The Facebook Conspiracy

Recently , I joined "Facebook" . I did apply in August of this year but found that they wanted my license picture or some form of identification and backed out . Last week I decided to take a pic of me holding my license from my camcorder . It came out blurry but they accepted it so I could upload some of my music if I wanted . I did upload music and photos of paintings much as I have on other sites I have built that have no social interaction . In under a week I build a rather complicated set of pages , some of which I actually couldn't seem to navigate myself . I was happy to connect with quite a few people , some of whom I haven't seen in a long time . Generally , the "Facebook" thing was coming along till last night when , out of the corner of my eye, I saw the CBS News saying something about "Facebook".

I was happy that the article came fairly quickly in the program as it seems when I tune in to find out something about the morning weather , I always catch the weather person saying , "When we come back , we'll talk about the coming blizzard.." , or something of that sort . The "Facebook" story was about the fact that "Facebook" claims ownership of everything that is uploaded to their site . In the television article there were family pictures and a mother saying something about how she didn't want those pictures to be used in the future by "Facebook" . I thought to myself ," Who would want photos of that ugly baby ?" It also occurred to me that my mug shots would sure not be sought out by the local pedophiles or father rapers or who ever the threat is coming from , anyway . The doctored photo shown here of me and "Beka of Atenbrook farm" or Akhnaton's sister who married her her own father Ammonophis III about three thousand or so years ago, also seem to be not exactly what would be sought after in "Facebook". What did make me delete most of my uploaded photos and music was after I went into the terms and conditions of "Facebook" and found exactly what the CBS News was reporting , namely that "Facebook" claimed ownership of all things published on their sites for perpetuity . Gee , "Perpetuity" is a long time . I probably won't last till the time comes , if it ever comes . There are groups of "Facebook" participants joined together in class action suits to test the legality of the terms and conditions set forth by "Facebook" . I wonder if I will live to see the outcome of that , oh , I probably will . I never thought I would live this long and even last week I wondered if I would live to see my birthday a few days ago . I made it !

Those things coming out of the corner of the eye can be informative as well as erroneous . I mean , sometimes you merely get an impression . If you see a car coming at you out of the corner of your eye , you tend to move . it isn't that one doesn't occasionally see things or imagine things and jump when there is nothing . Some things are more obvious than others like the weather . Bob Dylan once wrote ,"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows ," yet it would be nice if the weatherman could tell you if there is an accumulation of snow expected in the morning . Sometimes I think that the local weather people are more involved with maintaining their expensive suits than predicting actual weather events . They seem to just fill air time with promises of predicting what will be when they never say anything at all . This is a lot like the football commentators who always say something like "You have to move the ball down the field ." Football fans , in general , already have the gist of the goals of football . I mean , you end up having to get up in the morning to find out what is happening instead of watching it on the news the previous night . It might not be the actual report or the way it is reported but the way you think about it . You can't always believe what you think .

I saw a self help program , again out of the corner of my eye , where they gave many points about positive thought and movement and changing your life , most of which I forgot as soon as it was mentioned . The one point I did remember was ,"Don't always believe what you think ." Every moment we all are imagining many ideas , they come and go , some stick to the mind , and some don't , just like the dreams we have when we are asleep . Sometimes thoughts of jealousy or of devious conspiracies that would be seen as schizophrenic proof to phychoanalyst , come and go with the rest of the thoughts . This doesn't mean that your wife or husband is cheating or that your friend at work is trying to get your job , in fact , they are just fleeting thoughts without substance . You can't really believe everything that comes to mind . The thoughts of murder and suicide come and go yet most people don't act on these thoughts except for those who really do have schizophrenic symptoms , imagining and believing things that have no substance , acting on their dreams . Those father rapers sure are a strange group . What could they be thinking ? Oh well , they probably just don't get the credit they deserve or something like that ...

All this has made my "Facebook" site come to a clean start . I will probably be more careful what I am posting but I will bring back some of the music and a few paintings . I might even go out searching for ugly babies that I can store in my photo album . My blog might be still be harmless enough for "Facebook" . It is like the idea of the government looking in and reading the Email of the American people . What dummy has that job ? This is just another example of military intelligence . In passing , for that poor FBI or "Homeland Security" agent ,I might as well put the word "Taliban" just to get on the national weather map .

Big City Rush Day

Blogs are kind of new to me and I must admit that I don't really write too much unless I am in a bad mood or get off on a tangent on a subject that is hiding in the back of my mind . I think that this also was a lot of my inspiration as a poet or song writer in the sixties . I did write poetry in response to occurrences , most of which were not happy memories like a betrayal , loneliness , or the frustration of those times . I wrote of prejudice ,bigotry, against the current war ( Viet Nam ),and the possibility equality in our country . I certainly wasn't the only person wrapped tight in the drama of that time as my entire generation seemed to be linked in many ways . Those "Beat" poets of yesteryear like Ferlinghetti had more meat on their bones and in their intelligent semantics in the fifties . There was a group f men in the late sixties that I admired ,who were ahead of their time called "The Last Poets" . This group of men recited their poetry to the rhythm of heavy congas and bongos , heavy rhythm . Their line was rather sensational and well might be seen as a fore runner of "Rap" .

After the break up of my band , "Circus Maximus" , in early 1968 , I still had contact with "The Electric Circus" and I sold them the idea of performing poetry on their stage . They agreed to my original idea which was to have four mikes places across the large stage while I paced and ranted my lines with the music of Morton Subotnic , their resident electronic composer , behind my recitation .They insisted that I sing a solo version of "Wind" once a night as well which was a recognisable song I wrote in that era . I was paid twenty five dollars to do one poetry reading and one song and this helped me to transition to my next group .

The poetry reading would seem , at a distance, to be a calmer thing than it was in real life . As I ranted across the stage building tension , the music building volume as I instructed , the audience seemed wrapped , concentrating on my every word . I was surprised at the violence I could bring up in my inflection and suggestions . My performance was a-rhythmic and not on the beat while the electronic music disoriented and raised tension in the disco crowd of the dance club .There was tumultuous applause after every performance and I came off soaking wet from perspiration from that mere ten minutes or less . I also used sensational language not usually seen in public which is also something that is used in modern "Rap" poetry as a vehicle . The fact is that I couldn't remain that angry all the time . I just didn't get the inspiration to write angry as my habits in poetry were more toward the lyrical love reflections . However ,I did have that experience of pretending I was a poet , acting on stage in a character as I recited my story night after night .This wasn't really my calling to be an act in the "Circus" , in the character of a strange mad poet . The "Electric Circus" had other incidental acts which included karate men in black dojos doing katas , tumblers , jugglers , clowns,tight rope walkers, and the "Lamp Man" . The "Lamp Man" was a black actor who was dressed neatly in a tuxedo who came to the mike in a pin spot that was directed to his face . He would start moaning quietly and build his expression and intensity little by little until he was screaming at the top of his lungs and suddenly the spotlight would go out for a minute , unseen ,he would leave the stage ,and then the circus would re-appear along with reality . I think this act as well as my own portrayal were related to by the audiences of that time . The "Electric Circus" was really ahead of it's time and maybe was never duplicated in that scope of popularity again for something like poetry and acting as an expression of frustration for a entire generation who related to our stage acts in the abstract , accepting and encouraging us .

"Big City Rush Day"

Run rush push shove
Run rush push shove
Big city rush day ,
Get up make your bread lady,
Don't make the bed creaky,
Don't make the bread lady , there's no time ,
Go make your bread,don't clear your head ..
Take the subway , no time for bus today ,
Can't afford the cab anyway .
Have another smoke hippie .
Hold it in don't let em see ,
You nigger lovin' hippie city ,
Zoo and your plastic park pity ,
Hurry , see the monkey titty,
Monkey woman, east-side kitty ,with an
Obviously too busy sissy.
The office prude and pervert who sees
His secretary pinching and bitchy,
Cheetah , dancing empty nightclub,
Magic light show city ,
City stars , super stars, and pseudo-stars,
The rich and gay pretenders .
One dog barking in at two thirty in the hot night city ,
One man whistling a different tune than you , city .
Run rush push shove ,
Run rush push shove,
Lunchtime , hurry up , spend it ,
Eat it up ,blend it , apprehend it , mend it ,
Fuck it !
Oh, lonely subways , crowded with ones ,
Lonely ones crowded with twos ,
Big blues city hippy cry baby ,
Hard news maybe ..
Stone wall flinging music ,
Pity no ones listening two three
Two three , testing two three..
Four Christ sake or for the money ,
Not a rat race ,kitty,
Just a mouse trap apartment ,
See how they run ,eeny meeny ?
Run nigger don't let go ,
Equal opportunity blow ,
Job ,
Run rush push shove
Run rush push shove,
Hurry home with everyone else day ,
Same time , same station , some waiting ,
waiting....to hurry up to wait ,
to hurry up to wait .
Can't wait to hurry ,
.... and wait , wait ,
Weight machines and candy bars ,
waiting to hurry up and work ,
Waiting mirrors combing self consciously his beard .
Run rush push shove ,
Run rush push shove,
Big show, big deal, bid dream city ,
Big phony , carnal,business city ,
Businessman's lies and wives city ,
Big Italian scene stealers with,
Mafia endorsed "Soul healers" .
Bleeding city ,no one cares .
Run rush push shove ,
Run rush push shove,
Folk city guitars and waitress village ,
Plastic sawdust for the weekend hippy ,
Won't let 'em in on Monday mornings .
Run rush push shove,
Run rush push shove,
Big divorce and venereal project
On the lower East Side Ghetty,
Puerto Rican Queen , pretty ,
Caucasionated black beauty ,
Integrating slap happy ,
Hippy nude model , A cheapy chippie ,
Takin' a toke seven to nine ,
Moroccan hash , downing cheap wine ,
Cocaine Sue and Morphine Bob ,
Crashing speed ,
A sexual snob ,
Couldn't stay awake with the heroine too ,
And she had so many children ,
She didn't know what to do .
Welfare fraud and frills ,
Fancy flag waver's yells ,
And skyscraper helmets in Red ,White , and Blue ,
Lower income veterans in khakis , too ..Run rush push shove ..
Run rush push shove,
With so much to do ,
Run rush push shove ,
Run rush push shove,
With nothing to do but
Run rush push shove ,
Run rush push shove
Up the establishment ( and I point into the air , looking aloft in lofty ideals),
Up the establishment ( and I raise my fist into the air ala "Right ON" ),
Up the establishment ( and I Sig hail in a Nazi salute into the air , stiffining my posture )
Up the establishment ! (louder)
Up the establishment ! ( louder...)
Up the establishment ! ( screaming as I defiantly give the air the middle finger )

FUCK THE ESTABLISHMENT !

Warmth

So many things are taken for granted in our modern world . The warmth of water is so nice . This wasn't always a given item in our world ,this flow of warmth . The Romans could warm their baths but they couldn't warm the water to households . The two thousand years of aqueduct technology flowing into modern plumbing also didn't guarantee warm water to people across America during the Civil War period . The outhouses continued well into the twentieth century without warm water or taps to wash hands . The warm shower is a luxury of our time that is taken for granted till the electricity is taken away by emergency situations . Simple pleasures are simply not so simple ,relying upon so many backstage elements to make them beautiful .

As we look at a little screen and communicate , shooting arrows into the air , who knows where or where they come down , the simple pleasures seem removed . The dot com world takes for granted that people have the top technology when they turn on their computers . Television news programs broadcast their network dot com addresses as if all their viewers have computers on all the time and can jump up directly after the broadcast , go to the address and start typing responses to the editorials . In reality , out of the three hundred million people that have been noticed in the United States alone , I have to wonder at the exaggeration of the possibilities of actual viewers or possible participants . Could it be as little as a few million ? The world percentage of computer communicators has to be much smaller than the States .

It isn't like I am not aware of the entertainer that plays to the house as if it is filled and he is singing to the back row as if they are there . The thing is I am wished "Happy Ramadan" these years and the population of Muslims , while it might be a little higher percentage in the Washington DC area, might be about ten million throughout the entire country . I am wished happy Hanuka and there might be five million Jewish people . Christmas became a dirty word in a country that is primarily Christian . This country which , on the surface , espouses "Freedom of religion" will not recognise a population that doesn't wish to accept the idea of an invisible man looking over everything or divine design . So the network , corporate news , reported from the point of view of sponsors and advertising , will continue to play to the lower denominator . Sex sells . Youth sells . Superstition sells . Religion sells .

Wait a minute , Religion kills , superstition kills , the youth are drafted to kill , and with the advent of aids , sex kills . Yesterday I saw that it was reported that one out of twenty people in Washington DC have the aids virus . Africa would laugh and point at this statistic if it weren't so tragic . Africa and China aren't dwelling upon the simple pleasure of warm water or plumbing except in areas that get attention (Ala Beijing) . The actual numbers of computers in China have not been calculated by American advertising though they are well aware of the lower cost to produce from China . Corporate news isn't concerned about simple pleasures , only the selling of their product . They are singing to the back row but there is no one there except the American public watching television , switching channels during the commercials , and tuning out the rest of the world . Is this what we meant to do ?

Is this the results of the last eight years ? Is this because we have dug ourselves into a economic hole that the rest of the world is following us into ? Capitalism , the sacred cow , has bred greed of incredible proportions . Instead of making it possible for all Americans to find the "Dream" , the greed has prohibited most Americans from going past simple pleasures . The rest of the world can't worry about America yet they are headed in the same direction . India and China is asked to stop using freon when they are finally getting air conditioning and refrigerators . Why should they care about the illusions of American capitalism or the current illusions of American political environmental controls ? The simple pleasure of freon has to be sacrificed for America ?

I doubt it . I doubt that Cuba will worry about electric cars or emission control . Warm water is such a nice thing .
Happy Ramadan !

Happy Ramadan !