Public Journal:

 I totally agree. It seems like a dead end sometimes, but we have got to keep it going. I am personally in a situation, rather, have been, for ever since I can remember reminiscent of Sartre's No Exist.  Incidentally, it was that play, in addition to the novel Nausea,which finally made up my mind to become an existentialist.  It is through the saving grace of Sartre, that I am probably still alive.  That's what I love about philosophy, it became essential to me, and it so remains.

 This is why I can feel like shit monday, and save my dough and fly to europe in the summer, which I plan to.

 This is why I could at once barely tolerate certain situations, while at the same time relishing the thought of being immersed in it.  And that is why I can write in Hebrephrenic expressions, while knowing it may not sound so as a free form of expression in the new writing.

I used to be very lonely, especially when it came to philosophy. I would have liked to talk to more people about it, but I wasn’t very familiar with the internet and so forth. To take comfort in my isolation I assumed that isolation led to originality. I would imagine myself, writing a thousand page ‘masterpeice’ throughout my life (a life that may or may not have been social, but definetly not in terms of philosophy/art/intellectual conversations).

So there I’d be with my book, and let’s assume it is actually one that many would appreciate, and I knew I was about to die. A gene came and asked me if I wanted him to put the book in the hands of a good publisher or burn it and give me a week long vacation in the tropics before I died. The latter! Such an obvious choice.

It’s very easy and only three days a week. In other words; a nightmare. What fun it was when I used to be a manager working 60 hours a week. Damn it that was years ago. I’m grown restless enough to vollunteer 10 hours a week, but a new career, if even feasable would only be run under again from my… well you put it better last February:

First of all, thanks again guys for showing up.

And Stuart…. You Abstract? Or are you just quoting him. Anyway:

And, Obe, isn’t that the reason to be for a lot of Sartre’s earlier writings –primarily Le Etre le Neant . We have to put in mind here that Sartre wrote a lot of it while he was a prisoner of war as a resistance fighter and knew that anyone, at anytime, could be tortured in order to get information. He had to think in terms of pure free will and later admitted that as an underlying justification for his thought.

But it saved you. And from a pragmatic perspective: that’s all that matters.

However, I would offer an alternative perspective on Sartre’s perspective. I have, throughout my life, gone through a lot shit phases. And throughout it all, I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to fix them and prevent them from happening again. And the only real answer I have found came from a documentary on people stranded in snowstorms. At the end of it, they pointed out research that defined an MO for those that tend to survive such situations: they’re generally people who accept that it doesn’t really matter whose fault it is that they’re in the situation; they don’t expend energy on assigning blame; they simply recognize that it is their problem and that if they just keep trudging on, it will pass one way or the other.

And you’re right: I really do need to get back to Nausea and No Exit.

Tonight, at the bar, Stuart, I was on the patio of the bar having a cigarette with 2 other guys. One was talking about people’s gambling addictions. I decided to be publically philosophical (something I don’t normally do) by pointing out that there is an underlying psychological aspect to all such self destructive behaviors. I started with the example of a woman who stays in an abusive relationship. I argued that if something is tearing down your self esteem, then there would be only thing that would build it up more than anything: the very thing that tore it down in the first place. This is why abusive men tend to give their victims moments of affection. And the same goes for gambling addictions. The gambling addict doesn’t care if they come out ahead in the long run. All they care about is the “good run”. And the same can be said of the drug addict. What they are always trying to get back to is that feeling of being on top of the world. And, unfortunately, the same principle seems to be at work with people like us. Through our efforts, we achieve that feeling of being on top of world. But when we reach those phases where we seem to have lost our Mojo, we keep on keeping on in hopes of getting it back. This has killed many great minds and artists.

Unfortunately, this was lost on the person I was explaining it to. He focused on the abused woman and distinguished the 2 by pointing out that a gambling addiction was one thing, but if someone abused a woman, he would kick their ass. Hard to disagree with that.

But I think the incident properly illustrates the isolation we feel as the intellectually curious. It’s why I don’t talk a lot about what I have learned with normal people.

While having a cigarette on that patio, I was looking at the Bag and Save and the landscape in general and wondering if Van Gogh’s style of painting could capture it. The architecture of the Bag And Save just seemed too straight-lined for Van Gogh’s more organic style. It just seemed to me that someone like Steeler would be far more equipped to capture it.

I found what you said on gambling/art very interesting. I was addicted to art and I guess I was in denial. Now I’m fully aware of my addiction, though it’s more of a disposition. As I’ve been telling obe and others I would trash ti if I could, but only medicine can relieve such symptoms only to be a replaced addiction with it’s own set of side effects. So I’m one does art and philosophy against my will. The highs come occasionally and the lows are the norm. keep in mind what I was saying about the 1000 page book was an idea I ‘suffered’ from many years ago, I don’t see myself going anywhere with this philosophy and even if vague goals do come up they are against my will. So burning my work for a couple pennies rather than a vactaion is hardly an exageration. I hope I’m not being too graphic but what you see with me here is someone who perpetually vomits, not that you all are enablers, if it wasn’t for forums such as this it would be as if my mouth was closed shut, damnit I’ve been averaging 15 posts a day for the last two months. My words had been repressed for lack of much company from about eight years ago to three years ago, such a back log.

But, I’m getting off topic, I like to watch nfl/nba, I don’t even try to deny myself it anymore, because I heard another good psychological insight a couple years ago. Guys are used to pack hunting, being stuck getting our food at the store, some kind of pitiful replacement such as sports on TV is better than nothing, but I don’t want to really talk sports it’s always very contrived.

It’s interesting what the guy said about beating up abusers. Such ‘moral’ sentiments are common; ‘if I saw a hungry child I would feed him’; right… hungry children are everywhere, people just don’t look. If the guy wants to beat up abusers (as if that would accomplish anything in the long run) then they’re not hard to find.

Stuart:

my friend !!!

?: you abstract…

miss you, abstract…

It’s time to go back to normal…

:chores-mop:

I emphasize with Abstract, being that I when I was 25 I was a writer asking all the difficult questions and near death. I wish I had got to know him better, but he didn’t like to follow up very long with the answers I gave to his questions prefering to discuss those of others. I respected that, the answers I developed to life’s questions are really not the preferable one’s to have, even though I feel I must share them.

:chores-laundry:

](*,)

My last poem sucked. I admit it. But one of things I’ve noticed is this draw to abstraction. And I’m not sure if it is because of middle age, or that I am truly burnt out, or because of my turn to philosophy.

 Stuart:  people always wonder about me I seem to go in a daze, head in clouds, philosophically speaking, and bars: yes: I sued to have a bar, but in ee cummings fashion like there are 21 ways of looking at a blackbird, it had its place time. Now it is a Jewish mortuary. Ironic.  I could write well not thousand maybe 20 pages about just that bar, but no, drink makes me forget nuances, it's been a while$

But I discovered gene pitney there and diana ross, some day will be together, and course read sartre. The beach during the day and nights at bar. Nights of Calabria in this case santa monica.

Someday will revisit, and start smoke grass, but now have to put in good example because just got daughter off it, and her husband, who got out of prison recently for possession.

Sartre! Where have all those existentially reduced days when nothing else mattered as the nights perfumed by roses? Walks along the boulevard, seeing the sun set as you were walking east on the boulevard,and just talking down the boulevard. Or really walking down the boulevard of the real sartre, the real paris boulevard of Kerouac’s Satori in paris, where yes, you can paint yourself into a very blue van gogh night.

It’s a dream. They are the puppeteers like the waiter in nausea, and I am on a string. Or vica versa.
(There was a song by a blue singer say 20-30 years ago two black brothers one was bobby purify, he had a great son “I’ a puppet”. Back in those days songs meant more than they represented, just the other then what your schizo-analysis indicates, that words nowadays can’t express meaning in totality.

Now just cut and dry, and don’t get m$e wrong, I have always been a weekend warrior, never had my hair long, always had to work, since the age 12 ever since getting off the boat at ellis island, and when c.1968 my friend terry asked me to go to monterey with them in their bus, to see big brother with janis joplin, I knew I couldn’t because I had to work at terminal annex post office in los angeles, where bukovsky of post office fame worked same time, I may have bumped into him many times, isn’t it incredible?

Then after reading about him and reading him, thought well, here is another kraut with a great longing which never ever will go away.  The only other local writer comparable is john fante.  who wrote bunker hill, a great piece of fiction.

Well so long for now from your friend obe

obe, d63, I can use the word friend, but not without contrivance anymore than someone at the equator can speak of snow. But, you’re both welcome.

Stuart!

we are adopting to each other’s way of saying things…

I mean,

Think about that…

Obe!

Well now that I am sober, and remembering you implying that it’s a good idea to write to each other rather than at other, the word gambling in your initial few paragraphs comes through. And I will respond to that adequately tomorrow. As far as friendship is concerned, stuart’s conditional friendship is very real in light of the fact that some of these communications are resoundingly more literal, our imagination having a hard time how to delineate
Exact meaning, description. I try to contextual in an effort to de construct a singularly constructed set of ideas:::and I think this effort have been very early on sowed with seeds of thought movement beyond a purely reduction of the phenomenal. At this stage, I can best express myself purely visually, and better yet as a half asleep man would: through the utilization of dadaism, surrealism, and alchemy. So do not get me wrong, I do not do this in order to b e unique, or having ideas of attention/deficit compensation, such as the wish to stand out stylistically, but in fact, that is what I have been trying to do for quite a long time. It is not by any means original, but I have been taking off from places where others have left off.

But give me a day or two upon proper review of your subsequent message, and I will more properly prepare myself for it, if I feel I am even capable of it.

 And if I feel I am not capable , I will try answering, nevertheless.

Pass the apple sauce please; we are friends ------ to be clear ------ is it apple season? Yes, I really like them, I mean in pie or by themself, I don’t… well, ok I’ll have some; what is friendship, but a split second when people’s values intersect and needs spiral in recipricosity; my brother, you will always be my brother, we have shared so much, I would do much for you if you needed it; that is I understand the dynamic of the joy I get in being beholded to one such as you, who I can help in an ease of manner and with a light step knowing that all (who matter) believe in our mutual obligations.

Not even to blame he who no longer would know you, it’s not that they feign nonrecognition, they see you in another layer of meaning, one would recognize one in another layer of meaning with more trouble than to recognize one with another layer of skin, or without any.