My Magic 8-Ball and the Chaos Theory...

I love my Magic 8-Ball. All life's questions can be answered in a quick shake. Maybe not the best answer, but an answer none the less! I decided to take a whole day and only let my Magic 8-Ball make any choices I had to choose. It was awesome! I laughed at every shake. Talk about a stress free day, my Magic 8-Ball had me cancelling plans with good friends, watching old movies, eating food I didn't want but liked, hanging out with a virtual stranger, and drinking rose flavored lassies. It wasn't what I had in mind at all. That's the point! Putting a day of your life on random.

I enjoyed that day so much, I have a web page that had a Magic 8-Ball program on it that I get to from my phone. I've been using it out occasionally. Talk about pulling the trigger, taking a shit or get off the pot, choosing a side of the fence and fall off, stab it and steer, hit it or quit it...you get to doing or not doing fast! I will say that when it gives me the non-committal reply it is a little frustrating...they need a Robert Mitchum version that gets rid of all that "Maybe" crap.

See....we can't do random. We need external forces to give us random. Hence flip a coin, roll some dice, close your eyes and let your finger fall randomness that we use all the time. Random should not be confused with chaos, chaos is a powerful force in nature. Random is kind of like a bounded chaos. It has set number of variables like my Magic 8-Ball.

● As I see it, yes

● It is certain

● It is decidedly so

● Most likely

● Outlook good

● Signs point to yes

● Without a doubt

● Yes

● Yes - definitely

● You may rely on it

● Reply hazy, try again

● Ask again later

● Better not tell you now

● Cannot predict now

● Concentrate and ask again

● Don't count on it

● My reply is no

● My sources say no

● Outlook not so good

● Very doubtful

Chaos Theory is the science of how things change. Acknowledging the chaos in our lives can be scary and unnerving, but can do us a world of good. Accepting we really have little control over our lives and the world, does not go down easily. We simply need to let many things go and swallow a chaser.

*cough* *cough*

"Whew! That's some strong but smooth stuff!"

"Hello officer, yes...I am under the influence of random and chaos and I just rolled past that stop sign, crossed the double yellow line, did a donut in the parking lot and urinated on the Wells Fargo bank ATM machine..."

"Yes officer...it was completely random's fault, not me. See this Magic 8-Ball? Yea...those old toys...yea...that one...see...hold on I'll show you. Should I flip off this officer and haul ass out of here?"

*shake* Yes - Definitely

"Bye-bye mother fucker!" SCREEEEEEECH!!!!!

(2 hours later in jail)

"Ummm...Magic 8-Ball when will I get out of here?"

*shake* Ask Again Later...Much Later

Sent from the Black Forest...

Hot and Sweaty Bars...

Aaahhh...hot and sweaty bars. I love performing in them. Packed with people, low oxygen, high humidity, swimming pheromones, estrogen, testosterone, whiskey, little on light, heavy on sound...mmmm!!!!

We started late. Our drummer whilst owning a bitchin' '78 Ford two-tone truck that he bought from me and I bought from an old man in Memphis, Tennessee, is after all a '78 Ford truck. It didn't wanna start. She finally relented..."Velma" is her name. She's a solid gal that needs a little coaxing once in a while. A twenty-four volt spanking from another truck battery was all it took, and off she went to meet us. Waiting for her. Everyone was waiting for her. Us, the other band, the people in the bar, and the angels and devils.

Finally when we got to go and we went! Jumping, laughing, fucking up, nailing it, doing stuff we never had done, and stuff we've done for years. A show. A sound system that can't take all we were giving it and everyone forgiving it for something the poor P.A. couldn't deliver. Hell, we're in a small sweaty bar, we have our icy drinks, our friends, our soon-to-be-new-friends, former friends and lovers, current lovers and wish-we-could-be-lovers. This is the reason we go out. This is why we spent what little cash we have and relinquish what little left the week hadn't taken from us. Even the angels and devils weren't fighting. "Ah hell..." they say, "Let's dance, then go outside for a smoke and grab some fresh air." Only to get back inside, fill up and let it loose all over again.

This we were are a part of, the human experience. Looking for those small, rare out-of-body experiences we pay good money for, through illegal drugs, alcohol, prescription drugs, lack of sleep, lack of sanity, lack of propriety, lack of a fucking filter that we use most of the day. Thank God and the Devil that in these small moments we can put down the war flags and have a good time for a little while until the newspapers, television, family, preachers, politicians, friends, salesmen, bosses, and lovers tell us what's wrong with us in the morning...

Sent from the Black Forest...

Once Upon A Time...

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, there was a hunter who lived in the Black Forest. He had no idea how he got there, or whether it was really a forest or just the dark crevices in his mind. But one thing for sure, he got lost in it. After a few years he started to know pathways and trails. He started to be able to get around enough that he kinda liked this Black Forest. Even with all the wild animals, enchanted tree stumps, and crazy maidens that made his days quite adventurous indeed.

One day he came upon a sword. A sword with seven deadly edges. It was so sharp he accidentally cut himself just picking it up. "Damn" he thought..."One could do quite a lot with this sword..." Yes Hunter, you could do quite a lot. And he did. He slain many a beast and monster...almost a maiden or two, but good fortune and quick thinking on both their parts saved unnecessarily injure and harm. It can be tough in the Black Forest, and lonely too. Sure, the elves are fun, but they get on your nerves after a while. The occasional old witch would knock on the door, but he'd just pretend to be not home. If that didn't work then it's just off with her head. That's how it is in Fairy Tales. Lots of violence with seldom meaning or moral. Most everybody here in this forest are just crazy. Good crazies, bad crazies, and pure and simple delusional crazies. All crazy because that is the price to admission to be in this forest. The normal people live in the village and the way-beyond-lunies live in the castle.

Every once in a while some giant or dark wizard will come into the land and everyone would band together to vanquish their mortal enemy...but that rarely happens, so everyone just bickers between themselves and gossip about who's doing who and who said what. Aaahhh...just stuff to pass the time away.

The princess was found convorting with the hunter and the whole Kingdom was out talking about it at all the wells, written on walls and whispered at the fences. The heralds would tell and retell the stories so much that the stories grew into stories of other stories. That's where fairy tales came from, and this one too. Complete and utter bullshit because we're just kinda bored...

To be continued on another quiet and mischievous night...There will be XXX fairies, violent ogre blood baths, magic, and comedy from the village fool...me.


Sent from the Black Forest.

Sent from the Black Forest...

Rambling About Future Histories...

Our future history is now. No wait...now! Right then! And now! I say now to signify the time's past, it's ending. It's history. But what is history? Is it what we write down? Or is it as it really happened? Or does that even really matter?

In the truest sense, it is as it really happened, but until we can gaze unclouded by skewed perception and prejudices, we rely on what's written. A very scary proposition, especially in these days of unchecked facts and Wikipedia. Though I must say, I had extreme misgivings for Wikipedia and it's public entered information without the prerequisite of fact-checked data, and while I know there is a lot of misinformation, if you look at it statistically, the longer the Wikipedia pages are updated, the more true the information becomes. The extremes get slowly overwhelmed by the middle, and a better more honest representation is shown through. Granted extremes are a natural part of life and deserve their moment in the sun, but as in all things, extremes are a much smaller part of the whole.

The next question is, is the middle the truest path? No. In fact there is none. It seems that at the end of the day, all paths seem to lead to it. Of course, that is the inherent problem with linear thinking. It always gives way to circular movement....and give that a multidimensional framework and you're on to something else entirely. One that we can visualize, but cannot really express easily. We have put it to words. Religion, Philosophy, and Poetry. We have put it to equations. Math and Science. The best way to get a handle on it, is to FEEL it.

Have I lost you? What am I talking about? I am saying that we know all our answers inside ourselves. We just either don't want to pay attention to them because it might be painful, or we deny it's existence because it would shatter our core beliefs. We want to look to others, or outside of our world for answers that we already have inside us. Sometimes those answers are ugly....but in that ugliness, if we acknowledge it, we can overcome it and grow from it, into something greater than we have ever been.

Why is it that we want our "outlaw heroes" to escape capture and live, and our prophets/teachers to die? You can say "It's not me.", but we all have to take credit for the good and bad in this world. There are ugly answers to this question. Going against the grain/status quo is highly revered as long as you don't force people to deal with their ugliness. We don't want to truly improve our world. We are scared, lazy, selfish children. If we can acknowledge this, we are on the way of overcoming it. When I see all the fear, greed, and hatred some people have, I feel sorry for them. I cannot change their minds. You cannot change their minds. It must be found within themselves to be extinguished.

Our future histories depend on us to take a real hard look inside and bring all that ugliness out in the open, expose it. Us and the light will kill it. This world has always had the greatest expectations and abilities in it, we just have to let them out.

Speaking for one's self as only anyone can do, I know that I know very little of this world and out of it. I know I am scared. I can be selfish. I can be immature. I am weak. I am just smart enough to rationalize anything, making my thoughts dangerously illogical. I am a man, proud, humble, good, bad, intelligent, ignorant, strong and fragile...always on the verge of breaking...because someday I will break, and be set free.

Sent from the Black Forest...

Go South...Go North...Go East...Go West...

Why is it that when I want to escape I wanna go South? And when I wanna find something within myself I wanna go North? I go East to find the past and I go West to find the future. I am a product of movies. Too many damn movies. My life compass. The "Wild Bunch", "Jeremiah Johnson", "King Solomon's Mines", "Tarzan", "The Man Who Would Be King", "How the West Was Won", any of those really bad Genghis Khan or Marco Polo movies...yea too many damn movies.

I better head south and cross the Rio Grande into Mexico to out run the posse that's after me from robbing that bank in San Rafael, Texas only to find out the gold was only bags of steel washers...ugh.

I'm gonna head due North to the Rocky Mountains and grow a big ass beard, live on my own in a log cabin I just made with my knife and my .50 caliber Hawken rifle...and learn the ways of the mountain. "You can't cheat the mountain pilgrim! Mountain's got a way...shhh! Ya here that?!"

I'll head East to where the world began...Africa...the Old Mother going down the river in a small steamboat meeting up in Mogambo to capture gorillas, crossing the Nefud Desert with Lawrence through the great Mesopotamia, then to the far, far East on the Mongolian tundra plains to where the struggle for life happened every second of everyday in battles and taking wild Tartan women because my "blood wills it". *laughing*

West...I'll go west...ummmm...no...I'm already there. I came here for a future hope...a dream I had of divine providence...telling me to go here to make my way...to become a man. Not like Zeb Rawlings but my version of it.

I better get a compass. Oh wait...I have GPS on my phone...oh wait...that'll mean real service everywhere. Yea...I better get a compass and hope the Earth doesn't switch magnetic poles on me and screw up this stupidly fun way of thinking of the world and which direction I go to get there...

Where's my paper back book I used to carry around with me all the time... "How To Survive In the Wilderness"? It's a good read...especially if you plan on getting lost in Northern Canada. Yea...getting lost to find yourself. Kinda sounds like a movie or something...

Sent from the Black Forest...