Perhaps if I wrote consistently from the position of digression, it would be less of a problem. But then, I digress even further…..moving on.

Closet meditators. YES ! MEDITATORS COME OUT OF YOUR CLOSETS !

but we cant. Our closets are our chidler-spaces. Let me explain. When I was a kid growing up in Lompoc California, we dug holes. We dug these holes in the sandy soil of the coastal town known as Lompoc. For more information see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpDD0eOq-0o Not that this is the Lompoc of my yout, but this 1940 film was shot there. But I digress. Again.

We dug holes in the ground. They were our forts. We covered them with cardboard and a thin layer of sand and we created a subterranean world all our own where adults couldn’t find us. We stole candles from cupboards and stayed in our lairs for hours reading comics and enjoying the cool shade of our caves. At least that’s how I remember it. Of course it all came to an end when some ersatz adult fell to his death as he crashed through the fragile eggshell of our cardboard ceiling.

When we couldn’t dig holes we would arrange the furniture in our bedrooms and drape it with blankets creating tent cities that we could hide away from the world in. You remember these. This is a common human experience. Every kid has made one. You remember how it felt to be inside. Womb-like. And that was indeed the point.

Meditation v/s Medication. Throughout the Eastern world people seek to quiet their minds and to attain a state of celestial calm. It is in this state that wisdom and revealed consciousness coalesce and the little mind-made-me acquiesces. Little moments of P&Q – Peace and Quiet. For me, my mind has always been particularly disturbing. It is what a friend at the SOJ calls “Monkey Mind” Continuous chatter about nothing. Just noise. To wit, I really don’t even have any interest in the content. It is all just repetitive…blovious….garbage. But I digress.

Back to the closet. It has this quality. It is my fort, my tiny hole in the ground, my blanket covered furniture. My quiet space that grownups cant fit in. It is my fort. Now add some science.

For years I have been fascinated by the science of sound. All the way back to the greeks and the modes, it has been apparent that different sounds and frequencies elicit different emotional states. Not just emotional states, but states of being. Let me repeat that …. States of Being. Important. It is important because we must draw a distinction between a state of being…and a state of mind. The former is eternal. The latter….material and transient. What I have been fascinated with is the idea that the meditative state is a state of being, or a state of consciousness. A connection with the eternal. I achieve it in my closet. I do it by sitting on my woofer.

Yea. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any more bizarre. Or I couldn’t find any more obsequious or antiquated language to use…yes, I sit on my woofer.

Frequencies and the use of sound to achieve balance in the chakras as well as the entrainment of the left and right sides of the brain using binaural sounds is well grounded in science. There are tons of data and research on this. I have been sifting through it with great vigor. And this is the stuff of a life’s work, not blog entry.

The bottom line, is that I have perched my bottom on a woofer. As a musician, I thought to myself…”OK self….if it is all about frequencies…and changing the frequencies for optimal health at the cellular level….if I use the concept of sympathetic vibration to get my whole body vibrating at certain frequencies…this could have curative, restorative effect. Hence, sitting on a woofer.

In my closet. I have a chair. It is mounted to a subwoofer. I drive it with an MP3 player. I use the frequencies of sound associated with the chakras produced from a sound generator (software) and I meditate in my closet, surrounded by, enveloped by, hugged by, covered by, loved by, the vibrations of sounds. Entrainment. It is very cool.

In Santa Barbara California real estate is….well…let’s just say it don’t come cheap. In my little room’ the space is all premium. I forfeit some closet space for the sake of my sanity. It is where my consciousness practice happens. Perhaps the most important practice I do. But I digress.

April 08, 2010 “Information Clearing House” — Americans, I have some bad news for you:
You have the worst quality of life in the developed world – by a wide margin.

If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you’d be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average Australian or Singaporean taxi driver has a much better standard of living than the typical American white-collar worker.

I know this because I am an American, and I escaped from the prison you call home.

I have lived all around the world, in wealthy countries and poor ones, and there is only one country I would never consider living in again: The United States of America. The mere thought of it fills me with dread.

Consider this: you are the only people in the developed world without a single-payer health system. Everyone in Western Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand has a single-payer system. If they get sick, they can devote all their energies to getting well. If you get sick, you have to battle two things at once: your illness and the fear of financial ruin. Millions of Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical bills, and tens of thousands die each year because they have no insurance or insufficient insurance. And don’t believe for a second that rot about America having the world’s best medical care or the shortest waiting lists: I’ve been to hospitals in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Singapore, and Thailand, and every one was better than the “good” hospital I used to go to back home. The waits were shorter, the facilities more comfortable, and the doctors just as good.

This is ironic, because you need a good health system more than anyone else in the world. Why? Because your lifestyle is almost designed to make you sick.

Let’s start with your diet: Much of the beef you eat has been exposed to fecal matter in processing. Your chicken is contaminated with salmonella. Your stock animals and poultry are pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics. In most other countries, the government would act to protect consumers from this sort of thing; in the United States, the government is bought off by industry to prevent any effective regulations or inspections. In a few years, the majority of all the produce for sale in the United States will be from genetically modified crops, thanks to the cozy relationship between Monsanto Corporation and the United States government. Worse still, due to the vast quantities of high-fructose corn syrup Americans consume, fully one-third of children born in the United States today will be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at some point in their lives.

Of course, it’s not just the food that’s killing you, it’s the drugs. If you show any sign of life when you’re young, they’ll put you on Ritalin. Then, when you get old enough to take a good look around, you’ll get depressed, so they’ll give you Prozac. If you’re a man, this will render you chemically impotent, so you’ll need Viagra to get it up. Meanwhile, your steady diet of trans-fat-laden food is guaranteed to give you high cholesterol, so you’ll get a prescription for Lipitor. Finally, at the end of the day, you’ll lay awake at night worrying about losing your health plan, so you’ll need Lunesta to go to sleep.

With a diet guaranteed to make you sick and a health system designed to make sure you stay that way, what you really need is a long vacation somewhere. Unfortunately, you probably can’t take one. I’ll let you in on little secret: if you go to the beaches of Thailand, the mountains of Nepal, or the coral reefs of Australia, you’ll probably be the only American in sight. And you’ll be surrounded crowds of happy Germans, French, Italians, Israelis, Scandinavians and wealthy Asians. Why? Because they’re paid well enough to afford to visit these places AND they can take vacations long enough to do so. Even if you could scrape together enough money to go to one of these incredible places, by the time you recovered from your jetlag, it would time to get on a plane and rush back to your job.

If you think I’m making this up, check the stats on average annual vacation days by country:

Finland: 44
Italy: 42
France: 39
Germany: 35
UK: 25
Japan: 18

USA: 12
The fact is, they work you like dogs in the United States. This should come as no surprise: the United States never got away from the plantation/sweat shop labor model and any real labor movement was brutally suppressed. Unless you happen to be a member of the ownership class, your options are pretty much limited to barely surviving on service-sector wages or playing musical chairs for a spot in a cubicle (a spot that will be outsourced to India next week anyway). The very best you can hope for is to get a professional degree and then milk the system for a slice of the middle-class pie. And even those who claw their way into the middle class are but one illness or job loss away from poverty. Your jobs aren’t secure. Your company has no loyalty to you. They’ll play you off against your coworkers for as long as it suits them, then they’ll get rid of you.

Of course, you don’t have any choice in the matter: the system is designed this way. In most countries in the developed world, higher education is either free or heavily subsidized; in the United States, a university degree can set you back over US$100,000. Thus, you enter the working world with a crushing debt. Forget about taking a year off to travel the world and find yourself – you’ve got to start working or watch your credit rating plummet.
If you’re “lucky,” you might even land a job good enough to qualify you for a home loan. And then you’ll spend half your working life just paying the interest on the loan – welcome to the world of American debt slavery. America has the illusion of great wealth because there’s a lot of “stuff” around, but who really owns it? In real terms, the average American is poorer than the poorest ghetto dweller in Manila, because at least they have no debts. If they want to pack up and leave, they can; if you want to leave, you can’t, because you’ve got debts to pay.

All this begs the question: Why would anyone put up with this? Ask any American and you’ll get the same answer: because America is the freest country on earth. If you believe this, I’ve got some more bad news for you: America is actually among the least free countries on earth. Your piss is tested, your emails and phone calls are monitored, your medical records are gathered, and you are never more than one stray comment away from writhing on the ground with two Taser prongs in your ass.

And that’s just physical freedom. Mentally, you are truly imprisoned. You don’t even know the degree to which you are tormented by fears of medical bankruptcy, job loss, homelessness and violent crime because you’ve never lived in a country where there is no need to worry about such things.

But it goes much deeper than mere surveillance and anxiety. The fact is, you are not free because your country has been taken over and occupied by another government. Fully 70% of your tax dollars go to the Pentagon, and the Pentagon is the real government of the United States. You are required under pain of death to pay taxes to this occupying government. If you’re from the less fortunate classes, you are also required to serve and die in their endless wars, or send your sons and daughters to do so. You have no choice in the matter: there is a socio-economic draft system in the United States that provides a steady stream of cannon fodder for the military.

If you call a life of surveillance, anxiety and ceaseless toil in the service of a government you didn’t elect “freedom,” then you and I have a very different idea of what that word means.

If there was some chance that the country could be changed, there might be reason for hope. But can you honestly look around and conclude that anything is going to change? Where would the change come from? The people? Take a good look at your compatriots: the working class in the United States has been brutally propagandized by jackals like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. Members of the working class have been taught to lick the boots of their masters and then bend over for another kick in the ass. They’ve got these people so well trained that they’ll take up arms against the other half of the working class as soon as their masters give the word.

If the people cannot make a change, how about the media? Not a chance. From Fox News to the New York Times, the mass media in the United States is nothing but the public relations wing of the corporatocracy, primarily the military industrial complex. At least the citizens of the former Soviet Union knew that their news was bullshit. In America, you grow up thinking you’ve got a free media, which makes the propaganda doubly effective. If you don’t think American media is mere corporate propaganda, ask yourself the following question: have you ever heard a major American news outlet suggest that the country could fund a single-payer health system by cutting military spending?

If change can’t come from the people or the media, the only other potential source of change would be the politicians. Unfortunately, the American political process is among the most corrupt in the world. In every country on earth, one expects politicians to take bribes from the rich. But this generally happens in secret, behind the closed doors of their elite clubs. In the United States, this sort of political corruption is done in broad daylight, as part of legal, accepted, standard operating procedure. In the United States, they merely call these bribes campaign donations, political action committees and lobbyists. One can no more expect the politicians to change this system than one can expect a man to take an axe and chop his own legs out from underneath him.

No, the United States of America is not going to change for the better. The only change will be for the worse. And when I say worse, I mean much worse. As we speak, the economic system that sustained the country during the post-war years is collapsing. The United States maxed out its “credit card” sometime in 2008 and now its lenders, starting with China, are in the process of laying the foundations for a new monetary system to replace the Anglo-American “petro-dollar” system. As soon as there is a viable alternative to the US dollar, the greenback will sink like a stone.

While the United States was running up crushing levels of debt, it was also busy shipping its manufacturing jobs and white-collar jobs overseas, and letting its infrastructure fall to pieces. Meanwhile, Asian and European countries were investing in education, infrastructure and raw materials. Even if the United States tried to rebuild a real economy (as opposed to a service/financial economy) do think American workers would ever be able to compete with the workers of China or Europe? Have you ever seen a Japanese or German factory? Have you ever met a Singaporean or Chinese worker?

There are only two possible futures facing the United States, and neither one is pretty. The best case is a slow but orderly decline – essentially a continuation of what’s been happening for the last two decades. Wages will drop, unemployment will rise, Medicare and Social Security benefits will be slashed, the currency will decline in value, and the disparity of wealth will spiral out of control until the United States starts to resemble Mexico or the Philippines – tiny islands of wealth surrounded by great poverty (the country is already halfway there).

Equally likely is a sudden collapse, perhaps brought about by a rapid flight from the US dollar by creditor nations like China, Japan, Korea and the OPEC nations. A related possibility would be a default by the United States government on its vast debt. One look at the financial balance sheet of the US government should convince you how likely this is: governmental spending is skyrocketing and tax receipts are plummeting – something has to give. If either of these scenarios plays out, the resulting depression will make the present recession look like a walk in the park.

Whether the collapse is gradual or gut-wrenchingly sudden, the results will be chaos, civil strife and fascism. Let’s face it: the United States is like the former Yugoslavia – a collection of mutually antagonistic cultures united in name only. You’ve got your own version of the Taliban: right-wing Christian fundamentalists who actively loathe the idea of secular Constitutional government. You’ve got a vast intellectual underclass that has spent the last few decades soaking up Fox News and talk radio propaganda, eager to blame the collapse on Democrats, gays and immigrants. You’ve got a ruthless ownership class that will use all the means at its disposal to protect its wealth from the starving masses.

On top of all that you’ve got vast factory farms, sprawling suburbs and a truck-based shipping system, all of it entirely dependent on oil that is about to become completely unaffordable. And you’ve got guns. Lots of guns. In short: the United States is about to become a very unwholesome place to be.

Right now, the government is building fences and walls along its northern and southern borders. Right now, the government is working on a national ID system (soon to be fitted with biometric features). Right now, the government is building a surveillance state so extensive that they will be able to follow your every move, online, in the street and across borders. If you think this is just to protect you from “terrorists,” then you’re sadly mistaken. Once the shit really hits the fan, do you really think you’ll just be able to jump into the old station wagon, drive across the Canadian border and spend the rest of your days fishing and drinking Molson? No, the government is going to lock the place down. They don’t want their tax base escaping. They don’t want their “recruits” escaping. They don’t want YOU escaping.

I am not writing this to scare you. I write this to you as a friend. If you are able to read and understand what I’ve written here, then you are a member of a small minority in the United States. You are a minority in a country that has no place for you.

So what should you do?

You should leave the United States of America.

If you’re young, you’ve got plenty of choices: you can teach English in the Middle East, Asia or Europe. Or you can go to university or graduate school abroad and start building skills that will qualify you for a work visa. If you’ve already got some real work skills, you can apply to emigrate to any number of countries as a skilled immigrant. If you are older and you’ve got some savings, you can retire to a place like Costa Rica or the Philippines. If you can’t qualify for a work, student or retirement visa, don’t let that stop you – travel on a tourist visa to a country that appeals to you and talk to the expats you meet there. Whatever you do, go speak to an immigration lawyer as soon as you can. Find out exactly how to get on a path that will lead to permanent residence and eventually citizenship in the country of your choice.

You will not be alone. There are millions of Americans just like me living outside the United States. Living lives much more fulfilling, peaceful, free and abundant than we ever could have attained back home. Some of us happened upon these lives by accident – we tried a year abroad and found that we liked it – others made a conscious decision to pack up and leave for good. You’ll find us in Canada, all over Europe, in many parts of Asia, in Australia and New Zealand, and in most other countries of the globe. Do we miss our friends and family? Yes. Do we occasionally miss aspects of our former country? Yes. Do we plan on ever living again in the United States? Never. And those of us with permanent residence or citizenship can sponsor family members from back home for long-term visas in our adopted countries.

In closing, I want to remind you of something: unless you are an American Indian or a descendant of slaves, at some point your ancestors chose to leave their homeland in search of a better life. They weren’t traitors and they weren’t bad people, they just wanted a better life for themselves and their families. Isn’t it time that you continue their journey?

Editorial Note from the author of the Trifling Blog: So, you think this is all bullshit? Well, if you want confirmation, talk to my son….oh, wait….you say you cant? You say his number has been disconnected? That’s because even as we speak he is on a plane heading for S.Korea where he is being employed to teach English for a year. Hmmmmmmm.

So, here’s the deal. God I love that phrase. Simple, direct, and yet you just know that if someone starts a sentence with this leading phrase…bullshite simply has to follow. Usually in a high pressure stream. So, I repeat…”Here’s the deal…”

My son and his wife are moving to South Korea. There, just let that sit with ya for a second. Yea, listen to the elevator music in your head, and just be with that concept for a second. South Korea. For those of you who may suffer from Geographical challenges, South Korea is a very long way away. Like, Gulliver’s travels far away. Yea, I’m pretty sure that Lilliputian is the Capital of South Korea, but I’ll have to check.

So, what kind of stones do these modern kids have? Large clanking ones. They are heading to a completely unknown part of the world to teach English for a year. Stones. Big clanking ones. I am jealous beyond measure of the adventure they are setting upon. Imagine, being young and full of art and life and immersing yourself in the colorburst of culture they are entering. They are the missionaries of the new millinia, armed with their blackberrys, their Mac-books and Mcpads….on Dancer, on Donner, and Comet and Blitzen. Yea, I don’t know why I went there either, except for the neat rhyme sequence. So here’s to you Doug and Roe, I doff my cap, and raise my cup, or visa versa. You guys are the balm, and I cant wait to see how the pups come out. But seriously, I couldn’t be prouder, or love either of you more.

Ghasp…huff…puff….things here in the BooBoo have been moving right along and along….working…..riding Myrtle….not writing blog entries….but all that can turn around in an instant. Just like life, one minute you got it, the next minute you aint.

So here’s to you Uncle Jim. I loved you in secret all my life. When I was small, too small for me to remember, I fell asleep playing at your house with Jimmie. I dont remember much, except for you picking me up and carrying me to bed. Your touch was warm and loving, your heart was huge. It was a simple act of making sure all the chicks were in the nest, safe and warm. But for me, it was a lesson in kindness and love, and how to truly be a man.

Dr. James D. Warrick
1926 – 2010

OK, maybe you did get it.

Any way, I had a wonderful weekend with the afore mentioned friend from Junior High.

Nosmo has long been preparing the scrumptious repast called the the tri-tip. Endless hours of trial and error. Success and failure….until at last…the ultimate, the perfect tri-tip. Let me just say…..”yuuuuuuuummmmmmmm”. So….an afternoon of walking the isles of farmer’s markets, dialing in barbecues…filling propane tanks…ended in the most amazing  meal. We doff our caps, and say we all thanks.

And this is just the beginning of the story. For the rest, you have to peel back the pages of my book of life at least a gaborch. I just made that word up. A gaborch is the number of pages it take to go all the way back to 1978. I think we can all agree that is a gaborch.

One gaborch ago….the Kmart incident happened.

A little background….

In high school I was a band geek. So much so, that I was the President of said band my senior year. This meant, of course that the legislative bodies were under my direct oversight and the band exercised it’s power only under my approval. How dizzying. I am still reeling from the power.  But I digress…as I often do.

My senior year, I crossed the line. I went to the dark side, the choral side. Yes. I admit it.  This all culminated in my singing the national anthem at graduation, way back in 1975.  For you historians, the fall of Saigon was:  April 30, 1975 – So yes, I dodged that bullet but just barely. Somehow the fact that I could sing leaked out into the genpop.

Jump forward to K-mart back in the day of the “blue light special” where I was working my way through not going to school,  selling appliances.

It was at this juncture that my life took a particularly weird turn. Enter Cole Roberts. Yes, you know who you are. Are your ears burning? That’s because we are talking about you. Enter Cole Roberts and Scott Champlaine. These two gentelmen were in the process of producing “Godspell” the Broadway musical, way off off off off Broadway. As “off” as you can get actually. In an industrial building – theatre – in Simi Valley CA.  They walked up to me and said: “we understand that you sing” “We want you to audition to be Jesus”. And so, I did. This was the beginning of what would be a long love affair with the theatre.

From Simi Valley, Cole took this production to the CallBoard Theatre in Hollywood. Which was not so much a theatre as a church converted to that purpose. Mary Baker Eddy’s church, or so we were told. It was a little 99 seat non equity house and I became another struggling actor in Hollyweird hoping for a break. Well life went on from there to here, but this is where the title of this blog entry fits in…”Friends”

After 35 years, I spoke with Cole Roberts the other nite on the phone. It was like no time had gone by at all. Like the gaborch of pages that separated my NOW life from my Kmart life were never really there. We talked and laughed and come to find out, Cole has been telling the tale of finding Jesus at Kmart for the past 35 years as well. It is almost like time is just an illusion. And perhaps dear readers, it is just that.

Gaborch.

Because I have had the great good fortune to have been a teacher for several years, I thought that I might want to return to that honored profession here in California. To that end, I found my way to the offices of the Santa Barbara City Schools – several months back to inquire about credentialing to teach as a substitute. I was told that I would have to have a passing score on the CBEST, and submit to a background test. I said: “No problemo” (The Terminator) and got online to register for what would be an interesting experience – test wise.

For those of you that know me…language is my strong suit. Math…well it is my short suit. Lord Fauntlaroy short. Once again I have to give a shoutout to my brutha Nosmo King who spent an exceptionally long summer with me between 10th and 11th grades re-taking HS algebra. Yes, we were a band of math challenged bruthas. But I digress. On with the story.

I took the CBEST several months ago, and scored (as you might imagine) very well on both the comprehension and composition portions of the test. Then, there was the math portion. I pooched.

So, I got back in line and re-registered to take the test again. Apparently, you can re-test an infinite number of times to retake the test until…by hook or by crook you are able to pass. Ah, here’s the rub. There are folks who take the test 3, 4, 5, 6 times just to pass and qualify to teach in the California Schools. Let us observe a moment of silence after this remark….

Now, I am not one to talk, cause as I have mentioned I totally pooched the math portion of the test. Having said that: I did the honorable thing. I Re-up’d like a marine looking for a second tour of Afghanistan (well, maybe that is a stretch) to take the math portion again. Yesterday, I took the test.

I think I did OK. The test wasn’t really difficult, and this time, I prepared long and hard. I even purchased several sample tests online, and worked diligently for hour after hour on them. I was ready. I had my number 2 pencils, and my fat pink eraser. I had read the directions completely and showed up ahead of the appointed hour.

I had worked late the nite before, and woke bleary eyed to follow my Google directions to Carpenteria High School where the ree doo was to be administered. I arrived there, and sat in my car going over my algebra notes….hoping that I would be able to shift my brain into math-mode. We will see if I succeeded and we’ll report on the results…but that just brings us to the title of this essay: Cheaters, never prosper.

There was an information desk set up at the high school, ostensibly manned by friendly folk who were there to direct you to the classroom where your particular seat was. It was a ruse. They were Nazis. One in particular – I am sure her name must have been Helga, said in a harsh tone – “Sir, you will have to remove your hat to take the test”. This gave me pause. I responded, after a brief pause: “Huh?” She reiterated: “You cant wear your ball cap during the test”.

Again, those of you who know me, can only imagine the look on my face at this remark. Of course I had to query: “Huh?” To which she replied: “You might have written test answers on the inside of the brim of your hat which would allow you an unfair advantage”. I passed a gall stone.

I looked at her, with a broken blood vessel in my eye (which she had caused) and said very simply and succinctly: “Madam, this is a randomized test. I know for a fact that there are no fewer than 10 distinctly different version of the test that are passed out in each classroom to avoid the most remote chance that someone could cheat. Add to this, the fact that I am a myopic 53 year old man who cant even see the inside of the brim of my cap. Add to this the idea that I am a person of great integrity and would never cheat on such an important test.” She looked at me like I was a Martian. Perhaps I am.

And we wonder about the teachers that are responsible for the future of our country and our world.

I invite our legislators to take this test Perhaps even President O; To experience this screening. But, with respect, I suggest you leave your ball caps at home. Pax-Out.

What I have discovered is profound. It has to do with Karma and the reversal of Karmic interest. The Karmic interests that I refer to are most probably not my own, but rather, like karmic lint have been clinging to me as I have made my own sojourn across the planet. No surprise I suppose, the name of this way station – the sojourner.

I believe that at a very basic genetic level, recorded in each person’s genetic material are certain events both local and global which directly effect that individual’s karma. In essence, not only are we paddling upstream in the viscus fluid of our own karmic making but we are trying to move our karmic kanoe through a veritable morass of everyone else’s shite. Yep you heard it right. And there’s simply no telling what karmic lint you have accumulated in your journey. It is uniquely yours. However….we are all well served to remember (as bipeds on this tiny spinning planet) that not only what we do….but what other’s do…can get on us…and in us. In effect, the price we must pay is not strictly speaking of our own making.

This brings me to the Soj. After a lifetime of tumbling around in the clothes-dryer of the universe without so much as a lint trap or a dryer sheet….I found myself covered with negative karma. Not only were the voices in my head constantly negative, but the voices in THEIR heads were negative as well. (props to Doug for that one). I had been steering a course away from the very thing that I needed to point the bow into – my own sadness, my own darkness, my own sorrow, my own pain and my own neglect. And it was very simple. I needed to Karmically course correct. I needed the SOJ. I had to give up the vanity project that my life had become, and become a servant. I needed to be a maî⋅tre d’ A waiter.

Karmic repairs done while you wait….

Spending a lifetime pushing back against life every time that life would push me; taught me the wrong lesson. Even when doing so resulted in cancer and my own mortal realization….I still insisted on pushing back. Then came the SOJ. Being a servant is not something that you can do and push back. In fact, just the opposite is true. You have to accept the pushing. Gently guide it without it effecting you. Redirect the negative energy and return a smile. Positive to replace negative. Which is…after all the very nature of physics, of magnetism and electromechanical force.

I have been waiting to write this addition to the Trifling Blog, because I have needed time for the right words to settle. Like silt at the bottom of the tank. For those of you who have never worked in the service industry – I highly recommend it. It could save your life. More importantly, it could save your soul. And course correct your karma.

Namaste

He lives on the second leg of my daily bike ride. This is my Myrtle journey (for those of you that have been not been following the Trifling Blog since my arrival in Santa Barbara) begins a mi casa, and goes to the beach and back. It takes the place of my morning run – for lots of reasons. First, when I was in high school my first love was biking. I biked to school every day. Second, I am 52 years old and my knees have given out. This means that biking is far preferable to running as an aerobic exercise.

So, 3 miles of daily run have translated into 12 miles of daily bike. But I digress.

The Sandman. Every day on the second leg of my journey – sojourn (a shameless plug for my employer: www.sojournercafe.com) I run into the sandman parked in the sand at the corner of beach and Cabrillo. Carbrillo is a street. Beach, is a big ass body of water. But I digress.

Daily sojourn. Second leg. Beach. There, that brings us back. I encounter the sandman. He has been carving sandsculptures in the same spot for over 20 years.

He and I are about the same age. Every day, I stop and put a tip in his jar. He and I talk about visual art. He smokes a cigarette that I wish I could smoke. We consider the folds of drapery and the concept of ciaro scuro in sand sculpture.

He has kids. 11 and 12 mine are older.  But kids are universal. They make us part of the same fraternity. Art does the rest. I talk to him about the movement of the sculpture. He tells me I am full of shit. Life is good. Then, I shill as a passerby looks on, and Scott tells them that his art cant exist without their tips. He needs help marketing. I am about to intervene. In the interim I look at the tourists and tell them that I have already put five bucks in the jar. And indeed I had.

So, as I sit there thinking about how I can increase The Sandman’s tips and my own….I came upon an idea that is going to require some additional research. Living sand sculpture. Stay tuned for more on that. Thanks to Cary Travanovich for the inspiration and the introduction to mime. All things are connected. All things.

Lots of love to my peeps out there. Shout out to my kids at the Milburn Stone. Hope all is good.  Peace out.

Having been in regular, weekly church attendance (save for a few years, Europe, etc…), albeit professionally, since the age of 17 (my first church job, while a student), I feel more than qualified to speak to the broader actualities of the “church” experience. To whit, those that deal more with social/political concerns than theological/religious ones. To assume that the many in church are there for a God fix, borders on naïveté…

I seriously doubt that Obama was a regular congregant. I would conjecture that his belonging to that specific congregation is much more of a Black/Chicago/Oprah/political/networking decision, than a traditional epiphany. Obama is rather a denizen of the black community. This and many other crucial (to any reasonable understanding of the man) aspects of his history and life are lost on most white americans, who much like their “colored” brethren, cannot see much beyond obvious pigmentation differences and lamentably misconstrue them with cultural attributes. Obama was raised by a white mother and, more specifically, white grandparents, in a predominantly white culture. All of this carping about him is nothing more than the ravings of delusional people long disenfranchised, whose pusillanimous character is easily manipulated, with fear, by the very people they should, in actuality, be bitching about.

Me personally? I think a brutha goin through his Zappa phase. So, “woe-is-be” to any musicians that may encounter this fiddleplayer cum bel canto singer. Be ready. The visage is serious as is the man. If you haven’t been to the page: insert shameless promotion here: http://www.lunagitana.com/LunaGitana.html

And no posting featuring my roommate and childhood friend would be complete without a picture of his pit bull. Shout-out to Lucy.

Yes, she is marked very much like a milk cow. Go ahead. I dare ya.

The Hollow Men
T. S. Eliot

Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.