love others, but no longer hide behind them

the lesson of 2010.

the artist longing for the good work of doctors

the artist sees how valuable to be giving and helping people. this is what the artist aspires to. the artist who succeeds is that doctor. the artist who falls short is a miserly businessman hording the spirit of others for himself. it is dangerous path where only success is laudable, and anything less an inexcusable waste of your life.

the principle of always listening to new music

or else you fall back into the past, which is a marsh of dissatisfaction bored and greedy for your company
likewise new friends

the past should be like a glass of wine taken at the right time
not a bottle
or litter of bottles

nation of whores

i think of actors in movies pandering
so happy to have snagged a commercial
of young people volunteering to fight
everyone whoring
and yet whoring isn't so bad, intrinsically, it's the wrong metaphor,
because sex for whatever reason, if mutually enjoyed, is just emblematic
of engaging the world, of being social, of living exuberant life.
but literal need, to be driven to do something you hate
so profoundly that you'd appall your soul to recognize it
so you cauterize your soul, what soul you had
and numbingly take the slap or ass-tear
and beam at the cash reward as the only good
it's the direness of the world I cringe at
the wholesale wreckage that calls itself an economy
owners and self-immolaters finding it good enough.

i think of Lou Reed condemning George H for depicting
the Velvet Underground as a bunch of ghouls in FG
and Reed calling George a "whore"

and I wonder when that metaphor turned negative for Reed
or was he indeed the phoney and grey dead poser
that George implied

documentary about wailing about

the one dead whom you abused while alive. so much easier to live with dead people. reminds me of EP mourning the wife he assisted in destroying, and countless others

insight into the afterlife?

I challenged, crazily, when George died, ok, communicate with me, show me a sign, now that you understand me, understand everything. and of course nothing. and yet the crazy thought does enter my head that if there is any afterlife, any true metaphysics to this, that it can only be expressed through the only vehicle capable of expression, in other words, myself. The thoughts that enter there, the thoughts expressed, are these the communication. The hint of thought, coming as they do, out of nowhere, a thought I couldn't have summoned otherwise. Maybe this is truly it. A eureka moment came when I was sitting on the toilet and contemplating a revelation of envy, a confession of this loss, that I lowered my hand down and splinter drove deep under my fingernail drawing blood (from the toilet seat!). That's when the idea hit me with full force, that of course it's only what you yourself do that is the conduit of expression from someone in the afterlife. It's what you yourself do. And that, to me, does have meaning.

all his crowded thoughts

converged on the frenetic theme of self-loathing. how many different ways could you say "I've got a contribution to make, look here!" followed soon after by "I'm an undeserving no-count no-talent bastard"

always, when you criticize

ask yourself whether the criticism would just as easily (or better) apply to you. for the instinct for it after all didn't come out nowhere..