Perspective

Mother’s mail waits in a slender steel box

At the center of this mobile home sea,

Rows of neatly kept shoe boxes, awning lined,

In which hover bodies unwilling to die

With minds that could go either way, depending.

Above, the sky is up to something marvelous;

Banks of clean stratus clouds tight stretched across blue,

Closer, lower, grey smoky explosions sliding stiff winds,

Closer, old pines framing the thing, pinching it, as I stop

And feel six shots of tension trickle top down and out.

Sometimes that’s all it takes, a triangle

Of sky doing what it does,

Sometimes that’s all there is.

Fall

Across the way, a leaf lets go its branch and spirals down to the earth below. Finally, it comes to rest on the intimate kiss where grass meets pavement. Nobody notices but her. She walks by the leaf, pausing momentarily before stepping into a rhythm with those around her.

Later in the day, a little boy might pick up the same leaf, treasure it briefly before remembering the louder, looming world around him. He too will discard it, as the tree did, surrender it back to it’s grassy cradle. Later, a gust of wind could lift it and press it into a Father’s chest where it clings almost desperately, just long enough for him to notice and reach for it. Those fingers barely miss the fiery orange edge as it turns away and slides further along it’s cement journey. This leaf might spend days brushing against the stories of strangers, mostly unnoticed but occasionally recognized, singled out, measured and stored into that hidden place that only opens when all fear is taken away.

Just a leaf. Just a girl. Just a life. Something to marvel at and take for granted, a dot connecting an infinite pattern that future lives might decode and appreciate. This is the way history folds into tender pockets, the most important bits written out on the edges which are first to fray, first to age and fall away, lost, leaving only the inarguable facts. How cold history is without the little sparks drawing us along, how frigid and devoid of truth; mysterious to us because there is only a record of actions taken, never the complexity of motivation. Without motive there can be no comprehension of action, and so our histories unravel and become myth, taught but not believed, hard earned lessons never learned.

Somewhere, her leaf finds solace in earth. It accepts the process of decay, bleeds out everything it has to fuel something new. As there are leaves, as there are grains of sand, as there are stars; these are the immeasurable possibilities, each one perfect before it lets go and learns of imperfection.

things are

(Inspired by Where The Wild Things Are)

and then we stepped out

into something like a beautiful world,

into hands of sunlight

that parted trees for sky

where woke impossible monsters.

and then we crashed into nighttime

where bonfires cracked sparks

into flitting fireflies that hovered

long enough for feet to stomp patterns of dirt into submission

and then we slid down

into the secret tunnels shafted by dust and silence,

into the earthy, weighted places

where we whispered things we didn't want others to hear

for fear they may laugh

and despair our wonder

and then we

folded ourselves into huddled warmth

and breathed against backs of necks

until hair stood and tingled

toward a happy slumbered place

and then we woke

and found those places gone across the sea

as a fearful sun pushed haze upward

into another day

whether we wanted it or not

and we turned to each other's faces

and looked for signs that it couldn't be so,

that the moon was still safe to love

and somewhere a wolf mourned aloud

because we forgot how

but we can learn

again

we can do this thing,

this wild, wild thing

that just maybe we were meant to do.

love you so,

(for jeno)

ty

Dreaming from the Cheap Seats

There is a difference between what we are willing to accept as truth and truth itself. This has always been a human method for enduring the deceptions of “civilized” life, and it has been leveraged by politicians from the very conception of politics.

The problem today is not scandal, greed, dishonesty, betrayal, or any of the typical human behaviors that take place within every social structure. The problem is that the gap between what the general public is willing to accept as truth and actual truth has widened so far that truth no longer has any relevance. All that remains are the stories we tell ourselves, and these yarns can be as fantastical as we need them to be because the shore of truth is no longer visible through the fog, it can no longer distract us from whatever version of reality we seek.

However, just as any structure needs a solid foundation to remain standing, perception also requires a percentage of truth to sustain. What that percentage is, exactly, I won’t claim to know…but without a solid foundation of truth, everything we build is destined to collapse. For evidence of this, look to your own lives, to the relationships and businesses that have fallen apart. Without a substantial commitment to the truth, everything we do, whether finite or ambitious, will crumble.

I would never suggest that living in a world of absolute truths is possible or even desirable for that matter; a certain element of illusion has always been healthy. It keeps the dreamers dreaming, it allows us to hold to hope in the face of despair, it lets us indulge our inner child through even the most devastating of circumstances. The “whole truth” is not something human beings mesh with well, and that is OK. It is our inherent ability to be whimsical that makes life so interesting, our willingness to hold the weight of the world at bay while we run headlong into some joyous occasion.

The danger here, as Gonzo would put it, is “the desperate assumption that somebody ... or at least some force -- is tending the Light at the end of the tunnel." We have all adopted the notion that somebody, somewhere is tending to the truth, keeping it vital, stoking the flames of authentic knowledge…but as anyone who has leant themselves fully to the fantasy of nirvana knows, there is no such person. When the dream turns to vapor there is nothing to catch your fall, and you will find the tunnel is dark beyond reason, cold without sympathy, and any helping hand in finding a way out will have to be self-generated.

As an American, I have never felt further removed from the truth. In the one hand I have the ineffable pursuit of happiness…a journey of economic and personal triumphs that will one day unfold into a state of bliss with a luxurious home and waves of recognition. In the other hand there is the pending fate of humanity, a seven billion strong battle for survival in which many have nothing while a few have everything. In order for me to realistically pursue my individual goals of wealth and social respect, it is imperative that I believe the greater woes of those other billions are being tended to, or perhaps that the suffering involved isn’t quite so bad, or perhaps if “those others” just worked harder they could also rise up, or perhaps capitalism and democracy will make it possible for all to pursue the same kind of dream…or perhaps, or perhaps, or, or, or, or….on and on into infinity.

There is minimal profit in doing the right thing; there is sustaining, and this should be enough. I have been involved in two non-profit endeavors, the CRUX Artist Collective and TiON. Both were art driven venues. No matter what we did, no matter how successful either one became, it was never more than enough than we needed to keep going. I used to think this was the definition of failure. Now, I am convinced that both were a microcosm of what it means to walk a path closer to truth. Sustainability is nobility, it is a word we should all embrace…whether it be environmentally applied or otherwise.

Ladies and gentlemen, there has to be a point where the pursuit of our personal happiness is so out of whack with the truths of our world that we stand up and cry foul. I believe we have reached that point. The time for blindly following illusion has brought as far as we can go. The time for trusting in the weavers of false truths has played itself out. The time is ours, as it has always been, to take up the torches of truth and burn a new path, not one rooted in absolutes, but one that comprehends there will always be a level of deception in how we live. We can only fly so far away from the flame before its heat no longer warms our dream, and I don’t know about you, but the dream has grown painfully cold.

Thankfully, we will never live in a black and white world; the question is how much gray can we allow? How many lies can be absorbed into our daily routine before there is nothing honest in our choices? When a trip to the grocery store represents a colossal deception, it is time to measure who we are. When voting is a choice between malevolence of equal polarity, it is time to question our fathers. When we feel alone in a dark tunnel and there is no more light to guide our way, it is time to dig deep and find the fire buried below, the fire that has always burned for us all, the fire that knows who we were meant to be.

Aren’t we all dreaming from the cheap seats? Aren’t we all true until this world makes us into something else? Equality is the truth we carry at birth, and the inequality we now feel is the acceptance of a truth so warped, so ruined by the dark side of human nature that we can no longer look each other in the eye.

I want to look you in the eye and know that where we are headed is grounded in an undeniable truth so when we walk past each other we are confident we won’t stab each other in the back.

Child Services is Going to Take Away Your Internet Baby

The glorious art of online Cool-Cruising, I’ve recently realized, is not something all human beings excel at.

People are funny that way, we tend to assume everyone else is coming at things from, if not the same angle, certainly a similar one. This is often not the case. To my horror, it turns out that many people simply attack the vast potential of their online reality with a strictly objective based mentality. Certainly, there are those times when you want to tap in, snatch some specific useful bit, and tap out. The usefulness of instant information and content is undeniable.

However, for those individuals who approach the internet each and every time with a focused objective which, once achieved, results in the abrupt end of your session…well, I’ve got some bad news. You’ve done fucked it up. You’ve cheated yourself out of, perhaps, one of the richest experiences of our age. Is it really that big a deal, you ask? Yes. And the time has come to correct this tragic misuse of the infoNation Highway.

As Shrek might say, the web is like an onion (yes, the smell can make you cry if you dice too long) in that it has layers. The problem with logging on to find something specific and then logging off is…you never get past layer numero uno. That’s bad…that’s bad…that’s really, really bad!

I think our best bet here is to lay down an example, a little wrong/right comparison:

Here’s the scenario: You’ve had a few shots of cheap tequila alongside several “the brand we do not speak of” beers, and a heated debate kicks in. Half the crew believes the bus that drops off Margot in ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’ is the Red Line, the other half says Green Line.

Enter “the Google”.

LAYER 1: You type in strategic key words “margot bus royal tenenbaums”. The very first link slaps down the exact answer, not only offering text, but a YouTube video in which you can actually watch the scene in question:

SEARCH RESULT HERE AS AN EXAMPLE

Now, the debate has officially been settled. You step away from the computer’s generous glow and continue to find ever less stimulating conversations to traverse the late night hours. This is wrong, so very wrong. This is that part where your internet baby is being woefully neglected and is about to be pulled, kicking and screaming, from your arms for placement with a better, more inquisitive guardian.

So let us rewind, “reraaaaroooruuureeeeraaaaroooo” ß rewind sound. Let us find out how your internet experience could be so much more:

You’ve got your Margot/Green Line bus answer. You watch the YouTube video just to rub salt in the wound of those who had it wrong. As the film clip plays, you notice how incredible the track in the scene is. Spark! What is the song?

LAYER 2: Back to Google. You type in “margot bus royal tenenbaums song”. Once again, the first link popped has the desired information held in an article called “Give Me a Second Grace: Music as Absolution in The Royal Tenenbaums”. It is a song called These Days”, written by Jackson Browne and performed by Nico.

LAYER 3: YouTube search for Nico results in an avalanche of cool musical performances, interviews, and collisions with the pinnacle of 60’s art and pop culture.

LAYER 4: Google Nico. Hit the Wikipedia link for a little background info, where you instantly learn that “Nico (born Christa Päffgen, 16 October 1938 – 18 July 1988) was a German singer-songwriter, fashion model, actress, and Warhol Superstar. She is renowned for both her tenure in The Velvet Underground and for her work as a solo artist.” Nice! You also learn that Warhol more or less forced ‘The Velvet Underground’ (a band he managed) to take on Nico as a singer.

LAYER 5: Hit Amazon.com and search for Velvet Underground. You quickly find the one and only album the band recorded with Nico, listen to the samples, and fall in love. Minutes later, the sparkling MP3 files are nesting in your computer’s music library. Another nice Amazon feature is the "Customers Who Bought This Also Bought These"...which can lead you to some real gems.

LAYER 6: Sensing there is more potential here, you backtrack a bit, realizing that if this Wes guy was savvy enough to put the song “These Days” into his movie, he is probably worth exploring. You Google “wes anderson music”.

This brings you to an article at thisrecording.com entitled, “In Which Wes Anderson Breaks Down His Perfect Mixtape For You Guys”. Fucking JACKPOT. Not only is the mix tape slapstick of the article lovely, the site itself proves itself to be a treasure chest of musical appreciation expansion.

Layers. It’s how the internet is done. Never be satisfied with achieving your initial hunt. Take it further. The more aggressively you peel back the layers of the WWW, the more obscure bliss you will discover hidden at it’s infinite core.

There is in fact no reason a quick fifteen minute session can’t lead you to a daily discovery of something new.

One thing I’ve never understood about people is that tendency to hit the stop button on their desire to experience new things. It’s as though a certain age is reached and people decide that the music they have NOW, the art they like NOW, the style they have NOW, that this is going to be it. No more evolution, no more expansion. In the age of the internet, this is a near criminal attitude.

I say, for those of us lucky enough to have access, we should all be Cool-Cruising on our death beds.