war

witness the imploding tension

the sparks near the wick

its omnipresence overwhelms

while opinions fuel the flame

bullets diminish while bodies pile

innocence is tainted and opinion's are vile

soldiers march to the opposition

all is lost when mothers cry

maintain

to post something legible or not... 'tis the question. i'm aching for prose, but i'm also hurting inside, so waiting for the artistic urge to hit will only hurt me... SO...

this week was a challenge. no more, no less. i realize i've dug myself a ditch and am or have been finding ways to maintain. maintain happiness, sanity, reason d'etre. dirty outsiders will claim i've got plenty to be (contradiction of 4th sentence). i disagree. this is my blog, so i trump you. happiness, sanity and reason d'etre all applause :). i've got financial and emotional problems, which some may say feed into each other, but one will exist when the the other exits, so i make sure they have each other to play with... it's probably the paternal instinct in me.

ideological differences aside, i yearn for days when i wake up and run about my kitchen/bathroom all scatterbrained, only worrying about getting to my desk to continue yesterday's thoughts... her brainstorming that i gaily dove into and fed from. it happened once or twice and believe it can be again, but wonder WHEN?

is it me? is it me? or is it me? my employer covets thinkers and intellects, so i'm left to wonder. is it in my best interest to maintain or climb the mountain (2 letters difference... not bumper sticker material, but kinda there... right??)??

hate

most of my posts are poetic ramblings that make sense to gifted woodland creatures and myself, so i thought today, i'd post something legible. a lot has happened in the past week that if gone unsaid, would fester in me and defeat the purpose of my blogging or would come out in an incoherent, jibberish that would again, do nobody any good.

i've come to find that i'm fairly consumed with hate... not your run of the mill disdain or bile-inducing anger, but pure, unadulterated, hate. i've known for sometime that i'm severely lacking in this ability some have called "forgiveness" and i'm fully aware that my intolerance speedometer does 0-60 faster than most foreign sports cars. yet, in the past couple weeks, i've come to discover that i may actually qualify for a little known disability known as "heartlessness" or the lack of "feeling".

some symptoms include: defriending facebook friends with little disregard, cutting ties with a neighbor's cat i felt didn't buy into my mode of living by "showing him the door" and closing it behind him and blatently telling my baby-momma i hate her and nothing she could do or say would change what she's said or done.

this disdain for humanity in some ways keeps me motivated, knowing that some think their compassion will win out and some think i'll crack over time, as most do to ease the burden that daily hatred places on most souls. knowing i'm able to hate on with little disregard allows me to fester and build my foundation of hatred towards those that plot against me. razors cut like paper through thin skin.

grey skies, pt. 2

as days melt into the blur of time

i wake to darkness

and sleep away the light

fractions of seconds meld together

to paint the mess

i've learned to call life

all of which

makes the effort to make sense

somewhat maniacal

i recall vivid moments

when the static stopped

and clarity was taken for granted

definitive start and stop points

staked their claim on my psyche

the grey skies parted like a shutter

and the stain stamped the negative

then without warning or pause

the clouds conceded to chaos

eventual accumulation spawns surmise

i often ponder purpose

from genesis to finish

is this mire of my own doing

or am i part of the equation of we

in the distance, the ether flows

beckoning me to bathe

do i dive and dissolve

or flee for the faint hope of focus

manifesto

people say and people speak

i maintain until i change

we culminate in conversation

relationships come and go

it all defines us, as well as me

i proclaim ubiquity

until it affects me

selfish and heartless

are terms of endearment

caring and thoughtfulness

somehow become slurs

as cranial as i claim to be

incongruent becomes

another word that best describes me

broken and battered

most often by myself

i enjoy each day's lapses

if not to recapture the reason

then to capitulate with humanity

understanding i'm but a stain

on the overall picture of longevity

staycation

this was the result of a some self-talk. if you've never heard of a "staycation", it's time off w/ no plans, aside from enjoying the small things... such as sleeping in and letting phone calls go to voicemail. take today for example... which was the 4th day of my staycation... i slept until 11, spent a good majority of my day in bed, watching the battle between laziness and slumber, then moved the party to the couch for some r & r with Spike Lee and my friends hops and barley. many moments of inspiration, recollection, despair, and fortitude came and passed while i enjoyed 2 great films. whatever tomorrow brings, i'll embrace it with a vigor that came from the reality that then, now and everything in between is nothing more than a collection of moments. moments that paint a collage... a tapestry of life. i'll now step down and carry on with my piece.

for those stuck in the grind

and to those losing their minds

let me recommend a fix, a patch

something to tide one over

and assist you in collecting thoughts

if you got the time, take it

for those less unfortunate, fake it

but find a way to stay in bed

walk the streets of your town

do what it takes to gather one's self

for without one's self

we're no good to everyone else

we're awash in apocalypse

zombies serve us lunch

then leave us messages

we forget and overlook

the beauty of a sunrise

the serenity of a cool breeze

the reason to be and continue

reasons that continue

regardless of our participation

mirrors reflect but hide what others see

why can't everyone step outside

and allow themselves a chance to perceive

jelly bracelet

tonight, i saw clouds, sky, and infinity

heather told me i had no idea

and i explained my concept of fidelity

i'm torn over friendship and singuilarity

both powerful, both decisive

one pulling one another in one direction

two forces too powerful to be derisive

torn between boyhood and manhood

this makes me into what i thought i could be

all becoming what you thought you were to me

nothing into something becomes everything

it all turns into pimento innards spread accordingly

she was the one who made me successfully

i let her be until i tore her out

jelly bracelets brace me for the hurt emotionally

attachment detachment acronymically

when everything evaporated, ghosts manifested

spirits ran amok with no purpose

souls searched for reason, hearts became infested

we run rampant, we run ruefully

thunderstorm

the crash becomes a boom

nature's concern enlivens my room

i'm shook and it's power has spoken

we sit in silence

i sit in solace

it speaks in terms unrequited

aside from the love blanketed

nervous conviction wonders

how much is unscripted

enjoy bitches...

rediscovery

while surfing the tidal wave of online info regarding rivers and the boys, i came across river's college essay... eerily parallel to my own life's experiences... true personal rediscovery takes one part humility, one part acceptance and 98 parts of shut up and listen. enjoy.

What I’ve Been Up To Since I Left School By Rivers Cuomo

Weird Science
After the initial failure of my band’s second album, Pinkerton, I decided not to return to Harvard in the fall of 1997, instead setting out on a mission to develop creative methods which would allow me to be more consistent as an artist. Above all, I wanted to cure myself of the Romanticism which I believed was to blame for my failure.

Throughout 1998 and 1999 I engaged in hundreds of song-experiments. I filled notebooks and cassette tapes. I drew graphs, tables, and charts. I studied other writers’ methods. I took hundreds of pages of notes on the creative process, mostly from Nietzsche, but also from Goethe and Stravinsky.

At first, I maintained a social life, playing and coaching soccer and continuing my classical piano studies with Bruce Sutherland. Eventually, however, I became more and more isolated. I unplugged my phone. I painted the walls and ceiling of my bedroom black and covered the windows with fiberglass insulation. I disciplined myself to an extreme extent. My goal was to purge myself of all weakness so that I could write “perfect” songs as reliably as a machine.

Most of the time, I believed that I was optimistic and happy. The song-experiments, however, produced music of less and less joy and, occasionally, I would fall into despair. At one point, in September of 1999, I actually gave up my mission and decided to go back to school, sacrificing my music career indefinitely. I contacted Dean Thomas Dingman to gain admittance, but learned that I had missed the registration deadline by two weeks. I could only move forward with the music.

I struggled on for two-and-a-half years in all. I finally concluded that such intense focus on musical perfection was only scaring off any real inspiration I might have had. I needed to broaden my focus onto a more practical, tangible goal, in the hopes that music would start to flow in service to that goal. Nietzsche’s “great”men—Julius Caesar, Cesare Borgia, and Napoleon—found their genius through practical action, on the battlefield, in the pursuit of worldly ambitions. They were not locked away in a study like me. I decided to follow the example of these men, step onto the battlefield, and pursue “World domination”. I hoped that this goal would spark my creativity. .

World domination in terms applicable to me meant commercial success. Commercial success, I believed, simply dictated making the most of what I had, musically, and becoming active with my band again, and making an album and touring. I swallowed my creative insecurities for the sake of that success and revealed my songs to close associates in early 2000. Their positive reactions led to rehearsals, which led to performances. We discovered that during our long absence, we had only become more popular. Our “failed” album, Pinkerton, was now viewed by many critics and fans as great. With momentum behind me, I kept writing. At the end of 2000, we entered the studio to make our long overdue third album.


Imperial Aspirations
The Green Album was released in May of 2001, going on to sell over two million copies worldwide. We toured extensively, playing our biggest concerts ever. We performed on Saturday Night Live and at the MTV Movie Awards. The album’s success at radio and MTV, and in foreign markets wherein we had had no previous success, seemed to me to validate the approach I had taken with myself and my art. I became the opposite of the unconfident hermit I was in 1998 and 1999. I believed that my band would become “the biggest band in the world” and that I was the man to lead us to that destiny.

I sought to cultivate the same ruthless practicality in my business that I had achieved in my music. I studied the lives of Napoleon and David Geffen, Machiavelli’s “The Prince”, and contemporary texts on leadership and management. I gradually took over all of the business responsibilities from our manager and managed the band completely by myself. My performing, writing, and recording continued but were now joined by my business activities, all of which together I viewed as converging on the one goal of “world domination”. I read books on business and negotiating. I hired a staff. I reformed our operation, renegotiated contracts, and consolidated power. I found it easy to gain ground in negotiations because no music businesspeople wanted to “play hardball” with “the artist”. Furthermore, I believed we were able to grow with integrity, as I could make informed choices, seeing for once exactly how the business worked.

However, I also steered us into many bitter battles, including two lawsuits and many other very tense negotiations. For example, in order to demonstrate our independence from the record company in the new age of digital media, I shut them out of the making of our fourth album, Maladroit. We financed and produced the album entirely ourselves, sending hundreds of copies of the finished product to press and radio—but none to our record company. The record company could only watch on the sidelines as the first single quickly climbed the charts, and the fans downloaded the promotional copies off the internet. At this point, we had what I believed was optimal leverage, and we renegotiated our contract.

Ultimately, however, Maladroit was not the big hit that it had threatened to be, selling only about three-quarters of a million copies. I had succeeded in improving our financial arrangement, but not in making a hit album. The record company blamed my shenanigans for the downturn in success.

Many fans also criticized the music. They heard both Maladroit and The Green Album as being “mechanical” and “emotionless”. I tried to evaluate the criticism objectively but I had a difficult time. I had crushed my faculty of self-criticism in 1998-2000 in order to make a comeback. I could not tell if my current predicament was just a classic case of an audience lagging behind the development of an artist (as in the case of Bob Dylan when he went electric) or if I had I really “lost something”. I reacted defensively, calling the fans “little *****es” in an interview with Guitar World magazine. Now the fans were unhappy, the record company was unhappy, my associates were unhappy, and I was unhappy. I did not know what could be done to change that.

I fell into a life of ego and vice. Deep inside, however, I was having serious doubts. I asked myself, “Is my life really supporting the production of the music I know I am capable of creating?” I had to admit that music no longer gave me the feeling of sublime ecstasy that it once had. Although I had already written another large pile of songs for our fifth album, I put all plans to record on hold. There was a revolution brewing in my mind, soon to be triggered by the man we had hired a few months earlier to produce the album, Rick Rubin.


Renunciation
In February of 2003, Rick gave me a copy of Daniel Ladinsky’s translation of Hafiz’s poetry, The Gift. After overcoming my initial aversion to all things spiritual, I decided to read some of the book because I trusted Rick so much. Henry Mindlin, in his introduction to the book, says:

Hafiz wrote hundreds of ghazals [or love songs], finding ways to bring new depth and meaning to the lyrics without losing the accustomed association of a love song…He explored different forms and levels of love: his delight in nature’s beauty, his romantic courtship of that ideal unattainable girl, his sweet affection for his wife, his tender feelings for his child…his relationship with his teacher and his adoration of God.

I was struck by the connection between all these different forms of love. I recognized that the feeling of sublime ecstasy I once got from music was just one more of these forms of love.

I had an epiphany: if the feeling these mystics get in union with their God is analogous to the feeling I used to get in union with my music, then their teachings for how to achieve their union should likewise serve to instruct me how to achieve my union. A whole world of spiritual teachings opened up to me for the first time since, as a child, I had decided that I was an “atheist”. I now read these teachings as coded instructions for how to connect with my musical creativity. For example, when Hafiz says, “Self-Effacement is the emerald dagger you need to plunge deep into yourself upon this path to …God”, I read it as “Self-Effacement is the emerald dagger you need to plunge deep into yourself upon this path to Musical Creativity.” Like this, I just replaced the word God wherever I saw it. I had discovered a new path. I believed that this path was what I had been waiting for.

I eagerly studied a wide variety of traditions including the mystical poetry of Hafiz, Rumi, and Kabir, contemporary spiritual teachers such as Eckhart Tolle and Leonard Jacobson, and ancient texts such as the Tao Te Ching. In accord with my understanding of these teachings, I abruptly dropped all of my business responsibilities and hard-won power, and isolated myself once again. I fasted and lost fifteen percent of my weight. I took a vow of complete celibacy. I gave away or sold most of my possessions, my house, and my car and lived in an empty apartment next to Rick Rubin’s house for the rest of the year. I moved to settle outstanding lawsuits and reconcile myself with enemies. I apologized to many people. I volunteered six days a week at Project Angel Food in Hollywood, preparing meals for people with HIV.

Balance
Thus, my life made another extreme swing, as it has many times, at least since I was a teenager. I have been sometimes a tyrant, sometimes the most frustratingly passive person you have ever met, sometimes a socialite, sometimes a hermit, sometimes a rock star, sometimes a student. I have had little inner stability.

During this latest swing towards spirituality, however, I started a practice at Rick Rubin’s suggestion which may help me achieve some balance: meditation. I was averse to the idea, initially. My goal in trying all the crazy experiments in my life has always been to improve, maintain, or recover my connection to music. Meditation, it seemed to me, would rob me of the angst that I believed was an essential precondition to that connection. With little to lose, however, I took the chance. I experienced immediate benefits.

The technique I was drawn to is called Vipassana. It is taught around the world at over one hundred centers. (Go to www.dhamma.org for more information.) I started the practice fourteen months ago, attending seven ten-day courses and serving as a volunteer at two. Since then, I have found that the areas of tension in my mind—the fear, the anger, the sadness, the craving—are slowly melting away. I am left with a more pristine mind, more sharp and sensitive than I previously imagined possible. I am more calm and stable. My concentration and capacity to work have increased greatly. I feel like I am finally much closer to reaching my potential.

I now live in a small but comfortable apartment. I feed myself adequately. I took a class at USC this spring, “The History of Literary Criticism”, and enjoyed it very much. I take private lessons in music composition once a week from Bruce Reich, a professor at UCLA. I still volunteer, once a week, now at the West Hollywood Food Coalition, feeding homeless or otherwise disadvantaged people. Most pleasing to me is that, month by month, I have watched my creative flexibility growing. The music I have created over the last six months has brought me much enjoyment.

I am returning to Harvard in the fall. Other than that, I am wide open to whatever else comes my way…

one heckuva day

sweaters and blankets

and corpses and babies

tight correlations

of sometimes and maybe

bright lights illuminate

while innocent pray

this all equates to

one heckuva day

blossoming lilacs

envelop my senses

help me forget

today's circumstances

yesterday lingers

like debt awaiting pay

progression prevails

one heckuva day

dead, eerie silence

the void becomes heavy

slow suffocation

by weight of the bevy

nervous and anxious

with nothing to say

i dream of awakening

one heckuva day

bite my neck please

eat my flesh please

awaken me, so I may enjoy

one heckuva day

i (pause) stand here lonely

and listen closely

i can't help feeling sad

while underlings grumble

and overlords ramble

i slowly realize

life's not so

bad

Satisfied

in terms of Mondays, today was green

a bit to the left, yet still in between

i glanced at all extremes with an unproductive smirk

mindset being fuck everyone once i arrive at work

my nails are painted for reasons unbeknownst

i awoke in a ditch and left unannounced

all that matters is that i'm satisfied

years of angst meant days of misery

hours of anguish built from minutes of history

self-inflicted pain imagined by a brain gone awry

sad motion pictures where one pays to cry

all in all, enough was enough as I was spent

everything did was done, so it was time to repent

all that matters is that i'm satisfied

the genesis of fear

heavy memories weigh on my heart

my mind, my body and soul

the pressure inside forces tear formation

as my empty cavity swells with emotion

contradicting forces rattle my foundation

allowing the weak to become strong

tired of toiling under endless oppression

they create their own web of influence

while a river of hurt drains down my face

the tsunami of pain consumes me

i'm overwhelmed by past, present and future

none of which i can control

my instincts scream run and escape

all that was is now what we knew

and nothing ahead will remain

culminating into a reason for fear

this is...

the climactic ending of the beginning

one phase closer to the end

an introduction to the players

with selective bits left out

a divergence from the truth

the conflicting dialogue

that distracts us from what matters

as they scurry to their marks

a developing storyline

and an anticipating audience

one held captive and one deceived

we're deciding which one is which

Friar John comforting a mother

a sister trying to explain the unknown

her brother died and she knows not why

past and present making plagiarism plausible

another father left to bury his own

when he himself is emotionally deceased

he survives on the remnants of the past

when life was an opportunity to proceed

a collection of progression and advance

the story of a family striving to survive

when the mother confronted the father

and the sister accepted facts of her brother

the story of an unforgettable dinner

where truths are divulged

and lies are exposed

humanities become liabilities and the page is stained.

another tuesday

this could be any day

but it happened to be tuesday

close to the weekend

but far enough to matter

saturday's remnants flake

while sunday is torn between

yesternight's debauchery and

tomorrow's trepidation

when will reality recede

enough to donate a glimpse

of what could be or was

that day in october

where a walk

was more than a walk

or last december

when the kids smiled

i understand that a day is a day

and tonight will become tomorrow

time is relative to what it's touched

so act upon the immediate

memory tells of moments missed

while ambition proclaims

the balance between contrasts

ultimately surrendering to the heart

Giggles

Didn't want to forget today's case of the giggles and the reminder of the gift I was given of making myself laugh, quite easily. Hopefully, I'll start to make a point of jotting these instances down, but I'm not going to jinx myself and will now just shut up and share...

My department at work has been joyfully force-feeding us Lean concepts and instead of tiring out our gag reflexes, most of us have become efficiency cum queens. I've grasped onto the fact that Lean's origins lie in Japan and have taken it upon myself to become my team's de facto Tokyo tourist guide. It started with being juvenile and looking up some Japanese slang (like aho = dumbass), but now it's becoming ingrained in my random thoughts... ultimately leading up to today's giggles.

An important Lean concept is "kaizen" (pronounced k-eye-zen) which loosely means "change for good", but was beginning to get confused and becoming synonymous with large-scale events designed to incorporate rapid change in large, inefficient processes. Well that was all cleared up today when it was explained that "kaizen" is any change that moves us toward an improvement, large or small.

So, leading up to the reason for my self-pleasin' and touching on my self-appointed role as Tokyo tourist guide, I now make a point to blurt out random Lean/Japanese terms to 1. try to be a team player and 2. entertain myself... and now, without further ado...

Top Reasons to Yell Out/proclaim Lean/Japanese Terms, as well as a possible term (in no particular order):

- Scream "KAIZEN" when changing any routine, such as putting socks on first or suddenly wiping back to front.

- Call everyone by their "Japanese" name by adding "-san" to folk's names (extra credit for bowing and slapping "Most Honorable" in front).

- Study some rudimentary Japanese and make lame rhymes out of it to confuse those not in the joke, which is probably most everyone, i.e. "ichi, ne, san - KAIZEN!!!" or "1, 2, 3 - Change for Good!!!".

- While doing said rudimentary linguistic studying, think out loud often.

- While it's probably elementary and campy, I can almost always make myself laugh by combining common foreign terms with stereotypical themes from that culture, such as doing lame kung-fu motions and mumbling foreign car manufacturers (extra credit for mimicking overdubbed movies where words don't match mouth movements).

Any and all suggestions that get you laughing in the middle of a team meeting are welcome and encouraged.

proof that stupidity is contagious

We've all heard about the Tiger Woods incident and if you haven't yet, then you're more of a hermit than I am. Well, his dumbass-ness has went all "H1N1" and affected others, like Brit Hume. On one hand, Brit's comments are further proof that religion can make people say and do asinine things. On the other, I hope it forces more people to broaden their perspective and read up a bit more on other religions and philosophies, instead of taking what mass media spoon feeds us. I think you'll be surprised at how much more similar they are than different.

With that said, catch some other opinions and as expected, the Daily Show segment is “spit out your food” funny.

http://www.shambhalasun.com/sunspace/?p=13907

New Year, New Rant

First of all, Happy New Year to everyone (even if I’m the only reader J)! My inquisitive mind always wonders why we make such a hubbub over each new year; however as I get older, I'm beginning to cherish this time and the opportunity it affords us - to look back at the challenges we faced (personally and as a whole), how we dealt with them, and how they molded us.

Granted, I never was one to truly question a reason to celebrate anything, as it was always a reason to laugh it up with family and friends. Yes, even this self-proclaimed hermit enjoys the occasional social event, although it does take me longer to regroup with each passing year.

Personally, I had my fair share of “experiences” that on any given day could be perceived as negative or positive. To summarize this in a cryptic and wordy phrase, the year was “a non-stop singular stroll through a somberly, progressive village where each passing window was a glimpse into different aspects of the soul of a man-child.”

And not to buck tradition, I’m finally ready to proclaim my 2010 resolution, which is two-fold:

1. 1. Make more of an effort to investigate and practice my budding interest in Buddhism.

2. 2. Enjoy life, no matter what it sets at my feet.