Pretentious & Self-Indulgent

So it seems
So it is
For me
Nothing is certain
Nothing lasts
But life
And change
My line began with many others
In what is now Kenya
It continues through so many places
Specificity
Makes me
Greek
German
Italian
African
And everything in between
How ridiculous racial pride is
How ridiculous national pride is
We are all one race
Human
Carbon based life forms
More alike than different
Revenge stirs us to action
More than love
Greed
Anger
Lust
Hold sway over the mind
The mind which can sway all
With effort
Much effort
Some difficulty
It’s easier to be angry
Primal instincts lead us there
The tough
Hard-assed
Men
Women
Are weak
Their weakness lies in their ideas of
Strength
Power
Happiness
Might makes right is wrong
The mighty may write history
Though history is
Dwarfed by the universe
Dwarfed by 11 dimensions of physicality
Dwarfed by an idea of the infinite
Energy transformed
Not destroyed
Happy transformation

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot July 4, 2010

Looking for a place to be. A nice place with a baseball game on TV. All my usual places are closed. I venture to Norwood even though the wonderful Perks is closed. I turn the corner and Napper Tandy's is open with parking out front even though Norwood is having their parade today, down Washington St. (the main st. through town), a quarter of a block away.
I settle down with a Magners and an ice water. I intend to limit my alcohol intake to a trickle.
To my pleasure, they have free Wi-Fi. I find a cozy corner with an electrical outlet and fire up my iBook. Baseball seems to be the Yankees so I catch up on my mail and Facebook connections.
After an hour or so, I've finished my Magners and two glasses of water. Things are fine except I need to use the Men's room. The parade has started and it's on the TV showing events from an angle about two blocks away. Time to potty.
Happily finished and washing my hands when a 50 caliber machine gun opens up, very close. To the floor I go. It's sticky and I'm confused because the 50 continues like there's serious shit going on. His bursts a a bit long and I figure his a newbie, a cherry boy getting his busted.
Fuck! I'm in Norwood, I'm in Norwood, I'm in Norwood, but the 50 continues it's long bursts, small arms join in, no AKs, then a big explosion, outgoing and definitely not a mortar.
Going outside I see a little Sherman tank going by. The fucking assholes are playing war. There goes another 50 to the left and what I assume was the first resumes to the right, further down Washington St. Fuck!
I squat in the doorway peering around the edge to see cheering people waving flags and a WWII Halftrack with a 50 on it firing.
Fuck!
I'm in Norwood, I'm in Norwood, I'm in Norwood, Massachusetts. Fuck! I'm shaking as I quickly move inside and collect my things. The firing has moved down the street further. I'm in Norwood, I'm in Norwood, I'm in Norwood.
I get the fuck out of there, fighting the urge to run in a low crouch. There's my car, I'm in Norwood, I'm in Norwood.
Off I go heading west, away from the firing, more salvos from the tanks, there are at least two of them. Fuck! Tears come, images flash, I'm taking back streets to get away and avoid the parade route.
Finally, no more firing but I'm shook. The images come, laughing dipshits in green. Camouflaged pinatas hanging from the ceiling. Bits of shit flying through the night air, flashes and explosions, the smell of rotting meat. Fuck! I'm in Massachusetts, I'm in the world, I am not there! Fuck! Fuck! Tears! Fuck!
I pull into the parking lot of my favorite hang-out. Closed. "Have a nice holiday".
Tears flow bringing relief and the sureness of where I am. I need to be around people, people without war stories.
I end up at the BBC (British Beer Company) on Route 1, across from the Walpole Mall. I find a place in the back where there are no servers but electrical outlets. It's the stage area when bands play here but no bands tonight. Write!
Baseball highlights on the TV. Crappy 70s and Country hits play on the PA. I think of Fresno.
I'm heading for home in a week and 3 days. Much more packing to do and feathers not to ruffle too badly as I rely on the kindness of friends, actually one true friend so stressed with his own situation, I'm wondering about the state of my karma.
What The Fuck! Over.

Goodbye To All That and This

The great migration begins with a consolidation of stuff. Much recycled, some trashed. Recycling is harder than I expected. Costly too. Fortunately I have a funky Dell monitor, so Staples will take it and circuit boards for free.
My tour of the Great Northwest of the Northeast begins after this weekend of horrific celebration. Much drunkenness and explosives. Celebrating free thought and behavior with traditional glorification of armed conflict. "So it goes", to quote one who knows the waste of such endeavors.
Unlike TV shows which usually have a suitable resolution within it's broadcast time frame, situations with people move slowly (if at all) and seldom resolve to the satisfaction of all. Resentment carries through generations, stalling evolution in it's tracks.
Robert Graves, from whom I appropriated and augmented my title, knows of the futility of armies clashing. He went off to Majorca, abandoning all he had been programmed to believe in and relying on his senses and wit wrote gorgeous groupings of words in poems, novels, and letters.
I humbly hope to do the same. I have already abandoned my programming from childhood through adulthood and now rely on my senses and wit. The 5 rivers of Mary Oliver is as sufficient an education as is worthwhile.
With the end of life in this realm closer than the beginning, I feel the need to be true to what I know. Squeegee my third eye and move ahead, allowing evolution to continue and not fight the changes of consciousness or perception.

Hygiene

Flies clean themselves, I've see it. Much like cats but speedier. It rained heavily here and now the sun is out and a couple of flies toddled around in the sunshine, shaking their wings and wiping themselves with their feet. It seems odd that a creature that dines on various filth would take the time to clean up between meals. Perhaps a lesson for us all. As for me. I'll be taking a shower and brushing my teeth. Inspiration can come from the strangest places.

There it is. Check it out.

Madness descends as a dark cloud enveloping all. Truth is hidden, perceptions hindered.

Selfishly I take responsibility for things beyond my control. Beyond my understanding.

My selfish desire to survive returns to curse my survival, damn my failure to prevent the unpreventable. Actual people, not images on film or video, bags of meat, blood, and bone bursting, raining their parts in a squall of death.

I felt it looming, felt it's presence, uttering only, "Fuck", as I threw myself to the ground as it let loose. Fire and steel everywhere, thumping against everything as I pressed myself onto the rich soil, trying to disappear into the earth and safety. Safety was nowhere.

Many people never got older. Some have never left me, appearing out of this cloud asking, "Why?"

Guilt, regret, build upon frustration in the darkness for the many left behind to suffer their fates for being our friends, working for us, helping us. All come from the darkness with ageless faces asking, "Why?"

Beyond ideological arguments lie the torn bodies and empty eyes of wrong thinking bastards who made ultimately the wrong choice. They trusted us as if we were the correct choice and we abandoned them.

What do they want to hear to leave me alone, if not in peace, at least alone. How do I answer, "Why?"

The righteous know best. God talks to them and tells them the wrong thinkers, the damned, must suffer, must pay with their lives. It's easy when you're right.

Re-education with the bullet and the club. Pain convinces, pain forces acquiescence to a new order as long as the pain stops and I survive to see another sunrise.

Let the sunrise and dispel the dark cloud. Bring the sun with the light of awareness to see the beauty of life away from the darkness of brooding cruelty and death.

Let it ache.

It is the humanity within that hurts so much. It will subside, it will pass, it will come again. Perhaps not so severe. Perhaps not for a long time. Perhaps not.

The cloud has dispersed in time for the sunset to make the bark of the trees glow a golden brown briefly as the sun continues it's way westward.

I shall follow.

I shall follow soon, leaving people I love behind. I shall be carrying my own baggage.

Pretentious and self-indulgent. Like Rock and Roll. Pretentious in the assumption that someone will give a grand who-ha about what I think. Self-indulgent in the relief expressing it brings.

It's only Rock and Roll, but I like it.

Sometimes the only thing that makes sense is an extended Hendrix solo or Clapton at the crossroad. The screaming dissonance describes the emotional turmoil and helps bring resolution and calm.

Rock and Roll.

Pretentious.

Self-indulgent.

Appearance Discrimination

Perusing ALDaily.com this morning I came upon the following, "Prejudice against unattractive people in the workplace runs deep. Obese women earn 12% less than thinner co-workers with similar qualifications... " with the following link: http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6090/the_beauty_bias_at_work_and_what_should_be_done_about_it/

For it's overall generality, I find this new bugaboo very attractive. It's very close to perception discrimination but not quite so vacuous. As in trying to pin fog to a wall or a piece of bologna, appearance has substance and is easier to classify. It includes age, race, and ethnic discrimination as well as fat, ugly, and handicapped discrimination. Not perfection but close.

I don't doubt the reality of this sort of social banishment. An ugly face is difficult to look upon unless you manage to engage the eyes. As the fabled windows of the soul, eye contact allows for more authentic communication but it is difficult to maintain with the distraction of striking physical attributes.

Discrimination of itself is not evil. We discriminate between what foods we eat, clothes we wear, where we live. It is only when another suffers from our choices that it becomes a concern. A concern of our own, not that of society. Being the change you wish to see (to paraphrase Gandhi's statement) is truly the only course one can follow to equality. An appreciation of the difficulty in altering inherent prejudices within oneself allows for a less stringent view of another's inability to follow the same path. There are as many paths as there are living things and it appears to me that all the paths lead ultimately to the same destination. Your path is your choice, discrimination again. We are all creatures of one sort or another huddling together in groups for protection and support.

As a child in the 1950's I was nannied by Mr. Farnsworth's television and one of my earliest role models was Alan Watts, whose program I enjoyed as more for his soothing voice and manner than for what he had to say which I am not sure I could comprehend at the time, but he seeed to be such a nice man, a gentle man. In his book, Beyond Theology, he states, "To be quite sure, to be set, fixed, and firm is to miss the point of life." I've liked that from the moment I first read it. It seems to me to be true to the flow of existence and fits right in with the survival techniques taught to me by the U.S. Army which I condense to, "Stay on the balls of your feet and use your peripheral vision. Stay alert, stay alive". Nothing is certain, change is constant. It smells like evolution.

Close To A Fir Tree

As I looked up the trunk I could see a path for climbing and thought of scrambling up as far as I could go.
Then I thought of the exertion it would put on my legs, arms and back and thought about it some more.
My thoughts went back more than 50 years when as a lad, my brother and two neighbor brothers climbed into the stand of firs that separated Ingerson Avenue from Gilman Park in Sunny Francisco.
We dragged planks up with us and made a walk way pretty much the length of the stand. Being a small person it seemed a great distance and very high off the ground. Daring danger we ran through the tree tops playing tag and I stole your bottle of water (that particular game ended poorly for me but caused riotous laughter for my chums and I shall leave the details to the memories of the participants).
Spying on the few people that came to Gilman Park was also a way to entertain ourselves. Not that anyone was doing anything more interesting than playing ball or sitting in the grass, it was still a bit of a thrill to watch knowing they didn't know we were. "I know something you don't know!"
The trees came down to make an access road to what became known as Candlestick Park, the new home for the relocating New York Giants. At least we got Willie Mays out of the deal.
At the time of the great construction we were all very angered by the rape of our playground. They took the trees and terraced the hill behind our houses. The hill was McLaren Park, separated by US 101 where it breaks into the city a bit west of the KYA radio tower. The western side had been subdivided although a good sized area of the original park remains along Mansell St., on the ridge separating Visitation and Portola Valleys. The eastern side, our side, had it's eastern end terraced to fill the bay and build the stadium.
Angry children steeped in glorified tales of adventures in World War 2 and Horatio Hornblower proved to be dangerous to progress. Cutting out expeditions caused delays in the construction of the stadium and pleased our little hearts to read about the cost overruns and ruined equipment.
In fact, I believe the first game played in the park was one of Tic-Tac-Toe in the wet cement of the one of the dugouts.
The dirt road that separated our neighborhood got paved and more traffic ended our street games although the construction supplied other games for our imaginative minds.