Out of the blue

Mugwump jism

Fifty years since Naked Lunch was published, and whatever strange trip I've been on since my mid-teens has been in part inspired by that first rush of books, which helped me run counter to everything that had been intended or could expected for my future. So, a moment of gratitude to walking corpses everywhere, with a favorite interpretation of the work, below.

Bug Powder Dust, by Bomb The Bass featuring Justin Warfield [1994]

This must be the place

Home, is where I want to be,
but I guess I'm already there.

Talking Heads, above

It may be mild OCD or just a lack of imagination, but I rode my bicycle around the darkest, quietest streets downtown tonight for 2.5 hrs with this song playing on repeat, and I did it from feeling very good to feeling bad to feeling very good again. And then I went into a bar and washed out the fine body chemistry of caffeine, starvation and physical exertion, to achieve the robust equilibrium I now find myself in.

I'm quiet happy to see time as either an illusion or strictly linear - it's the circular thing that I find unconvincing. So years do not mean a lot to me, nor dates within them. But they serve an important administrative function, and this [mid-May] is the time of year I usually have to renew my visa. Been like that since 1998, but this year I don't need to - I have permanent residency, so no blood test [drugs, AIDS], photos and so on. This place is home.

The most hopeful thing

So why hope? Isn't it just a runaway train, out of control? I don't think so. I think the out-of-controlness is the most hopeful thing about it. After all, whose control is it out of? You and I never controlled it in the first place.

Terence Mckenna, in the clip above

chemical brothers + bernard sumner: out of control

The best thing about today

A Bit of Fry and Jay Z from defyingdarwin

The rules of the game

david bowie mugshot

Within the known rules of the game the individual is free to pursue his personal ends and desires, certain that the powers of government will not be used deliberately to frustrate his efforts.

F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, Chapter Six

I was looking for free language mp3s and ended up at audiouniv where there was nothing that really got my eye except The Four-Hour Week, which I remember hearing about when it came out, and then again at Casey Serin's page, and so I thought why not? Stick it on the mp3 player and ride the bicycle around town, expose myself to the self-help / get rich madness.

So I started listening to the book. The guy starts out with the mission statement that you don't have to be rich to live like the rich - you too can have time to pursue your bliss. But then how? Simple...you become rich. At that point the essential sleaziness begins to flow.

There are far more failed than successful entrepreneurs and artists, which is all cool if you're in it for the passion, but it kind of sucks to fail and fail again, even to fail better, if the process itself is no fun, just fixated on the goal of $ rather than the task in hand. It's now when we have to live, not in the past or future. The means become the end.

So I'm a lazy man, I want to relax without a large income, without the necessity of worldly success. A flexible schedule at a job you enjoy, with low / no stress. Spend less than you earn, exercise, eat right, have fun, pay less attention to what others do.

No matter how rich are and how much property you own, you end up with a private quarters where you get things done. Essentially an office with a bathroom, perhaps a kitchen, living room, library and so on either attached or part of the whole. You can live in a mansion or own a skyscraper, but in the end you'll essentially build a small apartment and do everything in that.

And never forget that Elvis had it all - looks, talent, fame, acclaim and wealth - and he died busted on a toilet just after 40.

"All the people that created traditions, that created countries, and created rules.All them fuckers are dead. Why don't you create your own world while you got the chance?"

Bill Hicks says this dressed as Elvis, here.

Iggy Pop, Manchester [U.K], October 1977, Bowie on keyboards and backing vocals

Related posts:
Deception, trickery, vanity, falsehood
The myth of 1,000 true fans

Bill Hicks on his worst gig ever [LSD, guns, knives]

A quiet night

rem: nightswimming, from later with jools holland

In the process of releasing myself from any schedule imposed from outside, so trying to tighten up my own discipline. Finding I already have lots of free time, albeit each day capped with classes, and am due 25 hrs more at the end of the year. It's an odd feeling, and trying to work out how I'll fill them in productive / non-destructive ways, when all I'm really good at is riding my bicycle, napping and cooking.

Which is cool, except I really ought to improve my Chinese and start learning Japanese so I can talk more with my wife, although it's surprising how much can be done with so little.

Shadowplay

almost taiwan

Tired, but riding home and memories from an Ann Shulgin talk [Psychedelic Psychotherapy and the Shadow] that loop back to Leary's Interpersonal Grid / Eight Circuit Brain....essentially this: The Shadow Self is the repressed self, and growing to make a conscious choice to accept the darker self as an ally when necessary. Not getting too attached the idea of a steady state self.

Sasha & Ann

Robert Anton Wilson simplifies / clarifies Leary and puts it into four quadrants: friendly strength, hostile strength, friendly weakness, hostile weakness. You can find more in chapter four of Prometheus Rising [earlier post includes a link to the pdf file], but I have to collapse into other things.

The 100 Club

This is my 100th post, and by coincidence - the 100 Club will always be linked in my mind with the Pistols - I found all of The Filth and the Fury on You Tube the other night, in 12 parts, starting at the link.

The Sex Pistols were important to me when I first heard them, although, like the rest of my formative influences, a pretty good case could be made for both sides, that they either ruined or saved me. But like Pangloss I'll take the fact that I'm sitting here with all four limbs, solvent, in Asia, and due to pick up my permanent residency card, as signs that all the meandering, false starts and idiocy served a purpose, or at least didn't kill me / push me to kill myself.

This is just another temporary story to make it seem like things hang together. At any point it could unravel or spin off in a wholly different narrative, because the past is never finally written, but a series of improvisations from the few things that come to mind at any given moment. Cognitive bias rules the day.

Still, I think I was lost until I head the Sex Pistols in about 1982, aged 12. All my life I'd been waiting for something I couldn't name, and the music gave me that, as did books, sex, alcohol and the rest when they came along later. An honesty day's never work never filled the same kind of needs.

Side point. There's a thin line between leading the pack, riding the crest of the wave, being lifted by the surge, and being dragged along in the rush. Why shouldn't they all feel the same - after all, it's exciting and new to you at each point, and that's as exciting and new as it gets. Many times I've thought I was on the verge of things, but in retrospect I was just part of the crowd before it went overground.

"What we offered England was a pivotal point. We were the maypole that they danced around."

John Lydon on 1977, the Queen's Silver Jubilee.

Sweet 16 in leather boots

What would Iggy do?

Drinking quietly, doing nothing

Zen, for when all else has failed.

They say patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, but I'd add art and blind obedience / brain death too. Possibly also TV, but definitely also Zen. You're never too far gone to come home to Zen, which welcomes the dumb and deranged, asking only that you're willing to give up your self, a bargain that even the devil is supposed to offer pretty good terms on.

When I was younger - and I was always younger - my aim was sitting quietly, doing nothing. That never really paid rent, so now I'm a riot of activity, but I still have way too many books on Zen and Taoism, it's Chinese cousin.

Neither of which, in their original form, cross the line from philosophies to religions - still no need for a man in the sky- and neither of which I mean to disparage in the second paragraph, above.

It's just I came across a Zen book today and put it in the slow-skim pile to let me feel better about failing in so many other areas. Zen isn't impressed with worldly success (except when it is), but either way it's a welcoming discipline that offers a wholesome alternative to madness / depression / suicide. None of which I'm feeling, but it's always good to build reserves ahead of time, to get ready for the return to the mean, and I'm feeling good enough today that some crash is due.

Slight digression. Success, money, sex, fame. It's what the game is supposed to about, right? Pick any two of those and you've got it made. Just ask Elvis: