Charles Bukowski 1

 

Charles Bukowski 1

"All gnarled and bent like the exposed roots of a tree, gone now but forever free." Allred Black

Most of us are a hell of a lot closer to being homeless than being millionaires and millionaires are a dime a dozen these days, so what does that tell you what we’re worth in dollars and sense. I feel like a backyard chicken spending my days pecking at bugs and every now and then pooping out an egg or two for my master, or nation, whatever you want to call it.

I actually remember a conversation with my first real girlfriend and I asked her what she wanted to accomplish in her life and she said she wanted to be a millionaire and I said I wanted to be a doctor. That about sealed the deal on a forever kind of love even though she realized her goal while I floundered in the role of Sancho Panza. None of those windmills had MD on them, doctors don’t grow on trees but disillusioned men and unpretty women fly in the face of somebody else’s plans. All this was during the era when 50,000 mostly OUR men and boys would be bulletized, schrapnelized, mortalized, brought home in body bags, on the verge of nuclear war, and ripe for the hanging trees of our society.

Remember we used to get over 100,000 people in the street and baby, even if it was cold outside, it was so so sweet.

I don’t have any idea what young people today are talkin about and thinking about. Believing You can be a millionaire today is a long- suffering illusion for most, just like it was back in my day, but now it seems better suited as a temporary measure conducive to some sort of addiction, corruption, and denial about the fact we’re about the most domesticated and stupid of animals, having lost our instinct for living free.

Born free.

Commercials keep us heavy in the stupor while delusion keeps us moving about in dreams.

The shift to fascism came like a thief in the night but it was a long time coming, nurtured by powerful men of all persuasions, steeped in the American dream, drowned in the sweet goddamned promise that tomorrow never comes and death is something that happens to everybody else.

 The truth is we lost our love for trying to figure out what buttons we should push to get the pellets, like Pavlov’s dogs. We’re one big science experiment now, with salivating scientists running around with their hand held computers trying to figure if we’re capable of withstanding the irrelevancy of space travel or the homogeneity of medicated soup.

Everyone puts so much shit into their bodies and it’s obvious that the fear engendered by the warnings of doing this does not outweigh the fact we can still live until we’re seventy and say we want to live but not without our addictions.

Buddha certainly saw the undeniable truth the desolation a human being can be and found the state of being, nirvana, selfless, some of us could reach as long as someone brought us water and crumbs to eat.

At least, Jesus never took up the sword in his day and others who followed him, never took up the weapons of their day, but for those who did believe in armies and the mighty night, I think we can discount them as really never being able to offer us anything but strife.

I just watched the supposed last chapter in the Star Wars saga and if we’re just going to tale all our treachery and misconceptions about the universe and turn it into reality, count me out.

If we’re heading to the resurrection of fascism, which was never dead, but certainly has the capability of taking us all into the world of slavery, both mental and physical, and trapping us in cages of desire, painless illusion, then count me out.

It used to be pain told us when something was wrong. A Warning. A time to reflect but we’re all spinning out of control in our fast paced, angry routines that are supposed to keep us healthy, wealthy, and numb to everything outside of our own little cage big enough to drive your car in. It’s a cage without bars but we still want to escape, don’t we?

I could probably sign this off as Bukowski Proud.