Zen for Critics

A train indecisive up a hill. I study her, she ignors, forward and upward. Stream whispers. I know it's just a dream.

In this hot kiss of summer, I sweat memories. Rewind buttons drip toward earth. My companion in this exercise, struggles against her own ingenuity. A little closer to a perfect angle. A little more naked before god.

Memory and whispers answer to no one, a free expression of mindlessness - zen for critics. When we lose ourselves in our labor, we be. We really just be.

I see the ass of the train, a beautiful way to imagine a brief companion. Whispers can't be seen now, must have stopped talking to herself. Convinced, of the rightness of her expression.

photo: taken w/ iPhone 3Gs Hipstamatic app (Helga Viking, Afred Infrared)

Lion's Den

Sometimes I see more clearly in the shadows. Not because of any special ability, but because human nature is nocturnal.

I work and live amongst beasts who hunt their own because they think it's a famine. Fang play, smart remarks and digs made within ear-shot of bosses. Words that wound, warning newbies to shun alliances with this one or that one. If you have some talent, they want you in their Pride.

There's an abandoned temple just outside the city. It's long been taken over by lions. I go there but don't stay long. I'm not exactly a member of a pack.

We hunt together, that's it.. and only antelopes. When they start in on the weak, infirm cats, I fade to the savanna. Tree shade is my heaven. Work is my only hell, but it's not like it lasts forever. No hell does.

Alpha males and females are strange characters. You need my vote to stay at the head of the alphabet. I defer, I don't endorse. Because I don't need you like that; just want to learn from you.

In this shadowy place, I see the piss-lines drawn, lionesses hunting together, lions lounging talking shit and me, a lion with no pride.

I've been here 10 years, but still feel like a visitor. Strange as it seems, that's my most comfortable space. A Bill Bigsy outro, five days a week.

Rrrrr.

photo: taken with iPhone 3Gs Hipstamatic app (John S, Alfred Infrared)

Tunnel Vision

Had this vision of the future. It was filled with a communities of people who spoke in twitterese. They viewed their blogs, open mics and photography as their life's work and their 9 to 5 as a necessary evil. Success is getting off the plantation. Everybody was counting down.

There was a these souls walking under a beautiful black sun, eyes a flame. Sharing tales of their escape and messages from the North star.

We huddle around the water cooler, warming our hands with stories of publishers returning calls and concert dates. Dreams are fire.

When one left the plantation. It was like we were all half way there. It made the electronic cotton lighter, backs ached less, vision got clearer.

I see the route for my escape. It's a five year plan, but should keep me and my family out of servitude for generations.

When I close my eyes, I see stars I need to follow out of here. There's joy in this journey and thorn scarred fingers make great fairytales.

photo: taken with iPhone 3Gs Hipstamatic app (John S, Pistil)

Seeya Bitches

Fear is the last companion you have when you leave Gotham. You've always seen her around, but the timing wasn't right.

House sold, bags packed, in a hotel with nothing in your name but a car and a celly. All your friends in this 'burg were situational, so when they heard you were leaving, pretense faded. Your ego was disappointed, but the essential-self never looked back, like "Seeya Bitches and God bless!"

In a bar and later at a theater, I saw her; it was electric eye contact. Seemed like fate so the small talk was bold. We ended up in my hotel room using each other as a divine distraction.

She left her number on the dresser. I woke to the knocking of the cleaning lady - alone. Any dreams I had for myself in this town were left in a condom and flushed.

Driving with the visor down, I live on the horizon... And I left that number on the dresser.

photo: taken w/ iPhone 3Gs Hipstamatic app (Salvador 84, DreamCanvas)

Zeitgeist Opinion

Total Drag
I was listening to a weekly address* by Peter Joseph, producer of the Zeitgeist films and he depressed the fuck out of me. Why? Because he regurgitated the same problem analysis from his films, but when it came to elucidating the solutions, that shit was thin and dispassionate.

The conspiracy theorists exhibit this same behavior. I was a fan of Alex Jones, then fell off because his shit got repetative. I watched all the films about the Boheimian Grove, the Bilderberg Group, FEMA camps and of course the classic interview with Aaron Russo (RIP).

Again, alot of critique of the system by Jones and then ads for canned meat that lasts fifty years, shower head water purifiers... Sooo, the solution is the new world order is your sponsers?!

Thats when it donned on me, preachers, conspiracy theorists may start out with a love for the game, wanting to educate the people, but as soon as some bills or profits becomes part of the equation, the message and thinking submits to that gravity.

Now, I'm not saying the Zeitgeist Movement is like that, Hell, I haven't been to my first meeting. It's just that without as much time being spent on the solution in Peter's lectures and easy answer is a home water purifier.

Then Again...
Perhaps the answers lie with the local chapters. Maybe the answers shouldn't come from Joseph at all... if they did, it would be too easy for this movement to become a cult of personality. Maybe the bridge between Peter Joseph and Jacques Fresco is the people in the Zeitgeist movement.

A resource-based economy, which is the ultimate goal far as I can tell, of the the Zeitgeist movement seems alien. I mean like really, like little green men type alien. I'd be willing to bet my Loose Change DVD that visitors from other planets needed to get to that kind of social organization just to allow the creativity and innovation to evolve enough to develop interplanetary travel.

I'm so frustrated with the beligerent problem ananlysis that it drives me to find the answers on my own. I hope I make it to a Zeitgeist meeting soon, but if most of the time is spent fundraising and not finding solutions... well, God Bless, meet you at the circular city or the Rally to Restore Sanity, which ever comes first.

*http://www.blogtalkradio.com/peter-joseph/2010/10/13/101310--peter-joseph-8-lectures-3-a-profile-of-col

Photo: ZipCar I rent sometimes. Taken with onboard photo app in my iPhone 3Gs, edited with PS Express app.

Elevator Conversations

There is a meditation I use from time to time; after centering myself with slow deliberate breathes, I imagine an elevator.

In this elevator I press the sub-basement button, then I feel the downward sensation of the car. At each floor, the doors open and a wise man or prophet gets on and we chat; Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, my Grandmother and so on.

On a good night, before I get to the bottom, I become so captivated by the conversations I lose track of time and my body.

During one meditation session, once I reached bottom, there was no elevator. I looked "down" and saw stars. I decided to go to one of the stars. I would move toward them and they seemed to move away from me. It was beautiful and frustrating. I had little awareness of my body, but felt the need to escape from it through one of these shiny portals.

I did escape eventually, but not this time. For now, I'm just moving through space chasing stars.

Photo: taken with iPhone 3Gs & Hipstamatic app (Lens: John S, Film: Pistil, no Flash)

Remember

Waiting.. Waiting is like being stuck in someone else's dream until they wake up. I've been waiting for myself to wake up for years now.

Sure, I go through the motions: work, fatherhood, friendships, but I don't really feel awake - only when I write. Only when I make love with words do I feel... really feel conscious.

There are moments though, like the one I'm waiting for right now, when I get epiphanies like Pop Rocks: when my children whisper secrets from a past life, when I help someone who can't repay me or when someone reminds me that I am sleeping.

photo: street corner in Alexandria, Va. iPhone 3GS w/ Hipstamatic app: John S/Ina's 1935