"Do you know what day it is..?"

Here we are, deep into 2018, and It seems like it's the same circle of highs and lows that I've been going through for 26 years. Well, maybe "new twists on old problems" is a better way of looking at it.

It was late August, and once more I started cycling towards the leaner end of my tolerance scale. Life stress, relationship stress, and the discovery of a huge trove of documents buried away brought my world to a screeching halt.

I had begun to feel a little overwhelmed and under-involved with a lot of aspects of my life. The studio was still plugging along,  but my drive was waning and I just couldn't get past the feeling that I was just "going through the motions" and pulling away more and more from a sensible, stable life. I chose a local mental health professional that was highly recommended by several people. What I needed was"soul therapy", I thought. Friends agreed. Someone to talk to that didn't treat me like a number. A new take on therapy with a spiritually-centered focus. I needed to get in touch with my Spirit!

Over a few months of this new therapy, I had taken part in a "spiritual release" ceremony, to rid myself of the negative "entity" that was bending my ear and feeding false and harmful information to me, causing interpersonal struggles and leaving me with little sense of peace. After the "ritual" I was told, "Avoid negative images. Don't play violent video games. Don't listen to rock music."  Above all, my favorite: "Don't kill yourself..."

Huh.
Don't kill yourself.

I hadn't planned on that being a problem. Seemed pretty easy, after all. I'd made it 49+ years without killing myself. I'll avoid stabbing, shooting, or drugging myself, and the rest would work out just fine.

Easy peasy, right?

Well that, my friends, is where things started to take a spin that opened whole new paths of existence, and brought old ones right to the forefront. I became almost OBSESSED with the idea that I couldn't, shouldn't  kill myself. Don't even think it. That just can't happen... No matter WHAT happens.

So, I had a bizarre encounter with my father one morning in June. I was informed that while I could remain at the house "forever", my girlfriend was causing too many problems with the family, and she had to go. Never in my history, as a member of my family, was ANYONE asked to leave, for any reason! No choice was given, so I told her to pack a bag of essentials and stay with friends. Four days later, I was pulling the bits and pieces of our life and packing them into a box trailer to stash in a friend's two-car garage. I left the family home and went to live with those friends as well. No big deal. Life goes on... Denial in full effect.

While trying to sort out all of the furniture, clothes, tools and other "life stuff", I found a box of vital papers. Old shop bills, records for taxes, and copies of paperwork from the military and veterans' hospitals. I retrieved the DD-214, my official document of military service, and when I bought a new car, I proudly applied for veteran's plates. I was feeling somewhat nostalgic for my military service. Hell, I served and was discharged with honor, with a decent stack of training and service commendations. I worked with distinction in the ER at Naval Hospital Groton, CT. After all, I was a good medic. a REAL good medic. The record clearly showed that. There was nothing wrong with taking a little pride in military service!

September 2, 2018 

Although I can't remember many of the details, I can say that somewhere around 11 am on Monday the morning of September 2, I took that new car and headed North. The goal was simple - make it to the VA Hospital. I had spent the night before sleeping on a massage table in the studio. I couldn't stand to be around ANYONE, especially the girlfriend. I tried watching movies and TV to snap me out of this sudden "funk". I tried to put recent arguments aside, and all the while a panic kept growing larger and larger, squeezing my chest, fogging my thoughts, and leaving me with few options.
I couldn't make the pain stop. I couldn't stop my thoughts from racing. I hurt all over, inside and out. It took me 2 hours to come up with this plan to drive to the VA, and now I was on auto-pilot, headed North.

I sat in the parking lot for nearly two hours.

It wasn't until the phone started ringing in the car that I had any idea where I was or what I was doing. Soon, my friend and fellow veteran came to meet me. I remember saying something like "I can't get out of the car!" and a whole bunch of other things that made no sense to him or me. He managed to convince me to go inside, and helped me check in to the ER. I couldn't remember my SSN, barely knew who I was, and was so hyper-vigilant that my own senses overwhelmed me. There were nurses and doctors and people coming and going for hours, and all I could do was whisper, "I'm sorry!" I didn't know what day it was.

Four days of the seven that I spent on Ground East, under lock-down, I couldn't tell you what happened. I simply don't remember. I do know I went to groups, but I barely spoke or made eye contact, and only reluctantly did I offer any information to anyone for any reason. I was nearly catatonic. At one point I apparently went screaming in terror from a floor machine -- the noise has triggered something and I completely dissociated. I was gone... Days blurred, panels of Psych interns and doctors, nurses and administrative staff came and went. Slowly, I managed to pull myself back together enough to resemble a functional person, more or less. A week later, and  the discharge instructions were to take meds as directed, see a doc and a therapist, and start the slow climb back to normal function.

Well, for those familiar with large, unwieldy bureaucracies, it should come as no surprise that it took THREE WEEKS to get access to a competent therapist, and a "permanent" doctor to monitor meds and my general level of function. Despite the very real possibility of pseudo-schizophrenic and PTSD-related problems stopping me cold AGAIN, I was left to manage on my own...

***

Now, flashing back to late July, my veteran friend had suggested that being re-evaluated by the VA would be a good idea. Let them see the difficulty I was having dealing with life, business, relationships and the struggle to simply survive. Maybe some benefits or programs could help me get a handle on my life. I'm now sleeping on a couch, as I can't sleep in a bed with my girlfriend. I move too much, and sleep too little. My worldly possessions are disorganized in hundreds of boxes in the garage, and I am trying to be proactive. I looked through the paperwork I had found, and discovered I had kept a copy of my service medical records, and copies of records from my earliest VA encounters.

Imagine, if you will, you find several hundred pages documenting your every low point, every stressful encounter, every comment, every test result, every opinion of medical and psychological care.

Some was brutal. Some was speculative. Some was patently wrong. Twenty six years of documentation highlighting the lows of dealing with combat-related PTSD. The repeating cycle of crisis and coping. All in black and white. Reading the descriptions of retelling my story, again and again, to a different audience each time:

"I was a Corpsman. I was in Bahrain. I was on watch. A big missile dropped on us. The End. "

Ok, there's a lot more to the story, but I'm not getting into it. Not without therapeutic guidance. That's enough of the story to get the gist, for illustrative effect. For 25 years I have experienced a whole host of physical and psychological issues that make "normal" life a challenge. Civilian therapy, borne out of mistrust for a VA system that repeatedly let me down, was insisting that the things that I was afraid of needed to come to light - open those tightly locked boxes and let out all those old demons!

Therapy continued to be more and more painful, and I'd go into a funk and shut down for days after. The "exorcism" was the push over the edge. Maybe dark things really were coming out of me! Maybe there was a part of me that was truly evil. These things started to make sense to a mind going sour, as sanity itself started to slide into the dark... I really needed answers, and REAL help. For that I needed to go back and figure out where these problems started. I knew where I was - I needed to know where I'd been. I went way back - to the beginning. 1993-1994, the first encounters with the VA as an organization.

I had already had the foresight to copy my military medical records, and I made friends with the clerk in records at the first VA hospital, and filled out the consent and request forms to get a copy of my VA records. These I received, locked away in a box, and promptly forgot about them. Now that I had discovered them again, I began to review the documents and records forensically, as if I was reading another patient's charts:

"Here is a 24 year old man. He's sick all the time. His gut doesn't work correctly. He can't think, has memory problems, trouble relating to people, and seems angry all the time. It must be adjustment disorder. Some people aren't cut out for the military." (I had been in for 3 years without incident. My first psych intervention on active duty was a month after returning from the Gulf). "He's malingering. He's immature and narcissistic..."

My birthday - July 7, 1994.
At the VA in Manchester NH, I saw a Doctor in Internal Medicine, specializing in Environmental Medicine. Seems there were a lot of vets coming back from the Persian Gulf that had physical symptoms like mine. He was going to Congress to testify to  the need for research and help for returning veterans - something was wrong. Something about being there was making vets sick.

While, on one hand, this specialist had diagnosed me with "Gulf War Syndrome", assured me it was real, and placed me in the Gulf War registry database, the Administration is telling me I was wasting their time. "Migraine headaches? Take a fucking aspirin! There is no such thing as 'Gulf War Syndrome'".

Well, there is now, and has been since the testimony before Congress compelled lawmakers to fund research and support for veterans who served and got sick. It's considered "presumptive" now, meaning a host of undiagnosed conditions or symptoms are assumed to be exposures to chemicals or environmental hazards while deployed, and medical care and compensation are being granted NOW for the same things I was diagnosed with in 1994!

I kept digging through the records. Page after page of crisis management. Trouble with relationships. Trouble with marriage. Trouble working. Trouble with temper. Trouble with alcohol. Married and divorced, TWICE. Employment terminated. Quit job due to anger. Alcohol use through the roof. Unable to eat. Unable to sleep.

PTSD was obvious, apparent, and DIAGNOSED around 1994., and diagnosed again (?) in 2003.  I was denied compensation for the host of other health issues, and there was a deliberate effort to make it look as if my problems occurred either before, or after leaving the Navy. I didn't find out about the PTSD diagnosis until 2009, during a therapy session, when he managed to pull up some of my prior records and mentioned it as a matter-of-fact.

I was incensed.

More importantly, I started to realize that my copies of my records were the ONLY COPIES IN EXISTENCE. Numerous references to "Records Missing", or "Unable to Locate" or "Facility did not send records" appeared throughout the docs that the VA did have. There were NO paper copies, as the system had gone digital in 2008. My official records had disappeared some time between 1994 and 2003, leaving me with the ONLY records of my care and treatment in the early 90s. (This is a rampant and pervasive "crime" of both military record keeping and the Veterans Administration. Soldiers and sailors are equipment, not people.

To us, the VA was an extension of the military mind set, and would ridicule or ignore anyone that represented and inconvenient truth to the system. )We knew, as members of the Medical Corps, that records were prone to disappearance (especially post-discharge) and it was a good idea to request  copies, if you were friendly and patient. Having done so, I was now holding documents that prove that I was evaluated, diagnosed and... sent on my merry way!

//To Be Continued...

Shades of Black Hole Sun

No excuses. I just haven't written. 

I didn't write when my friend missed a turn and rode his bike into forever.

I didn't write when my grandmother frantically relayed my mother's last moments over the phone, in real time. And there was nothing I could do. 

I didn't write when I fell in love, changed my life, and discovered how deeply roots can grow, or how far back they go. A not-so-pleasant reminder of how truly old I am.

I've been busy living, surviving, grieving -- and I'd imagine you're doing the same. We laughed at 2012, chose to turn away from the signs at every junction. You know - THOSE signs. All is not right and well with Life, The Universe, or Anything. 

Strange things are afoot at the Circle K...

If mine was an isolated case, seeing the doom in it all by reacting to numerous deeply disturbing life events, I would be inclined to believe my particular brand of bullshit was tainting my world view. But I see a lot of people in pain - a real, genuine aching for relief. And I'm finding a lot more in common with their suffering these days than ever before. It's a shared experience in pain and misery manifesting as "life experience".

Is this the way the Big Guy is playing it? Are we in the last gasps as the Great Serpent squeezes us out of the last of our fearful energy? Or is it both? The soul, some say, is immortal, and immune to petty corruption and physical discomfort. I'm not feeling particularly keen on the thought right now. This feels like pain, and it hurts to the soul. Maybe this is indeed what growing feels like. 

I feel deep compassion, but not for those the media parades about in tragedy. Real connections require more than pretty pictures and sound bites. We're realizing that the screen is in fact hollow, and there's no satisfaction or communication when the dialogue is one way. Simply ACCEPT, as you have no means to challenge the information presented. "See this? This is BAD. Don't you feel bad? Why don't you feel bad?" 

Ok. Just a little pin prick.
There'll be no more AAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHH!
But you may feel a little sick...

-----

As I revisit this draft, left nearly 2 years ago, I can't help but think of the title. Chris Cornell is gone. Black Hole Sun, indeed. Maybe he flew too close - wax melts faster in these days of high UV and white-hot sun. Bleaching out all that was bright and colorful. To quote Mudvayne, "In the space between a blink and a tear, death blooms."  

Terror is still on our minds, but with so many activities and distractions, do we really have the time to fret about the pain of others? Well, don't worry. The Universe makes sure we all keep a stash close at hand. Illness, pain, tragedy - hell, that's about all we have in common these days. It has only gotten worse since I typed those words above. Instead of seeing that pain is the unifying factor, we choose to invent new forms of personal torture to keep us from seeing that we are all suffering beings in a soup of misery. 

And that's ok. 

I'd rather have this bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy. 

I'm ready to start dropping some art on y'all. Keep an eye on this space. I'm not tearing out what's already here, but it's time to move this party to a different venue. The ideas never stopped coming, I just diverged into a thousand different possibilities, and found myself back here. Make the most of what you have, or the Universe won't give you more. So, here's hoping for more in the near future. 

Be good. Be safe. 

Seriously...?

Well, according to the Google-O-Matick, it's been almost THREE YEARS since I posted anything here.

Seems odd. Like there wasn't a series of catastrophic events that might be newsworthy to the three or four people who stumbled aimlessly into these words.

Let's just say I got LOST. Not just forgetting that I *HAD* a blog -- no, no, no --  much more than that.
My flirtatious encounters with the Goddess of Chaos resulted in the "best thing that had ever happened to me" imploding, and Truth shining through every single poorly conceived choice I had made for the past five years.

Two years gone now, since the divorce. The divorce I insisted on. And hindsight really is 20/20. Divorced officially on our third wedding anniversary, it seemed to me the Universe was belly laughing at my gullibility. "Consider the whole thing an exercise in TRUST!!!!", tears streaming down their omnipotent faces. So, two years of women nearly (or literally) half my age. The five stages of grieving manifest through meaningless sex, drugs and rock and roll. Productivity almost non-existent. A miracle indeed that my business survived, as I was easily manipulated, and honestly didn't give a shit enough to put up a fight. I had done what I wanted, achieved my goals, bet on the wrong horse and lost. Nothing left to do but pull up a chair and pray for the Big Rock to make it all go away.

Sick of seeing me forlorn and lonely, my friends convinced me to try online dating recently. Now, mind you, this was not my first excursion through the Interwebs to try to meet someone in the last two years. My profiles bounced back and forth between "Fuck You!!!",  "Fuck Me!" and "PUHLLEEEZ... Fuck me?", and I always deleted them within a week. Emotional train-wrecks, defeatists, and lonely women without teeth flooded my inbox with their tales of desperation as well.

But this time was different...

I had severed ties with a "friend with bennies" (or she with me, or mutual split - hard to tell). I was pretty much on my own and not really concerned with much. My world returned to tattooing, with my friends keeping an eye on me so I didn't wander too far into the Aether. One couple wouldn't leave it alone. "We met online - we NEVER would have met otherwise! DO IT!"

Fine. What the hell...

So, after a bit o' libation and a particularly good day, I drafted my profile. Leaving no stone unturned, I put myself out there. The REAL me. Tattoo artist. One-horned half-demon. Big-time gamer and geek. All wrapped in a humorous candy shell, sprinkled with hidden messages and coded phrases to keep away those who weren't who I was looking for.


...And the rest is gonna be a blur...

Be good. be safe. And don't ever think you can close the door so tight that love can't find you hiding.
The Big Guy never has a problem finding your hiding place.

Much love, to all of you. And rest assured - what you wish, desire and need in your life will find you.

Lyle and the Leprechauns

Working a tattoo convention is always bittersweet. The debauchery, the flagrant abuse of personal safety and public property, the feeling of kindred spirits and like-minded individuals gathering to forget who and what they are not in exchange for a few bleary-eyed moments of "me-ness". The hangovers. The second-guessing. The feeling that, "If I had just done this..."

Hell yeah it's about talking the talk. And walking the walk. Put up or shut up. It's about trying to be somebody when all you really need to do is be yourself. But it's almost more about understanding who you really are, and finding out whether you're on the beam or not.

Now, I won't deny that I *might* have indulged a bit more than was prudent. There are certainly numerous credible witnesses eager to point that out. But declaring your room is under siege by little people hell-bent on sodomy might have gone a tad too far. Especially when the recipient of said information was none other than "Living Legend" Lyle Tuttle. Lucky for me, I'm sure Lyle has heard worse from better, and no permanent harm to his opinion of me or our continued friendship was evident.

The moral of the story, kids:
There are far better ways to avoid social situations that relying on hallucinogenics-bearing tiny mythical creatures to do your dirty work. I questioned my talent, my motivations, and my self-esteem and evaded much-needed criticism and reinforcement. This business is about confidence, and not just for your sake. Our work is permanent, for better or worse. But it's also about expression, and being an artist. By just being me, I could have taken advantage of an opportunity to share with a whole lot of other people simply being themselves, taking things to another level, creating and living a rare path.

All I need is a ship and a star to sail her by...

Well, kids. Been a long time.

About the time of my last post, the winds must have changed direction, for I have been far out to sea, not a star in sight.

Somehow I managed to pull anchor and set adrift, pulled this way and that by winds and sea and storms. The fog rolled in so subtly that I felt sure of my position, only realizing how far off course I had become when the rocks loomed closer and fear gripped me. My ship was in danger of running aground, or even worse, dashing itself apart to sink hopelessly into the wrecks of lifetimes past.

Had I not heard the call from the only voice that could reach me, I might have succumbed to the sounds of sirens and sea hags, beckoning me to join them. All is quiet down here, all is well. Just slip away into our depths... But that voice of my star was stronger, and though it would be so much easier to simply slip under, I held fast to the wheel, twisting frantically for a current that would pull me through.

I can't always see my star, but I know she shines just out of reach. I fight with my ship against the crashing waves and terrible currents, knowing that if I can only hold out until the storm passes, I will see that star guiding me back home.

I can see other ships in the distance, their lights fighting against the fog as my own light tries to cut through. Some can see my star, and they offer the only guidance besides raw faith. I know my ship, and though she seems to move in awkward fashion, she is strong and has weathered many storms. I live now only to see that star shine bright again, bringing me home, safely, where I belong.

Have faith, kids. Life's serving a heaping plate of crap to a lot of us right now. Be strong, stay on course, and follow your star. Tomorrow never comes, yesterday's already passed us by. Don't let go of the wheel, no matter how convincing the sirens.

Talk to you soon.

Bad Moon Rising...

Well, all the signs are there.
Either you're onboard with the Plan or you're picking songs for the last performance on the Titanic. Bon voyage, and I hope you packed something warm and waterproof.

Now, the wife has (as many other females have, I've been informed) an aunt names "Flo" that comes to visit about every 21 days... And I have my Lunacy.

Full moon madness!! Everything must Gooooooooooo! And I lose rational faculties for minutes, hours and sometimes DAYS. But it's s a good thing, I'll tell you, because when the Beast is in control, none of that civilized crap matters at all. Instinctual. Primal. Sensory. The Human Animal in all it's splendor. And possibly the most grounding of archetypes. When the Beast comes a'callin' I can rid myself of the burden of being a man.

Tribal shaman became the Beast to fight off attacks from the dark fringes of the Mud World, a system that has kep some tribes safe for tens of thousands of years. And somehow this noble and righteous cause is hardly represented in our culture at all. Nobody's patrolling the border. Nobody's on lookout for the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

And then there's me. I feel so hopelessly connected, constantly looking past the film and beyond, whether I want to or not. Senses are heightened, and aggression is my primary defensive strategy. No sense in trying to interject a well-crafted arguement at a time like this. It's part of the Job. Rational mind be damned. Time to go hunting...

... And I'm gone.

There's no earthly way of knowing, which direction we are going...


Watch each other's backs. DO what you can. And find something to hang on to.

Awakening to Being Awake

Blog update... Not that it matters. Not that one damn thing I say or do is going to make one miniscule change to your life. That’s not the point, I guess. So it doesn’t really matter if I’m full of shit or shining like a star. Either you hear me or you don’t. It’s just my job.

I got a back room in the brain, and it’s a far sight better than the crap that’s been shoveled at me lately. Now, I’m old hack when it comes to the curveball life can whip at you, but this is a new breed of effluence and reeks of high-grade manipulation. The Great Machine and it’s keepers have been working overtime and frankly it’s mucking up the Flow. Hey, I didn’t piss on their patio – leave me and mine to our own ends, and we’ll call it a day.

See, from the Back Room you can see out onto everything that is. But it’s a tiny friggin’ window and you have to find something to prop yourself up on to see anything through it. And you can’t come up the back stairs unless the door’s locked tight behind you. Just a keyhole to remind you of what’s waiting for you back in the Mud World. You can see EVERYTHING, but there’s no way you can take it back out the door. Just whatever fits through the keyhole, or a handful of trinkets. No notes, no photos, no streaming video. Just impressions and a nagging ache to share the view.

My wife’s running half-naked to the kitchen for a late-night snack. I’m propping myself up enough to hammer digits to the only fully-functional computer we own. (My wife has cats – I have computers.) I’m searching frantically for a stubby or the can of tobacco to roll another. Pop. Pinch. Spin. Clean. Paper. Twist. Seal. Just saved $4.50 on a pack of smokes. Fumble for the lighter – front left… nope. Gotta get up and search for the damn thing. Like it’s not as vital to my existence as my pocket knife and key ring. These are things I can take into and out of the Back Room, and are extensions of myself.

Ands somehow this is an enlightened life. Puking, “Oh, god I’ll NEVER do it again!!” heaving, wracked in hellish spasms in a state of mind that insists on screaming it will all be okay if I just rested on the cool, damp floor… Righteous existence, indeed. Saturday night with the Gang, last day of the work week, no food, and plenty of alcohol. At least I’m an amusing drunk. And it’s a rare day indeed when excess becomes wretched.

I don’t advocate not living – I also don’t believe reckless abandon helps you read into the Big Story. It’s a simple assignment. Question everything. As far as I can tell, it’s about re-examing EVERYTHING you’re taking in and putting out and finding a way to let chaos dictate your actions. Your life should be a controlled spiral into oblivion. If you’re not open to honest and critical examination, you’re not believing in your own brand of bullshit. Find the core of who you TRULY are by challenging everything you know about yourself.

Because that’s what this time is all about. This is AWAKENING – giving yourself a big enough window out of the Back Room that you can truly be a part of what’s coming down the pike. Surf’s up, my brothers and sisters – embrace everything about yourself that you hate. Salvation’s just outside that little window.

How I Learned to Love the Bomb, Yo!

It's almost 7 am on Saturday. The boys are up, so I'm up. Rambunctious sounds of potentially dangerous and/or costly mischief pull me out of the haze of too few hours asleep. It's the opposite issue from Wednesday, where I was in bed for eighteen hours, only able to sit upright for 15 minutes before falling back into bed, exhausted.

It's "The Bug".

Oddly enough, the human body has a limited capacity to handle and store stress and toxins! Seems that wasn't much of an issue until the past few years. Ridiculous amounts of alcohol and system-abusing behaviors just rolled off. Takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Well, so does the Universal Clock. So, staying awake until 2AM, searching for answers, then denying them with alcohol makes Rick a Dull Boy.

God is dead.

Well, let me try that again. Not all gods are dead, but the big ones are certainly on their last gasps. The Gods of War, Famine and the lot have certainly made their presence known. But they're false gods - they're on call for all the wrong reasons. No righteous wrath stuff here - just old, rich men seeking the last opportunities to be even richer. Good men, women and children die as the Machine chews on.

The God Money is dieing. Hell, by 9AM it could be halfway to the grave. It's not what it used to be, and it was never what we were told. Titans of industry, bar your doors from your monsters and the mob. Torches at the ready, screaming, "We don't need no water! Let the muthafukka burn!" Sweet anarchy, wrap me in thy electronic cloak.

The Internet God is dead. Nobody told you? The signal to noise ratio is so great that digging for truth is like finding a needle in a wire factory. Millions of avatars proclaiming they see the End in all, but the only answers presented are creating infinitely more questions. "Disaster Preparedness for Dummies -- A reference ebook for the rest of us!"

The American Dream is dead. The future that was is dead. Hope, Faith and Charity hanging on in psychic ICU. And everybody's got the Bomb but you and I. Or is there a ticking time bomb in your closet of skeletons?

Oh, we're all armed to the teeth with hate and discontent. That's a fairly potent weapon in its own right. So screw it -- fire it up, Holmes! Nuke the bastards. The old beliefs, that is. Put the round between the eyes of every last god we ever believed in. Psychic Revolution, my brothers and sisters! Let's REALLY rape and pillage the last weeks, months or years we have left on the Mud World. Be all you can be, if you set your sights low and believe the Man's been keeping you down. Let's burn that castle to the ground, revel in true human carnage and suffering, and then stand on the ashes wondering what the hell we do next. After all, the clear-cutting philosophy got us this far, right?

The end is nigh. Repent.

Here's how it's all going to go down. And I know this because this is the way it HAS to happen, because the falsehoods are being exposed for what they are. No matter what you believe, your illusions are about to be shattered in ways too horrible to mention. Life as we know it will simply cease to be -as we know it. The walls that kept us safely confined are failing, crumbling and fading away, leaving the masses too confused to find their way around the New World Order.

Your very lives will be threatened by lack of food, shelter and medical care. Big Daddy Government can no longer support its bastard children. We all have to fend for ourselves. Ill-prepared, some right out of the womb of Corporations, we will revert to the only part of us that cannot be denied - the survival animal. Rational thought, take a hike. What you gonna do when there's no Pizza Hut delivery and your neighbor wants to borrow a cup of whatever you've got stored in your pantry with a shotgun in his hands?

There was one relatively simple goal in the Grand Experiment. Let's hop the natives up on Intergalactic Mojo, stir gently, and set them free on the Mud World. Give them all the tools to thrive and grow spiritually as galactic citizens, or create their own extinction. ("Ahhh... You have chosen .... poorly...") And then let enough of us wake up to realize it's too damn late to fix anything - the process is beyond repair now. Too far down the rabbit hole to pretend we give a shit about one another. We could have been something great. Instead, we're Punk'd.

We did this to ourselves, be it through coercion, greed or flat-out ignorance. We wanted to believe the lies because the feeling of security and possible happily ever after is so much easier if it doesn't require any real effort. Why be a better human being when the the lesson is "cheat to win"? Fuck you, here's to me! The American Dream let loose like Pandora's folly.

Well, kids. It's the last Great Party. I'm bringing marshmallows.

Winter Solstice Came and Went and All I got Was This Lousy T-Shirt...

All right - this was verbatim from my Myspace blog, but it's as relevant right now as it was when I wrote it. It's the 9th, kids - watch your backs, keep your heads down and stay focused. We'll be all right...

When you love something, and you can't do it (ie tattooing), you start to get a little squirrely. And if you add to that how friggin' weird the winters have been lately, there's nothing to do but sit at home and lose your mind.

Not that I'm a stranger to that. I mean, the first couple of times are kind of a big deal. Post-war blues, relationship bs, bad days that last a month - I've weathered it all, more or less. But how much is too much? Is there that "one last time" that your mind snaps and you don't find your way home?

Ah, who cares. I'm just here for the snacks and the front row seats. The Chinese have a curse that roughly translates as, "May you live in interesting times". New President, same bs. Bread and circuses for everyone. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain because he's not putting gas in your tank or food on your table.

Which brings me back to being a tattoo artist, arguably a decent one, sitting on my ass watching YouTube and wasting time and wondering why I'm not doing what I do. Winter's always slow for tattoo artists. Regulars become irregular. Newbies buy diapers and off-road diesel and sleep with visions of tax refund checks dancing in their heads. Sure, I get the occasional straggler but this place is a ghost town. People are huddled in their beds, wishing it all just went away so we can be back to the way it used to be.

There is no "used to be". It was never the "Good Old Days. The Man has always held us down. We just forgot how to deftly extend our middle fingers and loudly proclaim, "Fuck it! I'm going fishing!" Those were the closest we ever had to the good old days, when we didn't give a damn about anything but living our lives.

My wife, under duress about my ability to leave the planet on a moment's notice, reminds me that there's only one place to be - with people you care about, that care about you, and share a common goal of survival and kinship. I don't give a rat's ass about global events unless it results in someone pissing in my pool. I don't play the stock market. I am not a mover or a shaker, unless the door is locked and the kids are in bed. I not a global citizen - I'm a guy that knows some people and wants to make sure they're taken care of. I grew up here, moved away, came back - there's no place like home.

When the New World Order knocks on your door, tell them you've "already got one - it's very nice!" Take care of one another. Watch their backs. Live locally and let the towers fall. Our purpose her is to be who WE are. High school drama's over, kids. Time to be who you are. DO what you do, damn the torpedos, and we'll all get through just fine.

P.S. Anyone need ink? I can use a couple of bucks and I'm in the mood to unleash some really creative shit. All reasonable barters considered, as long as it's food, fuel or things I can't do worth a shit.

Peace!

Other fish in the sea...

Desperation.

When I was a kid I would live in unsettled fear of everything. I feared water, I feared crowds, I feared change. In order to survive on Terra Firma, you need to adjust and adapt, and I learned hard that change is never something that you've planned for. And reacting in predictable ways to unpredictable situations often leads to beating your head against the wall.

What you learn from hitting the wall with your head repeatedly is:
1) It hurts. Every time.
2) The skull can (on occasion) take a surprising amount of damage.
3) Referencing #2, it's amazing what you can survive.
(See "empath","war", "medical field", "emt", "divorcee", "tattoo enthusiast", "father of five")

Your psyche has been beating itself senseless against the wall since your birth. You know you're seeing the Truth through a pinhole. That's what makes you different. But that's also what makes you tortured and unwilling to go with the tide.

Peer pressure keeps you in the net. Red fish, Blue fish - you are aware that you can make a choice in which color you present. Not too many people can live the hermit's life, away from the school. In order to communicate and interact with another human being, you need to establish a mutually acceptable form of exchanging information. We can never be sure of our choices and need validation for our very existence. The human spirit cannot live in a vacuum.
(See:"Being God's Eyes")

Now, your soul is screaming from every pore that the poo is about to catch the fan. Psychic adrenaline rushes through you -- "Get me the FUCK out of here!" We're speaking that language right now- you and I - as we mutually accept that I am sharing ideas and you have read this far. In a nutshell, the issue up for discussion is the Human Condition. And we're talking the End Of Life As We Know It.

The tools you carry with you on your journey up the mountain are based on information spoon-fed to you from birth, and has little to do with Truth, or what's really going on. Start being more selective about what enters the melon- the Truth is everywhere, but to know it puts you in immediate danger of scooting out of the Net. And it's not just going to slap you in the face saying, "Here I am! The Answer!"

Challenge everything -- the Truth cannot be hidden. But the problem is we're all going to have to find our own Truths, as my perfect wave is nothing like yours. And that, ironically, is why the Black Hats have already lost. The cubicle life of uniformity and servitude doesn't work for long. One sunny day you're going to realize how good the sun feels and the air smells and you're taking a recess and never coming back. Grab the board - the surf's looking like it's going to be a good day.

As I see it, there's a system at work, and as much as I can know, I believe in a world like this:

The soul farm's been here a long, long time. Old habits die hard. In this Garden of Eden, we're growing hate and misery - the tastiest of psychic produce! And there's a lot riding on an excellent harvest. PTB Inc. ("We Own You"tm) has invested tens, if not hundreds of thousands of years developing this fertile soil. Billions and billions served. The great cycle comes again and the biggest, juiciest gathering of human misery is right on the doorstep. But there's a snag that they can't get around: seems this farm's about to be repossessed by the land Herself, so she can retire comfortably after a job well done.
(see "reptilian shape-shifters, Illuminati, Bigfoot, UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster and the theory of Atlantis". )

But back to the mess we have to live with every day. Think of it as a pyramid scheme. Little squabbles down here become collected and feed the PTB Machine. SO, in order to maximize the harvest with the least amount of hands-on, PTB has signed on with the best and the brightest to control every avenue of information about REALITY. And it's working, kids. People are kept in a psychic coma, deprived of their own world view and encouraged to give up the tough job of decision making and self-preservation. TV, radio, mass media of all kinds telling you who and what you are - a commodity. A thing to be deprived of its true essence in order to become a more productive source of hate and discontent.

You are being herded towards reacting and responding in very predictable ways. Hide under the covers and ignore the hot breath of the Beast on your neck. Take up arms and hack away at the toes of the Beast. Crush yourself into a ball and withdraw entirely. So few take the path of passing between the cracks, surfing the Wave and slipping through the cogs. Because the information is not easy to access, the option to opt out is rarely considered, let alone implemented in the average mind.

The secret to all religions lies not in the heirarchy but in each of us. No gods without subjects. But what if you are a religion of one? To worship the part of you that connects to ALL THAT IS. The prophets spoke volumes about the power of faith, connectedness and unity with all things. And the notion that everything is exactly as it should be is paramount. Intelligent design or divine province, it matters not Padawan. Realizing you have God on speed-dial at al times is the key you need to see through the noise and distractions of PTB Inc.

Duality. Divisiveness. Us and Them. It's their primary strategy. Divide and conquer. Imprison without having to do the paperwork. The dollar has become the choke collar we hang ourselves with. We do not make them, we do not own them, we can only trade them at what we're told their worth.
(see: Seven Deadly Sins, Economics 101, The Hustler)

They want you to see the coming war. The rockets red glare by land, sea or air. Economic warfare. You owe debts via a contract you never signed, and you feel obligated (by force, I might add) to continue that toxic tradition. You are Owned. But you can't be owned. You can't sell your soul, at least not forever. You agree to play. So, change the Game. Screw the pawns. Ignore the King. Real strategy requires you to know your enemy and the rules in play.

Cloak of Invisibility, Hall of Mirrors

Hey, kids.

I've been thinking a lot about this one.

If you've made it this far, there's got to be something or other I said that got through to that, "Say, WHAT?!" part of the melon that connects us all. Let's face it -- the Big Guy has high-def cable running straight through your hat rack 24/7, and you're not getting maximum clarity because you bought your receiver and tv from PTB, Inc. ("We OWN You!"tm).

It's that nagging feeling. That sense that everything is just not right. War is raging. You have to take sides...

Nope. Duality is inherently divisive. The TRUTH doesn't play for any team. And we're reaching for TRUTH, aren't we? Answers to all the "why"s. A blueprint for blue skies. And rose colored glasses that can see through lies. And the kicker is, in order for there to be Truth (and a reason to look for it) there have to be forces of war and human suffering.

Friction creates change. Opposites attract, and that dynamic is what keeps the wheels spinning. We exist because the entire Universe is made up of uncountable pushes and pulls in all things. And they all follow the same tune. Your gods all sing the same song, but in different keys.

*Pause for the "WTF?!" moment...* And we're walking...

The fine folks at PTB, Inc. ("We OWN You!"tm) are in fact doing all they can, through any means necessary, to harvest human emotional energy in an orgiastic display of soul-sucking glee. And it's the nastiest energies that get their motors running. Fear, anger, greed -- the seven deadly sins funneled off to a society of energy leeches that control the world!!! *diabolical laugh*

If they were to talk a lowly member the Herd, we'd hear how their kind can't survive without our hellish pick-me-ups. And they're not violating our Free Will any more than we would raising an animal to slaughter. If that is somethings purpose, then no harm and no foul.

Enter, well... all of us. A fly in the ointment, if you will. They recognize that some of us may not sing the tune, but we can hear it same as they can. Playing the Game properly means knowing the rules, and they have the upper hand. "An it harm none, so mote it be." Free Will is a Truth. One of the biggies. And nobody at that level of the Game wants the backlash of denying a sentient being their right to make a choice.

The Bad Guys play by the Rules?!
Of course they do. But they'll skate right up to the absolute line and tease ya with a little guilty pleasure. YOU make the decision to cross the line, and PTB Inc. now holds a lease on your misery. The Bad Guys from Space are very well-versed in getting puppets to do their nastiness. Keeps their hands clean, and (by their interpretation of the Rules) they haven't actually harmed anyone directly.

Know Thy Enemy.
They do bad things because doing Bad Things gets them closer to the the Really Big Tune. Like getting into the attic from either side of the ladder, they're reaching for Truth, too. We've grown to accept the notion that all things are cut and dried, black or white. Duality feeds their machine. Conflict. Divided countries, races, families. They will exercise any means available to them to perfect their path to the Truth. Because when you climb the hill far enough, there's an infinite number of staircases leading to the spot you stand on the Path.

So, THEY want to cause pain, suffering and general misery for all of us because that's what they do to survive and glow as sentient beings. You have made a conscious decision to opt out of the Game they set up by refusing to play. But the system exists at so many levels that it's impossible to avoid confrontation. You are being repressed, you can see the System at work, and you're backed into a corner. What can you do?

We all give off a vibe. That's our own special Mojo working, and it's tasty! Our gracious hosts are aparently lactose-intolerant when it comes to the better virtues. It just doesn't have the same snap! of the nasty hatred and bickering. So make yourself not so emotionally appealing. Be aware of the vibe you put out and deny any intrusion that challenges your Free Will.

Pay your bills. Live your life. Play the Game. Find conditions favorable to becoming who you truly are. It's not about giving a life for a cause, it's living a life for a cause. There are conditions that we simply will not be able to change, because it denies the Bad Guys their opportunity to rise above their manipulations and evolve. Their systems are in place, and we cannot tear them down. This is their end game, and the Game requires their hand gets played. Find the places between, where the song can still be heard. Look beyond a problem, difficulty or challenge. You are not food. You are here, under these conditions, because it's the best place for you to become who you are. The fight is lost if you can't hear the Song in the heat of battle.

Oedipus plays the Blues

Oedipus plays the Blues

Blindness, kids.

Sometimes a curse can be a blessing.

The closest I've ever been to blind is losing a contact lens, or that ill-fated attempt to remove the scratches from my only glasses with a power tool.

Justice is blind. Love is blind. Why do all the good and righteous things have no eyes?

The point (to the extent I ever have a point) is that recently I've been wondering if it would be easier to simply not have the faculty at all than to try and plow through the noise to really SEE what the hell's going on.

Red fish, blue fish. Isn't it all just shades of gray anyways? Swim with the school or stand out, ostracized, forced to make your own way in the sea of supposition.

Here's the thing: There's no Lasix to fix our myopia. We're 20/300 trying to figure out what the big blur on the horizon has in store for us.

TRUTH cannot be hidden, at least not entirely. The best lies are based on fact. We have the ability to see what's REALLY, TRULY REAL, but it's going to look different depending on the rose-colored glasses we're peering through. Designer labels slapped right over the peepholes. Can you see the sun through your Time-Warner bifocals?

All these words and still I've said nothing.

We intuitively know that we're bigger, better and greater than what we appear to be. We convince ourselves that we can rise above the sludge of the PTB, Inc's Work Camps. But they own the Canteen, They own the Showers. They own the Optometrist. They own the air itself. They own the mirrors that you use to justify yourself as a living, breathing human entity.

Blindness is your gift. Be blind to anything that needs to be seen to exist. Be deaf to anything that exists only to hear itself. What you're looking for is buried so far down the rabbit hole their compact fluorescents can't pentrate.But trust me - when you hear the blues, you're close... Damn close. Take a left past the "Exit Only" sign and run like hell.

You are not owned. You are not property. You are not simply a prisoner within a meat-puppet, herded like lemming-sheep to be sheared and sacrificed. Quantum interfaces link the meaty you to the YOU out there. Stop looking for the lost contact. There's plenty of light between cathode and anode. You're looking out there - it's blurry, fuzzy and will never come into focus enough for you to see Truth. Look between the shags on the shitty carpet - you'll find a way to see more clearly than you can possibly imagine.

In The Land Of The Blind

January 19, 2009

In The Land of the Blind...

In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.

We're all sitting on our collective asses, watching them grown rounder and we can't figure out why we're here, what we're doing, and what we do next. Who am I? Why am I here? What the f*ck is going on?

Don't blame me - you signed on for this.

Man. I've spent so much time riding the wave that I forgot to step out and smell the flowers. I mean, there's a reason we're here and now, kids. If ye be seeking excitement and adventure, then have I got a deal for you.
I know what you're feeling - sort of. All I can say that I'm an artist, dammit! Creating things is where I get my "what for". The Flow, chi, prana - all good and right and friggin' dy-no-mite! What gets your brain switched off and your mind switched on. You need that - crack for the soul.

The Reason for Being:
Call me what you will, and you'll be wrong. I like to think I am an "Artist", but I define myself by an anchor of opinion. If a tree falls in the forest, and there's no one there to hear it, I don't get to be an Artist. In Reality, I just am. No points of comparison - I am unique, as we all are. Understand - you can never live up to an ideal. When you categorize, you make assumptions which may or not be True. Your personality and sense of who you are is made up of a whole lot of assumptions. The reason you're miserable and fumbling for answers is you have intuitive knowledge that there's a universe of assumptions.

Then you start to understand the concept of Infinite.

*****

You can feel it in everything - there's a wave coming. History doesn't help us - we're in uncharted waters here. The Powers That Be ("PTB Inc. - We OWN You!") always puts out it's "A" game, but lately it seems a bit forced, rushed. Government-subsidized friggin' DIGITAL television?! Intake and output, psychological profile, cataloged and risk-assessed for your protection. Their protection. PTB Inc. seems to be suffering the same market downturn that their mechanisms down here on Terra Firma are afflicted with. Time to roll out the Big Guns and get to work pulling in their recruits for the new easier-to-digest Grand Plan. It's all or nothing at this point - the end of the Act.

People are waking up. Newborns. The PTB Inc. Acquisition Department is in overdrive, and you're going to be tempted by the low, low sticker price. Be a selfish bastard. Be YOU. You want to help your fellow man? Help them to be THEMSELVES.

You are not PROPERTY. You are not OWNED. Their is no lien on you, no unrecoverable debt. By Church or by Congress ye shall be OWNED. Say it ain't so -- no, really. Say it ain't so. And it won't be.

No, Billy can NOT come out to play.

Your pain is that you're missing the point - we came here to ride this one out. Me personally, I'd like to head on down the trail like Slim Pickins in Dr. Strangelove. Yee haw, y'all.

The smallest step forward is infinitely greater than no step taken at all.

Start walking...