I saw a picture this morning, that made me curious about the UK.  I avoid the news lately, I only know what is going on because Rhett tells me snippets, while I am washing dishes and he is drinking his morning coffee.  Anyway, I digress…the photo isntantly made me think “What the hell is going in England?”  It’s Sunday I have a little bit of time, so I looked up the riots.  It seems as if everything might be calming down, and now the experts are swooping in, trying to explain everything.  Why haven’t they figured out that the human condition is in a constant flux?  We are never going to figure out why people do things.  I can’t even figure out why I do half the things I do, how am I going to be arrogant enough to tell the people in the middle of the riots why they did it.  The BBC came up with the top ten reasons for the riots.  Most of them seem absolutely ridiculous.  Of course they have experts to corroborate their theories.  It is all very annoying and makes me remember why I don’t read the news.

The Competing Arguments For The Riots In London

photo via iZnoGoodGood

I have little deaths of huge parts of myself. I am currently working on my second one. I don’t want to die, I don’t want to rework myself into something I can love again. I guess I didn’t want to the first time it happened either. The first seemed easier because I gave up a huge part of who I thought I was, and things I desperately loved about myself, to become everything for someone else. I had to become something new and unknown and scary, but I had to for her; she was my reward.

Now I have to for me, it’s not just a difference or something new, it’s a failing, something I can’t do anymore. Something that other people look upon with pride, an essential part of the way the people I love live their lives, I cannot share. I have to be different, all the while thinking no less of myself. I have to accept myself as a lovely person despite the fact that I suck. All of this is difficult and I want to do it quietly and thoroughly. I want to do this with dignity, for no one but me. I want to say goodbye slowly and gracefully, a warm holding of the hand and a solid acceptance of the unknown. “Hey honey, thank you, we had some good times and I really appreciate you being there for me, but you can go now, you’ve held on as long as I needed you to.”

My only reward is a different me, a me that I am not entirely comfortable with.

In the early stages of his madman meltdown phase, when he played the talk shows like a seasoned provocateur, or even on his public-access-style Webcasts, he created the sex-and-dope version of a Howard Beale mad-as-hell moment. He held out the prospect of danger, of saying the things that we aren’t allowed to say. And that, let’s be honest, became — at least to some of us — an addictive prospect, a slumming form of performance-art entertainment for an overly controlled, rule-bound, PR-driven, terminally politically correct, spin-cycle America. Which leads one to ask: What does a Howard Beale who has already had his mad-as-hell eruption do for an encore?

via Charlie Sheen at Radio City Music Hall: He’s not winning anymore. He’s losing, big time | Inside TV | EW.com.

I just want everyone to know that I was really rooting for him to pull this off.  I wanted at least one honestly arrogant, holier than thou, I can say and do what I want, slightly intelligent, celebrity out there.  I would not have begrudged him his women, his drugs, his bad behavior, his sheer craziness, if only he could continue to be honest with a small semblance of sanity.  Now he is ruining it, like a dying star he has exploded in a flash of light.  He is bound for ridicule and pity, now, bummer.

A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity.
Robert Frost

Wild or Crazy

I am wild. I am not crazy. There is a difference.

The stupid can’t see the difference, the inhibited deny the difference, and the authorities just don’t give a fuck about the difference — but the difference is everything.

Wild or crazy. At the extremes of sex, drugs, and rock and roll — anything worth doing, really — you’ll find only these two flavors. They are the chocolate and vanilla of passion. The yin and yang of sin.

Wild explores. Crazy escapes.

Wild is beautiful. Crazy is broken.

Wild seeks enlightenment. Crazy seeks annihilation.

Know the difference. Be aware of the difference. Embrace wild, and send crazy packing.

Savor a savage fuck. Sample a heroic dose. Enjoy any raw and filthy moment of human vulnerability your heart desires, but always ask yourself: are you consciously seeking enlightenment or are you seeking to annihilate your consciousness?

If you don’t know the answer, get the fuck out of the room.

If you’re trying to escape, stop what you’re doing. Get help.

If you’re trying to explore, smile with your soul and take every inch of the experience as deeply as you possibly can.

And no matter what, don’t fucking judge — blowing a fat line of cocaine off a rock hard cock in a Vegas bathroom can be just as valid an exploration of consciousness as dropping acid in the desert with a tantric drum circle of naked hippies.

You don’t need to be burning incense for it to qualify as a religious experience.

You don’t even need a god.

All you need is a brain and a battle-cry:

Bitch, be wild. Don’t be crazy.

via Coke Talk – Wild or Crazy.

The line between the two is unimaginably thin, it’s hard to now when you have crossed it.

I have tipped into crazy a great many times.

Usually I guilt trip myself about it, and try to be more pure and normal for awhile.  Now I realize that’s just not me, I am a spaz, I am erratic, I have bad follow through, I act before I think, I talk before I know,  I am capricious, I like doing things that other people think are crazy.  I am emotional, and sometimes I am needy.  That last one is really hard for me.  Needy translates to weak in my book.  I am learning to ask for what I need and be really specific.  ugh I hate asking for help, but I am not superwoman.

Sometimes I think you need to be crazy for a little (hopefully a very little) bit in order to realize how you don’t want to be.  You know, experience it, so you can identify the difference.

And finally, maybe the difference is only made clear by how you process your actions.

It’s all about you baby, love who you are because it is all you really have, and it’s beautiful!  And for some weird reason more beautiful if you love it.

I am much more lenient on this than Rhett is.  Musicians can no longer depend on record sales, so it doesn’t bother me so much if they take advantage of their popularity.  Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeroes, kind of surprised me though, they seemed like such good anti-establishment hippies.

The Black Keys redeemed themselves a little bit by going on the Colbert Report and making fun of how badly they sold out.  If you are going to screw up, embrace it.

This girl though, she knows how to do it right.  Oh man, is she smooth, easing us into it bit by bit, making herself a brand name and an enigma all at once.  First there was Coke Talk, which was mediocre, then came Dear Coke Talk, where we really got to see her wit, charm, and intelligence.  Then there was Whore Talk, oooh the first inkling something was going on.  Now she is employed by the Daily with Dear Coquette.  This week she pulled off the coup de grace with her own collaborative jewelry line and an online boutique, where you can buy her limited edition pieces.  She is selling out with such style I can’t really tell if she is, or not.  Either that or she is fantastic at straddling some gray areas of my own ideals.

To cap off here is a hilarious video from a group that has yet to sell out. (I think)

First Japan, there is nothing controversial about this event, it is mother nature it happens.  I am sorry.

This is an awesome picture, if the link does not take you to the picture directly, click on the before and after tab. Before and After Picture

Second Libya, funny this all started because of that guy who set himself on fire in Tunisia.  I am proud and happy for the people who are fighting for their rights, and I am profoundly saddened by the casualties both sides must sustain for this fight.

Last and least, what should dispensaries, or the police, do to protect the customers of medical marijuana clubs?  Do robbers wait outside high end jewelry stores? No, not usually.  These consumers are targeted because of the gray area around the legality of the product they desire.  Figure out how to legalize it, the gray area is killing it, nobody (the growers, the distributors, the consumers) has any power to do anything great.  Don’t be scared because you think the converse of that statement is also true, that nobody has the power to do anything terrible, like mass production.  They are doing it anyway.

Man robbed of marijuana outside dispensary

oh and my dog died

I had ducks and chickens shipped to me.  I have done this before and been successful.  Not this time, it has been 6 days and they are still dying.  I don’t get it, usually if they are going to die they do it within 24 hours, which most of them did, but we are still getting one dead fowl a day at least.  Let me put this in perspective for you, I ordered 26 chicks and 10 ducklings, we have 3 chickens left.  It has been a massacre in my house.  I wake up every three hours in the middle of the night to change their hot water bottle, they have fresh food and water, they have a lamp, they are next to the fire, they aren’t too hot because they snuggle the hot water bottle, I gave them a very little sugar in their water when they arrived.  Dead animals don’t usually bother me, but the ducklings were really cute and they would have been our first ones.

My daughter is having a sleepover tonight, when the parents brought her friend over, they ran over our dog.  He is dead.  They deserve to be defended, our dog is a pug puppy, he is little.  They were turning around so they were probably not even going a mile per hour, the dog leaped off the porch, (he just got big enough to do that) and ran under their tire. Dammit, that was dumb. I kinda liked that dog. I had to dig a grave, because Rhett is in town, then I had to let the girls say goodbye.  I love my girls, they cried for about 10 seconds, then ran off to play in the treehouse. (Maybe I should make them come down from there) Nobody should bring any vulnerable animals to my house for the foreseeable future. I am sad

I do not own the copyright for this beautiful image, if it is yours and you would like me to remove it please let me know

Rhett and I ran into a disagreement Google could not solve for us.  We were going to breakfast at Luke’s Joint, which led to a discussion about what used to be in that vicinity.  Both Marino’s and NEC burned down over there.  I think Marino’s was where the glassblowing place is now or the H2O bar (is that still open?), and he thinks it was where the chain link fence and the empty lot are.  Can you solve this for us?  By the way, that was the best bar on the plaza.  It didn’t stink like Toby and Jack’s (what is that smell?).  It wasn’t a meat market like Sidelines, it didn’t cater mostly to a specific sexuality, and back then Everett’s was the old people bar.  Now Everett’s is the best because it has Betty.