low thick grey clouds

In the middle of the night a thunderstorm had hit home and I awoke to the pouring rain and thunder rumbling across the sky. In almost a strangely continuous, loud, and somewhat alarming volume, the low thick grey clouds without lightning penetrated to warn of the next crash. I remained starring at my window in sleep paralysis. With the windows open the black clouds felt invited to scatter their minions of heavy rain into the shadows of my room. Tear drops can spill around one way or another onto a menagerie of creatures oblivious to the bluster. Flinched. I felt their cold splashes puddle my senses bathed in a hypnotic sky-dance of light and sound.

If we could imagine, really imagine, what it was like to be soaring above the world, care-free, astonishingly aware, senses alive in a way that we bored, distracted, abstracted, sensually dulled humans can no longer conceive, if we could put ourselves in and surrender to the spell of the sensuous, we could never return to, never again tolerate, the unimaginative poverty, the prison that our culture has captured us in. If we could free ourselves from that, if we could imagine such an utterly different way to live, to really live, what could we do? What would we do? When you can't imagine, you can do anything. You can end the world or remain in some inscrutable occupied space.

when the sky turns colours

Ooh, Superman had potentially unlimited entertainment value, don't you think? A slapfest between the moderate wingnuts and the serious wingnuts? If only I had a cold one to crack open to make myself comfortable with such endless possibilites. Then again, I recommend seeing it for your own take and you can't go wrong with the popcorn. Popcorn is always a good idea, too.

I'm looking up when the sky turns colours, at the newly arrived things that fall in my space that don't seem quite at home here yet. I should be wading through purgatory to defend the honour of some of undignified handling but I'm just bone tired. I dread the willing up period and I'll only write until one day I stop and then I'll call it quits from here withal. There, I’ll have a plan.

I suppose aging is a simple function as death seems to make you his guest more often. Even with extra practice, loss is never easy. I am not easy. Hindsight might be off but who can do a damn thing about what they’re looking at anyway? So it is with people. Perhaps the greatest value in losing, are the questions we then ask of ourselves while losing in itself. While the feet are on the surface of the grass there are the moments you'll change your stance, the things you say or not bother too, followed by the string of what if and how else scenes those lead to. If I cared more or less...what then? I might have been easier. I might have been different. I might have traded up for more refined flaws. Still, it's never too late to effect change. As a wise man once said, "you am what you is", but that ain't a fixed quantity when your surroundings dictate yourself.

Right now I’m bone tired and since I’m still planetary topside, I’d like to take care of a few things with the dysfunctional mob we are so we're okay. Nobody like me descended into weirdness by pro-choice it just happened that way and we've each been through a lot and emerged relatively human.

My sweet neglected friends and family. The demands I place on your patience are unreasonable. I know that you are there and I rely on your beauty, wisdom and filthy sense of humour. Just in return for you putting up with me.

big leap into oblivion

The real world spells trouble for everyone in my vicinity that happens to be looking for it. But as often as this is the case, I join my fellows in congratulating them when they finish their studies and put them into practise so their forced distribution in functional activities are rewarded with a few menial appraisals that will score them one big leap into oblivion. The following article I found quite funny because from personal experience I know it's speaks the truth. It will go a long way in eliminating some of the negative aspects of the system before you lose yourself in your internship. I only wish I had read it sooner...

Internships are becoming more important as an entry point to the working world. Here are the top mistakes interns make, and how to avoid them. When companies come recruiting they can put on quite a show for starry-eyed undergrads, as Andrew Dill, a student attest. After potential interns are wined and dined with fancy meals and frequent follow-up phone calls, they start out thinking it'll be a 10-week carpet ride. But when the wooing ends and the work begins, interns may find the ride to be a bit bumpier than expected, especially for college students who are first-timers in the corporate world. -- read more

In training, they’ll mention the 'new-existing' system yet you’ll find it has been running the same way for years with little deviation beyond re-phrasing the manual. Being an intern myself working for the government we just love to hate most of the time, I find that it requires a lot more attention to setting commitments and better employee-interaction, especially if you want to extend your contract. All in all, it's a very, very good thing not to be deficient in your work if you’re looking for further moments of again... menial appraisal. What is very evident to me is that I need a cultural if not social change at any possible level because I honestly think that for the remainder of my time at justice I will be one those "sacred" things that will never change or be touched upon.

progressive conscience

Whoever said politics was about making corrections? I acknowledge that most power worldwide is firmly in the hands of an elite who are happy to control most of the world's wealth and power and use it to acquire even more. Some of those wielding that power masquerade as progressive. Talking a moderate progressive line just before elections, but their actions, most of them quiet and done in back rooms or written into legislation no one reads or understands, are designed to retrench, to prevent substantive change. Even more of the world's political power is in the hands of those who are not elected at all -- corporate leaders who simply buy politicians from either party but all two sides of the same coin, and buy mainstream media, and with them, acquire far more political power than is represented by the ballot box.

So progressives need to acknowledge that, unless they devote most of their time and energy to activities other than electing and lobbying politicians, they will continue to accomplish nothing. Indeed, they will accomplish less than nothing, since in the meantime the corporate and political elite will be busy dismantling, rolling back, bribing their way out of, and circumventing laws and regulations, a much easier process than getting them passed, and enforced, in the first place.

As much as I admire what activists are doing I too also feel it is largely futile. I would guess that the money leveraged for neo-conservative and neo-liberal causes of all kinds, when you add in those of right-wing religions, big corporations looking for concessions and favours, and anti-regulation ideologues, would have to be at least a thousand times greater than what the handful of altruistic progressives could muster.

I noticed the blogosphere is utterly preoccupied with parties getting people who represent their values and interests, which, even if they were wildly successful, which is doubtful given the agnostic political realities of the day, and even if most of those politicians didn't turn out to have a very different and more status quo-preserving agenda from what they campaigned on, would not begin to offset the political power of the unelected.

In order to be progressive we need to find another way to bring about change. The effect of exploring alternative means of expressing dissatisfaction with the status quo has been reduced to the point of impotence by anti-democratic laws, anti-democratic enforcement authorities, and media propaganda.

What we need to do instead is starve the status quo. Starve our own sense of normal. Starve what we are used to and maybe not even liking. That existing black hole -- we all have an insatiable and ever-growing need for consumption and to keep it growing. But it will stop growing and it will die and we too along with it. Why must we be terrified of anything that threatens growth, even at a personal level?

After all this I must say there is nothing new under the sun, and yet this obscurity has never been so pronounced as now. This past weekend was spent in fevered huts and baking sun, it seemed as kingdom come unto this life. Stolen away with friends into the midst of smiles and youthful hopes. This following weekend again I'm thinking I may escape. Escape at any cost to make a difference, if not for anything more than my own conscience. Maybe New York. Yeah, nice. Even just for a little while.

cantankerous graphics

Unusual as it may be with what little I've shared with you on the occurences in life that scare me, I must say that If at any time I come accross as sad, depressed, maybe even miserable I would have to say that you have me mistaken... Being that I'm not afraid to say, taking into account the discovery of my own identify may be a mystery even to me and because of that I'm a very reluctant person... I still manage to be an all around good kind of guy...

As far as I'm aware, my only confidence lies as an artist. Since I can remember - I've found that I could truly be my one and only more intuitive and skilled judge of raw talent. When I was confronted with an idea proposed long ago I started writing for myself and for the entertainment of others. At that time I spent every waking hour writing and producing works. There were days when I felt I was my very own inhabitant on devil's island with the occasional head trauma and the thought with having to prioritize my school work beyond my own personal endeavours seemed but a crime yet not only a distraction. On the outset of leaving 'the' school... I originally, at first, felt I was pursuing my first real passion in life. I made my own decisions, agreed to go through with them and did. What followed I'm sure was no longer for my senses to linger upon as I had basked in reflection for the years to follow as little more than a peon in someone elses great plan.

Life gets harder. Like bread. What that idea produced was roughly five years of unreality that I would initially best describe as banishment. I would ignore phone calls, people at my door, even the fact that I hadn’t showered in days. At a time I smoked, and would sometimes consume almost a pack of cigarettes in a single day while bouncing back and forth between my tiny bedroom and the impossibly small closet in which I slept. In taking the position that it has, I had made an enemy of myself...so to lived and made personal realizations I was one of the most cantankerous demographics in the world - a youth. A youth who had love affair with rebellion as old as time itself. And by doing so, it has caused irreparable damage to myself just as there is no question that it took a considerable toll on me. But I can say from exploring my alternative possibilities I've gained a weight in which to measure myself, I've theatened myself to post it today but you know... I can't remember.

To stir the occasion elsewhere for the fun at heart, you'll be glad to know the outdoor summer festivities have begun and they're doling out skin cancer for free. I cannot carefully say I happen to be monitoring them closely enough to have any relative means of informing you, but what you can expect is the jazz music festival, the 15th annual farm house execution on Sparks street, and a Italian Festival a personal friend of mine has recommended. While deciding which one may be more ideal to visit, I encourage you to start licking the meat balls you know where.

cloud of imagination

I attended a church ceremony earlier this afternoon. There was a death in the family and I felt obligated to compromise my projects at work with the intention of paying my respects to our lost one in the family. The community followed the experience and the participants included my co-workers from justice who shared history with our dearly departed. The respect flowed in her memory, of all the generous, dignified, and kindness that she expressed to her family, friends, and strangers alike. With further clarification, the personal experience for me reinforced my concept of healing through understanding.

To begin, aside from a of passing near-talent less wit, remarking Johnny Cash look-alikes. I found there was one difficult joke to grasp during the speech, it was about a insider illustration shared between lawyers about determining balance. The word balance not only the exists in justice as a word between peace and harmony but to me, the control and drive that lies within our ability to balance becoming stimulated and nourished from inside and outside of our whole experiences. If I were going to have more emphasis put into practice, kindness for one (although I'm not implying I'm entirely deficient in said action) can be difficult to practice in everyday life. With honesty you have to allow yourself to be at first... honest with yourself, and in the case of some, we often hide from the truth.

Often, while overlooking my past, I've most often been with myself, when with others on the save few occasions, I often begin to watch how I communicate. It's often difficult, physically, emotionally, spiritually and psychologically to be in that balance. Positive and effective practices like acts of kindness are but one of many techniques that essentially develop in our daily function, but how can it be when such properties are not nourished or even returned?

I remember my experience in therapy last year was to help me realize that balance only dealt with two parts, what I needed to deal with was all parts to bring things into balance. Checking today.... I just have to jump on the scale or look in the mirror to find out that I am not taking care of my physical self. Spiritually is very personal but I've found that to some, connecting with kindness and honesty connects one with the creator so you know.

The other two pieces are family and community. I'm determined enough to say that it would be my practice in art that brings me closer to connecting with myself and family. Art to me is very basic and concrete, although to some it can be even the most complex of matter. Through my art and over time I can see how I am changing and how my community is changing and the world around me. When I look at this world in a physical sense I see alcoholism, drug abuse, violence, apathy, sexual abuse, all those things et al.

After the reception I was overwhelmed in a sense. It cannot be addressed in parts, but I know, for I, the question remained -- what do you want to do with the rest of your life? That is when I remembered this new book I stumbled upon entitled.... Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert.

Without putting myself into sham for advertising, I've been seeing this as a essential for everyone looking for a new perception and attitude towards a new lease on life. It's about why the future we imagine, plan for and work towards ends up so often being both very different from and less satisfying than we expected. This is due in part to not knowing ourselves, and how we are changing, and not knowing what makes us happy and will make us happy:

Some people... tell you sternly that you should live every minute of your life as though it were your last, which only goes to show some people would spend their final ten minutes giving other people dumb advice...We treat our future selves as though they were our children, spending most of the hours of most of our days constructing tomorrows that we hope will make them happy...Why (then) do they (our future selves) experience regret and relief when they think about us, rather than pride and appreciation...when we gave them the best years of our lives?... Shouldn't we know the tastes, preferences, needs and desires of the people we will be next year?

Most of the book is devoted to describing these illusions which fall into different categories. It examines and discards several alternatives, including practicing imagining (just retrenches the illusions) and asking others for opinion or coaching (they just reinforce the same myths that cloud our own imaginations). Instead, it advocates finding 'surrogates' -- people who are now in a situation similar to the one you think you might be in in the future, and asking yourself if you would be happy if you'd done what they did and were doing what they're doing. Less imagination, and more research. This entails learning more about what the future will probably be like when you get there, so that you have a richer context for understanding what your life might be like, and then searching for people who have already made a similar journey -- people whose present is as much as possible like what your future, as objectively as you can imagine, will be like. Then study them, and learn about your future self. In other words, get real.

Wrapped with plenty of dark humour the book does an interesting job dissecting the argument that we're all unique, and that no one could possibly teach us about our future or how happy we will be in it. So I suggest this book just for the fun of reading this 'anti-self-help book'.

moving from program to process

In response to the various amount of hits I've been receiving while away this past week, I take it that most people are distraught that my continuum of care had been severed. While observing from a minimum safe distance, I find that my whole society of mental patients are in a frenzy. I think it's accurate to say that most of these people don't care enough. The enough is critical. People don't care enough about coffee, or gas mileage or ski bindings or Darfur. The challenge is to get people to care enough... because deep down, most people care. Just not high enough on their priority list of life problems.

In essense, this webpage and the words within it are free in that they don't cost anything. The approach is as always to provide a alternative view and a preference to emote. This is not free, though, because it keeps users like myself from what we really need, and to be quite frank, I do not know what the hell that is. So I've said to myself, If you're not sure what to say, say nothing. So kick back, have a look around, and stay awhile. I'll be back for breakfast

down on everything

There will always be something sort of curious about the sub-text of entries miles logged. In real life, I'm just this murky yet enigmatic crazy loner guy arranging papers as if it mattered. After hundreds upon hundreds of earned to tell goofy stories and quality output, sometimes I think myself perhaps it's best to put it away for awhile and take a load off to guess at the number and the nature of demons I'm holding.

It's so impossible to be down on everything with such countours and sweep. To decipher in spending about half an hour to rather proportionate amount of time per day living ‘in the moment’ - focussed, getting outside my head. Unsurprisingly, this doesn't take me away from the PC and learning to pay attention. Some of this time should be spent in what I may as well call, meditation.

I’ve been a permanent inhabitant of the bedroom for sometime now. As I'm spent, sitting on my seat looking out my window at night. I'm with myself, just listening and sniffing the dark. I look forward to feeding the ducks sometime soon, but other than that, taking my camera out can be just as interesting.

I took photographs these past few days and looked carefully and closely for what or whom to capture and I've had some great photogenic subject matter I cannot wait to unveil. I must say, this no dumb blogger unusually took a bold step and now if only he had a good sense of humour...

I'm reluctant to inform you that my photos displayed on flickr will be without similar updates along with this blog for the next little while in my attempt to get back to the ordanariness -- the stuff that makes me human and not the stuff that makes me superhuman. Maybe I've yet to have seen my compassion for responsiblity. Who knows. Who knows.

morning fuzziness of a mind

Recently I ran across a quote I thought was interesting. "Only a mediocre person is always at his best." Considering the quote, I pondered as to whether or not I could have overestimated the word mediocre, as I understood it.

According to the dictionary mediocre means: of only ordinary or moderate quality – also barely adequate. Casting a glance at the thesaurus for words that meant mostly the same thing, I found words that agreed with my basic mental meaning. It revealed: run-of-the-mill, commonplace, pedestrian (did not know this word meant that), passable, so-so, fair-to-middling, average, medium and normal – and these did not surprise me.

Then the words after that had much poorer meanings that went downhill in a hurry with: insignificant, slight, trifling, paltry, meager, inferior, rather poor and second-rate. A word can be known by the company it keeps and these latter snippets of language were not a good crowd to hang around with. This was a disappointment to me since I had considered mediocre more normal and average than that.

The word is what it is and I must admit I have seen many mediocre things and products that were proclaimed to be much better than what they actually turned out to be. Then a thought stumbled across the early morning fuzziness of a mind that one hopes would be a little sharper after the brilliance of later thought burns off the haze. The thought brought to me was in the form of a question – can plants be mediocre?

The harvests of some garden plants in my past have been mediocre but I do not lay the fault to the plant. All plants will grow and produce according to the way they were designed unless they have a lack of moisture, nutrients, proper temperature, or are interfered with by disease or natural disaster. If plants are healthy they always do all they can with what they receive to do with. Considering this, maybe people are more like plants, at least in their productivity. Of course some folks would take this to mean that they're rooted to one spot and never move.

Mediocrity is rampant in humankind – and the in things they produce – because we are the only creature given the choice as to whether or not we want to be mediocre. We all may have worked with folks that considered mediocrity their highest goal – sometimes they reach it and sometimes not. Ultimately, this strive for mediocrity lends itself to a very mad world not in love with itself until fair gain. Have a nice weekend. It's a good time to enjoy photosynthesis.

the hell with it all

If you're one of those folks that's into Jesus - and I mean really into him - I hope you had a Happy 6/6/6. Triple six symbolizes the Mark of the Beast, and the probable beginning of the End. I think we all now what that means, don't we? It’s time to start praying and stop mistaking the strip club for a church, y'know what I’m saying.

Yesterday, a Netherlands-based Evangelical organisation had called on Christians in 21 countries to hold a 24-hour prayer vigil against Satanic forces to mark so-called Devil's Day. Some feared the date 06/06/06, which signifies 666, the Biblical number of the Devil, will usher in calamities and even the end of the world.

Prayer, according to those who are believers of good faith, they say it's kryptonite to The Devil. Sure, he's the eternal embodiment of pestilence, suffering and all things unpleasant, but he just can't cope with the one thing every three year old learns to do just before dinner. We all have our weaknesses, and prayer happens to be his. The only thing that has saved us through 4,000 years of human civilization has been three year-olds saying grace at dinner.

But that was 4,000 years of ordinary days. Yesterday was anything but ordinary. It had three sixes in it, after all. Regular old prayer doesn’t cut it. No sir. It had to require a full 24 hours of "violent prayer." But then again, I'm not a authority on these things nor do I take part in such religious affairs other than plugging my head into a electronic processor. I'm given to believe that prayer for some is a lot like sex, in search for that explosive drop off point through the rougher and the better. You can throw away the power of your prayer by reciting it meekly, but I think we all know that you've only had a good prayer if it leaves a mark. And after having witnessed yesterday, I found there was nothing less than hair-pulling, ass-smacking, and literally people throwing people in front of moving taxi cabs. After all, this is the apocalypse we're talking about. Somebody hand me the ‘I survived June 6th, 2006 certificate.’

Don’t get me wrong, I'm not a atheist. But I've always been just a little suspicious of the monotheists among us. It appears that they aren't much for hedging their bets. Don't they know that if they bet the farm on the wrong god? Pragmatism dictates that we do whatever we can to prevent the Beast from making us have the Mother of All Bad Days. You and I both know we've had those before.

For that reason, I think we should all find something different to pray about. Since it was my idea, I call dibs on the God for making warm cookies, the voyeuristic thrill of cyberspace and anal sex. I've been praying to explore the rapture of my curiosity all along, but yesterday really wasn't all that different. The Voices didn’t tell me to burn anything so I sat back and nurtured the brain cancer in front of radiant glow from the comfort of my own home.

I don't want any of you to think that I'm less than wholly serious about these most dire days, because I am. I know that Satan is Real because we've dated. I've tasted that brimstone in more ways than one. Because the Devil is my bitch lover and likes to play rough. So you're going to have to pray rough if you know what I mean. Our survival depends on it.

If you're anything like me, you're going to huddle in a dark room for the next while; play a music record backwards as look back at yourself to see where life has got you and where you want to belong in this coming of age. These are trying times for us all. But if you know anything at all about me, it is that I am the eternal optimist, otherwise I would have been already dead a long long time ago. I think we can make it through this if only we engage in some extra-kinky, bruising prayer. Our mortal lives and eternal souls depend on it.

sentient companion

The ultimate cause of the gravitational force remains an open question and gravity remains an important topic of scientific research. I'm sitting in my room and the world is going to end five minutes and without much to do I place my keyboard on my lap as my eyes boil down to my floor. These are all consequences of gravity, the liquid water remains in the rivers and oceans rather than flying in the air. As I gaze at the moon, I notice it is not stuck to the Earth. It's far far away. Yet still it seems to want to stay near. It's a force that is completely unexplainable to those who do not experience the particular pull that causes the attraction. Apparently, Robots for instance... Robots will never understand love. A robot will never feel any affection for it's owner, and would be just as happy serving one owner for 50 years as the next. If a Robot, a Man, and the Moon all set off together on an interstellar voyage, the moon wouldn't get far before it was captured by the gravitational field of the first planet or star that it came across. The human would continue to travel with the Robot, but would eventually get lonely and seek out sentient life forms. Whether she was green, had antennae, or what have you, the Man's need for female sentient companionship would increase until one day he willingly accepts the alien from Planet X as a mate. Then he would make a home with her and his journey would be over. Man need Woman. The Robot-well... does The Robot. Which is cool enough to say the least.

reckless abandonment

Sometimes this perverse notion of your sustainability gets to you. Sometimes I wonder how I ended up here. Sometimes I feel like a stranger in my own life. Right now I'm dealing with the sort of anxiety and mental exhaustion that leads either to rash action or a rash forehead.

On matters beyond, what is most shocking about all of this is the narrow view of the world and the assertion that it should subject human rights and living standards to unknown vulgar forces of the global market. Imbedded in these middle and upper-class statements is that motive to take lead in the global race no matter how much human suffering it will entail.

"Former US vice president Al Gore issued a sharp wake-up call over global warming at the Cannes Film Festival, warning the earth was facing "a planetary emergency."

Last year's spate of natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina which devastated New Orleans in August were proof that global warming was beginning to wreak havoc due to global climate change, he said.

"Mother Nature has joined this debate with a very powerful and persuasive voice," Gore told a press conference after a screening of "An Inconvenient Truth," which documents his one-man crusade to raise awareness about the issue. - read more

I had attended the Bytown theater this past week to view the documentary film and witnessed Former Prime Minister Paul Martin lending a supportive appearance. Despite his gallow term, his presence was the limelight of this presentation and without being overly presumptuous, we all found ourselves with the same need to be meaningfully addressed about our environment in the midst of devastation.

After the film, when you come to think of it, you wonder if they ever taught ethics in political science. The government is taking a gamble on everyones future as a means for providing more "social services" aimed at meeting the needs of those corporate citizens, giving them a free ride until we're beyond a shadow of doubt, already rendered by the governments uselessness. The destruction of other people, be it for purposes of conquest or defence, remains the foremost goal of all militaries yet why not climate change? Trying to convolute that reality by attempting to paint it in any other light than that cast by the reality of what is, perhaps, the reason why mankind refuses to wake up to the fact that no matter the feeble justifications for wholesale death, in the end it always results in having been a bad idea - even if only on a personal level. History, be it even our own, often renders itself just and, even at times, honourable. But the present, nor the future, adheres to such reckless abandon.

This weekend, do yourself a favor...

Visit http://www.climatecrisis.net/