Music : “Built on Sand” Solution .45 (one of my favorite vocalists of now (and about the last 10 years).. Christian Alvestam (he does all the vocals, you can not argue he can’t sing)… I get most people don’t like heavy music (especially death metal), I do, I dig the aggression (am I not wrath and love?) but I also listen to tons of classical and electronica… so … who knows… just what I have been listening to lately.
notes… poem 1 (up there) I was driving home (as I am known to do) and there was this weird triangle of ravens flying over the GSP… ravens don’t fly in formation, well, I haven’t asked them but from experience I think it so… also, spring was late, so as fluid as time is… we relate to what is our “now”… spring has been ‘late’ probably a billion times (and probably does not care what I think, dammit). I was toying with how limited our experience is but we expect it to be “the norm” which is totally silly given our short lifespan compared to the machinations or more real the gears of nature that work beyond our scope (and could care less about us even being here), I was also commenting on how we panic when things kind of don’t work out like we think they should based on our experience.. such limited experience even after 40 years on this rock….
poem 2… it is easy to say I am not afraid… but we all are. it is easy to say all I fear is death… but we all fear plenty of things, we all forget, we drive, take showers, go on vacation, have kids (well, none that I know about…), etc… it is much harder to actually let go of fear in times when the real pressure of actual life is applied. I am trying to live life free of fear, to live moment to moment.. to trust my instincts… but honestly I am not doing the greatest job of it. People can’t believe some of the things that come out of my mouth but really I am not being me 100% and I should because this is the only life we get as far as I know… and that is all I know, my limited little brain, as smart as I think I may be… death has taken us all from Einstein to Hitler, so I want to be free…
totally random music… this is a mix of cuban/puertorican/island (with brass instruments) music with metal… one of the most unique bands that ever was… I love mixed up mutts like this…
I actually wrote something about 9/11 today (in my car reciting it to myself until I arrived at work and feverishly scribbled it down)… but it is something I actually want to work on due to the nature of the moment (very not me, I know, you know if you read anything I write that I am usually just in the moment of now)… Every day I drive a certain section of the NJ Turnpike (geez, what an arcane term) and a hill crests where you can see NYC like a postcard (over that abomination of a train station)…. thousands of cars, we all pass this every day vision in the distance, so close you can almost touch it, I wonder how many pause and are struck by inspiration, surely not the A-hole in the Infiniti all over my bumper… I used to have road rage but now I smile more, because where the hell are we all going ? really? plus I have great tunes on my USB stick….
So I posted the above because I am determined to post everything I write for the most part… good or bad, this is not about me showcasing my best stuff.. this is me unloading on the universe that which I am driven to create, and share. I do not claim to understand how this works, if it works… or anything… if I can touch one life I suppose it is all worth it, even if that life is just mine.. maybe I am a fisherman throwing out my line into the ether… for another her… a companion or just friendship… I’m not so sure about anything anymore, the more mistakes you make in life the less you trust yourself, but you are better at hiding it… so much better…
I think about life… and death. I have no memory of any life before mine so am I destined to be just a grain of sand… who disperses into the nothingness of the vast ocean of the universe ?
life began as a proton having a menage a trois with some electrons leading to a single cell organism living happily in a puddle of chemical muck of amino acid building blocks… and then that single thing decides to replicate (as we all want to do but amoebas did not believe in birth control apparently)… eventually pull itself from the slime (some millions of years later) and climb onto the land … and suddenly has the choice of a galaxy or an iphone.. truly evolution.
for this poem I am invoking a bunch of science… I am saying we could be ‘flat’ not referring to Flat earth belief… but that we think in 3D when there are other dimensions out there.. so we would appear flat to something in a 4D universe (I am also referencing string theory), I know, heady stuff… but I if we just live and die.. what is the point ? I want to believe there is more… we all do.. some have religion.. some have science… I have nothing… I am still looking, hoping, searching…
So science (at this time.. because real science changes all the time) tells us by observation that space is actually pretty empty (that’s why the little voyager probes will probably outlive our civilization… 70s tech will last a billion years! oh the power of hot stuff!). Of course there is the new grease in between the creases thing (see what I mean about science evolving). So there is immense space in between things but we feel so … connected in our tiny tiny corner of one galaxy in the vast immense insanely large universe… hard to wrap a primitive mind around… so that is what I was thinking about… the space within our space and how we fill our space within that space. Heady stuff… but… we only have one life, why not contemplate it all, even if it is much easier to just eat work sleep… I am no different, I’m trying to be, to focus on being a phoenix because I know I am, we all are (well, honestly not every one, I am talking to you, those reading this who have that spark), we choose normal (even our normal) because it takes constant effort to be the pinnacle… but we do owe it to ourselves, even though we will fail… but at least we can get some stuff done… my opinion.
music. super chill ambient. Seti “Pharos”, of course SETI is the project to try and detect alien life using the world’s best radio telescopes (like the amazing Arecibo array). This album is a total trip through the cosmos, you can almost imagine the stars as you travel past them (well, at least I can). draw the shades or curtains, lay back, turn up the bass a little and imagine flying through space passing stars, asteroids and planets… and contemplate what Frank Drake was trying to quantify… definitely some super food for thought. I appreciate all comments and feedback.. and criticism.. man I love complaints because how the hell am I supposed to see this through your eyes? hint: I can’t!
Some thoughts…. Firstly I am afraid of heights.. so I would never do this in a million years or for a million bucks (besides you really do NOT want to see me in a speedo – and no, that is not me in case you are asking, thankfully I am not that hairy). Secondly there is the idea (well, fact) that if you do not time your dive jump correctly you go splat (not so nice). Thirdly I just liked this one when I wrote it (not a single edit, it came out of me just as it is written above, first take)… I think (I don’t want to assume) that most people reading this are fellow travelers in the arts (hello fellow practitioners of words!) or of the creative realms… and whether we would like to admit it or not we have favorite children, for whatever reason, there is that spark that blinds us and makes us proud in the same light (inspiration)… so this is one of those, for better or worse I just enjoyed writing this one… satisfaction.
So, sometimes I am lazy…um, I mean topical ! So here is some cool music to read my blog by.. Tycho “Dive”, if this doesn’t make you groove, check your pulse… open your mind to the electronic divine… this tune sold me on Tycho (not Tyketto… totally a Jersey thing…), if you get a chance go see him live, he tours often
in the bottom of my bath basin. I do not imagine most Americans call it that. But the word “tub”… is just.. well, ugh. I think of a tub of lard… or a tub that you throw stuff into (utilitarian but not exactly a thing of beauty). I mean, even a Tuba sounds like… a Tub+A. Guitar has a much cooler ring to it. Anyway, back to the dead moth. So this thing flew into my shower and I watched it fly into the beating stream (I have one of those adjustable showers and I like the sado setting like raining ball bearings of hot water pelting my back like a good snowball fight). I thought about scooping up the guy and letting him back out…. but then I figured.. it’s just a damn moth, how long do they live anyway? Which set off a philosophical conundrum in the foundry of my mind. We do not live that long relatively speaking. A Redwood would probably look at me and scoff… and then a Joshua tree (not the U2 album) would comment about the Redwood “oh those silly kids”. I kind of like the Buddhist idea of reincarnation but what if there is no remembrance of your former thing? And what if you were reincarnated as the same thing 10 times… or 1000… So anyway, the moth took about 2 days to finally go down the drain, it kind of hung out in the tide of my showers… taunting or haunting me, not sure. Just some food for thought.. or some words to digest.. or some other lame gastronomical appropriation… So here is something vaguely related…
So, I suppose you were expecting something about July 4th, nope (I do love my country but I can post about that any old day). I was thinking about personal independence as we age. My folks are in their 80s/70s so things are starting to go the way things go for mostly everyone that age. Over the past year or so their herd has been thinning at an alarming rate. Various friends lose a husband and then they also walk off into the after not so long after. My parents (I do not know if it is a generational thing) have close bonds with friends going all the way back to high school… sort of the golden age of USA high school like you would see idolized in the movies… My father in his ray-bans with a pack of smokes rolled up in his white shirt sleeve… My mother part of one of those clubs The Dungaree Dolls (or something like that, I always screw that up .. but it was literally just like out of the movie Grease) with the matching jackets. To think what they have seen in their lifetime alone is astounding (and now they have trouble seeing, period). A whole life’s collection of events, experience and footsteps.. and now even that simple step comes with peril. I used to laugh at those “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” commercials…OK, and I still do… BUT think about the reality of that happening, the helplessness, the sheer realization that you might not be able to take care of yourself anymore… after an entire lifetime of doing so (and raising seemingly ungrateful kids at times). And I worry about what people might think of my blog ? Totally moronic in that context… I suppose it is all perspective and I need to carry that around like a reminder, truly.
Slowly but surely life robs you of the simplest of things… your ability to move around freely now that you know more about the world than you surely did 40 years ago. I can not imagine what a cage that must feel like. I doubt most of us can even if we can get a handle on it philosophically/empathically. Only now are some of my razor sharp skills starting to just fail me on occasion… but I imagine this is just how it is… slowly the walls closing in to where you don’t notice until you are bed ridden… wondering what happened.
Just some background on me. I am adopted. Somehow when I say that to a bunch of faces there is a reaction like “we didn’t know”, that there should be some crimson letter pulsating on my forehead when in fact being adopted is just something I have always known to be (kudos to my folks for never hiding it, in fact I can only remember that I only ever remember knowing). The only odd part, I guess, is that the adoption was arranged by my mother’s OBGYN with one of his other clients (in vitro was not an option in the early 70s)… so I was literally born in my hometown (JFK Hospital, Edison NJ)… so… I could have literally run into my “birth” mother at the local Starbucks 1000 times and would have never known. I assume that it was some young woman out of wedlock who did not want an abortion. I really don’t know the circumstances.. I honestly never cared. Note that I did not use the term my “real” mother, because my real mother will always be Beverly Lynn Koblentz, she raised me, she gets the credit (or blame as it were…).
So… what does it all mean? I don’t honestly know. I am open for review. I think we just need to remember we will all be weak at some point. What do we do about that? I suppose that is what defines us. Maybe it doesn’t really mean anything in the long run, because the long run ends the same for all of us. But if someone finds the document of my life many years from now… I would like to think I did my best even if I failed many times.
that is the open to Anthony Bourdain’s show “Parts Unknown” (which just came on now)… and you know what, that is a poem. How quick the media moves on. Anthony killed himself just last week but it seems like years ago. But those words I quote are just full of everything if you think about it. We eat, we work , we travel… through this life.
We eat
we work
we travel
through this life
complete live thought, posted, I think I will try to sleep now.
sometimes I won’t have something clever to say, it happens.
sometimes I just want to post some stuff, it happens (below)
5.20.18
driving around my hometown
in all the corners
shadows and streets
memories
creep and speak
I no longer listen
I block them out
my own eminent domain
5.22.18
fishing hole
fishes home
fishing pole
I cast my line
time and time
a nibble perhaps a bite
to reel in my catch
a simple delight
childhood
5.27.18
rain drops
lives lost
lights turned out
endless clock
5.31.18
if there is wind
let it fill my sails
transport me to foreign shores
to unknown lands
where I might
begin again
music? OK, I can get back into that. King’s X “Thinking and Wondering (what I’m gonna do)” (live, acoustic), so yeah, King’s X is a band I love and will post about them until the world puts me 6 feet under. King’s X is a gay black front man from Illinois, a slick guitar player from Mississippi (southern drawl), and a drummer from New Jersey (who is an interesting writer).. and they can all sing.. so yeah, they were diversity before diversity was cool… because it wasn’t a thing, they just “were”.. like we all should be.
Shades of My Garden 