reflections on the undeleted

not left behind

2010-01-16T03:06:00.001-05:00

i did not leave you behind
i just do not have the time
but there will come a day
when i will find a way
to bring you from my mind
cuz you live there
in my memories
all the time

smash is dandy!

2008-01-17T21:38:00.000-05:00

original title/link: "put the drill to my head and...hmm" . . . originally published: 15/01/2008

Poo.

It’s 4:32am and I cannot sleep, due to the fact I have slept so much in the past fortnight that I think I have banked enough sleep to keep the most lazy, lethargic narcoleptic awake for at least a week.

Sadly there are few options available for entertainment at this time, but I narrowed it down to:

1) Get up and watch new gas mashin DVD a very good mate sent me,
2) Lie there and pretend that I’ll get to sleep in a minute, all the time knowing I won’t,
3) Have a wank, or
4) Write a d*land entry.

How lucky for you guys that I chose number 4, eh?

As Dandy pointed out in my comments recently, I did steal the title to my last entry from the content of one of her entries from ages ago.

As punishment, I have decided to raid her archives and will, hopefully for the rest of 2008, have my entry titles consist of randomly picked phrases from her entries.

And all the better if they sound incriminating and obscene, hehe.

Incidentally, when I link to people in my diary, has anyone actually bothered to hover their cursor over the link to see what comment I make about them?

Try hovering your mouse pointer over Dandy’s link…

*waits*

Ha!

I think I might have to hi-jack Dandy’s diary again and write her an entry sometime soon.

It’s so hard writing an entry for Dandy’s diary though. You all know I’m a disgraceful, potty-mouthed, rockin babe-shagger, but it feels somehow wrong to be rude in Dandy’s diary. Sort of like pissing on a gravestone.

Poor Dandy. I’m sure at times she despairs over the day I clicked onto her diary and sent her some stupid dumbass message.

Heh.

In other news… I have a job interview on Friday!

It’s still within the service, but a totally different department.

There are some advantages if I get this job:

1) I won’t have to work with the cunts I work with now,
2) Even if the new people I work with are cunts, they are a whole new bunch of people to wind up and annoy the shite out of.
3) It’s slightly more money and bigger pay increases in future years.
4) The work is far more interesting.
5) The training lasts for months meaning I won’t have to do any real, actual WORK until May (when I turn 30, get saving for my present!)
6) It’s near a great biker pub that does cheap food and cheap drinks and plays great music.

Hmm. I can see 6 possibly becoming problematic if I happen to suffer from job dissatisfaction…

The only thing is I hate job interviews.

I don’t mean I get nervous, far from it. But the stupid bloody questions, for fucks sake.

Dumb questions I have been asked:

What is your favourite colour?

Smash: Black, because it goes with anything. (The interviewer didn’t seem to like that.)

What would you like to achieve in the next 5 years time?

Smash: A huge lottery win, so I could buy myself a garage full of super cars, have an endless supply of beer and babes at my disposal, and just generally have fun until I died at a stupidly young age due to excess. (The interviewer didn’t seem to like that either, especially not when I added that if I could have it now and instead of five years time, then so much the better.)

Would you get your hair cut if I said you could have this job?

Smash: No. (I got the job anyway, and ended up staying there nearly three years.)

Describe something about yourself that is unique

Smash: My fingerprints. Next?

Would you say you are phlegmatic?

Smash: No, but on cold mornings or in the height of summer, I get horrendous catarrh.

Perhaps I should try to be a little less cheeky this time round?

Nah, how would I get a good diary entry out of that one?

Although perhaps I am being optimistic in saying this is a “good” diary entry.

With hindsight, maybe I should have just opted for the wank.

i felt compelled (the power of smash compels me) to reply (and embellish even more here… shhhhh):

using big words with concurrent consecutive consonants confuses me...

catarrh, hummph

and what's all this about hovering over dandy?...

meanwhile, dandy and cunt so do not go together (unless we put a sweet in there somewhere… oh shut up, you did not write that... smash is the potty mouth… wait, maybe nobody got it… oh shit, shutup), which is one of the many things that makes your entries so much fun (or is that morbid humor?... gutter slush?... literary wanking?... infinite entendre?... perhaps we can just agree on dangerous?) to read... especially at work... out loud… over the public address system… maybe if i had a British accent… or French… maybe a little mad Hungarian… in any case, one must always be looking over one's shoulder to see if anyone is glancing over at what one is laughing at as one wonders if one should actually be laughing... not me, of course, but certainly one...

what time is it?...

am i reading you daily again? (are you?... anyone?)…

can there be random political humor in here? (warning, link opens with video playing)...

is random amusing?...

will random survive?...

these and other earth rattling questions may or may not be answered in the next installment of: the soap that ended suddenly without really ending at all, so no wonder nobody felt clean…

people care, you know?

meanwhile, from the files of other random asides and wanky guilt trips (does this mean random survived?... or perhaps random, random's italic twin brother?), i am considering starting another new daily-ish webpage (diary, blog, journal, bootube, blip, whatever) since my history has demonstracted (occasionally demonstrated too) quite effectively that moving on to new daily babblespots consistently loses the attention of any audience (friends?) i might attract during my year or two at any given address (being flighty is just so unwelcome in the blogging world, ya know?)... also, perhaps i might perfect the abstract art of actually maintaining an attention span for more than ten seconds and therein provide readers with something worth returning for more to read for with...

somehow, i think the prepositions tripped me up there, but certainty is an elusive mongrel...

yes, so, in any case, anyway, whatever, meanwhile, hello :)

and oh yes, thank you :)

.
.
.

no offense to dandy or anyone was intended in the making of this poo for we love her, yes we love her, and we definitely do not say so enough, so we take this opportunity to say so more than enough for polite society (cuz, yo, we be lovin dat gurl!... 'specially when she laughs… in fact, that's what we should do, create a new blog called "Dandy laughs"… Garbo would so not roll over, stop saying that… it could also be a humor site called dandy laughs as in, laughs that are dandy), but then, we be diggin dat hoochie momma ho time, beget it!... and besides, we're buried here in smash's diary comments and there's little polite or society about it, now is there?... or here, even…

but we be cultured, dammit!

you've been missed, really you have, just like these scenes from old movies i've failed to mention in passing, but allude to now as if somehow they've been referenced so subtly that no one ever noticed...

playing those mind games, forever...

and you know that, for sure...

gotta let it go now...

see ya.

candoor | 15.01.08 - 10:41 am |

________________________________________

wait, i left out the r in hurmmph, can i get a do-over?

ptp
(protruding tongue productions)

candoor | 15.01.08 - 10:42 am |

well that's just dandy!

homelessness starts at home

2008-01-06T22:07:00.000-05:00

this will find elaboration later, but for now, i just wanted to out it here…

making a turn today i saw a homeless man standing on a street corner. he was holding a sign and wearing a blue sweatshirt. i wondered about him. i thought of him as a newborn baby, starting out as a life the same way everyone does. i wondered if his mother and father had dreams for him, for what his life would be like, for what they hoped he might become. or maybe he was discarded from the very beginning, not wanted or cared about, seen as a burden for existing. i wondered if he had any children of his own, a family, had any dreams left, had ever known caring arms. i wondered where he slept, what he ate, whether anyone ever talked to him, or showed any compassion toward him. i wondered if he was sick and in pain.

do we look through invisible people because we are afraid of how we could disappear too, ourselves becoming invisible to those driving by?

i made a lot of assumptions about the man in blue today, all of which could be totally wrong and probably are. i know nothing about him, about any of the circumstances that led him to his place on the corner in his bright blue sweatshirt holding a sign telling the world he was hungry and without a home. i could make up any number of stories about his life that led him to that street corner, none of which approximate the truth. i was merely driving by, sitting in a warm car, full from breakfast, needs having been met (for today), one of hundreds who would drive by him...finding it difficult to really look at him. i felt sorry for him, which felt pretty useless. feeling sorry didn't feed him or clothe him or provide him a home or make anyone care about him. i drove by, just like everyone else, still feeling sorry, and also feeling shame for looking through him too...too afraid of what he represented, the potential to be cast off and thrown away, forgotten and unloved. in the past i have stopped to provide what cash i had on me or purchased a meal and/or a drink, and given it with a kind word and a handshake. did making just one minute different in someone's life make any difference at all, or did it merely make me feel better for the moment?

the man today seemed real in a way others haven't before, closer, more personal. i looked down and realized i was wearing the same kind of sweatshirt as the man on the corner. his was blue. mine was red. his was worn and dirty. mine was clean and bright. our lives may have been very different today, but there we were, wearing the same sweatshirt, intersecting.

i'm inside, sitting at a computer, full now from dinner, comfortable and sleepy, wearing my red sweatshirt.

it's cold and raining tonight...his blue sweatshirt isn't nearly enough to keep him warm and dry.

it inspired me to write:

carry brochures for local homeless shelters, labor-ready type day labor places, free counseling centers, and government welfare offices... if he does not want to remain homeless and begging, he does not have to... if he is stuff in a self-destructive psychological loop, he needs professional counseling... i might go as far, if i felt it was safe, to offer to drive him and walk with him into to any one of the places i mentioned above... sit with him while he waits for the people inside to offer what they can... above all else, help him face the fact that a day labor place will, on most days, offer him more than enough to feed himself, bathe himself, wash his clothes, buy a new shirt, sometimes enough to buy something more, even a room in a boarding house... and the opportunity to regain his self-respect and change his habits if he wants to...

or you could enable his helplessness and assuage your ridiculous learned guilt by giving him a dollar... i think that is a futile and destructive choice, but that's just my opinion based on my experience...

putting a band aid on a broken arm might seem like a moment of kindness and feel good emotionally, but the arm needs a whole lot more to heal well...

same for a broken psyche...

and as for you...

you did not take anything from the man... you did not physically or emotionally destroy his self-esteem or put him on the street... you did not make him give up on myself... your guilt feelings are your choice based on the mixed up psyche and stuff you learned from religion... don't use him to try to put a bandaid on your broken arm,

it will not work and only enables the self-defeating emotional habits and mixed-up thinking that somehow has you feeling responsible for someone else's experience and choices...

love you :)

methods to the madness

2007-11-26T23:00:00.000-05:00

there comes a moment of epiphany in a catharsis and this may or not be one of those, but it's planted here anyway because it may have some growth potential for someone, humanity, even, but definitely for posterity (cuz posterity is such a big old soul and infinitely creative, after all)… i shall leave it for those wonder boys in love with themselves and the idea of constantly re-writing history (what, a jab at academics?... how crass, but wait, maybe it was a disguised self-mutilation that went right over their heads… that'll leave them wondering) to come up with the worth or value of the documents… i'll just continue uploading…

we begin with a series of entries in the third week of november in the RealTime™ blog that ruminated (and regurgitated) the current state of life as i know it (or knew it then) looking around me more than usual to assess myself by noting my place in space and interactions all of which (and who knows what else) prompted z0tl to say (and we begin):

i hate people who walk around pointing to negative people, insisting they are positive for doing so.

being able to recognize negativity is not positivity.

now i'm not saying you're doing that right in here, but you are walking a tight rope and you are inviting DISASTER in your life when you get so arrogant that you believe you can never be depressed.

but of course you don't believe that, because you are DEPRESSED, ever since i've known you, really, about being LONELY and unable to find someone who you can truly SHARE your potential for happiness with.

and so it goes.

anyway, the xwifey used to say the ability of a person to be happy is genetic. now then, if i'm endowed with a set of genes that allow me to be miserable, may i be allowed to please enjoy that temporary makeup fully without having to listen from those happy stupid people going around telling everyone how they should be happy in every circumstance?

i happen to be happy at this time, but i'm fully aware i have the ability to be miserable at any time, with
all my heart, beware of z-dawg!-)

ps: i expect at least a 58 pages response to this with an 8 page executive summary in a comment.

pps: with the full understanding that this discussion is practice for juch j.hoppers as may be envisioned
reading this utter crap decades or even millenia from now, when archive.org has been pangalactically archived.

ppps: because you do understand i don't actually believe you're one of those people who may have written this
entry not knowing what true miserablesbility is.

pppps: oh, yeh, i'm on track #4 through your mp3s better be good when i get to #8.

i'm soooo speshiallll

and then z0tl said...

i'm climbing a tit line.

and then z0tl said...

what this crappy movie 'the peaceful warrior' based on the book [which was much better], in which it is said:

happiness is not true happiness unless shared.

what a bunch of bull. climb a rock or something.

at which time i was inspired to respond, though amidst distractions and already ongoing tasks, including writing a second entry for the day that was delayed many hours due to the distraction of writing the response to the comment above that will appear below and all together is becoming this entry, whatever it may be, become, bego, or begone, even… you see, the words above, scattered as they may be, in a triad delivery as only the great masters of humanity can do, provided food for fodder, fodder for thought, though for feeling, feeling for futility, futility to avoid, and cute visual images on television could not distract me at the time because the television was not on, only the music, the music that compels, me, the power of music compels me, the power of music compels me, the power of music compels me, the power of music compels me, the power of music compels me, the power of music compels me, the power of music compels me, the power of music compels me, the power of music compels me, the power of music compels me, the power of music compels me, the power of music compels me, and no holy water is needed…

yeah, so this is what i said (with multiple {and musical} elaborations):

i've missed your brilliant axe...

that last line may have been the most sincere statement in this blog, ever, or at least in this entry so far… the tongue goes back in the cheek for the next bit… yup, right, you are correct sir... i'll still find references to amuse me though, like Ed and Johnny and Carnak the Magnificent cuz that's more fun that wallowing in the pity party, for me at least...

this music mix, for instance, is one of the journeys through the roller coaster of bliss and depression (cuz being manic is more fun than being catatonic for me and this first music mix is for me... somebody's gotta indulge the child, after all :)

it may be way too sleepy for your tastes, but then, look at the title… it is about the words more than the music, this time, but some songs rept in just cuz the melodies were so soothing to the savage beast… my savage beast, you find your own solutions to yours, right…

the recent entries are kind of cleaning house, sorting out the experience of living here, we three, and how i experience it and how i feel about it... it's probably not the proper human thing to do, publishing it all here, but then, i've never said i was trying to be the proper human, just a human (and i'm losing interest in that endeavor lately, but that's probably the seeds of another blog)...

i think i might want to try some arrogance in for size cuz all this goody-goody stuff sure has not worked (except to make me a giggling doormat)... so while we all know that my feigned efforts at being human are just time-passing games, even if i did want to experience being a human, i seriously doubt i would ever want to be with a human ever again… humans are simply not awake enough for me… and that's sure not as arrogant as that thought could have been. so i am still dummying down and being the kinder gentler me out here in cyberland…

idjit…

on another thought stream, i am too happy by myself when i stop being here in this human world where physical love and the illusion of flesh bonding ethereal beings is so possible... that is why i keep coming back to the lonely days, lonely nights, where would i be without my woman (BeeGees) saga that keeps me pretty much in high school... it was fun there and is still fun of dreaming of sharing such emotional drama (hoping for the bliss part) again...

but there's still the irony that every complaint, every whine, every stupid feeling, every depressed hole, every arrogant assness, every negative thought, whether i want it to or not and whether i let it out or not, ends in the dream... just look at the impromptu "CD" i just put together before coming here to read your comments:

Any Old Kind of Day
Blackbird/Yesterday
When You're A Free Man
Everybody's Lonely
A Day In The Life
Lonely People
Short Stories
First Episode At Hienton
Talking To My Angel
Oh Daddy
New Horizons
Song For Myself
Our House

. . . . .

Harry Chapin
Beatles
Moody Blues
Harry Chapin
Beatles
America
Harry Chapin
Elton John
Melissa Etheridge
Fleetwood Mac
Moody Blues
Harry Chapin
Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young

oh, wait, this was the moment i realized that the comment box doesn't allow such HTML... so i said "my bad, i'll just turn it into an entry as i usually do when i comment a lot cuz i am so desperately begging for attention and wouldn't want to waste a word la la la...

see next entry :)"

and here we are, padded, embellished, and continuing… it will likely not meet your full expectations for width and girth and pages, even. as it's just not that important (not you, not me, and surely not the self-indulgent project we so passively call this web world… or was that just me… anyway, i have to be back at work tomorrow and have a very busy week engaged in my newly renewed search for the one or at least a good fuck-buddy and I've already forgotten the laundry once sitting here distracted by your wisdom and forgetting laundry is not good for the shirts cuz it makes them all wrinkled and besides, the next-to-season-finale of Heroes is on tonight and you just know how much i am into saving that dang cheerleader), but you do deserve your time in the dark here for tearing yourself away from your wild nights of sex and debauchery just long enough to lavish me with your comment love…

so reasonable estimates are a waste of time, but let's see how this babble flows…

of course depression is the times these days and have been ever since i was once in love with amy, which may have been but an illusionary blip on the radar that distracted me from the deeper depression that was born into me (or i was born into) when i found myself in this human body in this human world… just imagine an enlightened being (what would be easily considered a god on this planet) the experiencing all these limitations and ignorances and stupid human thoughts for the first time… trauma is just the tip of the cosmos of this experience, but then, Douglas Adams helped a lot…

bliss is a relative thing, as is depression… i find humanity quite depressing, what with the apathy, the self-destruction, the condemnation, the fears, not to mention the sorry state of particle physics… i find myself easily absorbed by the collective consciousness (and sleeping conscience) and wallow away in my own irreverent (and quite public) misery laboring under the pretense i am waiting for the one and all I've ever needed was the one and so on, while doing my utmost to repel any true the one with my own personal sardonic negativity, self-destruction, condemnations, fears, apathy, and body odor (not to mention my particular physique)… ain't gonna find no lovin when the self-lovin ain't there… but there's always the good fuck buddy idea…

over the last ten years my faith in humanity, if i ever really had any, has been drained dry… i attracted users and whine about how used i am… i don't appreciate myself and shine about how under-appreciated i am… you know where this is going, so i won't repeat each cleverly worded phrasing of the same thing and just assume, cuz, after all, it's been a while since i made a good ass out of u and me…

so listen to Gavin Friday and you might start getting a feel of the real experience i know as being me in my head… sometimes… and other times, it's the bliss illusion… and just because i've created the nightmare more viscerally in this life does not make the horrible torturous traumas any less illusionary than the bliss, but that's too logical for this would-be discussion… wait, i'm uploading the entire Gavin Friday CD and will turn it into a playlist just for you so you can save it for your next great depression (and they think he jests)… after all, this will be the third entry in the already immortalized undeleted blog…

but then, we don't have to wait for the music to be uploaded… it'll get there when it does and the link will work when i figure out where to put it and type the right address and then we'll all be happily amazed at the lengths and depths (not to mention cyber queues) i'll go to just to make a point that will be rendered meaningless by the next entry, or paragraph, even (stop planning ahead)… and in spite of my pause to remember laundry (I'll have you know that i shall be going to work in slightly wrinkled my shirts for the next two or three weeks thanks to you… haughty and all, i am), Gavin continues to upload (hey, it's somewhere around 130Mb of music cuz i rip at a 320kbps rate {and hardly singe a hair} and i'll have you know that too) and i have sufficiently lost my place in line (or rather, in my mind) so i have no idea what i might have said before i got up to hang up slightly wrinkled shirts and move washer load to dryer and dryer load to basket and new load to washer, not necessarily in that order… wait, i think i forgot that last bit, be right back…

ok, you can listen to Gavin Friday (it'll auto-start playing the first song, but you can stop it and control volume and all that for as long as the page remains up on the net)… i also learned about putting a robot.txt file in my root directory while i was learning all the other stuff needed to put this link together for you and continuing the laundry and listening to music that is ironically, not the playlist on any blog but just a playlist i put together for today many hours ago in my itunes… but thanks for the impetus… zo where were we?...

ah, but i am sufficiently distracted now… if only i did not have laundry cooking when you inspired these streams of semi-consciousness… it could have been epic, aye?... especially in the current month of self-destructive self-depreciation (but i ate tuna out of the can tonight… could the next step be back to salads and dropping the weight again?... there are just a few weeks before the next holiday influence and i already bought chocolates (and hot chocolate mugs and other gifts) to hand out to all the revelers at work, so the challenge will be great to the will power and taste buds… if only the exercise bug would bite hard again… maybe that's the meetup group i needup most… of course it is… where else to find the active high-energy people… and the 5K runs around town… but why do they charge so much?... and why do i keep buying into the excuses?...

this is the boolshit that the master speaks of in trilogy and prophesy and history and for all posterity… this is why we are here… for posterity, at least… and to infinity and beyond, as well… i do boolshit well… so well, i deserve more o's… but now i am making a mockery of the seriousness of the situation, the matter at hand, the teachers (and teachings) of the master, and most of all, myself… this is what i do, you know, or even if you don't know, now you know, even if you don't know that you know, or what i do, this is it, what i do, and whatever you know, you don't know enough… but you could, if you wanted to, you could be a hero, even, if only just for a day…

all you need to do is care… and share… you care, say something meaningful, and life changes… let it in, and it changes for you too…

i'll be back some time to continue…

hanging in realtime

2007-11-20T23:39:00.000-05:00

original (momentary) title: z8tl. . . originally published: 11.20.2007

defunkt link: RealTime (cTM) v RealBoolShyat (zTM)

I've got lower back problems [just a tiny itsy bitsy ones thus far], because I tossed out the old furniture/bed and slept on the floor for a while. Either that or coincidentally with all that wild sex and stuff? Oh, I made progress, perhaps I'm now a 2 minute man twice a day v 1 minute man twice a semester during the declining years of my previous marriage.

I think the more balanced goal is 8 minute man 8 times a week.

Anyway, so I bought a new mattress, the memory foam kind, you know, a Chinee TempurPedic knockout, but still it cost me $800. You spend A HELLUVA LOT OF TIME in bed over a lifetime, don't be cheap with your mattress, I am commanding you!

I wear the heart on the sleeve and don't really have the concept of secrecy/privacy.

I'm not afraid to use google.wallet either and you can have my SSN, just ask. If they want to steal my identity, go right ahead. My turbulent head comes with IT.

I'm at w0rk and it's 7:30am. I've been here since 6:30am. This one's been scheduled, but Saturday at 1-2am wasn't. I didn't have to go in right then and there, but the phone calls can be annoying as well, you know. If it happens once a year, that's fine. Twice? Overhead.

Anyway, all went well and I'm getting decorated for it with a pat on the back or something. I'm sure.

I'm tuned into psyradio.fm, everyone's on thanksgiving vacation, but I gots projekts going on, so I'm actually working harder than normally, which is not at all. At 8:30am a consultant shows up. More w0rk. Lightly threading the w@ters of doing what needs to be done.

Here's a geeky vid to keep your fruit fly attention span entertained:

Mw@h,
-z

in my reply…

I didn't have enough attention span to click and watch the youtube yet cuz i just had to come and brandish my ego about here in your comments cuz, after all, you inspire me to think of myself and have much to say about this, that, and the other thing...

definitely, start at the 8 x 8 and reach to infinity and beyond... I've heard the sex gets better after we leave these bodies, but then, that may just be wishful thinking from the peanut gallery who isn't getting any...

i was considering spending a couple of grand on one of those high-falooting new-age mattresses, tell me how the tempt-your-penis mattresses works out for you after a month or so and you just might sell me on the idea... keep in mind that you are competing with the first bionic woman and her sleep number system... and then there's always the old skool posture-pedic...

speaking of realtime, my left nostril is running constantly and it's all my sleeve can do to catch it...

heck, i still don't even have virus protection and pay for everything with credit online all the time, so who's the bigger risk taking fool anyway?... we win, cuz we want to tie...

secrets can be the most fun illusion of all...

i'm clocking a lot of work time too, but hey, i've got friday and monday off and except for the pathetic mess of a living space and slovenly laziness that surrounds me at home, i intend to rest, relax, and hopefully reawaken the body talk (let's get physical, physical) and maybe even the babbler (what, candoor at blogspot hasn't been babbling enough?... well, no, actually, since i asked, it barely scratches the surface of the asphalt being laid over the gardens in my mind, but there's the rub, isn't it?)...

sex is a good idea i should consider sharing more often... i mean with someone other than me...

i shall explore psyradio.fm one of these days when Rasputin isn't sleeping on the couch (cuz if i wake him he'll probably turn the TV back on and i am so enjoying the silence at the moment) and i tire of exploring the itunes library i inherited and am building in this new laptop...

it's been good chatting with you this way, one of these days we shall catch up in the same realtime (mine, yours, whatevah) and oh, the joys we shall know (and oh, the places we shall go)...

never give up, never surrender...

lost in the details

2007-10-01T03:19:00.000-04:00

original (momentary) title: tryptophania . . . originally published: 9.29.2007

or (aka)... more shit from dogen's monkey, brad wipeass of zen via hardcorezen.blogspot...

defunkt link: that which remains when there's nothing else to forget...

The Buddha said, "Don't believe me, don't believe anybody, don't accept anything based on tradition. Don't believe anything based on the fact that your community believes this or your country believes this or the people that you are around believe this," another version of Buddha's words: "Do not believe in me; do not believe my teaching. You hear, listen to my talk, and test it by yourself. Appeal to your own experience. And if you find it true, accept it. Don't believe in me just because I have a little more experience than you. Don't believe what I say to you for that reason. Believe in yourself!" and also: Buddha himself said, "Belief is not important. Don't believe what I say just because I said it." These were his dying words.

That's why fucking Buddha was a snake, just like Deepak Choprah, & should have his balls cut out & fed to The Dogs of War [see Pink Floyd et All].

The foolish reject what they see,
Not what they think;
The wise reject what they think,
Not what they see.
Observe things as they are
And don't pay attention to other people.

I just came back from Miramar Lake where the loop/trail around it measures 5 miles. I ran 3 1/4 miles of it in 26 minutes (no shit coz like that's like what 8 minutes miles, eh?-) & wilson tennis shoes, not shabby for someone who hasn't run distances like that in 4 years if not longer.

You are not my friend and when I am no longer this I will eat you.

It's time we infuse some kick-ass tea writing in here or else?

Okay, so one of these days I'll sesshin with this Brad dude from hardcorezen.blogspot but I swear to all fucking Buddhas of 58 directions if he tells me how I should clasp my hands, I will shove his Mudras up his ass and take his heart out through his arsehole, fucking AssWipe!

*** I caught up with Brad Warner, in San Francisco. I was very pleased to discover a calm, genial, gentle, warm, wise young fellow, whose unassuming manner would easily lose him in crowd, but whose natural gift for dialogue revealed a very apt, genuine calling as a teacher.

I began by asking him to define what DIY means, for those just tuning in.

Brad Warner: DIY = do it yourself. It's just the idea you don't wait around for a record company to sign you, you put out your own record. You don't wait for a magazine to commission you to do an article, you publish it yourself. ... It's a kind of an attitude....

Q: Is that similar to the teachings of the Buddha?

A: I think it's similar, 'cuz if you think about the idea of working thru your own salvation ... I don't like to put it in those terms ... a lot of religions you give this idea that some god or savior over there is going to help you [gestures] over there in sky. Whereas Buddhism has this idea that, no, you're not waiting for God to help you. You're going to have to work it for yourself. So there's that connection. For sure.

Q: And when you write that the Budha's last words, "Be a lamp unto yourself" is similar to the punk motto "Question authority"...?

A: It's the same sort of stretch. It means you're not waiting for someone else to show you the way. You have to be the lamp. So "question authority" works into that ... but I admit I did stretch it a bit ...

Q: I noticed too that you had a different way of expressing the Zen motto, "Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form."

A: Someone was asking me about this yesterday, but he was objecting. His take on it was that he always translated it as "Matter is immaterial, and immaterial is matter." But it's most always widely translated "Form is emptiness and emptiness is form." And my first teacher's teacher translated it this way.

But they didn't like the way I was talking about the way emptiness is the mental side of reality ... and form is the material side of reality (computers, chairs, things you can touch and feel). Buddhism has the idea that these are one and the same. That the side of reality that we know exists all the time but we can't put our hands on, and the side of reality we can put our hands on, that our hands are a part of ... are the same thing.

Q: In your new book, you set forth four levels in the Shobogenzo. Is that Dogen's idea?

A: That's Nishijima's interpretation of Dogen ... based on the Four Noble Truths ... that's also his unique take on the Four Noble Truths ... what he sees is a parallel between the Four Noble Truths and these four ways of expression that Dogens hits on over and over in Shobogenzo.

It took me a while to see that. It took me a few times reading Shobogenzo to understand what the hell Nishijima was talking about. But after working at it for it a while it makes sense and it makes the whole Shobogenzo make sense. So I find it really useful.

Of course, you can't put words in the mouth of a guy whose been dead 800 years and say that's what he really meant, but i think that 's what he really meant.

Q: I'd like to ask you something I'd asked John Cage, after I heard him perform 45' for a Speaker: "If everything is the way you say it is, then why are you up there, doing what you're doing?"

A: Somebody asked me that yesterday, and it was weird ''cuz I never really thought about it. I write 'cuz I like writing.

And I'm not really trying to influence people or anything like that.

Someone once told me, "You're saving all beings," as a means of encouragement, a kind of Buddhist cliche, and I was thinking , "I'm not saving all beings, I'm just writing a book."

I never think of it in those terms. I just write 'cuz I like to write.

It might be useful to somebody or at least they might enoy reading it.

Does that sound pretentious? I'm just doing what I do.

There's tendency to try to make Buddhism into a business or ... to make it quick and easy. That's the thing that bothers me.

People will take this thing called "enlightenment" (in quotes) and, "Ok, here's the easy way to get enlightenment, and you can do it a week, or a day" or whatever they promise. And it's ridiculous.

It's like if a yoga teacher told you, "I'm going to teach you this special yoga position, and you're going to put your leg up behind your neck by the end of the day." You wouldn't want to go to yoga teacher like that ... it's definitely not healthy.

And I think it's like a lot things I see that are being pushed, that are the same kind of thing. It's not good for you. You don't want to have that experience quickly, 'cuz you'd break your leg, to stretch the metaphor ... beyond the point of breaking ...

Q: I noticed that your new book has way more footnotes than your first one. What's up with that?

A: I wanted this book to be more loose. I always like when I listen to someone and they go off on a tangent. That's always the best part. So my way is just to go off on tagnents. I wanted to have a footnote that would go for a couple of pages. I'm working my way up to that.

Q: Where can people find you on the web?

A: Suicide girls and my blog. My website hasn't been updated for two years, it's a precursor to the blog. Technically, a blog is easy to do, 'cuz you just type it up and it just goes, whereas with the website I had to figure out all the bits to make it work.

But think the articles I do for the Suicide Girls is enjoyable 'cuz it's an audience that isn't self-identified as Buddhist. So it's kind of fun to write for that audience ... 'cuz they don't have any background at all. They're a really receptive audience. I get really good response from the people that read it. It's cool 'cuz i get to be the calm stable person, whereas if you put me in a group of Buddhists, I look like the crazy one, altho' I don't think I am, sometimes I think they're all nuts ... ... I shouldn't say or I can get in more trouble.

I spend more time writing than people realize. Occasionally i put something up on the blog that I type up and send, but generally I work on it. It takes forever. I always think it's going to take an hour but then nine hours later I'm still looking at it and doing [makes sound, like "HHhhghghghhs" ... (how do you write " "HHhhghghghhs" ...?).

Q: So you do a little revision ...

A: I do work it out but then Dogen did too. He did multiple drafts and some of the earlier drafts have been discovered and some of the later chapters were never completed but his successor copied tham out. And then he'll write a little note of apology on the bottom, "This is as he'd written it."

It's interesting to think of this Zen master who had done multiple drafts as a writer, which is something i can kind of identify with ...

You'll find Dogen's books include poems and some are transcripts of his talks and some are comments that he made to his disciples working on them.

Nihshimima has translated him into in modern Japanese. Even Japanese have a hard time with Dogen. So Nishijima wrote a 12-volume edition, with the original and the modern colloquial Japanese facing each other. Then he he did an English version, more or less based on that and work of a student of his named Mike Cross.

Q: So you've read the Japanese?

A: I lived there for 11 years, and I could look up the words I don't know. Actually, whenever I could, whenever I quoted Dogen, I tried to look it up in Japanese, for myself rather than depending solely on the English ...

Q: And so the reason you include Japanese [kanji] in the text is ...

A: ... 'cuz that's way i learned it.

Q: Interesting. You also studied with Gyomay M. Kubose. What were your impressions of him?

A: He was a nice guy. He was pretty old when I knew him, 20 years ago. I lived in Chicago for three years. During those three years, it almost an interruption. I still did the zazen practice, but didn't have a teacher. Kubose, who I liked, wasnt a Zen teacher. He was Pure Land, but he did zazen.

He was recommend to me by Tim McCarthy. They were located in a bad part of Chicago, but they held service on Sunday, and Sunday is really mellow in that part of Chicago 'cuz you'd see people all passed out and trashed out from partying; the kind of area you wouldn't to be walking on.

Q: American Zen owes a great deal to Hakuun Yasutani Roshi (1885-1973), who taught Robert Aitken and Philip Kapleau, among others, but you're not in that lineage, correct?

A: The whole San Francisco Zen Center is not. I don't think I'm the only one, but I'm one of the few. The Yasutani line in Japan is extremely small ... over here, they're big. So it's kinda weird in that they're largely unknown.

Q: What's your favorite film by [B-movie filmmaker]?

A: It Conquered the World ... Corman directed it himself. He produced Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women which is my all-time favorite. It was the first movie Peter Bogdonavich directed. It's taken from a Russian science fiction film that Corman acquired the rights to [editor's note: Pavel Klushantsev's Planet of Storms (Planeta bur), which Corman used in two other movies, as well.]. In order to jazz it up, Peter Bogdonavich was hired to basically go out to Malibu to shoot a lot of girls on the beach in seashell bikinis.

Q: Why do like that one?

A: I saw it was I like six years old on tv late at night. My dad stayed up with me. I liked dinosaurs, the title implied dinosaurs, so I watched it

Decades later, I tried to find it; I wondered if I'd imagined it. Finally, in the early 2,000s I found a list of bootleg videos. It was on the list. "Ah, that film really does exist!," I thought. So I saw it again and I still thought it was great. I was worried. I thought it was going to be lousy but I still liked it.

Q: What's your favorite Godzilla movie?

A: There are 20. My favorite has always been Monster Zero. Nick Adams is in that. He does such over the top acting and he's Ghidorah, the three-headed monster in it. He was really good. It's kinda too bad, no one knows if he commited suicide or if it was an overdose ... some people think he was murdered ...

* * *
At this point, my recorder ran out of tape. We continued to talk, anyway. Then we went for a walk, to City Lights Bookstore. In the basement, we found Sit and Shut Up! filed in the music section, near a biography of Frank Zappa (that, strangely enough, had a book inside of the book). Afterwards, we walked through Jack Kerouac Alley, connecting Italian North Beach's Columbus Avenue with Chinatown's Grant Avenue. As I walked with Brad back towards the apartment where he was staying, we passed a green dinosaur, sticking its head out of its foot-long box. Brad and the green dinosaur shared a quick glance of mutual recognition. Sweet.

Back home, I wondered: Does a green plastic toy dinosaur have Buddha nature? Right then, outside my window I saw a cow grazing in the pasture look up and murmur, "Mu ... !"
***