More Old Laments

Moon

Hearing neighbors down the hall lock the multiple locks of a single door makes me think of old men at four way stops with the hesitation of a hundred squirrels, and of the quickened pace of a stranger ahead of me in the valley of death with I, behind by chance, on this, a late After-Saturday night, and of how it might just be, that I am actually, in spite of all my frightfull aprehensions, perhaps, if possible, actually less afraid of death than all of my other varied human counterparts.

Alesbien Mother wears Arainbow sweater in the sunshine rain and I, feel, for Asecond, that I have perhaps, perhaps, wasted the Atypical intentional inventions of abjunct function on the mundanality of my own advented Aversions.

Oh sweet teeth, oh, oh why did you ever leave me?
I swear that all I really need is bleeding and a urinal, and the guts to walk into the grocery store and down a bottle of Tussin right in front of the cassier!

Cherry flavoured cavities and you, you should never care, as I should never carre, the dentist both gave us lollipops and sugar blues.

I long for horizon.

The only thing good you ever gave me was this desk,

But then again, in reality, that is not true,

I got mem-ries of you that you will never have,

Mammories of everything home and onderesque.

Tonight I am off.

The moon came off,
I mean up, up from the unseen horizon,
Up and through my window in-between trees and up into my eyes as if it was all right where it was, supposed to be.

Emily-D and the stranger of camus, bury me in the sky,

So I can look down on you,

Yours, Moon.




Gnotes from Underground

I could have gone and gotten a coat or decent pants an hour ago, but I continue in this perverse pleasure, forcing myself to the muse, up from my bed by the shut-eye window of sweet dreams. So now, satisfaction in freezing my ass off. Likewise it has been a relief to show my ass in such a splendid way gentlemen. Wars and rumors of war! Like all good American men, grinding in mortified discontent is my desire to be the hero, but at home I am best as the scoundrel. I can only roll play. I’m actually nothing, neither good nor evil. For real and with nature only while indulging my type A characteristics, certain drink with certain food, the pillow for my head that never hit the ground, and a book while on the toilet! These things are the only laws of my nature that have become laws.

Do I seek sympathy now!? The nerve! Crave celebration. I crave celebration till it arrives and then it’s like a band that makes me cringe. It’s appalling artwork! Any accolade is like standing on a table, I must comedown. We all comedown. My mind takes this action, or is it my soul? Up, and down, before I can even consider the results (this is truest of all - the unconscious is a nervous scapegoat!). It’s that resolve to remain unsolved that we crave, but can never satisfy. Instead of in my chair, I’m beneath the table now, in the round, and at home. From here, after a night or two of poor sleep, I will sleep well, the way I breathe, deep and constant. Then, we get up, refreshed and curious, again.

Some men are naturally mysterious, and some put a note on every fact. Some seem to be stretched between pages in each book. So, like fire from a fire hose, comes my too well-suppressed anger; not the single incident but the string of incidents that stack in the memory of a lifetime that make for a trigger. A long lingering reservoir. It’s that suppression that gives it its energy. So like a jet engine perhaps, like compression, an exit, and dropping from the sky. In which case an implosion at detonation. Rich satisfaction at first, but then there are bed sheets to clean, and there will be nothing here washed in time before my time to lie in this bed, exhausted anyway. And all this weary analysis, where does it all lead? This was known at the start and ignored till the tonic was found to be lost. Like chicken and egg, crime and punishment leapfrog without origin.

An odd form of public life this is. I spent two years sitting at a computer dumping out my every thought and setting myself strait in the mid-day dawn. Corrections abound. Then I made a collection and broke the plates. We may become politicians in our need to make the perfect speech here, as apparently the whole world is watching. Feathers full of color, but ruffled, and wings unused. Where it is only us in the room, I should return to my computer, just the two of us. It becomes a mirror to all the good and ugly within. Even those governdemented mannequins in multiple multi-media flash windows are human, seeking your vote and your teenage daughter’s carnal company while your back’s turned, inside the booth, hanging a chad.

But my point is drifting. What was my point? I think I just wanted to say hello, and thanks here for your votes if it’s not all too in vain or to your chagrin. What good would that be?


Red Wine

There’s that song about red red wine. It’s supposed to help. It’s not. Not right now. I haven’t gotten crazy drunk in a while, the way I used to before I met Eri. I haven’t heard from Dia or Eri for a while. Last I heard, Dia had a boyfriend. Of course.

What sustained me was the company of my wonderful co-workers. Now I’ve been fired. I will see them no more. I have felt this bad only two other times in my life, my night in jail, and right after Daphne died. So mom comes in town for a visit.

Overcast on this one and the days are shorter and shorter at that. Nearly 7:30 AM before the first sign of light. I had a bad mood but I shook it off. I had to lie a lot though. I though. I was gonna have clever ways to beat around that bush. Speaking of Bush, most remote viewers are predicting obvious signs of apocalypse next year. So none of my minded mealy concerns will mean anything anyway, like they mean anything already. No.

Just broken heart and blues, old news, repay, and repay the dues. I wanna run away. But I gotta find a new job. Overcast, and Ana hasn’t come by. She has mail here and she knows it. I’m beside myself like a shadow without sun, but I can’t shake. So I shake it. Shake shimmie shake. Out on the ledge again, without a building. It’s building. Metaphysics.

The rocks were to protect the Atlantis wise man retreat. I never knew it, but wrote my best poetry there, on retreat. I will go there tomorrow, and stay. I am a wise man, and only full of lust, the fool. I love my family, even still, them all, even dad. Ben is distant, but I understand. Why pretend? I don’t pretend, why should he? Tomorrow is a new day. I’m down and out, so I hope to not be there, asleep in a sweet dream forever,

AMEN.

b

Uninvited, Like The Clouds

So I’ve listened to the new album for a week now. The first track, like no other SK recording I can think of at this second, starts with voice first and then the rock orchestra winds up behind him like a big truck with no brakes, quietly at first, slowly from the top. I picture Steve in his hat and shades walking through Bondi Beach traffic, negotiating pedestrians and taxis, sort of like that Bittersweet Symphony video by The Verve. It’s hot and there’s sea breeze “…magnets and runes…” and his life is flashing before his, and now our eyes in the song, with little breaks looking at odd merchandise in windows “…well I got a fever…” Steve sings to us from the other side of the glass. We’re inside. But the song picks up and it builds and builds and builds again. Block is Steve in Kilbey rap mode at his best. Maybe even showing ‘em how it’s done. Bringing art to what has been a nearly artless form…but I digress. In one scene he sits behind the glass with his easil and brush requesting, “…if you could all just hold still…” This song is an autobiographical version of Feel from PA in some ways. Feel is vague. Block is specific. And then the first of several bluzy rock solos as we jam to the end. Now we’re spending a week in Australia.

We wandered looking for the café where Steve writes his blog, we give up and sit in the one that we went in earlier. It’s almost dinnertime but you’ll have another coffee anyway. You had breakfast at lunchtime anyway. Jet lag. Suddenly the mental Block is cleared with feedback and we check our e-mail with something more corporeal playing. “You’re money is so pretty…” we look up disoriented, “this isn’t the church I know!” Why are we checking e-mail! Look around, the evening is so magical! String chaos theory, anything can happen now. We’re either dreaming, or in a video, a movie maybe, but the band is there. There’s a verse/chorus/solo upbeat rock song with something more playing in our heads. Don’t be too sophisticated here, just listen, it feels good. Great mix of guitars slithering across each other and backing vocals that work.

Something ominous has entered with brown tones of anxiety. The girls exit the runways and go off into the back. Black light chunka chunka chunka bass line and there’s the dabble and meddle melody. The café has become a nightclub at dusk. Something Sci-fi is on the big-screen but we can’t quite make it out, looks a little like an old Peter Fonda movie, the trip or something. Backseat effects in the rack and we’re open to guitar solo’s and 8th note riffs now! Rich with melody this album, you even find yourself humming the guitar lines.

Piano bar next. We’re wandering through town. Jazz. People drink martinis in this place. Steve’s loosening up now, smokes some jazz, sings some jazz. After his near run in with needle and space, he’s giving us advice and observations on life in this song. He’s being blunt at times. You might even think for a second he’s scolding someone, something, us. Cool deep room reverb guitar fills on this track, and the Ivory Lane loops and dots to keep us tranced. Then we outro with a wailing Marty tremolo solo. He was live on stage in the studio I would say...if ya know what I mean.

That easy keyboard (or is it a keyboard?) intro really makes your ears PERK, reminds me of something from Leave Them All Behind (Ride), but then we get the more familiar swirling guitar textures. In fact it’s very familiar, we’re back home in Ohio! Other strings add and layer and we have something quite cloud like, but the white and fluffy kind. This is a song for Holly I think, lyrically. It just strikes me as such. Could be I’m wrong, it’s actually about anything you want isn’t it? This has less melody than the other tracks but makes up for it in textures.

Marty sings now. I love this song. Apparently about getting hung up on somebody with power over you that you know is unhealthy but you can’t resist. I had a run in with a girl this time last year that lasted only a month, but she really sunk her talons into my neck. She made me feel like a little boy. She was suddenly done with me, and hell if I didn’t think every day for 6 months after that that she would, comeback for me tomorrow. Cool slide (steel? ) guitar fills which foreshadow the coming Floyd.

Ok, so Us and Them was a suggestion for a PF cover, I kind of thought that was a little funny. Now I don’t so much. I picture Church doing mostly pre-darkside songs. But this song is us heading back toward Sydney with the band days later, stopping in that psychedelic martini place again. What are we, their busdriver? Are we dreaming? Are we even there at all? Are we watching a documentary delivered as a musical? Breathing memory heavy chloroform walls for sure though. Cool décor really. Stars and dim lights. Solar system by the galactic ocean theme, we’re alfresco. I like the line, “…I read you’re novel, the names were switched…” Suddenly you’re just walking on the beach listening on headphones and thinking of how you’re so far from home.

Alright, now Peter’s song enter’s our head. I like this song, but it’s the only one on this album I would change a bit. The string-voice keyboard line is plastic sounding, and too high in the mix, and the cinematic fugue at the end is over the top in my opinion, but the lyrics are cool and weird. The sepia sun has come up in grayscale. The movie continues.

My favorite song on this record, at this time, besides Block maybe. Real Toggle Action. Steve lyrically confirms we’re in a film finally. I think it’s really cool the way it’s slow-core funk or something, Terra Novacaine in a deep-space porno maybe. Deep Space Blues! Lots of cool colors mixing too. Peter’s guitar keyboard tricks, the ‘60s flavor, the chanting, the space slides. I always liked that second track from Jammed too, now it's all grown up and nearly naked.

Toward Untoward now in that Q. n A. trick from ref:0mation. Is he saying, “Metaphysical chickens” in this song? Oh, check-ups I guess. I really like this one too - elevator music on another planet, a far more intelligent civilization of course. Steve is giving us advice again. He’s our bodhisattva sometimes. Big brother, dad, rockstar, blogfiend. The energy behind the acoustic and the melody are royal and kind, and I can’t help but smile in spite of the down-boy-lyrics which seem to be telling us to stand in the mirrored corner.

Day 5 down under now. Ameri-centric perspective. Actually we’re not sure where we are. We assumed it was Australia. Everything was so different, and The Church was there. Now it’s almost as if we we’re far off in the future or on another planet, but it’s just a film that sucked us in right? Or was it. A secret colony, a sleeping planet. And then the drug wears off with a punch, pull off your silly man suit, and exit quietly, suddenly. Almost the coolest song on the album.

Now you fly home uninvited. You’re high again, but only above the clouds. You're not even sure where home is. You look out at the wing as it seems to shake a bit. You put the tape in that Steve gave you in that lounge. You forgot it till now, stuffed deep in your carry on. The tape you thought you were dreaming. The film that wasn’t real. The cafe inside, but under the stars. You press play, the jet banks, and he explains what happened. He details the whole thing with ambiguous precision. The mission impossible tape, after the mission, self-created, songs to go.

b

Under Plastic

Tipping The Scales

Are you ok? How do you know? What do you go by? Where should we look to figure out where we are in the grand scheme of things? Are things grand? What’s the scheme? I think of teenage girls in school dressed like prostitutes and prostitutes dressed like the dead. I think of freedom of choice and how it can be manipulated by those who are greedy to make the uneducated and spiritless even more dull and soulless. We have hegemony and a rank for everything backed by the banking of the dollar and or credit score. Do I obey the machine or use my instinct? The big machine in the White House or The Church? No, the one in my computer program that has underlined the previous sentence and the one four before it with green, telling me there’s something wrong: there’s something to change. That machine is the same as the big ones though in a major way. There is no grammatical error here. There is only a rule made that could apply to a given situation but not to all. An incomplete sentence is only incomplete if it’s incomplete. You can go by context, isolation, quantity, quality, internal and external.

I had a “friend request” on MySpace from a 25-year-old woman photographed with two other blonde women, all strangers, all making the same mirror-practiced face. She wanted to be my “friend.” I clicked on her “profile” and it became clear she either was 16, or had the mentality of a 16 year old; particularly when I saw that the one person she wanted to meet was Brittanny Spears. I’m not making this up. I’m in journalism mode here. The poet in me is taking a nap. And that’s how she spelled it too, Brittanny.

Imagine walking up to a 16 to 25 year old stranger and asking for their pictures name and other information, and also gaining access to all the other people who they have granted the same wish. Even better, imagine making a t-shirt for yourself that contains all the info contained on the front page of your MySpace Account and wearing that out in public. Name, location, interests, school(s), et cetera. If the government required that then we would all rebel. But we are free to do it on our own. We are free to go to the store and buy the things it might to take to help us look a little more like Brit-tanny too. We have all been reduced by the big machine to quantified and categorized characters which will be underlined with green or red if we step out of line.

“Because you’re mine, I walk the line.” Sounds like communism but it’s capitalism. You can’t sell what you can’t label. You can sell something that can’t be labeled, but you have to label it first. But then that takes the thing out that you were selling in the first place, the external label kills the unquantifiable essence. If you wore a t-shirt that said “cool,” it wouldn’t fit everyone or ever change a person who wore it on the inside. “Of course…” you might say, “…relax, it’s only networking!”

For now, I prefer my "KILL BARBIE" t-shirt.

Further Tales From My Prior Life On Planet Gainesville

1) Country Song
I will hate myself in the morning
But for now I am in love
I love myself tonight
I can love myself tonight.

Is it so Bad?
To love myself, tonight?
I will love myself some day and in seven days
There will be no light
No night like tonight
As tonight I am weak and can hurt no one.

Here, way out in the country
Here on my trailer porch, far from the highway
And no gas in the tank anyway
With she gone and dog lost to the trees of a far gone forest
I can hurt no one
Nobody tonight.

Only me
Oh woe is me
There is only me
I can only hurt only me
Me Myself and I

After all, I’m the king of piss
So why not for now be happy as only here welcome am I
The world’s most broken wholesome
The forest, sky, and I.

Girl I know gave me opportunity
Gave me chance
She gave me her attitude
Gave me
Plastic romance

Girl I know gave me heart and imagination
Gave me a chance to forget strait street bourbon friends
For a day and/or
Junk romance.

Girl gave broken chance for cold love,
Warm lust?
Just plain romance.
Just love for love
Like broken cash advance.


2) Easy Now
This gives me a virus
Just like my computer
But it is over and obvious
No home town
Free verse

Machin=Es break the glass of metal nightmare
The remote control news paper that smiles like me
As if a me or some robo-others

Give me triad onomonopia
Give me ocean with out end
Give me liberty, and give me death
My eyes roll at my own pseudo-drama

Cheese melts on potatoes
Observation is king
Mother loves us both

Fear not your heart be troubled
Belief in god
Is also in me, a parody

Earth is a space ship
Doubt this?
Look up at night,
We are floating nowhere

Easy now,
We float in space,
like a heater
and that’s alright


3) Jack Shit
Ya know, I haven’t seen the ocean in a while. Snow either, snow longer. I have dreams where I lie down in the crunchy snow, still below 0/32. I lie sanpaku and prone. I would make an angel but I’m mother paralysis and smile.

Have it all. you know it’s nothing. Only five pills. Like recreation for many. a beer, or two, and some bad bowels in stir. What ever made Jack think people would want to read his shit? Whatever made Jack right. He’ll never know I think of him.

I think of Saint Peterzburg. I think of momma home, and I’m a warmin’ to it. Somebody or two died in Iraq today. Me too, only I don’t know it yet. Oh my, what will I thgink??? Asna paduka. Asura aftermath jesus lalalalalalalalalala. Loved a girl names Melody once, long gone dead. She might smile on me, on a night like this, as I sing.

Sunz still up, whathefukamitalkin’ about?

I don’t know; I didn’t sleep all day.

I’m a cat, in a bag, in a river, underwater, screaming.

That’s what I wanted to say.

And I am better a cat man than...

Cat out of bag: I am god. I can lick where you can’t.

(Insert Emoticon)


b

Father Porno

The edge is all he will ever know
And the edge of what we will never know
The edge of the night,
And never at dawn?

Obsessions often called love
Neurotic reactions as old habits
Calling down the land line with drunken breath
He Wined to the front desk

You steadied so solid but he's your father and
We are the last hope for the ancient mystery
But we're biased and claim to be in love
A slide-show of motion in history

A two minute call from a subway a week ago
And you canÂ’t touch her feet
TheyÂ’re over your head
He's spinning now, or falling instead

Just an undone obsession
Stupid oiled infatuations
Old enough to know nothing and know better
But he's not old enough to break

Moving on eggs you are now her daddy?
And he longed for every detail
YouÂ’ll never tell us
But only because he knows better

He's the father who found his daughter in a porno
He's only a drunken weak and motel moment
There is no hope to the per-view paid
All are animals and lust, at last, and free

What to be made of this instinct abandoned in youth?
What to be mated to the intellect we abandon in old age?
What to be made in patriarchal existence?
The reverse?

Life is only lonely incest
Death as company is his only abstinence
Our senses are pornography in itself
Truth is colored invisible but never reduced

Truth seduced by death, the only means
Hot loins and a kick in the mother's groin,
In the first snow of the season
He's gonna shake it off
Cause she melted for him

b

To Consume Is Only Violent Possession

When I was young I was on the swim team. I could remember sitting on the edge of the pool, after practice and I was so content from being healthy. It was the healthiest I have been in my whole life. My heart would beat slow and strong and I ached nowhere. I reached the final destination and end result that all exercise is for, or can be. This is how we lived. This is what I want.

What do I really want? What is it beyond all of this absurd self-excruciation that comes from nowhere? I made a conscious effort to locate in my heart what it is that I really want out of my life. I was there on my back staring at the ceiling with the AC gone out when it hit me. See, I have gotten so much accomplished lately but it’s empty at the end. At the end of the day there’s nothing. Just an empty room and some alcohol. If I could do anything and make it happen and do it, it is this, honestly: I would want to live on an island with a dark girl (I think she once sung of the Philippines) hairy legs and pits (as if unshaven not cultivated) smelling like whatever nature would have us. There would be blue sky and a point break with a soft reef. We are naked and clothed only in the confidence that we have all we need. Fish and coconuts. Sex and sleep. We surf at morning and dusk.


We rarely speak, but when we do it sounds more like singing. We speak in songs. Her hair is long and dark. It’s a bit crusted with the salt and sun, but perfect. This is our world, not theirs. She has a small belly, and it’s perfect. Looking strait on as she comes towards me, hers is less of the hourglass that they had us believe. A dash of the androgenic perhaps. This in keeping with the 80/20 principles of our yin yang universe rather than the 50/50 theories we as intelligent creatures developed. We try in the western world to redefine “fair” and only use this redefinition when it suits us. There is a 50/50 going on just as there is the 80/20. Just think of the eastern symbol. We took it and made a pie. We slice it till there’s nothing. This is the nature of the analytical dualistic mind. Some try to judge and cut out bigger pieces, some try to cut equal pieces. Some share, some don’t. But in the end it’s gone. It wasn’t even a pie was it? With these facts to be in place and active, ready, we follow our instincts first and obviously, transversely, I will have the bit of a woman in me that is a ribcage, the eyes. There are flowers in the trees and we have made musical instruments from bones and things found in the forest-jungle. Her smile makes everything around her look like a painting without frame, only my dream of its essence, all that it is. The essence of this world is all that it is. Purity found. How did we lose it? I want to find it. That’s what I want.

Blue Lagoon? Perhaps there is a village. Maybe we’re alone. If there’s a village we are independent creatures and get along. This is where I have to use my imagination. How would this work? We take care of the sick, but don’t need to take care of each other otherwise. There is an unspoken natural system. We work together but without effort. It just happens. There is no obligation to help each other, it just happens. Kindness ceases to exist because that’s all there is, just as there is no opposite to breathing while alive. I guess you can hold your breath, perhaps there is no opposite to the heartbeat while living. I’ll have to think about this more, it’s like a puzzle.

Amen is the best word ever, because it means even less than “God.” I gave you stoned progressive hard rock winters but the waiting kills and I have better things to do. The bouncer you most dislike now gets you in the door for free, the forgotten free, and Maria begs and waits for you in the wing, on the tail-flap of her father’s fighter. Oh what a romantic matrical mary-ann! To drift and remember oneself in such uncertain terms accounted and dried for this thin and intimate infinity, it’s a macabre celebration, Dante’s dentist, oiling his gun.

At birth perhaps, before the words and the a posteriori madness of existence, we think of that grass greener in the womb, we split from it, and then it all, all, almost sure of something, but then when we grow older and on to put it all into split words, we find something else altogether was our scratch.

NOTE: This is an old one as is “Yet Another Movie, 3 years ago or so, pulling up some old docs recently.

b

Energy Drink Ingredients And Your Health

So you had to get up early but you have plans for tonight when the afternoon blahs kick in and you need a kick-start. Burning the candle at both ends will double the light right? One legal way to get this boost that has gained popularity is with one of the many brands in a whole fleet of energy drinks. I end up drinking 3-4 sugar free energy drinks a week for one reason or another. Leading the way of this popular movement is Red Bull, which has worldwide appeal, but also has skeptics of its benefits particularly in Europe. Countries like Norway, Denmark and France, who banned the drink, are concerned about the negative effects that are possible due to the lack of testing on what might occur from mixing the various chemicals that are in the drink. According to the Red Bull website the drink is Vegan, Kosher (Jewish for “ok to eat”) and Halal (Muslim version of Kosher). It is not made from bull testicles either! I’m glad to know this, but I never considered it either till I read the company’s rebuttal to what must be a rumor somewhere. Regular Red Bull contains sucrose and glucose. The Sugar free version contains aspartame and sucralose. Recent study results show that aspartame does not cause cancer.

Some or all of the following chemicals plus other chemicals are may or may not be in other energy drinks in various combinations. I took a look at a couple of sources for information on the ingredients in Red Bull. I began at www.RedBull.com. Here’s what the site said about the leading “medicinal” ingredient in Red Bull, Taurine at 1000mg. Taurine is also found in scallops, fish, poultry, and added to most baby food.


Taurine – a conditionally essential amino acid which is naturally occurring in the human body. “Conditionally essential” means that in some situations or under certain conditions, as for example, in situations of high stress or high exertion, increased amounts of taurine are eliminated from the body and cannot be replaced by the body in sufficient amounts. Taurine is involved in vital functions of the human body. Taurine acts as an antioxidant and has been shown to promote detoxification by binding together with harmful substances and thereby accelerating their exertion from the body.

In an on-line article by The Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) that took an independent critical look at the ingredients of the drink and hired a laboratory. In this report they quote French nutritionist Isabelle Van Rullen, who works with the country’s food safety agency, says France banned the brew because of how the ingredients in Red Bull interact: “There are various side effects for each one of these three substances, which vary in degrees of severity. And they can also interact with each other.” Meaning there’s no long-term research on how caffeine, taurine and glucuronolactone interact in the body. Here’s what CBC said about Taurine alone:

An amino acid, taurine is important in several metabolic processes of the body. Also known as 2-aminoethanesulfonic acid. Taurine functions in electrically active tissues such as the brain and heart to help stabilize cell membranes. It also has functions in the gallbladder, eyes, and blood vessels and may have some antioxidant and detoxifying properties.

So apparently Taurine is an amino acid that we may or may not need at any given time, and it may or may not work as an antioxidant. There were other description variations between the two sources that begged comparison such as the ingredient Glucuronolactone at 600mg in Red Bull. It may or may not help detoxify the body. The whole question with Red Bull is if it’s toxic or not so, this is ironic, don’t you think? It also does occur naturally in grains and red wine.

Redbull.com first: Glucuronolactone – a carbohydrate that occurs naturally in the human body where it is involved in detoxification processes, supporting the body in eliminating waste substances from the body.

Then CBC: Glucuronolactone - A naturally occurring substance manufactured by the human body. Like taurine, glucuronolactone is supposed to detoxify the body. Little research has been done on the effects, and the only relevant studies have been conducted on animals so the risk to humans cannot be adequately assessed. Glucuronolactone has received some notoriety due to rumours that it was a Vietnam War era drug manufactured by the American government and led to several brain tumour deaths at the time. These rumours are not based on documented facts.

Caffeine is a substance that most people are familiar with. There are usually 80mg of caffeine in coffee. This is the same amount in a can of Red Bull. It’s found in coffee, chocolate, and tea. Here’s what Red Bull.com says about caffeine “…known for it’s beneficial effects on mental and physical functions…” There are 65mg of caffeine in a can of tooth-rotting regular Coca Cola.

There are often B Vitamins in energy drinks. B Vitamins are valuable for processing carbohydrates plus other physical and mental functions but they are water-soluble and diuretics (cause increased urination). This combination is like taking a B-Complex vitamin with a cup of coffee. The diuretic effects of the caffeine in combination with the vitamins will have you using the bathroom in no time, and you won’t even need to turn on the lights because you’re urine will be glowing like an alien spacecraft. Then there’s the option of making an alcoholic drink with Red Bull. CBC also reported on the growing trend of combining energy drinks with liquor, particularly the “Vodka Red Bull.” The concern is dehydration effecting the heart muscle. A Red Bull spokes person said that the drink is not marketed to be mixed with alcohol, but still is actively sold in liquor stores.

Other Energy Drink Ingredients

Inositol - necessary for the formation of lecithin and functions with Choline. Since it is not essential in the human diet, it cannot be considered a vitamin. Inositol is primarily used in the treatment of liver problems, depression, panic disorder, and diabetes. Neurotransmitters such as seratonin in the brain depend on Inositol to function properly.

Ginseng - Frequently used as a potent preventative rather than a curative, it also demonstrates therapeutic benefits for a wide number of conditions in some cases. If taken regularly it is said to increase vitality, and extend life span. But these claims are not proven.

Guarana - comes from potent South American berries that when extracted, consists a crystallizable agent called guaranine, which is identical to caffeine and exists in the seeds of the berry. Guarana is useful for mild forms of diarrhea, but its primary use is for headache, especially if of a rheumatic nature. Some retailers promote it as an aphrodisiac; however, there is to current evidence to support this claim.

Ginko Biloba – supposedly increases blood flow to the brain and throughout the body's network of blood vessels that supply blood and oxygen to the organ systems. It is also supposed to increase metabolism efficiency, regulates neurotransmitters, and boosts oxygen levels in the brain.

Damiana - used as a general tonic for the nervous, hormonal, and reproductive systems. It has an ancient reputation as an aphrodisiac. Some claim damiana tea has a relaxing effect not-unlike low doses of cannabis.

L-Carnitine - An amino acid usually created by the liver and kidneys and supposedly helps increase metabolism and energy levels. There is no scientific conclusion on whether or not one needs to supplement with it unless there is an unusual diet, but you can take 2-6 grams without worry D-Carnitine is “inactive” and may actually hurt endurance levels.

In conclusion, I think it is just better to eat well and drink lots of water when exercising. Most of the energy drink ingredients are either not proven to be beneficial or are already in healthy foods. It’s better to just drink water than drink something that will cause you to lose even more water while already sweating out your reserve in the summer sun.

http://www.cbc.ca/consumers/market/files/health/redbull/ingredients.html

www.erowid.com

http://www.energydrinkdirectory.com

http://www.energyfiend.com/energy-drink-ingredients

(The above "report" is the same my report to be turned in tomorrow in a health care class I took this semster as prerequisite to entering the EMT program in the Fall '06)

b

Crowd Minus One

Obscurity is the soul's highest level of fame. It's all down hill from there. Obscurity makes an excellent work space. It's where it seems I write my blog, and it's better that way, to be your own audience. It's where I've left my music. It's the head of the heart's virginity. Native Americans said you lose bits of soul when you let yourself in photographs. Is a recorded song equal to this? More than a few have chopped off the most artistic of their own fingers by wallowing in the mud of celebrity. "...just sign here in blood..." We all live with our choices.

Anyway, more importantly, nobody ever told me how I "should have done it" in my little rooms with a guitar and a lone microphone. Few have ever heard what I've recorded. I can make it as good or as awful as I want. I have over 300 songs. I have put little to no effort into getting "discovered." Feels like I want credit for that somehow...but that would be a paradox I guess. Credit for having no credit? Or better off dead and loved like Chatterton eh? Loved or not still dead, so no matter.

I tried to start a few bands a few times but found the technical side of writing and compromise between members too mechanical and the fun got sucked out through small sucking holes. It can be fun though, playing well with others. Need to find the mutual playground though.

So I posted three songs on myspace.com/crowdminusone. I have used this nom de lute since 2000 when I realized that Smog was one guy, and I thought that was cool, to use another name, like a band, instead of your own, so I thought CM1 was a good name for my one man band.

b

Yet Another Movie

I guess I always thought that I would somehow, in the future, find a way to go back in time. I never once, but maybe twice, felt that each day was really gone. Or that “the now” was really all I had. I guess I came to know with age that the sun would rise as it always had in the past, in the future, so I felt it obvious, if only slightly less in adulthood, that tomorrow could be yesterday, as easy as it is now. I’m still waiting for the nudge.

She moved away when I was 15. I was in a tree at the corner of 6th and 19th where I could watch the van be loaded, and then could watch it pass by in the first step of it’s journey to New Jersey. I felt sad like hot tears but didn’t cry. I felt like running up the driveway and having my case heard, tears, laughter, joy, no matter what happened, but I was stuck there like a cat without a ladder-truck. She never saw me in that tall oak and so I concluded that I could care less about her going off without a last goodbye. But perhaps I imagined this as imagination at some point near then, and now it’s all creation evolved.

I ran into a guy in a nightclub that used to be a loner and a friend but would latch on in a social scenario. I think he thought I had a way with the ladies, and he thought that being in my company would bring him some luck. I’ll assume this because I never shook mid-hello, or made eye contact, something. He was never there when I nearly pissed myself in front of a class trying to give a report, nobody was.

I sort of resented this, being seen as confident, but only slightly. My ego was healthier back then too. So shake it off spaceman. In the nightclub, after not having seen this fellow in months - I see he has a sweet kind girl at his side now, yes, and he has my whiskey on his breath, and doesn’t smile as he returns my greeting. The sweet kind girl smiles all over the place, at me, the sky, the lights, the music, in the way that the grass is always greener in space. He introduces me and my name and says hello, “hi,”

“hello,”

“hello.”

There was a back room at work. We used it in the event of an emergency. We used it when it was full in the front. Also we have incorporated the wine list into the menu itself. The wine sells better now. Whiskey cures a cold, in minutes, for about an hour, then it comes back worse. But if that hour is what it takes to get you back to camp, and the fire, to food, and out of the winter storms of earth and mind, well, then it’s not so bad is it? I fell asleep in that back room at work, once, on the clock, till they called my name and poked at my Adam's rib. If I’d of only known the boss would think it funny, I would have done it a million times before - always needing sleep at that hour, but I haven’t done it since. The cause can be the cure, and the cure the cause. The trick is running out of the loop, and making your own circle, but in this backwards talk of mine I remind the void, the loop is ego, the circle is nature, an original face saving. Mine, only I own nothing.

So then I ran into an old school buddy in the restaurant the next day, booth 5, in the front, said hello, What’s Up?

Nothing man…

…thought that was you…

…well, managing the restaurant…

…working for phyzer…

…great job…

…remember when…

…don’t you remember…

…what ever happened to…

…don’t you know… (some awkward silence)

Hadn’t seen her since I was 15, and it was now 15 years since that time. A semi ate that U-Haul whole at 65 halfway to NJ. Nobody made it out alive but the pet snake. What we use to be strong can also be our weakness and once we realize this, somewhere along the path, we doubt everything like a bad trip. Survive the paranoia and the head trip of illusion, the “I” of your own mortal immortality, we can find the part that we wake up to, that we want to live forever, dead, and that part that you can’t grab, that was there all along and hasn’t changed, will live on forever, identity free. As for myself, I was sleeping in the back room, waiting for the nudge. Now I'm back.

b