--- In [email protected], "Tom" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <no_reply@> wrote: > > > Somebody is reading this, right? :-) > > Most definitely.
It was just a joke, Tom. I was in a parody mood last night and couldn't restrain myself. :-) > There have been several posts lately that seemingly > lament a lack of readership. Ahem. The parody had to do with a certain someone who is on a "posting binge" demanding not only that people read his tirades (not likely given their content) but agree with them. > It is quite possible that many do not respond for > various reasons. Not least of which is that the Yahoo Web browser seems to be on a binge of its own these days, and is tough to even read with, much less reply with. At least for some of us who are unlucky enough to connect via the Yahoo server that is under the weather. It took almost five minutes for this Reply window to come up so that I could reply to your post. > Inveterate lurkers are a stubborn bunch. The tendency to > do a "right on" or a "me tooism" is strong enough in > many, myself included, to make for a very boring read. > A snarky quick response is, on occasion, hard to contain > when provoked by certain trolls. Mea culpa. :-) > Your "Willin" post and parody was priceless and brought > back a flood of memories both near and distant. It was just for fun; hope it provoked some. I really was...uh...kiddin' about the "Is anyone out there post. I'm such a solipcist that I'd probably post even if no one was. :-) > I hope rest is given to Lowell George's troubled soul. > He brought a lot of joy to a lot of folks with music. > One version of the legend is that "Willin" got him kicked > out of The Mothers Of Invention. Frank Zappa had some > strict rules about drug references in songs. Frank had > his convictions and draconian was his answer. That's interesting; I never knew that Lowell was once a part of the Mothers. I knew a couple of guys who were -- the ex-Turtles, known as the Fluorescent Leech and Eddie -- and they told a few stories about Frank and his Konhaus-like rule. > During a long winding trip thru some western states this > summer past, I found myself in Tucumcari. Being in an especially > spiritual mood, I found a truck stop to gas up and belted out > the song to the moon...... quite sure it was heard in parts of > Oklahoma and Texas. <grin> Your version, had I know it, would > have fit the bill well. What occasioned the memory of the song in me was dropping in to my local Cine Cafe here in Sitges. It's run by a couple of really sweet English guys who have an enormous collection of movie memora- bilia and who show movies three times a day up on their big screen in the cafe. The film "The Abyss" was playing, and there is a scene where the rough crew of this underwater research station was all singing along with the song. It was a very happy moment, and I couldn't help but sing along. The next day, I was still singing it in my head while reading FFL, and the link appeared between being "still willin'" and "still seekin.'" However scathing a few of the one-liners in my version might have been, they do not diminish my respect for those who -- after all these years and life- times on the road -- ARE "still seekin.'" I still lived in L.A. when Lowell died, and went to the benefit concert that his friends threw to raise money for Lowell's family, who had been left a tad unprovided for. The friends included Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, and members of the Eagles. It was a *fine* concert, full of tears and laughter both onstage and in the audience -- a bunch of people who had loved a wildman and were wishing him well on his way. > Music is the universal language. It is interesting how many > Bruce Cockburn fans are found on this board. A professor at > my University turned me on to him when we were flipping a > frisbee and burning rope....been a favorite ever since. Ah, > the 70's. The amazing thing about Bruce is that he's "still seekin', too. Still on his nominal path as a Chris- tian, but still open to useful information no matter what path it comes from. He's just returned from a trip to Nepal, and I expect some really good songs to emerge from *his* road trip. The whole concept of the Road Trip appeals to me. It's such a liberating feeling, being "out on the road, late at night," just you and the white line that leads you on your Way. Many songwriters (Bruce, Lowell) and prose writers (Kerouac, Homer) have written eloquently about the inspiring and near-epic nature of the Road Trip. It's a potent metaphor for the > I would wager that many more read these posts than you > would imagine, but respond only internally. That's appropriate, because I write them internally. I don't type; they just appear magically onscreen as a result of my highly-developed ritam, and all I have to do is press Send. :-) Not. > I received a couple of emails after a prior post, on the side, > from people in my "real world" asking if they were correct in > assuming my identity. I had to chuckle as anonymity was not > my aim. I had no idea they read FFL and never had spoken to > them about it. The point they were making is that I should > not get too negative in my posts on the "movement" as it would > engender the ire of powers that be. Yawn. The veritable Yawning of the Age of Enlightenment. The reason that the TMO can *get away* with horseshit like the Konhaus email is that people "shush up" and just take it. This deafening silence, and the all- pervading fear that saying the wrong thing will get you "kicked out" has been the thing that *perpetuated* all of this silliness that the world now laughs at. If enough people had laughed at it openly when it first appeared, it wouldn't have grown to the point of bozos parading around in dresses and gold Burger King crowns, making "pronouncements" and expecting people to obey them without a murmur. > I felt my posts were honest and had no animosity and the only > enmity expressed was towards very foolish behavior. I'm no > Arjuna but WTF? WTF indeed. I've been largely silent in the aftermath of Konhaus' remarks because no commentary was *needed*. The knee-jerks who dashed in to first deny that he had ever said such idiocy and then defend it were more than sufficient to damn what he had said. But something you said is very important, and rarely gets said enough here. Curtis (I think) spoke eloquently of it a while ago when dealing with one of Off's tirades: One can damn the *behavior* of a person without feeling that they have to damn the person. Curtis does this consistently, with his wry wit and his incisive and well-wielded bullshit scalpel. Others do likewise. It's CLEAR that when they write they are NOT hating the poster that they're responding to, NOT call- ing him or her a slimeball for who they ARE. Instead, they bust a person who they recognize as equal to them- selves in every way on *unacceptable behavior*. Compare and contrast to Edg's recent drinking binge over Willytex. Or his past binges over me and Curtis and Judy and others. 'Nuff said, right? > Strangely, I was reminded of a series of snail mail letters > I received from evangelicals while in High School. In about > 74 I was interviewed by the local newspaper about having > learned TM a year or two before. It all seemed rather > innocent as it really wasn't a novelty in those days.<post > Time pre Merv I believe> Then the letters started. It was > identified in the story that I attended a local Jesuit > (Roman Catholic) school. It musta been the combination of > TM and Catholic that really set em off. Wow! Opened my eyes > at the age of 16 to the vitriol and venom in the hearts of > some true believers. That can be a shocker, eh? I've mentioned before that Jerry Jarvis once asked me to go speak at a Christian anti-TM rally in Pacific Palisades, during the "court case" days. It was a pretty eye-opening experience, one that prepared me for later times in the Rama trip during which some of my fellow students were literally being kidnapped by "deprogrammers" hired by their parents and dragged off to a motel room where they were brain- washed by these thugs in the name of "getting them out of an evil cult." As my favorite TV News announcer in France was fond of saying at the close of his broad- casts, "Le monde est fou, fou, fou." > I finally responded to one lady who was particularly persistent. > I informed her that Sister Ramonda had already eternally damned > me to hell in the 4th grade and she need no longer concern > herself as my salvation was hopeless. Poof, no more letters. > Amazing. So it goes. I wonder what we could say to keep Nabby off our asses? :-)
