An Open Letter to Mr. Yee, Dream Villain

An Open Letter to Mr. Yee, Whoever You Are: Please stop bothering me in my dreams, Mr. Yee. Haranguing me can come to no good -- you've been arrested now by the cops in the vingette last night, and what good did it do you? Give up your spooky shop of bizarre action-figures & fire those punks with the water pistols. If you're nice, I will dream you anything you'd like. What would you do with your own country, for instance? Think about it, before it is too late.

Oldest, Bestest Friend in the Whole World

Here are some things I said about you in the meeting that are not true, and I am deeply sorry I said these things about you when you were late to the important meeting & they asked me why you were late: 1. I had to bail you out of jail with the corporate card over the weekend. 2. You were in jail this weekend because you got drunk and went berserk and burned down a funeral home. 3. Before you got drunk and attacked the funeral home, you took mushrooms and you decided to eat a road flair. 4. Then you danced while you fed your clothes through a wood chipper. Luckily, none of these things are true. But there was a fire at a funeral home this weekend, having nothing to do with you, so unfortunately this pretty much seated the notion of all of it being true no matter what was said afterwards. It was funny at first, you have to admit, but then it got ugly and we lost the account. Why be angry at me? I am your oldest, bestest friend in the whole world.

i have a mantra

when bad things happen
i have a mantra
it goes

oh fuck
shit me
goddamn

we

we walk on water
we raise the dead
we forgive the sinners who
do not deserve to be forgiven

we carve out the darkenss
we raise the fires
we burn the damned
in everlasting flames

every day a bomb explodes
we don't know why
you press on the accelerator
the clock says 4 5 6 o'clock

boom
someone dies

we've reached the holy land
we wrote the book
we guided the unknowing
and made them observe and pray

we raised the towers
we strung the wire
beat and starved the helpless
scatted their ashes

every day a new life begins
we don't know why
air in the newborn lungs
blood rushes

cry
the baby cries

A Note

I came across this today. Sometimes I feel like this picture neatly sums up the secret to how life really is.

Happy Birthday WS

William Shatner, astonishing actor, born on this day in Montreal, Canada in 1931. Besides that one far-out T.V. show in the late 1960s that a few of us remember, he's starred in such unforgettable movies as "Star Trek: The Movie", "Kingdom of the Spiders", "Big Bad Mama", "The Devil's Rain", "Comanche Blanco" and "The Outrage". Who will ever forget WS in his series of historic, gripping performances as Ranger Bob on Howdy Doody in 1954? When will he put out another one of those crazy albums of song and poetry to Middle Earth and Bilbo Baggins? No -- that was L Nemoy. I get them mixed up when it comes to the wacky singing stuff. But here's to you -- the incomparable, irrepressible, sweaty-browed, shirt-torn-off-chest-in-your-prime William Shatner!

A Question

So I get this skanky burrito and I'm eating it & I look at the wrapper. Here's the pic. All I want to know is this: is that a gaucho with a hat, or this a gaucho with a funkywild huge fro?

Sick Cat

I don't mean to be trivial, or boring, or even stupidly obvious -- but when a pet gets seriously ill, it can be hideously expensive. I never thought about pet health insurance, but now I wish we had some. 800 dollars so far for a bunch of tests and overnight stay at the pet hospital, for observation. This morning they say they see an elevated white blood cell count, indicating infection. And now more tests today. They still don't know what is wrong with the cat. What can you do?

10 Ways to Piss People off in Foreign Countries

Note: Many travel savvy people here in the USA assume that we're hated by most people in different countries, and that while traveling, the inhabitants will naturally go out of their way to ruin your trip. This is false. To have bad experiences abroad, you have to be diligent & work hard every day to get people to be at their maximum unhelpfulness. In most situations, genuine hostility cannot be procured on the spot, but with enough time and interaction, it can be sampled overflowing in every corner of the world you decide to travel to. Here is a quick list on some ways to get the juices flowing:

1. Put a camcorder around your neck, hold a map in your hand, and walk slowly while gawking at strangers in the street.
2. Keep a loud running monologue of everything that you see, and how it is different.
3. Enter a shop, and greet the person behind the counter with a loud melodic "Bonjuuuuurrr!" then laugh on how hilarious you are. Jovially find fault with products offered for sale, saying a few of them look disgusting. Really really disgusting.
4. In a subway, ask for detailed directions while standing next to a giant subway map, with a map in your hand of the subway system.
5. Complain wherever you are staying that there isn't enough hot water for you to take an hour-and-a-half long shower.
6. Insist people to give you times in AM/PM rather than the normal 24 hours. Also, refuse to learn how to tell time in 24-hour increments.
7. Get impatient with the waiter for the bill. Ask if the tip is included. If the tip is not included, say it should be, but you can't believe how expensive it is for what you ordered. Tip 1 Euro.
8. Comment constantly on all the bathrooms you've seen. Scream if you see a squat toilet.
9. Recoil from people who smell funny. Act like they have the plague.
10. Misplace small worthless items, and accuse staff-people of stealing from you because you're an American.

Long Golden Hair in the Goldeny Sunshine

He sleeps on the lawn with his long golden hair in the goldeny sunshine, and a happy dog takes this as a suggestion and stops for a moment to urinate on his head. The man leaps up when he realizes what is happening, and the dog grabs his hat as it comes off his head. He fruitlessly chases the dog & hat around the quad, around the shimmering trees of oak, over the hill towards the library. Then all is silent and sunshiny again.

The Church Sign Generator

I was digging through my links today, and I found this one. The Church Sign Generator. It reminded me of how I missed a great photo op about 2 years ago. A church was doing some extensive renovations, and one day they put up a sign that said "CARPENTER WANTED - ENQUIRE WITHIN". That sign stayed up for a month, and I never took a damn picture of it even though I'd laugh myself silly each day I drove past it. I kick myself for not getting that shot.

Interview #3

C: Why do you have us sleep so much? Why did you design us to sleep at all?
G: Sleeping is fun!
C: Seriously.
G: Sleeping is fun!
C: Seriously, I'm not kidding. Why?
G: Dreaming is fun?
C: C'mon.
G: What?
C: You wanted us to spend half our lives laying around unconscious to creation, dreaming and thinking we are awake?
G: Now that you put it that way -- yeah!!
C: So we were designed to spend the majority of our time completely deluded.
G: Yeah!!
C: You agree with what I just said?
G: You have a great way for summing up things.
C: I don't think that was a complement.

If I do a bang up job

One day, by accident, I become elected as President of the United States. How does this happen? It is such a long story of seemingly unconnected vignettes(and even outright contrary events) in how this comes to pass, it hardly makes any sense, so I won't even get into it. Or I can't get into it. I think I may get in trouble if I get into it, to be perfectly honest. Suffice to say again, in a different way, it was purely by chance. Or was it? Many other worthy men and women offered to be elected President of the United States. But these things have a way of happening (or turning out) in the funniest way, I must say. I have to say something because I am the President of the United States. And they want me to give a speech here and sign this and that. I get to hear advice and go to meetings. The press tells terrible lies about me, or they just write terrible things (can you believe some people pay other people to do that all day)--- things that would make your Mom cry if you were President of the United States of America -- leader of the Free World and the most Powerful Man in the World, if you catch my drift. I hope you do. I have other hopes, lots of hopes. Like, I hope to get a second term too, I think. If I do a bang up job on the first term.

Cigarette Smoking

"The number of cigarettes sold in the United States in 2005 fell to the lowest level in 55 years..."

Mmmmm. News like this makes me want to go out a smoke a whole damn pack. I quit about 6 months ago. Too bad smoking cigarettes is bad for your health.

Art Installations & Ready Mades

Recently I had a couple of ideas for art installations. I want to get traffic cones and fill the municipal gallery with cones so you can't walk in the gallery. Reminiscent of an installation in the 1970s in NY where an artist filled a gallery full of dirt. I don't know the name of the artist, but I thought it was Robert Smithson. It would be something he would do. I also want to recreate a sculpture I created from stacking telephone book pages in a series of layers, and then pushing the layers together, creating a "soufflé" sculpture of the pages. I did this while I was in college, and it was fantastic. Lately, everywhere I look I see ready mades begging to be entered in shows and galleries. There's a great ready made down the street from our studio in the form of a menu whiteboard at the mexican restaurant. I think I'll go down and buy it for twenty bucks and enter it in the next open show at the municipal gallery.

Limner

One of the most shameful things I have ever done in my life was to betray one of my best friends in Junior High School to a bunch of petty bullies who also were my friends. I resisted becoming a bully to K at first, but I gave in eventually, and I bullied him like the others. This senseless vindictiveness must have gone on for a few months, and then one day I called up K and said I was sorry. K said “Apology accepted!” quite triumphantly, and the next day K made it amply clear that he had scored some kind of magnificent moral victory over me – because I had apologized. I wasn’t really that angry over this, at first I was shocked, then more sad than anything else. I couldn’t blame him, but I thought there was more of an underlying friendship. We eventually became cordial towards one another, but distant, distant. He never totally forgave me. When I illustrated the yearbook for our final year in Junior High, he also cleverly insulted me by writing in a credit under a photo of me drawing, it said I was a talented “Limner”. Years later I discovered a Limner is an ill-trained or self-taught illustrator who creates crude and awkward two-dimensional work -- mostly on tavern signs. They generally remain anonymous. Nice one K. I’ve kept the label of Limner in your honor, or as some kind of penance, for whatever it is worth.

Nice blog, craphead.

He is writing no novel, he is writing a novel. He is writing 8 novels at once. He is not writing a novel. He is writing a novel about a novel. He is writing a novel from the perspective of another character in a novel that he admires. He is writing a novel about not writing a novel about someone who is writing a novel, and this character decides to quit writing the novel. He is writing a series of short stories. He is writing short fiction. He is just another lousy blogger. Nice blog, craphead.

Interview #2

C: Is there such thing as "Evil"?
G: Yes.
C: What is "Evil"?
G: A conscious refusal to imagine, or believe anything is different.

Interview #1

C: So I wanted to ask you this question -- did you blow the budget when you created the avocado?
G: Not exactly -- but you are right about blowing the budget when I created this universe.
C: How so?
G: We call this universe "The Fractal Universe" and it was just supposed to be a elegant joke. I mean, who would build an entire universe based off of fractals?
C: And what happened?
G: Things got out of hand. Seriously out of hand. On like, the third day.
C: So you really built the universe in days? And who is "we"?
G: Don't worry about the "we" part. And yes, I started the universe off in a few days -- like a week, as they say.
C: Let me backtrack here for a second if you don't mind...
G: Okay.
C: You said "this universe".
G: Oh yeah. We, or I made mostly, a load of them.
C: You've made multiple universes?
G: Definitely.
C: Why?
G: You have multiple blogs, right? You even have a whole separate website.
C: So the universes you create are like blogs and websites for me.
G: Not really. But sort of. It's better than that. I'd like to show you the unbridled majesty of it all but it would probably end up killing you.
C: Well that sucks. How will I ever know?
G: Do you need to know?
C: I'd like to know.
G: Do you know what you want to know?
C: I want to know what the man behind the curtain is doing.
G: Ha ha. There ain't no man and no curtain.
C: If you exist, I want to know what power allows you to exist.
G: Aha. Cute. From "Her Bak". That is a nice sentiment. The big deal here, or the message for you to absorb, is to follow a correct & specific process of elimination. Then you'll realize what is to be realized.
C: Which is nothing.
G: Not quite.
C: What is your favorite color?
G: Blue.
C: You have a favorite color?
G: Yes. Blue. I like blue. Blue is a fabulous color.

Rather Than Writing This -or- What a typo!

Rather than writing this on the website I was going to comment on, I will write it here out of context. How are things? I am a Taco, you are an Enchilada, and he is a thing on the menu I can't pronounce or quite read. A Carnitas of some kind. Carnitas con Salsa Guajillo y Cacahuates? CARNITAS CON PAPITAS? Carnitas con Mofongo? Carnitas con Salsa de Aguacate y Salsa Mexicana? We don’t know. We don’t.

But still, who is more important? I am 2.75 USD, you are 2.77 USD and he is 17.99 USD. We all agree it is outrageous to charge 17.99 USD for the Carnitas plate, whatever the ingredients are. Give us multiple beers, give us salt, give us limes. Cut the limes into quarters, so they are quarter limes. Drink up.

There, now things are looking better. The waitress says there is a typo in the menu. The Cartitas plate is 7.99 USD. Feeling better, we curse God, but we're just kidding. What a typo! And what kind of Carnitas is it?

He put his Ego in the hospital

He put his Ego in the hospital, and he thought he wouldn't give a damn if he put his Ego in the hospital, but somehow Ego makes him feel so guilty he can't concentrate when he writes or paints or draws, so he ends up going the fucking hospital spending time with Ego, who looks pathetic and weak with the big white bandage on its head where he hit it with the beer bottle.

Then, much, much later when Ego is feeling better, Ego sneaks up on him, puts him in a choke-hold and rubs his nose on the carpet. Ego rubs his face on the carpet so hard he gets a nose-bleed.

The difference is, dreams are faster

There are whole unique geographies and cities that exist precisely in my dreams. Some of these geographical and urban locations resemble places in the waking world -- I have portions of London, Paris, New York, and even Santa Rosa imbedded in my consciousness. These places are intricate, huge, and unforgettable in both worlds. I feel the same stab of pleasure and recognition when I visit these places awake or asleep. But in dreams the pleasure is unexpected, because you never quite know when you'll be visiting a place well known & visited before. In dreams you do not know where you are going. Waking life is like this as well -- not knowing, but outward life moves at a snails pace. You can conveniently curl up with your cup of coffee and imagine for hours or days that you know where you are going. But sooner than later life's turns will show you that, in 99% of all things, you never really knew anything (fact or location) for certain. Just like in a dream. The difference is, dreams are faster.

17CC6CA

091DEAEFA9C22914E271C9DBA5A5C241B58B1ACEAF98B16A3F8906B4D
?HX?535cf4d0898eaa70e2dcdf5583209ffd3ba99413836d0850b48cbc31d26b
8833db96f557c92e3a58b26a858787d27e4c2b7e961d28559a3a3839b07fc8e4
0ba2f08add6e524e47abe31c9a174c8b973eb4e9f4d410e55352852be7241fdc
e3838d7d47bdadb573b14f669e66e97a7688fe5350fee037b659915716229714
a0954b378d48e590d8a9eb5a33eef5ef968b73d189ec92ba8968ada1c8b1fda4
61d405bb54bf1ea22048d20ee8e64030654a9d743b71434c0572d43cbe15d507
e2cc33f675db3740b252bc1cd9945fef6beea8c7d3aca032c6a9f8c7a872f2b6
1343dc0d9a5168fe8b085be25aa4ed2a0a7bf7e97289125b8b12870346e84756
980ac7e7f2923fcdd2beabb8abb62ad2bf63d91b3a7434a422cfc319c458a16d
8202234e0df4cab42a36d2b88c91ed046f976fafd9351a6acae41fa4559fc8e2
0e343a807f356459f218c1bd34deaa55e68059e87d06e111150e22313461df7c
cb87b70d8dcaae590d6348d27ee60ce35911741f292cdc9746636181a90755db
b1043423d4163e0512f3fd9b0f7e28cce7301c77ee3d4803a7f05e5ba0178bef
8ef87da697de56ba758c1837b283a4844cf853d8f42a2330de01ee19c2d7775a
1520d595b603d0ac03d69971a4af59165df11f47f4fa964f1a7ef6d2f4100c85
81e4776caf80897af28ad374dfc9e6747a1cd889f66f5bc7f64962220c6ae0cd
0f4f5da0ba5aa702ee2898a1afc87a7a5d6f?H

The elevator of the future

At the large shining software conglomerate, the elevator is fantastic, but it won't take me where I want to go. I want to go nine floors up. The elevator of the future takes me everywhere else -- up down, left right, inside, and outside the building, around the neighborhood, back inside the building, it shoots over horizontally to the mezzanine - where it does a few barrel rolls and split-s maneuvers. It does an immelman between floors 7 and 6 going down to floor 5. Now that I am late, I yank this "Disengage" type latch and the elevator slows down, settling back in the lobby. Then I wake up and hear my daughter cleaning her room.

He meets himself one day

He meets himself one day on the street, seemingly by accident. When he gets over the shock, and they are sitting down in a small cafe, he has several questions spring to mind.
"Are you a time traveler?", he asks himself.
"No. Not exactly.", his double says, a bit uncomfortably. "Today is not now. I am in the future, and this is an illusion. Like a memory projection, reconstructed from my past memories."
"What do you mean, exactly?", he responds.
"I guess I am like a memory tourist. This is a memory. You are a memory of me when I was a young man.", the double says and tries to smile.
"What's wrong?", he asks.
"I -- we are dying in the future. This is a sort a final trip down memory lane, literally.", says the double from the future.
"Oh.", he responds.
"I'm so sorry to put you through this.", says his double, "This was one of my favorite days in my - our entire life."
"What happens today that makes it so special?", he asks himself, feeling crushed and excited at once.
"Today you are going to meet the girl of your dreams. And she will love you for the rest of your life.", says his double, "Only this time you won't have to meet her by pure chance. I know where she is right now. Get up. My gift to you."
And later, his double said gently, "See there she is."
And he said, tears welling up in his eyes, "What should I do? How long will my life last? When you go will I go as well? What should I say to her?"
"You should meet her. I don't know. I don't know. I'll tell you exactly what to say.", His double replied.

Run for your life

We were in a ghost world in the dream -- it resembled the Wild West from the 1880s but converted to green stained glass. To keep the ghosts from getting us, we smeared cans of tuna oil over our heads, which also kept us pleasently warm, because of the fish oil. If the ghosts suspected something otherworldy when they came close to us, we'd sing special songs that would confuse the ghosts into looking the wrong way, or thinking the opposite thought. In this way we walked and mesmerized ourselves into the town of the ghosts -- I had a hit to do. For this, I had a Colt .45 in the dream, but I only had 2 bullets. So when we lingered in the square, I walked up to a ghost filling station, I asked if I could buy ammo there. The ghost attendant though about it for a second, and said, sure, why not? I asked for one hundred and fifty rounds of ".45 long colt". The attendant knew I knew what I was about, and he smiled, giving me several heavy long tubes of ammunition. Ghost ammunition. I asked how much, and he said, seven dollars. It should have cost me twice that. What a deal. We hiked to a box canyon, where no ghosts were around, to try out the ghost ammunition. I found when you fired off a ghost round, the gun kicked like a real gun, but there was no sound whatsoever. The bullet would put a large hole in whatever you pointed the gun at. A very very big hole. Mortals, I realized, were not meant to have ghost ammunition. It was too devastating. When we walked back into town, to perform the hit, the word was out -- we were invading mortals, and I had been sold ghost ammunition. There was no stopping me. Run for your life.

I'm sorry

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to rub you the wrong way. No, I'm kidding. I absolutely fucking wanted to rub you the wrong fucking way absolutely, motherfucker. What? What? No - ha ha ha ha. Just kidding. Ah. Yeah, well fuck you too.

a dream

august 14

i dreamed that god decided to cut back
downsize heaven

laid off half the angels
fuck the union

(the devil
recruited them)

So Chung Tzu and I are hanging around....

So Chung Tzu and I are hanging around, going to cafes and bookstores in the Mission District. "I can't stop thinking about her." I say, as we leave the cafe. We walk down Valencia, and we duck in another bookstore. "I can't stop thinking about her." I say as we look at old Horizon Magazines. We walk up towards Dolores Park and get a snack at a taqueria. "I can't stop THINKING about her!" I exclaim, but Chung Tzu doesn't say anything. It is as if he was stone deaf to my words. So we go to Dolores Park, and we get there right when the sun is getting ready to set -- the sky is like lemon, and the windows of the building on the east side of the park are blazing gold, the air is full of birds. There is such overflowing of beauty, that my mind goes completely calm and absorbed with the world. I have no thoughts whatsoever. And at that exact moment, Chung Tzu leans over and screams in my ear, "SO DON'T THINK ABOUT HER!!!"