niboR

Tilted toward the shortest day, months away from her return, there came in the wafts from the south, the full flight and fluttering joy, for two eternal days, there was no death, the leaves turned green once more, floating back to the tree.

The storms are most certain, the long and dark days on their way, those shivering lonely mornings and the longest of walks, alone. Spring is so long away. The seeds and nuts are laid, the buds tucked away, Winter’s demands foretold, but yet here presents this day.

Promising warming nests, globes of blue, and supple orange breasts, this day, promise holds, a promise of giving and love, nature’s gifts.

Blue

As if I never knew, there’s never a day without blue.

Sure there have been those days, those dark and cold,

days I’ve not wanted to see, not a hint or clue of blue.

These are only the darkest days, but the next soon comes.

Sure, there was a little boy, smurfs and moods no less.

But the sky?  Really?  Who does that?  And the water too?

From the brilliant to the royal, the neon and mystical hue.

From the staged Man group to the west coast’s dusty hills,

it’s all blue, old and new, forget the borrowed, stick like glue.

Certain a color not only for silly boys, but coils and folds of velvet,

soft to the touch, turning your tongue, yet once more, brilliant… .

Huge swelling collections of bells and balls, and ribbons round.

Must even my blood run through?  Yes, it’s true, steamy blue!

So it is, just when green mint and lavender and peach and torch red,

beacon your eye, calling from the misty and tinted shadow.

Walk boldly, love and cherish Blue.  God knows I miss and love you.

Two Ears

I came, I went, I listened… asking for every vibe.

The rocks spoke loudly, the waves carried truth.

In the wisdom of the ages, knowledge of the unknowable.

Certain bliss in ignorance gone, never to return.

The glass is broken, the wave crashed, gone the rock.

The sand is all that remains, crushing grains devour.

Now what?  I asked for it, begged and pleaded, give me!

Being right is over rated, being smart a bore, better original!

Give me one please, something new, something magical?

They have thought the thoughts, nothing’s new, nothing?

Ah, but there is one thought, one little nugget, one secret left.

So you say, give me one?  Savvy that sailor!  Here you go!

Now what?  Run and hide you coward, shiver and hide dick!

But I can’t, it’s too much.  One word at a time, write the fucking thing.

I Want…

A want so deep, regret clouds each breath, thick smoke.

I really want, wish and will, sleepless dark and empty nights.

I need something, void of purpose, pages blank, mind dull.

Sick and perverse, core lashing, hatred and fear, naked alone.

I want the storm without the rain, the hurt without the pain.

This is this and that is that, nothing is just one thing, all spinning.

Round the corner, wanting to see, empty street, no series three.

I want the food without the fat, the buzz without the bee, unreal.

Please oh please, there simply must be, a shadow without a tree?

A hill without the fall, a stream without the deep?

A fire without the burn, a clown without a frown?

The leaves fall, all is dead, my see-saw calls, alone I sit.  Down.

I want what I want, never certain what is good for me.

Human Tech

The whole of Modern Technological History tells us that prior to Dynastic Egypt, and throughout Global Aboriginal Cultures we’ve been able to harness little of Nature’s awesome power, could not sail open seas, had not the utility of the wheel, knew nothing or little of mechanical advantage and basically walked about dragging our knuckles, starting fires, making crude spears, hunting and gathering and dragging suitable mates into caves or simple dwellings to procreate, followed by a well deserved nap while those mates prepared a meal.

My questions and dissatisfaction with this perspective on unadvanced Humanity are based within our simple mental nature to question and observe what our senses perceive. Indeed any thinking person might come to some rather obvious conclusions by simply observing the workings of the Human Body, these conclusions having far-reaching implications toward simple and universal technology, that of the Human body as well as the power of Mother Nature.

Within any given day we might experience rain or snow or hail or lighting or a raging river or the blowing of the wind, even the influence of Atmospheric pressure on the Human ear. Many are the events and evidence we are exposed to on any given day. All that might be harnessed and all that might be explored occurs around us every day. How do birds fly, what makes a little whirlpool in a river, what are the possibilities of a rolling log stuck in the backwash rapids. These external quandaries will lead to certain discoveries in and of themselves, but what might be learned simply by questioning the operations of an animal body, flesh, blood, organs, much more our own Human Bio Machine?

Does not our eye roll and pivot freely within a socket? Would not any examination of animal flesh and muscle reveal tendons and flex and mechanical advantage of a fulcrum and lever? Beginning with the simplest of observations, whose recognition and applications we’re supposed to believe were never made useful other than by advanced Modern Man, the story of Man’s limited technological advancement falls far short on logic.

Next comes the understanding of circular force, rotational dynamics and spherical geometry as presented by the Human arm attached securely to our shoulder. Any casting of a stone or spear would reveal a much greater rate of travel at the circle’s outside than its inside, the longer the arm the greater the circle produced by its rotation and the faster an object might be thrown. Rotational force fully conveyed by the human arm. Are we to believe any Human at any time would ignore such Scientific observation and understanding?

What about fluid dynamics? In any animal, Human’s included, a urine bladder releases fluid into a much smaller disposal passage and produces fluid pressure, urine then being released with added force at the end of that passage. Is this not fluid pressure dynamics, hydraulics in its rudimentary application?

What about the effect of invisible air? Does not the wind blow, but cannot be seen? Does this air have quantifiable mass? Would the same fluid dynamics apply to gasses? Why on Earth would our chest expand with every breath? Do we not have control over the pressure, and thus the speed of inhale and exhale rates based on this pressure? What about the differing rates based on oral or nasal inhaling or exhaling? How is it that only civilized Modern Man can observe these things and not all Man at all times?

Can not anyone sitting on a pebble and rock littered beach build an arch and place its keystone, understanding that without it each side doesn’t stand and that the force on the entire structure is supported and distributed to each of its legs? Can we not observe the same by spreading our legs then trying to stand on only one foot?

The correlations, observations and understanding are far-reaching and universal. Any living and functioning person would naturally observe the same base cause for all these functions, making useful application of them within applied Sciences is a natural next step.

I say all this as a result of my work on Mount Giza-The Shaft Build, as it’s ever so clear an advanced Stone Age Civilization employed much of our advanced Sciences during the build of The Great Pyramids. All Sciences are present, all Human observation converted into useful and dynamic Engineering were used. That Civilization learned everything we’ve learned about the Human body and about harnessing Nature’s awesome power. The same could be said for any Civilization, or indeed any Human given enough time and curiosity to question the plain and simple workings of our body and the Natural World that surrounds us.

While this may seem elementary to most, our Historians and those professing Modern Man’s superiority to Aboriginal Man and Stone Age Man might take a moment to examine their own Human Machine before feeding us another line of horse shit.

Comfortable?

I would surely tell you through covered ears.

A tale of sorts, muffled screams I fear.

Shaky and doubted, judge this stifled quill.

Knowing, a murdered would actually kill.

Stake your text and burn your cross,

Mirror mirror round about, behind the wall.

Alone I stand, published not, muted loud.

Stake your cross and burn this text.

Simple scribe, free of thought, papered not.

Scrambled years of frozen tears, putrid sot.

Wolf, wolf alone I cry, dumb and deaf your eye.

Rephetic text scribled now, undoing wrinkled brow.

Keeper

Be still now, I know what they did to you.

It’s over now.  Rest.  The end is near.

Let’s go fishing, huh?  Just you and me.

Your tears won’t matter in all that water.

I hear there’s Sun and grass and trees.

Let’s go see, huh?  Just leave that be.

Silly flesh, do as you do and be as you be.

Really, it’s okay… I forgave what you did to me.

Echo

Moving fastest in stone, slower yet under water and lost behind the clatter and noise of the breeze, the tale of all tales is dead, stricken beneath volumes on volumes of lies, but living still.  It’s in the sand, washed up with every wave, spoken with every thumping rock, beating and yearning and shouting out, quiet still.

The rushing live and dead leaves clog my ears, dreams talking truth and screaming loud, there’s something else, another truth, some hidden reality, a cause for all these effects, the beginning before the beginning, the sand before the rock then the sand then the rock and the sand before.  Only fluid ears can hear.

With every calm sea the secret dies, howling again soon for those yearning truth.  Do you know your History?  Listen for the whisper of the Mount.

Cliff Diving

Do fish dream? How high can birds fly?

Constantly moving a world below.

Bliss between the two drops, stuck,

Planted, trees have it good.

Static and stale a mind afloat,

Neither rooted nor free.

Dreams are it, my only truth.

Busy my works, shuffled feet.

Disparate souls, billions abound.

Doing what? Hush is the sound.

Grabbing and scheming, ego’s found.

Join them I will, two worlds away.

T.O.D. 1:51 A.M. or P.M.

There’s rhythm in the puzzle, certainty.

Was it a sign so long ago? Living still?

I will pass according to chaos and order.

Possessed by shadows and light, which?

Grabbing to understand, fearful enough to kill.

Harbingers them all, silly hands going round.

Cursed twice daily beyond my control.

Hours before corners I sought.

Coming for me now, or now, or now!

Having not lived was my greatest fear.

Secret madness squeezing my drenched soul.

Tick, tick, we all obey, rhythm’s only law.

I will pass according to order and chaos.

Coroner take note, the time was true

I’ll leave this world just a tick before 1:52.

Bell

In a square or ballroom, a tower as well.

Tight and new, birthed so pure.

Outside the waves rippled, inside doubled.

Ridges so nice running round the rim,

A drawing echo emits still.

From her town to the next

Leaving no one sleep.

There’s a fitting clacker finding its way.

Joined at once together they stay.

Lest she split and fall to the ground,

Her clacker, the one, must be found.

Finding a chapel the union was forged.

Rising so high, cherished, adored.

A simple shell, a bird feeder perhaps,

She was once, but not now.

Her dark complexion, so smooth it shone

From miles away her cries, her moan.

Calling, urging, stopping time and space.

Coming home I’ll stop, kiss and caress her face.

Alzheimer’s

I hope my sons do their best in life.

I hope I can make it another day.

I hope I turned the oven off.

I hope today wasn’t as good

As tomorrow? Or not. Maybe?

I hope to keep my faculties.

I hope it’s not too… who are you?

I wish I had another life.

I wish I could say goodbye.

I wish it wasn’t so hot.

I wish a wish upon a fallen star.

I pray I never end up this way.

Dear Barbara

A couple years ago Jeff and I went on a fall road trip to Manhattan with hopes of chasing the Cardinals to the World Series or perhaps the Yankees. Neither of these happened, but running around New York for a few days with good friends and stopping by my Mom’s made this trek through the colorful Pocono Mountains a most memorable long weekend.

While sitting with my Mother and family for a Sunday morning brunch I learned the most incredible thing about my preschool days. My Grandmother, Tina Capaldi came to visit, eat and apparently as she has a way of doing, share some stories about my childhood. Yes, right there at the breakfast table, in front of everyone she grabbed what seemed the most insignificant story out of her handbag of tales. Little did I know she would explain a lifetime of confusion in ten minutes.

“David, do you remember Barbara.”

“Barbara… no I don’t seem to recall any Barbara.”

“It was such a sin.” Here we go! Anything deserving of being called a sin must be important. In her ever giving world, all things fall into only two categories, sins and chores. I have no idea how she remembers this stuff. She’s got to have thirty Grandchildren and every obscure story seems tucked away in her history handbag, ready to be flung out in a moments notice.

Jeff was now thrust into my family lexicon, a sort of morning dessert after we had eaten. How embarrassing was this going to be? My Mom listened intently as did my younger brother Christopher and Tom, my stepfather, while Tina began her story.

“You couldn’t have been quite five. I guess maybe you were in preschool. You were so in love with Barbara, it was the cutest thing. She was this little dark haired thing. You were going to her to profess your undying love. You even cut out a picture of a ring from a magazine to give to her.”

With every pause I could feel the sweat building over my tense brow. My Mom didn’t seem to recall too vividly this story, but it made more sense as Grandma Tina spoke. I was wishing for the end, maybe a city bus, choking on Mom’s quiche might work. Hurry and get this over was all I could think, not focusing on the relevance of her story just yet.

“You were devastated. Apparently you had stepped in a puddle or something and had mud all over your pants. You went to her with your ring picture and she wouldn’t give you the time of day! It was such a sin. You don’t remember anything?”

My mind raced for any tangible memory, pattern, fleeting thought… nothing. “No Grandma, I got nothin’. I thank you for sharing though, Barbara… .” We all shared a polite laugh at my expense and finished our meals, preparing to leave tomorrow on our 850-mile journey back home. Barbara, something in this story has meaning, I just don’t know what it is. I would have plenty of time to mull this over on the way down Interstate 70.

Jeff and I hit the highway early next morning and the truth of Tina’s story hit me like an ice-ball down the back of my neck. There was one major significance that Barbara played in my long career at preschool, and she has held the same vaulted meaning every since. What ever Barbara did to me emotionally at age four had determined how I would interact with women from that day until today! I’ve grown to like women, love them, treasure their beauty, their softness, their friendship; I pretty much love everything about women. But only certain women, yes, I’ve deliberately and subconsciously avoided girls, then women like Barbara! I’ve always known that brunettes are just my type; they’re sexy, earthy, not flighty and dingy like the blond stereotype. I really like brunettes, but I always end up dating blonds! I was very, very confused about my new found life truth. Have I been avoiding my type all these years because of Barbara?

Coming to terms with long standing difficulties isn’t always easy. My acceptance and perspective on this one was going to take some time. I’ve vowed to investigate the matter and try to make some changes. I’m ready to move on from my preschool broken heart. Barbara, I forgive you. I’ll take that ring picture and find another dark haired beauty!

Domestic Bliss

Focus now, relax, enjoy.

Alone, undisturbed, warm and reflective.

Light a candle, get out the slippery bottle.

Forever wet, soaking ripe till it’s time.

Your five senses aroused, fingers tingly,

Scents linger, taste remembered rushing,

Muffled clangs, objects of your bliss,

Tumbling, rolling, lubricated beyond.

Watching, careful, danger lurks in your mind.

He drank from the cup that holds your dampness,

His lips so close, your tender care, an edge beware,

Gently touching, the rim so clean.

All your offerings consumed by him.

Slumping behind, his arms caress.

A breath, a kiss, a tease, a scare.

Shattered, broken, stolen and lost,

Finish you must, sacrifice is just,

What served its time was done just right.

Empty now, the task complete.

Lost wine and oral pleasure delight,

Candles out here comes the night.

Truth or Dare or Lie, all three!

It’s easy enough, telling and true.

A lie isn’t a lie once it’s the truth.

You teach me to lie, truth be told.

You overreact, exacting your toll.

If it’s truth you want, listen, be still.

A lie’s just as good, given it’s due.

Either will work, who ever asked you?

Results are the same, beaten by two.

I’ll lie first and last, hoping it’s true.

Spinning, confused, who’s whose who?

I said what, when, to whom this brew?

Hell of a lesson, thanks be to you.

A constant dawn, or dusk, not sure,

This twisted word you force, bleeds forth.

A truth you can’t handle lies still,

Shaded by day and lit by night.

Relative all, these positions of fright,

If only you listened, understood and taught.

This lie, or that, would shift to truth, for

I wouldn’t care my affect on you.

Protect your little world today, force me

To comfort what you know and love,

Ask me again to tell you the truth!

Black, Blacker, Blackest… White?

What is this, of color, and black and white?

Deceived eyes, perceive no value in light.

A world it seems, warm and rich,

Plays favors to which heat remains.

Sickened, cursed and put to shame

The dark is rich from which it came.

Fertile waters not clear and cold,

Wisely share their minerals forth with.

White rock, black sand a mixture so pure

Colder by turns, less light adorned.

Mysterious to man, frightful and cold,

Others scared by day and freed by night.

Though bright and clean and bouncing around,

Rich in color and sparkling to see,

No warmth bestowed the illusive rays,

Only black lives independent and free,

Warmed and birthed, not reflective you see.

Colors delight, yet deceptive to life.

Ask the trees before all is gone, so bright!

Life plays favors to which heat remains,

A black, a warmth, deep life retains.

Clean-up Inmate

Today’s my day, before them I go.

I’ve got one, two… third time I’m done.

This box, this dungeon, this cell.

A team, a crew, together we dwell.

Imprisoned for life, spring hides long.

Out there, the wall so tall and steep.

Threatens to hold, restrict and kill.

The dust and dirt it calls, a line,

The yard, the grass, the warning track.

Kicking and spitting, a bench we share,

Shouts and calls, the authority’s wrong!

Wrinkled leather, seams to burst! A club

A stick, the mound I face. A slider,

A curve, deep in the count. Just once,

My eyes fall over the wall. Freed, ahead

Rounding them all. A knuckler, I missed

To the bench once more. Strike three,

I’m out, fight no more. Six months

The sentence, I can do no more!

Give me the gas, the heat for sure.

Take this pain, this hurt so sore.

The List

Ok ladies, work with me on this, I know it won’t be easy and you’d rather not, but your dating future depends on it or should I say your enjoyment and that of your date depends on it. I’ve had the good fortune during 2008 to travel for business all over this great country and have stumbled upon a date or two in the process. One and only one thing is consistent from one woman to another… the list!

I’m sure the intricate reasoning and variations of the list are as varied as shoe styles, but nearly all of you have it, and you act and react in a way consistent with this list. My analysis will confirm your sly and keen maneuvering, based on the list, which makes for some of the worst and best dates I’ve ever had! Pay attention if you’re single, divorced, or just want your guy to feel wonderful and be himself. It all depends on you! I know you can handle the pressure.

Ok, the list! What is it, what’s on it and what does it mean? First of all, I know it varies, but for the most part guys fall into only a few categories, once you’ve decided he’s cute (do-ability factor), I don’t know why you call it cute but you do. These categories are 1.) Dating Material, 2.) Short Term Relationship Material, 3.) Long Term Material, and last but not least 4.) Husband Material. Take a minute and revise this list if you must, substitute your own, borrow a friends, but that’s it in a nutshell.

The trick for guys is not to maneuver around within the list and weigh the pros and cons of where we fit or don’t fit, but, as I’ve experienced, to take ourselves off your damn lists completely! Yes, remove all expectation and pressure regarding what you think we’re good for! Here’s the nuts of the deal… if you think back to your last great guy, THE ONE, Mr. Fantastic, the guy you talked about to everyone and couldn’t wait to take to lunch with your Mother, I’ll bet he had all four boxes check, right? And that is good, right? Wrong! The good and not so good of your lists is the effect it has on you, yes you, not the quality or lack there of that Mr. Right possesses. The lists keep you from being yourself! I’ve seen the ins and outs of this for months on end now. It is truly amazing!

Picture this, and it doesn’t matter how or where you meet your potential date, you and he start off with a light coffee or drink date, an easy get to know you session. You haven’t invested that much time or effort up to this point. Everything is going well. He’s cute, polite, no apparent Mommy issues, nothing hanging from his teeth, works out, respectable… if you didn’t know better, there’s no reason this guy should be single, something must be wrong, right? Wrong! There’s nothing wrong! Oh, you girls are a work of art! You proceed to discuss the ins and outs of the dating world and who wants what and why, you’re checking off your list as he talks of his dear family, his Mom, maybe his kids, and certainly his best women friends (a huge plus), you’re laughing and having a great time, right? Good! The relevance of your list is this; with each stage of your guys potential you start acting and reacting in different manners. Changing the way you behave and what you show him and don’t show him depending on his list value! Don’t deny it! What I’m saying is the guy that has all the boxes checked, the guy you can see down on one knee, hoping against hope that he just might be, maybe, could be the one; this guy doesn’t need to know that you love oral, or you’ve worn out your friend Bob, or you have a secret fantasy about kissing your neighbor, or, or, or… you start shutting off with every box that YOU check about Mr. Wonderful! Shall I be more clear, and it’s not just sexual masks either, he doesn’t need to know that you secretly… what ever your little quirks are, maybe you chew on your toenails, perhaps you can’t pee outside which takes camping off the activity list, or you want eight kids and he wants two, the point is YOU check the boxes on YOUR list and YOU stop being YOURSELF! It’s a strange and crazy dating method you have worked out here. I couldn’t have stronger opinions about this subject, please tell me if I’m wrong!

Here’s why, on several occasions I’ve met beautiful women in various towns, the attraction was there, I asked them for a nice quick date to relax and have some laughs and no sooner do I start un-checking boxes from their list, by virtue of my travel, the fact that I’m probably not husband material, not really relationship material and perhaps not even dating material because I may or may not be back in town this year or ever, they automatically transform into the most funny, witty, sexy and warm women I’ve ever met, full of laughs, quirks, dislikes, wants, fantasies, you name it, they, in short are completely comfortable being themselves and couldn’t care less what I think of them. Therein lies the secret. I understand this is out of town dating, but why does it need to be any different in your city? To any guy, do yourself a favor and find out who she really is by taking yourself off her list, and you gals, please, please do yourself a favor and just put yourselves out there regardless of what Prince Charming’s potential might be.

As in all things, be yourself and you never have to explain or hide anything! The most fun and beautiful dates I’ve ever had have been a result of taking myself off your stupid, useless and crushing lists. The worst dates I’ve had are ones where you’re checking your boxes and acting accordingly. I’m not showing up for an interview, we’re hanging out, laughing and checking each other out. Do show your guy who your really are before roping him into your little fantasy world, he’ll thank you and you’ll have a great time. He just might be the one if he could only find out who the hell you really are!

To Love Again

Should I dare, should I try, a calling

Urges, tugging my ropes. I’m safe, I’m dry

Anchored mine eye. A drip, a drop, the plank

Does stop. At water’s edge I trusted, I loved.

Tossed and wrecked, refuge a dream.

There she is, her self, her depth so broad,

Do I dare, or not, the ropes pulled taught.

Once more out, this ship will not hold,

A ripple, a wave, a breath of water I’ll crave.

Her promise, her love, her comfort I need,

To float and splash and surf so free.

A lee-side perhaps, a spot I’ve heard shared,

Leaves collect, a bubble near shore.

Fish are full, the winds only echo,

The rocks hold well all vessels ashore.

I will dare, I will go, unchained, ropes stored.

Refuge she gives, no planks, no posts.

I was born to float, and breath the air,

Riding her crest and dancing about,

A speck the port from which I came,

I’ll live and die with her reclaim.

Corner Man

Day one, the shadow and mirror behold

A true opponent, my master, my soul.

Shuffled feet and hands bound, breath,

Breath, this is the first round. Three ropes

A ring, the bell clangs, the sting. Three minutes

To live or die, a rustic taste, a shattered eye.

Weak knees revert back, bring the bell, the corner,

My mentor, then crack! I’m down, I’m hurt, get up

Stay flat or fall to the skirt. The bell, I’m saved

My corner man waits. My stool, a bucket

One minute’s reprieve. Sucking life, drinking blood

That chump’s not my foe, my shame and guilt I must

Assuage. Fight on, dig deep, release this rage.

Advice and pep he sends me back,

To swing, to duck and knock the fuck out.

A win and triumph no mercy it brings,

At night I wake to cries and swings.

Human

Silly flesh, grass and trees, what, oh what do I make of these?

To reach, make and undo Nature which is bad?

Preserve and live, cheating death the earth and sky?

A claim toward man, belonging and free?

To reach, make and undo Time which is bad?

If I only knew would I do, think and repeat?

Of past and fore, today can I stay and be?

To act, react and undo Choice which is bad?

A ticker, a taker, impossible to give and freely live?

Fooled, empowered, blindly we chose and see?

To grab and claim a higher Love, not bad?

Womb gone, eat or be eaten rules all, foolish longing,

That love, while this love reciprocal it must be?

To explain, extend, examine, and exhume this Life, bad?

How highly I think of myself, arrogance abound,

Finitely trapped it’s only a lie, divine importance my cry?

Humility claimed, my ego transcends itself, right?

Anything but Truth for it’s hard to take, struggle and drowned,

The end we fear, can this be true, silly flesh, grass and trees.

What dear God do you make of these? What!

The Adventures of Spike, Part 1

 Searching, now and always for an escape, sex might seem a sure outlet for my teenage drive. Lost connections flourish everywhere I look. Oblivion is my only solution, suicide might work but for my narcissism. There will be rum, ah sweet rum and plenty of beer. My dull quest for release deadened with such drink. Higher I must get! L.C.D. surely might provide for my want. Together she and I shall trip. Eager and careless I took mine and upon finding she did not take hers yet, I took hers also. Two hours into my escape I could not escape!

Through some high school prank my favorite hat, airbrushed with “Bud” across the front, had gotten stolen, pissed on and returned to me, clean or not wasn’t clear. The fear and embarrassment sent my paranoia swirling, as I was the running joke of the party. She leaned over the deck rail talking to me as I left the party. “Spike, I’ll come with you.” Without an answer, in full peak I scurried off, venturing to find my way down the canyon toward home some 20 miles to the south and out of this canyon. Fuck them, fuck her!

Shuffling to the two-lane road, fear became my shadow, my soul, ruled my thoughts and actions, too high, far too high for my own good and the safety of anyone around me. Nighttime in the Rockies, far up a secluded canyon road is no place for a sixteen-year-old boy out of his fucking mind! What will I do? How will I make it home? My rational mind left and root fear took over, the kind that kills certain senses, where minutes seem like days but looking back appear a blur. My every step tugged at my heart and my remaining senses sharpened intensely.

A distant siren noise bounced up the confining walls of rock as I carefully stepped on the roadside gravel. Was that siren for me? Was I to have some accident and they’ve dispatched an early E.M.S. unit? What was going to happen? Thrown into the present by the past yet fearing the now, the future is the only place for my thoughts. A higher sound falls to my ear, a car from up the road, tires whining as it approaches. This is the car! I must avoid this coming accident! My steps loud, the tires loud and the siren loud, I slowed my pace a bit. Perhaps if I didn’t walk so fast I could change time, avoid the unavoidable as it presents itself now. As I slowed my steps the falling sound slowed from behind me, the siren ringing loudly still, coming no matter what. When I resume, the car resumes. Fuck!

There must be someway out. I was walking to my death. I started and stopped several times, began running then stopped. A car zoomed by me as I rounded a curve. Holy fuck! Not a single break of breath length could I find and keep, my mind working against itself to find a way out of itself. The siren keeps screaming in my ears.

As I approached another road coming out of the hills to my left another car sounded from behind me. I repeated my starting and stopping routine as the car mimicked my pace. Would this be the one that hits me? The siren’s getting closer, climbing and rising in pitch. The trailing car stopped and started in complete unison with me. While standing still, taking a step, standing and listening behind me, taking a step and stopping again, up to my left, far on the hill, a pair of headlights turn on. Standing idle this car starts its descent as soon as I start walking, creeping slowly with my motions.

I run, I stop, I walk backwards and my fate meets my every move! I will die. I will die, here on this lonely empty road, hit by a car. Surely this can’t be true! Hoping, fearing, I move ever closer. The left car stops and the headlights go off when I stop then start again as I walk. I see it coming, the cars, at the merge of these two roads is where it will happen, a mere accident between these two cars, perhaps the E.M.S. unit coming up the canyon also, an accident of three vehicles, killing me in the process. I must avoid this.

Walking, running they pursue my future. It’s getting closer now! The roads are winding to the merge, I’m running to the spot, the cars are speeding toward their fate and I to mine! Panicked and sweating I cannot look any more; reaching the intersection I found it! The little triangle of gravel at the road’s confluence! No cars drive on this triangle! Reaching the island of sand and rock I curl up my body while still standing, hugging my legs and resting my head on my knees. I cannot bear to look, trembling with fear and death… .

To be continued.

My Son

He is, he is swift, he is my son.

He came fast, grew fast and plays fast.

He learns fast and forgives faster still.

Both left and right, he swings hard.

He throws hard, loves hard and sleeps hard.

A jump on the ball he’s so on the ball.

All I’m not, he is. All he is, I am not.

He is young, he is pure, he is he.

I hope he returns as fast as he’s leaving.

The Adventures of Spike, Part II

My heart slowed, I felt myself drifting away as I lay face down in the mixed grass and pine needles only yards from the triangle, each beat oblivious to the prior. Was I dying? What just happened? My mind dimmed as I slid. This was it.

I don’t suppose there’s much difference between dying and passing out; in that sense death might not be feared so much. I was out and nothing worked. I rather like this state of being, no worries, no fears, no pressure; everything takes care of itself without my involvement. I will go here, now and then and often before the real end.

Conscience in the black, still, I raised my face off the ground. Aware of my breathing and my heart beat. It was quiet as death but I remained alive, at what cost? I remembered the cars, the lights and the siren. Was I safe? Was I really alive or just caught, caught dreaming or fearing or dying, certainly not living? I didn’t know life from death. I was scared again.

Looking up and across the road, there in the shadows, behind the trees, in the leaves was his shadow, staring, looking. Black and evil he welcomed be back, eyeing me squarely! I looked again while getting up and he was gone. I must escape this!

Running across the road, heading down the mountain once more, I resumed my gravel roadside death march, quicker now with less fear. I’ll walk the whole way if I have to! An approaching car from the rear, tires quickening, their lights overtaking my position and stopping a short distance ahead. Should I dare approach? A friendly ride perhaps? This could be it, the end of my hell!

Calming at my good fortune I stepped toward the glowing red lights, around to the right of the small import truck with a cap on the bed. Several feet from the door to safety ferocious dogs howled through a side window in the cap, turning me and my blood to stone. I felt hunted, chased and enslaved to my paranoia, my fear these hounds from hell could smell and taste. Wild knows wild and trust has a short go of it. My condition was clearer to them than it was to me. Why would I dare get in this truck? Have I not been through enough? Bring on the padded cell! Reaching and opening the door I hop in beside my savior.

“Where you headed?”

“Up by the hospital, that’s were I need to go. Will you take me there?”

“I can head that way. What’s your name?”

The torturous barking was right behind my head, loud and fierce. I just need to go home. Grateful for the ride, I just want to be in bed. I fucking need to be in bed, this is bad, what did I do to myself? Would those fucking dogs stop, fuck! Where was I, how fucked up am I?

“Spike.”

He gave me a concerned look and continued talking, drowned out by the hell-hounds. This guy was awful nice to me. Was he really going to take me all the way home? He didn’t seem dangerous, rather Santa Claus looking, a mountain man for sure, long grey beard and wrinkled casing. This has been a long road on an even longer night.

“Do you know who I am?”

How would I know, did I know him, maybe I knew him… . Safe enough, Mr. Good Deeds had spared me, perhaps saved me. Could you be, I know you or at least have heard about you… . Looking him straight in the eye, with all earnestness and sincerity, “You’re God!” I proclaimed plainly. I can only speculate what he might have thought.

“I’ll take you home, sit and relax.”

To be continued.

A day in the life…

Every time my morning nurse walks in she asks if I’m feeling OK. Maybe it’s just me, but I think more often than not most post-op patients aren’t feeling the best, probably more like horrible, worse than ever but certainly not OK. Thus goes my world of miscommunication and misunderstanding. Is it really that hard?

When I arrived the admitting nurse asked me to tell her about my medical history. I was not all that comfortable, having doubled over in pain for the last three hours and was looking at more than two and half hours in the ER without seeing a doctor. What would you think she meant by medical history? “Well, I suppose I was about four when I lost my first tooth, my birth, if that qualifies as medical history, remains a bit foggy to me.” Tell me when to stop. Needless to say, we didn’t hit it off too well.

Following my one hour and twenty minute wait for a room, I was guided by another well meaning nurse hoping against hope that somebody would help me, maybe some pain meds, a comforting word, assurance that a Doctor would see me soon, anything but, “Can I get you a pillow.” Was this person qualified only to secure pillows? Is this a logical conclusion to our third party pay system, I think so? As it is so it will remain, complain all you want, we’ll get paid by someone else! I do believe all this talk of patient’s rights has dulled the listening skills and certainly the speaking skills of our health-care’s finest. How about my right to speak, or my right to have you at least try to understand what the hell I’m saying?

I could see this was going well. How did I come to expect clear communication between two English-speaking adults? EXpecially in a life and death situation! Mind you the lack of communication skills wasn’t all that was lacking. Some undereducated night school student that squeaked by in nursing school was about to make two failed attempts at inserting a tube into my stomach through my nose. Her first attempt landing squarely into my lung passage left me gasping for air as she refused to believe the clear evidence of her ineptness. I’ll be lucky to survive this treatment in the E.R. let alone what ails me.

Let me say that I am grateful to my Doctor who performed my surgery and likely saved my life! This has been a most painful four days in the Hospital, but I’m a very lucky and grateful soul. There are many, many kind-hearted folks in this profession. It just so happens that the good ones become Doctors!

I do understand, and will continue to listen and speak clearly in hopes of being understood, but more importantly I realize it’s not my job to make others understand, or to correct their babbling buffoonery. I just wish I could get my health-care service as well delivered as my six pump, 180 degree, stirred white chocolate mocha!

So, having suffered enough through my experience, having been reduced to a semi-colon and looking forward to my out day once more I will not belabor the point any further other than to say; mean what you say, say what you mean but don’t say it meanly. And always, always remember you have two ears for a reason!

Looking Back

I’m leaving the hospital in a couple hours. I’ve just had my first meal in over a week; glazed chicken, moist and tender, steamed broccoli that melted in my mouth, a salad that soaked up any sorrow and a small brownie with ridged icing that is sure to keep my newly diagnosed Diabetes foremost in my mind. I lost my job, my insurance, half my colon, plenty of weight, thousands of arm hairs and all the weight and pressure of having to perform every day for someone else’s and the world’s expectations. In short I’m starting the first day of the rest of my life and it’s bound to be exciting, interesting and uncertain!

I’ve cashed in my spiritual piggy bank, my family favor bank, my community compassion bank and it’s time to get back to giving! Everyone I love has shown me his or her mettle during these ten days and I certainly don’t feel I deserve any of it. Your caring has humbled me, alone, just me and God, on my knees in my hospital room this morning I started anew. I am truly peaceful. Being sick, the low points, downers, crisis, pain and hopelessness are awesome gifts when embraced! As Mehlville said, “All good things in life are only good by contrast.” I will know the mountaintops and I will know joy and I will know fellowship for I have been buried in the valley of desperation trying to embrace myself. There is so much to learn!

I am truly part of my community, one amongst many and a friend amongst friends. On this journey of only ten days, my good friend Jeff had his first born son in this very same hospital, my Son’s great Grandmother passed away in this very same hospital, there are several nurses I know that have checked on me, I’ve discovered a friend of mine is the Director of H.R. in this very hospital and a dear little old lady that was in my last community theater production of To Kill A Mockingbird takes patient surveys for this hospital. This life and energy that flares off my fingertips draws everything I need from the Universe and my life partners come running when I’m in need.

I’ll find a new job, those that I owe can take a number, the economy can do without me for a month, I’m flying to my Mom’s for Thanksgiving and my boys still think I’m the Greatest Dad in the world, what more could a guy want? Everyone of these 14400 minutes has been a struggle, the pulling of my arm hair by the miles of tape, the roughly 30 trips a day to the bathroom, the stomach tube experience, the miscommunication with nurses and staff, the surgery itself, the longing and obsession for food of all types, but none of these struggles can compare to the giving and compassion of my Mother, Sister and my two Sons as well as other family and friends. I’m truly the luckiest man alive!

Dreamer

Just what in the hell are these things? Not the snoring, spittle running over your cheek kind, but these life dreams, fantastic, motivational, possessive and consuming kinds, the ones that drive us or kill us yet certainly inspire those of us daring enough to think, to ponder, to dream the dream!

There are all sorts of dreams we might believe and even claim for ourselves, but most of these are mere diversions that keep us down, simple dreams of dreams while another day washes away. There’s the Santa dream, the American dream, the long odds and promise of our State sponsored gambling dreams. Oh, wouldn’t that be nice. This much convinces me that I have dreams, that I am free. I couldn’t be more deceived!

I’m just a little pissed and refuse to live that way one more fucking day. The thing is this, you tell me there’s a Santa and I’m thrilled, I’m consumed by this fairytale and my youthful spirit is fired and I’m truly alive! Then you bring this house of cards tumbling on my head one day; what a raw deal! Yes, I’m still angry about that one. I heard it from one person, that my dream of Santa was false and untrue, then another, daring to still believe; this can’t be true that my dream is dead! Finally I surrender that indeed it is dead and I’ll have to live with it. What a crock of shit! I’m being groomed into slavery and submission. Dreaming is bad, I should expect less, I should stay within the lines, I should just end it all right fucking now! This is the first step in the death of my dreams. A lesson as true to me as my name and just as difficult to change.

So, the table is set for my programming, my slavery, the true living death of the rest of my life. No wonder our teenage years are so difficult! I do say the Santa lie is to blame for it all! When we’re primed and ready we’re given a really tall glass of Cool-Aid, some Nike shoes and are told everything will be alright. Are lower expectations and dampened spirits really a solution to shattered dreams?

Ah, next comes the American dream, what a concept, driving me straight into dead dream bondage! Let me get this straight, I’m going to chain myself to this dwelling, these mere boards and nails, toil for thirty years, wish upon a star, sacrifice every bit of freedom and live, pay and embrace this coffin I’ve built for myself, all the while lying awake at night dreaming of dreams I shall never embrace or realize? Oh dear Lord, perhaps I shall strive to own a second home once this first headstone is in place! Therefore, dreams such as this are bound to be nothing more than suffrage, yet sufficient nutrition for my dead spirit and Santa-less soul. There’s a strong play at hand for the essence of man, of creative man, of wondrous thinking man, of boundless energy man and of dreaming man! What of thought, true thought, independent thought, free thought and free man? It’s stuck in the rack, bloodied wood awaiting the falling of the torso as our free and crowned head has already rolled! All the while, this is not a worthy American dream at all, but an illusion that we are dreaming, that we are free. Perhaps I shall have grape Cool-Aid instead of Cherry!

The stage is set! I’ve learned not to dream and I’ve learned to accept this slavery and bondage. To ensure my participation and that of the inmates, they, the ones that no better contrive the vision of bliss and the reward befitting our useless dream effort. They give us the lottery and other such diversions! Wow… gee… thanks fuckers! It all makes perfect sense! My longing for freedom, my yearning soul, my creative being is looking for an outlet in the midst of my every last breath and this is meant to be a dream, or at least suffice for a dream. Only an example of the death of dreaming! But what of true dreaming? What of visionary thinking? What of the human spirit? I say no! It will not die and my dreams are not for sale!

Do we not all have the capacity for dreaming? Have we not gone to the Moon for Christ’s sake? Is our collective creative energy so mired in this pit that we don’t know how to dream? I do feel very free and inspired, inspired by thought, chasing the possible and the seeming impossible. I can think and dream in one afternoon an idea that will take a lifetime’s worth of work and effort to realize! Real dreams, dreams of giving and creation, of art and ideas and expression. A spirit energy in all of us that must come out and be realized. Which dreams are worthy of my energy? Will I sacrifice them for simple comfort or risk that illusion for the great reality to come of my dream’s pursuit? I do say, a man with nothing to loose is a very dangerous and free man, a man to do, a man to think, a man that will be all that he is and created to be, a man unchained by these lies, truly a man born to dream the biggest dreams!

Therefore, I resign to you upon my clear and sane mind that I’ll take my Santa, thank you! You can have your coffin boards and your long odds pipe dreams, my visions are my reality and I shall not let me change even one of them in the slightest fashion.

Pudgy Fingers No More!

I’ve recently discovered a dramatic improvement, a monumental leap, a charging forth by our long bastardized, undereducated, grossly overweight and lazy youth! What is this you might ask? It is nothing less than a miracle of modern times, an evolutionary breakthrough Darwin might only have dreamed of, it is the rise of a new, toned, highly efficient, nevermore dexterous hand and forearm muscle structure! A change to end all changes and bring harmony and usefulness to these New World Leaders as they charge to the foreground of evolution!

So we thought our future was in the hands of morons. I urge you to set aside your prejudice, your judgements of the day, we are indeed in good, young, strong hands that will lead us into the future. A future perhaps that sees changes in other body parts also. The earlobe (of which I was born without), that hangy thingy in the back of your throat (Vulva perhaps?, of which my Brother Steve has two, so much for evolution!), the Appendix (Bueler?), toe nails (replaced obviously by chewing gum), and a slew of other human deformities shall go the way of New Coke once this hand/forearm transformation is complete.

To what, or to whom do we owe our thanks? How has this momentous medical morphing taken place? As a simple by-product of gaming. Yes, your Wi, Wi II (shortly to be visually mistaken for WWI and WWII by our cranially challenged youth), and those other modern medical devices passing for video game consoles deserve all the credit! The hyper transformation of muscle tissue from the elbow to the fingertips has resulted from those thousands of hours your little Stumpy Stu, Almost Round Ricky and Slovenly Sue spend clicking and tugging away at their little joy sticks and manipulating their buttons. Not the old threadbare tugging and button rubbing that we grew up with, but a new and wonderful masturbation! May the Nuns of the world rejoice and the World Census takers find comfort in the coming downturn in population.

A new and indeed more peaceful world awaits us. The tots and they’re super hands shall have an easy go of things for sure. Coat zippers will be thrust with greater ease, retaining their precious body heat, lest any of it escape to negatively impact Global Warming. Twinky wrappers shucked to the waist bucked with a dash, drastically reducing pollution. Nimble fingers gaining access to the pounds of sugar hidden neatly under that little tab on a soda can! Yes, folks, we have entered a new era! The brain can take a well needed rest! No longer will thoughts need to transcend those millions of nerve endings! The fingers, hands and forearms will take over and fill the void left by that useless pile of mush and those other unused muscles. Who needs legs? Away with the calf! Might they be influenced sufficiently to retain the Gluteus Maximus as a nice cushion? No doubt we shall see an ever more visible and quickly erect middle finger!

I for one am glad to see such progress in our youth, it’s about damn time! Might we make other significant modifications to our bodies? God only knows. Join me please, if you will, in our embrace of the future. A future that will be sealed, no doubt, by a firm handshake and a strong thumbs up from our disgustingly obese future World Leaders! Ah, the dawn of a new day.

Now Hear This!

Why is music the universal language, some would argue running neck and neck with love? It’s in the beat, the rhythm, a timeless and common pleasure to my senses. Certainly not only heard or listen to by my ear, but felt in my heart. The facts are plain for me to see, but why exactly do I have a yearning, a lust, a passion for a tune? It seems, after much thoughtful investigation I’ve come up with an answer that suits me, maybe it will enrich your life and understanding also.

For all of Man’s recent advancements and as highly as I regard myself, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually and physically, I’m probably much more simple than I would ever admit to you or myself, lest my ego indulgence be cut shorter than my life-span (that would be horribly painful). I just don’t think we’re all that smart and all that evolved, no offense, but for your consideration I offer the evidence, assuming that Man is plenty older than a couple thousand years, the amount of time, the multitude of years, centuries, perhaps several thousands, even tens of thousands, let alone a million or so years that it took for us… to harness fire! I rest my case. Forgetting the last hundred year sampling of our genius and you can see my point. Therefore I profess that my deep humanistic love for music is greater than my innate brilliance for coming in out of the rain and staying warm.

The ting, the bump, the ringing and thump in my ears and in my soul is the deepest, most intimate, first intellectual and emotional contact I have with the world! It is nothing short of the basis for my humanity, by simple terms. Before I could conceive a thought, there was music. Before blood ran through my veins, there was music. Forget ten fingers and ten toes, there were bars and notes bouncing into my newly formed cells from the point of conception. Shortly followed by a symphony of similar sounds.

Take yourself back for a brief moment, what would you suspect are your first experiences of this world? If you have kind and thoughtful parents, they might have talked to you in the womb. Maybe exposed you to music, a peaceful, external hum coming from outside your Mother’s belly. Could that be it? A bit earlier I think! The sound of your Mother’s voice might surely be the first identifiable waves entering your watery home. Agreed, but some Mom’s words are more harmonious than others. What other sounds might we all, every one of us, have heard or felt at our first moments?

When I get quiet, really quiet, my breathing certainly adds a little percussion, given a slight wheezing from a few years of smoking. Add Mom’s rushing lung chime to my own little racing heart beat and you’ve got a two piece band! So, air in my Mother’s lungs, my own heartbeat and some raging guitar licks and I think we’re on to something. Music isn’t as one dimensional as to evolved unitarily I don’t suppose, although I love the sound of my own voice. As I would suspect, my little heart beat and developing brain might have liked the additions to the one true beginning of music. Pacing at anywhere between the Rolling Stones and Bach, sixty to a hundred beats per minute, the very life force of the universe, my Mother’s beating heart rang into every atom of my being long before I had a thought, a heart, or any resemblance of being a fetus. This much I offer to you as the resonating conclusion and the harmonious meaning behind our love of music. The true nature of where and how it all began!

We often ponder why and how amazing birds fly thousands of miles to find their nesting sites. There are mysteries abound in this world regarding the behavior of humans and animals alike. All these may one day be common knowledge, but I know this for sure, with all the waves, notes and sounding of the Universe my connection and bond to my Mom’s heartbeat is the one, true solid foundation of my existence, ever tying me to harmony of any kind! Pre-dating love only by a short while, music is indeed the one universal and causal language of all human beings, the first beat.

Denial and Futility

With the flakes and the crystals abound, new and old troubles are found. These ideas, fears and scars it seems are like the leaves of a tree and not merely on the tree. Not separate at all so much as they are the tree even when set free, yet replaced so often a new leaf appears and is quite like the former, a mirror to me.

I have many bushels and hundreds of these piles, the troubles of life cast away yet renewed each day. They are not separate from me nor do they obey the seasons as such, for there is not a season to be, finding a leaf far from it’s tree.

The stems and veins remain even though the colors fade, buried deep under mounds of snow, consumed by earth and born anew, these leaves and scars are of and not merely on me. I shall quit with the raking and collecting and mulching, only to find they’ve return to the branch, instead I hope on this day to know, they are all one and eternal, the root, the trunk, the branch and every leaf.

December 14, 2008

While meandering toward the coffee pot I looked in the back yard, as I do every morning, to see my dear old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Robin. It seems they were not alone on this day before the bitter cold and ice was to arrive. Several other couples had joined in their feverish scratching and digging for one last meal before their departure.

In thirty eight years I’ve only seen this once before, perhaps I had not been seeing too clearly. Not more than fifty of Springs keepers were dancing around before my eyes. Several squirrels and a pair of cardinals joined in the farewell ceremony. The storm was coming and Nature was poised to endure, but the robins in their brilliance were gathered to fly away, not to return until a warm southern wind pushes their wings.

Do come back soon, my heart needs that first day of Spring.

Pete’s Fort

The other night, around bedtime, my son Aaron gathered up his pillow and blanket and inched his way between my recliner and the couch. This is not odd or foreign to me at all and if there was room I’d have slid in next to him. Such was the same comfort and safety I felt as a boy when my brother Cliff and I would hang out in our neighbor Pete’s fort. The second most special place I’ve ever been.

The carefully crafted, carpeted and secluded fortress in the rafters of Pete’s garage might just as well have been a spaceship for what it provided me. Until I was about twelve it played host to several firsts in my childhood along with a couple lasts. Where else can you learn the valuable lessons of life; how not to backwash while drinking from a 2-Liter bottle, which publications out shine the J.C. Penny Catalog when it comes to half dressed women? Incidentally, here, I shall reclaim the definition of “Kiddy Porn” as rightfully and originally, “Any flier, rag or mag not shipped in a black bag that shows women in bras and panties!” These fine pieces of commercial art saved many a young girl from the invasive words “Show me yours.” My hats off to the Penny folks for their contribution to societal sex education. These and many other wonders of the world first presented themselves while hangin at Pete’s.

Of the many firsts that I look upon with fond memories, those days, those peaceful days resting on the square carpet sample floor of our little Heaven stands as the last time I was truly at peace with myself and the world, the centerpiece of my sane emotional and mental health.

There are many days in my life. Some days the world is just too big. Some days I want my own little space. Some days all I need is a corner. Some day I’ll find a new fort, just me, a big bottle of Dr. Pepper and some industrial orange Cheetos, and on that day, when all is right, I’ll certainly backwash if I want to!

Humanity and Motives

The vastness and complexity of the human psyche have certainly been explored in great length by those infinitely more qualified than I, but my observations and experience are truly my own and I shall not dispute them, see if you gleam anything from my thoughts. I’m talking about motives, “Something that causes a person to act,” and what I’ve come to understand about myself, my motives, my actions and humanity at large.

A few years ago I stumbled upon the philosophy of Egoism which basically bolstered my experience that no matter what I do there is a benefit to me. Essentially, there is no such thing as an unselfish act. Throughout my life I’ve heard terms and beliefs, such as, unconditional love and altruism which struck me as odd and not quite applicable to my human condition. Religionist that I’ve spoke with explain the root of my condition is founded in original sin. I’ve taken an outlook, simple in nature, that I really don’t care how or why it started, it certainly is, and I am, so I shall learn to live peacefully in my present state.

Several of these perspectives lead me to look at the motives for my actions in everyday life. Why did I do what I do, which lead to my current acceptance of my actions. It was this looking for the origin of my actions, just like original sin, that my understanding was born. Presently, I no longer examine, research, explain, proclaim, analyze or scrutinize any motive for any act that I take large or small. Please forgive me if these observations have already been taught and written by others, I’m writing about them for the first time. I find living and learning is wonderful!

The crux of the situation is this: For every act I take, there exists opposing motives, a negative and positive if you like, a selfish and unselfish perhaps, or in common terms a good and bad motive. The ying and yang of the universe, as it applies to my human condition, finds its foundation in my motives. My current serenity and acceptance of this condition did not come easy! All signs point to my ability to “Do the right thing… for the right reasons.” All humanity is forever embattled to convince, ourselves first, then others, that we have good motives for our actions that are good and a denial of bad motives for actions that are bad, let alone the claiming of good motives for either good or bad actions. I shall refrain from using these terms, good and bad from here on out, selfish and unselfish work just as good, or well if you like. I’m certain you’ll see this evidence in your own life if only you’re courageous enough to look.

A year or so ago, in 2007, I spent a few hours with a Firefighter. We spoke of this motives topic at length and he confirmed my suspicions. Even a seeming heroic act, the laying down of one’s life, is done for the gratification of the ego back at the station. Egoism claims a benefit for the individual for every act, and it is clearly true from my experience. This becomes entirely personal when I look at my motives for such acts. I know there is a selfish benefit coexisting with the unselfish. I cannot do even the slightest good deed for someone without my ego feeding itself, often for days, weeks and even years!

So it goes with philanthropy, community service, labors of love, raising children, holding doors for little old ladies, add infinitum! Oh, you say, but what about acts done for the glory of God, as we quickly and humbly give credit and praise to a creative being. I’ve tried with equal misgiving this exercise as well, only to find that in my spiritual infancy I expected spiritual benefits. Karmic theories and the heavenly payoff of the afterlife religions prove this to be true. Perhaps I’m capable, as the Saints are so adorned, of the ultimate self sacrifice and a life of selfless deeds, negated at once by the belief that I shall be rewarded in the afterlife. My dismay with my human condition took firm hold once I asked these tough questions. In a time of good deeds, or so called selfless acts, would I do as I do if there was no payoff, if there was no karmic payoff, no heaven? I was certainly getting closer to my current beliefs.

Assessing the existence of these dual motives, my ego nature and the plain fact that I needed a workable solution to live by, I began to accept exactly who and what I am, which might closely come to a true definition of humility for me, I started to live and act as a human being. One who doesn’t claim a positive motive, or punish myself for a negative one. One who lives peaceably in the company of so many, 6 billion at last count, that insist on the vomiting of their good motives and virtue, those that might never truly accept their humanity, lest their ego fortress be crushed! A peaceful, simpler and more communicative world might find all of us at this level of honesty about ourselves and our condition.

So shall I live with myself in gratitude and under grace. I will love as I hope to be loved, I will forgive in the face of asking for the same, I will help knowing I shall be helped, my ego will feed on every act and I will die just this way, for being human I am and forever shall stay! All efforts to the contrary are efforts toward being something that I am not and shall never be.

Mom’s Beach

If ever you find yourself within sight of the biggest lake, somewhere north of the biggest town, a few clicks past the river and the biggest mountain, there’s a two-rut road after a rusty old guard rail on the right side. There are no rainbows here. Missed by many who seek, yet unaware, the needles allow passage to all but take very few. They are the lucky ones.

The feeling is always cool, or certainly cold, sometimes icy and dead, but on the right day with the right light and the right spin and the right amount of heat a balance can be found. Such is this day, a euphoric escape, one I will fear gasping.

Nearest where I meet the sandy and covered earth my price is paid by the sting, hundreds of times as I’ve gone. On the one side a welcoming creamy white slope facing the northwest, surely warmed with the right sun. This side is fun and joyous, wading waters and polished glass, inlet streams for soaking and splashing, warmer than Her that calls me here. Shooting here on this warm day is nice, but not so when the tilt happens, bliss and safety depend on the day, on the now. I like coming here. I wish I could come every day, warm.

Veering slightly during my painful approach the other side greets me. Deftly stacked by the lee wash Her dark gems only see the morning sun. Spared Her winter beating this might be the safe and sure side, other than this day. It’s dark here, there are no inlets, her depth is great and the shadows dance. The right mix and balance on my journey would land me on the point of these two shores, an apex of both, the true object of my quest.

This lookout, this spot, this balance of the dark and light, the sheltered and the unsheltered, depending on the day, opens the watery path to the island, mysterious, calling, peaking. Where the creamy sand and the black rocks meet, shallow slate lines and formations beacon my toes into the icy blue passage after the needles.

Why do I want to go there, it’s neither of what I need, it’s so far away, there’s no one there, no one can help. Yet there, through the biting chill and the numbing wade rests a certain release, an oasis, mystery and mastery, a place hidden and kept perfect by Her. Along the trodden and sure-footed path, high above the rocks, I’ll walk toward my destiny. It’s a place I must go; no will to resist.

It’s not safe to go alone. I’ve only been there with my bother, my partner, my keeper, guided by Her, unseen by Her keepers and freely released by Him over us all. My closest brother is my only companion to this place. I want and fear someday taking my son with me here.

Almost there, warming feet and legs, drying hair, my fingers are still cold. The edge opens before me, I’m going step by step to the last. The shore, the warm inlets, the polished glass and deftly stacked rocks are long gone, I’m here, I’m ready, taking a deep breath I jump, plunged into the deep then gasping for life.

Smoldering Debate

Your opinion and mine matter little in light of the facts on second hand smoke. No more hot air might be spewed if we just examine the facts on this cloudy issue. Just who’s air is it anyway?

If you lived downwind of a smoldering forest fire you might be inclined to move, until you found some cleaner air to breath, right? Who has so viciously attacked your air? When did it become your air? Is it everyone’s air? Is not the smoker one of everyone? Excuse me while I cough a minute.

There, that’s better. Again, let’s agree to set aside all prejudice in the matter, shall we? I’m a former smoker and smoke annoys me quite severely, yet I cannot overlook the plain and simple facts of the debate. Assuming that all air belongs to man, minus what we let those other creatures have, then we have community air, right? And for as long as we can we’d like to have that air as breathable as possible, right? Agreed. In this scenario, no one person owns any air that is community air. The second hand smoking debate has not found or neatly avoids the most common sense when it comes to smoke leaving the smoker’s lungs.

If I was to possess and in this case own some amount of air it would be the air that is in my lungs at any given point. Having breathed it in it becomes mine at that very second. It is no longer community air. Until it so mixes sufficiently with the community air upon expulsion from my lungs it remains and is mine and only mine, just as your urine is yours albeit from the public fountain! I wouldn’t dare demand an audience about a mouthful of urine water would I? This would suggest that second hand smoke belongs to none other than the smoker, having just been in his or her lungs. Therefore, as we commonly argue and debate on the subject I would suggest to those of you that don’t like second hand smoke to stop breathing in someone else’s air! That air, with all those toxins does not belong to you, it belongs to the smoker! Quit breathing their air if you don’t like it and let’s end this debate once and for all.

As a final spark, I think we should push for a universal filtering system as we have for water. Communal clean air can only be achieved with governmental involvement, filtering stations attached to every cell phone tower, handy gas masks passed out with every condom to every child, we must act and act swiftly.  I suggest a bipartisan commission take up the matter in a smoldering cigar bar over drinks!

New Year’s Resolution

I’m clipping along at 4 m.p.h., slightly inclined, on the hamster wheel in the back of the gym, swamped by mid-life madness and surrounded by dozens of other like minded rodents treading life’s consuming tide. In a race against gravity, age and the sheer bloating of my mid-section, there’s not a minute to rest.

The static in my outfit lessens as each thread dampens from the globules of sweat. One of my cellies dismounts their glider and begins the routine that consists of grabbing a paper towel and some disinfectant cleaner, returning to their machine and wiping down their body fluids from the handles. I ponder the gym rules on the body fluid procedure. My hands are pretty sweaty. Not that I care much, but what about the next person to grab these handles? What, if anything, do I owe them toward cleanliness and a germ free environment? Is there such a thing as a germ free environment? How many more minutes am I going to be on this damn thing? Long enough to hatch my 2009 resolution!

As it is with any such interpersonal dilemma, there may be personal preference involved, and as such, feel free to act as you wish, but as far as I’m concerned, there will be no cleaning rag in my hands in the near future, if ever! Gym rules or not, I simply won’t contribute to this notion that those of you suffering from Mysophobia, commonly called Germaphobia, not to be confused with Germanophobia which is a whole other topic, should have the rest of us co-sign your mental illness, that is, why should I wipe down a machine if you are the one worried about germs? While I’m at it I will not be cleaning the work out benches, the handles attached to the weight stack, the crapper stall door handles, the faucet knob, the silver rectangle on the bathroom door, or last but not least and aptly named for you neurotic freaks, the dumbbells!

So, save your cleaner my friendly gym manager and lower my membership rates! We have found a new cost cutting measure! And for the future, as I may develop in late stages this same fear, I will reserve the right, regardless if you’ve cleaned your machine or not, as any good Germophobe would, to clean my own damn machine least I be sickened and maimed by the killer germs! And if they don’t kill me, in their all consuming nature, they will certainly take my mind off my miserable life while I’m at the gym trying to deal with my miserable life.

Consider This

Other than my romantic revelation about Barbara I’ve recently become aware of another flawed approach in my thirty odd years of dating. The how and why of all my interactions with women is indelibly traced to a Warner Brothers’ cartoon. You all know the one to which I refer.

Launched in 1945, this cartoon may have contributed much to the sexual stresses in the last sixty four years. Upon careful reflection and amazement I’ve trace my first romantic idealism to this one source. By contrast, there were no passionate tones or situations on Sesame Street, Big Bird didn’t post a BBYB (Big-Beautiful-Yellow-Bird) ad on Craigslist, the Road Runner made no cross species passes at Wile E. Coyote, even the Electric Company with all its oral presentations didn’t contain a single reference to sex that I can remember. No, all of these childhood cartoons were only preparing me for what was to be my downfall.

It is by no coincidence I share two of this cartoon’s three major flaws, I generally come on too strong and don’t take no for an answer. The third, his lasting odor I’ve managed to at least partially avoid. Mr. Pepe’ Le Pew, his approach, his style, his profound example and all it entails laid the faulty foundation for my early romantic life! That French bastard was the only sexual roll model I had, what a raw deal! How many men have subliminally been influenced by Mr. Le Pew? I’ll bet you know more than one or two.

He deserves some credit in my book for not limiting his pursuit to those of his species. His wrangling toward the occasional cat has certainly given rise to dating diversification. One might say he was the first to engage in inter-species erotica, thanks be to the French. I will bet my meager livelihood that generations of growing young men have not been helped in the least by such foolishness as their first exposure to the language of love. Better I should say to watch Milhouse quietly muse over Lisa Simpson and how she gently holds her saxophone.

In closing I shall say au revoir to Mr. Le Pew, the French and any other attempt to turn young boys into such obscene gropers of any female they get a whiff of. The world and its cartoons are full of able examples of much better behavior, and I for one have finally learned my lesson.

Birds don’t ski

I don’t remember the first time I went skiing, just as I don’t remember my first words, or learning how to walk. For my older brother and I skiing was just like walking, running perhaps, falling, sliding, racing… any of these, or akin to flying if you will. Tuesdays, Thursdays and every Saturday we could be found cutting through the crystals, leaping in the air, dodging the trees on the back slope or flying off the ski jump. The snow, winter and indeed the freedom was our culture, our escape, our connection to the world and her great spirit.

Mind you there isn’t much else to do in Upper Michigan from November through March, interrupted by a few holidays and those bitter cold days too chilly for the slopes, not a week went by that we weren’t enjoying the snow. It was more of a family fare, us four kids strapped up and zooming down the small hills at Al Qual Ski Area, or racing competitively on Marquette Mountain, or ski jumping at Suicide Bowl outside Ishpeming Michigan. My grandparents pulled ski patrol duty at Al Qual all through their sixties, ever mindful to bring extra hot chocolate and peanut butter laden Ritz crackers for the swarming grandchildren when we needed a break. As young hot dogs on the hills, it was easier to bend the many rules when your family was keeper of those rules.

Many little quirky memories stand out from our wintery playground, like my Grandma Tina breaking her leg on her first ski trip, my sister learning how to snowplow while skidding down the bunny slope between my Father’s legs, the howling north wind that threatened to stop us in our tracks as we started many a first run, the welcomed warm feeling of peeing in my pants as I raced back home from the hill behind our house, breaking our skis in half while attempting aerials on Christmas day and who could forget the triumph of finishing first in a ski jumping tournament or second to my brother. Ski days were special days, family days, a small sampling of normalcy in a very abnormal life.

I know there’s such a thing as muscle memory, I needn’t relearn what my body already knows how to do. I do wish emotional memory was as elastic and resilient as muscle but I shall have to rely on a keen mind and old Mining Journal articles to recapture these great moments of oneness with my family and with Nature. Too bad the birds don’t have skis.

Wishes, Wells and Pits

All the thrown pennies have turned to falling stars.

Your bucket, Dear Darla, has a hole, yes a hole.

I’m better off not knowing where my wishes go.

Unanswered is still not a no, just ask any child.

I’m better off not to know, a maybe still works fine.

We’ll see was an old favorite, perhaps, if, could be.

Anything but what I heard… no was the word.

D… Di… Din… pain is all I know, loss my only friend.

The Freedom Cycle

This germ of an ideal came to me during our 2008 Presidential Election. As a long follower of political and philosophical thought, the notion of freedom, its attainment, its destruction and its overall concept struck me as something to be explored in thought. Join me if you will.

Thoreau said, “The old have nothing to teach the young.” As we and our global civilization age, as the United States passes through several more societal shifts regarding government, leadership, individuality and freedom we will thunder through, once again, The Freedom Cycle. Plainly seen throughout humanity, most recently in our Revolutionary War and our Civil War, and any other conflict, struggle or war in history, we as humans will voluntarily, incrementally give back what was so hard fought to achieve, for freedom is not static, it cannot be given or bestowed upon a people or individual, it is not a gift from God to be received in grace and harmony, no, not at all, freedom can only be snatched, grabbed and fought for by those having none, out of the power mad, clenched, ever-loving, patriarchal and kind hands of those who seek to rule, or if you will lead, govern, teach, inform or better yet preach.

As The Freedom Cycle goes so goes our human nature. The parallels are very simple and evident between our individual lives and the lives of nations and cultures. While infants, we are dependant whether we want to be or not, up until about the age of two. Then founding upon our sturdy legs and a language that includes the word no, we forge ahead, stealing our freedom of spirit from everyone around us; parents, other tots, brothers and sisters and even our own limitations. After several swats on the hand or behind we succumb to the notion that perhaps it’s better to go along and get along than to face the consequences from the rulers of our domicile. For sake of our own time line I will use our United States history as our parallel example. This initial revolution happened in 1776 after we learned the word no.

Several years of peaceful growth follow this transition. Exploring our freedom while no one is looking, we have our way for about ten years whilst heading straight into our teens. We secretly suspect that we know what’s best for us and we will find a way and a day to have it; life, our way! As our country steamed into the Civil War, two schools of thought each wanted their own way, a bit of a power struggle I think it’s been called.

As individuals and as a voting block, black minorities have been the first to volunteer their dependence and surrender their gift of freedom to a system all too eager to have dependants, the same one that freed them. If laying blame and fault were helpful, this could be said to be the fault of the Union, merely a trade off in ownership of the slaves and cannot be corrected until the next leg in The Freedom Cycle-or by some leap that the slave mentality is cast aside by this very realization in the community as a whole. This is true because, to a man, they did not fight for their freedom as such, another ruling party freed them only to enslave them once again. Had the war not been fought, the day would have come for the slaves themselves to overturn their owners. The Union needn’t have forced the issue. As a result of freeing the slaves or giving them their freedom, have the majority of blacks in our country prospered after their struggle for freedom? No, because it was given to them!

The human condition finds it easier to live without freedom when it has freedom, but only when it has freedom, for freedom requires sacrifice and it also requires that the individual knows the pain and the suffering, the depression, the hopelessness, the despair, the hatred and loss of spirit that is emblematic of enslavement. What we have simply is a circle and a cycle of freedom and enslavement, never a static moment to be found. Those with freedom are willing to give it up for it requires quite a bit from them, and those once without freedom will at some point have to snatch it back by force. Add to all this aging, both individual and societal aging, the historical bleeding of the facts, our inclination toward a short memory and soon you have a four to five hundred year cycle where we shall welcome socialism over freedom, then freedom over socialism, again and again, for we are not that smart nor can we see the ground underneath our feet!

This much is the human spirit, in the world and in our lives, we rush headlong in our teens flirting with anarchy, avoiding rulers, yet perhaps finding our own little following as we go, in clubs, popularity, friends, schools, sports and the like, grouping ourselves into areas were we might find our leadership rewarded. As this progresses throughout cultures the non leaders slump toward enslavement, certain to get there not a moment before their social security arrives, the last nail in the slavery coffin! As this has happened to one of us, it will happen to the whole of us!

The only calling to leadership finds its roots in self-serving motives. As an island, each man would fend for himself, if my neighbor can’t or an opportunity comes for me to assume authority over him, I might surely do that for it brings certain satisfactions. Better for no leadership at all, thank you. This rudimentary structure for leadership is the cause of all struggles. Were not man given an opportunity to rule others and if others, in their human condition, were not so inclined to have someone rule them, we would each be self supporting and find harmony in total, but this is not the case.

Our country might be said to be maturing as we near 250 years of existence. Not much can be said of our current free state of being. We are poised, as the ages tick by, to slide into socialism and increase the distance between us and freedom, nudged loving by those that know better and for our own good. The stages of this cycle are unavoidable, our nature is unchanged, we will cycle through freedom as we always have.

In closing I ask myself, as you might as well, am I content and peaceful in just being? Or, is there some drive or motivation toward ruling others; be they my children, spouse, neighbor, co-worker and the like. A quick look around ought to be answer enough. I suggest that freedom from self is as important as freedom from others, first I shall have to stop letting you help me in any fashion and next I shall have to overcome my slavery to my own condition, then and only then will I and our civilization truly be free.

This I Believe

I believe the most valued things and people in my life are those I’m willing to sacrifice.

In terms of things or possessions, what I’m willing to do without tells me more about who I am than what I have or can have and proceed to own. When I was eighteen, in my third senior semester, I was used in some cosmic creative fashion to create a charcoal portrait of Abe Lincoln in art class. Though truly obsessed with the project I certainly don’t think I made it myself, it was inhumanly magnificent and shortly became my most important possession.

As a very ill and neurotic alcoholic teenager my end was nearing quickly. Following a complete surrender to my hopeless condition I was to go by bus to treatment on my third day sober. The only thing standing in the way of my new found life was the thirty dollars I needed for my bus fare. A one time substitute art teacher had shown interest in my portrait for her husband’s law firm. Sold, for thirty dollars!

Twenty years later old honest Abe remains the single token and greatest material sacrifice I’ve made toward what I’ve been given. Surely I’ve wanted him back a thousand times and have had the money, regardless of the cost, to bring Abe home, but I cannot! What it represents to me to do without is far more valued than having him back.

What I want is simply not that important. In recent years, my mental, emotional, spiritual and physical well being needed restoring at the expense of my marriage and time with my two sons. Sacrificing my full time life with my boys to save my sanity was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Letting go of my wife, whom I loved deeply, might be the greatest gift I could give her.

My heart and love currently belong to someone unavailable. She and her spirit hold a very lofty place in my life because I’m willing to be without her. Detaching with love and sacrificing my best friend, Pat, was extremely hard before his drug induced death. Watching hundreds and thousands of the addicted drowned in their own sea has required huge sacrifice. Hanging up the phone on my suicidal brother was a dangerous risk. I cannot give people what they will not receive, and I cannot have what is not mine to have.

A greater love and life lesson awaits me when I’m willing to step back and not inject my will onto others and their journey through life or to its end. The cost will not be cheap! Sacrifice is being quiet when I want to speak. Sacrifice is being willing to lose who and what I love and cherish. Sacrifice is the last thing I want to do and the first thing I need to consider.

The Right to be Wrong!

You can tell a lot about people by what they do. Take the animal rights zealots for example, and I’m not talking about people that love their cat and walk their dag once a day or spend billions of dollars on pet toys, I’m talking about those people that devote time and energy to animal rescue, the ones that live and breath for all sorts of creatures other than humans. Something is definitely wrong with these folks!

I’ll be the first to admit that people are strange and sometimes impossible to deal with, but wouldn’t the world be better off if these well meaning, good hearted, emotional ill people spent some of that time toward helping other people? Children perhaps? How about the sick? Cancer patients maybe? Abused spouses and children? As I’ve examined my thoughts on this subject I’ve allowed for many an explanation for this misdirected effort. Sure, it sounds good and frequently makes for a heartfelt headline and surely brings smiles and warm feelings from all compassionate people, rings the bank at many a fund-raiser and books large ballrooms of ego stroking do-gooders, but what’s really at work here? Isn’t there something these folks have in common when closely examined? I’m certain there is!

Judging from a select pool of individuals that I know, a familiar thread surfaced regarding these anal animal adorers. In an effort to understand people and motives I found my answer. It’s easy to love something, or somebody, or some animal that’s easy to love and loves you back unconditionally! It’s the surest reward going in life! “If you want a friend, get any animal,” said Perry Farrell of Jane’s Addiction. The rudimentary disassociation from people and the drawing near to animals is a very simple way to live among complicated people in a complicated world. It is far easier to help those (people and animals) that want and need your help and are eternally grateful for your help than it is to help those that would spit in your face for your humanitarian efforts. Try helping someone that then turns and steals from you, or sleeps with your spouse, or hangs themselves in your basement, or punches you in the face. Do you really want to help or just feed your fucking ego? What I’m saying in an emotional sense is there is certain risk in helping people and no risk in helping animals!

One might actually get their hands dirty if any attempt was made to help real suffering humans. The homeless stink, cancer patients and death force us to confront our own mortality, the suicidal might actually have a point, a battered spouse might really need to go back one more time, the drug addict or alcoholic might just tear out your heart and empty your account as you try to help them. All of these and many, many more sick and hopeless people, not to mention children, might actually need to connect with real people, emotionally available real people. Thankfully they do find these people, but certainly not the emotionally unavailable animal rights twits that won’t risk a tear for someone of their own species yet sob in love and compassion while spewing condemnation toward all of us regarding our treatment of beloved Sparky.

So, if you want to help, or be available to those still suffering in such a Utopian society as ours, let those animals fend for themselves, as they would had we not domesticated them in the first place, get off your wooden pew, as those suffering don’t have their Sunday’s best to attended your preaching to the well, and get out where these souls live; in the flop houses, behind the diner, across the street from you, in the shelters and the alleys behind your animal hospitals and your adorned cathedrals. While you’re at it, bring some of that fucking dog food and maybe a slice of the body of Christ! What the hell are these people thinking while patting themselves on the back or earning their ticket to Heaven?

So I say to you Sunday slackers and you Animal twits, do something helpful please, for people… people named Bob, or Steve… Margie or Jane.  And stop with the P.R. about your unrisky, selfless acts of kindness and love to beings that would do fine without you.

Not to end on a downer, I’m warmed and hopeful at the love and compassion I see between people, the emotional sacrifice, the time and effort given to comforting, teaching and leading the hopeless to self sufficiency. To those of you on the front lines, your efforts are your own reward and you’ll get no pats on the back here. “The only reason to do a job is, there’s a job to be done!” I’ll see you then.

Spoons, Knives and Forks!

How often have you heard ”Just do the right thing.”  This can be a tried and true pillar for living as long as you don’t do much living.  If you’re anything like me, a time and place with come when you can throw this one out the same stained glass window as all that other feel good crap.  Let me explain… .

Often the difference between right and wrong, or good and bad is very clear.  Then there are times when we’d like to shed the guilt of doing what we want and that then becomes wrong and bad.  This clear difference between positive and negative action is pretty certain to lead us in a health direction on most choices. 

As I’ve grown accustomed to doing with all my pillars for living, I examine their application in a universal sense.  If there are situations where they don’t work then the whole theory is flawed in my estimation.  It can still be used, but not as an all encompassing, blanket ideal.  Do the right thing is one of these.

On a couple occasions I’ve been presented with two equally unattractive life choices, as I’ve mentioned in other writings.  I’m facing such a decision presently and the right thing is clearly as unclear as it can be.  They both suck and will be equally painful!  Alas, be careful what your counsel might be!

We will all live and make choices for ourselves and our children.  Do as you do and all will be well, but beware how flippantly you give advice to those struggling with these decisions.  The truth and lasting outcome of any tough choice is my willingness to live with the results.  It will matter little which way I go as long as I’m willing to live with the possible outcome. 

I’m hopeful that this piece will provide comfort and guidance for you or someone else in your life.  I’m also writing this piece so I can hear myself say it out loud!

Not Under the Bed.

They come from the trees,

Stalking, searching for me.

Every day without fail,

Here’s to unopened mail.

My Muse, My Lover, My Friend

Occasional skinning dipping is a must.

Your hair and make-up matter little.

Stand tall and strong while alone.

Share time and not depend wholly.

Create that which needs your touch.

Trends and F.A.D.’s annoy you.

Dance carelessly to your tune.

Dream the biggest dreams.

A princess syndrome isn’t you.

You sing, act, play or write.

You’re at your best in nature.

You’re fully self actualized daily.

I’m blessed to spend a minute with you.

Your all that is beautiful, truly a woman.

Little Boys

No chains or runs needed.

Baths occasionally needed.

Brushing is nice once in a while.

Avoid Rabbis if possible.

Gut twists might be deadly.

The cadge needs cleaning.

A dead sibling might be found.

The teat doesn’t last.

They’ll run in packs.

Doesn’t play well with others.

The dish and bowl need filling.

They can’t eat shit.

They’ll gnaw at life,

Slink and flinch at humans.

They’ll drowned and die alone

these little boys you raised as dogs.

The Riches of Poverty

Oatmeal never tasted so good.

Eating healthy and cheap are the same.

Fun is laughing at yourself.

Entertainment is simple and creative.

I don’t have to decide which sheets look better with my shams.

There’s no decision where I’m going for lunch.

There’s only one octane that works for my car.

I’m avoiding the big insurance scam.

Don’t watch and don’t care about the markets.

Might finally cash in some of my tax dollars (20 years worth).

I find out who I really am.

The phone doesn’t ring (it’s past due).

No body wants to give me slave credit.

I don’t spend tomorrow’s paycheck.

Cambells will have summer sales.

Tap water still tastes as good as the bottled crap.

Losing weight was never so easy.

No fear of a turn for the worst.

Reaffirm that want is the best motivator.

Hungry people don’t stay hungry for long (Rage Against the Machine).

WordPress is free.

The greatest things in life have always been free.

Pity must be received when offered! Thanks, but no thanks.

What did those poor fuckers do during the depression?

My eleven year old doesn’t need a job yet.

Expression is free, well two cents isn’t bad.

We’re disposing of pennies a bit early I think!

If you don’t know this kind of wealth, I hope someday you do.

The Divine Nine

While walking the Pearl Street Mall, Boulder Colorado, in 1986 you’d find the most unlikely, weirdest and most special group of friends a guy could ever want. There was nine of us tearing up the bus stops on skateboards, stealing beer off the beer truck, smokin’ weed and having the time of our lives, the Divine Nine.

I was thrown into this city from a small town in Upper Michigan, ignorant, racial Upper Michigan. Through no fault of their own, they’re just isolated from “other people” and haven’t had to accept diversity at all. I spewed my share of hate toward innocent people as a pre-teenager. Little did I know the education I was about to receive.

I would have to say the most important thing is life is not taking yourself too seriously. This allows all other information through my clogged ears and into my plated heart. These eight friends gave me the greatest gift I could ever want. The gift of love and acceptance.

Truth is stranger than fiction! Never was this more true than when it came to the Divine Nine. I’m of Italian and mixed European heritage, Craig Fasbender is Jewish, Richie Rotuno, deceased, was Italian, Rimus Statkus is Lithuanian, Eric Kangale is Irish, Jason Dascoli is a Black Italian, Moso Jong is Laotian, Chris Wellman is a short little white Arian Albino and Francisco Sanchez is as Mexican as beans and tortillas. As you span the globe you’ll see the only racial sects missing would be one of Middle Eastern decent and perhaps a Native American. Don’t worry though we wouldn’t have danced around their soft and easily offended feelings either.

Of course there’s a story in the works about the Divine Nine… just one of many half finished stories, but one that needs to be told for sure! How blessed am I to have such a group of misfits as my every day buddies? I can tell you, any injustice, any hate, any indifference was washed completely away by the years we spent together. True perspective must be had from gut laughter at yourself and your stereotypes of others. For starters, we never went into Moso’s house, not once, what ever the hell his Mom was cooking in there scared the hell out of us, come to think of it there weren’t many dogs roaming around his block either. We simply waited on the curb outside his house until he came out. Rimus, Ray for short, used to yell back and forth with his Mother in Russian so we didn’t know what they were fighting about then Ray would have the worst case of road rage any sixteen year old could ever have. Craig’s Dad got some of the best weed, which Craig dealt to us in prime Jew fashion. Jason got over his hurt feelings about the word Nigger only because he wasn’t alone, in fact Richie was just a Nigger with a job and Francisco, Fran, knew he was a wetback hood that still needed a job the last day I saw him, making him the third Nigger in the group. Eric was the tallest, most awkward Mic you’d ever seen and who really gives a shit about the Irish anyway? Chris was as white as snow and short enough to get lost in a drift, but because he was so fucking white, “Personifying The Man,” we left him pretty much alone so he didn’t kill us in our sleep! And me, I was too drunk to take anything seriously, usually passed out in some corner pissin’ in my drawers with puke all over myself! 

The point of all the racial banter was not to hurt each other, or some how acquire an enlightened state of being, or bring racial harmony to our group. The point and indeed the lesson of any stereotype is to really and truly realize understand and get to know the individual! We all loved each other as individuals regardless of all the racial wrangling. We found complete acceptance and love of man out of our friendship. We found self love also that has given birth to self actualization through the years.

A greater and more diverse group of friends one could not ask for. I listen with a deaf ear to all the reports of racism and hate, although I know it’s out there, it’s not part of me. Thank God for you guys!

Heading North

The essentials are stowed in my escape pod, $103.00 plus toll change might leave me at an exit with the ever familiar sign “Will Work for Gas,” some of the dread is over, displaced by a baseball gently tossed and the thoughts of my boys.  While playing at the park on our last visit we tried like hell to fly a kite as the wind was dying, I ran as long as I could to give them what they wanted but the wind was not there, we’ll have to try again another day.

If you are a friend or frequent reader my post may be a  bit intermitten for a short time.  Thanks for reading and I’ll talk with you soon.

Love Always, 

Dave

Dear Son

Big lessons for living, the sooner the better.

50% of people will love you and 50% will not.

It matters little what others think of you.

Your calling is your own, go do it now.

You can always come back, but chances disappear.

Respect all individuals, especially those you dislike.

Keep your few best friends close to your heart.

Find someone who inspires you to greatness.

Avoid the emotionally crippled, they’ll win!

Violence is an insecure man’s expression.

Being still is more important than being right.

Get used to being wrong, own it and learn.

Turn left, right or straight, it doesn’t matter.

On your last day, you’ll be no better than human.

God is everything or he is nothing, forget man’s Gods.

Notice everything, a leaf, the wind, a cloud, beauty,

Kindness, injustice, love, stars, fish and waves.

Rest easy and obey the universal harmony.

Remember my love for you, go and do likewise.

A Fish Out of Water

I’m sure I liked swimming.

Some dread always came.

Maybe that boy lying there,

Or the biting chill and numb.

The Holiday Inn pool was fun,

My birthday when I was ten.

The sunscreen across my legs,

Protect those tender white thighs.

I don’t really like swimming.

That dread always comes.

The underwear dreams, fright,

Panic and the cool crack.

It’s not the water for sure,

But the standing there exposed.

Why aren’t they laughing?

Why the look of concern?

Am I not just one of these kids,

Laughing, playing and swimming?

Somebody help, say something please.

The silence does kill, you see them?

I can’t stay and play, I’ve got to go.

I don’t really want to swim, not now.

Those shorts didn’t cover my pain.

Blueish and blackish, my exposed thighs.

Mile Marker Ideas

As bizarre as this sounds you’d think I was making it up, but I’m not.  I’ve spent 20 years on the road as a salesman, it’s no wonder I do my best thinking while looking through the pits of my windshield.  Hopes and fears, dreams and nightmares become all too clear as the mile markers fly by.  But one road and indeed one mile marker seem to reveal the home of my Muse.

Tooling up I 55 between St. Louis and Chicago the other day I had tunes blaring, knees jumpin’ and a lively spirit, although pained upon my departure from my boys, the old cracker factory was pumpin’ out new road snacks. 

It was on this same stretch of road that the germ presented itself that was to become HIS and HERS, my fully interactive feature screenplays.  I’d lay money it happened at the same mile marker also!  As it happened, my recent brilliance crowded all other thoughts for a couple minutes until I took mental note of where I was, 153.  Dead on!  This is all too familiar to me.  The fruit of my idea will be available soon to all who will partake.  I cannot present it to you here and now.

With a smirk and a nod to the Gods, I went back to thinking as the miles ticked by.  How weird is it that one specific mile marker on one specific road would mark the crowning jewels of 38 years worth of ideas?  I think it’s pretty weird, inspirational and motivating, but definitely worth noting!

Confluence of Means

My Mother and I were talking about the propensity and prevalence of the crazy and addicted in Hollywood.  For most people it’s probably like watching goldfish in a bowl, but there’s likely an explanation for so many wacky goldfish in such a bizarre bowl.

For the population at large there seems to be a constant yearning to understand the inexplicable, birthing salacious headlines and a never-ending story sure to fill any tabloid rag or entertainment news show, instantly gobbled up by the onlooking public.  There’s only one question leading to a manageable third party understanding.  Why are the drug addicted, alcoholic and neurotic often the creative people or why are the creative types often the addicted.  Just what does this mean and how does this occur?

This Hollywood saga is no different than the chicken and the egg debate with a lot more depth and far greater consequences for the individual.  My Mother tends to focus on the money and fame as the cause for the freak show, yet other wealthy people seem to do just fine, why is this?  I offer my observations not as a catch all, but rather a basic truth as I’ve come to know it.  Having dealt intimately with the neurotically obsessed and addicted for the past twenty years and in recent years having vast exposure to artists in all mediums it appears I’ve come to a workable understanding.

First to the creative personality, the brilliant, multi-dimensional and truly gifted artist.  Form and medium and technique aside, there is one common thread pervading all art and it’s importance to the artist, a core psychological and emotional solution that art provides.  In simple terms most art is manageable in its entirety by the artist.  Art and indeed any creation supplies the much needed order in life’s chaos for the artist.  Whether it’s sixteen bars, the written text and characters of our language, a camera, a pallet full of colors, whole cloth, clay, wood, metal, the human voice or costumes and dialogue given on stage or film, individually or collectively artists express emotion and ideas in a manageable form to a certain or uncertain outcome.  The uncertain outcome serving as a certain outcome in the causal incident, setting out to create something not knowing its path to completion or completed state.

Speaking for myself and in emotional and spiritual terms, it’s the only thing I have full control over, not withstanding even the emotions or thoughts at the heart of the creation.  Art, creation is the only means of dealing with life’s chaos.  It brings order to the universe and satisfies every emotional, psychological and spiritual need that isn’t, can’t and won’t be fulfilled in any other fashion, either in interaction with people, nature or God.  I simply need to have this outlet! 

And what of the addicted, the addicted that don’t recover?  How does addiction relate to art and present us with such examples as Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Heath Ledger, Ernest Hemingway, Edgar Alan Poe, Janis Joplin and thousands more swallowed up by a self manifested obsession of the mind, followed by an allergy of the body that ultimately demands more and more substances, bringing forth the only possible outcome?  It would seem that art and addiction are opposing sides of the same coin, art being the somewhat healthy and manageable coping mechanism for the chaos of life and addiction being the result of all attempts to avoid or overcome the chaos of life, weaving an ever tighter maze of distortion, mental illness and ruin leading to a certain death or complete recovery. 

Addiction recovery in the truest sense is a full restoration to sanity whereby the addicted can be at perfect peace and ease in the chaos of life (both internally and externally) with the aid of a power greater than themselves, thus relieving the necessity to escape or avoid such chaos by using, starting the cycle of powerlessness over their substance.  Those in the grips of addiction have little chance of recovery outside of some form of divine intervention. 

So it is that we have a chicken and an egg.  One finding a creative outlet in bringing order to this chaos and the other unable to live life on life’s terms.  They obviously aren’t mutually inclusive but have a synergy among their purpose.  It matters little which came first.

As we all struggle and cope with our human condition, perhaps never fully explained and understood, it seems that the artist and the addicted are often one and the same.  Bound, driven, obsessed and consumed with the need to bring order or completely avoid life’s chaos, each with different means but often to the same end.  Whosoever shall be both, great art and great tragedy shall follow.

A New Retail Contract?

We all remember going down to the corner store and buying a sucker for 25 cents or paying $6.00 for 5 ride tickets at the carnival.  Ah, such good memories.  We bought and paid for the wrapper, the stick, the outer shell, the gum inside, bounced toward the door and chewed our way to freedom.  Those 5 ride tickets were sure to get us 2.33333 turns on our favorite whirly-do, we knew we’d need more tickets or at worst negotiate with a rival sibling for the last ride once the odd tickets were pooled by two others.  Not any more!  The old retail contract is dead, our current vendor/buyer status cannot withstand the abuses by companies (far more shady than the Carnies ever where) and we shall surely slide toward a chaotic marketplace situation where nothing will be bought by a consumer without painful negotiations (as it is in much of the world), and rightfully so.  I, as a consumer have been abused far too long by far too many retailers and can’t take one more stinkin’ day!

It might be said, contrary to modern business dynamics and business education which says that a business is in business to make money, that indeed the opposite is true.  Businesses at their best are in business to chase the dollar and in doing so constantly shave profit margins while attempting to make a sale and therefore are bound to fail.  There are many, many exceptions of course.  Aren’t there?  You can think of one can’t you?  Who was the huge discount retailer before Wal-mart?  K-Mart right?  How are they doing?  And before them? 

Of course I’m speaking about retail consumer goods, big discount stores and the like.  But isn’t the same true of the Automotive market?  The U.S. Automakers couldn’t have made a bigger mess of things.  What ever Henry Ford was thinking, wait, Ford may survive precisely because of what Henry Ford was thinking!  It’s the other two dimwits, GM and Chrysler that won’t make it.  Take advantage of a consumer and they will turn on you sooner or later.  We’re at the turning point, as was all too evident yesterday at Sports Authority.  Let me explain.

What happened yesterday is now systemic in our retail system.  Companies have beaten each other up so badly that they have all turned on us as their final victim, albeit not a lasting one.  Sure, the consumer pays the toll in every situation anyway, but it’s gone way too far.  I was shopping for a new pair of cross-training shoes and found a pair to my liking.  Taxes and all tolled the bill was around $80.00, a sizable chunk of change at anytime!  Do you think the retailer was thankful for my $80.00 and grateful that I stopped there instead of the next store?  Did they hand me my sucker and know that I’d be back for another before the day was through?  Of course not!  And why not?  The poor, unprofessional, cashier turned sales lady was too damn busy stumbling over words from her training script about the cushioned sole inserts that I ought to consider buying.  Then without taking a breath after the first pitch, she started in about a year long extended warranty, right, a warranty on tennis shoes for Christ’s sake!  Aghast that I would actually say no (which was very pleasant given what I wanted to say) she added that I was “gambling” on the lasting value of these $80.00 shoes without the warranty.  Can you image that?  Think of how many times this happens to you!

What’s wrong with this whole picture you ask?  The same thing that’s wrong with McDonald’s trying to turn my hamburger order into a meal, or boneheads up-selling flight insurance, or selling extended automobile warranties to old ladies that aren’t going to live 100,000 miles!  The constant abuse we all take at the hands of greedy, profit hungry retailers should only exist in a fully negotiated transaction.  I’ll listen to the inept clerk about her pitch when she can authorize a discount on what I’m buying.  As soon as we all start asking for a discount they might actually get the point that up-selling isn’t a one-way street.  A grateful retailer, who is asking a high enough price to keep itself in business will never have to rely on this crap to keep the doors open.  They’re customers will be thrilled by the lack of up-selling, by the peace and thankfulness of the “cashier,” by the full realization of value in the product they just purchased and the friendly customer service they received throughout the process because there’s one thing I know, you can’t sell while you’re servicing what you just sold without abusing the consumer in the process. 

So, join me won’t you?  Every time I’m asked to purchase something I didn’t order or don’t want I will start the negotiations in kind.  I did not want fries with my burger or I would have asked for them.  When I say 20 oz., I mean 20 oz. thank you!  The $80.00 for my shoes is warranty enough, don’t you think!  You’ll take em’ back if I say you will!  Let’s all just take a deep breath and give me exactly what the hell I ordered, can we?  Please?  If not, the minions will march and retailiate with as much crap as we’ve been taking and please bear in mind we might be just a little bitter and not as sweet as the suckers you take us for.

The Edge

Ok, maybe this time.

If I can just… balance.

Not another circus ride, please.

What about my lists? 

What about my kids?

Then there’s… .

But I promised I would.

Maybe they’re right.

How long has it been?

What is His will?  Fuck Him!

Perhaps I can think better.

I can’t end it all, can I?

There’s the attention I seek!

Maybe I’ll go back to school?

Maybe I’ll write, or draw?

What’s my favorite song again?

Is there enough?

If only… .

How did I end up here?

Those fucking people.

Those hypocrites, happy fuckers.

They’re not like me.

Mom?  Dad?  Are you there?

Is anybody there?  Hello? 

Just one more time.

Tomorrow will be better.

Rock Lake

While swept away on life’s big green seats,

to camp we went, my big brother and I.

Surely to find wonders in woods,

a needle points north, paddles and docks.

From Black River Falls to the campfire side,

stories loomed about the haunting cabin.

Nature prepares for her ultimate truth,

swim or sink as fast as you can.

The canoe champs are cramped,

but will not be beaten.

Blue Haze

Why haven’t I been skipping rocks lately?

Imagine how far they’d go on the ice.

I don’t remember finger painting at all,

These old hands could use some color.

There were rhymes and songs weren’t there?

I must have skipped a beat somewhere.

My snow angels are all muddy now,

Easy to spot where I’ve been and gone.

The bats will be out, the night turned black,

East swallows West and life fades away.

Cartoons

A skippity hop and a Scooby Doo,

What’s this you say?  Oh, boo-hoo.

Zing and a Zam, fling and a flam,

a pitch and a hit and a bling, shazzam!

Skirty hoe and a you know too,

Hody hi and the merry-go-round flew.

Zip skitter pop, watch the rodent drop.

Smooch and a pew, up next after the flop.

Whistle away this morning to play,

An ugh and a heave and a grunt, pow!

Choo-choo, and a chugga chugga goes round,

In the whine o’s bottle these sounds are found.

Looking Up

Why do squirrels climb to the top of a tree?  As I watched this morning, it struck me as odd or at least interesting.  Possibly something to learn from this flippant and flagrant expression of freedom?  The nuts and junk are surely on the ground.  What gives?  The absence of other squirrels excused example, teaching or group fun.  Not a lick of danger prowled or lurked around the base of the fifty foot pine.  Just this running and skipping to the end of a branch and on to the next higher one were extended limbs unite. 

Absent a distant cousins wheel for exercise, could this be his workout routine?  The lunges and squats of the rodent world, preparing for the thirty foot dash competition or training for the annual Pine Cone Marathon, committed at last to beat the hare?  There was no evidence of a base jumping tick in this squirrels eyes and indeed no parachute either.

Several crows flew by and didn’t notice the little fella below, in a somewhat rude fashion, giving him the Rudolph treatment I suppose.  Maybe he wanted to play, maybe he has aspirations and dreams.  Maybe this was the day he was going to reach for the stars and fly or merely plummet to a squirrely death.  Thankfully he didn’t jump!  My itchy finger ready to dial the rodent rescue number, 812.  Alas, he’s doing fine, changing trees, living to climb another day, happy and content he can’t fly, well exercised and ready to start his day.  After all it is spring and what else would a squirrel do?

A Walk

Is there anything better than walking in the calming quiet snow?  It may be spring for most of you, but around these woods April 21st is still within winter’s grasp.  Up to 19 inches blasted the U.P. of Michigan and made for a pleasant day indeed.

I strapped on my almost retired boots and danced with the last (hopefully) blizzard of the year.  A heavy snow made for plenty of slush and the blacktop was exposes on most of the road.  While the big flakes added to the white in my locks and pounded my outstretched face I noticed a regional oddity of sorts.  Unlike uniform city blacktop, our streets are sprinkled with thousands of colors.  Tiny pebbles smattered in the once molten mix now lay to rest in a vext nature glided under my boots like huge falling stars on the black canvas. 

If you have or if you haven’t, take a moment to see the earth beneath you feet once in a while.  What you find may surprise you.

Partner

She slinks around without a sound,

Wearing her foes, pound for pound.

With sheets of silky waves she preys,

Loving often and leaving this day.

They all come to see, her beauty bestowed,

Touch her first I’ve always been told.

She’ll curl your toes and moisten your hair,

Swallow you whole if you dare.

With endless flowing locks round bridges,

stumps and rocks, peek, look or stare.

Her crevasse is deep, unfilled she’ll weep.

With suiters stacked far and tall,

Only one is special, only one will fall.

Once joined, he will not compete,

Their blessed union forged, complete.

 

Whether or not Weather?

Moon River, Ontario

We all know there’s something universal about the weather, something that connects all of us, but see if this makes sense to you.  What formerly stood as shallow and distant small talk has actually uncovered some root human motivation, something I had not thought of before.

Other than our dependence on oxygen there is little that we all have in common, the conditions of the day, at any given locale is another.  Including other earthbound creatures and sea going rascals, we are all bound by the weather and its pressure.  It stands to reason that we’d like to know what it is or what it’s going to be, if for no other reason than to have something to talk about in our shallow public intercourse.  So goes the high and low temperature, the drips and drops, this front and that, seasons in and seasons out. 

In our sheltered existence, out the front door, into the car, into the office or shop, there really isn’t much need for preparation to face adverse weather yet we still cling to it, why?  If we have an umbrella in the car, some gloves or a hat maybe, we shall likely not be out of cell range in the event of an emergency, so it really doesn’t matter what the weather is, does it? 

Today’s weather predictions, the Weather Channel, and thousands of Meteorologists around the world live and breath to provide only one thing, our best and only chance at predicting the future.  In no other fashion can we say with any certainty what will happen in the future, other than with the weather.  It’s our solution to the “now” that we’ve been stuck in forever.  Who wouldn’t want to know what tomorrow will bring?  Future lotto numbers maybe, big surprises at work, how our day might turn out or the future of our children’s lives would be some of the future we’d like to know.  This drive and inability to know the future has fostered our love of weather predictions.  We just love knowing the future, even if it’s slightly wrong slightly more than most of the time.  The palm readers, fortune tellers and mystics could only wish to have such a following as our dried up cloud salespeople.  With confidence and believability, we consume their spells every night for no apparent reason, it just seems so logical, forgetting that we’re in no danger of being caught out in the cold, wet, heat, sun or heaven forbid the dark. 

I for one will stop watching the forecast from this day forward!  I don’t need to know!  I don’t want to know… well maybe just a little.  This faux means by which I can satisfy a negligible desire to know the future isn’t helpful to my living in the now and shall be cast aside.  Until they start predicting something interesting, I’m not watching!  Give me the outcome of a race, or some numbered white balls, or the likelihood I’ll be engaged in a sexual encounter by day’s end, then I’ll start watching. 

Join me won’t you and rise against this trickery.  A loud and fast NO, will be heard when asked if I want to know the future.  It didn’t help Mr. Scrooge any, or did it?  I can’t remember, it was pre-empted by the weather.

GM, Government Motors

     In the decade long firestorm that’s seen the obese over-extension, negligent manufacturing, managerial incompetence and ultimate demise of General Motors a new vision, new leadership and the promise of a new day has been given birth.  We can rest easy knowing the United States Government has swooped in and is on the job… training.

     Fixing bureaucracy with bureaucracy is bound to work as efficiently as your local motor vehicle office.  My twenty years in the car business has brought certain insight and perspective on this ashy mess.  The following are my suggestions for the 2011 model year:

A.) Forget how much you hate car dealers, ownership just got worse.

B.) Apply now for your fuel efficient vehicle tax credit.

C.) Buy more life insurance, think Smart Car size.

D.) Start changing your own oil.

E.) Apply for your bus pass tax credit.

F.) Expect the same great service you get from other Federal, State and Local Government agencies and programs.

G.) Sell your stock in any airline, they’re next if the health-care system can wait one turn.

H.) Exercise your pen hand, the new car contracts will mirror the tax code in complexity.

I.) Find a parking spot now, new stripes and regulations will only allow smaller vehicles, a cross between a Yugo and a Gremlin called a We-go, designed for 2.1 adults. 

J.) Enjoy your Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Kia, Hyundai, Mazda or any of the European imports, they make fine cars.

K.) Bake dinner for your neighbor who’s in the U.S. Auto Industry, they’re going to need it.

L.) Buy import stock!

M.) Prepare ahead of time by taking the day off when you call the Government’s new consumer hotline… for your mortgage problems press 1, for your child’s education press 2, for food stamps press 3, for tax payments owed press 4, for a local mechanic press 5 and for death processing press 6. All calls will be handled in the order received, you are caller 299,999,998, two people ahead of you have been helped.

N.) Autoworkers, get your resume ready this ship has sunk!  You’re shifting deck chairs on the Titanic!  If greed and profit motive couldn’t keep her afloat, nothing can!

     I’ve included a few photos take after a recent Michigan forest fire, by sheer happenstance.  There cannot possibly be a positive outcome to the burnt U.S. Auto Industry.  No matter where you come down you’ll agree this is a horrible mess.  I say GM and Chrysler should have been allowed to fail completely!  We’ve just delayed the inevitable, see public education, building permits and zoning, parking fines, environmental over regulation, scandal, waste, fraud and abuse… need I say more?

     Bring your own cushion for this ride it’s bound to be a bit bumpy and you might notice the faint smell of smoke, that’s your tax dollars, investments and educational savings going up in flames!

 

2011 Government Motors Mini-Van, Photo by D.A. Capaldi

Other Successful Govenment Programs, Photo by D.A. Capaldi

AC

Who lives without air conditioning and why would you?  It’s been called the greatest invention of all time, the refrigerator with its cooling coils.  I don’t think even the basic vehicles come without it any more, certainly new construction has central heat and AC.  It makes sense some of our older inner city buildings might not have any, or even a retrofitted system, window units at a bare minimum, but I’m here to tell you there’s a whole population without AC in the United States! 

These people are half crazy anyway, so it makes sense why 300,000 of them live without AC.  Add the late arrival of Summer, only July and August and you’ll have some pretty steamy days in the house.  The only thing that whipps the steam from the mirror in this boiler room is the 20 degree drop in temperature one can have by driving anywhere near the huge icebox to the north.  Come within 10 miles of Lake Superior and a 90 degree day turns a wonderful 70 or so. 

I’m still trying to make sense of what the Natives up here do and for that matter say.  If I have any conclusions I’ll be sure to share them, but as for now the whole thing is a mystery and these people are nuts!

Michael Jackson Alive or Dead?

It’s fitting that he was married to Elvis’ daughter and he “was” the biggest star of his time.  Thank God Elvis left little boys alone or their stories would parallel even more.  Now, in Death, the same is true.  “Micheal Jackson is on an island somewhere!”  “He faked his death!”  The conspirators are out in full force.  We will never know and I’m sure the medical records will be lost accidentally.

What’s certain is, personal greatness doesn’t overcome personal sickness no matter how hard one tries!  This man was sick… in the most twisted sense… negating any of his accomplishments.  Anyone who overlooks his sex perversion and pedophilia is not worth convincing.  Enough said!

Bye, bye Farah… you were my first!!

Ode’ To The Visionaries

Dear Inventor, Creator, Artist, Musician, Thinker, Dreamer,

I’m writing to you as my way of expression gratitude and thanks for all that you have done.  As you know, any moron with a singleness of mind can accomplish a task great or small.  It’s quite another thing to create something out of nothing and dream the greatest dreams!  You do this because it’s who you are not because you want to.  Many times it becomes a love hate thing, denying you the simple pleasures of a simple minded soul. 

I was sitting on a rock today and there was no task at hand, nothing to be done, no where to be, no deadline to be kept… just me sitting there overlooking a little lake nestled near the shores of Lake Superior.  It occured to me that anyone can have an idea, your Uncle Stew and his “green” wood stove for example, or that Sister who’s always tinkering with her knives and wants to make a large Swiss army version for the kitchen (not a bad idea), but it’s a whole other ballgame to put everything together, to plot the course and build the team to execute that vision and bring it to life. 

Those of you who create do this every day in some form or another, ironing out your dreams on the anvil of trial and error, the pain of defeat, the hopelessness of hearing the word no, the look on your families face as you start talking about your current project.  You know what I’m talking about, no matter how much they love you, they can only take so much of your brain. 

Earlier in the day I was looking at an aviation photo book at a local coffee shop, the Wright brothers and such.  How long would you listen to them about their dream of flight?  How many failed attempts could you handle as a loving family member or caring friend?  Their daily excitement and dreaming about one thing, for years and years… hundreds and thousands of days in a row, the same dream, the same obsession, the same vision of greatness!  These mad men tired and bored the mere mortals their dreams would benefit, all rushing to their side the moment things worked out! 

I only mention all this because I know my rantings of this or that to my family and friends wears on them often and long and I hesitate to mention certain things while working on a project.  I can only image what the truly great creators must have gone through, and those about them. 

Imagine having the idea and the clear vision of what you wanted but stared at a blank page… what must go into such creations, such mastery, such sacrifice!  I say, ode’ to you visionary!

Cold Summer

If I woke up today and didn’t know any better I’d say it was October.  Is seeing your breath during the month of July normal?  Probably not, but then again I am perched in the heart of the last frontier, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  Chicago has had the coolest July on record, water temperatures across the northern plains are very low, and my Sister’s lillys and various other flowers are just blooming, on August 1st! 

You can speculate all you want, research for hours, watch the weather channel and listen to both sides of the global warming debate, but I dare say that only Mother Nature knows her secrets and she’s sunning on a beach somewhere, tanning on a lounge chair next to the Big G as they laugh at our public debates over the topics in the tropics. 

What I know is  a few ice cubes sure bring down the temperature of a glass of soda, or pop if you live in this tundra.  So, if ice is melting on the ice caps, it stands to reason that we would have some major cooling in the near northern and near southern regions closest to that melting ice.  I hate it when logic rules the day! 

Whatever comes of it I’ll be the guy standing in the middle of town, in the middle of August with his skis, goggles and snow suit on.  I hope I don’t need a carbon credit to exhale.

A Wish I Wish

Its draw is obvious, the need is certainly strong and deeply rooted, Man’s yearning to connect with Nature, our need for peace, beauty and serenity or the welcome expression of our most savage Carnivorous nature, the calling reaches every fiber of our being for a multitude of reasons serving those needs.  Why is it then, every time I escape to, plug in to, or simple go for a walk in the woods or fishing perhaps, there is a real time and post excursion disconnect of sorts, a lack of complete connection to Nature?  What I seek is not fully realized and I resume my normal human life with the same unfulfilled yearning, vowing to return within the shortest interval.

If you’re still reading I trust you are a thinking person, thankfully those bored by questions stopped midway though the first paragraph.  Naturalists debate all you will, scholars teach although I care not to listen on this subject, friends and observers test and question for yourself, the explanation and truth of our existence in the Human condition bars us from a complete connection to Nature, not to stop our trying and the half-hearted peace realized therein of course. 

The contributing factors are many, our nature is both simple and complex, and exploration into this subject is vast.  My thoughts are relatively new to me, transformed from faux realization of natural escape and connection to reflection and hesitation upon my inability to do that which I was convinced I had done, thus the writing of this piece. 

A simple walk near a trickling stream, or encounter with the fowl and critters of the woods sparks my imagination, sooths my spirit and calms my breathing.  The majesty, wonder and spectrum of the wild welcome all who seek it.  In modern times, all that is civilization is best left to itself to save one’s sanity, often, today if possible!  But, as I’ve come to realize, it is not civilization that I seek to escape, it is my own nature, flawed for the natural world, unnatural in its elements, ceaselessly perplexed and highly aware of things not naturally detected, I’d rather leave behind. 

If you, could you, should you on some occasion in the future examine the depth of my observations you’ll come to your own conclusions, which will suffice.  The lines of separation or inclusion have been muddied, some say we are of Nature and therefore the same, some say we have dominion over all that is natural, some stake claim to our simplistic animal nature and the evolutionary science of our existence.  Which ever field of thought you belong, the evidence is unanimous and therefore universal.  Man cannot connect fully to the natural word, unless you believe that thought, higher communication, freewill and human problem solving is of the natural word, which I argue, as we are the only species with a combination of all these, we are the exception to the natural word and therefore not part of the majority, it is Man that is disconnected from Nature, not the converse.  So, is it all of Nature that seeks to become Man, or Man that seeks to connect with Nature?  It is in this vein that Man’s, and indeed my limitations isolate me from a true connection to Nature, which I sadly observe.

In the best of scenarios, when I leave my civilized life only the natural laws apply, eat or be eaten, survival of the fittest.  There are no interpersonal motivations, no wrangling of human deviance if you believe in any, no duties social, no morality or ethics to cloud my existence.  At this point, if I were animal, or capable of complete connection, it would be so. 

It is thought that keeps me isolated.  Matters of life and mortality and ego bar me from a unified experience in Nature.  Simple matters of time, space, distance, problem solving, awareness and the ability to question unveil the wondrous world before me for my pleasure and are the same things blocking me from it.  I submit for your examination a few questions:  Why did the story of Tarzan so peak the interest of Man?  Has any other species that cannot, sought to fly?  Is it not the ego of man that causes his self importance and therefore all things unnatural by comparison to that which is unanimously natural?

Certainly our species might survive well and the human condition is well suited for many things, but in relation to our constant yearning to connect with Nature, we will never fully realize and every encounter will leave us wanting for we are the exception.  I cannot not think while in Nature, sleep perhaps is my closest realization of a unified natural experience, or sex perhaps.  I will continue to observe and ask questions to which answers mean nothing, I will judge my actions and motives through the eye of Man, I will long for a complete connection to the World, Nature and the Universe and I will remain forever disconnected due to my nature, I am Man.

Tea, Butcher, Desert

“On another day perhaps,

with longer thoughts,” He said.

A path might show, with signs, a trail,

welcome trodden ground.  But no.

On edge the coin never lands, fate’s

error shines, choose once it matters not.

“I wish I didn’t have to go.”

Likes and loves should rule our play,

but She demands we cannot stay.

This way’s right, the winds say so,

aft waves rush, turn, tack and slow.

A grinding sound of sand not born,

preceeds my longest breath, Her scorn.

“I’m sorry I have to go.”

Her keepers stand idly by, a puff, a mist,

Her bluish then blackish, then white lie.

On another day with longer roots, rescue

they would, set signs, a wake for good.

A spinning compass shows clear and true.

On Her static blank canvas sew,

“I wish I knew which way to go.”

Sentence Stories

The Janitor swept the dustless shiny floor under the rise her casket adorned. 

His dog paced the island shore near the wreckage and body and horror.

At first no students scattered or screamed, a simple firecracker it seemed. 

Her first was her last, his too it seemed, one bullet, a joining, together three dreamed. 

A half dressed woman sat bedside staring at a book, a bottle and a pistol, perplexed. 

A woman ran down the street screaming, hair wet, blouse wet, pants wet red.

Taking it in his adult mouth once more, memories of his youth ran sore.

Fitness Gunman, George Sodini’s Life and History

I guess through no harm of commenting on the dead, this man was as sick as they come.  I have twenty years experience dealing with the truly sick and none of this seems out of the ordinary for those like him. 

I know of a fella that set himself on fire outside his girlfriends work, I know of a gal that hung herself so her boyfriend would find her, I know of a guy, upon drinking again, ran into a parked car killing the driver who was changing his tire on the side of the road.  I also know of a guy who killed his father and served 24 years hard time for the act.  I only mention this for those of you who don’t run across such obscene human behavior that often, as credibility toward my understanding of sickness, just front line exposure, not class room blabbery! 

I’ve read his blog, I will not include it here, for fame is alluring to the intentionally dead, as is the need for people to understand.  The time for sick people to ask for help is before such acts… there is help! 

To the victims, I’m sorry for your loss and I pray for your peace and acceptance.  To the family members, I hope you overcome and discuss whatever dysfunction you have.  To the pastor, good luck explaining this to your congregation, to the rest of us… live and learn.

Lesson #1:  Some people should drink and end it all, alone is best.  The root of alcoholism is “you can’t drink effectively,” and through any period of sobriety, in his case 20 years, “you cannot not drink and will resume at some point the first drink.”  For all the misinformation, parading of the ego driven A.A. self appointed spokespeople and the ramblings of idiots alike, sober and drunk, real recovery and sobriety for real alcoholics and drug addicts is a true miracle and public service to all of us.  His is an example of what happens when the addicted use, albeit an extreme example, lesser self destruction happens to all who revert. 

Lesson #2:  Lack of male connections for men, an inferiority complex, an overbearing Mother, complete disconnect from a Father, and a severe inability to connect with women, obviously leads to romantic difficulties.  In this case, the Mommy issues, Daddy issues, Bully issues, and sex issues aren’t fully exposed.  Things like, sexual abuse, venereal disease, other criminal activity, and this guys history with women aren’t clear.  What romantic difficulties life deals everyone everyday were obviously not handled by him very well.  The harder he tried, the worse it got. 

Lesson #3:  A religious note.  This notion of salvation, of heaven, sure has people in a tizzy.  Getting there, not getting there, what gives?  Can we all not agree on one basic starting point, a good day and indeed a good life is one where the individual attempts completely to not harm themselves and to not harm others.  I thought this was the starting point of humanity for the civilized world.  The ends have definitely clouded and made mute the means.  Your carrot will snare the rabbit my friend, choked in the unforeseen trap. 

Lesson #4:  Blogging, a good thing or not.  I just felt like commenting on this story and I’m glad I can.  Thank you for reading. 

As I face dysfunction in my own lineage, unsure how to deal with it, I know one thing for sure.  Not dealing with it is not an option, no matter how discomforting it may be.

Sentence Stories II

He stood in front of the mirror, wishing to be drunk, and his strong hand cracked into his cheek, the swelling bruise a hopeful sign.

The gear, the travel, the effort in casting… thirty-five days lost, but there she is!

“I think we’re all just a bit motion sick,” she said, jetting quickly due east. 

The drops fell like steelies and snake eyes, toothpick races haunted him, his favorite glove sat covered by the smaller, newer and unused one.

Markus looked up toward his Father as he entered the funeral home, “Where do old baseballs go?”

Nervously she waited her que, bright lights and life weighting her debut.

“The blank white page ate my soul.”

The Death of Philanthropic Medicine

Dear President Obama, House, Senate and fellow U.S. Citizen,

What were you thinking?  I’m no partisan hack, just your average free thinker that knows snake oil salesman slithering down the road when I see them, keep at it though, they say the third time’s the charm!  Maybe 2012 or 2016 might work better, likely never I’m guessin. 

There is one major misstep in Health-care reform that has been made this time and by the unelected Ms. Clinton when she tried to sell it, dissimilar from the rounds of military base closings in the nineties and several other sweeping changes that neither party wanted to be blamed for, the one and only pillar of unwanted change, the bipartisan blue ribbon commission recommendations.  This has worked before and will continue to work when forcing change.  The Dems have been in such a hurry for this their cart is tugging the bit the whole way.  It was dead before the bill was formed in the House. 

The last nail in the coffin of this round of Health-care reform will be the overwhelming increased financial burden of a medical segment that no one is talking about, not even Rush Limbaugh.  You won’t hear this from any proponent Dem either…  a quick search of philanthropic health care fund-raising will yield an annual rough number of $8 Billion, give or take a few 100 Million.  Why is this the final straw, the last suture in the bleeding Health Care reform sales plan?  Primarily because most people have had some contact with such an organization or know someone who has and the fact that its been completely overlooked by the people who should know. 

The well meaning hospitals, foundations and individuals one both sides of this medicine will simply shift funding to the path of least resistance.  There are really three people involved in this equation, the sucker tax payer, guess who that is, the government and the philanthropic medicine community.  As in any shell game, the slide of hand and that which goes unnoticed is what fools you. 

First, the Philanthropic Medical Community:  The introduction of new and major funding for Nationalized Health-care will draw these institutions  to the money, if not forced there against their will, formerly having to rely on donations and fund-raisingto do their work for their patients and research.  What would you do, chase around private dollars, grinding out your fundraising or go to the public well and drink the cool-aid?  Pretending they have a choice of course.

Second, the government:  While some National reform sounds good and might have at its roots coverage for the uninsured, the planning and complexity of any plan have escaped those doing the sales.  You can’t sell something you don’t understand, at least enough to convince the buyer, and in this case we know more than the salesman and already own a better product.  Why hasn’t anyone talked about this 8 Billion dollars of gifted medicine and how the government will shoulder this burden?  One of many casually overlook details in their rush toward hope. 

Thirdly, the sucker:  Whoever might be the ones funding such gift medicine, they are likely paying taxes as well, doubtful there will be any even shift of tax dollar deductions and rise in receipts during such a reversal of funding for this sector of the health-care community, this leaves one simple conclusion; all private funding for such medicine dries up overnight!  “Someone else will take care of it,” as the adage goes… that someone is you!  Thus we find the death of philanthropic medicine and the unintended, or course, negative consequences of government action.  What else is new? 

Thanks to all our media for covering this obvious story.

 

Love,

D.A. Capaldi

My Tattoos

Know pain, know gain, I think it goes.

The bright colors and spectrum fade.

Unspoken, private they’ll stay, unseen by all.

Rumors of tales, a story untold, vivid and loud.

Endless stabs, the blue blood pours, no scars form.

Each one separate, perched in its place. 

This year, last year and next a new one comes. 

No inch is sacred, history fills every pore.

I’d show them to you, strip the hide,

For it’s inside my skin, the underside you see,

My littered, scared and painted wounds bleed.

Who Said That?

There’s no personal gain, only risk, in true leadership.

Life begats Ego, and Ego begats Life, together they begat Afterlife.

Give a choice between life and death, niether suits me. 

One of six billion… get over yourself!

Fear… the American Dream.

The only thing I believe for sure is that new perspectives will change what I believe for sure.

Procreation as a form of Ego stroke is highly overrated.

Teach a man to teach others to fish and go take a nap before dinner.

Government is one or more do-gooders behaving badly, contrary to their governance of your behavior. 

Amendment 1.5:  Government shall live by all laws that the governed are subjected to. 

When enough guns arrive, the shooting stops.

Freedom can only be achieved by taking it from those that have taken it… repeat. 

Eternal Life:  The Ego’s last stand, the epitomy of Man’s arrogance.

Better to live and learn than learn then live. 

Would you do as you do and live as you live and think as you think if there were no afterlife? 

Silly Rabbit, Trix are for Kids.

A CRUEL PRANK

Photo By D.A. Capaldi

If you thought the cold summer was bad how about a Labor Day deep freeze or Halloween in snow drifts, a Thanksgiving that feels like February? A little late for the harvest I’d say. Yes folks, Summer is officially over as of today, at least on this chilly rock we call the U.P..

A hearty tree in the back yard beckoned my eyes today, like a train wreck or an accident, deep maroon and red splashed on the barely opened leaves. My heart sank, or fell… fall! Really? On the third week in August? As much as I like irony and good humor, Nature’s current prank isn’t all that funny, unless you live south of Detroit or Chicago and are laughing at our plight, laugh while you can, your time is coming.

While your mind may paint colorful pictures and landscapes about the beauty of fall, let it drift a bit to the tragedy of it all, blueberries petitioned for a name change to purple, the geese haven’t made it to the 18^th green, baby loons are lining up at K.I. International, a short list of weekend chores that included sharpening blades and changing oil no longer applies to the lawn mower but rather the snow-blower and ice skates. Some say a groundhog was found hung in Marquette County, an apparent suicide!

It’s not all bad, there’s plenty of time shop for snow mobiles, get the ice fishing gear ready and I hear real estate is still affordable in Florida! New trends may spark from this early winter challenge, Halloween costumes will certainly change slightly, Frosty the Snowman and Jack Frost will be the new standard! Maybe those little powder puffs can shovel on their approach to the door, doubtful. Skipping rocks on the ice has been entered as an Olympic event. I’ve heard it said new community efforts are afoot regarding cooler ice discharge, masses of thoughtful outdoorsy types have banned together for a Statewide ordinance against dumping cooler ice into any natural body of water.

Finish stacking your wood, pick out your pine early for Christmas and get ready for the big blow! The winds will shift to the north, Superior will rear her ugly head and we will all wear white after labor day. Join me if you will and welcome these scared little leaves, choked off from the light, seeking the certain end as life prepares to endure, we shall all endure! Spring is only eight months away!

Photo by D.A. Capaldi

MIRROR

Look too long and you’ll fall perilously in love with yourself, break one and you’ll be walking off seven years bad luck, break one while walking under a ladder in front of a black cat, well, we don’t want to go there. You might call it Miroir in Paris, Specchio in Rome, Espejo in Madrid or South America, Lustro in Poland, Jing in China or Oglinda on the Romanian mountain side, regardless of how you spell it, speak it or look into one, mirrors have a long reflective history with civilization and a shimmering history with science.

Of the many types of mirrors and the various applications they serve, to our knowledge a type doesn’t exist that will return youth, replace hair loss or shed those extra ten pounds from last holiday season. There are applications that let us look deep into space, like the 10.4 meter Gran Telescopio Canarias atop a dormant volcano in Spain, the largest telescope mirror in the world or the Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flat at 10,582 km² located in the Potosi and Oruro region of southwest Bolivia. When covered with a thin layer of water those 4,000 square miles make an awful big mirror, used by satellites to gage and test instrumentation.

Mirrors and the word mirror peer far into our human experience, as in, Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytical research of “The Mirror Stage,” “Le Stade du Miroir,” the stage at which a child recognizes themselves in a mirror, or Star Trek’s mirror universe concept, Euclidean Plane Isometry, a study of image manipulation by mirrors, The Hubble Telescope, or mirror neurons in the inferior frontal lobe of humans responsible for language development. Mirrors play a huge role in our everyday lives, not to mention simple political smoke and mirrors!

From forgotten writing methods like Boustrophedon, a morphing of Arabic style and English style, where the writer would scribe from left to right one line and then begin the next line and write from right to left, a very efficient method of writing from the sounds of it, to cutting ones own hair, to a Kaleidoscope, reflections, the beauty and perspective they bring sure do add some color to life.

Wherever and however they’re found, a polished specularly reflective glass substrate cover on one side with silver and tin, activated by a chemical component, covered by copper and painted for protection will produce quite an image. What that image represents is entirely up to you!

ON THE WALL

Walls, walls, too many surround,

Four by four inside and out and out.

The bricks and muddy lot don’t help,

Those fucking birds… dream.

Shave and brush, mess hall thugs,

Those fuckers, I don’t belong.

Sunny days are better, rain dampens,

The clear black puddles I avoid,

Mirrors them all, lie to me.

Inconvenient Truths :)

Startled, Joy pricked her pinky on a thorn as she cut a lovely rose for her kitchen bouquet.

The band and floats, in all their fanfare, scurried for shelter from the pounding rain.

A young woman appeared through the hospital curtain, “Dad,” she spoke as the informed family gasped at her presence on this day.

“When exactly did you grow to love that?” Richard questioned his bride on their wedding night.

“What’s this?” she asked, holding a credit card bill on February 13^th.

The quiet screamed loudly across his glowing white face as he witnessed the birth of his first child. The infant casting dark contrast on his wife’s pale chest.

A man whose great promise and joy which had now faded dimly toward apathy and sorrow stood before me, weepy and rough.  Just once more, and for today I reached forward to open the partially steamed medicine cabinet.

The Great Pyramid, Uncovered!

I’ve joined with an award winning Director and Producer to put together a Documentary of all things.  It’s turning out to be a wonderful project thus far.  I’ll bet you’ll never guess the topic!  For the past five weeks I’ve explored and researched a new concept for the Great Pyramids at Giza, planning, design, labor, engineering and construction.

As it appears,  practical explanations, functions and purpose are given for a host of never before attributed features of all three pyramids.

The Grand Gallery

The “Slots and Face Plate Stones” in the Grand Gallery

The Groove in the 3rd Corbeling

The Causeways

The Air Vents

The Upper Chambers of the King’s Chamber

The Erosion of the Sphinx

The Order of Construction

Quarrying and Stone Mobility

The Well Shaft

The Subterranean Chamber and its Well

Leveling during construction

The “Face Angles” on G1 and G2

The Megaliths in the Valley Temple of G2

The “hook” tool found in the Air Vent

The Dolerite Ball found in the Air Vent

The “burn marks” around the Air Vent openings

The shared Altitude of G1 and G2

Stay tuned or email/comment for further details.  The final form of THE SHAFT THEORY is not quite ready yet.

Thank you.

Mount Giza, The Great Pyramid and The Shaft Theory

www.mountgiza.com

How is it that for thousands and thousands of years every person that has, has looked upon the Giza Plateau or pictures and video of the Giza Plateau with its three majestic Pyramids and not conceived of an original mountain of limestone as the starting point for the greatest man-made structure ever and the longest running mystery of our time? Is it simply impossible for our brain to work that way? It appears we just cannot, as a normal course of thought, perceive that which is not there, especially on such a grand scale! Perhaps now we can start.

As we embark upon a new day, a resounding toast is due to those brilliant planners and builders of the Great Pyramids. Their vision, their art and labor accomplished more than they could have ever hoped. Free your mind and open your eyes, fortunately or not, our work has just begun!

Many wonderful things come about from a creative approach to life and pure thinking, free and wonderful thinking. Life itself is a creative endeavor, thinking, speaking, reading, writing, dancing, singing, art, labor and the imagination all conspire to create that which did not exist until a spark of creativity exploded in our God-given creative minds to manifest something wholly new. It was this very universal creative conscience where the concept for Mount Giza and The Shaft Theory originated. I am merely the messenger and custodian of this universal reality and I thank you for accepting me and the concept so warmly.

In different times throughout Man’s history such new ideas have brought drastically different outcomes for the ideas and its originator. What is likely true will prove to be true and once conceived, an idea with merit and evidence cannot be disregarded. Our mind in conjunction with our senses process tons of seemingly disparate information in an unbelievable and amazing way, making sense of the senseless, connecting the disjointed and finding rhythm in the chaos, safely, surely and patiently moving toward solutions on a grand or micro scale that bring greater peace, understanding and calm to the universe.

The following is an excerpt from a blog piece I wrote less than a year before the origination of The Shaft Theory:

… Just what in the hell are these things? Not the snoring, spittle running over your cheek kind, but these life dreams, fantastic, motivational, possessive and consuming kinds, the ones that drive us or kill us yet certainly inspire those of us daring enough to think, to ponder, to dream the dream.

Do we not all have the capacity for dreaming? Have we not gone to the Moon for Christ’s sake? Is our collective creative energy so mired in this pit that we don’t know how to dream? I do feel very free and inspired, inspired by thought, chasing the possible and the seeming impossible. I can think and dream in one afternoon an idea that will take a lifetime’s worth of work and effort to realize! Real dreams, dreams of giving and creation, of art and ideas and expression. A spirit energy in all of us that must come out and be realized. Which dreams are worthy of my energy? Will I sacrifice them for simple comfort or risk that illusion for the great reality to come of my dream’s pursuit? I do say, a man with nothing to lose is a very dangerous and free man, a man to do, a man to think, a man that will be all that he is and created to be, a man unchained by these lies, truly a man born to dream the biggest dreams!

… Therefore, I resign to you upon my clear and sane mind that I’ll take my Santa, thank you! You can have your coffin boards and your long odds pipe dreams, my visions are my reality and I shall not let me change even one of them in the slightest fashion.

12/6/08

There are consequences to understanding and the bliss of ignorance, once unveiled may be slightly discomforting to many, not unlike our youthful discovery of our own mortality, or our contemplation of the universe and our insignificance to its continuation. Aside from the answers that Mount Giza and The Shaft Theory provide for the How, many more questions arise from such revelations, namely the Who, When and What regarding the Great Pyramids of Giza. It’s a pretty safe bet that knowing only Where the Pyramids exist doesn’t challenge our various life’s prejudices to greatly and therefore we’re comfortable with the riddle’s propagation until some unknown writer stumbles upon the How of it all! Now we’re forced to confront many another deep question and adjust to those new answers.

So, welcome to a new era where we are most certainly not the end all and be all of intelligent beings having lived on this planet. What do we do from here? Likely the same as the Pyramid builders did, find unification in our humanity by some communal project, grow in our spiritual understanding and peace, convey what we’ve learned to whomever comes next and find comfort in the causality and universal nature of things, thought, art and science, for that will indeed be a glorious and divine day whether we’re here to live it or not. Much as this day has been for me, sharing in the glory of those that left the Pyramids as their gift and legacy.

Gratefully Yours

Stay Tuned here and at www.mountgiza.com and www.twitter.com/mountgiza, the full theory, documentary footage and drawings are on the way, ready or not!

ANKH

Throughout my early study and research of The Shaft Theory and how the hydraulics of the Grand Gallery work, the piston which is the engine of the entire complex would have been moved up and down the Grand Gallery via a rope system through the “air” rope vents.  Attaching the ropes to the wooden piston would have been a metal or stone fastener with similar shape to the Ankh.  In early Man’s history along the Nile and in respect to their first exposure to the Great Pyramids at Giza, it would seem likely that this fixture or fastener would have been left behind somewhere in or around the Great Pyramid.

It would be a simple conclusion that the original “Ankh” artifacts found at Giza would likely have been removed and may still be in existence today!  Just who might possess these fasteners?

The meaning “life” or “eternal life” given to this artifact would be a simple conclusion to early Man’s interpretation of what the pyramids where and stood for, more on that later! Along with anything else left in the Chambers of G1, G2 and G3, this would be one very solid and tangible item that early Man would have discovered.

When attached to the wooden piston, with a simple hole put in the bottom of the “cross” a pin would then secure the fastener to the piston and the rope would be tied through the loop end.  This fastener truly is “life” and the single connection that allowed the building of the Great Pyramids of Giza.  Thus, the origin of the oldest spiritual symbol know to Man.

Trickster…

Koko has something to say… much, much more to follow.

One Revolution, One Resolution

What can happen in a day and just how is it to live in a day?  As this one and the one just past flitter away in a long line of spherical revolutions, I’m struck by the notion that these clocks and calendars and this time or that would be relegated to insignificance if the importance I place on them would lesson just a bit.  In short, do away with clocks and calendars and time altogether, it just isn’t that important!

I say all this as this day turns and vacates, leaving a new first of the year, January 1, 2010.  A new day, a new time, a new year marching onto a new era a new age and new beginnings.  Isn’t each breath a new beginning?  What’s with this spacial worship of the largest seven objects in the ancient sky giving birth to these seven days of the week, yes the revolution of the earth marks the minutes and the hours and the days, and this solstice and that and our running round the sun marks the years, but really, who gives a fuck?  Isn’t time just another slave owner driving our worth or the value on a day, week or year? 

Time can’t be all that important really, in many locales we manipulate the clocks twice a year for our own purpose, we set our clocks ahead to manipulate our schedules, we rise before our body is ready to rise, we tick and tock our way toward something we fear and are reminded of that passing with every little click of the clack on the clock.  Is this ridiculous or what?

I ask you, what time is lunch?  Have you an important time to pick up your children, a work meeting, dinner?  What happens if you’re late?  Being on time is considered a virtue, more of a curse actually!  Do you know the minute you shall fall asleep?  Then to what consequence is it that your waking moment should be determined?  This importance of time is much greater than I even suspected. 

As you probably know, any large project might take days weeks or years to accomplish, education is marked by hours and degrees and much of our culture is keeping watch on this passing or that.  I offer to you the simple notion that we know not how many years, days, minutes or seconds that we shall live or breath and as such this idea that some running clock should mark our every second is a constant reminder and the constriction of time is an enslaving constriction at best.  Tackle something that has no beginning and no end in sight, some monumental task that knows no time or space and might likely not be finished before you are and the significance of living and this day leaps beyond time and its impact or its keeping.  In a simple sense, living one day to its fullest, engaged in the largest project of all, living and learning, time can be of no relevance at all. 

My 2010, or better yet, my resolution for this day, or better yet this moment is to disregard time and time keeping, days and weeks and years, living in each breath, savoring this Heaven of ours.  Marking this passing year of 2009 and the coming day will likely follow just as it has for change and new paradigm shifts do not happen overnight or easily.  Of the many things that are eternal, this moment is the most important and shall be an eternity in itself and any clock that seeks to constrict this moment or any free thought should be cast into the past or the future but will not trample on this breath!

INJUSTICE FOR ALL

Wow, they weren’t kidding!  What is Just exactly?  Is it the ever so deeply held ideal that all men, check that, “All White Men are Created Equally?”  Our Nation’s history is no secret and I for one do not want to relive the past, but the mindset of our founders is a revealing and interesting study and as such what they didn’t say is likely just as important as what they did say, all this spinning the fabric of where we are today.  Strictly from a philosophical basis let me pose some observations and perhaps a new question or two.  Thanks as always for reading.

I have several “Religious” family members and many more friends and this topic of Male superiority never seems to come up over a Sunday bar-b-que or at the coffee table in the morning around the children.  It falls into the “unsaid” category of written or not written laws of the original sexual ”Hierarchy” of those text and those beliefs of those religions.

As is the founding of this Nation, truly almost a perfect nation, its text and the text of Religions seem to be written by more men than women, check that, THEY WERE ALL MEN, and all WHITE in our Nation’s founding!  Is there one book of any Religion’s text that contains a woman’s writing other than Ruth?  Sure the Mother Mary is given her due by those writers, but her childbirth was without the torture of having sex with those men, her comments are unavailable!  Was there one woman penning a peep in our National text, at our founding, or declarations of Independence, or the formation of any State?  I say all this only to set the stage that our Nation and Humanity is constantly in flux and it’s high time some of this unbelievable injustice stop. 

This and many other “hidden” laws for injustice slither away with the sight of daylight.  See if you can find a rat in this works, men write text claiming their own superiority in the birth of all Religions and then men write the text at the forming of nations and then our World enters two or three or six thousand years of wars and struggle and social systems that shelter the powerful and the wealthy and the very same men that wrote all the text.  I don’t know about you, but their penMANship isn’t even all that good. 

Much progress has been made with respect to inclusion by all people in our society, government and in our respective homes.  Men and Woman are certainly different in their processes and the execution of those ideas, but there’s another rat in the mix once we start to unravel this tangled mess. 

It really is a diversion and slide of hand by those in power and with wealth, we’re given a set of rights and told our pillars are freedom and Democracy, then with the other hand we set up the system so only the wealthy have access and influence and the whole thing spins out of control, all the while we’re fed lines of complete propeganda by our elected officials who benefit widely from their service.  The original battle of the sexes and slavery and our Nation’s other ills aren’t the only ills, we have a constitutional crisis on our hands that will get corrected as soon as someone takes the lead.  Our system is broken and it has always been broken, all the world’s governments are broken, in this new age with new technology, it’s about time we fixed it. 

All third party systems in this Nation have always failed, but there are pillars for a third party that will succeed and redirect this Nation back to the people.  It’s pretty simple and it will work if tried.  Consider this:  A simple new system of True Democracy where all legislation, Federal and State, be written in simple everyday language and every ballot initiative be voted on straight up or down by the people, one person-one vote, majority rules!  With today’s technology, every legal person of age is given a PDA (Cell Phone, with Internet) to read and vote on each and every bill passed, local, state and federal.  This could happen on Thursdays in the morning, Tuesday at high noon, it doesn’t matter.  A simple and True Democracy were all the people are engaged and the laws that govern us are understood by us and voted on by us.  The representative Democracy that we have is broken and must be relegated to the trash heap along with Dictatorships and Institutional Social and Economic Communism.  There is only one true form of governance, self-governance and True Democracy.  Not the system we have now! 

Achieving this monumental change will likely begin with term limits, this is the one crucial aspect that no representative that currently benefits from their service is ever likely to vote on and pass.  With this new 3rd party, we have now two pillars, one-a change to true democracy and simple legislative language, two-all remaining representatives or servants have term limits.

The third aspect is a trigger to ensure that only true leadership will rise in government, no pay above standard living expenses and zero chance for personal gain.  As long as personal gain is involved with service, we will have tainted service and servants.  All lobbying would be illegal.  The merit of any legislation will need to stand on its own and with simple explanation of its content, pro and con.  The people then decide the fate of each piece of legislation void of outside influence, True Democracy, Term Limits, No Personal Gain, No Lobbying.  That ought to just about fix it! 

We clearly see the damage and the abuse of our current and past leadership in government at all levels.  Humans are flawed and constricting their power and influence is crucial in service and elected office.  Our system is irreparably broke!  We need to take the best of what we have Judicially, Constitutionally, Legislatively, Executively and Militarily and scrap what isn’t working.  Life long “appointments” to office need to be halted today!  Lobbying only temps legislators and has no grounds for saving.  These three pillars would certainly bring new light to our foggy scene and truly bring those of us in the population that want to serve to the front of the line.  Our society and our governance would only benefit.

These changes I propose are rooted in Trust for the American people and the American spirit of freedom, justice and the pursuit of happiness.  Any detractors to this proposal have at their cause self-serving motives for power and wealth and a spirit of distrust of those that voted them into office.  Let’s correct our course, as we’ve been correcting it since our founders fought for our freedom.  All people, all sexes, all classes and all races are created equal.  Now let’s start governing like it!

I propose the inception of the WE PARTY based upon these pillars and this platform.  More to follow!

Will Congress Charge Mark McGwire With Federal Crime?

There are only two things to be decided after Mark McGwire’s steroid confessional on Monday.  First, will Federal charges be brought against him and secondly, will MLB’s best fans in the country, Cardinal Nation, silence any and all critics by look down their pius brow at those who will vocalize or condemn Mr. McGwire for his blatant wrongdoing.  “It’s always the coverup!”  I think the saying goes.

The second part first, I’ve lived in St. Louis for the last 18 years and know Cardinal fans well.  So well in fact, that I was amazed every time Izzy started to blow a save, the do-gooder fans sat silently and peered down on me as I tried to boo the bum off the mound.  There wasn’t a worse closer under pressure in the mid-2000 decade than Izzy.  Basically, you’re not allowed to criticize any player in Saint Louis, or bare the wrath of the fans!  They shun such fan vocalization as being not sportsmanlike, or unkind, or disrespectful, so worried are they of holding their prim and proper status “we’re the best baseball fans in the country” and feel they have to act a certain way at the ballpark.  It’s pervasive throughout the city, not just in baseball!

It’s a ridiculous thing and will likely extend to you if you object to Mr. McGwire’s public appearance while assuming the hitting coach role in the Loo.  Come on spring training!  This will be interesting if he can manage to stay out of jail long enough to face the public gallows!  To use the word of the Order, shame on the Cardinals Managment and Tony Larusa for flying this in front of the American people.  Couldn’t he just stay retired and spare us the slap in the face? 

Secondly and more seriously, if there are no penalties to which one might have to pay for lying to Congress, time to pull the transcripts, regardless of how significant the questioned behavior, there will be continued and pervasive lying to Congress in the future!  They must act and make an example of Mr. McGwire.  If they do not, it’s more a reflection on their own morality and harmful behavior and our human nature to avoid hypocrisy than Mark’s innocence, we should all be so luck when we lie to Congress and the American people! 

There is one clear statement for the American people and all the children who’ve had to listen to this for the last several years, real consequences!  All discussion about the illegal drug use, the home runs, the records, when, why, who and the like are irrelevant and will continue to divert the public and the media from the real issue.  Federal charges ought to be filed Tuesday in a perjury case against Mark McGwire, throw Bonds and the rest of them in there too.  Strip their records and wipe the slate clean!  It’s time to start over! 

I say, good for you Mr. McGwire, honesty is the best policy, now buck up and take your punishment or Congress will contribute one more stone to the ever increasing number thrown from its glass house. 

Share your thoughts on the topic, but please stick to the Congressional issue or the pompous STL fans if you don’t mind.  The other facts are ancient history!  Go Cards!!

D.A. Capaldi

Giza Pyramids, Ancient Secrets, Truths, Lies and Myths

How would you feel and just what would you do if you thought you held the answer to the oldest riddle in Modern Man’s history, a definite, likely, plausible and defensible solution to the planning and building of the Great Pyramids of Giza?

All joking aside, I’m wonder what you would think and how you would feel.  Please share your thoughts with me.  I’m feeling a bit like Frodo with the ring and my Sam is nowhere to be found, hoping the next stop isn’t Golumesque.

Would you…

Write a non-fiction piece?

Partner with a University?

Make a Documentary DVD?

Write a fictional piece?

Write poem upon poem with no direction?

Take a nap?

Skip meals?

Dream of the possibilities?

Become obsessed?

Ignore the idea?

Examine every motive you’ve ever had?

Shout loudly toward anyone who will listen and enter the “mania”?

Sleep on it and start a new day?

What on earth would someone do with such an idea?  An idea that will unearth and shed new perspective on every aspect of Modern Man?  And I mean every aspect, Spiritual, Societal, Governmental, Economical and Historical!  There is not an unaffected segment of Humanity down this rabbit hole!

Thanks,

D.A.

www.mountgiza.com

Twitter in the Hospital

I’m sure it’s quite apparent to those of you familiar with Twitter, but a few months ago I stumbled upon one very important use for this service!  My Mom’s four week hospital stay was the perfect place for Twitter updates.  All the concerned family got every update from the simple entries I posted, changes in test results, dietary concerns and all the important little progress updates as we waited patiently and clung to every bit of good news.

So, if you find yourself in a situation where a family member is hospitalized and you want to save yourself four thousand phone calls and alleviate some of the stress and time concerns, go to Twitter and update everyone at one time with your posts.  Thanks Twitter!  What I thought was a completely useless tool to follow useless people and their useless lives and useless activities turned out to be very useful indeed.

Dad

Dear Dad,

I know you don’t feel much pain and the kemo gave you five more months of life, your music and interests and your Lightening Ford truck comforted you in your last days.  It was good to see you and spend time with you.

Your mind was a gift to the world and your children, your life a witness to many.  The scars you shared I understood fully and they would have also.

Breathe easy, your work here is done, go now in silence and forgiveness, understanding and serenity.  You will be missed by me.  I love you Dad.

D.A.

Mom

Dear Mom,

The thought of you struggling one more day zaps the breath out of me.  You can go any time you’re ready.  No more struggle, no more pain.  The medical torture is just about over.

Thank you for this beautiful life and all you had to give.  May the Great Spirit guide your soul.  I love you Mom.

D.A.

23-Hour Day…

O’ Come ye’ Spring this day, twenty-three hours we pray.  With the distance and the journey well under way I hustle o’er the tracks and the miles away, O’ Come ye’ spring my way.

The clamor and the clank and the wanting of time take heed my need and bring relief to stay, but only this day.  One less chore, one less click and clock, one less hour to endure.

Lest this blink be your last in these hours just past, o’ my beloved Mother lay still.  Your blood lunging in pain, your screaming fright deftly mute, shattered eyes bearing life’s dispute.

Fearful and frozen I stand with life and spring’s gifts so grand, how do I tell you I must pack up and go, leave you here nude in the muddied cold snow.  I must but I can’t, I won’t tell you just now.

There is a task, a toll I must pay.  O’ in the twenty-fourth hour this day.  I’m leaving Mom, I must go, can’t stay, for my Father’s funeral respect I must pay.

lost and found

What is it about death that so frightens us?  And why do people react to death is such a way as to shake their very foundation of life?  Could it be that the foundation is faulty and that it needs shaking, or better yet a sledge hammer, wheelbarrow, full excavation and a completely new slab from which to live and think?

I suppose with most everyone, dealing with or considering one’s mortality never becomes a hobby, but should we live and breathe and deny this most natural occurence for most of our living moments?  Better yet, postpone and lessen our internal conflict with the Ego’s end and concoct a morphed reality with some investment into an eternal life myth?  I’m not sure any of this comes close to a working solution in the now and for the living as far as I’m concerned.

Certainly there is a God… ask anyone who’s met their match and they’ll serve as a complete example of an all loving force that works and lives in the now, but this much is where the conflict arises.  As I’ve experienced it, all fear is void and necessarily preceding of acceptance, I will flail away at life until I can flail no more then I will accept that which is disagreeable to me and find peace and harmony with it.  Death, in terms of the Human Ego is certainly disagreeable.

The thoughts on the Human Condition are many, the study has been consuming for each of us that looks honestly at ourselves.  My recent involvement with my Father’s death and my Mother’s Stroke and resulting Coma forced a great test of my beliefs and the peace that I’ve possessed for over twenty years regarding the subject.

In various examples I’ve observed and been told of family and visitors to the dying that they will say, to the dying, that which inevitably comforts them and their beliefs and not necessarily what might be comforting to the dying person.  These are amazing observations that almost any dying person can relate if you ask them.  The reality of the living person is far different from the reality of the one dying and there seems to be little connection made, thus furthering the isolation of the one that is ill.

Three days before my Father died I visited him in his Hospice room.  The drugs and his cancer didn’t leave much room for cognitive understanding, yet during his five months of cancer treatment he spoke about the time spent and his frustration with consoling those that visited him over his coming death.  Why is so much time spent consoling the living?  I do say as visitors or loved ones or onlookers we should get our act together!  Why is someone’s illness or pending death a threat to our existence and our fragile self view?

The day after this visit I was in my Mother’s Neurological ICU room and she had zero function on her own other than her heart and her damaged brain, nothing else worked.  A day later there was improvement and some dilation of her eyes, the next day was better still, and so on.  Three days into this and on the day I was notified of my Father’s death, my Mother looked into my eyes for some connection.

The ventilator tubes kept her from speaking, she could only slightly grip her right hand, yet her eyes plugged into mine with the deepest maternal bond.  “Mom, it’s Dave… can you hear me?”

The slightest movement of her neck muscles stirred as she locked on my words.

“It’s O.K. Ma… “

Maybe there will be a time where you can say what others won’t or don’t or can’t.  This was one such occasion, there have been several and will likely be more.

“Ma, are you with me?”  She nodded again, “You’ve had a series of strokes.  Here’s where we are… Ma… do you hear me?”  Her full attention was focused on every word.

“There are two ways this can go… either one is good with us.”  I spoke for my brother’s and sister.

“No more fear Ma, you’re O.K.?”  She nodded.

“You’re either going to pass on and it’ll be O.K., are you peaceful with that?”  She nodded,  “you’ve taught us well.”

“Or, if you stick around your brain might not work right and your body might not listen to your brain.”

“Ma… do you hear me?”  She was listening faster than I can talk.

“Two ways Ma.  You can go if you’re done fighting, no more fear, relax… “  I brushed her forehead and her hair.

“If you stay… Mom… if you stay… you may not like it… Mom… if you stay, you’re going to teach us something about living!  No matter what state you’re in, you’re going to show all of us something about life.”  She squeezed my hand softly.

“Either one works, right?”  Her deep brown eyes and the furthest reaches of her soul knew already what I was affirming with my words.  She was fully comfortable with any result and had come to accept either with complete peace.  This was the most wonderful experience of my adult life!  She was not afraid of anything!

What was it again that I have to do today?

Rock City

While the rusty ore town slept, splashing dots of red and orange rode the northern brush, smearing, blotting and streaking Summer’s greenest green. Boulders rocks then pebbles screamed into smaller form as the low rumbling of birthing sand scored the folding wave drama above.  The darkness tucked beneath the tilting sun and the blinking red lighthouse top. Each panicked wave and desperate breath gulped the shifty rays.

Home

Into the dirt a hole must go,

air not worthy enough to fill.

To this Man’s rock is poured,

square edges, cold and cruel.

A fitting top will rest,

once complete nothing escapes.

A fitting wood is chosen,

only the best will do.

Some metal, polished and pure,

soft linens, pillows and more.

safe and secure, keyed or not,

Man’s final craft lives.

Turn off the lights, close the door,

Welcome home, a coffin for sure.

Shoelace Instructions

Who has all the old baseballs?

They don’t just disappear, do they?

Somebody has to know… a collection?

How many old shoes must there be?

Would they find each other in a landfill?

A research project must begin!  Answers!

How do you know how to do something

for the first time you ever do it?

“You oughta know better,” how well does that work?

Should we remember being potty trained?

Why domesticate animals at all?

Are we that lonely and isolated from each other?

How will the next civilization learn after we’re gone?

Why don’t shoelaces come with instructions?

Irony

Her cause of death was suicide, her funeral was fitting, her headstone listed those that loved her for their benefit.

All at once everything anyone ever said to Charles suddenly made a world of sense.

His little brother knelt to retrieve the hearty and promising acorn lunged into the dust on Pat’s bronze grave marker.

Billy stood on the train platform, lured into verbal intercourse with an older man. Corralling him back to his classmates, Janet tipped her hat, Father…

Lifting his sharp and frozen axe high above his head, Russ plunged its edge into the frozen lake, sending him and his axe stiffly below.

On his wedding night Lowell’s newest step-son and brother-in-law from his first two marriages swung wildly at him as the two men stammered about the dark and rain soaked lawn.

Big Ass Toe

My first memories demand the next,

Sex and violence your gift to the world.

Freedom at fear’s alter your lasting truth.

Lessons in fight then flight, rusty blood taste.

Unbelted pants from this day forth!

Bliss in the darkness, peeing the bed.

Mad skills and mad mind, mad all the time.

The whole is the whole, parts only seen,

your waking fright tells it all.

Your pain untold spoke volumes aloud,

masked and driven beneath your shroud.

I get it, I know, heard it a thousand times,

the sickest of sick piling tales of woe.

Thanks Dad, I love you and forgave you

long ago, you, your pain and our big ass toe.

Really?

Why are things the way they are?

Was some order or creed handed down?

Shall I park in the same position daily?

Must I order food by some meal number?

Like a pacing rat my every move defined?

Stirring coffee, toasting toast, eating weeds?

Slaving to slave these slavish deeds?

Who says, who cares?  Who’s whom who decides?

Can I brush my teeth with the other hand?

Play different notes, form a band?

Walk slowly in the rain, deal with life’s pain?

Drive a strange way to work, eat lunch in a park?

What is there really to fear in the dark?

How many movies have I seen alone?

Licked long and heavy my ice cream cone?

Today is the day.  Let chaos rule!

Math’s design and numbers cruel!

No order shall be, no pattern of three,

shout out loud, set my voice free.

Recipe for Blackness

Assemble all collections of fear,

neatly organize alphabetically please.

Broil works best, three or four racks,

roughly 850° give or take should do.

In a large mixing bowl, beat vigorously

soft thigh tissue and young lower back.

Be sure to clean your implements,

blood or tears might contaminate.

Once the beating is complete, let stand

for hours or days, shivering nude and bruised.

Your masterpiece is almost complete!

Denial of light and water is your last task,

admire with pride, in Blackness you bask.

Valor

The many millions who fought well,

noble pursuits of honor and wealth.

Your pins and decorations and stars

shine blindly toward your virtue.

A bigger stick and purer purpose

none might claim, for the children

or freedom or money or oil.

Lined up and marching into your

waiting plot, little white stones mark

your final task, pride the dirt for fill.

Only the highest purpose sees peace

and understanding and unity galore.

Speak softly and put down your stick,

to violence and war belong the sick.

Diamonds are Forever

To Eric, Steve and Darren my heart bleeds,

the best of the best and most expensive.

Once cut they never tarnish or spoil,

rain nor dark will dull their luster.

Arranged neatly, north, south, east and west

a fitting metal contains their value safe.

No other gift could meet it’s worth

or lasting impression and love.

Twenty years and miles away, maybe soon

bat meets ball and we can play.

asdfjkl;

The old Selectric clicks and clacks,

a solid Q repeats on the white tape.

Future girl Fridays stare curiously

fingers flying under the white sheets.

Three years of typing?  Sewing, Home Ec,

no shop, no hunting, surrounded by Women?

Who takes three years of typing?  Bizzare!

The keys talk, jumping in tune, running

circles and painting scenes, notes them all.

Strong fingers, stronger mind, week will,

all the ingredients for artistic chaos.

What is my story, which to tell, who cares?

Vicarious danger for comfortable souls.

Come with me to the other side from

where you stay, grace and madness embrace.

Leave your blanket and your self image,

forget yourself and ride the stormy

wave of the bouncing keys, aloft on

the Selectric breeze, dreams freeze.

Phormeta

See the wax and honey but not the bee,

there a boulder sits with no glacier, free.

A bruise perhaps absent the ouch,

trees and bushes without any seeds.

The Sun and the Moon without History.

Oh what a magical sight, retinas please?

The rivers flow and magnets spin, oh’ in

blindness how did all this begin?

Black is White pay Heaven’s fee,

duty, condition, trust you me.

In absence, the squeek got oil,

water met seed, universal laws

pervade, all cause must precede.

Wash your eyes and clear the sleep,

Every rabbit hole goes very deep.

A.TT.I.SEE

The floors were done in fine wood.

The plasma hung squarely on the wall.

Full hide leather sofa and ottoman

rested on firm new shag, a creamy hue.

The shiny red Mustang tickled the drive

as the Lightning kept watch the scene.

Absent only 12 days of poison medicine

his heaving chest heaved one last time.

Everything and nothing was in order,

as in life so in death, neatly scattered,

a sort of lost and found box of clutter,

dreams smashed and pain endured.

Those last dreams, music and love,

amends and fear, faith and strong scripts.

There remained one last dream, a wish

to fulfill, the masterpiece of living life.

One more breath, one more tick and

it would have been realized fully.

Before the showing I climbed the stairs

to view his last and final work, step by

step turning left into the blue room.

A picture says a thousand words, this

work said plenty more, volumes more.

The attic room was host to an easel

and tubes of life, brushes and cans, thinner

and backyard light, soaking, bleeding and

glowing on the brilliant blank canvass.

Negaunee Boxing Club

A magnet has two sides intentionally,

so do fight clubs and training camps.

All was set, my teammates went into

battle, Mano e… boy against boy.

We trained together, sweat and blood,

side by side, friends and fighters alike.

The other squad sat across the gym,

puffing out their ten-year old chests

as far as they would go, nipple just removed.

All opponents should weigh the same,

they didn’t have one for me, disappointment.

Brent didn’t have one either, victim!

Two fighters, same club, same weight, unfair.

He fought for fun, for sport or competition.

Every fight, every breath, every day of my

life I’ve fought to stay alive, no contest.

Meet Me

Absent extra lids and two too thin,

how hard can you close your eyes?

A pool of tears damned well, shut up.

Tired brow and crow’s feet size six,

there’s got to be some blissful place?

Something happened, something strange,

a Zen place, warm and free, black and new,

somewhere out there or inside too.

Everything changed, removed, disconnected,

gone, peaceful, calm and smoothly nice.

This place of mine, a portal of sorts took me

fast when I needed it, when I wanted it bad.

As an out of body saving grace my mind slept,

my heart soothed and the loving joy kept me.

I floated there, lead into infinite black space,

the deepest sleep my only aim, forgetting the pain.

The Great Void

It has been said that life is all things done and not done, a man is what he is and what he’s not, spoken and unspoken, the whole is the whole and not secular at all, day and night kiss as falling, lift and flight.  Together north and south perch opposing each side of the same. Much effort and expense is put toward what is and little is put to what is not, save recent dark matter.  This insistence has kept us blind, scientific to one side and not the other, blinded toward known evidence and not the lack of evidence, proof in itself.

As there is little left to find that exists, the was or the naught remains hidden deep inside the tree of space and time.  New solutions envisioned, credit the unseen, the nonentity and the dream state of discovery only through the creative un and conscious mind, unchained, free and wandering. Giza has fallen, Stonehenge too, many a root, text held true, Atlantis and Cayce, secrets remain few, the matters beg what is not rather than what is.  Do as you do, be as you be, silly flesh grass and trees.  Stay tuned, believe you me, a story has arrived changing all that is by the hand of all that was and is no longer.

Primary Colors

If and when public meets private

great peace might be had at last.

See this, think that, look here not there,

image slaves the lot, no truth to tell.

I’m not buying, not one word, for I know

your nature and mine, wholly two of a kind.

The giver and the thief, lawful in turns.

The peaceful and angry, calmly raging through life.

Of love and lust, seedy plantings take root.

Two hands, two eyes, two ears, by two life

is life and I am real, feel me see me hear me.

Of power and service, humble ego driver.

Lazy and fitful, rushing to stop over and over.

Breathing and dying, maybe the oxygen kills?

See one and not the other, please, pretty please?

Tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine, two of a kind.

What’s real proves to be real, look carefully and see.

A favor?  Chew your own cud for I’m busy with my new flavor!

Adventures of Spike III

As the mini truck and the hounds of hell pulled from the front of my house I dared hope for my bed’s comfort and the big sleep.  As had been the ritual, I needed to knock on my Mother’s door at the end of my more frequent party nights.  In the worst of drunken condition, I didn’t mind stumbling up the split-level stairs and leaning my wobbly head against the door jamb and knocking softly until I heard her voice recognize my presence.  “Mom… Mom, I’m home,” was her tether to my soul and sure knowledge I hadn’t died in some teenage tragedy, but this was no ordinary drunken evening.

I approached the front door and fear stopped me, I couldn’t walk in the front door, I didn’t trust myself around any other people, I was dangerous even to my family.  I had my key out and stood there.  Perhaps I should go in through the door that led to my room?  That was the shortest path to my bed, the only heaven for my wandering and lost spirit.

The short pathway around the house led to the back yard and my door was across the yard.  My steps had awakened our dogs who began yelping loudly, freezing my approach.  Fucking dogs!  My fear worsened as I slinking inside my room I undressed and climbed into bed.  Still gripped, my mind jumped.  What had happened?  Was I safe even now?  I felt stripped of every notion of security and comfort, I was raw fear!  A fear that settled deeply as I stared at the ceiling and occasionally at the digits on my glowing red clock.

I vaguely sensed I had broken something at my core.  Those God damn drugs!  Never again!  Would I recover from this fear?  What reality is I knew not.  There had to be some solution, but what?

Time, two years at the outside was my discernment.  Perhaps if I gave it a couple years this all might wear off, maybe I would return to normal?  I still wasn’t asleep, lying there for the present eternity, fear looping every breath and ever beat, connecting to the true black.

The red digits clicked and waned into the late hour, one o’clock, laying on my left, then turning to my right, peeking and looking at the clock which now held my sanity.  How long will this take?  I welcomed the deepest of sleep, anything but this consciousness.  My focus reduced again to my breathing and my heartbeat, just as it had done lying face down in the gravel.  If this was the end I welcomed it.

I had long ago began a sleep ritual, left side, right then left again before falling asleep.  Tonight, upon my last turn from my right to my left, glancing one last time at the clock it read 1:51… .  A numeric value, digits, marker, measurement, a time and omen that would haunt me from that moment forward.

The world as it was greeted me the next morning although nothing of my mental state resembled the prior day.  New convictions rose to avoid hallucinogens, a patient and hopeful march toward some peace of mind began that day.  I desperately wanted to be done with this madness and I meant business!  I would surely welcome a quick or slow death over another night like the last.

Relieved in my narrow escape from the doomed cliff of mental illness I started to live as I did before, but something was different, I had taken something with me from that night, an instinctual fear now lay at the front of my consciousness and I became aware as never before of that certain value, the numeric representation, the coming omen, 1:51.

My fragile mental state seemed helped by alcohol, the anesthetic value suited my condition well.  If anything I didn’t need to be high, I needed to be knocked the fuck out, a lesson I was about to live, learn and come to love.  One that nearly ended my life and the truest blackness that must come before a rising light.

One afternoon at Ray’s house a few of us sparked up a bong and with my first inhalation, the bad trip fear returned with the rushing and real mental gymnastics and flashback of the valley night.  Damn!  Here we go again.  What the fuck!  This is not happening!  Regardless of my desire and efforts to overcome my mental condition, I was trapped once more!

Despite several more attempts in the following years to get high safely, I could not.  Never again could I recapture the elation without the fear and flashback.  Avoiding dope would solve only part of what now were permanent fixtures in my mind.  This took several more failures than an ordinary person might endure.

The second and more lasting mark of that evening was what I’ve come to learn as the numeric obsession to 151.  Upon reflection of that night in bed, I came to understand and live by two basic things, first, my most vulnerable state was while I was sleeping.  I must protect against this exposure and secondly, if there was, as surely there will be, a time I will die, I was convinced that it was at 1:51,  AM or PM was still unclear.

What would a sane person do?  I haven’t got a clue!  Here was my dilemma, twice a day, every day I was smitten-ed by my fear of death at 151.  The certainty of this time did not at all preclude me from having some accident at let’s say ten or eleven fifteen and my T.O.D. being 151, so, twice daily my hyper sensitivity and abject fear would start several hours before nine minutes of two as I attempted to avoid my own death, in whatever form it might come.  The tortures of this mental curse are multifaceted and pervasive, woven into every breath I took.

As the extremely paranoid will commonly recognize and identify, the manifestations of my fear were tragic and dangerous, for myself and others.  There was no safe place on this earth for me, no situation was without danger.  I was haunted by shadows and sunlight, boiling and sweating in the shade and shivering in the heat and light of day.  One day early in my sentence while playing basketball with my crew I alternated between the brightly lit court and the tree shadows, fighting and toiling ineffectively to find comfort.  Another night, well into my journey, I remember driving in the passenger seat while my brother drove, nearing my time, distrustful of his driving instincts I placed my hands on the wheel, ready to yank, for comfort that I might be able to help him avoid an unavoidable accident with oncoming traffic.  After all it was well past midnight and anything could happen!

In any situation, diagnosed, treated or even untreated, the hellish nature of mental illness to this extent, as if degrees of mental instability matter at all, were infinitely aggravated by the fact that not a soul knew of my condition.  I presently shudder under to weight of this reality and the isolation and pain I endured.  Please, I urge you to help and understand the mentally and emotionally ill.  They cannot help themselves.

I was now sixteen with a newly found numeric obsession and acute necrophobia smoothly spread on a foundation of extreme physical abuse, neurotic behavior, rigidly knotted emotions and raging violence mixed solidly with my chemical coping mechanisms that were failing me slowly but surely.  Not to be overlooked are my raging teenage hormones and general confusion at sixteen.  Again, let’s also not forget the wise foundations of life I was given, there could be no greater negligent words.

What ever else might be said of problem drinking and drug use and the associated problems, if you or anyone you know finds themselves in this condition, using is the only thing keeping them alive!  Abstinence can only appear as hell!  Using is not the problem, it’s the only workable solution!  Addressing ancillary conditions and results of drinking or drug induced behavior is and can only be a diversion from the real issues!

Alcohol took the mantle and center stage in my life and oh did it work wonders for my chaotic, sick brain and ravaging emotional twists.  I was to remain more or less intensely drunk for the next two years and the 151 obsession continued until my time in treatment.

Wristwatch on the Rear View Mirror, Staring Ahead

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To, too, two, your, you’re, its it’s, where and were, lay, lie, fuck and be fucked!  To Whom Whose Who?

That isn’t helping at all… fuck this story, fuck these people, why did I ever start this, this torture!

Be a Dentist, Carpenter Wanted… degrees shredding like shit paper running a-muck, landfill after landfill.

Can’t I just be like all those happy fuckers mowing their lawn?  Sitting numb, driven to fear and gadgets?

Text, digits, numbers, riddles running fancy in the cranial breeze destin for nowhere?  Save me from writing!

Or not writing, not sure… it will be brilliant!

Dog Fight at Busch Stadium!

In a world of ultra sensitive, PC, animal loving, self-righteous condemnation of anyone even so much as associating with dog fighting, what I saw during the Cardinals game on Saturday afternoon surely muddied the line and drew sharp contrast to what we consider entertainment and what is deemed criminal mistreatment and cruelty to animals.

The police dog engaged in a ravenous fight with some guy in a decoy safety suit solely for the amusement of blood thirsty fans left only a sliver margin in the separation of it and a circle of thugs tossing cash into a bloody pool betting on which abused dog will kill the other abused dog.  In both scenarios the dogs are bred to kill, maim or devour, trained for one and only one purpose, to neutralize their opponent.  The trouble is “ours”, sporting fans paying for a ticket or suburbanite couch potatoes passes as condoned family fun and “theirs” is a felony and punishable with imprisonment, public scorn and a host of consequences.

True, Saturday’s televised scene was absent another victimized dog and perhaps short on the betting and forties, but throw in a cock or two and you’ve got a live televised crime scene not one bit different to a felonious dog fight.  Whomever’s judgment call allowed such a sick display of entertainment might want to leave out the “chase a felon day” or “pin the tale on the rooster camp-out” in future entertainment planning between innings.  The front office owes an explanation, the broadcasters owe an explanation and if you got your jollies off watching some dog chase some moronic sap in a gnaw suit you clearly understand and are of the same ilk as Micheal Vick and others who just love seeing ravaged animals exude their violence, we just call it sport between innings!

Lovers XO-XO

At once two slave to mix,

needling their thread to twist.

Darting in a pool of sweaty heat,

together they’ll meet their fate.

This one and that, both ends the same.

The giver and lover, strong and strongest.

Bouncing separately the X and the O.

A pull starts, a tinge of want, the urging.

Eager lust and deeper fix, swirling mist.

No higher thought, no logic remains,

two must meet between the panes.

Electric and alive the union forms,

At once two join, life is born.

Letters from Heaven

The initiate chased his madness in circles.

Ra spun his deadly weave, ticking tocks.

The puzzle is grand, finished even more.

Mixing messes of mangled thoughts and

worn out flames cover the ashy slush,

black and grey, hot and cold, dead mostly.

And then it happened, the Great Arrival.

At first it was just Horus, then Osiris and

next came Isis, three letters in the mail

each with a missing piece of the riddle,

together they might, just maybe help

sort this torturing madness and bring sleep.

Thanks Koko, you’re a real gem!!

Your Weak, Your Whores, Your Drunks

There is a place for “them” the ones that will go unnamed, the shameful, the lost and tossed of our day.  Yes, those slaves to self absorption, the chemically challenged, sex junkies and all around reprobates.  Absent the rack and a few stones where society might actually see the lowest among us, we now relegate that which is uncomfortable to Church basement halls late on Tuesdays or those days when caffeine and nicotine play and the Sun might stay away.

Fitful not in your standard pew or linen box of that which your text has sought, the underground is teaming with rows of lost and found while the well pat each other on their bloated asses.  There are many such folk, two million abound, one I know in particular humility is found.  He is rich beyond coin and finds newly each day the grace by which others shall stay, an example to all and witnessed by none, his giving his only saving grace next to the hand of God.

Who can help the helpless but the helpless who’ve been spared, mere ego charity to the rest.  In the gutter between the piss and puke many gather, the pregnant whore and bastard child, the crook and the molester stealing souls after drinks, at the end of the hall, last door on the bottom, one breath from the end lay the key.  He knows the door it fits.  He walked through it as well.

This one I know, 40 years and a month, my brother my keeper.  Almost lost ten years ago save the wee little knot at the end of his rope. Gone are the jobs and the money and kin, gone is the time when self reigned high, gone past are many a deed unsung.  Your spouse, your child, your dearest of friend might sit and talk with him near the end.  Tortured are they that surrender complete and find grace on which to claim their seat.  Ninety seven will pass and welcome their end while three will listen, to them he must tend.

You’ll live your life unaware his work and coming and going no words will be told, no stories of claimed virtue nor regal nor plaques of charity work will stand, for in his nature no Man might boast.  He’ll be there at nine on the 4D wing, draggin’ his shoe laces proudly and sporting a tan, one new Man called, his Sister had passed.  And at noon every day where the sots gather still, he’ll pour coffee and serve cookies over a seat at the mill.  Day upon day, hundreds and thousands more, to the meek and the pauper only he can help, save your stained glass and your spit water and your cloth and your rapes, a soul is a soul and no money shall take, he gives to live and lives to give for death or drink his only escape.

So polish your car and dote on your kids, count your stocks and fill your bins, earn your seat, pay your debt, slave to image and this life regret, he will do what you cannot, study your books and lecture your life, clean hands can’t help with the weak, the whore or the drunkard’s strife.

Mining

Where do you think we should go?

To the forest or the sea, honalee?

Toss your map and leave your crap,

the gas and fume take all comers.

Puff doesn’t give a fuck about you.

Your lungs and sight worm around.

Bring your spit and fire little else.

The snake and badger and slug guide.

Move forward, dig, eat, live or die.

It’s only rock, move it the fuck over!

Boo, Micro Muse 6/3/10

She drove for 74 timeless minutes after the Sheriff’s call, walking past his locked and empty house her tiny sun-dress nor her eyes could hold the drenching truth of his death.

The Urology workup revealed a coma-like state of sleep, the only escape for his tormenting and slavish fear.  Eleven might be a little bit bedder and a little less wetter.

The frigid Northwood’s frost, tree and stockings welcomed Santa’s sacred coming.  Nothing could sour the glee and fancy on the four tot’s faces like the cracking leather belt into the second oldest’s tender thighs and lower back as he leaned his scrawny fruit-of-the-loom framed carcass against the thick and scared wooden wall, lasting horror for the seated, rage for the grown boy standing and Christ’s bloody birthday for the leaning.

Thinking of time he glanced out the windshield while looking at his wristwatch on the rear-view mirror.

What a magic trick it would be… twelve thousand years in the keeping, not a soul would know but one.  Would you choose to be that one?

I’m

Honest about my lying.

Fearful about my security.

Judgmental about your opinions of me.

Hopeful to overcome my doubt.

Virtuous in my lack of virtue.

Ego feeding regarding humility.

Giving only to receive in kind.

Loving hopeful to be loved.

Silently selfless only to boast quietly.

On my knees finding peace with this condition.

The Nature of Things

What would you think?

Does a snake wish to have legs?

What do fish think of birds?

Are falling trees suicidal?

What therapy is there for a Pug?

Ever pissed in the cat’s dish?

Can animals run backward?

Steal a squirrel’s nut stash?

What… are you new here?

Strawbedey

After inefficiently climbing sixteen stairs a squirrel scavenged the barren wooden deck, pausing in the rail broken sunshine before leaving, the laundry was twirling and my daily fictional to-do items battled for their priority in my selective brain, each of them in danger of extinction at any moment.  Which would survive and find self-actualization on this Sunday?

“I having eggs!  Daddy where’s my blanket?” Aaron rattled on as he nestled into the corner of the couch surrounded by pillows and present eternity.  His lime green Buzz Lightyear jammies complimenting his dry pull-up and the left over baseball camp regalia he’d worn on his wrist the last two days.

“And strawbedey milk pleez!”

Billions slept and billions woke, whirling masses of boundless energy surged universal, producing calm and chaos to be sure.  What was my choice to be?

“Daddy’s going to write for a few minutes, ok?”

“I not care.”

“Think we oughta go fishin’ today?”

“Really?”

Choose Wisely

Silly flesh grass and trees, do as you do and be as you be.

Which is which and to whom you sell your brew?

Drink your own flaming spit, chew your coin at all,

drenched inside your voided soul and mental pit,

reasonably secure, nuzzling looping fear’s mane.

Comfort’s cost is idle dread, wrenching loss,

only 365 freedom tickets and your spirit please.

Choose wisely I say, traded not just another day.

Who were you?  Back then, dreaming and yearning?

The cached dreams, barefoot tag and finger paints.

Yes, yes, you do see… buried deep, gone to never be.

Traded whole, rotten corpse… you think you’re free?

So… walk… no.  Run!  To the pond you just passed.

Peel your ears and stuff your trap, plug into reality.

Finger a nice skipper, launch your comfort into the air.

Watch it bounce and plop and shudder beneath the wake.

Cast aways find their own landing, no greater trust.

Dream of Greatness, fancy your gifts and shower us.

More than you do, more than you are, you create!

Seven Bridges Broke

The stretching stream too big, gaps in the notes.

Melody screeching, bloody wails pouring through.

Floating puffy foam collecting and choking logs.

His songs ran swift, like chasing bubbles in a breeze.

The scruffy beard, big toe and coke bottle glasses.

Playing loud, fearing louder, drowning all life.

There are stars in the darkest sky, and if ever

you decide… you should go… there is a taste, blood

rusty sour… down the seven bridges broke.

Drips and Drops

They knocked on the panes a thousand strong,

“Can you come out and play?  Pretty please?”

Over the tips and under the tops, misty love

kissing all, pecking at the unborn sand, neckin’.

“Hello Mr. Worm, take that Mr. Robin.”

Dare not the umbrella to burst and shake.

“Meet me on New York Street.  Ask your Mom,

bring two or three, blue and green, yellow glee.

Let stock-cars chase, horsepower fiends, clutch

those toothpicks brothers three and sister free.

Let it rain buckets galore and the gutter more,

send them racing thrice abreast, we win!

Broke? Micro Muse 6/18/10

Gritting his chipped teeth behind week old scruff he pumped $1.89 in gas as his rear window slide down, “Are we going camping again Daddy?”

His last breath whispering to the world through the stained sink drain, the plunger deep, his pain gone, theirs just beginning.

Tracking the fading Coach’s voice every muscle of his ripped athletic body twitched except one, “Call nin… !”

Hanging Straw

If there was a fork he would know,

if the bricks knew he would know.

A circle running round, endless crown,

thorns round his head, choice is dead.

Berries and fruit, sticks and stones,

each way paved, stained faux yellow.

No one way is right, no one cares,

but a choice must be made, endlessly.

To the east suffer least, come forth the north,

South or west might turn best, alas none good.

Stuffed full of himself, brilliant foolish dunce.

If he knew which was which and what to do,

he’d have jumped off that pole long ago!

Isolation and the Mad Scientist

What is it about unique thought and observation that seems to have the real ability to drive people mad?  This question has pertinence to me during my investigations into Mount Giza.  There isn’t a laundry list of such people as I can find, but if you’ve met or read about these folks you know who they are.

I suppose it’s akin to the artists or musician who simply must get something out or yearns to move forward with their creation in their medium.  What seems entirely unique to science or observation and specifically to pure thought and unique thought, quite different to those art forms, as the brilliant pianist and their work finds thousands of other pianist sharing in their passion and can connect with them easily, pure thought and the pursuit of a single idea by one person will find no other soul sharing in the same thought.  This presents a complex set of situations for the thinker.

Although many other connections still exist and they may have deep and meaningful relationships with other people.  Their unique thought is theirs alone and cannot be shared, completely understood or conveyed to others until its conclusion, if there is a conclusion.  By it’s nature they are isolated in the thought while the rest of life hasn’t changed at all and not a single person can meet them at their level within the context of their idea as they pursue it’s end.

This would be no different, in relation to their unique idea, than being stranded on an island, madness will likely prevail given enough time.

Hue

What does it mean and where do you go,

when milky white and creamy flesh turn pink?

When puffy white and sky blue wash rusty brown?

Where dove grey and robin egg blue hatch yellow?

When the prism’s spray blends to silver linings?

Where are you and how does it happen,

where glowing red hides the deepest coal,

and the darkest dark, root black as dark black?

The patchy parchment and dotted pages

hide the deepest of tearful clear wells.

The Last Theory on the Great Pyramids of Giza!

I hope you’ll take a moment to view my Mount Giza Documentary Demo. There’s plenty of room for active participation in all areas of concern, research, creative, financial… I welcome your input and support in any way you can share. Please be a part of this wonderful project.

Thanks again,

D.A. Capaldi

www.mountgiza.com

Cycle

The shade did not ask to be born?

The shadow flies as fast as light.

The seed knows not the forest.

The bark clings tightly, one purpose.

What about the sand?  The lowest of low.

Once mighty and strong, solid still?

Did anyone ask the rocks?  Do they know?

Vapor condensed chilled then released.

Sand to rock, then sand and rock once more.

All things are all things, nothing is one thing.

Slave

Who is worth sacrificing a dream?

How long must they hang on the cross?

Long stiff the corpse ripens with turns,

savior begging completion and love.

Each turn the blood drips hard,

soaking todays cloth, dead wrapping.

Once hung, snug with nails, bluish tears

smear tomorrow’s face, dead dreams indeed.

Want

How futile I drive my wants.

Yearning for sake of yearning.

Circles waste beginnings and ends.

Warm and wet, I want not.

Tell me what to do, what you want,

feed you child, suckle the teet,

want is want, I want to want no more.

Untitled

I wish I knew…

A want so bad my elbows hurt.

A breath is too short, lured lurid loops.

I was born to, I need to, I must.

Nothing works, it’s all wrong, I’m gone.

Of play and food and sleep I cannot.

That warmth and peace, sheer bliss I lust.

To be and to feel that which smooths.

Studdered and schocked, cursed to stop.

It’s rot and not, this need of plot.

How should I write, to your painful fright?

Studies so drab, insightful jab, Lemmings bore.

The brush and pen, your comfort offend.

Of

Of Life, this is it, live in one eternal day.

Of Dreams, the ones crushing and huge, threatening mad, those are the worthy ones.

Of Sex, better to take a nap.

Of Love, the lowest and highest of needs, pity slaves, never take stock of your chest.

Of Death, charge blindly and completely, void of one last dream, chased them all, living large.

Of Sobriety, not by virtue, but by desire, only a coward seeks respit from joyous living!

Of Family, investment a must, no obligation rules, better to be born a Smith?

Of Children, dubious ego effort at best, see sex.

Of Commerce, want is the only sin.

Of Creativity, song and art and play, write your way triumphantly chasing your last dream.

Of Governance, actions are their own governance, each in-lightened person rules themselves only.

Of Afterlife, egos first stand, see children.

Of Charity, egos second stand, thanks but no thanks, there are no good causes only one to one.

Suburban Hell

Chasing the latest, for a day.

Smothered rage, longing life.

Cut the grass, slit your wrist.

Throat fuck, conquer all.  Repeat.

She

She walks by Moonlight.

I had know a need once, based on loss.

Chased it evermore, slavish secret need.

It slinked into every mirage, every lust.

She slays free will, bound and gagged.

Yes Dear, solve the loss I must.

Call now, stop by, dreams fancy fly.

It never changes, maddening it drives.

This one was sweet red hurt.

Exactly the one, fitting type, She wants her.

She cannot, I cannot, I will not.  Next.

Tight Calves

That sublime and perhaps fool hearty or stupid, but necessary decision made near the base of the mountain climb, the safe and greened pasture adorned with icy brooks, rhythmic tall grasses and lime green butterflies, seems like a year ago…

Where the first patch of worn and hardened dirt links with the next patch and the sticks breath dusty plumes the pivotal realization of what’s next threatens to snap my twiggy spirit and send me toward camp wincing at the thought of the first blister, skipping the whole journey.  Anyone can follow a path, it’s only a mountain, what do I have to prove anyhow?  Perhaps this trek should be postponed?  After all lunch and a nap are only twenty paces removed… thirty… too late.  One step, two step three, maybe there’s mystery or mastery to see?

Reason commands not crossing a stream or skipping rocks or stepping anew.  The worn and wide narrow atop the first hill, the sticks crowd their air and rocks, swelling in their gluttony, swallow more dirt and sand with each heel.  The glorious and beautiful dull ever more quickly to malicious and dreadful, reapers of will, stopping terror and doubt. What’s the fucking point?

They could have come, I asked politely, then demanded, then persuaded, then pleaded… none care to share nor could.  Two boots, two hands, one heart and a flock of warring thoughts.  A small break to evaluate the view, bow and stern, the slimming path breaking.  I’m glad they didn’t come, nagging about the work and the sweat.

Sold completely on distance and perspective’s biggest lie, I’m convinced I’m halfway there.  How far can it be?  A triumphant view I shall have before lunch and rest well by dusk, telling them all of the majestic sights.  They’ll wish they came yet benefit nonetheless, easier that I should alone go while they nap in their comfort, the mosquitoes bitting hard while I’m wrapped and still.

Beyond return, poor soil for roots, none to stay long, sturdy rocks hidden under dry tinted moss… blindly I walk, not looking up, the view slipping. This part they’ll not hear and I’ll like to forget.  Soon… flex, lift, heel to toe, don’t dare stop short, tight calves.

Love

Looking back I guess I have loved,

it’s easy to be confused, to spin wanting.

Love is giving and service just because.

It’s not a need or a want or a lust, still sick

I’d settle for the first comfort offered.

Love is joy in listening, understanding.

It’s not getting my way, that shall never be.

Not to stop my daily dream of said wanting.

Love is safety in self’s vast Ocean of doubt.

It’s never based on loss or hurt, fear or ill need.

It’s jumping in a cold lake, sprinting long,

pushing through all quit and demand.

It’s cutting my son’s toenails, watching

him shave at thirteen.  It’s not missing

a single grateful breath, humble knowledge.

Love is knowing who you are and who I am.

Love is letting people make their own mistakes.

Love is watching calamity, learning and sharing.

Love is seeing actions and their consequences.

Love is knowing no limits and chasing my dreams.

Love is confrontation and forgiveness.

Love is letting people grown on their own.

Love is letting you chase your dreams.

All is love, life is lovely, I love living… .

If

I say it’s so does that make it so?

If I play nice and share will it help?

If I don’t hit and don’t swear will you care?

If no spitting on the sidewalk helps?

Can you not see, are you not the same?

If we could only agree it would help.

If I pray and tithe shouldn’t that help?

My two ears feed one brain, mouth the same.

If I love you, what would that do?

If I risk and sacrifice isn’t that nice?

If I only say and do what you want me to,

can I finally and eternally get my way?

If I say it’s so?

Gone

Two generations in two months.

How many thoughts make a life?

Genetics?  Environment?  Teaching?

The secure Man is free to think.

Thought’s death on comfort’s stoop.

Come famine, sickness, great thoughts!

Stripped, greatness will flower true.

Thinking thoughts about thought.

Good Morning

“Jimmeee.  Get yrr ass dnhere!  No drivin, Buddy can’t drive,” Marco blurted out from the foyer.  Closing the door he tossed his keys into a bowl then turned down the empty dark hallway.

The tidy kitchen of this brick row house left no room for big elbows. Flipping the modern oven dial to 400 Marco leaned against the counter, head on forearms, murmuring, “Fuc Jimmy, loc me otta my ouse, biiich,” his knees swaying and bobbing at his waist back and forth unable to lift his head.

The oven pre-heat alarm screeched, sending Marco tilting toward the oven. His lean and his hand finding the handle as his temple crashed into the front knobs, the new ceramic floor met his bloody brow when the kitchen stopped spinning. “Fucker, Jimmy!  Man!”

Righting himself, turning the sink faucet on, Marco took out a pizza from the icebox and unwrapped in on the counter before splashing his fresh gash over the bowl.  ”I gotta, those fuckin’ hypocrites… again? Tomorrow, I swear Jimmy.”  He opened the oven, slurring under his breath emotionally, “I know I can Jimmy, you’re right Jim.  Jimmy? Fuck!” He tossed the pie on the top rack.

Marco slid into the sofa next to the single front window, crumbs and sauce on his chin, “Keys… Biiich… Jimmy, Jimmy!”

The curtains near Marco’s head flew open, the morning shine sprayed onto the crumbs and sauce. “Buddy, don’t you gotta house?” Jimmy spoke.

“Never again Jimmy. I’m done Jimmy.”

“Six hours Marco, in six hours you’ll do the same fuckin’ thing and you know it,” said Jimmy while heading down the hallway toward the kitchen. “Where’s your car?”

“Did She call yet?”

“I didn’t answer. You gotta do something Man.”

Marco crept of the sofa and stepped softly down the hallway past the small table dressed with Jimmy’s keys and wallet. “Was that your last pizza?  Sorry Man.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Circles

I left my change with the clerk so she could enter a short conversation later.

Never leave to chance or interpretation certain offense, be clear!

To take offense I first have to actually give a fuck.  Enough said.

If I don’t understand you it’s because you’re not making sense.

Coming from someone I actually respect, that would mean a lot.

When did Dudes start holding doors for other Dudes?  Stop it!

A lady at a busy exhaust filled corner cafe started complaining about a fella’s smoking.

And that Missy is why you’re working on your third marriage.

“That’s so disgusting,” she proclaimed as he spat his chew into the gutter.  ”This coming from the species half that bleeds once a month,” he replied.

“Would you like the check Sir?”  ”Nope.”

Puzzling Confinement

I’m sure there are many reasons to hang a blood red swatch of cloth inside a first level ranch laundry chute but I can’t immediately think of all of them. Perhaps during the homeowner’s hasty move this left-over dust rag, clinging desperately, just happened to hang up on this peculiar nail before it’s last fall, obviously dreading the move and getting acquainted with a new linen closet. In it’s position, dangling into the basement and nearly unreachable from the top, such a relocation anxiety conclusion will suffice.

I was showing the home to a young couple looking to buy their first home. Closing the laundry chute door and moving throughout the kitchen we explored the living room and bedrooms in this middle class, suburban and otherwise empty home. The blood red cloth being the only item left behind.

As you might suspect, constantly being in vacant homes where a variety of people have spent years living, the paint and the carpet seem to be yearning to tell their tale. Odors remain, pet scratches at the door, ugly patterned drawer linings and some awful color combinations usually scream loudly as to the animal nature of the former inhabitants.

“This is a pretty clean home, one of the nicer ones I’ve showed you so far.”

“The garage is nice and big. Do you think your Mom will like it?”

“It’s close enough, she can’t wait to help paint. We could move in right away?”

“As soon as you want.”

“There’s a basement?”

“I’m sorry, yes. Might be a little dark.” I answered as I walked toward the kitchen hall in front of them.

You might think a door is just a door. Simple things we come and go through a hundred times a day, but certain doors, baby blue or bright orange and out of place doors, fine stained glass and oak doors, sliding doors or huge swinging gates remind us that not all doors are just doors. This was just such a door.

Bolted, mounted and affixed above where a child might reach was a worn chrome sliding lock, a heavy bolt lock.

Why might you lock your basement door from the upstairs?

“That’s odd, I’ve seen some strange things before.”

Unlocking the door my thoughts ratcheted and twisted ill. The cloth, this lock, what happened here? This was no bedtime story.

Stepping carefully downstairs toward the chilled basement, ground level windows spraying fractured light around the perimeter, we ended our descent, every nerve in my body tingling ill.

Through the dim light and somehow fastened securely and covering every inch of this full basement’s walls were completed jigsaw puzzles, every tortured piece intact with maddening neurotic skill.

Glancing upward left, the blood red cloth signaled the puzzle’s completion. These walls never stop talking.

Lefty

“Today’s the day my friend, this is it.  It’s gonna happen today!”

“You say the same damn thing everyday.  What gives?”

“Positivity baby, positivity!”

“Well… you can positively keep it to yourself.  This month sucks.”

“See, that’s what I mean, this month, yesterday… it’s all today my friend.”

“What’s with the “friend” thing?”

“How long we been together?”

“When was it?  Allstar, what?”

“Ninety two, ninety seven at Midwest, then Smith’s, Lockhart in 05′, Plaza.”

“So?”

“So?  Don’t you get it?  Who’s always on top?”

“You’re a dick… my friend.”

“Love the golf carts ‘eh?”

“Yea’, no more slinkin’ this whole lot with Pattels.”

They share a slight chuckle.

“You’re a smart guy Slick, didn’t you, your major, business… finance?  That’s right.”

“Lotta good that did me.”

“Hey, ever wonder,” Lifting his left shoe under the golf cart steering wheel, “Why your left shoe wears out?”

“What?”

“See for yourself.”

Slick lifts up his right shoe, no hole.  Then glances under his left.  Quizzically looking at Slam.

“Figure that one out for fifty bucks.”

“I got better things to do, this month sucks!”

“While I’m selling these fine folks a car, think it over.”

Slam slinks off the cart to greet the new Ups.  Slick’s looking alternately at both shoe soles puzzled then growing agitated.

A short while later Slam returns.  ”I’m still up, they were here for Slack.”

“Slammy, we need new names.”

“Did you figure it out?”

“Just fuckin’ tell me, I got no patience for this.”

“Think it over, it’s easy.  Fifty says.  Today’s the day my friend, it’s gonna happen today!”

“I gotta do somethin’ this month.  What’s up Slim, gotta smoke?”  Slick accepts a cigarette from the passing Slim.

“Slick and I were just discussing why we get holes in our left shoes.  Fifty’s ridin’?”

“He doesn’t know?”

“We all should, but no.”

“Slam, friend, you’re a dick!”

“Good luck Slick.  Hey, sell something will ya’,”  Slim says as he walks off.

“You’re a lotta help Slim.”

“Any guess Slick?”

“No, I don’t know, tell me.  Quit fuckin’ around.”

“You gotta figure it out, a cool fifty.”

Slick gets out of the cart and huffs off.  Slim quickly approaches and takes his spot in line for the next Up.

“No wonder his month sucks, did you tell him?”

“Of course not, eighteen years together you’d think he’d figure it out.”  Slick returns to find Slim in his spot.  ”Lefty!  That’s your new name Slick, Lefty, has a nice worn feel about it, almost Holy.”

“I’m going home, fuck this!”

“Four more days left, today’s the day Lefty!”

“Is he really leaving?”

“He’s beat, burnt out.  Tomorrow’s another day.”

Across from the golf cart Slick unlocks his door, looking over his shoulder at Slim and Slam who bid him farewell in unison, “Sell somethin’ will ya!”  Slick opens his door, pivots on his left foot, sits then closes the door.  Slim and Slam grin.

Flip Flop

As much as has come after,

there was so much before.

If I could only forget

that which I know now.

I will do it all again today,

that which I know not drives.

Ever turning, never learning,

slavish life spinning blindly.

Habit rules, dash it I must.

The tick and tock, walk and talk,

learned and perfected, best today.

Look if you want, see what you cannot.

Ancient

Many years toil and all we know is given unto you. Our Great Gift contained within the Mountain. Your Moses and your greatest Pharaohs and Priest knew of the Great Gift and so now may you. Much has been done and much will be learned, what you could not see has been unveiled, the secrets of Giza.

It has not changed in 12,000 years nor have you changed since the Great Deviation, our gift to you smashed and ruined, hidden and coveted for thousands of years. Fear has ruled, meek Men have governed you, riches your false desire and the fight of Men driving all.

What will you do now that it is known? Dash your pen, mark those defensive, scrap your text and start anew in this coming age. Trust not what you are told only what you know to be true, grow as you will. Better to live and learn than learn then live. No person need governing, actions bring their own consequence.

Build in the same manner you shall, let the Great Gift speak its truth.  What is Ancient will be new again.  Listen you will to the wind and the water and your wise elders for they have no axe to grind, no power to gain, sharing their only cause.

Join each other, separation a myth, loose your false security and your clinging, dash all that blocks you, past, present and future, one of you to each of you love will reign supreme, and understanding, thought’s gift, a peace for all.

What was Myth has become fact.  Trust what you know to be true for it will prove such individually and wholly.

Peace

The Right Thing

“So what are you gonna do?”

“If I only knew.”

“Did you pray about it?”

“Pray?  And what should I pray?”

“Well, you could start with Thy will be done.”

“Ok.  Then what?”

“Just do the right thing.”

“Just do the right thing… ?”

“It works for me.”

“Let me see if I get you.  Suppose you’re lost.”

“Okay.”

“You’re at a light, you can go left or right?”

“Yea.”

“Are you saying God cares which way you turn?”

“If I pray, of course he does.”

“Really?’

“Sure, everything is mapped out, he knows all–”

“But there’s free will right?  You can turn left or right.  You must make a decision?”

“God’s got a plan.”

“And if there’s no right thing?”

“There’s always a right–”

“Seriously?  What if both have negative consequences?”

“In my experience there’s always a better choice if I’m willing to trust God.”

“Maybe that’s where the problems is… .”

“Don’t be like that.”

“I’m trying to talk with you and you start some text-book “right thing” crap.”

“That’s what I believe.”

“Is it possible… possible that God might be a now God?  I think he doesn’t give a damn which way I turn.”

“There’s always a good one, a right one and a–”

“Both choices bringing negative results?  How could there be a “good” one?”

“There just is.”

“Or maybe, just maybe God works… Grace works allowing me to live with either choice?  Bad or evil as you put it, bringing its own consequences.”

“Then we’d be able to choose anything we want… .”

“You think?”

Perspective

In the beginning, when my youthful eyes could only behold the grass and seeds, nuts and pods and the like, with mud and dirt caked under my nails and my toes dug snuggly deep I groped solid ground to send out my roots.

Then came growing limbs and stubbles, discomfort and new heights reached and still further yearning upward. I could see the birds and other growth, the elements battered my fledgling wrap.

With slower growth and rings and turns, my colored leaves and bark tossed away, I send pods of my own into the world while standing strong and sturdy, shade for many, a fixture on my patch of dirt, proud and true, reaching higher yet, toward the light and truth from where I stood.

Many turns and countless rings, overtaken by my saplings, broken limbs and open wounds rot, bees and bugs abound, my leaves turning quicker still, I stand even more strong in the heaviest blow, no snow under my feet and my roots never so deep.

Near the top, at the highest branch nearest the light, daring to peek as I’ve never peeked before, hoping to glimpse and know my place, I would fall this day, in the dirt and moss once more, crashing hard, all limbs broke, no leaves sheltered, at others feet I lay once more, never to know or feel or see the forest for I am but one flawed and ignorant tree.

Playgrounds

Could it be like a fallen tree?

Bouncing waves to find their way?

Trade this all, would that I could

and rush to see from tree to tree.

Near the slide and round the bars

far beyond the screeching cars.

Moms and tots, comics and sots,

chuckling, giggling, laughing out loud.

This hallowed ground births the sound,

a healing beat to shudder my feet,

make me dream, not just a scream,

tears of old, memories unfold,

kick the can and tag and games,

each and ever laugh I crave.

Life is Long

There’s surely a reason it seems so short, constant chasing of this or that, dashed hopes and stupid comforts killing time, hoping against hope, racked in mortal denial. It’s okay, fear not, your eternal life waits, squander another turn, let your ashy dreams burn. If this life is short you’re as shallow as your thoughts.

There are certain days and days upon days that seem to stretch so long, playing over and over like your favorite song. The good ones and the great, sad ones and learning ones too. That certain snow day in the fifth grade or your first memory and such, the longest days lived on and on. There was one before that and one that followed too, waiting for the bus, that first blue ribboned metal in the forty yard dash, these are the longest days! Simple days and marvelous days, all the days which we breathe.

What can be learned in a day? Which one of the thousands perhaps are more important than the next? Are they not all just as special? Why is this one just a Tuesday? How would it be without the names and the clock, the calendar gone, living just one day? Like a seasonal bug with just one goal, how many days should you have to truly live? Your answer will shape your life and drive your day.

I know of a strong and courageous boy, Josh. His Dad would tell you each of Josh’s 3,723 turns will last forever and they did not waste a breath nor a chance to play or laugh or share joy on any single one of his days. Fearing not each of his last breaths, those were the longest days. And Isabella so tender and sweet, lighting joy for the world to feel. Are some lessons too hard to learn, threatening my tender and fragile soul? Shall I clamor and want and toil away? Shall I fight and whine, pound on my high chair some more just to get my way? Life is ever so rich and free, lived long, for today is the day. For Isabella we pray, she did not breath on her single day. How long is this day, what shall you say?

Crystal

One by one He tossed heaps of useless volumes onto the consuming fire, The Recovery Bible, Narcotics Anonymous and Chicken Soup for the Mother’s Soul included, their pages as good as blank and nothing more than fuel for smoke and ash. Next went scraps of paper and a lifetime’s love letters followed by anything that would burn, which was everything. She needed nothing and could take nothing with her into her urn.

Though there be a hundred possible endings to her story, however unnecessary, this one burns every word on a dime, the thousands of day’s struggles, the deep plunging pain ripping through her life and now the blackened memories of those that loved her. Her soft and quite way, muted laughs and beautiful nature lost to euphoric obsession, a slave to order in chanting chaotic times.

There is always the time before and the time after, that time we know and this time will live on, but what will He do, how will he live and what will he tell their Motherless two-year-old Daughter?

Alchemy Killed Humanity

Without metals experience would rule.

Buy this, save that, go here, fear this.

More air we shall clamor for next.

Of the free no one wants, yet wants

that which is worthless and hollow,

mere drippings of rock, not sand at all.

A beach of gold, now there’s a goal, chip

away the soft and melt the hard, fools.

A faux pursuit at best, lies given, chase,

and chase, never knowing free security.

The death of Philosophy, mixed with Alchemy,

thought crowded by wealth, sickened by metal.

Tell me who you are, tell me what you’ve learned,

tell me of your sight, tell me of your understanding,

tell me anything but what you do for money!

The lowest of pursuits, mere chasing of money, slave

to your career, bound and gagged, fucked by your gold cock.

Never Hit a Woman?

My brother called today,

she’s off again, swinging away.

Strong and bold, his restraint sure.

“Never hit a woman,” lies loud.

My brother called today,

they arrested him, always cuff the man.

Strong and bold, their restraints held.

“Never hit a woman,” cries law.

My brother crawled today,

glass dug in, shards blood-red, gurgling.

Long and cold, no restraint needed.

Loaded, cocked, she’ll hit no more.

First Date

What shall we do?  Where will we go?

Nervously selfish toward impressions.

In the big room under the big tree I stand.

Slippery rolling acorns blanket the dirt.

11 separate nuts gather, roll and collect.

There’s giggles and chuckles riding aloft.

The early and the late swirl right on time.

The public places and that private place,

nestled deep within, off limits to most.

This gated and guarded field to reap.

The way is narrow wet and rocky, protected.

Few have been there before, tikes and tots.

Round the track and o’er the mound, looping

fun and kisses round, ending so soft perched

over the bridge, a kiss, a peck, two lovers neck.

Eight plus three equal one big possibility!

Magnets

There is South and North and cold and hot,

far below and down, way up, up and above.

There is me and you, them and us, all together.

Icy liquid steam floats our spirit, melded one.

Running desperately wanting only to rest.

Crying, screaming loudly for peace and quiet.

Volumes sit muted, the hands spin left again.

Tingling warm goose-bumps shiver once more.

Breathing in or breathing out, two mouths suck.

There’s what is, was, that not and that still to be.

Spin it, strike it, pour it, blend it, see it, be it now.

There’s two poles and you and me, give and give.

Icy liquid steam bonds, learn it, live it, love it, wow!

I Must

Sleep, but when?

Eat, maybe in a while.

Work, maybe tomorrow.

Come just like I did before.

Breath what’s exhailed again.

Drink from her fountain now.

Pray this lasts one more day, then another.

Speak softly and listen harder still.

Wait and see, believe what is real.

Take her at her word, telling and true.

Toss fear and risk it all once more.

Tell everyone I’ve found the one.

Froto

I told them and they didn’t hear.

I begged them and they knew not.

I showed them and they mocked their eyes.

I left them and they waited still.

I brought them and they left.

I went alone and they wished to join.

I saw what they could not and will not.

I came back and could not speak.

 

Day One

If I only knew how sick I was, how long was the road ahead, how much work was to be done, the conflicts I had been neatly avoiding, the doubt that would crush my every progress, the rugs I would pull out so often, the dribble I would have to endure, the biting  and swelling lids, the quivering lips, the trembling knees, the blameless youth and their slavery to self, the confused families, the piles of shit and debts and jail time and suicides and relapses and indifference and dead best friends, the torturous man hating women, the constant dreaming and wanting and whining and ego and ego and self and greatness and wanting more.  If I only knew how sick I was… I might have had another drink.  Thank God I didn’t know!

Quotes

I can forgive you from over here.

I can love you from over here.

One’s life’s work should outlast one’s live.

Forgiveness is preceded by self acknowledgement of the same.

Never let the facts get in the way of telling a good story.  Uncle Vince.

At all times of deductive failure, induction is King.

Imagination is more important that evidence.

Never attribute that to Science or Historical fact that which can be explained by superstition and manipulation.

Intellectual truth is that elusive quality we try to run from for it threatens our mental security.

Facts are those things Historians and Scientist hide behind to create false authority for no reason.

History is dead, all attribution and interpretation is for the liars.

A good Student can interpret their own meaning.

Free thinking people need no interpreter.

The claiming of motive is a fools game.

Image management is Man’s original sin.

Only a learned student can truly teach.

What is is the Authority, anonymity should rule all.

Rock

And there he sat watching the birth of sand, a sight missed by many, the sounds thumping beneath the fluid shield, reserved for Her ears only, the keeper of all secrets in her vast bluish realm. The bumping and churning would get lost outside her realm, fall flat and lost within the other bouncing waves, but with her the secrets are heard round the globe and known to all who can hear. Was he ready? Indeed he was.

The largest pond’s Queen city took him in and unclogged his heart and ears. The tall pines caught the wind’s song, swaying to shake the clinging cones and the pesky perchers, all trees point east on the rocks, a sure compass for the lost traveling wind. Together the blow and the pines moved him to this rock, by the bay, before the island, over the ore dock and near the breakwall.  That’s where the sand is born. That’s where he sat skipping stones and skipping thoughts, they all danced beautifully until She reclaimed them, for everything is Hers and from Her everything came.

Only naked could he hear the sounds, the yearning rush and thumping clatter of stones, beautiful stones and polished glass and worn out old suicidal floating sticks, unable to hang on one more day. They gathered here to listen too and hold back the expecting Mother stones before their entry into Her realm. Who else might pull security but suicidal sticks begging to be plucked at once by him for their last march on dry land.

The turning sphere turned his mind, at once all life spinning on a pin head within his free thoughts. The passage unclogged She sent her tale into his realm, clicking and pumping the birth of sand settled into his drain, each grain placed onto the other, stacking and clacking, rising tall.

With one big bang the deed was done and the first form took shape in his thoughts. Rising tall within the shaft a new art took hold, from the bottom to the top and from the middle out. He knew She’d given him life and this new thought. Each new turn brought another grain of sand, building on the last until the last.

Names

In case you’re wondering where it all went wrong or you wish you knew what that tinge in your gut was or that everything that doesn’t make sense might at once make some sense, you needn’t look much farther than the causal action that’s led us to this point.  It really puts everything into perspective I think. Just what is this “thing” or “act” you ask?  It is none other than the naming of things.

Within it’s origin, the Greek and Latin ambition to name all things that could be named, that which is some how different in some respect from other similar things might sound good in the thinking and it’s surely made for a neat and orderly cataloging of all things within some name for that thing, but the unintended consequence of such naming Science and cataloging is greater and greater separation and indifference for the Namer, forever forging isolation from that which we name. Why is one thing different or separate from another? Are not all things on this rock part of the same thing? What function does naming names actually serve? Some study and communication to other isolated Humans perhaps, but that’s about it. Is it worth it? How might things be different, without names that is? What if all trees were just trees and all forms of grass and rocks were just part of the same whole? What if there was no isolation and separation from the whole? What if I could just be… ?

No one thing is just one thing, outside of the molecular word, and even in that one molecule would not exists without some other molecules for it’s survival. Each thing is everything and nothing is one thing and everything is everything, and one thing which is not just one thing is really of and part of everything. All except me… .

It is the ability and action to name things that provides the separation of me from everything which I name, everything which we’ve named. So, enough with the names! Welcome today with no names and distinction of this or that, a blue spruce and limestone and gold or platinum, no more mine and yours, no more blue grass and rye grass, every bird is a bird and much more a marvelous being free to explore the globe… am I free? Would I be free and connected without these names?

Egyptian Revolution, Pure Democracy?

As the protests in Egypt enter their third week and Political positioning, back-room dealings and international pressure aim to steer the impending changes in the Oldest Nation there’s talk of a desired Representative Democracy, the one that’s working so well here in the United States, the one that was born out of geographic necessity in the late Eighteenth Century, the one we’re clinging to so tightly, the one that has led the World in a far better direction than systems of the past, the same Representative Democracy that’s bound for the gallows in the not so distant future. Yes, the beacon form of Government is an old, outdated form and we’re moving every so close to the next and newest and best form of Government, the only true form of Government, Pure Democracy!

Any and all Constitutions written or emerging shall need root changes to grasp this coming, and one might argue, original form of Government, for it’s the only one consistent with the Human Condition of self governance and personal freedom.

It simply wasn’t viable for all the Citizens of the thirteen Colonies to show up in Philadelphia to vote individually on the third Tuesday of the month, or any other day. The errors of our Representative Democracy and its many pitfalls have surely exposed themselves in the last 230 years. This begs the question, what’s the current state of our Social and Political System? Does Geography still pose the same limitations and thus the same systematic structure that it did during our Nation’s founding? Is it possible for every Citizen to vote on a Tuesday? Could we all vote locally, Statewide and Nationally on every legislative action put forth by our trusted bodies of Government?

Any twelve-year-old would respond with a resounding yes! Simply with a State issued PDA, secure and uniform voting and a Pure Democracy would rule the day as soon as we can shed our antiquated system. This is the future of self-governance and Democracy, not the old thread-bear idea of Representative Democracy with all its inherent corruptions and inefficiencies, the most significant of which is voter disconnect.

It’s well within the Human condition that once someone else’s voting for me, regardless of the topic, I’m immediately disconnected from that topic, rendered useless until the next election where I might then vote for a different Representative. The Geographic necessity for this form of Government no longer exist as well it shouldn’t, nor should voter disconnect!

Once such a system, with adequate protections for the Minority Opinion and irrevocable safeguards and liberties is in place the first fruits of a Pure Democracy would be an engaged and informed Electorate. While it is said this might be an aim of our current system, such is not the case, an uninformed silent Electorate will go willingly in a given direction ad infinitum. Only a directly informed and responsible Electorate, one of a Pure Democracy voting on the issues and Bills of the day would be an engaged Electorate. Any other form of Government has at its core a disconnected population.

As we charge willingly or unwilling toward this new governance, let us firmly remember the cause of our current Representative Democracy and unite behind its dated need and systematically corrupt limitations and welcome the day when our Electorate might be well-informed and engaged, receiving their State issued PDA and vote for, of and by themselves. It’s the only way!

Social Network

The procession spilled through the door,

they’ve come when they didn’t want to.

Who would, this seedy social construct?

Fat ones, silent ones and louder ones,

shuffling toward the hole in the window.

Where are all the children today?

They’re normally stacked like cord wood.

Terrible little tikes trashing and thrashing,

who raised these animals, dare you ask?

What was a safety net churns dispair.

This is where the lonely ones come.

Take a number, take a seat, take your turn,

numbers not names suck life whole.

From the jails and the pots, countless sots.

She calls 42, waiting endlessly for 45.

Food stamps and support and criminal tales,

this is the original and cursed Social Network.

One poor sap is $90,000 behind in child support,

misfortune and bad timing urge luck’s demise.

My case number? What’s my case number?

Lost paperwork and system follies stall.

Maybe next week would be better, sunny?

Purgatory is surely definable.

Potential

There’s something wonderous about knowing you can do something. Not the actual doing mind you, but the possibility that a dream might be fulfilled, the actions requiring way too much effort and discipline, better to just think about it and boast of your possible idea and the inherent brilliance you posses in its thinking. Does it really have to be this way? What makes those that finish something so special? How does anything ever get done? Is there any secret to such success as can be found in the great accomplishments throughout Modern Man’s History?

I’m finding this to be party true as I trudge through every single key stroke of my work on Mount Giza, battling each thought and idea’s organization and conveyance, hoping against hope just as I did initially, that I won’t actually have to do the work and finish the fucking thing.

Compounding my growing dilemma is the never-ending verbal, spiritual and mental assault by the truly insecure and intellectually challenge and unfulfilled shallow thinkers that seem to invite themselves into my life everyday with their sub-conscious blabber, ever so hard to hear between their smacking gums as they chew on their own cranial and biological waste, wrapped ever so tightly around their precious infantile view of the world and themselves, urged incessantly by the myriad of comforts stringing one choked breath to the next, leading never soon enough and hopefully their last.  This interaction must be worth exploration beyond its casual observation and unnoticed happening throughout a given ordinary day.

Many are the comments from these threatened and insecure souls, “My suggestion is that you pick one of the pyramids and start there,” ”I just find it hard to believe that you’re the smartest guy on the planet,” ”There’s no indication that the Atlantean’s are anything but fiction,” “What you’re saying is impossible,” “Big concepts seem to work fine as long as you ignore all the evidence,” “Have you been there?” This is just a sampling of the “helpful” feedback I’ve received from these folks in the last sixteen months regarding my work on Mount Giza-The Shaft Build. Behind them is the same kind of psychological and emotional dwarfism that keeps individuals and Nations of people chained in the stocks of slavery, a slavery of mind, body, emotion and soul that will find them trumpeting their disbelief to the end. Are most of us so fixed in our intellectual comfort that we must vomit such contempt prior to investigation? Are we so threatened by new ideas that we’ll kill any messenger that hails anything new? Have we not grown at all in this arena? Is our clinging to the known so strong that we’ll not even explore or entertain the unknown or possible?

This type of ignorance is Man’s most limiting and continued failing! All comforts are the death of all freedoms!

Don’t blame the follower though, it’s not their fault! Blame those that taught the mental midget to follow. Blame those that impose limitations on thought, limitations on personal expression, limitations on belief, indeed blame those that control in efforts to protect the very comforts and false superiority they enjoy within the titles of their authority! This is the root of all threats to free thought.

What then can be the solution to this maelstrom of doubt and slavery you ask? While I ask the same and explore the possible answers, a direction presents itself that any individual might take, for indeed individual action and transformation are the only paths toward universal change within a community or society.

I find and have found myself in an anecdotal situation during the last five or so years while I’ve been writing and chasing any worthy idea, after the thrashing of all comforts as has been my experience, and the simple solution appears to be… get off your ass and do it!

To Hell with any doubters, to Hell with all the comments, to Hell with the most crushing self-doubt and limitations of will and effort. Nothing important, original or revolutionary in any arena was ever accomplished by these mental morons and their clinging to comforts, stricken by their fear of the unknown, their false security threatened with every breath by their failure to chase even one of their own ideas or dreams.

I know this is not you for your are far too intelligent, having read and understood this piece, to be so challenged and threatened by the ideas of others, yet… is it possible that you might have an unexplored idea or two yourself, tucked away in that dark and dusty corner, the one you think about as you fall asleep, the one you share with your children hoping they might do it for you, the one given to you by your enslaved parents, the one that might just cost you everything you think you have? Yes… that’s the one.  What are you going to do about it?

As for my project and the as yet unfinished paper and all that still needs to be done and the likely years or decades left in the process, in spite of all negativity, and in the face of all internal and external obstacles, my resolve and effort with every key stroke will be evidence enough. No idle chatter is necessary. Potential is the death of effort!

Cost

B, bb, bbb, buy this one last thing, you’re gonna need it.

Oh, sure you can afford it, everybody and nobody can.

The hours of your day, those 40 and the rest will help.

Everyone’s in haven’t you heard?  It’s all the rave!

Your coin will help, it costs every last cent.

You will have it even if those fools won’t, you’re special!

They’re talking about you, you’re talking about them.

Everyone’s chasing the same weak willed carrot around.

It will cost you your children and your friends, your mate.

All will persecute you in your quest for the prize.

Roast your faith and run through your flesh, spill your blood.

Make no mistake, you go there alone, prize in hand, marching.

Your every breath spent, every thought and step wanting.

Your pets won’t have the prize, nor your brother or sister.

This one is just for you, you and your precious little ego.

Butterflies and ice cream and bliss and light await you.

Pay you will, over and over, everlasting for eternal life!

Suggestions

It’s no small wonder we don’t implode!

I’ve tried your shelter and found leaks.

Your socks have holes in them, every pair.

Lost on your spinning wheels of progress.

I’ve tried your lottery and long odds dreams.

I’ve drunk of your spirits, maybe not enough?

I’ve smoked your grasses and pricked the needle.

Your lust for wealth the surest trap of all.

Your life mate chain left me sleepless, hard, broke.

I’ve read your silly tales and scary myths, crafty.

Your rule and law and language dull my mind.

I’ve seen freedom and turned away, boring norms.

Your spit and fire are poison, suggestions?

Perhaps I shall eat, fuck, nap and repeat.

Mount Giza-The Shaft Build Official Release

The ink is dry!  Join this new discussion about Man’s origin and the Great Pyramids of Giza.  You knew this day would come!

http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=148987

040111, Ice Cream

Frosty cold and freezing brain,

spilled and stained, flavors strain.

The scoops and goobs and sprinkles too.

Tasty fresh and sunny bright, hearts delight.

I scream you scream, we all scream.

Ice cream and fat and flavor for all.