Henri Rousseau, La Guerre

A dose of the Dead for yer Saturday morning.

Oh boy, I am soooo stoked to be breezing back west for next Sunday's show.

"Yet Being - what is Being? It is It itself. The thinking that is to come must learn to experience that and say it."

It's in your face, but you can't grab it. What is it? It's it. Remember this song?

"But if man is to find his way once again into the nearness of Being he must first learn to exist in the nameless...man must first let himself be claimed again by Being, taking the risk that under this claim he will seldom have much to say."

"I am a patient boy,
I'll wait, I'll wait, I'll wait, I'll wait."

Ebbs and flows. This is how I explain to myself the endless vacillation between happiness and homelessness, satisfaction and disconcert, and the necessity for constant reorientation. There are ebbs and there are flows; I try and withstand both with a seriousness appropriate to life. I've consoled myself with Nietzsche: "The path to happiness is subterranean, requiring great seriousness." But it has been Nietzsche that has led me to desolation: "The secret to my happiness? A yes, a no, a straight line, a goal." My goals are obscure, opaque; for this reason my joyousness feels insincere. I have vague ideas of happiness achieved through an active work ethic, a metaphysics of labor. But I fear this is the last consolation of the slavish. I don't want to be a richer man, I just want to be a better man. I want to be a better man. Time to make a ch-ch-ch-change.

The following report by Channel 4 News, London, shows footage of the incident which led to the death of Ian Tomlinson, a victim of physical assault by a police officer while protesting against the recent Group of 20 economic summit. A British judge ruled Channel 4 was entitled to release the video, despite an attempt by the Independent Police Complaints Commission to obtain a court ordered injunction. The confrontation between Tomlinson and the officer is remarkably brief and of seemingly minor physical violence. Channel Four's reporting utilizes the array of cameras distributed throughout the protest site to spotlight the actions of the offending officer in the minutes leading up to his assault on Tomlinson, who was standing with his hands in his pockets and his back to the officer when he was struck. The video incident bears a striking resemblance to the video of a beat-down delivered to a student, by a cop, at a recent protest occupation at the New School. Both videos speak to the egalitarian nature of information distribution networks in societies where the proliferation of surveillance cameras and personal video devices truly has created panopticonic conditions.

I've heard that The Ronette's biggest hits began as pillow talk between Ronnie, the tempestuous 'original bad girl of rock and roll', and Phil Spector, her brilliant but completely fucking crazy husband and producer. That's hot. It must have been back when Phil was just crazy enough to be mistaken for passionate and uninhibited. Well, that soon passed, and by the time Ronnie left him in 1973, Phil had left the station.

The good die young; Phil Spector lived long enough to prove the point. Yesterday he was convicted of murdering Miss Lana Clarkson, a beautiful former B-movie star (Barbarian Queen). Shot her dead in the foyer of his mansion after bringing her home from the House of Blues, where Ms. Clarkson played the role of the 'waitress trying to make it in Hollywood'. Amazingly, Phil Spector is the first celebrity to be convicted of murder in Los Angeles in 40 years. His longstanding and well-documented obsession with firearms, along with his penchant for using them in a threatening manner, pretty much sealed his fate.

His stylist should do time as well.

"Hey, I heard a funny thing, somebody said to me, you know that I could be in love with almost everyone, I think that people are the greatest fun."

I once broke up with a girl, or rather, she broke up with me. We had a love of this band in common, and together we listened to this song, held each other, and cried.

I just learned that today marks the 15th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's suicide.

This was a big deal for me at the time, and not just because I was one of the legions of dirty-haired, plaid-wearing Pacific Northwesterners for whom Nirvana's music had become something of reverence. In the days following Cobain's death, there were two suicides at the Seattle-area high school where I was flunking my freshman year. These only added tragic punctuation to the dozens, hundreds, of to-be-expected self-mutilations, tattoos, dropouts, etc. The school went so far as to hold a memorial service on the football field, and make grief counselors available to all students.

You must understand, by April 5th, the skies of Seattle have been constantly obscured by near complete cloud cover for over 6 months. It is life-stifling in a way only climate can be. Kurt Cobain was the product of this climate: withered, deformed, malnourished. Just as surely as such a climate breeds robust natures, it shows no mercy to the weak.

For several years I kept fish tanks. I would tend to them at the homes of customers of The Pet Barn, the pet shop I managed with my girlfriend. In our small, second-story apartment, I maintained a striking 110=gallon saltwater reef tank, stocked with over 100 pounds of live Fiji rock, a deliberate combination of fish and coral, and a complimentary selection of shrimp, crab, snails, etc. Being an employee of the Pet Barn entitled me to certain advantages, so I was able to acquire, along with the best filters, lights, protein skimmers and other mechanical necessities, the healthiest, most beautiful captive-bred fish and corals. Every morning before school or work, I would spend up to an hour feeding, checking the water quality, and temperature, scraping algae, studying. Every morning and every evening I was up to my elbows, actively engaged with a living and breathing organism. It was stunning, and something I took pride in. It was something I had a meaningful relationship with...I loved those fucking fish.

Tending to the fish calmed me. Like any other form of gardening, it gave my limbs the opportunity to work out the stresses of the day. I don't have any fish anymore, and my limbs are suffocating! This is why I fucking hate T.V.

I do like Televsion, however.

I like things. Things create vistas, provide the stage dressing for affairs and heartbreak. The things you have, your shit...all of it reflects something fundamental about you. I like to keep my space clean, free of clutter; maybe to highlight those things I do choose to be with: several plants; just the right amount of condoms to suggest I may actually be having sex; some books; half a dozen ties draped over a flimsy wooden divider masquerading as a wall.

The just recently re-discovered painting of a handsome, young Shakespeare, the only thought to have been painted in his lifetime, had been in the home of the aristocratic Cobbe family for 300 years.


I believe the oldest things I have are some articles of clothing from each of my grandfathers. From one: an unblemished, cream polyester jacket with a wide, imitation mink collar, two sizes too big. From the other: a worn, pale blue terrycloth bathrobe. They're really the only way I know these men.

Candace Bergen, I wish we could be friends. I can be affable, and would contribute at dinner parties.

Reverend Billy of the Church of Stop Shopping has been nominated by the Green Party to be their representative in the upcoming New York mayoral race. Oh boy, this is going to be great!

It's 10:48 on the morning of March 1st, 2009. I just fell in love for the 3,647th time.

He can make the body rock.

This is the first time I've been injured in awhile, and although I'm certain it did not happen while drunk, I still can't remember how I BROKE MY FUCKING ANKLE!

The Reverend Joseph Lowery, 87, Southern Methodist preacher-turned-early civil rights leader, gave the benediction to end today's inauguration. His prayer concluded:

"Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around ... when yellow will be mellow ... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen."

...

"Eat lightly. Drive carefully"

This inscription accompanied two $50 bills in this years iteration of Grandma's Christmas card. It is the pure distillation of 85 years living with the trauma of poverty and forced migration.

I marvel at the clarity of thought and prudence with words exhibited by the aged; especially those increasingly rare individuals indelibly marked by their experiences in times of great crises.