Posts Tagged ‘rant’

Newer Entries »

I Believe…

Wednesday, May 3rd, 2006

I believe we’re all completely free, b/c we’re completely responsible for who-we-are…

I believe no one ‘makes’ us do anything; we always have a choice [the foundation of mysticism].

I believe ‘feeling pissed’ is just someone else’s energy (attention, expectation, judgement, competition, and/or ‘they-know-better’) in our space. Thus, getting un-pissed requires getting rid of that energy… & not getting pissed means not letting it in in the first place. But–

I believe it’s basically impossible to ‘keep’ ppl from dumping on you; you have to deal w/ it on your own end.

I believe all your ‘needs’ must be resolved from within, else you’ll always be in some state of “need someone else to change”… which is a recipe for disaster. People might (temporarily) change their behavior, if you hound them… but they won’t change how they feel, & they most definitely will not change who they are, just b/c someone else ‘needs’ them to change.

I believe w/ most ppl, one can learn to be less sensitive, less ‘available’ for their judgement/competition (competition = “You’re not okay exactly as you are; you need to change”). But with others… just like the bullfighter, all you can do is ‘get out of the way’. Expecting yourself to be ‘impervious’ (ie, “blown all your pictures”) at all times is just silly; even Jesus (Buddha, Lao Tzu, etc) occasionally lost his space.

I believe what you do & do not know about somebody else has zero effect on your own ability to change & to grow. If there is a dependency on someone else changing for you to change, that is co-dependence & really gets you no-where. (this, fwiw, completely negates the validity of born-agains, & born-again-like’s such as Scientology, est/’Landmark Forum’, & various other ‘multi-level marketed’ philosophies).
I believe there is no such thing as “bad experience”. The only bad experience is regretted experience, b/c then you’re not mining it to its deepest potential. You are, every day, the sum total of everything you have ever done. Your life-experience is your ‘pearl-of-great-price’, & nobody anywhere has your ‘special blend’. To try to ‘forget’, or ‘pretend’ something didn’t happen, is just a natural tendency that occurs when we haven’t completed our integration process… in other words, denial.

One of the most overwhelming, if not worst, experiences happened to me at Tae Kwon Do when I was 16yrs old. The big black guy had me lined-up, & threw a murderous spinning back-side kick. And me, in my infinite stupidity, tried to back-away (never back-away; always dodge to the side). He nailed me, knocked-me-out right thru my pads, slammed me up against the wall. I was unconscious before I hit the floor. & when I woke? Little Master Na, leaning over me shaking his finger:

Master Na: “Good experience!!”
Me: “Huh? (Are you kidding me?!)”

i wanted to cry, to run, to die… but mostly to breathe, which felt like fire.

But you know what? years later, I realized something– I was a lot less afraid about getting hit. Why? b/c I’d been hit before, really hard, knocked-out standing-up… & I wasn’t dead. I’m still walking-around. & I believe– that’s actually really really empowering.

I believe “true needs” are fundamental… like food & water (but even those are flexible, if you train yoga). Everything else is some level of ‘want’. Kind of like Id & Ego.

I believe a really powerful ‘way-of-living’ goes like this:

  1. Choose your outcome
  2. Work towards that goal in all interactions, &
  3. Bite-sized steps [cf, Pryor's Don't Shoot the Dog]

But you know what? Sometimes if the mind is in a bad habit, no amount of ‘good techniques’ available will help pry you from that bad habit. You’ll just feel frustrated, knowing what you “should” be doing, but feeling powerless (or at least demotivated) to actually do it.

Example– my taiji teacher is highly skilled at repatterning experience… from visualization, projection, induced healing, etc… & once accidentally slammed his toe w/ a pickaxe.
-We all eagerly asked, “which [pain-reducing] technique did you use?”
-He smiled ruefully. “Pretty-much, leaned-over, grabbed my foot, hopped-around & yelled ‘Owwwww!!’”
We’re all human.

I believe there’s a panopoly of tremendously powerful modalities which are extremely effective for changing Who-You-Are. In fact, there’s so many now, all equipped with profuse writings & capable teachers (who actually want you to learn), that there’s really no excuse for sitting on your ass, if you’re unsatisfied w/ yourself. Unless you’re not sure ‘which’ to choose. And thus…

I believe, first & last, you must follow your Own Intuition.

I believe ‘baggage’ never stopped anyone from having relationships; just look at how many guys on death row have girl-friends(!!) Instead– ask yourself are you ready, regardless of what everyone else thinks. When you are, you’ll find someone else, toot-sweet.
I believe using empowering metaphors ‘magically’ changes the world (or at least the one around you) into a better place. And if it doesn’t, I believe I won’t notice :-)

I believe I’m done.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

It must be fun to be invincibly ignorant…

Thursday, April 6th, 2006

…I mean, you can pride yourself as ‘Contrarian’ (or even ‘politically-incorrect‘)

…you never have to have any pesky doubts as to who’s ‘Right’ or not

…you have an enormous array of put-downs handily available, carefully formulated by likeminded, similarly funded old white-guy writers… (oh wait, Coulter’s not a guy :-) ) for personally attacking anyone wrong-headed enough to take a position even slightly differing from yours

…& you get to hear exactly the same sentiments you espouse, over & over & over in the right-wing echo-chamber you’ve successfully framed as ‘The Liberal media’. “Fair & Balanced”, anyone?

So I’m just wondering– we know many of the most invincibly ignorant NeoCons actually are highly-funded, highly-educated Professor types, who hang-out in famous Ivy League schools with fully-funded Big Business Endowed Chairs. Great gig if you can get it, right? But they usually generate a continuous output of erudite publications known for their highly rigorous, highly-logical thinking…

But WHAMMO– all that comes to a screeching halt, when it comes time to toe the ‘Party-Line’.

How must it feel, what is the taste in their mouths, when they have to say things like “Creationism is science”, or “Global Warming doesn’t exist”(?!) For God’s sake [whichever 'one' or 'many' you choose], this is the 20th year in a row of steadily rising Earth temperatures, steadily shrinking icecaps, dramatically increased weather-related & otherwise natural disasters, & now even South Pole polar bears are dying in dramatic numbers b/c there aren’t enough icebergs for them to float on.

But no, “global warming doesn’t exist”… or still better, burning fossil fuels is the ‘best source of energy’, b/c:

“we can do more to help the poor by combating these problems now than we would by reducing carbon dioxide emissions…. Moreover, it is acknowledged by every responsible economist that drastic action to reduce fossil fuel use would increase energy costs, which would in turn reduce household income. Wealthier is healthier, and richer is cleaner.” National Review

Stop right there. That’s pure obfuscation, albeit elegantly framed. You see, rather than attacking head-on the concept of Global Warming (b/c there’s just too many Nobel Laureates saying it exists to undercut, discredit or successfully call ‘liberal loonies’, dagnabbit), why not just damn the concept of “Global Warming” with faint praise, & then ridicule any/all attempts made to actually address it. “Responsibility”, indeed. How does the party of ‘Moral Majority’ possibly justify bankrupting our future, exhausting our national resources, and rolling-back pollution controls (called the “Clean Air Act”, how Orwellian).

And here’s an even more brilliant straw dog– raise the idea of “helping the poor”, & then never actually do anything to help them… Heck, they should just ‘work harder’, to be a ‘have-more’ too, right? Where’s their ‘discipline‘?!

Or wait– I’ve got it: let’s do the reverse: not just ‘promising & then not paying’ (like say, New Orleans), or “spend but not tax”, or even calling any non-have-more’s “a nation of whiners“… Let’s actually roll-thru a whole new array of nation-wide social service cuts, this past Congress Session. Fantastic!

Anything is okay, I guess, to ensure continued massive consumption of fossil fuels… we wouldn’t want to ‘hurt the economy’, would we? And I suppose that same ‘economy’ will operate just fine, when the seas have risen enough to bury New York like Katrina did New Orleans? (Scientists estimate that will take approx. 60years at current rate of global icecap shrinkage… & correspondingly, very little time to reverse Global Warming’s acceleration.) Sorry kids… Heck, only liberals live in NY; good riddance.

So again, what must it be like, to be a fat, wealthy, old white man… surrounded by skads of same, convinced all “good” & “right” ppl go to your same (“One True”TM) church, worshiping the same (“One True”TM) God, & feeding at the troughs of the Born-Again/NeoCon deep-pocket backers. Never a pesky doubt, never a chance missed to wrap yourself in flag-pin patriotism, paying lip-service to “our boys” while cutting their VA benefits & awarding yourselves yet another huge tax cut.

Don’t worry– none of ‘their boys’ are ‘over there’; their boys are busily finishing Harvard MBA’s, JD’s, & assorted other ‘fast-track’ paths to inherit (or at least leverage) daddy’s billions. B/c here’s the dirty little secret of the “have-more’s”: the vast majority of them in America didn’t “pull themselves up by their bootstraps”; they inherited (ever wonder why they campaigned for so long & so vociferously against the ‘Death‘ Inheritance Tax, mmm?)

So just How do these guys do it? How could any thinking, caring person do something like this? Don’t they have kids, who’ll have to grow-up in an increasingly polluted, increasingly bankrupt, increasingly lower-class American world-standing???

Easy. Rent All the President’s Men. Hear the immortal words, “follow the money”. And then take another look at the entire NeoCon agenda… from war “Police Actions” in Iraq to South America; to attacking tort law (hey, eliminating big pay-outs for class-action lawsuits both protects large corporations, and simultaneously defunds tort lawyers, who are predominantly Democrat); to rolling-back Clean-Air Act & drilling in ANWR… it’s all about the $$.

Watch their actions, not their words. They’ll say ‘morals’, & ‘discipline’ (fiscal & otherwise), & then vote themselves another tax-cut, open another dozen off-shore tax-shelter loopholes, or even better: raise the debt ceiling to $9 Trillion (edit: $TEN TRILLION?!!!!). Can we just stop saying “deficit spending” & say “the Federal Gov’t is broke”?

Never forget, Bush once greeted a room of these guys thusly:
“This is an impressive crowd: the Have’s and the Have-More’s. Some people call you the elite, I call you my base” Al Smith Dinner Speech.

It must be fun, knowing that your are Right & there will never be a ‘Piper to Pay’.

God[sic] help us all.

Tags: ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Open Letter to EXXON

Monday, January 30th, 2006

Dear Rex Tillerson (new CEO of the record-shattering $36B profitable EXXON company),

Please start your new role in a winning fashion by creating a huge marketing coup for yourself & EXXON:

1) Help America strategically by investing in alternate forms of energy. Your company has the financial resources to get in on the ground floor of non-fossil-fuel based energies… whose market will continue to strengthen (bio-diesel, corn gasohol, etc) as oil-based enery prices continue to rise.

2) Generate terrific nation-wide & global good-will for taking a stand on NOT DRILLING in one of the world’s last wildlife preserves– ANWR. Remember those Chevron Commercials?
“Do Huge Oil Companies like EXXON truly save precious wildlife preserves like ANWR? People do”.

3) Actively fund research for combatting global warming. It doesn’t take very many degrees of increased global warming before the Earth’s ecosphere is destabilized, generating ongoing ‘perfect storm’ conditions (several of which we saw last year).

I pray that you take this opportunity to lead your Company in a new moral direction, one that will earn you much in consumer good will.

Sincerely,
Dave A. Anselmi

PS– you can write a letter to (& watch a great animation spoofing EXXON’s stance on global warming here).

Tags:
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Boobs!

Tuesday, December 20th, 2005

I think every (successful) site on the internet has boobs — it’s part of making a page:
“html, boobs… okay, we’re done here”

…well, as long as we are, we should partake of the highest of quality:
Boobs!

Frank Frazetta was of the Golden Age of Fantasy… when Conan & Kane were savage-yet-intelligent, & women were serious ass-kickers who looked good doing so. When I look at the cover-art on recent Fantasy & Sci-Fi, that pseudo/neo-realistic crap with garish colors & invariably non-proportional limbs, I just get depressed.
But then I just go look at Frazetta, & all is well in the world again. Enjoy!

Tags:
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

“A romantic-comedy about Avian Flu”

Friday, December 9th, 2005

I’ve watched the career of George Clooney for several years, from his “why did he leave a successful show” ER-years, to his “Batman” boondoggle, to his (unsuccessful) season of “keep-women-away-I’m-training-for-an-Oscar”, & then on to his low-profile film-wise for the past few years. Looks like all that has changed.

Sporting a Hollywood good looks & “guy-next-door” likeable smile, Clooney is a “Costner gone bad” Red-State Nightmare now that he’s fronting not one but two controversial films this year. But what’s great about him, is his complete understanding & utter self-effacement of what all this “means” to his career.

on TV last night:
Somewhat Annoyed (Female) Interviewer: “What do you say to the ppl who just think, Here’s another elite Hollywood Liberal, out to save the world?”
Clooney: “Well, I don’t want to save the whole world, just a little part of Hollywood”.
Still More Annoyed (& Flustered) Interviewer: “Well, after going after the Media, & then the CIA, who are you going to go-after next?”
Clooney: “At this point in my career, I’m lucky that I can get a few of these films made… but for not much longer, I think. So my next film will be a comedy”
Astonished Interviewer: “A romantic comedy?”
Clooney: “Sure. A romantic comedy… about Avian Flu”

Perfect.

Tags:
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

listening to…

Friday, November 4th, 2005

at some point, it seems, all writers on the ‘web detail a bit of what they’re listening to. makes sense, really– a friend’s cd-rack & book-shelf are the first things i check-out when i’m over. so w/o further ado, here’s what’s currently spinning chez dave:

Amadou Et Mariam — Dimanche À Bamako (Avec Manu Chao)
La Mala Rodriguez – Tengo Lo Que Tu Quieres (from ‘that scene’ in “Sex & Lucia” :-D )
Devo – Are we Not Men?
Miles Davis – Kind of Blue, Dark Magus
McCoy Tyner – Song of the New World, Extensions
Black Flag – First 4 Years
Big Black – Atomizer
Brian Eno – Another Green World
Hugh Masekela – Stimela (early compilation)

…& what am i ‘reading’, you ask? well, it’s mostly (re)reading, writing, & editing. My own book, actually. About meditation, ‘natch. Well, you asked… :-P

Tags:
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

‘back from Shanghai & very impressed…

Sunday, September 25th, 2005

hey, so i’m back from spending a week in Shanghai. I got to see/experience one of the best Martial Arts masters I’ve ever met, visit a swordmaking village of yore, & spend some time in a City which will lead the world economically in a very short while.

…Simply incredible is Shanghai. 21M ppl, a horizon simply teeming with ultra-tall, ultra-modern skyscrapers which dwarf New Yorks’ both in height & architecture…. & more-impressively, multiple new skyscrapers under construction everywhere you look.

What’s even more impressive is what i must call the ‘civic attitude’ of the people. Sure you have the brusqueness of a hugely-overpopulated city, but you also have an entire populace concerned with ‘face’… which translates to just that bit more care, or ‘civility’ if you will, between everybody. For every crowd with teeming masses of ppl, I was never nudged, bonked, or simply brushed out of the way nearly as often as any trip down San Francisco’s Market Street during any daytime lunch rush. Er, well, except in the open-air market, where even other Chinese get accosted with “Rolex? Watch you like? DVD’s?”… but that’s just amusing, & a chance to practice wrist-grab counters. :-D

And the enthusiasm! Huge masses of ppl working long hours to drive this economic powerhouse, with apartment rates crowding $6k/ft^2 in the best areas (with no end of purchasers), & you start to get some sense of just how hot this area is… excited, highly-educated ppl, & incredible piles of $$. Everywhere you look are electronic signage, with top-quality video production values displaying top talent from Hollywood, on flat-screen plasma monitors of size & quality yet to hit the streets here.

But what made the strongest impression on me, was my return to the States, & the cold shock of culture-difference. Specifically, the uncivility of the ‘average American’. Nightlong train & bus-rides thru some of the interior of China never resulted in the loud, brusque, “I-know-everything” American conversations inflicted on everyone nearby, which greeted my very unwelcoming ears when I took my final connecting (domestic) flight. Or the absolutely unacceptable attitudes of the American “Home Security” personnel in Sea/Tac airport, who variously insulted the ppl going thru Customs, either by casually scattering their suitcase contents, to asking pointed questions like “why don’t you know what’s in your bag? Did your wife pack it for you? Oh, I see… do you know that she shouldn’t have packed that? Does she like you?” [direct quote, of only one of the interactions I witnessed]. It was a relief to realize the object of their tender ministrations barely understood 1 in 10 of their words… the loss of face the person was experiencing was terrible to witness. If this is how we treat rich Asian businessmen, how does this Country expect to compete? I tell you I passed thru several foreign Customs checkpoints, in both China & Japan, & never received any treatment even remotely resembling this disgrace… & if you know me, you know I was dressed in my standard scruffy drawstring pants, scuffed loafers, & crappy T-shirt… oh yeah, & did I mention I was shlepping a 4″ metal sword, sharp? The standout was being heckled by one particular Customs guy, gesturing at the sword, “where do you think you’re taking that? Where are you going? Where are you from?”… when the utter imbecile was holding both my boarding-pass, & passport stamped “USA”, right in his clueless hand. But hey! This couldn’t be happening, b/c we were all issued numbered “Comment Vouchers” complete with multiple-choice responses viz. “Were the Customs Reps uncivil?” & “Were you & your belongings treated with care?”… you just had to sign your name & address in order to make your ‘Comment’. Funny I saw nobody turn them in…

I wonder– If it’s a sense of unconscious entitlement that the average American holds, they better pull their collective heads outta their collective asses, & right quick. If it wasn’t the initiative, the intelligence, or the just plain MONEY of the Asians I met on this trip that managed to impress me, let me tell one last tale: I live in Silicon Valley, East-Bay San Francisco, arguably the ‘best connected’ place in USA. And damned if I can drive 25mi either North or South & not lose mobile connection at least 3 times during my trip. Well, travelling by bus to a small city in China, up & down a few mountain passes, behind me there was a lady chattering away on her cell-phone… nonstop. Don’t tell me about line-of-sight. Don’t try to tell me (for example) “‘well-connected Asia’ is a myth, limited to places like South Korea, which are tiny” & ” sure it’s easy to have full wireless coverage there; USA is much bigger”. Uh, no. China is frickin’ huge, I’m travelling to a town that still has mostly packed-earth streets, & the cell-phones are working JUST FINE.

Smart, enthusiastic, well-connected work-force… & millions of them at that.

USA is in BIG FAT TROUBLE.

Tags:
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

I don’t get it

Monday, August 22nd, 2005

if ppl are gonna do a job, then they should just do the darn thing, right? Or quit, maybe, & try something else? Because “life is too short”, & all that? Oh nevermind.

So anyway, we all know & understand the put-upon petty bureaucrat who hates [his] lot in life, & tends to take it out upon all & sundry. A wonderful (& wonderfully prevalent) example is the just-this-side-of-hostile toll-booth takers in SF, who often seem to compete in how sloooooow they can receive EXACT CHANGE. But hey– they’re paid shit, I can imagine doing the exact same thing, so I can’t knock them… at least, not when I’m not stuck in a long, non-moving toll-booth line… Grrrrr.

Er, but how about highly-paid Managers, for example? For publically-traded, SEC-accountable firms?

Those of us who [chose] to avoid the “Management Track” & remain “Technical Drones” or whatever, had very clear reasons for doing this (besides the chance to miss-out on 25-50% more pay, for starters). And a LOT of those reasons had to do w/ getting to stay being ‘techie dorks’, & avoiding all the ‘press-the-flesh’ & ‘kissing-babies’ BS that the average Mgr has to negotiate.

And that’s great! The onus being– if you wanna be a techie dork, & don’t wanna play the “be nice to ppl” game (ie, politics)… you’d better be quite hot at the techie bits, no?

Correspondingly, if you wanna be ‘political player’ (ie. “Manager”), don’t you have to [remember] to keep kissing the right ass?

Bog save me from frickin idiots who call themselves “Technical Managers” who both can’t find their technical asses w/ both hands, and don’t bother being nice to those who can. It’s as if they held the power of “hire/fire” in their grubbly little non-technical hands, & knew they were untouchable… gobbling-up all credit for anything their ‘team’ produces, & smoothly passing-the-buck back down for any issues. Oh wait, I guess that’s all true. Nevermind.

But anyway, I have a very strong (theoretical, to be sure) appreciation for an honest whore. They have their price, & tend to perform adequately when it’s paid. Example: in a very large & shiny building I once worked, there were a stream of very healthy & well-dressed damsels whose entire role, it appeared, was to leap forward & open the door smilingly to arriving Executive-types. I had occasionally noticed this curious process as I walked-by, & wondered what must being going-thru the minds of said damsels… or, at least, what was the going cost of each paid-for smile. So one day, due to some unmentionably bad karma, I arrived late at the building & managed to slip just ahead of a passel of ‘business-casual’ dressed guys spewing from a large stretched limo. As I hurried up to the door, one of the afore-mentioned hotties leaped into action, & swung the door open for me, showering me w/ a very fetching smile. “Gee” i thought, “I don’t remember this happening before”. And almost on cue, her (expensive) smile dropped 3cm, & the temperature of her face dropped 30degreesF… b/c she’d just noticed my “HI I work Here” badge.

So what does she do?
She slams the door in my face!
No, I’m not kidding!
& I nearly died laughing!!
Which made her even more irate!
& I laughed even harder!!

…b/c I knew exactly how she felt, having myself done crap jobs like sliming fish & smiling at reptiles… there is one, & only ONE thought going thru [her] mind:
“I’m being PAID for this”

…& clearly she wasn’t being PAID to be nice to me.
HAHAHAHAHAHA!! :-D

. . .
So back to highly-paid ‘take-no-prisoners’ “Managers” who treat their directs like shit.
You know what, you gotta wonder at ppl like this, who never seem to realize, that these very ppl they’re treading-on, are the very ppl who make that’s Manager’s ‘Successes’. And word gets around– crappy Managers soon don’t have anyone of quality working for them any longer.

Mark Twain once said “the principle difference between a man & a dog, is that if you take-in a starving dog & feed it, it won’t bite you”.

Lemme update that & say: “Man is the [only] animal who will gleefully, cheerfully, chop-off his nose to spite his face”.

In ethics class it’s called “Invincibly Ignorant”, & refers to those dwelling in ivory towers, etc. Why not just say, “never had a real job in their whole life (ie., really ‘work’ for a living)”, & leave it at that.

…till next time, try out this handy-dandy tool to deal with managerial pricks. It’s called the “white mutiny“. Enjoy.

{& just for giggles– why not post your own funny work “painful waste-of-space” story for others to read…}

Tags: ,
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

it’s a crying shame

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2005

…that it takes the French to validate someone like Lance Armstrong.
perhaps it’s the faintly onerous sense that cycling is for ‘sissies’… but howtheheck can someone say, with a straight face, “a cyclist never feels the knee-knocking, throat-closing pressure of a crucial putt or free throw, nor does he need the incredible hand-eye coordination and other skills required in baseball, football, soccer, and other sports” (Skip Bayless, espn.com).

are you kidding me?
has this Skip guy never gone downhill on a bike? really fast?

bicyclists have the highest (you read that right) rate of physical damage of any other athlete… every one of these guys/gals goes down hard, & fairly often… so much so that they have an entire set of stock phrases for the (inevitable) event: “touching the floor”, “losing bark”, etc. like any decent (american) football player, bicyclists ride under amazing amounts of pain. lance just last night on letterman described the Tour as a “combination of a marathon, chess, and NASCAR… the endurance, the strategy/tactics, & all the road tricks of drafting, etc”.

he didn’t mention bumping your opponent into the wall, threatening to knock him spinning and/or crashing in flames, ie. the ‘mind game’ first introduced & popularized by Dale Earnhardt… but lance didn’t have to. ever see a bike team gang-up on some other hapless guy? shuffled, knocked, & elbowed, the other guy doesn’t stand a chance… & he better have the heart to not give up, esp. when he goes down. boy, that can’t be as tough as missing a putt, can it?

i’ve driven sports cars north of 130mph and never felt the gut-wrenching fear of 40mph downhill on a ten-speed…. & that’s chicken-sh*t to pro’s like Lance.

huge heart, low lactid acid, who gives a poo — in the end, that’s only the raw materials… the guy still had to get on the bike, over & over, fine-tuning himself to overcome (small) obstacles like, oh yeah, brain cancer.

you’ve gotta be frickin kidding me.

Tags:
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Newer Entries »