Rusty Leashes en sus ojos

My brain is a monkey crack factory.  Thinking.  Thinking.  Intention, values...The values that we beam out of our eyes when we look out into the world from our head caves.  Unawares of the same eyes peering from other head caves crawling all over the skin like a million little beetles (Indiana Jones...ha). 

Dog leashes.  People leashes.
Everyone has a leash, but some are tied to a faraway wrist somewhere.  Some are tied to the wearer's wrist, even.  Some have more slack, some are chains.  Barbed wire collars, even, some of them.  Electro-shock collars.  Collars made of silk yarn.  Cat guts, violin strings, twisted paper bags.  Any and all materials can become a leash. 


So how does the leash become tied to the wrist and do we have a choice which master we find ourselves tethered to?  There's a power, a tug of war, for our own right to run free.

Or do we seek out wrists to tie ourselves to?  As distraction, lack of confidence, or some other mental block that has us thinking we need to be tethered to something other than our aware selves.
See, the leash has many effects upon the dog.  Leashes can:
restrict
balance
protect
confuse
control
bind

All neither good nor bad.  It's just the function of the leash.  Sometimes leashes can save us from danger--acting as a reminder to keep our bones in proper order, mainining our locomotions within society in order to function as efficiently as possible.  Together the wrist that holds the leash and the wearer of the leash chug along together at an unspoken agreed upon pace--making small sacrifices to join together as one locomotive.

But once the structure of society--a blueprint of how, when, and hwere to locomate--becomes internalized, the leash is no longer necessary (seemingly...or, it is no longer visual, anyway).  And often some are trapped by the illusion of their own free will.  The illusion of leashlessness.  When really, is it not plausible to say that since this internalization of external values, the leash has coiled in so close around the heart, lungs, psyche, that it suffocates the natural wild body--black poison drying in the cracks of sand, stained.

Drying, depleting resources of the human body--the mind, the entire cycle is robbed of an important element of intuition.  Societal values have dried up some of the great seeds humans are capable of planting within themselves and others.  The wells of authenticity have run dry a little bit--an overwhelming trend sometimes, in some places.

The goal from teh getgo is to protect, nourish, and water the seeds of authenticity and good intent--yet the soul becomes clouded with shards.  Shards of glass and dried up greed and fear--the saliva of the ego.

My leashes are invisible
Self induced,
Yet lifesavers.

Some lucky to have slack.  A comfy collar.
A nametag--phone and address.
Shows somebody cares.
However, to be given a name, an owner, a choker is to be a tethered entity.  Where's choice?  Does it matter?  We're all starting out with the same broken down tool shed anyways.  Just with different tools, different rusts covering the eyes.

La Loba

 I've been thinking of bones lately.  Skeletons--specifically Skeleton Woman.  A wild-woman mythical archetype (I'm reading Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D.).  Check it:

She had done something of which her father disapproved, although no one any longer remembered what it was. But her father had dragged her to the cliffs and thrown her over and into the sea. There, the fish ate her flesh away and plucked out her eyes. As she lay under the sea, her skeleton turned over and over in the currents.

One day a fisherman came fishing, well, in truth many came to this bay once. But this fisherman had drifted far from his home place and did not know that the local fisherman stayed away, saying this inlet was haunted.

The fisherman's hook drifted down through the water, and caught of all places, in the bones of Skeleton Woman's rib cage. The fisherman thought, "Oh, now I've really got a big one! Now I really have one!" In his mind he was thinking of how many people this great fish would feed, how long it would last, how long he might be free from the chore of hunting. And as he struggled with this great weight on the end of the hook, the sea was stirred to a thrashing froth, and his kayak bucked and shook, for she who was beneath struggled to disentangle herself. And the more she struggled, the more she tangled in the line. No matter what she did, she was inexorably dragged upward, tugged up by the bones of her own ribs.

The hunter had turned to scoop up his net, so he did not see her bald head rise above the waves, he did not see the little coral creatures glinting in the orbs of her skull, he did not see the crustaceans on her old ivory teeth. When he turned back with his net, her entire body, such as it was, had come to the surface and was hanging from the tip of his kayak by her long front teeth.
"Agh!" cried the man, and his heart fell into his knees, his eyes hid in terror on the back of his head, and his ears blazed bright red. "Agh!" he screamed, and knocked her off the prow with his oar and began paddling like a demon toward shoreline. And not realizing she was tangled in his line, he was frightened all the more for she appeared to stand upon her toes while chasing him all the way to shore. No matter which way he zigged his kayak, she stayed right behind, and her breath rolled over the water in clouds of steam, and her arms flailed out as though to snatch him down into the depths.

"Agh!" he wailed as he ran aground. In one leap he was out of his kayak, clutching his fishing stick and running, and the coral white corpse of skeleton woman, still snagged in the fishing line, bumpety-bumped behind right after him. Over the rocks he ran, and she followed. Over the frozen tundra he ran, and she kept right up. Over the meat laid out to dry he ran, cracking it to pieces as his mukluks bore down.

Throughout it all she kept right up, in fact, she grabbed some of the frozen fish as she was dragged behind. This she began to eat, for she had not gorged in a long, long time. Finally, the man reached his snowhouse and dove right into the tunnel and on hands and knees scrabbled his way into the interior. Panting and sobbing he lay there in the dark, his heart a drum, a mighty drum. Safe at last, oh so safe, yes, safe thank the Gods, Raven, yes, thank Raven, yes, and all bountiful Sedna, safe... at...last.

Imagine when he lit his whale oil lamp, there she - it - lay in a tumble upon his snow floor, one heel over her shoulder, one knee inside her rib cage, one foot over her elbow. He could not say later what it was, perhaps the firelight softened her features, or the fact that he was a lonely man... but a feeling of some kindness came into his breathing, and slowly he reached out his grimy hands and using words softly like a mother to child, began to untangle her from the fishing line.

"Oh, na, na, na." First he untangled the toes, then the ankles. "Oh, na, na, na." On and on he worked into the night, until dressing her in furs to keep her warm, Skeleton Woman's bones were all in the order a human's should be.

He felt into his leather cuffs for his flint and used some of his hair to light a little more fire. He gazed at her from time to time as he oiled the precious wood of his fishing stick and rewound the gut line. And she in the furs uttered not a word - she did not dare - lest this hunter take her out and throw her down to the rocks and break her bones to pieces utterly.

The man became drowsy, slid under his sleeping skins, and soon was dreaming. And sometimes as humans sleep, you know, a tear escapes from the dreamer's eye; we never know what sort of dream causes this, but we know it is either a dream of sadness or longing. And this is what happened to the man.

Skeleton Woman saw the tear glisten in the firelight and she became suddenly soooo thirsty. She tinkled and clanked and crawled over to the sleeping man and put her mouth to his tear. The single tear was like a river and she drank and drank and drank until her many-years-long thirst was slaked.

While lying beside him, she reached inside the sleeping man and took out his heart, the mighty drum. She sat up and banged on both sides of it: Bom Bomm!.....Bom Bomm!

As she drummed, she began to sing out "Flesh, flesh, flesh! Flesh, Flesh, Flesh!" And the more she sang, the more her body filled out with flesh. She sang for hair and good eyes and nice fat hands. She sang the divide between her legs, and breasts long enough to wrap for warmth, and all the things a woman needs.

And when she was all done, she also sang the sleeping man's clothes off and crept into his bed with him, skin against skin. She returned the great drum, his heart, to his body, and that is how they awakened, wrapped one around the other, tangled from their night, in another way now, a good and lasting way.

The people who cannot remember how she came to her first ill fortune say she and the fisherman went away and were consistently well fed by the creatures she had known in her life under water. The people say that it is true and that is all they know.

Now here's my take on a few passages that stuck out to me (they ALL of course could be picked apart...but you know..)

The fisherman thought, "Oh, now I've really got a big one! Now I really have one!"
Trophy wife, anyone?

The image of being "tugged up by the bones of her own ribs" is a gripping one.  The woman, chest protruding, helpless, rib-cage first, is being hoisted up in a vulnerable position.  The more she tried to fight, the more she had to submit.  Submission Submission, while rising from the water.  Even as women seem to "rise" in society, there is still submission at play.  Settling for lower wages than men, the glass ceiling that points so many fingers, the sexual harassment that creates power dynamics and creates knots in the stomach.  These things happen to everyone--more than just women.  But WOMEN is just a category anyway.

"Her entire body, such as it was, had come to the surface and was hanging from the tip of his kayak by her long front teeth."  The image of teeth in dreams analysis (and I'm sure elsewhere as well) symbolizes control.   Sometimes I have dreams about my teeth falling out--which I see as a reflection of a loss of control in my waking life.  Teeth--biting, tearing, defense mechanisms.  The woman strung up by her own mouth--incapable of speaking, feeding, living.   The woman hanging by her teeth has been robbed of an entire sense, an entire part of her body and her psyche arrested and held captive.



"And she in the furs uttered not a word - she did not dare - lest this hunter take her out and throw her down to the rocks and break her bones to pieces utterly."
 The man gave her furs, gave her comfort, gave her THINGS, and of course her role is to take them, lest he up and decide he wants to get rid of her (what choice does she have anyway?).  A disposable, collapsible, structure of bones draped in fur, a symbol of wealth, prosperity, warmth, comfort--a heavy cloak draped and appreciated in fear. 



The Skeleton Woman seeing the "tear glisten in the firelight" and becoming "suddenly soooo thirsty" --> DESIRE.  Women's natural propensity to CONSUME.  To be drawn to shiny things that "glisten" and namely, to take from the man (a woman's succubus nature).

Yet in the end, the two experience a give and take--push pull of relationship.  Push pull of the power struggle between man and woman (and whatever 3rd sex may exist out of bags of bones).
Push pull, seeking balance (between the power dynamics of sex & gender) like dodging roman candles.

Tap Tappy Bangy Bango World News! Zippitydoodah.

This is not a surprise to anyone, I'm sure, but I feel so compelled to reiterate that the News is ridiculous.  I dig msnbc.com (my homepage), but today I feel meh about them.
Here's why:

(Update: Misty finally learns to use the toilet!)

The first damn image I saw when I opened Firefox was a picture of Casey Anthony, who has just been found not guilty of the murder of her toddler, Caylee.  It looks like something that could be in a tabloid, like a photo of Amy Winehouse and her sugary snacks...

The whole case is OJ Simpson 2.0--a media fuckplot of "look how awful this woman is", "her car smelled like blood", and laying out the protagonist/antagonist, Casey, as a "young partying mom," showing indulgent photos--again, the tabloid jpg.  An MSNbc article goes through all the twists and turns of the case...blahblah.  Character development, reality tv twist, add in some sex and a POW courtroom scene... The curtain never goes down with these cats.

And there's even a few humble paragraphs condemning the media for treating it like a dopeshow (this is the touching part where the audience sweats a little and then exhibits compassion, realizing that MSNbc knows not what it does..we're all hypocrites sometimes). 

I was feeling kinda down about my negligence towards news and current events since my home has been unwired to the outside world.  But I'd rather read the lines on a wooden table than subject myself to tapdancing News.  All singing, all dancing, World News.
Someone should just make a really loud speaker and have people blow their noses into it.

The Subpoolular Siren's Song...

These people make me nervous (THESE people?!  Who the fuck are THESE people?  Am I THOSE people??!).  Living in fear, they are; no, I live in fear.  Nervousness is my reaction to their selves.  And who's fault is that? Well, not fault, but who's intention is that? (Mine, Yours? OURS?) 
My own?  No --> Nervousness is an involuntary response to a perceived threatening situation.  Developed as a survival mechanism to sense any possible danger (a threat is a threat)!
So what am I running from (afraid of)?  All of this is a piece of my life because it is a piece of this world.  I cannot reject it.  Nor do I have to fully accept it.  Who am I to judge it, reject it, or embrace it?  Am I an EYE?  Certainly not.  We're all the EYE.  We see, witness, and react --we have no other choice beyond the present.

If I choose to reject any experience because it is superficial or simply "not my scene" then I am just as judgmental as I perceive them to be (we ALL have perceptions of judgment, survival skill and natural means of categorization in the brain, whatever the hell that is). 

I can rebel rebel rebel rebel rebel "REBEL REBEL BITCH BITCH REBEL REBEL PARTY PARTY SEX SEX SEX AND DON'T FORGET THE VIOLENCE" (MM).  Or I can sit at the bottom of the pool and laugh.  Why should I not?  Laps of luxury will be what they are.  And I love to swim.


 - I thought about this at the bottom of the pool at the Beverly Hills hotel.  I was so upset.  Pissed to be there around these/those/(our) people, circling my body with their ojos.  The center of objectification is at the Beverly Hills hotel pool.  But Hot damn, it is interesting to witness.  Older housewives with cocktails whispering to each other with that heavy SSSsssssssss sounds coming from them that is a dead giveaway they're gossiping.  "Ssssssssshee sssssaid thaaatSSSSSHSHS?!"  Foxy foxy bad actresses dicking around with their fame and power, while they donate money to "some random children's charity" from an iPhone app.  Old men putting on their goggles underwater to watch the jaildickbaters "swim off" those fries while dented paper-towel roll women stared at my beer and veggie burger with bloody savage eyes.

(picture: Underwater Fantasy by Elena Kalis)

Ken-doll cabana boys moving shade onto rich rich oil wrinkled bodies.  But the most peculiar thing of all is that all the monkeys were faced inward, towards the center spactacle of the cage (the pool) and all of them were constantly looking around cocked heads, paranoid, at the possibility that there may be "SOMEONE" there.  WHO?!  Are THEY there?  How can they be there when they're off looking for SOMEONE else to get there?

The point is, just because someone lives a different lifestyle, whether it's luxurious, shitty, fucked up, dangerous, gaudy, cheesy, utterly insane, or just peaceful--we never know what they may be whispering to themselves when they sit at the bottom of pools.

And the place had underwater music.  No music above water.  Just under it, where it kinda stings to open your eyes.  But hot damn, is it lovely.

Today I say fuck it.

I got rid of my TV.  Got rid of my internet.  Got rid of fucking everything that I was holding onto for some masochistic self-deprecating reasons.  Some that now I can't even think of justifying.  Life is too short to be so invaded every fucking day by shit that tells you you aren't good enough.  God forbid you're not some dumb dancing monkey who puts on a good show of being "put together" and a "good AmrRRican" or any sort of valued object.  Human beings are not objects...don't know if that's news but it seems to me that people treat themselves like objects more often than they'd like to think.

No one has their shit together.  It's just a nice little show.  Some people actually have balance, but it's a fragile, delicate awareness.  Others are just really good at "being" something--chasing  an identity like it's a fucking religion.

The idea of an institution of thought or belief keeps people safe.  It's comforting to think you know shit.  Then you think you're really something, huh.  Smartass. 

I have a french punk song called "Je ne se pas" (I don't know).  It's fun.  Because it's the most down to fucking earth song ever.  I think everyone should scream something they don't know every single day and be glad they don't know anything so living remains a little line of surprises (a box of fucking chocolate, or confetti snakes, pickles, whatever you dig...).

(photo credit Olivia Locher, FILE MAGAZINE 2009, http://www.filemagazine.com/thecollection/archives/2009/07/road_kill_human.html)

I saw a dog get hit by a car today.  Just clipped it.  Saw a white fluff fly up from the tire and plop back down, spitting blood.  It was almost as if the dog had to die to survive.  He had to surrender his body, all of his being, to the moment.  The moment of puking up blood.  The moment of twitching with shock.  Blood loss--light headedness.  Being carried in a bloody jacket to a patch of grass next to a gas station in Beverly Hills only to shake and spit up more blood.  Complete surrender to the heinous.  The grotesque truth of the very moment that any of us could be returned to the elements just as fast as the car whipped and spat out the cotton ball dog.  Surrender to the moment.  Taste the blood while it still pumps through you.  It's a gift.

Boobs schmoobs, penis shmenis.

Most memorable piece of information from my junior year anthropology class: Female bonobos are down for gg-rubbing (genital-genital rubbing between two or more females). 
Around Angelenos I see more women grinding up against each other than horny 12 year olds in a schoolyard.  A bit reminiscent of those videos from my anthropology class...

And they aren't all lesbians, dykes, farmschmallers, ech0-teeny-pops, whathaveyou...

Sexual fluidity is a cool phenomenon--but is there some sort of social/psychological priming behind it?    Women are so highly sexualized and objectified in our society, how can you not find them smoking hot, beautiful, or just do-able?   

We've been hit with beauty propaganda straight from birth--pink shit, Barbies, makeup, etc… The funny thing is that gender is so subjective.  Parents immediately force an identity upon their kids of who they want them to be based on their own preferences, often times very narcissistic and sprinkled with neuroses. 

It's sad how many kids grow up acting being little live-mirrors of their parents.  They never questioned what was given to them but simply took it as the reality and the easiest option.  If someone gives you an identity, it takes away that burden that America feeds on--the drive to BECOME--to BE this or that (gay/straight/a lawyer/an alcoholic, etc).  It is definitely easier for a child who's trying to acclimate and be accepted.  But it's just a local peak of growth--spiritual, intellectual, emotional.  Unfortunately, akin to Kohlberg's stages of moral development, the majority of people (in America, if my experiences hold merit) tend to fall short on the spectrum.

But back to sexual identity and gender:
Why are we to assume that just because a little boy has a penis that he also has to like trucks, sports, and of course, the sport of womanizing.  There's no difference between that and any sort of racial or ethnical judgment.  Why uphold these arbitrary rules of categorization?  We have to KNOW, we have to PLACE people in order to brace ourselves for who we think they are or should be.  It's a rejection of their true self and how can we be fully present if we're just projecting what we'd like to see in people? 

Do you like carrots or celery?  How we value, express, and see ourselves and others is simply a preference, so chill the fuck out. 

Coffeeshop man likes to bitch...bitch...bitch....

Just got the artwork done.  BAM.  Put it on Amazon and Imma be (immabeimmaimmaimmabee - the black eyed peas) a rich man. 

 - Quoth a crazy ass midwestern dude at a coffeeshop in LA.  Sofuckingposh.  I don't know what's worse: this annoying guy's fucking ego or the fact that every time I say Imma be I think about that damn song and Fergie's legs)

I love/hate how peep come to LA--or really any big enough city with a mild, drug-induced art scene--to be delusional as if its acceptable because he/she/it is an artYst.

Ego. Ego.    
Do we really need to tell ourselves hopeful fantasies about the future in order to enjoy ourselves now?  What are we reaching for here?

I say "we" because I, too am guilty of clinging to the stupid lifting labels I sometimes identify with.  It's hard not to jump on the bandwagon under social pressure (and I transform into actor, musician, weirdo, Gir from Invader Zim.  So we're all in the same pants here…metaphorically, virtually, web-o-centrically, whatever.

This kind of future-focused thinking is not conscious.  Who or what are we trying to be and why?  What more do we have to be than ourselves?! 

And if you have to "become" something, who says?  The voice of your mother or father  who would gave up when they had kids and now place pressure on your shoulders to make the family name a franchise?

Do you really need to become something to be happy?  Fuck no.  I'm pretty sure I'm already a human being with a bigass brain capacity and the ability to do something rad for the world or help at least one person in the very least.   

This may be an argument for lethargy or abusing the welfare system (if you're a lazy, ignorant bastard), BUT how such mindfulness is carried out is not my point here.  The point is: we can easily be awake, physically; we are not awake mentally and mostly, AUTHENTICALLY.

I say authentic as a conglomeration of intellect and physicality.  A combo of your inner essence and artistic or intellectual gifts.  Recognize them.  Realize that you are fucking perfect just as you are.   There's is no where to go and nothing to be.  The essence is not disturbed (<--totally not my line, Kerouac's Buddha Poems).

So back to this dude at the coffee shop that struck such a nerve in me: be appreciative, you dick.  Seriously, Look the fuck around, we're sitting in an air-conditioned room with franchise-cups that came all the way from China--this fucking piece of plastic has witnessed more of the world than you have--hell, at least it knows it's purpose and performs it well.  And you're sitting in your comfy chair with your latte complaining that your life isn't ____ enough.  What _____ enough??!!!  What more do you want? 

We live in a very very fortunate world (kiss the sun thank you), and being appreciative is everything.  But it has to be authentic.  So breathe and relax--embrace the air around you.  Let the eyes share the warmth.


Thich Nhat Hanh.  A lot of this is inspired by his writings.