Pop used to call me “burro”, which in its native language is an insult meaning “stupid” - but from pop and his metaphorical mind i have to believe it was a term of affection meaning “stubborn.” It took me a lot of years to understand that no single personal trait is universally useful, much less one that renders you intractable - but i got to tell ya’ at this point in history, i’d rather be known for my recalcitrance than my obeisance. I watch the “statesmen and captains of industry” of our time and want to puke - my feelings are more murderous than somatic, but all violence at this time in our possible extinction trajectory shaves off as much green wood from the species’s vulnerable trunk as it does dead wood. Education on how to survive through cooperative loving application of our unusual human history is of the most likely viable paths i can see, but don’t listen to my i am a myopic cyclops feeling my way from one doorway to the next.
Though in too many ways to admit publicly - the “stupid” definition of burro applies too well for comfort. It is one of my closely guarded jealousies that there are so many who see the “ruse” more quickly and have greater restraint about it, after all any one of our species who actually believes the 70’s saw about “he who has the most toys in the end wins” is too dense to really want to spend my any portion of my last few moments on this plush fantasmagoria we describe in places as terra firma, but more accurately treat like “mommy do this.” There is a passage in Henry the V by Shakespeare called the “The St. Crispin Day’s” speech where history and literature crossover in a seamless transition. There was in fact a battle where an inferior force defeated a force 10x its size - and the speech is a martial refrain exhorting any hopeless battle to victory. The digital overlords have robbed us of such subtlety and through sleight if hand somehow proclaimed “1984” ipso facto fait accompli.
Fuck you and the ponies your rode in on. The only battles you trust-fund babies have ever engaged in are the ones where you cannot lose - if you show up on the field, you get a trophy · if you fuck her without consent, you get a pass. That vain assumption my pitifully lacking character nemeses will be your undoing. There is no doubt in my mind about the extent you pissant, imagination-less specters of people will go to aggrandize your accomplishments such that you can ride past the havoc you wreak convinced in your heart of “what the fuck happened to it, it was here a minute ago” hearts. I am friends, of a sort of with Edward Colver who is progeny to a member of the forest service of the San Gabriel Mountains outside of Pasadena, enough so to have had a mountain peak named Colver Peak. That may be my 15 minutes of fame allotted by Andy Warhol, and the least i can do is own what Edward the son of Mr. Colver did with his portion - famous punk rock photographer that he was was born to be · but prescient mountain poet he is and will be ever more. “When the shit comes down, there will not be walls high enough for them to hide behind.” - Edward Colver, somewhere in Los Angeles, sometime in the late 1980s.
What was witty then is now simply practical - these mooks who establish “social media” and then yank the plug on the most vulnerable to the channel and possess the authority and execute the prerogative to mute the most important voices on that channel, e.g. #ArundhatiRoy, #GretaThunderg, #PemaChodron, #ThichNhatHanh, #DalaiLama is not worth a shit as a utility for the good of all. We are awash in profit for a handful that is doing its level best to convince the remaining 4% what a good idea greed is deserve every slight, oppression and disappointment we discover with our denuded, debilitated capacity for critical thinking and simple stupid adherence to an unworthy authority we submit to, be that beauty, vanity, or riches just over the hill.
Dalai Lama - “Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck·” I do not want to die believing the virtual affection i found from people distant from me on a social platform was the closest i could come to love. Nor can i denigrate the genuine kindness that i have found through faint threads of communication coupled with powerful imagery shared with a common purpose of uplifting those that view such content - as much as i must caution the titillating effect of righteous violence suggesting somehow there is victory from overcoming a foe. We are trained seals barking at bouncing balls that enrich a stable of effete managers with pedigrees who deserve much less than the man i found rowing his stomach board with his elbows from An Bang to “old town.” The most you can do for yourself right now is find some way to show yourself a compassion that can be easily shared with the next person you meet - are we having fun yet · ¿?
jts 29/07/2020
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
reprinted with permission - all rights reserved
∞
No comments:
Post a Comment