Uncle Fishbits

Fermi Paradox (where are all the aliens?).

I think we’re jumping the gun a bit by being surprised that we can’t see
evidence of existing alien star-colonizing civilizations when we just
realized we can’t see 96% of the matter and energy in the universe.

That is the confounding aspect of dealing with the Fermi Paradox in our temporal moment… those civilizations should be throbbing and pulsing (vaguely sexual, but I can deal with it) with radio waves, electromagnetic waves, etc…. they should be HIGHLY visible.  And we aren’t talking about silicate entities or some sci-fi approach to what an alien would be.  It is obvious what it takes to manipulate your environment in ways that are meaningful, and the fact that nothing seems to be around is just stunning.  These cultures would leave ****HUGE**** imprints on the rest of the universe.  We have probes in the universe, radio waves (Hitler’s first big broadcast not withstanding), and large amounts of information constantly careening off our planet.

Whatever the case. alien cultures won’t exist as pan dimensional beings, or shadow cultures on the flip side.  They would be obvious.

It is my estimation that we are much, much too myopic with our timing.  The Fermi Paradox suggests we should be able to tell they are out there, but I think it is a question of timing, and not looking at the bigger picture.

Think of the age of the universe.  15 Billion Years.  Think how long it took us to get where we are. The earth is something like 4.54 billion years old.  The process of evolution started and got to humans…. humans have been around 2.2million years.

We have only been a meaningful group of intrepid travelers and intelligent discoverers for, at best 10,000 years?

So…. we have been an advanced civilization for 10,000 years.  The cave paintings in Lascaux are what…. 16,000 years old?

That means changing and altering our environment in noticeable ways… more than just picking berries and hunting for calories.

When will our culture and civilization die?  We already notice that our term is much more unstable than the dinosaurs.  They lived for 160 million years or so, start to finish….  We are on the edge of instability and extinction at 2.2 million years where the technological and cultural development has been the most brutal and problematic for less than 3000 or 4000 years.  Maybe a bit longer.

All these numbers should be processed side by side with the fermi paradox… and we should recognize that the amount of time an advanced alien civilization could be around in a meaningful way to us… for communication, recognizance, contact…. or just simply recognizing them.. is bittersweet in its brevity.

The likely fact is this:

Life is not simple.  It is a brilliant amalgam of special circumstances.  To get to a puddle of pond scum in mud is a miracle, and yet we are here tapping away at one another.  If it is not simple here, we can assume it is also not simple elsewhere in the universe.  Hell, we have 9 planets, give or take a big asteroid, and we can see on those 9 that even the simplest bacterial form of life that lives by a volcanic vent in the floor of a frozen ocean is tough.  Io and Europa of Jupiter look like the promising houses of life, and even then it is a one in a trillion shot.

So we know life is hard to make.  That being said…. how do we get to where we are?  Evolving into something that can intelligently manipulate it’s environment?  It might be presumptuous, but you need to evolve into a central nervous system.  You need thumbs.  You need to be able to manipulate your surroundings… (Dolphins are probably more intelligent than us, but they can’t do a damn thing to prove it).

So again… life is hard to begin with.  Intelligent life (if you wish to be both arrogant and blase to call ourselves that), is harder.

So here we are… a difficult concept in the middle of a short temporal existence pontificating about “where the hell are the aliens”.

To me, this whole Fermi question comes out to this.  There have been more intelligent civilizations… and there shall be more.. triumphant, universe altering, Indiana Jones type adventurer of civilizations in the future.

I think that we are caught in our own temporal back eddy looking for fish… dropping our lines and fishing blindly.  The fact is that this stream is long, and it heads back up to the mountains, and it lets out at the ocean.  There might not be fish in this pool, but in the whole history of time there have been…. and there will be more after us.

Just because we can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there.  They aren’t there because millions of separate civilizations have already done what we are doing… evolving, coping, struggling to understand… millenia ago.  Some evolved and destroyed themselves with technology.  Some choked the delicate balance of their planet with cancerous ruin.  Millions of civilizations have thrived and passed on well before our time.  And trillions more will encounter the same fate in the coming eons.

Civilizations have come and gone…. millions before our reign in time, and hopefully trillions after us.  But it is irresponsible to think that just because *WE* are here right now, that others should be.

Those other lonely aliens, searching in the dark for a glimpse of hope were looking for us when we were a small biological transfer process in a piece of crystal, exchanging ions.  Or they looked for us when we are foraging and coping… struggling to eat - with mysticism in our minds about the setting sun and moon.  Or they will search for us and find us, some rotting, fetid beacon of some lost radio wave… after our culture has destroyed ourselves with decaying nuclear missiles and poorly programmed computers.

I am being a bit dramatic, but the next civilizations will be stronger, and have more depth.  Time is the only thing that can create that, and there hasn’t been much chance for it.  With a universe created 15 billion years ago, and an earth that started just under 5 billion, you can do the math that only 3 meaningful cultures could have created in that amount of time.  And that is being simplistic.  It is much more complex than that in every conceivable way…

But we are early traveler’s in the temporal and spatial planes of the universe.  We are the first run.  There might have been alien civilizations before us.  There might have been entities hunting and foraging before us that died off on their planet, well before being able to make an obvious impact.  Maybe a volcanic or asteroid based extinction.  Maybe there was not enough of a balance of food in their world, and the ecology crumbled.  But if they were advanced we didn’t catch their radio waves… we didn’t find their mark on spacetime.

The Fermi Paradox *is* interesting though…. because it isn’t whether or not aliens are out there.  It is more about what the hell they did to end up so quiet.

The likelihood is that the alien civilizations will occur later than our time, and the paradox will unravel, and we will be far too gone to comprehend this… either extinct or devolved, or revolved into something that has far more pressing concerns than whether aliens exist… sustenance, shelter, protection from a rotting ecosystem.

The short of it is this… We are considering aliens in a spatial context.  What is so much more vast is a temporal context, and the universe, at 15 billion years, is till vitally young.  It might not be our role to find life out there.  We might be too young still… to find other life, or for other life to be present to find.

It might be another alien civilization’s job to find aliens.  To find us…. in a manner of speaking… changed and altered by our hardships and trials.  Confounded by discovering and losing technology and culture time and time again.  We may be found here, in some distant future, slobbering wildly over the smallest piece of sustenance, not able to comprehend our new overlord visitors that are sampling and testing our world for how we went from cities to caves.  We may be found through our radio waves as they travel interstellar distances to meet their new receivers.

In fact we may be an comical roadside stop, where advanced civilizations travel distances so vast it is euphoric and altering… to come see our world in one of the furthest spiral arms of an insignificant cold galaxy.. in the middle of nowhere like visiting a cranberry silo off the normal route in the middle of Kansas or maybe a small lodge up in Yellowknife.

And those beings will sit and stare and wonder … and look at the ancient civilization acting like barbarians… and wonder if there are more intelligent aliens than them… and what will become of their culture.

It is my estimation, like Carl Sagan, that we humans will become planet hoppers until the end of time.  That the human race will survive through ingenuity and perseverance… and that one day in our struggle to last and become living legend among the cultures and races in the universe… we will be found by incomprehensibly advanced beings that will respect us, calm us…. verify us.

And as their fingers stroke our ailing existence, they will recognize us as one of the oldest, most prolific, and important species in the history of the universe.. struggling to survive, hell bent on leaving a mark, and never willing to give up.

But all in due time.  For now, I have to go to the dry cleaners.

Originally printed: 9th April, 2005

Haven’t the foggiest as to what I am doing here.. trapped inside these borders. Typically the letters and characters, pen and ink… they drag in a familiar yet extraordinarily unpredictable way. I hate stream of consciousness, but what is it then if you are watching yourself write, and reading along like some audience tied to a table and two drink minimum… it’s all watered down.

Then resolute inside these walls, I focus on the length and spirit of what words I came to say…. and here they care, vibrating a visceral thought from one brow to the next as I stand shape shifting them in the bathroom mirror in hopes that the external expression will help me to realize some cathartic internal dialogue… but it is at that point. I passed up live music, awkward sex, meaningless dominoes (with no emotion tied to them??)… and the slow, uneasy pangs of sadness that come from sloppy, dazed reading — DAMMIT! That is the third time I have had to read that over.

Tomorrow is different. It opens with a different vibe. I dig, I dig. Nothing wrong with this one, but I do like to mix it up.

I meant to reveal.. the reason I am writing is some staunch boredom that won’t creep away from my furrowed forehead. My lips are pursed in catatonic thought.. how to adjust this feeling.

The sting on the lips tumbles the pursed lips into a vibrant, squirming jellified mass. That sting is gin. And it might resolve some of these issues.

Gin, is not for the strong or weak. It is for those whom need a drink, and more than likely enjoy the outdoors. The juniper always reminds me of christmas. And doing a stand up act in front of an audience curled up in the fetal position, under a table, in the front row. That was another time, but as for straight gin…. try closing your eyes, taking a sip…. and imagine running nude, backwards through a pine forest in the snow at night.

That’s the smell my friend. Dig it!

Just a thought…..

this has to do with our culture of pain, and our heavily imbued protestant ethic.

Love has been relegated to an archaic mentality! This is a culture of denial! Pain! Have you ever noticed how sado masochistic our culture is? Instead about talking about the toe curling orgasm, or the way his tongue flicked … we talk about pain, who died, our scars, our injuries…. comparing wounds, instead of pleasure.

ENOUGH ENOUGH ENOUGH… I refuse to participate in it any more. I am a pleasure seeker. I am a fetish enabler… I am a freak, and I am proud, and I am never going to limit myself or deny myself again. I don’t mean excess…. but I do mean hedonism.

We have had love controlled and relegated and squashed. Even QUASHED… no marriage for gays, etc.

I think it is about time to spread radical love in every direction. Wouldn’t it be lovely if you could love who you want, how you want, when you want… without anyone telling you how to do it?

Anyhoo.. these are the things I am thinking four or five days before being 31. It is consuming me.

Cheers all. Hug someone near you.

I hugged three guys on the street last night. total random strangers. I am straight as an arrow, and they were giving me this “are you hitting on me” vibe… they were all looking at one another. I just thought it was a lovely way to meet someone new.

Handshaking is boring.

So freaks…. hug someone, and pleasure someone, and enjoy life a bit more than you are right now.

Cheers.

So I says to Mabel, Mabel I says…

Oh. You are here.

Who the hell is reading my blogs. I must admit it is tittillating. However, I cannot accept that someone finds what I write interesting enough to view immediately. I think I prefer to wrap myself in the shower curtain, in the dark, in a cold shower, in my clothes, with a 1.75L bottle of vodka, sucking off it like a baby from his mother’s teat…… crying like a broken soul.

Yeah. I like to party. What of it.

So you cretins, you madmen, you saucy devils… out yourselves… say hello… let me know so this narcissistic rage can subside into a challenging regret of things people know….

Of course, I am a very stylish girl.
(For those not on the ball.. like… there is you, on top of the ball… but you cannot stay on it.. for those people: That quote is from Bkfst at Tiff’s and Dimitri from Paris took it to the next level.)

Anyhoo.. I ramble bamble bumble along… my dear friends, like a good soldier Svejk.

It is absolutely phenomenal anti-war novel… but it is about 800 pages any version you read, so … deal with it.

Love you.
TTFN.
Again.. who the fuck are you people? You make me nervous. And give me sort of a warm fuzzy, but I have always known I was fucked up. What’s your excuse?

And for you SF’ers…. Ursula 1000 will be here April 1st. There’s the nod. And Bassnectar will be playing about 12 hours before that. What a weekend. Two Gallants before that!

That is one show Friday night, one on Friday Sat am to dawn, one the following night, and oh my I am dizzy my friends.

Musical compositions, it should be remembered, do not inhabit certain countries, certain museums, like paintings and statues. The Mozart Quintet is not shut up in Salzburg: I have it in my pocket.
~Henri Rabaud

The joy of music should never be interrupted by a commercial. ~Leonard Bernstein

Music can noble hints impart,
Engender fury, kindle love,
With unsuspected eloquence can move,
And manage all the man with secret art.
~Joseph Addison

SO… I am pontificating, eschewing, and thinking about this whole pirate bullshit, stealing, not stealing… where is the digital music revolution? When do the artists get hurt? When is it where is it… a fine line floating about me somewhere. To bring most of you up to date, I have wrestled with the ethics and boundaries of “doing right” with digital music and supposed, alleged piracy… that I have been vocally smish-smashing about here and there.

So.. I will try to be simple. Here are some of the things I was wondering about. Some of the things totally changing my attitude and making me digitize my entire CD collection this weekend and sell it off….

First off… I know enough people in the music business here in SF at this point to realize that very few people have qualms or thinks about the idea of sharing music as anything else than that…. sharing. The only music people that care are the ones that are making the stupid “anti-pirate” youth oriented ads that are laughably annoying. The bands use it as a facililty to reach more people and spread the good word, and people use it as a way to help others discover more about music they may never have a chance to hear. People in the business younger than 30… managers, bands, anyone… don’t even consider an offense, even in reference to how it may damage them. It is the status quo, and this is the “brave new world” of music. It is what it is, and people deal with it. In fact, it is about ease and accessibility. It is easier to reach people, and it is almost tantamount the early 80’s punk rock tape cassette revolution of the early 80’s… where bands could record shit in their rooms, and distribute it widely and cheaply. It became an issue not about making money…. but creating and releasing art. Go see “The Band that Would be King” about Half Japanese if you don’t believe me. At the time, it was so much easier than printing 45’s.

And bands don’t seem to be concerned at all about it. There is a copy of Midnight on the Reservoir from 2001 by Tea Leaf Green on Ebay right now for $42 with 19 hours left. Bobby Hughes Experience’s Fusa Riot from 1999 regularly sells for $50-90, and Robert Walter’s Spirit of ‘70 sells for $100 sometimes. This is a CD. I sold a copy of the Cure’s rare Lost Wishes casette tape four track EP for about $60. I know Robert’s manager, and the crew of TLG… the band, merch, sound, etc… NO ONE CARES about the reselling…. Me, I would be at the seller’s house with a bat. These are struggling artists who sold that CD when they were not that big for $10 or so…. and now people are profiteering… scalping basically. But no one cares… this is the way that we are in the system. Music is commodified heavily, and I have a collection and a medium that is highly desirable and still very popular. I am selling a lot of rare stuff on EBAY, and I am freaking out the local record stores about selling this stuff. The guy at Ameoba asked me if I was about to kill myself. He was joking, said it happens, but my demeanor was a bit more hopeful than normal… and he assume I digitized it and am now living free and easy. I told him I still have records. He said sorry. I still haven’t sold them, I just told him a couple of the artists, and he was slobbering. It makes one feel good that one’s tastes are desired by those that enjoy selling good taste.

But I digress…. bands seem to weigh it evenly…. the good of easy distribution, concerts available within 10 minutes of the show, and a new way of marketing oneself…. versus the fact that they cannot control the capitlistic side of music… and leave it alone. But this gets into the idea of digitizing music and selling it… which is another thing….

SO.. so far.. we have digital music representing art, instead of commodification. Wow! Hippy peaceful socialism? And we also have the people that matter to me… not the big guys so much as the people on our level… hard working sound and band guys, managers (nice ones), etc… they don’t seem to give a shit. I will admit Robert Walter and JFJO’s manager and I have had a descent amount of conversations about it, and although he doesn’t care about the online selling of used CD’s, he does have a lot of problems with the way it effects him, his family and baby (he didn’t say that, but I got the message), the artists, and the ability to tour. He admits the money is in the tour, but the fact is that merchandising and marketing on a grass roots level is HUGE nowadays, and it hurts….

Regardless of the digital world…. I realized I had already done the same thing in the 90’s. CD’s were too pricey, and I think Wherehouse would give you a day to bring it back. I remember (it might have been used only) I would get a cd, make a tape copy, and take it back. HAHAH! I am who I vilify. But selling CD’s seems to be basically the same thing… you are making money back off something that will make money for the store…. but none of that ever goes to label, manager, band, etc… It is odd, because you look at production as ONE sale only… and then have no control over the lifetime of the CD. Some of these people in the music biz would love to set up a system to stop that I am sure. But.. the real point is that people made each other mixes and copies all the time of music… since the beginning of recording. Here… take this 45 I recorded, etc… it is the organic, automatic, pervasive, and enduring quality of music as a self perpetuating meme…. it travels as an idea unto itself… and cannot be controlled by anyone… it is a feather on the wind, so to speak…. and it is thought and creative energy and intelligence that is, itself, not looking to be regulated.

Also, I have no real affinity to Cd art or the medium. It sucks. It is easily destroyed, like vinyl….. but unlike vinyl, the fidelity pales in comparison to the analog sound of a record (there is no fideltity like my hi-fi). While I have and cherish my records, I notice I rarely use CD’s now, and because of its ease, and superior sorting and personalized and accessiblility to my music, I use digital just a bit less often than vinyl. SO… even though digital has a sound quality (unless you do HUGEERIFIC lossless) not on par with CD’s, all of digitals pluses act like a smelly tidal wave of goodness

The final point… and the driving exigence of this rant… is that I am open for business. Like free ice cream day at Ben and Jerry’s, or a lady of the night hot to trot on her day off… I have digitized almost my entire CD collection… I assume about 35-40 GB by the end. This is none of the 1000 records, but I will be getting a Digital turntable and will start there too. But about 30 genres, 1000 artists, 900 albums… I am still not done, so I am not sure…but here is the kicker.

Finally… it ends up being the most badass jukebox ever. And, if I let others have access to my music… well then. It sure as hell is backed up in a foolproof manner. I won’t have rare CD’s stolen from my car, and have no way to replace them. Hoot hoot, I say.

I didn’t want to share music because
1) Sour Grapes. I have put, I think, tens of thousands of dollars into my music collection, countless hours researching, dorking out, figuring out…. and getting what I want. And others like it. Which is cool. But, I was like… you want to bum my hard earned music for free? I was real pissed about that. A lot. I thought it was straight up, let’s exploit Mike, take advantage of him, and get what we want. I was recoiling with two furry legs up like some frightened, bitter arachnid.

2) But I rarely want anyone else’s music… or at least, it takes a bit for me to work my interests into the other areas some friends are at. So trading didn’t really matter. But now, as a collector, it will be about honing my collection.. rare records and CD’s that I have been looking for, and now I won’t be reticent to pick them up digitally

3) I am an elitist. I know this, am aware… not happy about it, but its me. Oh well. I am pretty ok other than that. Mostly. Well, sort of. Anyhoo… For one thing.. I like how I can change and alter my itunes stuff, but, OF COURSE, no one can have the depth of appreciation or understanding about the music. No way… (please note sardonic, self parody)… and so just giving someone a disc, or the collection… they will never understand it, care about it, use it, respect it, or love it like I do. Well that is fine and dandy… and in all humility, possibly true. But the realization was, WHO CARES? Give some random john a whole collection, and BAMMO… he finds something buried deep in it… and gets inspired and creates new music that I love.

So it is an organic, memetic process…. information autonomous, moving on its own. I dig that.

Last thoughts:

1) I will NEVER let ANYONE copy any of my music that doesn’t create their own genre categories. NO FUCKING WAY. That is creepy and lame, and I bet there is some music that would be next to my music that would make my music itchy. Ugh.. I can see it now. “rock” haha. I am an elitist Pig F… oh enough with the swearing already. Well, it is like sleeping with a bad lover. I just don’t have time for that.

2) I am aware this is still all a farcical equivocation and justifaction of the argument on digital music. It is black and white… if you didn’t buy it you shouldn’t have it. BUT.. it isn’t that simple, and it might not be the culture of music as much as the culture of business. I know the two are irrevocably linked, but music should be out there. If you pirate, steal, share… WHATEVER…. just promise me you will go to some shows and support the live music. It is the least we can do.

3) I have nothing but a smile on my face as I listen to Stevie Wonder hammer out some groovy funk as his keys, spitting at me from these tiny speakers…. and see three milk crates of CD’s nervously teeming about in their prison; as the fearful ones filled eye me with nervous ire, others shun me and turn their collective backs, but the excited wave goodbye hopeful of the new home they have in store for them.

I hope they treat my friends well. Until then, they echo at me through this digital jukebox that is bringing significant warmth to my lap. And significant happiness to my new, less material, collection, and commodity focused aspect of music, and back to the wafting good form of art about my noggin…. CHEERS PEOPLE.

Music is my religion - Hendrix

I am Funkier than you - Tower of Power

Without Music Life would be a mistake - Nietzsche

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.
~ Red Auerbach

Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.
~ Miles Davis

Music, the greatest good that mortals know, And all of heaven we have below.
~ Joseph Addison

A song will outlive all sermons in the memory.
~ Henry Giles

Music hath the charm to soothe a savage beast, but I’d try a revolver first.
~ Josh Billings

The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes.
~ Sir Thomas Beecham

Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.
~ Bill Nye

Music is the art which most completely realizes the artistic idea, and is the condition to which all the other arts are constantly aspiring.
- Oscar Wilde

Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons. You will find it is to the soul what a water bath is to the body. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music. ~Gustav Mahler

Why waste money on psychotherapy when you can listen to the B Minor Mass? ~Michael Torke

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness. ~Maya Angelou, Gather Together in My Name

Were it not for music, we might in these days say, the Beautiful is dead. ~Benjamin Disraeli

There’s music in the sighing of a reed;
There’s music in the gushing of a rill;
There’s music in all things, if men had ears:
Their earth is but an echo of the spheres.
~Lord Byron

If I were to begin life again, I would devote it to music. It is the only cheap and unpunished rapture upon earth. Sydney Smith

Life can’t be all bad when for ten dollars you can buy all the Beethoven sonatas and listen to them for ten years. ~William F. Buckley, Jr.

Music’s the medicine of the mind. ~John A. Logan

You are the music while the music lasts. ~T.S. Eliot

Music is the universal language of mankind. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Outre-Mer

Music rots when it gets too far from the dance. Poetry atrophies when it gets too far from music. ~Ezra Pound

He who hears music, feels his solitude peopled at once. ~Robert Browning

You can’t possibly hear the last movement of Beethoven’s Seventh and go slow. ~Oscar Levant, explaining his way out of a speeding ticket

Music expresses feeling and thought, without language; it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words. ~Robert G. Ingersoll

Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends. ~Alphonse de Lamartine

Most people use music as a couch; they want to be pillowed on it, relaxed and consoled for the stress of daily living. But serious music was never meant to be soporific. ~Aaron Copland

What passion cannot music raise and quell! ~John Dryden

I worry that the person who thought up Muzak may be thinking up something else. ~Lily Tomlin

Originally aired: 23rd June 2005

You know, I am not sure at what point you start this… you end up here. In front of an odd computer in a strangely familiar house. Planning. Hoping. The thoughts are rising, these moments won’t be hidden for long. I think that one of the reasons I hesitate to do THIS… start THIS… and what THIS is to me… is that of all people who don’t know me that I don’t care about… it is the ones that do I am concerned for. They will find moments of ideas in my eyes that will drive them mad, and push them far away. And everyone I know always thought I was cutting edge because I said all the odd things I think. Unfortuanately, those are just the things I say. The things upstairs are those relatives you need to keep locked and hidden for one reason or another…. these ideas put a stain on the family name?

Too dramatic for you? Too much? Too self-servingly “whoah’s me” for the beginning of a book? I have had a brilliant, thorough, vastly and varied existence. Happy is one of the first words that comes to mind. Is that a place in time, a way to be, or an underlying quality to someone who has lived through tragic sequences like anyone else… but gets through because the base core is still where it started, and happy doesn’t change. The difference in letting your experiences define you as a human, or a victim.

I will never be a victim…but then what shall I be?

It should be noted that I wanted to start this quite viscerally… chit chatting about how odd those thoughts are that we don’t act on unless we are sociopaths…. throwing babies, tossing old people on their sides. It makes me wonder what steps need to be taken to have someone cross that line. But, alas, that isn’t the speed at which we can approach things on this sort of time line. Those things shall be discussed — the manic turmoil that is processed from such a calm, orderly universe. Why does it feel like there is solely pressure on me? Or you? Or an individual? And what of it?

I want to speak about passionate, exhalted love making… about saving turtle’s lives, turning people onto logic… altering history, falling into someone’s moment in time that didn’t want you (kicking and screaming) but then they won’t let you leave (kicking and screaming). Being part of the lifeforce that moves us all…. that organic, memetic existence that keeps us as vehicles for the ideas that outlive us. To be part of that, to be a formative aspect that cannot be forgotten… whether for the good or bad or high or low….

But what is life really? Artistic numskullery masquerading as something with legitimate literary importance? Not likely… The words I use and say don’t go anywhere in the real world… which is why we all feel trapped and alone in this odd time.

Dreams are quite lovely, but never quite exist outside the mind… and cannot exist in a way; as soon as you relate that moment of the dream, the real words retard and torture that memory so that it no longer exists…. and the beauty of it fades in torturous recognition that life fades this way too. Sometimes, it can never be as beautiful as it really is. The words take a bit to form.

I wanted to start this melancholy ramble with something deeper than what is shuffling along this mortal moment of my mind….

But you know what I really have going on in my head right now. I cannot get past the fact that it takes me a long time to balance my checkbook, and I know that there is something I am missing. I forgot a receipt or something. I have to run some errands, make sure to do the traffic school videos, check on some appointments….

So… the epic and sweeping grandiosity of life again dies through the mundane visors of pragamatism. I didn’t want to worry about these things. It is simply the way it is. You have to work, you have to fight the cycle, etc…

But let’s start on that point… let’s see if we cannot find our way here to let us move forward to where I am supposed to be. I think that is why this is all happening. Why did I start to fight the cycle? Did I? What happened to make me quit my job, move from my house, start traveling with my dogs… and forgo the solid and relatively secure future I had pragmatically orchestrated to fit my life….

But not my idiom.

Damn idiom.

Life falls apart… death… smiles and laughter… the swings of a swooning existence… and I am bugged because I forgot what gas station I left a receipt at.

Can we detach.. ever… without death? I don’t think so. But I recently heard some good advice…

“As long as you don’t set your head on fire, everything will be alright.”

Until then, let’s choose to learn some more terrible things about me… like the things you wouldn’t even remind the people involved, that they were involved. It is better sometimes to be able to forget. And even if you can’t, it is better to be proud and strong and brave and leave those people alone.

I am not better than them, however. So, names have not been changed, and fuck you… it is just the way things happened.

I will promise to be a hell of a lot more vague too.

Err… wait. If you are still reading, I promise that was a poorly placed, self-effacing sardonic joke. I know I am anything but specific. But hopefully you can pull and think of it what you like.

In place of glibness, I hope to write a thoughtful treatise on why I need to start writing all this. And I promise to attempt to justify your time, your moment… in doing this.

Every moment your eyes glide past these words…. each shift of the ocular muscle, rods and cones controlling the shadows and colors… there is a little less. The energy drives out. It just depends if those moments are justified in our existence.

I assure you, it has been that case in mine. Let’s start with a baby Mike. Why? Everyone else does, and I am still not sure I am hip enough to do a Tarantino turn around starting in three spots and coming back into the middle.

Maybe I already have? Maybe, I need to place this story in the future so I can be in three different places… instead of presently retroactively thinking about one.

Hmmmm… now the thoughts are really going. Me at 70? Can I look at him? Time paradoxes aside… they say quantum mechanics might have room for stable paradoxes in time travel… (if it were really possible).

And it is you that I am losing. So….

STOP TALKING TO THE AUDIENCE AND GET ON WITH IT!

Cheers…. good day to you!

My sis who is a bit older than I finally signed up for facebook. As an internet junkie since 1984 (infocom zork and HHGTG games, as well as BBS’ and being a co-sysop = DORK), she wondered why I wasn’t on it. I offer that reason below, with a compendium of every article ever that might make you think deeply about it….
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Maybe it is me… I simply didn’t get it.

http://techland.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2007/12/04/rip-facebook/
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/30/coke-is-holding-off-on-sipping-facebooks-beacon/
http://kara.allthingsd.com/20071201/a-well-deserved-court-loss-for-facebook/
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article3553216.ece
http://charlenecroft.wordpress.com/2007/05/07/retaining-artistic-control-of-user-created-content-on-facebook-and-myspace/
http://blogs.onenw.org/jon/archives/2007/11/18/photos-on-facebook-some-intellectual-property-concerns/
(for my artist friends and myself with burn stuff… the above two are very interesting)
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2007/11/the_social_graf_1.php
http://scobleizer.com/2007/12/04/where-the-hell-is-mark-zuckerberg-and-facebook/
http://chimprawk.blogspot.com/2007/11/data-sharing-with-facebooks-beacon.html

From a lady perspective?

http://break.com/index/i-guess-youll-do1.html

This is pretty much dead on, so marvelously sad.  A sad cliche, not true for everyone.  Don’t let it phase you if it hits home.  Life is not this simple…. but sort of is this simple.  So sad.

Portable Dry Ice Maker?
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/gadgetreviews/magazine/16-04/st_dangerous
Yes we need one for the playa.  Yes we do.

a stunning, hedonistic, and STUNNING (and really surprising, not just from Moby, but a general, and rare, reverance from Vaziri) pop quiz with 42 year old electronica artist MOBY…
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/28/PKUNVG599.DTL&type=music
(holy shit)

a Real Robotech / Gundam robot warrior?  Yup… computer modeled, and parts researched comes to a realistic, asinine, insulting, but possible $742 Million.
http://www.wired.com/special_multimedia/2008/st_gundamsuit
(Let’s do it… I will start a swear jar)

Social Networking is failing as a business, which is the best thing that could ever happen for it:
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10880936
(this means some smart people and I should talk about figuring out the next generation of how this works.  And I always like seeing that Facebook has been recogniized for what it is… failing)
“Facebook, now allied to Microsoft, has fared worse. Its grand attempt to redefine the advertising industry by pioneering a new approach to social marketing, called Beacon, failed completely.”

I had a conversation with a guy that was talking about the metaphysical side Chaos Theory, IE *total bullshit*.  Saying more scientists don’t visit it, as it is unknowable.  I mean.. who is this guy?  I am quickly becoming fed up with people that consume their science from pop culture.

Arguing  with irrational people that are “against” science, or are holistic new agers that don’t get it is pointless.  More dangerous than some of the religious people are the new agers that believe you can create your realities ( a la “The Secret”), or redefine science into some fun pop science (a la What the Bleep do we Know?, or pop media Chaos Theory)

What I get tired of is the concept of science being a religion, or when science doesn’t answer something… it shows it’s limitations.

WELL….

Science is not a religion.  It doesn’t have “limitations” in the sense people talk about them.  It isn’t trying to give you the final word on anything, and it certainly isn’t limiting in any sense.  It is once again a demonstration of people’s fundamental lack of understanding about what science is, and how it works.

Those people are thinking of science as something that is attempting to provide *ultimate truths*.

It doesn’t!  It never claimed to, it never wanted to, it doesn’t need to.  Ultimate truths come from religion.  Science is a method of interpeting reality through a series of objective and empirical tests to arrive at a logical conclusion, because we know that human experience and belief are the least valid forms of proof!

The comment (in a previous discussion) about Chaos Theory is the **BEST** possible example of the dregs of pop science.  HORRIBLE films like What the Bleeb Do We Know? pejorativized it into some bizarre, random, magical story….

Like the butterfly effect…. *what it really is* versus *what people think it is* are laughably different, the latter being pop science.  Chaos theory is simply non linear dynamics…. complex systems.  It has nothing to do with the way people use and define “chaos”.

I don’t mean to be rude.. but I don’t think you get Chaos Theory at all.  Just because it uses the word Chaos doesn’t mean it is random.  In fact, it isn’t random.  It is mathematically deterministic and I am fairly confident that there are ZERO random elements.

Chaos isn’t some “unanswerable” thing.  It isn’t some broad, untestable philosophical concept.  And it certainly isn’t some mystical, amazing random thing.

See… people find real science dull.

They don’t want to talk about whether E8 Geometry is more viable than Superstring for a Grand Unified Theory because you can’t make it into pop science.  It gets pretty boring when you start arguing about the elegance of one theory versus another that starts making unnecessary, and fairly ugly, extra universes to accomodate gravity.  It just seems stupid to me.  Anyhoo.. people snooze with real scientific discussion.

The universe is elegant.  We know in most situations it is breathtakingly elegant in many ways, mathematically.  As soon as you have something that is testable, then “provable” (science never *actually* proves anything, it tests a hypothesis with data to create a supportable, and critically reviewed, theory)… a lot of people think the magic or spark of the question is gone as they believe it has been answered.

People have a natural desire for wonder, and they seek it in magical ways with magical belief.  Remember when Newton defined what was happening with a rainbow, and Keats got all huffy about him unweaving the mystery of it?

I think knowing something deeply, and knowing how it truly exists, provides a lifetime of profound wonder and deep awe.

I personally think that is where the natural awe and wonder begin… to know something deeply.  Fully….

Most show an obvious lack of understanding about what science is, and many have only digested science from the media and pop culture, rather than delving in and checking it out.  Check the Chaos Theory wiki page… I am sure you will find the reality of it fascinating, rather than some arcane, unknowable concept.

The truth is always more interesting.
In the end, I think “What the Bleep Do we Know?” is not only the most devisive, uncritical, and crazy films ever to be made, it’s acclaim has really destroyed a good part of the public’s ability to critically understand it because they are so desperate to believe in magic.

People really want to believe the universe is more complex and magical than it really is.

I think it is “magical” in it’s obvious orderly elegance.

I think it is breathtaking to know each breath and step and embrace and moment is a chance… and we have a chance while we are here to be aware, to embrace reality, and to find awe and wonder in this bittersweet walk towards the end of the pier that we take every second.

Don’t deceive yourself… like is too incredible for that.

Embrace reality.

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And I would LOVE to talk about Superstring G.U.T. versus E8 Geometry.  I am still trying to get a handle on E8 (i never will)…. but if the universe is really as beautiful as the below diagram, I might cry (takes a second to load as it is a complex vector diagram of the highest finite level) :

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/E8_graph.svg

YAY FOR SEMIREGULAR POLYTYPES!!!!