I ragged on President Obama after the debate and rightfully so.
He turned in a poor performance. A mighty leader has to be able to rise to the occasion, to meet every challenge, to instill confidence in those for whom he is responsible.
Of course he IS running a country. And he has been forced to deal with enormous crisis after enormous crisis. And he has been forced to deal with defiant, partisan, racist republicans who have consistently put their own partisan interests AHEAD OF THE SAFETY AND ECONOMIC SURVIVAL OF THIS COUNTRY.
Compared to that a debate might seem trivial.
Except in America.
The Prez opened the door to slime. I have watched as political journalists pointed out over and over that Romney lied in the debate, that he misrepresented his position, he reversed positions, he gave voters nothing of substance to go on. I am not just talking MSNBC. I'm talking CNN and revered life long journalists.
Romney has been schooled on the pettiness of Americans. His advisers sat him down and told him he can say anything he wants to say and then walk away from it. Even in a day and age when every word is recorded and can be played back to illustrate lies.
Because the American public is stupid and lazy. They want the sizzle, not the steak.
Romney gave them the sizzle at the debate.
I hate polls because, like Romney, they flip and they flop. We are inundated with poll information sliced and diced in every way and it becomes meaningless.
But the general trend after the debate shows the race to be about even.
This causes me to suffer through repeated bouts of projectile vomiting. You think Linda Blair was bad; I have had to repaint the walls in my house three times since the debate.
Tonight we got Joe versus Paul. Mr. Sincerity versus The Lying Machine.
I am nervous. Biden is an emotional guy. Ryan is a button pusher. If Biden gets off track, if he loses his cool, Ryan will shred him.
Biden has a little of Bill Clinton in him. He has the ability to connect with the little man, maybe more so because Clinton is an intellectual.
Ryan is as phony as they come but real enough for petty republicans.
Biden knows he has to kick ass tonight and I am sure they are preparing appropriately.
Ryan is preparing too, and given the fact that Romney came up with a strategy that worked I gotta believe Ryan has something up his sleeve.
I give the republicans credit for coming up with strategies. They are bold in their lies, bold in their false promises to desperate Americans and audacious in their plan to turn away from suffering Americans if, God forbid, elected.
After the assassination of JFK and a brief upheaval in the sixties, this country has been sliding backwards into the arms of corporate America, Wall Street and immoral politicians.
Sliding backwards into the arms of those who will squeeze until the spine is snapped.
I'm not sure one man can stop it. Not sure one man can change the culture of a country that has grown to revere corruption, greed, drama, pettiness, stupidity, laziness and racism. President Obama stands alone against that tide.
Tonight I hope Vice President Joe Biden digs in his heels and exposes Paul Ryan for the fool that he is. Gets the Democrats back on track.
But I am not sure Biden can withstand the American public's voracious need for drama and pettiness and Ryan's ability to deliver it.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Didn't You
Condescension blinded you to my transformation and arrogance
made you vulnerable.
You thought I would quit.
Mistaking the body blows I took for softness opened you to vengeance.
You didn’t know me at all.
Slowly I suffered and evolved; an inexorable process that made
me hard.
Your lies and laughter and manipulation continued asI got smaller and tighter and dangerous.
Fear and contempt, incubating inside me, acted as catalysts to audacity.
When the moment was right I looked directly into your dilated
eyes as we switched roles.
It felt good to hurt you.
May you never recover as I continue on to savor a serene destiny
richly deserved, and painfully earned.
You thought I would quit, didn’t you?From The Mind Of Bob Dylan
I just read an amazing interview with Bob Dylan in Rolling Stone. It blew my mind because he was quite direct.
You know from his lyrics that he draws from a wealth of knowledge and experience, that he is a poet and a pragmatist, that his references can be obscure and still go directly to your heart.
In interviews he is famously evasive. Does not want to be pinned down.
I think all artists are like this. Journalism takes illusive magic like art and tries to explain it as if were black and white. Artists try like hell not to be pinned down in interviews, to avoid explaining what something means.
A lot of that comes from the fact that there is no true meaning to an artistic statement. It was inspired by an emotion or an observation or an experience in the artist's life and he expresses it through art, which changes it.
If it connects with others that is all that matters; not why or how.
But Dylan has raised evasiveness to an art form. I love the man and I have found most of his interviews frustrating.
Not this time.
Selective and edited quotes:
"But let's not forget human nature isn't bound to any specific time in history. ..........My songs are personal music; they're not communal. I wouldn't want people singing along with me. It would sound funny. I'm not playing campfire meetings." Boom.
"You don't write the kind of songs I write just being a conventional type of songwriter. And I don't think anybody will write them like this again, anymore than anybody will ever write a Hank Williams or Irving Berlin song. That's pretty much for sure. I just think I have taken things to a new level because I've had to. Because I've been forced to. You have to constantly reshape things because everything keeps expanding on you. Life has a way of spreading out." Boom.
"Some people are called to be a good sailor. Some people have a calling to be a good tiller of the land. Some people are called to be a good friend. You have to be the best at whatever you are called at. ............ It's about confidence, not arrogance. You have to know that you're the best whether anybody tells you that or not." Boom.
"Maybe people have to have a simplistic way of identifying something, if they can't grasp it properly - use some term that they think they can understand, like mortality. Oh, like, these songs must be about mortality. "I mean Dylan, isn't he an old guy? He must be thinking about that." You know what I say to that horseshit? I say these idiots don't know what they're talking about. Go find somebody else to pick on." Boom.
"I have enough faith for me to be faithful to myself. Faith is good - it could move mountains. Not that bloody-mary faith that you have, but the kind of faith that people like me have. You can tell whether other people have faith or no faith by the way they behave, by the shit that comes out of their mouths." Boom.
A quick aside - a great lyric from Sugar Baby on Love and Theft - "Every moment of existence seems like some dirty trick."
"Some people never really develop into who they are supposed to be. They get cut off. They go off another way. It happens a lot. We all see people that that's happened to. We see them on the street. It's like they have a sign hanging on them." Boom.
"Oh, of course (receiving the Medal of Freedom) it's a thrill. .......... And the kind of people they were putting me in the category with was just amazing. People like John Glenn and Madelaine Albright, Toni Morrison and Pat Summitt, John Doer, William Foege and some others too. These people who have done incredible things and have outstanding achievements. ............I loved spending time with them. What's the alternative? Hanging around with hedge fund hucksters or Hollywood gigolos?" Boom.
"People like to betray people. .........They want to deliver you up. Like they delivered Jesus. They want to be the one to do it." Boom.
"Wussies and pussies complain about that stuff. ..........These are the same people who tried to pin the name Judas on me. Judas, the most hated name in human history! If you think you've been called a bad name try to work your way out from under that. Yeah, and for what? Playing an electric guitar? As if that is in some kind of way equitable to betraying our lord and delivering him up to be crucified. All those evil motherf***ers can rot in hell." BOOM.
In addition to expressing raw truths, Dylan throws off meaningful philosophical opinions or statements effortlessly:
"If you're not fulfilled in other ways, performing can never make you happy.......................Is it a fulfilling way of life? Well what kind of way of life is fulfilling? No kind of life is fulfilling if your soul hasn't been redeemed."
"If slavery had been given up in a more peaceful way, America would be far ahead today."
"The thing about it is that there is the old and the new, and you have to connect with them both. The old goes out and the new comes in, but there is no sharp borderline. The old is still happening while the new enters the scene, sometimes unnoticed. The new is overlapping at the same time the old is weakening its hold."
"If we're responsible to ourselves, then we can be responsible for other people, too. But we have to know ourselves first. People listen to my songs and they must think I'm a certain type of way, and maybe I am. But there's more to it than that. I think they can listen to my songs and figure out who they are too."
On top of all that tasty stuff, Dylan introduces the concept of transfiguration into the interview. I didn't know what the hell that was so I checked it out. It is defined as a marked change in form or appearance; a metamorphosis, a change that glorifies or exalts. It is originally attributed to Jesus taking Peter and James and John up on a mountain where Christ became transfigured. "his face did shine as the sun: and his garments became white as snow."
In 1966 Dylan had a devastating motorcycle accident and disappeared from the scene for a long while to heal. When he returned he was writing radically different music. He somehow connects this occurrence, through the concept of transfiguration, to the death of a Hell's Angel a few years earlier in a motorcycle accident. The bikers name was......................Robert Zimmerman.
Dylan is one interesting cat.
Most people won't make the commitment to read through all the above quotes. They are lazy and easily distracted. If you have made it this far, I hope it all meant something to you.
In closing I can honestly tell you that Bob Dylan's name projects the same power and mystery with me as the name Jesus Christ.
Maybe more.
You know from his lyrics that he draws from a wealth of knowledge and experience, that he is a poet and a pragmatist, that his references can be obscure and still go directly to your heart.
In interviews he is famously evasive. Does not want to be pinned down.
I think all artists are like this. Journalism takes illusive magic like art and tries to explain it as if were black and white. Artists try like hell not to be pinned down in interviews, to avoid explaining what something means.
A lot of that comes from the fact that there is no true meaning to an artistic statement. It was inspired by an emotion or an observation or an experience in the artist's life and he expresses it through art, which changes it.
If it connects with others that is all that matters; not why or how.
But Dylan has raised evasiveness to an art form. I love the man and I have found most of his interviews frustrating.
Not this time.
Selective and edited quotes:
"But let's not forget human nature isn't bound to any specific time in history. ..........My songs are personal music; they're not communal. I wouldn't want people singing along with me. It would sound funny. I'm not playing campfire meetings." Boom.
"You don't write the kind of songs I write just being a conventional type of songwriter. And I don't think anybody will write them like this again, anymore than anybody will ever write a Hank Williams or Irving Berlin song. That's pretty much for sure. I just think I have taken things to a new level because I've had to. Because I've been forced to. You have to constantly reshape things because everything keeps expanding on you. Life has a way of spreading out." Boom.
"Some people are called to be a good sailor. Some people have a calling to be a good tiller of the land. Some people are called to be a good friend. You have to be the best at whatever you are called at. ............ It's about confidence, not arrogance. You have to know that you're the best whether anybody tells you that or not." Boom.
"Maybe people have to have a simplistic way of identifying something, if they can't grasp it properly - use some term that they think they can understand, like mortality. Oh, like, these songs must be about mortality. "I mean Dylan, isn't he an old guy? He must be thinking about that." You know what I say to that horseshit? I say these idiots don't know what they're talking about. Go find somebody else to pick on." Boom.
"I have enough faith for me to be faithful to myself. Faith is good - it could move mountains. Not that bloody-mary faith that you have, but the kind of faith that people like me have. You can tell whether other people have faith or no faith by the way they behave, by the shit that comes out of their mouths." Boom.
A quick aside - a great lyric from Sugar Baby on Love and Theft - "Every moment of existence seems like some dirty trick."
"Some people never really develop into who they are supposed to be. They get cut off. They go off another way. It happens a lot. We all see people that that's happened to. We see them on the street. It's like they have a sign hanging on them." Boom.
"Oh, of course (receiving the Medal of Freedom) it's a thrill. .......... And the kind of people they were putting me in the category with was just amazing. People like John Glenn and Madelaine Albright, Toni Morrison and Pat Summitt, John Doer, William Foege and some others too. These people who have done incredible things and have outstanding achievements. ............I loved spending time with them. What's the alternative? Hanging around with hedge fund hucksters or Hollywood gigolos?" Boom.
"People like to betray people. .........They want to deliver you up. Like they delivered Jesus. They want to be the one to do it." Boom.
"Wussies and pussies complain about that stuff. ..........These are the same people who tried to pin the name Judas on me. Judas, the most hated name in human history! If you think you've been called a bad name try to work your way out from under that. Yeah, and for what? Playing an electric guitar? As if that is in some kind of way equitable to betraying our lord and delivering him up to be crucified. All those evil motherf***ers can rot in hell." BOOM.
In addition to expressing raw truths, Dylan throws off meaningful philosophical opinions or statements effortlessly:
"If you're not fulfilled in other ways, performing can never make you happy.......................Is it a fulfilling way of life? Well what kind of way of life is fulfilling? No kind of life is fulfilling if your soul hasn't been redeemed."
"If slavery had been given up in a more peaceful way, America would be far ahead today."
"The thing about it is that there is the old and the new, and you have to connect with them both. The old goes out and the new comes in, but there is no sharp borderline. The old is still happening while the new enters the scene, sometimes unnoticed. The new is overlapping at the same time the old is weakening its hold."
"If we're responsible to ourselves, then we can be responsible for other people, too. But we have to know ourselves first. People listen to my songs and they must think I'm a certain type of way, and maybe I am. But there's more to it than that. I think they can listen to my songs and figure out who they are too."
On top of all that tasty stuff, Dylan introduces the concept of transfiguration into the interview. I didn't know what the hell that was so I checked it out. It is defined as a marked change in form or appearance; a metamorphosis, a change that glorifies or exalts. It is originally attributed to Jesus taking Peter and James and John up on a mountain where Christ became transfigured. "his face did shine as the sun: and his garments became white as snow."
In 1966 Dylan had a devastating motorcycle accident and disappeared from the scene for a long while to heal. When he returned he was writing radically different music. He somehow connects this occurrence, through the concept of transfiguration, to the death of a Hell's Angel a few years earlier in a motorcycle accident. The bikers name was......................Robert Zimmerman.
Dylan is one interesting cat.
Most people won't make the commitment to read through all the above quotes. They are lazy and easily distracted. If you have made it this far, I hope it all meant something to you.
In closing I can honestly tell you that Bob Dylan's name projects the same power and mystery with me as the name Jesus Christ.
Maybe more.
Dig This
"youth ever grins scornfully at the wreckage of age"
"And here is another complaint I bring against John Barleycorn. It is these good fellows that he gets - the fellows with the fire and the go in them, who have bigness, and warmness, and the best of the human weaknesses. And John Barleycorn puts out the fire, and soddens the agility and, when he does not more immediately kill them or make maniacs of them, he coarsens and grossens them, twists and malforms them out of the original goodness and fineness of their natures.
............... Oh - and I speak out of later knowledge - heaven forefend me from the most of the average run of male humans who are not good fellows, the ones cold of heart and cold of head who don't smoke, drink, nor swear, nor do much of anything else that is brave, and resentful and stinging, because in their feeble fibers there has never been the stir and prod of life to well over its boundaries and be devilish and daring.
...................And so I draw the indictment home to John Barleycorn. it is just these, the good fellows, the worth while, the fellows with the weakness of too much strength, too much spirit, too much fire and flame of fine devilishness that he solicits and ruins. Of course he ruins weaklings; but with them, the worst we breed, I am not here concerned. My concern is that it is so much of the best we breed whom John Barleycorn destroys."
From John Barleycorn - Alcoholic Memoirs - Jack London
(Editor's note: Lest you be confused, later in life Jack London was a big supporter of Prohibition.)
"And here is another complaint I bring against John Barleycorn. It is these good fellows that he gets - the fellows with the fire and the go in them, who have bigness, and warmness, and the best of the human weaknesses. And John Barleycorn puts out the fire, and soddens the agility and, when he does not more immediately kill them or make maniacs of them, he coarsens and grossens them, twists and malforms them out of the original goodness and fineness of their natures.
............... Oh - and I speak out of later knowledge - heaven forefend me from the most of the average run of male humans who are not good fellows, the ones cold of heart and cold of head who don't smoke, drink, nor swear, nor do much of anything else that is brave, and resentful and stinging, because in their feeble fibers there has never been the stir and prod of life to well over its boundaries and be devilish and daring.
...................And so I draw the indictment home to John Barleycorn. it is just these, the good fellows, the worth while, the fellows with the weakness of too much strength, too much spirit, too much fire and flame of fine devilishness that he solicits and ruins. Of course he ruins weaklings; but with them, the worst we breed, I am not here concerned. My concern is that it is so much of the best we breed whom John Barleycorn destroys."
From John Barleycorn - Alcoholic Memoirs - Jack London
(Editor's note: Lest you be confused, later in life Jack London was a big supporter of Prohibition.)
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
6:54 on 10/09
6:54 on an already dark October night.
Tired.
Empty Blue Moon sits above the keyboard.
Bob Dylan staring at me.
Judging me.
Challenging me.
Tension at work.
Tension about work.
Financial stress at home.
Family members who are ill.
Cold coming on, oil bills and snow.
These things define a life.
Solitude.
A movie awaits.
Pizza.
Hoping a bowler returns happy.
The cats.
Two days off.
WRITING.
These things define a life.
But we decide which is right.
And which is an illusion.
Tired.
Empty Blue Moon sits above the keyboard.
Bob Dylan staring at me.
Judging me.
Challenging me.
Tension at work.
Tension about work.
Financial stress at home.
Family members who are ill.
Cold coming on, oil bills and snow.
These things define a life.
Solitude.
A movie awaits.
Pizza.
Hoping a bowler returns happy.
The cats.
Two days off.
WRITING.
These things define a life.
But we decide which is right.
And which is an illusion.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Rodriguez
Digging on 60 Minutes last night and I was blown away by this story.
There is a guy named Rodriguez who cut a couple of records in the 60's. He was born poor in Detroit and spent his life poor in Detroit.
His records bombed in America. Did nothing, went no where.
What he didn't know was that his records sold like crazy in South Africa. He was bigger than Elvis there, bigger than The Beatles. Steve Segerman, a record shop owner in South Africa said: "To many of us South Africans he was the soundtrack to our lives. If you walked into a random white, middle class household that had a turntable and a pile of pop records you would always see "Cold Fact" by Rodriguez. To us, it was one of the most famous records of all time. It was the 1970's and apartheid political repression was at its height. Rodriguez's lyrics resonated with people who had had it with the system."
How the hell nobody in America knew about this pisses me off. Record companies are notorious for ripping off artists because they are creative humans, not businessmen. But considering his popularity it would have been in the record companies interest to drag him around the world and puppet him on stage to perform. I don't get it.
Anyway for the past FORTY years he has been living in Detroit in a house with a wood burning stove working as a day laborer; demolition, roofing, heavy construction. AND he got himself a degree in philosophy.
Four years ago a Swedish filmmaker heard about him and decided to make a documentary. The filmmaker was struggling. He shot a lot of the film with an iPhone 4 and a $1.00 Super 8 app. Still he almost went broke doing it and pretty much gave up. He finally found producers who submitted his unfinished film to the Sundance film festival in Utah. They liked it so much they opened the festival with it.
It's out there now and it's called "Searching For Sugar Man." I will watch it as soon as possible and suck that bitter sweet vibe directly into my soul.
You should too.
Rodriguez is currently on a sold out tour across America.
His music is beautiful. Exceptionally Dylanesque.
And the guy is incredibly humble. No bitterness. Even though he is now 70 years old, has trouble walking and trouble with his eyesight. He is an incredibly cool cat. During the entire interview he wore humility like a lesson for humanity, accepting his fate as it was and digging his current resurgence gratefully and graciously.
This is probably why his music resonates. It is a direct reflection of a delicate, evolved soul.
This is what I am looking for. Late life redemption.
This is what we are all looking for. "We" being elderly folks like myself.
At least the ones who have not given in to bitterness and cynicism. Hopelessness.
My professional life went horribly wrong forty years ago when I went to college for the wrong reasons and continued down the path blindly. I have been scraping and clawing and hoping my way back ever since. In January 2006 I dug in my heels and tried to stop the negative momentum, but it's like trying to turn an ocean liner on a dime.
A story like this gives you hope that things can change if you try and fight and believe. That a subtle twist in your life vibe can occur that will turn everything around.
Sometimes it is one small occurrence, one simple turn of fate that can bring you face to face with yourself and with the life that you deserve.
It is intimidating to think that many of us are right up against that which will make us whole......and we don't know it. Buried under regret and worry and repression so our senses don't sense.
Rodriguez is the perfect inspiration because of the amazing way he has handled all this. The best of human nature intersecting with the unknowable time table and potential rewards of fate.
His music is delicious. Check it out.
His story is magnificent in its outcome. Learn from it.
There is always hope if you give it room to breathe.
There is a guy named Rodriguez who cut a couple of records in the 60's. He was born poor in Detroit and spent his life poor in Detroit.
His records bombed in America. Did nothing, went no where.
What he didn't know was that his records sold like crazy in South Africa. He was bigger than Elvis there, bigger than The Beatles. Steve Segerman, a record shop owner in South Africa said: "To many of us South Africans he was the soundtrack to our lives. If you walked into a random white, middle class household that had a turntable and a pile of pop records you would always see "Cold Fact" by Rodriguez. To us, it was one of the most famous records of all time. It was the 1970's and apartheid political repression was at its height. Rodriguez's lyrics resonated with people who had had it with the system."
How the hell nobody in America knew about this pisses me off. Record companies are notorious for ripping off artists because they are creative humans, not businessmen. But considering his popularity it would have been in the record companies interest to drag him around the world and puppet him on stage to perform. I don't get it.
Anyway for the past FORTY years he has been living in Detroit in a house with a wood burning stove working as a day laborer; demolition, roofing, heavy construction. AND he got himself a degree in philosophy.
Four years ago a Swedish filmmaker heard about him and decided to make a documentary. The filmmaker was struggling. He shot a lot of the film with an iPhone 4 and a $1.00 Super 8 app. Still he almost went broke doing it and pretty much gave up. He finally found producers who submitted his unfinished film to the Sundance film festival in Utah. They liked it so much they opened the festival with it.
It's out there now and it's called "Searching For Sugar Man." I will watch it as soon as possible and suck that bitter sweet vibe directly into my soul.
You should too.
Rodriguez is currently on a sold out tour across America.
His music is beautiful. Exceptionally Dylanesque.
And the guy is incredibly humble. No bitterness. Even though he is now 70 years old, has trouble walking and trouble with his eyesight. He is an incredibly cool cat. During the entire interview he wore humility like a lesson for humanity, accepting his fate as it was and digging his current resurgence gratefully and graciously.
This is probably why his music resonates. It is a direct reflection of a delicate, evolved soul.
This is what I am looking for. Late life redemption.
This is what we are all looking for. "We" being elderly folks like myself.
At least the ones who have not given in to bitterness and cynicism. Hopelessness.
My professional life went horribly wrong forty years ago when I went to college for the wrong reasons and continued down the path blindly. I have been scraping and clawing and hoping my way back ever since. In January 2006 I dug in my heels and tried to stop the negative momentum, but it's like trying to turn an ocean liner on a dime.
A story like this gives you hope that things can change if you try and fight and believe. That a subtle twist in your life vibe can occur that will turn everything around.
Sometimes it is one small occurrence, one simple turn of fate that can bring you face to face with yourself and with the life that you deserve.
It is intimidating to think that many of us are right up against that which will make us whole......and we don't know it. Buried under regret and worry and repression so our senses don't sense.
Rodriguez is the perfect inspiration because of the amazing way he has handled all this. The best of human nature intersecting with the unknowable time table and potential rewards of fate.
His music is delicious. Check it out.
His story is magnificent in its outcome. Learn from it.
There is always hope if you give it room to breathe.
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Alcohol, Drugs, Gambling and Prostitution
A major casino-hotel complex is proposed to be built in Spain to help the economy.
The proposal is being opposed by some in Spain on the grounds that it will bring with it prostitution and drug traffic (alcohol and gambling are already covered).
Spain's economy is fragile and heavily in debt. Unemployment is at 25%.
The project will create an estimated 260,000 new jobs and a huge increase in tourist business and all the perks related to this type of venture that will benefit many types of business and the economy as a whole.
Alcohol, drugs, gambling and prostitution are more natural than working for a living. More natural than breathing. Holier than thou types need to stop avoiding the truth.
People need these things. They want them. They deserve them. There is nothing wrong with them.
This truth has existed forever. It will exist forever.
If these opponents would take their hands away from their eyes they would see these things already flourishing in Spain. As they do everywhere in the world.
People are bored. Life is boring. Life suffocates with boredom and rules and expectations and responsibility and routine.
Life disappoints. Alcohol, drugs, gambling and prostitution deliver.
Booze and drugs make you feel good. Gambling offers a chance at riches. Prostitution allows the indulgence of fantasy.
All of them get you away from a life you never imagined for yourself. A life of sacrifice and budgets and manipulative bosses, no freedom, no dignity, no luxury.
I just started reading John Barleycorn: Alcoholic Memoirs by Jack London. An autobiography of a short life.
Jack London wrote Call Of The Wild, White Fang and many other stories and a few more books. I was blown away to find out he was a legendary boozer. My mind did not connect the dots from a nature and wild life lover to monumental booze consumption.
Somehow it made more sense with Hemingway.
Here's a great Jack London quote: "Intenseness and duration are as ancient enemies as fire and water. They are mutually destructive. They cannot co-exist."
This is where I am coming from. The Holy Four (alcohol, drugs, gambling and prostitution) offer intenseness which is exactly what human beings need. Something to spike your life with excitement. But you cannot enjoy these things continuously or you destroy your health and wind up broke.
So you keep coming back to them. They are as important as a yearly health exam. And more exciting than a prostate exam. Unless you really like your doctor.
London says he first got drunk at the age of five when he slurped some beer from a pail he was carrying to his father in the fields. I'm not sure about that memory but he says he got very sick and learned to never touch alcohol again.
Until..........
He describes another episode as a teenager when he drank with some seafaring men and got loaded - and sick as a dog - again. But he developed a different perspective based on the drunken conversation and the camaraderie he shared with these guys. "I had caught a myriad enticing and inflammatory hints of a world beyond my world, and for which I was certainly as fitted as the two lads who had drunk with me. I had got behind men's souls. I had got behind my own soul and found unguessed potencies and greatness."
I propose The Holy Four all offer this potential.
Jack London worked brutally in a cannery for a while, a minimum of ten hours a day and sometimes as many as eighteen, before deciding to buy a sloop and become an oyster pirate. I don't have time to explain that. Look it up.
On the night he closed the deal for the sloop he drank on the boat with the owner and his crew. "Here in this atmosphere of bohemianism, I could not but contrast the scene withe the scene of the day before, sitting at my machine, in the stifling, shut-in air, repeating, endlessly repeating, at top speed, my series of mechanical motions. And here I sat now, glass in hand, in warm-glowing camaraderie with the oyster pirates, adventurers who refused to be slaves to petty routine, who flouted restrictions and the law, who carried their lives and their liberty in their hands. And it was through John Barleycorn that I came to join this glorious company of free souls, unashamed and unafraid."
The Holy Four, baby. The Holy Four.
Excess can destroy you when it comes to these delicacies just like working too hard can kill you.
I am merely campaigning to strip The Holy Four of their evil reputation, to advance the theory that they are good for humans and society, are indeed necessary.
Spaniards opposing a casino-hotel complex that could seriously boost their economy because of The Evil it would invite is hypocritical and not economically wise.
The Spanish are a lusty people, passionate, fiery and alive.
The human race needs to take an honest look in the mirror and lighten up.
The proposal is being opposed by some in Spain on the grounds that it will bring with it prostitution and drug traffic (alcohol and gambling are already covered).
Spain's economy is fragile and heavily in debt. Unemployment is at 25%.
The project will create an estimated 260,000 new jobs and a huge increase in tourist business and all the perks related to this type of venture that will benefit many types of business and the economy as a whole.
Alcohol, drugs, gambling and prostitution are more natural than working for a living. More natural than breathing. Holier than thou types need to stop avoiding the truth.
People need these things. They want them. They deserve them. There is nothing wrong with them.
This truth has existed forever. It will exist forever.
If these opponents would take their hands away from their eyes they would see these things already flourishing in Spain. As they do everywhere in the world.
People are bored. Life is boring. Life suffocates with boredom and rules and expectations and responsibility and routine.
Life disappoints. Alcohol, drugs, gambling and prostitution deliver.
Booze and drugs make you feel good. Gambling offers a chance at riches. Prostitution allows the indulgence of fantasy.
All of them get you away from a life you never imagined for yourself. A life of sacrifice and budgets and manipulative bosses, no freedom, no dignity, no luxury.
I just started reading John Barleycorn: Alcoholic Memoirs by Jack London. An autobiography of a short life.
Jack London wrote Call Of The Wild, White Fang and many other stories and a few more books. I was blown away to find out he was a legendary boozer. My mind did not connect the dots from a nature and wild life lover to monumental booze consumption.
Somehow it made more sense with Hemingway.
Here's a great Jack London quote: "Intenseness and duration are as ancient enemies as fire and water. They are mutually destructive. They cannot co-exist."
This is where I am coming from. The Holy Four (alcohol, drugs, gambling and prostitution) offer intenseness which is exactly what human beings need. Something to spike your life with excitement. But you cannot enjoy these things continuously or you destroy your health and wind up broke.
So you keep coming back to them. They are as important as a yearly health exam. And more exciting than a prostate exam. Unless you really like your doctor.
London says he first got drunk at the age of five when he slurped some beer from a pail he was carrying to his father in the fields. I'm not sure about that memory but he says he got very sick and learned to never touch alcohol again.
Until..........
He describes another episode as a teenager when he drank with some seafaring men and got loaded - and sick as a dog - again. But he developed a different perspective based on the drunken conversation and the camaraderie he shared with these guys. "I had caught a myriad enticing and inflammatory hints of a world beyond my world, and for which I was certainly as fitted as the two lads who had drunk with me. I had got behind men's souls. I had got behind my own soul and found unguessed potencies and greatness."
I propose The Holy Four all offer this potential.
Jack London worked brutally in a cannery for a while, a minimum of ten hours a day and sometimes as many as eighteen, before deciding to buy a sloop and become an oyster pirate. I don't have time to explain that. Look it up.
On the night he closed the deal for the sloop he drank on the boat with the owner and his crew. "Here in this atmosphere of bohemianism, I could not but contrast the scene withe the scene of the day before, sitting at my machine, in the stifling, shut-in air, repeating, endlessly repeating, at top speed, my series of mechanical motions. And here I sat now, glass in hand, in warm-glowing camaraderie with the oyster pirates, adventurers who refused to be slaves to petty routine, who flouted restrictions and the law, who carried their lives and their liberty in their hands. And it was through John Barleycorn that I came to join this glorious company of free souls, unashamed and unafraid."
The Holy Four, baby. The Holy Four.
Excess can destroy you when it comes to these delicacies just like working too hard can kill you.
I am merely campaigning to strip The Holy Four of their evil reputation, to advance the theory that they are good for humans and society, are indeed necessary.
Spaniards opposing a casino-hotel complex that could seriously boost their economy because of The Evil it would invite is hypocritical and not economically wise.
The Spanish are a lusty people, passionate, fiery and alive.
The human race needs to take an honest look in the mirror and lighten up.
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