Things that make ya go.... Hmmmmmmmm

Tropical Storm... KAREN is forming way over in the Eastern Atlantic and all I have to say about that is... better watch out!

ARRRRRRRGGGGGHHH!

It's International Talk Like A Pirate Day So... Shiver me timbers! and Prepare to be Boarded!

Go take a look at The Pirate Nord's page.... He should be ashamed of himself frankly, but since the Bucanners beat the Saints on Sunday I won't push it too much.

You might want to hoist yaself some Rum or some such excuse for scalawag behavior...

Me... well, I've got my own Scalawag behavior in mind!

Arrrrrggggghhhhh!

I'm Younger Than That Now...

Busting my buns to get some work done before taking three days of vacation (the first vacation I've had since I can remember) the best rock and roll song ever comes on to describe the reality I am feeling right now in my life.

I've spent many many years being sincere, angry, urgent, right, wrong, smart, stupid, efficient, inefficient, capable, less than capable, and always very very CLEAR...

Well... That's not how I'm feeling right now.
Right now I'm feeling like I need to find my soul.

-------

Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin' high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
"We'll meet on edges, soon," said I
Proud 'neath heated brow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Half-wracked prejudice leaped forth
"Rip down all hate," I screamed
Lies that life is black and white
Spoke from my skull. I dreamed
Romantic facts of musketeers
Foundationed deep, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Girls' faces formed the forward path
From phony jealousy
To memorizing politics
Of ancient history
Flung down by corpse evangelists
Unthought of, though, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

A self-ordained professor's tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
"Equality," I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

-My Back Pages - Bob Dylan

Copyright © 1964; renewed 1992 Special Rider Music


Thanks Karen... see ya'll on the other side of the Sierra

The Kid's Alright

So... over the last two weekends (since I wrote about the necessity of waiting) I have had wonderful, engaging, heart-filled weekends and frankly it's more than I was really prepared for.

On Labor Day Weekend I spent time Friday with a relatively new friend, sitting by the water, listening to music, resting and being easy, and I spent Sunday in Oakland listening to jazz, blues, and Lucinda Williams (that's Lucinda on the left there, from a picture on a new single) and having an exceptionally good time on my own.

The week following was a nightmare (of which I wrote last Friday) and that reality had a way of bringing my feet back to ground, only to - come Friday night - have myself whisking away onto the dance floor with aforementioned "new friend" to a Tom Petty tune in the midst of what felt like a weird channeling of a Sahuarita High School dance (there's a story in THERE somewhere, but it will have to wait for another blog) and into a whirlwind weekend that has left me shaking my head and going "What was that!?"

So here I am on Tuesday morning, struggling with multiple deadlines, facing into a mountain of work, looking for the way to turn that work into a life and basically basking in a state of stupid bliss.

While I was gearing up to hear Lucinda on Labor Day Weekend, I bought Are You Alright off of iTunes and it has been playing in my head ever since.

In answer to the questions of the chorus... No... Yes... Yes... Yes Yes Yes... YES!!!!!!!!!

Help Mr. Wizard I don't want to be a Geek anymore!!!

Say it with me now... "Trissle, Trassle, Trossle, Trom... Time for this one to come home."


[Side note: A lot of references to Tooter Turtle on the web use the letter D instead of T for the above incantation, but I think they're wrong. The alliteration is much better with T, hooking into the second phrase accents on Time... This... and To... not to mention Tooter Turtle]


Okay... by invoking Tooter Turtle's manic cry for rescue (let alone my little literary analysis) I have clearly cemented the geek nature of my being, but then that is in fact the point.

I have had a week (really two weeks) from hell... buried in a cybernetic miasma of other people's design realities and desires for bad art that pretends like they have quality product. I feel like my soul has been sucked out of me through my fingers and the proclamation I made a dozen years ago that "I do not want to be doing websites in 5 years" has finally brought me to the absolute burnout point.

In "Confessions of a Guilty Bystander" (41 years ago) Thomas Merton wrote, "It is precisely the illusion that mechanical progress means human improvement that alienates us from our own being and our own reality. It is precisely because we are convinced that our life, as such, is better if we have a better car, a better TV set, better toothpaste, etc., that we condemn and destroy our own reality and the reality of our natural resources. Technology was made for (hu)man(s) not (hu)man(s) for technology. In losing touch with being and thus with God, we have fallen into a senseless idolatry of production and consumption for their own sakes, We have renounced the act of being and plunged ourselves into process for its own sake We no longer know how to live, and because we cannot accept life in its reality, life ceases to be a joy and becomes an affliction. And we even go so far as to blame God for it! The evil in the world is all of our own making, and it proceeds entirely from our ruthless, senseless, wasteful, destructive, and SUICIDAL neglect of our own being."


That's it... I'm done.

I once did an interview with Sam Keen in which he invoked a quote from one of his teachers (and one of my heros) Howard Thurman. Keen said that Thurman told him, "There are two questions one must ask in life, 'Where am I going?' and 'Who will go with me?' and if you get them in the wrong order you will be in for a world of trouble."


I have asked these questions - almost always in the wrong order - my whole life.


Time to ask again... Time to turn the page.