New War - New Opportunity !

Greetings,

You'll be happy to know the so-called endless "war" on the southern flank is going well. It's actually been going on and on since 1984 when George began screaming about Maoist aspirations and recruiting young naive desperate boys to play with loaded guns. Big Brother came out to play.

He never looked back and now he's living with his mistress in an air conditioned and well fortified cave. Life is sweet when you live in a cave and the monthly maintenance fees are reasonable. One of those no money down, low interest hovel the shovel habitats.

The military dudes, who ran the show at one time because they lost patience with the Suit & Tied guys, are back with a vengeance. They've got the best fighter jet sets, bombers, laser guided precision high-tech toys, tanks, artillery, amphibious landing craft and Death on Wheels money can buy.

It's a numbers game. We know you love numbers. Led by General Incompetent they massed 60,000 well scrubbed conscripts on the border.

Their "enemy?" 3,000 hardened fighters and survivors. 60,000 vs. 3,000. How can 3,000 hold off 60,000? It ain't by talking. They employ tactics and strategy in the The Art of War. Cunning, guile and environmental impact statements.

Send in the dummies.

Peace.

Women Hear with Heart

Greetings,

In an unprecedented wave of support, millions of sad, yet strangely serene women facing callously arranged marriages filled with empty hopes and vague promises of love and happiness have enlisted to engage strangers on distant borders. 

This wave of support resembled the open handed movement in the moment, the long fare well gesture a mother reluctantly gifted her daughter recently watching her disappear into the teeming stream.

"Be well my love," sang the mother. Her daughter joined a band of women, singing and sighing.

Living their dream, making their sacrifice with clean and clear motivation, determination and focus, the entourage of waving, singing women danced through distant valleys, climbed jagged mountains of regret and entered a no-name village where males hammered war's drums.

Where marginalized males argued and fought over a slice of bread, a slice of earth, studied imaginary maps and spit in the dust.

"Where is this place?" said the woman leader visualizing a strange village in a strange world.

"It is far away," said a grave digger with vast earth moving experience.

"It is a distant land where bronze statues of fallen soldiers, warriors and testosterone fueled fools rust and congratulate each other on their mutual stupidity. Where, if you listen closely to the wind, you will hear it whisper, 'Go home, return to your children, your families and friends. Live in peace with your brothers, sisters.'"

The women listened with the their hearts.

Arranged Taxi Music

Greetings,

It's tough living in a land where the women are beautiful and sad. At the same time. It appears many don't know whether they are coming or going, going, long gone. They've fashioned these really amazing well defined masks out of loss and hopelessness and confusion and serious misgiving doubt using tears, wrapped in silence. Many are waiting for an arranged marriage.

The fathers get together and draw lots. They draw with ink and pastels and charcoal. The charcoal comes from a deep black well where their wives, tired of waiting, sing, "Give us a child, give us someone to love and protect and carry forever and cherish and spoil with benign neglect. Give us your future. We don't really care about love, it's all arranged. It's a matter of principle and practicality. Here, accept this man, this stranger into your heart and just give us a child."

Their daughter wraps their words around her heart. A constrictor in love's tangled jungle.

This explains why you never see women taxi drivers here. It's a male thing, these bright speeding tire spinning toys on wheels. Kinda like a Toy's For Tots game show. Live. Same goes for cafes where retired guys sit around all day long from opening to closing and play backgammon. Little wooden pieces carved from youth's forgotten toys.

Young macho guys spin their shiny yellow taxi wheels and play arranged symphonies in the horn section. The women know better which is why they live longer.

Why they may, given the heart, stand up and say, "I respect your ideas about arranged marriages, however, to be really honest with you, it's old fashioned conservative thinking. This is 2007 not 1987. I am a member of a new free thinking generation. I am not willing to be a victim, a willing victim of your narrow minded attitudes. I will choose my own friends, lover and companion, based on my needs. I know why the caged bird sings."

Peace.

Mr. Lucky Foot

Greetings,

One of my secret names is Mr. Lucky Foot. What does that mean you may ask, well let me tell you in simple, plain, clear and concise English, the language of barbarians.

It means wherever I go and pause to meet people; like shopkeepers, merchants in Venice, rest-a-rant owners and various non-descript sad, lonely, neurotic and well adjusted humans struggling to find their personal way inside the labyrinth, when I show up, because 90% of life is Showing Up, their day, life and fortune changes. For the better. It happened in the Middle KIngdom and it's happening in Asia Minor.

Take yesterday for example. I wandered through a gleaming atrium filled with your standard array of badly dressed silver bald dressed dummies fronted by glass, screaming ineffective indifferent bored mistresses out on good behavior and pram wheeled infants.

I happened into a shop hidden well behind the "upscale" zones where, to my delight, I discovered five varieties of carved chess sets; Roman, Ottoman, Egyptian, English football motif, and the Middle Ages. All the sets were realistic and well done. The game of kings. The owner also had sizable sculptures of Black jazz musicians; sax, trumpet, clarinet, keyboard, drums, singers and electric guitar. He also had a good selection of Swiss Army knives. Sharp and to the point.

Anyway, so, at first it's just the two of us, talking and drinking tea. Then a couple of university girls arrived, bought Zippo lighters for gifts and left. They were followed by boys looking for lighters. Then a well dressed man, maybe 60, in a worn beige leather jacket came in with a school boy, wanting a lighter and pen. Simple tools. Another man followed them standing nearby. He looked Russian or Tartar; thick neck, alert eyes, short hair, and stocky in a light brown suit with expensive wing tips. He clasped his meaty hands together watching the man negotiate with the owner. He was the bodyguard and he never moved.

We made brief eye contact. He swiveled his gaze back to the man and boy. There was a problem with the credit card transaction. The man reached into his right leather pocket, pulled out a cell phone and called his bank. He spoke a few words and disconnected. The owner punched in numbers and the sale went through.

Satisfied, the man took his purchase and we spoke - How do you like it here? What is your job? Where are you from? His gray eyes were meticulous and direct. We shook hands then he and the boy left. The bodyguard slid out the door close behind.

"Who do you think he was?" I asked the owner as we resumed drinking tea.
"Maybe the boss of a big organization, maybe a bureaucrat. Well connected. I never saw him before."

More people entered his shop.
"Goodbye," I said.
"You brought me good luck today," he said. "You have a lucky foot. Thanks."
"Perhaps. You're welcome."

Peace.

Eyes

Greetings,

Cool fall air. Leaves leave, pirouette through space where squadrons of clear crows cackle, taking talking wing sing sang song. A beautiful face on the street. Fall in love with her laughing eyes. She calls you home. Return, inside her beauty.

"I want to know one thing," said Picasso. "What is color?" Speaking of art, check out Keep Adding, a fine little Santa Fe, New Mexico art zone.

Once upon a time there was a circle and it was missing something but it didn't know what it was or where it was so it rolled along looking. It rolled night and day. It rolled through valleys, up mountains and down the other side. It rolled with patience, a long silent wish, hope, dream looking for the thing to make it perfect. To make it complete and happy.

Peace.