on the character being portrayed is foundationally different.

I must act you know.  I have no option in this matter. My life will feel incomplete near the end if I don't act in my relative youth--relative by at least four decades.  I want to look back on that life, or still be living it in a new way.  The way the media is can't last, the world may shift before that--and if not, then the evolution will simply make the cycles faster.  Artists will begin working like corporations; it's blatant to see now for the widely known ones.  The part which will begin happening even more is they will begin matching up and setting the tone--the same way big oil gets together and helps set the tone, similarly you can see people like Jay-Z and Kanye West getting together to set a definite tone in rap.  They may sound East Coast and Mid-West blended--but their business ethics are world-wide.

What's terrific is that I do know, finally, what I suppose I have known subconsciously all along--I need a partner.  I real mate.  This is not Andrea, this is a male. My friend James and perhaps Adam have come very close to this--however we've not spent sufficient time yet to test this; it may have to turn into a Damon/Affleck over the fax machine kind of thing.  James already has this with another friend of his, but what we have is unique enough to co-exist.

Carnegie had his Scott, Jobs had his Wozniak, Dre had his Snoop, Jay had his Kanye--and these names flowed in both directions, I just put the primary ones to be remembered first.  Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, Seinfeld and Larry David.

So I wanted to write about the Irony Singularity.  We're coming to an amazing age in the internet.  All of us need to remember this because we'll look back on it like the wild west and tell stories about how easy it was to find anything and get on anywhere and how fast, etc. etc. The rich one's of us will continue as normal, our numbers will simply decrease till there is a new cycle and this is assuming the world doesn't blow itself up first (we do have some good ones).

This brings me to Kuhn, and the Structure of Scientific Revolutions and Freud's skepticism of the Kantian knowledge that Descarte's 'self' imposes on our collective psyche that Jung wants us to tap into.

See, I was stuck, and now I can go do my homework. Except that now I'm really too tired--however I am uncorked somewhat.  Speaking of uncorked, I received a great phone call the other day, and consequently, I will be playing a Greek God between classes on Saturday; further more, it's a role I've played before.  I'm glad that it's at my school--however it does give me a chance again to find the love in the scenes.  Like the final exchanges between Dionysus and Pentheus where I lead him to spy on the Bacchic chorus and say, "The mind you had before was sickly; now your mind is as it should be." What do I love in leading him, in securing him confidently towards a horrific doom (so horrific I wonder if Euripides does this as a comedy) --Where is the love "when bull led man to the ritual slaughter-ring."? Is it for myself? for my mother? for my reputation? These answers are crucial--and so too with all of life. Where is the love, and then work from that foundation.

So in relationships, as we were discussing before, and the way that work becomes the vacation, as we discussed even prior to that, love, is loving the act of loving actively.  It's another kind of singularity. It's inelegant and convoluted--but it's also 3:40 am--forty into the witching hour. Loving all stages of relationship is work, yet in doing so--when considering that it is wise to view work as the vacation (the Stockholm syndrome to the self) then loving to love actively becomes the most enriching experience--that vocational marriage that brings you closer to God. The act of enjoying the suffering at all the different levels of intimacy as two heated hearts burn ever closer to one another's center.

Quench the thirst and stay hungry.

Ah welcome, you've made it this far, quite a trek it's been with this voluminous article, si? I'll give you a brand new aphorism from my book for your time invested here; it's one of the most choice of my many mountain tops.  If you come a little further near the end of this article, you'll see here are the clouds, and let us go a little beyond, where the sun has nothing to hide behind anymore--there, in the sky, behind the Giant's tree, do you see the Madman who laughs at Everything? He's laughing out words, simply, slowly and to everything including himself.  As if the words have the agency and his laughter is their tool; the words using his voice, and his body; setting him among the mass that burns for the sun's fiery embrace, repeating, "Violence, is dominoes."

Milk this Cow, the best way we know how [...]

Conceptually, I loved the sense of this photograph.  The interplay with the black of the desk, and the same filtered black on the page of the book really grabbed me; as if reality tried writing itself out in ink. Ink, surely conjures up an image of running blood and to think of that spilled ink in words on canvas as most-morbid black and deadly-deafening off-white makes the aesthetic delightful to my dangerous palate--assuming the feeling of having many palates is assumed accurately to be a predominate trait in human beings.

We are an interesting, interesting species. My, how our own divinity humbles us.  I like those that think of humility as a blessing, I find it much more accurate than the former.

I once trained a new salesman--a reoccurring theme in my thus far brief tale--who went on for the whole day about the Gospel group he was in with his large family. We walked on the sidewalks of a small neighborhood north of Dayton. It was sunny, it was a beautiful day actually, and at the end of it, I asked the day's running commentary on self-satisfaction if he thought he was humble.  I believe I was going through my conversion around this time, or at least in the beginning stages of it, and it was as effortless as it is for me to ask these same questions currently--frankly, they will aide in my friends abilities to accomplish the task at hand.

My friend, he said he was the most humble man I'd ever meet. 

Wednesday is Trash Day in my world.

I was going for a drive, or just driving back--enjoyment of process blurs the lines--and I was looking at this great neighborhood I live in, or at least close enough to call it my own. It's like Pleasantville driving through, I took a video, and may add it to this article in the future. I was perplexed by how much somewhere else must look like ultimate shit because this place has to look so great. It's the nature of things; it's simple mathematics and science.  We have it mostly clean and beautiful, with our lawns, however small and full of weeds--so somewhere else is getting the majority of our shit.

This started with some article about landfills I read in the last few weeks.

The next day I found two videos, that percolated up naturally in my internet catch-ups of the day, and both are shared below. I first found the movie trailer, and then today, the video that is directly below. The movie looks really good. Also, if you didn't know, I can't imagine I'll die a carnivore.  There's this new video about pig-abuse, and it's too miserable to share. Even the description of it is like a linear description of evil--all so we can have bacon more conveniently; I'm uncertain this is what is meant by, "life, and life more abundantly."  I'm not saying give up killing animals to cook their meat--I'm saying give up the way we've allowed it to become industrialized--I'm sure a lot of people would just stick with tasty veggies, often meaty in their own right, if that was the case.

Let's toss that meal, and then go watch this movie.

The messed up thing is that this issue will coincide directly with the impending water crisis.  The landfills (just review the language we use!!) have containers with seals that are most likely going to snap open around thirty years--the liability for the companies that put these containers down is twenty-eight years.

So thirty years in the future, when water is already sparse, some seal pops and leaks thirty/forty year old garbage into a freshwater resource through our over oiled soil, the next generations left holding the bag because the previous one lawfully washed itself of all liability.

We're that generation--we choose what gets allowed and push it in a certain direction.  Not just with awareness, but with bold action.

I'll only speak of mine, after I've done it--else a quickly written blog with some videos and hypothetical commentary based on loose research is just repeating the cycle of non-resistance; where instead we should be using the tactics and strategy of non-violence against our corporations.

Fire inside

My songwriting process evolves as new things become commonplace.
I suppose it is time I learn one never fully agrees with their former selves, and perhaps this is an important quality to keep alive.  It is not a contempt, but a love for one's evolution--even if it looks like things are going backwards--that allows it to be framed this way.  I use the example of retrograde motion constantly; click the words linked before the semi-colon for a clearer picture of how an experience of one part of being feels according to my thinking.

I have a lot of work to do on some important cycles, the other one's are taking care of themselves, as I presume the one's which require work will too work themselves out.  The real benefit is knowing that not only is that true, but that also these cycles which need work will use the individual (or society or culture or history, etc. etc.) that their cycles pertain to.  They are fully at the mercy of who is caught in their wave, their undercurrent and their luscious curls.  We are as much agency as the cycles themselves--to keep them enjoined is the--in part--the 'Madness,' I'm always going on about.  No split between power and knowledge, combined agency with what we customarily call 'circumstance,' and a scrutiny of the dusty old words which carry fluid definitions.

I've left a lot uncompleted in life, I am compelled to leave more uncompleted because I am under the belief that my desires are being outstripped by my age--this is, I think, the thinking that leads to lives of regret. We are the ones who write history now, and we have even less to lose than our forefathers in many senses.  The world of cynicism requires our response in boldness.

"Strike with chaos." 

                             -Sun Tzu

Madness is coming; you know that right? You can't even imagine how much has built up by now; you'll listen, or have listened, to some of it cracking in above. 

Music is still alive.

I don't wanna love you like a man
By being above you like a man
I don't wanna hurt you like a man
But that's what I am

Don't wanna cheat and lie like a man
Hold it all inside like a man
Hide you behind a veil like a man
But that's what I am

I don't wanna, I don't wanna be like them
Those other men
Whatever came before me, well that was then
I'll be better than, those other men

I want you to cry like a woman
Take me for a ride like a woman
Use beauty as revenge like a woman does, with a man

I don't wanna, I don't wanna be like them
Those other men
Whoever came before me, well that was then
I'll be better than-

I don't wanna, I don't wanna be like them
Those other men
I'll be better than-

So don't become my beautiful friend
The one I don't go home with
When the night ends

I don't wanna, I don't wanna be like them
Those other men
Whoever came before me, well that was then
I'll be better than-

I don't wanna, I don't wanna be like them
Those other men
Whoever came before me, well that was then
I'll be better than, those other men
Those other men, those other men, those other men

-Adam Cohen 

'Like a Man'

Surfer Rosa

"Big stone fall and break my crown" 

-Pixies

"I am not the born" - Guru Nanak

I was born in a country emancipated from slavery to the British, thirty-five years before my birth; the country's concept of identity was already being questioned.  I was birthed to a young woman, the age of eighteen.  She was the daughter of an old film actress, popular in the 1940's and perhaps 50's—for our family, she will be popular for generations.  My grandmother had a big hand in raising me while my mother went to college in her mid-twenties—herself coming first in academics throughout the Indian state of Maharashtra; a divorcé and a single mother in metro India during the 1980’s.

          When I was born there was a celebration for me, and one hundred beggars were fed on the streets of Bombay—as today’s ‘Mumbai’ was called then. The hallway of the hospital was uproarious with my father and his friends drinking and celebrating while the hospital room was quiet with my mother and grandmother—the old actress—passed out in exhaustion.

            My father himself was the bastard child of one of the most classical Indian film actors of the same era, with a considerably longer career, and his mistress, who was similarly an actress.  I have never viewed her work, and am nearly wholly at a loss for any longevity of memories as concerned with my father’s mother.  There are a few memories from my very young years, and then smatterings of years after when I would go off with my father for a few anxious days for my mother; but aside from this, my paternal grandmother represents more of a figure that was present in the house where the wallpaper on one large wall looked like a forest, and my first dog, Butchy, lived and died and let me ride his back to get over my fear of dogs.  

            I was raised on stories like this that helped engender my way of thinking, and that kind of thinking ignited as I grew through my teenage years in America.  All the desire for identity, seen predominantly through material success—as would be expected from a recently emancipated colony—was brought to fruition in a land born of the previous oppressor’s brothers; a land where this mentality created an entire system of living, called Capitalism.

            There is a long story in between, so for brevity: today I work as a salesman, learning the art of politics and communication; honing my skills of living, and setting my eyes on ever more dramatic goals matched with actionable, and measurable attempts at their fulfillment.  All the churning molten history of my life in the cooker of modern day America combines with my circumstance (what I like to call, Blessing) and rumbles with tension as my Being begins breaking through the soil of the old world, and the soot of the new; ushering in the fire of both, and with it, the coming Age of Boldness.