I have learned more about myself in the past week than the past 10 years - sort of; i kind of hate to see the year go. And you greedy reader want me to go into the salacious details, ad nauseam - perhaps later. The passing of years in days gone by was represented by the grim reaper pulling calendars off the wall, now it is just one more consumer event in a full schedule of holy days used by the ruling class to separate you from your hard earned scratch. However the piper is playing and the fresh and new has become one more harried challenge to get through each day, week - year. Why is that? How can something as open and liberating as an open vista become so entangled and arduous? We are not necessarily a stupid species yet we have become so caught up in the drama scrolling across our screens we seem to believe it is real rather than virtual. The pile of shit some sad human left outside my window xmas morning was very real - as was the anxiety of daring do matron thousands of miles from her stolid roots when confronted by another sad little human exposing his too small phallus to her the afternoon of nuyier’s eve. This is our world and it is only going to get . . . help me, what’s the word i’m looking for¿ . . weirder . Yeah that’s it’s going to get a whole lot weirder before we land. Like my past week, perhaps as our trembling souls awaken to the rapidly onrushing future, we may find our learning curve telescoping - not the felonious fake knowledge supposedly found at the end of click bait, but the sort of simple fact - it doesn’t really matter much where the shit came from, somebody’s gonna have to pick it up. This is a daunting hope, when contrasted with the young quote of Steve Miller chief sycophant in this administration’s inner sanctum (giving a whole new twist to the roots of sanctum) - “why shouldn’t i leave trash on the ground if want, when there are immigrants that are paid to be custodians” or words to that effect.
We do not enjoy the margin of safety necessary to support such weakness, for there is no other description for anyone who believes the person sitting next to them wherever they be, is not as equal and valuable as they perceive themselves to be. Nor is that faith an easily acquired conviction. Myself, i have much trouble with crowds of any size having once been pincered off my feet against a grating by a mob emulating a foaming shorebreak at the Wedge in Newport Beach. This unfortunate coincided with dawning reservations about the value of all things counter-cultural. Months later people were murdered at another rolling stones event and the cherry was popped - so to speak. But just like Mr. Carlin said “bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity.” There is no outside agency that can provide a peace for you, yet “only a life lived for others is worthwhile” - Albert Einstein; again the fucking paradox. If we are not all striving for something to look back upon with pleasure what then of this new day of the new year. Master Dylan had said “for me the future is already a thing of the past,” and while his detractors will condemn this plagiarism of so much ancient wisdom - fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke. If we don’t find humor outside of social networks soon, we will become like the office joke about workers confounding the new hire. Having been there so long the employees had numbered all the jokes to save time, but when the new hire stood up shouting “9” the entire room was silent rather than the gales of laughter enjoyed by other number tellers. The new hire sheepishly inquired of the same kindly comrade who had explained the scheme about what had gone wrong. The OG gently told his new friend “i guess some people can tell a joke and some can’t. Oscar Wilde had said “If you tell people the truth, make them laugh - otherwise they will kill you.
We are not being killed, we are being winnowed like cattle. Our objectives have become so invaluable to the ruling class that simple sustenance has become a petition. This is wrong, it is upside down and everybody knows it. I don’t have the answer, which is a great relief for i have a genetic flaw that dictates if i know of something that might help another, i must share it. This inclination is often misconstrued as some kind of command for reasons that still elude me, but for which i am slowly gaining some insight. People take a great deal of pride when they have an new idea. However, this warm feeling may stem from foregone times when cooperation was a common practice and this manner of help was an expected ambition. Today with the emphasis on concurrence, we seem to have lost the capacity for incorporating differences (talk about your taking back the meaning of words). Maybe we’re looking at this all wrong? Some obscene percentage of the stock market is owned by the Highest Net Worth Individuals (HNWI), but has the concept corporation been hijacked by a pack of jackals just like the internet was perverted by handful of greedy pencil-neck-geeks. What if rather than elections for office we as a planet simply incorporate and throw our resources into the grandfather of all corporations - Planet Earth Inc. It’s not as crazy as it sounds; the devil is in the details. I would nominate Bernie Sanders as CEO, and Arundhati Roy as CFO. The bylaws would have to be carefully considered with financial penalties for excess and stupidity as demonstrated by modern executive standards. Then again rather than subsidizing a bunch of middle management parasites as congress and local municipalities have become, we could park our gazillions offshore and pay no taxes. We could then franchise the shit out of Planet Inc., opening bike shops worldwide with free daycare side by side sort of like taco bell and pizza hut - except feeding poison to the population we would be helping each other. Are you beginning to see the logic¿ If not, i understand - i get that a lot . .
My beef is not with the mook who dared display his dinky winky to the sad old woman upstairs doing her best with what she’s got left to her - it is the disrespect to the community where i live - people who have accepted my faltering language and odd demeanor. I am learning, while it may not be much, just to care about others is enough to the relieve some of my own suffering from fucking paradoxes; i think my case is terminal, but i won’t know for sure until i’m gone. This year is past as has my father and friends, yet here i sit perpetuating their memory - courage or cowardice - matters not. I can tell you they would not want to be exalted - remembered, but not exalted. If a year in time was to be personified, can you imagine the collective wisdom of 7 billion souls aggrandizing their importance and demanding exaltation? yeah me either. The people i’ve met and spent times with are generally kind and confused which only really manifests in a common ambition for keeping others in the dark. I am guilty myself having become so deluded as to think i can anticipate what another might feel if i say this or that to theme and so live my humble version of Leonard Cohen’s “secret life.” I know vain people who seem to feel that no matter how much assurance and encouragement i give to them - i never really seem to see them well enough; guess i’ll just keep trying. It is difficult though when my own pride is so repugnant to me that it numbers amongst the most dangerous of my vices; am not certain, but i’m pretty sure i couldn’t plea for my life if i had to. However, last night i watched Anthony Quinn outfox his German captors using just such a ploy. The “Guns of Navarone” is a not an over-the-top indoctrination film about all the positive things war does for us. I used to envy my parents the clarity of WWII, mostly in regret that the quagmire of Vietnam was less of a war than preview of the oil companies at Standing Rock. Sitting here now writing ties my stomach in knots knowing how stupid i can be - quite a harsh take on a little useful self awareness.
Now multiply my benign confusion by 7 billion likely much smarter people - i’m liking your corporation idea more and more. Time however is less of a resource than current lifestyles permit. But then again, if owning your own corporation with 7 billion other human beings means that you once again own your own time - how wrong could that be? Albert Einstein - “Any power must be an enemy of mankind which enslaves the individual by terror or force, whether it arises under a fascist government or communist flag. All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded to the individual.” This statement did not come from a batshit crazy climate sellout, it was an observation out of the mind of Albert, the same mind which gave us E=mc2. A seemingly simple equations which has also enabled the ruling class to wield anonymous incineration over the heads of all mankind. To be fair, Albert’s heart was in the right place by also telling us to be, and do our best. Based on the inanity i found myself wading through day and night when i owned a phone - i’d say we’re in deep shit. Why are we not using the computer technology available to us to analyze and delineate clearly all the ways we are being screwed and to then coordinate and cooperate with all cogent creatures on the planet opposed to such oppression? - lacking any answer to that question, i’d say we’re still in deep shit. But, hell we got a nuyier to become new and improved as well as a number of timely consumer holy days soon, don’t forget the rapture right around the corner. I’m grateful for the past year, for the people i’ve tried to love, and then messed up; for the people i cannot love, but keep trying to and for all the happiness i see in others while knowing of their hardships and defeats - people who remain brave enough to care - and not. “I used to care, but things have changed.” - Bob Dylan. That is an enigma; we live in the hay days of enigma - never in human history have we been so close to success and yet so certainly doomed. It is not my place to say what’s going to happen, and am pretty sure Leonard Cohen was right “There is not decent place to stand in a massacre, but if a woman takes your hand, go and be with her” and until that happens, I will be hunting Lao Tzu’s - “three greatest treasures: simplicity, patience and compassion”
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nuyier - the sonnet
what is so damn new about this nuyier
what if it weren’t years we pay attention,
but lifetimes of other people’s good cheer
without fucking competition.
i won all last year losing all i had
the less i own, the more i do - “How so”¿
you might ask - “simply, it is not so bad”
“You are poor, what could you possibly know”?
“Enough to write this down” I might reply
“Big deal” - says you. Says i, “you would be right”
“Fuck you” she might think “Right again, no lie”
hell the, year’s young, plenty of time to fight . . .
lets just pitch woo until we learn the game
‘cause lady, the screen i’m seeing you on’s lame.
jts 01/01/2018
http://stoneartist.com
reprinted with permission - all rights reserved
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