ROCK IS DEAD

The time of really "quality" rock music is over: The era from the 60's to the 80's where brilliant and interesting people made brilliant and interesting albums. The music industry and the general dumbing-down of this plastic and hyper-materialistic culture has killed creativity and passion stone cold dead. I can't believe the crap people willingly listen to these days. It's like someone urinating in your ears. Vapid dribble would be a compliment. When the most popular rock band out there is frigging Fall Out Boy, it's time to stick a fork in it. The lack of originality out there is breathtaking. Everyone is a pale memory of a weak replica of a poor imitation of a half-baked clone. The era of idiosyncratic artists on a mission to change the world has passed into history...and now all that is left is pap, illiterate Rap/Hip-Hop, cartoon darkness, fake sensitivity, sophomoric lyrics, banal sensationalism, and tepid retreads of far better music created by far better musicians. And that means that MY time is over, because I refuse to make crap music for a crap audience. I'd rather take a bullet. As it stands, the people who used to listen to good music are all well past the age where they have stopped seeking out new artists and new music, and the younger people (Generation "Whine") wouldn't know a decent song if it crawled up their asses and laid eggs. Let them eat Beyonce.
*excerpts from http://johnludi.com/

why are you so fucked up?

There are two types of creators in the world. One type of creator works with objects - a poet, a painter, they work with objects, they create things. The other type of creator, the mystic, creates himself. He doesn't work with objects, he works with the subject; he works on himself, his own being. And he is the real creator, the real poet, because he makes himself into a masterpiece.

You are carrying a masterpiece hidden within you, but you are standing in the way. Just move aside, then the masterpiece will be revealed. Everyone is a masterpiece, because God never gives birth to anything less than that. Everyone carries that masterpiece hidden for many lives, not knowing who they are and just trying on the surface to become someone.

Drop the idea of becoming someone, because you are already a masterpiece. You cannot be improved. You have only to come to it, to know it, to realize it. God himself has created you; you cannot be improved.

Full Moon in Sagittarius

Truth and meaning don’t live somewhere far away. It is not in heaven, it is not in the words of some channeler, it is not in your guru, it is not in your church, it is not in your school, it is not in your therapist, it is not in your psychic, tarot card reader or astrologer, it is not in your government, it is not in your guides, angels, or other disembodied entities you have chosen to give away your power. The Earth is speaking to you, every minute of every day! The answers you seek are in the wind, the movement of the waves, in the activity in a bee hive or an ant hill, in the intelligence that moves the stars and planets, in the storms and earthquakes, in the songs of birds, in the howl of a wolf, in the grace of a deer, in the smile of your child/spouse/parent/friend, in the sensual embrace of your lover, in the flowing water of a river, in the shape of a cloud, in the cosmic music of the shimmering particles and waves that make up our universe! Go outside, be in nature and tune in to the teachings of Mother Earth.

Get your Ego out of spirit’s way and open yourself to listening deeply to the existent wisdom of our world. Accepting the animal part of humanity as a source of knowledge will help bring harmony, peace and generosity back to our deadened species. This is why Sagittarius is a Centaur: half animal, half human. Think about it, it will make sense to you! Above all else, make sure to spend this Full Moon celebrating your life with enthusiasm and optimism and sharing this joy with everyone you meet!

The heart has its own reasons, which the mind cannot understand. The heart has its own dimension of being, which is completely dark for the mind. The heart is higher and deeper than the mind, beyond the reach of it. It looks foolish. Love always looks foolish because love is not utilitarian. Mind is utilitarian. It uses everything for something else-- that is the meaning of being utilitarian. Mind is purposive, end-oriented; it turns everything into a means--and love cannot be turned into a means, that is the problem. Love in itself is the goal.

Fools always have a subtle wisdom in them, and the wise always act like fools. In the old days all great emperors always had one fool in their court. They had many wise men, counselors, ministers and prime ministers, but always one fool.

Why?--because there are things so-called wise men will not be able to understand, that only a foolish man can understand--because the so-called wise are so foolish that their cunningness and cleverness closes their minds. A fool is simple, and was needed because many times the so-called wise would not say something because they were afraid of the emperor. A fool is not afraid of anybody else, he will speak whatsoever the consequences.

This is how fools act--simply, without thinking what the result will be. A clever man always thinks first of the result, then he acts. Thought comes first, then action. A foolish man acts; thought never comes first.

Whenever someone realizes the ultimate, he is not like your wise men. He cannot be. He may be like your fools, but he cannot be like your wise men.

When Saint Francis became enlightened he used to call himself "God's fool." The pope was a wise man, and when Saint Francis went to see him even the pope thought this man had gone mad. He was intelligent, calculating, clever; otherwise how could he be a pope? To become a pope one has to pass through much politics. To become a pope diplomacy is needed, a competitive aggression is needed to put others aside, to use others as ladders and then throw them.

It is politics... because a pope is a political head. Religion is secondary, or nothing at all. How can a religious man fight and be aggressive for a post? They are only politicians.

Saint Francis came to see the pope, and the pope thought this man was a fool. But trees and birds and fishes thought in a different way. When Saint Francis went to the river the fishes would jump in celebration that Francis had come. Thousands witnessed this phenomenon--millions of fishes would jump simultaneously; the whole river would be lost in jumping fishes. Saint Francis had come and the fishes were happy. And wherever he would go birds would follow; they would come and sit on his leg, on his body, in his lap. They understood this fool better than the pope. Even trees that had become dry and were going to die would become green and blossom again if Saint Francis came near. These trees understood well that this fool was no ordinary fool--he was God's fool.

straight from the cynic's dictionary

NEUROTIC - Sane but unhappy about it.

NIRVANA - The ultimate extinction of the individual soul; a transcendent state sought by Hindus and Buddhists through right living, although it may be attained more easily by working for a Japanese corporation.

OFFICE- A clean, functional, brightly lit cell inhabited five days a week by diligent souls who forfeit their lives to make a living.

SALARY- A market value assigned to professionals as a function of their scarcity, their usefulness to employers and their ability to feign enthusiasm for their work.

SCHIZOPHRENIA- Not the proverbial split personality, but a long retreat from life's battles and unpleasantness into a shadow-world where the trees have ears, and dogs recite "Hiawatha" in a Swedish accent; considered pathological except among modern poets and performance artists, in whom it may be regarded as the norm.

SMILE- To expose a portion of one's skeleton as a gesture of goodwill toward a fellow human.