First of all, I would like to apologize for the fact that I’m even talking about Star Wars.  I mean, what can possibly be said that hasn’t been said already?  How much more superlative speculation before even the die hardest fans say, “Fuck it, I just don’t care anymore, but uh, wake me when it’s time to watch Episode VII.”  There are those of you who gave up on Star Wars a long time ago.  Maybe it was before the prequels. Maybe it was within the first 5 minutes of The Phantom Menace.  But here’s the truth, folks.  No matter how much you may want it to, Star Wars is not going away.

Even without the upcoming onslaught of new timeline content.  Even if the prequels were the last films we ever got to see.  Star Wars would still not go away.  It’s so embedded in the cultural psyche that I wouldn’t be surprised if 3,000 years from now social anthropologists surmised that we must have worshipped a little green demiurge, a technorganic overlord of the underworld, or a giant falcon which legend has it lived for a millennium.  So I’m Forcing myself to write this HACK about Star Wars.  Not for speculation; you will find none here.  I just want to get this bit out of my head so I can finally say, “Fuck it, I just don’t care anymore, but uh, wake me when it’s time to watch Episode VII.”

You see, I have my own personal demons to exorcise when it comes to Star Wars.  I was born a year after A New Hope.  I think I saw Empire when I was 2 because I seem to remember having my mother correct me when I said Darth Vader is Han Solo’s father.  I’m told that when my parents took me to see Return of the Jedi, I fell asleep in the theater midway through Jabba’s palace.  (It would turn out to be foreshadowing.)  A few years later I would waste perfectly good Saturdays down in the basement eating macaroni and cheese with clams while rewatching the original trilogy.

Quick side note:  Stop hating.  Macaroni & cheese with clams is fucking delicious.

Then the Special Editions hit the theaters.  I saw A New Hope with my high school girlfriend.  I saw The Empire Strikes Back with my college friends.  I saw Return of the Jedi with the same high school girlfriend, right before she broke my heart and dumped me for a greasy loser—the guy who would get to elope with her virginity.

Quick side note:  That’s not entirely accurate.  Apparently when she was seven she slid off her bicycle seat and cunt crushed her clit on the frame.  This had the effect of breaking her hymen.  So, as far as I’m concerned, she was damaged goods from the get go.

In Junior Year of college I finally decided to enhance my Philosophy major with an independent study in consciousness expansion.  OK OK—I started smoking pot.

One of my most vivid memories is sitting in the dorm with The Kidd, watching The Empire Strikes Back, i.e. the best Star Wars related anything,  followed by The Thrawn Trilogy trilogy, Knights of the Old Republic, Star Wars Robot Chicken, and Clone Wars Vols. 1 & 2,.  And of course, like listening to Pink Floyd or writing a term paper, it seemed completely new in a déjà vu kind of way.  It was the first appearance of The Emperor scene.  I swear those few seconds seemed stretched into slow motion.  I could actually feel the oppression of the Emperor, the burden of Vader’s obedience.  The subtle, piercing music created an image in my mind that to his day I can still see clearly.  A single, thick black line on white background, different colors running along its edges.  The line branches out at certain points, splintering in different directions.  Each fracture creates new lines and colors and branches, continually creeping out into infinity.

I turned to The Kidd and mimicked one of his own classic lines, “That was exquisite.”

At long last, in May of 1999 I found myself waiting in line outside the theater for The Phantom Menace.  My friend Colin Webb would oft after tell the tale of my reaction the second Jar Jar started speaking.  I put my head in my hands.  I whispered, “No… No.”  But my heart was screaming, “Nooooooooooooooooooo!”

Quick side note:  I swear to you, I knew this would all happen.  I swear to you all that before the movie came out I had a dream, nay, a premonition.  I foresaw that very scene in the forests of Naboo, where Jar Jar, Qui Gon, and Obi Wan first exchange dialogue by the pond.  And in my dream Jar Jar also dove into the pond, as Qui Gon and Obi Won walked in and followed.  In the dream I realized to myself that this movie is a piece of shit. Now I was awake and facing the reality presumably helped co-create.  And this is why I will not speculate anymore about Star Wars.  Sure, we can all blame George Lucas, or anyone else directly involved with those movies.  However, surely some of the blame goes to the Ever-Jinxing Hype, and all the psychic damage it inflicted.

Nevertheless, it all fit in with the theme of my senior year: disillusionment.  A handful of Noam Chomsky books, an Existentialist Philosophy class, and a 4 month bash of psychedelic trips were all it took for me to believe that God doesn’t exist and all human endeavors are essentially an historical load of crap.

Quick Side Note:  I would later come to realize that by even invoking the thought of God not existing meant that I was imagining the concept of God.  And since imagination sooner or later becomes consensus reality consciousness, then God already exists because we, by existing, are co-creating God.

Then there was the New Years 2000 trip.  The Kidd and I ritualistically ingested 4 yellow gel tabs, each.  This is neither the time nor the space for that story.  Suffice it to say, processing the experience took at least the next decade, unless it’s still happening now.

Quick side note:  It’s ALWAYS happening now.

But in the early throws of the new millennium, I just couldn’t deal with onslaught of  metapersonal information.  I experienced frequent bouts of unbridled paranoia.  I couldn’t sleep at night.  I needed something familiar, something comforting, something I could rely on that was distracting yet fixed, and psychologically harmless.  Star Wars.

And so, for the next 8 FUCKING YEARS, I would fall asleep to one of the original trilogy movies.  Then later, all six films.  I would actually a roll a six sided die to randomize which opening crawl I’d fall asleep to.

Not every night, mind you, yet more nights than not.  It was a recurring inside joke immortalized in an episode of It’s The Crew!

Season 4 | Episode 13: ’Who Is Like God?’

Yes, I eventually stopped.  I cleansed it from my consciousness.  I would never entirely expunge Star Wars from my soul, but as I made peace with myself, so I learned to let go of the sextilogy, and all the Clone Wars cocksucking that came after.

Quick side note:  Except for the Clone Wars Vols. 1 & 2, animated by Gennedy Tartakovsky.  That was some quality shit.

The ultimate catharsis came to me (and many others) in the form of filmmaker Mike Stoklasa and his production company, Red Letter Media.  For myself and countless others, Harry S. Plinkett’s autopsy of Episodes I, II, III would become the ultimate cathartic nail in the proverbial Star Wars coffin.

Quick Side Note: Stoklasa and Co. have  also reviewed the two J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboots.  The closest sense I can get as to what J.J. Abrams’s Star Wars Trilogy will feel like is by listening to RLM’s critique of the Star Trek films.  And honestly, I’m not sure that makes me look forward to watching his trilogy.  It might be something of a necessary evil before we can get a unique perspective from a different director.

From that point on I would go on to conclude (in an earlier HACK you haven’t read) that the only way we would find a new hope (see what I did there?) would be when George Lucas finally dies.  I don’t know how old you are, dear reader, but this is still possible in my lifetime…

Quick side note:  …unless I keep smoking a light blue pack o’ day of American Spirit cigarettes.

It’s not that I want to see George Lucas dead.  I just figured he would never let it go until he did.  Even after the rest of us Forced ourselves to forget, (you see what I did there, right?), Death would have to strangle his bloated worm-like corpse.  Then, and only then, could we escape the wiggling tail-end of the Lucas legacy.

Quick side note:  I’m going too far in a few places.

But lo and behold!  George Lucas didn’t need to die.  All he had to do was the same thing he’s been doing since the halcyon days of the Christmas Special and the Ewok movies: sell out.

We are at the dawn of a new millennium falcon my friends.  And just as time-flow and novelty patterns continue to exponentially increase, my brain has already sponged enough speculation in the last 3 months as it has in the last 30 years.

Episodes VII, VIII, IX.  (Sorry Timothy Zahn sequels, you were good for a while, but now you’re damaged goods.) The original cast returning.  (Carrie Fisher is on a strict diet of nothing but blue milk.) Director J.J. “will-not-go-away”Abrams. (Who allowed this guy to splooge his overrated semen over the two most iconic sci-fi series of all time?)  A‘Rebels’ TV series.  (And sooner or later, real life stormtroopers stepping on our liberties.)  Young Han Solo.  YOUNG FUCKING YODA!  Other writers, other directors.

No matter how much you may have wanted it to, no matter how much excitement or apathy you may now profess, all you have to do is ask yourself, “Will Star Wars ever go  away?”  And the answer you surely now know is, “Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”

At this point, I’m too old to obsess yet too nerdy not to care.

So this is what it comes to.  Between these two general realities: the reality where Lucas keeps copulating with his creative corpse and keeps going through the pockets for loose change, or the reality where he donates the organs and embalms the body, I would much rather live in the reality where Star Wars is resurrected and we can commune with the expository ghosts of that modern mythos.

For you philosophers out there, let’s call it Palpatine’s Wager.  Just as I’m betting on the notion that God does exist, I will gladly pay the price for my previous lack of vision.

Star Wars can be good again.  Hell, it can even be bad again.  It doesn’t matter, because it will at least be new.

So don’t fret like Boba Fett.  Digest your speculation into the almighty Sarlacc.

Yes.  Feel it.  Through the force, things you will see, other places, the future, the past… old friends long gone…

 

 

Towel Boy is a nocturnal daydreamer.

How You and I Operate

No house will save you…or me for this matter.

It is time we realize who is really responsible for our humanly lives.  We often feel the desire to just go back “home” and feel secure within your given walls.  However, Mother Earth is strictly one and she is continually stretched into strained divisions by foundations made of concrete or tar to secure the upcoming walls that come after the skeletal framing and such.  Everything that comes after Mother Earth and your naked body is an imitation.  I doubt that would bring us to the thought of imitation being the highest form of flattery.  So, the bigger thing that is causing such strained divisions within Mother Earth and even those who live in Tents, Yurts, or under the stars have a part in this; your thoughts.

Our thoughts.

His thoughts.

Her thoughts.

This is why animals are very God-given.  They do not burst with blaring biases like humans do.  Anyway, our thoughts are perfectly capable of tormenting Mother Earth like they can help her flourish.   This speaks of a range between Gratitude to Fury.  Naturally, Gratitude and Fury both are colored by their own levels and varieties.  I think the fact we acknowledge this and look in the eye of anybody without mumbling anything in the head, yes, even the girl in all hot, hot, hot pink and seven-inch stilettos.  Mother Earth needs us all to connect, I reckon.

Now a chuckle may be coming on.  How well do you connect with those in your own household?  I’m sure a handful of you are reading this with cocked eyebrows, “What do you mean? I LOVE the people and animals in my house.”  Some of you may beg to differ.  Someone rather wise said relationships are the toughest challenges in life but people want them for the sake of truly connecting (loving).  How relative, yes!  Still, take a step inside of you and watch how you operate.  I know many of you love beautifully and give cardboard sign holders food instead of money with a smile straight from the heart.  All in all, let’s try and see how we operate.  I am gonna do that this week.  Join me?

Stephanie Gasco realizes the severity of her water deprivation as she is no longer island bound.

When the Sea is Still

“Misery is easy. Happiness you have to work at.” -Ondine.

“Life is presenting everything to you, and if you feel love for it, you are bringing the same thing to you.”- Rhonda Byrne

Funny, there will be certain days when I feel very comforted by Wal Mart, it’s unchanging aura, usually not very motivated staff, rollback price signs,…I could chalk this up as the modern day kind of illness that nurses our ignorance; the ‘lost soul’ illness.  It is just like the feeling that a doctor will cure all of your health problems and every day worries.  The “American Dream” thickens like a cream through that “lost soul” illness.  Now that is a squawk of a rant.

Do you allow your primitive, animalistic self as do you allow your celestially calm self. Do you allow either? by all, that is a balance of human life: one of the sanest Yin Yang dance/circle.

What they say you are is fake ass hope.

Spill your glass on purpose and free what you contain so you can see what you hold like a bird on your finger. let it fly and roam so it can return to you and remind you of what you dream about. Only you can say who you are and the ticket to that truth is a spotless gut feeling. you can call that forgiveness. Freedom of forgiveness. thats the big deal about forgiveness. it frees you, it frees you much more than what you forgive. the way to truth is within. no factory can manufacture forgiveness. forgiveness is always new, always handcrafted to unique measures each and every time. thats why christians emphasize the essence of accepting Jesus as the savior. its like accepting forgiveness as a way of life. I am not talking about accepting the spouse or somebody who knocks you in the head or tell you what an awful person you are. I am talking about the art of letting go, so, the flow of eternal love can enter your temple and become a worthy gear to your engine of being;  temple being you, your existence however you understand it.

Consciousness is however big you allow it to become. So, it expands and shrinks in proportion to the rhythm of your thoughts.

Oh, yes, paradise is in my head. I just need to find it in my head. You can do the same.  Paradise on Earth is dealing with a veil..accepting the fragmental self the human flesh is, seeing through it….understanding the function of the human flesh. More or less, living with a veil is human business. You can look at it like not having the answers to a test you are taking.

Stephanie Gasco hugs the tree in front of her home often to be reminded of the mentally illegible truth.

It takes a skilled wordsmith to spit a real good poem these days.  Without a hot beat and an auto-tuner, you’d better be saying some real shit if you expect anyone to show for it.  But  it takes a truly loquacious litterateur to painstakingly construct some of the worst poetry ever.

Verily, Bad Poetry

verily, i say unto thee

thy poetry causes me

woe to read

aloud or silently

grief could not be stricken

enough times with the whippings

of your wincing witticisms

my criticisms don’t come polite

i’m trying to set you right

been better if your pablum got greeting carded

than these shit stained stanzas you sharded

i can only imagine how bad were

any poems you

discarded

~

need to get access

attack a flaccid differential

lacking an essential

quit acting reverential

rather, instead, go mental

maximize potential

get the lead in

sharper than a pencil

wrong

pencils have graphite

quit being so uptight

you’re not here to get it right

play along

or

opt out

but whatever you do, don’t

cop out

~

drank the blank void… got annoyed.

ate a plate of nether… no flavor whatsoever.

took a bite from a slice of maya… it tasted like papaya.

swallowed a hollow jelly dream… wished instead it had been filled with cream.

~

stream of thought comes

within you, but

not from you

desperate to catch it all

flash capture instant rapture

trying to master the

flow

~

I looked for someone

Found you instead

Kissed your feet

Creeped in your head

I wanted something

You gave me this

A displaced heart

A wanton kiss

I wanted somewhere

But to be back here

Where I cannot feel

Or shed a tear

I wanted someone

Other than me

But I can imagine no one

Other than thee

~

I pledge allegiance

To the United States of Existence

And to the Universe

For which it expands

One consciousness

Under God

With Love and Unity for All

~

Nah.

~

Eureka!

Finally, a sci fi show

containing ever scientific concept

that we currently and

collectively know

~

Monday Night Football

Go Fuck Yourself

It’s March Madness

Motherfucker

~

This crumb between my thumb and index finger

Too lazy to get up and throw it away

Before the end of today

It will become dust

Disappear

Yet remain for ages

In this couch

~

it’s in the line breaks, baby

what you read is surface

surreptitiously I slip into the spaces

where words better left unsaid

the real stuff, still trapped in my head

gotta go to bed

make haste to the dream

something

something

something

yeah, you know what i mean

~

hung up

on rhyming

vibrations

misaligning

interludes

wavy thoughts

disconnected over time

they’re like poetry

because

they rhyme

~

Cultivating Entropy

deconstructing discographies, hiking topographies, social obligations, debauchery with limitations, altered vibrations, food, libations, creative liasons, collide quarks with anti-quarks and get my mes-on

~

This Poem Is Just The Title

~

J.J. Abrams’ Universal Story Arc

Act I: experimental

Act II: detrimental

Act III: sentimental

~

verily, i say unto thee

thy poetry is STILL

such woe to read

i beg, i plead

have you found your truth?

indeed!

then stop writing

stop fighting with yourself

put it on the shelf

move on to greener chapters

poetry is tasteless

without a dose of bitter laughter

~

Node to Ol’ Rogers

nowadays

a nanopoem

takes too long

so we…

yeah.

~

Sonnet for Stephanie

This is not really a sonnet

Just a stuffy sequence

of silly similies

like

Stephanie is as soft as a secret

Stephanie is as surreal as sea foam

on the waves of thirsty

formlessness

crashing shore grace

led her here

our world

on her canvas

mingles

in

mirth

~

This is the end.

But you kept reading

so then there had to be

something else

after the end

and so on it goes

as we continue

to create maya

and it refers to itself

because

papaya

~

I just choked

on someone’s raw and uncooked

inside joke

dead

never to understand

what made me croak

unless I haunt the motherfucker

who told me that joke

Towel Boy cannot afford to quit his day job.  

Through The Eyes I Occupy

“Am I going to die?” I had to ask.

“No…” my childhood best friend chuckled.

“Oh, man, this is crazy…”

I rest my head on the curve of the backseat next to my childhood best friend feeling like everything was magnified a hundred times closer in feeling like they were super clear to my understanding and life felt more like a beautiful dance than a mundane humdrum.

The view outside the parked car window graced with slowly drooping rain droplets was dimly lit streetlights in a neat corridor loosely hugging the bare, glistening street civilized with an big, open steel block we all know as a dumpster.  Behind us was a parking lot and some building.  The engine was cut off for several minutes and the warmth from the car heater was slowly dissipating into the stillness right above our heads in the car.  We were parked to share a joint. It was actually “accidental” that I ended up there.  Then, what are accidents?

That was, now I know, the “beginning” of my Spiritual Life. The “beginning” because I was then nudged towards looking through a window of perception feeling startlingly awakened towards awareness.  It first felt like a beam of warmth that felt very weightless yet completely grounding and it encircled me traveling through my body and consciousness around me. It was like deep Silence streaming through me letting me know that what I was seeing was nothing compared to what I was feeling and that the answers we all need throughout the life lay nowhere else but deep in the heart.

Of course, I did not realize that much at that point.

I was thinking how surprised I was that adventure laid in smoking a joint.

Transitions between thinking and being take time, time being each one’s own measurement of readiness. Not everyone is going to wake up because of a joint.

The door to the path of awakening is different for each person.  Some people do not even open that door but still, they are somewhere on their life paths.  You just either realize or do not realize your life path.  Detour signs are not exactly fruitless, either.

There are cosmic meanings to many mundane things, more or less, but that is a side item to the main course this content is. So, the spur of consciousness that enables an awakening involves an intertwinement of connecting and disconnecting.  Opening the door towards awakening pretty much equals to what inspires and relaxes you to the max and on that spur of consciousness that connects you celestially through silence and disconnects you from the Maya static.  For the readers who have not read my previous postings, Maya means “illusion” in India.

Illusion has many faces.  Emotions, Weather, Passersby, Rules, to name a few, can qualify as illusions.  An example could be change. More or less, we all change. We all morph with the wind of time.  The difference between resisting and accepting change is that resistance doesn’t acquire fresh thoughts, feelings, concepts, and even things the way acceptance will rein in new perspectives, sensations, experiences, and ideals.  Here I am briefing on the essence of understanding Maya (Illusion)  to enhance the quality of your inner and outer lives.  We kind of have two lives going on if not more.  The inner life is commonly locked up and put away often by distraction, medication, or plain suppression.  The outer life is what is; how we rise to, go about, lay to the day.  If you are one to say you only have time for your outer life, be kind enough to come inside and say hello to your inner life.

Don’t fear your core.

It is all you have.

Stephanie Gasco is a sea of passions and ideals with the shield of skepticism.

There’s been a lot of talk about guns lately.  Frankly, I never cared for the things.  The only gun I ever shot was a .22, during a sort of pseudo-father/son moment with my would-be ex-girlfriend’s father.  This was a weapon that moments ago he used to shoot a pig for his annual summer roast.  He had to shoot it three times in the head before it died, and later we found the first two bullets embedded in its skull.

But nah, I don’t really care for guns.  My feeling is that if you like them and want to use them, then go out and rent them.  The argument that a gun may be necessary for self-defense doesn’t hold powder for me either.  I guess I have too much faith in karma to work itself out, even if it takes multiple rounds of lifetimes with tons of gory details.

Ultimately, my worldview is way longer than the barrel of a gun.  I look forward to the time when we really don’t need weapons, don’t need to defend, avenge or get revenge, and won’t have to worry about physical bodies, death, or ego-separateness.  You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only gun.

It’s not that I’m challenging your imaginary “freedom” or your made up “right” to “own” a gun.  (Psst, you don’t really own anything.  You only possess it temporarily.)  Do What Thou Wilt, even if it’s bomb throwing anarchy.  It’s not that banning all guns or even banning their manufacture will cure the problem of people wanting to murder each other.  It’s more about the need for a collective spiritual maturity, realizing that we no longer need to keep our proverbial fingers on the trigger of total annihilation because it’s neither relevant nor necessary in this co-created chamber we call consensual reality.  You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only pun.

“You repost a lot of old material.”  –Becky

True.  Guilty as a discharged weapon.  What can I say?  I’m too busy defending my imaginary loved ones from various vague and undefined threats.  OK, not really. I’m busy doing lockdown drills in case some psychopath decides to create more negative karma.  Either way, I’m busy, and guilty of not writing new pieces.

Nevertheless, as with all repostings of old material, you probably haven’t read this before.  So it’s new to you and that’s good enough for me.

I have no problem with guns or planetary death rays in fiction, though!  The following piece is from Heroes and Hierophants, our co-authored collaboration that hit a literary bull’s-eye back in 2010.

Week 11: Barrel of a Gun - “When the story begins the main character has a gun in his or her mouth. Two pages, more or less. Have fun.”  

That was the assignment, this was my piece.  A circular flashback sequence that amalgamates various dreams which I can still recall after all these years.

OK, time to put a silencer on my semi-automatic self-reference and shoot this load of fiction into your oracular orifice. So sit down, lean forward, and by any means necessary…

SUCK MY GLOCK

Cold sweat.  The bitter taste of metal.  Gagging.  Open eyes.  A tall muscular black man, his arm outstretched, shoving a gun in my mouth.

“Boo–motherfucker!”

I jerk in surprise, banging my head against the wall.

“Ha ha ha!  Damn son, you are NOT ready for the revolution.”

Wait.

They are coming after me.  Straining to run but legs are heavy.  Why can’t they move?  Fear.  Why can’t I run?  Fear.  They are still coming.  Down a dusty street, like an old Western town, the wooden buildings curve around the bend as my feet kick up the dust.  Moonlight shows the path…into the Saloon.  I am running.

Through the doors—“SURPRISE,” they all shout.  Their faces look strange but feel familiar.  The fools…I don’t have time.  Dammit!  I run past their false pretenses.

“Yes, yes, thank you!  Thank you!  Now show me the back door.  Quick!”

They oblige without even questioning my rudeness.  I knew they didn’t really care.  Out into the night, into…

Backyard, 42 Victory.  I’m running over the patio of multi-colored slates.  Good thing they’re not sliding or floating or some crazy shit like that.  My lucidity has its limits.

Further into the backyard where it’s just a thick overgrowth of ivy and angry stolid shrubs.  There’s the familiar chain metal fence, still worn and bent low enough for me leap over.  Weightless as I float over the and into the Goofy Fellow’s yard.  Pause behind a bush.  Survey the scene.  In the distance a group of dark figures paces the street.  I hear one say, “Where is he?”

(If I close my eyes they’ll never see me.)

“I don’t know,” says the other figure, “He just ran away.”

(If we close our eyes they’ll never see us.)

“Wait, I think I know where…”  I recognize that voice.  “He’s there!”

Shit!  It’s Phil.  Of course he knows where I am.  We found all these hiding spots together.  He knows my pattern.  They are after me.

This is it.  Through giant Gothic windows we look out at the chaos below.  Everyone is running scared.  Innocent girls in dark alleys are raped by their adult selves, while husbands, fathers and beef-hearted boyfriends are forced to watch.  Explosions and flames and black UFO’s streaking across the sky recording it all for the Observers.  New World Agents storm hospitals in search of viable organs and brains for their jars.  Obama on all channels, loop-de-looped, “The revolution will not be televised.       The revolution will not be televised.  The revolution will not be televised.  The revolution will not be televised.”

And why nuke the North Pole?  We spin off our axis, thrown outward amongst the stars.  They swallow, digest and squeeze us through wormholes.  Our burned souls ignite in anger.  Revolt!  Against who?  Against what?

Bedroom is flooding.  There’s a toilet in the closet.  Nana is taking a crap.  Why didn’t she at least shut the door?

Outside the stars bleed and I can see Jupiter, huge and shimmering.  So many moons…which one is Europa?

Tony Banks plays Apocalypse in 9/8 (co-starring the delicious talents of Gabble Ratchet.)

“Fire!  Fire!”

I leap out the window, floating through the air. Some greasy muscular form is holding her down, gun in her mouth.  Kick the bastard.  Kick.  Kick.  Kick!  His face crushed, bleeding.  I scrape the brains from my shoes.

“You came for me!”  She is crying.   “You came for me!”

She slowly unhooks her bra.  The silk cups fall to the floor, revealing her firm round breasts.  Whatever size they are, it’s the perfect size.  My palms cover them, opposable thumbs teasing the taut nipples.

“Suck it,” she moans.

Not daring to disobey, I swallow her areola whole and flick the nipple with my tongue.  It swells and grows thicker.  It expands my cheeks, lips stretched open in disbelief.  “Suck it!” she moans and as I open my eyes the nipple is a cock, big and black choking the air out of me.

“Suck it white boy, suck it!”

Cold sweat.  The bitter taste of metal.  Gagging.  Open eyes.  A tall muscular black man, his arm outstretched, shoving a gun in my mouth.

“Boo–motherfucker!”

I jerk in startled surprise, banging my head against the wall.

“Ha ha ha!  Damn son, you are NOT ready for the revolution.”

It’s Dyce.

I slap the gun away and yell, “I didn’t know there was one, asshole.”

“You ain’t gonna know when it comes, fool.  You have to be ready.”

BANG!

I hear glass break and see Dyce the P’s eyes go blank.  Blood spurts from his temple and he drops to the floor.  What the fucking fuck?!  Now I will never know what the P stood for.

Screams.  Gunfire.  I run to the window.  Holy shit!  Looking down, all is chaos.  Fighting.  Bloodshed.  Riots.

What the hell is going on?  It’s got to be on the news.  Where’s the clicker?            Click.  Static.  Click.  Static.  Click.  Static.  Click.  Static.  Click.  Static.   Suddenly there is banging at the door.  They’re trying to break in.  I reach down and grab the gun from my former buddy Dyce’s warm dead hand.

This is it.

Towel Boy fires fill-in-the-blanks.  

A day of true winter has been bestowed upon many of us like a sacred gift from up above for that I curl in the cradle of Mother Nature as she thrives as her free Self.

Forgiving is like having your cataracts removed.

Less blur and more clarity.

I slip in deep silence as I yearningly sink in a deep and wide tub flooding with the wonder of how enveloping the inside of a whale’s mouth would be once the harrowing entrance has been begotten.

A little funny irony or so I think is that we usually feel or get itchy in their shells but once we leap from them and forget that we have leapt over time  adjusting being out of our shells, we come back to our old shells often.  After all, we have molded spots inside and they are usually big enough or bigger so it does not take much to crawl back into it.

The marrow of this thought is should we.

Be in the whale’s mouth or swim on.

Why waste so much time living in scrutiny?

You might struggle finding scrutiny in your daily life but I assure you it is there somewhere right in front of your nose.

Have we commonly forgotten the value of life and what really holds it together?

I am not talking about family or friends but truth.

Oxygen.

Water.

Dirt.

Weather.

Trees.

Birds.

Wildlife.

Even bees.

They matter indefinitely more than…

our television sets,

the city lights,

latest fashion,

“best” dining spots,

…

you can continue.

This is not to cause offense anyone’s sense of reverence for Truth but to state the overpowering self-imposed reliance many of us have on the very things that destruct or “unintentionally”  belittle Truth.

Awareness is the gatekeeper to clarity.

Salvation is another thing,…something of its own.

I can confidently say no bubbling brook of words will bring you salvation.

Salvation requires a deep, deep awakening.

This might be in tune to Kundalini Yoga, how it may seem like Nirvana but when it is present, it is just present.

A long, long, beautiful winding road I feel is behind and in front of me.  How I love the ever so silently floating anticipation of surfacing memories and the mystery of promising moments that are yet to be.  It is the sweetest sense of Purgatory I think I can ever experience in my current mindset.

Stephanie Gasco fits in just fine without blending in.

As always dear readers, my pattern tends toward editorializing for a few paragraphs until I finally get to the actual piece that is the title of this post.  So feel free to skip down to the story.  Unless you enjoy a healthy dose of someone else’s self-referential rantings, then by all means, continue to the next paragraph.

Well folks, I was recently called out on my saying yes to a writing assignment and then procrastinating to deadline.  Fortunately, I work best under pressure.  (Some may say that I only work under pressure.)  I hacked out a nice little piece about a purple hexagon.  Yep, that’s right.  All the wonderful ideas in this head, all of them either unfinished thoughts or incomplete rough drafts.  And the best I’ve got for you is a story about a purple hexagon.

Hell, I’m (apparently) the only one still writing on this blog.  It’s The Crew?  More like, It’s Just You!  I used to have a deadline of every Wednesday.  But today I can be The Man Who Was Thursday because like I said, all of my Crew-related crow-nies have flown the proverbial coop.  See what I did just there?  So I’ve been having a creative dilemma, or more of a co-creative dilemma.  Sometimes I feel abandoned, like I’m the cause of my co-writers copping-out, and now I’m like the only remaining member of a band where all the others members have gone on to do solo projects.

“I’m gonna slip into this feeling like Han Solo.”  –Mike Doughty

Sure, I could just ball the loop and leap on over to the other blog.  But I won’t, for two very irrelevant reasons:  1) I’ve already paid for the website server storage until about March and the domain registry until next year.  2) Maybe someone will return to write some more.  3) Maybe I’ll just look for new interested writers.  4) Maybe I’ll just hold onto the Crew Concept forever, not even my original idea.  I’d be OK with the one who gives it the ol’ two breaths and multiple compressions just to keep it beating.  5) Perhaps I’ll eventually let it go.

But actually, hasn’t it all been kind of a solo project in my head?  Isn’t that the whole problem in the first place?  Thus, these tired tangents that shoot straight through meta-concentric circles of spiritual procrastination.  Well, if this the reality, then really nothing has changed.  It’s still up to me to make the choice to keep doing it because I believe in it, because no one else has to believe in it and that should rarely, if ever, be the reason you do it in the first place.

Which brings me to this week’s bit of fiction.  My friend is a graphic designer who is apparently obsessed with the aesthetics of fonts.  He’s created his own font that is so super secret I’ve been afraid to even look at the attachment he sent me.  So all I know and all I’m allowed to share is that this font is called Hex.  By the time this piece is published, however, the actual Hex font will be out so I will go back and put a link to it right here.

The first thing that popped into my mind was ‘hex,’ short for ‘hexagon.’  And since rarely is anything I create actually original, Flatland naturally came to mind, mix in the synonyms hex = curse, plus a great ‘font’ pun, and thus we have a story about a personified purple hexagon with some polygonal personal problems.  Damn I love self-reference.

This is a story of friendship, co-creation, and finding one’s place among the shape of this universe…

It’s Just You! (The Curse of Hex)

Hex was vexed from the very beginning. Not only was he just another polygon with a many-sided personality, he was a hexagon. He had too many sides, too many angles. Plus, someone had done this before. Someone had done everything before.

He knew the exact dimensions of his shape. He knew who he fit in with and who he didn’t fit in with, and he could see the future in predictable fractal patterns that disappeared into endless torpidity. He needed a place, a purpose, he needed to be part of something unique but something that everyone else was also co-creating.  He wanted to fit into the pattern, man.  So he bounded in jagged rotation, searching for the Original Orthagonal One.

Word had it that the Original Orthagonal One had left the Sacred Geomatrix that it itself had created, disgusted with all these sorry shapes and their stupid insistence on rigid forms and fits. In fact, the Original Orthagonal One didn’t even like them using his name. He had thought of it himself, so he considered every utterance to be plagiarism, even if they did acknowledge where The Name came from in their petty prayers. The Original Orthagonal One also wanted something new, something…novel.

So he created the Font of Wisdom.

The Font of Wisdom poured outward from the Original Orthagonal One’s infinite-sided infosphere, was filtered in a series of intertubes that mixed the sweet nectars of Serious God Knowledge and Trivial Geometric Lore. The sweet concoction was swallowed by the Universe in one giant gulp, and every living form experienced a Simultaneous Eternal Instant of formlessness. From the shapeless void emerged new patterns, and a new language.

But Hex was still a purple hexagon.

For one moment of despair he feared that all had been changed for the better but him, that he had somehow gotten lost, or overlooked. Then he spun around himself gazing far and wide until at last he found some familiar friends. They marveled and awed at the flushing flow of novel nectar that permeated the reality around them. In fact, they had become osmotic. They absorbed the nectar and the knowledge that came with it.

Thus, realizing all is One they all came closer together. They fit into their old patterns but stopped short before the fractal failures of before. They fit together and formed larger shapes made of themselves, novel forms that fit in a way that no one had ever seen before. The shapes became symbols and the symbols became letters and the letters became sentences and the sentences became a vibrant, living language.

The Original Orthagonal One looked down from his omnipotent ubiquity and laughed at the secret message his collectively conscious co-creations had concocted.

Towel Boy is always on your side, even if he comes from different angles.

It’s The Crew has known about the 12/21/12 “prophecies” way back when most of you were still mocking the Y2Kers. In our sphere of influence, we were the only ones talking about the proverbial Mayan end-date, Terence McKenna’s Timewave Zero, the coming Earth changes, and the impending spiritual ascension of planetary consciousness. Everyone else looked at us like we were crazy. Ten years and one shitty blockbuster movie later and suddenly everyone was crazily feeding into whatever end-of-the-world scenarios fit into their singular reality tunnels.

By the way, what exactly does “end-of-the-world” mean? Because see, even if there’s global nuclear detonation and Earth becomes a charred ball, Earth will still be here. So really, when people talk about the end-of-the-world, what they really mean is end-of-humanity or end-of-the-world as we know it.

Actually, my favorite 12/21/12 “theory” is my own: convincing everyone that 2012 is a hoax IS THE HOAX and something WILL ACTUALLY HAPPEN.

But I’m not here to prophecize or proselytize. As far as I’m concerned, there IS a spiritual shift in collective consciousness happening. It has been happening all along and it will continue to happen well past this Friday. If current accounts are correct, 12/21/12 is just a temporal marker, the end of a cycle. At any point after that shit might really get crazy. Who knows? I certainly don’t. Which is why, back in 2009 during the writing of Heroes and Hierophants, I had some fun writing the piece below. I hope you enjoy reading it.

12/21/12 – THE FUCKEDOCALYPSE™

On December 21, 2012…

Marcus hides out in Egypt. The Mayan calendar ends. Novelty crashes to zero and resets. Separate egos dissolve. All living creatures on Earth become One Mind. A global organism emerges, becoming fully conscious for the first time. Nuclear war. Your own personal myth about the end of the world happens to you. Nano-machines become self-aware, take over the world. Global climate change. Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead. Hell on Earth. Heaven on Earth. Life extension capabilities increased to over a century. Zombies eat brains. Alex Nonnemacher goes about his day. Ability to transfer consciousness into other physical forms. Time travel in 3rd person perspective. Integral spirituality taught in schools. History ends. Everything stays just as it is. Aaron Kliger drowns in a sea of absurdity. Aliens make first contact, revealing themselves to be the true source of our myths, galactic angels who are really us at a further stage of evolution. I dialogue with my future self. Solar flare destroys all electrical power and communication planet-wide. Teleportation invented; ability to thought project anywhere in the known universe. Humans begin to colonize other moons and planets in this solar system. We are swallowed by a black hole. Telepathy abounds. Fantasy realities merge with the physical realm instantaneously. Carmen Sandiego and Waldo found fucking in a forest. We are thrust into cartoon reality. Barack Obama is ————-. Currency is abolished. A heated debate over the legal rights of clones. Techniques for neurological meta-programming are perfected. Kingfox leads the Internet Revolution. Everything looks like an Alex Grey painting. A planet-wide BAD TRIP. Humans develop the ability to meaningfully communicate with most animal and plant species on Earth. The Post-Ridiculous Era ends, the Meta-Mutagenic Millenium begins. We discover and learn to harness the relatively infinite energy output of the sun. Dinosaurs are re-created. Biological male/female genders are transcended, creation of a new species of humans. Anarchy. Fucking in the streets. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. The other nut descends. Bodhisattvas will remain. Good and evil are transcended and included. Rapture. Bill Hicks does stand-up with Hendrix on harp. When encountering another living creature, we will be able to instantly access any memory of being together with that “soul” in any of our past lives. December 21, 2012 marks the beginning of a relatively short and dramatic shift in human evolution, imperceptible for decades until its full implications emerge. Noel gets laid. Mankind is enslaved by corporations and evil robots. Crop circles are translated. Historians are able to recall any object’s personal journey through history in precise replicated detail. The Anti-Christ resigns. I’ll be in the bathtub…let me know when this is all over. Brahman wakes from dreaming. Portals to other dimensions open up over Egyptian and Mayan pyramids, para-dimensional entities start coming through. SAW X. Unilateral world peace is declared by all current governments. It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine. Genesis reunites with Peter Gabriel. There is an exponential acceleration of information (i.e., negative entropy.) Psychedelics are used responsibly to facilitate psychological healing and growth. Intelligence increases. Stability reached in the Middle East. Nothing happens. I’m still alive. Whatever happens, I will be ready. Whatever happens, I won’t be ready. Whatever was supposed to happen won’t happen because we are not ready. Whatever is going to happen will happen whether we are ready or not. On December 21, 2012, the revolution will be live. All of the above. Some but not all of the above. None of the above. Choose your own exigency…

Towel Boy will meet y’all around the next cycle.

You can say I’m a “writer.” Or you can just call me a hack. There’s one thing I know I can write, and write well, and that’s letters of recommendation.

I like writing them because I’m being asked to describe all the positive qualities I know about this person I care about and respect. I have to prove to some unknown (presumably banal) entity that this person is deserving of employment. I would do anything for my friends. Nope, that’s a lie! I want to do anything and/or everything for my friends. Most of the time I can’t. Sometimes I just don’t. Other times, for some inexplicable reason, I won’t. I wish I am ubiquitous. Quietly slipping through the dimensional background to help them along getting back to Heaven. But I, like so many others, digress…

Letters of recommendation allow me to be completely honest about this person. It’s like I am presenting his/her true self. That pure, undiluted soul in all its peremptory glory. Sure, they have flaws, maybe a spotty history which led them to be unemployed. Heck, maybe I’m assuming too much and they’re not really right for the job.

Most letters of recommendation can be short and to the point. If you’ve made it this far, dear readers, you know you by now that’s not exactly how I roll. My words are a red carpet that takes so long to unroll that by the time it hits the stage the audience has left. And I’m like, WTF, nah’mean?

I don’t know. I just like writing letters of recommendation. So if you need one, ask me. If I know you well enough, it’s free. If I don’t and I have to make a lot of shit up, it’s gonna cost ‘ya.

The secret to a letter of recommendation is balance. But you don’t have to stay on the even line. Sometimes you gotta hype it up a bit. Sometimes you gotta tone it down. As always, depends on the audience. Or the audience in your head. Same difference I suppose.

The letter of recommendation below is the only original thing I’ve written since probably the last HACK. Oh, wait, I never published that one.

Stephanie Gasco is a co-writer on this blog of ours, and um, I hate to admit this, the only one of the four or five of us who has consistently put out a weekly piece since coming on board. So she deserves credit for that but she also deserves admission to this institution. So when Stephanie asked me to write her a recommendation of course I said yes.

Plus, this one was fun because it’s a bit unorthodox…

December 10, 2012

To Whom It May Concern:

It is with great enthusiasm that I recommend Stephanie Gasco for scholarship admission into the American Institute of Holistic Theology. I have extensively explored your website to familiarize myself with your school’s mission philosophy. I am confident that Stephanie would be an invaluable addition to your student body.

First I would like to provide some context. I am certified classroom teacher with 12 years of experience working in public and charter school education. I currently teach —– at —– in —-. I previously worked as a behavioral assistant, conducting in-home family therapy with at-risk youth who’ve dealt with a variety of domestic, emotional and spiritual issues. Despite my professional career, my prime directive throughout life is the pursuit of metaphysical awareness, spiritual evolution and the nature of consciousness. My experience has ranged from a simple Catholic school background to a Philosophy major at —– in —. Since then I have transcended and included historical philosophy into my thought, while continuing to explore the infinite dimensions of consciousness. I am acutely aware of potential coming earth changes and the subsequent role we as individuals must play to help raise the entire planet to a new dimensional awareness.

It is difficult to find others who can conceive of the above ideas let alone entertain them without feeling threatened. Like-minded souls are precious to me, the ones who continue to believe that humanity can become more than materialism, more than money, or more than ego separation. I met Stephanie Gasco online in 2009. Soon after we met in person and thus was born one of those rare, close friendships that manifested instantly. Stephanie is in my top 10 most wonderful human beings of all time. That may seem hyperbole; I assure you it is not. I can literally count on one hand the number of human beings I have met who have such spiritual flexibility as Stephanie.

Being born deaf contained the dualistic blessing/curse for Stephanie. It meant that the hearing world would always be a mystery. Yet, it seems to me that the blessings offer much more. It means that Stephanie has instinctive access to the mysterious world we often ignore, the world before sound, before language. When we would walk together along the beach, Stephanie would notice so many occurrences before I did, yet I could hear everything. I was pleasantly surprised when I first saw her bookcase, containing the wisdom of Ekhart Tolle, Osho, Alan Watts, Sri Aurobindo, and too many more to mention. Stephanie is not only spiritually aligned, she is spiritually educated. She not only has a working knowledge of philosophies and religions, she knows how to integrate the ideas into her everyday world. She attempts to live in constant awareness that she is (to borrow a phrase) a spiritual being having a human experience.

Stephanie has a completely unique perspective on reality. This is evident foremost in her art. I use “art” as a broad category here. She infuses her creativity into painting, photography and writing. ALL OF IT is utterly genuine, purely original, and spiritually relevant. I urge you to explore the spectrum of Stephanie’s work so that you can appreciate what I’m trying to convey.

Stephanie is a co-writer for a blog created my friends and I. We asked Stephanie to join a few months ago. Since then she has consistently brought us quality writing. All of her articles deal with personal spiritual issues. Stephanie has a way of relating her own experience in such a way that the reader feels personally connected to a universal theme or truth. When I read Stephanie’s writing it’s like I’m receiving spiritual advice. She is literally helping others evolve as she works through her own process of spiritual growth. Feel free to read her writings and view her photography at: http://itsthecrew.com/category/my-substantial-affair-with-life/

You will find in Stephanie a woman of great enthusiasm for learning. She is completely dedicated to her subjects. She is able to communicate easily with hearing persons and has a friendly, comfortable way of making herself understood by others. She thrives on discussion and others will find themselves naturally “lifted” by participating with her in or out of class. Stephanie has that necessary sense of responsibility and studiousness. She is dependable and capable of completing all required assignments to the best of her ability.

It is my understanding that Stephanie wishes to pursue the healing arts. I think this is a perfect decision and I’m eager to see her potential realized. This is what Stephanie Gasco has brought into my life: spiritual healing. I am eternally grateful that we can know each other in this lifetime.

If you who are reading this understand the power of synchronicity, then please heed my words: I believe there is a reason I met Stephanie, I believe there is a reason she found out about your school, and I believe that I am meant to write this recommendation for her.

Unfortunately, Stephanie has had to put her life path on hold to raise her two wonderful children, Autumn and Chisos. She raised them as a single mother on disability. Having taught hundreds of children all these years, it is refreshing to see just how good of a job Stephanie has done raising her own. Quite frankly it is astounding how intelligent and autonomous her children are. Now they are older and Stephanie is more than ready to pursue her career. All she needs is a chance. If your school offers the opportunity to learn and grow spiritually, I can’t think of anyone more deserving than Stephanie Gasco.

I am writing this on a weeknight after a long day of teaching. Yet I feel I could continue on for pages trying to convince you to accept Stephanie into your school at a level she can afford. I believe in Stephanie completely.

Thank you for allowing me to write what may be an unorthodox recommendation letter. I would love the opportunity to speak directly to you so that I can clarify or elaborate on any point raised here. If there any practical questions that I haven’t answered, I urge you to contact me to aid in your decision-making process.

My cell is ————. Best times to reach me are —-. You can also contact me via e-mail: ———-. Thank you for reading this letter and considering Stephanie for admission.

Kind Regards,