Goodbye Charles B and the 90's

I gave away the Bukowski collection today. It went to a 22 year old writer and student who likes "Irish Yoga" and Jameson. He was very happy to have them. I privately wished him well in his Bukowskian phase. I was there once, that place where the stupidity of loafing drunk had all the wisdom of my world. It was good to give that crap away. Bukowski had a wryness that coated his cynicism and passive aggressiveness. I could relate, I was consumed by the same point of view and used similar toxic means to get there. But I had to get a life. He had his, and lived longer than what one would expect given his boozing and carrying on. I couldn't take that chance. There is only room for a few Bukowskis on the planet at any given time. The poetic and amusing and tragic but not lethal drunk is a rare role and one can't really prep for it - it just sort of happens by default.

O don't ask why, O don't ask why.

Get High-Larious

OK. Taking call at the Occupational Med clinic. Its Saturday night. We are open for "emergencies". Young "dude" from a well known Auto Parts Store Chain is here in his work outfit with girl in hand. He is lightedheaded, dizzy and has trouble remembering things. He says its from inhaling some sort of AC fluid vapors he was moving around.

OK. Fair enough. Sounds pretty bad.

So.... I go outside to get something out of the car. Its a nice warm San Fernando Valley summer evening - just starting to cool down from the mid-90's earlier. And as I walk past the couple who are now outside I have to laugh because its High-larious. They are both smoking.

So the questions come quick (but not to judge): what the hell are they smoking? does he think I am smoking the same thing? is smoking a cig considered an inhalation injury? he didn't mention his most obvious symptom: stupidity, why not? was he too high to remember that he suffers from stupidity?

Sadly, we will run some "tests" which will be normal. I won't tell him directly that he is FOS (Full of Shit, Fool on Ship, Farking Obviously Stupid and just wants to get off work for the night so he go get more "lightheaded" with his chick). No, I will be very nice and act as if something is really physically wrong. And the clinic will make 2- 3 hundred bills off this moron.

And people wonder why worker's comp insurance premiums are so high? (These kinds of one time reassurance visits don't add much to the cost in the sysytem, but he just may pursue this claim and become a professional patient paid to not work and take medical tests and exams - these are the ones that place a big burden on the rest of us. But he is young and can still make the career change because it probably looks like a better deal than retail at an auto supply store).

Kala Chakra

Sometimes it takes awhile. Sometimes it takes five years. One has to wait, listen, wait, listen and listen and wait. There really isn't much to say. But then, after five years, there is so much to say but by then one has forgotten all the so muchness.

So I am calling myself out as a communist. That is if I believe in one thing, it is just that: communing. Blending. Merging. Emerging.

The paradoxes (paradoxi?) haven't left. They have been rearranged. So many opposites, too many at times. I have made truces and then broken them off. I have waged all out wars on Mondays and unconditional surrenders on Tuesdays. Its the ebb and flow of mind and times. Time - the Kala Chakra - always gets the last laugh so why should I be concerned about anything? Oh I know, my egocentric karmic conditioning (thanks Cheri Huber) refuses to step down. Well, in this next moment you (EKC) are not the boss of Me and Time can laugh loud and long and forever and I have no problem with that.

Peace.

For this Now.

Tsunamic Waves of Reflection

I was made aware that the most massive of human tragedies in recent human history did not make my list of top/bottom ten. How could one honest and sensitive type have overlooked such a universal calamity?

Isn't it interesting that the most pressing and important challenges of our lives often fall to such categories as: "later", "unconscious neglectfulness", "being in that reality is just too painful, lets make coffee" etc. And the tsunami ultimately presents itself as a 20 to 40 foot world wide wave of challenge to all of humanity at all levels of human beingness. We so desperately and quickly go to "why?" and "how?" and often skip right over "what's appropriate now?" We want to prevent such tragedies in the future, we want to learn and yet these impulses often lead us to not be present with what is happening front and center. With ease we slip into analysis and Monday morning quarterbacking, and while all the debate ensues, the recoiling from the waves impact continues. The wave, in this case, is both real and metaphorical. A very large impulse of energy occurs (in this case simply part of the pulse that started with the big bang, and led to Earth's formation, and shifting tectonic plates, earthquakes and tsunamis) and kaboom. We see the dramatic impact with that which appears to be static. The "plop" of the stone tossed into the still water of the clear and calm pond calls our attention and we are drawn to the primal event, the splash. Its exciting and compelling. The ripples extend to the edges and then reflect back and by that time we have lost interest. And where are the tsunami stories now, delegated to the back pages at best.

So perhaps it was with these sentiments in the background of my mind that I neglected one of Nature's most powerful events occurring just tens of miles from where I was. What was appropriate in this moment? My answer was to keep on seeing India, passing my rupees through the economy, checking in on fellow planetary citizens, mourning the human losses and marveling at the human responses. I was not compelled to "help" firsthand at the beaches; my instincts and experience in India told me the challenges would be largely logistic. There appeared to be no shortage of people to help rebuild and tend to injured - there had to be huge problems and bottlenecks in getting the experts and goods to the devastated. If I had ventured forth I would lay claim to food and shelter that could have been used for others. In addition, I was on a media fast, somewhat unintended, and was not struck by horrific TV and newspaper images on a daily, if not hourly, basis. This was how I went through it, and I don't know if it was the right or best way. This may explain why it did not have such a large impact and didn't make the list. Other factors are the list is slightly "tongue-in-cheek". It has a humorous, somewhat light tone and how does one weave one quarter of million instant dead into that without appearing disrespectful. And finally, I was quite overwhelmed by the chaos and desperation that was happening on a regular basis as I moved through inland India. It was hard for me to put the millions of instant homeless-aires just over the mountains into an appropriate context.

In this light, a new India bottom 10:
1 through 10:
Tsunami (T)suck.

Reductio Absurdio: The Trip In The Ever-Popular Listmania Format

John's India 2005 Top and Bottom 10

Bottom 10
10. All manner of biting and infesting bugs.
9. If the old slogan "honk if your horny" is true than India is perhaps the randiest nation on earth. There is an everpresent cacaphony of noise, often loud.
8. Trashy streets, trashy yards, trashy lots and no trashy lingerie. How bad is it? A wastebasket has to be dressed up like a 5 foot rabbit to get any notice and thereby use.
7. Slow, insidious death by rupee. At every interface there seems to be someone trying to get those rupees from your wallet by all manners and means (begging, services, etc). And whatever you thoughtfully deliver is never quite enough. This seems to happen over and over again as you go through your "errands".
6. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust; Mother India is Dust Bowl champion again.
5. Teeming masses and seething poverty - reminiscent of Dante's imagery of hell with thousands of desperate, wailing souls in foreground and background.
4. Caution: when traveling the rough and bouncy roads of India it is helpful to not look forward. Why? Because it is too emotionally draining to constantly have your entire freakin' life flash before you eyes. How many close encounters with the grim reaper do you need in one trip to the post office? If you haven't gotten it yet, these guys drive like Matrix wannabees, that is, totally nuts and risk-taking.
3. Welcome to St. India's Nationwide Rehabilitation Hospital. Its bold concept is to actually have no physical plant or patient rooms: all the deformed, mutilated and paraplegic patients will have the freedom to roam or slither everywhere. We call it patient empowerment.
2. Last I checked seeing the air you breath is not a good thing. I might be funny that way, call me a renegade, I just feel that air should be breathed and not seen.
1. Yes, lets march to free the farm animals; lets not forget that you can't free the animals without freeing the animal poo too. Needed road sign in India: Watch for falling cow dung. One false step and your up to your ankles in warm, soft, slippery and stinky stuff. Now that makes for a lovely day, doesn't it?

And now the top 10.
10. Where else can you get a full and tasty breakfast for 23 cents?
9. They love flowers and put them everywhere - cars, food stalls etc. Its a very nice touch.
8. Truly awesome tea or chai, as its known there.
7. The blessing of just about everything all the time.
6. Yogis and yantras, pundits and puranas, mantras and mudras, Ganeshas and gurus.
5. The desire to please is so prevalent, almost to the point of being displeasing. They, the Indians, really seem to care that you are enjoying their services and goods. They don't "mail it in".
4. Real Pilgrims. Thousands walk hundreds of miles often barefoot to the holy shrines for their spiritual sadhana. Inspiring to say the least.
3. Smiles. There, there is mainly the Now, they live in the present which increases the Presence and its byproduct: smiles.
2. Living life in the symbolic realm, so much so that one loses the distinction between the map (symbol) and the territory (material reality). This can lead to intoxication... God intoxication.
1. Yoga.

India-a-holia

How ironic is it that this birthplace of so many of the worlds religions has managed to induce utter a-hole behavior out of one somewhat peaceful minded guest? The sad fact is, what with the language barrier and sheer desperation of the masses here, the only thing that seems to work is a skillfully blended combination of "stink-eye", "silent treatment", and "snarl" with an occasional forceful "no". There is eternal fixation on the rupee mixed with the petulant demanding of the offering of a particular service like carrying a bag 4 feet, turning on the AC in the car, catching a short ride in a very slow and diesel dust spewing tricycle kind of thing. OK, so the nice relatively rich Westerner gives in, offers a smile and asks himself, "why the hell not?". This is followed by the exhortation of a "tip" (in my mind/culture that means optional) - with the rupee number well out of line with prevailing wage and remuneration patterns. So I offer a fair tip in consideration of said patterns which is met with a growl, howl, and mean threats which while mysterious in content (I don't know word one of Kannadian) are quite obvious in tone. I am reduced to walking around ignoring the people's faces; less engagement, less chance for these heart-hardening, feather-ruffling interactions.

"You Come.... Next One..... You Come... Yes, Next One...."

And so it goes for hours.


This is the sound of dawn in Mysore at the Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga Research Institute. The non-Indians are up before the Indians and breathing/sweating with abandon and verve. I could call them Westerners, but there are a number of Japanese in our midst. Perhaps first worlders would be more appropriate. We have come with visions of yogic bliss and impossible backbends in our psyches. We have the strong idea that these two very different things are, in fact, the two ends of a chemical reaction. Backbends lead to bliss and bliss returns the favor and propels the backbend into ever and evermore anato-geometrical absurdity.

It goes like this: 65 minutes of intense postures with jumps, lifts, floats, flattenings and twists. The breath is controlled, often poorly, with "ujjayi" pranayama. The gaze is softened with previously agreed upon focus points known as the drishti. The mind is harnessed with intense concentration on posture, breath, gaze and perhaps "Ishwara Pranidhana" (praise, honor to the Higher Power de Jour). Guruji and family reitereate the call for the next first worlder to come in from the waiting room. They are sequestered there, watching their fellow aspirants tackle the pratice (sadahana) through an opened, completely regular-sized door. The watcher-waiters wonder if they are next or not. Like so much of the Indian experience what appears random is not and what appears orderly is not. Its never what you think it is so you learn rather quickly not to think. As far as I can tell there are no "Policy and Procedures" notebooks sitting anywhere in the land otherwise known as Bharata. This keeps you guessing until the mind finally gives up on guessing. I find that when I give up guessing what's next, there is not as much going on upstairs. Its like your apartment neighbor has finally given up the lively and loudish arguement he was having with the wife and some peace ensues; as above, so below. And then that ephereal state of beingness ensues or, paradoxically, complete idiocy and resultant "deer in the headlights" state of awareness.

"Next One", Guruji call out in the Kannadian accented English. Another backbend victim has just been felled like some kind of Redwood behemoth in the forest. For at the end of the 70 or so minutes comes the backbend sequence which I still haven't fully figured out. They "help" (fine line between help and hindrance here) you do three dropbacks with your arms crossed across the chest. Scary? You bet it is, especially since they don't speak English! On the fourth pass into the world behind your head you are gestured to grab your feet, calves etc. Do the geometry. A compromising position, indeed. In a flash you are upright and motioned down to the mat sitting. Whereupon, with enthusiasm and glee they press your shoulder blades to your knees with purposeful, workmanlike action. This is not a subtle adjustment. Then comes the yoga mating call, "You come". You are given the nod and sent to the changing room to finish off your practice with about 10 more postures.

"Next one".

"You come".

"You come".

It goes on and on for hours, and I know each "next one" represents one of us Indian-sort-of-wannabes who has just had his back mashed like a polywog in some 4th graders' science experiment.

Blissed out yet?