happiness controls you

The buddhist idea that desire is suffering always made sense to me, but I don't know if I believe that the way to nirvana is by getting rid of desire. Might be my inner catholic, but reining desire in and putting it towards constructive use makes more sense than subjugating it or denying it or what-have-you.

I mean, hummingbirds don't know that they burn through calories and need high amounts of sugar to keep their inner reactors going. They just know that the sweet stuff in plants is mmmmm mmmmm good. Draw your own parallels with sex, drugs, rock and roll, whatever gets you off. That they get pollen on 'em and fulfill their raison d'etre is well beyond what they know. This bullshit self-awareness and torture makes us special, different.

Then again, the idea is not to kill desire, but to move beyond it, accept things the way they are. Nam myoho renge kyo.

So are you a slave to your desires? Does your happiness control you? Are you a slave to yourself?

well, at least i didn't spend all day in a bar...

man...errands & responsibilities... and i was supposed to go to a poker game, but let down lisbert & willy. again.

Ran across Church #9's post on Capt Beefheart...now there's a dude who had shit to say and did it, and when he finished, he finished. I don't know, I don't think I could just give up music, but then again, it's a not a job for me. And I'm not that good a painter. I wonder what beefheart's paintings look like. If it's anything like his music, it's eschaton with whipped cream and chocolate entrails on it.

the ballad of too little too late

wrote a new song yesterday. or finished cannibalizing an old one? new one's "when medussa saw your heart". showed jms, the gtrist, some old songs and he was all about recording them next week. finally get to put "curio shop", "mr millipede" and "sioni bod da" away, and I hope also "your faithful serpent". I don't know though. That song scares me.

low end theory

so, bass. yeah. haven't played in a rock band in so long, it feels really nice. they are indeed a good group. we are a good group. very individual each of us, likeable and worth knowing. the songs have some very specific parts but are in general kind of open -- just basic "these are the chords, this is the melody...321GO". Show on friday which I was going to have to miss due to Orlando, but now maybe I can play on Friday...things are still up in the air vis-a-vis that. i find myself thinking of my conversation with johann hz about the bass and the deepness of it. i love that one really low note with it's overtones, just fills out a room, harmonically. My A-string was weak on the open note, I don't know if that was the pickups on the P-bass fucking up (they are 20 years old...) or the amp's EQ cutting that A440 out.

Found out who the CD is dedicated to; friend of Davis' who went into a coma and died. Reminded me of Injun Joe; Eden told me after Joe got into his coma from getting hit by the semi on his motorcycle that his girlfriend at the time tried to talk to him and stuff -- he was in a coma for like 2 years -- and he would cry when she put headphones on him and played him his fave song by Dead Can Dance. Such a good kid. Death at random is just...I don't know, kind of insulting. I mean, it really drives home the point that you're just another animal alive at the whim of chance and on the sufferance of circumstance.

mightier than the sword, at any rate...

Bill:
"No man or woman is ever worth your tears, and the one that is will never make you cry."

What utter bullshit.

Pat:
Sounds like good (general) advice to me. By the time it stopped being relevant you wouldn't be taking general relationship advice anyway.

Steven:
No, it's terrible advice. There are only two types of people who can make you cry—those that are completely worthless pieces of shit and those who make a true connection with you. I guess it's possible for one person to be both types at once, but the second type is the type that you should want to make a relationship with even if they break your heart once or twice along the way.

'Struth. Still haven't had leaky eyes. I don't know if that means I'm broken or that I'm not.

Le petit morte

My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless" is the most intense music to have sex to, ever. 4 days later and I still have a headache. I can't describe it more than to say it's a lot of overwhelming, and it made me feel every single moment in slow motion. Beats Acid Mother Temple's "La Novia" and Miles' "Kind of Blue" hands-down. The tantric breathing might have helped, though. cf: convo w/ lisbert w/r/t the french calling the orgasm "the little death" circa 97? before our big falling out ages ago.

I saved my cousin Veronica's life when I was 9 and she was i want to say 5; pulled her out of the pool by her hair. Hans, Tio Mel's Shepherd, just standing there, Michelle confused and screaming. Tio Mel going WTFWTF and he pulled her out of the water. I don't know why summer reminds me of that.

Dream: 8jun07 high school classrooms, the hall next to the band room, one of the piano labs is now a business office and ex-co-workers are there telling me how much they miss my company¹. Leave and into hallway B walks fast and pointedly does not make eye contact with me; i can feel the fury in her movements. Amusingly everyone is dressed in Victorian clothing. There's something about cars -- a trans am? something like that -- and a double bass is involved somewhere. Something weird about geometry in the dream, spatial relationships -- walls, floors, hallways etc -- keep shifting. It's off-putting. I wake confused.

Birthdays past and birthdays coming up...must remember to remember. Or something.

Segue: Nikola Tesla, synesthete, genius and all around weirdo has been on my mind of late.<sup>2

1</sup> Actually this is correct. Vij has lamented to me how it's no fun anymore, whereas most everyone else is all "so things are better without D around, eh?" No one really appreciates the curative powers of levity; my main function those last weeks was keeping V from hating the job as much as I did.

² That's a snippet from some show. Full show is here: pt. 1 pt. 2 pt. 3 pt. 4

God used me as a hammer, boys, to pound his weary drum

Outstanding new Indian w/ H, excellent conversation. Must go back there soonish. Also have to find out where the other place is that Pika mentioned to Vij is. Had to stop by Med again to hand in old stuff -- cel, laptop, shirts, etc -- and everything's just STRESS left and right. I kind of miss it, because they're doing so much fun stuff, but not enough to really feel bad about leaving. There's a lot to learn and do here, and I'm just starting to get into it.

edit: conversation w/ H @ dinnar w/r/t how friendships and trust are something you gain over time has not left me yet. I think I'm going to lauderdale to get another guitar.