"Occidental Mythology"

The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology
-by Joseph Campbell
1964
The intellectual fare swirling around george lucas' mind when he penned STAR WARS.
In scholarly terms, admittedly a dubious distinction. But campbell is a towering thinker, in the best sense. There being no dearth of critical review available, i'll make this brief.
If you wish to adhere to the notion that abraham, jesus, mohammed, or joe smith were the agents of allah, jahweh, god, or the stay-puft marshmallow man, THIS IS THE BOOK you should assiduously avoid. Instead of presenting a psychological refutation of the religious impulse, or diagram of the disasters such thought leads to (a la russell or hitchens), campbell simply takes the robes off world religions, to show where their ideas came from and what they actually have under there, substance-wise. He also shows how all religions, even those from East and West, have fed each other in global streams of shabby derivation. You're ready to get into the guts of understanding an immanent god compared to a transcendent one, and what you can expect from cultures founded on either? You're ready to understand why your own birthplace is exclusivist and intolerant, or syncretic and welcoming? Then you're ready for campbell.
And - are all those people with crucifixes on their neck showing their allegiance to jesus...or THOR?
This and more.

clown rape

I want my fucking life back. Literally.
The following essay is going to be sexualized. If you're not comfortable with that, or if you think talk of sex is anti-intellectual, then you have all the acumen of an eggplant. And if you're not comfortable with the word "fucking", you're an intellectual child who ought leave smart people the fuck alone.
I'm a human being...but you'd never know it by my sexual life. I look back over the years and remember moments of sweetest joy, swallowed by an avalanche of bleakness.
Sex goes to the very core of who we are. We are not like most animals in this regard. Study the sexual lives of Earth fauna, and humans jump out as one of a relative handful of HYPER-SEXUALIZED creatures. We are born to fuck - sex is profoundly important to us, not just personally, but socially. We're hyper-social too, and the fabric of any healthy human society is a tapestry created and maintained conspicuously by sex.
Now, step back and take in how far removed we are from "healthy human society". Hate crime, war crime, infant genital mutilation, plastic surgery, rape, gang rape, date rape, child rape, environmental rape, CLOWN RAPE!
What, you think there isn't a clown out there being raped this very second? Don't be naive. Not one of the evil ones, either. A nice one. In full makeup. On each thrust, the rapist honks that red nose. Honk. Honk. Honk.
Every other species, every alien cruising by, looks at us and thinks "What went wrong?"
What went wrong?
WHAT WENT WRONG?
Sex is what went wrong.
We twisted it into a freakshow nightmare, and everything fell apart. That healing thread which should be running through all our social interactions is poisoned. Missing in action. And nothing, nothing in this world is going to get better until we wake up to that reality.
I want my fucking sexual history back.
I WANT the older woman my parents should have brought to me when i was thirteen. She was supposed to lay me down in a place of naked comfort and safety. She was supposed to say, "These are our bodies, and this is what they do." Instead, for five years following my first solitary ejaculation, no one touched me. NO ONE. For my ENTIRE ADOLESCENCE. What do you imagine that might do to a sexual, tactile, social creature? Yet our society is so dysfunctional, that i couldn't have even conceived of someone like her existing, back then.
I WANT carol, my towering teen crush. For almost two years, i dreamt of...just being near her. Just being near. We never even hugged.
I WANT chris, an asian born-again who spent months trying to save me (spiritually and horizontally)...but always holding back. She tasted better than anything i've ever known.
I WANT stephanie, who could have been my great college love. We discovered we'd both wanted it, far too late. We spent years at a distance, incapable of the kind of honesty that would have had us in each other's arms.
I WANT linda, the most beautiful onstage romance of my life. Those feelings spilled over into real life, but she was too lost in her own dramas, and the search for "the one".
I WANT meghan back. The most humbling, perfect love of my life. Our friendship was swept away by that mania for "the one". Gone, like she was never there. How are we not caring for each other still? How is that even possible?
I WANT miss suarez, with whom i spent a year falling hopelessly in love. The day we parted, she looked at me and i suddenly knew she wanted me more than the man she was marrying. I would have given her anything...except an institution in which i didn't believe. In silence, i watched her walk away.
I WANT amanda, the only woman to literally take my breath away, and whom i offered a deeper understanding and more selfless love than any.
I WANT christina, who was "age-inappropriate" when she fell for me. Holy lordisa, i could have loved her so purely, so gently...
I WANT vanessa, whom i loved perhaps more than any. She fell into my arms, trying to escape a lover who treated her badly. She never did...and i kept us from consummating because she was in a "bad headspace".
I WANT lakota, the most poetic spirit who ever offered me love. We shared a searing starburst of momentary carnality, but she was a single parent, and i ran, mortified of disappointing mother or child.
I WANT melissa, the most stark embodiment life has ever shown me of the responsibility to our youth which we are catastrophically, barbarically ignoring. I was supposed to be all those things for her that that non-existent teacher never was for me when i was thirteen. It didn't happen. My life had come full circle, and another generation was poisoned.
I WANT ann back. The best sex of my life...and she loved Star Trek. Another casualty of "the one".
I could go on. And on. Anyone can. Everyone can.
I also want to go BACK to all those who wanted me, but i turned away. To becky, melanie, doug, annie, dihanne...and others it's been easier to put out of my mind. There's a hole in your lives where love from me should have been. I pretty much didn't even try. I'm not masochistic enough to blame myself, but you are all wounds in my spirit, as deep as any who turned away from me.
In our mania for "the one", we spend our lives walking on an endless sea of thinnest ice, ever rejecting and being rejected. We're crippled by the resultant fears, with gaping holes we expect our lover to fill. But they can't. And if for a short while someone seems to, it's magic...but then the rug gets pulled out, and they leave (or stay, in a hell of codependent disappointment). So our ecstasies become our pains, and we absorb more reasons to punish the next person, or never open ourselves quite that much again...
And then...
I imagine how my life would feel had all those women loved me. Fill up those holes with caring and intimacy and touch and orgasms and laughter...
I try to picture the person i would be.
GREAT FUCKING GOOGILY, it would be amazing! I would be so much more centered. So much more content. So much more able to laugh off any trouble or care. Unpoisoned by the notion that i might not be good enough. Utterly, preposterously non-jealous or hateful. So much more eager to love anyone who looks like they need it. ANYONE.
But it doesn't happen. We're left with these holes, so we cover them up. We tell ourselves that it's just life. We force ourselves to believe that there's something "wrong" with us if we're unable to let go, or unable to love...
Society doesn't make it better. Parents and friends tell us to keep trying. Therapists and doctors and counselors profit from our pain without ever going near the cause.
Bear in mind, i'm one of the least damaged people on this planet. A straight white male who's never known hunger, incarceration, or war. Even compared to most such white males, i am enormously centered and brimming with self-worth. And i am hellaciously, irreparably damaged. HELLACIOUSLY, IRREPARABLY DAMAGED. It hasn't helped that my lifelong impulse toward sober gentleness and consideration has diminished my number of intimacies. I've always been the nurturing one, trying to avoid unhealthy situations (for others or myself).
I want my fucking sexual life back, you fucking bastards!! Where are you?? I want a fucking goddamned accounting!!!
But there can be no accounting.
Nobody chose this life, and those few who grow up to understand know that the damage is long past done. The decisions that pushed humanity in this direction were made thousands of years ago by people who had no idea what they were doing. It was too big a process, created one tiny carelessness at a time.
If i could go back in time to find my younger self, would i whisper into my eager, slightly awkward ear, "There IS NO healthy situation. It doesn't exist. Good luck, you quixotic, doomed fuck"?
A few months ago, a mildly inebriated teenager made a pass at me. She wasn't my type, and even if she were, i still would have been painstakingly considerate of her humanity.
But i'm long past weary, and haven't had sex for a year.
Don't fuck around with me, life.
Don't throw up a million walls that keep me from being the sexual child and teacher and lover and healer i was born to be. Don't do that, then toss some nubile, dewy creature at me who in a fit of questionable (but eminently understandable) judgment wants to be ravaged by a stranger.
I'm serious.
Do not put her in my path again.
For i will give her a chance to lie about her age.
Then we'll be at my love shack, and she'll be receiving the most amazing massage of her life, and i'll come to her disturbingly bald, shaven pussy and maybe she'll lie about being on the pill, and then she'll receive a fucking so beautiful that it's all she'll be able to think about on lonely nights a decade from now, when her husband hasn't touched her in four years.
Don't fuck with me.
I am weary. And we shall none of us be healed...

one

Some women need two or three husbands
Still others need
none
The only number no woman's
ever needed?
One

uninvoiced

If i told you i was falling in love
But it doesn't mean what you THOUGHT
Would you let me babble a moment
to love you like i ought?

Every time you've heard those words
Every movie, commercial, or song
Came with an attached invoice
A silent plea just as strong

"I'm fallin' in love, babe, i love you so true"
is but part the brew
The other half? The unspoken part?
"So whatcha gonna DO?"

I don't care what you DO or don't
I don't care what you WILL or won't

I'm falling in love with you, you see
But i know that's just biology
Loving someone is hard
Falling in love?
E-A-S-E-E

Obviously i like you
(it's why i wrote this poetic star)
Obviously you like me too
(or you'd not have read this far)

So in all simplicity
i simply say
If there's any kindness or help
i can give you today
I'm at your service
I'll come right away

And if there's nothing you need
Then i'm happy to be
Just a happy fool
falling for thee

sid caesar

1922-2014
By coincidence, i'd just begun reading the autobiography "Caesar's Hours" when he died. I'd never seen any of his classic TV shows, because i always suspected i mightn't love them. For a youth whose sense of funny was shaped by M*A*S*H, marx, burnett, brooks, ZAZ, and above all Python, i thought caesar's shows might hit me like THE HONEYMOONERS - quality, but too dated and socially regressive to be really enjoyable. His autobiography is a fine read. Once in a while he comes off as a bit of a tightass...but let's not crucify him for that, as the average man of his generation was an ENORMOUS tightass. And yet...there were direct links from sid to two of those childhood favorites (M*A*S*H, brooks), and others (burnett, ZAZ) who were simply following where he had pointed. And his writers? Neil simon, larry gelbart, woody allen, mel brooks, carl reiner?? So i jumped into something long overdue - THE SID CAESAR COLLECTION, a 3-dvd set showing the best of his work on YOUR SHOW OF SHOWS and CAESAR'S HOUR. The between-sketch commentary is worth the price of admission alone. Otherwise, my instincts had been pretty much right, but the exceptions are as funny as funny gets. Grab disc 1 and watch "The 3 Haircuts (You Are So Rare & Flippin' Over You)" and "This Is Your Story" - the first almost a spoof of the Beatles a decade before they arrived, and the second a spoof of THIS IS YOUR LIFE. Both will have you laughing out loud for days, if not weeks (Uncle Goopy!). Thank you, sid. And happily, we'll now ever have a more resonant response each time we hear Commissioner gordon exclaim "Great caesar's ghost!"

lakota leijon

The further from us i get
the more you fill my dreams
A vision of carnal perfection
Your gentle spirit gleams

Was i fool or was i wise
to run from mother and child
Lying on my deathbed
i'll think of you and smile

bracelets leftovers

(a follow-up to http://nakedmeadow.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-grey-bracelets.html)

Often when i write a piece i have public reading hopes for, there are ideas or anecdotes that get cut, in the service of making it more succinct. A few such for "grey bracelets"...
The part about being less interested in non-nude movies goes deeper than sexual deprivation. As my mind ever absorbs the bigger picture of human existence and just how barbaric we've become, i grow less and less interested in our provincial fables and parables. You want me to sit through some Hollywood commercial for the status quo? Yeah? Well, STAR WARS was pretty morally degraded even before Disney got their slimy paws on it, so thanks, but i'll probably pass. Just show me some titties.
Another factor in my psyche is that i recently endured a relationship i'd devoted years to, and received far less love in return than others who showed far less kindness and selflessness. I know, i know...you can't let one relationship affect your outlook. But it's an unfortunate swirl to add to no physical intimacy for over a year, fading youth (which in a healthy society would be an honor, not an indignity), and a relentless emotional awareness of how horribly we all treat each other.
Has unfucked loneliness made me as reckless as i feel? That woman i met the other day, the one who drinks and smokes and offers no obvious compatibility, is also a single mother. In my fantasies, i'm having unprotected sex with her tonight and tomorrow morning and afternoon and four times next Tuesday, and maybe she gets pregnant. Maybe a part of me wants that...the allure of children to hold every day and a woman to put my penis in every night. Never mind whether it's right for me (or them).
There's also a friend i have in China to whom i've playfully suggested i'm her ticket to being a U.S. citizen, and getting around that one-child policy.
Would i actually do these things? I do not know. But there is an ever-growing sense of danger in me...for myself, and maybe even others.
Degraded degraded degraded...
But that's how it works - if we lived in a society that had any kind of healthy understanding of sex or children's needs, monogamous two-parent homes would disappear overnight. The economics of our society are based on the single-family unit. So society makes marriage the only place where you can have free sex and babies. That's a juicy, whopping carrot. Society makes babies economically desirable (though that balance is tipping precariously, which is why more and more people are saying no...and one wonders whether that's accidental). Despite the ballooning costs however, children are still the most solid old-age insurance one can get.
Money money money, just follow the money...
Plus people are realizing (if excruciatingly slowly) that marriage is not the beginning of sex, but the beginning of the end of it.

teacher

When i was twelve, they came
Breasts!
Hair!
We had a lodger in those days
He loved baby brother and me
We played monster together
One day he raspberried our bellies
i became slippery
Sometimes just looking at him...
Oops!
Slippery!

One night mother walked me to his room
Put my hand in his
And said he was my new teacher
We didn't talk
He just held me
I had the most beautiful dreams ever

Our next night we took off our clothes
And talked
A tumbly word jumble
sexbabycuntcockejaculationorgasmlove
He held me in his naked arms
I had the most beautiful dreams ever

Our next night it was the word tumescence
When i bounced his penis against his tummy
the sound made me laugh

Our next night it was the word masturbation
He did himself
My hand on his, my eyes so close
Then he guided my hands over myself
(i didn't need much guiding)

Our next night it was the words vibrator and dildo
And two gifts
He held me while i played

Our next night he kissed me
Everywhere
Everywhere
Everywhere
It was better than the most beautiful dream

Our next night i kissed him
And tried to put him inside
How i tried to put him inside
He stopped me
And pinned me
And slid against me
For time without end
I came
and came
and couldn't
stop

Then i woke up
and realized it was a dream
There was no lodger
And my only teacher those years
was secrecy
and a mother who couldn't talk to me
and stupid boys
rushing, fumbling, trying
to
get hard
get it in
get off
get HARD
get it IN
get OFF
GET HARD
GET IT IN
GET OFF

Today i lodge my protest
There may be a body count

Harry Pussies

PUSSY CATS
-by Harry Nilsson
(produced by John Lennon)
1974
A product of the "lost weekend", when chums Harry and John went on a year-long L.A. bender, this is a fascinating, often brilliant, and criminally-overlooked album for any Nilsson fan, Lennon completist, or rock lover. Many dismiss it as the end of Harry's three-octave range - the rupturing of his vocal chords is in full evidence (a condition perhaps partially caused by substance abuse, which he hid from John [um, the vocal damage, not the substance abuse]). Some of the vocals are downright whispery and cracky, which they tried (and sometimes succeeded) to use to their advantage. But what the album lacks in soaring vocals, it more than makes up in songwriting and production. The original title was allegedly HARRY PUSSIES, but unsurprisingly the record company rejected what would have been one of the greatest album titles ever. Lennon stayed true to his role as producer, giving only one brief vocal cameo, but the chemistry is wonderful, with appearances by Ringo Starr, Keith Moon, and a host of other usual suspects.
(1) Many Rivers to Cross
The Jimmy Cliff song that was the lead single and arguably the most brilliant track - you may never want to stop listening to it.
(2) Subterranean Homesick Blues
A Dylan number that might not stand well on its own, but in the context of the album is spot-on.
(3) Don't Forget Me
A sweet, poignant song about love lost, with occasional injections of gallows perspective (see the alimony and cancer lines). Brilliantly covered on Neil Diamond's DREAMS.
(4) All My Life
Okay, maybe this is the most brilliant track - an upbeat, irreverent look at a life well-wasted.
(5) Old Forgotten Soldier
A blues hall self-lamentation of a soldier put out to pasture.
(6) Save the Last Dance for Me
The Drifters gem, delivered with sweeping sweetness and sincerity.
(7) Mucho Mungo/Mt. Elga
The Lennon/Nilsson tune that originally appeared on WALLS AND BRIDGES. A semi-obligatory toss-off.
(8) Loop De Loop
A Ted Vann cheeser that loiters around "so bad it's good". Maybe it's just bad, but within the context of the album you can't hate it. Well, i can't anyway. British mums sang it to their babies. Aww.
(9) Black Sails
The most bizarre entry, with funereal nautical imagery and a Carly Simon reference.
(10) Rock Around the Clock
The Bill Haley classic rompingly rendered.
(11)* Down By the Sea
A bouncy head-swayer, superior to the more polished version that would appear on DUIT ON MON DEI.
(12)* The Flying Saucer Song
Loosey-goosey goodness, MUCH superior to the DUIT version.
(13)* Turn Out the Light
A fun kids bedtime tune (also better than the DUIT version).
(14)* Save the Last Dance for Me
A demo, before Harry lost his range. Tantalizing...you'll spend hours trying to decide which version you like better.

*25th Anniversay bonus tracks

your

Your conclusions are wrong
Your objectivity not strong
Your assumptions i gong
Your reasoning sucks dong
Your humanity gone long

no fad

Going along when you're glad
Commiserating when you're mad
Consoling when you're sad
Rejoicing when you're rad
Helping when you've been had
A spanking when you're bad
Ignoring you just a tad
Our friendship?
No fad