More Barn

Quoting Graham Nash: "I once went down to Neil's ranch and he rowed me out into the middle of the lake -- putting my life in his hands once again. He waved at someone invisible and music started to play, in the countryside. I realized Neil had his house wired as the left speaker, and his barn wired as the right speaker. And Elliot Mazer, his engineer, said 'How is it?' And Neil shouted back...

"More Barn!"


Oh, do you remember when a guitar solo could take you away...

'Once I thought I saw you in a crowded hazy bar,
Dancing on the light from star to star.
Far across the moonbeam I know that's who you are,
I saw your brown eyes turning once to fire.'

And not just any guitar solo, not the stock guitar solo #15--for we quickly bored of that kind--our appetite for rapture growing by the minute...but the one that connected us to our inner cores, the one that buoyed us up on astral planes, for weeks, months, years...the one that led us into the streets proclaiming the Oneness, the Oneness inside, the one that not only shielded us but also gave us a sword against the world outside.

The one that introduced us to the transcendent possibilities of ourselves.

The one that caused us to clear out entire parties by sneaking the 20-minute live bootleg version of Prove it All Night onto the stereo, jumping up on the furniture, playing our imaginary 'Beer Saxes' and proclaiming loudly that it aint no sin to be glad you're alive.

The one that lit our inner wick, the one that set us on fire, the one that enhanced us.

The one that made us burn Terry's Yes albums in a rebellious effigy against all mediocrity, thoughtless conformity and mindless entertainment.

The one that made McGeehee say What will this do to me?

The one that made Jack say Put the Ball in the hoop, Chief!

The one that made Bobby say: are you talking reality with a little r or a big R?

The one that made us dance on the graves of the Fraudulent Corpses as we called them--those poor souls beaten down by the Bam Thud of life. The one that made us vow never to become them.

The one that made us drive all night just to kill a few Palmetto bugs and to buy our loves some shoes and a jar of Tupelo honey.

The one that made us perform a strange ritual against the setting sun. The four of us holding hands in a circle in an attempt to ward off the dissolution of love.

The one that ensured that our college assignments never got in the way of our education. The one that made us chuckle ironically at the professor who tried to explain D.H. Lawrence's ideas while all we wanted to do was go experience them.

The one that made us think that we could avoid the fate of all the others.

The one that haunts us even today.

The one that gave us our humanity.

And when the world becomes too much with us:

'Do not say the moment was imagined;
Do not stoop to strategies like this.'

Step into the light and scream: More Barn!

Two Old Men and a Lake

Off in a little corner of one of Dante's lesser known rings, you know, the one for writers:

Ernie H. and Billy F. still aren't talking to each other.

Every day they get into some sort of contest for which the prize is a beautiful woman who comes every day to check their progress, and to see if they have solved the great riddle that will allow them to move on. She--who may or may not be played by Hugh Grant's ex--has supplied them with the hint that the solution is to be found in each other's work.

Ernie won't even look up from his fishing rod, which is cast way out into some reddish glowing lake, apparently borrowed from the set of a wildly underbudgeted C movie. And though Billy F. is beaming inside--after all he had gotten the better flow in the latest pissing contest and had come out the victor--he silently concentrates on the sawing and hammering of a certain box he is constructing.

Finally, Ernie exclaims: "Next time, we're gonna arm wrestle for her!"

Billy can't help but laugh.

"What's so damn funny?"

Billy chuckles some more.

"What? 'Cause you know I always win."

"Cause i let you." Billy replied.

"Let me!?? Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa."

"I wouldn't want you to kill yourself or anything."

Ernie tries to hoist the rod in Billy's direction, but it gets caught somewhere in the depths of that C movie set.

Interminable silence ensues. Ernie stews quietly.

Lost in their own thoughts, they begin to contemplate the mystery.

Until finally Ernie spews: 'Goddamnit, Bill, where's the verb?"

And Billy replies: "Hmm...that's the flow, Ernie. The flow. Go with it. The voices take over.'

Ernie: "The flow? Voices? Jesus, keep that shit to yourself. It just ain't natural."

Billy: "Well, you know you could use a few more adjectives here and there."

And a celestial choir of angels sings! The lake flashes from red to blue. 200 large marlin fly in a glorious arc before gracefully hitting the water again. A French judge somewhere stands, ovates and gives it an absolute 10. Several one-arm bandits all over Reno go ching ching ching. (Well, only 2 fish actually managed to jump, and one should totally ignore the scratching that accompanied the angels' song).

But then Ernie spoke:

Ernie: "Hell no, keep it terse, concise..."

Bill: "...and stiff?"

Ernie: "Goddamn right."

And everything returned to 'normal' and back to the way it was. Back to the way it always is.

And She enters, as she always does, and says in a flirtatious voice tinged with disappointment, as it always is:

'You almost had it there, boys. You're gonna be here an awful long time until you learn to share."

And as she bends over in all her archetypal glory to refill their flasks, the last thing they have on their mind is sharing.

They don't seem to mind that they aren't going anywhere.

The Great Dialectic

'No, I don't read the philosophers. I don't understand the philosophers.'
Samuel Beckett

Marek, talking to non-Marek, mused on about a Dane haunted by a ghost, and other things beyond my comprehension.

And I was reminded of this sea of opposites that we all must navigate through. And Camus' great paradox.

And Martin's realization at the end of Candide: We are either in the throes of distress or the doldrums of boredom.

And I thought of Homer's Ulysses and his choice of either Scylla or Charybdis--

but, most of all, I thought of Buster Keaton and his choice between 500 huge boulders avalanching his way and 500 would-be brides gaining momentum right behind.

And that classic double take. And that quick decision to take the rocks!

Village Idiots

'Don't you know he's onto something
You can see it, you can see it in his eyes
Sometimes he looks so happy
As he goes strolling by
Village idiot, he's complicated
Village idiot, simple mind
Village idiot, he does know something
But he's just not saying'

Van Morrison, Village idiot


If he could speak, what might he say? Oh, but he can't, for then he'd be sensible, and no idiot at all.

Or if we could strip away the barriers of our own conscious egos,
rip away all that we call reason. Dance naked in the jungle.
With no doctrines, no ideals, no leaps of faith. Would we then be idiots?

Could we then return?

To our natural state of wonder. Our natural state of grace. That undivided, all-encompassing grace. That was neither within nor without, for there were no distinctions.

Only experience.

And were the Romantic poets, the Transcendentalists, Van Gogh, all idiots?

Just what was in that grass, Walt? And those sunflowers, Vince?

Gnostic revelation or madness?

A certain quality of light.

And I'm caught.

For it's not the world we idiots want. It's something more.

Voltaire Kneels

'You gotta either take more of it or less of it..i'm not sure which.' Jackson Browne

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

No way! Voltaire did not get down on his knees and ask for a priest????

Oh yes..on his dying bed.

Stop it. I'm busting a gut here.

Could you keep your desperation down a bit? I'm trying to get some rest here, Thoreau mumbled.

And you gotta love the atheists. Because God knows they are the only ones that have ever been near a Cross.

And you gotta love all those believers, too...cuz you know we need the eggs.

And you gotta love the fundamentalists...

Wait. I aint got that much love. No wonder Jesus had an all-too-human moment. And must cry now...forsake me! forsake me! For even he couldnt have that much love.

And Buddha turned over and said...Fuck it. I'm outta here.

And Tolstoy turned the other cheek. And retired to some island with Brando and Elvis.

And Marx. Hahahaa. Didn't he know that greed is all there is.

And Plato at the chalkboard trying to teach the little boys their ABCs: Now you've got your little a and your big A. You know what I mean?

But i can't see the big A. Oh, it's there. Further into the cave, boys.

And what about that autopsy on Whitman? Which turned up nothing but grassblades hanging out his nose. And some remnant of an ear that may or may not have been some Flemish painter's.

And She must be up there laughing her head off.

Or is she still paring her nails, JJ?

And if it is all an illusion?

Then give me love as my only one.

For surely it's necessary, Jean Paul? Like ice. Like fire?


But the reply comes from Steve Martin:


I dont need anything. Wait, I need this...And this...and...



The weeds have overtaken the garden. Baobobs are everywhere.

I've been dead so long. I can't even remember what Kerouac was talking about. Much less those Passion plays in which i had the lead role.

And she says: It's time to do a little gardening.

And she cuts.

The cord.

And i'll be damn if i'm not back here screaming.

And thinking about kneeling. Like Voltaire did.

You know, just in case.

Why Blog

asks Tom.

Because vanity plates are too restricting, and Play Dough is no longer a viable option.