I get that monogamous couplings are an artificial construct, a hetero-normative imposition upon our individual expressions of love and celebrations of masculinity, etc. I still don't wanna be yer Sancho or the next leg of yer poly-amorous experience, or a trick to help you celebrate your inner hairy man. It's just not me, and I don't mean to discount, minimize or otherwise negate the validity of your lifestyle choices. I'm happy to be an anachronism. Call me retro. It's got nothin to do with morality. I'm a militant atheist and cynical as hell. I just don't think I can get real intimacy if I don't keep at least something intimate. Otherwise, I'd just stay single and continue to be a dog, which would suit me as well, I suppose. Truth be told, I could likely rationalize any kinda behavior if I think yer hot and my sap's risin, but I'd still rather have one person at a time in my life on that level.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Chippers
Buncha goddamn chippers...what you think you see is just the merest samplin kept about for the medicinal value. And as for the ATF, they've all been out to get me from the start. And them that ain't is rootin for them that is. And don't think I don't know they're watchin. I sit here all night in my shorts, cleanin my piece and waitin for em to bust in. I know yer watchin...The ATF is a buncha pussies. It's the other ones - the ones they don't talk about - that are really out there. You know the ones who comes thru the wall and sit on the foot of the bed and giggle? I know em by name...You just keep talkin yer shit. I can see trees grow. I can hear mountains! I can see music! Buncha goddamn chippers.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
dead modem
Rip me from the womb unborn
And toss me moist and naked screaming
Into a nest of stinging scorpions
Free me from my flesh tormented
In miniscule, envenomed tortures.
And toss me moist and naked screaming
Into a nest of stinging scorpions
Free me from my flesh tormented
In miniscule, envenomed tortures.
Swab with salves my ruined body
Scrape away my weeping boils
And renew my tattered remnant
Force me into new environs
Expunged of flaccid indolence.
Scrape away my weeping boils
And renew my tattered remnant
Force me into new environs
Expunged of flaccid indolence.
Forged from some new alchemy
Of hermetic arcane wisdom
I emerge free of accretions
My ruthlessness conspicuous
And all my cumbersome attachments
Castings of small vanities.
Of hermetic arcane wisdom
I emerge free of accretions
My ruthlessness conspicuous
And all my cumbersome attachments
Castings of small vanities.
I float above my old companions
Anomalous and atmospheric
Crawling in and out of pockets
Whispering conspiracies
With spiritual ventriloquism.
Anomalous and atmospheric
Crawling in and out of pockets
Whispering conspiracies
With spiritual ventriloquism.
Enveloping my lover sleeping
I am firm, substantial moment
Breathing in his exhalations
I am pierced beyond redemption
I dissolve, become base matter.
I am firm, substantial moment
Breathing in his exhalations
I am pierced beyond redemption
I dissolve, become base matter.
Sonnet 20
My love buried, broken and encumber'd
From disuse and neglect - I'd long forgot
Or even spoken of that muse - had brought
Me naught but pain. Rejected unnumber'd
Times, its ill effect upon my mood
Left me distrustful, sullen and jaded
At the thought of new beginnings. Faded
Was the image I'd traced for years. I'd brood
No more on past wounds and hurt pride, but live
In solitary contemplation, trust
No more faint promises of hope, let rust
My edge. After love I'd no longer strive.
And in a couplet's sudden space you burst
Grace made you my best love, I your first.
From disuse and neglect - I'd long forgot
Or even spoken of that muse - had brought
Me naught but pain. Rejected unnumber'd
Times, its ill effect upon my mood
Left me distrustful, sullen and jaded
At the thought of new beginnings. Faded
Was the image I'd traced for years. I'd brood
No more on past wounds and hurt pride, but live
In solitary contemplation, trust
No more faint promises of hope, let rust
My edge. After love I'd no longer strive.
And in a couplet's sudden space you burst
Grace made you my best love, I your first.
Sonnet 18
Two combatants, they contend, and striving
Against each other tearing tender flesh,
They rend themselves where once they sought to mesh
The hearts that would otherwise be driving
In unison toward a common end;
And then their struggles abate and both rest
From fighting, the wounded lovers, lest
They finish the test - they have to mend,
Or this contest would finally end - ease
Into their corners, treat their stripes and face
That they do not know how they reached this place
Of battle, how can they this conflict cease
When the alternative to bloody war
Is indifference, to touch no more.
Against each other tearing tender flesh,
They rend themselves where once they sought to mesh
The hearts that would otherwise be driving
In unison toward a common end;
And then their struggles abate and both rest
From fighting, the wounded lovers, lest
They finish the test - they have to mend,
Or this contest would finally end - ease
Into their corners, treat their stripes and face
That they do not know how they reached this place
Of battle, how can they this conflict cease
When the alternative to bloody war
Is indifference, to touch no more.
Sonnet 17
How irrevocable the sudden shifts
Of feeling, loosing the bonds of two lives
So long held together. One holds, one strives
To break free; and with us one falls, one lifts
Himself with new supports - all those new friends
Who swarmed in dazzling, new interests found
Apart from what was shared before; unwound
The cord becomes, and finally it ends.
A counterfeit memory all I hold
Of what once was authentic to us each.
I trace the outlines vainly try to reach
The substance that is quickly growing cold
And with your newfound happiness I see
The biggest part of us it seems was me.
Of feeling, loosing the bonds of two lives
So long held together. One holds, one strives
To break free; and with us one falls, one lifts
Himself with new supports - all those new friends
Who swarmed in dazzling, new interests found
Apart from what was shared before; unwound
The cord becomes, and finally it ends.
A counterfeit memory all I hold
Of what once was authentic to us each.
I trace the outlines vainly try to reach
The substance that is quickly growing cold
And with your newfound happiness I see
The biggest part of us it seems was me.
Sonnet 16
Encased in amber lying in plain sight
The memory of life with you remains
But inaccessible it only stains
My hours; loving you was never quite
As satisfying as it now would seem
In retrospect, though I would otherwise
Have argued in the past. But wounded eyes
Govern those perceptions, beautiful dream
Of mine, and I am left tracing the lines
Of a fading image behind a shell
Impenetrable, receding; my Hell
Is my creation - Heaven intertwines.
Forgive me if I linger overlong
The power of this image is too strong.
Sonnet 15
What happened to the chamber we prepared
To insulate us from all intrusions
Constructed with eternal illusions
For your protection no effort was spared.
Somehow my mortar must have been at fault
Or perhaps my bricks brittle had become
From hasty laying on there must be some
Good reason that you would reject this vault.
But love from me grew into oppression
Hardening a once elastic bond
Now bitter where you once had been so fond
In retrospect only a possession.
Affection purchased quickly dies away
In rigid chambers living things won't stay.
To insulate us from all intrusions
Constructed with eternal illusions
For your protection no effort was spared.
Somehow my mortar must have been at fault
Or perhaps my bricks brittle had become
From hasty laying on there must be some
Good reason that you would reject this vault.
But love from me grew into oppression
Hardening a once elastic bond
Now bitter where you once had been so fond
In retrospect only a possession.
Affection purchased quickly dies away
In rigid chambers living things won't stay.
A Rhythm
I resist awakening
beneath oppressive comforters
refuge in a routine
clocks and meals and calls and meetings
face buried in a book
glancing up to watch for hazards
acting on an impulse
wishing to be somewhere else
bringing down the structure
afraid to dance or jam or fight
seeking anaesthetic
anything to numb the craving
quieting the noise
bracing for the consequences
staying out of time
giving up on understanding
I don't live in days
beneath oppressive comforters
refuge in a routine
clocks and meals and calls and meetings
face buried in a book
glancing up to watch for hazards
acting on an impulse
wishing to be somewhere else
bringing down the structure
afraid to dance or jam or fight
seeking anaesthetic
anything to numb the craving
quieting the noise
bracing for the consequences
staying out of time
giving up on understanding
I don't live in days
Friday, November 5, 2010
November 5, 2010
Am I a vehicle of consciousness, or am I consciousness? Am I so attached to my body, this life and its temporal and tactile nature that I should perish with it?
That's kind of a ridiculous question, I think. I'm never quite sure what people are looking for when they seek some notion or another of eternal life. I suppose the question for me is whether or not there is some way for me to steer some path between pure oblivion, whatever that is, and becoming pure undifferentiated consciousness, which is probably difficult to distinguish from the former, actually. This is purely academic, since it's one circumstance we all share and it's rather unavoidable. But is there a proper way to discipline my mind, such that there is some recognizable me in the All afterward? Is that even the point?
I think that's what the aim of the preachers was, in some sense. They promised me some romanticized notion of a my current life, only never-ending and somehow dramatically ennobled, such that I'm, well, finally the guy my dog always thought I was, for real. But it's me just the same. This late in life, somehow, I don't buy that. I don't think any of us get out that easily with our consciousness intact. Perhaps we do, only purged of our fears and attachments; but then, isn't that what differentiates us in the first place? Isn't that what it means?
That's kind of a ridiculous question, I think. I'm never quite sure what people are looking for when they seek some notion or another of eternal life. I suppose the question for me is whether or not there is some way for me to steer some path between pure oblivion, whatever that is, and becoming pure undifferentiated consciousness, which is probably difficult to distinguish from the former, actually. This is purely academic, since it's one circumstance we all share and it's rather unavoidable. But is there a proper way to discipline my mind, such that there is some recognizable me in the All afterward? Is that even the point?
I think that's what the aim of the preachers was, in some sense. They promised me some romanticized notion of a my current life, only never-ending and somehow dramatically ennobled, such that I'm, well, finally the guy my dog always thought I was, for real. But it's me just the same. This late in life, somehow, I don't buy that. I don't think any of us get out that easily with our consciousness intact. Perhaps we do, only purged of our fears and attachments; but then, isn't that what differentiates us in the first place? Isn't that what it means?
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Huffin
I'll never forget pullin into Duane Bailey's driveway in high school and havin his brother Robbie open the garage door with a pewter-colored ring on his face and a bag in his hand. I think he's dead now. None of the crowd I knew went in for the toluene glues and such. Some of them hit the gasoline periodically, but it was paint that held their favor more than anything. Pewter paint was the color I remember, but I don't know if it had qualities not available elsewhere in the spectrum.
Waiting on the Bus in Uptown
I left the office Saturday morning around eleven o’clock heading to the stop two blocks away to catch the bus home with the transfer from my trip down earlier. The skies were leaden, pregnant. The buildings, calcified accretions – a barren reef rising from a seafloor of flint – otiose in the absence of life’s green and volatile engines. The weathermen divined that snow would arrive that afternoon, but as yet the sharp edges on creation remained an indictment of summer’s retreat. I left my gloves in my pack and read with numbed hands as I walked, drawing warmth from Welty’s southern landscapes against the rising wind from the north.
A woman sat at the bus stop outside McDonald’s. I passed her and turned to the window of the restaurant. A line of Ojibwe faces peered back at me munching little machine-flattened bricks of fried potatoes and sipping orange soda. They looked past me indifferently as they looked past the woman on the bench and the theater across the street and the village just beyond named for a Christian king and saint and the woods and plains and rivers beyond that. Their pockmarked cheeks moved up and down in andante rhythms under deep black eyes that stretched back eons. I turned and faced the street, aping their nonchalance.
“This must be my day for men with beards! All I see is men with beards today!”
I nodded slightly and tried to smile in a way that was not engaging.
“I haven’t seen my friend Alvin in ages, and he came up to me today with a big beard on his face! What is it with all these beards today? You don’t think men are really wearing beards much these days, do ya?”
I tried to give a benign shrug and a smirk, as if to say, “I’m a foreigner. Please forgive me; I do not understand a word you’re saying.”
The woman had the voice of a well-trained parrot that rose and fell in dramatic fashion irrespective of where natural inflection should lie and the face of my maternal grandmother smiling up at me as she fumbled for a cigarette with gloved hands – little turquoise knitted mittens that hinged back to reveal tattered fabric on her fingers. Her hands trembled a bit.
I inclined my head at her again and tried to give her a pleasant look. I didn’t want to perpetuate the conversation, but I also didn’t want to be too brusque in my retreat and risk offending. I turned back to my book and drew my shoulders in as another gust of wind circled my neck and ran down my spine. Each blow from the north drained another increment of warmth from the reserves I carried and left me that much less to meet the next assault. I folded the book back and tucked it under my arm and buried both fists hard in my pockets. The bus should’ve arrived by now.
I turned back to the window. The panel of faces chewing their cuds and doing their best to maintain a stern countenance gave an almost imperceptible nod back in my direction. I turned back around and faced the theater across the street and noticed a coyote on the sidewalk under the marquis. He was staring back at me. He gave what sounded like a little barking laugh and danced in a quick circle before disappearing around the corner where the tobacco shop had recently moved out next to the cinema. The rest of the street was vacant, save for the woman and me. She noticed her cigarette had gone out. She reached again for the little leather holster that held her pack and returned the remainder into it.
The snow began falling as the bus rounded the corner. I stepped back enough to show her the right of way as it pulled up in front of us, but she merely sat and stared into the side of the bus and said nothing. The flakes were falling heavily already. I stepped up into the bus and sat by the window with the damaged and the penurious overlooking the woman on the bench. She continued to stare just below me at the side of the bus, or through it. She was accumulating puffy little cobwebs of snowflakes all over her head. I looked back at the window of McDonald’s, but my faces were gone. I returned to Eudora Welty. The bus churned me homeward through a thickening white rind that dulled the sharp edges.
A woman sat at the bus stop outside McDonald’s. I passed her and turned to the window of the restaurant. A line of Ojibwe faces peered back at me munching little machine-flattened bricks of fried potatoes and sipping orange soda. They looked past me indifferently as they looked past the woman on the bench and the theater across the street and the village just beyond named for a Christian king and saint and the woods and plains and rivers beyond that. Their pockmarked cheeks moved up and down in andante rhythms under deep black eyes that stretched back eons. I turned and faced the street, aping their nonchalance.
“This must be my day for men with beards! All I see is men with beards today!”
I nodded slightly and tried to smile in a way that was not engaging.
“I haven’t seen my friend Alvin in ages, and he came up to me today with a big beard on his face! What is it with all these beards today? You don’t think men are really wearing beards much these days, do ya?”
I tried to give a benign shrug and a smirk, as if to say, “I’m a foreigner. Please forgive me; I do not understand a word you’re saying.”
The woman had the voice of a well-trained parrot that rose and fell in dramatic fashion irrespective of where natural inflection should lie and the face of my maternal grandmother smiling up at me as she fumbled for a cigarette with gloved hands – little turquoise knitted mittens that hinged back to reveal tattered fabric on her fingers. Her hands trembled a bit.
I inclined my head at her again and tried to give her a pleasant look. I didn’t want to perpetuate the conversation, but I also didn’t want to be too brusque in my retreat and risk offending. I turned back to my book and drew my shoulders in as another gust of wind circled my neck and ran down my spine. Each blow from the north drained another increment of warmth from the reserves I carried and left me that much less to meet the next assault. I folded the book back and tucked it under my arm and buried both fists hard in my pockets. The bus should’ve arrived by now.
I turned back to the window. The panel of faces chewing their cuds and doing their best to maintain a stern countenance gave an almost imperceptible nod back in my direction. I turned back around and faced the theater across the street and noticed a coyote on the sidewalk under the marquis. He was staring back at me. He gave what sounded like a little barking laugh and danced in a quick circle before disappearing around the corner where the tobacco shop had recently moved out next to the cinema. The rest of the street was vacant, save for the woman and me. She noticed her cigarette had gone out. She reached again for the little leather holster that held her pack and returned the remainder into it.
The snow began falling as the bus rounded the corner. I stepped back enough to show her the right of way as it pulled up in front of us, but she merely sat and stared into the side of the bus and said nothing. The flakes were falling heavily already. I stepped up into the bus and sat by the window with the damaged and the penurious overlooking the woman on the bench. She continued to stare just below me at the side of the bus, or through it. She was accumulating puffy little cobwebs of snowflakes all over her head. I looked back at the window of McDonald’s, but my faces were gone. I returned to Eudora Welty. The bus churned me homeward through a thickening white rind that dulled the sharp edges.
Music
The radio is playin CCR, "Long As I Can See The Light". That song has a strange effect on me sometimes. It arrests my attention and makes me forget everything that is crowding in on my consciousness. It's a hokey, pedestrian piece, but it has a quality about it that works on my mind the way certain smells do.
I want to smell Ugh cooking in the kitchen on French St. I want to be building a model airplane on my desk in my bedroom and take off on my bike with my radio bungeed to the book rack. I want to walk all over Irving at night and wonder what's going on out there in the world that I'm missing.
What would it be like right now if my biggest concern was whether the lights were on when I tried to sneak back home near dawn? Can I even conceive of such a life? There is a melancholy that runs slow and deep in me. The surface has ripples and makes a pleasant noise, while there are darker, ponderous shapes moving among the boulders in the depths and covered with moss and muck.
Music does have a power in my life, I suppose.
I want to smell Ugh cooking in the kitchen on French St. I want to be building a model airplane on my desk in my bedroom and take off on my bike with my radio bungeed to the book rack. I want to walk all over Irving at night and wonder what's going on out there in the world that I'm missing.
What would it be like right now if my biggest concern was whether the lights were on when I tried to sneak back home near dawn? Can I even conceive of such a life? There is a melancholy that runs slow and deep in me. The surface has ripples and makes a pleasant noise, while there are darker, ponderous shapes moving among the boulders in the depths and covered with moss and muck.
Music does have a power in my life, I suppose.
Pancakes
I try every morning to catch a certain bus to work. I usually fail. There’s a Latin guy who rides that bus every morning, and he’s very compelling. He’s of average build and wears his hair in a long ponytail. He’s always reading serious books on the bus. Emerson said he wanted to hug any man on a train when he saw him reading a great book. I think I share the sentiment for different reasons. We’ve made small talk a time or two, and I know his name now. He even gave me a flyer a couple of weeks ago for a Mexican hardcore punk show at a house in Ft Worth. I think about him every morning as I catch the first of my two busses. I wonder if I’ll see him. I usually get off at Wayne’s Beckley Grill for a tall stack of pancakes and as much coffee as I can swill down in a short time. I then rush out to try and get back on the next bus, which is the one he rides. I repeatedly fail to make it in time. I’ve got a crush on the guy. It makes me want to learn Spanish and be able to say something interesting. He always looks very friendly in a noncommittal fashion. I could fall off the face of the earth, and he wouldn’t notice, however.
I got to Wayne’s and all hopes of an expedient meal were dashed as I looked upon the new waitress assigned to my table. She appeared consumptive, and drew her upper lip up as she sniffed and wiped her nose with her hand. She then let loose with a very productive, liquid coughing fit that really got me ready to dive into my breakfast with abandon. She was very thin and pale. When she finally limped over to my table with my breakfast, I immediately noticed little bits of foreign matter in my paper tubs of butter. Two of these tiny flecks appeared to just be tobacco spit from the cook’s unfiltered cigarette, but the third lump looked like it fell out of my waitresses nose. I carved the detritus from my food with a sufficient amount of the surrounding butter to feel safely untainted. I’m not very squeamish most times.
I got to Wayne’s and all hopes of an expedient meal were dashed as I looked upon the new waitress assigned to my table. She appeared consumptive, and drew her upper lip up as she sniffed and wiped her nose with her hand. She then let loose with a very productive, liquid coughing fit that really got me ready to dive into my breakfast with abandon. She was very thin and pale. When she finally limped over to my table with my breakfast, I immediately noticed little bits of foreign matter in my paper tubs of butter. Two of these tiny flecks appeared to just be tobacco spit from the cook’s unfiltered cigarette, but the third lump looked like it fell out of my waitresses nose. I carved the detritus from my food with a sufficient amount of the surrounding butter to feel safely untainted. I’m not very squeamish most times.
October 2000
So nothing really happened. Not a yes and not a no, but a "wait a little while longer". Interminably drawing out the process. Let me go and let me be. Never do I feel so insignificant or helpless as when I am in the courthouse watching the toils of the judicial system. I created this set of circumstances for myself; I never conceived how this would evolve.
I leave the court and make my way downtown to wait on a connecting bus. I'm standing on the corner trying to read Stendhal and not think about my agitation. A black man in bibs comes walking down the sidewalk carrying a placard with references to the relevance of the Oklahoma City bombing in lite of some obscure verse from the book of Amos complete with magazine pictures and ad art. He is shouting in an admirably booming voice that I can hear from fifty yards away, but which I cannot discern any words until he is almost upon me. "Nigga gonna do everythang! What mah Gawd say!" I could glean no other pearls from his rant, but I tried to ponder these.
I spent the weekend trying to avoid thinking of anything important. I chewed my nails and fucked around on the computer. I went to the movie yesterday to see "Lost Souls". I got off the bus a few blocks from the theater and was chewing my thumbnail. A man who was coming my direction down the service road perpendicular to my right as I crossed shouted, "Look at that grown man suckin his thumb!" He went on shouting, but I was too far to hear exactly what.
I came out of the movie unimpressed into a pouring rain and waited almost an hour for a bus getting soaked to the skin. I finally made it home. Sometimes the hardest thing I can do is to say nothing at all. I do not do reticence very well. I drive you away with my attentions, and I suffer acutely by my own concentrated energies towards you. I'm consumed by my own fires. Your indifference is the fuel that feeds them. I only wish to be close to you in order to feel that warmth reflected and not be burned up.
I've slept little, but I'm accustomed to that. Some day I will die and have the rest I deprived myself of during my life.
It occurred to me riding home soaked in my clothes and freezing in the air-conditioned bus that my sin is my willingness to endure; to endure the consequences of my acts and adapt to them. My cheerfulness is my curse; my melancholy is my solace. I live in my head. I act precipitously in my affairs. It seems to remind me that I'm alive; but it is caprice that drives me in such things, not strength of will.
God, let me fly away. I'm so tired, and I'm smothering. Save me from this body of death.
I'll sleep tonight and feel better tomorrow. That's how it always goes. I'll endure my own mediocrity. That sort of attitude is applauded nowadays. I'm a survivor - inert.
I cry so easily, but what do I love?
I leave the court and make my way downtown to wait on a connecting bus. I'm standing on the corner trying to read Stendhal and not think about my agitation. A black man in bibs comes walking down the sidewalk carrying a placard with references to the relevance of the Oklahoma City bombing in lite of some obscure verse from the book of Amos complete with magazine pictures and ad art. He is shouting in an admirably booming voice that I can hear from fifty yards away, but which I cannot discern any words until he is almost upon me. "Nigga gonna do everythang! What mah Gawd say!" I could glean no other pearls from his rant, but I tried to ponder these.
I spent the weekend trying to avoid thinking of anything important. I chewed my nails and fucked around on the computer. I went to the movie yesterday to see "Lost Souls". I got off the bus a few blocks from the theater and was chewing my thumbnail. A man who was coming my direction down the service road perpendicular to my right as I crossed shouted, "Look at that grown man suckin his thumb!" He went on shouting, but I was too far to hear exactly what.
I came out of the movie unimpressed into a pouring rain and waited almost an hour for a bus getting soaked to the skin. I finally made it home. Sometimes the hardest thing I can do is to say nothing at all. I do not do reticence very well. I drive you away with my attentions, and I suffer acutely by my own concentrated energies towards you. I'm consumed by my own fires. Your indifference is the fuel that feeds them. I only wish to be close to you in order to feel that warmth reflected and not be burned up.
I've slept little, but I'm accustomed to that. Some day I will die and have the rest I deprived myself of during my life.
It occurred to me riding home soaked in my clothes and freezing in the air-conditioned bus that my sin is my willingness to endure; to endure the consequences of my acts and adapt to them. My cheerfulness is my curse; my melancholy is my solace. I live in my head. I act precipitously in my affairs. It seems to remind me that I'm alive; but it is caprice that drives me in such things, not strength of will.
God, let me fly away. I'm so tired, and I'm smothering. Save me from this body of death.
I'll sleep tonight and feel better tomorrow. That's how it always goes. I'll endure my own mediocrity. That sort of attitude is applauded nowadays. I'm a survivor - inert.
I cry so easily, but what do I love?
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
old musings
honest to god, just now I think I'm as content as I've ever been in my life. and my circumstances are as fluid as they've ever been. there is no connection between where I was materially, emotionally, and mentally just one year ago and where I sit right now. I do think I was better off spiritually, however, when I most despaired of anything in my life ever improving by my own best efforts. at no other time have I ever held such a continuous and desperate dialogue with what I think of as my Father(natural tendency, I think) - most of it me whining and cursing and wallowing in self-pity. but there were moments when I counted up what I had been blessed with as a result of all my errors and misjudgments. this is one of those moments, I guess.
I know that I can endure a lot more than I thought possible. I know that there are consequences, direct and unintended, for every decision I make, and I inevitably create or allow every circumstance I find myself in by following the blind path of pure self-interest. those are difficult lessons to learn, and knowing those certitudes and continuing in fallibility is even tougher to accept. I think some of that awakening is just a function of getting older. I can't take credit for any of that. I also know that there are scads of people out there who learn all of that very early and don't brag about what to them seems axiomatic about life. it took me a bit longer to get all of that. I think there are a lot of people just like me as well. it makes their faults easier to take. I hope I have learned a little humility, but I won't ask for any more. asking has power that I'm careful in approaching nowadays.
I got a little emotional. there is a feeling, partly plain gratitude, that makes me feel terribly insignificant, yet curiously watched over and tended to. there is a Firm Center to it that is unyielding, but there are moments when I feel that the Whole of it is turned to me and me alone and it's almost too much to think about. it makes me cry. writing about it makes me look a little off-center. I don't think that hurts anything either, for that matter.
and as quickly as that, the sensation leaves me. whatever happens in my life, I figure I'll be okay.
Carry On
Sometimes I think I'll just burn right up. Sometimes I fear my fire will go out. Sometimes I think I could light up the darkest night with the blaze in my brain that makes me want to stick my face underwater and scream til every molecule of oxygen in my body is expended and there's nothing to feed it anymore.
I'll just be a bit of swamp gas belched up from the bottom of the mud pit. A momentary stench and then forgotten.
I'll just be a bit of swamp gas belched up from the bottom of the mud pit. A momentary stench and then forgotten.
My dilemna
I had not the patience to carry out any of the measured, stepwise processes deemed necessary to ensure a surfeit of success in this life. My behavior had always been precipitous at best. Living was a recurring series of setbacks – a chronic condition to be endured while awaiting the unspoken promise of rescue to be fulfilled.
To this end I did my best to maintain a cheerful disposition and not limit the avenues by which Providence would deliver me from the consequences of my manifold crimes. I expended a great deal of energy holding forth my steady watch over the spinning world of fluid circumstance. I counted my sobriety a light burden to lay down in the service of this vigilance. It was a necessary expense to provide a measure of lubrication for my mental machinery already so heavily taxed by the vicissitudes of a misspent youth.
To this end I did my best to maintain a cheerful disposition and not limit the avenues by which Providence would deliver me from the consequences of my manifold crimes. I expended a great deal of energy holding forth my steady watch over the spinning world of fluid circumstance. I counted my sobriety a light burden to lay down in the service of this vigilance. It was a necessary expense to provide a measure of lubrication for my mental machinery already so heavily taxed by the vicissitudes of a misspent youth.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Peeling Pears
I've got a dozen goddamn buckets of pears on my kitchen floor, so this is my life for the present time. Someone come by and smoke me up and keep me company. Lectures on psychoanalysis ain't cuttin it.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Favorite Musicians and Artists
Some of these folks are otherwise parts of ensembles that I may or may not like. None of them are obscure, and I'm sure I sound like a Pitchfork poser on some of them. But I'm too old to care much about that at this point. Anyway, here is a quick list of no pre-determined length of some of my personal favorites with perhaps a brief note as to what makes them particularly important to me. Or not.
1) Roky Erickson - incredibly influential perhaps, and a seminal artist in an embryonic moment, the crystallization of what was best and what was meant, if anything - perhaps by the Geist - by the Texas garage scene of the mid-Sixties, and Austin, when Austin actually meant something. Austin stopped really meaning anything meaningful long about 1986 or so, I think. Maybe earlier. Maybe it died with Rock Against Reagan.
Anyway, I love Roky. Roky is listening to my sisters' 45's when I was six years old. It's stopping at the Pirate's Den flea market way up on north Lamar as we would leave Austin, so I could buy comics back in 1969 and 1970, and we would listen to the AM radio in mom's '68 Ford Galaxy 500 and make the long trip back on the Old Dallas Rd as I read the Conan books and horror comics I'd bought at the flea market.
I've seen him live a few times, but only in recent years. There was something odd about seeing him at Chaos a couple years back, especially with Billy Gibbons arriving for a guest appearance, complete with that weird nipple hat of his. I was proud of Kevin opening up for Roky. It was a cool night.
I have a sentimental attachment to him. He is a true Texas artist, if anyone is, I'll grant you that.
2) Syd Barrett - Take all that groovy, hippie, acid shit and give it a DSM IV diagnosis...and another few doses. Jesus. The Beast Who Shouted Love at the Heart of the World, if I ever heard it.
3) Skip Spence - Like Syd, I hear something breaking down. Something powerful thwarted and inflected through a piece of smashed glass or processed with broken machinery, such that it achieves a unique beauty. May be my most prized piece of vinyl next to Easter Everywhere.
4) Jeff Mangum - My ex Matt in Minneapolis hates Neutral Milk Hotel, so my affection for this guy has always given me a sense of integrity about my aesthetic sense. I don't think Mangum is genius. I think he is intuitive. In the Aeroplanes Over the Sea is maybe the best album of the last twenty years.
5) Anton Newcombe - I don't care about the film, though it was fun to watch. I got into BJM just shortly before it came out, which was about eight years late, I suppose, but still. This is just a guy who is incredibly talented, prolific, creative, in my mind likable, somewhat tortured (for some reason with me always a plus. I don't know why that should be so, really) and who apparently grew up listening to almost exactly the same music I did. I don't think he is regurgitating anything at all. I just know that whatever he does always sounds right and familiar, even if it also sounds new. We draw from different wells on the same aquifer I guess.
I've seen him a few times. He has spawned an incredible number of bands and influenced an entire generation of artists, whether people realize it or not. He does it all on the cheap and makes no excuses. Give It Back is probably one of my favorite albums of all time, and to me it is essentially meaningless. That really doesn't matter to me. It proves to me either way that someone else was soaking in the same juices all those years. I really love this guy.
6) Calvin Johnson - I saw him at the 7th St Entry in Minneapolis while a metal band played at 1st Ave on the other side of an adjoining wall. And it didn't matter. I was whistling at his command and clapping along and singing, and I was in a state of arrest. The guy has a voice that to me would be otherwise somewhat jarring, even if he's in tune, just because of its, I guess bartone?, quality. But there's something ballsy about it to me.
7) Jad Fair - Man, this guy is perfect. I mean, if you want to make music, just do it! Who cares what you think you know. I tremble a bit at that.
Besides, if Mo Tucker wants to play with him, he must be worthwhile.
8) Stephin Merritt - He wrecks me. This one is partly personal and all about my life with Matt all those years ago. But it's also about how incredibly creative he is as an artist. Still, 69 Love Songs is really all about house-sitting in Wayzata, Minnesota with the guy who, to this day, probably wrecked me for anyone else. Merritt's songs make me cry. Maudlin and schmaltzy? Perhaps. Who cares? They're great tunes in any case. Listening to them reminds me that I will always be in love with every guy I've ever loved. However, and this doesn't take away from any of the others one little bit, there was something magical about the six years of my life in which I belonged solely and completely to Matt Greenwood. A lot of that, perhaps, is because it coincided with the other great adventure of my life, leaving Texas and my family behind for a time. But Matt is forever special to me either way, as is his family. And 69 Love Songs is something of a sacrament of that, I think.
9) Steve Marriott - Jesus God, the quintessential rock vocalist. Nobody better. Incredible. Stage presence for the nations. I mean, cmon. Makes me wanna screw somethin.
10) Ray Johnson - If ever someone's entire life embodied their creative mission, if you can call if that; if ever someone's life personified their artistic integrity, it was this guy. There is no one greater, in my estimation, if you judge them by those criteria.
11) Andy Warhol - Whether you like him or not, no single individual had a greater impact upon fine art, popular culture or culture in general in the last one hundred years than Andy Warhol. I'll stand by that statement. I applaud it.
12) Robert Pollard - Does it make sense to say that this guy is a comfort to me? I'm awed by the his output, but he just seems like a regular guy.
I think there's something to that. A lot of the artists who I admire are either guys who are tortured by something, deal with something, or otherwise seem accessible to me and make their own creative processes somewhat less mysterious as well. They empower folks like me to do anything we want to be expressions of whatever is universal about our experience. I don't think that's too difficult to discern from my list so far.
13) Marcel Duchamp - Everything is derivative, and nothing is sacred. And art is not the particular purview of some regimented elite. It stands apart from all that.
14) Henry Darger - What I wouldn't give to have one of his paintings. True outsider art. Darger had perhaps the richest interior life of any human being who ever lived, inasmuch as it is documented as such. There certainly may have been others, but they left no record, no groaning of the spirit to match his output.
15) Tracy Emin - A big fuck you to the art world from someone talented enough to make that statement. Amen.
16) Frida Kahlo - I saw an exhibit of her work at the Dallas Museum of Art in December of 2000. It effected me. That doesn't always happen. It has only rarely happened, actually, and the only other moment that springs to mind is from Florence in 1981.
17.) Deacon Lunchbox - Dude could be my twin, only I'm better lookin.
I'll think of more later.
1) Roky Erickson - incredibly influential perhaps, and a seminal artist in an embryonic moment, the crystallization of what was best and what was meant, if anything - perhaps by the Geist - by the Texas garage scene of the mid-Sixties, and Austin, when Austin actually meant something. Austin stopped really meaning anything meaningful long about 1986 or so, I think. Maybe earlier. Maybe it died with Rock Against Reagan.
Anyway, I love Roky. Roky is listening to my sisters' 45's when I was six years old. It's stopping at the Pirate's Den flea market way up on north Lamar as we would leave Austin, so I could buy comics back in 1969 and 1970, and we would listen to the AM radio in mom's '68 Ford Galaxy 500 and make the long trip back on the Old Dallas Rd as I read the Conan books and horror comics I'd bought at the flea market.
I've seen him live a few times, but only in recent years. There was something odd about seeing him at Chaos a couple years back, especially with Billy Gibbons arriving for a guest appearance, complete with that weird nipple hat of his. I was proud of Kevin opening up for Roky. It was a cool night.
I have a sentimental attachment to him. He is a true Texas artist, if anyone is, I'll grant you that.
2) Syd Barrett - Take all that groovy, hippie, acid shit and give it a DSM IV diagnosis...and another few doses. Jesus. The Beast Who Shouted Love at the Heart of the World, if I ever heard it.
3) Skip Spence - Like Syd, I hear something breaking down. Something powerful thwarted and inflected through a piece of smashed glass or processed with broken machinery, such that it achieves a unique beauty. May be my most prized piece of vinyl next to Easter Everywhere.
4) Jeff Mangum - My ex Matt in Minneapolis hates Neutral Milk Hotel, so my affection for this guy has always given me a sense of integrity about my aesthetic sense. I don't think Mangum is genius. I think he is intuitive. In the Aeroplanes Over the Sea is maybe the best album of the last twenty years.
5) Anton Newcombe - I don't care about the film, though it was fun to watch. I got into BJM just shortly before it came out, which was about eight years late, I suppose, but still. This is just a guy who is incredibly talented, prolific, creative, in my mind likable, somewhat tortured (for some reason with me always a plus. I don't know why that should be so, really) and who apparently grew up listening to almost exactly the same music I did. I don't think he is regurgitating anything at all. I just know that whatever he does always sounds right and familiar, even if it also sounds new. We draw from different wells on the same aquifer I guess.
I've seen him a few times. He has spawned an incredible number of bands and influenced an entire generation of artists, whether people realize it or not. He does it all on the cheap and makes no excuses. Give It Back is probably one of my favorite albums of all time, and to me it is essentially meaningless. That really doesn't matter to me. It proves to me either way that someone else was soaking in the same juices all those years. I really love this guy.
6) Calvin Johnson - I saw him at the 7th St Entry in Minneapolis while a metal band played at 1st Ave on the other side of an adjoining wall. And it didn't matter. I was whistling at his command and clapping along and singing, and I was in a state of arrest. The guy has a voice that to me would be otherwise somewhat jarring, even if he's in tune, just because of its, I guess bartone?, quality. But there's something ballsy about it to me.
7) Jad Fair - Man, this guy is perfect. I mean, if you want to make music, just do it! Who cares what you think you know. I tremble a bit at that.
Besides, if Mo Tucker wants to play with him, he must be worthwhile.
8) Stephin Merritt - He wrecks me. This one is partly personal and all about my life with Matt all those years ago. But it's also about how incredibly creative he is as an artist. Still, 69 Love Songs is really all about house-sitting in Wayzata, Minnesota with the guy who, to this day, probably wrecked me for anyone else. Merritt's songs make me cry. Maudlin and schmaltzy? Perhaps. Who cares? They're great tunes in any case. Listening to them reminds me that I will always be in love with every guy I've ever loved. However, and this doesn't take away from any of the others one little bit, there was something magical about the six years of my life in which I belonged solely and completely to Matt Greenwood. A lot of that, perhaps, is because it coincided with the other great adventure of my life, leaving Texas and my family behind for a time. But Matt is forever special to me either way, as is his family. And 69 Love Songs is something of a sacrament of that, I think.
9) Steve Marriott - Jesus God, the quintessential rock vocalist. Nobody better. Incredible. Stage presence for the nations. I mean, cmon. Makes me wanna screw somethin.
10) Ray Johnson - If ever someone's entire life embodied their creative mission, if you can call if that; if ever someone's life personified their artistic integrity, it was this guy. There is no one greater, in my estimation, if you judge them by those criteria.
11) Andy Warhol - Whether you like him or not, no single individual had a greater impact upon fine art, popular culture or culture in general in the last one hundred years than Andy Warhol. I'll stand by that statement. I applaud it.
12) Robert Pollard - Does it make sense to say that this guy is a comfort to me? I'm awed by the his output, but he just seems like a regular guy.
I think there's something to that. A lot of the artists who I admire are either guys who are tortured by something, deal with something, or otherwise seem accessible to me and make their own creative processes somewhat less mysterious as well. They empower folks like me to do anything we want to be expressions of whatever is universal about our experience. I don't think that's too difficult to discern from my list so far.
13) Marcel Duchamp - Everything is derivative, and nothing is sacred. And art is not the particular purview of some regimented elite. It stands apart from all that.
14) Henry Darger - What I wouldn't give to have one of his paintings. True outsider art. Darger had perhaps the richest interior life of any human being who ever lived, inasmuch as it is documented as such. There certainly may have been others, but they left no record, no groaning of the spirit to match his output.
15) Tracy Emin - A big fuck you to the art world from someone talented enough to make that statement. Amen.
16) Frida Kahlo - I saw an exhibit of her work at the Dallas Museum of Art in December of 2000. It effected me. That doesn't always happen. It has only rarely happened, actually, and the only other moment that springs to mind is from Florence in 1981.
17.) Deacon Lunchbox - Dude could be my twin, only I'm better lookin.
I'll think of more later.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Dicey
Dicey was my weed connect
She was a fat Comanche woman
And but for a nominal diff'rence in plumbin
She was like a man in every respect
She came by her money thru boostin and dealin
Allowin as how it was owed to her
And takin whatever was showed to her
With clear conscience; it's Indian-givin, not stealin
Daily at lunchtime I's sneakin away
To hang with her mother and her at her house
All manner of thievery they would espouse
Her underarm flab as she vacuumed would sway
I don't have much sympathy for her it seems
As if on the White conscience her people would prey
She gave me her food surplus marked "BIA"
I still see those generic tins in my dreams
But I don't begrudge her that portion of fun
Though I might righteously object
To her gumption I give every ounce of respect
And grant kleptomania time in the sun
And for every other sin she might have had
From shoplifting to shorting me on the weed
On some things most fiends would be agreed
Any dealer who fronts cannot be that bad.
She was a fat Comanche woman
And but for a nominal diff'rence in plumbin
She was like a man in every respect
She came by her money thru boostin and dealin
Allowin as how it was owed to her
And takin whatever was showed to her
With clear conscience; it's Indian-givin, not stealin
Daily at lunchtime I's sneakin away
To hang with her mother and her at her house
All manner of thievery they would espouse
Her underarm flab as she vacuumed would sway
I don't have much sympathy for her it seems
As if on the White conscience her people would prey
She gave me her food surplus marked "BIA"
I still see those generic tins in my dreams
But I don't begrudge her that portion of fun
Though I might righteously object
To her gumption I give every ounce of respect
And grant kleptomania time in the sun
And for every other sin she might have had
From shoplifting to shorting me on the weed
On some things most fiends would be agreed
Any dealer who fronts cannot be that bad.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010 - 558am
Watched three decent documentaries last night. Black Gold, Corporation and Objectified.All three illustrate the exploitative nature of corporations and the unsustainable trends in modern society. There were few revelations, but the fact that the docs are available means that there are alternatives available to those of us who object to what most folks see as inevitable circumstances.
So many of us continue on with processes that we vaguely sense are unsustainable and dehumanizing, because we have become accustomed and habituated to our ease and convenience. We have attenuated our connection to the natural world, such that switching off the power is a truly frightening prospect to most of us, not the least of which is myself, who would die without air-conditioning in the summer here in Texas. However, while clinging to my creature comforts, I also crave a connection to the processes that sustain me. So I persevere in my quest to at least incrementally strengthen my attachment to and participation in more of the steps in those systems. I want to reclaim my responsibility for participation, since I am, like all of us, accountable for the consequences, whether I like that or not.
We all are accountable.
Some questions that bear asking:
Why are commercial electronics built from materials are not biodegradable, if the technology is going to be obsolete in a year? If my cell phone is no longer current next year, why is the instrument itself built to last fifty-thousand years in a landfill?
Why are corporations given a free hand to plunder natural resources that belong to all of us on the planet without a thought to future generations or sustainability? How do we make corporations accountable for the unsustainable nature of their endeavors and the long-term costs to all of us?
Why has BP's corporate charter not been revoked and its assets liquidated to pay for cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico? How do we hold shareholders accountable for the environmental misdeeds of the companies they own? There is more to business than just profit. It does not exist in a vacuum.
How do I as a consumer use my dollars to influence conditions around the world, such that farmers who create those items I cannot grow myself are adequately compensated for their labor and allowed to fully participate in the process competitively? How do I establish a more direct relationship with the people who create those items I cannot create myself? It is the layers of business that grow up between us that distort the transaction.
I should also question, perhaps, if there are some things I just don't really need that badly or can do without, at least some of the time, because demanding the convenience of out of season produce and exotic ingredients, rather than eating seasonal produce when available and preserving what I grow, is part of the problem. There is enough variety in just about every region to sustain a quality of life we all can enjoy. We are all of us a little too in love with our comforts. It is killing us and killing the ability of the planet to sustain us.
I cooked tilapia with fresh-picked squash and English peas from the garden last night. It was delicious. And while I think it's important, to me anyway, to be responsible for growing my own food as much as possible, it is not a sustainable practice the way that I currently do it. My garden isn't outside the back door, it's seventy-five miles west of here. Everything I grow comes from seed or plants that I purchase, rather than seeds that I have saved myself. I use a tremendous amount of gas in my 1988 3/4 ton pickup with 300,000 miles on it, and I'm sure my carbon footprint is distorted as a result. However, with two trips each week to the river to work and harvest, I am at least creating meals for the rest of the year for me and a few other people, hopefully, and that is some small compensation. It is, at least perhaps, a step in the right direction.
But what if I want to go further?
If I wanted, I could move out to the river and live there for the rest of my life. I could go off the grid. I could raise more animals and provide my own sources of animal protein year round. I could raise dairy animals - a serious commitment of time and resources but also a serious portion of factory-farm systemic animal cruelty that I would be eliminating from my life. It isn't meat and dairy that I see as cruel to animals, so much as the industrialization of that segment of our lives and our removal from it. The failure of average people to cathect with those processes that nourish and sustain us is what creates that largest portion of that barbarism. Until I hold the knife myself at least once, I shouldn't eat the meat. See the life leave its body, and thank the animal. I can own that. Can you?
I feel less helpless than I used to. However, I am also a tad daunted by the prospect of living within the bounds of my own awareness and accountability. And I wonder what level of convenience and comfort I am capable of maintaining in my life without increasing my dependence upon technologies I cannot understand or control. What quality of life can I have without being trapped in technology and removed from the processes that sustain me?
So many of us continue on with processes that we vaguely sense are unsustainable and dehumanizing, because we have become accustomed and habituated to our ease and convenience. We have attenuated our connection to the natural world, such that switching off the power is a truly frightening prospect to most of us, not the least of which is myself, who would die without air-conditioning in the summer here in Texas. However, while clinging to my creature comforts, I also crave a connection to the processes that sustain me. So I persevere in my quest to at least incrementally strengthen my attachment to and participation in more of the steps in those systems. I want to reclaim my responsibility for participation, since I am, like all of us, accountable for the consequences, whether I like that or not.
We all are accountable.
Some questions that bear asking:
Why are commercial electronics built from materials are not biodegradable, if the technology is going to be obsolete in a year? If my cell phone is no longer current next year, why is the instrument itself built to last fifty-thousand years in a landfill?
Why are corporations given a free hand to plunder natural resources that belong to all of us on the planet without a thought to future generations or sustainability? How do we make corporations accountable for the unsustainable nature of their endeavors and the long-term costs to all of us?
Why has BP's corporate charter not been revoked and its assets liquidated to pay for cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico? How do we hold shareholders accountable for the environmental misdeeds of the companies they own? There is more to business than just profit. It does not exist in a vacuum.
How do I as a consumer use my dollars to influence conditions around the world, such that farmers who create those items I cannot grow myself are adequately compensated for their labor and allowed to fully participate in the process competitively? How do I establish a more direct relationship with the people who create those items I cannot create myself? It is the layers of business that grow up between us that distort the transaction.
I should also question, perhaps, if there are some things I just don't really need that badly or can do without, at least some of the time, because demanding the convenience of out of season produce and exotic ingredients, rather than eating seasonal produce when available and preserving what I grow, is part of the problem. There is enough variety in just about every region to sustain a quality of life we all can enjoy. We are all of us a little too in love with our comforts. It is killing us and killing the ability of the planet to sustain us.
I cooked tilapia with fresh-picked squash and English peas from the garden last night. It was delicious. And while I think it's important, to me anyway, to be responsible for growing my own food as much as possible, it is not a sustainable practice the way that I currently do it. My garden isn't outside the back door, it's seventy-five miles west of here. Everything I grow comes from seed or plants that I purchase, rather than seeds that I have saved myself. I use a tremendous amount of gas in my 1988 3/4 ton pickup with 300,000 miles on it, and I'm sure my carbon footprint is distorted as a result. However, with two trips each week to the river to work and harvest, I am at least creating meals for the rest of the year for me and a few other people, hopefully, and that is some small compensation. It is, at least perhaps, a step in the right direction.
But what if I want to go further?
If I wanted, I could move out to the river and live there for the rest of my life. I could go off the grid. I could raise more animals and provide my own sources of animal protein year round. I could raise dairy animals - a serious commitment of time and resources but also a serious portion of factory-farm systemic animal cruelty that I would be eliminating from my life. It isn't meat and dairy that I see as cruel to animals, so much as the industrialization of that segment of our lives and our removal from it. The failure of average people to cathect with those processes that nourish and sustain us is what creates that largest portion of that barbarism. Until I hold the knife myself at least once, I shouldn't eat the meat. See the life leave its body, and thank the animal. I can own that. Can you?
I feel less helpless than I used to. However, I am also a tad daunted by the prospect of living within the bounds of my own awareness and accountability. And I wonder what level of convenience and comfort I am capable of maintaining in my life without increasing my dependence upon technologies I cannot understand or control. What quality of life can I have without being trapped in technology and removed from the processes that sustain me?
Friday, May 21, 2010
154pm - Oak Cliff
Growth is not inevitable. Growth is not progress. Growth is just growth. The mindset that says it is inevitable is the only thing that makes it so. There can certainly be viable communities and economic activity in its absence. The idea that the two are mutually exclusive is a pitch that's been sold for decades, but only just.
North Oak Cliff could continue to grow in the same way that it has grown in the past, slowly, the way communities grow that build lasting connections for people. Unfortunately, it has too many advantages for its own good in Dallas. The idea that we must act now or forever somehow lose this chance has been cranked up a bit lately, and to good effect.
I'm sure that this plan is preferable to some other possible eventualities this neighborhood could endure. I'm sure some of the people will remain who are here now. Some. I'm also sure that this area will begin to change more dramatically, the crowds will get thicker, the prices will rise substantially, the well-known brands and logos will begin to pop up with more frequency. The organic nature of the community will finally be Certified Organic, such that we'll all know it's safe to consume.
North Oak Cliff could continue to grow in the same way that it has grown in the past, slowly, the way communities grow that build lasting connections for people. Unfortunately, it has too many advantages for its own good in Dallas. The idea that we must act now or forever somehow lose this chance has been cranked up a bit lately, and to good effect.
I'm sure that this plan is preferable to some other possible eventualities this neighborhood could endure. I'm sure some of the people will remain who are here now. Some. I'm also sure that this area will begin to change more dramatically, the crowds will get thicker, the prices will rise substantially, the well-known brands and logos will begin to pop up with more frequency. The organic nature of the community will finally be Certified Organic, such that we'll all know it's safe to consume.
1014am
Great week, perhaps. Just nailed a $1000 sale to an Air Force base, so that's $250 toward Chaos in Tejas next week, and I can use every penny of that.
I say all the time that I love going to shows and seeing bands, and my fondest memories seem to revolve around bands I've seen. You'd think that, anyway. What I end up thinking about most of the time, however, is the money and the trouble of getting up and leaving the house and doing anything. I may have become a tad agoraphobic as I've gotten older. It's either that or sloth, but usually it's a mixture of things. I resent spending any money when I've forever felt in the hole materially. I resent the time involved that I'd rather be doing nothing, or doing something tangible that will produce lasting results.
But this is just my grumbling. I love seeing bands.
I've begun reading again, though still only when I walk. It has me thinking that I should commence an inventory of my library and see what all I have. I could load it in Excel, I would think, and sort it by any filter I like afterward. I could use it as a means to sell off some stuff I don't read and make a little extra room and cash for the coffers. Or, since I don't have Excel and don't know how to use it, I could find some other method to get it online and sortable. There are, I think, a few thousand titles.
I'm reading The End of Nature by Bill McKibben
. It's a little odd reading a book from 1988 or so about climate change with dire predictions for 2010. It's also a tad unsettling to see some of the predictions borne out in the present. We are changing the world. We really are. I have another book by McKibben titled Eaarth
that I'll begin next. He writes well enough, and surprisingly it doesn't seem too dated, despite the nature of the content.
It's 1035am, and I'm done working for the day. I'll shake out of that and make a few more sales before lunch.
I say all the time that I love going to shows and seeing bands, and my fondest memories seem to revolve around bands I've seen. You'd think that, anyway. What I end up thinking about most of the time, however, is the money and the trouble of getting up and leaving the house and doing anything. I may have become a tad agoraphobic as I've gotten older. It's either that or sloth, but usually it's a mixture of things. I resent spending any money when I've forever felt in the hole materially. I resent the time involved that I'd rather be doing nothing, or doing something tangible that will produce lasting results.
But this is just my grumbling. I love seeing bands.
I've begun reading again, though still only when I walk. It has me thinking that I should commence an inventory of my library and see what all I have. I could load it in Excel, I would think, and sort it by any filter I like afterward. I could use it as a means to sell off some stuff I don't read and make a little extra room and cash for the coffers. Or, since I don't have Excel and don't know how to use it, I could find some other method to get it online and sortable. There are, I think, a few thousand titles.
I'm reading The End of Nature by Bill McKibben
. It's a little odd reading a book from 1988 or so about climate change with dire predictions for 2010. It's also a tad unsettling to see some of the predictions borne out in the present. We are changing the world. We really are. I have another book by McKibben titled Eaarth that I'll begin next. He writes well enough, and surprisingly it doesn't seem too dated, despite the nature of the content.It's 1035am, and I'm done working for the day. I'll shake out of that and make a few more sales before lunch.
2010 April 21
538am -
Waking up
I take my lumps
But what seemed precious
Soon becomes a pale reflection
Of the greater All that glitters
And reflects throughout Creation
Until I am blinded I
Mistake mere signs for destinations.
Breathless wonder is its own
Reward for looking after years
Spent wandering in dark deserts
I, most willful, have created
Desert has a beauty of its own
And retrospection is a trap
I lay to hold on vise-like
To the toys and baubles, shiny objects
Garish city-lights beneath
A starry, starry night.
If I would just look up
And then within.
The gift I have is not for words
But tears and laughter
Inarticulate; holding in my hands
And over-flowing, plentiful
I stand amazed
Walk forward like a Child.
So begins another day. I woke up with a tummy-ache this mornin from overdoin it on the fudge'n divinity last night. Neither was a great success, but I still got more sugar and mess than I cared for.
The garden is overgrown and out of control. This weekend could be pretty critical in getting it cleaned up and in order, and I'm just not feelin it. I'm dreading getting started, just because it's a tad overwhelming thinking of the totality of it. This is still perhaps the best garden I've had yet, but it is quickly becoming so weedy that I'll never get caught up.
I reckon the thing to do is stop whinging and steel myself to the notion of spending some real time and effort getting things tidy. Perhaps I can find volunteers. That'd be fine, except that I don't want to divide up my harvest. And I don't care much for company in any case. Besides that there's dad. He and the house are in such bad shape that neither bears much scrutiny anymore. I know he's a tad self-conscious over all that, though he plays it off as misanthropy. If he had his druthers, he'd still be entertaining people at dinner and showing out, and I wouldn't blame him. I miss that guy. I see his ghost several times each week when I go out to work in the garden.
I've felt a pull in my gut over recent months. I want to know the processes that sustain me. I want to participate. I want to know where my food comes from and what's in it. I want to know where my money goes and what effect that has. I want to know what I have, and I want to know how much of it I really need. I am a reef. Over years I form accretions of material to hold me in place. These attachments usually take the form of books, but it can be as simple as scraps of paper that reference some event or circumstance - a ticket stub or receipt for something. It doesn't matter. I am reluctant to turn loose of them.
Alternately, I will on occasion throw out loads of stuff without paying much attention in what I think of as the "Royal Douche" on my environment. I'm not sure how some things continually make the cut, such that I have scraps of paper and little odds and ends that have followed me around for decades in some cases.
I'm not looking for a sense of control so much as simply an awareness. Perhaps I can document that. There seems a sense of proper proportion, simplicity and, well, my own sort of righteousness in living within the bounds of my own awareness. It would seem natural that I should know where my food comes from, as in, which animal or set of plants. No, really. It would seem natural and just that I should know what I am purchasing, what choices I am making above and beyond my immediate needs, simply because of what and where I trade. I know in my gut that I talk more than I walk; perhaps everyone does that to an extent. But in order to make it to another place, I should first determine where exactly I am right now. I have many times sought to make change in my life without first accepting where I was as a starting point, because the humility involved in that sort of operation was more than I was willing to chew. It always works better when I can swallow where I'm at in order to get to where I want to be. I'm better about that than I used to be; it's the size of the task that seems daunting.
Once I accept that this is a mindset, a process rather than an event - a new method, then, perhaps, it will prove easier. It is an ongoing inventory of sorts, in order to discard what does not work and bring my actions more in line with my talk. To perhaps gain a little integrity in my structure.
Every morning I wake up around 5am or a little earlier. Every morning I tell myself that I'm going to cook myself breakfast. Every morning I sit and drink coffee and smoke cigarettes and do a wake'n bake and have a wank and shit, shave'n shower and discover that I'm almost late for work. Then I stop at Kim's Donuts at Zang and Centre and get six sausage rolls (three with jalapeno and three with just cheese) and a dozen holes and a chocolate milk. I eat the three jalapeno rolls and one of the regulars and a few of the holes and then put the rest on the table in the office for whoever wants them. That usually carries me until after work, so lunch is free for cleaning house or burnin a bowl and watchin the news. Today is just like every other day, except that I've done this instead of goofing off on Facebook or the Dallas Morning News blog (I should write something about that soon and then stop bothering those people. My participation in that forum is not productive of anything worthwhile).
I'll gather up my stuff and head out for Kim's and the soap mines now, there to scratch out a decent last day to a pretty good sales week.
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