when grown folks
enjoy (pre-)teen female singers.
disconcerting is an innocuous enough term, right?
20081231
i find it disconcerting
20081225
The dawn
fades away.
The early day
shows a way.
Hey, this doesn't
happen every
day. And then
it echoes ever
over and into
all around.
20081218
20081212
20081125
20081111
10today
if i had to pick 10 right now
Marcelo D2, A Procura da Batida Perfeita
Neil Young, Live at Massey Hall
GZA, Liquid Swords
Gnarls Barkley, Odd Couple
Rickie Lee Jones, Duchess of Coolsville
Seu Jorge, Life Aquatic Studio Sessions
Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine
Cannibal Ox, The Cold Vein
Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited
Traffic, The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys
20081010
20081008
arabic
0 (number) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cascading Style Sheets, Level 2
Halo 3
4 (number) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
5 (number) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
YouTube - Noah takes a photo of himself every day for 6 ...
May 7 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
December 8 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
9
20080929
20080928
top5
paul newman movies
butch cassidy and the sundance kid
cool hand luke
hudsucker proxy
the hustler
slap shot
(in no order)
20080624
all those words
we all use(d)
mean(t) something to someone.
every empty "how are you?"
carries connotations with(in/out) context.
emptiness in words creepseeps into actions
and reverses over ever over again
devalue
our words
our selves.
fake nice?
real mean.
heads?
tails.
20080623
20080612
is the internet
just one
big brain?
random, though not, pathways between independently acting structures whose actions in concert create larger more complex meanings which the individual pieces do not, and likely cannot, comprehend (with exception[s], perhaps).
if yes, then what comes next?
20080603
20080530
today my thoughts
find themselves
thinking about multiple layers of meaning.
speaking to more than one audience with the same words.
knowing the different contexts in which the same words can be seen and conveying meaning in each of those contexts.
a challenge!
20080527
20080522
how will i
build up my courage
and steel my strength,
to walk unafraid
and be who i be,
no matter who looks
no matter who sees?
20080514
20080512
20080505
i rarely have the hankerin'
for video games these days
but i might try to beat the original legend of zelda this evening/tonight.
that game is the balls.
20080501
20080428
20080426
birds
even in jersey city
the birds don't let me sleep too late.
I'm not sure where they stay most of the time, or even where they sit now. But they're there. Filling the air with chatter. Mindful or brainless makes no matter. It makes me rise and smile.
Some days I feel like my "Auntie Barbara" who I hardly remember. Why? Well, she had this odd habit of getting up early and singing "What a beautiful MOrning / What a beautiful day."
I always thought her insufferable.
Who could argue in light of the birds?
The birds are everywhere. No matter where I'm traveling, or where I wake, the birds are there. If I listen closely while I sleep, there is no other sound like them. I wake when they wake when the earth rotates.
Maybe they're the ones who twist it, those birds. Sheer force of bird-brained will and desire. Push. Push. Pull, Flap. Turn turn, Turn the Blue-Green Ball. Maybe that's all the chirps mean.
Must be time for me to help.
Up again feet, legs, hips.
Up again hands, arms shoulders.
Up again Up again body and head.
Turn and Turn the globe.
20080425
torn and frayed
below is the revived pod, with limited memory capacity.
(Many thanks due to Scrappy for a ton of this, and #1 Hawaii Ultimate Fan for a smaller amount of it. Also to the usual suspects for the rest.)
A Tribe Called Quest-- Low End Theory
A Tribe Called Quest-- Midnight Marauders
Blackalicious-- Blazing Arrow
Blackalicious-- Nia
Blu & Exile-- Below the heavens
Bruce Springsteen-- Born to Run
Calexico/Iron & Wine-- In the Reins
Coltrane-- Afro-Blue Impressions
Creedence-- Chronicles, Vol 1
Curtis Mayfield-- Roots
David Cross-- It's Not Funny
David Cross-- Shut up You Fucking Baby
dj BC and the Beatles-- The Beastles
DJ Krush-- Krush
DJ Logic-- 02/02/07: Live at the Knitting Factory
Freddie Hubbard-- The Night of the Cookers
Gang Starr-- Full Clip: A Decade of Gang Starr
Gillespie y Machito-- Afro-Cuban Jazz Moods
Heiruspecs-- A Tiger Dancing
Herbie Hancock-- Head Hunters
Herbie Hancock-- VSOP- The Quintet
Iron & Wine-- Our Endless Numbered Days
Iron & Wine-- The Shepherd's Dog
Iron & Wine-- Woman King
JGB-- After Midnight (2/28/80)
Jimmy Smith-- Root Down
JJ Cale-- Naturally
John Fogerty-- Long Road home
John Lee Hooker-- Live at the Café Au Go-Go and Soledad Prison
John McLaughlin-- Extrapolation
John Scofield-- This Meets That
Kanye-- Graduation
Kings of Leon-- Because of the Times
k-os-- Atlantis: Hyms for Disco
Leo Kottke-- Leo Kottke Anthology
Maceo Parker-- Life on Planet Groove
Makana-- Kiho'alu
Makana-- Koi Au
Makana-- Makana
Maps-- We Can Create
Marvin Gaye-- What's Going On
Miles Davis-- Birth of the Cool
Monk/Trane-- At Carnegie Hall
Morcheeba-- Charango
Morcheeba-- Who Can You Trust?
Okkervil River-- Stage Names
Oscar Peterson Trio-- Night Train
Oscar Peterson Trio+1 Clark Terry-- Oscar Peterson Trio+1 Clark Terry
Otis Redding-- Remember Me
Ozomatli-- Ozomatli
Parliament-- Mothership Connection
Persuasions-- Comin At Ya'
Prince-- Purple Rain
Ray Charles-- Modern Sounds in Country and western
RHCP-- Stadium Arcadium
RJD2-- Since We Last Spoke
Robert Johnson-- King of the Delta Blues Singers
Rodrigo y Gabriela-- Rodrigo y Gabriela
Roy Hargrove-- Family
Royksopp-- Melody AM
ScoLoHoFo-- Oh!
Stevie Wonder-- Hotter Than July
Stones-- Exile on Main Street
Stones-- Sticky Fingers
Sublime-- Sublime
Talib-- Beautiful Mix CD (1 Song: Lonely People)
Talib-- Beautiful Struggle (1 Song: Around My Way)
Talib-- Eardrum
Talking Heads-- Little Creatures
Talking Heads-- More Songs About Buildings and Food
Talking Heads-- Naked
Talking Heads-- Speaking in Tongues
Talking Heads-- True Stories
Terence Blanchard-- Bounce
The Allman Brothers Band-- At Fillmore East
The JB's-- Funky Good Time: The Anthology
The Raconteurs-- Broken Boy Soldiers
The Velvet Underground-- Loaded
The White Stripes-- Icky Thump
To be added: Traffic. Chet Atkins. Doug Sahm. Al Green. The Wild Tchoupitoulas. More Monk. That should about take me to the limit for now. It will crash if I do much more!
Loving this mix.
20080424
bpos is no more
lost to the sands of time
or, the whims of ipods
emotionally invested
in a mechanical nothing
nothing for no one
everything for everyone.
i am dependent.
dependent on music.
like trying to heal a gunshot wound with gauze.
20080423
why give me a nap in kindergarten
and let me out of school at 3pm until college
and let me decide my own schedule during college
only to ask me to work from 9-6?
20080418
I can feel the difference
between eating well and eating poorly
full - stuffed
thirsty - parched
sustained energy - peaks and valleys
satisfied - wanting more
normal - inflamed
It is the penultimate that confuses me so much. When I eat more bad food, I want more bad food. When I eat less bad food and I want less bad food.
It is the last that lets me know which is good for me and which is not. I can feel the inflammation in my joints. In my hands. My skin feels stretched. I feel a warmth in my body that isn't quite right. It seems to buzz with anticipation of something. Likely more sugar.
It is as though there is space all through my body. When I eat poorly, that space is filled and stretched and I am stuffed. My attention is drawn to the space. When I eat well, sure there is some space inside of me, but I am not stretched and I am not stuffed. My attention is drawn from the space. I just am.
It is a strange thing, food. I hope to have a better relationship with it yet.
It is also interesting to note how my eating habits relate to how I feel.
20080416
20080414
Paired Thought that Entered My Head a While Back
Buddha does not determine Buddha nature.
Buddha does determine non-Buddha nature.
20080408
A Yoda Variation
"try not" to give what they need to get from you.
do give what you need to give for you.
20080407
today's challenge
opposite side
of everything.
(handedness, bags, phone ear, side of the couch, whatever else comes to mind)
I just realized
... that the reason I know who the host of Family Feud was
(Richard Dawson) is because of a line in a Wu-Tang song whose next line is:
"Fatal Flying Guillotine chops off your fuckin' head."
I've never seen Richard Dawson. Nor Fatal Flying Guillotine. But know I like RZA's style.
Today's Installment of the "bpos" Series
Hosted by the one and only (thank goodness) dusty rhodes
Is brought to you by our generous sponsors:
Blu & Exile's "The World Is... (Below the Heavens)"
and
John Fogerty's "Have You Ever Seen the Rain."
20080402
10today
If I had to chose immediately for me at this moment (4/1/08 9:55am):
I’ll Take Everything, James Blunt
You Don’t know what Love is (You Just Do What You’re Told), White Stripes
The World Is… (Below the Heavens), Blu & Exile
Dancin’ in the Rain, Blu & Exile
Lovin’ Cup, Rolling Stones
Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine, Dylan
John Allyn Smith Sails, Okkervil River
Desecration Smile, Chili Peppers
Sunday Morning, k-os
Rock and Roll, Velvet Underground
20080401
April Fool
"[Mist] on the water, fire in the sky?"
The dusk slowly falls, people milling, the appearance of dus(t/k) over the water... dusk to dust. Sunrise to sunset. Set. GameMatch.
These fools running their hearts out. Dying slowly as they go. Conveying pain through their faces. Not just a little pain either.... Great searing pain that makes them want to quit. Not Joy borne of experience, but a wish that their experience was over.
Take time to craft your you. Instead of taking time to craft your job to pay someone else to craft your you. Your you is all you've got, nothing more than a blank tool waiting to be (re)purposed. A nothing. Until you make it something.
Running as the sun sets is not to be taken lightly. Instead, it is Joy. A vision of perfection is some sense. Run until you can't. Sprint it out. Let the energy free. Don't hold it in and weigh it, monitoring your heart rate. Listening to the beep. Your body is not a machine. Your body is what you want it to be. Treat it like a machine, give it the same thing over and over again and see that you'll need to under go repairs. Regular Maintenance from regular stress.
Attempt irregular maintenance after irregular stress.
Let your body heal itself, when able. If you listen, it will tell you what to do.. where to grow... what challenges to seek and how to recover from them.
There is something to following your Joy. Trying to find your Joy in every moment. There is an art to it. A Craft. It is something to learn and treasure. You're on a self-selected journey of a thousand thousand thousand steps... each step a journey unto itself. No matter how you choose to spend those steps, you will still take them all. Every last one. Which direction does your Joy lead you? To which Way? To which Craft?
"Hustle hard in any Hustle that you pick"
20080331
Sweet Virginia
...by the rollingstones
came on just as I had to get off the PATH train and stop reading about Virginia in a dog-eared book the girl lent me.
Mere Coincidence?
Or.....
Something More???
Further details on Page 6 of the upcoming edition of "Ultimate News" with the role of Richard Johnson played by The Wall.
(a video of a performance of a song which I saw in person when I was 14 sheds light on this post without shedding any light on this post and brings back a memory I had forgotten I had.)
20080330
inexplicablyunexplainably...
the food tells the tale best:
walnuts
1 cup of hand-delivered coffee
1 chicken, salsa, plantain, sour cream, cheese burrito
.5 apple
.5 beer
1 peanut butter cookie
1 peanut butter cookie
1 cup coffee
1 black bean, salsa, cheese, avocado, spinach wrap
.5 peanut butter cookie
20080328
Another Wasted Hedberg Reference
At Work Today:
"I like vending machines because snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar in a store, sometimes I will drop it so it will reach its maximum flavor potential."
perhaps I should have said
"I like Hedberg references because he is funnier than I am. If I think of something clever on my own, sometimes I will reference him so I will reach my maximum humor potential."
Yup. Conversation successfully Jerk-Stored.
?
What would I experience if I never pressed
the up or down button outside of an elevator
and just waited until it arrived on my floor?
20080327
20080325
10today
If I had to chose immediately for me at this moment:
Miles Davis/Gil Evans, Sketches of Spain
Talking Heads, Speaking in Tongues
Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited
Amy Winehouse, Back in Black
k-os, atlantis: hymns for disco
Kings of Leon, Because of the Times
Blu & Exile, Below the Heavens
Velvet Underground, Loaded
Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street
Allman Brothers, Live at Fillmore East
20080324
20080316
20080313
Hawaii Eleven
The 5:15 from PHX to EWR has a phenomenal sunset view. PHENOMENAL.
Bright Bright Red. Fiery. To orange to a light light yellow to a light purple to a light blue to a deeper and deeper blue until the night sky overcomes. As you follow the horizon out to the right, the colors go from bright to pastel to night. More greens. More dark clouds. Round, light red, dark clouds, faded yellow. Green. light blue darker blue... overcome by night.
Unreal. And this is a part of MY life? How can I possibly be so lucky? Hold on, the sky is on fire behind me again... one last gasp before the long night.
I bet the ride in the other direction is pretty spectacular too... the never-ending sunset. Chase it down...
The green slowly creeps in. The colors are softer... the lines are less-defined. The sky changes texture slowly in the evening. Little reflections off of the tail wing let me know it is real. The actual wing cuts the sky well... in front of it, there is no color. Just night. Not black yet, but such a deep stormy dark blue that it might well arrive near black soon.
I suppose the rainbow doesn't just come in rainflavors. It also come sin, trout, crayon, sunset, shell, skittle and more.
Perhaps that search for color is part of what drives us. It is in the food we eat, the things we adorn ourselves with, the places we find beauty, and more. There is something life-affirming about the range of colors. It is as though, the appreciation of color, or managing to step outside of what information the color conveys as and experience the color as/for itself. Detach actual meaning and import our own mental meaning into the picture.
Color could, in a sense, be what makes us human.
Perhaps more accurately, the notion of beauty may well be what makes us human. Everything that we appreciate more than "animals" has to do with beauty in some sense. Beauty experienced through the 5 senses. In each, you can think of something beautiful. Take touch:
The skin of someone who loves you, the texture of different foods, the texture of clothes, your love's hair. Anything... Beautiful texture. We eat foods that have varying textures over foods that are monotexturomatical.
Beauty is a noble goal. Seek it out. Embrace it, live your life with it.
(hawaii ten)
on hawaii 2008, there is:
Wanderfulwondering-ness-fest
Hungry, but not too.
Drinks with luck.
Smile... Aw Shucks.
Get the next one?
Linked for warmth.
Crosswalks!
Get out of this cold.
Spurn this wind.
Picturebook.
Smooth curvilinears.
Do you have a flag?
Practice!
Out(side) of time.
Happyherenow.
List your herbs.
I forgot again!
friends
...Are extensions of your personality.
Some are exaggerations of parts of you while others have characteristics you aspire to have someday. Some do the same things as you or like the same things as you. Some are reminders from a previous life, both positive and negative. All related, and all treasured.
No matter who they are or what you think of them (or them of you!), they tell your story for you to anyone who will listen.
Friends in common doubly so.
Hawaii Ten
One day I'll find her.
She will be radiant and beautiful. Easy and free. Life's a breeze to her somehow, someway. Deep and contemplative. A vision of beauty in and out. Unsurpassed in her compassion. She will be my lady. I will be her man. We'll have our love of life together and smile constantly in that ever so slight way. And I won't be able to stop myself. Not that I would want to.
HAYOOOOOO YOU GOT LIGHT IN YOUR EYES
Man. I tell you. I see her smile in my dreams. It comes so easily, so readily.
NEVER FOR MONEY ALWAYS FOR LOVE
At the drop of a hat. At a wink. At a sunset or a sunrise or a breakfast. I love her smile. She makes me so happy, and I don't even know her yet. I love her forever and will always. Perhaps she's just the place I want to be. One day I'll already be there. Loving that moment. Living it it with someone else. Lost in time, withinwithout time. Extended that joy forever. A gentle touch here and there. A Sweetcaress. Lovingly embrace.
HAYOOOOOO SING INTO MY MOUTH
I suppose I'll have to break it to her that This is the Place (Naive Melody) might well be one of the greatest love songs ever written. The way he pours himself into the music. The heartfelt whoknowswhat. Singingspiredmusic.
WE'LL SHARE THE SAME SPACE FOR A MINUTE OR TWO
My girl is there. The girl who will love me for me. Not overbearing, but not weak-willed. Not dominating, but not subjugating. She's the one I run to, if you must know. I just haven't seen her in such a damn long time that I can't figure out to where I'm supposed to run. I never had the map, I just played it by ear. And eye. But now? I can't find the trail any longer. It'll just be a little while, I'm sure it'll come back to me. You can't forget home.
HOME IS WHERE I WANT TO BE
That shared feeling of safety. Shared. Together. Joyfully. Truly loving every moment we have together instead of just sharing those moments.
HAYOOOOOO YOU GOT LIGHT IN YOUR EYES.
I don't know quite what she looks like, but I know she smiles at me as I fall asleep. I know she's someone who makes sure that I'm okay as she cares for me the way that I care for her... She's gentle but not overprotective or worried. She's the person I always come to for advice, and she never fears giving it to me whether I heed it or not. She trusts my judgement like I trust her advice. Always. No matter whether I take it or not, no matter whether she agrees or not. We make our own choices, but we always take each other's counsel.
I'M JUST AN ANIMAL LOOKING FOR A HOME.
She will be gentle and loving. She will be competitive and full of smiles.
SHE'LL LOVE ME 'TIL MY HEART STOPS
She will love intellectual pursuit as well as physical. It'll be a fight sometimes, but a loving fight. A Loving kind of argument. A debate.
EYES THAT LIGHT UP
I'm not looking for a person to spend weeks with. Nor months. Nor years. I'm looking forever. I don't want the short term. I want the long-term love. I will love whomever I love, but what I truly seek is the long-term. Searching for the everlasting afterglow. The forever-knowing you're home.
THIS MUST BE THE PLACE.
I know she is out there for me, I know I will find her one day. Until that day, I'll continue to love my life and keep on keepin' on, in the parlance of [someone else's] times. Because one day when I lock my eyes to hers, something will pass between us and we two will know what comes next. In the interim,
I GUESS I MUST BE HAVING FUN
I don't know what comes next, but I know what comes eventually, We'll find we.
HAYOOOOOOO I GOT PLENTY OF TIME.
Every day without her is just a buildup to the time when I finally find her again. Not the shadows of her, or the parts of her that I've seen in other women that I've shared time and space. But the full version. The person I'm looking for and I need to find. It could take a long long time, but I know it'll be worth it.
AND YOU'RE STANDING HERE BESIDE ME
She'll be attractive as all get-out. She'll be my lady. My woman. I'll be her man. I'll be just me, but that'll be all I need to be. She'll be just her and radiate her light near the light I hope I can return to her in kind.
NEVER FOR MONEY, ALWAYS FOR LOVE
That's the mantra. Never for Money, Always for Love. Not just in my life with her, but in my life and her life on our own. That'll make it all work so very well. We'll be living our lives for love and loving the lives that we live in love.
I CAN'T TELL ONE FROM ANOTHER
EITHER I FOUND YOU OR YOU FOUND ME.
I'll be worth her love and she'll be worth mine. It will be like the ourobouros I suppose. The love that feeds upon itself in a neverending circle.
LOVE ME TIL I'M DEAD
And I'll do the same for you, love.
AND I GOT HOOOOOOOOOOOO-OOOO-OOO-OOOOOOOOOOOOO
-i love you. it won't be long 'til we meet again for the first time-
(hawaii nine)
(hawaii eleven)
Hawaii Nine
Homeward Bound.
Well, it is time now to be heading on. The trip from Hilo to Honolulu was what it was. Trash and I got pretty drunk on some white strolling around Hilo and then some red in the airport parking lot. First flight was alright, second flight was delayed from HNL to PHX. booo. Leaving at 2am instead of 11:something pm is not a good time.
I did have to chance to talk to a fella from Phoenix who is about to go on his Mormom mission for 2 years. Talked about basketball, baseball, religion, traveling, everything. It was a good time, and he's pretty clearly a good guy. I hope his path leads him where he needs to go. It probably will, but one never can tell.
As we got on the flight, I was just thinking about sleeping some of the wine off. Which I did. Then I woke up and starting getting back to thinking again.
The journey I've been on, and the changes that I've started... will they stay with me? Will they stick? Can I maintain the new me in my life going forward? Can I stay chill and calm and okay with life? Can I stay happy with the choices no matter what they are? Can I do this?
I had better. This is not the new vacation-dusty. This is the new dusty. I've got to be a better man tomorrow than I was today. I've got to stay as good and then work from there. There are so many opportunities to do the right thing. Every day in every way. Can I always make the good choice? Be the good man? Externally at least, and then on my way to internally as soon as I can.
I want to be that person. I can be that person. I will be that person. Just as I will eventually be living in Hawaii. 13 years. Keep the nose to the grindstone. Now you've got a real goal. Time to man up and follow your fucking dreams.
Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'.
The way to happiness. That is the path that I must follow. I must.
(hawaii eight)
20080312
push push.
Get through the day.
Avoid daydreams and falling asleep in the conference room, reservation or not. Else? “bad example.” Stock Phrasing. Be original in your regurgitation at least? Look out the window. Not too long! Sleep on my tail. Friend of the devil is a friend of mine.
Maintain, you bastard! You’ve got to get out of this gig alive or no one will tell the beautiful tale.
Be responsive with customers. Be coherent with coworkers. Be Be Be.
Push push. Rush rush. Just wasting time before I can get back to living my life.
20080305
Hawaii Seven
Saturday, Breakfast, Hilo.
Some crazy hotel breakfast of omelet with sausage bacon and ham in it. The Paniolo (Hawaiian Cowboy) apparently. That was after packing the car up this morning. Well, at least I packed my stuff up and organized a little bit for everyone else. Cleaned it out, organized, and left some clothes outside to dry.
Must be about 7:30 now, and I've done all of that, and watched the sunrise from a short walk away on a an old stone wall. Not as singularly spectacular as all of the rest thus far this week, but it was very solid. An everyday sunrise. A working man's sunrise. I like it, afterall, a working-class hero is something to be.
The life here is such a trip. All of the time.
There is a split between the locals. A Friendly split, for the most part, but a split nonetheless. The Hawaiians are here smiling and loving their heritage while shoehorned into service of the white tourist. The white men here are on permanent vacation and are treated accordingly. It is almost a long term contract of some kind. A play in a thousand acts. Running themes and characters that stretch not over lifespans, but over hundreds of years. Maybe millenia. The sweetness and happiness of the Hawaiians is magnified for the customer. Yes, they really are that nice, but not all of the time, you know?
How could they not be nice, they're in paradise.
The beauty here is remarkable. The land, the sea, the sky, the everything. Waterfalls, cliffs, madness. The people are beautiful too. They smile broadly back at you when you smile at them. It is like the whole island smiles back at you through her. Or him.
And the hula is a beautiful beautiful dance. Multilayered and expressed rhythms topped with a great great smile. That joy comes through in every motion. It is what I search for in sports, in music, in writing, in everything. That's what I'm after.
Seek it. When you find it, love it. It's what caused me to sleep under the stars in Volcano National Park. It is what caused me to carve up that road on the way to the sunset. It is what propels me at the moments I'm weak on the field. Push push, love love, joy joy. Competition, challenges. Not about domination, it is about celebration.
A great lesson on this trip was that if you're going to bother doing something, take the time to do it correctly. Do it with The Way. Unhurried, with attention to detail. Focus your mind on the task at hand and get lost in perfecting it. Show no shame in not knowing how because you're honestly working to know not-knowing so that you may know knowing.
This manifested itself is so many things over the course of the trip. I was thankful for the moments that I had alone to think through something and then do it the way that made sense to me. No hurried fray to jump into, nothing pushing me along save for me, and the pursuit of The Way in small things.
Do what you can, not what you can't. At the point when you don't know what to do, imagine what someone who would know what to do would do, and do that. Let your mind lead you through life in fits and starts. Or on a smooth ride. Don't hesitate to follow what moves you. If you do, you're missing your chance. Constantly act the way that you would if you were the only one watching you. Be true and level-headed in your self-judgment and you will find The Way.
I'm truly remembering how to love every moment of my life. It isn't as though I had forgotten, it is as though my vision was clouded for some time, and that now I'm able to see the path again. I can't remember ever having seen the path before, but it is constantly familiar. It corrects me and lets me know when I've strayed. Gently at first, and then with more force. If you aren't paying attention, you will certainly miss it.
Even if you don't know it is there, you'll be able to see people acting in their own Way. Those who find their Way have good fortune, those who have not or get lost from the way, have bad fortune. It is as though you are made for a particular type of journey and when you stray from it, your body and mind go, but not willingly.
Sure, in a way you can make yourself into anything you please, but in making yourself into what you're supposed to be, honestly, and with joy, you will be happiest with your journey and your destination.
Recognize that things change with time. In fact, change is time. Just make that change positive, and you will be well on your way to happiness. Focus on incremental improvement in everything. Self-evaluate without being critical. Self-celebrate without self-glorifying.
There is joy in existence and change... if you find it, you will recognize it. You will feel like you've finally found the path that you hadn't quite realized you'd been searching for through your whole life. Utterly strange, yet totally familiar. That is the feel of The Way.
---
Take joy in what you do well and love the work that you put in. That is The Way.
(hawaii six)
(hawaii eight)
20080304
Hawaii Six
Pu'u Ohale.
Black Sand Beaches.
Green Sand Beach.
Trail Running along the coast of Hawaii, discovering shelters and campsiites as I go. The sand at the green sand beach was the best I've ever felt. The rejuvenation of the brief swim after sprinting and climbing of the day was phenomenal. Would be a great bodysurfing beach at the right tide.
Moments of peace and beauty surround and echo resoundingly. It is something pure to search for. Perhaps I monkey with it by writing so much down, but the telling of the tale is part of the joy for me, so I tell the tale.
Randall, Queen of the Hole Divers, went off of the highest jump the old stoner at the beach had seen. Old wooden ladder remains built by people jumping off of these cliffs. At some point, I was sure to get in when no one was looking. Make choices as if you are the only one to answer to. Live your life for yourself to be the judge of. Strive to be better. 13 years and I move here. I'll have to.
I woke up this morning on a rock in Volcano national park. I had a sleeping bag, a pad, some macadamia nuts, and that's about it. Oh yeah, a patagonia fleece from ultimate, some boardshorts. Well, after the phenomenal night's sleep (really, the absolute best I've had in Hawaii... out under the stars and the near full moon... not coughing). Just stare at beauty until sleep comes. When sleep leaves, stare back up into beauty. Perfect temperature.
Take off a shirt-layer as the sun starts to rise. Off into the lava flow... Who poured all these rocks here? This is wild. And then a steel sign off in the distance to focus on. Get to it. Why is it there? an investigation of purpose. Mull on that for the walk there. Nice rock climbs. Scampers, really. See snowcaps and observatories in the background as the massive mountain lights up from the top down. With the moon in the background. Of course.
A Geological survey marker, cool!
Purpose revealed. and now to follow the painted arrows out...
The evening before was a top-three drive of my life. One-lane sunset run to beat the sun. To a fantastic destination. 15 mph road traveled at ~40 mph consistently. Huggggggg those curves. Trust the road designer and you will be rewarded. Eyes open though... Lava had washed some away here and there! Pedal down, hard corner, back again, and now the slow curve reward of the view that the passengers had been enjoying the whole time. Unreal.
I can't begin to tell you what's happening to me on this island, but I feel home. I feel like I'm with people I want to be friendly with, in a place that has 90% of the things I could ever wish for. I will be here. 13 years at the longest. 13 years and I'm here. in Paradise. Living easy. Loving life. Growing coffee. Brewing beer. Working, Writing. That's your goal son, go for it. Dive Dive Dive.
Like you are when no one is looking.
(hawaii five)
(hawaii seven)
20080303
Hawaii Five
Today involved so much...
waking up on the beach.
early am solo drive up to waimea.
akaka falls.
stoned reading about go stones while sitting on stones listening to the stones.
watching the waves crash into the stones under the overpass.
watching the sunset from mauna kea.
watching the eclipse from mauna kea... at the same time.
driving down mauna kea and having the sunset, instead of going away, just change phase.
i swear i was on the damn moon. landscapes like that don't exist on earth.
i want to do it again today. and tomorrow although i would love to do a little less milling about and more beaching. beeeeeeach.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
(hawaii four)
(hawaii six)
20080228
Hawaii Two
Choice.
Whatever we do, we usually have some choice in the matter, if not in terms of what we do, then in terms of how or where or when or with whom or whatever. I previously believed that choice lent a sense of gravity to what a given person chose to do. Importance, pressure to succeed. If you do it, you better be good at it and take it seriously.
Now, I've taken on a more flexible understanding of choice. Instead of searching for something to take seriously and slavishly devote my life to, I am instead seeking one thing from my diverse choices:
Joy.
What better goal than joy? What greater heights soar to or greater tales to tell than those filled with joy. Jesu, joy of man's desiring. Or something less religious. Or not.
It isn't a single type of feeling, and it isn't ever certain to last. But it is not instant gratification either. The masks of joy are nearly infinite. Joy exists everywhere in some form, why would I not embrace it?
It ain't always possible, or possibly even advisable, or even advisedly possible, but joy is that rare thing whose pursuit can be identical to its capture. The golden goal.
Joy.
Find it. Seek it out. Breathe it in and love it.
Joy.
(hawaii one)
(hawaii three)
20080213
5wh(o)?
who what where when why how
in terms of who we are as people, perhaps these basic questions can inform us more than we originally realize.
Specifically, which question do you ask more often? Which question do you NEED to know the answer to? Which one is your nemesis?
For example, I'm a why person. I like to know why people do all of the things they do. Not the big things like god and spirituality and science and all of that (although those are all very interesting in their own right) but why someone would chose to look the way they do or act the way the do or take with them what they do. Or even if they don't have a reason, I'd like to know that. I like to know why certain things are required of me and others not. If I can't work out the why, I likely won't do the what with who where when or how I'm supposed to. Like showing up on time for work. I can't figure out why I would want to do that.
The question that constantly trips me up is "when." I don't really like to be places when other people like me to be there. I'm too contrary for that. I like to show up when I'm done with what I wanted to do beforehand. Or I like to show up really early and take 'er easy. Or try to show up really early and actually show up right on time. (As an aside, I feel like I should start a lyrics site of my own, featuring lyrics to shit that I like and like to reference. I could get rid of advertisements and ensure accuracy. I hate searching for lyrics.) I don't know... when never seemed vital to me. Maybe that'll change some day, maybe it won't.
Who never seems to trip me up, even when it, by all rights, should. I don't tend to get caught up trying to figure out how to do things or have any difficulty when "what" is communicated to me. O get lost sometimes, but that's more a function of not caring if I'm on time than it is actually not knowing where I am. (With the first pike meeting of 2008 as a glaring exception to this. Last time I trust that driver to know how to get somewhere.)
20080210
lakers-heat
how many 7-footers do the lakers have now?
Three? Plus 2 6-10 guys who can shoot? And Energy Guy Turiaf? Plus Kobe Fisher Vujacic and Walton? This team has serious potential. And the Heat look like they're having fun now too. They can go full-tilt and score points because all 5 of the guys on the floor at any time would just as soon get the bucket as take a jumper from a set offense. Jason Williams still wants to play up-tempo and get a few highlight passes together. This could be a fun team to watch, even if they're not built to do so well over the course of a long season. If they play with confidence and have fun, they'll win their share of games and be a fun team to watch. Marion makes them that different.
But back to the Lakers, they seem to really ahve a "stockpile height" mantra. Imagine putting out a tall lineup of Bynum, Gasol, Odom and Radmanovic with Kobe running point forward? Just to give a completely impossible to match-up with look. If they can learn to work that into their offense for a couple of series per game, and then when they re-insert Fisher (he'd definitely be the starter) you get a true point guard offense, and you can run the triangle through any combination of 2 of kobe, gasol and odom on the floor. Or just Kobe if we want him to go solo for a while with the 2nd teamers before his longer break. THeir options with a full roster are just kind of embarrassing. If Phil really starts letting his vision get to the edge and letting his talent play in odd combinations through the triangle offense, this could be a scary scary team. Everyone seems to accept that Kobe is "the Man" and he doesn't feel the need to prove it as much as he can just be it. If they keep working on that level of coherence, they'll continue to rise. none of these guys will want to leave the team if they pull this off.
Good game to watch today after this with Cleveland vs Denver too!
3:52-5:02am
The Mars Volta The Bedlam in Goliath
Warped industrial megafunk. Intricate rhythms of doom and love or love and doom or something wicked this way coming. The rhythms are undeniably, unrelentingly complex and heavy. Ethereal guitars or feedback or manipulations of one sort or another occasionally flirt with the top of the soundscape and are then drawn back into the driving complexities. A Saxamaphone? What sick bastard put THAT THERE? I see. We're exploring sound textures. Drop out the bottom, go thicker funk...
This sounds like the Chili peppers with a new lead singer now. That is thick-ass funk. Slap yo momma funk. Shit. The Thumpasauras has returned in a Mexican hyphenated duo from somewhere that my brother warned me about. And what crazed maniac is laying down these bass drums? Unknown, but I shall look it up later. Where's he get off signing high like that? That's some crazy shit.
Now we seem headed for some bitches brew style funk, which is always a bit out there. Nope... Rage Against the Machine without the political message. Something about "never heard a man speak like this man before." I believe it. Blues Riffs? Over that? Back to thrashing!! This is the part of the Volta that I don't like. When they ram it home. But they gotta do what they gotta do i guess. I just turn the volume down. I know its against the spirit of the thing, but whatever. The rest of it is so good. I know the quiet bit comes up next, but I'm a cranky old man.
This spacey jam-out on keeping you as a favor is dope. Smooth it out but be strange. Futureghosts/Lovesounds? The Saxamaphone!!! Again! I heard you here before! Was there just a sax player hanging out round the way?
Speed it back up by paring it back down. Reestablish the brain-popping rhythm. Keep up the pace. Slowed down crazy high rhythms with a thundering backbeat. Man. I don't know how he gets this stuff into or out of his head, but it is wild. Just let yourself go over to the following the rhythms and the high-pitched seemingly-arrhythmic patterns (that almost always feel like they're traveling the wrong direction in time) and you'll feel the improbably mathematical genius of the Mars Volta. And now the lyrics seem so strange all of the time. Talk of sickness and obvious love under the surface. Wormholes. Time. Losing Control.Mystical. Fantastic. Unbelievable and awesome. In both senses.
And the unending technical precision!! The guitarwork is flat-out incredible. I couldn't tell you shit about shit other than what it looks like and what it sounds like when people play ridiculously intricate shit and when they don't. This album = When they do. "be your epidemic." SAXAMAPHONE RETURNS!!!! You can't slip that shit by me again!!
I can't even remember what happened at the beginning of the album. I feel like it has been three full albums already and I'm only just near th end of the 7th song. I don't know if my brain can handle th rest of this. We'll have to make a go of it. Damn.
Now a heavy bassline. Softer. That's good for the moment. If this were a concert, I'd be heading for the toilet. I'd simply have to. But I've got an ipod. So... Not that I'm literally shitting on this part, but I'm in the can because I'm treating this like a concert. If that's gross, fuck off. This music's perfect for it. We've got it getting a little funkier but grooved and blissed instead of hammering and pounding. Still ominously dark and foreboding, but with a slower feel. Now the evil's back in. That's the deal. That's either the Mars or the Volta, but that's what they do. Like Maryland does crab cakes and football.
Those lyrics are so slow over such a fast line. The comparison plays with the notion of time so very effectively. That's either the Volta or the Mars. Gotta be it. Different speeds for the same thing. Somehow fitting together. And then they ram it home. That's the The. I suppose. Makes them definite instead of indefinite. Silly articles.
Oh shit, a hook in your neck? Damn! What have you done for my appetite? Well, I think I might get some food in a bit. But I'm listening to some dope shit at the moment.
Really beautiful organ-like work. And then top-notch lead-solo guitar lines. Back to the beautiful organ-like and then back to hittin the rhythm hard, then strip it down, make it sparse and relayer. With a new pattern. a New voice effect that seems to make it sound like something is rattling on my damn desk. Creepy. Yeah. I rewound it and found it. Creepy! Kinda cool though.
The String Section? You, I did not anticipate. Perhaps I should have. Now a sort of spooky vamp int he background with a crazy-dizzy guitar in front. Now the strings are back. Wild. This track is fitting together well now. Good groove again. Now the evil peeks through. Take what's yours. We become bequeathed. Amp up the snare. Nice. Say the sooth, sir, say the sooth. I took a brief look at wikipedia earlier about this album.. all of the track names have crazy names like Ouroboros the self-eating serpent and the like. I noticed a couple, but I'll admit without the single reference point of "Wikipedia" as a place to start? I would not have known that all of them were. I would have assumed some were made up. Now, I didn't actually read all of them yet, but that was because I wanted to listen to the music first. I will then go back and read. She's calling me. Strings are mourning more. A brief respite. singing. A chorus? One more track to go.
Nice opening. Spookfunk. Crawling guitar Good pace to keep working at now. Crazyfast guitar now. Altered voices up high. Drop it out and back up to speed. Crazy Ending. Noise. SAXAMAPHONE!!!! YOU FUCK!
Seems to end in mid-run... aha! repeat. ouroboros.
20080207
below the heavens
blu & exile.
If you're not listening, you're missing.
The key to listening? Blues in Exile. Because that's what this album is. It is the blues screened through today's landscape. The beats drip soul, the lyrics are about pain and struggle and overcoming. The lyrics work on level after level and are applicable to your life, even though you're not a struggling young black dude from no where. Unless you are.
The universality of the sentiments is the key to the blues. There is pain and there is hate in the blues. But not the hate that cannot be overcome, unless you're John Lee Hooker, of course... but he's bad like Jesse James. But the struggle and the power to lift yourself up is something incredible that Blu shares. It resonates with the viewer, and the backdrops painted by Exile match perfectly.
The most amazing trick is without question the fact that though this music is the blues, it makes you feel like the sun is shining down on you. It is truly music born of the never-ending sunshine of the city of angels (though the stranger "didn't find it to be that, exactly.") that admits that the sun alone doesn't make everything is perfect.
Anyway, the music is fantastic. The lyrics are powerful, direct, relevant and elegant. This album is already a classic. Buy it.
20080206
me/we
George Plimpton said that was the shortest poem in the English Language.
It was uttered by Muhammad Ali at some graduation somewhere (Harvard maybe) but more importantly, something similar was uttered by McCain:"I think we must get used to the idea that we are the Republican Party front-runner"
Well, shit, "we." Is he using the royal we? Does it matter?
More importantly, what does it tell us? We don't elect individuals as much as we elect groups chosen by individuals. Just remember that.
Or is he just making "we" all feel like "we"'re with him as the front runner? Some cunning linguistic trick?
20080205
don't hate the player
hate the game.
and i do. a thousand times over. superfatuesday or whatever we're calling it this year is yet another nail in the coffin. please narrow my choices to only the front runners so that when i vote, i can vote for someone i disagree with less. please. i've always wanted choices to be made for my in my life so that i don't do something stupid like choose something that no one else will choose. i want to vote for winners, not losers.
talk about "grabbing the front runner media advantage." talk about "the economy being a major issue now that we're headed for a recession." all of it is just fluff for the cameras. putting a spin on what is going on. explaining the inexplicable. sampling, polling, spinning.
who are my candidates? what do they actually want? what are they actually like? why are the actually here?
the answers to these questions are not talked about. instead, their thoughts are filtered and homogenized through so many machinations and advisers to be the same for every candidate. instead of voting on knowing the candidates, i must vote on shadowy representations of candidates. (You SHUT THE HELL UP about your damn cave, Plato. We've all heard enough.) representations designed specifically to fool us and lure us as voters, not as citizens and humans and residents. as VOTERS.
they want nothing but your vote. everything is predicated upon that. the VOTE. VOTEVOTE. VOTERS. not people. they're appealing to us as voters. what's the difference? well, voters vote. they don't feel, they don't think compassionately, they cast a vote. (etc) well, how do you get more people to cast votes for you than someone else? differentiate yourself ever-so-slightly on just the right issues and you'll get the vote. ever-so-slightly. if you change in a big way, you'll get discarded like that midgetcinich.
sure, maybe they've got noble intentions. maybe they don't. but it doesn't even matter. you're buying a bill of goods. political and social pasts constructed specifically to win this race. to get your vote. what you see is not what you get.
but i can't be mad at the candidates because if they don't play the game, they don't have a chance. if they do play the game, they give themselves away.
another return to douglas adams: "anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
20080203
david byrne's voice in my head
Damn the man.
And his constantly shifting multi-layered poly-rhythms.
Art for art's sake (who's/whose art?) is what the heads talked about, and that's something I can appreciate. Investigating the frame and what it contains as well as what it doesn't just to make some crazy psychokilling post-modern punkadelic electricdiscodance music for paranoid androids. (Yes, virginia... "Radio Head" begat Radiohead)
Simply put, the music and the message are the same. None of it is left to chance, and all of it seems to have sprung wildly and uncontrollably from Byrne's head. I don't know how it got in there, but I'm happy it got out. And judging by the sound and fury of it, so is he. If i had that kind of stuff trapped in my brain I'd be happy to get it out too.
The strange thing is the grand idea of making paranoid nutty dance music always brings me back to Steely Dan when I consider it all. They made crazy paranoid slightly funkdafied west-coast guitar soloed studio smooth elevator music. About the craziest things you can imagine. Just like how fools recognize Steely Dan and know a couple of words and think to themselves "This is some nice background music" there is some feeling that the Heads are just some kinda dancey crap with a full-on strange as hell high-opinion of himself frontman. Both are just so incredibly wrong that it is laughable, man - ha ha!
In some sense, there are two camps of music. Unfiltered, unadulterated (see Ramones and the like) and supremely processed (like what I'm talking about here). And I love bits of both, but there is something about the conscious creation of levels within the music and considering the way it is perceived versus the expectations of the listener and all that really seems to get into my head these days.
So... that's that.
20080102
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