The Diamond Island

As you once shined in my darkness with your goodness Molly, I shine in your darkness with my caring. My thoughts are prayers of light winging to you that you will find your way home.

With merry heart I pour libations upon the woken spring ground and down the hatch in your honor.  The inspired happiness of my innermost passion reflects a glow from the heavens no night may dim.

From the peak of my diamond island I flash a thunderous tumult for all to know that Molly Kleinman is my friend.  This humble candle brighter than any lighthouse I hold aloft and sing a song of returning to my lost friend.

Let her know peace!  Let her know home!  Let her know joy!  I ordain this under grace, thank you.

Out of time long past a signal, a last transmission waiting for me to acknowledge.  Almost past the point of receiving.  But my ears are like a lynx these days, letting in and picking up the smallest traces of fading time space particles.  The message flickered on my brain screen and was confirmed by a friend.

Molly ain’t comin’ back.

Denial

Spring has come; time to honor those who didn’t make it through the winter—even the harsh winters of the jungle where life is created by death, or so many ancient forms of inner belief conclude.

I’m not close enough for a full sensor sweep, but friends of mine who were there for the maximum allowable knowledge fill me in with as much scoop as they can muster after twelve years.  It is enough; I can respond now that I know as much as I’ll likely ever know.

I never thought I’d have any more time with her than I did.  I always held out hope that I would hear some word of how she ended up doing after college.  How right I was.

Before I found out, I’d just been thinking of her, working out imaginations of friendship in my writing.  Trying to make sense of past interactions.  It appears that now must have been the time to receive this transmission.  To look back and really transform what I have known; to move forward and let go of the ways of thinking and feeling that aren’t necessary any more.

So I start things off by opening my heart up to the hurt.  Everything soon turns to a dull haze as I go through my day with the knowledge that a part of me is gone forever.

More Denial

Come home, the damn pipe is leaking again.  I step into a freshly laid puddle of cat puke and don’t notice until I’ve tracked it all around the first floor.  The neighbors are watching television at a high level of volume again.  K needs to get outside for some fresh air.

But at least I can still have problems.

K cleans the puke while I figure the leak out.  Then we grab our walking sticks to go rouse the folks for a walk around the loch.

The rain that was supposed to have come this afternoon never showed.  Total rip off.  The folks, K and I talk clan business—the usual.  But I’m still swimming in a haze and distracted.

Then the rain comes suddenly, hard.  Thunder and lightning rousing the earth with the fury of the elements.  The trees haven’t grown any leaves yet, so there’s no cover.  We get soaked, talking about headhunters in Southeast Asia and how they wouldn’t last a minute against the loonies in the local grocery store.

A makeshift shelter presents itself and we stand under it, watching the empty streets splash with torrents of rainfall.  Then the storm passes and we complete our walk, wet and refreshed with new life.  The garden was planted just in time, so our seeds have gotten their first spring shower.

Still More Denial

Have to shop for groceries. K has jobs to do, so it’s time to do a solo mission for supplies.  I feel like a ghost—the crowds are unusually scant and hardly any of them appear to notice me.  It’s as if I’m in a dimension of nothingness in which the droids and zombies can’t touch me.  I gather up my groceries with ease.

The checkout girl shares stories with me about her favorite places to eat.  Yeah, be nice to have a Checkers, a White Castle, or a Sonic instead of like nine banks in the same mini-mall.  I hear it.

Back at the honeycomb hideout, I put away the groceries on auto-pilot.  The pipe isn’t leaking anymore—the handyman job I did actually worked.  The mermaid must have been reminding me I have work to do.  I do.

I point the ghetto blaster at my neighbor’s wall and put in License To Ill.  I play it loud so they know what time it is.  I’m not in the mood to put up with their high noise levels today.  While K continues her jobs I cook up the meat sauce and noodles for tonight’s dinner.  The cats are anxious, but I reassure them as best I can.  Daddy’s having a bad day.

But at least I can still have bad days.

Dang It

The neighbors suitably served notice, I ready the noise ordinance phone number for next time and magnet it to the fridge.  The ghetto blaster is turned around and a headphone is jacked in.  I go through my old college tapes looking for an appearance of Molly in any of them.

But while I hear many marvelous friends speak and remember numerous old nuances long past, she remains out of reach.  Dead end.  I’m just hoping for one last thing to remind me of her, to push the horrors of death away and keep them at bay one more minute.  No luck.

I already went over every memory I have of her twice since last night when I got only an hour of sleep, ghost lights hovering outside my window on their way to the next realm or phantom vehicles rushing past with loud roars.  I discovered many things I had forgotten, but in the end I have all I’m going to get of her.

It’s time to face facts.

Maybe I Can Do Something

I turn inwards and draw upon personal resources, long honed.  The Box tells me where one of the secret doors is and I open it, the smell of crayons rising out of a dark space.  Oh yeah, that Cup.  Midnight blue and black as pitch, completely formed, of two worlds waiting for me to use it this night.

Tonight the Cup is serving me up a dose of grief.  Before I can change my mind, I willingly sip that sour heartache tearing me asunder.  The Cup tells me where to find the next secret door.  I have to use a golden torch to find it, buried in the forgotten flotsam of a shipwrecked cargo I picked up a while back.

Oh yeah, the stationary box holding countless delights.  It’s so good to see it again.  The revelation that emerges strikes me gently and sharp: Remember yourself as you go through this.  You have a promise to keep.

There’s a key to imagination I haven’t used in seventeen years, a thought I haven’t had in almost as long, and a voice from the depths I am hearing now.

Out of nowhere, a forgotten memory comes forth of a date Molly and I had.  A Jazz concert at the Portland Zoo we attended. I’ve forgotten so much, but now this comes back to me clear as crystal.

Now I recognize what she was trying to do.  I was in a very bad place and she was trying to help me.  She was trying to get me to dance and forget my troubles.  But I hated Jazz!  And I was so very very dark in my own personal nightmare at the time.

The many other times we hung out now start to make sense.  She was trying to reach me and get me to laugh; which she finally succeeded in doing.  That’s the part I didn’t get before.  So many things, so many meetings where she would just be there and I didn’t know why.

I had no money, no car, and no future.  But she would drive me places, buy me dinner, and just talk to me.  What the Hek was this gorgeous, smart, easygoing, and kindhearted woman doing talking to a loser like me?

But now I know.  The things she gave me, trying to coax me out of my tomb.  From our first meeting to our last, she was planting seeds in me.  I never understood until now.

The Cup is empty.

Sadness

Like a flash, I take up the key and place it in the stationary box.  I send my messenger of the imagination through a billowing, windswept creamy series of clothes hanging on laundry lines in a vast meadow of sunlight I see only with my mind.  I’ve sent a message to Molly, telling her hey I get it now.  A part of my life is made whole and complete.

No expectations.  She tended my fire when I was lost.  I didn’t know her fate because the seeds she planted kept me safe—from the harm of knowing her death until they could flower and bear fruit now.  I’m much stronger now than I was then.

How many of us can say we’ve unselfishly helped a soul in their darkest trial through the night safely to the other side?

All of a sudden I’m ready to say goodbye and move on.

I feel myself falling into unconsciousness as the tremendous stresses of my grief flow again unhindered.  K tucks me into bed.  On the shelf beside me are my moleskinne notebook and a pencil taken from my compass, placed the night before in case I had a dream of Molly.

This time I know I’m going to hear from her.

Assent

My dreams are deeply unconscious—all I remember is a board game involving movement along tree branches and a dice roll.  Michael the cat wakes me up for feeding and I shamble in a trance downstairs to take care of what is an automated chore I half-sleepwalk through.

I stand at the base of stairs and realize Michael has disappeared, which is odd because he’s a greedy bum.  I’m alone, it’s dark, and I’m not asleep.  There’s nobody present, yet I imagine in my mind that Molly is sitting on the Marshmellow Couch in shadow, without mass—an apparition.

I have a conversation with her in my mind, trying to keep this unconscious fantasy within conscious direction without harming its contents.  It’s not real, but in order for me to work it through I must treat it as if it were.  Open, but cautious and careful.

I start the conversation by saying I miss her.  She says she misses herself too.  Tells me my efforts are a neat way to remember her.  She misses everyone.

I know there are questions I should ask, but I somehow know I can’t.  There are taboos I have to follow here—only things having to do with my need to grieve and work things out.

I resist the temptation to ask what happened, but she gives me subjective clues anyway.  She rolled the dice and lost.  Into the sea, lost her body, drowned.  Which could mean anything, it’s not concrete enough to test.

For a moment, I catch a glimpse of her in my mind’s eye as if a sliver of light reveals a tiny detail.  I think I see blood and get the impression of a head trauma.  A voice inside me says she wasn’t murdered.  But I keep that intuition at bay with a realistic viewpoint—my impressions and predictions have been wrong many times before.

I watch her put her face in her hands, sorrowful.  The emotional reaction I have makes it hard to stay focused and imagine her clearly.  She says she was sad and upset, she can’t find her way, light a candle with thoughts.

My instincts tell me it’s time to move on; I feel myself growing unable to hold this active dialogue stable much more. Whatever it is I needed to do, I’ve done and now I must acknowledge the inevitable.

I feel guilty at saying goodbye like this, both growing fully awake and losing the strength to keep going.  I tell her again that I miss her and that I always loved her.  I stop myself, realizing I meant to say like.  I consciously draw a line and the taboos require I flush the toilet—running water will make things right again.

I ascend the stairs and go back to bed.  As I let go, I imagine Molly sending me messages.  I drift, receive a message, write it down in the moleskinne in the dark, repeat.

She says to tell my friend Solikandi she’s sorry she missed her.  It was a bit of a shock and downer for her too.  She likes the musics she’s doing now.  She’ll find her way home.

She tells me to do a good job on my writing.

She thanks me for sending my messenger and for thinking of her.  She says that’s all there is.

I awake with a start.  I look outside the window and see a single star low in the sky flare once and disappear.  A breeze blows through the window.

She says she’s traveling.

She says something kind about me and says I can quote her.

She says my writing is a cool way to imagine her—not what she would have imagined.  It’s sweet.

The next time I wake up, Frankie the cat has opened the stationary box of delights and pulled out the key.  I understand it to mean my messenger has returned and my imaginary conversation with Molly is done.  I put the key and stationary box away, then feed Frankie.  I give thanks for my chance to say goodbye and rest my head on my pillow.

Then darkness.

I wake to the alarm clock playing Steppenwolf’s Magic Carpet Ride.  Time to go to work.

Getting on Facebook last year has been a real life-changer for me.  Getting back in touch with the people who matter has been a major part of that.

The other day a friend asked about a mutual friend’s birthday and all I could remember was she was Pisces. That’s when he let me know she’s been missing since 1998 during a trip in Malaysia.

Holy smoke, wind out of my sails. I had to do some Google Fu to find out the details. Crumbs, what was I doing on June 28 of that year?  Developments three years later don’t do much to inspire hope.

Molly Kleinman.

We met my freshman year of college.  She let me borrow her audio cassette copy of U2’s Wide Awake In America, which was the first time I’d gotten to hear the whole thing—that was a meaningful day for me I still can see clearly in my mind.  She borrowed my copy of the Beastie Boys’ Licensed To Ill.  We both loved the song “Paul Revere”; one time we sang it together.  We really dug that damn song.  That was when we became friends.

The two of us had different interests, but our social circles overlapped so I ran into her every now and then.

Then my senior year we dated on and off; kind of one of those inexplicable things that just happens. We never became a couple; both of us were too busy searching for our identities to bridge the differences in interests we had.

But, damn, those strange dates we went on still linger in my mind. I think she tried to show me things about herself that maybe no one ever knew. Like an idiot, I didn’t pay enough attention to reckon with that.

The last time I saw her in person was an all-day date-but-not-date.  I had lunch with Molly and her house mates, then the two of us hung out in her room and talked, while proceeding to get bombed.  She was interested in this other guy and asked me what I thought of him.  I recited awful poetry to her.

We talked about life plans and then for some reason we laughed together—laughed a good damn long time.  We walked down the street to a Thai food place, then spent a while on her porch talking about things which sadly I’ve forgotten.

Next I heard of her she was hanging out with that guy.  Then she was in Florida for what might have been related to her field (she was a biology major, I think).  She dropped off my radar after that (Hek, a lot of folks dropped off my radar during that time).

But I always called up her memories from time to time.  Who can explain the strange currents of our lives, the reasons people make strong impressions on us?  I thought she was cool.  She was always nice to me.

It’s weird, her having been gone for so long, that I only now hear of it.  I’ve been working on listening a lot to the things I haven’t heard this last year and a half.  Time to break out “Paul Revere” and sing like a stupid fool.

Hey Molly, thanks for hanging out with me in these space time coordinates.

Stara pulled an MP3 player out of her pocket. She opened the center armrest and took out a tape cassette.  The cassette had a long wire attached to it, ending in a jack.

Wesa said, “What’d you load?”

Stara inserted the casette into the car tape deck and attached the jack to her player. “Some Sinead, bit of Storm In Heaven, and BT.”

“Of course,” said Wesa.

“You know it. BT is life, can’t go anywhere without my BT.  Hey, did you burn anything for the trip?”

Wesa took a moment to savor the sun shining through the clear, early morning sky as they drove south.  “No.  Ran out of time.  I figured you’d bring something though.  Could you get my shades out of the glove compartment?”

Stara opened the compartment and found them.  She held the narrow, close-fitting sunglasses in both hands and said, “I thought Julio took ’em.”

“I gave him back his crappy hat and stole them out of his closet. His room mate always leaves the door open.”

A grin spread on Stara’s face. “It’s about time. You always let him take your stuff.”  She put on the sunglasses and smiled. “No wonder he took them; these things rule. You need to stop being so generous to people.”

Wesa concentrated on passing a slow-moving station wagon.  She returned to the easy groove of driving along the highway and said, “If I ever did that, I’d have to cut you off girl.”

Stara turned on her player and fiddled with the volume.  She sang along with naked enjoyment as Sinead belted out her biggest hit.

A beaming smile appeared on Wesa’s face.  She drove with a distant stare to her eyes while her friend continued to sing along to the track.  The forested landscape turned into rolling fields and long stretches of farmland.

When Stara had finished singing and the music began to fade out, Wesa said, “Again.”

Her friend obliged and hit the back button.  They hurtled down the road at over seventy, passing only an occasional vehicle.

Stara laid back and closed her eyes.  A lenghty BT song followed the Sinead repeat.  She said, “Where we staying for the night?”

Wesa said, “Whatever hotel has a vacancy on the coast.”

“Did you make any reservations?”

“No,” said Wesa.

“I hope you got some money then, ’cause I haven’t got any.”  Stara snorted, a curled smirk on her face.

Wesa said, “I just saw you take some money out.”

“That was all I had. Sixty bucks.”  Stara made a series of stuttering laughs.

Wesa shook her head.  “You damn deadbeat. I’m only carrying two hundred dollars. That won’t last us more than two days.  We’re going to have to sleep in the car and eat McDick’s after that.”

Stara said, “We could be just like that dude who ate nothing but McDick’s and threw up in the parking lot.”

Wesa laughed.

I haven’t finished formulating my disclaimer policy and category yet, so here’s a little aside.  There’s a random drawing associated with doing a review of the music I’m about to rap on.

I asked Solarbird to leave me out of the drawing.  I’m doing this review because she put out the request and I dig her style.  Freedom of expression is a big deal for me, and I want to be as honest and upfront as possible without any nagging thoughts of “a winnar is me” syndrome.

Free is a very good price for the personal touch of music, a novel or a picture of cats; but nothing is what I work for at times and this is one of those times.

Now, on with the show!

I’ve followed Solarbird from long distance sensor scans.  She’s intrigued me with her busking at outdoor markets and fairs in the Northwest.  There was a video of her performing which I thought was pretty good.  Hey, performing in front of crowds on the wind’s good humor is no mean task.

For a while now she’s been getting serious about sound and recording quality, doing a lot of preparatory work herself while working double time on her music.  Whoa, this could be a special treat.  I’ve been waiting like a coiled eel to strike when the yummy morsels are released for tasting.

So, what do we have here?

I have to say that the name Crime and the Forces of Evil is a pretty powerful and awesome name.  The title of the CD, “Sketchy Characters” conjures images of bold-faced loonies and not-eating-with-both-hands oddballs of questionable habits.

The music is essentially four songs of a folk instrumentation with an elf singing vocals.  Not much crime or evil though, and only one sketchy character—but she’s enough!

The mere fact of vocals caught me off guard. The expectations I built up for myself were that this would be instrumental.  Shows you how pesky one’s preconceptions can be!

I dislike the vocals.  They totally kill the music for me.  The singer’s voice just doesn’t blend well with the instruments.  The sound drowns out the music and even the singer’s own lyrics.

In all honesty it might be my creative agenda talking here.  With a different sound or approach this singer could work for me.  She sounds detached from the rest of the ensemble and out of sorts with herself—which might be the point!  Maybe a Frank Zappa angle would work better.

I listened through again to pick up the lyrics and they held up—I like them. Maybe with a different approach they’d pack more punch.  See, my creative agenda is about extremes of emotion and atmospherics—I want to be thrilled and have an out of body experience.  Songs like “Artefacts (You’ll Never See)” and “When You Leave” could hit any number of nerves with the right delivery—the absurd, the bitter, or the heartfelt.

The last track, “Cascadia (How I Have Missed You)” is purely instrumental (whew!).  Without that annoying elf eating into my brain I could see what’s going on inside the meat and potatoes.  I enjoyed this one.  Reminded me of meaningful, passionate times.

Maybe it’s my own nostalgia for the Northwest (a deeply personal thing for me) as telegraphed by the title that is influencing me.  But on another level, instrumental pieces with a title allow for those who wish only to dream and experience their own inner strength.  I think this is the musicing direction Solarbird should explore.

In other words, what if crime and the forces of evil is about the supreme crime—daring to feel and inspire others to find their own introversions of discovery?

Solarbird has mentioned before in her website that confidence is her boogey.  Maybe; I’m unsure of that—It takes a crumb of confidence at least to stand up on stage, to release one’s work out for all of us to respond with our own lifeforce.  Rather, I sense that there’s a vein of dirty, angry, elemental energy waiting to be recognized to unlock a latent passion.

See, I understand self-doubt as it refers to Cascadia—wanting to belt loose and express how I feel yet not knowing fully in the back of my mind if I have a right to those feelings.  How to remove that blockage and respond with clarity how I have missed that place from the bottom of my pond.  No easy thing.

Is that cranky elf a guardian? A guide? A foe?  I’m looking at my sylvan friend and striving to hear her words more clearly.  Oh, if she were only less sketchy!  What if I the listener am of the aforementioned forces of evil and don’t deserve to enter the glades and hear the words?

Yet then there is the lone musical piece that says nothing and therefore need not say anything else.  An invitation? Surrender? A confession?  Hopefully the full-length album will offer a more complete picture. This four-piece set is still in The Dip.

Way back in the days of great doom there used to be this crazy cable station that played music videos all the time.  For those of us too poor to afford access to this fountain of culture, there were television shows with videos.  That is, when you didn’t have to pay cable companies for the privilege of television with commercials.

One such television show was Friday Night Videos. They showed many if not most of the popular videos, along with a handful of oddities.  Had a rockin’ intro too.  It was like a weekly ritual with my folks and me for a while.

Friday Night Videos disappeared. But it was okay because the crazy cable station moved down to the level of “standard fare” and I could see videos galore. It was a golden age of seeing what was happening in music for me.

Then a strange thing happened–the cable channel began mixing shows in with the videos. At first it was edgy programming like Beavis and Butthead and The Maxx. But slowly, those videos faded away until all that was on were fake reality programs and weird attempts at gameshows.  The videos disappeared.

Rumor had it they’d moved to a clone station somewhere.  They lost me.  See, this thing called the Internet had become the place to hang out and hear the latest.  I remember when I first heard of MP3—I thought it was crap and would never catch on (dial-up was still the rule then).

My folks got rid of their cable subscription.  The free channels are awesome, because they aren’t beholden to the big corporations (there’s no money in “only commercials TV”) and you can see things you don’t normally see anymore.  Local stuff.  Personal stuff. International stuff that isn’t whitewashed with Hollywood phony baloney culture.

I don’t miss the cable.  The other day, Comcast came through the neighborhood with a two-man team.  They sent one guy one day and the other guy the next day—my guess is to wear down resistance and get past first-impression blocks due to psychology incompatibilities.  They were hyper aggressive and refused to take no for an answer, trying to barge in and sign us up.

See, when I had Comcast their service was horrible and their product stunk.  I’ll never go to them again, even if it means no television.  All these tactics do is remind me how much I hate them and never want to hear from them again.  It also makes me laugh because if this is their new tactic—they are desperate for cash and just don’t get why.

The new economy is about consumers getting what they want, when they want it.  You can’t ram stuff down our throats anymore.  Unwanted, irrelevant, inconvenient come-ons and advertising gets NO PLAY with me.  And from the attitudes of these guys, and the look on their faces when I said I only watch Netflix or the Internet, I can tell I’m not alone.

K, the folks, and I sat down on Friday and watched a free television program come on.  Two hours of videos, from mainstream acts to obscure weirdoes and local artists.  It blew our minds how cool this stuff was.  Friday Night Videos is gone, but its spirit is back and better than ever.  We sat down as a family and watched with an excitement we haven’t felt in years.

Rock on UFO Girl, rock on.

All right, enough already!  The sexual tension between these two forms is driving me nuts.  Nobody buys this mutual dislike as anything but a prelude to getting a room and making babies.  Get on with it!

For a long time we had a bunch of privileged intellectuals manufacturing consent by dividing the peanut butter and the celery between LIT and RACY, also known as high and low literature.  The “stuff that matters” from the unwashed laundry of the masses who don’t count because they are the bewildered herd and must be told what to value.

Along comes the E in Ebook and all of a sudden Pbooks are revealed for what they are—form, not the actual consciousness that inspires culture.  The entire social control mechanism that maintains access to distribution to consciousness is laid bare.  People naturally begin to ask questions, particularly those in the bewildered herd who have never known expression before.

That delicious E is the hammer in the Apple ad.  Thor’s hammer, the bolt of the storm that is the Aquarian lightning age, connecting thought.  The contact that is the point of all literature both high and low, author and reader touching each other, both one and apart, oscillating in response.  AUM.

In that moment of explosion, she joins the LIT and the RACY into LITERACY, one of the more stunning discoveries of this medieval age of thinking.  Now paper (earth) can be thought (air) and vice versa.

This is an unavoidable revolution in consciousness occurring right before our eyes.  As this bolt of electricity strikes earth and ignites a firestorm in the forest of paper, a lot of people are going to have to flee for their lives as their comfortable burrows and nests burn to the ground.

Make no mistake; this is a painful thing for a lot of ordinary folks who depend on the old growth forest for their lives.  But understand those who welcome the change as well as those who cringe in the foliage.  Everybody, and I mean EVERY BODY on any side of the fence is in on this.  We all get to participate as the forest burns down around our ears.  Open your heart and listen to the things you haven’t heard.

I emphasize with the struggle; those about to be hurt by the flames could be me, or someone I care about.  I’m excited and terrified both—where do I run?  Where do you run?  Who is already cut off from the lake—wait, is this the dry season?  That cave a safe haven or a future oven filled with smoke?  What is right action?  Shock the monkey!

It is a time for fear.

The copyright-royalty model is outdated and inefficient.  It is primarily a system for putting access to the forms of consciousness into the hands of concentrated centers of impersonal power, justified by projecting an image of the properly compensated and approved artist for their labors.

Don’t delve too far into that model—for every lucky artist you’ll find thousands ripped off, their rights in the vault of some conceptual entity that doesn’t count as a moral agent.  The millions who don’t get to participate at all because only “artists” can do that stuff?  They get to pay to know what they think.

Alternate economic models and mechanisms of access have been out for years.  Novels were the death of real books, just as recordable audiotape was the death of records and libraries would destroy bookstores.  Those with privilege, who stand to lose the most by sharing, always cry bitterly when community insists that people raise their standard of living more humanely.  Specialists are going to have to share their space with more generalists.

Access to data is still affected by class.  The decline of fossil fuels and rare metals leads to a cage match between military contracts and consumer electronic manufacturers.  The iron rule of oligarchy always obtains.  But humans are naturally moral and strive for freedom.  The human condition is nature’s way of making us figure it out.

The Kindle and the iPad are already ancient history.  You think that’s what the kids are using?  I’ll let that one be a surprise.  Developers hate Apple.  Who is going to put Ebooks in the hands of starving villagers with a credit card?

The price for everything is inflated.  People want what they want now and they want to pay what they want to pay.  You going to tell the vast majority of mindless beasts how to think?  Good luck!  Prices will have to fall and the money to be made will shrink.  Subscriptions and proprietary ala Carte tollbooths are yesterday’s memories.  Get used to it, what you think is right doesn’t matter.

How are you going to control the exchange of thoughts?  No, seriously?  Actions can be directed with a truncheon or a lawsuit, but you going to tell people what to do with their thoughts?  Even brutal dictatorships let people think what they want as long as they obey.  Rust always trumps the iron rule in the end.

Nobody can predict the future.  If you think that’s what I’m doing you aren’t paying attention.  Invigorated by the conflagration, the forest will grow back.  The new life is always greater than the old.  The status quo is death; plenty of new species will migrate to fill the void.  That’s the scary thought—who will be the new neighbor?  Won’t you be my neighbor?

The playing field gained a new dimension as well as a new form.  This isn’t squeezing anything out; it’s rather that the old way of doing things is not going to dominate any more.  It will have to content itself with being a smaller fraction of a greater whole.

Yes, this means even the crap gets a say.  Or do you mean “the crap we don’t approve of”?  I say let the crap hounds have their say and show us what they got.  If they can’t ante up they’ll make for some fine fertilizer in the new forest.  Freedom of speech means the right to participate alongside the great names and have your turn to speak—look at any sportscaster program with call-ins.

All of us start at the Level Zero crap hound bottom.  Never forget we all begin in ignorance and grow according to many variables outside our conscious control.  It’s in all our interests to create ecosystems of variable creative exploration.  It’ll do both the wizards and the crap hounds some good.

Physical objects are totems to show allegiance.  Don’t underestimate that.  Also keep in mind that whatever is not nailed down is mine and whatever I can pry loose is not nailed down.  Thoughts want to be free, so let them be so!  Air always escapes a prison.  The point is to hook up people who have an affinity with your thoughts and gratify them with stuff they actually want.

Youth culture is already doing this.  They grow up with everything that ever was at their fingertips, creating their own wants and satisfying their own curiosity.  Literacy is exploding like a thunderbolt.  Get out of the way if you can’t lend a hand.

Doomsday fantasies of resentment can eat my shorts.  We’re already there.  The hum of the lightning age moves through an emerging electro-agrarianism that will bring both a shadow we’ve never encountered before and a worldwide literacy the likes of which cannot be conceived of.

Just wait until you see the child Pbook and Ebook make together.

The hybrid is the message of the savior of humanity, believe it!

Wesa carried the black duffel bag over to her car and placed it on the trunk.  She ran a hand through her thick hair and sighed.

Her hand drew out a cellphone from her sweatshirt pocket.  She opened it and selected a number titled “Jules”.  The balance of her feet grew unsteady and she propped a hand against the driver door.

A girl with a dry-bag over one shoulder approached her from across the parking lot. Wesa put away the phone and waved.

The girl reached the car and said, “You calling anybody?”

“No.  I’m staring at numbers is all.  You ready?”

The girl grinned.  “Staring at a particular number?”

Wesa gave her a look.

“Yeah, all set.  Let’s go.”  The girl pulled a water bottle and granola snack bar out of the dry-bag .

Wesa opened the trunk and they put their bags inside. Her ring-tone went off as she unlocked the car—a recording of her own voice saying “Pick up the damn phone!”  She looked at the name and switched her phone off.

The girl got in the passenger seat and laid back without putting on her seat belt.  After Wesa had gotten in and belted up, she said, “Your ex?”

“No; Nelson. It can wait.”

“Playing hard to get?” The girl opened the bottle and drank half the contents in a matter of seconds.  She gave a satisfied look and burped a little.

Wesa focused herself into gear-shifting mode and started the car.  “Stara, you going to bug me the whole trip?”

Stara chuckled.  “Hey girl, I got nothing going on.  Might as well live vicariously through you.  Can we stop at an ATM?”

After looking around, Wesa backed the car out.  “Sure.”  She gave one last look at the campus.  “I wonder where Noreen is right now.”

Her passenger peeled open the wrapper of the snack bar.  “Who cares?  What matters is the latest volume of Annihilator Goddess Robot Ultra.  I want to know if Tomago is going to come back or sell out Yuki.  That’s what counts.”

They reached the entrance to the lot and Wesa turned the car onto the road running along the campus.  “She’ll be there.  Yuki saved her life.”

Stara talked with her mouth full of granola bar.  “That’s bull.  This is Tomago’s chance to finish Chie and settle the family feud for all time.”

“Who saves Yuki then?  She’s all jacked up; no way she takes on the third strike.”

Stara said, “What about Kiyomi?  She’s got all those bombs.  Could come in and save her.  Then they can draw out the angst between the two best friends.”

As they neared an intersection, Wesa shifted down.  “That would totally blow though.  They’ve been looking for the Crate all this time.  We have to see them use it to one-up and save the planet.”

Stara took a drink of water.  She screwed the top on and tossed the bottle on the floor-mat.  “Maybe they use it later.  Still have to get the Crate back to base so they can study its secrets.  It’s only volume five.”

The traffic yielded and Wesa drove on, shifting up as they rounded a bend.  A lot with a small grocery store, liquor store and Tex-Mex restaurant appeared.  Wesa drove into the lot and idled while her friend went into the grocery store.

Stara returned with a fist full of bills and a receipt.  She shoved them into her pocket and got back into the passenger seat.  “All good.  Let’s go.”

Wesa drove them out of the lot and back onto the road.

They passed a green sign announcing an exit.  “Here we go; no turning back now.”

Stara said, “Hit it.”

I have great affection for my dear friend, the wily Kim-a-roo. She knows I can’t stand Internet memes and yet she throws them my way just the same. I have better things to do than be a rest stop for mental viruses, but she excels at sneaking them into my flight path.

It’s enough to make smoke come out my ears.  Okay, so there’s a lack of smoke for now—pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!.

So the latest incarnation looking for a pit stop on the psychic terrain journey is a get-to-know-you creative writer challenge. Kim lets herself become a host and puts me on the list of brain donors, so to speak.  The part where she puts me on a list of 1-UP bloggers is a wily touch. She really loves taunting Happy Fun Ball.

Maybe I dost protesteth too much.  Thank you Kim-a-roo, for all you do.  I accept your challenge, and like a stupid fool I will change the rules.  Because I am so crazy, here goes mutation number two!

Here’s the thing: When I think of outrageous lies I imagine someone telling a goner such as, “I kicked the soccer ball right into the air and onto the moon.  My shoe flew off my foot and knocked over a ten story building that was slated for demolition!”  How do you come about an outrageous truth?  I don’t have any stories like that of the guy who fell out of a B-17 Bomber during World War II from 22,000 feet and survived.

I think there’s a fatal flaw in this challenge.

All that’s left is to honor Kim’s sweet consideration with a little creative enthusiasm.  So I’ve created a new category called “Meadow Showers”.  That is, another name for the “stuff” I’ve been meaning to put up here anyway.

Kim can mean “royal meadow” or “royal forest”, along with “chief” after all.  Shower is a word with many meanings–those of which I shall reserve the right to coax as needed–but primarily I will take it as meaning, “to bestow abundantly”.

I’ve already been doing something of the sort I’m about to do here already on my livejournal and blogspot accounts.  In those places it’s mostly filler for a place I go to comment.  But I’ve long thought I should do a similar feature here.

So, stay tuned to the Paul Channel worthy travelers!