Wednesday, July 27, 2005
colors: black red silver yellow
mood: wistful
kind or unkind thought for the day: I'm leaving my job soon, and moving across the country. I'm really looking forward to the change, but am also really going to really miss a lot of real people. That's it in a nutshell.
starpower: 1.0 thurstons
chant/prayer/mantra: "I forgot my mantra"
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Annie_Hallxoox,
joel
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Fox takes over myspace.com == icky
colors: light blue, dark blue and green
mood: out of energy. i went to yoga for the first time in three weeks and really pushed myself, and now i'm sore.
kind or unkind thought for the day: i'm gettin tha fizzuck outta myspace.com
Just the idea that words that I've written could be owned by Rupert Murdoch/News Corp/Fox makes me shudder with distaste.
Here's the stuff I'd posted there in my personal bio under "Interests and Personality" (Fortunately I only got through about 20% of the fields there before I ran out of time/energy, and haven't been back since), but am gonna erase it in hopes they don't dig through the archives:
Headline: I'm all about love, compassion, good & bad spirits.
About me: I am a seeker. I am shy until I get to know people. I want to love everybody, and I will not be happy until everyone is happy. I have a mission in life that drives me, but I haven't figured out all fo the things I need to know, and haven't done all of the things I need to do. Still a few checkpoints for me (in Eastern religion, they're called 'paramitas'). I have been in touch with angels and devils, many of both still with me -- sometimes I feel like a collector.
I am working toward being a Unitarian Universalist minister, but I'm not sure if that is going to be exactly my bag yet. I know we fit pretty well though, so I'm looking forward to school now.
In addition, I enjoy collecting The Onion (www.theonion.com), and any pennies or coins that I find on the ground or around. See revjd.blogspot.com "confessions of a penny-planter". I believe pennies represent angels, and that witch=angel=star. I guess that last bit is kind of new age, but that's what tangents can do for you. I am very in touch with what truly makes up reality, and with what I've made up to augment it a little (for the better, I believe).
I am in love with my wife Stephanie, and also to a degree, several of the ladies I've met in my short life. Being polyamorous by nature, I really don't think I can (or ought to try to) help that, but Steph and I are true soulmates, so she's patient with me for my weakness, and very understanding of my condition. She has been my 'nurse with band-aids' when I needed one most -- every part of my body, mind, and spirit was in pain and I knew it, then she came along and has been helping to fix me up ever since. I guess it was mutual, as she's told me I came along in her life right when she needed me. I want us to be together forever.
Anyway, I'm much in love with her. I love the universal female spirit, though also identify with the male side as well. It's not easy not to be attracted, because the female mind, body, and spirit are beautiful things.
Oh I was supposed to talk about me. I have demons too. I have a "mint" "fetish", for example. And I have a fascination with extreme female forms (fat, skinny, short, tall,muscley, very hourglass, big nose, big head, etc), though I feel conscious-stricken for indulging in a state of objectification. (As noted earlier, I just don't get too riled up about the male form. C'est la vie.)
Oh, I have a Christ complex. It has been hell to wrestle with, since there are so many nutjobs out there who have them, and I'm waiting to prove whether it's real or I'm just another nut. Either way, its a heavy burden whether carrying it for real or carrying it for naught. I guess it'd be my choice to go for it, but I don't think of Christ in the same way that the miracle-believers do. If I were Christ, I wouldn't exactly be walking on water or raising people from the dead, except in a figurative sense. In a way it sucks because if this place didn't need fixing up, I'd rather be living plainly and simply, going about my business following my bliss in other directions as well.
I did get an opportunity to meet the devil his own bad self -- at least he thought he was. He was a coke using buddy of mine from almost a decade ago with crazy purple and green hair and a double-pierced tongue, in a rage-rock band. (I am not making that up.) I never really tried coke, since I know what its effects would've been on me. I licked the tiniest amount possible off of a credit card once and knewinstantly that it's effects and addiction would be ten times more nasty than caffeine (which is another demon, of which I've been pretty free lately thank the heavens).
I try to be a vegetarian, but fail miserably. I can't give up the idea of having a gyro, bratwurst, pepperoni pizza, beef jerky, or thick-sliced bacon on rare occasion. I wish there was a way to make synthetic versions, so the animals could live free. I LOVE scrambled eggs, so doubt I'll ever be a true Vegan either.
Speaking of, I try to figure out what everyone has inside their head, which isn't as easy as it sounds. One of my singer friends, I thought she had yogurt. Another friend, a cook at a pizza place, I thought he had red thumbtacks. Me, I think I likely have scrambled eggs. Humpty-dumpty, but still I carry on just as the compass points north and a bobber floats to the surface.
I'd like to meet: Jesus, Gandhi, Lou Reed, Carson McCullers. PJ Harvey, Louise Post, Tanya Donnelly, Kirsten Hirsch, Annie Lennox, Elizabeth Frazier, Martin Sheen, Virginia Hey, Allyson Hannigan, Mira Sorvino. Thurston Moore, Kim Deal, Wayne Coyne, Maynard James Keenan, Al Jourgensen, Timothy Leary, William S Burroughs, Barbara Boxer, Hillary Clinton, Paul Wellstone, Condoleeza Rice, Thomas Jefferson, Joan of Arc, and countless others.
starpower: random thurstons
chant/prayer/mantra: om mani padme hum
a fran-style bus hug to ya,
joel
You may be asking what's a Fran-style bus hug? If I get around to it, I'll address later.
Thursday, July 14, 2005
Related to the last post, but should be kept separate
Timothy Leary, in a book called "The Game of Life", introduces the idea of "
Futants," who are able to live in the present with a memory of the future.
For that reason, combined with being able to foresee the actions of the last few years and perhaps the next few years, I feel so sorry for them right about now. Just as I feel sorry for any fully enlightened buddha beings, unless they are able to successfully escape to the greater now.
While we're on the topic of Tim Leary, I was thinking about something he said in "The Game of Life" about people who are so unique that they know they must be unique. Those people are called "Singularities" in a similar sense to black holes. They have a key within their mind with a passport between worlds. If I can find the book before I move I'll edit this post to include his exact definition; otherwise mine probably paraphrases sufficiently.
While doing a search on Timothy Leary, Unique and Singularity, I came across a couple other things worth mentioning: check
this page of a church that works in alignment with what I intend to bring into existence, and
this page, for an event that could possibly save us from these "47 ways that the world could end", as long as we don't get 'borged', or someone with ill-intent gets there first.
If all this freaks you out or gets you down, be sure to remember the Lonely Rolling Star song (lyrics a couple posts ago), and keep getting your 'peace out' on.
And whatever you do, don't lump me in with Tim. I may've gone there, but knew enough to keep my tether, thank you very much.
joel
What was your first reaction on 9/11?
The actual
link of the day I was originally trying to get to when I came across
this ugly bit (not related to the WTC attack, but I initially thought it was)...
I was just waking up in the morning when it came on the radio, and I actually chuckled, thinking "we've deserved this for quite some time", but then as it began to unfold, I was mortified.
These were real people dying. It really doesn't matter whether they were investment bankers or cooks or the dalai lama. No one should deserve to die like that. As the next few days went on, I was further mortified when I saw the Bush admin eyeing up their cards to play and how they could leverage this to their advantage, PR-wise.
If only we'd known that it would lead to an unrelated war that would undermine any semblance of international friendliness on the part of the USA, a curtailment of liberty here at home, and abusive chest-thumping on the part of people wearing their flag-shirts, things would've turned out almost exactly the same. :(
I have been in love
colors: white and blue
mood: a little blah. i went out and had pizza and single malt scotch and bourbon last night. not up, on the rocks.
kind or unkind thought for the day: everything is technically for sale to some degree, it's just a question of how blatant the currency is. money is the most obvious.
starpower: 0.5 thurstons, despite wearing my t-shirt with the big star on it.
chant/prayer/mantra: from the lyrics to
this song
You're lonely rolling star
Don't stop moving, ok?
You're lonely rolling star
Now, let's face forward and go
You're lonely rolling star
Don't give up, ok?
You're lonely rolling star
Give me a call some time
a fran-style bus hug to ya,
joel
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
To help optimize your pessimism...
This site has very detailed descriptions of 47 different ways that the world could end:
Wow, someone did a great job with that list. We've got our work cut out for us.
To quote the Terminator "Come with me if you want to live."
I just did a google on that phrase, and up near the top was this blog (I haven't read it yet, but it's interesting that it's a blogspot with similar look):
Heh.
--
Peace,
Joel
Friday, July 8, 2005
Re: WTF?
Hi Clif-
:) Sorry for the "only half-drunk on cheap red wine coolers and miller lite" drunk dial from Summerfest.... I was hoping you'd be able to hear it cleanly. Steph and I were at the Pixies concert there, and it made me reminisce so I called you from my cellphone, but then when I pulled out my left earplug to listen to the phone, the show was so loud that I couldn't hear anything at all through the other end of the phone, to figure whether a live person or the answering machine picked up. Oops.
Anyway, the second tune you may've heard was Caribou. The first, I don't recall, but it was certainly good. It was a great show, but Steph and I were totally freaked out about the fact that Weezer were headlining over Pixies, AND the crowd of college-age kids went CRAZY when Weezer came on. We were expecting very little of them going into the show, and pretty much saw what I expected, which was undynamic nerd rock, with a mopey edge. The Pixies, however, were awesome. Totally on their game. Dave Lovering was crushingly smooth and dynamic on the drums, Joey Santiago did all those string bends and quick slides like on Nimrod's Son with swift and accurate abandon. Charles was putting it out just like the last show we saw, and sweating like he was in a sauna. Kim played bass (with a pick I think), was still beautiful, and had a huge smile the whole time.
So, back to Weezer. They had a very nice lightshow, and played a nice straight big overdriven guitar sound a la Smashing Pumpkins, but had no drive, perhaps that's their schtick. On a metaphorical level, it seems like their songs just didn't exist, lyricslly. Perhaps I missed it, but their songs seem to just be entirely literal.
Read these lyrics:
http://www.mattsmusicpage.com/wezlyric.htm As we were leaving to go watch the crazy Summerfest nightlife and Steph was in the bathroom, I asked a college-age girl if she liked Weezer, to which she replied yes. Then I asked her what was their appeal. Is there some hidden message I'm missing in their music, or some inside joke you need to know to get their music? And she just said "They're just fun. There's nothing more to it."
I'm sorry to say I was dumbfounded, because all I could answer was that I guess I just didn't get "fun" anymore. In my book, the lyrical adeptness of Pixies is stunningly difficult to follow, but has the rewards of a pulsing rollercoaster ride, compared to Weezer riding around on the carousel. Maybe I'll learn to appreciate the carousel again one day when the right one comes along. In the meantime,considering the size of their fanbase, Weezer doesn't need to listen to my constructive criticism at all, but if I were Bob Dylan, I'd be talking to them like he did to the Beatles, about how your songs are about nothing. Then they'd make the next Sargent Pepper.
<li> O lucky day! </li>
<li> I'm so excited for school. </li>
<li> Miss you. Hugs to you and Angie and the kids. </li>
--
Peace,
Joel
Man is tormented by no greater anxiety
than to find someone quickly to whom he can
hand over that gift of freedom
with which the ill-fated creature is born.
But only one who can appease their conscience
can take over their freedom....
Thou didst choose what was utterly beyond
the strength of men, acting as though
Thou didst not love them at all --
Thou who didst come to give Thy life for them!
Instead of taking possession of men's freedom,
Thou didst increase it, and burdened the spiritual kingdom
of mankind with its sufferings for ever.
-Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Grand Inquisitor
On 7/8/05, Clifton wrote: WTF?
Your pal,
- Clif
Monday, July 4, 2005
My personal journal
Here is my personal blog at Myspace.com. Only my close friends go there.color: mellow yellow
mood: energetic, yet sedate. i'm drinking chamomile/ginger tea this evening.
kind or unkind thought for the day: none.
starpower: 1 thurstons
chant:
Om Namah Shivaya Gurave
Saccidananda Murtaye
Nisprapanchaya Shantaya
Niralambaya Tejase("I offer myself to the light
who is the true teacher within and without,
who assumes forms of reality consciousness and bliss,
who is never absent and is full of peace,
independent in its existence,
it is the vital essence of illumination."
from http://www.tlcspirit.com/mantra.html)
Signing off to get to bed.
a fran-style bus hug to ya,
joel
P.S. - I can't wait for the Hootie Canoe this year.
Recording mixes from tape today
Since I've got my tape deck finally hooked up nicely through the mixer into my computer again, and have the gumption, I'm finally putting it into heavy rotation and in the last 24 hours have digitized:
Ministry then Pixies (a.k.a. MTP)Sunshine Saturday Dinkytown Squared Ksd25Twin Star fallingWrestle!Up AnkhAlien Litmus TestWelcome to Prismatic Tambourine Factory More to come.
colors: brown, black, and gray. wish they were red white and blue today, but was up late at summerfest last night seeing moby and rachel yamagata, and feeling kinda washed out.
mood: washed out, but with potential
kind or unkind thought for the day: last night at the moby show, there were so many huge Miller Lite advertisements all over the place that i couldn't help thinking that his show was a 90 minute ad for the beer. The show was quite good, and they did doors and led zeppelin covers.
starpower: 0.1 thurstons
chant: om mani padme hum
From
www.dharma-haven.org:
The True Sound of Truth
An old story speaks about a similar problem. A devoted meditator, after years concentrating on a particular mantra, had attained enough insight to begin teaching. The student's humility was far from perfect, but the teachers at the monastery were not worried.
A few years of successful teaching left the meditator with no thoughts about learning from anyone; but upon hearing about a famous hermit living nearby, the opportunity was too exciting to be passed up.
The hermit lived alone on an island at the middle of a lake, so the meditator hired a man with a boat to row across to the island. The meditator was very respectful of the old hermit. As they shared some tea made with herbs the meditator asked him about his spiritual practice. The old man said he had no spiritual practice, except for a mantra which he repeated all the time to himself. The meditator was pleased: the hermit was using the same mantra he used himself -- but when the hermit spoke the mantra aloud, the meditator was horrified!
"What's wrong?" asked the hermit.
"I don't know what to say. I'm afraid you've wasted your whole life! You are pronouncing the mantra incorrectly!"
"Oh, Dear! That is terrible. How should I say it?"
The meditator gave the correct pronunciation, and the old hermit was very grateful, asking to be left alone so he could get started right away. On the way back across the lake the meditator, now confirmed as an accomplished teacher, was pondering the sad fate of the hermit.
"It's so fortunate that I came along. At least he will have a little time to practice correctly before he dies." Just then, the meditator noticed that the boatman was looking quite shocked, and turned to see the hermit standing respectfully on the water, next to the boat.
"Excuse me, please. I hate to bother you, but I've forgotten the correct pronunciation again. Would you please repeat it for me?"
"You obviously don't need it," stammered the meditator; but the old man persisted in his polite request until the meditator relented and told him again the way he thought the mantra should be pronounced.
The old hermit was saying the mantra very carefully, slowly, over and over, as he walked across the surface of the water back to the island.
a fran-style bus hug to ya,
joel
Saturday, July 2, 2005
The music in the TV show Nikita
I am watching Nikita, a TV show that plays out like a movie, about a woman in her mid-twenties, who is kidnapped and turned into a hired assassin. Anyway, the music in it is excellent, and the Synth Rock exciting parts especially. I hope to make music like that, and also play tunes with screaming waterwall guitar levels through a wah, a tube amp hard-overdriven and an automated amplitude-modulated feedbacker.
Maybe a Country tune too. Modern Classical as well. Not Opera though.
Thanks to K and E for lending it. Good pick.
Re: fireworks
Oh, and BTW, hardly anyone reads my blog either. :) Maybe because it's new... It takes a rock band how long to get established? Probably takes about the square root of that amount of time for a blogger to get established, maybe a bit longer....
I think it's going to be cool to bounce ideas off each other in cyberspace. I've been finding in real life that I've been feeling more friendly but also a tad more distant since making the decision to go into Ministry. Maybe I'll get back to a good state of stasis, hopefully. All else is good, but a real bit hectic preparing for the move. Stephanie's taken away the Play Station with very limited rights (about 2 hours a week), which was kind of traumatic at first, but I really was spending too much time playing that Everquest-style game. My main character, Xianya, is a level 80 Ranger, with big blonde pigtails high up on the back of her head, like I like to wear it. You could say I've been borderline addicted, as I've spawned about 6 other characters: Arkestra Zee (a 30 something bald female magic user), Sweet J C Sunshine (a 20 something level female Cleric, with normal long hair), Birdcaller Jones (a ~12th level Witch Sorcerer, female with 8" gray spikey curly hair), Tetreus (a great big 5th level male fighter, with face tattoos and spiked hair and a goatee -- norsk all the way), and a couple other new ones that I started up on Champions of Norrath 2. I'll tell you about all the groovy weapons and spells some other time maybe. Or maybe not. More important stuff to do these days...
Hitting Happy Helmet with Hammer,
Happy-Happy. Joy-Joy,
Joel
P.S.- JD if you want me to edit out the part below, let me know.
On 7/2/05, Jonathan Derek Baker > wrote:Cool, I dig the blog. I've been tempted to start one, but have been
playing with myspace instead - a little less pressure to write
something insightful, since hardly anyone reads what their friends
write there: http://www.myspace.com/elseed
I'm going to try to capture some of the "young children playing with
fire / 3rd world country-type" 4th celebration stuff this year with my
camera, which can do video with sound too. Boom. Here's hoping we get
some cool towering thunderhead clouds for a backdrop.
Happy weekend to ya.
JD
----- Original Message -----
From: Joel < >
Date: Saturday, July 2, 2005 4:23 pm
Subject: Re: fireworks
> Hooray, that's sweet! In honor of everyone around lighting off
> fireworks,
> I'm putting in my earplugs, [(edit) and cranking the music], and wearing my Clinton/Gore
> Red,White,Blue
> shirt. And you know what that means.. :)
>
> Happy Saturday, July 2nd.
>
> Big hug,
> Joel
>
> PS. BTW, I just started a blog last week:
> http://revjd.blogspot.com/ (hope
> you don't mind I'm using our shared initials for it.)
>
> On 7/2/05, Jonathan Derek Baker <> wrote:
> >
> > Hey,
> >
> > Thought you might like these photos - the boxes of fireworks dug
> into> the beach were eerily coffin-sized.
With American flag:
With sailboat:
Happy Explosives Day, everyone!
JD
Peace,
Joel
-----
Man is tormented by no greater anxiety
than to find someone quickly to whom he can
hand over that gift of freedom
with which the ill-fated creature is born.
But only one who can appease their conscience
can take over their freedom....
Thou didst choose what was utterly beyond
the strength of men, acting as though
Thou didst not love them at all --
Thou who didst come to give Thy life for them!
Instead of taking possession of men's freedom,
Thou didst increase it, and burdened the spiritual kingdom
of mankind with its sufferings for ever.
-Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Grand Inquisitor
When I was younger, and sometimes even now, I'd plant pennies or other coins (only rarely quarters when I was feeling generous) in places where it'd be apparent that somebody left them there, for others to pick them up.
Sometimes, I'd leave them in a small stack, or in a pattern.
Why? At first my basic drug-addled thinking was to send a simple message to people that there were folks like me who do things like that.
Now to me it seems like a simple and perfect example of eventuation. Eventuation is a word to describe a concept from the Hopi's, a people native to what is now the the Southwest United States. As I understand it, nothing "just happens" but first seeds must be planted for it to happen. What exists now needs time to come into existence. Sometimes the process of eventuating an action or condition takes only a few seconds, as an impulse action, but larger, more complex systems can require decades to come into existence, and in extremely far-reaching causes, several centuries.
Some examples:
Plant a seed in the ground, and if it gets water and the ground is right, a plant will grow.Start a meme about an idea and it may spread to others, changing the way they think, or the arena of thought in which they participate.Start a software company, develop an operating system and market it. Gain money and influence.Tell people you're interested in being mayor. A friend says to start out as an alder. Maybe you will get voted in, and become popular enough citywide to be mayor.Pass a note to a girl you like. Maybe you'll hold hands, or get rejected. Or get married one day.Drink a lot of alcohol in the evening, without taking aspirin or drinking water before sleeping. Hangover in the morning.Put a penny on some ledge, or balanced on a mailbox. Someone finds it and may wonder who put it there and why.
To some, this pattern is not much different than simple cause and effect, but what I take away from it is that everything that exists now exists because something in the past set it in motion. And everything that will exist in the future will be because of seeds planted now.
In the beautiful words of Lou Reed,
"You're going to reap just what you sow."If that statement scares you, or seems offensive, step back a moment. The first time I heard it, I was a bit taken aback by it. But really, if I felt that way, it was probably because I felt I was being accused of planting bad seeds. I've done some bad things in my time, but lately I've tried to be as kind as I can without being a marshmallow. Now when I hear these words of Lou, I am a bit more comfortable with them.
Over and out,
Joel
Friday, July 1, 2005
"Here, have a leash..."
This short story by Fyodor Dostoevsky rocks my world.
It's pretty dense, but worth the read. Peace,
Joel
Man is tormented by no greater anxiety
than to find someone quickly to whom he can
hand over that gift of freedom
with which the ill-fated creature is born.
But only one who can appease their conscience
can take over their freedom....
Thou didst choose what was utterly beyond
the strength of men, acting as though
Thou didst not love them at all --
Thou who didst come to give Thy life for them!
Instead of taking possession of men's freedom,
Thou didst increase it, and burdened the spiritual kingdom
of mankind with its sufferings for ever.
-Dostoevsky, The Grand Inquisitor
I found this quote nice...
Actually, thebigview.com is a pretty good site overall...
"To be aware
is to be vulnerable.
Many seek meditation
because they believe
it is a way
to step out of life.
And for them
little peace is found.
Meditation is about feeling.
It is about consciously
allowing all feelings
to be.
Often one may feel
a pain
or pressure
in their heart.
If you can let yourself
feel this pain.
If you can surrender
to the moment and
accept that in life
there is pain,
and that to be present
is to be vulnerable,
then all feelings
can move through you
as energy
and you will feel
a love so pure
that it might even
make you cry.
For more of the quote,
check here
