Fear is the Mind-killer.

People who have great talents and do not know failure are like me and Stratego when I was 10.

We got the game for Christmas and I won the first three games I ever played. Suddenly I had a perfect record. I never had that before. I liked it and decided I needed to keep it. It became a big deal. My brother, friends and I would talk about it. Every game became increasingly important. Then the enevitable finally came... I almost lost I game. I was relieved by I realized my My record was in real jeopardy. I have a reputation, a perfect record. It was all suddendly at risk. So I stopped "wanting" to play. Why risk everything I built up for so long, it was too valuable to me.

This is what people do. A perfect record is a trap and reputation is a handicap. Once you lose, and with it the record, you are humbled. Then you can again play without fear. And loss is something real, and though not desired, quite small and easily handled.

I recommend a healthy dose of failure for all, when you lose, you lose the fear with it.


Today's Song of the Day is "Wipe Out" by The Ventures off their 1963 album "Let's Go!"

Crazy Fact: I guy names "Nookie" Edwards (Nole Floyd Edwards on May 9, 1935) is a member of the band. Wow.

njoy

Comment No Comment.

of COURSE I read the comments. It just seems wrong to comment. I have this whole blog to comment with. This is my huge comment space. This is me, that is everyone else, (well anyone who cares) That's not the rule or anything that's just weird little me.

I love the comments, they are also e-mailed to me (as you fellow bloggers know) so I don't miss any.

To answer all your questions:

It's a snippet from a conversation I had/am having on the e-mail-ma-tron. Thanks Cel, I liked it to, So I put just that bit up.

Yes, I've heard the Cibo Matto version but I can't find the cover of the ep it's from. I like it, but I like it different. The live nirvana version is painful, exposed and emotionally complex. The cibo matto version danceable, fun and glossy.

And 'Nis I'm talking about boys 'n' girls and maybe someday when your a little older, ask me again and I'll explain it to you. (HAHA! that was too mean/easy/fun not to do)

Well I guess I have to send it now.


Today's Song of the Day is "About a Girl" by Cibo Matto off there 2000 EP "Moonchild."

Crazy fact: I already feel guilty about being mean to dennis on the blog-a-matron.

njoy

Little Miss Earth, you flirt you.

Spring.

wow.

I like the warm tease. Keep smilin' on me, sunshine, yer pretty eyes are good for my soul.


Today's Song of the Day is "D'Yer Mak'er" by Led Zeppelin off their 1973 album "Houses of the Holy."

Crazy Fact: They recorded their debut album in just under 30 hours.

nhoy

Mid-conversation.

These are not all guys. Even though we wear the same uniform as they, even though there are others who would will be afraid or scorn us because we were this same uniform as their abusers. They are misguided. Unfortunatley in the eyes of the victim, the blood that stains hands of the abuser also stains the uniform of all who wear it.

As we look past her uniform to see her, she will look past our uniform to see us. I have faith in the good ones, they can't all be good ones, in either uniform.


Today's Song of the Day is "Respect Yourself" by The Staple Singers off there 1971 album "Be Altitude: Respect Yourself."

Crazy Fact: 'Pops' passed away on December 19, 2000, shortly after suffering a concussion due to a fall in his home.

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You know who you are.

Not to use any names but...

I think it's very cool to implusively decide to go to New York City with someone you don't know REAL well but get along with and let me tell you why:

A) Dude, life is short. ('nuff said)

B) What the hell else is money for if not travelling somewhere cooler then you are right now, if not to live forever, than at least to live for 4 days. Make your money wherever you have to, but spend it somewhere cool.

C) If not for impulse, our lives would never change. We would live under the tyranny or routine, each day following the last in perfect boring harmony. (no Harmony that's not a slight, you are capital 'H' Harmony, make no mistake) Pefection is inhuman, trust me I think about math and computers, I know, if is wasn't for humans computers (and Math) would be perfect. damn humans.

D) COOL!

E) From the perpective of a poor student shackled to his book learnin', having morgaged his future to buy raffle tickets for the key. I'm jealous. New York is better than Math or procrastination.

F) You are going to the COOLest concert. (De... La... Soul... ?!!? What the hell year is it?) Ike Turner, Nenah Cherry, Roots... I hope Nenah gives Ike a bitch slap for us all.



H) I feel like an adult just knowing y'all. I can't imagine what an adult y'all must actually feel like.

G) I know your going to take me. Your just waiting for the right time to bring it up. Anytime is the right time baby, gimmie a kiss.


Today's Song of the Day is "Nightswimming" by R.E.M. their 1992 album "Automatic for the People."

Crazy Fact: John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin fame arranged the strings for this song.

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Wedding in the Wild.

Ok we are getting married in Kejimkujik.



We both really like the idea. My main concern is that we can't have a fire because the fire index will be too crazy high. This will be a total unknown. Waiting and seeing sux cox. Others have voiced the conserns that people won't go cuz it's far. dude. you can't go? or you don't want to go. You don't want to go? cool I'm not offended. I'm glad your not going out of some sense of obligation.

must have fire
must have singing around fire

Instead of driving away in the just-married-mobile we will canoe away through the mist into our future. (And we can do it the canoe once out of sight!!! hehe er on our own private island which ever seems better at the time.)

She can get married barefoot and I can get married out in the world (not some church or hall or some like humanity tainted construction.) So we are both happy. It better work cuz I'll be pissed if it doesn't.

I'd rather elope then get married in a hall, and I'd rather be dead then get married in a church. So, like I said, this better work.

more at 6.


Today's Song of the Day is "Stella By Starlight" by Miles Davis (with John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb) off the 1958 album "'58 Sessions Featuring Stella by Starlight"

Crazy Fact: In October 1972, Miles Davis broke both his ankles in a car accident. ouch.

njoy

No god, goddammit!

I wasn't there but here is how the story sounds in my rememberance:

My grandfather was a life-long commie and atheist. He was as committed to his atheism as a firebrand preacher was to his bible.

"If people paid a more attention to the word they're in instead the world they are going to, maybe the world they live in would be a little better."

It's near the end of his life and he has had a stroke. He is lying on his death-bed, he can communicate only with a few weak hand squeezes to questions, other than that he is totally paralyzed. Finnally, the decision is made to stop giving water etc...

The time has come. A nurse asks if she should bring a priest to give the last rights.

Before anyone else has a chance to answer. His still, peaceful, paralyzed body suddenly erupts in protest. Out of pure will he shakes, rocks and contorts in his bed to make his will known. He was inconsolable until it was made clear that there would be no priest, no last rights, no bullshit.

The message was clear, not even over my dead body. He was still there. It tells a story. He was ready to go. If he wasn't he would have protested that as he protested the priest.

Here is a man not taking pascals wager, which may look like it takes guts. Maybe to a fool. But to my grandfather only an idiot would believe in Hell. If you believe that malarchy, heaven help you, and we know heaven won't. It's akin to believing in the easter bunny or taking a politican as face value. It didn't take guts. There's no hell. He just didn't want the moments before his death to insult his entire life.


Today's Song of the Day is "Burning Hell" by John Lee Hooker off his 1964 album "Burning Hell."

Crazy Fact: He had a contract with just about every label out there and a different alias for each One of my favorites is "The Boogie Man" (for Chess and Acorn)

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Give Up.

I have a shrink. He's awesome. more about that later. One observation he made i'm still puzzling over. He said I keep doing things though I know they won't work. specifically, I can't study at home, it's just too distracting and I get nothing done. I keep saying I can only study at school and then "well, I tried to study at home and I didn't get anything done."

It was just an observation of his, he didn't come out and say "stop trying to study at home." anyway the way he put it made me think that wasn't the only example but a bit of a personality trait.

I've been thinking about that.

I've been wondering why I do that. I believe we only do things that work or often work.

What is at the root of this march into failure routine? Is it optimism? A "Maybe this time it will work" mantra. Is it subborness?

Two things occur to me: People have told me i'd fail often (every grade from 3 to 12) and I've succeeded. I was assured I would fail by the authorities and succeeded in grade nine. I think the speech was:

"You are ALL here because it is a certainity you will fail Math, which is a requirement. You all need to double your mark this term and I've never seen anyone double their grade in my entire 18 years of teaching... and Space Cadet, you need to triple your grade, so get used to sticking around for another year." I was affectionately known as 'Space Cadet', by Mr. Kilfoil. I passed. By some miracle we did computer programming that term in Math, Drama in English and I started medication for ADD. tripled my marks. Huh... impossible, right.

Why do I have to continually test these truths? I think it's because these truth are circumstantial and circumstances change.


Today's Song of the Day is "Sabotage" by The Beastie Boys off their 1994 album "Ill Communication."

Crazy Fact: They are still together.

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they changed shit

This whole bloggin thing is turned upsidedown on me! I wrote a whole bunch, but I keep writing them at school and couldn't pick a song from here. So there will be a whole slew coming at once.

I know that make for unhappy inboxes. oh well. we can make it. we have to suffer through it together.

And I figured out an easy way to attach pictures so I've done that a few times. Maybe I'll put album pictures too just for kicks. well see.

ok ok I have to pick a song of the day off the top of my head. umm... and I can't have picked it before. Anything from Glenn Gould's 1982 Goldberg Variations is too easy (1982 is waay better imho, not just because of the quality of the recording either... serious, but that's a rant on it's own.) and not like ten of you will actually like it... hmm... topical, sassy, good listin', seat of my pants...

Today's Song of the Day is "About A Girl" by Nirvana off their 1994 album "Unplugged In New York."

Crazy Fact: In 1986 that band that would be called nirvana was called Skid Row. HAHAHAH! How unfortunate.

njoy

Morning, the Nexus of Happiness.

Try to keep your first two hours happy and running smoovely.

I was once told that if you have a problem in the first two hours of your day, at the end of the day you will have a bad day regardeless of how the rest of your day is went.

So a happy life means a life of happy mornings.

I thought it was bullshit. Then I got out of bed and stubbed my toe (BAD!) on the way to the bathroom. My day was shit. I stubbed my toe at lunch, I hurt a bit and forget about it.

It's all about beginnings, make sure it's starts on the right foot and DON'T stub your toe.

Guru pif signing off. peacebewithyourahmmmmm...


Today's Song of the Day is "Oh Shit" by Pharcyde off there 1992 albuum "Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde."

Crazy Fact: Hardson, Wilcox, and Robinson were all dancers and choreographers who met on the L.A. underground club circuit in the late '80s, worked together for a while, and served a stint as dancers on In Living Color.

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I never thought I'd know.

Yesterday I built a 3-bit ALU and a 3-bit Program Counter out of circuits, from scratch.

Huh? You might not know what that means and 2 months ago neither did I. DUDE! It's a good chunk of a CPU. the CPU is the thing in your computer that your using right now that does ALL the work it is the Pentium in your PC or the G5 in your Mac. I built most of one. Most of a really crappy one, but whatever.

It was much eaiser than I thought.

I know some "number theory" and two new kinds of algebra: Linear, Boolean. I can do math in 4 and 5 dimensional space!

My point is, I never ever thought or wanted to know how to do these things, but here I am knowing and doing and understanding and enjoying these mysteries. It's freakey.

They got to figure out a new way to teach math, that doesn't tramatize everyone in the universe against it. I remember in high school, when I found out math wasn't a requirement. I started laughing and jumping up and down and then falling down and rolling around with hysterical joy. I jumped, ralled and laughed all the way down to the office to drop it. It was such a happy day.

I swear they couldn't teach math any fucking worse, It's like torture, whiping you with long-division and endless repetition in a could of vague misunderstanding. blech. fuck that NOISE!

It's too bad because the mysteries of the universe are all tied up in that mathematical little fucker. and once you know it it's kinda cool, and facsinating. It's what make a geek a geek. It's a complicated cerbral joy that brings clarity and repeats time and time again and reveals simlarities in place to place. This unifying weirdness lies in it's compelling solemnity, it's fierce unerring consistency, it is the fact that it is so inhuman. It's perfect edges, cold calculas, solid consistency, righteous consequences, silent inactive pervasiveness, it's impersonal immortal truths.

I see why the jesus lovers like leibnetz mistook math for god. It's got that the attributes they were looking for. dude, it's not god, and I'll tell you why, there is no god bone head. Stop looking for someone to fit that three armed silk suit.

And as for you overbearing subjective truth toting philosophizers, you'll rue the day you take a math class. It's quite persuasive lesson in objective truth.

ok done.


Today's Song of the Day is "Burning Down The House" by Talking Heads off their 1983 album "Speaking In Tongues."

Crazy Fact: In 1975, as virtual knowns, the band won a spot opening for the Ramones at the New York punk club CBGB.

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White on all ends

We were deep in the belly of the white abyss, trying to drown out our grumbling stomachs with an examination of the likelyhood off a 'Big Stop' around the next bend, and our own personal selection:

S: ChEeEEeseburrrrguuuur.

P: Platter, I love that it's ALWAYS a platter at the Bigstop.

S: YES. a platter... with gravey... on everything... with everything.

P: yum... gravey... warm gravey.

On this ill-conceived blizzard hike, the Bigstop was everything we didn't have and desperately wanted. Warmth, food and sitting down. The Bigstop was the dream. We knew sure as hell that there was no big stop around that bend or any other bend. We were pretty much torturing ourselves with dreams of-

"Crackack! Floosh-Floomp! Flump!"

We were walking under a tree and obviously that was the of sound a branch overhead, breaking under the weight of the driving snow. I looked up. I was wrong. I saw an enormous wingspan tipped in white, wings, tail and head.

If I could speak I would have said "Holy fucking Shit! A fucking Bald mother-fucking eagle. It's ass-fuckingly huge!" but I think I said something like "buuuuh... stuuuh..." and pointed.

It was enormous. I kind felt like I was looking at a unicorn. Is that real? It was just too mythic to be 10 feet above me in a fully baked blizzard. Is this is Canada? Shouldn't it be the majestic beaver taking to flight above me? It's so fucking huge! I could've eaten me.

30 meters down the road there was another one much higher up. I got pictures. Hard to believe it was real.


Today's Song of the Day is "Walking Song" by Meredith Monk off her 1997 album "Volcano Songs."

Crazy Fact: She won the MacArthur "Genius" Award in 1995.

njoy