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some entire electrobeatnik alternate world
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[24 Dec 2009|02:38pm] |
oh yeah, check it out
obama is trying to renew the chunks of the patriot act which were set to expire at the end of the year
our hero!
i do appreciate what he has done for me; he has made it all too clear just how much of a lie and diversion red v blue is.
duality! good lesson, neither side is real, so we have to go beyond both to find the source. i guess we're all taoists at heart even when we're not.
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[19 Dec 2009|03:33am] |
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perchance to dean |
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attempted a fast today
i made it 23 hours and then neil decided to order a bunch of food after the jam so there went that
it was long enough though, i learned some stuff and since i haven't been meditating regularly i missed out of a lot of the subtleties.
it definitely has its merits. i could see a weekly day long fast being pretty beneficial and something i'd like to work towards. 3 meals a day is much more than we need to eat. i don't know how in the world so many cultures decided that a big dinner is the way to go. eliminating dinner as a meal(it is now mostly just toast and jam or flatbread and hummus or something like that) and having lunch as the main meal of the day improved the quality of my sleep dramatically. random indigestion stopped too but that could just be from a more careful diet rather than from the pattern.
i'll definitely be attempting more in the near future. feeling occasional extended moments of warmth from my gutty works followed by some sort of bodily release/relief not unlike a joint cracking or a well done stretch and the constant lightness were two awesome motivating factors and i can only imagine how much better or sustained those types of things would be if i was back in the habit of meditating. were it not merely a curious investigative jaunt into the ascetic arts i would consider it a waste precisely because it was done without any sort of meditation or breathing exercises.
i kept myself pretty sensually occupied(video games, reading and then jamming and watching venture brothers) but some of the brief moments of mantra, breath work or introspection i did do seemed ripe. i'd like to get back to some of those places but tomorrow i have a date with an in-n-out grilled cheese, endless pitchers of bad beer, a bowling ball and the starbucks crew.
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[16 Dec 2009|07:14pm] |
i had a moment of fantastic synchronicity today
the kind where a random spur of the moment decision causes conditions later for a wild coincidence
which by now we should realize are not coincidences at all, but a lesser form of fate
fate is a mindblowing concept, whether it is either the truth or the complete lack of any destiny that we choose to believe
i think if we remain on autopilot our entire lives we are totally at the mercy of whatever is written for us, whereas with clarity and hard work we can change it for the better, and greedy or passionate actions can ruin it.
the writer is a genius, best book ever
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[15 Dec 2009|07:22pm] |
somewhere between the cumin, ginger, white pepper, curry powder, oregano and cilantro i found a warm and pungent replacement for garlic in the hummus
it is lacking nothing!
what is more surprising is that all those spices do not produce a confusing flavor assault. the hummus has an excellent warmth.
what a strange desire, to bemoan my lack of complete faith in the story of milarepa and sigh that i wish i was more dogmatic, the benefits it could bring. often i am too foolish to realize what awesome clear fortune i have, and worse, when i do realize it i am often too lazy to capitalize on it. a book will never save me, but my reaction to it might.
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[15 Dec 2009|07:59am] |
gnarly dream
at a state fair with friends, walking through the booths hoping for candy or something
we find this 5x5x30ft pen with a sliding wall at one end, rabbits in the cage, the guy is trying to sell this livestock control chemical that keeps them away from the edges of the pen. the sliding wall is covered in this stuff, and part of his pitch is sliding the wall towards the rabbits which run from it.
i'm standing a few yards from it and the chemical deterrent is making my eyes tear and my throat close up, he says it does the same thing to the rabbits but also gets into their food which causes their metabolism to go crazy and makes them produce a lot of excess body heat, you know, so they'll really learn their lesson!
i get mad and ask what kind of monster--!, and wonder about his safety standing next to this stinking burning wall all day but he doesn't seem human and has no concern
my confused efforts to defeat this awful thing move him not one inch and my friends drag me away
we're sitting a few displays down from the rabbits and some woman starts talking to us about it, we find out she was the one who invented the chemical and said she never intended for the chemical to be activated, but wanted to keep it passive, which meant it would have kept them away from whatever the chemical was on without causing the burning or discomfort. she said it isn't supposed to be such an offensive device but the company that bought her patent changed it as soon as she was out of the picture. i sensed guilt and asked if she could help me, but she seemed defeated already.
we walked back to the rabbit display for another confrontation but she very reluctantly sided with the guy who seemed to delight in torturing the rabbits. we had to leave again since i was making no progress.
the next day we walked by again and she was there, i said hi and she did not respond and was in fact very cold towards us. we kept walking and the intense frustration i felt over not being able to do anything about it woke me up.
sentient beings are infinite, i vow to liberate them... eventually.
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[13 Dec 2009|06:45pm] |
the worst part about drinking is how it ruins the little momentums of discipline
ice cream and chocolate and garlic ahoy!
and my mind violently rejecting any mantra while alking between the grocery store and home. that is precisely the time when it has the best effect, hey ho a big oniony dinner--'
oh well
looking for mustard seed i got some ground cloves instead. cloves and cinnamon and cardamom for some rice pudding maybe later this week, yum!
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| hey ma, yer son/on the walk home |
[13 Dec 2009|08:16am] |
past two times i had alcohol-->puke
a good indicator/l: don't do this anymore
why thanks, body, i guess i er uh
i wake up at 7:30 and its cloudy and i get a magic walk home where the world is still drunk with me
how is it that the homeless and crazy also know when you're in such a state, they talk to you or amuse you or help you and then you do the same for them its great
i never faced the hangover, i don't know how. no headache but my legs hurt and my eyeballs are dry.
i told my stupa guitar pick friend last night, he arrived as a surprise and said he told that girl to leave us alone we got music to save the world and i told him before we was jammin' i'm on mailing lists for communes bein' built right now cuz i don't wanna do this no mo and told him i'd luv to grow beans & bass and forget all this, way too drunk by 9pm
a worse punishment: the day this weekend i had for groceries and making food is the day even water looks gross to my stomach destroyed on spicy food and red wine,
and white wine, and a small colt 45
back to bed!
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[12 Dec 2009|04:51pm] |
just remembered
a few nights ago i had a dream a foot tall stupa arrived in the mail from amazon.com
a friend wanted to break it but i knew what was in the box. i pulled it out and suggested he use it as a guitar pick.
last night, same friend, we were chanting the cundi together. awesome. mantras are notorious for being hard to do or becoming gibberish in dreams so it was kind of surprising how clear it was.
the short little sutra that goes along with it is basically a list of things that are supposed to happen if you recite it 200,000 times, 800k, a million... i haven't commit to a million since that takes quite a while(about an hour every day for seven years and that is quite optimistic) but i have started doing it silently while walking places and on muni. it enters into dreams pretty quickly. i've only been at it for a few weeks and have had 2 or 3 dreams involving it that i can remember.
rather amusing when i make allowances for myself; ok two more blocks then i'll daydream about video games or worry about work.
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[11 Dec 2009|11:44am] |
looks like my starbucks days are numbered
our store is probably closing in a few months and the regional vp wants us all fired along with it.
i guess the option of transferring before the implosion exists as long as the district managers involved are cool with it, but from what i've heard every other store is just as bad.
if our regional vp is anything like the rest of them i would happily take the hit to see them out of work. they tell us how the store should be run without having worked in the store themselves. somehow those kinds of people are incredibly important for how business is conducted in this country, and they will finds jobs quicker than the other baristas do. status and bigger paychecks is just more to lose, anyway.
i am not without fault. feeding ourselves with "damaged" or "donated" food isn't free even though it seemed like it was. i took the place for granted and grew complacent; a shameful boredom for the promises i happily made to myself when i got the job, about wanting to develop and practice patience. i said prayers to get the job, broke and worried i'd have to return to maryland with my tail between my legs! i found it very easy to rationalize my typical just-do-enough-to-get-by laziness: there were no rewards for busting your ass except more responsibility for a fractional pay increase.
i made it 3 years, that was much longer than i expected or probably should have been there. the atmosphere through the whole company has changed for the worst, and merit willing my next gig will be something that benefits the world rather than fattens it and deals in legal addictions.
so far so good.
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[07 Dec 2009|08:04pm] |
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started reading the life of milarepa
i was also lucky enough to find a working torrent of the movie with english subtitles, can't wait to watch it after i finish the book.
the 70s, what a magic decade! so many eastern translations and awesome prog rock. what was going on then?
wonder if we'll get the same kinda party after afghanistan and iraq end. yeah, those will end. just one more surge before it's time to withdraw. reminds me of a five year old, "hey mommy watch this. wait, wait, wait, wait i just did it keep watching--"
is there anyone who still thinks obama is legit? sadly, yes. a customer comments on the front page and i offer a little bit more than they want to hear, yknow a little more than the nyt would ever give for fear of upsetting some awful favor and string pulling beast, and the conversation ends with them getting frustrated before they can become panicked by how bad the situation really might be. happens once or twice a day. the lines we don't like, the ones that don't get quoted from the bible and sutras are the ones that say we must do the work to save our selves through study and effort rather than hope for some skilled speaker or pretty face to do it all for us. if we're going to believe in maxims others hand us, why not "if someone asks you to believe them, don't"
is peace of mind worth ignorance? i don't think so. by confronting the worry these situations cause, we ultimately investigate our own mortality. if this is something we cannot do we have no business even being alive.
niko was kind enough to clue me in before the election was over. i was hopeful but not expectant, but by the time he got the party nomination i knew--the promises he made about fixing the economy were lies and he knew it. if, back then, i had access to enough material to see it'd only get worse during his term he certainly knew it. i like how junk about commercial real estate finally made it into time and newsweek. of course, calente with his extremely dark predictions said it a year ago and before that i'm sure there were others. peter schiff probably, that guy is awesome.
fisa, anyone? that's a throwaway, somehow it doesn't bother people that obama did a 180 on that one. that's a huge blinking red light.
and somehow he got a peace prize! when i first heard that i thought the person was joking. who is dumb enough to accept all this? it makes me feel a certain type of rotten inside to know that i will delight in this country's awful collapse because it will finally mean people will realize how fucked the system is and has been for decades.
as a child i thought adults had it all together. around 20 or 21, as i was forced to interact with them as equals, i gradually began to realize it wasn't the case at all. i am not impressed with business degrees and sharp suits, they have been awarded for succeeding at a pointless, harmful, distracting game. the status symbols we're taught to chase are garbage, it is a shame people find desire for the talent to achieve them.
i offer a sincere apology to the future; apparently you were worth a cheeseburger, a boob job, a race down the highway and a big tv.
i see so many people stale and worn down from these pursuits. are they happy? almost everyone i look at on the bus frowns in their neutral state. frowning without realizing they are! when i pay attention sometimes i notice i am too, and then i notice the sort of stress it puts in the face. the body is not disconnected from our state of mind, which we let run wild. also, we do too many drugs(alcohol, coffee, cigarettes, sugar, fat everywhere!) watch too much tv and have too much sex. who wants to stop? easy distractions. they don't make us happy, but if we stay distracted long enough we don't realize we're unsatisfied and before we know it the time of the day arrives when we get to go unconscious and hallucinate vividly for six or eight hours,
in some ever-changing world with no pain or pleasure except what we imagine none of it "real" but none of it totally void either. hah, wait a minute--...
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[06 Dec 2009|04:05pm] |
trip report: the crust worked despite my own lack of faith in it
i blended tomatoes, mushroom, a little olive oil and more avocado for the gravy sauce paste then mixed that with brussels sprouts, asparagus, carrots, peas, broccoli, cauliflower, honey roasted peanuts and hickory flavored tofu for the filling then made mashed potatoes with rosemary and pepper for the top, sprinkled more peanuts on top and put it in the oven.
the tofu is the star, it's like little bits of surprise ham. compared to what i remember from my early 20s when all i ate for dinner every night was a thousand calorie microwave pot pie this tastes distinctly not full of fat; lighter but also less "omg this is so rich and mmm". i dig the trade off, here's to not having the body shut down after a meal!
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[06 Dec 2009|12:55pm] |
can he do it? a pie crust made out of avocado, olive oil and flour? for a pot pie with mushroom tomato gravy?
in all likelihood, yes.
an unstoppable kitchen warrior! yesterday's butternut squash stew came out awesome. just enough cayenne for a subtle warmth that destroys the winter chill.
such a happy sort of learning. those aspiring to be a master of flavors are rewarded for good efforts with a delicious meal, but sometimes they are forced to literally swallow their shame. inattentiveness and greed can burn the rice or ruin a good balance of spices.
& keep stirring
& preheat for later.
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[05 Dec 2009|11:23am] |
so there it is
i never thought i would like phish.
last night i heard highlights from one of their best shows ever("big cypress", eve of 2000 to a crowd of 80some thousand)
one of the jams sounds sorta james bond-y and it sounded like a perfection of the style i am currently attempting with some but not all success. a consistent driving groovy groove with plenty of room for walks. except i would need to eloy-ify it about 25% and add a teaspoon of dance of the flames. and also kraan's bassist and also billy cox.
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| flavor math |
[04 Dec 2009|03:23pm] |
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how pleased he is with himself |
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music |
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the nice's 1970 five bridges |
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made hummus for the first time today, it's friggin bomb!
i also bought one of my favorite premade versions to compare them. mine was made without garlic which made it almost peanut buttery from the tahini. the store's version just tasted like garlic afterward, that was the only difference i could tell. and then i put curry powder and lemon pepper and pine nuts in mine to win the game.
it is interesting just how many dishes rely on onions and garlic for their flavors. it has been an interesting challenge to try to remain both vegan and without onions and garlic when making my own food. it demands a much greater ability and flavor knowledge and i don't think i want to go back any time soon.
a science and an art
just like life!
smoked a little on thanksgiving, but haven't touched the whacky tobaccy for almost two months now. sleeping better, not blowing my nose all the time, finally crossed the painfully gained threshold where i get high enough from music to not miss launching to a new album every weekend. once my mantra and stuff gets going again i'll probably be more than excited to trash what progress i made and get higher than i've ever been in my life, but so far so good. i feel much more even through the days, and what things i do want are not sharp like "fuck i wish i was stoned for this."
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[02 Dec 2009|05:41am] |
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good job, subconscious! |
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how fantastic!
waking up early for an early morning at work from an epic dream not my alarm,
thrills but no violence, facing off against tough situations
it was many connected events, i only began to remember walking through a courtyard at a police barracks trying to rescue my impounded gocart
several of the police there were pleasantly indifferent or even helpful and told me to watch out for the angry bureaucratic ones. "tom" clear memory of his name he sees me and understands my plight and tells me where the gocart is, how to get out, he says i only have a short amount of time and he'd help
i get through the impound lot and to the big garage door leading to freedom and some military personnel are wandering around and of course one stops me
asks me something like "who authorized you?"
i fish around in my pocket for some sort of paperwork and pull out a shoelace and some bubblegum which spill out and tangle embarrassingly.
uh, er, well!
i kneel and start to mantra
three beats in i get confused and pause, immediately tom crackles in his walkie talkie or something and the guy brightens, "oh, hey man tom said to let you go. sorry about this. why don't you get going? good luck out there man" the way he says good luck tells me that the mantra worked on him but it won't always, and further that i had some pretty sinister shit that i'd face sooner or later. it wasn't even a mantra, just the intent. what i ended up actually being able to say in the dream was some mumbled bastardization of om mani padme hum and the cundi, not really a mantra at all just a couple charged words, so maybe his implied warning was skillful means to inspire better practice in me.
we exchange pleasantries and i scoot off across the lawn screamsing some song about american freedom and then the song turns into a ballad about all the different ordeals i faced and bested or avoided in the dream(the essence of every event was captured in one word with a girl's name), i land in some gross suburban development then i start to jump extremely high from fence to flagpole to roof to roof, 50 feet each time landing softly doing flips(each jump symbolizes one of the preceding events) and wake up.
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[01 Dec 2009|09:22pm] |
the red book finally arrived!
the dietary discipline thing still hasn't recovered from that starbucks brownie 2 weeks ago, thanksgiving the remainder of the wish was destroyed and today after intentionally eating an awesome vegetably stir fry lunch before work i still found room for a bunch of crap at work. how do starbucks carbs win against chickpea flour and soba noodles? clearly i have the tongue of an idiot.
consistent victory saving grace: only small snacks for dinner. doing the big meal at noon or early afternoon changes everything. i sleep way better and am more limber in the morning.
i'll start again tomorrow.
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[01 Dec 2009|10:09am] |
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oh man new years is on a friday with a full moon?
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[29 Nov 2009|12:01pm] |
awesomes:
punching shoulders
this little independent grocery store run by a friendly asian family sells ghee and naan and lentils and soaps that smell of cucumber and sandalwood instead of artificial oceans
the jams
not depressing yang with delusional, distracting desires for yin
bodri's near weekly teleconferences desensitizing me to "chi channel this and reward body that"
anime and eve online and theory forts for false thoughts of joy in the nerd skandha
the blessing of being more sensitive to food, many things smell too salty and sugar causes heartburn
they all want it for me more than i do, what fortune i must burn through to eat eggs and take the shurangama for granted with only a lazy appreciation for the literature and putting forth only microscopic, curious, uncommitted effort!
first time making hummus almost from scratch(er, i didn't grind the sesame seeds or chickpeas... but that's only because i don't have a mortar), later this week
perfect weather and great space, hands and feet alternating between warm and frigid depending on my bad habits, cleaning up technique or beginning it,
my prayer for this week is to remember to do nine bottled wind and white skeleton visualization--what awful ghosts must be hiding in my toes!
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[29 Nov 2009|02:55am] |
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lol he has reached this space |
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2nd jam find the scale by ear
quite proud
but not a boasting proud, but a quiet just momentous constant confidence a clear sight of where i am, what i still need to work on, ...but also what i used to want and strive for and found, recently, only two jams where i've corrected by ear
oh, my technique is horrid, doing anything fancy or deeply funky throws my timing off, half my grooves sound like guitar 101 like walk up and down the scale unresponsive to shredding or soundscape guitar from neil so there is plenty of work to be done
breaking a record enthusiastically,
a change over night, some auspicious and fortunate turn--
i used to have a policy; "we jammed yesterday, i am out of commission today"--
tomorrow i promised a good cartoony friend i'd see him for day 3 in a series
good friends;
a good friend is someone better than you, more practiced, more refined, more wise...
an encouraging big brother, whatever their means(direct insults, encouragement, laughably,.)
none of these things matter, a good friend is any inspiration you find to improve
wine helps, once
i call it mud, and i call myself a lotus
whatever, some friends revere sutras and some friends battle them
if they were just some paper we didn't know we really would be better off--too late i stack them neatly and allow no dust to settle
whatever
an object and the mind observing tell me when
or what the difference is
"truth is a sliding floor"
bruford, drummer in yes for a bit also genesis briefly solo career strange man a joke about him in venture brothers even!
"angel, "
in the morning once i decide i'm done sleeping i recite vows
by the time i go to bed i broke all four
one day a long time from now none of it will matter,
comprehending the fundamental source of ignorance and life.
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[23 Nov 2009|07:43pm] |
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two pieces of junk mail, a letter from mom, a postcard from dad randomly in amsterdam(!)
i knew today was a good day
the stir fry with the hoisin tasted brilliant, an inner monster satisfied without any weighty feelings accompanying dull irritation like a desire for sleep and oblivion in the gut like from fried food or meat or too much cheese
i just spent 34 cents on a bunch of used far side books, the shipping costs 25 bucks though.
excited for the thanksgiving brownie experiment, also stuffing i'll dream up. it is kind of ridiculous how happy i am when i'm making food or buying food i'll prepare later. a hungry man or pot pie from a box can smash across the palate and trigger like a drug but strategically crafted food is true satisfaction.
said a prayer for a dead bird outside starbucks and tasted angel tea. death is too much for me, not enough skeleton visualization goin on
&getting loose in the wrong places and tense in the wrong places now several(six or seven) months away from a dedicated mantra practice. i think too much and need to tie it all up let that balloon sulk ignored in a corner of a room with a nice breeze, my feet and right hand are constantly frigid now that winter has set in the cement of the city. all old noise(also belongs in the balloon) about determination, dedication, benefits and masturbating with theory versus actually doing the damn thing.
"check up on yourself"
a nan-ism. he launches on a celestial being tangent then "buddhism is just checking up on yourself all the time"
well that's not so hard. as long as i'm not playing with drugs or sugar or women or video games or...
i checked once today, on muni, i felt myself "relaxing" into my typical muni frown, and noticed everyone else in their "relaxed" neutral nonexpression were also frowning. i put a smile in the corner of my eyes for all of us and the whole day was nice.
slept weird but not bad last night. my feet actually were warm upon going to bed and waking. took a while to fall asleep but dancing on the border of falling asleep was an amusement instead of frustrating waste of time. maybe because i had the option of sleeping until 10 but chose to set the alarm for 7:30
tomorrow i could sleep until noon but i'll set it for 7.
woke up from a dream where i was directing contractors around my grandparents' house, telling them where to plant a tree looked like a gigantic bonsai but leafier.
i don't know where it was today, or what it was. i'll invest in more of it, whatever it is.
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