030121 - Extinction Chronicles ·

“Requiem for a Stranger.” On the 23rd day of the last month of a very trying year, a man fell on a slippery floor in the town in which i live - he died today · I knew him not at all, but am certain he will be sorely missed by his widow, son and those who clearly love them all; i can think of no greater testimony to anyone’s life than that. Days after his unfortunate injury i fell on a similarly slippery floor and faced a different end without the same dire consequence; i must live on, the same as his loved ones. They have the benefit of a strong loving memory based on what i can gather from a distance; these paltry paragraphs are as close as i dare go to such suffering, not because i am frightened to be in the midst of that manner of agony, but because i am at a loss as to how i might help; from what little i know about this community, i have to believe i am not alone in my confusion - this community, much less the world at large.

I just spent 15 minutes searching youtube for a renowned singer Trinh Cong Son who has fallen from favor though famous for the depth of his love for country, music and humanity. He is not unique in being marginalized for questionable reasons; i have faced quarantine for my own renegade position within a community attempting to reestablish a belief based on the fading economic model - Capitalism, the ideology of greed · I do not know where my friend the deceased stranger stood on this matter, but the city we shared is very nearly at what had been the dividing line of that promethean struggle of our shared youth, between capitalism and communism. But this essay is not about history or ideology, but a man who anticipated a happy Christmas with his loved ones when he fell. I sort of understand what he might have felt at that instant before impact from the same glimpse i’ve just had about my own tenuous future and have to believe from the outpouring of concern before and after his passing that my unknown friend was a loving human, someone whose example i would do well to emulate.

Nor, just i and my picayune concerns, but anyone who lives with loving concern for those around him/her. I remain at a loss as to how to relieve his widow and son from their grievous tragedy. There is nothing i know of that can substitute for the breathing presence of a loving other, unless it is the rich happy memory of one affected by that loving other. And so i trespass using the only channel left to me - words & ideas · I’m trying to move past apologies for what i think and feel, and willingly request forgiveness from the aggrieved family if my focus on their sadness does anything but alleviate sorrow. My hope is that dwelling on the love which this husband, father and inspired from his family and community can be amplified by consideration - something i find altogether too lacking in today’s media rich environment of ready-made solutions to every question - questions that no longer need be framed to find a desirable answer on the screen, now we just ask Alixa.

My next door neighbor, the brave-hearted farmer has been tilling his fields for the past 5 days, in weather so damp and chilling i cower within the comfort of clean dry sheets and pray for bicycle weather in which to again join with the human race. In my time as a member of this peculiar hamlet known throughout its history as a “friendly meeting place,” i assume my responsibility for not having mastered the native language well enough to have many local friends, however literate i might delude myself to be in body language. I do not meld well with expats either, truth be told i don’t meld well with most, preferring the company of my faithful two-wheeled steed “Asama.” I attribute its good company with muscle tone that has allowed me to suffer numerous falls on the snot-slick marble tiles of the few foreigner villas i have inhabited. If i was a wise man, i’d pay my kind hearted neighbor the farmer for the privilege of performing manual labor within his 4 century old and counting family rice business to reinvigorate my once vibrant anatomy; sadly i didn’t pass muster at my pre-employment skills evaluation during the last harvest: barely being able to hoist a single load of 12 or so bags of rice and so well understand his reluctance to underwrite my physical rehabilitation fromk my “dissipated youth.”

To my friend who has just passed through the veil as humans do leaving behind a loving wake of distressed hearts - i commend you for taking your existence to the brink · whether bidden by your wife or from an idea nurtured within the caverns of your own hungry heart, a powerful muscle i was never introduced to, i salute you. To have brought your bloodline out of the ruts of convention and to spend the last moments of your clearly courageous life, a world apart from what so many on the planet could ever conceive, much less join their passing spirits to - you were and remain a human hero, an explorer of the terrain of the unfamiliar: possessed of a heart stout enough to establish, cultivate and maintain a life different from your upbringing, your living example of how to face life demonstrates to my way of thinking the only reason our species might survive its darkest night · courage manifest, loving leadership and the ability to be at peace in violent environs full with duplicity & fear commingled with the age old human solvents, love & hope. G_d speed Bub, may you find what your heart has been seeking forever always.

jts 03/02/2021

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020121 - Extinction Chronicles ·

Writing about the 2nd day of the nuyier on 1st day should prove interesting, if only - forgive the pun, for 20/20 hindsight. Just engaged a tall balding fellow from the state of Nebraska, as is part of my burden - the 1st thing out of my mouth was, “are you embarrassed coming from the same state as Warren Buffet; admittedly an asshole remark but useful for cutting through the bullshit introductory information. Within minutes i’d learned that he didn’t begrudge Warren his money, that he’d been a lifelong Democrat who’d switched gears and stood fully behind #45 with a fervence that surprised me. I was intrigued and found my curiosity more powerful than my abhorrence. A working class middle ‘merican, espousing strong nationalist bullet points, “protecting the borders, 'them' taking jobs, ANTIFA destruction etc., etc.,” When asked if he watched Fox News he averted his eyes as though mindful of that guilty pleasure and it’s effects on rational discourse; it was not a conversation i expected to have, but found myself oddly encouraged, not from the position of being able to convince someone of anything, but more an opportunity to learn the thinking of a ‘merican comrade. 

I have to laugh out loud that this calm turn of a new year might be the eye of a hurricane rather than the passing of a hideously destructive period in world history. Nor am i sure that where i am is someplace i’d choose to die, as had been the case of my first year here. I have learned things about myself i didn’t realize needed learning, not from “intention” as is the catchword for much hipster-doofus psycho-babble, but because it was a case between understanding myself more clearly or sink further and further into despair. I come from a bloodline that is steeped in Dysthymia, so depression is part and parcel of my makeup - enough so that like drinking, if i don’t tame it, it will tame me. This despair i speak of is the existential terror the sages speak of when the fragile human vessel is confronted by the logic of its ultimate decay - the sort of terror that gives rise to all the popular religions have used to manipulate the energies of humans throughout recorded history.

Where i want to go with the time left to me is where my spirit is full of the impulses i have been taught to feel shame for - not the salacious reaction-formation impulses that rise out of repression, but to yield to the yearning for singing, dancing, painting · yelping to our heart’s content. I find a deep seated need to acknowledge my ungovernable impulses that William Blake dwelt with and articulated so well - “those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.” How does this renegade notion square with the placid adjustment to our suffering advocated by Pema Chodron, Thich Nhat Hanh and his eminence the Dalai Lama? That is not a rhetorical question; i do not possess the patience of more disciplined scholars than myself; i ask because i am going to die and i do not wish to pass having betrayed this unique opportunity for growth. If i am to grow like some fucking twisted phoenix out of fire, then by Jiminy i’d prefer to be aware and awake than quiescent and oblivious as the shackles of +/- 5v wisdom would seemingly prefer me to be.

This is not to say i find my existence to be the center of our troubled world, rather it is the only universe i am free to wander through without constraint that is not of my own making. I was raised in a culture espousing freedom from both sides of its mouth - Free if: you’re white, willing to kill on command, have enough money, agree with the “right” people, object to the “wrong” people, etc., etc., etc. To that end my birth nation now has the distinction of containing 4.4% of the world’s population and 18+% of the jailed inmates. So it is natural for me to feel some quandary about the direction this monolith of “conventional wisdom” and its history of deceit in the interest of the HNWI handful takes toward our precarious future. Yet once again Madame Paradox and her twin offsprings “t’is and t’ain’t” demand i acknowledge herein publicly that my thinking was developed, nurtured and came into fruition within the bosom of this multiplicitous nursery. 

The stakes are no longer a post educational existence of fulfillment and gradual accumulation of comfort leading to a gentle demise surrounded by loved ones and a worthy legacy - now i fight for the survival of a DNA strand which i will in all likelihood possess no particle - the only contribution i can make is what you read herein or any conversation we might have in the lucky event we share air rather than this tenuous digital link. Sly and the Family Stone is singing “Everyday People” and i have no way to explain to the people in the venue where i just enjoyed my Nuyiersday meal the significance that song has had for me in years past; i myself begin to doubt the importance or even the usefulness i had once felt for music so deep and profound is my doubt. One thing i can comment on is the truth of Leonard Cohen’s quip about not making an important decision when you have to pee - he wasn’t lying · i just now had to avail myself of the facilities on both sides of my meal, thankful i did not have to make any important decision on either side. 

jts 01/02/2021

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301220/311220/010121 - Extinction Chronicles ·

So now i fly without a net - once again · i have no tether to where i landed and have likely antagonized the last friend i had where i live, if s/he was ever anything more than a shimmering fantasy echoing ache from the deepest recesses of my existential yearning for sangha. And yet it has been a good day full of happy faces and unexpectedly loving responses in the most pedestrian exchanges, and not - duality is so confusing when contrasted against the ever present eternal · I’m not sure how birds do it, but my landlord’s husband right now is scooping the water from under my sink, and that is as far as i go, so this essay becomes a trifecta of 3 day’s worth of holyday cheer . .. ··· That may be all that i have accomplished the entire year - allowing myself the leisure to pick up an essay the next day, no matter that it was the day next to the last day of 2020, morphing into the first day of 2021. The water filter change by the landlord proved dodgy, so i may have gulped a good 3 swallows of somewhat filtered water - meaning the pump didn’t kick in so i may have chugged a part that didn’t include the “reverse” in reverse osmosis technology.

Never mind that that may be the part which includes the meningitis mingling in the water table of this quadruple flooded river basin - whadddya gonna do, it’s still 2020 · just got a fb message from the husband posing as the landlady on her page telling me the technician is busy and “he’ll” fix it later; like i said, it’s still 2020. And now 2:00pm straight up on nuyierzeveday, i have no potable water and better than 3 paragraphs to go before i can say i did an honest day’s work. I pulled out of my lodging agreement in an awkward fashion, but really feel little regret. Just like the server who’d been giving me what i thought was come-on served the 3 people who cut in front of me in line today - i missed an opportunity to stretch my understanding of patience; instead, in a fit of pique when i was finally greeted, i clenched my heart and told the friendly face, “see you later.” The question remains, who did i protect, how did my puerile gesture contribute to world peace¿ 

What will it take for me to forgive myself my hurt and arrive at a place of existence where my greater concern is the comfort of others? Is there anyway that i can infect the avarice of the murderers of our species with this radical notion¿ “War is over” - John Lennon · it is a statement, not a question open for debate - said who to who ? this is the test · An Ethiopian woman was murdered in Italy within the past few days, for the egregious offense of developing sustainable Goat Farming that surpassed the best efforts of those apparently motivated to kill her based on little more than “ruffled feathers.” Fuck you you pissant adolescent pukes unable to accept the fact that a harder working black immigrant made mincemeat of your tender egos. What is even harder for me to accept is how much of that maligning reveals my own deeper seeded remorse this close to my own expiration - “how powerless must i become to help others”, he asked of no one the ruling class would allow to listen · ¿ “enough” as the voice of his own mother replied as she lay dying, separated by an ocean and the same avarice and greed he spends his last years defaming.

2020 humanity shouted down the _onald, and still Gaia whines about her difficulties, seemingly oblivious to the wrack and ruin she has unleashed on a species doomed to extinction by untamed desires and unexamined motivations because she is too occupied with Hermes and Gucci to give a fuck how she’s standing on his penis; yeah, no projection there. More power to you little Mamacita - payback’s a motherfucker and lordlady knows i’ve taken my license with much and from which i can only welcome comeuppance · depending on how one feels about the act, acts or continuing behavior. Mindfulness is a dicey proposition for the closer one peers into the caverns of one’s own heart minus judgement and with simple awareness, where is the condemnation so necessary for social control. I read a fascinating observation this morning by Bertrand Russell which simply substituted perspective about animal vs the human assumption of primacy - i was at an utter loss to explain why the horse should accept the saddle vs why a pig should submit its offsprings to the table of our obviously questionable human superiority.  

I am no closer to an opinion though it be at the end of a horrendous year full of death, defeat and welcome reprieve from a “wannabe” tyrant wielding hatred with the expertise of an ancient demigod and the bungling incompetence of a corporate overlord. I pray, not because i am particularly religious, but because that sound is more sonorous and melodic than conversation. It seems i communicate better with the universe, than my fellow human beings. I have an easier time pleading with the aether for a surcease of suffering for life on this planet than asking someone to stop denigrating their own worth and value in unconscious ways which i mostly recognize because of my own behavior. Were it that simple, nor am i evolved enough that when another requires my subordination to fortify their self image, i can easily resist the temptation to shred such posing as though the raiment of outgoing #45 - the most pathetic example of an empty suit i can remember in my extensive observations of the the high and mighty. For these reasons and more, i would rather whistle my fond hopes for your wellbeing and happiness with the birds - their songs seem more loving and lacking judgment than most people and so are better able to help me quiet and still that excoriating snarl that commands the beast deep within until such time that it and i may once again be friends. 

hapynuyier 21012021

jts 30/12/2020,31/12/2020,01/o1/2021

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291220 - Extinction Chronicles ·

This is the year of the rat and they have figured prominently in my life, regardless of what you believe about astrology - rats have never enjoyed such stature in my existence as they have this past year. During the 1st half of the year i lived with a mischief of rats in my drop-ceiling. Based in the pattering of little feet, and sometimes violent incursion of local felines on the hunt, i estimate anywhere from 6-24. Sitting in my neighbor’s yard in the early twilight, they could be seen traipsing along the wall as though on some rural highway commuting back from the fields. Just after i moved in they made clear my territorial intrusion for what they must have considered their private estate, by gnawing on the wall between my bedroom and the hallway. Cats were not an option, because my circumstances are too tentative. With research, i discovered rats can’t abide peppermint oil and so began the slow process of infusing strategic points within the house with this not unpleasant deterrent.

By the time i moved, we had fought each other to an uneasy peace and by leaving dishes of peppermint oil high toward the ceiling panels i was able to discourage their presence in quadrants of the house. What i learned though is when you have that many rodents in close quarters the dander and insect pests would rain down upon my living quarters and make upkeep that much more difficult - regardless of what the brochures say about living on a rice field, it is not the Arcadian delight one might imagine. And yet the ducks and chickens at my back patio are better company than i’ve enjoyed in the past 18 months. The biggest shock was discovering how many _rump supporters were in the mix, the 2nd most difficult realization was how much animosity other expats felt obliged to express toward my birth nation. Animosity might be the wrong word - delight in the downward spiral potus45 has incited with his divisive, malignancy.

When i first arrived, i would draw on a patio adjacent to a pool that was private enough to not be noticed. For a time it was amusing to hear the different types of pool frolic, from sober children delighting in the refreshing water to drunken swains trying to bluster their way into a pair of panties. It was at a gathering of the former when i had to listen to some young former military personnel malign my nation for no other reason than self-aggrandizement. I don’t remember being so close to such vituperation and i found it disconcerting, but also began to recognize its subtle presence in the parade of guests traveling through the homestay where i was living at the time. I’m not even suggesting the criticism is inaccurate, but i do take exception to the gloating nature of it - as though the world could not wait for ‘merica to fall on her face so that they might feel better about themselves.

I rarely find solidarity with foreigners in my travels, and i don’t really understand the reasons for my reservation; it has been especially so with the clique of Economic Mandarins serving as financial counselors in the world heritage site in which i have been something of a prisoner for the past 18 months. I am coming to realize their self-interest is in perpetuating capitalism, a form of exchange i have no respect for and find that those still attempting to excavate return out of a people who have suffered too much already, to be selfish at best, and malignant at worst. At a time when there is a dearth of leadership on the planet, and within an ancient agrarian paradigm to amplify upon, suggesting the non-sustainable tourist economy these carpet-baggers are cheerleading is as irresponsible as it is stupid. The city i live in has been nearly dead center in the path of 13 typhoons within 3 months, and the development of temporary villas for the highly anticipated arrival of pent-up tourist dollars has continued unabated.

It doesn’t seem to occur to anyone with whom i've spoken that the decline from late stage capitalism is only going to accelerate and that the havoc of additional climate induced catastrophes as well as future plagues from the unchecked application of man-made genetic material into a pharmacologically, and chemically unstable world that has decimated natural habitats and murdered nearly half the known species just strikes me as uncommonly arrogant, little different than the ego oriented personalities i’ve encountered in my last year and a half. The locals are as confused as any i’ve met - not sure whether to murder the interlopers in their sleep, assign them a ghetto full of villas and only allow them out to patronize a favorite local vendor, or attend fundraising events to herald the opening of against-all-odds, the latest, trendiest, coolest new restaurant in a town with the mother of all gluts for foreign-owned restaurants - what am i missing, besides that opening?  

jts 28/12/2020

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281220 - Extinction Chronicles ·

One would hope that decisions became easier with age, but gone are the years of impulsive behavior, for as Joni Mitchell sang 40 years ago, “I’ve seen some hot, hot blazes come down to smoke and ash.” Why has it taken me 4 decades to understand something she was writing about in her twenty’s? Is this why the kings and queens of Old Europe would finance fleets of ocean going barks to search out the “Fountain of Youth.” Would i take a gulp of that elixir even if i found it? If i am not prepared to die this minute, i didn’t learn well the lessons of Elementary School when the alarms would sound and like good citizen everywhere, we young faithful kiddies would climb under our desks and prepare our souls for anonymous incineration. I don’t know how the kids do it today, with the threat of slow-motion incineration from cataclysmic heating of the atmosphere - at least it was a dice roll for us if we were allowed back up to the land of the living · life was good; until the next alarm.

I am not sure how i feel about this aging process, in many ways it’s a gas caring less and less what anyone might have to say, yet caring more and more what people feel; those that are not too numb to share. And i really like murdering my own sacred cows, though i’m largely a vegetarian it is a glorious feeling to watch the specter of an ancient delusion light up like a Roman Candle and flicker into nothingness. But to recognize the dread in someone’s eyes only because you have felt that yourself is not the sort of prescription lens i was looking for; then Madam Paradox peeks around the corner winking at me, because she knows i know there is not fuck all i can do to relieve the suffering of anyone who is not already asses and elbows relieving their own misery.

The downside is that Mommy ain’t coming back, and if i don’t learn how to take care of myself, it’s a safe bet i’d be as useless as tit’s on bull helping anyone else - again with my obnoxiously constant companion Madame Paradox · this just at that turn in my own evolution when i grow certain that one tap root for happiness is found in service to others. I can even hear the Chorus chortling, “fool.” I used to think globally, picturing those steps necessary for disarmament, because that is what was trotted out by the leaders as the next step in the process of “Detente.” But somehow a successful detente translated into more spending on armaments, i guess because unending war has worked out so well for everyone - i know it put me through school · Joseph (T.he fucking hypocrite) Stevens, there’s a testimonial for ya’.

So too are gone the answers; i remember a time in my life when you could ask me anything and i would have an answer; today you could ask me if i got up this morning and i’d have say “let me check, and get back to you.” Laugh if you must, but of my many fading memories is as an idiot savant wire harness wrangler sitting across the table from a workmate, as old then as i am now listening to him commend me on my bear-trap recall, while describing what a sieve his own had become. That was a scant 25 years ago, and all i can hope for is that he remains well, walks incessantly and feels happy to be alive. What i remember from Pop when he was at that elder stage is his sardonic refrain, “Man am i glad i’m old.” This morning i did not fall back into that last leg of rest so important to a good day and so joy seems to be sticking in my craw, or there is some unresolved issue i am evading and so require convenient attribution.

My first wife’s name was Joy, and if i had been as smart as i thought i was, i’d have quit while i was ahead; instead after 3 marriages, i’m still searching for love like some bad country western song, or better yet, a Sufi Kōan that has no answer and is simply meant as a distraction to your thoughts, like the monkeys swinging through the trees of your mind as Lao Tzu describes. There is no achieving love for it is the medium within which we swim, upstream/downstream, with the tide, against the tide, breathing or not - there is no other state for what we describe as consciousness than being · nor certainty for what we don’t understand about consciousness than the same. Stephen Hawking in the end was convinced that though the escape velocity from the surface of a black hole is greater than the speed of light - the most rapid measurement we can make for our known universe · he knew that black holes emit radiation; funny how our conscious and unconscious states so resemble “Black Holes” - eh ?

jts 28/12/2020

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271220 - Extinction Chronicles ·

Fun, what is it¿ where did it go? why did it leave¿ how can i find it again? Is this as good as it gets - slowly going blind amidst human beings that don’t seem to want to see. At one time in my life i could have a blast watching grass grow; scaring myself shitless going too fast in cars i wasn’t even driving; chasing broads that acted like they didn’t want to get laid. Anymore i believe them - been married too many times not to · I am not that same boy; i still take great pleasure in admiring the arch in a woman’s back, but more enjoy the radiant smile that comes from deep within - the sort of smile that has to crawl past the pain to find light enough by which to grow. My greatest hope for companionship is developing the compensatory skill from fading sight such that i can point the way for those with smiles not so damaged from grief that they can still take root given ample light and loving care.

Talk about your blind leading the blind, but if you have to believe in something i pick happiness that is mostly found in helping joy to flourish in a miserable climate, be that too much hate, too much heat, or not enough good dirt to grow in. The lotus it is said requires the remnants of its dying brethren for nutrients that come from decay. Do you think if i cogitate properly it is possible to leave nutritious rotting memories where once stood a vibrant man? I do not foresee fruit of my loins arriving anytime soon, but i am willing as fuck to work at it under the right guidance - not that of a vain spirit evaluating her sperm donor by his wealth or standing but one who gauges value on the purity of heart. Even based on that dicey criteria, the best i have to offer is a fairly thorough self-awareness of just how depraved i have been.

Not from intention, but from paying heed to the wrong spirits seeking my protection, more from their demons of greed and conceit than the kind encouragement of how much of a love farmer i could actually be. I have yet to find "her," which does not mean she doesn’t exist, only that i haven’t found her amongst the 1,000s of women i have loved for a minute, a day or a marriage - a woman that would see as deeply into my heart as i must without running home to mama. I know she exists, because my own mother did not smother me when she had the chance, not that she ever let me forget that tender mercy - only that it was seemingly the only thing in her life that wasn’t my fault. What she has bequeathed me is a wit as dry as “Death Valley” and a fury hot as “Furnace Creek," which may be why the only thing Pop was able to help me understand about women - be cool ·

He was right, but it gets awful fucking lonely loving from a distance. I can only imagine how hard it must be for “her” holding all the cards and having no idea what to do with them except take all the chips and go home. I guess i’d be okay if i could find out what home means; the way Ma explained it when i asked, “Home is where you go and they can’t turn you away,” still being the magnificent broad she be to this day and to add emFaSis on the siLaBul, when i was 15, she changed the locks to the home i grew up in and would not give me a key. It must have had a bigger impact on my siblings, wondering why they got keys and i did not. Still The Wizened One she was, based mostly on the subsequent behavior of my kin, forced me to peer more deeply into the meaning of Home than my siblings. I do not say this with rancor, but with pity for what they clutch at as substitutes for sanctuary seem more like coffins than loving abodes from which to welcome guests.

I have my skin including all that is within - and sometimes when there is a knock at the door, i will open it and share as much as i have with whomever wishes to visit · Sometimes there is no answer and no entrance allowed regardless of rank or privilege. Of course i’d prefer to be that unconditionally loving spirit who discriminates not and whose home is simply a way station for travelers lacking anyplace to rest; if access is denied, i try to leave refreshments close by, like this essay for those addicted to entertainment or art that i have created that was beautiful to me and so may quench the thirst of those whose eyes tire from the endless ribbon of highway from “Woody’s Lore.” Warmth is a dicier comfort that is best found within, for to rely on others to heat up coldness within leaves you at the mercy of a seemingly cold-hearted world; i learned this commiserating about the chill in the air one early morning long ago from a wise friend “Rander” Bulla, whose laconic reply was useful then, useful now - “think warm thoughts”· as to staying kewl · that’s easier, FOCK FUSSIL FUEL . ..  ···

jts 27/12/2020

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261220 - Extinction Chronicles ·

Just for the perverse fuck of it, i sit upstairs in a new venue on "Boxing Day." I wanted to sample the effect atmosphere has on my digits and language - the wine and meal, though more expensive did not translate into finer quality · that is not a complaint, it is the cost of exploration. The real cost, though is to the proprietor for losing a customer. How fucking sad that our human experience is parsed by profit into - get in, get out, how many tables can i fill? not, who are you - what do you do, what are you searching for in this “valle lacrymarum”?, etc., etc., questions of the "King Customer" that used to be commonplace, but with rare exceptions are now subsumed into some twisted corporate notion that there is a “lingua franca” for customer service - a one size fits all. The roast i’m sure was succulent when the owner tasted it, but by the time i gnawed on it, was tough as shoe leather. Initially when asked by the server, "how was your meal,?" i made with the zipper across my mouth; yet when the poor man responsible for serving the “ideal portion” upon which his job depended, i advised him to practice what his native skill had taught him about serving tender meat · it is more certain to me daily that i am going to “hell.”

Ironically in the hapless holiday workers haste to create a “foreign” ambience, Bob Dylan’s xmas album was put on a loop, something not dissimilar to fingernails on the old style chalkboard. It is this sort of stricture that is choking the human experience from our collective enjoyment, employees deprived of personal initiative in service of the god of profit sucks every inclination at exploration or having fun from the working experience. This is only more so amplified in a city which has banked its entire wherewithal on a restaurant economy. So you now have the foreign owned eateries catering to a captive demographic of 1,000 foreig-born appetites within a population of 800,00o locals possessing a culinary expertise 600 years old within a culture 3,000+ years old and the two cannot communicate, because each is waiting for the flood gates of tourism to open and magically free up the mighty god of profit which caused this myopic lack of communication in the first place.

I am an interloper and it may there is no place on the planet the digital overlords will allow my voice to be heard. They are a cowardly lot hiding inside the "push technology of texting tribes and fb cliques they don’t possess the hair on their faces to own up to, rather sending their Artificial Intelligence (AI) thug to front for them. I could give a fuck and accept that i am an anachronism within a paradigm being overlaid on a dying planet. I spit on the narrow thinking of that paradigm and those who dare not confront my spoken word, much less allow my written word the light of day. Still, like the ancient “voice in the wilderness” i have no choice if i mean to die with my eyes wide open; my ears unplugged with my mouth shut but to press on. I can feel the hell hounds at my hells even with the short ride i took today under the last of the evaporating cloud cover - the heat of the coming summer could be felt as clear as your hand next to a toaster while reaching for cooked bread on a brisk morning.

Come this summer, i do not want to be where i am; i did not want to be where i am after the first rain; i do not want to go where i have slated myself to move and so am stuck in the great in between. Or not stuck, but patiently waiting for that ineffable indication of direction the universe gives those who listen. I have for too long believed that destination is someplace i can pick, not much different than the fictional belief i can pick who to care for or be cared for by. The problem with trying to support this restaurant dense community, i have one stomach and prefer my own cooking, so when i do go out, it tends to be in well-worn paths. For too long i’d given that behavior a negative weight, but now am trying to accept it as part of the unique makeup of my repertoire of responses to my world.

Like writing, if i knew what i was going to write, that might make it more simple to work each day - just sit down and execute the words · I do not know what is to come out of my mind onto what in another time might have been described as “paper,” but now can only be conceived of as aether. If i had my way i’d just sit and visit with others, but so few are comfortable in that exploratory give and take between souls that occasions for deep communication become more and more rare. The challenge is of course coming to grips with my responsibility for that dearth of human exchange. It wasn’t until recently that someone i loved platonically for a long time, only to discover i could not share a house with until after i had moved back in many years later - asked during one of our many conversations, which i highly valued, if i was aware that people might be afraid of me. Since i was a frightened man-child in the streets of NYC trying to affect “scary,” it had not occurred to me. However, many decades later walking through certain neighborhoods of East L.A. when youths no longer gave way to my stride did i understand that demeanor is as fungible as clarity - where before i could not frame a simple clear sentence, i now grip ideas as though my life depended on it, and where once i’d have never ceded ground, i routinely veer out of the way · go figure. 

jts 26/12/2020

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