Originally written Aug 2 2007; published on this site Nov 30, 2007
I had the day of days yesterday, Monday July 30, 2007. And because things happen for a reason – so I keep hearing and saying – I’m sitting here in my apartment the following morning at 8:30am absolutely vexed. For I would like nothing better than to sit and get every moment of yesterday out, and describe it in all its wonderment and synchronicity…
…but as it is, I have a day more full of activities and plans than most any day I’ve had in recent memory. A day that will keep me away from my keyboard except for a small portion of time here this morning; a day that will keep me away from posting my description of the previous day and my time in it and my internal reactions to each moment as it unfolded; a day where I will again be in the present moments as I was yesterday, but all of yesterday will accompany me today for I’m currently without sufficient time to capture it all.
The amount of introspective questioning that I had in the text of my old site, and my fear for how I believe it might cast a misrepresentative light upon me, prodded me (as much as the Blurred Knuckles saga) towards the website you are viewing now. That fact, like most every relevant fact and point in my life, has a relevance to yesterday and my wish to speak of it.
During the conversion to the new site, I made a couple of choices regarding all my existing content. First, most of the introspective stuff would not make the trip to the new site – I edited broadly, leaving only the chestnuts of “Phil-osophy” (I have been soooooo dying to say that J but it goes against the “Philip” grain) which would be contained in “The Abstracts” section, somewhat buried in the overall content of the site.
I also chose, up to now, to largely avoid placing in public any further introspective questioning as the new site evolved. I began to understand these “entries” as more personal journaling, and perhaps not best suited for public view. And while I retained some component of that in Musings II (the larger ideas embedded within all that having sufficient merit in my eyes to retain), you may have noticed that the balance of my entries to this point have swerved well away from this (some might characterize) indulgent topic.
That voice, however, does not remain silent – it merely remains removed from representation. (“Really?” Righto – random ruminations reveal relatively ruminant rambling regardless rof reality. And go ahead and ding me for the “rof” but at the same time cut me a break, ya know? That was tough to pull off!)
Alliteration aside (Augh!! Always????? Amen.), my point is that through July I’ve stuck to my guns regarding content choices and thus elected (with thanks to Ron Howard) “not to indulge in certain appetites” – though the salient subsequent point being that the choice lay more in denying that voice the patterned contrast and appearance fees my victimizing, indulgent self has so often given it than in quieting the voice itself.
Still I hear that sharp tongue talking talking tangled words (Gabriel)
And for July, I will tell you, the choice is righteous for it indeed would have given rise to the voice of puzzlement, vexation, uncertainty, etc. and thus better left for me alone. I’ve quelled that yearn even when it may have offered faux gladness – an emotional grifter goading me to speak of the harlequin of joy while my deepest demons grinned all the more behind the mask waiting, waiting for their time on the dais.
Mixed a few metaphors there, eh? It’s just coming out, folks – here on Tuesday afternoon while I wait for Shawn, who’s moving into his BRAND NEW APARTMENT!! (I’m very happy for him) and will be using some of my furniture, and bopping along to the Tower of Power’s “Souled Out” (with a shout out to Mr. Weiss) and what I feel at this moment even as I’ve not yet begun to pull out all that I hastily scribed last night and still work to introduce this work – it IS all “just coming out” precisely because last night was what it was.
…all of which, you should know, brings us now to Wednesday morning. With Tuesday complete – and another post unto itself – I am now disposed to (hopefully) complete this first entry. I’ve a high excitement for this, for it’s the first time with this new site that I’m giving voice to “the inner me” – that which I’ve avoided I now dance within, swinging my umbrella and pouncing on the puddles (there it is again).
The Day of Days – Monday, July 30, 2007
Chapter 1 – What Happened
Well, at least what happened that’s relevant. There’s much that happened that I’ll not speak of, as I wish to keep it private. But even the beginning of that Monday holds its special place. And as the day moved into late morning, I went to see Shawn, for our Sunday moving plans had apparently turned on their ear.
I would remind you that the weekend included a full moon, and the weekend had its own combinations of melodrama, conflict, and event-lettes that all lent their hand towards creating the Monday that I had. (The moon’s tentacles reach far – I would learn that a good many people had tumultuous, dramatic weekends).
Friday evening’s trip to Philly for Steve
the hordes of friends I met at Small’s upon my return
meeting the woman that meant so much to him
the trip to the Mennachor and seeing my most excellent friend Abass (more from him later in the program)
– my first time there ever, and signed in as a guest by a member friend. After hours, and all are in their jubilation, as am I. And during my conversation with Abass, I must have, at some point, allowed some manner of profanity out, and the member friend moved to me almost immediately thereafter and asked me, upon request from the bartender, that I curb my language. Thus is the story behind the prelude to The Spurned Lover.
– And more melodrama as the evening wound to a close (you must excuse my vagueness, but I’m keeping private lives private. I cannot exclude the happenstance though, for it has its relevance.)
Saturday was time with Angie, and in the early evening an unfinished conversation with my extraordinarily good friend Dave (whose sound company partner & friend Ed would come along and bring the conversation to a pause – spurned, yes, but playful about it. The story was not written with malice, which is not to say my signature passive-aggressiveness is poorly represented J )
Sunday was more time with Angie, plans to help Shawn move that do not reach their fruition, weathering and helping to weather the storms (in all their forms) of Sunday night. Plus some more reading – “The Origins of the Gods” is coursing through me these days…
A brief aside…
I wonder to what extent there’s a small little joy buzzer in many of your ears that goes off and piques your interest when you read the name “Angie” in my post. I cannot take sufficient time right now, being in the middle of this story, to answer that joy buzzer. That time will arrive shortly. But as I have ever expressed my thankfulness and gratitude to those that have touched my life and helped me on my way, I’m forced to wait until I have dedicated time to do the same regarding Angie. For now, suffice to say she has kept me alive and shoveled enumerate tons of coal into me to make esteem and fire the cauldrons of my hope. Language reveals its inabilities in moments like these…which is why I need more time. (Man oh man oh man oh man have I been saying that more and more – I must be getting old.)
And Monday afternoon I finally got out to Malone’s, where Shawn is the man, or at least one of the main folk. (I would tell you his official title is “Executive [something] Chef,” but I don’t know what the “something” is, and I can never quite get it when he says it – Executive Sioux Chef? Executive Soup Chef? Executive Sue Chef? I’m naïve). Shawn has been in better spirits than the condition I find him Monday afternoon, and separate from that, his move is not going as smoothly as was hoped. So I did what I was able to do @ the moment, which was hang out with him and be there for him and speak to him from my heart and from my brain as I know no one else can offer to him, and he is only able to accept what components he is and we are both thankful that we at least ensure we give ourselves these opportunities. I have a real clarity with Shawn, and he with I, and the manner by which we cherish that is a component of it. (make sense?)
The dagger of the day would fall in Malone’s, as my check card was denied, indicating that asset has run its course. But at the same time, I enjoyed a wonderful cashew chicken spinach salad, and throw some darts (great practice throwing those lightweight, girthy American darts at a bristle board – any miscue on release is accentuated). I even endured a blue collared guest’s jukebox choice of “Afternoon Delight” because apparently the moment lacked a surreal edge to it.
I was able to do what I was, we would agree to meet later for pickup of items from my place. I return home, get Angie out to the car dealer’s to pick her car up, and return home again to fix some dinner, watch a movie (“Troy” was the choice @ the time – can’t really explain why I like it, but the reason’s similar to my enjoying DeLaurentis’ “Dune”)…
…so far, actually, nothing special save my mood.
And then every positive emotion and every positive feeling of hope, affirmation, and joy and love and life and godamm fucking everything – I’m not kidding – began in me, first as a trickle, when Mike Banks appeared unannounced and unexpected at my door with intent to play board games.
I must be brief in the accounting here so I can get to the next part, but know that what I gloss over, for now, is all that made this time the day of days.
We played a most rousing version of Commands and Colors. Truly, a MOST rousing game. We ultimately would have to curtail it (I intentionally went for a suicide move @ the end that would have won on a longshot, but I really just fell on my sword. Executing on my contemplation of the “Auxilia Infantry, was” concept. So much for measure.)
But the game was slow, protracted, strategic, and even after it ended we were excited in just how the game commenced. Kudos to Mike for creating a terrain that allowed all that to come out. It had to end, though…
…for love slammed the spigot wide open – when Dave Neale appeared unannounced and unexpected at my door with intent to spend time with me.
The three of us played “Battle of the Bands” – a game comprised only of a deck of unique playing cards.
GET THIS GAME.
EVERYONE.
SERIOUSLY.
IT’S THE MOST FUN I’VE EVER
EVER
EVER
EVER
Had playing a game.
Hoping I’ve made my point. We played this game, and if you play in the right spirit (which the game practically forces you to), the narrative that accompanies the play is absolutely hilarious. Basically, you’re trying to form a band and acquire “star” points – you add people, you add instruments, and there’s “things that happen in the music biz” to your band, to other’s bands, etc.
We played. I could not concentrate on strategy, I was laughing so hard inside my head.
If ever I wish a phrase weren’t cliché……
I had the time of my life.
And Mike and Dave left around 1:00 AM…and I stood quiet for a moment as the song ended, and the song “Tremendous Brunettes” came on – it’s a Mike Doughty tune from his album “Haughty Melodic” – an evocative album for me, and evocative song. “Tremendous Brunettes” is what I know in my brain to be a “second wave” song – one I liked and want to know that comes in after the first wave of songs that strike me on the disc get digested. When it so happened the past couple months when the song came on, I’d been trying to learn the lyrics.
I nailed it out of the gate, the words appearing in my head only moments before they needed to be sung, and always the right ones at the exact right time. I’d never done that with this song before, and I knew I approached it this moment with all the love and joy that I’d been feeling from the evening’s events, and I was warmed inside that merely the positive feelings that reverberated in and out of my skin aided in that cause, and the trust I had for myself and love that surrounds me and that I emanate offered the support I needed to simply trust the song and the words would come. And they did.
Too many of you, perhaps, may not know, understand, or be willing or able to appreciate the moment. Please consider that whether you can appreciate the moment – as I did – would not only be impossible, but it would also be irrelevant. The relevance requires some empathy on your part – BE me in that moment, as the two people closest to my heart arrived at my door for no other reason than they wanted to be with me, and have a most resplendent evening wallowing in the joyful mud of all that laughter, and buzz it was after they left, then sing a song you didn’t think you knew and not make any mistakes. Spontaneously, all just happening and not being made to happen. Can you know me well enough to know what that moment was for me? It began the culmination – the culmination of every thing.
And I dashed to my journal – the very cool-looking purple journal that Angie gave me as a gift for completing “Human, Being” (my recollection is less than 100% – I may have the motivation incorrect, but Angie did give me this journal near the end of the piece). This journal was never used during the piece, but instead holds most of the notes for the draft of “Being, in Harrisburg” and has since been my primary journal for most of the things I’ve written before they reach the site. And I opened it and let everything that was happening inside my head at that moment began coming out. I went so many places and nodded in my head to so many people….
I felt so much that in this accounting of it, we’ve plowed through (I did my plowing well before you while writing) over 2,500 words to this point in “Day of Days” and haven’t yet cracked open my journal.
I wrote after “Tremendous Brunettes” and looked up after about 40 minutes and page after page after page after page…and chose to stop in the journal after one hour just to reach a stopping point because I knew at some point it would have to be translated and expanded upon with the typewriter and I didn’t want to create so much raw material as to make the processing of it prohibitive by volume. I eventually stopped, and then sat in front of my computer to try and begin the vetting process. To no avail – it was late, I was affected and in no position to play editor. I went to sleep.
And when I woke up Tuesday, and knew I would have the day before me that I would…
Here’s what’s in the journal (though keep in mind what goes in the journal is a point, a notion, a flag for a larger topic. I’ll expand on the topics as I translate, which has always been the plan).
Event-driven
When am I sad, when am I happy? The question comes up as I stand in the middle of my life, on the edge between two eternities (Thoreau), being more than I’ve been and less than I’m yet to be, and I am so awash in happiness at Mike and Dave’s visit that it gave me a song, and so much more. I am here now not because I’ve cycled to a happy place, not because it’s summer vs. winter, not because I’m high, but only because other people whom I value chose for their lives and happiness to include me in it. There is, of course, nothing else, as I told Bret when he asked me recently, “So what is it that you want, Philip?”
I wish for people to want and choose to include me in their life. I want people to want to be with me. As raw and as unascended and as selfish and self-important as I can possibly, with integrity utter – I’d like someone to want to pick up my pinspot.
And I will have no fear. (“Glory”)
And I am happy now for the choices they have made, and for the over-dazzle, over-blissness of the moments, I am happy.
It is not a bipolar illness that sends me from happiness to despair and back. It is not the time of year, the humidity, the amount of sleep or the amount I eat, it’s not packet loss, it’s not entropy, it’s not a chemical imbalance, it’s not Snidely Whiplash, or El Nino, it is nothing but
the things that happen.
Dashed to the notebook
At this moment I feel like a writer
“Capture the ideas, Philip! Capture it all! You cannot open your book fast enough, you cannot write fast enough, but it is all coming in at this moment, you can feel it. If it’s ever going to work, this might be the one. Try to get everything!”
It felt affirming to move quickly to my journal and begin writing frantically, with purpose, with intent.
Man finds nothing so intolerable as to be in a state of complete rest, without passions, without occupation, without diversion, without effort. Then he feels his nullity, loneliness, inadequacy, dependence, helplessness, emptiness. (Blaise Pascal)
I feel driven to capture these ideas and get them polished and get them represented on the website…
Everything is flowing through my head at this moment
NOTES TO SELF
Edit Spurned lover Category
Format Musing 3
Create an Emperor Page
Mike & Dave, both unexpected, then Shawn expected but late
…in the lap of those closest to me who make the choice to engage and wallow and LIVE and LOVE with me and me with them and all with each other.
Shawn’s challenges, Mike & Dave perk up
all encouraging solutions and wise choices
Shawn had plans to arrive after work but was waylaid, and both Mike & Dave had been there some while by the time Shawn arrived. Shawn briefly explained his challenges these days, and felt a little awkward (I think), he grew uncomfortable at the amount of outpouring and support he received from the three of us, and knew he wasn’t living up to his part of the bargain for himself. That fact notwithstanding, I felt so good that we were all there for Shawn, offering love and support unconditionally. He & I agreed on time Tuesday afternoon to get the table and bookcase.
(And again, forgive me for not going into too many specifics, but it is the spirit that I describe here that prompted the notation in the journal, and it feels right that I concentrate there and not dive too deeply into any specifics.)
And from 1am – 1:15am I sang yet another song
that leapt from me
Did they notice the playlist?
One of the biggest joys of my Christmas party was an entire evening of Acid Jazz, trip hop, chill & such instrumentals (yes, family, the same songs and more that appear in the smash hit series, “Where It’s At 2004” put out by P-Dub records) pouring out of the speakers in celebration. Anytime I get to spend an evening and get to listen to the music I listen to, I am in rapture. This is yet another component to the joy of people coming to where I live.
On Monday night, I set as musical accompaniment every song on my hard drive that I’d rated as 4 or s Stars (Windows Media Player). I sorted this list based on Length, beginning with Stevie Ray Vaughn’s “Scuttle Buttin’” at 1:52. Tull’s “Wondring Aloud” comes shortly thereafter, and so on. This, as it would turn out, would represent the more “poppier” components of my music. And it played, starting from there, all night long. Mike and Dave unknowingly got a fairly wide representation of the music I listen to, and since they were all short, none of the Acid Jazz stuff made it in.
Through the course of the night, as each song came on, I was “in it” as I normally am when music plays (I cannot make love to music – it’s too distracting), so I’m singing, humming, tapping, and generally interacting with all these 2 and 3-minute ditties, and I wondered aloud in my journal whether they noticed the length of the songs, and how they might have regarded “the man’s tastes” as represented in this fashion. A curiosity, only.
Dave also did something I found very interesting…which I will tell you now seems to be the quickest and easiest way to find out, musically speaking, a person’s tastes. He’d gone to my Media Player, listed everything by Artist, then sorted on “Count” (# of songs per artist) with most songs on top. Talk about a quick and easy way to answer “What’s Philip into???” And as I wrote in my journal, I thought to share this didactic snapshot:
2968 items
225 hours of music
Bill Hicks – 263
Various Artists – 212 (this is all the acid jazz stuff)
Pearl Jam
Frank Zappa
——under 100 items—-
Phish
Radiohead
Genesis
Billy Joel (from the archives – most get skipped anymore; they’re already too ingrained)
Steely Dan
Dixie Dregs
Tool
Pink Floyd
—–under 40 items—-
Yes
Smashing Pumpkins
Supertramp
Primus
Soul Coughing
…all of which add up to about 32% of my overall collection.
I was so – forgive me – amazed at myself when “Tremendous Brunettes” came out of my mouth without error – I didn’t even know I knew the song. Kind of like speaking in tongues…
And yes, with the one simple “Did they notice the playlist” scrawled in my journal, it represented everything I just typed (the details of the list in exception).
Steve Please pay attention
This is the answer to the question regarding the Hatboro Wheelers.
He (Steve) had mentioned to me in an e-mail that he had a recent chance to speak with the matriarch and patriarch of the Hatboro Wheelers and he whom Steve knows I miss so much, my nephew Colin. I commented in my reply how the Hatboro siblings cherish and make specific efforts to ensure they have time together, and how interesting that such an attitude sprang from the Jenkintown Wheelers (wondering, actually, whether in fact it did). Steve was curious as to why I made the point…
And I’m about to stray from the “don’t air dirty laundry in this post” approach, but it’s my life I’m talking about now…
No time with my brother and sisters has ever filled me (get it?) as Monday night did. The Hatboro Wheelers I’m sure have had their moments similar to Monday night, for their time together is a thing they value. My brothers and sisters cannot hold a candle to this.
They would regale you with memories and laughter and good times, yes. Six of them.
I can feel the dander rise were I to be so bold as to say that in front of them. I can hear the instant dismissive remarks, the attacks on my character (their familial grant to allow them to do so), the instant points to the contrary to undermine my position – which I would ask that they filter to those where I am included, and nod knowingly as that evidence now disappears. I do not have this conversation because it would have no point – I’m certainly not motivated to attempt a change in their proclivities, knowing full well of its impossibility. I stand not in judgment nor hold them in any less regard for their nature. I do not deny the truth to it, though. There is no love bond between me and my brothers and sisters, a telltale characteristic of the Jenkintown Wheelers embedded by the values instilled in us by our matriarch and patriarch.
What I feel for Mike, Dave, Shawn, Bret, Erin, Angie, Marty, Lee Anne, Bob Hartley arose for the people that they are and the value and worth they have given me. When I hear the word “family” invoked in central PA, I understand the context in which it is said, and I reflect on my version of same and am in bliss. It is my reality. And I think of that in comparison to (as an example) the number of times I’ve reached out to my eldest brother explicitly stating that I wish to spend time with him for I love him and wish to spend time with him (while I was living in the area), and how each time I’ve gotten exactly nothing in return. It is self-evident.
I had SO MUCH FUN playing this game
It’s the narrative that accompanies
I’m writing large and fast to get all the meaningness
From all the moments that are happening right now
WAVES of thankfulness for these past few hours – and
the first song that pops through is only one of
I don’t know how many that came through
And BATTLE OF THE BANDS
[then, many hastily scribbled little things to “make sure I get down”]
I began to feel the need for the chronicling, the representation, get EVERYTHING I’d ever wanted to share, ever wanted to think, out. Here they are:
Mars
Pascal
Hunting
Abass – another “write the book”
The Togetherness Community Center
And, in order:
– This was written during a recent early morning photo session
The sun demands attention
Igniting the sky in a foreboding red
Massive hangs at the horizon
Like Mars stopping by
on a truancy check
– The “Pascal” note is to ensure I include the “Man finds nothing so intolerable” quote. See above.
– I’d been telling Mike of a comedy routine I’d written about hunting (can’t recall how hunting came up in conversation). And here’s your hunter, all garbed up to look like the local flora and fauna, doe urine sprayed to both mask the scent and encourage bucks to approach, rifle in hand……….So, let me see if I have this right. You’re hoping to disappear and hang out by the ladies room hoping to blow away the stupid deer whose idea for picking up chicks is to hang out by the ladies’ room?
Wow – master of your domain.
– Seeing Abass on Friday night (and I’ve another post waiting for this to get wrapped up about our conversation on Wednesday morning), our mutual jubilation when we come into eyesight of each other, the love and affirmation that gives me is beyond compare. We’d not seen each other in some time, and he was unaware that a guy named “Blurred Knuckles” had come into being, and he laughed with me and said, “Would you just write the damn book already, get it published, and get on Letterman, for God’s sake?!?!?”
Another “write the book” comment, as if the book is just sitting out there, waiting for me. Abass is unaware that every moment of my life is a chapter of that book, and it can never be written until my moments end – which would then make me ill-suited for the task. But I say it also in thankfulness and gratitude that I am having impacts on people to the point where they wish for me to chronicle, to speak, to get my ideas and my experiences out.
Next, a line of thought that’s been running through my head regarding me and art and my book and all that – which arose from my conversation with Abass, who regards me as an artist not based on my assertion but instead based on his independent assessment of who I am as a person and my purpose for being on the planet. He sees the artist without any effort on my part, and it is my charge to be industrious in that capacity for that is indeed why I am here.
I NEED AN AGENT. I have no clue how to go about getting one, and I’m disinclined to spend the time figuring out how and then looking for one and all that. I’d much rather write. I’d much rather continue to be the artist I am, which includes interacting with people as I will.
If you can help me find an agent, or if you know an agent that you think would be right for me, please please please send them in my direction.
I recognize that the challenges of my life lie mostly in denying the impulses to “be me” in whatever capacity and instead doing what “must be done for my own best interests.” Things like ensuring my future, meeting my financial obligations, etc. I am not. Very. Good. At this.
I could use your help. I need an agent.
– To Cartoonist Neil – I’ve another idea:
A single panel cartoon, no caption. It’s a high-rise or some other large building seen somewhat from afar, and its name – The Togetherness Community Center – is prominent. Covering the building are individual dishes and antennas. Another perspective might be seen from across the street, only the first couple of floors (also littered with individual connectivity devices) and people milling about the entrance with their iPods on or talking on their cellphones or playing a handheld arcade game.
And I wonder, Neil – as I know what I’ve just done is extraordinarily presumptuous of me – whether you would mind if I tossed out these ideas to you when they come (for come they do, all the time)
And every time I’ve thought about that strip or others in recent weeks, I’ve thought to write Neil and say that same thing…which instantly moves me to my brother Andy, whom I’d tried to create the same symbiotic relationship with, and he would have none of it…which moves me to Steve, who recently did offer to function in the same capacity.
Steve had seen the “thumb for my head” pictures that Neil did for me. Steve did most the design work for “Human, Being,” and wished to offer that to me again for he expressed how it makes him think of things he wouldn’t think about, which he enjoyed.
This I Believe
will be Day Two
will be all of this
will be the book
Many moons ago I’d heard a “This I Believe” reading on WHYY, and went to the NPR site and found it. I’d mildly keen to the idea, but one essay getting lost in the din hardly seemed worth what I knew would have to be a concerted effort on my part. (Why concerted? Two-fold: one, it must be the right thing that I believe to write about, the one that can capture all of it, and that does not yet exist in my head. Two, keeping it to 500 words? Puh-leeeeeez. I’m over 5,000 words here right now and I’m only on the fourth page of what I wrote in my journal from that Monday night.)
The congealing, however, was happening right then and there. That my happiness or despair is based on my experiences, that which happens. The defining experiences…and the congealing of those thought, if I can pull it off (and I’m not there yet) would, in fact, become my submission to WITF’s “This I Believe” and it would comprise most of what I’m trying to pull of with Day Two, which has remained in draft for so long precisely because it isn’t congealed. And all of that would also become by imperative the central thought from which “the book” is written.
Tonight my two best friends showed up, unexpectedly, while another best friend was on his way. And all I could say at the moment to let the evening continue
Mike and I got through a long C&C game, Dave showed, and we were well into Battle of the Bands when Shawn finally arrived. He asked, “What’s this?” playfully, for he wasn’t expecting to see me playing a card game with friends on the very table he’d planned on taking. He asked in the “Well, looks like good times are being had here!!” spirit…
And when he asked that, the seeds of all that poured out in the journal when the evening ended were currently just being sown, and I could not instantly find the words that could accurately the import and meaningfulness that my standing next to Shawn and trying to describe what having Mike & Dave appear and us laughing so hard was doing to me emotionally. Plus, it would have made things a bit awkward. So at the moment he asked, I paused only briefly, had all the rest of this paragraph flash through me, decide against it and say, imply, “Pennies from heaven.”
Continuing – Changing My Approach
The journal now get more narrative, less bulleted, so I’ll simply type without supplement (unless I determine it absolutely necessary)
And before I begin, now is as good a time as any to mention another motivator to “get it all down” and get everything documented and pictures I’ve taken posted and thoughts I’ve written posted and communicate as much as I can think to communicate now, now, now…..for I don’t know how long “now” will last, in its greatest context.
And there’s your answer, oh fecund one, but be mindful: have you leapt to “yes?” It is no, for I now see that I began moving in that direction from my inception, and time’s role is to fulfill that need, so I need fret no more. And as I have worked to expand my patience and mindfulness (when my awareness granted me the vision of their true virtues), I am patient enough to allow time to tend. (Indulging in another pointed, passive aside.) We begin:
Lord of the Rings Risk, Trilogy Edition
HOLY FUCK do I want to play that game
[Mike brought this along, we didn’t play, but he showed Dave & I the board. Risk is a game you will play until you will learn of its ultimate futility based on its playing structure. THIS has not only put the game structure on steroids, but the story line of the game follows the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. Hence the above]
Kafka finally happens
[A quote by Frank Kafka, first introduced to me by a Tom Robbins book:
“It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your trable and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for the unmasking…in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet.”]
I am minimizing
I can sense my own movement towards the inevitable more acetic lifestyle. Plans to get these things here, those things there, so I no longer have the list of “stuff that’s mine.” Cliché, as you might accuse, but it IS still, after all, just stuff.
My card got denied today
I don’t know what it means
that I have the day of days on the same day I reach a zero balance, but it did.
And as I thought about the card getting denied, I though more about that brief time that Monday afternoon at Malone’s
And I threw darts today. A guy named Joel…”Ever throw a piece of paper at a trash can?” Reflecting that Joel, who did not know me, was beaten soundly in the game we played, but it didn’t feel like getting beaten soundly. It turned into some instruction and answering questions. “Why did you move there?” The smile inside me that shines as I look back at my instinctual behavior and it is community-ive, communicatey-ive, instructive, helpful, social. And I am thankful that in those times when I’m not thinking about how to behave that I behave in that manner.
And I finally said it: “If you could learn this I would absolutely love to sing this” to Dave.
The song doesn’t really matter in this context – it’s only one of at least two or three dozen songs that I could, were I to be so presumptuous, ask someone I knew who played the guitar to learn so I could sing it. But I don’t like being that guy, so I so rarely, in truth actually ever, say that to either Dave or Mike. Monday night, I said it to Dave. I was happy to have finally said it at least once, happy that this was the night that allowed that to spring out of me, and happy to know that Mike & Dave got a glimpse into the truer me if only in that they saw how much music runs in my head and how much I would enjoy performing.
Neil & Mandy, Part II: A Puzzle
Not 59…ALT-E/E, fuck TAB [anything] ALT-A = ?
Bret – I’m hiding the clock ‘cause I don’t want to see time subtend.
Oh, this is a BIG one. Bret has spoken to me numerously of his perception of time and his ability to alter it and shape it and stretch it to suit his needs. I would simultaneously agree and disagree with him, suggesting it is, in reality, only a greater awareness of each moment in your life as it stands right at the nick of time (Thoreau). Occam’s Razor says that with all things being equal, it is far more likely that his perception of time changed versus his ability to alter the time-space continuum. As perception can well comprise a person’s reality, far be it from me to suggest otherwise – if Bret perceives himself to have the ability to do that with time, and that is the manner by which he lives in the present and has a greater awareness of his moments, then that is indeed what happens.
And it was happening to me precisely at that moment Monday evening, squeezing each moment, canvas upon canvas and hurried colors thrown on ‘til the very next moment demands a clean slate and clean palette and hurried until the next demands the same for they are all of equal merit.
I think best friend and I see Mike Sweet and I see Ken Bonner and that’s without trying and then I think of specific times in my life and can pull specific friends at specific moments and how many of you once you start trying to think about it
Could and would do the same thing. And I ask that not because I don’t think you can and that I presume some gift to myself regarding this. Quite the contrary – I would want everyone to want to try and do this and think the word “friend” and watch what answers arrive before you have to think about them then walk through the times of your life and fine the friends in those times as well and revel in them and tell me of them and see and glorify that changes they have wrought in you…
Coach is on my list, and I must confess that it hurt. I understand and accept, I was just ardently wishing on the contrary. And wishes will come true or they will not – each and every one of them – and which side of the Pokeno peg it lands on matter not for you never expected a particular result…but every now and then you wish for one a little more than the others…
And all I can do with all these ideas is put them out here instead of actually doing them because there’s too many too often
Too many cartoon ideas, too many pictures, each moment a novel, each happenstance a poem, each gaze a picture, seeing the beauty of life devoid of shame and devoid of the past and devoid of the future – happening in my head Monday evening
And we are turning into August that moment unto itself
The reckoning has drawn ever nearer, me at zero and rent coming up – rent being only at the front of the line. Me? I’m sitting here writing trying to tell you about my most amazing Monday night because everything about choices, love, fear, time, and being began to congeal in my head and I was happy that it was happening because it affirms my existence for I am the person to be thinking these thing and trying to distill them and capture them and find some meaning and compelling reason for everyone to work a little harder to be aware when they’re creating a reality based on their perception because they’re trying to be happy because they’re scared. Things could be really really really different if people could make the choice to see that and do that and part of why I’m here on this planet is to facilitate, as best as this feeble human, being Philip can offer, that transition, that transcendence, that enlightenment, that illumination, that grandeur, the Messiah in us all and I had to type this paragraph in this manner and have it all move out of me without punctuation and fingers flailing because the next thing I wrote in my journal had to do with how this was all coming out
And I’m sorry Terrence that part of the reason this is all happening right now and I can see it is because I’m a little bit high and a little drunk and maybe
And I will have no fear, for doing this now is the string I followed to leave Paul and make Human, Being and Blurred Knuckles (actually, Blurred’s been around for a while, he just didn’t have his own name before) and everything WAS hitting me just then (and it’s just around the corner right now, a mere choice to articulate away) because, possibly, I was high. Terrence is of the school where if you’re leaning on that stuff, something ain’t right (Don’t ding me for a flippant description, Terrence – this audience can feel the higher spirit behind the position). And Angie asks me how often I was high while on-site and her utter surprise at the answer and I ask her why she is surprised and to probe into the answer of “Because I didn’t know.” Why didn’t you know? Can you see no discernable difference? I’m not going to try and tell you that “Hey, I’m allowed to get high because I’m the same way either way” because I know I am not.
And to everyone who has ever uttered a rationalization or justification in my presence and had me call them on it – trust that I am at the very least as stern a taskmaster to myself, if not moreso. Don’t you go thinking that I let myself do what I observe and acknowledge in others. How on Earth could I possibly justify suggesting to someone that they not do a thing while simultaneously affording myself the right to do that very thing myself? (And the author passively wonders whether that sentence is ringing any bells out there…and we know that if it is, then you’re making the choice to listen, to which I am powerless. Have you ever closed a book and not finished it because you weren’t interested in what it had to say? A different site is just a click away, you are empowered, I am powerless for we communicate asynchronously. All of you with me now are in that mode. “Now” of course, being, in an asynchronous sense, a relative term.)
I make no attempt to justify the choice to keep that in my life. I understand its role, and like everything else that surrounds me, it is either there or it is not. Clearly, lo this past six weeks, it has been nigh on absent, but other pennies fell Sunday that allowed it to be a factor this Monday night
(maybe) – I really really don’t know
whether all of this in indeed true or whether I’m just going insane and it’s coming across to me as congealment and ascendancy but in my heart of hearts I believe it and I believe that the congealment would be happening even if I wasn’t high and drunk because it is the combination of the events that have happened that have brought me to this moment and not the condition of my brain.
If I am bipolar mixed, and if I do have far more depressive states that exist in a manic environment, then I can see that when I am high, it moves me to a more manic state, thoughts racing faster, emotions hitting stronger, moments become novels, gazes plead to be acrylic. I don’t condone it, I don’t justify it, I merely acknowledge it to be the case and acknowledge my choice to keep it as the case. But I always always acknowledge that I don’t know what I don’t know
and I really do say that a lot, Sandra
My mentor from my Red Cross times, who had me go through the “What does it mean?” exercise
– and I know I’m going all over the place and maybe Coach this is the thing – the component the aspect whatever
That keeps you away from me. “Maybe” because – say it with me – I don’t know.
And I think about how I think and I watch with wonder and awe as each individual idea appears with its own little “Isn’t this cool?” component to it and I’m thankful to think that and I’m thankful that in the one hour since Mike & Dave left that every tiny little facet of what is meaningful to me in the context of enjoying my life passed before me to see and that I’ve trusted exactly who I am and exactly how I’ve tried to live my life these past three years to have these moments right here to see the wonder and joy of it all Kramer from Bob comes back
I had the chance in mid-June, while sitting in the park in Columbus, OH, to talk with my friend Bob the Cop. He spoke to me with no idea going in that I was in Columbus or why, and his reaction upon hearing the plans for the Blurred Knuckles saga, laughed with love and joy (truly) and said, “You’re the most Kramer-esque person I know.”
Michael Richards, then, is another person that ought to know I exist. Letterman, Kevin Booth, Jack Black, Maynard James Keenan, Jon Stewart, Mike Myers, Robin Williams, Steve Martin, the Dalai Lama, Brad Pitt, Ryan Stiles, Dustin Hoffman, Steve Morse, Bobby McFerrin, Tim Robbins, Spaulding Grey…I’ll eventually delete this paragraph and start a new page on the People that Ought To Know I Exist (While I Still Exist).
Chorus: OUGHT??? Ought, you say?
Arrogance insatiable pride
breed the tyrant
feed him on thing after thing blindly
at the wrong time uselessly
as he grows reaches so high
nothing can stop his fall
his feet thrashing the air standing on nothing
and nowhere to stand as he plunges down
o god shatter the tyrant
but let men compete let self-perfection grow
let men sharpen their skills
soldiers citizens building the good city
Apollo
protect me always…(62)
from Oedipus Rex
Let’s change “ought” to “it could well be universally beneficial were it to come to pass, somehow, that these people were to learn of my existence while I am still in present tense.”
Reason #1 Why I Know I’m Right When I Say I’m Not Jesus:
Everyone agrees with me.
And I stopped in the journal for the hour that, at 40 minutes I gave myself, had passed. And I started writing this, but didn’t make it very far in front of the computer because
The more I reflect the more comes in and connects and I return to the notebook and stop typing because the need to remember and speak to it all SCREAMS at me and the typing will establish order and unfold all these myriad ideas so I can show all their relevance to everything but it can’t continue when all these new thoughts keep coming in and they too must be caught because they’re within the poignancy of all these moments so I must stop the ordering of all that is known to ensure I capture the new thought and NOT LET IT BY
I am, somehow, with my foibles and fears and uncertainty, ascending, as a 21st-century American man, renaissance
And I was done. And I was tired. And I slept. And Tuesday became what it was, and Wednesday became what it was, and Thursday afternoon – NOW – I have finished describing my brain in that hour.
There is a conclusion. I can’t simply stop it here. I foresaw what that conclusion will be.
The conclusion to this will be my “This, I Believe” submission
The conclusion to this will be that which would have appeared as “Day Two”
(If you don’t know what I’m talking about there, start here with Near As I Can Figure: Day One)
And I ask for your help
for the time of my germination draws to an end
and now is the time that I must find a way to speak
An agent, a publisher, a venue, a stage, a pulpit
Something that will give us all the chance to gather
And speak of things that are true
For I Am The Truth Machine
Thanks for listening.
Philip
One Perspective 