Yes, you read it right — fresh baby shark available here at the takeout window. I’ve decided against serving the usual “baby dolphin sandwiches” at lunchtime, only because they’re not as cost-effective as the shark meat which, as you’d expect, tastes like chicken, but apparently, so do rattle snakes and people.
Mahi-Mahi is not really dolphin, we’re told by the restaurant staff. “It’s okay to eat it.”
Is it my imagination, or is it getting just plain harder and harder to keep surviving in Trump World?
It might discourage you to learn it, but the truth is that it will NOT get any better — in fact, it’s bound to get worse, and this year is only the first of many Very Bad Times, but YOU have a mission in the midst of all this insanity and crudeness, and it definitely involves a brush with several Near-Death Experiences, none of which are actually dangerous or life-threatening, but they DO bring you close to the edge, close enough to SEE what’s really there.
Voidness. Yes, it’s true — ALL phenomena is illusion, and Trump and Lunchtime doubly so.
In this atmosphere of suspicion and hatred, of violence and lies, of stupidity and crass cowardice, you must somehow find a way through the muck and mire of Evil Political Entities of both the Religious Right and the Socialist Left — and that includes your local horror show, and somehow find your way to the Holy of Holies, the Temple of the Mysteries, the End of the Rainbow.
Golly, that amounts to Satori, the End of Desire. What a goal. Total Cosmic Consciousness. Peace, Traquility and Good Wishes Toward All. Buddhahood. Being, Not Becoming.
Well, it’s not exactly a Himalayan Mountain Trek or a month on retreat in a local Zen Monastery, but you get the idea.
Somewhere beyond this chaotic and increasingly childish monomaniacal turmoil called “Trump World”, there is a Place of Refuge, a Place of Safety, and a Place of Knowledge, situated well-within easy walking distance from here, which exists quite apart from the Time/Space Discontinuum you call “Home”, and is accessible only through Portals, some of which you carry with you all the time — such as the Pineal Gland, which operates as a miniature Black Hole Portal if you know how to turn it on with Meditation and a Mantram.
Good luck out there — it won’t be easy to survive in Trump World, even when he’s been toppled and the Russian Farce is finally over. This is going to go on for several decades before the U.S. finally caves in and goes under.
Meanwhile, let’s make a buck.
But … But … It’s hard to sell things to people who are selling everything in the house in order to survive to the next paycheck, if ever there comes one, isn’t it???
Uncertainty rules the roost for quite a while, and during that undefined Period of Uncertainty, you’ll find it difficult or impossible to earn enough to feed the family and keep a roof over your heads.
The Republicans fight dirty, or hadn’t you noticed? Really dirty, but whatever they do, however outrageously they accuse and cause catastrophic civic failures, pay no attention to them — do nothing, say nothing, be silent, keep moving.
Sometimes you just have to stand up for yourself.
You might find yourself, as I did, trying to verbally wiggle out of a potentially violent confrontation in public — it’s absolutely impossible to avoid upsetting people these days, and you MUSTN’T mention politics, especially any reference to Trump.
I hadn’t said anything about Trump, but these young hoodlums took an exception to me because I was old.
What they didn’t know is that I can still land a crippling blow, and I haven’t forgotten how to place a kick to the neck and some fingers to the sternum.
His name is a fighting word, and until Trumpies came along, I would have backed out of any fight, but I won’t, now — you can’t back out, because they keep coming at you, so if you’re going to be hanged as a horse-thief, you might as well have the horse.
I am now prepared to fight to any degree in order to protect the people I’m walking with, and I realize — and you should, too — that violence can erupt at any moment on any street, no matter how calm and pleasant it might seem.
Fights are breaking out everywhere.
Well, that suits Trump just fine — there’s nothing he likes more than a wild and crazy fight, and that’s because he’s fucking nuts, and more than a little dumb.
He’s not the deepest mentality on the planet. He’s real weak in the brain department. It’s not about sports. Trump’s impatience with facts has nothing to do with a love of sports.
While it’s true that Trump likes to see men hit one another, and that he himself likes to throw and get thrown by wrestlers, as you’ve seen on youtube — SOME of those Trump wrestling videos are faked, but some are decidedly NOT — it’s really him doing that, it’s not about sports, but about winning. He has to win. And win. And win.
God, is there no limit, no bottom, to the depravity?
Turns out, there isn’t. Kowabonga, how about that? Who woulda guessed that something so unutterably low, so miserable, so foul and disorderly would creep out of the woodwork and control the Great Unwashed Masses.
His Dad taught him that he’s a loser, and that he’ll never win. His Dad bailed him out every time he screwed up, which was often enough to be called a loser many times over.
It is as Yeates predicted: “…And what rough beast, its hour come ’round at last, shuffles toward Bethlehem to be born?” — we now know the answer to that — Donald J. Trump.
He has worked hard to brand that name in the list of infamy that includes Hitler, Mussolini and Genghis Khan.
So how in the hell under these circumstances and with all this distraction can you concentrate enough attention on your work to actually make an honest living in this chaotic hell-hole, called “Trump World”?
It’s really very simple. Lose interest in anything outside your own skin, which is how Trump does it. Of course, that leaves you in a cement overcoat with solid lead ear-plugs.
The alternative to Total Numb-Out is to live in a World of Pain, and that’s what you will, in the end, choose, because you are Of The Work, and have no choice. You can’t stick your head in the sand and ignore it, so you will live in pain and torment, mostly caused by Trump and his Evil Minions.
So how do you cope with it?
You don’t.
You do as I have demonstrated. You fail to cope with it but go to work every day anyway without complaint, but with a ready and steady hand, in spite of the pain. The secret, as Lawrence of Arabia said, is “not minding that it hurts”.
Of course, my Four Freedoms are something else entirely. I won’t live in a society that is not free, so at that moment of non-freedom, I have nothing to lose. Nothing.
The moment my freedoms are taken away, I have nothing left to protect me from my government — it is a matter of some concern that I actually do need protection from my government, and so you do and everyone we know.
I hope it never comes to a shooting war, but it might very well come to a civil war or worse, and I wouldn’t discount the “Red Dawn” prognostication — which is a scenario in which the Russians come blithely marching in, and taking over without firing a shot, because Donald Trump gave Putin the Master Codes.
We’re working under the presumption that Trump is a Russian Spy — at least that’s what I assume to be true, and if you’ve been paying attention, you will be assuming the same.
Okay, so it’s just a matter of time before the Russians get here, right? If they don’t manage to pull it off, that’s great, but we’ll still have not only Trump, but his minions to deal with, and his minions are still very much around, and will be active even when he’s long gone, because fear is fear, and it never dies.
If you’ve ever had a religious experience as a result of watching an episode of “Walker, Texas Ranger”, you’ll understand what I mean when I say, “Deal with it”.
I’ve been working on a number of wood and stone projects lately, mostly to avoid watching the news or going to town where you’re bound to get into a fist-fight at the mere mention of the fact that Trump is a First-Class Asshole.
God, it doesn’t take much to turn a crowd into a mob.
I don’t know what sparked off the confrontation the other day in town — I was minding my own business, not even making eye-contact on the street, when this guy comes over to me and objects to my red “Trump is a Shmuck” ballcap.
“How come it doesn’t say MAGA?” he demanded.
“Fuck if I know,” I responded cleverly.
“Oh, yeah?” he said.
“Yeah,” I replied, “can I interest you in some rock jewelry or a coin pendant with your birthdate on it?”
That’s how I start most of my sales these days and, except for the occasional visit to the medicine chest to restore myself and repair the larger of my wounds, it works really well — I’ve made dozens of sales to people who were well on their way to the Funny Farm, and you will, too, with this cunning, clever and convincing sales pitch.
I probably should mention that the above is an example of humor in a sarcastic vein — I’m told that people today no longer understand sarcasm, because we’re living in a Post-Truth World, one that doesn’t make exception between facts and lies.
Well, hell, if that don’t beat all? I’ve finally found those pesky photos. Heck-darn, had I found them earlier, I’d have spared you all that dialogue coming into the blog piece.
Okay, so here’s the first photo:
I make these to order. The angels are chosen by your use for the candle, such as to heal, to assist, to guard and to protect, to repair and to guide and give good counsel.
You can use this candle along with the Angel Matrix mounted on a wall or placed on your altar behind the Medicine Wheel arrangement, which is not available in photo at this time, but will be online sometime today or tomorrow.
Although the retail is $89.95 for my painted candles, you pay only $40, half price, so you are able to become a genuine certified reseller, which is the whole point. I sell the wax and non-wax candles for the same price.
They come in short, medium and tall, and I can’t predict which size I’ll have at any given moment. You can specify which size you want, but allow a few extra days for me to obtain the candles and then a few more days to get around to painting them.
I can’t possibly sell enough candles per day at a crummy $40 bucks a pop to make enough money to keep myself going, let alone to keep the community going — but between all of us, we can.
If we had fifty people out there selling this stuff, we’d generate enough to maybe get by. If we had a hundred people out there selling this stuff, we’d have enough to build a retreat and a healing center.
Trump wants all of us “inferiors” dead. Let’s disappoint him and kick his ass politically, but in the meantime, let’s sell the hell out of candles, incense, jewelry, rocks, pebbles, stones and coins.
When I paint a candle, it’s the same as painting a canvas, except that I’d be getting something like $1,000 – $3,000 for the canvas, and I get a lousy $40 bucks for the candle, which is a hard ass-busting way of fund-raising for the community.
Holy crap, it’s a lotta work!
But if it gets YOU into the flow, I’m all for it, and I’ll produce them as long as you still want them.
Don’t forget — the whole point is to sell the KITS, not the completed projects. You want to introduce them to this special kind of meditation, and the way to do that is to get them painting and gluing rocks, candles, wood projects, all sorts of involvements and participations.
At the Gallery, you want to get them painting, to break the veil of illusion just for a moment or two, a fleeting glimpse of the Simple World of Childhood.
Well, this is the Old Avatar of the West, saying “Good night and good luck” — Like I said a number of years ago, “Lest ye become as a small child, ye shall not enter the Kingdom” — and you can quote me on that!
See You At The Top!!!
gorby