Monday, February 26, 2007
hyperlandia...
Utopia. This must be what the sci-fi writers were talking about when they used this term. Monolithic cool buildings with blue tinted windows, brushed metal, water features, hard lines cut by curving awnings all around a central grass courtyard with a gently tinkling water feature. Yellow banners on light poles remind us of our companies many tag lines, and ingrain our logo and our brand into visitors, and more often, the employees themselves.
Today, this is what I experienced. Corporate silicon valley to the extreme. I feel like a complete outsider to this fast paced high tech life that surrounds me. Still, as I've said, it comes easy, it's a job, so I suppose I'll stick with it.
Still, today, enjoying the many perks that the unstable corporate lifestyle has to offer, gave me pause. As I sat in what they call the "cafe" and had some of the best Orange Chicken I've ever had, made from local organic ingredients (as is everything in the cafe of this company), I wondered what it would be like to work at a place like this, where so much is provided for the average worker. I wondered what the actual working atmosphere was like?
Then I remembered. It's fast. It's results and deadline oriented. It's output focused. It's long hours, overtime, weekend work. I don't do any of that well. I think I'll stay right where I am, for now, an impassive onlooker into their world. I've got my fingers in that world, but my head is somewhere else entirely. I like it that way.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
on the road...
The road ain't what it used to be kid. It's tough out there, you know? I mean, what if I can't get the wireless connection to work in the hotel room? What if the nearest cell tower just isn't as strong as I'd like it? What if I can't find my way around San Jose as easily as I can Spokane?
It's a rough life, this life on the road. It's lonely. What if I finish my Harry Potter book before the week is over? What if I go through all four of theDVD's I'm taking to watch before Friday! OH THE HORROR!!
It's a jungle out there. I don't know if I'm ready. The plane leaves at 3pm today. Wish me luck.
HA!
Friday, February 23, 2007
mamonas...
All my life, I've been taught that one cannot serve two masters. Obviously, that one master is money. Is money the root of all evil, or is it desire that is the culprit? I'm putting my money on 'desire.'
Lots of people have said it. Dickens said, in A Christmas Carol, that ignorance and want were the children of all who walked the earth, unseen. He said that giving in to these two spelled the doom of mankind.
But what of our commercial world? What of the lifestyles of the rich and famous? What of the Robin Leach specials about those who live lives that we could never live? We seem to be bombarded with the lives of the rich and famous, and even the deaths of the rich and famous, these days. Why? Have we given in to 'want?' Are we voyeuristic to the point of thinking that if we 'want' it bad enough, we can get 'it?'
Things, stuff, possessions. We all want 'things.' I want some things too. I'd love to have an iPod (30gig, please, if you're feeling generous). I'd love to have a Mini Cooper (dark blue, Union Jack on top please, if you're feeling REALLY generous). I have to be careful, though. I cannot want so much that my priorities become self centered and I lose focus of what is really important in life. Stuff doesn't really matter in the end, does it? Be real. No, it doesn't. I'd like a surround sound flat screen television on my wall at home, but the problem comes when I try to justify the purchase. I can't. I don't have disposable income. Every cent of my income is accounted for, and used, for something else. Even if there's money left over, I can't spend it willy nilly. I've said it before here, life isn't about just me anymore.
We don't like the word 'sacrifice,' but that, indeed, is what we have to do. A friend of mine suggested this topic for a blog post. He and his wife are re-aligning their monetary commitments. It's not easy, it never is, especially in our world, in this wealthy country so impressed with money and stuff. We say to ourselves "I deserve this." The real question should be, do I "need" this, or can I "justify" this purchase. I have a hard time with this. As we add another mouth and body to our little home, it won't get easier. But I think I can do it...what do you think?
Thursday, February 22, 2007
existence...
It's a curious thing, this digital existence. We meet people mind to mind, personality to personality, instead of face to face. The evil of this digital existence is it's ability to disappear, to wink out of existence as quickly as it came.
Some of us have been lucky enough to meet the people we find interesting from this virtual digital world. Because of this, we know, that even though their digital selves have disappeared without so much as a trace, they still exist. That's good to know.
Good luck bob, don't stay gone too long.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
let fly the insanity...
Off the wall and odd is how it is today. A bit knackered, if you get my meaning. Stark raving, standing on top of the table in the middle of the lunch room weird, that sort of thing. Someone once asked me if I thought Jethro Tull got off on being crass and vulgar. I'm not sure. There were, to be sure, some not so subtle vulgarities in certain songs.Sitting on a park bench --
eyeing ittle girls with bad intent.
But those songs, overplayed, are but the edge of the full picture. One cannot judge a cover by the book, can one? Witness:Wond'ring aloud --
will the years treat us well.
As she floats in the kitchen,
I'm tasting the smell
of toast as the butter runs.
Then she comes, spilling crumbs on the bed
and I shake my head.
And it's only the giving
that makes you what you are.
Good lines, great song, same album. A fuller picture emerges of Tull. Rounded and elaborate. Blues and tears and rock and roll and a middle ages minstrel show, all wrapped up into a 1970s full frontal attack by Ian Anderson's flute.
It's not for everyone, that's to be admitted. Some people just don't "get" Tull. I do. It's cold wind, snow, winter darkness and a warm hearth to me. It's a dark ale, a hearty and woody full flavoured whiskey over rocks with a touch of water. Witness:Once in Royal David's City stood a lonely cattle shed,
where a mother held her baby.
You'd do well to remember the things He later said.
When you're stuffing yourselves at the Christmas parties,
you'll just laugh when I tell you to take a running jump.
You're missing the point I'm sure does not need making
that Christmas spirit is not what you drink.
Sometimes Tull is summer sunshine on the new shoots of wheat or corn. Sometimes it's a pagan dance in the glowing evening of a cool spring English wood with Pan himself dancing the Beltane around moss covered standing stones that have lived for thousands of years in that one spot. Witness:Have you ever stood in the April wood and called the new year in?
While the phantoms of three thousand years fly as the dead leaves spin?
There's a snap in the grass behind your feet and a tap upon your shoulder.
And the thin wind crawls along your neck it's just the old gods getting older.
And the kestral drops like a fall of shot and the red cloud hanging high
come a Beltane.
I've got Tull on the mind today. Not sure why...oh, be honest, I know why. Cleaning out the closet over the weekend, I found an old t-shirt from years ago. A Tull shirt, one of my favorites. This one, as a matter of fact:
Call me a freak, call me what you will. Music is my inspiration most days. It makes me feel, makes me sing, makes me feel better about my nine to five life. You're never too old to rock and roll...Rock on Ian Anderson!
Labels: music
Friday, February 16, 2007
survival of the dumbest...
Sometimes I reflect, on days like today, so bright and full of light and life, about how it is that I've made it this far. You see, I've not always been as smart as you see me here. To be honest, I'm not as smart as I seem online, anyway.
On days like today, when the sun is bright and the sky is clear as crystal and the air brisk and cool, it makes me want to sprint to the top of the nearest mountain and shout to the world that I am alive! I want to breath in the moist cool air and cleanse my lungs of the impurities of the world and fill my muscles with adrenalin. When the air is so bright like it is today, the music if life fills my head with happy overflowing. Yet I still reflect, on how it is that I've made it to where I am.
You see, on days like today, I reflect on all the times that I came close to the end, due to my own stupidity. Like the night, as a sixteen year old, I was cruising Camp Bowie Blvd. in Fort Worth back in '86, and a guy pulled a gun and aimed it at me, all over a minor hand gesture. I survived that. Then, there was the time, on the big island of Hawaii in 1988, I was temping fate with the tide, and was almost taken away by the south sea. I survived that. Too much dope and too much drinking in college in the early 90s, and I survived that, coming out with brains relatively intact, and without addictions. Later, walking through the back streets of Nuevo Laredo in '03 alone, one of the most dangerous cities in Northern Mexico, and surviving that without a knife in my back. It's on days like this that I wonder how much self inflicted stupidity my body can take, and whether it can take my latest stupidity, binging and forgetting to purge.
On days like this, I smile. The sun gives me hope, the music I play makes me feel warm. Kissing my wife goodbye in the morning makes me realize that, though I've done dumb things, people are depending on me, and it's not about just me anymore.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
layette...
For me, it starts with a smell. Dreft. It hints at what's to come. Then, the tiny clothing, taken out of storage, washed in Dreft, folded and prepared. Next, equipment. New, and stored, put together, placed, and ready.
We all have to shift over a bit. Make room. Another person will be joining us soon. We've made some space for them, but it's not done yet. There's yet things to be done before the arrival. Things built, things purchased, things repaired and put together. All for someone we can't see yet, and don't know yet except in the movement inside mother.
We're almost ready, little one. Almost.Labels: baby
Monday, February 12, 2007
Order of the Phoenix - book review
It is no discredit to Rowling to say that she "is no Tolkien." For Tolkien's books were thick, hard to read, highly detailed, and had in them characters as real to me as the very trees and air. So it is with not lightly that I say to you, while Rowling is "no Tolkien," she is, in her own right, one of the greatest writers of her genera, in my opinion. To be sure, she has a formula that's been easy to follow since the first book. Many of the same places and events are so set in the readers minds that simply glancing over them here and there in the book with a brief mention fills us with the images she wishes to convey. This is why my last book review of a Harry Potter book was called Harry Potter and the Latest Magic and Snacks!! It's formulaic, easy to follow. This makes it a very quick read, even for me. We know there's going to be the obligatory scene with Harry's Aunt and Uncle, to heighten our disdain of them, then the mad rush to somehow get back to Hogwarts, then Halloween, Christmas, Valentines day (new one in the latest book because of the new love interest...but still, I suspect there will be more Valentines days to come.), Easter Holidays, end of term tests, and finally, the going back to the dreaded Dursley household. What Rowling makes interesting, is all the stuff that happens in-between. These details flesh out our year at Hogwarts nicely, giving us a glimps in to Harry's past, and indeed, future.
I was told by some that this book was darker than the others. It seemed to me obvious, since the ending of Goblet of Fire has the nemesis of these books returning to bodily form, and drawing his supporters to him, and a terrified Harry narrowly avoiding death, once again. Throughout the whole of the book Order of the Phoenix, the tension was much higher than in the former books. Voldemort's return being overlooked by most of the world was, without a doubt, one of the things that drove me to keep reading, and keep thinking "when are these dorks going to finally catch on?" Then, I stopped talking to myself and remembered that this was a book, and that in real life, people don't actually act like this, right?
Anyway, without giving away too many plot points, I enjoyed the book even more than I did the others. I liked the talk that Dumbldoor had with Harry toward the end of the book, but am really unsure about where Rowling can take this story, now that everyone is back to Harry and Dumbldoor being a hero. She almost revealed too many mysteries at the end of this one, for there to possibly be too many more, though I suppose she could introduce more. I look forward to reading the next one, and then, of course, the last one. I also look forward to getting this on DVD, though the loss of Gary Oldman at the end, will be tragic on screen, to say the least. I've enjoyed him in this role.
These books are not evil. These books are not bad. These books are really just fun. They let your imagination swim in the possibility that there is a parallel world right here among us where dragons, giants, fairies, and wizards and witches, actually exist. It's escapism at it's finest. Good work J.K. Keep it up.Labels: book reviews
Friday, February 09, 2007
the rain falls...
The rain falls,
and falls
the gray fills the air
with slate
and enters minds
unprotected
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
existential crisis...
He wakes at 5am, and washes his face and hands in a ritualistic manner. Donning his work clothes, and walking out of the house every day as he does, and down to the little shop on the corner has become his daily religion. People aren't surprised at his punctuality, or his regularity, and everybody knows his shaggy gray head, his mackintosh , and mud sodden wellies, when he walks down the foggy, early morning treeless village lane. He is as regular as the spring rain, as dependable as the winter winds, and as ever present as the moist sea air.
He greets his customers warmly throughout the day, and thinks of them like family as he mends their shoes. He is a cobbler, by trade. He takes the tired and the weather worn, and repairs it in order to give it new life. Shaping and molding and cutting new leather with his torn and wrinkled fingers all day long, he sings. He hums church hymns in a quiet and tuneless voice, and talks to God as his fingers blacken with polish throughout the day. He works for hours, in silence, alone, and has done for three decades.
When the day's light is struggling against the fog as it's angle deepens, he sorts his tools, cleaning them one by one. He lines up tomorrow's work, as lovingly as he would were he putting a child into a warm bed. Putting out the light of the one oil lamp by which he's worked all day long, he walks out of his shop, neglecting to lock the door. The glow of the sun is almost gone as he walks out and disappears in the mist.
When he walks into his tiny home, near the cliffs of the western coast, there is a warm but simple meal awaiting him. A young girl, his youngest daughter, has prepared it, and has been expecting him at this exact hour, as she has since taking over the duties of feeding her father four years prior. Her mother gone, she has become her father's house maid.
After the simple meal, and some quiet and simple conversation about the day and the village, he walks to the kitchen, and begins the task of washing the black grime from his wrinkled hands. He will not do his next task without clean hands. After reducing the black grime in his hands to the tiny, unreachable wrinkles in his caloused fingers, he retires to the hearth, where he sits by the warm peat glow of the fire and lights a single lamp by his worn and threadbare high backed chair. From under the table, he pulls a leather bound Bible. The leather of the Bible mimiks the leather of his hands. Worn and used. He reads.
He exists. Every day. He resists the urge to change to something else, the desires of the world to gain more, drive faster, earn bigger. He lives. He moves through his life with such a sense of duty and contentment that it baffles my mind. How can a man find such contentment, in the midst of such mundanity? Perhaps, because it is real. He is real. He simply is what he is, and desires nothing more. Desire is the downfall of mankind, some say. This man has no desire but to be what he is, right now. He exists, he is, his existence is for others. Perhaps that's more important than desire?
This song, Shades of Blue, by Hans Christian (track 3 on the album "Surrender"), made me feel real today. Get it here: Magnatune.Labels: character study
Friday, February 02, 2007
to one I love...
Come fly with me through pages of history, through visions of the past and the misty dreams of the future. Watch as the quill writes the past and scrawls out the coming era as our summer fufills its reality.
Take my hand and I'll show you the pyramids being built, the moon being walked on. We'll fly over mountains, fields, cities and stand on summits and shout to the heavens. We'll watch stars being born in nebulas and breath the glowing placenta of new life in the cosmos. Laugh with me as we draw pencil mustaches on the four and twenty in the throne room. Listen with me as the laughter of the Almighty fills our ears and we fly away from that scene into invisible time.
Love with me, as we ride into the mid-summer of our lives, eschewing the arrival of our quiet winter together, but prepare with me, as the squirrel does. Smile with me, as we find the face of God in the center of a single flower, and in our maddness, laugh at infinity.Labels: love
