Sailing Down Shit River in the Cloaca Maxima.

Dog Poet Transmitting.......

The Trumpathon continues. Now he wants to punch protesters in the face. He laments the days of old when this practice was in place. The irony here is that this practice never went away. Violence against people who are vocal about their oppositional perspective is still alive and well.

I keep waiting for the public to wake up, not only to the disparity between what politicians say and what politicians do but the whole Circus Cloaca Maxima. They are sitting on the banks of the River of Shit, feeding the rats that scamper about, with the processed food in their pockets and with themselves, once death has claimed them. In between their births and deaths comes the dream, poisoned by the redolent fumes of the coursing River of Shit. Flow on big river, flow on. Once cannot tell when night falls or day breaks in a place like that but there are moments and periods where the shine of romance glimmers off of the waters of The River of Shit, as if some hidden moon, as by osmosis penetrated the rebarred concrete ceiling of the cloaca with its light and brings an ambergris like luminescence to the surface of the clotted waters. It's not butter or tofu that is the product of the churning waves. Portions of it ride up on the moss slick, tiny beach at their feet and are washed up beyond the lapping excrescence where they form feeding mounds for Lilliputians so disposed..

The atmosphere produces vivid hallucinations of elephants and clowns in kayaks; hippos and crocodiles in wet suits swim by. On the further bank is a replicating bandstand that seems to extend for the length of the channel and sad lugubrious music wafts across the water. It's the kind of music that would cause Mahler to commit suicide. Chopin would say, “Ah... now that is melancholy. I used to write as if rivers and streams were flowing from my mind into my fingers and thence upon the keys but I never imagined a river or stream such as this.”

Is the music really sad? Of course not. It is rousing and anything but enervating. It is a strange combination of Sousa and Hendricks but that is simply the result of the quality of the air. It is, in reality, as I first said it is but it sounds to the intoxicated like the latter and you can see them rise here and there and go marching into the sewage as if Hannibal were calling them from the alps that are spray painted on the walls behind the bandstand. Carthage is burning somewhere out of sight while Asian entrepreneurs talk about all the soy sauce that can be made from the salted landscape, once the festival of fire ends. Tamari may be the desire of some but it won't be coming to a Chinese restaurant near you soon.

The track of the Cloaca Maxima is a sinuous and torturous one and the quality of the contents of this particular river of darkness changes according to the quality of the effluvia that comes into the waters at different points. One might imagine that there would be particular differences in the South Bronx than in Chinatown and also a variations in texture, odor and taste once one finds themselves under Trump Towers or the Upper East Side. This is not to say that, on the whole, all of the contents do not stink and taste bad... initially anyway but coprophagia is an acquired taste and can even be considered both daring and acceptable cuisine if it happens to be served warm and over toast. They don't call it shit on a shingle for nothing.

Eventually the Cloaca comes into a main cavern and more resembles a lake than a river or stream. At that point there are green highway signs that appear overheard and assist the traveler in terms of their chosen disembarkation points. There is a current in this lake and so, if one does nothing more but remain there they will be eventually taken to a bottle neck area and transported through a raised portcullis into some new and fascinating environment that we will talk about further on.

Other signs will indicate going left or right to the showers or in the other direction to Party Land. There is a certain difficulty in going to the showers and then intending to go to Party Land when one has to enter the waters again to do so. Since Party Land is always pretty crowded, it seems likely that various sojourners have figured this out.

In the land beyond the portcullis, the contents of the river are transformed into something else that they once were previously... a little while ago or a long time ago. It is at this point that those who observed the sign that said, “onward bound passengers please remain standing, floating or on your heads and you will be carried to the next port of call” are also transformed, recycled or 'insert applicable term here'. There are showers in this location as well and one can experience that which was butchered of meaning in whatever scriptures might have been formerly read, concerning being washed white as snow, given the amount of bleach that is a given part of the process of change which takes place here, it is certainly no misnomer. In other places the waters catch fire and another kind of cleansing process takes place.

One might imagine that all that has been described here is simply a segment in the grand concourse of endlessly circling existence. One should also keep in mind that rivers of shit run in most aspects of existence and it is not simply for the purpose provided by Mighty Nitrogen. All hail Mighty Nitrogen and we expect, we hope that all are genuflecting accordingly at this precise moment. As a Hellbound Israeli once said, “Nits make Yahoos”... or it might have been something else but... point taken in any case.

Every time a politician opens their mouth they make a large contribution to the rivers of shit. It is not just politicians but everyone who lies as a matter of routine who adds to the volume of the rivers of shit. In these times it is not unusual for the rivers to overflow their banks on a regular basis, given the extreme generosity of so much of the public contributing in some way to that great river which is all the same river but which might seem like different rivers that, in any case, all run to the sea. In this case they all run right back into the river; cue Neil Young or Bruce Springsteen, I don't care.

I have had the opportunity in recent times to see Materialism in action in a way I never thought would demonstrate itself to me. I've been so good at walking around the block and taking other routes that I had accorded myself almost a professional status in terms of avoiding such dramas and presentations but no... I was either fooling myself or was mostly lucky, or... could it be that the whole process got ratcheted up without my being informed of it? Perhaps the river of shit with it's large chorus of shit gollum sirens that serenade one from the islands in the stream, had drawn my attention away from what was happening around me. I do not know and perhaps I never shall but... it will be alright. I know that regardless of the unimaginable reach of time and the unimaginable difference in degree between time and eternity; not to mention length of reach, I know that it all comes right at some point. From what I understand it comes right over and over and over again and then it starts the same cycle it had concluded previously... all over again. I don't know how many times this has happened by now but I am led to believe that no human mind could comprehend the size of it.

Roll on big river... roll on.

Every four years an enormous barge floats down the Cloaca Maxima and the biggest contributors of toxic shit the world will ever know are present on that barge and it sails the length of Shit River. The politicians and their financiers and all the members of their massive support structure are on that barge. That barge is probably ten times larger than the Queen Mary 2 but I've never measured it nor seen its dimensions in The Shit River Times. I should add that representatives of The Shit River Times are also on the barge and that seriously swells the number of occupants. The Shit River Times has many other names, depending on the location where it gets printed ...but all of the issues are under the umbrella of The Shit River Times and to say they need an umbrella is pretty much something that can be established through observation. There is also The Shit River radio and television complexes and The Shit River Entertainment Cabal and all the people that work in all those places are proud of the job they do and especially proud that all of their products are composed of 100% USDA Grade A Shit.

There used to be a Shinola industry but that got converted into shit as well, so there is no longer a reason for anyone to be able to tell the difference between the two and that is probably because there was never much effort put into that in the first place.

We're pleased that you took a few moments to travel with us on Shit River in the Cloaca Maxima. Usually it doesn't look anything like the way it has been portrayed here today. We sort of lifted the filters just for a short while but no one needs to be overly disturbed by this because it will go right back to looking like what it pretends to be real soon; Lights! Action! Camera!

End Transmission.......

There will be a radio show this weekend.

Wack City is Going up Like Brasilia in the Amazon Jungle.

Dog Poet Transmitting.......

“Ain't that America for you and me. Ain’t that America, home of the free... little pink house for you and me.”

Yeah... The American Dream. Like George Carlin said, “they call it that because you have to be asleep to believe it.” I got an email from a friend yesterday... or whenever it was and she mentioned how she had been speaking to relatives and others and one of them was sitting in her house the other day and reading my book, “Spiritual Survival in a Temporal World.” He had picked it up on his own from a table or something and then he got all smirky about the contents and meditation and such and she didn't get how people can be so closed off, regardless of how clearly you might present your ideas (not talking about my book now) and no matter how cogent your arguments or how concrete and provable your facts may be... they just don't get it. Well... they are asleep and anything that runs counter to the objective of the dream they are having is ignored, if it should run counter to the priorities of their dream. Dreams may not be real and in any conversation between people, even those dreaming or asleep, it is usually commonly agreed that a dream is not real. Of course there are exceptions to that and the main exception is the dream that anyone may be having. That is an exception. It's not a dream. It's real... even if it isn't..

Here's one of those interesting dreams that goes on behind the velvet ropes, where people are also dreaming, only their dream comes with certain powerful intoxicants that are pumped into the room that they all occupy. Talk about weird useless shit! Check out the Vampire Breast Treatment but especially check out the last item. Booyah!!! Never mind (grin) “You can't handle the truth!” and given that... why don't you handle this? “Come into my parlor said the spider to the fly.”

Yeah... this is one of those countries where Justice is not only blind, she's hooking in the Judge's Chambers. She's on her knees, probably looking for those missing contact lenses, cause she forgot that she was blind. Here is a classic example of what goes on in the country these days. Check out the details! Check out what happened to the mastermind and main player, without whose orchestrations it never would have happened. This is the kind of thing that happens below the Bible belt, only most likely in the rear end. Still... a belt does circle the whole body or it's not terribly efficient. One of the most amazing ironies in life is the reality of the teachings of Jesus Christ and the way that that enormous contingent of his followers express their idea of “What would Jesus want?”

Around the world and most especially in Banker Central locations, Wack City is going up like Brasilia appearing in the jungle. Scroll down to the video. This guy understands it pretty well. It is amazing what is taking place and look what is happening to Twit-er and others in the process. Like we been saying, no matter how threatening so much has appeared to be, there are other forces at work and a revolution is brewing and we maintain that the entire world is a projection of human consciousness and when enough people have had enough, the world changes and it will. Smoke break! Okay... that's sorted... or is it sordid? Well, I suppose each person has to be the judge of that. Personally... I couldn't be more weary of all the shit people put each other and themselves through. Those poorly demonstrated and clumsy acrobatics of their channeled passions, in search of something that can't be found there or anywhere, in any of the mediums they chase it through. Later they can look into their own swag bag and see what they got... hmmmm... there's a can of personal rage and another of frustration. Look! Here's a six pack of disappointment. What were you expecting? A six pack of high school girls... or boys?

Everywhere you go, the choreographing of vested interest is going on. You will note the language being employed by the writer and the examples of the players and it's like two for one night at Little Caesars. The pacification of collective, objective awareness is in full thrust; undulating under invisible demons writhing in the air above their tormented forms. They are in pain. The pain is in search of pleasure. The pleasure is the pain in search of peace but you can't get from point a to point c in this demon-graphic. Checker's is howling at the moon, while the ghost of Richard Nixon walks toward the viewing of Justice Scalia.

The corpse of the Justice lies in state. The gravitas drips from a face that makes Tiberius look avuncular. Everywhere you go there is talk about all the great things he brought to his tenure on the high bench. Well, he died the way he lived, in some location where they shoot birds all day. There is no mention of his impact on the 2000 election; not that it would not have made a whole lot of difference, given what we have since learned (courtesy of Mr. Apocalypse) about Mr. Big Footprint, Al Gore.

Judge Scalia has gone to his reward. The fruits of his passage are now in bloom. I can hear the boatman on the River Styx, cackling as he poles toward the nether shore. No mention at all about Justice Scalia and all his close friends and confidants who, like himself, gave such attentive concern to the needs of lesser mortals. We hear the trumpets about his defense of The Constitution and those of us who were paying any fucking attention know what happened to The Constitution during his reign. We know what Bush the Stupid had to say about The Constitution.

Now we are hearing all sorts of things about the death of this august dignitary... very curious stuff... but I don't pay all that much mind; first I don't know and second, I don't care. It is what it is because of what it was. Given however many die at the hands of the policies effected by these personages, the death of the author is not a cause for concern. It is the least the angel of death could do. It surely would be wonderful if I knew what I was talking about. I know I should be forgiving and compassionate and remember what John Donne said; “Every man's death diminishes me.” However... the truth is that it is not in my hands. I am not the judge (Heah come de judge! Heah come de judge! And... what do you know? “Dere go de judge!”) and I am not on the jury. I'm just some guy moving across the landscape, for whatever the reason that is and I do feel sorry for him and I am grateful he took that task and spared me and left me the lasting lesson of his enterprise. I suppose I feel especially sorry for him that he was a judge; now going before THE JUDGE and having to hear the record of his deeds being scrolled down across the ethers by the one he served while he was present here.

I would change so many things were it in my hands to do so but it is a certainty that I would only make it worse because... in my desire to make the world a better place, I would err before the force of my imperfect knowledge. There is many a tale in the Sufi Teachings and in other teachings that talk about what results from the efforts of the well meaning, who seek to correct the injustices of this world. That is not to say that we do not sometimes actually achieve that outcome, should we happen to be operating as the manifest hands of the one who understands it all. This does occur. It occurs consciously sometimes and it often occurs unconsciously as well, when we accomplish good without realizing or intending to ...and it is always better, at least, to want to effect positive change, even if we often have no idea of how to go about it. So I am not saying, “hands off and move along, it will take care of itself”, even if that might well be true. I am saying, “be watchful and pay attention.”

Everything that comes before us, happens for a reason. Only today, I found myself wrong about something... or let me say that I might have been wrong about something but I don't know and the truth is that I might never know. It was nothing of any great importance. Everyone we meet and see, every encounter we experience is a musical passage in the constructed symphony of our lives and one movement passes into the next. One measure follows another. We are in search of The Libretto. We have all latched on to something that gives text to the music. Whether it is the true libretto is hard to say ...because even false librettos function just like the real thing in that they grant some kind of text. In a world gone mad it is hard to define dysfunction; compared to what?

I feel an immense confidence in the scheme of things. Quite certainly I do not understand all the ins and outs. I don't know where it came from or where it is headed. I don't know where I came from or where I am headed but... I know I am led and I know that I trust the leading. Wherever it is going, I wish to follow. Whatever comes, I know it will have meaning and there are few tragedies so great as a life without meaning... or purpose

I love those great quotes that have come upon me here and there; “study to show thyself approved, a workman worthy of his hire”, “the Thing we tell of can never be found by seeking, yet only seekers find it.” “We have all had the experience of failing time after time in changing old habits. Then suddenly these old habits lose their hold on us. What was so attractive suddenly becomes unattractive. This is a sign that God has accepted our repentance. At this point, my sheikh used to say that we are no longer responsible for those old sins. We have truly changed and we are now someone who is not even tempted to commit them.” “If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.” “How can anyone ever love you for who you are if you become someone else to be with them?” “Everything you’re looking for lies behind the mask you wear.” “Faith doesn't get you around trouble, it gets you through it.”

Those are among the most valuable treasures that I personally possess. These are only a few. There are many. I wonder sometimes, how often people seek these out when they most need to. To what do they resort when there is some great need to understand the uncertainty of the moment? Our lives and the following course of our lives depends on the choice we make. The quality of our lives depends on it. It all depends on who and what we rely on and have recourse to.

End Transmission.......

Some Thoughts Upon the Day and in The Hour of Our Need.

I've been thinking about the importance of 'Black Oscars Matter' and I've come up with a few ideas on the subject. I think the first thing to do is to hijack the blockbuster meme. Start making films like, “Blackman and Robin”. You know what? I could get real comedic here but I'm not going to. What I am going to do it treat with the absurdity.

First off, the Oscars are full of shit. Very often the best films don't win. Like when, increasingly those CIA inspired propaganda movies like “Hurt Locker', “American Sniper”, “Argo” and “Dark Zero Thirty” start getting megaloads of press, nominations and positive reviews, when they are basically garbage and who is it that runs Hollywood and who is primarily responsible for where blacks would be at and how their characters are expressed in the medium? Do I have to say it?! Let's go back a few decades when the only blacks you saw in films were the google eyed Stepin Fetchits. Maybe you weren't around when this was happening. I was. No one has victimized and culturally slandered black people like the Tribe cabals that own the studios. From Aunt Jemima to Amos and Andy they kept black people in their place and they don't want them in Israel either.

All of this has changed somewhat in these modern times but now we got the gansta theme and the playa theme and various themes that accent the sexual dynamism angle, in order to promote certain cultural changes in real life. Now... whether they want to run their 'blacks on blondes' agenda, or create their myths of super potency and superior sexual prowess is none of my business. I grew up on military bases and was exposed to black people before most others. I played with them and had them as friends and that has continued through my life. I've been locked up with them in the most dangerous environments and it is a testimony to my freedom from racist attitudes and fears of the kind that I walked out of the whole affair untroubled by horrible possibilities that were rampant at the time and probably still are.

Still... equality is not about handing out appreciation and merit when there is nothing to appreciate, as is the case this year with films that got black actors in them. The ones I know about were subpar and in some cases, like “The Hateful 8”, a total piece of garbage. I don't recall any Asians getting attention and I don't hear any of them crying about it either. Native Americans? They hardly get any roles, much less nominations. Did The Chief get one in, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?”

This year, “The Revenant” is getting all of the buzz and there was no acting to speak of in it. Apparently it is Decaprio's turn in the barrel and it doesn't matter whether it was any good or not. The best one can say is that it was much better than “The Hateful 8.” Probably the best acting job this year was Steve Carrell. Christian Bates is nominated too and that was pretty good but then, he was also in that abortion, “The Knight of Cups” and he should be docked points simply for that (grin).

I don't want to talk about movies. The reason there was no post for over a week is that I don't know what to talk about anymore. I've said all I can say and I've said it a hundred times. I seem to drift these days. I awaken but I do not know what to. I let myself get lost in the rubbish of certain entertainments as a preventive against making up my mind about what to do. Every time I have made up my mind in recent years, I have made a mistake. I don't know where to go anymore. I don't know where to stay. I think perhaps I should go to India because the commercial wastelands of this world are not going to offer anything and I know I could find succor in the Himalayas.

Some of you know what it is like to be possessed of a longing and an attraction that is not of this world and which yearns with an unspeakable passion for another; half invisible and half potential. It stands to reason that one cannot find this in the marketplaces of the world and of course Mumbai and so many other places qualify but I know of only two places that are somewhat possible and that is The Andes and The Himalayas. There are brotherhoods in both locations and possibly elsewhere too. I was told years ago that there were seven locations that would be saved when the heavy shit went down, as it will. One is also in Mexico and one in Russia, another in Mongolia. I suppose I know more than I am saying but I don't get to say all kinds of things because they are hidden from my sight every time I go to say them, they aren't there anymore and anyone who has these labors upon them knows what I am talking about.

So... each day I rise to some occasion and often just sit there, frozen in some moment of time... suspended like chemicals in solution... waiting on something and I have no idea what that is. I never imagined it would be as hard and difficult as it is. I never imagined that every decision I would make would be wrong. I am not a stupid person but somehow, I have failed at everything. Destiny can be merciless and fate unforgiving. So now I wait. John Milton once said, in his Ode to My Blindness, or whatever it was called, “they also serve who only stand and wait.” I take some comfort in that. I wish I were stronger, I'm sure all men do but we have only what is sufficient to the day at hand. I think of the immortal poets more now than I ever did and I know this transient veil of life, obscures a brilliant light that is beyond our mortal ken.

I feel humbled by that which is beyond the reach of my essentially corrupt nature. I wish I were a better man but I am not. I would stand and fight but... the greatest enemy is within. As the Lord of the Rings plays alongside my writing this today, all I can think is that I wish I were an elf. I'm told that a human birth has so much more potential than a Devic birth but I have been attracted to that realm far more than anything I have ever found here. The human experience has left me with the taste of ashes and an enormous sense of regret for all of the things I could have and should have been and done and didn't; paths that might have been taken and were either ignored because of reckless abandon or... never possible to begin with and simply imagined in retrospect.

I'm not a bad person. I serve in every moment where opportunity provides but I fall short. I always fall short. I say this with all the naked agony of my kind. Somehow the miles and the years pile up and when we look back upon them they seem so brief but... as the mind conjures an awareness of where one was at the time, it seems so long. How did we manage to fuck up so many possibilities? Perhaps they were only phantasms. Perhaps we never had a choice and it is just the nature of our ignorance that we believe we could have done better but no... we did the best we could. Regret is the perpetuating state of the dream worlds of mortals and... I am not that but it seems as if it is so.

I'm just sharing this with you today because I don't know what else to say. I don't want to talk about all of the dumb and mindless crap that we use around here as a backdrop for what we really want to say and always get around to saying at some point in these epistles to whomever. I'm tired of this Ashkenazi bloodbath around the world and what they don't kill in the body they kill in the heart and the mind and the soul. I'm tired of the male driven imperatives of the Arab world; the contempt for women who are the single bravest and most beautiful portions of ourselves, who are in reality, our higher selves, who are the gentler and sweeter and more perfect portion of what our souls are all about. I suppose I am heartbroken at my own insufficiency and the fact that I never appreciated them half as much as I should have.

This is a cruel and unfortunate world where we, in blood and flesh, consummate and extract our debts from our own person within ourselves and upon ourselves by extension. Were it not for the greater love and mentoring that is bestowed upon us in this crucible of pain we would never escape. Thankfully we are saved according to our ability to sacrifice ourselves before the greater challenge of service to our fellows. There is no greater joy that is possible here and one discovers this to the extent that their selfish nature persists in keeping them from the recognition of this and at the expense of grievous suffering in respect of that lesson learned. It is just how it is.

So... it is that I have written this today and I hope the day finds you well.

End Transmission.......