WALKING ON THIN ICE

It’s hard to be a person on this planet. One of the biggest problems is that the people you love are the ones who have conceptions of who you are.

One of the biggest things Smith has taught me is that I can only be me. I can try to be completely agreeable to everyone around, but it still won’t eliminate all friction.

Smith is the Anti-hero, Anti-PC. It’s odd, because normally such folk lie right rather than left.

When we shacked up, Smith told me he’s gonna say what he’s gonna say, and I might not like it. For example, he might think a girl’s purty, so he’ll say it. And if I try to control him, tell him to not say such things, he’ll start clamming up around me, and we won’t have fluid communication.

Most people filter what they say so as to not offend. But for someone who’s trying to be honest and creatively fertile with their writing, someone who’s trying to uncork expressiveness, gloves come off.

There are drawbacks to this philosophy but there’s also a remarkable freedom.

I’m under stress because of the ambiguity of my situation. Extremes of joy and dread. I don’t know exactly where next WHERE is or next WHAT. I would like a vacation away from the planet for a while. I want aliens to abduct us and transport us to a safe place.

I read a Hopi prophesy which comforted me, something about us all being in the river, and it’s a matter of keeping one’s head above water and celebrating with the others we meet on the ride. If I think about the river when I’m stressed I feel some relief.

Calmness is a way of dealing with events. Calm can be a decision rather than a symptom. I am me no matter where I be. Might as well enjoy it.

Here’s the Hopi Prophesy. I found it in the Green Panda Press 2007 Anthology. (Order the anthology here: http://www.myspace.com/verysharp.) The anthology also has some photos by me, and many many very good poems and stories and art. It’s a pleasant way to spend an evening, smoking and reading and thinking.

HOPI INDIAN PROPHESY

“You have been telling the people
that this is the Eleventh Hour.

Now you must go back and tell
the people that this is The Hour.

And there are things to be considered -

Where are you living?

What are you doing?

What are your relationships?

Are you in right relation?

Where is your water?

Know your garden.

It is time to speak your Truth.

Create Your community.

Be good to eachother.

And do not look outside yourself for the leader.

This could be a good time!

There is a river flowing now very fast.

It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.

They will try to hold on to the shore.

They will feel they are being torn apart, and they will suffer greatly.

Know the river has its destination.

The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above water.

See who is in there with you and celebrate.

At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally.

Least of all ourselves.

For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

The time of the lone wolf is over.

Gather yourselves!

Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary.

All that we must do now must be in a sacred manner and in celebration.

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

- The Elders

Double cross:

“Why did the chicken cross the road?”

To get revenge for the road crossing him.

So, we going to Mexico, or Guatemala?

“Who knows? It’d be nice to see Guatemala after Mexico.”

We’re going to Guatemala, have some guacamole. Guatemalan guacamole.

I used to have a radio show at the institution, and between visits with the psychiatrists, they’d get me a microphone, and I got to be everybody.

“You never told me about the institution.”

I’m telling you now. You know why Freud said there’re no jokes?

“No, why?”

Because he was the joke.

“That’s a good reduction.”

Yes, ma’am.

“But you’ve never been in an institution. You’re lying.”

I have been in an institution.

“Yeah, penal.”

Yeah, also in the cubicle farm institution with the suits.

“Are the suits like straight jackets?”

Oh yes. So’s the desk, the briefcase, sniffing the boss’s ass. Good beta behavior to the alpha dog. Sniff sniff.

“How do you get out of the institution?”

With a passkey. Yes, I knew how to pass as sane. I walked out the door. They weren’t even sure I was there. Maybe I’m not… completely. You can just call me Some of Smith.

“You think you’re incomplete?”

Oh yes. We’re all incomplete since the Big Bang blew us apart. It was all Oneness and hunki-dory-ness before. Until the Big Bang blew us into life units. I’ve been trying to reunite with the Universe ever since. And we can’t until sub system collapse at the End, when the Universe sucks itself back Up, into One Big Pre-Puddle.

“How do you know you’re incomplete?”

I have this aching inside, this not-rightness, this lack of inner peace and satisfaction.

“I think it’s The Planetary Scream.”

That could well be. We’ve all been painted by Edvard Munch.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

“To make chicken pot hole pie.”

“In a year one can learn a lot, age a lot. I’m definitely affected. I’m waiting for the next onion layer.”

There’s a great album title by the Incredible String Band, “The 5,000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion.”

“I like that.”

That’s probably as old as you are.

“I’ve been writing about my early early adulthood. Going back to some painful times. Hmm. 5,000 layers of the onion.”

There’s always trepanation.

“That reminds me. You know, the zombies in the movie Land of the Dead are good metaphors for now. It seems as though everybody’s asleep. They’re not changing their lifestyles to reduce energy and waste. They just want to turn the switch, and everything keeps working. As long as we don’t see what’s in the next room, it’s OK. And in the next room is the Third World.”

We’re the First World. Where’s the Second?

“According to Wikipedia, the Second World was a phrase used to describe the communist states within the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence. But now capitalism’s won, and the whole world’s becoming the Third World. That’s what globalization is. A race to the bottom. I’m so sorry, honey. I can’t help but think about these depressing things.”

Well, we have to know what’s going on. Because we’re going to be living in it. We have to survive. I’m starting to understand this is the Zen goal of living happy in an unhappy world. You and I are trying to live as bright a life as we can in these very dark times.

“You’re absolutely right. So anyways, that’s what I like about the Romero movies. They’re very metaphoric.”

Very metaphoric. He had Dawn of the Dead take place in a shopping mall, and you can’t get much cooler than that.

“In my early childhood we were poor, and my girlfriend and I wondered what that would be like if we could have anything we wanted in a shopping mall. Our goal was to become good consumers. It’s crazy, isn’t it? But that’s what that’s like when you never have new clothes, your parents don’t have a new car, your mom says she’s broke. That’s what these aspiring developing countries want. New things.”

I have yet to have a new vehicle. Unless you count a bicycle. Used cars, used motorcycle, used pickup. Maybe I’ll buy me a new SUV.

“Over my dead body! Ah, well. I’ve been thinking about us settling down. We’ll have to make money through writing, or I’ll have to get a job.”

Or we can rob banks that are next to subway stations, so we can use public transport for getaway.

“It was interesting watching the zombie movie’s mechanisms of commerce. That’s how we are, in this world. We’re mercenary.”

Yes, people are. They don’t seem to realize that money doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a symbol that everybody has to agree on.

“You know the Federal Reserve? That’s a private bank. I wonder what kinda bad stuff goes on there. They can just *print* money.”

I think the news would be to find places there’s NOT corruption around the world.

The whole problem here is that mankind has never been very nice to mankind, or the planet. And you have a lot of nice people doing a lot of nice things, but nice people are always outnumbered by bad people.

“I think the concept of “niceness” was manufactured.”

Offworld?

“No, by the bad people. Well, rulers have always fostered a state religion for their legitimacy. And, there’s also something called the Middle Class Ethic. And people raised with the Middle Class Ethic initially give the benefit of the doubt to authority, that government is benign, that presidents aren’t questionable.”

Where actually it’s cancerous.

“That’s how I used to be. I used to have the Middle Class Ethic. And the authorities would pat me on the head, tell me I was gonna get far. Nice little Democrat. We see you’re buying into our framework.“

Urban-Jellen Test’s site is http://www.myspace.com/ujtest. This is an interview with their lead singer Blue7, who stayed with us for five nights in Morocco.

“Black Cat here is one of my favorite songs. It has a bit of swamp rock.”

I’d like to quote Ducks Deluxe when they said, Down in the swamp, Daddy put the bomp in my soul.

“Swamp Rock: is that a category?”

Creedence Clearwater Revival. Swamp has Louisiana Soul mixed with Rock’n'Roll. You’ll also find rhythms in Louisianna from this continent that are played down here in Morocco because they were originally influenced by Africa.

“Your music could be a Rockabilly Noir.”

That’s fucking awesome, that’s fucking beautiful. I’ll go with that. Down in the swamp, Daddy put the bomp in my soul.
A swamp is slinky and sensual, like a vampire that dances really good creeping through the swamp. Voodoo. Voodoo boogie woogie.

I wrote my songs in the order they would be played live. I also wrote most of them chronologically as I saw the life of a man.

“Do any specific songs that come to mind which epitomize the development of a man?”

Several. There are several that epitomize the maturing process of a man.

The opening piece that I play with Thym, the one that is a four section piece. The beginning section is about the nebulous other place that we come from, then conception, then birth, then adolescence. So that one piece is the creation process. Then it goes into some dark shit, then some super duper dark shit, then some beautiful information that I had to work really hard to get but I’m glad to have it.

Everything is a self portrait. Copola says, “No matter what you think you’re making, what you’re looking up at is you on the screen.”

It’s true. Everything is a self portrait. It’s what I choose to give energy to. It’s like that. I read a book by Mark Levin, Technicians of Ecstasy. The subtitle is Modern Artist as Shaman. He made a good case for saying it’s the artist’s job to create and heal culture.

“On and On, what’s that really about?”

So finally at the ending you look back to see that you were only dreaming that you were far from me… It’s a song about choosing oneness with the universe. It talks about choice and the Other, and it’s something that I consider to be a really good affirmation.

Every song that someone ever wrote is a mantra. And when I wrote these songs I wrote something that I actually thought was healthy and positive and worthwhile enough to demand the attention of an audience, and something that I wouldn’t be embarrassed, or wouldn’t want to sing about fifty years later.

I know that broken hearts exist / but what I want to know is this / what did you learn when a broken heart happened.

“Can you explain Irony is Dead?”

I think a lot of what passes for irony is a game of one-upmanship, and very often it’s disguised as the brilliant art of irony. It inhibits intimacy though really. Groucho said one-upmanship like that kills real communication.

A lot of what passes for humor is just insult. All they’re doing is using language as a fucking bludgeon. But who really wants to do that? Not me. So I see it as a control mechanism, how these guys use language.

For example, people from England use what they refer to as irony, which American’s don’t get supposedly, mainly because there are so many English cultural references that leave Americans behind. But really “irony” too often is just a bunch of insults that derail, undermine and destroy, in the guise of humor, and it’s really nothing more than a control mechanism. You can say anything in the world as long as you finish it with, “It was a joke.”

Billy Crystal, in “Mr. Saturday Night” during a scene with his brother. He said, “You were always jealous of me.” He said, “When you’re up there and things are going right you got the crowd you feel like the most powerful guy on Earth because every woman wants to fuck you and every guy wants to shake your hand.”

But humor is a pwerful way to control the room. It’s so powerful because it’s powerful.” A powerful comedian is fucking powerful. I am asking for people to ask themselves what is this humor thing? And to use it for building, not for destroying.

Everyone calls me a stick in the mud but I think they don’t really know what they’re talking about. So I ask everyone in my organization to speak to each other with kindness.

“Do you remember why you had the insight about irony, or when?”

I spent six months or a year not talking to people. And made up my mind that I really didn’t have much I wanted to say so I’d just listen for a while. Except for “thank you” at the gas pump I spoke to nobody for a year and would just listen. Even if they thought I was strange I’d just sit there and listen.

I found this goes through all cultures, this language war that is based on humor and irony and I disagree with it. I think it stops communication. It’s really just a battlefield. It’s just something people learn how to do.

I do not think that irony is truly dead. I love irony, but by stating it the way I state it, I force people to try to understand what they think of irony and humor as a whole in their culture.

“I think you said that Burning Man changed your life.”

I would describe it as the first time I felt what a community actually felt like. Everyone talks about community but that was the first time I actually experienced it. It felt really fucking good, really natural.

“So I see your band as a cross between the ecstatic and the scientific. Encapsulated by your name, Urban-Jellen Test.”

On some level, yeah. The entire experiment. When I moved to Krakow, I started to experiment with many philosophies. I didn’t go to start a single band. I started an entire scene based on the concept of good heart. And upon that I built a dynamo of energy that has invigorated dozens and dozens of peoples’ lives.

We’re proving that magic exists. At the fundamental root level of everything I’m doing there I proved that magic exists, based on good words, good heart, and good choices.

“Did going to Thailand help you develop your philosophy?”

No. It was just a place for me to relax and enjoy. It’s a country that my country had never bombed. I kept hearing about the wonderful Thai smile. I thought, I would like to be around that. It’s a Buddhist culture, southeast Asian, and it has the longest oldest reigning monarch in the world. It’s been a kingdom throughout the whole colonization era, never colonized. Everybody else was. So I wanted to see what was going on there? How were they able to stay so soft and not be colonized? I wanted to be around that. Mainly I wanted to find some beautiful place where people were smiling and it was off the grid. I give them a smile, and they gave me a smile back.

And I went to go paint some paintings which were describing what I would call my third psycho spiritual paradigm shift. Those paintings describe concepts that I finally formalized by making those paintings. They record my transformation that took about five years to go through.

And the beginning of that transformation, that’s what ‘Bad Man’s about.’

“So the concepts are magic exists…”

Oh yeah, Baby. And irony is dead. Most of what passes for irony is destructive, so it is dead. It’s death.

And also I’ve told all the people with whom I work that there are four questions we put our decisions through: 1) does it have good heart 2) does it have wisdom attached?, 3) is it great art? and 4) is it fun? I’ve asked everyone since day one to use those guidelines in decisions regarding our project. And it bore great fruit.

So everyone works well together, holding those values. And I proved that magic fucking works based on good heart and good words. And everyone busts their ass because it is worthwhile. Everyone fundamentally appreciates and agrees with the sentiment. Everyone says, “You know what, that makes sense to me.” The universe supports love, and efficiency, and airplane wings.

“Why did you decide to leave the US?”

I wanted to get the world inside me, and the United States out of me.

“Are you going back to the US?”

Perhaps. I told Thym I would go back to the States as a touring band.

“You usually avoid politics. Why?”

I’ve tried to formulate that answer to a reasonable level, but it’s pretty complex. Fundamentally I believe the political agendas of the world get enough energy already. My job is to be a spiritual person talking about spiritual things. It’s a different path.

On a personal level, staying aware of current newsworthy topics, for me, is extremely debilitatingly depressing. I’m not supposed to be paying attention to the finer details to all these problems because they’ve existed for all time. Pinochet, George Bush, it doesn’t matter. The names change but it’s always the same. I’m trying to write lyrics about after the heartbreak.

This is all based on good heart. So this is a musical paradox. The first name for the album was going to be “Smuggled Love.” I think the tensions between opposites is powerful. It’s how paradigms are created, the fusion of opposites. And I was trying to create a powerful paradigm with a community of artists.

“Are you afraid of being tied in with the hippie ethos?”

No. But a lot of Europeans, especially the English, like to brand me as the hippie guy.

“Where do drugs fit in to your life?”

I think of drugs as sacramental.

“Are drugs necessary?”

You can never say never and never say always. It’s impossible to break it down to that. That’s a ridiculous question.

“Are they transformative?”

Of course they are. That’s what they’re meant to do.

THE SHAPE OF THINGS THAT ARE DONE

What are you thinking about?

“Oh, the police. I’m wondering if they are more or less corrupt here than in the US.”

I think corruption crosses country. You always have good cops, but power corrupts, money corrupts, the occasional hit contract corrupts. Cops have too many chances to be crooked.

Although in the food chain, cops might be slightly more honorable than politicians.

“I always thought of the word ‘corruption’ as an adjective to be used in specific, special cases.”

Ah, so if it’s systematic, it’s not corrupt?

“Depends on your frame of reference.”

So an honest cop would be corrupt, because he’s corrupting a corrupt system.

“What’s your experience with police corruption?”

Well the plain clothed cops who beat the shit out of me and put me in the hospital… after they gave me my tickets for drunken disorderly, they went back and talked about it and decided they would also charge me with assaulting them. Because they left bruises on me and they had to cover their ass. I spent the night in jail, but I got probation.

“How much did they hurt you?”

I had ugly bruises on my hips and on my sides, my torso. I mean, they were in plain clothes. I didn’t even know they were cops. But I was amazingly drunk. I have a smart mouth and I could’ve said something I shouldn’t. I have no idea. I don’t even remember being beaten. I remember being in the back of the car, furious.

“Did you file a complaint?”

My lawyer told me, “forget it.” We even had photos of my bruises. There were some facial bruises too.

There were at least three, maybe four. Cops. One lady and three guys. I’m sure glad I don’t drink no more. I ain’t even tempted.

“I like the idea of oblivion sometimes.”

I just buy a hammer and keep hitting my head with it until it doesn’t hurt anymore.

My father, every time you’d hurt yrself, would say, ‘you’ll feel better when it stops hurting.’ I think Pappy had a bit of sadist in him.

“About our volley of conversation; I think we’re associative people. That’s why we can converse. Hey, let me lie my head down on your lap.”

Wait, don’t lie down yet. I’m going to make another pipe. I just haven’t made the shape yet. The shape of things that are done.

“How apropos; the shape of things that are done. That’s brilliant. Everything that’s done is a shape.”

Maybe we could use that as one of the ten dollar philosophy pellets we’ll sell in our philosophy franchise.

“Yes, Reality is in the shape of things that were done.”

CRYSTAL METH & THE LIZARDS & THE RATS

“The evil are really Lizards. That would explain the existence of evil people.”

Aw, naw. There are just evil people. Lizards might help people be evil but people are evil on their own. If the lizards took over, some men would work for them, hunting and herding other men.

Some people are just bad. Some are weak, some lazy, some scared. A whole lot are real busy just living their lives. There’s more good than bad, but the good’s preoccupied. It’s hard being alive.

“It’s also hard trying to be good.”

It’s easier these days to be good than non-good because it’s less of an energy drain.

“Being bad is a *psychic* energy drain.”

Yes, it’s difficult to keep track of all yr lies. Plus ya gotta come up with your bad deeds to DO in the first place. It’s not easy being bad. Maybe we could start a business called “Nefarious Deeds.” We could come up with evil deed plans for Bad Guys. “Evil for Dummies.” Make a mint.

“We could compete with Ahmed Chalabi.”

Who’s that?

“He’s the guy who was paid to supply bad intelligence on Iraq.”

Oh yes, he was the guy who made $340,000 a month from our government. Why don’t I get these kinds of offers to sell out?

“I think there’s almost a science in manipulating people so they can’t figure out what truth is. Like all these facts are out there for those who care but they’re all layered and layered in levels of deception.”

That’s what the corporations do to the government when they’re sued. They give information to the government when subpeona’d, but they bury it in thousands and thousands of boxes. Make the government look for it.

There are a lot of lizards out there. Lizards and rats. I wonder if they mate. Have little rat lizards for dessert.

“Do you know the lizards’ agenda?”

No. But I suspect they could be behind global warming. They are cold blooded critters.

“Prior to this you’ve been preoccupied with the Rats.”

Well, the rats were running us through mazes. All those construction cones you see in Cleveland. They were running us through rat tests. They would rearrange the maze every night, sometimes more than once.

“I think you could be right.”

Road cones are obviously a psychological rat trap maze. And who would be running mazes among human experiments if it weren’t the Rats? I think the lizards are just a side problem.

I think the lizards and the rats couldn’t get along because the lizards would eat the rats. It’s not nice to eat your partner unless you’re consenting adults. I think it’s the warm blood / cold blood thing. Some metaphors just aren’t meant to intermix.

“I think you’re right. The lizards must be behind global warming. That’s why they’re taking over the governments and corporations.”

Well, the most primitive part of the brain is the limbic system, which is known as the reptilian brain. Limbic is primitive fight or flight. It’s interesting. Brain studies have shown that men in relaxed states idle in the limbic system, the primitive brain. Women idle a couple steps UP in the symbolic communication section. Which makes sense. Man kill; bring home; eat. Woman are wired to hear sound of child whimper and to be able to read faces.

Man’s wired to feed the brood. Woman’s wired to raise the brood. These studies also found women use a lot more of their brains than men do. And they remember things more accurately over longer periods of time.

* * *

“So crystal meth rots your teeth?”

Yes. I don’t know why. I snorted crystal and I shot crystal. But this was back in the 60s, usually, well, some into the 70s.

“You seem so responsible. This is so hard to imagine.”

Well, the me now wouldn’t do what me then did. But the me now arises out of what that me DID do then. Glad I did it, not doin it no more. Would never suggest a friend do it.

“Why is it called crystal?”

It’s a crystal powder. We got pharmaceutical crystal methodryne. And it looked like bright glistening salt crystals. It was real good stuff. I think we snorted and shot for three months it.

“Who’s we?”

Macklin, who was living with me on Calvert Street, and homosexual John, and some artist downstairs. But the woman selling it was trying to raise bail to get her boyfriend out of jail who’d broken into the store and stolen it.

So my exposure to needles was a pharmaceutical drug which induces intelligence gains of 8 points and euphoria administered by a male hospital nurse with a virgin needle.

“I see a class divide between the bohemians and the people who had to break in and get stuff.”

Actually, if you’re a junkie, it’s the only way to feed your habit. And there are more junkies in the poor section of life. But there’re junkies in every section along the way.

“But you never considered yourself a junkie.”

No. For some reason–except for alcohol–I could take it or leave it. Plus I always worked 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week. You can’t do that if you give in to drugs. Besides, I’m not a down drug type person. And you can’t do drugs all the time; you just wear yourself out. Except maybe cocaine. You keep doing cocaine all the time, and you DO wear yourself out.

“Would I notice any different mannerisms in you if you did coke or speed?”

Oh, I’d start talking a blue streak. And according to government studies, good speed raises your IQ an average of 8 points while you’re on it. So you feel smarter, you actually ARE smarter, and there’s a euphoria from the drug, and 4 to 12 hours of energy.

Actually a lot of LSD in the 60s and 70s was laced with speed. And a lot of coke too, back then. I think coke’s a 20 minute high. Americans like their highs to last longer.

“Hash is perfect for me. Doesn’t leave me stupid the next day. This is kinda groggy though. I like euphoria.”

Ah. That’s the one thing about drugs. When you take the right ones and the right amount, you really get a nice feeling. But as Ramdass says, “You gonna go up, you’re gonna come back down.” Ramdass. Timothy Leary’s partner.

SMITH VS. THE LIZARD POLICE

You should always be aware. You never know when something’s gonna sneak up, some bit of reality.

“Why does everything seem to happen *all at once*?”

Because time doesn’t work right. Time’s variable. Sometimes it’s slow, sometimes it’s fast, sometimes it disappears, sometimes it waits around forever. And sometimes it just doesn’t work right. It’s too complicated to get all the bits and pieces dancing in the same way all at the right time. Sometimes there are glitches.

I watch the pattern. And it’s easy to see rends, flaws and specks in the pattern. Everything has its own logic. Sometimes not all things belong that one can see.

“What kind of flaws have you seen?”

It still pisses me off, but I still miss a scene in Citizen Kane. I read it was a famous scene because they couldn’t afford a train for the movie. They cut out a cardboard train and moved it front of a spotlight, so you see a shadow pull up on the scene. Then I think calendar pages start tearing themselves off to show the passage of time.

Anyway I read about it, then I got to see the movie in Baltimore in the 70s. And I saw the scene. But when I bought the movie in the 90s, it wasn’t there. And I’ve talked to people about it and researched it, and evidently it doesn’t exist.

Sometimes I think you go to sleep in one reality and there’s a glitch and you wake up in an alternate reality. Some mornings the glasses that fit the face I went to bed with don’t fit the face I wake with.

“Ah, the Case of the Changed Face!”

Yes, the Case of the Changed Face. There are just glitches. It’s hard for them to weave all these lies together just right, so sometimes you catch them at it. Keep your eyes open.

“Well, that would make sense. If you’re proficient at movies even to the point of having reviewed them for a paper. If *you* say something’s missing, I believe you. I mean it’s easier for them to fuck with memories but famous movies - there’s something wrong in the programming.”

Well maybe that was in the movie I saw, but I didn’t wake up right in the same slipstream. It’s entirely possible. A lot of people theorize there’re an infinite number of realities coexisting. And I can see events in one altering events in another. It’s like that butterfly breaking dishes in the china shop.

“Ah, that metaphor must be from another reality.”

Anyway, you gotta keep your eyes open because they change things on ya. Gotta be nimble, pliable. And most of all, you have to have a sense of humor!

Get them to laugh along with you, sometimes they leave you alone for awhile, the Fates.

“Hm. That picture on your computer screen — didn’t you use it already for a blog?”

Nope. Never did.

“That’s weird. That must have been from another reality. Seems the realities are getting turbulent. Remember when you thought we got that cookie from a different shop but in my reality it was the right shop? We’d better keep an eye on each other, see that we don’t disappear.”

Oh, oh.

“We can tie each other together at night. That way they can’t change us as easily in our sleep.”

I get to tie you up first.

“There’ve gotta be more glitches than just memory and film. There’s gotta be weird psychedelic shit too.”

That’s the only way we catalog it. Is in our memory. Besides, sometimes you catch one of these glitches but you can’t process it immediately. By the time you do all that you have is your memory to deal with it.

This is weird. Back in my serious drinking days I was staggering up from the train under Tower City before they turned it into a shopping mall. I looked into where they were constructing it. And I saw two policeman beating a person with their clubs.

“Oh God.”

And the policemen, from waist up, were lizard-like. So I tried to sneak around for a better look. And they caught me and they escorted me out of the building. So I called Beth Wolfe and told her I was going back in, just in case I didn’t go back out.

And I went back in, and hid behind one of the potted plants to watch what was going on. And they found me and took me back outside and told me to please go away, or they would arrest me. So I went away.

“So the lizard police took you out again?”

Oh, they changed to human then. See, while they were beating this guy their enjoyment got to them, and they lost control of holding their human form, and I could see their lizard essence shining through. They had long shiny tongues.

So that could be a clue.

“How do you know you weren’t hallucinating?”

I don’t think I’ve ever had alcoholic hallucinations. But I was seriously drunk. See, that’s the trouble with all these glitches and clues. There’s always just that little bit of self-doubt. *Did I really see that?*

Actually I started doubting something that did happen. I asked Wilcox if it were true, and Wilcox said it was. He, Masumi and I were in the theatre watching Fire Starter and in the scene where all the federal agents pull up outside the farm and she starts setting everything on fire with her mind.. the film burned. Guess it got caught on the projector, got caught up, and you could see the film melt, dissolve. So they gave us free passes for the next showing.

I was beginning to doubt that, because that’s too perfect. The movie burning during the fire scene of Firestarter? It’s really easy to doubt yourself if somebody doesn’t reinforce you.

The lizards were the weirdest physical thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen my future first wife’s face turn from one hideous sea creature monster into another endlessly. Just morphing into endless hideous faces. But I was on LSD at the time. So there’s a serious chance that that wasn’t a glitch. Although when I was having sex with her, I hallucinated being in an endless dragon tunnel. But that was enjoyable.

“That’s very strange, Smith.”

What’s strange about it?

“It seems familiar, but not of this planet. I think you do not belong…”

I may have wandered off Reality.

“I think we’re both fringe reality folk. People don’t realize it, but Reality has mesas and dropoffs, frayed edges.”

That’s interesting, because you can reweave these frays into slightly different ways of being.

“Yeah, I enjoy applying visualizations, metaphors to rend a meaning of my current context. I never forsaw this plateau, though. It’s like I was crawling below sea level, and now I’m on a mountain top.”

Got your blog done?

“Yes.”

Is it a happy one?

“No.”

So you’re trying to educate our readers rather than entertain our readers?

“Yes.”

See, I’m trying to entertain our readers. Actually my blog both entertains AND educates - I warn them about the Fish Folk.

“Hmpf. We’re competing with each other. Actually, my blog is about you. I just write what you say.”

That’s cuz I’m trying to educate YOU. You don’t need no entertaining, cuz I’m entertainment enough. (And I’m also humble, crumbling and wise…)

“I write most of my blog in your voice now, Smith voice. I put Lady in quotes.”

Oh, right. I’ve noticed that.

“Maybe because I’m working on your biography.”

I’m LIVING my biography. Doesn’t make any difference. It’s all gonna be past tense some day anyway.

“Reminds me of the title of a movie, ‘My Life As a Camera.’ It occurs to me that I should write you in lower case, just like you do.”

No, I talk in upper case.

“We are our own bubble. Here, I’m going to change Noam to Gnome.”

Why?

“To be more entertaining.”

Oh, you’re a sad soul. Grasping at straws to entertain folk. How dare you sink so low. Sinking low’s MY job.

“I also have catchy titles, try and catch readers.”

Kinda like fly paper? I try a much more time-honored system. I just give them money to read. That’s where all our money’s been going; I’ve been meaning to tell you…

* * *

“The more I learn, the more I think criminalization of drugs is a way to disenfranchise people, keep a permanent underclass or a way to marginalize the opposition. It’s a tool of the rich. Same with the tax forms. It’s a way to frighten those considering political dissent.”

The rich use drugs, but seldom get caught. Occasionally you get your Rush Limbaugh, but he was caught as a result of looking into something else.

As long as you have alcohol and tobacco legal, there’s no way it’s justifiable to illegalize other drugs. Cuz the amount those two kill every year is probably a million times the others.

That’s another thing. Some of the far east countries tried to reject our cigarettes and our cigarette advertising. The WTO told them they had to accept BOTH, otherwise there would be severe sanctions.

Our new joke: eat the rich, they taste just like chicken. It’s essentially true, cuz the rich are cowardly chickens. And we outnumber them, so much. If we all stood up, they’d crumble.

“I want to live outside the system.”

I’ve been doing that my entire life, and it’s wearying.

“Actually if they disband Social Security, they’ll increase dissent. Social Security ties people to the system.”

Oh, they can’t do that. There’d be runs on Washington. The baby boomers would never put up with it: WE WANT OUR BENNIES. Saw a great political cartoon. A mass of baby boomers surrounded Bush saying, ‘Invade who you want, torture who you want, steal what you want, but leave our Social Security alone.’ That sums up American awareness right now.

“Oh, and the thing the Dems just passed. They coupled a good minimum wage hike with a hundred billion in Iraq/Afghan war funding. I remember when the Republicans said the whole war would just cost 90 billion.”

No, the Republicans said the whole war would cost 50 billion. That was their original estimate.

“Fucking assholes. I don’t trust the Democrats and the Republicans alike now. I’ve totally changed since canvassing for Kerry. I think the people who vote have good intentions but the party is rotten, corrupt. I’m voting Green next time.”

So. How many times can voters fall for the same lies? Mankind’s eternally hopeful, keeps falling for the same promises. Of course, if they bothered to do some research, they’d know in advance they were lies.

In 2003, Congress approved a 78 billion dollar supplemental cost for the war. OK? 2004, 87 billion. 2005, 82 billion. 2006, 72 billion. This year it’s a 100 billion, by the DEMS. That’s SUPPLEMENTAL. That’s saying, ‘We didn’t budget right, we need more to keep doing what we’re doing.’

This was a war that was supposed to cost 50 billion and paid for out of the oil we’d steal as we were greeted as liberators with flowers by the Iraqis. I guess Halliburton needs more money.

“What really makes me incensed is the Democrats. I thought they were going to change things. They’re the ones who approved the 100 billion budget.”

The Demo-fraidy cats.

“They’re not afraid. They’re corrupt.”

Some are both. They’re afraid they’ll be painted with the not-supporting-the-troops advertisements when they run. The only way to support the troops is to bring them home, NOW. Besides, every soldier over there right now is a war criminal.

“No, I don’t think people who are ignorant are war criminals. My brother’s over there right now. He didn’t know any better when he signed up; thought he was doing good for our country.”

NO, they are carrying out an illegal war by our government. The Nazis’ favorite excuse was, ‘We’re only following orders.’ The Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal says that’s not enough. If you don’t do what’s right, you’re complicit in the crime. Every single one of our soldiers over there could be tried and convicted under the criteria for the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunals.

Besides a lot of our boys are fighting the government and going to jail for it. Right now, saying support the troops means giving them more money to torture, rape and murder Iraqi civilians. Ignorance is no excuse; following orders is no excuse. Torture, rape and murder are crimes. And even the cooks over there who are just feeding the torturers and murderers are complicit, cuz they’re enablers. Every single person in Congress who voted for the war funds is a war criminal. This is WRONG. And the main argument I’ve read, why the Democrats aren’t doing anything now, is they want to win the next election.

“Screw them.”

And then MAYBE, once they’ve won, MAYBE, they’ll do the right thing. Meanwhile, hundreds more American troops are going to die. Tens of thousands more Iraqis are going to die. We’ve murdered over a million Iraqi citizens already. We’ve driven another three to four million from their homes that we know about. How much blood and misery do you need before America will stand up for what’s right?

“Plus 500,000 Iraqi children killed in the nineties from Clinton’s sanctions. What we’re doing in Iraq is de facto genocide.”

Yep. And that’s just children. Who knows how many adults. Of course, as we know from Gnome, America has never stood up for what’s right, and Americans have almost never ever stood up for what’s right. They killed the Indians, they lynched the Negroes, they put the American Japanese in concentration camps during World War II. It just never stops.

Even something we all know about. Ronald Reagan’s administration used CIA planes to fly drugs from Afghanistan to sell so they could use that money to buy arms from Iran to kill South Americans. It shames me to be an American.

“I see disappointed expressions everywhere when we tell people we’re American. It’s a bummer to them. And Hamid said to tell people we’re Dutch or British. I guess former imperialists are more palatable than current ones.”

Although to be honest, I doubt there’s a serious honorable government ever, certainly not now. Governments do what they want to do. And as I.F. Stone said, ‘All governments are run by liars and nothing they say about anything should be believed.’ And Ben Franklin said, ‘There was never a good war or a bad peace.’

I just can’t believe spinelessness of the American public. Sheep in the sheep pen.

“According to our friends in education, they’re making it so that people only look to authority for the right answer. Standardized testing teaches people to parrot what they’ve been told.”

Right, they’re eviscerating the educational system. We have a whole generation educated in ignorance, to only follow orders, to not question authority, don’t think for yourself. Bush has done more damage to this country than Hitler did to Germany or Stalin did to Russia. And I despise Jimmy Carter for backing down in his statement that the Cheney Bush regime is the worst in American history.

“Carter’s unsavory. His support of the junta in El Salvador, military aid to topple democratic forces in Guatemala, supporting the Mujahadin in Afghanistan, I think he also did something bad in Indonesia.”

Plus, as you said yesterday, Gnome wrote every single president since World War II could be impeached for war crimes.

* * *

“Actually, we’re enablers. By using gas.”

We don’t drive.

“We take planes.”

Everybody’s an enabler. We’re just trying to cut down on the number of our sins. But right now we’re both sitting here with PCs on our laps, probably made with slave labor somewhere. We’re both using electricity. The thing in our favor is with the poetry, art and blogs we’re fighting the bad guys, trying to awaken some good. We’ve got rid of our cars.

“That’s the main thing there. Getting rid of our cars.”

And we make all these little adjustments, like buying one BIG bottle of plastic water rather than three of four little ones. [We're in Morocco else we wouldn't be drinking bottled water.]

If you’re alive on this planet right now, you’re part of the problem. Nobody’s guiltless. It’s just a question of degree. Hell, even Al Gore uses untold thousands of dollars every month of electricity. Ralph Nadar flies around in airplanes. There’s no way to breathe and not be part of the problem.

“It’s essentially an overpopulation problem.”

Yeah, but even when we had fewer people, we still had the strong taking from the weak, the rich ripping off the poor. I don’t care how far back you go. You had priests punishing everybody else while they screw little boys. You have CEOs marketing death to their customers in cigarettes and alcohol. It’s not just overpopulation. We’re just very badly wired, for greed, violence, selfishness. Basically, humans say, ‘Screw you. What’s in it for me?’ And they’re not gonna change. Even if they could change somewhere down the line, there’s no longer any line. Some say a hundred years, some say fifty years. I think those are both optimistic.

“I know I don’t expect to survive to an old age.”

Oh, I never did either. I don’t know what I’m doing here. Maybe God needs a finger pointer and kept me around. If that’s true, She should have picked someone else.

In spite of all this, I’m a happy person with a positive outlook.

“Ha ha.”

There ain’t much life left, but at any point in anybody’s life they could be run over by a bus.

“Ah, the magical mystery tour. The Bus of Death before the light at the end of the tunnel.”

So I live each day as joyously as I can. Do no damage, try to be good. And leave ‘em with a laugh…

“Tune in for more RANTS AND RAVES ABOUT WAR CRIMES AND GODS…”

- Lady K

“So. You said you don’t believe in God.”

Nope. I don’t believe in a long-haired Dude sitting up there knowing everything, judging everybody, picking at his penis. I mean, if there are gods, He/She/It/They say, “You’re born weak and broken, but if you don’t shape up and do everything We say Our way, we’re gonna kick you around your entire life, and you’ll burn in Hell forevermore after you die.”

That presents two problems. God didn’t know enough to make us right, or if he left something out, he really shouldn’t punish us for not fixing it ourselves.

“Kinda like a manufacturer’s warranty.”

Except there’s no return. There’s no repair shop. There’s no frigging manual, and it’s very badly designed, this body of ours. We’re basically piss and shit machines. And like any idiot engineer, he runs the sewer system right through the pleasure park.

Which brings us to the Gnostics. They believe we’re ruled by an insane god, named Samuel. Insane Samuel. And there’s a smarter, kinder, more gentle compassionate god above him. Who wants to help us. But of course, being further up the chain of command he can’t very well let Samuel know he’s not doing a good job. So he sent the Snake to the Garden of Eden, to tell us the truth. We need to eat of the Tree of Knowledge. Of good AND evil. Just like shade without light, you ain’t got one without the other.

‘Course, good old Sammy’s been punishing us ever since for that one.

Gnostics also think Good God tried to run around Bad God with Jesus Christ. But we fixed Him. Killed him and turned him into a church run by sickos.

However, since I’m entirely inconsistent most of the time, I daily try to say my Buddhist chant, nam myoho renge kyo. Which I purchased for 5 dollars in San Francisco in 1966.

“I hear you saying that on the shitter a lot.”

Now, before we go into that, I have to say I find the Cosmic Order or the Universe or the Big It to be aware, with a hell of a sense of humor.

It communicates with itself along channels we do not know. But do have scientific proof of. I believe it was the Bell experiment, run with colliders. See, there’s a disagreement between Einsteinian Physics and Heisenberg Physics. Einstein says, “nothing can be known outside of locality.” Locality being if an event happens, the carrier wave that takes that data away cannot get further than the speed of light times time duration.

Heisenberg Particle Physics says that information is available to the Universe immediately, on the other side of the Universe.

Now, I’m not smart enough to know these things. But apparently, once electrons are paired, however that is done, they remain paired. Unlike many Catholics.

So the Bell experiment tested this. They separated paired electrons, probably using divorce lawyers, smashed the shit outta one of them with really big hammers.

And reversed its spin. Whereupon the separated hostage electron really far away immediately reversed its spin. Ergo, the Universe has some way of communicating with itself that is faster than light. Much faster than light. The implications of this are astounding. The Universe knows what’s going down.

Now, to get back to what I believe, before I knew any of this stuff, I found I could talk to Reality. Sometimes it would answer. Frequently it would play jokes on me. And it seemed to appreciate when I laughed.

“You’re some kinda funky holy man.”

Yeah, I got holes all over. Also, my own life would cause me to question my incredible string of luck and adventures. I shouldn’t be alive, and if I should have been, I definitely shouldn’t be here having this much fun.

So, to get back to Science. The Heisenbergian Universe - everything is true simultaneously all the time. You have your famous experiment with Schroedinger’s Cat in the Cat box. You seal him in a box with a vial of poison and a decaying atom. The atom decays at a known rate but you have no idea where the decayed particle will go. If it hits the glass vial of poison, you have Dead Cat.

Heisenberg says until you open the box, the cat is a) alive and b) dead and c) at every other possible point in between. It’s not until you ask the box, “is the cat dead or not?” that Reality collapses all the realities that are into one specific result to answer your question.

“Freaky.”

Another good example of this that they’ve done: a star blows up really far away. The light heads for Earth. Now, I don’t know the intricacies of this, but light is both waves and particles. Totally different constructs; they act different. So, if you choose to ask a question about this light using particle measuring equipment, you get one answer. If you choose to ask the same light the same question using wave measuring equipment, you get a different answer. It takes millions of years for that light to get here, so certainly your question isn’t going to cause something millions of years ago to do one thing or another. So both things are true simultaneously. Your question forces reality to collapse to A or B. Now, this is all very very crudely put. I’m not a scientist and I’m not really a philosopher. I’m more a class clown. But everything I’ve said so far can be checked and verified by the unafraid.

So, I started off praying to God, then I turned Atheist. Then I turned hippie-dippy flakey. And then I more or less turned into a Flow surfer.

Forgetting all that for a second, every single thing you do, every action, every thought process, can be done better or worse. You might say more efficiently or less efficiently, or more or less grace, or more or less correlation to whatever Is. The possibilities are endless. So if you do things Better, you’re gonna fight less head wind from the cosmic Flow. If you do things Worse, you’re gonna create more turbulence for yourself and maybe others. So there may not be an ultimate cosmic Right or Wrong, but there is a Better or Worse way to Be, that will cause you more or less pain. So to get back to Heisenberg, what you get from Reality depends on what you ask for. What you See rests upon what you Expect.

I’ve found that my Own Personal Universe has a tremendous sense of humor. And it won’t hurt you unless it has to. It’s not vicious. I add that last sentence because essentially, the universe is indifferent. So it’s a good thing you’re getting this down in case Morocco succeeds in crushing me.

A lot of people have said this basic stuff a lotta ways, from greeting card to serious. The power of positive thinking, do as you would be done, don’t do as you have been done. Buddha and Confucious and the Sufis had it down pretty good. But I don’t think anybody’s fucked it up worse than the Bush fundamentalist Christians.

What you have inside your head–how you are or how you’re taught–affects how you see, what you see and what you do about it. There could be a totally neutral Thing. So you got bad eyes, hateful mind, wicked heart… you’re gonna see a threat. You’re gonna do bad things, stupid things. So you’re gonna turn this neutral object into an Object of Evil fulfilling your own expectations.

If you have a good heart, a decent mind, honest eyes, you’ll see it as neutral or perhaps even as something positive. You won’t see bad so you won’t do bad so you won’t cause bad. Of course there’re limits on everything. Just cuz you see a bus coming at you as a fudge sundae don’t mean it ain’t gonna squish ya flat.

“I see it as the potential for individuals to reach some type of constructive Being by being together in a healthy way.”

You create your own reality. You are responsible for your own reality. As I said once before, if your corner of reality is a shit hole, you’re the feces.

“What does that mean about our situation in Essaouira?”

We’ve cleaned up this shit hole. And if by some sick trick reincarnation is true, the owner of this place is gonna pay down the line. We’ve already been rewarded - we’ve brightened the corner where we are. We’ve become more happy, less miserable as a result. You don’t like something, don’t whine. Do something about it.

But if something’s wrong, don’t keep quiet just because you don’t think anything can be done. If enough speak, evil listens. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin proved that about slavery. Rachel Carlson’s Silent Spring defeated–sort of–DDT.

Saw a movie called Virus once. Pretty good sci-fi horror. Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Sutherland. Energy being came along, saw what man had done, studied history, saw the Middle East was once a gorgeous forest but we came along, ate everything, killed everything, poisoned the rest… decided Mankind was a virus, a cancer. Decided to save the Earth by wiping us out.

I have to say, except for Jamie Lee Curtis, I was rooting for the virus killer. And even tho it’s too late now to save the earth, even if we tried, which we ain’t gonna, it still comes down to how long we can keep our nest livable. And how miserable we’ll be during this time. Do good, last longer, suffer less. Makes no difference to Mother Earth, cuz after we’re gone, she’ll rest a while and seed a new garden.

We’ve turned the Garden of Even into the Valley of Odd. So if we’re wiped out, fair is fair.

“My death doesn’t really matter to me. But the idea of mass death is horrifying.”

I don’t much care about either, mine or mass. The only sadness I have would be your missing me. And we’ve had a close and good enough time, you have part of me always. We already have more in a short time than most get forever.

“I know I’m satisfied. I finally have love, faith. I discover another universe in you.”

I’m never satisfied. I can always do more; I can always be better. Like Camus says, ‘the sentence starts the day you’re born; it ends the day you die.’ See, I’m committing one of his sins. I still hope for inner peace, to live up to myself, to do it right. And hope is one of his sins, because there is no hope. There’s only living this life as aware as you can, as full as you can, in as many aspects as you can. I got that part down fine. If I could just get rid of the fucking Hope.

“Well, that’s back to your question again.”

What question?

“The question you ask determines what you receive.”

Well, I have a right to be hopeful. There’s no way I should be alive or have had such a wonderful life along the way. I got more stories than anybody. My first motorcycle ride I left the road at 100 mph and didn’t get hurt. Fell off a cliff when I was seven. Jumped off rooftops when I was four. Fell out of trees, rolled my car in my own driveway… I’ve shot up for 30 years, I’ve overdosed, I drank myself to death, ran from the cops 10 times, got away 9, two armed robberies… yet I’ve had wonderful friends, accolades, art shows, poetry readings. And the best friend and wife in the world.

“Aww…”

I hope for the best; I look for the worst. And I found in situations where there’s no time to think I do everything I can to stay alive. Yet I would not keep my life if I had to dishonor myself with another’s death unless the asshole were attacking me.

“Your philosophy actually helps me, you know that?”

This is the Church of Not Quite So Much Pain & Suffering. Maybe there’s a reason you feel helped.

LADY K

If Eve hadn’t given Adam that apple
I wouldn’t be smoking today.
Even so,
I tried to serve Sky God
but was drawn to that old Debbil Weed.
I became a happy pappy
papa puff daddy
gadfly to gladly
nouveau bohemian in old school crowd.
Sir Laugh-a-Lot of Pot-a-Lot
Queen MaryJaned
Lady Day to Lady K
Kafka to a kiss

S B Smith & Lady K

* * *

Smith sez if we drive away all our readers, we can shut this thing down, crawl into our holes, and lick our hashish.