there's this Spider John song i really love called "dodger". this is kinda like that but its about a different kind of slant.
"chooser's blues"
first give me this then give me that, i dont like juggling things
ya better give me this then give me that, i dont like juggling things
i like it when the moon goes down and the sun comes up, and then the rooster sings.
well you're the gal i'd like to be with the most, at this here social function
yes you're the gal i'd like to be with the most, at this here social function
but tomorrow i'll be hopping a train t'find my true love, and its a two-hours walk to the junction
in my gun i got hooks and twine, and i point it at the stars
in my gun i got hooks and twine, and i point it at the stars
and every shot i shoot hooks the boots of the prophets and the heros and the liars
(but you know their boots all look the same)
still i never had anything but respect for these people, and for my old pastor
yes i never had anything but respect for these people, and for my old pastor
it's to bad christianity had to turn out to be such a disaster
(can't say that, that aint nice now!)
well if you cant say something nice, doesnt mean you're commitin a crime
yes if you cant say something nice, doesnt mean you're commitin a crime
you can say anything you want in this god almighty world, 'slong as you say it before your time, before your time to die.
i've seen my death and i'm dying soon, and that dont bother me one cricket
yes i've seen my death and i'm dying soon, and that dont bother me one cricket
and when the carnival comes to town with the holy cup and the holy crown, i dont expect to buy a ticket, yes dontchya let'm sell you on a ticket now
You toast to life and drink to death, tell your stories at the bar
yes ya toast to life and drink yourself to death, tell your stories at the bar
whether you're a dodger or a chooser now you dont all the time have to be who it is you are,
ain't it grand?
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Friday, May 18, 2007
"..."
heres one i did in verse similar to the meter dylan uses in "it's alright ma". at least thats the rhythm i talk it in. ...
"..."
we speak in riddles, in painted tooth
they say "artists use lies to tell the truth"
but we don't, we just use'm, proof
that we're still out chopping ice
and sometimes its karma, and sometimes: grace
but its always there in the look on your face
when someone first tells you 'bout the human race
and while you're in it y'better play nice!
so dont become that man that everybody meets
the man with a list of truths he repeats
worst of all these things is the fact that he eats
where he sh#ts
and tell me howda keep this guy from going to hell? well,
it aint too hard just put your ear to a shell
snap like a star, and think like a cell
before it splits
'saw a beggarman 'n said "man let me teach you to fish."
'beggar said "ah baby that sounds delish
but i can't afford a pole and i dont own a dish
on which to eat a fish even if you could teach me."
(so i gave him my respects in a cone)
'n i went looking for the house of a man who's a poet
who is a'healin the world and he doesn't even know it
and when he gives me the answer he won't speak it he'll crow it!
just like peter pan crows! crow y'all
(for goodness sakes crow out loud right now, seriously. ima talkin to you blog person, even if you get a funny look from someone. actually you're probly alone so crow loud enough for someone to think, wtf was that?)
there was a man went looking for the love of a teacher
when he found'er he tried but he just couldn't reach her
in despair he went looking for the jam of a preacher
whom he'd long admired
so he put his name and address on the mailing list
boarded noah's ark and sailed on through the mist
thought he saw moses looking pretty pissed
but really he was just pretty tired
he said moses won't ya tell me whose religion is right?
is it the muslims or the christians or the isrealites?
moses said the chosen people were the gays and the dykes!
the man said "really?"
moses rolled an eye and said, "no, stop asking stupid questions."
he'said, "ya spendin all your money on the temples you lost
calculating the price, but not the cost
let me tell you whatever kinda rock is underneath that mosque
you can't take it with you when you die!"
still they say-in-they-got-what-you-need to know about it at 10:00
they scare you half to death a'talking "us and them"
drag you all the way to Jerusalem
and the rapture
they give you a gun and a net and a buzz
y'ask'n'm why? they say, "just because"
then you forget who you are and what it was
you were supposed to capture
then ya meet a turtle at the bar who said that God don't care
whether your head is covered or whether it's bare
its why you choose to wear what you wear
that really matters
and wontchya hold that thought and don't think to fast
dont finish your drink, you gotta make it last
and before you're done you'd better melt that glass
before it shatters
so you say you wanna join up with the army of peace
then everyday you give your lovin to the living deceased
yes if you ever want your soul to be released"
you better train for it
you better train your mind to balance on the edge of a knife
you better learn to love myth, you better learn t'love life
but you'd better couple that with an utter and absolutly rife
disdain for it
p.s. someone's gotta invent a new unisex word for people. human, man/woman, duder, person, individual... non of that works lyrically... i think because they're all multisylabic. maybe... chap, is that unisex? i dont know british that well... any ideas people?
"..."
we speak in riddles, in painted tooth
they say "artists use lies to tell the truth"
but we don't, we just use'm, proof
that we're still out chopping ice
and sometimes its karma, and sometimes: grace
but its always there in the look on your face
when someone first tells you 'bout the human race
and while you're in it y'better play nice!
so dont become that man that everybody meets
the man with a list of truths he repeats
worst of all these things is the fact that he eats
where he sh#ts
and tell me howda keep this guy from going to hell? well,
it aint too hard just put your ear to a shell
snap like a star, and think like a cell
before it splits
'saw a beggarman 'n said "man let me teach you to fish."
'beggar said "ah baby that sounds delish
but i can't afford a pole and i dont own a dish
on which to eat a fish even if you could teach me."
(so i gave him my respects in a cone)
'n i went looking for the house of a man who's a poet
who is a'healin the world and he doesn't even know it
and when he gives me the answer he won't speak it he'll crow it!
just like peter pan crows! crow y'all
(for goodness sakes crow out loud right now, seriously. ima talkin to you blog person, even if you get a funny look from someone. actually you're probly alone so crow loud enough for someone to think, wtf was that?)
there was a man went looking for the love of a teacher
when he found'er he tried but he just couldn't reach her
in despair he went looking for the jam of a preacher
whom he'd long admired
so he put his name and address on the mailing list
boarded noah's ark and sailed on through the mist
thought he saw moses looking pretty pissed
but really he was just pretty tired
he said moses won't ya tell me whose religion is right?
is it the muslims or the christians or the isrealites?
moses said the chosen people were the gays and the dykes!
the man said "really?"
moses rolled an eye and said, "no, stop asking stupid questions."
he'said, "ya spendin all your money on the temples you lost
calculating the price, but not the cost
let me tell you whatever kinda rock is underneath that mosque
you can't take it with you when you die!"
still they say-in-they-got-what-you-need to know about it at 10:00
they scare you half to death a'talking "us and them"
drag you all the way to Jerusalem
and the rapture
they give you a gun and a net and a buzz
y'ask'n'm why? they say, "just because"
then you forget who you are and what it was
you were supposed to capture
then ya meet a turtle at the bar who said that God don't care
whether your head is covered or whether it's bare
its why you choose to wear what you wear
that really matters
and wontchya hold that thought and don't think to fast
dont finish your drink, you gotta make it last
and before you're done you'd better melt that glass
before it shatters
so you say you wanna join up with the army of peace
then everyday you give your lovin to the living deceased
yes if you ever want your soul to be released"
you better train for it
you better train your mind to balance on the edge of a knife
you better learn to love myth, you better learn t'love life
but you'd better couple that with an utter and absolutly rife
disdain for it
p.s. someone's gotta invent a new unisex word for people. human, man/woman, duder, person, individual... non of that works lyrically... i think because they're all multisylabic. maybe... chap, is that unisex? i dont know british that well... any ideas people?
Thursday, May 10, 2007
traffic
preeteens swinging from xmas lights hangin from the freeway overpass,
spinnin from when the cars and trucks and hybrid-electric dolphins driving by.
also the dolphin fin draphts blow the screeming swingers back and forth like a boxer bangs his or her hanging bag that one last time for good measure.
ddd-ddd-ddd-ddd... bop
the xmas lights snap and time stands still suspending the scene.
all except for benji the baton who crick his neck and then goes back to sleep on the concrete divider.
the mile markers prepare for what happens when the time happens again...
SLICE!!!!!!
the dolphin dorsal fins cut the kids into pieces that splatter into plastic yellow smily faces and green MR. Yuck stickers, bouncing and sticking to the windshields and peopleshields of the motorists.
the folks passing overhead on the overpass turn thier radio dials which in turn turn the folks into passing phases and kidneystones
spinnin from when the cars and trucks and hybrid-electric dolphins driving by.
also the dolphin fin draphts blow the screeming swingers back and forth like a boxer bangs his or her hanging bag that one last time for good measure.
ddd-ddd-ddd-ddd... bop
the xmas lights snap and time stands still suspending the scene.
all except for benji the baton who crick his neck and then goes back to sleep on the concrete divider.
the mile markers prepare for what happens when the time happens again...
SLICE!!!!!!
the dolphin dorsal fins cut the kids into pieces that splatter into plastic yellow smily faces and green MR. Yuck stickers, bouncing and sticking to the windshields and peopleshields of the motorists.
the folks passing overhead on the overpass turn thier radio dials which in turn turn the folks into passing phases and kidneystones
totally gellin
there is an ocean halfway in between the floor and the coffee table top.
the only feelable sensations are comming from the wavetops at your knees where the seagulls eat your skinscabs.
so your toes dont notice the prickly shipwreck wood they're grabing.
a submarine blows its whistle overby a two-pronged outlet...
oh man those wavetops!
the hairs you havent shaved on your shins spread along the surface of the water.
the treetrunk lifeyears of your legs starts spin spin spining which causes the ocean to flush into your heals and now it sloshes around when you walk
or stand, sit or kick.
the only feelable sensations are comming from the wavetops at your knees where the seagulls eat your skinscabs.
so your toes dont notice the prickly shipwreck wood they're grabing.
a submarine blows its whistle overby a two-pronged outlet...
oh man those wavetops!
the hairs you havent shaved on your shins spread along the surface of the water.
the treetrunk lifeyears of your legs starts spin spin spining which causes the ocean to flush into your heals and now it sloshes around when you walk
or stand, sit or kick.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
So I just decided to get a real blog. heres the junk from my myspace blog:
A History of God or Chasing Japanese Rabbits part deux
so i just got done reading karen armstrong's A HISTORY OF GOD. it took me along time as i'm a slow reader. nonetheless i am inspired to blog.
when it comes to the matter of GOD, isn't it curious how humans throughout the ages have come to specific revalations about god, which may start out to be inherently possitive, and then have afterwords thought, "now that i know what God is, i know what god isn't. "God is this, and not that", effectively leading to- "God has always been this, so it will always be this." never alowing the transformation of this into another "that". Quite ironic as, arguably, every revalation about God has at one time, not existed, whether "divinely inspired", or humanly pondered.
Armstrong's book thouroughly catalouges the pendulum swing of religious thought in society from the Mystic/irrational/follow your heart(e.g. jewish kabbalah, muslim sufism, christian mystysism) ideolgies to the paths of the Philosophic/rational/cultivate your mind(e.g. Maimonides, faylasufs, early calvinists) systems of thought. However, what her book never implicitly states or posts is the question, "why can't our religions cultivate a tolerance and inclusion of both the mystic and the rational, both heart and mind, all at the same time?" eastern thought systems seem to have been exploring this concept far better than us westerners. Allthough, not being a buddhist, i think i'd better think on this within my own cultural context if i'm to be any use to myself or my society.
yes, i will again forcefully blog my intentions to live the logic of DUALISM, rather than the logic of DOMINATION. to have an "either or both" rather than a "this or that" mind and heart. I feel like its a good thing to study as many paths as one can, never clinging solely to one, in order to be a force for peace and understanding. allthough the disclaimer for me is the fact that there is a bit of hypocrasy in this language as this aproach itself is a "path", and so it MUST be stated, and i must remind myself that this path will not nesesarily lead me to more virtue or revalation than the paths of those who stick to thier guns, so to speak. the followers of any path have the capasity to screw things up.
Also, as a picture can be framed in many frames, and a flower potted in many pots, they can also be seen by many eyes. SO then every well intentioned thinker who ever opened thier mouths to speak or put thought to pen must be prepared for the corruption of thier origional intent. I'm pretty sure Nietzsche would not have condoned Nazism, Marx would have denounced the Stalinists, and Jesus, Mohammed, and Moses all would have had issues with... well I mean fucking A right?
Perhaps what we need is some new vocation. Perhaps some sort of "thought medicine man", or preacher/holyman/psychologist, is needed to prescribe systems of thought and faith to those who have stumbeled to far down the path of "i'm right you're wrong." oh wait... maybe we do have those people,they're called teachers. Allthough the same aforementioned caveat must be applyed to teachers as to thinkers.
O.K. this is the point in the blog where that little mischievous elf inside me says "EUREKA! I've discovered truth. Look at me world, read my blog and think like me and all will be well!" so to him again i have to say, "no, no, no, mister Elf, we're just frame-makers here, not truth-knowers." the elf says "oh man, phooey," and kicks a rock. Why is it that thinkers feel the need to impose thier thoughts upon others? probably loneliness, or the need for admiration, i'm not sure really. blog blog blog, blog blog...
well its a nice day so i'm gonna go for a run, then i'm gonna go get hammered with my friend Eric, whom i've not seen in a while. peaceout, its all good, word to your mother
Thursday, January 11, 2007
happy fifth birthday guantanamo!!!!
so as i write this all my friends are down at the courthouse protesting the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. i realy wanted to go but i work in the afternoons and its hard to reschedule... and i hate commie terrorists, j/k. seriously though i decided to donate the money i'm making working/missing it to buy some orange jumpsuits and hoods for the demonstrators. mostly because of the emotional state i was in after seeing the warm up to the protest movie "The Road to Guantanamo", which all us no-good hippie where watching at the Jack Pine CC yesterday... Man i hope someone takes pictures of the protest, i just want to see the peaceful mayhem!!!!... god i feel like such a douchebag betrayer. -but- thing is, I think this kinda feeling is what keeps so many away from activism. The thought that you have to give all of yourself to the cause or nothing at all. this couldnt be further from reality. this is what our country is all about man! one drop combined with one million drops of water make an ocean. one word together with one million words make a novel, ect ect ect...
yet still its hard to donate time or money to causes mostly in the vien of "one more brick in the building." which for me never seems to inspire much action, as each brick only touches three or four others and seems quite insignificant next to millions of other bricks, no big deal. well, here is a more helpful metaphore i like to use for myself: consider the building being built, and now it is finished. Now imagine that just 100 of the million bricks where to be taken away. how much faster will this building crumble, when your brick is gone, and the hundreds of bricks above it are no longer supported. your one brick missing allows outside air to get in messing up the heating and cooling systems! ohhhh! "what about windows" you say, you smart-alec. yes yes windows do let in and out air, but they are THERE to be opened or closed.
what about this- accourding to the laws of physics, at some mathematical point, one drop of water is all it will take to break a dam. when water joins with water, it becomes one body of water. and as the dam breaks. every previous drop of water has had a hand in the event, sharing in this glorious spectacle (remember, just a metaphore. dams breaking in real life? usually not good.) in the end does that one drop of water recieve all the credit? No, it cant even be found or singled out. the idea of this happening is absurd and silly even. lets say you've donated just two dollars, and two hours of your time to agencies fighting to cure cancer. if this is so, when cancer is cured: feel no humility, embarasment, or give yourself any pause to jump up and yell, "HEY EVERYONE, I CURED CANCER!! GO ME." for dont you see, you did!
and what of this- PRETEND for a minite that every member of the human race is a "cell in the body" of humankind. imagine that just .5 of a percent of the billions of cells in your body decided to stop working, or never start, or just vanish. you could not live with all of those absences! allthough it gives me a good idea for a startrek beaming accident script... HOW STRAGE to think of your skin cells at war with your blood cells for praying to different gods. think of your bones, nerves, muscles, and blood buying tabloids and watching the E! channel to find out what those celebrities of the flesh: the eyes, lips and hair, are up to now? why should the palm be jeolous of the fingers? silly silly silly..
well, i'm done brainstorming for now, but just to turn the whole thing on its head, some will say in this spirit of 1+1+1+1+1... and butterfly effect activism: if i only change one mind towards universal good in my lifetime, i know i'll have meant something to the world... allthough this IS true, as the legendary minneapolis based peace activist Marv Davidoff has said. "Just changing one mind in the course of your life? thats not very efficient." (he says it much funnier than that.)
Sunday, December 31, 2006
new years eve
its new years eve and its snowing!!!! yesssss. i've just been outside throwing snowballs at trees. i mustve thrown a hundred balls, and hit only about five trees. fell on my ass while i was at it. man if there was no snow on the ground at new years i was gonna stick my dick in a gas pump down at SA and leave it there. just kidding, i like global warming for minnesota. its just about every other place on the planet that i dont like it for. which makes me think... no i'll leave that to another blog, too long a thought.
another interesting thing today was i was reading my new book, WEST BANK BOOGIE, and while reading the part about Dave Ray i learned of the I CHING. i'm always offended with myself if i havent heard of something that has inspired another artistic type, so i went to the internet and found out what it was, which is like the older text in history or something like that. It's completely baffeling to me two hours later, allthough i think it has to do with divination, which ive heard of since watching the harry potter movies. naturaly i found an I CHING calculator on another site which requires your name, a question, and whether you'd like to toss the virtual yarrow stalks or virtual coins.
I loooooove horoscopey type things so for my reading i chose:
rickrobotwho am iyarrow stalks
they throw six virtual yarrow into what they call a Hexagram, which gives you like six fortune cookie type answers to your question. the one that stuck out to me was that my creativity and strength were leaving me to make way for brightness and warmth. which really made me sad because i do value creativity more than brightness and warmth. i was much comforted though to read about five minutes later that these predictions are meant to be only temporary, inthemoment for the next moment kinda things. i asked the same question a little later and it said that brightness and wrmth were giving way to stillness and obstruction. so thats where i'm at right now. cool.
much funner than a magic 8-ball.
Monday, December 25, 2006
chasing japanese rabbits
bluhhh...so i just spent six hours at church singing bach and eating papa johns. i like xmas somtimes, makes me practise my TM techniques. we had our family xmas on thursday this year, scheduling conflicts you see. my dad got me west bank boogie, thanks dad!
anyhow after a couple sermons i started spacing and thinking like, man, alot of these sayings and passages and slogans we have in our religions sure can be packaged nice, in pretty boxes and bows. but its dangerous putting truth in a box, albeit(is that a word, i forgit) a nice lookin one. good'ol bobby z once said something like "nah, i never did have anything come up to me and tell me any kinda truth. its more like i've just caught a wink from time to time, a passing thing." i like that image of the "wink", not a passage or slogan. RUMI describes it as "peeking out from underneath the bedcovers for just a moment, laughing ...HELLO!"
you really gotta come at these things a different way every time you hear'em, that is if you'd like to be winked at more than once or twice in your life. try to hear every word in a different way. they cant mean just one thing more than once. and if they somehow do, they've made it back to the same point on the circle, but it keeps turning. its impossible to eat an apple in exacly the same way every time, even if all apples were exactly the same. there are so many good ways to do different good things that can make you feel good. can you eat gold earings? can you wear cheesecake? can you buy food with baseballs? can you play catch with money? some things seem obvious, but we should still debate in good fun with others and ourselves.
also you can ponder sequals and prequals to your box-slogans. i thought of tonight a japanese proverb that effectively stoped my trying to practise christianity, buddhism, and a mish-mash pagan tradition all at the same time, it was: "chase one rabbit, catch one rabbit; chase two rabbits, catch none." what i thought tonight was this: well, after i've caught my rabbit, could i chase another? could i chase a squirel, a zebra, my own tail just for fun? it seems i could, one at a time of course, whatever time is.
what made me think of this was that during PY's seventh sermon i heard the city bus stop on the corner and pick up some elderlys, and i thought: man i'm glad we're not all in church right now, and that theres someone to drive the bus. what would it be like if everyone was trying to figure out "the great I AM" in the same way? scary. it also makes me think like maybe we've been mistranslating the first comandment all these years. thats its not "my gods right and yours is wrong", its instead "I am the great I am, I am all gods, i am every color in the rainbow(as well as infered and xray and all that haha). and that its the gods we make on earth that are the false idols, whether they be gold, kittycats, or most importantly the words of our religious passages. words can be highly deadly when idolized methinks.
ok, so of course then how can you tell the real thing from the idols? well, i dont think you really can. you just have to quiet your mind, open your heart, and hope that you find what it is you're looking for. and if you're lucky, the rabbit will hippidy hop up to you, wiggle its nose, and give you a rabbity wink.
Monday, December 11, 2006
words so silly
i was cutting a bagel the other day and instead i cut myself, oops! but it made me think... words are like the blood from a clenched fist hiding a cut, dripping out uncontrollably, even in the absense of gravity this happens.
see-you know why it is bleeding but you cannot see the wound, open your hand and see the cut. well, no surprises there, still ouch though. as the blood flows faster, you manipulate the flow to minimize the mess, hold it over the sink or something. wash it, dress it, all better. but still ouch man.
during this all of the attention is on the hands, the bleeding, the dripping, the dressing! far less if any attention given to the knife, or the heart that pumps the blood.
far less attention to the intent that made the words, the soul that pumps interpratation................
i remember i learned once that the english language has about 40 percent more words in it that other european languages because of its two parent languages. still though.... i dont think its ever even more than 20 or 30 percent effective in expressing someones true/right meaning. lets cut ourselves and others some slack when it comes to words. we might not take things how they were meant to be taken. even if they knew every language in the word i'm sure a heart and a knife would still have trouble communicating some of the time.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
i'll see you on the waves
why do you ask for love? and why in the world do you ask apples to swing down and be eaten by you, so silly. take them, eat them, oranges too
why fish with bait that must be imagianed by the fishes? swim swim and chase. besides, hooks are of no use here
why be angry with your television? no, watch every commercial and groove, dance, and bob to the dead music, make the dead glowing box live so that you can leave it at YOUR pleasure.
in fact, why refrain from any glowing evil, hypnotic or otherwise. You know in your depths that the experimentation of it leads mainly to the inevitable boredom of domination. the suppresion of evil leads mainly to larger, more harmful experiments, exponetially even......
warning: but bring love into your evildoing, for love left in good places is the most eaily corrupted. love left inside love becomes the most terrible freedom, the freedom from change, the awful distance from the wonder of growth and the privilage of death...
I LOVE U (so silly and fun when letters love eachother, carved into treebark)
i love the fear of loves destruction. my unborn child shines lights with little mirrors all along the wall in a language inviting decryption. yet all the message can say when expressed this way is "hello, from: just someone, forgetaboutit". the childs keeper, his mother, my own silly heart has learned the idiotic truth that:(in a mocked proffesor's voice) yes, sometimes the purest of love can in fact cause the object of its affection harm, and pain,(damned sweet comfortable irony.) a nail left to rust in a basement toolbox. Thus the noble thing to do must be then not to discard this nail, or destroy this love, but to focus its power elsewhere, channel it into other avenues...
(a voice full of happyrage) "FOCUS LOVE? YOU HYPOCRITIC ME
why do you stand on the top of your waves and say "ah yes, now i see that all waves around me are waves just the same, with the same function and purpose. I have mastered my wave and at the top i will sit... or stand as i know the value and order of choice. yes yes, we are all on water waves all the same, here i am, satisfied, still."
ORDER OF CHOICE? WAKE UP ME
yes mr. smartypants it is true that every wave around you is in fact the same as your conquered wave, you're very smart indeed there on your cushion. HOWEVER, every same wave that is at a different PLACE will crash on the shores of oblivion at a different TIME. and was there ever any joy that was not made of the impermanence of place, and and and the violent thrust of time. time infinate death and creation unlimited.
dance each wave from top to bottom, leap from cap to cap, and when you must meet the sands of nothing, may you step ashore in your own special, playful way. for if you are caught sitting or standing the wave will crash and you will be quite comically thrown headfirst into the beach with your bathrobe at your neck, your legs flailing about from neglect, and your unborn children laughing wildly from all the fun. (isn't it a great hope that all wave sitters and sleepers will not have to die upon thier waves alone, innervoices silenced, this i hope for me and you and you and you...)
once again i love you and i'll see you on the waves, for i'll not see you on the shore, where i pray you step
Friday, October 13, 2006
nightwalks
so i just did something... abnormal. i walked around the lake at midnight. i was driving home after a movie with my friends and i was reminising about my own self about ten years ago, and how i used to walk around the lake and around the neighborhood all the time late at night, espesially around this time of year, when its cold enough to keep the majority of the population at home so i could have the whole nieghborhood to myself for a couple of hours. there was one major difference though this time as i set out for my walk.... i was scared as hell. which i suppose is part of the reason why i went. i was so pissed off at myself for being grown-up and scared that i just had to do it. i started bargaining with my sensible side saying "well, allright but lets leave our wallet and cell phone in the car before we go." which i couldnt do the more i thought about it, the other side saying "dont be a pussy dude." during the walk i spent a little time thinking about what i would do if something bad were to happen. my imagination was really running wild and i really freaked myself out for a while. the moon and newly bear treebranches didnt help. also the sky was about half covered in spotchy clouds where every set of three or four holes looks like a menicing face. it didnt last long though, through the rhythm of my walking and seeping of memories a little bit of the invincibility of ten years ago seemed to find its way back into my blood. and all i can think is, how is it that i'm so terrified of this walk, this is my lake, MY LAKE for goodness sakes. i remembered a time in late november when i was walking around this same body of water and on the south shore the water was completely still and when i got to the north side not twenty minites later the wind was blowing the water so fiercely that it was freezing the waves as they trembled, and the remarkable thing was that these abnormaly formed ice waves had holes in them which, when the wind passed over and through them, made all manner of whistling noises, hundreds of individual, yet similar sounds coming from the lake. back then i thought i might like to be a orchestra composer and the experience was all the more amazing and unexplainable. on a lighter note some years before(from a picture of the thing to be mentioned i was in eigth grade at the time) i had broken some newly formed ice from this lake and one of the sheets looked exactly like a cock'n'balls which i found to be supremely funny, so i lugged it back to my house to show my friends. some of which did or didnt apreciate being humped by a two and a half foot ice-weiner. the last memory i'll mention (for now) is that of a swing rope over the minnehaha creek kinda by the freeway, where the thing to do was to let go on the other side and land on the opposite bank, which most kids did, except for me. it took over an hour to walk to which doesnt mean much to a kid with headphones and his Hum, Blind Melon, and Pumpkins mixtapes, so i went. this was also when the leaves had fallen and since all summer i couldnt work up the balls to do it i made a bet with myself: "dude on the way to that rope we're(i can say we, i'm a gemini) gonna walk on one side of the creek, and on the way back we're using the opposite path, and the only way we can cross the river, is using that swingrope. when i got there i spent around half an hour pshyching myself up to do it. i swung across three or four times but didnt drop. my body was filled with tears of idiocy and on the final time i did let go and made it to the opposite bank. allthough it was more from tired fingers than from couragousness, and it was probably the least gracefull thing i've ever done as i remember landing on my side and hurting my elbow and arm and bonking my ear quite badly. but i did it, and thats what i needed to do then. but why?........(sidenote, that next summer our friend andrew had the misfortion of it breaking on him after he had been assured of its safety by all that had swung on it. he got wet and bruised a bit, but he was fine). so anyways why, why why why... i guess when you realize youre scared of something that has a remedy, you wanna do it. actually i dont feel so old now that i think of it. ive still done some pretty idioticly exceptional things this last year(much more than walking around a lake) motivated by the fear of being a scaredy-cat. allthough the things i can proudly point to do grow less every one, year that is. and the chances missed do seem to grow in number... it might be the romance of hindsight, but it seems to me that i used to spend so much time and energy INVENTING myself. i think it all boils down to how much time we devote to inventing ourselves, and how much time we spend preserving ourselves, the older we get the more to preserve, hmmmm....... to all my friends: it seems that as we get older we not only gain in material wealth and knowledge, but also in the sense of who we are, which may be a good thing, who knows. i just hope i never lose the voice in myself that makes me do idiotic things for the sake of reinvention, on a dare.
ps. if anyone wants to jump of the cedar bridge one more time, i'm game... i think... well actually lets wait for spring when its warmer and i'll most likely have forgotten all of this gusto.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
wedding
just got back from my friends wedding. it was quite the cultural experience. the ceramony was conducted by a native american woman, and was quite lovely... druming, smoking vases, blankets, quite nice. lauren's (the bride) family is jewish so we played the Hava Nagila song after and it was a romp. i wish my relatives had a song they sung at weddings and lifted people up on chairs and stuff. oh, worth mentioning as well is shane's(the groom) family is catholic i believe, he had a native ceremony for personal reasons relating to his work. idontknow, its the kinda thing where you know there are probably some folks who werent comfortable with the situation, most likely based on preconceptions of how a wedding is supposed to be according to your own family's traditions. imean, any negativity like that stems from a desire for the good of a loved one, and that must be honored as well as concoured. but I really couldnt feel to much negative energy around though, overall it was great. and i'm always proud to be a human in those instances when love of love trumps love of comfort, and i think for the most part, thats what happend tonight. hurray for shane and lauren!!!!
ps: hurray for matt and anna who just got engaged!
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Aids was my bad, sorry
whoa, i just read that on the day i was born, the very first case of AIDS was diagnosed. crazy
A History of God or Chasing Japanese Rabbits part deux
so i just got done reading karen armstrong's A HISTORY OF GOD. it took me along time as i'm a slow reader. nonetheless i am inspired to blog.
when it comes to the matter of GOD, isn't it curious how humans throughout the ages have come to specific revalations about god, which may start out to be inherently possitive, and then have afterwords thought, "now that i know what God is, i know what god isn't. "God is this, and not that", effectively leading to- "God has always been this, so it will always be this." never alowing the transformation of this into another "that". Quite ironic as, arguably, every revalation about God has at one time, not existed, whether "divinely inspired", or humanly pondered.
Armstrong's book thouroughly catalouges the pendulum swing of religious thought in society from the Mystic/irrational/follow your heart(e.g. jewish kabbalah, muslim sufism, christian mystysism) ideolgies to the paths of the Philosophic/rational/cultivate your mind(e.g. Maimonides, faylasufs, early calvinists) systems of thought. However, what her book never implicitly states or posts is the question, "why can't our religions cultivate a tolerance and inclusion of both the mystic and the rational, both heart and mind, all at the same time?" eastern thought systems seem to have been exploring this concept far better than us westerners. Allthough, not being a buddhist, i think i'd better think on this within my own cultural context if i'm to be any use to myself or my society.
yes, i will again forcefully blog my intentions to live the logic of DUALISM, rather than the logic of DOMINATION. to have an "either or both" rather than a "this or that" mind and heart. I feel like its a good thing to study as many paths as one can, never clinging solely to one, in order to be a force for peace and understanding. allthough the disclaimer for me is the fact that there is a bit of hypocrasy in this language as this aproach itself is a "path", and so it MUST be stated, and i must remind myself that this path will not nesesarily lead me to more virtue or revalation than the paths of those who stick to thier guns, so to speak. the followers of any path have the capasity to screw things up.
Also, as a picture can be framed in many frames, and a flower potted in many pots, they can also be seen by many eyes. SO then every well intentioned thinker who ever opened thier mouths to speak or put thought to pen must be prepared for the corruption of thier origional intent. I'm pretty sure Nietzsche would not have condoned Nazism, Marx would have denounced the Stalinists, and Jesus, Mohammed, and Moses all would have had issues with... well I mean fucking A right?
Perhaps what we need is some new vocation. Perhaps some sort of "thought medicine man", or preacher/holyman/psychologist, is needed to prescribe systems of thought and faith to those who have stumbeled to far down the path of "i'm right you're wrong." oh wait... maybe we do have those people,they're called teachers. Allthough the same aforementioned caveat must be applyed to teachers as to thinkers.
O.K. this is the point in the blog where that little mischievous elf inside me says "EUREKA! I've discovered truth. Look at me world, read my blog and think like me and all will be well!" so to him again i have to say, "no, no, no, mister Elf, we're just frame-makers here, not truth-knowers." the elf says "oh man, phooey," and kicks a rock. Why is it that thinkers feel the need to impose thier thoughts upon others? probably loneliness, or the need for admiration, i'm not sure really. blog blog blog, blog blog...
well its a nice day so i'm gonna go for a run, then i'm gonna go get hammered with my friend Eric, whom i've not seen in a while. peaceout, its all good, word to your mother
Thursday, January 11, 2007
happy fifth birthday guantanamo!!!!
so as i write this all my friends are down at the courthouse protesting the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. i realy wanted to go but i work in the afternoons and its hard to reschedule... and i hate commie terrorists, j/k. seriously though i decided to donate the money i'm making working/missing it to buy some orange jumpsuits and hoods for the demonstrators. mostly because of the emotional state i was in after seeing the warm up to the protest movie "The Road to Guantanamo", which all us no-good hippie where watching at the Jack Pine CC yesterday... Man i hope someone takes pictures of the protest, i just want to see the peaceful mayhem!!!!... god i feel like such a douchebag betrayer. -but- thing is, I think this kinda feeling is what keeps so many away from activism. The thought that you have to give all of yourself to the cause or nothing at all. this couldnt be further from reality. this is what our country is all about man! one drop combined with one million drops of water make an ocean. one word together with one million words make a novel, ect ect ect...
yet still its hard to donate time or money to causes mostly in the vien of "one more brick in the building." which for me never seems to inspire much action, as each brick only touches three or four others and seems quite insignificant next to millions of other bricks, no big deal. well, here is a more helpful metaphore i like to use for myself: consider the building being built, and now it is finished. Now imagine that just 100 of the million bricks where to be taken away. how much faster will this building crumble, when your brick is gone, and the hundreds of bricks above it are no longer supported. your one brick missing allows outside air to get in messing up the heating and cooling systems! ohhhh! "what about windows" you say, you smart-alec. yes yes windows do let in and out air, but they are THERE to be opened or closed.
what about this- accourding to the laws of physics, at some mathematical point, one drop of water is all it will take to break a dam. when water joins with water, it becomes one body of water. and as the dam breaks. every previous drop of water has had a hand in the event, sharing in this glorious spectacle (remember, just a metaphore. dams breaking in real life? usually not good.) in the end does that one drop of water recieve all the credit? No, it cant even be found or singled out. the idea of this happening is absurd and silly even. lets say you've donated just two dollars, and two hours of your time to agencies fighting to cure cancer. if this is so, when cancer is cured: feel no humility, embarasment, or give yourself any pause to jump up and yell, "HEY EVERYONE, I CURED CANCER!! GO ME." for dont you see, you did!
and what of this- PRETEND for a minite that every member of the human race is a "cell in the body" of humankind. imagine that just .5 of a percent of the billions of cells in your body decided to stop working, or never start, or just vanish. you could not live with all of those absences! allthough it gives me a good idea for a startrek beaming accident script... HOW STRAGE to think of your skin cells at war with your blood cells for praying to different gods. think of your bones, nerves, muscles, and blood buying tabloids and watching the E! channel to find out what those celebrities of the flesh: the eyes, lips and hair, are up to now? why should the palm be jeolous of the fingers? silly silly silly..
well, i'm done brainstorming for now, but just to turn the whole thing on its head, some will say in this spirit of 1+1+1+1+1... and butterfly effect activism: if i only change one mind towards universal good in my lifetime, i know i'll have meant something to the world... allthough this IS true, as the legendary minneapolis based peace activist Marv Davidoff has said. "Just changing one mind in the course of your life? thats not very efficient." (he says it much funnier than that.)
Sunday, December 31, 2006
new years eve
its new years eve and its snowing!!!! yesssss. i've just been outside throwing snowballs at trees. i mustve thrown a hundred balls, and hit only about five trees. fell on my ass while i was at it. man if there was no snow on the ground at new years i was gonna stick my dick in a gas pump down at SA and leave it there. just kidding, i like global warming for minnesota. its just about every other place on the planet that i dont like it for. which makes me think... no i'll leave that to another blog, too long a thought.
another interesting thing today was i was reading my new book, WEST BANK BOOGIE, and while reading the part about Dave Ray i learned of the I CHING. i'm always offended with myself if i havent heard of something that has inspired another artistic type, so i went to the internet and found out what it was, which is like the older text in history or something like that. It's completely baffeling to me two hours later, allthough i think it has to do with divination, which ive heard of since watching the harry potter movies. naturaly i found an I CHING calculator on another site which requires your name, a question, and whether you'd like to toss the virtual yarrow stalks or virtual coins.
I loooooove horoscopey type things so for my reading i chose:
rickrobotwho am iyarrow stalks
they throw six virtual yarrow into what they call a Hexagram, which gives you like six fortune cookie type answers to your question. the one that stuck out to me was that my creativity and strength were leaving me to make way for brightness and warmth. which really made me sad because i do value creativity more than brightness and warmth. i was much comforted though to read about five minutes later that these predictions are meant to be only temporary, inthemoment for the next moment kinda things. i asked the same question a little later and it said that brightness and wrmth were giving way to stillness and obstruction. so thats where i'm at right now. cool.
much funner than a magic 8-ball.
Monday, December 25, 2006
chasing japanese rabbits
bluhhh...so i just spent six hours at church singing bach and eating papa johns. i like xmas somtimes, makes me practise my TM techniques. we had our family xmas on thursday this year, scheduling conflicts you see. my dad got me west bank boogie, thanks dad!
anyhow after a couple sermons i started spacing and thinking like, man, alot of these sayings and passages and slogans we have in our religions sure can be packaged nice, in pretty boxes and bows. but its dangerous putting truth in a box, albeit(is that a word, i forgit) a nice lookin one. good'ol bobby z once said something like "nah, i never did have anything come up to me and tell me any kinda truth. its more like i've just caught a wink from time to time, a passing thing." i like that image of the "wink", not a passage or slogan. RUMI describes it as "peeking out from underneath the bedcovers for just a moment, laughing ...HELLO!"
you really gotta come at these things a different way every time you hear'em, that is if you'd like to be winked at more than once or twice in your life. try to hear every word in a different way. they cant mean just one thing more than once. and if they somehow do, they've made it back to the same point on the circle, but it keeps turning. its impossible to eat an apple in exacly the same way every time, even if all apples were exactly the same. there are so many good ways to do different good things that can make you feel good. can you eat gold earings? can you wear cheesecake? can you buy food with baseballs? can you play catch with money? some things seem obvious, but we should still debate in good fun with others and ourselves.
also you can ponder sequals and prequals to your box-slogans. i thought of tonight a japanese proverb that effectively stoped my trying to practise christianity, buddhism, and a mish-mash pagan tradition all at the same time, it was: "chase one rabbit, catch one rabbit; chase two rabbits, catch none." what i thought tonight was this: well, after i've caught my rabbit, could i chase another? could i chase a squirel, a zebra, my own tail just for fun? it seems i could, one at a time of course, whatever time is.
what made me think of this was that during PY's seventh sermon i heard the city bus stop on the corner and pick up some elderlys, and i thought: man i'm glad we're not all in church right now, and that theres someone to drive the bus. what would it be like if everyone was trying to figure out "the great I AM" in the same way? scary. it also makes me think like maybe we've been mistranslating the first comandment all these years. thats its not "my gods right and yours is wrong", its instead "I am the great I am, I am all gods, i am every color in the rainbow(as well as infered and xray and all that haha). and that its the gods we make on earth that are the false idols, whether they be gold, kittycats, or most importantly the words of our religious passages. words can be highly deadly when idolized methinks.
ok, so of course then how can you tell the real thing from the idols? well, i dont think you really can. you just have to quiet your mind, open your heart, and hope that you find what it is you're looking for. and if you're lucky, the rabbit will hippidy hop up to you, wiggle its nose, and give you a rabbity wink.
Monday, December 11, 2006
words so silly
i was cutting a bagel the other day and instead i cut myself, oops! but it made me think... words are like the blood from a clenched fist hiding a cut, dripping out uncontrollably, even in the absense of gravity this happens.
see-you know why it is bleeding but you cannot see the wound, open your hand and see the cut. well, no surprises there, still ouch though. as the blood flows faster, you manipulate the flow to minimize the mess, hold it over the sink or something. wash it, dress it, all better. but still ouch man.
during this all of the attention is on the hands, the bleeding, the dripping, the dressing! far less if any attention given to the knife, or the heart that pumps the blood.
far less attention to the intent that made the words, the soul that pumps interpratation................
i remember i learned once that the english language has about 40 percent more words in it that other european languages because of its two parent languages. still though.... i dont think its ever even more than 20 or 30 percent effective in expressing someones true/right meaning. lets cut ourselves and others some slack when it comes to words. we might not take things how they were meant to be taken. even if they knew every language in the word i'm sure a heart and a knife would still have trouble communicating some of the time.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
i'll see you on the waves
why do you ask for love? and why in the world do you ask apples to swing down and be eaten by you, so silly. take them, eat them, oranges too
why fish with bait that must be imagianed by the fishes? swim swim and chase. besides, hooks are of no use here
why be angry with your television? no, watch every commercial and groove, dance, and bob to the dead music, make the dead glowing box live so that you can leave it at YOUR pleasure.
in fact, why refrain from any glowing evil, hypnotic or otherwise. You know in your depths that the experimentation of it leads mainly to the inevitable boredom of domination. the suppresion of evil leads mainly to larger, more harmful experiments, exponetially even......
warning: but bring love into your evildoing, for love left in good places is the most eaily corrupted. love left inside love becomes the most terrible freedom, the freedom from change, the awful distance from the wonder of growth and the privilage of death...
I LOVE U (so silly and fun when letters love eachother, carved into treebark)
i love the fear of loves destruction. my unborn child shines lights with little mirrors all along the wall in a language inviting decryption. yet all the message can say when expressed this way is "hello, from: just someone, forgetaboutit". the childs keeper, his mother, my own silly heart has learned the idiotic truth that:(in a mocked proffesor's voice) yes, sometimes the purest of love can in fact cause the object of its affection harm, and pain,(damned sweet comfortable irony.) a nail left to rust in a basement toolbox. Thus the noble thing to do must be then not to discard this nail, or destroy this love, but to focus its power elsewhere, channel it into other avenues...
(a voice full of happyrage) "FOCUS LOVE? YOU HYPOCRITIC ME
why do you stand on the top of your waves and say "ah yes, now i see that all waves around me are waves just the same, with the same function and purpose. I have mastered my wave and at the top i will sit... or stand as i know the value and order of choice. yes yes, we are all on water waves all the same, here i am, satisfied, still."
ORDER OF CHOICE? WAKE UP ME
yes mr. smartypants it is true that every wave around you is in fact the same as your conquered wave, you're very smart indeed there on your cushion. HOWEVER, every same wave that is at a different PLACE will crash on the shores of oblivion at a different TIME. and was there ever any joy that was not made of the impermanence of place, and and and the violent thrust of time. time infinate death and creation unlimited.
dance each wave from top to bottom, leap from cap to cap, and when you must meet the sands of nothing, may you step ashore in your own special, playful way. for if you are caught sitting or standing the wave will crash and you will be quite comically thrown headfirst into the beach with your bathrobe at your neck, your legs flailing about from neglect, and your unborn children laughing wildly from all the fun. (isn't it a great hope that all wave sitters and sleepers will not have to die upon thier waves alone, innervoices silenced, this i hope for me and you and you and you...)
once again i love you and i'll see you on the waves, for i'll not see you on the shore, where i pray you step
Friday, October 13, 2006
nightwalks
so i just did something... abnormal. i walked around the lake at midnight. i was driving home after a movie with my friends and i was reminising about my own self about ten years ago, and how i used to walk around the lake and around the neighborhood all the time late at night, espesially around this time of year, when its cold enough to keep the majority of the population at home so i could have the whole nieghborhood to myself for a couple of hours. there was one major difference though this time as i set out for my walk.... i was scared as hell. which i suppose is part of the reason why i went. i was so pissed off at myself for being grown-up and scared that i just had to do it. i started bargaining with my sensible side saying "well, allright but lets leave our wallet and cell phone in the car before we go." which i couldnt do the more i thought about it, the other side saying "dont be a pussy dude." during the walk i spent a little time thinking about what i would do if something bad were to happen. my imagination was really running wild and i really freaked myself out for a while. the moon and newly bear treebranches didnt help. also the sky was about half covered in spotchy clouds where every set of three or four holes looks like a menicing face. it didnt last long though, through the rhythm of my walking and seeping of memories a little bit of the invincibility of ten years ago seemed to find its way back into my blood. and all i can think is, how is it that i'm so terrified of this walk, this is my lake, MY LAKE for goodness sakes. i remembered a time in late november when i was walking around this same body of water and on the south shore the water was completely still and when i got to the north side not twenty minites later the wind was blowing the water so fiercely that it was freezing the waves as they trembled, and the remarkable thing was that these abnormaly formed ice waves had holes in them which, when the wind passed over and through them, made all manner of whistling noises, hundreds of individual, yet similar sounds coming from the lake. back then i thought i might like to be a orchestra composer and the experience was all the more amazing and unexplainable. on a lighter note some years before(from a picture of the thing to be mentioned i was in eigth grade at the time) i had broken some newly formed ice from this lake and one of the sheets looked exactly like a cock'n'balls which i found to be supremely funny, so i lugged it back to my house to show my friends. some of which did or didnt apreciate being humped by a two and a half foot ice-weiner. the last memory i'll mention (for now) is that of a swing rope over the minnehaha creek kinda by the freeway, where the thing to do was to let go on the other side and land on the opposite bank, which most kids did, except for me. it took over an hour to walk to which doesnt mean much to a kid with headphones and his Hum, Blind Melon, and Pumpkins mixtapes, so i went. this was also when the leaves had fallen and since all summer i couldnt work up the balls to do it i made a bet with myself: "dude on the way to that rope we're(i can say we, i'm a gemini) gonna walk on one side of the creek, and on the way back we're using the opposite path, and the only way we can cross the river, is using that swingrope. when i got there i spent around half an hour pshyching myself up to do it. i swung across three or four times but didnt drop. my body was filled with tears of idiocy and on the final time i did let go and made it to the opposite bank. allthough it was more from tired fingers than from couragousness, and it was probably the least gracefull thing i've ever done as i remember landing on my side and hurting my elbow and arm and bonking my ear quite badly. but i did it, and thats what i needed to do then. but why?........(sidenote, that next summer our friend andrew had the misfortion of it breaking on him after he had been assured of its safety by all that had swung on it. he got wet and bruised a bit, but he was fine). so anyways why, why why why... i guess when you realize youre scared of something that has a remedy, you wanna do it. actually i dont feel so old now that i think of it. ive still done some pretty idioticly exceptional things this last year(much more than walking around a lake) motivated by the fear of being a scaredy-cat. allthough the things i can proudly point to do grow less every one, year that is. and the chances missed do seem to grow in number... it might be the romance of hindsight, but it seems to me that i used to spend so much time and energy INVENTING myself. i think it all boils down to how much time we devote to inventing ourselves, and how much time we spend preserving ourselves, the older we get the more to preserve, hmmmm....... to all my friends: it seems that as we get older we not only gain in material wealth and knowledge, but also in the sense of who we are, which may be a good thing, who knows. i just hope i never lose the voice in myself that makes me do idiotic things for the sake of reinvention, on a dare.
ps. if anyone wants to jump of the cedar bridge one more time, i'm game... i think... well actually lets wait for spring when its warmer and i'll most likely have forgotten all of this gusto.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
wedding
just got back from my friends wedding. it was quite the cultural experience. the ceramony was conducted by a native american woman, and was quite lovely... druming, smoking vases, blankets, quite nice. lauren's (the bride) family is jewish so we played the Hava Nagila song after and it was a romp. i wish my relatives had a song they sung at weddings and lifted people up on chairs and stuff. oh, worth mentioning as well is shane's(the groom) family is catholic i believe, he had a native ceremony for personal reasons relating to his work. idontknow, its the kinda thing where you know there are probably some folks who werent comfortable with the situation, most likely based on preconceptions of how a wedding is supposed to be according to your own family's traditions. imean, any negativity like that stems from a desire for the good of a loved one, and that must be honored as well as concoured. but I really couldnt feel to much negative energy around though, overall it was great. and i'm always proud to be a human in those instances when love of love trumps love of comfort, and i think for the most part, thats what happend tonight. hurray for shane and lauren!!!!
ps: hurray for matt and anna who just got engaged!
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Aids was my bad, sorry
whoa, i just read that on the day i was born, the very first case of AIDS was diagnosed. crazy
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