Will Write For Food (Organic) Or Money.

What little money I once had seems to have dissolved with a speed that not even entropy could compete with. Now you may all be thinking that entropy is a slow and gradual process, but I would argue that this is true until you have reached the end. Then entropy feels is if it had taken no time at all to move towards an end (it is like how older people say “my life has passed so quick!”). I once had money, plenty of money- but now my bank account is a few dollars away from a negative balance and there is little relief in site. It all happened so quick.

I have never been a terribly ambitious man. I have lived my life with a certain contentment that has always worried my father and made me into a man with little accomplishments- if any. I have taken each day as a thing unto or into itself and worried little for another day which everyone has always told me will follow. I have kept to myself and cultivated my own rose garden but now in my 36th year of life it seems as if this rose garden is in jeopardy of complete destruction. I have not the money to afford the soil that I need to harvest my beautiful roses. Instead I have been using compost- and it is no longer seeming to do the trick.

Money has always been an issue in my life. My parents have always had lots of it and I have seemed to struggle with cents in comparison. I have been waiting for fame to strike like a desperate man who is watching a clock move at a speed, which seems to suggest that the clocks batteries are about to die. My financial woes have been comforted by a perpetual thought of impending fame, which so far has only been a gross delusion of my misguided mind. “Tomorrow,” my mind says- “you will write a novel or be discovered to play a role in a film that will abolish all of your financial burdens, so don’t worry about today- just drink a beer and relax.” It is as if my mind has made me believe that one morning I will wake up and wealth will be waiting for me upon my door step. All I have to do is sit back, relax and wait for it to appear.

Meanwhile my wife is in a state of perpetual frustration with me, my car is not working because of $1,500 dollars worth of work that needs to be done, the price of gas has gone up to $4.00 a gallon, the utilities bill is collecting spiderwebs, my rent check bounced, the minimum balance due on my credit card is $517.00 because of 17 late fees, the price of food is causing me to have to eat cheap processed food which is in turn affecting my health, my cat is eating a cheaper form of cat food which gives him bladder infections, I am depressed and underpaid at a job which I will not be able to keep because it is taking up to much of the time I need to be working at another job making a better income. I am finding it difficult to ask others for help (although I am going to write a letter to the President asking him if he can give me a job writing something for him) and I try to not think about my ailments by spending my time staring at a wall, drinking beer, watching pornography and reading books half way through and then putting them back upon the shelf.

I will write for food (preferably organic) or money. There is nothing that I will not write about nor do I care if my name is used. I will write and then you can use your name and I will not say a word to anyone about it. I have been practicing the craft of writing for years always knowing in the back of my mind that it is a trade that I could use if everything in my life went bad. Of course, at the time I thought that this would never happen because I was young, idealistic, stoned and certain of my greatness. Now I am older, pessimistic and swimming through my own personal recession, which seems to be slowly breaking down the structure of my life. These are desperate times, especially for a man such as myself who has little ambition to do anything and only wants to be able to say at the end of the day (with a copy of Mark Twain or Thoreau’s Walden in my hand) that I did the best I can to live my life as a free man. I am living in America in a time where truth seems to have been turned on its head and all citizens of this country are living inside an irony so great that it is swallowing everyone alive. So please remember- I will write for food or money. I can not spell very well but my hope is that you have enough money to not only afford me but also an editor.

I’m Searching For A Cure.

I have a new perspective I would like to share. It may change the world- and your life. It is a rather simple perspective and will take only a brief time to apply to your life. We can all learn how to build upon this perspective to create a better life for ourselves and our family (if we still have one). My perspective is rather unique. It is based upon years of struggle and unfulfilled potential. It has been cultivated like a fine wine through the several circular evolutions that have gotten me to where I am today. It is a perspective that is based upon not just love but also hate, not just right but also wrong, not just you but also me. It is a perspective that comes from my heart and I would like to share it with you.

What exactly this perspective is I am uncertain at the moment. I am patiently awaiting its arrival and the moment I receive it I shall let you know. It would be nice if this perspective was something that you could use to transform your own existence into that which you most desire. If you could use this perspective to free yourselves from poverty, pain, debt, illness and addiction than my expectations will be fulfilled. I know that this perspective can somehow change the world and save it from collapsing in upon itself- but I just need to find it. Time is of the essence. As a species we are struggling to survive and I feel the great burden of being able to come up with a solution sooner than later.

I spent the afternoon in the library searching stacks of books for this perspective. I found tidbits of wisdom such as “learn to identify a good feeling from a bad feeling,” or “we create our reality by feeling not thought.” I tried to incorporate these ideas into my own experience but all that happened was I became hungry and wanted a beer. I searched on the internet for various perspectives that could somehow provide the solution- but nothing appeared upon my screen that seemed to be adequate, other than Oprah’s recent interviews with Eckhart Tolle and a few things by Deepok Chopra. Today I will search no more because if a perspective is to take form in my mind- I feel like it will happen without the involvement of my own will.

It is terribly important to me that I offer you a perspective that will change your mind, give you hope, reunite you with your soul and start you off upon a path that will fill your life with meaning and purpose (this is ultimately the revolution that I would like to wage). I want for this perspective to do the same for me as well, but I am willing to sacrifice myself for other peoples enlightenment. As soon as this perspective come to me I will write a blog entry entitled, Perspective Found, but for the time being, while I wait I am going to go sit in the sun.

Stop Telling Me What To DO!

People are always telling me what to do. Do not do this, do not do that or it would be better if you did this or why not like that? It is getting tiring and I get it from all sides: wife, parents, sister, boss, government, police and in-laws. It seems as if I may be incapable of making decisions on my own without first being told what to do. In fact, I am so habituated to being told what to do that I believe that I have become fearful of thinking for myself, because I am afraid I may fuck up. After a lifetime of being told how and what to do I have reached a point in my adult life where I have no idea what to do anymore. Instead of doing something I have resigned myself to a life filled with doing very little- in the hopes that I can avoid having people tell me what to do. I have become what my mother feared would happen to me- a passive participant in the days of my life.

My father is infamous for his need to control. It is impossible for a person to go to the bathroom without my father telling them how this should be done. My father’s intentions are good but his words have hurt more people than a burning building. Growing up under his tyranny has caused what is a fatal blockage in my own decision making process. All of my life, and still to this very day- I am a grown man who is a little more than a reaction to being told what to do. If you ask me what we should have for dinner, I will reply- “I don’t know. You decide.”

Most lessons in life seem to be hard to learn. We have to err, to mess up, to fail in order to slowly understand how to get it right for ourselves. This is what I call the process of education (far more important than anything we learn in school). When we are always being told what to do (because someone wants to control our behavior) the process of education is stunted- blocked. What you get instead is an individual afraid to think for him/herself, to mess up on her/his own- to find his/her own way. This is what I call conformity, and these sorts of individuals become loyal corporate executives, lawyers, doctors, politicians, employees- you and I.

As a result of a lifetime of being told what to do I have become a stubborn non-conformist. I have fulfilled no ones expectations of me and am afraid of the idea of doing so. I have worked in offices, restaurants, mortuaries, shoe stores, record stores, schools- trying to hide from the shackles of a career and going through jobs quicker than the time it takes most people to eat lunch. I do not pay parking tickets, I do not respond to creditors, I do not listen to the police, I do not pay my taxes (especially when the money is being used to fight a war) nor do I do anything else that I am told to do. Instead I do nothing. I eat, sleep, write, paint, go to work at a job that I am soon to quit (because they will not stop telling me what to do). Even though my wife, father, sister, mother and society all still try to tell me what to do- I have learned how to shake my head, smile, say “okay” and then proceed to do nothing at all.

Dinner With My Wife.

I had a miserable dinner with my wife tonight. We fight like addicts, unable to relate in any other way. Night after night another argument occurs as randomly as changing weather. An inability to relate keeps us separate and keeps my heart sore. Tonight I expressed some feelings that I have about my job. I expressed apprehension about working as an English Teacher because of the low pay, my inability to spell, my inability to grasp the rules of grammar and my disdain for Shakespeare and The Great Gatsby (which I have to teach). I told her that I felt like what I had to do to work as a Teacher was standardize my mind and teach things that the state mandates that I teach despite the fact that I find it all terribly uninteresting and irrelevant to life. Lately I have been experiencing a lot of doubt about my work as a High School Teacher. Is this what I really want to do with my life? Long hours, little pay and not much glamor or reward? I expressed these sentiments and more- and the reaction I recieved from my wife pissed me off.

Love is based upon the ability to connect. If there is only a remainder of love than connection will be difficult. One firm symptom of a fading relationship is the inability to connect- which means dissolving love. The moment my wife started to fire back at me I felt my blood pressure raise. My heart skipped beats and I drank more wine. I became angrier by the minute. “We all have to do things that we do not agree with in our work…this is a realistic part of the society which we live in,” she began. “You just need to commit to something and stick with it. I believe in you and I think you have great potential as a Teacher, but your excuses and apprehension piss me off.” Her voice went up, “I know that you want to be a Writer and make a living that way but you have not done it and frankly that is not the way the world works. You are a great great Writer Randall, but you need to really start thinking about how you are going to make a living. If you are going to write novels, great- but you have not yet, and you are almost 37 years old. You need to get it together and figure out what you are going to do. If you do not want to teach than you need to come up with a game plan really quickly!” “But Kurt Vonnegut worked as a car salesman all through his forties,” I replied. “You are not Kurt Vonnegut.”

My blood began to boil. I began mumbling “bitch” under my breath. I could feel my heart rapidly beating and then the words came rushing out of my lungs. “Your attitude is not helping my confusion,” I began- “I am just trying to talk to you about how I feel. This is not about you and how you feel. I feel like I always need to keep the truth of my feelings repressed because if I open up to you and talk to you about what I am really feeling you get angry or mean. You can not handle the truth and it pisses me off!!” My wife began to roll a cigarette, “I am just so tired of your lack of clarity, your inability to stick with something and make something of your life!!” “Bitch,” snuck out of my mouth. I was feeling unheard and unappreciated (I wanted to mention the years and years that I have spent writing short stories and making paintings. I wanted to tell her that my stories and paintings will be appreciated by the masses long after I am dead. I wanted to remind her of the legend that she was sitting across from, but I slandered her instead). I do not often call people names but I could not help expressing the sentiment. “What did you call me, why don’t you call me that to my face,” she said as I excused myself from the dinner table. I came into my studio and tried to get control of my rage.

For the past twenty years I have been trying to figure out what to do with my life. I have written many short stories, thought a lot about writing plays and novels and painted many paintings but every other pursuit in my life has failed to keep my interest. I have worked as a Waiter, Shoe Salesman, Mortician, Ticket Salesperson, Teacher, Tutor, Pizza Maker, Dog Walker and Administrative Assistant. I am as dis-interested in a career as my cat is in hanging out with dogs. I am a man alone on an island fighting his own cause, waiting for great things to happen while swimming through the sea of society with barley enough money to make it through the day. If only I could figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up, then maybe my wife and I would get along and my heart would stop hurting so much.

Shakespeare and I.

At times I catch myself wondering- could I be cleverer than Shakespeare? After all, there may exist valid proof of this. Shakespeare stole the majority of his plots from Greek and Roman playwrights. Rarely did he come up with a plot of his own. He would read plays in Italian, Greek or Latin and then adapt them in his native language- English. The audience was to distracted to ever notice the fraud that was taking place within their manipulated minds. I, on the other hand, have never stolen a story. I create my own plots based upon the tribulations and struggles I experience on a day to day basis. Not once have I adopted any of my stories (well maybe once) from translations, films, plays or any other media source. The stories are natural emanations from mine own mind, created at the source. Sometime I wonder?

Shakespeare owned only 10% of the Globe Theater (the theater where most of his plays were performed). The Burbage brothers built the theater without any hard labor taking place on the part of Mr Shakespeare (more commonly known as The Bard Of Avon). I, on the other hand, created this blog with the hard labor of mine own mind and hands. For hours my back ached and eyes strained as I set out to create a blog that would reshape the way minds think about the world and souls in which they live. I am also 100% owner of this blog, sharing the concept or content with none other than me self! During a performance of Henry the 8th, the Globe Theater accidentally burnt down (fools). The theater was completely demolished. This blog, my blog- is still standing after many months in operation- continually open for the readers theatrical entertainment. Some times I wonder?

However, I can not be so pretentious as to deny the similarities between Shakespeare and I. Shakespeare studied Latin and Greek in grade school as did I. Shakespeare, as a youth, disdained all authority, as did I. After Shakespeare left school, history looses track of him for many years. Historians and Biographers refer to these years as Shakespeare’s Lost Years. I to vanished when I finished college. I disappeared into a debaucherous haze of marijuana smoke and booze. I cut off communication with all whom I knew and was not to be seen again until my early thirties when I reappeared- overweight and working in a shoe store. Some times I wonder?

Eventually Puritans shut down all the theatres in England and thus began the Reformation. Shakespeare was silenced for a time and forced to seek out other venues for his expressions. Strangely enough, I live in a time where Religious Fanatics threaten not only the human right of freedom of expression- but the world in which we all live. I created this blog as an attempt to seek out other venues for my expressions and to re-direct the tide away from the global catastrophe that the Religious Fanatics seem to want to create. In Shakespeare’s middle years he wrote with a fanatical obsession producing a play a month. In my middle years I to have contracted this obsession and write a blog entry almost every day! As similar in many ways that Shakespeare and I are, sometimes I wonder- could I be cleverer than Shakespeare?

Eletromagnetic Freak, Part 2.

     My mind is always creating assumptions, but are they true? I am perpetually surrounded and perturbed by a sea of electromagnetic radiation and I feel the effects of it upon my body, mind and spirit. These micro-waves are difficult to avoid when  one is surrounded by creations and emanations of a modern technological society. I do what I can to reduce the exposure to radiation, but my attempts are mostly futile. Day by day the physical symptoms that I experience mutate into a more advanced form and the more I talk about my physical symptoms being the result of  electromagnetic radiation, the more I wonder- is this assumption true?

If I discuss this subject with ordinary people they have a tendency to think I am either loosing my mind or suffering from a form of hypochondria. These judgments and accusations have caused me to questions my own inner truth. Often times I am told to “sit with my discomfort and be willing to be uncomfortable.” “All my life I have tried to avoid discomfort,” my mother said when I complained to her about my illness, “now you have an opportunity to be fully present and comfortable with your discomfort.” It is hard for me to understand how I can be present and comfortable with the zapping sensations that cause me palpitations, tremors, dizziness and nausea. When I am infected by these sensations I become fearful and worried. “Now you can learn to work with your fear,” my mother always responds. She has been taking a mindfulness meditation course once a week and I fear that her spiritual concepts and Buddhist rhetoric may be removing her from the reality in which I am stuck. I have decided to stop consulting with my mother for the time being.

I have also decided that I am suffering from a modern day ailment called EMRSD (Electromagnetic Radiation Sensitivity Disorder). This diagnoses is yet to exist in any medical reference books but I guarantee you that it will some day soon. People like myself are Pioneers, we are on the cutting edge of a whole new era in disease and syndromes. Symptoms and various forms of discomfort and disease that are a result of the growing use of wireless technology- are in the not to distant future going to be one of the main causes for seeking medical attention. We are currently lab rats, subjects in the laboratory which is our world. Subjects (or victims), like myself (and many others who have contacted me) are some of the first pioneers to experience the disturbing side effect of electromagnetic radiation (side effects include- zapping sensations in the brain, dizziness, nausea, palpitation and tachycardia upon falling asleep which causes one to be shocked awake, difficulty getting to sleep, vivid nightmares, hair loss and prolonged erections in men- just to name a few).

This morning while I was sitting in meditation I experienced the unpleasant zapping sensation and rapid heart beat. I cleared my studio of any devices that may be emitting electromagnetic radiation. I removed my cellular phone, laptop, digital clock, radio and cat. I sat in the lotus position and slowly fell off into a feeling of deep relaxation. Right as I reached a point of calm (a state which Buddhists call Samsara) I was zapped (shocked) back into my body with the feeling of a rapid heartbeat causing my mind to grow anxious. After I calmed myself down I tried again to continue my mediation but was again zapped back into reality. In an impulsive act of frustration I threw my meditation cushion out the window and screamed out “what the hell is going on!!!” This unpleasant zapping sensation while in meditation, has been happening to me through out the week. It is a newer symptom of the illness that I am convinced I am suffering from- EMRSD.

Sleeping with my windows open has brought me some relief at night but last evening the unexpected happened. I was awoken by what sounded like a sniffling beast smelling my feet. I was too afraid to open my eyes and lay there like a corpse trying to figure out what the cold and wet sensation was that repeatedly kept touching my bare feet. I new it was not my cat or wife, both of whom were asleep beside me. When I garnered up enough courage to open my eyes and see what it was, my reaction was a surprise to not only myself. I let out a terrible scream and jumped five feet into the air, causing my cat to fly off the bed in a panic and my wife to sit up screaming, “what!! what is it”. My body went into fight or flight mode and I ran for my life into the bathroom where I locked the door. My wife came running after me in a state of shock and concern pounding on the bathroom door telling me that “it is gone!!! it is gone!!! it ran out the window!!!” A raccoon had come in through the window I had left open and decided to scare the shit out of me, my wife and cat. Electromagnetic Radiation Sensitivity Disorder is making me feel “edgy” in more ways than one.

This incident does not diminish the fact that there has been some improvement in my condition. Sleeping with an open window has been helpful. My perpetual erection has gone down and I am currently not suffering from vivid dreams or rapid heartbeats before drifting off to sleep (knock on wood). Electromagnetic Radiation Sensitivity Disorder is a real ailment- one that I am sure thousands of people suffer from. I want to believe that my assumptions about my symptoms and their cause are true, but currently I am living in a world where profit and technological advancement seem to be more important than the health and well being of individuals. If we (consumers) found out that the technology we are dependent upon is slowly killing us or causing us various forms of dis-ease, then these large corporations would go broke or have to find healthier ways of creating products. Unfortunately, it will take decades before this is the case. By then it may be to late for many who suffer from EMRSD and diseases caused by the technology we all use. So it makes sense that information is being pushed under the carpet, supressed and then manipulated so that people such as myself who experience the negative effects of modern technology are caused to question their own assumptions and feel like sickly freaks. It is the nature of the business, a sign of the times.

The Bullshit Guru

I will tell you a story until you believe it is true. At a certain point there will be doubt and apprehension but as you continue to listen to my words your ability to resist my bullshit will be undone. I do not know if it was a gift that I was born with or a skill that I have cultivated over many years of lying. True I come from a long lineage of bullshit guru’s but I believe my abilities surpass any genetic predisposition. I have made bullshit into such an art form that the world has become my ashram and all the little people in it my devoted disciples.

If magic could be explained, would it be magic? I do not know why my bullshit is believed by all. The stories that I tell are organically ejected out of a mind with little consideration of principle or limitation. I speak my mind and usually it is a cleverly interpreted lie. How I got this way I do not know. Sometimes I believe it stems from a deep seeded love for the fictitious and all things literary. At other times I feel as if my bullshit is nothing more than a symptom of boredom. Nonetheless my intentions are good, but what they are I am not quite sure.

If you leave me alone in a room for ten minutes with a group of a dozen strangers chances are I will have them thinking about things they had never considered. We would speak about the nature of self, the way to find inner happiness and the practice of truth. I would talk to them like a man who knows the answers and has traveled the path. I have counseled many wayward souls and steered them back upon a course that I know not how to direct. I speak about things that I can not practice. Sure there is nothing unnatural about this- but I speak like one who knows. Because of my fictitious fallacies I have followers from all around the globe who come to me with questions ranging from the simple to the profound. I council Bloggers on ways to cultivate concentration or imagination so the quality of their being will grow complete. The irony is I know not what I speak off- I simply speak and out comes the freak.

The other day one of my sweet devotes deemed me the bullshit guru. She told me that I was full of it- when she caught me in a tale that she knew to be untrue. She knew that I had yet to attain the level of enlightenment that I was speaking about since just the other day she had to lend me a xanax because of an anxiety attack that rendered me helpless. “Even though it is bullshit,” she said “I still like your stories. So I will continue to speak, to council and to blog until my bullshit has grown so constipated that nothing no longer is willing to come out. Feel free to seek me out for words of wisdom in your time of need.

Namaste.

Living In A Police State?

Lately I am feeling surrounded by the police. Every place I go there they appear. Like looming premonitions or predictions, they hang around awaiting the citizen who falls out of line. Some of these officers wave at me with a cynical smile as I pass by them wide eyed and with one hand on my internal eject button. There are other officers who stare at me or point with a look upon their face that seems to say, “just one false move, and your ass is mine.” The older I get the more I notice these strange exchanges between myself and officers of the law. Even though these exchanges may not be taking place in reality but rather are projections of my paranoid mind, I can not help but wonder- am I living in a police state?

As I was walking my invisible dog through downtown Oakland the other day I noticed a sign that was hanging over the entrance to the police station. It read “Join The Police Force, Officer’s Starting Pay, $67,000 a year.” This recognition stopped me dead in my tracks and caused me to stand still in a state of muted anxiety for over ten minutes. My invisible dog was restless to walk on but my feet refused to move. “They pay these men in blue studded uniforms with weapons of mass destruction hanging around their waist and brains filled with citations, violations and obstructions close to $67,000 a year while a high school Teacher who teaches restless and abused souls how to find the way to personal liberation through education is paid a starting salary of $35,000 a year????” I was perplexed. A good amount of my life I have dedicated to education and my bank account is empty as proof of this. The contradiction in what I call society was staring me straight in the face- I live in a country that values imprisoning minds more so than educating them.

I often refer to police officers as disturbers of the peace. Some people laugh and agree when they hear this while others take offense (because they still believe that an officers purpose is to protect and serve). My perspective is shaped by the fact that I am yet to have an interaction with a police officer that has left me feeling protected or served. Rather I am left feeling a form of personal violation and nervous system over-excitation. Usually I am either handcuffed, given citations that I could never afford or questioned about driving drunk (which I never do), kidnapping(also something I have not done) or suspected of being a possible pervert (something I am guilty of). Ever since high school when I was first arrested for driving without a license (simply because I was yet to reach my twelfth birthday) my relationship with the police has been built upon a bedrock of suspicion, the end of which seems to always turn in their favor.

Maybe it is representational of my neurosis, but I swear that I am living in a police state. I ask others if they believe this to be true and the typical response is “yeah sure,” as if we have all been entrained as citizens to think a constant police presence is normal. Now when I head out into the video taped world I feel as if my breathing is restricted and my chest constricted by the freedom that seems to be slowly dissipating with each passing day. Police officers seem to be duplicating themselves faster than any stem cell could conceive (nature or science can not compete with $67,000 a year). A perpetuation of the species of police (police officers are indeed a separate species of humanoid) seems to suggest that America is under siege. However, it is my belief that the threat is not external as seems to be the popular belief but rather the threat is individual freedom or what is more commonly known as Democracy. The more police on the street, the less Democracy you have to enjoy….and this is the way those in power need it to be.

Maybe I am neurotic and reading into this police boom to heavily. Yes, I believe that Fascism has entered the American arena but I try not to think about it much. Sure if I detract my attention from the police presence I may think about this situation less. I will not be as disturbed by these disruptions of my peace, because I will simply accept the situation as “the way it is.”. But it is difficult to do so when these very police officers taunt me with their loud sirens, scream out my name as I am riding my bike or point at me and make strange faces as I am walking my invisible dog (which ironically I have named Democracy). The police presence is like lice in my hair which creates a perpetual itch. How is one to leave a burning scalp alone? Possibly in time the mist will settle and more controlled citizens will realize the abduction of their freedom that seems to be the case. Maybe some will revolt by painting peace signs on police cars or by sticking Kafka novels in police mufflers. Others may take to writing blogs and standing in front of police stations with protest signs. Who knows when this non-violent revolution will arise. In the mean time I will continue to ask one simple question to my invisible dog- Democracy, “say, are we living in a police state?”

No More Awards….please!

This blog has been nominated for and given numerous awards. Every other day seems to bring a new nomination or award. I am the only Blogger that has been nominated for so many awards but yet maintains the least amount of interested readers and an all-time low number of comments. Some of the nominations have been for terrible writing style or offensive content but most of the awards I have received have been for worst blog. I am constantly asked by other Bloggers why I write the things I write, what purpose does it serve? I am inept of answers other than the simple response “because it is fun.” But all this fun is bringing me down as the awards keep pouring in. Just this morning I found out that I was nominated for two more awards, all of which have done nothing for my self-esteem. Please, no more awards.

Who would of ever thought that expressing the deep penetralias of my imagination would provoke an onrush of so many awards. I began this blog in the same way that someone would begin therapy. I recognized that I was in need of help and thought that I could either attempt to put my life down in words spoken through the vernacular of stories, or I could continue to suffer in my own private cerebral membrane. I new that I needed to come out of my shell and had remembered the therapeutic effects of writing that a short story teacher I once took a class from- often talked about (even though he had fallen into the rut of alcoholism and animal fetish). I took to blogging like a infant takes to a mothers breast. Stories of perversion and psychosomatic breakdown came poring out of me like lava from the mouth of a crater. Now I am hardly able to control the flow. Bloging has become for me like any other excretory process- I have to do it and if not my health will fail.

So here I am again clearing my body and brain of various thoughts and condemnations I have been feeling this morning. Receiving all the awards that I have has been surprising since I set out not for accolades. The other day I received an award for Least Commented Upon Blog. I never knew that such awards existed but once I received the award for Most Degenerate Content (the award was given because the judges felt that my blog lacked any moral integrity), I realized that any kind of award is possible. There are people in the blogging world with nothing to do but give out ridiculous awards to Bloggers like my self who have nothing to gain from these awards but a lowered sense of confidence to continue writing (and a feeling of isolation because I can not share these awards with my mother, father, sister or wife because it is to embarrassing). To all such award creators who seem to lack a life of meaning- please, NO MORE AWARDS!!

My last entry, The Great Leg Trap, just received two awards, this morning!! I awoke and found in my email the awards which come in the form of a brief letter explaining why I have been chosen and a widget that is offered to me so I can post my victory upon my blog. I have no desire to show off my accolades (like a general does upon his sleeve or a business man does with the quality of his tie). I rather write humbly without any disturbing widgets mentioning that I have won awards for things like “Offensive and Godless Content,” “False Tagger,” “Blogger Most In Need Of Psychological Treatment,” “Defiantly, Worst Blog,” and this morning “Most Ridiculous Entry,” and “Most Failed Attempt To Be Funny Entry.” There is no economic compensation for these awards other than the recognition that comes from humiliation.

So please, I would like to ask all of you who create these absurd award contests for Bloggers like myself to be victimized by…NO MORE AWARDS. It is really starting to affect my self esteem and I am questioning the things I write more and more. I am wondering if there is any point to continue on writing since the majority of my efforts are derided by your ridiculous awards. I have noticed that each time I receive an award I become more depressed and unwilling to write. The corner stone of good writing is in the authors ability to be absolutely honest in whatever he or she writes, and my ability to do so is being compromised by an insecurity that is beginning to form. Each entry that I write I have trepidation about publishing because I am afraid to see what kind of award it will receive. I have even started to delete certain blog entries because I feel they are certain to receive an award that will only increase my despair. Life is hard enough. This blog is only an exercise in cultivating mental health for myself, nothing else!! I do not want your recognition and I certainly do not need these ridiculous widgets!!. So please, I beg you from the bottom of my heart….NO MORE AWARDS!!!!

A Writing Disorder.

I once wanted to be a Writer. I thought about writing every minute of every day. I exhausted my thoughts with words and dreamed of epic stories that I would one day tell. In my sleep I could smell stories and while awake I carried a pen with me every place I went. I purchased empty notebooks which stacked up on my bookshelves. I read all the classics, fell in love with the beats and drove myself crazy trying to live like a bohemian. I dressed as I thought a writer should dress and shaped my words with the pretension of a man with something to say. I had epic vision of numerous novels that I would one day write. I drank in bars and argued about Joyce’s prose style and the validity of Borges. After the sun set I rummaged my way through book stores and strip clubs searching for inspiration. I smoked cigarettes and talked with a drawl while watching ordinary mortals waste their lives away at day jobs. I never wrote a single word.

Now in my middle years I could give two shits about being a writer. I drink less than I did years ago and am never awake to see the sun rise. Meditation is my daily practice and I seldom set foot in a bookstore or strip club. The prose style of Joyce is as uninteresting to me as the sex life of a squirell and I have a tendency to wear the same jeans and t-shirt for a few days in a row with no concern for how I look. Smoking is a habit I no longer abide by and hanging out in bars is as exciting to me as playing golf. I read some fiction but most of my time is spent thinking about anything but books. I am completely unconcerned with the act of writing or becoming a writer- yet I am unable to stop writing. I write almost every day and there is no sign of a word or story shortage in sight. Strange how things resolve themselves with time?

Confessions Of A Red Wine Drinker.

 I want to write to you about things more personal than your own thoughts. My deepest fear swallowed by confessions that would make even the most honest man feel deceptive. I want to speak to you of the things I see while sitting still and fearing for my life. What you will think is of no concern to me since I have nothing to loose. When a person understands the inevitability of their mortality- artifice is of no concern. What matters most are those things left unsaid, and it is my intention to say it all even though it may be in the form of metaphor or fiction. There is no greater satisfaction that I feel than in the wide open spaces of coming clean. Whether it be stories about lust or confessions of grief and self-deprecation, the purpose of these words is to paint a picture of my soul struggles to see.

I could tell you about the setting sun, the streets of San Fransisco that are filled with frenetic energy and the sounds of a coming spring. I could describe the faces of passengers on passing cable cars as I sit here in this small wine bar drinking red wine and observing this strange reality before me. I could tell you how somnolent or natural it all seems even though I am slightly drunk and filled with fear because my heart beat refuses to slow. External observations could occupy my entire life but the intensity of my inner sensitivities and proclivities has drawn me inwards like a fish stuck to a sharp hook. There is no where else for me to go. I suffocate when I try to run from my lies and am disabled by my greed when I try only to think of my life in terms of material achievement. Sure the sky is ablaze with an orange hue given off by the setting sun and the sound of a saxophone sings out all its jazz in the cafe basement- but what does any of this got to do with with what really sets my soul afire?

There is noise- always noise. Possibly my heart has been weakened by all this noise but I seek to strenghten my heart by coming clean about all I think and feel. Even though I am short of breath- my eyes follow the breasts and butts of babes when my mind shouts words of condemnation towards the man I have become. The words are heavy and hit hard but then I remember that I am also filled with a love that no force could undermine. I accept these words echoed by my mind as a passing fancy in time and realize there is so much more to this life than meets the mind. Noise is every where, but if one is listening with an open mind all the sudden noise becomes a multi-layered ballad of sound.

These may be the ramblings of a drunken man who has survived the tempestual struggles of yet another anxiety attack. I saw my end as clear as the face that appears in the mirror, but somehow I am still here being stared at by many in this cafe who are puzzled by my frenetic fingers typing away like a man in love with words. They watch me and listen thinking that maybe I have something important to say but then go back to the work that so preoccupies their passing hours on this earth. Maybe I am mad, but my struggle to come to terms with my own end has brought me closer to a truth I could never re-arrange. With death always looming over my shoulder the colors of life seems to stand out so brightly that I am blinded by their beauty. I want it all- the women, the love the wine, the fear, the sky and the air!! While I am here I want to say yes!! to everything that comes my way despite the fear that at times forces me to say no and stay stuck in my room. It is always and forever that I am learning to set free. Once death teaches us that there is nothing to posses we are left to roam freely without any desire to get to the next place.

The sun has set and I am only beginning my confession. If the light was warmer I may be inclined to stay and write but I am feeling to preoccupied by these endless words. This poem could go on for years and years but then I will miss the setting sun. I would miss spending time with my fears and getting lost in my thoughts which tend to think about things that never seem to be. I will order yet another glass of wine and watch the sun fully rest into the sea until the city becomes dark and I am left to loiter in my mind which is an endless narrative about nothing at all.

The Man Who Loved Stealing.

I love stealing. It almost surpasses my love for food. For a time, while recovering from my theft addiction I would have to keep my hands pasted into my pant or jacket pockets. The urge would overcome me like a desire for sex- and for the longest time there was little I could do to stop the crime. You see, I am a man who was born with strong urges. When I was a child my urges caused me to stay stuck in fits of crying because all I wanted to do was run when I could only crawl. As I grew into a young adult my strong urges forced me into a negative consequence lifestyle filled with plenty of furious nights and sore knuckles. My urges caused me to contemplate murder, suicide and a life filled with plots of revenge. But as I became a young adult I learned how to delineate between urges that worked for me and those that did not. Stealing, lying and sex where all urges that I felt I was best suited to exercise. I was good at these things and since I was helpless against the power of my urges why not make these urges work for me? And thus began my apprenticeship in a life of theft.

I started as a petty thief. Tapes, records, stickers, hair gel, candy bars- items that were simple enough to stick under my pocket. I realized that I had an innate talent for stealing when years passed without getting caught. In college I started a concession stand in my dorm room made up of all stolen items. I was infamous as the man with the connection. I had more money than I had ever had and women were throwing themselves at me for free tampons and a college time supply of make-up. Then I was caught while stealing sunglasses and CD’s from Payless Market. The security guard who apprehended me at the door startled me so much that I punched him in the eye and caused him to fall backwards into a flower stand. I was wrestled to the ground by two other security guards who swore that they would kill me if we were not in public. Only a night was spent in a cell which was less painful than the wrath of my parents who picked me up the following day. I returned to my college with empty pockets and a reputation as a thief- but beauty of youth is its forgiving quality. As soon as the student body learned about my thieving ways- I was receiving advanced request for various items that they wanted me to steal. In no time I was back in business.

After college I stole my way into various jobs by lying about my qualifications and continued to attract women by the dangerous lifestyle that I was living. I found that women were attracted by my stealing ways, lured by the fantasy of a thief dressed like a knight. I took a job working as a youth counselor for inner city kids who had grown up in poverty. When we would venture out on various field trips together I remember teaching them how to steal from stores and they showed me how to steal cars, motorcycles, and unlock a front door without a house key. We served as each others accomplices and mentors and engaged in some crimes that would make even the most hardened moralist fall to their feet with laughter.

But as I turned thirty the laughter turned into something else. I was starting to develop certain health complications due to a mind state that was continually depressed. I was stealing from various stores pathologically- but the irony was that what I had once loved so much had turned into an act that filled me with shame. There was a voice deep within me that kept begging me to cease my stealing ways, to resist the urge because I was growing into a man who was not only breaking the law on a daily basis but compromising his own self esteem for the sake of a commodity. I was loosing faith in myself. Because I was able to steal most things that ordinary people would have to work to purchase, I did not have to work much nor did I have to think about working. My life became a still life portrait of a man in a long black coat with little aspirations and a dying hope.

I was the best thief in town. No matter what I stole- getting caught was impossible. I could walk out of a department store with clothes still on a hanger and a new jacket on and never be suspected. I had learned over time how to turn stealing into a magic trick which the audience never figured out. I stole large plants from garden stores, a leather chair from a furniture store and the lab top I am writing upon from a major distributor. For the longest time I rationalized my crimes by telling myself that these stores and distributors where ripping off the public by tripling the cost that they paid for the product. If you bought the product honestly from them, well they were ripping you off. But if you stole the product from them than you could rip them off. It only seemed fair that in a dog eats dog world that the best man win. For the longest time I prevailed with this rational but then this unexpected scepter crawled into my soul. The ghosts of guilt and shame began to haunt me with a vengeance. The more I stole the guiltier I felt. I was having chest pains and headaches whenever I would go into a store to steal. Then I started to develop panic attacks. I still refused to accept that these physical symptoms were the result of my life as a thief. Habits die hard. How could I give up doing something that I was so good at…..I had found that one thing that I could do better than everyone else, and now I was supposed to believe that I had to give it up?

It took years of struggle and pain to get to a point to that I could acknowledge that stealing was the source of my pain. Prior to getting married I promised my wife that I would retire from a life of shop-lifting and work towards buying the things I wanted to own. I retired my long black coat to a dumpster behind our house and settled in for a long winter of discontent. I salivated and shook when I was in markets. The urge to steal was stronger than my bodies ability to handle. At times I would turn pale from lack of blood flow and tell my wife that I would wait for her in the car (I promised my wife that I would not go into a market or department store without her for the first six months of my withdraw). Then I stopped going out all together and became a recluse who refused to partake in the ways of the world. It has been a few years since I have stolen a single item. I leave my home with a more comfortable feeling that I will resist the urge to steal something when I really feel like I want it. I have started practicing Buddhism which has removed my attachment to things and made me happier with less. I see that everything is impermanent, so why suffer over wanting things that will turn into trash or dust and rust? Why not just live in the tranquility of the now, content with all I have- and wrestle my urges to the ground when they arise with the loving embrace of a man who refuses to steal.

The Liar.

I am a 37 year old prolific liar. Not quite compulsive but certainly prolific. If you ask me something about myself chances are that I will embellish the truth to make myself feel more comfortable. I lie about almost anything pertaining to myself and I am constantly thinking about how to avoid telling the truth about who I really am. I am a disappointment to myself and the lie offers me liberation. This is an epidemic that started as soon as I came out from the womb because I descended from a long lineage of liars. My great grandfathers, grandfathers, father and mother- all liars. I am not trying to make any excuses for my behavior but what I will say is that from a very young age I learned an easy way to cover up feelings of inadequacy. I watched my parents do it all the time and now as a man I have a tendency to repeat these same behaviors- a bit to often.

In high school I read Oscar Wilde who wrote something that came to define my life as a liar. “The liar is one who makes life a little bit more interesting for all of those living within the banality of truth.” I saw how this worked when someone asked me about myself and I said I played professional tennis or I was studying at Princeton rather than the truth which was- I was spending my days smoking weed, attending a junior college, living in fear of death and suffering from a dark depression and a sexual addiction. The lie certainly provided me with a brief moment in time where I felt important, accomplished, liberated from my suffering- less inadequate. Being a liar is trade off, you give yourself up for the lie. What you are left with is a feeling of inadequacy that has grown far beyond what you began with.

I lie about myself at every available opportunity. I would tell people that I was short if it was not so obvious that I was tall. I would tell people that I was David Bowie or Samuel Beckett if it was not so obvious that I am not. I lie when I look into the mirror and I lie when I fall asleep at night. Lying has become a habitual way of thinking, from which I am unable to break free. When my mother, father, sister and I get together for dinner I feel like I am at a convention of liars- all of us weaving this tale about ourselves which deep down evades the truth. We keep one another functional in our rolls as liars because we believe what one another says. At least we pretend to. We enable one another to lie because we would be horrified with who that person really was if the truth got out.

I returned home from a job interview today in which I must of told over twenty lies. I told a panel of people interviewing me that I had attended Stanford, taught at the college level, published many novels, achieved a Ph.D in Physics and attended medical school. I felt special, accomplished and a lot more interesting than what the truth would have revealed. My wife was in the kitchen making a salad and I instantly said to her, “I am a prolific liar.” She said “I know, but what makes you feel this way.” I told her what I had done at the interview and the various lies I had told through out the year. “You told them that!” she kept saying in response to my confession. I quoted Oscar Wilde several times but she could care less about him. What she cared about was my reputation which she felt was in great jeopardy; “You have become the town liar,” she said with a giggle. She also cared about how I thought about myself and when she asked me how it makes me feel when I lie I said, “like a looser and a failure.” “Yes,” she replied,”and you end up living in fear that people will find out the truth.”

It was true. I have lived the great majority of my life in a state of fear and worry. I had never understood the root cause of this constant feeling of impending doom until today. The fear of being discovered and humiliated by my peers- hangs around my head like a halo. I have become a terrified man, a convict on the run living in a state of morbid anxiety. So, what am I to do? This is a question that I am incapable of answering because I am uncertain if it will be the truth. I am not even certain that I know what truth is. I have tasted it for brief moments- but the taste quickly turns stale. My life is like a knot all wound up in little lies. No one knows who I am but everyone thinks I am someone else other than who I am (but who am I?). There is a false perception that clouds the mind whenever you will think of me. I am a story, a fiction….a novel wrapped up in flesh and bones.

Absurdistry Reconsidered.

LET THE IMMORALITY PLAY ROAR ONWARDS!! BASED UPON THE QUALITY OF A FEW OF THE COMMENTS THAT I HAVE RECEIVED, MY ARM HAS BEEN TWISTED AND I HAVE DECIDED TO REMAIN ON THE AIR PERPETUATING DEGENERATE AND PERVERTED TALES OF SEXUAL DYSFUNCTION/ADVENTURE AND ANIMATED PERSPECTIVES ON TIME AND SPACE WHICH SEEKS TO SLOW DOWN THE RAMBLING VOICE IN MY HEAD. I KNOW MANY MAY HAVE BEEN HAPPY TO SEE THE IMMORALIST GO AWAY BUT ONWARDS I GO, ONE FOOTSTEP AT A TIME….WITHOUT A CONCERN ABOUT WHERE I AM HEADING. THANK YOU TO THOSE FEW, WHO RE-KINDLED THE LIGHT IN AN ALMOST DARK ROOM.

Growing Pains

      The string that holds my soul to my body aches. The joints in my feet are constantly perturbing my mood. My spirit is inside out and there is an ominous worry that makes its way into my mind. My Doctor, who is also my mother and financial guardian- tells me that these are only growing pains. She is a Jungian Psychoanalyst, and she tells me that she sees many cases such as this from men and women in their mid-thirties. They are people who have a tendency to long for more than they have and feel much more accomplished than their reality might demonstrate, my mother tells me. They are individuals who are dreamers, and so far their dreams have not come to fruition so they must start to think of other ways to support themselves, she also told me. So far this sounded like me.

My growing pains began when I realized I may have to go back to school. I have always considered myself an artist but this imagination has not turned a profit. I have earned less than a $1,000 from my art and am now faced with a mid-life crisis. What am I going to do now? I am signed up and ready to attend a graduate program which will miraculously turn me into a psychotherapist. But it hurts. My eyes are heavy and my arms feel longer than normal. I have been stricken with constant headaches and a chronic cough will not leave me alone. I have never imagined myself a professional, let alone a Therapist- but there needs to be money in the bank and I am weary of my art being able to provide for my future family.

Madness is a disease that will keep your families stomach full and a warm roof over your head, the admissions counselor to the Psychology program told me. There is no shortage of psychological ailments to treat, you will be a rich man in no time. I can see it in your eyes, he said as we shook hands and I left his office. I returned home with palpitations and a pain in my side. What could he see in my eyes, I kept thinking. I was angry and decided to sit down and write this entry with the hopes that it might make some sense to a stranger out there who can relate to my pain. I am overcome by the world and the way I had imagined myself in it (writer, artist) seems to be changing into something else. It hurts.

I took a shower this morning and felt a painful knot in my stomach. I have been burping a lot lately which makes me think that I may be suffering from an ulcer. My worst fear other than death, is being ordinary. I have done every thing that I can to avoid the trappings of the ordinary. Now that I may be becoming a Therapist and a family man the trappings of ordinarinesses are seeming closer. I feel anxious and have to remind myself to stay present. I am currently enrolled in a stress reduction mindfulness course that is helping me to just this. Stay with the breath, when the mind starts chattering away, just bring your attention back to the inhalation and exhalation.

This morning I went for psychoanalysis with my mom. She has a nice leather couch that I lay down upon and the smell of redwood trees fills her small office in the Berkeley hills. I talked about my deepest fears- one being my inability to make money doing something that I love. I talked about how unhappy the prospect that I may never be successful at my chosen craft makes me. I shivered and felt my heart beating from my stomach. My mother told me that Apocalypse means to reveal what is hidden. It is a kind of renewal. She made me aware of the personal Apocalypse that I was going through and how the growing pains that I was feeling were symptoms of this Apocalypse. Be patient, allow the renewal to take place and stop judging, she said. Humans are supposed to be joyful.

I returned home this afternoon with a perpetual burp. The string that holds my soul to my body still aches. Today I will sit in meditation for a few hours and try not to worry about rent, what I am going to do for money, or my health. I will just sit still and inhale and exhale. This is it. All of my attention will go into being present in the moment. This usually relieves the headaches, palpitations, chest pain, back ache, ulcer, and feet aches. I have no idea how long these growing pains are going to last but I am getting close to forty and it is my hope that they are resolved by then.

Fascist Families.

The family unit as a form of Fascism. Someone said this to me yesterday, and I have been thinking about it ever since. I have spent an hour this morning standing on my head and twenty minutes jumping up and down on one foot. During that time my mother has called me twice, “why do you not return my phone call?” My sister has called me wondering when I am going to come and visit and my Father has called me three times in the past two days. He wants me to figure out what I am doing with my life. He has also been trying to get me to quit the writing business and go into real estate. All of these encroaches upon my 36 year old personal psychic space are like thick thorns in my side. They are forms of tyranny that prevent me from developing in ways that are necessary for my health. They keep me standing on my head so that I do not see the world straight.

Is not Fascism a system that is emotionally unequipped to deal with the needs of the individual? If it is- than all of us Americans are living in an unannounced Fascistic system (as opposed to a Democracy) and our families are smaller yet more pronounced forms of Fascism. They keep us wrapped up in a ball of conformity unable to grow into our own- until they become very old our start to die out. Our families give us love and they nurture us but at the same time they prevent our will for freedom to grow into a successful action. We remain martyrs as the family unit keeps us confined in a nucleus which determines our every action? While writing this short passage my sister has called me twice, my mothers voice is scrambling in my head and I am trying to figure out ways to avoid talking to my father. I am confined by a Jewish family, the severity of which makes me want to stand on my head for days. My feet are heavy and I am wondering how today, I can spend a few hours cultivating my own garden without them in it.

When I was younger I used to want to burn down my parents mansion. I conspired all kinds of ways to seek revenge for the soul that I felt like they where stealing from me. If I had known then that I was being subjected to the tyranny of Fascism maybe I would not have taken the whole thing so seriously. Things would have made more sense. If I would have known that the conditions for Fascism arise when there is an emotional disconnect between an individual and his/her family or society- I could have understood that my parents were emotionally “un-evolved.” Maybe this would have given me more sympathy and prevented me from setting my fathers BMW on fire. Who knows? Now that I am older- understanding these things helps me to prevent myself from becoming angry or resentful. It gives me the personal peace to understand that Fascism is a system that robs the spirit from the body, leaving the individual in a state of affliction. So I realize that we are all afflicted with a negative feeling that keeps us from loving, which after all simply means “letting go.”

On Radiohead.

I normally abstain from doing any kind of review on this blog. I mean who am I to give out my opinions on other peoples creations. But today has been filled with guilt and rain and the beautifully experimental sounds of Radiohead’s new album IN/RAINBOWS- got me through the lugubrious day. I listen to all sorts of music, but within this album are some of the most sublime and intelligently erotic/sensual sounds I have ever heard. It is an epic record that accentuates everything the band has ever done together into a cohesive album that is not only mature but also highly skilled. It is a record of complex music weaved together into what I would call a conceptual work of art. Only the concept is difficult to decipher (it may not even exist) but someplace deep down after a few listens to the album you feel it, right under your soul.

I began my painting career a few years back while listening to Kid A. The sounds brought forth images that I never had dreamed of creating. Radiohead has always been able to unleash my introverted imagination with the orchestration of particular sounds that act as a catalyst for creative explosions. Each time my imagination seems to thaw I listen to Radiohead and am amazed by the work I produce by the end of a day. With IN/RAINBOWS the degree of creativity that is able to flow forth from listening to this amazingly beautiful album is just as strong as when I first listened to Kid A. The new album is multi layered and built as a collage with so many heterogeneous sound images that one is intellectually, emotionally and physically in a state close to rapture while listening to this masterpiece. IN/RAINBOWS is reminiscent of some of Brian Eno’s Ambiet work combined with the experimental sounds of Faust or Can’s more melodic/bucolic sounds. I am terribly grateful for this new album and I recommend it to anyone who is need of a soul revival to plug into IN/RAINBOWS. You can also watch a new film that the band has released at, You Tube . Enjoy.

Screeming For Freedom In New Orleans.

I have been appalled lately by these billboards that I am seeing all around that say “New Orleans, The City Where Anything Goes!” These advertisments are brought to you by your better tourist bureau who is basically trying to create enough revenue to turn OLD Orleans into a modern day NEW theme park. It’s a simple ingredient and it has been made in various cities such as New York and San Fransisco and soon to come in Baghdad. Remove the elements of diversity and culture from the city (gentrification) and bring in big business which will create a clean corporate mono culture. A city safe enough for tourism. Clean enough to eat off of the streets. But lets not be fooled. It is no longer a city (which means a diverse economic and culture population of people all co-existing together in a small space)- it is more like a simulation of a city which is a simulation of a corporate think tank on how to turn the citizens into consumers. Our cities are becoming occupied by the forces of greed.

No better place can this be currently seen than in New Orleans. Just today, what took place could not be a better demonstration of the workings of this corporate restructuring. A large croup of citizens all gathered together to raise their voices about a particular issue that was being debated by the city council. They patiently waited outside while city officials decided their fates inside. The irony is that what was going on inside had nothing to do with what was going on outside (this is a symbol of the split between government and people).

Inside the city council was debating whether or not to tear down large amounts of public housing. Thousands of citizens in New Orleans have been without housing since Hurricane Katrina and thousands more have been living in trailers without running water or electricity. On the outside the crowd was gathered together not only to protest the moral authority of a body politic that would even think about tearing down public housing when so many have not even had housing for so long. They were also protesting the utter destruction of their quality of life and the constant neglect that is the result of a corporate occupation of a city. They are fighting for the very substance and survival of the city that they love and are being systematically cleansed from.

Police officers, growing wherry of the large crowd that was gathering tried to control the situation through a means that only made the frustration of the crowd turn to anger. “They are tired of being controlled and manipulated into submission by strangers who claim to be the authorities,” one activist/friend said who called my from the event. “They are a people that feel as if they are being ethnically cleansed from their city. They feel that they have a right to be a part of any decision making process that involves their fate,” he said before hanging up the phone because things were heating up. Gathering together their human dignity they pushed through the barriers that the police erected and attempted to make their was into the city council meeting (in case it is not obvious to you, the majority in the crowd where African American).

Those unlucky enough to be in the front lines were wrestled to the ground, hit with police clubs and “electrocuted” by police who were committed to violating the human rights of American citizens. Watching this sad scene on my computer I felt as if I was watching footage from the civil rights clashes of the fifties and sixties.

What we need in this country is a new civil rights movement. A commitment to apprehend power from corporations who are stripping each and every one of us of our freedom (did you know that over 300,000 American citizens go to Tijuana every year for medical care because they can not get it in America). The citizens of this country are viewed as tools to maximize profits for corporations (this is what education has become- an organized system the trains students to become workers, or maximizers of profit. No wonder our educational system is in crisis) and if they can not do this are “washed out of the city,” as one citizen said who was apart of todays peaceful turned violent gathering. “What is happening in New Orleans is a symbol of that which is taking place in all of our souls. Anything that is diverse and unique is being flushed out and turned into a corporate ethos which turns human beings into classified consumers,” said my Buddhist Teacher when I talked to him about todays events.

If we continue to allow what is going on in New Orleans to continue we are allowing the corporate take over of our very souls. We are allowing injustice to become the norm and allowing innocent people around the world to be displaced and murdered in the name of Democracy and Freedom. Yes, I am bothered every time I see a billboard on the side of the road that says “New Orleans, The City Where Anything Goes!!” It is a blatant lie and an assault on our intelligence. Yes, I suppose anything goes in New Orleans, unless you are poor, neglected, displaced, sick, American and screaming out for freedom.