ultrahightechsupermultiuniversal

Bits in space and time.
Are we finite?
Are we on or off?
Or are we as we are?
We are surely something.
That we are is sure.
But is our being,
Being who we are,
Part of a greater being?
Or being as we are,
Merely our own being.

I wrote a book

It's done. I just finished the process of publishing a book. Its a compilation of many of the poems on this blog and can be found for purchase on lulu.com. http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/death-and-life/8561375 You can also download a pdf version for free from Lulu.

why?

writing words here now is wrong
jobs told stories of hard lives and short breaths
as the fumes lift you away
and falling the world seems so real
but not the short things
change as the wind varies with caterpillars

that seem to go on forever and
the sentence never ends
the song never ends
the lyric never ends
the word never ends
the sound never ends
the noise never ends
it all goes on before it
stops

the trees are not green
why do they say it
brown water don't drink and eat
the seafood covered in ice cream and a cigar
the whole thing is just fucked up

why
why
why

don't think just think
eating small birds doesn't make sense
so what's the point of it all
is the end near or far in the pink
gummy bears with green ears just eat it

it won't hurt you
there is nothing to fear
ignore the man behind the curtain
ignore the curtain
without a curtain there can be no man behind it

but don't forget the painting
it must have cost at least fifty cents
maybe even a dollar
why didn't you just buy the lighter
you can't torch a bowl with a dumb painting
and it doesn't even look good

but if we put the apple sticker on it
maybe it will look better
no

faces carved in stone change with the weather
radiant smiles turn to blank stares
it all just fades away into nothing
but it never ends
nothing never ends

Weather

It seems as though your plans
to sit outside all day
have washed away.

The drip and drizzle wouldn't be
so bad but wind and cold
have taken hold.

Weather is a fickle thing.

Rain and snow and sleet and sunny days
that hold you in their fist and squeeze.
Until you scream out.
Too cold! Too hot!
Too dry! Too wet!

We cannot end this strife.
It must be won,
else losing we shall lose our life.

A delicious idea

My dad told me today that I should put together a review of fried chicken joints in town. After thinking about it for a couple of seconds, I realized that this was an excellent idea. Now I have an excuse to eat as much fried chicken as I can. It may take some time. And I can never be sure that I have finished this task. There could always be some little hole-in-the-wall that I don't find. But I will do my best to eat at as many places as I can and figure out some way of judging them so I can find out which is the best. On second thought I might just go eat a bunch of fried chicken and never write anything, so I guess this post has no real purpose. But there is a chance that I will remember to write about them. So I make this statement: there could be reviews of fried chicken in the future, and I will most definitely be eating some fried chicken in the future. That about sums it up.

Right now my favorite is Church's. That could easily change, though. I haven't tried many local places. Most of my experience is with chains. Right now the judging is really between KFC, Popeye's, and Church's. In that order. There are other places but it has been too long for me to remember what they were like. I've had those three recently enough that I feel I can make a reasonable comparison.

we'll have another sentence before we get to the now

It's been a long time... Whatever that means, I mean it with an emphasis on the meaning of meaning. Now that we've weeded out the swine who can't understand basic English syntax, we can get down to the real business at hand. Of course it would help if we knew what that business was, but unfortunately that is not to be. On a side note, never put the not between the to and the be. It's okay to boldly put only one adverb there. As it turns out, the real business at hand is to give me a hand with my business. That sounds wrong. Maybe we should just call the whole thing off. Or we could start businessing our hands for real. No that sounds wrong as well. What I meant to say is 'I'm in the business of real hands.' I can get you a decent pair, but it'll cost you an arm and a leg. Now I'm wearing out the cliches faster than a Tijuana hooker. Talking of Tijuana hookers they sure know how to give you a hand with your business. Let's get our minds out of the gutter here and start thinking of important matters, although I'm not sure how anything can matter if it's not important. The important thing is to remember the matters we are discussing, whatever they may happen to be. And since we are going to remember them, we'd better start discussing them. Otherwise it would be a waste to have remembered them. Of course I have no recollection of said things or matters, no matter how important they may have been going to be. Ah-ha, bet you weren't expecting that. I don't even know what tense it is. Definitely perfect continuous, possibly present or future. I'm thinking present perfect continuous, but the to be at the end is throwing me for a loop. Oh what I wouldn't give to be at the end of this jumble of words, but sadly it is not to be. There sure is a lot of being in this particular whatever-it-is that I am writing at this particular time. All the particulars seem to be in order, but I can't say the same of the participants. It really doesn't seem like you are even trying to understand what I'm saying. Of course I could just be saying nothing in particular, in which case you may be understanding me all too clearly. We can't have that, you ungrateful bastards. I'll show you what happens when you try to understand what I'm saying. Nothing good can come of it. I swear by the god in whom I don't believe. Stop it! Stop it right now! I can feel you this instant, desperately trying to understand this strange convolution of perfect English syntax and grammar, but it won't work. There is no sense here. All the trains have departed. There will be no law and order. There will be no death and destruction. There will be no elephants. Okay maybe there will be a couple elephants, but not too many. We don't want them crowding up the place. And we can't have any more than one octopus, because then we'd have octopodes. Ha, this damn spell-checker doesn't even know fucking English. Trying to tell me that the plural of octopus is octopuses when anyone in their right mind would know that because it comes from the greek the correct plural form is octopodes. Now I'm just jabbering on, so I guess I will come to the end right about... No I was just fooling we'll have another sentence before we get to the now.

Sheep

I've been thinking about free will. Not the grand metaphysical kind. I don't really care about that. There's nothing I can do to change that. Whether all of my actions are determined by fate or whether I can choose my own destiny, either way there's nothing I can do that will make it the other way. No the free will that I have been considering is on a much more intimate scale. I'm talking about manipulation. There is a interesting trend in our society, at least it seems to me, to praise free thought and open discourse. And even to pretend that we have those things. But just because you think you are assessing the facts yourself, coming up with your own analysis of them, and making your own opinions does not mean that you are. I would argue the exact opposite. The more you think you are doing these things the less likely it is that you really are. It is very difficult, in a society like ours, where the money flows freely, to really get all of the facts. Now I'm not saying it's any easier in any other type of society. I haven't lived in any other type of society, so I really can't judge anything other than what we have. But just think on this: in order for any type of research study to be done it has to get funding. Where does this funding come from? It comes from people who are interesting in knowing the results of the study. And why are they interested? It tends to be the case that those interested in the results also have a vested interest in a specific conclusion being reached. Now it doesn't really matter how unbiased the scientists are. The scientists doing the research can have absolutely no bias, but the study will still be biased. This is because the people funding the research will pick and choose researchers who happen to be finding evidence to support the interested party's conclusion. The end consumer never gets all of the facts. It would be impossible to relay all of them. That is why we rely on intermediaries, the media, to pick and choose the important facts. The problem comes when we delude ourselves into thinking that we are the ones making informed decisions. It is not possible to make a truly informed decision when you do not have all of the facts. So what should we do you might ask? Most people do not have the time and/or knowledge to research all of the facts for every decision they might have to make or every conclusion they may have to come to. But some people do. That is why the media was created in the first place. What we need to do is accept the media and allow it to fulfill its purpose. In this modern age of the internet and all that stuff, everyone wants to think that just because they can write out an opinion means that they can make a truly informed decision. That is what I am protesting in this essay. I think the only truly informed decision to make in this day and age is to not try and make your own decisions. There are people out there who spend all of their time studying and researching things in order to make informed opinions, and they are perfectly willing to share those opinions. Find someone who you trust to make truly informed opinions, and then trust them. To use a metaphor, the majority of our society are sheep, who have been suckered into believing that they are shepherds by the real shepherds who have found that it is easier to control the sheep by creating this illusion. But there really are some good shepherds out there. So I have decided to accept that I am a sheep. I don't want the responsibility of being a shepherd. I can accept the fact that I just don't have the initiative to make truly informed decisions for myself. So I have made what seems to me the only logical decision. I have decided to consciously be a 'sheep' and have found a 'shepherd' that I trust to make informed conclusions and I will be relying on her judgments from now on. This shepherd is Amy Goodman, the host of Democracy Now. Of course I reserve the right to decide later that this was a bad idea, but for now it seems like the right course of action. I must point out that this is mainly in regards to politics, the economy, and other things related to those. I will still be making my own opinions regarding personal matters like music, food, etc because I feel that I can make informed decisions about those things on my own. So I guess this is sort of a call to action. Wake up from your delusions and either start making truly informed decision, opinions, and conclusions, or find someone you trust to make them for you. Stop pretending that you can keep yourself truly informed in your spare time. You can't. Staying informed is a full time job, and even then some people can't do it. Ok, that is all.

Book Review

I just finished reading a very interesting book. It is written by one of my close friends, but never fear, my assessment of the quality has only been slightly biased. It really is a good book. I stand by that statement 100%. It's a fun, easy to read book. Its taken me a while to finish it, but that has nothing to do with the quality of the writing. I've just had a lot of other shit going on to distract me. Every time that I had a chance to sit down and read some of it, I found it very engrossing. Definitely the type of book that you don't want to set down. It's a very cool take on a thriller. The reason that it's so engrossing really doesn't have much to do with the real world plot. It's a metaphysical thriller. You could say that the plot is about a fight for control of earth, but despite being the source of most of the action, that is really only a side plot. The true plot takes place in other dimensions and other planes of existence and I would say in the mind of the reader. A lot of the plot is what I would call forced thought. It doesn't actually happen on the page, but rather what happens on the page forces your mind to consider things that are the content of the real plot. This is really cool in my opinion. So anyway the book is called AlphaBetaPocalypse by Sam Sobelman. It's for sale on Amazon or Lulu.

Monotony

I think I need a change of pace. Monotony grows dull. The mind grows dull. See, proof that my mind is growing dull. I can't even write two sentences without using hte same phrase. I need some excitement. I think I might try polyphasic sleep. My biggest problem is the cold. Being up at night is only interesting if you get out and about. Seeing everything deserted is half the fun of it. Maybe going out in the cold will be good. But it's essential to bundle up. Sometimes I get the shivers because I ignore the fact that I'm cold. Sometimes I'm so absorbed in other things that I don't consciously ignore it, I just don't even realize it. But there's a sure cure for them. Get a couple thick blankets and curl up in a ball on the bed with them snugly wrapped around you. After a couple minutes its nice and cozy, but then its really tempting to fall asleep. That's why I'm concerned about trying the polyphasic thing in the winter. But I guess it would be better to start now and if I can't do it give up. That way I wouldn't have to adjust twice if I can do it in the summer but then have to switch back in the winter. Of course if I get a real job I probably won't be able to do it. I don't really want a normal job. I can't stand having so much monotony. I like to be able to just up an do things when I feel like it. But of course right now I'm at the other end of the monotony problem. I have so few set things to do that I end up just lazing about and getting bored. I want to travel. I love traveling. When I'm traveling I'm never bored. Even on long bus, plane, or train rides. I love being around new people. It's so interesting to see how different people behave, to hear how they talk. That's one of my favorite parts of traveling. I'm always picking new and interesting expressions of speech from people that I meet. I love words. There are so many ways to put them together. And especially with English there are so many uses for each one. I'm always my most creative when I'm traveling. There's always something new to inspire me. It could be something someone says, or a tree that I see, or an event that I witness. Of course it is possible to treat the everyday in this manner as well, but that takes so much more effort. It is so easy to just fall back into monotony, and lose track of all of the interesting things that go on wherever you are. That's what's so great about traveling. It forces that excitement on you. You can't ignore it. As a very lazy person that is very nice. When I stay in one place for too long I become complacent, I forget to see all of the wonderful chaos that is everywhere. It's a constant struggle to avoid falling into a monotonous order that makes life so boring. And all too frequently I fail in that struggle. But at least I know where my failings are. Accepting the problem is the first step in fixing it. I'm just not sure where to go from there. Oh well. I'm sure I'll figure it out.

The mind

BANG! Ha that wasn't what you were expecting was it you dirty rat bastard. Actually it wasn't what I was expecting either. I meant to start this post with 'Have you ever wondered...' something or another. But then my mind started wandering and I forgot what I was wondering, so that's how we get to the big bang. Not the Big Bang mind you just the big one. And by this point I've managed to remember what I was wondering before I started wandering and that was how the mind works. No one really knows. The process of figuring it out is sort of like building the trans continental railway. There are two sides of how it works, the physical aspects and the psychological ones. And as far as I understand it the one is barely to the Rockies and the other is still stuck in the Catskills. Which basically means we have no real understanding of how the brains works. We may somewhat understand how people think, and we are starting to get a grasp on how physical processes in the brain work. But we have absolutely no understanding of how they are connected. I may be wrong on this, I'm not a scientist or anything, but I try ot keep up to date with scientific progress, and I would assume I would have heard about any grand breakthroughs in how the physics of the brain affect how we think. I'm even more unsure about my transcontinental railroad metaphor. The metaphor works but I really have no idea where each side is relative to the coasts. I don't think the scientists really know either. It seems to me that its more like building a transcontinetal railraod when you have no idea how big the continent is. For all we know the two branches could have gone far enough to reach each other but somehow gotten off course and never connected. Well that's about all I wanted to say. Oh and thanks Kelley for being my muse in this instance. All you really did was ask if I had written anything, but apparently that was enough.