Bliss Fly

The message is not mine
I barely understand how
To speak its words.
The language
The symbols
The meaning
Is as diffuse to me
As light through the eyes of a fly.

My ego says I am the fly
Happily crouched
On the wall
Of the universe
My ego says I perceive you rightly,
It readily supplies me with labels
I touch you
And, in my fly-like way,
Spitting and sucking back my emesis
I taste and veriify your essence.
And what do you get?
Why, a label, of course!
A molecule of my saliva!

By the way, you’re welcome.

My ego says you may not disagree. You have been labeled.
Helpless, homeless, hopeless, heartless, feckless, fuckless, liar, cheater, loser, thief;
I will not sully my mouth by speaking my ego’s truth, you put yourself in your own damned place…
I launch into the air, and I feel better already!

My ego says you may not disagree. You have been labeled.
Anarchist, freeman, saint, social butterfly, financial wizard, doctor, lawyer, media face, model citzen, Avatar of something-or-other.
Just another reminder of what I should could would will be.
I won’t take too much, just a taste, or two, or maybe three…

I know who all of you are, I see you through the thousand facets of my fly’s eyes.

The storms of wars and cars and loud guitars,
the bottles and jars and carapace grown from ancient scars.
This practical armor that I polish and display as experiential wisdom,
the cynical intelligence and bravado of beastly bliss that comes
with addiction, delusion and recrimination of
all you other flies with motes in your eyes,
and I remind myself that the beam in my own
is The One constructed of the light of truth,
the architecture of which it is my purpose to defend.

And a question comes to me,
it’s a message and a promise,
and a challenge.
Would I rather be a fly in the eye
of this storm my old pal ego
has defined for me as life?
My oldest friend,
the I of me that gave me my greatest gift;
the end of my childhood, is RIGHT there for me.
I know what will be said,
it’s the staple of ego from time immemorial,
“Ignore that!”

And I do, for a long time.
But the egg has been laid,
and like a bad tooth, it won’t go away.

Whoever said ignorance is bliss
believed himself to be a fly,
believed himself to be living in the thousand-faceted eye,
that if he held to that beam from on high,
there’d be pie in the sky by and by.

And my old pal ego,
is always there to remind me that;
It’s fun to be a hedonist.
Don’t do the math, don’t connect the dots,
don’t bother to try to
articulate, cogitate, assimilate, meditate,
disseminate, or intimate;
not unless it will get you made, paid, or laid.
Otherwise, be very afraid,
or just listen to me, I’ll take care of everything.

Some bliss.
This tepid tryst twists and turns
Sweet ignorance follows a steep curve
of diminishing returns,
I recline along as the ever increasing decline
rockets me into a gravity well that
deposits me not-so-softly into a perfect hell
of my own construction, brick by brick, choice by choice.
A self-built prison of complacent dysfunction.

Bzzzzzzzzzz…
Bzzzzzzzzzz…
Bzzzzzzzzzz…

Munchies!

A recipe I discovered tonight.

1 packet of instant oatmeal
1 (or 2) chocolate truffles

Make oatmeal with 1/2 cup milk and 1/4 cup water.

Microwave on high for 1:30.

Drop truffle(s) in oatmeal and allow to melt.

Stir and eat - UltraKreemy!

A Bloody Night In the Bushes

Last night before bed I decided to have a beer, and a smoke, while listening to part of an audiobook on my Walkman...

I smoke outside - no exceptions. I don't want my chidren or company to have to endure the poisonous stink of my bad habit.

So, I went outside with my freshly opened beer (the only one I had last night) and Walkman in one hand, lit up, and leaned against the railing and smoked, and scanned for the moon which I knew was somewhere about- turning my head, and my foot slipped off the top step.

I grabbed for the railing, and it was there, as ever, and my foot twisted as it slipped and I started to fall against the railing which started to give. I heard a weird sound and the railing was gone and I was following it down into the bushes, so I got my other foot into the action and jumped as hard and high as I could up and out, over the fallen iron railing - that saved me from a broken ankle.

And I landed in, and smashed a bunch of, the bushes next to my porch - and the bushes fought back bravely, scatching like they do, and scoring an extra point by punching a hole in my left middle finger. If I flip you off today, you would see that my finger has a wound that looks like a :wink: (proper use here, Abhi? Hah!) - anyway - I stayed in the bushes for a few seconds checking for broken or bloody things, I did not spill my bear, drop my smoke, or disrupt the CD I was listening to... But I'm having trouble typing because of the bandage.

The railing seems OK - but the cement that held it in place is all busted up - it appears to have rotted - so I'll need to learn some masonry or call someone...

I'll Do It Afraid

First of all, thanks to everyone for the compliments on the "Every Little Bit" piece- I will post another song, an original this time, in a few days.

I'm especially thankful that a couple of people said they would enjoy playing music with me in the future - I intend to help make that happen - however, I do have some misgivings about recording and posting, and I really need to talk about them.

I think I've given an impression of myself that isn't really accurate - :doh: - I've done that kind of thing a lot, and I need to do better. For one thing, I don't really love getting compliments, but I have learned to appreciate them. It took me a long time to get to a point in my life where I was able to accept any kind of compliment for any reason. I can trace that back to passive-aggressive, co-dependent, and sometimes violent parenting... Let's just say I grew up quiet, and I grew up cautious. In the last song post I asked everyone to "Please be kind" because it was my first song post (well, other than Sorry Charlie, which was not a serious piece, though I do really like it - it makes me feel a jagged kind of mirth to listen to it.) What I really mean by this is that I didn't post that piece to get people to pat me on the back and say, "Wow, b, that was great!", although I do feel good when I hear things like that.

I have worked with a few bands over the years, and, what I found out was that most bands out there just want someone to say "Hey man, yuu Rock!" What most people will say in response to a band is "You Rock!", sometimes they'll even come out and say "You suck!", but it's pretty much the same thing - it's empty of focus and intent - it's like a waitress coming to my table and saying "How's the food?", and I automatically say "It's very good, thank you.", and what I'm thinking is "This spiced sour soup was in the fridge & they nuked it, and then this bitch lied to me and said 'Oh yes, sir, it's fresh from about 15 minutes ago', and the center of my bowl of soup is COLD!", but I don't want to call her a liar, bring her down, or piss her off- and so I just smile a vague smile and let it pass.

One of my kids listened to the Patty Griffin cover piece I posted the other day and said, "Sorry dad, but it sucks - your head sounds all stuffed with cotton." And I think, a lot of the time, that I do sound awful. I have had a lot of problems with this, people telling me I'm "down" on myself, people telling me I'm self-defeating, etc. I've been trying to figure this out, becasue I really do like me - I'm not a POS wannabe human being, I'm a pretty smart guy who's been through and learned a lot over the past few years. So, I've been doing some investigating, and from what I have learned, more than a few well-though-of musicians think that they sound like crap and really sound amazing. I used to chalk it up to self-consciousness, and lack of honesty from my friends, but now I am wondering if it might be my hearing, or something else that I cannot define.

The point is, I really have no idea whether I'm good at making music or not, other than what people tell me - I love making music, and won't ever stop - though, if it turns out that I cannot make music that other people can enjoy, I just won't record it anymore.

I am going to be posting pieces here for the purpose of sending out my own feelings when I play; happy, sad, angry, whatever, and looking for feedback that can help me do better - because, I want to be good enough to take my music somewhere and generate a little more emotion, expression, catharsis, knowledge, power, freedom, and joy in this world.

I have had to work with people (as a small studio engineer), who were so ungodly awful at what they did that I could barely keep from grinding my teeth while going over their tracks - these people were paying me to record them, so I recorded their music and took their money, burned their music, and wiped their tracks from my machines forever. .I don't ever want to end up on the wrong side of the board like that.

Then there's the memory of the really pretty, really sweet girl I knew in middle and high school who could peel paint with her voice, and everyone loved her so much (and lusted after her so much) that none of us could bear to tell her how awful her voice was. And the woman who worked as a stripper and thought she could sing just like Madonna because nobody would tell her she sounded like a cracked plastic horn... I know, I'm not telling anybody anything they don't already know; I'm just sayin' I don't want to face that kind of fate - it scares me very badly to think that I could really, deep down, be a deluded fool.

Please, oh please, when I post my music- don't be kind to me, be honest. These honest, non-positive comments might sting or worse, but the honesty is what I really, really need.
A woman I used to know told me that if I was afraid of something I want to do then I should "do it afraid", and do it again, until I either didn't want to do it anymore, or until I wasn't afraid any more, and then I could just keep on doing it - we were talking about rollerblading at the time, but it applies here, for me, much more.

I have invested a lot of time in learning what music is, developing ability at communicating through music, and now I want to spend some time putting these years of learning toward something that is vivid and beautiful, and I am so afraid.