A Reticents Dream...

The Advice, my epiphany!

'Red'

Two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl...

I got to thinking about having no assets and just not doing the right things, though I may not be doing the wrong things either. Somewhere in there, there glimmers a light of resistance, reminding me that success is not about things and stuff, though when I think of that and the future and what it would mean for me it scares me because I fear that most people don’t judge success as I would want them to…they judge it as I fear that I actually do.

Friend: You'll be done in May, no?

Pig: MAYbe
i will have to see what shit i produced this last semester

Friend: oh god, just getter done PIG!
there are some fly hunnies around here.

Pig: nice

Friend: I went for a walk today and died a dozen times.

Pig: hahaha...thats the best

Friend: I miss home though. I would be working up north by now.
Im gonna miss that money man... oh boy.

Pig: yeah...let me tell you something, though this shouldnt affect your overall picture: each day that passes, especially with the coming of summer, I realize that there are more and more downsides of leaving fire. Of course, I don't think that I was to work there all my life, so I am content in my decision to leave. It is just that when working inside and serving ungrateful people while the sun is shining and people are out and about, well, that can be a bit of a downer.

Friend: Jono, I completely hear you buddy. I wonder what I'm doing all the time.. Stuck in a lab. I should be out camping.. It hurts my feelings to know I'm not there with some phenomenal peeps. But like you said, I we werent going to do it forever.

Pig: I guess it is all a small price to pay for a hopeful and prosperous future that awaits me...
...and you

Friend: I feel the same.. Sadly it will take me a few years until i make that cash again.

Pig: well, i feel like i need something major to happen, but i fear for wishing for that something to happen, because by letting it happen I am not in control and may be subject to something terrible happening, something that would most certainly change my life, though not for the better. I await a marvelous epiphany that never comes and i drift about with no direction...i am waht everyone warned me not to be when i was younger...haha. well...sort of...i mean, there is hope...but sometimes i feel that way. i have seen a good life for myself, but just as easily and with just as much consistency, i have seen an average life. My problem is actually doing...DOING. I know it.

Friend: Jono, Im in big trouble.

Pig: haha
why are you in trouble
hahaha
listen to us

Friend: I know, Im sick of feeling sorry for myself. A buddy pulled me aside yesterday and was like "dude, what are you waiting for" Im like mr. faded glory, I talk of all the cool things Im gonna do but dont do any of them.

Pig: yeah man...and the worst thing about that is that there is nothing that is going to happen to you, or I, that will jolt us into motion. WE simply have to do it ourselves. Amazing how easily I can say that, yet how difficult it is to DO it.

Friend: Truth!

Pig: the days of being carefree children are long gone. Also, the thought of living and dying by the almighty dollar really scares me. I used to joke about being a bum, but that shit aint cool man. my life thus far shows me no good sign that i can work well and hard and consistently for the rest of my life...that scares me....

Friend: gimme a second to vent here.

Pig: yes...vent
hahaha
do it
im sorry, i hog the bandwidth with my own sorry crap...do your thing.

Friend: I have a serious problem with conventional work, with ass kissing, with putting so much into paying to exist... I used to idolize the select few who made it by without having to do these things. Now, I realize, the fellas that made it, these writers...artists (whatever) are so lucky, they are have more ambition in their left testicle than I do in my whole body.

Pig: i hear this...loud and clear

Friend: I'm cursed by being a nice looking kid, they never work as hard.
My buddy Graham wanted to be a writer. Now, he has decided to take out a loan to buy a place outside of Toronto. He is going to be an air-traffic controller. I know he is too good for this and it keeps me awake at night. Will I eventually be ruled like this? Worry more about bills than creativity?

Pig: they had to work their freaking asses off the achieve what they have and none of it came easy...we know this, but cant seem to understand or apply it

Friend: Im fuct, and I can tell people are worried. I just dont know how to make it better at this point.

Pig: my language, man...all of it. i feel you.

Friend: Jono, I apply for Art jobs and I havent drawn a picture in a few years!! How funny is that.
Its just completely warped logic.

Pig: i listen to music and wonder why it cant be different, or better. Not in a depressed way, though it does get depressing, but in a way that just seems like a completely useless fantasy.

still, there is no shame in pursuing the arts.

Friend: This city is mental.. all you see is money.. Maybe its debt, but conventional representations of success are everywhere and they are kinda taunting me to get my shit together.

Pig: i feel doomed to a life in which i look back and say, "why didn't i give it my all."

Friend: oh dude... thats my biggest fear.. Is to be 35 and look back thinking.. holy fuck, dude! you didnt try to hard at much.

You just thought it might come about somehow.

Pig: yeah...conventional ideas of success really fuck with me because for the longest time I have been telling myself that that shit doesnt matter. But i think there is no shame in living a life that you see fit. I have a hard time admitting to myself that i will need to be part of some of those conventional measuring sticks of success in order to live the life that i want to. I would really love to hit up a monastery and devote my life to understanding, but that is not really what i want, and if i want to be p[art of the world, not in a monastery, then i have to accept some things

Friend: We arent the only ones my man. not at all, our generation thinks like this.. Or many do anyhow.

Pig: i know..i would love to write a serious book about our generation
if in fact it is any different than any other...aside from technology

Friend: Its really hard coming to terms with that.
Okay, heres one thing man.. What about waking up 40 and realizing you put so much on the line to get those things, and all of a sudden you realize they are really worthless.

Pig: I think that i can love everyone that i am supposed to love, but that if i am a bum uncle who loves and that is all...what good is that...i really get wrapped up in these absolutely terrible thoughbts...i think in the other direction too, dont get me wrong. I have seen myself as a complete success (using my own definition of course)

Friend: thats the thing though.. its nearly impossible to define success by your own terms.

Pig: i get confused too, because i think i have a good work ethic, but school would prove that notion wrong
wow....you said it

Friend: we've just been convinced that to define successful by your own terms is fruitless.
Pig: but i thought i had myself convinced otherwise, .ike a kerouac or a thompson. but in actuality i am scared at the thought of what people think of me

Friend: I'm pretty happy by where I stand right now.. I get up, I do well in school, I do a lot of things I find important.
BUT! I have no prospects for few months down the road, no assets, and 16.25, not even enough for a good meal in the bank.

Pig: so success then depends not on me, but on others and what they think...this giant NORM

Friend: sooo, with what i said in mind, I am pretty miserable.

Pig: hahaha
ooh man

Friend: We're mental.
And like I said, we arent the only one.

Pig: i understand that with some work, which i am not scared of, that this will all resolve itself, but i want to be at that point a few years from now where i feel somewhat stable...
this in between crap is bogus

Friend: I hear you.
You know man, today I was thinking really hard.
I was on the shuttle to school and beside me was a dude with cerebral palsy, could barely move his wheelchair but somehow gets to classes everyday... is getting an education. To my left, a woman my age reading fine arts books, pregnant...
I am 25 years old and I dont even own a cooking utensil.
I just sublet, and shit.

pigger - "the posterization of an imaginary defender" bill walton says: (12:36:21 AM)
what did these two people make you think of?

Friend: I was listening to this Jay-Z song "HOVA"!
Anyhow, he's rappin about money, girls, coming from the gutter. And theres this black dude with C.palsy listening to a walkman as well.. I'm thinkin' , man, this song is for the this guy here. He'll never make money, probably wont get the girl, but he's living his life better than anyone ever thought possible for him.
And this girl, I'm in a program that lacks a bit of direction.. I could see her reading about Escher. I was thinking, I wake up every morning and worry this shit wont pay the bills. The only person I am feeding is myself.. I dont have to worry about a baby inside.

Pig: even (off topic) hove himself may seem cheesy, but imagine how hard he really has had to work to make it. nothing is easy . though, we both know this and this sits off the topic issue, though i have no idea what the topic actually is

Friend: well sure, I love the guy.(hovah) I think he's genius. But I was thinking..this dude here, he should be idolized. He's working through a disability that none of us can imagine.

Pig: good point.
i love those moments of realization...
they are good, but they dont get the shit done for uys...i think that is my problem...i understand these moments, i understand that i am lucky, but i have done very little in the way of actually doing anything with these realizations...just leaning on em really.

Pig: man...life. hahaha

Friend: its whacked.

Pig: like, WTF?

I rest my head back against the green walls of my solitary room, letting my eyes move upwards to the light that gives no answers. Back down to the wall opposite the one my head rests on, I see Kerouac and dear Piper both looking back at me, right in the eyes. I tell myself I have them hanging on the wall, with eyes piercing my own, in order to keep me in line. Kerouac: to keep me free and to keep me writing and being real. Piper: to keep me living for a last resort of love. Though, both sets of eyes see right through me.

Where are the answers? Where is my epiphany? Frick, do I have to make my own epiphany? That’s some f’d up poop, man.

The future holds Pie, more blogs

There is Pie in my future. Maybe in yours, too.

This summer, a few of the good people on this earth will set out on an expedition that will see them land - with any success - on the steep slopes of Pie Island, Lake Superior. Though it has yet to be mentioned - I'm positive it would come up sooner or later (and it appears I have fulfilled that prophecy) - the inviation to join the expedition is, here and now, officially extended to the distant Jemp. His company might just be the icing on the proverbial cake, or, better yet, the whipped cream atop the Pie. (Who said 'better?')

Aside from that thought, there will be more blogs in the future. A prophecy that has already, most likely, been fulfilled. And again, and again, and again. . . . If not all, most of my friends will have themselves a haven on entangled within the net that they can slip into from time to time and make themselves heard, seen, read, etc.. People need people. Those same people have an inherent urge within them to know more about, and understand, other people. If they aren't looking exactly within themselves, they are looking at others, in true voyeuristic fashion.

Welcome, Kyle, to the world of whatever. You are now a piece of meat, but you want to be, don't you?

Yes, the future holds more Pie and more blogs. Chew on that.

In tha Dogg house

Well, it has been so long that I actually forgot my username and password to login to this joint. It only took several attempts to identify the correct key for the portal, but I did it. Whoopee!

Still kind of pressed for time, I have not come here to post long-winded fluff, but, instead, to allow all to see what I have seen: a tidbit of information in the most recent tbsource - delivered to your doorstep every friday (if you are fortunate enough to have a doorstep, and providing you live in Northwest Ontario).

Most of you are not strangers to my affinity for Calvin Brodus, better known to the displeased ears of my parents, among others, as Tha Doggfather of Rap: Snoop Doggy Dogg. Most of you also regard him in a certain way, whether having heard his lyrical genius flow and smooth, pimpalicious beats or not: he is a sexist man-whore, a materialistic misogynist, a ho to the pimp that is Hollywood, a porn star, a chronic user of marijuana, etc., etc.. Or, perhaps you have other opinions of just who Calvin Brodus really is. Or, perhaps you have no opinion at all. If the latter is the case, take into consideration the several stereotypical descriptions I just gave you that are most often associated with the poor fella, and peep this:

"A Snoop Dogg concert in Las Vegas was recently cancelled. Snoop was previously scheduled to headline a private party at the Rio Hotel in Vegas, but it was called off due to pressure from the State Gaming Board and Las Vegas Police department. The authorities expressed concern about "gangster rap" and are discouraging casinos from booking rappers in the future."

[Sidenote: The linked article goes on to explain that there were several deaths related to hiphop, or something to that ridiculous affect, but I see no real justification. The deaths, I can only assume, had nothing to do with Snoop. They would lilke us to believe that the deaths of black people is their own fault, but, in tha larger picture, who really buys that?]

Whoa! Anyone else feel that? That should spark some sort of reaction, big or small, out of almost anyone. Most won't care at first (or at all), but even then . . . did you read that statement? Las Vegas, of all places, and known for its infernal debauchery, sex workers and headlining nobodies, denies a man from performing his art, his talent, his show, to the hoards of drunken 'downtown money wasters' (to borrow a title from the Black Crowes).

First, this should tell you a little bit about the mammoth scale that Las Vegas operates on. Most cities would be all over having a premier artist such as Snoop play their venues. I guess Las Vegas has no need for him, they already have Celine Dion.

Secondly, the city, if it can be called that, seems to be run by the Gaming Board more than anyone. But what are they scared of? What do they worry about when they are faced with the prospect of hosting a Snoop Dogg concert in their city, an event that has occurred all over the world for several years, everytime without any major reported 'hitches'?

The whole deal seems absurd to me, but I think that the city of Las Vegas is worried about Snoop's image because he epitomizes, in a way, what Las Vegas used to be (and still is). Las Vegas has worked hard to create a clean-cut image for itself, one that was non-existent back in the day. Bringing in bus loads of old farts to spend their pensions and creating illusion all around them in order to avoid being exposed for what it really is are Its top priorities. Las Vegas is a sham, though, no doubt a sham that I could deal with for a day or two, if only to watch the droves of people who create a living, but oh, so dead, city.

Shit, they let Hunter S. Thompson roam their hotel and casino floors and streets with a head full of drugs and barely said boo. The absurdity of this matter has me perplexed. I understand that Las Vegas has no need for Snoop, but to deny him to play there . . .

By the way, what is "ganster rap?"