Archive for the ‘Cognitive Dissonance’ Category
Remember Me As A Time of Day
Download LinkExplosions in the Sky - Remember Me As A Time of Day
On a day most assuredly as benign as the one to follow, on a day where things have come to pass, permit me to leave you with a thought…
When I die and the tolls have been paid to the Boatman of Never Never, causing my soul to leave this fleshly body and rejoin the ocean of consciousness that you may call Heaven, please remember me. But not as a man, or even as an idea, but as a time of day…
That brief period in the morning when the ground is lush with the moisture of the air. When it is neither light nor dark, but a dusky peaceful gray with rays of hope creeping up from behind the horizon. That wondrous moment when the air is so crisp it almost hurts to breathe too deeply, but you crave the sweet nectar of atmosphere with an automatonic obsession you could never describe and willfully consume without hesitation.
Its that time of day when the deer are softly trotting through the trees: both together and so clearly apart, scouring the green earth for hope. When the air hangs over your head as a nebulous haze and you want to believe that today will be a better day. And you exhale, only to see the workings of your body join the fog around your head. And you know…
Today will be a better day.
Yes, when I pass, remember me. But do not remember the man, or even the idea…remember the time you first felt wonder…in this world so unsure…like when I was a boy camping with my father and the pale yellow of sunlight on a cold November morning and the shuffle of deer in the wilderness beyond made me hope….
That today would be a better day.
On the Purpose of Material Existence…
It’s late. I sit outside in the cool morning air, a cigarette warming my mouth and drying my eyes. The wind is wisping through the trees, creating a melody as the leaves snap and flutter. The chorus of our earth. I often sit and wonder what all of this means…
I find the question overwhelming, it sometimes feels irrational to even pose. How could I understand the world? I try to refine the question…to find a starting point that will somehow lead me to the answer, to the thread that once pulled will unravel the great mystery before my eyes. My mind races from the big bang, both cold and material and radiant and divine, and spin endlessly with the curling of the galaxies into their beautiful nebulous shapes. My thoughts bounce from particle to particle as they begin to coalesce and form planets. A blue dot appears before the mind’s eye, a blip on the cosmic scale, and I find myself home on the birth place of this humanity–Earth. I see the entirety of evolution, as simple organism grow into the beastly kings of our world. And man rises from the ashes of this genesis to anoint himself ruler, both benevolent and terrible.
I see it as God’s plan. I see no plan at all. I see the Messiah. And I see no one at all.
I reach for any vestige of beginning…
And right before I seem to find it, I see it all end. The universe is torn apart, ripped limb from limb by the very forces from which it was created. Beautiful clouds of life and marvel collapse upon themselves until what once was is reduced to seemingly nothing. But something still exists; it could almost be called a moment, for nothing that we know of this physical world could compare. It is the tiniest of objects, but within it every ounce of energy and the infinity of time lie dormant, until whether by cold automation or divine direction it explodes, unleashing the gift of life for a new chance, a new hope.
And it all begins again, in a big bang of rebirth.
Is this the first universe? The fifth? The billionth? Where do I fit into this cosmic scale of destruction and resurrection? My life, and the lives of all who have walked this gorgeous blue sphere, may be nothing more than a notch in the belt of miracles that this cycle so flippantly engenders.
As a boy I used to think how fantastic it was that every ancestor of mine met, for their tales of love and lust eventually led to my existence. But now, in search of the great answer, I cannot help but think how infinitesimal that is in comparison to the idea that this may be one of many universes and that, for years I could never count, had to go a certain way for our blue earth to sit upon the black of space for any of this to even have a chance. I find myself lost in the sea of this reality. I find myself completely alone, although the materials that comprise my body may have once been stars or life I couldn’t ever imagine.
Its all so finite. Yet feels so entirely infinite.
I look to God for comfort, for nothing here can quench this thirst for purpose. I believe He exists to facilitate that role. Without the idea of God, how can we possibly cope with the smallness of our lives? Or its utter pointlessness? When the answers allude me, when all rational thought is lost in the expanse of all-time, I find peace in one great power, that for delightful whim or wanton cruelty has created everything before me, everything in me, and everything my dust will become.
Can we escape the end? Not as individuals, but as a people, as species, borne into this particular universe..? Yes, I reach for a vestige of beginning, but all I see is the prospect of an end. Can we escape this fate? Can we escape God’s judgment? For when it is cast, there will be nothingness.
Nothing but that moment. When everything is possible again. When every dream is latent and consciousness is but a soft whisper resonating within the smallest of creations.
I have hope. I think that we will live forever in the forms and shapes of our future. I think within the 3.1 billion character DNA code within us all the past is written. A letter from the million worlds before us, sharing their triumphs and failures. Grand stories of their towers that reached the skies, and their eternal search for an answer. And if we are doomed, the next to inhabit a wayward planet of translucent blue will carry us within them, as we have carried so many that have come before within us.
If I should have one wish, it would be the write my own passage in the genetic structure of their lives. I would tell them to not be afraid, to live for every moment, to believe in a purpose to everything. I would give them the hope I feel for the eternity of the human race through them. And I would simply ask them to remember, if they ever could, this voice which on this night called out to them, to all, and in a sea of loneliness found peace in the way of things.
Call it God. Call it love. Call it whatever you like. We will live on. We will never die. If only for a moment…
You Can’t Just Blame It On Our Mothers…
Quick entry. Below are the five (or so) songs that define me most as a person, or at least specific aspects of my persona. These are completely limited, superficial, and whimsical. But hell, so am I.
Listen, love, learn. Or just listen.
Download LinkMXPX - The Final Slow Dance
This one goes out to you baby. You’re my always always. And this will always be our song, even if we loved it as twelve year olds.
Download LinkThe Jamestown Story - In Loving Memory
Although this song is about the loss of a dear friend to suicide, I think it cuts to the depths of our being and illuminates the unsaid passions and love we take for granted so much.
Download LinkYoung Love - Too Young To Fight It
I got that young love, and I won’t ever let it go. To friends, to enemies…may misfortune follow you, but never caught up!
Download LinkBad Religion - American Jesus
This song may possess the single most amazing verse ever penned. Beginning at 1:55, this verse has two voices–one indicting the American Jesus for all of its evils, and the other blindly professing its adoration and love for it. Listen to one, go back, listen to the other. Its amazing.
Download LinkLess Than Jake - Look What Happened
This song was written for everyone that ever questioned where they were and what they were doing with their life. The ultimate “pick up and go” anthem for a generation of malcontents.
They Say The Man Makes The Clothes…
I remember it like it was yesterday…a political neophyte lost in a sea of good ol’ boys and conservative whores. My eyes saturated with pin stripes and silk ties, low cut blouses and pencil skirts…the fabrics of the game. A game I wanted so desperately to play. I wanted to talk their talk, I wanted to walk their walk, I wanted to have sinful sex while professing the sanctity of our holy matrimony….but most of all I wanted to dress like them.
I was completely inundated with the presentation of power. The double-breasted suits…the three piece with a vest. A veritable badge of honor in the high stakes game of politics. To be the man you have to dress like the man.
And I did. I bought a suit that made me look like God himself. I took my conservative whore shopping and in between the litany of ties we had sex, all the while professing the sanctity of our promising holy matrimony. The weapons of my image…the hard steel of the intellectual politico beginning to play the great game itself.
I remember the first time I felt that I stood amongst them as equals. Pinstripes and silk ties. A beautiful girl at my side in a low cut blouse, pencil skirt, and kitten heels. We had arrived. I had arrived. I walked so much more proud, my wingtips clapping as I strolled. I checked and rechecked the knot in my tie…ensuring that the double winsor of my facade remained taunt. Yes, I had certainly arrived.
I took photos with Congressmen. I shook State Representatives’ hands. I might as well have kissed babies. My name came forth with a confidence I had never experienced. And they listened. They listened so closely. Their eyes betrayed my greatest hope: My name was Elliott James Griffin, and they would remember me.
I returned to my hotel room elated. The soft cottons of my armor weighing heavily upon me, I decided to change into more mundane attire. I will never forget loosening that tie, looking into the mirror, and believing that I had stood amongst greatness and shined all the brighter. Clothes made the man on this day, I thought.
And she arrived, my Virgin Mary herself. An image of iconic chastity. Golden hair and grim attire. Light and dark. Salvation and sin. She walked up to me slowly and grabbed the tie I was working clumsily to remove and told me how great I looked in my new clothes…she looked at me hungrily…
So a mere twenty minutes after listening to a conservative stump speech on morality and Christian values I had sex with her. Everywhere. And for as long as we wanted. Beautiful sin. Golden hair and grimmer sins.
Yes, the clothes had made the man. Had made a man into something he was not. Had taken me from the confines of comfort and into their world–good ol’ boys and conservative whores. I had lied, to everyone and anyone who saw me. The promise of power, the perception of influence…had intoxicated me. Drove me to wear a suit of lies and misdirection. And a tie of fine Italian silk.
After we had sex I remember looking into the same mirror in which I stood before. And I saw myself for what I am: t-shirt and jeans, an Everyman if there ever was one. I went to the hospitality suite for the Convention, with my pillar of Godliness on my arm, and I was disgusted. The image had changed…it had evolved. The men now had their jackets over chairs. Dress sleeves rolled up. Top button undone, tie loose. Cigar in mouth. Beer in hand.
And I thought…so this is how they look when they are having fun.
In between plumes of smoke they argued policy and acted intelligent. Sure some were. Most were not. But they felt safe…within their suit of lies and misdirection. I was disgusted. The same starry eyed child who had been taken in by this gimmick now stood alone in a crowd. Even my girl disgusted me…as I could overhear her talking about abortion and its illegitimacy, its immortality, its terrible sinfulness.
And I thought…I better not hear a word to the contrary of this poetic diatribe should we have just conceived a child.
That was the day it happened. The complete arc in and of itself. I had played a part, become a symbol and a soldier, and had played their game–and played it all too well. But I was saddened and annoyed. The repercussions can be felt today. I work for a Fortune 30 company and I wear t-shirt and jeans, an Everyman if there ever was one. I find the people who dress nicely to take phone calls from the general public repugnant and pretentious. I am sickened by the faux-status that cotton can grant someone. I am angered by the popular perception that thoughts are relative in quality and quantity to the clothes I drape upon my back.
Call it evolution, call it devolution…call it whatever you like. The old adage that the man makes the clothes is total bullshit. We all wear our masks…neat hair and crisper shirts. Professionalism? No. A uniform of your conformity…of your acceptance into the game mastered by others. A badge of infidelity to your own individuality.
I see the eyes, cutting me as I walk past “important” meetings. I saw the eyes the following year when I attended the same political convention in flip flops and a sweater. I can feel your anger upon my back. But it is not anger at me, but at your own inability to free yourself from the status quo.
But even I am a victim of this. Why do I not walk around naked? If I am so free, why do I wear anything at all..? Because on some level I am still conditioned…a foot soldier in the culture war. White bread and mayonnaise. Middle America. I am a product of so much social engineering that the mere thought of public nakedness offends me…
So here I am, still in a suit of lies and misdirections…a Ron Paul t-shirt and designer jeans. A clown who won’t wear a suit for anyone…except the girl who wanted to take it off. And she did, all the while professing to our promising holy matrimony.
And I still ain’t married.
A Fit of Hilarium
Sometimes other people just say it better…let it roll for a bit, it gets hilarious.
A Killer Is Born
Evicted. The notice on my door. For my greatest sin…paying my rent.
Is this the “real” world the elders spoke of? Is this reality beyond the walls of family homes, beyond the walls of East Texas pines? Is this how it is?
I am mad. Not angry. I have gone mad. A Killer has been born. I want to destroy everything. I want you to die. I want to die. I am filled with rage. A rage so steady it is frightening. A rage so pure that I understand the murderer’s glee. I understand the pleasure they must feel as the knife falls once, twice, thrice…
This is my magnum opus. My confession. I cannot catch a break, so I will break it all. I want a weapon. I want a gun. Fuck it. I am a weapon; I am deadly. And this pain will be poured upon the earth tonight. Oh it will be wondrous…a scream so loud that you will think the earth is crying, and she is. She is crying tonight. And the rain makes it worse.
It feeds me. Nourishes me in its gloom. And the rage builds. I smoke. Yes, I fucking said it. I smoke. My mouth an ashtray of dried curses. Spitting them out for all ears to hear. In between drags of god’s brown earth I will curse everything. I want to set fire to this world. The Shepherd is so far from me…I am only the Destroyer.
What is wrong with this world? What the hell is going on? Why is this happening? Again. Again. Again. Am I too weak for it all? No. Lesser men would’ve already crumbled. I stand. Completely drunk off of the rage that builds inside of me. Robbed-twice. Identify theft. Police entanglements. Eviction.
And what is my great sin? I cannot pinpoint it. I used to see providence in everything. Now I see disease. The plague of this “real” world rotting my insides and killing me slowly. Lesser men would’ve of crumbled already, but I am crumbling now. I find my legs unsteady; my hands tight with anticipation…my heart races…my mind spins…and hate, fucking beautiful hate, flows through me.
I hate you. I hate all of you. Hate me back, please. Hate everything I stand for, everything I say, everything stupid piece of dribble that drips from my barren lips. Because why not? I hate this world. I always have. The great fraud…a smile that has always hid the pain. A laugh that conceals a question. A personality of misdirection. I am dead. When I finally awoke, truly awoke, as a young man I realized the great truth…
There is nothing to this world. There is emptiness. There is anger. There is pain. Love, friendship, and everything that we believe keeps us together is a farce. Love me? Why? I am rotten to the core and if I could end everything I would. I would rob you of your greatest pleasures to insure that no man ever envies those treasures again. I want global communion in the form of complete dissipation.
This universe is not for me. This “world” is not for me. I am crumbling. I have fallen. I am a legend, I’m told. No. I’m a legend untold. And I tell the world this story. These hands will craft the great truth and deliver it to the world. One bullet. One refusal. One end. One day.
I have fallen. The mighty hath fallen.
Power Overwhelming
Download LinkE.S. Posthumus - Nara
It is always cold in my apartment. I think I like it this way. A slight chill; the constant pursuit of warmth…its pathetic. The flesh is weak. The flesh is so weak. A sack of meat and bones, the vessel for my godliness–nothing more. I am always hungry here; my kitchen as barren as my bed, which has been without sheets for several weeks. A stomach that is filled with ice and hard liquors: the only things I have.
We are so weak in this state of existence. The slightest movement and we tear. The edge of paper can inflict so much pain. Its overwhelming. Rather, its underwhelming…the curse of this flesh. Why am I so powerful; why does my mind bend universes only to be limited by the material, the “real,” the confines of the physical? Why are we given these competing states of existence?
I often look at my hands. In them I see everything. Their fragility is obvious…scars, twisted and broken fingers, open wounds…yet I see passed them, into the capabilities of my limitless mind. I see these hands destroying, robbing life from the virile…I see these hands caressing, inflicting pleasure on the fairer of our sexes. I see in them the finite and infinite. I see in them life and death.
When I look down at them, instinctively turning them upside and down, I am powerful. Hands…extensions of my mind, manipulating time and space…without limit or bound. I do not know why they make me feel so herculean, but they do. I guess its their history. These hands have done so much. They work for me now, converting the impossibility of my mind into a language you will understand. But they’ve done so much more. Tools from which my mind makes things happen. An appendage I could not do without.
Their nails are dirty–stained from the day in a world of dirt and grime. Their knuckles swollen and red, signs of things to come. But they are mine. And they are powerful. Its why we shake…its not a greeting, but an introduction to our world, our abilities, our fortitude, our very potency. I’ve never respected a man with a weak grip…such snakes should merely wave. This is my hand; this is my power…and I will squeeze until you recognize the magnificence of my being.
And I should hope you squeeze back.
This power is intoxicating. I cannot breathe. I am flush with madness. But this is no introduction; for I leave that for the streets and faces in crowds. This is power overwhelming. This is my reality.
And should I find the snake who robbed me he will know this power. And should I find the woman I love, she will know this power…oh, but she will enjoy it, and he will dread it.
I am lost right now–lost in a sea of suffocating noesis. And I am left staring at these hands, minions who carry this disease into the material, into the “real,” into the confines of the physical.
Save the Girl, Save the World
Download Link Ronnie Day - Angel in Disguise
In my last post I retold the events of a dream that I had no control over. Never before in my life had I imagined that I would hold the solution to the atomic equation within my mind. Never before in my life had I imagined that I could spare the world from the nuclear age. It was a wonderful dream that my mind created for me through a vortex of personalities, wishes, hopes, fears, and more.
However, I do have one dream that I have never dared to share. This particular dream is my own creation, borne from conscious imagination and a romantic heart. When I tell you about this dream you may think there is something tragically wrong with me, and you would be absolutely correct. There is something wrong with me. There is something inside of me that wishes only to give, so blatantly and so purely that there is nothing left.
Nothing but a memory. Let me explain.
Since I was a young boy I have always wished for one chance, an opportunity to prove my worth, or more correctly my love. While the details of the dream are ambiguous and ill-defined, the end result is always the same. It begins with me and someone I love doing the most innocent of things. This particular person is no one in particular. Over the years, her name has changed, but she represents the same thing each time: the woman I love more than my own life.
We could be out eating or laying in a field talking, or simply in the same place at the same time, completely disconnected from one another. And then it begins to happen…knives, bullets, cars uncontrollable, or angry men with violence in their eyes…trouble is everywhere. She is in danger; her life is at risk. I am forced into action. I choose to act. I willfully submit to my fate.
And I die. I die. I die.
I die over and over again for her. I would die now for her. Taking bullets or knocking her from the path of a derelict car…the final act of love—death. I want to show her how much she means to me and at times I beg for the chance, the opportunity to give everything I have just so she can remember…remember how much one man loved her. And how little everything else mattered to him…
I think about this happening often, only because I fear the love I have to give, even over a lifetime, could never really tell her how much she means to me.
Again, whomever she may be…
Save the World, Lose the Girl
Last night I had a dream and although I woke up many times throughout the night, the dream continued uninterrupted each time I laid my head back down to rest…
I’m sitting in an office cubicle. In front of me…the drab gray of cubicle living, yet behind me lays a magnificent city skyline tucked safely behind a ten by ten pane of glass. I’m smoking. What century is this? Smoking at work..? I look down and my attire lends credence to my nearly foregone conclusion…it must be the late 1930s.
I put my cigarette out in an ashtray overflowing with the yellow stains of addiction. I walk up to the large glass window and instinctively light another cigarette…it tastes horrible. I blow smoke against the window, creating my own heavy fog for a city that seems to be perfectly asleep. It must be early, or is it late? I look down at my watch, a nice Union watch, finding the time to be nearly 4 in the morning.
A soft voice startles me. I turn around to find an attractive woman, almost mousy…almost sexy, looking at me disapprovingly. She asks me why I didn’t go home last night. Lumbering towards my cubicle I create millions of excuses, praying one will satisfy the woman and shut her up. Rolling her eyes, she hands me an envelope…I light another cigarette and slide into my chair. The equally drab envelope has a large stamp on it reading “Top Secret.” To say the least, I’m intrigued.
I rip it open and spill its contents out. Another woman walks by my desk and runs her hand across my shoulder as she passes, shooting a seductive eye back at me. Pencil skirts and office flirts. Is this my life? Reading over the documents soon reveals them to be the blueprints for a massive bomb. I do not understand the science, but the intent is clear…a bomb to end all existence. The cover sheet, which I had flipped passed, suddenly becomes paramount and I rustle through the sheets to find the heading…
“Manhattan Project.” I am building the bomb.
I rush to the window, lighting another cigarette and stretching my eyes to find any semblance of resemblance. As my smoke collides with the glass and whips back up at my face, I find the evidence I feared most. Lady Liberty…adrift in the Atlantic. Alone.
I am in the heart of New York City, and I am building the bomb.
I throw my cigarette on the floor and rush out. Women attempt to stop me. Women. Lovely women with pencil skirts. I fly through stairwells and open doors…a maze of corporate cover-ups and secret dealings, a labyrinth of bullshit. I finally find an exit and hit it running. Guards are on my tail. Lungs scarred by nicotine do not slow me down.
They trap me, surrounding with not weapons drawn but looks of concern. Am I really this big of a rock star? They call out to me, begging me to calm down. I’m pressed hard against a brick wall, palms flat and sweaty. A man dressed very similarly to me runs up and attempts to soothe me. He tells me that I am critical to everything and without me, they cannot achieve the greatest scientific feat in the history of mankind. He calls me doctor, he calls me names I’ve never heard.
I reach and find my fingers around one of the guards’ pistols. I put the cold steel to my head and begin circling around. I beg them to just let me leave. I don’t want any part of this. I know everything they do not. I want to leave. I want to walk away. They will not let me.
And the soothing voice of the man grows stern, telling me that that simply cannot be. I cannot leave, until the project is done. That was the agreement. The terms of my escape from Eastern Germany. The bomb is my great repentance.
I look the man in the eyes and scream, so loud and so furiously that the crowd takes a collective step back. Cocking the pistol I say coldly and defiantly, “I-I refuse!”
And all is quiet, all is black.
And I find myself awake in Austin, Texas…no cigarettes or blueprints near me. Just a deep, stabbing pain in my head…where the imaginary bullet made my choice final.
Viva la Cobra!
Download Link Cobra Starship - Smile For the Paparazzi
An album this ridiculous does not come about often…sheer shallowness and lack of lyrical substance brilliantly mixed with the harsh sounds of electronic guitar and synths to form something so awesome words cannot describe.
No, this isn’t a review. I leave that for the yuppies and Born Agains….this is a straight admission of guilt. This particular album is my dirty, little pleasure.
Cobra Starship’s new album Viva la Cobra is solely about sex and being cool. Nothing else matters to these guys. There would be a time when I would’ve hated an album like this. The deep, repressed artist within me begging to come out and ridicule such a waste of talent. Yet you will find no ill will here…
Just a wide smile for the Pa-pa-pa-parazzi! Yes…viva la cobra!