"Seems pretty boring around here" I said.
I was in a southeast suburb.
The furthest.
Playing music at an "open mic".
I was actually, honestly, trying hard to give it a chance
A lot of crappy places can grow on you
I grew up in a couple
but I knew what I was brought here for
I wasn't sold. Not really.
I've been to a lot of music events in my life.
No pretty chicks, really, not regular.
Just chubby sarcastic ones.
Friendly, but big and sarcastic.
I'm pretty lenient of soft figures myself
And twitchy ex-hard drug users
My kinda people in many ways
maybe a bit too hard,
but I like distortion
that grungy mush of different tones
Sitting on the edge of the most cracked out neighborhood i've seen in a bit
The Main and Hastings of this suburb it feels like
poverty and misery on a wide scale, blocks that stretch a mile
less dense,
but still a menacing tweak,
an angry need that walks for miles
I looked around and wondered why my "friend" thought I'd like this.
It really wasn't about me liking it, I knew.
That's not why he dragged me here.
Anyway,
The guy I'm talking to, chubby, short, balding,
He just finished playing some song from the 60's
A Crosby Stills and Nash one
I've watched him play a lot of songs from that free-love era by now.
Nice singing voice, decent if simple guitar, which seems to improve when you stick a higher grade axe in his hand.
"So where are all fun things in Surrey" I ask
He laughs, a flash of regret seems to cross his face for a second
"Nothing really fun out here, except drinking and fighting, and I don't really drink anymore"
"Isn't there a hippie boho area with groovy music and pretty hippie girls anywhere in this place?"
I chose the words carefully, because I knew where it was going.
I knew it from the start, when I first was brought here, months ago.
"Hippies!" he snorts, "No fucking hippies here, We killed 'em all"
I wonder about this "we", But I know where I am and who brought me.
I came along with the setup,
so I could see the play
and the players.
"Well, we didn't kill them, not all of them" he says, almost softening for a second
only a second, then the sneer is back and he continues
"We corrupted them."
"Corrupted them?"
"Yeah, sure. Get them addicted to drugs, turn them into whores, crack them out, beat them up, fuck 'em, give 'em aids or herpes, steal their shit, fuck 'em all, fucking hippies...make their lives shit so they leave. No more fucking hippies here!"
"GHB?"
"Oh ya, GHB, meth, heroin, crack, whatever, just bring em down, corrupt them. Fuck up their shit. Fuck em all."
That last line spoken with a hatred and vehemence that seems out of place on his lips
he was just singing "Helplessly Hoping"
very nicely
It's a sick conversation,
like we're discussing how they got rid of some "vermin" to use the words of a letter to the West Van Courier right before the Olympics.
I don't know, I have a soft spot for hippie chicks
they look nice.
It's like someone talking about hunting bunnies or something
shouldn't they deserve a warning?
They seem like too easy targets,
obliviously looking at grass or the sky...
gladly accepting a drink
not remembering much after
Kali can only come to them
personally
if they seek revenge
then vengeance they shall wreak
No one will do it if they will not
forgotten
best forgotten
I look around me. pawn shops, liquor store, smokeshop.
trio of crack-ho's half a block down, standing unsteadily near a gas station
I think about the last time I came to play here
another musician offers to smoke some weed with me
and halfway to the store to get smokes,
the meth/crack/pcp/whatever he stuck in the bottom of the weed pipe hits me.
It's not like I haven't been dosed by someone before
but, standing on the corner waiting to cross
with an nasty looking cracked out violent ex-con with home-made tats wanting to "Hey Homie! hug me,
fucking shit....
I haven't seen a brown or black person in this area,
Not even with Delta a few miles away (lot's of brown in Delta)
but none here. I guess they got the same treatment as the hippies.
Not many good looking women that are hanging out, ditto?
The First-Nations in this area look tough as nails, they'd have to be.
But I was prepared for that.
I grew up in redneck rural Alberta, I've heard worse. Honestly.
I once had to sit through 2 hours of nigger jokes
At a family member's house
but that's another story
(sorry 'bout that "N" word)
Hypocrisy always catches my eye, I think about the CSN he was just playing,
"What about your daughter, she's a teenager eh?
She probably loves that hippy shit, all the funky dresses and necklaces..."
I rightly guess the rebellious streak that opposes parental likes.
"Oh ya, she loves that shit"
"So where do you go around here for stuff like that?"
I knew the answer, I was just baiting him
"Oh, we go into Vancouver when she wants to see shit like that, none around here"
"You go into town a lot?"
"A few times a month"
Wow. Enlightening.
I guess that's where the cool artistic culture went
in my old neighborhood
the Eloi fleeing the Morlocks
that's always an interesting thing
to think about
wraith or morlocks sitting
having fun
drinking beer and eating bunnies
laughing
the nice but oddly staring woman
tells me of a dead boy
"guess he was a faggot
set himself on fire in New York
depressed and all"
the look in her eyes is almost glee
"that's the way it should be"
they seem to say,
like some creepy "in" joke"
then move off wildy into the sky
like a poisoner, here have some tea
I'm offered to come to a barbecue
but the cognitive dissonance
is too much
way too much
oh really officer that faggot just immoliated hisself
a cackle laughter blisters
I light a smoke,
she couldn't pronounce immolated,
I'm sure of it.
Almost glee
vein pulsing
targets moving
I constantly watch
encircled
laughing
have a fucking smoke
swill my beer and laugh
My "friend" is going on to me about
"those Stargate people that ripped you off,
you have to talk to my friend,
she's heard lots of stories like that..."
The smirk he always seems to have when he talks about certain things, that"something going on" smirk.
Yeah. Here it comes.
More than 5 months to get to it.
And here she is.
All the eyes around the shop
are fixed on her with admiration
looking at me with that smirk,
a whole shop smirking at once
And suddenly the Priestess is sitting in front of me,
asking me about
my "experiences"
with Stargate Atlantis
and Robert Cooper.
Someone I've never met before,
never spoken to,
sitting there to "listen",
eyes sparkling
I see her vampiric energy swell and glisten behind her eyes
she's expecting me
to pour out my misery at the rip-off
20 other pairs of eyes are locked on us
it's certainly not your average coffee shop
but I knew that months ago
I was waiting to see the Priestess
Sitting amongst the Wraith
playing my guitar
I waited a long time
now it's just Me an d' Devil
to quote robert J.
I am not afraid
here
many sharp things
are in reach
And I know
myself
the face of the man
they will send
to kill me
I've sat with him many times
smoking pot on grass
playing beautiful guitar
he does J.J. Cale
very nicely
so I can play lead
He does not come here
and I
do not play
the guitar
anymore
I walk away to have a smoke
watch her puzzled eyes
I didn't feed her any stories of the misery
of being ripped of by her friends/associates at SGA.
she was expecting it,
practically leaning forward
mouth watering
a pretty mouth
without any real compassion
"listening"
but I have no interest in feeding her
I saw what I needed
I know her mind fuck drill
I'm actually better at it
It's funny, cults like this
she is the only beautiful one,
no,
there is one other young woman tonight
but all the rest
are rather large and plain
I wonder about people
who join cults or gangs
of ugly people.
Seems like you'd want to join the cult with babes.
But I'm not here to join their cult
Their Church of Satan Grotto.
goat horn pentacles tattooed on skin and t-shirts
all around me
Brimming with hate for any "white lighters"
Atheist or not.
No. I'm here because this Priestess and her crew of Hunters
They're connected to the movie business here.
This particular branch
is the "rip off musicians of their original songs" branch
My "friend" constantly urging me
to play something new
They get so angry when I play covers
My favorite
is a blend of Cash and Reznor
on "Hurt"
There are crucifixes in the crowd
eyes gleaming the same as pentacle black bearers
roman torture devices and jewish sigils
symbols of your faith
they certainly are not mine
Myself, I don't get off on pentacles
I'm not Jewish.
Pentacles are a symbol of the Jews from waaay back
and got picked up by gentile cabbalists as a sign of mercantile
they were one of the earliest standard symbols on masonic work
because of their supposed adornment
of Solomon's Temple
but they far predate the temple
Still,
I am not that
I'm a mix of Gaul/Celt/Norse/Scot
and I would not wear a pentacle by choice
upside down or not
if you're going to appropriate something
appropriate something cooler
with so many pantheons
in your own blood
of ancestor memory
Pentacles and goats
Hmmm.
That goat-pentacle thing
is only a couple hundred years old
mostly promoted by a cabbalist anthropologist
Pentacles have never had anything to do with goats
or Pan
except in their role as an opposing force
to semitic tribes
Pan, goatboy
Pan predates Zeus in some greek texts
he was already there
when Chronos still ruled
examination of memes
and dna libraries
memories of ancestors
completely preserved
in blood molecules
holding more
than all our human Archives
in a cell
as Hermes held the Universe
in his mind
superimposed aspects
postures and purposes
recurring forms
given Names
I
tell you
a tale
of mixed observances
you
construct
the rest
Killing time...killing...
The Priestess and her Hunters aren't jewish either
so I wonder at their strange idolatry of this
the oddest of cultural appropriations
in these otherwise sophisticated vampires
I've always thought it odd
when witches self identify
with one of the symbols of the mason masters
with the Inquisition
The Judges, Lawyers, Police, Priests,
and Henchmen
crushing us all to build their pyramids
of of Money and Domination
the fat white male pogrom
rape torture theft murder
of the "infidels" and thinkers
writers,
and loopy hippie chicks...
Taliban of the Cross
and their Henchmen of the Inverted Pentacle
cloying purity and insipid decay
stark black and white
Terrorists and Freedom Fighters
Angels and Devils
Philosophers and Schizophrenics
Memes defined, compared,
recurring, evolving
Galileo
I would sing of thee!
eyes of a visionary
reduced to cinder
before the great white axe
of their fervor and control
the world is not round
Recant!
Did Socrates come upon his face
In that moment?
or Prometheus?
his gift of Reason's fire
forged with Will and quiet Observation
burned
screaming into submission
I imagine the hands
that held him
before the censer
were not the hands of a Thinker
They were the hands
of an ignorant,
programmed, and controlled
Thug
So many Gods we can Become
So many bodies on conquerors Crosses
Pagan Warriors
until they nail us
or we Overcome them
We shall see no singular god in space
or their heaven
for that is their way
not ours
Our Gods come from within ourSelves
Archetypes
of what we can Become
in Moments
Our Light in the sky
a swirl of Humans
The Wild Hunt,
Herne's Host
So many forms
the Wheel does take
a Mass of Living
humans interacting
not spirits of the dead
a Wheel
of living Life
circling,
teeming
ascending from the swirling herd of humanity
of animals that we are in ethereal spirit
as lights we ascend swiftly
to that bright white light
and through it
it is no god to Us
but a pool
a Door
of watery light
with a glistening plateau
which we swim through
to sit awhile upon
looking down as living beings
Meditating,
rebuilding
our understanding
of Sight
the pool does not speak to Us
If You say it does
I would say to you
it is the Mind-Voice
of your Priest
You may call his Voice "god" if you wish
I will not
nor will I bow my head
to "pray"
I will look forward at you
I will not
Recant
We will interact with each other
each ourselves as gods
I will give my Teachers
Respect
Your teachers and priests
counsellors and clerics of psychology
mad priests and priestesses of the urban wilderness
clutching their Objectivity
and Degrees
amidst the maelstrom
They must
Earn this
from me
not
expect it
marijuana and cigar smoke
curls slowly
from my spliff
Herbal Sacraments
They would say it is killing me.
More swiftly
than this
Burning?
Psychology burns Sight
with an unflinching Cultural Bias
pretending to be oblivious
to its own Subjectivity
A Christian Psychologist
prostrates and speaks to their "god" at night
but mine
they define
as Illusion
I will not
forgive them
They know exactly
what they do
we cannot measure visions
or complex conversations
in layers of speech
that cannot be recorded
or parsed
simultaneously we react to
body language
word language
thought language
smell language
ethereal interactions
postural echo
no dictionaries exist
and translating Babel
we are made
another shape
of ourselves
the Tree of Life
sprouts extends grows
evolves up
through me
and fills me
with Life
spreading out
encompassing
on another good day
to die
I stare at the sun
with a man who talks of killing bunnies
next to a truck
big enough
to drag someone into.
