Good Morning America....
Just watched a great Robin Williams comedy routine on Youtube. The thing about his humor that I liked, is he took no prisoners, so to speak. Everyone's hubris and pomposity was at risk once he started talking. That was his genius, just to let the truth out as his mind saw it and responded to the insanity of the world around him. Like Jonathan Winters, these are rare individuals with a sense of play that is a gift and for which we will be looking for when explaining the world through our normal logic tree just won't work. Winters and Williams were key reminders, despite their mental illness, that life should be fun, and many things need to have less importance than we give them. I hope the memory of his death will be but a footnote to the fun he provided to us all while he was alive.
Today, I am sitting in the Food Court watching the rain come down on Boston. I find it amazing how many people are focused upon their devices. I have a crash pad, so to speak, in Boston. Which means that I have to share a space with other commuters. It is a strange mix of folks, but what ties them together is the small light in their hand spewing forth information of no interest to anyone, especially late at night when the lights are out and others are trying to sleep, including themselves, other than that they might miss the ongoing unimportance of it all. And, to be detached from the unimportance of mediocre flow of things would mean that you'd have to take some time and actually thing about something. People thought email was good, but it takes too much time to delete all the shit that accumulates there.
The tide of mediocrity is far easy to focus upon than the real events growing like the forces of the Dark Tower that seems so far away, but that is undermining our world everyday. Let's face it, we are the latte society and we'd rather be plugging in our ear buds and sipping the whip cream off our coffee than to sit down and say, "man that is really fucked up, let's do something about it." You know, like those folks in 1930s who saw the black tide rising, but couldn't get the attention of the populace until it was too late. As Mark Twain said, history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme. Leader's today think because they say it is not so, it is not so. Think POTUS here. I've disagreed with my POTUS's since I can remember thinking about what they have been doing, but I have never been as upset by the current POTUS's inaction than any of the actions by former POTUS's. He is a victim of his own hubris...a milk chocolate narcissus failing because he is too concerned by his own image.
Thinking is becoming not so much a lost occupation, but one fighting a war with the new technological world that seeks to replace thought with sensory experiences that dominate the space between our ears. We fool ourselves with the idea that we know shit, and when we do know shit we tend not to do anything about it. You can see it in our politics, religions, and unfortunately, as a crutch for our supposed intellectual class. Instead of arguing for some sense of truth or justice, the argument is to swing our emotions through hot buttons issues, like abortion, rights of women, rights of minorities, rights of vegans, rights of the right whale, rights of the tiny fishes that live in the mud flats of San Francisco Bay...solutions are not the issue. Well, guess what, gang, sometimes the opposition (in a democratic society, qualification needed here) has some important ideas that will help shape these issues.
Are we suffering from global fucking warming? Who really knows. But are we polluting our environment to the point that illnesses are becoming more apparent because of that pollution, yes. So, while the discussions rages about global warming the focus is diminished that, hey, let's not put so much plastic into the oceans, or PCBs, or mercury, these are all things that we do everyday. Let's fight the little wars in this area first, then see some successes there before we try to say that the earth is getting warmer, getting colder, and that it may be sun spots, the natural life of the earth's environment, or whatever that is causing temperatures to swing. It's not a political issue, but putting shit into the ground is and we need to focus upon that. Not everything has to be an extreme non-negotiable issue. Sometimes we have to agree to fix shit, even it's not on our honey-do list.
Our youth, I wonder when they'll wake up and see that my generation has not left them in a good spot in the world. I have to accept that Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama, and whoever is next is on us, and the reading of history will not be kind. And, they are the product of my generation. Fuck me, man, not good kimo sabeeeeeeee.
I was on the bus the other night, commuting from Boston to Portland ... the bus was full ... and a young girl who sat one row back and to the side of me put on her head set. The music was of some contemporary band of neanderthals that pounded out electronic syllables of an incredibly course kind that made me want to stick an ice pick into my fucking temple. The fact that the music was so loud that I could hear despite it being played through her ear buds says something of how fucking loud it was.
Now, don't take me for a musical prude in this area, because I grew up with rock and roll and still enjoy Clapton and blues rock with the best of anybody, but what I got from this music and her toe tapping and head weaving in her seat performance, to say nothing of the elderly gent next to her who was taking his pulse every few minutes to make sure he was still alive, was that the music seemed to announce her presence on the bus and to make her a mindless cypher. After about half an hour she turned it off, pleased with her announcement on the bus that she was there, and that she had interrupted the Jerry Seinfeld episodes that everyone else was watching just enough to feel good about herself.
I don't think it is so much a return to primitivism, which is one explanation I have heard of the supporters of the retreat by so many young people into the mind meme of the repetitive syncopation of electronic cleverness, but the new modernity into which we are falling that requires little thought, and too much of a retreat into the wall citadel of our hubris. Good music is good music, and I may find myself listening to Muddy Waters or B.B.King, and then to Chopin and Liszt...to say nothing of my life long love of Beethoven and Gershwin. Note: I am a well-rounded guy.
Modernity has many problems as we try to find our place in an ever alienating world. One is the force that channels thought toward sensory experiences without a parallel course of intellectual and emotional maturity that seeks to understand. I find people today less fun, less thoughtful, more willing to be alienated and to retreat behind banners...some faiths do this, some do it pathologically...The Dark Tower awaits, too bad we won't have Robin or Jonathan, or Mort Sahl to poke fun at the nonsense, so that we can be relieved for a moment and to recognize the nonsense every once in a while and not take ourselves too, too seriously.
From the Food Court, Capt'n Jack Moonbeam...
P.S. I am trying to get a melanoma this summer by sitting in the sun a lot. No luck thus far. The reason for my interest in multiple cancers, not that I am keeping score in this area, is that the drugs I need to combat my Kidney cancer are being approved by the F - fucking - DA for skin cancer. The thing about getting drugs is that to be treated with them, and to have insurance companies pay for them, they have to be approved specifically for the type of cancer you have. Otherwise, go fish muthafuka...Think Dallas Buyer's club, but for most of us cancer patients who await treatment drugs that show promise, we can't just get a prescription, we have to wait and be part of a trial. I've had cancer for about 14-16 years, I think that is trial enough. To me, if a drug is approved for use, it should be used, but the irony is that the science and the politics of it is that going out and helping people as best we can, we restrict it to the politics of who can be helped and who will get credit for the helping. The system is not good here, because it places, like everything else, the power of these decisions in the hands of people with little interest in the process except in their own advancement. The fight to cure cancer is really not the battle we are fighting, it's the fight for the right to say I have cured cancer. Not gonna happen, buckwheat. If we are fighting an illness the doctors have to have more freedom from the politics of it all.....every fight is individual, and every fight is new for that individual...the politics of health care, cancer fighting, and government control of resources is something we all should pay attention to, because someday, it may be you waiting to get treatment for something and your doctor will say, I am not an approved provider of that service....not fucking good, kimo sabeeeeeeee.
Ok, I kind of rambled today, but it's raining out and I am in Boston with not much else to do...
Just watched a great Robin Williams comedy routine on Youtube. The thing about his humor that I liked, is he took no prisoners, so to speak. Everyone's hubris and pomposity was at risk once he started talking. That was his genius, just to let the truth out as his mind saw it and responded to the insanity of the world around him. Like Jonathan Winters, these are rare individuals with a sense of play that is a gift and for which we will be looking for when explaining the world through our normal logic tree just won't work. Winters and Williams were key reminders, despite their mental illness, that life should be fun, and many things need to have less importance than we give them. I hope the memory of his death will be but a footnote to the fun he provided to us all while he was alive.
Today, I am sitting in the Food Court watching the rain come down on Boston. I find it amazing how many people are focused upon their devices. I have a crash pad, so to speak, in Boston. Which means that I have to share a space with other commuters. It is a strange mix of folks, but what ties them together is the small light in their hand spewing forth information of no interest to anyone, especially late at night when the lights are out and others are trying to sleep, including themselves, other than that they might miss the ongoing unimportance of it all. And, to be detached from the unimportance of mediocre flow of things would mean that you'd have to take some time and actually thing about something. People thought email was good, but it takes too much time to delete all the shit that accumulates there.
The tide of mediocrity is far easy to focus upon than the real events growing like the forces of the Dark Tower that seems so far away, but that is undermining our world everyday. Let's face it, we are the latte society and we'd rather be plugging in our ear buds and sipping the whip cream off our coffee than to sit down and say, "man that is really fucked up, let's do something about it." You know, like those folks in 1930s who saw the black tide rising, but couldn't get the attention of the populace until it was too late. As Mark Twain said, history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme. Leader's today think because they say it is not so, it is not so. Think POTUS here. I've disagreed with my POTUS's since I can remember thinking about what they have been doing, but I have never been as upset by the current POTUS's inaction than any of the actions by former POTUS's. He is a victim of his own hubris...a milk chocolate narcissus failing because he is too concerned by his own image.
Thinking is becoming not so much a lost occupation, but one fighting a war with the new technological world that seeks to replace thought with sensory experiences that dominate the space between our ears. We fool ourselves with the idea that we know shit, and when we do know shit we tend not to do anything about it. You can see it in our politics, religions, and unfortunately, as a crutch for our supposed intellectual class. Instead of arguing for some sense of truth or justice, the argument is to swing our emotions through hot buttons issues, like abortion, rights of women, rights of minorities, rights of vegans, rights of the right whale, rights of the tiny fishes that live in the mud flats of San Francisco Bay...solutions are not the issue. Well, guess what, gang, sometimes the opposition (in a democratic society, qualification needed here) has some important ideas that will help shape these issues.
Are we suffering from global fucking warming? Who really knows. But are we polluting our environment to the point that illnesses are becoming more apparent because of that pollution, yes. So, while the discussions rages about global warming the focus is diminished that, hey, let's not put so much plastic into the oceans, or PCBs, or mercury, these are all things that we do everyday. Let's fight the little wars in this area first, then see some successes there before we try to say that the earth is getting warmer, getting colder, and that it may be sun spots, the natural life of the earth's environment, or whatever that is causing temperatures to swing. It's not a political issue, but putting shit into the ground is and we need to focus upon that. Not everything has to be an extreme non-negotiable issue. Sometimes we have to agree to fix shit, even it's not on our honey-do list.
Our youth, I wonder when they'll wake up and see that my generation has not left them in a good spot in the world. I have to accept that Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama, and whoever is next is on us, and the reading of history will not be kind. And, they are the product of my generation. Fuck me, man, not good kimo sabeeeeeeee.
I was on the bus the other night, commuting from Boston to Portland ... the bus was full ... and a young girl who sat one row back and to the side of me put on her head set. The music was of some contemporary band of neanderthals that pounded out electronic syllables of an incredibly course kind that made me want to stick an ice pick into my fucking temple. The fact that the music was so loud that I could hear despite it being played through her ear buds says something of how fucking loud it was.
Now, don't take me for a musical prude in this area, because I grew up with rock and roll and still enjoy Clapton and blues rock with the best of anybody, but what I got from this music and her toe tapping and head weaving in her seat performance, to say nothing of the elderly gent next to her who was taking his pulse every few minutes to make sure he was still alive, was that the music seemed to announce her presence on the bus and to make her a mindless cypher. After about half an hour she turned it off, pleased with her announcement on the bus that she was there, and that she had interrupted the Jerry Seinfeld episodes that everyone else was watching just enough to feel good about herself.
I don't think it is so much a return to primitivism, which is one explanation I have heard of the supporters of the retreat by so many young people into the mind meme of the repetitive syncopation of electronic cleverness, but the new modernity into which we are falling that requires little thought, and too much of a retreat into the wall citadel of our hubris. Good music is good music, and I may find myself listening to Muddy Waters or B.B.King, and then to Chopin and Liszt...to say nothing of my life long love of Beethoven and Gershwin. Note: I am a well-rounded guy.
Modernity has many problems as we try to find our place in an ever alienating world. One is the force that channels thought toward sensory experiences without a parallel course of intellectual and emotional maturity that seeks to understand. I find people today less fun, less thoughtful, more willing to be alienated and to retreat behind banners...some faiths do this, some do it pathologically...The Dark Tower awaits, too bad we won't have Robin or Jonathan, or Mort Sahl to poke fun at the nonsense, so that we can be relieved for a moment and to recognize the nonsense every once in a while and not take ourselves too, too seriously.
From the Food Court, Capt'n Jack Moonbeam...
P.S. I am trying to get a melanoma this summer by sitting in the sun a lot. No luck thus far. The reason for my interest in multiple cancers, not that I am keeping score in this area, is that the drugs I need to combat my Kidney cancer are being approved by the F - fucking - DA for skin cancer. The thing about getting drugs is that to be treated with them, and to have insurance companies pay for them, they have to be approved specifically for the type of cancer you have. Otherwise, go fish muthafuka...Think Dallas Buyer's club, but for most of us cancer patients who await treatment drugs that show promise, we can't just get a prescription, we have to wait and be part of a trial. I've had cancer for about 14-16 years, I think that is trial enough. To me, if a drug is approved for use, it should be used, but the irony is that the science and the politics of it is that going out and helping people as best we can, we restrict it to the politics of who can be helped and who will get credit for the helping. The system is not good here, because it places, like everything else, the power of these decisions in the hands of people with little interest in the process except in their own advancement. The fight to cure cancer is really not the battle we are fighting, it's the fight for the right to say I have cured cancer. Not gonna happen, buckwheat. If we are fighting an illness the doctors have to have more freedom from the politics of it all.....every fight is individual, and every fight is new for that individual...the politics of health care, cancer fighting, and government control of resources is something we all should pay attention to, because someday, it may be you waiting to get treatment for something and your doctor will say, I am not an approved provider of that service....not fucking good, kimo sabeeeeeeee.
Ok, I kind of rambled today, but it's raining out and I am in Boston with not much else to do...
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