More Inane Detritus

Knowing

2011-04-07T23:24:00.003-04:00

And you, night: I recognize you now. Every day, from Court Street to beyond 125th Street on the ACE and often back, after walking atop the bee hive vibration of a hollowed out spine of earth and iron, I see you. In that soot-patinæd steel projectile we sway and lurch in perfect unison, eyes never once meeting, for years?, but our shared space and witness to humanity at its pinnacle of mundane, to labor, to rest, to labor again.

Maybe you were sad

one day.

I couldn't have known.

For all that we share

in the vacuous space

under the dirt and concrete

and asphalt and mortals

whirls in tunnels and passages,

wet and dank and unseen,

silent but for the ephemeral gnashing

of steel on steel,

hastening ever.

Maybe you don't want to know,

and perhaps

I don't either,

the depth

and meaning

of events and news and wonder and droll.

Maybe I do.

And maybe that's why

I feel...okay

hurtling, as we do,

seeing you there

every day, from 125th Street

and beyond Court Street on the ACE,

and hopefully back.

Midnight Contemplations/Errata, in Conclusion with a Touch of Sadness Somehow

2010-03-07T00:01:00.003-05:00

Haven't seen this side of midnight in some time.
No worries, the photo is many years old.
It's been said that it's quite possible (and perhaps all too often palpable) that one can feel alone in a crowded room. I've been performing involuntary empirical studies on the subject lately and I can attest to its validity. And then the gosh-durnedest thing occured to me...again: resentful though I may have been, my dad's 'words of wisdom' keep coming up. Oh, and proving true to boot. (That's the clincher.) Tonights episode fruited another gleaming jewel in said crown with the long ago and far away utterance, "Artists aren't happy people, and maybe when they become happy they stop being artists. They thrive on misery and suffering." I greatly disliked that one, and now I see that my distaste lay in my own myopia: I simply hadn't accrued the experience in life to grasp the concept.

I finished writing the lyrics and music to a song tonight that has been dangling, netless and weary, for several years. I kept thinking, "I'll have the time sometime. I'll make the time sometime." All that crap. Anyway, tonight, alone and frustrated or angry or sad or whatever the hell I was (likely all of the above), I finished the song. It's quite the lamentation in the end although I'm not certain it was meant to be. Don't get me wrong, the melody veers at times toward melancholy, but the impact of what came through me tonight was great. For me, at any rate.

Too much this, none of that, very little of the other stuff, all abutted with silence and aloneness. Lonliness and lamentation sure to follow in whatever form pleases ones muses. Mine answered with song, and for that I'm grateful.

There's little point to any of this, dear one, but for me as a means to regurgitate some emotion lest I get clogged. (Hey! What a catchphrase: Blog to Unclog!) I know this, but I'm glad it's here, any time, day or night.

I'm glad you're here too. I hope you know that.

Cutting Diamonds

2010-03-01T20:47:00.003-05:00

Many years ago (in excess of 15....whoa) I wrote a song that began with the lyrics, "I said the winter was hardest on me, you said you knew, and without those same excuses, what would I do?" Prescient prose, really, considering its still somewhat miraculous that I come out the other side of February every year. This year I've fared...well, I've fared. When gaunt, hollow-cheeked sailors arrived back in some Spanish port after three years at sea, no one was concerned with the question of how they fared the voyage, and so I'm not entertaining the inane query regarding this winter either. Those that haven't grave tidings are simply miserable in my world this winter. Were it not for the children I may have leapt into the Doldrums of the Horse Latitudes myself. I have muttered the word 'fuck' more in the past month than I have in years...cumulatively. This winter has been hard on me. You knew. Excuses, I know.
When my projects for work tanked before Thanksgiving, you may recall that I was racing about, trying to maintain a family of six humans by any means available. The only means at the time amounted to my current full-time work; to say these means are meager is to call the Lake Erie a nice puddle. The wage is not even nearly enough to support a family, and to supplement I'd been working seven (all seven) days a week. Helps make the winter wonderful. At any rate, after several weeks of this and the mounting, ominous feeling that the condition was not soon to change, I freaked on God. Lost my shit. I screamed and cursed until I very literally lost my voice. I came home and cried really hard on Marcy. I told her that if this is what the deal was between me and God then I wanted out of the contract.
A couple of weeks later, Marcy was scheduled as worship leader at church, and so I was needed in attendance in order to contain the children. I had not been back to St P's since Don left, and the cleft had only widened with time. (Read: I was not pleased to be there.) The children sitting/sleeping contentedly, briefly, I perused the bulletin. The silent meditation read (loosely): Failure is a part of all this. To take this in stride and remain in faith is where discipleship truly ends or truly begins. I ruminated on this for three days before I had a deeper understanding of why it rang my bell so loudly. (I'll assume you probably get it right off the bat, and will spare you the exegesis.) The next morning (every morning from 5:30 to 6:30 is my study time) I opened a particular interpretation of the canonical Bible at random and read. Sixteenth chapter of the gospel according to Luke. Bounced off my frontal lobe like a four inch rubber ball. I read it again; I mean, this is what I opened to, this is what is meant for me. In the end I've now read five (yup, 5) interpretations and still pretty rubber ballish, although I get glimmers I suppose.
Anyway, many twists and turns later (trust me, you'll want to be spared this tome, including my self-inflicted thesis, "What the Christ Jesus Puports to Know Regarding God"...top of the bestseller list, to be sure), and I'm bringing you right into today, I've been spending my study hour back with the Buddha. Drawn like a magnet to an interpretive selection on the esoteric teaching The Diamond Cutter, I've been almost late twice now for my reluctance to put it down. Funny, when one considers that I've had the book for several years now, and have even begun reading it twice before. I suppose now is the time.
Okay, so as I was saying, I read something this morning that has resonated very deeply with me, all day. I hope it resonates with me for a lifetime. Please do allow me to share with you. (Don't concern yourself with any forebearing context. Really.)
"...like watching a pink lotus in a pond near our monastery in India, rising from the only thing that can sustain it-a mash of mud and debris. The metaphor is cherished by Buddhists-Can we be like the lotus? Can we swallow the pain and confusion of life, and thrive on it, and use it to become one of those rare jewels of the world - a truly compassionate person?"

I am officially blown away. Maybe I just needed to hear it in a different prose, a different tone...I don't know, but it speaks directly to me and asks me to check my inner reality, which is always a good thing. I mean, I do try, every day, and strive to be a truly, genuinely compassionate person. Maybe its just that I feel like my roots have been in the shit lately and this is someone saying, "Hey, we all get in it brother....the question is do you have what it takes to move on to the next level now?" And maybe all I needed was to be a) reminded that my situtation is not remarkably unique, and b) gently told that the shit underneath can maybe just be the rich humus of humility and helplessness needed to make some other part of this flower grow.

I dare say I'm not what you'd call 'thriving', but I hope I'm presenting the best lotus I can to the world, earnestly, and genuinely. I hope this one stays for a while. I hope to grow on this one.

In a dream

2010-02-17T20:40:00.002-05:00

....I have boundless energy. I carry enormous burdens without wincing, my brow not furrowed when eyes cast to God.

...I know what you need, because you are so important to me. I know what I need, and oblige. I'm important to me too.

...money is a concept more than foreign, an entity no more considered than pants on a hamburger. Home is underfoot and the floor is as granite: unwavering.

...I live with the sure knowledge, not needing recognition or description, that I am God...and God is I. We are one seeking ourself.

Errata:

I thought of my mother the other day. I was having lunch by myself on the job and found myself speaking to her. As I questioned why I would do such an ostensibly absurd thing, I found I was more truly asking a louder, deeper question: "If you're around, if you even have the faintest of consciousness to any of this, please let me know." At the precise moment I became aware of what I was asking so deeply, I noticed some movement to my right. I turned in my chair to see a mouse, standing, staring at me, just out of arm's reach. Moments into the encounter, as dissonance flooded my mind, the mouse ambled behind some wood. "Hey, little friend, you needn't be frightened of me," I entreatied, "come on over. I can share my lunch with you." At that, the mouse walked quietly over and sat directly beneath me in the chair. Psychically stammering, I cut a piece of tortilla and dropped it to my left, whereupon the mouse gladly picked it up and scurried behind a plastic pail to eat it.

I left the mouse some rice, beans, and more tortilla in the container placed on the floor and went back to work.

The container was washed clean by the time I left for home.

Rob Base and DJ E Z Rock

2009-07-21T11:58:00.002-04:00

What, pray tell, does Rob Base have to do with any of this? I'm so glad you asked!

They created the ever-prescient song Joy and Pain, the gist of which is, not a big surprise, the omnipresent duality in life...."sunshine, and rain" as is sung. And so it is with not a little unclarity that we commemorate the passing of my mother on this day, two years ago. We had a strange relationship that felt to me often that just calling on the phone was to stick my hand blindly into a basket of rattlesnakes. Perhaps not the most pleasant of images, but apt nonetheless. She had baggage that predated my birth, baggage that weighed so very heavily on her daily, baggage that I somehow managed to get packed into apparently from the moment of birth. I have not unwound the ball of emotional yarn even nearly yet, what with all the knots and snarls.

At our worst, I feared her more than any human on the earth, and her proclivity for emotionally filleting me was second to none. I was the bag she beat on, the dog she kicked at the end of a bad day. I never reached the apogee of hatred, per se, but rather remained bewildered and groping in a haze of constant surprise (naïveté on my part, to be sure).

Nor do I think, presently, she necessarily hated me, which offers some comfort. My mother was a devestatingly sad and injured soul wandering this earth, and I was merely a reminder of many sad and injurious years of her life, and it has taken many years just to understand this part, and now to begin to unravel the truth that that was not my fault. Powerful stuff on those days I can remain in that vibration.

I look back with some genuine fondness nowadays. She was, after all is said and done, my mother; I was of her flesh and blood and bone. Being a parent, I understand that there are profound implications of love that run deeper and broader than any human spectrum can comprehend between a child and its parent, and she most certainly posessed that love as well. And perhaps now that I am a modicum wiser, a bit more sure of myself, I even miss her. I loved her profoundly always on earth, and I love her even more now.

To my mother: we never had it easy, and we did the very best we could with the strengths and weaknesses we had. I hope you look as fondly on me and my family as we look to you. It was an honor and a real blessing to be with you at the time of your passing, and I thank you for allowing us to be there. I love you so very much, and I am working diligently on genuine forgiveness. I hope you're well and learning all you need in the loving hands of God, in tender Mercy and infinite Grace.

Joy and pain, sunshine and rain.

Hard time with this ship.

2009-07-20T12:42:00.002-04:00

Okay, here we go. The seas are rough, brothers and sisters, have no doubt. Why must this world be like this, you may find yourself asking, to which I've come to respond, "It's not the world, it's society" that shapes the crests and deep-bellied troughs. Staring out over an ocean of mediocrity and expenditure of energy to increase capital for wealthy capitalists, and the ebb of economic tides sends us plebian crabs skittering for any ort of paying labor we can manage to grasp in our atrophying claws. The neap of available workforce delights the hungry gulls on the shoreline, a workforce wide-eyed, scared, and lost in the twilight of confusion and fear that has obscured the warm sunlight of security like pollution being pumped from the factory stacks inland.
I don't like the idea that now we work for medical benefits, job security, and lowered wages in exchange for a bonded family and joyous life. "Are you willing to work 60 hours per week?", "Are you willing to work nights, weekends, and holidays?" These ubiquitous queries are, and with full intention, emotional tenderizers preparing the unfortunate candidate for the fires of the oven.
Wanna jump on the big American cruise ship of capitalism? Get ready for a harsh dose of spiritual scurvy, mateys.

2009-01-22T10:52:00.002-05:00

The breakfast was a rousing success, with total net donation to the family over $700. The event was covered by no fewer than five media sources, including the two newspapers in the area, and we all had a really great time doing it. We served more than our goal of 100 people and hope to make it a regular event. Feels pretty good!

We kept the children home from school on Tuesday so they could witness all the history unfolding with us at home. For all the bane attached to the television (not the least of which from within these very walls), we were very grateful to have had access to the events of the day from the warmth of our own home. Amidst all the tears of peace and joy, the cheering and clapping and general hooting and hollaring, I think we all came away with something that will live like Emily Dickinson's bird of poem in our hearts for the rest of our lives.

Let's carry this pervasive energy of hope and compassion for as long as our spirits are able.

Sharing the Dream

2009-01-17T16:08:00.002-05:00

Don't forget that in revernce for the late Dr. King, the holiday celebrated as "Martin Luther King, Jr. Day" was established as a national holiday (day off from work) in order for Americans to be of service to their communities and beyond.

Anyone local can come to St. Peter's from 8 until 11 in the morning Monday, where Marcy and has organized a pancake breakfast under the auspices of the Youth Group. The idea being that one should have a hearty breakfast prior to undertaking a day of service. 100% of the proceeds will benefit the family in Chatham that lost their home to fire recently. With an infant and two older children, the total loss has been even more devestating for the family to bear. Many local service-providers and retailers have generously donated thus far, with both financial capital and locally-grown/produced goods. More than a hundred are expected, and we'll be ready for even more, so don't be shy!

For my friends more far-flung, what a terrific opportunity to show gratitude and Grace in action. Rock on! Change is the popular contemporary mantra, and all change starts from within, so why not get out there and help someone else. God knows we all need to...nothing, absolutely nothing, compares to the feeling of selfless giving, and Monday is the opportunity to just get on board and do it...and all in the memory of a gifted and brilliant leader.

Have a blast out there with your friends and neighbors!

Like Tubing the Approach to Niagra Sometimes

2008-12-05T22:50:00.007-05:00

On an early Queen album (as in, 1973), there's a line with a modestly triumphant tune that goes "Funny how love is everywhere you're bound to be...", and it gets stuck in the reel in my mind every now and again, and tonight was one such evening.

Elephants. Our son is passionately fascinated with them, has been for possibly eternity. As I was saying goodnight this evening, I noticed he was crying, and when I asked him what was going on, he burst out in tears and pointed to a cartoon of, of all things, two presumably Neanderthals (literally) hunting a mammoth. It's a kids' book ostensibly, so the images were highly stylized, with googly-eyes on the mammoth, the hunters' no different. But tragically, deeply effected he was.

Truth is: I punted. I mentioned that it was just a cartoon, and when that went over like, well...lead...I went to the door and called for The Mom.

She's good, very kind and infinitely compassionate, and spoke with him very briefly but effectlively. Then she had the chore of explaining life to me. Ha! At any rate, I gathered up an elephant that she had given me for Christmas years ago and headed upstairs. It's beautiful: all legs, trunk, ears, tali and neck are articulated, and it is hand-hewn from a single block of wood, festooned with tapestries and jewels (in paint). It was given to me as a marionette, but upon gazing at it hours after receiving it, I cut all the twine from it to set it free. It actually completely altered the creature.

So anyway, I went upstairs and made the point that the elephant in my hands represented the Indian elephants that are regarded as dieties and exalted with passage and jewels. After describing how they live, I shared a short moment from personal experience with one of my greatest teachers. He made the point that life was vastly less complex if only we do the next right thing. I said, "How do I know what the next right thing is?" His reply was classic Chris-ism. He said, "Just do what's in front of you."

Like it's just that simple.

At any rate, I explained that what that means for us is that we have a choice at nearly every turn to decide: do we want to be ivory-hunters or do we want to view elephants in awe as gifts from God? We discussed that it's not always easy, that we all stumble every day, and that it's about progress, not perfection. Blah blah blah. But sheee-it, did it get me thinking.

Love when that happens.

I'm giving my notice at work on Monday. Marcy has been offered the greatest compliment in that they've not only extended her position, but are currently creating an even greater one for her. She has steadfastly pushed me to move on some other things, and now some are moving toward me as well. I'm fucking miserable at this job. I once again have been put in nearly impossible, no-win situations and shit on for even being there. Problem is (and I have a high threshlold for discomfort in this regard) I end up carrying this sack of shit home with me. The kids are typically in bed by the time I get home, but I wake up ready to chew through the wall, which isn't really that great either. The children have moved so far away from me anymore, and Marcy often just goes to bed to avoid a tirade. At the same time, here comes this glorious news ("news") that the unemployment rate is approaching double-digits, the market is set to fall, pandemonium in the streets and bedlam at the door.

But here's the thing: I've lately been realizing that A) my priority is to be a husband and father, first and foremost, B) I won't get another shot at this, i.e. the kids will never be young again, and C) what am I going to have to look back on when I'm 90? Pay stubs, or relationships with my family full of Grace and Love? And what of the fear? The fear is that we'll nose-dive and crash financially and end up living in her parents' basement or something, I guess. But of course, the current picture is nearly that bleak anyway. And add in how the question was posed to me last week by an esteemed teacher, "Sounds like the choice between Faith and fear.....and what would happen if you took 'The Leap' anyway?"

Indeed.

I'm taking the leap. I love my family way too much. I love my life way too much. I do not believe that God has intended for me (or anyone, really) to be bound by shackles of money, that imaginary, illusory commodity we've all agreed means something. My hands tremble still, to even utter the notion, but I want so much to have my family back, and when push comes to shove, I suppose yes, I am more willing to take The Leap than live in fear and misery.

Life is getting better by the moment, this I do believe. I do believe that Grace is available if only I'm willing to receive it. Happens all the time. All the time, and without fail.

I don't always know what to say or how to respond in this world, and certainly that applies to my own children. I never got the instruction manual. But my love for them is ferocious and empassioned, and I will wear it like a crown and mantle while protecting them like a lion. My wife is perhaps the greatest of blessings in my life. She is strong and wise, and soft and quiet. She guides me and helps me to strive for greater than what my limited human mind can grasp. My love for her is eternal and brighter than the sun.

I am a good father, and I am a good husband, and my legacy will not only be that, but that I lived in Freedom and Gratitude. I am but a servant, forever filled with humility and awe, and I ain't servin' money.

May we continue to know the Prescence of God in all we do.
Let's revere the elephants and show gratitude in our days!
Most of all, may we all tread the path of Light with Love in our hearts and minds.

Smoke and Mirrors sans Mirrors

2008-11-21T22:07:00.002-05:00

So as I began to expound in reply to one of Zee's entries on Sunburstgem, I realized I had a lot wound up in this ball of yarn in my noggin.
Oh, the gloom and doom and dire forebodings of the market collapsing and giant corporations tanking and people running mad in the streets. All with the basketball sized pill that the Detroit Three execs rolled up on Washington to plead for money...in their own private jets. Paying taxes this year, anybody? Anybody?
The deal is this: what is the effect on me, lower-middle-class tax bracket guy? Well, at first I thought: not much. The price of fuel is falling which seems like a good thing (I try my very best not to entertain my most cynical thoughts as to that ridiculously volitile market and the reasons driving that farce). I'm not seeing too dramatic a reduction in sales at work, and a lot of folks are saying they're not really aware of any downward trends there, either. But a large factory recently closed in Hudson, just down the way, and that may be a sign. Hmm.
Here's what I've concluded, and in this order (I say that in truth as well as because it kinda makes me chuckle...I don't know why): regardless, and I mean 100% regardless of authentic, genuine experience of the world around us, the media is throwing this market-collapse shit at us like rabid chimps on Ex-Lax. No kidding. It is very nearly impossible to escape the storm of harrowing "news". So as the casual observer of my authentic world, I see a lot of smoke but can't even smell a fire. And so it is with consciousness, I believe: an energy has been generated by this tidal wave of media reporting and whether we choose to hear it/see it/read it/belive it, it's there, it's here, all around us and seeping into our very psychic pores as we merely exist contemporarially. Why this miasma? I'm not sure. Oh I have ideas, but then again you probably do too. Suffice it to say that someone (read: small groups of people) are benefitting heartily from chasing this population of buffalo off the cliff, and even more money is changing hands by the day. This, my friends, I believe.
It's really too bad that it has to be this way, too. But there again, if it is, then surely it must be meant to be so. That's what Faith would have us believe, and sometimes that's bitter and enormous and downright painful....but it's as near Truth for me as I'm able to give anymore. Marcy and the kids and I, animals too, are going to make it, our lives and our life together are amazing, every day, and I really honestly and with all my heart believe that we'll spend the rest of our earthly days with our hearts neatly nestled in this miraculous Truth. We've (collectively) been through the crucible and, sometimes, we think that we just may be there again and again, and that's becoming more and more okay with us.
Marcy and I have come to a very different place with each other. We laid in bed and discussed life the other night. How we ended up where we are, how we need to improve on our situation. How we're going to move through this to the next level, and how we're going to carry the family. Who are you? Remember when we got married? What a glorious time! We were so in love, and so carefree. I still love you madly and God knows I wouldn't want to do this with anybody else. One in billions to me and I'm so very grateful for you in my life.
Our life is fantastic, very much like a fantasy. We have each other, we have our beautiful babies, and we share our space with some pretty amazing sentient beings. Would I do it all over again? In a heartbeat, even on a bad day, and they've been plentiful. All that shit, all the pain and the heartache and the excrutiating pain of loss and lonliness, all so remarkably hot in order to forge this amazing life. Well done, God, well done! We wouldn't turn down a few good breaks, but we get it! Wonderful! Not orgasmically giddy or delusional with abject, laughing happines, but a quiet knowledge that as my understanding (Faith, I think) grows, just to that extent does my inner peace and warm, easy joy. What a wonderful gift. I am really, truly humbled to even consider it.

Oh yeah, that miasma? I'm guessing it'll always be there. But so will my Bella, coming home from school with pictures she's drawn of us as a family with her response to the question inside of "What are you thankful for?" being just the word God surrounded by all different colored hearts, fluttering around the word.
The media will tell me that the darkness has descended on the world market, and Casen will still bring home another Good Citizen award, I have no doubt.
My baby will wake up and awaken me with a big, awkward kiss and we'll play bonk until she's ready for a diaper change. My wife will love me for this soul that lives inside me, with all it's glory and pain, and will show me for all time that it is a Truth. My animal friends will remind me that I can make the biggest difference in the Universe today, right now, by choosing Love.
And God willing, that's exactly what I'll do.
Thank you for your time and consideration and all your wonderful, loving thoughts. It is all given back tenfold.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wtjs0L5Gxlc
The above link, if it works, is something I've found so inspirational as to pull me back from some depths as of late. May it be so with you!

Into the Mystic

2008-11-08T22:07:00.005-05:00

I've almost gotten beyond random spells of sobbing with heartfelt joy. There are cynics among us, and some of the suspension of trust and myopic faith in any one politician is not misunderstood. Here's the deal with me and my deep sense of hope and happiness: (you may have suspected a rave at this juncture, I suppose....)

First, we now have voted to become a part and participant in the world in which we live. We have voted to become members of the global village, and I do believe that Barack Obama understands that and all the implications of his being elected to pursue that end. I believe this of him.

Hand in hand with this is that we are experiencing a variety of sensations as a direct and profound result of Obama being elected. We no longer need to live with the fear, however subconscious, that any dissent of the actions of this government is 'unpatriotic' and, of course, worse: punishable. We no longer need to feel the weight and chilling dampness of this shroud we've worn for eight years or more now. We've been freed from the seeming interminable gloom of the obvious lies and the callous disregard. We no longer need to feel embarrassed to be American. On the contrary, seems like most of us are feeling pretty freakin' good about being American right now.

Perhaps I'm overly optimistic, and perhaps a bit naive, but there's so much more at work here, so many things vastly bigger than this superficial stuff. There is something afoot amongst us, those of us who choose to be open to it. We're giddy. We're breathing. Sobbing randomly and getting excited chills. I am, and I don't think I'm alone.

The bottom line is that (as has been said more eloquently) Obama could do nothing and something is still vastly different. Are you with me? It's a sense that something has been freed, given way, and is among us. It's good. It's wonderful. Something very, very big has changed for the better. Think 'genie from a lamp'.

I am so grateful for Barack Obama, and I say so unabashedly. My family is grateful. I, personally, feel hopeful for the first time in a very long time. I hope you allow yourself the opportunity to drop at least a peice of your armor and let some in. Even if for a moment, think optimistically, dream, hope the best of hopes. Set all your best wishes for yourself, this country, and the whole beautiful world on rafts and set them afloat in this. Seriously. It's part of it, I'm sure. I'm sure of it.

He says, "Yes, we can", and personally, I believe him.

Yes we can.

This is just a random photo from
when we went to the mountains
a couple of weeks ago. That's all

2008-11-07T09:41:00.000-05:00

Yes we did, and Yes We Can

"Life is beauty and sorrow"

2008-09-27T21:42:00.004-04:00

I've lived my life thus far, at least for the past 30 years, with the largely disclosed knowledge that my mother did not love me. The repercussions have been, to put lightly, staggering and the implications as they pertain to who I was and who I have become were something of a malevolent, smoldering forge; this knowledge become creation via crucible.

And I whipped the proverbial horse of this bizarre turn on into the depths, wrestled the demons of the fray, and emerged battered and less than victorious but never fully vanquished. As of late, and since my mother's passing more than a year ago, I've struggled much more privately, due largely in part to needing to be more 'complete' for my family, et al. Now and again my mind would wander the empty streets of the burned out boroughs that were those times remembering. Remembering and not understanding. And at times I would rack with wails and heave in anger and frustration, "how could you do that to a child? What would possess a person to behave that way? Why me? What did I do?" The synapses fired and the water frothed and the frenzy was soon underway. It took days at times to recover.

And very recently something tragic and beautiful happened. Marcy has taken a ten-week, full-time job in order to help alleviate some of the crushing debt we carry, and to help with the times that we gather change from the cars and the house to buy a loaf of bread. Glorious times, and I'm very pleased to say that as far as we can tell, the children have no idea whatsoever. But I digress. So Marcy began this job last Monday. Her mother and father have agreed to help by watching the baby during the day and picking the older kids up from the school bus. Very gracious, and certainly no cake-walk...they're in their mid-70s. I have been going to work a bit later so Marcy can leave the house at 7 a.m. and I can take care of getting the kids to school and the baby taken care of and all that. Poop diapers at sunrise, oh yeah.

And about midway through the week I became so depressed, so very down, and I couldn't pinpoint why. Seemed nothing was bringing me back to the surface, not even the old tricks. I was really struggling with the vortex of this new reality swirling about me, consequences and motives not of my devise, that everything that was now taking place as the new norm was counter in every sense to what I hold dearest in my life. I am a father and a husband, first and foremost, and I can and have become a mad bear when impeded in either case. The new scenario: we're dirt fucking poor and deeply in debt; my job keeps me from my family all but two days a week and doesn't even cover our bills; my wife is now away from our 8 month old daughter from sun-up to sundown; my kids tell me that life is so much crappier since I took this job and that they miss just having dinner with me.........

and there I was, driving my baby to my parents-in-law's house, and the emotions had reached the boiling point and were threatening to blow the lid off. Reaching back into the carseat I felt my baby's little hand grasp my finger and give it a kiss, cooing something all the while. I began crying. I thought, "It shouldn't be like this. I don't want it to be this hard, I'm doing so much that this shouldn't be happening...I just don't get it..."

Then the queerest thing happened.

I remembered something.

I was quite young, 5 at best, and my mom and I were living in Kentucky sitll. We had moved from a tenement apartment with no front door (someone even stole our dog one day) to the backseat of my mom's blue Buick Skylark convertible. It had no rear window, and once it had dusted snow in on us as we slept; I squealed with delight...my mom cried.

So I was maybe 5, and my mom was wearing a pantsuit, her hair down (I used to cry when she put it up). I didn't fully understand what was happening. I was put down in a room full of other kids my age on a floor made up of tan and orange stick figure people. My mother chatted quickly and nervously with one of the older women there, in their green aprons. She bent down and gave me a kiss and began walking out the door. Walking out the door! Well, that's crazy! Why would my mom leave me here? Must be some mistake. Holy shit! There she goes past the window!

And suddenly I remembered with frightening vividity the agony. The pounding on the windows, screaming. The aides pulling me from the window as I kicked and screamed. My mother, her pace quickening to a near run, her hands to her mouth. She was crying. And I just know that she sat in her car and cried till she thought she would die. Her heart broken, that would be the longest day of her life. And all this with the knowledge that this was life now, this is how it was going to be.

I caught a glimmer of that anguish, and I've begun to know the weight that is The Change. And with this pain and frustration, anger and sadness, comes the blossom that is the very genesis of it all, the seed that is Love.

Without some pretty intense love, I wouldn't have such a strong emotional reaction every day; without this love, I may not really care what happened as long as I was taken care of. But that's not how it is. My love for that baby comes from a place so much deeper than I alone am capable of generating that I am certain it is a pulse from the Universe, or, as I prefer to phrase it, the Love I have for that baby is a reflection of the Love of God. Way bigger than me, of that I'm sure. And likely just as big as it was unavoidable for my mom.

I don't relish in discomfort, and I don't look forward to hard times and harder lessons, but by God I'm grateful for the lessons that come with them. And by Grace and diligence I hope I'm able to truly learn these lessons.

Brothers and sisters, we'll never understand God so we may as well give that one up. Let's have Faith that we're not impossible coincidences and think, feel and act Love in this life.

The Love is there, it's just a matter of being open to it.

I love you and I think you're wonderful. Keep up the good work.

Post Script Oblige': A thousand thanks to my brother Adam, without whom I couldn't share this. Not only did he send along a functioning CPU, he paid for the freaking shipping. How cool is that?

Thank you, Adam. Thank you.

Lactose Intolerance and the Weight of Touch

2008-08-24T21:41:00.006-04:00

What a week. No worries, I'll barely scratch the surface here.

I will add that I keep dreaming about my old truck. It's been quite pleasant, really. I visited her a few weeks ago...still sexy. Too bad she's a drunk.

Anyway, I drove much bigger trucks in NYC for a few years a while back. It was tough, and I really wasn't the epitome of driver I think, given my interactions with the many I interacted with. Not to be construed as a perjorative judgement, mind you, just a different lifestyle with numerous other lifestyle choices, that's all. At any rate, I've been...well...bothered by one of the drivers at work, and perhaps this outlet is a letting go. Okay, I'm hoping this outlet is a letting go.

Here's a guy, mid-20s, hates life and thrives (and I mean Thrives...yes, capital T thrives) on misery. Bitches about everything. Everything, no hyperbole. I know full well, after having the opportunity to observe this character, that most of this, likely all of this, comes directly from his parents, probably imitating his father; if his father was the only role model for this male, it logically proceeds that he would be heavily imprinted as his father. And it's too bad folks have to live like that. I mean, I'm of the opinion that God has given us this opportunity to learn, and we ain't learning much by repeating, much like we won't get much out of "Gimme Shelter" off the original vinyl pressing if the record skips. skips. skips. The woman singing backup so deftly steals the song from any of those guys, and it only really comes through, filthy and grungy and nasty, on the vinyl. CDs and even cassettes were remastered to eiiminate the soul, er, I mean the background noise.

But I digress.

If the record skips, and the repetitive loop keeps playing and playing and playing, one would never have the opportunity to have their hair on their arms bristle upon hearing it. On vinyl. So it is with us, and with enjoying our gift from the Great Mother/Father, the Universal All, the Big Love. God gave us this life, here, now, as an exquisitely generous gift. I think it was Sogyal Rinpoche who recollected a brilliant teaching from the Knowing Buddha: to live as a human (to be incarnated as such) is an opportunity much like a turtle blindly swimming through the center of a life-ring cast in the middle of the ocean. I think of that one from time to time and it still resonates. And such is my belief on the creation of one's own life: I am here to live a life of my own making, based on my own book of experience, footnoted with gratitude to my teachers along the way.

Long way around the park, but now back to the driver.

Poor kid. He's never just left. Drove. Gotten in his car and driven out of state. Far away. Alone. You know the kid. Just almost zero life experience, and it's pitiful. Not in a sarcastic or deriding sense, in the sense of the ease with which I and others conjure pity for his plight. It's life-myopia, and it's a dead end, he just has no idea. And I bear pity in mind to a point, and that point was reached quickly just the other day when he pulled in with his six year old son (yes, he has a son). First of all, as a heavy smoker, he had just pulled a seven hour run with his young son in a cab of thick gray cigarette smoke. But to be honest, that wasn't even the saddest part. He later explained that since his son is lactose intolerant he and his "old lady" feel "a little guilty sometimes" when they go out for ice cream and he can't have any.

Am I alone in feeling put off? Really put off?

I'm currently human, so I ask for guidance, ask to become a bigger vessel. I'm trying.

I have an experiment for you kids at home to try. Go more than a week with no human touch whatsoever. At all, no brushing past, no handshake, nothing.

Then receive a hug. Hold hands with a dear loved one. The touch is as expansive as the universe and probably as powerful as well.

When I was an impatient greenhorn, thinking I'd had all the tutelege I needed, I built this wall. In a day. The guy with the excavator who was to come and back fill and grade the area behind the wall was going to be two days later than we had agreed on, leaving me...well, impatient. I finished building the final four feet on a seven foot height in remarkable time. It was beautiful. Imposing, straight as an arrow's flight. One of the blocks at about knee-level was a fraction of an inch out on one corner, so I tapped it with the back of my fist.

What you see above to the right is the result of impudence, impatience, wanton disregard for what I knew all along was haste, and yes....what you see is also the result of touch.

My baby daughter continues to be a profound teacher of extraordinary merit to me. She has lately been working with me on touch.

The lesson only began to break through the cloudy skies of my waking consciousness when I was, well, half asleep.

My most beautiful and exalted wife had just about had it a few nights ago. Our little angel has gotten into the interesting habit of waking every hour or so. All night. Vociferously. I wake most times and try in vain to help, but my wife does absolutely take the brunt of the waking and the labor of nursing and coddling and all else. I've begun to become a modicum more helpful in that I take the baby for early morning walks down the road, or scoop her over to me and coo and such to quiet her. My wife, my Iron Woman, has taken to sleeping on the sofa at some point during the night between wakeful jags.

That said, I just couldn't get that baby to relax and go to sleep the other night. Exasperated, I laid the down pillow over her from the chest down...and she stopped crying immediately. Interesting. From then on, I've been laying my arm across her while curling her little body into mine, and it most certainly soothes her, although it's as of yet far from infallible (the blanket still on the sofa, bags still under all adult eyes). At any rate, it got me thinking about touch, and the incredible power it holds. What Grace, that we wield such power for goodness, for love. The blessings of touch are divine, and I hope to not forget this lesson.

What a great baby.

Of course, I may be a little predisposed to a certain opinion.

Wow. There's a babble. Feels nice, though, and I certainly appreciate getting it out of me. Zee, assuming you'll feel this even if you don't read it, thank you for your wise words. The blog is like an old friend, always there and a great listener to boot.

Hope your vessel is growing exactly as quickly or as slowly as you're ready for at this point, brothers and sisters. I do firmly believe that God will never give us more than we're ready to handle, and that we can hope for and acheive great things for ourselves and those around us...if we just ask.

"Do not think so much.

Surrender. Believe.

Unprepared, move out to the world and testify.

The words will come. Serve.

From now on service is kingly.

There are no more kings."

-excerpted from a poem by Barry Hannah, inspired by the Good News of

Mark.

And verily I say, there are no more kings.

Service. Touch. Smile and laugh with.

What a wonderful gift, this life.

Thank God.

(Thank you, God!)

Still Rowing, With An Option to Drift

2008-08-08T23:17:00.004-04:00

Such a fascinating array of choice in this life, wouldn't you agree? After getting other peoples' responsibilities very unceremoniously dumped on me again (and again and again) yesterday, I consulted (okay, unloaded) with my other half, my most trusted and intimate confidant and guide, and after much consideration and discussion recommended that I remain quiet. HA! Remain quiet?! Why I... Well, that just might work, I thought, and I totally see where you're going with this. Okay, cool.

So quietly I entered today, and finding the whole family awake and ready to begin the day at 7, we decided that it would be a good time to follow up on some unfinished business. Kids dropped off at park program, we headed to Social Services. We've been hoping for (and indeed counting on) assistance, at least for food or oil.

I don't know when the last time you hung out at your county Social Services was, but I can attest to the...the, um...flavor maybe? of the experience. It was exhausting, no kidding, to keep the protective armor manifested around us, Charlotte especially, although she seemed to be having a good ol' time as always regardless of atmosphere.

At any rate, seems like there were quite a few able-bodied younger folks of questionable moral fiber and intention there, and that was discouraging, but the judgement is not for my role, and I'll leave it there, in mind and blog.

When we were finally called in, the counselor reviewed our budget (bills, lease, check stubs, etc) and declared that we, (and I quote) "make way too much money". I was a little surprised (we were just barely over the limit), and Marcy's face actually fell. I queried as to what that actually meant, and she replied that in New York state, the law requires that a family of five not make over $2,110 per month in order to receive assistance. Chagrined, we remained silent, stammering, to which the counselor provided some information about rent being $620 per month, to which I exclaimed, "We'll take that apartment!" Case in point, we lived (a family of five, mind you) in a pretty shitty town (drugs and drunks on the sidewalk) in a falling-apart, spider-ridden, ceiling-leaking broken-toilet wall-cracked mold-emporium hole in the freaking wall for $720 per month...and everyone agreed it was a steal for that cost. Upon leaving, we were a little deflated to say the least.

My beautiful love of my life was actually quite shaken, and it crushed me, kinda winded me, to see her like that. I silently asked for help.

The meditation I had read this morning came quickly to mind. Allow me to share a snippet: "Our decision to give love, then, can be a calculated one - we already know the results. This shouldn't be our motive though. Wondering what we are getting out of giving to others can be a hindrance to our peace of mind because we're missing God's point. If we concentrate on the giving, the receiving will take care of itself. Today I will try to give unselfishly."

I wondered how for only a fraction of a second before the news came. An elderly member of our congregation (and a woman whom I'm a deacon for) was taken back to the hospital yesterday, only days after suffering a mild heart-attack.

My wife, I would like to say yet again, is so remarkably soulful and connected...she got it immediately. We were off to the hospital.

Such a wonderful time. We visited and laughed and Ruth (the woman in the hospital, for those of you playing along at home) held Charlotte's hand and they giggled together. Ruth spoke often of her love for children, and how she would've had many more of her own if they'd had the money to allow it. After a while a nurse came in ane mentioned that she was going to run some more tests, so we once again offered that we lived only about 10 minutes from her house if she needed anything, and that I would stop by again soon if she was still in the hospital.

As good as it felt (and it felt wonderful) to have visited, as though we were there for her, it got extra-wonderful when we decided to stop in and see if Joan and Pam, two nurses who helped immensely with the birth of Charlotte, we in in the maternity ward. As we were opening the door, I mentioned how incredible it would be to see Dr Hines, the man who I credit with not just delivering my Angel Charlotte into this world, but also without question the man that saved Marcy's life. (Didn't hear about the daring and wrenching life-threatening birhting? Still brings tears to my eyes and sometimes makes me shudder still.) Needless to say, he is nothing short of a hero in my book, and I basque like an adherent in his presence, and his presence is radiant and beautiful on its own.

At any rate, who was the first person we see upon entering? You got it, Dr Hines was at the table, and we both said simultaneously and ecstaticallly, "There he is!" Laughing, he came over, amazed at how Charlotte has...well, thrived. I have all the more respect for a man who can let all the guards down and give and receive enormous, warm hugs, and that we did. We spent a while together, yakkin' away and getting his encouragement to have another baby (we'll see about that one...), and left feeling like we were walking on air. What a wonderful day it had become!

I've written well beyond what I had intended for this evening, so I'll truncate the rest of the day by adding that I then helped wash and pack some greens at a friend's farm and laughed until I cried with his 5 year old son, visited some other friends on their farm, then worked like it was the end of days in the office until my incredible love came for me and made me go eat pizza with her. It made the workload and the late night in the warehouse vastly more bearable to say the least, and I may even have enjoyed myself a bit in the process.

I guess when I'm really on it, when I'm really attuned to higher intentions, which is really a long-way-around saying 'when I'm open to hear God' (feel God, intuit God, whatever...), it's like stepping somewhere else entirely on the perimeter of the circle. The situation is the same: we're hard-core, sad-ass broke, and the bills that have accumulated in the past months are still piling up; my job requires long hours for minimal pay and zero acknowledgement; I don't spend nearly enough time with my family and I'm not sure how we're going to make it even before the winter even sets in! No shit! But the perspective changes drastically when I'm open to being moved to another part of the circle. The light is different, the perspective has changed. My family is amazing; I have more in them than I ever thought this life had in store for me. The love my wife and I share is worth many lifetimes. I am clean and sober, and can say that I haven't taken a drink or an illicit drug (still rock the aspirin now and again) in more than 7 years. 7 fucking years! C'mon, man, that is some Grace workin' right there! I enjoy my path back to God and the results of my search are my rewards in themselves. Ya know, it boils down to simply (ha ha) being reminded of what's truth, of what's real, what's actually important in this life. Not that crazy shit-storm of fear and ego and society, that'll be there whenever we want to tune into it. Some pretty crappy shows on the television...doesn't mean I need to watch 'em. Think I'll listen to the radio, take a walk, play frisbee with the kids. I won't be able to do that in another seventy years and time has a habit of sneaking around the backside when we don't pay attention. Bills'll get paid eventually. The present is the time to dance with my beautiful wife in the kitchen, let the kids know what love is all about.

Today was a good day.

I Never Feel Like Chicken Tonight

2008-08-05T21:24:00.003-04:00

In a world of odd images, this one gets some caliber of merit in my book. Look at this thing. Just odd.

And so it is, sisters and brothers, that sometimes there arises a strict intercession of credo, a jumping-off point, even when we may be inclined to cognitively feel as though we've traversed said chasm.

And so it is sometimes, too, that the event arises as a dust-dervish: silent and invisible, save for that which it pulls in from without. And indeed perhaps it is in these times of quiet and relative calm that decisions are to be peened into shape for use at a later time, for a later event.

Perhaps.

But that's just covering my ass.

Really the events that transpire at this point are very much like dust pulled up in the vortex of that dust-dervish. Maybe spray hurled from the perimeter of the eye of a cyclone. The sea is basically calm, the horizon obscured by thick fog and darkened skies.

Row row row your boat...

Lightening illuminates the troubled, pendulous clouds and the low, throaty growl of thunder washes over the vessel.

...Gently down the stream...

A furtive glance about the boat. Am I alone? Where am I and how did I get exactly here? Rocks and crags. Serpents and marauders. The mind wanders into dark crevasses, cold and eerily dank, where it knows it should not go.

Merrily merrily merrily merrily...

The night may soon close in, constricting and alien. At this late stage, who will come for me? How will someone find me? This voyage is not what I had envisioned, although to be fair, I hadn't envisioned anything at all. I was sold a ticket when I was quite naive, and now have no choice but to find my may. The sail is rent from top to bottom, the oars have been pitched in the earlier tumult, the rudder is splintered and worn. She creaks at the whisper of gale, and she's waterlogged and tired.

...Life is but a dream.

Life is but a dream.

Profoundly wise and virtuous teacher, as I regurgitated fears upon him one afternoon, asked me if I knew the song. "Yeah? How does it go?"

I sputterred, likely blushed, "Oh..."

But no. He pursued until I indeed sang it:

Row row row your boat,

Gently down the stream.

Merrily merrily merrily merrily!

Life is but a dream!

Smiling at me, he may have witnessed the corners of a veil being lifted.

I have some really uncomfortable decisions to make. I need to provide for my family. I've really got to learn the lessons right now.

I've deleted a billion words and will summarize with this: Things are tough, but God has never forsaken me, and I don't think God will now.

Mohammed reminded us that the sparrows never feared for not being provided for.

The disabled man at the Healing Pool at Bethesda told Jesus he couldn't get to the pool because no one would carry him. Jesus responed, "Take up your mat and walk."

Take up my mat indeed.

Row row row my boat, gently down the stream.......

And Brett called too!

2008-07-31T23:43:00.001-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urt2cy7AqFs
Dreams are some shit, huh?

Off-gassing and cumpulsory physiological jettisoning of the daily flotsam or inter-dimensional passage through the veils of heavy carbon-based reality? That's one for Sagan and Steiner to posit and discuss; as for me, I make statements like, "Dreams are some shit, huh?"

The link above is an homage (if not something more direct) to one such dream. Brett felt really poorly about something, emotionally I mean, and he spent a bit of time trying to convince me that he was actually fine but I was so not buying it. Then, or perhaps even throughout, I don't recall, the song above played. Played predominantly, actually. One way the Universe (God, if you prefer) works (in my opinion, anyway) is that from one ort of information or experience an entirely different universe is created. Granted it's to a greater or lesser degree, but the fact remains, and this Carole King snippet is a prime example to illustrate.

Heavily wafting through my dreamscape is 'So Far Away' by Carole King. Upon waking, I can't recall for the life of me what the song was that I was hearing, but on the radio that morning in the office I hear a different Carole King song and think first, "That is so awesome!" because a) I haven't heard a Carole King song on the radio, let alone that station, in what may be years, and b) it's what I personally nowadays gratefully take as a sign of Synchronicity in the Universe. (If you don't that's your prerogative, but I beg you to indulge in it's magnificent reality some time: it's intoxicating)

The next thing that happens (after being not at all subtly reminded of the presence of God in my life and thereby lifted to a higher vibration) is I see Greg in the warehouse (nextdoor to the office) and feel inclined to engage him in conversation regarding this song I dreamt of but can't remember. He can't pull any out of the air from 'Tapestry', but fondly recalls the album. Who knows where his mind wanders and therefore his outlook and whole day changes! See where I'm going with this?! Very cool stuff.

So now Greg and I talk a lot about...that's right! '60s and'70s music! Nice. Plus this morning it was still on my mind so I start looking on YouTube for Carole King songs to jog my mind and lo and behold there it is, jumping out at me (last night's dream included bike riding with Alton Brown who decided to try his hand at improvisational comedy before a weary audience that included an apparently bored polar bear...but that's neither here nor there). After I listen to it a couple of times, I continue to explore some other favorite artists, including Alana Davis, who I haven't heard from in over a year. Wonderful! I'd forgotten how talented she is, and recalled that I hadn't listened to her cds in some time, so I pick a couple out of the rack and listen to them on the way to and from work. She's so good. Good music, I'm happy!

Oh, and Brett called and he's okay, and I felt like a yoke had been lifted from my shoulders. All good.

It goes on and on, as though our collective conscience is really just a big pool and our thoughts ripples...kinda cool. Won't even get into manifestation here, but let's not forget what they even mentioned in elementary school for cryin' out loud: "manifest destiny". Break it down and think about it...how'd that one get past the machine's radar? LOVE IT!

There's a ramble for ya, and by God thank you for being there....even if you aren't. I'm talking collective here.

I'll be preparing for a cleanse soon, so as to better attune to my purpose as a conduit of God's Love in action; I'm looking forward to it.

In the meantime, hope you enjoy the song/video. Carole and Sweet Baby James are wonderfully youthful and...new I guess is the word I'm searching for. Perhaps it will effect you and your day/evening. Who knows?

Those questions are second prize anyway. The winner is in the being.

Remember Extreme?

2008-07-28T23:46:00.003-04:00

Come on, remember, "More than words"? Yeah, I know, most groan when forced to consider the song, but the portent holds yet. Above is a picture from the past week, when we all spent a few days in Pennsylvania at a family reunion. Charlotte was so happy to meet her distant cousin Claire that she, no kidding, gave her a big kiss. She was just ecstatic. The lessons I was granted are still unfolding, and this was most certainly a blessed event of the highest vibration...so much so that I still need time to consider and reflect and (soon, I hope) assimilate all that I was given. Such emotion, such wonder and depth...I hope to share with you soon! In the meantime, I thought the photo spoke some deeper innocence and truth that I could hardly wait to share, so there you have it.

And speaking of deeper innocence...HA! These guys were great fun. My wife gets such kick out of how I always sneak off with dogs wherever we go.

May you continue to feel the presence of an all-loving, ever-present Parent God as you wend through your days, and I hope to share some more time with you soon.

All I'm really saying

2008-07-23T00:39:00.002-04:00

All I'm really saying, at the end of all the tumult and unrest, is that this baby, this angel descended on Earth, has shown me under no false pretenses nor uncertain terms what Love that eternally pulses from the heart of the Universe (could read 'God' if you like) is real and can absolutely sweep you away once you let go and get caught up in it. This baby has changed my life and my outlook (as well as priorities and anything else we can conjure to espouse) so completely that the world is just plain different now. Period.
An infinite Gratitude to Mother/Father God from this mortal for the gifts. My family, my teachers, my friends and acquaintences right down to that woman that rang me out at the market this evening. Thank you. Never, ever ending possibilities and alternatives, choices and perdicaments, thank you. It really hurts sometimes, and I get so deeply down and beaten and weary, but when I have the strength to call upon the All, I'm reminded to slow down, to recognize (literally 're-cognize') my surroundings, and at last to remember Gratitude for the lessons and the strength and wisdom that comes with it.
I've gotten back into reading the works of my friend Bill W. and Dr. Bob, and it really helps to soothe my worried mind. My wife and I were just discussing late last night that we were so screwed into a tight spot, that we had few options and we just didn't know what we were going to do. I reminded us that it's rarely very smooth for us and that we have to work so hard for everything we earn, every inch we climb, and that it'll mean so much more that way in the end anyway. My morning meditation that I shared regarded the reality of turning it over, not being so caught up in the drama of fear that we forget that God is doing for us what we can't do for ourselves, and from addiction to getting up in the morning (which can be a real challenge at the nadir) it rings true...at least for me.
So yes, we're in a spot that I don't ever want to feel again, and by the Grace of God and the Loving Wisdom that is forever bestowed unto us, we won't have to do this or feel this again. We need only to learn this one. No small chore, but we're fuckin' tough, both of us, and we've got each other 100%, and we pull the kids in tight and let Rosco off the leash and we're good to go. We'll do this, we will learn this lesson, and we will heal the wounds we've sustained in the getting here.
I would really love to share with you this parting prayer, as offered to us a couple of weeks ago:
Great God, in Christ you set us free,
Your life to live, Your joy to share.
Give us Your Spirit's liberty
To turn from guilt and dull despair,
And offer all that faith can do
While Love is making all things new.

It's at the Heart of the Universe, sometimes when the mind is quiet we can really feel it. My hope for you is to sense this Love, and may the awareness carry you into the world filled with spirit, with love and appreciation of everyone else you meet, and the faith turn knowledge that you are known and loved.
Amen.

Fun times at the mall of culture

2008-07-19T01:05:00.002-04:00

Yep, had such an interesting time in NYC today. Ostensibly sales calls, the meetings were more like slightly odd films. I found myself listening as earnestly as I could muster to listen, but still wending through the veils of reality to find these actors still muttering on about some 'real-life' thing. It's as though we, as a society in this country (and some others, I'm certain), have become like one of those people that can't go on without some such drama in their life. I say screw that paradigm...that'll exhaust the spiritual adrenals or something....
No, I found myself thinking that my agreement with some things have changed, but in reality I think now I'm realizing the potential of higher aspiration agreements. Money is a prime example. Sing along, "money money money moooney....moooooney!" Now try this: "peanut butter jell-ay...jeeell-ay!" (For the record, that exercise served no greater purpose than to lighten you up a little bit....relax, why don't ya?) Money, we are all in relationship with it. It is a tool. I've heard it said that money merely affords us more choices, and I like that. I also saw a man today whose entire life seems to revolve around the stuff in some way, to the point that it's the only point of reference he could muster. Hmm. His labor minion, not looking him in the eye and shifting uneasily in their chairs as the meeting progressed. What an odd cast! What happened to the plot line?! I really enjoyed watching the film roll before me, and the levity I brought to the drama was warmly welcomed and appreciated. If only they knew! Cue Eroll Flynn! Their agreement with money was interesting as well, although they are a bit more coy when it comes to speaking about it (I ferreted through the gaggle of buyers after the meeting, checking for pulses).
Me? I want for my family and myself a cornucopia of choice, a veritable cascade of choices showering down over us, to swim in a deep pool of choice. Enter the money game in this world right now. Okay, I can play the money game, but here's the rub: I will not sacrifice my life for the gain of paper and coin. My agreement is that I have a family and a choice of lifestyle, and that to accommodate both I will need to earn money. Great! My new agreement also holds that I bear in mind what is real (to me) and what are distractions, illusions, mirages. I can work quite effectively within the system all the while recognizing that the wall are veils. I need to stay wary as to not become intoxicated again by imbibing that which is false around me. Most drama (when it comes to business, most certainly) is smoke and mirrors anyway, I just need to stay attuned to this as I enter the arena. I'll say this much, it makes shit so much lighter it's like a sack of grain lifted from my shoulders.
Is God cool or what? What a world! What graceful lessons!
I'll leave you with one of my personal favorites of the day. It came as I was meeting with the buyer for one of the Whole Foods down there. Time, no shit, no exaggeration whatsoever, was going so slowly, I felt as though I was entering the film for the Matrix or something, and the remarkable part of the time-bend is that it gives me time to really link up with what's going on inside me; it's as though instead of nanoseconds to respond in discussion, I've now a good 10 seconds or so to pull up what my True (key here, my True) feelings and thoughts are. It's amazing!
Anyway, so the buyer (we'll call him Eddie, because that's his name) and I were discussing how we're doing getting him fresh, local, organic produce this season, and he responded positively that the product is beautiful, fresh, the trucks are there on time regularly, it's all good.....except that silly little imp money is stealing some thunder! Ooo, that meddling monkey money! He said that he can often get local product cheaper through other distribution, citing that whereas our lettuce costs $32 a case, he's getting local lettuce from Massachussets growers for $16 a case. Time flowed like cold molasses, and I shook my head and peered mildly mournfully at the floor and replied, "Sure am glad I'm not a farmer in Massachussets..."
He got it. For a flash, and I mean truly, merely a flash, he got it and connected all the dots (maybe not all the dots, but a goodly number of dots). It was beautiful. He quickly retreated back through the veils, though, and with a numbing chuckle had left me to go back to mirage-land again, and that's okay. That's where he's comfortable, as are the vast majority of folks that have the luxury of not needing to concentrate merely on surviving the day. Heck, I go sometimes on purpose, although by God it's getting difficult to truly reach that destination anymore...and maybe that's evolution...maybe that's a good thing.
Hey, Love of God in my heart, I wish the very best for you today, e-ethers, and hope for you Peace in your heart and mind at the very core. All is God, as the back of my truck said, and I don't even pretend to try to understand much about that anymore, I just know it as a Truth, and in that comes knowledge that it's all lesson anyway. May it be so with you and yours and me and mine.

Here we are now, entertain us

2008-07-15T21:08:00.002-04:00

Nevermind the previous blog: too long-winded and almost incoherently scattered. It was very early in the morning/late at night and I frankly had far too many thoughts swirling through the cosmos beneath my skull. On that note, I offer this as a more succinct and engaging thought on awakening.

The awakening begins as we look around us, right here where we live and play and shop. A case of lettuce from the west coast of the U.S. will cost on average about $48US all winter long, with slight fluctuations. As soon as the east coast growers begin producing, the price plummets to (this season) $12US. You already know all the politics and all the angles, so I'll spare any further explanation.

The house my family and I currently rent, a modest pre-fab cape on a few acres was most recently assessed at $289,000US. What does a million dollars even mean any more in the face of such assessments? Who (oh, we all know deep down the whos and the whys) decided on these prices/costs? What happened to the idea of currency? It's still an idea, it's just that we've all been buying into (pun intended) what the worth and parity prices are being set at. Interesting.

Population density is severly concentrated in urban centers, although they're no longer centers of commerce per se (as cities once were) so much as parasitic moneychangers siphoning goods from the surrounding rural districts to perpetuate it's own false devices. It's true, and if you look at it, you'll see it quite clearly.

I love my family. It has taken me this entire lifetime thus far to earn the family that I have now, and it is now that I realize it is all I have ever wanted, and there is not a quark of hyperbole in that statement. By the same token, my family lives me and has come to count on me, not just for financial support but for the vastly more important spiritual and emotional guidance and strength that I lend to our shared experience. What a blessing! God really does love me! So why must I spend the overwhelming majority of my waking time an hour away from them in order to make money? I don't, is the simple answer, and there are certainly alternative lifestyles available (and we consider some as they come up)...but let's keep the focus on the general principle here, and that is that the reliance and building of a societal lifestyle around a false principle (again, it's just an idea, a concept) such as money is a structure built on wind and ash...it's not real and it's not true to any higher aspiration whatsoever.

I long to return to my studies, I long for a time when my family and I can just be, and be together...sharing time and experience and all that life has. I long to share the abundance of my life with others in a meaningful way. All this is attainable, it's a matter of 'swimming upstream' as my wife once put it.

The more prolific and certainly more obvious power currently is darker than not, and quite soul-less, and it is a challenge to go against it. But we do. And we must...we must continue to channel the Light.

There's so much more I'd love to share, but verbosity lends itself to something akin to narcolepsy, so I'll retire here. Thank you, for by being here in whatever presence you are, you are so for a reason, and for that I'm grateful.

Go in peace knowing that we are known...and we are loved.

Why am I awake...and what's this 'reawakening'?

2008-07-12T00:55:00.002-04:00

If I am to be enthusiastic (literally 'en theos' or 'in God') about God, that ineffable Infinity, and the direct relation to myself, I would hope that there would be Joy in it. Or more succinctly, as my wife put it this evening, I would hope that Peace would be involved.
That being said, I'll take you back to a few days ago. I've been worked to the raw bone for weeks now with no end in sight at my new 'steady, this will save you from debt' job; bills continue to stack up, largely due to the increased cost of the new house we're renting; the baby still wakes every few hours at night; I could go on, but you see the colors in the painting. So I drove the 45 minutes to work, all the while feeling this queer sensation that wasn't quite new, yet wasn't totally lucid. I sat at my desk and turned on the computer. The phone was not ringing, everyone was at their desks, diligently toiling away. My neck was kinda warm, and my abdominal muscles were tightened to taut. I couldn't resist anymore, and announced loudly to everyone present that "it's all fake! The whole thing is bullshit. It's all fake nothingness built on an invisible foundation that's invisible because it's not there!"
Stammering is a funny word, isn't it?
Only Joe, the head honcho got involved, and began a discussion based on the teachings of his primary teacher, and whole heartedly agreed, adding that our role was to transcend the falsehood and limitations of this earthly realm. I concurred, adding that we still had to involve ourselves in this realm, and....wait...this part of the conversation is a tangent...we'll hit that another time.
What's false? Haven't you been sensing the veils being lifted, these diaphonous scales that have obscured the Light for so long? Look around you....sense around you. It's a plastic (read: man-made, artificial, inconsequential simulacrum) world out there. What do most people talk about? How are we living? For me it all starts with the big lesson from Ishmael, that the split at the Fertile Crescent was the first big slip on the banana peel to today. The move to an agrarian society fractures the picture into so many different complications to start. Now you have people settling and working land, multiplying and depleting the surrounding area of all kinds of resources, denuding the forest and driving away the game. Population booms, furthering the whole process. Jump ahead, and you have the (just maybe insane) Industrial Revolution which now not only takes the fathers/husbands from the family life, but also creates metropolises. Now we have enormous, totally engorged urban concentrations such that no matter how much we funnel into them, they always need more. Now people in these cities are so far departed from the earth (true mother) that there's an entirely new cultural paradigm in play. Look at a television. My God! Where do these people come from? How did they get like this? Guess what?...these television people might just be the present norm! Even the most benign of programs, specifically "How did that get on my plate?" (a show presumably walking the viewer through farms and processing plants) is rife with such propaganda and misinformation that it sickens. Literally. Then the children are subtly endoctrinated. Radio. Newpapers. Magazines, internet, everybody is playing the game.
Now, my primary teacher, my go-to guy JC, he was the ultimate rebel. He turned everything upside down. Not just the money-changers in the temple, my friend, no no no...as was pointed out to me so exquisitely, Jesus turned all the contemporary dogma of the day on its head. A rebel, baby, in the truest sense. Now JC tells me, if I am to understand him clearly, that God, the All, the Great Mother/Father of the whole shebang, is all about Love. The prodigal son, each of us, running to those open arms. So what does that mean for me? Tells me that I'm loved beyond my most far-reaching dreams, and tells me that if I am like that son, then I'm like a child. As my dearest Chris pointed out so long ago, if my baby is learning to walk and falls down and begins to cry, what do I do? I get over there in a hurry, buddy, and I pick that baby up! I don't ask questions, I don't say, "why can't you walk? When are you gonna get it? Can't you learn any faster?" How disturbingly absurd a notion, right? So if JC tells me that I'm like that child (and we all are, brothers and sisters!), is Mom/Dad in the Grand sense gonna let me fall? Am I going to be judged? More to the point for this discussion, what do I want for my baby? Personally, I want nothing but the best this world has to offer, and I will and do do anything I can to make sure she knows it (and I don't refer to the world of the material here...stay with me...). What does God want for me, his/her baby? Well, JC is telling us pretty specifically. So what's all the best for me? For me personally, it is having my family. My wife and I long for nothing more than to be together, to have our children around us, to immerse ourselves in the sharing and experience of each other. The modern world really doesn't get down with that. Kinda prohibits that, except for short, unpleasant spurts. Well fuck that. Jesus got pretty rattled by what he saw, and I'm becoming rattled by what I see.
We're slowing down. We're preparing our spirits to be open to learn what it is we need to learn while we're here, and we can barely manage a modicum of that if we swim with the rest of society in that stream. We went without television for years and the kids never missed it; now it has become a magnetic beast that draws the attention of anyone near. It is getting unplugged and covered tomorrow. We have not read to the children in months, and we all miss it. We will begin a new book this weekend. We have not been on the river in the canoe or in the mountains all year. These are now priorities. I will no longer see my primary purpose as making money to support a lifestyle. I will no longer see the merit in working 70 hours a week to serve no greater a good than any other ersatz endeavor. I understand that my family, my wife and our children, lose far more that they gain by having me not at home as often as I had been.
All challenging prospects in the shadow of this culture, but we're committed anew. I can hardly wait to watch it unfold and to sense our coming together. It's our togetherness that is real to me now, and I guess that's what that oddly familiar feeling was. There's more crap and veils and distractions out there than stars in the universe, and they're all cunning and alluring in their own way, I suppose. But I'll be working on humming out a different vibration, as will my family. Join in if it appeals to you.
In the meantime, here's an impromptu, 2 a.m. blessing for you and for all of us:
Father/Mother God, we struggle and we churn in the frothing waters that are the world we live in. Your Love and our faith in that ever-present Love are all that keep us going sometimes, our island and our beacon. Dearest God, Greatest Love, please help to guide us in the way that is best for us and best for everyone, please keep us close to you as we struggle to change in the face of ever-growing fear and complacency. Let our deeds in this world reflect our gratitude for this life and your Love for us, and our need and Love for each other.
Amen.

Been down hard

2008-07-09T00:02:00.002-04:00

This was my river. Those were my mountains. There comes a time, I guess, where a mosaic begins to form, when peices of something just beyond a clear vision coalesce, and we're left with a decision. I make my decisions anymore based on the principle of a simple two-point criterion paradigm: does it benefit my family, and does it fit my aspiration of my growth as a spirit. Complex questions for a simple quotient, and the myriad outcomes are staggering in their entropic array of ramifications. That said, my mosaic began to form and I leapt with all the vigor and motivation I posess. The house. The job. The car. The funny thing about making bold decisions is that sometimes, the shit you don't typically hear about happens.
The bottom line is that I made sound decisions with prudence and research and now teeter on the razor's edge of losing so much more than I can gain. I'm horrifically disillusioned, remarkably sad and haven't felt so alone and hung out to dry in many, many years. I'm not sleeping behind the dumpster anymore, but I certainly feel like I've been run over and have blown to the weeds on the side of the road of life lately.
It's fucking hard to get the momentum back to even being productive, and when there are sick people refusing healing just adding to your load daily, it's so much the more difficult. The road has overgrown with weeds. I've been fighting other creatures to the sides of the path and have lost my way. I'm trying so hard to find even the footpath at this point, but it's fucking hard, and I wanted someone to know. So thank you, inane blog, and thanks to Zee, wherever you are, for forecasting the utilitarian faculties of this strange yet somehow effective mode of release.
I'm holding on to the notion that if I can at very least keep Love in my heart, my mind on God, and respond from the place they both reside, I'll be okay. The better I am, the better my family is, and that's what's important in the bigger picture.
Here's to bigger pictures and better times ahead.
Amen.

The time has come

2008-05-02T20:37:00.002-04:00

For all good things, even the mundane and the mediocre, must come to an end, and thus I proffer my final installment to what has been, from some points of view, a dismal failure. I'm relatively certain that no more than 4 humans have visited this blog, and who could blame the rest for not? So from the standpoint of sharing ideas and beginning discussions, this experiment has been as successful as the Hindenburgh. That said, this blog had given me the opportunity to release, which at times was quite therepeutic, even cathartic, and for that I am grateful. Now, provided the premise that no one is reading this anyway, why would I bother writing anything at all? Well, I thought that as my valediction, I could at very least allow this little nano-route to basque in the glow of my gratitude to it, as it exists in this time and space. So here it is: to you, infinitetrickpony, with many thanks.
See ya.

The Hardest Thing

2008-03-31T23:10:00.002-04:00

The hardest thing, in these troubled times, is to keep the faith. And by faith I really mean Faith.

Yep, another one of those rants.

Top New York judge clamoring of dire results and top-end revolution if state judges don't get long-overdue raises. Current salary: $150,000 per annum +, no shit.

State hopes to keep all 'correctional facilities' open for business, albeit admittedly at taxpayers' expense, and business is good: 1 in 100 Americans will have done time in one of 'em.

Federal government abets the bail out/takeover of Bear Stearns, and after a backlash, raises the compensatory pay on what was a $60 stock note last month from the original bargaining of $2 per share to around $10 per share. We pay for their wanton carelessness and misguided, blind risk assessment myopia. Oh, and don't think that they're the first...or the last, for that matter.

My wife gets a 'green' update email describing how the television waves are going to HD and the ol' rabbit ears will no longer pick up the frequency...at all. The email discloses how to best and most quickly and responsibly pick up a converter box. Here's a crazy idea: put a cover on the fucking box and put some plants on top of it. When you get desparate, watch a good film or read a book. Elaine Pagels has some groundbreaking material on the Nag Hammadi texts that people should at least be aware of.

I could (and likely so could you) add to this list of perils and woes ad infinitum. Every day. Every day we could compound our misery at the travails of the modern world/culture/society. Great! I say great! That is coffee you smell, so wake up! Wake up to something for Gods' sake! Maybe most don't give a rat's turd about that. But get really pissed or completely and utterly dejected by current events? Why not!? Feels better to feel badly, doesn't it? And shit, since most of us are already pulsing out and carrying that energy anyway, it's so much easier to go with the flow! Yeah! Easy, going with the flow.

Perhaps a step along the way is to wake up a little to the world around us and get indignant, downright and justifiably angry. Yeah, anger, that's the stuff of change. Get angry and argumentative. Yeah. And then try not to carry that bag around with you. Good luck.

So what to do, what to do, with a sigh and shoulders slumped.

Here's what my number one Teacher tells me, and under no vague or uncertain terms whatsoever: if I am to have any peace, any measure of serenity at all, I first have to give up the big ME. Then I need to make sure my House is clean. And I'd better be really sure that the log is taken from my eye before I can go looking to take any splinters out of anyone else's.

Why even bother? My spiritual belief is such that this heavy body is a vehicle on a journey, and the purpose of this journey is to a) take what experiences I have, wrest them into a place of Blessed Peace, recognize them as Grace, and share that Grace with others, b) live my own ministry of Blessed Peace and Compassion by being awake, to the best of my ability, to the needs and condition of those around me, c) give all the Blessings I have received from a Kind, Loving, and Just God back to this world, and d) love my God and my family with all my heart and soul and spirit and never, under any circumstances, place anything before Them.

A most amazing thing occurs when I can maintain that focus and that vibration, and it has only recently come full circle in my understanding of a teaching of my very beloved Chris. In frustration, years and years ago, I asked, furiously, "Do you just know all the fucking answers at some point?!" He serenely and genuinely replied, "No, you just have fewer questions."

And it has been my experience.

I could easily and readily fall back to outrage and/or despair, the dalliances of stasis, and sometimes I do. But the reward of recognizing the Truth that Mahatma Mohandes Gandhi extolled ("Be the change you wish to see in the world") is better, if only more challenging. I invite you to try it. Take that personal inventory and jettison that unwanted, unreliable, and just plain antiquated shit. You'll be so much lighter, and your Vessel will have more space to fill with all things Light. Light, like making apologies you thought were dead and gone. Admit to foibles, mistakes, misdeeds, and be willing to receive the Good News that you're part of the Human Family, and we all screw it up sometimes! Allow yourself the hug that shatters the barriers, the handshake that softens your heart, and the possibility that everything is exactly as it is supposed to be.

God loves you, and will never even for a moment forsake you.

Imagine we collectively tried to exact that ideal of God here, on Earth. With each other.

Imagine that.

Go on...imagine that.......

Not inane, hardly detritus

2008-03-28T13:00:00.002-04:00

There's a wonderful plaque that rests on a mantle on the way down the stairs of my church. It reads simply, "God does not call the qualified, but qualifies the called." What that means to me is that none of us are more in tune with or have a better understanding of God than anyone else, but that what's important is to merely take a step toward God, whatever your understanding of God is. In that vein I offer what occurred to me today as profound, sublime. It occurs to me that there is not a soul on this earth or beyond that is below or not deserving of redemption. Indeed, we each have redemption in that we are a part of God (this is just my opinion, of course) already. 'Perfectly imperfect' as my teacher Chris stated it often. We do what we do and have the experiences we have merely as an educational tool on our way back to the Source. Hmm. What I'm trying to say is that I fuck up, you fuck up, we all invariably and inevitably fuck up, but really that's just 'missing the mark'...what the Christ referred to as 'sin' (Gnostic transliteration, not Orthodox). It's educational, it's vital to our experience, and it by no means disqualifies us from redemption or God's love for us.
Take it or leave it, and many leave it, and that is understandable and receives no condemnation or perjorative judgement from me: that's your path. I'm only trying to share the beauty of a blossom that I've found along my path. If nothing else it is that I know, and I feel, that I am not alone and that I am loved. By God, by God! And it is my belief that each of us belonging to this Human Family is by nature of merely being blessed by this Love and Grace as well.
It is my hope only to share with you what passes through the conduit of the consciousness of my fullest potential, my highest aspiration and vibration.
You're wonderful. You're so important. I hope you know this, and that you are loved.
Amen.

Good Friday

2008-03-21T20:08:00.003-04:00

Having just returned from another powerful experience that I'd like to share with you, I first offer this caveat: I have three sublime teachers that I work with. The first is my minister, the pastor at my church. He brought me into the fold by helping me understand things that I had been asking, and presented theological implications (historical, etc) that quelled numerous misgivings about a church being capable of (and culpable for) providing some of what I crave. The second is a man who was recommended to me by my doctor, my doctor who is also a family friend and confidant. I've worked with him for almost two years now. He is primarially theosophical, although delves effortlessly into Eastern mysticism and Christian banter as well. The third is counted among my dearest of friends, extraordinarially trustworthy and kind of heart, and he is an ordained Gnostic minister. Having studied various sects of Buddhism years ago, and having read (not entirely, mind) the Qu'ran, and having a perfunctory knowledge of other religions and mysticism from years of curiosity and hunger, I have come to Jesus (the Christ) as my primary teacher. With all respect and adoration of all religions and spiritual paths (and I will restrain from my strong desire to expound on the whys of that for now), I've never in 36 years been consistently moved to tears, day after day, read after read, than with the profound understandings that I glean from the copious gospel ("good news") volumes attributed to the expressions and history of Jesus. The gnostic history, which I've been consuming like cold water on a hot day, has helped ameliorate any misgivings I've had within myself about the four 'chosen' gospels and the human Truth (as far as what feels right to me, right now, in my limited understanding) of Jesus as the Christ, and so on and on and on I could go but I want to get to the sharing so I'll stop!
I was ruminating on the significance of the pendulous, ruddy moon tonight. I was on my way home, over the mountain, from a somber service at my church (which, by the way, is progressive Presbyterian). We, the choir in this case, performed a remarkable song, Tchaikovski's When We Behold Thy Bleeding Wounds, which sets the tone appropriately I suppose. At any rate, the service, of which no more than 8 or so people attended (ours is a very small church) was really quite remarkable. One line that stuck out immediately was in an Affirmation of Faith reading, stating, "The world exhausts its rage on the body of Jesus Christ." That's pretty hardcore. I mean, that's the pivotal part of being considered a Christian, I think.

Okay, I was about to launch into another littany, but I still haven't gotten to the sharing thing.
Let's see, the choir, the moon.....oh yeah. Here we go.
Regardless of what you might consider Jesus, the man from Nazareth, voluminous history shows that he at least existed, and that he at least went through some pretty horriffic, crazy shit. Even agnostic scholars will concede that much. So given that, and to take all that on a strictly human level, what strikes me most is that Jesus had the conviction to believe that he was doing this all for us. You. And me. It matters not a mote what the Truth is in the light of the fact that he was tortured and killed because he loves us.
And while on the human level in this discussion, here's what I'd like to share, as it's what the moon in all her glory was reminding me of tonight on the way home through the woods, in the silence and darkness of night.
It's a reading from the service, this Good Friday service, the night to commemorate the evening when Jesus gave his spirit over to our Mother/Father. It is regarding Mary, his mother.

Even Now

She stands
beneath his dying
and will not be persuaded to leave,
despite the urging of the others.
They huddle against her
in an effort to hold her
against the pain,
but she stands erect,
unleaning,
her eyes fixed upon his face.
From the hillside
the sounds of weeping and wailing
hang heavy in the air,
but she who held him
in a stable in Bethlehem
stands silent
beneath his cross in Jerusalem,
her heart pondering still,
her soul magnifying the Lord,
her spirit praising God,
knowing even now
that she is blessed among women.

from Kneeling in Jerusalem by Ann Weems

There is so much I wish to share with you, but you are on your Divine path, and I mine. We'll meet when we're One again, and that'll be just fine.
Have a wonderful Easter weekend.
Remember that even if you turn away, it's no matter. You're still loved and held dearly in the heart of the Universe.
Peace be with you.

Saturday

2008-03-16T08:36:00.002-04:00

Had a lovely visit, took a walk to places I hadn't even visited before in my own backyard. Who woulda thunk...

Some really good lines popped into my conciousness this morning, perhaps due in part to thinking through some of Zee's thoughts:

"...I have a dreamt of a place in time, where nobody gets annoyed,

but I must admit, I'm not there yet, but something's keeping me going.

Maybe there's a world that I'm still to find.

Open up the world and let me in, then there'll be a new life to begin.

I've been waiting for that moment to arrive.

All at once this house of Peace will fill my eyes.

How nice...." -Yusuf Islam

Gotta go to choir rehearsal and contemplate God. See ya soon.

Okay, okay...

2008-03-13T22:11:00.002-04:00

...in light of my most recent polemic, I offer this as good (local) news:

Current Leiutenent Governor David Paterson is set to be sworn in as Governor of New York on Monday, and here are two things I already appreciate about the little I've seen of him: a) he said, when questioned about the Spitzer turmoil, that (paraphrasing), "Eliot is a dear friend of mine and he and his family have had enough right now..." Didja catch that? A man in politics not even obliquely distancing himself from a friend that could tarnish, if not damage, his political career. Takes a certain kind of person to do that, and it very subtly commands a lot of respect. B) as a legally blind man, I have not seen him reading from prepared statements in response to questions or in statements to the press and public. There's something so outlandish about that these days that, wow, he may actually need to know what he's talking about and may actually need to respond with *gasp*...candor. I know, I know, sounds crazy, but it's largely true.

Gave me a little lift anyway.

Enough to present a new contest! Hooray!

Okay, here's todays question: Which of the following statements is/are true given the statement, "It has been proven: a woodchuck can indeed chuck wood"?

a) wear a helmet and a cup

b) depends on what the definition of 'can' is

c) I will learn to ride a unicycle by autumn '09

d) woodchucks are monogamous

e) wasn't even there, don't know what you're incinuating

f) we may never pass this way again

Of course you don't need luck, what with a lunchbox like that.

You've got that sinking feeling

2008-03-13T21:42:00.002-04:00

Sometimes you just wanna throw in the towel, flush the whole thing, wrap it in a moist towelette and slip it under your neighbor's car seat. Well that's where a particular email left me today. The first line, and I swear this is true, read, "this is an email to correct the concern that Obama is a muslim."

I am not making this up.

I understand that emotion breeds ignorance, and we're all guilty of it from time to time, but give me a fucking break. (Oh, right, pardon my language...) So first of all, would it be okay to send out a mass mailing stating, "this is to assure you that McCain is not a jew."? No. Period, end of story. So why address some other candidate, or any person else for that matter, in such a ridiculously poised statement? I'm having a hard time even expressing myself here about this, my apologies.

Look, what in the name of God does it matter if someone is a Christian, Hindu, Taoist, Muslim, Jew, agnostic, a warlock...why does it matter and why cast the discussion in such a perjorative light?

You've gotten my point by now; I'm stammering still and will not expound any further tonight. Maybe these poor, ignorant people will at least show the respect to capitalize proper nouns in the future.

For now the toiling, weary, and basically walking dead that make up the majority of this country (and likely the rest of the 'civilized' world) will continue to spew venom and absurdities from a carnal and emotional ground that has no realm where we aspire to be. As Barry Hannah so eloquently phrases in his poetic treatise on the gospel of Mark, "...for now there are no kings, for service is kingly."

Maybe we should take a step back from this material world a few times more often during the day and ask if we're truly speaking and acting as our higher selves.

There's your fucking revolution.

Peace to you all.

Falls into Grace

2008-03-12T22:35:00.002-04:00

I'm going to depart from the published canon of this blog for a moment to address something of importance and ye that would nay-say get my tongue sticking out, momentarily.
Eliot Spitzer, the ambitious former Attorney General cum Governor of this fine confused dichotomy of New York, has resigned. Props to the cantankorous and aggressive Joe Bruno for, at least to the ears of the republic, taken the actions of his most vociferous adversary with guarded class and sympathy. That aside, this is the perfect opportunity for each of us to grow. How? Glad you asked. First and foremost, it's important to realize that part of the reason we love this kind of negative and destructive sensationalism is that it makes us feel good, better than, like we as individuals of a species are momentarily superior. We're not, of course, and I hope that's not a crushing blow to any egos out there. So it's so easy, yes, easy to fall into the pool with so many others and bash and harangue and generally wallow in and create misery. Here we have a choice to not do that, en masse. Let's.
How to avoid that synapse of doom that is so deeply carved into the cerebral infrastructure? Here's where I start: it's his journey. His journey affects his wife, his children, Joe Bruno, Sheldon Silver, all the way down the line. Here's the beauty: his journey effects even you. How is this germane, even possible? Allow me to expound, because I love to expound.
Eliot Spitzer, Governor of New York, is busted in a sting operation of a high-end prostitute ring. He has championed the cause of tough, no-nonsense, by-the-book prosecution of all manner of crimes as Attorney General. He won the election for Governor by a 70% populous vote, riding a gleaming white horse of moral high ground and swift and immediate change in a legislature that is historically a lumbering, impotent behemoth. Now he has lost all credibility. Great! This is an opportunity for this individual to make a tremendous personal leap in his journey in this lifetime. He made the choices he made due, in part I'm guessing, to a deeper sense of disconnect or emptiness or sorrow, etc ad infinitum. Part of the human condition we can all relate to, yes? So he needs to learn something, a big something granted, from all this. There's a sublime truth in that for all of us. What's more is that we can look at our own shortcomings or deep sorrows and understand better how to drive around with them in our conciousness without running off the road. We've all got them, the experiences of the entire spectrum of emotions, and we're all just trying to put them where they belong. Maybe this is what it takes for Mr Spitzer to get there. I'm not suggesting we condone destructive behavior, I am suggesting we augment our thinking around the bigger picture and act with compassion. No more stones to throw. It's an archaic practice that has had it's day, let's be done with it. No more character assasination, it's spiritually immature and frankly crass. We can learn to be kinder, to act with compassion, and we can learn that we all have something to learn from each other. To do otherwise is to defy that which is holy, which, my friends, is us...our lives.
I'll end soon, I promise, but I would like to share an excerpt from a reading one of my teachers presented to me this morning.
"...to attempt obedience to God in any circumstance is to find experience opening on meaning, and meaning is holy."
As I remove my rougher cynical edges with the 220 grit of understanding, these things have profound impact and deep meaning to me. I hope it is so with you.
Mr Spitzer is a troubled man and he and his family are in tremendous pain right now. Let's give them that and leave our baser judgements out of the airwaves. We'll all heal a little bit and feel a little lighter. When we're strong enough we'll pray.
Go out into the world joyful in the fact that God would use you to make a difference in other peoples' lives. Return to no one evil for evil, for you are known, you are seen, and you are loved beyond the scope of your farthest reaching imagination. This I truly believe. May it be so with you. [The former being transliterated from another wonderful teacher, with reverence and gratitude]

Rockin' like robots

2008-03-11T22:16:00.000-04:00

Yes, tis true: Zee and I framed out the bottom floor AND got both doors in....in ten hours. Totally true. Now we get to play runaround for a few days (here, there, and some place else). I just got back from choir rehearsal, and to be honest I can barely keep my eyes open.

Just filling this much in has been daunting enough. Possible polemics upcoming include but are not limited to:

Eliot Spitzer

Vladimir Putin's puppet replacement

The hidden truth behind Zee's newest sculpture

Fiberglass insulation vs. denim

(write in your own...it's fun)

Monday, Monday...lala, la la la la

2008-03-10T16:20:00.000-04:00

Look who came to meet me almost on time just after the dawn had broken, all bushy-tailed and frrrrrrisky! Ah, Zee, we did well today. Ya know, new construction is rumored to be square. It's a term not many are familiar with anymore, and it's just as well. What was a quick, down & dirty frame-and-mud now requires a few extra walls...HA! Nothing we can't handle. At least with this new construction there are no tangible phantasms to contend with.

No contest today. Well, maybe later, but the more important task at hand is to do yourself a big fat favor. Go out on the next clear night (no whining about the temperature, you big baby) and give yourself a minimum of 15 undisturbed, uncluttered minutes and stare at the moon. Let your mind wander from the stifling paradigm of the day, and get out there. Very refreshing, and it is my gift to you today. Really. It's at least as good as any prize you may claim from this here blog.

No luck needed bucky, you'll have more than you need.

Boo....or some such jeer

2008-03-08T21:51:00.000-05:00

As my illustrious compadre Zee pointed out in his demented blog, we worked a few days in a house that, while I wouldn't neccesarily call 'haunted', I have gone on record as saying that it is the third most repulsive house (energetically) that I have worked on. Here's a quick hit-list of the places and the issues at hand...because it's interesting and I know how interested you must be.

Ahem...

#1 on the list goes to a house and property purchased by my dear friend Peter. Great guy with a truly wonderful vision, he picked up this dilapidated property for under a hundred Gs for it's proximity to the village of Great Barrington. Good, sound investment. However, the man that lived there for the last number of decades was, well, ill. He had numerous knives and other interesting weapons laying about, he rarely left the house and when he did it involved a bit of vulgarity and yelling. The floors (what was left of them) were coated with feces and urine from what we hope and assume were animals. Oh yeah, you also could only walk through the house on either story by means of a narrow meandering path through garbage bags filled with...you guessed it...garbage. All kinds of decaying masses. I could go on, because believe it or not, there's more to it, but for the sake of brevity, I'll end the description there.

At any rate, I worked on the house after he purchased it for one and a half days with one other person before I had to bag it. And I had no problem telling him that the dark, violent, threatening energy about the place was going to be a tough one to contend with, but it ended there. Last I knew the village had it condemned and Peter was left holding the bag on it.

#2 is kind of an odd one. I was working with Michael and we went to get a material list/etc together for a job out in Connecticut somewhere. The place was out in the middle...no, the far reaches...of nowhere and it was huge. The owners were some kind of billionaires and they had the house and the property to prove it. Well, I'll keep this one short by saying that on the way home, after a few hours wandering around the house, I mentioned that I wasn't going to be going back there. Michael was incredulous. Red-faced, he stammered his query as best he could in an attempt to ascertain what I was talking about. I said quite simply that "that house is like the pit of ultimate darkness or something. It's like a swirling vortex of misery and evil." And it was, and I didn't go back there, and I left that job a month later.

#3 I'm sorry to say goes to the home of someone I cared a great deal for. (This is the one Zee is referring to.) When I was asked to come to the house it was to see if I could somehow repair the damage done by the former owners. I won't even get in to specifics, but I managed to glean a lot of emotional and energetic information from the first two weeks I was there. The man and woman were bitterly divorcing, the kids (I'm guessing the girl at 14 and the boy a bit younger) were trying to be kids but were fighting the undertow of what was going on with the adults. Was the energy there already and affected the family? I'll likely never know, but I'm pretty confident I've got this family dynamic down. So they bought this house from this divorcing couple to house their infirmed and elderly mother. I grew so very, very fond of the mother, Jane, while I was there. She even attended my baptism in the river. She was so lonely in that house, but also so very frail and ailing. When she was able to get out of bed, she would show me old photographs and we would talk about those times and what everyone was like, etc. But for the most part she was asleep or just unwilling to get out of bed. Her son visited once a day at 5 p.m. for ten minutes or so...otherwise she was on her own. I cried a couple of times on the way home, feeling so fucking helpless to do more for her.

Jane ended up going into the hospital for a while. In the meantime, Grace from church was diagnosed with an aggressive, swiftly terminal brain cancer at the same time her husband left her and she lost her house and farm. She has two teenaged children who I imagine are pretty lost and confused and sad and angry and all that stuff right now. Anyway, we ended up moving them into Jane's house two weekends ago on a Sunday after church, and things seemed okay except that they can only stay there for two weeks. Why? I haven't the faintest idea. So Zee and I were working in this energetically challenged house, being asked to install horrible, garbage material with the misguided notion that they were saving money, and basically feeling pretty shitty about that aspect alone. But then Zee made the comment that he felt like he was going to need a psychiatrist after this job, and it struck me that he was feeling that repulsive energy.

This job seems to drag on interminably slowly, to our chagrin, and we still have another day or two up there before it's done. On the upside, the heat is off us for a little while, the downside being that the heat is off us for a while because Grace will have been moved out again and Jane passed away on Thursday night.

Those are the top three most energetically challenged houses I've worked in, and I hope they remain there.

So, for the big money, the big kahuna, the big cheese, the salt and the pepper, the jock to your strap, ladies and gentlemen, I give you today's Trick Pony Contest! Yes, that's right, let yourselves go wild, you deserve it! Yeah!

Okay, today's contest, my little chiquita bananas, requires some thought.

Twelve men (or women, or a mixed group, I don't care) hear what sounds like someone eating celery behind them. They turn and see nothing but a squirrel wrapped in a Wendy's napkin, struggling to free himself. One person from the group frees it, only to be bitten on the tip of the thumb. Later that evening, this person thinks he hears the word 'penis' in a conversation that also includes his name. When he goes downstairs to check it out, he finds no one there, but the refrigerator door is wide open. As he closes it, what happens to him?

a) the door seems to whisper, "sinep"

b) something invariably and totally immaturely involving his penis, right?

c) he's teleported to the bathroom

d) [please, I insist, enter your own answer for 'd']

Winners of this one will be handsomely rewarded for their perseverance with something, perhaps even something wrapped in a Wendy's napkin....good luck bubby.

What a good little robot am I

2008-03-07T08:40:00.000-05:00

Finally, breathlessly, finished the O'Shea job, racing to finish the Conkling job, just to insure the guaranteed start time for the Cross job...barely had time to poop yesterday. What a good little robot!
Reading the Pagl history of the Gnostics, reading as Jesus on Sunday, little league tryouts Saturday, Rosco in dire need of a bath, cut a dime-sized chunk of my thumb off yesterday, truck is filled, cab and bed, to the point that I can just fit my tender frame in the drivers' seat. Is there more? Yes!
But the rest can wait...gotta go to work! (pant pant pant)
You can be a good little robot by playing today's contest! Here's how you do it:
a) you put your right foot in
b) you take your right foot out
c) and this is the critical part: what is it that you intend to shake all about?
Winners will be selected, at random, to the tune of Hosanna...the original score, not the film score (just so there's no confusion).
Good luck, not that you need it.

2008-03-04T21:06:00.000-05:00

Yes, he is still watching and still pitying you as a fool.
Today's contest winner will be removed from the Pity List.

Easy one bucko: finish the nursery rhyme, "This old man, he played one..."

a) he played knick knack on my buns

b) we are talking about a digereedoo here, right?

c) no idea, but the premise is fun

d) at a nudist camp on vacation

e) [no really, please enter your own response for Randy to consider]

Winner will be notified telepathically. If we receive a busy signal, the next runner-up will receive the prize.

...such a lonely word

2008-03-03T11:54:00.000-05:00

Here's the thing: I had to be honest. Had to be.

I just got back from jury duty. The kid, some disenfranchised loose jean wearing kid, got busted for driving under the influence of drugs (pot in this case). No testing was done at the time of arrest, but that really didn't matter to my thinking, although it was a sticking point for other jurors. At the time of the third question for prospective jurors, I said, "THAT is where I take issue with this." The judge and attorneys stared, awaiting some further explanation, so I asked to approach the bench "so I didn't have to air my opinions out in front of the community". The attorneys, the defendant, and I approached the bench. I looked at the judge (ostensibly a very pleasant man) and explained my truth as it pertains to this case and others like it in general:

This is how people get lost. Fall into cracks. I've been in recovery for almost ten years and I take real and personal issue with draconian drug laws. I don't use it (pot) and I certainly don't advocate it, but here's a kid looking for something. Why do people turn to drugs and addiction? Why is it so endemic to our society? These are much bigger questions than are germane to discuss here, but I am certain that, for me, punishment in this sense only creates more of the problem than it serves to alleviate it, and I can honestly tell you that there's no way under Heaven that I would convict this young man to any degree. Where's the help? Where are the mentors? Do you know what kind of background he's coming from? We're dealing with a much bigger picture here than this court is willing to address, and that's where I need to let you know that I will not be impartial; far from it, I simply will not let this young man become another statistic of a system that doesn't work.

The attorneys thought about it for a moment before the prosecutor asked that I be excused from the jury selection. The defense attorney responded that he completely understood what I was implying and agreed that I would be less than impartial. The judge said that I was excused and thanked me for my time. I put my hand on the young man's shoulder, looked him in the eyes, and said, "I hope you find your way." He didn't really know what to do with it, but smiled a very genuine smile and muttered something, half nervously laughing.

Look, I don't pretend to have all the answers; heck, I don't even know most of the questions, but I do know that the current system is a lumbering behemoth that rarely takes into account the precursor to infringements. One in one hundred Americans is incarcerated: among the world's highest percentage per capita. Something has to change. I hope that in some small way, I helped foster that change.

I need to take a drive now, so I can shake this stuff off. I get so deeply affected. When I watched the kid's reactions to things and realized that his attorney wasn't even really paying attention to the proceedings, my heart went out to him. When I thought of the infinite blessings that I receive and thought that if this kid was just given one shot at knowing them how different things could be, my heart went out to him. But it goes on and on, and people disappear (or make the choice to remain dead) every day, and if only I could do more. It is my highest and trruest intention to help in this world, but it gets so sad. So I will take a ride out to pick up supplies for the job tomorrow, and I'll have a little cry and I'll pray for knowledge of ways that I can make a difference, and I'll thank God for keeping me alive and providing this incredible gift of life to me. In the end my gratitude always outweighs my sadness, and that's a gift too.

In leiu of a contest today, this sobering day, I offer this prayer to you, cherished children of our Loving God:

O Lord God, you intend that we live fully,

yet we are reluctant to open our hands

to receive your abundance.

We prefer to do things for ourselves,

to trust that we know what is best.

Pursuing our own desires we have turned

from You and still wonder why we feel empty.

Forgive our sins.

Fill us again.

May Your Grace spill over into our lives, so that

we may gratefully accept what You offer, share

Your Grace with others, and live thankfully in the manner

Of Jesus the Christ.

Amen.

Article of Particles

2008-03-01T22:53:00.000-05:00

News of the headworthy: on our front porch ceiling sits a motion-sensitive light; when it's dark out, the light will illumine when there has been motion within the bounds of its field of detection. We've all seen 'em, no big whoop. But, my friends, here's something to think about: when I bring Roscoe out at night, the movement of light falling out from the foyer sets off the porch light. I'm not describing this well. Let me try again.

The motion detector picks up on movement, right? Okay. Now the field of detection is well away from the door to our apartment, and the sensor faces away at a ninety degree angle. However, when light from the inside (foyer) falls across the path of detection, the sensor picks up on it and turns the porch light on. What's odd to me is that this is a tangible manifestation of the theory (fact, I suppose) that light is the reflection/refraction/absorption/etc of charged particles already extant in the field of observation. Basically that light cast in any direction will to some degree alter that particular field. The light from the foyer 'bounces' into particles extant on the porch and they bump and grind and create a 'disturbance' among the previously placid field of observation. The point of interest for all this calls to mind the issue of light pollution. If there is indeed any modicum of disturbance when light is cast into an otherwise quiet arena, there is disturbance created. This postulation goes a long way in illuminating (pun totally intended) the argument for the detriments of the saturation of EMFs, most commonly associated contemporarily with cellular devices. Think about it. Freaky.

Did I mention that at the deacons meeting today the idea of considering a bid to place a cell-tower in the steeple was broached? Most in attendence were thrilled at the idea that the tower placement could provide quite a bit of needed revenue. I remained silent on the issue for now (there's no dearth of bureacracy involved to proceed, I'm sure), but am prepared to excavate the peice I wrote on EMFs years back for HV...if only for the bibliography and source material. Seems like a direction I hope we don't need to consider.

On that note, an excerpt from an extraordinary Rilke poem sent along by Zee today:

Take your well-disciplined strengths

and stretch them between two

opposing poles. Because inside human beings

is where God learns.

Thanks, Zee. The late-entry contest is dedicated to you. Easy one tonight. Just finish these profound lyrics from Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons: "I look at you and my blood boils hot, I feel my temperature rise. I'm holding on gimme what you got....."

a) Do you like steak fries

b) They've grafted skin from your thighs

c) I'm allergic to most hair dyes

d) I generally eschew ties

e) (write in your own...could win...)

As always, good luck. Randy Jackson will review the entries and make some general and bland comment before choosing the winner.

PeeWee and Mr T

2008-03-01T21:42:00.000-05:00

Two cannibals are having lunch. As they were about half-way through, one turns to the other and asks, "How's it going down there?" The other replies, "Me? I'm having a ball!"

Today's contest is a real challenge, so extra good luck to you, ol' buddy ol' pal. Also, Adam is running away with victory thus far, so if you chumps wanna shot at the prize pack (rumored to be valued at between $.46 and $22.31) you better get your groove on. Okay, that being said, here we go:

A plane travels at 612 m.p.h. from Albequerque, catching the jet stream tailwind at 3:02 CMT, exactly two hours and forty-four minutes into its flight. A bus leaves the Greyhound station in New Orleans (you know the one, just a few blocks northwest of the French quarter) at 11:07 EST. Mr. T is on that bus, carrying among other things, a small tin of Bag Balm and a half pack of Newport Lights 100s. On the plane is Paul Rubens, travelling with nothing but a carry-on filled with Prell. If they are scheduled to meet in South Chicago (a forty minute cab ride from the Amtrak station) at noon tomorrow, answer me this:

What time must that make it right now?

a) Alka-Seltzer; could see that one coming from the first line

b) Not telling

c) oops, there's the phone again...

d) vagina

You're all so very clever, but shaved chimps in laboratory experiments have fallen to seizure after exposure to this contest and twenty eight mL of single malt Irish whiskey, so by no means can I accept responsibility for the outcome. All I can say is that if we can put a man on the moon (like that really happened) we should be able to do something else, too.

Good luck, and don't lick your deodorant.

2008-02-27T21:40:00.000-05:00

If I had robot friends, they would interact with me on my blog. Here's how they would do it:

a) click on the appropriate response to the poll, after careful deliberation and a few cans of 5W30 (winter viscosity grade, obviously)

b) read all the prior entries, risking loosening bolts and superheating electrodes, what with all the laughter and such

c) reread the entries, wiping tears of elation

d) click on the comment line below the entries that have given their lives deeper meaning

e) respond with some pithy and invigorating discussion

f) sign with some random, free-wheelin' devil-may-care screen name (robots get such a kick out of mischevious anonimity)

g) kick back and snicker, awaiting the hail of comments deliberated by me at some random baby-up hour of day or night

Yeah, robot friends are cool.

With that in mind, here's todays contest for all you young cowpokes out there:

It has no known nickname.

It was born on Earth.

It is hirsute.

It is erudite.

It is not hermaphroditic.

Not floral, but has two lips.

Winners will be chosen based on average annual income. Good luck.

Wake up a weenie

2008-02-26T08:32:00.000-05:00

Okay, okay...I really should get to work, but since you've asked so nicely, here's your photo of Donna Pescow circa 1979. And of course, that life-blood of your lives, the daily contest:

From the hit show 'Angie', to whom were the writers referring in the theme song when they wrote, "When I was young, I played the games of childhood like a child would, but I'm a big girl now"?

a) Idi Amin

b) Chuck Barris

c) G. Gordon Liddy

d) the prolific pretzel industry

As always, good luck. Winners will be determined by pant size.

Spend and Purge

2008-02-25T10:58:00.000-05:00

There are a couple (beyond the other dozens) of interesting facets of this arrangement called 'stimulus package' that absolutely no one that i've heard (read: 'official') have even touched on in what we call the mass media...the propaganda that informs the sleeping masses...
First off, the majority of the american dollar currency is wysiwyg: paper. By some estimates the matching gold in federal reserve is as much (or as little) as .04 on the dollar. That's our dollar having a real value of four cents. Interesting. So really it's like writing checks and thinking everything is fine...as long as we have checks in the checkbook, there must be money in the account. There may be a flaw to that logic. Maybe, i'm no expert.
The second, perhaps more contemporary aspect is that China is largely floating our economy (giving us our fix, as it were) and has been for some time. Europeans, by contrast (and admitted, this is simulacrum on my part, not empirical), pay for Chinese imports on quite a different scale: what we might purchase at wally-world for three bucks may run eight bucks or more in France or England et al. The whys are complex to be sure, but you get the sensation of a looming shadow stretching ever so slowly toward you on the prairie, don't ya?
Hey, I'm thrilled to get a few hundred bucks. We have little choice but to play by the rules, and honestly, I'm basically okay with that. I really do strive to 'be the change' Gandhi spoke of, and if I have little say in the parameters, so be it: the stage is set as we walk on. Sure, let's improvise a bit and everything else we do, and even when the sandbags are falling from the eaves, let's laugh and love and cry and live our lives to the absolute fullest we can. Anything else is truly and in every sense a waste of time.

Enough of that crap, on to the contest, champ:

Currently, 10 EUR will get you 15 USD, the Canadian buck is stronger than the dead president's club by a bit, and ten pounds weighs in at almost twenty dollars US.

How many draconian electoral votes is your state worth in electing the next wealthy, well-connected politician?

a) happen to think the electoral college is actually a brilliant and invaluable tool of democracy; I give my response over to whomever is elected to speak for me by my state representatives.

b) 2. No, 5. 6 at most, I'm pretty sure. No fewer than 1.

c) Crude barrels hit an historical high of just over a hundred bucks two days ago, can't afford to heat my home or drive my car, but at least I've got 437 electoral votes coming to me! What? What do you mean...?

d) I'll need my calculator to find the general population divisible by the square of a quotient deducted from pi, provided Pythagoras wasn't full of shit on this one like that other stuff.

As always, good luck. Prizes will be awarded in the form of a different piece of paper we'll call a 'check' sometime in May.

I sound pretty, oh so pretty

2008-02-24T13:02:00.000-05:00

Went to church sick today

just to sing in the choir.

I was the only tenor,

what an unfortunate mire.

To make matters worse

we were made to perform Handel,

with the dinky-dink piano part

like socks worn with sandals.

My sinuses so clogged

that my eyes ran like creeks;

my head hurt, my mind swooned,

my voice up shit's creek.

Here's today's contest

I thought you'd enjoy.

If you don't then don't play it,

it's really just a ploy

To get you involved

in a different kind of trap,

until your stimulus check comes

and you can buy more worthless crap.

Here are some human-things,

bald and naked, it's true,

but what is the moral of the image

as it pertains to you?

a) would have you believe

that you're life is like a monkey:

The Universe the Grinder Man,

you dancing like its flunky.

b) it's quite obvious

that these nudies aren't even real.

The image is in your mind,

the moral how you feel.

c) are you kidding?

You can't ask me that?

I get the impression you're incinuating

that this monitor makes me look fat!

d) The moral is clearly a caustic

satire of the trying

current administration

and its bald-faced naked lying.

The good news is

you've already won the prize.

If you took a breath this morning

that means you haven't died.

And if living is the winning

combination to this all,

then stop stressing over complex shit and

go outside and have a ball.

Prom Night

2008-02-23T20:52:00.000-05:00

Everyone else has been getting this three-week bronchitis cold thing, so I figured, "what the hell?" and decided to try it out for myself. I am currently febrile and mildly delirious, which sometimes makes things more fun.

This is a photo from my honeymoon...just kidding! I actually just bumped into this guy in the backyard. What you don't see is that the prick is picking my pocket! The gall. I had been collecting those three screws and small wad of lint for a week.

Here's the current contest amigos:

Hyperion Book Publishers have offered me a 2.5 million dollar deal to publish my collective memoirs. Random House has tabled 3.2, and Black Dome $12.46 plus lunch...once.
Is the cat in the photograph at right stepping in:
a) urine
b) the collective canine ego
c) a spilled bottle of Suave Extra-Firm Hold Hair Spray
d) synch with our inner thoughts
e) I can't tell you, you don't have the proper security clearance

Good luck, buddy.

2008-02-23T14:38:00.000-05:00

This is exactly what you've been warned about. I can hardly believe you're still here. Since you are, here is today's contest:

Figure out what Ms Anderson's haiku is about and win a prize. Ready?

I have three of them

Everyone seems to think two

But you know better.

(Hint: I will never give a hint)