Hey, isn't that the guy across the street?

When you are outside, you are on film.

At your ATM, sitting at a traffic light, walking into a parking structure. Nobody cares, you are just an anonymous face in the crowd.

Right up to the point something happens and your 15 minutes of fame become a viral phenom or part of a custody chain.

Think about it.

Act accordingly.

Times when I was cool

This is a double edged sword as you will see.

I was diving in an overturned twin engined Otter somewhere in Hawaii in 100+ feet of water. It was an artificial reef, so there was no cool shit like dead people still strapped in. I'd penetrated the hull and was laying on my back watching my bubbles coalesce like a T-1000 in a foundry on what used to be the floor of an airplane and was now the ceiling of a cave. This was not the cool thing.

100+ feet is short duration even with a computer, and since I was rockin' a state of the art high pressure steel tank, I had plenty of time for a leisurely ascent. Vis was infinite so in ascents like this where I was not using a reference frame, what I'd do is hold my computer at eye level like a readout and ascend using regular breathing and bleed the air slowly out of my BCD. I'd do a lazy complete rotation every few minutes to keep an eye on things. There was my buddy and his buddy on the plane. There was the scintillating silver stream of exhalation, rising, expanding, pulsing jellyfish like from the cool blue, and right there it was.

The biggest Manta I'd ever seen. I was in blue water so I didn't have a reference frame, I didn't know whether it was 6 feet away of 60 feet away, but it was not close enough to touch and it was HUGE.

He was gorgeous. I still can see it. He was in perfect shape, I could see his matte black upper and creamy white belly just like in the high quality nature photographs - he was textbook and framed against a pale blue sea.

That was cool. It was the coolest I've ever been an nobody even saw it.

Double edged sword.

I was doing another dive way up North where it's possible to snag big Puget Sound Box crabs just roaming around, and I was goofing around like usual, and I turned around and there was a seal, just hanging out watching me about 2 feet away. He snuck up on me and scared the living shit out of me. I'd spat out my regulator and there was a huge cloud of bubbles around me. I sheepishly looked around and fortunately nobody had seen me. I recovered my regs and spent the rest of the time playing with this little guy. When I got back to the boat, one of my party said "Did that seal scare you?" Everyone though that was real funny.

I like bikes, and my buddy has a real beaut - I'll get a photo and post it. I love riding that thing. I'm real cool

I was on 101, just tooling along enjoying how this thing ate miles and farted them out in a fat raucous hydrocarbon cloud, and two black guys pulled up alongside me. The passenger made a sign with his right hand like twisting the throttle, so I obliged, dropped it down a cog and gave it some stick.

Double Edged Sword.

This thing has Sifton cams, Mikuni carbs, performance headers, straight through pipes, a Screamin Eagle ignition and enough torque to pull Jesus off the cross. When I slacked off the throttle and these guys caught me again we were all grinnin' like idiots. I trolleyed off to the Haight and was posin' alongside this beauty like James dean, smokin' a fag and leanin' against the bike. I decided It was time to fire the bugger up and leave it throbbing on the sidewalk while I nonchalantly put on my Jacket, Gloves and Helment. I'd forgot since where I parked it was on an incline and I'd put it in gear, and instead of pulling in the clutch when I start (Like I always to) but wanting to be like that guy on the Roof of the Systine who languidly reaches out and touches god, pressed "Go".

I caught the fucker, but being dragged down the sidewalk by a 900lb throbbing monster was way uncool.

Which brings me to Bruce.

When I lived in New Jersey, he was a local guy. He was so local that you'd see him all over the place and the cool thing was that nobody bugged him. Just a regular Joe. Bruce would work out when he was getting ready for a tour, and for an old fart like me, he is in good shape. He could punch his weight. He'd work out at my gym. Just a regular low profile guy. He'd talk to people, and those people that knew him would talk to him, but not a lot, he was there to work out. The only time I'd spoken to him prior to my coolness event was when he was bs'ing with someone and had is back to me and I couldn't get past him so I said "Excuse me".

It was cool working out in the same gym as Bruce, and sitting no more than two feet from him while we were both working out. You can bet that while I didn't bug him, I let everyone within earshot know that I was working out with Bruce and that I saw him regularly enough that I'd lost count. I figured that he's a cool guy, he doesn't need people pestering him while hes doing deep lunges.

So one day I'm in the changing rooms and I'm all alone and I'm standing there shaving. The gym I went to had disposable razors by the sink, and they were nicely sanitarily sealed in cellophane. A real bitch to get open with soapy hands, and having faced this problem several times, I found that the hole in the cellophane that could be used to hang these little buggers also fit over the stainless steel nozzle of the soap dispenser.

I thought I was alone, when lo and behold out of a shower walks Bruce in nothing but a bath towel. I nod and he walks over to a basin a few down and I hear him grumbling and complaining while hes' trying to open this razor. I walk over, he sees me, I reach out for the razor and say "Here". I take it, open it just as slick as you please and hand it to him and walk back to my basin.

I AM SOOOOOOOO FUCKING COOL!!!!!!

This did NOT backfire on me (yet) and if you think I'm full of shit, ask Bruce about it. I could see he was impressed, and I'm sure he remembers it - It was in the Atlantic Club in Red Bank, and you usta turn up with your personal trainer in a beat up blue bronco ISTR.

Love your stuff Bruce, I came to the Kick up your Paws benefit at Weinbergs place in that big tent out back with Triumph the insult dog, and you came and jammed with the local guys for about 250 of us. What I liked is that you banged through a couple of new numbers that had not been released, and these local guys were not overawed by playing with you, and were not phased when you stopped and changed keys about 3 times in one song. It looks like you jam with these guys all the time.

In connection with the same SPCA do as Kick up your Paws, I saw Southside Johnny, Gary US bonds, a really fabulous set of brass jazz musicians and Bobby Bandieri. I'd not seen Bandieri before, he'd remember the gig - he had his hand in a bandage. I love that guy, fabulous vocals - he did a Beatles number and that old Cohen classic Hallelujia (Bon Jovi was there and didn't do Hallelujia ISTR, even though it's a standby for him and to my immense disappointment Southside Johnny did not do "I don't want to go home" which I love.

You must jam with Bobby all the time, Bruce, but unfortunately I never got to see it 'cause right after that I moved out West, but when I'm in town again, I'm definitely gonna look for Bobby Bandieri, and if you ain't doing anything, I'll let you know and you should swing by. It would be WAAAAAAYYYYYY COOOOOOL! and hanging out in the local scene (music and otherwise) is what you seem to like, so it's not like I'd be imposing (and you own an Indian if memory serves, I'd love to ride one o them bad boys :-)

I know what I'm doing, ask Jay Leno. When he was the Grand Marshall at Bay to Breakers, I was they guy that Dudley Perkins gave the Harley to to delivery to Jay. He'll remember me, he has a photograph of me with him. We was hanging out back at the concert with Mayor Willie Brown and Greg Allman, so it was a party crowd - I got the photo's somewheres, I should dig 'em out )

Dudley Perkins have worked on every Harley I've ever owned. My latest is 2 years from being Vintage and looks brand new, runs like a champ. Just had the rectifier replaced, ran it straight up to 100+ on the way home, smooth as a brick down a well.

Are you experienced?

On a visit to Seattle I stopped by Jimi Hendix's grave.

Twas not what I expected. I envisioned an unmown rise on a grassy knoll with a little black steel filigree margin and decades of tributes made vandalistically permanent.

There were indeed permanent tributes on this grey marble mausoleum but as I had my hands on his slab, sun on my face and Voodo Chile (Slight Return) in my ears, my experience was no more profound than any other time I heard his sound.

I expected different.

Cheesy but true, I had to do it, I made sure nobody was around. I never expected to write about it at the time.

Anyway, I'd heard Bruce Lee was in the same place so I set off in search of him. Two birds with one stone.

I was somewhat disgusted at the irony of crowning a military monument with a machine designed to put the names of military men on its plinth.

It was a pleasant enough day and strolling around a necropolis with Hendrix burning in your head and the sunshine shining was pleasant enough too.

There was a moment of incongruity, probably because I was paying no particular attention, when I started seeing little teddy bears and stuff, like lots of 'em.

Still no Bruce Lee.

Never occured to me that they'd bury all the babies in the same spot.

Anyhow, that was the end of that little sojourn.

Experience is what you get when you are looking for something else.

Punctuation

While I have an undisputed and prodigious natural talent, it is raw and splendid like a Lion.

I myself am Leonine (Asinine too), and like Lions are pretty indiscriminate about where they piss, my gift has its own unlovable weaknesses (unless you are into piss, in which case I would say my 'little mistakes' were Hemingwayesque).

I cannot punctuate worth a shit.

That's why I like technical writing. Short declarative sentences, reading age about 8 to 12. Roll out a long 'un now and again to keep 'em from falling asleep but keep the constructs simple - this ain't literature. I'm reasonable at a first pass and then someone who knows better re-does the whole thing.

Writing proper is tough.

I have in my head a thought that needs to get into your head and as a child I would write as I thought.

Pages without punctuation.

It bugged the piss out of those that know better and they made me go back and re-do the whole thing. They said

"Go back and break it into sentences. Capitalize the first word and finish with a full stop."

This was bloody good advice. I do it now as I go along now.

When I started it was a royal pain in the arse. It totally fucked up the flow. I had to move shit around for it to make any sense. When I was a kid my work literally looked like that, I'd go back and start capitalizing Important words and right before each Capitalized word would be a Full Stop. Then there would be loads of me having to go through and strike out loads of inappropriate words and putting in the right words.

That did not last long. Those that know better forced me to re-write all my crap so that it was

"Nice and neat and spelled correctly and of required length"

Another royal pain in the arse.

I would have given my 12 year old left nut for this fucking mac, I tell you.

Anyhoo, were Google to implement my fabulous 'Fisheye' editor, so you could see a piece flex and warp and weft before yer very eyes, you would see that my initial (and subsequent hours) of editing is not a fluent thing.

"Rare indeed is the phrase, clause or clause complex that flies unimpeded from my stubby little digits to wink phosporsecent at you, perfect in balance and coordination; punctuated sufficiently to pass uneducated scrutiny, unread enough to draw any serious scrutiny and just fucking primo - like this one."

Since I need to be taken seriously as an artist (I do, trust me, it's Important) I have a nice sounding Bon Mot if you'll be so kind as to pardon my French. It is

"I punctuate for effect and unless you want to be punctuated for effect, back off! I'm a fuckin' artist."

Seriously, and when I get my kisser on the cover of Rolling Stone, I'll be wearing it on a Tee-Shirt.

Edgy, huh?

It's so important for people to take my satire seriously that like Mssr. Sartre's writer, I have spent enough time researching how to punctuate properly that I stopped the instant I read somewhere that you can punctuate according to proper rules of punctuation, or you can punctuate for effect. The end result should not be too divergent and any 'little mistakes' could be ruled idiosyncratic of a style unburdened by the ravages of a classical education.

Anyhow, it's a rationalization for the fact that I still to this day have no idea how to punctuate properly.

I stick little glyphs all over the place that make you pause for a given period of time, to break this long connective ribbon of snot that you are sucking out of my blog into nicely digestable slurps, to simulate the cadence I hear in my head, to satisfy those know it all asswipes, but it is in truth a lumpy process, much like hammering the lumps out of wallpaper paste. You know if you don't get 'em all out (either by going after them one at a time after the fact or doing it right the first time) nobody's gonna appreciate the pretty patterns because its all fucking lumpy.

Pardonnez mon français.

Paradox

As a society, we are becoming more racially tolerant. There was a time however when we discriminated against folk on the basis of skin color. Could you imagine the humiliation and hurt of another perfectly normal human being who had to endure such injuries? It must have been bewildering to know that while you were normal and human, that other humans would treat you abnormally and sub-humanly. Having to live within a society where you were separate. It is bewildering now to think that this treatment was acceptable, normal even - that the people who perpetrated such injustices were considered normal.

Nowadays, we don't think this is normal. People who think this way are abnormal, we don't tolerate them in society.

Along the path to racial equality, it must also be remembered that a lot of white people died along with black people. While any loss of life over something so trivial as skin color is regrettable, those that sacrificed - black or white - are among our most noble, they shared a common thought.

Our path toward a more noble society must confront these issues of discrimination. While blacks were certainly not the first just cause, they are equally certainly not the last either. Now, that mantle is passing to homosexuals who do not have to deal with something as inconsequential as differential pigmentation, they have to deal with mankinds oldest and most favorite bugaboo, sex.

Being perfectly normal and gay, it must be bewildering to live in a society that identifies itself as normal at the same time as it persecutes those that it arbitrarily considers abnormal. Discrimination without process is vigilantism. We legitimately deal with people that are different than us and rightly so. Thieves, child molesters, killers rapists. There is a definition of normality and these people lie without. Pretty much, any discrimination other than that legally defined is well .... it's illegal.

This little polemic is harmless enough, full of sound and fury but way too late to make any difference. We have a black guy running the country and he's legalizing the shit out of homosexual unions.

I don't know what is next, but if the price of freedom is eternal vigilance then we need to be on the lookout. While we are consumed with stamping out the prejudice of today, there are those among us who are looking for the next target for discrimination.

Along that path may lie chirality or eye color, but we all know where it ends and the definition of that end is religion.

When we are all generic clones, part of the intrigue of consciousness is its origin. It is an emergent property of brain function it. It magically manifests while the rest of the brain is busy doing everything else it is built to do; find something to eat, find something to screw, find something to read, find my car keys.

This is a rough description and the reason that we know we don't have it right yet is that one thing we do know is that what you call blue might be red to me. There are general observations that we can make, but really, why do you think that some people like Brussels sprouts and liver? They interpret what they are processing differently. Thought spans that space between brain function and consciousness and it's fodder is a differentiated experience. Like I may thrive on liver and Brussels sprouts you may thrive on cookies and ice cream we necessarily think differently about them. Right down to the shelf space (or not) in our refrigerators.

There it is with our thoughts. Through the magic of modern science it is possible in my lifetime to clone a human being. Societally we could get to a plurality of Adam and Eves. Technologically (with what we know now) it could be an Eden. Sex would be reduced to pure pleasure (yummy), since our current requirement for genetic identity would rule out that random spark that drives evolution.

We would look alike but because of that random spark that drives consciousness we would not think alike.

The last bastion of discrimination.

This is why it's definition is religion. Discrimination based on thought.

The reason is it is religious is that when we all think exactly the same way, there's really only need for one of us.

That spot is already taken and we have spent the entire history of humanity discriminating against everyone who does not agree with who we (currently) think he is.

Since WE is a pretty broad term (about 7 billion broad right now), the salient point really then is whose lot you, individually, cast your lot with so it's worth considering this.

While you are busy arguing the case for your particular incarnation, imagine then his stance on discrimination and its basis.

What is said in the bible is the word of man. If in the words of Thomas Paine (another man and a Deist by profession of faith) that the word of god is all around us, then you should consider that it was him, and not some dusty old book, that gave us vaginas and penises and mouths and assholes.

Now what YOU think about that is up to you and how you act is in accordance with the divine dictates of free will and, absent gods say so, the law is a good enough guide as to whether this is discrimination. The law is a societal guide and as far as some are concerned a construct of man and thus below divine law.

If a definition of divinity is a shared body and thought it leaves room only for one of us. In a society of one, law is absolute. Since there is a multitude of us and we are made in his image a broader definition of divinity within mankind would be that we are all different but that we share a common thought on important things, like ice cream and tolerance.

As is the way with all human beings, I would want that thought to be mine - the one I have. This I know is verging on gods territory but he already told us his thoughts on this (well his kid did) and the thing that has me on edge was that I think Christ and me were of a mind on this - we looooove ice cream.

Those who thought differently killed him.

Slowly.

Gods latest Prophet

It makes sense to me now.

It's not my dog talking to me, it's my God.

God guides our hands, and he guides mine to write this. I keep wanting to stop. I keep thinking that I am going to get a lot of shit for this, but right when I think "This would be a bad idea", the next thing I know, I'm typing.

I had a moment of lucidity - God is making me do this. I am his mouthpiece here in paradise. I kept denying it to myself, but now it makes sense.

Why not pick an atheist?

The amount of shit that I get for speaking on behalf of God does not mean I'm special, anyone that speaks for him gets a lot of shit. My fears are for myself - maybe people will be unkind to me, maybe people will think I'm crazy, maybe people will think my writing is poor. These I see now as my own shortcomings, God helped me with this and swept them away.

"Fuck them" 

he is saying in my head.

He is putting me where He wants me to be, and He will support me and give me strength.

I was way overthinking my being an instrument of His will here on Earth, but I'm beginning to see that I'm equally as qualified as any of the other people that speak on His behalf, and I have impeccable credentials.

I'm dirt poor.
I have no followers.
I am a narrator that has no vested interest in the subject since I don't believe in God and I certainly don't want the job of being His messenger boy here on earth.

Sure, if you spin this right you can make lots of money but it's a double edged sword, those of us that are so chosen can also meet gruesome ends - just look at what we did to his kid for Christs sake.

This is the voice I hear in my head

"You were primitive, you ate and slept and fed and pooped. You did many things besides this, like killing each other and screwing and lying about it, and this is all cool and the gang - because you are just like the rest of the gang. You take a look at Bobonos (Screwing), Chimpanzees (Killing), Gorillas and Orang Utans. There's a reason you share 98% of your DNA kids, and you all fit right in.

You are still primitive, but something along the way in that magical 2% investment started you thinking.

This is where all the trouble started. The things that made it easier for you to live (and thus spend more time in thought) like enslavement were all little systems. If you observed the systems of the stars (pretty enough to look at) certain truths became apparent, like the way that the seasons operate and eclipses can be used as powerful tools to control weak minds. Systematic enslavement is just the next link in the chain.

This would have been fine if it just ended there, but a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. If knowing jack shit about how this all works but identifying certain obvious patterns puts you in a position of authority, then by the honor of association that makes movie stars the ideal people to handle world peace and genocide, you will find yourself in the position of being asked about unknowable shit - like "Why do I die?"

Thinking a little harder about the insane opportunities for power and wealth and all you need is a little humility and allusions to limited authority and you are riding a gravy train with biscuit wheels.

I thought that thought and free will would amount to something and that Eden would last forever. Instead, I have a fucking cesspool in my back yard.

I don't care about homos, I don't care about money, I don't care about big buildings, and I really don't care for you assholes running around saying that I do.

I make worlds, I don't need a house.

I make Humans, YOU make homos and niggers and spics and narcissists and alkies and racists and saints and gods.

I love you all, YOU discriminate

I make the most valuable things in life free, YOU made Money."

This can be a little disconcerting.

I don't consider myself Gods instrument here on Earth, yet I hear his voice. I would expect from all the movies that I've seen, and certainly the stories I've been told by believers, that when God speaks to me, there would be great wisdom and direction. The voice I hear is that of someone who has his nuts in a vice and is working up his argument for when you get home. You know what it's like, when you say to someone "I don't give a shit what you do" and then find out after the fact that actually, you do. You know, the free will thingy.

I was expecting the Voice of God (VoG) to be more like Charlton Heston and less like Woody Allen.

As far as me being His instrument here on Earth, think about this.

Being blindsided by a sideshow that has impossibly costumed actors with science fiction powers and heart wrenching legend is perfectly OK if you are into Pro-Wrestling. A little passion play is good for the soul. it is NOT the stuff on which to build a personal code (unless of course you are a professional wrestler).

These costumed actors acquire the trappings of authority and use the authority as a mouthpiece - WWF, Church, it's the same thing, brimstone and damnation.

It's what you expect - you expect to get yer daily VoG secondhand and with a floorshow. You don't want whining and second guessing, you demand commandment (or commandments).

Regardless of this, our most durable prophets were dirt poor and had the responsibility of religious authority thrust upon them. Their voice did not come from a $30,000 wardrobe and $1,000,000 PA system and their voice was universally damned as heresy. A shitty job considering how mankind treats these emissaries of the Lord.

I used to wonder why God would be talking to me, being a filthy little atheist and all.

It makes sense now.

If you have to get the message out and the messenger invariably gets lynched by a mob, why not use a non-believer.

They are not one of the chosen few and since they don't believe in God, they won't be going to heaven so you don't have to engage in tedious rationalizations about why you had to create people who don't believe in you.

Makes sense.

Rules of War

Hmmmm

The common cold has been with us as long as there has been an us. The average adult has between 2 and 5 colds a year. Colds last longer than flu, typically 7 days but may take weeks. Best thing for you is an anti inflammatory, lots of fluids and rest. When you have a cold, you feel like shit.

So, the cold has been with us a long time and something else that has been with us for just as long is organized warfare.

One thing that we've had forever that is relatively harmless and can cause you to lose time at work, vs another thing that we've had forever that is lethal.

Now in our infinite humanity we have decided that we cannot drop cold germs on enemy factories so that their workers would miss a few more days of work and make less precision death instruments. That is not nice. What we have to do instead is mass produce precision death instruments ourselves so that we can blast them into eternity and cause them to miss the rest of their life. This is much more humane.

We have kept war right where we want it - front and center and bloody. Nukes are no fun, at least we had the common fucking sense to be scared shitless of that. We want to see people blown to pieces, missing pieces and being pieced back together. Always been that way, right from Moonwatcher on down. The Romans aint got nothin on us. Not only do we mass produce it, we mass distribute it.

We make movies about real wars, we make up places just to have wars so we can make movies about fake wars, we make movies about future wars where at some point in our future an intelligence smart enough to figure out interstellar travel and (since we are talking about war) is able to get enough of his killing gear into place and take on a whole planet. A whole planet who have not yet got the hang of interstellar travel, and has only ever been able to organize their killing gear against each other, but also whole planet that is so bored by peace and quiet that they have to run around killing each other, and if they live in a place where this is not currently happening have high tech proxies for them that can put them right there, these same high tech proxies that they also use to stream images of themselves fucking so that they can sit alone and jerk off. Sex and Killing, since forever and forever.

You could see why an intelligence as advanced as ours would think that we would win.

There's only one movie I ever heard of where everyone dies. I saw the remake. It's depressing.

Look at how many movies that have been made about war have our highest artistic awards.

Most of our oldest and greatest monuments to ourselves are when we got together in large organized mobs and rampaged across, above and beneath the face of the earth to kill people just like us.

Why?

Killing has always been a most satisfactory way of having the last word. Permanently. History books are written by killers and not the killees. You heard it here first. (Seriously, check out quotables).

In Addition, dead people do not argue, they do not get in your way (well, after you get rid of them that is, and as good as we are at organizing the stuff we do like, we spend as much time organizing that which we don't - death and shit. Armies on the move are really good at dealing with lots of both - both manufacture and disposal), and dead people have a really nice trophy value.

Ask the President.

"Here was a man, a man like you or me. Someone who had a mother, someone who may have had a lover, someone with dreams, fears and appetites. Someone who has the same organizational skills, someone who has the same physical capabilities, someone with the same physical experiences of fighting. A nasty little ambush predator, and I killed him."

This dead person also has material things. Things that he cannot defend. This is free shit that you can do what the hell you like with, which is probably going to be more Sex and Killing.

Plus, it feels so good. Hurting people and killing them, really fucking up their program. We are into sex because it keeps us alive - any species that does not have some sort of sex is an evolutionary dead end. We have taken our big brains and created certain rules about it. Sex in humans feels unbelievably good. it's cheap and easy.

Killing humans feels unbelievably good and it is cheap and easy. We have created certain rules about it, and just like sex we can make it really expensive and complicated.

Here's what I can figure out the rules are so far.

You can pretty much do whatever you want, but certain things are frowned upon at different times in our history. Torture, poisoning and rape of men, women and children have at times been the actual objectives of war.

There is only one thing that you cannot do in a war and that is that you cannot kill everyone.

At our present time in history our (the USA) preference tends toward 1 to many but not all in body count and in ways that are quick and kinetic. We will torment you to death over a long period of time if necessary, but the expense of all this equipment means that we just wanna do it how we've always done it, get in there and start swinging and slinging shit. Quick kinetic deaths are messy - lots of blood and snot, and we loooooove that shit and as much fun as this is to do, like sex, it's nearly as stimulating when it's recorded, played back and fantasized over.

It looks like all IS equal in love and war, at certain times it has been permissible to torture, poison and rape men women and children and just like in war, you cannot fuck everyone. It's just against the rules.


(Yes, I have a cold. I spent all day today asleep in my jammies, I am awake now (3:00 AM) and bored out of my mind. After I did email, I started googling the common cold)