Dancing in Front of Thousands

Music demands bravery, stepping into the next no prob, my turn to throw I throw. Music’s energy. Gregorio Uribe with the Brown Jazz Band in Solomon. Leaves! One small flower and leaves two pinches. Uribe lives energy. Walk into a room and demand moment’s point. Composer and arranger. What must you do, what must you learn? First, he has to teach himself the music, then he has to lead. Take the Brown Jazz Band to the edge, duel with the alto sax player who may also be an engineer. Percussionists from Colombia throw hard those men. Music alive, music vibe. The edge music, have to step there. Know a pulse, live a pulse. Not simply music. Life sounds, play beyond the point, outline and improvisational flow. And so how magic you flow? Flow you know. My life is a jam. Dude, you want to jam? Jam into town, park, walk, darkness, the old city and libraries. Parked in front of the Rock.

I saw it, but can I describe and explain it?
I saw the edge when audience called to dance from theater seats. Only one first. Then another slowly. Then a little girl from Colombia. Then an American girl age six thrust on the stage, did her best but lacked moves, uncomfortably resorted to ballet toe taps rapid fire, which Uribe copied for a few. The tentative approach. The first experiments people unveil when dancing in front of others. Music continues. Five people total. Eventually warmth soaks but still. Soon there’s enough standing in front of me no dancing in front of me their best salsa hip movements best courtship dance, and the Japanese kid who must be a graduate student doing what he does which is robot freak with disjoints, and his date, or friend, from Colombia, didn’t dance close to him, sorted out her own vibe. They did not dance together. Anyone else notice that or am I reading it wrong? I didn’t read it wrong. Dancing in front of me such that I no longer see Uribe, and so I stand.
And when stand, find myself dancing. Shit! I’m dancing in front of thousands in broad arrangement up-theater, rows and rows and rows, hahahahaha! So move your body friend. Aight, you want me to dance on this shit? Aight, I’ll dance, show you some shit. And I move. Soon my girl joins. Now you gotta throw moves standing in front of your seat. You know the squeeze that is. Do it anyway, and if so you have to elevate to the energy.
Uribe refused to deviate from the set list; refused to play requests, or change a solo ballad after many people had gathered in front of the stage. Why did he refuse to deviate from the set list? Because he’d trained the Brown Jazz Band an exacting arrangement in only a few sessions and that shit to be tight if I’m taking the stage. Says everything about exacting standards, choreography, arrangement, vision, attitude, and virtuosity.

Driving home after the show, after a walk through the freeze, through downtown to 95 South, video game speed, autonomous pods 200 miles an hour in a cluster, as you buzz freaked in the zone between the lines pushed a rush from head heart toe, caused partner to squeal slow down, screeches, house party on Chill Rony Seikaly he played in the fucking NBA, extremely trance, exacerbated the drive’s elemental trip, in the zone and between the lines, noticing pod clusters flying along curves, dips, lateral maneuvers. The rush of the new edge. New edge rush. Where you live on the all-edge. Riding the channel past Blue Bug, petrol tanks and harbor pipelines.
Do you remember writing those novels, and the places you went? That place? The elemental place. There in the pocket. Remember that movement. We hear the song. We all know to sing it.
You sing the word, lyrically, fill the line rhyme in time; fly along with the rest of us, the perfect vowel, perfect word. See what kinds of sounds you can make. Did you see him up there on the mic doing such and same? Work on sound precision.
Some people on stage they’re chasing the moment. Almost out of time have to quickly step and manage their best. And by then, by the catch-up, well, it’s not good enough. Trick is to know the throw from the first second. And you choreograph that step-to-it. You throw the know. Work on sound precision. Work precision. Work sounds, voice. There she sings for the thing.
You cannot be chasing the moment. Make the moment from the first.
From the First

The Forgotten Satchel

Which way do you go? Do you cry? Feel the negative, destroy your mood shit your pants worry about the thing turn left turn right gunna cry smoke a cigarette drive straight into a wall, start drinking, throw TV off a building, go for a run work out hit the gym I’m benching 500 pounds without a spotter hit the watering hole and you know why. Drain the drain, it works. Tell your story to those at the bar. It’ll be a hit. Tell the one about the supreme dumbass, that one. Dear Dumbass Supreme, you know the man cuz you are the man. Way to go with the one.

Or do you chill, rise same as when you left with sunshine end of winter warm rays through the windshield jamming tunes, crank that Antisocial, that don’t touch me, show the show. Which one it going to be? We need to know. Retrace your steps, alter your plans. Has to be the way. Never flinching. The No-Flinch Maintain. Lost a watch while swimming in Lake Mead after crossing algae-slick rocks from a previous water line? So the fuck what maintain. Retrace your steps alter your plans. No one needs to know.

Not a soul needs to know. You can rock the world surfing your way that’s antidote. But still call yourself a dill, right? I mean. Must curse mildly, recall grandfather’s Alzheimer’s, keep rolling. And when you return to the house, no neighbor’s gonna be looking out the window going, “Oh, shit, he forgot something, what a dumbass. Hahaha!” What a ficking dimbiss.

Drive through countryside alone highway’s blue runs, past sandhills within Big River Watershed not much sledding this year think once. Drive highway’s winter sun. When you see the thing on the couch, finally, what do you say? Please forgive me, lord of the self, sorry I your servant let you down. I shall pack my things.

And yet but. The thing, when Parquet Courts jamming it, then DIV’s “Blankenship” throttles upon the Yon, how much crying should there ever be?

And while Collie Buddz/Krayzie Bon’s “Defend Your Own” holds thickness. How my whining should there ever be? Stop reading the news, maintain the humble farm, husband. Away, negativity, away death knolls the daily scroll. And a virus freaking out the people. Freaking on the Man. News coverage Red Alert. Global pandemic, air travel, ships, movement, borders, jumping rocks across seas. Reminds me of us and our great body. Jumping ocean, stocks plunging every one of them, alerts enter your head therefore your soul. Just not the thing we say as a daily, ya’ll. Dear Humanity, you know this. Parking lot can’t get out and roll till the wrap. And a second one. So step with it.

Twenty minutes out, on my way to the cinder block library in Coventry, I turned away, seeking home by compass. No more Coventry, deciding not belaboring, keep the cruise. I mean, when performing you can’t go there, not even on the 100th night. Maintain all-in composure, adjustments in the moment, breathe. Turned up the music and turned south, made my way home. Changed libraries, groceries later, check in with my sons, knowing patterns. And so what’s the next thing? Unlock front door, half a second oh shit what if I left it on the roof of the car? Which has happened to me and friends with coffee, iced tea, wallets, cellphones. It’s not just me. Adam panic-returned interstate to find his phone, driving, in the center lane, already run over. Pulled into breakdown, waited, ran to retrieve it with his teenage son shotgun, managed to show at our house with his phone medium-working but not really, apps wouldn’t properly, icons misaligned, with his phone and plastic. Gloves too my second favorite. That’s me. Drove around looking no luck. Parked and paced where drifted turns. Winter sand collection along curbs. Nope. Walk away, walk away, don’t care they call you Master Finder.

Video Paused. Continue Watching?

What cocksucking asshole motherfuckers. What capitalist dogs on the way to hellfire. What fuck-faces I’ll sick Scorsese on them, he’ll write “shot 7 times in the face in broad daylight,” the fuck dogs. I hate their fucking guts interrupting my jams like that, destroying vibe, carrying buzzkill in their souls, the fucks.

Oh, what angels, what caring love doves, making sure I’m okay. You still here, bro? Just checking on you, making sure you ain’t dead, OD’d lying on the carpet. Just giving you some love. Click on us and we’ll hook you up with more jams. What darling love angels, what caring fuzzy love cuddlers.

The Idea Emancipator

Or Trapped Idea and Free Idea.

How do you free the idea from the body? Let’s lose our bodies first. But we never really lose our bodies. Still there, sunken into bed, floor, flat into curved earth. Feel the planet’s immensity, know its weight and density, and there you’ll see gravity, the why of, the way it. While here, your body never goes away, though forgotten for a while. But what of the idea?
Idea arises in the mind, an organic brain in a skull on a neck body a real living entity. Does the idea exist without the body? No.
What?

No. The idea is contained within the body, trapped. How can we free the thought? We free thoughts by sharing them. Emancipate thoughts sending them into the world, speaking them, singing them, writing down them, institutionalizing them, providing power beyond origins. Thoughts leave our bodies and enter the social universe. They become their own thing. Others interpret, add to them, trash them, incorporate for themselves them. Imagine the word expressed, out there, out already. But of the eight billion some like, some don’t, some love, some positive, some hate, negative along a range. Wary reacting to either side or any. Be the body that throws out the idea and observes happens, unattached to good bad, up down, watching reaction and response, seeing Event created, uncommitted to praise or rejection. Set the idea free, let it live. The person who sets ideas free.

The person who releases imagination. The idea emancipator, explodes into worlds. Living the circle, all-knowing idea’s life, nodding with love for negative and nodding with love positive, acknowledging both, curious how the All-Mind works. Manifest the body that avoids reacting to responses. Removed from the freed idea, step-back, observer now, allowing flow work gravity’s impression and beyond into orbit. A body has a body but an idea escapes into existence, into hearts, sharing understanding of the common. Our core love holds us together, life free based in love. Realize divine materiality, sharing ideas like flowers. Out there for the world, we see, we see.
Expressions
Shhh . . . I’m expressing myself. Shhh . . . We’re expressing ourselves.
Airplane
In the darkness for the first time in months growth obscures sky, blossoms and infant leaves, time-lapsing in front of me, airplane emerges from clouds landing gear distended, this one howls, eyes closed body gone we were sure tigers roared. But didn’t flinch in front of the largest cat. Guttural growls arrive from the center of worlds.
8 Billion
There are eight billion people on the planet. Surely you’ll connect with a few. Definitely voice touch at least one and one million, who acknowledge what you see. They’ll see it, too, already knowing the thing, another connection made, contribution to the All-Mind. Absolutely, expressly, somebody hears the voice. Of the eight billion. Swim in the sea of eight billion. Humanity universal We.

What were the fourteen thoughts while meditating mindfully without thought?

With this meditation I think of no things. Clear, OM, inhale to the top, humming, still clear, apex ready to exhale, OM to the bottom, body-quiet, calm. With this meditation you will not think. You were clear think. Skyward falling volcano uprising thoughts; thoughts enter empty space; thoughts enter the shot. Thoughts pre-verbal, words as rain. Won’t think a word when you’re free inside emptiness, between images, between infinity, not the milliseconds we give our usual train. Expand the space between words. Open that clear abyss between words. Remain within the freedom place. Proceed to not knowing. Proceed to letting go. It’s okay. Exhale into that empty hold. Blow words away. Thoughts, ideas, images. Calm. Beyond the line, freedom hour.

But what were the fourteen ideas, fragments, concerns, devils, angels, lists, long-running issues; improve this or that; let go of that or this? Know what we did today; know what we’ll do tomorrow. Relations? Away until tomorrow! Call the town for large-item pickup? What do I need to do? Space, hover there, humming sometimes, flying certainly, exist with wonder wait for the next word, clue what, smiling as watching fireflies in July. How can you not play drums like that? The action life thing solo for yourself lost basements the space between the word, the current hour. Turn it up.

Slide down the couch. Into a more relaxed position. That’s a great fucking idea. Scooch-a-word. Should listen to the playlist again. Watch the film a second time. Read the book a third. Ride their rhyme lifetime. Sup dog Lifetime. Pinch your nipples, Lifetime. What will the next word be? Listen to the editors. There’s the word. Marriage? The fight yesterday morning and maybe the water rescued you maybe it didn’t smoothed things over for a while. Or maybe you have it all wrong. Can you survive the rising hum? The downward one? Well, let’s see - up/inhale through nose; down/exhale through mouth. Yeah, got that. Money? Your boys’ happiness? Keeping them safe. If you would just listen to the music ever.

Need new shoes. Done thought! Pow, pop! Or, shadow boxing thoughts away. Or, kayaking through ice floes, freezing water arctic paddle, whoosh, you go that way, whoosh, you that way, gliding through obstacles melting. Woop, vitt, swah. See what Brett Easton Ellis has done with White. Bridge the gap between allies. Thinkers of the life knowing during Babylon’s fall. We share our thoughts, and converse. He’s pushing buttons should be pushed. He and such fulfill necessary roles in corrupt society. The voice out there. Add to the current conversation. Withhold yelling, screaming, name-calling, shaming, cataloguing him old. Are we being nice to one another?

Straight the fuck up now in the end times: are we being nice to one another? We seeing? Listen to the music. Rather diss or inspire?

Keep vibe right words on the up. Choice we make, ideals. Oh, God, seriously this and these? Voices in the All-Mind. Souls walk into churches kill worshiping souls. There churches in Sri Lanka, there mosque there synagogue here there and there, words added to the pile, denunciations, somebody claimed responsibility. Man. Man, man, oh man. What the fuck are you doing? Dear Humanity, Who are we and what are we doing? Loosen up, yo’s. Clear Mind.

Eager for the next word; no, afraid. Afraid of empty space and the word, exhilarated, a rush on arrival. On breath, calm body, flying mind. There’s hi-hat, there’s surfboard, live with the bros any day, van down on the sand Santa Barbara. And there’s the Mind free solo, climbing El Cap no ropes, ripped focus, holding, mastering, summit safely ballet powerful. We are focused and powerful.

We can also turn from our climb, release rock, twist, free fall allow, out! Into empty space, released. Knowing smile the way down, speed it would be, wind through our hair, oh God, oh ecstasy! And
We
Open our arms and fly. Choose the redwood tree, there on the cliff. I’m calling take it all in. Calling read it aloud. Sing it! The way of the drum, the bounce, the dance. Free Mind Solo. Solo Free Mind. Mind Free Solo. Sag body. Into the ground. Need a new pair of shoes. Image of the pair arises, whoa, hold, swat! With a bat swack! Out my face, OM, slow, release, goodbye. Idea to sentence, sentence to phrase, phrase to word, out. Return to empty space. When you see it, do it. I need a shower. Turn the heat down, April almost May. Raining. Take out the recycling. Hold, not one committed, body anger reacts, body gone. Hold. Ride the hum, here in the pocket, hold, calm, there, breathing, breath, inhale know-body-gone, where’s the next word don’t look always comes, vast void swallows worlds. But hold, not necessarily, flying to the word, to God, our Humanity, the only anything we have. Food. Dishes. Chores. Easy to write those as questions. Body gone, fingers released from rock. Swack! But where you at
on that glacial lake? In a hurry.
And that’s too bad.
There is no other thing you were going to do.
Jam hand into pocket so your arm doesn’t flop off the couch.
Takes me three to five breaths to remove chemicals after scary thoughts.
I’m sorry. I won’t think I have something to offer.
Flow and control.
I like my first impulse better than my second.
I like my first impulse ignore my second.
Yes, yes, but there it is.
We all know the snow leopard real.
Stand before the man, stand the current hour.

“The Dang Zone”

The Human Voice

Is that cultural appropriation?

Well, sure, all of that, but we hear the human voice. Sharing universal lives, songs, spirituality, gods. Witnessing fulfilled visions of belief. Body meets mind meets spirit meets spine. Efforts in clay for the divine. Idea. We listen to communal contributions. We know expression, love spirit culture, and journey to the same place from the same place. Every speaks the All-Mind. Listen to one another. Hear what we, as totality, say about life, struggle, miracle. Look upon our children and dream; care for their common. Where we are now. There is no not-connected, no disunity, no conversation missing any corner of the world. We know what the other thinks and says; we comprehend faith, trouble, custom. We hear because we converse within the All-Mind. We are our construction. Our beauty, listening to the human voice.

What might terrorists tell us? What if they’re right, at the thought-belief point of existence? Violence against others as the action of belief a sin to man, to God, to Idea. But what if their core idea we should understand? Is there equilibrium, disputes settled, a place where common agreement exists? Global conversations balance forces of life with dangers to the balance. Listen to the human voice. Quest the core, the god-place of expression, see if we can hear an angel. Ask: What’s the complaint? What’s the life-dedicated line, the Position? Who thinks clearly, who doesn’t? Who possesses the social power to implement ideas? How can people combat ill-formed, ill-born thoughts and who defines what those are? Perhaps refined mediation already exists.

We recognize the place, know zone zero, sanity. Let our beauty speak more than it does, united upon a collective idea. A struggle between Good and Evil, disequilibrium, you can feel it, experience the world. Who guides us to the settlement? Who knows what’s good for humanity, for the planet our home, our minds, bodies, vaccine anti-vacc? Calm.

Dear Humanity, calm. Bring it down, bring it back down, easy people, easy, let’s find the balance. Why you need? What can we do for one another? Softer, softer, that touch, who are we and what are we doing the book. Who are we and what are we doing? This the zone zero, the thing, the voice. Various views of the world, yours. Universal order bring the love the wonder. God complex, one said. There in the front row, actor.

Nah, busy living and dying, version. Don’t worry, we’re checking your bringing, see what you do at the place. Exactly. Just living and dying like the rest of us.

Only employing the tools I have, working now, the current hour. Don’t have another thing. Limited abilities and best abilities, all-balanced propensities, fears braveries, mixing them one. This the thing we; come check out Mind. Just over here super involved with living and dying, beautifully. Very committed to the living and dying thing, superbly. That’s, like, our thing.

The thing that is the thing.

Living and dying. No harm trying. Calm. I see you Humanity, hear you All-Mind, every distinctive fraction. Show me the thing you got going on. Share with us the thing you got going on. Don’t have time later. We rolling with now here this time I got shit else lined up. Hold. Easy. Where you take it? Mightily engaged with the thing we say be living and the evidence of our future dying. Oh, shit! And so maybe, if somebody believes to a degree that shocks we should take it seriously, more spiritually than currently. Guns never the force of love. Imagine that.

When you walk with (a)god(s)

When you walk with (a)god(s) through the valley of death, when “Jesus takes the wheel,” when belief conquers doubt and you know it, when committed and there’s no turning back – the precise definition of crossing the Rubicon - with fate, faith and resolution pushing you forward. When it’s all or nothing and you stride the divine, creating oath in mind as a concept clearly visualized, then remain calm on the path. Relaxed, accepting, hero of your quest. Focused-moment, with abilities, powers, mindfulness. You hike with your eyes open now, without worry, the absolute way of seeing. So that we observe the vision as action. Knowing who (angel) enters to provide aid, who (devil), distracts, confounds, injects negativity. How events, and our roles. We’re looking for a door, a significant code or a sage (person of the way), and we Know elements of the puzzle exist ahead. The gate opens, understood as adventure fact. The guide has yet to arrive, still searching for the next clue. And so walk pure, engaging the work called upon. The thing that is the thing. Life becomes consciously-lived without fear derailing or incorrect interpretations of failure. Pleasure no matter struggle, effort, frustration. How we march when accepting our way. Belief a mind game worth playing.

Versions of the Event

We’re not responsible for other people’s stories. Their interpretation of events.

Play roles in one another’s lives, true. Together we create the Event. We played those roles in the past. And now we act these, always shifting. I saw you being there rather than here. Maybe they saved us from the bear, the angels. Still on the trail. What do you think of the other lakes so far? Equally glorious. Breathing Crater Lake, Heart Lake, Castle Crags, Anza Borrego, Death Valley, Sequoia, Kings Canyon, Echo Lake on Mt. Desert Island.

Loving the forever you go: Okay, this or that lake? Fuck it, I love water, quest, adventure. Also, retreated from a summit attempt in a blizzard high winds zero visibility. Good call, life person, for all dudes living. All right, I experience this lake and that lake, Mt. Richardson and Mt. Lassen. Seeing the equal of the All.

This is fair: accept the possibility of different versions of the event.

Assess the extent you want to merge your narrative with theirs, as a shared outcome. What role do you aim to play with an angel?

Exactly.

But not saying - as none can - that’s where we’ll be forever, with insight, persuasion and the conviction to make the thing happen. Willpower, grace and flow to insist the thing into being. Friendship, calm, joy - tell me you don’t want these. Look out there, across the water from this cliff. Precarious. Do you see that buoy in the darkness, there in the distance, directly underneath Mars? I do. There’s the light, the always one. Every day you see them, demonstrating. The way to march, cosmologically. As the place where the mind convinces the self of beauty, and releases spirit. Becoming Being.

Represent the monkey-person having set aside all other versions, with the weight of character, freedom and belief. Power to stand in the wind, as the Actual, and let that speak for itself. We let it fly, heads back, arms held wide, spreading for flight.

What role do you play with an angel.

Shh. The miracle of Lassen Bear, not the suffocation. Love this lake and this mountain. Already the dream. This place is our cabin on a lake in Maine, our Vermont farm, that stone house in North Kingstown on a hard wind bluff. Again, the buoy’s light skimming water merging with Mars. Not trying to be gorgeous or sing-song - happened, both reflecting across the cove in a straight line, mixture without deviation, from heaven to eye. On the rocks in Maine, knowing that convergence. Don’t always but promise to try. I swear to labor for the light that merges heaven and sea.

Free Solo Mind and Michel Foucault

Watched Free Solo, the documentary about Alex Honnold’s rope-less climb up El Capitan’s extreme face. He lived in a van. With my boys and we freaked sweaty palms. Won’t free solo sheer granite in this lifetime. Excellent thing about human sharing - see what we might have done. Know possible, admire skill, perseverance and bravery. Same for mind and word production: climbing the total precipice without ropes – the page, society, publishing industry, art in the twenty-first century. Doing this thing without safety equipment. “My first risk,” Foucault said when introducing The Order of Things. My second risk, he wrote about his claims and aims – he acknowledged the precarious nature of his efforts. To take idea risks, creative production, soul expression; to let go and do the thing without knowing where it’s going. No end goal, no negative-no positive, calm the journey outcome surprise. Your energy into the world. Can you make the ascent? We dare not deny the ineffable, the Zero and the All. Provide evidence of labor. Here free solo mind. Release, we realize when making our thing, release, our canvas performed.

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I am an associationist. I am an impressionist. I am a creative syndromist.

They told me to be something else.

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Avengers: Endgame and Family Values

The Avengers: Endgame opens and ends with blissful family scenes. Begins with the family picnic, archery, pleasant golden tones, then threat, rising panic, your children missing as in a supermarket or city, and then jumps into the super-hero world of space, guns, army battles, good and evil, weapons, muted darkness, celestial hues, funky outfits, zaps through quantum bends in time, mass killings and musings about second chances, retribution, and ends with family comfort. After all that.

An on golden pond moment of muted real-life colors, leaves, trees, water, a wedding ring, a heteronormative couple, and a kiss. Fade out on the kiss! The ring, the kiss and this epic film finishes. It’s the greatest sell for family values possible. And reinforces America’s central ideology, its warrior status, arms of Good pointing outwardly, across earth, spanning galaxies. A stunning affirmation of conservative American values, war, violence, and the nuclear family. Ideology never worked so hard.

Propaganda rarely achieved such explicit expression, not with Bruce Barton, not with anybody. The Avengers is America’s ultimate promulgation, an Athens-Sparta standing armies at home and around the world, pure Evil and pure Good, sacrifice, working hard, bootstraps, rise after falling. Then your troubles vanish, and you chill as an old man musing fondly about true love and your wife, she was original, a great one. And we believe this, we swoon for it, and we want to nail our prom-posals, believe in high school sweethearts, cross-training in gyms so that we, too, can grab the shield if need be.

Lenny Bruce and the New Gilded Age

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Lenny Bruce in How To Talk Dirty and Influence People ripped the thing. Super intelligent, crazy irreverent, an artist and criminal personality for all the right reasons. He offered a critical voice in Babylon and knew the truth as Emerson knew the truth, of a spirit within American society, freedom and confinement, libertine expression and square. Very aware of social control, prison to the soul. Lenny Bruce understood and so lived the deal, and he expressed with words and voice in our face. Thank God. “Strippers were only a step above hookers,” he wrote after marrying the erotic dancer Honey. Dropping a version for American titter. “Even as late as 1951” strippers in this country barely above prostitutes. “The first great break-through - or, rather, breakdown - of society’s nudity/lewdity guilt-by-association was the now-famous Marilyn Monroe calendar. Marilyn’s respectability when she died was based principally upon her economic status, which is, in the final analysis, the only type our society really respects.” Here’s his social commentary, his Position, and a spot-on critique of American culture. An alternative voice inside the belly of the beast. Goodbye American society, can you recover from this decadence? Sorry, you can’t. Goodbye America, owned and directed by the billionaires. The new Gilded Age and the new aristocracy.

Trump As America's Greatest Cultural Expression

Trump just might be American culture’s greatest expression, the manifestation of America’s majority core. He is our false capitalism, he is our no-humanism, he is our hatred and lack of education, he is our debt and our fake profits, he is the skyscraper’s foundation, he is a hotel, a space of transient movement, a lack of place, a human world spinning beyond its spiritual power, not simply aligned with the devil but the devil entirely, inbred progeny and now mission complete. This will not last.

But for the devil to be ousted, for patriarchy to end, and for a new political economic system to thrive, people need to be able to hear multiple voices and decide which ones lead to spiritual truth, on the level of honesty, society and biology. We are the brutal monkey, and right now Americans believe screen heads. Where is this going? Where is this going? Meditate, provide a voice, insistent in the world, demand humanity’s commons.

Knew A Guy Named Vlad In Heidelberg

Knew a guy named Vlad who lived in Heidelberg who smeared deodorant on his asshole. “Dude,” many said, “you can’t do that - might smell nice but think of the toxic chemicals on such sensitive tissue!” But it smells delicious, he said, and offers a cure for hemorrhoids. He also rubbed his face vigorously with a rough towel to exfoliate. Thing is, he scrubbed so hard he almost tore off his upper lip, bleeding afterwards into his teeth.

Quadruple Bypass

My dad needs quadruple bypass surgery.

Be with mom and dad for that. Give dad love. Be there for that. One artery 100% clogged. Another 80%. Two at 70%. Heart attack waiting to happen, mom said. Had the exploratory today. Catheterization: this morning they jammed the camera on its journey and knew instantly- surgery. This winter on a walk dad moved heavily. Slowly. Way behind us. Our pauses, waiting for him, required toe-pebbles conversation. Mom said he’s got to get checked. Today, this May, my dad.

Don’t know if I’m cut out for Life Proper. For all the Actual Heavy Shit. Made it this far.

You will be there for that. Bypass all four of them. Remember who showed for the transplant? Mom will need somebody with her. Step into that place, reality, all else set aside. Pretty standard stuff, right? Regular ol’ procedure, right? Happens all the time, no-biggie, back to shoveling snow, right? Technology, fabulous skill and we extend life, beats like new. They claw open the chest cavity, pull veins from your leg and arm, rip you open, and operate on your effing heart. There it is, you can see it, touch it: blood-heart-tissue-blood-flap. Don’t know if I’m cut out for Life Proper, Big Life, the Heaviness of the All-Thing. Run!

Can’t.

I will be there for that. Step into that. Give love to dad and mom. Pacing and time-killing hospital in Boston. Any pray? Ponder reality of the floating monumental. And give love, support and love, give.

Handprint Mirror

My oldest son showered in our bathroom last night. Doesn’t like to turn on the vent fan. Not that it matters much. He enjoys making hand prints in the fog on the mirror. Those who have lived a while and who clean mirrors and windows - eventually - know what happens when you handprint finger-mark misted mirrors and car windows. After the steam recedes palm-and-finger smear a joy. This morning, on the dry mirrors, I spotted my son’s presence. First voice said, “Talk to him about this, make sure he doesn’t do it again and have him ammonia and paper towels himself.” Looked at the hand print again, his fingers, his spirit, his smile when leaving his mark. Second voice sat me down and said, “That’s your son’s hand, his vitality, kiss it.” I kissed the mirror and prayed, prayed that both of my boys grow up healthy and happy. I’ll wipe down the mirror.

Pay to Pray

“Johnson & Johnson isn’t just a baby company.” Not Alan Watts during psybient trance - lying on my back, eyes closed, breathing deeply for real - but a different, harsher voice shattered my meditation, in the middle of a song on YouTube. A salesperson climbed into my mind. Propped open my eyes with toothpicks. Not the end of a song, not the beginning, but boom! Interrupted, stabbing cortex, harshest buzzkill. Opened her sales kit, display samples, pamphlets, guiding me to sign click buy. When will we realize, when a new way of sustaining a system? Now we embody screen-flesh, robotic sales force, huckstering souls. Johnson & Johnson isn’t just a baby company. Don’t let those be the last words.

We Are Cosmologists

I suppose you’re right, you might be insane, even a buffoon, when riding your front edge like that. The way you do. Performance levels. Insane, out there, on that. You’re right. We might all be, those who stand before you, total cray on our own personal madness fly. True all dat. But if you see the Thing, and live the thing while mastering the thing, then material existence merges with vision. Imagine the possibilities of vibe-sync, of seeing-knowing the All-Dope. Hahahahaha! You’re going to ride with those, all of them. Bug the story.

Here’s why: Because they are God, Allah, and the Sun; the Interpretation, Humanity, and Earth - concepts of the Only Thing. The Mono-Dopely. The Standing Only. The Ocean Fondly. The Wily Flying Owl Sky. Orion Travels. Beating Heart. Honest Blood. Family. Food. Water. Shelter. Survival. Idea. Idol. Totem. Mantra. Prayer. Poem. Pagan. Zitkala-Sa. Believe in Jah sang Big Youth to an 11-year-old boy returning from his game. And it’s this, or that, under or over, but the All-Thing lives within us, and stands breathing the All-Mind. The only thing we know.

Rabindranath Tagore saw and rapped for us repeatedly. So bring us Love. The True-Energy, even Hegel’s Spirit because he noticed dialectic but also circularity. The One resulting from tension and balance. Never just Body-Mind, rather both infused simultaneously with Spirit, an energy so real that it is the Energy. For us there is the circle, the one. Our Mono Human belief totality. Which creates the All-Seeing, rocking the mic for no reason, Kanye, Beyonce and Kendrick. How a person stands at a microphone with the Creation Learned. Imagine teaching yourself that creation. Imagine teaching yourself anything. So grab the mic, your own damn, and offer Voice. The Experiment, an adventure, walking one breath because presence sings in your heart.

Many listen to the men and women who teach Radical Love. Yes, Cornel West one of them. Throw it, James Baldwin. Throw it. Bob Marley. Throw it - the Voice. Our heartbeats, W.E.B. Du Bois - my goodness read Black Reconstruction with a knowing mind. See what he saw and why. Know what he knew and why, why he did and why you should. Best lines ever. And he hit hard, required to live what he saw, required to express the God-Voice.

Flow combines luck and skill along with something else, the place where they converge. There, you’re with the gift we possess, and you breathe alive. That’s not what I’m saying, that’s what The Unknowable declares to us in our own way. We all see God, and with that God lives a Story. And that Story, for a people, becomes the Word. Truthfully, biochemically and neurologically how you wish, the only way. Which finally makes us one Humanity. Because we pray to a force that exists as Idea, learned, understood and at last acted upon. We pray to The Story that contains the force of that narrative. Humans committed do powerful things.

Cosmology works for everyone, even atheists with their particular faith version, and begs our action because we say it so. For no other reason. We believe it, make it real through thought-to-action, and then it’s out there, Real in the world. We labor for the divine. We tap into the force that existed before us and which we hardly comprehend. But we give It a Name anyway, an Idea for all-ness, an Ideal Story for a people. We are cosmologists.

We see one another. Sometimes we connect. Other times we don’t, and there remains madness. Many have demonstrated how to live the Idea of radical love and absorb what happens. Knowing the power of the all-seeing mind set alive through sentience. Gonna have to read Hegel again, just to dig his Story. Bug the story. Going to read Wollstonecraft next iteration of the subject versus the state, and Civilization and Its Discontents for the Mind Vision of a particular existence. And we dream the same for our one life. Onward, onward friends, driving your front edge, alive.

Every Sparrow’s Fall

The concrete isn’t any harder here than it is elsewhere in the world. The summers not hotter, people no less or more mean, and the diseases and other insidious malfunctions of human life no more vile. But when the roving eye falls on Philip Swann you cannot help but cringe. Even though you fight it. Don’t stare, your mother used to tell you as a child; don’t be so obvious. The curious sight does, however, entrance perversely, no matter unintentional rudeness. I couldn’t help it, either, so don’t feel bad. In fact, I wanted to pull up a chair the first time I saw him around old Columbus Circle. Initially watched from a distance, then cautiously approached, asked him to acquiesce to an interview and eventually, over a long period, we experienced something that converged on friendship. Moved past acquaintances, but not quick to invite anyone over for dinner. The respect exists, the human feeling, the compassion. God, compassion difficult to come by these days. Philip Swann pulled himself out of whatever doorway, alleyway or urban concrete crevice he’d slept in the night before, and set up his flattened cardboard nest on the sidewalk, inches from the foot traffic. Tourists can’t help themselves: they stop and gawk. Denizens of Manhattan pass in a perpetual hurry, used to this sort of thing, jaded, occasionally tossing obligatory dollars for reasons that still escape them. Reasons that can’t quite be pinpointed.

You’d be surprised how many times he receives a twenty; shocked by how many pass without a glance. They’re faking it. The human eye absorbs tons without appearing to see anything. Philip does not have legs. They are somewhere else. He was born with them, possessed them until recently. Well, the last decade - up to the moment of becoming homeless. How he came to the streets is another story. But he’s here and that’s where we find him, without his legs. He’d developed gangrene, nasty infections swirled through his body, absorbing and killing. Merciful doctors removed his legs and an eye. Now sores break out over his body; he shows his torso to folks walking the street; he can no longer speak. Philip holds his Styrofoam cup with those hands and makes grunting sounds. Moan some money into my grunting cup. A guttural gurgle and a fair amount of spit. His hands appear to be melting off his wrists, before your eyes, in real time. Sometimes he bleeds onto his flattened cardboard. There goes a man in a business suit; there a tourist family and the children, of course, stare; hippy couple on psilocybin, wearing sandals walking hard from the Nineties down Broadway all the way to Wall Street, and the Styrofoam cup jangling coin. Help Me, Please sprawled paint on a small slab in front of his flattened cardboard roost. Philip drags himself by his hands and who really knows where he goes at night. One morning, a white unmarked van rolled up to the curb, with state tags, and two uniformed officers jumped out of the van and grabbed Philip by his armpits, carrying him like two men hefting a barrel, and they tossed him into the back, doors slamming shut, and one of them hopped to the sidewalk and grabbed the cardboard and the sign and they drove off into the daytime city, nobody stopping in surprise, no one retrieving the Styrofoam cup that rolled, turned, rolled.

The Parrot From Brazil

Just minding our own business in the world, our own problems, things to accomplish, family, friends and colleagues to nurture, and this happens: to remind of a smile, struggles not our own, examples of effort and perseverance:

“An Amazonian parrot called Freddy Krueger has made headlines in Brazil after managing to find its way back to the zoo from which it was stolen while recovering from a four-year nightmare that saw it shot in a gun battle, abducted by armed thieves and bitten by a snake.” - Guardian

Putin said This and This is Our World

It was "a low-flying, difficult-to-spot cruise missile with a nuclear payload with a practically unlimited range and an unpredictable flight path, which can bypass lines of interception and is invincible in the face of all existing and future systems of both missile defence and air defence”

Greaaaat.