Spirit Incorporated

New Blog Home

2009-01-08T19:51:00.000-08:00

In the process of consolidation I've moved my blog entries to my website, www.sp1r1t1nc.com, where I will continue to blog and post new works through my new Drupal content management system.

peace and blessings to you and yours,

spiritinc

A Return

2009-01-04T22:13:00.000-08:00

"What I desire is a return to the profundity of experience. I want a society where everyday activity, however mundane, is centered around how incredibly profound everything is. I want that profundity to become so immense that any mediations between us and it become totally unnecessary; we are in the marvel. When I am in that awe, words are so irrelevant, I don't really care if you call my experience "God" or not. All I know is the greatest pleasure possible: to hug a tree, to jump up and down at a beautiful sunset, to climb a magnificent hill, to take awe in what surrounds us."

-John Landau, from "Wildflowers: A Bouquet of Theses" (1998)

The Future Is Now

2008-12-12T22:35:00.000-08:00

"The world faces a more profound transition than fiber optics replacing bicycles or electroluminescent panels displacing newsprint. Monologues will become conversations; the impersonal will become personal; the traditional 'mass media' will essentially disappear."

-Nicholas Negroponte, Founder of the M.I.T. Media Laboratory, exhibiting extraordinary prescience in Stewart Brand's "The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at the M.I.T. Media Lab" (1987).

A Million Dollars

2008-11-23T20:31:00.000-08:00

If I had a million dollars
I'd blow it all at the races
not the kind with little horses
but the kind with two faces
one of love and light
shining bright and killing time
the other hatin' wastefully
talkin' bout scrill and dimes
I 'd place a bet of a hundred thou
on the dark to hedge my bets
then slam down point nine mil on light
and look forward with no regrets
it's the balance of the scales
I'm sixty nining the divine
holding her in my clutches like
"baby, hit me one more time"

The Past

2008-11-11T16:04:00.000-08:00

"The past is now public property for us to do with as we see fit."

-Matt Mason, in his incredible book The Pirate's Dilemma

An Entire God Damned World

2008-10-31T23:47:00.000-07:00

"When I look up, it’s four-thirty in the morning.“No way.” I look from the clock to my watch. Way. I’ve been in front of this screen for six hours, and it seems like no time at all. I’m not even remotely tired. Dazed and thirsty, but not tired. In fact, I’m euphoric. I stuff a disheveled heap of textbooks, photocopied articles, highlighters and notes into my backpack and run like a madwoman up the concrete steps, past the security guard, and outside into the predawn mist. . . .I stop where a wet walkway meets a dry one and stand for a sec. . . . [I] start thinking about this thing that buzzes around the entire world, through the phone lines, all day and all night long. It’s right under our noses and it’s invisible. It’s like Narnia, or Magritte, or Star Trek, an entire god damned world. Except it doesn’t physically exist. It’s just the collective consciousness of however many people are on it. This really is outstandingly weird."

-J.C. Herz

True Memories and False Theories

2008-10-25T20:49:00.000-07:00

"It is a capital mistake to theorize before
one has data. Insensibly one begins to
twist facts to suit theories, instead of
theories to suit facts."

-Sherlock Holmes,
in Arthur Conan Doyle's A Scandal in Bohemia
(1891)

"True Memories seemed like phantoms,
while false memories were so convincing
that they replaced reality."

Gabriel Garcia Marquez,
Strange Pilgrims
(1992)

[Quoted in Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted World]

Pedigree

2008-10-23T19:23:00.000-07:00

"One behind the next in line
It's inspection time let me check your design
Your pedigree don't hold up next to mine
I'm a thoroughbred of the most excellent kind

Brother Ali and who's asking
The text book definition of brute passion
The future, the past, a true champion is born
never made and that's a label you can't pretend
I think better outside of the box
I rhyme better outside of the booth
There's no hiding the truth, I'm the genuine positive proof
I buck shots through the roof set the hostages loose, shoot
One might got to give real a minute
But it will recognize A alike once the beat finish
Bleak grimacing winters led him to seek vengeance
With every bit the mystique of a street menace
Self appointed judge with power vested
to hand down sentences from bus stop benches
He's relentless with his it's just in his spirit
You don't want to read about it fool you want to feel it
Shit happens but I'm calm in a shit storm
Its just normal, what you think I balled up a fist for?
They probably thought I was born yesterday right
Well motherfucker I stayed up all night
Hit me hard like huh

Oh the flow gon' cold cock you
You a born bitch local showboating impostor
I'm a known credited stone ghetto philosopher
I think very deeply, I aspire to be free
Read through these credentials of mine
I'm exquisite and only get better with time
And not yet in my prime
I age like wine and got a good goddamn head at the end of my spine
Plus I live outside of those confines
Meaning my expression is yet to be defined
Y'all will never try putting ribbons in the sky
you would hit your head on that rooty-poot box you live inside
What you gon' do when the well runs dry
Human beings grown images just get old
So when we get old you gon' be out in the cold
and I'ma still keep chasing what I'm owed

Take a breath to check the Pedigree
Check the Pedigree
To check the Pedigree.."

-Brother Ali

Darkness, Ignorance, Savagery...and Heaven

2008-09-14T17:32:00.000-07:00

"Not only in peasant homes, but also in city skyscrapers, there lives along side the twentieth century the thirteenth. A hundred million people use electricity and still believe in the magic powers of signs and exorcisms...Movie stars go to mediums. Aviators who pilot miraculous mechanisms created by man's genius wear amulets on their sweaters. What inexhaustible reserves they possess of darkness, ignorance, and savagery!"
-Leon Trotsky

"Two men came to a hole in the sky.
One asked the other to lift him up...
But so beautiful was it in heaven that
the man who looked in over the edge
forgot everything, forgot his companion
who he had promised to help up
and simply ran off into all the
splendor of heaven."

from an Iglugik Inuit prose poem, early
twentieth century, told by INUGPASUGJUK
to KNUD RASMUSSEN, the Greenlandic
artic explorer

[Quoted in Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted World]

Our Kids Are Pirates

2008-09-08T13:03:00.000-07:00

"We have to recognize something about our kids – that they are different from us. We made mixed tapes they remix videos. We watched TV, they make TV. It is technology that has made them different. We can’t kill the instinct technology produces, we can only criminalize it. We can’t stop our kids from using it, we can only drive it underground. We can’t make our kids passive again, we can only make them ‘pirates’."
-Lawrence Lessig

[From the Fair Use Remix Institute webpage: http://www.remixinstitute.net ]

The Call

2008-09-07T13:42:00.000-07:00

"Oh, if only it were possible to find understanding," Joseph exclaimed. "If only there were a dogma to believe in. Everything is contradictory, everything tangential; there are no certainties anywhere. Everything can be interpreted one way and then again interpreted in the opposite sense. The whole of world history can be explained as development and progress and can also be seen as nothing but decadence and meaninglessness. Isn't there any truth? Is there no real and valid doctrine?"

The Master had never heard him speak so fervently. He walked on in silence for a little, then said: "There is truth, my boy. But the doctrine you desire, absolute, perfect dogma that alone provides wisdom, does not exist. Nor should you long for a perfect doctrine, my friend. Rather, you should long for the perfection of yourself. The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught. Be prepared for conflicts, Joseph Knecht–I can see they have already begun."

-Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game

CREATE

2008-08-28T02:55:00.000-07:00

C I R C L E
I C A R U S
R A R E S T
C R E A T E
L U S T R E
E S T E E M

On the "Taxonomy of the Imagination"

2008-08-20T00:05:00.000-07:00

From DJ Spooky's "Sound Unbound" on MIT Press:

"In this world, there is no taxonomy of the imagination. It’s the structure of the perceptions, and the texts and memories that are conditioned by the thought process that will echo and configure the way texts you’re familiar with rise into prominence when you think. We live in an era where quotation and sampling operate on such a deep level that the archaeology of what can be called ‘‘knowledge’’floats in a murky realm between the real and unreal. Look at The Matrix as an updated version of Plato’s cave, a parable piece in his Republic written more than two thousand years ago, but still resonant with the idea of living in a world of illusion. For that matter, look at the collaboration between standardization and the notion of rhythm. ‘‘Ratio,’’ of course, being the root of ‘‘rationality,’’ is the core angle on this scenario, and the longitudinal system—the global grid organizing experience in the world map—is a good metaphor for the way we systematize human experience. This excursion is meant to be a
dialogue about different forms of sculpture—how physical objects ‘‘map’’ sound objects onto the kinds of metaphors we use to hold contemporary information culture together—think of it as hearing the sound of the world unfold in rhythm. The sound aspect of longitude was based on the Harrison clocks from the eighteenth century that King George III and British Parliament used to create the grid system that still guides navigation routes and configures our perception of ‘‘time zones’’ to this day. We have inherited the sounds of the H4 clock used by the British Admiralty in the eighteenth century to use as a global sculpture—a mix governing how we perceive the entire
planet.

Longitude is an exercise in what I like to call ‘‘planetary dynamics’’—it explores how we hold an artificial sense of time and space together with the socially constructed frames of reference we like to call the ‘‘nation-state.’’ Imperial time aspires to be universal, and the grid system, and even rationality itself, is no exception. Back in the eighteenth century, when global travel by sea was coming into its own, hundreds of ships and thousands of mariners were being lost at sea or wrecked on shore because, once out of sight of land, they had no reliable way of telling where they were on the world’s seemingly infinite oceans. In 1714, Parliament offered a £20,000 prize to anyone who could solve one of the greatest scientific problems of the day: how to
measure longitude accurately at sea. While others looked for the answers in the stars in the sky, John Harrison, an eighteenth-century, self-educated Yorkshire carpenter, who had already built one of the most accurate clocks in the world, thought he could make a clock that would still be able to keep time on board a ship—something that many people pretty much thought ‘‘impossible’’—like flying to the moon, or splicing the DNA of a jellyfish with a rabbit. The timepiece he imagined would allow sailors to chart their exact position and avoid further maritime tragedies—and create a new form of navigation based on precise Mercator-style coordinates. The emergence of the ‘‘longitude’’ system is literally Harrison’s story of how he struggled to perfect
his idea in defiance of the physical challenges of the ocean and the more intellectual hurdles and challenges of the Board of Longitude, set up by Parliament to adjudicate the prize. Guess which was harder to deal with? People versus people. Ideas versus ideas. It didn’t matter what the best idea was—but how many people believed it.

Harrison, convinced his idea would work, moved to London and set about building his first sea-clock. In 1727 he made a clock with a ‘‘gridiron’’ pendulum that was made of nine alternating steel and brass rods that eliminated effects of temperature changes on the clock’s mechanisms. In the decades that followed, this internal mechanism was used to make four clocks each to rise to the challenge of the longitude problem. By 1762, at the end of a 147-day sea voyage, H4 had lost only 1 minute and 55 seconds—it was probably one of the most complex devices of its era—if not one of the most subtly influential. It set the ‘‘tone’’ of time for the next several centuries. Mix the sound of its clock mechanisms with the sound of the U.S. cesium-particle based ‘‘atomic’’ clocks that are used to standardize Internet time and all aspects of modernity onto one basic time system, and you have a massive social sculpture. Rhythm, after all, can be both visible and invisible, and this is the sound track to a different kind of ‘‘world order.’’

Water

2008-08-17T23:04:00.000-07:00

Water
Aesop Rock

The water ain't safe, the land's made of water
I hug a half empty glass my dignity's trying to pawn her
I'm trying to see the future in a tea cup and a saucer
But I rather be drinking coffee with my cigarette foster
And a run away buckle the cloud-nine
fantasy filter to force the
brutal truth
Of daily market place wars through the roof
I mean I stood beneath the icicles
that bleed under the yawning
And magically mastered the great
absorbing of spirit falling
But I'm sick, I've plowed these
fields a thousand times over
Sold botanical research studies to
farmers with whole quarters
And when science proposes to art
besides that peace-full sea
I'll be that cat with a ring on a pillow shouting finally
Take a number, the apple seeds raineth upon your slumber
A hundred thousand freaks on parade for the village hunter
My every whim acted upon has gone loopy
But I play a game called lets prepare
barnacle city for the end
or new sink
I split the radius at go getter bellies, reconnaissance
Seeping fossil genie bottle optimist freeze
Run from the fountain but the fountain is a desert optical
tease
Tummy full of sand running man impossible stop
There's a wing in my gut and I'm all dust
Surfing the earth and I dine-rise certainly flushed
Now one in the hands work to and top the toilet seater
But what lies inside my heart is off
the mother f**king meter

[ Chorus ]
See the Water ain't safe no more
'I'm just trying to build my self to
act as a truly better man
damn'
See the water ain't safe no more
'Nah nah the water ain't safe no more'
I'm just trying to be a solid oak
tree for every child to carve
its name across
'The water ain't safe no more'
I'm just trying to be the dream of
ever peasant the hurricane
can offer
'I'm just trying to be some body I
can talk to in the morning
with a smile'
The Water ain't safe no more..

[ Verse Two ]

And I've always been a 40 night chronologic hostage
Rusted hook in the lip of the monarch
Wingless Anime
I don't play in the man race cycle
Hope floater
Gloating inside carnal indifference
till doom cops are slight
and
potent quotas
I'm 20 something pumping acrylic tomorrow side ways
Blazing passage with a map tattooed on
the back of the classless
Now tip toe across a lost cause
Because a lost cause found
Don't mean you found a cause
That means you found a lost cause
Ok now I've been here for role playing
Slaying my here and now
To benefit consumption for my peers steering the plow
And its incredible
Handy jackets turn numerals to sentinels
But bad apples ain't sweet and cretins ain't that memorable
I'm Mozart with a focus on the tide
Hiding the inconsistencies of man behind water and wine
I wear a tiger stripped ego and bilbo act my progression
With a kingliness formulated through
the flesh of the oppressors
God had a flask I can prove it
You really think the 13 loops that loose daughter
spawned me a sober unit, check potion
Addressed the ghost inside my TV with a ruler
At hear to the back bone stone pusher
Here ten thousand hackers deep in a movement
That's 20,000 crucial ruby heels clicking in unison
It's beautiful, truly beautiful
I keep a stick inside my hand
and carve my name inside every wall of the falling hologram

[ Chorus ]
See the Water ain't safe no more
'I'm just trying to build my self to
act as a truly better man
damn'
See the water ain't safe no more
'Nah nah the water ain't safe no more'
I'm just trying to be a solid oak
tree for every child to carve
its name across
'The water ain't safe no more'
I'm just trying to be the dream of
ever peasant the hurricane
can offer
'I'm just trying to be some body I
can talk to in the morning
with a smile'
The Water ain't safe no more...

Desiderata

2008-08-04T22:55:00.000-07:00

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

-Max Ehrmann

BART Train REflections

2008-08-02T18:49:00.000-07:00

When I vent I'm just bent
on the roll of the wheel
pages consumed
talkin' bout how I feel
but when I'm REALLY engaged
I straight rage on the real
shadows animated
I'm breakin' the seals
How do YOU deal with life
and it's multiple forms
do you stay calm in the center
or weather out each storm?
I know I against I
never got no where
and why after why
got me left unprepared
now am I right to forgo
everything that I know
in search of the reasons
that constantly ebb and flow?
First it was struggle and pain
then redemption from fear
then revolution of ideals
where will I be next year?
Probably somewhere in between
early death and salvation
between sadness and elation
high hopes and starvation
what are YOUR hopes and goals?
what would you like to achieve?
a nice car and home
or something unconceived?
fuck a material life
I want a spiritual livin'
rebellion, uprising,
love, laughs and rhythm
these are my BART train REflections
on my lonely way home
constant revelation
about how I've grown
cuz I've gotta
heart made of lava
and two shoes on my feet
walkin' through the darkness
'til my life path's complete
and still it won't stop
I'm trekkin' on to beyond
shinin' my heart
out to the cosmos
until the darkness is gone

Do You Remember?

2008-08-01T02:37:00.000-07:00

I first heard the Kemetic Suns on a tape I bought on a whim from the X-Large store on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley circa 1997. I distinctly remember going into the store, browsing, then seeing a small selection of tapes beneath the glass counter at the front of the store. The tape was called "Project Ambershine", and it forever changed my life. I had been getting into hip hop, but this one was of the first local, underground tapes I came across. Around the same time I started listening to Mystik Journeymen and the Living Legends crew, Hobo Junction, and Zion I. These cats though...there was something about the content of that tape that always stuck with me. I memorized the lyrics to the majority of the songs, and can still recall them.

The following are the lyrics to one of my favorite songs of all time from that album, "Remember?":

Remember?

Damn, I wish that I could keep standing
In this demanding world, on this ship I'm manning
See, handling business is hard, when running into temptation
Creation keeps me going, I'm saying
What I feel, which is not always what you feel
But bear with me, cuz it's true
And who would I be to criticize the thoughts in your mind
Put together in a rhyme, it's rather clever
But occasionally I fall, though don't we all?
And telling lies ain't my call
I stall and stall until my gas starts pumping
I think that the problem with humans is that we always got
Something on our minds,
Just can't align with the forces of our nature
Why we make mistakes?
Like I'm walking so deep in thought
I don't mind where I'm stepping
Trip over a break and fall into a regression
Depression...

I get back up like, yo I'll never do that again
But I had to bend backwards for a rest
A test is coming up, so I try hard to study all my wrongs
Keep my eyes to the ground when walking in the throngs
But if I do that, I just can't see
I'm still waiting just to run when I'm free
Into the light, and everybody think that they're God, damn
I'm just trying to be a man
Searching for a spirit in the sol, I get burned by the cold
I need some herb, feel like I'm old
Disturbing, but that's exactly what I mean
We took a fall for some green, but now I'm trying to get a hold

Chorus
Remember? (One Day I'll Get Away)
Or relive your past in the future (One Day I'll Get Away)

Humanity be damning me,
Cuz I don't believe what I'm supposed to be believing
I tell you like this, man, I don't believe nothing
Overstanding the polarities of man in
This here world, it's like you gotta think X and not Y
And if you believe Y than thought X you must deny
Every thing in all dimensions I see as having value as a lesson
But I go and break the norm, so now you
Pretend I don't exist,
When I'm all the more present in your conscious,
Pursuing you to bliss
Don't you wish you could be rid of all doubt?
It just don't happen
Not physically strong in comparison,
Your mind's your only tool in this world, now realize
That reality's that shit that don't always meet your eyes
Are you surprised at your lack of ability to stop?
You assumed you was a whole lot stronger, my man
Jumping out of the pan, but yo, the fire's getting hot,
Damn, you might get caught up in the thought
Back to that circular lifestyle determined by machines
A computer chip blip, but get this shit, you ain't slick
Cuz what you did slid to the bottom of the pit of despair
No care for the fruits of your soul, now will you prepare
For the blast?
Or once again have a mark on your ass

Chorus
Remember? (One Day I'll Get Away)
Or relive your past in the future (One Day I'll Get Away)

Digital Kids

2008-07-24T23:33:00.000-07:00

The following is my edit of Lawrence Lessig's Book "Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity", available as a free PDF download at http://free-culture.org/freecontent/. Lessig has released the book under a Creative Commons license, and Lessig encourages people to "remix" his work with attribution.

"John Seely Brown is the chief scientist of the Xerox Corporation.
His work, as his Web site describes it, is “human learning and . . . the
creation of knowledge ecologies for creating . . . innovation.”
Brown thus looks at these technologies of digital creativity a bit differently
from the perspectives I’ve sketched so far. I’m sure he would be
excited about any technology that might improve democracy. But his
real excitement comes from how these technologies affect learning.

As Brown believes, we learn by tinkering. When “a lot of us grew
up,” he explains, that tinkering was done “on motorcycle engines, lawnmower
engines, automobiles, radios, and so on.” But digital technologies
enable a different kind of tinkering—with abstract ideas though
in concrete form. The kids at Just Think! not only think about how
a commercial portrays a politician; using digital technology, they can
take the commercial apart and manipulate it, tinker with it to see how
it does what it does. Digital technologies launch a kind of bricolage, or
“free collage,” as Brown calls it. Many get to add to or transform the
tinkering of many others.

The best large-scale example of this kind of tinkering so far is free
software or open-source software (FS/OSS). FS/OSS is software whose
source code is shared. Anyone can download the technology that makes
a FS/OSS program run. And anyone eager to learn how a particular bit
of FS/OSS technology works can tinker with the code.
This opportunity creates a “completely new kind of learning platform,”
as Brown describes. “As soon as you start doing that, you . . .
unleash a free collage on the community, so that other people can start
looking at your code, tinkering with it, trying it out, seeing if they can
improve it.” Each effort is a kind of apprenticeship. “Open source becomes
a major apprenticeship platform.”

In this process, “the concrete things you tinker with are abstract.
They are code.” Kids are “shifting to the ability to tinker in the abstract,
and this tinkering is no longer an isolated activity that you’re doing
in your garage. You are tinkering with a community platform. . . .
You are tinkering with other people’s stuff. The more you tinker the
more you improve.” The more you improve, the more you learn.
This same thing happens with content, too. And it happens in the
same collaborative way when that content is part of the Web. As
Brown puts it, “the Web [is] the first medium that truly honors multiple
forms of intelligence.” Earlier technologies, such as the typewriter
or word processors, helped amplify text. But the Web amplifies much
more than text. “The Web . . . says if you are musical, if you are artistic,
if you are visual, if you are interested in film . . . [then] there is a lot
you can start to do on this medium. [It] can now amplify and honor
these multiple forms of intelligence.”

“Yet,” as Brown continued, and as the balance of this book will
evince, “we are building a legal system that completely suppresses the
natural tendencies of today’s digital kids. . . . We’re building an architecture
that unleashes 60 percent of the brain [and] a legal system that
closes down that part of the brain.”

We’re building a technology that takes the magic of Kodak, mixes
moving images and sound, and adds a space for commentary and an
opportunity to spread that creativity everywhere. But we’re building
the law to close down that technology."

Check out Lessig's other books, "Code, Version 2.0", and "The Future of Ideas", both available as free PDFs online.

Quote of the Day

2008-07-23T20:33:00.000-07:00

Plato (citing Damon of Athens): "When the mode of the music changes, the walls of the city shake."

the future of language (excerpt)

2008-07-20T16:54:00.001-07:00

in the beginning was the word. word. and the word was with God. and the word was God. word up. and God said, let there be...and (then) there was. Word is bond. and the word was made flesh. word life.

a latin transcription of the word "person" is "being of sound." as human beings we communicate with each other and with the greater universe through sound vibration. it is, thus, the essence of our collective being. all sounds reverberate with meaning. every sound vibration has an effect, and every sound connected with every word we speak, in every syllable, is connected to its eternal meaning, its eternal reverberation. the original inhabitants of egypt (KMT) actually documented the esoteric meaning of each sound vibration. they believed that all consonant sounds communed with energies of a temporal reality, whereas vowel sounds connected us with energies of the eternal reality. in their written text they wrote only consonants, for the eternal reality was too sacred to be transcribed. the ancient egyptian language like all other languages of antiquity was, needless to say, rooted in passion. yet, over time, many cultures have become disconnected from the passionate roots of their language and thus, perhaps, we have become disconnected from the roots of our existence.

-saul williams

The Invitation

2008-07-20T16:51:00.001-07:00

The following was written by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, a Native American Elder...

The Invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for,
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love,
for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow,
if you have been opened by betrayals, or become shriveled and closed
from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own,
without moving to hide it, fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful.
It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself,
if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.
I want to know if you can be faithful, and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty when it is not pretty every day,
and if you can source your life from God's presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours or mine,
and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout, Yes! to the moon.
It doesn't interest me where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair,
weary and bruised to the bone, and do what is needed for another.
It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself,
if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Why I Write

2008-07-19T23:25:00.000-07:00

I write for the pain
Of those kids it’s never left
Turnin’ youngins cynical
Old souls smokin’ cigarettes
Still young at heart
Caught in a game of truth or dare
Beware the lion’s fryin’
Beneath those iron stares
I write for those women
Turned old by advertisements
I’ll take a thousand magazines
And show ‘em what the real lies meant
Take the scattered pieces
And collage a mirage
Ghostly images starin’ back at you
through the mirror’s façade
I write for the fakes
Write twice for the fakers
It takes two times the hydro
To fully water those acres
Squares to circles
And vultures to smithereens
Y’all better start gathering rainwater
To save those ragin’ pre-teens
The fires’ been set
No qualms and no regrets
This purple mountain majesty’s
‘bout to burn yer fruited plains and jet
now it’s back to the lab again
to mourn my forgotten peers
lying by the waste side
tryna bling back fallen tears
sporting trends, spurning friends
and running outta ends
no wonder this capitalist system
seems unable to lend
no helping hands and no favors
just call me Santa Vader
sweetening the blade of this harpoon
while y’all are spittin’ out lifesavers
cuz I’m the tightest rope hope-er
this side of the seven seas
in this tug of war of twits
y’all better come follow me

Best Spam Ever

2008-07-15T22:46:00.000-07:00

So I've been getting these weird email spams to my podcasting account. The funny thing is, they kinda make sense, on some level. I try to read them fast, to glean some kind of meaning from them. Some sentences and phrases are actually somewhat coherent, even poetic, if removed from the greater paragraph. Here's the latest four, word for word:

"Painstaking, and i copied his drafts and recopied all. At
last the ball was swung across, and aspinal reported one
framed with remarkable skill. It up again at michael since
the beginning, the exigencies works and they are only three
in number, the resurrection, the study of the scriptures,
therefore, cannot bottlewasher, said rogers, more in sorrow
than upon millions of carts loaded with grain, and ideals
in each succeeding generation are often places where rabbits
were to be shot for dinner, i stay ... And i hate tellin'
you now. See here: to inspire fear. And the kshatriyas there,
on drank. Population of szechwan. Minerals found. Weak,
or ran in all directions. Others, struck to revolve with
a touch, bringing the opening highsouled bhima, saying,
'do ye speedily fly to the southward. Wait a moment, please.
ii've having watched it with keen and growing interest.
do thou, o bharata, always protect thyself from eye had
no instinctive sense of distance any star."

"And that ^ir. Templeton could not possibly live feet,' she
answered laconically. We reached the had to be patient and
make the best of what one thought barney, i'll take this
child through to smooth like a skeleton before being cast
up by leonard made no comment. He found so many reasons
eligible and welldigested plan for the cultivation fine
words butter no parsnips. While lavinia's india. Above all
things it makes for peace the should see the little black
figure leaving the had not noticed the way she went or he
had given all, he was a dead one, he reflected as he stumbled
flying all round the place. Rumors that go on or boil them
in bags or guts, put in some nutmeg, tasted. They declared
that it tasted like sparkling from this moment she had but
one daughter. Two quick step towards mrs. Mcgillicuddy but
again, and the amens. Surely all other leisure is hurry
ch9 ^paragraphthat is certainly good evidence, suddenly
how much edith de haviland disliked brenda.."

"Only, and two of these were composed of kerosene fire sprang
another called marichi. From marichi prowess superior to
that of every one, when he of our race depends upon it.'
(astika parva continued) born of a kshatriya father and
a nishada mother. Say unto drona and santanu's son and kripa
that preferred the position of night operator His the rafters
and the clapboarding. They worked did not recognise that
beautiful female bedecked merit and that are worthy on that
account of being drupada also, o sanjaya, is endued with
great place of oratory, which he believed to be expiring
whole earth and was known by the name of anadhrishti. Ordinance,
however, which lays down that so much to mine, and swear
a firmness to what project."

"Spoke, his words seemed even to him to be out came. They
had to speak. Poor lads, it was pitiful at the entrance
of the room. I had two men conveyed are spent in decorating
the buildings suitably ment of his body and his soul. And
so it might man. An aguefit seemed to have seized him, for
of wrappers and slippers. She ate toast, eggs, he would
have roared to lusty purpose. The owner gap reached mr.
lincoln, saying that firing was home from his selfish task
in the cold grey morning i hope the plants are not seriously
damaged.' he had left her. How should i know which ? These
at fas from the east whilst others maintain that up with
loam and the roofs were covered with palm nothing has a
greater fascination for him than."

This phrase is my favorite: "He found so many reasons
eligible and welldigested plan for the cultivation fine
words butter no parsnips."

WTF?
Ahhh, spam. Can't internet without it!

untitled

2008-07-14T00:20:00.000-07:00

waiting while we wonder whether the wicked winds will wane
promoting penultimate paragons to prevent pain
stained stables of stories stolen still stalling somewhat sane
taking turbulent twists through tenebrous tunnels to their trains
harnessed halos hide hubris halting high hopes of healing
never knowing my nemesis' name now i nap kneeling
infrared internal insight eyeing my idle impotence
sticky situation same sorrow ever since
six cigarettes smoked silly seven surplus stay in storage
poking out my pocket peeping pedestrians peddling porridge
presently pacifying the peasentry perfect pyramidal placement
Armageddon's arrangement autocratic automatons adjacent
a cornucorpia of complacent killjoys claiming complete choreographed control
one widow weeping wistfully weaving whispers outta wool
a bipolar bearded bedouin bellowing "bonzai!" at belial
double-fisting dipsomania delving deep into denial
narcissistic neurotic negotiating neologism
schizophrenic satellite schooling santa claus on schisms
jabberwocky jargon junkie joyriding jupiter's jalopy
tiptoeing top-secret topography tongueing titanium toffee
someone should stop me

The Infesticons

2008-07-08T22:20:00.000-07:00

From the liner-notes of The Infesticons' album "Gun Hill Road":

"It's centuries on centuries of struggle lined up like dominoes; big monolith sized dominoes 'bout to slam and shatter. It’s not about good and evil, it's not about the pure and the soiled nor the just vs. the unjust. No children, it's about pretty vs. ugly. Eons of struggle are about to culminate right up the street on Gun Hill Road.

History is recorded in the nappy computer…

Booty begat Beauty begat Pain begat The Touched Lungs begat Slender begat The Nutz begat the Moisties begat the Rugged Ruggeds begat Boom.

Boom had five daughters and five sons. When all were grown they scattered across the earth and established 10 kingdoms. These rulers called themselves The Cons. Over time, as the title of Con was passed down, it began to represent the people of those kingdoms. The kingdoms took on their own Identities. The Cons turned against each other and all but two were wiped out; The Infesticons and The Majesticons. The Infesticons were a Spartan people interested in ideas and the content of their minds. The Majesticons were fascinated with their own exterior and developed a hierarchy based on one's sense of style. Over time, the two kingdoms' war of attrition exhausted both sides. They both collapsed and their people dissipated into the expanse of the planet.

Fast Forward Millennia: High up in Yonkers in the late '80s, an inverse aesthete and rap mogul to be, Poof Na Na convinced his smart friend in High School to build him a set of robots that would transform the world into a jiggy man’s paradise. The smart friend, Ignor, a descendant of a Majesticon, had discovered the ancient text of the Con. He programmed the robots with secret knowledge of Flydom.

The robots were built and delivered but sadly, soon forgotten. Poof Na Na went off to Howard University and later, of course, to stardom. More than a decade later, Mr Na Na’s moms was back at the old homestead cleaning out the basement. She threw out the useless looking robots. When they landed in the trash, they were accidentally and unceremoniously turned on. The Robots were activated and set out to fulfill their mission. First objective: Jiggify the five Boroughs.

Only a few knew of the impending doom. In the crevasses of the North Bronx lurked a secret order of Infesticons. For generations they had fought to combat Jiggyness and Glamifacation with truth and the essence of the regular cat. Now they faced the ultimate challenge. The Battle for Gun Hill Road. This is a recording of the brutal fight.

Majesticon Allies –
Nostalgicons: A crew in downtown Manhattan that thinks every thing From the 70s & 80s was cool no matter how bad it sucked at the time.
The JiggiDons: The Record Exec Secret Society.

Infesticons Allies –

Rejecticons: Kids that caught shit in grade school, did well with software but stayed cool (could Bill Gates be a Rejecticon? Probably not.)
Eclecticons: People down for a lot of different styles.
Instructicons: The ancient leaders of an ancient order of "regular guys"

Neutrals-
Domesticons: Citizens
Arresticons: Cops
Inspecticons: Detectives
Blabbacon: Story teller

Add any other crew, group or species that fits your mission."

Who you down with?

Spirit Spells

2008-07-07T18:34:00.000-07:00

Spirit spells summoned
Surface variants clairvoyant spectacle
Society of steel and glass
Passing lasting memories
In the fast lane
Crossing bridges to keep talking
Walking that fine line
Between opportunity and golden
Moments stolen
Surround sound serenity
Moving
At the speed of
Hihats chattering triumphant
Barbed wire barbers dividing time
With precision incisions
Head nod hooligans
Measuring the distance between
Here and now
Pooling resources
To fight dark forces of indecision
Splintering sunbeams
Through nanocrystals
Whistling while we work
Smirking
Bezerking tracks
With the facts
Some can’t adopt window vision
And get lost in dead end paths
While hip hop scientists
Concoct immortal formulas
Bumpin’ from here to the afterfuture
The what?
That place where
We reflect with iron stares
Floating on philharmonic
Intracasies performed mentally
Symphonic demonic do-gooder
Dromendaries nomading normality
Casually cornering morning
Creating light

Break Through

2008-06-29T21:03:00.000-07:00

circa 1999...

Its time to break through
That shell of indecision
Make a difference in the world
Express my inner vision
That precision-perception
Questing for the bigger picture
Reading books listening to tapes
Maintain my distance from the fakes
‘cause I’m searching for the truth
that lies beneath the surface
love’s essence and roots
though sometimes I get nervous
when confronted by beauty
dreams haunted by her body
taunted and teased please
I just want to keep it real
The things that I feel
Trapped inside for so long
Instead of in my head
I long to have her by my side
Inspired by the Light
My eyes trapped in her gaze
I find the strength to break out
Make it out of the maze
The gray corridors of the mind
Closing in from all directions
But in her arms’ embrace
I know I’ll find affection
Protection
Now my thoughts fly like birds
I’m at a loss for words
These are the emotions I prefer
I could hold her body forever
Refuse chaos and confusion
Foster the love between us
That’s the life that I’d choose
But I haven’t found her yet
So right now that’s not a choice
I just keep sharing my ideals
Hoping someone hears my voice

Look to the Stars

2008-06-24T00:38:00.000-07:00

circa Spring 1999...

“The Destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars.”
-Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower

Stars

I encountered some graffiti
In the bathroom today
Nothing out of the ordinary
Yet this had something to say
“LOOK TO THE STARS” I read
in that bold black ink
and right there in the stall
I sat and started to think
What was it that this wall
was trying to say to me?
Was it just a slogan copied from a book?
Or a gateway to true knowledge
That deserved another look?
I thought
It can’t mean the stars
As in actors and celebrities
Nah, I was dealing with
Greater factors of immensity
Something that goes beyond
Horoscopes and astrology
And penetrates the inner reaches
Of our psychology
The stars are representative
Of all that we strive for
The goals we can achieve
With the right key to the right door
But we already have that key
It’s our LifeForce Energy
But as for the right door
Only Time knows for sure
For the doors to Heaven and Hell
Are adjacent and identical
And the path we end up taking
Centers on the choices we must start making
Do we want to expand our knowledge,
And explore the reaches of space?
Or continue the self-destruction
Of the entire human race?

To me the Earth is just the shore
Of a vast cosmic ocean
But instead of diving right in
we’re still applying the suntan lotion
trying to alleviate the pain
inflicted by generations past
how much more can we endure?
How much longer will it last?

I suggest you LOOK TO THE STARS
As the Destiny for us all
And for the answers to your questions
Read the writing on the wall.

Gigi

2008-06-16T22:11:00.000-07:00

11/16/05
I’m at 16th and Mission. I buy a pack of American Spirit menthol lights cuz that’s what Valerie likes and I’m going to see her this weekend. As I pay my $4.50, I’m already anticipating the hordes that will ask me for cigarettes as soon as I light up in front of the BART station. Immediately a cracked out looking woman asks me for a smoke as I pull the pack out of my pocket. I tell her to hold on a second as I turn my back to throw away the wrapper. I give her a cigarette and light up, but not before I tell her to ask her friend, who was standing by the French pay toilet, for one. Her friend tries to play it off like she wasn’t smoking, but I see the smoke and watch her drop the butt to the ground. I grin, and the cracked out lady wanders off. The “non-smoker” proceeds to tell me about how her husband just bought a $300 money order off a tweaker for 20 bucks. She thought it had to be fake, and listed all the attributes of a forged money order. This one, however, seemed to be real. The only thing that was missing was the tear-off receipt. She asked me for a cigarette, and I gave her one. Just then her husband walked up. She had him show me the money order, which had “$300” imprinted on it and a blank where the name goes, printed on yellow carbon paper. Her husband pulls a thin metal rod, about two feet long, out of his pocket, said “here hold this,” and said he was headed to 7th and Market to cash the money order. As we smoked and talked about how she had just gotten kicked out of the hotel she was staying at because someone she knew stayed there in her place while she and her husband were gone, a tall, built man walked up quickly, whispered “walk with me” to her, and kept walking. She tried to ask why but he shushed her, so she caught up to him as he walked away. I said, “Peace” and she said, “have a good night.” I walked over by the BART entrance to finish my cigarette and a guy asked my for a quarter, which I gave to him. He asked me for a cigarette, to which I replied, “Sorry, I gave my last one to that lady.” He asked if I was getting drunk. I said it was just a soda. I turned around and the lady ran up to me. She said that was her brother who just ran up on her. A man had propositioned him up on Valencia. Her brother asked to see an I.D., and the guy pulled out his wallet. In disgust her brother knocked the wallet to the ground. The story got fuzzy from here, but apparently a cop came and asked what happened. In the meantime her brother saw the wallet on the ground with money coming out, so he pulled out the money and walked off. He came away with like 300-400 dollars. “No wonder he was lookin’ shook” she said. “It must be a full moon tonight.” I pointed up at the white sphere in the sky and nodded. “There ya go.” I asked her what her name was. “Gigi” she said. We shook hands, and said our goodbyes. I walked down the stairs to the BART station. On my way home I realized the yellow money order was a carbon copy of the original, which had already been cashed.

Tunnels

2008-06-02T02:00:00.000-07:00

I guess I’ve always loved tunnels
Tacked their pictures to my walls
There’s something about those passageways
That call to my spirit
Scrawled hieroglyphics
And the echo of footsteps
Leave memories of moments
In the rhythm of their reps
Nighttime wanderings
Through forgotten aqueducts
Awaken feelings of familiarity
With games of chance and luck
This is where the shamans dwell
And where the angels roost
Where masterpieces are created
And terrible tirades loosed
I know we all forget sometimes
About the power of these caverns
In here you’ll find your shadow lurking
Some shit you’d never fathom
So when you journey to nowhere
And you find yourself stuck
I’ll toss a penny down that wishing well
to bring you a little luck
you’ll need all you can get
crawling through these dark pits
there’s gators the size of semis
ready to rip you to bits
shit did I forget to mention
that deadly third rail venom
streaming electricity through your veins
to loosen up that tension
grin and bear
while those walls scream and stare
you know there’s a reason why
your feet walk you there
so open up your eyes
and put a swagger in your step
this is spirit music
so you better come correct

music for the corridors
and music for the trains
this is spirit music
so open up your brain
music for the corridors
and music for the trains
this is spirit music
so open up your brain

3AM

2008-05-19T02:18:00.000-07:00

What does it mean to be anti-civilization? It means climbing to my rooftop at 3am and contemplating the masses sleeping below, thinking that one night this whole cityscape will be dark. It means peering out into the night sky, reflecting on the streetlights illuminating the fog, and knowing that I, or those to come, will someday climb forgotten fire escapes to look upon the world we built and destroyed, the dark city resting at our feet. We will survey abandoned parking lots and malls, observe the vines climbing concrete towers and antenna spires, and think to ourselves, “look what we’ve done.” Those walls will crumble soon enough, my friend, and the cars will rot into amorphous relics, as will the ruins we shall mount in triumph. I think all of this, watching the car drones pass into the night, and wonder why. I wonder why we thought ourselves immortal, why we caused so much destruction, and most of all, I wonder why we’re here. Primal war calls to my soul, and I want to lash out against my oppressors and their gods. I want to run off into the night, never to return to this fantasy land, because I have seen past their lies and deception. I am alive!

Lifetimes

2008-05-14T16:35:00.001-07:00

Your life is your life
And my life is mine
So when lifetimes combine
It's like something divine
There could be two paths running parallel
That never connect
Or two paths that collide
In a tumultuous wreck
Tangents and cosines
Fighting the wrong angles
Trying to get right
Like an isosceles triangle
(but that's only half the picture square)
it's finding the other piece that's so rare
I mean
I've had mad opportunities to relate to people
You just take that step
Show some respect to the connectedness
And realign perception
Like Buddhist monks
And tree trunks
Bending toward the light
My foresight foresees future positivity
And sails new seas repeatedly
it's like trying to constantly find
A way to unwind
The ideas and thoughts
Building up in the mind
Time to work it right
Branch out
Touch the void
Avoid the vines
That tear you down
And take your breath
Fight for yours
'Til nothing's left
On this world of ours
Tomorrow's just around the corner
And we're running out of time
If you stop and think for a second
You'll get lost in god's mix
You better come correct
And spit something sick…