A Face with No Fear 

Where Am I Hiding?

I have been hiding from you and others since somewhere around three to five years old. That is when I concluded that no one was really interested in seeing my inner being. I thought that I was too different and too weird for my parents or anyone else to be interested. I decided that I would therefore take care of myself, that I needed no one else and that no one would understand anyway. Sadly, I have spent a whole lifetime resenting people for there lack of interest in who I really am, when it was me who made the decision not to let them see.

As a result of this consciousness, I also lost sight of myself. I depended on others, who couldn't see me anyway, to tell me who I was. A pretty self defeating and self destructive cycle.

I am now attempting to find myself, bring myself out for the world to see and letting the chips fall where they may. I am doing this using a variety of processes. First, through prayer and meditation, asking to be shown the truth, to have the delusions stripped from me and to have the strength and courage to express who I am and to strive to be of optimum service to the World.

Second, as a result of my prayer and meditation, I am striving to express creatively my inner-most self. I seem to be moving toward performance art again. I am taking jazz dance, I will be getting back in touch with my "clown", Sir Jello and I will be brushing up my improvisational theater skills in a weekly workshop. I am expressing myself visually for the first time with photography and collage.

I am sharing today an inner exploration collage that I just completed. The blogger is not letting me upload this into this post, so it is the seperste post above. I have been struggling with understanding and coming to terms with my own femininity. Being of an addictive, compulsive and obsessive mind, this has taken me to some pretty chaotic and dark places. Society, driven by the fears and phobias of male "heterosexuals" seeks to classify, separate and sexualize male sensitivity and vulnerability. I have been very good at playing the game of the rugged, competitive, controlling and dominating white male. The problem is, the characters I had to play to succeed were far removed from the true, fluid, loving, sensual, sensitive, nurturing human being that I am.

So I am letting that soft, receptive, submissive, sensitive, playful, curious and sensual me find the light. I am letting myself express my femininity in my actions, appearance and words. Society, as I mentioned, wants to sexualize that; wants me to choose a classification, i.e. homosexual, heterosexual or bisexual. I am none of these. I am a sexual human being. I seek to engage with all living beings in as complete, intimate, honest and vulnerable way as possible. I am a long way from being healthy and consciously expressing this part of me, but I am making progress. I refuse to be classified by a dominate class which, however unconsciously, seeks to divide and conquer all who differ from their world view.

This collage is a personal expression of my search. It is not intended to be an aesthetic work, but an expression of the images that are alive in me as I create it. I have shared my collages with my therapist and therapy group. He asks me to share what I see in it. He then asks the others in the group to answer the question: "If this were mine I see..............". It is pretty incredible to hear what others see. I begin to hear the universality of many of our fears, questions, goals and hopes. You might try this with some friends. If you can expand this image, to see it more clearly, share with each other: "If this were my collage I see...........". If you do, I ask you to share in the comments some of your experiences.

Peace, Alan

Let's Play Today

Having fun amongst the tragedy of life, many times I've questioned how. How do you laugh and play, knowing that AIDs and starvation are sweeping through parts of Africa. How, when you see marijuana growers being imprisoned, while pharmaceutical companies are making millions off pushing devastating drugs like OxyContin. For those of you who are unaware, OxyContin is the latest, growing epidemic of prescription drug abuse. It is the equivalent of heroin, in a time release capsule. The time release film is removed and it is either crushed and snorted or cooked and shot up. It is killing California youth and if it isn't already being abused in your town, it will be soon. I met a teenage woman in a drug rehab facility who was detoxing from Oxy. It wasn't pretty. She told me the story of her bottom. Her and her boyfriend were doing Oxy. He went into seizures, started foaming at the mouth and died. That was enough for her to want to get clean. My prayers are with her. Only a small percentage of addicts and alcoholics who try for recovery make it.

So how does one have fun? I'm not a great resource for that. I am in recovery myself, 19 months without alcohol and over 6 months without any mind altering substances. One thing I have learned is that most spiritual growth does not happen without the motivation of pain, fear, despair and a hopelessness in ones own power to overcome this. We realize that there is a higher power that can and will bring change and relief, if he/her is sought. We can be led by this higher power, that I choose to call God, into life experiences and challenges, with an acceptance and compassionate detachment, that enables us to love and be of service. By striving to be selfless, to be of service, to love all living beings and to accept that everything is just the way it is supposed to be, for the growth of us as individuals and as a species can I find peace. With peace in my heart and can love and enjoy God's gifts. When I look at the gifts and not the shortcomings I am overwhelmed for all that I have been given, that I did very little to deserve.

So, what is "fun". I had this discussion with a friend and my wife one time. We never came to consensus. Let it be said, that his belief was that fun is a mislabled illusion. That it is a concept that is separate from our being. That is, that it is something we have to seek, acquire and consume. I have learned since that night, that fun is a state of being. One can be fun, but one can't have fun.

So I am fun when I listen to good music and when I dance. If you are interested in what that often sounds like, I have put a new link to my yahoo radio station, http://music.yahoo.com/launchcast/station.asp?u=1307564146 . This mix is based on my musical preferences and created by the yahoo launchcast computer. It does a pretty good job. The shortcoming is that I love a lot of music that is not in their library, such as ethnic music, spiritually based music by people such as Jai Uttal and Vox. I haven't heard any Incredible String Band, Tyrannosaurus Rex or Mothers of Invention yet either. But I love it and am listening to it right now. Now playing "Bollweevil" by Leadbelly.

Then this afternoon, we are off to see "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". I loved the original Willie Wonka with Gene Wilder and love Johnny Depp. I'll let you know what fun I was later.

I read somewhere recently, I can't remember where but it made a lot of sense to me, that instead of greeting someone with "How are you doing?" we should instead ask "How are you being?". That takes us right to the point of life, in my opinion.

Peace and fun,

Alan

I'm gettin'' the Hang of this.

I keep finding little formatting gliches, like the right column info was at the very bottom of all the post. So I fixed that and some other minor things. I am going to have music on here as soon as I get time to figure out how to do it. Remember, Please leave comments, only if to say Hello. It gets weird and lonely here in the blogosphere.

I have been learning Haiku. Here is one from the master Basho (1644-94):

How many flowers
are blossoming in the mind
when a cherry blooms?

I've added my photo from in front of my daughter's house.

Peace,

Alan

Happy birthday Windows 95

Yes, it was ten years ago today that Windows95 was released. My how windows has changed computing. Actually, it was Apple that began using icons and graphic interface. Before that most of us used Dos. What a pain it was typing in all the commands, remembering the commands, or typing in the "help" command to get a list of the commands if you forgot them.

When I first started using a micro-computer back in 1980, I used to go to user group meetings to learn what I could. These guys would have heated debated over which was the language of the future Dos or CP/M. The majority leaned towards CP/M, the language used by the very popular Atari micro-computers (see pic), because they felt it was technically superior. CP/M was the standard up until minor legal problems with IBM caused IBM to look to Microsoft. With IBM's superior R&D and marketing, they came to dominate the PC market, thus Microsoft DOS (MS-DOS) became the dominate operating system.

Other computer manufacturers surpassed IBM but they adopted MS-DOS as there operating system, IBM and CP/M were left in the dust, and the rest is history.

Microsoft now operates like your local heroin dealer. They gave us a taste, offered newer and better, got us hooked and now we have to keep buying from them to get our fix. I want to migrate to an open source software, such as Linux (democracy in action) but I have invested so much in my Windows/NT/XP habit that I would have to detox and learn a whole new way of computing. That is too similar to my real life and my recovery from my alcohol and drug addiction. I think I'll stay focused on that and my spiritual recovery for now and save my computer platform recovery for later.

And if you didn't know this bit of history, "Now you know the rest of the Story"

Peace, Alan

Thank you Lenny Bruce

Honey, Lenny and Kitty

Lenny Bruce was an important personality in the development of my appreciation of comedy and of striving to live an outspoken life in the pursuit of justice. Lenny died five days before my 18th birthday, in the Summer following my graduation from High School. It would be over two years later that I would be introduced to his life and works. Lenny transformed comedy, into a vehicle for exploring the foolishness and absurdities of human existence. Prior to Lenny, stand-up comedy was mostly a set of "jokes" that were familiar, non-threatening and often making light of the injustice suffered by another group of society. Lenny never found peace. His inner life appeared to be a mirror of the chaos and pain he observed in society. He was a passionate advocate for the foolish being who dared to try to live with dignity in a world that has very little respect for dignity. He died alone. He never found a power greater than himself. Angels be with you Lenny and thank you for your gifts.

I found this biography of Lenny at www.brainyencyclopedia.com/encyclopedia/l/le/lenny_bruce.html. Please take some time and get to know his work. There are several fine biographies and his own autobiography "How to Talk Dirty and Influence People". In addition there are recordings, videos, articles, etc.

Lenny Bruce

Lenny Bruce (October 13, 1925 - August 3, 1966), born Leonard Alfred Schneider, was a controversial American stand-up comedian and satirist of the 1950s and '60s.

Overview

Bruce's contributions helped change stand-up comedy from the practice of telling jokes to an intelligent form of entertainment.

His performances took the form of stories, skits, and commentary, occasionally obscene (he coined the term T & A). This penchant for obscene material caused his career to be plagued by constant trouble with the law. His obscenity trials are now considered to be significant benchmarks in the case for preservation of First Amendment freedoms.

Bruce's comedic mission seemed to be an opening of dirty toilet humor, arguing that, as he said, "If something disgusts you about the human body, complain to the manufacturer."

Lenny Bruce gave an historic performance at Carnegie Hall in 1961, covering the same ground that had made him famous--not only the so-called toilet humor, but also politics, religion, the law, race, abortion, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Catholic Church. Interestingly, Bruce made a reference to the social effects of automation, something that Martin Luther King, Jr and Valerie Solanas did also around the same time.

While in Hollywood, Bruce wrote a (never-produced) screenplay featuring the Lone Ranger.

Trials and tribulations

Less than a year later, Bruce was arrested for obscenity in San Francisco, California. Although the jury acquitted Bruce, other communities began arresting him when he would appear.

By the end of 1963, he had become a target of the Manhattan district attorney, Frank Hogan, working closely with Francis Cardinal Spellman. In 1964, he appeared at the Cafe Au Go Go in Greenwich Village. Undercover police detectives witnessed the show. Shortly afterwards, he was arrested and charged with obscenity. In a widely-publicized case, he was convicted after a six-month-long trial, in spite of testimony or petitions of support from writers such as Jules Feiffer, Norman Mailer, William Styron, and James Baldwin. His case was appealed, and he was to never serve his four-month sentence.

In his later performances, Bruce was known for relating the details of his relationship with the police directly in his comedy routine; such action helped encourage the police to eye him with maximum scrutiny. These performances often included rants about his court battles over obscenity charges, and the right to free speech.

He was banned outright from several U.S. cities, and in 1962 was banned from performing in Australia. By 1966 he had been blacklisted by nearly every comedy club in the U.S., as owners feared prosecution for obscenity. His last performance was on June 26, 1966 at the Fillmore in San Francisco, on a bill also featuring Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention.

Death and Beyond

Bruce was a heavy user of drugs such as heroin. He was found dead in his Hollywood Hills bathroom, with a needle in his arm. Lenny Bruce is interred in the Eden Memorial Park Cemetery in Mission Hills, California.

The 1974 film Lenny, starring Dustin Hoffman, presents a fictionalized account of Bruce's life. Eddie Izzard portrayed the comedian in the 1991 stage show Lenny. Similarly, the comedian inspired songs by Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Nico, and R.E.M.

On December 23, 2003, Bruce was pardoned by governor George Pataki for the obscenity conviction arising from his New York appearance. It was the first posthumous pardon in the state's history.

Quote

The real story of our times is seldom told in the horse-puckey- filled memoirs of dopey, self-serving presidents or generals, but in the outrageous, demented lives of guys like Lenny Bruce, Giordano Bruno, Scott Fitzgerald--and Paul Krassner. The burrs under society's saddle. The pains in the ass.
-Harlan Ellison on Lenny Bruce

A few quotes from Lenny (I found elsewhere):

"All my humor is based upon destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, I'd be standing on the breadline right in back of J. Edgar Hoover."

"Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God."

"If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses."

"The "what should be" never did exist, but people keep trying to live up to it. There is no "what should be," there is only what is."

"The liberals can understand everything but people who don't understand them."

"There are never enough I Love You's."

I'm Confused???????? So is the Blog Edit (Running paragraphs together)

Didn't we see George Bush on an aircraft carrier a couple years ago saying that the conflict in Iraq was over? Didn't I see a headline on Yahoo yesterday saying that military leaders are projecting four more years in Iraq? Haven't I not heard any admission of a mistake by the Bush Mob? .........and on and on and on. One lie and after another after another after another..........and on and on and on.

"Are we all crazy or is it just Me?

I'm going to share this from "The Miracle of Change - The Path to Self Discovery and Spiritual Growth" by Dennis Wholey. I have been using this book as a tool while going through this period of giving up everything in my life as it was and opening up to discovering who the hell am I anyway and what is my purpose here? As a result I am focusing on my creativity, developing the skills and tools to allow me to use my strengths and the wisdom I have gained from this wild and crazy journey called 57 years of life on planet Earth.

"The books by psychotherapist Thomas Moore have consistently been on the best-seller lists for the past several years. His writings have touched people who are seeking human and spiritual guidance. He gives us a unique perspective on courage in daily life:"

DIVINE FOOLISHNESS

MY LIFE HAS BEEN ONE OF ALMOST CONSTANT CHANGE, from the time I left home at thirteen to enter a Catholic seminary to watching my daughter being born in my fifty-first year. I've been chastised by teachers for not following a straight career path and I feel remorse and some embarrassment over crooks and twists in my personal life. Yet in the midst of these changes I have never felt particularly courageous, but rather profoundly and inescapably foolish.

For me, it takes courage to rise up from mistakes, to be ignorant and uncertain about the right moves to make in life, and to risk falling on my face. As I look at my past, it appears that each time I've done a dumb thing or acted from naivete, I've entered one small notch further into the paradoxical wisdom of the fool. I see nobility in a certain kind of foolishness, the kind depicted in the many wonderful traditional stories of the Holy Fool, the one who forsakes worldly prudence for a different, humbler kind of truth.

These days we are all expected to be knowing and clever. We have experts telling us how to eat, drink, sleep, love, work and relate, but all this expertise is in some measure a defense against the possibility of doing something foolish.

As a therapist who has worked with many people, I know very well that most of us are not as smart about daily living as we pretend to be, and I think we suffer from carrying the burden of appearing clever and capable. Yet I believe there is liberation and lightness in letting the fool have his place. We don't always have to understand ourselves, know the world in which we live, or relate to each other properly and effectively. We don't have to be growing all the time. The Holy Fool portrays the deep mystery by which ineffectiveness and cloudy ignorance are prerequisites for a full, if not terribly intelligent life.

The courage I prefer, then, is the kind that allows me to live in divine foolishness---to fail, to misunderstand, to say the wrong thing, to make the same mistakes over and over. I realize I could be misinterpreted, because there is a fine line between masochistic wallowing in one's weaknesses and finding liberation in the full reception of one's incapacity. I'm not advocating wallowing, but rather an active, courageous owning of one's foolishness, speaking from it and for it, avoiding the temptation to cover it over with a false face of confidence. I'm not glorifying human stupidity, but rather seeking a deep form of unknowing.

Many things look like courage that are not the genuine article. Real courage doesn't puff up the ego, save face, or even give the sensation of accomplishment. At best, courage stems from the allowance of a will beyond our own and an acquiescence to fate and necessity. People who are forced to face serious illness and yet can affirm the beauty and joy of life, even after the disease has step by step made them feel foolish in their incapacities, know courage. Those who have been abandoned by a lover or a spouse and who resist the temptation to chase away the feeling of being made a fool know courage. Anyone whose motives and actions spring from the heart rather than from the face knows what it is to be initiated into holy foolishness, and therefore is acquainted with deep courage.

I expect a future in my life of more radical and serious foolishness. I hope I can get to the point where I can convert passing notions of awareness and intelligence into deepest possible ignorance and incapacitation. Then I know my life will have been fabricated by forces beyond my mere intentions and finite understanding, and I will have found the brand of courage that is small but life-shaping, empty of bravado, but full of heart.

----Thomas Moore

It was such a miracle of timing to come across this reading when I did. I was in a place of confusion and fear, trying to understand what I was doing or what should I be doing. I had no answer, I was just confused and hyper-emotional. Then I realized after reading this, that of course I don't know. I was the fool who stepped off the cliff of any kind of security to pursue my dream, my calling. I am in the midst of the ultimate creative process called life, and I am at the chaos place where the forces are churning, inspiration is threatening, but little form or vision of it is here. So I'll keep blowing into this blog and we'll see what music will come out. At the moment it sounds much like Sun Ra, only I think he had a vision while he created that apparent cacophony and chaotic sound.

Peace, Alan

Let's Leave a Planet for our Grandchildren, Please.

There are now links in the link section (of all places) in the right-side border. Today I added a link to www.bioneers.org The Bioneers are a network of scientists and others performing critical analysis, research and formulating possible solutions to the effects of the human race on the environment. If you are not familiar with them please click on the link and check them out. The way you think about life may never be the same.



PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT WHEN YOU READ MY POSTS!!

...IF ONLY TO SAY HELLO OR WHAT? OR BETTER YET PUT IN YOUR TWO CENTS WORTH.

It will help me know that someone is seeing this besides me. Plus I want to see what your thinking. I need all the help I can get. I'll keep doing it anyway because me and my imaginary friend get a lot from it.

Peace,

Alan

Can you hear me now? 

This is a test......................

.......... if it were an actual blog post it would ramble on, seemingly forever, indulging a springwind in self-pity, resentment, vanity and general patheticism (is that a word? if not it is now).

But instead I bid you goodnight. I start beginning jazz dance class tomorrow and I am scared silly when I think about it. I'll report back on it tomorrow.

http://democracynow.org is a new link at the righthand side of the page.

If you don't already know, the above link takes you to the leading alternative to the whitewashing and spin of major media coverage of current world events.

Peace,

Alan

Mirror Ellen and i gave Eva for her 24th birthday. 

A quote.........

If the world seems cold to you, kindle fires to warm it.

--- Lucy Larcum

That quote was in a publication I downloaded tonight; "GET READY,GET SET, what you need to know before starting a nonprofit".

Guess what I'm up to.

More on that later. I must get to bed. It's 4:00 a.m. and I have an 8:30 a.m. appointment.

Peace, Alan

Photo I took at the Berkeley Rose Garden for my daughter Eva's 24th birthday party. 

Blossoming

"And then the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom"

-- Anais Nin


"I'm still alive", Eddie Veder of Pearl Jam sings on a song I was listening to in my car one day after I had just come out of one of my deepest depressions. I happened to open up the book "Care of the Soul" by Thomas Moore around that time. I opened to a page in which he was addressing the importance of depression for the development of the Soul. He presented a picture of depression being a literal depression in the Soul. This depression allows us to go deeper into our soul in a conscious way. This culture has taught us to fear depression, (to fear any kind of intense discomfort in fact). When I was able to accept, and just be with my depressions, I had transforming experiences that brought about inner experiences, freeing me of many of my burdens of darkness, ignorance and fear. I made contact with a higher power, that I call God, primarily for simplicity's sake. I was shown aspects of myself and past experiences in a new light. I was released from the hold that much of my past had on me. I got out of bed and thanked God for that gift, got in my car and put in the Pearl Jam CD and sang joyfully along with Eddie, "Oh-ooooooo=ooooooh, I'm still alive". For you see, I had run out of rational reasons to continue to live. I thought about suicide, but have a tremendous aversion to physical pain. Besides, my worst fear was that I would fail, and end up, paralyzed, lying in bed, totally unable to do anything for myself.

One night, I was at my darkest and most hopeless. A light came on! I saw a way that I could kill myself and actually succeed, relatively painlessly. I won't go into details, but it involved heroin and a cabin in the beautiful Appalachias. That was a turning point. I spent the next few hours contemplating that course of action. I stopped by a meeting where I knew some people and saw a friend who I shared my discovery with. While sharing it with him, a weight began to lift. He showed me a tattoo on his arm, in memory of a friend who had died of a heroin overdose. I realized, it was approaching 2:00 A.M. and I didn't have to do anything at that moment, but could go home and go to bed. I prayed for God to show me a reason to live. Something happened in that sleep. I woke up, realizing the growth and many of the high points in my life since I had my last drink on January 3, 2004 and got into recovery. I saw progress. I saw hope. I realized that I could let go of any worry and any attachments to any results. Contrasted against the now real option of suicide, what did I have to lose. I could always execute (pardon the pun) that option if my recovery and spiritual growth failed.

Since that experience I have never considered suicide again. My friend that I talked to at the meeting that dark night, believes that his friend, of the heroin overdose tattoo, was there for me that night. There have been times when progress seemed to be halting, and I was becoming resentful and scared. But, I was always able to accept the shutdown, knowing that it would probably change. If it didn't I could always fall back on my idea. The fact is that my consciousness has been transformed. I am in conscious contact with God, my Higher Self, Great Spirit, or whatever you choose to call the divine. The contact fluctuates. Much of the time it is there, close, obviously guiding my life, leading me to people, places and things that I only need to accept and give what I can of me to. But, sometimes it withdraws, usually when I am wanting something to be different. I am learning that acceptance is the answer. "I'm so alive, oooh-ooooooooo-oh, I'm still alive."

I love you, whoever is reading this. I am grateful, that you have cared and had the desire to read this and begin to see me.

Peace, Alan

The Assassination of Richard Nixon

I watched the movie "The Assassination of Richard Nixon", starring Sean Penn, tonight. It brings up many thoughts and reflections. I think that the movements in the 60's and early 70's were the last opportunity we, as a civilization had, to bring about fundamental change in the political and economic institutions, in a relatively peaceful way, as the result of a grassroots, democratic, uprising. Since that time power has so extremely been usurped from "sovereign" nations by multi-national corporations. The strategists have become much more refined at propaganda and manipulating reality as the technologies to do so have developed. So called civilized governments, lead by the United States, have saturated the planet with weapons of mass destruction and conventional weapons. I'm not saying that it was possible then but at least there was a practical, strategic possibility.

Now we don't even see the source of decisions and policy. We only see actors and hucksters feeding sound bites to the media. Much of the policies that have been implemented have been hatched and developed in secret and semi-secret organizations such as the Tri-Lateral Commission and others that I don't remember the names and others that I and probably no others outside of the inner circles are aware of. We do not live in a democracy. If you think we do you need to wake up and do some studying.

I heard a song on the radio Saturday and two lines were so true. "Ignorance is the enemy, it wields a mighty sword." and "Ignorance is the enemy, it's working like a drug.", not just ignorance of the history of American and European foreign and domestic policy, which I used to think was the key, but spiritual ignorance. At the foundation of this ignorance is a belief that we as a human race and ,more critically, as individuals have some kind of true power. Granted, we have the power to get jobs, make money, buy stuff, we even have the power to control many aspects of other peoples lives if we work in management, as I have for much of my working life. But, do we have power over nature? Do we have power to force others to do our will? We may in the short term, but ultimately our hold weakens. Go to the beach and try stopping a wave if you want evidence.

The arctic ice fields, North America's air conditioner, has decreased in size by 10%. Some scientific predictions are, that at the present rate of the warming of the atmosphere, it will be gone by the end of the century. Our grandchildren and great-grandchildren might still be alive at that time. I saw this information on network news, not some progressive media source. The crazy newscasters then made the point about the effect that would have on polar bears. What about the effect on humans and all of life. That is quite a shift in variables.

What is the solution? It's not to try to assassinate those at the top, as Sean Penn's character attempted. There are plenty more spiritually perverted players to take anyone's place. Many scientists are pointing to evidence that there is a quantum shift about to happen, effecting both physics and spiritual consciousness. The choice I have made, is to make my spiritual condition, my primary purpose. I believe, through experience, that there is a guiding creative force that is at work. God, if you like, but don't get limited by names and conceptions. This spiritual intelligence meets us wherever we are at and works with us from that place. It is working with and through us whether we are aware of it or not. I have learned that the more I am aware of it, and the more self-less I am able to become, the more it works through me, and the more I see it working through others.

Pardon my ranting and rambling, but I was effected by the movie. I have been at that same place of despair and hopelessness that Sean Penn's character was when he put his plan into action. This film was based on actual events. Shedding our self-centered egos is painful and wrought with fear, but the power we are giving up is only an illusion. On our death bed we give it all up whether we choose to or not.

Ironically, I stood in the reception line, beside Julie Nixon and that Eisenhower guy she married, while in Washington D.C. protesting Richard Nixon's second inauguration. Security was more lax back then as was the calculated manipulation of the media.

I'll close with a quote from J.D. Salinger, author of "The Catcher in the Rye" (1951) :

I mean it's very hard to meditate and live a spiritual life in America. People think you're a freak if you try to."

Peace, Alan

Standing at the edge of North America. 

Get Ready, Get Set, Go

Hello. This is amazing. I can't believe I am actually doing this. I have been imagining it for awhile. I am going to keep this post simple as I have no idea how this is going to look. I am in the setup phase and haven't seen anything in it's final form.

Let's start with a prayer to guide this project/process:

"God, I offer myself to Thee, -- to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of life. May I do Thy will always!"

In the name of Christ Jesus and the Christ in me, Amen

Well, I have no idea who will see this or what it will mean. I am going to share with you whatever is living in me at the moment. Sometimes it will be totally foolish, sometimes there may be a little wisdom, and sometimes it might not make the least bit of sense. I just turned 57 years old five days ago. I once doubted that I would live past 30, thanks to Richard Nixon and his madness. I have been on a long, strange trip as the Grateful Dead so poetically expressed. I have lived a very full and unusual life and I feel it necessary to share my experience before I leave this planet. So this is the beginning.

I am not a writer, so this part might be quite rough and cumbersome at times. I am a comedian so hopefully it will sometimes bring a chuckle and god willing, even a guffaw now and then.

My last bit before I post this and see what this is going to look like:

Why did the chicken cross the road? Who the hell knows, but he did.

Peace,

Alan