(no subject)
spent the morning hours before and after a brief sweaty fit of dreamless sleep poring over bukowski, going back and rereading the story i wrote last night while heavily under the influence of 'a bad trip' and some ambien, felt it not too shabby but perhaps even more terse and clipped than necessary, wondered if i really did hate hemingway after all, considered going out right then to the library to check out 'a farewell to arms' since i haven't read it in 6 years, reconsidered, ate a bunch of cereal instead. i think the clove cigarettes help the writing more, much more than the illusionary aid provided by alcohol (it only seems to [help], and then only for half an hour, someone said, i remember the line but not the writer; typical)- just another prop to poison the body with but i think that there is something inspirational in such sour luxuries, gives you a better understanding of what you're tearing down and starting over with- you follow me? i'm not much for addictions but i am another spoiled epicurean at heart, and i - oh, no, no matter, let's get back to the unreeling of time: and after filling my day filling out forms and breaking guitar strings i came here to check up on things, went searching through this mess looking for some old lines i had pasted in at some point, realized that again it was always ideas about the things and not the things themselves, meaning i've been writing about writing a lot in here but not really writing anything of merit itself, and i guess i apologize to no one again for the self-critiquing without the actual content i'm judging myself on, but everything of late has been put down on a squeaky hard drive disconnected from the wired world, and i'm far too lazy to try scribing things down and retyping them in here, and this library is not the place for literary inspiration, even literary masturbation (see all previous entries). i write best in the dark, noisy music clanging out of the tiny speakers strapped to my head, the cat on my lap trying to sleep and digging his claws into my leg when i reposition the keyboard against his ass.
they won't take me blood, i've got a fever! that's what their machines say, so after discovering i'm ill and didn't know it i took to the sunshine, what's hot gets hotter and i'm sweating on my blue upholstery and listening to banjo music and the world feels fine, i tell you, not so bad at all. give me some of those loose ends! and i'll knit you a new church, madam, full of those priceless things you'd love to sell me for. more stolen syllables from uncle bob, but it's ok, he got his love of wordplay from captain beefheart and it shows, gloriously it shows, and i want to be in the magic band beating the hell out of my pickups with a spoon.
the power of the aimless rant, and if i told you i was only spilling these words out because i'm waiting for sam and holly you might feel cheated somehow, i bet. but no matter, you're being cheated even if you don't realize it yet and if you didn't know already then the whole world telling you wouldn't make a difference. there's a hidden reminder to me; opining over this war and feeling helpless and all that, i haven't once offered any solutions, instructions, any way to reinvigorate that dessicated hope for the world that lays formless in your belly... blathering on but i do have a point. stand up and say this with me, unless you're still hung on the idea of having to belong to an order of control, of enjoining yourself to a broken machine that chews up it's own constituent parts:::
i pledge allegiance
to no flag
no state
no republic
no nation
no god of men
for liberty and justice for all.
to back this up, i will tell you this and mr. daoistraver would tell you better; i am not an american, i do not represent the country that i live in and it does not represent me. i am not a european, though most of my genes passed through there a few hundred years ago. i am not any of the labels prescribed to me by law. the only group affiliations i have are these: i am of the bishops and the hurds, the burroughs and the sheltons. for five generations my family has lived in the hills of the clinch river valley and the holston river valley, and we have always been poor uneducated hill people, farmers, poachers, and mad itinerant artists, and we have never been friends of the overseers of government. so for lack of a better label i will call myself an east tennessean, a citizen of the lost state of franklin. i cannot believe anyone living in this area, anyone who feels the history of their forefathers coursing in their veins can feel any real brotherhood with people from new york city or kansas or arizona, we are living in separate nations with separate concerns, only the propaganda issued by the greatest corporation, the american federal government, fools us into thinking we are one nation indivisible. i think the founding fathers knew what terrible things could come of having all of this country's power consolidated, they saw that too easily power could be abused in the hands of self-serving men with little vision or care for future generations. states were intended to be able to decide their own matters, take their own stands on issues of state, and not be mere demarcations for taxation. but the federal government is still swelling up, even now, and so we have allowed a self-perpetuating oligarchy to cement itself in place, waving bright striped flags at us like pacifiers, constantly desperately reminding us that we're all in this together, come hell or high water. and the cynics can just watch the waters slowly rise.
one of the most important things about being on the path of enlightenment is being able to go back and reevaluate your judgments and actions, and correct your mistakes when mistakes are found. without this, there is no moving forward.
and now i'm going to hit the fake button and send this away before i read it and start changing things. think about where your allegiance lies- are you an american? a floridian? an arizonian? where do your borders lie? if each state declared civil war on each other, would you go fight for your state's sovereignty? or would you guard the walls of your hometown and keep your family safe?
they won't take me blood, i've got a fever! that's what their machines say, so after discovering i'm ill and didn't know it i took to the sunshine, what's hot gets hotter and i'm sweating on my blue upholstery and listening to banjo music and the world feels fine, i tell you, not so bad at all. give me some of those loose ends! and i'll knit you a new church, madam, full of those priceless things you'd love to sell me for. more stolen syllables from uncle bob, but it's ok, he got his love of wordplay from captain beefheart and it shows, gloriously it shows, and i want to be in the magic band beating the hell out of my pickups with a spoon.
the power of the aimless rant, and if i told you i was only spilling these words out because i'm waiting for sam and holly you might feel cheated somehow, i bet. but no matter, you're being cheated even if you don't realize it yet and if you didn't know already then the whole world telling you wouldn't make a difference. there's a hidden reminder to me; opining over this war and feeling helpless and all that, i haven't once offered any solutions, instructions, any way to reinvigorate that dessicated hope for the world that lays formless in your belly... blathering on but i do have a point. stand up and say this with me, unless you're still hung on the idea of having to belong to an order of control, of enjoining yourself to a broken machine that chews up it's own constituent parts:::
i pledge allegiance
to no flag
no state
no republic
no nation
no god of men
for liberty and justice for all.
to back this up, i will tell you this and mr. daoistraver would tell you better; i am not an american, i do not represent the country that i live in and it does not represent me. i am not a european, though most of my genes passed through there a few hundred years ago. i am not any of the labels prescribed to me by law. the only group affiliations i have are these: i am of the bishops and the hurds, the burroughs and the sheltons. for five generations my family has lived in the hills of the clinch river valley and the holston river valley, and we have always been poor uneducated hill people, farmers, poachers, and mad itinerant artists, and we have never been friends of the overseers of government. so for lack of a better label i will call myself an east tennessean, a citizen of the lost state of franklin. i cannot believe anyone living in this area, anyone who feels the history of their forefathers coursing in their veins can feel any real brotherhood with people from new york city or kansas or arizona, we are living in separate nations with separate concerns, only the propaganda issued by the greatest corporation, the american federal government, fools us into thinking we are one nation indivisible. i think the founding fathers knew what terrible things could come of having all of this country's power consolidated, they saw that too easily power could be abused in the hands of self-serving men with little vision or care for future generations. states were intended to be able to decide their own matters, take their own stands on issues of state, and not be mere demarcations for taxation. but the federal government is still swelling up, even now, and so we have allowed a self-perpetuating oligarchy to cement itself in place, waving bright striped flags at us like pacifiers, constantly desperately reminding us that we're all in this together, come hell or high water. and the cynics can just watch the waters slowly rise.
one of the most important things about being on the path of enlightenment is being able to go back and reevaluate your judgments and actions, and correct your mistakes when mistakes are found. without this, there is no moving forward.
and now i'm going to hit the fake button and send this away before i read it and start changing things. think about where your allegiance lies- are you an american? a floridian? an arizonian? where do your borders lie? if each state declared civil war on each other, would you go fight for your state's sovereignty? or would you guard the walls of your hometown and keep your family safe?