We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgment of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they all flown in the last war
I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
No, no!
I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
For I know that the hypnotized never lie
There's nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now the parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight
I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!
Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss
-- The Who, Who's Next, 1971
I have to quit listening to all these old songs!
Friday, May 1
Monday, April 27
Thirty Years!
Well, who do you think you're foolin'?
You say you're havin' fun,
But you're busy going nowhere,
Just lying in the sun.
You tried to be a hero,
commit the perfect crime
but the dollar got you dancing
and you're running out of time.
You're messin' up the water
You're rolling in the wine
You're poisoning your body
You're poisoning your mind
You gave me Coca-Cola
You said it tasted good
You watch the television
It tells you that you should.
How can you live in this way?
Why do you think it's so strange?
You must have something to say.
There must be more to this life.
Tell me why I should change
It's time we did something right.
Child of Vision, won't you listen?
Find yourself a new ambition.
I've heard it all before
You're saying nothing new
I thought I saw a rainbow
But I guess it wasn't true
You cannot make me listen
I cannot make you hear
You find your way to heaven,
I'll meet you when you're there.
How can you live in this way?
Why do you think it's so strange
You must have something to say.
Tell me why I should change
We have no reason to fight,
'cause we both know that we're right.
Child of Vision, won't you listen?
Find yourself a new ambition.
-- Supertramp, Breakfast in America, 1979
You say you're havin' fun,
But you're busy going nowhere,
Just lying in the sun.
You tried to be a hero,
commit the perfect crime
but the dollar got you dancing
and you're running out of time.
You're messin' up the water
You're rolling in the wine
You're poisoning your body
You're poisoning your mind
You gave me Coca-Cola
You said it tasted good
You watch the television
It tells you that you should.
How can you live in this way?
Why do you think it's so strange?
You must have something to say.
There must be more to this life.
Tell me why I should change
It's time we did something right.
Child of Vision, won't you listen?
Find yourself a new ambition.
I've heard it all before
You're saying nothing new
I thought I saw a rainbow
But I guess it wasn't true
You cannot make me listen
I cannot make you hear
You find your way to heaven,
I'll meet you when you're there.
How can you live in this way?
Why do you think it's so strange
You must have something to say.
Tell me why I should change
We have no reason to fight,
'cause we both know that we're right.
Child of Vision, won't you listen?
Find yourself a new ambition.
-- Supertramp, Breakfast in America, 1979
Thursday, April 23
Tuned to Resonate, Amplify, Transmit
This seems to be a week for tramping through dissonant emotional muck. At the beginning of the week a friend fired off a phantom torpedo and I gave it some body and let it punch a hole in my idea. A day later I got a raft of dissatisfaction from the family quarter; nothing I want to get myself involved with, however. A friend frazzled over love and an MIA coworker. Today, I got into a discussion with the manager of the property where I live; I didn't want to talk with her, and I began speaking with the friendly person instead, but the friendly subordinate decided to involve her; this manager has an astonishing knack for confrontation, defensiveness and escalation, and I do not keep my de-escalation skills polished, so the discussion ended on a heated note. I think it was completely unnecessary, too, and an utter waste of energy.
I notice that when I don't maintain my transparency through a daily annealing practice I resonate easily to the emotions of others, and I reflect them back. I see this in other people, too, but I think most fail to understand how it works, or they fail altogether to see it. I know only a single 100%-effective method for keeping myself anti-resonant to these outward, emotional lunges by others but it only works for me where I am concerned. I could suggest others take up a daily practice (which I haven't maintained lately, myself) but these people don't understand the kind of benefit I mean, anyway; it's abstract because they don't see clearly what they do in their non-settled states. The apartment manager stews under a frustrating fog of expression mismatched to her emotions -- like the screaming child -- and I don't see what I can do, except avoid her. I catch the frustration from her too easily, like she sneezes an intangible emotional flu bug into me.
The Venus/Mars/Dr. Phil solution is to become practiced at conflict resolution, and use soothing words to disarm the emotional bandits. But that involves a certain amount of suppression. That's a lot like keeping one's mouth shut and stifling expression. The best way is to be simply non-reactive, and not to express anything at all that isn't 100% original to ourselves. That means generally not having anything to say, rather than not saying what we want to say. I know how to alleviate the pressures and make that happen for myself. I wish I could coax others to do the same
The world would be an happier place if people would simply breathe.
I notice that when I don't maintain my transparency through a daily annealing practice I resonate easily to the emotions of others, and I reflect them back. I see this in other people, too, but I think most fail to understand how it works, or they fail altogether to see it. I know only a single 100%-effective method for keeping myself anti-resonant to these outward, emotional lunges by others but it only works for me where I am concerned. I could suggest others take up a daily practice (which I haven't maintained lately, myself) but these people don't understand the kind of benefit I mean, anyway; it's abstract because they don't see clearly what they do in their non-settled states. The apartment manager stews under a frustrating fog of expression mismatched to her emotions -- like the screaming child -- and I don't see what I can do, except avoid her. I catch the frustration from her too easily, like she sneezes an intangible emotional flu bug into me.
The Venus/Mars/Dr. Phil solution is to become practiced at conflict resolution, and use soothing words to disarm the emotional bandits. But that involves a certain amount of suppression. That's a lot like keeping one's mouth shut and stifling expression. The best way is to be simply non-reactive, and not to express anything at all that isn't 100% original to ourselves. That means generally not having anything to say, rather than not saying what we want to say. I know how to alleviate the pressures and make that happen for myself. I wish I could coax others to do the same
The world would be an happier place if people would simply breathe.
Wednesday, April 22
Opinion Sinkholes
I logged on to Yahoo Messenger a couple nights ago, after a long period of disuse, and a distant friend was logged in, too. We exchanged hellos and swapped bits of news, and then I mentioned I've been working on an idea for a photo shoot with a particular model. I showed this friend the model's online portfolio and then described what I wanted to do. She responded that the model's legs are too skinny.
I looked at the model's legs and noted that, yes, they seemed like they may be a bit too skinny. Hmmph! I want to spin glamor-type photography with action-adventure settings and dynamic movement instead of usual boring poses, and the particular clothing choices I have in mind require legs of high glamor-action-adventure caliber. I don't know any other models with the physicality credentials that this one has, and it seemed at the moment like the whole idea would be a bust, so I tossed my sketchbook off to the side. I clicked to save the text description I'd been composing for the shoot, and I went off to bed.
I thought over the idea the next morning during my slow wakeup lie-in and I decided my distant friend's advice is irrelevant to me. I suppose I should have considered this particular person's history prior to taking her subjective criticism to heart. But, dammit, it's like Erykah Badu says: "I am an artist, and I am sensitive about my shit." It's easy to absorb the neurotic negativism of others and take it all as common sense. To break the doldrums, one has to be willing to do what one thinks one should do, even if that means photographing a few skinny legs.
I looked again at her photos, by the way, and she has lovely legs. She's a perfect fit for the action-adventure idea. I decided, also, that I've lost my sketching abilities, at least until I get them back, and my best bet is to write an irresistible shoot proposal. Which I can do with ease. I win hearts and minds when I choose to do so.
My quick reversal on my idea bothers me, though. I can almost hear the childhood ridicule that kept me quiet about my interests, rather than open and sharing, as children are supposed to be. I wonder sometimes if that's why I split from my artistic desires so long ago and took up a mostly technical existence. The Dolphs don't bother me so much anymore, but I haven't figured out how to filter through the soft-bundled nay-saying.
I looked at the model's legs and noted that, yes, they seemed like they may be a bit too skinny. Hmmph! I want to spin glamor-type photography with action-adventure settings and dynamic movement instead of usual boring poses, and the particular clothing choices I have in mind require legs of high glamor-action-adventure caliber. I don't know any other models with the physicality credentials that this one has, and it seemed at the moment like the whole idea would be a bust, so I tossed my sketchbook off to the side. I clicked to save the text description I'd been composing for the shoot, and I went off to bed.
I thought over the idea the next morning during my slow wakeup lie-in and I decided my distant friend's advice is irrelevant to me. I suppose I should have considered this particular person's history prior to taking her subjective criticism to heart. But, dammit, it's like Erykah Badu says: "I am an artist, and I am sensitive about my shit." It's easy to absorb the neurotic negativism of others and take it all as common sense. To break the doldrums, one has to be willing to do what one thinks one should do, even if that means photographing a few skinny legs.
I looked again at her photos, by the way, and she has lovely legs. She's a perfect fit for the action-adventure idea. I decided, also, that I've lost my sketching abilities, at least until I get them back, and my best bet is to write an irresistible shoot proposal. Which I can do with ease. I win hearts and minds when I choose to do so.
My quick reversal on my idea bothers me, though. I can almost hear the childhood ridicule that kept me quiet about my interests, rather than open and sharing, as children are supposed to be. I wonder sometimes if that's why I split from my artistic desires so long ago and took up a mostly technical existence. The Dolphs don't bother me so much anymore, but I haven't figured out how to filter through the soft-bundled nay-saying.
Monday, April 20
Who's Responsible for this Shit?
Halfway across the street, I turned and looked in the direction of the winding motor noise. The car hadn't yet rounded the bend, and I could hear it was moving quickly, so I slowed my pace and hovered between the median stripes. A second later the bright red Audi careered within view; the driver looked intently ahead -- only ahead -- and made no adjustments of engine speed or facial expression to indicate that he would yield right-of-way.
I stopped and I waited a few feet from the edge of the lane. The driver of the Audi continued past, speed unmodified, unrecognizing, and the driver that followed a Volvo-length behind him did the same. I watched these two speed away and I wondered: What the fuck is wrong with these people?
That's always the question, though. It's always these people, and though I understand I am not independent from them, and I can relate to them fully by experience, I can't be them. At even their deepest levels they seem to me to be shallow, cursory, tepid, un-sensing. I am aware that I see in them what I am myself, and I hate it. I find their torpid hurtling through the space and time of their existence to be revolting, and I know I live within my time-space in a similar way, yet I see few models for being other than the ways that these vacuous twits live.
My scorn for the stupidity of the 24/7 noise and the pulverization by modern social life is a kind of self-hatred, and I feel alarmed by this, but I don't know what I can do about it. I can't chop out my heart to divorce myself from my feelings. I can't resolve the difference between them and me, and reduce the jumble to a single, simple term. I can't shuck myself of these monkeys and wander off to do something else and, thus, give myself some freedom from the idiocy of this culture. My life somehow is here, amidst the din, and that's just the way that it is. I just have to find the polar complement to the consensus insanity model, and then I have to use it.
I stopped and I waited a few feet from the edge of the lane. The driver of the Audi continued past, speed unmodified, unrecognizing, and the driver that followed a Volvo-length behind him did the same. I watched these two speed away and I wondered: What the fuck is wrong with these people?
That's always the question, though. It's always these people, and though I understand I am not independent from them, and I can relate to them fully by experience, I can't be them. At even their deepest levels they seem to me to be shallow, cursory, tepid, un-sensing. I am aware that I see in them what I am myself, and I hate it. I find their torpid hurtling through the space and time of their existence to be revolting, and I know I live within my time-space in a similar way, yet I see few models for being other than the ways that these vacuous twits live.
My scorn for the stupidity of the 24/7 noise and the pulverization by modern social life is a kind of self-hatred, and I feel alarmed by this, but I don't know what I can do about it. I can't chop out my heart to divorce myself from my feelings. I can't resolve the difference between them and me, and reduce the jumble to a single, simple term. I can't shuck myself of these monkeys and wander off to do something else and, thus, give myself some freedom from the idiocy of this culture. My life somehow is here, amidst the din, and that's just the way that it is. I just have to find the polar complement to the consensus insanity model, and then I have to use it.
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