TV TurnOff Week (April 24-30, 2006)

I am well into the second half of TV TurnOff Decade. Of course, I have 6 kids, so we have a television in the house, and there's a DVD, a VCR, and a PS/2 hooked up to it, but no external signal. So, I guess I'm not quite a "Vegan", as far as the technology goes, but feel good that I don't eat the rancid meat that broadcast TV serves up on several hundred channels 24/7.

Having said this, I have some observations concerning what we're 'missing' at my house.

-We don't have a daily reminder of the murders, treacheries, and the extent of humanity to be evil to each other pumped into our home.
-We do not have between 12 and 60 minutes of commercial broadcasting pounding at our consciousness every hour.
-We do not see over 1,000 re-enacted murders, or roughly twice that number of other violent acts portrayed in front of our faces every year.
-We are not continually reminded of the New Model of car, equipment, or love interest we need to go out and get.
-Our ideas are not influenced (or, at least massaged) by the results of focus groups and demographic studies. We do not use the same cliches, euphemisms, or excuses as TV personalities and characters (even in terms of humor.)
-We are required to search for information and formulate our own opinions. (And I readily admith that some of those opinions are QUITE different.)
-We do not plan our lives in accordance with the Nielsens. We can get movies, shows, whatever either on DVD or from the 'net, we just don't get the new stuff 'right now.'
-We do not subscribe to the '1/2 hour solution' syndrome', or face such high risks of imbalance and mental illness (mainly attention / personality disorders) that have been statistically associated with television.
-We know very little about fashion. So, we can create our own.
-We read literature - the NEA reports that there is a literary national crisis.


I may amend this after talking about it to the kids. But, my basic thought about TV is:

"They don't call it programming for nothing."

Easter Bunny Blues

We did not have easter baskets, grass, peeps, chocolate, or Cadbury eggs this year. I, with the reluctant, but understanding agreement of my children, have declared this home a candy free zone, ad infinitum (with some exceptions, of course.)

This is a radical shift in this "holiday observance" for my family - I have received, and given easter baskets, candy, toys, and other such paraphenalia since as early as I can remember - say, 1968 or 1969.

As a child, Easter would comsist of getting up early, finding baskets, eating a light breakfast (candy & toast, most often), and going to church. As a child my church attendance was steady - we were Lutheran, then Nazarine, then Methodist, then Church of the United Brethren (pretty much Methodist), at 12 I became a Mormon- and, except for the order and duration fo church meetings, the introduction of a simple sacrament ritual, and a less-than-wholly-tolerant concerning non-members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints, the Easter ritual went on pretty much unchanged.

I grew up, I moved out, I didn't go to any church unless there was a wedding (I will not attend funeral services, IMO they're kind of silly.) The Easter Bunny was honored - the grass was replaced with marijuana (I used to line a basket with pot & add jelly beans), and there was usually a cookout with some irrational and dangerous chocolate / liquor sodden dessert. Times were good, wierd, but good.

Then I found out I was getting married, and awaiting the arrival of a child. Things changed.

In March of 1990 my daughter was born, and, if you think that by Easter the ritual was in full swing - me with the real bunny-grass and jellybeans, my wife with the lovely new dress, hat, and lily - the baby (Nina, you reading this?) with an infant dress that cost me $75 I didn't have - I picked it out, it was the most precious thing I ever saw, with an applique' rose in the center of the lace frills across the chest - with matching hat. We were the poor, and didn't care - the stuffed bunny sat in the crib, we went to church, baked down, and got ready to go see the in-laws for dinner.

Like clockwork, every two years, we had another child. The Easter Bunny got our business, delighted our kids with the badly animated and vioced cartoons, and meant that vast amounts and assortments of candy was to be had by all.

Do I sound bitter, used? If I don't, then I wrote this badly, or you're not paying attention.

The TV, the radio, the newspapers, the schools (and even church!) foretold kowtowed to the mystical arrival of the rabbit from Hell. Every year, a month or so before Easter Sunday, the stores would be filled to overflowing with everything I needed to observe the true modern meaning of every major holiday the west observes - the cunning little candy dispensing machines, Oreos, toilet paper? yeah - even that was festooned with that caricatured rodent that looked like he had kept his head full of ether since before the Son rose.

Year after year, acquiescing to the hype, the profit margin of corporate candy cartels, pumping the poison into the mouths and guts and cardiovascular future-sumps of my children, the memetics of plastic complacency, even as the Sugar Blues (1986) told of the dangers of the white death - I wouldn't read the book because people talked, and I didn't have to trust the gossip. I wish I had read it then. If you think I'm over the top here, check it out and get back to me.

But, the E-B brought ME the THC, and the Jelly Bellys (Thank You Mr. Reagan!) - so, hey, I would light my pipe, shut my mouth, take a hit, and play along. The kids thoguht Peter was cool as hell, and they knew that I knew him. Yeah... Right on...

This year, like I said up front, was different. No more. One of my kids is ADHD, and the rest would eat it straight from the coffee-sugar jar in the morning if I didn't get up to supervise the school prep. I don't smoke pot, watch TV, or succumb to the mediated market hype anymore - My kids and I have spent more time in therapy in the last two years than 95% of the population spends in their entire lives. I need wellness for them, and for me, and I am no longer going to sit idly by while it's coerced out of them by legal drug dealers. I think free, create my opinions out of the air - I don't even know where the box is, anymore, much less do I know whether I'm in it, out of it, or under it.

And the Easter Bunny Blues kick in tomorrow, when the kids I love enough to yank free from the giant moneysucking poison-pumping machine go back to school and get the full-on stare of the indoctrinated. No church ("Luckeeee, we had to go, but you're not Christian, right? Your dad's a Booodist, and your mom goes to college."), no bunny memorabillia ("Check out the SkateBunny I got with the chocolate RocketEggs!"), no candy (:crickets: :stare:) - and the beat goes on...

I am holding back the guilt I feel because I didn't run down to Wal-Mart and get with the program, I am withstanding the desire to keep my kids home tomorrow (I am not nuts, they had a 4 day weekend!), and I am not going to apologize.

I'm sayin', after all this, that the Easter Bunny is an interloper into our culture, a poisonous Pie-eyed Piper - Jesus deserves credit for standing for love and charity throughout western history - the Easter Bunny (and the marketing executives at those candy companies) deserve cells at Guantanamo for spreading poisonous chemicals and dyes and greed and gluttony into the minds and through the veins of our children - the only future we have.

Fuck You Easter Bunny!

Can I get a witness? I sure could use one right now.
-b

Musings On the Edge of Sleep

Sound soothes,
light draws toward;
the hiss of fans,
that 60HZ subsonic hum;
so slow as to confuse
click and pitch.

The subtle blended refresh,
the flutterflash
of tired eyelids;
the sultry seam
between a serene me
and this bright machine
is soma; a susserating
somnolent sigh,
as bytes fly
from here to where...
from now to when...
To you.

From my now
you're not there
you are here then
and I was there when;
we, our places traded
in this psychic exchange;
the moebius that is time-twined I

Why I'm here;
to taste this tryst of
tangled thought, tempus, and
the transcendent touch-tap of
virtual vertigo that appears
to be now-here in nowhere

Bliss amidst flash and hiss,
all about it
is the I that wishes,
and tickles that you;
on this event-horizon edge
of conscious click-connect
that will-be was my night
and is, to me, an imagining
of your morning.

Got Rolfed (1.5/10)

Part of the Rolfing process is clearing the lymphatic system - the glands in the knees, groin, elbows, armpits, and neck that are responsible for removing garbage from the body as it is released from cells - this is the first part of the Rolfing process, and is repeated at each session.

My kidneys are SORE - though, they are better today than they were yesterday. I am trying to drink enough water (along with sipping [i]very[/i] hot water with ginger added) to clear the ama, (toxic garbage), from my system, but I'm having some trouble keeping up with it - I expected this, to some extent, and it really isn't pleasant. As the sessions continue, I will have less toxic crap in my body to get rid of.

Also, because this was my first session, my body is arguing with itself- my nex and shoulders are not used to being in their new position, my lower back is still in the place it has always been, my center of gravity has shifted slightly, so I am experiencing some uncomfortable and awkward moments. My internal organs are also, subtly, noticing a difference in the way my body has changed - the kidney issue is the worst of it, and I'm dealing with that as best I can.

Got Rolfed (1/10)

Since I'm at the library, I won't have time to document and detail this as closely as I would like.

So, in short...

Yesterday I attended my first Rolfing session. What is Rolfing? Very briefly, it's a technique used to re-sculpt the connective tissue, ease "strain-patterns", and from a skeletal point of view, re-shape the body. Yes, Virginia, it kind of hurts. :)

For a more concise description of Rolfing and Dr. Ida Rolf, the founder of the technique, here is the WIKI entry on Rolfing.

As some of you know, I am planning on (finally, after years of being diverted) starting my education in massage therapy. As a primer I read Robert Claire's very excellent book on Massage called "Bodywork." It outlines the mose widely used techniques, considering eastern / western and integrated points of view.

The section on Rolfing struck a chord, and I decided to intimately check it out.

The session lasted about 2 hours and cost me $125, which is at the low end of the fee scale for a session. The Rolfer (Deb) used no oil, she did use her elbows, wrists, and forearms a lot - first to clear my lymph system, and then to soften and adjust cartilage and connective tissue - yesterday, she concentrated on adjusting my neck and spreading apart my fixed ribs - she moved my freaking ribs! Rubbing, pulling, stretching, and pressing into the insertion points of tendons and ligaments, she 'opened' my shoulders, which have been turned in and forward for years. She lengthened my neck and realigned my chin to such a point that just sitting relaxed feels very (VERY) different today than it did yesterday. I can turn my head further than I have been able to in memory, and I'm having a bit of trouble walking around because I am looking at things from a different angle - it's as if my head position "at-rest" is focussed on a spot a couple of degrees higher than I'm used to - so I look further ahead while I'm walking. Also, my shoulders are so much straighter (across) it feels as if I'm pulling them back, even at rest.

She also worked on my hips and calves, noting the connection between those parts of my body and my neck position - I have never really thought about that before, but while she did it, I could feel those connections.

And, these changes are permanent. Also, the changes cascade - as the body gets used to the adjustments, it begins to "open up" (release strain-patterns) in other areas - I have seen some evidence of this this morning, and, from what I've read in the literature, it's only the beginning.

I will go back for session #2 in about a month.

I am ready, even at this early date, to recommend this technique to anyone who has posture or carriage-related discomfort.

I will post part 2 in about a month.