The Black Forest

Random blaghness...

Why Do I like You?

Why do I like you? I like you because you smell and taste good. If I don't like you, it's because you're probably a Brussels sprout, cauliflower, or some kind of melon (I simply cringe at having to eat them...). It's just how it is. You like something or you don't. You don't even have a choice about it. Chemistry. We are all walking chemistry sets that when mixed with other chemistry sets produce positive or negative results. Can you think of someone whom you like that, by in large, aren't that great of a person and someone else who is always nice and sweet and you are repelled by? I can. (No I'm not telling. *spank*) Then there are always some exceptions like "acquired tastes". It took me years to like spinach. Now I love it. Perhaps my chemistry changed? Adults like different food than children. Adult food is more complex with strange and bitter qualities. Such things a child would just spit out. However much you might be "half-squinting" your eyes at me for this bullshit tinged diatribe in disbelief for equating the like of types of food to people, I think there is really something to it. Not in so much as finding out with our tongues, but acknowledging a deeper chemical connection to people and our environment. If we could logically choose our mates and friends we would, but we don't. It's by circumstance and chemistry. That's the ticket to a-pair-of-dice! *laughing*

Delirium at 103 Degrees.

Yesterday suddenly I was taken over with a high fever and chills. Like I was taken into a Hieronymus Bosch painting, except not the "The Garden of Earthly Delights" but more like "Hell". I've had these rare high temperature onslaughts all my life. They rarely happen but when they do, they come down upon me like a hammer with a million volts of electricity.

Today is the calm, half-in and half-out world of the aftermath. Birds singing. The sound of my heartbeat. Inhale. Exhale. Life. Nothing makes me want to create more than when life is appreciated. Maybe tomorrow I'll pick up the guitar or pen, but for now I'm just gonna lay here and listen to what these birds have to say. Maybe this time I'll understand...

Sunny...70...and...the Floodplains of America

It's sunny, 70 degrees, and I've run out. Empty. Vented. Drained. It has all been flowed, poured, sluiced, gushed, spouted and spewed. The reservoir has run dry and the tap is tapped. I want to be filled again. Filled to the brim. Chock full of nuts. An overflowing dam that will set the valley awash in flood. The cow's on the roof. The ice cream man is in a canoe. The tumbleweeds are tumbling downstream to a distant land that has not been laid low by a wave in 30 years. It will know again the feeling of soaked thoughts and drenched dreams. For if nothing the flood plains along the Mississippi have taught us is where it once flowed, it will flow again...

BElieVE...

I believe that everything is connected...I believe there is no death...I believe in destiny made by free will...I believe a double cheeseburger is always better than a single cheeseburger...I believe everyone should follow their heart and their brain will eventually follow...I believe in Karma because if I don't, I won't be able to keep bad things from happening to a minimum...I believe everything has a cost and can only live so long on credit...I believe that it's the silences that have the most to say...I believe if I get paid peanuts I can still eat them...I don't know what I believe, but I know there is more than I know, which makes anything possible...

Fountains of Fountainhead!

Yesterday while nursing an untimely scratchy throat, seeing that I had an Atom Orr show last night, I was watching "The Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand. I love this movie with Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal. The ideas and ideals that Ayn stirs up in her book and screenplay are like a vitamin B12 shot and a half tab of Viagra at the same time. "GRRROOOWWWLLGRRRR!!!!"

The speech Howard Roark makes at the trial...ooohhhh!

Thousands of years ago the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light, but he left them a gift they had not conceived of, and he lifted darkness off the earth. Through out the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision. The great creators, the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors, stood alone against the men of their time. Every new thought was opposed. Every new invention was denounced. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered, and they paid - but they won.

No creator was prompted by a desire to please his brothers. His brothers hated the gift he offered. His truth was his only motive. His work was his only goal. His work, not those who used it, his creation, not the benefits others derived from it. The creation which gave form to his truth. He held his truth above all things, and against all men. He went ahead whether others agreed with him or not. With his integrity as his only banner. He served nothing, and no one. He lived for himself. And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement.

Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. But the mind is an attribute of the individual, there is no such thing as a collective brain. The man who thinks must think and act on his own. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot not be subordinated to the needs, opinions, or wishes of others. It is not an object of sacrifice.

The creator stands on his own judgment. The parasite follows the opinions of others. The creator thinks, the parasite copies. The creator produces, the parasite loots. The creator's concern is the conquest of nature - the parasite's concern is the conquest of men. The creator requires independence, he neither serves nor rules. He deals with men by free exchange and voluntary choice. The parasite seeks power, he wants to bind all men together in common action and common slavery. He claims that man is only a tool for the use of others. That he must think as they think, act as they act, and live is selfless, joyless servitude to any need but his own. Look at history. Everything thing we have, every great achievement has come from the independent work of some independent mind. Every horror and destruction came from attempts to force men into a herd of brainless, soulless robots. Without personal rights, without personal ambition, without will, hope, or dignity. It is an ancient conflict. It has another name: the individual against the collective.

Did you make it to the end without skipping? If you did, then you know what I mean about the B12 and Viagra, if you didn't then you probably aren't reading this and have skipped to find out the latest high jinks of Paris Hilton or Dick Cheney. (Notice I equated the two.) *laughing* Anyway, all that legal-CinemaScope-stimulant got me through my show last night. I only messed up once with "Happy Accidents"...figures. *grin*