Friday, March 31, 2017
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Let your fingers do the walking
Some day we'll have to explain things.
We'll have to explain why things are the way they are, what things used to be like, and how we intended things to be.
Will we meet our goals?
Will we fall short and have to explain why?
This is black and white. We either reach the goals we set and explain the how and why
or we don't and we explain the how we failed and the why not's?
One day you'll have to explain to a bright eyed, fast retaining, quick witted generation Z 'er that we used to all get a book delivered to our doors. You may have to stop and describe that a book is comprised of tree pulp flattened and hewn together with other woods, leathers, and plastics. upon these flattened pages there were words, pictures, numbers, and symbols printed with inks. Then you'll have to stop and describe printing and inks most likely. Some books were of higher physical quality and had gold leafing and lettering. They had full color images and leather bindings. This didn't necessarily mean the contents were more important, just that craftsmen were bought by those who believed the contents were.
I digress. Back to the bottom of the book category. You'll explain the paperback. The thing between the magazine and the hardcover. This will, no doubt, beg more descriptions. You'll be prepared for a long conversation.
You'll explain the most printed and monstrous paperback of them all.
The phone book!
Awe,ah, ahhhhh!
You will describe the annual ritual of receiving a new phone book and recycling or burning the old.
Your listener may stop you to assert that this is a wasteful practice. Your listener will be right, but that's just the way it was. You may describe the painstaking process of phone book deliveries, if you were one of the unlucky in the phone book delivery field. Literally tons of paper sat atop crates of wood, in the back of a steel fossil fuel powered, smoke making behemoth. You sat in the back with the books.You ran books to doorsteps one at a time and leaned them against the screens. You were chased by dogs and yelled at by old people. You had your ears chewed off (quick explanation of the old expression) by lonely Uni bomber types (regret using term and skip explanation). Some tried to pass off their old book on you. Whoa -oh there cowboy! Slow down! We
were in the delivery business. Never knew anything about the recycling end. You wonder if anyone does.
You got home and cracked open your very own copy, wondering if the new pizza place had a full page add with two dollars off if you saw this add. You took notes in the margins, highlighted numbers and names, dog eared pages, and sometimes ripped them out entirely. Many push button or rotary corded landlines hung on kitchen walls, sitting on room corner phone tables, or adorning hallway phone cubbie holes (only another hour or two of descriptions) had yellow, highlighted, heart and dagger doodled up pages taped or tacked to the walls next to them alongside a note card with important phone numbers on them. You will then regale Gen Z with tales of having to memorize four numbers, later seven, then eventually ten, per person. You will brag about having all your friends numbers stored in the computer that is in your brain. Dozens of them! You will at this point, no doubt, recall a number or two to prove your brain computer existed. You will probably only remember your own number, in other words, your parents number that was once yours and may still be theirs. You may also remember a close friends or two that you dialed or rotored hundreds or even thousands of times.
What were you talking about. The phone book! You'll recall that there were adds... mostly adds really. You may have had one of these adds and remembered the novelty of a one time advertisement that varied in cost based on it's size. You may have once dreamt of having a whole page some day. It's funny how some dreams are the biggest and most far fetched at the time and then eventually become completely obsolete and laughable.
You'll then remember that there was a second book. By god, there was! The white pages.
You'll muddle through the description of a book that were personal numbers vs business and make up a number about how many years were in between deliveries of this book. Surely it wasn't every year, was it?
Every other year? Sure, that's it.
Yes youngster Z, most people used to volunteer their number and even their address for the rest of the the city to see.
"Why. What the hell were you thinking? Were you all mad?!" they will ask.
Simple explanation.
Yes.
That was the only way people were able to find one another, reconnect, or take a gamble in those times. Also, when you met a girl from a different school and neighborhood, through the power of deduction and sometimes a few or dozen awkward phone calls, you could find out where she lived and have a direct line into her home where she could pretend to never be home.
Suddenly you remember the episode of Rosanne where Rosanne and Dan tried to go to Las Vegas and Becky and Darleen threw a party. Touch of Gray was playing and boys fought over Darleen for some reason. You remember things like that when you are remembering things like this.
At this point, your Gen Zster will have either passed out, which may have been your goal in the first place, or turned on their eye phone browser with out you noticing.
Yes. I said eye phone.
Just wait. It'll happen.
This has been a moment brought to you by the thought, "what the fuck happened to phone books. I mean, I know they are useless now, but just when did they disappear altogether." I would like one right now for kindling.
Maybe I should write a book... or two.
New direction for the book other guy! ;-)
We'll have to explain why things are the way they are, what things used to be like, and how we intended things to be.
Will we meet our goals?
Will we fall short and have to explain why?
This is black and white. We either reach the goals we set and explain the how and why
or we don't and we explain the how we failed and the why not's?
One day you'll have to explain to a bright eyed, fast retaining, quick witted generation Z 'er that we used to all get a book delivered to our doors. You may have to stop and describe that a book is comprised of tree pulp flattened and hewn together with other woods, leathers, and plastics. upon these flattened pages there were words, pictures, numbers, and symbols printed with inks. Then you'll have to stop and describe printing and inks most likely. Some books were of higher physical quality and had gold leafing and lettering. They had full color images and leather bindings. This didn't necessarily mean the contents were more important, just that craftsmen were bought by those who believed the contents were.
I digress. Back to the bottom of the book category. You'll explain the paperback. The thing between the magazine and the hardcover. This will, no doubt, beg more descriptions. You'll be prepared for a long conversation.
You'll explain the most printed and monstrous paperback of them all.
The phone book!
Awe,ah, ahhhhh!
You will describe the annual ritual of receiving a new phone book and recycling or burning the old.
Your listener may stop you to assert that this is a wasteful practice. Your listener will be right, but that's just the way it was. You may describe the painstaking process of phone book deliveries, if you were one of the unlucky in the phone book delivery field. Literally tons of paper sat atop crates of wood, in the back of a steel fossil fuel powered, smoke making behemoth. You sat in the back with the books.You ran books to doorsteps one at a time and leaned them against the screens. You were chased by dogs and yelled at by old people. You had your ears chewed off (quick explanation of the old expression) by lonely Uni bomber types (regret using term and skip explanation). Some tried to pass off their old book on you. Whoa -oh there cowboy! Slow down! We
were in the delivery business. Never knew anything about the recycling end. You wonder if anyone does.
You got home and cracked open your very own copy, wondering if the new pizza place had a full page add with two dollars off if you saw this add. You took notes in the margins, highlighted numbers and names, dog eared pages, and sometimes ripped them out entirely. Many push button or rotary corded landlines hung on kitchen walls, sitting on room corner phone tables, or adorning hallway phone cubbie holes (only another hour or two of descriptions) had yellow, highlighted, heart and dagger doodled up pages taped or tacked to the walls next to them alongside a note card with important phone numbers on them. You will then regale Gen Z with tales of having to memorize four numbers, later seven, then eventually ten, per person. You will brag about having all your friends numbers stored in the computer that is in your brain. Dozens of them! You will at this point, no doubt, recall a number or two to prove your brain computer existed. You will probably only remember your own number, in other words, your parents number that was once yours and may still be theirs. You may also remember a close friends or two that you dialed or rotored hundreds or even thousands of times.
What were you talking about. The phone book! You'll recall that there were adds... mostly adds really. You may have had one of these adds and remembered the novelty of a one time advertisement that varied in cost based on it's size. You may have once dreamt of having a whole page some day. It's funny how some dreams are the biggest and most far fetched at the time and then eventually become completely obsolete and laughable.
You'll then remember that there was a second book. By god, there was! The white pages.
You'll muddle through the description of a book that were personal numbers vs business and make up a number about how many years were in between deliveries of this book. Surely it wasn't every year, was it?
Every other year? Sure, that's it.
Yes youngster Z, most people used to volunteer their number and even their address for the rest of the the city to see.
"Why. What the hell were you thinking? Were you all mad?!" they will ask.
Simple explanation.
Yes.
That was the only way people were able to find one another, reconnect, or take a gamble in those times. Also, when you met a girl from a different school and neighborhood, through the power of deduction and sometimes a few or dozen awkward phone calls, you could find out where she lived and have a direct line into her home where she could pretend to never be home.
Suddenly you remember the episode of Rosanne where Rosanne and Dan tried to go to Las Vegas and Becky and Darleen threw a party. Touch of Gray was playing and boys fought over Darleen for some reason. You remember things like that when you are remembering things like this.
At this point, your Gen Zster will have either passed out, which may have been your goal in the first place, or turned on their eye phone browser with out you noticing.
Yes. I said eye phone.
Just wait. It'll happen.
This has been a moment brought to you by the thought, "what the fuck happened to phone books. I mean, I know they are useless now, but just when did they disappear altogether." I would like one right now for kindling.
Maybe I should write a book... or two.
New direction for the book other guy! ;-)
Wheels within wheels
Wheels within wheels. Clocks spinning hands aloof beneath a larger clock face, beneath a yet larger face. The station, the boarding room. The constant jockeying for position during the long trip coming to climax. The thud and hiss as the lock meets its old familiar. Bodies pushing against the other, the sway, the scrum, the swarm before the door opens. The light of the room meets the light of the lock. They cast the same hue, the colors both from the same mother manufacture. The leaders stride into the room. Calling out the names and credeo of their tribe. The gangs of thugs and scholars and community that have wound their way around the solar dance since memory began its telling. The leaders carry not banners but their yelled calls and their ink stained scars. Now has come the hours of interaction, congress and violent conjunction. The bell has met Keller station. And again the population of either will not remain the same, will not be made of the same careful political balance of power. Every generation comes to this moment, this room. The first 100 males to pass from the room to the other side will be allowed to keep their fertility. The doors hold a field, steady and dim. The bell and the station both begin the final steps of their mating. Both begin to flex, writhe and contract. Like a worm wringing itself from the back to the front. The very walls sliding and constricting, pushing the populace forward.
The two space fairing structures having met, now forcibly extruded their human cargo into the room made between them. Only when all have passed out, and the bell and the station fully emptied themselves and reset their cavities, will the people be allowed to pass from their past to their unalterable destiny. The joined room contains the joined battle, of casual posturing, political pleading, seduction and calculated violence. The room is a fertile sea of man's genius, of man's ineptitude, of a destiny designed and chosen by masters long dead and yet still in control. The joined room is a microcosm of the dance, of the final reckless dream of our species. We are here now. They decided this long ago. Decided we were not to be trusted with free worlds or free institutions. For that only led to massed power and escalating dangers. We would be put upon the solar wheel and work unknowing toward the harnessing of the sun, and the seeding of the galaxy. We decided long ago, we were not to be trusted, man from man, individual to individual. We would be allowed our petty alligences, as long as they stayed petty. The two fold plan would go on endlessly. A frankenstien's monster the size of the solar system, made with our faults, our failings, and our fear. But endless and faceless as it may seem to the observer, there is always the need for truth and the possession of understanding. Man designed a cage for himself, stretching from the third planet to the largest gas giant. But man came from the chaos of millions of years on earth. And we do question, we do yet analyze and remember. The elders know a thing. They know the remaining pieces to the puzzle grow sparse.
The two space fairing structures having met, now forcibly extruded their human cargo into the room made between them. Only when all have passed out, and the bell and the station fully emptied themselves and reset their cavities, will the people be allowed to pass from their past to their unalterable destiny. The joined room contains the joined battle, of casual posturing, political pleading, seduction and calculated violence. The room is a fertile sea of man's genius, of man's ineptitude, of a destiny designed and chosen by masters long dead and yet still in control. The joined room is a microcosm of the dance, of the final reckless dream of our species. We are here now. They decided this long ago. Decided we were not to be trusted with free worlds or free institutions. For that only led to massed power and escalating dangers. We would be put upon the solar wheel and work unknowing toward the harnessing of the sun, and the seeding of the galaxy. We decided long ago, we were not to be trusted, man from man, individual to individual. We would be allowed our petty alligences, as long as they stayed petty. The two fold plan would go on endlessly. A frankenstien's monster the size of the solar system, made with our faults, our failings, and our fear. But endless and faceless as it may seem to the observer, there is always the need for truth and the possession of understanding. Man designed a cage for himself, stretching from the third planet to the largest gas giant. But man came from the chaos of millions of years on earth. And we do question, we do yet analyze and remember. The elders know a thing. They know the remaining pieces to the puzzle grow sparse.
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
Monday, March 27, 2017
Sunday, March 26, 2017
Saturday, March 25, 2017
Friday, March 24, 2017
Thursday, March 23, 2017
I also believe in trying and in questions.
Trying is the fuel that powers all of mankind. It is the way to the moon, the sun and the stars.
Questions are what determines the fuel, the hows and whens.
The nows the thens.
I also believe in parks at night in late spring and early fall. They just feel more like home then. And are amongst my finest memories kicking a hackey sac, tossing a Frisbee, figuring out life. These memories are rich like the cremma sitting atop my espresso. I can still taste the sand and grass. I can still smell the approaching rain and hear the distant roll of thunder.
I remember well.
Those times are upon us again. Just another year older.
The summer sun worshipers have hidden away in pants and sweaters and only come out at mid day like reverse vampires. We lay in the shadows at night, embracing the cold and dreaming of what is to come. They hide from the moon.
We embrace its luster.
The pendulum keeps swinging and the scythe keeps cutting the wheat. The world rages on, spinning and accelerating through space and time. The man who best managed his time receives no prize and sits in the same waiting room as us all in the end.
We realize as we age, that we can't be everything all the time. All we can do is try our hardest and do our best. We learn to forgive ourselves when we can't do either.
I nod and some water off the back.
I feel the summer creeping in and the winter hiding in secret high mountain passes waiting to dash the dreams of the the equinox waiting. I feel the surge from the muse within pulsing it's way through my day to day.
Today, a trailer broke and crashed to the street as I was driving, of course, and with a heavy load, also goes with out saying. Some years ago i would have panicked and stressed my way into a frenzy of why me's and what now's. The many seasons have erroded that emotion from my practical thoughts. Shit certainly happens Forrest Gump! I calmly pulled over and found a huge parking spot in front of the MOTHER OF GOD! parking lot and placed palm of hand to face then quietly moved on to an extraction plan. No cursing, no pounding the steering wheel, no shaking fists at a fictional man in his bath robe sitting on a white cloud. With age comes the realization that such exertions cause cancer and ulcers.
I laughed at myself, my situation and at MOTHER OF GOD!
Tonight my body aches from a day of fixing and shoveling. My mind races and sleep will not come easy.
Think of the Snow falling silently in the Forrest and the moments of clarity on the edge.
Smell the coming rain. Breathe it in deep and know that there are many more storms brewing.
1000 words!
I got one
Spring!
There is nothing in this world as big as spring
Are you weary of the lengthening days?
Do you secretly wish for Novembers rain
And the harvest moon to reign in the sky(now that it's June)?
There is nothing in this world more bitter than spring.
Now I wrote you this letter
Because the clothes were hung on the line
and the crows flew out of the field.
and into the sky.
I'm lying here in the station
stretching out on the tracks
for all the possible places I might arrive.
There is nothing in this world more bitter than love.
In all those long days of June.
Bring me the long brown grass now that it's dry.
There is nothing in this world more bitter than Spring.
and all her favorite fruit.
I start my spring like Camper Van Beethoven. Enjoying the rainy nights and the lullaby of thunder. Embracing the final cold in a long wet kiss, but I still think to the fall. To the end of my struggle and the beginning of my true year.
I listen to Key Lime Pie and contemplate the lyrics like a theologian meditating on the Tao Te Ching.
The space travelers are coming. They are becoming more clear in my mind and they haunt my dreams. I wake up in a sweat to take some notes then try to slumber back to where I left off.
It is coming, the other guy.
Our Spring is here.
Maybe we will never be Heinlein and Asimov or Niven and Pournnelle, but we will most definitely be Rollinger and Carder... unless we take pen names. Spellcheck wants to change your name to Dillinger and mine to Gardner, so maybe we roll with that.
Let's do some Whiskey fire.
Off to sleep to dream of the faces of the bell travelers.
Trying is the fuel that powers all of mankind. It is the way to the moon, the sun and the stars.
Questions are what determines the fuel, the hows and whens.
The nows the thens.
I also believe in parks at night in late spring and early fall. They just feel more like home then. And are amongst my finest memories kicking a hackey sac, tossing a Frisbee, figuring out life. These memories are rich like the cremma sitting atop my espresso. I can still taste the sand and grass. I can still smell the approaching rain and hear the distant roll of thunder.
I remember well.
Those times are upon us again. Just another year older.
The summer sun worshipers have hidden away in pants and sweaters and only come out at mid day like reverse vampires. We lay in the shadows at night, embracing the cold and dreaming of what is to come. They hide from the moon.
We embrace its luster.
The pendulum keeps swinging and the scythe keeps cutting the wheat. The world rages on, spinning and accelerating through space and time. The man who best managed his time receives no prize and sits in the same waiting room as us all in the end.
We realize as we age, that we can't be everything all the time. All we can do is try our hardest and do our best. We learn to forgive ourselves when we can't do either.
I nod and some water off the back.
I feel the summer creeping in and the winter hiding in secret high mountain passes waiting to dash the dreams of the the equinox waiting. I feel the surge from the muse within pulsing it's way through my day to day.
Today, a trailer broke and crashed to the street as I was driving, of course, and with a heavy load, also goes with out saying. Some years ago i would have panicked and stressed my way into a frenzy of why me's and what now's. The many seasons have erroded that emotion from my practical thoughts. Shit certainly happens Forrest Gump! I calmly pulled over and found a huge parking spot in front of the MOTHER OF GOD! parking lot and placed palm of hand to face then quietly moved on to an extraction plan. No cursing, no pounding the steering wheel, no shaking fists at a fictional man in his bath robe sitting on a white cloud. With age comes the realization that such exertions cause cancer and ulcers.
I laughed at myself, my situation and at MOTHER OF GOD!
Tonight my body aches from a day of fixing and shoveling. My mind races and sleep will not come easy.
Think of the Snow falling silently in the Forrest and the moments of clarity on the edge.
Smell the coming rain. Breathe it in deep and know that there are many more storms brewing.
1000 words!
I got one
Spring!
There is nothing in this world as big as spring
Are you weary of the lengthening days?
Do you secretly wish for Novembers rain
And the harvest moon to reign in the sky(now that it's June)?
There is nothing in this world more bitter than spring.
Now I wrote you this letter
Because the clothes were hung on the line
and the crows flew out of the field.
and into the sky.
I'm lying here in the station
stretching out on the tracks
for all the possible places I might arrive.
There is nothing in this world more bitter than love.
In all those long days of June.
Bring me the long brown grass now that it's dry.
There is nothing in this world more bitter than Spring.
and all her favorite fruit.
I start my spring like Camper Van Beethoven. Enjoying the rainy nights and the lullaby of thunder. Embracing the final cold in a long wet kiss, but I still think to the fall. To the end of my struggle and the beginning of my true year.
I listen to Key Lime Pie and contemplate the lyrics like a theologian meditating on the Tao Te Ching.
The space travelers are coming. They are becoming more clear in my mind and they haunt my dreams. I wake up in a sweat to take some notes then try to slumber back to where I left off.
It is coming, the other guy.
Our Spring is here.
Maybe we will never be Heinlein and Asimov or Niven and Pournnelle, but we will most definitely be Rollinger and Carder... unless we take pen names. Spellcheck wants to change your name to Dillinger and mine to Gardner, so maybe we roll with that.
Let's do some Whiskey fire.
Off to sleep to dream of the faces of the bell travelers.
Wednesday, March 22, 2017
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
The Rent of Happiness
Hola amigos. I know it's
been a while since I rapped at ya.
(Man, I miss that column in the Onion sometimes.)
Stewed cashews. Nuts in the flower. Strange men, paid by the
hour. Filters flown flying fleet. I got words, and time for sheet. Sheet,
sheet, sail and ho. There be demons in the buried below. Crack the eggs, crack the
skull, whisper memes, follow genes. Monster wreck and dreck and move about.
Their handlers spin songs to control the flout. Fleet swans and dreamy dewey
ducks. Parks at night, and steamy fucks.
Whoa there sailor!
Moon River.
Adulting is silly, and then we free willy. Free Willy! Free
Willy! Free Willy! Ran ol' Carmone. Some stories stick in the brain, brought up
like a Bermuda ship wreck. Wreck, recreator, Wreckreators. That was the name of a band. A band who
borrowed a wordy ditty of mine, put it to music. Once, long ago.
Maudlin, maudlin shit. Seems we're all little out of whack
these days. Sad, borrowed, blue. Cordon bleu, chickens sealed up with too much
cheese. Desperate housewives.
Maybe there's something in the atmosphere, the stars, the
bars. There's some miasma flirting with our souls. Maybe we're getting old,
grooved, latent. Maybe we can't be bothered. Maybe it's only drunk assholes who
go to concerts anymore. Maybe all the popular music sucks these days. Maybe the
young don't know how to dress. Maybe their attitude sucks, their lingo sucks,
their politics suck. Maybe we're all
just fatter than we used to be. Maybe none of us has meant to change. And yet
it occurs beneath our feet. Maybe this is the end. Maybe the screen is dimming
to a small bright point, and finally POOF, BONK, the old cathode ray tube shuts
down.
And yet we chafe. And yet we are not done. And yet we are bothered.
We are bugged, listened to, and unheard. We are dissatisfied, disillusioned,
disaffected, dismembered in our disharmony, disunion, our own personal DIS, the
entrance to hell's circles.
We are not happy with it. And unhappiness is the root of
seeking change. We will make the old new, because we feel it should change.
We'll fill that page with words. We'll fill that canvas with color. We'll take
the hours ahead like bitter medicine and make the revolution come. We'll smile
and wonder why we ever despaired. We'll laugh at our tears. We'll wheel. Wheel Wheel Wheel.
I've got no easy solutions. I haven't solutions at all. But
I believe in questions, and quite simply am unable to stop. Stop trying, stop
blabbing, stop drinking, stop smoking, stop talking to cats, stop exercising,
stop eating, stop shopping, stop texting, stop memeing, stop burning shit, stop
cleaning, stop repairing, stop building, stop critiquing, stop reviewing, stop
helping, stop consoling, stop loving, stop knowing, stop guessing, stop
dreaming… for the love, some night to not dream…. stop anything. There is no stopping. Until the end, until brain death. And then, even then. I doubt it's the end either. That would be
too easy. Too rewarding to suicides.
There is no end. There are only additional beginnings.
Why in Christ didn't I say "a pic or 500 words?"
Because of the push. The gamble, the lay, the strategy, the
hate of loss, the relief of loss. The guilt,
the blame, the despair, the crying jag off alone in the corner. The diversions,
the forced laughter, the small talk, the bulbs burning out in lamps across the
nation. The hunger rattling my belly. The beautiful hunger. The clear,
persistent feel of hunger. The slight fatigue and light headedness of low blood
sugar. Then, add booze. Pour it on, deep and slow, over ice, over my head. Let
the warmth spread from this action, this choice, this turning away. Let the
eyes fog over and the world glow brighter for the liquid refraction of light.
Refraction of sight.
The world shifts to a different spot when the surface
tension is crossed. The spear fisherman must aim away from the prey to
compensate for this strange magic. Of course there are logical, scientific reasons
for why optics change in the water. The speed of light slowed in a different
medium, etc.
It makes sense, but still looks weird. We have to compensate
for the change in world, the change in medium, the change of state. This is a metaphor.
Much like everything else.
We each hold a version of reality in our mind. A world
picture of the world. Our brains assume so much, and only adjust that vision
slowly, via repeated correction, via shock, via sudden amputations. We each hold
a metaphor in mind. It's not a literary device I'm describing here. But a linguistic
way of describing a mental tool. As
equals As. Mind visions as versions of reality.
So, what is real. What is provable. What has science
actually achieved?
Well, for one, science has things to say about why I'm fat.
Good things, helpful things, anthropological things. Fine adaptations for storing fuel as fat
during feast times, helpful to survive repeated lean times. How fucking far did we go between meals, for
millions of years, all our lives, for this to have been a thing?
Hunger. Hunger is part and parcel of our character. We need
not proper nutrition, but regular starvation. We need pain and unhappiness. We
need dissatisfaction and desperation. We need the negative to know the positive.
We need the dark to notice the single candle flame 20 miles away to test the
limits of our human perception of light.
The Universe is only a probable result of chaos engendering
consciousness by accident. Realize that and you're dead. So don't. Make art instead.
Make someone laugh instead. Have a drink. Make merry. And pay your rent.
We need to be ok with trying. There are too many versions of
success. Notoriety, acclaim, wealth, redemption, grandchildren, a long and
lasting love. Most people, achieve none of these. Winning isn't everything. It
is only a thing.
We need to be ok with trying. Trying is the important part.
The journey is the only way we get anywhere. It's ok to keep trying, and never make
it. I mean, what's the alternative?
Frustration, soul death, bitterness, and deep deep anger? Naw.
Keep trying. Whatever it is, keep
poking at it.
Don't have the time? Do what you can, when you can. Change
how your time works. Change anything to make it better. Keep trying.
Do I think I'm going to write the next great American novel?
Out do Asimov, Niven, Heinlein? No, no way man. But I'm happy to be here with
you. Trying it again. Playing with it again. Mulling it over. Doing what it takes to make the effort, and
challenge the results. Again. Picking myself back up off the floor and throwing
in. Again. Doing it for me, cause if I don't I'll just make the people I love miserable. Because I'll be miserable. I'll keep it going. I'll forget how to start
again, and then remember. And then we'll laugh at the forgetting. And I'll keep
doing it.
And I'll keep paying the rent. Paying the rent of happiness.
Monday, March 20, 2017
Sunday, March 19, 2017
Because comments suck, and we are awesome
A quick aside. Yes, we have posted many pics. Yes, busyness intrudes. But we are doing more than ever.
I'm currently waiting for the walking dead and listening to buttheads partying across the alley singing along to shity pop 40 mexicana.
That's ok, I rock harder every day and am not superior. Well, maybe slightly.
Point is, other guy, no blame, all intention.
This is burning. We are flammable. There is smoke. 😎
Getting ready to begin Children of Time.
Pic of how a book starts.
I'm currently waiting for the walking dead and listening to buttheads partying across the alley singing along to shity pop 40 mexicana.
That's ok, I rock harder every day and am not superior. Well, maybe slightly.
Point is, other guy, no blame, all intention.
This is burning. We are flammable. There is smoke. 😎
Getting ready to begin Children of Time.
Pic of how a book starts.
Friday, March 17, 2017
Enough said and enough done. Tonight we run. Tonight we hop on to the other. We won;t even know. We move from dimension to the next with out a sound, but can we remember, Do you remember Evil Knievel spelled as such? Maybe we aren't from the same place. Maybe I know you, but a you that has shifted. Maybe you remember where you were on October 9th 1992, buy maybe you don't remember it the same. Maybe I'm strange, but I feel as if I've transcended a plain. I ended up in one close to the same, but with little differences. With hims and hers and then and weres' that don't match up the same with those on this plane. You think... maybe I remember it all wrong. Maybe the words to this song were all different. Maybe the thing I said to yesterday isn't what I had said at all.
Maybe I've had to much to drink and I think that the world around me is different than than one I think is around me.
Could you imagine sending a messenger pigeon in the form as a punch. A kiss with a fist is better than none!
My reality has bruised and battered me early this year. I was not ready for all this nature.
It is still winter by memory, but is spring to the life budding forth from the trees.
The remembrance says no, but the here and now says go.
Plant and dig deep your seed for the sun is warm and the ground is wet.
My batteries are all dead and ther's not enough ports or working cords that you dont have to wrap around for them all to function and be reborn every morning. I can't even remember a time when everything worked the way it was supposed to. When things fell in line without hassle or tussle.
Nothing ever works out the way you think it should and maybe that's the whole point. What do you do with that? how do you move on? You move forwards or back, you look to the future or the past. Maybe you shouldn't look at all, just fell. Where is this going? Where does it feel like it's going?
Just write the first thing that pops into your head and it's probably the answer.
We've had a lot of pictures here recently.
We have trouble finding the time. The words.
I've worked from sun up to sun down for the last few weeks and it's taxing.
And then I played.
Rusted Root. Residual kid.
Fun nights. Terrible mornings.
New loves.
Old toasts to hoodies hanging in belfries.
It's too early as I've said before.
I need it to slow down.
I'm waiting for the flood.
I'm waiting for the heavens to open up and remind us all that winter has not passed and that spring is not the strongest of the seasons.
Rebirth is not easy or remorseless.
It pushes it's way through the dead earth and stone, fighting for the one thing that it is.
Life.
I labor in the business of life.
I strive for the business of creation.
I decide when things should be planted, when they are watered, when they are allowed.
They do not listen.
Our spring has come a month and a half early and I struggle to keep up with it's pace.
I planted grass in March for the first time in Colorado. It will be fine.
The fact that it will be fine is not copacetic. It should not be. It should be subject to a deep freeze that is not going to come.
I can feel it, or rather, I can feel the lack of it coming.
I feel a summer of dire heat and dessert settling back on the semi arid desert that has just come out of a ten year drought. The high desert we call home. I see forests burning and hundred degree weeks oppressing the life that we desperately try to maintain here.
I see rolling brown outs and hours and days without power on the horizon.
I welcome change.
I want those that don't know to know and those that don't care to care.
I feel the hands of the clock moving slowly towards that final hour, and I welcome it as the new beginning.
I see a lot of pictures in this place for words and feel some failure.
This shit is hard.
I haven't had a second in the last week and a half to myself.
I need to change myself so that I will.
To the other guy. Sorry for the lapse. Life sometimes get's in the way.
Just trying, many years later, how to make this life good again.
i offer up less than a thousand words, but i hope to inspire.
Let's keep this fire going and burning.
Let's not be afraid to make mistakes.
Let's not be afraid to throw our notes away and make new ones.
Let's not lose the pulse of this living thing.
Maybe I've had to much to drink and I think that the world around me is different than than one I think is around me.
Could you imagine sending a messenger pigeon in the form as a punch. A kiss with a fist is better than none!
My reality has bruised and battered me early this year. I was not ready for all this nature.
It is still winter by memory, but is spring to the life budding forth from the trees.
The remembrance says no, but the here and now says go.
Plant and dig deep your seed for the sun is warm and the ground is wet.
My batteries are all dead and ther's not enough ports or working cords that you dont have to wrap around for them all to function and be reborn every morning. I can't even remember a time when everything worked the way it was supposed to. When things fell in line without hassle or tussle.
Nothing ever works out the way you think it should and maybe that's the whole point. What do you do with that? how do you move on? You move forwards or back, you look to the future or the past. Maybe you shouldn't look at all, just fell. Where is this going? Where does it feel like it's going?
Just write the first thing that pops into your head and it's probably the answer.
We've had a lot of pictures here recently.
We have trouble finding the time. The words.
I've worked from sun up to sun down for the last few weeks and it's taxing.
And then I played.
Rusted Root. Residual kid.
Fun nights. Terrible mornings.
New loves.
Old toasts to hoodies hanging in belfries.
It's too early as I've said before.
I need it to slow down.
I'm waiting for the flood.
I'm waiting for the heavens to open up and remind us all that winter has not passed and that spring is not the strongest of the seasons.
Rebirth is not easy or remorseless.
It pushes it's way through the dead earth and stone, fighting for the one thing that it is.
Life.
I labor in the business of life.
I strive for the business of creation.
I decide when things should be planted, when they are watered, when they are allowed.
They do not listen.
Our spring has come a month and a half early and I struggle to keep up with it's pace.
I planted grass in March for the first time in Colorado. It will be fine.
The fact that it will be fine is not copacetic. It should not be. It should be subject to a deep freeze that is not going to come.
I can feel it, or rather, I can feel the lack of it coming.
I feel a summer of dire heat and dessert settling back on the semi arid desert that has just come out of a ten year drought. The high desert we call home. I see forests burning and hundred degree weeks oppressing the life that we desperately try to maintain here.
I see rolling brown outs and hours and days without power on the horizon.
I welcome change.
I want those that don't know to know and those that don't care to care.
I feel the hands of the clock moving slowly towards that final hour, and I welcome it as the new beginning.
I see a lot of pictures in this place for words and feel some failure.
This shit is hard.
I haven't had a second in the last week and a half to myself.
I need to change myself so that I will.
To the other guy. Sorry for the lapse. Life sometimes get's in the way.
Just trying, many years later, how to make this life good again.
i offer up less than a thousand words, but i hope to inspire.
Let's keep this fire going and burning.
Let's not be afraid to make mistakes.
Let's not be afraid to throw our notes away and make new ones.
Let's not lose the pulse of this living thing.
Thursday, March 16, 2017
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
Monday, March 13, 2017
Sunday, March 12, 2017
The world gone by
Takin' away your societies and go.
Get me off this backwards ride,
Takin' away your ficticious books of fact
skunk river elf
waiting for the u haul to be repaired that we got by taking a cab, to a train, to a train, to a bus, to a bus, to the rig then jumped from a plane (first jump got pranked hard) and double parked in Manhattan on Easter.
This adventure could only be pulled off by the greatest traveler this planet has ever seen.
Saturday, March 11, 2017
Friday, March 10, 2017
Thursday, March 9, 2017
Riff, and Bell Battle Diagram
(To riff off the other guy. )
He remembers a time when he didn't need to deal with his own
soul, his own voice. No he doesn't. He
remembers freedom from thought, from decision, from concern of consequence. No
he doesn't. He remembers a time when he didn't worry what other people think, a
time when he didn't calculate, didn't sweat, didn't sublimate in an effort to
fit in. No he doesn't. He remembers an innocent time before migraine dragons
in the skull, distance, distress, divorce, death, darkness, and drugs. No he doesn't.
He remembers he never really cared, in his caring. Never
worried anything was the first or last time of anything. Learned never to take
anything to heart, to shield the heart, to maintain the distance from all
things, from himself above all… to do
otherwise was to stop breathing. Yes he
does.
He remembers the first keyboard in the house. He remembers
the first music he heard, Day Tripper. He remembers the snow storm of 82. The
caverns carved in white blanket ice, taller than him. The world made over into
a blinding maze overnight. He remembers the towering trees of the backyard, the
turns and twists around planted beds and mini hidden forests in corners full of
thicket and unreachable. He remembers beating upon an old wood stump near the
alley. Suffering four stings from the hornets disturbed. He remembers wearing a
Green Hornet sweatshirt, sitting in the sandbox and sorting through the cat
turds found there each day. Funny how foreshadowing plays forward. He remembers
terrifying gang war in the alleys. Sticks and rocks hurled and returned. The
ultimate weapon deployed when an older sister was recruited to hurl worse
curses yet. He remembers the private street light that hung in the alley,
beaming into his bedroom, burning sleep away. He remembers shooting it out
twice with the air gun his mother bought him. He remembers her lying to the
neighbor when he came to complain. The light stayed dark after that. He doesn't
remember well her face. Some tone of her voice perhaps. He will ultimately keep
a cassette tape of her voice forever. Never listened to. Fearing the ghosts
trapped within. But that is why keepsakes. For our sake alone.
He remembers the lessons of exception, the wavering pulse of
obnoxious presentation, the pitfalls, the slumps, the spikes, the rising place
in social participations, the brass ring in sight, and then the loss of empire.
Again and again. And this was all before middle school.
An uncaring thoughtless remorseless machine, with hobbies. And
this was all before college.
Then Cobain died, and history ended. Planes started hitting
buildings and everything has been superhero sequels ever since.
Which of course brings us to the present. Because twenty
years is a blink of the eye.
But let us not be
maudlin. At least, not remain so. We are here for the present, and the future.
A Bell Battle. Two
clans are moved into a Stand-by Room, to wait until the both the Bell and the Station are sterilized. Waiting period could equal a full 24 hours
perhaps? That would give time for a lot
of interaction between clans. A lot of
fighting, and a lot of tattooing.
But something about this setup bothers me. It seems overly contrived. But at the same time, the essence intrigues
me. So I think that means we're on to
something. But it isn't purified yet.
Thank you for playing.
Wednesday, March 8, 2017
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
Big apologies from the other guy. The other guy has an uncanny effect on electronics that are well known to those that surround him. He has never been able to wear a watch without it stopping, he cant handle a phone for very long without a protective rubber coating, he stops an unstoppable piece of technology with just a touch. His work friend and compatriot once handed him a watch that was an engagement item, a working ring, that was guaranteed for life. It quit working at the first touch. He has a digital decay that cycles a hundred or thousand times faster than the average. He finds himself frequently with a partially functional phone and a fully nonfunctional computer with unexplainable hold ups. He is away from home with only a land line to connect him to the world he left. He feels very sentimental and starts remembering phone numbers that he used to dial from memory.
If you want something to stop working, hand it to him.
The other guy found himself in a place where the words were flowing out, so he wrote them on paper.
Paper?
Right? Am I right?!
How archaic.
He prefers to write a page with out a red line through words and sentences, he prefers to spell sentences the way it sounds in his head.
The other guy realizes his place in the free flow of words that should happen here and recognizes the break his absence has caused.
He was out in the wilderness without a connection to the modernized world. With out a tether to the things that are seen by more. He experienced the days and nights on his own without report or reply with a deep loneliness and a solemn comfort. He experienced moments as they happened and stored them in a memory bank of words and colors that can not be disseminated to words.
He does not know how to spell deseminated, and maybe he never did.
He remembers 1982, in a room with ten other kids in the ski lodge. He remembers Mothra Vs Godzilla on the now very inadequate 14 inch tube screen. He remembers the other kids wrestling and playing about. He just wanted to sleep in the hallway bunk bed until his parents returned with stories of the day where he listened to the adult conversation and the white noise of Saturday night live until he slipped away from the waking world to dream of one day being here with his own family.
He dreamed of those days that were soon to come on two sticks and deep snow in an unforgivable wilderness where he was free. He remembers wondering if they.d even come back at all after being regaled with stories of loss and hardship. Having heard about those that had to eat the dogs or sever a limb in the out back. He romanticized those notions, and cant spell that either, into a grandiose but simple explanation of life.
He remembers the fire crackling in the other room and adults glasses continually clinking into the night as he faded away from the waking world.
He remembers three cheese fondue and the occasional trip tho the pizza hut where his glass of soda always ran over and the cute young waitresses would give him a wink and ask if he shreds.
He remembers the other children who were to content to be inside and be social as he dreamed of being alone in the stark white wilderness with only a drive to get somewhere and then get back home.
He remembers shooting the gun a few years later, breaking the trail so that others could follow when he circled back. He taught a whole troupe of boys and men how to be nothing but an animal in all the empty spaces and the cold that lies between here and there. He split wood and gathered food as if it were the only thing that mattered because it was. He can still hear the crackling of the fresh pine in the fire place and see the dreamer that layed still in his bunk and listened to the exploits of the day.
Next, time, he would not be left behind.
He would come out and lead trail, breaking heavy plots of snowfall that gave way at his command. He would lead those that followed far behind and come back for them when the trail had become lonely.
He didn't remember how it felt to be left behind because he had just learned what it was. He also learned, more prevalent, that it is lonelier to be at the front all on your own because no one else could keep up. It was better to come back or sand bag enough to make those feel like they are closer, so they were closer. He could ski the loop around them two times if he chose, but he chose to not be alone at the front of the pack. He realized he would rather not be better and alone, but the same and surrounded.
He was six years old and should have blazed trails out to the unknown where none would follow, but he chose to hang back and be amongst his friends as someone no different than they.
He slept in homes made of snow and relished in the thought of doing this always.
He did not know that in time he would not still feel this way.
He remembers the simpler times, when things were easy.
He still lives by and for those simple times where a turn in deep powder puts a smile in his heart and on his wind burned face.
There are things to write about.
There is a story to tell.
The way to begin is through remembering who we used to be and how that has made us who we are.
We will tell stories here that are well thought out and composed through words that flow off the tip of our tongue and soul. It will be as if we have been there because we have.
The night draws a low pair in a game of low Chicago, with all players in. There is no spade in the hole so it is time to retire and begin again tomorrow.
He will wake and think of the story at hand, it is still there and fresh with invention.
Will the clans kill for their communications?
Is that the only way?
Will they be able to board a ship for a destination that their fore fathers built without complaint?
Will they listen to the wisdom of those before them or continue on the path of over all survival or will they go off into the woods on their own with only the guidance of their mentors?
Stay tuned while I spell check.
As Tom Hardy would say,
I have a use for you.
If you want something to stop working, hand it to him.
The other guy found himself in a place where the words were flowing out, so he wrote them on paper.
Paper?
Right? Am I right?!
How archaic.
He prefers to write a page with out a red line through words and sentences, he prefers to spell sentences the way it sounds in his head.
The other guy realizes his place in the free flow of words that should happen here and recognizes the break his absence has caused.
He was out in the wilderness without a connection to the modernized world. With out a tether to the things that are seen by more. He experienced the days and nights on his own without report or reply with a deep loneliness and a solemn comfort. He experienced moments as they happened and stored them in a memory bank of words and colors that can not be disseminated to words.
He does not know how to spell deseminated, and maybe he never did.
He remembers 1982, in a room with ten other kids in the ski lodge. He remembers Mothra Vs Godzilla on the now very inadequate 14 inch tube screen. He remembers the other kids wrestling and playing about. He just wanted to sleep in the hallway bunk bed until his parents returned with stories of the day where he listened to the adult conversation and the white noise of Saturday night live until he slipped away from the waking world to dream of one day being here with his own family.
He dreamed of those days that were soon to come on two sticks and deep snow in an unforgivable wilderness where he was free. He remembers wondering if they.d even come back at all after being regaled with stories of loss and hardship. Having heard about those that had to eat the dogs or sever a limb in the out back. He romanticized those notions, and cant spell that either, into a grandiose but simple explanation of life.
He remembers the fire crackling in the other room and adults glasses continually clinking into the night as he faded away from the waking world.
He remembers three cheese fondue and the occasional trip tho the pizza hut where his glass of soda always ran over and the cute young waitresses would give him a wink and ask if he shreds.
He remembers the other children who were to content to be inside and be social as he dreamed of being alone in the stark white wilderness with only a drive to get somewhere and then get back home.
He remembers shooting the gun a few years later, breaking the trail so that others could follow when he circled back. He taught a whole troupe of boys and men how to be nothing but an animal in all the empty spaces and the cold that lies between here and there. He split wood and gathered food as if it were the only thing that mattered because it was. He can still hear the crackling of the fresh pine in the fire place and see the dreamer that layed still in his bunk and listened to the exploits of the day.
Next, time, he would not be left behind.
He would come out and lead trail, breaking heavy plots of snowfall that gave way at his command. He would lead those that followed far behind and come back for them when the trail had become lonely.
He didn't remember how it felt to be left behind because he had just learned what it was. He also learned, more prevalent, that it is lonelier to be at the front all on your own because no one else could keep up. It was better to come back or sand bag enough to make those feel like they are closer, so they were closer. He could ski the loop around them two times if he chose, but he chose to not be alone at the front of the pack. He realized he would rather not be better and alone, but the same and surrounded.
He was six years old and should have blazed trails out to the unknown where none would follow, but he chose to hang back and be amongst his friends as someone no different than they.
He slept in homes made of snow and relished in the thought of doing this always.
He did not know that in time he would not still feel this way.
He remembers the simpler times, when things were easy.
He still lives by and for those simple times where a turn in deep powder puts a smile in his heart and on his wind burned face.
There are things to write about.
There is a story to tell.
The way to begin is through remembering who we used to be and how that has made us who we are.
We will tell stories here that are well thought out and composed through words that flow off the tip of our tongue and soul. It will be as if we have been there because we have.
The night draws a low pair in a game of low Chicago, with all players in. There is no spade in the hole so it is time to retire and begin again tomorrow.
He will wake and think of the story at hand, it is still there and fresh with invention.
Will the clans kill for their communications?
Is that the only way?
Will they be able to board a ship for a destination that their fore fathers built without complaint?
Will they listen to the wisdom of those before them or continue on the path of over all survival or will they go off into the woods on their own with only the guidance of their mentors?
Stay tuned while I spell check.
As Tom Hardy would say,
I have a use for you.
Bell Dimension
3/6/17
Sleepy. Sublime dreamtime. Walk about, loose footsteps in
the high meggers. Dreams of giant snakes that talk and reveal the crimes of
neighbors. Dreams of grizzlies sparring, dissolving into county sheriff
acolytes brow beating each other. Dreams of slippery slopes and endangered
darlings. No speak speaking. No wonder, wondering.
Moon River.
Taking at a stab at what a Bell holds. Perhaps a thousand.
Is that a good, round number for a work force population? Maybe something
larger to maintain some genetic diversity. Maybe 2,000. What kind of space does
it take to hold/move two thousand people? Goes off to google cruise liners.
Harmony of the Seas
has 2,747 staterooms, with a wide variety of types, to accommodate (at double
occupancy) 5,479 guests:
·
362.12
metres (1,188.1 ft)
·
66 m (217
ft) max beam
·
22.6 m (74
ft)
Ok, let’s reduce all that by half (and we might as well
ditch the imperial measurements, cause you know, ‘merica):
·
181 meters long
·
33 meters wide
·
11 meters deep
That’s 65,703 cubic meters.
Let’s put that into the shape of a “bell”, or more likely, a
cylinder, so it can be rotated for gravity.
Dimensions chosen via golden ratio. Diameter x 1.618. 22,300 cubic meters should suffice.
That’s one big space butt plug.
For comparison, see the link below. I think we’re in the
ballpark of an air craft carrier.
Imperial translation:
a space vehicle approximately 126 feet long, 78 feet wide. With a total volume of 66,897 cubic feet.
So, that maybe points us to the answer of one question. Now, add whiskey.
Apologies for the artwork. This is not my department.
Monday, March 6, 2017
Sunday, March 5, 2017
Saturday, March 4, 2017
Friday, March 3, 2017
Thursday, March 2, 2017
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