Dude

There was a guy from Bear Stearns, or one of the biggies on TV the other day bemoaning that the US was now borrowing from developing countries and at their mercy over conditions they might set to let us borrow--just as we used to set the terms when we lent money out.

Dude!

What I find amazing is that no one questions that economic development has reached a dead end. Why on earth should oil countries be growing faster than fully diversified economies (with enormous oil reserves)? That's like a kid with an MBA, who also works out, growing more slowly than the star linebacker.

Sure--maybe for five or ten years--while the linebacker goes pro, blows his brains out with coke and does steroids..

But after 20, 30, 40 years?

And off into the forseeable future?

No, no , no, no.

After 20 years the linebacker is arthritic with an enlarged heart and fat deposits. His ex has half the money and his income has tanked. He's selling tires at best. Maybe has a car dealership. Hundred of thousands a year--maybe.

The MBA, on the other hand, is just getting into the real money. Making a couple mil. a month if he's really leveraged his shit right--taken as significant mental and emotional chances as the linebacker took physical ones.

Developed economies have better networking, better infrastructure--everything.

So why on earth don't they grow faster?

Don't scientists who start off with the most current knowledge have the most to gain from new developments? Why don't inventors--who are right (not the quacks)--make more than those who are just churning stuff out? Going through the motions?

Isn't what the 20th century proved is that brains are more valuable than muscles?

So why is the developed world falling behind? (And it's not just in $$--we also aren't any happier than Masai tribesmen in Kenya according to recent studies.)

So what the fuck are we working so hard for?

--If we're falling behind economically and haven't gained anything spiritually!!?

Dude.

From a Germs, Guns and Steel perspective, what the world is learning--is competing on--is not technology, or money, or brawn, or natural resources--but on life.

On everything.

So why shouldn't a newer culture reflect that better like a new car has better gas mileage, fewer emissions and lasts longer?

Why shouldn't a developed nation be better in every respect?

And--even more importantly--why shouldn't backward polities like China and Saudi Arabia want to enter the modern world? And why should they get a pass with manufacturing and oil money while their cultures remain woefully anti-human?

(Saudi Arabia, in case you're having a sensitive moment, still sentences rape victims to beatings--as in a recent case where a gang rape victim was sentenced to 200 lashes for being in a car with a non-male relative.)

Why should cultures like this get any part of modernity's money?

More to the point--why shouldn't a culture with democracy built-in do better--by every measure--than a state run dictatorship that kills people, restricts their movements, encourages them to inform on each other and in general is small-minded, petty, crass, fearful and crazy?

It's not like they're just trying new stuff out. The rest of the world has been there and fought person by person to extricate themselves from that position. Often at great personal risk.

The answer is that we've allowed humanities most highly valued offerings to slip through the economy.

That is, we don't economically value what we spiritually value.

And that is art.

Without the world valuing art as highly as it does even socks (hit song .99, cheapo socks $2.99) the Chinas of the world must win.

Control and authority must win--because it makes for more efficient material production and more stable natural resource extraction. Not higher quality, but more efficient and stable. Meaning that if they take our continuing mechanical advancements and implement them, they'll beat us who develop primarily advancements and have the additional costs of freedom, elections, environmental protections, etc.

Cultural advancements are sold at $14.99 per book and .99 a song no matter how valuable they are to others and the material goods that cultural advancements end up improving are valued at market rates.

If the economy has gone from agricultural to industrial, and physics from Newtonian to quantum--then the next age is creative.

Cultural if you will.

Developed nations already produce the most important, most highly valued and most influential modern culture in the world--it's just that they're sold off at break-even prices.

I'm surprised that China and India don't accuse us of dumping!

What with all the cheap, crappy movies, songs and slopped together tween lifestyles we fart around the world.

Why not make some real shit, yo?!

We've got the Hyundais and Chery's--why not make a Lexus? Or a Lambo?

Then no one will be talking about the poor developed nations at the mercy of fucking China of all places.

They don't even let people move there. (Move there as in a Chinese person moving to another city--no one wants to go live there--because they're fucked socially and politically. Why do you think people are hiding themselves in storage containers to get out?)

A Think

I woke up thinking was about god.

And advanced physics.

Throughout history, our notions of god have been almost locked to our popular notions of physics.

In the Newtonian Era, we believed that we would suffer great and unending consequences for any transgression--much like the cause and effect determinism that our scientists were working on.

In the Quantum Era, things got a little more relaxed and a little more probabilistic. (If that's a word).

If you were generally good, you'd probably go to heaven.

But even more than notions of god and heaven, what we thought of the universe seemed tied directly to our popular physics.

In the old days, the universe was hard and limited but predictable. If we could just figure out all the causes, then the effects would surely follow.

God was just and things seemed to make sense, even if life was brutal.

In the quantum days, all hell broke loose. Literally.

Everything became relative and that just dumped us into a morass of post-modernism and wishy-washyness. Where everything (content included) seemed to be just as important as everything else.

Meaning went away with certainty.

What's interesting is that what we think of god as being seems so directly tied to the growth of the universe.

A just but strict god presided over the relatively simple expansion of the universe during the Newtonian Age.

There was expansion, but it was hard--very dependent upon meeting strict criteria and working one's ass off.

And this could be said for any type of expansion--physical, economic, personal or social.

And these conditions were the exact same as those required for salvation--narrow as the razor's edge.

During the Quantum Age, we thought the universe was shrinking.

And similarly--most of the things that we valued most--that is family time, love, meaning, community, a sense of self and place, a stable identity, happiness..

Most of these things shrank.

Right along with what we thought the size of the universe was doing.

Our wallets grew, as did our houses, our education, the number of people we were feeding, etc., etc...

Everything we could see grew--from our cars to our wardrobes..

But we felt great shrinking feelings.

None of our incredible expansions did anything to allay the growing fears that we were screwed--both personally and immediately and generally and long-term.

As the universe shrank and god went away.

Even as we were becoming more powerful, more loving, including more people in decisions, etc., etc..

What we believe in is global warming, strife and horror movies--failure.

And we believe that greater alarm and worry is the solution to these situations.

Yikes.
_________

The most fascinating part of this is that since the 1920s, scientists have known that the universe is expanding.

And since the 1990s, they have known that it's ONLY expanding and accelerating.

This fact hasn't sunk into the popular consciousness yet, but it's as solid as any we've got.

Right up there with 2+2=4.

So, what must this new paradigm mean to our conception of god?

--To what we think of the universe and how we experience what's going on around and inside of us?

It must mean that it's about to lovingly explode and accelerate.

That god, meaning, true value--whatever you call "good" by your own measure of things--is turned around and ready to roll.

Or--more likely--that it's been rolling for all eternity and we're finally catching up in understanding.

But global warming, you say..

War, the deficit, rising oceans, growing economic divides, civic unrest, school shootings, rates of depression in developed countries..

All a product of late Quantum Era confusions.

And all symptoms of things sorting themselves out like a scab that itches.

Pick it or leave it--it's still going to heal.

What if all our problems are symptoms of believing that we are faced with an either-or world (either particles or waves, either momentum or position, either money or love, either family or community, either self or other) and that we must choose?

And of the belief that every choice has negative repercussions--that each choice necessitates limitations and the loss of something that we felt we wanted?

(By the way--the dire predictions of the Quantum Age have become so dark that most no longer believe that either choice will lead to salvation--that is enjoyment--just a slightly more survivable future.)

And what if the reality is that we really can have it all?

What if the reality is that we do already have it all?

And the only thing preventing that from existing in our lives..

No--not even that..

What if there is nothing preventing that in existing in our lives?

What if it does exist in our lives and is only becoming more present?

What if it only exists in our lives and is this truth is manifesting more and more every single moment?

The universe doesn't grow because it's been through hard times, it just grows.

It doens't grow because it studies, works hard, and puts its mind to it.

It just grows.

If the true nature of the universe is growth, then god is literally coming for us.

The world is coming to us.

And we don't need to meet a single requirement to enjoy it.

Not a single one.

I know you likely think that this type of thinking is the devil itself.

But it's a historical fact.

What if it was our unhappiness itself that was messing with our happiness?

What if it was our belief in shrinkage itself that was preventing our growth.

As far as I can see, it's all shrinkage and growth.

Bad and good, poor and rich, unhappy and happy, loss and love, fear and bliss--

Shrinkage and growth all.

Only that shrinkage doesn't really exist.

At all.

And that we are only accelerating.

Only growing.

The universe is only expanding--and it's accelerating constantly--only growing more every moment.

Meaning that our own little universes are likely only doing the same thing.

We may not be able to remain aware of that certainty as constantly as it is occurring, but that doesn't mean we ever stop.

The universe doesn't stop accelerating just because scientists aren't measuring it.

Or just because they undertake to test a conflicting theory.

So who's to say that the same isn't true with us?

That as above isn't as below?

That as we feel loss, separation, pain--shrinkage--we're not still in reality accelerating?

Seems pretty accurate to me.

And it appears that the dawn of the Warm Age--or the Dark Age if you want to name it after the scientific discovery that spurred it (dark energy)--will prove this once and for all.

We've endured the teenage years of doubt, separation, frustration and rage (and the naivite of childhood).

And now we get to be adults for the duration.

Fuck Em

One nice thing that floating content prices will allow--ignoring thieves.

Right now, as the 18-34 demographic is the only one that pays in music, film, tv and other mass content, artists, labels and studios have to kiss the ass of those who do the most piracy.

They think they can't raise prices so they try to cajole those who would just as soon steal their shit as even lift a finger to pay 88¢ for it.

They have to continually court those who do them the most damage and cost them the most to deal with.

Seriously unhealthy--culturally, economically, socially, emotionally and artistically. In any natural system, a producer's revulsion with the values of a given audience of consumers would lead to a greater distance and perhaps more maturity on the part of the producer.

Not so with music, where artists who get more into getting stolen from are rewarded.

"Oh, we'll just tour more. Sell T-shirts more."

An attitude of "the customer is always right" in art makes that artist a pussy, and worthless, but that's the line that artists must more and more toe to succeed under a fixed price system.

For whatever reason, we want our artists at our knees, begging for us to pay attention to them. (And, of course, adapting an arrogant enough attitude that we think they aren't begging us.)

Radiohead, for instance (who I don't think have been artistically relevant since OK Computer). People are stealing too much so we'll drop the label (where we had complete creative control), work more ourselves and give our produce away.

It's like a dysfunctional relationship that both sides have embraced.

And--just like a co-dependent, abusive love relationship--disgusting to watch from the outside.

You're supposed to ignore those who manipulate you (or give 'em a little verbal beat down and then step), not kiss their ass.

The last brick has crumbled. Bob Dylan in a Cadillac ad.

I don't understand why, for th elife of me, people want their heros groveling and whoring themselves for th ecars they drive instead of the cars they drive grovelling and whoring themselves for their heros, but there you have it.

If you havbent gotten it yete, allowing prices for mass content like songs 9and movies, books, etc) to float instead of being arbitrarily fixed would allow your heros like Dylan to start their own car companies.

Would put the true creators on top of creation.

Instead of putting the numbers guys on top and making the creatives appease the suits.

Which, as everyone knows, is like putting god on a schedule. And then making him toe the line.

Creation is it's own thing. And much more valuable than any manufacturing process or accounting system. They are valuable, to be sure, and millions eat because of the systems we have, but they're not in charge structurally--we just put them there.

Maybe out of fear.

I guess it's even a speaking part. Old Bob says "drive this instead of the other' or some shit. No mention of gas mileage.

At least when Picasso sent his portrait of Stalin off, it was by his own choice. Not to make a little extra money.

All your artists sell out because they can't make any money selling songs for .99.

That's the whole thing.

And you don't want them to raise the price.

Maybe you think that having the honor of serving your cultural needs, or not having to punch the clock is enough.

Total and utter bullshit.

You pay for the pimps and ignore the whores.

And you get what you pay for.

Every single time.

There is no big mean system skimming so much off the top that it isn't working.

The market is us--the jailers have left the building and the inmates are running it more smoothly than ever.

Hell, if anything, our current big systems are more efficient and loving than ever.

As long as they serve market mechanisms. (Our mass cultural systems don't serve the market mechanism, their prices are artificially socialized and controlled.)

Also, on the value of art tip, why is Rolling Stones 40th anniversary issue completely aboout politics?

Those guys are politics with a slightly musical leaning.

Another complete misperception.

Art--inspiration--is so much more powerful than politics--motivation.

And, again like Picasso and Stalin (he fancied himself a Communist for a while), so much more valuable, so much more important and so far beyond.

The whole idea of artists coming back to throw pot shots at politicians they don't like--like American Idiot--undermines what they do and even sullies the form.

I'm not saying don't vote--just know where the real power lies.

And then do what you're here to do--create a better way.

Why criticize a way you don't like when you're in the driver's seat? With millions of pairs of fresh, impressionable ears?

Shit, if I had four impressionable ears digging my shit, I could flip the script.

As long as they meant it.

Oh well, time and tides.

We are so sure that politics is important and art a luxury. A guilty pleasure.

Pleasure is never a sin. Real pleasure that is.

Well, actually nothing's a sin, but where and if you let fear into your game is important to take into consideration.

So What?

I don't recommend being 40 and trying to change the face of art and society while living at your mom's place.

When you're 36, or even 39, it's manageable, even cute or adventurous, or doable at least.

But when you turn the corner, there's nothing but you and it.

You and it.

You and it.

The biggest part of the equation, like with anything, is belief.

An artist who doesn't believe doesn't have shit.

My whole life the question that has loomed large has been this:

Am I who I am and what I believe when everything is goinng swell..

Or am I who I am when things are just going--or even going poorly?

When things are going well--which is more often than not--it's all just a matter of time and obsticles are just speed bumps.

To make sure that you're paying attention and not skipping over the present to get to the future.

But I've been doing this for ten years with no measurable reward in the material sphere. I don't even have a sense any longer that there's anything for me to go back to, so that's not really an option.

So what is there?

Let me put it like this.

When I started I thought just doing the actions was enough.

Write the book, paint the paintings, throw out the bad stuff, learn your craft.

Do the work.

Go take the cover photo, buy the expensive paints instead of the student ones, turn right instead of going left cause you felt like it.

That got me a book thta I felt (and still feel) was better than anything out there.

Because everything else out there, that wasn't superficial, was just mopey shit.

At least mine swung for the fences.

At least it tried, and was honest and real.

At least it burned in your hands.

All these fucking career authors are all doing something clever and edit-y about words.

Who's got time for that?

Plus none of their characters are half as smart/neurotic/fucked up/brilliant/genius. enlightened as they are.

So they're shirting the form of literature itself.

All these characters are trapped inside a book with a fucked up ending and the writer is making due, even got lucky a few times and was able to afford a Brooklyn loft.

And now he has to write another mopey book, causee that's what the gatekeepers think is real.

Fuckheads. (AAnd I mean th egatekeepers too.)

Plus--all of em afraid of mistakes and that's where half the glory is.

Fuckheads.

After the book, whatever voice that I decide to listen to in myself said, fine--go paint.

And move the fuck out of here (Seattle).

Actually it said them in the opposite order and much more slowly. You can tell the voice is loving by how fucking quiet and annoyingly relaxed it is. Gentle fucking bitch--shit, half the time I just want the news. But then there's all this drama around drawing it out, studying dreams, looking for inclinations, etc.

Sometimes it's nice, but whatever.

So I did it.

And told everyone who now thought of me as a writer--including myself--that I was painting.

ANd I painted.

And I tried to sell the things.

And some of them were good and some mediocre.

And some of them were transcendental--beyond anything I thought I could or would ever create.

[Just for reference, if I can say it without bragging, in my studio art classes in college, my prof., who was a 5o something working painter himself--told me alone that I had it--had the hands--whatever. He didn't say that to any of the art majors, or the photo-realist and suprisingly accurate technicians. Just stumbling along History major me. And half my paintings from that time are total junk--one was good and still is. The rest found the dumpster. And I only mention this to say it wasn't as if I didn't think I could paint and was pleasantly surprised a couple of time. It was more like I was supposed to be good but didn't really feel like dealing with it and finally figured out how to tap into something real. (What I do to paint, by the way, anyone could do—it requires no brush skill or "artistic" talent at all—besides an eye and preferences. I can draw too, but this wasn't about that either-it wasnt that I finally figured out how to make hands and feet look decent. I say this only to note that if quality was the deciding factor, I feel like at least some of my paintings would have found homes with all that I see going on in the art world around me and alll of the people I talked to.

I felt that about my book as well, which garnered a decent quantity of rejections.]

But I digress.

My point was that while I was painting, like a quantum scientist and a whole bunch of new agers, I came to believe that how I felt or what I thought had a significant impact on how I was received, etc.

Which led to a quantity of new age self-censorship (crush the negative) but also a new level of self-responsibility. Being responsible for my feelings.

Oh, and by the way, I pushed both my book and paintings after completing them. Got some nibbles from established players that immediately and always went cold.

In many respects it was identical to the job search I endured for four or five years in both Seattle and Chicago--where I couldn't even get a job waiting tables. (And yes I did have experience.)

Or leasing apartments, or doing graphic design (well, I got a little work doing that), or just aobut anything else.

It was as if I had somehow built some sort of failure force-field around me.

For a number of years, I was determined to see the positive in even this. That was the whole test, I was sure—if I can go through complete nothingness with even a smile, then surely I could run the business and take the kind of risks I wanted to take in life once things started popping.

Now?

Now two things.

A) I'm not so sure.

And b) I'm not sure it matters.

If love is conditional, then it's conditional — and fighting against it is what we should be doing.

If it's unconditional, then it really doesn't matter.

And none of your thoughts are being judged, nor actions being analyzed.

I still don't expect peanut butter to put itself on my bread (I don't eat either, but you get the point), but I'm not of the mind that it will feed me better if I do it in the right mind set.

If everything is allowed and nothing is punished, then everything is allowed and nothing punished.

If love is unconditional, then there is no karma, no retribution, no teaching, no learning, no nothing.

Well there may be learning--but why then would we be made (or make ourselves) stupid in the first place? Why would there be a fall at all? Why would god say to Adam and Eve don't eat the apple?

Why wouldn't they be able to eat the damn thing?

Why wouldn't they be able to eat anything for that matter?

Why would it be bad for white people to be uptight editors? Men to be assholes?

Why would ANYTHING be preferable to anything else?

Why would eating pure sugar be any different than eating broccoli?

Why would we be the fuck here at all?

So nothing exists but love.

So what?

How does knowing that evertyhign is love leave us any better off?

Why bother?

So the world is a constantly expanding, growing place that is essentially bountiful.

So what?

So we can do what we want every day and make our greatest dreams come true.

So what?

Why do we even have dreams in the first place?

Why do we even think we're separate from the thing we're not separate from in the first place?

Why isn't this just a big fucking circle jerk?

And don't answer, just buy my book.

Just have the guts to do what you want.

Just go for fucking broke.

It's taken me $75K and ten years living hand to mouth to get here.

Just send money.

And I know that it may be all me. And I take responsibility for even how bitchy and self-serving and childish this post may sound.

But my question remains:

So what?

Pink Harley

I seem to be getting lots of hits for "pink Harley".

Seems natural that people would be wanting something that's entirely masculine and radically feminine, seeing as those are the two primary attributes missing from our current socio-political landscape.

What with men being pussies and women being dicks.

Sensitive men don't want to be lame, just flexible, it's just that they go too far and give up the whole shebang.

Which, not un-ironically, makes them incredibly unappealing to women.

Women on the other hand have been opening up cans of whoop-ass for years.

And while that may be fine and dandy in the economic sphere, in the personal sphere a tough woman can be like tough meat--not much fun.

Probably a lot like a soft man.

To be clear, there's nothing wrong with softness in men nor toughness in women.

But when these secondary attributes overwhelm primary sensibilities—and you get women going on about burping and farting and men who tweeze and want to talk all about it—it's just less attractive than it could be.

Or uglier than it should.

The world is supposed to be a beautiful place, but grunge/the counterculture has us so believing it isn't that we've made it so.

It doesn't matter, it's just not what anyone wants.

Here's my new bike. For some strange reason, the universe didn't come through with the pink Harley that was my profile photo.

This is faster and requires less maintenance anyway.

For the record, I was ready to be entirely masculine and radically feminine at the same time—in fact, today I'm wearing pink head to toe. Now if god could just come through with the fucking funding, we'd really have some fun.