it's the pitts (and the secret)

so i've been on the road since leaving albuquerque now for what must be, getting close to 2 months. this trip could go on forever. right now i am typing this in pittsburgh, staying in a friend's house, watching celebrity reality tv shows on demand on cable, the downfall of man in his stupidity and convenience and technological distractions, i saw a guy riding the bus the other day with an iphone, probably sold his car to get one, who knows. pittsburgh is the pitts, but the people i know are the good sort, or at least the sort i like, creative, compulsion to create really so they dedicate their lives to it really, and take it seriously, and seriously pursue venues and outlets to make their creative productivity really work for them in some way.

"you go to design college

i go to Art's Universe-
it teased me!
too complex
it teased me
move into a simple sit
eased me."

simplicity in the simple city: a steel town, andrew carnegie not dale carnegie. we watched the secret and i watched the oprah episodes about it taped on the personal digital video recorder built into the cable box and made arguments about how this spiritual quick fixer-uperism is futile and perverse, and even looked up criticisms of the secret from various sources and that talk about it in a phone conversation interview with douglas rushkoff... but hey, if it works for you, isn't that what it's all about? or what spirituality is all about? sure, but hey, i don't need a life coach motivational wonk to sell me my inspiration jack, that's just not my style, and you know, spiritual con-man-ism has always appealed to me (it's really what my whole bent is all about) but maybe i'm just jealous of these metaphysical bookstore visionaries and gurus who get paid to be crazy, while i'm out here hawking poetry books on street corners. some call it street entrepreneurialism and i'm down with that terminology. regardless of all this one thing i feel is that we shouldn't need a new specialized language to speak of important intimate concerns in our existences, in our human relationships, and our connections to nature or what have you, we should be able to find a common ground in the words of our time, it should be intuitive to the young, and sensible to a wise elder even. the kids these days, and the moon-speak addled wacko consciousness fringe, are really irritating my rationalist cynical personality. i hate new age quackery, even maybe more than i am not into your organized religions, or basically any systems that promote an end to questioning things and purport to give you answers that you can hold on to, i don't buy into any of that, i take bits and pieces as i need them to get the job done, sure, but i don't go in for having a lot of fluffly cotton candy beliefs pervading my psyche cluttering up my vision. as few beliefs as possible to function optimally, that's what i say, like your beliefs are the code that makes up a program and you want it to be powerful but lightweight, efficient, elegant. it's like having stuff. i don't want to have too much stuff in my travel kit so ideally when you have to replace something you should be able to replace it with something new that is lighter, more multipurpose than the old thing, maybe you have to get one new thing, but you can replace two old things with it. until you just keep trimming down your gear to its optimum condition, suited for your purposes. its like that with your system of belief too, i should think, i mean, i do think. thats one belief i have that let me get rid of a lot of others.

i feel that the moment that you stop asking questions, you start dying. i had a strange relationship once, a long time ago sort of, when there was a bad trip, and much anxiety and longing questions looking into nothingness and it was stated to me that maybe somethings aren't meant to be looked into, if they are unknowable it's like wasted effort, and if life is love and existence is benevolent then shouldn't we concentrate on just loving better? and sure, we SHOULD concentrate on loving, as humans in a social world, and as living beings in a natural world, but i tend to think life is absurd and meaningless, because it's less comfortable that way and i like it. and to dwell on it all, at least for a little while, everyday, maybe keeps you fit in a sort of way. or at least it's funny, hilarious, black humor pointing to the stress of an uncertain existence. unnerving really. it's just that some of us find that funny and in some ways, exciting, that anything can happen, that you don't know the outcome. believing that you don't know, can't know, what will happen after you die is a thousand times more exciting to me than believing that i'll go to heaven or that my consciousness will live on in reincarnation or what have you. it's not that i'm saying i'd rather not know, because i think about you know, what happens to consciousness, all the time, it's not that i'm arguing that ignorance is better, i'm just saying there's an arrogance is presuming to know one way or the other, and also why believe something that you cannot know is true? unless it serves your purposes. but for my purposes i think not knowing is the most exciting thing of all. because anything is possible.

new robotson mobile phone booth journal #9

Gabcast! new robotson mobile phone booth journal #9

new robotson mobile phone booth journal #8

Gabcast! new robotson mobile phone booth journal #8

the car alarm story

so we were up in cape vince, me and darius at a friend's bar, right? and there's this french festival going on that weekend, fireworks going off, and people wandering the streets, drinking, right? and we're outside of this bar, catching up with each other since we'd last seen each other some couple hours earlier, when all of the sudden a car parked on the street starts squealing beeping piercing your ears, buzzing alarming alerting everyone, on the street, standing outside the bar smoking, walking down the street. and i say, "oh just great, you know, whenever i here one of those things it makes me want to steal that car."

and dar says, "you should."

but i don't really have the nerve. i just think it's funny to say that the alarm actually has its opposite from intended effect. so what the hell, the alarm is still going on now for what seems like a long time, a too long time, like longer than most people's car alarms that you hear, i dunno, maybe you've heard some pretty long ones in your life but the point is that this one is going on for a long time now, and it's just as annoying as any other car alarm you've ever heard. maybe more.

so when the alarm finally shuts off, i shout out a long "woooo!" sound, drawing it out for a long time (almost imitating some kind of alarm noise) the way that i would at a good performance, like something that really rocks, right? and spontaneously everyone starts cheering and clapping, in celebration that the car alarm had stopped sounding.

i turned to darius and said, "have you ever seen that before?"
and he says, "no. no, i don't think so."