January 2014 Archives

Rad note � The contents of this entry were lifted from another page and transferred here .. to its own, separate entry-page, because the subject seemed so different.

The exact spot from which this text was lifted is � right here. At the end of this entry (that you are now reading) I will provide a link to return you to the original location.

Here you go...

Leaders Who Are Man Enough to � Accept Responsibility for Their Fuck-ups

Sure, it would be nice if our elected leaders had the balls to take responsibility for their fuck-ups {[(.. instead of trying to keep them secret)]}. Heck, that's what any honorable man would do.

At least, for the really-bad shit ..

.. things that stain the very definition of what it means to be an American.

We're not talking about falling on your sword, or anything so noble.

But just a simple, "I fucked up. It was wrong to torture those innocent people to death,"

.. that would be a nice place to start.

But, if they refuse (..because they are too big of a pussy) .. then We (the People) will be forced to take responsibility for them.

I mean, it's not like we havent given them enough time .. to grow some cojones. I am talking about � time to cop and accept responsibility. (Like a man.)

Yes, I am talking about more than one thing here, but I'm sure you are smart enough to differentiate between the two.

George, I voted for you once, so I feel qualified to express my disappointment. I was living in Laguna at the time.

I remember because I had to go home and get two pieces of mail with my name and address on it. Cuz I hadnt been living there for very long.

So I almost said, "Fuck it." But I thought you were worth it.

I had such high hopes for you. I really did. I drank the Kool-Aide. Did you ever fool me.

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� The site was hacked yesterday (Jan 15, 2014). Somebody (or bodies) somehow got the main site password and had full access. They were downloading and uploading files like they owned the thing. Like they were up in their own house .. sittin' on their own couch. "Somebody's been sleeping in *my* bed," said papa bear.

This has never happened before (.. far as I know, anyway).

I had to restore a back-up from the 14th .. which was taken before any nasties occurred ..

.. but you probably need to close all radified web pages and clear your browser cache.

I posted more info in the forums .. see � here.

If you made any posts between the 14th and today, they are gone (2 days worth).

From what I can see .. they modified some of my javascript files in order to WRITE to a file on a server located down near the border of San Diego with Mexico (Chula Vista).

My trace-route program is not exact, so I can't tell if the server is physically located in Mexico .. but it looks like it's located in the US.

� Hacking is a Full-Time Job (apparently)

Somebody near NYC spent most of the day yesterday playing with/on my server .. from ~6AM East coast time, to 3PM East coast time. (Dude, you spent all freaking day on my server? WTF? Certainly you have better shit to do, no?)

So .. the script hack seems more snoopy than malicious. The techs at Wiredtree helped me. They are wizards. Stuff I never woulda thought of.

Yes I noticed the site acting strangely yesterday, but I did not have time to troubleshoot.

Then this morning, the server down in Chula Vista (probably hacked itself) became overloaded and that raised the red flag ..

.. very high. (waiting for � vacance-petit-prix.com)

I played around and noticed that the problem did not occur when I disabled javascript or went thru a proxy server (which had disabled javascript by default).

Dude, if you want site stats, why don't you just ask? All the data contained on this site is open and free for all to access.

Where should I send the file? Then I wont be overloading your server. What kind of stats would you like?

I dont want to put you out of a job .. but your code is fucking up my site.

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Rad note � the text contained in this entry was lifted from and transferred here .. into its own, separate entry from another page in another entry .. because the topic seemed so different.

Sometimes I feel compelled to respond to things (current events) while I am in the middle of another entry.

[ I think it's a zeitgeisty thing .. which challenges my abilities as a writer.

And writing/art can be an effective form of therapy. Regulars will understand how I can get off on a tangent and run with it. ]

The exact spot from which the entry that you are now reading was lifted from is � right here. At the end of this entry (that you are now reading) I will provide a link that will return you to that exact spot ..

.. because that is how the entry was written, and this will help preserve the organic-ness of the entry.

I should probably warn you, tho, that, unlike the cliffside restaurant in Big Sur, what you will find here is not pretty. No nepenthe here. No, sir. Anyway, enough introductory ground-laying. Here you go...

� Appearance vs Substance

Now, for Orange county, the theme (which few honest souls would dispute) is this �

� appearances are important.

Totally understandable, no? At least, from a certain perspective it is.

And Kelly Thomas was not pretty .. not pretty enough, it would seem.

People have been stunned by the verdict. When I read about the verdict, I could almost hear the Dog saying � "Told ya."

I mean, sure the FBI is going to look into it. But the jury has already spoken .. and they said � We see no problem here. Heck, we dont even think these officers used excessive force.

Which begs the question � how much more .. how much harder would they have had to beat him .. in order to justify a charge of excessive force?

They literally beat him to death. On fucking camera .. with a live-audio feed. You could see and hear everything. No guesswork required. Not here.

Or does being homeless mean that there is no limit .. to the amount of beating that these officers can inflict on Kelly? I must say � it *does* seem that way from the video and the verdict.

You almost get the feeling that they wanted to pin a medal on these officers � "Good job, guys. Sorry to hear about that elbow, bro."

� "They're killing me, dad."

Does it not seem like the jury had more compassion for the police ..

.. than for the skinny, 135-pound guy who they beat the living fuck out of?

Who they (literally) beat the very LIFE out of. Kelly said so himself �

� "They're killing me, dad." (He would certainly know.)

Try this experiment at home this weekend � have somebody lower a few hundred pounds worth a cement bags on your chest. Tell them to leave it there for 10 minutes.

Notice, particularly, how difficult breathing becomes. That fucker gets heavy in a hurry, dont it?

Now have them bash your face "all to hell" .. with whatever blunt instrument happens to be handy. While they are doing that, get another guy to keep taze'ing your ass (.. until the batteries run out).

This should give you a little better insight into Kelly's cries for help.

The modern prophet is supposed to console. But what do you say to a dad who hears his son cry out to him for help .. from the depths of despair. "Dad, they're killing me."

� Grinding Your Ass into the Pavement

I do not want to minimize the disturbing savageness of this merciless beat-down .. but I must say that Kelly's cries *do* resonate.

The Sy$tem(atic) grinding-of-your-ass into the pavement of a society that values appearances over compassion .. until their is very little left. This is how the system operates.

Now you might be tempted to think this an anomaly, but it is not. This is the System in all its glory .. caught on videotape. With a live-audio feed. (Oops.)

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Rad note � the text contained in this entry originated in another entry. I transferred it here .. to its own, separate entry, because the topic seemed to demand its own page.

I'm not sure why, but it was the most difficult thing .. to off-load this text on Joyce to its own, separate entry. Afterwards, I was downright exhausted. It took me far longer than I ever imagined it would.

Anyway .. at the end of this entry (that you are now reading) I provide a link to return you to the exact spot from which this entry originated.

Here you go...

James Joyce is � One of Us

James Joyce died the same year that Dylan was born � 41. Just like Galileo died the same year that Newton was born (1642).

It is beyond the scope of today's entry .. but perhaps I should note that, after becoming familiar with Joyce ..

.. my impression of him is � he is one of us.

One day in the sweet by-and-by, you are going to walk out onto a baseball diamond to take the field and you are gonna look over and say �

� "Holy Mackerel .. look! .. that's James Joyce. James Ulysses Joyce is on our team. How cool is that? I hope he fields as well as he writes."

As opposed to somebody like, say � Nabokov (1899-1977, born the same year as Hemingway) ..

.. who I read and feel like he is a talent that defies grasping. A monster talent. Obviously. "How does he *do* that?"

Joyce, on the other hand, is someone with whom I feel a certain, easy sense of artistic kinship.

Nabokov used to teach classes on Tolstoy and Anna.

These classes, I feel, were certainly some of, if not THEE best college classes .. in the history of higher education.

James Joyce � Best Writer of the Entire Twentieth Century?

I would be arriving early for those classes.

And yes, that is a big compliment, I would say.

For not only Nabokov and Tolstoy .. but for the novel itself.

The end result of Tolstoy's hand-crafted art. Some say the best of its kind.

But with Joyce .. I felt something inside (actually) thank God for him. Like you might do for a good friend ..

.. who sticks with you thru even the ugliest of shit. And makes you feel like he is not only glad .. but honored to do so.

[ What you might call � a true dogbrother. Who makes you feel rich to be their friend. ]

This thing, this thank-Godness, it happens on its own. Like a laugh that comes over you that you can't control.

Remind me to tell you the story about the moocow. Joyce's moocow. Every kid oughta know about � the moocow .. that came down along the road.

I can see why intelligent well-read folks might put him (Ulysses) as the #1 novel of the entire Twentieth century.

But his wife, Nora (I read) felt that Finnegan's Wake (published 1939, two years before his death. Joyce's final work, which he spent 17 years writing) was his best (by far).

She said folks didnt get Finnegan's Wake. That makes me wanna see if I can see what it was that they didnt get. A challenge, maybe.

1939 .. that was the year Grapes of Wrath was published.

Certainly one of the greatest novels of the century.

But I noticed that Steinbeck is not listed on the Top 100 Novels of All Time in Any Language list.

(Tho I think he should be listed there, yes.)

I also noticed that James Joyce *is* listed there. (with Ulysses)

But look at how they put Portrait at #3. They are saying that Joyce gets positions #1 and #3 both .. for the entire century. That is a huge claim.

[ My favorite version of Portrait is the Recorded Books audiobook, because it is narrated by an Irish guy with an Irish accent. ]

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Rad note » this entry consists of text that was lifted from another entry and transferred here .. to its own separate entry-page .. because the subject is so different.

At the end of this entry (that you are now reading) I provide a link to return you to the exact place from which this text was taken.

Here you go...

» The Girl at the Gas Station in San Clemente at Midnight

I know only ONE person .. who ever had a Confronted-Parent respond in a way that brought any degree of comfort or healing. A girl, tho I am not talking about the Film school girl. No. (That's another story, entirely.)

And I must say .. this girl who confronted her dad about shit that had fucked her up ..

.. she was definitely a wow-girl.

Very interesting. Very sexy. Very different.

She had been to galaxies that I didnt even know existed. (And to some cold and desolate planets).

Irresistible chemistry. Made my hormones do things I did not think possible.

Electricity in her fingertips. Like she had the combination to my safe. So intuitive.

"How can such a thing be possible? How do you know me so well? Who are you, really?"

I will tell you a secret if you promise not to tell anybody » this girl *is* the nuclear-grade lace-top thigh-high girl. Well .. she was the original, anyway.

She opened my eyes in many ways. She was bi-sexual. And older women were craving her stuff (she once lamented).

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Rad note » this entry consists of a section lifted from another entry where I got off on a tangent (.. as I have been known to do). It deserves its own entry because the subject matter here is so different.

By transferring this text here and creating a separate entry, I also help to maintain focus better on the original entry, titled » Exploring the Limits of Poetic License. Here we go...

Demonstrating » Hoverboard Skillz

Just above where Pooh & Christopher Robin hold hands, I mentioned ".. but that's another story." Let me take a moment here to draw for you a few broad strokes. One dark, one light, and maybe even throw in a splash of color.

Because this looks like an opportune place .. to demonstrate hoverboard skillz.

Like a teen might do at any skate park.

My dad .. when he was dying, I went to see him.

Bro called and said, "He's got a few weeks, maybe. No more than a few months. If you want to see him, you should go soon."

Dad's new wife picked me up at Dulles. (Dad was the type of man who found life uncomfortable without a woman. He remarried in record time after mom died. He never told me that he was getting re-married. I found out thru a neighbor who was wondering what all the cars were doing there at the house.)

I was there most of a week. Notice how he was living on the East coast and I was on the West coast.

In other words, I was as far away as I could get .. without leaving the country, or the mainland. I didnt plan it like that, of course. It just seemed to have worked out that way.

» When You Were Young

He slept most of the time (fetal position). But we talked. "When you were young," he said, "I was under a lot of pressure."

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� This page is PART FOUR, continued from � Part Three. This entry was broken into FOUR pages in order to adhere to principles of web site optimization. Here you go...

The Hypnotic Flash of Marianne's � Red-Soled Black Stilettos

I can't close this entry without at least mentioning .. that, on the very same day (13th) as the Kelly-verdict .. Marianne Williamson announced that she's running for Congress.

Because it felt like I was dreaming when I heard the news ..

.. which I heard just BEFORE I heard the news about Kelly's verdict.

Something about Marianne's candidacy made my heart sing. Very encouraging.

The short article that I read .. concluded by mentioning how:

"Microphone in one hand, gesturing with the other, Williamson wove among the audience, taking questions and accepting compliments, the red soles of her black stilettos flashing as she walked."

The red soles of her black stilettos. I dont know why, but that shit gets me going. A voice said, "Dude, you should go run her campaign .. and make it a nuclear-grade operation."

Another voice said � "Dude, get real. You know jack-shit about how to run a campaign.

And besides, you would be involved in a scandal ..

.. if she ever wore the red-bottomed stilettos. You know how you are."

Here's my point � the conversation that Marianne will bring to the table will be both constructive and interesting. Even without the red-soled stilettos. ( "You go, girl." )

[ Here is something I feel needs discussing. Note this NYT article titled � What Drives Success? .. which references � this book titled ..

� The Triple Package - How Three Unlikely Traits Explain the Rise and Fall of Cultural Groups in America (.. written by Tiger Mom herself).

Notice particularly the implicit � success = $money. Not judgmentally, but rather as (yet another) � reflection of the culture.

I mean, the people who wrote the book are talking about � dollars. Right?

Because (again implicit) � "nothing else matters".

I am merely pointing out the obvious, no?

So .. compare (and contrast) the ideas behind that book/title with � this article by Vandana.

In other words, we need to at least start to get beyond the point where money is considered the be-all and end-all ..

.. when it comes to how our society and our culture define 'success'.

It's related to what Kotlikoff says � it's in the metrics. And how you define them.

It's also related to what Skinner said � if you design a system to produce a certain effect, a certain result ..

.. then why, pray tell, are you surprised when it produces the result that you most strongly try to produce?

� This page is PART THREE, continued from � Part Two. This entry was split into FOUR pages in order to adhere to principles of web site optimization. Here you go...

Anyway, the Dog, when coming down, would always � give me shit.

About living in Orange county. Saying things like ..

� "They stopped me at the border, and made me put on an ankle bracelet. We don't want your kind here. You shady LA-types. We'll be watching you."

I should add tho, that the Dog, a Hoboken boy (like Marques), always wraps his barbs in clever humor ..

.. and his inter-personal skills are so finely tuned that you actually enjoy when the Dog gives you shit. (I liken it, and put it up there with getting a massage.)

When the Dog feels strongly about something, he sends missiles SAILING PAST YOU. They are not aimed at you in particular, but you can feel their breeze as they wiz by.

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� This page is PART TWO, continued from � Part One. This entry was broken into FOUR pages in order to adhere to principles of web site optimization. Here you go...

Meanwhile, others are left trying to deal with the effects of their dysfunction (.. both parental and also generally).

Over the years the Dog and I have had many conversations about parents and parenting.

From both sides of the parenting fence. Both as parents, and as the children of parents.

For example, he told me how it is his wife (the Czech-girl) who holds together their marriage.

"If it were up to me, Dog," he said, "this wouldve been over long ago."

One of the most memorable stories that I have about the Dog .. involves him "walking away" .. from a situation that he felt had deteriorated sufficiently.

It is beyond the scope of today's entry .. but let me just suggest here that � nobody walks away (3,000 miles) quite like the Dog.

So .. this girl, his wife, who I've never met .. must be good at what she does. Cuz I've never seen a woman who can hold on to the Dog for more than a few months. (With no do-overs.)

In this regard, the Dog's Czech wife reminds me of the Film school girl .. cuz she knew how to handle me. She knew how to deal with me. And she was probably the best at knowing how to make a relationship work .. of anybody I ever knew.

Most girls would say � "You make me crazy." To which I would usually respond � "Think how *I* feel." [ � Yes, that's a guy-joke .. but only because of the kernel of truth it contains. ]

In other words .. I'm not trying to make you crazy. So it's not like I am unsympathetic. No, ma'am. Not at all.

The Film school girl would say � "You gotta have something in the relationship that you are both CREATING .. either together or separately. Otherwise the relationship deteriorates and dies. If you have no kids together, you need to create something else. Something you love. Something that stirs your bliss."  

She Made Me an Offer � I Couldnt Refuse

This is the same girl, by the way, from my Statistics class, who I got to know when she made me an offer I couldnt refuse .. massages in exchange for tutoring.

She totally had the massage magic. Altered-state magic. She said that the magic in a good massage comes from � intention. (Notice that intention involves directed consciousness.)

Remind me to tell you the story about my first massage .. when she poured that warm oil all the way down my spine, beginning at the base of my neck .. and ending � in the crack of my butt.

"Ooh, this is gonna be a good massage," I thought. "I can tell already. I wonder if she meant to pour that oil in the crack of my butt, like that? Or did she accidentally go a little too far?"

I had never felt anything quite like that, I must say. Major altered state of consciousness. Like you did not think possible.

I've had her clients tell me (more than once), "I've been getting massages for a long time and she's the best of the best." Like she had a gift for it. She told me that the best massage she ever got herself was at Esalen (.. up in Big Sur).

The first time I came over to her house, she had a place with a view you would have to see to believe. Jaw-dropping. In Laguna. "How does this girl make this kind of stuff happen?" I wondered.

On the ocean-side of PCH. At 10th-Street. Which is known locally as "Thousand-steps." Tho really only 238. Or was it 214? I counted them more than once.

Anyway, she had her own private walk down to the beach. A goat path. One of the nicest beaches in Laguna.

[ The property has since been purchased, I heard, by the guy who runs General Dynamics, who owned the property adjacent .. directly south. I heard he paid $1.1 million for it.

So he just made his own property a little bigger. Somebody told me that he built an art studio for his wife on it. ]

And she was playing James Brown when I arrived. Pretty loud. "Good music to clean the house by."

I did not want to get involved, cuz I wanted to focus on my classes that semester (Statistics, Calculus & a 7-unit Chemistry class .. the one for doctors and engineers). But she was interesting enough that my curiosity got the best of me. "I have never met a girl like this before."

When I met her (.. she walked up to my desk after class) .. she was sleeping with her Statistics book under her pillow ..

.. as tho the formulas might magically levitate themselves into her consciousness.

I'm like, "Uh, that's not how it works."

[ Perhaps now you can understand why some have suggested that I am the one who got the Film school girl thru Film school. Especially grad school, where the focus is on � doing .. rather than � learning.

This came from others. Not me.

She worked very hard. Amazingly hard. She would dump a handful of Advil into the front pocket of her jeans at 6AM and say � "See ya tonight. I should be home by ten or eleven. And then I'll need to edit video for a few hours."

And then do it again the next day. And the next. Boundless energy.

She would drag your ass into the bedroom, throw you down and have her way with you .. until you were exhausted, begging for mercy.

"Have I got a special treat for you." ]

She says, "I'm not a math person. But I need this stupid Statistics class for my degree path. How do you know this shit? You're the only one in the whole class who seems to get this guy."

"I read ahead a few chapters," I said. "So I know the general flavor of what's coming. But the way that he teaches what is contained in the book seems designed to confuse, rather than clarify."

Statistics, as I encountered it, is about knowing which formula to apply in order to solve your problem. Once you know that .. the rest was easy .. cuz I could show her which buttons to press on a calculator.

That impressed her. She went from clueless to button-pushing Statistics wiz. I could see that she wanted to throw me down right then-n-there and have her way with me. (I jest, yes, but not entirely.)

She had two brothers, one older, one younger. No sisters. Thus reinforcing my point about tomboys. "Before I met you," she later told me, "I never owned a pair of high-heels."

The kicker came one day after a different class, when I stopped by her house unannounced. On PCH at Crown Valley, I could turn left to go home or right to her house.

Spur-of-the-moment I turned right, and she happened to be home. The door was open. "Hello?" I called out.

She came around the corner and when she saw me, a great smile broke across her face. (Her dad was a dentist, so she had great teeth.) How can you stay away from someone who you know is genuinely glad to see you?

I digress. But that was fun, nonetheless. It's always fun when a girl pours warm sesame oil down your spine and into the crack of your butt .. by candlelight. Let me tell you.

This is also the girl who took me on my best vacation ever. "We're throwing all our stuff in storage," she said, ..

.. "and you're coming with me this summer. I'm going to show your military-industrial ass things it has never seen.

First we're heading up to Big Sur for some camping at Pfeiffer and a special treat at Deetjen's.

We probably wont be able to get into the Benedictine Hermitage .. but we can try.

Maybe we'll be able to score a few nights at one of the two environmental sites .. where you have to hike everything in.

Then we head over and meet the kids and their friends at Yosemite ..

.. where we hike to the top of Half Dome on my birthday during a meteor shower.

By the time we return, I'll have you hugging trees and eating sushi and drumming in drum-circles around a fire at the beach. You can run but you can't hide. Just watch and see. Your military-industrial ass is mine."

She was playfully competitive like that. My point � she knew how to handle me. But back to the Dog.

� The Dog Confronts His Parents

The Dog also told me how, after many years, he approached his parents .. about some of the behaviors he had endured while growing up there in Hoboken (like Marques).

"They totally denied it," he said. "They denied everything .. like they had total amnesia."

"That was very courageous of you, Dog," I said. "It must have been very hard." You can lead a horse to water...

He was hoping for some kind of apology .. to help him get beyond the mis-treatment he endured as a child. But it was not coming. Are you surprised?

[ It is beyond the scope of today's entry, but I never cease to be amazed at the ability of some to forget shit they find uncomfortable. This 'forgetting' looks genuine to me. Sometimes I am tempted to be jealous .. because of what Nietzsche said. ]

� The Girl at the Gas Station in San Clemente at Midnight

I know only ONE person .. who ever had a Confronted-Parent respond in a way that brought any degree of comfort or healing. A girl, tho I am not talking about the Film school girl. No. (That's another story, entirely.)

And I must say .. this girl who confronted her dad about shit that had fucked her up ..

.. she was definitely a wow-girl.

Very interesting. Very sexy. Very different.

She had been to galaxies I didnt even know existed. (And to some cold and desolate planets).

Irresistible chemistry. Made my hormones do things I did not think possible. Electricity in her fingertips. Like she had the combination to my safe. So intuitive.

"How can such a thing be possible? How do you know me so well? Who are you, really?"

I will tell you a secret if you promise not to tell anybody � this girl *is* the nuclear-grade lace-top thigh-high girl. Well .. she was the original, anyway.

She opened my eyes in many ways. She was bi-sexual. And older women were craving her stuff (she once lamented).

Rad note � the section of today's entry that deals with the Wow Girl is so different from the rest of the entry that I transferred the contents to its own, separate entry .. see here � The Wow Girl.

At the end of that entry, I provide a link to return you here to the exact spot from which this text was lifted.

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� Folks who celebrated the New Year one century ago had no idea that their world was about to wane nasty beyond anything they could possibly imagine. Now there's probably a valuable lesson hidden in there, somewhere.

On a more recent note .. if a sharp-dressed man walked up to me and said ..

� "I'm here to make you the voice of your generation" ..

.. I would say � "Dude, knock it off. You're freaking me out with that shit."

When all of a sudden, a girl, who is one of the 300 people following him, runs up and says ..

� "You're freaking out? Oh my God. That's so profound. Cuz I'm freaking out, too. I can so RELATE to your freaking out."

Trying to ignore little Miss Relater, I address the Sharp-dressed man and ask � "Does this thing come with a burden?"

He gives me a perplexed look, then turns to the 300. There is a pause .. before they all erupt in laughter.

� Feet to the Fire

As the raucous dies down he turns back, looking thoroughly amused, and says, "Sorry. I havent laughed like that in ages."

Wiping a tear from the corner of his eye, he explains � "You obviously dont understand. Does the phrase � 'feet-to-the-fire' mean anything to you?"

Now, you might *think* that you'd fancy yourself the voice of your generation .. and say with eager anticipation, "Look no further, dawg. I'm your boy."

But if the sharp-dressed man actually showed up, with his crew of 300 ..

.. I bet you'd get scared shitless and say � "Give it to Dylan."

Just a hunch.

Because I would imagine that .. in order to be the voice of your generation ..

.. you would need to go thru the shit that they go thru ..

.. in order to get an idea of what it is like to live in their world. No? (Who would ever want something like that?)

[ Hmm. I find it interesting that Pushkin (1799-1837) found inspiration in the verses from Isaiah that I linked to in that last sentence.

And that he used that inspiration to write � The Prophet (1825).

Does being the 'voice-of-your-generation imply prophetic qualities?

Necessarily? Like you cant have one without the other? ]

Otherwise, how can you relate to them? Or better yet � how can they relate to you?

How can your voice be authentic? How can it resonate with the confidence that says � "Let me tell you what I mean." ? Without intimately understanding their world. Without walking a mile in their shoes?

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