Gypsy Locket...

I met her in a locket an old crone gave to me

for helping get her little cat safely down a tree.

It must have been near six weeks before I looked to see

just what was in the bauble I earned by skinning knees.

I tripped the catch, drew a gasp, my heart lit like a flair

I knew I'd seen her somewhere, but tell me lord, just where? 

You wouldn’t think a man could lose a face like that to air.

It came the wonder owned my days, by night it was my care,

the image changed with every glance, simply quite unfair

the way she'd hold me with her eyes, pin me with that stare

demanding I should find her home and take her locket there.

It drove me mad, I swear it did, I drank and schemed and hid

yet every hour on the hour I had to flip that lid.

Soon enough I figured out it had to be a curse,

maybe she’s a voodoo queen,

or maybe something worse,

there simply is no telling what’s to find

hid in an old maid’s purse.

So back across the road I went a bit the worse for wear,

looking like a hobo child who’d never combed his hair

and sure enough there she was waiting in her chair.

I handed her the locket, said ma’am just what is this?

Ever since I opened it my life's gone all amiss.

She took it up by the chain, her eyes went very soft

as if she was about to cry for something she had lost.

"Lad," she said "now seven times I've give this to a man

and every one has brought it back to set it in my hand.

Every one has said the same, said it took his head,

said it clouded all his thoughts, put trouble in his bed.

"I do not know how or why this locket has been cursed

always coming back to me the man turned for the worse

unless it was the gypsy man who crafted it for me

way back in the great world war of nineteen forty three.

"You see my love was shipping out, off for France he said

and I was total terrified that he’d come home quite dead.

The gypsy seemed to understand, said he'd use his best

spell of love to strengthen hearts then leave to God the rest

of what was to become of us to meet the mortal test.

"But fate conspired against me, they left by dark of night,

I didn't get to give my man love's token trinket bright

and now it seems I can't be free of gypsy magic's might

a kindly man installed in this to calm a poor girls' fright."

Twas just single moment, a flickering blink I'm sure

I saw her as she'd been back then, a sparkle of a girl

fertile as the fruited grove, a heart so hot and pure

to burn beneath a locket's lid these many years of world.

I took the locket from her hand, kissed a wrinkled brow

and all the years whirling blew into the mist somehow,

when the world leveled out she is as she is now.

And so I say to you my friend don't trust what's to be seen,

date her by appearance, proud breasted panther lean

moving like a dancing breeze across a rainbow sheen

She's ninety years of life and love…

                                    … inside those skin tight jeans.

*
*
*
For Charlie

It is a custom of my clan…

I don’t have a clan, not really, but if I did it would be a custom of that clan to be clean shaven in the springtime and only cut your hair in mourning.  Since my clan is imaginary I suppose I’m not really lying to anyone if I tell them that, right? 

Not like I really give a damn, it can’t be of much importance to anyone but me.  But I’ve found it a useful thing for myself to make it a point to greet the new spring with a naked face.  Somehow it feels like shedding all the hibernation dreams of winter and returning to reality.  At least for a little while, you have to do it for a little while, at least until you’ve used up last year’s razor blades.

Not that I’m all that fond of reality, I’m really not.  All an excessive focus on reality  generally does is make life boring if not depressing.  Reality is really all the justification needed for the time spent in fantasy, were it not for fantasy reality would be such a terribly mundane prison.  

If I had a clan it would most definitely be a custom of that clan for the men folk and the women folk to maintain a very deliberate separation and distance between each other on some subjects, enough of a veil between the genders that each might portray a focus of fascination to the other, a bridge and a portal between reality and fantasy as it were so that neither state ever achieve such dominance as to damage a life.  For that to work there simply has to be a bit of mystery in the mix.  Thank you for that understanding Ms. Alex, wise sweet woman thank you so very much. 

If I had a clan it would be a custom of that clan to every evening tell each other the most outrageously unbelievable lies possible to concoct from the deeds of the day so that entertainment would never become the domain of some isolated oligarchy of the unreal. Hollywood can’t begin to compete with the comedy value found in ordinary people trying to concoct a bullshit lie outrageous enough to compel their fellows to grin and call it for what it is. Egalitarian entertainment don’t you know, entertainment of the people by the people and for the people.   

If I had a clan… but I don’t.  But if I did somehow I suspect I’d find out Sam Clemens was a senior member of that clan and knew what he was talking about with the whole magnificent source thing.  It has to begin somewhere, and anyway

Sam and I are kindred souls

We see the world the same

And I like he am known to call

“GO SLOW, IT IS MARK TWAIN!”

The Palantir Gambit...

“… fed the despair of his heart until it overthrew his mind.”* 

So spoke Gandalf the White concerning the death of Denethor, Steward of Gondor. Desperate for tactical intelligence on the actions of Sauron the great enemy Denethor  had dared the palantir of Minis Anor, one of the seven seeing-stones of the King, and exposed himself to the thought of the dark lord who had possession of the palantir taken with the fall of Minis Ithil. 

Finding Denethor to great to be subdued immediately the dark lord more than allowed him he aided him in seeing the armies of Mordor mustering against his realm, allowed him the tactical advantage of this knowing that in time his strategy would prevail. Sauron’s dark perception proved accurate, in the most critical hour the deceptions of understanding Sauron had seeded bore foul fruit.  The ruler and defacto king of Sauron’s greatest enemy was stricken to suicidal madness by the sight of the very fleet bearing the rightful King returning to his aid leading not one but two armies to the defense of the city: one living and one dead.

The suicide of Denethor at the height of the battle is just one of many, many scenes of high drama found in *JRR Tolkien’s masterwork “The Lord of the Rings” involving the wizard Gandalf.  Gandalf Istari revealed in the appendixes as the Mia of Yavanna, a spirit from the same order of creation as Sauron and most likely Sauron’s elder.  Gandalf the Gray resurrected into Gandalf the White, Tolkien’s faith made flesh.

More than simply high drama the tale of Denethor’s fate is as fine an example as I could find of one of the most critical dangers facing the modern world.  The palantir were  plot creations of a masterpiece of fiction but the functionality of the palantir are in this day and age of the sun all but ubiquitous.  You don’t have to be a King to own a smart phone that will show you the world as it is… or as it was... or as it might be. 

The question is of course are you, oh loyal sprinverizoatt subscriber and faithful pilgrim to the Temples of Google wise enough to understand that which you see?  Are you wise enough to understand that the forces of despair and corruption are in possession of just as many of those things as you are?  Are you perceptive enough to understand that the absolutely most effective lies are crafted from an absolutely accurate palette of facts?  Are you?

A prime example from this age of the sun of how such lies are worked concerns another wizard found in a masterwork of fiction, the modern wizard Albus Dumbledore who is headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry seen in the tales of Harry Potter.  

In what would appear (to a totally trivial surface investigation) to have been simply a comment answering a simple question posed in casual conversation on the social media site twatter  Dumbledore’s creator JK Rowling said she’d always thought of Albus as gay.  Ok, you wrote him, if you say so then that’s how it is.  Gandalf is a Mia, Dumbledore is gay.   Matters of trivial fact quite unrelated to the tales as told.

What is equally a matter of fact but hardly trivial is how JK assigning to her magnificent and noble character Dumbledore the humanizing affliction of psychiatric sterility has allowed the modern forces of despair and corruption to mount a campaign of truly Sauron subtle lies: the lie that any life supporting emotional intimacy between two males, men, must of necessity have shit on a dick in its’ history; the lie that sterility is a consequence of nobility, or worse that such sterility is the initiating event of nobility; the lie that those aspiring to such nobility should adopt psychologically initiated sterility as a prerequisite to achieving their ambition.  Sauron, known in the second age of the sun as Sauron the Deceiver by reason of his corruption-to-destruction of the kingdom of Numenor would fully appreciate their campaign, it is a weapon of exactly the same sort he used with great skill to the detriment of all the free peoples on many more than one occasion.

Of course, stick your tongue in your cheek and squint your left eye and it isn’t hard to see how JK Rowling might..  right… might maybe coulda’ been… employing a bit of subtle thought in her own right to protect her kingdom.  By declaring Albus Dumbledore as gay she damn sure sealed off any possibility of her vision of Harry’s world getting diluted by fan fiction detailing the exploits of Dumbledore’s children in their efforts against the deatheaters and the Dark Lord of their realm, the consummately evil and patricidal black wizard Voldemort.

Operational Occupational Happiness…

with a tip 'o the lid to the Beagle on the roof...

“You don’t want it to look like you did it yourself,” is what the lady said, speaking on the subject of the cover art that will be a potential readers first impression of a work.  I understood her point before she made it, of course.  Amateur effort in a professional environment rarely fares well.  But still, what she said itched and in places that had nothing to do with formally publishing a story.  After a week or two of communing with the itch the truth behind the event oh so slowly made itself known.

“You don’t want it to look like you did it yourself.”  Like you did it yourself.  Why is that a bad thing?  What if I myself graduated cum laude from some prestigious university with a degree in the very subject at hand?  Is it ok for me to do it myself  then?  Or is this a more complicated issue than just a matter of competence?  I’m not sure, I’m really not.

What I have come to be very certain of though is this:  the only real satisfaction I’ve ever known has come from doing it myself.  It is such total bullshit to buy something and then try and feel it as your own.  You know you didn’t build it, paint it, write it, you know all you did was buy it like some horny sailor buying a piece of ass because a forty eight hour liberty in a strange city just isn’t enough time to actually find yourself a lover.  The self deception of trying to feel something you bought as being your own just sets a sour aftertaste on the whole subject.

Continuing on with the subject of Happiness Defined? If Happiness sailed as a fleet one of the battlewagons broadside to the foe is an unshakeable belief backed up by rational self assessment that what you did today was better than what you did yesterday and that tomorrow will be better still.  Doing it yourself, no matter what it is you’re doing,  is the only way you can have such a faith.  Of all things Happiness is a Do It Yourself operation.  No one else can do it for you, you can’t buy it out of the box and bolt it up and expect it to run.  In total contradiction of the damned by any decent God operatives of the advertising industry it just doesn’t work that way.  Sorry guys, the first pile of bullshit I’m not buying is that Happiness is a saleable commodity. It’s not.  You have to do it  yourself. 

Have I ever built myself a case of Happiness?  Almost but not quite, and getting closer everyday.  It’s the getting closer part that feels good.

Punctuation be damned…

Ok, not really, punctuation is a good thing.  But I heard a tidbit drift across the other night down at the diner that involved punctuation, at least one element of it, and it’s been slowly foaming in the back of my thoughts ever since.  The humble semi-colon apparently has been drafted to have a brand new meaning.  Apparently some well meaning folk have designated it the new symbol for those involved in some manner with the subject of mental illness.  Hmmm… ok, if you say so.

The choice of the semi-colon is actually a bit interesting considered against its’ grammatical usage. A semi-colon is one of the trickier of the punctuations to use correctly.  As I understand it (and lord knows I’m no grammar Nazi so it’s entirely possible my understanding is incomplete) a full colon is used to indicate the start a listing of related things or ideas within the sentence that share some commonality defined by the section before the colon appeared.  When the list is of objects or simpler well understood ideas the more common comma is most often seen used for a delimiter to break up a list into its’ component items, but when the list is of new thoughts or new ideas spun off from the definition the semi-colon comes into play.   Most generally the list definition added to any section defined by the semi-colon would stand on its’ own as a full and complete sentence.  The humble and in these latter days seldom used (beyond the inevitable emoticon ;-) semi-colon allowed writers of days gone by to build very complex sentences reflecting very complex ideas, veritable eco-systems of related thought.  Where there are semi-colons there is usually a great deal of thought or, failing deep and deliberate thought, a very limited understanding of the subject at hand.

Perhaps it is the very complexity the semi-colon enables that got it chosen as a small and unobtrusive tattoo symbol for those who define themselves to the world in skin and ink.  Fair enough, I’ve no grief with someone for choosing to wear such a symbol be it as fair warning to the world or to indicate their life stands in support of someone so afflicted.  Not a bad thing, not at all.  Still though for myself I think I’ll stay with me old favorite the triple dot ellipse… the evolving thought, continued.

If your soul were fully writ

Upon your naked skin

Tell me Pilgrim, if you can,

What alphabet it’s in?

GFA^3

To Big for a Comment Block…

*chuckle* Ah, my oh so liberal friend… bullshit. 

Technology encompasses a very great deal more than just Boolean electronics.  Pollution was understood (not admitted to formally of course but well understood) before FM radio became common much less the digital realms.  The meteorologists were worried about their statistics in the sixties, they just weren’t saying much, the line hadn’t wiggled that much.  I’d say Star Trek should get credit for blowing the whistle on global warming, it was Star Trek introduced the term “planetology” into the vocabulary and with the term the first genuine scientists to adopt that mode of thought.

Twenty five to Life on a thumbdrive…

It dawned on me today I’ve been involved with the personal computer for twenty five years now.  No parole.  From a 286 at 16mghz and a whopping 40meg of storage to this thing, considered obsolescent now running somewhere in the 2gigahz range with a terabyte of drive.  From DOS4 to XP (I suppose I’ll have to upgrade soon, but why?  For what I do it won’t make a fardling fart’s worth of difference).  Quite a run, really.  Model T to Mazerati in a quarter of a century.  WoooHooo.  

Concerning Matches and Redneck Women…

It’s an old saying, an old superstition if you will that has a solid basis in fact.  I’m pretty sure it began among the infantrymen, the soldiers of the great wars and it has to do with not getting yourself shot.  It’s said to be terrible luck to be the third man to light his cigarette from the same match.  Makes sense, by the time the third guy gets a light the sniper out there in the darkness has a bullet on the way aimed at that tiny dot of light that just happens to be right in front of your face. It dawns on me though I’ve seen something concerning women that also comes in sets of three, and in point of fact is exactly opposite the first consideration.

Life at my House Number 39

At times I think to cut it off,

            this world of art

            this world of soft

Turn return the world that's real,

            fire and flame

            torque and steel

Leave the flowing emo-stain

            to cover hearts

            that brandish pain

As fortunes burned to buy

            …

            a name.

I might join... would you?

We are not young, but neither are we old.  Life is not before us, nor behind us, we are astride our life, living in it, making it what it is.  We each have our mate and family, the in-laws and outlaws and friends, we are not part of each other’s world of real life.  But here in this place which is not the world of our real lives we have each other to help us build a second and secret life from the dreams and desires we set aside to live in the world of our public reality. 

You see, in this place the perfect stranger rule holds,  we don’t share the names we use in our world of real life, we don’t share the details.  We have no more idea about those than you do.  We really don't know each other at all, even though we know the most intimate details of each other's dreams. What we do know is there is a freedom here to be found nowhere else.

There is only one exception to the perfect stranger rule and that is of course Mrs. A and myself.  We were on the periphery of each other’s world when we co-authored the first of these stories.  No one else in our real life knows of our stories, but we do know each other's name and face.  We carry a love for each other and to protect the love between us we refuse to become part of each other’s first and public life even in secret.  When she moved away a few months after we began I didn't ask, and she didn't offer, her new address... we put ourselves as close to perfect strangers as we could.

But as the affair played out in it's strange intimacy we found the stories we'd built between us proved of value in understanding how the person we are beneath the surface fits and functions within the world of our public reality, and so we’ve agreed to share these stories with you as an invitation to take a pen name, and a partner, and when you and your partner are satisfied with a story share what you built between you.  Who knows who might find some bit of understanding in someone else’s story that will, in the end, become the wisdom needed to nurture, preserve and protect what is wholesome in the world of real life.

***   ***   ***

===originally published 7/2012===

So, is this the flyleaf from some publication of a writers club, or is it perhaps the first of the stories in such a work?  Would you join such a club?

Of Man and Muse

The verse pretty well says it all, but if you want the back story read on...

Flat...

Woman in Water
image has nothing to do with anything

That would be the word of the day: flat.  Flat world, flat life, flat hope, just your basic planer existence revolving around a serious skirmish with yet another iteration of the public school proto pneumonia grunge-bug.  It’s been over two weeks of intestinal infighting and bronchial raid and run to dislodge the invaders.  They’re losing ground, I’m winning, no mercenary antibodies in the fight, but damn.  It do eat up time and after a while you just feel... flat.  That thousand yard stare starts taking over.  Still though there are things to be seen at the end of that thousand yards, usually in the reflections populating a windowpane in one of those intoxinated fever dreams.  You know, the things you see in the reflection that just flat aren’t there when you turn and look into the room, but they’re still there in the reflection when you look back.  Seen some sights in that window last couple of days, yup, yessir I have.  Not totally sure what to make of some of them.

For a tamer example:  I walked out a back door I did, didn’t think much of it, something to do with the dog I think, only to discover a twenty, thirty head orgy rolling around in my backyard.  Didn’t think much of that either believe it or not, pretty normal looking people indulging in a pretty normal looking fuck fest.  One of the revelers, a pleasingly plump English looking lass who was riding reverse cowgirl (she reminded me of Lulu in “To Sir with Love” ) looked up at me and in a tone of voice somewhere between petulant and bored said  “please tell me you’re not gonna go all grandma judgmental about this” to which I replied “This, nah, no problem with this but it would have been nice to have warned the roommates ya’ll will be using the garden hose a lot... been nice to know why there’s no water pressure in the bathroom.”  Right.  

Interesting thing was the skyline beyond the back fence... I recognized that horizon instantly, that was the scene as seen looking out the back door from the rent house next door to the hell house... makes me wonder which back door I walked out of.  The back wall of the hell house is still a total blank, no effort of will awake or in sentient slumber has ever shown me that back door even though I know it has to be in my memory somewhere.  Oh well.  The dreams of intoxination can be as strange as anything induced by any deliberate indulgence, and often of more value once you can connect a line from the dream to the circumstance that gave it form.

Then of course there was the concurrent case of porous insulation, a condition rumored among the garage horror stories but never seen before in the real world.  I’m now on record in support of the legend, do believe I’ve now bumped into a case of just that on Brutus.  Little to tell, just a slight discoloration and a blistery looking deformation as if some tiny drop of solvent had attacked the insulation on the wires, allowing them to cross connect anytime relative humidity made for a nice wet kiss.  Right.  The answer? A whole lot of electrical tape wrapped most carefully.  Ok, readings back to normal on that leg of the harness, just have to wait for a good rainstorm to see if it worked well enough.    Old fart is beyond running great, he’s getting into the awesome ranges, but… still cantankerous as his owner. I’m tired of chasing wiring problems.

And of course it can’t really be called a proper hack bs filler post without something from the wonderfully dysfunctional world of world news.  Based on a picture I saw (purportedly  taken from ISIS’ recruiting effort) I’m starting to wonder how many of the ISIS fighters are in actual fact biologically homosexual living in titanium coffins instead of closets and dedicated to dying for the cause because the bonds of battle are as close as their culture will allow them to get?  I mean really, about the only thing that will weld two lives tighter than sharing a lover’s bed is sharing a goddamn foxhole and the boys in that picture sure looked queer to me.  If true what a bitter joke that would turn out to be, a viscously bitter joke in so many different directions.

Carrying Chaos

Anyway, the word of the day is flat.  Which, if this thing is unwinding in alphabetical order, might mean you’ll want to stay up wind for a bit because there’s really no telling what the word of tomorrow might be ;-)

JPEG Humanity… 60% Compression, 40% Smoothing

Let’s face it, probably the largest threat to humanity at the moment is population pressure.  Even more than the demands for physical resources is the challenge of living with the stress generated by so very, very many personalities attempting to cohabitate on one rather overstuffed planet. 

The physical options for fixing this look rather grim, they involve things like “random population reduction” (read war or plague) or perhaps “compulsory population attrition” (read mandatory sterility), you know, those good old Orwellian desperation generated double think euphemisms for “we need to get rid of about half of us.”  Hmmmm… all very biblical when you get right down to it.  Maybe the mark of the beast will turn out to be a USDA stamp of some sort like in the movie “Soylent Green.”  I don’t know, I don’t really want to know.

But that’s just the physical side of the coin.  Maybe the brains that be have decided to approach the problem from the other side of the issue, decided that if enough personalities can be structured as functionally identical then the stress levels can be held manageable for long enough to not need such drastic measures.  After all, the stress is being generated by so many different personalities, so many unique personalities putting unique loading's on the social systems.  Perhaps they’re thinking that if ten or a hundred or a thousand physical bodies share one unique personality then the stress levels will fall by the same order of magnitude and genocide of one form or another can be avoided.

If that’s the case then the Machiavellian maneuverings of mass technology take on an entirely different perspective.  From that perspective the digi-drone gestalt resolves out as the saving grace of the human race, their essential suicide of self a noble sacrifice to save the race. 

What a thought: AT&T saved the world with a smart phone.  What a thought.  Think that one deserves a full double shot of good whiskey.

From the Odds and Ends File...

You know, it dawns on me I've never, ever, encountered a neglected kitchen where there wasn't just a running river of mommy issues ranging from heavy to severe in direct proportion to the depth of the pile.  Oh well, I suppose this shouldn't really be that big a mystery, not really, not since the only thing more maternal than washing dishes is childbirth.

The Subject was Coffee...

===originally published Jan 25 2012===

Back in 1968 when my dad died we took him to his home in southern Idaho to bury him.  His heart never really left the high plains of his birth, it was really the only choice.  My mom's brother drove us up there, it was a long haul from Los Angeles.

Let me fill in few details, so the rest of this makes sense.  My father was from a pioneering family that arrived in Idaho with the Mormon migrations, the family had subscribed to that faith for several generations at that point.  They were good people, they lived their faith rather than exploited it, I have no complaints with them even though I myself do not subscribe.  My mom on the other hand was a recent convert to Mormonism when she married my dad, and as converts so often will took everything to the extreme.  First fervor the Catholic folk call it, although I suspect my mother had motivations even beyond that.  

The e-cig Affair -or- Practical Paranoia in the Pursuit of Pussy

They tried, Gods above know they tried.  They had the motives understood, but the scientific and technical understanding to support those motives were beyond their reach.  I’m speaking of course of the great dystopian writers: Orwell, Huxley, Levine and the like.  Now, if the good doctor Isaac Asimov had been one to write horror stories based on social deformities HE might have been able to foresee the potentials, he did have both the imagination and the academic scope to infiltrate and  expose the darker realms of science.  But sadly he just liked to write good science fiction yarns, the world never had the advantage of his perception in such terrestrial realms beyond the power of statistics wielded benign.  Rust in Peace, R. Daneel Olivaw.

Such science-horror stories are nothing new, of course not, Mary Shelly started it all back when what passed for science couldn’t pass a modern high school course on the subject.  The writers did what they could, it’s up to the rest of us to understand and actually mount a defense against the nightmares they presented being translated into reality.  Normally I’m not one to go paranoid just because I’m ignorant of something, that would be destructive foolishness for there must be a motive before the most lethal of things becomes a threat.

Into the fray...

It’s just a little crackerbox of a two story duplex, and it should have been my first clue as to what kind of shape it was in when it was part of the deal to begin with.  You know, one of those ‘Here, I’ll sell you this comfortable old house sitting on this big corner lot if you’ll agree to take this damn duplex off my hands…’ kind of deals   Yea. 

The whole affair does not have a happy history for me, but history or no history it has to be finished out one way or another.  After letting the whole sad affair steep for a-while, and sampling the extract for toxins (came back reasonably clean, I’ve dealt with worse)  I’ve decided the best way to put the whole affair to peace is to honor my word that was given to perfect strangers.  Story goes like this, and it’s true.

Perpetual...

Opening of a conversation

I doubt I'll ever even get close to finishing this story, not unless I find myself locked in a castle in Scotland or some other strange circumstance of acute isolation.  Telling a story in pictures just takes an awfully long time when you're no faster at painting than I am.  Still though from time to time when my world of real life turns towards burdensome issues that are beyond addressing it is pleasant to drop in on Sha and Keyanna, First and Second and their conversations concerning the nature of the floating nodes who call themselves Human.

News of my world?  At the moment I'm treading the edges of half a dozen life traps, some set by my world, others no doubt of my own devising.  I'm stepping very carefully these days, watching where I put my feet in both the inner and the outer realities.  The traps of the outer reality are not nearly as dangerous as the traps of the inner don't you know.  Most of those you can, as the song says, defeat with lawyers, guns and money.  It's the inner traps that carry the greater risk.  Oh, well.  That's life, comes in the mail.  Who's gonna carry the mail? Right. Catch ya'll later, life is banging on the back door.  Again.

It’s always the last thing you’d expect…

Mission made, Brutus roars again.  Damndest thing I’ve ever seen, if I hadn’t seen it I’d be inclined to say “well, maybe in some other universe…”  But I did see it, and reality trumps all opinion.  I’ll tell the tale here, and toss the Gods of Google a couple of bottles of Gatorade (contrary to the rumors the volcano gods of technology don’t really give a hoot about anyone’s sexual history, what they’re interested in is potassium based electrolytes, they actually like the sports drink better than a virgin daughter… no annoying calcium to dispose of) to pass the story on to those who might need and/or deserve to know. 

The culprit?  Sand.  Silicate heavy blow sand to be specific.  Where?  That’s the odd and interesting part. If you’re here trying to fix your truck skip to the bottom of this post for the answer.

Bench stock – or – Patton had it right…

It was in the comment section afterwards, and it said something to the effect of “if you read this article, if you even hovered to long over the headline, you’re now in their database.”  I’d say those are probably true statements.  All I can say is freedom ain’t free, these days that’s the price of patriotism.

“You hold ‘em by the nose and kick ‘em in the ass…”  You’re fast, aggressive, arrive with overwhelming firepower and don’t stay any longer than it takes to dispose of the target you were sent to neutralize.  The kind of warfare Patton learned from his mentor enemy Rommel.  The way wars used to be fought, WW2 evolved into version 6.4 or so by now (I don’t play Call of Duty so I’m just guessing at the version number), the styles of warfare where physical geography is the prime factor in separating the combatants out into those called US and they known as THEM.  The kind of warfare Patton espoused as a necessary evolutionary function within the global community of mankind.  The kind of warfare every nation’s military was designed for, what the vast majority of mankind thinks of when you say “war.” 

The key factoid (to understanding today) is in the paragraph above.  Did you notice it go by?  I’ll be back to the thought here in a bit, but in the meanwhile a humble example of what I’m talking about from me world of real life.

Pavlovian Pillowblock…

Pretty sure that’s what they call them, in the catalogs where you buy such things, they call them pillowblock bearings.  You find them carrying things that turn, things that ride on shafts with electric motors and pulleys and belts like the big exhaust fans that keep the air in a commercial kitchen breathable, the ones that suck the fumes off the grill and dispose of the contaminated air. 

Just one of the ten gazillion and one humble things providing us our techno-industrial way of life. They are humble and they are noble and they commonly labor for decades totally unnoticed.  When things are right there’s really nothing there to notice.  Even when they start to wear out it’s not uncommon for them to run for years, vibrating just a bit, making just a bit of noise, but still turning, still doing their job, just complaining a bit I guess you might say.  Can’t say as I blame them for that, like I said, they get ignored an awful lot when all they really ask for is a nickels worth of good old axle grease every six months or so.  Such things as they have my deep and sincere respect, I often feel akin to them.

On the other hand the fellow Pavlov was a psychologist whose work is so well known his name is all but synonymous to what he investigated.  I suppose that’s about the highest honor a true psychologist can aspire to, having your name migrate out of the nouns into an adjective or adverb defined in terms of the thing you studied.  Pavlov made it, in greater or lesser degree what he studied will impact on pretty much everyone, me no exception. 

Tech Note: Buried...

It were the bitch bolt from the fornicating front gates of hell it was. Buried beneath everything, barely visible, about the last thing I pulled loose when I pulled the engine out to overhaul it, the first thing to go back when the engine was back on the mounts.  And of course pursuant to Murphy's law, chapter five, section thirteen, that was the one bolt that had to come loose.  Go figure.  I had the victory though,  at the cost of multiple minor wounds to me knuckles and a new set of fancy flex head ratcheting box end wrenches and eight hours of most deliberate patience it did, finally, come off.  Nike!

Concerning names

Originally Published 5/13/2010...  the beginning of this blog

Cyranos DeMet is not the name the government knows me by. It is my pen name, my public name, it is the only name I'm known by on the internet. My reasons for maintaining a pen name go beyond personal privacy. Think me a raging madman if you wish, imagine me an icon of the academic if that is more to your taste, either might be true, or neither, both is not beyond the realms of the possible. It is my intention the truth of that issue remain undefined. So long as the name Cyranos DeMet cannot be linked to a street address, a social security number, a face, a life, so long as it remains the only call sign for an otherwise anonymous writer then only my thought is on display, the life that produced the thought is not available to mark which social bias or political bigotry from a reader's private stock of assumptions should be assigned to my work.

I want my work judged only on the accuracy of the observation expressed, as some thought might accrue support or rebuttal within the contemplations of my reader. I may at times present personal anecdotes to illustrate the manner in which a thought arrived, but I will not be citing sources for these are my thoughts shared, not a collection of the world's thoughts on some subject presented as a proof of study. It is entirely possible I will cross terrain already mapped by another, if so it is of little concern to me. I walked that terrain without the map they drew, my reader is most welcome to compare our two maps for accuracy against his own observations.

Why such drama you ask? Why such arrogance? My answer is this: in posts to come I will be developing a theory concerning the human condition, a theory that bridges between what in conventional studies would be the disciplines of psychology and sociology, a theory offering a unique explanation for the complexity of the interface between the individuals and the society in which those individuals make a home. The theory to be put forth in some ways simplifies the task of understanding the human condition, and yet in other ways opens an entire new dimension of complexity. I use the word dimension here in it's most literal meaning, an expansion to the stage of reality equivalent to a two dimensional "flatland" creature (whose universe existed on a single geometric plane) being enlarged into the three dimensional space you and I take for granted.

This theory is either a work of genius or a work of insanity, and I myself do not know which. What I do know is that it is in my head, and I'll have no peace from it until it has been let out of my head into words. Since it is being offered to the world essentially anonymously I'll never make a dime from it, but equally I'll never have to carry the burden of it on my real life either and so can assign the effort of sharing it as nothing more than the effort of providing one's own entertainment when what the world offers has gone stale, which is I suppose my ultimate motive in the matter.

Shaken, not stirred...

Originally Published Nov 6, 2011

We've had a couple of earthquakes today.  No, no bullshit, genuine honest to goodness earthquakes right here in Oklahoma.  Nothing terribly bad, high fours, low fives maybe, no damage here but definitely enough to get your attention.  Thought I'd left those behind when we left California.  I guess that's what you get for thinking.

I was there for the one in '71 that rumbled Los Angeles to a standstill for a couple of days.  In the end I think they decided to call that one a 6.3 or so.  Of course, those numbers are deceptive, they're on a log scale so a 6.3 would be like fifty times more powerful than a 4.9 or a five.  That one tore up more than a few things.  Got us a week out of school, almost got the school itself. 

A month or so after the quake old man Raleigh snuck a few of us in where we weren't supposed to be to show us what had saved the school for us, to show us just how strong wood can really be.  Awesome strong, in point of fact.  Stronger than steel.  The school was originally built in the 'twenties as two three story buildings sitting over full basements, concrete and steel construction with a brick veneer.  But during the thirties, during the depression, the WPA added a large auditorium between the first two structures to create one "T" shaped building about four hundred feet long from what had been two.  I know how long it was because me and my buddy Jay stepped it off trying to get a comparison to the main saucer hull of a Constitution class starship.  The starship was bigger. 

Anyway, it was a nice auditorium, dished out for theater seating, big stage, proper arched ceiling three stories above the floor.  There were six huge laminated beams carrying the roof across what had to be at least an eighty foot jump, and it was those beams saved the structure.  Mr. Raleigh had been there when the engineers first surveyed the building, told us both of the older structures had tried to collapse towards the middle, that the walls were something like six inches out of plumb after the quake.  The roof was in ruins where those huge oak beams, each one was like two feet by three feet of solid laminated oak, had bowed up taking load, but they'd held.  Held both buildings.

I remember feeling very small right then, thinking of how much force they'd carried. I remember feeling kind of spooked by the huge jackscrews they'd bolted across under each beam, big hunks of threaded metal they'd screwed out until the walls were again vertical.  The jackscrews would never be taken out, they stayed on to reinforce the wood, made of soft iron designed to bend if they couldn't hold strait and reinforce the wood.

Up until that point I hadn't really been scared by the earthquake, not really.  But looking up at those beams and the big rods and being told if the next one was no worse than the last one they might be able to hold again well, yes, that was scary, the thought of another one.  Yea, that brought it home to me, that if nature loses her temper mankind don't stand a chance.  Kind of makes a lot of other things look rather small by comparison.

***   ***  ***

In postscript?  This fracking bullshit has got to be brought to a halt, the habit of putting back dirty water (so very thin and prone to transmitting vibration) where there had once been crude oil (so very, very thick and prone to defeating vibration within its' own molecular structure).  Is oil an important resource in the modern world?  Of course it is.  But... it isn't that important.  I've got this distinct sense that mother nature has about had enough, and yea, when she loses her temper you really don't want to be on the same planet with her, much less sitting right on top of what pissed her off in the first place.

Third Reality of Man Ch 6: Who Mourns Adonis?

The myths and legends concerning deities, the Gods and Goddesses, have been part of the human condition for a very, very long time.  Upon rational inspection these stories, be they fossil remembrances of actual events or simply projections of imagination, are quite often found to be where a people and a culture store the accumulated wisdom of their lives.  The richer mythologies, such as the Greco-Roman or Indian pantheons, clearly reflect these peoples understandings: of themselves, of their times, of humanity in general.  Some deity comes to represent a common trait of humanity, that element of the human condition then set to motivate mythological flesh as a dominant personality trait while some other trait is represented by say that deity’s sister or cousin or consort, the story of the relationships and motivations for those relationship between the two that carry down the generations as legend give the host culture’s understanding of the associated interpersonal dynamics, ultimately the social dynamics,  commonly found along the interface between the traits. 

Even in this age of exponential advancement in the sciences and technology these entities are still power players on the stage of human affairs.  How is it these entities, ancient as they are, still command such power?  From a functional perspective obviously these entities must still provide some needed service to still have value within the lives of those who offer them their fealty.  For all that science can now explain the mechanics of human life with an appreciable degree of fidelity it is obvious science cannot even fully duplicate the true functionality of these entities much less surpass them or they would not remain the powers they are.  To rational observation it is apparent there must be things these entities provide which science simply cannot. 

What do these deities of antiquity provide to humanity that assures their continuance?  What do they provide that science cannot?  A deep question, a very deep question, and yet the answer is not so very hard when the simple minded arrogance of fact  is set aside: they provide a needed service in places where science does not, because it truly cannot, operate: the realms of ethical choice and aesthetic opinion, the issues of self definition and self judgment that exist exclusively within the inner first reality of each individual’s self perception.  The Gods and Goddesses, the realms of the supernatural, exist and persist on the value of a vocabulary pertinent to the most absolutely intimate of things, the matters of heart and soul from which are derived the motives and ambitions, the dreams and the nightmares that power the totality of a life regardless of where or when that life might be lived.

I will assert these thought structures built upon perceptions of the supernatural, evolved and inherited as they are, are evidence of mankind’s oldest involvement with collective entities and those entities’ place in the human condition.  Examined from the perspective of an ongoing effort at self definition all of human history easily becomes  a testament to the effect of some collective entity expanding out of the inner first reality of the host individuals to become a consolidated force vector impacting the common second reality where originates the history of the race.

From antiquity the works of mankind have all, each and every one, shared one trait in common: they ultimately originate from someone’s desire to make the second, external, reality match some specific element of their internal first reality.   Perhaps little commented on, but true.  Any and every change mankind has with deliberation introduced into the environment of life began with a precipitating vision that at some point existed nowhere save in the inner first reality of some one individual’s imagination.  (appended 6/8/15... this thought belongs here, not later)

In all of my wanderings across the landscape of the human I’ve not found a more powerful phenomenon than the one just mentioned: the expansion into the second (common) reality of a collective entity originally evolved to serve the needs of its’ hosts individual and private inner reality.  The story of these migrations across that first and most primal of frontiers is the story of the human race, a full understanding of the motives involved, the alliances formed between the various collectives both inner and outer, the running river of blood and mortality for both host and collective is the story of the human race.  Oh yes, a collective entity can die, it can be killed, the collective entities know war just as do the individuals.

Convoluted and contradictory as the answer might be the question must be asked: what motivates, what could possibly motivate, these migrations whence originate so very many of humanities miseries?  This thought will be continued, and expanded, in the forthcoming chapter “Dancing All Around Me Hat…”

Oh, and just as an IMO footnote?  Who Mourns Adonis?   That’s easy.  He’s mourned by every lesbian lass who from time to time desperately wishes she had his truly divine  beauty to inspire her and give her permission to reach out with her heart open to the other half of the world.

...to be continued...

Something Very-Very Fishy Here...

I’d thought about calling this post “General Motors and the Quest for Corporate Communism” but somehow that seemed just a bit premature given the evidence at hand.  The evidence against General Motors and John Deere is still a bit, ummm, suspect shall we say but the ramifications of any major corporation succeeding at what they’re accused of attempting are profound to say the least.  This one is important, it deserves a dedicated microscope and a crew on duty 24/7 to keep an eye on what transpires, with appropriate counter measures ready to launch on a moments notice.

It is alleged that General Motors and John Deere are petitioning the Federal Patent and Copyright folks to invoke provisions of legislation passed in support of international copyright treaties (intended to protect the intellectual property rights of those producing software and entertainment) in such a manner as to allow them to revoke and render meaningless the very concept of ownership of any modern machine incorporating “computerized” control systems (yes, that means your automobile) and substitute in the place of “ownership” a “life of the device” lease agreement similar to that found in the EULA (End User License Agreement) of say a modern computer operating system.

So what’s the big deal you ask?  In a word, the maintenance and upkeep of such machines.  The intent of their petition is to by law  deny the general public (which means any mechanic not specifically employed by GM) access to the specific technical information needed to maintain such machines, effectively establishing a monopoly not based on exclusive production but rather on an exclusive ability to maintain such machinery.  Since it is already well known by those who work with such machines that they incorporate very sophisticated engineering guaranteeing device failure within well known and quite deliberate time spans the potentials for blatant abuse are obvious. 

The focus of their claim is the firmware incorporated into their new “drive by wire” offerings.  In case you didn't know drive by wire is the severing of all mechanical connection between the operator and the various subsystems of the machine… for example, lose power steering on your way home from work and you don’t have difficult steering, you have NO steering… a massively dangerous concept so utterly idiotic it can’t even be blamed on Al Gore! And that’s saying something.  They are attempting to claim that the necessary diagnostic devices for performing effective maintenance on such machines constitute a violation of their copyright protection on such firmware programming, and therefore all such devices should be illegal unless specifically owned by a GM sanctioned shop (read that as extortion city far beyond any Mafia protection racket!).

Having invested in such lunacy General Motors is now attempting to protect themselves from the obvious legal liabilities of such stupidity by establishing a system whereby they can financially entrap anyone naive enough to invest in such a machine into a situation where they MUST pay whatever General Motors demands to maintain the machine or purchase a new machine at intervals determined by General Motors (such that to protect their initial investment they must return to GM or forfeit any accrued equity!) when GM is no longer able or willing to counter and contradict their own built in failure modes!

(just a heads up for those who know their ass from a hole in the ground… in the late ‘90’s GM took to wiring their ever more electronic dependent offerings with wire where the physical properties of the insulation of that wire degrade to unusable in a matter of ten years or so… boy howdy, random cross circuiting just does wonderful things for reliability!)

I’m not even gonna get started, in this post anyway, on the human travesty of utterly destroying the livelihood of every independent mechanic in the nation, nor will I speak to the ultimate social consequences of being denied by law the right to be personally and fully competent in any part of such a primal function of modern life as the operation of an automobile!

Folks, this one?  This one isn’t the American way.  Not even close.  I’m sure somewhere Lenin and Chairman Mao are sharing a drink and laughing their asses off.  The Americans, so stupid as to think that only government can inflict and enforce communism on the masses.

Promoted...

I don’t know what I’d do without the stream of folks who come through the diner.  Well, I do know, but it would be terribly boring by comparison.  I’d be reduced to living on movies and internet computer games and such like, and I’m sorry but those just don’t really cut it where I’m concerned.  Far to contrived and simplistic for my taste.  As is so often the case the thought of the day began from a snippet of someone else’s conversation that drifted and echoed and bounced into my ears sitting as I often do in the little booth in the back corner where all such echoes converge.

If I were going to describe them I’d have to call them successful people.  Attractive and wholesome, and somehow they carried that understated air of genuine success about them: works accomplished that had shaped their history, works underway shaping their dreams and ambitions.  No doubt academics of one sort or another, they left me no clue as to their chosen focus of study.  There was an air of easy intimacy about them, they were comfortable in each other’s company.  Could have been man and wife, could have been just coworkers pulled off for a bite of midnight breakfast before going back into the fray, might have been a pair of young lovers enjoying a fine affair in the height of its’ glory.  Since I’m a dirty old man at heart I’m gonna go with the third assumption and wish them five dimensional fireworks for a lullaby and a quicky at dawn just to help jump the eighteen hours until there’d be another chance.  If you were going to make a movie about them you’d likely set it in Paris and cast Meg Ryan opposite a young Cary Grant to portray them.  Yea, first impressions they just felt like that kind of people.

Anyhow, their conversation came into focus as they were discussing a common acquaintance, someone it would seem they’d both known but from different beginnings, set in a different time frame than their relationship.  There was a subtle tone of warning to the fellows comments, I don’t think he really trusted this person.  Judging by the point by point nods and soft sad smile I’d say she was likely in agreement with his assessment, but it wasn't a happy thing for her, not really.  In the end she closed the segment with the statement that popped the thought for which I’m indebted to them.  She said “Yea, I knew him before he was Doctor…”

She’d known him while he was still human, before he was Doctor So and So of something or another.  Her comment became an edge, a guarded frontier, the fall of the guillotine.  As Doctor So and So he was judged by a different set of expectations than normal folk are.  Empowered by the whole Doctor thing what she’d once known as simply endearing or annoying quirks of personality became dangerous anomalies for those who dealt with him from the same perspective as the fellow who didn't seem to really trust him.  From her tone of voice it would seem it was the whole Doctor thing that had precipitated a set of less than happy changes. 

Their gift to me was the realization of how very often this happens, and a perspective opening onto an expanded understanding of the consequences.  For those who live in society (unlike myself who lives beside society) the various ranks and positions within create quite different degrees  of expectation burdened on people.  Since the expectations people live with, societies or their own, play such a major role in the ultimate state of their happiness I’ll call it a gift to have a little illumination on the subject.

If you've only known someone at some given level of “success” within society then of course there’s no point of comparison to what they were before, or what they might become later.  It’s only if you know someone as they cross some social boundary that you get to really see the full price of success.  You know, Joe was a good dude until he got promoted into management and all his old friends drifted away because he turned into an asshole just like the rest of them.  Did Joe really change that much?  Who knows.  What is certain is that Joe transitioned into a new environment where the Joe that was had to adapt to survive, and those who had held Joe in their sphere of empathy found that the old motives for including him just didn't seem to apply anymore.

The thing that pings on my thought is how if you were one of the ones who supported them in their quest for some success above your personal experience you’re terribly likely to be blindsided by the consequences of success, get to share in the cost but not the value, seems I’ve heard so many whispered stories where that was the underlying motive.  Most of them were not happy stories at all.

From the perspective of actually understanding Happiness it seems to me that each such event is the proverbial pebble falling in the pond creating ripples that intersect and overlap and all to often it would seem Doppler themselves right out of existence leaving the overall system no richer in happiness than it was.  One of those hidden functions of the human condition that promotes the status quo rather than improvement in the quality of life.  One of those things that if it were to be fully understood from the perspective of the common humanity could be promoted out of the status quo to be a thing of genuine value justifying the cost of success. 

But how? How do impart such an understanding to those who’ve yet to cross such a personal boundary if indeed they ever will?  Damn good question.  Another damn good question to join the ever growing pile of good questions on the subject of happiness.  This may take more than a year.  A lot more.

Cowboy Departing...

Yup, it’s that time again, time for the great diaspora at the end of the school year, the end of the semester coming into summertime, them that aren’t in despair over finals are getting ever more euphoric at the prospect of parole from the dungeons of academia.  Needless to say there’s a lot of celebratory beer flowing in this town right now, and nowhere more than out at an oversize country dive known as “Tumbleweeds” where they’re currently hosting the umpteenth edition of what has become a bit of a local tradition.  

Officially it’s the calf fry, that’s the official name of the yearly party, but what the locals call it is the testicle festival where the cowgirls take the cowboys to celebrate the emasculation of the bovine, their descent from proud bulls into docile McBeef to be herded off to the butcher.  Maybe someday someone will convince me they aren't flocking to the affair wearing their very best raggitty “Daisy Duke” hot pants and cowboy boots as a show of solidarity with their soul  sisters among the bovine to celebrate the triumphs of feminism.  Maybe, but not likely, because when they get back to town to drunk to hide their hearts most of ‘em are wearing that look so common to the fashionably feminist who spend their days whining about how they just can’t find any men worth their time.  Poor fools.  You’d think that after all this time they might have figured out the relationship between castration and contempt.  But, it hasn't shown up on the cover of Cosmo so even if they do have half a clue they hide it dark and deep.  Oh, well.

Anyway, the whole crew of ‘em is leaving town (yea!) and I wish them all a safe road to where ever they’re headed, a great summer, and hey… don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way by.

Continuance of Characters

Soap

---originally published 2/25/2011---

Think of all the people you've known who don't really exist.  You know what I mean, all those characters the writers invent.  We get dropped into their life, they entertain us, educate us, distract us from our mundane worlds, they become our heroes, our role models, our villains.  But what do they do when the show is over, when the actors and actresses take them off and go back to their real lives?  What becomes of Picard and McGee, where will you find Mrs. Peel or sweet Abby?  Somehow I think they settle into lives not so very different from ours, they live with us and in us after all, and somehow I don't think anyone ever interrupts Abby's favorite soap opera. Well, not twice anyway.

An Open Question...

Plato's Purgatory...
a diner doodle

It’s an old saying, an old challenge, and it goes like this:  “Are you willing to put that in writing?”   Methinks it, like so many other old sayings, now has a mutated meaning.

I’m beginning to wonder about something, specifically, I’m beginning to wonder if some folks’ preference for texting rather than talking is indicative of  more than just a fad of using the (relatively) new gizmo simply because it’s there to be used.  I’m beginning to wonder if the whole texting thing hasn’t evolved into a defacto new talisman of conformity.

 

The anomaly that trips my curiosity is this: I’ve observed those who prefer text over voice would seem to be the same set who tend to speak, when they do speak, in politically correct but incomplete euphemisms that buzz like an out of balance transformer, the same set most dedicated to texting those who to all visible evidence have surrendered personal freedom as a casualty of the covert cultural warfare being waged by the oriental influences of silence and conformity so critical to installing the slavery of caste and class into the American culture.  The prohibition is against speaking it, writing it in a little note isn’t taboo (just bad judgment allowing for the corporate sponsored government spying on all forms of electronic communication). 

Nothing nada zip by way of any confirming evidence of course, just a growing question and ongoing curiosity.  Oh well, time will tell if told it be.  Doubt I’ll be here to see the final on this one.

Gothic...a Diner Doodle

Pencil on paper, touched up lightly in PhotoPaint on it's way into the pixel forest.

A Minor Matter of a Temporal Phase Mismatch…

About now all you Trekkies out there should be thinking ah, ok, yea, that’s what produces wormholes and wormholes are what turn starships into 42 shades of petunia flavored blubber.  You’re absolutely correct space cadet, but TPM can apply to more than just a warp field, it doesn’t do anything good for the realms of psychology or sociology either which is where this post is going, so stay sharp on station or we’ll be picking up Voyager’s trash all the way home.

In response to my last post my buddy Pip asked me a question that went sorta like this: “is there so much girl-girl partnering going on (and the young men noticing) that it's somehow making them more aggressive and predatory in reaction…  …same sex experimentation being much more natural for young female humans, leaving young males feeling totally…  left out ?”

A good question, a deep question, definitely requiring a multi-generation range kind of question because any answer that can even circumnavigate the edges is going to be traveling a long, long way across the human condition.  Putting “IN MY OPINION” in bold red type before every paragraph I’ll go ahead and take a swing at it subject to the understanding what I say can be little more than preliminary guesswork within my best understanding of an untested empirical model of the collective subconscious.  If I get two out of any three points anywhere close to correct compared to reality I’ll be amazed.