The real Ghost Dog?

I was in Toronto a few weeks ago, in the heart of the Kensington hood: Rooftop view from cousin's funhouse:



















After drinking copiously into the wee hours with a variety of townies, folksies, roughnecks and playas, there was but a few of us blazing herb on the rooftop. I heard some footsteps on the ledge behind and above me.
I look up and snapped this quick pic of some dude who apparently lives on the roof top. Police don't bother this guy according to the locals. He wears a hoody year round and carries a briefcase. They say he lives in a small attic-type shack and keeps pigeons as pets. He came about this far but said nothing. We asked him if he wanted to hit the spliff but he just kept silent and then walked away.

Is this the real Ghost Dog?

Lake Michigan

was down for a wedding,
Evanston, Illinois,
hanging from the north collar of Chicago,
a college town,
for serious grey matter,
and serious coin,
young students,
studying, bonding, growing,
nice cars, coffee shops and lap tops...
I was in a hotel with fancy soaps, white porcelain and soft towels,
witnessed loving words being exchanged over expensive dishes of food,
bottles of expensive wine,
fancy suits and talk of prestigious goals and notable
achievements,
I've been to many ceremonies,
receptions, after parties
and collections of eager people on the cusp of their new life
together,
my old dance moves, beer buzz and sweat soaked
suit,
lovers hold each other drunkenly,
swaying unsteadily to The Beatles,
outside the cold wind grabs my blazer,
as I walk past the rosy cheeked sophomores,
discussing the media of politics,
the politics of the media,
I remember that freshness...
the jog between classes,
hot coffee and quiet libraries,
soon to grow into frustrated suburbanites,
angry about the weather, taxes and bad backs,

standing on the pier,
I take large swallows from the Michelob
in my coat pocket,
it occurs to me,
my desire for marriage dies more
with every wedding I attend,
but my drunken thoughts end as quickly as they begin,
like the path of a paper cup,
thrown by the wind,
floating on the froth,
of Lake Michigan.

The devil was once an angel

Gonna move to a mountain top,
gonna build a cabin in the woods,
gonna turn the soil and grow a garden,
lost among the trees,
open to the stars,
away from the masses,
get my water from the streams,
fall asleep in silence,
in a homemade bed,
next to a pot stove,
embers glowing red,
yet I'll awaken to disappointment,
and the nausea of the day,
amidst the hustle of the city,
and the bustle of the players,
fluid identities,
and the sharp dressed religious saying prayers,
on the bench across the street,
bad luck and a quivering hand,
bad decisions and clothes full of sand,
bloodshot eyes,
coins in a can,
in but a moment,
one can see,
I could be you,
you could be me.



"It is a good viewpoint to see the world as a dream. When you have something like a nightmare, you will wake up and tell yourself that it was only a dream. It is said that the world we live in is not a bit different from this."

---The Hagakure: Book of the Samurai

A Poem is a City

This one goes out to all my fellow bloggers.

Photo: Dan Neutel, Poem: Charles Bukowski

a poem is a city filled with streets and sewers
filled with saints, heroes, beggars, madmen,
filled with banality and booze,
filled with rain and thunder and periods of
drought, a poem is a city at war,
a poem is a city asking a clock why,
a poem is a city burning,
a poem is a city under guns
its barbershops filled with cynical drunks,
a poem is a city where God rides naked
through the streets like Lady Godiva,
where dogs bark at night, and chase away
the flag; a poem is a city of poets,
most of them quite similar
and envious and bitter...
a poem is this city now,
50 miles from nowhere,
9:09 in the morning,
the taste of liquor and cigarettes,
no police, no lovers, walking the streets,
this poem, this city, closing its doors,
barricaded, almost empty,
mournful without tears, aging without pity,
the hardrock mountains,
the ocean like a lavender flame,
a moon destitute of greatness,
a small music from broken windows...

a poem is a city, a poem is a nation,
a poem is the world...

and now I stick this under glass
for the mad editor's scrutiny,
the night is elsewhere
and faint gray ladies stand in line,
dog follows dog to estuary,
the trumpets bring on gallows
as small men rant at things
they cannot do.

Dissolver

I don't have answers. I try to not preach. So don't come to my door selling eschatologies. I'll make you think before you talk. I keep my head down. I read books. I limit TV. I drink too much. I've had my ass kicked. There's never more than $40 dollars in my wallet unless I'm at the peelers. I put way too much horseradish on my roast beef. I like loose fitting jeans. I have bad sleeping patterns. I should get out more. I often think about getting a pet. Then I slip on pet urine in the elevator and cancel the idea. Around 2pm everyday I feel like I'm gonna go nuts. A friend of mine says Japan is the answer to everything. I could work at being a better person. I have to work at not getting erections. Sometimes I dream about a lighthouse with a burnt out bulb. I find political jargon fatiguing. I play right field on my softball team. The bat cracks and the ball seems to hang up there for days. I tap my hat back and try to get under it. Sometimes I just can't get under it.

"I've got all my life to live
I've got all my love to give
and I'll survive
I will survive"
---Gloria Gaynor

The Heart of a Man (Part 1)

mosquito bites,
porch lights,
bending taps for late night fights,
hungry for something,
like a friend once said,
lay awake all night in my broken bed,
empty office buildings,
cracks in the wall,
I wonder how far down I might fall,
can't grasp the essence,
only feel the resistance,
can't feel the love,
only feel the distance,
a house in the country,
a house in the city,
fat wallets, trophy titty,
getting old, feelin' shitty,
don't know what it means,
a diamond ring or just a block of cheese,
old newspapers and a set of keys,
midnight rainstorm,
and a pain in my knees,
dark clouds and a full moon,
homeless drunk below,
shadow boxing the breeze.

sirens of the morning

golden evening sun behind cigarette smoke veils,
dry cleaner blows rings beneath his flickering neon sign,
humid box house, hustle pants, shirts, table cloths, dresses,
shouting orders, loud, stop-start languages,
the push-out, the pull-in,
elastics and pins,
fluids and steam,
cash machine drawer hammers
open-shut-open-shut,
take a penny, leave a penny,
bad teeth behind a forced smile,
starched collars, cuffs and dreams,
tough go at $1.50 a shirt,
microwave noodles and a smoke for lunch,
cousin deep in steam, uncle covers the counter,
hauling, pressing, folding, bending,
flattening, de-greasing, un-staining,
lifting, piles and piles of hangers,
throw it up on the rack under paper and plastic,
slap on a ticket,
quick call to the wife at home with the baby,
sweat beads in shop heat,
swinging door bell dings,
next customer in from the street,
10 years from home,
everyday struggle,
but the baby has a doctor and some medicine,
clean clothes and possibilities...
twist the sign, lock the door
beer and late-night TV,
sink into a hard sleep,
until the sirens of the morning.

war beauties

chopper growl and pigeon shit,
a lover's quarrel in the springtime,
purple skies pour rain and winter vampires rise,
and reach for a drink from the sun,
scotch bottle clinks spiritually,
to a background melody of ravines,
rocketing dirty water through our valley,
and into our homes,
our minds,
our dreams.
In the night I wake crying,
"oh lord, don't make me shoot the
war beauties!"


"Sit there. Let it bleed."
---Deniro's character Neil McCauley (Heat)

Hats off to old Hickory McCracken

My old pal Hickory McCracken (pictured here) was a one of kind fella. He was only 5' 4" but he was taller than most men in ego and emotional stature. The guy lost some teeth in bar fight at only 11 years old when some drunken brawler grabbed his pops (a gentle old baker) and ol' Hick stepped in and turned the drunk's nutsack into a play-dough accordion. At the ripe age of 14, while spending the summer at military camp, he wrote a bunch of poems that covered the gammit of his heartbreak over his lost cat, quantum physics, the politics of international security and the music of Wagner. The poems were published in the New Yorker less than a year later. By the age of 16 (while studying for his LSATS, specially prepared for the pre-university gifted) Hick swung a summer job as a doorman at The Blacksmith Inn, his Uncle's tavern, and when drunken college types made fun of his shortness, golf hat or fisherman's pipe, I got all the more thrill watching him coax them into the back alley so he could beat them until they lay toothless, bloodied and crying in a steaming heap of their own defecate. By 18 he won the North American finals in one of the first televised Krav Maga (Isreali Military Survival Fighting) and Brazilian Jujitsu competitions. Amazingly, he still found the time to develop a solar-powered lawnmower and a musical instrument, a hybrid between a Gibson Les Paul guitar and a mouth-harp. By 20, Hick had scholarship offers from everywhere from Harvard to Le Sorbonne but instead decided against the brain-washing of formal education and went to live with one of his girlfriends somewhere in the Polynesian Islands where he could finish his watercolour paintings and get some peace and quiet. Hick was a poet, Hick was fighter, he used to light his pipe with a rusty old butane lighter; his mother was a seamstress and his father was baker, before exams he'd snort gunpowder he stored in salt shaker. A truck ran over his cat named Razor and his brother was later killed by a cop's tazer; sometimes he'd talk and joke, sometimes he'd sit deep and toke, but always with a vacant look in his eyes; like he was staring into a world that he loved but at the same time despised; I'd lend him books and he'd show me some punches; we'd sit down by the tracks and smoke during our school lunches; he'd tell about his Dad's drinkin' and I'd tell him about my Dad's mistress; once we hopped a train to Detroit at Christmas; the last day I ever saw Hick we'd have our last chat; he said "Life's a bitch, sometimes you gotta slap it like that." I'd thank him for the advice and he'd just tip his hat.

jazz and being

More than most types and flavours of art, I find music, in the form of Jazz, to be the form that holds me tight to the present moment... accompanying me on my everyday journey to and from and from back to to. It would seem that rock n' roll, my very bloodsource, tends to fill me with raw energy and an undefinable ambition to just go out and DO! Do what? I dunno, go crazy I guess, drive fast, overturn newspaper boxes, drink hard, punch people in the face, etc. It's a great energy if you can harness it. Though, it doesn't throw me a newspaper and pour me a cup of hot coffee like Jazz does. Though I have used classical music to relax to...study to... and even allowed Opera to tease and pull my heart strings, it still remains the musical form of Jazz that really seems to me to be the soundtrack of daily motion in, especially city, life. Country, folk and grass roots blues are the songs of the working man, the dusty boots, greasy jeans and the songs of the family, homemade jam and cotton sheets blowing in a summer wind. But it's different than Jazz. Jazz, everything ranging from Count Basie big band to the beat poet messiness of bass/drum/guitar trios right across to a lonely trumpeter squeezing out a muted trill on the top of a high rise rooftop in the hot August eve, is for me a more direct connection to the immediacy of being. The flow of being. The gentle wildness of Lionel Hampton's xylophone, the rainy afternoon piano of Bill Evans or the angry genius of Buddy Rich's drumming thump, Jazz is the poetry of sound. My current muses are the Dave Holland Sextet's new opus "Pass it On" and of course, the rable rousing Chet Baker's Verve collection. I switch often between a classic LP "Everybody Loves Bill Evans" and his Excellency Oscar Peterson's "Night Train." Oscar Peterson's trio once moved me to tears with a rendition of "requiem" during an NAC performance on his Night in Vienna tour. Fucking beautiful.

Jazz is the traffic, the rain, the sirens of panic and a little baby laughing. Jazz is the old men playing chess in the park on a Saturday afternoon. Jazz is a howling busker, Jazz is a cold beer. Jazz is a bicycle ride and a picnic in the valley. Jazz is a nap. Jazz is a bus ride. Jazz is a painting, Jazz is math. Jazz is a bubble bath. Jazz is building, Jazz is tearing down. Jazz is simultaneously loose and tight. Jazz is the long, lonely, weed smoked, beer drunk night.

Inner Thawing

Drab diatribes from fat-assed sycophants in greased up frilly suits. "TipTop" nip-tuck Starbucks babblers barfing through multi-coloured Blackberries. Encrypting crack dealers crunch down on caramelized jiffy pop buzzkills who buy bags of bullshit at full price. They can sell you a house. They can sell you a dead mouse. Stupid boys and girls slapping the cosmic salami and calling it spirituality. Sliding a slice of overpriced sugar pie under the door crack of junkified craziness. Salt stained and stinking of emotional hibernation disgraces but no one notices past the shades and nightclub faces of the party-life trying to fuck their way out of loneliness but finding themselves flagellating a dog-eared deck of cards, sitting in their underwear on a cot next to a ticking clock, a limp cock. Picked flowers ploughed into paper and presented by your dreams to you upon awakening. Stare into your mind you dumb parasite, you juiced-up chump, you sexy slut, you weak-kneed mutt, a glutton for punishment waiting by the phone for job interviews to houses to huge prostates to coffins. The gods must be crazy? No, the gods are fucking manic depressive.

That being said, it is spring, whether you like it or not and....

Empty Sky

I woke up this morning
I could barely breathe
Just an empty impression
In the bed where you used to be
I want a kiss from your lips
I want an eye for an eye
I woke up this morning to the empty sky

Empty sky, empty sky
I woke up this morning to an empty sky

Blood on the streets
Yeah blood flowin' down
I hear the blood of my blood
Cryin' from the ground

Empty sky, empty sky
I woke up this morning to an empty sky

On the plains of Jordan
I cut my bow from the wood
Of this tree of evil
Of this tree of good
I want a kiss from your lips
I want an eye for an eye
I woke up this morning to an empty sky

Empty sky, empty sky
I woke up this morning to an empty sky.

(Pic - Dan; Lyrics - Springsteen)

religion vs. human freedom

We all live in separate realities locked in our own bodies and mind, reason and imagination. Conceptions of God, religion and human spirituality or there lack of differ amongst each person. This inherent difference in the human condition will always create a barrier to true unity amongst peoples of different backgrounds, belief systems, ethnicities, religions and also because we exist as separate individuals, who for but the temporary illusion of community or relationship, will ultimately live our lives out in our own separate universes. Social groups, usually groups of people, who value at least some degree of conformity of idea and behaviour often create the illusion of “unity” when in fact it is a collective based in a commonality of idea and behaviour and not a true union.

Unity only occurs when if first there is an individual to come together with another individual, two separate beings entering into a state of inter-dependence. Dependence is the opposite state. Dependence is what is most commonly referred to as “unity” in our culture but is nothing other than an illusory state of “dependence.” Dependence is common in abusive relationships in which two people who are supposed to love one another take advantage of and hurt each other yet due to the fear of aloneness and the ensuing pain inherent in being independent, continue to rationalize the abuse and usually remain in a state of dependence.

In biblical mythology, Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden or Innocence, or Grace because they chose to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil or self-awareness. This first choice was the basis of their “fall from grace” but paradoxically the stepping stone to their independence from God. This story is also analogous to the natural movement of a child from the womb of the mother and how that which was once dependent becomes independent from it’s creator. The road to independence is long and hard but it is only by creating this separation from the creator that we can truly know what in fact we are sacrificing for this unity with the other which we all long for so deeply.

There is no going back to the Garden. The Creator has shooed us out and sent us on our way without mittens or a lunch. With our fellow creatures we stumble down the dark paths of life and try to find a way to make a living. Some run back to the Garden in fear, pounding on the gate only to find an angel with “a flaming sword” acting as the disagreeable bouncer. Other creatures, claim they bear “gifts” from the Creator and if we only give them some of our spoils they will “show us the way to the Creator” and to a life of everlasting happiness. Others take what pride and courage they can and keep moving on in hopes of finding some kind of ultimate rest and peace but huddling together to keep warm helping one another if we have the strength.

Dear old God has been hard on his creation. Knowing full well of our shortcomings and fragilities he cast us out because he was angry that we did not heed complete and utter obedience to him. He doesn’t seem to be sure if his love is unconditional or not for, ironically, if we don’t pledge allegiance to him, we are damned to hell.

There is no going back to the Garden of innocence because the movement to independence is rooted in choosing beyond our Creator’s demands. The labour placed upon us (Genesis 3:17-19) was necessary for us to grow up. Now we pay our own bills and the drama of our emotionally tyrannical father is behind us. Now, creature must help creature, brother must help sister, lover must help lover and we can do it. We have earned the right to labour for our spoils and celebrate our harvest. We have shelter because we have built it and when we come home at night we can take the phone off the hook. If our Creator wants us, he can leave a message. The creature will get back to him when he has a free moment.

Stick and Move

tired faces, clutching briefcases,

greed leads, conformity chases,

subways rumble, buses grumble,

into the mouth of the superunkown,

merchants and vendors,

bail bonds and money lenders,

salt stained streets grow homeless people selling poems,

smoggy air and business suits, music gangsters makin' loot,

the tension of the fight,

the call of the dream,

the challenge of the vision,

distant hope gleams,

needs to wants, wants to needs,

buckets of blood, the tomato can bleeds,

waiting for the chance, the bell, the dance,

cheering and jeering, tunnel vision light,

aching through the silence of the night,

bruises and cuts,

a fighter's leg shakes,

backslapping promotions, board rooms and office cakes,

the emptiness resounds in your ears,

and you fall to the ground,

slowly and breathless,

the spit soaked blood mat nears,

get up young fighter, are you alive or dreaming?

your mind is screaming scenes from your life,

your heart pounds in your chest,

a woman's eye, a baby's breath,

a liar's touch, a touch of death,

truth pumps through you like medicine,

friends become enemies, sometimes they become friends,

but everyday is a new day,

sun shoots through the blinds,

hearts can change, so can the mind,

limited time, to yourself you'll prove,

the win is defined by the lose,

listen to the corner man,

maintain your groove,

head up, bread basket tight,

don't forget to stick and move.

Dance me to the end of Love

Celebrating celebrity (Canadian ones) at the GG performing arts awards. Though these pics are dated back awhile, the human tendency to "star fuck" is not. Don't feel bad, I do it too. Though that night, Al lead the charge.

The Pressure of Time

I feel like time is slipping away sometimes. Like the days that I see old friends and family and then the time is gone and I'm into another day. The days bleed into weeks, weeks into months, months into years. The seasons change and people who were once close become strange. It seems the more we try to hold onto "the times," the harder it is when they go away. I think sometimes people have kids in order to try to somehow solidify time, in that you have these children who are part of you, starting life anew. Like somehow you can live again, refreshed, through someone else's brand new childhood. But make no mistake; it is not yours but theirs. To kiss the soft lips of youth again and feel the freshness of the day. As though time was mine. Just this week a couple friends, both bringing up children, told me that though the technical work day has ended, it is as though, the world at home feeding, bathing and putting these children to bed is a whole other world, a whole other work day. Both these friends told me that they dip into their very scarce well of time to take just a little for themselves at the very final end of the day, for if they didn't, they would not have any time at all. But they do capture it. It takes work to capture some time for yourself. I often lay awake wondering if I am wasting my time. I make vows to try to soak all the rest up. I get lost sometimes and have to make up time. I find myself just watching time. I find myself trying to salvage the remains of my time. I get confused about how I lost time. I try to manage my time but end up giving others my time. Even in my dreams I slipstream through time. I think we need a chance to just be ourselves, maybe with some friends, lovers, coworkers, but mostly alone. Then we can say we own time. That, we are time. We can just be the moment, fully there, without words.

Finding in your jacket a crumpled 20 and a dime. To the edge of your glass, add a slice of lime. Tomorrow and tomorrow goes the rhyme but if you are here in the moment, you'll have plenty of time.

3am Diner

hot grease heat blows through the vents,
phones ring and waitresses shout the early bird orders,
cooks bark back in thick loud french,
cash registers beep and clack and change clinks
dropping into gnarled fingers,
warm plates stacked with eggs and meat are sent gliding across the
counters,
sombre and weathered patrons shovel in the toast and wash it down with
bottomless coffee,
other night owls burst through the frost paneled door and take refuge
from the cold in the vinyl cushioned booths,
insipid chatter and a loud TV blasts hockey announcer twang,
salt is peppered over the "Trucker Special,"
as the steaming grill is laced with oil,
an old man slowly works through a steak and onions and sips a cold 50'
he sings to himself, a dirty old Winnipeg Jets cap sits lightly tilted
on his head,
sitting with a cousin, he goes on to tell me about his frustrating work
and demanding girlfriend,
the conversation broken by the cook and a drunk laughing heartily,
the waitress smokes quickly outside the window,
shivering in her long coat,
a young mother and her baby girl eat peacefully in a corner booth,
the little girl happily tapping the tray covered with dry cheerios,
some fall on the floor as the baby laughs and yells,
"I'm alive...are you?" she is asking in baby language,
The old man at the bar smiles and nods and takes a large swallow of his
50.

Power Shifts

"if there's glory in miracles
it's that they're reversible."

---"Titanic Terrarium" (The Tragically Hip)

Old Tokyo Master

The Old Tokyo Master walks slowly, gently tapping the ground with his cane. Quiet and attentive. Pigeons scatter and take to the wide clear sky. People bustle and papers swirl in the wintery winds. Seemingly invisible, The Master pays and picks up a bag of rice and places it on his shoulder. The retailer watching quietly as The Master moves on and bleeds into the crowds of shoppers. Through tiny back streets, past the grease exhaust plumes of restaurant piping and boxes stacked on top of garbage crates, he makes his way to a tattered, squeaky door that leads to a set of stairs. Walking slowly down the hall he slides the key into the hole and enters. Lacquered wood floors and ceramic figurines glisten in the golden sunlight shooting through the blinds into his dark apartment. Collections of Buddhist and Taoist texts line the book shelves and Aikido manuals are neatly stacked next to the dusty old television. On the stove whistles a kettle and steaming water is delicately poured into a clay mug holding tea leaves. Pigeons line the wires outside the window and a cat licks his paws on the ledge. The Master kneels and places the mug on the top of the low rise table. A black and white picture of his father hangs on the wall. His father is standing on the rocks on a shoreline somewhere in the Okinawa Islands, lean muscle still wrapping his Father’s ninety-year old frame. Composed and silent, The Old Tokyo Master closes his eyes, envisioning his body corroding and material belongings composting into nothingness, the vibrant faces and voices of his family and friends slowly fading into eternal silence. A clock ticks in the background. After a few minutes he opens his eyes and takes a sip of tea and bends to look out the window. A former student of his runs a Dojo down the street, he can see other students learning the movements of self-awareness and self-discipline.

Mastering the Self is a constant practice.

The Slice of Winter

my tepid breath speaks steamy soliloquies to meet the grey skied gloom. a mediocre half-felt solemnity stacked on a previous, better felt one. my car inches down the wet road in tow and lead of angry customers trying to belly up to life's disappointing bar. open all night it's says, but the beer in the kegs is flat and my hat is sitting in some other guy's crumbs. with a bill raised in my hand I flag down the busy keep as she pours me what's left until the spigot spits air. i swallow half-consciously the lame, over sat, brew and bat a bored eye out the window. the traffic is moving now and you might get the reckless feeling like you were on the way but there are more accidents ahead for people to entertain themselves with. a cell-phone ring, a horn honk, a rumbling truck, radio chatter. a young grease monkey rolls a tire through the snow with a smoke hanging from his lower lip back into the garage. a lady in front is putting on lipstick. what am I waiting for? to get to work? so I can get my work done? so I can get home? back into my bed? back into my thoughts...the airport lounge before I take off into my dreams? of sex, drugs, women,violence, hate, anger, loneliness, desperation? we can wake up from this...rather these cycles... of selfish longing, hungry ghosts, pulling me down into ignorance...the father of lies. traffic has stopped. one guy gets out to check. seeing what's ahead might speed things up. c'mon there's money to be made...I want mine before the economy drops off like a nut-filled terd pinched from the creamy, pimpled ass-cheeks of capitalism. for now I just watch. I roll the window down and watch. the clarity of the images, the smell of the slice of ice cold winter air. like a TV. but better. better than Hi-Def, Blue-Ray, Plasma. It's so high definition; I can touch it. I can taste it. I can feel it. totally free. no monthly charges.

The Pecking Ground

Friday afternoon in a government office. It reeks of print toner and cheap carpeting peppered carelessly with lazy excuses and blame. Almost empty, I sit with only but a few scattered consultants at crumb-laden desks painted with coffee ring stains. My mind is numb with document types, words and protocol. While many employees sit away the afternoon in their sun rooms at home, thumbing through Oprah magazines, I hammer out line after line of phrasing trying to prove a statement through cold legal logic. My back is sore from sitting on this old swivel chair and my neck tenses and hopes drain at the thought of a Saturday and Sunday afternoon spent sifting through more reports. I must do this for survival.

Somewhere on a beach in Ecuador, a man waxes down a surfboard in the beating sun, skin and arms bronzed and chiseled. Pausing, he takes a deep drink of cold blackberry juice, held in a metal canister. The electric sun slides fast across the ice blue sea begging him to chase the golden line. The warm wind wisps sand across his back as he pushes the board into the foamy water. Belly down he paddles to meet the laughing waves. The muscle soreness burns slow through his arms and legs. Heart rate rising. Miles of purple, blue and black below and open blue above. The warm water starting to grab and move him. Faster now into the infinite. The scream of desire pulses through the body.....ready to catch the flow...

His bank account book buried deep in some boxes miles back at the beach house. The melancholy illusion of the rat race buried light years away.

Rocketing now through the air as the board bullets across the liquid blue chasing hard the golden ray of the sun.

The shock of joy busts through years of sadness as he falls gently...

into the arms of the ocean.

In Remembrance: Steven Ford Leigh

On January 8, 2008, this New Year opened with the tragic death of a friend of mine. Steven Ford Leigh, 34 years young, lost his life in a car accident. Steve was an amazing person who exemplified the true independent thinker. From our conversations ranging from Aristotle to Zoroaster to our summers running a business of washing windows, cutting grass and trimming hedges to mountain biking through the endless woods to sitting out all night drinking cold beer on the dock of his quiet cottage lake there was no end to this man's creative brilliance and perpetual evolution of consciousness.

Steve was one of those people who polished off degrees in computer science and sociology for "something to do" yet could be equally as fascinated by a video game, a low budget foreign film or a peaceful paddle in a canoe. Steve and I used to sit on the rooftop of his parent's home in the Ottawa suburbs and knock back the pints while laughing at all the zombified working stiffs blobbed out in front of the flickering TV light blasting out from the neighborhood living room windows. It was our way of standing against ever ticking clock of time, adulthood and unchosen responsibility. I'm glad I had the chance to get to know Steve Leigh through our turbulent yet under-stimulated years in high school and fractured years of university and I must admit that he was one of the most fervent advocates of critical and truthful scientific thought I have ever known. I will miss our heated arguments and frustrated laughter shared over the natural human misconceptions of religion and science, God's existence and passionate atheism, the neurophysiology of spiritual experience and the link between altered states of consciousness and a subtler, more translucent reality. I will miss Steve's expositions on ultimate military strategy, political theory and the possibility of time travel.

It wasn't until the "working world" of adulthood became a unconsciously socialized priority in my life that I began to see Steve less and less. We hadn't spoken for about a year and then I heard about his passing. The years I knew Steve were some of the best years of my life but we also went through some of the most fundamentally challenging stages of adolescent growth which can be terrible and cause people to lash out at each other in ways that time will often make you regret. Being a ravenous reader he could tear loopholes in philosophical arguments put together by the "best of them" with a cold RC cola in one hand and typing on a computer keyboard with the other. I have great respect for Steven Leigh as being a profoundly intelligent and highly moral person the likes of which is less than rare. Coming from an amazing family of loving parents and siblings, Steve had an indomitable and incredibly perceptive character that could downsize the fragile ego of a pretentious asshole as well as pinpoint the very things about yourself that were unique, that you might have forgotten, taking you from a state of existential despair to a more hopeful elation. It was good for me to hang out with someone who challenged me to challenge me.

"...and if you wanted to hit the nail on the head, you hit it, and if you wanted to do something unequivocal, you did it."

May you rest in peace Steve

Farewell to a Friend: Marc McCormick

My friend Marc passed away last week after fighting Lymphoma for about a year. He was 39 and leaves a wonderful wife Shelly and three beautiful children Deklan, Mikyla and Finlay. I knew Marc from when I was a young man and grew up around him and his family. Marc was, as anyone who knew him would attest, the epitome of positive energy and vision. My teen years were enhanced with Marc as a good friend and as a lead vocalist/lead gutarist from probably my first real, solid rock band experience. First paid gigs, first in-studio experience and first recorded, produced, packaged and marketed LP in the form of cassette. Marc was the type of guy who could ebb and flow from intense athletics to the deep technical concentration of a music studio producer to giving visionary presentations to stakeholders and salespeople of his growing business. I can't think of a guy that more other guys wanted to be like. Marc had an interesting ability to take things hard but yet forgive people when they messed up. I know because when we used to work in the band setting, band guys can get pretty tired, miserable and self-absorbed. I remember Marc back in the early 90's shouldering the hard work of a salesman and entrepreneur but always diligent about bringing his musical love to life. He loved being with people and wouldn't let himself affirm the negative voices of the world. When I would struggle to learn a piece of music, or deal with any life problem actually, he would hear me whining and complaining and laugh directly at me, but with an honest heart, which you knew was the sound of self-esteem looking at someone who didn't quite believe in themselves yet and I never felt chastised or hurt. I tried to pick up on what Marc's attitude was dictating of me. It was to never look back and to look at this moment right now and give everything you have...I mean really give it. His life was a short journey but it was electric in every sense of the word. Marc worked his ass off for all that he had and I was happy when he met Shelly and settled down to have kids. In many ways it was this loving support that allowed Marc the space to find the peace he did in his last days.

My friend Al and I visited Marc a day before he passed away. I remember sitting next to him, passing him his diet pepsi to sip on, a fan was blowing cool air behind me and the sounds of the papers in the room were rustling. I could see through the window, the evening sun was setting and the wind was blowing through the trees. We sat quietly as Marc drifted in and out of consciousness. Later, Shelly brought his son and daughter for their goodnight kiss and they went down the hall to their bedrooms. Soon Marc awoke, looked at us and said to me and Al that he was "gonna let us go." We came to his bedside and shook his hand for the last time, said goodbye to Shelly and slipped out their backdoor. The sun was glistening off the rippling water of the pool. It was deeply silent. My heart felt like it would explode.

Goodbye Marc.

On Buddhism

Many great things are borne out of frustration. Frustration is the root of existence, why even Guatama Buddha realized this, pointing out that it is the intrinsic nature of existence. Frustration here is the best way to understand “suffering” which is the term he uses but, because the original term was from the Sanskrit, (Dukkha) or “suffering,” as we understand it, it is too simple an understanding. Upon realizing this, the Buddha didn’t just put on his pjs, slide under his bed covers and turn the light off for the rest of life, no, he offered something in terms of a solution. You could say he was a solution-oriented person rather than a problem-oriented person.

His next “truth” was his explanation why this frustration occurs. This was the fact that we all “crave” or “desire.” We want; things, persons, status and successes, in short, happiness, hell, maybe we even just want to survive, but because life is in a constant state of change we actually cannot have anything including our own life. We can “have” it but it is only temporary and as sure as I will have a shit in the next two hours we will eventually lose everything. This attempt to hold on to everything, which is constantly changing, being born…then dying, is the primary reason for our existential frustration. The more we try to solidify, keep, hold on to, our experience of life the more we feel we are watching our life going by our very eyes and the reason that we feel like that is because it is. In Buddhist cosmology, this “clinging” to life produces extensive suffering and keeps one being re-born into yet another existence to experience the same fucking bullshit over and over again until one finds liberation, emancipation or “salvation.”

The third “truth” of the Buddha is that there is liberation and this consists in our ability to extinguish our “craving” for a permanent self. Upon reflection anyone can see, that the neuro-physiology of the human body is changing constantly, day to day, minute to minute, nanosecond to nanosecond at a molecular level. But how then do we eliminate our desire to live? Doesn’t this seem contradictory? Illogical? Insane? Suicidal? Not really because one has to really want to live before he can extinguish that “desire.” According to Buddhism, Nirvana, is the a state of being in which one can live fully yet with a sense of detachment to one’s life, not a cold stoicism, but with a deep and full bodied-minded awareness that everything goes away. So, to the Buddha, achieving this higher state of being or existence is the duty or mission of a Bodhisattva or monk. This state of being is inherent in all living beings and humans are the ones that are the most capable of realizing it right now, right here in order to “pay it forward” to other people in pain. Some Christian theologians have associated this state of being to the mystical experience of God (Tillich, Eckhart) but as original Theravada and Zen Buddhism do not posit any deities, are a-theistic, they would prefer the explain this as the experience of “Sunyata” or Ultimate Emptiness. Why even Victor Frankl said that we have to “burn in order to give light.”

This brings us to the fourth “truth” as the Buddha sees it; the way to our liberation or “Buddha nature.” This is known as the “middle path.” It is a life that avoids the extremes of hedonism as well as asceticism. It consists of eight ethics of living:

1. Right Understanding
2. Right Thought
3. Right Speech
4. Right Action
5. Right Livelihood
6. Right Effort
7. Right Mindfulness
8. Right Concentration

This is a path that essentially has to do with the ultimate health of the person. But it is a path of discipline and requires an extension of oneself that is often hard to muster up considering the stubborn narcissism and vanity of the weak human. It is much easier to sit and stew over the “frustration” of life than to attempt to move oneself to transcend it – but if one is to reflect on the impermanence of one’s own self, one’s own life, the experience of existence seems different – more vivid, more immediate.

Throughout the life of the Buddha, all his teachings deal in some respect with the eight-fold or “middle” path (Rahula, 1959, p.45). Dogen Kigen, who was a Zen master in the 1200’s said: “The Dharma (ultimate truth) is amply present in every person, but unless one practices, it is not manifested; unless there is realization, it is not attained.” He is pointing out here, simply, that Nirvana or self-transcendence is not a “place” but a way of being. It is something that is already present in everyone and it is through constant training, constant effort, that a Bodhisattva*, manifests this experience to others. Paradoxically, you ask, “am I not then desiring the end of desire?” Yes that is it. But the heart of Buddhism is the cultivation of the “true self” while living in the “transitory self. That is to say, one transcends oneself by living yourself to the fullest, to the deepest…and it requires that one understands this paradox. Why “through giving one shall receive,” …now who said that again? Another paradox…hell, it seems like we “live to survive them” (Downie-Hip, Henhouse, 1996).

*Please note: I am not a publicly stated Buddhist but have found great interest and insight into my own life through the philosophy of Buddhism. It is a profound school of thought and action that originated approx. 500 years before the life of Jesus, whom of which, we can see many associations, one example is the “parable of the mustard seed.” This is one particular parable that seems to sum up the very idea of the Buddha-nature or “enlightened” nature. Buddhism seems to have as many interpretations as there have been followers. Like Christianity, Buddhism has been twisted and manipulated by political regimes throughout history to justify slaughter. Even Zen monasteries have literally warred to macabre death over rights-based issues. People themselves are the ones who decide how they are going to relate to any institutionalization of their religion and it seems like we have been profound failures at doing this properly. What good is knowledge if it is not put into practice?

A Hundred Pockets

How many days has it been since the bright sun has beat down on the fractured creatures that roam aimlessly through one day to the next on this spinning rock in an unconcerned galaxy? It has been grey out for fucking weeks now and I don't know for sure but I think the old S.A.D. is kicking in and it's not even the dead of winter.

Some old friends of mine are currently going through hell this week as they deal with family deaths and life-threatening illnesses. However, to quote from The Noodle's latest blog: "What’s more is that right now I haven’t got one single personal, financial, health or family problem of any kind" and in many ways I see myself in that boat, maybe not the financial one, but generally health and civilized (ie., caring to mildly concerned) relationships is probably the most we can hope for amidst the constant but stormy flow of reality.

My heart goes out to those friends who are going into their own personal wilderness to wrestle with demons or angels. According to the best of the theologians, niether camps like humans. Are we justified in attacking others because we are fearful? Dunno. But I do know that these experiences school us into realizing that life is short and that right now is all we got, so let's take advantage of that - the fact that we can breath and move already puts us in the gifted camp. As one of the greatest and most misunderstood philosophers once said:

"When one has much to put into them, a day has a hundred pockets"
---Friedrich Nietzsche