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FaceBook--Breading Ground for Political Threads

2010-12-12T19:04:00.004-05:00

Here is an interesing, ongoing political discource I've been a party to on Facebook recently:

Andrew--“Republicans denied adequate health care to the heroes who developed illnesses from rushing into burning buildings on 9/11,” he said. “Yet they will stop at nothing to give tax breaks to millionaires and C.E.O.’s, even though they will explode our deficit and fail to create jobs. That tells you everything you need to know about their priorities.”-Harry Reid... I concur.

Peter--I make it a point never to agree with Mr. Harry Reid.

Andrew--I really could not care less who said it- they're right.

Rick--Here's something another Harry said:
Lord Voldemort: [to Dumbledore thru Harry] You've lost, old man.
Harry Potter: [to Voldemort] You're the weak one. And you'll never know love,or friendship. And I feel sorry for you.
...I feel sorry for republicans

Peter--Yes because Republicans couldn't possibly be human could they?

Rick--you're right, cheap shot. But still--who but the rich have benefited the most from: government bailouts, the wars to keep oil interests safe, and the deregulation that even Alan Greenspan is now apologizing for. It's not too much to ask that they now pay their fair share. The republican idea that any way you can make money without being thrown in jail is then yours, yours fair and square--this idea will be the death of our nation, children's futures, planet, troops, etcetera...

Peter-- It would seem your beef is with Enron-style capitalism. There are millions of small business owners out there just trying to make a living, (and, by doing so, they provide incomes for millions more in the process) - they're the ones who ho...ld our future - and the government is currently not doing them any favors. I'm all for winnowing out the greedy, and prosecuting the guilty when the law has been broken. Conservatism, contrary to popular liberal belief, does not distill down to a 'screw thy neighbor' ethos.
Regarding government bailouts - it would seem we have all benefited - for we have managed to avert total financial collapse - at least for the moment. Obama recognized this threat, and acted prudently, rationally and correctly - I believe. The state of the US economy would have been incomparably harsher, had banks been allowed to fail and car companies been allowed to fold.
Regarding wars to keep oil interests safe - I assume you are referring to the singular war in Iraq. The war in Afghanistan has nothing - quite literally - to do with oil. There are not "wars." Regarding Iraq, opinions vary - I still believe we intervened, not only to protect our own oil interests, but the oil interests of the entire world, which were being held hostage by a mad tyrant, (who was our responsibility) and his sons. I believe that war with Iraq was inevitable - and that it was preferable we decide the timing, rather than he.

Regarding Greenspan - there is no economist in the world, who understands how exactly the free market economy is going to play out. As the saying goes - "Put 10 economists in a room and you'll get 10 different opinions." The people who put their faith in him as fed chief should have known better than to put all their eggs in one basket. Ultimately he did what he though was right, and it turned out he was wrong - not malicious, just wrong. In this regard, he is neither the first, nor the last to have made that mistake.
The ability to make money in this country, does not spell our demise. On the contrary, it is a fundamental component of our success.
We live in a dynamic system - an experiment - and tweaks and modifications are constantly being made... this is our real strength. We have a system that is capable of adapting - and adapt we must - and adapt we shall.

Rick--touché, well put. Still--no new net jobs have been created in this country since 2000, and tax cuts have not seemed to help that figure. I also think that anyone earning 250k+ can no longer be considered to be " just trying to make a living...." That designation should be reserved for the man who picks soybeans for 10 hours a day six days a week. Tell me--What makes it fair that the owner of his soybean company make 400 times as much as he, the picker? (In 1980, the ratio between highest paid and average, -average- compensation in a Fortune 500 company was 42 to one. By 2007, the ratio was 411 to one.) Government is the only way to enforce a truely fairer slicing of the gifts which our planet has to offer us. The government is us--we the people--it is not some bogey man waiting to screw you over (as you fairly pointed out--neither are most capitalist republicans, my apologies.) Stil, Ask not what your country can do for you, and so on and so forth.
The justification for the Iraq war and 100,000 civilian deaths aside--I still think that Bush, if he really believed in the war, should have asked us to pay for it while it was happening. Vietnam was not put on a credit card; and by draft, citizens were asked to serve(thanks dad). WWII was also fought by an America where resources were rationed, everyone knew a soldier who fought, and the rich paid 60 percent more in taxes than they do now...Today we are in Afghanistan, and how do we honor our troops' service? By banning coffins from Network TV.
Once again, sorry---I know the majority of Conservatives are hard working people that just want to live in a free society... I too hope we will adapt, and I hope that every 250+ earner's tax break will trickle down like it has never proven to do before. One thing is certain--No new soybean pickers can be hired when none in the lower classes can afford to buy them...

Peter--We avoided a near total financial meltdown - it was all set to make the Great Depression look like a mild slump. People really do have short memories. It is a source of constant mystery to me that Obama gets almost no credit for stopping ...this. His courage, leadership and common sense prevailed - and yet Republicans, and more disheartening, Liberals just can not give this guy his due.
Unemployment was at historic low points both in 2000 and 2007 - but this is irrelevant, because what you really want to say is that it remains very high today. Yes, this is true. As it happens, in the last decade GDP increased from 10 trillion to 14 trillion - again, who cares - the economy still seems sluggish. The economy is, in fact, growing - though unemployment is still high - and seeing as the government can not actually "create" real, permanent jobs - then we must stimulate economic growth. There's is no getting around the shift to a global economy, however. The world is - as Thomas Friedman says - flat.
Hence tax cuts, which generally have a stimulating effect on economies - and, counter-intuitively, revenues. Even JFK, who you quoted, understood this - and his tax cuts were among the some of the most effective for stimulating growth and increasing revenue. Perhaps you should have quoted him when he said:
"Our true choice is not between tax reduction, on the one hand, and the avoidance of large Federal deficits on the other. It is increasingly clear that no matter what party is in power, so long as our national security needs keep rising, an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits… In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now."
By the way, in 1950 $30,000 was roughly equivalent to $250,000 today. $250,000 may sound like a lot to you and me - but it ain't the rich, relatively speaking.
However - Bush's primary mistake was that he did not control spending - but then again, neither did his congress. It is true that tax cuts are not enough... federal spending must also be reduced. Bush's other big flaw was that he, and his administration, were positively abysmal at public relations.
If you'd rather, we can debate the merits and pitfalls of communist-style redistribution of wealth... that would seem to be the direction you're headed. At times you sound like a proper Marxist. Certainly, the soy bean picker and the owner of the soy bean company should not earn the same amount - I would argue.
There were about 50,000,000 civilian deaths, in WWII - but regardless of this horrendously high number, the war needed to be fought. I think it is safe to say that G.W. Bush really did believe that the Iraq war was necessary... as he went into it despite the French and German obloquy. Is it your assertion that soldiers in WWII and Vietnam were not paid, despite being drafted? Not only were they paid - but the money they earned was tax free.
For the sake of this debate - I actually don't consider myself a dyed-in the wool conservative. I am technically a "classical liberal" or at the very least an independent. I have an intense distaste for the current state of affairs on the right side of the isle - as it has become prone to whining, puerility and fear-mongering. Gone are its saner heads... and charismatic leaders. Furthermore, I have no interest in courting the Christian vote. In this respect I am pure Goldwater. Keep an eye on Paul Ryan... he's a good egg.

Rick--Balance my friend. Marx, if you read his works, was capitalist. He believed that societies could progress from feudalism, to capitalism, then socialism, and then, if a society was ready and desired it, could become communist if they so chose. He would have been ashamed to see the perversions of his ideas by Russian and Chinese Regimes. It’s true that Left thinking unchecked will lead to the communism that the Right fears, and everyone should fear. Right thinking run rampant will push us back into slavery (It's the slave owner's plantation after all, the slaves get room and board--they should pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they don't like it!) Slavery used to be perfectly legal—much of what is unjust in our Capitalist system is currently just as legal.
The guys who are too big to fail and often too big to jail? —I think you might have an issue with them, as you do Enron, if you look at mega business as a perversion of the kind of capitalism you preach. Think about it. The corner capitalism of the small business person is not the same as what happens in big business. Small businesses work within the market. Big businesses manipulate the market. That perversion of markets didn't stop with the 19th century robber barons. It's alive and well on Wall Street. Hedge funds and investment banks even call it "making markets." That sounds like a bad homophone, but they created markets for CDOs (e.g. toxic mortgage securities) and then sold Credit Default Swaps to insure them. This scam was aided by intentional deregulation that said a CDS wasn't insurance and didn't need collateral. You think the Fed creates funny money? What would you call the up to $45 Trillion in CDSs that they sold to your insurance companies, pension funds and 401ks. The reason we had to bail them out was to give the markets time to pay off enough bad mortgages to soften the blow on that bogus "insurance" The mega businesses call themselves capitalists, but they are, in reality, oligarchs; giants stomping around looking for advantage and squelching small time capitalists and their employees in the process. I am, at this point, a Democrat because we at least say we are on the side of the people who really are the street corner, strip mall, family farm capitalists and employees. It's always puzzled me why any small business would support WalMart/Wall Street capitalism. Maybe we've just been blinded by the fact that the rules the big guys make up and live by have nothing in common with the capitalism they preach. It's bait and switch. And when government, Republican or Democrat, sides with them, look out. So up with regulation, transparency, involvement, and wealth management that reduces the gap between the biggest of the big and the rest of us. These guys don't think they're evil. They just think they are doing what's best for the rest of us ... and paying themselves hundreds of times what the rest of us could ever earn under their system. Again I ask you—what makes it fair that someone can make 400 times as much money as anyone else who works in their company? What makes that just? Should that ratio be reduced to 1 to 1? Of course not! That is the communism you fear, and I fear. Again, balance must be achieved; we must open our eyes to the causes of “wealth redistribution” from the poor to the rich, much more so than from the rich to the poor…
Thank you for putting unemployment into perspective; I was perhaps, being a tad unfair there.
On war, I would argue that no war NEED be fought. Every one of theirs we kill breeds hatred that will create two more. Again I report—half of our taxes go to pay for this war and war debt, and every day you and I give money to War Profiteers who have no desire to see Osama bin Laden brought to justice. War is unsustainable; Non-Violence is the only course historically proven to have any deffusionary results, to stop humans fighting. Why are wars fought? Because evil-doers are evil and must be eliminated? No—because someone who lives in poverty, who makes 1/400th the amount as another in their country, or across the sea, can easily be persuaded to join in a “terrorist cause”, or even Nazi or Communist cause, when they are convinced that others are hording the wealth of the world. It is very easy for them to think, when they see our country usurping the resources of the world, hey, that’s not fair! I want to fight that. It is also easy to gain enemies when videos such as these are wikileaked:

http://svtplay.se/v/2264028/wikirebels_the_documentary

I see that you are a filmmaker and a musician. Please watch this. Please do independent research outside of our major, capitalist, News Orginizations...
My opinion is that your values are good. Capitalist values are on the whole, a just, efficient way for people to make a living. But we must be ever vigilant in exposing and swiftly rectifying the injustices that invariably arise from the imperfections in its design…

2010-11-02T02:59:00.000-05:00

This election day, I post a recent political discourse between a conservative friend of mine and myself. I have numbered their opinions and my rebuttals for ease of response. I hope you will read it, respond, and repost anything you find helpful. Pass on your thoughts, and keep the dialogue going!

---Point 1: “Not all rich people are rich because they oppress the poor.”

---Thoughts: I don’t believe all rich people are rich because they oppress the poor, no more than I believe all poor people are poor because they are lazy. Some are poor because they are lazy and take advantage of government programs, and some people are rich because they cheat the system, take advantage of tax loopholes, and generally screw people. It is unfortunate that both groups are comparatively small, and that they be demonized, and their numbers exaggerated more than they should be, by both sides. Meanwhile the rest of us plug along.

Nor do i believe it's a conscious, malicious breed of oppression. It's more of an out-of-sight/out-of-mind offence. And it has everything to do with wealth/income distribution.

Income distribution can lay on a scale from slavery to communism. The only way to make sure we don’t fall to either extreme is a regulatory/referee government. Trickle-Down economics has not worked, and will never work:

In the time of Eisenhower, the ratio of wealth distribution between Americans was 1 in 40. These days it is more like 1 in 600 and rising, (though I haven't checked that figure in a few years).

Families of the 50s were able to keep one parent home to raise the kids. My mom stayed at home with the kids for about five years before she entered the work force. These days it appears the vast majority of parents in this country must work to make ends meet and have a middle class lifestyle. Over the last ten years, we've even resorted to make-believe money and financial "products" that have blown up in our faces. Where can we go from here?

God (or if you're like an athiest, the planet) gives us only so much in the way of resources: food, air, water, HD T.V. sets etcetera. It's a nice thought that supply side economics can work to distribute it justly, but, well--I dont know--this is where I don’t have many ideas. Here is a comic that sums up my thoughts on this matter:

http://thejustlife.org/home/2008/04/04/supply-side-Jesus/

Please excuse the snarkyness--I'm sure it is being unfair in some ways.

Back to the slavery/communism scale. I think that the job of Republicans is to make sure we don’t all become communists, and the job of Democrats is to make sure we don’t revert to slavery. It's really about balance. Taxes are the best way I can think of to maintain the balance, and right now, I believe we are not taxing enough. There are other good ways to share wealth, such as charity, but I just don’t believe republicans, or democrats for that matter, would make up the difference with the money if they weren't taxed. I wouldn't, I'd probably go buy a new iPod, because it just wouldn’t be on my mind.

Once again, the only reason wealth distribution in the world is so out of whack isn't because people are jerks, it's because the transparency is not there for us to see the implications of our actions. Out of sight, out of mind. The people who decide who makes 1000 dollars an hour for crunching numbers and who makes 7 dollars for growing the number cruncher's food do it because they can, that's all.

No government is perfect, but that is why we have regulation and transparency. The only reason I can see for corporations to want to get rid of these things is, frankly, so they can grab as much of the pie as they can.

Don’t get me wrong, I think a Darwinist economy is, overall, the way to go. But don’t those whose lot is was to fail, to not have the good ideas, to make the mistakes, and even those few who just plain slacked off, don’t these people deserve at least basic human needs of survival?

---Point 2: "Governments are capable of very little good, and are capable of extraordinary evil."

---Thoughts: The parallel is that liberals often have the same thoughts about Corporations! The main thing to keep in focus is that both are organizations of people, and can only do as much good or bad as the people within them are virtuous themselves—back to the importance of accountability, transparency, and policing. I think that as long as the people of organized—um, modes of operation let’s call them—are held accountable for their mistakes and transgressions, they will succeed in helping humanity. So then, the question is: how best to police both the white collars and the big wigs? In government, we at least have elections and impeachment, so there is incentive to act as the electorate wishes you to act. In the free market—if someone ponzi schemes you, or you buy food that’s spoiled, or your oil well explodes, people won’t want to do business with you anymore, which creates incentive to make functional products.

As a liberal, I am disproportionally bombarded with examples of capitalist evils. Consequently, I don’t quite understand these next points:

---Point 3 and 4: “Many of the current financial issues in this country are not the effect of capitalism-run-wild, but actually the opposite, due to government intrusion in markets. We have not experienced true free-market capitalism in our lifetime.”

---Thoughts: What do you mean by intrusion? What is true free-market capitalism?

Personally, I don't agree with bail-outs, unemployment benefits, or economic stimulus as they are applied to citizens and companies that supply the “wants of the people”—cars, stocks, banking, guitar lessons, and so on. However, I do think that government must be the vehicle to supply the “needs of the people”—Law enforcement, Fire fighters, disaster relief (even if the disasters were punishments from God, sorry, cheap shot at Pat Robertson), basic health care, and basic food and shelter via homeless shelters and orphanages. A basic education should also be a human right, but I admit, what a “basic education” constitutes should be heavily debated.

A hundred years ago, the fire department started out as privatized—if you paid your fire department, they’d put out a fire at your home, never mind if your neighbor's house was on fire right next to yours. Also, Police forces of the past have been largely privatized. In our country today, people have figured out something—citizens should not permit other citizens to profit from houses catching fire, and no one should be allowed to profit from the victims of crime.

So here is my question: Why are people allowed to profit from sickness, starvation, and war? It is unconscionable that humans profit from human misery. Yet still, obviously, humans should be paid to combat human misery. Therein lays the great conundrum…

It’s tricky isn’t it? Doctors most definitely should be paid large amounts of money, also Firefighters and Police Officers, even soldiers sent to fight(I’ll rant about war later.)

Perhaps some balance of free market and government regulation can be instituted justly. Perhaps the rookie cops, fire fighters, doctors, and teachers who excel, honing their skills in communities which have access to only the basic government “human-needs” provisions, can increase their salaries by entering into job markets of communities that can afford to pay them more. In an ideal society that provides basic human rights and needs, these communities have made their extra money via a want-based capitalism that should indeed reward their achievements with higher quality of human-needs services. Still, I stand by my conviction that every human in modern civilization deserves soup, shelter, law enforcement, and medical attention, etcetera. That said, I hold to the belief that any unregulated company, which seeks to profit from human needs beyond human rights and survival, will inevitably become an ethical failure.

If basic human-needs companies are to be non-profit, how can a "free market" be the answer? Free market companies are under pressure to make money. So, it is inevitable that they will skimp on things that don't make them money. Failed bridge inspections (35W collapse), escalated war to sell bombs and protect oil, denied health coverage for sick people, and New Orleans citizens dying outside of the Superdome are all symptoms of a failure to instill a humane needs/wants balance in capitalism…

Incidentally, as I’m thinking of capitalism, it’s funny that 95% of my favorite artists/writers/musicians achieved greatness in art because of free market principles. They have been largely rags to riches stories, where little or no fallback plans, or social safety nets were available. Art is a want, not a need or human right, and so should be on the want-based capitalism side of the equation. My apologies to the National Endowment for the Arts—you do not deserve our tax money. :(

---Point 5: “Caring for the "have-nots" must not be handled by "the government" because it doesn't truly care about anybody. Therefore, government ought to be the last resort to solve social ills like poverty. Caring for the poor should be handled by family, by the church, and by the local community.”

---Thoughts: Conservatives think government is uncaring; Liberals think companies (and even churches) are uncaring. The pertinent question is: who can most efficiently care for the poor. The answer is—everybody!

In your blog titled “Financial Freedom Series 5 – Money”, you speak of the timesaving efficiency of money. Money is a government (by the people for the people) creation that affects everyone, and it is the most effective means to transfer goods and services. If some people used one form of money and others used another, with no means for exchange, the transfer of goods and services would be far less efficient and time saving. I believe the problem of whether the poor should be cared for by churches & communities or the government to be of the same nature.

The government should provide basic human needs and rights, while asking and rewarding religious and community organizations that wish to help. It is nothing but pride to think that any institution can do it all themselves.

---Point 6: “While no economic system is perfect, free-market capitalism is the most equitable and the most fair. Fair does not mean "equal".”

---Thoughts: Once again, it is fair that someone who succeeds in capitalism gets an unequal share of the pie—better health care, bigger TV sets. However, it is not fair that those who fail at capitalism starve. Homeless shelters, doctor’s checkups, and soup must be provided by a government run by the people, with help from religious groups, charitable donations, and community organizations. These organizations should receive rewards in tax exemptions, as they are, in practice, part of the people’s government.

On a side note concerning economic systems, the conservative worry that people who are not under the threat of starvation will not be productive, innovative contributors to the economy is, to say the least, overblown.

The majority of humans living in a homeless shelter, eating soup and feeling low, are going to think, “This is not good enough for me, just to survive—I want a home, a family, and an HD TV.”

The story of my Great Grandpa Bergstedt is this: while waiting in a depression era bread line, he thought “This bread isn’t good enough for me.” He scoured Duluth, collecting people’s junk, started a junkyard business, made money, and had thirteen kids, all of which harbored a dislike for people who take advantage of government aid undeservedly.

As Grandpa Zachary’s progeny, I also don't like people abusing unemployment benefits and welfare. I have friends and family, perfectly capable of harvesting crops or working at Bruger’s Bagels, who stay in their homes to blog or play X-box, all while on the government dole. This is why I think a modern, humane, twenty-first century homeless shelter program for individuals and families to be the best and most fair solution—healthy humans at the bottom rung of their societies thinking, “Government/Church/Community provided survival is not enough! I want to go to Disneyland! I’m going to start looking for a job!”

---Point 7 (taken from my good conservative friend's blog): “The war on terror is not a war of vengeance. We have left many, many terrorist attacks unanswered in the past. The attacks of 9/11 were not the reason for the war -- they were the last straw. It was the final event that showed to us, once and for all, that peace not only isn't the answer, it's not even an option. Terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda hate us not for what we've done, but for who we are. The war on terror, therefore, is a war to protect our countrymen, both here and abroad from those who mean to do them harm.

---Thoughts: For this next bit, you’ll have to forgive the stronger rhetoric and Christian perspective. I just can’t for the life of me find the words to make it sound postulating, rather than damning—but I mean it in a more postulating way…God is the final judge of these things after all.

I find the “War on Terror” to be an abject failure of Christian imagination.

I repeat, in earnest.

The “War on Terror” is an abject failure of Christian imagination—or, if one prefers, a failure of Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindi, or Humanist imagination, etcetera. I will continue from the Christian perspective as that is what I hope to be.

Our country spends half of our federal tax revenue on the war on terror (the interest caused by war expenses factored in.)

What if—just what if—we spent all the resources we devote to war on charity for our enemies? Instead, we pilot drone planes that drop smart bombs on terrorists and civilians alike, calling it collateral damage. When did we stop believing in the power of turning the other cheek? Have we ever believed? When did we give up on the humanity of our enemies?

Most of the people of this country have given up on the, to use a Christian concept, "salvation" of the terrorists; in so doing, they forfeit hope for their own. I see scores of Christians whom I fear will not “enter the kingdom of heaven” as it were, because of this failure. I hope this is just a fear…

Whoa! Heavy! Chill out Rick!

I dunno—I remember reading the four gospels in third grade and being like—OK, well that makes sense, I could do that. Growing up has meant having to listen to so many Christians tell me “Jesus was just kidding about most of that stuff.” It just really bugs me man, sometimes to the point of self-righteous anger, to which I channel through politics a large bit more than I should!

What else gets my goat to no end is that companies profit from sending kids to die and to put their souls on the line. I understand that if we do not fight these “evil-doers” who hate America, they may be the death of us all. Still, I believe that if we cease our aggression and hold true to principles of charity and non-violence, our enemies will have no choice but to cease their own “Jihad.” If we fail to trust this, to trust in their humanity, we are no better than they, and we deserve no more countenance in the eyes of God or civil society than they do.

Kierkegaard called this thinking the "strength of the absurd."

May we all find the wisdom in absurdity; I fear that if we do not, our hatred and vengeance will mean the destruction of every last tower, no matter its size, standing in this troubled world.

2010-10-01T17:22:00.005-05:00

here's some lyrics I wrote a while ago. Havent finished put'n'm to song just yet, but i'm thinkin like something The Coasters would sing. Like with that medium tempo, swung, Do-doobedoo-doobedoo-doobedoo rhythm...

"Stupid in Love"

Lets build a house together, you get the mortar, I'll get the bricks
Then lets watch a movie in the living room, on your net-flicks
I promise not to try anything too funny
Even though I feel like a springtime bunny

Cause you and me we could get stupid in love,
steal a rainbow from the sky above,
'seems like everybody else is doing it now that I'm 17
And since I'm 17, we could do a line-dance on the balance beam
I know its kinda stupid, but things aren't always what they seem.

No one could stop me loving you Babe, cause I'll rope-a-dope
I'm a Gemini and you're a Libra, and that's a good horoscope
I like it when you're playing hard to git
You got something going on, and I wanna be part-of-it

Cause you and me we could get stupid in love,
steal a rainbow from the sky above,
'seems like everybody else is doing it now that I'm 22
And since I'm 22, we should Dance in the middle of the avenue
I know its kinda stupid, but babe it's what i wanna do

If you gave me the wrong holy grail, honey baby I'd sip the cup
You charge up all my giddies hun, I cant give it up!
I really wanna hear you play the violin
If I don't they're gonna throw me in the loony bin!

Cause you and me we could get stupid in love,
steal a rainbow from the sky above,
'seems like everybody else is doing it now that I'm 24
And since I'm 24, we shouldn't think about smart things anymore
I know its kinda stupid, but let’s leave the door, wide open

I'll take you to Sweden where we could start fencing with icicles
Then we could coast out onto a frozen lake, riding bicycles!
I'll take you all the way to Jupiter
while our love keeps getting stupider
"Stupid in Love" is what i want to be, with you

Cause you and me we could get stupid in love,
steal a rainbow from the sky above,
'seems like everybody else is doing it now that we're gonna be 30 someday,
Since we're gonna be 30 someday,
we might as well take a few rolls in the hay
I know its kinda stupid, but we should do it anyway

If you think some day that I might leave you hanging, baby no I wont
If you're worried that I'll find out that you're not who I think you are, don't.
Don't worry!
Cause we might not know everything about each other
But that don't matter while I'm singing you another
Singing, another silly song, just for you

2010-09-07T23:43:00.002-05:00

Here's a set of mnemonics i made after hearing my friend Sean's idea of a mnemonic to remember the major scale whole-step/half-step sequence, his original went thusly:

Why Would Harry Wear White Woolen Hats

Of course then I had to keep it going because of my love for Harry Potter as well as nerds wordy things. Here's some more major mnemonics:

When Would Harry Wave Wands? While at Hogwarts.
or
Why Would Harry Wave Wands While Hammered?
(for the college students)

Minor(Aeolian) scale--WHWWHWW
When Harry Waves Wands His Wrist Whirls

Here are some for the rest of the modal scales...

Locrian--HWWHWWW
Hagrid Will Wash Hippogriffs With Wet Washcloths

Dorian--WHWWWHW
Wormtail Hides While We Watch Horcruxes Whither

Phrygian--HWWWHWW
Hedwig Will Wait While Harry Writes Well

Lydian--WWWHWWH
Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes(the shop) Hawks Witchcraft and Wizardry Humor

Mixolydian--WWHWWHW
the Whomping Willow Hurts! it Wants to Whack Harry and Weasley

Here's even more scales!

Mixo-flat sixth(Hindu Scale)-WWHWHWW
Wince When Howlers Wildly Harangue Worthless Wizards

Melodic Minor Ascending- WHWWWWH
Whimsical Hogsmeade Weekends Will Windup Waning at Honeydukes

Chromatic Scale-HHHHHHHHHHHH
Helga Hufflepuff's Heir Hepzibah Hides Her Heirloom; Hermoine Harms it Heavily inthe "Hallows" Hardcover (with a basilisk fang)

Take that Voldemort!!!

Gun Painting

2010-08-31T22:49:00.004-05:00

NAILED!

Got shot in the neck yesterday by one of my truest mates Gabe Barnett, whose forthcoming nuptials we were celebrating. I was trying to take out his brother, who was peppering my position from behind one of those big old wooden spools. Suddenly, in my periphery Gabe frames the entryway to my bunker--GATGATGAT--two to the torso, and one to the adam's apple--down i went. You're supposed to yell "I'm Hit" when you're out, but all i could do was flop a couple times. I held up my gun, rose slowly, hobbled out arms raised, and squeaked out a raspy "Nice shot dude."

Gabe Barnett! We met six years ago at an open mic and bonded cause we both played anti-war songs, how ironic is that! He's the only dude I know who has more pacifist songs than me, that he still sings anyway--lately i've just been singing songs about sunshine and love.

I got in a coupla pretty slick kills myself over the seven hours we were there. The eight of us had the whole place to ourselves all day, most likely due to the absence of any shade and the 97 degree heat index. It sounds miserable, but I don't think I've had that much fun ever, or at least not that kind of fun. My neck welt's starting to subside and I'm kinda sad cause it's fun to tell people the story about it. Sadism? Yikes, maybe. I suppose it's only natural to want people to think you're tuff stuff. Hmm... natural...

Gabe's brother Alex, who set up the outing, is an Iraq vet. You'd think the two would be polar opposites and constantly arguing, but after a full day and afterparty of hanging out with them i never once saw any friction, even when Iraq and Afghanistan entered the conversation. One of the other dudes who was there is in the army; he's shipping out to Afghanistan in March. What makes it possible for hippies and soldiers to have such a fun time together? Must be the joy of our mutal friend finding himself a solid woman.

From a very young age I've always felt war and killing to be an absolute wrong. Yet after hanging out with dudes who've seen it or are gonna see it for real, you just feel like--what do I know? I mean, my dad's a Vietnam vet; grandpa, WWII Navy; uncle, career Navy; cousin, Army Ranger, and the thing I've realized is that I've never talked to any of them about war--I mean, what do say? -"Um, hey you wanna talk about war?" --It just don't come up. I've written several blatantly anti-war songs, and twice as many "pro-peace" songs--why is it so easy to sing about it, and not talk about it?

In the end i think what makes it easiest for many troops to tolerate us hippies is the fact that they understand we're raging against war itself--it's existence at the expense of more practical tactics like being nice to people who hate you, perhaps even giving to them the resources in bread and shelter what we instead spend killing them.

Yet the troops don't control those resources. We do, the people of this country, and so they fight on.

Is it pretentious to think this way, when pretend war feels so...natural? Will war always be a part of the human experience? Should we even pretend that it can be stamped out of human history? Should we all just live our lives with the knowledge that when war comes into our lives we should fight in honest valor, prayers prayed to our gods...

Nah, I'm sticking to my guns about non-violence and all the never killing absolutes i can be such a prig about, if only because it's a truth i feel in my heart and soul. But feeling the rush and excitement of battle... it puts it into a clearer perspective of why some choose to sign up...

Someday I know we will realize the ten-fold power of charity and compassion over bombs and bullets. Hey, if the human race ends up missing war that much, we can always play paintball. I think that would satisfy Nature, and our own natures just fine.

Raining Rachels

2010-08-26T22:56:00.003-05:00

Well, I’m back to blogging, mostly cause of my sister Rachel’s blog she just instituted to kick off her two-year adventure in India(I might not see her for two years! SADNESS!), and also cause of this girl Rachel’s art blog which is kinda cool. Incidentally, a girl named Rachel, who is also an artist, is moving into our house next Tuesday—Party! And if that don’t beat all, my sister Rachel’s sister-in-law also named Rachel is renting her house(some blocks from ours) while she is in India. It’s raining Rachels around here(that’s the name of my next band—Raining Rachels)
It’s weird being back here—it’s more private. Facebook shows you everyone’s posts whether you want to see them or not. Here, you know that if someone’s reading what you wrote it’s because they want to, more or less… Also, there’s no letter limit, I have missed that… here’s some stuff I haven’t posted--but would have, had my sister moved to India sooner.

!!!First of all you should go to my facebook where I spent the summer writing Haikus for almost 300 photos I took in europe in 2010 and 2008--if you don't have a facebook--I respect that like a million times, but you should get one, if only to experience my haiku prowess!

--here's a poem I wrote this month when I read that most of the troops were coming home from Iraq—it’s in tetrameter, but just turns into a rant at the end…

The troops are coming home to rest
our terrors fought by terrors felt
Safe, home, --I wonder how to best
pay honor to their service dealt
how best to make a lasting place
for these young coffin bearers
--fight now we must in love and grace
the hates that breed the terrors

in distant lands these terrors dwell
as in our homes they fester too
remember now for whom the bell
rang out to hold our fears askew
to justly set this war behind us
we now must proove staunch peace preparers
We'll fight with bread and kill with kindness
the hates and fears that breed the terrors

yet still Afghanistan remains
and other wars horizons' hide
we'll breath no end to these campaigns
while trapped still tarred in terror's tide
retaliation's careless grope
may prove to be our final error
unless we fight in love and hope
the hates and fears that sanction terror

the troops are coming home to rest
how long before we send them back?
have we the courage now to test
faith's torching light in terror's black
come do as few have done before!
come prove our country fairer
our foes will war with us no more
when trust surpasses terror
when hope discharges terror
when giving conquors terror
when grace expunges terror
when love effaces terror
When we, as a people, as a country--tell terror to take a hike baby! YES!
down with fears and up with ears--up with hearing--lets listen to the other side
lets stop fighting that which cannot be killed with precision bombs and planes piloted by remote controls from north dakota--lets remove the planks from our eyes, lets turn our cheeks and show our enemies what it means to say we forgive you and we're sorry too and wont you... whoa that poem busted loose quick---i better spend some days revising and editing...

---Here’s another rant I went on after the Ground Zero Mosque debate kicked up…

Hey Politicians! Stop using Religion to distract from the real issues facing this country. Actually, when's the last time you even read the effing bible? You know what? I’m gonna read the bible right now! It’s been a while, I need the brush-up too…
OK—here ya go: You say: "Ground Zero shouldn't have Muslim Neighbors," um...read Matthew 22:39;

'Love your neighbor as yourself.'

you say "these evildoers wanna do evil to us!" try Matt 5:39;

But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

you say "Liberals criticize Xtians but not Muslims"—Matt 7:3;

"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

you say "Taxes Bad; Wealth Good"—Matt 19:24, 21:31, 22:21;

Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." / Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. / Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's

you say "Pre-emptive Strikes! Bomb their Caves." –Matt 26:52

Put your sword back in its place," Jesus said to him, "for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.

And that's from just a quick flip through of FIFTEEN PAGES--took me like half an hour! Lastly these oughta scare the crap out of ya —Matthew 7:22-23 or 21:43.

On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. / Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes? Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.

Ugh. This is why I'm only a half-assed about religion...These poor soulless corrupted jerks really hurt my feelings sometimes, know what I mean?

bandana jesse - unedited ramblings about fear at the RNC

2008-09-03T05:02:00.000-05:00

september second 2008

so our peace group was able to procure an hour slot at the "free speech stage" right infront of the excel energy center from 7-8pm, we're gonna talk about our "Peace Island Picnic" slated for thursday on harriet island and maybe give a little preview.
all the while i'm thinking: gee its nice of the city to have a stage and a mike set up for us right next to the action...
I think that they allready have two or three musical acts

monkey song
jesse
ryan
claire
girl from music school
delehanty bandmate, john i think not john himself, other john? no wait jesse thats right, he plays with lucy too, okay i think... but not other jesse(bandana jesse, i'm a traitor i'm sorry....
i cant see the faces of some of the cops, legohelmetshields
i cant see the faces of some protesters, bandanas

anyways i'm thinking that some of these acts are gonna come to help coleen(Rowley, one of the main organizers) promote the picnic
i hop in my car, my sister has been waiting 3 minits while i find my tennyshoes
i drop her off five blocks from block E downtown where she works at an icecream shop
traffic is just poopy cause of ron paul and i gotta get to st. paul
i take 94 to snelling to selby and park about 100 feet from the cathedral.
i stand and debate wether or not to bring my guitar along

btw on the way back i couldnt remember how to get to marshal, driving down selby i took a left and ended up on grand before i realized i should have gone north, i couldnt think

anywayz i decide to haul it along while walking to this place i havent researched how to get to, just the intersection, 7th and 5th
i was worried about looking like a duschbag walking around with a guitar, but i thought i could back up the other musicians there or something
boyscouts say be prepared
i ask a cop from phily if he knows where the free speech stage is or free speech forum is, he says hes from phily
i say, oh, no worries, thanks for coming out to minneapolis(i dont know why i said minneapolis, nerves)
he mustve been nervous too cause he smiled at me like he was going to cry, which gave me courage to keep looking. one cop told me the only way to access that area was to walk over and around by the capitol, then find a bridge

on my way to find a bridge i come within a block of the "of course everyone knows who the special guest is gonna be" concert which i wanna check out but i figure i'd better find my own little thing first.
i find a bridge walk over and figure i'll let the crowd intuit for me where this place is
i get to 7th and st. peter street, where mickeys diner is

jumbotron megatron

anywayz i look down 7th and its completely vacant, and theres a bunch of cops and scary cops standing in the street, but a crowd is still meandering down st peter

pauls got the sword, peters got the keys
i got you baby, baby you got mes(i'm a gemini)

anyways i spend the next whoknowshowlong walking around convention happyland looking like a doooooshbag with a guitar asking cops where the free speech stage is, how do i get to 5th and 7th?
nobody knows

hes happy to see me, jesse
incurious george monkey song

nobody knows so i just starty walking along the scary fence figuring i'd find it that way
i get to the river, nothing doing, so now i have to walk back along this fence walking past all these people who've now seen the same douchbag guitar guy twice
i say excuse me as i cut between countless happyland press lines and delegate lines and lines of people who deep down just want a country where they can raise thier little baby like Ivan to be a happy baby and a happy person, hapiness, persue it
i just want to get there swedishsocialismstyle, and they wanna do it bootstrapsnohandoutsgaysandprotestersandterroristsaregonnaripoutmyeyebrows ....rickstopputtingthoughtsinpeoplesheadsyoudontknow ... style

i make it back to mickeys i'm all alone i follow the fence, i pass the scary cops, i walk alone down 7th, i find the stage
coleen is there, tom is there, ross, and about fifteen other people, five of them freespeechstage workers
i'm late and i feel ashamed
coleen has called two of the music acts and told them that there's no crowd so they didnt come, but the peace sisters came because they drove all the way from chisolm or someplace like that even though the other acts came from much further, but they were tired and coleen thought they wouldnt want to play for ten people on a bullcrap policestage surrounded by fences at the end of a two block claustrophobic bottleneck with a copcork. 7th st w
i remember when this girl i was totally gonzo for for like ten years, i'm not even craping you, she got married to the luckiest son of a gun ever in the church on that street like two or three summers ago.
i sat next to my bro-inlaw and we didnt take communion cause i was scared to piss off someone. we could have, cause i dont think the priest was checking Catholic IDs, but i wanted to be respectful

MLK said everything hitler did was legal, and i cant stop that thought

anyways what a different street that was! surprize bagpipes played and everyone walked out of the church and down the street to the reception, i was so happy for them both! she never had a steady for the seven years i was trying to trick'er into thinking i was a rad dude. senior year nobody even asked her to the prom, i'm not even crapping you! i thought every guy in my high school was INSANE!!(she was buds with my sis and my sis told me not to and you gotta trust yo sis so i asked someone else and counted the days till prom thinking what in tarnation is wrong with every guy in my school! she ended up going with some guy her family knew and he was a nice guy and i know cause our after prom group consisted of me, my sis, my bud matt, the perdiest girl i'd ever seen(the girl i probably should have asked just for the heck of it, despte my sis), and our dates. we went down to this dock south shore of lake harriet and just hung out. i busted out laughing at one point, my buddy matt asked what was so funny. i sais that the tree had said something funny and i couldnt explain. they probly thought i was bonkers). she went to chicago for college and i lost touch. then 5 years latter i was soooo happy she thought that i was such a non-dooshbag that it would be cool to invite me to the wedding... probably just because she'd invited my sis and she didnt want me to feel left out or something, but still...
i didnt go to the reception cause i had a jug show, which actually was canceled but since i didnt turn in the fishmeatorveggiecard i didnt want to show up to the reception without a placesetting
iwent home and ran around harriet and calhoooon i was so happy. i wanted to thin down and make myself a better person cause i knew with all my heart surprize bagpipe wedding happiness is waiting for each and every girl and boy who just believes...

this was a coupla summers ago, and i hadnt even heard of Obama LOL! everyone makes fune of how all those Obamanuts feel, they shouldnt, thats how i felt, all hopey

what a different street now

sorry i went off on such a tanget
i'm so afraid to write more, but my mom loves me no matter what so i will

i want to be an Obama nut, i dont know why i'm not
i'll vote for him
i want to go back to that happy street, i want to stay there...

a while ago i went to match.com and got a free sample weekend, forgot to cancel and paid for a month, DANG! i did meet a gal and we met again at como zoo, i told her i'd be wearing a yellow hat, mustve looked like a douchbag. we had some laughs and she was nice but niether of us really looked like our pictures and it ended after a while. that was the halfwaypoint the halfway street methinks...

today, now, on this street i'm 51percent peaceactivist, 49percent posersillyhead
and i want to go back...

but now i'm on the freespeech stage playing for three of my heros, seven other people i sorta know in the movement some stage hands, and the looming EXCEL ENERGY CENTER with arnold governator and other guy flashing on the stadiumbigTV thing
and fences and nothingness

coleen bless her soul claps on one and three

i completely butcher the songs, i drop my pick, my voice cant hit the highs i forget the words...
songs i've played to roaringcrowds at the 331 Club, 100percentattentive crowds at the javajack's hoot, and in my fantasies to millions
i feel like such an idiot, but i'm with my peace vigil peeps. theyre all 20ish years older than me and i dont want to let them down

on the way home i brought my guitar in the biffy with me cause i didnt want to leave it outside - fear comes in many shades -

the peace sisters played a song with the altered lyrics "where have all the protests gone"

i'm so deflationed
two dudes show up with signs and ask where the protest is at

they also played a song that made fun of bush looking like a monkey, which i hated because i dont think you should make fun of people looking like monkeys, but i dont hate the peace sisters cause i know they got good hearts and they dont mean nothing by it, they're just poking fun and i cant take a joke
some of the other kindly old dudes with more love in thier eyes than a jesuspicture get up and start reading poems but i cant listen because i'm too busy saying sorry and making excuses for such bad tunes to everybody

AND THEN IT HAPPEns...the stage manager says they're gonna have to shut the stage down because theyve heard

and believe me i'm not even crapping you, i learned every single song excvept two on the grey rage album with the guy on fire. now all i can play is the song with that one riff in dropped D that goes "Duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh/Duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-NUH-NUH/Duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-NUH/Duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-NUH/ CH-CH-PLING

i held Ivan, andrews baby. i was soooo afraid i was germy, i was so scared i'd get him sick and andrew and abbey would hate me forever. andrews my best friend but he prefers hetero lifemate as abbey is his best friend

OH MY GOD TAKE YOUR FUCKING MASKS OFF ALL OF YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

anywayz seriously were was i? oh yeah wait and here's another thing about that 7th st w wedding! this gal i was rambling about earlier? i met her in fifth grade and we had class together the next 7 or 8 years couldjyoubeleiveit and the only people from South high school at that wedding were me, my sis, and some 98ers(who were always and still are older and way cooler than us!)

um... oh yeah back to it. they said the like twothousand people were headed this way and they'd be looking for a stage and so they packed up the truck stage and now it looks like a truck and not a stage. i had to show them my ID to play on the damn thing.

they say that we might be able to get away over there and so i go over there but all the scary no face cops say no going this way even though i can almost touch the cathedral where i parked and where its safe

i'm trapped and all my vigil friends have gone cause hippies like me are efing scared of anarchists man, we are pussies and a half
seriously man like half of them coming are pissed i later found out that they pulled the plug on RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE!!! dude i would have been T.O.ed as hell back when i knew all thier songs if that'd happened to me. I thought of myself back then, i was not the folkfag i am now, OMG i said fag i think that was not me talking, i'm sorry i'm sorry
and i'm trapped and they flood and its a plethora of people, i stand and watch and use my guitar case to elevate me to see as many people as i can, and i actually chill out alot cause most everyone looks just like me in the face and body posture, body language
and then it hits me WHY THE CRAP DID THE PULL THE PLUG ON MEEEEEEEE!!!!!!
WHY THE CRAP DID THE PULL THE PLUG ON MEEEEEEEE!!!!!!WHY THE CRAP DID THE PULL THE PLUG ON MEEEEEEEE!!!!!!
WHY THE CRAP DID THE PULL THE PLUG ON MEEEEEEEE!!!!!!WHY THE CRAP DID THE PULL THE PLUG ON MEEEEEEEE!!!!!!
copy paste a million times! Dude!!!!! Like twenty minits

oh yeah the other group was the human rights march and they really should not have made the free speech zone a dead end man! they did like five minits of megaphoning i couldnt hear and then you've got a shtton of people who want to move forward but cant and its either storm the castle or retreat and no one wants to retreat cause we dont want to be cowards and leave our friends to get gassed and peppered, but i think i'll chill a bit cause then claire who is good friends with another of many gals whom i've loved for no good reason at all is there and i go and talk to her and its nice to see someone i know my age, she tells me about rage(that rhymes). i think claire is cool with me cause even though i wrote her friend a poem for no good reason and i didnt know joe was her boyfriend that was a while ago and her friend and me and two other peeps walked up near the pirate ship stage and sang songs about worms under the stars and it was all good and no one was falling in love with anyone for no good reason. actually i've noticed i havent written her name yet cause honestly i cant remember if its spelled megan or meghan, i think its megan, but you really should not not not write poems with triple puns trying to impress girls when you dont know a hundred percent how to spell thier name
her brother has a minnesota nice shirt on, i'm not even craping you

but yeahWHY THE CRAP DID THE PULL THE PLUG ON MEEEEEEEE!!!!!!WHY THE CRAP DID THE PULL THE PLUG ON MEEEEEEEE!!!!!! hey its still on the copypastey control-WHY THE CRAP DID THE PULL THE PLUG ON MEEEEEEEE!!!!!! oops there it goes again but yeah WTF man. i'm like so super serious that i know i wouldnt have mucked up my peace songs if it had some how worked out that they hadnt shut dowwn the stage and all those people could listen to me and wouldnt i feel important and rockstarish and lennony fresh!

i think to myself while i just watch the "WHO's STREETS? OUR STREETS" chanters and sort of put my fist up and try to become one of them but end up feeling like just the same poser ass douchbag with a guitar case i've been all day

i see ryan and his girl. ryan is one of my heros, we're in a facebook relationship cause i think we both think its hilarious when people we dont know all that well think we're gay
i read his writings about being in palestine and other things he writes about and i feel so god damned ashamed i cant remember every single detail he's ever written. i mumble something about anarchy and he says something like "yeah man i've never been too down with anarchy" but really i want him to turn into a 10 story tall RYANMCVAYMONSTER and fucking eat that bullshit helicopter and rip off the excel's roof top and spit fresh chewed gushing bubbleyum all over everyone in there because it would be so funny man.

but we walk down the road back towards mickey's diner and there's like 200 scarycops there gaurding mickeys cause its like so old its protected by the historical society or something

i still cant remember the name of the church. i'm not Catholic, allthough I've always wished i was

and cops are blocking two of the streets leading anywhere near happyland and the nasal guy is like "Please keep moving,

oh and some kid says "please let us get some pancakes!" super funny, like something ed would say

but the copnasal guy kept on saying "everyone remain calm and do not stop here, this is an unlawful assembly...
and i see my vigil peoples hadnt made it very far but the tide of retreat is puling them away now

and then a bandana face guy comes up and i'm afraid he's gonna like jack my guitar or something, but its Jesse. we make alittle small talk about how this is all bullhonkey

he's happy to see me

he's such a nice dude in my memory. he's mostly finnish but he looks mexican, which is funny dont you think?
the tide is moving and i'm super scared again and i'm like, "lets go stand on the sidewalk" cause like i think maybe the cops are just mad that so many people are Jwalking...
Jesse says oh man i'm apart of this
i'm apart of this
i'm apart of this
i'm apart of this
he puts his bandana on
i walk away and stand on the corner all i hear is "STAY WHERE YOU ARE, THIS IS NOT AN UNLAWFUL ASEMBLY"
STAY WHERE YOU ARE, THIS IS NOT AN UNLAWFUL ASEMBLY"

STAY WHERE YOU ARE, THIS IS NOT AN UNLAWFUL ASEMBLY"

oh my god is that jesse talking, is he talking to me? i chill abit and all of a sudden there's a crapton of human rights parade marshalls trying to get everyone to leave and i have no idea who I am. i'm so scared, i'm sheparded away by the peace hippies, i walk up the road and see another jesse who i played in a band with a couple of times but then jon went back to wisconson for the summer. i mean i knew his name was jesse, but i had just totally betrayed another jesse like 2 seconds ago.

i just tried to find bandana jesse on facebook to see how he's doing and if he got maced or something. but i hadnt seen him in almost a year and probably wont see him ever again, so... you tell me

i dont know
i dont know!
i think i can start to understand why Bob Dylan stoped writing topical songs. i'm not quite there, i still got alot of john lennon wannabeing to be, and do.
hopefully by thursday's picnic i'll be who i was 12 hours ago, before 7th st w

on my way home i stoped at andrews and held Ivan, thier new baby boy. they gave me cookies and beer and all i could think was holy crap these two friends of mine are so... good. and i dont want to see anyone for a while unless i can see thier face.

many letters

2008-03-05T15:23:00.002-05:00

I've been on a letter writing kick lately, here goes some:

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

"another angry letter to the editor (hillary stop the attacks!)"

After one heck-of-a Tuesday it seems that Hillary's scare campaign may have done her some good. But one thing it has not done, is increased her chances of becoming President of the United States. What she needs to understand is that many Obama supporters, as well as Obama himself, would have loved to have had her on the ticket as Vice President. That was before all the "fairy tale, plagiarism, the skies will part" talk and open mockery started breaking all of our "naive, idealistic" hearts. Any student of history knows that 14 Vice presidents have gone on to become presidents themselves, and with Hillary's relative youth, passion and supporters, I don't see why she wouldn't be a strong candidate to become the 15!

Dear Mrs. Clinton,

You are still behind in delegates and the popular vote, so please stop the fear-mongering, sarcastic, and elitist attacks! If you do not, you may be robbing America of an even greater testament to equally rights: 16 years without a white male at the helm.

---------------------------

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Plagiarism? Really? oh man....

yet another angry letter to the editor:

Plagiarism? Really? Is that the charge Hillary and McCain are using these days? How can you plagiarize hope-speak? You might as well accuse preachers of plagiarizing the bible in their sermons, or poets of plagiarizing the dictionary, or musicians of plagiarizing the C major scale for goodness' sake. I think Obama is going to be hard to stop in November if this kind of rhetoric is a preview of attacks to come. And it is becoming clearer and clearer to me every day and to the American people that we do not need these divisive politics anymore, the false vigilance of yesterday, a political machine of quibbles and fears. For many of us, it feels as if that is all we've ever known, and our country has suffered for it. In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope? (By the way I plagiarized those last two sentences, from Obama.)

------------------------------

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

letters to the editor

I've been on an angry-letter-to-the-editor kick for a while now. here are a vew of my favs:

Responding to yet another Katherine Kersten Triber:

http://www.startribune.com/local/14849326.html

Wait, so Keith Ellison is endeavoring to create a "Department of Peace and Nonviolence" in our government? Well hey, that doesn't sound like such a bad idea, despite Katherine Kersten's fears of becoming a placid Norway. In fact lets stop picking on Norway and look at the larger history of WW2. Simply put, after WW1, Europe wanted accountability(a nice way of saying revenge), and Germany was punitively impoverished. So a whole generation of people grew up looking for another world war, which they got. After WW2 the U.S. implemented The Marshall Plan. This time, ALL of Europe was included in the reconstruction. Less poverty leads to less angry Germans which equals no more WWs, just more VWs. Meanwhile our president G.W.'s war is approaching 500 billion, with 196.5 billion proposed spending for 2008. Did I mention the fast rising over 235 billion dollars we will be paying in interest for military spending? That's twice as much, inflation adjusted, as we spent on all four years of the Marshal Plan! Check the facts People!
Look, no one is saying that neutrality and isolationism is the way to go. Its just that the two options of neutrality and military action aren't working anymore. Besides, for something to be neutral, doesn't there have to be something on both sides of it? We've tried military action, so what about PEACE ACTION. I'm not talking about stuffing daisies down gun barrels here. I'm just asking people to imagine what a Department of Peace could do with just a sliver of our military spending. For starters, How about programs to eliminate world poverty? You see, when people are brought out of poverty, they lose their reasons for wanting to kill you, and religious Zealots lose their recruiting power, terrorism subsides. I'm not saying that we should abolish the military, but I'm tired of cutting off Hydra heads and sitting on teapots. For my part, Peace is the only rational course we have left. In April the U.S. Government will be spending close to half of your federal income tax on war related expenditures. I'd like to see a little spent on peace.

--------

heres on i wrote the sw journal after reading one too many blasts directed at our local Hooter/Hollerer:

Goodness gracious I've read some discouraging letters to the editor recently regarding your columnist Jim Walsh. And well I just have to throw it back that Mr. Walsh's columns are one of the main reasons i pick up the SW Journal from time to time. For me, Opinion/OPEX pieces are the heart and soul of any paper. And it always irks me whenever i come across such despondency as people protesting a paper by tossing not only the OPEX pieces, but also everything else the paper has to offer. To combat this demeanor I'd like to submit that articles like these, written by Mr. Walsh and your other fine writers, are also a part of the nervous system for any publication. For nothing can alert us to the pains and concerns of our community quite like an OPEX article can, and suppression of them is just journalistic vicodin. Moreso I'd like to put forth that the relevance for including such articles in a small community paper are very much justified as we are less likely to see and read them in larger, more corporately owned, don't-do-anything-to-upset-the-shareholders type publications.
So in closing i'll ask that you keep publishing the opinions of folks like Mr. Walsh as well as those who disagree with him. I just hope that more of our SW residents will refrain from sticking thier fingers in thier ears. Keep the pain killers in the medicine cabinet folks, even when your journal stings you.

Letters to the Editor

2008-01-30T20:00:00.001-05:00

I've been on an angry-letter-to-the-editor kick for a while now. here are a vew of my favs:

Responding to yet another Katherine Kersten Triber:

http://www.startribune.com/local/14849326.html

Wait, so Keith Ellison is endeavoring to create a "Department of Peace and Nonviolence" in our government? Well hey, that doesn't sound like such a bad idea, despite Katherine Kersten's fears of becoming a placid Norway. In fact lets stop picking on Norway and look at the larger history of WW2. Simply put, after WW1, Europe wanted accountability(a nice way of saying revenge), and Germany was punitively impoverished. So a whole generation of people grew up looking for another world war, which they got. After WW2 the U.S. implemented The Marshall Plan. This time, ALL of Europe was included in the reconstruction. Less poverty leads to less angry Germans which equals no more WWs, just more VWs. Meanwhile our president G.W.'s war is approaching 500 billion, with 196.5 billion proposed spending for 2008. Did I mention the fast rising over 235 billion dollars we will be paying in interest for military spending? That's twice as much, inflation adjusted, as we spent on all four years of the Marshal Plan! Check the facts People!
Look, no one is saying that neutrality and isolationism is the way to go. Its just that the two options of neutrality and military action aren't working anymore. Besides, for something to be neutral, doesn't there have to be something on both sides of it? We've tried military action, so what about PEACE ACTION. I'm not talking about stuffing daisies down gun barrels here. I'm just asking people to imagine what a Department of Peace could do with just a sliver of our military spending. For starters, How about programs to eliminate world poverty? You see, when people are brought out of poverty, they lose their reasons for wanting to kill you, and religious Zealots lose their recruiting power, terrorism subsides. I'm not saying that we should abolish the military, but I'm tired of cutting off Hydra heads and sitting on teapots. For my part, Peace is the only rational course we have left. In April the U.S. Government will be spending close to half of your federal income tax on war related expenditures. I'd like to see a little spent on peace.

--------

heres one i wrote the sw journal after reading one too many blasts directed at our local Hooter/Hollerer:

Goodness gracious I've read some discouraging letters to the editor recently regarding your columnist Jim Walsh. And well I just have to throw it back that Mr. Walsh's columns are one of the main reasons i pick up the SW Journal from time to time. For me, Opinion/OPEX pieces are the heart and soul of any paper. And it always irks me whenever i come across such despondency as people protesting a paper by tossing not only the OPEX pieces, but also everything else the paper has to offer. To combat this demeanor I'd like to submit that articles like these, written by Mr. Walsh and your other fine writers, are also a part of the nervous system for any publication. For nothing can alert us to the pains and concerns of our community quite like an OPEX article can, and suppression of them is just journalistic vicodin. Moreso I'd like to put forth that the relevance for including such articles in a small community paper are very much justified as we are less likely to see and read them in larger, more corporately owned, don't-do-anything-to-upset-the-shareholders type publications.
So in closing i'll ask that you keep publishing the opinions of folks like Mr. Walsh as well as those who disagree with him. I just hope that more of our SW residents will refrain from sticking thier fingers in thier ears. Keep the pain killers in the medicine cabinet folks, even when your journal stings you.

zine selections part duex

2007-09-25T13:12:00.001-05:00

here are selections from my more peacy zine that i'd like to post.

"Black Stone Mirror Heart"
(for rumi)

if you feel your heart turning dark as iron
take a rag and polish it up just like a mirror
a BLACK STONE MIRROR HEART
so that you can see WHAT YOU WANT TO SEE
AND I HAVE NEVER SEEN THE PLACES TO WHICH I'VE BEEN
WHERE I WILL WAIT FOR YOU (AND YOU AND YOU) ALWAYS

if you feel your mind begging time from angel
steal a plane and gut it for parts
then tape the motor to your brain
an AIRPLANE MOTOR MIND
so that you can fly WHERE YOU WANNA FLY
AND I HAVE NEVER FLOWN TO THE PLACES WHICH I'VE KNOW
WHERE I WILL WAIT FOR YOU (AND YOU AND YOU) ALWAYS

if you feel your soul take control then lose it
send it spinning on a spinning-top
THEN DIP IT IN CHOCOLATE
a SPINNING-TOP CHOCOLATE SOUL
so that you can feel WHAT YOU WANNA FEEL
AND I HAVE NEVER FELT THE GROUND ON WHICH I'VE KNELT
WHERE I WILL WAIT FOR YOU (AND YOU AND YOU) ALWAYS

"Cutting a bagel"

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 it’s ever even more than 20 or 30 percent effective in expressing someone’s 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.

"xmas day revisited"

hopped in my canon, just to go for a ride
pointed it up to heaven, but i couldn't get there
no matter how many times i tried
right around try 23 i thought how much easier'd be if
i had some kind of deity helping me out
so i went down to church, to get god in my corner
at first i thought everybody'd be sittin in pews
but everyone was up in the air flyin
weavin in and out of eachother with there eyes closed
it was death defying
on the outside everbody was looking pretty shinny, nice capes
but on the inside i could tell
everyone was just trying to remember how to weep
but nobody could squeeze a drop
everyone was running away from Xmas day
takin off west away from the dawn
and its snowing in heaven
and down here everybody's just trying to keep warm
I see ya riding around in your bible-car babe
the ways that ya steer it
but ya gotta be careful drivin round in your bible car
somebody might actually hear it
sounds like BRRRAWWWlove yer enemy and FRRROOOturn yer cheak
and NNRRRAWW stop dropin bombs on people for pete's sake
some of these people'll teach ya about lovin
some teach ya hate
but whatever you learn in your life babe,
don't confuse god, with fate
and what they mean by that is don't confuse the cards you're dealt
with the apples that you ate
it ain't about the apples anymore
so don't let'em scare ya.
they're a'running away from Xmas day
takin off west away from the dawn
and its snowing in heaven
and down here everybody's just trying to keep warm
I look at this country, and it moves me to tears
to many kids in the hallways, havin to live beyond their years
seems as though all we teach'em is to be afraid of the reasons for war
but we don't teach'em to be afraid of war itself, and thats dangerous
still i pray for the soldiers who fight, cause they're the ones that die
but you know i pray for them terrorists too, well at least i try
and i pray for all the people in the world still stuck on the justice
of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, soul for a soul
everyone's a running away from Xmas day
takin off west away from the dawn
and its snowing in heaven
and down here everybody's just trying to keep warm
well he came out to his mother on Xmas eve,
against his better judgment
and she thought it was her fault in some kinda way,
she thought it might be god's punishment
and on Xmas day, her son was still gay and
all she could say to him was
"son, can't you just change for your mama?"
thats a true story.
and it makes me think... WWJD if he had a gay son
i'd like to think he'da handdled it a little diffrently
a dog'll bark at you, its in its nature, and a kitten purrs
i haven't lost my faith, not yet, i just ain't subscribing to yers,
every fish has different scales, every bird different wings,
every mammals got different furs
cant' you see that its beautiful, can't you see that its right
still sometimes i think it might be easier
if everybody's god had the same name
there'd be a little less killing with less people to blame
BUT ISNT THAT WHAT WE WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE FIGURED OUT ANYWAY AFTER JESUS CAME?
i try to remember these things
except when i'm a'running away from Xmas day
takin off west away from the dawn
its still snowing in heaven
and down here everybody's just trying to keep warm

"Gene Roddenberry Crews"

When i was younger
i used to stay up late and watch both episodes of S.T.N.G.
and that stands for
"Star Trek: the Next Generation", it was a T.V. show.
Captain Picard and his fearless crew
Cruising 'round the stars and saving the galaxy for me and you
And well they had their guns
but they called them phazers
they used them like tazers
they weren't even trying to kill nobody
yes they set their guns to stun
when i was younger...
they were my
Gene Roddenberry Crews
Gene won't you dream for me we need another Starship
we tried to build one of our own
but we couldn't get past the our-ship part
Gene please, where did them stars that shine on me go
are they even mine to see anymore
I'm looking up but i don't see nothing
cause the lights are too bright in this city
hey Gene did ya know the first time we went to the moon
it was all just a competition with the Russians
and i'm afraid if we don't learn our lesson soon
there'll be some noo-clee-ar repercusions or something like that
and look what we doing now we want to go ta mars,
want to make it ours
looking for life over there in the dirt
but wouldn't it be nice if we could find some worthwhile life down here first
thats how i feel sometimes
I don't know how its gonna be it the twenty-third century
are we even gonna last till then
maybe if we practise Zen
compassion and love for all humans
and also for our alien friends, YEAH!
they could be saying hurray for the humans
huzzah to the future of galactic peace
i don't know if they will
but they won't be able to do it without some
Gene Roddenberry Crews!
Gene you were so wise
you'd never believe your eyes
the poet tries to write a brighter future's past
Earthings can't we see
how much better off we'd be cruizing five-year missions,
upholding the prime directive,
and drinking some hot tea,
earl grey
Gene Roddenberry Crews
Gene won't you dream for me we need another Starship
we tried to build one of our own
but we couldn't get past the "it's mine"-ship part
Gene please, where did them stars that shine on me go
are they even mine to see anymore
I'm looking up but i don't see nothing
cause the lights are too bright in this city
awww, I ain't even looking up no more
cause what am I gonna see
i'm just gonna turn on my T.V.
you'll be there for me
S.T.N.G
With the G. R. C.

"talking global warming"

global warming? its just a hoax
yes i think that the globe is really getting a little colder
know what i mean?
don't believe me? just ask your folks
they'll probably tell you something about the sixties
it ain't coming back, peace and love was just a dream they had...
so now i'm wondering
if my time is getting watered down, couldn't that mean that we're growing some how
and if my world, its getting watered down, mightent that mean somethings growing?
or does it mean that we're drowning...
i just don't like feeling like i'm the only body
whooz feeling like i feel
now theres a man who says he could save us all with his money
and this other man says he could save us with his love
he says love a dove
and my friend janeane says we could save ourselves
with the help of a god above
but she don't know which one
and i seem to remember a man who told me i'd lose my soul if i gave up the fight
then i got a good job and bought a volkswagon, and a proved to him that he was right.
i forgot to vote
i think i was shoping for some bose speakers, tiny speakers, listening for something…
but just ended up wondering
if my time is getting watered down, couldn't that mean that we're growing some how
and if my world, its getting watered down, mightent that mean somethings growing?
maybe it'll "trickle down"
or maybe it won't and then we'll all drown...
i still don't like feeling like i'm the only body
whooz feeling like i feel
and i don't wanna feel bad, for having bad stuff
don't ya know they told me it was gonna be good stuff to have
on the tele-V
and i don't wanna feel sad, for thinking sad thoughts
don't ya know they told me they was gonna be happy thoughts
why would anybody lie about something like that?
they say
"if your time feels watered down, son that just means you're growing up
its fact of life"
they said
"if your life feels diluted, we'll get ya some of this and it'll pull ya through it"
but don't believe everything you want to believe cause you may find yourself someday
down at the bottom of the ocean floor
global warming finally gotcha
on your way to the video store
and now you don't like feeling like you're the only fishy
whooz feeling like you feel

"3 quotes: Christian, Buddhist, and Muslim:"

“Have you never read in the scriptures: 'The very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner; this was the lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes'? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it.”
-Jesus in Mathew 21:42-43

I think this lesson teaches that we must not regard our own religious activities as having more importance than the religious activities of others. And that we must humble ourselves to the belief that God knows best how to grow his kingdom and whom god will chose to glorify it.

“Not recognizing that there's no connection between term and meaning, those who wander in endless jargon get so exhausted.”
-Adept Godrakpa

This passage reminds me of the necessary evils of language, and that we must be careful not to judge meaning too quickly. For words are imperfect just as our minds are not equipped to completely comprehend another's intentions of expression.

“The truest and highest stage of worship is to see God face to face, and to receive his guidance0 from his own mouth. Those who attain this highest stage, choose for themselves whatever God chooses for them. Their entire characters are transformed by God. They are God's friends; so they no longer discriminate between people, but regard all people as friends. Wherever they go, they go from God; wherever they arrive, they arrive at God. Whatever they do, they do for God; whatever service they perform, they perform it in God. The self has been truly annihilated.”
-Junayd, "Tawhid"

After 9/11, I felt a particular need to research this religion that supposedly "Breeds Terrorists", and "Teaches Hate and Intolerance." I was happy to find this was not the case. i think that all religions have positive creeds, it is humans that seems unable to follow their own highest ideals.

"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 write.
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 allowing 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) ideoligies 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 write 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 necessarily lead me to more virtue or revelation than the paths of those who stick to their guns, so to speak. the followers of any path have the capacity 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 their mouths to speak or put thought to pen must be prepared for the corruption of their original 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, lots.
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 stumbled too 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 their 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...

"On a Rock"

river woman walking chest-high water
won't you take what you need to survive
is it any wonder that anybody's still alive?
New Orleans, you're in my dreams,
y'inmy hopes and my nightmares too
we just want you to know, we never forgettin you
i see'em standing on a rock at the edge of the water
i see'em standing and their faces are many
i see'em standing on a rock at the edge of the sea
prick you on your finger take a drop of your blood,
put it in a vile held up to the sun
we can help you, but we can not help everyone
Africa is America to me, and America(my tribe) is all the world
and the world is just the apple in the eye of a child
at the edge of the sea
i see'em standing on a rock at the edge of the water
i see'em standing and their faces are many
i see'em standing on a rock at the edge of the sea
See you in the desert, your helmet or your turben,
your guns, and your feet and your tears
what can we do when we've been fighting for thousands of years?
its a holy war, a cross, a moon, a star
we'll never have peace if we don’t look at eachother
and so i'm taking my first look, im a'lookin -right now-
I see'em standing on a rock at the edge of the sea

(or the same words in haiku)

folks caught unawares
see them standing on a rock?
cracked, at the sea's edge

"and so"

in this life I know that I have always taken my fair share
and i've given what i've owed, nothing more nothing less
and if ever i have stepped above my duties it was not me
it was the grace of a higher power
which i have never understood, or met
and so..
i'm giving all my friends and loved ones
a rusty nail before i die
for to seal me up in my coffin when we say goodbye
for to lay me down good for good when it's my time to go
old men talking young men dying,
this the way of war and hatred
young men YAWLPing, old men dancing,
these are things that can lead to peace
this i've known since i was born
now it seems, with every morning
i forget a little more of this knowledge
and so...
i'm giving all my friends and loved ones
a rusty nail before i die
for to seal me up in my coffin when we say goodbye
for to lay me down good for good when it's my time to go
with my words and with my thinking
i've always tried to find some concrete answers
what i found was the simple value in a listning mind
and a silent smile
and so won't you go ahead and smile?

"the seeds of peace"

this is a country which draws many kinds
from the native tribes to the imagrents
then and now some come from dark places
some have believed they were heaven sent
what comes from heaven like Noah's dove?
how do you distinguish from what comes up from hell?
oceans craddle the coasts, rain falls from the sky
yet water is drawn from a well.
this in the land of a constant sorrow
this in the land of that pains relief
carrying the promise of a brighter tomorrow
this is the land where we plant the seeds of peace
if a man is to grow to find the joy of motion
his blood must flow through the entire man
if a nation's to flower in freedom and gladness
her resources must flow through the entire clan
who is my clan? your clan is the people
who are these people, the people on earth
divided by hatred, separated by fear
chained to the lands of their birth
this in the land of a constant sorrow
this in the land of that pains relief
carrying the promise of a brighter tomorrow
this is the land where we plant the seeds of peace
and we watch them grow, then we plant some more
and we watch them grow, then we plant some more
and we watch them grow, then we plant some more

"Hip roman suicide"

drink some lead in your water
Gracias, eh? De nada
lets put some salt on your jelly hurry up
i see the cause and the effect
i seen the maufacture deffect
i see the hole in your belly - hurry up
all on a hip roma suicide
ya put your hand on your heart and ride
and flip that visor to see just what you want to see
and you say just what you wanna, say just what you wanna say
your capi gains and your profits?
i see they're little miss muffets
a spider sits down beside ya -hurry up
you got a trillion dollar debit
ya bought a tan and a senate
you bought a spoon and a lighter -hurry up
all on a hip roman suicide
you put your hand on your heart your right
and flip your visor so you see just what you wanna see,
and jya say just what you wanna, say just what you wanna say
you get your motor checked offen?
you got a flag on your coffin
get that box of the boxed T.V. -hurry up
and its the all holy bible
you're making it a false idol
graven pages made of silver and gold
...
all on a hip roman suicide
you put your hand on your heart you're right
and flip your visor so you see just what you wanna see,
and jya say just what you wanna, say just what you wanna say

"and jesus was dancing"

we don't live there anymore
where jesus dances in the sandbox baby
and the devil knocks on your door
he's serving papers, well he says,
"you can run but i will catch up with you some day
and you can never return
to the house that you burned!"
but i don't see it that way
you could rebuild
and jesus was dancing the inexcelsis mambo
you could shack up in the garage
and jesus was dancing the mashed hosana
you could build an ash castle
and jesus was dancing the gloria foxtrot
you could change your locks
or you could not change your locks
after you rebuild
invite everyone inside
and have a heaven'n'hell theme party
devils in the basement,
angels upstairs,
and on the first floor
everybody can just ... mix

"I am You"

We want you on our team
baby dont think like nobody wants you
we want you livin our dream
i've got a dream and its burning the taste on my tongue
its a sense of unlimited range
its a people willing to change
Everybody shout and scream
baby dont think like nobody's listening
check it out we're chugging full steam ahead
i got steam and its shooting right out my eyes
its a view of umlimited sight
its the peace between wrong and right
i said we got to have us some peace, between wrong and right
and we're g-g-getting down on our knees and we wanted to say that we're sorry!
Because we took it to the Extreme
when we built that wall we didnt know what we were doing
now we're cutting through it with our laser-beams baby!!
(everybody make lazer beam noises) we're breaking it down
and its a force you can never fully know
its a power you gain by letting go
so let it go, all you hatred and your revenge
let it go, your need for security
dont be afraid of things you can not see
learn to love mystery
i hope someday we'll all agree
I am you (and you and you)
and you are Me
I am you and you are me
we could make it work

"I’m not as nice as I think I am"

The other day, i was lain in a hammock
i was enjoying the walnut dropings courtesy of a squirll high above.
then a peculiar thing: the damn wind blew the squirll from its branch, and it headed strait for me. I could see his parachute belly.
i know, strange. perhaps he was an elderly squirll or drunk.
well, i quickly stumbled away from the area with plenty of time, for the tree was very tall. I didnt want to get scratched you see. allthough intermittently it looked to be pretty plain that the little bugger would land quite clear of the hammock. So i'd have been fine if i'd just stop to see. poor little fella ................flump.
now, sitting here. i think what now i will try to think the next time this happens: if i am wearing any garment, i will pull it out it front of me and do my level best to catch that squirll.
Darwin or no, i cant abide any more flumping.

"i'm catchin hell for this one..."

so, here's a thought
perhaps homosexuality is natures population control
there's just too many of us around
the planet it suffocating
i mean, if you're the type to believe that God has a plan,
you gotta admit, homosexuality sure is good for the planet
hmmm… that would mean beer goggles are bad for the planet… crud.
Please disregard everything I’ve just wroten

"mystery song"

(for katie)

some people cry, and others mourn
when some people never come home
some'v us wait and other live
the rest of 'em learn to forgive...
and you're not gonna find adventure
with the praying that you do
you not gonna solve a mystery
a mystery's gonna solve you.
some of us taste while others eat
some people sleep in the street
you didn't think it could be true
that sleeping could happen to you.
and now you're snorin...
but you're not gonna wake from slumber
while you're dreams are all black and blue
you're not gonna solve a mystery
a mysterys gonna solve you.
and when he tells ya that you don't know what love is
just a’shrug yer shoulders and don't speak
then give'm a kiss, make it a sloppy one too
well, some of us kiss and others run
the rest of us reach for the sun
sometimes i reach sometimes i touch
regardless babe, i need you so much...
well you're not gonna find a lover
'neath the mourning drops of dew
you're not gonna find a mystery for yourself
that old mystry is gonna find you
so don't worry none.

"tribalism yodel"

tribalmen men, you don't have to start yer wars
it's better when we admit
that we shouldn't do everything by ourselves
tribal men, you don't have to veil your hate
the world's not gonna heal when all you do it regulate it.
and i know love is understanding every point of view
but your wars are just too demanding and so i hate you
but i don't wanna hate you anymore
tribal men, you don't have to kill them first
no matter how much blood ya drink
it'll never quench your thirst
tribal men, we don't have to be afraid,
for it's better to lose our lives then to lose our souls
and i know love is understanding every point of view
but your war is just too demanding and so i hate you
but its a habit i'm trying to kick
these tribalism bombs i hear'm tick-tick-ticking
cause all these bombs that you build won't make you strong
the worlds been waiting for peace for too long
you tell me sometimes killing is right, well i think you're wrong
if you want to kill something, kill my song, kill my song
but don't kill the movement we got going for peace
yodelady, yodelady, who
tribal men, it's O.K. to lose control
but it's better when we admit
that we can't pick up all the pieces by ourselves
my young friends, some day we'll all of us be dead
so just remember where we come from and what we believe in
and i believe love is understanding every point of view
but them wars are just too demanding
and so i hate, i hate, and hate the war
but i don't want to hate, its not what i'm trying to do anymore

"another cup of tea"

I gathered up all my bright ideas, I wrote them down on my wrist but i never did drink the drops of ink
pouring from your fingertips
never took a second look at the color of your lips,
cause i was lookin fer Avalon
but now I'm glad I finally met you, you're all i wanted to see
is their anything I could get ya?
some extra time at the five and dime,
proof that I'm in love with you
or maybe just another cup of tea
Rattled off my testimony, "I seen him weight the dice"
always blew, the good and true, never had the sense to lie
when you add up everything you got and you're still a little shy, hey well you know it's time
this time i'm glad i finally met you, you're all i wanted to see
is their anything i could get you?
another dance, your kaki capri pants,
another chance of loving you
or maybe just another cup of tea
hey i wanted to know, was their anything your heart desires?
i wanta fetch it fer you, through the wind the rain and the fire!
I road out on my brown eyed mare
but she never change her course
so it wasn't long, till she was gone,
i had to ride in on, a different horse
sometimes love is easy, but some loves you have to force!
You’d better give it yer all
after all i'm glad i finally met ya, you're all i wanted to see,
is there anything i could get ya?
Some wood for choppin, some corn for poppin
I’m a’never stopping! I’m lovin you!
or maybe just another cup of tea

"Happy birthday"

take me back to the place
where we both didn't know anything
i want to meet the person whom i was a stranger too
take me back to the time
when we didn't have a place
for us to go back to.
(sus chord resolution)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY LOVE! HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY CELEBRATED?
ON THE DAY THAT YOU WERE BORN THE ANGELS CRIED
AS YOUR STAR WAS BOUND FOR MINE!
HURRAY!
(super long film score bridge)
WHY DO WE NAME THE WIND
BY THE DIRECTION IT HAILS FROM?
MY HEAD TENDS TO TURN IN THE DIRECTION IT BLOWS.
I HOPE YOU'LL GOVERN YOUR LIFE BY THE CONSTITUTION OF A MOUNTAIN'S PEAK
I HOPE YOU'LL MEET YOUR DEATH
BY THE THORNS OF A ROSE
BY THE THORNS OF A ROSE,
happy birthday

"my guitar is teasing me, go figure"

well i've taught smoke to rosin up through the trees
i taught religious folk to pray upon their knees
i been to the lake of fire, taught it's waves to freeze
but i never found anyone whom i could really please
and call me crazy but i think my guitar is teasing me
listen to it ... i dont think i'm paranoid here
i think its really makin fun,
go figure…
like the god that gave his son(,) the perfect gift
i can cause the plates of heaven and earth to shift
i've ransomed the garden of evil from its timeless myth
but i never found anyone whom i'd like to share it with
and my guitar just keeps on teasin me
just like a little girl skippin some rope
one, two, buckle my shoe is what she says
like the cup that collects the blood you drink, you bleed
i could justify all your avarice and greed
cause i've collected every spirit, from every mustard seed
but i never found anyone whom i felt i could really need
and my guitar just keeps on teasing me
just like a little boy up in a chesnut tree
with his thumb on his nose, fingers in the air, wiggeling
and after gamblin into fifty-thousand dollars debt
i made it double or nothin, then i lost the bet
and after the house took everything i had
a said "dealer, i aint finished yet"
but i never found anyone whom i didn't think i'd eventually regret
and this guitar keeps on teasing me
just like every day it seems
every day, every season, spring, winter, fall,
even in the summer
it thinks its funny that i still play
the same old tunes, with the same old blues

"norshore fable"

she got lost in the woods of lutsen
she went out lookin for flowers in the scatered showers
but that was hours ago
and so she climbed a tree, to the squirell
he said "dont you cry little girl
cause it ain't hard to get you back where you started!"
no it aint hard to make it back
it aint hard to make it back
you just mark who you love the most
and follow'em down to the coast
water'll always getcha back where you started
he had a map to a forgotten treasure
he went out lookin for riches, diggin holes in ditches, dreaming'bout some bitches and brew
until his holes started caving in
he said "i don't think this map is quite genuine
and its so hard when you can't remember just where you've been
but it aint hard to make it back
no it aint hard to make it back
you just mark who you love the most
and follow'em down to the coast
water'll always getcha back where you started
they got lost on their way back from inspiration point
their hands were shaking
cause they was taking a path they hadn't normally took
and it was pitch black and they couldn't see nothing
but then he caught a little glimmer
of some moonlight on the river he said,
"my darling that’s the river gonna get us home.
cause it aint hard to make it back down to the coast
of gitchi gammi."

"the compound"

we flew in over the compound in a pontoon plane
unseen criminals
we where the first to jump
gravity was obeying dream-rules, so of course we overshot it by about a football field
we could see the building was.......tall
so we grappled and climbed to the top, after a jaunt
then i saw the courtyard at the bottom of the building's ancient elevatorshaft.
down i looked into the gargantuan space where the bones of a king kong Vishnu, who was the elevator operator, lay half consumed in the sand. where the kids junglegymed and the coworkers took their cigarette breaks.
nowadays, in the absence of the mighty elevator lift the people surf up and down the carpetstairs on red, blue, purple, and green pre-school rest time mats…
we stoped to smell the roses
just then the man from snowyriver road in over the drawbridge and through the portcullis, chewing saltwater icecubes, halfway into a cat’s cradle. he shouted up to me, "don't jump stranger.
i'll catch you if you do, but it'll ruin my cat's cradle!"
uh….
so of course i jumped

"Rumble-Tumble Down"

peeling, peeling out of the parking lot
painted on your pencil-tip,
behind your ear, it was plain to see,
your arms were making ROPE LADDERS,
lassoing Benny,
AND SOME MAD DOG 20/20.
We were all tangled up in ropes of glee
and everybody sang "ah-ee-ah-ha-yip-yippie"
breaking,
breaking into the montesorri school,
no one around just me and you and zosia blue,
and a push'n'talk TEDDY RUXPIN.
your catholic cousin, she was really something!
i just wanna be a part of your family
and everybody sang " ah-ee-ah-ha-yip-yippie "
SPRAYING,
SPRAYING SPIT,
SPILLING DOWN ANY OLD HILL,
BIG BLOCKS OF ICE AND A TOWEL,
PLASTIC SLEDS, YOU CAN EVEN GO WITHOUT
YOU JUST RUMBLE-TUMBLE DOWN
ANY OLD SEASON WE CAN FIND A REASON
HEY LETS GO, LETS GO RIGHT NOW,
AIN'T NO REASON TO STAND 'ROUND HERE
NO MORE

"Chase and Jenny"

guess who's back from the mountains?
no it aint moses, its just chase and jenny
the suns a-rising they drove all night and their legs are frozen but their backs are sweaty,
and aint that how it is after a long car-ride
just in time for the celebration, summer's over,
the harvest coming soon. we're ringing out summer's end
people say "have you seen chase and jenny
since they been back from that mountain?
there's something different about'em,
the way they dance on the straw.
and its anybody's guess to which cliff or precipice
with it's view was generous enough
to show-em whatever it was that they saw."
and you'd ask'em but you dont wanna butt in.
we're all here at the celebration, summer's over,
the harvest coming soon. we're ringing out summer's end
just right
and everybody was sing and dancing and having a good time, they were singing, and a-dancing, and the room started spining around yeah, and the room started spining around yeah, and it was spinning
around, it was spinning around,
it was spinning around, well, oh lordy.
SOME PEOPLE DIE, HIGHER. SOME PEOPLE DIE, HIGHER.
SOME PEOPLE DIE, HIGHER.
now everyone has gone home,
except for you know who, up on the roof.
and chase says to jenny "we'll be married next year",
she said "thats a nice idea chase, but how can you know?"
he said "dont you remember the day last September
when the grass was green and soon too be covered in snow? honey baby thats how i know.."
and wont you let me take you home from the celebration, summer's over, the harvest coming soon.
we're ringing out summer's end just right

"no-show"

roe sham beau or tic-tac-toe?
NO?.....
away i'll go!
wind blow snow.
oh :(

"peach colored stripes"

peach colored stripes on your white long-sleave,
a yellow room, with olive colored drapes
i cant seem to make your face out, but i'm sure that its you
i know your movements, i recognize your shapes
its in my dreams where i enjoy seeing you now baby
you reach for the stars
but you keep your eyes on the ground
i'm happy you've found your happy medium
they say you moved to indiana
and that your mother's to be a grandma
soon your babe will hear your humming
its in my dreams where i enjoy hearing you now
well its in my dreams,
the only place where i can see you now
cause in every other part of me you've gone
you left my hopes and my ambitions
you've left my knees and my superstitions
you've left the outside and the inside
of the house of my premonitions
you've gone away from my door and my window too
cant even remember what that house looked like,
just the kitchen really…
so if they teach me to pare again,
i might dream you wearing again
your peach colored white long sleeve tee
and i never know which dream you'll visit
when you don't babe i really miss it
but its only in my dreams of this that i'm aware
its in my dreams where i enjoy missing you now baby

"The army of peace?"

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 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 a nasty cancer-lickin rife
disdain for it
disdain for it
disdain for it
disdain for it

zine selections

2007-09-17T23:00:00.001-05:00

here are some zine selections. i'll be publishing a book next spring, so thats cool, here are some of my favorite selections:

"preteen highway"

preeteens swinging from xmas lights hangin from the freeway overpass, spinnin from when the cars and trucks and hybrid-electric dolphins drive by. also the 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

"Fascist Forest"

i wish i was a forest policeman
id cruize around, scope out all the trees, profile them.
take'em in for questioning sometimes. ruff'em up a bit
be like "so where where you on december the third last, huh?
and theyd be like I aint telling you nothing without my lawyer pig!
then i'd plant some drugs on'm and throw em in the slammer,
handcuff all the branches
but i wouldnt be tottally mean,
id hold a class once a week to help the more promising ones get their GED diplomas. on graduation day i'd be like congradulation trees! here are your diplomas... which i printed on paper made from your families!!! thats right, while you where in jail we cut down the forest and made'm all into paper and toothpicks HAHAHAHAHA.
the trees would have the last laugh though!
they'd ban together and stop converting Carbon dioxide into oxygen, and then i'd be like (gasping)
you, damn trees. i'll get even with you if its the last thing i ever do....

"palms"

we have arived at the time when the lines blur and melt
the cobwebs freeze, break, shatter and fall to the ground into a game of pick-up-sticks after you pull the tweezers from your pocketknife and collect the first few needle-shards you pause.
and if you have any nonsense you slam BOTH palms down onto the pile!!
OUCH!!!!
acupuncture was never such discovery you press your porqupined hands to your face where they stick, and watch the rest unfold through your fingers, which managed to avoid the stiff-spider-web-quills.

"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...

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

"consider the building"

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..

"tuesdaysrobot"

I AM THE PRODUCT OF A CHRISTIaN UNION
i have been distracted by foriegn wars!
i see no passion anywhere
everything so ayn rand FAIR
am i a tuesdays robot????
yes, but here is the riddle...
we are all robots and we all deserve it
are you a robot slave or a robot servant?

"Pine Tree Gorgons"

gorgons live in the pine tree now, at least up north here where there is no sea. yeah, check it out in there, i doubledog dare ya!
just watchout. cause it aint snakes they got in thier hair. up here they got congressmen growing on thier heads. its acctually quite funny, and probably the reason those poor gorgons are hidding in pinetrees. though it'll still turn ya to stone when you look at'em. laughing statues around the tree from seeing all those congressmen and representatives sticking together from all the pinetree-sap.

"where wher you when your towers fell?"

waking up from a dream, my palms where sweating but my sheets where clean
i wondered if anybody'd heard me scream
even though i live alone
the street light hurts my eyes
at least in comes as no surprize
just like that old sunrize
comin soon enough itself
where wher you when you towers fell?
pleaze doncha ask me i dont remember so well
where ya listening for the sound of a libertybell in america?
where its hard to know whats happining hard to know whats real
whats really happinin around here?

digging holes in graveyards never seemd too suspicious to me
isnt that the kind of thing you do in graveyards anyway
but do ya dig'm when the day is light
or do you dig under cover of night?
i just want to know when the proper time for diggin is!
why cant i get a strait answer from anybody?
where wher you when you towers fell?
voulez-vous coucher avec moi mademosselle?
just lie with me in the dumpster outside the drake hotel chicago!
where we wont believe whats happenin around here

walking down my sidewalk, i chanced to see a whole in a door
it was a whole i hadnt seen before
even though i pass by most everysingle day
but i didnt look through
i had places to go and things to do!
these day i even take a diferent avenue
whenever i need to get to where i need to get to
where was i when my towers fell
i was telling my neighbor he was going to hell
just like every turtle yelling from inside its shell in america
where dont want to believe what they tell me, whats happining
conspiricy theories and the truth of the matter never mattered much after the second greater depression.

"my children"

sitting on an umbrella, the children listen
thier ears an tounges taffy stretched and floating in the air like mermaid arms
and when they laugh
thier ears shake like rattlesnake tails
thier tonges ripple like electric licorice whips
10 in a circle on an umbrella i hold for all three of us.

"pipe cleaner starfish"

a pipe cleaner starfish rolls across a pink checkerboard under a stary dome.
the stars are close and touchable and the star bends upward in question at the stars which start to sway as if tire-swinging in a seabreeze. the starfish rolls up and bats at a softballsized red giant and sighs, oh how i long to be a swinging star! the giant glows green and says, you are a star! HA, no i'm a fish!!

"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 cuases the ocean to flush into your heals and now it sloshes around when you walk or stand, sit or kick.

"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 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?

"valentine's day"

early january, you walked into my bar
i thought you looked like my great grandmother
from a picture i saw
i couldn't believe it when you asked me my name
cause i was thinking the same
I thought you'd cross to the other side babe
instead you crossed my star
so thank you for loving me
and if you promise to stay
i wont tell you that i dont love you
'till after Valentine's day

late in January, you took me to your stair
taught me things about being a lover
i didn't know were there
i couldn't believe it when you asked me to come
cause i was looking for some
know what they say about love and war babe?
they say all is fair
and thank you for loving me
and if you promise to stay
i wont tell you that i dont love you
'till after Valentine's day

early February, your fingers rapt on my chest
thought you were tapping me a brand new heartbeat
but you were tapping a test
i couldn't believe it when you asked me to lie
i said i'd give it a try
jason took Medea just as far as he could babe
you know i did my best
and thank you for loving me
it's something i can't repay
and i won't tell you that i don't love you
till after Valentine's Day

"dang old light"

dang old light
its so....
unorigional
shining every single old place
...water too for that matter

I'd like to see beams of light snaking this way and that!
illuminating strange spaggetti segments of air
like light coming throung private eye office shades only twisted about in knots

water's flatness is not masked by even the tallest tsunami
i want to see water skyscrapers in lake harriet
the parting of the red sea was the tritest of miracles
compared to the art of nature's new found physics
balls of water hovering around the michelangeloscapes
catching wayward fish who swim into the air acidentaly
doing loony tune double takes
holding signs that say "yikes", blinking twice before they fall
leaving a tiny puff of smoke, or perhaps mist
as they are still wet of course

"dimes"

there's a dime glued to the ceiling
i see the tails side,
yet technicaly it's heads right?
depends on how you call it i guess.
and whats up with tails on a dime anyhow?
it just looks like a bunch of torches
all i'm saying is - where did the mob go?
did they forget what they were angry at?
did frankenstien join the PTA and go on south beach?

"bugs, paper"

spiderwebs gross me out man
but scafolding doesn't, i wonder why...
scaffolding is more substantient
spiderwebs are unpredictable
like spiders themselves and bugs
they're fast, too fast i say!
centapedes, silverfish!
zooming in and out of eyesite,
it scares the bejesus outa me.
doggies on the other hand, they're quite dependable
more substantient than squishy bugs
try to pet a bug and you'll squish it!
have you ever tried to catch a bug with a cup, and take it outside to freedom?
you have? what's wrong with you?
are you like one of them nonviolent types?
hmm... i wonder if thier is a correlation between squishy bugs and pettable dogs,
and (drum roll)
words on paper and words in stone...
bugs are squishy, paper crumply
ever throw a tick in the fire? how about a book?
the ten commandment were written in stone, so is your name when you die
i guess words are scary all the time eh? no matter what medium.

"disco ball"

so, did you ever want a disco ball to just freak the fuck out?
spining any old way it way it wants, floating anywhere it pleases
light dots following suit
the earth too for that matter,
gravity gostling you left and right and up and down
your hands in the air like you just don't care?
not too much though, dont wanna be squished
not everyone's been to space camp

"at the hoot"

i develop infatuations like a painter develops film
love? i suppose, between anything? anything at all?
the hope that i can become the greatest of friends with anyone
the master of any object's physical existance
that this place will become a regular haunt
with many happy memories
and at the same time:
the most viral fear that we are somehow allready mortal enemies
that these objects will cause my death
that this place will never bear any moments in time that change thought and action
but then, this is a "hootenany"
a foriegn endevour even to the city that circles it
the purpose? to put aside these suppositions
the possibilities that present themselves have no awareness of themselves
at the hoot, there exists the nuetrality of a man drunk off the ecstasy of the current
hum-dinger, eyebrows breathing.
will he fall off his chair to the left or too the right?
this breed of question is rarely asked before it happens,
at the hoot

"topical songs"

topical songs, you just gotta write'm when you're starting out
hopefully you can trancend them later after you get it out of your system
let the next young buck shake it up in an allegory rainstick
on the way to finding metaphore, then he can do it up with the best of the bullshitters
then when the critic asks, "whats that mean?" he can say, "i'm late for something."
and leave the world surmising, "wow, he's so ... deep."
in truth he's done his level best to forget, most deep people have very small hard drives, thier RAM cards are all screwed up too.

"Punctuation"

someone should invent a new punctuation mark, to take the place of periods and commas. the meaning of which would be "most of the time" or "in some cases."
this would difuse many arguments i think.
try it the next time you read the OP EX. how about with this sentence:
Republicans are assholes, because Democrats are softies.

"fuck copyrights (I may eat my words..)"

(from the podium of self rightous turtles)
the true hero artist stands tall
so that imitator-admirerors can climb and stand upon thier shoulders
to see what they see
also they run, to challenge themselves, thier contemporaries and thier passengers to excel beyond the dead and sleeping giants all about them
and when they are passed they do not fret
for they know that it is not a race
there is no track and no finish
and millions of directions to be explored
all that they create is not bogaurded
for they know that if someone can take the sneezed ink of thier souls
to new corners of place and thought
this is something to be celebrated!
we are all cells in the human body
can one skin cell say that they have discovered the sun?
no, these things are open to all
those that are awake to possibility know what windows to open, and never closed,
never closed

"DVD"

DVD DVD DVD DVD said i'm gonna watch a dvdvd
VCR where R U?
U aint round no more
infact you where never round
U where rectangular
well, inside you where round, twice!
and one of the round tape circle was always geting bigger or smaller, depending.
but a cd, or a dvd
always stays the same size...
and an MP3? cant see that small, could be round could be rectangular, triangular, who knows man.... it could be spiral!!!!!!!
they gotta be space efficient, to fit allv'em into those tiny boxes......
gonna listen to my MP3 player, at 3PM in the afternoon
cause you cant listen to your MP3 player before 3PM, cause thats when you working or at school

to ed on his wedding day

2007-08-20T18:27:00.001-05:00

yo! here is some stuff i put in a gift to my friend ed on his wedding day. but if you want to see and even better tribute, google "ed and janie wedding frequencies youtube", the video should be up in a couple days!!!

ED!! i write you today at a milestone in your
life! you have found a love that will last you
your whole life. Thanks be to Janie for making
my friend the happiest has been in love
and life, with the promise of even greater joys
to come!
Dude!, its been 16 years since we met, 8 years
since we obliterated the challenges of our high
school, and 4 years since we left the safety of
our academic blankets. We had such ambition, the
growth of our talents seemed limitless. And here
we are, not dismal failures, yet still not kings
of our crafts. Can you remember even what our
goals were? i remember vaguely that mine were
the goals of a music writer, and perhaps
performer. although the timbre of this dream has
changed much more than i could have ever
foreseen, i still hold it.
Ed, what were yours? what are yours now? I'd
be very curious to know, my most cognate of
buddies. You had always been the friend i had
most admired, and not just for your flannel
wearing abilities. For your leadership, drive,
and the way it always seemed to me that you had a
destination. even if it was a destination we
could not see. I would always look to you and
our friends, not necessarily for answers, but for
the promise of a good time. and i reveled in the
fact that we all had the itch to become great,
for lack of a better word, artists.
will we still dare to be the men we thought we
could be? or will we resign ourselves to live
softly as those who sought glory, and tasted
some. Living on, content to taste a few more
slices if the chance should arise? My friend, we
could part ways forever and you would still be
there. your memory conspicuously reminding me of
the person i was, whom we were, whom we are now.
This happy day I do not believe we are doomed to
slices. the memory of us and our friends
empowers me to think we may yet each take our own
entire cake!
I think fondly of a day many years from now,
when we can sit down at a table and look back at
our lives in awe of a twofold unspoken promise
that we both of us kept in spades: the promise
we made from ourselves to ourselves, that we
would live our lives in the fullest of capacities
as individuals, while at the same time
challenging our friends and loved ones to excel
beyond the base par of mere existence - with our
words, by our actions, and through our prayers,
hopes, and well-wishes.
I can see you grin as you think you've made a
particularly good move playing dominoes, or
perhaps cribbage, Othello, even chess if we still
have our wits.
in the midst of the skill of this unforgotten
fun, any accolades or trophies we attained fade
from behind the eyes of our smiles. For what
were they but the chance blessings of apathetic
fate.
so many of our talents and achievements were
given to us freely Ed! are we not grateful? We
are, but we know the joys that come from these
gifts, however joyful, are not truly our own.
After our last game is played, our true joys are
finally realized for what they were and are: the
steps we had taken by the will of our own spirit
to increase the bonds of friendship and love
toward all whom we met, and the fruits of joy and
life-affirming bittersweet sorrows that our
actions and creations had bestowed upon them.
-Upon a point of greater dreams, I hope we can
make this realization many times before our
last!-
So let us today and always celebrate all of our
lost goals and faded ambitions by each day
planting new seeds of conquest and mischief. let
us contract the germs of creation, and spend the
time it takes to sow and reap the benefits of
their diseases and cures, paths and destinations.
this i hope for you and Janie!, for myself and
all others whom we know and love and have yet to
meet.

Random memories with ed:
the swallows!
Zero Hour
your busted toofs
the D.E.L.
white rider!
visits to Lawrence
grunge, not goth
west side story
pit orchestra
Cross Country
the hoodlums
a planned bike trip to the U.K.
a realized trip to Miami and DC
MITY
grand rounds biking
sport shakes
our senior band scores
teepeeing Humphrey
the soma solo on the 7th grade bus ride, then
taking it to the 8th grade talent show
those damn wire-light-reindeer
free rides to jazz band
serotine
nailed to the X

summer of bells

2007-08-20T18:26:00.001-05:00

my head hurts, i hear ringing...

glory, just like totally the funnest weekend of the year has past by, kind of a bummer but i'll be doing ren fest this year so i'll see a bunch of those folks soon again. my best buddy Ed is getting married next weekend, so thats cool, i've been to three weddings in the past 9 days, yikes. allthough i've heard no bells to my recollection, there was a rather loud cricket at stephan and jolienes' though...

know whats weird? my hours this summer are 12-6 so every day i walk to and from work hearing the nieghborhood church bell songs. i know its just a recording, but i like to pretend there are real bells in the tower. i'd sure like to bong me some big brass bells someday, just be like- bong bong bong bong...

our album has been delayed

2007-07-03T00:44:00.000-05:00

we almost had it in the can. trouble is, sometimes when there's a can laying around. someone shts in it.
holy sht, someone who will remain nameless for karmic reasons, has co-opted our hard-drive from the studio we've been workin at, and inadvertently erased half the files which we've spent six months working on, and its just starting to hit me. we were a couple days work away from finishing the project, and now there's no telling when we'll be finished. i'm pretty sure that however it happened it was an accident, still i feel terrible for Jacob, our engineer, who has had to deal with this mis-hap. i've asked him not to tell me who it was, allthough i have a pretty good guess. i feel the most frustration for this person's apparent lack of remorse for his mistake, and i hear that his unco-operative actions after the fact cost Jacob a friendship. naturally i've only heard one side of the story, still, as i tell my kids as often as possible: "learning to say you are sorry is the best lesson you can hope to learn."
so that's the rub for tuesdaysrobot for a while. if you see me around or are reading this and would like, make sure to ask me for one of the zines i've made recently, as the main upsetness i've felt lately is that i'll not have something of myself CD-wise to share with all of you for at least acouple more months. and dont worry, i ussually cant feel sorry for myself for more than a week or so.
-rick

Holy Moley! its my birfday!!

2007-06-05T00:14:00.001-05:00

So i've just been reading gemini pages for like an hour. i love horoscopes and have read them since jr. high. allthough because of reading them from an early age, i often wonder if i take on the characteristics of my horoscope because i choose to, or because they are intrinsic to the planets? hmm... i think the "truth" in horoscope may lay in thier ability to make us think about stuff we wouldn't otherwise. like horoscopes, here are some useless facts that can be used for the fun of asigning bullsh*t meanings to them:

June 5th in History
1967: The six day war in the Middle East, between Israel and its neighbours, begins
1975: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat re-opens the Suez Canal to all but Israeli shipping - it had been closed for 8 years since the Six Day War of June 1967.
1981(THE DAY I WAS BORN!!) - The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that five homosexual men in Los Angeles, California have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems, in what turns out to be the first recognized cases of AIDS.
1968: US Senator Robert Kennedy shot and killed in Los Angeles. (SORRY BOBBY)

June 5th birthdays
1878: Pancho Villa, Mexican revolutionary (THATS RIGHT BABY< YOU KNOW I BE ALL REVOLUTIONARY BY NATURE)
1882: Igor Stravinsky, Russian composer and conductor
1937 - Waylan Jennings, Country singer.
1934 - Bill Moyers, American journalist
1956 - Kenny G, American saxophonist(EEEEEWWWWW, GROSS!)
1971 - Mark Wahlberg, American singer and actor
1981 - Draco Malfoy, Character of the Harry Potter series (HOLY CRAP!!! I'M A SLYTHERIN!!!!!!!!)

deaths:
2004 - Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States (b. 1911)

June 5th is...
World Environment Day, since the United Nations General Assembly resolution in 1972
(SO HUG A TREE MOTHER F*CKERS, DO IT)

Chooser's Blues

2007-05-31T09:12:00.000-05:00

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?

"..."

2007-05-18T15:57:00.000-05:00

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?

traffic

2007-05-10T22:55:00.000-05:00

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

totally gellin

2007-05-10T22:51:00.000-05:00

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.

2007-05-05T22:25:00.000-05:00

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

2007-04-30T02:19:00.001-05:00

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