Ugly.

Not my writing…

but my love’s words. I had not seen this before, we were only having one of our beautiful conversations and she shared this with me.

I have chosen well. These are my Luna’s words…

~ ~ ~

Everyone that lived round my neighborhood knew who Ugly was. Ugly was the resident tomcat. Ugly loved three things in this world: fighting, eating garbage, and shall we say, love. The combination of these things combined with a life spent outside had their effect on Ugly.

To start with, he had only one eye, and where the other should have been was a gaping hole. He was also missing his ear on the same side, his left foot appeared to have been badly broken at one time, and had healed at an unnatural angle, making him look like he was always turning the corner. His tail has long since been lost, leaving only the smallest stub, which he would constantly jerk and twitch. Ugly would have been a dark gray tabby striped-type, except for the sores covering his head, neck, even his shoulders with thick, yellowing scabs. Every time someone saw Ugly there was the same reaction. “That’s one ugly cat!”

All the children were warned not to touch him, the adults threw rocks at him hosed him down, squirted him when he tried to come in their homes, or shut his paws in the door when he would not leave. Ugly always had the same reaction. If you turned the hose on him, he would stand there, getting soaked until you gave up and quit. If you threw things at him, he would curl his lanky body around your feet in forgiveness. Whenever he spied children, he would come running meowing frantically and bump his head against their hands, begging for their love. If you ever picked him up he would immediately begin suckling on your shirt, earrings, whatever he could find.

One day Ugly shared his love with the neighbors huskies. They did not respond kindly, and Ugly was badly mauled. From my apartment I could hear his screams, and I tried to rush to his aid. By the time I got to where he was laying, it was apparent Ugly’s sad life was almost at an end. Ugly lay in a wet circle, his back legs and lower back twisted grossly out of shape, a gaping tear in the white strip of fur that ran down his front. As I picked him up and tried to carry him home I could hear him wheezing and gasping, and could feel him struggling. I must be hurting him terribly I thought. Then I felt a familiar tugging, sucking sensation on my ear. Ugly, in so much pain, suffering and obviously dying was trying to suckle my ear.

I pulled him closer to me, and he bumped the palm of my hand with his head, then he turned his one golden eye towards me, and I could hear the distinct sound of purring. Even in the greatest pain, that ugly battled-scarred catwas asking only for a little affection, perhaps some compassion. At that moment I thought Ugly was the most beautiful, loving creature I had ever seen. Never once did he try to bite or scratch me, or even try to get away from me, or struggle in any way. Ugly just looked up at me completely trusting in me to relieve his pain.

Ugly died in my arms before I could get inside, but I sat and held him for a long time afterwards, thinking about how one scarred, deformed little stray could so alter my opinion about what it means to have true pureness of spirit, to love so totally and truly. Ugly taught me more about giving and compassion than a thousand books, lectures, or talk show specials ever could and for that I will always be thankful.

He had been scarred on the outside, but I was scarred on the inside, and it was time for me to move on and learn to love truly and deeply. To give my total to those I cared for.

Many people want to be richer, more successful, well liked, or beautiful, but for me….

I will always try to be “Ugly”.

~ ~ ~

Those are her words, I seldom write so beautifully anymore.

Perhaps that is why Luna chose me. A scarred, fucked up warrior, reminding her of a cat from her past.

Advertisement

Sunday – Dissapiointed, but not destryed…

It was just a simple piece, incredibly easy yet beautiful. Countless hours working on it in my head, writing it on paper, working on the sound design, making absolutely certain that the seven minutes were perfect.

I might seem far too glib and vacant in these matters, but I am not. Not at all. Many sleepless nights working it over in my head, knowing the vision I wanted to create, every short second accounted for and leading into the next. Nothing out of place, yet so incredibly simple. A delicious story, perfect for the show it was meant for.

I know exactly how it happens. I have seen it, watched it over and over in my mind, and making it into a physical action is nothing. Very little choreography, and the only stress was not mine. I know how this works, and I know that in a simple performance such as this it creates itself on the stage – hell, performing “Clockworks” with Anastasia a number of thing changed as it was happening, and still, it was our best performance of it…

…but this night didn’t happen, and it was mostly my fault. After so many hours of creating the track, after incessantly watching it over and over in my mind and makinc certain it was as perfect as it could get, it all came down to the couple of dollars that I didn;t have to make it to the City today and reharse, as I had vowed.

I let everyone down. That is not like me, and I don’t accept it well. I don’t accept it at all.
I live a strange life, and have sacrificed everything to make it happen, finally. It is not comfortable, but it is what I need to do. All or nothing. I’ve never been able to figure out how to do things without all of my heart invested, and I believe that is why I am in this position. That is why I left so many jobs, that is why I have been let go for some, as well. I can’t fake things. I don’t lie to myself anymore. I do what I need to do as well as I can. Right now, it is dificult. That will change.

A couple of dollars for transit. Fucking pathetic.

The time that should have spent there was not wasted, though. I thought, wrote – created the first song for something new, something much larger. I’ve written songs before – no one knows this, but I was in a band in NYC along, long time ago. We wrote amazing music, I sang like a motherfucker, but it was nothing that was going anywhere – just studio, a rock/blues sound, and drinking.
Wow – I had completely forgotten about that. I used to be a singer, the front man for a band. Voice lessons and all. We sounded good, sounded great, and I wrote good lyrics – so many stories to tell – but none of us were serious about it – not serious enough to make it happen. I was a kid. I was terrified. I could barely find it in myself to sing with the other three people in the studio, but when I did, I DID. Belted out my words like ther was no tomorrow. The words and tapes are long gone. That was a differnt life.

All or nothing.

I must admit that I suprised myself today, tonight. I write with abandon, but I haven’t written a song in a long, long time. Didn’t think I had it in me anymore. I just write – prose, not poetry, these days…

but I wrote a song. I wrote a damn song, and sang it – deep, to match my voice, my comfortable range – and I think it had power.
The story is still making itself, it is based on who I would have been if I never chose to follow my dreams with such passion, if I fell into who I was just a few years ago, wearing my $700 dollar Donna Karan suits and so horribly unsatisfied eit my life…

Yeah, times are rough these days, but that is changing. I have my heart back – and although each day, each minute is a challenge, I have lived a life at times of luxury and lots of money, enfolded in emptiness and frustration –

but I would rather starve chasing my dreams. That is who I am now. My work is to make me better, for you.

Perhaps one of these days I might be an example, show others how important it is to follow their dreams – but maybe I am just here to live, to grow.

My life is exquisite. In giving up I have found me – and hells,

I really like what I have found.

More to come. I’m not taking this life lightly, but still, I float on profound wings – and this is what I choose.

Friday

It went well tonight, our short performance. For what it is, I am pleased with what it became.

I wrote it just a bit over a year ago, my first – and it has grown as much as it could since then. Tonight was the first time it has been able to be done in the way I envisioned when the pen hit the paper so long ago.

Anastasia & I did well, but gods, in this short year there is still so much I would change, so much more of a story to tell…

It went well tonight, beter than it ever was in the few times we have performed it – but now, now my mind is wrapped up in new things.

Clockworks is my first child, but there is so much more seething under my skin, now that I have conquered that fear…

To all of you that saw it and appreciated, thank you, thank you so very much – but there is more coming…

This old dog is learning new tricks.

Swing by on Sunday, the third and last day of the Edwardian Weekend to see the performance by Holly and myself. Just a taste of things to come…

So fucking tired. Can’t write right, need to sleep.

I shared my last post with my dad…

  this is his reply, and mine…
(my, I do get a bit wordy sometimes…)

~

Your blog is wonderful! What a treat. Not a coincidence your timing nor
the content of your blog. Here is why, I just started reading a book
titled Heaven written by Randy Alcorn. In many ways what you write in
your blog is what Randy Alcorn writes in his book and there are
delightful parallels.

He did an in depth study of the Bible to determine, as best as one can,
what heaven will be like. The book is 500 pages and I’ve read about 70.
What I have read to date describes heaven as a new earth. An earth
without pain, suffering, death, illness and all the evils we suffer. An
earth with animals at peace, flowers that do not wilt, water that tastes
like no water you’ve ever tasted, and nature that is startlingly
beautiful. All that accept Christ will have resurrected bodies that are
perfect and enter into this paradise. Conversations will with saints,
scholars, and figures of history about subjects that intral us. Work
will be joyful and perfectly suited to how we were created.

It is odd but I’ve never contemplated what heaven will be like. I
wouldn’t take a trip to Australia without knowing something about it,
yet I’ve never given heaven any serious thought. Anyway really liked
your email; joyful and so right to focus on what God had revealed of
heaven that we can experience now.

Love, Dad

Thank you Pa – I;m so very happy that you liked it, as it was a joy, a revelation, a meditation in beauty to write – and so incredibly enlightening.

It took some thinking, and that, unfortunately, makes sense. We don’t usually think about these things, or realize how much beauty there is out there, every single day, every single second. We forget, and all the news that we usually hear only ads to our realization of how much pain there is in our world.

Yes, there is pain, yes there is immense suffering and sorrow, more than we could probably ever imagine, and we wouldn’t want to. We try not to. Most of us live our lives in a haze, and although we see the horrors on the telivision or read them in the paper, we think that they aren’t directly related to us. We (especially americans, lower case a intentional) are beautifully wrapped up in our own little worlds which seldom reach further than a close knit group of friends, seldom reach past whatever “community” we have created. We live in a bubble, and whatever else goes on, so be it – it doesn’t affect us, does it?

It does. It really does. There are many examples I could give you if I thought about it, but I’ll simply give you the easiest one – and really, this is on a very small scale compared to everything else that is happening in the world…

Sit down, think of all the people around you within a mile of your (our) incredibly beautiful home on Castellana Street. You’ve lived there for over 0 years, so I would imagine that you know quite a few of our neighbors – or perhaps not. Our neighborhood has changed, hasn’t it? From the days I played with Allen and Brett, walking up the hill or skateboardiing down it, from the days my few friends and I played under the bridge, lighting models of aeroplanes on fire and throwng them down the steep incline, in the dirt creating holes that our plastic soldiers could hide, our imaginations seething with dreams, possibilities, and laughter. We were just being kids, hidden by the bushes, just being kids…
It’s changed, hasn’t it? Now the wonderful dirt hill under the bridge that bred so much imagination and life is covered in concrete mixed with sharp rocks. As I write this to you the tears fall – I haven’t thought about it in years…

But I digress.

Think of all the neighbors you know in only a small mile around our home.
Now, think of how much they care about our California Governor proposing to cut the funding to people with HIV/AIDS by 11 million dollars, as well as taking away accupuncture, adult dental, and so much more from Medi-Cal benefits.

I would warrant a guess that at least 80% of them don’t give a damn. I have lived there, I know the people.I mean hell, they live in La Jolla, and it took quite a bit to get a piece of property there, didn’t it? They care about how their money works for them, and the politician who can best protect it. Protect it by cutting very necessary funding to people who need them, funding that will help keep them alive. I know many of these people, and many of them are incredible people who have wisdom and knowledge that they can share with others, due to the pain they have suffered, suffered like no one would ever want to know, and if I have my way, no one ever will again… One day…

Do you think that they give a damn about funding for people with HIV/AIDS? Of course they might say so if you asked them – but what is on their mind when they vote? “Screw the faggots, I need my money to afford this monstrosity I live in. They had it coming. they deserve it…” They tell themselves what they need to. We all do, but – where is truth?

Pops – your only son is one of those people who this affects. Your only son has HIV/AIDS, and as a result of a decision by our governor, it has taken me more than a month to get the medications I need – and I still can’t get them. Tell this to everyone you encounter. Tell them that your son could die a very slow, very painful death because they put an X on the wrong box while filling out their ballot – if the pain doesn’t make him take his own life first. I say that in all seriousness. I have though about it for many years, and have made this decision – if and when it comes to that time, I will not be a burden. I have written my life, and I can just as easily write it away. I am the author, and only I will choose the end to my story…

This is an example on a very small and personal scale because I wanted to make a point. Everything we do affects someone, somewhere.

Everything.

We have the power, more power than we could ever my imagine, to help people. The power to make them smile and forget their worries for a moment. We have incredible gifts, and in your language, wouldn’t it be a sin not to share them with others, as much as we can, every single day?

You, my very dear pops, my dad, have grown tremendously since I first met you. When I was a child you were a boss – that was your life then, and I understand that is what you needed to be – I mean hell, you had the Peddler, and it became you. At that time in your struggle to keep it going, I was – or I felt – like just another employee of yours. A special one, of course, but still…

Over the years, we have grown a lot. I became an adult, tried to do everything right, tried to have something new and promising to say on every phone call, tried to be a member of the corporate world as I thought that is what you wanted, and I didn’t want to let you down.

I must say – you have suprised me. The old dog was taught new tricks, I have trained you well – and I relish the few times we get to spend together. I have become who I always have been, and with it comes a full heart and immense sorrow. On top of the sorrow comes a joy that cannot be described. I know beauty.
This is the life I have chosen for me, and I am one of the fortunate ones, as I remembered it, and it was found. You suprised me, because…
you accepted it. You accepted me, for who I am.

Old dog, my Pops – you have been elevated to a sacred standing in my life, far beyond my pops. I have very few true friends, and without question, that is of my own doing, bred of what I have learned that I needed throughout my life, and when I wasn’t numbed on heroin, meth, coke – or anything else I could get my hands on, I listened, I learned. I lerned what a true friend was – and you are one of the few.

Damn, this became much more than I expected it to be, but hells – ain’t no suprise.

If I remember correctly, the purpose of this reply is to remind you how simple it is to create happpiness in the world, I have strayed from the purpose – but I write, and my words are seldom unnecessary when they are written. At least I wish to believe that.

SO, my friend, my pops – when you recieve this message tomorrow, what are you going to do to create a better world? I can never thank you enough for your contributions, but money isn;t everything.

Talk to people. Tell them about your son. You know enough about me, and you have a talent with words – and yah, Pa, with your words you can change so much more than the corporate world – and though what you do is incredibly valuable, don’t you think that you can do more?

I know you. And I know you have so much more to offer.

Forty years ago, did you think that your boy would call you out? Everything happens for a reason, and we’re just finding out ours.
If you have a gift to give, you must.

It’s actually quite easy.

I’ll let you figure it out for yourself – but I’m watching –

And, I love you. You and that crazy ma. I love you both.

Thank you for all that you have given me. Someday, I will return the favor.

~ Casey, kSea, your boy.

in other news…

the news you don’t hear:

All around the world:

hundreds of thousands of people woke up, streched, and smiled beautifully.

thousands of children took their first breath of a new life, and

millions of children laughed.

millions of kittens pounced on a shadow, millions of puppies stumbled over their own feet while chasing their best friend, and got back up with a goofy smile on their face.

Thousands of people fell in love for the first time.

Millions of people looked up to the sun, took a deep breath, and believed in beauty again.
Thousands of people decided to look up to the rain, smiled, and their life changed at that very second.

Billions of people said “I Love You” and meant it.

hundreds of thousands of families ate a meal together, talked, and laughed.

Millions of people opened their hearts, and sang completely off key alone
while others sang beautifully.

hundreds of thousands of people wrote a love letter to someone special to them,
and thousands of those letters were written to themselves so that they could remember how beautiful they are.

Millions of love letters were read for the first, second,or third time.

Millions of people heard a song that made them stop, listen, forget their worries – and smile.

Millions of people thanked their parents or grandparents, alive or not.

and thousands more puppies were just hugged by children, and hundreds of thousands of older dogs looked to their companion with the deepest of love, and were looked back at with the same…

and lives were saved. I know without a doubt that at times if I didn;t have my Bean to take care of, the trigger would have been pulled, or the blade would opened me up to drain…

hundreds of thousands of kittens snuggled close to their mothers, and were caressed by her tongue.

Billions of birds danced in the sky.
Billions of flowers bloomed,
Billions of plants and trees felt the sun, and grew.

Millions of people danced with a beautiful abandon,
Millions of people did something that they didn’t believe that they could do,
thousands remembered the dreams they had as a child and started chasing them, and

millions of people shared their first kiss.

This news was brought to you out of necessity, because you’ll never hear it on the TV or read it in the papers.

Trust me though. It happened.

These things happen every single day.

Never forget how much beauty there is in the world. Sometimes it’s hard, I know – but try.

This message was inspired by many things, many people – but mostly by a beautiful woman named Francesca, my instructor at my “Yoga of the Breath course. www.artofliving.org/

There is no image to go with it for a reason. I want you to reate your own images in your mind, in your heart – and smile.

I love you.

(one billion and one…)

I sit on the bench in My Beast, back contorted to the left to reach my computer. There is only one place I can get an internet connection in here, and in order to write, sacrifices to comfort need to be made. It’s not the first time. I’m incredibly fortunate to have a roof over my head, and any connection at all. Life is a bit complicated, but good. Very good.

Tonight, Friday, was the last night of an eight day course that I was finally able to attend. I went for one day many months ago, but as each day is necessary, I couldn’t continue. That was when performing at the Wharf actually was worth it, and Ineeded the weekends. Now, weekends don’t mean quite so much. The San Francisco streets are dry, and the little money made did not justify the pain and preperation for standing hours on end, especially without a running vehicle that could get me close enough to walk there.

Tonight, Friday, was the last night of an eight day course that completely changed my life, and reminded me of who I am again. Times have been tough, and I had forgotten. Empty meditation, wishing, wanting, hoping, finding nothing. The light had grown dim, and I had forgotten me, wrapped up in hope that I didn’t believe in anymore. Disillusioned, disenchanted, discusted with where my life was and searching desperately for some way out, finding none. I knew that I was better than that, but – but sometimes a life lived in the persuit of dreams has it’s challenges. When I began this path I knew that it wouldn’t be easy, but had no idea, no fucking idea, of how hard it would be at times. or how much I would need to fight just to remain the person I love, the person that finally found himself.

Perhaps in this journey there is something I can depend on – that when things get so far down that I don’t want to be anything anymore, a door opens – and if I am aware enough, I will see it, and walk through, accept.

I am terrified at finally having someone in my life that I truly believe will stay. They say be careful of what you wish for. I have told her my need for solitude, and she says she is the same. I am terrified because of the exquisite memories of my travels, but I also remember how much I wanted someone to share them with, in a comfortable silence.

I trust her. We will travel together when I get this Beast running. We will continue the journey, together…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It’s only a glass doorknob, that’s all. Cole gave it to me long ago, and I would like to think it came from a house in New Orleans, but I really don’t remember. All I know is that I like it. A lot.
It never made it to the top of the cane that I intended it to be, not yet – but it was the shift knob of my last van, and now adorns the top of the floor shifter in my Beast. Strange how the simplest little touches inspire. One day, this bitch will run, and take me – take *us* – everywhere that has a road.
This boy has an insatiable wanderlust, needing the new adventure, the new journey – but in the wisdom that comes from a full life, there are some things learned. That is enough said. I have learned. My lust lies only in the perpetual journey, only in the one that I know will be willing to share it with me. I have tasted enough flesh to know the means in which my true appetite can be finally satiated. That is enough said.

A new drive, a new reason, a new me, no. The same one, remembered again with a larger heart.
There was once a time where I wanted to change the world, but then I though a bit – the world is constantly changing, millions of ways each second. It is the way of this thing we live in.
Of course, I will not accept the idiocy of our “governor” and the way he has proposed cutting HIV/AIDS programs by $11 MILLION, or how he proposes cutting accupuncture, adult dental, and many other necessary health benefits from Medi-Cal – but I am so fucking far from a political activist. Fuck feeble action. Fuck your bumper stickers. In the years and in the days, I have encountered some of the most incredible people that will do nothing less than die without the things that he intends to take from them.
FUCK. I am afraid to write what I want to do. I don’t trust this nation. I want to go. In the immortal words of Burroughs – we are all here to go…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This is somethig I found again, haven’t watched it since she posted it. At that time it scared me, but now, watching it again, it fills me. Let’s me remember that I can make a difference that people can believe in me, some people – and I have things to do…

youtube.com/watch

From a woman I have never met, Zoe Novak, who lives in Caracas.

It doesn;t scare me anymore, I know better now.

I find love in the eyes of the moon…

Kriya

 

 

Perhaps this is a good time to continue the story, this story, mine.

 

Whether it is or isn’t I don’t know – I only know that I need to write, so I do. In some ways it is a curse – I need to write to remember, I need to write to move forward. Put it down so it is not a part of my head anymore, so I can reach the next step. It is a glorious curse, it is who I am, my words and so much more…

 

For the past eight days I have been going to an incredible class, introduced to me by Whitney many months ago. It is a ten day course, and each day is incredibly important. Then, I went one day, but could not afford to sacrifice the money made during even only a single weekend performing on the street in order to complete it – but now, with the streets in San Francisco dried up and no reason for me to be there, I find the opportunity. It is amazing, and I grow again, become more of who I know I am. I walk down the street and strangers look at me a bit more than they ever did before, and I know I am doing something that I need to do.

I learn Ujjayi, three stage breathing, Bhastrika, the Sudarshan Kriya, lessons in breathing, and more. It becomes part of me.

It is difficult to get there from here, or would be. It’s an expensive round trip from Berkeley to San Francisco, and without the aid of Bobzilla, I would not be able to do it. Except for a bit of holiday money from my parents and sister, some of which needed to be given to repay debts, I have had no income for over two months.

 

It is time for things to change, and they are doing so.

 

I look around, sitting in my Beast, and realize how fortunate I am. I have a roof over my head that is mine, I have incredible friends that care for me, I have more gold than many in those few things. This Beast needs so much more – hard to do what I need to with no scratch…

 

I have found a partner that I can believe in, that I believe won’t go away.

Many lovers have turned into many friends, and while my heart is still with them there was a loneliness that I could not escape – they live their lives, I lived mine, and they grew apart. I am not a simple charge, not a simple man to love in any more than friendship. I know this, and expected to spend the rest of my life alone – but then there was her…

 

Dreams do come true.

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

I sit in my beautiful Beast, wondering what is next. Looking for a way to make money, loathing the lack of it. There is a journey waiting, a new one, and…

 

and I know solitude, I know alone, I know emptiness – but now I need to learn to believe in someone else.

 

We’re both terrified.

 

I babble, stop.

 

 

It has been a long time.

The story can resume.

My story, ours – the adventure, searching endlessly for… for something. Do we ever know what that is? I know we do – though there may not be words for it. I certainly don’t have them, but I try.
We make our way as we need. There are some – far too many that I see, constricted by what they think they should be. I know this well, because I was once one of those people, hoping I could find my own life in someone else’s needs. Perhaps making a living, perhaps being comfortable – perhaps giving who I am away in order to have a bit of money in the bank, security, something. Something that might let my mom and dad stop worrying about me. They need a bit of rest. Yeah, they’re finally growing up, learning who their boy cannot help to be, and maybe by some chance, someday, they will do more than accept, and understand. I think that they are still learning.

It has been a long time.
In that time I have lost me, lost hope, played the game in an absence of passion. It was a struggle to strap on my stilts and put on a smile, a sincere effort to create something like the shine in my eyes that those that know me well and for a while have gotten accustomed to – but this is what was expected, this is what they saw at some point in time, and them, being my friends and my life – I needed to be for them what I was at some other point.

Fake it ‘till you make it? What a load of bullshit… and in thinking, I have no question that little saying works so very well on those of them who search for something besides them that they can believe in.
Something besides them that they can believe in simply because of the lack of belief in themselves.
I was one of them once, then everything ended, all I could do was laugh – and it began again in such an exquisite way. All I could do was laugh, know, open my heart and accept a new gift.

But even in just random writing, I somehow regress from a point that at this time I know nothing of- I just write, and sometimes it ends up making sense – sometimes, it doesn’t – but I’ve found that people see in it what they need to find, searching through my verbal shrapnel, and that is all I could hope for.

It has been a long time.

My story can resume – it is a story of everything I have worked so hard to be – and the beginning of my life, again. This is where the story begins again. So many beginnings, all new – and all just a part of it All.

You better fucking believe me when I say that I would be nothing without you – and you are everything. Don’t be an idiot. just think it about it for a second, or a minute, or an hour – and remember it for all of your time;

how many smiles have you brought to my face? How many smiles have you brought to others, where friends or potential ones, perhaps even complete strangers as you walk by them dressed in your finery, your heart nervous – but glowing?

This is why what we do, why we are who we are – who we need to be – and you need to trust me on one thing – though the suffering might be great, though we may feel so fucking alone in a sea of the dear people we call friends but never see outside of our work – it has its rewards.

I have found them.
Believe.

So much more to say – but not now.

Believe.

It has been a long time.

The Story Resumes.