Friday, April 16, 2004

I’M BACK

The last few weeks have not been exactly halcyon days of technology. Indeed, they could well be described as Valium, Jack Daniels and wanting-to-throw-the-hardware-at-the-wall days, as the battlestar went into system collapse. But I loosed myself from the clutches of the 900-number technical support boiler-rooms of major corporations, and found a nice funky repair shop between Swing House rehearsal studio and the Formosa (venerable landmark to the alcoholics of Hollywood since something like 1931). It was run by a guy who looked like a retired roadie, and who was repairing a thirty year-old Mini-Moog for some strange low-fi keyboard player, and I knew it was where I wanted to be fixed. Now I have a new hard drive, and thus a new prosthetic memory, and all now works as it should again, although I am refusing to think about all the ideas, notes, outlines, synopses, hallucinations, dirty pictures, and correspondence that went the way of all electrons in the meltdown. But if I can’t remember them, what the hell? They never really happened, and if I can, they can be reconstructed. Thus I console myself that I also got rid of a fuck of a lot of garbage. Hell, I can work without notes. Unlike the President of the United States who can’t even work with notes, and can hardly claim English as a second language.

I must confess, though, a certain unreality lurks as I approach my cleanslated laptop. It’s all too quiet. All too normal. Ideas and even fantasies are a little tentative, like maybe they overloaded the old C-drive in the first place. There’s been too much frustration and desperately logical focus. I would like to take to my bed for the weekend, but I have a book of quotations to finish and several tons of email to answer. I swear I never worked so hard in the 20th century.

But Doc40 is tranquil and this will leave you with a short piece of harmonious inspiration sent during my times of trial by our favorite southern belle...

THE STREAM

Picture yourself near a stream.
Birds are softly chirping in the crisp cool mountain air.
Nothing can bother you here.
No one knows this secret place.
You are in total seclusion from that place called "The World."
The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of serenity.
The water is clear.
You can easily make the face of the person
Whose head you are holding under the water.
Look.
It's the person
Who caused you all this stress in the first place.
What a pleasant surprise.
You let them up...just for a quick breath...then ploop!...back under they go...
You allow yourself as many deep breaths as you want.
There now...feeling better?


CRYPTIQUEFuck you, Squiddly!

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