w e t • y e l l o w

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The fall rain has created some interesting effects on the sidewalks and streets I walk on daily. Both the season and the weather has a rather melancholy feel to it, for the time of sun and growth accompanying long daylight hours is taking a hiatus, leaving things brown, stark and dark early. Yet a good friend looks upon these events differently, saying that the sunny warm days of summer could be the Sun’s way of storing its bright warm colorfulness into the tree’s and plants, so that they would steadily seep out the bursts of warm color back to us in the time of Autumn.

It’s all a process, it’s all a cycle, things get born, grow to it’s potential and then decrease till its time or season is over, either going into remission or death. It makes you think about your own life, where it has been, where it is now and the path it’s taking for the future.

My Word Press blog is feeling a lot like Autumn as of late. The Posting trees seem to be more barren, many words laying on the ground, turning red, yellow and brown. I think it’s fine really, perhaps fertilizing the seeds yet to sprout, eventually bringing new buds cast as reinvigorated creative ideas, flowering in the seasons to come.

I’m feeling a lot like Autumn too, so many beliefs and comforts are falling to the ground, the body and mind branches seem more naked and bare, though germination is stirring somewhere below, feels like something new is being born, perhaps a new life direction, a new way of being, talking and walking?

Is it a state of yellow filled with caution, or maybe it’s just change, whose nature it is to be yellow and reddish brown before becoming the fresh aqua’s and greens coming soon to a body theatre near you? Is this all a metaphor for turning a new leaf, a sense of self turning in colors of bright reds and yellows … so when I spin real fast, the colors mix and it all turns bright orange, and when I face the sky, it’s all becomes green?

When the coming snows come, it wipes the slate clean, a new canvas, a blank sheet to work with, time to create once again, time for the birth of the new in the evolutionary circles I keep spinning in.

Yep, change is in the air, I think I’m ready … this should be interesting.

X – W A L K

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This is where they say it landed, one can still feel the heat emanating from the concrete and asphalt below, yeah, this is the spot all right. The mind wanders and seems to get hazy, what if it’s radioactive here? … hmm…radio is not what it used to be anyway, and the older I get, the less active I am, so why worry?

The spot almost feels religious, getting here is called the X-Walk, but this little pink marker surround by a halo of red seems to be all the info the authorities left behind. This spot is not officially recognized and for all practical reasons, does not really exist, but, like a secret pilgrimage place that beckons, they come to see for themselves, is this true, have they arrived, is this for real?

Some are calling this the pink deity of the streets, it speaks of events yet to come, yet all I can hear is what has already transpired. A new age, a new street, a short cut, a cut lip, a new way for lips to walk, a new way of seeing through other senses, perhaps via organic limbic fiber optics reaching speeds that boggle the mind but never actually uses it or even needs it. It is a sign with a hidden message, some secret or code to be unearthed, yet all I hear is the cries of all those left behind. Progress, yeah, heard that before, rated X, like anything deemed inappropriate viewing for those not mature enough to walk the streets to come.

It’s my walk, the single street that I’ve been on for some time now, it’s where I’m going and most likely the place I’ve always been. No stop signs, nothing yellow containing the message yield on it, just open space, the type between chapters, paragraphs, lines and letters … and somebody marked the spot, the space between, a contradiction in terms really, but could it be any other way?

r e v o l u t i o n • e v o l u t i o n

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When I was a young man trying to understand my place in the world, it was greatly informed by the culture around me in the streets of Detroit. I could either accept the Polish/Catholic/American working class heritage I was born into, or I could rebel against it by accepting the counter-culture vision that was alive in that day.

I chose to rebel.

That rebellion led to a local rock scene that was heavily politicized by Poet/Writer John Sinclair and the band he managed, the MC5. I believed that the youth of that day was going to revolutionize the world we lived in, by kicking out gross Capitalism, out dated religious values, corrupt politics, imperialism and wars overseas and the laws/social mores that no longer served the new enlightenment of the day. It was an amazing short lived mental/physical revolution that took to the streets in protesting against the Vietnam War, winding its way through the clothes we wore, music listened to, culture identified with and the means to change our every day awareness, well at least the socially legal acceptable means to do such things. It was youthful idealism that grabbed youth culture by the throat but sadly was eventually co-opted by the powers that be through advertising, mass media, political dirty tricks and drugs, not to mention growing a few years older and having to accept responsibility for ones own life.

Though I eventually saw the limitations of that particular cultural/political revolution, I wonder how much of that spirit stayed on by then personally turning itself inward instead of outward, going for spiritual revolution that took me to years of meditating and yoga, eventually becoming a Hare Krsna devotee? I somehow always believed that a large group of people could join forces and find a higher more noble vision to change a world of war, hate, prejudice, ignorance, sexism, racism and flat out distrust and injustice.

My last attempt at changing my consciousness and that of the worlds was through the teaching of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada, as taught by ISKCON and Satsvarupa Goswami. My, my, how much of dead end that ideal change turned out to be, be it in the consciousness of myself or the world changing for the better, though both have changed much in that time.

I have no regrets looking back, for I feel I had to lead the life I lived to get to the point I am at now, though I do wonder what would have happened if I chose differently, like would I have had more financial security at this point in my life, would I have stayed closer to home and family, would have I eventually had a larger family, would I be more secure, smarter and on top of my profession instead of wallowing somewhere in the middle ground of it all, still experimenting, still trying to find my personal/professional niche?

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s p i n • m e • r o u n d

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While walking down the concrete stairs of the local Metro station, completely lost in thoughts about mortality and failed spiritual quests of the past, I began to feel something unusual around my right ankle. I stopped and bent over to see that one of my socks had fallen below the ankle while rushing from the train in a hurry to get home. As I knelt on the gritty cement walkway to pull the offending sock up, I vigorously pulled too hard and suddenly found myself projected upward into the air in a surprising physical ceiling-ward thrust. My body started to spin around and around like a gear in motion, only to me it seemed like a slow motion merry-go-round, only I was not feeling all that merry about being the odd one spin-floating in perpetual motion.

Strange events were happening recently, but compared to starting small fires by staring too long at flammable objects, this newest gravitational head turner was not that welcome in such a public place.

I wondered if it was the worry of finances and the constant looking back at why I once belonged to a fundamentalist cult that was creating these physical feats of weirdness by the body and mind? Was it that once very vibrant life of taking images and matching it to the corporate creed on speed that is now dormant and more clinging to memory than actual presence? Perhaps some of the people that I once angered by telling them to be moderate in their preaching of either religion or science, were now gathering in a small secluded spot in Vengefulvania and practicing some cyber voodoo on this body of hoodoo?

Spin me round, spin me round this town upside down, where lights are always on behind the flickering windows before sets of eyes that refuse to blink, yet, it seems that someone is actually there, somewhere waiting, somehow almost ready to respond or actually create something new … knock, knock, knock … hello … anyone home … hey … feel something funny around the ankles, … oh, ohh!

w a v e y g r a v y

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Washed away by spirit, baptized by taggers and other destructors of property already deconstructed by time and space. Wet forms, washed up form, the wave of the future past tense, always tense, imbibed by tenseness.
Surf’s up, grab the bored and ride the wave of urban expression, concrete and spray can holy of holies, halliluehah of form, the wave of form made in the shade of night and shot in the day…all in the shadow of aerosol and the presence of pigment.

Wave, wave hello… then goodbye!

h o w l . b o u t . t h a t !

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Hollow everyone, hollow there!

Howl do they do it and once it is known, howl bout that.

My segment has been cut by the higher ups again, so I will refrain from interviewing the parrot.

Lunch was wonderful, if you like having your stomach turn by finding out how the young graphic designer that replaced you is so wonderful and talented, outside of the bad designs that the production manager does not like, but blamed a busy schedule for the outcome. Amazing what a promotion from the library will get you, that a few classes at the community college which arms one with the ability to become the next Milton Glaser of the machine tool world.

In the bunker again, the friendly place to put ones mind and heart when you become invisible at the lunch table. Former boss is moving back to Cleveland where homes are worth a fourth of what they are in the Washington DC area, and everyone else is just waiting for retirement, unless of course buyouts and layoffs come my former co-workers way. Is a buyout better than a sellout, but sellouts are able to pay the monthly bills, were buyouts give you a sense of wealth for a very short period of time, unless you die suddenly, then your rich for life.

I aspired to be a heckler but my shyness got in the way. The stage beckons but a debilitated Saturn cast its mighty shadow as a barrier on the street to fame and fortune. So I heckle when alone, sometimes even at myself, just for the sake of living my dream.

Old graphic designers, oh you know, those over 55 but under the radar screen who don’t dye their hair to look like a TV anchorman with roots that just do not agree.

Buy the latest software, keep current, create things because you have no choice, put a contract out on the editor, have an affair with air and quit falling asleep on the ironing board, where all wrinkles in the plan get straightened out.

I attract the homeless and the elderly on my walks with the dog, for some reason, either through a shared awareness of the hostile suits who drive their Beamers and Lexus SUV’s too fast through the neighborhood in order to get back to the room where the weekly quality meeting are held, or the fact that we detest personal ID’s hanging from our necks casting shadows on the newly bought Dockers which informs the world that this is indeed the uniform of choice for the pay the bills squadron.

We all do what we have to do, even if it is to sit quietly and intake the instructions of the latest Deepak Chopra fulfillment of desire meditation, while you consider cashing out the 401K to pay the mortgage next month, can’t loose my cable and internet connection just now—godless dammit! Om Mani Padmi Hum and sing a few bars before hitting one or two for the poetry jam segment that my tongue refuses to partake in.

Whoaisme, whoaisyou, whoa Nelly and Black Betty, well at least the one sung by Spider Bait. Conclusion, well no more lunches with the company that downsized me once and twice, for three times is a charm that I am allergic to … being pitied or marginalized, much like nasal discharge with no hankies or tissue available for the pick up lines that just do not work anymore, much like my runny resume that sits in file cabinets and hard drives, saying a mighty hollow … and howl in the hell did it get this way?

s k i n . g r a f f i t i

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Who is this person that wakes up in the early morning hours, grasping for air, looking for a sign of light, a touch or feeling that he is still in his body? What is this experience, this sensation of non-being, disembodiment, and detachment from all that is known and has been?

“Have I died, is this it, is this what it is like? Wait, I’m talking to myself quietly in my mind, I hear myself, and I’m still here …. breath deep, again … hmmm, this is so weird. Do I get up now, do I dare turn on side and try to go back to sleep. what if this time I don’t come back, what if this feeling of being alive is a dream and I really did check out for good and all this questioning is actually an eternal thing that I’ll be doing since this is hell?”

I look out the window, touch my chest and head, all is there, my wife is breathing next to me, I can feel her warmth, her breath. The chatter is there, so much chatter, the mind is by all means awake again by the frequency of the mindless buzz of words and associated feeling taking place in my awareness. The full tilt fear and panic of faux death subsides behind the welcomed presence of my monkey mind hopping around the possibilities of what all this means. Is it sleep apnea, is it my subconscious trying to alert me to something important, is it just my body releasing stress?

The skin, I always need to touch my skin, feel its clamminess after such episodes, feeling the pulsating of heartbeats and blood rushing to this or that part of the body. This same skin that I fear somehow has been transcended or eclipsed by the mystery of what happens at death.

I died once already in this lifetime, too much masquerading mescaline hiding its PCP DNA going through a straw and into my nose and then brain, all the while in a back room at the Eastown Theatre, hearing the last bits of sound vibration from the British group Illusion playing its name on stage. I rolled easily into the crowd that sat on the cold seat less theatre floor. I left all that I knew and had been on that cheerless loud November night many years ago. It took 14 hours, a stomach pump and various intravenous tubes to bring me back to awareness the next Saturday morning while the body lied naked to a steel gurney in the emergency room of Detroit Receiving Hospital. The only person who answered my calls of help and bewilderment was the old man next to me with handcuffs on his wrists and a bloody bandages on his head. He kept making sure the white sheet covered in my dried vomit (I hope it was mine!) would cover my naked body as police, doctors and nurses passed my by like a street sign yelling Yield to no one in particular.

Deja-Vue, who are you, why are you here, where are you going? Meditate, chant and stretch to calm the body and mind, contemplate and search the essence for 38 years, be all you can be, exemplify the comeback, the courageous back from the death throes story, yes I survived, I’m here, but is it truly ever over?

So many questions, so many dreams, so many days gone down and away, how many left, how many?

I touch the skin again, feel the peeling, the scares, the wrinkles and various signs of wear and tear graffitized by time and the elements of life.

I will go to sleep again tonight, and as I close my eyes and slip into the darkness of sound and sight, I will await what comes, the silent automatic breath beside the dreams or the absence of, for that is just the way it is and will be, forever more either going in …  or out the door.

o b s t a c l e s

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today I feel squashed

somewhat sautéed

fringed, blocked & locked out

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all these barriers to breath

creativity & friendship

spilled itself today

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then there is all that failure

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the Failure of Noise

the Failure of Silence

the Failure of Religion

the Failure of Receptacles

the Failure of Politics

the Failure of Forums & Blogs

the Failure of Self-Help

the Failure of July

the Failure of Art

the Failure of Rock & Roll

the Failure of the Avant-Garde

the Failure of the Space Age

the Failure of Employment

the Failure of Jazz

the Failure of Writing

the Failure of Mirrors

the Failure of Psychedelia

the Failure of Economics

the Failure of Free-form

the Failure of Thursday

the Failure of Electronica

the Failure of the 20th Century

the Failure of Communication

the Failure of Failure

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other than that

and outside today

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things are looking up

s u r r o u n d e d

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The air is thick and I don’t think that there is much space between my thoughts at this moment. It is like being surrounded by frenzied letters, words and images that will not stop outlining themselves around who I am supposed to be. “Let go, let go” says the disembodied voice that passes through the head rather hurriedly. “Just let it flow and let go!”

Why do so many people walking around city streets at lunchtime wear laminated ID cards around their neck? It’s a sign, a uniform of sorts, for it lets us all know that they are rightfully and dutifully employed. I think I’ll make my own ID card, with a picture of something that hurts along side words that say ‘Underemployed Creative’ – Invisible to suits and those who text while wrapped in them.’

Texting text is too small, maybe that’s why I don’t do it. The artform itself becomes too tiny and roman with invisible serifs, enslaved to letting the world know in short boring tweets just what someone ate, drank, thought or will do, hmm … perhaps well done … then hardly so. The world is shrinking in the hot water of fast moving blurs of people, going faster and faster as the art of writing and just plain being is dying, or at least it feels that way, when surrounded by frenzied letters, words and images in this first ever post in WordPress, the press of words, stoked, stacked and lined up, ready to go, like let it go, let it go.