Monday, January 13, 2014

agents of change

the clock:
ticks (obviously)
performs
   a one-man rendition of Faustus.
controls.
   your immediate future
resides
   inside the head of the man with one finger on the pulse of society and the other on the trigger.
is
   ahead of the game.
waits patiently in the shadows
with or without your acknowledgements…
grabs you
   when you are not looking.  rifles through your pockets for any loose change.
pretends to be on your side (with its minute-hand around your shoulder like a pal
but stuffs the blade into your back with the hour-hand)
disguises itself as money.
takes her own sweet time at the DMV yet races at breakneck pace when on vacation.
tells of tiny romances and innocence
in a box of photos tucked away in a dusty storage closet.
reminds
   us
of the finite and not-so-finite…of our mortality and someone else’s immortality…
bastard-child of the sun and the moon and great-grandson to the universe and charged with the blinking history of man.
pays no heed to the laws of gravity and can exist
outside time.
Illustration for Poe's The Devil in the Belfry in "Tales and poems - vol.2" (Philadelphia: G. Barrie, 18??)

Saturday, January 11, 2014

acid washed

                  from George du Maurier’s dream strip “Tom Noddy’s Christmas Nightmare”

     They showed him quite a bit.  As a matter of fact, they showed him all of it ––  at least all his limited-capacity brain could process.  He got it, allright.  They showed him that his beloved little planet was to undergo quite a reckoning in the near future – “sooner than you think” he recalled hearing.  Then the questions came: why? why was he ‘being shown’ this, why was ‘he’ being shown this?  What could he do with such information? He had never been taught the protocol and etiquette on what to do if hyper-dimensional beings that manipulate time/space reality of human beings were to come to him, telepathically notify him of his status of virtual lab-animal, and the lab was going to be shut down for renovations.  As he was being relayed this information, he knew he would either have to remain mum (and essentially play-act within this soon-to-be destroyed artificial habitat) or be committed into another habitat for insane people, because he would indeed be viewed as totally nuts if he were to attempt to “warn” his fellow lab-animals.  At that time – how he wished his 20 year old brain could just be wiped clean – that he could just go back to “life as normal” and move onward in blissful ignorance of the alien scrutiny he had become aware of. 
     He attempted to meander through the next few years – but in a sullen state of mild despair and nihilistic depression.  He had gotten committed a few times – they wanted him institutionalized.  He drank. He wept.  He bummed around.  Not until he met a truck-driver named Woods did he realize that he had only gotten a certain angle of the story―an angle that was shown for the advantage of the one telling it: yes, there were interdimensional beings manipulating humans for their own advantage.  Yes, they had been around a very long time, and would seem to a young man to be like his gods.  But: Woods had imparted to him: they had mindfucked him to try to get him to yield his spirit – his life-source-code –  to them.  that is what they feed off of.  Woods knew.  He was one of them – and he was rebelling against them.

Monday, January 6, 2014

do you know the score?


A Seizure - (Jean Ignace Isidore Gerard) Grandville - www.wikigallery.org

....so in conclusion, you have been shanghaied, are on your way to work on shithole planet jacking-into the system of mineral deposits, and loading it onto intergalactic freighters, or some stuff like that. Your mind has been commandeered, your identity confiscated, your thoughts locked up, and you will be a slave now. how do you like that? who cares...
-
the deal is there is no deal. We are on the verge of fairly obvious paradigm shift, and most of the addled populace will not know how to react. “Television didn’t prepare me for this one”... No – as a matter of fact, it has stripped your mind of all base survival instinct programming, reprogrammed fear and submission code and a bunch of virus applications that actually destroy your system in the background while you keep it running. In other words – you have been programmed to either a)self destruct or b)not care that you are being destroyed. this is the way it is...this is how it goes. While I am telling you this – you are being systematically dismantled. Why am I telling you this? I suppose I only wanted to help you, but I can see now that their infection into your Operating System and wetware has gone so far that all you do is laugh, deny, poke fun, and talk shit at me while the very hacker I am pointing out to you is deranging your code and savaging you. Do not blame me when you malfunction – ye have been warned....

Thursday, January 2, 2014

what’s the story?



“conquer the blank page” I have just read. Hemingway typed standing up – like he was shadow-boxing with the typewriter...

Now, we sit at desks and behind glowing screens like pimply-faced drone pilots -- out of range and detached. The key is to get in there and swing. Who cares of the fact that I am repeating myself or else regurgitanig prior opinions I’ve already digested?

Another good one: “serve the story, not your ego”. That reminds me of one of the first things mentioned in the first class I took in college, and intro to creative writing class where the teacher stated “do not fall in love with your own handwriting” You bet – don’t get too involved with those words you think are gold ether, and don’t think that your farts ain’t vile, buck-o – cuase they is... The problem I have: I never seem to find a story. Then that becomes “the story” (I wrote a short film about a character looking for a story, much in the spirit of Pirandello's “Five Characters in Search of an Author”, whereas the metastory was about the search for a story). But even these “clever” high-artisms get played out, like magic tricks – they are fascinating as an intellectual exercise but lack emotional movement. That’s what the fans want – to be moved, to laugh and to cry. those are the two. Sure, it’s nice to “impress” people, particularly females when you are a young male, or vice-versa, (or males if you swing the other way, same for females – you get the idea.) But to simply “wow” people will leave them impressed, but not necessarily fulfilled. I think that’s why Twain commanded to keep things simple – therein lies the genius: to take a complex equation and simplify it: is that not what mathematics and physics yearn? the unifying theory that ties things together in an easy soundbite? That’s not to say we must churn out hackneyed garbage sans smarts – that, in my opinion is patronizing the masses: calling them stupid and throwing it in their faces by force-feeding them stupid shit. Nay – a good book should make people more intelligent in a way—emotionally, intellectually, or spiritually...(or all)—in a way, it should be a source of nourishment for the mind and the soul, not junk-food...

the ceiling of reality (or "On LSD")



     Alexander Ramsay: Flap-illustration, early 19th century
from http://art-bin.com/art/medhistorypix/omedicalimages25.html



 I perceived a sophisticated jigsaw-puzzle of millions of tiny, reverberating pieces locked in a slow, undulating rhythm. Do you see the patterns? Those patterns are the fabric of time and space, my son – any hippy that’s worth his weight in LSD can tell you that. The lattice-like architecture resonates with a translucent green-red glow, spots or nebulous forms… networld – the net is intricate and complex mosaic in three or four dimensions, but it is visible to the human eye, if you have the correct lens and operational application of mind… LSD of course speeds this up and embellishes it – but the influx of large amounts of raw universal data on the psychic/physical level tends to “overload” the system- - the conscious operating system doesn’t know how to decipher the large volume of rapidly ingested quantum data, so it will do it’s best to “make sense” of it – hence the classic “hallucination” or “seeing things” – the system is seeing “everything” and attempting to categorize those things. Overload – or bus crash – is the “freak out”. The system simply cannot handle the volume and data-rate absorption – so the mind-OS shuts down, goes to sleep, reboots, or fries the motherboard. Imagine: suddenly not only having infinite data but ongoing absorption of that data. And you don’t have the proper “application” to run, interpret, decipher, utilize, or express that data. That is what a heavy-duty acid trip is—jamming a billion-terabytes of information into a computer that can store it, but cannot do anything with it. Our brains can handle an enormous amounts of information – thousands of percents more than we do now…but we haven’t developed the proper “wetware apps” to use them. Perhaps soon the Allmighty Software Designer will upgrade us… Are you a file to be saved, or tossed into the recycle bin? Your choice. That is freedom – the ability to choose, sans coercion – whether you want freedom or you want to be a slave….

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

wd-40 acts as a cloaking mechanism (in a dream)



the dream was definitely strange – as dreams are wont to be…needless to say, it went something like this:

“this won’t do” the man appeared in the room from nowhere. A mild rain and grey times, as usual in grungy Seattle. He scoped the room and went out into the yard. “we’ll modify and fortify this place later. Right now, we’ve gotta get you hidden.”

In the yard existed an underground bomb-shelter—the house was a toss-back from the 50’s frantic paranoia… we used it as a storage shed. We climbed down; the mustiness kicked hard. He found a can wd-40 and handed it to me. “Before he shows up, spray it around. It’s a cloaking agent for their devices.” I shrugged and asked no questions. This man obviously was an expert. He climbed out of the shelter and closed the latch. I heard him tossing dirt and rocks and debris over the hatch and wander off back to the house. I could see him though. He grabbed the land-line phone and carried it to the porch. They are going to call to make sure you’re home. I will answer as you – they don’t know the sound of your voice. He communicated telepathically. Questions will be answered later. Get the WD ready...

The telephone rang..he waited 2 rings then picked up. “Hello?.....Speaking” He hung up, carried the phone back inside, came out with a small rifle and climbed under the elevated front porch.

A black late-60’s model Buick crawled up and parked in front. A bear of a mulletted man in a green army jacket and loose-fitting cargo-pants ambled up to the porch. He had a pistol in hand and another one hanging loosely from his ass. My protector scoped him from underneath. The to-be-assassin moseyed into my house and rummaged around. Two other men met him – both disheveled and motley. They had entered from the back. The three rummaged through our thrift-store decorated house and got kicks from the two mannequins filled with miscellaneous knick-knacks. They were definitely looking for something particular, besides me. The main mulleted guy – the captain of the team – slung my old pair of ski-boots over his shoulder, and one of his side-kicks had one of the mannequins in tow as they exited my house and they dropped and died before hearing the three rifle shots…
-
Of course, I can’t forget about skydiving while under the influence of psilocybin mushrooms while skydiving – I saw everything….
-
Where does the part about the maniacal performance artist who would go on 2 week sleepless amphetamine binges then stage “performances” whereupon anything might happen, always of a frantic, bizarre and stupefying ilk, fit in? Not certain, except the show that I patronized he brandished a large revolver pistol and began firing into the stunned audience, who scattered like hunted deer—and I hit the deck and played dead, until he approached me and threatened to execute me – I realized he had blanks.
-
The gist of the story: I had become a TPV – telepathic viewer – who had remotely witnessed a very high profile megalomaniacal but beloved tech. pioneer billionaire Gill Bates murder his wife. This occurred while in mid-flight skydiving and peaking on mushrooms. I tacked it up to simply a random bizarre temporary drug-induced psychotic vision, but nay! I had tapped into the invisible CCTV of meta-reality, and actually seen the man inject his wife with a cocktail of secretly developed adjuvents that are non-detectable. So the papers and authorities and the entire Seattle area along with the rest of the western world sent their heartfelt condolences to the poor grieving Mr. Bates when they learned that she had developed a fast-acting and irreparable cancer that overtook and killed her within days. I thought “wow, what a coincidence” when I read about it a week after my skydiving session, and I mentioned my “weird vision” to a group of acquaintances at a bonfire bbq session we attended the following Saturday.

Bates had developed a wide network of surveillance technologies in everything that would record everything and had them installed in light poles, electric boxes, televisions, cd players – he had, after all “donated” all these items to the city and thrift stores and anywhere else that anybody would buy, use, wear, watch, etc. Every piece of audio was digitally recorded and if his name was mentioned in a given piece of audio, that data was flagged and stored into a network database in an underground and super-secret location then analyzed by former intelligence spooks that had found the employ of him far more lucrative than the govt. sector. Mostly they sifted through people praising the man for his wonderful contributions to society and his philanthropy to the needy and downtrodden people, particularly on the African continent. Every now and then, they would parse out some random drunk shit-talker and if he felt like it Mr. Bates would either fuck with him by burning-out his TV during a Seahawks game or would send the man a thousand-dollar check as a random “chance” lottery and token of appreciation to the citizenry of Seattle – pending his mood.
With my “vision” he took a deeper interest: I was “spot on” in what I saw. He knew that I knew and he wanted to know how I knew. After all, I was just a grunged-out low-rent artist that had nothing against the man – I had hitherto expressed indifference to the guy my life…Or was I? His own megalomaniacal paranoia had conjectured that I was a super-deep cover operative – of either a .gov agency or rival company, and was either around to bring his vast empire down or else compromise his position via some form of devious blackmail. Regardless – I had dirt on him and a man of his ego did not like it one bit. Thus via third-party networks he had hired professional investigators to surveil me, and for a month the results were nil: I would paint, go thrift shopping, drink Olympia and smoke grass on weekends with friends, lead a nondescript lifestyle. This frustrated him further, because he was convinced that I had tapped-into some sort of metaphysical reality – one which could be quantified and exploited for commercial use. So via fourth party cut-outs he had hired the three thugs to come and rough me up, knock me out and kidnap me. Had that plan succeeded I would have never seen the light of day again. I would have lived out the rest of my days in a lab, ogled over by mind-prodding mad-scientists attempting to see what the cut of my jib was…
But: he showed up. The mysterious protector.
-
But: lets cut to the end, shall we? At the end – in a warehouse, Mr. Bates has a syringe that he plans on stuffing into me. His personal south-african cargo-plane pilot shows up. “Oh – it’s you. You’re alive. How about that? I am busy right now, come see me tomorrow and we’ll talk.” The pilot doesn’t budge. “I brought some friends, mate.” From the shadows a group of large and unhappy tribesman step forth. Mr Bates: “Oh?” Pilot: “Yeah – these guys nursed me back to health, no thanks to you. Quite frankly I am shocked they didn’t slit me up into pieces and offer my pieces to their cannibalistic rival tribe… No, boss – they gave me a lesson on your maiming operation – your soft-kill plan that has been exterminating these peoples now –rewiring and tearing apart DNA, etc…. Naw, Boss – I had to re-examine my value system”. Bates: “Oh. Well – I can pay you way more. How about your own island?” Pilot: “Mr. Bates, that sounds marvelous. How about we discuss it after your trial.” Bates: “Huh?” Pilot: “Yeah – we’re taking you back to the Savannah—these fellas here, along with their contemporaries – are gonna give you a fair and speedy trial.” Bates is silent. He gives a weird and awkward laugh, and makes a dash for it. The pilot expertly shoots a tranquilizer dart and hits his former boss in the neck. He hits the deck. The tribesmen take their time carrying his pathetic body to the cargo plane. In a half daze, Mr. Bates mutters something incoherently about Icarus, misunderstandings, and that he didn’t mean to wet himself mommy.