Saturday, November 19, 2005

THE LAST OF THE RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS ANYONE LIKE HOT SAUCE? I call my recipe "HELL IN A JAR." I picked these peppers a few minutes ago, most of them from the habañero tree, an heirloom variety that we bought as a seedling, a mere sprout. Now it's almost five feet tall. The purple jalapeño produced well, but began to fade in September. The habañero was still had flowers and buds on it at the beginning of November! I’d be posting a picture of that if my dcam wasn’t busted. The peppers were the stars of the garden this year. Our tomato plants grew and grew until they looked like something from a bad horror movie but produced no actual tomatoes. More evidence of global climate change, methinks, but don’t worry, it’s just anecdotal. Earlier today Annie Beagle and I were visiting some of the old oaks in Woodward Park that I'm on good terms with, and I saw a goddamn butterfly flitting about. At least we’ve had a little “sweater weather” for the past few days. 4:10:08 PM    comment []

OLD JOKES AND THE DECLINE OF ANOTHER IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY   Dr. Omed has noticed something about the jokes that friends are telling, that coworkers pass from cubicle to cubicle, and that wash up like flotsam in my Inbox. They are jokes that have Bush as their butt. They are old jokes. Some of  them are the same jokes people told about Clinton. Some of them are versions of jokes I’ve heard told about Jerry Falwell—in the 1970s. Some of them are jokes my uncle told me about Richard Nixon in the late sixties, which is about as far back as I can remember a joke. Ancient, archaic, archtetypal jokes.   My Uncle Jim is the storyteller and joke keeper in our family. He’s the one who takes the kids aside at a family gathering and tells them the latest “dirty” jokes the other adults won’t, and also tells the family heirloom ghost story, “HOG’S FOOT,”  a simple story that no matter how many times I’ve heard Jim tell it, is still scary, and deliciously terrifying to any kid age twelve or under (It's all in the sound effects). I think his grandfather, born 1865, told it to him.   But I digress. I see the return of these slightly redecorated antique jokes as yet another sign that the Bush administration has jumped the shark.  It started with Cindy Sheenan. It continued with Katrina, Rita, the indictment of Scooter Libby, and a whole cavalcade of miscues and continuing disasters. Yesterday, John Murtha spoke out and Cheney and the other Chic-o-stratos had an orgy of testiculation that was not only despicable but the political equivalent of masturbating in public. Embarassingly stupid. Has Karl Rove had a stroke?   Old jokes are coming out of retirement and suiting up to take down Bush and his minions, tag teams of the zeitgeist. Feel that bump, that’s a shark in your rear view mirror, Mr. Bush. 8:37:25 AM    comment []

DR. OMEDS LATE NITE SERMONETTE: NOTHING IS TRUE.   Nothing is true. Everything is permitted. William S. Burroughs famously made this much quoted statement (in Naked Lunch?) You can get it on a fridge magnet. We have one. I see this as one half of the following postulate: When nothing is true, everything is permitted. When everything is true, nothing is permitted. What do I mean by this two-bit conundrum? In any belief system, the more tenets that it has that are held without doubt to be true, the less freedom of thought and action the “true believer” has. The first implication here is that doubt is necessary to freedom. Many if not most religions aspire to be completely closed systems of belief, but there is always leakage; most human beings are incapable of the spiritual or intellectual rigor required to be absolutely faithful to their chosen creed, even if they think they are, and they should thank their god, whichever, for it. Those few who are capable of such rigorous fidelity I would classify as mentally ill—Like me, except I don’t believe in belief.    If you have a faith so absolute that it has an answer for every occasion, there are no questions and no decisions to make. A lot of people like having ready-made answers, would just as soon let someone else make the tough decisions and make up their minds for them, so they go along with whatever “floats their boats,” at least until their boat springs a leak. A lot more people like to make up their own minds, or, rather, like to think they are making up their own minds. In reality, they go to the 24 hour Godmarts, the Buddha, Bohdisattva, and Beyond big boxes, the Git'n'Guru convenience stores, or Jesus 'R' Us and buy whatever's on display and on sale. Mix and match. Deep discount retail spirituality, whether brick-and-mortar or online, is their refuge, not the Lord.   Making up your mind is a long term endeavor and is not for weak hearts. This brings us to the other half of the postulate: If nothing is true and everything is permitted, everything is in question and everything has yet been decided. You have complete freedom. It’s not as easy as you would think. I have lived this life. Everyday asking myself questions like: Is life worth living? What meaning does my life have right now at this instant? Shall I walk out the door and leave everyone and everything in my life behind and begin anew? Shall I stay home and finish this poem, this painting, these drawings; or shall I shuffle off to work and keep my job? Shall I speak to people, or resolve never to speak to a human being again?   Once, I sat down in a chair, and sat there for thirteen hours, because I couldn’t think of a reason to get up. I realize that other people have such thoughts. I realize that some of this is linked to my Bipolar Disorder. But I think and have thought these thoughts many times each day, day after day, for almost four decades.  No matter how many times I have asked myself a particular question, no matter how many times I have faced a decision, even a trivial decision, I have to make it anew each day. I have a bad case of the “Socratics,” you might say. I have developed a rudimentary internal autopilot over the years, but nothing like the cruise control other people seem to have. One thing you can say about living a thoughtless life, there’s a lot less wear and tear on the equipment. But the question is not whether an unexamined life is worth living, but, is an examined life worth living? Today, the answer is yes.     Note: I may put a link or two in this post, but it's past 1am—time to stop. Post-note Note: I put in the links, and changed a metaphor that was bothering me, hopefully the change is an improvement. 1:06:31 AM    comment []