Angel Heart.

 

 

Sometimes...

I feel like Cassiel. 

Or Damiel. 


Documenting human desperation and desolation...

From a distance.


All the while...


Trying to keep my own from breaking out...


and running screaming,

naked down the

street.

An Apple A Day...

I travel to see this.

 

 

A homeless blind guy and his dog. 


Don't ask me what the hell this has to do with anything. 

I could think forever...

and still not come up with a good enough answer. 


I just like it. 

My eye...

my camera is always drawn to this kind of thing. 
 
The beauty and the madness of living on the street...

Exemplified by...


Some guy stopped and gave the dog an apple.

 At first I thought it must have been a rubber ball...

But it was an apple. 


The dog didn't know what to make of it... 

But you know what?


It seemed to make them both happy. 

 

 

 

I don't think I have a clever ending for this. 


All I can say...

All I wanted to say is...


I came...

& I saw...what I wanted to see.


I wanted to see this. 

 

 

 

A homeless blind guy...his dog...


And their apple. 

An apple of this type, each day...


Will keep MY doctor away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(pour CC...)

My Tribe.

 

 

She's not homeless. 

She had her home stolen from her-

She and her tribe. 

No wonder she's yelling and screaming in the street.  

Ranting and raving.


Lost...and alone.


If I had a nice home, a nice way of life and it was taken away from me...I'd probably wander the streets lost as well. 


Hmmm...

The Truth About Bullshit & Bullshittery...

Just a short note to let you know...

when you bullshit me? 

You are talking to a bullshit master. 

I'm not proud of it- But it's the world I was raised into. 

Now I have chosen to walk the straight and narrow- the Razor's Edge of truth and redemption-

I can hear your bullshit loud and clear. 

Sometimes I am even aware of it before you are. 

Maybe you haven't woken up to your crap yet, like I have. 

Not my business.  That's YOUR journey. 

BUT...before you go thinking you have some kind of power over me- I'll get you to think again. 

Don't you see...YOU and YOUR bullshit are my Karmic comeback? 


Whether you were born and fell into a big cow pie of bullshit,

or whether you took some kind of classes,

or got a degree in it...

whether it was forced down your throat or you took to it like a duck to crack...doesn't matter. 


You bullshit others...

you bullshit yourself...

you wake up? 


You will have to pay. 

That's the deal.  And I know it. 

I had my nose rubbed in it, and yes, it's a lonely, dirty road.

The thing is...you and your bullshit are MY payback. 

& I accept that- which is why I am not bitching and complaining about you. 


I'm just letting you know I know the way it is. 

So if you think you are punishing me somehow...

you are not. 

I had this coming. 


& if you wake up to your bullshit? 

Then it will be your turn. 

I hope you have the grace to see the karmic backlash as I do.



Because the truth will ALWAYS set you free...



Namaste.     

Within My Grasp??

I should probably say something else.

(As I am so fascinated by the notion of truth.)


I'm not sure who is actually reading this...

one or two that I know of. 

I get a lot of hits- but I think the majority of those are accidental. 


Of all the billions of people on the Internet...it has to happen.

But for the one or two who do read this...

This is for you. 

& I am including myself. 


Two things hit me tonight-

I think in part prompted by my current health concerns.


Number one- the fact is...I'm not much of a human being.

I'm not going to go into the whys, the wherefores, the how's, who's whens where's and whatsits.

Take my word for it; if I turn my toes up? 

The ledger doesn't look that great.


I have been watching a lot of docos lately, and it would appear I'm not the only man who has fucked up. 

& there are those who say I have not fucked up as badly as others we could name...

Like Hitler.


OK...so I'm not as bad as Hitler.

So what.

I hold myself to a high standard...as my father did before me.

(me...not himself;

he mostly let himself off the hook for his crimes.)


I see where I have failed...& quite frankly?

I have NOT failed attempting great things.


I have failed by wallowing in a cesspool...

& never having the sense to get out.


I have not failed in audacious ways...

I have failed in mundane, sleazy, & decidedly unspectacular ways.

I have no special skills...this is as close as I get to a skill or talent. 

I had previously no ambitions or particular aspirations in my life. 


I was born into a sewer...raised by a rat...

& bless me, I failed to raise myself out of it.


But I'm not going to dwell on all this; much of it has been filmed, and is sitting gathering dust somewhere. 

If you are really curious...drop me a line.

Or after I am dead...drop my family a line. They will hook you up on most of the sorrier details...

which are all on film.

In what can only be described as a failed documentary project, I attempted to cover every square inch of my tarnished soul and foul deeds...& it sits mouldering, fermenting in it's own squalor.

With nothing of any redemptive value to anyone. 

Not even me.  

(I haven't murdered or raped anyone, certainly...

but by MY standards...which are naturally high...

I have fallen WAY short.)

Mundane is indeed a good word for the mess that has been my attempt at a life, thus far.

& the project has been abandoned- unworthy of releasing in any way shape or form or forum-

because there is no happy ending.  

No restoration. 

Nothing to be learned or gleaned from it.


It is the biggest pile of nothing since...

My father's stint in Vietnam.

Nothing.


Or is it???
 
Which leads me to realisation TWO.


I called this blog the 'Evolving Souls Club' because I wanted to set myself a goal whereby I would transcend my base nature...

My most fundamental, primal urges and inclinations,

woven deep into a DNA established LONG before I was born...

In order that I might ascend boldly into the light of my transcendence.


Sadly, I have to report...

this never happened as I envisaged.

No burning bush on the road to Damascus...

No rapture...

No bursting into a beam of light and taking my place in the heaven of everlasting enlightenment...


If anything, I find myself ensnared in the same mediocrity I have always found myself entangled.


You see...as I sit here, in yet another motel room,

on another journey in another country...

I find myself up against the same realisation.


As wonderful as the place is (& Canada is indeed wonderful)

As wonderful as the people are...

I am STILL faced with the same reality; that I...

I am still the same flawed me.

& no matter how far I might run...

I still follow.

Warts and all.

Heaven's...this is 'Life 101'.

Basic stuff.


Don't think I didn't know this would happen.

'The Razor's Edge' is my favourite book, for heaven's sake!

I KNOW that what happened to Larry Darrell would happen to me.


And as I sit here...

at 2.20 am in my room in a strange land...

Trying to figure out ways to keep travelling...

Pay bills, book flights,

trains, planes,

customs, etc...


To me...

I realise just how mundane it all is.

Yes...sadly...

as much as I am loathe to admit it

(for it makes me sound AND feel like a wilful, spoiled, ungrateful child...)

Even travel becomes mundane.


Having been blessed with the gift of being able to do this...

I have discovered nothing more than the fact that even THIS is not good enough for me.

I want to tell people who cannot travel, that it is overrated.

That what they think it holds doesn't actually exist.


Except I fear the problem actually lies with me. 

Pearls before swine.

Cast beneath the snout of the perpetually...

dissatisfied. 


I am loathe to admit it...


but I still haven't found what I'm looking for.

& it is the title of a song I really do not like.

reflecting a sentiment which frankly?

I feel is churlish and disingenuous. 

Almost as if we...

Bono & I...(three words I never expected to ever write...!)

were owed something by life.

Which I don't necessarily think is the case.


Now...if there were no upside to this treatise...

I wouldn't even bother committing it to writing.


Because believe it or not...

Even though I might not have found it...

I feel close.


So close...I can almost taste it.


And it has something to do with the mundane.

Or rather...the recognition of the state of the mundane.


Frankly?

Everything I have seen in my life to date has been mundane.

Right from my abuse as a child, to my lost middle years, to now.

Mun-dane.

To be sure and for certain.

I am a mundane, mediocre man.

I even wrote this in my diary the other day, so as not to forget.

I am a mundane man,

Living a mundane life,

Doing mundane things.

& I must tell you...

Even those things I have discovered in life potentially spectacular and transcendent...

in and of themselves...


I have sullied with my mundane affliction.

As beautiful as things may seem...

or as beautiful as they may indeed be if I allow them to be...


I render them somewhat plain and ordinary with my insatiable hunger for something other-worldly.

Right about now...as I edit this piece, each time I feel I should insert Aldous Huxley.

Far be it from me to validate my chagrin by associating myself with such a brilliant man...

But I think his hunger for kicking down the doors of perception is actually close to my own than I might want to admit.

For the man was mad as a loon.

& at the same time...

a genius. 


I might be one or t'other...

neither, or both...

But I think I understand his yen for...

Something other than this.

What he might even (in fact I think he did) describe as the mundane and functional fact of ordinary life.

Rather than settle for 'the miracle of regular life'...

He sought out...something higher.

Greater.

Admittedly through hallucinogenic drugs...

But so what?  They occur naturally in our brains; we just don't know how to gits at 'em.

Yet.

The closest I have come to what I am looking for was jumping out of a plane.  


Which is a slap in the face for those who have loved me.

I even sully that.  

But like Aldous' wife- who understood his insatiable lust for the 'divine' other...(for I think she shared it...)

Maybe my loved ones will understand. 

Perhaps they will see that those times when I was cruel, or unjust...were merely the times when the inalienable fact of my separation from the transcendant proved too much for me to bear.

And I lashed out.  

At the nearest and dearest to me.

So far away- beyond the reach of my backhand- 

lay my quest. 

When my face was rubbed into the shit of the realisation that I was still no closer to...

the answer...  
 
I became a rotten shit.  

If I don't pull SOME kind of iron of enlightenment or self awareness out of the fire...

Then a stain on the underpants of reality I shall ever be.


I fear...inevitably...

In my feverish desire to hone in on a solution to the existential dilemma with which I find myself mud wrestling with...

I may be drifting into territory I have always considered fraught with mines and depth charges. 
  
Speaking of Huxley...

I feel embarrassingly close to a kind of Jim Morrison-like state. 
 
& not in a good way.

A self-destructive character who was maddened by the limitations of this mortal coil...

& sought to set himself free...


to break on through to the other side. 

I am ashamed to admit...

I feel very close to feeling what we assume to be the kinds of things HE was feeling.  


Because I also fear...

the fact that the love of his woman...

his friends and family...

was not enough for him...

So much so that he felt he had to pursue enlightenment...

& it turned out to be oblivion at the bottom of a bottle?


That kind of self indulgence even I...in my malaise...would find abhorrent.  


And yet...

I too feel as though I want to break on through....

Or rise above...

Or even jump out of and fall down into...

WHATEVER direction...


I want to leap squarely into...

Contentment. 

Gratitude.  

Fulfilment. 

Rest...


Ok.


So many times...

I fantasise about being an Astronaut. 

(this is NOT something I particularly cared to be as a child. 

this is some new shit.)

So many times...

I wished I could be an astronaut, drifting back toward earth...

from space...

and reach that moment when the earth's gravitational pull would drag me in. 

& burn me up.


(I stress...

it's not a suicidal impulse.

although argue it any way you like...

that would be the outcome.)



It's a desire to...

step into the transcendent.

To find a way somehow to...

not die...

but be subjected to such extreme physical conditions...

that I be slung like a shot into another...

paradigm. 

dare I say dimension.  


something neither dark, nor light. 

neither death, nor life. 

not up, nor down. 

me...

and not me. 

something else.  

entirely.


I feel ashamed even to be writing this.

how often have I spoken in the past of the shame of being...

ungrateful?

Right here in this forum??


& here I am...the most despicable of all God's creatures...

sounding just that.

I could bash myself all night over it...


Except I don't wish to.

Why?


Because I don't necessarily think it is wrong. 

what if this...

nagging dissatisfaction with the status quo...

this...urge...

this inclination to...

this burning desire to leap into another dimension...

Is a necessary part of my evolution as a human being?

As a soul??


What if...

this thing I feel to be merely a source of more shame...


I need not indeed be so ashamed of at all?


& not only might it be part and parcel of my redemption...

my soul's transcendence...

but something inside is telling me that it is perfectly achievable, and within my grasp??? 

 

      

A Love Song to Canada...

I promised you truth in this blog...

so here it is.

I'm in love. 

With a country.


Ever been so much in love...you just can't bear it?

Canadians have a generosity of spirit in such large doses...it's almost more than I can stand.


I was totally and utterly unprepared for it. 

In part...I blame America.


I'm not sure why America is so unkind to them. 

The pop culture denotes a certain degree of...animosity?

No, it's not quite that.  

It is usually snide and belittling. 

Much of what I have seen in the American estimation of Canada (& not just reflected in the arts) seems determined to denigrate, decry, deride, discredit, disparage, scorn, diminish, discount, downgrade, minimise, smear and squash what she has to offer. 

It has almost by osmosis become a part of the cultural vocabulary with which I viewed the place.

I think on some level...I took America's word for it.  Something I admit I am- or have in the past been- wont to do. 


Who doesn't find America a tad on the persuasive side?  If you don't agree with them...they tend to bomb you.

& I thought I loved her.

Am I just a cheap slut, ready to spread my legs for any country?

Not really; I mean, the US is pretty good, to be fair.

But it was just a warm up for Canada.


I guess I HAD to come and see for myself.
 
I'm so glad I did.


Canada does NOT 'suck'.

Set aside the geography for a moment, which I think is quite extraordinary...  

Let's talk about the people.    
   
They are just as I imagined human beings could be- in my dreamiest of dreamy utopian fantasies- but never really saw a great deal of evidence of. 

What I am...

Who I am back home- I can pretty much blow out my arsehole. 

And that in itself is not a bad thing per se. 

It's just a flavour. 


But here?  It would seem the little I have, the VERY little I am, is of some great & significant value to those I meet. 

They let me know it to be true, in thought word and deed.

I KNOW they actually mean it. 

I have had smoke blown up my arse enough to know what is real, and what isn't.

This generosity is real.  as real as it is possible for something to get in this grand illusion we call life.

 
That's not 'me' thing. 

I would have known by now if I had that kind of inherent radiant brilliance.


It's about the people here.

I had heard, in slightly more muffled voices uttered from time to time from certain non-Americans...

that one can fall in love with Canadians.  

I think Billy Connolly mentioned it in his doco on the country.

& I admit...a part of me was resistant to this idea- in the same way one might tend to brace oneself against hypnosis.  

'Oh...this won't work on me'.

Well, you know what??  

It worked on me.

I love them. 

But it's hard not to when they show such love for me.


Why??

Why do they like me?

I'm actually quite a shy retiring fellow in person, very dull indeed, & in all candour, I consider myself a dolt and a dullard. 

I'm actually a VERY mediocre chap, a little bit of an underachiever...

But you wouldn't think so to hear them talk to me!


Is it true?

Could it be so?

Do they actually lift me up on their shoulders? Elevate me? 

Celebrate me?

I think they do!

& for what?

Because I come from Australia!

(they also seem to like my hat...a mundane and functional item I have come to love wearing everywhere, because it makes me feel...safe.  Comfortable. 

When otherwise...I would not.)


It is all I can do to fathom the enthusiasm- I find it perplexing!

(and yes...I feel I have an enormous amount to live up to!

I think a part of me is afraid I will let someone down...truth be told.

Childhood issues, I think!)

& you can see it in their eyes...their souls. 

They take a genuine interest- in large numbers, every day and everywhere I go. 

It's like the really good parts of 'Sister Christian'...wrapped up in a country. 


I am having to re-think everything I presumed to know about the world around me. 

Seriously.  & for a country to cause you to do that...it's a very powerful thing.  


So why do I even question it?

Perhaps it is simply that I don't believe it to be true.

I have had beautiful things taken from me before.

It might all be a trick! 

Sneaky bloody Canadians!!


If so...then why don't I really believe that?

Do I not WANT to believe it?

Do I just tell myself it is heaven, because I want a heaven?


Or is it really the real deal??

I could die here right now and be completely satisfied...

Except I sense they wouldn't permit such a thing to happen to me on their turf!

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine I would experience such a thing.  

I was totally unprepared...totally.  

I could get to like it...but God grant me the serenity to maintain my humility.

I still feel deep down that the attention lavished is truly unwarranted...and for a closet narcissist like me? 

In the long run it may prove unhealthy!

I have to try to not get a big head...

but really, the warmth of the people...quite overwhelming! 


I'm still working a lot of this out...

I mean, parts of this blog were lifted directly from a letter I sent to a Canadian friend this very eve!

But I feel as though, for the first time...

I can actually focus all my thoughts, my inspiration, my creativity into some kind of uniform vision.

I can jam everything into a book, a film...

a song or a picture.

I feel a sense of being on the verge of codifying a singular vision.  

Like the maple leaf.

A singular, symbol of beauty. 

Canada. 

I love you.

Urban Cowboy.

 
There are some funny characters in Montreal, some strange and curious beasts...

but one archetype in particular I love is the little guys who hang out in the park; these little homeless junkie faggots,

hustling for tail. 

I was going to take some pictures...but you know what & who I'm talking about. 

& they all look the same. 

Their schtick is the same.


They start by saying things like, 'oh, you came back'...even though we both know we never met. 

Then they offer to smoke some dope with you. 

One guy had a hard on like a billy club, and he was stroking it.

It reminds me of Burroughs early stuff...remember Herbert Huncke?  These guys are like clean European versions of Herbert. 

And always with the lycra shorts!!


Always on the make. 

They don't care- they play their games of tag in daylight hours; like the squirrels that dash about the grass looking for nuts.

although I will say this...the cops are on their tails toot sweet. 

One guy got picked up almost as soon as he walked away from me.


There are times when I wander about the seedy parts of the city...the drifters and the street urchins...

the lost dogs & the skunk he-pussy...


the way they touch you for some change or a smoke...

it reminds me of Henry Miller. 

I guess it was inevitable...& it's all very romantic, until you feel the shiv in your ribs. 


But I'm sure that's after dark.



I wonder if this cowboy hat isn't sending out the wrong message...