Neural Oscillations

12:20 am - a moment in time at viento y agua, making my peace with the city

The Noble Hobo
Let his beard grow
So the birds could nest
The dirt caked on his heels
Collected the city's memories
To clean them would be to do Her a disservice.

These streets are his
But this he would never claim
Yet it is known
That to cross this intersection
Is to enter his domain
And rules that are broken
Call out to him in defense
Of their validity
He responds in kind
Polite but authoritative

He stared into my eyes
And a part of me died
His cardboard sign
Reminded me
That any second
Any thing
Can disappear

Each grain of dust and grime
Contained within a forgotten time
His soles were histories
And all the miseries
Made him smile, lopsided

The straight lines in the pavement are illusory
The cracks are the truth

His palms are creviced
Like the streets
Dry and cracked and white
Calling out for road work
And orange signs
And detours
And inconvenience
But he calms them
With the thought that they
Need no rehabilitation
Within the expanse of their
Deserted desert gaps
The wind howls,
Drowning out the bustle of the traffic that diverts its eyes
To avoid meeting his

But he is noble
And their aversion is commonplace
In a world where pockets constantly empty,
Pouring their contents into a bottomless cauldron
Stirred by marionettes who in turn are pulled to and fro
By marionettes
This chain continues
Beyond the length of
A trained sniper's sight
The strings are made of fishing line, invisible
In the darkness no matter the angle

This man knows they are there
And knows not to rely on his sight
Eyes closed, he imagines a field of grass blades
Flicking like anxious tongues
At the sky
Just the right hue of green,
Dark enough
To be confused with their shadows

06:15 pm - Permanecstasy

Feeling drips from my fingers like melted wax.

Call me delusional but my contusions aren't losing any energy confusing themselves with your misplaced machinations. I'm just a drooling dog and yer my Ivan Pavlov. My mentality is that I am ecstasy and you are tripping on me.

She's covered in makeup and I wonder what's beneath. If I woke up next to you I wonder what I'd think. My heart spilt like milk and she's lapping it up with her sandpaper tongue.

Memories come trickling back like scattered showers pinpricking tickling taunting teasing uneasing unpleasing, bruised but not beaten, shaken not stirred, breakin up and puttin it all together this stormy weather is weathering me down.

I'm clippin the roots that chain me to the city. Pondering Absolute Goodness like its nobody's business.

 

Current Mood: touched

01:46 pm - Sticky.

Sbe's sticky like a lollipop licked
and I'm stuck like a mack truck on its side
blocking the interstate highway

She starts to fly away and I'm tethered by a silver cord
Dragged along the asphalt floorboards

To snip it would be the death of us
and leave it to the gods we trust

She's sticky like molasses, thick
Dipped myself in, I never knew
All we would do to one another
Now we head into the sea of other lovers

There will be a moment when I forget how your skin feels
There will be some wounds that may never fully heal
There might be a day where we look back and just smile

Meanwhile...

The residue of you
Sticks to me like superglue
If I pull it I'll lose skin
If I leave it...

Current Mood: grumpy

01:40 pm - Old flow.

I got a history of madness like Foucault
comin at you with the psychoactive judo
like aikido I throw you for a loop mentally
take your aggression flip it back on you consequentially
you can only receive the force which flows from my lungs to my throat
force christened in soul, baptised in hydrogen peroxide
I flip topside and elevate
flyin solo like Charlie Christian
Listen to the elders the wisdom of the ages
smoked out by sages burning sagebrush

10:23 pm - The Ballad of Madame Xanadu

I entered her parlor

Gazed at the dripping candlewax

Before I could get farther

She stopped me in my tracks


And she said…


“I will tell you all that you don’t want to hear

So you’d best turn around if its truth that you fear

If not, have a seat, and take a deep breath

Clear your heavy head, and the cards will be spread”

 

And I said…

 
“Seductress of magicians, let them fall where they may

I’m ready to hear what your cards have to say”

Her hands were like porcelain, her eyes emerald green

I couldn’t imagine all the wonders she’d seen

 

And she said:


There once was a nymph, her name was Nimue

She visited Merlin, a sweet rendezvous

his powers were many, and made hers seem few

but she would enchant him with all the right moves

Along came a stranger as old as the Earth

Who told her her lover was corrupt and cursed

To carry his kingdom to its violent end

This certain doom she could not comprehend

And sure enough the war came to pass

And Lady Nimue was forced to act fast

She bound the magician with thick heavy vines

And escaped with her life to wander through time


Now she is known as Madame Xanadu

Ask what you will and she’ll tell you her truths

The future once cloudy is hers to observe

Allow me to share all the wonders I’ve heard

She hides a secret a thousand years old

You wouldn’t believe all the stories she’s told

Of an oriental palace, the seer of Kublai Khan

Predicting his great fortunes, and never being wrong


Along came the stranger revealing a plot

To end the Khan’s kingdom, much like Camelot

Our lady succeeding in saving the day

But found with the stranger, Khan sent her away

Out in the desert they spoke for awhile

She and the stranger were one in exile

She hoped to join him in his lonely travels

But he would not bend and the moment unraveled

 

Now she is known as Madame Xanadu

Ask what you will and she’ll tell you her truths

The future once cloudy is hers to observe

Allow me to share all the magic I’ve heard

She hides a secret a thousand years old

You wouldn’t believe all the stories she’s told

Of a French revolution, and the heads that would roll

Divining for the rich till their bodies went cold

 

Along came the stranger, he spoke of their fate

To head to the square where the guillotine waits

Our lady imprisoned begins to decay

So she summons death before she fades away

A card reading later and Death had agreed

To ignore the end that the Gods had decreed

Back in the square the king fell from grace

As the blade hit his neck and the crowd cheered with hate

 

Now she is known as Madame Xanadu

Ask what you will and she’ll tell you her truths

The future once cloudy is hers to observe

Allow me to share all the magic I’ve heard

She hides a secret a thousand years old

You wouldn’t believe all the stories she’s told

Of murder and intrigue in the dark streets of Britain

The victims destroyed with a surgeon’s precision

 

Along came the stranger, but he would not act

Our lady prepared for the coming of Jack

She arrived to the scene just a moment too late

Her friend on the ground, throat slit by a blade

She slapped the stranger for letting Jack go

But he saw a schematic that she didn’t know

The ripper had killed an unborn child

Destined to rule and commit genocide

 

Now she is known as Madame Xanadu

Ask what you will and she’ll tell you her truths

The future once cloudy is hers to observe

Allow me to share all the magic I’ve heard

She hides a secret a thousand years old

You wouldn’t believe all the stories she’s told

Of a stranger she bound, who could cross time and space,

Delivering him from his lost hiding place

 

Now Phantom Stranger you answer to me

How do you live so dispassionately?

Your ways are abhorrent, your heart it deceives

You simply ignore the horrors you perceive

He spoke to her calmly of intentions pure

But she, unconvinced, would not hear out his words

They found no peace and he soon disappeared

Leaving her free of what he engineered

 

Now she is known as Madame Xanadu

Ask what you will and she’ll tell you her truths

The future once cloudy is hers to observe

Allow me to share all the magic I’ve heard

She hides a secret a thousand years old

You wouldn’t believe all the stories she’s told

I rose from my chair, enchanted and light

Madame Xanadu, I am blessed by your sight

04:51 am - San Francisco Awaits

Yes, I'll be heading North in August.

A new life, a new beginning, a new voyage...

"I equate the days to come with possibility"

Its a school of consciousness and transformation. The road less traveled sort of psychology. Like a tributary. Flowing into the mainstream, nourishing it from aside...

but the tide is rising in this here river. It is my hope that the rainfall of my concerted efforts will give a little push to the water level, sending it across the banks and making it a main-stream of its own. In the course of this flooding, I hope to temper myself--mix my fire with my water, unify those opposites, synthesize those contradictions, fuse the self. 

I'm excited and nervous...the good nervous. I no longer fear failure, because I'm persistent and have a sense that we all have hidden potential waiting to be unleashed on the world. I'm going to tap into it, instill it into my actions, and hopefully help a few lost souls along the way.

After all, lost souls, I was once lost too, and found my way again. And that way leads North, to a city and a bay, and a pocket universe of experiences waiting to be unearthed, plucked like gemstones. Shined from my attentions and efforts. My life and yours, my soon-to-be-new home. What will we exchange, what will we share?

I'll be at the extent of my frugality. Bare bones living. This is a challenge like never before, and I can't wait. Dripping with enthusiasm, my friends. I didn't mention that the school offers free daily yoga classes, something I've been meaning to do but could never afford.

Gurus, gurus, on a hidden island in downtown. Zen garden on the roof. Open mic nights. Everyone needs a Mecca. I'll be leaving my hometown, again. Round two of the flight from the nest. Wings healed up tougher than before. Higher flights, longer flights. There's a girl sleeping next to me who plans to visit a lot. I should be sleeping too.

But this is important, because I can finally express myself about this journey. I've been messing around with Garage Band on this here MacBook, and its fun. Time to kick the music up a couple notches...I'd love to live with a musician or two, a fusion of minds and art. Shopping for places in June/July when they become available. I have a small network of friends up there, which will hopefully grow as I dig in my new roots.

And before this gets too scattered, I depart for sleep. Tonight, I may not have to dream, for my dreams are waking up, as am I.

04:04 pm - Here I am.

Its been too long, so I thought I would get on here.

Circles, circles, I'm talking in circles. Even that last sentence cycles back onto itself.

I'm into the Sandman.

I'm at odds with Grant Morrison. But can I blame him for all that goes over my head? At least its a challenge...something you can't wrap your mind around no matter how hard you try. Or, how hard I try. Its troubling to think that I am a fan of this guy and not getting him. Its like you thought you knew someone better and then you realize you are scratching the surface.

Ah, scratching the surface, are we back to that?

Now that's a big circle. We're talkin a decade, maybe. It wasn't like this in idyllic youth. Everything was shiny and new and straightforward enough. Save the princess = save the kingdom sort of stuff.

But everything got complicated. And messy. And over my head, definitely. I can feel the gusts blowing past the hair on my head.

I leave at that, for it is time for a bike ride with a fragment of that shiny, new, idyllic world...its still there, somewhere.
 

Current Mood: hungry

09:53 pm - Letter to Oneself.

Materialism got the best of her. Our exchange was short. It wasn't really like seeing an old friend. It was like being part of a business transaction. I was simply a factor in the equation. A free (?) radical. But I question my own spontaneity. There were greater forces at work in that situation.

I've always said...

we serve Mammon, the prince of these riches, who sips his fine wines surrounded by his bitches. Testing out his latest product pitches. Controlling our lives with a flick of his switches. Secret covert messages assault me like a ninja. Their style's so perfected, they must have trained under Splinter. Trace it back to our roots with the Nina and the Pinta. Santa Maria, oversea. Spices, rum, molasses, sugar, tobacco, and slaves. Now we got a new version of the triangular trade. 

So multidirectional, do you find it objectionable? Does it cross your mind in any single moment of the day?

Or are you too busy shopping to think about that? In the mall like a zombie, from Dawn of the Dead. Spending for a rush on shit you don't need, so far from the workers who sweat and bleed from dawn to dusk just to barely scrape by never hearing an answer when they ask why to the sky.

They'll keep your head down in it if you never think otherwise. Open your eyes and realize there is more to surmise.

These radio-ready lyrics are rolling spirits in their graves and every download sold is just paving the way for future homogenization while those in other nations get by on less than two US dollars a day.
 
 

05:30 pm - Kerouac Castaneda Jung Hendrix

Change.

Superficial leanings...a lack of mastery...an immature persona...but fortune shines.

12:28 pm - School of Marketing Propaganda

Last night I had a study session to attend, as a study assistant.

It was for a class on Human Resource Management.

The memorization ranged from the Rational Decision Making Model, definitions of cognitive dissonance and ethical culture, examples of the "big 5" personality traits for success (not surprisingly, introversion was not a desired trait).

So I trained the student I was assisting to get them to know from memory all these things I had said so repeatedly. But when I was done I knew it was in my head too. I didn't have a chance to reflect upon that until now. I figure I will pick at the information until I glean whatever's worth gleaning out of it, while attempting to maintain control of the info if it tries to creep up and guide my thinking unconsciously.
 

I would be a much different person if I had taken classes like these instead of taking the classes I wanted.
 

My degree processed and my diploma is being mailed.

01:35 am - The Hawk That Flew Above New Orleans

Experience fills her damaged wings
Pain and pleasure bound in a sling
The arm will heal, the bird will sing
songs about the love she brings

she falls in love so easily
she's good at keeping company
rode my high all the way into space
where the realm of chaos took its place

superheroes at the masses
take a break from endless clashes

do we cry when a friend is lost? 
do we swim when the ship is tossed?
how many can we save?
and what about the rest?
when do we fill the graves?
when do we pass this test?

Forged a bond, tempered by steel
Nevermind our mass appeal
Stick with me I'll show you the ropes
Tell me what my pen evokes
Open my throat if I start to choke
And forgive me if I misspoke

Now that you're flying again
now that your time is well spent
take a look down at the Earth
and tell me what you think its worth
The air up there is thin and clean
far from the hum of mad machines
that plot our ends in secret meetings
While our lives resume repeating

Far from the murder of crows
I found a hermit who knows
where we come from and where we go
while we wait for an encore after the show

Current Mood: hopeful

01:57 am - Sunshine Dimming

Let the pain subside
your dreams will take you for a ride
tranquilized at peace for the night

Find a place to hide
a pillow where your head can lie
the day is done
the moon has won again

And I don't know what I can do
To get my message through to you
I've tried and tried but nothin's gettin through
You pull the sheet over your head
and tell me that you're playing dead
life has left us drained of all our juice

but baby, tomorrow's comin
so stop those tears from runnin down your face
I equate the days to come with possibility
grant me just one wish
and find it in your heart to start anew
I await the days to come
uncertain but I'm pushin through

Look at all we've got
Piles of clothes and forget me nots
What does it all amount to?
Do we let it sound too sweet?

Look at all we're not
Filthy beasts and dancing robots
What does it all come down to
when it rests beneath our feet?

Current Mood: productive

05:49 pm - Happy Ganesh Chaturthi!

Current Mood: thankful

12:21 pm - Second World

I'm alive in the second world
I'm roaming through the past
bourgeoisie rubbing off on the streets

To them, I am rich.
Is it always us and them?

U.S. as in us
V.S versus them
I don't understand
how we got the master plan

07:24 pm - Craven Modern World

“The world’s stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t have” – Mustapha Mond from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World

“The world’s unstable, as usual. People aren’t getting any happier, they get what they can, and they always want what they can’t have” – me, from this entry

Are we more than our conditioning? Are we more than a series of predictable reactions to stimuli that accumulate over time? The effectiveness of hypnopaedia turned out to be inaccurate, but when you think of the way commercials drum repetitive slogans and jingles into our heads, you start to realize that we don’t need to be asleep to be hypnotized…it happens all the time. I had an illuminating experience where I felt I had escaped from the “grasp” of the commercials and was finally viewing them with a full awareness of the effect they were attempting to have on me. But I think before then…and especially as a child…you never question what’s basically spoonfed to you, especially if it tastes good. Kids watch cartoons and don’t want to miss a minute, so of course they are going to sit through the commercials, which makes them want sugar coated food that shortens their attention spans and hence makes commercials even more salient to their conditioned minds.

Huxley showed us a world where we are forced from birth to believe certain things, to act a certain way, to live a fixed lifestyle. In our world it seems we have more of a choice but we choose ignorance, we don’t need the government putting alcohol in our fetal test tubes or teaching us in our sleep—we can drink ourselves to death and absorb as much advertising as we like and we do so willingly. Perhaps I’m being overly cynical but I’m thinking that is a natural response to reading this book—a reexamination of our nature. Of my nature.

I honestly began to question my stance on eugenics and social Darwinism. I started to think of India’s caste system and how it was justified by religious leaders for so long. I thought back to a comment made by a friend about population control a few months ago and as much as it bothered me, I still saw some truth in it, which in turn bothered me about myself, which of course made me uncomfortable and continued to bother me until reading this book, which made me more uncertain. It’s Flagpole Sitter by Harvey Danger…”been around the world and seen that only stupid people are breeding, the cretins cloning and feeding”. It’s true, and if you agree with it, you're considered a selfish asshole.

To a certain extent some of the realities Huxley predicted have come true, although in the modern world they have taken on different forms. Perhaps the scariest to me is the intoxicating soma, which makes me think of the Stones song “Mother’s Little Helper” and the Ramone’s “I Wanna Be Sedated”. The quick fix pill is always going to be there for us to sweep our problems under the carpet and our demons into the closet, but its avoidant behavior like this that stifles personal development. Ironically, the same solution applied to individuals through soma holidays is applied to the greater society through the shipment of its deviants to far away places.

It seems to me that Huxley’s “utopia” is in a state of stasis. They have traded change and development for stability, and although they appear to be advanced, they are really running on a conveyor belt that keeps them running mechanically in the same place. If you think of life as a hierarchy of needs like Maslow’s pyramid they are stuck at a low level—they have the security that comes with social belonging, but their inner potential is predestined and self-examination (which would come naturally with the seclusion they dread) is practically non-existent, so they never rise. They are called “Alphas” but the only thing that separates them from the other castes is their training and ability. They are capable of more “advanced” interactions socially but fail to escape their own mediocrity.

But I got to thinking of them as not just “us” in the future, but rather another culture we are looking in on much in the way they are looking in on the folks at the reservation. Its easy to quickly judge the whole novel as an image of “this is what could happen to us if we stay the present course” but from the culturally relative perspective its more complicated because they have just as much justification for their “ways” as anyone else. The system seems to make everyone reasonably happy, but I still have a sense that this happiness is rooted in ignorance and doesn’t go anywhere. Its never really threatened…so how can it be appreciated? Its Joni Mitchell…”you don’t know what you got till its gone” and they never really lose anything. One reporter says to the Savage that “pain is a delusion” but doesn’t true stability require pain to balance out pleasure? Doesn't the pain make the pleasure that much better?

Huxley is definitely poking fun by calling John “the Savage” and then making him out to be more cultured than the Alphas he encounters. I think what they fear from him is his unpredictability (something more closely associated with animal instinct i.e. the white tiger biting Siegfried…or was it Roy?)…the fact that he could do anything at any time, the fact that he doesn’t have to play by their rules. But these things, although primal, do make us more human. Our very unpredictability is what drives us towards new and exciting experiences and discoveries.

Current Mood: cynical

09:54 pm - Towards a spiritual athleticism.

Body awareness...the muscular twitches, the random itches, the pain in my right foot (I still haven't seen the doctor for my checkup and I'm heading to Costa Rica Wednesday [which means I won't see him until I return]).

With Regardie as my guide, I plunge into myself. I implode. There is nothing left outside to ruminate on, to obsess about endlessly.

There is only my body, pure and simple, and I'm listening to it. And I'm pulsating like a giant heart, but I'm not stoned. I'm just focusing. Directing the attention inward. I don't ever want to be stoned again. I don't want to rely on external stimuli to affect internal states. I want to do it myself. I should have done it myself this whole time, but no point in trying to erase the past.

A guest is arriving shortly so I may have to cut this short. Chinese Ghost Story will be viewed tonight...it has a "very long wait" on Blockbuster Online and is now in my possession.

OOoooooooOooOoOOooooooOo (that's how the ghosts talk in Ultima Online, I'll have you know. There are few who will appreciate that. Are you one of them?)

Am I heading in any direction at all? Its my hope that looking within will show me what is real when I look about.

I, the microcosm, hoping for a better view of the macrocosm. If I look long enough and hard enough will I find the universe staring back at me?

Current Mood: calm

11:46 pm - Fire

I'm a fire sign. I feel watered down, like a martini you had to add ice to that sat awhile too long. I need heat, but not the weather kind. Heat that tempers metal into shape and sharpness. This blade is dull and the hilt is loose, ready to slip.

So its time to balance out these elements. Its time to be fire.

I've been reading about how...

but reading is one thing. Now there's a need for action.

and...I'm going to watch a movie now. So much for attention spans.

Current Mood: determined

02:44 am - Mjolnir, return to my hand.

Current Mood: restless

02:51 am - Animatronic Antibiotic

Sleep seduces
she's such a whore
always asks
for more and more

I give in, my sin, my retreat, my solitude, my escape. Always waiting for me. Always baiting me. I'm hooked, strung out. I'm cooked, bought out.

Mental residue on my blemished mind
the fog is thick and heavy
enough to break the levee
its cousin, the Flood, enters the scene
now the parasites are drowning
and their tentacles are browning
like Autumn Leaves
bereaved beavers begin to counter the Flood's damnation
while the light at the tip of the brown tentacle refracts and refrains and refires and relinquishes its right to illuminate.

So here I am, para-sight-less
in the sight of Gods and Devils
clear as day until they send me away
tail between my legs
tongue gotten by the cat
irradiated emaciated
dilapidated confused
bemused
at a ruse
that lacks clues

The party in my synaptic gap died down, no one stuck around to help clean up. Bottles and cans in the desert sand, with messages on parchment inside telling how the music died down and left only the sound of the breeze blowing across the caps, barely whistling away the silence.

Drained by my vampiric shadow, it creeps up from behind and sucks my soul into silhouetted formations on the walls of my white room. No black curtains. The undiscovered self is cryptic and leaves me full of question marks without questions to give them direction. Its late, its late! Soon your nocturnal tendencies must be forcibly reversed and won't that be a super-sedated hellish spell.

These sentences beg for sense. The man behind them clings to every word, knowing full well only so much can get across to anyone. The rest remains mummified, its secrets to be unearthed in the eons to come. As if!

Current Mood: drained

02:41 am - Hellenistic Haven

Dionysus pulls me through
the gate of endless shades of blue
inebriation without complication
only time will tell what's true

Zeus, you broke loose
and left waste in your path
now everyone is wondering
if daddy's love will last
what happens to the bastards
that refuse to call you master?
the sons of jealousy, rage, and wrath

Pan where have you been
your garden's filled with bugs and men
who testify:
"these plants have died"
I liked it better way back when

Athena, my Queen
its time to come clean
where lies the truth
in all that I've seen?
I keep looking back
and filling in the gaps
stuck in a sand trap
next to the green