Theocracy in the USA

I think the Bush Administration has set medical science back at least a decade. Although 10 years may not seem like a long time, when you consider the speed of scientific advances these days ..that puts us back to about the middle ages. It wasn’t that long ago that many of the cancers which are manageable today were considered a death sentence ..things like Hodgkin’s disease, lymphoma and breast cancer come to mind here. Bush has moral issues with stem cell research, genetics and the theory of evolution. I’m sorry, but, as offensive as these fields may be to him ..myself and many others would not be alive today without the progress they made possible. Evolutionary science has provided major weapons in the fight against debilitating diseases. As someone who has survived cancer can attest ..these theories are ‘valid’ by virtue of the fact that they ‘work’. What better test is there ? I don’t care if they confound the minds of religious dogmatists. Denying the obvious is willful ignorance. It is an example of government-by-theocracy when the president demonizes scientific research. There is no place for that in a modern, technologically advanced, society. I am afraid of what two more years of his administration might bring. I do not want to live under the rule of evangelical Christians. Believe me, it is not a step in the direction of moral leadership ..we have Christian militias in this country who act just as uncivilized as Islamic terrorists. Remember Oklahoma City ..?

The road to recovery

I have a nasty cold ..it feels like I’ve been hit by a truck ..must have happened sometime around Thursday ..I should’a seen it coming after driving miles and miles of coastal road with wet hair and the top down ..on the other hand, it could have been something I contacted at the clinic when I stopped by to say hello ..lots of hugs and besos there ..or maybe it’s just my karma ..who knows ..there’s no end to the possibilities my mind conjures up when I feel this way ..so I stock up on lemons and tea ..Chinese hot and sour soup tastes good spiked with beer .. I turn my bathroom into a steam room and soak in warm water. I get absorbed in photoshop to help take my mind off things ..which is probably the reason I’m not very good ..it’s not really meant for the brain dead. Before I know it, it’s 4 am ..so I go to bed ..where I experience wave after wave of crazy thoughts ..like maybe I caught the bird flu virus ..or my neighbors are conspiring against me ..or my family is trying to disown me (they treat me like someone with Tourettes) ..or maybe my house is going to collapse from deferred maintenance ..and, at this rate, I'll never learn to speak Spanish ..how am I ever going to meet the right woman in this town if I can't speak Spanish.

Singapore girl

A photomanipulation using the
human form as subject and
the Sahara desert as background.

Andrea's new vision

Photomanipulation of original by squeebacon <~ Click here.

Rad lands

Totally awesome day ..the sky is so blue I feel high. Anne and her niece Molly are at the skate park ..Molly is eight years old ..she’s small for her age ..but tough . She brought her skateboard decked out with new decals ..Frankenstein and Casper the ghost. She’s wearing a black on red alien tee shirt ..and a new pair of vans. I watch her do a couple of laps around the park .. ‘carving a slope’ around each turn ..we high five. I ask her what that guy just did. A fifty-fifty she says. And that guy? A grind. What about over there (a guy does a jump ..his board flips around and he lands back on). Oh, that’s an Ollie. Another guy crashes in front of us ..dude ka biff’d she says ..happens all the time. I’m amazed at how fast children pick up a second language.

Hardhat area

My eyes are starting to burn from the fumes ..my teeth are rattling and my hands are shaking ..my ears pound with the sound of jackhammers .. my lungs are gasping for air and my voice is getting hoarse from yelling so much. There has got to be a better way to build houses than this. Can’t they pre-fab them at the factory ..and install them on site ..? I mean, it looks like they’re doing it pretty much the same way the Romans did ..except for the diesel engines. I can’t sustain a thought long enough to write it down ..or even follow it to the next one. I think I just heard someone say ..if this thing catches fire ..it’s not my fault. Now that that's gotta be somewhere high on the list of things you don't want to hear. My nerves are starting to fray.

Iconic registry

There’s an interesting process going on inside my head that I get to observe every so often. It picks up words that are in the general vicinity and processes them without warning ..suddenly my head is full of thoughts and images that have no relation to what I’m doing or thinking at the time. They can come from the room where I’m sitting ..or the road where I’m driving. I guess it’s the way subliminal advertising is supposed to work. For instance, I’ll be driving along looking for a place to park when suddenly images of dolphins appear in my head. I look around and spot a car on the other side of the road with a personalized license plate that says ‘DOLFIN LVR’. So now, when it happens, I take the time to investigate ..see if I can find the words or phrases that trigger these events ..make sure I’m not hallucinating and losing it. Today it was a word buried in a newspaper article ..I was eating breakfast when a picture leapt out of the morning paper screaming ‘Ojai’ ..the name of an unpretentious little spa town near here. I was not thinking of Ojai ..I’ve never been to Ojai ..the topic of the article wasn’t specifically about Ojai ..and even if it was ..I wasn’t actually reading the paper ..it was just sitting on the table next to me. I look closely at the picture to see if there’s anything to suggest Ojai ..but there isn’t ..just some oak trees on a hillside. So, I figure there must be something in the vicinity that triggered the idea ..I begin reading the article. It was about different places in the world where people can go to celebrate Easter ..and sure enough ..Ojai is one of them ..along with Italy, Florida and Puerto Rico. The article mentions the word Ojai when it says “..you can either spend Easter soaking in a spa in Ojai ..or strolling through museums in Venice.” Now, I know they say that reading is an active process ..but I believe the brain is a hybrid ..it can passively register words long enough to serve up their meaning without any effort on my part.

Auditory hallucinations

This evening I hear Gregorian chants coming from the creek down below ..I go outside to check it out ..then it sounds like it’s coming from next door ..I know my neighbor is a singer in a goth-rock band ..so, I go over there to listen ..but the sound disappears ..they wake up ..and he comes outside with a baseball bat. I should have known ..he never rehearses at home. It sounds like a high school band is marching through the bathroom when the fan is blowing and the water is running ..I turn off the water and the phone is ringing ..I run downstairs and realize that it’s my ears that are ringing. I lie awake listening to people quarrelling when it's dead quiet outside. I hear conversations coming from the guest room when nobody is there. I wake up to the sound of my mother screaming. When things get spooky ..it's the voice of reason I hear ..coming from my father. When I get really paranoid ..I hear wolves howling at the door. When I scream back ..doctors appear. Oh wait, they're visual hallucinations ..I hope.

Prodigal son

I know my memory is not a very reliable record of events ..too many thoughts, feelings and other substances going around making revisions. I do recall, however, the deal my father made me when I turned eighteen ..I suppose that’s because it so dramatically changed the course of my life. He believed in me and had faith that I would hold up my end of the bargain. What bargain ..? He offered to buy me a car and pay my living expenses as long as I stayed in school ..which meant enrolling at the local community college. I remember doing my best to conceal my excitement and not let on that I was getting the better end of this deal. You see, at the time, I was still in love with my high school sweetheart. She was sixteen years old and her family had just moved to Eureka, California. So, I was making plans to follow them up there and maybe get a job working the Klamath or something. I was already packed. Now all I needed to do was borrow my dad’s rental car ..tell him I was going to run an errand ..throw my bags in the trunk and head north (he didn't actually live with us ..he was visiting from overseas). I figured I could drop the car off near a rental agency somewhere as soon as I got settled. I figured he’d be pissed ..but, in the long run, maybe he’d realize what a small price it was to pay for his son’s happiness. Those were the thoughts actually running through my head moments before he offered me ‘the deal’ ..which changed everything ..because now all I had to do was play it cool ..wait until I got car keys of my own ..then say: Sayonara Southern California.

Dance

A photoshop lesson

New tune

When I got up this morning everything seemed normal. It wasn’t until I got on the road that I noticed this loud humming sound. I pulled over to listen to the engine but it wasn’t coming from there ..sounded as if it were coming from everywhere. I arrive at work and people are like: i ee owaah oo ..? and I’m like: whaaa ..? and they’re like: ouiii ee !! and I’m like: huh ..? Why is everybody talking in gibberish ..? What’s happening ..? The meeting this morning went the same way .. that's not too unusual ..although I think my name is ‘ee’ now ..I’ll have to remember that. I go back to my desk to try and figure out what’s going wrong ..something’s missing ..I tap my pencil on the desktop ..it makes no sound ..I can’t hear the beat ..that’s it ..!! I’m missing consonants ..that's why everybody's speech sounds like fluctuating tones with breaks in all the wrong places. After awhile I learn how to feel the vibration of consonants .. almost like a bass drum. Also, if I look closely enough ..I can see it in the way people move their mouth ..or the way their facial expressions change. Suddenly, like adjusting the focus on a pair of binoculars ..I can understand what people are saying again.

I wrote this to get a sense of what it’s like for someone suffering with selective hearing loss. I know that it takes a lot longer to learn how to compensate for it than what I've described.

Dirty air

Breathing in ..expanding ..breathing out ..letting go ..ahhh, my breathing exercises are over. I'm sitting outside ..the air smells like dirt ..and I can hear the construction workers shouting: “whadya mean y’aint gonna do that shit ..git wit da’ program ..got any goop ..I don’t know ..got any beer ..two more hours before that shit comes in baby.” They’re turning the entrance of the canyon into condos ..I remember the fight at city hall ..it's not like I'm anti-development or anything ..it’s just got to be reasonable ..this is not New York city. Now I’m chatting online with my sister Nancy ..we’re planning a trip to San Francisco in May ..watch the cherry blossoms bloom in Golden Gate Park ..eat fish stew at Little Joes ..hang out at City Lights ..way cool. There's a northwesterly wind blowing across the deck today ..but I don’t mind ..feels like summer ..I take off my shirt. Feeling jittery ..don’t know why ..probably the ginseng root ..I feel like I can accomplish anything ..but it’s good enough to just sit here and write.

Bitch

I feel light headed and out-of-it ..don’t know why ..just had a full breakfast ..I also feel worried ..like something wicked is on it's way. The storms have passed and I’m free to roam ..it’s spring ..the air is warm ..my dad’s birthday just went by ..and I feel a little choked ..like things are rushing past me before I'm ready. Now I feel like I’m getting to be like my father ..and my grandfather ..more comfortable with the way things used to be ..unprepared for change ..I don’t recognize any of the rock bands I hear on the radio ..I listen to the same old tunes ..I don’t like most of the new cars I see ..newer housing styles don’t appeal to me ..I have a hard time following younger people when they speak ..I don’t tolerate surprises well ..like when people I'm fond of move away ..or the co-op stops carrying my favorite ginseng ..or how bitchy I'm becoming when things don’t go as smoothly as I like.

Crazy Charlie

Charlie was released near skid row .. he had just spent six weeks at county psychiatric with a ‘borderline personality disorder’ ..whatever that means. He started a ‘token exchange’ with the other patients on the ward. After that ..they no longer considered him ‘mental’ enough to be in the hospital. Now he was standing on the corner of Broadway and 5th .. on the southern edge of skid row just blocks from high-rise office buildings and Pershing Park. He took a deep breath and looked around .. he saw a lot of homeless people. He also saw some tents down by the warehouses. The voices in his head told him there was some karma that needed cleaning here. He took what money he had ..went to an army surplus store and bought a big dome tent ..some cots ..outdoor lights ..and a hot plate. He pitched this big old tent in skid row ..offered people a place to stay ..a little food and a cup of coffee. He said that anybody who was willing to listen to him was welcome to stay longer. He told them that they better start helping each other because no one else was coming to help them. Some stayed to listen. He was a compelling speaker. Pretty soon they were running a cooperative ..providing community services such as picking up trash and cleaning bathrooms in exchange for food and supplies from local business owners. Any excess was distributed to anyone willing to participate. More tents went up. Next they started a cooperative to help distressed people get connected with service providers ..those with drug problems found treatment ..mental cases got counseling ..criminals weren’t tolerated ..they were offered up to the police. Since then ..the business community and city officials have stopped trying to remove tent city ..they’re even sending more counselors and social workers to help in the co-ops. Crazy Charlie.

Clearing

Walked up a muddy trail today ..kind of slippery ..but I didn’t care ..there was enough mud to cushion my fall. The trail levels off and passes through a botanical garden where I’ve made friends with some of the trees growing by the side. Today I zipped right by them without saying hello ..turned around and walked back when I realized what I’d done ..it’s a ritual I like to keep because it reminds me to pay attention to what’s around me ..and not spend so much time inside my head.

Empty

My head is so empty I can see clear through it today ..I'm having trouble hitting the right keys on the laptop ..and I can't think of anything to say. Yesterday I was staring out the window when a rainbow appeared ..stretching from the ocean to the mountains. I thought, well now that’s a good sign ..a sign of what ..I don’t know ..but it seemed ‘provident’. Today I’m waiting by the window for another one to appear ..I mean, the conditions are the same. I want to see if I'm ‘in tune’ with the elements ..whatever that means. It never showed. I waited until sunset. How disappointing. I guess being ‘in tune’ with the elements means being open to whatever happens ..and not just what I think is going to happen ..now I’m having trouble enjoying the sunset.

Child's play

You’re it ..no I’m not, you missed ..it’s my ball ..you were over the line .. run Caylib runnnn ..too late ..he’s out ..he’s out ..no I’m not ..no I’m not ..yes you are ..yes you are ..uh huh ..uh huh ..are too ..are too ..gimme my ball back ..run Inez runnn ..owwww ..you didn’t have to chuck it so hard ..now you’re it ..no I’m not ..you said time out ..no I didn’t ..yes you did ..no I didn’t ..yes you did ..yes I did ..no you didn’t ..gotcha ..no ..mean yes you did ..what an idiot Simon ..take that back ..I can’t take back that you’re an idiot ..Ryyyan, take it back ..idiot ..I’m telling mom ..go ahead ..look a rabbit ..a rabbit ..where ..over there ..there’s no rabbit ..yes there is ..it went under the bushes ..you’re full of ..hey ..gimme back my ball ..you fell for it ..

Northwesterlies

It’s cold and watery here ..a ‘northwesterly condition’ ..I hate it ..it’s been raining for several days now ..keeping me off the hiking trail. I’m getting edgy. To pass the time I’m reading a book written by another hiker ..thinking it’ll make me feel better. It doesn’t. Only reinforces my feelings of confinement. To make matters worse, it makes me realize what a complete wuss I am. These guys are on an expedition through the Himalayas ..it rains every day ..the only time it isn’t raining is when they’re going over a high-altitude pass ..then they’re climbing through waist-deep snow. What am I doing ? ..sitting here reading ..sipping tea ..watching the clouds roll by ..thermostat up high ..and bitching. I like what it says here though ..you either make peace with the Himalayas ..or get consumed by them.

Photo chop

Photoshop is a wonderful tool. Very powerful too. It’s like a publishing studio on a PC. I’ve been posting some of my amateur ‘photo manipulations’ lately. They may look simple ..but for me ..they’re not. Some of them were projects that took several hours. Why bother ..? It’s really relaxing and I think it’s actually improving my eyesight (the subject matter helps).

The one titled Geisha punk (March 7, 2006) took a little over 8 hours. Now, for me ..a lot of time is spent just trial and error ‘dithering’ until I get something that looks halfway decent. It was a badly under-exposed original. Almost no color. So, I added green to the background forest and made it look like a watercolor. In order to bring out the model ..I made her face ‘luminescent’ (a word that I’ve recently come to grips with) .. I applied a layer of peach to her hands, arms and feet ..her lips are red thanks to the color burn tool ..I put violet highlights in her hair ..and a transparent shade of purple in her shirt so that you can still see texture and shadow ..the stomach was treated with a lot of lighting effects so you can just make out the navel ..which you couldn’t see at all in the original ..and yes, it actually revealed the top of her panties. I applied a ‘cutout’ effect to give her definition ..then I had to ‘blend’ her back into the ‘forest’ ..and fill an ugly sandbox with pond water and lilies.

By contrast, the one titled ‘Rainforest’, which I think looks a lot nicer ..took only about 10 minutes. That’s because I had a great digital rainforest to begin with ..given to me by a friend who I have yet to credit (my apologies DB). All I had to do was put someone in it. I teased a model off another photo and applied shades of copper until she ‘blended in’. I was really doing it to practice using the color gradient tool ..but since I’ve been such a slacker lately with my journal writing ..I posted it instead.

Sex education

When I was about twelve, my parents put a book on the shelf titled ‘Human Sexuality’. They knew that I would read everything I could get my hands on ..so, I guess they figured I’d stumble across this soon or later. When I took it upstairs, I found out it was really a book of ‘erotica’ thinly disguised as a ‘sex-ed’ book. Very thinly. Must of slipped by my folks. I went to the section titled ‘Preventing Pregnancy’. The first chapter covered the proper use of a condom. It was an excerpt from a Mae West biography. She describes having sex with a stranger she meets in a hotel elevator. They fuck from dinner time that evening ..to way past lunch time the next day ..without sleep. They went through 31 condoms ..31. She had room service deliver them. She says it was the most incredible sex she ever had. So, what did I learn. Thirty-one orgasms was probably not what I could normally expect ..but it was possible. The next chapter, appropriately titled ‘chapter 69’ ..explained what to do if contraceptives weren’t an option. A newlywed couple couldn’t afford to have children right away ..but they were catholic and contraceptives weren't allowed. They try abstinence but the husband is going crazy ..dry humping every piece of furniture in the apartment. After a couple glasses of wine one night he tries putting it in her ass while she’s bending over to pick something up off the bedroom floor ..she goes ballistic ..screaming incoherently ..he winds up sleeping on the couch for a week ..and now has to give up alcohol as well. The wife confides their situation to a female co-worker ..who gives her a French book on the delicacies of oral sex. Liberation!!! (This was before the American sexual revolution). Now they’re eating each other with wild abandon ..on every surface ..in every room ..on the table ..under the table ..licking wine off of each other ..calling in sick ..and ordering Chinese a lot. What did I learn from this. Anal sex was like being reamed with a hot poker ..and can lead to insanity ..(?) but more importantly ..I needed to learn as much as possible about oral sex.

Olympic spirit

Jim came over today and so we watched the Olympics together. I was really blown away by women’s figure skating ..it was inspiring ..they nailed the ‘compulsories’ with abandon ..like they had no fear. I remarked how ‘Zen-like’ it all seemed. “What are you talking about..?” Jim asked. “Well, they all seem to be skating in the moment." “Bill, what you’re saying has nothing to do with Olympic competition ..it’s all about conditioning ..physical conditioning.” “You don’t think there’s a mental side to it ..?” “Well, yeah ..their routines are committed to memory ..but that’s what conditioning is all about.” “Then why do skaters sometimes skate way beyond their level of training ..?” “They have a good day, they take chances and get lucky ..who knows.” “I’ll tell you why ..‘inspiration’ ..it’s not something they do ..it’s something they tap into ..like Zen.” “Bill, this is the Olympics ..not new age philosophy. You know what’s really destroying the Olympics these days .. snowboarding ..ever since they got into it ..competition has gotten shabby ..the Olympics are definitely not what they used to be.” “Oh yeah ..? What’s wrong with snowboarding ..?” "Their hair is too long ..their clothes are too baggy ..and they talk like they’re from Huntington Beach ..you know ..down by the wharf. This one guy was wearing an IPod during competition the other day ..for chrissake.”

Jim is generally a progressive thinker ..but there are some traditions he doesn't like to see messed with .. the Kentucky Derby ..and the Olympics. As for me, I love snowboarding events ..particularly because of their hair ..the baggy clothes they wear ..and the way they talk. I think half-pipe is awesome.

Olympic fringe

I usually don’t watch TV ..not even the Olympic games ..unless something compelling draws me to them ..like a human survival story ..someone who had to overcome more than the usual amount of adversity to get there ..during the last winter Olympics it was alpine skier Janica Kostelic ..who had to practice in Croatia during wartime ..which meant driving from mountain to mountain and sleeping in her car to avoid getting hit by bombs. Ski lifts weren’t operating ..so she got her exercise climbing back up the slope after each downhill run. She won 2 medals that year ..a gold and a silver ..she’s already won gold this year. Definitely certifiable. Now I’m intrigued by women’s freestyle skier Alisa Camplin (pictured) ..she’s had more injuries than a football player ..more concussions than a quarterback. If she were a football player ..her career would have been over a long time ago. Last October she blew out her knee for the 2nd time in like as many years ..only this time it wasn't likely to hold up for the winter games. To accelerate the recovery process, doctors rebuilt her knee in a way you won’t find in medical journals. “I’m a bit of a walking research project” she says. She’s competing tomorrow in the aerial events .. a mixture of downhill skiing and acrobatics ..catching big air and doing quadruple twisting turning double somersaults ..things like that. Oh, and they say she's not a very good skier. She didn't learn until she was 19. She must be an incredible acrobat then. I’m definitely not going to miss this.

Stream of consciousness

I am getting ready to go for a hike ..and I already feel tired ..feels like I’m putting on a space suit ..I got the thermal layer on ..middle layer ..and outer shell. I go downstairs ..and into the entry hall ..everything is spinning. I step out on the porch ..lace up my boots ..seal the hatch ..and start walking. I feel the ground beneath my feet ..but my head is somewhere else. I read once that Timothy Leary had a Swami to help keep him grounded. I don’t have a Swami ..just a trail ..and I don’t know where I’m going ..just following the flow ..the trail switches back and forth ..and I’m going slow ..my feet start to sink down and spring up as I go ..a thick cushion of leaves covers the ground ..feels like I’m walking on the moon ..makes me laugh ..when that’s not enough ..I howl ..this is a woodsy area ..howling is allowed .. I go over a bridge ..above a dry creek bed ..I slide down and sit on the edge ..next to a willow tree ..and tell myself to pay attention ..birds are playing here ..they fly by in pairs ..rustling the leaves around me ..delicate flowers grow between heavy stones ..reminds me of something Lao Tsu once said: “what's softest in the world ..drives what’s hardest” ..and I think about the water that wore down these boulders ..and how something as delicate as thought can overcome obstacles.

Mystical experience

All religions are based on ‘mystical experience’ ..that's their narrative ..science can’t weigh the evidence of mystical experience ..it’s out of scope. I like the story of Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon church ..he had a ‘mystical vision’ where an angel appears and shows him where a set of golden plates are buried ..then God gave him a pair of ‘mystical glasses’ and ‘seer stones’ so he could read Egyptian and translate these plates into the ‘Book of Mormon’.. which is a modern day testament to the life of Jesus. Now, I’m not advocating the teachings of the Mormon church or anything ..but what I am trying to say is that nobody else can certify or deny the visions of Joseph Smith. They’re his ‘intellectual property’ ..as well as the ‘collective narrative’ of the Mormon community. In a way, they're no different than any new scientific theory in the stacks. Any objective scientist would agree with me ..for every scientific theory there are countless ‘alternative hypotheses’ ..each one just as worthy of exploration as the next. Scientists accept this as part of their investigation ..they know that they are just chipping away ..a long way away from what’s really going on. Scientific theories are also narratives ..they help explain empirical data.

Politics of experience

The second rule of exploration is to recognize that everyone has sovereignty over his or her own consciousness. De-commission the ‘mind police’ ..no one can enter or change your consciousness uninvited ..and no one can prevent you from entering and changing it yourself for that matter. I believe that we have the right to chose the narratives we live by. The mind is a story making device ..that’s it’s nature ..and we are the owners and editors of the narratives it creates.