2008, Year of the Rat

Nothing says Christmas like a couple of young men getting mauled, and one killed, by a 350 pound tiger at the San Francisco Zoo. The twelve foot high wall was not enough to keep the tiger from attacking these three stooges. These late teens and an early 20 year old were almost certainly taunting this tiger. After two of the “victims” ran away while the feline was chewing on their friend, this driven animal went after the escaped taunters and found them in the café 300 yards away. This cat was no random killer, it was out for retribution. It was angry. The tiger was probably well aware of his capability to escape, maybe he was even in the habit of taking evening excursions, but up till this pivotal moment, he had dealt peacefully with his imprisonment, except for once, a few years before, when he mauled a zoo employee. Clearly this tiger was not completely satisfied with life in the zoo.

What animal, or human for that matter, would be satisfied with a life in a zoo? Speaking as a human representative, who lives in the zoo of western civilization, a prison without physical bars, I have to admit that sometimes I’m ready to go the way of the tiger.

Who do we think we are, keeping these majestic wild beasts in captivity for our entertainment? One of these days (not that this isn’t already under way), mother nature and the animal kingdom is going to turn completely against us. We are evolutionary masterpieces, by the nature of our minds, we are more ready to adapt to changing circumstances than most in the animal kingdom. One could almost say we were created as the stewards of the earth, and yet for the past few thousand years, maybe since we kicked ourselves out of a theoretical garden we are still technically in, and began treating it like a garbage dump, we have been bad little angels, and it’s about time for the tiger to begin biting us back.

Humans have been busy. It’s been act, act, act, for a long, long time, and we have so rarely stopped to think. But for all that action, we can expect reaction. What should we do?

We shouldn’t raise the fences in our zoos to keep from getting attacked by tigers, we should dismantle these zoos before the time of reaping comes completely to pass. The seeds of greed, selfishness, and unconsciousness have been sown, and now we have our crop, more greed, more selfsishness, and more unconsciousness, along with their side-effects: suffering, separation, cruelty, resentment, and death without freedom. But a new consciousness is also growing out of our dissatisfaction with this zoo.

There are tigers inside us all, and they long to be set free. This coming year is the year of the rat in the Chinese zodiac. This is fitting as it is our rat-faced President’s last year in office. But we should also remember some of the good traits of this marvelous little animal as its year approaches. Rats help us clean up our messes, they also take care of each other and live in close proximity with their neighbors, and contrary to our poor opinions of them, they are actually healthy, hearty, animals. Our ancestors would not get on boats if rats were not on board, as it meant that the ship was not sea-worthy. Rats are smart cowards, when things are not safe, they run, they change course. If only our rat look-a-like of a President acted a little more like he looks we wouldn’t be in a criminal war. We have rats to thank for the bubonic plague, like little grim reapers they helped eliminate overpopulation in Europe, without them there would never have been a renaissance.

Anyways, that’s the news in the animal kingdom. What conclusion can we draw? If we want to calm the tigers, we may have to start acting like rats.

Only One

Selfishness is the only sin.

coming soon

Well this isn’t a bad moment. Couldn’t be much better really, the present moment being so generally difficult to beat. So I’m sitting at the Woody Creek Tavern having a cup of coffee and getting ready to order my first meal of the day at 2:00 in the afternoon, two days after Christmas in the year of our Sun, 2007. I’ll begin by giving you a little astrology report. The Age of Aquarius is coming, thank god, is actually really in the midst of coming, by Sun, by enlightenment, by illumination. A new age finally, after two thousand odd years of dysfunction, selfishness, and the idiotic dream land of Pisces (no offence meant for you Pisces out there). The change is already under way, in this most marvelous moment, the present.

I keep thinking that we are somewhere deep inside of Mindhead, which is just a word I got from a cheesy Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy movie called Bowfinger. Mindhead is meant to be a takeoff on Scientology, but the Mindhead concept has some potential as an idea for our own little heads to expand.

I’ve begun to get this conception of the Mindhead as an articulation of a universal consciousness, a frequency somewhere “out there,” of which we are all a part.

Back to the drawing room, two glasses of wine later, still at the Tavern bar, satiated from a veggie tamale and a cheese enchilada. Yum is all I can say, and back to the keyboard of this mad little machine, the computer. The typing happens very fast, but there is often too much background noise, what with all the emails coming in, and all the dumb news to check on Google News, the worst source for news on the internet. But where else is a news hungry man supposed to go? It’s not really all so bad, it’s just that it’s so full of “news” everyday, just like CNN and FOX.

The problem is that most of this drivel is not news. It’s just the same old shit. Somebody died of cancer. Somebody overdosed. Somebody killed somebody. Somebody got more successful than somebody else. A volcano erupted. A VW broke down. Another “invention” was “invented.”

What about the real news, meaning that which is actually new? Well the real news is Mindhead. The real news, in this world of entertainment news, is the news that will actually entertain me, and by entertain I mean expand my mind. That which does not expand my mind is not news. Hence I have grown weary of the general drivel in this massively idiotic, repetitive, and greedily loony mass media.

This afternoon I will drive down-valley to run errands with a higher concentration of real people. The real people are my favorite. But I cannot seem to extricate myself from the addiction that is Aspen. I have to live in Aspen. I love it too much, even while I am overly exposed to a scum of the earth psychopathic elite who think they are somehow entitled to a 20,000 square foot mansion and a leer jet, while the working people of this little town have to work two or three jobs just to afford a twelve foot by twelve foot space in this little wonderland. And the greedheads only grace us with their presence one or two months a year, but they leave their giant screw you mansions everywhere to remind us how much we miss them when their gone.

But tomorrow I’ll ski, and all will be well again, and this afternoon, I will spend my time in thrift stores, surrounded by the real heads. Why are the working locals in Aspen so happy? They are happy because even while they toil and toil to make a nice little trip for the billionaires, they also have a double super buzz, because not only are they stoned, and not only did they get huge powder shots yesterday on highlands bowl, they are also keenly aware that the dull rich person they are standing across from, serving a drink to, is more miserable and empty than they have ever been in their whole life. So what’s that, if it’s not something to smile about?

Welcome to Fat City, USA, where the working folks can smile, because they are richer than the rich here can ever possibly imagine.

4/30/07

The steam of my pain shines like an old man, neck cranked and tweaked, and wretched.
But that will not stop the Gonzo. Pain can never stop the rebels. The future is simply conformity to rebellion.
Liquid,
Aromatic championships.
Forward Ho said the Ghost from his dormancy, and the great spirit whispered happiness in his ear.

The Fat is in the Fire

Everyone you know is completely insane.

4/12/00

I saw the top of a mountain as I climbed
Perspiring, I couldn't stop
I climb towards the peak,
Perspiring
I want to stop
I cannot
I must reach the top
And then further
The mountain goes upward into the sky
The heavens above
I will find love
Gasping for air I cry out
"I must get out!"
I'm just getting started
Summoning Lord, Shiva, Buddha, and the Like
I take my heart and squeeze
Squeeze so I may rise
I'll go beyond the human plane
Go on towards the twelfth dawn
Mystic men, Mayan friends
Moving into love's domain
I'm ready now for what may come
Ready for the Devil's death
Into a kind horizon
See the bills go up in flames
Greed and anger dead in blame
Grasping truth
Tasting fruit without disease
Death, death, to all that's wrong
Ready now for spring to come
Truth flowers bursting forth from evils ashes
Bliss's birth
Calm calm be set free
Let go of all your malady
Release your hand from the devil's branch
Fall from the tree
You will not land
Only rise

Alright

I have very little time this morning, there is a plan to make snowmen. Then I'm going to go put some more paint on the walls at the new shop, (trying to figure out whether to go with Loves Light, Golden Path, or Tomato Soup). Nathan at Ace hardware helped us out yesterday. Fuck the greedhead bastards!! Sorry I may be developing terets syndrome. I'm so damn tired of the nonsense in this world I can hardly contain myself. I'm the happiest, most well adjusted person I know, and I'm also the most pissed off.

Anyways, more about the paint store. We were doing a little filmaroo, and silly tom, the corporate trained swinerag, tells Tony the Tiger and I that we are up to no good. Hey what are you guys doing? he growls, sensing something out of the ordinary because we are cruising around with a camera, laughing, and just exuding a healthy well being of hash and happiness. Tony tells him we're buying a hammer. You guys need to talk to the general manager Master Tom says, but he just left.

I'm actually quite sure if the general manager is any too smart, (as a general manager should be in general), he would have been happy to have us help advertise for Ace Hardware on our fine little yellowjumpsuits.com. We would be sharing with the people the pure wonderment of the cruising around an Ace Hardware. All REDS AND YELLOWS everywhere, and so much happiness, where the paint gets shaken, and we'll be getting it all out to you really soon.

Carry on,

The Goose Wrangler

12/9/07 On At the Airport on way from California to Colorado

Red paper Coca-Cola cups and yellow letters on a Denver airport billboard
Total contentment in a perfect world of imperfect people
Overly smart ants march violently over mommy
Wearing funny clothes over our naked alienness
Good morning winterberries
High noon to the dingbats
Welcome to mindhead said the medicine man of modernity
Come again to purify and reconnect the lonely masses to the ultimate consciousness field
Steve the drunken master knew
At the bar
We talked
We can influence it
I said
Not quite
said Steve
We are it.

Did It

Yellowjumpsuits LLC is now the proud owner of an RV. I'm pretty sure her name is Dolores. She's a 31 foot beauty. I'm a bit nervous. I'll miss my plane tomorrow and drive her back to Aspen from California. Pray for us.

She's the modern day donkey. We'll be riding around this continent finding gems for the people and developing the Church of the Open Mind, which will eventually be found at openmindchurch.com, and out on the open road, and, of course, in your mindhead.

love always.

Goose Wrangler

Preface to the Anti-Christ

by Friedrich Nietzsche
Published 1895

translation by H.L. Mencken
Published 1920

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This book belongs to the most rare of men. Perhaps not one of them is yet alive. It is possible that they may be among those who understand my "Zarathustra": how could I confound myself with those who are now sprouting ears?--First the day after tomorrow must come for me. Some men are born posthumously.

The conditions under which any one understands me, and necessarily understands me--I know them only too well. Even to endure my seriousness, my passion, he must carry intellectual integrity to the verge of hardness. He must be accustomed to living on mountain tops--and to looking upon the wretched gabble of politics and nationalism as beneath him. He must have become indifferent; he must never ask of the truth whether it brings profit to him or a fatality to him... He must have an inclination, born of strength, for questions that no one has the courage for; the courage for the forbidden; predestination for the labyrinth. The experience of seven solitudes. New ears for new music. New eyes for what is most distant. A new conscience for truths that have hitherto remained unheard. And the will to economize in the grand manner--to hold together his strength, his enthusiasm...Reverence for self; love of self; absolute freedom of self.....

Very well, then! of that sort only are my readers, my true readers, my readers foreordained: of what account are the rest?--The rest are merely humanity.--One must make one's self superior to humanity, in power, in loftiness of soul,--in contempt.

FRIEDRICH W. NIETZSCHE.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWW!!

Hampton Inn San Jose

Well,

it's the 6th of December, and i'm in San Jose California to attend the wedding of a great old friend of mine, and I'm sitting in the lobby of the luxurious Hampton Inn, with a free glass of wine they just gave me (they rarely give you free anything at the expensive places), but down here in real world land gifts are more common, (which is as it should be considering that all the people staying at the expensive spots (if they can actually afford to stay there) probably shouldn't be getting anything for free.

Our government is on it's way to censoring the internet. Look into it. Call your senator. Get angry. Get mad. This fascistating country is on its way down, and it's a sad thing to see. Turn on CNN or FOX news and watch. They'll tell you we are the greatest country on earth, and make you feel like your filthy desire (trained into you by a corporate greedhead media, and a bunch of corporate marketers who own your mind) to consume more is a sure sign that we are living in the greatest country on earth, full of freedom, liberty, the American way. See you at Wal-mart headupyourasshole.

Other than that, the human condition is beautiful as always. There is joy, happiness, pain, and suffering, and more beauty and lots and lots and lots of love, just like there has always been. I'm going to the rehearsal dinner in a few minutes so I better go shower up.

blessings,

the goose wrangler.

Same Day I think... 2003

Paper is the only one that listens-
Because it doesn't think,
in sadness our tears can drip,
Drip,
and sink,
Then disappear,
and paper says not a word.
Lay ink atop the tear
or leave it alone and circle round it.
The paper has no opinion here.
Scribble sloppy sour severed lines,
or write eloquent symmetry.
Paper won't even notice.
Write ugliness, insult, or ridiculous flattery.
Paper's feelings won't be hurt.
Nor will foundationless compliments make paper an egomaniac.
The scribblers feelings are safe also,
On paper's neutral ground,
For paper will never criticize, laugh at,
or discredit,
our thoughtful or unthoughtful work.
But remember
Though paper is the ever-listening ear,
The only one who is always there,
Paper is a cold hard friend
Because paper doesn't care.

Sometime in 2003-maybe in my second class with Ward Churchill

You the boy from writing class?

"I am a boy from writing class."

The one that pisses everybody off.

"well I suppose that does make me the boy from writing class.
The one that pisses everybody off."

This blatant stamp I seem to put everywhere-

This stamp of my pissoffedness-

This reality-

This misplaced anger and instigation.

Everyone I meet,

I place in the position of debate partner.

You may agree with me, but i'll argue with you anyway.

8/14/02

The classroom
Darkness slipping blind into empty seats
Attempting to open molded minds
Softness
Sweet biscuits
Tearful sad children
Sadly stumbling over television sets

Snowing again and a 4 year old poem

Well the snow is finally falling, and it's falling hard on us down here at Red Butte Drive in little old Aspen Colorado.

I'm going outside to hang a big yellow St. Moritz flag that my housemate Mr. Danny the powder Panda just gifted me. It's gonna hang proud down here by the river.

Here is a little something I wrote back on 4/7/03:

The cold spring air freezes the heat
Alone
The smoke inhales us
Licking our lungs in darkness
Orange lenses blending the wood floor
Sharp lines crystallizing the confused mind
The tunnel
Dreaming resolution through destruction
Insanity
Flames lap at the fragile crest of goodness
Ethanol
The gastrointestinal infernal solitude
The branches are cold
They're shivering
Flowers
Mist is holding an hourglass sideways
Stillness
We're already dead