December 2011 Archives

The Bible: Simplified

I wouldn't believe that God wrote the Bible unless he told me himself. Until then I will believe man wrote the Bible, partly inspired, partly to control the masses, partly wise, partly deceptive, but altogether suspect and demanding of questioning and further enquiry. God gave mankind the gift of free will, self awareness, an inquisitive mind, the gift of life, the breath of life, I think man is better off without the Bible, there needs to be a simpler system to go by, how about this simple rule: Treat everyone and thing as if they are yourself, your own family, your own loved one, your own friend.

My mom found these poems I wrote back in 2003...

10/29/2003

(Singing to a Star)

When you're singing to a star,
and all around is pitch, darker then night
and all that lights your way is a memory
of a falling star

Perhaps you wonder where you are,
like a shooting star swinging from a thread
spinning in space surrounded by light

The light of a memory
of a fallen star

Then the wind comes,
and wraps it's arms around you
and all you feelis-warm even though you -are so cold
And the sunset comes at dawn
and the tiny and distant steps of little birds
write poems in tbe sky

And eyes open to remember a falling Star.

(Today the sun almost shined)

Today the sun almost shined
Can you feel it?
And I am aware of my spiralling freefail
from the tree that bore me
And I know it's better with the leaving, with you always
And fingers and smiles in a touch the tongues of flame dance
and whispering shadows touch the light all the same
a glance-
a paper cut from how perfect it is
and I like to bleed.

Happy New Year!

The default AT&T Uverse Channel is called Showcase, and it's basically the one channel nobody watches... so I'm watching it, and it's just video footage of nature with classical music playing behind it... polar bears, ducks in ponds, snow falling on cedars, penguins looking about happily and cutely, birds sweeping majestically across the arctic tundra, elk roaming in herds to find food, a penguing runs adorably across the ice and slides on his belly.... what's he looking for? Water rolls down nature's connectomes, snow wafted branches like from a CS Lewis novel, horses rubbing noses, you guessed it, this is my new favorite channel, the program "Winter Wonder"

One problem with America is we want "Presidential looking" and not "Presidential Doing".

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Sometimes instead of printing documents my printer will emit noises that sound like the ghost girl from The Grudge.

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I put a light bulb in my ceiling fan for the first time in about 3 years, I usually use nice soft lamps... it's so unusually bright in my bedroom right now I feel like I'm in God's interrogation room.

15 Horror Cliches and Houses

1. If it's priced to sell, it's foundation is in hell.  
2. If there's a chandelier, it's gonna fall on someone at some point in the movie and likely just miss them.  
3. If it has all its original fixtures, it means no one's lived in it long enough to need to replace them.  
4. If there's a strange noise and you find a hole outside in the roof where tiny birds live, it's likely ghosts using the birds to mask their sound, but you'll investigate it anyway, in the dark, by yourself.
5. A ghost will always try to seduce you
6. Ghost bodies move slow, ghost heads move very quickly.  
7. A 1980's work music video montage is a bad sign.  
8. Family pets are the first to know, then kids
   
9. Young daughters are always somehow connected to the ghost
   
10. Physical interaction with a flashback
11. The house will burn during the climax
12. Seances just make ghosts angry
13. Male leads always go crazy
14. Houses don't let you leave
15. The soundtrack theme will always be in a minor key

Honorable mention: Kid always does dark themed drawings in pencil or crayon that the teacher brings to the attention of the mother.

America began as a nation seeking to be strong, but not to dominate. We crafted laws around our ethics, we pursued a better society for all, but somewhere along the way we lost sight of a righteous path, perhaps we never were able to forgive ourselves for the sins of the past... of a near genocide to native americans, of a treatment to african americans, of women, we instead of learning from our mistakes, chose to give up our personal power to the machines, the corporate bottom lines, where progress is measured in dollars and cents, instead of health, education and common sense. And now we are a nation that dominates and is weak, for we have lost our way... and have fashioned new ethics from our new laws, and we have sold our soul for a pocketful of sand.

When you think later on how you could have handled something better, told someone you loved them instead of just saying goodbye, don't beat yourself up about it, it's the love that made you want to improve, remember it, and do it next time.

I don't understand the acronym TGIF... why would you thank God it's friday? He didn't create the calendar.

~*~

The way America beats me with the Constitution, gives me a sore Constitooshy.

~*~

I don't have a lot of facts and references to draw from to say why something is wrong, but I know when something's wrong, and this is just all wrong. Sometimes I think people lose perspective because they live such a narrow existence from highschool to college to grad school to marriage to kids to career... they never look beyond it, they never struggle to see what real life is like for those who have nothing, they never had nothing, so they never had to find something real.

Sometimes finding something real is a matter of survival, not just physically but mentally, and spiritually.

There was a time when people believed that only Christians go to God when they die, they also believed that Indians and Negroes were inferior. We now know all of this to be falsehoods created to dominate and control land and resources. There will come a time when people look back at us and see us as equally ignorant for how we treat gays and muslims and still how we treat African Americans and women. Will you be the embarrassment to your humanity, or will you help us progress with loving kindness? You always have the choice.

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I heard an extraordinary story tonight. During WII, British prisoners of war could mail order Rolex watches from Switzerland and Rolex would ship them to the camps on an honor system that they would be paid for after the war in peace time, and the prisoners were allowed to get these watches because they were seen as a morale booster. It's hard to imagine prisoners of war being treated this civilly, because when it comes to WWII one generally thinks of nazi death camps. Such an extraordinary story and I'm amazed I had never heard it before.

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I wish for you nothing less than the sweet sleep of cats, snug in the warmth of security, the faith of safety and the eternal grace of love.

http://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/p480x480/395218_10150420448376813_616796812_8827997_763332238_n.jpg

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Painting I did when I was 15 years old...

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/s720x720/408211_10150419746016813_616796812_8825619_1537445179_n.jpg

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Understanding Back to the Future

Watching the Back to the Future trilogy, it all starts to make sense why Marty has to keep going further back in time. There's a few thematic consistencies that run through the films, but the most important one might be the one about pride. In each film a family member has died because they wouldn't back down, and Marty shows the same stubbornness in each movie as well, and each time it makes things worse, so he has to go further back and discover a family member who died because of pride... remember in part 1 it's his Uncle Joey, in part 2 it's his father, and in part 3 it's someone else in the family... but each film keeps trying to teach him the importance of choosing one's battles, so that in the end the cycle will be broken... I never really paid attention to this imortant morality play that threads through all three movies so well, I wonder what else is going on that I didn't notice before?

The Facebook Rap

I've got 300 friends on the facebook tip, Steppers steppin outta line ya I handle that shit, You don't like to get handled when you're playing your game, but not much now gets past me ya it's all the same. Questioning motives, no one understands, they think your rocks are squishy like I'm standing on quicksand, but I know my role ya I'm in demand, and as long as I can rhyme I'll just stick to the plan....

Boycotting the LIKE button... this is the natural next step... first  I hated people liking their own posts, you posted it, we know you like it.  Now I'm boycotting the LIKE button altogether... if I like what you're saying, I'll respond to it, like a human being, with my words, and my time and energy... I refuse to be a part of a society that regurgitates experience into bland and flavorless bytes... let's be real, let's share our thoughts, not our clicks.

~*~

It's an important thing to learn to be enriched in times of nought, so that we are not slaves to our luxury when times are rich with harvest, for some day we are all faced with an empty road, and must look upon the face of God, and in that moment, we will have nothing but our memory of that which is not swept away by floods of praise and condemnation, the grass, the dirt, the clouds in the sky, we'll all turn inward, embrace what love we've been met with in this brief and wondrous life.

~*~

We've set a dangerous precedence, and the chickens are coming home to roost in the murder house. Have you noticed that ever since casey Anthony was found not guilty, a lot of stories have been surfacing about missing children?

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You know what they called an organization in the 1930s that took a percentage of everything you made to fund their personal wars?  The mob, and ours makes sures there's plenty of booze too.

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New adventures in the realm of beards... a mustache is designed to make a man appear maculine, image-wise, actions should show that, not facial hair. That aside, a mustache also helps filtration into the nostrils, but if you eat right and breathe right, you won't need the help, and so the mustache is simply a douchey tool for the lazy... shave your mustache, it's holding humanity back!

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You ever notice on MSNBC, when they are about to show a report with their distinct and distractive bais they always introduce it thus, "And now, your report"... as if I've been waiting all day for this, as if I had some hand in it, as if since it's mine, I will shut off my mind and just relate with anything they say... no, this is not my report, this is your report, I'm not taking any credit in it.

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One thing that kinda blows my mind about TV, yes I said TV, being able to PAUSE live television, that's just crazy... Back to the Future was on HBO tonight and I can pause it any time I like and the DVR takes over seemlessly... sorry yes it's tv, but come on, that's pretty awesome. I remember the days of VHS and rec ording music on cassettes... this new technology is kinda cool sometimes.

The Hardest Situations...

Today I was volunteering at the Cleveland Children's Clinic, when a mother brought in some liquid detergent and bottled water for her 9 year old son Michael... I asked her if she's tried Biokleen because it does an amazing job, doesn't use chemicals, problematic plastics etc... and she said to me, why? My detergent gets all my clothes clean... I was about to tell her how the chemicals in the plastic containers, and in the detergents and so much of what we use cause cancer, but I stopped myself when I realized her son was in the clinic being treated for cancer. I didn't know what to say, I didn't want to make her feel responsible for her son's illness, but I wanted her to be well-informed to help her son get better, and for herself and others... so I simply said it's better for the environment and doesn't do animal testing. I left there and I cried. I felt so sad, so transported by this pain, this weight of what we have become and where we are as a people... it's overwhelming... I didn't know what to do.

If you're wondering what I'm up to tonight, I am learning how to make homemade Nitrocellulose Lacquer with pingpong balls and nail polish remover to fix a lacquer chip in my guitar's headstock I acquired tonight.

Looking up information on the products I use for health and safety... stuff like... detergent (switched to Biokleen), soaps (switched to soaphope), cologne... goodbye Cool Water and Burberry Touch, incense, Nag Champa, will you be frend or foe? Yankee candles? As I slowly sandpaper down my carbon footprint on the road to sustainability, I feel lighter, brighter, more optimistic about my life and the future of America... if we could all take these strides just imagine... John Lennon did, now it's our turn.

In every aspect of your life, live your principles. Examine your environment, what you bring into it, what you create and what you reinforce with your dollars... do you encourage your principles, or do you live contrary to them in a thousand tiny ways every day? Don't answer that... we all have blind spots... start with everything you buy and use in your home... what's it really made of and by and for?

You are a hallowed ground. From earth do you rise, and to earth you shall go. You live in your body a tenant. You walk on fertile soil, respect it, appreciate it, nurture it. You are a hallowed ground, no different from any other, your body, this soil. Namaste.

http://youtu.be/r8Plg4OHV0Y

Many clothing items you buy in the store that say something like this on the label: "Proceeds from the purchase of this item goes to help children in need" or some kind of charity... are you sure? If you bought that in a big store and it's a name brand item like a Kathy Gifford outfit, for example, those items are made by children getting paid next to nothing in horrible conditions... it's a marketing scam... research everything you want to purchase, before handing over your dollars... knowledge is power, and this power will change the world.

Do you think outsourcing is helping those third world economies? When workers get paid pennies which iosn't enough to feed themselves, let alone their families, they cannot contribute to their own economies and so the economy remains third world, exploited, slavery on an Egyptian scale, just with safe distance to allow us to turn a blind eye.

Cancer is killing everyone we know and love because of the chemicals in nearly every product known to man... stop supporting them with your money, stop feeding the beast and it will die... so that we may live.

If the stars fell from the sky, and the moon tumbled out of sight, I'd still have your love here in the darkness to give me endless light. ~For Laura

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My lips long for something that they have never known, like flowers long for sunlight in a world where only darkness shone. My fingers stumble like walking sticks across forgotten snow, but here I wait, ever patiently, a fire that slowly grows...

~*~

God made the wine, man made the bottle. Life is the cork, and I'm such a dork. ~A poem by Jon and Laura.

My Eyesocket Shoes

I am a burning fire in the rain, surrounded by drunks and addicts of cocaine, the music is loud but cannot be heard above the thoughts in the crowd... I am a burning fire, and my eyes, shoes for your cold and weary feet, step into me, all I see, the blanket to keep you warm every day of your life. -- for Laura Kimberly Foust.

You don't have to take responsibility for anything in your life... there is a dogma prepared to handle every contingency... this is only a test... this is only a test.... this is a test of the emergency holocaust system... we are broadcasting live across all human ion channels... if this had been a real emergency this broadcast would be followed immediately by a new reason to war... this is only a test, there is no reason... it's time to rest. This is only a test.

I started writing a new song tonight, the placeholder title is "Another song that sounds like it was written in the '70s"

I wrote this today entirely based on a dream I had last night...

I woke up and wrote it down.

All my life I was getting into trouble... the cops were called in, I was chastised, and returned like a small annoying fish in a pond.  One day I guess I went too far and  I was eventually removed from the pond, the city life, and I was and taken up into a spaceship planet above the Earth where I could be supervised. 

The policeman was friendly enough, he walked with me explaining this new community, from the corner of my eye I saw my cat Neptune walking amongst bookshelves...

In this new community  that resembled a beautiful small island, lived many types of people from all over the world.  The grass was lush, small huts and gardens embraced the near shoreline. 

Children played with each other, children from all over the world, natives from India, and Peru, and China, and many places I simply did not recognize, but I did not feel a part of their games; I was alone.

I felt shunned by them all for what I had done on the planet below, and one day I saw some monks having some kind of a ceremony and I quietly snuck in and sat down in the back, hoping I could be accepted by them, but one noticed me right away and made me leave, giving me angry condemning looks all the while. 

Whenever I saw them they gave me dirty looks, but all I wanted was to... I didn't know what I wanted, and they shooed me away again and again. 

Time passed, feeling despondent, sad, alone, unwanted, when I went down to the shore to just get away from it all, the water was beautifully clear, shallow, and rocks glistened below the surface of the water like treasure, it was stunning and... suddenly a small girl no more than six years old ran into the water right in front of me and was hit by a bus and killed instantly; I cried out profoundly at the loss of this innocent child. 

I bowed my head, unable to rise for some time before turning back to the shore.  From this point on I didn't care whether I was unwanted,  I didn't care that the communites ostracized me.  I didn't care about anything anymore, my view of everything had been changed. I understood how the small thoughtless actions in my life had hurt others, and I knew I could not live like that anymore. 

When I saw the monks again a long while later they were all in a row singing, some new ceremony had commenced.  I figured they still didn't want me around, and I received more condemning stares, but this time I did not judge them, I did not feel hurt by them, they did not sting, the loss of that child forever stained upon my heart, I did not want anything anymore except perhaps to be free of the suffering for what I had done to deserve their condemnation, and to atone for making so many people's lives so hard for so many years.  I came closer, and before I knew it they had moved in a circle around me, but not for me, with me, and I found myself standing before the leader of their community... it was then I understood, they had been waiting for me to want to change, and I had come home.

Strangers meet you at your words, friends meet you at your intentions.

Dream of inspiration, then live to inspire.

~*~

Do cats like people because we feed them, dote on them, give them everything they want and need, or is it something more? Could it be cats relate to us on some level? Understand what we're going through? Do they see us struggling and wonder why we live in this dance of drama endlessly until death? Do cats relate and if so, do we baby them or do we treat them as living equals, assuring them that not only do we see how they relate, but that we can do the same? Does a cat have buddha nature? Does a buddha have cat nature?

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Sometimes the body is moved by the tides, like a paintbrush on a canvas creates a sky.  Sometimes emotions paint themselves into words, desperate to express, creating secret worlds.  Sometimes feeling defies the painter's hand, the world is denied, locked up tight like the darkest night.  It is then that feeling becomes action, action becomes vibration and vibration becomes music.  Sometimes, the place of movement is so small, that only fragments can break through, like tiny bubbles forced through a sheet of ice on a frozen pond.  These bubbles give life to what lies beneath, and it's heartbeat is a poem, a message in a bottle, written in the air we breathe, and remains unheard and unseen.

My grandmother sculpted this possibly in the '70s and my mother was wondering if it appeared familiar, as if based on something historical or of religious significance, and it actually does feel a little familiar to me, but possibly it's just the old picture of a Saint feeding birds that is making it feel so familiar.

To understand what it is to be a cat you must imagine life as a hairbrush that has to brush itself with itself.

What I once called my curse, I now see as what defines me and gives me strength.

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NBC sent me new hardware oday that took weeks to arrive, and it doesn't work... awesome, now I'm waiting a few more weeks, but I'm not waiting, I'm writing music, and recording, and putting out an album cos life goes on and the world is baptised by rain and that means the world has sinned and so it should respect me as much as I respect it and stop having a nervous breakdown, and what was I talking about?

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I love pens, I've always loved pens. They symbolize mans ability to express something beyond survival, beyond the physical, something deep and stirring with the ability to move mountains and contain the multitudes. I've always loved pens.