My big mistake was answering so quickly. (Well... it was my first big mistake).
It all began when she asked me if I was gonna stay all night at the hospital and without missing a beat I told her I was driving home, but I would be back.
She gave me the look and then she just came out and said it. I think that's a mistake.
I blew her off. (2nd mistake).
I finished report... got my coat... my skull cap... and my keys and briskly I was out the door. I felt like I had to pee.. But it was a 25 minute drive home... maybe 45 with the snow... But I imagined I could wait (#3).
When my car slid out onto the street I could tell that what was happening was no ordinary snow storm. (Got stuck at the stop sign). But I navigated my first hurdle by rocking my car back and forth (drive-reverse... drive... reverse..) and then I was free. So I continued on (#4).
Truth is I made it about 95% of my way home in wind and snow like a Sarhara sand storm.....
(guy on the radio kept using the word "Blizzard" which made me feel uncomfortable...... so I turned the radio off) .....
And I passed stranded cars in mountains of snow all the way. My muscles were tensing... struggling to line up with the snow grooves that successful cars (actually trucks, jeeps and SUV's) made before me. And as I entered my home-city-limits I began the mileage countdown...
5 miles...
Over the bridge... Starting to see buildings...
4 miles....
Quicktrip.. McDonalds... Braums...
3 miles...
Big Lots... Reasors... Liquor store..
But as quickly as making the decision to make the trip home to begin with... I made a gut decision to avoid dead-end traffic on the highway up ahead and took the exit that was on my immediate right hand side (#5)....
(It was the exit with stranded cars and hidden unplowed snow drifts at least 2 feet high). And then all of a sudden like a fly in a web, I was stuck. And then all the real fun began.
Part 2 later today.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
The Recovery Blues
Before my tattoo... as I was researching local tattoo artists... the thing that kept coming back about Mel D.s tattoo work was how clean it was.
Clean. Beautiful. Straight lines.... The most frequently used word to describe his art was "clean". And from an art perspective you cant get much better than that. Precision Line... and Color... making shape... and form.... and depth.
Honestly it's the way life should be. Life should be like art..... a painting made of strangers and acquaintances, and friends and loved ones... (Or lovers...).. All of them.... clean lines... making up a conglomeration of shape, and form... Towards the end of making up the overall picture of life.
The world should be a picture of something beautiful.
But the world doesn't function like that. In fact, sadly if the world were a canvas of human relationships, I think what we would find is a vaguely familiar shape mixed among a violent splatter of paint.... applied forcefully with say... something like a shotgun.
I used to hang out with Recovery people a few years ago... And what I found is that recovery people tend to understand the chaos of life because they've been on both ends of the shotgun blast.
The saying goes that "hurt people... hurt people". And rather than building relationships... hurt people make deals.... (and in desperation.... Threats!). And in the end.. All of it adds up to chaos.
I've also found that recovery people have no problem being real and believing that all of us have something of the devil inside us.... because they've experienced him first hand.... Being offended they've offended strangers.... acquaintances. Slighted friends.... Used and neglected families... Jilted lovers...
All of it.... always like a shotgun blast spraying chaos all over the canvas of the world.
Its the reason, I think, that in recovery it's all about "staying clean". Because only clean people can really build (or rebuild) relationships. And only clean lines can make up the picture as a whole.
Clean. Beautiful. Straight lines.... The most frequently used word to describe his art was "clean". And from an art perspective you cant get much better than that. Precision Line... and Color... making shape... and form.... and depth.
Honestly it's the way life should be. Life should be like art..... a painting made of strangers and acquaintances, and friends and loved ones... (Or lovers...).. All of them.... clean lines... making up a conglomeration of shape, and form... Towards the end of making up the overall picture of life.
The world should be a picture of something beautiful.
But the world doesn't function like that. In fact, sadly if the world were a canvas of human relationships, I think what we would find is a vaguely familiar shape mixed among a violent splatter of paint.... applied forcefully with say... something like a shotgun.
I used to hang out with Recovery people a few years ago... And what I found is that recovery people tend to understand the chaos of life because they've been on both ends of the shotgun blast.
The saying goes that "hurt people... hurt people". And rather than building relationships... hurt people make deals.... (and in desperation.... Threats!). And in the end.. All of it adds up to chaos.
I've also found that recovery people have no problem being real and believing that all of us have something of the devil inside us.... because they've experienced him first hand.... Being offended they've offended strangers.... acquaintances. Slighted friends.... Used and neglected families... Jilted lovers...
All of it.... always like a shotgun blast spraying chaos all over the canvas of the world.
Its the reason, I think, that in recovery it's all about "staying clean". Because only clean people can really build (or rebuild) relationships. And only clean lines can make up the picture as a whole.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Getting Marilyn
The religious world has always had a hard time accommodating what some call "secular" art.
The division between the two runs deep through the years and carries itself into all genres of the art world, but none so much as with popular music. The truth is that the churchies had a problem with Rock-N-Roll from the beginning.... They called it devil music. But before Rock-N-Roll.... the devils music was the Blues.
The problem with the Churchie world-view on art is it's tendency toward oversimplification. It's a shallow view because it can only be seen at face value. Good and Evil.... Black and white.
(not talking about shades of relativity.... That's different)....
But for artists.... it's more complicated than that. Artists tend to use the raw things of life to reach for bigger things. Their could be a face-value.... chip on the shoulder... of motivation.....
say someone like Marilyn Manson..... abused and mistreated by churchies as a young man.... might take on a devil persona in his art just to piss-off the churchies of his world....
But the music could be saying something else entirely...... Something on a deeper level.... Maybe even something that's true.
I was thinking about that while I was laying on the table trying to get my tattoo done and my Tattoo artist... Mel D.... was playing some hard core scream metal music... But as the music was playing and we were talking.. I was thinking about Robert Johnson.
There's a mythology of sorts (Faustian) in the old blues world that says that Robert Johnson (real blues man)... Once took his guitar down to a crossroads at midnight and there.... sold his soul to the devil for the ability to play the guitar like no other man...
No one knows for sure exactly where the legend started but it was always confirmed by his living peers that on a trip to Arkansas once.... when he left... he was little more than a novice... And after he returned.... he was playing guitar like he was the king of the blues.
Now as interesting as the story is... I suspect (higher criticism.... no evidence...) that the legend perhaps might have been built around the mystery of his life....
(2 recording sessions ever.... 28 songs.... 2 survivable photos..... allegedly killed.... poisoned... at the age of 27)...
Or perhaps, it could have been built around the themes of his songs as well....
Hell Hound Blues
Preachin Blues (Up jumped the devil).
Me and the Devil Blues
Crossroad Blues. etc...
But the themes of his blues music... aren't anthems to his new found satanic faith... Rather... they're sad, real and raw..... sometimes startling images of what it's really like when someone lives on the dark side... Some of his songs are dark expressions of the blues..... a suggested spiritual source... And a (terribly ugly) physical manifestation.
ex. Lyric:
Me and the devil... was walkin side by side...
And I'm gonna beat my woman.. til I get satisfied.
They're part of the wandering blues character that he created (artists often create characters.... ie..Alice Cooper.... David Bowie.... etc..)... that had once been free of the sordid things of life. Now explaining why evil comes as it does.....
ex. lyrics....
Early this mornin... When you knocked upon my door... I said hello Satan... I believe it's time to go...
It sounds a lot to me like the words of a famous saint who once said.... the good that I want...... I don't do............. but I practice the very evil I don't want........ who will rescue me from this body of death???
(Or 1980's... INXS.... ........every single one of us.... the devil inside"... Ha!!)
In fact..... if you think about it... if it weren't for the very physical nature of us... (people).... the very spiritual nature of him (the devil).... would never make an appearance in this world at all....
(Could that be true???)
My train of thought came back with the piercing sound of a needle digging into soft, sensitive, supple, fatty flesh.....
My Arm!!!
I think they're missing the point.
Mel D. my tattoo artist was talking. Marilyn Manson is not the devil... people. Get over it.
He's a character. He's the outrageous thing that people fear.
(mainly ourselves)...
The controversy's all because people need someone else to point the finger at.... so they don't have to point it at themselves
He's not the devil anymore than you or I am the devil..
(could that be true???)
That's ultimately the point of Marylin Manson... all be it from a jaded- angry- "all the churchies suck"..... kind of perspective... But I suspect that that was something of the point of Robert Johnson as well. That sometimes it's us.... me and you.
Sometimes we're the devil....
That couldn't really be true.... could it????
The division between the two runs deep through the years and carries itself into all genres of the art world, but none so much as with popular music. The truth is that the churchies had a problem with Rock-N-Roll from the beginning.... They called it devil music. But before Rock-N-Roll.... the devils music was the Blues.
The problem with the Churchie world-view on art is it's tendency toward oversimplification. It's a shallow view because it can only be seen at face value. Good and Evil.... Black and white.
(not talking about shades of relativity.... That's different)....
But for artists.... it's more complicated than that. Artists tend to use the raw things of life to reach for bigger things. Their could be a face-value.... chip on the shoulder... of motivation.....
say someone like Marilyn Manson..... abused and mistreated by churchies as a young man.... might take on a devil persona in his art just to piss-off the churchies of his world....
But the music could be saying something else entirely...... Something on a deeper level.... Maybe even something that's true.
I was thinking about that while I was laying on the table trying to get my tattoo done and my Tattoo artist... Mel D.... was playing some hard core scream metal music... But as the music was playing and we were talking.. I was thinking about Robert Johnson.
There's a mythology of sorts (Faustian) in the old blues world that says that Robert Johnson (real blues man)... Once took his guitar down to a crossroads at midnight and there.... sold his soul to the devil for the ability to play the guitar like no other man...
No one knows for sure exactly where the legend started but it was always confirmed by his living peers that on a trip to Arkansas once.... when he left... he was little more than a novice... And after he returned.... he was playing guitar like he was the king of the blues.
Now as interesting as the story is... I suspect (higher criticism.... no evidence...) that the legend perhaps might have been built around the mystery of his life....
(2 recording sessions ever.... 28 songs.... 2 survivable photos..... allegedly killed.... poisoned... at the age of 27)...
Or perhaps, it could have been built around the themes of his songs as well....
Hell Hound Blues
Preachin Blues (Up jumped the devil).
Me and the Devil Blues
Crossroad Blues. etc...
But the themes of his blues music... aren't anthems to his new found satanic faith... Rather... they're sad, real and raw..... sometimes startling images of what it's really like when someone lives on the dark side... Some of his songs are dark expressions of the blues..... a suggested spiritual source... And a (terribly ugly) physical manifestation.
ex. Lyric:
Me and the devil... was walkin side by side...
And I'm gonna beat my woman.. til I get satisfied.
They're part of the wandering blues character that he created (artists often create characters.... ie..Alice Cooper.... David Bowie.... etc..)... that had once been free of the sordid things of life. Now explaining why evil comes as it does.....
ex. lyrics....
Early this mornin... When you knocked upon my door... I said hello Satan... I believe it's time to go...
It sounds a lot to me like the words of a famous saint who once said.... the good that I want...... I don't do............. but I practice the very evil I don't want........ who will rescue me from this body of death???
(Or 1980's... INXS.... ........every single one of us.... the devil inside"... Ha!!)
In fact..... if you think about it... if it weren't for the very physical nature of us... (people).... the very spiritual nature of him (the devil).... would never make an appearance in this world at all....
(Could that be true???)
My train of thought came back with the piercing sound of a needle digging into soft, sensitive, supple, fatty flesh.....
My Arm!!!
I think they're missing the point.
Mel D. my tattoo artist was talking. Marilyn Manson is not the devil... people. Get over it.
He's a character. He's the outrageous thing that people fear.
(mainly ourselves)...
The controversy's all because people need someone else to point the finger at.... so they don't have to point it at themselves
He's not the devil anymore than you or I am the devil..
(could that be true???)
That's ultimately the point of Marylin Manson... all be it from a jaded- angry- "all the churchies suck"..... kind of perspective... But I suspect that that was something of the point of Robert Johnson as well. That sometimes it's us.... me and you.
Sometimes we're the devil....
That couldn't really be true.... could it????
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Jamie's New Tattoo. (check out Mel D's web site Inkjunkys.com)
Many have asked me where Im getting my tattoo work done, and the answer to that question is none other than Mel D working out of Spaded and Jaded Tattoo co. Check out this link to his website. After searching for an artist with a history of great tattoo art I was surprised to find that this guy was local. Highly recommended by previous clients and other tattoo artists alike..... He has 24 years of tattooing experience......... And........ more than 80 national and international awards.... This dude does incredible work. I challenge you to look (on his website) at his black and grey portrait work. This guy doesn't have a TV show, but (FMAO).... He's better than Kat.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
The Existential Blues
One of the freaky mysteries of life is that given all the physical and psychological limitations that people have....
(.....hormones.... DNA and genetics... conditioning.... etc.)
people also have the ability to resist the expected responses of life.... to break away from the norm... swim upstream... and make a choice.
Freedom.
I found out recently that Martin Luther King Jr.'s most famous speech (maybe one of the most famous speeches in world history) was something of an ad-lib. If you were to find the notes that MLK was using for his speech that day, you would not find the words "I have a dream" written anywhere on the manuscript. While he had used segments of the speech at different times prior in his life, the speech as it was spoken was entirely made up on the spur of the moment... An impulse, and then an addendum to the close of the speech that he was already giving that day.
I've often wondered...... what if MLK had been preoccupied that day??? What if he went into the speech with a mind full of crap?? Thoughts??? Worries?? Fears about the future!!!
Would he have felt the impulse? Would he have listened to it? Acted on it?
I'm finding that most of the important things in my life happen when I respond to the impulse. But instead, usually I find myself trapped by my fears of things... or my constant dissatisfaction with life.... always craving what's next.
John Lennon said "life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans", and as an example of that, when my father used to visit (before his passing) all he could do was talk about his upcoming visit. But 10 minutes after his arrival, instead of talking and enjoying himself he was already talking about his plans for his next visit....
As I sit here writing, and watching television (and commercials...) I'm also worried about work tomorrow..... and I'm angry about how I got screwed over the other day.... And I'm thinking about what it would be like to be an Iron Chef for a living.... And I'm hungry for cheese...... (What if during his speech, MLK was thinking about cheese?)
And despite all the things that fight for my attention, I wonder sometimes what my life would be if I could stay fully engaged; awake and aware of my immediate surroundings. What would it take for me to be fully present to my son as I play the Wii with him...??? Kicking the ball around in the backyard with my daughter??
MLK changed the world. What if in the course of my daily life I felt the impulse... "Heard the voice"... and then responded with an action that transcended everything that was expected of me.
The deal is that as much as I feel the pressure to be as I've been conditioned.... As much as I try to stretch myself.... worry about (or crave) the future..... dwell on the past.... all I've really got are the things that are here in front of me...... right here.... and right now...
Im starting to believe that in the end.... the only way to break free of all of life's limitations is to live every moment completely aware of the choice I have in front of me. Who we are, and who we will become can only happen in the choices that we make right now.
(.....hormones.... DNA and genetics... conditioning.... etc.)
people also have the ability to resist the expected responses of life.... to break away from the norm... swim upstream... and make a choice.
Freedom.
I found out recently that Martin Luther King Jr.'s most famous speech (maybe one of the most famous speeches in world history) was something of an ad-lib. If you were to find the notes that MLK was using for his speech that day, you would not find the words "I have a dream" written anywhere on the manuscript. While he had used segments of the speech at different times prior in his life, the speech as it was spoken was entirely made up on the spur of the moment... An impulse, and then an addendum to the close of the speech that he was already giving that day.
I've often wondered...... what if MLK had been preoccupied that day??? What if he went into the speech with a mind full of crap?? Thoughts??? Worries?? Fears about the future!!!
Would he have felt the impulse? Would he have listened to it? Acted on it?
I'm finding that most of the important things in my life happen when I respond to the impulse. But instead, usually I find myself trapped by my fears of things... or my constant dissatisfaction with life.... always craving what's next.
John Lennon said "life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans", and as an example of that, when my father used to visit (before his passing) all he could do was talk about his upcoming visit. But 10 minutes after his arrival, instead of talking and enjoying himself he was already talking about his plans for his next visit....
As I sit here writing, and watching television (and commercials...) I'm also worried about work tomorrow..... and I'm angry about how I got screwed over the other day.... And I'm thinking about what it would be like to be an Iron Chef for a living.... And I'm hungry for cheese...... (What if during his speech, MLK was thinking about cheese?)
And despite all the things that fight for my attention, I wonder sometimes what my life would be if I could stay fully engaged; awake and aware of my immediate surroundings. What would it take for me to be fully present to my son as I play the Wii with him...??? Kicking the ball around in the backyard with my daughter??
MLK changed the world. What if in the course of my daily life I felt the impulse... "Heard the voice"... and then responded with an action that transcended everything that was expected of me.
The deal is that as much as I feel the pressure to be as I've been conditioned.... As much as I try to stretch myself.... worry about (or crave) the future..... dwell on the past.... all I've really got are the things that are here in front of me...... right here.... and right now...
Im starting to believe that in the end.... the only way to break free of all of life's limitations is to live every moment completely aware of the choice I have in front of me. Who we are, and who we will become can only happen in the choices that we make right now.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
The Rectal Tube Blues
I was surprised to find out a few months ago that the word buddha literally means "awake".... .........(interpreted... enlightened).
Of course through the years, as in all things, there has evolved a whole larger meaning to the word.
(think of how many different views of "Jesus" have existed through the years..... There was the...
"slaughter the Jews and Muslims"-Jesus...
-"Pro Southern Slavery"-Jesus......
Today there's the.... "God Hates Fags"-Jesus.. etc.)
But all "extra meaning" aside, one of the common problems of people is the problem of staying awake, or alert to real life.
I was walking through the halls at work the other day... the crazies yelling out at me down the hall. And as I came across a discussion between a nurse and a nurse aide I just stood nearby and listened in. The nurse was talking about a problem with one of the crazies.... about how this dude was constantly "crapping on the bed". (diarrhea.... Immobile..... stuck in his bed). And it was happening so often that his skin was getting excoriated (burned) from the bodily fluids. And so the nurse was telling the nurse aide they were gonna have to place a rectal tube in this dude to prevent him from burning his skin off.
Rectal Tube: moderately large draining tube placed (with loads and loads of lubricant) into the rectum to prevent the random drainage of feces onto the skin to prevent excoriation............
* The nursing world is real life, friends. Place a rectal tube into someone and you'll never see people (or life) the same way again.
Of course the problem for the poor guy was that he was living in another world entirely. Bugs all over the place.... People he used to know walking in and out of the room.... (not real)... There was no way to prepare the dude for the thing that was gonna save his ass (literally). And so you just had to go in. Turn him on his side. Lube it up... And then go to town.
(euphemism used to protect the reader from harsh details....)
One of the biggest problems for us (people) is that all reality is literally recreated in our heads. We receive sensations from the sense organs in our body (Eyes, Ears, Nose, Tongue, Skin), and then by way of nerves and neurotransmitters it all makes it's way up to the brain where it's processed.... filtered on some level.... and then totally reconstructed to recreate what you and I know as the real world. We take it for granted... But reality is just what a majority of people (on some subconscious.... unspoken level) agree on. The problem for the crazies is that they have the same types of sensations we do... But for them ... It happens randomly..... (unstimulated at times)... And so... The world they see and hear is very real to them... They recreate it just like we do.... But chaotic and unpredictable... based on sensations... some that are true... and some that aren't. Every once in a while with either the help of medications... or time... one of them will snap out of it. Wake up and come back to real life.
Sadly for the crazies... However... Everything's an act of faith for them... After all... If you were telling me yesterday that their's no spiders on the wall... Then how can I really know for sure today if the spider Im seeing is real?.....
After a few minutes in the hallway the nurse and nurse aide came from the room. They were talking about "the event", and I was imagining the physical process for this dude as they described it.
"We turned him over and started to insert the tube"....
Patient: -Received stimulus from the skin and surrounding areas....
-instantaneous transmission to the brain via nerves and neurotransmitters.
-crazy interpretation in the brain of stimulus and then attempted crazy response....
The nurse continued: "and the whole time we were placing the tube.... He was reaching back and swatting at it.... Saying... WHOA!!!..... BIG MOSQUITO!!! .......BIG MOSQUITO!!!!".
(True Story).
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