I have a dream, that I hope will come true

A lonely volcano sings a song to find his better half.

He finds one, after only a brief moment of despair.  

Meanwhile, the movie goer goes inside out twice in one week--all the while strangely preserving his own indentity of goof ball island.  

A bumpy plane ride into Denver finds people bonding together to discuss biking trails in Denver during the roller coaster descent.  

Speaking of bike trails, certain artwork along side the biking trail in Denver has an almost hypnotic quality about it.

Then many high school friends, some who haven't been seen in over 30 years get together at the Kitchen next door and discuss fraudulent solar power cars-for a seven grade science project. 

I really enjoyed reading this book:

In this loft with these people

And when my favorite sister arrived, there was a lengthy bike ride to see various uncles

and to check out the new fare at the Breckenridge Brewery

Then when your dad refuses to go to the oyster bar--you go with your sister and she discusses her dates

"Here is My Soul; I Eat at Chez Nous"

We cannot help at times but to walk in darkness.  It calls to us.  The voices point out what we lack.  It promises us a great many things.   It shows us our pain.

Before the voices called to us, we had no name.  Once named we realized we were alone.

The voices tell us that we should not be alone.   That we will not be alone again.  Ever again. And if we are not careful, we will hear many things.

We may come to believe that the voices speak truly.  There is no consolation in not believing.  And if we listen to the voices in the darkness, we have hope. We cannot help but to listen.

How then shall we recognize what is not darkness?  To this I can only say:  You will think you know many things.   You cannot know how you know.   The path beyond the darkness transcends concepts and your petty thoughts.   There is nothing promised.  Nothing to be gained.  But if you listen carefully, day after day, week after week, month after month, you will know what is not darkness.   The strong will wait. And listen.  And will know.  Until they forget.

For you will always hear the voices.  And the darkness will always return.

Forgetfulness can sometimes bring a freedom of sort.  But it is short lived.  Times change.  You move on.  You do what must be done.

At times, you will feel the lack of sleep forcing you into a miserable state in which everything seems flat and of equal importance.  Were nothing matters and reality seems threadbare.   At these times, I sayeth unto you, this too is not darkness.  Look carefully!

And at other times, you cup will run over with the exuberance of life.   To this I say, look closely, savor it while you can.  Life is of supreme importance.

a strange twitching on the calf brings thoughts of an EMG.  How many will show at the camel reunion?  Will there be any Brunello left?   What will float #4 bring.  These questions and more may be answered through the voices in the next installment.

Homogenize, Decentralize

The following are the top one-hundred songs of all time as selected by the editors of Kitsch magazine.   (The following is subject to change without notice and the information contained on this is general information only and should not be relied upon as legal advice or counsel. The following list is not an offer to represent you nor does it intend to create an attorney-client relationship with you. Any links in this website are included only to help you locate other Internet resources that may be of interest to you, and are not intended to state or imply that this blog is associated with any such links. The blog does not warrant the accuracy of or claim any responsibility for the information contained in these other websites).  On closer examination, you will find that these songs are in no particular order:

1.  When the Shah Sleeps in Lee Harvey's Grave--Butthole Surfers
     1a.   Michigan--Josh Rouse
2.  El Mariachi--The Freak Fandango Orchestra
     2a.  Take a Walk--Passion Pit.
3.  Help on the Way/Slipknot!--The Grateful Dead

      3a.   Pop Muzak--M
4.  Never Tell--The Violent Femmes

       4a.  Rock Lobster--The B52's.
5.  God only Knows--The Beach Boys

        5a.  Spanish Castle Magic--James Hendrix (lol)
6.  Let that Good Thing Grow--The Jean Paul Satre Experience

         6a.  That's what you always say--The dream syndicate.
7.  Gates of Steel--Devo
          7a,   Underwater Moonlight--The Soft Boys
           7b.   I got the hots--The Soft Boys.
8.  The Meeting--North Mississippi All Stars
9.  Cemetery Walk--Umphreys McGee
10.  Wise Up--Aimee Mann
11.  Skating Away(On the Thin Ice of a New Day)--Jethro Tull
12.  Memo From Turner--Mick Jagger
13.  Brown-Eyed Woman--The Grateful Dead
14.  Freeker by the Speaker--Keller Williams
15.  Cannibal--Scratch Acid
16.  Holiday in Cambodia--The Dead Kennedys.
17.  Under Pressure--Queen/David Bowie
18.  Ashes to Ashes--David Bowie.
19.  Many Rivers to Cross--Jimmy Cliff
20.  Roscoe--Midlake
21.  Greenlander--Pavement
22.  Kansas City--Okkervil River
23.  Heavy Metal Drummer--Wilco
24.  People Used to Dream About the Future--A Girl Called Eddy
25.  Maybe I Belong--Howie Beck
26.  Connect Up to Me--Ric Ocasek
27.  Candy-O--The Cars
28.  Mexican Cousin--Phish
29.  Unbroken Chain--The Grateful Dead
30.  Time Stands Still--Rush
31.  Lost--The Meat Puppets
32.  Death Valley '69--Sonic Youth/Lydia Lunch
33.  Home--The Talking Heads
34.  Little Wing--The Jimi Hendrix Experience
35.  Happy Death Men--Echo and the Bunnymen
36.  Slit Skirts--Pete Townsend
37.  Eminence Front--The Who
38.  The Revealing Science of God--Yes
39.  Comfortably Numb--Pink Floyd
40.  Scissor Man--XTC
41,  Time to Pretend--MGMT
42.  Vava Voom--Bassnectar
43.  Metarie--Brendan Benson
44.  Can You Get to That?--Funkadelic
45.  Swimming Pools(Drank)--Kendrick Lamar
46.  Tonight's the Night--Neil Young
47.  I Found the Essence Rare--Gang of Four
48.  The Trader--The Beach Boys
49.  Sometimes a River--The String Cheese Incident
50.  Half Moon Rising--Yonder Mountain String Band
51.  Let's Go Crazy--The Clash
52.  Blank Generation--Richard Hell and the Voidoids
52.  Daisy Glaise--Big Star
53.  Celebrated Summer-Husker Du
54.  Bar-B-Q Pope--The Butthole Surfers
55.  Good Feeling--The Violent Femmes
56.  El Espectro--Scratch Acid
57.  Genesis--Jorma Kaukonen
58.  How I Wish My Train Would Come--North Mississippi AllStars
59.  Burnin' For You--Blue Oyster Cult
60.  Freedom of Choice--Devo
61.  V--Golden Smog
62.  This Wheels on Fire--The Band
63.  1972--Josh Rouse
64.  Estimate Prophet--The Grateful Dead
65.  The Sound of German Hip-Hop--Clem Snide
66.  Right in Tune--Railroad Earth
67.  Ghost--Phish
68.  Let's Get Radical--Gogol Bordello
69.  Breath--Keller Williams
70.  Jenny & The Ess-Dog--Steve Malkmus
71.  Tom Courtenay--Yo La Tengo
72.  Goodbye Caroline--Aimee Mann
73.  Two Weeks--Grizzly Bear
74.  Blue--The Jayhawks
75.  Come and Find Me--Josh Ritter
76.  Kick Drum Heart--The Avett Brothers
77.  Our Life is a Movie or Maybe--Okkervil River
78.  Jane--Golden Smog
79.  Evangeline--Matthew Sweet
80.  The Ballad of El Goodo--Big Star
81.  I will Dare--The Replacements
82.  Can't Forget--Yo La Tengo
83.  Box of Rain--Grateful Dead
84.  Golden Lady--Stevie Wonder

        84a.  Blame it on the Sun--Stevie Wonder.
85.  Sweet Old World-Lucinda Williams
86.  I Can't Hardly Stand It--The Cramps
87.  Back of a Car--Big Star
88.  I'll Be You--The Replacements
89.  The Rover--Led Zeppelin
90.  Sea and Sand--The Who
91.  Subdivisions--Rush
92.  Ruebin and Cherise--The Jerry Garcia Band
93.  The Wheel--The Jerry Garcia Band
94.  Little Fury Things--Dinosaur Jr.
95.  True Love  Part 1--X

        95a.  We're desperate--X
96.  Black Girls--The Violent Femmes
97.  It Can Happen--Yes
98.  The Ghost in You--The Psychedelic Furs
99.  Wouldn't it Be Nice--The Beach Boys
100.  I Dig a Pony--The Beatles

I want to go on record(after my solo ride to the danenberger winery yesterday) that "never tell" and "shah sleeps in lee Harvey's grave are the two most significant punk songs of the last century.

We will let you have Cuba, if you don't interfere with our efforts to destabilize the Ukraine

Is a successful foreign policy an endeavor of skill, or chance?

I don't know, lets consult the IChing.

They say that Reagan consulted a psychic.

Bill Clinton didn't really have to confront anything significant during his entire presidency.   Maybe that's why he had so much time for Lewinsky.

Obama strikes me as too busy for such frivolities.  During his tenure, for better or worse, America has taken marked steps in reshaping alliances with the "normalization" so to speak of relations with Cuba and Iran.  And probably more steps in East Asia that aren't publicized.

The younger Bush misjudged what would happen when you removed the glue that held together Iraq. Naively, perhaps, like most of us, we believed that democracy would take hold in the absence of oppression.  In retrospect, it was obvious that Iran would play a much bigger role in the internal affairs of Iraq than we would.   And Saudi Arabia had a role all along on preventing this.  Hence, Isis. When you throw in a "little" unrest in Syria, its not surprising that events degenerated into the cluster fuck we now see.

 I remember a Saturday Night Live skit in the 1990s poking fun at Bob Dole's campaign.   He, of course, was going to lose the election.   The economy was booming.   America was the preeminent world power.   Why change the status quo?  I remember Clinton was in the background in the skit catching all kids of fish without really trying.  Because his was a lucky term.  The 1990s seem like a life time ago--when America could do no wrong.   I even remember Clinton commenting once toward the end of the presidency that nothing happened during his term that would have tested his "greatness."   True, in more ways than one.   Clinton will likely go down in history as the president that reigned during the false bubble of prosperity before the real estate bubble burst.  In other words, much to his chagrin, (and attempts to write his own indelible chapter in the history books), history will regard him as a nobody.

 Bush, the younger, will likely go down as one of the worst presidents in American history.   When he could have taken a million high roads instead of taking many low roads by bending to public pressure to do something in the wake of 9-11.   Maybe it was inevitable anyway.   My God, Al Gore or Bill Clinton likely would have fucked up things worse.  Only Obama of all the recent presidents probably through inaction would have done what in retrospect would have been the course dictated by the IChing.

Of course, if we don't know what to do next, we should always, of course, do the next thing:-)

 

many miles logged.   Augusta and the Kati trail again.  This time with pow pow and the mystery flat.   Its a blur after that.   And on the way to chicago, I could have sworn that my self was either falling away, or I was having a stroke on the way there.

Sometimes Nebulous, on the way to a Strut

"One of us should believe in something."

Oh, is that your problem with me?  That I don't believe in anything?  Or that I don't believe in anything you like?

"No, I really don't care what you believe in.   I just think you have a lousy taste in music.  And you think that you can dance, but you really can't.   Which also isn't a problem, but you think that you are going to teach me how to dance, which in and of itself isn't a problem, because I could probably use some dance instruction, but just not from you.  Because its obvious you have no sense of rhythm."

Then you must think I'm shallow.  Oh my God.  I'm that shallow.

"I didn't say you were shallow.   Why did you say that?  That's passive aggressive, thinking that I'm saying something about you that I'm not.   Most of the time I hardly even think of you, in fact."

 Its just ....it feels like the adventure is over, you know?  Like we won the war.   And I've been at war so long that I don't know how to do peace."

"Jesus, what kind of war have you been fighting?  I know I said you should stop taking your meds but...

Shhhh, you two, said the priest, suddenly appearing from behind the curtain where the couple was standing.   Can't you see you are in a Church?

The church was in St. Louis. Except it could not actually have been in St. Louis because it had ceiling art straight from the Gothic age.   And flying buttresses.   Even on its most distorted weekend, St. Louis never had any places of worship constructed more than a few hundred years ago.

 I had no interest in going in.  But I thought that since I live in this town, I should at least have a passing familiarity with the local tourist attractions.  The Church looked deserted anyway.   I could probably sneak in without anyone noticing me.

When I entered the vestibule, I was surprised that it was all modern and renovated, however when I ventured back behind the altar it opened up into a yawning cave.  And instead of pews all the penitents were standing on a platform which sloped downward into darkness.   As I walked down to the edge I realized that I was standing on a platform overlooking a chasm.   Moreover, the platform was starting to wobble.

"You've done it now.   This Church is going to fall into the pit now all because you had to take a closer look over the edge."

I didn't do anything.   Can't you hear the moaning and wailing coming from below?  What's going on with this Church?

"Its just metaphorical, silly.   You know, we are in a Church.  Probably a Catholic Church given its age.  Why shouldn't there be a grinding and gnashing of teeth?   It just a device used to thicken the plot."

I have no idea what you are talking about.

I strove to keep my balance to avoid falling down into the pit.   Back up by the altar, a priest was yelling at me to come back, that the platform was off limits.  Meanwhile a gaggle of altar boys were running to the other end of the platform to help balance it out.  Eventually, the platform righted itself and leveled out.  I was relieved.   But not before I saw a set of steps leading down into the pit from the side.   I decided to investigate.  I was once again alone on the platform, the priests and altar boys mysteriously disappeared.

"Hey, wait for me.   Don't leave me alone in this creepy Church.   Are you sure they want us to go down those steps?"

The second float is a bad trip. More oysters are consumed at my old stomping grounds.  The moonlight hotel is in sight for my 50th anniversary of being. I am serenaded by Sarajane.  There are all kinds of foreign speakers around me.  But they eat my grass fed butter without delay. As I sit on my espresso and read to transmetropilitan