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

Why God Doesn't "Bless"

When I think of God, I think of an "object of devotion" and a "frame of orientation" (in the Frommian sense) for stability in a chaotic world full of contingency. Of course there are good things in the world and we have had good experiences but alot of what we might call a "blessing" from God is just our own interpretation of a an event. For some, they feel blessed that they have never had cancer, others expect not to have cancer. Some feel blessed that they are married, others feel blessed that they are divorced. Often Christian people associate wealth and social status with a "blessing" from God, but when they realize that they have become obsessed by material objects and their so-called friends have become disingenuous, they then feel "cursed." The Old Testament, the first part of the standard "Bible" as the Catholic Church would define, tells a story about a good man named Job who did nothing wrong but God punished him anyway by "de-blessing" him with the death and ruin of his family and livelihood. Some Christians would say that it was the Devil that hurt Job because God simply allowed it but, logically, if God is infinite, it would be impossible for the Devil to be "outside" God. However, despite that, the story only goes to point out the dual-nature of life itself and that the terms "blessing" and "curse" are relative terms and hermeneutically define each other. Through time we often come to see one was actually the other. Thus, it doesn't make much sense to say that "I prayed for this and God blessed me" because, interpretively, the flip side to any blessing is a curse. Logically, a fair and unconditionally loving God, would not play favorites with one person over another just because Dudley Do-right always went to church on Sunday, paid his taxes, and supported the war effort. God, as interpreted by theologians such as Paul Tillich and theorists such as Ken Wilber, transcends any conceptualization one may try to put into language. God transcends the very opposites of Good and Evil and thus defies any scapegoating by hate-filled Christians and hate-filled non-Christians. Thus, it serves no logical purpose to discuss "blessing" as an objective term as it implies that God is small-minded, partial and suffering from an emotional disorder and in need of anger management. A "blessing" is a relative and interpretive term and so if one wants to feel blessed than go for it but don't boast about it or use it as a 700-hundred foot pulpit to preach from because things in life change and life has a habit of knocking all of our dicks in the dirt. But then again, maybe that humility (humiliation) is the blessing.

Angel blocking the Garden

It sweeps us up. Change. Breaking the molds of what we think we know. Breaking into our lives like a home invader. Creating new sensations of pain and pleasure, but mostly pain. The good people on the street tell us it's "all in our heads," "it's how we react to it that matters," or something like, "it's what we do with it that counts!"

But aside from the conventional, drive-through answers to the most earth-shattering contingencies we can still find that reality has much to offer. What is this? It's personal. It's a personal battle with personal demons. It maybe a quest for a mediocre, cookie-cutter lifestyle like our friends or it may mean moving to a mountain cabin, growing our own food, smoking our own homegrown, just so we can see the sunset and not be interrupted. It may mean becoming a street preacher or a teacher, an extreme skier or bee keeper. It may mean doing great things and then writing about them, long and hard hours, at the computer. It may mean crunching numbers or becoming a skeet shooter. It may mean sitting back with a glass of rye and listening to this guy. It may mean helping old people get enough to eat or keeping terrorists from shooting kids in the street. It may being angry and hating non-Christians or being an example to Christians on how to forgive. It may mean shooting hardcore features or carving clay creatures. Learning how to sail or fix a watch or slapping some cream on that rot in your crotch. There's not much that one can say to appease ya, especially if you just lost your wife and house in Indonesia. Sound of gunshots, squealing tires, have a cigar and let's watch the fires. Early birds, grapes of wrath, old man singing in the bath, cancer patient reaching for a water glass. Poison in my blood, anger in my veins, why is joy always spiked with pain? Inside is outside, up is down, conservative liberal or liberal conservative, seven-nation army guns thunder an invincible sound. Hard to care, hard to know what's true. I'm just a clown, in the rain, playing the accordion..........for you.