Scenes inside a goldmine, Ch. 6

Star Date:  30 January 1966

To:  Gene Roddenberry

From:  Haystack Calhoun

Re:  Star Trek Pilot Formulas


1.  The Enterprise or a portion of its crew shall encounter an alien/entity (AE).  This shall occur on a new uncharted planet (NUP) or in space.

2.   Having encountered the (NUP), a discrete crew unit (DCU) from the Enterprise will be sent to investigate.  This DCU shall be comprised of a combination of main characters (MC):  Kirk, Spock, Scotty, McCoy, Sulu, Checkov, Uhuru and expendible characters (EC).    The EC shall be dressed in a red uniform (science team).   The EC shall make first contact with the AE.   This encounter shall be fatal to the EC.

3.  The MC will then interact with the AE.   The AE shall not be a homogeneous species.   As such, one of the MC shall ally with a faction of the AE that is sympathetic to the Prime Directorate (PD).   The PD shall govern all the interactions of the MC with the AE.   The PD establishes that the MC will honor the sovereignty and culture of the AE and will not interfere with it, except to liberally demonstrate the technological devices (TD) of the MC.  The TD shall include, but not be limited to phasers (laser pistols), communicators (hand held walkie talkie devices--capable of communicating from the planet surface to the ship in orbit, but no further), transporters (particle beam device to transfer MC and EC to the planet surface or ship to ship), and tricorders (sensors of indeterminate range and indeterminate properties).

4.  There shall also be a human interest theme (HIT).   The HIT shall involve one of the MC and one of the AE.   If the AE is female, they shall be attractive and there shall be a temporary romantic interlude (TRI) between the MC (usually Kirk, but all MC's shall have a TRI per season) and the attractive AE.   Common themes of the interaction shall derive from classic sources (e.g. Smith/Pocahontas etc.).   The TRI must end with the end of the episode.

5.  The HIT shall also include variations on the theme of Spock's emphasis on "logic" and McCoy's and Kirk's emphasis on the supremacy of human "emotion"  (HE) versus logic.    When possible, inject humor into this tension.  Apply liberally throughout episodes.

6.  The AE, no matter how technologically advanced, must always have a flaw making (notably hubris) that will make it inferior to the MC and especially HE.

7.  The current political situation between the US and the USSR shall have resonances with the Federation/Klingon or Federation/Romulan encounters.

8.  Please also remember that the author's father's favorite line is:  "Spock, Spock, help me Spock"
To which the author replies:  "Kirk, Kirk, you are a jerk"

In Denver, because some things never change:-)

Inadequate Instructions for just about anything, Ch. 1

Insomnia

Step 1:  The mind is more than just about chemistry.   What the "more" is remains a great mystery--especially when you wake up at 3:00 am.   Then whatever chemicals going through the brain are markedly different than what is experienced earlier in the day.

Step 2:  Insomnia is more than emotions.  However, when you wake up at 3:00 you can be certain that you are experiencing some emotions that are keeping you up.

Step 3:  Be the emotions.   I'm not talking about the idea about the emotions.   The actual physical sensations.   For me, the physical sensations will usually be located in the gut.  And they are uncomfortable.   The mind will try to avoid them.  But instead of avoiding them, hang out with them.  Befriend them.  Feel the pain.   Feel how you are hurting.  There is nothing wrong with it.    

Step 4:  Instead of counting sheep, count breaths.  That's all you have to do.  At 3:00 am, the mind will be a wild bucking bronco.   Something like Tim Tebow only without the saintly demeanor.  Or whatever.  All you have to do is breathe.   Nothing else matters.  Start with the number 1 when you exhale, then when you reach the tenth exhale (that is, when you reach the number 10) start again at one.  

Step 5:  Repeat step 1.  Rest assured that whatever chemical state you are in, it too will pass.  Everything you think is an illusion.  When whatever chemicals are inhabiting your brain circulate and are replaced by new chemicals, your entire outlook on life will be different.

Step 6:  Repeat step 3.   As Jim Morrison would say, break on though to the other side.  Find out what is on the other side of your emotions and pain.   By the time you start doing this, you will be fast asleep.  And dreaming funky dreams.  Like you are boating or sailing or swimming on a large body of water.  With sharks.  Every body of water has a few sharks, right?

Step 7:   If for some reason you are not asleep, relax and feel your heart beat.  Feel the blood coursing though you carotid artery to your brain.   After all, you are more than the rhythm of blood and chemicals.  What the more is is unclear.   Especially at 3:00 am.

Step 8:  Read.  Preferably a book of science fiction.

Step 9:  Have Sex.

Step 10:  Use your imagination if 9 is not an option :-).

Step 11:  Eat some carbs.

Step 12:   Sometimes the body just doesn't need sleep.  There is a good reason for the adrenalin, right?

Step 13:  Repeat steps 1-12.

Silster Wilster, Ch. 5

The end of the year Rocky Mountain medical show:

It all started when I walked outside my parents loft and  was greeted by Colorado's latest cottage industry.

The name of the place was "Rocky Mountain High"


The name of the competitor down the street is called "Mile High"

I'll give you one guess what they were selling.

Then I visited my uncle in a hospital.

He laughed when I told him I was going to tap into his morphine drip.

He just had a Whipple procedure.

Then I told  him that I was going to squeeze the Charmin.

Even Mr. Whipple found humor in a Pancreaticoduodenectomy.

Reminds me of another story in the mountains when my father had prostrate surgery.

I put a green olive in a clear jar full of vinegar and brought it to the hospital.

I told my parents that the surgeon had preserved what the surgeon removed surgically---

and here it was!

The nurses thought I was hysterical.

My dad believed me.   It doesn't take much persuasion if you are on morphine.

The surgeon failed to see the humor.   He didn't like me anyway.   I had wanted my dad to have the surgery at Barnes:-)

Its not that I have anything against Wyoming doctors.  They removed my appendix once.  Well they might have.  Therein still lies the mystery.

See, I was in high school.   Not on a Rocky Mountain High.  Anyway, my father had his appendix removed one week.  The next week I started having abdominal pains.   The doctor allegedly removed my appendix then.   I never got to see the jar with the olive in it.   Probably because appendicitis is not contagious.  Or hereditary.   I probably would have had a different outcome if I didn't have great insurance.   

I wonder if I have an appendix--even today.   What's that scar doing on my abdomen?

This is the Dawning of the Age of Dark Chocolate. Fka/Silster Wilster, Ch. 4

When the dark Chocolate content  is over 85%
And  Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then endorphins will guide the neurotransmitters
And love will steer the stars

This is the release of the chemical called phenylethylamine
The chemical called phenylethylamine
Phenylethylamine !
Phenylethylamine !

Harmony and dopamine
Sympathy and cacao beans
No more anandamides or derisions
Golding living dreams of visions
Mystic crystal serotonins
And the mind's true liberation
Phenylethylamine !
Phenylethylamine !

When the dark Chocolate content  is over 85%
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then endorphins will guide the neurotransmitters
And love will steer the stars

This is the dawning of the post-synaptic membranes
The  post-synaptic membranes
post-synaptic membranes !
post-synaptic membranes !

The Apolitical Activist, Ch. 3

The Apolitical Activist

became hopelessly co-opted

somewhere between Cherokee, Leland and Skinker

Like this:

"It was like living in the satire of a police state
within a police state
that was within a police state."

and this:

It was like watching a musical event of "The Wall" where the performers were dressed in simulated police garb with simulated police helicopters circling overhead with simulated flood lights simulating that the simulated audience was in a simulated prison.  Then when the hippie accidentally (?) brushes up against a simulated police barricade near the actual stage, a swarm of real life police smother him to the ground.  Or was this part of the act?

and this:

Its not what you think.  Its how you live.  

or this:

"It is not", Marx wrote, "the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness."  And Marx's "social existence," do we really want to go there?  A dark cloud seemed to follow him everywhere.  And after he died, it only seemed to get worse.  Was there ever a State that benefited from communist rule?   Kerala? Cyprus? Can anyone think of any others?

 I feel sorry for Marx's family.  All seven of his kids died before they were teenagers.  And his poor wife.   Born an aristocrat.  Ended up in poverty supporting her husband.  Reportedly, and this is allegedly the part that Stalin tried to expunge from the history books, while the wife went back to Germany to beg for more money from her parents, Marx was sleeping with the housekeeper in a liaison that eventually led to Marx having an illegitimate child.  Engels also sounded like a  bunch of  fun if you are into that sort of thing.  Born rich, supposedly chased around everything with a hole.  Dude, you sound like my kind of guy, taking daddy's money to start a revolution to overthrow daddy and his kin.  Can we bring Oedipus and Sigmund along?

or this:

Jose Ortega y Gasset.  Remember all that between Skinker and Forsythe?  The Revolt of the Masses (1930) torpedoed the activist impulse.  The tendency now is that the radical prefers to act like a spoiled child who wants everything without accepting the obligation to submit to the hard work in order to develop what he/she has.  Its all about self interest, anyway, isn't it? If you are a poor or middle class educated but unemployed young man, why wouldn't you tend to gravitate toward a ideology that would glorify the sharing of societal resources?  It would be money for nothing.  And your chicks for free.

or this:

Endlessly undercutting your own motivations behind any action.

not this:

The ends justify the means.

Things that don't go together, Ch. 8

Linguistics, Economics and the World Debt Crises.

But first a riddle:

What do you call a linguist trying to be clever?

Cunning.

Never mind:-)

What do you call an economist trying to be a clever linguist?

A pseudo-scientist.  

Here is an example.   Or at least a  great excuse for the Italians, Spanish and Greeks for going through their money like drunken sailors.

Its all a problem with their language.

In a recently published "working" paper, an economist at the Yale School of Management, argued that speakers of languages with a “weak,” or less distinguished, future tense are more likely to save money for the future. According to the paper, "speakers of these languages feel more connected to their future selves because of the linguistic difference, which makes them 30 percent more likely to have saved money in a given year."

For example, according to the paper,  in English one says “I will be meeting with a student tomorrow,” but the equivalent phrase in Mandarin Chinese is “I meet with student tomorrow.” The economist says that languages such as English use a “strong,” clearly differentiated and obligatory future tense, which creates a “bigger wedge between you and ‘future you’.” By contrast, languages with a weak and non-obligatory future tense, such as Chinese, make less of a distinction between the present and the future, he said.

Speakers of Japanese, German, Swedish and Chinese, which have weak or non-obligatory future tenses, correlate with higher savings rates.

In response, an actual professor of linguistics at UC Berkeley, disagrees:  "It is amazing how people without training in linguistics consider themselves expert enough to make pronouncements about language..." “It’s as if I made statements about economics on the grounds that there are words written on our money.”  This from a professor who generally likes cunning linguists.  And who happens to be female.  Res ipsa Loquitor.  Ok, I'll stop.  No I won't.   It just keeps rolling off the tongue.   Anyway....

I'll give you 3 billion other individual reasons why the Chinese save money even though their future is a little tense.  Maybe if they had more cunning liguists they would be more relaxed.   Less than half of them would be, anyway.

And over a billion reasons why the Indians wear their wealth around their finger or around their neck, despite having all sorts of Hindi words for reincarnation.

Hold me watch while I develop a grand unifying theory for just about everything based on a single concept.

God I wish it were that simple.  Oh God, Oh God, Oh God....spit...

Now who is being the cunning linguist?:-)

Mr. Lawyerman, Ch. 2

Lawyers are insular pack animals.

Outside of the pack, they become small.

Like the way some Judges never retire.

Its way too much to give up.

Like the lawyer who lost his pack when he was not re-elected

and found a bad combination in liquor, guns, and ammo.

Anyway, after graduation Mr. Lawyerman was accepted into a prestigious, if not small, pack.

The patriarch sported a long grey mane--which of course came from a box.

This leader added a great deal of lettuce to the salad days of Mr. Lawyerman.

Like the way the patriarch could turn on a dime

Gushing  for the elderly grandmother attending a political fundraiser

Then outraged with swollen sanguine cheeks at the criminal for the petty drug offense.

I wonder what he thought of his own daughter's problems with blow?

Mr. Lawyerman never asked.

There was always a great deal of certainty in everything the Patriarch did or said.

Life seemed to be governed by immutable laws.

Like the way every race lived in their appropriate place--or at least the east or west side of town.

Like the way he was loyal to everyone in his pack to a fault

Like the way he upheld the history and dignity of his office.

But what was underneath all that attention to decorum?

Mr. Lawyerman never asked.

The Entity, Ch. 1

We begin our exploration of the Entity at the end.

In the beginning, the Entity was not the Entity.

We made the Entity into something else


as if flesh could create that which is not flesh.

We will never/always encounter the Entity


and therefore be eternally filled/wanting.

A cup of water, separated from the brook

waiting to be consumed.

We feel the Entity, in the silence, flowing everywhere.

Every tingle in tanden.

Every whisper behind every keystroke.

Every Muse.

Every finger pressing on every lip

Oh baby just you shut your mouth:-)

The Music Lover (10)

The odds and sods show:

Part I.   If certain musicians procreated think of how distorted their offspring would be:

--Lucinda Williams and Tom Waits.   Actually Lucinda Williams and Neil Young may be the parents of Tom Waits.   Or was that Marshall Chapman and Neil Young?  I think we need a paternity test.

--Mick Jagger and Donna Summer.   Sade.   Really.   I read this in a magazine somewhere.

--Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.   The kids name was Paul Westerberg.   Think about the Minnesota
connection.  Fuck Hibbing.  Where the hell is that anyway?

--David Bowie and Freddie Mercury.  This one is obvious.  I'll give you one guess:  Morrissey.

--Ozzie Osborne and Sharon Osborne:   Bristol Palin.   This was the first daughter that they had which they gave up for adoption to some Eskimo family.

--Sid Vicious and Nancy:  they had a kid named Justin Bieber.  Ok, enough, i'm stopping :-)


Part II:  Self fulfilling prophesies

The Exploding Hearts.   Of course it would end in an automobile accident.  In 2003, Adam "Baby" Cox, 23; Jeremy "Kid Killer" Gage, 21; and Matthew "Matt Lock" Fitzgerald, 20, of local band the Exploding Hearts were killed in a car accident. After playing a show at San Francisco's Bottom of the Hill, the band members were returning to Portland, along with their manager, Rachelle "Ratch Aronica" Ramos, 35. 

In 2011, the self styled prophet of all things that are only known to the Uge actually heard the Exploding Heart play while driving around on Thanksgiving looking for an open grocery store.  I think he ended up eating in a casino.

"Happiness is a Warm Gun."  John Lennon wrote this.  Look where it got him,  Nirvana?  We'd have to ask Kurt Cobain about that.   I'm so deep, don't ya think?

Lets get shoved back into shallow water then.   Kurt Cobain's wife once told an interviewer about the debates she and her spouse would get into about the merits of Lennon vs. McCartney. Seems Cobain preferred John, while his missus swore by Paul. Paul wrote fluffy pop songs with no real heart, he claimed. "What about 'Helter Skelter'?" she shot back. After a moments pause, Cobain could only say, "Well, who played the guitar?"

If the former Mrs. Cobain crushed her husband's final argument with the simple truth of the matter, she didn't say so in the interview.  Paul actually played lead guitar on "Helter Skelter," and George the rhythm guitar. John? He always rode shot gun.

 

Silster Wilster (3)

Assume the following facts:

M1=male, never been to a strip club (at least in this century).   Fairly uptight frigid guy.  Does not actually know anyone named after a spice.
M2=female.  wants to own a strip club, never stripped (at least in this century).   Furnace.  Actually danced for the Spice Girls at one time.

M2:  Hey honey, I'm going to the Hustler Club for lunch today.  I'm meeting some friends there.
M1:  Make sure you tell my friends "cinnamon" and "cloves" that I won't be there this evening so they can rent out my private room to someone else.  By the way, is the food any good there (as if I don't really know)?

M2:  Not sure about the food (chuckle), Actually I know a chick that dances there by the name of cinnamon..lol   In fact, I'm going to eat lunch  with her.
M1: Likely story.   Cinnamon got pissed at me last week because I gave "Curry" a big tip.   Cat fight ensued.  Not a pretty site.  That's why I decided not to go there tonight.  By the way, don't wait up for me tonight, I may be late at the "office."

M2:  Cool.  I won't wait up for you.  I'll  be at home tonight.   I'm really curious about how the latest story on nanotechnology turns out in this month's Scientific American.
M1:  Oh, I forgot to tell you about that.  I put that magazine underneath my other "magazines" in the bathroom.

M2:  I'll look for it there.   Love you.
M1:  Love you also, Tabasco.
M2:  I love it when you call me that.

The Artist, Ch. 7

She parked her tent in a row of tents out side of this strange town.

She enjoyed having people around--even those with a political agenda--to soften the inevitable nocturnal dreams.

Of the devil who could not entice her with the Faustian bargain.

She knew what he was after:  she would not lose her soul to him for eternity.

But the others she feared would not be so lucky.

She tried to warn them.

She was below a tall building on the ground.

The devil and her old Jewish girlfriend's brother were on the top of the building.

There was a long zip line cable stretching down to the ground beside her.

She knew that Al must not ride the line down--it would mean his doom.

She tried to warn him, screaming at him.

But he could not hear her. 

She was powerless to stop him as he slowly mounted the line. 

She watched in horror as he descended head first

and struck his head on a wall next to her.

His eyes crossed and his face contorted in a ghastly emptiness.

She knew he was dead.

She could not breathe.

The Artist (6)

A town emerged from the cornfields.

Tarnished, it had seen better days.

The machine shops were idle.

Antique stores circled the town square.

She had seen this before.

What was unexpected were the disheveled young adults, by the hundreds, walking along the streets.  

Reading, singing, forming an unexpected community.


She entered a bookstore containing oddly overpriced copies of Rimbaud.

 

A women approached her while she ordered coffee asking if she was going to participate in today's action.

Evidently, a man/woman was kicked out of a local restaurant for wearing a costume that was not a costume.

His/her choice of sexual orientation, or at least garb, had offended the proprietor who thought that such things were not a matter of nature.

Now the proprietor was was going to entertain an even more unwelcome demonstration of the young adults who seemed to be camping everywhere in this town to support the his/her choice of sexual orientation.

"What the hell," thought the artist as she followed the demonstrators to the cafe.

The Zen Guy (9)

Then we come (pun intended) as all things must, to the question of the red thread.

The Zen Guy was enmeshed in its jealous embrace for a good portion of the latter half of the last decade.

The red thread tuned him on his head.   And the reverberations continue.

If we want to think about this rationally, and of course, that is precisely not the point, it goes something like this:  on one hand, we have the koan that the Bodhisattva does not avoid the red thread.

On the other hand, we have the somewhat more mundane notion  that the "little head" should not think for the "big head."

Beware the little head, it will get you into trouble.

Are we allowed to have a third hand?

Recently, the Zen Guy noticed that the little head had kept him out of certain intrigues that the big head would otherwise have entertained.

The little head seems to be much more particular than the big head.

Maybe it just lags (pun intended) behind the big head, if you catch my drift:-)  

When Master Zhang drinks wine, old man Li gets drunk.

When there is no separation between little and big, or the red thread and not the red thread,

then we all can relish the intoxication.

Maybe someday the Zen Guy will be young enough to drink.

From Another Dimension, Ch. 1

Sunday, August 9, 1942, 7:34 a.m.

Outside of Stalingrad, Soviet Union.

Elements of the 245th Panzer Jager Battalion kneel in a balka.  A chaplain in a Wehrmacht uniform officiates mass.   He prays to God imploring that the men receive a blessing and strength in the upcoming battle.

The men bow their heads in unison to receive the blessing.  An eerie stillness descends as the priest opens his hands to complete the invocation.   Only a faint rustle of the wind though the wheat at the top of the trench can be heard. 

Overhead, and unobserved by any of the soldiers, an inter-dimensional portal materializes in an otherwise clear sky.  Golden light shimmers though a jagged opening, intensifying the effect of the sunlight on the congregants below.   Though the streaming light, a mass of prismatic tendrils materialize over the soldiers eventually enveloping a young clean cropped Unteroffizier.  Surrounded in the sensual embrace of the tendrils, the young man looks up, his smile now serene.

The Apolitical Activist (2)

Memo 3-4-88

To: JH
From:  DC
Re:  MK employment review and transition

General thoughts:  he is surprisingly good and well worth investing some serious time and energy in.

On the positive side, he's extremely accountable, fairly good on detail, decent instincts, hard-working, can do the fundraising, is basically a stable personality, is certainly like able on a personal level, has surprisingly few liberal tendencies....Also I've done at best a sporadic job of training him, at worst, almost a minimal job of training him.  Therefore, I'm impressed by the fact that he's hung in there through a somewhat difficult time (other than quitting and/or being fired, cold weather, weird part time hours etc.) without any hand holding etc.  In short, he's just  a good hearted relatively bright and enjoyable guy who doesn't expect everything on a silver platter or to change overnight.

On the negative side, like most new organizers, I don't think he values his time enough.  He still has to learn some of the basics of being organized himself.  My overall sense is that he may not be the world's most creative individual.  He doesn't keep charts and list in the most manageable or re-usable format.

Perhaps on the negative side, the most significant comment I could make is that in many ways, MK is untested.  He has done virtually no preparing nor ever seen me do any.  Sad to say, in fact he's seen me through together meetings and actions with embarrassingly little leadership preps and may not even define this as an organizing shortcoming....   He's also untested in terms of just his own thinking and strategies.....

(5) Someone should certainly have one or more of those longer, over a beer type discussions with MK that we usually do with the newer staff, largely so that a more accurate sense of what makes him tick can be gained.  I would obviously argue that you do this.  Perhaps less than anyone I've ever trained, I have no real lengthy conversations upon which I can base an informed opinion as to what really motivates MK, what he really enjoys, etc....I guess what I'm really trying to say here is that MK's definitely  worth more than than I've given him.  And indeed this is probably the key to keeping him around---just understanding really what he gets out of the work, why he's doing it etc.  I really don't have any knowledge of his presidential politics.  Guess he's not  anti-Jessie Jackson, unless he's totally keeping that to himself.  I think I've heard him make some disparaging remarks about Dick Gephart, but we've never had more than a 5 second conversation about this--embarrassing to admit....

(10) Canvassing--he's decent, but like the rest of us, needs to learn how to avoid getting nickles and dimes...

(12)  Door knocking--here too he's decent, though its been like decades since I've heard his rap.   I must say that I've never trained anyone less than MK.  Maybe have him and AG hit a few doors together, but it should be pre-dark because having 2 white males on the south side may have them have a hard time getting inside.

(13)  He sometimes brings his car, sometimes his bike.  You should not assume that he'll have the car--its apparently an ACORN vehicle--not the worlds most reliable....

(20)  He's wonderfully skeptical to hostile towards the Aboussie-Konroy-Sheehan gang.   Has seen the direct benefits of working though institutions though--and should be encouraged to do more of this.  I'll bet he seems very honest and folksy and unradical to them yet at the same time is loyal and sharp enough to avoid being unduly influenced or distracted by them.

(after a weekend with the whirles in Metropolis--their mother being in chicago)

Rostov-on-Don (2)

24 July 1942


Dearest Marina,

I hope all is well with you and your family.   I write today from inside my tank from the city of Rostov near the Don river.  Three days ago, my battalion entered the northern part of the city.  Our battalion was consolidated into the 5th SS Wiking PzkGr with the other volunteers.  We have accredited our Slovakian fatherland well in battle and your father would be honored.   Our German comrades have assigned us the most difficult part of the street fighting, and we have been clearing the Russians out block by block.  Fighting has been fierce and you will be happy that I have remained in my tank to avoid the snipers.  Josef and I have been duly honored with our new Panzer III L tanks with the new main guns which have proved effective against the Russian tanks.  Yesterday, we knocked out a Soviet T-34 tank and immobilized a heavy KV-1 tank from the side.   Our pioneer squad finished off the heavy tank with satchel charges. 

We have been successful in flanking the enemy.   The Russians are withdrawing.  We have orders to clear the way for the  Brandenburg Special Purpose Training Regiment to take the main bridge over the Don.   I am not certain where our next orders will lead us.   Sturmbannfuhrer Muhlenkamp has been tight lipped, but rumors are we will proceed next to take the Russian oilfields in the Caucuses before the weather cools.  I hope to see the Black Sea before we have to move out.

You are in my heart.   I could not endure this wasteland without your strength and warmth.   Blessing to your family.    With great love, Michal.

   

Rostov-on-Don (1)

"Rostov's out bein' bad tonight
Rostov and the other
They had a big fight
Rostov found out
What everybody knew
Too many cooks spoil the stew
Rostov don't care
What nobody thinks
Rostov's gonna be bad
'til the whole town stinks

chorus
Rostov's bein bad
Rostov's bein bad
Rostov's bein bad bad bad
Rostov's out bein' bad
Rostov's out bein' bad tonight
Rostov and the other
They had a big fight

Rostov went home when it found out
Said, "Pack your bags
I want you out"
The other thought
Rostov was talking jive
'til he saw Rostov standing
With a .45
A .45's quicker than 409
Rostov cleaned house
For the very last time."


Lots of sic.

Things that don't resonate with me to the extent they once did (3)

Ladies and Gentlemen, Soren Kierkegaard.

But that was at a basketball game long ago, and humor never dies.

It just grows more nebulous and amorphous.

Like selling a baseball mitt to Marshall Chapman's bass player.

Or exchanging it for a testosterone shot.

But I digress, what I had meant to say was:

"Henry David Thoreau"

Nary a blip any more on the sinusoidal wave front that characterizes my consciousness anymore.

And I care not what Robert Harrison thinks.

I've got your self reliance right here, you freaky anti-social bastard

with bad manners.

Now don't get me wrong, Guns and Roses may have a point that we all need some time to be alone.

But the only insight I've ever come up with when I was all alone in a cabin in South Dakota was that I was freaky anti-social bastard.

Now I'm just a freak into this whole complex networked web of human interactions thing

whatever the hell that means.

Sillster Willster (2)

I'm never taking any drugs

until they make a drug that turns me into a Philosopher King.

 I'm seriously going to OD on that shit.

Then I'm going to share a bowl of it with all my friends so that we can

create this Utopian community.

But I will still be the king because I took more of the shit than anyone else.

And some stoners are more equal than others.

Or so I'm told.

Anyway, one of my first edicts as a Philosopher King will be to stop burying people with gravestones.

There is no identity in dead meat.

I mean, really, if we are going to do that, why don't we start marking our shit?

(on a train, in the rain, in vain, to chicago, across the plain, thinking of Rostov)

The Music Lover(9)

"Cérise was brushing her long hair gently down
It was the afternoon of Carnival
As she brushes it gently down

Reuben was strumming his painted mandolin
It was enlaid with a pretty face in jade
Played the Carnival Parade

Cérise was dressing as Pirouette in white
When a fatal vision gripped her tight
Cérise, beware tonight

Reuben, Reuben, tell me truly true
I feel afraid and I don't know why I do
Is there another girl for you

If you could see in my heart
You would know it's true
There is none, Cérise, except for you
Except for you
I swear to it on my very soul
If I lie may I fall down cold

When Reuben played on his painted mandolin
The breeze would stop and listen in
Before going its way again

Masquerade began when nightfall finally woke
Like waves against the bandstand dancers broke
To the painted mandolin

Looking out on the crowd, who is standing there?
Sweet Ruby Claire at Reuben stared
At Reuben stared
She was dressed as Pirouette in red
And her hair hung gently down

The crowd pressed round, Ruby stood as though alone
Reuben's song took on a different tone
And he played it just for her

The song that he played was the Carnival Parade
Each note cut a thread of Cérise's fate
It cut through like a blade

Reuben was playing his painted mandolin
When Ruby froze and turned to stone
For the strings played all alone

If you could see in my heart
You would know it's true
There is none, Cérise, except for you
Except for you

The voice of Cérise from the face of the mandolin
Singing Reuben, Reuben, tell me true
For I have no one but you

If you could see my heart
You would know it's true
There is none, Cérise, except for you
Except for you
I swear to it on my very soul
If I lie, may I fall down cold

The truth of love an unsung song must tell
The course of love must follow blind
Without a look behind

Reuben walked the streets of New Orleans till dawn
Cérise so lightly in his arms
And her hair hung gently down."

Well it appears that for Mr. Weir, 64 is the new 34, and Phil, after his new liver, is always good to go, and as far as Kroeter and Duck, where ever you are up there, they were definitely channelling Reuben and Cherise just for you, and though the Weather Report called for rain, both cold and mixed with snow, and in a box, I was somewhat chagrined that even though help was on the way on the second set, initially sans Franklin and then avec Franklin, in a Rio Grande way, I was not able to recognize the former until well into my second lap around the new speedway, which ended with prudence rounded out by Johnny B, only fitting given their venue.

Things that don't resonate with me to the extent they once did(2)

Though David Hume may be able to out consume Schopenhauer and Hegel, what would Georg say about the current state of affairs which look like various Escher drawings?

In economics, the Keynesian age of government intervention to stimulate the economy is now emasculated by the federal debt, which may have been created by government intervention in the first place.  Escher drawing #1.  If we had followed Hayek, would we be in a worse place?

Liberal democracies, safeguarding freedom protecting individual rights against governmental tyranny may have created the gridlock precluding any solution to the problem.  Escher drawing #2.

Contrast the seemingly more unified ant hill of the Chinese and their massive government intervention in technologies in the future, not only in Ph.D's in science, but green technology, investment in Africa, South East Asia, and likely soon in Europe, as the Euro Zone struggles with its own Escher drawing.

For Hegel, history has a purpose and a redemptive end, the full realizing of our  potential for freedom.

"The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom."

The state when it is fulled with spirit, is shot through with the realization of freedom.  In an ethical society, the state is in fact an expression of human freedom.

However, the expression of this freedom is unlike anything I can articulate. 

This is not a freedom in the negative sense, a freedom to do what you want, a freedom from coercion, as in the Western British/American sense.  This is not a glorification of individual rights.  Nor is it a system of checks and balances to prevent the tyranny of the state.

The  government which governs best for Hegel does not govern least.

There exists the real possibility of government intervention embodying the spirit of the times.

And if you understand any of this, you are doing much better than I am.

Tattoo you(4)/The Apolitical Activist(1)

The quoted portion below is an excerpt from a discussion which which occurred immediately before and during a  Hot Bag of Donuts.   The political views expressed here are not those of the Blogger.  Indeed, the Blogger is "apolitical" or is a political agnostic.   The Apolitical Activist(1) tells the story of the job review of a young male political activist.   In that review, the young activist is described by his supervisor as "remarkably apolitical."  That was not meant as a complement.  I still have that document, probably, somewhere.

 Here, in another story involving a young female apolitical activist sporting tattoos.  The juxtaposition of the Disney tattoos and politics is disconcerting/amusing:

"I so pissed off a Marine today in class."

How?

"We were discussing the Swallows in Kabul

and in the book there was this mild mannered intellectual who ended up stoning a woman who was thought to be a prostitute."

"And I said, we'll that could be anyone.  Everyone could have cast that stone.  People are like that."

"And this Marine was all saying how Americans were trying to bring those people throwing stones out of the dark ages".

"And I told him like that America is a terrorist state.   We always say that we are defending our homeland against terrorists but look what we are doing there.  Were freaking going in and wiping them out.  And what are they doing, but trying to protect their families against us."

"And the Marine got all pissed at me and telling me how he was fighting for my freedom and I was taking it for granite.  And I told him whose freedom?  Those people don't want us there.  How would you feel if some army invaded your country?  I told him American is the terrorist state.  And then the Marine got real mad and left the middle of the class.  He like couldn't debate me yo.  I told him to suck on this.  I told him that in front of class."

"I think the teacher is beginning to like me because she didn't like the Marine either."

"She always gives me 98."

The Dancer (5)

It was always more about the smell than anything else.

The dank musty odor of her last lover's homestead.

The cedar smell of her new husband's carriage house,  the long walk up the stairs to the antiseptic cleaning.

The new sheets on the carefully made bed


elevated high off the ground with brown twilled comforter.

So unlike the futon on the ground at the homestead.

She slept better on the floor


and where the bedroom had recessed walls forming a cave, and her bed was shielded and grounded, she felt safe.

But here amid in the high bed, granite countertops, and shiny appliances there was nowhere to hide.

Only the melancholy heaviness that this would not last.

Was she tired of her lovers, or tired of herself?

Would she ever find anyone that she could give herself fully to, completely enmesh, completely disappear?

Scenes inside a Gold Mine (5)

Last communication fragments from alien vessel MX5-VKL found at Area 51, United States (1953) (recently translated):

So there I was angling down into the atmosphere.

First the green mist that you can't breathe.

Then the red that only makes you choke.

Finally,  the clear white mist that smells like lilacs.

The ground came up with a thud, and covered me in darkness.

There was nothing.

Slowly and slowly, inch by inch, I crawled to the surface and poked through the dirt.

I started heading south.

Noiselessly over the sand.

The heat was unbearable.

There was desolation flat cracked jigsaw mud over and over again.

Time slowed, one frame to the next, delayed by inextricable circumstance.

The grinding down lowering in intensity.

Lights above me and lights below me and a....(end transmission).

The Artist (5)

There is/was at the cross roads of my life.

Not literally.  Was I  standing at a junction?

The road to the left cut across a field and disappeared in the yawning mouth of a forest.

To the right, winding into the lofty mists of the mountain peak.

There is/was sitting on the TV.   Watching the road.

The TV is the road and it is at a standstill.

Swill.

She peers in through the door and makes no movement.

What was the choice/decision?

It is on the whole probable that we continually dream

but consciousness while waking

makes such a noise that is/was do not hear it.

This is/was the case of the missing woman.

The expectation broken.

The plot diminished.

Things that don't resonate with me to the extent they once did (1)

From Spinoza to the Law of Conservation of Energy, the natural state of the mind is a return to equilibrium possessing zero energy.

If a stimulus acts on the body (e.g. a hand touching a hot stove), the electrical impulses would travel to the brain from the hand creating a surplus of energy in the brain, thereby disturbing the equilibrium.  The brain must "abreact" or discharge the surplus energy by creating a reflex response (e.g. electrical impulse from the brain to the hand).

Easy enough when the stimulii are externally created but what about internal emotional stimulii?

Emotional stimulii improperly abreated (ie. someone insults you and you hold your tongue, stifling instinctional reflex actions to act out physically or verbally) are repressed by the conscious.  The energy, however, must be diverted somewhere to restore equilibrium to the brain.   The repression releases energy via two mechanisms:

a.   displacement--you feel the appropriate response but attach it to another object (e.g. take it out on someone else besides the one who originally offended you).

b.  conversion--the energy is transformed into somatic sensations (e.g. stress, upset stomach, panic attacks).

How does this model explain the inherent primary energy we possess (the instinctual energy present outside of our external stimulus)?

What happens to our sex drive when it is not abreacted?

Lets go ask the mystics :-)

The Music Lover (8)

"Oh, the ragman draws circles
Up and down the block
I'd ask him what the matter was
But I know that he don't talk
And the ladies treat me kindly
And furnish me with tape
But deep inside my heart
I know I can't escape
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end
To be stuck inside of Springfield (sic)
With the Memphis blues again.

Well Shakespeare he's in the alley
With his pointed shoes and his bells
Speaking to some French girl
Who says she knows me well
And I would send a message
To find out if she's talked
But the post office has been stolen
And the mailbox is locked
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end
To be stuck inside of Springfield (sic)
With the Memphis blues again.

Mona tried to tell me
To stay away from the train line
She said that all the railroad men
Just drink up your blood like wine
And I said "Oh I didn't know that
But then again there's only one I've met
And he just smoked my eyelids
And punched my cigarette"
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end
To be stuck inside of Springfield (sic)
With the Memphis blues again.

Now the senator came down here
Showing ev'ryone his gun
Handing out free tickets
To the wedding of his son
And me, I nearly get bursted
And wouldn't it be my luck
To get caught without a ticket
And be discovered beneath a truck
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end
To be stuck inside of Springfield (sic)
With the Memphis blues again.

Now the preacher looked so baffled
When I asked him why he dressed
With twenty pounds of headlines
Stapled to his chest
But he cursed me when I proved it to him
Then I whispered, "Not even you can hide
You see, you're just like me
I hope you're satisfied"
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end
To be stuck inside of Springfield (sic)
With the Memphis blues again.

Now the rainman gave me two cures
Then he said, "Jump right in"
The one was Texas medicine
The other was just railroad gin
And like a fool I mixed them
And it strangled up my mind
And now, people just get uglier
And I have no sense of time
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end
To be stuck inside of Springfield (sic)
With the Memphis blues again.

When Ruthie says come see her
In her honky-tonk lagoon
Where I can watch her waltz for free
'Neath her Panamanian moon
And I say, "Aw come on now
You know you know about my debutante"
And she says, "Your debutante just knows what you need
But I know what you want"
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end
To be stuck inside of Springfield (sic)
With the Memphis blues again.

Now the bricks lay on Grand Street
Where the neon madmen climb
They all fall there so perfectly
It all seems so well timed
And here I sit so patiently
Waiting to find out what price
You have to pay to get out of
Going through all these things twice
Oh, Mama, is this really the end
To be stuck inside of Springfield (sic)
With the Memphis blues again."

The Zen Guy (8)

"Clouds vanish and the sun appears-
the endless spring is revealed.
This is not a time of yin and yang.
Thus, no communication whatsoever is possible.
The truth is not like something."


This is  not a time of dualism, the separation into yin and yang. 

This is just you and you fill the universe

If there is no separation between you and the universe, there is no communication.

Simply acknowledging yourself.

How can there be words for the eternal spring?

or this?

Things that don't go together(7)

Ok, so these things really, really don't go together:

Walt Whitman's transcendentalism and the human microbiome.

Walt used to sing to himself

claiming to be at once individual and universal:

"I am large I contain multitudes."

Oh really, Walt?

The microbiologists tell me you are mostly bacteria.

Could it be you really are full of shit?  :-)
Supposedly, you have ten times the number of bacteria cells in your body than other cells

and over a hundred times the amount of bacteria genes than so called "Whitman" genes :-).

So while you sing of a self infinitely extending

You are literally a sac filled with bacteria.

What a downer.

If only you had eaten your yogurt

You would have been truly craptacular.

Scenes inside a Gold mine (4)

If I had to do it all over again

I would live in parks every Saturday.

There would always be sun.

and there would always be grass and friends.

Noone would work.

Noone would care.

We would just live and pick fruit off the trees.


And Scott and I would wrestle in front of Stonehedge to impress Anne and Stephanie.


And we would know in our heart of hearts that it will never be like this again.


If I had to do it all over again.


Duck  and Kroeter would buy me burritos at Naugles on a bet


and 6 would be nine


And the Uge could convince them after the green chili

that there was always the sun

and grass and friends.

and we would know in our heart of hearts that it will never be like this again.


And if I had to do it all over again


I would tell my love


to cherish those homestead moments


while we still can.

Sillster Willster(1)

Oh where is my cell phone?

I cannot find it.

There is so much crap around.

Is it cleverly concealed underneath my fake tattoo?

If it gone, no one can find me and I cannot reach out

the devastation would be overwhelmingly overwhelming.

Oh where is my cell phone?

I cannot find it.

There is so much crap around.

If I reach under my seat, something may bite me.

And I would bleed zombie blood.  

I can almost taste it now.

Oh where is my cell phone?

I cannot find it.

There is so much crap around.


Have you seen my keys?

Mrlawyerman(1)

Mrlawyerman learned to scale himself back

which was probably a good idea

at the time.

He hit law school 87 degrees out of phase with the rest of his class.

To wit:

Organizing a tennis tournament named the "Franz Kafka Open."

Those who got it, thought it was odd

Those that didn't, thought he was odd.


While his classmates wore Ralph Lauren

and attended prep schools from the city

he hailed from some rural area out west, lived in a moldy basement,


and stretched his tube socks well past the point of maximum elasticity.

He even ate like an outsider and his organic bean mixture

stunk up the lunch room.

and socially?   Do we really have to go there?  he might as well have  been a virgin


for all he know about women

and he was too socially inept to ask any of them on a date.

Nevertheless, he was able to organize a guild for left leaning law students

motivated not so much by any ideology,

but as a way to assuage his own isolation with contact

the only way he knew how to express it.

As time marched on, however, the ineluctable blender of adding 150 students together

in the same class for three years began to modulate and homogenize the group.

Mrlawyerman included.

The Hippie Chick (5)

"Everything gets better with time and time is forever"

Really, Brook? ....Really?   Snort.

How are you going to cover up that shit?

How about this...

and how about you and your father and that bitch can kiss my white ass.

There will be consequences for your bad decision.

Tough love for the little people.

Forgive them lord

for the dumbasses

do not know what they do

because they are dumbasses.

I am so out of this place in 7 months...

And on the other side

Another lash

Visceral

Granulated

Thorn in the crown

follicle

drifting 

down.

The Music Lover (7)

"Lying in my bed I hear the clock tick,
and think of you
caught up in circles confusion--
is nothing new
Flashback--warm nights--
almost left behind
suitcases of memories,
time after--

sometimes you picture me--
I'm walking too far ahead
you're calling to me, I can't hear
what you've said--
Then you say--go slow--
I fall behind--
the second hand unwinds

chorus:
if you're lost you can look--and you will find me
time after time
if you fall I will catch you--I'll be waiting
time after time

after my picture fades and darkness has
turned to gray
watching through windows--you're wondering
if I'm OK
secrets stolen from deep inside
the drum beats out of time--

chorus:
if you're lost...

you said go slow--
I fall behind
the second hand unwinds--

chorus:
if you're lost...
...time after time
time after time
time after time
time after time "

Scenes inside a Gold mine (3)

A six year old sits in a church pew.

Musing.

"What if there is no God, nothing, absolutely nothing"

The naked immensity of the utter vastness of space. 

And his place it in, alone.

Visceral.

Years later, emasculated memory.

Consensus trance, through the reality tunnel

confusing map with terrain

Kantian filter.

Anhedonia.

Things I wish my daughters will read (1)

I'm sorry.

Things that don't go together (6)

Its all about chemicals.

Really.

Epigenetics.

Each nutrient put in the body, each interaction that the body has with the external environment

each experience

can manifest itself through biochemical changes

that ultimately dictate gene expression.

It shouldn't be that surprising.

Why would we not think we are products of our environment?

We are what we eat.

Be careful who you love.

Stress kills.

Don't sniff that glue, fly boy.

Each exposure triggers a chemical change in the body or brain

that mobilizes a methyl group of molecules.

This group attaches to the control segment of your gene sequence

either activating or silencing the gene.

Either way changing the course of your genetic activity.

We are malleable.

Ask the protester now in front of Wall Street.

He was in a dead end job six months ago.

With panic attacks.

Overweight.

High blood pressure.

Lost his job.

Joined the protest.

Found a woman.

Shared a sleeping bag.

Started exercising. :-).

New chemicals.

Free organic food.

For the first time in his life, felt that he was accomplishing something.

Where he ought to be.

Do you think gene sequences have been altered for him?

Want to check his blood pressure to find out?

The Zen Guy, Ch. 7

"Where did you come from?"

Why out west, of course.

"How did you practice out west?"

I stretched out in space and time

continuously discrete.

Two score and a half dozen years ago

maybe less on a good day.

What was changing in all that time?

Look at the video shot yesterday.

Blue collage shirt, black Om hat dancing

turning to The Wheel.

The link is on You Tube.

But that would be cheating.

Here's another cheat:

"Its all now"

But that was me on the video

by the way :-).


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0UjFKiM6dA

(Mt Pleasant, Jakes Leg.  With arms around.   And bellies getting warm).

Scenes inside a Gold mine (2)

The Barmaley Fountain in the Russian city of Stalingrad in 1943:

The unbroken circle of children dancing and playing  around the crocodile immune to the war torn city burning all around them.

This was Stalingrad, the pivotal battle of World War II.

If the German's drove the Russians from the city, potentially all the oil and natural resources of the Caucasus could be powering the Nazi war machine for years to come.

The statute survived the battle.

The German 6th Army did not.

The same German soldiers who two years earlier marched victoriously into Paris on top of the world

were now surrounded, freezing, and starving:

What did they think of the dancing children?

Or the inscription at the base of the statue:

"Little children! / For nothing in the world / Do not go to Africa / Do not go to Africa for a walk! // In Africa, there are sharks, / In Africa, there are gorillas, / In Africa, there are large / Evil crocodiles / They will bite you, / Beat and offend you - // Don't you go, children, / to Africa for a walk / In Africa, there is a robber, / In Africa, there is a villain, / In Africa, there is terrible / Bahr-mah-ley! // He runs about Africa / And eats children - / Nasty, vicious, greedy Barmaley!"

The Dancer (4)

Then she had this dream that followed her around during the day. 

She was on this wildly spinning carousel with flashing strobe lights.  It was a gigantic party and everyone was drinking and the room was still spinning.  The gyrations became faster and faster and then there was a scream.  Then there was blackness and she was lying in a pool of her own vomit.  The carousel was deserted.  The town around her was dilapidated.   It looked like a German town in the 1940s after being bombed.  It was in the morning.   She heard a church bell.

She walked through the empty streets to the church.  There was an organ playing.  She walked inside.

At the front was a huge bloody crucifix.  It was still bleeding.  It had been decapitated.

She started yelling.

"Fuck you, how can you treat women like this!"  "You fucking priest bastard"

The music stopped.

She woke up.

The Zen Guy (6)

"There've been times when I wander
And times when I don't
Concepts I'll ponder
And concepts I won't ever see
God isn't one of these
Former or latter
Which did you think I meant
It doesn't matter to me

Bug, It doesn't matter


Bug, It doesn't matter


Bug, it doesn't matter

(Thoughts faded)

Bug, it doesn't matter

(Overrated)

Gold in my hand
In a country pool
Standing and waving
The rain, wind on the runway
Spending or saving
Credit or debt
Which did you think I meant
Nothing I see can be taken from me."

From the sociology experiment in Peoria

The Music Lover (6)

"I'm always hearing voices on the street,  I want to shout, but I can't hardly speak.  I was making love last night  To a dancer friend of mine.  I can't seem to stay in step,  'Cause she come ev'ry time that she pirouettes over me. And I only get my rocks off while I'm dreaming,  I only get my rocks off while I'm sleeping. I'm zipping through the days at lightning speed.  Plug in, flush out and fire the fuckin' feed.  Heading for the overload,  Splattered on the dirty road,  Kick me like you've kicked before,  I can't even feel the pain no more. But I only get my rocks off while I'm dreaming,  I only get my rocks off while I'm sleeping. Feel so hypnotized, can't describe the scene.  Its all mesmerized all that inside me.  The sunshine bores the daylights out of me.  Chasing shadows moonlight mystery.  Headed for the overload,  Splattered on the dirty road,  Kick me like you've kicked before,  I can't even feel the pain no more. But I only get my rocks off while I'm dreaming I only get my rocks off while I'm sleeping. " (from off broadway) Then this: I found myself singin' Like a long-lost friend The same thing that makes you live Can kill you in the end. Can we get it together?"

Things that don't go together (5)

What do the Pruitt-Igoe buildings built in the 1950s in north St. Louis

have in common with the World Trade Center?

Well for starters, they both were designed  by the architech Minoru Yamasaki.

For seconds, they were both demolished by intentional, though markedly different means:

There seems to be a lot of failed utopian ideas at play.

Pruitt-Igoe was built in two separate groups of buildings.

The Pruitt complex to house african americans and other minorities

Igoe for the whites.

This had to have been back in the 1950s.

The complexes were later integrated

Never achieving more than 50 % occupancy

Architecture journals praised the complex as a beautiful example of International Style housing

which would alleviate and even end poverty and to cure society's ills.

Some residents, upon moving in, said it looked like a dream come true.

Crime, vandalism, decay.

This was before the planes impacted the buildings.

Flown by people brandishing an entirely different type of book

and a radically different type of dream.