What Punk Rockers Think About All Day

What do punk rockers think about all day?

Mostly maggots, they think of maggots. And barbed wire, razor blades, electric fences, and pain. They think about thrashing about, hitting their heads against each other and other hard surfaces.

To them, it's nothing to dwell among the dregs, to make every experience as bitter as possible, to excite themselves with a quick gouge to the eye or to poke a knife in their leg.

They might get drunk and get a tattoo of something feral on their face. Tattoo artists see them coming and know they either give in or get their trailer trashed. They'll start their tirades if they're denied.

Everything to them is negative, a chance to laugh at normality, which, strangely, they appear to recognize.

The rest of us, if we looked at a policeman cross-eyed, they'd have us in chains and big tight cuffs. But these punk rockers can drive by at 100 mph, fingering everything in their wake, living it up, and railing to high heaven, making garbage out of everything in their path, and no one lays a hand on them.

It's all nihilism and hedonism, self-inflicted pain and suffering, and inflicting it on others. A quick knife to the gut, to them that's their idea of glory.

Too Much Complimenting

Have you ever been complimented too much?

That's happening to me in my life these days. I have someone who's complimenting me left and right. I'm "such a nice man," etc.

Which I am. I'm nice to everyone. But most people take it in stride, maybe it's their due. Certainly I don't mind people thinking nice things about me. That's OK, but leave me to my own sense of how things are going. I don't need constant strokes about it.

I came very close today to saying "It's too much," or something like that. But, being such a nice guy, I couldn't bring myself to say it.

I myself affirm people regularly, but not the same people over and over. It's a good thing to do, especially, of course, if you're sincere. Which I usually am.

Compelling Impulses

I was looking at a book I have. I can't remember the title. But it's something like "2,143 Meditations, Koans, and Whatever," a book that has little snippets of meditations. It's a cool book, one you dip in at random and it gives you something to think about.

I saw several things just looking at it for a minute.

One of them was this pointer, though not in exactly these words: "Wait until you have a compelling impulse two times before acting on it."

That would be good to do, because I get a lot of compelling impulses. When I'm looking at candy bars, for example, sometimes I have pretty good restraint. Then other days, like today, I went to the store specifically to get candy. Sometimes I'm definitely compelled. And frankly, had I waited for a second compulsion today it would've come.

I have a lot of my compelling impulses of the past surrounding me. I'm always trying to find shelf space for them. Many of them I waited for a second impulse. Many of them I didn't.

It's good advice. Maybe wait 10 times as a matter of policy. Because for me it's easy to secure that second one.

Release Your Inner Piranha

The way to do anything that maybe takes a challenge is to go at it with instinct and intensity. Release your inner piranha. Making love, decimating an enemy (like in sports), train yourself to the end and chow down.

How to do anything involving a weapon, let's say, make it part of your hand. Like David and the rock he flung at Goliath. When it leaves your hand, it's still in your hand all the way to the giant's forehead. Inner Piranha, away!

Agreed On Texts

I've been asked now twice in the last month and a half, "What are you reading?" The first time I said nothing. The second time, having been prepared for this from the first time, I said something about the poems of Sir Walter Scott, even though I've pretty much abdicated from reading them. I need to get back to them.

I was sitting in a chair today -- worried as usual -- and thinking I should read something. There was a book I was thinking of but I didn't know where it was. So I'm sitting there another 10 minutes and glancing around, the very book was four feet in front of me, almost hidden in a stack. So I read from it. It didn't help very much but a little. The thing is I know something about this, and the whole point of that particular text, if you went to the very heart of it, is that you don't really need texts. The real text is in here (tapping my empty head).

So I'm sitting here now tapping out another empty text. These paragraphs and the others I've written today, like at Grandma Slump. I like the entry over there because it picks up on this feeling of worrying and being down. But once you've written it and read it you think, OK, that's done. That helped for that minute but now it's just a thought that came from my own head. It's hard to be entertained by thoughts that come from your own head. One thing about it is that what the text is is a very selective part of the thoughts that come from your head, like .0001% of the thoughts you have all the time.

Who really can be entertained by themselves? It's like Frank Sinatra who said he never listened to his own records. And why should he? The voice was in his throat somewhere, lurking with him all the time. He didn't need a needle to remind him.

But there are these texts that get to us collectively. The Bible is the biggest, most obvious one. I think the Bible is fantastic, but it's a dangerous book because of what people have done with it. It's like it's intentionally dangerous and wouldn't pass OSHA standards if someone wrote it now. It has enough stories with jagged edges that it keeps us perpetually fascinated. That's probably one of the keys to writing an agreed on text. Don't round the edges. Leave it rough. So it appeals to everyone, from the Sunday School child with a white hankie to the biggest flaming, psycho, apocalyptic kook in the world.

The Point Of No Return

Somewhere I've written about an article I saw in Omni magazine one time about "how to have a mystical experience." Part of it had to do with depriving yourself of sleep, which probably works, if by mystical experience you just mean an altered consciousness.

I don't have any raging techniques to mention, anything surefire. But it seems like normal seeking, persistent, normal, relational prayer and devotion -- over the long term -- making it as personal and up close as possible, would be your best bet.

Putting aside mystical experiences, I wanted to say something about "The Point Of No Return," which is a title I'm putting on an experience I've had over the years, going back maybe 12-14 years, that doesn't happen very often. This experience is tricky to describe, like describing a dream. But it has always occurred when working with putting things in a series, or working with the things in a series that is going out of order in some way.

Like, say, you have 12 cards and you need to put them in order. Like alphabetical order, numerical order, in order by the personalities on them, something like that. At some point you may get these two sensations: 1) Doing it is vain or there could've been an easier way; 2) You're at the point of no return; you may as well keep going no matter how vain it is. I guess the sensation comes -- and I haven't had it for years -- quite at random. I tried to invoke it a few times intentionally but couldn't.

It really could be that whatever the spark for deja vu is might be in operation during this series work, and something about the point of no return just flips it for a second. It's brain work, after all, and brains like the harmony of a series, but sometime feel stymied by whatever.

Doldrums Eating

I need to think about eating something. I feel down tonight, but not eating isn't a solution. There's no compelling reason I have to eat; it's not like I'm going to starve; but just giving in to a bad mood isn't the answer either.

The thing about eating, though, is it takes effort. More effort than pushing the keys on this keyboard. And my stomach is doing some things. But what is there? I have some things in the refrigerator that could make a meal. The problem is some of it is the same stuff I have for breakfast. And I don't want every meal to be breakfast.

I could go out but I hate spending money at this point. I've had some crazy expenses -- family crises -- and it'd be better to keep back plenty for the next rainy day, which could be literally any minute. There's no telling. There's no security, that's for sure.

I have a book somewhere, and I can't find it, even though I've looked several times. Maybe it's fitting that I can't find it. The book is something like this, "The Wisdom of Insecurity," and I think it's by Alan Watts. (I looked it up on Wikipedia and that's the correct title and author.) I see he wrote it in 1951. Anyway, I've looked at it in places over the years but never have read it through. I seem to recall the upshot is that being insecure is actually a pretty good way to be. What reason? This I don't know, but my guess would be it keeps you trying, keeps you alert, and lets you know life is meant to be lived this moment, moment to moment, and not like The Rich Fool of the Bible.

The big problem is I feel like I like security, even if it causes all kinds of pain. Just thinking of complete insecurity, I will leave that pleasure for when and if it just happens all by itself. I can hardly see me being homeless and all that. It's a terrible thought, but who knows, maybe it wouldn't be all that bad. I don't say that humorously.

I think there's a couple of cranky pork chops in the fridge. By cranky, I mean the ones the grocery store hides under the good looking ones. The first to be packed, the last to be eaten. They have a kind of security in their insecurity.

March March March

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, I gotta march, march march...

I don't know why I'm sitting here like a slug, all consternated, all zapped out. That's not me. My biorhythms aren't meant to be out of whack. Though ten thousand fall at my right hand, it doth not come nigh me. What can you tell yourself?

What can you tell yourself? is a good question. Because there's always a kind of dialogue, or internal monologue that at the same time incorporates many voices, past expectations, present propaganda, and future hopes/fears, the whole thing.

When I get in a funk, it's time to get out. That's not you. That's every other idiot. Popping their pills, dozing off. For me it's raw, raw, raw. Live it till you hit the wall, then keep living it.

So here is my day's resolution, although delivered in the day getting on ... You will not be down. Being down is not an option. Be up, get going, crank it.