Mereology: The Origins of Garlic Cures and The Art of Telling a Tale of Ragout
by Keith Lyons
birddogbooks.com
Copyright © Keith Lyons 20115
ISBN-13: 978-3932796500
ISBN-10: 3932796500
For Chaos (Harvey), Danger, Gwendolyn and Martina This book is as much a work of fiction as it is a work of nonfiction: This means that a Tale of Ragout is completely based on imagination and, thus, the content of the story is real— as real as anything else you’re experiencing within Your immediate sensory field…as real as anything and everything within a life that fills existence with imagination. Either You can smell the garlic and taste the ragout or no.
Copyright © 2015 by Keith Lyons
All rights reserved
Published somewhere in the world for Bird Dog Books LLC, Dresden, Germany
Book cover layout and design by: Maria Thoene File edited for printing by: Keith Lyons
Mereology: The Origins of Garlic Cures and the Art of Telling a Tale of Ragout has not been properly edited. Due to the difficult nature of some its content combined with the limited budget BirdDogBooks had to work with, there were insufficient funds to hire a qualified editor. If there are any grammatical or syntax errors (that are making Your ragout feel like itis going rank) please feel free to contact the author or the publisher at the addresses found at: BirdDogBooks.com
An Index is not included in Mereology: The Origins of Garlic Cures and the Art of Telling a Tale of, but one is available for free at BirdDogBooks.com. There is also an open forum to ask questions regarding relevant terminology and/or the nature of the source material.
For other books and music videos please go visit our Website: BirdDogBooks.com Table of Contents
Introduction… A Tale of Ragout……………………………...... 1
Chapter 1... Guanxi……………………………………….…...... 4
Chapter 2… Garlic Deliverance and metal ear-scrapers.……13 Chapter 3… Kurt Vonnegut and suicide bombers. Luddites. Syria versus America………………………………….....16
Chapter 4… The Origin of the first "Garlic Cure" is born…...25
Chapter 5… Consciousness and Life: The American Dream became an American Nightmare…………………………...29
Chapter 6… “The Engineering of Consent”.….…...... 32
Chapter 7… Non-Transcendental Philosophy……..………...37
Chapter 8…. Schrödinger’s cat verses a tree that fell in the woods ………………………………………………..……51
Chapter 9…. Subjective-Objective, and a predicated reality...59
i Chapter 10…. Robert Crumb. Bob Crane. John Waters. My father the peach…...……………………………………….69
Chapter 11…. Skateboarding and punk rock: A Fuck You Heroes guide to life……………………………………….. …....72
Chapter 12… Hardcore Punk: Reminiscing…………….…...... 80
Chapter 13….. Aristotle’s A=A as an Ontological axiom. The logic of quantum mechanics …...... 83
Chapter 14…. Phil Donahue and punk rockers………….…….88
Chapter 15…. “Special orders don’t upset us” transform valued life into a disposable some-thing………...………….....94
Chapter 16…. Happy Toons: Meditating…………………..…100
Chapter 17…. Mafia grandfathers……………………………...106
Chapter 18…. Allen Ginsberg’s “America” delivered in garlic sauce……..………………………………………………..114
Chapter 19…. Deceit and psychological warfare……………..119
ii Chapter 20….. Poison program of control and the control applied by authority and power…………………………….….126
Chapter 21…. Cross country bicycle tours and sanity. Richard Dawkins and ignorant Shamanism. An a priori “non- working” model of time………………...………...……136
Chapter 22…. Catholic High School……………….…………..177
Chapter 23…. The vanishing line between sanity, the nuthouse and the outhouse: The American Dream…………….178
Chapter 24…. The American Dream continues………………199
Chapter 25…. Cause and Effect, and the redefining of natural and real numbers…..…………………………………...207
Chapter 26… The Mother of Garlic and her deep fried, two liter bottles of Seagram’s…..………………………………...213
Chapter 27…. My stay an insane asylum comes to an ends...223
Chapter 28…. Decline in garlic consumption feeds consumer capitalism and the “entitlement of purchasing power” ………………………………………………………….227
iii Chapter 29…. Driving on Lakes Shore Drive (LSD)……….…236
Chapter 30… LSD, laughing gas, alcohol, and my first sexual encounters…………………………………………...…..243
Chapter 31... Spinoza, Leibniz and Berkeley dissect the Ancient Greek mereological experience into empirical branches of nothingness……..…………………………..249
Chapter 32… Zen and “violent acts, including homicide, sexual orgies, and gruesome sadistic acts”……………………..266
Chapter 33… Escaping the FBI………………………………...278
Chapter 34… Riding a bike from Minot Montana to Anchorage Alaska…...……………………………………………….284
Chapter 35… Gutting fish on Egegik: Bike trips prosper on the tundra……...…………………………………….……….290
Chapter 36… The Flying Spaghetti Monster verses The Origins of Garlic Cures………………………………….……..…….302
Chapter 37… Leaving for Germany…………………………...313
iv Dinner is served…. On Garlic: “Hail vulgar juice of never-fading garlic, etc., etc” and “Coca-a-Cola® Keep Out!”…………...... 322
Footnotes and further research in the nature of phenomenology as an inquiry based on mereological experience...... 332
Bibliography / Webliography…………………………...……365
Index……………………………… (can be found at) BirdDogBooks.com
Garlic®, it’s the real thing
v
Extra special thanks to Tamara Smith and Keiti Pierce for all of their years of help and support, and special thanks to John Martin, William Wallace, Melissa Taylor, Karl Seckendorf, Dirk Stolte, Matt Vanberg, Maria Thoene for their more recent help. Introduction
‘Who, however, is in doubt ‘and’ awe (thaumázein) about a matter doesn’t believe in the thing to begin with. That is why the friend of Stories (mŷthos) is also in a certain way a philosopher; because the Story arises out of awe.’ (Aristotle’s Metaphysics: Book I. Part II)
In this fragrantly theoretical treatise aka succulent treatise on theoretics aka hoppy memoir—in this Mereology—Garlic is more than just a mawkish vegetable being added to the ragout of life. Garlic is THE STORY TELLER. Allium sativum facilitates the relationship of events in all their past, present and future tenses. In other words, I am is not the one writing this saga because I am is ragout-in-process. And the best one can ever say for my part in these words is that the I am is just the guy delivering them: The I am is, at most, a maître d' bringing The Story. And as far as Garlic Cures go, they and/or it can be thought of as a living flavor enhancer: Garlic Cures is Spiritual MSG. And as this delectable narrative continues to unfold— as this life slowly simmers on the Burner of Existence—you, lovely reader, will come to understand that Garlic and its Cures is not just my story: The Spiritual MSG and Story Teller have been there for others as well.1
1 But before Garlic gets into what you, lovely reader, may or may come to know, understand or believe, I can says that as long as I am continues to simmer on the Burner of Existence, regardless of my place, time and state of awareness in this bathetic account, there are and will always be other ingredients being added: In some instants it’s a creamy heaping of daily grind and at other times it’s a rich pinch of life changing events finding their way into this here and now amalgam, perking up the overall flavor, and making it, the ragout as it is Existence and Life, even more succulent. Then it is precisely
2 through this arbitrary addition of ingredients, which is ordinarily an uncontrollable act of palatable attributes carelessly mingling into the existential pot and ever-so- smoothly blending with the aromatic ragout, whereby the where, when and how of the mouthwateringly tasty aroma of story gets delivered … capriciousness is without a doubt an absolute Life delivering force: Willy-nilly is the unbounded origin, the soul of souls if you will, that makes it all a truly delicious and smelly affair. Though on occasion, fortunate as it is unfortunate, there are those items, those catastrophic fetid events and bitter olfactory elements, that, when unexpectedly introduced, cause mysterious physical and mental distress: The unsuspecting ingredients, or the for lack of more sophisticated wordage “unexpected” and “unwanted fixings”, that should add, by their very nature of existing and living, extra delicious qualities to the masterful ensemble of potentially scrumptious (and ceaselessly fragrant) ragout but appear to be pushing the dinner toward spoiled. And then, as if the rotten appearance wasn’t enough, as the surprise rank elements continue to addle the stock of one’s Life, the at-one- time enchanting ragout starts to accrue reeking potentiality and stinking possibility only deserving ultimate refuge found in the bottom of a garbage can. This flavor spoilage occurs at a time when the main course, as it is a Life appearing to have evolved beyond mere daily special status, seems to have reached the zenith of Story; and it is then, in such an elevated state, that the Life is not even deserving of the dignity of being served— or at least not even being given the illusion of having become a main entrée that was finally prepared. I don’t want to say at the point where and when one has almost died, because one can never really know how close he or she comes or has come to such an illusion, but there are those defining moments when the ragout needs a new chef—a time when the ragout needs new inspiration. It is the moment when the willy-nilly guide, which has been leading the illusions and delusions of one’s life thus far, turns out to have been little more than a misguided
3 (if not completely deranged) cook with absolutely no cooking sensibilities. Moreover, and regrettably so, much too often a viand-life, when it has reached such a point of despair, is already too lost, too frightened and, therefore, too confused in the mix to hear, smell, see and/or taste salvation, and, subsequently, too insecure to recognize the need for a new chef—the life as ragout simply seems to be no longer appetizing: The Life going, going, gone rank has arrived at the juncture where and when all roads appear to be leading one— the ragout—straight into the rubbish bin. As for the outcome of my crossroad being spanned—the catastrophic, unsuspecting, nasty, life altering where and when ingredient delegating me to a new commis chef, and consequently forever changing my ragout in process—I didn’t stumble into the bin of unpalatable entrées defined by unwanted ingredients: I rose to the occasion like a Phoenix rising from out of old life-ashes into a new probable and possible life; full of better illusions and more grandiose delusions. This is to say that instead of this story being nothing more than an after dinner fairytale of dessert, I smelled the Garlic. To this day, some even say I reek of Garlic… I am is fragrant and tasty ragout!
Chapter 1
4 The life changing ingredient inspiring these Garlic Cures and the Art of Telling a Tale of Ragout arrived roughly five miles out from the coastline of China. I was on a day-long kayak trip with my friend, Gerhard, and because he was having problems with his boat we were forced to stop on a tiny island in the Yellow Sea. After having pulled our kayaks onto shore, Gerhard remained near his craft so that he could tend to the mechanical troubles and I—a man without a nautical problems—stepped away from my boat to journey over slippery boulders and large rocks resting in the shallow tide; playfully testing my footwork skills as I made my way to where the sandy shoreline was replaced by a craggy embankment feeding into the ocean. Having gone far enough away from Gerhard and our vessels, I put my hand down on the stony outcrop bridging land and water, stabilizing my stance so that I should then be able to turn my head and look out over the ocean’s expanse, and that’s when an angry, crystal-tooth rock jumped down from the tor and landed on my right hand keeping balance. In an instantaneous explosion of white, blinding light my index, ring and pinky fingers broke and the middle one severed just below the middle knuckle. Within the milliseconds following finger destruction and liberation, there was calm and then a computer-like, categorical calculation as to what the greatest problem facing me was—and it’s not what you, lovely reader, might imagine. While I gazed glassy-eyed at my mangled hand, and, perspicuously, the white lights of deliverance faded, from out of the haze of Life’s injurious deliverances further blitz-quick reckonings revealed what needed to be done in order to resolve, in an efficient and timely manner, a crucial issue not at hand. With my wits coolly collected, I looked over at Gerhard, who was still positioned some fifty meters away on the
5 shoreline, hunched over his kayak, and hollered that we had problems. Gerhard, who is old enough to be my dad, had evolved in our relationship over the twenty months I got to know him in China into one of the few role models I have in this Life. (And I say this in all honesty, and not just because he eventually sculled his ass off getting me and my severed finger back to China in a timely fashion.) But in that moment busy trying to fix the rudder on his kayak, he had little interest in me and my problems. “Yeah, we all got problems!” he barked in frustration; whatever was wrong with his boat wasn’t budging. Not recognizing my somewhat whimsical plea for aid as an honest request for help, he simply returned his strained attention to the problem bedeviling his boat, and I… I, in turn, gathered my wits and finger, and imperturbably headed toward him, stumbling the whole way over the large and small rocks resting in the low surges of ocean water that, through the will of the clockwork of the tides, eternally splashed along the rocky, precipitous embankment. Eventually on even, wet, sandy ground, and no longer caught between the Yellow Sea and the knoll of mischievously if not devilishly amassed, sloping rocks feeding into its waters, I was close enough to Gerhard so that when he looked up he could see my one hand cupped over the other hand that was, unknown to him, holding the severed digit. “Whatcha hurt your finger or something,” he chided sarcastically if not grumpily; still only annoyed by his problem. “Yeah, something like that. But I think my problem’s yours now,” I replied, and opened my hand so that he could see what I was holding.
“Oh, shit,” was about all he could say.
Gerhard was no stranger to danger or the problems that come with being in trouble in isolated locations. Before retiring to China where he found a job teaching English at a university, Gerhard had worked as a parole officer in the
6 outback of British Columbia: It had been his career to fly out to little known, isolated settlements to check up on hardened criminals. But out on the island in the Yellow Sea, somewhere off the coast of China, I knew Gerhard wouldn’t understand my most urgent issue at hand—no pun intended—and so I made no effort to tell him that my finger was the least of my worries.
At first, in a panic, Gerhard wanted to climb the rugged, small island and look for help, but I reminded him of where we were: There was only one way to go, and that was back to mainland China: A feat entailing a five mile fight against wind and current. Honestly, I don’t know if just anyone could have paddled two boats, gear and a helpless person the whole distance back, but, somehow, Gerhard managed to do it in less time than it took us to get out there.
After reaching land, he had to first break down the portable vessels before we could depart on the hour-long ride back to Dalian. As he disassembled the Feathercraft Kayaks, I sat in the rented van with the driver, my finger and hand still in the plastic bag Gerhard had wrapped them in to protect them from the salt water, and watched as Gerhard took apart the boats piece by piece by piece by piece…. The driver of the vehicle, still not grasping the severity of the situation, kept trying to speak to me: Chinese people speak Chinese; this much I had learned in my previous twenty months living in Dalian. And, unfortunately, in this story of ragout, garlic, and garlic cures, I could only sputter a few sentences and a limited number of words in Chinese—not enough to communicate. Following a ten minute exchange of waffle, I removed my hand from the bag and showed the driver my finger. He stared for a moment, then vomited.
After another hour, Gerhard had the collapsible craft packed up, and we were on our way. The driver wanted to
7 take us to a nearby hospital but that was out of the question. This was not because the country doctors were notorious for having simply acquired their MDs through good old fashion guan xi—which translates into no medical school but just a who-you-know kind of relationship to the medical accreditation board—it was out of the question because I wasn’t happy about anything at this point: My problem wasn’t a fucked finger and hand. In the moment that the explosion went off and I saw the white light of Being, I knew that my true threatening problem was back in Dalian: I needed to get home and intercept my seven-year-old daughter, Gwendolyn, before losing her in the insanity to which I had driven us. At the time, she was the only blond haired, blue eyed Western child in any public Chinese school in Dalian, a city of seven million. And to understand the immense stress of such a living context, imagine witnessing a person walk on water or turn water into wine and you’ll get an idea of the daily reality Gwendolyn went through when simply walking out the front door of our apartment building every morning. Eventually in our neighborhood it got better, and people no longer accosted the little princess with longing touches and awe filled stares: It got better but we were for the most part limited to staying within our little corner of China.
Although Gwendolyn eventually learned to speak Chinese, I couldn’t, and, truth be told—as the aroma of Garlic now reveals to me—in that moment of fingerless despair, sitting in the rented van, I needed to see her in order to keep myself from falling apart—but this, my potential moment of mental collapse, wasn’t the ominous problem on the verge of over-cooking in the broiler of life. My menacing concern was of a different nature: Gwendolyn generally got out of school at around 4pm, and she knew that if I wasn’t there waiting for her then there was a serious dilemma… the problem Gerhard couldn’t understand or I’m sure you, lovely reader, can’t yet fathom. The true problem was found in the plan whereby
8 Gwendolyn was, in the case that I wasn’t there to pick her up from school or wasn’t at home waiting for her on the front steps, to search out our friend, Wang Hé on the University. She knew where his dorm was, and she was instructed to make the journey alone if I was no longer there—it was a lot to expect from a seven year old child but what else could I do given the circumstances. Besides the fact that Gerhard was with me and, thus, couldn’t attend to my daughter in this crisis, Gerhard lived too far away to be a key player in the event of any dire emergency that might have occurred in our lives. Wang Hé graciously accepted his role of uncle and thus the responsibility of fulfilling the plan and all its corresponding duties: If Gwendolyn was to ever arrive at his room alone he was then to call the hospitals and morgues in Dalian because my absence meant that I was either dead or very close to being a served dinner. And if my dinner was served, he was further instructed to start the process of locating her mother, my wife Martina, who was at the time in Germany studying to become a nurse.
I had to give my seven-year-old daughter a lot of responsibility—something even our glorious Presidents and world leaders know very little about in today’s world. But unlike our role models, Gwendolyn had to be responsible: We were real people and foreigners in a foreign world. We were alone at this point, and isolated from the world. Or more honestly said: I was isolated and she was slowly becoming my only doorway to the mysteries of China.
On this day, taking my adventures into consideration, I thought I might be late and so luckily I had made prior arrangements: Two of my university students were to come and pick her up from school and take her home. They always came two times a week to help her with her Chinese homework, but they’d never picked her up from school before this fateful day.
9 Out on the island, as my life changed, and the number of fingers on my hand encountered a negative integer, I knew that I had to be home within a reasonable amount of time before the plan would be initiated. And believe me, at that moment, short one finger and on my way to a nervous breakdown, the last thing I needed was Wang Hé calling my wife in Germany and having her freak out. There was no need for Martina to hop the next flight out to China; thus throwing away a year of nursing school. Besides saving my wife from any adverse shock and consequent misguided reactions, I also wanted to avoid the trauma that would be inflicted upon Gwendolyn. Even if I had only lost a finger she would believe, again, that I was dead. Dead again… this had happened once before when her school, without informing me (not that I could speak enough Chinese to understand anything of importance), spontaneously decided to end classes early for the day. I was out running errands and had returned home shortly before 4pm before I headed to her school to pick her up. While walking the measly two blocks I had no doubt that I would be greeted by her after she’d just finished a full day of classes. To my dismay, the school yard and building were deserted: Nothing and no one to be found. In hysteria, I searched for Gwendolyn for over an hour; scouring the neighborhood until I eventually found her. She, the seven year old, white hair, Western girl, had roamed the neighborhood streets in despair and confusion since 12pm that day until finally finding comfort in my shaking embrace.
Before I go on, you have to understand I have a hard time writing or thinking about these things. I sit here and get teary-eyed and emotional when reminiscing about events that seem so real and yet are nothing more than imagination’s game. But it is just such a game that precisely defines Life: Imagination’s game delivers ragout in binding, liberating and/or tearing emotions that give every, any, and all Life true orientation and/or contextual meaning. However, on the rare
10 occasion, imagination’s game does deliver the viand-Life as though it is nothing more than a steamy pile of smelly shit—a rank meal spiraling toward the rubbish bin. Granted, the game ordinarily rewards us, but it seems that all too often it shits us out, cold, callous and indifferent to anything that would make us truly content.
Don’t despair dear readers, this is not a recipe for nihilism. The Garlic Cures is only positive. The smells and aromas of a Tale of Ragout are the absolute embracement of All that is: There can never be a moment of meaningful doubt to Existence. Such an action as to truly doubt is, in the nature of the moment in which we are living, impossible. Our ragouts simmer on the burner of Existence, and the ingredients may get tossed willy-nilly into the mix, but in such moments of chaos, wretchedness, despair, hate, sorrow, pain, suffering and apparent senselessness, all one needs to do is stop for a moment and savor the experience, regardless of the ingredients’ flavor—putrid or sweet—and one’s Life, as it is dinner in progress, can never turn rank.
Fortunately, Garlic’s aroma is strong. I can relish every emotion in this ragout called Life: ‘I am’ is here thanks to the glory of Garlic, hallelujah!
On this important day of finger emancipation, I made it back in time before my daughter or students became worried as to my whereabouts; thus preventing a chain reaction that would have caused wife and child untold duress. But before I returned home, I made the driver of the van stop so that I could get a couple of beers to help get me through the possibility of the plan already having been initiated and to get me through the inescapable guan xi hospital experience. Finger in one hand and a beer in the other, I walked into our apartment to find my daughter happily being tutored by two of my university students. Somewhat relieved, I sighed and
11 then laughed before I told Gwendolyn we had problems. (I knew then they were just beginning.) Fortunately, Gwendolyn is a tough little girl with a wicked sense of humor, so she wasn’t too disturbed by the whole affair—it was after all only a finger: Maybe an important finger considering it was my right hand fuck you finger, but I already knew then that I could learn to speak with my left hand just as effectively. Gwendolyn actually wanted to see it wrapped up in the plastic baggie but I didn’t have the courage to show it to her.
In addition to Gwendolyn’s existing admirable traits, she was learning to love China: The warmth of its people was truly enchanting and endearing. There was this and then there was the fact that since learning Chinese she had come to understand that she, with her alabaster hair and skin, was viewed and treated as a princess. Sure, being physically touched by hundreds of people daily has its downside, but in knowing that these people admired her and only saw possibility and hope in her shimmering, white appearance, she intuited with the onset of language that her guan xi was good. Since the time of her unexpected half-day schedule change and ensuing forlorn, aimless wandering of Dalian streets, she had become more secure in her environment. Matter of fact, she was learning to become that princess of hope and possibility.
After making arrangements for Gwendolyn to stay with the neighbors, I went to the hospital—but not before buying more beer on the way. At that time, guan xi was the only standard in China, and in having very weak guan xi I knew my operation was going to be a life-long process. I didn’t mind the Chinese doctor not giving me enough anesthesia to keep me from waking during the operation—heck, I expected it, and that’s why I stopped to get more beer. Nor did I mind the doctor’s half-witted comments to his colleague
12 (in Chinese) as I lay semi-conscious on the operating table about whether or not I was screaming because of the pain: I still can recall the hammer tapping the pin into the bone at the middle joint, fixing the top part of the finger at a 90° angle to the bottom part of the finger. It wasn’t even this screwing up the reattachment operation that bothered me: Pounding a pin through the joint destroys the joint, and eventually, because of this non-operation, I would be forced to have the finger removed again in Germany. (Oh, the sweet, delicious mysteries of China.) I was, and still am, more bothered by the eventual blood poisoning I suffered due to the fact that the non-doctor prescribed the wrong antibiotic. I can play piano with nine fingers but death is a silent song. China challenged my ability to embrace Life in every moment—this much I am sure of. I don’t doubt the glory of living, but I am now much more aware of the sacrifices. This is to say that no matter how bitter the addled ingredient may seem to have become, I always enjoy the story: I am is still here simmering on the stove. Garlic be praised!
13 Chapter 2
Garlic is a spiritual guide, a zesty emotional armor, and the teller of this story. And I assume most of you recognize researchers’ claims that it cleans your blood and helps prevent arteries from clogging. Furthermore, I’m persuaded to believe that many of you can appreciate the fact that it wards off vampires and helps sell breath mints. But what you probably hadn’t realized is that Garlic is not only a spiritual cure but also an effective treatment for ALL physical ailments.
Four months after the accident in Dalian, my daughter and I arrived in Dresden, Germany, to be reunited with Martina, my wife and her mother. Almost a year had passed since we’d been together as a family, and it was a joyous occasion—as much as it was a difficult juncture. Martina had become a year closer to having her nursing degree and turned thirty while in Germany, and our eight-year-old daughter, Gwendolyn had become, in the time away from her mother, Chinese. As for me, a part of my (then) thirty-nine year old American person remained in China. And I don’t just mean my finger or sanity, but I had, in my blood-poisoned-induced sentiments, drifted from the physically real world into the metaphysically real world.
As result of our experiences in Dalian, I doubt that we, as a family, will ever live apart from each other again—too much Life apart can cause paths to become irreversibly split. It was only with the grace of Garlic that we were able to bend the teeth of the fork back together, thus keeping our ragout- family from falling apart.
Since our reunification, though, I’ve been suffering from reoccurring ear infections. Our daughter is fine, but me,
14 I’ve got something swooshing around in my head, and stuff seeping out my ears. Befittingly, with the arrival of Garlic salvation, I have also come to realize that ingesting mass quantities of allium sativum is the cure to every ailment. Garlic cures one and many if not All things, I’m certain of it. And as you, lovely reader, continue to read on, not only will you buzz, hum, hem and haw in dizzying confusion, but you, too, might well become convinced of the blissful salvation found in Garlic Deliverance. As for me, I’ve been healing myself; outright gorging my body and spirit with Garlic for the past eight weeks, and one could say I carry a certain aura with me —as do my wife and daughter. Our ambiance is so strong that for my wife’s sake I stopped cooking with it: Her nursing school was giving her a hard time about her odor. So now, to save my family from any further smelly humiliation, I just devour it raw. I gorge myself morning, day, and night on the sweet, powerful tastes of Garlic. There’s nothing finer than raw cloves of Garlic mixed into a breakfast bowl of Fruit Loops.
Due to the infections, though, I wake in the middle of the night with one or both of my ears leaking. It feels like soup is slowly pouring from the inner most depths of my skull. But because the depth of discomfort hint at pains originating from a hidden, secret chamber in a far away and untouchable realm, and combined with the fact that I am an nincompoop by nature, I jab my finger, like some troglodyte, into my ear as far as I can, and then scratch at the itchy origins in an attempt to relieve the hurt. Although I did bring back an ornamental ear-scooper with me from China, I know enough, despite my nincompoopiness, not to stick fancy, metal scrapers into my ear; so either I just lay there in bed, finger in ear, and twitch, or I get up and go to the bathroom and stand before the mirror with my head tilted sideways, and lightly, with the palm of my hand, slap the side of my skull—helping the muck flow out of my ears—until there’s relief, if only even
15 temporarily.
My wife is convinced, however, that the oozing muck coming out my ears is most likely my brain… she’s an insightful nurse.
Sometimes during the day there is a bit of pressure and some pain, but mostly my equilibrium is simply off. Consequently, when I’m not despondently lying in bed or bashing my noodle like a blocked ketchup bottle, I walk around in a spinning world. For many this might be a nightmare, but in my eternal optimism—in the odor of Garlic—I just figure I have to drink less wine at the end of the day.
16 Chapter 3
“Those who claim for themselves to judge the truth are bound to possess a criterion of truth. This criterion, then, either is without a judge's approval or has been approved. But if it is without approval, whence comes it that it is truth worthy? For no matter of dispute is to be trusted without judging. And, if it has been approved, that which approves it, in turn, either has been approved or has not been approved, and so on ‘ad infinitum’.” Sextus Empiricus (c. 160-210 AD), physician and philosopher
"I regard them (suicide bombers) as very brave people." When pressed further Kurt Vonnegut also said that, "They [suicide bombers] are dying for their own self-respect. It's a terrible thing to deprive someone of their self-respect. It's [like] your culture is nothing, your Race is nothing, you're nothing ... It is sweet and noble—sweet and honourable I guess it is—to die for what you believe in." Kurt Vonnegut (patriot and author) being interviewed by David Nason of the Australian, 2005.
17 Kurt Vonnegut is commenting on the ‘fact’―a ‘fact’ that is a force animating a Tale of Ragout―that Life arises through an awareness of ‘everything’, and at the same time he is criticizing the belief ― as it is represented by David Nason sitting in his mass- media-chair-of-judgment, the financial institutions of economic divinity, the political systems of absolute-truthy democracy, and the righteous functional-structuring delivered in capitalism ― that Life arises ‘through nothingness’ or ‘in nothingness’. For Mr. Vonnegut, the delusional ‘self-evident knowledge of nothing’ or simply ‘nothingness’ (sometimes referred to here as Zero or 0), which allow the aforementioned ‘historical institutions’ and ‘systems of nothingness’ to arise in all their truth and divinity, is used to deny someone of their self-respect and, thus, to deny a Life- value that reflects ‘everything’: such an act as to deny a person of their self-respect only leaves said person with… nothing. This is to say that the ‘critic’s’ error in negatively judging Mr. Vonnegut’s comments
(in the full interview David Nason harshly criticizes Mr. Vonnegut’s stance) simply reveals the limited nature of the critic’s believed state of Individual Existence: Because the self-evident, Finite, singular, unique yet universal machine generating the critic’s perspective and resulting judgments—judgments which the critic or any critic (of Mr. Vonnegut) believes he or she alone manifests—is no longer anchored in Existence as it is Infinitely ‘every-thing’, and thus they, Mr. Vonnegut’s critics—David Nason and all the other critics who have taken offence at Mr. Vonnegut’s statements—are in ‘the truth of living essence’ no longer even living. 1
18 After quoting particularly contentious Kurt Vonnegut statements―and then defending them―some people might question the faithfulness of Garlic Cures or even tell me to go get professional help. All I can say to that is: Bullshit! My need for help, like Mr. Vonnegut’s origin of criticism, can be found in the need of a Life settled in mind. In a mind that is expressed, in its Greek etymological origin, in menos; as it is spirit or force. And as such, mind—mine and All minds—is not (a) some-thing ‘curable’ through the application of some pharmaceutical-money-making-industry-anti-psychotic drug or by the misguided, self-serving powers of a psychiatrist or psychologist. My help has already been found: Garlic Cures is about deliverance and not opinions, truths, or the treatments purchased in a scientifically tested and FDA approved medication or method. And for this reason Garlic Cures cannot be prepackaged and/or pre-categorized into a nicely tailored, homogenized product—only purchasable at fully licensed and, thus, authorized dealers—for universal consumption… nor can it be paid for in an office or institution, or found on the discount shelf of any McMart Pharmacy. This means that its healing powers can never be compensated for with Blue Cross Blue Shield, Medicare, Obamacare or cash: One can either smell the Garlic or no. But I understand there are those (of you) who would, regardless of what Garlic says,
19 prefer to trust the business of business and the business of doctors than the wisdom of spiritual revelation and/or spiritual intervention: In other words, the Life Sustaining Garlic Toe of Deliverance appears (to you) to be too goofy esoteric to be real. And then there are those of you, the naysayers, who cannot and will not believe Garlic provides the necessary help and, thus, a true substitute for medical care. But as for me, regardless of how stupidly abstruse garlic toes of deliverance may sound, or how emphatically empirical garlic critics may want to be, my I know knows better and, thus, my I am is certain of Garlic’s powers. I have even has full medical coverage here in Dresden, Germany, and I can can go to any doctor at any time (by appointment only of course), but I choose not to go chooses not to go because not only does I know know but I know is recognized as a belief in the world I live in: I have no absolute-individual mind to worry about. There’s only Garlic, and I am is compelled to say nay to the gloomy Guses and those who are suspicious of the Life Sustaining Powers released in the consumption of a Garlic Toe of Deliverance; for my I am is completely possessed by Garlic’s curative powers, and my I know knows, through the enlightenment of Garlic’s flavor enhancements, that once you, the Agnostics and Doubting Thomases, have read this testimony, you will be too…. Garlic is the real deal! Garlic is guaranteed! Over the past few days of affliction the origin of this most recent and particular sloshy, soup-filled-ear Garlic Cure has been revealed to me: In a copious, muck-filled-ear, oozing dilemma, I have come to realize that I am is a person nurtured in many reservations: Or it could be said that my splendidly delicious ragout is fashioned out of bitter herbs, fouled greens, and rotten fruits. But in contrast to the cynics (D.Thomas and his Agnostic Front) who may be nurtured in fine herbs, fresh vegetables and sweet fruits, but nevertheless whose stews are somehow spoiled, my goulash is just fine. Living is always positive, and, therefore, this ever fleeting here and now ragout
20 is always palatable! Furthermore, and as you, lovely reader, will eventually read, my dish—my life story—may be created out of rotten vegetables and spoiled meats, but such uncertainties in life have no absolute say in determining the savor of the stew in progress: Because and besides my stew is now swathed in delicious Garlic Protective Enhancers. I have has been pepped and propped up with a Spiritual MSG! My I know now knows through Garlic’s grace that any and all fears I have do not belong to my life, but are only the instruments of vampires and monsters meant to ruin this here and now ragout. As to my own skepticisms—which are not completely unrelated to the skepticisms anchoring D. Thomas and his Agnostic Front to this world—I doubt man’s ability to progress and I am suspect of any wisdom in technology. I have misgivings about consumerism. I mistrust the pharmaceutical industry. And I distrust all scientists and any results found in their experiments. In regards to doctors and their healing powers I can only say that I have my suspicions. All-in-all, it is these ideas, these people, their businesses, and their models and methods I do not trust. And with the arrival of chronic ear infections and the Garlic Cures, I am is reminded that I’ve never believed in the businesses of men and the illusions of science. But Garlic also tells me that despite any anxieties I may suffer due to these matters of mankind, I’ve always cherished life. This here and now story is always delicious ragout! In addition to my recent time in Dresden (which now spans, since beginning the first draft of this story, many, many moons), I’ve already lived in Germany for more than eight years (a total now of almost a gazillion eternities), and as mentioned, I lived in China for over two years. But it was growing up American that gave me my reverence for existence. Synchronously, growing up American also gave me an aversion to progress and all of its bastard stepchildren— especially the one known as: The Business of Healthcare. As
21 Garlic spoke over past few days of affliction—as Garlic speaks in this moment—there comes to mind a definitive incident that embodies my distaste for the American medical profession. It was in the early autumn months of 1992, in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and I took a brutal hit from Ray H. in a backyard football game. Immediately thereafter, and in the months following, I couldn't breathe correctly or turn my head, and was unable to get out of bed without my roommate hoisting me up. But... but as a proud American, even though every breath I took caused me unbearable pain, and my nights were spent sweating in agony, I refused to go to the doctor. I even continued to attend university everyday as well as make it to my fulltime job as hospital security. Perhaps, at the time, I might have known that Ray’s hit had done some damage, but it wasn’t until four years later while studying at the Albert-Ludwig University in Freiburg Germany, and I was covered by the German National Health Insurance, that I discovered the true extent of my injuries. (To my American ears the words “national health insurance” sounds like something only a terrorist would demand.) At any rate, I wound up in a hospital after my two Syrian roommates, who also happened to be brothers, kicked the living shit out me—and not because I stole their insurance cards. The brutal affair started while we were all sitting at the table, discussing existence, relationships and Allah over breakfast, before things escalated and went terribly awry: Hot coffee got pitched into America’s face to which America responded by lobbing a coffee cup into Syria’s puss. Syria retaliated and hurled a plate into America’s kisser before attacking in hand-to-hand mode. One Allah terrorist then grabbed righteous America's hair, pulling America’s head down as the other terrorist of radical fundamentalism punched Freedom and Democracy in the head—and all the while America kept pulling its head back, large clumps of consumerism were torn from its own skull. In a moment free
22 from hair pulling, I—America—bear-hugged the Syrian killer; his brother, the suicide-bomber-wannabe, then jumped on my back. Amidst the chaos of international conflict, another roommate, the Japanese UN Peacekeeper, joined the fray. There we were in our student apartment kitchen, one Syrian clutched in my arms, his brother on my back, and a Japanese guy on his back. I stumbled around for a moment before falling squarely onto the Syrian I was holding. The Japanese guy then rolled off our piled and riled bodies, but the other Syrian stayed on top of me as we both lay atop his older brother who lay underneath me squashed, pinned to the floor, screaming for his younger brother to get a knife so that he could kill me. “Yeah do it, motherfucker, because the minute you get off me, I'm going to snap your brother’s neck, and then I'm going to shove that fucking knife up your ass!” I hollered with rage and hate. I’d just gotten off a six week long, bitter bike tour that had begun on a balmy autumn day in Minneapolis and took me through Moosonee Ontario, Buffalo NY and Niagara falls, before finally ending in Montreal, Canada in a wintery biting cold and snowy blur. During my journey, the overburdened daily regiment and lack of funds for a warm hotel room at night combined with bicycling roughly a hundred miles a day with forty pounds of pack and sleeping outside in snow drifts made it impossible for me to consume sufficient calories to stay my emaciation, and I had lost thirty pounds along the way: Upon my return to Freiburg, Germany, I wasn’t much more than a wiry, vicious animal. I don't like fighting, but when I’ve just finished a bicycle tour there is no normal left in me, and if I am threatened I will do what I have to: Kick, bite and, at the time of my confrontation with Allah’s army of terrorists, if I had had a gun in my hand I wouldn't have hesitated at pulling the trigger. But because I had long hair back then, during the fight with my Syrian roommates, they got the upper hand; they had torn my skull
23 down as they kicked and kneed my head until I had finally managed to bear hug the one Syrian brother and fall on top of him. These days, though, my scalp is pretty thinly populated, and Syria wouldn’t have a chance against America. There we were in the heart of the Black Forest in beautiful Freiburg, Germany. America and Syria had reached a stalemate, and the Japanese UN Peacekeeper was running around like a chicken with its head cut off, screaming as if the end of the world had just arrived. After further threats of murder and mayhem, all parties agreed to a cease hair- pulling, face-punching and screaming fire, but by this point, covered from head to toe in blood, I was banged up and missing silver dollar sized patches of hair from my scalp. Despite my gored and bloodied appearance, I might have skipped the hospital visit, but I had to go if I wanted to press charges against the soldiers of Allah. After spending time in the ER getting seventeen stitches in my face, and my whole body x-rayed, I was left on a bed to await the doctor’s return. When he finally arrived with the developed Roentgen photos of my battered body in hand, his first words were to ask if I’d ever broken my neck. I took this initial introduction as looming bad news. I thought he was questioning me to see if I could mentally withstand the diagnosis: I thought Syria had leveled a neck breaking, crippling blow against America. Fear and panic swallowed me whole as the good German doctor peered sternly into my eyes as though he were searching for an answer. And I, in that moment, figured there had to be some ominous news creeping up over the horizon: Maybe Allah really was the one true God and my little dispute with the Syrians proved to be a huge mistake. As I continued to stare in apprehensive bewilderment at the good doctor, I had to wonder why this situation was any different than any other damaging accidents or incidents I’d experienced during my then twenty-seven years of
24 adventure. Why else would the doctor be asking me this question? I hesitated before finally answering his query with a question of my own. “Warum?” "Because according to these x-rays, along with a broken toe and thumb, they show that two discs in your neck have been fused together, and it looks like the fusion was done by a doctor. You must have had a serious accident?" I stared for a moment at the doctor as the thoughts of the backyard football game with Ray H. entered my thoughts. “Ich hab mich bei einem Footballspiel verletzt,” I replied, my mute pride shinning as the light came on: My Syrian ass- kicking wasn’t as bad as I’d first assumed. But what had surprised me most sitting there in front of the doctor was the extent to which I (or Ray) had damaged my neck in Green Bay a few years earlier. It finally made sense as to why, since the time of my backyard football folly, my neck always hurt whenever I lifted something, got pushed, or fell skateboarding. Most importantly, though, in my epiphany I realized that my Syrian roommates were still the big sissies I’d assumed them to be. My uncertainties—my wounds—were and will always remain superficial. As for the doctor, he was only seeking answers to what were obviously serious questions. How could someone break their neck and not know it? “Didn’t you suffer any pain at the time of the accident?” "Of course I suffered, but I'm American," I responded defensively; trying to maintain my superiority. “We don’t do doctor visits unless we’re dead.” How could I forget two months of unbearable pain and breathing difficulty, and not being able to lift my head from the pillow? But how could I tell him, the doctor, this story when The Origins of Garlic Cures hadn’t yet clearly revealed themselves to me? Now, in Garlic’s thrall, I remember being
25 relieved that my neck had already been broken and healed, (without a doctor!) and that I wouldn't have to remain in a hospital bed with some gizmo strapped around my melon because of two Arab zealots. When I broke my neck (In 2013 an MRT revealed that numbers 5 and 6 vertebrae were broken and had fused themselves together…but just saying I broke my neck sounds much more macho) and four years later when the Syrian brothers kicked the shit out of me, I wasn't doing Garlic Cures: Even though I was familiar with its powers from before the time of the first incident, I neither recognized its powers nor had I yet been delivered into Garlic’s Origins. I had no idea at the time of either incident—of Ray H. or Syria—that I was a Luddite and skeptical of the business of men. I mean I broke my neck and, still, out of instinctive, replete mistrust, I had no need for the business of men—especially from businessmen posing as healers. But now, in this Garlic odor, I realize how great my aversions to doctors, pharmaceuticals, technology, science, and religion have always been.
26 Chapter 4
After popping cloves of Garlic into my mouth like popcorn, and then grinding them into a squishy pulp, and forcing the aromatic juices to flow between my teeth, I can feel the power and glory of life itself. And then in this fragrant, billowy, Garlicky cloud —my life as ragout—I am not only alive but I am safe and flavorful. And as long as I continue to ingest the spirit of life as delivered to me by Garlic, the vampires and monsters thriving on humanity’s illusions can never penetrate this story: I will continue to simmer for Infinitely/Finite years to come. My breath breathes only life! Hallelujah!
Spending the ten months following my arrival in Germany stumbling through a muck-filled-ear life, and especially during the past eight weeks of raw Garlic ingestion, I found myself in the spiritual grip of Garlic’s curative billows…and then, in the most recent of recent days of ear infections leading to these words, it finally became clear to me how, where and when the story of The Origins of Garlic Cures finally arrived. In the midst of a sleepless night, as I laid in bed and the SFX Saturn Award winning film in which Libby’s Canned Creamed Corn spills from my head, and the hollow sounds like that of potatoes being rasped echo in my cranium and the hazy cloud of Garlic vapors lingering through my body slowly filters out my eyes, nose, mouth and every other imaginable orifice is being played, it finally dawned on me how much the lives of my parents had had an effect on my entire life. In the words of Aristotle:
“This is why the activities we exhibit must be of a certain kind; it is because the states of character correspond to the differences between these. It makes no small difference, then, whether we form habits of one kind or of another from our very youth; it makes a very great difference, or rather all the difference.” Nichomachean Ethics [Bk.II: Ch.1, 25]
27 To get to the exact moment of the Garlic Cure’s entrance into my ragout, and the effects my parents had and still have on this here and now story, I have to start in the middle of my adolescence. It was during the year of 1983, I was sixteen and living only part-time with my mom and her boyfriend, Jim B. Jim hadn’t always been there, but when he did finally enter our lives he was a welcomed addition, for me at least, to our household. Beginning in1982, starting with a suitcase full of clothing, and then the occasional treasured lamp or book in hand, Jim gradually, in unobtrusive increments, moved into our Westmont home, before arriving, in the final sense, with his old I am here to stay Fender Rhodes Keyboard in tow. The extenuating circumstances of a foreclosure then forced all of us to first move into a small apartment in Darien before Jim and my mother, having found their illusive and destructive orientation together, eventually moved us into a larger flat in Lisle, Illinois. Jim, a onetime meat packer and day laborer from a rough Chicago Italian neighborhood, was my mom's first and only boyfriend after my dad left. He was a decent guy who had a lot to offer my mom and me: Besides his own authentic interest in music, and being able to play decent jazz piano, he also had an honest interest in me and my punk rock musical history, and… and he also had the patience to teach me how to play a wicked game of chess. (Since having lost a finger, I, too, thanks to his influence, have taken up jazz piano, but as for the chess unfortunately I’ve long since forgotten how to play. But who knows, I am still in Garlic’s thralls, and maybe someday I’ll be playing an excellent game of nine finger chess as well.) In addition to his harmonious finger dexterity and abundant patience, Jim was also an avid outdoorsman—though not a strictly meat and potatoes, Rambo kind of guy—and a verbal straight-shooter. To this day, thanks to Garlic deliverance, I am grateful for everything Jim B. taught me. As for my dad, he had, two years prior to Jim’s arrival, scurried off to Cable, Wisconsin, a town that was at that time still quite removed from the world, where he hid
28 from the IRS, back dues to the Sheet Metal Workers Union, and child support—as well as other things yet unknown to me. It could be said that my dad’s profligacy and need to satisfy his own self-indulgences were what fueled his disregard for responsibility to anything other than his… his own decadence and need to satisfy his own hedonisms. And this, his questionable character traits, is what eventually led the bank to repossess our home in Westmont. It was during this time, though, of added indigestible ingredients—the addition of great uncertainties—to my ragout that Jim B. first introduced me to the healing powers of Garlic. In our 1983 world of Westmont, Darien, and then Lisle, Jim was, even when not comparing him to my father and my father’s obvious faults, a pillar of stability. And although Jim may have smoked a lot of pot in his youthful jazzy days, long before he had ever met my mother, he had already worked his ass off in meat packing and other shitty jobs so that he could pay the rent and put food on the table for his wife and four kids. By the time he had met my mom, though, he had been long since divorced, had obtained his Masters, and was working for the same college as she did. Jim still smoked a little pot on the rare occasion, but when he came into our lives he was a standup kind of guy who had no more bridges to burn and was quite content: pot smoking was regulated more or less to his once a year camping trips. Although pot smoking was considered “evil” and “decadent” at the time in America’s then just over two hundred year history, Jim’s hedonisms were not guided by the uncontrollable need to satisfy every desire. Unlike my dad, Jim simply enjoyed life— which just so happened to include smoking pot on the rare occasion. Little did Jim know that monsters and vampires were lurking in the closets and cellars of suburbia… well, at least in our home they were.
29 At the time, Jim, like me now, became sick and suffered many sleepless nights, but unlike me and my muck-filled-ear existence, he endured many days bent over with stomach cramps and vomiting into the toilet. But his affliction—the source of his ailment—was more obvious than mine… at least to me it was: My mother was poisoning him. Along with little doses of various over-the-counter drugs, she was giving him lumps of Ajax and similar like products in his beloved pasta dishes and favorite chocolate ice cream; not enough to kill him, but enough to physically and, thus, mentally destabilize him. It could be thought that his weekly pasta fagioli was getting a hidden dose of kaffir lime leaves and fish sauce—a culinary faux pas in relationship to Italian cuisine. Despite this lack of information, Jim had enough faith in himself and life to begin a self-remedy of Garlic consumption. Eventually, Jim’s Garlic intake spiraled into the bushels, and through his convictions and the power of Garlic he became more resilient; never completely falling prey to any monsters or vampires: The added flavor of Garlic kept the whole potential Jim B. meal simmering on the stove of Existence and… and kept his Life from going rank. Jim had an aura of Garlic to protect him, and no matter what my mother did to him—a step by step three-year period of poisoning him with toxins and deceptions—she couldn’t bring down the pillar of stability known as James B.
30 Chapter 5
“Consciousness and Life, “cogitare” and “esse” remain, in their deepest roots, separated. As a person relinquishes control of the mind/spirit, he or she is in Life split into two; he or she is left to the discretion of a vampire-esque Power that drove a piercing dissonance into the chant of spheres.” Ernst Cassirer (Geist und Leben) summarizing Ludwig Klages (Vom Wesen des Bewußtseins. Aus einer Lebenswissenschaftlichen Vorlesung: Leipzig 1921)
Even a brilliant Jewish philosopher is willing to quote an anti-Semitic, eventual card carrying member of the National Socialist Party (Nazi) when it comes to calling a spade a spade… or in this case a vampire a vampire.
To understand my mother’s actions one also needs to comprehend the extenuating events that fed her soul to the vampires and monsters. I make no excuses for my mother’s dealings, and as you read further you will see that I, too, suffered dearly because of her embitterment. But I will say from the onset: There is no evil to banality. There are, after all, only heroes and failed heroes, and the worst one can ever say of my mother is that she was a failed hero. From 1977 until the arrival of Jim in the early 1980s, my mother, due to her own delusions and circumstances beyond her “control”, suffered many setbacks: Her Life as ragout had already acquired one too many unpleasant ingredients. And/but despite this—despite her ragout that was already pre-flavored in crazy and…and having the misfortune of having an unknown chef who (that) was adding more instability, doubt and duress to her dish—she did the best she could, given her circumstances. By 1981 she’d found herself alone with two kids, a double mortgage, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional debt my father had run
31 away from. And in 1983 my brother went to university on the now extinct Government grants program, which meant that she’d lost the security of her first born son—she’d lost the importance of a “male heir” or a true man of the house in the family; an important value that had long since been imprinted on her psyche by her father, my grandfather—and the combined effects of all of these misfortunes created a vacuum in her “esse”. My mother relinquished control of the mind/spirit and was left, in Life, split into two; she was left to the discretion of a vampire-esque Power that drove a piercing dissonance into the chant of spheres. (Chant of spheres is difficult to understand let alone explain, but hopefully, by the end of this Tale of Ragout, you, lovely reader, will once again be hearing, seeing, touching and living in the chant of spheres.) Even though we as a family were on our way to the poor house my brother had the fortune of still being able to attend Loyola University in luxury because student grants not only paid tuition but also provided for housing and a living allowance! Needless to say, my brother lived well while my mother was crumbling in confusion. As for me, at the time of Jim’s first encounter with her and the unknown fiendish forces still to come (to him), and following the time of my brother’s departure to the safety of University, I was a sixteen-year old drunk, playing punk music in Chicago bars—my ragout was already pleasantly marinating in pogoing, slam dancing, high percentage, inspired spirits. As my Life as an entrée boiled through the emerging creative forces as delivered in the early post-punk American Hardcore movement, my mom’s humanity completely fell apart; even though she busted her ass trying to keep her life together—working three jobs, putting herself through college, and trying to take care of financial problems and kids—there were things of which she had absolutely no “control” over. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t fulfill the changing American Dream: A dream that was and still is, as
32 you will read, built on relinquishing control of the mind/spirit and was and still is left, in Life, split into two… A Dream that left and still leaves Life to the discretion of a vampire-esque Power and is thus, through such a self-destructing venture, realized in the process of driving a piercing dissonance into the chant of spheres. My mother was a post WWII child of Leave it to Beaver, but she was an adult in denial of her Vietnam War Era Brady Bunch Life. For her, the suburban Life as propagated in her Nuclear Family era upbringing as disseminated in TV and movies disappeared during the Vietnam War. The 1960s introduced a new picture on the boob tube and in the movie theaters; one that would eventually become a deceitful river of trickle-down economics, individual consumer identity, and closeted phobias. Today it is known as the individual mass- consumer economy—a la New World Order—and it is a world in which my mother, even to this day, cannot find herself…. There is bitter, ironic flavor in our beloved ragouts and it’s called: Individuality. The Individual is the piercing dissonance driving into the chant of spheres. Not only was there not “visible a little heterogeneous fractional telegraphic message from the infinite, a glance, a look, a gesture, a note of sadness, a smile, which betrayed the infinite in its heterogeneity with the finite”, as Søren Kierkegaard so succinctly put it in Fear and Trembling (1843), but the Infinite had been, for my mother and her Finite self, reduced to nothingness; her self was to become the “bi-product” of an individual mass-consumer economy.
33 Chapter 6
Beginning in the late 1970s, and leading into the mid-1980s there was for my mother only a mix of unfavorable elements. Unfortunately for her, and eventually Jim, the ‘powers to be’—the leaders who believed and still believe that vampire-esque Powers serve their interests—have very little respect for the lives of simple working people, and shibboleths like “control”, as far as economics went and still go, were then being transformed into whimsical tools of manipulation for corporations void of responsibility and accountability… they were transformed into the Too Big To Fail America of today: Welcome to The New World Order. The formulation, solidification and rationalization of harnessing vampire-esque Power with the belief that it can serve the ‘best’ interests of leaders can be found in the work “The Engineering of Consent”, by Edward Bernays, 1947: “The engineering of consent is the very essence of the democratic process, the freedom to persuade and suggest.” (Edward L. Bernays) Vampires and monsters have canonized Ed for his contributions to fear and the ideas concerning control. Positively speaking, though, without Edward Bernays, Garlic would not have its day.
Garlic reveals to me, in our Zeitgeist, consumer objects dictate the reality of any and all, actual and/or potential relationships—our freedom to choose has been persuaded and suggested to the point whereby we, on any individual level, can no longer realize a Life found in the chant of spheres. In today’s world the media tells me a truly individualized consumer success story echoes:
I will become not only a main entrée of fugu studded with Beluga pearls, but I will also become that after dinner dessert of multiple scoops of Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream infused with smoky Madagascar vanilla; coated in 23-carat edible gold leaf (that leaves
34 a ring of gold dust around one’s mouth) and suffused with bittersweet, rare chocolate chunks, gold-plated dragets and truffles…furthermore, I will become that sundae meant to be eaten with an 18k gold spoon and—and, not to forget the most important aspect of my dessert life—I will also be that mother-of- pearl spoon reserved for the mini-bowl of sweetened, de-salted caviar meant to be placed on top of the sundae… is this really my desired existence as sold to me via mass media?1
Regardless of what we want to believe about ourselves, and what we believe to be our own true dreams and desires, the aforementioned main course and dessert are the reality of a consumer driven Identity in which people, in today’s, individually-advanced-world, willingly (or unwillingly) strive toward and are even prepared to support wars, destroy the environment, and… and poison people to achieve these ends. Without the feeling of dissatisfaction—I’m only ragout!—and the need to have more, and thus be more individually real, our consumer market economies would have no impetus. If we were happy with just the old rotary dialer phone hanging on the wall then there would be no need for the cell phone that also functions as a camera, music-playing-device, computer, friend, safety-nets and so on.
“But we need our super-duper-phones in the event that a meteorite is going to strike the school where our little Johnnys and Jennys go, so that we can then be informed before the event, and thus be there before the explosion and heat from the out-of-this-world-chunk-of-gun-wielding- terrorist-rock melt, tears and annihilates them to death. Hence, it is emphatically true to say—and thus justifies any all purchases that we make—that without the aid of our superior toys our children would be unable to call us so that we can rush to their sides and save their lives…”
We conveniently and irrationally justify our perverse needs and strange psychosis for what amounts to be nothing more than justifying our desires to possess cheap, valueless toys… and we do this by placing the value of said toys under the heading of: HOW I CAN CONTROL MY WORLD OR HOW I CAN
35 CONTROL THE WORLD.
“But you don’t understand, without our phones our children would be lost! Without our phones we could no longer work, and thus afford to pay for our phone! Without our phones, if our cars were to suddenly plunge off a cliff and fall into raging ocean filled with crocodiles and Weapons of Mass Destruction, we would surely drown and be annihilated! Without our plasma screen TV, we would be bored and thus compelled to go out and commit random acts of murder! Without our car we wouldn’t be able to drive to work, and thus be unable to afford all the cheap toys we conveniently and irrationally justify as being necessary!”
Welcome to the real world of technology and bubble economies. My mother was a victim of the emerging post-Vietnam War New World Order economy (Nixon’s eradication of Bretton Woods2 or McDonald’s special orders don’t upset us methodology to owning, through Federal subsidization, the livestock and agriculture sources used in their products are a simple example of this evolution of events3) as it shed any semblance of family: nuclear or otherwise. But thanks to Jim B. and his misfortunes of being on the receiving end of my mother’s existential anguishes, as he suffered from the fury of her sinister whims, I am fortunate enough to see, smell and taste Garlic is Life, and to know that this whole idea of “control” for suburbia was and still is one of the greatest lies that now fuels the American Dream itself. The piercing dissonance into the chant of spheres has simply become the Individual set free to go shopping for cheap toys. We, as Individuals, as we now possess or have the unlimited freedom to acquire toys of mass pleasure, willingly choose to believe (or willingly become confused into believing that) we have “control” where and when there is none. Freedom has been equated with an Individual’s ability to shop, but our so-called, modern technologies—our modern cheap toys that are the object of our freedom— do not offer a better standard of living. Hence, our so-called freedom offers no substance:
36 There is no aim to reconcile Consciousness and Life, “cogitare” and “esse”, but on the contrary our freedom offers only to more widely separate Life and Consciousness. The best standard of living might be found only in experiencing, in an ontological context of any given relationship, the chant of spheres, but: We choose freedom! Personally, though, I don’t care what nonsense the media tries to sell my Individual consumer identity, because I’m happy to just be cooking on the stove as ragout, boiled potatoes, rice, porridge or what have you. All ingredients as they are an uncontrollable, evolving orchestra of relationships lived in family and friends, or in the procurement of food, or in the uncontrollable biological acts of breathing and excreting, or in the without-any-function real act of thinking, or even as they are expressed in self-sacrificing acts experienced in battles with enemies are the only expressions capable of revealing value… any, every and all conscious acts can only add flavor to the ragout in process. The sum total is always positive. I’ve got news for the vampires and monsters that have swallowed our souls: It’s time to smell the Garlic! And to misquote Søren Kierkegaard in Fear and Trembling, 1843, so as to reveal Garlic’s tasty yet threatening (to vampires and monsters) essence in Life:
“One has therefore a right to say that fundamentally every duty is a duty toward Garlic; but if one cannot say more, then one affirms at the same time that properly I have no duty toward Garlic. Duty becomes duty by being referred to Garlic, but in duty itself I do not come into relation with Garlic. Thus it is a duty to love one's neighbor, but in performing this duty I do not come into relation with Garlic but with the neighbor whom I love. If I say then in this connection that it is my duty to love Garlic, I am really uttering only a tautology, inasmuch as ‘Garlic’ is in this instance used in an entirely abstract sense as the divine, i.e. the universal, i.e. duty. So the whole existence of the human race is rounded off completely like a sphere, and
37 the ethical is at once its limit and its content. Garlic becomes an invisible vanishing point, a powerless thought, His power being only in the ethical which is the content of existence.”
As much as Garlic may appreciate and respect Søren Kierkegaard, Garlic must still criticize his innocent if not ignorant servitude to vampires and monsters. For the aforementioned paragraph originally contained the word “God” where there is nowing “Garlic”, and was intended to be an indirect attack on Spinoza’s God…a God which, fortunately for Life, serves only the interest of Existence and not that of vampires and monsters.
As for the importance of a nowing Existence and Life….
“Time can neither exist nor be conceived apart from an actual ‘now’. But what we call ‘now’ is a kind of intermediate state, having the twofold character of a beginning and an end—a beginning, that is to say, of future and an end of past time. Hence time must always have existed; for whatever you take as time’s ultimate limit must consist in a certain ‘now’ (you can take absolutely no point in time that will not have the character of a ‘now’), and since every ‘now’ is an end as well as a beginning, ‘now’ as well as forwards from it. And if this true of time, it clearly must be no less true of motion— since time is a derivative (pathos) of motion. (Wheelwright, Aristotle, Natural Science, Book III: Motion, Change; And the Infinite, i. The eternity of motion, pgs. 49-50, Odyssey Press 1951)
38 Chapter 7
"The individual may think that the most important reality is his own existence, but this is only his personal point of view. This lacks historical perspective. Man does not have the right to develop his own mind. This kind of liberal orientation has great appeal. We must electronically control the brain. Someday armies and generals will be controlled by electric stimulation of the brain."
Dr José Delgado, Director of Neuropsychiatry Yale University Medical School Congressional Record, No. 26, Vol. 118 February 24, 19741
There are no electrodes or electromagnetic impulses needed to control mankind, but only limitless quantities of consumable junk―aka toys of potential self-realization. But before Garlic’s sweet odors deliver any further smells surrounding this idea of control and the belief that one can control anything, perhaps what or at least the illusion of what is being controlled should first be established. Garlic tells me the answer is consciousness; but unfortunately, as it is endemic to our times, and just like Dr. Delgado reveals in his own ignorance, consciousness is no longer the impetus to the sciences or religions. These inquisitive fields of consciousness-free reality are now at home postulating theories in the realm of potential and probable, finite, physical Existence or… or selling us vacation homes in the probable and possible before and afterlife. But Garlic says that these life- suppressing sports of inquisition belong to the dialectic of 1 and
39 0, whereby one represents reality found or generated (with)in self, and Zero is the field whereby, wherein, or where-out said reality as one can function and, thus, exist. Zero is, therefore, by its own mythical application, an archetype to a constant or equilibrium: Physicists sometimes apply the mystical object of spacetime with a dash of entropic forces and “thermal dynamics” balanced in dark matter to accommodate their lack of equalized perspective, and Western Religions offer living spots in the eternal afterlife.
In first addressing the point of scientists and sciences (in general), for the likes of Dr. D and the illusionary hierarchy of noble minds, there is belief in a Finite, physical reality machine (self) that takes on, in a consciousness-free state of existence, the probable and possible shape of lumpy grey matter. Therefore, what is revealed in Dr. D’s vision is that we, too, in a sense, believe there is a physical, Finite object of self to own and possess. We believe that our own lumpy gray mass delivers us as Individuals (or ones) into free will and thus with an ability, divine or epistemologically teleological, to control our own fates—otherwise Dr. D wouldn’t be so hell bent on taking it—free will—away from us! Fortunately for us, though, reality in its most direct sense can only be realized as consciousness: Just think about it for a moment.2
This loose and illusive foundationless-foundational definition is bold enough to embrace the many aspects, implications, and attributes that come with all potential and probable reality, and/or/but at the same time is not limited to the whims of vampires and monsters or their minions: I.e., the likes of Dr. Delgados. But to be fair to Dr. D and the rest of us, consciousness, as it is an all-encompassing and non-tangible force, leads to a self, but it is a self that is not merely a Finite, physical object. This is where Dr. D, science and religion all
40 fail to experience consciousness and, thus, to know Life. And as the story of Garlic Cures continues to unfold, we’ll see consciousness (as Life lived) is by its own design an ecstatic positive-rising onto, in, and of itself (euphoric positivity of) Infinite/Finite relationship: Consciousness is Existence (Being) finding its way (of expressing itself to itself) by seeding itself in Infinite/Finite relationship of Difference3 and, at the same but different moment, rising through Identity between complementarity states of Finite and Infinite, as it, Being (Existence), is an expression or deliverance (Life living) in and of symbolic forms, ideas, or mental images. (Ernst Cassirer refers to this process in undefined terms as Symbolische Prägnanz, and the late John Michael Krois would say that this story, as it expresses Cassirer’s Theory of the Non Transcendental, is certainly an “extensive endeavor”.) Think of Life as a coin-in-toss rising in two-sided Difference, and through the act of thinking the Identity of either heads or tails is revealed… but the Difference in the single coin always remains. The Identity potential is never singular, and so Life, as it is always Infinite-Finite relationship of Difference, continues to remain in-toss: Life lives because the coin can never have just one side. Sure, the Identity is important, but there is always more than just the one side to the coin, and thus the Identity is always fleeting whereas the Difference is always permanent. Difference therefore defines the foundation whereby, wherein or where-out experience occurs…. Whew, the waft of Garlic is strong!
Without the delivering taste of Garlic, though, our current Dr. D individual “historical perspective” is anchored in an Identity without Difference: As Zero and One, with Zero now representing the Difference sides of the coin. (This is what is meant by: Consciousness and Life, “cogitare” and “esse” remain, in their deepest roots, separated. As a person relinquishes control of the mind/spirit, he or she is in Life split into two; he or she
41 is left to the discretion of a vampire-esque Power that drove a piercing dissonance into the chant of spheres.) The symbolic forms, ideas, or mental images—the heads and tails—now seem to float in or better yet over a sea of tasteless Nothingness. Humanity (as it is the Individuals therein) now finds itself in mental images (ideas, symbolic forms, etc., etc.) as they, the mental images (etc.), no longer appear to rise in Difference: And thus Identity as one (or Individual) or as the whole of humanity, is paradoxically only realized in one’s own Identity as given to one in one’s mental images, ideas or symbolic forms. This is the how whereby we believe Individuals (as historical) become “unknowingly” aware (garlic-free awareness) as and in consciousness: Unknowingly, because we, our-selves, the Individual or one, only get to live finitely and the objects (as ideas, mental images, symbolic forms), as we believe them to be of our or of one’s (or the Individual’s) own mental processes, get to enjoy both the Finite and the Infinite attribute of Life. A Life which is always, in its entire dimensions, Infinite/Finite Difference (aka Existence or Being as beginning and end): The Nothingness Ocean underscoring Life turns Existence into a mere blemish. As Søren Kierkegaard put it in Fear and Trembling (1843):
“If there were no eternal consciousness in a man, if at the foundation of all there lay only a wildly seething power which writhing with obscure passions produced everything that is great and everything that is insignificant, if a bottomless void never satiated lay hidden beneath all—what then would life be but despair?”
But the smell of Garlic tells us (an aroma that seemed to have eluded Mr. Kierkegaard’s senses) that such self- awareness is the disconnecting of the singular-plural (Infinite/Finite) nature of Existence4 and the ensuing living, as it is self-awareness (of Being or Existence) in progress, to
42 reconnect this paradoxical and sublime unknowing to Consciousness itself (0/1 Dialectic). (“Consciousness and Life, “cogitare” and “esse” remain, in their deepest roots, separated. Ernst Cassirer) Consciousness (or simply reality) is now (in our historical beings) delivered in (one’s own) mental images, and it is the relational context of these images, as they are only one’s ideas and mental images, whereby awareness in the illusion of physical, Finite Identity is revealed. In a twist of irony, Dr. D’s “liberal orientation” further reveals that without the deception of “controlling” such ideas (mental images, etc., etc.), which now, in belief, exist independently of (as physically-real-object) Existence, because the ideas and images are now only functions of one’s mind, there is no self- awareness to, in or as consciousness as a whole. (Or Zero is or becomes the great equalizer: The true distortion of consciousness being that we, as ones, believe that we can imagine a representational value to nothing as though it were not a some-thing. This is what Aristotle means with “we can even say of non-being that it is non-being.” Bk., IV. Gamma, Being and ‘Ousia’, ii; pg. 77, Aristotle (Wheelwright), 1951, Odysee Press Inc.) We are convinced that there cannot be Life without a radicalized sense of self or Individuality as the source for and to All of Existence—as self-created or as in-itself- objectively-real: The objects as they are ideas or mental images are and become our or one’s ‘creation’. We posit, like demi- gods, Life into existence—or so the garlic-free story goes. In the context of Dr. Delgado and that of our own believed Identities, this illusive relationship of self-control is revealed knowingly5 as self-knowledge delivered in devices of understanding: The unique yet universal self-knowledge machine of discovery. I think therefore I am! (From Kant via Leibniz, Hume, and Descartes)
In the spirit of Dr. D and a story that has been unfolding since before the Enlightenment, Garlic reveals to us
43 (in a fragrantly-knowingly—smelly— sort of way) that once the mind has been objectified into a function (aka machines of discovery) there arises between reality (actual consciousness grounded Finite/Infinite Difference rising) and self- knowledge, as we believe ourselves to be Finitely physical (or even just Individual thinking beings), a kind of problem: It becomes difficult to distinguish which moment comes first. If there is only a reality (Finite/Infinite Difference grounding) which now appears to be independent of our Individual reality6 then how do we (or one) distinguish or how are we distinguishing ourselves as Individuals (0-1 bi-nary switch?) from the Nothingness, and if it is our Individual, self-knowledge machines of discovery which is the only true reality then how are we to ascertain we’re not just projecting a reality—an illusion— because as it appears to me, it seems there are a lot of: things happening, things that have happened and things that will happen. Because of the believed disconnected nature of ideas from reality (one’s mind and the ideas therein versus a possible, probable and thus always unknowable outside―consciousness free aka Zero aka Nothingness―world that is helping one’s mind generate time and space constructs), Existence as it can only be experienced (or lived) as consciousness is now at odds with our (or one’s) Finite, physically-grounded-through-ideas’ perceptions (aka the unique yet universal machine). I am…? To maintain what appears to us (and not to Garlic), the obvious Dr. Delgado, garlic-free solution to this rift is: Although reality arises in ideas (as reality is comprised only of the object-ideas in one’s machine of discovery) there is some- thing-real stimulating one’s or our minds and, consequently, generating, as a non-infinite/finitude aka ‘non-genetic’ original source, these ideas: I know that I am real; therefore there must be some kind of reference to objects existing outside of my consciousness; objects giving rise to the ideas in my little, unique yet universal machine of discovery; and consequently any object of consciousness, consumable or otherwise,
44 presents itself as something beyond the mere mental images, ideas or symbolic forms7. This reveals reality in a true form of Finite, physically descriptive possibility, and as such, it gives us, the garlic-free, scientific-minded beings of unique yet universal machines of discovery―understanding as Identity and Identity of potentiality and probability arising out of Zero―a common thread: The outside world is stabile for all of us, and this is what keeps the world from sinking into obscure absurdity…. But this now presents a whole new set of problems… disturbing problems (for the story without a Garlic odor or sapor). (I’ll leave the space-time relationship problems for another chapter.) My mental images as generated by my little self- knowledge machine of discovery may not represent reality but only the nature of my understanding, and what I may know might be absolutely nothing: I am is still just projecting a reality. Besides having delegated our or each and every one’s unique Individuality to an obscure absurdity unrelated to anything and everything but Nothingness, which would by its own designs make it impossible for you, lovely reader, to even be able to read or, for that matter, understand this story, or to see, feel, hear, taste or touch anything besides your own obscure absurdity, it could be said that when you see a dog you think ‘oh what a wonderful pet’ and when I see a dog I think ‘hmmm, barbecued ribs’… or in other words, in the Dr. Delgados of this world truth: ‘It’s a scary world out there.’ Without our little machines of discovery being radicalized into pure mechanical function and thereby securing a universal law- like, preordained predilection to being there—one that holds obscure absurdity at bay—our own projections could have little or no true value to and for Life itself: Our “machines” must mold or conform reality to their own projections so that obscure absurdity does not become reality… can you now smell the paranoia in Dr. Ds “reality”? In a garlic-free Life, common thread as the non-individual dogma of the world is revealed, but only in as far as common thread equates to Universal Law or a priori force, and (fear of) sinking into obscure absurdity
45 become necessary evils—hence, these aforementioned conditions bare the where, when, why and how the impetus for vampires and monsters leading the Dr. Delgados, Edward Bernays, Dick Cheneys, Barack Obama or the Clintons, for that matter, find (or are given) safe haven or, in other words, exist and live. (The Individual perception—aka the unique yet universal machines of discovery—must take on or acknowledge a God-like or Infinite nature of truth-quality— aka the universal—into its own character in order for any self to have some merit of being real.) For the Dr. D’s of this world it becomes a matter of saving the world from itself, and for the Dick Cheneys, Bushes, Obamas and Family Clintons of this world it becomes a matter of the saving Life from the evil men who would prefer to eat a dog instead of buying the dog stocks in Halliburton or the Vanguard Group… Garlic be praised! This is to say that Dr. Delgado still had one last little mote of life-lived-sanity to his distorted and twisted experience; but unfortunately things obviously didn’t get any better. So says Garlic!
Garlic has just delivered the reality of The Individual, but as Dr. Delgado so eloquently put it in his own lack of historical perspective, Individualism is a radicalized reality: There is perceived manipulation of the real, physically, Finite world through which our (garlic-free) projection of reality allows one to illusively define past and future events, and whereby in the process there arises the impression of one’s choices relieving the inherent tension between (the of this moment) Existence and not-to-exist—aka projected reality versus quasi real-reality (as it is of the Now) and the probability of slipping into the chasm believed existing between the two reality-moments. (Can you feel the 1 = 0 dilemma yet?)
46 The next likely question to follow (as it reoccurs like a bad nightmare) may appear: If reality is only my projection then where do you exist, and are we all, as ones, only left to the reality of our own obscure absurdities? No. The sustaining illusion occurs when this reality, left to my projected reality, is no longer a part of my (one’s or ones’) awareness or part of “my consciousness” or of the experience of Now: Zero or the Nothingness (Sea) must exist, and it therefore becomes the truth of and to all ones origins. This Dr. D act is done through the negation of consciousness’ roll in the exchange: Consciousness as it is ALL and EVERY (as Unity: Difference as it is Being or Existence) aspect of, to and in Life. Hence the exclusion of the act itself, as consciousness consciousizing or becoming aware, seems to necessitate ones’ Identity in absolute certainty. (1 and 0 necessitate each other’s roll in the exchange.) In place of the reality of this moment, we, with the blessing of sublime Universal Laws generated by ones’ ‘own’ machine of discovery, continue to project lumpy grey matter as the source of reality: Obscure absurdity is our (ones’) common foe… in other words vampires and monsters are freely given a place and time to call home. 8 Infinite/Finite Existence appears (to and for us) broken into different and separate realms: One moment Finite, as one’s (or ones’) own little, unique yet universal machine of discovery has so appropriately decided, and the other (or next) moment Infinite… in addition to the ample space given for time to appear as though it is something extrinsic to the whole process, as it, time, has now become, in the non-garlicky historical process, a some-thing perceivable arising from an illusion of there being a Nothingness-origin to Life, some scientists like to apply multiple dimensions in the aforementioned illusionary rift (and Western religions apply before and after to the non-moment of Life living). This is to say that these now separated realms, Infinite and Finite, can only be realized in and through a chasm known as
47 Nothingness or Zero. This created Nothingness, as the true starting ground for Existence to rise against or to fight the truth of not-to-exist, arises out of a necessity to maintain Identity sans Difference 9, because it, the perception (as it is one’s or ones’ own unique yet universal machine of discovery), delivers one’s or ones’ Individual existence. But the Individual perception (as Identity sans Difference or Finite independent of Infinite) must necessarily become not part of the process in order to distinguish itself: All of which feeds so wonderfully into our own self-proclaimed ‘I am!’ preordained predilection of greater Universality. In other words: Nothing is still only an idea, mental image, or symbolic form belonging to or of consciousness. (Take notice how Universal Laws, as they are our divine insight into Infinite probabilities and possibilities, fit nicely into humanity’s Finite perception of its own self- worth: We might only be Finite beings but we’ve been graced with the higher knowledge of the eternal and Infinite nature guiding our fallibility.) This now occurs because consciousness in a self—as we in our common thread of preordained predilection of greater Universality find ourselves—no longer recognizes Difference as the beginning of Identity: Think of the tossed coin rising in Difference before the Identity of heads or tails can be defined. The act of consciousness, reality as it is, is no longer the origin of the act of thinking: The only constant, Difference, is necessarily excluded, and by delusional default “the self” is the definer10 and/or thus the only constant in the reality of 0 (Zero) or 1 (One). The objects of our (one’s or ones’) consciousness, or the “sides of the coin” as mental images, ideas or symbolic forms, as they deliver our Identity, thus appear independent of living because their Existence is denied: The “sides” appear independent of one’s life as it is lived. Consciousness as found through and in the universal yet unique self-knowledge machines of discovery, in the little world of ME, is by the nature of symbolic forms (ideas, mental images, etc.) broken off from actual Existence: Existence in its entirety becomes the
48 sacrificial lamb11. Zero or Nothing become the ultimate reality or the greatest equalizer (against the projections, judgments, perceptions of one or ones), but, ironically, this value of Zero or Nothing still always belongs to “one's” own unique yet universal machine of discovery. Even Nothing has to be something… hence there arises the need to fill in the bleeding hole with things like “dark matter.” Modern sciences and Western religions thrive in their servitude to dark and delusional vampire and monster forces, but neither the sciences nor the religions offer value other than an empty ability to exist: As a shell so empty that even when broken it appears in its shattered pieces to be worth more than the emptiness that now appears to be wholly dependent on the shells meaningless meaning. (See humorous new hologram theory of reality as an example, and as far as I can tell, from the limited amount of information released from CERN after it first started to produce results and then stopped giving out “details”, the God Particle seems to also have taken on the definition of being a multiple if not Infinite number of shattered pieces of emptiness.)
Accordingly, consumable, unknowable objects of past and future appear to us (luckily on the Wal-Mart sale shelves) as physically and Finitely real, and the act of consuming then becomes a test of one’s own real, true life: This potentiality is the foundation to Dr. Delgado’s scientific and religious historical perspective, and it could be said that in such a perspective the human spirit takes on the role of negating reality. In our current Zeitgeist or historical perspective control becomes, for every Individual, measureable in our ability to identify as we “chose” objects to be consumed or destroyed… Coke-a-Cola, the choice of a generation. (As for science, the word “smasher” clearly defines the true function of a particle accelerator: atom smasher. There is nothing to be
49 known by destroying anything but only something gained.) Furthermore, for either science or religion, possible, Finite, physical reality as it is given in (every) ones mental images becomes the time-space objects: For science it becomes the ability to define the relationships of physical, Finite objects (as they are only mental images) and their resultant, as manipulated by the scientists themselves, events due to the fact that they, the objects or the ideas of objects and their resultant events, are not even solely Finitely or physically real. As for religions, the control of such a reality defines one’s place in the afterlife: Freely accepting God as the only truth or the All probability and possibility of Finite and Infinite dimension is the Advance to Go card available at any church. GW Leibniz’s Monadology illustrates very clearly the relationship of object-Finite to object-Finite/Infinite, or, in other words, of Leibniz to God (Number 45 of the Monadology):
“Therefore God alone (or the Necessary Being or Necessary Existence) has this prerogative that if he be possible he must necessarily exist, and, as nothing is able to prevent the possibility of that which involves no bounds, no negation, and consequently, no contradiction, this alone is sufficient to establish a priori his existence”. (Garlic has added the underline)
There is tension which arises in the relationship of consciousness (reality) when reality is believed to be of the physically, Finite real: Nothingness appears or emerges as an abyssuous-fold for the self (or one) to conduct its business. Spinoza on the other hand, as he appears to the garlic- free understanding, begins with Spinoza as Infinite/Finite and reality as Infinite/Finite and could only make it to the sixth Definition in the Ethics: But these experiential first six Definitions were enough to positively inspire many philosophers and mathematicians to follow. (Leibniz for example.) The first six Definitions deliver a method to experiencing the chant of spheres. It was just such an experience
50 that Leibniz could not reconcile, but only negate or what would be an equation of self that necessitates zero-substance, in his experience as an Identity or “Leibniz”:
“Also, our certainty regarding universal and eternal truths is grounded in the ideas themselves, independently of the senses, just as pure ideas—ideas of the intellect, such as the ideas of being, one, same etc.—are also independent of the senses.” (New Essays IV, iv: Reality of our knowledge, pg. 196)
The ideas, thus, are already here, for Leibniz, Identity sans Difference: Leibniz states very clearly that the ideas of the intellect of being, one, same, are only Identity….an Identity within an Identity —all Difference value and substance, the true grounding, reflects only what the Identity thinks or in this case what Leibniz thinks. The ‘eternal truth of the matter’ is all ideas are grounding in being as one and many or in the Infinite/Finite nature of Being Differencing itself.
Unlike my Individual and only possibly and probable knowable self (of the Now), the consumer giblets present themselves as fixed, Finite, physical reality (necessarily real objects of reference luckily available at any shopping mall or online retailer), and as such are an anchor to my reality… But reality as it is consciousness cannot not exist; hence the positive nature of Difference rising into Identity and the continuation of Life living: And this defines the actual living dynamic between the Individual and what is perceived to be reality. In the illusion of radicalized Individuality (garlic-free), it doesn’t matter if we know what the objects truly are because we believe them to be of our creation; we believe mankind is delivered in function and productivity 12 as it is reflected in our own unique yet universal machines of discovery. And we also compellingly believe consuming (annihilating through purchase and consumption) objects allow us to have some
51 kind of control over the illusionary world we project; a process which also wonderfully enables us (ones) to realize our (one’s and ones’) possible existence as real: History unfolding at our whim…
52 Chapter 8
The Great Debate
A quantum physicist and a philosopher are in a laboratory standing in front of a sealed Schrödinger box when the physicist says to the philosopher: "So what do you think? Will the cat be alive or dead when we open the box?" The philosopher doesn't say anything, but only shrugs his shoulders. "You philosophers always did have a hard time communicating ideas about reality," responds the physicist to the philosopher’s apparent apathy. The physicist then goes on, untouched by the philosopher's dumbness, and says, "Okay, here we go," and opens the box. "Look, the cat's dead," he comments. Inspired, the philosopher turns to the physicist and says, "Oh really, I just heard a tree fall in the woods."1
We’d all like to believe we are, as Individuals, telling our own stories — making our own ragout— when in fact we have very little say in the making of the meal. Unfortunately, though, our idea (or ideas) of Individuality has become nothing more than an advertisement for our consumer purchasing power. The actual power belongs to the consumer objects themselves, and we don’t really get to decide what’s on the stove: Our dish is never truly homemade, but it, one’s ragout, is, to a certain extent, the product of marketed, mass-consumer-driven identification. How else was and is Starbucks able to spread like a virus through café rich cultures? We have come to believe that control is free will to, the power to, and God given right to decide between Coke-a-Cola and Pepsi…
53 Neo Liberalism: It’s the tasty voice and necessary vice of the Now.
Any semblance of true control thus belongs to a handful of companies and their CEOs; the owners of ™, ©, ®, and all means of transportation, communication, and production. But greater truth be told, they, the Politicians, CEOs, Chairmen, Presidents and Vice Presidents are only minions to the forces they worship: The vampires and monsters orchestrating this little dance of brokenness. As Dr. Delgado so magically put it: Man does not have the right to develop his own mind. This game of control, as it has evolved into the Individual freedom, as divinely inspired or rationally discovered, to choose between Nike and Adidas, or McDonalds and Burger King, is core to the self as a consumer Individual and is perpetuated by the Corporation of America and Multi-National Corporations: It is the believed method towards a historical domination of life—and perhaps it is. But this idea of consumerism, as we gleefully believe it to be the belly of Existence, is a downright devilish and sinister leash of slavery, and in some cases, like that of my mother’s, it was (and still is) a seed of and to spiritual destruction. In order for Dr. Delgado’s truth to flourish the parishioners or the consumers —The Individual—my mother—must subjugate and regulate themselves to the Existence of consumer items: In order to be consumer-successful, the Individual must reject human-emotional relationships (or any relationships of Infinite/Finite Difference Existence as the beginning and end) and embrace the consumer objects as the only real goal of (Existence-free) Life: The positive nature of consciousness giving rise from and in Difference into Identity’s illusive stories, as it, consciousness, is the origin and end, must be rejected. Our Identity as self-knowledge (in a material-consumer reality or garlic-free reality) can only exist
54 when consciousness (reality) in its entirety is absolutely negated: Only Identity without Difference is allowed to be recognized. In other words: The function of the unique yet universal machines of discovery must become fully automated… the lumpy grey mass is physical truth generating physical truth! Hence, consumer objects offer the only potential and probable Individual Identity by delivering living mental images, symbolic forms or ideas in physically consumable Life, and through the consumer objects’ consumption there is laid open a path to greater Individual- potential… I have something to live and work for. When I, the Individual, deny the primary relationship (consciousness as it begins and ends in Difference!) delivering the positive and whole essence to Life, the function of the Finite thereness (Difference that has otherness or Difference that is of relationship) is in our context, our garlic-free story, to live, but only when the realization of the incomplete Infinite nature of one’s Existence—through producing, purchasing and consuming—has become the Universal Law, a priori, self- perpetuating unique yet universal machine of discovery impetus or common thread: Because without the function (as it is Universal Law’s nature), the original catalyst for any, every and all relationships, my or one’s ‘appearance’ (in the phenomenological sense) lacks the full-potential and full- probable Infinite quality of being real: function is, in a garlic- free life, a primordial absolute nature of to exist. The Identity- Life negates the truth, which can ironically never be trumped, that Life is only aesthetic, never functional, and definable only in emotional, sensual relationship(s). Life is thus negated in its absolute “I am a ZERO!” sense—which means that without Difference ‘there’ appears neither a beginning nor an end— and, hallelujah, ‘there’ appears to be time and space (created by me!) in which I have a potential and probable Life to either be its master or slave. Like a mini-God, I, too, now have a personal fate to be determined by my übermenschy
55 Individuality. (The nature of Zero as it relates to one comes in a later chapter but in the meantime: I am!) Therefore consciousness is willingly negated, in a free will monumental moment of recognition before both Difference and Identity rise and not after or during: Or this reveals the how of our absolute sense of believed Individual awareness… Dr. D need not apply any electrodes. Just offer me (or you) the possibility of owning unlimited amounts of junk as reward for my (or your) work and I (you or we) can fulfill, through purchasing objects which appear as products of my own historical creation, the belief that I (or you)—the mini-God—am (or are) a reflection of a God or, in the case of the sciences, Nothingness (0). But in either case, as God or Nothingness, the I am is (or becomes) the reflection of the origin, as God or Nothingness in their abstract natures embody cause and effect, as I am is (or is becoming) the Beginning and the End. I can still hear my 1980’s father say: He who has the most toys wins. This is the rise of, as Dr. Delgado so expressively put it, our historical perspective.
We all love the consumable junk and the game of control: Allowing consumable objects to deliver our un-lives keeps us un-satisfied because consumable junk, as delivered products of marketing campaigns fueled by greed and envy deliver vampires and monsters, but/and, consequently, rewards us with an appearance of being in the process of expressing a preordained historical domination of Life: We believe that one’s fate, however small or insignificant one’s own unique, little machines of discovery may be, is in one’s own hands. But consumerism alone cannot satisfy Life because consciousness,as it is reality, rises before our Identities, and therefore we continually work, hoping to fulfill a dream that can only exist as just on the horizon of consuming. We are like puppy dogs chasing our own tales. Even if we obtain some holy object of valued consumer Identity (perceived Life), all value of and in consumable objects meets its end in the
56 communion of purchasing and consuming, and, hence, by the consumable objects very nature, is meant not to satisfy — primary-Life as it is Difference is no longer even recognized. There’s always a newer and better object waiting to be consumed. There’s always a bigger title to put on my Business Card: Mr. Lyons, Dr. Lyons, Professor Doctor Lyons, King Lyons, Savior Lyons. The addiction to Coke-a-Cola is not found in the sugar or caffeine but in its Infinite, spiritual dimensions as it delivers time and space—drink just one more man made can of Coke and I (you or we) come that much closer, along the linear pathway I, you or we have helped pave, to the Infinite dimensions of my, your or our finite, Individual reality: I, you or we can almost be alive in the Now. I, you or we can almost be a part of Being (Existence) as it is Infinite/Finite.
In this sense, even human relationships themselves are obstacles to success. The self can exist through illusively transcending Finite Existence, but Life is of consciousness: All objects positively rise in this non-tangible dimension or what one could call a quantum complementarity expressed in Infinite/Finite appearance (Garlic Ontology2). Objects are only as real as they are Identity: Symbolic forms (ideas or mental images) positively rising in exchanging Infinite/Finite dimensions (“life seems to be essentially the act of perceiving or thinking”, Bk. IX: Ch. 9, Nicomachean Ethics, Introduction to Aristotle, Richard McKeon, 1947), the sum-total of which can be expressed as and in a meta-gravitational field law and (can be considered as and in a) meta-mathematical-temporality (meta- temporal) necessitated premise of Difference in tandem with the meta-physical necessitated premise of Identity. Necessity is a tricky dance of otherness…. But, for example, this tricky dance has long since been recognized (in relative terms) in the wave/particle theory of light. These objects (particles in this case) have, as they rise through symbolic form, only the positivity of consciousness itself as their goal… Finite/Infinitude or Infinite/Finitude OF THIS MOMENT! For everything besides
57 the living OF NOW, the best and most Identity and Difference can ever deliver is a good story—if one can smell the Garlic then one knows of the emotional high known as Life (Phenomeno- logical Deliverance—the role of Myth and Rhythm, in the tricky dance of otherness, is discussed in later chapter). This emotional core of all relationships, as it is consciousness as ‘of’ (human or otherwise) anchored or anchoring in the original, non-Identity, Difference-consciousness (expressive-positivity or sheer Being or sheer Existence) and giving rise to Identity as symbolic forms (mental images, etc.) in deliverance, is the secret ingredient used by vampires and monsters. But as the story of Individual mass consumerism goes, it’s held out before one’s mind like the proverbial carrot on a stick. Obtaining the carrot—realizing Life in its Finite and Infinite simultaneous one and many ‘thereness’ relationship(s)—is the impetus used to sell us consumer-object-Identity; thus any direct, real and unmediated relationships take away from one’s consumer Individual. Even if I catch the carrot I’m still not satisfied because it was always only my carrot that I was chasing, and therefore “reality” still remains at the end of the stick: The puppy catches its tail but let’s go when it realizes it has only caught its own tail; so begins the comedy once again, and remains, none-the-less, our Individual tragic comedy of deliverance. Any relationship expressive of ontological consciousness (sheer Being) diminish an Individual’s ability at being consumer-successful: If one (an Individual) is or were to be more concerned with real relationships of deliverance (knowing as anchored in positivity as Difference rising inIdentity), one becomes less concerned with working to pay for the next can of Coke-a-Cola. The idea (mental image/form/symbolic form) of Coke-a-Cola would, for such a person, appease the appetite because Existence is already self- fulfilling; consciousness can only rise positively—there’s no trumping the purely aesthetic, non-functional nature to Existence. Embracing human emotions (as they are the garlicky essence of non-function, aesthetic, probable and
58 possible experience) and, thus, Life in their absolute positive sense, are poisonous for consumer economies: Consumer objects, actions and goals, as they are our twisted humanity, thrive in proxy only when actual human relationship is (believed to be) confined3, regulated, and even outlawed. Through this historical process, truth, as it belongs to Existence, has become only obtainable in transcendence: In addition to the only probable and possible theoretical sciences’ physical reality, which is anchored in Nothingness and therefore never of the now, the sensual relational reality of Life anchored or anchoring in Existence is also the object of Christ’s origin―a Christ who’s reality is bound to faith in everything and anything but the now. Consumer objects do lead to salvation! In this sense, the morally stifling and hypocritical, Christian- right movement feeds into the hands of vampires and monsters: These neo-conservative Christians have equated, through their own (his)story of negation, consumer Individuality with that of economic truth and embrace a faceless, fiendish monster as their God; thus worshipping a God enshrouded in shiny, sparkly fugu-diamonds and truffle- gold, but in reality they, the neo-cons, are only worshipping the god of disposable shit. “Show the terrorist we can’t be beat and go out and shop!”4
In 1974 Dr. Jose Delgado did not formulate a unique desire but only revealed the Zeitgeist of the rising times. Like any philosopher, scientist, artist, or clergy, he is just another dish simmering on the stove as other Infinite ingredients, which in their own Infinite/Finite rights exist as their own unique ragouts, are being tossed into his stew of Life. The cook(s) or chef(s), though, as they are revealed to be vampires and monsters, was unknown to Dr. Delgado, and at best the Dr. was only an entrée name on the ever revolving (to say evolving invokes some kind of teleological, extrinsic context) consumer-menu-spirit.
59 My mother on the other hand, despite her own instinctive desires to belong to a world realized in consumer Identity, needed Life as it was and still is—first—as a consummate beginning and end, consciousness’s positive departure and return from Difference (as occurring through Identity). My mother could not let go of emotional, real relationships: The vampires and monsters that were then working their magic across the American landscape could not completely have her soul. She embraced her true, innate, Life sustaining values, and when Jim B. arrived on the scene she held on to him with all of her instinctive love of Life, but at the same time poisoning him: He was an impediment to her true consumer success story. Thus, it could be said, in that she only needed unadulterated human relationship as it was still delegated through Leave it to Beaver, Nuclear Family values of Identity grounded in Difference, she too was a hero. Life definitely has its ironies and tragedies.
60 Chapter 9
The Critique of Pure Reason: The Beavers are dead; the Brady’s killed them!
When one reads the introduction to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason1 what one finds revealed in the ‘historical dialogue’2— in how we arrive in a contextual value-of- awareness as lived in our experiential thereness— is Kant’s ignorance of how for the Ancient Greeks and Egyptians the Finite existed as their unknown and living Infinity was their only given quantity and mass. Kant did not understand that Thales or whoever delivered the isosceles triangle to this garlicky story was living in a rich and vibrant world, and not in a world given in one’s solitary, unique and yet universal perspective; in other words not in a world where the Infinite was regulated to the realm of a Nothingness wherein Finite was the only given known quality. So for Kant and the history of science that follows, a light went off: Because Existence and not any single agent demonstrates the isosceles triangle and this is proven in that Life, as it is the expression of Identity, lives….or are you, lovely reader, not alive and reading this? And this, the awareness delivered in the aforementioned context of experience grounded in Infinite thereness, is the what Aristotle refers to as “philosophical wisdom” (NE, Bk. VI: Ch.7, McKeon Edition, 1952) when he is speaking about Thales and other Greek philosophers:
“But if the argument be that man is the best of the animals, this makes no difference; for there are other things much more divine in their nature even than man, e.g., most conspicuously, the bodies of which the heavens are framed. From what has been said it is plain, then, that philosophic wisdom is scientific knowledge, combined with intuitive reason, of the things that are highest by nature. This is why we say Anaxagoras, Thales, and men like them have philosophic but not practical wisdom, when we see them ignorant of what is to their own advantage, and why we say
61 that they know things that are remarkable, admirable, difficult, and divine, but useless; viz. because it is not human goods that they seek.” (Side note: By “useless” Aristotle means that which has no telos or function.)
A lot can happen in and to an Existence that is no longer present…or, more honestly said, to an Existence numbly negated while (one is) watching primetime television.
The coil of my mother’s delusions―the origin of her then struggling Existence―can be found in the expectations she believed the world placed (and still places) on her―expectations that were for her in her given perspective a ‘natural’ tether keeping her from falling into the abyss of obscure absurdity―and the way in which she dealt with the ensuing emotions arising from this ‘natural’ perceptual experience. Noam Chomsky sums up nicely how the ‘natural’ became a cog in the (unique yet universal) machine manufacturing, for the average at home viewer of the boobtube, a ‘necessary’ clusterfuck of perceptions, so that certain power structures could fall into place:
“Decisions on free speech began to be made around the First World War, but not by the courts. It wasn’t until the 1960s that the US established a high level of protection of freedom of speech. Meanwhile in the interwar period there was extensive discussion within the framework of what has been called ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ freedom, after Isaiah Berlin, of what the First Amendment implies about freedom of expression and of the press. There was a view sometimes called ‘corporate libertarianism’, which held that the First Amendment should concern NEGATIVE freedom: that is the government can’t interfere with the right of media owners to do what they want. The other view was social democratic, and came out of the New Deal after the Depression and the early post-WWII period. That view held that there should also be POSITIVE freedom: in other words, that people should have the right to information as the basis for a democratic society. That battle was waged in the 1940s, and corporate libertarianism won. The US is unusual in this respect. There’s nothing like the
62 BBC in the US. Most countries have some kind of national media which are as free as the society is. The US whacks that to the margins. The media were basically handed over to private power to exercise their capacities as they choose. That’s an interpretation of freedom of expression in terms of negative freedom: the state can’t intervene to affect what the private owners decide to do. There are a few restrictions, but not much. The consequences are pretty much a control of ideas as Orwell describes.” (Noam Chomsky on Institutionalized Stupidity, answering a question at his Award reception sponsored by Philosophy Now, January 27th, 2015)
It was exactly during the historical time frame in which Mr. Chomsky is arguing that “freedom” in the flow of mediated information took a “negative” turn whereby the turbulent anti-Vietnam War generation Brady Bunch family were able, actually empowered and employed, to murder the post WWII Beaver family. In our current, highly evolved state of Now, any one given perspective is much more easily micromanaged when our orientation of being human as it is believed to be tethered to the idea of freedom becomes equated, in bypassing both the negative and positive dichotomy, to one’s ability to choose between Coca Cola and Pepsi: “The media were basically handed over to private power to exercise their capacities as they choose,” and, consequently, the images of life, as represented in the media and its programming, no longer, as intended by the private power, corresponded and still do not correspond to anything but a tool meant to steer, through well paid for advertising campaigns, the consumer between objects of projected desire. And now, because of the success of having completely eliminated the positive/negative dichotomy in every sense of the word freedom, the media can openly reveal crimes committed by Presidents, politicians, bankers and business leaders because we, as a people, no longer even view “freedom” as a part of the process in a democracy. My mother was a victim in the bypassing historical movement of freedom and, emotionally, she didn’t fare the
63 journey well. Simply put: My mother was (and still is) human. There can only be real Life as the emotions deliver her (or any-thing for that matter), but the objects of her desires— the shiny, sparkly consumer giblets that would come to and still do deliver her self—are void of any emotional reality. Like Schrödinger’s Cat, there was and still is for her already an implicit idea that the objects, desired or not, as they are of her (or any one’s) mind, are dead or non-existent. This is to say that when she (or any-one) thinks, in so far as thinking is a bundle of ideas bumping around in her (or any-one’s) lumpy grey mass like a chaotic flow of cars, bicycles, motorcycles and/or pedestrians at a multi-street-intersection that one might find in some Asian or Southern European city, are either simply nothing or just products of a lumpy grey mass that (and which) doesn’t really even exist anyway: Because the lumpy grey mass is, itself, still, at best, only an idea like all the other ideas swimming around in her (or any-one’s) garlic- free cranium. Therefore any true object of one’s ideas, reflective of a thing existing as an originating object, must offer something tangibly real to the bundle of ideas whirling around inside the lumpy grey mass: Everything inside her (or any-one’s) mind is thus only a limited, cheap representation of some-thing ‘better’ or some-thing ‘really real outside’. In truth, though, this is not only not the case for those things exuding aromas of Garlic, but for every-thing there is no external, outside physical world at odds with some inner truer world of ideas: There only is… the Now moment of Existence. And the Now is an emotional state better known as Life living. Any so- called object or thing which detracts from actual reality of Now is thus a ruse or grift… granted it’s a necessary grift for any, every, and all appearances, but without this bit of garlicky truth of the emotional state of Now being present in the ideas or the, so to say, end product of the unique yet universal machine of discovery, as the garlic-free truth now embodies only an illusion of outside thingness giving rise to the appearance of inside ideas, the grift or ruse has only its
64 eventual self-destruction as a historical self-perspective. And for Now, since it’s not given to or truly existing in the analytical or predicate grift, the only truth tethering Life to Existence is a belief: There is nothing factual, meaningful or purposeful beyond the mere positive nature of Existence in a state of awareness. One can either smell the garlic or no, hallelujah! This was and still is not only my mother’s garlic-free world, but it was and still is the world, and it has been turned inside-out: The emotional relationships of living, as they are only ideas interacting, dancing if you will, in and at the intersection of Finite and Infinite Difference, have been labeled poisonous, and the dead or non-existent consumer objects of Individual Identity have been labeled Life sustaining. And this all translates into “Arbeit Macht Frei” or work is the means to the end: Work becomes the historical engine bringing us, as ones, closer to our truer selves—closer to our Individuality—or it is anchoring us to and in our humanity as it, humanity, directs us toward a better before and afterlife/theoretical principle fulfillment; as we and the I are becoming (rising) in an existential dilemma filling with angst (see vampires and monsters and the puppy dog chasing its own tail or the rabbit chasing the carrot at the end of the stick allegories), and (work) is, has been, and will, therefore, always be the method to true salvation. Lovely reader, do not confuse the discourse between Existence and Life with that of capitalism—free-market; consumer, or otherwise. To do so means to freely relinquish one’s soul, one’s Difference, to the vampires and monsters. (The Enlightenment era thinking and its application of Natural Law to mold Existence into a nothingness model is still always present in our garlic-free thereness.) In a garlic aromatized myth, work, in such a context as an Existence to Life discourse, is not equate-able to slavery and self-destructive narratives: food gathering, shelter
65 building, and so on do not belong to ownable objects or a work ethic reflective of a higher truth. As Henry David Thoreau describes hard work, the myth of productivity, and the true measure of meaningful labor:
“The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure. There will be a wide margin for relaxation to his day. He is only earnest to secure the kernels of time, and does not exaggerate the value of the husk. Why should the hen set all day? She can lay but one egg, and besides she will not have picked up materials for a new one. Those who work much do not work hard.” (The last day of March in 1842, THE JOURNAL, 1837–1861, HENRY DAVID THOREAU, NYRB CLASSICS, 2011)
In a garlic-free world, it could be said that through one’s willingness to enslave one’s time to and in this exchange of ideas with objects of nonexistence-origin, there is also a fear instilled inside one from and through (the presence of) outside or extrinsic consumer objects and, thus, through one’s own blind, ignorant commitment to the process (work). Such a fear, which is the voice of vampires and monsters, is, in such a garlic-free relationship, freely given the place and time to uninterruptedly and unabatedly echo, from out of the halls of nothingness, in silence: Without me you are nothing! Consuming is Life and to engage one’s self in an emotional relationship is an engagement with death! My mother longed and still longs for middle class American status and all of its consumer-giblets as the TV and marketing and media vampire zombies told and still tell her to worship them …. She may only desire to belong, which in itself is not bad: Garlic doesn’t say that the desire to belong is something evil but only points out that since the dawning of television there has always been an Edward Bernays propagated picture: A picture perfect dish orchestrated by CEOs and Politicians (High Priests). In my days of youth it was the giant house, the four cars (at least one station
66 wagon—and now it would be one SUV amongst them!) parked in the quarter-mile-long driveway; a drooling, tail-wagging Golden Retriever with a stick in its mouth, prancing gaily across the anally manicured lawn. To this day I find myself, on occasion, longing for this same American dream. I can see my darling children, Wally and Beaver out on the driveway, sinking a basketball into the hoop that I, me, the This Old House, Bob Vila character, masterfully hung from the roof of our three-car garage. I imagine sitting with my wife in our luxurious, tastefully-decorated kitchen planning our next vacation while our other children, Marsha, Jan and Cindy, are off somewhere playing a trick on the live-in maid… ha, ha, ha! Much to my mother’s chagrin, my little digression here is nothing more than a lark: I have never had this dream, but she fully believed and still believes in the standard of the nuclear family ideal—the June Cleaver School of America— the tuna casserole. At first she didn’t subscribe to the emerging Brady Bunch individual consumer Identity, either, but I can tell you that she now, as you and I speak here in the Garlic Cures, feels good about herself when buying an overpriced, European-style loaf of bread from Panera’s. When you think about it, without the bigger, Edward Bernays picture or the multi-million dollar advertisement campaign there would be no transcendental ideal; there would be only our relationships. In today’s world one can see, when one is able to stew in Garlic’s message and clear one’s head, that the relationships (as they are living, genetic-store of Genetic-images, Genetic- ideas and Genetic-symbolic forms —“genetic” meaning a hereditary unit with infinite-finitude as its origins) of actual Life-giving sustenance in the (Genetic-stored in said images, ideas and forms) values of, for example, baking a loaf of bread (and then eating it), has been captured by the vampires and monsters, and that, therefore, instead of celebrating the Life- living of values in Being (as it is Infinite/Finite), we willingly,
67 blindly and ignorantly rejoice in the shackling of nourishing knowledge. In an imbued and heightened state of Garlicization, the aforementioned blind ignorance should be heard as the bugler’s call of either taps or reveille. And when it’s not the end of Life then, in our awakening of original knowledge, and as we begin to seek and renew the sustenance and not the substance, to gorge our souls on the sweet Life- giving spirit of Garlic is the first step toward emancipation. Let the vampires and monsters roost elsewhere! Everything my mother has ever done has always been orchestrated with these misleading and carefully propagated, as conducted by the hands of monsters and vampires, goals in mind. This sale of Life is not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s the method by which we let ourselves be sold that can be judged (with the help of a Spiritual MSG, of course). It’s called a lie, and these lies, the ones that help confuse sustenance and substance, can only feed on the deception and perversion of Life itself as we choose “Coke” over “Pepsi”. Just as Individual consumer objects are a removal of direct experience from as living, so too must the method of their delivery be nothing more than a ruse. You can’t sell life as possessions without distorting the actual living aspect: That European-like bread from Panera’s will taste better than homemade could ever taste! Not only do I get to go on vacation for the price of a loaf of bread, but I am also eating something healthy and yummy! Any physical, emotional, and sensual truths we live must be twisted and suppressed, otherwise the objects of consumerism would have no actual desired value; objects not possessing our souls, our Difference, would not be consumable. Although the writing on the wall has always been clearly displayed, and the lie was and still is always there to be read, my mother could never bring herself to view it: Not even in 1977 when my father told her that he wanted to have kinky sex with her and another man. When he confided this to her, he had no intention of leaving or of becoming a
68 completely tart and fruity main course. My father simply has always been good at reading between the lines—reading the writing on the wall—and knowing exactly what was going on around him: He wanted to live without the lies, and only wanted to express his Individuality in living. In his naïve view, the Individual-consumer-object was only meant to be the icing on his tart and fruity life. He reasoned that if he was going to try to be like Mr. Brady and shed his 1950s Nuclear Family Values—which still contained vestiges of nourishing knowledge—he was going to go full-tilt, and this included his natural urge to sleep with men. He intuitively knew that the TV Land inhabitants were living out their clandestine sensual desires so why shouldn't he? My father knew that the actors in TV Land weren’t baking bread at home: Mr. Brady (Robert Reed), when not in front of the camera, wasn’t sleeping with Mrs. Brady or any Mrs. or Ms. for that matter… but then again there was Greg Brady (Barry Williams) sleeping with his TV mother while off camera. The images as represented on TV were in fact, in some sublime way, as they offered a lie to any truth of humanity, the template to the distortions and manipulations to come. My father had no idea that all emotions and desires were only meant to live in the desired objects of mass consumerism themselves, and that the closest one was (and still is) allowed to truly experience ones’ feelings and needs was (and still is) in the purchasing power: The impetus can never be overcome and the act of continual consuming must suffice. Without a universal sense of empowerment in the act of purchasing, Individual mass consumerism could not (and cannot) thrive or even exist, and, as such, this was (and still is) where our freedoms begin and end. Democracy only has meaning when it delivers culture into the economics of freedom to consume—into the only place and time where all humanity can be equal: The Finite self and the realm of potential known as The Individual. In his naivety, instead of being homemade bread or a
69 potato and carrot pot-luck dish, my father simply wanted to become a caviar, lobster, fugu, diamond studded omelet. He had no idea that in a garlic-free Life his feelings never belonged to himself and that he could only exist, at best, in the closet. As a result of his admission of bi-sexuality, the first of many straws was laid on my mother’s back, and, as punishment for trying to not lie, my father and his new found Individualism were forced into the basement where he had to sleep with the dogs. The subliminal lies as delivered by the media vampires and monsters were just too much for my mother and she couldn’t reconcile the picture with the story. At the time, she could neither become self-indulgent in the up- and-coming Individual-based, mass-consumer economy nor could she hide in the alternative, then evolving, fanatical neo- conservative, Christian-right movement as it willfully embraced materialistic wealth as the true sign of one’s devotion to God—a God that rewards the good and obedient consumer. She may even have had buried, hidden away, little desires within her own stew, but after Jim B. failed her, too, she opted for the only respectable and reasonable ingredients of salvation: poisons.
70 Chapter 10
"All the media at that time presented an image of a happy consumer America. Family life with all modern conveniences was pushed aggressively everywhere, creating a contradiction that was very stressful and very confusing. The illusion was the opposite of sordid reality of everyday life, with stressed parents fighting each other, and worrying about paying the bills. There's a fantasy world created by the media. When we actually try to live it, we don't know why it's not working. The promise can never be fulfilled. It's just a sales pitch." FROM THE R. CRUMB HANDBOOK, R. CRUMB AND PETER POPLASKI.
R. Crumb and Peter Poplaski’s ragouts simmer in the same pot as that of my mother and father, but unlike my parents, they have beaten back the vampires and monsters. R. Crumb and Peter Poplaski are heroes!
Although my dad appeared blue-collar—meat and potatoes—he had a flamboyant little man hidden away inside of him, and he jumped at every opportunity to introduce me and my brother to the weird and bizarre. In 1978 my father was one of the first people in all of Downers Grove (Westmont) to lump out $1200.00 for the first VCR (on the market) that came with a black and white video camera. And right after we got the VCR/Video camera, he went out and found an illegal copy of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and John Waters’ Pink Flamingos. I can also imagine that my father, while reading the latest editions of Hustler Magazine, had already caught wind of what old Hogan’s Hero, Bob Crane, was up to with a camera and wanted in on the then non-existent, home porn industry. Don’t forget that in 1978 there were only very few Video Rental Shops, and absolutely no video rental sections at the grocery stores, gas stations, or sundry shops. (There was only one video rental store in Downers Grover for over a year, and it sold mostly illegally filmed copies of current
71 blockbuster and independent films.) In the suburban Midwest during the 1970s owning a VCR or something like a skateboard almost qualified a person or family for cult status. My father might have had many faults—a lack of responsibility to his family being one of them—then again my father never believed in the Leave It To Beaver Nuclear Family Values—but he did the best he could, given the circumstances. He could feel the rising, overwhelming sense of Individuality, but little did he know that all the flavors, feelings, emotions and desires were to be limited or caged to and in the purchasing of consumer products, and were not meant to be delivered in actual living and experiencing. In the 1970s, he believed consuming the burgeoning, Individual mass- consumer articles was meant to set us free and make us more alive. He didn’t know that the little inner person—sensually flamboyant or otherwise—was only meant to be either destroyed, as in my mother’s scenario, or to be enslaved, or to be the impetus to becoming an entertainer, politician or successful businessman: And thus, in becoming Mike Brady or even a J. Edgar Hoover, being able to afford the luxury of living out any caged desires. Instead of succumbing to these vampires and monsters, my father just ran away and hid in the secluded, northern woods of Wisconsin where he lived with his mother and worked under his twin brother’s social security number. In some sense, my father never failed, and he, too, belongs, in a twisted sense, to the heroes. As Aristotle wrote of the prodigal, which could be considered a befitting description of my father:
“But most prodigal people, as has been said, also take from the wrong sources, and are in this respect mean. They become apt to take because they wish to spend and cannot do this easily; for their possessions soon run short. Thus they are forced to provide means from some other source. At the same time, because they care nothing for honour, they take recklessly and from any source; for it is not noble, nor does it aim at nobility, nor is it done in the right way; sometimes they make rich those who should be poor,
72 and will give nothing to people of respectable character, and much to flatterers or those who provide them with some other pleasures. Hence also most of them (the prodigal) are self-indulgent; for they spend lightly and waste money on their indulgences, and incline towards pleasures because they do not live with a view to what is noble.” (Aristotle, NE Bk. IV: Ch.1 Richard McKeon Edition, 1947)
But Aristotle wouldn’t consider my father a hero, failed or otherwise. In Aristotle’s opinion, the “self-indulgent” man acts with the assumption that it is his right to be “self- indulgent”, which is a quality in itself, according to Aristotle and Garlic, that pays no respect to the first principle: “Self- indulgence” is not a quality adherent to of things reflective of A=A (Aristotle, NE, Bk. VII: Ch. 8, pages 459-460, Richard McKeon Edition, 1947). But Garlic disagrees with Aristotle: because my father should not and cannot be held responsible for the nature of to exist. He did, after all, try to be a hero…he just failed. He was and is, as we all are, at the mercy of the vampires and monsters that have come to narrate this nowing garlic-free story. Not everyone can be Prometheus. As of the 2014 rewrite, my seventy year old father lives in a trailer in North Carolina, is addicted to pharmaceutical industry/doctor prescribed/pharmacy supplied OxyContin pills that he also sells, when the monthly prescription quantity allows, of course, and has a number of warrants out for his arrest due to circumstances arising from his profligacy and need to satisfy his own self-indulgences that have always fueled his disregard for responsibility to anything other than his… his own decadence and need to satisfy his own hedonisms.
73 Chapter 11
“Fuck You Heroes is a powerful book... a book that stands as a powerful testimonial: skaters, rappers, punks, are caught in the bright, charged moments of their youth, and presented to us as a new legacy of heroes. Youth culture, like any art form, takes from the past to build a future. Because Friedman was always hanging out at the right place at the right moments, Fuck You Heroes might function as part of an authoritative history for my own generation, and could help to provide the generation kicking at our heels with something to build on.” Nick Waplington’s review of Glen E. Friedman’s ‘Fuck You Heroes’.
At age forty-one (and now, at the time of this rewrite, age forty-seven, and now, some years later I am almost at the limits of the infinite when it comes to age) I can proudly say that I’ve been a skateboarder and punk rocker since 1975, and in most ways I can thank my father for the early introductions into the offbeat and colorful paths life has to offer: For any and all zesty ingredients that keep falling into my ragout. It was my father who introduced me to punk, and he definitely liked the whole rebel thing to skateboarding. He had no problem shelling out money, true to his profligacy, for the newest skate products for my me and my brother that were emerging at the time, and he immensely enjoyed the latest Import LPs my brother or I would bring home from the local record store. In the summer of 1977 he hollered from the basement den up to the kitchen, “Boys get down here!” The Sex Pistols were being featured on Public Television. I can hear him laughing, almost choking, from the lack of oxygen as Johnny blurted out “God save the Queen” over our television set. These ingredients, though, which determined the eventual path I would take (skateboarding, drinking,
74 smoking, and playing punk music), were added many years before Garlic was being harvested. I may have only been in elementary school as my family world imploded on the suburban lies, but for all practical purposes, up until the point of collapse, my mother and father were fairly typical middle- class parents: They were in a sense living the Brady Bunch hypocrisy—just a little too openly for the era, perhaps. Even though my parents were on the outs (my dad was part-time in the basement and part-time at our summer home in Sandwich, IL) my dad was earning good money with the Heating & Air- conditioning business he ran out of the backyard of our beautiful home located on a large lot in the middle of the then farm lands of Westmont, Illinois (DuPage County)—at least the bank kept giving him new mortgages to fuel the illusionary/delusional American economic pyramid scheme of success. I can say, with an honest sense of sentimentality, my life as a youngster, prior to my father’s outing of himself to my mother, was an old fashioned, Carl Sandburg, Rootabaga children’s story.
In addition to skateboards, we had motorcycles, bicycles, go-karts and ATVs, and in 1977 my dad also built, for me and my brother, the first skateboard half-pipe in the tri- State area…and it was a monster. From out of an ad in Skateboarder Magazine we ordered the architectural plans for a half-pipe from Rampage Ramps Inc and they sent us the blueprints for a hell raising, twelve foot high, eight foot wide ramp with two feet of vertical riding and absolutely no flat half-pipe instead. The puzzle box was meant to mimic the dessert half-pipes of Arizona and California and was nothing short of suicidal. In addition to the Rampage monstrosity, we had a number of other quarter pipes my father had since built, all of which stood lined along our long driveway, and we rode these lesser demons in the meantime to appease the skate gods. It was not until 1979, after almost two years had passed by, before we finally pulled the doorway to hell apart, added
75 flat in the middle, cut off a foot and a half of the vertical and finally found the nerve to ride it.
Along with plans for horror movie inspired, suicidal ramps, Skateboarder Magazine provided us the pictures and info to go along with the newly emerging sport-quasi-life- style, quasi-art-form of skateboarding. This short-lived magazine had a tremendous impact on American culture, and it's important to mention the influence that a few of its profiled, top skaters had on the lives of a handful of middle and upper middle class youth of Anytown USA and arguably the world. In the mid 1970's, skateboarding and the California pro-skateboarders Duane Peters, Steve Olson, and Jay Adams helped my father introduce me (and my brother) to another big part of my life: punk rock. The Origins of Garlic Cures also tell me that these skaters changed the face of America and that their spirits were the archetypes to the future modern Individual consumer-throw-away life-style economy we are all now living in today’s world.
Whether or not the Cali-skaters came from the same economic background was of no issue because the rest of the world only saw and knew what photographers C.R. Stecyk and Glen E. Friedman provided us in the monthly issues of Skateboarder Magazine. And, thus, all I knew at the time was that these skaters were my heroes (read: Fuck You Heroes by Glen E. Friedman). I can't recall which issue it was, but sometime in 1977 in Skateboarder Magazine there appeared pictures of Jay, Duane and Steve wearing torn jeans, striped shirts, suit jackets, and skinny ties strung around their necks, and sporting unfashionably cropped and spiked bleached hair, earrings and wild sunglasses. What I saw, as did the rest of the world, was that they had the opportunity to turn their talents into gold mines: But they intuitively knew vampires and monsters were the ones working the strings, and instead they rebelled. In 1977 their attitude and look was not
76 marketable and was in effect a fuck you to the business of men and businessmen who stood eagerly at the sidelines trying to capitalize on their lives. It could be said that through Duane, Jay and Steve, toes of Garlic were sowed into the soil of Anywhere USA, and it could be easily argued that these skaters were the prophets to our modern day, Individual, throw-away culture of mass consumption: They were bound to the spirits of moral conflict inherent in American economics, and what drove them to turn on society by skateboarding, cutting their hair, piercing their faces, and tattooing their bodies is what eventually would become the very seeds of Individuality in the mass consumer economy… and as such an origin to a Garlic cure.
California, where the fuck you heroes were skating, was a virtual year-round, anybody-could-do-it venue for skateboarding. You could be rich, poor, black, white, Asian or Hispanic: Because of the climate and conditions it didn't matter. In sunny California, due to the droughts, there was an abundance of empty swimming pools, drainage ditches, and huge desert irrigation pipes: but if you weren't in sunny California then in order to skate like Jay, Steve, and Duane, you had to build something similar to that of the empty pools, drainage ditches and pipes found in the drought ridden West, and that meant that if you weren't from Southern California and you wanted to be a skateboarder then your parents had to have money and land. Then in 1977-78 when these fuck you heroes dyed and cut their hair and began to wear torn and ripped clothing it was only natural that I, as well as most other kids skating outside of California, did the same. And there again, if you wanted to be like your heroes, you had to be either middle class or rich to afford this luxury of buying new clothing and then destroying them for the sake of living. Sure, outside of California in 1977, there weren't a lot of us kids skating, or cropping and bleaching our hair, or mutilating our new, store-bought clothing, but the few of us who did,
77 although initially hated by our peers, would become the role models for the kids our junior. I'm sure those teachers who prayed to their LITTLE GOD OF SUBURBAN BLISS that their own children never turn out like me were burdened with devilish little beasties. (Just look where Tipper Gore’s son ended up— at least during the time of the first drafting of this Tale of Ragout, he was in jail for heroin trafficking.)
I didn't realize it then, but there were actually a lot of kids looking up to me while I was looking to Jay, Duane, and Steve for spiritual guidance. Unfortunately, though, the only attention I was privy to was the vast majority of adults who were beating the living shit out of me. I didn't have the time or the interest—just like Jay, Steve, and Duane—to go out and play “idol” for the world. I was, without exaggeration, being thrashed daily by people: teachers, police, fellow students, clergy, and the general public at large.
These California skaters had little idea what kind of chain reaction they'd set off for the world—or in the life of a Chicago suburban boy who was routinely getting pummeled by the majority of the Heartland.
Once again in Garlic's mystical, vaporous grip, and as I find my delivery into punk rock music through skateboard legends and my father, I can recall in 1979, at age twelve, being at the Old Chicago Shopping Mall and Amusement Park in Bowling Brook, Illinois. Because of the indoor rollercoaster, it was the first mall of its kind in the world: Unfortunately the idea was about fifteen years too early and the mall quickly closed. But the very situation of the mall's financial troubles is what drove them to put on a punk concert with The Jam as headliner. (I know some of you will scream The Jam was and still is a Mod band, but it was a different era then and music definitions, in America at least, hadn’t yet been fully defined for marketing purposes.) Paul Weller and
78 The Jam… It doesn't get much better than that… ah, but it does. Shortly thereafter I saw the Ramones at the College of DuPage. They were supposed to play Old Chicago but the mall closed a day before the event. At the college there were no more than fifty people, and I will never forget Zippy the Pin Head walking around with the ‘Gabba Gabba Hey!’ sign. Punks were clad in black leather jackets and had safety pins in their cheeks; others punks were kitted out in stove-piped pants, Beatle Boots, striped shirts and thin ties. The girls generally wore all black upper garments and torn fishnet stockings on their legs, and around their eyes and mouths was layered thick with black eyeliner. The only people I would eventually get to know from these concerts were Ken from the Downers Grove record shop, the Smith brothers (Ron and Steve…and I’ll say Allen Jones although he isn’t technically their brother) from End Result, and Craig Gentle and Mike from Juvenile Delinquents. After these two concerts my brother and I, and our neighborhood friends, Doug, Dr. Weave, Chris, Jim started going to the Space Place in the old Fulton Fish Market District of Chicago and to the then condemned Riviera Theater on the North side (somebody was giving the police and fire marshal their cut of the door, so kids from all over the city were allowed to playfully enter the historic firetrap). Eventually, Club COD opened up on the far north side in Rogers Park, and the Cubby Bear Lounge across the street from the Wrigley Field opened its doors on off-game nights to punk bands. Most importantly, in addition to bringing in national acts, these bars and venues were doing under/over-age shows.
In Garlic’s thrall, I can recall in 1981 standing outside of the old Riviera Theater and, as an older punk girl petted my pre-teen head, hillbillies hurdled empty beer bottles at us and the five hundred other concert goers waiting to get in to see the B-52's. I remember in 1978, after already having gone to the tiny Wax Trax Record Store on N. Lincoln a dozen or so
79 times, asking to see my favorite punk rock girl sales clerk and being informed that she'd recently killed herself. I remember in 1980 being at the Iggy Pop and Dead Boys concert at the Riviera Theater and having another girl rub my head in a heroin-induced stupor telling me that someday she'd like to have a little punk child just like me. It was bizarre, especially, seeing that at the same time back in suburbia the monsters and vampires were, even if it was not yet Too Big To Fail clearly revealed, taking over the world. To my mother’s credit, she took us all to these shitty and dangerous areas of Chicago. Eventually Doug’s parents, and the parents of friends, Jim and his brother Chris would volunteer, but my mother had a lot of nerve and courage in her earlier years. If only the vampires and monsters hadn't devoured her soul, she would be a happier person today… but the dreams we believe in and the dreams that we would die for are where the monsters live best.
It was during the summer of 1978 that our neighbor Doug, my brother and I began to play in the band, Teens Against God (TAG); rehearsing in my dad’s since vacated ductwork (HVAC) fabrication warehouses in the backyard. And within a year’s time, Craig Gentle's band, Juvenile Delinquents, also started to rehearse there as well. In addition to the mini concerts occurring on our property, we started playing gigs at parties. Since we were all so young, our grownup punk friends liked having us play at their little get- togethers. We were the freak show amongst freaks. Eventually the Anti-Bodies (the future Life Sentence) started rehearsing in our garage/warehouse, and bands like Trouble and Zeotrope would stop by to jam, smoke dope, and drink beer. With our skate ramps out back and lining our driveway,and the emptied warehouses of my father's onetime business, we had a kind of Neverland for punks, skaters and drug addicts. Our home on Roslyn Road in Westmont, Illinois was a suburban center of culture: Or, from another per- spective, one could say it was a safe house for the unwanted.
80 Most of these people were much older than me, but in retrospect I don't think any of them were half as crazy as I was.
81 Chapter 12
The American punk youth of the 1970’s fought for Difference and Identity but never for consumer Individualism. Our aims were much bigger: We fought for Life in its only positive essence—and many of us are still fighting for the same cause. We’ll never stop until all vampires and monsters have been vanquished. There was a time when Identity was equated to materialism. There was a 1=1 ratio of deliverance in the dialectic. Now materialism is equated to Difference, and the consumer product is the outcome—but not just as Identity. Products are by their very nature, in that the Identity is no longer equated in the dialectic, Infinitely/Finitely consumable. This means that they, the products of our mass consumption, can never belong to Existence as a delivered Identity. (The totality of historical, conditional and potential human life is no longer delivered in Identity but only in Difference) As such, consuming, as in the act itself, is the Identity, and it, as a process or action, is equated to Zero. There is a 1= 0 ratio of deliverance in the dialectic, with the consumer object given absolute freedom to live a spiritual life: hovering in the Kantian “in itself” realm of nothingness and nowhereness . Thus, the human spirit is, by its own definition, out of control, because it sees this 0 (nothing) as the only possible guiding light. Thus Stunk Garlic.
In the summer of 1980 at a Navy Pier concert in Chicago my brother and I, along with our friends Doug, Dr. Weave, Chris and his brother Jim, met most of the other mere handful of punk children from the Chicagoland area as we were all there to see the Go Go's: We got the beat! Through contacts at this show, and since TAG was falling apart as my older brother became more consumed with high school life, I shortly thereafter, at age thirteen, began to play drums in Negative Element. The Stepe brothers, Barry and Chopper, were the heart and soul of this band, and after I joined, they
82 managed fairly quickly to schedule shows. We also got offers to be on national compilations, which led to having a song alongside the Minutemen and Battalion of Saints (to name a few) on the Meat House Compilation. Sparky, the youngest of us at age eleven, was the singer and sang on It's not the German's Fault; a song cheaply recorded on a hand held cassette player/recorder in the Stepe brothers' basement. Unfortunately, Sparky had to stop singing with us; his parents wouldn't allow him play anywhere besides our basements and garages. (We also played other peoples’ basements: Negative Element played, along with Political Justice, a show with Sparky on vocals in, if memory serves me well, Marc Ruvolo from No Empathy’s basement.) Fifteen-year-old Tom Faulkner stepped up to the microphone and learned the songs in the couple weeks before we played our first club show. In 1981 our first official gig was at the old Exit Lounge on N. Wells, opening up for San Francisco's MDC and Chicago’s Six Feet Under and Rights of the Accused. Eventually, we put out a record on Version Sound: Negative Element's, Yes We Have No Bananas! Like Steve, Jay, and Duane, we were kids and had no idea vampires and monsters were consuming us, stealing our energies and experiences. We were too busy trying to live life in the place where life was meant to be sterile and empty: suburbia. We weren't off at college like our older contemporaries, living the life of creative-intellectual-artists: We were simply terrified kids in a world, suburban America, which wholeheartedly rejected us.
In addition to the vampires trying to steal our souls, we were being physically attacked daily. The real irony of it all would be found, as history revealed itself, in the meaningless lives of the people who were beating the shit out of us—the same people who were spitting on us and reporting our suspicious and un-American activities to the police—because sooner or later they would go on to have children who would eventually buy our music genre—the genre we created—but
83 unfortunately not before the plastic wrapped and UPC codes safely homogenized it for suburban mothers approval. Corporate America eventually found a way to sterilize punk’s power and, thus, through the act of nullification, turn it into nothing but profits. According to some shitty American journals, punk rock was born in 1992 with the release of Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. What a joke! Nirvana merely signaled the arrival of the prepackaged and sterilized spirit: Death had landed. There is irony and tragedy to Curt Cobain’s suicide.
Chapter 13 84 The vampires and monsters would like for us to believe that we all chose our own destinies and that the ingredients being tossed willy-nilly into our stews have no effect on the flavor of the ragouts. These are the same vampires and monsters who have convinced us that CEOs, Presidents, Bankers, and politicians need only be responsible and accountable to their own selfish desires, because in doing so, they represent my true selfish desires… Garlic tells me that just such an Individual Spirit, as just mentioned, has gone rank and is ready for the garbage can… but I know that life is not solely of the Finite Individual. Life is so much more: Life begins as A and moves as A=A—as the Unmoved Mover in the absolute sense or as Spinoza’s experience of Existence as Difference sans any Identity: The non-perceptible experience of sheer Being—before it lives as A≠A, which is expressed as A=1 (Identity before it collapses into its Infinite/Finite expression, or Unmoved Mover as “Aristotle reveals” it to us). There comes a Big Smelly Bang (can you smell the Garlic) and this A=1, when repeated as or in its origin of A=A, follows through until eventually A=1 realizes that A≠1 (just as A≠A) because there is a Difference: A=1, A=2, A=3 (etc.),1and thus begins the process of time-illusion. Since there is in an absolute sense no time or space, this act of consciousness underscores every act of consciousness, as it, the act, is genetically encoded—perhaps through genetic transformation— but it, the whole unified process, is no longer of “our” or “one’s” act of awareness: The nature of the illusion is part of the spirit of negation. A=A is not, though, an expression of time-illusion because the organization of A, B, C, or whatever the representations may be used as expression are not necessary to the organization of the expressed values themselves. Example: A, Z, Q, R, U, (etc.) is not a false expression of Difference or Identity, but 1,7,9,3, etc., is a false expression of Identity (as life rising into itself) and only reveals Difference and, thus, an illusion of space (Aristotle’s “whatness”
85 (ousia) of actuality (entelecheia) derives its perfection from potentiality or the ‘mind’ (nous) must actively ‘think’ (noêsis) in order that the Cause and Effect, in as far as the beginning and end are represented, are one and the same: “Its (Unmoved Mover) thinking is a thinking of thinking”. Metaphysics, ix. The Divine Mind as self-thinking, Wheelwright, 1951). But the sequence of events is necessary to the expression of Identity… Life living. Now in our expression (as we believe it to be human), Identity (time- illusion) has moved beyond itself and (in the absence of) “now” finds itself bringing up its own rear at A=A. (Life rising into itself as Identity sans Difference-consciousness —sans sheer Being—Life and Existence become the 0=1 dilemma.) Our self-Identity seems to be gnawing at its own beginning and thus its own end—and it will continue to scratch at its own heels so long as such (an) Identity continues to reject Difference. We have gone from A=1, A=2, A=3 all the way to A∞ but we do not recognize “∞” as an Infinite/Finite value of Being but only as a Finite expression—transcendental: Or not belonging to Being or Life. We, the modern philosophers, physicists, and mathematicians believe Aristotle to have said 1=1.
Inspired in part by my father, by age eleven I was already a thorn in the buttocks of life or what one could call the then developing Chicago western suburbs. Being a punk kid in the 1970s suburbs of America was asking that everyone kicked your ass: hippies, fellow students, teachers, priests, movie theater ushers, drunks, drug addicts and police officers—take your pick—and yes, even mothers and fathers turned on their own children. As a result, the one-in-a-thousand kids like me who didn’t buy into the American Dream were being persecuted by everyone. By age twelve I had to accept that some adult would randomly walk up to me in any public place and either sucker punch me or confront me verbally. In 1979, the summer before eighth grade, my mom had dropped me and my friend, Brett M. off for an afternoon matinee at the historical Tivoli Movie Theater in Downers
86 Grove, Illinois. Of course we had our pants pockets full of tiny liquor bottles. In Garlic’s thrall, I recall how difficult it was for us to move without making clanking sounds—but through much practice Brett and I were, by the time we were at the Tivoli Theater, already professional drunks and, if need be, could, like trapeze artists in the circus tent, fifty feet above ground, dancing on the tight rope while juggling ten bowling pins in each hand, gracefully move without noisily revealing the devil’s vice hidden within in our pants pockets. It was about an hour into the movie and corn mash whiskey, and I was in the bathroom taking a leak, when all the ushers surrounded me—my willy in hand as I stood before the porcelain trough watering the urinal cake—and grabbed me from behind, threw me to the floor, forcing me to piss myself, and then proceeded to kick the living shit out of me. If I remember correctly, they didn’t like my “punk” haircut. In seventh grade one of my teachers told me I was a blemish on humanity and that he hoped his children never turned out like me—he didn’t like my safety pin earring and dyed hair. There is no need to go into every grisly detail, but the ass-kickings and verbal assaults became so commonplace it was like breathing air. Frankly, it’s no wonder I’m the person delivering a metaphysic that can help a reader find a complete experience when reading Nietzsche. At the time, well before I ever read Nietzsche, what didn’t kill me usually made me laugh. Life, as it can only be expressed in relationship, is by this fact alone positive—no matter how ignorant the Individual consumer may be there’s no transcending the experience through purchasing power. At sixteen, my home was invaded by the men in blue and they accused me of being the leader of a gang of mink fur thieves—a great name for a punk band, but not much good for anything else. I could lay claim to being any number of things, but a thief wasn’t one of them. I was, however, an alcoholic and the police knew it. They made good use of this
87 information and continually fined me for possession of alcohol. Eventually my relationship with the Downers Grove Police Department was defined by possession and consumption of alcohol charges that would, during these years, cost me a hundred dollars a pop. One a year alone I spent $1500 because of their zealousness in protecting suburbia’s homogeneousness. Now, before you jump to any conclusions; follow the scent of Garlic to its origins and you’ll understand that my sweet tooth for booze had everything to do with the lies lived as they were embraced in middle class dogmas and had absolutely nothing to do with failed marriages and closeted homosexual fathers. As I’ve already mentioned, Garlic Cures cure everything—except homosexuality, of course. Ha! It might have been my father who gave me the courage to stand up to the vampires and monsters but it was Jim B. who was there giving me advice. For his part, Jim B. knew the suburbs were fucked up. He was there when the cops came into our home and wanted to take me away for being the infamous ring leader of the notorious mink fur thieves. After letting them into our home, Jim muttered, “the leader of mink fur thieves,” a number of times before he looked at me, chuckled, and asked if I was wearing mink coats nowadays. The police hardly found his lighthearted jests amusing, but Jim was from a rough, Chicago Italian neighborhood and knew when policemen were bullshitting. “What the fuck would the kid do with mink fur coats?” “Sell them, of course,” answered one of the detectives. “He’d need a fence. Shit, the kid ain’t even got a fucking car. So, what this means is he’s sprinting across town, running in and out of mink fur shops, then making his getaway on foot?” Sergeant Joe Friday and Deputy Barney Fife continued their interrogation; eventually they asked if I would be willing to take a lie-detector test. After I agreed, they left, but pro-
88 mised to return with a warrant for my arrest. I never saw them again. In retrospect, I'm sure Jim hated being in suburbia as much as I did, but the price one pays in the name of love is high. Jim B. was a smart guy, but he, too, had his weaknesses. Garlic wasn't one of them. Garlic was his savior.
89 Chapter 14
I read somewhere that Oprah Winfrey (a onetime American TV/Media Celebrity Pundit) hates Hip Hop stars and that it has something to do with her target market: white, middle-aged mothers fearing misogynistic, handsome, rich black men who have too much influence over their fragile and easily-influenced children. In all honesty, I think it has more to do with our wives secretly wanting to shake their own asses for Busta, Snoop and Ice (onetime influential entertainers/musicians)—oh the hypocrisy never ends. A bit of advice for Ice Cube: Get close to Oprah and toss a wreath of Garlic around her neck and she'll immediately burst into flames.
American punk means something different now, but in 1981, Phil Donahue, the Oprah of the 70s and 80s, devoted an entire one-hour show to addressing What to do if your child comes home one day and is a punk rocker. Phil’s recommendation was to find your child a psychiatrist, psychologist, or mental institution. In today’s sham society you don’t see articles like the one written by the Vietnam era, CIA-war propaganda reporter, Ronald E. Yates (although it is not acknowledged that Mr. Yates was or is a CIA shill, garlic believes any public scrutiny of his career would prove otherwise) published in the Chicago Tribune on December 20, 1981, entitled Why you should be afraid of punks. You don’t see current TV shows laden with emergency hotline numbers to call if your daughter comes home looking like a Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, Miley Cyrus or Take Your Pick Jezebel: Maybe because to become a whore—media or otherwise—is what it takes to be an Individual consumer winner? There are no hotlines for what to do if your sons or daughters comes home mimicking the moves of Snoop Dogg and his troupe. Although it’s not what most white, middle class parents
90 would choose for their child, Snoop Dogg is (was), as far as role models go, an Individual-consumer-winner, and so white suburban parents could never be convinced that Snoop Dogg is (was) insane. (Perhaps a comparable, more recent male role model would be Justin Bieber….who cares if he has become a role model for young people to abuse drugs, tattoo their bodies from head to toe and engage in excessive sex, he’s an economic winner! There’s no need to send your Justin Bieber wannabe child to the psychologist!) We don’t see or hear real commentary because the lifestyle and hypocrisy-message of TV pundit personalities—fear as it has now become a McFamily Meal of Personality—is what sells the goods for white America. And the TV Pundits are able to rise above their own hypocrisy by embracing hypocrisy itself: We white Americans even know that Jesus Christ, besides being milky white, is the greatest consumer of all times… if we want to show the terrorists that we can’t be beat then go out and shop! And through this hypocrisy, TV pundits’ lives are metamorphosed into TV Prophets: Moral reprehensibility as it flows from their embracement of Christ-like hypocrisy becomes the black gold, Texas tea fueling not only themselves as TV Prophets but also all aspects of the consumer markets. Anything that has to do with responsibility and accountability —that reaches beyond the self-indulgent realm of Individual consumer Identity—becomes “left-wing” or “atheistic”. The TV Prophets profit, through glorification, from the fact that Existence (consciousness), as it is our ragout and what should be a sweet mix of savory, rich flavors, has become a potluck of incompatible ingredients. The TV Prophets capitalize on the fact that the indivisible relationship as it delivers consciousness is broken: They profit from the fact that God is dead, and that’s why the TV Prophets keep God dead. Each time a TV Prophet opens his or her mouth he or she kills God over and over again all in the name of their own Individual consumer success story.
91 In today’s sham-morality, sham-stringent society espoused by TV Prophets / Pundits like Bill O’Reilly, Anne Coulter, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity (or whoever the actual neo-conservative voice may be right now), and as echoed in the current neo-conservative wave of anti- homosexuality, anti-immigrant and pro-life / anti-choice debate, there are no longer sermons about humanity as a whole. They preach the sanctimony of an Individualism that embraces Christ as a kind of self-indulgent, materialistic truth, and they, the TV pundits, thus appeal to their followers as prophetic. And in this sense, TV pundits are true disciples of modern Christianity—aka THE greatest of all Individual mass consumers. The pundits might discuss and interview the so-called bad people of society, but they eagerly do it with unifying, Christ-like interests: They are, just like Jesus would want, trying to either increase their viewer ratings or boost the sales of their own books. The Rushes, O’Reillys and Becks—the TV Prophet/ Pundit— know that all current Musician/Artists have one thing in common: Their Individual, mass marketed, consumer non-Existences. These pundits know that creativity delivered through the filter of Individual, mass consumerism reveals only “un-creativity” and as such is the anti-thesis to Life… creativity, as it is the awe filled impetus fueling possibility and probability, is now rooted in myth as it, myth, is now unwittingly equated with the idea of death: Unwittingly while myth like death reflects only an abstract notion of “human” consciousness.1 Neither the idea of death or myth is of experience, but as sheer they are of Being, and therefore neither idea is of living: Death and myth have become technical terms with their true value reflecting the function of the unique yet universal machines of discovery. Put another way: Myth, for example, can be an “object” of discussion or an object of intellectualization, but the actual reality of ‘Myth, for example,
92 can be the “object” of discussion’ as a nowing moment assumes no value of myth itself. We, a you or an I, assume full control over the discourse itself, leaving no room for the experience to happen…Life is no longer a story but has become factual…as a “matter” for science to deal with. TV Prophets see musicians and artists are nothing more than sham entertainers—and when it comes down it, too, pundits are only entertainers themselves. The only difference between an artist and entertainer is that instead of being cloaked in sham morality, the Musician/Artist is enshrouded in bling-bling immorality, and the neo-con entertainers pretend like they reject the “bling”. (See Christ-like virtues of hypocrisy-reward.) These TV pundits/entertainers turned prophets sell the belief that the Snoop Doggs, Ice Ts , Justin Biebers, Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears and the likes would never continue playing music if it didn’t reward them with shiny, sparkly, gold, bling-bling-giblets around their necks, and thus, the Hannitys, O’Reillys, Becks (or pick your current ‘God killer’) and so on are correct in their criticisms: Artists and musicians appear to be only motivated by the rewards of Individual consumer Identity. Musician/Artists no longer create out of an inspiration to live—as Life is an inspired relationship of emotion—and can only create something to be consumed—to be destroyed—and thus all creative inspiration is delivered in destruction: In the purchasing-actions of Individual mass consumer Identity. In a sense of irony, modern consumer America embraces the TV pundit-turned-honest-prophets and their sermons as hypocrisy-free, and gleefully accept not only the sermons but also the lives of said honest prophets as dogmatic substance to the neo-con, religious foundation… and of course as the word underscoring the ideals of a true-blue patriotic America. But at the end of the day, the Musician/Artists are better than the O’Reillys of TV Land: They all may stand on the same stage, under the same light, and in front of the same
93 cameras, but there is a difference. The Musician/Artists embrace Life instead of rejecting it, and in a positive sense this reveals that the context of our lives cannot be controlled. Unadulterated violence and sex are the reality of the caged consumer Identity, and instead of pretending, like the O’Reillys who play the part of being offended or of being horrified, the Snoop Doggs of this world simply glorify it and prosper, and for that, they “earn” their right to fame and all the bling-bling that comes with it. I guarantee that if you, lovely reader, had even the faintest smell of Garlic about you, and if you were anywhere near these TV/Radio pundit-honest- ghouls, they would immediately burst into flames. But if you were standing next to the Snoop Doggs, they would, on the other hand, get hungry. American punks of the 70s and early 80s were expressive of Life’s possibilities and had not yet been indoctrinated into the religion of Individual, mass consumer Identity: Their relationships still belonged to the living as they, the relationships, spurred creativity and were not yet impetus to consuming. Ironically and tragically, however anti-society 1970s punk imagery was it would soon become the spiritual paradigm to “Individualizing” consumer Identity. Besides the reality of tattoos and body piercing having become standard Individuality must haves, just check out the ridiculously high-priced Punk/Goth store, Hot Topic, or the next time you’re in any first-rate jean shop and buy a pair of torn, bleached-out, made-to-look-old jeans for a hundred plus dollars, realize that you’re purchasing from anti-fashion of the America punks of the 70s and 80s. But it was a different time back then, and America wasn't ready to turn punk into a consumer commodity. I know there are currently some issues up before the American Congress (circa 2007) in regards to the American Hip Hop movement and low-riding, underwear-showing pants, but the advantage these new creators and innovators
94 have over any punk rocker of the 1970s or early 1980s is the power of the purse. People like Snoop Dog and Ice T earn more in one year than The Ramones earned in their entire thirty-year careers. The American seeds of the punk movement never had any luxuries. We were the fodder for the development of a new Individual consumer economy.
Being a punk kid in the 1970’s suburbs of America was asking that everyone kicked your ass: hippies, fellow students, teachers, priests, movie theater ushers, drunks, drug addicts and police officers; take your pick. And yes, even mothers and fathers turned on their own Punk offspring and sent them off to mental institutions.
As a result, the one-in-a-thousand kids like me who didn’t buy into the American Dream were persecuted by everyone. Just like Phil Donahue pointed out, we must have been mentally ill if we didn’t want to “buy into” mass consumerism.
Chapter 15
95 “For such staunch advocates of foreign policy realism as Nixon and Kissinger, it is difficult to understand their apocalyptic fears about an Allende government. Like the domino theory that helped draw the United States into Vietnam, the idea that a democratically elected socialist administration in Chile would encourage the rise of radical regimes across Latin America and influence developments as far away as Italy rested on fundamentally flawed assumption or might fairly be described as nothing more than paranoia.” From page 239 of Robert Dallek’s, ‘Nixon and Kissenger’.”
This Robert Dallek ingredient wonderfully reveals the overall paranoia that since the after WWII era of Nixon (who began his political career in 1946 as Republican Representative in the California 12th Congressional district) until the present time feeds America’s attempts to McConsumerize every economy in the world: A New World Order. And this “vampire” can be identified in the American Individual: Because from out of such perspective arises a historical consciousness whereby America can continue to force Life into the dance of insanity… Just replace Chilean President Allende’s name with Saddam Hussein or Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s or Venezuelan President, Chavez or Cuba’s Castro or Bolivian President, Evo Morales or Syria’s Baschar al-Assad or Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi or the Ukraine President, Janukowitsch or Russia’s Wladmir Putin and you can taste the foul and rank paranoia rooted in the American ragout… Or, in a tastier world, we can all wake up and smell the Garlic… Thus Spoke Garlic.
In 1983, roughly six years after my father privately and in good faith outed himself to my mother, Jim B. made his first appearance. These were also some difficult times for me—and not because my mother losing her soul to the vampires and
96 monsters had created an untenable home-life for me. I’m sure some people, by this point in the Tale of Ragout, would like to think my parents’ failed marriage caused me to lash out at the world, but that was not at all the case: Every and all items at that time in my life only added (and still do add to this day) flavor to this here and now ragout called my life. Though I knew nothing of my father’s then closeted zests, and my mother hadn’t yet turned to toxins, by the age of fifteen I was already a veteran of the Chicago Punk music scene, and for me homosexuality and failed marriages were personal preferences and matters of fate to be respected. There is nothing wrong with tart, fruity or exotic tastes. Even if I had known about my father’s proclivities it wouldn’t have mattered. The fact of the matter was that after he left, the last thing I was interested in was lashing out at the world. Matter of fact, despite my appearance, I was trying to take the path of least resistance. I wasn't a bad kid or an aggressive kid, but in the eyes of suburbia I was about as close to a representation of the Anti-Christ as one could get: And this is why Life was difficult for me during the 1970s and early 1980s, and not because of my parents own existential dilemmas. I was the unpalatable Sashimi in a world exploding with McBurgers and Drive-thru-processed, mass Individual giblets. This might not make sense in today’s world, but back then the McIndustry (circa 1978) was in its birthing stages. Remember the 1970’s mantra: Special orders don’t upset us! The mass consumer Identity had to first be established before it could move on to identifying the “unique” as a possible item for the markets. And ironically, 70’s punks were the fodder for the development of a new consumer market economy. To understand punk music, and especially American Hardcore as I helped birth it, you only have to look to the short-lived trend of Generic Foods. Of course you can still buy generic groceries—just as you can still find hardcore bands—but in the late 1970s, when generics first appeared, they were a popular phenomenon. Suburban mothers grabbed up generic
97 products from the shelves like kids in a candy story. Eventually, though, the fun of shopping was reduced to generic, and the impetuses revealed themselves: The vampires and monsters in all of their hideousness. Hence, the eventual need for “unique” as a sugar coating. At that point in our history, Middle Class America, as it was evolving into individually unique mass (oh the irony of it all) consumers, willingly gave itself over to marketing and the media; thus, guaranteeing another collective, turbulent, anti-war society would never again arise. The protest Vietnam generation was still connected through communal, emotional relationships of original consciousness, and were still capable or rising above their consumer Identities. But during the post-Vietnam / Cold War era, conformity and conservatism were, through active guidance of the US Government, the most precious of all virtues (viruses?).
“The embedded reporter program, which continues in Afghanistan and wherever the United States sends troops, is deeply informed by the military’s experience of how media coverage shifted public opinion during the Vietnam War. The gatekeepers in public affairs have too much power: Reporters naturally fear having their access terminated, so they tend to avoid controversial reporting that could raise red flags.” Chelsea Manning, New York Times, June 14, 2014
It was these media regulated virtues that got Ronald Reagan elected President, and, with the help of Reagan economics, set the groundwork for corporate domination of America and the world. The naïve, hidden message whispered from the vampires and monsters was and still is that failure was grounded in America’s unified opposition to the war: Relationship as a union of ideas, feelings and emotions was our only factual defeat. Why do you think unions have since been demonized and thus in decline since the 70s? Salvation from any further failure became, through
98 an orchestrated effort, our willing subjugation to the mass consumer giblets of so called Individuality themselves. The more unique the object or sustenance (such as the loaf of Panera bread), the easier it was and is for us to forget that we are alive; thus, guaranteeing all future success— for the American Dream—in world domination: Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Iran, Russia, eventually Africa and so on. Unity is no longer motivated by the communion of people but only by our homogenized consumable-consumer-Identity. Humanity as a spiritual entity has been reseeded in Individual greed, envy, and the free-will-democratic-purchasing-power: The New World Order. Cheeseburgers for every-one! In some sense we all know canned corn is canned corn, pants are pants, and shoes are shoes (don’t even get me started on bottled water), but somehow, after this short-lived generic experiment in revealing the nature of Individual- consumer, mass consumption, we as a people opted for pretending Nike shoes are better than the $10 K-Mart kickers, and that Libby’s Canned Corn is better than the generic version: We as a people are not interested in knowing that cheap, one dollar a day labor used to make or consumer products does not support Life on any level, but only makes the pyramid-scheme system of consumer capitalism appear to work—everything is cheap and it’s not generic! Ironically enough, in my 70s punk-skater youth, the available-only-at-K- Mart, at the time already 60 year old signature Converse Chuck Taylor High Tops were the poor-kid’s skate-shoe, but in today’s market, the same shoe is now a “retro-designer shoe” owned by Nike. (Dumbass Europeans eat this shit up: Dumb? Little do they know what they’re really buying and what they have given up in the exchange.) The birth of American Hardcore, like its counterpart in the food industry, represented the basic, rawest element to the emerging Individual consumer economy Identity, and just as generic foods did for pre Individual mass-consumer Identity, American
99 Hardcore stripped music of all its attributes and represented only the rawest and most violent aspect of creation and inspiration: Difference without respect for Identity. Thus, like generic foods, American Hardcore was never meant to entertain the masses, but only to prepare us, our humanity, for our eventual sacrifice to the objects themselves. In the 1980s American reality, the vampires and monsters had to first corral the herd into a certain mind frame: The McWorld. Ironically, suburbia’s negative perception of me at that time was based mostly on my choices of personal expression: I was a punk rocker and skateboarder. Perhaps my motorcycle jacket, Beatle Boots or Chuck Taylor’s, pegged legged pants and rockabilly-DA-haircut are stylish in today’s world, but back then the infantile Individual mass-consumer economy didn’t need any obstacles in its development. Uniqueness was not yet a sellable quality for mass consumer consumption. Americans still needed to first seed themselves in every McDonalds and in every can of Coke. At the time, my look and choice of exercise were an affront to the much needed lies of the budding mass consumer Individual non- consciousness. Eventually, I was also a solid B student at a private Catholic prep school, but since the suburbs were and have always been about the perversion and absolute distortion of Life values (we’ll call the lie the McConsumption of Life) I was an affront to the facade. My problem was, in fact, that I wasn’t offended or scared by things like homosexuality or failed marriages, and I embraced the unpalatable raw and violent nature of consumerism as found in the music form I was forging. I gripped Life in all of its glory, and every emotion and feeling was to be celebrated. But I would have nothing to do with the Edward Bernays propagated images and the deceitful truths of vampires and monsters—and my I was definitely never bound for the glory of Christ: Garlic was always meant to add flavor to―narrate―this Tale of Ragout.
100 Unfortunately, Life in its entirety has always been something to cherish, and any doubts or cynicisms, such as those brought on by the lies created by people who without belief but only a conviction of superiority in an awareness of truth, a truth grounded in their abilities to purchase their Individually based consumer lives, represent for me nothing more than tools for and of politicians, business, fallible sciences and false religions. Doubts and cynicisms are never part of a good story, Garlic be praised! My mother was the victim of the aforementioned lies, but because of my love of life, I found myself embroiled in a battle of wits with the 1970s and 80s American Dream and, thus, with my mother. So begins another origin of Garlic Cures.
Chapter 16 101 “There Ain’t Shit On T.V. Tonight” (The Minutement: Hurley, Watt, Boon)
How can I make An outline of myself? Where’s the guidelines For the profiles? For my country?
How do others see me? I’m worried Worried but I feel guilty
The media robs and betrays us No more lies We are responsible
The following Karl Rove quote was taken from the November 5th 2008 online Huffington Post: ‘“We've had an African American first family for many years,” citing the Cosby Show as one example.’ The Vampires bitch, Karl Rove, is still trying to dupe Americans into believing that the shitbox dictates all possible realities… This is to say, from the Gospel according to the Roves of this world: What happens in TV Land is in fact the True Picture….maybe Karl Rove is correct, after all. Seven years have since passed by, and now, in 2015, we know what kind of “father” Bill Cosby was when off- screen: He stands accused by dozens of women of being a serial rapist. That makes sense, because the way the US treats the rest of the world, and many of its citizens at home, “serial rapist” is quite a fitting comparison to American foreign and domestic policies.
In 1983, after more than two years of successful concerts in Chicago, Indiana, and Wisconsin, the guitarist and bassist from Negative Element, Barry and Chopper Stepe, moved to Peoria, Illinois with their parents, and Negative
102 Element was finished. From out of these ashes arose the Happy Toons with Bryn on bass, Robert the twelve-year-old guitar prodigy we dubbed The Shrub, and myself on drums. We went through a couple of singers, including Tom from Negative Element, until finally finding Brooks S. Before Brooks started singing I'd never met him, and since I was a kind of local fixture for the youth punk movement, I was always interested in meeting and making new friends that were of the same mindset… there's always strength in numbers. The Happy Toons' bassist, Bryn , knew Brooks from BMX, and introduced him to the rest of us as a kind of mystique persona and, as the legend went, a transplant from Pismo Beach, California who held the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest wheelie on a bicycle. What more could one ask for in a singer? Maybe in today's world it makes sense, but in 1983 there were no X Games. It was play football, baseball, basketball or get your ass kicked. Brooks was a tall, lanky guy, and initially his whole mien spoke in a laidback lingo de California. He was a decent bike rider, and his not being hardcore punk at the time was a bonus. In 1983 it was beginning to get easy to look punk and to sell yourself as such, but finding your own groove and remaining unmarketable was quickly going out of fashion. The vampires and monsters are always looking to suck the life out of any endeavor, and so it's difficult to stay one step ahead of them. As a result, Brooks fit right into the Happy Toons. When I wasn't working or when Happy Toons wasn't playing a show downtown, we all spent a lot of evenings at Brooks' house—as did the only other local punk bands, Dead Fink and Dangling Units, along with our slowly growing entourage of friends. During this time, Brooks and I became pretty close. As fate would have it, he also decided to become a drunk around the time of joining the band, and one could say we became inebriated conjoined band mates. Brooks' mother, Mrs. S, was okay with all of us sitting around,
103 telling stories, and getting really pie-eyed every night, and by the end of my senior year of high school there were almost forty of us who regularly gathered at his house, getting blotto. At some point we just started buying kegs of beer. Since we could drink an entire keg in a day it ended up being cheaper. We would even wake up and drink beer for breakfast before going to school. It was a different time then. Strategic prohibition had just set in and the fanatical “moral” judgment regarding alcohol consumption hadn't yet completely engulfed America's spirit. Brooks just missed the grandfather clause by a few years, and most people weren't sure if the twenty-one-years-of-age minimum would last. Besides, between us, we had dozens of family members, friends, acquaintances, and associates who were all more than willing and able to buy us booze. When I was sixteen, as a way to try to skip the middle man, I even managed to convince a gullible Mick, a good friend and the guitar player from Dead Fink, to cut some of his hair and glue it to his face—thus giving a fifteen-year-old kid THE MATURE LOOK OF A FIFTEEN YEAR OLD KID WITH HAIR GLUED TO HIS FACE. To be honest, Mick wasn't really so gullible and he put up a stink about it, but in the end a tuft of hair migrated from his scalp to his upper lip, and with the help of Elmer’s glue, presto-magico, a whimsical looking mustache appeared! Westmont Liquors didn't buy it, and sent him out empty handed, with his tail between his legs. But as I recall I just went in later and bought the beer myself. Sometimes Westmont Liquors supported the cause and at other times they required ID. Who would have guessed that consuming would take such a turn for the worse? In today's world, a sixteen-year-old, pimply-faced kid can't even walk into a liquor store, let alone buy something there. Since Hardcore Punk was in an afterbirth celebration, The Happy Toons remained undeniably “punk” by playing fucked-up, psychedelic garage music, and Brooks could have easily passed for a lanky, second-coming of Jim Morrison.
104 Many of the old school punks placed a bit of hope in us. In Chicago, music had become, at least in my garlicky opinion, hardcore-macho and boring. Creativity was, with the exception of End Result, Naked Raygun and a few other bands, being greatly overlooked. Even Big Black had to fight the uninteresting trend of AMERICAN HARDCORE. Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of great hardcore bands, and many of the New Wave era-influenced bands like Silver Abuse, DA, The Subverts, Savage Beliefs and Strike Under were still playing in Chicago, but there was no unified creative force. Despite noble efforts by Ruthless Records and Wax Trax Records, those who seemed to have a lot of pull in the city with the younger crowd, and who thus had control over booking in various clubs, kept a tight leash on money and/or the style of music to be played—namely the style that their bands currently played: Vampires and monsters already had their hooks into many early punk performers. Chicago punk was a social scene with personal, self-promoting business interests coming first and the actual music/art aspect somehow getting pushed into the second tier of importance. Since I was born in the fumes of Garlic I've always hated scenes. The Happy Toons, though made up of mere children, wasn't following trends. We had a lot of creative potential and were, in the beginning, very professional. We were also the only junior punk band to have a sound guy. Thanks to Lee Popa, the one-time sound guy from large venues like the Rosemount Horizon, and who would later go on to found the Slammin Watusis, we always sounded kickass at the West End; and when he had the time, he would show up and do sound for us at other venues, too. The older and wiser scenesters thought we might actually push music in a better direction, and were helpful and encouraging. There was this, and then there was the fact that everyone wanted to keep an eye on our guitar player, the Shrub. He was in truth a child prodigy.
105 My most memorable show was opening for the Minutemen at West End. Of course the Minutemen were incredible, but during our set the owner of the venue started destroying the inside of the bar. Maybe it was the music of Happy Toons that drove him Looney Toons? The guy had literally lost his mind and, in having gone nuts, was batting bottles with a Louisville Slugger from a row of bottles on a shelf hung along the mirror-wall behind the bar. After his on- hand supply of hard liquor had been annihilated, he then began whacking away the chandelier dangling from the ceiling. It was utter chaos, and for a while no one knew if the Minutemen would go on. It was either Paul Mayhern from the Zero Boys or Gregg Graffin from the then defunct Bad Religion who was in the audience and eventually knocked the owner down as he was swinging away at the pendant, before dragging his psychotic ass outside to where he was held until the padded wagon came. The Minutemen eventually played, and I have the great fortune of being able to tell you that I opened for one of America's greatest bands. I must admit the eventual demise of the Happy Toons was my fault. Although we were still playing lots of shows at the time, my ragout had become the weak link. If I put my mind to it I can be an alright musician, but with the stress of my family I couldn't stay focused. And honestly, my playing skills have always been (and still are) shaky at best. Some days I pick up the guitar and play like Ingwe Malmstin (Ha! Not really, but I can hold my own) and on other days most people would question whether or not I've ever even held a guitar. I'm like a living switch. The same goes for my philosophizing. And my writing? Shit, when it comes to style, syntax, grammar and editing I'm terrible all of the time. I'm not even sure if this whole story is appetizing. Anyway, I was playing drums then and it got to the point where I just wasn't cutting it. We had great material and
106 a phenomenal guitarist, and we were initially well-received, but my ragout just got so sloppy—so foul—that it didn't make sense to continue. The alcohol consumption came first and everything else mattered very little. The vampires and monsters were devouring me as they attempted to squeeze my life into the straight jacket of complacency—ironically, I would eventually find my place at the recommended-by-Phil Donahue nuthouse. Before The Happy Toons's demise, there were so many bands we opened for, but because I was always so drunk I can't remember them all. I recall playing with the Exploited at the Cubby Bear Lounge, the Dead Kennedys and Fang at Stages (now called Metro), Big Black at their first all-ages show, SSDecontrol at the West End, GI at the West End, and Bad Brains at Tuts. These were the Happy Toons years of my life, and I owe everyone in that band—as well as Dead Fink and Dangling Units—an enormous debt of gratitude. Garlic be praised! I also have to take a moment here and thank Mrs. S for letting us have a place to unwind and, of course, get really drunk. In my younger years I may have been ungrateful, but I have never forgotten. Brooks’ mother was divorced and busting her ass; trying to keep her family afloat. The last thing she needed was the burden of dozens of kids sitting around her house, getting cockeyed every night; but fortunately she saw the virtue in knowing what her son was up to and did not fall prey to just say no. She had enough common sense to know that beer is a much better friend to kids than the FDA and consumer Identities.
107 Chapter 17
Individually speaking, I don’t have ‘Nothing’ against beliefs, but “in truth” I have only beliefs against nothing… I as an Individual—the maître d' of sorts—may only be an illusion atop a soapbox and/or a pious hypocrite delivering Snake Oil, but what keeps me from completely falling off the deep-end, into the abyss of confusion and doubt, or from being nothing more than a minister of misleading, self-serving caveats—in my eyes or yours— is Garlic. This is to say that in The Story as told by Garlic my ‘I’ may appear with a façade of stability but when push comes to shove the hardened exterior has very little substance behind it: And yet, Garlic Cures can never appear on TV, in a magazine, or in advertisements—and there's definitely no place on Wal-Mart shelf for malodorous Spiritual MSG! As far as a Tale of Ragout goes, ‘this dish’ is not yet served; there is guaranteed no garlicky ragout on a menu at the McWal- Mart cafeteria: Regardless of the meaning, value or baggage my ‘I’ may be carrying, existence and a hopeful life perseveres, hallelujah! All I can say to such a dubious state of affairs is either you smell like Garlic or you don't… hallelujah!
I was already under surveillance by the local police before I was fingered as being the ring leader of the mink fur thieves—if for no other reason than I was different. Being a punk rocker and skateboarder automatically meant that I had to be mentally ill, a communist, a drug user, or all three: And any and all of these things were obviously the wrong ingredients for an up-and-coming, scorching, mass- Individual-consumer-Identity-driven, all-you-can-eat buffet. As for the issue of drugs, I am continually dumbfounded by people’s fears of illegal mind and mood altering substances. It appears to garlic that in their dysphoria-purchased Pleasant Valley Sunday enclaves (with medicine cabinets full of Mommy’s Little Helpers), suburban
108 parents not only hope but somehow believe there’s some sort of mystical, magical wall keeping everything bad from entering the gated paradise of suburbia… everything except pot that is. The idea is that heroin, LSD, speed, downers, and methamphetamines belong to a different class of people, but pot? Pot is the worst thing a suburban mother can ever imagine. (This text was obviously written before the legalization of marijuana began, and, in as far as pot is slowly being legalized, the true evilness of this drug is thus being revealed: Like Satan makes his way into Existence via the spiritually weak-minded, pot has worked its way into our lives by proxy of the weak-bodied, easily seduced hedonists.) Personally, I’ve never liked smoking pot because pot is bad for you, and if my mother and grandfather were correct then pot is the most evil of all possible evils which could befall a suburbanite. Of course, the only consistency in the sermons they preached was that my grandfather was a hypocrite and my mother was naïve. As it turns out, my Jewish grandfather worked for the mob, and his last job before retiring was smuggling marijuana, stolen Mayan treasures, and cheap, knock-off auto parts from Mexico into the United States. He preached solely because he didn’t want to have to blame himself if my brother or I became drug addicts (read: pot smokers). My mother preached the gospel of Just say no to dope because her father knew about these things—though she didn’t quite know how he knew. The irony lies in the fact they were both intent on delivering suburban values in their truest form: naïve hypocrisy. In Garlic’s curative mist I now recognize that most suburban parents understand, deep down inside, that leaving their children to the TV vampires, the movie griffins, the magazine monsters, the Internet beasts, and the whims of all other ghastly vehicles of so-called enlightened and evolved amoral aptitude produces fast food delicacies of economically viable McIndividuals. But these suburban parents also know in
109 their hearts, at the Existence-core of their Lives, that the “downside” to existing as a slave to the tasty, processed, consumer giblets is the temptation of Life itself—hence, the “source”—the unadulterated Life—for the moral reprehensibility as impetus for loud-mouthed, but magnetically charismatic TV pundits: Life and all of its sensual relationships of Difference origins are held out in front of viewers, like the proverbial carrot, as though it were an unattainable if not a completely undesired picture (character) and/or lifestyle. But people intuitively know that living has much more potential: And thankfully so or else Life would cease to exist altogether. The monsters and vampires that control this little recipe-making process are not dumb. They know that there has to be other “evil” ingredients of temptation; other ingredients that offer rich, dark and sensual options, but are still manageable… hence, pot. I mean how bad can pot brownies be? In this sense cannabis is better kept illegal… aka the necessary evil. Sure, pot may be on its way to legalization, but this is only because the American financial system is collapsing and there is a need for a momentary burst of revenue, a new pyramid-scam-bubble-of-deception, to give the illusion of a stable system. Furthermore, as already stated: This text was obviously written before the legalization of marijuana began, and, in as far as pot is becoming legal, the true evilness of this drug is thus being revealed: Like Satan made and is making his way into Existence via the spiritually weak- minded, pot worked and is working its way into our lives by proxy of the weak-bodied, easily seduced hedonists: Sodom and Gomorrah all over again! The TV Prophets are correct in their warnings of the oncoming Armageddon! Despite the fact I was drug free at the time, the police as well as every teacher and parent were certain I had to be on drugs. They simply couldn’t understand why I would choose to ride a skateboard and not try out for the football team, or why I would cut my hair short, wear strange clothing, and listen to anything besides Journey, Boston, AC/DC and Led
110 Zeppelin. This is why I was so closely watched by the community. This is how America’s criterion for making moral judgments appears; so keep that in mind when listening to our beloved Presidents talk about terrorism, communism, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Castro, Chavez….and so on. In other words if you don’t like “Journey” and you think “Chavez” is a good “band” then you, too, must be harboring, or you may even be the source for, “evil” thoughts and practices. The secret to the American goulash may always be given in the advertisements, but the main ingredients to Middle class suburban misperceptions of expected behavior and decent living standards are found in the TV sitcoms, dramas, talk shows, and, in today’s world, the ironically titled Reality- TV Shows. Just like in Mr. Brady from the Brady Bunch, the truth of the stew is found not in the whimsical morals and values as promoted through the programs themselves, but in the news flashes regarding the outside lives of celebrities. I laugh when I hear people talk about how the Lindseys, Britneys, Mileys and Justins (and now Bruce Jenners) of this world are sliding down a slippery, sloping path of self- destruction. Life is the deliverance of aromas, tastes and sensations as they are found in the over-all consistency of the stock. Some people believe that the bread alone defines nourishment, but it’s the actual kneading of dough between one’s fingers and the smell of baking bread in the oven which delivers the most vital sustenance. What is there besides the celebration of the sensual and euphoric in life? Is there anything better than playing hide-and-seek with the kids? Or filling one’s mouth with an entire can of whipped cream? Or picking apples from a tree in fall? Or playing at the park with the kids? Or listening to music? Or taking a long bike ride? Or watching a good movie? Or engaging in wild, dirty dancing? Or shaving one’s head bald? Well, maybe that might not be an euphoric adventure, and to make up for the
111 unappetizing misstatement, let me give you one last sensual and joyful reason to celebrate Life: Just think about being out with good friends on an alcohol-drug induced bender, living life large, and then going home thinking the night is over and as you open the door, the phone rings and it’s a booty call from an ex! Ha! Hell, if I had the money the icons and stars of today have—the Lindsey Lohans, Britneys, Mels, Justins, Kardashians or fill-in-the name—I would power my bike rides with cocaine instead of Garlic-flavored energy bars. All this talk about the simple, honest pleasures to and in Life makes me wonder how and why we have become, as a nation, so mentally ill? We consume the lies of TV fabrications as delivered to us by the stars, starlets, TV pundits, and advertisers, but we feed only on their real Tabloid lives as only they are allowed to live. Digressions aside, the Origins of Garlic Cures knows the answer. At age sixteen, in addition to going to the local parochial school where I got B grades, I worked forty-hours a week in a women’s outlet clothing store, and played punk shows two-to-three times a month in Chicago; all the while drinking excessive amounts of alcohol. This pattern continued for sixteen months, and it was during this time that the Garlic Cures first started making their appearance. They were there for Jim B. as he was drowning in the suburban cesspool of lies being poured into his pasta sauce, ice cream, coffee and Jell-O. Surprisingly, I was very productive during this period —more so than I am today. I could never work that much again, go to school fulltime, play music every weekend and drink a hundred and sixty-eight bottles of beer and three quarts of whiskey a week. In those days of youth, the only addition to my love affair with alcohol was a couple of Prima- teen Mist tablets here and there (well before their Methamphetamine use) and the occasional codeine swiped from someone’s medicine cabinet. (Because I didn’t smoke
112 pot I made my mother and grandfather proud!) I started drinking at age eleven, and, eventually, by age eight-teen, I was downing twenty-four bottles of Black Label beer and a half a bottle of whiskey a day (solely to wash away the beer taste). Perhaps my world had collapsed, or was in the process of collapsing, but, unlike my mother whose world was slowly transforming itself into disposable Life, Life was driving me to succeed as well. My band mates and I had started a record company, Landmind Records; a company that would eventually go on, through the work of Andy Y. and Dan Tailor, to put out a dozen or so records for Chicago bands. By the time Jim B. came into our lives he was something we both needed, and my mother’s decision to include him in our circle is something I can give her credit for. At the time, as the vampires and monsters were consuming her, she could no longer maintain the media-prescribed illusions of success. Jim on the other hand was somehow above it all, and his ragout moved along like a cement truck of certainty and stability. Perhaps his ten year age difference to that of my mother was enough to insulate him and his generation against the waxing insanity of consumer Individualism. As for my mother, to this day she still pretends to be a pillar of stability, but without the façade, without the dream (as it is especially delivered in Vanity Fair), she quickly slips off the deep end: Jim was, at the time, exactly what she needed to keep her ragout from completely being spoiled. He was her Vanity Fair: her anchor. Jim was stability itself, and my mom clung to him for dear life. But this made her hate herself, and she snapped, lashing out at him with hidden agendas: Her unraveling Life as a main course was heading straight for the garbage can. She fought as best she could, but the powers mixing her ingredients were just too strong. Unfortunately for my mother, she still had and, unfortunately, still has no cures besides those prescribed by the pharmaceutical industry (as so wonderfully advertised
113 in those monthly gospels of Vanity Fair). The bitter irony found in her then and current non-Life steeps in the fact that she must seek help from one of the very monsters that had helped imprison her and keep her imprisoned: She now truly believes purchasing and reading Vanity Fair offers salvation from the prison that has become her Life. This is to say that my mother has given up on having any real relationship and now only finds comfort as it is disseminated in the Individual mass consumer item she has purchased: Vanity Fair. These days I’m no better. Since reuniting with my wife, I am moody and prone to thrive on my own idiosyncrasies— even when they express themselves in paranoid, schizophrenic fits. I show the same type of belligerent, obsessive and demented behavior towards my wife that my mother had shown toward me when I was younger. Perhaps, though, there is a difference… I recognize my fears: the same ones lying hidden within the desired giblets representing my one’s greater success story; the representations representing every-ones’ greater value; the same representations telling us ones we are nothing if we don’t waste our lives by engaging in the process of seeking and, at least attempting, to own or possess them, the purchasable giblets of self-actualization. Waste… it is an appropriate term when considering consumer giblets, all of them, are now created with regard to ones’ historical non-Existence and self-compliance and obsequiousness to the truth expressed in ones’ labor. And so for a consumer giblet to find its home and, thus, live its true purpose at the top of a landfill—the quicker the better—is to realize the nature of its origins: Our or ones’ lives and actions, as they have now become (or are becoming) machines producing consumer objects, are a reflection of one another: And so I don’t lose sight of what my wife brings into this Life —into my Life or Life in its totality: My I still recognizes the relationships of Life. Martina is a wonderfully sweet person who works to keep things simple and makes me
114 smile… she’ll make a perfectly naughty nurse soon. (This text is already eight million years old and my wife is a wonderfully naughty nurse.) Fortunately, when I get in one of my moods, thanks to Jim, I am able to close my eyes and feel the Garlic vapors as they drift through my lungs. And once the fumes condense, the liquefied Garlic then infuses my body and purifies my blood; and it is then that I can hear the vampires scream as they are forced to suck blood elsewhere: And it is then, in this state of purified, exorcized lucidity, I can see my wife and family as they represent only goodness and purposefulness.
115 Chapter 18
Allen Ginsberg’s, America, delivered in Garlic Sauce
"I'm addressing you. Are you going to let our emotional life be run by Vanity Fair*? I'm obsessed by Vanity Fair*. I read it every week. Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner candy store. I read it in the basement of the Rochester MN Public Library**. It's always telling me about responsibility. Businessmen are serious. Movie producers are serious. Everybody's serious but me. It occurs to me that I am America. I am talking to myself again.
* Original version reads, ‘Time Magazine’ ** Original version reads, ‘Berkley Public Library’, but my mother was living in Rochester MN when I first began drafting this book a long time ago.
My mother has always prided herself on her looks, character, wit and intelligence, but by the early 1980s everything that had afforded her the luxury of self- appreciation was gone. She was the iconic image of the Jewish American Princess, but Reagan’s economic reforms, and my father’s mismanaged, closeted sexual appetites, completely ended her luxuries. There were just too many straws accumulating on her back. Jim B. offered stability, but he was a realist. His interests—smoking pot, camping, sitting around sipping brandy and playing the piano—proved he was living life rather than chasing dreams. Jim was everything my mother needed, but, at the same time, offered nothing she wanted. My mother, as she existed during these years that she lived in-between prescribed Middle Class dogmas, had no definitive moral character (hence the ability to poison someone) and therefore she didn’t need to address the hypocrisy in accepting Jim’s affinity for weed. After all
116 Jim was economically and personally content (like the Snoop Dogs) so how could she fault him for something that obviously had no effect on his economic character? Jim’s only offense was his iron-clad-stabile and, in my mother’s eyes, a character limited by being void of any giblet-envy. I was a drunken overachiever, but I wasn’t becoming what mattered most: one of the Brady kids or Beaver Cleaver. I wasn’t the only one foregoing this particular route in life, though. Matter of fact, I went to parochial school with one of Ray Crock’s grandsons and he, too, was, in high school, a notorious partier. The only difference between Jr. McDonald’s and myself was that he didn’t have to worry about having to pay for his cheeseburgers. But I already knew then that the aforementioned illusions were the poisons that American businesses and politicians were using to thin out the middle class: Those clinging to suburban morals and values, as prescribed in their favorite TV programs or tabloids, would make good fodder for consumerism. Once hooked on consumer giblets—having given oneself over to the only guaranteed truthful objects of a historical humanity and not to the hypocrisy as represented in news, TV shows, and films— the “weak” or the “Darwin Award Winning” middle class worker could and did simply let nature take its course and, with the grace, help and wisdom of a priori laws of nature belonging to the nature of God, science and/or the mind of scientists, evolved their American pride by finding their freedom in owning or eating junk; thus, the post-Vietnam era children would, did and still do, without any witting hesitations, allow their communal value to be replaced with one of personal mass consumption. The Brady Bunch, The Beavers and even The Cosbys offer and still offer no value or substance, but hey, as long as I get the latest iPhone it’s all good. The addiction to giblet-junk-objects—as the corporate and political leaders intended—drove and is still driving the middle class herd of cattle into a life caught in the midst of
117 emotional and physical dependency: People freely gave and still give up the idea of simply “owning their own time” and now prefer to spend their lives chasing the giblet-junk-objects of freedom. Freedom as an expression of simply experiencing Life in its awe-origins in Existence, as life should be weaved in and constructed through the relationships found in family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, and leaders, was sacrificed: The American people willingly gave and are still giving away their benefits, overtime pay (aka right to work), vacation time and healthcare in order to “win” something “greater”, not to mention having given up on the idea of “the collective”. As Julian Assange wrote in When Google Met Wikileaks, “Since at least the 1970s, authentic actors like unions and churches have folded under a sustained assault by free-market statism, transforming “civil society” into a buyer’s market for political factions and corporate interests looking to exert influence at arm’s length. The last forty years has seen a huge proliferation of think tanks and political NGOs whose purpose, beneath all the verbiage, is to execute political agendas by proxy." Punk was, during the 1970 and throughout the 1980s, not yet a consumer item—just raw inspiration, and thus without function—and so its appearance, as it wasn’t yet an “arm” of industry exerting influence, was a threat to the vampires and monsters. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how one wants to look at it, I was, am, and will always be a thorn in America's side. I've never had the desire to stand on either side of its fence nor use other people and their lives so that I can own a Villa, Gucci or Armani or eat a Mc Donald’s cheeseburger, or eat that expensive, fabled, exotic desert at some hotel where, at this moment, I can’t even afford to tip the porter let alone order the poisonous fish decorated with caviar. As it is and always has been these things are just junk to me. My Life and Life itself has always been about relation- ships and the connectedness in a world without the mediation of consumerism. I suppose in this sense, I could
118 say that I, too, am a terrorist. Mr. Vonnegut is proud of Keith Lyons—these are his words speaking and not mine. Anyway, there we were—my mother, Jim and I—but things were hardly picture perfect. My mother had her stability, but she had no dream. (I don’t even think she knew what Garlic looked like before Jim came along.) Since Jim was ten years older than my mother and of a different generation, he idealized the beatniks. He loved smoky Jazz bars and good stories of decadent fun. He'd worked hard, kissed the man's ass his whole life, and finally had a cushy job at a college to show for it. Jim had it figured out and this, strangely enough, made my mother even crazier. Jim never believed in Ward Cleaver or Mr. Brady. He didn’t give a damn about the emerging Individual consumer economy or nuclear family, for that matter. He had my mother, and he had his interests. What more was there? That's where the values of the old nuclear family were conflicting with the emerging consumerism of ME. My mother needed the bigger picture. She needed the affirmation of “success” from the outside world. She had one son off at college who was somewhat fulfilling her dream, but, in addition to the daily confrontation of a boyfriend who wasn't looking for the affirmation of the new and improved Consumer Cleaver Individual, she also had a gay ex-husband and another son, me, who was blatantly telling the outside world and all of its illusions of success to go fuck itself. The sense of failure as forced upon my mother by a consolidation in American power through the corporate trickle-down world of closeted repressions in Reaganomics was another origin of the curative powers of Garlic. Perhaps my mother read between the lines, as well, and was only implementing ghoulish economic reforms of the era into her personal relationships? Garlic will leave this up to you to decide. In me she saw only the alcohol and not my hyper state of productivity. My good standings at school, the forty hours of work I put in each week, the concerts, the record company:
119 All of this meant nothing to her. Since my personal interests of playing music and starting a record company—or drinking for that matter—didn’t adhere to her vision (as propagated in the media), she saw all my actions as a threat to realizing her perverse notion of family success: The Consumer Cleaver Individual of the future.
120 Chapter 19
I carry on talking about the magical powers of Garlic; leading you on from one tangent into the next, but that—this—is the story. The Origins of Garlic Cures is an epic tale about Life and is never about a linear, Finite chain of events. The Telling a Tale of Ragout and its animating, willy-nilly way ingredients get tossed into the pot is just an anecdotal, tasty and smelly attribute of Life’s mish-mash tangentiality in Existence. This is not to say that Life is chaos: because random mixing of ingredients into the stew doesn’t define the flavor. Any moments of awareness as we recognize them as historical ingredients should be thought of as subsets within the memoir; just like the memoir should be considered a subset to the All set: Infinite/Finitude… there’s only Awe.
“The aim of thinking and of what is thought are unified—then without ‘Of-Being’, in that which thinking and what is thought finds itself expressed, one cannot meet with one’s thoughts.” (Early 5th century BC philosopher, Parmenides)
Modern Mathematical logicians like to lineate the ingredients with an empty set, but even “nothing” is a given, symbolic form in the discourse of consciousness: Fuck Bertrand Russell, because what the hell is an “empty set” besides “every set”. Life may have everything to do with negation and/ or Nothingness, but only in an absolute and positive nature: For that which is Finite is only given as such in its Infinite characteristic of Finite: Just as Infinite is only given as such in its Finite character as Infinite… think about it. Garlic’s fragrant exposure of Zeno’s Paradox. Have faith, keep reading, and you will soon understand more about the origins of Garlic Cures.
During the time of Jim, my mother’s need to have power over everything spun out of control as, analogously, her world continued to fall apart. The Westmont home was repossessed by the bank and, despite being surrounded by men who were
121 quite sure of themselves, she was lost. Unfortunately for me and Jim, the things we were certain about were to her simply wrong. My mother detested Jim for just about everything: His joy in camping; his having a job he liked; his piano playing; his good chess skills; and his love of cooking. But most of all she detested him for being content. Jim was so sure of himself on every level: including his not giving a shit what the neighbors thought. For my mother, though, and the suburban dream itself, certainty is something to be judged in material possessions and, as such, faith, thus, can only be validated in relationship to the neighbors’ material possessions. In this sense Jim was definitely an anachronism: Garlic was his certainty; he'd succeeded without suburbia’s approval. He didn’t even know Ward Cleaver or Mr. Brady. Jim was pasta fagioli and happy as such. By the time my mother started poisoning Jim, she'd been with him a couple of years. He’d lived with us off and on in the Westmont home before the bank, in 1985, repossessed it, and, after that, he moved with us to Darian and then Lisle. And the whole time my mother hated him because of her dependency on him: In other words, because “hate” was all that she could come to terms with in the false Beaver- family-model-life she was failing at, she was simply too lost to just end the relationship. While the vampires and monsters were seeding themselves in the delectable morsels of Individual mass consumables, my mother, in her emotional relationship with Jim, quietly gained an upper hand in the game of control. The application of Reagan economic reforms in a personal relationship worked miracles for her! Along with the direct but silently subversive physical assaults of poison, my mother had also created a fictitious secret admirer. At opportune moments, like when she happened to be on the phone with Jim, the mystery man would suddenly appear at our front door. She would then either pretend, over the phone in a shrill and excited voice,
122 that the man was giving her flowers, chocolates, romantic little cards or some other dainty. Or, in state of devilish delight, she would, in a nonchalant if not besotted act, inform Jim over the phone: Why Jim, I have no idea who this charming and handsome man is. He just keeps showing up. In a stranglehold of jealously and rage, Jim could then be heard obscenely erupting, I want to talk to this soon-to-be-dead, motherfucking cocksucker, loud enough to be heard (over the phone) by anyone standing near to her; then in a state of devious and devilish euphoria, my mother would, in response to Jim’s emotional clusterfuck, continue the charade and talk to the nonexistent suitor who was supposedly standing at our door bearing gifts: “I’m sorry. Although you are dangerously charming and breathlessly handsome, I already have someone. You should probably find a new love…. What.... There can never be another…. You want only me.... We were meant to be together.... No. No. I’m still in a relationship, and I need to be fair to him. Maybe in another life we might find each other again.” After (and even during) my mother’s little theatrical conversations with the nonexistent gentleman, Diane!! Diane!! Put that sonofabitch on the goddman phone! could be heard coming from the handset. In sadistic delight, my mother would then say to the jouster of windmills, aka Jim, over the phone that she’d tell the suitor to leave: “I’m sorry, I’m going to have to ask you to leave now. My significant other is the jealous type, and he can be quite unpleasant.” But this little game of hers had its price. Jim might have been a content person, but he wasn’t going to let some schmuck move in on his dame. This meant he’d immediately jump into his car and drive over to our house with the intent of getting there in time to find traces and/or tracks of the soon-to-be dead suitor. At the time, Jim’s permanent digs was in Winnetka, which is normally an hour away from Westmont, but upon hearing the gentleman caller was at our home bearing gifts, he could make the drive in thirty minutes. The funniest part of the grift was that when my mother knew Jim was actually making the drive, she was
123 forced to jump into her car, rush out to the local grocery store, buy herself a gift, and return home before Jim came speeding into the driveway. Once at our home, Jim would, from his perch at our kitchen window overlooking the street, occasionally catch a glimpse of someone speeding by in a car. Our house sat on a large lot, and by the time an incensed Jim huffed it down to the road, the secret admirer in the speeding-by-car was already out of sight. Sometimes the speeding car or slowing car was a planned event, and at other times someone just happened to dawdle a bit as they drove by. One time Jim even assaulted some guy who had parked in front of our home. As it turned out, the guy was looking for something in his glove compartment… and was not my mother’s suitor. When Jim stayed over, the secret admirer would call in the middle of the night. And as my mother theatrically spoke into the phone, a hate filled, rabid Jim would begin to hover over her in an attempt to hear who she was speaking to and what was being said; eventually, as each second transformed itself into perpetuity, Jim would begin hollering: I’ll fucking kill you, you motherfucker if I ever catch you at the house! Completely satisfied with herself, my mother would, at the point well after Jim had become consumed in emotional chaos, tell the suitor, with a Juliet speaking to Romeo voice, to stop calling and sending gifts because she already had a significant other. Such theatrical dialogue s would continue until a hopping mad Jim would finally snatch the phone away from her. But, not too surprisingly, he never got to actually ever to speak to the person, because the man would hang up if Jim got on the line. Eventually, after months of my mother’s thespian fête, Jim wouldn’t even hover. If my mother answered the phone and said something like, I told you not to call me right now. He’s here, Jim just immediately grabbed the phone away from her and began a litany of cuss words and threats. Jim was eventually told the suitor’s name was Ben
124 Carlson, and that he was a Marine Biologist. And when Ben Carlson needed the illusion of physical reality, such as driving by the house or calling when Jim was there, the part was played by my mother’s best friend, Carol—which was an easy role for her to play seeing that she and Jim never got along well in the first place. Ben was an environmental hero whose job demanded he be away on marine expeditions. Thus, my mother could turn Ben on and off when needed. Sometimes Ben was always around, and at other times he was gone for months on end; presumably out in the middle of the ocean trying to save whales, dolphins and squid. I now find the whole situation humorous, but I always liked Jim, and the disrespect he suffered—not to mention the physical ailments—was perverse. My mother forced me into participating in these little games; even though I never actually put poison in Jim’s food, I did have to testify in front of him on many occasions that I had met this Ben Carlson character. In late 1983, sometime during my sixteenth year, I stopped coming home, and began living, for the most part, with the Tailor family. I knew their sons Dan and Mark from the punk rock scene―and the Tailors didn't have a problem with me at first: The problems came later. Initially, mom and dad Tailor thought I was a nice, hardworking and friendly kid―and I’d also kept their sons from getting their asses kicked a number of times (because of their “punkrockness”), so I was also appreciated. For almost a year I had the green light to stay with them, which didn't sit well with my mother. Jim suffered even more during my absence. His stomach cramps and diarrhea evolved, and, in the time that I was away, his physical condition deteriorated to the point where he was, without a day’s break, sporadically vomiting. Some mornings he couldn’t even get out of bed. Some nights he couldn’t sleep. And there were days he literally spent sitting on the toilet. He'd been to the doctor numerous times,
125 but was always declared healthy as a horse. Nonetheless Jim knew something was wrong, and eventually, as he lost control over his own body, Garlic became the answer to his ailments―and, in some strange way, for Jim B., Garlic came to symbolize a greater good: Slowly, over a year’s time, Jim B., the hard working Chicago man of Italian decent, found the cure and talisman needed to fend off the lies that had become the fabric weaving his life into existence. At first he was just adding more Garlic to his meals, but after a while he started eating it raw―Jim B. intuitively knew there were vampires hiding around every corner and under every stone, draining his blood when he wasn't looking. He might have been forced to eat endless breath mints and relentlessly brush his teeth, but Garlic, or at least the essence of Garlic, needed to be on his breath: Jim B. knew, understood and intuited that in consuming Garlic his heart would be kept pure.
126 Chapter 20
"Of course today, the Hoover legend is not just about crime fighting. It has as much to do with playing fast and loose with civil liberties, with collecting vast secret files on innocent people— a powerful man with secrets of his own." John Hockenberry interviewed by Richard Hack for an article on his new book, The Puppetmaster, The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover, , April 12, 2004.
Since the first attempt at delivering this Garlic Cure, circa 2006, Eric Snowden and Julian Assange have proven some of my “paranoid theories” to be true. But of course, I never felt paranoid, because I reeked and still reek of Garlic.... maître d' Keith still delivering a Tale of Ragout in 2015 and in the afterlife.
Because I was my mother’s son, she wouldn’t ply me with poison, but she could control me by legal means. And so like a Dr José Delgado and his perfect future where there is absolute control, my mother knew, with knowledge being for her a matter of having the acuity to apply sublime power in a game of manipulation, that she couldn’t wage any clandestine battles against me when I was at the Tailor home, and any subversive assaults against me would, thus, have to be done without interference from the Tailor family: The Tailor’s knew me as the hard working, above average in school, musical “protector” and all round nice kid…they wouldn’t have simply gone along with anything my mother said or did. Sometime during the beginning of 1985, almost a year after I began living mostly at the Tailor home, my mother called the police and had them pick me up in the middle of the night… I had made the mistake of having informed her earlier in the day that I was going to be sleeping at Ross V’s home, and so it
127 was no coincidence when she made her move on this particular night. Up until this point, despite knowing what she was doing to Jim, I hadn’t yet fully understood what she was truly capable of, and this is why I had told her of my plans for later that evening. At that point in my life, although I was living with the Tailors, I still was trying to be, in some warped way, the “good son”. I was young and naïve; consequently, the only thing I achieved in being a “good son” was to give my mother an advantage over me in the world that had become defined, in her relationship to Jim, by power plays: I was a minor and her world was also, by law, my world. Ross was a friend who sang in the punk band, Dead Fink, and since we, and our band mates, were the only punk kids at the local area high schools one could say, because we all shared a common bond, that not only was Ross a kind of brother to me, but his band was a brother band to my band, Happy Toons. Ross’ parents were away at their cabin, and we had worked an evening shift together at the clothing store where we were both employed—and this is why I had ended up at his house and not the Tailor’s home. When the police showed up at around 2am, Ross and I were hanging out with two cases of Black Label and a fifth of whiskey; we were drunk and reminiscing about punk shows we’d played together. Ross, after hearing the doorbell, and thinking it was one of our friends, unsuspectingly and without hesitation, simply opened the door. To his and my surprise, on the other side of the screen door stood two officers nonchalantly looking at us with our open bottles of beer in our hands. Ross was bummed. I was a magnet for possession of alcohol charges. Not even in the privacy of someone's home, in the middle of the night, and with no disturbances, could I escape the wrath of suburbia. The sons-of-bitches were hunting me down. But to our surprise, the officers immediately said they were not there because of the beer. From the other side of the screen barrier they told us
128 we could keep drinking... hmmm, you're damn straight I kept drinking. But Ross wasn't sure what to do; it was his home, and more or less his ass. “Are you Keith Lyons?” one officer asked me through the screen. I took a slow swig from my beer then answered, „Yes.” “Can we come in and talk to you?” “It’s not my home.” The officers looked at Ross. “Of course,” Ross stuttered. Ross was terrified, and rightly so. Suburbia was paving the way for the future fanatical condition of America. I knew one of the officers since he had previously fined me for consumption and possession of alcohol by a minor. Even though it was technically against the law, you have to keep in mind that it was a different era: the age of consumption had just recently, relatively speaking, been changed in Illinois. Alcohol and tobacco were still considered Church-sanctioned activities. Catholics loved to (and still love to) swill down Christian Brothers Wine by the gallon, and I could legally buy cigarettes at sixteen, so I was literarily the only kid in Illinois being arrested at the time for possession of alcohol. I was committing a crime by possessing and consuming alcohol, but I was also being targeted. It was a way for the local law agencies to keep close tabs on me. They needed to watch me because I was the freaky-dressed kid, as I’m sure my grade, middle and high schools had kept them informed since the mid-70s. You might think I'm imagining things, but you have to wonder how J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI for 49 years, could be a furtive, cross-dressing homosexual, and how such a hidden secret wouldn’t have an impact on the American law enforcement. Even if this rumor is untrue, the truth of the matter is found in the idea that we could easily believe J. Edgar Hoover was, due to his vile, overzealous nature, a closeted homosexual-transvestite with issues: As in the case of
129 my father, the cage caused and still causes people to become nuts—think of a “Log Cabin Republican” and one can almost see J. Edgar Hoover as the dress wearing architect who built the cage, I mean cabin. Freedom and Individuality, in their modern consumer context, are synonymous with self- destruction: A never satisfied or imperfect let alone perfect Narcissus wasn’t meant to be a role model. This is to say that Mr. Hoover’s desire to love men and wear dresses was and is perfectly normal, but his other character traits, developed out of insecurities and self-hate fueled by consumer driven self- awareness and denial of life—his as well as any and all Life— were stomach churning. We, as a general whole, trust the police, but why? They're the most paranoid, criminal and perverse sector of any society: they have to be or otherwise they couldn't be so blindly convinced of their jobs. I have family members who were (and are) policemen. I won't get into the mob connections with my grandfather here, but chew on this for a bit: In 1972, my (favorite) uncle, a Chicago cop, blew a man's brains out in broad daylight and in front of dozens of witnesses. My uncle was off duty and drunk at the time, and the man he murdered was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. Besides being a tragedy for the man’s wife and two small children that his death had left behind, it was a costly affair for my uncle and grandfather: Dozens of aldermen and judges had to be bribed (with money from my grandfather the mafia lackey) so that my uncle could keep his job. Some people today complain about the new Patriot Act taking away people’s rights, but the truth of the matter is that we never had any. (The McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950 is just one example out of many.) Police stations had, and could still have for all I know, monthly Federal forms to fill out regarding any un-American activities and/or suspicious individuals. And from what I understand, the Government has bypassed this whole process, and has now
130 engaged firemen, because they are free to enter private homes without search warrants, to spy on suspicious characters. History books and the Freedom of Information Act support this information…as does Eric Snowden’s revelations about the NSA’s Spying Program. Am I that important of a person? No, but in 1977 the world was different, and suburbia wasn't exactly a collage of color. Homogenized hair and skin color was the selling point for suburban homes. The normalized, suburban middle class of the 60s era was rooted in security (safe from the colors of life) and not in Individual-mass consuming, and my flamboyant persona was viewed as a disease—just as some people believe homosexuality to be…. Perhaps my father’s latent, sexual tendencies had a lot to do with my expressions and confrontations with the world, but I was always, even by age eleven, viewed as a threat by neighbors, extended family, and school faculties—my being a “threat” being based on moral judgments derived solely from my appearances. God of consumerism forbid one should view the lies head on, and to look beyond the superficiality of their, the neighbors, extended family and school faculties, own purchased identities. As an example of my civil rights being violated, I can remember, at age seventeen, standing in front of my car after having been pulled over by the police in Downers Grove (accused of a swollen nipple syndrome), waiting for the officers to run their check on me and hearing the names of many of my friends coming from their radio. To group people together like this was against law at that time. I asked the officer why my friends’ names were being spoken over the radio. The officer snarled that it was none of my business and ordered me to open the trunk of my car. I protested, but he threatened me with physical violence, and so I opened the trunk, and of course there was beer—lots of it. The truth of profiling or targeting people seems to only come out after the fact, but at the time it is occurring, everyone who is not part of a targeted or profiled group act as though those
131 being watched are just paranoid—and even after the truth has been established, as revealed by Eric Snowden, there are mass numbers of nut jobs who, despite the fact that such surveillance is not allowed in the US Constitution, still believe the Government should be monitoring people’s daily activities. Not only did good old J. Edgar Hoover really have the technique dialed in, but from what I understand, so do our phone and Internet companies…don’t forget that this text was written long before Eric Snowden became a household name. My conjectures here, at the time of their first appearance, were merely considered “conspiracy theory bullshit”. But as Friedrich von Hayek wrote in Road to Serfdom:
“One need not be a prophet to be aware of impending dangers. An accidental combination of experience and interest will often reveal events to one man under aspects which few yet see.”
Back at Ross’s home, the officers walked in, but their mien was different. They weren't the little twerps trying to broaden their shoulders; doing the John Wayne swagger while searching for blood to feed the vampires and monsters: Instead they were acting like our older brothers. Their usual enforcement of obsessive-paranoia as necessitated in free- market society (freedom needs more than one impetus) was set aside for a moment (as was their normal job of protecting the greed-and-envy-cornerstones to Individual-mass- consumerism), and the officers got to pretend like they were working for the benefit of the people. "How are you guys doing tonight?" one officer caringly asked. "Oh, you know, drunk," I answered. "Been drinking, huh? It's good to kick a beer or two back," commented a friendly officer. I think this scared Ross even more, because with this comment things had become obviously not right.
132 "Yeah, it's good to have a couple now and then," I quipped before gulping the rest of my beer. I knew there was something wrong, too, and that my beer-drinking with the police was bound to end sooner than later. "You need another beer?" My new big brother asked. "Why, yes, thank you." I answered. "And you, Mr. V.?" Talk about a mind fuck. Ross was punk, but his home life offered him balance so he never needed to confront the world head on. He was smart enough to know that in bad times he could retreat to a safe place: The mere idea of police officers offering him beer was already too much, and now here they were in his home offering him one. The individual consumer America, in all its rising insanity, was confronting him in his home! "Oh, yeah," Ross stuttered. He wasn't sure, and neither was I, but I knew I had to drink as much as I could before our party was over. "How are you feeling tonight, Keith?" Now we were on a first name basis. "Yeah, drunk, I already said it." "Anybody got a gun around here?" One officer insouciantly asked. “Gun!” shrieked Ross. Wow, talk about messing with Ross’ mind. Not only were the police giving him beer, but now they were looking for a weapon. "Do you mind if we look around to see if there's a gun?" I just grinned and drank my beer. "Huh? A gun?" Ross was really worried now. "There are no guns here." "Are you sure?" "Look around," I said. This was just before I became the ring leader of the mink fur thieves so the officers weren't looking for stolen goods… I hadn't yet built up my arsenal for my life of petty crime.
133 "Well, Keith, we got a call from your mother, and she said you threatened to kill yourself." "Oh. Well, it's not going to happen with a gun." "So you threatened to commit suicide?" "No, I told her earlier today that if she wanted me to come home that she'd have to shoot me and put me in a body bag first.” That’s what a “good son” conversation with his manipulative mother sounds like. "So you're having troubles with your mother?" "Nothing more than the usual." As I was speaking with one officer the other was looking around. At some point in our conversation I slammed my beer and grabbed another. "Well, it seems like you are calm and under control. And you never threatened to kill yourself?" My big brother asked; a friendly yet somehow sensitive look demarcated his face. "No." I swilled my beer down then grabbed another. This party was coming to an end. "You never told your mother you were going to kill yourself?" "I told her that she'd have to kill me, but I never said anything about killing myself." "It sounds like family troubles. I know how it is." If only he knew the half of it. At the time, Jim was in the midst of Garlic salvation, and if I would have been a bit keener to Jim’s garlicky ways I could have probably avoided the whole ensuing chain of events: But back then I didn't eat Garlic—not whole at least. I always respected and admired Jim, but I was just a struggling, naive kid, doing the best I could, given the circumstances. It took me years of travel and contemplation to finally come to the realization, like Jim, that Garlic is both the solution and the cure… for All problems and illnesses.
134 "Well, we're going to have to take you to the hospital anyway. We're bound by law to do so. If we leave here and you blow your brains out then we have to answer for it. You're still a minor and your mother's word is gold." I thought about his testament. He was telling me I didn't have a choice in the matter, but for the first time (and unfortunately the last time) in my life I heard a police officer actually present an honest and intelligent argument. "Yeah, that's not a problem," I said as I emptied my bottle. "You can take another beer with you in the squad if you want." I wish I had a video camera recording this whole night. Things were said and done that were magical. "It seems like you're okay, and I'm sure you'll be in and out of the hospital in no time. You'll have to speak to the on- duty psychologist, and he'll assess the situation. If it's just an argument like you say then there should be no reason for you to have to stay." It made sense. I wasn't deranged in that moment. My band had shows coming up. We were recording, and we’d just started the record company with Ross’ band. Life was good. I don't remember much about the ride in the squad car. The hospital wasn't all that far away, and I'm sure I didn't say much. After all, in the twenty minutes that the police were at Ross’s house, I'd downed five beers, not to mention the ten I'd consumed before they had showed up. Around the same time period, I was with Brett M. when another situation occurred where the police illegally stopped and searched us. Brett and I had been friends since middle school—do you remember that movie theater
135 incident where I got the shit kicked out me be by ushers? Brett was there for that. He tried being punk for a while, but by the time high school rolled around his family situation had swallowed him whole: His dad had long since vanished, and he had one brother in jail for attempted manslaughter and drug dealing, and another brother who had the misfortune of being given the cross gender name, Tracy. I recently heard from Brett and he informed me that his manslaughtering brother now lives in San Francisco and wears dresses, and that his mother confessed to him on her deathbed that the neighbor was his real dad. As for Tracy, Brett says he was instrumental in developing the modern modem for our computers. Suburbia is built on a lie-foundation with paint made of dreams that is used to cover the see-through walls so that the monsters and vampires remain hidden from sight. The dreams we believe in and the dreams we'd die for are where the monsters live best. In my youth, Brett would eventually become our candy man, our dealer of trips, but on this eventful day, still two years before I would begin dabbling in LSD, Brett and I were hanging together for the first time in months, and were on our way back from the liquor store when he was pulled over for having a swollen nipple or some half-cocked reason. After finding our post-nuclear–war-bunker-supply of beer in the back of Brett’s car one of the officers ordered us to empty out all of the cans. I looked at Brett and smiled; he immediately knew what I was thinking. We each grabbed a can of beer, probably Hamms or Black Label, and opened them, but instead of pouring them onto the ground we kicked the cans back into our mouths. (You know, I've always had balls, and perhaps that's really why the Syrian roommates kicked my ass.) We were professional drinkers and managed to each get a can in us before the officer screamed, “what the fuck are you doing!”, and made us pour out the remaining cases of beer. The one positive thing I can say about suburban police at that
136 time is that unlike Chicago cops they didn’t beat people into submission or kill them. (The same uncle who killed a man for kicks was also the same cop depicted in a well-publicized photograph of the chaos at the 1968 Democratic Convention gleefully bashing in some hippy’s skull with his truncheon.) In this sense maybe the suburbs were a bit closer to paradise than I give them credit. Having to only worry about deranged, paranoid suburbanites kicking my twelve-year-old ass and paying a fine for something that was after all illegal (even if I was the only one) seems to be, at this point, trivial in comparison.
137 Chapter 21
“Zeno's paradoxes have puzzled, challenged, inspired, infuriated, amused and influenced philosophers, mathematicians, physicists and school children for over two millennia. The most famous are the so- called "arguments against motion" described by Aristotle in his Physics [Book 12: 1073a],” From Wikipedia's Zeno content page. “Complementarity and Uncertainty dictate that all properties and actions in the physical world are therefore non-deterministic to some degree,” From Wikipedia's Complementarity (of quantum physics) content page. This simply translates into: matter, as form- objects being projected through the use of the unexplained dimension called time into an imperceptible space, is still not understood.
The perspective from the Eye of Garlic reveals:
Truth of (the) matter is objects, as they are only ideas or symbolic forms, are never at rest, and Cause and Effect belong to the realm of mysticism and religion… or to the awe revealed in a good story.
In other words, quantum physics hasn't come any farther than the "arguments against motion.1”
Here in misty eyed Garlic recollections, I'm feeling another tangent coming on, but keep in mind it, the nolens volens emotional ride, is all part of the Garlic Cures. The more hidden flavors come to the surface the better one can smell the unexpected ingredients. But regardless of the olfactory situation, my ragout is always tasty; despite the sometimes sensual and seductive aromas that are often revealing of starkly sobering and sourly tangs, no one would have ever been (or could be) convinced of the delicious nature of the smelly attributes seasoning the stock. Some of the most astringent and austere ingredients, which have led me to this point in time called A Tale of Ragout, were added while living on my bicycle. I've ridden over a
138 hundred thousand miles on a bike, portions of which were done in utter isolation on stretches of American, European, Mexican, Canadian, and Alaskan highways and/or logging roads. These ingredients of Life—of my Life—reveal the aesthetic and savoring condiments filling out my entree, and are, thus, the fixings that have salvaged, and continue to salvage my ragout in process. Without these rides my life as a dinner would have long since been discarded in the garbage can, thrown away as bitter and awful, impalpable insanity. From Garlic's very roots, as found in the spinning of my wheels on lonely, desolate stretches of roads, I learned that I love people and that I love to celebrate with friends and family. But I also learned that my true connectedness to the world is mediated by unknown and uncertain forces. Whether I am is on a bicycle ride from Glasgow to Havre, Montana or in Zeno's Infinite distance found halfway between the one and two inch marks on any school ruler, I learned that I am is the only true distance between any two given points, and everything appearing along the way is nothing more than a story. But it took a number of journeys through Life to finally know that Garlic is telling this Tale of Ragout. I am is, but I am is neither the beginning nor the end of the consciousness. Existence exists. Being is. And thus Life lives. Today, Garlic tells me that I really only feel completely at ease when I'm either in some kind of narrative discourse, such as these Cures are speaking-delivering, or when I'm out running fifteen miles along a river or through a forest, or peddling my bicycle through the Yukon Territory, Alaska, British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, the Northwest Territory, Yukon, Quebec, Ontario, Iceland, the Mohave or some other desolate place. The humming sound bicycle tires make on lost, lonely stretches of road is an orchestra to my ears—as is the blowing of the wind, the rustling of the leaves, and the howl of the trees. I am is an animist and I am believe everything: every thought; all mental images; any and every impression or symbolic form is alive and guided by spirits—
139 Garlic or otherwise. You're either part of the historical dialogue or you believe that you are not. Furthermore, to experience such historical dialogue, when one is not ignorantized into believing one is not experiencing it, is to know the positive nature of Existence itself—my I am can be, when stinking of awareness, an iatromantis or Seer. Out in the wilderness, when riding a bicycle loaded down with camping gear, one’s only social life is with the sky, earth, trees, birds, slugs, worms, mosquitoes, wolves, bears, streams, fires (I managed to ride through two major forest fires), lakes and oceans. I haven't been on a bicycle tour in over ten years (now, as of this rewrite, many, many moons ago), but some days I just drift off to those places. Don't get me wrong, I am happy as a father, and I enjoy my family, but the unmediated relationship in the world only comes after hours of experiencing physical duress and intense concentration: riding a bike or reading certain texts or chanting certain phrases repeatedly for hours on end are my rituals of an ecstatic, meditative practice or incubation. During my two years in China, and roughly the past year here in Germany (now going on millions of years), I found peace in abstract discussion: I traveled to the place and time where consciousness begins and ends (historical dialogue of Difference sans Identity). Call it mysticism if you will (iatromancy or an evolved Husserlian Epόche), but I only know it as the smell of Garlic. And this wonderfully sweet aroma of the Mereology tells me that there are only two dimensions— Infinite and Finite—as and in the unification of the Finite center of a sphere reaching its Infinite expanse Existence. The aroma also tells me that a triangle is the most primal form of consciousness as it, consciousness, moves (along the horizon of the sphere) from Difference into Identity and back again into Difference: With each turn either a geometric object is formed (as non-material or illusion-objectivity to Existence itself) or the balance and imbalance of Finitude and Infinitude
140 are met with a new object, as Difference and Identity form complex relationships, and they, the relationship-objectivity- appearance (geometric-object-form or matter-illusion), no longer appear as simple Difference rising through Identity2. Within what appears (or lives) as a triangle there may be a playfully hidden square (to consciousness/Existence itself or within and outside of the chanting sphere in as far as hidden becomes the impetus playfully aware of), or within a circle there may be a square (sorry Spinoza) or a multitude of other geometric forms as they create the horizon of the chanting sphere. Playfully hidden is where and when the horizon of the sphere Lives—in the post Big Smelly Bang there is… and thus we are nowing Life.3 These complex relationships of genetic transformative forms and/or objects (Identities) become illusive and, at the same time, powerful: But do not be mistaken, because even the appearance of form, as it is (becomes) living Identity, may only reveal power in its life (presence as it is a playful dance of hidden), but the relationship, as Identity is grounded in Difference, may be weak (GUAN XI ONTOLOGY). The same and different moment of Existence Living as Identity/Difference in a playful dance arising out of Infinite/Finite chant of spheres is what confused Leibniz and is the why he believed the duplicitous perceived/perceiver nature of the relationship of Life to Existence was something only God could offer continuity to in a substance (Monad) found on the horizon of a sphere-of-nothingness (God as 1/0 binary switch in this case):
“A substance is itself a set of basic powers; its derivative powers— its ‘faculties’ if you like—are merely ways of being, ·i.e. qualities of the substance·. They must be derived from the substance, and cannot be derived from matter considered as wholly mechanical and purely passive. (New Essays on the Understanding, Chapter IV, iii: Extent of human knowledge, pg. 188, http://www.earlymodern text.com, pdf version, 2005)”
141 And, as another example, one can look to what Einstein called spacetime: Besides inadequately experiencing Euclid’s Plane Geometry, Einstein’s two axes of a triangle extended into a full triangle is (Einstein’s) self-reflection revealing itself to be another object of Difference; an object that, as it is still a relationship as Infinite/Finite Existence, rises into the unknown: into directional time; or as it, the relationship, is in this story the non-directional smell of Garlic (and not time). Smell, as it is for taste, hear, see and feel, grounds or orientates the Difference Life in Difference: They are expression of the Infinite (the whole) in the Finite (part). Einstein’s starting point in the equation was Einstein and not the chant of spheres (sheer Being). (And do not forget that Spinoza’s first six definitions in his Definitions of God express the chant of spheres!) We are in effect only aromatically delivered into this:
“Greek philosophy seems to begin with a preposterous fancy, with the proposition (of Thales) that water is the origin and mother- womb of all things. Is it really necessary to stop there and become serious? Yes, and for three reasons: firstly, because the proposition does enunciate something about the origin of things; secondly, because it does so without figure and fable; thirdly and lastly, because it contained, although only in the chrysalis state, the idea: everything is one. ... That which drove him (Thales) to this generalization was a metaphysical dogma, which had its origin in a mystic intuition and which together with the ever renewed endeavors to express it better, we find in all philosophies - the proposition: everything is one!” (garlicy Infinite is garlicky finite!) (Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, 1962 Regnery Gateway edition)
This is to say that Einstein’s theory of a quantum, as it reveals the apparatus of illusionary time, and all ensuing theories of quantum mechanics are flawed in their paradigmatic structuring. Although there is, in theoretical sciences as a whole, awareness that the way in which one, the scientist, views the process (even in the mere garlic-free
142 mereological structuring of theoretical propositions) is inadequate, the resolution to the intellectual flaw remains, to the scientists, unfathomable. There are those who try, though, to overcome the duplicitous nature found in the perceived/ perceiver quandary: But mathematicians, physicists and philosophers who are not messengers of Garlic get nutty when they, as Individuals, try to hang out in the chant of spheres with overinflated egos and then reenter the duplicitous state of perceived/perceiver. (There are ample books out there from renowned and recognized scientists and philosophers to choose from—there’s no need to again point the defamatory finger at any one.) Quantum theory and mechanics are, for all practical purposes, preposterous propositions and constructs without any fancy. Furthermore, how could a researcher, after returning/leaving from the chant of sphere’s without the ego, sell his or her products when, as an iatromantis, he or she would know that everything they’re trying to express (as it was once believed to be of knowledge) is nothing more than a ruse when brought forth into the light physical objectivity…. Seller of Snake Oil is not something they thought their Doctor and Ph.D. titles embodied, and it definitely does not represent something that skeptical, clever consuming Individuals or the consumer Individual society would pay for. There is a reason why Russian mathematician, Dr. Grigori Perelmann refused the Clay Mathematics Institute (CMI), million-dollar Millennium Prize awarded to him for resolving the 106-year- old Poincaré Conjecture: He’s an iatromantis with plenty of fancy and no Ayn Rand destructively delusionary ego. In other words he dances with unicorns, and so, as he said, he does “know how to control the universe”. I can only imagine that Dr. Perleman wasn’t afraid of garlic or of what Leibniz called goblins, because he, Dr. Perleman, didn’t even acknowledge the stage, and so he didn’t sell his soul to the vampires and monsters to get what he wants:
143 “If on the other hand •such knowledge was inherently beyond us, and if •we couldn’t even conceive of a general explanation for the relations between soul and body, and if •God gave things accidental powers that were not rooted in their natures and were therefore out of reach of reason in general, that would open a back door through which to let back in over-occult qualities that no mind can understand, along with unexplainable ‘faculties’—those little goblins,. . . .helpful goblins that come forward like gods on the stage. . . .to do on demand anything that a philosopher wants of them, without ways or means.” Leibniz, New Essays on the Understanding, iii: Extent of human knowledge, pg. 190. http://www.earlymoderntexts.com, pdf version, 2005)
Life can also find its greatest strength in these aforementioned Identity illusions: The strong Identity only need have appearance of something reaching far and deep into the Infinite/Finite nature of its origins as it is Difference, but in truth there may be almost nothing behind the exterior (form-Identity, playfully-hidden appearance—matter-illusion —within and outside manifold consciousness-relationships). All of Life, in this sense, may become a crap shoot, but it is, nonetheless, always a positive game. This almost nothing might be our current humanity, and this may always be positively good, but at some point when the game itself starts looking and, more importantly, feeling empty—when such nothingness replaces our (ones’) and all Existence, and in this nothing’s power, as it is only an illusion, starts to unmask and unravel—its guan xi weakens: There then needs to be a moment of honesty. Parmenides and Zeno both understood this very well. Parmenides wrote:
“Welcome, youth, who come attended by immortal charioteers and mares which bear you on your journey to our dwelling. For it is no evil fate that has set you to travel on this road, far from the beaten paths of men, but right and justice. It is meet that you learn all things - both the unshakable heart of well-rounded truth and the opinions of mortals in which there is not true belief.” (Parmenides B 1.24-30)
144 There must be a modern realization in, of and to Existence as it is grounded in true belief: believing which lives grounded (grounding) with and through all senses in Difference. Without such a modernization, the Identity, as it even falters in its guan xi, and as it becomes nothing more than an empty shell, will become, when continued to be propped up by monsters and vampires, nothing but a vacuum sucking in Life; because, as it now stands, Existence’s only intention is to sacrifice all Life in the name of its, aka Existence’s, One (Finite). Of course such an Existence-ending, Life-ending Apocalypse isn’t possible, but wouldn’t things be so much more positive to just move on—modernize—and let the emptiness become the fullness. Ironically enough, current philosophers challenge the integrity of Parmenides by categorizing all Eleatics into a group defined as Shamans and Seers (iatromantis), and, thus, through their critique, attempt to belittle the Eleatic’s religious/mystical quintessence by placing it on the proverbial museum shelf (in our nowing Lives), to be viewed as though it were some kind of primitive, stone tool once used by a lesser advanced culture in obtaining knowledge: A knowledge which current philosophers and scientists only see as some kind of object to be owned and dominated by a great and superior if not advanced mind... and of course this leads one, the great and superior mind, to believe that he or she is entitled to own the patented-able knowledge that has been filtered through their unique yet universal machines of discovery, and, thus, be financially rewarded. Nietzsche’s afore mentioned quote conforms to this critique of philosophers, and, if my memory serves me well, I believe Hannah Arendt touches on this aspect of knowledge in Between Past and Future as well. There is also Schopenhauer’s “If a philosopher ever said anything honest he’d out of a job,” which is a sentiment directly derived from Aristotle’s Metaphysics, Book IX, Theta On The Actual And The Potential, viii, 3:
145 “Similarly, men possess the art of building in order that they may build, and ‘contemplative science’ in order that they may contemplate. They do not contemplate in order to have the power of contemplating, except in the case of the learners, and these do not really contemplate, or at best they do so in a limited sense and without full seriousness.”
This categorization of the Eleatics as Shamans and Seers may be correct, but what the nowing academics fail to address is that the Steven Hawkings and Richard Dawkins of this world are guilty of ignorant Shamanism: Reality for the physicist, evolutionist, cosmologists and astrophysicists begins and ends with the cosmologists and physicists themselves. (See the emptiness becomes the fullness comment above.) And there has also been a recent movement from pseudo philosophers, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, to name a few, who are what Garlic would consider modern iatromantis or ignorant shamans. As Noam Chomsky points out, “these New Atheists are nothing more than religious fanatics who worship the religion of the state.” Noam Chomsky at HartHouse Debates https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86OK7IpoXDM). Thus it could be said that the modern scientists like their jobs as The Seers but still hold a greater amount of contempt for Life, whereas the true Shamans and Seers become the positivity of consciousness (reality) (through incubation or ritualistic/method meditation—Phenomenological Deliverance necessitates that the Epoché no longer negates Existence). Unfortunately, even during the early twentieth century great movements of phenomenological methodism— which is a philosophical approach to awareness (conscious- ness) as it is given to (the process of) the relationship of Infinite/Finite reaching far and wide from Difference through all possibility and probability Identity and back into Difference (chant of spheres), as delivered, for example, in the phenomenological works of Scheler, Husserl, Cassirer
146 or Bakhtin—there was never a formative attack made against the items and/or nature of progress which gave, and still gives, science and scientists an undeserving stronghold on reality: scientists believe they hold the patent on knowledge. But scientists don’t really understand the knowledge they are employing. “Consciousness also presupposes the concept of knowledge. Nothing is more misleading than to proceed in the opposite direction and define knowledge itself as simply a particular ‘content of consciousness,’ as we see if we oppose, to the particular kind of knowing and having-known which we call consciousness, another kind of knowledge which precedes it and includes no form of being-conscious.” (Max Scheler, pg. 294 Idealism and Realism, Selected Philosophical Essays, 1973 Northwestern University Press) Further, phenomenology “is the name of an attitude of spiritual seeing in which one can see [er-schauen] or experience [er-leben] something which otherwise remains hidden, namely, a realm of facts of a particular kind.” (Selected Philosophical Essays, Phenomenology and Theory of Cognition, pg. 136) Scheler distinguishes here, when it comes to facts of a particular kind, between method and what he calls “attitude”, because he accepts the role of the phenomenologist as a “procedure of seeing new facts themselves, before they have been fixed by logic” (Selected Philosophical Essays, Phenomenology and Theory of Cognition, pg. 136). But Garlic doesn’t make this distinction in the terms: Garlic is the Story Teller, whereas I am is a maître de delivering the message, but for Scheler his he is still the story teller. In either case, Scheler, like Garlic, is referring to, when speaking of “attitude” or method, an essence that breathes Life into Existence when Life takes on the role of being engaged in Difference and Identity as they are of the Finite/Infinite. The method or “attitude” is mereological— parts and wholes—relationship that has, thanks to Garlic, Difference and Identity as grounding and structuring and thus forming or living content that delivers value and meaning—if
147 only in an illusionary, probable and possible reality. The “procedure of seeing” in such a constellation is a Geisteshaltung or "disposition of the spirit" or "spiritual posture," and thus the phenomenologist is, as Garlic agrees with Scheler, an iatromantis. “It (phenomenology) looks for a content of lived-experience which ‘coincides’ with all propositions and formulas, even those of pure logic, for example, the principle of identity. Any question of the truth and validity of these propositions is suspended as long as this requirement is not fulfilled.” (Selected Philosophical Essays, Phenomenology and Theory of Cognition, pg. 138) The task of the iatromantis, though, is to become Life living. And such a task is not something or an activity through which fulfillment can be obtained. Life has as its living object, in that Difference is its reference point, only thaumázein. The self can be a point of reference…but only one of many or infinite points of reference. Thaumázein is at the heart of “that for whose sake” Aristotle says is “itself something motionless.” Life can only occur for the “immutable” Difference because Life is “motion through being loved”… it is a “love” which has as its “telic determining factor”, in as far as Difference is the absolute ground(ing) to the Infinite/Finite nature of living, thaumázein. (The Metaphysic, Book XII Lambda, The Eternal Unmoved Mover, vii God as unmoved and self-contemplative, pg. 100, Wheelwright 1951) Furthermore, in regards to the ignorant Shamans or myriad self-proclaimed atheists, they have no-idea what Leibniz means when he wrote in New Essays on Human Understanding, Chapter IV, ii: Maxims, axioms:
"To say 'I think, therefore I am' isn’t really to prove existence from thought, since 'to think' and 'to be thinking' are one and the same, and to say 'I am thinking' is already to say 'I am'. Still, there is some reason for you not to include this proposition among the axioms: it is a proposition of fact, founded on immediate experience, not a necessary proposition whose necessity is seen in the immediate agreement of ideas. On the contrary, only God
148 can see how the two items I and existence are connected, that is, only God can see why I exist."
Sure, the nature or meaning of what is God or what are Gods can be discussed, but the proposition revealed in immediate experience is always, at the bare minimum, a mystery that can only be revealed and, thus, only known through belief…and in this story belief is revealed in the waft of Garlic.
It could be said, by Garlic of course, that items and/or nature of progress combined with an unconscious, self- aggrandizing, non-Seer scientist leads to an authority; but an authority that belongs to a delusional scientist, in as far as the scientist is delusional when believing himself to be, when engaging in experimentation or theorizing, the origin of action. And the ultimate source for the delusion found in science and scientist belongs to our current non-garlicky experience of time. But even for Aristotle, man’s role, with or without Garlic, in the aforementioned garlicky mereological syzygy, is not to be the origin of action:
“The origin of action—its efficient, not its final cause—is choice, and that of choice is desire and reasoning with a view to an end. This is why choice cannot exist either without reason and intellect or without a moral state; for good action and its opposite cannot exist without a combination of intellect and character. Intellect itself, however, moves nothing, but only the intellect which aims at an end and is practical; for this rules the productive intellect as well, since everyone who makes for an end, and that which is made is not an end in the unqualified sense (but only an end in a particular relation, and the end of a particular operation)—only that which is done is that; for good action is an end, and desire aims at this. Hence choice is either desiderative reason or ratiocinative desire, and such an origin of action is a man. (It is to be noted that nothing that is past is an object of choice, e.g. no one chooses to have sacked Troy; for no one deliberates about
149 the past, but about what is future and capable of being otherwise, while what is past is not capable of not having taken place; hence Agathon is right in saying: For this alone is lacking even to God, To make undone things that have once been done.)” (Nichomachean Ethics, Bk. VI: 2) (Underlines added by Garlic)
Time, then, in the Infinite/Finite nature of deliverance, is the final cause and effect in as far as the Infinite/Finite gets to appear (phenomenological): Identity’s dances to the tune of Difference; any potentiality and probability, as they are the future of thaumázein, is always the Infinite/Finite simply carrying the melody that keeps the dancers dancing:
“… when reminiscing about events that seem so real and yet are nothing more than imagination’s game. But it is just such a game that precisely defines Life: Imagination’s game delivers ragout in binding, liberating and/or tearing emotions that give every, any, and all Life true orientation and/or contextual meaning. However, on the rare occasion, imagination’s game does deliver the viand-Life as though it is nothing more than a steamy pile of smelly shit—a rank meal spiraling toward the rubbish bin. Granted, the game ordinarily rewards us, but it seems that all too often it shits us out, cold, callous and indifferent to anything that would make us truly content.”
As for scientists who live unaware by believing that their choices define the experiment and thus delivers items and/ or nature of progress, Garlic smells the current scientists have become truer Charlatans and truer sellers of snake oil. The greatest error in current sciences is revealed in their inability in recognizing consciousness as reality, and this is due to their failure to experience Difference and Identity as distinguishably-indistinguishable moments in their—the sciences defined by scientists—participatory consciousness. Although quantum physics has crossed the knowable barrier and now delivers uncertainty, probability, and predictability
150 as the only true reality, it still has yet to embrace Garlic: Quantum physics may recognize light—energy—exists in a state of duality (incompatible-compatibility of a wave and particle constant state(s) and the instantaneous nature of interaction in entanglement, but it still cannot grasp the nature of its own perspective. Even this multiplicity in singularity as it is called complementarity (sometime in the mid-1970s this relationship was broken into weak-strong relationship of either the wave to particle state or the particle to wave state) suggest that spacetime (another singular-multiplicity) exists not in one plane, but as the relationship of two incompatible- compatible planes: These two directions delivered in everything consciously given as Infinite/Finitude would suggest that any and all direction is directed at itself through this complementarity: A perspective grasping at Finitude moves (as a chanting sphere) through its Infinitude, and a perspective grasping at Infinitude moves through its Finitude. (This is what weak and strong states actually represent: guan xi ontology is relational—phenomenological—deliverance in weak and/or strong states of appearance that may not reflect their weak and/or true state of appearance. Power of presence is in the illusion itself.) The illusion of time and actuality—the there of where and when of Being—happens (playfully hiding) on the horizon of a (chanting) sphere expanding either towards its Finite center or moving inwards towards its Infinite outward expansion. In either case, the movement, when directed at one object (of and as Infinitude or Finitude), is always just that: The outward expansion towards Infinity bringing consciousness only closer to the Finite nature of its own Infinity. The reverse can be said of consciousness when it reaches towards its own Finite origin—there is the over- whelming movement towards Infinity. This spherical reference is not something new but belongs to the first six Definitions of God in The Ethics in Spinoza's to-this-day mis- understood, mystical metaphysic: These six Definitions are
151 simply deliverance of sheer Being as an experience (the chant of spheres) and, thus, the (or any for that matter) perspective is impossible to realize in concrete terms. This is why Einstein’s directional dimension called time is wrong. The ground of Existence is two dimensionality (Infinite/Finite to Infinite/ Finite in Difference rising—spherically chanting—into Identity as Difference) that firstly or a priorishly, as an Unmoved Mover, positively or euphorically rises into itself. Everything after or before is an illusion… a wondrous, smelly, aromatic, sweet, sour, bitter, brutal, peaceful, violent, sexy, ugly illusion. The other plane whereby (illusionary) objectivity and the illusions of perspective moves is along the horizon itself (or the axis of Phenomenological Deliverance is where the chant and sphere never meet but playfully hide from one another), and just like its counterpart in the sphere, any movement along this horizon is a move from Finitude into itself as Finitude is revealed through its Infinitude. Both planes are in their unity as Being (Existence) still representative of Infinite/Finite Difference: Consciously the movement is consciousizing, so to say. Along this horizon, the linear (arc- like if one wants to give possibility of being physically real and not just illusionary value to the perspective) movement from Finitude towards its own Infinitude (or vice-versa) was also very clearly expressed by Ernst Cassirer in his later works4. Without the spherical, outward-inward dimension of spacetime, reality would, from an illusionary-perspective- experience still grounded in Difference, occur on a perfect plane, and thus two parallel lines along that plane would never meet. Furthermore, in a perspective-experience that is no longer aware of or in Difference origin (illusionary- perspective), this horizon is, arguably, what necessitates the where of spacetime and the how and why in the appearance of ‘curvature’ in spacetime. (Reflection without Difference origin doesn’t negate the origin but only reveals the illusion of Being—the imperceptible, only of experience, expanding/
152 contracting in Infinite-Finitude sphere is still the ground or origin despite a perspective’s ignorance—or state of non- experience experience (illusion sans true belief): The playful has been deleted with our bin-nary switch quasi unique yet universal machines of non-Existencing from the hidden. Existence as a perceived object (Identity), and thus no longer of experience in the unity of Difference, must therefore, from the perspective of the theorist-perceiver, arise out of a perspective relative to the uniquely yet universally destroying machine of discovery and the now (nowing) unperceivable nature of Existence as it rises. In effect, Einstein, through what he believes to be his will, bends reality to make it visible to him. Princeton Professor York Dobyns turned this bending reality in his cosmological perception into a kind of wet dream, future scenario for the scientist: Zap, zap zap with the power of my mind the future me will be able to mold past and future to my own will as I live in the now—and you thought Garlic is smelly? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLLI kTo4KLc.) Read the cosmologies from some of our most renowned quantum physicists and you’ll understand why Garlic is aromatically enchanting and not unbearably stinky. To be fair to Einstein, though, he does have this to say: “I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.” Einstein was aware of his theories own shortcomings and knew instinctively where the resolutions to their shortcomings lie sleeping, waiting, in incubation, for the modern day to begin. This shortcoming was also, for Søren Kierkegaard, the vampirey and monstery heart pumping non-life-forces into his life:
“By faith I make renunciation of nothing, on the contrary, by faith I acquire everything, precisely in the sense in which it is said that he who has faith like a grain of mustard can remove mountains. A
153 purely human courage is required to renounce the whole of the temporal to gain the eternal; but this I gain, and to all eternity I cannot renounce it–that is a self-contradiction. But a paradoxical and humble courage is required to grasp the whole of the temporal by virtue of the absurd, and this is the courage of faith.”
For an unconscious Kierkegaard, the “absurd” simply means what exists or there is. The self in every-ones’ unique yet universal machines of discovery has come to replace Existence or there is. Quantum physics has, since the Copenhagen Congresses of 1925 thru 1927, determined Einstein's curvature explanation inadequate: Garlic says a fuller picture can be found in the illusion of an energy with directional constant that can only be rooted in the horizon of the totality of sheer Existence to Life as it is orchestrated by a priori movement in the totality of outwards and inwards and/or inwards and outwards of the (chanting) spherical nature of sheer Being (Existence). Our little, garlicky, peepshow perspective does not bend the movement but reveals only the limited scope of our unique yet universal, self-knowledge machines of discovery. I am is not necessarily the thinker of my thoughts, and therefore reality is de facto Infinite/Finite Difference. (An Illusion + belief) There’s only the harmony in unity when it is in disarray. It could be thought that illusionary spacetime in this garlicky complementarity-image can be revealed in limited direction: But it is a direction defined by the relationship of any object to object as each object is Infinite/Finitude existing as Infinite/Finitude (or one/many) in Difference grounding. If we believe consciousness moves Finitely left along the horizon then all reality moves towards Infinitely right—or moving Infinitely left is movement towards Finitely right: This is the nature of otherness to Existence and/or Life. It is the how in the hidden of the playful. This is to say that if we believe conscious- ness moves Finitely-inwards then all reality moves inwards
154 towards outward-Infinitude. And in the greater picture, this implies and shews that there is order to the playful dance: There is a meta-temporal rising (simultaneous expanding- contracting: the explosion-implosion otherwise known as the chant of spheres) breathing Life into a metaphysical Existence. Life as it is simple experience cannot be transcended, and, thus, in the end, as it is the beginning, the illusion of self, whether it be through consumption of consumer giblets or real, grounding in celebratory relational awareness, is just fine in being merely an illusion. Time and space are, when not of experience or the method of garlicky deliverance, simply illusions needed to express Being’s Difference as it celebrates in its own singular-multiplicity. Being being. Life living. We are here and it is good. Garlic be praised! Earlier, as Aristotle points out to us, all mathematics, science, and history are subordinate to religion5. This is to say that Difference, as it is the beginning and end of consciousness, necessitates Identity, but Identity can never necessitate Difference. Identity, though, arises out of the exchange of Difference as Infinite and Finite qualities existing in universal Infinite/Finite relationship of equal, weak or strong. For example, I view (with belief rising first in Difference) something with an almost completely exclusive, Finite perspective: but this just suggests that the I no longer recognizes the Infinite nature of Finitude; with the net result being the I believes there is a world out there or there are things in and of themselves existing independent of my or one’s Finitude (strong guan xi). This is to say the illusion of I am appears to be strong despite a weak foundation. It is strong because of the mere fact I am is here…within or external to this here and now Story of Ragout as well as in any and all other potential and probable contexts. This defines the Scientific Method and science's horizon of perception: This illusion of a world out there or things in and of themselves is tremendously strong and has power of deliverance (to live.) From the words of Hobbes which feed Hume’s Empiricism,
155 “Whatever we imagine is finite. Therefore there is no idea or conception of anything we call infinite. No man can have in his mind an image of infinite magnitude, nor conceive infinite swiftness, infinite time, or infinite force, or infinite power … And therefore the name of God is used, not to make us conceive him (for he is incomprehensible, and his greatness and power are inconceivable), but that we may honour him. Also because whatsoever … we conceive has been perceived first by sense, either all at once or by parts, a man can have no thought representing anything not subject to sense…” (Hobbes, LEVIATHAN, 3.12)
And from the mouth of Theophilus (Leibniz’ New Essays on the Human Understanding IV, Chapter iii: Extent of human knowledge, pg. 187 http://www.earlymoderntexts.com, pdf version, 2005):
“When one has to cope with something that is infinitely variable, ascending by degrees, one isn’t the master of it as one would like to be…” (Garlic emphasizes one with underlines)
And in all their (Leibniz, Hume and Hobbes) cases, despite the fact they all seem to believe their Existence is tied into an I am that lives in a specific if not relative frame of time, their Existence and Lives are still here…in this tasty Tale of Ragout.
Unfortunately for Leibniz, Hobbes and Hume, they have just as much understanding about the nature of the Finite as they do the Infinite—actually they have even less under- standing about the nature of the Finite. At least in their perceptions of the Infinite they still recognize the origin of true belief. However, regardless of Hobbes, Hume and Leibniz’ relationship to Existence, the above cited quotes reveals a nature and origin, an illusion of when and where it occurred, to our illusionary, if not delusional, Finite, Individualism- Identity as it rises during the smell of Enlightenment. 156 But interdependence (temporality) as a formal unifying and unified Gestalt(ing) (structuring) as it transcends our own sphere of knowledge, and as it is making its presence in quantum physics, has become absurd6: The truly religious aspect of the experience, as a sphere moving Infinitely outwards towards its own inward Finite nature (or vice-versa) can only be exclusively revealed in mysticism—hence the whimsical nature of Garlic, the chant of spheres, and… and the cosmologies from any renowned quantum physicist or Astrophysicist. This is also what seems to confuse most modern philosophers in regards to the Greek and early (or current) or Non-Western (pagan) philosophies and their philosophers: Science and religion had not yet parted ways in the times of Plato, Aristotle or the Shamanic cultures, or even for the Rationalists: The Rationalists were the process of separating religion from science. Ironically, and much to their own chagrins, even current cosmologists and Astrophysicists, like Steven Hawkings for example, partake in religious thinking as they refer to it as hypothetical. And if anyone were to take a sobering step back from the awe of the confusing language of modern physics, it’s easy to see the absurd and ridiculous nature of physicists’ cosmological world views. Garlic is by most standards much more rational and defendable then time travel or what our current religions would call the Kingdom of God aka Heaven. I won't even start with the idea of nothing or its friends in the world of calculation called zero and negative integers, as they are used in reference to all things real. All I can say to you, the reader, is: Either you are reading this and you smell the tangy pongs of Garlic or you believe you're reading this and you can't smell the sweet scents of Garlic because vampires and monsters possess your Life. Garlic is appearance of uncertainty without denial: Garlic is the Now. The era of skepticism is over.
157 As for these sciences and their scientists, Difference and Identity get sucked up into the discourse of their known and unknown, but the Identity, that of the scientists, always remains constant—the unique yet universal self-knowledge perspective remains intact. And then there are the cosmologist who still cannot grasp that Difference-consciousness is the first act (Unmoved Mover) of any scientific method and is always given, or categorically rises, positively. Fortunately, the mystical and mythical nature of consciousness can never be ignored: Even if we chose to cage it in meaningless sentiments like uncertainty. (Or in the case of Marx, he tried to cage it in the undefined terms: commodity fetishism.) Uncertainty is, itself, still a symbolic form rising positively… I can smell the Garlic as I am is delivering this Tale of Ragout— can you smell it in the delivery? Current Western religions confuse Identity with God, and thus they can no longer recognize reality as Difference positively rising (or in deliverance through) Identity as the first act. In doing so, these modern Western religions themselves are, for all practical purposes, anti-religious and, in their own right, embody the so-called evil they claim to offer deliverance and salvation from. God is for and in modern Western ideology, in general, never of the now, because living is granted only in the after or before Life. And in the hard sciences the idea of time travel or some other silly concepts belonging to the scientists wonderfully clever, unique yet universal machines of discovery, as concepts are only a product of the speculative thought process of the scientists themselves, are its counterpart. And for the average joe Ayn Rand devotee of physical truth, honest Life is willingly negated in one’s own self-annihilating believed state of nothingness as it is an exchange of one’s unique yet universal übermenschy thereness—a thereness independent of all otherness—that generates fruits of labor aka cash, which can in turn be transformed (in an Existence that doesn’t exist) into, or
158 exchanged for, physically real products of self-realization and Identity— physically real products which have arisen from ones who don’t even exist in the first place… first place being beginning and end-all of one’s own unique yet universal übermenchy thereness. (Nutty Narcissi has been transformed into an apocalyptic, übermenschy shopper.) For the acolytes of Ayn Rand, envy, greed, jealousy and egoism become the catalyst for the Existence-free but uniquely universal Life to live, and for modern Western religions fear and hate become the sinister, underlying facilitator for Being living. In the case of sciences, and to finally find a bright side to things, there are those few scientists who do not live their time and energy for the sake of a job title, copy right patents and/or any fame or fortune that might come as result of their labors and recognize awe as the origin to their inspired curiosities—but they are the exceptions to the rule. For the most part, in the occasions of modern philosophies, religions, and sciences, one and ones must never understand, appreciate or celebrate in the truth of all emotions being derived from the first act of consciousness as it is the embodiment of awe; regardless of the emotions’ flavors: sad, happy, angry, jealous, greedy, envious, ecstatic, etc., etc. Without need of the Finitely/Infinitely, physically real spirit offering salvation from the Now of Life and Being, or the sweet equilibratory Nothingness owning to one’s imagination, anything—religion, science, philosophy, language, etc., etc.—that might return one to the non-place and non-time of Life and Being, where and when thaumázein exists and lives, is to be ridiculed, feared and/or hated. Furthermore, the sensual experience and the emotional high known as awe (thaumázein) that come with the Now, regardless of whether achieved in the simple process of thinking (Vollkommen Being7) or as a result believed to have been derived from physical, Finite contact at home in the Now, is a power and knowledge to be granted only in and/or to the Temple, Church, Clergy, or The Individual who is in a
159 relationship with a God overseen by the Church. (The latter example actually reveals that the Christian religions following Lutheranism are no longer even aware of the awe, because the journey of the Christian Individual becomes a personal, unique yet universal need, and not a celebration of knowledge: The finitely, physically real object-reality of self is solidified into Infinite-free truth.) So any-one who may find the awe in Being (Existence), as he/she is given to the Now, is branded as satanic, pagan or, as from the perspective of the Richard Dawkins of this world, fools. Current empirical scientists view all beliefs other than their own (beliefs that are founded and grounded in skeptical Nothingness) to be ridiculous and/or childish. Life’s emotions giving rise to only Identity, as the emotions now belong to a separate entity of power, are willingly sacrificed as fodder to vampires and monsters—and Garlic says willingly because one must willingly sacrifice one’s Life in recognition of a greater origin (as it is awe) so that one might find one’s place in the before and after life of the Infinite realm—in order to replace the positive nature (awe in the first act) given in Existence’s fundamental Difference modus: Fear and hate are now necessary modes for the Finite (sans Infinite) modus. Garlic says fear and hate because the Now must be something to be feared and hated so that the after and before life may maintain their importance….otherwise one would simply embrace the Now as the only origin. Western religions (and sciences, although their methods are not underlined by fear and hate, but by an indifferent Nothingness of neutrality) are led by ghastly, yet despite themselves, positive beasts. In this sense, though, Western religions (and sciences), regardless of the greater role mass-consumer-Identity plays in ones’ lives, use the same platform of power to exist as that of the consumer-Identity or the One and Zero exchange whereby Difference is no longer even a recognized experiential ground (or launching and simultaneous returning deliverance). And it could be said that this distortion and perversion of living
160 powerful juju. The shell may be empty, but for both the scientific mind and the spiritual character there appears to be an Infinite amount of Life (given in the balance of Nothingness) at our or one’s and ones’ disposal to fill this void as though it were a vacuum of evilness and/or Nothingness. The guan xi ontology reveals an appearance, for religion and science, almost unbounded in thereness but with absolute nothingness as its substance: Even the illusion of thereness now has only the reflection of an illusion as its goal of expression. The coin is no longer in toss but only exists as its Identity is revealed to the smart and righteous: Difference doesn’t enter the equation for skeptical thought in higher sciences or in the divine awareness in modern religions. All this aside, whichever story you, dear reader, may choose to adhere to, personally I live, without choice, quite often as triangles, parallel lines, squares and circles. This might sound mad, but the I am awareness of self sans the physical object (garlic-free Identity) as a fixed, Finite anchor in relationship to its own Infinite dimensions demands a third party narrator, and with Garlic on my side, I can become only geometric form and forms. As for the third party narrator, we know from the Metaphysic's of George Berkeley that when two objects rise in balanced Infinite/Finitude the net result is planes of parallel reference, but God, not Garlic, for Berkeley is the necessary narrator or reference (or God could also be called in Berkeleyian terms: absolute materialism). It's not until there's imbalance in the exchange, of Being rising, whereby Identity (grounding in Difference) is (can be) deliverable—or whereby the perspective of intersection can be expressed. It was Descartes who brought into question the nature of the narrator (is God deceptive?) and at the same time formed the basic idea of a triangle through his own certainty in an intersection of doubt: From a Finite-weighted vantage point the parallel lines appear to intersect (at Leon Battista Alberti’s vanishing point horizon), with the unlimited,
161 weighted vantage point becoming the perspective of Being to itself. In other words there is consciousness and rising (many philosophers say extending), but it is a conscious rising that is all limited to the confines of an illusionary Descartes (or me or you) in the discourse of our wonderful, garlic-free , but epistemologically loaded, unique yet universal machines of discovery: Being is no longer the origin of the particular perspective because “Descartes” has, through a historical process, become the center or origin of all things that matter. But this triangular relationship without the illusion of a self is sheer Being; the doubt is therefore only a reflection of the illusion found in any objectivity as it is merely Finite Identity. (Remember, Identity, regardless of its illusions, is still grounded or grounding in Difference—it is always both Finite and Infinite.) In other words such a relationship is both, as it separates into, sheer Being (consciousness consciousizing) and Life living (A=A). Descartes already believed himself to be a subjective observer and not an active object in the discourse of Life; he couldn’t experience both moments of Existence (Being), but wasn’t quite able to make a clear distinction between Finite and Infinite moments. Hume may be convinced ideas are inactive, but this is only because he represents the clean break between the Finite and the Infinite (see aforementioned Hobbes quote.) The fundamental garlicky discourse of sheer Being rising in its Infinite/Finite complementarity nature later may have become a quantum for Einstein’s theory of spacetime, but it is, in the greater, garlicky story of Life living, Existence rising into itself. Or if it is (as we now knowingly in garlic-deliverance believe it to be) rising into itself then by default nature of the complementarity of Infinite/Finitude Difference (by the mere fact “of existing”) it is already imploding outwards from within itself. We—you, me, Descartes and Einstein—are always objects (Identities) in relationship. There only is…Spinoza be praised! This continued simultaneous expansion and contraction (explosion-
162 implosion) of Being (Existence) in its Difference origin is the chant of spheres, and is, whether or not one wants to accept, realize, praise or destroy it, always the primary part of any, every and all discourse. Why do you think the Mayans, Egyptians and a host of other cultures built pyramids? A pyramid as it is formed through triangles is discourse as spirit or, in other terms, thought (consciousness), itself, living. It is sheer Being of Infinite/Finite Difference as delivered through any, every, and all act(s) of consciousness: It is Existence rising through its singular-dual nature, which just so happens to also include every possible Difference in the exchange. But since the I thinking (rising) is not God or sheer Being (Existence) itself, the I must therefore be, in regards to consciousness as it grounds sheer Being, another reference to either and to both Infinite and Finite aspects in the same and yet different moments. (Difference rising into Identity and the absolute positive affirmation of Infinite/Finite as awe.) As SUCH, the I can be represented as a dot on a piece of paper, and the two Difference moments (Infinite and Finite) can be represented in or out ‘of understanding’ as another two dots on the same piece of paper: One dot for Infinite, and one dot for Finite. Rising or extending is a lived mode because extending is of-ing complementarity Existence (Being): rising is one and the same moment as lived in separate moments. (Hume’s calls this inhesion.) In all Existence, real, ethereal, metaphysical or Mayan, we can connect the dots (with a penciled-in line if you must) and there will appear a triangle on your paper. But remember that you, and not the dot you drew to represent your self, are also a point in relationship to the lines and points you just drew (from one point to the other point as only Difference without Identity). If you were to draw a line from yourself to the ends of the line, a pyramid is formed. This last line, the one that creates the pyramid, when it is not rising to the I, rises to the unknown value (Garlic, Toast, God, Zeus,
163 Cheeseburger, Flying Spaghetti Monster, etc., etc.) or to the awareness as simple consciousness or sheer Being. These three dimensions plus the dimension of rising was for Einstein a quantum in spacetime, but for this story these things reveal a smell—a smell because we are also of Being or ising: We are of Garlic in the Big Smelly Bang. Garlic says in because there is an ontological rising of Identity as it is Finitude becoming aware of all its Finite dimensions that it, the one and ones, lives but is no longer aware of: It’s incomprehensible and only of experience.
The mathematical formalist’s fable
Identity (as living) rising first in geometric forms, because of the infinite/Finite nature of Existence as it is in the Big Smelly Bang, must lose, if even only to exist as an illusion, its numerical ordering or structuring. For Difference to become Identity in the Bang, Finite must become aware of Infinite as the inescapable, thrusting upon and into nature of its own positivity. This translates into the moment of deliverance being the moment of complete collapse. The Infinite and Finite in the awareness is (are) aware in the sense that the Finite is Infinite/Finitude only in as far as Infinite is (are) aware of its Infinite-Finitude. This is the Bang before the smell of Life in geometrical form(ing) (as it is the meta- temporal root grounding in Infinite/Finite Difference). Natural and real number(s), thus, still have, in the Big Bang sans smell, a relationship of 1 to ∞ and 1 to ∞ to one another. After geometric deliverance in the Bang, in regards to what gives rise to the chanting of spheres and to the eventual acquisitioning of smell, natural numbers (Difference rising into Identity for the first and last time) remain 1 to ∞, but real numbers rise: ∞, 1…,2…,3…,4…, etc., with 1 being the perceiver. (Christians believe this dimension or expression of Being (Existence) to be God, and science believes it to be the “Bang” in the “Big”, but in Garlic’s Smell this would simply define an Epoché in a way not necessarily anthropological in the experience. Perhaps, for Garlic’s sake, it could be said that it is the beginning of Mereology as a discipline of study.) All ensuing real numbers following 1/perceiver become attributes of the object being perceived. The smell of and in the Big Bang reminds us ones (in a smelly way) that the disparity between Finite and Infinite, between the natural and the real, is the deliverance—
164 or Life as it is NOWING. And it is in just such a way, time, as simultaneous deliverance and collapse, as it is the sphere(s)( ’s)(s’) continual chant, begins (and ends) its rhythm. It is “spherical” because the grounding, as it, this First Act, is the Infinite/Finite dimension in an experiential and real sense, can never be separated from the process of Identity’s, meta-temporal geometrical rising.
This aforementioned garlicky fable should reveal the disparity between Infinite and Finite: Despite the truth of all one’s (ones’) perceptions, in a far as the truth representing singular, individual Life is nothing more than mere illusion, is broken, the now, Now or nowing is a perpetual state of deliverance where and when Identity lives: Reality is as it is- ing…. The illusion should in its natural state, as it is sheer Existence (Being), seek to reestablish the positivity of Infinite/Finitude to Infinite/Finitude, as positivity or awe is Difference Origin and End. (And string theorists believe they've found something new!) As far as any truth to any reality beyond illusion goes, as Physicist Louis de Broglie put it: “... the statistical theories hide a completely determined and ascertainable reality behind variables which elude our experimental techniques.” And as Geoff Haselhurst and Karene Howie (http://www.spaceandmotion) summarized Broglie’s statement: “…this statement is very important. It is the same position that Einstein supported. The Wave Structure of Matter confirms this view. Reality is necessarily connected (by Space and Spherical In & Out Waves that form matter) but we lack knowledge of all its interconnections, which gives rise to the statistical/probability aspects of reality as determined by Quantum Theory.“ However, the problem belonging to any and every thing- reality which tries to exist beyond the illusion, as garlic emanates it, is that time and space do not have Existence but only live as: “I” (as a “one”) experience and thus perceive or as “I” perceive and thus experience. Deliverance is not linear, and the nature of space and motion should be returned to the
165 realm of the spiritual. (Phenomenological) Deliverance is the euphorically revealed intersection of a Finite and an Infinite sided coin: It is, in its most revealing sense, the when and where science and religion intersect but never meet. Because as Life (revealed or delivered) is this intersection, it can only reflect either one or the other side by deflecting its counterpart(s): Both sides up is (are) sheer Existence… and thus sans any deliverance. The Big Bang is happening and it becomes only a question of whether or not you can smell it: True Belief of and in this moment. True Belief is what Old Testament figure, Abraham had, and it is what we, the philosophers, the scientists and most mathematicians begin with when we ignorantly “I” our existences—and thus unwittingly creating a circumstance wherewith we live in a belief system justifying any and all perceptions and judgments being generated by the unique yet universal machines of discovery therein. But it is exactly in this current state of I whereby us wees live in a clusterfuck of stupidity. As Kierkegaard put it in Fear and Trembling (1843):
“It is supposed to be difficult to understand Hegel, but to understand Abraham is a trifle. To go beyond Hegel is a miracle, but to get beyond Abraham is the easiest thing of all. I for my part have devoted a good deal of time to the understanding of the Hegelian philosophy, I believe also that I understand it tolerably well, but when in spite of the trouble I have taken there are certain passages I cannot understand, I am foolhardy enough to think that he himself has not been quite clear. All this I do easily and naturally, my head does not suffer from it. But on the other hand when I have to think of Abraham, I am as though annihilated. I catch sight every moment of that enormous paradox which is the substance of Abraham's life, every moment I am repelled, and my thought in spite of all its passion cannot get a hairs-breadth further. I strain every muscle to get a view of it–that very instant I am paralyzed.”
Thaumázein (awe) as it is originating creativity and inspiration can only be applied to Life from the garlicky
166 vantage point of existence itself with, as, from, through and in true belief: True belief doesn’t speak from any exclusively singular, self-indulging moment of self. So when Kierkegaard further writes in the same paragraph (from the aforementioned quote): “I think myself into the hero, but into Abraham I cannot think myself; when I reach the height I fall down, for what I encounter there is the paradox” his problem is he, as an I, can’t fathom some-thing as “lifeless” as, for example, a stone possessing true belief. Kierkegaard’s I is strangely and mystically only certain in a sea of nothingness wherein he is struggling to find some sense and meaning… thus, in truth, Kierkegaard’s battle is to know if his faith means anything at all: awe (thaumázein) belongs, for Kierkegaard, to a life designated by unwittingly mystical men like himself. What Kierkegaard didn’t grasp was that Life doesn’t belong to a “Hegel” or any other Identity, and this is why a Hegel, like a Kierkegaard or a Garlic, is always a story in progress…a tale of ragout. Thus, Kierkegaard’s faith or true belief is in all certainty only about himself else nothing at all. Such mysticism, as it is all certainty in a zeitgeistic clusterfuck of stupidity, is defined by ignorant faith in the self-predicating illusions of self…Kierkegaard can’t see the big picture for what it is; therefore no one can. “Kierkegaard” is, like it is for all of us Individuals, the center of the known universe. This type of faith anchors Life to Existence not by mere awe inspired fear but by fear originating from vampires and monsters and from the men who do their bidding. (It took another nonexistent hundred years of vampire and monster “evolution” before Ayn Rand and her Objectivist truth culminates in a clusterfucking zenith of stupidity: in the center of the universe self-predicating illusion of self.) Kierkegaard does recognize, further along in Fear and Trembling, (1843), the movement (dialectic) from Infinite to Finite and Finite to Infinite to be the origin of Life in Existence and, thus, at the center of faith:
167 “Generally people are of the opinion that what faith produces is not a work of art, that it is coarse and common work, only for the more clumsy natures; but in fact this is far from the truth. The dialectic of faith is the finest and most remarkable of all; it possesses an elevation, of which indeed I can form a conception, but nothing more. I am able to make from the springboard the great leap whereby I pass into infinity, my back is like that of a tight-rope dancer, having been twisted in my childhood, hence I find this easy; with a one-two-three! I can walk about existence on my head; but the next thing I cannot do, for I cannot perform the miraculous, but can only be astonished by it.”
But this “next thing”, though, of moving without a hitch back into the Finite aka Living aka Identity realm becomes a hurdle for him. Sure it can be a hurdle, but this doesn’t mean the hurdle necessitates a chasm of nothingness…Garlic would say it just opens up a clusterfuck of stupidity…and Kierkegaard also sees this, too:
“To earthy wisdom, to petty calculation, to paltriness and wretchedness, to everything which can make man's divine origin doubtful.”
Luckily for me, I am not writing these words—I am is just the delivery guy—otherwise I would fall prey to Kierkegaard’s judgment:
“Those on the other hand who carry the jewel of faith are likely to be delusive, because their outward appearance bears a striking resemblance to that which both the infinite resignation and faith profoundly despise … to Philistinism.”
Granted, my I am might be a bit barbaric, but it reeks of glorious Garlic! Our current, fabricated, scientific-minded reality assumes that points, dots and/or lines exist as merely Finite references, but Existence dictates that these aforementioned references carry an Infinite/Finite value. In this sense, as
168 (Being) experienced in the aforementioned constellation, we can see that even Euclid is no longer read carefully. For Euclid, Existence is unquestionably grounded or grounding in Difference: Euclidean Plane Geometry was delivered in a monist experience. And in such an experience there is/are only two dimensions to Existence—but only “two” in as far as the dimensions are of singularity: Infinite and Finite. This implies that Euclid’s perceptions of the process could only be explained as they occur on a perfect plane; with the experience remaining in deliverance. Don't forget that any and all references are only objects of consciousness and never physically Finite reality: A reference point is a place where two lines intersect but never meet, and any rising is never epistemological or teleological in nature but is an expression of the positivity in unity of Infinite/Finite Difference—Awe. In regards to the epistemological ends, and to be fair to Hume in Garlic’s critique, Philo’s concession in Part XII (para. 2) of the Enquiry reveals, at the bare minimum, Hume’s intuited awareness of an existing existence or intersecting existence: "A purpose, an intention, a design strikes everywhere the most careless, the most stupid thinker". Hume unwittingly admits that even without (his) teleological or Epistemological directionalism, there only is…. What becomes more difficult to explain, and it is what Hume lost and still loses in his awareness, is the nature of the symbolic forms or the mental images, as they are nowing or living in purpose, intention and design, all arise in the process and “How can ‘one’, as an ‘I’, exist if ‘one’ is not necessitating the act or process itself—well, Hume doesn’t lose the latter in his awareness, but he, like a King or God in the New World aka Center of the Universe, simply delegates it to the realm of Nothingness. As for how can I exist if I am not necessitating the dialogue? In this story the sweet smell of Garlic is the answer. However, this is not to say that this topic is finished: Life is always living only when Being is being (transitive verb). Simply
169 put: There is no physical reality. Life is (of) the mind. Matter of garlic, the Greek origin of the word for mind is menos, which also means spirit or force. And as such, everything given in the or in an awareness—all symbolic mental representation— would be “alive”. There are no “stupid thinkers” because no thought can ever be worthless or worthlessly thought because thoughts are living matter. (Even vampires and monsters and their servants are not worthless or stupid, and therefore clusterfucking should be, perhaps, understood as a modern dance step.) The thinker of thoughts or thinking thoughts is not only “not necessarily” but never centered in or on my narcissistic and Finitely, magically cast ego. Like Dr. Delgado in our story, there’s only deliverance of an elusive, nondescript face to a spirit of time. As for what a reality without physical truth entails, Niels Bohr was right in this regards:
“When it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how Nature is. Physics concerns what we say about Nature.” (Niels Bohr, 1885-1962)
In other words, although Niels doesn’t go as far as to say he wasn’t necessarily the creator of said images, one can extrapolate from the comment that Niels’ experienced existence begins in Difference. He understood that Life is what we say about Nature and therefore images of creation, as is inflected and inferred in such a position which regards only what is said, can only reflect a story that is in a perpetual state of birth: The expressions of the physicists are, at best, mythological8 in their nature. Niels understood Aristotle’s statement very well:
“Who, however, is in doubt ‘and’ awe (thaumázein) about a matter doesn’t believe in the thing to begin with. That is why the friend of
170 Stories (mŷthos) is also in a certain way a philosopher; because the Story arises out of awe.” (Aristotle’s Metaphysics: Book I. Part II)
Niels inadvertently challenged the idea of time and space and thus Einstein’s theory of relativity, because any potential and probable physical reality is no longer bound to a how of Nature, but only to the words of a poet, aka physicist, aka story teller. Some would say Neils kicked Einstein's ass in the intellectual debates of the Copenhagen Congresses of the early 1920s, but Einstein had the misguided a priori nature of garlic-free math to fall back on as it had and unfortunately still has one’s blessing of a knowing belonging only to a self: Such comfort and self-absorption plays into every philosopher’s, scientist’s, and clergy’s own little, self-centered and all too important non-existent Existence as well as into All (every and any) Existence… even Garlic has its natural limitations. Without such limitations Life couldn’t live: The Finite Identity must deflect its Infinite nature in order to remain in deliverance (weak/strong guan xi ontology). Einstein’s problem was that he believed space to be the constant or that there is a world out there where it all happens. And not to rehash the nature of Individual consumer reality, but this whole little dance lends itself to herding people into the McConsumption of life. The vampires and monsters are at home in self-awareness and the belief in physical, Finite Existence.
McIndividualism for everyone!
As it is at this point, the Individual is just a marketing ploy. The Individual sells more cars and makes people interested in Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, the Universe and good vs. evil. What would the Mayans do with Britney Spears? I would hope that they'd put her on a spit and barbecue her for lunch. Even though she is America's premier (trailer) trash, she still appears pretty delicious.
171 I'm wafting here and got off track. I was on my way to the nut house, beer in hand, sitting comfortably in the back of a squad car…
172 Chapter 22
I didn't eat any Garlic yesterday because today I have a doctor’s appointment—but I’m still nervous for the reason that I have a permanent Garlic waft about me and it’s going to give me away. You see, doctors are well aware of the curative powers of Garlic, and in order to protect their practices from financial ruin they must take serious action against any Garlic insurgencies. Doctors mistreat (even kill!) patients who try to home remedy instead of relying on prescribed medication. Did you know that Louis Pasteur, the father of germ theory and bacteriology research, for example, revealed Garlic ingestion has similar results in fighting infections as molds do? (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov /pubmed/11238826, J Nutr. March 13, 2001 Protection against Helicobacter pylori and other bacterial infections by garlic) A little known fact conveniently left out of most science text books or a valuable fact kept secret from us, Joe Schmos, because Garlic grows everywhere, and as such, much like dope, lends itself to living free of charge? Might such garlicky knowledge signal the death of a doctor’s medical practice and consequently send his investments in the pharmaceutical companies plummeting? Unfortunately for us enlightened schmos, Garlic can be easily smelled and is thus a dead giveaway, telling doctors when, where and with whom to take the required steps— making it easy for them to snuff out smelly revolutionaries. In other words, if I don't take the necessary precautions and end up going to the doctor smelling like Tappas doused in aioli, I'm a goner. The doctor will tell me I need a shot of antibiotics, but in truth he’ll really be giving me laxatives, muscle relaxants, amphetamines or…Ajax. A few things came to me last night as I lay in bed, tossing and turning with extra itchy, soup-filled ears. To begin with, I make my mother out to be a crazy ghoul—and, at the time, she was—but to be fair to her, while my mother’s
173 world was taking a sharp turn in conjunction with the introduction of closeted trickle-down economics, she lost a number of other real things. In addition to the stress of economic ruin she had suffered, her father died in late 1985, and shortly before this her mother had a stroke and was left physically destroyed with significant brain damage. Many of the relationships anchoring her Existence in and to Life had suddenly vanished: money, which translates into the loss of secured relationships guaranteeing nourishment and shelter, and the people who nurtured the very roots of her Life in Existence were gone in a matter of a few months. Granted, she had no right to poison and mentally torture Jim, but I understand how she arrived at such justifications that allowed her to poison someone, and, thus, why she was doing these things she did: She needed to feel like she was once again in control of some-thing. The second thing that might have contributed to my mother’s emotional destabilization was my expulsion from Catholic High School at the end of my junior year. Getting kicked out hadn’t bothered me so much, but in this misty, revealing Tale of Ragout—in Garlic’s thrall—this incident may have been an ingredient which added another flavor of losing control to my mother’s already addle stock. She had forced me into going to the school in the first place because she was convinced the Christian Brothers could and would better prepare me for Individual, mass-consumer success. But as revealed in the lyrical and stereophonic song of Garlic flavoring the soup in this here and now tale of ragout, getting kicked out of parochial school added even more excrement to her unappetizing cesspool entrée; thus, further feeding her sense of uncontrollable self-destruction. Like many Individuals in today’s McReality, her Life became and still is, at best, disposable—as is reflective of the shiny, sparkly consumer objects of desire. Her Life became, as it spiraled out of control, an entrée meant to decay at the bottom of a garbage can
174 Existence. There were two incidents that played a part in my expulsion from Catholic teaching. The first incident occurred in religion class during Dr. Thornbrew’s lecture on the “non- political Jesus”: The Jesus who was born an average man and not the son of a king. According to Dr. Thornbrew, Jesus had to appear to us in such a way that it would test our faith. If He was simply born the son of a rich man or a King then faith would have little meaning. I guess the idea is that it’s easier to believe in a person of prestige and power and therefore Jesus needed to be the least likely candidate to be our Savior; such a dynamic to His persona must be one of the cornerstones to Christian faith. On this particular day I sat in class trying to reach a level of sobriety so that I could go to work later… and then to eventually have enough fortitude to get drunk again following my release from work. Inspired with the virtues of Christian-white, suburban superiority, and despite my pounding headache, I, a mere peasant in Dr. Thornbrew’s kingdom, raised my hand, thinking it would be a good time to participate in the discussion of divine topics. I’ve always had a good sense of humor, even when suffering from a hangover, so when the good Doctor called on me… "I have an announcement to make." I said. The devilish grin illuminating my face was no stranger to the good Doctor, and he was already in the offense-mode: his snide smirk told me he was ready to destroy me; his righteous grin striking me down with its superior insights and revelations into the truth of my and all Existence. "What is it, Mr. Lyons?" he said in a tone I perceived to be playfully annoyed. Up until this point, I was under the impression that Dr. Thornbrew generally enjoyed my input; he had always easily thwarted my caustic questions with snide and sarcastic retorts, and was thus able to point out to my classmates my inferior intellect in regards to the greater
175 matters concerning the redemption of my long since damned soul. But I, as I sat there in his kingdom, forgot one thing: Although I was baptized, I wasn't Catholic, and, more to the point, my grandfather, the mafia lackey, was a Jew. There are inherent, ontological conflicts between Catholicism and Judaism that can only be reconciled through the eradication of Jews. One of the most fundamental principles of such an ideological conflict being that so long as there is a single Jew alive, Jesus cannot be the Son of God. The Christian God was and will always be, until such a goal as the dismissal of Jews from Life is achieved, the God of the Jews….in other words, Jesus is, until End times, nothing more than a failed God Pirate. "I am Jesus," I replied. My fellow students’ eyes grew wide at my pronouncement. I had caught everyone, especially Dr. Thornbrew, off guard; but more surprisingly what everyone saw was hate welling up on his face. I had inadvertently wiped the snide smile from his face with my sophomoric and de-evolved Jewishness. "You'd be the last person God would ever choose for his son!" he barked. I, the dog, had bitten my master… but he wasn’t my master. My master was the “Fuck You Heroes” that hadn’t yet been caged for marketing purposes. I was still only an Anti- Christ amongst God’s chosen people and not yet a poster child for inspiring people to buy Individual items of self- actualization. "Exactly. I'm the non-political savior. My father is neither a king nor is he rich!” (He was really a queen and overextended on his credit, but how could I know that at the time?) My classmates were impressed; in that moment some of them may have even thought I was the second coming of Christ. A number of students immediately began to defend my argument. I was, after all, correct in my assertion that I
176 fulfilled the requirements that Dr. Thornbrew said Jesus, as savior, had to embody: I wasn’t a king, the son of a king, or a self-made rich man. Apparently, knowledge in the wrong hands can be dangerous, and because Dr. Thornbrew needed to keep the suburban parochial school kids in line, he showed everyone the true meaning of Christianity by throwing me out of his class for good. He was so upset as to recommend to the administrators that I be expelled from the school. Dr. Thornbrew’s class was mandatory and without it I was screwed: If I wanted to graduate I could no longer go to Montini Catholic High School. The Catholic representative of divine truth didn’t have the authority to execute me but he, Dr. Thornbrew, did have the power to make my life more difficult… but it wasn’t my life that he had soured. Unfortunately, Dr. Thornbrew’s actions punished my mother. The other incident which contributed to my eventual expulsion from Catholic indoctrination was a confrontation with my geometry teacher. Math and science were always my personal saviors in school: In these areas of study I didn't have to do much to keep my GPA up. As a matter of fact, I was apt to use my junior-year Algebra class as naptime to sleep off my hangovers: Without being conscious, I consistently scored perfect grades on all of my exams. Proudly, I even went so far as to turn my desk around and sleep with my back to the teacher and the rest of the class. Sure it was rude, but why should I have been bothered during my shining, societal moment? At any rate, this was enough to make any teacher irate; but add to that the fact that I always smelled like alcohol and told wild stories about playing punk music in downtown Chicago bars, and flames were fanned on an already volatile situation. As I continued to consistently score perfect grades, an unknown (to me) problem was escalating. Not only were my test scores always 100% plus whatever the extra credit was, but I, the student who snored
177 out volumes of alcohol and Winston smog every day and left a gross pool of toxic drool on his desk, always finished the exams in ten minutes while the other students struggled for the full hour. Eventually, over the course of a semester, and after numerous heated arguments with my geometry teacher due to her continually waking me—I was hung over, who wouldn’t be cranky—she accused me of cheating and said that she would have to report me to the Principal’s office. It was obvious to her that I must have figured out a way to cheat on the exams since I was always asleep and couldn’t possibly have known the information. The obvious reason of my being a math whiz could never come to her attention because, unfortunately, I didn't have the correct family life for such an acknowledgment… I was a half-Jew, acolyte of the Fuck You Heroes Generation and offspring of a soured mother and a fruity flavored father. My other fault at the time of my math excellence was that I wasn’t paying close enough attention to Jim B: I wasn't eating my Garlic. Thus, I was forced to reveal my secret to my Geometry teacher or face expulsion with the permanent scarlet letter staining my transcripts. In Garlic retrospect, I should have simply told her to fuck herself; or if I’d known then what I know now I could have just thrown a wreath of Garlic around my teachers neck and watched her burst into flames, but I caved, and I explained that I got the solutions to the exams from her. It sounds nefarious at first, but on exam day she would give a quick, five-minute review of the previous two weeks. In those five minutes she would review all the equations, formulas, and values. After I explained it to her, and instead of realizing that my math skills dictated I be placed in a higher level class, she simply stopped giving the reviews. Since helping me was akin to helping the devil himself I was left to my own devices, and for the last few weeks of the first semester I scraped by with only C’s. I’m also sure Ms. Catholic Geometry teacher, during one of her teachers’ meetings, made her accusations to colleagues and the
178 school’s administration—despite my “nefarious” confessions. I mean how else could a modern day Jesus be acknowledged? Even if I had gotten an F in Math, I am is in the joys of Garlic Cures and it is all part of the magic of understanding the connections. Perhaps you would like to argue that I am, in wandering off on a tangent about how smart I was in my high school years, just avoiding my return to the nuthouse of 1985, and that the memory of people talking to their stuffed animals and hearing "Hey Keith, are you nuts!" as I lay tightly wound in a straitjacket suit of insanity is cause enough for me to avoid going there in this chapter? Bullshit! Life is always positive, and even then and there, at the nuthouse, I made the most of it. I thoroughly enjoyed my four days in the loony bin… or I could quantumly say: I am enjoying my time in the loony bin.
179 Chapter 23
The sensation of Life (as experience) is the relationship of everything less then Infinite and that which is never necessarily Finite: Therefore the sensation of Life is the relationship of everything necessitating (enabling) the Infinite as (to become) unlimited Finitude. Thus Stunk Garlic
Rotten meats and bitter fruits can be for some dishes the freshest and sweetest ingredients—and how they get mixed into any one ragout does not define the characters of the meat in progress. This is to say that even the foulest of items can produce the most delicious dish: I am is tasty ragout continually simmering, through the grace of Garlic, on the stove while, even as “we speak here in this sentence”, your lives are being added to this here and now ragout. And as you continue reading this story of ragout, whatever Garlic flavors get mixed into your simmering goulashes may only be here in the now for you to know…but the flavors are nowing nonetheless.
When I got to the hospital at 3 a.m., the emergency room looked like a war zone. Leading up to my admittance, and during my wait, there had been not only a number of shootings and car accidents, shaking the whole place with drama, but, as I would later find out, two of my fellow students from the public high school I was then attending had killed themselves, and two others from a different H.S. had tried. And while this suburban truth played itself out in the emergency room, I was kept bound in the straitjacket and strapped to the gurney. It was only after my mother eventually arrived that I was, with her permission, set free— for the time being. Nearly three hours passed before the staff psychologist finally saw us—or I should say saw me —and in the time my mother and I had sat there waiting, inundated in
180 the behind the scenes truth of suburban bliss—and before we entered the legitimized realm of studied human behavior aka office of the chief magistrate of non-Existence and nullified- Life—I hadn’t said one word to her. What could I have said?
When we finally walked into the psychologist’s sterile office and sat down, specks of light from a dawning day were drizzling in through the windows: It had already become a long night. Without wasting any time, the overworked and overburdened doctor immediately, with a pretense of concern, asked me why I would threaten to kill myself. Like the rest of suburbia the doctor was slowly but freely giving up his time, and so each moment he lost in expressing character and sentiment relevant to Existence and Life buzzed with anticipation of something more and/or less; his lugubriously rigid efforts at caring, in their efficient yet stressed demeanor, seemed to make each ensuing moment spent in his respectably authoritative presence that much more important. What the doctor didn’t know, as he sat there expressing a newly emerging paradox of a non-virtuous, time-restrained concern for life, was that his characterless and detached thereness was an anchor in the process of being lowered: his nonexistent Life was on course to becoming tasked and tethered to his divine profession; it was the evolution of his professional self in the process of running alongside his evolving Super Consumer Individual. Patients and their problems were, at the time of this incident, in the early stages of being put onto the Frederick Winslow Taylor conveyer belt of efficacious diagnosing or better said, “efficient processing”, so that doctors tasked in such divine professions as psychology or psychiatry could get onto the next patient as quickly as possible. Accommodatingly, I explained in an “efficient” manner that this particular rumor of “suicide” wasn't true, and that my mother and I were just having our problems at home. Without wasting words he inquired about my drug and alcohol abuse. Again in an “efficient” manner,
181 I jumped ahead on the Frank Gilbreth conveyer belt of processing and, not answering his question directly, told him about my grades, my full-time job, and my aspiring music career: I already knew, then, that suicidal people are not into planned living or filled with hopes and aspirations—and at that time I had plenty of plans and many aspirations. (Fortunately, my only current aspirations and hopes simply consist of stinking of Garlic.) Immediately, in his Gilbreth/Taylor efficient and stressed manner, following the less than the two minutes time it took him to conduct his licensed and diplomed interview, the shrink looked at my mother, and stated: "I can see your son needs help. We'll keep him here."
I looked at the doctor, politely said, “no thanks”, and stood up and left. As the door closed behind me, and as I imperturbably neared the exit, CODE RED blared over the intercom. As I approached the doors of freedom, a security guard nonchalantly, with a flair not much unlike that expressed in my own unflappable gait, passed through the doors of freedom―not completely head-on, but a bit off to my left side―and pretended as though he was going to casually stride by me. But in the moment that we, in stride, stood parallel to one another he reached for my arm. If Garlic has failed to mention it, I took martial arts when I was a child; starting at age seven the lessons went on until I was just shy of ten… so when I was accosted by the security guard I automatically blocked his grab, hit him at the throat, and slammed his head against the wall. I admit I wasn't fighting Arnold Schwarzenegger—this guy was a short, fat, wannabe cop. But while I had him pinned against the wall five other security guards surrounded me; one of whom, with a less than collected voice, agitatedly if not apprehensively stated: "We can either do this the easy way or the hard way." I'm not stupid: No matter how pudgy and pathetic the wannabe cops were, numbers did (and still do) make a Difference. In other
182 words, the straitjacket willingly came on and away I freely went to the nuthouse… if you don’t already know, the cuckoo’s nest is the place and time where and when all the real fun is always happening.
Upon arriving at the asylum I got a lucky break… breakfast was just being served. I was, though, still bound in a straitjacket as the sun rose over the Hinsdale Hospital Sanitarium. But before they would release me so that I could get to my plate of yummy giblets, they made me promise I wouldn't hit anyone. I wasn't entirely defeated, but hunger was certainly burning a hole in my stomach, and what else was a kid to do at this point besides acquiesce and eat? Besides, one can never win a battle of wits on an empty stomach; so I let my hunger dictate my immediate future and I gave my word not to hit anyone again.
These memories of my time in the nuthouse swim in a brined, cloudy existence as if they are bulbs of Garlic soaking in a vat of vinegar and herbs, waiting to be plucked; with their eventual ingestion presenting themselves, in this savory, positive spirit we are living as a Tale of Ragout, as the releasing and, thus, delivering of my Identity into yet another mystical, emotional triumph…one in which you, lovely reader, are nowing to the flavor. There was the nurse who was warm and friendly. There was this is your new family introductions to the other institutionalized nut jobs. One patient in particular I'll never forget. Her name was (and still is) Donna and she had (and still has) an audience of invisible, furry and friendly little creatures, which were (and still are), according to her, flying above her, protecting her from anything and everything bad. She was (and still is) such a nice person that she took (and is taking) the time to introduce me, a nutty newbie, to her army of talking, flying, stuffed animals. If I could recall their names I would recite them here, but a Tale of Ragout doesn’t always deliver details; sometimes the trace flavors reveal only a
183 pleasant mystery. But the waft of Garlic tells me that Donna was (and still is) kind enough to offer me the company of one of her fuzzy, furry friends—an offer I didn't and, perhaps, can no longer take her up on: Existence and Life may be one and the same, but they/it are always two Differences. Donna and her army of flying, cuddly creatures exist, but they may or may not be with me or with us in the necessarily here and now. Now, at the Hinsdale Hospital, it wasn't that I ever doubted the Existence of Donna’s army so much as it was I couldn't see it… and I still can’t. So what good would it have done or will it do me to accept her generous offer? I could have hollered (and still can holler) “I do believe in fairies. I do! I do!” and perhaps Tinkerbell would have appeared (and still will appear) before me, but what is the point: I was afraid then of never getting out of Never Never Land, and it certainly wouldn't have done me any good to have my own army of talking stuffed animals that I couldn’t even see. Maybe now I could use Donna's furry, flying little friends, regardless of whether or not I can see them, because I would put them to better use in the nuthouse called the outside world… but in 1985 I wasn't quite ready to command such invisible sprites, pucas, elves, fairies, pixies or brownies to do battle for me. The here and now is always grounding in difference—so, lovely reader, make no illusions of time and space. We are, in garlic’s thrall, in deliverance and not an illusion.
I have to laugh when I think about it: There I was stuck in an insane asylum in a country where the President was already suffering from Alzheimer's in his first term in office ― and then he got re-elected to a second term!
“During an Oval Office visit with her family, as Leslie Stahl was ending her time as a White House correspondent, she wrote (in hermemoir Reporting Live, 1999, Simon & Schuster Inc.) at the end of President Reagan’s first term in 1986: ‘Reag-an didn't seem to know who I was. He gave me a distant look with those milky eyes and shook my hand weakly. Oh, my, he's gonzo, I thought. I have
184 to go out on the lawn tonight and tell my countrymen that the president of the United States is a doddering space cadet.’”
Most Americans are in denial about this, but hey, Nero's fiddle playing is just an allegory for the trials and tribulations of every great civilization. Humorously enough, everybody believes Ronnie Reagan ended the Cold War, but that's a lie: He merely solidified power in the hands of monsters and vampires; and then it was these demons that did battle with beasts elsewhere in the world. Eventually, the Republican mantra of small government would become a clandestine but unified Democrat/Republican, trickle-down chant of:
BIG BUSINESS SHOULD GOVERN THE WORLD! INDIVIDUALISM MUST BECOME SYNONYMOUS WITH WILLING SLAVERY…FEUDALISM AND FASCISM HAS A NEW SIBLING CALLED INDIVIDUAL-MASS-CONSUMER CAPITALISM! CHEESEBURGERS FOR THE SUBSERVIENT!
Everyone in the USA seems to forget that in our nuclear arms race we, too, just like our then bitter enemy the Soviet Union, were seconds away from being bankrupt (unless you count spending Social Security funds as good financing) and that the burden for this so called “win” was placed on the backs of working class people. Unions were undermined and the average guy's wages slashed (do you remember the time when there were actually paid holidays and benefits that couldn’t be taken away at the end of your work career?); the working man shouldered the burden of paying for the arms buildup, but corporate America was given the green light to greedily hoard untold fortunes (that they earned on the mad arms buildup and the backs of working people everywhere in the world) and, if need be, commit any and all atrocities to
185 assist in obtaining these fortunes. To this day, America's current fanatical turn towards unbridled, irresponsible and decadent power can be traced back to the legacy of the Reagan Administration. Sure there has always been corruption, but Reagan began to legislate it into the hands of the elite few, and in today’s United States, corporations can, through their financial influences over Congress and Presidents, lead Americans into war without the approval of Congress. Corporations can now also fire tens of thousands of employees and strip them of their life-long earned pensions, retirement benefits, and healthcare packages, but somehow the CEOs still keep their multi-million dollar perks and benefits regardless of whether they commit felonies or run their companies and our economy as well as other countries’ economies into the ground. This is to say that even when there's nothing left to trickle down, those on top are entitled to feast on the corpses of those they've long since owned. We as consumers have even less value then slaves. Good old George W., as example of the Reagan legacy, even passed a bankruptcy bill (at the request of credit card companies) that excludes the rich and targets the middle and working class people of America. And now (as of this most recent rewrite), we have Obama face-track-selling out working class Americans and world citizens in the secretive TPP agreement. Thanks Ronnie Reagan for killing the communist dream and middle and working class America all with an army of talking, flying stuffed animals at your command—and the will of American people, of course.
In those days I was still punk, but I was old school—and not how one would understand old school in today's world. I used to have a pair of jeans on which I had sewn flowery material into the legs to give them extraordinarily big bell bottoms. Bell bottoms and flowers were, and I suppose still are, generally associated with the Hippie movement, but I was punk—even for the punks—because being punk meant
186 always cutting the edge. So as American Hardcore Punk, bare-boned, raw music was violently tearing through small venues throughout the USA, I was even a sight for sore-eyes within this expression itself. Instead of the skinhead and ripped, torn, worn-out jeans and either an old T-Shirt or hoodie, I was still flamboyantly flaunting the creative aspect of punk. Check out Negative Element in Facebook and look at the cover photo from our 1982 release, Yes We Have No Bananas, and you’ll see me in my striped pants. Even to this day, the guitarist, Barry ribs me about those pants and my nonconformity within the nonconformists. I never drank Generic Beer, maybe the next cheapest beer on the shelf, but I never lost my appreciation for the expression of Life itself. Punk has always been an aesthetic movement: Because it embraces Difference as an origin—even as a generic expression it still aspires to creation as expressed in the relationship of living (from Difference rising into Identity and celebrated again in Difference’s origins). Perhaps American Hardcore Punk music is, in another sense, similar to the failed experiment of Communism here in Dresden and the rest of East Germany. American Hardcore fought to strip itself of the valueless expressions of consumerism, but in doing so it became an ally to consumerism's eventual take-over of any and all relationships as living.
I was always a spiritualist first, and, for me, the aesthetic of Life celebrating in its own Identity (symbolic form, mental image, idea) of deliverance (in Difference) is the vehicle to the experience: as creation and inspiration. There are many spirits in any one given experience, and in punk I loved the spirits of emotional intensity, energy, and creativity. Unfortunately, most punk kids today only have the spirits of commodity and consumerism. Don't get me wrong, there are still positive aspects to the aesthetics of any given expressions—especially in the expressions of punk—but now they appear negative. Step one foot into a trendy mall store,
187 such as Hot Topic, and you can feel the lack of energy and/or inspiration—unless you have enough money in your pockets (Nothingness-positive). Some might call me avant-garde, and this is okay, but I was born in the spirits of creation and inspiration as they first moved through the 1970s fashion of punk. Nowadays, you have punk things as happenings (even the current term punk'd reveals this underlying meaning), and this is only going to get worse or, depending which side of the coin you are looking at, better. Life can't end in plastic wrap and UPC tags. I don't say this as a threat but as a warning to our beloved politicians and business leaders. This is something not easily understood, because we live with daily lies about Life: Lies that try to mask the very positive nature in All—the Difference—of Existence. Identity, as it lives in symbolic forms, mental images or ideas, as the ideas are of consciousness, is not to be owned: Difference—the only knowable what-quality of any sense object or theoretical reference—as it dances without time and space in the exchange of Infinite/Finitude is our beginning and end, and, as such, is NEVER a task or goal oriented1. But Identity is the how in how we appear. These symbolic forms as they are of consciousness must be recognized as the only living aspect: We never know of the narrator as a God or as self, but/and/or because the context belongs to All of Life; the wondrous Infinite/Finitude Difference—hence, Garlic is an origin of awareness that still pays respect to both the Finite and Infinite nature of there is. Perhaps in Aristotle’s time, Garlic hadn’t yet revealed its face, but that’s only because Aristotle had no need for such a relationship: There was no his or my world needing Garlic’s necessitating authority in such matters as Life. There was only, thank the gods, there is:
“Where something is capable of making or moving a thing without actually doing so, no motion results; for there can be no potency that does not actualize. It is not a sufficient principle of explanation, then, to postulate eternal essences (ousia) as the advocates of Forms do, unless we postulate them as including
188 an ‘initiating principle’ (archê) of change. And even this qualification would not be enough, nor would it be enough to postulate another kind of ‘essential nature’ (ousia) besides the Forms, for unless it were ‘actually functioning’ (energeein) there would be no motion. But even for a thing to actually function is not enough if its essential nature were but a potency; for as the potential may fail to exist, eternal motion would not thereby be assured. There must, accordingly, be an initiating principle of the kind we are seeking whose ‘essential nature’ (ousia) involves actuality (energeia). Furthermore, as such essential natures must be eternal if anything is eternal, and accordingly are without admixture of the ‘material component’ (hylê), it follows on this ground too that they are actuality.” (Wheelwright, Aristotle: The Metaphysics, book XII. Lambada, The Eternal Unmoved Mover, vi., pgs. 97-98; Odyssey Press, 1951)
In turn, with our current delivery of and in deception, the Individual Identity, as a pure consumer, is forcing the spirits of creation and inspiration to appear in actions or otherwise face their (creation and inspiration as a spirit’s) own death in consumption, as (could be said) lived in consumer products: Symbolic forms, ideas or mental images, as they are Differences' deliverance, are only celebrated when they are destroyed through purchasing and consuming...objects adherent to nonexistence. To even turn the idea (symbolic form) of creation into a kind of pre-packaged product is asking for trouble, but turning the idea of explosive actions into some of kind of catalyst for financial and social reward can only cause the actions themselves to escalate. Difference must now appear through self-destructive Identity and/or, therefore, “the task” becomes humanities tour of destruction... consciousness as it is reality is completely broken. The relationships rooting Life to Existence, in taking on the form of not to relate or to self-destruct, become the method for Identityto make its appearance real.
“Cogitare” and “esse” remain, in their deepest roots, separated. As a person relinquishes control of the mind/spirit, he or she is in Life split into two; he or she is left to the discretion of a vampire-esque Power that
189 drove a piercing dissonance into the chant of spheres.”
People here in Dresden were horrified after having read in the local papers about fifty drunken hooligans who, after a soccer game had ended a few hours earlier, had called the police from a phone booth near to where the soccer stadium is located to report a brutal assault in progress: The reported assault in progress being the phone call along with the eventual arrival of two policemen who the hooligans then, in an orchestrated theater of the absurd, beat up; thus creating the crime of the reported assault in progress.... That was punk. The hooligans could just have as easily grabbed the first persons to have walked by, beat the crap of them, and then called the police. But their actions were intelligent and choreographed: It's a hooligan's job to kick some ass, and it's a policeman's job to protect the citizens. The hooligans fulfilled their characters… as did the police. The event transcended every participants own transcendental states of awareness; thus, the event actually lived and continues to live, in a greater and lesser sense, as art. Why was this creative and inspirational? Well, life is an orchestration, and we either hear the music and know the awe in all of its appearances, regardless of whether the show is of a violent or peaceful nature, and we give absolute thanks, or we consume and we have no experience: Zero lived-realized-delivered is no-Life.
Some time ago I read about spontaneous happenings or what are now referred to as “flash mobs” that have been occurring throughout New York City (and now, as of this latest rewrite, everywhere in the world). In a flash mob people first text one another an invitation to an impromptu gathering that is to be held at somewhere like a subway station, inside a subway train itself, in a bus, at a restaurant, in a bank lobby, in a mall, or inside a public building, and then, after the invitees arrive at the prearranged time and place, they either perform a pre-rehearsed skit, dance routine, simply smile and laugh at
190 one another for a few moments, or do whatever it is they agreed to do in the exchange of texts, before quickly dispersing. In one happening, if I recall correctly, the participants got on a bus at various stops and then at a prearranged moment everyone clucked like chickens before their little spontaneous party came to an abrupt end with everybody simply getting off at the same time. In more recent developments, thanks to the documentation done by cellphone-camera-work and the eventual upload of said documentations at Internet sites such as Youtube, we are able to re-live such events; people can now be viewed performing their purely simple and silly and/or highly complex, but still impromptu, routines performed in open, public places. As far as Garlic goes, all of these spontaneous acts are punk. And by the very definition of being spontaneous these happenings were and are, like American Hardcore Music, artless or without consumable creation or inspiration: The acts and their participants appear (as happenings) in self-negation; as consumable ideal and not as actual objects with possibility of being bought and/or sold.
“All art is concerned with coming into being, i.e. with contriving and considering how something may come into being which is capable of either being or not being, and whose origin is in the maker and not in the thing made; for art is concerned neither with things that are, or come into being, by necessity, nor with things that do so in accordance with nature (since these have their origin in themselves). Making and acting being different, art must be a matter of making, not of acting. And in a sense chance and art are concerned with the same objects; as Agathon says, ‘art loves chance and chance loves art’. Art, then, as has been said, is a state concerned with making, involving a true course of reasoning, and lack of art on the contrary is a state concerned with making, involving a false course of reasoning: both are concerned with variable.” (Nichomachean Ethics, Bk. VI: Ch.4)
191 The “false course of reasoning” in a flash mob being that the art, which is a word translated from the Greek word techne, means that the “chance” or “opportunity” to come into Existence is the very design of being earmarked for death or nonexistence. The “action” and the “making” have been reconciled, through humanly finite reasoning, so that “making” produces no object except for an “action”. Flash mob art is a suicide or kamikaze art form. Such flash mob art is not about the object but rather the inspiration of the moment… like the Garlic you, lovely reader, can now smell.
One last example of creation and inspiration that you, dear reader, might not consider as such are the Columbine shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. They were and still are an orchestration of an art-full expression, the spirit of which will last for a long time: A spirit that went as far as to make the Jane Fonda / Gene Simmons do it yourself instructional home videos on how to kill and create mayhem at your local high school or shopping mall. (The contents of these videos were initially not made public. The Columbine Basement Tapes: http://www.acolumbinesite.com/quotes.html) This alone expresses a strong indication, if not a logical conclusion, that Eric and Dylan were well aware of the everlasting non- consumer effects their actions had, and will continue to have, and that there will continue to be a receptive audience for their art-full work for decades to come.
People have a hard time understanding this last example because life and death have become too closely related to the Individual’s Existence as it now so closely aligns with consumerism. Especially in America, the values of Life are defined by the spirits of the pseudo religion called economics—or by the spirit of death as it has become the remote actor animating the consumable or the function-pure. Punk as something creative and inspirational can no longer make an appearance (Identity) as or through fashion, but
192 only as a consumable product or as something earmarked for death (as a product meets its Infinite-end in being consumed). But inspiration is an original phenomenon: It is directly linked to awe (thaumázein). In other words, inspiration is an impetus for Life to build upon Existence. And I may be stretching Noam Chomsky’s words here: “WE SHOULD NOT UNDERESTIMATE the CAPACITY of WELL-RUN PROPAGANDA SYSTEMS to DRIVE PEOPLE to IRRATIONAL, MURDEROUS, and SUICIDAL BEHAVIOR” (Noam Chomsky, 9-11, Seven Stories Press, 2001), but I would think he would agree with we me in that “inspiration”, or in Chomsky’s word “drive”, when set loose, whether or not as result of the guidance of a “propaganda” or “marketing” system, is no longer something any “one” can control or direct…much to the chagrin of our vampire and monster-led American politicians who believe they alone own history because they are, or at least believe themselves to be, the only ones―the guidance counselors―(capable of) tightly holding and thus controlling the reins of such “inspiration”. (See Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 of the Garlic Cures) Thaumázein (awe) is, as far as it inspires, that which Abraham, in absolute certainty, embraced when he did not question God’s request that he sacrifice his own son. So when Søren Kierkegaard writes in Fear and Trembling (1843), “So one surely can talk about Abraham, for the great can never do harm when it is apprehended in its greatness; it is like a two-edged sword which slays and saves,” he never considered there would be, in a future history or alternate reality, a world in which people would regularly be inspired by God aka the Infinite/Finite to commit such an act as to randomly kill. For a suicide bomber and/or suicidal school/mall shooter, the nullifying act of killing one’s-self ensures that the act was adherent, by negating the Finite/Individual aspect in every negating possibility of the zero/one life, to faith in the godly Infinite dimension of the only truly knowable (as Difference) aspect of Life living: Infinite/Finitude. The horrific and unjustifiable act of killing,
193 like Abraham believing that to kill his own son was demonstrating his faith in God, thus becomes justified in the felo-de-se in that the act transcends the doer—the killer—in his or her own self-limiting nature of a world filled only with delusional selves aka individuals aka finite beings– a world that is no longer capable of experiencing or even required to experience the full Difference value of our Difference Existence in Life. Faith is therefore surpassed, because the true-value- potentiality of the belief that recognizes awe (thaumázein) is guaranteed when the I kills, not so strangely en mass, the only thing God and his/her eternal, Infinite Life has revealed in absolute certainty: Individuality…the I think therefore I am. The killer is thus not like the others. He is not like those that he or she kills. He or she is better. After a shooter commits suicide or a suicide bomber has “bombed”, can anyone doubt that person’s integrity? It seems, to Garlic at least, that there are a lot of people out there who believe in Abraham and the religions of Abraham, so there’s obviously something to sacrificing what one cherishes most…unfortunately in our world mandated by Narcissus it is the self that we all love or are continually told to love most: Through the authority of politicians and business leaders who are being led by vampires and monsters, craftily mediated created and manipulated desires are now tools for our guidance counselors to use in directing our purchases of the day.
This is to say that punk’s appearance is no longer expressed in the power of Living (Identity) as it was meant to manifest creativity and inspiration, but is now only a vehicle to consumer product potential: Punk’s Life, as it is of inspiration, belongs to the vampires, monsters and our keepers in the corporate world; we as individuals, regardless of our positions in Life, can now only value any and all creative expressions in their ability to live as consumer objects of money making potentiality. Life itself has become nothing but a bi-product to consuming. Think of the nature movie wherein a peacock
194 spreads its flamboyant, ornate plume in a dance of courtship. Then imagine that the same peacock has to first purchase its feathers from the mall before displaying itself. The greatest irony to all of this is that even if we are inspired, and creativity is flowing from our own Individuality, we, in a sense, no longer want to dance with a potential partner. We see our own “potential” in existence as the possible placement on the mall store shelf where it, our potential as one can only be a maître d of creativity and inspiration, is to be bought and sold, and not in the rhythm and myth living in the song and dance itself. We no longer belong to or even want to belong to ourselves (our-selves) or to Life, for that matter. Think about it: Punk'd has become a reality TV Show. Instead of dancing in the glory of life, we are led to believe that we have to own the dance of others before we ourselves can dance: Creativity and inspiration can only be valued when it can provide monetary wealth and/or an omnipotent kind of fame (how many likes has my video achieved?), and, therefore, we no longer create or simply express the new feathers for the sake of the dance...for the sake of Life as it is of Existence. In its place, we exist, as expression in form or appearance revealed as ideas, symbolic forms or mental images, for a someone or a something else (as represented in liked fame or hard currency or items of purchase) with whom we have, in truth, no desire to dance: Appearance as it is Identity’s dance in Difference no longer has a direct relationship to Existence. Whatever is given in the nature of Existence for deliverance of our Identityhas become mediated by consumerism (as it lives through annihilation of Difference―think of Zero or a Nothingness reality) and every attempt to dance like the peacock is no longer done simply for the dance, itself, in respect to the rhythmic and mythical expressions celebrating Difference as the origin or for the potential partner (in the relationship or the exchange of Identity in Difference), but for the placement in a mall store or, in our modern age, the home page of an online retailer. Or, in its most recent elevation, the
195 dance is done, as mentioned above in regards to flash mobs, for viewers (and their likes) on Youtube: And so ends the creativity and inspiration lived in a flash mob event. Ritual and myth as they are the core to living time as a value— chanting of the sphere of Infinite and Finite—have been imprisoned by monsters and vampires.
In Fear and Trembling (1843) Kierkegaard describes the nature of the Knight of Infinite: “Every movement of infinity comes about by passion, and no reflection can bring a movement about.” Thus, in the Knights’s Finite thereness: “He, the Knight, feels a blissful rapture in letting love”―“love”, in Kierkegaard’s dialogue, is a good example of that which reveals “passion” in a pure form―“tingle through every nerve, and yet his soul is as solemn as that of the man who has drained the poisoned goblet and feels how the juice permeates every drop of blood–for this instant is life and death.” And it is in this moment of awareness, as life and death, whereby awe, as Kierkegaard’s wisdom so wonderfully assumes the role of the bugler paying taps, must fulfill or reflect one’s own perceptual quandary…in other words the perceptual quandary (aka Identity sans Difference) becomes a default task. The default is thus an answer to one’s limited-in-nature perceptions in as far as it, the perceptual quandary itself, is overcoming that which simply is-ing (or there is). Kierkegaard further poetically reveals, in our Zeitgeist of obliviousness, one’s inability to recognize reflection in its absolute sense of Difference: The object of quandary becomes a historical creation of one’s functional, a priori act of reflection: Like Kierkegaard, one can revel in the futility of living in a cage ― the cage being The Individual. Besides expression of form having become task oriented, and thus negating Life in its entirety of Infinite/ Finitude Difference, the orchestration in the expression of form, as it is Difference’s dance into Identity and Identity’s return to Difference, is no longer captured and caged by those
196 who are actually experiencing consciousness and life (in its anchoring nature as sheer Being) so that life may then be retold to others so that the others, too, can feel the inspiration and creativity as it was lived and is delivered by the experiencer of consciousness aka storyteller. But inspired and creative experience is, instead, caged for the results obtained from the “Like” icon on a video posting website. The past four hundred years of blind, Difference-free searching for Identity has resulted in Identity itself being rejected by Existence (or Consciousness). Life has been put at odds with Existence in order that humanity may succeed. The only option for inspiration and creativity to be expressed in the full context of Difference and Identity is in actions that search to transcend expression’s form (appearance as revealed in ideas, mental images, symbolic forms): Because any and every attempt at appearing, in our Kierkegaardian dystopia, is simply earmarked as a consumable item. Somewhere deep down in a place long since hidden from experience and/or understanding, we might want to win the mate in the dance, but the actual display is owned by monsters and vampires, and we are thus driven to do things…things which have no presence in our own Existence. The actions of the Columbine shooters, as well as many of the children and adults participating in such happenings can only win: Their actions are given to and in the moment; their actions are not driven by an Individual consumer Identity, and this is proven in that their own suicides solidify the deal: To go on a random killing spree and then commit suicide reveals that the assassin has little regard for his or her own Life, but cherishes Existence…just like Abraham. Such said happenings (school/mall shootings and such) are thus, as and in Existence, appearance of Difference sans Identity and this is why these actions are abhorrent: Life is being forced into its primal essence. Origin as it is Difference first rising in consciousness is trying to shed an Identity that is, as it is, attempting to annihilate itself (an Identity that is in its default complemen-
197 tarity nature Difference) so that it can reestablish a proper order of things… things which can only have the delivery of awe as their purpose. It could be said that such an original conflict is one of the primal essences of war itself: This is what Mr. Vonnegut was commenting on. There is no Individual reward of Identity in the sacrifices made in a war, but only a spirit which continues to live on. What Eric and Dylan understood is that Life as it is appearing can never be truly negative. There is therefore really no difference between their actions and that of Palestinian, Iraqi, or Afghan suicide bomber’s actions. Unfortunately, we don't like to look at the political nature of any of these extreme oppositions to our consumable Identities, because to do so would put us in a position that no longer recognizes material, Individual, mass consumerism as an origin: We would no longer have an Individual Identity as a true, spiritual source or transcendent impetus: One would have to recognize Difference as the true source for all that is spiritual and/or meta. Moreover, we are, in our historical perspective that Dr. Delgado, the guidance counselor, wanted to take charge of, already convinced that to do so—to recognize the political nature of such violent acts—would lead us, our Identities, into the abyss. If the mass consumer products of our historical humanity no longer embody our spiritual- potential and transcendental-probable and possible lives then where would or could we end up besides at the bottom of Nothingness? This is to say that vampires and monsters use absolute fear to help us cling to our precious Individual beings… and, ironically, we freely give ourselves up into this bondage to Nothingness out of fear of a Nothingness that doesn’t even exist. In further tragic irony, Existence itself is the sacrificial lamb for this Faustian pack that has been made requisite for us by Clergy, Church, Temple, Science, Scientists, Politicians and Corporations, and to which we, regardless of whether we know about the Faustian pack, willingly give up
198 up our lives. We give up the only thing that one might ever be able to truly possess: Time.2
Is this the preferred (non-historical) dialogue? Not for me, and obviously it doesn't mean that I have stopped experiencing or that I'm not here in spirit (Eau de Garlic), trying to convey this to you, dear reader, so that we all may take another direction. I wish such happenings on no one: neither the victims nor those doing the shooting. The comical characteristic to the tragedy of our consumer truth is that the Mr. Obamas, Mr. Bushes, Mr. and Mrs. Clintons, and their kind act as if they're doing Existence a favor by bringing market/consumer Identity to the world, but it’s people like them who are bringing the suicide bombers and Dylan Klebolds and Eric Harrises into Existence. Our leaders and their corporate and monetary friends are the responsible parties, because they believe they own the monsters and vampires, and thus they feel justified in deciding how Life is mediated… there is no need to apply any electrodes. But we know from Garlic’s glorious aroma that for any truly virtuous politician the only reward is in his or her responsibility to their positions as leaders and not to their own Individual greed. This latter so-called virtue of consumer market economies delivers only death: When the consumer objects (or object-lifestyles) have become the only rewards of Life, Existence has been sacrificed and, thus, death, as a way of conquering the Nothingness or Zero given in the equation, is the resolution to this paradox. (It is no coincidence that Aristotle considers pleonexia or greed/aggrandizement/ graspingness/avariciousness as the root of all evil. Nicomachean Ethics, Wheelright 1951) Erik and Dan are still here in Life and Existence, otherwise their names would mean… nothing. We could only hear or say Blip and Blip caused tragedy Blip… so every killer’s name would simply become an indistinguishable “Blip”.
199 Garlic may flow in opposition to the Individual, and it may be suspect of the virtues in evolution, technology and consumer economics, but it is not about death. In a Garlic Revolution, vampires and monster have no chance of winning when it comes to living, and although the Obamas, the Bushes, the Clintons and their kind purvey absolute negativity, the I am should probably be giving them more credit because they also fuel my Existence—the origins of Garlic Cures and the Art of Telling a Tale of Ragout. But then again, without them Life would be so much more positive. As for the origins of Garlic Cures, James B. and his wise ways helped me, and continue to help me. I might get lost in Life, but I know how to protect myself. Jim could have easily crumbled, because his enemy was as deceptive and illusive as all of ours, but he could hear the spirits of Garlic speaking and they guided him. Maybe we could all fare better with a little more Garlic in our pastas.
200 Chapter 24
I want my family. I want all of them. I love my mother, my father and my brother, and it bothers me that we often hurt each other. In Existence, there is nothing more important than relationships: Infinite/Finite Difference giving rise to symbolic forms is the relationship of humanity and Existence in its/their entirety. We, as living Existence, are family, and we can either take responsibility in looking for the positive nature in our relationships or we can flounder in the sickness of Individuality as it is sold and/or stolen into consumerism and material junk. And if we willingly continue to let ourselves be ‘caged’ in consumerism-lives then we can only continue to hide ‘proudly ignorant’ in our little pieces of property to which we have all enslaved ourselves to banks and State. Or… or we can tell them all—the bankers, the clergy, the CEOs, the scientists, the doctors—to go fuck themselves, and we can then break out the wine, pot, mescaline, aspirin, heroin and Ajax and learn how to dance and sing before we then we all go for a run or a bike ride or ice-skating or skateboarding or do a soft shoe like Eddie Rochester. And it will be at just such a time, when these songs and dances of Life are alive, that we will be able to feel the mythical and rhythmical origins, and finally be capable of hearing the spirits as they deliver us into Life. Then at the end of such days, when and where we can feel the rhythms and myths as they are meant to deliver Life, we can all gather around the bonfire and slather Britney Spears’s, Lindsey Lohan’s, Justin Bieber’s, Mel Gibson’s, and Miley Cyrus’s trashy but sumptuous bodies with Kikkoman’s and roast them over an open fire on a spit, in celebration of the absolute positive nature of Life living.
In 1985, as a punk rock kid ironically clad in hippy fashion; as a college preparatory school B student; as a co- founder of Landmind Records; as a fulltime employee at a high-volume woman’s clothing store; as a lover of beer; as a veteran of the Chicago punk scene; and as mediocre musician heading towards the end of his illustrious music career, I sat at a breakfast table lined with the insane, completely hung
201 over and emotionally wiped out. But I was aware of the fact that my life had already become a strange comedy, and that it, my life, could be, in that moment of clarity in the Hinsdale Sanitarium, a scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I had long since realized I didn't fit into the picture as either a Cleaver nuclear family member or a Brady Bunch Consumer Individual, but somehow, in the Cuckoo’s Nest of Hinsdale Sanitarium, I was at home. I was at the place for people who didn’t belong. And sitting next to me, in my new home, was a portly thirty-year-old guy sporting a mustache. He introduced himself as Simon, and he immediately offered me a cigarette. I declined as I nervously stuffed tasteless Linda Loma breakfast morsels into my mouth. In 1984 vegetarianism and soybean products were not even close to being lifestyle-fashionable, but soybean giblets was what one got to eat at a Seventh Day Adventist Hospital. And as far as unpalatable ingredients go, Linda Loma victuals were as bad as they came. Simon again offered me a cigarette, and from the way he paid little attention to his breakfast, I was sure he’d been there quite some time. Out of fear, I declined, again. He ignored my trepidation and offered me his breakfast. Since I wasn’t quite certain of my new family yet, I turned down his gesture and tried to ignore him. He responded in kind by barking like a dog, and it was in that moment that I became aware of his own sense of rejection. Now, I'm not an asshole, but I was only a seventeen year old kid, and I was stuck in the middle of a David Lynch film: I was in a nuthouse because my symptom of mental illness was to live in a home where poison was served for dinner and dessert, and I was citizen in a country where Alzheimer’s was a prerequisite to running the country… and there, regardless of where “there” might have been, I was with the thirty-year old fruitcake sitting next to me. The fumes of Garlic reveal that the lines in the American Dream between the nuthouse and the outhouse had long since been crossed by
202 American people as a whole. But as I sat there at the table in my new home, the pleasure and absurdity of life suddenly returned to me, and the next time Simon offered me a cigarette, I accepted. (At that time I smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. Winston's were my preferred brand because I liked the taste of sugar on the filters. Sometimes I'd smoke Kool’s, but mostly I was a Winston man.) Simon smiled and offered me his breakfast; I took it. He asked me if I liked rock music. When I said yes, he probed further and asked if I liked Elton John. When I said no, he howled like a wounded dog. I laughed. "I like Elton John because he likes men." Simon stated emphatically, his smile shining with wishful thoughts. "He does?" I responded as though surprised, and then I said, "I'll have another cigarette." He gave me the pack. "Maybe when you get out of here, you can come live with me and my parents." "No, I don't think so." Simon’s glowing smile vanished; the once radiant expression illuminating his face suddenly gave way to a furrowed brow of disappointment. "My dad can pay you a lot of money," he said with a glimmer of hope bubbling in his voice—and his brow slightly de-puckered. "Oh yeah, how much?" I asked with aroused interest. (It never hurts to ask.) "I don't know exactly, but he earns around forty thousand dollars a year." "That's not enough," I wryly replied as a snide grin spread across my mug. I set another free cigarette ablaze, took a languid drag, and then blew the smoke out my nose. “Fucking father! I hate him! I’ll kill him!” Simon hollered in hate and rage. He then grabbed someone else’s tray and threw it across the room before jumping up and attacking an orderly.
203 "Thanks for the cigarettes!" I hollered haughtily, smoke gushing from my sinister grin as three orderlies began wrestling him to the ground. Once secured, they gave him a shot of soothing juices and carted his limp body off to his padded digs. (Poor guy was never once offered any Garlic.) After my brief encounter with a Son of Elton, and my second plate of Linda Loma foodstuff, I asked a nurse to bring me to my room. But before I went to lie down, I called Dan and Brooks and told them I needed to get out before the pharmaceutical industry took over my future. I told them to get Metal Head Ed so that I would have some “crazy-muscle” when the time came. I told them somebody might have to come and visit me, and then exchange places with me—the old “switch-a-rooney trick.” And I told them that if the logistics of a clean escape were against me then someone might have to start a fire to create a diversion so that I could go on the lam. After my phone call, I collapsed on the bed and passed out. I was in dreamland…or was I?
“Keith!” sounded my name clearly from out of the void. “Hey Keith! Are you up there!?” The voice spoke again to me, but now the question rattled my mind: Up where? Where am I? Who’s calling my name? I’m in the nuthouse… I’m in the nuthouse…. “Keith!” The whispered declarations of my name continued for what seemed to be an eternity as I drifted between the ethereal and the otherworldly until finally I realized that I was awake. Then the hammer pounded down on my life: "Hey Keith, are you nuts!? Are you fucking nuts!?" The murmurs of insanity forced me into a state of near hysteria. I was sweating bullets in sheer anxiety; my nerves
204 couldn’t take it. I searched the corners, the sink; under the bed, and in every nook and cranny in the ceiling. I looked behind the doors, and in the bathroom, and there was nothing to be found except the usual sterility of any institution… and the customary voices in an insane asylum. "Keith! You need to get outta here!" Duh, I knew that… I guess voices in one’s head really do always give the best advice. As I sit here now in Garlic’s thrall and recall the voices that I heard that day, I have to ask: If perhaps there is nothing wrong with the business of men and the illusions of science, and if I am just now becoming conscious again only to find myself, after almost twenty-five years (now an eternity), in the confines of the Hinsdale Sanitarium? If I’d died during a fiery attempt to escape from the nuthouse, and, in my new state of consciousness, I agnize that I am in hell… and my arising state of awareness can only mean that I am the Anti-Christ: Dr. Thornbrew and Suburbia were correct in their judgments of my miserable existence. Salvation from the mother of all doubt truly does belong to the Finite Son, damn it! Should I still take the generous offer of a guardian pink, flying elephant from my fellow outcast? Does anyone out there have a drink for me? I don’t really want to know the truth to the three aforementioned questions.
Bullshit! Any and all doubts I may have at any given time only belong to the business of men. I was never nuts, not then nor now, and I am safe for eternity, because I am lives in
205 an electromagnetic field of Garlic; protected from any and all past, present, and future misgivings!
After a moment of silence, the voices were replaced with a pound at the door and someone hollering, “Phone call!” I slowly walked out my door and over to the phone and with trepidation I took the handset from the nurse and cautiously spoke into the receiver: "Yeah?" "Are you fucking nuts!?" Metal Head Ed cracked, before laughing insanely. In my mind I saw his chipmunk smile, and I knew he was enjoying the insanity of it all. "Where are you?” I asked, and started to feel relieved. Maybe I wasn't losing my mind after all. "I’m downstairs with Dan and Ross. They won't let us come up. Didn’t you hear me calling your name?" "You motherfucker! What are trying to do to me?!" I screamed. I wanted to be angry, but I couldn’t, because it was, after all, funny. I’m sure that Ed, Ross and Dan had no idea what havoc they’d wreaked upon my confined body and mind as they stood two stories below and shouted my name. But that’s just it: Sometimes Life is, when one is able to take a step back from the immediate illusions of stress, simply amusing. Entertained, Metal Head Ed’s chipmunk being choked laughter reverberated over the phone. (One of the nicest part about Ed’s guffaw is it suits him well.) As Ed continued to laugh unabated, I could see his late-autumn, well-fed chipmunk body and cute, pudgy cheeks. And I would have chuckled along with him, but I had just had the shit scared out of me: But I was glad to have him there, because if I was going to break out, his unpredictable and half-witted appeal was well-suited for drastic and dire situations. (As far as a dish goes, Metal Head Ed could be thought of as the archetype to the then non-existent deep fried Twinkie.) As I stood holding the phone in my hand, and a waning sanity’s desperation flooded my thoughts—a direct result of
206 Ed’s, Ross’ and Dan’s innocent yet virulent, little prank—I listened to Ed’s unabated hysterical laughter. "Get up here and get me out!" I finally shouted in an authoritative and aggravated tone. My nerves calmed, and my dignity had been regenerated. The plug had been pulled in my emotionally swollen septic tank: It was better to have a Metal Head Ed downstairs than an invisible, flying, speaking, stuffed Teddy upstairs. "They won't let us up." I was fucked. "We're going to go, but somebody will be by in the next day or two,” he informed me. I had to think quickly; Ed was leaving. "I'll give it a couple of days, but then it's going to get ugly here. I might have to start a fire or hurt some people in order to create a diversion so that I can escape, and in either of these cases I'm going to need somebody waiting for me outside when it all goes down. I'll call in a day or two and let you guys know how it's looking. If things have to take an extreme turn, I'll have to leave Illinois for good.” "You're fucking crazy!” Ed quipped, and then laughed some more; his double entendre giving rise to an elevated sense of amusement. "Put Dan on,” I said. I needed to talk to him. Since living with Dan and his family for the past year, he and his brother, Mark, had become more like brothers to me. Dan got on the phone and I told him my options. I'm not sure what he thought, but Dan, his brother and their parents were all the stability I had had in the world, and I needed to talk to him. As Garlic Cures speak, I now understand that we were all nothing but kids in a world heading out of control. I did have Jim, but he was in the midst of his own battle; he was in an undeclared war with an unknown enemy. Jim had no clue that his life was being sucked out by vampires
207 and monsters, and that he was being twisted into submission. By this time in the Garlic Cures and a Tale of Ragout, I could hardly look him in the eyes without feeling guilty. I should have told him about the lies and the deception that had become his life, but I was afraid he would kill my mother or, truth be told, I was even more afraid that I might help him kill my mother.
Chapter 25
208 “The knowledge of an effect depends on and involves the knowledge of a cause.” Thus Spoke Spinoza’s IV Axiom from Concerning God in ‘The Ethics’. What this means is that only God (as sheer Existence), as an Infinite/Finite, All and singular encompassing substance, necessarily exists independently (a priori) and any “thing” (de facto of non-godly substance) is thus only an essence (attribute) belonging to the aforementioned nature of God— and this is why Leibniz went All Monad on Spinoza. Because a “You” or an “I” need, thanks to vampires and monsters, to believe we have more to say in matters at hand than to be simply a deterministic attribute in the dance of Life and Existence…
From the odor of Garlic this All translates into: The “I” can only experience things and can never understand any “thing”, because to understand any “thing” or “anything” is an activity where the gods play.
Cause and Effect: The parents of all mysticism, religions and sciences. And I have to say, I'm not writing this because, as you found out in chapters twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two and twenty-three, I am in the nuthouse… and now you, too, lovely reader, have come to agnize you are a patient here with me, and this sudden awareness (that you are here with me in the nuthouse) has thrown you into a ‘mystical’ state of spinning, spiralling psychotic neurosis (see the cause and effect) and you are now unsure whether or not you should cry out to your God for help or if you should ask the nurse for another shot of pharmaceutical slushy to help you dispel the fears. If the latter is the case then all I can recommend is that we all just laugh it out together, because in such a situation it's better to be a silly nut job than a serious fruitcake: There’s no pharmaceutical slushy that can change life for better or for worse. Neither God, nor Merck & Co., nor Christian ministry can help you where we are at. Or perhaps you do know that you're not here in the loony bin with me and that any wacky, crazy psychosis belongs only to me… which may very well be. If this is the case then the best I can say is that I am neither
209 trying to avoid discussing my time here nor am I trying to build up suspense to this story... well maybe just a little bit of the latter. But the fact of the matter is, and truth be told, I have no say in this story: I'm just the maître d'! Garlic is the only cook and/or Story Teller. And as such, The Story is the unexpected interruptions as they are the capricious ingredients being tossed into the pot; melting and mixing into this here and now delicious Tale of Ragout.
As for Cause and Effect, fortunately there's only Existence; any perception which derives value from any other context than the one rising is full of nothing— or it smells, tastes, looks and feels of Garlic.
Garlic has already delivered a design (patent still pending) for time: Identity moving along the horizon of a sphere (Being) expanding outwards towards Infinity, with every movement (or glimpse) towards this Infinity being a movement towards its Finite center. Just as any movement towards its Finite center is a movement towards its Infinite expansion. (All of which is delivered in numerical order sans the one, of course: Consciousness of Identity rising in Infinite/Finite nature of its own complementarity Difference.) And for our (playful) illusionary view as it reveals objectivity in Cause and Effect, Identity occurs along the sphere’s horizon: Any movement in either direction (along the sphere) is a movement towards the point of departure: Infinity moving towards its own Finite beginning, or Finite moving towards its own Infinite end. As Aristotle put it in the Natural Sciences:
“It is evident that the primary form of locomotion is rotation. Every locomotion, as we have already remarked, is either rotatory or straight or a combination of both; and the first two of these types must be prior to the last since they are the elements of which it is composed. Rotation, moreover, is prior to motion in a straight line, for it alone is simple and complete, [as the following considerations will show]. A straight line cannot be infinite: an
210 infinite distance is impossible. Granted, then, that a straight line is finite, motion along such a line must, if reversed, be composite and consist of two motions; while if not reversed, it will be incomplete and perishable. But the complete and imperishable is prior to the incomplete and perishable, whether in respect of nature, of definition, or of time…” (Wheelwright, Aristotle: Book VIII, Motion and the Unmoved Mover, ix. Rotation, the primal form of locomotion, pg. 62 Odyssey Press 1951)
And from Bk. XII. Lambda, The Eternal Unmoved Mover vi. That there is an actual Eternal Mover, pg. 97 (Wheelwright, Aristotle 1951):
“Motion [in general cannot come into existence or pass away; in other words, it has always existed. The same is true of time; for if time will ever was not, the word ‘before’ has no meaning, and if time ever will not be, the word ‘after’ has no meaning. Time, then, must be continuous in the same way that motion is, for time is either identical with motion or an attribute of it. But the only continuous motion is spatial motion, and the only continuous spatial motion is circular.”
I admit time still seems to happen despite Garlic’s little Aristotelian / Kierkegaardian exposés, but this has more to do with certain illusionary objects of our or one’s (ones’) perceptions—things like numbers and triangles, for examples, seem to confuse us. But number-forms and geometric-forms have the continuity of Difference as their “playfully hiding house”; they have the luxury of living as the bricks, mortar, tiles, studs, shingles and plumbing of that house: The ones as ideas, mental images and symbolic forms being the complete picture(s).
Have you ever asked yourself where does a number exist?
Or where does a triangle exist? Even if you draw a triangle on a piece of paper, the idea of it is not found in nature but only in
211 your imagination. (Zeno’s arguments, and rightfully so, were meant to show us exactly the opposite: The idea is not found in one’s imagination but only in nature. But then again, for Zeno, the imagination and nature were one and the same.) And it is this relationship, the one in which we have with existent but not exactly living numbers and geometric forms, which gives rise to many problems as well as delivers many solutions. Garlic argues that these objects, as they are Identity in the first moment of consciousness (Being or Existence), are the very seeds to Life (or the building blocks—Genetics—of consciousness). They are experience experiencing; hence, numbers and geometric form are consciousness’ simultaneous rising and collapse, and, as such, they live and exist Gestalt: They are animate vehicles delivering. Such objects as numbers have Identity and Difference, but somehow they do not exist in the real world—as they appear to us in non-garlicky inhesion —that is living or Life. Moreover, these objects appear with even a greater sustainable expression than my own, Individual, physically Finite person: Mathematical and geometric forms have greater Finite and Infinite expression in relationship as consciousness, and, consequently, as they rise in and as consciousness they are to this day not wholly understood: but they do hold the key to the many mysteries we experience. Arguably, this rising is the very object of every empirical and theoretical science. And with this in mind, it could be said that our perceptions are caged (living symbolic form itself!) in a certain context of Being (guan xi ontology), but there are other possibilities besides our illusionary linear trip along the horizon of outward-inwardness: Numbers and/or triangles and such do not have to exclusively plant seeds of illusionary, linear time. They can also be gifts to greater deliverance of consciousness as we experience them, numbers and/or triangles and such, as or in relationship. Matter of fact, numbers and geometric forms can and should be the thought of as the truth to every illusionary object of Existence— potentiality and probability as or in exchange of
212 complementarity Difference/Identity in its/their quantum Infinite/Finite rising into its/their own essence as such. Or, in other words, if one remembers there's only the reality of experience or of consciousness, in as far as the expression of awe is the means and ends to the agents and attributes of the experience—and that linear time is a bi-product of illusionary Cause and Effect—then perhaps Garlic can present another illusion of temporality—but with an experience that has less mysticism and less religious filled luggage. Also keep in mind that ten seconds ago is as real as ten million years ago or in ten seconds is never a reality but always, at the most, a product of the imagination found in ten seconds 1. In Garlic's little thinking game, it could be thought 2 that the closer any object comes to this moment, the greater its cause has on the net effect—the net effect being this moment… life living! Nowing! Take for example a standing row of dominoes numbered and ordered one through twelve (and not to confuse you anymore, but the numbers in this example have no related meaning to the aforementioned depiction; numbers here represent only Difference as it is Identity delivered order: Numbers as identifiers). Now to continue, you push the domino number one and it tips, and as it falls it hits number two, causing the number two domino to topple, and then the two strikes the three, and the three strikes the four, and the four strikes the five, and the five strikes the six, and the six strikes the seven, and the seven strikes the eight, and the eight strikes the nine, and the nine strikes the ten, and the ten strikes the eleven, and the eleven strikes the twelve, and in accordance with all the other fallen dominos the twelve falls. The first question I ask you is which domino fell first? In reality, the number twelve would be the first domino to fall: But according to our mystically filled unique, yet universal machines of discovery, normally we would say or we say the number one domino was the first to fall. Why the number twelve you ask? The number twelve domino is the closest to Existence of (ising) the ever evasive moment of Now. Because of the number twelve
213 domino’s approximation to living, it can be said that its Being most recently affects the Now moment. As for the eleven, ten, nine, etc., etc., in a historical context there arises a when in which a created story supports and purports Existence (Being or consciousness) instead of negating it: First, in this sense, is of Being (ising), or its value is determined in direct nearness to the whole context of Infinite/Finite Difference or to that of sheer Being (sheer Existence). This standpoint of time is nothing new; it is what defines the how in Aristotle’s philosophy:
“From this it is evident that the ‘specific whatness’ (ousia) or from (eidos) is [what defines] the actuality. Whence it logically follows that actuality is prior in ‘essential specificity’ (ousia) to potentiality. And from the standpoint of time, as we have already said, one actuality is always preceded by another, all the way back to the eternal Prime Mover.” (The Metaphysics: Book IX. Theta On the Actual and the Potential, iii, pg. 94, Wheelright, The Oyssey Press, 1951)
Of course such an experience is nonlinear, but it is definitely still intelligible. It is also anchored in Difference’s spherical in-out expansion-contraction: Out being the possibility of future whereas in being the perception of past (or vice versa). Such an experience definitely supports the idea of scientific (empirical) research in that any so-called research or accumulation of data becomes a source for the steering of a future mindful of life’s beginning and end: Difference/Identity and the awe of Infinite-Finitude is/are celebrated and not destroyed.
Chapter 26
I recently wrote Brooks and asked him if he wanted to write the story of Momma Lush with me, but he never
214 replied. I think he misunderstood my need for his input. You see, I don't really see or spend time with any of the friends in this story, in as far as I (of the I can) can see them―not including, of course, my wife and daughter. And since the time of having written the first draft of this book I now have two sons who I do see every day. This isn't to say that I wouldn't like to see all the old friends in this Tale of Ragout, “for without friends no one would choose to live” (Aristotle, NE Bk. VII: Ch. 1), but Life has led us on different paths. When I wrote Brooks, I was hoping we could spend time working on this chapter together. The funny thing is he never liked Momma Lush in the first place. She was too decadent for him, as she was for a number of our friends, but Brooks sometimes has a way of telling a story that is charmingly entertaining, and I would have greatly enjoyed rehashing with him the bitter, ugly truths of our youth called Momma Lush: Which just so happens to have occurred during the same time period that I ended up in the nuthouse. If Metal Head is to be considered the archetype to the deep fried Twinkies of the Indiana State Fair then Momma Lush would be the archetype to the not yet existent deep fried half-gallon jug of Seagram’s Whiskey. In a sense, Momma Lush only wanted to live, but her existence in the suburbs of Chicago, and not directly in Chicago (or New York, or LA), caused her life to be corralled into a psychoses within the sanctity of suburban fortresses of individual mass consumer success stories. There was, and still is, no lifestyle, no pizzazz, no pep, no flair, and no zing to suburbia: Suburbia is the Zero of 1/0 binary intercourse. Additionally, Midwest America has nothing except malls: strip malls, mall walking, mall shopping, mall food courts, mall entertainment, and mall zombies. (George A. Romero was a prophet of Garlic, and, as far as malls go, ironically, the word comes from pall-mall, which was a croquet-like game involving hitting a ball with a mallet through a ring played in shady, tree-lined promenades. After the game fell out of favour, the tree-lined promenades
215 were then used for the operation of open markets. From a pleasant, unsullied function-free hobby to a life of sheer function and purpose.) I don't know if Momma Lush ate Garlic, but to be fair it could be said that she was and still is The Mother of Garlic. Momma Lush was the mother of three children; two semi-attractive girls roughly my age, and Johnny, her eight- year-old son, and she, Momma Lush, was as lost as the rest of us. Her husband, Harvey, worked the night shift at a local factory, and, to his misfortune, before his shift was over at midnight, his wife, our Momma Lush, opened his door to the alcoholic youths of suburbia. In all frankness, Momma Lush’s nightly parties were driven by a desire to be ravaged by some young, teenage man—which is something that might have happened if not for the fact that she was a fifty-year-old dead- ringer for the now-deceased Divine. Or better yet, imagine a three-hundred pound slobbering drunk, already having lost her fortunes and now living in a trailer park, bleached-blond Britney Spears and you'll have a good idea of the odds of something like that happening—unless you're into that sort of thing. No one signed some Faustian contract with her; she just had continued hopes that at some point one of us kids would be too drunk to notice who we were fucking. If nothing else, Momma Lush was the ultimate optimist. A half-year before I was locked up at the Hinsdale Sanatorium, Metal Head Ed appeared on the scene: He was a south-sider. Momma's house was on his side of town, and so he went to school with her daughters at the South High School; hence, the Momma Lush connection. Though, before my friends and I, the North-siders, stumbled upon her home, Momma Lush had another group of kids for whom she supplied both alcohol and a place to hang. Although these guys hailed from the elite sector of suburbia; had well-to-do middle class parents, and were high school football stars and such, they were all twisted and sick Individuals—and Garlic says Individual with a capital “I” because these youth were, in
216 their Gestalt or primitive essence, the prototype personalities to the kind of people who now run our corporations, banks and country. These champs of suburbia, during this time of my youth, got away with everything they did because they played their roles well—as they still do… and now their roles are at the top of the Too Big To Fail command posts. The first night I ever went to Momma Lush's these champions of society were holding down Momma Lush’s eight year old son, Johnny, in the bathtub and were pissing on him. From what I understood this wasn't the first time something like that had happened. In one instance, they shaved Johnny bald, and in another they bound him, taped his mouth shut, and locked him up somewhere in the house knowing that Harvey, Momma Lush’s husband, would come home from his night shift, completely tired, and first have to search for his missing son as his wife and daughters laid unconscious, passed out cold from too much alcohol. Sure Momma Lush was to blame, but what about these pillars of society?
While Ronald Yates and paranoid J. Edgar Hoover may have only pointed fingers at the so-called freaks—granted, both men did more than just point fingers—it was the end result of their actions, thoughts, ideologies, and so-on that prepared the sales floor for the selling of selves and Existence into the Identity of absolute self- destructing, Finite Individuality. Put differently: It would be the progeny of the Ronald Yates of this world and the weed-like spreading legacy of Mr. Hover and his ilk that would, historically smelling, mix these ingredients natural but suppressed desires (naturally suppressed?) or, in some cases, sick and twisted fantasies as they, the offspring and acolytes of nuttiness, cheaply sold themselves, Life, and Existence, into Individual mass consumer Identities…Nixon's paranoia, as well, worked and still works wonders in developing the true middle class Individual values and dogmas as they rise into Nothingness. From the mouth of Garlic
After watching the charming champions of Downers Grove South High School in action, I challenged them on their
217 authority at Momma Lush's by yanking Johnny out of the bathtub and telling them all go fuck themselves. To my advantage, my group of friends had grown in numbers, and even though we weren't the desired image of suburbia we had respect for Momma Lush: We needed her home, booze, and company as much as she needed us. Momma Lush never wanted her son to be tormented, so she found some reassurance in our presence, and thus agreed to ban the previous group of kids from coming to her home. Don't get me wrong, my friends and I were in no way making Momma Lush's life any easier: We still did things like paint her bathroom from to top to bottom, including sink, tub, and toilet, camouflage, and after we were done, we hid outside her house in the bushes and waited for Harvey to come home. Through an aromatic vision of Garlic I can see Harvey looking for some peace of mind after a long night of work as he enters his humble abode, and I can hear, shortly thereafter, his hollering and cursing. From a safe distance away, standing alongside my comrades, I can feel the joy as we all let out rounds of cat calls, Bronx Cheers and whistles before Harvey finally throws open his screen door, shakes his fists, and shouts obscenities at us. Another time we put all of their furniture on the roof while Momma Lush lay passed out on the living room floor, and, again, we waited outside for Harvey to come home. After getting out of his car, he stood still on the driveway and shook his head as he perplexedly stared at his furniture on the roof before finally screaming, “Goddamn it, Blaire!” The twenty-five of us standing on the other side of the street, beer in hands, were in hysterics. The only thing we didn't do was torture her son. We were punk rockers and not society's darlings. We clung to morality, responsibility, and the value of relationships while the rest of our world was forging Super Individual Consumer Identities. Neither Momma Lush nor our own parents were or could ever become, due to their own circumstances, yuppies.
218 In the last days of high school, as they followed my stint at the Hinsdale Sanatorium, I was at Momma Lush's house when the ring leader from the previous crew of kids came by. Not only was he one of the guys who had pissed on little Johnny the first night I met Momma Lush, but he was also the quarterback and captain of the Downers Grove South High School football team and… and he had recently been elected the Prom King. On this night, though, he was there with the team’s star running back and receiver and they were all whacked-out on cocaine: Their plan for the evening was to rob White Hen Pantries and 7-11’s so that they could have on- hand cash the following night for their Prom and cocaine addictions. Mr. Quarterback’s father also happened to be an FBI agent, and so he and his buddies had broken into his dad's at-home collection of weapons: At Momma Lush's they stood in the living room clad in camouflage and with Uzis strapped around their shoulders. After the suburban youth heroes— America’s future bankers, CEOs and politicians—left Momma Lush's, they robbed a White Hen. Not surprisingly they were caught while attempting their second heist at a 7-11, no more than a mile away from their first crime scene. The following Monday at school I had a speech class, and I decided to talk about high school football stars, cocaine addictions and Prom Kings. After less than thirty seconds of introduction the teacher stopped me, grabbed my arm, and walked me outside. It blew his mind that I knew something I shouldn't know. He informed me that for my own protection some things were meant to be kept under wraps… by “protection” he meant my future as an Individual consumer. He then explained to me that a special meeting had been called-in at 5 a.m. that morning for all the teachers in the school district, and that he and his colleagues were informed of the incident by the police and FBI, and, in the potted version of Garlic, it was decided that it wouldn't look good if the general public were to find out the truth about their own morality (see hypocrisy) by having to see what the future of
219 yuppiedom and self-indulgent Individual mass consumerism brings; therefore it was agreed by all parties involved that all charges against suburbia's champs would be dropped and forgotten, so that life could continue on as if all were normal. I told the teacher that the school board’s decision was ridiculous and that he couldn't keep me from my First Amendment rights. He smiled and then asked me who was going to believe me. He was right. Since there were no news reports or TV coverage about the incident, the only ones outside of the law who knew were Momma Lush, me, and a couple of my friends… and the Downers Grove School Board. In today's world nobody would bat an eye in disbelief at such a cover-up, but in 1985 the vampires and monsters were still festering beneath the picture and their ruthlessness and ugliness still needed time to mature before they could go too big to fail public. (I believe Lance Armstrong is perfect example of the Individual having realized the too big to fail dream on an Individual level…he is a champ!) There was still need for the proverbial black sheep, scapegoat face: And to address this issue, throughout the late 1970s up until the early 1990s, punk rock kids were to blame for any and all problems rotting in suburbia. (As a clear example, The West Memphis 3 might be free now but they’ve spent, combined, over fifty years of life, as black sheep, behind bars for the crimes committed by too big to fail America.) The sense of failure coming out of the Vietnam era wasn't catalyst enough to distort the family values into the values of ME. The Cold War and all of its nuclear Armageddon fear mongering was not enough for vampires and monsters to further their causes. The Individual mass consumer Identity was still in its infancy stage and it could be said that my generation fearfully suckled on the teat of mommy and daddy yuppies, finding nourishment in the want of waste, but us Fuck You Generation, the ones who were on the front lines, did not go freely. We never had a problem taking responsibility: We could not forsake Existence for a McTreat on the McTeat. There is a definite irony in the fact
220 that suburbia wanted to send my life as ragout straight into the garbage can and was willing to go to all lengths to protect those supporting and circulating the image: regardless of their Uzi, cocaine-riddled, extra-curricular activities. The sacrifice of the West Memphis 3 and all others, like myself, who were and still are unwilling to participate, either by choice or the misfortune of being found guilty on fabricated evidence, was never too much: Because reward for all Americans would be the continued domination of the world—so the black sheep, although more truthful and virtuous in their own characters, could be sacrificed for the furtherance of the Individual consumer…the New World Order. In retrospect, I know now that, at the time, I would have been safer in the nuthouse. My stew could have cosily simmered in a pharmaceutical slushy for eons while my own army of flying pink Teddy Bears protected me from my emotions and sensual desires. If only I would have known then what I know now, I could still be drooling over Linda Loma giblets day and night, until my parting breadth. Ha! Fortunately for Existence there was, is, and will always be Garlic. The world might want to judge Momma Lush for her indirect crimes against her son, but in her defence, she was, at least, honest. She wanted to live life, and in doing so she became negligent, but she never claimed to be America's mother, and because of this, because of her unwillingness to take the moral high-ground of naïve hypocrisy, unlike society's willing herd, she had no claims to forgiveness. Those who stand behind the pulpits or who sit on the court benches or in the board rooms or who own the banks and high rises or hold titles or wear the white kittle or dance and prance on TV or who in the same moment hypocritically live morally depraved lives (Lance Armstrong, for example), can always demand respect without any valid reasons, but the person who openly embraces their sensual and emotional character, and who is a victim of delivered circumstance gets no leniency:
221 The people who are truly alive are castigated. The Salem Witch Trials continue to this day. Just turn on your TV and listen to any neo-conservative pundit and you can hear the Piper’s Witch Trial Tune. Because the privileged play the game as the monsters and vampires desire it, an eye gets turned when they and theirs get caught doing something wrong: Bankers! Insurance Company CEOs! Oil Company Executives! Politicians! Pharmaceutical Executives! Monsanto and other Chemical Company Executives! The list goes on and on. (Four years after delivering the first draft of this book, the US Government declares these institutions and businesses Too Big to Fail, and, inadvertently or intentionally, sentences the world’s working class to financially shoulder the burden of these sick-fucks general irresponsibility toward and contempt and disrespect for Life.) And even if they, the too big to fail, ‘get found out’ and are ‘made example’ by becoming ‘sacrificial offerings’ (to appease the masses), they have their own special, well- furnished prisons. There is an irony to Federal Penitentiaries. Business people and politicians search out responsibility and when they abuse their power, which in the end affects millions if not billions of people negatively, they get sent to a Holiday Inn. But a poor or working class slob who commits a crime but has never abused his or her circumstances, and who is, to some degree, a victim of circumstances, gets hard time in hell. If we were to make white collar crimes the only capital offenses I guarantee you that the number of murders, violent crimes and theft would sink to almost nothing: Because negligent mothers like Momma Lush would actually be able to live in a world where living needn't be twisted and distorted; thus returning the necessary sensual and emotional essences to the relationship. The awe would not be detoured so that vampires and monsters can continue to thrive. Perversions coated in bitterness and ugliness might still occur but would no longer be impetus to becoming something real:
222 The monsters and vampires would not be the fuel of and to one’s Individual consumer success-story-lives. The Momma Lushes of this world, and the kids who dress differently, and who play the wrong sports, or who wear last year's fashions are always going to be society's righteous representatives, and, as such, they are the sacrificial lambs: Because even in her negligence Momma Lush was fighting for Life and not death. She wanted the experience the flesh of Garlic and not the Identity delivered in the purchasing of a consumer product. The oddballs always know deep down there is no I without the we. In a sense, nonconformists were sent to test the waters of history. It's our fate—and now Garlic is taking us into the time of awareness, embracement, and acceptance. No matter what the Rush Limbaughs, Bill O'Reillys, Ann Coulters (or pick your current right wing spokesmen of this world) claim, their agendas of Individual selfishness are a lie. Without me in their thoughts, they would be nothing— hence their origins as they embrace nothing—and with this as their creed there is only a bitter, twisted sense of some greater knowledge found in their so-called wisdom. The Finite Individual dogmas they cling to and use to expose the so- called left-wing agendas are nothing but malarkey; and we know this because the vampires tremendously reward these people, and that's why they will always have followers. Through Individualism and the great illustrious feats of linear logic the Bills and Anns pretend to know God personally, but what is sorely missing from their make-believe worlds is the reality that: Their God is Dead and they, the Bills and Anns, keep Him dead, because Nothingness, as it is the source Identity behind the Individual, is their master. Garlic is blaming the Finite Ann Coulters and the Bill O'Reillys of this world, and, at the same time, is revealing to Life that the punks, freaks, and misfits have always fought for Existence. As for the American Democrats and their media mouthpieces they have no sensible context. I’m not sure if they even know what Garlic looks or
223 tastes like, and if they do know, they would only ingest it in moderation. As mentioned before, Democrats have long since embraced the role of corporate control in place of actual governing. What an American Democrat doesn’t realize is that Garlic should never be swallowed in moderation, because Garlic delivers an All existence in light of pure positivity, and there’s no need to moderate the roots of radiances or the glorious aromas of Life. Hallelujah!
Chapter 27
224 Back in 1985, inside the Hinsdale nuthouse, I made it through a day of weird group meetings. A cheerleader who liked to vomit, and who went, when not locked up, to the parochial school I was thrown out of, was also there. Besides being skinny, she talked a lot at the counseling sessions— whereas I didn't say much. What could I talk about? Even if I would have told them about Ben Carlson, Marine Biologist and poisoned dinners and deserts, they wouldn't have believed me: I was punk. I was the Anti-Christ and deserved whatever happened to me: People like me were stopping America from becoming perfect. Later on I awoke from my nap to the sight of Simon sitting on the floor in my room. From the supine comfort of my bed I could see him staring at me; a blissful smile careening his face. "What the fuck are you doing here?" I peevishly and groggily mumbled. "I'm just watching you sleep." His smile began to dance. I didn’t respond. What in the hell did I care if he watched me sleep. "What are you doing tonight?" He asked, and his hope filled eyes sparkled in step with his swaying smile. "Well, first I'm going to shower." It had been a long day and a half, and I was gritty. "Can I take one with you?" His twinkle suddenly went super nova. You know, I must be crazy, but I found it funny then, and I find it funny now. I say this not in some kind of affirmation of my masculinity but with a sense of truth that reflects the fact that I’m just petrified when it comes to sex. Oddly enough, though, I am amused by my own insecurities. This is what happens when you’re the offspring
225 of the sexually repressed. My lack of confidence is so bad that I once fled, terrified, from a whorehouse in Frankfurt, Germany from a crazed, overweight toothless hooker who was chasing after me, and screaming in German, “You, I’m going to fuck for free!” Don’t interpret this wrong, I’m not an exceptionally good looking guy, but I was more than likely the first clean, young man (I was twenty-five at the time) to have walked by her or any of those girls’ doors in a long time. (For future reference, never go to German whorehouses near the Central Stations… unless you’re a fifty-seven year old, potbellied Turkish guy who’s been wearing the same suit day- in and day-out for the past six years. I say this because I went to this particular whorehouse with a friend who fit this description.) "No. I shower alone.” I half grunted at the Son of Elton, and then chortled gutturally. I let him stay until I was ready to shower then I threw him out. Over the next three days there were many more group meetings that I had to go to, but I never participated in the dialogues; I didn’t feel that I needed to. On day three I called as many of my friends as I could and told them that on the following day there was a meeting with my mom and the doctor whereby my fate was to be decided and that they, my friends, should be waiting for my phone call following the outcome of this meeting. If the meeting didn’t go in my favor, I knew it would be best to get out before they started the curative drug program. Even though I wasn't really aware of Garlic at the time, I knew that what they would be giving me wouldn’t be good. On the fourth day my mother came for the meeting. The doctor informed her that I had been silent at all the group sessions and that it would probably take months for me to come around. I don't want to make it sound like I'm superman because I'm not. I just draw a line and when things cross that
226 line I react in a well-thought-out manner, so... I looked at my mother and said, "It's your call. You'll have to live with the consequences. Fucking Dr. Ghoul here and his investments in pharmaceuticals will guarantee I'll be so doped up that I won’t even know my own name within three weeks." (Marcia Angell, first woman to serve as editor- in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine and currently a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, might offer a clearer insight into this relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and healthcare. And from the Alternet.com article: Landing American Psychologist Conducted Disturbing Experiments -- and Now He's Smearing Journo Who Uncovered It by Bruce. E. Levine, he claims: “Psychologists conducted experiments with drugs not only because of the financial rewards but because many of them are simply sociopaths.” http://www.alternet.org/personal-health/leading- american-psychologist-conducted-disturbing- experiments-and-now-hes-smearing.)
My mother cried while both the wonderful doctor and I sat there telling her not to listen to the other. I accused him of using his doctor’s title to prescribe me drugs only so that his stock investments would profit, which he denied (at the time it was only a theory that doctors had relationship with drug companies, but history would prove me right!) and he claimed I was manipulating her... I was manipulating her? The Doctor whose investment portfolio was filled with the products he was pushing? Sheesh! At least drug dealers on the street have respect for Existence and Life. They don’t need to hide behind a title so that they can push their shiny, salty addictive giblets. My mother finally told him that she didn’t want me there.
227 If the decision would have gone against me I would have set fire to the building, and I might have even killed the good doctor. Would it have been right? Yes, it would have been “right”, but it would have also been against the law. And like Melville's Billy Bud, I would have accepted the consequences for my actions. And just like George Bush, oh wait a minute, I'm sorry, that was George Washington who chopped down the cherry tree and then confessed to his actions.
There ends my time at Hinsdale Hospital Sanitarium.
Chapter 28
228
I’ve spent the past year here in Dresden in seclusion (now it’s going on a trillion years), and the two years before that my wife, our daughter, and I had moved to China. My wife left China a year before we did, to return to Germany. During her absence I spent most of the following year in China in seclusion. As mentioned at the beginning of this tale, I lost a finger on a kayaking trip, and as a bonus I got blood poisoning. Gwendolyn, our daughter, had to stay with Chinese neighbors for a couple of months; where she forgot how to speak both English and German. She would either just nod in response to my questions or sometimes she’d answer in Chinese. Often in China I wouldn't speak for days, but my silence was not induced by lack of topic or friends: I had gone on a journey in which my life had transformed into a bamboo raft drifting down the Yangtze River en route to a different place. My I wandered from this world to a more comfortable existence; and now and here in Germany, I see and hear things: Garlic.
China is the world's most populous country and, by this fact alone, one can argue (if one is using evolutionary theorists’ and the father of DNA theory, Dr. Watson’s benchmark of a species’ genetic success) that it is the most evolved country in the world. With this under their belt, China is now also attempting to become the best consumer country in the world…the poor schmucks will never do it. Why not? Because they love Garlic too much. They are, after all, the number one producers and consumers of Garlic. For them Garlic is the smell of vitality as well as virility, but most of all, for the Chinese, it is an aphrodisiac. Then again, little do they know that Garlic kills consumerism and market economies. Matter of fact, Garlic is the anti-matter to con-
229 sumerism. In order to win the title of best Individual mass consumers, they, the Chinese, need to smell like soap: sickeningly artificial. They need to buy deodorants and stop rubbing whole cloves of Garlic underneath their arms. They need to buy Colgate Toothpaste and stop pressing Aioli onto their toothbrushes. They need to buy Head & Shoulders Shampoo and stop washing their hair in Garlic tonic. They need to stop washing their clothes with Garlic softeners. They need to know consumerism has to be sterile, plastic-wrapped, and, above all else, have a medicinal smell approved only by the pharmaceutical industry.
In other words, they have to stop eating Garlic if they want to be the best consumers of junk.
I lived in the Czech Republic for a while after the fall of communism, and there, too, people struggled with consumerism and market economies: A person used to be able to get wonderful Garlic soup in the Czech Republic—but I'm not sure if one still can. The Czech Republic has been exposed to the West far too long now. (Since the first delivery of this Tale of Ragout and this current rewrite, I’ve been back to the Czech Republic, and I can tell you, lovely reader, their garlic soup no longer has the kick it once had. Watered down and flavor-free is what one now gets when ordering garlic soup in a Czech restaurant.)
You see, Garlic is the spirit of relationship—as human or otherwise. Garlic is the source of Descartes’ COGITO ERGO SUM—of the I in I am. Garlic is the spirit delivering A=A as the first rule of non-contradiction in Aristotelian logic. Garlic is the source of any definition of a square, circle, or triangle. What precedes a definition? The relationship of values is always first and foremost in any definition as it is in the act of defining: Consciousness positively rises into the Infinitude of its own Finitude. Relationships are Existence: Knowledge may
230 be the outcome, but only when it reeks of Garlic. In today's world only those with enough money can own the items of relationship: The consumable objects. Consumer items have come to embody the essence of Life itself: They embody the complementarity Infinite/Finite relationship as we un-live, like the undead in a George A. Romero film, in Individuality. Any relationship delivering direct, unmediated and free awareness of the positive nature of Existence has been obliterated from the truth of mankind: Greed, envy, and vanity are too strong….the bait, as reward-giblets hung before our noses like carrots on the end of stick being held in front of a rabbits face, is so magically and wonderfully shiny, salty, and fatty that no one can resist it.
But once you, lovely readers, taste Garlic, and I mean raw and uncooked allium sativum, then you would know that vampires and monsters fear relationships of life, and that if we, as an inseparable conglomerate of Life, were to ever engage ourselves for a millisecond as living then greed would turn into respect, envy into honor, and vanity into responsibility. Because, as you have smelled (these virtues), respect, honor and responsibility have no place in a consumer world. Ironically enough, though, as the vampires bleed the soul from Life itself, we, as Individuals, love to be homogenized through buying the same crap: We feel safe when we buy into the collective like some Borg. We love to listen to the same music. We love to live the same lifestyles.
We love to be homogenized, packaged up, and slapped with a UPC code. It makes us feel like we are not only safe but alive. We love existing as processed fat and salt rich fast-food. We don't even have to GIVE THANKS for the little, consumer bread crumbs thrown into our stews: especially if we have behaved and have willingly given ourselves over to the system of market and consumer economy. We in a sense are simply doing our jobs when we merely continue to unthoughtfully
231 gobble up crap: Feed me, give me brains! Yum, Yum! Chomp! Chomp! Chomp!
Market and consumer economies thrive by delivering people into the feeling of being underprivileged—in so far as not being able to afford any color, size or quantity Individual Giblet of Deliverance. But very few people belong to the privileged, and so the next best thing is submission. If I shake my head yes, take my lithium, drive to work every day, never question anything, and dutifully perform my little tasks, my I am is entitled, and therefore I will eventually be rewarded with a shiny, glittery object meant to deliver my Identity… but always only an Identity that must be continually renewed in the purchasing of the newer, prettier, and faster model: One’s feelings of entitlement are closely aligned to one’s subservience and servitude to and in a system driven by vampires and monsters.
The tasty consumer-giblets—the objects of our desires— are always fatty and salty because they get to freely live in a Finite/Infinite world expressed in Difference and Identity… and, gleefully, I allow—we allow— life as a consumer to be subjugated and regulated to their freedom. If I as an American consume more than I earn, more than I need, more than I can use, then I am also helping America continue its dominance over all of mankind… “If you want to show those terrorists we can’t be defeated then go out and shop!” Hmmm, yummy! I can’t stop consuming! If you’ll excuse me, I have to leave now and go to the nearest Gadget-Electronics-Store and get my daughter the cobalt blue Nintendo DS Lite (or, as of this writing, the current object of desire would be the newest iPhone). It’ll go great with the pink one she already has: And, as promised in the writings on the wall, once she has the pink one she’ll be more of a real person than any other child! I also read they’re coming out with the Nintendo DS Lite (iPhone) Deluxe Highbred Future of My Life in even more colors then
232 the old, useless DS Lite (iPhone) versions! Someone quick convince me to save the environment by purchasing the latest, environmentally friendly car! And while I’m out in my shiniest, newest world saving vehicle, I think I’ll get the ninety foot Blue Ray Plasma TV! The old, digital eighty-footer is just soooo 90s! This time I’m not going to let the Joneses be the first one on the block to have one! I’m going to get it first! If only I could work more hours in the day I could finally afford to live!
As I mentioned above, only those who have enough money can own any and all consumable items: The best ones, the fastest ones, the tastiest ones, the sexiest ones, the funniest ones. That’s why so many people hate celebrities: They have the luxury of deciding which pieces of junk (crappy, salty, fatty giblet) they want and which ones they don’t. Although they’ve earned their fortunes, unlike a Bush, Trump, Koch, Romney or fill-in-the ____ with the name of the most current high- profile child of a long existing family from the ruling class, for example, successful entertainers are despised and/or worshipped for their freedom to live. We say to ourselves, “I could be that person”, but we are not, and instead of giving kudos, we distrust, despise or worship such people (stars) because they are our competitors, and paradoxically, in the same moment, they are our heroes…I could be one of them. On the other hand, the Bush Family, and those who have accumulated fortunes, aka those who come from family dynasties, are found in the history of mankind: Family legacies that go back over hundreds of years and have a direct link to the gods… in other words the Bush Family and their ilk have become a link in the Gestalting of time… of course time as it reveals objective, physical reality is only an illusion, but that’s exactly the point-of-power whereby consumer giblets anchor Life to Existence. We can’t say to ourselves, “my mom and dad could have been those parents,” because it’s not part of the Individual dogma: ME. ME. ME. I am only responsible for
233 me and my ability to say I could be that person. The Bushes of this world, as the Clintons were able to quickly adapt, use thisevolved perverse notion of Individuality to keep the masses transfixed in a mass-consumer, shiny-technologized, state of willing slavery: I am an Individual and should be judged only on my failures and success, and if I am complacent, sooner or later I’ll be rewarded with the latest technology toy. The Bush and Bush like Dynasties are above such petty needs and subsequent judgments. As I already mentioned, this book was written four years before the Bushes, Clintons, Obamas, and all other American Politicians working for the dynasties declared their businesses and banks are Too Big to Fail. We have returned to the time of divine rule as represented by credit institutions and big businesses. The King may have a new overcoat called institutional business, but the idea is the same: Too big to fail means that the power such companies and institution represent is so important that it trumps the Life of any single, Individual entity—you and I are worthless when it comes to their time. The vampires and monsters have shown themselves and what have we done about? We went shopping, of course.
I read a blog from the writer, Frank Daniels the other day (now many, many moons ago) in which he was bitching about failing because of adhering to his “high moral standards”: his refusal to kiss the man’s ass in the publishing world. He refused to change his book, Future Proof, to make it more marketable. In his e-harangues, Frank presented himself as the radical voice of the next generation and as The Individual, in as far as he champions some higher standard…. He’s doing it for us and our humanity. He somehow believes the world owes him for all the sacrifices he’s made and continues to make. Not rewriting his book so that Putnam will publish it for the masses makes him believe the masses should bow down and worship him for his self-sacrifices. I laughed, but not because of his childish vanity, but because he posted
234 pictures of his suburban home, his dog, and his two beautiful children: Frank the radical in action. At some point he asked:Is this too much to ask for? Haven’t I earned it? Don’t get me wrong, Frank Daniels is a much more talented writer than I could ever be, and I am sure he will get published, but he’s still missing the point. Either he likes to write or he doesn’t. There are no monetary rewards in life. Life is the reward, and either he’s aware of his talents or he’s just another charlatan; another sideshow-salesman selling the elixirs to a better life. The real punchline to the Frank Daniels joke came when he revealed that his father is the wealthiest investment broker in the state of Georgia. Not only has the world already bled for his father—for the Daniel’s family—but now Frank Jr. believes the world should bleed for him as well. Frank now sees it as his birthright to continue the Daniels’ dynasty, and to suck more blood from the soul of life itself. What kind of artist is that? If Frank was truly a radical, he and his family would live off the sucked-blood of that of his father’s so-called accomplishments, but Frank is an Individual and must therefore prove himself to be every bit a vampire’s bitch as his father was: The actual relationship in Daniel’s family means nothing1. Frank should make this latter fact the object of his success story, but unfortunately Frank only believes in the Individual. The monsters and vampires already possess Frank Daniels’ soul and therefore they have no reason to reward him. This is why the Bushes and Clintons succeed and the Daniels fail. George W. has never succeeded at anything he’s ever done, but he doesn’t need to because he succeeds in simply being a Bush—the vampires and monsters live in his house. Yes, I’m sure Frank Daniels is the true voice of the next generation: The voice of the whiney apocalypse.
If you are not privileged you can't own your own home or car—even if your father is a billionaire you must still prove yourself. In this sense, poor Frank can’t even find patronage from his own father: because his father believes only in
235 himself. Market economies enslave humanity without it even knowing it, and we love it. We call it freedom. We call it industrialized and advanced. We call it civilized. We call it Democracy. We call it Individuality.
I can prove my theory of Garlic and relationships. I can prove that humanity is held captive by vampires and monsters in market and consumer economies. Eat a couple of raw cloves of Garlic then go for a walk through the super market or mall. The people who shy away from you or burst into flames when they get too close to you are the people who control your lives. They are the bankers, the CEO's, the politicians. Or, they are the just ordinary people who are unwittingly enslaved: They are the herd. Try going to work smelling like Garlic and see how long you last.
I would bet my life that if you got close enough to George W. Bush or the Clintons or the Obamas, and you threw a wreath of Garlic around their necks, they would burst into flames. Puff!
I don't want to return to the world of junk. It does nothing for me. Garlic on the other hand keeps me strong. Garlic is my spiritual Viagra. Garlic is my spiritual vitamin. As long as I eat Garlic by the pound every day, the world will leave me alone… at least those who belong to the monsters and vampires. Unfortunately for my wife and daughter, people at their work and school know when they've been too close to me:
Hospital: You smell like Garlic today, Frau Lyons. I assume you slept with your husband last night. This is unacceptable if you want to continue your employment here.
Elementary School: Good morning Gwendolyn, I can smell that you spent too much time with your father yesterday. I hope this is not going to become an issue.
236 Yes, the world is challenging me to come out of hiding and is trying to force the spirits of Life into relinquishing their grip on me. But I’ve got news for the spirits of consumer and market economies: I am on a mission of Garlic!
237 Chapter 29
After graduating high school, and in seeking to appease the will of my mother, I shuffled off to college. At Loyola University, I smoked pot for the first time in my life. Not much more than ten weeks after my arrival I passed out in my dorm room from an excessive mixture of dope and booze, and was rendered unconscious during a fire that destroyed part of the building. It was the following day that I decided college Life was nothing but death, so I dropped out and returned to the comfort of friends in the suburbs. Shortly after retiring from Loyola University I ended up back on the North Side, accompanied by Dan Tailor, at the home of a Gina, a much older sister of a friend from Montini High School. At her place we all dropped acid together—it was the first time any of us had ever gone on a trip. Gina was a Chicago scenester, and although I was ten years younger than her I was still regarded as a scene creator so I was, in a sense, a hot item. Dan, my foster brother, and one of the few friends who'd sworn off alcohol and sex, was fascinated by LSD: This had more to do with the fact that everyone in his family—my foster family—was professional clowns and, more than anything else, convinced of the sainthood of Walt Disney. Anything Walt… anything, like clowns for example, that could bring so much joy and laughter to a world was considered decent and righteous, and since Walt Disney was a pioneer in the field of LSD and creativity—creativity that had brought joy to billions of people—Dan was convinced that dropping acid was a legitimate tool for baptismal into the Walt Disney Religion of Joy. As for me, I had just broken up with my high school sweetheart, Tara, and I needed something to take my mind off the trauma. As for Gina, she’d never done LSD, either, and the whole idea to her seemed to be a novel adventure.
238 After Gina and I, to a Leopold Stokowski tune, as accompanied by dancing hippos in tutus, dancing mops with buckets, and cherubs, had sex eight consecutive times, she was convinced that I was destined for greater things. Little did she know that during those moments I was commanding her bed, I wasn’t Ron Jeremy wearing a Mickey Mouse costume, but just some average schmo fueled on Class A narcotics.
Dan, who wasn't thrilled to be dropping acid in the company of Gina in the first place, was sitting in the living room while Gina and I were in the bedroom getting it on. Until this point, he had never participated in any of the drinking and was, on this night, high for the first time in his life… I guess if you want to go skydiving its best to learn by first jumping from a jet without a parachute? At some point, in a complete state of insanity, he forced me out of the apartment. Exactly where we wandered off to, I can’t recall, however, I do know, through the visions revealed in a garlicky mist, that it was a truly amazing journey, and that we eventually ended up at my brother's nearby apartment.
After this first trip, both Dan and I became devotees: There's nothing better than flying ragout. The next day, before we headed out of the city, we returned to the candyman, a friend of my brother's at Loyola, and purchased a dozen more hits before returning to the suburbs. Hits in hand, as if they were the Body of Donald Duck at a Disney amusement park, we began to deliver the message of Walt to our friends back home. After this discovery, all caution went out the window, and life became an attempt to reach the other side: The side where Individual consumer Identities weren't allowed.
After having dropped out of college and having given up music and being reborn in the spirit of LSD, Life became even more absurd: But my luck also continued to sour.
239 Shortly after our first adventure into Disneyland, Dan, Tara and I were arrested in Chicago. Although Dan and I might have been whacked out on LSD, we were incarcerated for other reasons: Somewhere on the near Southside of Chicago we were charged with the illegal solicitation of a substance, which in a relationship to the procurer of such a substance might be a crime of gobbledygook, gobbledygook…. In all honesty the policemen themselves had a hard time reading the charges.
On this fateful night, Dan, Brett, John (a friend who later goes on in life to become a Sheriff) and I visited Tara's dance troupe at the Chicago Hilton where she and her company were attending a dance conference. Although Tara and I were officially separated, we weren't over. As for Brett, he was the good friend from the Tivoli movie theater chapter but had, by this time in my ragout, since evolved into a rather unpleasant herb—and who could blame him seeing that his family situation wasn’t any better than mine? In the couple months since discovering LSD, I only began calling him again because of his drug connections. The first dozen times he complied, but eventually he grew tired of my phone calls, and on this particular night he forced himself upon us by only agreeing to supply the drugs if he were allowed to come along with us.
After the completely dosed out, as hosted by Brett the candyman, horror show ride into the city, we made it to the Chicago Hilton intact. Tara was happy to see us, but she knew right away we were armored in our Disney gear, and so she suggested we go on a booze run. Besides the rest of the seventeen-year-old dancers needing wine coolers, Tara knew that a whiskey bottle in my hand would somehow keep me grounded. Leaving Brett and John behind at the Hilton, Dan, Tara and I got into a cab. Tara informed the driver to take us to a liquor store, and the driver, nodding his head yes, steered his cab south on Lake Shore Drive (LSD). After a short south-
240 bound ride on LSD, he turned off about a half mile south of the Eisenhower Expressway. Not only did the driver speak, at best, broken English, but our hand gestures, hopeful head nods, and pretend swilling of beer and wine, as means of communicating our needs during the short ride, had been complicated by Dan losing his shit: he’d gone insane. During the whole ride, and while sitting in the cab parked outside of a liquor store somewhere on the near Southside of Chicago, Dan had seen Dumbo and Tinkerbell, and this is what was forcing him, or so we thought, to keep interrupting Tara and the driver as they tried to communicate. Finally the guy comprehended that we weren't old enough to buy the alcohol ourselves—and then came the clarification of our complicated order. We must have sat parked outside of the hooch house for at least fifteen minutes, with Dan at no point making any of the already difficult conversation any easier, before, finally having arrived at some clarity. The driver got out of his cab with the intent of going into the store to make our purchase… if only the ragout were so easy to make. Before the driver could get more than a few feet away, Dan immediately jumped out of the cab and grabbed the money from his hands and returned it to me through the open car door; telling me it was too dangerous and that they were watching us. Annoyed, Tara grabbed the cash from out of my hands, got out of the cab, and handed the confused driver the money, again… this of course forced Dan to repeat his actions. There was a three or four time ring-around of money from one set of hands to the next before Tara angrily pushed Dan to the ground and told him to knock it off. I had since gotten out of the cab, and, after a moment of watching Pegasus and her babies fly above our heads, Dan got up. He wasn’t upset by Tara’s actions, but was still more distressed by the invisible creatures watching us. At this point, in an attempt to run away from their watching eyes, he tried to pull me away from the scene. While Dan and his delusions continued unabated, and Tara and I were trying to figure out how to calm Dan down, the cab driver entered
241 the liquor store. Eventually, Dan, Tara and I returned to the comfort of the cab, and after a few minutes of waiting, the driver returned with bags full of booze. But when we stepped out of the cab to help the driver, Dan attempted to run off again. I, accordingly, grabbed onto him, and Tara in turn helped the driver put the packaged liquor into the car. The driver then gave her the change, which was the rest of a hundred dollar bill, and, not surprisingly, Dan, who we’d thought had since calmed down a bit, took the large amount of change-money and handed it back to the driver, telling him it was all okay, and that he could keep the money because we were all going to get in our space ship and fly away… and that’s when the spying aliens landed. Like out of some bad made for TV movie, two undercover cars raced in, screeched to dual Starsky and Hutch stops, and four officers, two from each vehicle, jumped out of the cars. Immediately the two separate sets of officers strangely screamed at each other before then informing us that we were all under arrest and that we should put our hands in the air. It wasn’t until much later in the evening that I would find out that the two sets officers belonged to two unrelated stakeouts from two separate precincts, and that their strange performance of first hollering at one another was actually an act of identifying themselves to each other.
You already know about my uncle the cop, but what you probably don't understand is that my uncle was not an exception to the rule: He was the rule. At the time of this incident, and perhaps even until this day, a fair percentage of Chicago cops were crooked and, to some degree, outright killers. Dan also had an uncle who was a Chicago cop, and if we hadn't been so fucked up, we could have just dropped some names and we would have been immediately released: but we weren't in our right minds… we were in Disney’s Land.
242 In Disney’s Land, Tara was a suburban teenage girl, a cheerleader, and had wealthy parents. Dan was, in that moment on that ride, completely out his mind and… and he had parents who were clowns. And you know my story… at that moment of our arrest I simply resigned myself, in the grip of LSD, to fate. Even then I just figured it was all a part of the story and I might as well sit back and enjoy the carnage. That is until Tara began screaming in her teenage cheerleader voice at the police that her father was a big, suburban fat cat with super human powers and he’d sue the entire city for millions. Dan, who'd known from the start that things were afoul, demanded that all officers show him their IDs. Under normal circumstance they would have just beaten him to death, but they found his proclamation that they weren't real to be quite entertaining. That is until he started to run. Instead of allowing them to tackle him or even shoot him, I quickly lunged at him and wrestled him into submission. This strange battle between Dan and I continued on for some time, but at some point it was no longer entertaining for the policemen. Finally, after I had managed to get Dan into a full-nelson and pegged to the ground, I asked for their patience and mercy while I got my friend under control. Perplexed, the four policemen nodded their approval. I then explained to Dan that we were in a game and that the men looming over us weren't real, and in order for us to go on our merry way, in a space ship off into the night sky, we had to first answer all the questions that the imaginary men asked—otherwise we'd lose the game and our space ship would take off without us. To his credit Dan agreed to play the game. He stood up and answered most of their questions, but then, as the game was moving into the next level of getting into the police car, and as Dan and I were handcuffed together and I was sitting myself down into the back seat, he decided that he didn't want to play the game anymore. He then tried to run again, but this time he had to take me with him; from the back seat of the squad car he dragged me out onto the street where I was
243 forced to get up, put him into a stranglehold, and drag him back into the car.
When we finally got to the station, I overheard the desk sergeant laughing at the arresting officers for believing Dan was a male prostitute, Tara my girlfriend, and that we, as a couple, were soliciting kinky sex (from Dan) for the night. Once they had realized we were nothing more than suburban kids whacked out on drugs, and only looking to further our high by getting drunk, the officers felt a bit stupid and decided to charge us with something. It took the police over two hours to dig out the statute under which they could charge us. Until my brother came to bail us out the following morning, Dan and I, locked up together, were high on LSD...the drug and not the lake side road. Tara, who wasn’t whacked out on narcotics, had gone with the other officers to their precinct where she was incarcerated, and had to await her bail. But this is how and why I ended up in a Chicago Court on charges of illegal solicitation of non-allowed substances to a person not'^%*i@*$~... Imagine being arrested while on LSD, the drug and not the drive, and having the arresting officers not being able to read the law you’d broken because there were no laws at the time for such a thing as to charge youths who were having an adult purchase alcohol for them. The statute our arresting officers tried reading hadn't been used to charge someone since the 1800's, and wasn’t created for the purpose of stopping minors from getting their hooch. The real punch line to this whole joke came a couple of months later when we went before the Cook County Judge, and the Chicago City DA made a deal with Tara: If she, the then seventeen year old, still in high school girl, agreed to go on a date with him, he'd have all the charges dropped against us.
Chapter 30
244 Steve and I have been friends since we were five, and because we lived on the same street our families eventually got to know each other quite well. As long as I’ve had memories, Steve has been there, and somehow, in the yin and yang of Existence, our early lives seemed to have mirrored one another’s: While my dad was secretly coveting the neighbor man, Steve’s dad was secretly coveting the neighbor man’s wife. Even in the suburbs it all has its balance. But Steve took his parents eventual divorce much harder than I did mine. Most likely because his parents hid their problems better, their divorce was more unexpected… or maybe he took it harder because his father was allowed to openly trade in his old model, Steve’s mother, for the new model wife, and Steve had to not only witness the ugliness of a failed marriage, but so did the whole neighborhood as well—whereas my dad, like suburbia, was caught up in the deception: Man swapping amongst married men was (and I presume still is) not acceptable in suburbia, and is thus hidden from plain view. As a result, his parent’s eventual divorce was more of a shock to everyone, and my dad’s gradual disappearance from the Western suburbs went unnoticed.
Until high school, Steve and I went to the same schools. He was also a math and science kid, and we intellectually engaged each other to obsessive levels. I vaguely recall at around age nine calculating the number of seconds in a year together, and I can still feel the joy we felt in the endless games of chess that we played. I can still see Steve sitting next me, our eyes glued to the screen, as we watched Japanese TV programs like Ultra Man and Space Giants together: Goldar and Silvar will always be a key ingredient to my ragout. In our competitive bid for being the smartest, he
245 was always there with a calculator in hand keeping track of my decimal placements as I calculated pi—as I was for him. We intellectually challenged each other, relentlessly, and by the sixth grade we got drunk and smoked cigarettes together for the first time. But our talents weren’t always only limited to a love for booze and tobacco or to challenging our intellectual capacities: In the third grade we chased the school bus together, hurling lumps of dog shit into the open windows as it carried away our schoolmates. I even eventually knocked out his front teeth. I figured that since I’d lost both of my permanent front teeth in an unfortunate accident, he should, too. Humorously enough, I now know that he never had the right hair for Punk fashion: He had more of an afro, and if he cut it too short there was nothing but cowlicks. If I didn’t know his mother and father so well I might have wondered where he’d gotten the fro, but his dad was a thick-haired Hungarian who came over to the US shortly after the bloody Russian quelling of the 1956 revolution, and he, too, had bad punk hair. Despite Steve’s hair problems, he was there since the beginning of Life, punk and skateboarding.
As children, his mother inadvertently supplied us with much of our alcohol as we continually skimmed, skimmed, and skimmed some from her weekly refurbished alcohol cabinet…and we replaced every thieved gallon with water. At first she suspected her older son, Johnny, but eventually he turned twenty-one and could purchase it himself. It was then that a fourteen-year-old Steve got his first lecture about skimming from the hooch cabinet. Humorously, his mother was upset because of the watered down gin, vodka, and scotch more so than she was about his drinking: At some point most of the bottles contained nothing but water.
After this scolding, a worried Steve and I, through the talents of our scientific minds, and a short chapter in 7th
246 grade science class on fermentation, started fermenting our own wine made from grape juice, sugar and yeast. To solidify the deal, and in our own way of circumventing the birthing fanatical, neo-con Prohibitionist movement as led by Nancy and just say no, we built a still to make moonshine out of our fermented grape juice. Steve didn’t want to upset his mother any more than he needed to, and rightfully so—there was nothing she hated more than watered down devil’s water— but Steve definitely wasn’t going to stop drinking. To this day his mother still talks about all the crazy things we did, and she never forgets to remind us of our booze experiment which eventually exploded in her basement.
It was in this same basement that I had sex for the first time, at age fourteen, with a twelve-year old girl. Under the stairs leading into the basement of his house there was a little closet, and it was there that she and I made drunken love together: Well, I was drunk, and there wasn't much love, but we got it on anyway. In his naturally cynical way, Steve occasionally opened the door to ask if everything was working right, and when he wasn’t peeking he was playing DJ, and changing the background music—so as to keep the mood romantic. The only song I can recall hearing was the Dead Kennedys, Too Drunk To Fuck. Considering I was fourteen, terrified, and drunk, it wasn’t an easy feat let alone a pleasant one. As for the girl, I still, after almost thirty years (now going on many moon years) talk to her on occasion. She offered me something wonderful and I was just too insecure and suburban to enjoy it or to see the beauty in it.
Although Steve and I now live in different countries, we still talk on occasion, as do his mother and I. I might have had better friends at times, but he has always been my best friend. In some ways, he was always there keeping my world together—even when I lived at the Tailor’s. If I ever took a friend for granted, it was Steve. He’ll probably be the only
247 person to show up at my funeral. I’m sure he’ll outlive me.
Steve and I also spent a lot of time with my older brother and his friends, and in 1982 when I was fourteen years old my mother discovered exactly what was happening every weekend in my father’s empty warehouses in our backyard. The garage doors were closed, and there was a general ban on band practices. Evil Eye, the Anti-Bodies, and every other derelict musician west of Cicero were no longer welcomed. Fortunately, that’s about the time Frank, my brother’s friend from Parochial school, opened his basement to us, and all I can say is: It was fantastic! He had two older sisters who always bought us booze and… and he had a kick-ass game room! We spent every weekend, and many week nights there, and our drinking habits became even more excessive. At some point Steve was drinking so much that he could no longer walk a straight line, and one night, while I, my brother, Frank and some others were drinking and shooting a game of pool, he came wobbling in. In a blissful state of inebriated delirium, Frank slurred out the Weave, and we all turned to look at a Steve who could no longer walk a straight line but only shuffled sideways.
After we graduated high school, Steve was forced, because of economic reasons, to remain in Westmont, work, and go to community college while I went off to Loyola on student loans. My dad had long since vanished to the Northern Woods, and my mother earned almost nothing, so I qualified for debt (nowadays everyone has this entitlement). After another failed semester with the Catholic education (at Loyola), and before I eventually ran away to Green Bay, Wisconsin, my life was dictated by alcohol and drug consumption. The Happy Toons had since ceased to exist, and all my friends, for the most part, were finishing high school, working odd jobs, or taking a few college courses here and there.
248 Around the same time that I was put into the nuthouse, Steve began cleaning a dentist’s office at night: a job he would stay with for a number of years. He also worked a few hours at Champion Auto Parts Distribution warehouse in Oakbrook, and he was picking up some credits at the College of DuPage during the week: But it was his night job of working the laughing gas mask, and providing all of us with precision-like fluoride treatments, that earned him the title of The Mad Doctor: Hence, the birth of The Mad Dr. Weave.
In 1986, I was back in the suburbs doing squat, but now, under the influence of nitrous oxide and LSD, I belonged to an army of lunatics. Weave was busting his ass, trying to stay ahead of the confusion that was swallowing us up; and to his credit he always had a much better grip on things than I did. In addition to working at least fifty hours a week and going to school full time, he opened his own after-hours dentistry service. As our intoxicated, dosed-out group of friends arrived nightly from Brooks’ or Momma Lush’s house, Weave would put on the white kittle and dentist mask and gas us up one at time as we sat in the dentist chair. If you were lucky he’d give you, in the pure delight of LSD hallucinations colliding with NO2-induced dreams, a fluoride treatment, as well: That is if he wasn’t too fucked out of his mind on alcohol and LSD himself. There was never a better feeling than sitting in the dentist chair at 2 a.m., juiced up on beer, LSD, and laughing gas, and seeing The Mad Dr. Weave’s eyes all sparkly and exploding with life as he peeked out from behind the Dr.’s mask. It was pure magic. At some point his laughter would take over, and it was like being in some strange circus of the insane. If I were to suddenly wake up and find out I have been dreaming for the past twenty-two years (now a gazillion years) I would like to wake up in that dentist chair, gassed up on nitrous oxide, and with LSD flowing through my veins, a mouth full of fluoride, and the Mad Dr. Weave standing over me, laughing hysterically.
249 We spent many nights at the office, and on some nights, because of the intoxicating gas, we almost didn’t make it out before the dentist’s assistants started arriving to begin their morning shifts. The Mad Dr. Weave was on many occasions found in the daybreak hours, unconscious in the dentist chair, gas mask half strapped to his face, and drool streaming from his mouth to the floor. Fortunately for him it was always a friend who found him in this state.
After having the office twice renovated, and the machines completely changed out, the dentist finally came to the conclusion that his machines were working perfectly well, and that The Mad Dr. Weave was abusing his NO2. The dentist tried to reason with The Mad Dr. Weave, and to convince him of the dangers of passing out with nothing but NO2 flowing into a his lungs (I can imagine suffocation to be a horrible death, but in this instance I believe it would simply be a laughing matter), but, as much as The Mad Dr. Weave wanted to stop, he couldn’t; he was hooked. NO2 reveals reality in a way that LSD can’t, and LSD reveals reality in a way that laughing gas can’t; being under the influence of either one is like being in a wing of the Garden of Eden, but LSD and laughing gas together was, and presume still is, simply heaven. There is nothing physically addictive in either LSD or NO2, but the reality of the two combined was powerful juju. I’m sure the dentist would have canned The Mad Dr. Weave had it not been for the fact that he was not only Weave’s neighbor and very good friends with his parents, but the dentist also had a daughter who sat in on the midnight dentistry sessions and, in some ways, Weave had him over a barrel.
250 Chapter 31
I'm sure a quantum physicist would be much more convinced of the ‘reality’ of a muon or pion than that of a unicorn… although a unicorn has a much greater sustainable expression. For example, you, lovely reader, know what a unicorn is, but do you even believe in sub-atomic particles, which can only exist in probability and uncertainty for millionths of a micro-second let alone know what they look like?
If one takes natural numbers (Difference in the Big Bang) or even their real number counterparts (Identity living) as further examples of objects that live as absolute experience (Ontological foundations), and as or in absolute deliverance (Empirical expressions), such as is in the believed nature of sub-atomic particles’ Existence, then what one finds are objects with Identity of absolute Finite and Infinite integrity: they live life free of conflict and contradiction. But from the perversely inverse notion of our transcendental misperceptions—misperceptions that are not all too different from the experiences one has with the probable and possible life of a muon or pion—where does one find a 5 in the world?
Scientists know with absolute uncertainty that atoms exist as result of the dance of unicorns, but where or when does a Five come into Existence? One can find five similar objects and categorize them and say they are the same, but this is not what the appearance (image value) of natural and real numbers means. The Empirical aspect of numerical objects only suggests (as uncertainty) thereness, which is when-ing and where-ing numbers exist, that is the rising and returning of every-thing (in all of all thereness) from and to the origin
251 (ontological or Existence existing): What we have in the case of numbers are objects that lend themselves to living or, better yet, deliver living (as they reveal awe as the beginning and end of Existence’s dance of Life). And thus the natural or real 5's Identity is zero: Zero1 as Leibniz delivered it — but not how it was revealed, expressed or lived. Zero is in this sense the expression of All Finite values of Existence as they are of rising and of returning. It is ordering in the natural term, and it is identifying in the real term. This two-sides of the coin-like nature of numbers reveals them to be a bridge guiding Existence as existing and Life as living. In other words the numbers in their natural state of real are the Will. Of the Will or Power, and as a relationship of Existence to Life, Aristotle writes:
“…a power is defined by reference to the corresponding activity, which is the essential thing; therefore life seems to be essentially the act of perceiving or thinking.” (Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. XI: Ch. 9, 17-19)
And
“…and if he who sees perceives that he sees, and he who hears that he hears, and he who walks, that he walks, and in the case of all other activities similarly there is something which perceives that we are active, so that if we perceive, we perceive that we perceive, and if we think, that we think; and if to perceive that we perceive or think is to perceive that we exist (for existence was defined as perceiving or thinking)” (Nicomachean Ethics, Bk. XI: Ch. 9, 29-35)
Natural and real numbers allow or will All sides of the coin to be Identity while holding down or anchoring Difference as the beginning and end. Furthermore, Garlic reveals that the how Zero has been suppressed is a better
252 story of our “enlightenment”. There is a clue as to how Zero or Nothingness came into a repressive state of Existence in George Berkeley’s ‘Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous (Philosophers Speak for Themselves: Berkeley, Hume and Kant, by T.V. Smith and Marjorie Greene, U. of Chicago Press1957): “Hyl. Supposing you were annihilated, cannot you conceive it possible, that things perceivable by sense may still exist,…” reveals the suppression of one’s imagination over that of All of Existence to make a point that is neither valid nor invalid. What escapes Berkeley and his distaste for the Infinite, and, in general, escapes philosophy and science to follow, is the reality that numbers or geometric forms are ontological in Being: They are never transcendental. There is, in the ontological/empirical thereness as Identities First rising out of Difference, only one set of natural numbers and one set of geometrical forms. What real numbers encompass and correspond to can be considered something akin to blades of grass, leaves on a tree, water molecules in an ocean or grain of sand on a beach, and first occur in relationship to the Big Smelly Bang (as a process encoded, Genetic-like) with and in every Act of consciousness consciousizing in non-linear, non- spatial, non-temporal dynamic: Real numbers reveal order or gestalt in an Identity who’s ground is Difference. Sure, each “blade of grass” is different from each of the other blades, but each one is still a blade of grass. Matter of idea, this very ontological-empirical essence to numbers enables grass, molecules, sand grains and so on to exist. These real values, as they are representational, or Identity bound, would be their Empirical nature (Zero in this formulation would be All values in range from 1 through Infinity).
I lay in bed this morning and wondered if I could get cloves of Garlic into my nose, and thus closer to my ears; closer to where it feels like the soup leaking from my brain originates. And now, as I sit here in front of the keyboard,
253 with muck oozing from my cranium and out my ears like grey- matter-sludge streaming down the chute of a concrete mixer, the resulting itch is accompanied by a tune of dizziness. My condition is, though, thank Garlic, never ending and never beginning, but it does sometimes seems to be merciless in its discomforts. I may no longer be searching for the truth or any wisdom, but my I am is still searching for something… a garlic press! Perhaps if I just stick my clove of a head into a giant press and accept Existence’s despairing yet lovely livable squeeze, all delusions and doubts will be exorcized, and the muck that has been my lumpy grey mass of a brain may finally be restored to its natural state of spiritual thereness. I'm still in the midst of a Garlic revolution and the discomforts must persist. As Booji Boy might say: I'm in the midst of Garlic de-evolution!
Sometimes, when writing becomes difficult, I want to sound clever, and so I start thinking of witty things to say— but that's when it gets pretentious, and I become disenchanted. Then I start to feel as though the Garlic Cure is failing and I'm dying. Even if it's only confusion or uncertainty that is infecting these words, it's enough to send me spiraling into gloom, and cause me to start blaming people and things for this doubt. I want to then lash out at the sycophants and the dynasty families that have ruled these thoughts since the beginning of thoughts, and blame them for any and all discontentment: And this leads me wanting to ramble on in a political tirade as my head gets sucked down by the wild spin of the dizzying undertow resulting from the turbulent rage triggered off by the previous night's bottle of wine.
Fear in my own foolishness was not castigated or deflected: As you have just read in the previous paragraph, I became a victim again; I forgot that life is lived and not owned; I forgot that life has no sufferers. But luckily, I still
254 have the wafting, sweet, garlicky fragrance belonging to a Spiritual MSG to fall back on, and I am no longer capable of forgetting that life is a blessing without need, want or desire of sin or fault: Only a life held captive by vampires and monsters is ever in want of a savior.
I don't mean to be cynical, but life is just too delicious for the sham poesies of the previous paragraphs. The only thing that I can say without sounding tart and fruity is that life is ragout and I am is simmering on the Burner of Existence.
Nowing, sitting here, sipping from my morning cup of joe—and just to be sure, I put some Garlic in the coffee—I know that the meta-mathematics—the Mereology—I've been delivering will eventually give the disrespectful oligarchs and sycophants of this world a good tar and feathering, and thus there's no need to be overly dramatic or skeptical. The healing powers of Garlic be praised!
One question that must still be addressed is the idea of a broken consciousness: The perceptions as I believe they belong to me. Ernst Cassirer in Der Begriff der symbolischen Form im Aufbau der Geisteswissenschaften (Wesen und Wirkung des Symbolbegriffs, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1983, page 177) calls this a “chasm” or “abyss”, and in his wonderfully, usually succinct way, poses the problem as:
“How does the instance (of perceptual experience), as it is the moment of holding together time, not lose, as a moment, its temporality character as such; —how does the particular, here and now giveness of consciousness, define its own special individuality in a way that allows an interior view of a general substance, a mental-spiritual (menos) meaning?” (“Wie läßt sich der Agenblick, der Moment der Zeit festhalrten, ohne darin seinen Charakter als zeitlicher Augenblick zu verlieren; — wie läßt sich das Einzelne, Hier und Jetzt Gegebens des Bewußtseins, seine bedondere Individualität so bestimmen, daß in ihm ein allgemeiner Gehalt, eine geistige ‚Bedeutung‘ sichtbar wird?“)
255 In order for Garlic to maintain Gestalt integrity, this broken consciousness aspect of our experience must be clarified and delivered free of apparent (phenomenological or perceptual experiential) contradiction: otherwise Garlic is just another pharmaceutical snake oil remedy; a jumbo, stinky placebo. To put it in another way, the act of consciousness is not a finite constructive or deconstructive meditative state: The Epόche is not transcendence but simply awareness ising from every moment and place—there’s no probable or potential reality but only reality.
“Every movement of infinity comes about by passion, and no reflection can bring a movement about. This is the continual leap in existence which explains the movement, whereas mediation is a chimera which according to Hegel is supposed to explain everything, and at the same time this is the only thing he has never tried to explain.” (Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard 1843)
I don't want to keep terrorizing you, lovely readers, with these theoretical rants, but I keep thinking that the wonderful thing about philosophizing or thinking about thinking, in its most fundamental form as consciousness rising, is that the moment you get it, you realize how simplistic and almost childish the thinking games truly are. But it is this act, in its most fundamental form as consciousness rising—where and when function is not the building block binding Existence to Life (or Life to Existence) —which “no reflection can bring a movement about.” Thaumázein, which does “bring a movement about”, therefore needs passion to inspire, reject or, in our Individual case, destroy the true belief that Exists with every movement of the Infinite/Finite Life.
The only thing my I do does differently with these thinking games then (let's say) a modern philosopher or even
256 quantum physicist is to change the rules of engagement. Some might claim that this isn't possible, and to some degree these claims are valid, because I never change anything in this respect. I'm only the delivery person, a maitre d' of sorts, and any changes that have (r)evolved in thinking find their first and last judgments in their own nature of to exist—as sustainable expression: survival of the fittest as it, beliefs and systems of belief, is in a continued renewed state or (r)evolving state of expression. (This is something Kierkegaard wasn’t able to wrap his mind around.) More easily, and modernly said, either Existence buys it or Existence rejects it. Attention daily shoppers, there'll be a Blue Light Special on Exquisite Philosophy in aisle nine in exactly five minutes!
257 The idea of changing the rules for engaging the experience is unwittingly, and is by existence's own designs, always occurring: It is simply the shift in the shifting of paradigms. From the perspective of Garlic—as a Garlic Fable —for a clear example one need only to look at the foundation of modern sciences and the nature of knowledge as they were delivered to us in the middle to late Middle Ages through the introduction of Ancient Greek, Arabic and whatever other Ancient texts the scholars and/or artisans of the time could get their hands on, and one can see how Ancient Knowledge was redefined. Besides fifteenth century Italian artist/scientist/ mathematician/scholar/architect Leone Alberti expressing (in Della Pittura circa 1436) the universal perspective of reality having a nothingness goal and thus, by default of Nothingness, future beginning place along the horizon of the vanishing point of said perspective, we can already find in the world's first essayist, and one of the greatest scholars of the time (circa 1530), Michel Montaigne's statement, "What do I know" (Que scay je), and his own skeptical reply, "I determine nothing; I do not comprehend things; I suspend judgement; I examine" the roots of Ancient Knowledge being rewoven into the spirit of the Finitely unique yet Infinitely universal machines
258 of discovery. And then there’s Hume’s obvious disdain for substance and substantial forms—but the fairly simplistic conflict he had with Difference is now, in the reek of Garlic, much easier to experience. In Enlightened Times, the theory of substantial form as espoused by the Peripatetic School (circa 335 BC until 300 BC) becomes, through the work of Medieval and Enlightened scholars/scientists/painters/architects, Finite and unchanging, and comes to reflect simple, singular, absolute Finite power in a singular perspective, as it, power, was realized or represented during the late Medieval period (and throughout the early years of the Enlightenment) in the physical embodiments of God, Pope or King: So begins the shift of potentiality of Being—as matter or form—from Difference dialectic into Identity dialectic with all said knowledge being a posteriori: or it could be said that in our evolved state of garlic-free awareness the truth of things has come to be only revealed or realizable transcendentally: I am…one…the Individual! Through a transformation from the Infinite realm of experience, which took place in times of Enlightenment, knowledge as it was lived in the Ancient times comes to reflect a self or simple yet uniquely universal Identity… isn’t there a myth about a god named Narcissi who went mad when he indulged himself in just such an experience? (This syzygy of the Finite to Infinite in the experience aka awareness as it shifts awe aka thaumázein away from the experience itself, so as to establish finite delusional thereness, is, as it is in the Kierkegaardian dialectic, at the heart of faith as it is represented in Abrahamic Religions. Thus science would be, as it chooses nothingness over anything substantial—see Hume’s dismissal of substantial forms—a bastard offspring of Abraham.) And now, in opposition to our modern tradition of so-called knowledge as discovery, what Garlic fragrantly predicates (Fabelizes) is that a number of things are in the process of living the nature of discourse as it is consciousness… The first change is that the I am never predicates any of the objects themselves, but is only another object in the discourse
259 itself. Hume unfortunately missed the boat in his criticism of the “trivial propensities of the imagination of the Peripatetics found in their symptathies, antipathies, and horrors of a vacuum.” Because in the words of Garlic: The emotions found in the stones which have hurt a child belong to the stone and child and are not merely a product of the child’s individual, self-contained automata. Difference is the imperfect homogenous original matter. Secondly, the objects are always non-quantitative and quantitative: They are Finite and Infinite in Existence, and exist in complementarity. This is to say that only the Difference-dimension can be established as something remotely true: Objects move (as unbroken unity) consciously as Identity can rise2. The Medieval scholars changed this dynamic by reversing the flow: The Finite, as it is now the Individual perception, became the starting point. The other change that late medieval scholars made to the Ancient Traditions of Knowledge is to make the act of consciousness (as engagement) a task or problem to be solved. Truth be told, Life is not something to crack, and, now, considering I am is not the one doing the thinking then problem solving is no longer a necessary function of consciousness. This is to say that in and for Hume, and all scientists of his design, one can find the greatest occult quality as it is The Individual Perspective. Life is, in its fundamental nature, the sometimes turbulent and at other times (of the same moment) serene flow of Infinite/Finitude realizing its potential in one or the other. In other words, this whole smelly business of Garlic-consciousness is the gestalt to a cohesive, unified experience. The idea of the Big Smelly Bang can be found in the First Act of genetically, perhaps in the words of Hume, “bundled” consciousness itself. It would have to be or else it, we, you, me, this, that, up, down, etc., etc., couldn't be happening. Existence is (complementarity of) Infinite/Finitude: Any object rising is the exchange of Infinite/Finitude within Infinite/Finitude.
260 (Infinite/Finitude is the same as saying Infinite/Finite Difference.) Difference can be consciousness as discourse between Infinite/Finitude without Identity: Pure Ontology sans the thereness… sheer Being or sheer Existence. This is, or defines, the positivity of Existence (existing), and sets the stage for the first rising of Identity (see ontological numerical-form and eventually geometrical forms), and would be, in effect, the Smell in the Big Bang: Identity in a moment of singularity arises as discourse between Infinite/Finitude (or First Act as Unmoved Mover), and through this discourse Identity, as Difference consciousness, moves to restore Difference and Identity ‘in-balance’ to the complementarity of Infinite/Finitude. (But only when Being or Existence is not transcended: Existence as absolute Positivity cannot and does not ‘want’ to ‘not be’.) Take notice of how Finite equates to Identity, and Infinite equates to Difference— ignorance of this is why science and religion still flounder in Nothingness. The lack of the quantum dynamic is absent to what we presume to be knowledge for fear of falling into the rabbit hole. Our little machines of discovery have a hard time being Finite (unique) and at the same moment experiencing manifold or Infinite (universal) as something tangible. The difficulty comes in the fact that unity can only be an experience and never part of any perspective. (Duplicity is the result). In the garlicky Fable of Spinoza and Leibniz, this is revealed as a chasm that arises between the plurality (as Difference) in Leibniz’s Monadology and the Infinite/Finite, yet singular/many Substance of Spinoza’s Existence existing. Spinoza delivers the experience of or from the Infinite/Finite Difference realm of the sphere, and Leibniz delivers it from the Infinite/Finite Identity realm or along the horizon of Spinoza’s existing Existence. (This would be the “edge” of the two sides of the coin.) For Garlic, though, the self- contradicting question now becomes: How does Identity get established within this exchange or how does consciousness appear broken; disconnected to the point whereby form or Identity can make its debut3. The greatest mistake in modern science is the
261 continued belief that reality is divisible—even though Zeno has long since proven this to be impossible. The problem rests in the illusionary, Finite perspective of the sciences and scientists themselves. Identity or form as it rises in consciousness is always bound to its own Infinite qualities; but it's the relationship which and that rises in Difference. And at this moment of “the Big Smelly Bang”, guan xi ontology establishes relationship of illusion(s) in the rising of geometric forms. These relationships give rise to Identity, because Identity does not necessarily represent a true Difference value, but only a value of sustainable expression as to exist4. Difference and Identity are the two side of the coin, but the coin is always in the air with Difference before its Identity can be revealed. If Identity were to acknowledge its Difference as the true value, the coin would be, through such an act of consciousness, once again in the air and in a hellish free-fall into a (believed or mythical) rabbit whole of chaos or absolute nothingness. In other words Identity can’t achieve the expression to exist. Being, as it is Difference, in such a state is still positivity (Awe), but it is without expression. And remember this is a process which demands no time or space as it (the process) is genetically encoded in every act of consciousness as it is never a transcendental moment but only the moment... Nowing. The time and place of Existence is experienced in the now and is more akin to an intersection: The sphere expanding-contracting and the horizon expanding- contracting in right-left or forward-backward illusion with simultaneous somewhere and everywhere along this two- dimensions (Finite and Infinite) consciousness rising again and again and again (grounding) in geometric form; with a triangle being the most fundamental movement for the illusion of conscious Life to break (or breaking) from conscious Existence. Think of Euclid’s point and you’ll find the where and when of life living, and think of Descartes and you’ll find out why geometry is so basic to our or one’s understanding as it is broken. (This intersection is where and when science and
262 religion intersect but never meet.)
From the Eye of Garlic, consciousness (or reality) is always Infinitely/Finite (Finitely/Infinite or Infinite/Finite Difference), and this occurrence is immeasurable in time or units: even in the rising of its own awe or positivity, consciousness is always aware of itself. Relationship and experience can never transcend Existence5. This is the continuity (inhesion) that allows an exchange of all existing forms with one another. Awareness (consciousness) is always bound in Difference because it is an exchange of Infinite/Finite (as complementarity) qualities: The awareness as relationship still rises in the absolute positive nature of Infinite/Finitude. Regardless of how many objects are in balanced and/or imbalanced relationship, awareness is delivered in the continued exchange from the singular-dual quality of Infinite/Finitude of one (geometric) object through the Infinite/Finitude of otherness6. Difference is rooted or roots in absolute Infinite/Finitude of consciousness: Ontological Being—Being as non-expression but only absolute balanced consciousness: sheer Existence or sheer Being—and Identity is/are Vollkommen Being…life living. In this Garlic awareness (or a non-transcendental perspective), in one possible model to establishing guan xi (Duplicitous non- transcendental thereness as it is broken consciousness) or geometrical form-consciousness—i.e., the Big Bang’s debut— Identity begins when the number of numerical objects, as they are only Difference, reaches a total of three. The form or dimensionality is Existence itself as it is still the context of the awareness—two objects plus the object we believe to be self, but in this instance Being, as an Infinite/Finitude is finally becoming, rises in relationship to one another (itself) and the net total is Life (Identity of otherness is established). When the awareness or Existence becomes an object in the relationship of the other three objects of Existence—when
263 self becomes aware of this engagement Life becomes the smell in the bang: Because of our or one’s perceived Identity, Difference continually reaffirms Existence into its own Infinite quality (Duration lives!7). (The smell defines life in its nonfunctional essence as pure aesthetic: Positivity.) The form of a triangle appears to the (or our or one’s) awareness as it is Existence, which further increases Existence's own positive nature of to rise. A triangle, in this relationship to Existence itself (and eventually to other geometric forms), forms a pyramid (through one’s perspective), but in this moment of awareness, as Life perpetuates itself in rising-pyramid-reference, something happens for and to us—in as far as we believe ourselves to be of and in a state of human consciousness. Normally every object in this relationship would maintain Infinite/Finite qualities with each point having its own Infinite/Finite possibility of relationship (Difference as ontological thereness). Life is not broken or yet completely divisible: Divisibility expresses itself in the guan xi ontological nature of complex relationships' sometimes confrontational, sometimes direct, sometimes slippery and illusive rising as triangles turn into, through the numerical addition of consciousness consciousizing, squares, rectangles, hexagons, octagons, and so on, and the inward-outward (Infinite/Finitude) movement of the objects themselves present spherical potential of Infinite/Finitude (chanting of spheres) as they interweave and clash with triangles, squares and such, whereby new Identities are delivered and old (historical consciousness) Identities (genetically) transformed or metamorphosed… but it is our perspective of the pyramid, which is formed in this moment of Infinite/Finite relationship between outward-inward and front-to-back (back-to-front) along a plane or horizon, that, when confronted with an illusion, allows one (Existence as an unwitting, playfully hidden Infinite/Finitude) to live as perceptual Being. The history of this moment can be traced through all known texts
264 of knowledge, and its birth can be found in the idea of Zero or the contemplation thereof8. Until the time of Leibniz, Zero, although existent prior to Leibniz, didn't assume a rule of absolute neutrality but orchestrated a relationship of objects. You and I, in our Garlic Free Zeitgeist, understand Zero in the aforementioned context in a pagan framework of god(s) or spirits. And as such, in our highly evolved epistemological standings, we see such Zeroes as result of a silly, lesser evolved human understanding. But this epistemological stance we defend (in our garlic-free non-Existences) ignores Life as a some-thing that is simply sustainable, and thus, such a stance, creates only a framework for strange concepts of knowledge, morality and sense of control: see values prescribed to Individual, consumer objects of Identity or scientists’ time travel theories or religion’s before and after life dogmas. Even for Leibniz Zero still orchestrated relationships, but it was his placement of or the locality of Zero's point of reference, whereby a Leibniz delivered Zero, where and when an (r)evolution of and in knowledge is revealed. Leibniz still believed reality was an orchestrated act of Consciousness—the capital “C” emphasizes consciousness’s so-called revelation or elevation of Natural Laws or Natural Order (as it is an Identity grounding) that is discovered in the all-encompassing, finitely mechanical God-like nature implicit (or sprouting) in the Enlightenment era. Leibniz work was and still is an attempt to root a perception free from the Cartesian mind/body dilemma in monistic thereness, but the presence disclosed in his work, which is grounding in the horizon of the chanting sphere, still refuses to acknowledge its more primitive essence that is the grounding (Spinozian) sphere itself.
With Leibniz’s delivery of Zero, though, Being presents itself (historically) with new opportunities of ‘to exist’. If you as an object in relationship to the points forming a triangle become aware (historically) of this pyramid from an absolute angle of symmetry, through another act (although it’s
265 always really only one/many playfully hidden concurrent acts) of sheer Being, there is a point in the relationship that vanishes or at least gives the illusion of having vanished from the relationship of sheer Being: from either the you, I—as in one’s —or All—as in Infinite—Being perspective. (The Infinite/Finite is always a fundamental dynamic to the relationship, but at this point it, Being, becomes a matter of the Big Smelly Bang giving rise to and in guan xi ontology.) You (as you are also ontological Difference or Finite/Infinite dimension of Existence) can only see the triangle as it exists with a point in its center. And as you continue rising in relationship to this form (you are living aren't you?), this point in the middle of the triangle, which is normally a point of intersection or angle in the pyramid, is not recognized in living: This is the birth of dimensional or Plane Geometry relationship. Existence, as it perceives from its Finite aspect, becomes a flat spot along a plane of existence: Imagine viewing a star, as a you (Finite) and Infinite (All) Existence, in the night sky and not knowing if behind the star, as you are viewing it, there lies in a straight line myriad other stars no longer visible to your view because they are hidden behind the star (now believed) nearest to you—just as much as All (Infinite) existence believes you (Finite) to be distinct and separate. This star, in a sense, negates all other stars resting behind it, as well as All existence negates the Zenith star (or Zenith point of intersection) of the pyramid now hidden by a nearer star; the nearer star assuming the role of Zenith. A or the star now found in a blind reveals a perspective in a natural state of skepticism: Life of the star or…or the All, Infinite consciousness, as both are still in truth Infinite/Finite aspect of the same/different moment, is lived as it is not there but it, Being, is not sure where, when or why it is there. There is conflict arising from All of the Finite perspective(s). Sure, in living as the star, one can imagine other stars to exist behind it, but the moment one imagines, the illusion becomes dependent upon
266 negation… maybe it, the star in front of me (one), is the only star or maybe I am the only star behind it? (The modern physicists’ answer is to run some experiments, i.e. smash it to bits, and test what they believe to be their theories.) There is an Infinite realm of illusionary disconnectedness or life as form rising, and with it time and space, through the illusionary disconnectedness, are set in motion. Additionally, each hidden star in the straight line now has the potentiality of belonging to different galaxies: Multiple universes of illusion (and the orientation of Narcissi’s madness!) During the late Middle Ages this perspective, as it is broken-consciousness grounded in symmetry, reveals fractals as the moment before the flat spot causes duplicity. (Creating a coherent schematic to The how a Difference becomes lost in this expression should be the job of science, but if I get the opportunity I will see if Garlic can give us another glimpse.) But for our life a mystical barrier now appears to separate one (as a Finite object of Difference of either a geometric-form or single Difference moment) from the Infinite/Finite object of consciousness itself or from consciousness geometric-form or single Difference moment: There is a lack of awareness in not only the vantage point but from many Difference vantage points. Out of such a constellation arise constantly new dimensions of emotion and sensibility to express or live as the Positivity of Existence (Being): The skeptical nature inherent in the illusionary perspectives (real number value) is defined or gestalted in the meta- temporality ordering (natural number ontology) as possibility and potentiality. (The combination of the real and natural processes reveals an elusive nature of time and the mapping like nature of sets and subsets from real to natural numbers.) Following the Dark Ages, a time when absolute Finitude ruled life in Medieval Europe, this radical vantage point of Finitude, a point sans the Infinitude, would eventually, and through the mutation of Ancient Wisdom in the realm of Infinite values as delivered by medieval scholars,
267 use Zero as a place holder, or used to create a flat spot to and/or in living. (Zero assumes the role of Difference’s band leader in Leibniz’s discourse, for example.) Now, in our day and age, and in our modern scientific and religious stories, Zero is the face of Infinite/Finitude: Zero objectifies Existence into a possible/potential, physically Finite reality, and, as such, delivers the illusion of one’s perception as it struggles to reconnect itself to the relationship of Infinite/Finitude. And not so ironically, we believe ourselves to be the ones chosen to build the bridge over the flat spot... returning us to the Garden of Eden or granting us victory over the Nothingness of space and time. Zero as the great divide opens up a door to existing but closes a door to Existence. The modern interpretation, quasi-experience, of mathematics, sciences, and religion are narrated in this wonderfully, Narcissilly crazy spirit. It's powerful juju.
268 Chapter 32
It's funny how we Americans like to package and label our problems, and then take a prescribed pharmaceutical as a cure or alleviant for our prepackaged and labeled problems with the belief that in doing so all our problems will simply go away. Or we like to believe that the “lack of Jesus in our lives” is what causes kids to run amuck with shotguns and hand grenades at schools, movie theaters or shopping malls. Or believe that this same lack of Jesus is the true reason behind why the economically disadvantaged have a statistically higher number of people doing time in jail—such criminals having become criminal because of their ignorance of or lack of faith in Jesus? No, that’s not what the modern, neo-con friends of Jesus would say, because if this were the case then prison wouldn’t be the answer: a good sermon should be enough to get a poor person on the right track. Ironically, with over three million people in prisons, America’s total prison population far exceeds, when calculating percentages in comparison to a country’s total population, that of anywhere else in the world, and yet we chose to believe that only countries like ‘Godless China’, ‘mafia/oligarchy Russia’ or ‘communist Castro Cuba’ have what we deem to be ‘good prisoner’ or what we in prideful ignorance dub, ‘righteous political prisoners’. Because America is so perfect we emphatically and zealously know that only our prisoners are… bad. The best part to our way of caging the truth of right and wrong is that no matter what the situation may be, American Democracy and Capitalism remain righteous…. Hurry up! There are only three hundred and four shopping days left before Christ’s birthday celebration!
I became a farmer punk in 1986 in Naperville, Illinois at Hauptland Farms, but respectfully I have to thank my mother for my love of gardening. I finally have to give her credit for something other than going nuts, poisoning Jim B., and insti-
269 tutionalizing me. When I was still quite young, she used to plant a large vegetable garden behind my father's warehouses. And planting a garden, with all of its consequent discoveries, grime, smells, and toils, became for me a sign that summer was just around the corner—which meant no school and lots of fun. In spring, my dad rented a rototiller or our neighbor, old man Kramer, would get out one of his big tractors and till up the soil. Not only was the loud, clanging, roaring sound of a tractor or rototiller exciting, but sometimes we'd find salamanders, moles, snakes and other critters as they scurried away from the onslaught of the earth-eating, booming machinery. I might have hated weeding as a child, but everything else about my mother’s garden was exciting, and later, thanks to these attempts at normalcy by my mother, I would be able to find some sanctity in farming: She gave me the tools that would serve as a kind of armor against eventual insanity—hers and mine.
When I started at Hauptland Farm the owner, Winifred, was still alive and a spry seventy-four years old. I've never had more respect for a person than I have for Winifred. She was charming, witty, intelligent, and beautiful. I can still recall her attractive smile, as we stood together in the fields, and how the wispy strands of aged platinum blond hair blew into and across her radiating face… As my friend Eddy Derepokowski, a WWII Veteran and soldier in the landing at Normandy, might have said: If I would have been five seconds older, I would have married that woman.
270 Winifred lived on the farm alone, but it was her son, Jeremy, who ran it. He had an apartment somewhere else in Naperville, but he came by every day to have breakfast with his mother and to give the hired hand (me, in this story) a list of things to do. Before you jump to any mental images here, you have to understand that Hauptland Farm was located smack-dab in the middle of suburban development, and that the 1980s Naperville, Illinois had some of the most sought after property in the entire United States…. The Haupts were farming property worth millions. (See tax exempt farm status.)
Jeremy also earned my immediate respect. Besides being an international businessman for Nippon Inc., or the fact that he could speak four languages fluently and another half dozen well enough to get him through dinner and a cab ride home, he was truly a decent guy. It could be said that people like the Haupts were the last of responsible middle class Republicans of yesteryear: He belonged to the Republicans who cared about their Constitutional American world and not the simple immediate gratification of consumerism. Life may have been for people like the Haupts economical, but it wasn’t a product. Such Republicans weren't greedy, but responsible; they simply believed in individual freedoms and small government. Jeremy needed someone on the farm for two reasons; the first being he needed someone to deal with his mother. In addition to her beauty and charm, she was a spitfire! Oh man was she a woman! If you did something dumb or did a half- assed job weeding, mowing, or whatever it was, she gave you a verbal assault like nobody's business! Secondly, Jeremy needed someone he could count on to keep the farm running. It was fifteen acres of farmed land, or better stated: It was a giant vegetable garden. There was planting, weeding, machinery upkeep, maintaining the irrigation system, picking, pruning, lawn mowing, and constant minor repairs to the
271 house that had to be done. Speaking of which, one of my fondest confrontations with Mrs. Haupt was at the end of my first season. Against my will, Jeremy got me to paint the house, and while haphazardly doing it I spilled some paint on the rock walkway going from the front door to the driveway. Mrs. Haupt came out and gave me a piece of her mind: "How could you be so stupid? That's marble out there! Don't you have enough common sense to put plastic down!?" I looked up at her, and smiled. I knew from Jeremy that, despite my faults, his mother liked me. I'd picked raspberries with her a couple of times and she knew I handled them gently, and this she respected. She even told me that I would have made her proud as a son. So after she was done giving me my verbal thrashing I replied; "That may be, but if you want the job done right, next time hire yourself a painter to do the painting." She stormed back into the house. Later Jeremy asked me about it. "Did you really tell her to hire a painter?" He had to laugh. I meant no disrespect, and she knew it. I wasn't always mindful, but I tried, and that much she could tell. That's one nice thing about honest people: rich, poor, farmer, punk or international businessman. If you're honest and respectful you don't have to play games. Jeremy told me I was the only worker to have ever been honest with his mother and that it might kill her. I have always been a good worker, and after my first season Jeremy informed me that in the fifteen years they'd been running the vegetable stand I was the only person to have ever pulled a profit. I weeded relentlessly, picked every last bean, and even managed to pick every pumpkin! You try to move a thousand pumpkins in two days; not just once, but twice. First you have to pick them, and then you have to put them on the flatbed, and then you have to move them to the front of the farm, setting them out alongside the stand on the easement along the road. At nineteen, I already had a constant backache from picking beans, weeds and pumpkins. But this interaction with the land helped me regain my footing
272 and allowed me to think. It gave me a chance to breathe and to find a relationship with myself again—one that revealed my Existence instead of denying it. This was still two years before my first bike ride, but working as a farmhand gave me a glimpse at the possibility of living again. The Haupts are good people and I still speak to Winfred even though she’s been dead for over twenty-five years. (The following section is a fictional account because I have not verified my assumptions in regards to the nature of the medicinal alleviant actually researched, produced and administered by Jeremy’s father, Dr. Haupt. The account is by no means meant to disrespect anyone in the Haupt family. And if the story is in no way representative of any truth, which might be the case, then I hope it is, at the bare minimum, simply a good story.)
You might wonder why a successful businessman would spend his free time toiling and tilling the land—valuable land that would have made him and his mother rich. Although farmed land isn't taxable, what sense is there in clinging to fifteen acres of valuable land in suburbia, in the middle of neurosis-hell; in lieu of a multi-million dollar payout? I'm not completely certain, but I do know that Jeremy's father was a doctor, and that when he was alive he'd developed an alleviant with 100% palliative effect for all respiratory ailments1. When I worked there, there were hundreds of files in the cellar of the farm with case reports from numerous patients. I once asked Jeremy why he didn't sell the research to the pharmaceutical industry. I mean it's got to be worth a billion-gazillion bucks, wouldn't you think? He simply shrugged his shoulders and said he wasn't interested. From what I could gather his father redeveloped or rediscovered a remedy that goes back thousands of years. During the time of Ancient Egyptians, Chinese, East Indians and Mayans, to name a few, the use of cannabis for respiratory ailments was well-known. But you see, although I do not smoke pot, I have
273 to agree with Colliers Encyclopedia (as provided by http://reefermadnessmuseum.org): COLLIERS ENCYCLOPEDIA [1955 Edition] - subsection on Drug Addiction
MARIJUANA, the North American homologue of hashish or Indian hemp, has gained in popularity among addicts, particularly during World War II. Its relative cheapness, the fact that the plant flourishes anywhere in the United States from open fields to window boxes, the case with which it can be used as a smoke (rather than the painful, possible infective, and expensive hypodermic), and its allegedly stimulating effects all account for its usage. Another physiological phenomenon is the relative harmlessness, other than photophobia (pathological sensitivity of the eyes to light) which accounts for so many marijuana addicts constantly wearing dark glasses. Other than this, none of the ravages to health, such as are common in morphisms, are encountered. A certain amount of eventual depravity and some depression may be found, but how much of this constitutes overt expressions of the original personality cannot be gauged. After two or three cigarettes, the addicts' experiences decreased power to control his actions and thoughts; the mental confusion is followed by euphoria, a feeling of increased power and ability. Illusions are common, as are pleasing, fanciful hallucinations. Disorientation and delirium may ensue. Under the influence of marijuana violent acts have been committed, including homicide, sexual orgies, and gruesome sadistic acts.
I wholly agree, as I'm sure Jeremy's father did, with the above definition. Marijuana is a cure, as is Garlic, but since I, personally, already suffer from mental confusion as followed by euphoria, and my illusions are common, as well as pleasing, fanciful hallucinations, I don't need pot because I already know that I am alive. I am also convinced in my state of bewilderment that the Haupts were already suffering from mental confusion created by the misdeeds of Dr. Haupt, and this is why Jeremy and his mother 274 refused to sell the land: They just didn't know any better. They were all too high to understand the value of a million-gazzilion bucks! Dr. Haupt had obviously brainwashed or poisoned his son and wife with lies about pot, and I’m sure at the same moment, the mere presence of marijuana on the property, at the time of his father’s research, caused Jeremy and Winifred to eventually become psychotic. Jeremy and his mother were obviously, one way or another, already UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF MARIJUANA, and had more than likely already committed numerous VIOLENT ACTS, INCLUDING HOMICIDE, SEXUAL ORGIES, AND GRUESOME SADISTIC ACTS. This is obviously why they had no interest in selling their property for a multi-million dollar payout.
As for myself and violent, gruesome sadistic acts, homicide and sexual orgies, I've engaged in my share: some acts more than others. And for this I never needed pot… but Garlic on the other hand. Garlic is sensual-over-indulgence, and, thus, I'm in no immediate need of a joint. Garlic does, however, sometimes clash with pot: Because Garlic keeps the dark shades off my eyes. Garlic delivers the blindingly positive light of living as ragout—and therefore Marijuana and its dark shades of depravity are not yet able to mix into this splendid dish called my life. But someday I'll smoke pot, and it will be then, in that stoned, homicidal, sexually depraved, sadistic moment, that I'll be truly wise: It'll be at a time when I've completely defeated the monsters and vampires. It will be then in my fragrant, garlicky Existence that I'll gleefully inhale the fumes of depravity and embrace the blood lust, and my spirit will rise to the greatest levels of Existence. But until then I will just have to do with the sweet aroma of the Spiritual MSG known as Garlic. The Haupt family suffered due to the American oil and pharmaceutical companies' interests in keeping hemp oil and
275 hemp by-products off the open markets at any cost. And of course, the Haupts suffered at the mercy of America’s emerging mass consumer Identity's indirect need for manageable evils. Like any person not sold into consumer slavery, the Haupt family became victims of progress. The Haupts held onto their dignity by farming the land—land that Naperville would have rather developed, but since farmed land is not taxable they were able to hold on to their property and be a thorn in the side of progress. I'm not sure if the farm is still there, and I wouldn't hold it against Jeremy if he’d long since cashed in. Even if he were to plough his fields and plant only Garlic, the vampires and monsters are just too strong in suburbia. During the time I worked at Hauptland Farm I lived with family friends, the McMann’s. They used to live near us in Downers Grove, and my brother and I went to Lester Grade School with the McMann kids. But they had long since moved to Naperville, and their home was at the time of my employment on the farm only a block away. I paid room and board, and eventually, at the end of the second farming season, I committed felonies from the basement of their home. Ultimately, because of the crimes I and my friends were committing, the FBI started poking around. This is one of the things, from many of the questionable things that I have done, I cannot go into detail about, but I will say this: I am sorry, but not to the United States Government. You can keep hemp off our markets, and you can pretend that trickle-down economics is for the good of the people and not for you and your Dynasty families’ personal profits, but until you start acting responsibly there's no need for me to apologize for any crimes committed against the Government. I do, however, apologize to Mrs. McMann for using her home in an improper manner: She deserved more respect from me, and I should never have put her and her children in a tentative position. I still talk to her, and I have always liked her and her family. They were always good friends to me and my family. Even
276 my wife and daughter know Mrs. McMann though we've spent more time in Germany and China than in the USA. During the second season, Dan Tailor started to work for Hauptland Farms, and eventually Ross and Mick would work there as well. We all became farmer punks. Besides just being a kind of foster brother, Dan and I were also very close for a while. When I wasn't farming, I was still living with him and his family, and when I was at their home, out of appreciation, I took care of many of the daily chores. On one of my days off, and while Dan was working his shift at the farm, a greasy, grisly-looking biker knocked on the door. He said he was from AT&T, the phone company, and that Mrs. Tailor had called about a problem with the phones. Without thinking about it, I let him in. But as the man dinked around with various phones, it dawned on me that something wasn’t right. Besides the fact that the guy didn’t look like a phone company employee, Mrs. Tailor would have said something to me. Later that day, when Mrs. Tailor got home from work I asked her about it. She'd never called the phone company—and she definitely didn’t know about the serious crimes that Dan, another friend, Jamie, and I were engaged in at the McMann household. Shortly after this incident, as Dan and I were working alternate shifts on the farm, I headed out East with Brooks and some other friends. The plan was to go to the Grateful Dead concert in DC, buy hundreds of dollars in LSD hits, and come back heroes. Not only did we buy two hundred dollars in fake shit, but back at home, while we were truck'n on down to DC over the Fourth of July weekend, Dan, in an attempt to reach the other side of here, dropped eight hits of acid and transformed himself into a celebratory, exploding firework in the evening sky of Downers Grove. In his shattered existence, as he was being transported to the hospital via ambulance, he revealed to his parents that Brooks and I were in DC buying the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and that his younger brother, Mark, was at that very moment out somewhere
277 riding Gamera the giant flying turtle. Needless to say our return was less than heroic, and it was the beginning of my outs with Mrs. Tailor. She had enough problems with raising her own children, and now this child who she'd taken into her home seemed to be the root of all evil. Dan and Mark's father was more forgiving, and although I do feel that I let Mrs. Tailor down, Mr. Tailor understood there was no blaming me for the choices their sons made, and so he kept his wife from completely banishing me from their home. Both Mr. and Mrs. Tailor knew I had always supported their sons' prior sobriety because it gave me hope in something more than the bottle, but Dan and Mark's conversion to the world of hallucinations, although by no means a welcomed change for me either, was somehow part of my world. When the second farming season ended, and the Chicago area TV stations and newspapers were consumed with the crimes we had committed in the McMann's basement, I made an attempt to move up to my dad's in northern Wisconsin, but, fortunately, Brooks cancelled on my ride. I didn't know then what my dad was doing, and I'm not sure I could have dealt with it. But I needed to get out of suburbia because our consumption of LSD, nitrous oxide, and alcohol was, by this point, out of hand; I had numerous reasons to get out: The vampires were closing in on me. It was during this time that I got to know Dale M. (a friend who deserves his own chapter), and after my falling out with Mrs. Tailor, I lived off and on with him, Phil P, Aaron M., and Preston G. in Chicago on North Ave. Dale's a good guy, and at that time he was happy to have crazy people hanging around. Somewhere between dropping out of Loyola and working on the farm, I went to the College of DuPage for some credits, and then after hanging at Dale’s for a few months, I eventually went to National College of Education for a free semester—the place where my mom and Jim worked together. At National College I asked too many questions in some of my classes, and I had the audacity to tell my Art
278 teacher that I had missed a Monday class because the LSD trip on Sunday hadn't worn off yet, and I’d stayed home because I didn't want to make a scene. Sometimes I'm not the brightest match in the book, but why shouldn’t a person be open and honest about themselves? As far as I was concerned, the reason for my absence shouldn’t have mattered: I was getting good grades; I had started running; I was making progress in the Beaver Cleaver image… wasn't I? As a result of my honesty with the Art teacher, the school psychologist called me into her office and asked me if I had a drug problem. I told her that I didn't purchase or take sleeping pills, caffeine pills, stomach pills, headache pills, anti-depressants, vitamins; pills to make me poop, pills to stop me from pooping, or any other pharmaceuticals. But if she meant to ask if I drop LSD then the answer was yes: But I had no problems with it, and neither did my grades. Turning the tables I then asked her: "How the hell can a student ask too many questions? Wasn't this a college?" She gave me a loud harumpf and told me I should look for a different school—thus adding another ingredient into my mother's ever rotting ragout. After kicking around Dale's again, and feeling like a complete failure, I decided that I would go to the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay. At the time of my decision, in the first week of January, 1987, Green Bay was the only university still accepting applications for Spring Semester—and it was cheap: It was only $900.00 a semester, and the student dorms were only a $150 a month. They sent me an application, and I drove up the following day and began classes a week later. I saw two FBI agents about six months later, but by that time my alcohol and drug consumption were being caged (I'd made the Grandfather clause in Wisconsin so I could legally drink, and my life of committing crimes against the Federal Government had all but ceased). As the two towering agents, clad in black suits, followed me through the Piggly Wiggly on University Ave, I finally stopped, turned to them, and said,
279 "I'm no longer in the business. I'm just here studying." They didn't say anything, but they did stop following me—at least so obviously.
Chapter 33
280 Before my encounter with the FBI at the Piggly Wiggly on University Ave, I’d just finished my first semester, and was already infatuated with the city of Green Bay, its people, its air, its water, the university and all of my professors. To this day I’m still a Green Bay Packers fan and I hate football!
Even though I left the Western Suburbs of Chicago at age nineteen, I can honestly say I grew up in Green Bay, because this is where I learned to enjoy life. I left every bit of insanity behind me and found a place where all the foul and rotten ingredients finally had the chance to find an aromatic and delicious place in my ragout. As a sign of my appreciation, and as an offering to the Packer gods, the last weekend I was to live in the student dorm before illegally pitching my tent in the University Arboretum in order to save money on rent, I took all the furniture from my dorm room and, ingeniously, with a two hundred-foot long rope— allowing a distance of twenty-two feet between each item— tied everything together: couch, end tables, lamps, kitchen table and chairs. I climbed the gutters of the building, and, once securely footed on the slightly slanted roof, pulled each item to the top one at a time and arranged them as though the roof top was my apartment living room. It wasn’t an easy feat; that cheap, pressed-wood, dorm room furniture is extremely heavy.
Because I was this crazy punk rocker from the big city of Chicago, my zany roommates Kevin and John, weren’t so warm to me initially, but by the end of my first semester they enjoyed every bit of my insanity, as I did theirs. They were there cheering me on as I climbed the dorm building gutter with a rope-end fastened around my waist; watching as I slowly lifted the heavy furniture into the air. John and Kevin,
281 although they would have liked to, couldn’t be involved with my little performance art piece. Because of their drunken, belligerent and destructive ways, the university had long since had problems with them before I ever showed up, and wanted them out of the university. If they would have played any role in my little exhibition they would have been expelled. As an example representative of their insanity, I arrived home late one night to find the Campus security assembled in front of our door with an army of RAs, all screaming things like “You’re out of here!” and “There’ll be criminal charges filed against you!” and “You’ve gone too far, now!”, because John and Kevin, having barricaded themselves inside our apartment, were in the process of knocking out a wall with sledgehammers: Their ruckus had stirred every student in Campus housing. One would have thought that there would have been an inevitable expulsion waiting for the two of them, but, hilariously, they had everything all prepared to rebuild a new wall: drywall, screws, tapping, paint. Before the university officials came out the following Monday to assess the situation, John and Kevin had already rebuilt the wall, and they acted as if campus security and the RAs were nuts. The wall looked even better than before!
During my evening of anarchy, they were there, with beers in hand, and just enjoying my spectacle with pride: We had become good friends. After an all-night battle, the furniture was in place, and as the sun rose I sat on my couch, coffee in hand, and acted as though being perched on the roof of the dorm with all my furniture was a normal occurrence. Within an hour the news people, the dean of students, the head of security, and the police were there. From the congeries of authority accreting below, not one of them said a thing to me as I sipped coffee from my thermos cup and watched the sun come up over the Bay. Finally, after a good hour, the head of security languidly walked up to the side of the building and gently hollered, “Son, do you want to come
282 down from there?” He had a very warm and caring tone to his voice, and because of this I realized none of them had any idea what was going on; they thought I was going to kill myself…. But first before I killed myself I had the burning desire to arrange all of my furniture on the roof and to drink a cup of coffee as the sun rose up over Lake Michigan? I looked at him from the comfort of my sofa, and said, “Yes, I would like that very much.” The middle-aged, balding man with a mustache looked up, and replied, “Well?”
I took another sip of coffee, smiled, and said, “Well, what the fuck, do you want me to jump or something? Get me a ladder.” In my moment of sarcasm, he looked at the furniture again, and slowly nodded his head that now was displaying a cracked a smile: he finally understood the situation. Still smiling, he nodded at me, and then turned, and went back to his clan of control still gathered, with their mommy and daddy faces of concern garnishing their expressions, a few dozen yards away. About ten minutes later the maintenance man arrived with the ladder. I was immediately escorted to the university psychologist where my sanity was to be questioned: “Son we think you have a problem with making good judgments,” said the man with the framed licenses and diplomas hanging on the wall behind him. I was tired and worn out from pulling hundreds of pounds of furniture onto the roof, but I’d sat before the psychologists before, and I knew the drill.
“I have poor judgment?”
“Well, normal people don’t put their furniture on a roof and watch the sun rise.”
“Just what do normal people do?”
He gave me the expected response: Play football, basketball, watch TV, do homework, etcetera. I then asked
283 him if voting was something normal, and if a person needs good judgment to cast a vote.
“Of course. Certain activities like voting are exactly what I mean.” This was at the end of Reagan’s second term, and although the world still may still refuse to acknowledge he had been suffering from Alzheimer’s since the early eighties it was obvious at that point in time.
“So I take it you voted in the last election?”
“I sure did.”
“And since Reagan was elected with a 70% victory, I can assume that you more than likely voted for him, and even if you didn’t, that’s still a lot of people employing their powers of good judgment.” He didn’t respond verbally, but I could see he was angry because I had him trapped: I wasn’t the one being scrutinized, but the one doing the scrutinizing. “And it is common knowledge that he’s spent more money, our social security money to be exact, building up our nuclear arsenal than all the previous Presidents combined. Furthermore, it is also common knowledge that we already have enough bombs to destroy the world thousands of times over: And this nuclear arms race; this waste of our money, time, and energy, you justify with your so-called good judgment?” I smiled, and he frowned. “I’m sorry, but I think we have different criterion for deciding right and wrong, and obviously you are not qualified to judge me.”
For my actions I was put on university probation, and was no longer allowed to live in student housing. I also had to sign a document declaring that Kevin and John were not present or active in my performance; the university was really tired of these two good old boys from Crivitz, Wisconsin.
To this day, as a kind of tribute to my performance art
284 piece, at the end of every semester, UWGB students lace their old gym shoes together and fling them up into the trees, and telephone and power lines throughout the campus; from branches and power and telephone lines the shoes dangle like tinsel on Christmas trees.
I decided to stay in Green Bay for the summer, but in order to do so I had to get my cost of living down to about a dollar a day. By this point in my life I had come to understand that owning junk and paying the landlord, phone, electric, gas and oil companies was nothing more than collective slavery: a slavery to which people freely acquiesced. Green Bay had life, and sleeping on the bay in a tent was something the locals admired and didn’t shun. Green Bay had early on ignored the Cleavers and the Brady Bunch, because it had its own life: That’s what happens in hardworking port cities. Green Bay is the farthest western port from the Atlantic. It is two hundred years older than Chicago, and is the 13th oldest settlement in America. Most of my friends had great, great, great grandparents who were born in Green Bay; this alone defines Green Bay in a heritage that is absent from most of the Midwest. Sure, at the time there weren’t many minorities in Green Bay, and when I arrived it had the most unsolved murders in America and the highest rate of rape, but despite these trivial quandaries, it was a city with history and soul.
Anyway, I sold my old Buick Skylark and bought a bike at St. Vincent DePaul’s, and with my friend, Tim L., we set up tents in a densely wooded area of the campus, roughly a couple hundred yards away from the Bay. I started playing in a band, Rosary, and got an early morning job at a Veterinarian hospital walking dogs from their kennel. This is where I met the legendary Ray H.—the guy who broke my neck. He was the manager of the Veterinarian Animal Hospital.
285 I could go into more detail in regard to my life on the Bay, considering these friends from Green Bay greatly changed my perspective. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t slow down my pace or let my insanity level off one bit, but these stories of adventure with Green Bay friends take me on journeys spreading over dozens of States, two continents, and numerous countries. If I tried to just mention a few stunts, adventures, crimes, and fiascos I have lived with these mates, we would be into a completely new book and spirit. Perhaps someday one of Garlic’s relatives will write these stories, but for now Garlic is here to once and for all exorcise the vampires and monsters still lingering from an earlier menu in my life. Garlic be praised!
286 Chapter 34
My first bicycle tour from Nowhere Montana to Anchorage Alaska was destined to be a meta-magical ride. My riding partner, James Cumber (Jim) and I had met only once, prior to beginning the journey, through the introduction of a mutual friend, and so we didn’t really know each other when we started out; in essence he was a complete stranger. Originally, as the plan was devised over the telephone, we would begin peddling in Whitefish, Montana, and from there ride north through the Canadian Rockies, then cut across Alberta and British Columbia, until finally reaching Prince Rupert, BC and the Pacific Ocean. From there we would get on board a cruise ship, and ride it along the Inside Passage up to Haines, Alaska, and then finish off the remaining seven hundred and fifty miles on our bikes.
For our plan to work we needed a lift from Green Bay to Whitefish Montana, and Mark and Brooks were nice enough to offer us the ride. Due to their jobs, they had a limited time schedule, and basically their offer was to drive as far as they could within a weekend’s time: For them that meant roughly sixty hours of nonstop driving. The time came, and they left Chicago on a Friday afternoon after work. When they finally arrived in Green Bay, it was late and they were tired, and they first slept a few hours. At around three in the morning on Saturday we began our journey together; first driving northwards toward Highway 2, which, once getting on it, would then take us west to Whitefish. In Montana, Highway 2 eventually forks into the Historic Lewis and Clark Trail, and, from the very beginning of the ride, in setting the mood of our adventure I assumed the role of Clark and Jim became Lewis. We were explorers out in the world, living life to its fullest, and everything was going dandy—that is until I was forced into the driver’s seat. We had already driven
287 through Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota, and I was the only person yet to drive—and I had no desire to. At some point in my life it occurred to me that cars were meant to enslave humanity and not set us free, and so I have a personal distaste for them. And on this first glorious bike trip I would have preferred to have remained in the back seat of Mark’s brand new Audi 5000… an expensive car for any nineteen year old to be driving let alone owning. Mark worked at the time removing asbestos, earning $75 an hour, and with the fruits of his death inducing occupation he did things like buy expensive cars. Mark, my former foster brother of sorts, and a tremendously warmhearted, sincere person, demanded that I get my lazy ass into the driver’s seat and do my time driving —despite my radical ideologies. I tried arguing my way out of it, but Mark, Brooks and Jim were not at all sympathetic to my cause. After begrudgingly taking the helm of his beautiful, new and, unbeknownst to me, uninsured car, I was driving a 100mph across the North Dakota boarder into Montana on a Saturday night, on my way to begin a life changing journey, when a deer jumped out in front of the car. The CRACK, BOOM, POP impact caused the vehicle to burst into flames. I stopped the car, and we all scrambled out and did our best to smother the fire blazing under the hood. Obviously, in those moments that we were extinguishing the fire, there was a bit of confusion and frustration: but not enough to keep Jim and me from frantically removing our bikes and gear from the flaming pile of German engineering. After the fire was out, it was agreed that I had handled the car quite well. I didn’t slam the brakes or try, at a 100mph, to dodge the Bambi and inevitably jettison the car into the air and cause it to do stunt-driving rolls that would have meant our certain death. The car was fucked, but we were all untouched. It was then decided that Jim and Brooks would stay with the vehicle and Mark and I would venture out along the pitch black, old Lewis and Clark Trail until we found help.
288 There is nothing, I mean absolutely nothing, for miles along Highway 2, just past the border of North Dakota, in Montana. The most I can say is that the Montana night sky is beautiful—even after futilely dancing and hoping around a roasting Audi 5000, the Montana night sky radiates enough magnificence to make it worth remembering. About three miles down the road, not having seen a car in the forty minutes that we had been walking, we finally came upon a solitary cowboy bar at the crossroads of Nowhere Ave and Desolation Blvd. Mark, at that time, had hair that hung down below his butt cheeks, and as we walked into the saloon a silence befell the throwback establishment. The fumes of Garlic, which now arise from the pores of this story, tell me there was a cowboy sitting at the bar with a ten gallon hat on his head and a Marlboro in his mouth, who turned around and looked at us. After a split second had passed, he languorously turned back to his buckaroo buddies who stood with him at the old wooden bar, and who were all wearing similar snake skin shit-kickers and cowboy hats, and said: “Hmm, that looks good enough to fuck.” (And this was long before the movie Brokeback Mountain was ever conceived.)
Mark mumbled something to the effect of “Oh great, this is all I fucking need.”
I just ignored the unwelcomed comment and, while approaching the hardwood bar lined with now giggling Gauchos, I spoke directly to the bar man: “We’ve had a bad accident about three or four miles down the road, and we need some help.” There was another comment from the bar: Looks like Tim’s gonna get ‘em someth’n sweet tonight.
All I remember was thinking that I didn’t want to be beaten and fucked to death by a bunch of drunken cowboys in the Montana boondocks. Fortunately, the guy working there, perhaps he was the bar owner, had enough common sense to
289 tell everybody to knock it off, and without delay he came out from behind the counter and offered us his help.
The next day Jim and I got on our bikes, and we peddled away; leaving Mark and Brooks behind in Nowhere, Montana. From what I understand, considering both Mark and Brooks are nice guys, as well as nice drunks, they made a lot of friends in Nowhere and almost ended up staying there for good.
Jim and I both eventually made it to Anchorage, but not together. Before this trip, I’d done some bicycling, but nothing of this magnitude. After we left Mark and Brooks in Nowhere, Jim and I immediately rode into sixty mile an hour head winds; this was our introduction to the reality of Montana adventure. To understand what our second day of biking was like, imagine having someone beat your bare bottom with a nail covered paddle and then having to keep your bloodied tush planted on a hard bicycle seat for thirteen hours while having to pedal, with full strength, and as if engaged in a fight against an invisible enemy. The winds and pains never relented, and we only managed about forty miles a day as we slowly pushed onward. Despite the hurt, we got through Montana and into Canada, via the Rockies. In the Canadian Rockies we hooked up with two crazy Dutch cyclists, Silvano and Daniel, and together we all conquered mountain peak after mountain peak until eventually summiting at seventeen thousand feet in Jasper. The scenery was majestic, and the challenges were manly, but we were all getting tired of peddling. Not only had we done a number of hundred-plus-mile days, but also a couple of hundred and thirty-plus-mile days: But with fifty pounds of gear added to the equation those rides were, when calculating the necessary energy to move the additional weight, equivalent to two- hundred and twenty-five mile days. Then introduce a bit of bitter cold mountain air and snow and you have what’s
290 called a bike adventure. Considering I’d lost almost thirty pounds in the month since beginning, and I’d frozen in my cheap Fleet Farm sleeping bag in the snow covered tops of Banff and Jasper, life was slowly becoming an unpredictable dream.
There was a twenty-six mile downhill ride out of Jasper that took us out of the mountains and into the never- ending desolate plains of British Columbia. And after another five hundred miles of flats we were happy to see the end of the Canadian Highway. After three weeks of riding we had made it to Prince Rupert. We then took a fairy through the Inside Passage to Haines. In Haines, Jim and Silvano hopped a bus (Daniel had long since disappeared, venturing out on his own), but I, unfortunately, didn’t have a dime left to my name, and I couldn't afford the fare.
Once in Haines, the remaining seven hundred and fifty miles to Anchorage would have been manageable on my bike but the Alaskan Highway is an ongoing project, and parts of it were and still are (I imagine) always covered with giant gravel stones. Have you, lovely reader, ever ridden a loaded down bicycle over large gravel or ever been sprayed with stones from speeding semi-trucks and RVs? Being pelted with golf ball size rocks causes pain and damage… and then there was the impending issue of starving to death.
I continued on another few days, riding to Tok and then Delta Junction; from there I had enough noodles in my bags to power me for about three more days. Three days later as I sat on the road side, starving and destitute, an Indian family picked me up and took me to their home in the Mountains. There they showed me the ancient art of trapping salmon in a mountain creek, and then fed me salmon caught with the ancient trap. After spending the night, they brought me back down to the Alaskan Highway and gave me
291 twenty bucks, and sent me on my way.
I rode another two days before reaching Fairbanks, and then, half dead from starvation, I hitched the last three hundred and fifty miles into Anchorage.
292 Chapter 35
‘Who, however, is in doubt ‘and’ awe (thaumázein) about a matter doesn’t believe in the thing to begin with. That is why the friend of Stories (mŷthos) is also in a certain way a philosopher; because the Story arises out of awe.’ (Aristotle’s Metaphysics: Book I. Part II)
“There is an ancient Indian saying that something lives only as long as the last person who remembers it. My people have come to trust memory over history. Memory, like fire, is radiant and immutable while history serves only those who seek to control it, those who douse the flame of memory in order to put out the dangerous fire of truth. Beware these men for they are dangerous themselves and unwise. Their false history is written in the blood of those who might remember and of those who seek the truth.” ~Floyd 'Red Crow' Westerman
The way I see it, the higher sciences alive in aboriginal or Native American culture do not live through Zero and the analogous separation of Finitude and Infinitude: Their scientific spirits are grounded in the unbroken consciousness of Infinite/Finitude—at least that’s what smells Garlic sends out. I recently read somewhere about the Inuit people suffering human losses due to climate changes. They are dying because they can no longer hear the spirits that have always guided them; the familiar spirits that once thrived in their various relationships in Existence have vanished. And because of this loss of connectedness to a world, their hunters are losing their footing and falling into icy waters or, because of living on shaky grounding, their hunters are breaking through the thinning ice: The Inuit are drowning in the side
293 effects of Western man’s higher evolution. Their accustomed scientific spirits of the sky, sun, moon, winds, currents and rains have all but disappeared. There are new spirits in their places, but these are of no help to the Inuit—or to all other Native people and beings suffering similar fates. Ironically, in all of their “primitive” Existence, their non-scientific spirits told these people almost forty years ago they were parting ways: The Inuit were already aware of the climate changing in 1979. Did anybody listen to the Inuit then? No, because their ways are not progressive: they still believe in Life. They don’t need multi-million dollar budgeted research teams to talk about the environment: They’re just good listeners. Life for the “primitive” isn’t a consumerized accessory or earned job title. I also read that the Inuit don’t blame the white peoples’ spirits for the new climate story. You see there is no “blame” in Life. Life is always positive, because there’s always a story being told. How can you blame someone or something for that which is a gift? The Inuit will do all right. They’re after all good and respectful listeners. (For example, since 1995 Dr. Shari Gearheard from Boulder University has been documenting Native American—Iñupiat and various Inuit communities—knowledge of climate change. And according to Caleb Pungowiyi, Special Advisor on Native Affairs in Kotzebue, Alaska: “Since the late 1970s, Alaska Natives in communities along the coast of the northern Bering and Chukchi Seas have noticed substantial changes in the ocean and the animals that live there.”) After I got into Anchorage, I had to find a job because I was broke and eating food from garbage cans. On my first day there I went to the unemployment office, and after two days of waiting I got an offer at a cannery in Egegik Alaska: In your Cessna plane, fly past King Salmon and keep going another hundred miles and you’ll eventually find the place. Talk about working in hell! After twenty-five years I still have the smell of fish guts under my fingernails!
294 It was on Egegik that I worked with Inuit. Which reminds me, have you, lovely reader, ever see two drunken Inuit fight until one bites off the ear of the other? Talk about a lot of blood. It could be said that alcohol was our gift to the Native people—to help bridge the barrier from Life to Insanity —and they don’t blame us? As you probably already realize, my ragout is confrontational, but this doesn’t necessarily mean I am right or always win. The Syrians proved this, the spirits of guan xi proved this (as I happily type away here with nine fingers), and every school or university I’ve ever been thrown out of proves this. My only successful coups d'état happened on Egegik: Life as ragout is most successful without the Infinite, Finite and Zero (in dialogue), and is, in truth, much more prosperous in the emotions as lived, because this, in the emotions, is where the true adventure resides. A week before I arrived on Egegik there was a shootout between two coked-out salmon fishermen whereby one of them died. And then the U.S. Marshal who was sent there to apprehend the killer was also shot dead… by the killer fisherman. Don’t forget there’s no way off of an “Egegik” unless you have a plane or a boat, so the coked out fisherman wasn’t necessarily at a disadvantage when the U.S. Marshall arrived. This was the reality of the last great wilderness as it was still lived in 1989: Chewed-off ears, cocaine dealing fishermen, outlaws killing, and the literal killing earned in the million-dollar-a-day profits made by the fish processing companies—Trident and such. In other words there were no laws or regulations governing the actions of men. The company I worked for had a system of payout for hourly wages that gave them leverage that forced employees to work seven days a week and sometimes 20 hours a day without a break. This was something they first explained to you after you had already landed in the middle of the
295 Aleutian Peninsula, at this little-known, one-time Russian outpost and Inuit village called Egegik. Upon arrival, the newbie was escorted from the tiny plane to a picnic table resting no more than 30 yards away, where he or she was instructed to sit down and then the terms of employment were explained. Then newbie was handed a pen to sign the contract. If newbie wasn’t happy about it, and since there were no real laws, they simply told newbie to go fuck themselves before then shoving newbie out onto the tundra. So newbie had no option but to sign the contract. What choice was there at that point? It’s not as if anyone landing on an Egegik had the $1000.00 in their pocket to hire a private plane to get off the tundra. Most of the people working there wanted the money so they didn’t protest: They were, for the most part, college students who had university-fed credit card debts to pay off. Me? I didn’t go there because of any debt or to be a cowboy hero. I had thousands of miles of pain and suffering pounded into my legs, a crazy mother, an absent father, a world that rejected me, and, just before arriving on Egegik, I’d been eating garbage from trash bins to stave off the hunger pains: I was tired and hurting by that point, and just wanted enough money to get home. After I signed my contract I understood the laws as they were applied in the Aleutian Peninsula, and they didn’t bother me. Life is always a two-way street: just like the coked-out fisherman must’ve figured as he shot the Sheriff. I had two-thousand hard and hungry miles written on my face, and my spirit burned with an acidic glow that complimented the void-like pool of starvation and desperation keeping my eyes buoyant. People could smell and taste the habanero peppers boiling in my ragout: As much as I was ensnared in the fish processing company’s little world, the company and its goons were trapped with me in my world. The supervisors, although much larger than me, would come to see this in the way I smiled, and it made them uneasy. If
296 someone doesn’t believe in death then life can’t be taken away. I had actually flown out there with a crazy, British- American guy, Merrick, and we ended up bunk mates. We’d met at the unemployment office, and had spent the two days sitting there, together, before the offer of adventure and easy money came. Merrick had this great, dry, British humor that kept the whole affair nicely narrated, and to this day I still wish we’d kept in better contact. After the initial shock brought on by the reality of the work passed, for yucks we started a band with another guy, John, who had brought a couple of acoustic guitars with him: John and I played the guitars, and Merrick played harmonica and sang. (John had already worked in fish processing, so knew the ins and outs.) In our few hours off from the laborious act of decapitating, gutting, and deep-freezing salmon, we put on little concerts in the land of the Midnight Sun. But we only had one song: Dead or Alive by Bon Jovi. We even went so far as to create a whole dialogue before finally performing Dead or Alive about the Jov versus the Phil Collins and how other musicians like Beethoven or Mozart would compare… there’s obviously no comparison. Beethoven is like Kraft’s Single Slice American Processed Cheese and the Jov is a Beenleigh, ewes’ milk matured for seven months, March thru July, seasonal Blue cheese. As to compare Phil Collins with the likes of Mozart: Mozart is a Zero if not just a fart! (It was a joke. Mozart is not a fart.) The only issue which seemed to have strained our intellectual discourse was: Who is the better composer… the Jov or the Phil Collins? We, of course, had metaphysical discussions with our captive audience on the power of the Jov versus the power of the Phil Collins, and which of these two great songwriters and prophets had given more to humanity. It’s a hard call, isn’t it? After a month’s imprisonment at the Egegik work camp, we had played Dead or Alive no less than two hundred times, and every time our audience was captivated… literarily.
297 The work was mostly long, wet, tedious, and hard on the back; standing in one position for up to twenty hours a day can be a nightmare on the spine. But despite being in hell, we were all unified in our focus: For all of us working the shit jobs, the light at the end of the darkness was our eventual paychecks. After six weeks of working long hours without a day off, a girl on the processing line (hacking off fish heads and gutting the fish in a constant mist of water) had a mental breakdown. She fell to the intestine, slime and blood-covered concrete floor, bawling and mumbling to herself. She could no longer stand up and so she just lay there, softly choking out, through her emotional breakdown, “Keep your fucking money. I just want to go home.” The owners of the operation weren’t dumb. They had hired nine big, burly, mean sons-of- bitches to manage and control us—but the situation had escalated beyond control and a few of us hollered for a sit down as the girl lay on the floor and sobbed. As we all sat around listening to her wailing one of the supervisors came back to see why we’d shut down the conveyor belts that fed us the fresh salmon. “Get back to work!” he hollered. There was no response except for the blubbering sounds coming from the girl. He hollered again before making a call on his walkie- talkie. “We’re not working. We’re taking a break,” I said, and there followed an accompaniment of solidarity grunts and head-nods from my co-workers. Merrick and I had long since achieved unanimity with our crew, and, on occasion, when John, Merrick, and I weren’t singing Dead or Alive we sang other songs, a cappella, on the processing lines with the others, as we gutted fish, that gave the whole fish processing scenario an orchestrated, MTVish sexy appeal. Our favorite song was Staying Alive by the Bee Gees. Merrick could hit the high notes on the chorus, and it was always a laugh to toss
298 guts onto the floor in rhythm to the song. At some point, as the supervisors gathered to assess the situation, we burst into Staying Alive. It was intense. Five other supervisors showed up, and one of them threatened us with immediate termination and a loss of wage- bonuses if we didn’t get back to work immediately. No one moved; but only in part because we were just too tired from weeks of standing on the process line. I took the initiative as spokesman, and I made it clear that the only ones to make a threat at this point would be us. “You’re the one with the big mouth,” responded one of the supervisors. “Yeah I’m the one, but there are thirty of us, and only five of you. And your big mouths got nothing to say here,” I replied. In the meantime, they’d already scooped up the girl from off the floor and had carried her away. They called on their radios, and a few moments passed before they got a reply. The owner informed them to give us the day off. We all left together, and were on our way to the canteen when one of the big burley supervisors told me that if I ever did something like that again I’d be out on the tundra. Upon hearing his threat, we all stopped to stare at the bosses. Coincidentally, we were all standing next to the diesel boiler room. With exception of our barracks, which were two story structures made of tin, the whole fish processing outfit was forged out of ancient, decrepit and rickety wooden structures, with wood plank walkways connecting them. Egegik was tundra and permafrost, and so they had to build structures above ground. In that moment, we all stood outside the diesel boiler room that sat on sixty-plus years of diesel soaked wood, and I asked one of my co-workers for his matches, and he tossed me a lighter. “If you ever threatened me or anybody here again I will burn this shithole down, and then I’ll kick your asses across the fucking tundra. My legs were tough enough to pedal me to Anchorage, so they definitely got what
299 it takes to kick your asses across these frozen, fucking shrubs. You want to try me?” There was a round of cheers, hoots and hollers from my co-workers. The company paid the girl in full and flew her out that day; thus diffusing the situation. Don’t get me wrong, I have some absolutely hysterical stories from this work experience as well. Life as ragout is the appreciation of most difficult of times as much as Life is the absolute celebration without need of explanation or justification as it is, in and of itself, a most fantastical positivity reward. In the few hours we had to ourselves, we socialized. There were, after all, sixty of us processing fish, and a person doesn’t just end up at age eighteen through twenty-something on the Aleutian Peninsula, cutting off fish heads for hours, days, weeks, and months on end and not be either mentally challenged or have a really good sense of humor. In addition to our musical muse bringing entertainment to our fellow outcasts, there was this guy Chuck, and he was a real peach. It’s hard to explain his character—perhaps an unlikable prick? Chuck had a friend with whom he’d gone there with, and with whom he had had also bunked, but something had happened, and Chuck’s friend moved out shortly after their arrival. Although Chuck might have even found a girlfriend, the girl Merrick had had his eye on, he wasn’t liked by anybody—the girl might have inadvertently became an apologist for him, but she never once tried to defend him: She didn’t want to become, like her lover, a nauseating pariah on Egegik—she didn’t want to be an exilic exile. She would just reply, to the onslaught of Chuck criticisms, things like, “I know he’s an asshole, but what am I am to do about it,” before the mournful expression of, “I have to get laid by someone so I don’t go crazy here” rolled over her face. And so when it came down to it, Chuck was alone for all practical purposes. And after he eventually weaseled his way into a supervisor job by bad mouthing some of us,
300 there were also personal reasons why many of my co-workers didn’t like him—needless to say Merrick despised him. I’ve always been good at sabotage. If you know me, but you are not aware of the other me, then you would never suspect me of being secretly outrageous. I’m a friendly and fairly simplistic person. From my mien and appearance one might even say boring, but as you already know, I was born to eat Garlic. As a sign of loyalty to my bunkmate, Merrick, and to stay off boredom, I began to fuck with Chuck. Chuck had an alternating shift, so while Merrick and I worked our shifts he slept—this meant that I had ample opportunity to carry out my clandestine operations. First I hid a fish in Chuck’s mattress, and after two days it produced a foul smell: Chuck was not happy. I then put a fish in one of his dresser drawers, and as with the fish in the mattress it began to reek, and, again, Chuck wasn’t happy. I filled his socks with fish guts… Chuck quit smiling and started threatening people. By this time everyone was having a real laugh, and in response, Chuck began bursting into our work areas and bedrooms to personally threaten us. He even bullied Merrick outright and this made the girls mad, because Merrick, with his English accent and quips, was quite charming. The only person that knew it was me behind all the fuck-Chuck antics was Merrick. There was a lot of tension in this little game I was playing, but it also gave everyone something to look forward to: What would happen to Chuck today? At some point while Merrick and I and some other guys were playing a game of cards, Chuck burst into the room and threatened everyone… that is, oddly enough, everyone except for me. Chuck stopped, looked at me, and said, “Keith’s the only stand-up guy here. But the rest of you are worthless, spineless shit!” Merrick could hardly contain himself. Chuck gave this speech a couple of times; once on the processing line, and once in the cafeteria, and I would just nod, and say something like, “I know what you mean, Chuck.” Everyone assumed it was Merrick, but no one was sure, because Chuck didn’t have any
301 friends. I suppose Chuck trusted me because I had after all ridden my bike to Anchorage, and how could somebody with such focus be so trivial? Under my apparent calm and cool exterior how could anyone suspect there was a villain? The reason I hid it so well was for the fact that I wasn’t hiding anything. I had no true ill-will towards Chuck. My Tom Foolery was all for the sake of a laugh and to make the time there a little less torturous. Finally, in order to stop the tricks, Chuck put a padlock on his door and locked his room after leaving for his shift. There were no locks on any of the doors and that was how I had been able to access Chuck’s room. Now, with a secure room, Chuck thought he had me beat… But since the padlock he’d attached was on the outside of his door, while he slept he couldn’t lock or unlock his room from either the outside or the inside. One day after Chuck went to work, Merrick and I nailed his windows shut from the outside, and when Chuck came back and went to bed, we’d gotten our own padlock and locked him in his room. After our shift was done, the anticipation was killing us as we lay in our beds waiting. About an hour later, through the tin walls we could hear Chuck’s alarm clock go off and his fumbling around a bit before he then got up and, I assume, put on his clothes. Finally he tried opening his door. “Goddamn it! Someone locked my door!” He shouted so that everyone could hear how pissed off he was. Sniggers came from every room except Chuck’s. “Oh yeah, well fuck all of you!” he growled as he continued trying to find a way out. Everyone could hear his grunts as he tried to force the windows open. “You sons of bitches! You nailed my windows shut!” he shouted in a shrill pitch. There was more laughter throughout the barracks. “Real fuck’n funny! Well, I’ll just go back to bed!” Shortly thereafter someone from the same work shift as his knocked on his door and asked if he was going to go to work. Chuck wasn’t amused. The guy told him he would miss breakfast if he didn’t hurry. Chuck
302 hollered something about the joke being on us because he now got the day off. The guy told him from the other side of the door that the boss wasn’t going to be happy. Chuck told him to tell the boss to screw himself. An hour or so later the boss came down to Chuck’s little prison cell and asked him what the hell was going on. There was more laughter from throughout the barracks. The boss gave him ten minutes to figure it out or he’d be out on the tundra. Chuck got up and kicked the door down. The other thing we all did for entertainment, besides singing bad rock songs, flirt, and drive Chuck crazy, was to put strange objects in boxes of salmon destined for Japan. A Japanese distributor paid good money for old rubber gloves, rubber boots, slickers, old shoes, rotten fish and every imaginable item we could put into those boxes. After the season ended we had a blow-out party. The barracks were two stories high, and my co-workers and comrades tossed dozens of mattresses out the windows into a single pile alongside one of the old tin buildings: The soft, mattressy mountain was created with the purpose of being a landing spot for a planned drunken diving contest from a second story window. When the event finally began, even a number of Japanese quality control reps were there going nuts, jumping out of windows in a blaze of alcohol induced fun. Merrick and I unrolled the fire hoses, turned the valves on, and filled the first floor with water before starting a war with the fire extinguishers. The management tried putting a stop to it all, but I think having Japanese buyers and quality control workers running around naked and jumping out of second story windows sent them the message that the party was not going to end. Sometimes people think my attitude is uncalled for. I did after all “choose” to sign the contract, and everything and anything that happened to me was just the breaks. But you see it’s all about numbers to me—and Garlic—and so I can also
303 say to those that say to me “shitty things happening are sometimes just the breaks” that no one ever forced the company into hiring me… and my life and all of its attitudes and sentiments is or was just the breaks.
Chapter 36
304 Seeing that I am a philosopher possessed by Garlic, I read Native American creation stories if I want to know how things come into Existence. This is to say that science and its story of Evolution are fine, but until the Flying Spaghetti Monster is truly embraced without cynicism, Darwin’s story lacks spirit and a true of-the-world connectedness. Native American stories on the other hand deliver the experience for me; just as music and art should deliver existence as: experience of the groove’n and shake’n of my ass to a Bon Jovi song…
Some Native People consider objects of art to be alive and not something to be sold, admired, or critiqued, and just like music, these objects deliver awareness as it is to be celebrated. This is what the Origins of Garlic Cures is trying to deliver: The Story of Garlic is alive and can’t be owned. Garlic is only good in the moment of this experience…Nowing in a groove’n, move’n, shake’n and swing’n the mind. The vampires and monsters may give us life, and at the same time hold it out on a stick like a carrot for a rabbit to be led around in circles, but sooner or later, when we get tired of hop, hop, hop, we will have to wake up and smell the Garlic. We’ll eventually get tired of having to buy into the world.
The following excerpt from the book, Jesters in the Kingdom of Fools, delivers the difference between a philosopher and a scientist: “Do you want to know the difference between you and me?” The non-dimensional question pierced his own image reflecting off Eno’s Ray Ban’s, and drove deep into Eno’s secretive little eyes—but with very little effect: Nate’s words were dissolving instantly within
305 the Zionosphere. A Mt. Vesuvius of expression would be needed before any of the words could cause even a flicker in Zion’s foundation. Nate was for the time being, although not completely at Eno Modgnik’s mercy, powerless in the realm of Zion: His life was momentarily trussed to the nothingness forging the boundaries in the ethereal. With a sentiment of peculiar joy, Eno sibilated unmitigated contempt meant to inflict injury, “The difference between you and I is I’m the cure and you are the disease.” Then, as if his funny bone had been suddenly tickled with Silly Putty, Nate let out a high-pitched, gurgled laughter before he, with a sentiment of real joy, truncated his own amusement and viciously countered, “Perhaps you’re just sick.” With shrill sniggers originating from his infantile and sybaritic timeless, dimensionless urges—from out of that eternal and limited essence that gave him his strength and courage but was now left behind in a palpable world—he began to slide away from his self and every self, and to inch toward a place most people feared. “You seem to find this all so amusing, Mr. Knorrs. But laugh all you want, your days are numbered.” Eno’s voice sneered with an absolute authority; the unholy echo in its tone bared the origin of conviction scientists used to espouse the validity of a scientific theory: Zion was Eno’s home, and no being, ethereal or real, could pare his authority there.
Nate’s spiritual harangue, as elicited by a
306 man mantled in a sandwich board and cloaked in Bermuda, Hawaii, Raybans and fisherman’s hat, continued unabated and unscathed by any absolutes. “The difference between us is I believe in things, and you,” he paused to cackle again, but this time his piercing laughter revealed he was no longer simply manically mocking but completely insane. Until finally, as if his contempt had been cuffed, his voice straightened to the point of banality, and now wholly existing within Zion, he then judged the judge: “You choose not to believe in the things that you believe in.”
Oddly enough, I am repulsed by the overall idea of memoirs, because I believe the spirits of consumerism truly attempt to destroy the story when sowed as such. Life is only fiction, and the spirit of non-fiction has always been rooted in consumerism. Despite my honest and honorable attempts to avoid “telling the truth”, even in Garlic reflections I sometimes appear as though I have suffered or I appear to have lived, laughed, loved, hated, cried and starved, but the truth of the matter is I am was and has always been just a character in a greater ragout—a story that can’t be bought or sold—and these emotions that one finds in any bound or electronic book can only truly belong to all of us. When emotions are sold as Individual reality, memoirs are disrespectful: When the reality of emotion seeks to find its place on a Wal-Mart shelf nothing more than lies can ever be revealed. Perhaps this is the how in the delivery of the Garlic Cures. That is if this story reeks of sweet, savory Garlic then this is the only way life can truthfully sneak back into The Storyline, bound or electronic.
I know the Garlic Cures can sometimes be difficult to understand, and that when Garlic talks about Finite, Infinite,
307 Zero, and so on, it’s easy to get lost. But the idea or rather my purpose in this whole shebang we call the Garlic Cures—the Garlic Revolution—is to reassess the manner in which we as Individuals, religious beings, and scientists view the world; hence, the way in which we experience life: I am is ising! And given this belief, we have a tendency to say “the world is round” or “the universe is flat”. We define our experience as linear. Or, we say: Reality is loosely connected through nine strings of dimension, or proclaim with absolute certainty atoms have protons, neutrons, electrons, quarks, sniggles, snobbles and doohickeys. Some of us even believe God sent his white, blue-collar son, Jesus, down here a couple thousand years ago, who then snapped his fingers, did the Charleston, a couple of hoochy-coos, and voila, America was born! But in either science or religion (of our non-garlicky Zeitgeist) we experience life as a perception, but never as Life: The scientific and religious perceptions, like Aristotle so wonderfully pointed out, may still have thaumázein, but such awareness is anchored in doubt, and thus to live in our story is inherently impossible. Either we perceive, and what we perceive is the sensible, or we experience and thus what we sensuously perceive is only experience. If it is the latter then the picture we are left with is not a picture but only experience—this would be and is the Garlic Cures. It’s confusing. It is the conundrum a la dumb dumb.
The following allegory sheds light on how Identity(ies) of real or natural numbers find themselves in a state of absurdity when perception and experience are not reconciled.
THE GEORGE BUSH-ROCKEFELLERS OF THIS WORLD CONTINUE TO RULE IF IDENTITY IGNORES DIFFERENCE IN THE IDEAS: IF 0 ≠ INFINITE/ FINITUDE THEN WE’RE FUCKED AND INTRODUCING YOU, DEAR READER, TO THE LATENT HOSTILITY
308 LAID OPEN BY INDUCTIVE REASONING IN A LIVING WORLD… MATHEMATICAL INDUCTION IS ONLY VALID IF “I AM” IS AT THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE.
SO WHAT HAPPENS IF “I AM” IS ROOTED IN DIFFERENCE AND NOT IDENTITY, AND THE SPHERE IS LEFT TO CHANT UNIMPEDED?
The Great Dueling, Philosophical Debate
Mr. Lyons eventually managed to get his theory of numbers published in the National Enquirer, instantly causing uproar throughout the civilized world and the Higher Science…the world's top math and physic theorists were calling for his head. “How dare he proclaim us nincompoops!” exclaimed one physicist at the Orwellian Institute of Great Thinking. Eventually, after much attention from TV and tabloids, the International Community of Higher Sciences decided that Mr. Lyons must be put to a public debate, whereby they, the scientists, could once and for all send his new theory of numbers back to the hell from whence it came. They were certain that when put to open, scientific scrutiny, he and his ghostly number system would dissipate, desist, vanish and be, once and for all, vanquished for all of eternity.
The University of Complicated Existential Dilemmas decided to host the event, and all the great thinkers were present—even Einstein came back from the dead.
309 Mr. Lyons was to debate the world's leading numbers theorist, George Bush—and not to be confused with the United States' great orators and one time presidents, but this George Bush was very, very smart.
The event was greatly advertised, and every noble TV news station was present. (It was reported by the early twenty-first Century Media-Prophet, Parez Hilton, that Oprah, a onetime Media Messiah, was in the audience!) If Mr. Lyons and his number theory proved to be true, it was rumored that the world would cease to exist as we know it. It goes without saying (but we’ll say it anyway): Every good news station and journalist would certainly want to be there, and therefore was there, for THE END.
The greatest minds gathered amidst TV newsmen, cocktail bars, and beer and brat stands, and, with much anticipation, the minds and media were all awaiting not only the debate but also the intermission show featuring the first Alice Cooper performance in almost seventeen-thousand years.
Hundreds of people sat anxiously in the auditorium of the famous institution of higher learning, waiting for the historical event to begin. Finally, after a number of hushes, and a warning from the MC, the restless crowd quieted, and the debate began.
The metaphoric gloves came off quickly.
“2+2=45,” stated Mr. Lyons emphatically. He knew it would make George mad…really mad.
310 In response to Mr. Lyons' childish declaration George immediately took off his symbolic gloves, and barked: "Just because you say 2+2= 45 means it is?
That's ridiculous! If your words were true then science is finished, and there is no cohesive meaning to…." George feared finishing his sentence, but finally, for the sake of the Higher Sciences, he shouted, “Anything!” He then threw his figurative gloves, in disgust, onto the oak podium before him.
Casually, as though George’s words were fluff, Mr. Lyons rejoined, "That's not my problem, and it is you who keeps implying that it's my problem. As a matter of fact, you just stated the equation, and not me, and that means you are convinced of it as well." The casual inflection in Mr. Lyons’ voice exposed his belief that it was all nothing but a lark—and this obviously meant that he still didn't grasp the dismal gravity of his own theory.
This did not sit well with any of the great minds in the room, and George needed to act—like Georges do. "2+2=4! You know it, I know it, and everyone here knows it!" he shouted.
The auditorium went wild with sympathetic shouts, claps, whistles and hails; followed by a rise in applause, and a pounding roar that the spectators stomped out on the old, pull-out bleachers. Proudly, and in slow motion, George dramatically moved his head from left to right and from right to left as he allowed his grinning gaze to grace his admirers in the full lecture hall, while he, in turn, basked in his distinguished colleagues raucous support. Life sure is peachy he thought to himself.
311 "So you're saying that mob rule determines your objectivity—the existence of your numbers?" quipped Mr. Lyons, and in response to his faux declaration, grunts of disapproval immediately rumbled throughout the room, before everyone, in complete unanimity, let loose a Bronx Cheer. The audience knew that this wasn't the intent of George's statement or of their unanimous and passionate support of George’s obviously superior wisdom—but Mr. Lyons’ criticism was, nonetheless, a matter which couldn’t be ignored. They were, after all, all gathered there to bully him—his childish hubris and silly ideas needed a good old fashioned verbal tar and feathering if nothing else.
"That's not what I mean, and you know it! You claim that we would have to stand here indefinitely and continue re-stating our problem until one of us falters. That's absurd. I don't have time for this."
"Well, you have the infinite time and space at your disposal to tell me about your numbers that seem to only and always be there for you. My numbers on the other hand don't need the comfort of any person’s personal time or space." There were resounding boos coming from everywhere in the hall. It was so loud that neither Mr. Lyons nor George could be heard. Finally, the crowd’s boisterous scorning settled down, and George was able to continue.
“Yes, but your numbers are nonsense!” George huffed. A tidal wave of roaring approval swelled in support of his brilliant insight.
312 “Maybe for you, but there you go again with your mob rules and self-indulgence. And I say give the numbers back to life!” There was an obvious disdain for his comments (which was equally satisfying for
Mr. Lyons as it was for George) and it, the disdain, pleasantly sizzled, like an over cooked bratwurst in a frying pan, throughout the auditorium.
Emboldened, George began shouting over the unhappy crowd: "Should we have a duel to decide the truth of numbers!? Should we!? You barbarian ninny!” The audience’s loud disapproval of Mr. Lyons’s theories had since yielded to George’s superior motives, as Yeah, you tell him, George! Line him up and shoot him dead! was heard from the audience, before finally, as if to cap off their collective condemnation of Mr. Lyons and his puerile theories, there was another impressive round of Bronx Cheers. Inspired, George screamed: “That's what you are implying, isn’t it!? Existence decides for itself what exists!? Leave it up to the Gods?!" This time there was no response from the crowd. Everyone assumed Mr. Lyons would, considering his theory was rubbish, back down: The attendees at this point only expected to hear his excuse as to why he wouldn’t duel to the death.
Mr. Lyons looked blankly ahead as the audience awaited his response. Finally, with a look of resolve on his face, he answered, "That sounds fair."
Boos and hisses echoed from everywhere in the hall.
313 "I knew it! I knew it! Philistine! Barbarian! Has it come to this!? Man's great evolution!? Tens of thousands of years in forward thinking and now you want to move backwards!? We're back to clubbing each other! If this is how you want to settle this, then so be it," hollered George.
George’s assessment of the logic at hand seemed to be fine with Mr. Lyons, and Mr. Lyons was in agreement with a duel to the death to decide the truth of the matter.
George and all of the attendees were sure that science was on their side and that self-evident jurisprudence would guide George's bullet and end this ridiculous debate.
Intermission was called so that the duel could be prepared.
The University elders sought out antiquated firearms from their University museum, and all the guests took a little break for cocktails, brats and beer. Alice Cooper began to jam, and Einstein was seen covering his ears in horror. An hour later Alice Cooper finished what some would consider the performance of his life.
The dueling pistols had been prepared, and by this point everyone was lightly inebriated, pleasantly full, and slightly deaf.
The center stage, which was once the platform for their debate, had been transformed into an arena for a peacemaking duel of death.
314 "The firearms are loaded. Please check them," spoke the referee. George and Mr. Lyons looked into the barrels of their guns; both nodded in approval. "Okay, please stand back to back. And when I begin counting, please take one step forward in accordance with each count. When I reach the count of five, turn around, face your opponent, take aim, and fire."
Doing as was instructed, George and Mr. Lyons moved accordingly, and placed themselves back to back. Standing in wait, neither looked too concerned, because each was convinced that their truth would prevail.
"One!" shouted the referee. George and Mr. Lyons stepped forward. "Two!" shouted the referee, and George and Mr. Lyons moved forward another step, but before the referee could get to three, Mr. Lyons turned, took aim, and shot George in the back of the head, killing him instantly. The room burst into hysteria as physicists and mathematicians tackled Mr. Lyons and knocked him to the ground. Finally, after the chaos subsided, an angry scientist hollered, “How could you do this! Have you no shame!"
"2+2=45. Need I say more?" answered Mr. Lyons.
315 Chapter 37
Although I loved Green Bay, I always knew that I was born to wander: Not only do I run away from insanity, but I’m nomadic ragout, and as such I can only simmer in constant, changing ingredients. This is the “why” the Origins are in deliverance: The Burner of Existence is my home. After my second semester at UWGB, despite the fact that Green Bay was in my heart, I decided to go to Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. At the time, the idea of living in the Smoky Mountains may have been slightly entertaining, but, truth be told, I’d let myself be talked into going there by a friend, Paul from Chicago.
316 Some call Warren Wilson a liberal arts college, but given it’s in the Bible-Belt there’s nothing liberal about it. The unique thing about the school, though, is that as a student you’re required to take up a trade and contribute to the maintenance and functioning of the campus. As for my practical skill, I learned to be a plumber while taking classes in biology and literature. In the beginning, things at Warren Wilson were, for the most part, entertaining. Thanks to my Green Bay friends, I had learned to caustically embrace the positive of living, and upon arriving in North Carolina I was in good spirits. I was already evolving in tastes and aromas, and my stew was also becoming tempting for others: I would go on to have a lot of casual sex at Warren Wilson College. I had also just turned twenty-one, so I could drink when and where I wanted—which hadn’t been a problem in Green Bay because of the Grandfather Clause; but in most States a kid still had to think about these things. In lieu of a most positive experience, trouble started with the arrival of the new student dean. She was the wife of a newly-hired professor and, as such, was deemed qualified for the position… she was nuts and not at all qualified. In one display of her ineptitude, she had refused to help a fellow
317 student who’d gone to her on numerous occasions seeking guidance. The kid was having a number of problems at home, and he was having problems coping while at Warren Wilson. About six weeks into the semester he dropped his suit and ties apparel and, in a state of depression, began wandering the campus barefoot. He told me that he figured the hippy kids must have it easier since they were always smiling, and that’s why he lost the formal garb and began imitating their carefree ways. In other words he needed help and he was open and honest about it. Again he went to see the dean to seek additional consultation, but the best she could recommend was putting his shoes back on—which he refused to do. He may have been depressed but he wasn’t a moron: “Put your shoes back on” is supposed to be an answer? At this point something snapped in the newly appointed dean’s head, and she took offense at his refusal to heed her wisdom. Perhaps she was offended that he didn’t respond to her insightfulness? After this meeting she called the State Police, and lying to them, she told the Troopers that the student had a gun and was going to shoot someone. On her authority, four State Troopers came out to the campus and brutally knocked him to the ground in front of the entire student body for no other reason than not wearing any shoes and refusing to put them back on. It happened in a grassy commons area on a beautiful, sunny day. I can recall him smiling as he strode by barefoot and shirtless with nothing more than a pair of baggy pants on. Ironically, he was waving at me and Paul to say hello as the State Troopers sprang out of nowhere and tackled him. There were dozens of other student-witnesses in the commons, and we could all see in his eyes as he lay on the ground being handcuffed that a great crime had been committed against him. This didn’t sit well with anyone, and I believe the student’s parents shortly thereafter filed a lawsuit against the college for its inappropriate actions. After this incident, the dean was coming under more
318 and more scrutiny from both students and faculty; she subsequently broke down in tears at various meetings, proclaiming her fallible nature in being human, and that she was just too overwhelmed, and blah, blah, blah. What else can I say at this point? In today’s world, cronyism, even if it is for a spouse, would be further rewarded, and her inabilities and lack of actual experience at her job would now be grounds to promote her to Dean, or Chief CEO, or President of…Warren Wilson College, of course. At some point, I needed more entertainment than that of a crazy dean and decided it was time for another performance art piece. I was eventually able to convince a girl with whom I was in a sexual relationship that we should get married just for the sake of a performance. I talked to the Unitarian Priest at the school Chapel and secured a date for the altar before then making some flyers; inviting anyone and everyone. I got a few of my teachers to help by having them commit to providing food and beverages for the wedding. All- in-all it looked as though it was going to be the event of the year. The Warren Wilson staff and students were excited: Here were two college kids in love; ready to tie the knot; ready to forge something profound with the knot-of-greater- commitment called marriage—and soon Warren Wilson could add this to its brochures. Eventually, though, my plumbing instructor, Dennis, found out that the whole event was nothing more than a charade; a parlay into the absurd. If there’s one thing you don’t fuck with in the Bible-Belt it is the institution of marriage. Because of my hedonistic ways I had to go before the administrators, the Dean, and the board members to explain myself. After discovering I was in it just for the entertainment, the experience itself, they refused to open the Chapel for us. The wedding was off, and I definitely lost favor with everyone: both staff and students. Whereas I was indulging myself in a new world of Southern Belles and charm, my friend Paul was having
319 problems adjusting to college life, and it wasn’t looking good for him at Warren Wilson College. The new dean had instituted a policy regarding underage drinking, and anyone caught three times would be automatically expelled. This didn’t deter underage students from drinking, but it guaranteed that parents of alcoholic children would have to cough up more money to appease the administration, so it worked to the College’s benefit—who could blame the College for being morally virtuous? Eventually, Paul, who was only twenty, was caught drinking for his third time and was to be expelled. And this is when he came to me for salvation. His father, a successful and wealthy businessman, didn’t want him to go to North Carolina in the first place, and if he were to find out that his son was going to be expelled from the school of his, Paul’s, own choice, he would inevitably force Paul into going to Northwestern or some other prestigious university. Like all suburban kids from that time period, Paul had no desire to do his father’s bidding. I was there on student loans, and didn’t have a dime to my name, so I agreed to help him out for a few hundred dollars. I figured he owed me at least that much. As a solution to his problem, I figured all I needed to do was get the school in a corner and negotiate his reinstatement as a student. I drafted a letter wherein I cited the places and times the dean had broken down in tears before the student body and then cited the situation with the poor, shoeless fool who was beaten to the ground by four North Carolina State Troopers. I stated my concerns with the dean’s mental state, and suggested that she should be taken into psychiatric custody and evaluated. I signed it, along with two witnesses, and pretended as though I’d sent a copy to the state. If a State receives a letter stating such concerns, they are by law required to investigate. Imagine some young Northerner without a pot to piss in going up against Southern Aristocracy. If they could have thrown up the rope and, without any repercussions, hung me from a tree they would have happily tossed my dead ragout into the creek.
320 Upon being called to a meeting with University Administration, whereby they made all sorts of threats against me, I made a deal with them: They would put the dean on a short leash, Paul would get another chance, and I would stop with the letter and the formal process of her psychiatric evaluation. The only thing they added to my demands was that I leave Warren Wilson at the end of the semester. Done deal! At some point shortly thereafter, while I was sitting in the cafeteria, a girl approached me and asked if I would do a strip tease for her friend’s birthday. I’m also a bare-it-all kind of ragout by nature, so I happily agreed… only she meant right then and there. I had nothing to lose, so off came my clothing, which caused an instantaneous riot in the college cafeteria. Food, chairs, and other people’s clothing were all flying in utter chaos throughout the entire canteen. The funniest part of the whole event was that the Warren Wilson Trustees—the old, old money of Ashville, North Carolina— were having their monthly lunch-in at the Warren Wilson cafeteria that day. My plumbing instructor had to do everything in his power to keep the university administration from personally gathering my belongings and driving me to the end of the college property. At the end of the semester, I headed back home to Green Bay and enrolled for the next semester at UWGB. At the time, because of the University’s profound department in Philosophy, I decided to continue in this field of study. I also moved into the upstairs apartment at Ray’s home. Although he was almost seven years older than me, and had a wife and two small children, we’d become really good friends during the time I’d worked for him at the veterinarian office the previous summer. A friend, Tim had been living in the apartment since I’d left for North Carolina, and, honestly, really didn’t want me there since it was small. But I’d gotten
321 him the deal in the first place, and I twisted his arm into letting me move in. Ray only charged $75 a month per person, and it was by far the cheapest place in all of Green Bay. I resumed my life of studies, bicycle riding, playing punk music and chasing girls. Again in Green Bay, I was inspired by the professors at UWGB and decided that in order to study Philosophy properly I needed to learn German. I signed up for an intensive course, and planned on spending one semester abroad in Germany as an exchange student. It was in the summer of 1990 that I rode my bike to Alaska, and it was in the spring semester of 1991 that I went to Germany. To be honest no one believed me when I told them that I was going to ride my bike to Alaska; everyone just figured I was talking nonsense. In 1990 who the hell rode their bike to Alaska? There were a few people out there doing it, but Reality TV was still at least ten years away. Since my mother couldn’t even fathom it was possible, she didn’t know what I was saying. It was beyond her comprehension, so she had no thoughts about it either way. It wasn’t until after I got back from my first ride that she finally understood that my world was something beyond her imagination and, more importantly, her control. She became even more anxiety- ridden and fearful, and, thus, needed to make my life as difficult as possible: Like Jim B. before me, if she could make life as hard as possible for me, I would remain unstable and thus partial to her control. As bikes ride from Green Bay to my father’s house in Rochester MN, and through Wisconsin into Illinois were realized before I was to leave for Germany, the anxiety in my mother’s ragout continued to expand in infinite dimensions. She was not at all supportive of any of my bike rides, and it became all but impossible to talk to her about anything besides the weather. She was stressed over her inability to track my whereabouts and, above all else, to get me to do what she still considered the right things—which meant becoming the Cleaver Super Individual Consumer.
322 By this point, Garlic had finally worked its cures on Jim, and he was able to break off ties with her. My mom was completely out of her mind, and when I visited her a few days before I was to leave for Germany, and for my own safety, I brought my own food, and made my own meals. I should have only eaten Garlic, but at that time I still didn’t quite fully understand its curative and protective powers. Unbeknownst to me, my mother began conspiring with my then girlfriend, even before I left for Germany, to try and keep me from going. And once I was in Germany, my mother continued to pull the strings behind the scenes, provoking my girlfriend to say and do things to make my life there miserable. As example, I was expecting my hard-earned money earned at the fish processing plant to be wired to me in Germany by my girlfriend, but when I called, my girlfriend told me she had just spent the remaining thousand dollars on a new bike. I talked to my mother immediately thereafter from a phone booth in Kassel, Germany—which was the day before I was to begin classes at the University—and explained the unfortunate situation. Her reply was, “Oh well, I guess you’ll have to come home now.” With this statement I knew that she’d manipulated the situation, and was guiding my now ex-girlfriend’s actions. My mother imagined that without any money I would be forced to immediately return to the States, but I just hung up, and didn’t speak to either her or my then ex-girlfriend for a few months. Because of my mother’s actions, I ended up staying in Kassel for two semesters instead of one. And in a sense of irony, because I was destitute, I was forced to wash dishes at the local Youth Hostel, and so I was also the only exchange student from UWGB to actually learn German that semester. My first year in Kassel was difficult. I had to work non-stop so that I could afford to eat—and in the beginning I couldn’t speak a spit of German. Most Germans in University towns speak fluent English, and you, lovely reader, might
323 think that it would have made life easier: but I was there to learn German—not to help Germans improve their English. I really didn’t speak much, but studied continually, and started drinking beer again. I was after all in Germany and when in Rome… As an exchange student, you learn a lot about yourself, your homeland, and the world in general. It changes you; sometimes in good ways, and sometimes in bad ways, but that’s just it: when you return home you’re also much more critical. You bring a lot of the good with you and no one is really interested—everybody loves the status quo and just wants to eat McDonalds and buy junk. The individual consumer has no time for living, but only buying. Besides, America was then, and still is, hell-bent on turning its own population into pure, disposable individual consumers. There’s no need for people with experience in living when it comes to the business world. What corporation would hire somebody to actually help its employees or to build a more family-suited company with stability and longevity as its goals? Profits today, this very minute, equal success! What you can’t buy today will be worthless tomorrow! After being away for a year, I was happy to be back in the USA. I actually kissed the ground at O’Hare Airport after I landed. I returned to Green Bay, finished my BA, and started working. But after about a month of employment it dawned on me that I could go back to Germany, wash dishes at the Youth Hostel, make twice the amount of money that I could make anywhere in America, get better healthcare coverage, my Master’s degree paid for by the German Government, and be able to afford going on exotic bicycle tours for two months of the year. So I returned to Kassel in 1993 very disappointed in the American dream. In Kassel, I just screwed around for the first year working at the Youth Hostel before I began building tennis courts, whereby I earned close to ten thousand dollars a month.
324 After bike rides around Iceland, the Gulf of Mexico, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, California, the Coast of California to La Paz Mexico, most of Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Belgium, and a ride from Minneapolis on up to St. James Bay, down to Toronto and eventually on to Montreal, I managed to begin studies at the Albert-Ludwig University in Freiburg, Germany. Alongside my studies, I continued playing punk music, and played shows throughout Germany, Switzerland, Poland and France. Eventually I began working as a bicycle messenger, and continued bicycle touring. This was in the time frame that I met the Syrians: The roommates who would go on to kiss my face with their knees and give me a haircut by removing fistful-tufts of hair from my scalp.
325 Dinner is served
George Berkeley was close to the experience (found in Spinoza’s first six Definitions Concerning God), but he won no cigar. George was too fixated on his idea of the finite. He was too fixated on the apparent truth revealed in the illusionary and often delusional ideas swimming around in his self. His understanding becomes the only sphere of knowing; even when it presents itself as spiritually empty. Berkeley, in Garlic’s aroma, was the spirit who seeded transcendentalism in the Metaphysics of Aristotle. The unified sphere of expression starts contracting outwards as the experience becomes fixated on the inward perception of the finite center. But something more is lost in this turn of events as it is the culmination of the objectification of geometric forms as delivered by Descartes: As it is the ascending Difference from Leibniz’s Zero—from Leibniz’s attempt to deliver Identity (image value) to numbers—and Spinoza’s mystifying experiential deliverance of a sphere (Existence) as it, the sphere, is the infinite relationship of finite to itself. The unperceivable nature of infinite-finitude—as life is (ising)— becomes objectified. Zero becomes the infinite, and vampires and monsters are born. Unfortunately, Berkeley only felt Garlic Cure—he was afraid to take a good whiff of life—and had placed all bets on Garlic’s cousin, Tar Water. Garlic has nothing against an occasional glass of pine tar water— turpentine—but as history has proven to us, Tar Water is not a cure.
On Garlic: Taking liberties with George Berkeley’s Poem, On Tar….
Hail vulgar juice of never-fading garlic! Cheap as thou art, thy virtues are deific. To shew them and explain (such is thy store)
326 There needs much modern and much ancient lore. While with slow pains we search the healing spell, Those sparks of life, that under thy leafy skin dwell, From lowest earth by gentle steps we sink Through air, fire, æther to the highest skies you stink. Things gross and low present truth's sacred clue. Sense, fancy reason, intellect pursue Her winding mazes, and by Nature's laws From plain effects trace out the mystic cause, And principles explore, though wrapt in shades, That spring of life which the great world pervades, The spirit that moves, the Intellect that guides, Th' eternal One that o'er the Whole presides. Go learn'd mechanic, stare with stupid eyes, Attribute to all figure, weight and size; Nor look behind the moving scene to see What gives each wondrous form its energy. Vain images possess the sensual mind, To real agents and true causes blind. But soon as intellect's bright sun displays O'er the benighted orb his fulgent rays, Delusive phantoms fly before the light, Nature and truth lie open at the sight: Causes connect with effects supply A golden chain, whose radiant links on high Fix'd to the sovereign throne from thence depend And reach e'en down to garlic the nether end.
(Italicized, underlined words denote changes from tar or tar references to garlic or garlic references)
And then we have George Berkeley’s Philonous speaking to Hylas in The Third Dialogue from the Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous:
Hyl. Supposing you were annihilated, cannot you conceive it possible, that things perceivable by sense, may still exist?
Phil. I can; but then it must be in another mind. When I deny sensible things an existence out of the mind, I do not mean any mind in particular , but all minds. Now, it is plain, they have an existence exterior to my mind; since I find them, by experience, to
327 be independent of it. There is, therefore, some other mind wherein they exist, during the intervals between the times of my perceiving them: as, likewise, they did before my birth, and wou’d do after my supposed annihilation. And, as the same is true, with regard to all other finite, created spirits; it necessarily follows there is an omnipresent, eternal mind, which knows and comprehends all things, and exhibits them to our view in such a manner, and according to such rules, as He himself has ordained, and are be us termed the laws of nature.
There’s no joy, no positive nature of rising left in Berkeley. All inspiration, as life is an ecstatic event, is consumed into Berkeley’s own experience-free, static nothingness to which the ideas lead us: Zero becomes home to the ideas. But the truth of the matter is matter and life, nature and spirit, is everything more than ideas: The feelings, the emotions, the judgments as morality lives; the Ideas, as the Infinite/Finitude of conscious Life — of Being being(transitive verb) or consciousness consciousizing— offer, in all of their ugliness as well, something always positive. Granted, sometimes this game, of Difference rising through Identity and back into Difference through the unified Act of Ideas, rewards us, but it seems that most of all they shit us out, cold, callous and indifferent to anything that would make us content. But we all know now that Garlic is delicious in all of its foul smelling beauty: The solace is found in the experience of the positive nature as life can only be lived.
Here we are nearing the end of a delicious Tale of Ragout. The taste of Garlic lingers in our mouths, and Garlic’s heavenly waft hangs majestically in the air. If we are on the path of Cure then the Art of Consuming should also be becoming clearer. We should be able to taste the Difference between uncertain, probable, possible, physical finite reality and that of reality. The expressions of our acts may only appear as the shaking, shimmering ethereal images of mass
328 consumptions, but as Garlic has exposed: The vampires and monsters may know where reality lives but their reign of fear is at an end.
Enjoy the smell of Garlic in the following and final parable. ( George Berkeley just told me, and thus is telling You that You should think of him while reading the following, humorous, but strange, anecdote.)
Coca-a-Cola® keep out!
Despite having posted signs at the inner and outer limits of my mind that read: STAY OUT! PRIVATE PROPERTY! and NO TRESPASSING! Coca-a-Cola® continues to send me ideas, and thus I cannot stop thinking about Coca-a-Cola®. In response to this continued disregard of my own individual wishes that the unrelenting infiltration of unwanted ideas stop, I have gone so far as to routinely play recorded announcements (on and along the inner and outer limits of my mind) that emphatically decree: DO NOT ENTER! THIS AREA IS RESTRICTED! UNATHOURIZED ENTRANCE NOT PERMITTED! I ONLY DRINK TAR WATER! Now I know you are thinking that I am being rude, and that I should be more welcoming of foreigners into my being, but before you jump to any such critical conclusions you must understand that I didn't just use any voice for these warning announcements; I spent a lot of time looking for the most delicately accommodating and friendly voice to deliver these caveats. I even went as far as to hire a Los Angles based marketing firm that creates friendly voice-messages for airports and shopping malls. (The company also employs professional female artists who have done voice-overs for Disney films!) Seeing as these friendly messages did little to curb Coca-a-Cola’s® intrusion into my spiritual-hub, it could
329 be argued that this approach to dealing with trespassing ideas was in and of itself a mistake and I should have neither been accommodating nor friendly in my appeals to Coca-a-Cola’s® sympathies: I should have sought a much more forceful voice of admonition. But I like to consider myself to be a civil and friendly kind of guy, and my only intention was, has been, and still is to make clear that any unwanted thoughts are not welcomed in my acts of consciousness. (I am only just beginning to suspect that Coca-a-Cola® is not ready to respect my request regardless of how I approach the issue.) I like resolving conflicts without undue confrontations. (I’ve learned a lot since getting my ass kicked by Syrians). After all unsuccessful attempts to politely keep Coca-a- Cola® off my personal and private property, I have decided to hire a lawyer and sue the Coca-a-Cola® Company for: illegal entry and advertising without permission. It is bad enough I have to see their billboards everywhere, but the fact that they keep entering my mind—the stock of my ragout—is just outright disrespectful! Since the Coca-a-Cola® Corporation holds the patent and trademark to Coca-a-Cola® (which by modern standards can only be considered abstractions of the physical cola products on grocery store shelves) it must be true that the idea of Coke is really all that they want to own; otherwise they wouldn’t keep selling themselves so limitlessly consumable as cans or bottles. Seeing that the only thing Coca-a-Cola® truly wants is the idea of itself then they should be responsible for the whereabouts of these said ideas. And as you know by now, despite my continued appeal that they should desist, Coca-a-Cola® keeps delivering me their ideas. It is therefore Coca-a-Cola’s® duty to keep their product as a protected idea strictly on the supermarket shelves and not in my mind. Furthermore, since these ideas as patented and trademarked — the ideas with which Coca-a- Cola® leads us to believe are not the actual and real products of my desires but in truth, these said abstractions, are really
330 the only thing worth having — they, Coca-a-Cola®, should be responsible for the whereabouts of any and all related ideas: as legally owned abstractions limited to and as defined in ®. Coke® it’s the real thing. Additionally, Coca-a-Cola® has even spoiled Christmas for me, considering I prefer a Santa Claus clad in green, but I will not sue them for this because I like Santa regardless of the color of his suit. Coca-a-Cola® owns these patented ideas and trademarked images, not me, and they, therefore, not only belong to Mr. Coca-a-Cola’s® act of consciousness, but that’s where they should remain! Accordingly, it can be said that Coca-a-Cola® has willfully and negligently entered my mind (which happens to fall within my individual self) without any prior agreement. As a truly finite individual I hereby accuse Coca-a-Cola® of repeated violation of my being and wish to be compensated accordingly. They’ll be hearing from my lawyer.
Garlic®, it’s the real thing…
You, the reader, should also further note that since its inception in Before Time, Garlic has been notable for its advertising slogans: 1886 - Drink Garlic. 1904 - Delicious and refreshing. 1905 - Garlic revives and sustains. 1906 - The great national temperance nourishment. 1908 - Good til the last toe 1917 - Three million a day. 1922 - Life knows no season. 1923 - Enjoy life 1924 - Refresh Yourself 1925 - Six million a day. 1926 - It had to be good to get where it is. 1927 - Pure as Sunlight
331 1927 - Around the corner from anywhere. 1928 – Fresh squeezed Garlic ... pure drink of natural flavors. 1929 - The pause that refreshes. 1932 - Ice-cold sunshine. 1938 - The best friend thirst ever had. 1938 - Thirst asks nothing more. 1939 - Garlic goes along. 1939 - Garlic has the taste thirst goes for. 1939 - Whoever you are, whatever you do, wherever you may be, when you think of refreshment, think of ice cold Garlic. 1942 - The only thing like Garlic is Garlic itself. 1948 - Where there's Garlic there's hospitality. 1949 - Garlic ... along the highway to anywhere. 1952 - What you want is a Garlic Toe. 1956 - Garlic ... makes good things taste better. 1957 - Sign of good taste. 1958 - The Cold, Crisp Taste of Garlic 1959 - Be really refreshed. 1963 - Things go better with Garlic. 1969 - It's the real thing 1971 - I'd Like to Buy the World a Toe of Garlic 1975 - Look Up America. (US only) 1976 - Garlic adds life. 1979 - Have a Garlic Toe and a smile 1982 - Garlic is it! 1985 - America's Real Choice 1986 - Red White & You (for Garlic Classic) 1986 - Catch the Wave (for New Garlic) 1987 - You Can't Beat the Feeling. 1990 - Can't beat the real thing. (US & Canada only) 1993 - Always Garlic. 2000 - Enjoy. 2001 - Life tastes Good. 2003 - Real. (US & Canada only)
332 2003 - Make It Real. (UK & Republic of Ireland only) 2003 - As It Should Be. (Australia & New Zealand only) 2006 - The Garlic Side of Life. 2008 - Live on the Garlic side of Life
333 Footnotes, redactions, and further research in the nature of phenomenology as an inquiry based on mereological experience
334 Introduction
1(Redacted) The way I see it life is a story that is an unfinished ragout: The Story—my ragout as well as any and all savory ragouts—is, literally speaking, an orchestra of toothsome sentiments simmering in a kettle atop a stove. The narrative dish is without question or hesitation a scrumptiously candid and demonstrative ensemble being constantly augmented by gushy herbs and, when The Story is mythological and disenchanting, squirts of corny ketchup. In other words, whatever the plot may be, life, in its chronicling form of accreting emotional flavors, is always a ragout in progress: The story time recipe is endlessly revolving into—without motility but with plenty of change—an appetizingly greater and/or lesser main meal. Furthermore, and this is something that may be even harder for you, lovely reader, to decipher (and swallow) than the previous three Gordian sentences, The Story can only be about a me in as far as it concerns every-one’s feast —in as far as it concerns any and all savory ragouts. Put differently: I have has no absolutely finite, individual existence and living—my life and all of life—is a tasty meal archetypically full of creamy possibilities and succulent probabilities. Still and all, the greatest irony to this sad and funny repast of a life is that somehow, regardless of the ingredients, The Story—as in my and every-one’s scrumptious spread—is never quite done. But this is a good thing considering that if the main entrée was finally prepared—if the main entrée had evolved—then Life would be over. This is to say that personally as well as universally I am is always glad to not yet be ready for the dinner table.
Chapter 3 (Redacted)
335
1This means that such critics are no longer even capable of understanding Mr. Vonnegut’s wisdom, because Mr. Vonnegut is speaking about living from a universal point of departure known through an everything Existence or Being and not a nothingness Being or nothingness Existence. Mr. Vonnegut’s critics are no longer capable of escaping the illusion that 1 (living) and 0 (Existence as it is limited within the realm of a critic’s own self-evident, unique yet universal machine of discovery) have become equated; thus, in analogous irony, their lives—the lives of Mr. Vonnegut’s critics as Finite, singular entities—consequently always and only have the net value of zero (Nothingness): Such people no longer have, for themselves, any self-respect, and therefore they cannot recognize it in others. What Mr. Vonnegut further understood, and his critics did not and still do not, is that “truth” is never owned, immutable or singular, and is only something “living”… even when it, a Life-value, comes at the cost of the illusion of dying. This is why, for Mr. Vonnegut, the suicide bomber represents a greater, if not the greatest, dimension of truth: In that the bomber’s Life, as it is sacrificed, has only the aim of furthering an Existence that delivers Life defined by virtue or value… the values represented in the divine awareness driving the suicide bomber to his or her ends. The suicide bomber in truth continues, even after dying, to live in an Existence that can never be denied or negated. Mr. Vonnegut’s comments reveal, very clearly, that he, too, recognizes Life-values as they can only be of Existence—an Existence that is never nothing: Existence can never be revealed in the equilibrium of ‘0’. And this is what, where, how, and why Mr. Vonnegut equates
336 the act of dying for one’s beliefs, even if such an act is only illusion, to be reflective of something greater: Life is always first expressed in the nature of the positive whole (Unity) of everything (as Existence gives rise to “is” or “Life”). This is what the knowledge of Finite and Infinite—the one and the many or the One and the All—being embraced in a suicide bombing reflects: The Infinite nature of (sheer) Existence making its greatest expression through the act of its Finite attribute so that value may remain or live. This is to say that History is always a wonderful thing, because it means Life is lived; regardless of how much one would like to believe that truth is something to be possessed within one’s own singular, individual perspective and corresponding self-generated judgments; irrespective of the excessive suffering or horrific injustice which may arise due to such an act as to blow one’s self up in a public place. This is to say that any idea of evil, as it is the source and object of injustice, is better kept on the Wal- Mart shelves where it can keep the truth, as one now believes it to be something ownable, of the self-disposable, 0=1 Life strong and healthy. Furthermore, Mr. Vonnegut understood in a sublime way that the judgments made through a Finite perspective can never negate the whole of Existence, and this is why he was willing to stand up for that which he cherished most—Life—and to praise those people who make such a sacrifice as to blow themselves up; because such a sacrifice is made to and for that which the person—the suicide bomber— also, obviously cherish most: Life.
For any American not to accept the above words in full weight of their wisdom is to assert that any and all US soldiers who have fallen in battle are nothing more than failed heroes, and that those US soldiers who have killed enemy in battle are nothing more than sociopathic, cold blooded killers: Because the truth of the matter is: Truth is only a process of expression, and, as such, it is the deliverance of All that is in this ever slippery, escaping moment of Now. To believe that only we, Americans, know right from wrong and good from bad—or to assume that only our killings are
337 justifiable—is to say that God only speaks to and through us, and therefore only our actions have meaning as we place our judgments above everything “in this moment of Now”… that’s pretty nuts if you ask me… Wisdom rising from the waft of Garlic
Self-value and worth have since been regulated and/or cast out to the non-Existent physical world of subatomic probability and possibility or to the non-Existent religious before and afterlife, which are, as it is, analogous with scientific statistical atomic/subatomic truths.
Chapter 6
1 The Golden Opulence Sundae from Serendipity in New York City was, at $1,000 per serving, one of the most expensive deserts in the world (2007). But as of this rewrite (2009), this pales in comparison to the current winner, Strawberries Arnaud, at Arnaud’s in New Orleans at a mere $1,4 million.
2 Nixon issued Executive Order 11615 pursuant to the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970, unilaterally imposing 90- day wage and price controls, a 10% import surcharge, and most importantly "closed the gold window." This ended any proportionate value of goods to the relative value “worked” in their production and thus set the stage for an American economy to get a jump on “cheap” labor in poorer countries. Combine this with the effectiveness of an Edward Bernays marketing/propaganda machine and US products would eventually pave the way to world domination...would you like to buy the world a coke and keep it company? What non-US made product without an excess of financial resources for advertising could compete against a US made (in a poor country with cheap labor) product that, through the use of cheap labor, provided and still provides almost unlimited resources for marketing? Aristotle’s two and a half thousand year old idea (Nicomachean Ethics, Bk V: Ch. 5),
338 “all goods must therefore be measured by some one thing, as we said before. Now this unit is in truth demand, which holds all things together (for if men did not need one another’s goods at all, or did not need them equally, there would be either no exchange or not the same exchange); but money has become by convention a sort of representative of demand; and this is why has the name ‘money’ (nomisma)—because it exists not by nature but by law (nomos) and it is in our power to change it and make it useless,” has been so corrupted that useless, as the dollar became after the dissolution of Bretton Woods, is now the actual “power” bestowed upon the US Dollar; a “power” that is held by Too Big To Fail bankers. The same bankers who believe that in serving their own self-interests they are serving yours and my best interests….vampires and monsters gone wild!
3 https://www.stopcorporateabuse.org/our-food-system, Documentary: Food Inc, 2008, Director Robert Kenner
Chapter 7
1 In 1972 an article citing Delgado's views was presented at Congress's MK-Ultra hearings. There are numerous articles on the WWW in regards to Dr. Delgado and a fair representation can be found at: http://cabinetmagazine.org/ issues/2/psychcivilization.php (Issue 2, Mapping Conversations Spring 2001, Psychocivilization and Its Discontents: An Interview with José Delgado, by Magnus Bärtås and Fredrik Ekman) 2 ” Consciousness becomes, in the modern sense of the word “philosophy”, an undefinable or unexplainable “act” which precedes any formation of concepts, judgments or symbolic representations. Take for example Spinoza’s “By that which is
339 self-caused, I mean that of which the essence involves existence, or that of which the nature is only conceivable as existent,” in The Ethics, Part I. Concerning God. Definition I. Or, Ernst Cassirer’s philosophy of Symbolic Forms in Wesen des Symbolbegriffs (pg.185) also, as anchored in methodism, as it moves along or within the first six Definitions in Concerning God:
“We cannot individually follow here how the same direction of progress also becomes perceptible in the construction of the aesthetical form-world. Here we are, however, from the start standing on a different ground and quasi in a different spiritual/mind dimension.”
And from the same paragraph:
“Thereby it doesn’t deal with, of course, sheer succession of a simple historical order of concrete artistic manner of representation, but rather a basic moment of the representation itself; a representation that is present in every step of its development, and whose different relations and whose dynamic for the style of every epoch is determined.” (Underlines added by Garlic)
And last but not least, Ernst Cassirer cleverly formulates apriori consciousness in its whole as it is the sum of its parts (Infinite/Ffinitude) in a Difference-Epistemology, in his first two “axioms” at the beginning of Subsanzbegriff und Funktionsbegriff: (1)
“Der Psychologie der Abstraktion enthält somit den eigentlich Schlüssel für den logischen Gehalt jeglicher Begriffsform.” The psychology of abstraction (apriori machine of discovery or self- perpetuating conception machine -- as presentation --in Kantian terms) contains the actual key for the logical substance of every concept-form. (2) “Wo immer in der Geschichte der Philosophie die Frage nach dem Verhältnis des Denkens und Seins, der Erkenntnis und der Wirklichkeit gestellt wird, da ist sie bereits in ihrem ersten Ansatz von bestimmten logischen Voraussetzungen, von einer bestimmten Ansicht über die Natur des Begriffs und des Urteils geleite und beherrscht.“
340 These Cassirer snippets, as do the following five axioms in Substanzbegriff und Funktionsbegriff, reveal a pre- transcendental, pre or sub Leibniz experience, or simply Experience which occurs along the horizon of a Spinozian Difference-Ontology arena (chant of spheres) that binds and connects one’s, as Identity derived from Difference, thereness and thereness in totality. The specific “difference” which separates Cassirer from his contemporaries is that Cassirer’s methodism reveals an expression (of Identity) directed at itself as it is the sum of all of Existence—Cassirer recognizes that in order to speak about any or in any manner of “truth”, one cannot leave the chant of spheres. Cassirer‘s Boden or floor, as it is the chant of spheres, is the particular View about the nature of the concepts and judgements. Furthermore, as Cassirer goes on in the first paragraph following his axioms, he points out the shortcomings realized in such a perspective—as it is the whole and parts simultaneously—ergo free from any notions of time —when it comes to number ordering and bracketing (limit concepts) in mathematics. This is because numbers as ordering in such a perspective has no spatial reference. Space or dimension hasn’t yet achieved “life”. The floor is Existence existing. It has no function other than to be the whole of its parts. There is no negation because there’s always something but never nothing. Such a perspective is counter-intuitive to all our Western Traditions in Science and Philosophy (the Ancients not being included and Nietzsche is to some degree an exception). Our individual Identity and function driven perceptions can’t wrap our minds around it and therefore we call it—Existence—nothing. 3 Difference is all that any-one can ever know: The nature of any epistemological endeavor can never get beyond the “what” of any discourse. So when Philalethes says: “Let us now turn to the knowledge that our ideas give us, for ideas are the only things that knowledge has anything to do with. For you to know something is for you to perceive that some two of your ideas have a connection and agreement between them, or a
341 disagreement and mutual inconsistency. Whether we fancy, guess, or believe, that is always what we fancy, guess or believe. This is how we are aware, for instance, that white is not black, and that there is a necessary connection between the angles of a triangle and their equality with two right angles,” in Leibniz’ New Essays on Human Understanding, Chapter i: Knowledge in general (http://www.earlymoderntexts.com, pdf version, 2005) that would and should have been the end of the discourse. Every-thing and any-thing added by an Identity given as Theophilus or Philalethes is categorically, in all imperative sense, false….. Oh dear Leibniz, you should have not been so offended by Spinoza; he was just another Difference in the mix. 4 There’s nothing mystical to a value that is singular-plurality (One and All or one and the many or infinite-finitude). To begin with, Existence, as it can only be of consciousness, is defined through the relationship of a Finite of which when experienced in an absolute sense must be Infinitely so… and conversely the infinite when experienced in an absolute sense must be Finitely so: Absolute singularity (Finite) necessitates absolute plurality (Infinite) (as a mode)… I hope to get beyond the rhetoric here and point out that there is only a reality which is (In)Finitely-(In)Finite. (Bergson called it Duration, Dr. Fred Kersten called it ising, Aristotle calls it “nows”, and Einstein called it spacetime, but the emptiness of such values or symbolic representations create a demand for things like “darkmatter” or “heaven” to make them right again.) (Fret not, for time and space will be addressed in a later chapter.) As for singular-plural or Infinite/Finite terms, one only needs to look to modern quantum theories of complementarity, non- locality, entanglements, or Dawkin’s evolutionary mechanism of memetics (The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins 1976), or Sheldrake’s hypothesis of morphic resonance (A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Morphic Resonance (1981)) to find similar application of Infinite/Finite symbolic concepts or terms. But
342 we know, from Garlic’s aroma of phenomenological reduction (Epoché), Existence is (discursively -arguably) given in singularity (Finitude, the one) of plurality (Infinitude, ALL, the many), and any “object” as it is of consciousness exists Finitely-Infinite (as Difference) before any meta-mathematical, temporal-Gestalt-aspect of Identity or meta-physical Gestalt- aspect of Difference occurs: Meta-physical Gestalt-aspect of Difference being mental images, form, ideas, symbolic form as the culmination, through a blending (and eventually genetic transformation), of geometric forms, aka the manifold Identity sides of the “coin”, consciousizing (becoming aware – see Cassirer’s: simple historical ordering) and rising in temporal- Gestalt as “template” or “archetype” (to eventual numerical Identity) as it is still ontological – or to the how Ernst Cassirer gives us a Difference-Epistemology. (Temporality is numerical-order-Gestalt expressed through the Infinite/Finite quality of any objectivity: Remember true reality or Life occurs in symbolic forms, mental images or ideas as they are the when and where of consciousness. Einstein’s spacetime relation of three dimensions of space and one dimension of time is close to revealing Life; but the universal constant of time wins no cigars. There are a given two dimensions in unity, as Infinite/Finitude, out of which the illusion of linear thereness arise, but it must first build its own illusionary“ launching pad” whereby it can appear, if only as an illusion, to rise.) Temporal-Gestalt, Existence still without Identity but (an Existence) already on the move towards itself, is expression or deliverance without necessarily necessitating Life. Difference Existence in this dynamic has long since been defined, by Aristotle, as Unmoved-Mover (spatiality): A=A, or it could be said A is of fundamental consciousness. Aristotle could not “think” of anything in terms of (our) radicalized individual perceptions and thus his A=A would be ontological by default. Furthermore, it could also be thought that because of complementarity of Infinite/Finitude, “objectivity” Existence or “true reality” (Life) as it is only symbolic forms, mental
343 images or ideas, exists. Also, to jump ahead and to reemphasize that of the “objects” or the mental images delivered in Garlic, and how consciousness all begins and ends in a Big Bang without the need of the Smell (sensual deliverance), ontological consciousness (sheer Difference Being or simple Existence) is Infinite/Finitude: The positivity of consciousness (Existence) with or without rising into itself is always Difference because Difference, which is always here, there and there, is never absent from any moment of life, whereas Identity, as exemplified with the coin, can only reveal one side at a time, and its temporal-Gestalt is necessitated by the eventual Smell in the Bang, and not by any function. Being (consciousness or reality) and arising life is always religious as it is euphoric (Awe): The positivity in Infinite/Finite Difference is absolute; this is the constant Einstein (and other physicists) confuses to be time. Even without absolute balance between Infinite and Finite, Identity isn’t a necessary aspect of or to consciousness: But Identity is necessary for Life. (As it is, such development would be Consciousness Historical Dialectic because without Identity and temporal-Gestalt there is only sheer Difference Existence: Absolute balance of Being (Existence) in its Infinite and Finite nature as an expression of positivity sans deliverance). Identity eventually rises (see Big Smelly Bang Theory in chapters 20 and 30 for greater clarification) but even still, Difference, as it is ontologically (complementarity) Infinite/Finitude positivity of consciousness rising or not rising into itself, hasn’t “identified” with either Finite or Infinite. (Consciousness Historical Dialectic is always delivered in the sum total of Infinite/Finitude but is lived, if only as an illusion, historically… hence the importance of temporal-Gestalt and its offspring in numerical forms.) This state of non-referential reference—Difference sans Identity—would be considered eternity, heaven, Duration, spacetime, dark matter, or nothingness in the illusion of “our historical perspective… see Dr. Delgado for the guidelines to our historical perspective.
344 (Difference sans Identity will sometimes, in Garlic’s Thralls, bereferred to as sheer Being or sheer Existence, and one should never forget that Existence is never not of consciousness and Life: Although it may “choose” to believe that it is the only conscious actor, it is only conscious as and through Infinite/Finite Difference or sheer Being.) But the truth of what we believe to be history is only an illusion meant to deliver the absolute positivity (Awe) of Difference as it is Infinite/Finitude. There is only one reality and/or one truth, and that is the one that we experience here in this moment: Phenomenological Deliverance. What is called historical is the embodiment of All of consciousness genetically encoded in every act of consciousness: The Bang is happening, can you smell the Garlic? Reality or life is not linear but it is the rising of Infinite/Finitude through Difference and Identity into itself. As for the illusions of an Epistemology or a teleological context, as it plays out in Einstein’s constant dimension of time, Pyrrho’s skepticism, as it is not reflective of transcendental existence, reveals that to not know anything still “delivers the goods”, but only in as far as it’s a good story. Life is not function but it is awe and euphoria: Life is the positivity Identity lives through Difference. The end is the means as is the means the end. Identity, as it first occurs in the Big Smelly Bang or as temporal-Gestalt (arché), is the rising, as it is a first expression of Infinite-to-Finitude and Finite-to- Infinite positivity identified through the Finite, and could be for practical purposes called “numerical”→ because simple Difference is never identifiable: Difference is always experiential. This is why Identity, even at its origins of rising, is Gestalt or Gestalting: But the temporal illusions of what we call “time” first come much later in the order of its rising. Geometric forms must rise first and genetic transformation of said forms (as consciousness rising into itself) must occur
345 before there can be an illusion of linear thereness. But being aware of the nature of temporal-Gestalt sheds light on why when counting natural numbers, the number one is not really a number to be counted: One is only the Finite aspect of the Infinite-Finitenature of Difference Existence. In order to have a number 1, time and space would be necessitated beyond the mere illusion…such an illusion (as it is Nothing) does occur (in the Big Smelly Bang) but the power of this illusion is now in the hands of vampires and monsters. Luckily, though, in the Now there’s only the smell of Garlic giving dimension or giving a true expression of positivity to this story: Awe can never be transcendental because there is… The Identity, when rising in any relationship, despite its ‘Finite’ nature, is necessarily Infinite in its expression because it is always of consciousness or is grounded in Infinite/Finitude Difference. But all of this, in Garlic’s deliverance, is still not temporal- Identity. Temporal-Identity (the illusion of objectively-real rising into something other than itself) is geometric and, as such, rises accordingly in ontological Difference as it is always going through the same aforementioned process: It is the chant. Difference, as it first becomes consciousness in a Finite moment, in this moment of the Big Smelly Bang, rises in awe of its own positivity found in the complementarity of its Finite- Infinite nature. This experience is “what” is found in the Eleatics, Aristotle’s Metaphysic, in Spinoza’s Ethics, Leibniz’s Monadology and pretty much any non-Western Philosophy: Buddhism, Daoism, Jainism, Islam, Native American animism. (Temporal-Identity is discussed in greater detail in later chapters 20 and 30
5 Knowledge or Epistemology plays a very important role in the current story (or historical perspective or Zeitgeist) we believe to be the context of our lives.
6 As Leibniz reveals to us in his Monadology:
346 “Still Monads must needs have some qualities otherwise they would not even be existences. And if simple substances did not differ at all in their qualities, there would be no means of perceiving any change in things. Whatever is in a composite can come into it only through its simple elements and the Monads, if they were without qualities, since they do
not differ at all in quantity, would be indistinguishable one from another.” (Number 8 from the Monadology) (page 52)
7 In philosophy the terms symbolic forms, mental images, ideas and so on would all fall into a separate category, but this is solely due the premise of “a priori” knowledge, which is, in garlic-free ontology, grounded in a perceptual illusion of Identity sans Difference —hence, the sacrificial lamb. In this aromatic story there is no radicalized individual Existence but only Existence: we know this through the Smell of Garlic. Theoretically, these terms — symbolic forms, mental images and ideas and so on — could be classifications used to distinguish Empirical Sciences (Identity and the story of what) from Ontological Sciences: Difference positively rising through Identity and the story of how and why.
8In chapter IV of New Essays on the Understanding (iv: Reality of our knowledge, pg. 196) Leibniz proudly and unwittingly opens the doors for the vampires and monsters: “In reasoning so carefully on this topic you’re building a castle in the air, and your whole system contains nothing but what is ideal [= ‘made of ideas’] and imaginary. In your scheme of things· a scatterbrained man with a heated imagination will count as knowing more than most people because he has more ideas—and livelier ones—than they do. The visions of a religious fanatic and the reasonings of a sober man will be equally certain, provided that the fanatic talks in a normal-seeming way. . . .”
I, Mr. Lyons aka the maître de, don’t believe Garlic appears to you, lovely reader, in a “normal-seeming way”, but I make no claim that this story, this “castle in the air”, is not without “fanaticism”, or is not the result of infinitely finite years of
347 “intoxication”. This all translates into: A Tale of Ragout—The Story—should be simply “tasty” and not “truthy”. Therefore this Story is, in as far as Garlic embodies obscure absurdity, monster and vampire free. As for Leibniz, it could be said that he is the bouncer or gatekeeper standing at the historical door to the scientific mind, and thus he is, in relationship to the vampires and monsters, their Renfield or fly-eating-minion. From the same paragraph in the New Essays on the Understanding:
“And I answer that there is obviously such an agreement in the case of our simple ideas, because our mind can’t make these of its own accord, so they must be produced by things acting on it.”
And then in the next paragraph in New Essays, the nature of man’s “truthy”, eternal and unique yet universal intellect is revealed:
“Our certainty would be small, or rather nonexistent, if it had no foundation of simple ideas except the one deriving from the senses. Have you forgotten how I showed that •ideas are inherently in our mind, and that even our •thoughts come to us from our own depths because no other created things can have any immediate influence on the soul? Also, our certainty regarding universal and eternal truths is grounded in the ideas themselves, independently of the senses, just as pure ideas—ideas of the intellect, such as the ideas of being, one, same etc.—are also independent of the senses. But the ideas of sensible qualities such as colour, flavour etc. (which are really only illusory images) do come to us through the senses, i.e. from our confused perceptions. And the truth about contingent singular things is based on the way sensory phenomena are linked together just as required by truths of the intellect. That—the distinction between necessary and contingent—is the distinction that ought to be drawn; whereas the one you draw here between simple ideas and complex ones, and within the latter between ideas of substances and those of accidents, appears to me to have no foundation, since all ideas of the intellect are modelled on archetypes in the eternal possibility of things, ·i.e. they are copies of ideas in God’s mind, the mind that is the source of all necessity and possibility·.”
348 God is, for Leibniz, 1 and 0 necessitating each other’s roll in the exchange given as Leibniz, and thus Leibniz is or becomes by his own admission the most important player/referee in the relationship of Life to Existence. 9 Difference is Being’s absolute foundation but needs Identity to positively rise as living: Vollkommen Being or Life in general. Perhaps in a generic sense, one could say this would be a Zen moment. Awe is the means and the ends to the experience.
10 Through the eye of Garlic is revealed the Charlatan nature behind all modern scientists…. See Leibniz’ role in the exchange of 1 and 0 in the footnotes from this chapter to understand the role of the definer. 11 Time and space, as they are not livable in Difference positively rising through Identity as only Infinite/Finitude, become seeded in Identity’s illusion of Difference- independence: or at least in the apparent domination of Identity over Difference. Just look what Hume has to say about Difference and its submission to Identity: “It might naturally be expected, that I should join difference to the other relation. But that I consider rather as a negation of relation than as anything real or positive. Difference is of two kinds as oppos’d either to identity or resemblance. The first is call’d a difference of number; the other of kind”, and one can smell Consciousness Historical as Dialectic (r)evolving. And this is why there’s been “Metaphysics” for thousands of years and no “Meta- temporality”: Because the illusions of temporal- Identity are necessitated in the nature of temporal-Gestalt or temporal-Gestalting: It’s an ordering that has an illusion of not being bound to Difference origin. In our “zeitgeistigem” sense — non-garlicky or otherwise — the so-called act of transcendental meditation reflects a sense of not being here or there or there. One has to transcend the moment of living in
349 order to live it, and then in strange twists of life, philosophy becomes the need to return the ideas, as they are already living, to the realm of living. The mere need or belief in a need to transcend, in any act of consciousness, is the dance (or relationship of forms (ideas)) in only one Infinite-Finite Existence, and reveals a sense of “intentionality of brokenness” or “of disconnectedness” as ideas search, through transcendence, inter-continuity (Duration) in objective, physical reality: This transcendental activity eventually becomes the experience in the euphoric-like search we do for the objects on the Wal-Mart shelf. Becoming or living is always a search for a truer Identity; an Identity grounded in Difference. Intentionality in the living, unbroken Existence — as it was delivered in Ancient Philosophy and many so- called Eastern Philosophies and Native or Aboriginal ritual — is simply an expression of discourse as Existence delivers the expression in a 1 to 1 relationship: A=A as awareness grounded in Difference doesn’t necessitate linear time. Hume is the first Western Philosopher to mistreat the Ancient Philosophers, and his, Hume’s, philosophy, although a tremendous help to our story, has led us on a wild goose chase for the past three hundred years. From Of the Understanding, Book I. of the ancient philosophy: “When we gradually follow an object in its successive changes, the smooth progress of the thought makes us ascribe an identity to the succession; because ‘tis by a similar act of the mind we consider an unchangeable object. When we compare its situation after a considerable change the progress of the thought is broke; and consequently we are presented with the idea of diversity: In order to reconcile which contradictions the imagination is apt to feign something unknown and invisible, which it supposes to continue the same under all these variations; and this unintelligible something it calls a substance, or original and first matter.” Hume is already under the delusion that it is he who is ascribing Identity to an object. Descartes cogito erg sum has
350 already greatly misled Hume’s experience of Ancient Philosophy. Aristotle’s first rule of logic, A=A, when taken into context of where and when an object is moved by an Unmoved Mover, as it is the action of thought or consciousness itself, reveals to us a world that is not generated by “Aristotle’s perspective”. The Ancients would have been grounded in Difference Existence; hence the meaning of their inquiry was to find meaning to Identity or the deliverance of life. The ideas, symbolic forms, and/or mental images were revered and not damned to nothingness. Succession of Existence, as it is ideas unabated Difference-living, is never interrupted, but one’s thoughts may be, through the life annihilating powers of Vampires and Monsters, sucked out (of one) at incomprehensible intervals.
12 This is reflective of our teleological nature of (directional) “to know”: The unique yet universal machines of discovery are pure and righteous function. Knowing, as it is, reveals “evolution” or “direction” (see Einstein’s theory of spacetime) aspires to something knowable (as it is the nature of function to have an end result); the understanding as it is delivered in the unique yet universal machine of discovery must have an object as its aim… God or the Blind Watchmaker? Bullshit! I smell Garlic, and it is positively Infinite-Finite living!
Chapter 8
1 Using as example Schrödinger’s cat, what we find in the dead or the live cat is, in either case, a cat that ‘has being’, and consequently it is one’s (or ones’) ideas of alive or dead that need to be reexamined. In regards to ‘has being’ as Leibniz says “quid non agit non existit” or that which does not act does not exist (every being is active) and either cat, dead or alive, acts in regards to the conscious question. Regardless of ‘where’ or ‘when’ one sees or experiences a ‘cat’, it is the idea, like in Aristotle’s first rule of logic, A=A, that moves, and thus
351 life as living can only be realized or delivered in the ideas. Living occurs after the First Act as Infinite/Finite rises and then (lives) through Difference (illusion of space) and eventually Identity (the ensuing illusion of time). But living (delivered form, idea, symbolic form or mental image) is neither a beginning nor an end but a rejoicing of the Infinite/ Finitude of its absolute origin—positivity of Being rising into itself (Difference as Identity). This is to say ‘objects’ are never at rest and are never independent of Existence: Difference precedes Identity and the ‘field’ or ‘axis’ or ‘intersection’ of rising is always Finite/Infinitude. (This is to say Einstein’s theory of spacetime is, because of perceptual delusion, reduced to a single dimension: Einstein. In truth, there are only two dimensions, Infinite and Finite that are rising into themselves.) Life is not something for a ‘you’ or an ‘I’ to judge—and then again life is delivered in the sentiments of moral judgments or the accumulation thereof: As the true Genetic and Genetic-transformation-evolution of complex systems of relational experience (or expressive accumulation of positivity of Life). Hume goes to some length to express passions as realities truest principles: “since passions, volitions and actions are ‘original facts and realities complete in themselves.’” And Leibniz called this true reality the Appetitions. Husserl’s meaning of Noema has also long been controversial, and is in essence an attempt to order the nature of taste and emotive dimensions defining this relationship of perceived and perceiver. This is to say, in a garlicky roundabout way, that as for a ‘dead’ or ‘live’ cat , ‘living’ in the sphere of empirical science can be given an image value between 1 and ∞ (Infinite), and must always be held accountable in ‘exchange’ (as Being) to what one would consider ‘self’ or ‘the I’. A relationship of 1-∞ as mental image (idea, form, symbolic form) with that of the 1-∞ (idea, form, symbolic form) of ‘otherness’—or the ‘power’ (guan xi ontology) of presence and ‘of having being’. Hence, the natural realm—the living realm of ideas—can be experienced in their natural living state and
352 Difference of ‘what’ an alive or dead cat may or may not entail can be established. (The absolute realization of 1 to ∞ would be the ontology expressed in Spinoza’s first Six Definitions in Concerning God—or the essence of Being sans Identity deliverance.) Identity, as ontological Difference-living (or ‘number-ordering’), is, thus, singular (as ontology of Being) but has plural life in a non-ontological Identity as “living” (ecstasy of empirical Being or consciousness rising into itself— Vollkommen Being or empirical Existence or empirical Being... Life with awe. The guan xi power, validity or value of the illusion of objective thereness is thus given in the context of its and the singular and whole or one and many or Infinite and Finite dimension as it (and it) is no longer an absolute reference point. ): This is better known as the difference between natural and real numbers. (See chapter 20 for a clearer definition of natural and real numbers and how they define Identity living in Difference.) Existence ‘takes place’ as an illusion in the intersection of Infinite/Finite and of Difference rising through Identity. (The evolution or rising of illusion is detailed in chapters 20 and 30 and is titled the Big Smelly Bang Theory). Don’t forget that when speaking of Life, Difference equates to the Infinite and Identity equates to the Finite—two sides of the coin in our perceptual rising—and this nearing of Identities as they appear is the combination of the aforementioned two complementarity systems that is, in truth, still only Infinite/Finitude (Being)—but it is the illusion that makes a world of difference...and identity. Past and future as they appear ideally (as Identities) are history as living, and are thus directional. The more history is in the illusionary past sense experienced, greater is the navigation of direction or narrative into a potential and probable future—and this reveals guan xi as it is ontological in its existential (cogitare) and living (esse) nature—but this is not guaranteed, secure living. Perhaps, in a Husserlian sense, this Garlic revolution is just a more complete meaning to Epoché. (In it simplistic sense, the
353 Husserl Epoché attempts to restore (as a function) order and meaning to experience.) To sense (or thinking) into the future without sensing (thinking) into the past is what we, in our Epoché or our (relative-current-fully automated) spiritual- historical-context call ‘marketing Identity’—Individual, mass consumer Identity—and it works even better by annihilating the so-called ‘past’ (in the ‘de’-materialization of natural resources). It takes the edge off the Infinite and makes it something we can, as Finite beings, believe we can perceive. We, in a garlick-free, Husserl Epoché, suspend judgments in any process by the mere fact that we must enter a state of transcendental thereness. In the Husserlian sense, there is already no illusion, and thus no reality to an Epoché. The thereness as it is Difference is not acknowledged in any sense or in any non-sense of cognition. As for “guan xi” (关系) itself, the lived-relational value I discovered while living in China, and, in a sense that remains to true to its Chinese meaning- origin, is complimented by the value “face” (面子, miànzi/mien-tzu), or what could otherwise be expressed as one’s “presence phenomena”: The greater or lesser the amount one possesses of guan xi draws a parallel to the greater or lesser “face” one expresses.
Ontology as defined in the Webster New World Dictionary. 1.) Branch of Metaphysic dealing with nature of being, or ultimate substance: ef Phenomenology.
Garlic Ontology: Not simply an attribute or theorem but an a priori expression that is neither transcendental nor epistemological in its nature; delivering complete experience. The expression contains no perceptual limitations or boarders of deconstructing or constructing thereness. Non-beginning and non-ending presence (thus expressing complete beginning and ending) in the relationship to said expressions themselves are delivered in Ontological Expressions. Perceived and Perceiver are unified. Euphoric. Inspired. Positive expression of 1 and ∞. Spiritual- Religious by revelation of experience in expression.
354 Ontological Difference is the thereness of and in every object expressed. Every object shares universal Differences. Ontologically this Difference is the reciprocal nature of absolute Finite Being in its absolute Infinitude Being or thereness, in its absolute sense Being Infinite: I, as a Finite Being in being aware of an Infinite (if even only possible) Existence must be (if even only in the possibly Infinite realm) an aspect of that Infinite being (transitive verb). Otherwise the “Infinite” is by my own definitive Finite perspective not Infinite. I would be the set or “non-set” (see Kant) limiting the nature of an infinite being. But this non-set or self or I cannot be the limit because ‘I exist’ is not a closed, finished statement — the Infinite reveals that I am is not a closed set. There is awareness. There is reflection. I am is not by any means, logically or truthfully, the necessary predicate of I am — see Infinite. This is where and when Ontological Difference lives. This is the nature of the illusive unifying substance or substantial forms. My or one’s Finite self would be, in its absolute Finite act of consciousness, Infinitely so: I am or A=A reveals that I am is not all of Being. Therefore Ontological Expression is, when experienced as and in the Ontological Difference of Finite/Infinitude, the beginning and end of every thought: Metaphysical objectivity; pure action as cause and effect. Ontological Expressions like any object rising (or given) in exchange of consciousness are always objects as Ontological Difference. This isn’t deconstructing reality but simply experience as reality in deliverance.
3 This is not denying cultural value in the Epoché but reveals our Epoché in its nihilistic dimensions. 4 After the September 11th, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center this was, in rough summarization, George Bush’s decisive plan to defend America against any further attacks.
Chapter 9
355 1(F. Max Müller translation, Anchor Books, 1966, Preface to the Second Edition. 1787, [B:ix-xii] xxxi) 2“Historical Dialogue” in this sense might be what Mikhail Bakhtin refers to in the Dialogic Imagination” as dialogic and is considered in the garlic cure to be the only clear method to revealing or expressing Spinoza’s God and, thus, any nature to Existence as it is consciousizing. The “historical dialogue” can also be understood in Husserlian concepts as a non-transcen- dental or dependent upon non-predicative eidetic phenomology that reconciles static and genetic phenomenology in a way that breathes what and where and when into life: intentionality remains a matter of Spinoza’s God to be in a genetically static state of simply goods in deliverance. (Edmund Husserl, The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (1952) and Logical Investigations and Ideas I)
Chapter 13
1 This would be Leibniz’s experience of Existence sans “Spinoza”— "the statement that a thing is what it is, is prior to the statement that it is not another thing" (Nouv. Ess. IV., 7, § 9, pg. 207, G.W. Leibniz, New Essays on Human Understanding, Copyright ©2010–2015 And on pg. 180 of the Jonathan Bennet, http://www.earlymoderntexts.com, pdf version, 2005, Theophilus calls A=A “identities” or “tautological” and, consequently, confusing “A” or the “what” to be equivalent to “1” and, hence, “what” becomes all possible numbers sequentially.
Chapter 14
1 “Human” does not define the relationship of Life to Existence; thus, philosophic wisdom reflects the relationship of of Infinite/Finite as it is Difference expressing itself, in the non-telos, or that which is without beginning or end thaumázein, in Identity. Aristotle, NE, Bk. VI: Ch.7:
356 “But if the argument be that man is the best of the animals, this makes no difference; for there are other things much more divine in their nature even than man, e.g., most conspicuously, the bodies of which the heavens are framed. From what has been said it is plain, then, that philosophic wisdom is scientific knowledge, combined with intuitive reason, of the things that are highest by nature.”
Chapter 21
1 "In the experiments about atomic events we have to do with things and facts, with phenomena that are just as real as any phenomena in daily life. But atoms and the elementary particles themselves are not as real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts ... The probability wave ... mean[s] tendency for something. It's a quantitative version of the old concept of potentia from Aristotle's philosophy. It introduces something standing in the middle between the idea of an event and the actual event, a strange kind of physical reality just in the middle between possibility and reality." Herbert, Nick (1985). Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics. New York: Anchor Books. pp. 26–27.
2In the Proof following Prop. XLIX in Part II, Of the Nature and Origin of the Mind Spinoza’s Ethics, when he writes, “There is in the mind no absolute faculty of positive or negative volition, but only particular volitions, namely, this or that affirmation, and this or that negation. Now let us conceive a particular volition, namely, the mode of thinking whereby the mind affirms, that the three interior angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles. This affirmation involves the conception or idea of a triangle, that is, without the idea of a triangle it cannot be conceived. It is the same thing to say, that
357 A cannot be conceived without B,” he, Spinoza, had still not realized a clear communion/break between the body and mind dilemma presented by Descartes (already in Definitions 7 & 8 in Part I of the Ethics a reader sees that Descartes’ problem has not be resolved). This communion/break comes into clarity only when one realizes there is a difference…and identity whereby the infinite and finite are in deliverance along the horizon of Spinoza’s God. And once the understanding has realized this then it becomes easier to experience It is the same thing to say, that A cannot be conceived without B is really It is the same thing to say, that A cannot be conceived without A. In other words there is only positive affirmation of existence existing… And when a reader gets further along in the works of Spinoza, specifically in the Definitions of Emotions, the text becomes more difficult in that the lack of clarity between Identity and Difference reveals a lack of clarity between Life and Existence. Spinoza does clearly deliver the of existing experiential grounding of Difference in the first six Definitions of God, but like Descartes, Identity (as it was then, in the Enlightenment era, sinking its negating hook deep into the ground) and Difference become broken without any possible reconciliation of communion or wholeness…that is unless one becomes a Christian or a Scientist. But it is exactly through It is the same thing to say, that A cannot be conceived without A whereby a triangle begins to give Identity to Difference in the most fundamental essence of existence existing in its post “Big Smelly Bang” awareness. This idea, though, of posterior or previous, sometimes makes such discourse as these here Cures seemed muddled. But as Aristotle says in Bk. III: Ch.3 of the Nicomachean Ethics:
“We deliberate not about ends but about means. For a doctor does not deliberate whether he shall heal, nor an orator whether he shall persuade, nor a statesman whether he shall produce law and order, nor does anyone else deliberate about his end. They assume the end and consider how and by what means it is to be attained;
358 and if it seems to be produced by several means they consider by which it is most easily and best produced, while if it is achieved by one only they consider how it will be achieved by this and by what means this will be achieved, till they come to the first cause, which in the order of discovery is last. For the person who deliberates seems to investigate and analyse in the way described as though he were analyzing geometrical construction (not all investigation appears to be deliberation—for instance mathematical investigations—but all deliberation is investigation), and what is last in the order of analysis seems to be first in the order of becoming.”
Thus posterior and previous only have meaning in the context of existing, and existing is never a something and/or everything that can be categorized or compartmentalized, but is always in deliverance. Such illusionary temporal terms only reveal that Difference is the grounding for Identity in possibility and probability. From Wikipedia on Hylomorphsim: “Aristotle defines X's matter as ‘that out of which’ X is made” and “change is analyzed as a material transformation: matter is what undergoes a change of form.”
3 There is an eternal moment of awareness just after the awareness of one to its unending dimensions (Finite to Infinite dimension) and just before the Bang and consequent rising or chanting begins. I can, with garlic’s smell, imagine that this eternal moment of awareness, historically speaking, has been referred to as heaven or the before and after (posterior and previous) Life. It could also be mistaken for a Zero point or the realm of Nothingness. But such ideas are wrong: Even during the Bang and its ensuing Smell, Existence exists in its full array of Finite and Infinite qualities—otherwise Life couldn’t live. It could be said that the eternal moment of awareness is the potentiality and probability revealed in the playfully hidden nature of one to its unending potential and probable qualities in an awareness that can only express itself during a smelly Bang. The term equilibrium might apply but only in as far it not
359 a beginning or end point of reference but the positivity breathing life into Existence. See Aristotles Unmoved Mover.
4Ernst Cassirer, in Der Einfluß der Sprache auf die Entwicklung des wissenschaftlichen Denkens, re-contextualizes Leibniz’s lineation of Difference and Identity—zero as the beginning and end of reference—real numbers (Identity) as delivered in bi-nary function (Difference) coordinated/correlated to their natural number counterparts. 5 Book I, 981a thru 983a in the Metaphyics and his stance regarding science (aka philosophy) exploring actuality (entelecheia), as it is servant to the highest form of wisdom (aka that which explores the nature of the Unmoved Mover), the empirical sciences explore potentiality (dynamis) or the sense world of form. And in the Nicomachean Ethics, Book 10 Chapter 8: “Therefore the activity of God, which surpasses all others in blessedness, must be contemplative; and of human activities, therefore, that which is most akin to this must be most of the nature of happiness” and “And he who is that will presumably be also the happiest; so that in this way too the philosopher will more than any other be happy.” And from Book VI. Epsilon, Science and Its Objects, pg. 82 Aristotle, Wheelwright, copyright, 1951, Odysee Press Inc.: “All ‘determining principles’ (attion) are necessarily eternal, but especially those belonging to Primal Science, for they are the determining principles of as much as we can see of the Divine. Accordingly we should distinguish between the three contemplative disciplines of mathematics, natural science, and [Primal Science, which we may also call] theology on the ground that if the Divine has pertinence anywhere it must be especially pertinent to eh kind of entity that Primal Science studies….”
6Interdependence and Structure together could be considered in Humeian terms to be inhesion and substance (Section V, Of the Immortality of the soul) and in garlic delivery, they are the complementarity of Infinite/Finite’s rising Identity.
360 7 The word “Vollkommen” was appropriated from German and means complete or perfect. “Vollkommen Being” in this ragout means “consciousness” that also “thinks”, and, thus, delivers some form of Identity. Existence (Being) can be conscious and not think... This is a realm for religion and science to explore. 8 The word “story” is derived from the Greek word “mythos”, but “mythos” or “μύθος” is not Greek in origin but more closely resembles the Slavic word, “myslь”, which means “idea” or “thought”. This would be in line with Garlic Ontology: Every “idea”, regardless of who irrelevant or important it may be, is an active ingredient in a Ragout in progress. (Garlic Ontology dances with Guanxi Ontology: Infinite/Finite to Finite/Infinite relationship)
Chapter 23
1 I say “never” but this judgment is not “mine” to give. Consciousness is always given positively—even when there are purported doubts. This little aspect of Being in the I am of Descartes manifesto seems to evade his judgments, but it could be said that even in the nature of not to be, or in not knowing of what it is that I am not, is to be of something— belief in a nothing is just that... a belief-act. This movement from Difference through Identity, as it still creates a context of nothingness, narrates modern mathematics and quantum physics: The sciences have taken Bertrand Russel's bracketing of sets with empty sets and put them, the empty sets, into the middle of nothing and claim that there is “context” to the story... and of course it’s a story that they, the physicists and mathematician, love to narrate—especially without any ritual or myth delivering the inspiration and creativity needed to sustain The Story.
361 I just got a message from Arthur Schopenhauer and he is asking that you pick up one of his books. He says it’ll help you laugh at all of this talk coming from Me and all other charlatan scientist and preachers out there because:
“The life of every individual, viewed as a whole and in general, and when only its most significant features are emphasized, is really a tragedy; but gone through in detail it has the character of a comedy.” (Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung aus Vom Nutzen der Nachdenklichkeit Ein Schopenhauer-Brevier, Deutschen Taschenbuch Verlag 1992)
2 One can infer from Aristotle’s statement (NE, Bk. VIII: Ch. ,
23-27): “For the ancient sacrifices and gatherings seem to take place after the harvest as a sort of first fruits, because it was at these seasons that people had most leisure”, that our sense of “time”, as it arises in a natural relationship to and out of an Existence to Life dynamic, is closely aligned to leisure or that which is pleasant, and thus, as “pleasant” is something which Aristotle views as belonging to the “good”, it, time, is a some- thing that can give one any sense of value. As long as vampires and monsters tightly hold the reigns on “time”, one can only be, at best, a slave to these masters.
Chapter 25
1 Explanation. —Existence of this kind is conceived as an eternal truth, like the essence of a thing, and, therefore, cannot be explained by means of continuance or time, though continuance may be conceived without a beginning or end. (Spinoza, The Ethics. Explanation following: Definition VIII (The man’s talking Difference as opposed to Identity!) 2 “Thought” normally implies a time/space construction but it could be replaced with “of thinking”.
362 Chapter 28
1 As a side note: To paraphrase a newer blog post (well, this blog post is now ancient, and to his credit, Frank only left it posted for a day before taking it down) Frank's wife, “the motherfucking, dumb cock-sucking-whore-bitch mother-of- his-children”, left him. From what I could make of his rants, she understood that at the end of the day, for Frank, family meant nothing. She had, in her own sense of bitter irony, waited to leave him until the day after he signed a deal with a big-time publisher: until after he'd fulfilled his birthright. I guess I feel sorry for Frank in a way and not out of pity but because I, too, am that person Frank's wife left. The only noticeable difference between me and Frank is I smell like Garlic. 1 Leibniz’s work reveals, historically, the confrontation Difference has with Identity, and how it, the confrontation, as it is a mechanistic attempt to eradicate Difference from the picture, plays out. Because Leibniz resets Life’s ground in Identity, this is why Leibniz's works are credited with anticipating, to name only a few of the myriad fields of inquiry, Einstein’s theory that space, time and motion are relevant, and, in some sense, the field of quantum mechanics in as far as it was already fundamentally formulated in Liebniz’s identity of indiscernibles, which is on closer inspection an ontological principle negating Difference (for the sake of Identity) from Aristotle’s A=A first rule of logic. And because Logic’s form is still bound to Difference and Identity, Leibniz’s works are, currently, discussed not only for their anticipations and possible discoveries not yet recognized, but as ways of advancing present “knowledge” asit relates to a grounding Identity.
2 What do you think physicists are doing with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN? What do you think mass, or the
363 Higgs boson infers? Mass is form or Identity. Five years after these garlicky words here have come together, CERN, like all other Hadron Colliders in world, reveals light not to be the beginning and end of life. Cause and Effect, as Einstein defined it, is in trouble. But Garlic knew this already, and this is why this book smells so fine.
3 American and Western, PhD and Doctorate thinkers like to call this the mind-body dilemma, but Western psychology is, in garlic’s opinion, worthless. It is a bunkum business used to sell snake oil.
4 This also demands that “natural” or “real” numbers be further redefined. Fortunately, Garlic is and always has been about the whole or Infinitely/Finite story and eventually there will be an exposé on this, too.
5 Experience is revealed as sustainable expression in relationships that either work or no. Even by the third page of Aristotle's metaphysics this correlation of knowledge to universals and experience to particulars is acknowledged. For Garlic, it could be said that Experience defines the balance of Finite and Infinite between objects under certain conditions. 6 This is what Pythagoras’s transmigration of the soul implies. Numbers, as they are Identity rising ontologically, deliver Identity in its whole context of Being-becoming or Being rising through Identity and back into Difference. Remember, the “goal” of rising is not to transcend, but to become fully aware of Being’s Infinite/Finite nature: Absolute positivity. Identity is the “celebration” of Existence, so to say. Identity can never truly have “negation” as its object of discourse… guan xi ontology’s illusionary nature can, though, manipulate the nature of Finite/Infinitude and give rise to powerful appearance; hence a form that and which appears unrelated to its own “truer” essence as Difference… powerful ju ju.
364 7As you have already read in previous chapters, Garlic has been playing around with what could be called the meta- gravitational field law, as it is related to the redefining of numbers, and it is supposed to account for our perceptual 'non' participation in scientific events and how to evaluate Identities’ sustainable expression (form). For a value like zero the net sum would be 0=1/∞ (0=∞/1) or 0=1 and/or 0=∞. Zero always equals One or Infinity and is always both values. The nature of the field is determined by the “object of inquiries” own Infinite/Finite relationships—the Difference. The law further implies that the closer an object appears to reach the value One, the greater its expression is towards Infinity and/or the closer an object appears to reach the value of Infinity, the greater its expression is towards One. If a scientist can account for the One value then he/she's revealed the greater Infinite value of the Identity: Acknowledging objects as only sustainable expression is a scientific control meant to clarify Difference values as they give rise to the Identity (or Identities) in inquiry. 7 Don’t think for a moment that there isn’t a little Henri Bergson in this ragout. An Introduction to Metaphysics, Henri Bergson, Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. (September 15, 1999) 8 In the beginning of Ernst Cassirer’s Wesen des Symbolbegriffs he argues that Logic’s form remains fixed to the methodology of science; in as far as the two moments as they correspond to Logic and Science remain undefined: These undefined moments are the Difference of Logic and the Identity of mathematical deliverance, and the origin of this unwitting non-distinction, as according to Cassirer, is found in Plato. As it is in agreement with Garlic, the triangle, as it begins with Plato’s deliverance of concrete examples of geometric thinking-process is the form that becomes the object of thought as it reveals itself hypothetically in the representation thereof. (“…that the form of the “hypothetically”, of the
365 corresponding thinking or thought process, as it was first clearly exposed in Plato, achieves its first confirmation and complete clarification in that, in Menon, it succeeds in representing concrete Examples of geometric thinking.” In other words: Historically, the thought process as it is triangular or geometric in form appears, in Plato’s Menon, as an object(s) of examination, and in doing so reveals the dialectical method of appearance to itself. Of course there are a number of steps in the process before Difference and Identity, or the relationship of unified Being, finally becomes completely “duplicitous” as Difference is cast into the abyss, but that’s why Garlic smells so good—it gives us a juicier, more tasty picture of this historical development of knowledge (as it is only Difference grounding).
Chapter 32
1 From (1) “Nature”, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, stated in a Nov. 2, 2000 article titled "Bidirectional Control of Airway Responsiveness by Endogenous Cannabinoids" by Calignano et al: "Smoking marijuana or administration of its main active constituent, THC, may exert potent dilating effects on human airways.” (2) Daniele Piomelli, PhD, Professor of Pharmacology at the University of California at Irvine, told Reuters in 2000: "We think that by targeting cannabinoid receptors in the upper airways we can control coughs in a number of conditions...That's important because most treatments currently available basically act on the brain cough center, a small region of the brain that is the target for codeine and similar drugs ." (3) Donald P. Tashkin, MD, Professor of Pulmonary Care at the University of California, Los Angeles, stated in a 1975 article titled "Effects of Smoked Marijuana in Experimentally Induced Asthma" in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine: "After exercise induced bronchospasm, [exercise-induced asthma] placebo marijuana and saline were followed by gradual recovery during 30 to 60 min, whereas 2.0 per cent marijuana...caused an immediate reversal of
366 exercise-induced asthma and hyperinflation." (4)The New England Journal of Medicine, a peer-reviewed medical journal, published a 1973 study titled "Single-Dose Effect of Marihuana Smoke. Bronchial Dynamics and Respiratory-Center Sensitivity in Normal Subjects," by L. Vachon et al., states: "Marihuana smoke, unlike cigarette smoke, causes bronchodilatation [expansion of the air passages] rather than bronchoconstriction [narrowing of the air passages] and, unlike opiates, does not cause central respiratory depression.”
367 Bibliography / Webliography
Karl Marx, Capital Volume 1, Section 4, The Fetishism of Commodity and the Secret Thereof @ https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm
Grigori Perelmann Claims He Controls the Universe, Pravada @ http://english.pravda.ru/science/tech/28-04-2011/117727- Grigori_Perelman-0/ 28.04.2011
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