Friday, November 07, 2008

Madonna, the Whore of Babylon Lite

Given that Obama sold out before he is even on the shelf, I’d rather not talk about it at the moment but I do want to write something and since this is Petri Dish, I thought I’d talk about one of the biggest mucus smears to ever come down the pike and that is Madonna. There are some very interesting connections to Madonna and most of the nasty shit that we have had to endure these last however many years and I’m going to go into that a bit. First, because it is Madonna, I want to link a tune, my Love Song for Madonna (is it a tune?) at this point instead of at the end of the piece sorta to set the mood.

Okay... you’ve listened to it or you haven’t listened to it and you probably get the idea that I don’t like Madonna and you would be right. Regular readers at Visible Origami may be a little distressed to find that the virtual Saint Visible of the Internet is no kind of saint at all. Readers at Smoking Mirrors won’t think about it.

Now, everyone know that Madonna is a slut and a whore for personal gain who likes to flaunt her love for material things and just generally promote herself constantly by using all of the timeless buzz topics of sex and money and sex and money. You have to give her credit for being good at it and never going broke under-estimating the tastes of the hoi poloi. The reason you really have to give her credit is that she is not beautiful by any stretch of the imagination which is why all the make-up and lights are so important... she looks like a dominatrix who operates out of a Berlin leather club. Her calves are fatter than Rush Limbaugh’s head. She can’t sing. She can’t write. She can’t dance and when she does she most resembles one of those lumberjacks log rolling. And... she really, really can’t act or direct. I’m not sure what she does well but it is probably the way she markets herself like she was Coca Cola that heats up in a rotating dildo and then spits out like a Cobra at everyone in reach.

She’s been smart about this. She knows how much money the gay crowd has and so she went the fag hag route big time. Early on in her career she used to pull Latino boys into her limo and did things with them because she could and she did it the way a junkie shoots smack.

She got married here and there and finally she got married for real and then it was time to manufacture another persona and that would be the ‘spiritual’ Madonna so, with a calculation dripping with irony she embraced the Wal-Mart Kabala of Philip Berg and they went on a rampage of selling official red strings at twenty-five dollars a pop at Target stores and who knows where else; selling Kabala water blessed by real estate scammers, selling... selling and selling and... recruiting. So then Madonna looked around and said to herself, “Who are the most clueless celebrities on the planet?” Then she roped them in and they started wearing red strings too. Just for your information, these red strings have all the charm and occult power of the red string on a Tampax in aftermath. I can’t believe I said that but I did.

Now... I know a little about Kabala. I’ve read all of the main books and many of the books associated with that science and put some time into Gematria and related subjects over the course of a number of years. This is a science that requires full left brain focus; I am major right brain oriented which is why I don’t bother with this science any more. It requires a genius level intellect and various aptitudes that few possess. It’s no big deal though to the world’s biggest hack dilettante to become a Kabala Reiki master after 3 weekends and a wake-up.

Well... Madonna married a film director and got a house in England and got called Madge and got pretty universally despised by the residents but... Madonna has a Kevlar mind-persona defense system so, no biggie. I’ll close this end of the diatribe by saying that very, very few people can get anywhere near the real meaning of the mystical Kabala and that there are two Kabala’s. The one Madonna/Berg are involved in is the black magic end or promoting self-interest through manipulation of astral energies. You can read plenty about Berg’s Kabala here

It’s understood that there will be people who will say, “Hey wait a minute, Madonna did one good song once”; as if that legitimizes the shit-Tsunami of her body of work. It’s like when people tell me that there’s good rap out there. There are probably some intelligent people in Alabama but do you really want to wade through the rest of them in the effort to find them?

This is known as a rant. Therefore it is not going to be measured and circumspect or wind up with the writer and the readers engaging in a laying on of hands and singing Cumbaya at the end. To understand the state of a culture one has only to observe the icons of that culture and the degree of their pervasiveness. Everything is connected to everything so... you take a Madonna and a Warhol; you grab a bunch of Mouseketeers and reality shows, you lasso in a handful of talk radio Nimrods and Gerry Springer clones, you flood the land with Big Box stores and polystyrene condos and you’ve got a country/world tailor made for George W. Bush and everyone who helped to make it that way is in on the operation, either consciously or accidentally on purpose.

All of the collective efforts of those who manipulated those who went on to manipulate others made the world the way it is and set the stage for what occurs and what waits in the wings. In the process they marginalized and/or perverted anyone and everyone who might have been, or was trying to, tell the truth or set a good example.

Someone decides that they want to make a lot of money. They invest in a company that has a subsidiary that manufactures munitions that are used to murder people who have the misfortune to be living on land desired by people without conscience or scruple. Somewhere... the person who wanted to make money in any way they could, also had their finger on the trigger of the bullet that went through the baby’s head. Everyone who bought into the gratuitous lies of polished speakers who promised what they had no intention of delivering bears some measure of responsibility for what did get delivered by supporting the liars whose real intentions were rape and murder.

All of the so-called artists who wrote songs that made people stupid; that promoted lifestyles that destroyed people, that produced any form of art that made life more confused or uglier than it was, that fabricated art, lathered up with prurient intent because, “that’s what sells baby”, that whored out their work and their souls for temporary gain at the expense of everyone else has a part in the time and conditions we find ourselves in.

What’s the solution? I think that’s a personal affair. This isn’t about solutions. This is about pointing the finger while giving the finger for the sole purpose of personal catharsis like sweating out last nights binge with a good run or making a donation to any political party via the porcelain donation bowl in your bathroom.

There are a number of things that affect the quality of life and they are cynically manipulated by business and political interests to create a hospitable climate for the sort of things one can investigate on a Petri dish or a glass slide. In the meantime they are lauded by a public which they hold in utter contempt and which they treat contemptibly in everything they say and do while simultaneously they and the public cast to the wayside every good thing that might have comforted or saved their ass on down the line.

The bestial treatment that Madonna has given to the divine feminine principle and the callous disregard for all sacred archetypes that is handed out in every day by all of the posturing pimps and whores who preen at their reflections in the still waters of the waste treatment center are a wonder to behold. The critical analysis of what is recognizably shit by the pretentious twits that define or add meaning to that which needs no definition and which has no meaning other than Onanistic self-indulgence is amazing; “What the artist is attempting to say can only be understood within the context of a heterogeneous alphabet of discreet and contained elements which bespeak congeners of Chinese boxes disappearing up a Whiffenpoof’s ass.”

There’s not much point to this and certainly no great change is expected in the teeming riot of dark effluents which exemplifies the creative expressions of our times but I feel a lot better for having said it and that’s got to be worth something, if only to me.

34 comments:

notamobster said...

Biting and right on point! **** 1/2 stars ~NOTA

Randall said...

Excuse the language, but..MotherFucker that was choice!
I laughed my ass off this beautiful
Nov/fall morning, in a way in which only Hunter Thompson's words were
able to do before.
That was absolutely fucking hilarious.
So I looked into it for you, and
see I might have the chops, but not the glasswear.

Synthesis of Ketamine :



Ketamine is more difficult to synthesize than the previously considered PCP derivatives. Although it is currently a popular and common drug on the illicit market, it is obtained exclusively by diversion of commercial sources rather than synthesis. This route has an overall yield of ~60%, with a difficulty rating of 2-3 out of 10 and a hazard rating of 1-2 out of 10 (ref. 64). The general necessity of producing anhydrous methylamine in a clandestine setting, rather than purchasing it, increases the difficulty. Use of propylamine rather than methylamine would simplify this reaction, as its boiling point is above room temperature vs. methylamine, which is a gas at room temperature.

The syntheis starts with the reaction of cyclopentyl Grignard and o-chlorobenzonitrile to give o-chlorophenyl-cyclopentyl ketone, followed by alpha bromination of the ketone, and then reaction with methylamine to form an alpha-hydroxy imine (1-Hydroxycyclopentyl-(o-chlorophenyl)-ketone-N-methylimine). Heating this imine results in Ketamine via a novel alpha-hydroxyimine rearangement (refs. 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 ). Overall yields are ~60%.

Tiletamine is synthesized by an analogous process in industry, substituting 2-thiophenyl magnesium bromide for the phenyl grignard and ethylamine for methylamine. Two other ketamine analogs have been found on the black market: the compound missing the 2-chloro group on the phenyl ring, and its N-ethyl analog. Both of these compounds are most likely more potent and longer lasting than ketamine.







Synthetic procedure for ketamine synthesis:

Step 1: (o-chlorophenyl)-cyclopentyl ketone

119.0 g of cyclopentyl bromide and 19.4 g of magnesium are reacted in ether or THF to give a cyclopentyl Grignard reagent. The best yields are obtained if the ether solvent is distilled from the Grignard under vacuum and replaced with hydrocarbon solvent, such as benzene. 55.2 g of o-chlorobenzonitrile is then added to the reaction mixture and stirred for three days. The reaction is then hydrolyzed by pouring it onto a mixture of crushed ice and ammonium chloride, containing some ammonium hydroxide. Extracion of the mixture with organic solvent gives o-chlorophenylcyclopentylketone, bp 96-97 C (0.3 mm Hg) (CAS# 6740-85-8).

Step 2: alpha-bromo (o-chlorophenyl)-cyclopentyl ketone

To 21.0 g of the above ketone is added 10.0 g of bromine in 80 ml of carbon tetrachloride dropwise at 0 deg. C. After all of the Br2 has been added, an orange suspension forms. This is washed with a dilute aqueous solution of sodium bisulfite and evaporated to give 1-bromocyclopentyl-(o-chlorophenyl)-ketone, bp 111-114 C (0.1 mm Hg). Yield is ~66%. This bromoketone is unstable and must be used immediately. Also attempts to distill it at 0.1 mm Hg lead to some decomposition, so it should be used without further purification.

The bromination may also be carried out with N-bromosuccinimide in somewhat higher yields (~77%).

Step 3: 1-hydroxycyclopentyl-(o-chlorophenyl)-ketone-N-methylimine

29.0g of above bromoketone is dissolved in 50 ml of liquid methylamine freebase. Benzene may also be used as solvent. After one hour, the excess liquid methylamine is allowed to evaporate, although increasing the reaction time to 4-5 days may increase yield. The residue is then dissolved in pentane and filtered. The solvent is evaporated to yield 1-hydroxy-cyclopentyl-(o-chlorophenyl)-ketone N-methylimine, mp 62 C (yield ~84%).

Step 4: 2-Methylamino-2-(o-chlorophenyl)-cyclohexanone (Ketamine)

The final step is a thermal rearrangement, and gives almost quantitative yield after 180 C for 30 min. An alternative to the use of decalin as solvent in this step is to use a pressure bomb.

2.0 g of the preceeding N-methylimine is dissolved in 15 ml of decalin and refluxed for 2.5 h. After evaporation of the solvent under reduced pressure, the residue is extracted with dilute hydrochloric acid, the solution treated with decolorizing charcoal, and the resulting acidic solution is made basic. The liberated product, 2-methylamino-2-(o-chlorophenyl)-cyclohexanone (Ketamine), after recrystallization from pentane-ether, has a mp of 92-93C. The hydrochloride has a mp of 262-263 C.

As with PCE, the freebase is too caustic to be smoked, and must be converted into the HCl salt in order to be consumed in this manner.


See all I have left from those days are my falling apart 250 ml flask heater which I use now to heat hardwoods when I make jerky, some nitromethane, a baby jar of undistilled isosafrole, and a 500
ml double neck round bottom flask
which has a ton of polymerized
shit on it, that a laser couldn't get off. Oh, also a giant glass syringe frozen in place with mdma base crystals.
BUT, I have to look into it more and see how many precursors (and they're precursors are available
from otc sources) before I could say it's viable or not. Oh, I still have my vacuum set up, but don't know how well it functions.

Anyway, that made my day, Les,
it really did.

Anonymous said...

You at your best. Great.
Tony

kikz said...

standing O !

:D

love
k*

m_astera said...

Yay!! (Claps loudly) I don't like that soul-ugly piece-o either, and I've never made it through a rap song. I know mierde when I see, smell, or hear it.

It's a funny thing; I realized over the past couple of months that I don't do anything for the money and I haven't for a very long time. I do what I love to do or am driven to do. I've been observing that, except for the internet, I'm surrounded by people who do whatever they do only for the money. What's with that? I mean, why am I surrounded by those sorts of people? I get it already, why do I need the lesson again?

A few times I've tried pandering to fads and the lowest common denominator but it simply doesn't work for me. Whatever forces of destiny guide my life just say uh-uh, nope, forget it. I hung around on the periphery of the "art scene" long enough to get the cynicism of the phonies. They know they are producing crap and hold their fans and supporters in contempt, perhaps rightfully, but I grasped by about age five that it wasn't nice to take advantage of those who knew less than me.

I still need money of course, so the challenge becomes finding a way to secure some income somehow from what I'm going to do anyway.

I'm rambling here, but les it's so sweet to read someone who sees the phony art world clearly and has the nuts to say it. I applaud your doing so.

I also want to post an excerpt from a great artist, craftsman, and designer who "got it" and said the same in a more refined fashion than I am managing. This is from the preface to Celtic Art: The Methods of Construction by George Bain, 1951:

"Picasso passed through the natural stages of an art development in an artistic environment, led by his own desires and achievements from infancy with the result that by the age of sixteen years he had acquired full maturity of draughtsmanship and painting in the manner of the impressionist school that had then gained recognition after years of condemnation and opposition. What could he do for the rest of his life? Many another has reached maturity in their early youth in the kind of drawing and painting that was recognised at the time.

snip

Sir John Millais reached maturity about the same early age in the manner of draughtmanship and painting that had then gained recognition in England. Millais's deveopment in art had then come to its end. He felt justified in using the skill that he had acquired, to paint for the remainder of his life, the subject pictures and portraits that met popular and fashionable approval, with the result that he became more adept in completing the numerous commissions that occupied the rest of his lifetime.

There are many artists whose works fall into the same categories as those of Picasso and Millais. Fortunately the imitation of the skill and art knowledge that made possible the productions of Millais, could only be attempted by persons possessing similar talents and skill that had resulted form years of hard study and practice.

It was not so with Picasso's productions after his eschewal of realism. The merest novice may now by-pass all ordinary art study and with effrontery, because of Picasso and others, claim protections for anything he cares to do , with full support of bewildered press representatives. Hence there are legions of imposters who vie with each other to attract attention to their eccentricities and vulgarities."


I have often wondered that the English language I love, with all its 900,000+ word vocabulary, has only the one same word to describe the work of the ancient Greek sculptor Praxiteles and the person who chews up chunks of lard and spits them into a random blob.

Anonymous said...

"It was not so with Picasso's productions after his eschewal of realism. The merest novice may now by-pass all ordinary art study and with effrontery, because of Picasso and others, claim protections for anything he cares to do , with full support of bewildered press representatives. Hence there are legions of imposters who vie with each other to attract attention to their eccentricities and vulgarities."

Same with poetry. Ever since er cummings and T. S. Eliot came along, all any 'poet' does is spew out a pile of random nonsense onto the page and call it art. There is none of the craftof rhyme and metre that for millennia distinguished poetry from mundane language. Fuck free verse.

Rap isn't all bad. The shit you hear on the radio and MTV? Yeah, that shit's bad, but who's surprised about that? You have to dig a bit to find the good stuff. Public enemy, Paris ... guys who turn their talents to calling out Bush and Cheney and the NWO, and they do it on their own dime, sans Major Label.

I am however quibbling. The art that dominates today is degenerate filth, and history will view it as such. But then our civilization is reaching High Decadence, so filth is to be expected.

Anonymous said...

Hee hee.

Any number of folks I can think to apply this wondrous screed to. Though I like a lot of what Madge has put out there, but I do not like the way she promotes and packages it all. Wonder if some day the Star Goddess, Bast or Sekhmet will come down, chew that Leo bitch up and spit her out!

Good songs of hers: "Promise to Try" and I'm partial to "Vogue," though it seems silly and dated now. Guilty pleasures, I guess, like Terminator 2 and The Parent Trap.

I don't know what it is, but I too have had a need for a rant. I put one up just now over at Casaubon's Book.

FYI, I got an utterly useless to me Mo-Fo-Artz degree from Now You're Underearn-iversity in Dramatic Writing, and now am paying $440/mo in debt repayment. (Looking so forward to Citigroup and Sallie Mae going upbelly. Any day now, right?) Looking at what has happened in theater with the NY-LA-Chi mafia with its Mamet wannabes and other knockoffs, I find it hard to continue the craft.

Odd question: Rainbow serpents coming up for anybody? There seems to be a plethora of the creatures appearing in colleagues' dreams...

Randall said...

The problems I see with this rxn
are obtaining or making cyclopentyl
Bromide. There is a patent for
producing it under reduced pressure
using cyclopentene and hydrogen bromide (both unwatched chems as far
as I know) and using a number of metal salts using common acids,
which is a plus, but halogen compounds are a bitch to work with if you don't have a fume hood.
The only halogen i've worked with is Iodine and it's bad enough, subliming at room temps.
Being able to substitute pentane for THF is a plus too. THF is watched because it's the raw precursor for GBL and GHB. The
pvc pipe solvent contains THF
but the boiling points of the other solvents are too close to each
other, even if you have a good
fractionating column like real big vigruex (sp)with media.
Also a plus is the ability to
sub propylamine for methylamine.
The minus is they don't mention if you use the same molar ratios.
Not impossible though. Making phenethylamines has to be at least
as difficult.

Visible said...

Quetzalcoatl?

I think you will find that the Indian prophecies (and that means both Indians and ...India, along with specific Buddhist projections are far more likely to be real than larger and more pervasive predictions. The second coming of Jesus Christ for instance should be considered as Kalki. That which comes in each double millennium is always the same, ergo- returning.

Anonymous said...

Of anything I am I make no secret:
I am on the sickbed, raving all the time,
I may not die like my the youngest sister,
Cause, I don't drink from system,
Designed for suicide...

I drink from a tribe of lonely city's dwellers,
Whose faces are lost in the shuffle of the world,
My ancient folks, who emerge from the cellars
To lit up for a moment this sky-less household...

I drink a lot from vastness and confusion,
What casts the lurid light on men of mould,
I wish my folks, great Makers of Illusions,
Would hang the extra moon on every City Hall...

There are no gods to answer to my prayers,
And I am not that smart to built a safety boat,
But there are my folks,
you know what I am saying?
they know: God is there,
In every song I wrote.

Substitude "I" for "You" in the last line and you will get dedication, Les.

What a miracle you are.

Anonymous said...

Great post, I espcially liked the dig @ smoking mirrors - who, has deleted every comment I've ever made on his blog.

m_astera said...

Psychegram-

I'll quibble along--

The difference, IMO, between what madonna is doing and "good" rap: madonna is taking a couple of respected art forms, the Old English ballad and I-IV-V blues/rock and roll, and using them for a free ride.

Rap on the other hand is a vehicle corrupted from the get-go. It's impossible to shine a turd. If one wants to get a message across to thinking people, it's wiser to use a respected form of communication. The rap audience may have a few thinkers in it, but it doesn't appear to have many. How's that go again? nigga-ho nigga-ho nigga-ho?

Visible said...

goodness Laura, that's a pretty remarkable work and a greater compliment than I deserve to be sure.

It's uncanny how events and impulses come out of the same time sequences often with unconnected messages out of similar formulas.

I was in the process of adding something to one of my other blogs, which is the poetry blog; mostly because Michael linked this piece tonight. Once I had finished I went by my dashboard to post the most recent comments and then found this poem.

I get the uncanny feeling that more is going on than any of us know about and regardless of appearances it is all good for those who are good and scorched curls for the one who is horrid.

Visible said...

dig@smoking mirrors;

now that is truly funny as you will discover once you see whose blog this is.

So far as I know and this could be John Wayne Gacy talking to Bad Jack- Smoking Mirrors has never deleted every single post by anyone ever. As far as I know, only Petrov, The Apollonian and occasionally Godsend have even been deleted at all and are all still welcome to return if they would only act within truly wide parameters that seem for some reason, no matter how they are expanded... never accommodate the need to be ever more abusive and surly.

But welcome all the same.

Anonymous said...

m_astera said, "I'm surrounded by people who do whatever they do only for the money. What's with that? I mean, why am I surrounded by those sorts of people? I get it already, why do I need the lesson again?"

Maybe you no longer need it yourself and you're here as an inspiration for those people such as me who have still been operating out of beliefs that money is a problem, or is THE problem, and that this money-problem is insoluble, which then means that money *is* the first priority in life, and there's no point in even *trying* to imagine creating anything new until there's ALREADY some money there BEFOREHAND . . . that it is MONEY that gives or withholds permission for me to do anything in life, including eating and having safe cumfterble places to sleep and shit. And if i never achieve anything above that animal level it's money's fault, not my responsibility.

i have been acting like i not only believe but must obey all those ideas.

What i would like is to be free regarding money.

What i would also like is to live in a community which is free regarding money.

So when you say . . .

"It's a funny thing; I realized over the past couple of months that I don't do anything for the money and I haven't for a very long time. I do what I love to do or am driven to do. . . . I still need money of course, so the challenge becomes finding a way to secure some income somehow from what I'm going to do anyway,"

that's very inspiring to me . . . and i bet other people around you are knowingly and unknowingly inspired by the way you are, about money, and by your being conscious about that.

ellis

m_astera said...

Psychegram-

another comment on the poetry this time. I decided a while back that rocknroll had taken the place of prose poetry, and done well at the job. If Keats were born these days he'd be singing, not writing.

BTW, did you know that the lyrics to Golden Slumbers by the Beatles were cribbed from a 16th century English poet? Found them by accident one day in the Oxford book of quotations. Word for word, except "sleep little darlin" is "sleep little wanton" in the original.

Quetzalcoatl? Funny,I thought of the stone vampire rainbow serpents in Tim Powers' The Stress of Her Regard.

Anonymous said...

Madonna is Incredible.

Condeming Madonna is absolutely, completely missing the point.

Our ART has been DECIMATED by "Picassos", "Madonnas", "Warhols", "Elvises", "Brittanie Spears", ect.

WHY???

It's so simple yet incredibly complex. But I'll give you two hints :

Madonna is MKULTRA.

Madonna was a replacement for Marilyn Monroe.

I'm not too concerned that you will ever figure this Information out. It's beyond your level of comprehension. Just don't slam a beautiful, intelligent woman who may or may not know what's been done to her.

Visible said...

There's a reason why ironic rhymes with moronic and never the twain shall meet.

There's also a reason while incredible rhymes with inedible and why you are the thing you eat. Have fun with Madonna.

Visible said...

A huge thank you to the Ketamine chemists; now go make me some and I'll be everlastingly grateful (grin).

m_astera

Thank you for posting some of the most brilliant summations I have ever had the pleasure to read.

Still waiting on the Ketamine.

And lest I be amiss in recognizing each and every soul for their remarkable contributions here and at all of the other blogs let me just say some things vibrate on the atmosphere and some on the ether.

nobody said...

Well, I liked her in Michelangelo's 'Pieta'...

Eric Vaughan said...

When she first came out, Madonna was a gimmick meant to appeal to girls surrounded by the Catholic school system. Something to rally around when they're blowing off some steam.

As for her new gimmicks, it's like someone conned her into thinking she could be sold like the Beatles were around 1967.

Good luck with your music career.

Anonymous said...

Madonna may have had a few good songs, but they were good in spite of her, not because of it. She didn't write them and anyone, literally, could have sung them just as well.

She is a genius at self-promotion -- or she's screwed the geniuses who promote her. I'm not sure which. But whichever it is -- that is the extent of her talent.

Not only that, but she seemed to suck the life force out of her protege, Spears. Her "career" advice, leading Spears to Kabala, the lesbian kiss (which I don't have a problem with if you are actually a lesbian, but I do have a problem with encouraging young straight girls to act out girl on girl fantasies to get attention) -- all were disasters for Spears. And although Spears was a train wreck waiting to happen (another non-talent bimbo), at least Madonna has willingly whored herself out. Spears was pimped out by her parents and any other adult who could make a buck off of her. No wonder she's a basket case.

I find it hilarious that "Madge" has resorted to pretending to be royalty (whether British or renaming herself after Jewish royalty -- Esther). What a true rebel, that one.

Daro said...

Great stuff! The story I read already 8 years back on PopBitch was some young gaffer was taping up her microphone pole (nothing sexual!) and he hadn't noticed it was her who'd come up to the mike stand until he got up to just below her hands and let out a yelp falling back with shock onto his ass! Not because it was Madonna, it was her hands! Apparently they were curled and gnarled like the old witch crone outta Snow White and when his nose came up in front of them the sudden sight totally creped him out...

m_astera said...

Ellis-

It's not that I don't stress about paying the bills that come month after month endlessly. These are the shackles of slavery that the evil ones, in all their boring shallowness, have placed on the world. I am no exception to that.

For years I lived in a little cabin in a clearing in the forest. I had an orchard and garden and a well, and any day I wished to I could shoot a deer from the front porch. The phone bill still came every month, and the property taxes every six months. But I learned a few things that make the money problem easier.

I gave up trying to impress anyone with what I have and learned to ask myself what I really wanted. If I like something and want it for a reason, it will find its way to me. Most of the things I like other people don't even know what they are, so they're not going to be impressed anyway. Old books, ancient hand tools, nice wool blankets, silver spoons and forks to eat with, good leather boots. The freedom to spend the day with a friend who shows up from out of town unexpectedly. What I like, not what TV tells people they must have to be OK.

Money comes and goes, and it does that no matter what I'm doing to earn it, so I might as well do things I like doing. Why do people dream of getting rich? Why do they dream of winning the lottery? It's not for what they could buy, what they could do, where they could go. It's because money would free them from slavery, from their crappy lives or jobs they hate. If one hates what they do for money, one has two choices: either find something to do that one likes, or find how to love what one does. The money will still ebb and flow, but one needn't be miserable. And don't waste a second of your life chasing something just because someone else says you should. Let them chase it. It's your life.

Your spirit knows what you need. Trust me on that one. And if and when you learn how true that is and learn to trust your holy spirit, things will become easier. A lot of people say "love is the answer" but for me, gratitude is the answer. Give thanks for every day, every breath, every flower, every bite of food. When you are in the middle of a nasty argument, be grateful that you can argue and have someone to argue with. You will start to laugh. It's not the destination it's the journey; there is no destination, only experience. What do you wish to experience? Trust your spirit and be grateful; it takes a little practice but it gets easier.

We peons don't really stand much of a chance in the battle for money; we don't have it in us to kill, rape, rob, cheat and lie 24/7 like the psychopaths do. They'll win every time. We can, however, love what we do and do what we love, be grateful and learn to trust that our spirit knows and hears and will provide what we need, and the inner peace that comes with knowing that is something the shallow ones can never buy or steal.

Anonymous said...

Ah Vitamine K. So glad you've tried it LV. IMO so much more edifying than Flush Limbo's drugs of choice, oxycontin and fentanyl!
Randall's post makes me want to get out Shulgin's PIHKAL again and do some bedtime reading!
Yeah Madonna sux. So does
Rahmbo Emanu-el and fraudster
Lawrence Summers. If you have to be jewish to get appointed as it seems, I'd much prefer Robert Reich.

Anonymous said...

That was a long way of saying that Madonna is an ugly, talentless, slut. Which I totally agree with!

Anonymous said...

If you are lucky enough to go into a place with live music, you can find a lot of talent without ever having to leave town.
I am surprised at how many people play an instrument--something I never paid attention to prior to picking up a guitar.
I play the guitar but I am nowhere near being a musician. I do enjoy just playing though--it's more for me than anything else.
Another great thing about the internet is that you can find that talent without having to be a slave to the pablum that oozes out of radio--just like you can find great writers without having to pick up a newspaper.
I don't listen to the radio, watch TV, or read MSM publications and am much better for it.
I don't even go to WRH any more--it's like most of the other sites I "grew up" on...they are all like broken records to me any more--Deja Vu all over again--
At least I can thank WRH for linking one of Les's pieces which enabled the click that got me in here.
It is all boiling down quite nicely.
Jj

Anonymous said...

Nile Rogers is a genius. Like Dr. Frankenstein.

Anonymous said...

I listened to a couple of your tapes today Les Visible. There is a comforting, reassuring quality to your voice which cheered up my afternoon considerably - so thank you Les Visible. I see the Fascisti Obama lurkers are out patrolling the websites and seem to have had their sights on you.... What a pathetic bunch. It is indeed a sad day and there is much worse to come - much much worse - anyway, thank you.

Anonymous said...

You're right about Alabama. I know, because I live there (just don't ask me why). It wasn't always so, and won't be too much longer I hope.

You're also right about Madonna, but I've learned to be careful when talking about her. A lot of women close to the same age as her grew up with her (so to speak) and are really, really defensive when someone criticizes her. They idolize her in the same way that some younger women idolize Jenna Jameson; they see her as a symbol of an empowered woman and therefore a role model.

It's unfortunate that 'empowerment' in Madonna's case means little more than being able to cut out the greedy middlemen and just take on the role of predator herself instead of being manipulated by the (usually male) traditional predators. I read an interview where Madonna admitted to backstabbing and stepping on (as in squashing) a lot of good people to get to the top and how she almost felt kinda bad about it but hey, that's how the game is played, right?

BTW: I don't mean to slander Jenna Jameson by equating her with Madonna; at least Jenna has a real fake name and is honest about her occupation, and I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt about squashing other people's lives to further her career (she probably did it too, but at least she hasn't freely admitted as much in an interview yet).

UnSane in Alabama,

The Village Idiot

P.S.: randall, do you happen to have any handy tips for a quick'n'easy aminzation of safrole? Just curious...

Anonymous said...

I seldom pay any attention to madonna. I have enjoyed your writings on Mirrors, PertiDish and Origami for a couple years now and had arrived at many of the same view points via other sources. I've sometimes thought about going ex-pat as you have done, especially after experiencing a real Libertarian haven like Amsterdam -- but the truth is I really have no desire to leave the banks of the upper Ohio. I'd rather stay here and fight it out in some fashion. Perhaps it is the memories I brought with me into this life of having fought for this country in the latter eighteenth century. I just haven't determined yet if I should try to follow the MLK / Gandi / nonviolent route this time around.

As for your music -- interesting lyrics sometimes but not the most melodic singing voice I ever heard -- stick to farming and writing. As for your love song to madonna -- WTF is up with the "lips ... like flaccid prophylactics in a Serbian laundry" metaphor? I take umbrage at that and it is not the "lips" side of the analogy that stirs my desire to repeatedly bust you in your mouth. I fully expect you would not not just stand there and take it -- but that doesn't diminish the desire any. I need no anonymity to post: JRebich1@verizon.net and I'm in the phone book in Sewickley, Pa.

Visible said...

Your chances of effectively busting me in the mouth are not that good and you would be a fool to try. Still, I look forward to opportunities to work on my techniques.

As for outrage over poetic metaphor well that's just a sign of a not very highly evolved nationalist.

Your dig on my singing voice makes no impact since thousands of people hold the opposite opinion. If you're referring to this one song it was done that way on purpose and meant to sound that way which should be obvious. I'd listen to my other work and I'm thinking your opinion would not remain the same.

threatening people over the internet is a sign of immaturity, especially threatening someone who has studied the martial arts for over forty years and who holds high ranking belts in several disciplines.

Anyway... have a good life, I'm not troubled or offended by what you say.

Visible said...

John, I'm not going to post your comment because it's now and example of something I try to avoid here which is negative personalized exchanges that have nothing to do with the post. That's what email is for.

Christopher London said...

This is the singularly best commentary dissecting Madonna. More and more people need to read this.





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