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.