April 2004 - There Is No Spoon
 RayzRealm (c) April, 2004

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[Apr 24]

Friday April 2

Boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible.
Instead only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Boy: There is no spoon.
Neo: There is no spoon?
Boy: Then you'll see that it is not the spoon that bends,
it is only yourself.

John Longhair: What is the truth Frank?
Frank Bach: The truth? The truth John, is way overrated

John Loengard: What's this Viet Nam war all about Frank?
Frank Bach: What's any war about John?
It's about cleaning up other people's messes.

"It is easier for a king to have a lie believed
than a beggar to spread the truth."
- Robert Strecker, M.D.

The theme for this month is "reality" and "truth", whatever that is. My reality foundation has never felt as shaky as since 2000, when Dubya slid into the Oval Office. The neocons change reality day by day, and just when I thought it couldn't get any weirder, it does.

I dragged the tapes containing the existing episodes of "Dark Skies" out of the Area51 movie library for viewing. I have not watched them for a few years, so have begun watching the first and only season again. NBC had released "Dark Skies" as part of a "Must See TV" saturday night lineup, along with "The Pretender" and "Profiler" which were also good shows, but alas, Dark Skies met its demise after the first season due to low ratings. The X-Files had already established a fan base, and many X-Philes I talked to enjoyed Dark Skies as much, if not more than X-Files. I thought Dark Skies was a well crafted and acted Sci-Fi "Cloak and Dagger" drama, about alien agendas, and the secret non existent gummint black ops organization, "Majestic 12". The show did a good job at weaving a tale of intrigue regarding the battle between the alien Hive and Frank Bach's Majestic group and how both affected the turn of world affairs. Dark Skies was originally planned to be a five season program, ending around the turn of the Millennium, but the saga was hastily wrapped up in the season finale.

Today there are no aliens, but reality has become just as weird, as Bush Sr's "New World Order" shifts into overdrive. If there "are" aliens from other worlds who have visited us, they've probably beat feat home and marked Earth as a "No Fly By Zone", due to all the lunacy.

There are a couple of common threads that run through alien invasion stories. One popular story line used in "War of the Worlds", "Independence Day" among many others, have the aliens making a pre emptive attack on Earth, for no other reason than it's there, our radio and TV broadcasts annoy them or we have something they want. Through most of the story, they kick our collective asses. Rockets, bombs and even nukes don't phase them. Humanity seems doomed until the last reel, where the hero discovers sneezing on them, playing Slim Whitman records or finding their equivalent of a crotch, and kicking them in it, defeats the all powerful invading force.

Another common story line (and far more frightening) is where the aliens slip in unnoticed, implant people with mind control devices, poison the water and air, and infiltrate human society, assuming high positions in government and business. This makes for a much more dramatic and insidious story. Gradually we are all taken over by our new masters.

Before anyone calls for the guys in the white coats, carrying their butterfly nets and tranquilizer darts, I don't believe that a hostile race of beings from the planet Uranus have gradually taken over our gummint, but it makes for light hearted Sci-Fi story telling. Weeelllll, maybe if an alien race has taken over our land, it's the Ferengi.

It does seem to me that today's America has become an alien environment, compared to the country I grew up loving and serving. Perhaps that's one reason I enjoy Matt Groening's humor so much, de constructing popular American culture as nobody else can. Life on the Simpsons and Futurama isn't far off from reality.

The volume of spam I get daily continues to grow; 75, 100 and more repeated messages a day. It's reached the point where I receive 1 or 2 valid e-mails every couple of weeks. I find myself going into my e-mail a few times a day, selecting "all" and hitting delete. I was talking with an associate yesterday about the daily deluge of offers for instant wealth, happiness, youth, vigor, and of course a penis of mass destruction. I got an e-mail from him this morning with a warning not to open the next mail message he was sending in mixed company.

OK, I'm game. After looking around I opened the message, scrolling down I almost fell out of my seat laughing, forwarding the message to my home mail account. So here are the results of one of those incredible "biggus dickus" ads. Warning: if there are any small children, nuns, neocons, republicans, religious fanatics or men suffering from psychotic levels of penis envy, have them leave the room before clicking on the Penis Results link. But honestly, the message does contain a xxx rated picture, something you never see here at family friendly Bigboote's Area51. My my, sort of takes your breath away.

An April fool's ransom in news links awaits your mouse click...

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Friday April 9

Another week has come and gone. Winter has returned temperature wise, and here it is the first week of April. Last week the Boston are got between 6 and 7 inches of rain. We had been running 8 to 9 inches in the hole, so even with all the rain we're still behind. If this had been snow, we would have gotten between 70 and 80 inches of snow. Now it's just plain cold!

I finally finished reading Al Franken's, "Lies and the Lieing Liars" this week. I found it to be a very entertaining and thought provoking book that I'll probably read again at some time

The pile of books on my night table is finally shrinking and this week I dug into "High and Mighty" by Keith Bradsher, a history of the SUV craze. The book goes into detail about how the automotive marketing nazis wrote the ad copy to appear to the frightened toddler and primitive reptilian human brain. I guess I'm missing my reptilian brain since the advertising has never made me a neurotic mess over not buying an SUV, but it seems the majority of car buyers these days think with their snake brains. I'm still amazed at how popular these dinosaurs are, considering the times we live in and the prices of gas.

Nightmare Hall

I have to sit down and have a heart to heart talk with my subconscious. It seems to be trying to tell me something from all the weekly nightmares I've been having. I don't have nightmares very often, but so far 2004 has been a banner year for creature triple features. Last night's dream was another surreal vivid one that left me turning on lights and looking in closets.

I found myself strapped into a dentist chair in a dimly lit room, and couldn't move. The dentist walked in, dressed in a smock and mask and I realized it was Dick Cheney. His assistants walked in, surrounding the chair. I recognized them as John Ashcroft, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld and Karl Rove (dubya was not there, whew!). Cheney leaned over, "let's get this over with now shall we", his assistants holding me down in the chair as he approached with a huge hypodermic needle'. I asked what was going on and I wanted to leave, struggling against the closing circle. Cheney said, "shhh shhh, struggling will only make it worse. You need this!" I blurted, "I need what! let me go!". He replied, "you need to have root canals done on every tooth and caps put on." They all pushed me down into the chair, which is when I woke up screaming.

I've had some might scary alien abduction dreams, but having mandatory dental work done by the Bush mob is even scarier. And no, I have not recently seen "Marathon Man". I wonder what a shrink would have to say about this sort dream scape. Hmmm, Dick Cheney as my dentist. Perhaps he was hoping to find oil or gold deposits in my molars

It's song time again, and the following song has been playing itself in my head a lot lately, an oldie but a goodie from the psychedelic 60's by King Crimson, a bright and snappy little number for the times we're now living in.

Epitaph - King Crimson
(Fripp/McDonald/Lake/Giles/Sinfield)

The wall on which the prophets wrote
Is cracking at the seams.
Upon the instruments if death
The sunlight brightly gleams.
When every man is torn apart
With nightmares and with dreams,
Will no one lay the laurel wreath
As silence drowns the screams.

Between the iron gates of fate,
The seeds of time were sown,
And watered by the deeds of those
Who know and who are known;
Knowledge is a deadly friend
When no one sets the rules.
The fate of all mankind I see
Is in the hands of fools.

Confusion will be my epitaph.
As I crawl a cracked and broken path
If we make it we can all sit back and laugh.
But I fear tomorrow I'll be crying,
Yes I fear tomorrow I'll be crying.

Here they are for this week, enjoy! 

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Sunday April 11

Christ has died...
Christ has risen...
Christ will come again

It's Easter Sunday morning

I'm not sure if I would want to be in the shoes of the neocons when he does return. To quote the immortal words of Ricky Ricardo. "L-u-c-y, you got a lotta splainin to do!"

Jesus made a lot of revolutionary, shit stirring comments during his sermons when he arrived on the scene 2000 years ago, loving your enemies, turning the other cheek, treating others as you want to be treated, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, forgiving, that slandering someone was as good as murdering them, that rich inheriting Heaven was next to impossible, etc, etc and on and on. He said and did countless things that had the common folk faithfully following him like the good shepherd he was. He regularly pissed off and angered the elite, rich and powerful of his day.

For those among us who hold to Christian beliefs, the one true God and creator of the whole enchilada took the time to come down from Heaven to put on a skin suit and live among us as one of us; to live, love, feel pain, joy, hunger, thirst, despair, attempting to once and for all get a clear message of his intentions for us through our thick blunt skulls. Many listened, many did not, and the power elite of his day conspired to silence him for good. They did not like being called hypocrites or being filled with dead men's bones.

At the last minute, even he, who was God incarnate broke down and begged God the Father to spare him for taking the rap for all of humanity; he didn't want to die. As he bore a dreadful torture through crucifixion, one of his last statements was, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Many non Christians look at him as a great teacher and prophet, but to Christians, he's much more, he IS the prophet. To Christians, he also beat death and paid the price for all the collective fuck ups of mankind. I don't understand this reasoning at all, but then, I'm not God. He did promise to return some day for the final curtain call on the one act play, "The Age Of Man", to judge the living and the dead. He came in life to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, which tells me he was the hero of the under dog; the sick, lame, unattractive, poor, all of main steam society's throw away's. My belief and faith is so weak at times as to be non existent, much of this coming from being brow beaten by fundies that I was disgusting in God's sight, the vilest of sinner. A literal translation of "sin" is imperfection, falling short of the benchmark set my God. Yup! I'm a sinner, along with every millionaire, televangelist, drunk, hooker, homosexual, politician, banker, crook, killer. Human nature is truly "bug ridden" and I'm the fist to raise my hand to say my soul rates right up there with software created by Microsoft.

I find it very hard to pray these days, feeling too down and drained most of the time, but I try to squeak out a feeble thank you for the day and to forgive my zillions of flaws, to pick me up and dust me off, and I pray for peace in the world and among men, and justice (there's a novel concept) where the rich and powerful cannot buy their way out of atrocities that they commit as second nature.

Yeah, I want to believe in a God, who came here once in the flesh and who loves me despite myself, who knows me better than I know myself, and still loves and forgives me. In a way I feel blessed that I never aspired to a position of high power and riches. To once again quote my dear old Dad (God rest his soul), "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". Just look around you! That's all I have to say for today.

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Friday April 16

This weekend is a local holiday in Taxachuseets, "Patriots Day", commemorating when a bunch of scruffy New England terrorist settlers chased away the British Imperialists; Paul Revere, Battle of Lexington and Concord. I suppose the neocons in Washington AC/DC would call it a terrorist holiday, but we celebrate what America was founded on, freedom and keeping imperialist weasels away from our door.

Sometimes I wish someone would buy me a steak dinner and insert me back into The Matrix. I don't want to remember anything and want them to make me a far right Bible thumping preacher, cum senator from a Bible belt state. I could be a shit snatching greedy bully, who doesn't give a damn about anything, except my closest 100 millionaire repuglican friends.

We all know that the liberals are at the core of every disaster that has befallen mankind. So lets blame everything on the liberals, homosexuals, feminists, non christians, democrats, ACLU, Pagan babies, Janet Jackson's booby and most evil of all The Clintons. A short list of atrocities committed by these low lifes are...

Iraq quagmire - all Bill Clinton and homosexuals in the military fault.

Failing US economy - all of the above

911 - all of the above low lifes

Iraq I - Operation Desert Storm, Bill Clinton

Nixon Resignation - Homosexuals and Bill Clinton drove him to it.

Viet Nam - Bill Clinton

JFK, RFK and MLK assassinations - Perpetrated by liberal homosexuals

The Cold War - Bill Clinton and homosexuals

Korean War - Bill Clinton, homosexuals and feminists

World War II - Bill Clinton and homosexuals

Stock market crash of 1929 - Bill Clinton and liberals

World War I - Bill Clinton

Sinking of the Titanic - Homosexuals and Bill Clinton

San Francisco Earthquake - Homosexuals (punishment by God)

Chicago fire - Was not started by Mrs. O'Leary's cow as the liberals would have you believe, but was due to God sending down fire'n'brimstone to punish homosexuals.

Signing of Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and Constitution - Homosexuals and wimmin's libbers.

Black Plague - God's wrath on homosexuals

Crucifixion of Christ - all of the above low lifes

The Flood - caused by homosexuals and wimmin's libbers, Noah denied boarding passes on the ark to these sinful scoundrels, but some stowed away, causing all of the world's future disasters.

Nuking of Sodom and Gomorrah - It was all the homosexuals fault here.

Adam and Eve evicted from Garden of Eden - Caused by homosexuals and wimmin's libbers. Bill Clinton was probably involved.

Extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago - Caused by homosexual behavior among the dinosaurs....wait a minute there never were any dinosaurs! My beloved preacher, Billy-Joe Jim-Bob Wafflestomper down at the Skunk Holler Barking Bible Temple told his flock that the Earth is flat and only 6000 years old, and that the dinosaurs and fossils were props planted in the ground by Satan to send non believer on a wild goose chase, so there could never have been any dinosaurs. If there were dinosaurs, they were probably homosexual, which is probably why God killed them all.

Here's a rather long menu of articles and news items for the week, bon appetit!

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Saturday April 24

I had signed up for a free blog a while back but had never done anything with it until today. I finally selected a basic template and made my first entry in my  NightmareHall blog. I'm not sure how far I'll go with this. I'll have to see where and when the muse moves me. Mentally and medically I have not been feeling very well at all, which is one reason why I have been slacking on making any entries here. A gnawing low level of depression has been a constant companion for the past 3 years or so, not quite enough to send me running to my doctor begging for happy drugs, but enough to feel like I have a boat anchor trailing behind me. According to my doctor on my last visit, there seems to be an epidemic of depression going on; hmmm, I wonder why.

This will end the April flight recorder a bit early. I'm going through a dark night of the soul and don't feel very motivated to jot anythigg down right now

Here's this week's short list of articles.

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Shalom, Ray