Can You Feel It No. 43

It doesn't get much more exciting than this.

That's right, custom White G slipmats. With an updated suitcase logo.

If only I had time to make new t-shirts, cut my album and the cash to work on the clothing line.

Oh well, everything in time.

I want a several-five million dollar house first anyway.

That should come from The Love Artist, the album and my paintings. I'm not going to make y'all just the fanciest ever t-shirt company.

You'll find me at Starbucks pulling Tazos before that, biotch!

Put it this way--I can go hungry financially much longer than you can go hungry spiritually/creatively.

And I relish the challenge.

And that I guarantee.

Plus, I'm double Taurus, so I'm stubborn as a motherfucker, motherfucker.

And I plan to fuck Nigo, Pharrel, Prada, Greenpeace and the Raconteurs all at the same time.

Im gonna be more art, more money, more enviro, more music and more happy from the get.

With better fucking beats.

And enjoy it more while making more money for doing less.

Cause I know exactly how they all get down.

And exactly how they've all played themselves.

And god bless 'em, but if you're played, you're played. (The Jay-Z movie Fade to Black has a brilliant conversation about gangster rappers feeling sold out for talking shit about killing people by the way. So how do you think punks feel? So who's bought in?)

And I'm already wearing $500 pants, new Polo shirts and $800 cashmere sweaters just sitting here broke, corny and relaxed.

In my salad days. Or, as the other Eben would say, my pre-grit days. (That's before the grits got thrown on Al Green).

Even if I do live at mommy's housee, boyee.

Put it this way--my financial side hustle is more rewarding and more efficient than all your spiritual side hustles put together--yoga once a week, thinking about going back to church (don't bother, I already tried it), some new guru or new age pimp.

And my wellspring is getting stronger and deeper while yours is rapidly drying up and becoming caked muck.

Teh next thing you know it'll be a dust bowl and you'll have asthma.

And while your wife may not care--after all you have provided for her very well, and Viagra makes up for some of what you've sacrificed--your kids will look at you with as much clarity as you looked at your parents before you went off to run the streets.

They know you're corny, that you can't get down. That you packed something in somewhere along the line when you didn't really have to.

They know that at some point it became too hard to maintain so you gave up.

And they know they'll have to leave you to gain what you've left behind.

That's it. Either you leave your parents or your kids will leave you.

Someone's gotta break the chain somewhere.

No, not even therapy can help you now.

There's nothing wrong.

You ARE a king among men.

You just want a real life, that's all.

To feel it.

And there's no where you can buy it.

Or even any cultural products that are unmediated--that would even talk about or suggest how it might be possible.

None besides White Gold, that is.

And the therapist, and massage therapist, and hooker that might at one point have helped--are of little use now.

They know it with as much certainty as you.

And believe the world a shit-hole to be survived as cheerfully and as well-mediated--or medicated--as possible just like you do.

Only you don't want to know that anymore.

It doens't provide the relief it once did.

The balm or air of superior knowing.

Only you can't admit this new realization, this new certainty, to anyone--even though it's growing daily.

You know that everything is perfect but you don't even know where to approach the problem, let alone how to feel the myriad solutions.

You don't want to read the self-help books or try new diets.

Yes, the universe is accelerating, but all the philosophers you believe in thought for sure it was collapsing.

Even your beloved Pessoa was a depressed wretch with a day job and a rich inner life.

You think he had it better because it was 80 years ago and they found his trunk.

And you don't even have a trunk.

But admit it--he's not even readable, just sometimes cool. He's not even coherent, just incoherent so far before anyone else that you think it must mean something.

He just appeals to the part of you that is so bored by all other books that you don't finish them.

He looks good sitting on your shelf.

Let me tell you--a motherfucking trunk is nothing.

Nothign.

Nothing but baggage.

Shit.

Only having a life is anything.

And you can't NOT have a life.

The only remaining question being:

(Just like the techno song..)

Can you feel it!!??

Piece in.

I'm o--u--t.

Motherfucker.

First off, I want to say fuck Allah. And fuck Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad, and any other person, entity or being that anyone thinks is worth more than a human life.

My point is: if you think it's okay to put out a death threat for anyone saying anything, then you and I have a problem.

And you might as well put me on your list of people to kill.

So let's get it over with now.

In fact, most of the world should be on that list.

Then there wouldn't even be a list anymore. Like bullies in school, they could never take on a united front.

But one by one they work their fear into a living hell.

So come get me right now. You can even call me and I'll give you my address.

Your god against mine.

I guarantee you cannot get happier, be holier, appease anything that has anything to do with love or accomplish anything positive by condemning other people or calling for pain to be inflicted arbitrarily upon them.

Now, were you to come to my house and try to carry out any threat, I would kill you like a dog.

But as long as you even pretend not to carry it out...

And maybe that's it--

I shouldn't try to control your speech either.

So let me amend that--call for my death all you want. Say anything you think is holy, will get you anywhere.

In fact, say it all--let's get it all out in the open.

If you act on it, I will kill you like a dog.

But as long as you're just saying it you have my complete support (which means I will ignore you benignly).

I'm glad to know what you think.

And I support your right to free speech as well.

Simple Math

I thought I was done with indie rock, but I'll be damned if I can stop playing this song.

I don't follow it, or even listen much anymore (I have recently re-acquired much of the Neutral Milk Hotel catalog--but that's more for how they transcend indie than how they capture it)--but damn, that's a song and a half right there.

I'm writing my magnum opus.

A book, tentatively entitled Fucking is Holy.

About, of course, everything from business to personal growth and spirituality.

The premise is that if the universe is expanding after our top scientists and best mathematicians predicted it should be shrinking, then rationally we should expect unforseen, immediate and ever expanding cultural, economic, spiritual, and personal growth.

And that the last hundred years of uncertainty, and the previous thousands of years of dogged toil were basically anomalies in the grand scheme of things.

Kind of like the cranking needed to start an almost effortless engine.

And the moment of doubt following when it seems that the engine could die again. (Or fear that the whole noisy thing will blow--noisy and blow being silent and die in this case).

Scientifically speaking, that is.

I put fucking right out front because it's that radical of a turnaround.

From reality as toil to reality as enjoyment.

It's consumption really.

A word that may scare more people than fucking.

Consider for a moment the word consumption: both the left and the right hate it like the devil himself. They both consider it obviously and blatantly evil, completely indefensible, and accuse each other of ruining the world by how they do it.)

Even though it's what they all think about--secretly--constantly.

It's their fantasy.

Even those big bad business guys who chant production--work--all day long and consider enjoyment at home or at the office kids stuff.

Even those activists who give everything and live for others all day in third-hand (and uncool) t-shirts.

The analogies are also lock tight--these production-centric guys having blown their wad so often that they now need the equivalent of a speedball to even get it up. (That would be Viagra.)

The activists blowing it so quickly that they come to hate beauty itself.

The pursuit of happiness having been replaced with the pursuit of pursuit--endless frustration. Getting off on frustration itself even. Getting into it.

Writing songs to it, books about it.

Championing work ethics and manual labor.

Developing a culture of frustration.

>>>


The new physics also proves that the fundamental nature of reality is neither material nor energetic as previously imagined, but imaginary!

Imaginary matter and imaginary energy together comprise an estimated 94% of the universe according to scientists latest estimates.

--And dictate even the most basic mechanics (gravity, etc) of all we think of as "real"--matter and energy.

Put it this way: our entire institutional learning since day one is exactly wrong.

And most of our most spiritual learning is mostly right.

Not religion--but most spiritual.

Like the whole world is love. Only love exists. Nothing that is real can be destroyed. Only love is real. Your greatest wish is my command--stuff like that.

Now, you might think that this would inspire some sort of walk in the park--but all I care about is money at the moment.

I want to consume a whole bunch of it.

I want to consume a whole bunch of everything.

Time and fucking included.

Such is the way of the world--when the nature of reality is overwhelmingly bountiful.

Massive consumption is not only natural, but puts us in harmony with the universe.

And material consumption is just the tip of the iceberg. Energy consumption the waterline.

Our main and primary consumption is imaginary. Personal.

Relaxation.

Rest.

Enjoyment.

Play.

Experimentation.

Sensuality.

Daydreaming.

How can the nature of reality be overwhelmingly bountiful and my life feel like such a grind, you ask?

Your imagination must be playing tricks with you. (It is still playing, though.)

That second--and arguably most important--"you" being the part of your imagination more closely aligned with the universal imagination--what some folks would call your soul.

Because, as science has now proven, that second imagination (they're really not separate, but they can obviously appear so)--that universal imagination is growing constantly and in charge of the entire universe--energy and matter included.

Not only does it not blink or sleep (or maybe open it's eyes or work would be more appropriate analogies)--not only does it not ever toil nor ever fear, but it also never stops having more fun than it did, reaching better orgasms, enjoying simple pleasures more thoroughly--everything.

It is growing and growing in every way no matter what. And the rate at which it is growing is constantly growing.

A corporate analogy would be a business that returned a constantly higher rate of return no matter what.

Stay home--more money. Goof off--more money. Long lunch--even more money.

What would you do if your life was certain to grow in every possible way no matter what you did?!

And grow at an ever increasing rate of speed. Become ever more enjoyable, ever richer, ever more relaxed, ever more fun.

Money, jobs, love, food, health, eyesight, libido, and well-being included.

And that all dath, sicness, and apparent retrograde motion was nothing but an available opportunity to grow even more rapidly and more completely?!

To understand the certainty of our enjoyable flowering with ever greater presence of mind.

And given that the universe is growing in all the ways that we can obliquely discern, just imagine all the ways in which it's growing that we can't! Imagine the gifts that have yet to be revealed to us!

And imagine the quantity and quality of new gifts which accumulate every day.

>>>


We currently base our entire economy around scientific laws that insists that growth is difficult and requires toil. That friction rules the world. (That's Newtonian physics for all you heads).

And all of which have been massively and redundantly disproven.

If we're lucky, we have a foreign policy or two that suggests some quantum mechanics. Probability, etc.

Which has also been proven enormously incomplete.

When, in reality, the nature of the universe insists that growth is omnipresent and effortless.

And that mistakes cannot be made.

Or--that not only do probabilities not exist--but that the underlying certainty of support and growth is so solid that we are literally all one.

And nothing we can do can separate us from ourselves or our permanent and growing well-being, prosperity, enjoyment, etc.

No act, no decision, no statement, no stance nor belief.

No other person, no submission to another's authority, no mistake, regret or shame.

There simply is no separation, nor any alternate futures, nor even a past.

There is simply no thing.

Which means that all this is everything we want--and exactly as we want it.

Or even what we think we want.

Again--it doesn't matter. Whatever it is and whatever our relationship to it, it is improving in every way and at every moment.

With our input or without.

There is simply one, overwhelming--and overwhelmingly gentle, enjoyable, and agreeable--present. One that encompasses every possible apparent future, every possible interpreted past--etc., etc.

And I don't say this to get us all lost.

Or to take up permanent residence on some pillow somewhere (though this understanding requires radically more rest and free time than our culture allows).

But to grow.

To make money.

To become the people we want to be.

Even the most corporate decisions look much different with this understanding in hand.

And they should be more profitable.

Put it this way:

Two hundred years ago the slavemasters among us (and my family had a number) couldn't imagine a way to a better life with fewer whippings, more freedom.

And they couldn't have been more wrong.

The future FOR THEM was to improve only as they accepted the exact things they feared the most.

And what they thought would destroy their whole culture and way of life.

I'd suggest that the entire history of the world has been an extended version of this.

Of fearful steps toward freedom and autonomy.

Taken out of desparation, after much fighting.

Unwillingly.

But, once we understand the process, it is possible, or, rather, it becomes un-impossible (that would be effortless)--to understand that living in a state of unconditional freedom is also the most profitable way of life ffinancially.

And from cultural, personal, interpersonal, social and universal points of view as well.

Which means that corporate bylaws, and state regulations are bound to collapse.

Double entry accounting is bound to stop.

Fear, conditionality and resistance at each and every point of every relationship--including our relationships with ourselves (and perhaps primarily there) is ineffficient and bound to be dropped.

And it can be dropped willingly, like an industry deciding to self-regulate to avoid the government (or these days, more likely, to avoid consumer dissapointment--or even more recent--to attract more talented and free-er individuals as employees).

Or it can be dropped unwillingly.

But it will be dropped.

That is certain.

And growth will become manifest as soon as it is.

That is also certain.

Growth being the only universal constant means that it can appear latent for some time--such as the last hundred years, when we appeared to become less happy but more rich.

What was really happening was that we were building the neural pipeline through which we will connect and interact in myriad and dazzling new--and more profitable ways.

And all this will happen when the straw breaks the camel's back.

What is the straw?

Fixed pricing for content.

99 cent song downloads.

That's the Dow Jones to the power of Nasdaq.

Once we have $10 songs (decade hits), we'll really be somewhere.

Once we have $40 songs (century smashes), love will surround most of our workplaces.

Once we have $120 books, $420 cds and $700 DVDs we'll be on cloud nine.

Literally.

It's simple math.

Not Guilty

A couple things:

There was an editorial in the Trib this morning describing that after one year with access to cable tv, women in rural India displayed attitudes the equivalent of women with 5.5 years of additional education in the way they saw themselves and their surroundings.

The editorial is here.

And, as is so often the case, people love to apply this stuff to the bottom end of the pyramid/totem pole (because they need our help, right), but fail to do so to themselves.

How much more advanced would we be if we had access to a mass culture that had a larger sense of the world--was ahead of us?

How much would our attitudes here in the West grow after a year of exposure to what for us would be a premium mass culture?

What I love about this is that it's completely voluntary! No clinics, no indoctrination, no visits from social workers or parachuting in white liberals--not even any school--just daily stories about women like themselves who have left the rural attitudes behind and made a way for themselves in the city.

The left has such problems with what it terms the entertainment industry, and has glorified toil so long (remember what the Soviet Union and China did to those fairy artists) that it may be hard for them to turn around, but these are the results we can expect when they do.

It also shows how slow and ineffective rote, standardized, enforced, institutionalized forms of cramming "knowledge" down people's throats is.

But you already know that: that motivation (pushing) hurts and that inspiration you'll chase like the holy grail.

The former is your boss and the second the daydream that takes over every meeting and toward the end of longer vacations. Over time the first will become less effective and enjoyable and the second more appealing--exponentially.

Even if you don't believe in yourself enough to orient your life around what you love.

Which brings up another point..

I just watched Twwelve Angry Men.

Very apt that it was made in 1957--just as we left the surity of our national childhood and entered the confusion of our teen years--the 60s/Vietnam/etc.

I think we're ready for another one--presaging the end of the counterculture and introducing the new non-denominational, universally supportive, interdependent surity that is replacing our current dog-eared relativism.

The most moving part is when the last hold out--the angriest guy of them all--cracks.

For him, the trial was the most personal because he related so strongly to the deceased. (The son was on trial for the father's murder.)

For him to admit that the accused wasn't guilty took forgiving his son for leaving him--and himself for being such an asshole (essentially he tried to beat the "rotten" out of him and make him be a man/toe the line).

When he broke I thought of White Gold--and premium mass culture--and how personal it is. Both for me and everyone else.

Our whole lives we we're taught that life is hard, not fair, etc.

And that growing up means to a significant degree shelving our dreams and getting on with it.

We have accepted this diseased "truth" from our parents as if it were love.

And we've made innumerable, very important decisions taking it entirely on faith.

Did we try painting for ten years and fail? No, we dabbled, met a girl and became graphic designers.

Did we even make the music we wanted for five years and then get angry and bitter and start making angry and bitter music?

No, we arrived at music angry and bitter. Hateful at the whole industry we'd have to negotiate if we were even to have a chance at soul like they routinely knew twenty years ago.

And we turned around and infected our children with the same, well-worn, anti-faith after holding out--and keeping them innocent, happy and free (and taking our meaning in life from their joy and love)--as long as we could.

This is literally teaching them our reality: that life is hard, that there are no free lunches, that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.

This is our cult. And crushing each other's dreams our initiation.

And it's all complete bullshit.

We do it to protect those we love--because seeing them fail at something they've invested themselves in entirely, a way that would be "hard" would be too much.

Or is it because to succeed at what they love--be it dance, or flamingo cultivation, or singing, or finger painting, or bee keeping--they'd have to invalidate a million of our choices in the process?

In other words, if they don't have to sell out--what the fuck did we do?

If they didn't give up love, money and everything else to be true to themselves--then why did we end up selling copiers?

When what we wanted so much was to draw and write illuminated manuscripts?

And were just a little scared.

For a couple years after college.

Of had a hard time telling our new girlfriend.

Who later became our wife.

Who then became estranged after we could no longer hold it together--could no longer live for nothing inside ourselves.

The path is so well-worn it's cliche.

Ye olde mid-life crisis.

Except it's not cute, short or manageable anymore.

It doesn't even wait until we're mid.

It's constant and everpresent.

Haunts our every day.

Except for those ten minutes after that triple grande. And the hour and a half two hours after our first beer--while the game is on.

The emergence of a premium mass culture is personal for every one of us.

Our most solid and re-occurring myth is that of the starving artist. The shunned heretic, the bonkers visionary.

What if re-making society in our own image and to our own tastes and standards was not only not weird or deviant but par for the course?

And what if we could either go hard or go easy each and every time?

And what if it were up to us to reward those who improved our lot or punish them?

And what if if we started rewarding them, we got more improvements?

Better songs, movies, answers, ideas, paths, feelings, books, tv shows.

I know you think the quality of our culture is somehow, magically, divorced from how well it pays, or--even worse--that somehow forty rock stars with twenty million each (after thirty years of non-stop grind) is somehow enough of an incentive in a land where the hedge fund losers who simply refrain from killing themselves after they drop out of art school clear a bil and a half annually?

Even though that would make it along among all products on the earth in paying more for lower quality.

What if even those who set out to lose money in the culture war ended up making it? (Witness every punk rocker ever--including The Pixies and a whole score of other bands that were merely influential (read broke and barely recognized) when they were around--who are now making money on sold out re-union tours).

What if there had been a fundamental change in the speed at which culture changes that made another van Gogh (who didn't sell until ten years after he died) virtually impossible?

What if failure--financially--was impossible as long as you were connected to your own truth?

Would you go for it then?

It will mean admitting that your parents don't know.

And maybe even your friends, spouses and aquaintances.

That we didn't know when we shipped ourselves off to straighten the fuck up and get a real job school..

And as our connection to our own soul is, of course, our primary relationship--it will mean forgiving ourselves.

For abandoning ourselves.

Yes, our parents did it first, yes it was expected, yes there was no one telling us it would work and was safe, yes we were scared--but there wasn't anyone in the room but us when push came to shove.

We walked the gangplank freely and unbound--rather than face what wee guessed would be some stormy seas.

For what we have insisted--what we insist every day at the office, in meetings with clients, is that our soul is worthless--and that doing this shit we don't really care about is important.

Valuable.

And we didn't know any better, but that's what we tell ourselves.

And when we tell our kids they can be anything they want--after not having gone for it (or supporting our spouses to go for it) ourselves--they know.

That's why they still go to Hot Topic and buy bondage pants and wear black lipstick.

Because they know there's no way to grow up in our world and have the life they want--and see all around them--doing what they want.

And how they want it.

And we call it love to teach them the error of their ways--to beat out of them the certainty of their naive hearts.

Instead of even admitting we have beyond a reasonable doubt--cause our lives ain't no bed of roses--and just letting them go free.

Or heaven forbid--supporting them in whatever they do.

Trusting that they know everything we know and more--like every other subsequent generation.

Will we remember this once we have tv programs that grow us 5 years every year we watch them?

Will we remember that we insisted that our souls were worthless, and that moving junk mail, bread, seat covers, fertilizer, new clothes and cut rate entertainment was more valuable than what we wanted?

Will we remember that we thought paying more for a song than for a latte was ridiculous?

Blasphemy?

Even though the song always worked and the latte increasingly made us angry, disconnected and not that interested in sex once we got home?

Will we remember that we thought that was normal as well--to become less connected the older we got?

To love each other less the longer we had known each other?

To have less time the more money we made?

Will we remember that this all made perfect sense to us.

So perfect that even when we heard a rationally explained solution we dismissed it as fantasy.

As a pipe dream.

As too la-di-da?

Mass culture will crack--it will break down.

The music industry is already failing.

And tv and film are slated to go digital just as it has.

I know you may not see this as a battle for the soul of the world, but it is.

And the outcome has nothing to do with me, or anyone else.

It's predetermined.

By the nature of the universe:

Which is to grow--and grow increasingly fast and in an increasing number of ways--always.

(Which includes delivering relaxation, calm, leisure time, and peace of mind at increasingly large amounts for those of you who might have some anxiety attaching itself to that last sentence--or who may have just had a cup of coffee.)

And it doens't matter how certain motherfuckers are when we start.

Nor how angry and certain that life is hard and art poor.

Nor how enamored with the way business works and how dismissive of how culture gets made.

(To listen to these business bloggers, you'd think half of them were Rickie Lee Jones--having coke blown up their assholes. They're not, of course, they don't even make decent money--or know anything that a Southeast Asian consultant won't know better in six months. They're simply trying to make a place for themselves at the table by shouting the party line louder and faster than anyone has ever before. --Witness Supercrunchers, or whatever that new book that says our whole life will be by the numbers in just two minutes.)

These will be the motherfuckers who are in the fetal position when they croak their "not-guilty"s.

And I hope I'm as gracious as Peter Fonda--in his white suit--happy just that the battle is over, cause it's personal for me as well.

And I'm not getting paid to sit in a jury room and deliberate.

And I'm paying for the trial on my credit cards.