A strange and random world...

[Lyle]

There is something very precious about rebellion. The optimism of it, maybe. The hope. I was never one of the cool kids at school - the sneering aristocrats. I was never really un-cool either. I don't think. I was always a little bit outside of things. Outside looking in. Things are still that way, I'm always talking about life like it's something that happens to other people. When you exist a little bit outside of things (whether you feel you're outside of things or others treat you as though you are - essentially the net result is the same. Emotionally speaking and consequentially intellectually speaking as well.) it's easy to take the revolutionary view. Put simply; it's easy to hate the mainstream when it's flowing right past you. As a consequence of this, many genuinely rebellious personalities, over time, have also been genuinely odd as well. A little bit different and I'm not talking about their ideologies. I'm talking fashion senses, verbal tics, social oddities and so on. Their spiritual tapestries are made up of alternate colors. I like it. Uniformity, wherever you might find it, is generally a distasteful thing. To me anyway. But then - I'm a little bit different

There's a deeply fascinating aspect of the revolutionary impulse though. Something beyond fashion or trends or the immediate. So much of the world we live in is fiercely regulated. Our jobs, our art, our taxes - even our conversations are all scripted; psychologically, culturally... even linguistically. There are norms and there are rules and we do what we're supposed to do. We obey. We conform. It never bothers me because, as I've had demonstrated quite convincingly to me recently, mine is the type of personality which craves distraction and diversion like a junkie fiends for his fix. Distractions are my fix. I can't focus, not because I don't have the discipline (although I don't) but rather because it's fundamentally against what my person is all about. It would be unnatural for me to focus, to be focused. Contrary to the calm and carefully scheduled marching from milestone to existential milestone that is brought to mind, when we speak of our lives and our paths down through it - I reel, overloaded on sensation, from experience to experience like a drunken sailor looking for prostitutes. It's not by choice - choice doesn't even come into it. And that's why the notion of rebellion sings to me the way it does. I'd love to buck my trends, shed my skin. Walk past your slot machine and throw my two cents in.

Well, you walk into the room
Like a camel and then you frown
You put your eyes in your pocket
And your nose on the ground
There ought to be a law
Against you comin' around
You should be made
To wear earphones

Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

I'm not a determinist - I'm too romantic and sappy. There is something grimly pervasive about the philosophy though. It's tempting to subscribe to it at times. "It's not my fault! Everything I am and might someday do, is and has been scripted since before my birth. Not guilty!" Revolution then, the concept of it, to a determinist must seem like some opium-addict's pipe-dream, up there with a Black President in the United States or the pay rates of teachers everywhere someday rivalling strippers wages. I like to dream. It keeps me distracted. And when I choose to think about society, mine and the societies around the world, I see them through rose-colored glasses. Through a smoky haze made up of words on fire. Clenched fists and gritted teeth. Shoulders back and a Do Your Worst metaphysic.

"Because I can't live on neutral"

[Lyle]

Generally I have some kind of plan when I tear into these things. A mood I want to express maybe. Some thoughts that have intruded themselves on my sleepy consciousness, demanding tangible homage. I don't really have either right now. No moods or thoughts. Is boredom a mood, or a thought process?

Meh!

I was reading Monsieur Archely's Blog. The one about how we aren't really coherent wholes, so much as we are eternal works in progress. He may have used different terminology but I think this was the gist. I agree, of course but more interesting to me was the bit about not really identifying with the guy who wrote Archely's early reflections. Ze Archely that was. I feel the same way. My own early ones fairly reek of stale beer, marijuana smoke and an obscenely inflated sense of self-importance. It's a multi-textured scent.

I am still unfortunately given to flights of self-importance. It comes from being a person. The marijuana and beer, not so much, although I'm certainly not puritannical about things of this type. Sex, also, I never really saw the sense of being uptight about. A sense of humor is much more useful when we are thinking of the subject. The whole situation is pretty hilarious really. Sex, self-importance, blogs, multi-textured scents. Pick one. Pick one then laugh.
Only dour types who are no fun have no sense of humor. This might sound self-evident and a waste of typing energy but hey. Who's writing this thing?

That's what I thought.

I have spent an awful lot of time lately, scowling into the distance, thinking deep thoughts. Thoughts of a Kerouack nature - "The highway is my canvas!" - thoughts on travel and trevault. Used to be nothing would fire my imagination more than the concept of abandoning everything and everyone, finding one of those red neckerchiefs, tying it up in a knot, fastening it to a stick and setting out. Possibly while whistling a jaunty tune. I was invited to go with my trusty side-kick, Dane, deep into the heart of Asia the other day and instead of feeling excited...I felt a little trepidation. This is a troubling phenomena. I'm not used to feeling trepidation and, so far, I don't think I care for it. Indeed, what. Could be I'm getting old but more likely, and far more hateful is the notion that I'm actually just getting soft. Comfortable. Content. It's disgusting and I'm genuinely ashamed of myself. I'm not entirely certain if there exists a way out of this particular hole I seem to have fallen in but if there is, you can bet I'll find it. My self-image depends on it. I refuse to become a mediocre, luke-warm and unhealthily pale imitation of a thinking, feeling being. A being averse to trials or experience. What happened to Lyle of Yore? The reckless (occasionally stupid) and ferociously addled slave to sensation? Now he sits, huddled, in front of his stereo jotting down scraps of awful poetry. A sad day, this is.


I haven't decided whether I'll go with Dane yet. I probably ought to decide sooner rather than later. One thing I do know is that if I elect not to go to Asia... it won't be because I was feeling hesitant. Ugh.

Also, it occurs to me, Apoc/Cassander/Pookie/alypse went to Thailand once. Maybe I can scrounge some tips from the lad. He loves me and will be only too eager to help out. Although I also seem to remember he got himself into some kind of jam with a senorita and had to high-tail it... Perhaps his advice will be taken with a pinch of wary, critical salt. Enough of this prittle-prattle! I find I have worked up an appetite. Do take care, won't you and remember;

Give a Hoot - Don't Pollute!

[Lyle]

What happened to Lyle of Yore? The reckless (occasionally stupid) and ferociously addled slave to sensation?

I was so gripped by this most pertinent of questions that, after I woke up this "morning", I went through some boxes filled with old junk of mine. Childhood toys, ratty, holy clothing and one high school text book. I have no idea what happened to the rest of them. I went through a phase as a youngster, a book-burning phase, whereby I would construct makeshift ramps by the sea-shore afterwhich I would place the doomed collection of pages and words on this ramp, set it on fire and then push it out to sea. It was very cathartic as I remember, even if it only worked some of the time.
I hope my old school books didn't suffer this grand albeit rather final fate because, if my fifth form science book is anything to go by, it would be a real waste.

The front cover has been ripped off and on the first page we are greeted by the words 'Science Blows! Defect to Arithmetic! Ooh lala!' On the second page is a makeshift doodle I did doodle in detention. Interesting. I don't really know what any of this has to do with rediscovering my roots but it sure is fun. I had no idea I was such a rapscallion. I mean, I sort of knew but in a vague kind of way. Here we have tangible proof! Let's continue. (At this point in my recollection I was asked to help out the neighbours - their livestock had broken free and were running amok. So there I am, unshaven and leather clad roaring at these beasts of burden and shivering in the Southland wind. Goddamn neighbours. Why can't they just borrow a cup of sugar like normal people.)

There is a lot of science junk in my science book. More than I might otherwise have believed. There are entries about astronomy, the water cycle, the speed-distance-time triad, molecules and fat cells and experiments to do with sheep and chemical components and it's all very boring. Scattered throughout this tedious wasteland, though, are little gems of a fledgling personality. For example (I use the phrase 'for example' a great deal in this book. Most likely a science thing *shrugs*) beneath the sheep experiment entry, past-tense Lyle hath inscribed; To be eaten by a flock of wild sheep would be a terrible thing. And then a few lines later "..But not as terrible as this fucking experiment. Kill me now." To think I would be so vehement. Surely it wasn't all that bad. I honestly don't remember. None of this. I remember none of this.

There are old phone numbers liberally sprinkled through these pages. Characters from my past, glibly given psuedonyms or codenames. Pickles, Vinceakarlo, T-man, G-man, Brown-nose and Madly. I remember brown-nose - he was a good man, I smoked my first joint with him. The rest though... I penned a poem in honor of Pickles, so he must have meant something to me at some point. I scored 20 out of 20 in a test on the 19th of the 7th - 1999. Go me. There is a double-page table type thing all about the construction of speeches. This is a little odd for a science book but oh well. The table asks me to list the specific ways in which I used my voice in this mysterious speech. My response - "I lowered and raised the pitch of my voice throughout my speech. For example; When I said 'I will be destined for glory and great deeds', I raised the volume of my voice but when I said 'My friends and colleagues will stab me in the back one of these days..' I muttered it in a dour fashion."

(Just got a phone call from one of those old friends. Pretty surreal. Haven't talked to him in years. Anyway...)

The table then demands of me - List examples of how you utilise gestures in your speech. I respond, "I used a great many gestures in my speech such as hopping on one foot, one hand tapping my head while my other hand rubs my stomach in a circular fashion. I do this to demonstrate my superiority over my fellow man as noone I know can do this. The end."

I am on a mission now, a mission to recover those other school books that I never got around to burning. Memory lane is a bizarre place.

There are wierd symbols roughly scrawled here and there. The words - Go to Wellington as soon as You can - are written down, completely void of context. Vinceakarlo was known for his one saying in high school "I hate Life". He would crack it out at the slightest provocation. Homework? I hate Life. Rainy day? I hate Life. Sunny day? I hate Life. I, apparently, was inspired/amused by this and composed the following "poem". I used to churn three or four of these out at a time so don't expect brilliance.



+ Life +

Bleeding ice, weeping fire
In love with hate and with desire.
Too much pain and an absence of life,
Preachers teacher's a ministers Wife.
Not really sure who it is I am,
Father Christmas, Uncle Sam.
All that is was and and will be,
Give it to me then take it from me.

...

I hate you
You hate me.
We're an average family.
From one concieved mistakenly,
To one who percieves unintentionally.
We exist just to feel strife.
I hate you and I hate Life.

I hate life.
I hate life.

[Lyle]

Counting the toll

I'll be counting your toll

*

I was once a blind man, cast adrift in a sea of superstitious premonitions and psychological mirages. the saviours' heart that i had torn from her chest sustained me no longer. a summers tryst with a dagger-drawn proposal reeks of convulsive patterning. though i am withdrawn from the endless march, the tides of blood and bone are here still. a friendless carnival constructed from the ashes of forsaken dreams. i visualise the past as it never was, streams of crimson effluvia trickle down a statues visage. the sequence of events never changes in it's ceaseless thunder-clap monotony. the thrust of infantile meanderings leaves a chosen few to gape and mourn the fecal funerals. i walk onwards, truth on my wrist, hissing and coiled. tragedy and comedy dance side by side in the darkened well, carved into a manner of speaking.


I was once a blind man but her blade had found space between my lungs. the comatose preachers awakened the beast and shackled it with chains of hearsay. soon the flames will ravage the city and her people...as they have ravaged me. i pull out my hair and my memories too, a cancerous abomination implanted by a conspiracy of herod worshippers. we sing old wordless dirges,
pushed, mashed, trussed and bound. i know this melody, this ancient weeping of castrated deities. a vessel of mammoth design is captained oblivious, oblivions trade-mark tirade silenced in the autumn breeze. a pathway slithers - too old and rusted to have but the barest integrity. i climb aboard, bemused and quieted by the gentle hum of guilty conscience crucified
the windows are frozen shards of existence crystallised. when the engines roar, i stop weeping and bear witness to a messenger ablaze with shade and with enterprise.


I was once a blind man and sanctuary hath been denied arbitrarily. i kneel at Asgards sewer, unwilling and tempered by swaying skyscrapers. prophets of inebriation massacred in the twilight hour by a rodents manufacture. our vessel lies, aborted, divinitys proximity rendering the tour guide impotent and flaccid. amoral architecture corrupted in my rear view mirror. my ears have been stuffed, cotton wool essence handed down by anonymous ancestors. cloaked by winter and fed through tubes of rotted foliage, this croaking institution lives on. lamentation is delayed that a festival of urban explosives might better illuminate the corpses. i take hold of a skull and cross-bone tome, words creep serpent-like into my bloody sockets, unmindful of all barriers and boundaries. i smash the cradle upon a cliff of curiosity and banal interpretation.


I was once a blind man but an assassin's compassion left me marooned in clouds of sulphur. our tribe has been indoctrinated by the legions of mute representatives, submissive and respectful of remodeled anorchisms. a train-track triviality aims outwards and upwards, notice of historical incest left smouldering by the way-side. showers of filth and literature inundate the humble barbarians, relieving the drought to drown the fierce in fanatical fragments. the regulating of tumors hath been left unattended - insect noises played to recordings of native rituals. her blade was never in me, it was she who resided beneath the crackling of bones and the curdling of a martyrs marrow. rays of comprehension made manifest via sattelite, cruelty arises, slumber shaken in the stirring of springs get. a parasite proclamation resounds to the beating of a chained mongrel. my wings though clipped are unrestrained, solace in solitary confessional recycled through a trojan horse metaphysic. actualising a homeless man's devilry enables the aristocratic choir a final apocalyptic encore. smiles of a dead child resurrected, an eternal pre-emptive de-ja vu visited by frenzied recollections of a monolithic obscenity. i lift the grave from 'round her neck, restricted as it is by a tabula rasa tablet anchor. i swim inwards for the final flourish, welcomed and seperate, comforted by the siren's lullaby of kinetic certainty. a harvest moon crests the waves, cleaving in twain shadows of remembrance. prejudiced and portentious her name whispered among the chosen multitude, fear impaled beneath her gaze and alongside the shattered window ledge...

*

[Lyle]

So I found some old Bob Dylan interviews I vaguely remember scribbling down this one time. They were stuffed into a pink floyd cd case, which is probably material enough for a reflection post all on it's own but I'll stick with the interviews because they make me grin. Just a bunch of quotes taken from one or two interviews here and there. I forget.

~

Playboy: In their admiration for you, many young people have begun to imitate the way you dress which one adult commentator has called "self-consciously sloppy and defiantly oddball." What's your reaction to that kind of put-down?

Dylan: Bullshit. Oh, such Bullshit. I know the fellow who said that. He used to come around here and get beat up all the time. He better watch it; some people are after him. Those kind of morbid ideas and remarks are so petty - I mean there's a war going on. People got rickets; everybody wants to start a riot; 40 year old women are eating spinach by the carload; the doctors haven't got a cure for cancer - and here's some hillbilly talking about how he doesn't like someone's clothes. Worse than that, it gets printed and innocent people have to read it. This is a terrible thing. And he's a terrible man. Obviously, he's just living off the fat of himself, and he's expecting his kids to look after him. His kids probably listen to my records...

Playboy: Do you think Lincoln wore his hair long to keep his head warm?

Dylan: Actually, I think it was for medical reasons, which are none of my business. But I guess if you figure it out, you realize that all of one's hair surrounds and lays on the brain inside your head. Mathematically speaking, the more of it you can get out of your head, the better. People who want free minds sometimes overlook the fact that you need an uncluttered brain. Obviously, if you get your hair on the outside of your head, your brain will be a little more freer. But all this talk about long hair is a trick - a distraction. It's been thought up by men and women who look like cigars - the anti-happiness committee. They're all freeloaders and cops. You can tell who they are; they're always carrying calendars, guns or scissors. They're all trying to get into your quicksand. They think you've got something. I don't really know why Abe Lincoln had long hair...

***

JC: Why do you think your music appeals to American Indians?

Dylan: I would hope that it appeals to everybody.

JC: I know suburban people who can't stand it.

Dylan: Well, I wish there was more I could do about that.

***

Rolling Stone: Like from the film 'Don't look Back' - people asking you "Why? What is it? Where is it?" People are tremendously hung up on what you write and what you say. Do you react to that at all? Do you feel responsible to those people?

Dylan: I don't want to make anybody worry about it... but boy, if I could ease someone's mind, I'd be the first one to do it. I want to lighten every load. Straighten out every burden. I don't want anybody to be hung up... [laughs] especially over me, or anything I do. That's not the point at all.

***

Playboy: How do you get your kicks these days?

Dylan: I hire people to look into my eyes, then I have them kick me.

Playboy: That's how you get your kicks?

Dylan: No. Then I forgive them; that's where my kicks come from.

~

[Lyle]

I feel rueful; let's kick it old school. Why do I feel rueful? Why do I feel anything... chemical synapses. Bzzt. Electrical doo-dads that do dad and demystify the expert plucking of silken heart strings. Blah. Too much coffee. Not enough sleep. I watched Resident Evil Extinction today. It was alright. It didn't make me feel more rueful anyway.
Let's intertwine linguistically, juvenile-like. Get impregnated with each others words and then give messy birth to a whole new race of ideas. Black and white and blue and gold. I feel rueful when I think back at things I've said and things I haven't. Things I've done or didn't do. Sometimes the things I say aren't nearly as clear as I'd like them to be. Ordinary folk (the lucky ones) have context; lately all I seem to have is subtext. I didn't mean it to happen. Any of it. I'm as much a victim as you. No! More of a victim. You don't have to deal with *gestures* all this.

In truth I don't just feel rueful. I also feel complicated. Complex, is the word folks use. Complex. I've been going to the gym lately so i feel sore too. My muscles all bulge in a manly fashion and yet they remain as useless as ever they were. What do I need ginormous biceps for, really? Opening jam jars? Hitting my drums harder?... Ooh, there's a thought. Some Bob Dylan, some bibles and breathalyzers. I've rediscovered the joys of conversation. Again. I'm not mean-spirited. Well... when I'm drunk and with a certain kind of company I can get a mite... unruly. Never mean though. I am as edgy as a particularly unappetising lump of pancake batter. As confrontational as a dead rat. I also feel good. Good to be me. It feels so obvious to say, I know, but I honestly don't think people remind themselves often enough. I am, well stone my crows and call me Jebediah, I do believe I am a swell compilation of limbs and memories, yes indeed. Chewing tobaccah?

*

Everything I do springs from emotion. Everything I say or do or write or think. I wish, sometimes, that I could be detatched about things. It's beyond me though as so much in life is. Due to all this emotion flying about and only the odd thought which is out-numbered and lagging monstrously in the race towards a decision - I tend to fuck up alot. Trip, stumble. Get my back to a wall which wouldn't even be there if it wasn't for me. It happens over and over, with friends, former friends, family and even strangers. My words, as well-enunciated and ornately surrounded though they might be, are often unaccompanied by rational considerations. Like people's boundaries. Like people's feelings. Like people full-stop. It's a pain but I forbear. Some people have it worse. Lots of people, actually.

I get defensive nowadays It's always funny right afterwards because I've always held defensiveness to be about the most immature type of feeling a personage can experience. Never funny at the time, mind. I don't know what's happened to me; I blame Alex. He gets the blame. If he didn't die, many decades too early I wouldn't have spent the last two years flopping around like a fish, gasping inarticulately at passerbys. That's my theory anyway. I have no way to verify it really but as theories go, it's a doozey. I keep waiting to be held accountable for things so I can toe the ground shame-facedly and mumble something along the lines of 'My brother commited suicide, see' and then people will blink and say something along the lines of 'oh, yes. well...er... as you were then, I guess. No harm done'.

This never happens though.

~

Putting all this Lyle-related musing on hold for a moment: Ben Harper. Among my pantheon of musicians he holds a fairly unique place. I have bands that make me want to party, bands that make me wanna brood. Artists who drive me to drink and ones that push me to think. I know all the legends; I know about how Hendrix worked for the airforce and practically starved before he made it big. I know how Jim Morrison pushed his little sister down an insanely steep hill on a snow-sled, when she was eight years old because he "..wanted to see what would happen..." I know all about Bob Marley's Pan-Africanism and politically motivated assasination attempt. I know about Iggy Pop's penchant for rolling around on broken glass and I know that Sid Vicious had to have the significance of the Swastika he wore explained to him on his twentieth birthday. I know more about the Mars Volta than I could ever (without frightening people a little bit) reasonably explain. I know Kurt Cobain loved strawberries. Bob Dylan loved Elvis. Lou Reed hated Nico. Nico loved Jim Morrison. Keith Moon loved vintage cars and requested that he be buried in one. He nearly died in one. Tupac read Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Tori Amos believes her life is a hexagon. I don't claim to know a great deal in the scheme of things about these people, but I do know more than could ever be useful, heh. Point is; I know nothing about Ben Harper. Zilch. Nada. Generally, when it becomes clear that I am digging a musician, I go out and learn all there is to know. Controversies, mundane tid-bits. Ideologies. Lack thereof. It's automatic, knee-jerk. I don't even think about it - it's just what I do. Not so with Benny boy and this affords him a rare position in my great, much-admired artistic lineage. When I am sad he can make me sadder or cheer me up - whichever I feel is appropriate (meaning, I'll select the specific songs I need to either counter-act or exasperate things, y'know) and I like his simple, lyrical style. That's it. The extent of my Harper-knowledge. If it ain't broken don't fix it. Our one-sided relationship is working out just fine and I think that's about as positive a note to end on as I can scrounge up right at this juncture. This quarter to five in the morning colored juncture *yawn*

"No single event can awaken within us a stranger

totally unknown to us. To Live is to be slowly born."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

[Lyle]

This one's for Eyreplenh.


It's about time.

Allow for this sun to remain uncontested.
Forgive the ocean that
Douses the flame.
Permit the night-time access
To nothing and
Follow the footpath
that unlocks the future.

This kingdom of nowhere, this empire of now.

Eternity's harvest is midnight, black wine.
Let's all drink 'til never and it's about time.

Follow the footpath that
takes us from nowhere.
Show us the heavens
which cradle the sun.
Allow your son to remain uncontested.

This empire of nowhere, this kingdom of now.

Hope that tomorrow names all her children,
Pray that her children still worship the future.
Escape the Mother and escape the Word.
Give wings to queries for
escaping answers.
Give answers time and then they'll understand.

[Lyle]

I grew up a little bit more today. Does it work that way for you? You're trundling along at your usual speed, doing your usual things when BAM! Out of nowhere, covered in shiny newness comes a mode of thought of combination of emotions and Hey Presto! New person. It happens to me fairly regularly. I was telling someone the other day how I grow like saidin, whereas alot of people seem to follow the saidar method. Slow but steady. I am quick but frustratingly intermittent. You know? Bzzzzzt. Kish. Bzzzzzzt. & so on.

And we'll all float on, okay.

And we'll all float on anyway.

[Lyle]

I got out a dozen very good (or, well, probably very good) books today from the library. Also - the art gods have bestowed their blessings on me and I wrote an interesting thing, this weekend past.


I have nothing else to report

[Lyle]

I've been suffocating lately. I pause to allow your instinctive horror and sympathy to manifest. Okay. To clarify (my speciality, incidentally) I haven't really been suffocating. I just feel as though I have. My complaints are generic and thusly quite, quite dull so I shan't bore you with the details. Suffice to say that this little journey I'm about to embark on (Queenstown! AH! ) could not have come at a better time. The fact that I myself am a largely inactive, perpetually decomposing little specimen means that my life, consequentially is a largely inactive, perpetually decomposing process. It's good to shake off the cobwebs every now and then. Take something. Drink something. Put on a song that means something to you, even if that something is nothing and speed off into the distance. Pull anchor! No land in sight. Get going - get gone. Very clearly a neccesity for everyone who is Lyle.

Maybe everyone who isn't Lyle too. I wouldn't know about that.

In the spirit of fighting the eternal, and eternally losing battle against boredom - I have also moved out of home for a while. I say 'for a while' because at this stage in my life I've come to understand the futility of entertaining permanence-flavoured ideas or aspirations. Things come, things go. Whichever way the wind blows so drift I. It's an uncomfortably naked way of looking at life but nakedness has it's benefits sometimes. I live with two girls now. It's quite a change from my last time (remember the hill-billy, boozehound stage of things?) or will be once I get all my stuff in there. "All my stuff..." = A stereo, some drums, a laptop & a bunch of books & CD's. Lyleistic paraphanelia. Illegal in seventy-three states.

*

And now due to failing inspiration combined with a sense that I really ought to be doing something else, I shall end with some TV on the Radio, a band, I am sure, that are descended from angels. Darkly complected angels with fuzzy hair and a liking for the risque. Not the boring flaming sword types. Their lineage ends with the Foo Fighters or maybe Pearl Jam but then everyone knows that.

~

When I realized where I was
Did I stend up and testify
Oh, fist up signify
Or did I show off my soft shoe
Maybe teach a little boogaloo

Busy playing the whore

Oh loiterers united
Indivisible by shame
Hungry for those diamonds
Served on little severed bloody brown hands
Oh the bling drips
Oh the bling drips down
Fallin' down just like rain

Oh fear we're fallin' off
Oh terror we're pained
Oh hunger we're stavin' off
Roasted vermin sustain...
This shit will have to sustain

Shootin' doves from off balconies
They wanna shackle the lame
By now you know their game

Hey, desperate youth!
Oh, blood thirsty babes!
Oh your guns are pointed
Your guns are pointed the wrong way
Your guns are pointed the wrong way

[Lyle]

Quite random quote of the day.

"...a sardonic sneer that drills home the point that, yeah, white men are pretty much the source of all that's wrong with the world. I can't say I disagree all the time, except for those times that I don't believe in uniform cultural constructs. Which is all the time." - Thomas Keiran

[Lyle]

Hey, Quill. Er, Enchanted Quill, forgive me. It has been sometime - how are the children? I love what you've done with your hair.

Ooh see what I did there? It was quite clever. I addressed the cyber-palace as though it were an individual, a person, with traits and a history and personality all of its own; thus allowing me to make all sorts of veiled asides, hints and allusions. Perhaps I should have pursued it further. Too late now I suppose...

My name is Lyle. That is my real name, my parents gave it to me. I am no Amos or Fuschia or Man that Waffles or Legendary Vampire Exterminator or Mistress of the Order of Whatever (all of whom I have met, all of whom I have beheld their True Face) to hide behind some crafted online name mask! No. When the time came to be reborn in the Enchanted fashion I simply couldn't think of anything interesting enough. Darth Itachi Moridin. No. Lord excalibur incandescentia. Just wouldn't do. Besides - I'm used to answering to Lyle anyway. Rhymes with vile. And style. I penned this passage to address those new-comers of the Quillian denomination to whom i have yet to make myself known, see? Now I am known. Ha I like that by the way, the poetry or whatever of it - typing down a sentence that reads 'I penned this passage...'

And to everybody else - Mahalo How are the jobs/lovers/hobbies treating you? Been greatly affected by the global economic recession? Hope not. I've been living on sardines. What music are you listening to nowadays? I'm digging a band called Wolf Eyes at the moment. And some other stuff from japan. Interesting folks, them japanese folks. Living with James again. He can't stay away from me; noone else tolerates him and his ways with as much grace and good humor. That train-track runs both ways, mind you... Drumming alot, in several bands of dubious worth. My ear drums. How they hate me! Changing jobs, current one is sooo boring. I might travel. I feel like I should but then I instinctively dig in my adolescent heels at the word 'Should', no matter the context, no matter if I am the one using the word. Psh. We shall see. Plane tickets cost money and boats are far too crowded.

Other than that I don't have much to report. I haven't succumbed to acid casualty status yet. I can still hold a conversation even if, in some cases, the reins get mighty slippery. Oh, I just had a haircut actually! That qualifies as news, surely. The afro is of the past I think. No more afro for me. I know. I weep as well All things change. Even the great things. Maybe especially the great things. On that bombastic note - I will waltz away to eat something.


Something cheap.

[Lyle]

I am old now. In my bones. Happy, mind you. Quite calm and well adjusted, like a hindu cow on prozac. But old nonetheless. Something happened somewhere at sometime, or maybe nothing did. I've felt this way all along - just too frantic and internally chaotic to notice. That wouldn't surprise me. Young too... like, hm. Young as in fresh, not being very much prejudiced or hate-filled alot of the time. Most of the time. But old as in not very much having of a spectacular amount of hope. That might be the definition of being old actually. Not so much a gaining of wisdom or insight as it is a loss of naivete and optimism. Both? It doesn't really matter. I actually came to post this little ditty below, which I wrote in ten minutes and edited not at all. I never really know what I'm trying to say in these ones but I enjoy looking at the words all laid out. And the rhythm. I like the rhythm.



*

Slithering lysterine and blistering officially, coming up in metaphor and drizzling in similie, pontificating at a length disputed via memory, stretched along a railway of raging methamphetimines. Architecture sluts and moralistic castaways drinking down the discharge of dragons that won't pass away, the sychophants' simpering, sidling with sleaze sway not giving lip service to all the rants that mutes say; Never never never Mister clever kid forever will the Lions and the Tigers bear fruit anymore so enough of cracked endeavor and bondage that you sever and the ceiling that stands leering at the cleavage of the floor.

Enough of cracked endeavor Mister clever kid forever, your lions aren't so proud of their pride anymore. No bondage in the foyer, no whistling at the bustop. No groaning at the tedium, or singing at the docks. No lusting after Judas silver or worshipping of clocks.
No negative adjectives or rhyming rhymes that mock - forever and ever and ever and for.

Will the Lions and the Tigers - Bear fruit anymore. Que sadface, enter the drag queen..


*



word to my homies in lockdown.

[Lyle]

Usually one enters a social gathering or "congregation" with trepidation or hesitation but - hold on. Hmm. Generally when I go to hang out with more than one or two people at a time, in a setting set to un-private for the purposes of, um, gleefully reveling in all the wonderful purposelessness of things, I feel less than settled. I don't know what to say sometimes or, to paraphrase Mister Hendrix - what not to say. Sometimes. Ahem.

Not all the time. Take tonight for example; me, a friend and her friend (who was also my friend actually but I hardly ever quibble over technicalities..) drove up to Riverton, James' old stomping grounds, for a friends (another friends ) bands' first public showing. They are a Doors' cover band and they are very, very good. I hadn't even thrown the Doors on in years, literally years! So it also had something of a re-educational kinda sorta vibe dontchaknow. Live music. Good people and a groovy, chilled out feel. Do I come across as a hippie in those last few lines? Haha I don't mean to. Um, where was I. Ah yes! People. I had originally believed it to be no more than one or two characters of the local denomination, two or three mascots from the home team, sent out to mark the quarter-back with the - I know less than nothing about sports. Why go for the sports analogy?!

By the time we reached the beach and the bonfire, though, my conservative estimate had been shown as foolish fool tomfoolery. Thirty four of us! I counted Slow, like. And with repeated start-overs. Okay, to be honest with you, I don't know how concrete this wild 'thirty four' claim really is. It was around that. I was stunned. We all were. Everybody knew everybody else and was cool with everybody else ( you know, in that relaxed kind of "I know you, not you you but enough of whatever combination of traits and mundane information commonly known, to feel perfectly comfortable striking up a conversation with you, or even perhaps just sitting quietly alongside one another and listening to the waves crash up in that way that they have.) and we were all mysteriously there. No plans had been drawn up, no great organizational moves on anybody's part - at least nobody corporeal...

...


<wiggles fingers, makes spooky twilight zone theme song - esque sounds>

...

Yes.

*

I love moments like that! You know? Laughing, mocking - being mocked. Someone had an acoustic guitar and so there were Bob Marley renditions. Jack Johnson songs. Even - and this amazed me - a casually awesome version of Maxwell's silver hammer by the Beatles. People were drinking wine and rum respectively. Some people were more about the herb. Conversation everywhere. Babbling brooks and streams of dialogue symphonies. Quite. Everybody was on acid, this is true and was certainly a factor - but the vibe was the thing. The vibe kind of took on a life of it's own and drew everybody there under it's wing. And who even knew that vibes had wings? But clearly they do, because there we were. I don't know. I forget what it was I was trying to communicate when I started this thing. Don't you hate that? I mean I get that it's not where you're going, it's how you get there but sometimes you just wanna slap the ones who threw you on the runaway train to begin with. I just read Amos' last reflection - he did exactly the same thing! I was waiting for the love triangle stuff or the 'she is secretly a he and is concerned that the milk is gone bad' but noOoOOo. He just meanders off into a luke-warm admission of being too tired to think straight and away he prances, leaving us - all of us, mind you - to beckon oh so feebly in the general direction of completeness. No completeness for us. Allll outta completeness. Thanks buddy.


Well not me! No, sir! I will not leave you cursing the minute you clicked the screen thing with the other kind of thing. I, people of internet-land, had an amazing night tonight.
That's all I had to say. Which kind of raises the issue all over again really, 'why catch a train when you were only going three blocks away?' but meh and pfft to that. Issues are the kind of thing that happens to those poor souls too blind to see the truth. The truth that is Kid A, by Radiohead, on a long quiet drive as the night turns into day. Oh man, what am I going to do with my day?

Merry Saturday everybody

[Lyle]

Highways aren't my ways.


my body of work - a sad, under-nourished little thing. some sounds that i made or that the universe made through me, some words i wrote or the universe used me to write. some friends. some jokes. my ambition is more bloated; obese and obscene, lacking in subtlety or layered complexity. I want to be frank zappa and i want to be picasso. beethoven. joyce."...i have a terrible fear that one day i will be pronounced holy..." i want into their gang - but the initiation rite freaks me the fuck out!

I have anorexia of the work ethic.

*

break case in case of encase-ment in the brain. head-case. hereditary blood feuds, handed down by the Patriarchs and the Matriarchs. worms and snakes frothing up, all twisted and hardening on the shore. suffer no witch to live and kill all of the first-born. scarlet letters. white collars. nero, nero - on the wall. the greatest minstrel of them all...

infect. consent. repent. relent. we're all so many waves being pushed around by the moon. and when this tomb opens up in three days time, the light is gonna sting my poor, wee eyes! it will be the blind leading the blind, and there'll be no begging off - not this time. the first time. originality re-mixed.

so many sign-posts pointing towards the same destination. like a physical manifestation of our secret frustration - knowing that we know nothing worth knowing and growing in a way - that we don't wanna be growing. eyes like eggs, all boiled in lust. greed. hate - and a feverish mistrust. do you think the canvas resents the brush? definition is limitation, in this rear view mirror metaphysic. highways aren't my ways.

*


I only shine my life beam down stream. I only dream.