i don't easily remember the good times. the frustrations and annoyances are much more readily available to me, jumping up and yelping for attention and retribution while the memories of joy lie in wait, biding their time until they can smack me unawares and make a big show of how i've been in denial of the blesséd nature of my stochastically awesome life.
despite the complete and undeniable lack of smooching at midnight, this new year's eve proved to be pretty good. brought the year in with good people, new and old, and i remember all of it. funny how that's a sometimes unattainable goal -- remembering. used to be that i'd go until 4 and wish i didn't remember... now i hit 1 and hope that i will... ah, ageing...
anyhow, the stoch'd house made out all right, as well. z-dog's sad friend from out of town made an impressive display of down-ness by playing along for the night while he was at work; b-nay, even sleepy from the previous night's shenanigans at ace, performed admirably as a barber; ouisie played host with great care and consideration; and even julesicans, sick with strep, did what he could to hold it down. i am repeatedly impressed with the greatness of my tribe.
decade-in-review nostalgia seems rampant today, but i'll go with it anyway. over the last ten years, i've hit some pretty low lows, and a few high highs. from nearly snuffing out my best friend to recognizing my voice and accepting its purpose, the noughts definitely gave me something to work with as far as content and arc for my personal narrative. sitting on the precipice of this new decade i wonder what sort of trouble and mischief is in store. will i finally take the leap and
Friday, January 1, 2010
Friday, December 25, 2009
'tis the season
last night my sister o.d.'d on her meds. woke up to an email from my pops telling me and the rest of the fam that she's in hospital and ok, but that she was more paranoid than usual and went overboard trying to compensate.
it's awesome how we have a holiday that's supposed to bring families together in joy and love and forgiveness. what sucks is that it ends up being forced time with people we had no choice in associating with in the first place. the arbitrary notion of blood-bonds has always struck me as cruel: just because i sprang from your loins i'm supposed to love you? how does that work? yes, i know that while actively nursing our brains released hormones that were supposed to build bonds, but wtf? that doesn't mean i want to spend the few moments my employers deign to give me leave with you...
but that's what i'm supposed to do. that, or feel guilty about having failed to make that happen. and so my schizo-affective sister in texas, failing to make that happen, compensates for her failings with drugs that just dull the ache inflicted on her for not fitting in. my mother frets from her man's place in germany. my father feels genuine and (genuinely) reluctant guilt from his girlfriend's place in california's temperate rainforests. and i rail at the unfixable unjustness of her plight. if only we lived in other times! other cultures venerated her condition! why can't it be some other way?
so what can be done? how might one make this right? emotionally? justly? legally? i sometimes wish that my sister'd be successful in one of her attempts on her life. her suffering here is unending. there is no cure -- only the submission of (some of) her symptoms to a numbing drug with horrendous side effects. i would feel sad for my brother and parents; they had more time with her then i, but their sadness at her loss is nothing to the everyday horror of her life.
imagine living in a really scary horror movie, one that actually draws you in and makes you feel helpless and knowledgeable at the same time. one that has no cheese to it; no strong hero; no easy way out; no dumb mistakes like going into the basement to follow the monster. the kind where there's really no hope for the protagonist with whom you've identified. but then it doesn't end after two hours. and the protagonist with whom you identify is you. imagine knowing that everyone is actually trying to do you harm or take away some freedom. that's her life. every day, all day. sometimes dulled, but still...
advances in medicine are slow and filled with mis-steps and dead-ends. schizo-affective disorder may be fixed someday, but it won't be ours. my sister sometimes has enough of her wits un-drugged to know that she hates it here. even when she's numbed, she wants further numbing through booze... and i can't fault her for it. she's one, in spite of the blood-bond, for whom i still wish peace.
this season, with its cold and cloudy days, with its requirement of too much time indoors, breeds sullen moods and dark thoughts. adding the obligations of culturally mandated "family time" is just mean. i propose we do away with that and just curl up and find a way to get by until spring. maybe by then there'll be some cure for pain.
it's awesome how we have a holiday that's supposed to bring families together in joy and love and forgiveness. what sucks is that it ends up being forced time with people we had no choice in associating with in the first place. the arbitrary notion of blood-bonds has always struck me as cruel: just because i sprang from your loins i'm supposed to love you? how does that work? yes, i know that while actively nursing our brains released hormones that were supposed to build bonds, but wtf? that doesn't mean i want to spend the few moments my employers deign to give me leave with you...
but that's what i'm supposed to do. that, or feel guilty about having failed to make that happen. and so my schizo-affective sister in texas, failing to make that happen, compensates for her failings with drugs that just dull the ache inflicted on her for not fitting in. my mother frets from her man's place in germany. my father feels genuine and (genuinely) reluctant guilt from his girlfriend's place in california's temperate rainforests. and i rail at the unfixable unjustness of her plight. if only we lived in other times! other cultures venerated her condition! why can't it be some other way?
so what can be done? how might one make this right? emotionally? justly? legally? i sometimes wish that my sister'd be successful in one of her attempts on her life. her suffering here is unending. there is no cure -- only the submission of (some of) her symptoms to a numbing drug with horrendous side effects. i would feel sad for my brother and parents; they had more time with her then i, but their sadness at her loss is nothing to the everyday horror of her life.
imagine living in a really scary horror movie, one that actually draws you in and makes you feel helpless and knowledgeable at the same time. one that has no cheese to it; no strong hero; no easy way out; no dumb mistakes like going into the basement to follow the monster. the kind where there's really no hope for the protagonist with whom you've identified. but then it doesn't end after two hours. and the protagonist with whom you identify is you. imagine knowing that everyone is actually trying to do you harm or take away some freedom. that's her life. every day, all day. sometimes dulled, but still...
advances in medicine are slow and filled with mis-steps and dead-ends. schizo-affective disorder may be fixed someday, but it won't be ours. my sister sometimes has enough of her wits un-drugged to know that she hates it here. even when she's numbed, she wants further numbing through booze... and i can't fault her for it. she's one, in spite of the blood-bond, for whom i still wish peace.
this season, with its cold and cloudy days, with its requirement of too much time indoors, breeds sullen moods and dark thoughts. adding the obligations of culturally mandated "family time" is just mean. i propose we do away with that and just curl up and find a way to get by until spring. maybe by then there'll be some cure for pain.
cutting and pasting
from top to bottom, this is chronologically what i wrote somewheres else.
sept 1, 09:
the dead hand and the manu barnacle
last night was nothing special. came home from work to an empty house that seemed as though it had been recently cleaned. found the remains of a twelver in the fridge and the sun was still shining so i sat on the porch and cracked an oly and lit a spirit. i'd found a note addressed to weezie explaining that some unnamed person had left with velma to get some weed and that they'd be back shortly. there was a glass of juice with ice still in it on the table, so it seemed like it might still be relevant. i called velma and left a message asking if she was with weezie and then settled in for a quiet night.
or so i thought...
with about five minutes left to a fascinating ted talk on the ways that data set representations are changing the way we differentiate between developed and developing nations (given at the state department), and about 5 minutes after i'd finished the oly, i got a call from velma -- she and manu and weezie were at dolores and were demanding my presence. the sun was still up (kinda), and i was feeling like some quite time in the park might be nice, so i grabbed my blazer and started the 5 block walk to hipster hill, listening to the national and smiling all the way.
and my smiles were met with theirs. and also an immediate group massage. obviously, something was going on. they were (more) giggly and smiley than usual, and this was a little disconcerting until weezie let it slip that they'd dropped some e earlier in the day and were still feeling it. flowers were placed on strangers' bikes, juice and beer was combined into delicious concoctions and scalp scratching was provided without hesitation.
shortly, though, the fog started to roll down from sutro tower and we decided to head back to stoch'd house and see about some food and maybe a planet earth sesh. on the way, i learn the story of manu's recent knee injury: check this shit out...
the previous evening manu and weezie were biking back from a party to get stoch'd and manu sees a small ice chest. manu, being manu, grabs it with the intent of using it form the tamale biz. unfortunately, he's a little drunk and somewhere along the way lost his balance because of the cooler hanging off his handlebars (we'll just pretend for now that the beer had nothing to do with it...). totally shreds his knee. like... to the bone in some spots... just... nasty. anyhow, rather than deal with the cooler, he and weezie get him patched up and antibioticized and put him to bed. next day, he and weezie are hanging out in the morning after i go to work (not having even woken up when they dealt with all of this, thank you autumn and ari and kristy and birthday boy bryan) and after re-dressing his wounds decide to clean out the cooler and get it ready for manustylee vegan tamale sales. except here's the thing: there's a rotting human hand in it.
yes, a rotting human hand.
in the fucking cooler.
that's been sitting on the porch at our new place all night.
what the fuck.
after cleaning the puke off the deck, they decide they should probably call the cops and report that they've found a severed limb... after a couple hours of sfpd bullshit it's all taken care of and the hand is gone. suddenly, they think it's a great idea to call velma over and do some e. i just don't get these kids sometimes, but whatever... there you have it. WEEZIE YOU DIDN'T EVEN CALL ME TO SAY THERE WAS A DEAD HAND AT OUR HOUSE!!! ARE YOU NUTS?
ok. stupid question. i'll leave it at that.
so yeah, there we are, walking by bollyhood on the way home to have a cuddle puddle and listen to david attenborough talk about the majesty of planet earth and they tell me they found a festering fist inside a coleman cooler. JESUS!
they were taking it all fine, but then again, i'd had a beer and a half, and they were all on e, so what did i really expect?
we get back to the stoch'd house and make a little grub (thanks manu, it was delish), and then sit around and drink a few beers and then start to motivate toward planet earth (thanks bbc, it was delish). i'm tired from the weekend, and not high at all, and velma leaves, and weezie wants to watch "just two cigarettes worth of the last episode," and manu doesn't care one way or the other, and i'm thinking soon, arjuna, soon you'll be able to crawl into bed, and then there's a knock at the door...
really? who the fuck is this?
xian and capt heartsleeves, of course...
"are we too late," xian asks.
"well, we're just closing up the last episode, and then i'm gonna pass out," i reply. but weezie's still rolling, and i love these guys, so what the fuck? "come on in," i offer...
not ten minutes later, manu's phone rings and he's out the door to let someone up (thanks, sal.. that buzzer works just GREAT...).
kazoo (an elfen lass of bubbly disposition) enters stage right.
MANU - hey guys, this is kazoo
HEARTSLEEVES (astounded) - of course she is!
introductions are made. brief discussion of the joys of watching nature documentaries while smoking cigarettes inside. manu warns kazoo about the knee injury but refuses to explain the circumstances (the fetid fingers might have had something to do with that...), and kazoo immediately commiserates "i have a knee thing, too!"
and then proceeds to drop her pants. seriously, everyone but manu had met her not but five miutes previous. and she's now half naked, standing in front of emperor penguin hatch-lings, starting the story of how she got the gash on her knee. i wish i could make this shit up.
she commandeers the stage and asks me to mute SIR david attenborrough. SIR! the horror!
manu is cast in the role of the barnacle covered rock. my loft bed become the semi-above-tide rock/beach of her and her three nekkid lady-pals. she dazzles the remaining five present with a nude tale of waves and sun and joy and tragedy. (they got hit by a largish wave and fell on some rocks and got cut.) as soon as she ended this account of woe, we sat amazed. except for manu. he apparently (being a blind rock for the whole narrative) had not noticed she was in her birthday suit and happily exclaimed, "you're naked!" kazoo must have been lost in the moment, as she immediately grabbed the blanket from my bed and hid underneath it.
they are unicorns. we cannot understand their ways.
i decided this was the right time to get some sleep, so i encouraged everyone to get the fuck out of my room and go do things that made them happier than keeping me awake any longer. thankfully, i was met with little more resistance than their own ADD tendencies could provide.
i got the lights off. i got naked. i got in bed. i heard them on the porch smoking cigarettes (except kazoo: she quit a while back). i turned the light back on and start reading. heartsleeves knocks on my door. "can i crash on the couch? cloud city is too far for tonight..."
"of course," i reply. "why not?"
and thus, the night becomes normal again.
sept 2, 09:
stochsatic magic (THE HOUSE SPEAKS)
SOMEHOW!, unicorns sleep in my stables. and yet:
sometimes, nothing. happens. here.
no really. it happens (so to speak): sometimes the house empties and the regs get shitty elsewhere. no really -- ELSEWHERE!
and so, it's on nights like this "elsewhere night" that one might find a moment to have a thought, unclouded by reason. or judgment. or expectation. sometimes isolation helps a person realize that what's happening in a life is just a tiny occurrence in a greater narrative. or that there is no narrative and that everything has always been meaningless.
regardless, it allows for perspective. it gives space for a person to just let the real feeling come uninhibited. unreacted to.
so with that: i am open --
OFFICIAL STATEMENT: the stoch'd house encourages unbridled displays of emotion.
no bridles, no reins, no spurs and no crops. if you're here, and you've got the need to express something, i, as the house, will be the last to discourage you. what is encouraged, though, is the recognition that each participant has a role to play in each other participant's play, and that you're all fortunate to have run across each other in this moment, in this particular situation. there may be a direction you think you're heading, and this interaction might lead you to something new.
enjoy.
srsly: ENJOY!
the next lesson might not be so nice...
sept 9, 09:
monday night dinners (half-assedly done...)
there comes a point in life when one must be clear-eyed and stone-hearted about the failure of an endeavor. for me it was about 11 o'clock on monday evening, and the endeavor was a true "Monday Night Dinner," and my acceptance of failure was marked by my prompt entrance to sleep. as i had never actually been to an MND, let alone hosted, i wasn't really sure what i was in for. i was told that there ought to be theme, and that guests would handle the cooking and cleaning, and that all that was required of the hosts was a venue. weezie and i were slackers about the theme, heartsleeves rightly assessed the sitch and decided not to send out the mass call to the list for attendees, and i stupidly started in on the beer around 3:30 that afternoon.
people i didn't know started arriving around 8, and by then i'd already given up on the idea of consuming anything solid; there are plenty of calories in beer, and just enough easily accessible energy from the simple, sweet carbs therein. with my liquid diet, i felt well prepared to interact intelligently with all of the strange folk mingling in my kitchen. fool's folly, i tell you, but you'll see that for yourself shortly...
first, though, let me back up a moment, if i may. or perhaps a baker's dozen years...
back on the ord, i lived with a rascal named dommer. we (along with a few others) were housemates, bandmates, classmates, drinking buddies, hooligans, wingmen, mentors, apprentices and, above all, friends. we met as soon as we arrived in the dorms and continued to torment each others' better judgments until i left for the emerald triangle two and a half years later. even after that there were a few choice treacheries to our sensibilities (remember luna, dear dommer?). but i digress (again...).
sadly, due to some misplaced and overwrought loyalties i had to a woman that we'd both been involved with, we parted ways and didn't speak to one another for near a decade. finally ready to swallow my pride and admit the biased nature of my knowledge of the events that had actually transpired, we met at the ace for drinks on a wednesday evening several months ago. to my delight, a decade was enough for the past to be the past, and we were immediately friends again. we caught up. we laughed. we got shitty. it was just like old times.
but that is all preface to this: dommer came over to the dinner on monday. well, first weezie and i ventured to the dolo for a bit and met up with him (and some other loverly lovelies who had been absent from my life for too long), but the point is that he came over. and i have a certain habit of getting blind drunk when i spend several hours with him. doesn't matter if we don't even interact all that much... his mere presence is like a trigger in my brain yelling, "DRINK! YOU HAVE A THIRST THAT MUST BE QUENCHED! QUENCH IT!" and so i do. and so i did.
the continuity of the night breaks down about the time that weezie's and manu's and heartsleeves's friends begin to arrive. i have most of it pieced together (heartsleeves wore my favorite shirt, babs was looking beautiful, rhi and steve had fun, two guests i'd really hoped would come never did, i kept with my plan to consume only fluids), and i figure that the parts that are missing were probably mundane. but one overarching feeling is that the MND was not really an MND; it was just a monday night at the stoch'd house. we do as we do, and the universe "does not bring all men's plans to fulfillment." (thanks, homer (not simpson).) i'd intended to make this the beginning of a great tradition, to reinstate something that had fallen away with heartsleeves's fall from the window. instead i got some opera up in my kitchen, and some wonderful (if choppy) new stories about hanging out while the dommer was in attendance.
video
thanks, guys. see you next week.
sept 26, 09:
the welcoming quiet of burn out (a love letter to you)
as the house has noted, it's a rare night that sees no stoch'ing. for the most part, we at least make a cursory effort to get stoch'd pretty much always. i'd even admit to neglecting my true lady love dolores due to the awesomeness we bring every fucking day to this place. anthropomorphic stochasticity is a constant in my life and many others, and i wouldn't have it any other way. coming home to random people freebasing opium in my kitchen might be surprising, but love always rules here, so the surprise ends up a smiley one. i love my people, and my people love me. it's a wonderful exchange.
even when it's awkward.
but there are nights that deserve a quieter approach -- time for reading and mix-tape-making and solo beer drinking and computer maintenance and chain smoking. what's amazing is that these tend to fall in my lap right before i feel like i'm gonna scream from too much fun... stochastic, right?
i love this fucking place.
and as i allow myself to accept the magic of my home, i see more and more that it's just a matter of perception. we create our own realities based as much on what we want to see as what is actually happening. it's an ancient tradition of self-deception that results in actual, real-life changes. explanation is useless... i can only describe.
with that said, there are a few shout outs that i need to make:
b-nay, i love you. every time i see you i smile. whenever you walk through my door, i know that the experience is about to be that much better. don't ever stop. you're too good for that. see you tomorrow.
dommer, you better keep coming over. you always bring the pure, unadulterated, 100%, straight from bolivia, like we're in amsterdam, or bali, kinda joy that can't be faked. spending time with you is always an experience worth remembering (even though it's usually not easy to remember...). someday, we'll finish that conversation about closers. until then...
even with all the wonder and amazement i have in my life, manu can always bring it just a touch further. whether it's a philosophical discourse on the nature of love, an introduction to a new band, a delicious morsel of deliciousness or just a knowing smirk at the conspiratorially right time, i always feel we're in the same chapter, if not on the same page.
and that's just to name a few regulars...
but here's the thing: it takes a night off every once in a while for me to remember that my life rocks as hard as it does. these quieter nights, when i get a chance to stink up the house with tobacco all by lonesome, listen to music that nobody else likes, and sit uninterrupted for hours at a time, that i can absorb all the good that seeps from all my lovelies. i'm seeing more and more that the way to appreciate all of you is to go enjoy myself and thus bring my best back to the table when we see each other next. this quiet that comes from burn-out actually helps me love you all more.
thanks, stoch'd house, for reminding me of this. see you in the morning.
oct 12, 09:
reflections on a "quiet week"
weezy and i decided last week ought to be a "quiet week." we'd been stoch'ing out for pretty much two months, non-stop, and were feeling a little haggard. well, perhaps "a little" isn't the most accurate descriptive term, but whatevs... it was time for a break.
now, a break here at the stoch'd house isn't really like any break i've experienced at other residences. the official bylaws of this mini-cooperative state that "quiet week" is a time when the house is devoid of all non-residents during the evenings with the exception of rosteritas/rosterinos. and in theory, this seems like an easy enough rule to follow.
but as the home's name implies plainly states, wierd shit happens here. random, long lost friends show up unannounced; people that were roster-worthy move unexpectedly to the friend-column without warning; residents forget and come home from the bars after closing with new friends... luckily, we're a forgiving group, accepting of life's many stochastic twists and turns.
the "quiet week" ended on friday morning and quite naturally returned to the anthropomorphic stochasticity which we know and love. the weekend was filled with many waking hours and few sleeping ones. we laughed, we drew, we danced, we drank. it's been a blast to get back on the horse. and now it's time for another Monday Night Dinner. the first guest has now arrived. it's time FOR FUUUNNNN!!!
oct 17, 09:
i can has literacy?
so, we do actually know how to read. we might even be mistaken for smart people, depending on the company we are surrounded by. but we've all slacked in school, over the years, and managed to fake some cultural smarts along the way. let's stop faking. there's been stochastic awesomeness lately that brought this cultural blind-spot into the open, and our collective desire for honesty has made it imperative that we get some shit straight...
there will be a reading circle. a book club. a literary salon. a meeting of minds. a gathering of intellects. a debaucherous tour of vocabulary and grammar. an exploration of your mom. a debt payed. a payment collected. a way for us to remember that nerdiness is hot. a time to be hot in our nerdiness. a selection of words, collectively chosen, to be discovered anew.
below is a list. we have neither presumed to make this canonical nor chronological. the comments are open, as are the invites. let us know that you want to participate, and/or add to the list of works. we want to be reminded of all we ignored during our failed and disgraceful youths. we want to take it upon ourselves to make our lives more richly fulfilled. is something missing? scream it from the (virtual) mountain tops. we're listening.
join us
also, don't tell anyone that i'm in this group...
* 1984, george orwell
* animal farm, george orwell
* catch 22, joseph heller
* demian, hermann hesse
* Siddhartha, hermann hesse
* steppenwolf, hermann hesse
* symposium, plato, et al
* the picture of dorian gray, oscar wilde
* lolita, vladimir nobokov
* One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
* Bhagavad Gita, apocryphal
* illusions, richard bach
* Jonathan Livingston Seagull, richard bach
* dune, frank herbert
* the sun also rises, hemingway
* dandelion wine, ray bradbury
founding (uncouth and under-cultured) members
* weezy
* ke-ott
* juna-san
* manu
* b-nay
* julesicans
any particular day work well or poorly for you?
oct 28, 09:
centaurs and unicorns
i don't really know how to put this... it kinda seems like the world of man is winning out on the world of the faerie. i was rooting and fighting for the losing side for a while, but the tide has really turned... caetlyn and pabber and the mother and the smith and the rest of the wildlings are losing the war. our ways are being declared false and so lose their power. it was a given while we were strong, but the wider world is choosing another way. we need to regroup. it's unfortunate that our only power was faith, but now that it's gone, what can we do?
once dragons and unicorns ruled the realm -- what happened? who slew them? wherever did they run? every turn i make shows me the face of man...
i've made treaties. i've made concessions on our behalf. i've even fed them our finest treats and played them our finest songs. but they care for naught. they care only for more. more, MORE, MORE!
our ways mean nothing before their crushing rollers, their reaping scythes, their unending consumption. our only folly has been speaking face to face. they are unendingly deaf; unyieldingly blind. their dead hearts beat for nothing but gold and steel. nothing matters to them but more. there is no hope.
and now we must ask what is left. how can we face all of this? what can one of us do to make it better than it was when we arrived? what little part can be played individually along the way that won't get tripped up in the grander scheme?
nothing, is the answer.
the men have won.
the world of men has won...
all that is left is surrender, suicide or retreat.
they have steel. they have guns. they have technology.
we have faith. belief. magic.
the war is done.
the centaur has broken the unicorn. the faerie are no more...
RETREAT!
RETREAT
nov 26, 09:
giving thanks
sitting at home alone. "orphaned," as it were. chilled with the k.c. kids for a bit and found their tribe kind, generous and welcoming. but somehow too foreign for a day like this one. the stoch'd house obviously carries with it the bearing of one that'll open it's arms to any that're willing to embrace. not in the slutty way, but in the way of saints and saviors. we tell the hard truths to those that need to hear them, and protect those that need protection.
for that i am thankful.
but in so doing the house opens itself to woundings. when a heart is open, it will often be hurt. i made a choice coming to be part of the running of this orphanage, knowing full well that we'd be giving safe harbor to those that might try and take advantage. but knowing that someone has come away from here feeling better than when that one arrived is a gift. mutual aid, mother fuckers.
and for that i am thankful.
tonight's point is supposed to be, as i understand, an opportunity to acknowledge those things in a life that one doesn't normally acknowledge. i have before me a fucking slough of opportunities to acknowledge, but none come to mind so much as this: i'm fucking thankful i'm not the mother fucker that got fucking gutted the other day on my fucking front fucking porch. that mother fucker is probably thankful he didn't die, but i'm just thankful that my life is not his. somehow he found himself in a position to be on the wrong side of someone's favor who happened to have a knife and a temper. on my fucking porch. whatever his circumstances might be, they are not mine.
and for that i am thankful.
i have enough confidence in my own tribe to know that they won't bring over a motherfucker that's looking to shank me (for now, at least, they don't have that particular inclination... once i drink with them and try to rile... who knows?). and if i get the wrong vibe, i know they'll back me.
and for that i am thankful.
as one very smart man once said, "life is suffering." we take our blows as they come, and do with them what we choose, but the fact is, all of it is the exact opposite of what one might consider paradise. life fucking hurts.
and for that i am thankful.
life's pain reminds me of life's opportunities for joy. reminds me of the drive to seek them. reminds me that this is our only chance for any experience. we can do some stuff to make us feel good now, but that time is short and half the planet's lifeforms are ready to make it shorter.
and for that i am thankful.
here's a thanksgiving prayer that an elder of my tribe of orphans decreed earlier today, and i think every word is worth saying and repeating. i love you all.
If you choose to love brilliant beautiful humans, you will always be surrounded by brilliant beautiful humans…funny like that.
For me, that would be All of You (your mileage may vary as will members of your own Tribe).
Those of us aspiring to excel at life’s exquisite adventure tend to collect others of similar mind…and they tell two others, and so on and so on…
I am better when my self-interest includes others. As time-consuming, distracted, and overwhelmed as our lives can be, I am better for knowing thee.
Distance and time spent do not diminish intelligence, beauty, talent, grace, or wonder. The ebb and flow of contingent loyalties and obligations amongst your own Tribe reinforce bonds more often than bring discord…a deeper weaving of the threads means richer colors in the tapestry of your life.
Everyone I ever loved, I love them still – for the reasons I first caught their scent and for the elements they bring to my existence. Including, especially, the chaos (which must be allowed for) and the wisdom.
Our friendship, its experiences, tribulations, triumphs, our connectivity, are worth celebrating, rare as these things tend to be along the way, I forget none of them.
I feel great pride that you are in my life and am grateful that my Tapestry includes you.
Peace.
sept 1, 09:
the dead hand and the manu barnacle
last night was nothing special. came home from work to an empty house that seemed as though it had been recently cleaned. found the remains of a twelver in the fridge and the sun was still shining so i sat on the porch and cracked an oly and lit a spirit. i'd found a note addressed to weezie explaining that some unnamed person had left with velma to get some weed and that they'd be back shortly. there was a glass of juice with ice still in it on the table, so it seemed like it might still be relevant. i called velma and left a message asking if she was with weezie and then settled in for a quiet night.
or so i thought...
with about five minutes left to a fascinating ted talk on the ways that data set representations are changing the way we differentiate between developed and developing nations (given at the state department), and about 5 minutes after i'd finished the oly, i got a call from velma -- she and manu and weezie were at dolores and were demanding my presence. the sun was still up (kinda), and i was feeling like some quite time in the park might be nice, so i grabbed my blazer and started the 5 block walk to hipster hill, listening to the national and smiling all the way.
and my smiles were met with theirs. and also an immediate group massage. obviously, something was going on. they were (more) giggly and smiley than usual, and this was a little disconcerting until weezie let it slip that they'd dropped some e earlier in the day and were still feeling it. flowers were placed on strangers' bikes, juice and beer was combined into delicious concoctions and scalp scratching was provided without hesitation.
shortly, though, the fog started to roll down from sutro tower and we decided to head back to stoch'd house and see about some food and maybe a planet earth sesh. on the way, i learn the story of manu's recent knee injury: check this shit out...
the previous evening manu and weezie were biking back from a party to get stoch'd and manu sees a small ice chest. manu, being manu, grabs it with the intent of using it form the tamale biz. unfortunately, he's a little drunk and somewhere along the way lost his balance because of the cooler hanging off his handlebars (we'll just pretend for now that the beer had nothing to do with it...). totally shreds his knee. like... to the bone in some spots... just... nasty. anyhow, rather than deal with the cooler, he and weezie get him patched up and antibioticized and put him to bed. next day, he and weezie are hanging out in the morning after i go to work (not having even woken up when they dealt with all of this, thank you autumn and ari and kristy and birthday boy bryan) and after re-dressing his wounds decide to clean out the cooler and get it ready for manustylee vegan tamale sales. except here's the thing: there's a rotting human hand in it.
yes, a rotting human hand.
in the fucking cooler.
that's been sitting on the porch at our new place all night.
what the fuck.
after cleaning the puke off the deck, they decide they should probably call the cops and report that they've found a severed limb... after a couple hours of sfpd bullshit it's all taken care of and the hand is gone. suddenly, they think it's a great idea to call velma over and do some e. i just don't get these kids sometimes, but whatever... there you have it. WEEZIE YOU DIDN'T EVEN CALL ME TO SAY THERE WAS A DEAD HAND AT OUR HOUSE!!! ARE YOU NUTS?
ok. stupid question. i'll leave it at that.
so yeah, there we are, walking by bollyhood on the way home to have a cuddle puddle and listen to david attenborough talk about the majesty of planet earth and they tell me they found a festering fist inside a coleman cooler. JESUS!
they were taking it all fine, but then again, i'd had a beer and a half, and they were all on e, so what did i really expect?
we get back to the stoch'd house and make a little grub (thanks manu, it was delish), and then sit around and drink a few beers and then start to motivate toward planet earth (thanks bbc, it was delish). i'm tired from the weekend, and not high at all, and velma leaves, and weezie wants to watch "just two cigarettes worth of the last episode," and manu doesn't care one way or the other, and i'm thinking soon, arjuna, soon you'll be able to crawl into bed, and then there's a knock at the door...
really? who the fuck is this?
xian and capt heartsleeves, of course...
"are we too late," xian asks.
"well, we're just closing up the last episode, and then i'm gonna pass out," i reply. but weezie's still rolling, and i love these guys, so what the fuck? "come on in," i offer...
not ten minutes later, manu's phone rings and he's out the door to let someone up (thanks, sal.. that buzzer works just GREAT...).
kazoo (an elfen lass of bubbly disposition) enters stage right.
MANU - hey guys, this is kazoo
HEARTSLEEVES (astounded) - of course she is!
introductions are made. brief discussion of the joys of watching nature documentaries while smoking cigarettes inside. manu warns kazoo about the knee injury but refuses to explain the circumstances (the fetid fingers might have had something to do with that...), and kazoo immediately commiserates "i have a knee thing, too!"
and then proceeds to drop her pants. seriously, everyone but manu had met her not but five miutes previous. and she's now half naked, standing in front of emperor penguin hatch-lings, starting the story of how she got the gash on her knee. i wish i could make this shit up.
she commandeers the stage and asks me to mute SIR david attenborrough. SIR! the horror!
manu is cast in the role of the barnacle covered rock. my loft bed become the semi-above-tide rock/beach of her and her three nekkid lady-pals. she dazzles the remaining five present with a nude tale of waves and sun and joy and tragedy. (they got hit by a largish wave and fell on some rocks and got cut.) as soon as she ended this account of woe, we sat amazed. except for manu. he apparently (being a blind rock for the whole narrative) had not noticed she was in her birthday suit and happily exclaimed, "you're naked!" kazoo must have been lost in the moment, as she immediately grabbed the blanket from my bed and hid underneath it.
they are unicorns. we cannot understand their ways.
i decided this was the right time to get some sleep, so i encouraged everyone to get the fuck out of my room and go do things that made them happier than keeping me awake any longer. thankfully, i was met with little more resistance than their own ADD tendencies could provide.
i got the lights off. i got naked. i got in bed. i heard them on the porch smoking cigarettes (except kazoo: she quit a while back). i turned the light back on and start reading. heartsleeves knocks on my door. "can i crash on the couch? cloud city is too far for tonight..."
"of course," i reply. "why not?"
and thus, the night becomes normal again.
sept 2, 09:
stochsatic magic (THE HOUSE SPEAKS)
SOMEHOW!, unicorns sleep in my stables. and yet:
sometimes, nothing. happens. here.
no really. it happens (so to speak): sometimes the house empties and the regs get shitty elsewhere. no really -- ELSEWHERE!
and so, it's on nights like this "elsewhere night" that one might find a moment to have a thought, unclouded by reason. or judgment. or expectation. sometimes isolation helps a person realize that what's happening in a life is just a tiny occurrence in a greater narrative. or that there is no narrative and that everything has always been meaningless.
regardless, it allows for perspective. it gives space for a person to just let the real feeling come uninhibited. unreacted to.
so with that: i am open --
OFFICIAL STATEMENT: the stoch'd house encourages unbridled displays of emotion.
no bridles, no reins, no spurs and no crops. if you're here, and you've got the need to express something, i, as the house, will be the last to discourage you. what is encouraged, though, is the recognition that each participant has a role to play in each other participant's play, and that you're all fortunate to have run across each other in this moment, in this particular situation. there may be a direction you think you're heading, and this interaction might lead you to something new.
enjoy.
srsly: ENJOY!
the next lesson might not be so nice...
sept 9, 09:
monday night dinners (half-assedly done...)
there comes a point in life when one must be clear-eyed and stone-hearted about the failure of an endeavor. for me it was about 11 o'clock on monday evening, and the endeavor was a true "Monday Night Dinner," and my acceptance of failure was marked by my prompt entrance to sleep. as i had never actually been to an MND, let alone hosted, i wasn't really sure what i was in for. i was told that there ought to be theme, and that guests would handle the cooking and cleaning, and that all that was required of the hosts was a venue. weezie and i were slackers about the theme, heartsleeves rightly assessed the sitch and decided not to send out the mass call to the list for attendees, and i stupidly started in on the beer around 3:30 that afternoon.
people i didn't know started arriving around 8, and by then i'd already given up on the idea of consuming anything solid; there are plenty of calories in beer, and just enough easily accessible energy from the simple, sweet carbs therein. with my liquid diet, i felt well prepared to interact intelligently with all of the strange folk mingling in my kitchen. fool's folly, i tell you, but you'll see that for yourself shortly...
first, though, let me back up a moment, if i may. or perhaps a baker's dozen years...
back on the ord, i lived with a rascal named dommer. we (along with a few others) were housemates, bandmates, classmates, drinking buddies, hooligans, wingmen, mentors, apprentices and, above all, friends. we met as soon as we arrived in the dorms and continued to torment each others' better judgments until i left for the emerald triangle two and a half years later. even after that there were a few choice treacheries to our sensibilities (remember luna, dear dommer?). but i digress (again...).
sadly, due to some misplaced and overwrought loyalties i had to a woman that we'd both been involved with, we parted ways and didn't speak to one another for near a decade. finally ready to swallow my pride and admit the biased nature of my knowledge of the events that had actually transpired, we met at the ace for drinks on a wednesday evening several months ago. to my delight, a decade was enough for the past to be the past, and we were immediately friends again. we caught up. we laughed. we got shitty. it was just like old times.
but that is all preface to this: dommer came over to the dinner on monday. well, first weezie and i ventured to the dolo for a bit and met up with him (and some other loverly lovelies who had been absent from my life for too long), but the point is that he came over. and i have a certain habit of getting blind drunk when i spend several hours with him. doesn't matter if we don't even interact all that much... his mere presence is like a trigger in my brain yelling, "DRINK! YOU HAVE A THIRST THAT MUST BE QUENCHED! QUENCH IT!" and so i do. and so i did.
the continuity of the night breaks down about the time that weezie's and manu's and heartsleeves's friends begin to arrive. i have most of it pieced together (heartsleeves wore my favorite shirt, babs was looking beautiful, rhi and steve had fun, two guests i'd really hoped would come never did, i kept with my plan to consume only fluids), and i figure that the parts that are missing were probably mundane. but one overarching feeling is that the MND was not really an MND; it was just a monday night at the stoch'd house. we do as we do, and the universe "does not bring all men's plans to fulfillment." (thanks, homer (not simpson).) i'd intended to make this the beginning of a great tradition, to reinstate something that had fallen away with heartsleeves's fall from the window. instead i got some opera up in my kitchen, and some wonderful (if choppy) new stories about hanging out while the dommer was in attendance.
video
thanks, guys. see you next week.
sept 26, 09:
the welcoming quiet of burn out (a love letter to you)
as the house has noted, it's a rare night that sees no stoch'ing. for the most part, we at least make a cursory effort to get stoch'd pretty much always. i'd even admit to neglecting my true lady love dolores due to the awesomeness we bring every fucking day to this place. anthropomorphic stochasticity is a constant in my life and many others, and i wouldn't have it any other way. coming home to random people freebasing opium in my kitchen might be surprising, but love always rules here, so the surprise ends up a smiley one. i love my people, and my people love me. it's a wonderful exchange.
even when it's awkward.
but there are nights that deserve a quieter approach -- time for reading and mix-tape-making and solo beer drinking and computer maintenance and chain smoking. what's amazing is that these tend to fall in my lap right before i feel like i'm gonna scream from too much fun... stochastic, right?
i love this fucking place.
and as i allow myself to accept the magic of my home, i see more and more that it's just a matter of perception. we create our own realities based as much on what we want to see as what is actually happening. it's an ancient tradition of self-deception that results in actual, real-life changes. explanation is useless... i can only describe.
with that said, there are a few shout outs that i need to make:
b-nay, i love you. every time i see you i smile. whenever you walk through my door, i know that the experience is about to be that much better. don't ever stop. you're too good for that. see you tomorrow.
dommer, you better keep coming over. you always bring the pure, unadulterated, 100%, straight from bolivia, like we're in amsterdam, or bali, kinda joy that can't be faked. spending time with you is always an experience worth remembering (even though it's usually not easy to remember...). someday, we'll finish that conversation about closers. until then...
even with all the wonder and amazement i have in my life, manu can always bring it just a touch further. whether it's a philosophical discourse on the nature of love, an introduction to a new band, a delicious morsel of deliciousness or just a knowing smirk at the conspiratorially right time, i always feel we're in the same chapter, if not on the same page.
and that's just to name a few regulars...
but here's the thing: it takes a night off every once in a while for me to remember that my life rocks as hard as it does. these quieter nights, when i get a chance to stink up the house with tobacco all by lonesome, listen to music that nobody else likes, and sit uninterrupted for hours at a time, that i can absorb all the good that seeps from all my lovelies. i'm seeing more and more that the way to appreciate all of you is to go enjoy myself and thus bring my best back to the table when we see each other next. this quiet that comes from burn-out actually helps me love you all more.
thanks, stoch'd house, for reminding me of this. see you in the morning.
oct 12, 09:
reflections on a "quiet week"
weezy and i decided last week ought to be a "quiet week." we'd been stoch'ing out for pretty much two months, non-stop, and were feeling a little haggard. well, perhaps "a little" isn't the most accurate descriptive term, but whatevs... it was time for a break.
now, a break here at the stoch'd house isn't really like any break i've experienced at other residences. the official bylaws of this mini-cooperative state that "quiet week" is a time when the house is devoid of all non-residents during the evenings with the exception of rosteritas/rosterinos. and in theory, this seems like an easy enough rule to follow.
but as the home's name implies plainly states, wierd shit happens here. random, long lost friends show up unannounced; people that were roster-worthy move unexpectedly to the friend-column without warning; residents forget and come home from the bars after closing with new friends... luckily, we're a forgiving group, accepting of life's many stochastic twists and turns.
the "quiet week" ended on friday morning and quite naturally returned to the anthropomorphic stochasticity which we know and love. the weekend was filled with many waking hours and few sleeping ones. we laughed, we drew, we danced, we drank. it's been a blast to get back on the horse. and now it's time for another Monday Night Dinner. the first guest has now arrived. it's time FOR FUUUNNNN!!!
oct 17, 09:
i can has literacy?
so, we do actually know how to read. we might even be mistaken for smart people, depending on the company we are surrounded by. but we've all slacked in school, over the years, and managed to fake some cultural smarts along the way. let's stop faking. there's been stochastic awesomeness lately that brought this cultural blind-spot into the open, and our collective desire for honesty has made it imperative that we get some shit straight...
there will be a reading circle. a book club. a literary salon. a meeting of minds. a gathering of intellects. a debaucherous tour of vocabulary and grammar. an exploration of your mom. a debt payed. a payment collected. a way for us to remember that nerdiness is hot. a time to be hot in our nerdiness. a selection of words, collectively chosen, to be discovered anew.
below is a list. we have neither presumed to make this canonical nor chronological. the comments are open, as are the invites. let us know that you want to participate, and/or add to the list of works. we want to be reminded of all we ignored during our failed and disgraceful youths. we want to take it upon ourselves to make our lives more richly fulfilled. is something missing? scream it from the (virtual) mountain tops. we're listening.
join us
also, don't tell anyone that i'm in this group...
* 1984, george orwell
* animal farm, george orwell
* catch 22, joseph heller
* demian, hermann hesse
* Siddhartha, hermann hesse
* steppenwolf, hermann hesse
* symposium, plato, et al
* the picture of dorian gray, oscar wilde
* lolita, vladimir nobokov
* One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
* Bhagavad Gita, apocryphal
* illusions, richard bach
* Jonathan Livingston Seagull, richard bach
* dune, frank herbert
* the sun also rises, hemingway
* dandelion wine, ray bradbury
founding (uncouth and under-cultured) members
* weezy
* ke-ott
* juna-san
* manu
* b-nay
* julesicans
any particular day work well or poorly for you?
oct 28, 09:
centaurs and unicorns
i don't really know how to put this... it kinda seems like the world of man is winning out on the world of the faerie. i was rooting and fighting for the losing side for a while, but the tide has really turned... caetlyn and pabber and the mother and the smith and the rest of the wildlings are losing the war. our ways are being declared false and so lose their power. it was a given while we were strong, but the wider world is choosing another way. we need to regroup. it's unfortunate that our only power was faith, but now that it's gone, what can we do?
once dragons and unicorns ruled the realm -- what happened? who slew them? wherever did they run? every turn i make shows me the face of man...
i've made treaties. i've made concessions on our behalf. i've even fed them our finest treats and played them our finest songs. but they care for naught. they care only for more. more, MORE, MORE!
our ways mean nothing before their crushing rollers, their reaping scythes, their unending consumption. our only folly has been speaking face to face. they are unendingly deaf; unyieldingly blind. their dead hearts beat for nothing but gold and steel. nothing matters to them but more. there is no hope.
and now we must ask what is left. how can we face all of this? what can one of us do to make it better than it was when we arrived? what little part can be played individually along the way that won't get tripped up in the grander scheme?
nothing, is the answer.
the men have won.
the world of men has won...
all that is left is surrender, suicide or retreat.
they have steel. they have guns. they have technology.
we have faith. belief. magic.
the war is done.
the centaur has broken the unicorn. the faerie are no more...
RETREAT!
RETREAT
nov 26, 09:
giving thanks
sitting at home alone. "orphaned," as it were. chilled with the k.c. kids for a bit and found their tribe kind, generous and welcoming. but somehow too foreign for a day like this one. the stoch'd house obviously carries with it the bearing of one that'll open it's arms to any that're willing to embrace. not in the slutty way, but in the way of saints and saviors. we tell the hard truths to those that need to hear them, and protect those that need protection.
for that i am thankful.
but in so doing the house opens itself to woundings. when a heart is open, it will often be hurt. i made a choice coming to be part of the running of this orphanage, knowing full well that we'd be giving safe harbor to those that might try and take advantage. but knowing that someone has come away from here feeling better than when that one arrived is a gift. mutual aid, mother fuckers.
and for that i am thankful.
tonight's point is supposed to be, as i understand, an opportunity to acknowledge those things in a life that one doesn't normally acknowledge. i have before me a fucking slough of opportunities to acknowledge, but none come to mind so much as this: i'm fucking thankful i'm not the mother fucker that got fucking gutted the other day on my fucking front fucking porch. that mother fucker is probably thankful he didn't die, but i'm just thankful that my life is not his. somehow he found himself in a position to be on the wrong side of someone's favor who happened to have a knife and a temper. on my fucking porch. whatever his circumstances might be, they are not mine.
and for that i am thankful.
i have enough confidence in my own tribe to know that they won't bring over a motherfucker that's looking to shank me (for now, at least, they don't have that particular inclination... once i drink with them and try to rile... who knows?). and if i get the wrong vibe, i know they'll back me.
and for that i am thankful.
as one very smart man once said, "life is suffering." we take our blows as they come, and do with them what we choose, but the fact is, all of it is the exact opposite of what one might consider paradise. life fucking hurts.
and for that i am thankful.
life's pain reminds me of life's opportunities for joy. reminds me of the drive to seek them. reminds me that this is our only chance for any experience. we can do some stuff to make us feel good now, but that time is short and half the planet's lifeforms are ready to make it shorter.
and for that i am thankful.
here's a thanksgiving prayer that an elder of my tribe of orphans decreed earlier today, and i think every word is worth saying and repeating. i love you all.
If you choose to love brilliant beautiful humans, you will always be surrounded by brilliant beautiful humans…funny like that.
For me, that would be All of You (your mileage may vary as will members of your own Tribe).
Those of us aspiring to excel at life’s exquisite adventure tend to collect others of similar mind…and they tell two others, and so on and so on…
I am better when my self-interest includes others. As time-consuming, distracted, and overwhelmed as our lives can be, I am better for knowing thee.
Distance and time spent do not diminish intelligence, beauty, talent, grace, or wonder. The ebb and flow of contingent loyalties and obligations amongst your own Tribe reinforce bonds more often than bring discord…a deeper weaving of the threads means richer colors in the tapestry of your life.
Everyone I ever loved, I love them still – for the reasons I first caught their scent and for the elements they bring to my existence. Including, especially, the chaos (which must be allowed for) and the wisdom.
Our friendship, its experiences, tribulations, triumphs, our connectivity, are worth celebrating, rare as these things tend to be along the way, I forget none of them.
I feel great pride that you are in my life and am grateful that my Tapestry includes you.
Peace.
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