The Porcelain Odyssey

"If one's home is their kingdom, then we all know where the throne room is.

The throne room here has been an ongoing work in progress, with a new floor, molding, paint job, medicine cabinet, towels and decorative accessories. Today the Royal Water Vestibule, where The Teeth are brushed, the Hands are washed, and the Spit is spat was ripped from the wall, and the sounds of rejoicing t'wer heard upon the land. "

This is how I started this post a few days ago when the Vestibule of Satan and Hell Fire Project was first begun. I was happy then, full of high hopes..... so happy....

Now I am a pent up ball of frayed, frustrated nerves and sore muscles. There have been 5 trips to Home Depot (it is not just around the block either). Each trip I buy new things to try to make this all work, and each trip merely compounds my frustration and lowers my bank account. My eye started to switch today after, yet again, the feed hoses handed to me were the wrong size. Like in the movies, when the person is about to snap and take everyone out in a fit of telekinetic powers and pigs blood, and their eye, just one, twitches, proving that the unjust stress they have suffered has finally pushed them too far. Just like that. :|

But the end is near I think. The latest hose problem was merely that some brilliant person put the wrong hose back in the 1/2" - 3/4" compression slot, because one of them is the correct size. I new valves I have are lesbians too, so I need to get them a Double Headed Dildo Adapter (hey, talk to Home Depot about their product names, not me) so that they can couple up and make sweet fanny pack love to the wall pipe. After that, I believe we're home free. The light is at the end of the tunnel.

Let's just hope, as my esteemed clarinet professor used to say, the light is not the oncoming train.

Taking out the garbage

The last 24 hours have been, well... somewhat indescribable. But I will make an attempt at it.

In addition to teaching The Music to The Kids, I also do The Catering for The Rich People. I work for my good friend Steve the Caterer, who's quite good at The Catering and thus caterers for The Rich People here in Seattle. Two events were going on yesterday, one for the Nordstroms and one for Children's Hospital of Seattle. I worked the latter of the two, and the event was hosted at the home of Lenny Wilkens and his wife.

Knowing that few people read this blog, and that I know all of you who do, I think an explanation of who Lenny Wilkens is is in order, as I don’t expect you will know who he is. That makes me giddy, but that’s another story. Lenny Wilkens is a former pro basketball player, former coach of the Seattle Super Sonics, and former coach of the New York Nicks. He took both teams to the national championships where they won. He's won numerous awards and has been voted "Best This" and "Best That" over the years. Upon mentioning to some people that I have catered events at his house, they have nearly fallen out of their seats begging to know if would ever be going back and if I could get an autograph and that they would gladly sacrifice their first born child for it and they began drawing pentagrams on my floor to make deals with devil right then and there, blah blah blah blah....

I couldn't care less. Basketball is not something I’m interested in, in the slightest, nor the people who play it, how ever famed they may be. This guy is quiet, doesn't say much, seems perfectly nice, but is really just a regular man who's rolling in basketball cash. His wife is an obsessive compulsive borderline lunatic who's rolling in basketball cash with her husband. She follows us around her house cleaning with Windex each surface we touch, and we're not allowed to get water on the floor of the kitchen. No water on the floor of the kitchen. That's not sane. These are not people to worship and beg for autographs. They are just as crazy as the next person.

In any case, their house is huge, they have more money than they can spend, some people worship them, and they live quite the life. Now and again we serve them fancy food. And we do the same for many other filthy rich people in Seattle. I've been in homes with kitchens larger than my entire apartment, with cabinetry that is worth more than I will make in 3 years of work, and with art work and statuary that is worth more than I will make in 30 years. It is the most comically hideous crap you've even laid your eyes on too. For example, the trio of bronze jack rabbits at one woman's estate, where one is a normal huddled rabbit, one is "jumping" but looks like it's full on pooping (you have to look twice at its butt cause you're sure there's going to be little bronze rabbit poop falling out of it), and two that are fucking. Yes, fucking. And these sit on her lawn, and are only the hideous beginning.

Money offers them many things, like security, and trips to anywhere they wish to go, but it doesn't buy them good taste, civility, sanity, or perspective. If anything it seems to diminish all these things.

Now we skip ahead to today. My friend Andrew called and asked me to drive him to Kent to pick up some Mexican Amway Products for his Undocumented Boyfriend. I like Andrew and I don't get to see him much, so I agreed, despite the fact that Mexican Amway Products sounded more than a little scary, and Kent is definitely WAY more than a little scary. Despite this, off we went with the AC blasting as we are currently ensconced in a heat wave.

Kent. Kent is terrifying. Kent is the Northwest's version of a southern trailer park. In Kent the mullet is alive and well. In Kent large pickup trucks rule the roads. It's a flat flood plain, so there's nothing to look at, and for the most part it is one giant industrial park, which we drove right into the middle of to find the Mexican Amway Products. We stepped into the reception office so Andrew could place the order, and I sat to wait.

Next to me was Achmed, a north African immigrant who's order was soon announced over the PA and he got up quickly, striding from the asbestos ceilinged room to pick it up. A woman wearing a hot pink head wrap, an orange silk shawl and a green and blue flowered sarong type thing came in and sat in his place. When my eyes stopped bleeding I noticed that her hot pink head wrap was peppered with embroidered Calvin Klein logos. I did not know that Calvin Klein made a line of Muslim Head Wraps, but now I do. Very progressive of them, I thought, to be providing Muslim women everywhere with high Muslim fashion. Images of little Muslim women and children bent over sewing machines in south eash Asian sweat shops came to mind, but the irony was desturbing so I pushed them from my mind. To my right this entire time was a white woman with her three kids, two girls and a boy, ages ranging from about 6-8.

The girls were very cute little freckled kids, one blond and one brunette, with innocent large eyes, as yet untouched by the harsh realities of life, starkly unlike there mother’s. They wore unfortunate neon pink and green colored outfits, I believe Barbie was on the front of one. The little boy was about 8, blonde, and had eyes completely unlike his sisters. They were innocent still, but squashed, like his soul had been trampled on for a number of years at that point, and he had already realized the world was against him, and he was on his own. He had his mother's cell phone in his hand, and was telling her how many minutes had passed since they had arrived, every minute, on the minute, they were up to 17. Her commands to stop were ignored. When she got up to go to the bath room and took the girls with her, she handed him her purse to watch. He then began taking money out of the wallet, without shame, without self consciousness, with three of us looking on, Calvin Klein woman looking on in horror. On the coffee table in front of the family’s seats were three empty Mexican Amway No Sugar No Fat No Caffeine Strawberry Flavored Energy Drinks, and I had the vivid image of farmers of the past consuming their own crops for sustenance before they could be taken to the market for sale.

It was our turn to go pick up our Mexican Amway Products so Andrew and I made our way around the 400 lb woman coming in through the door, and drove around the corner to the loading bay. Andrew grabbed one box of sundry bath products and two boxes of Mexican Amway No Sugar No Fat No Caffeine Strawberry Flavored Energy Drinks, and we were off. When we got to the highway onramp back to Seattle, we were the only ones on it, despite heavy traffic on the road. Seems no one had reason to leave Kent that day, they had everything they needed right there.

In less than 24 hours I have moved from filthy rich to dirt poor, from upper class to working class, from security to the lack of it. But there was something vaguely similar to both places, both experiences. Both the presence of money and the lack off money had the conspicuous absence of good taste, civility, sanity, and perspective. From rich trash to white trash, these qualities seemed to be dispossessed in equal and disturbing quantities.

As I looked at both sets of people over last night and throughout this day, I couldn't help but imagine myself in their shoes, and was deeply disturbed by each option, rich and poor. Are those my two choices in life? Is that the future, if not the present I have to deal with? The main question that then came to my mind was this; is spiritually broken white trash a social and monetary inevitability, or a state of mind? Is self absorbed aloof rich trash a social and monetary inevitability, or a state of mind? Do the rich people sit around and think "my my my, but we are the MOST self absorbed asses with amounts of money starving people would die for!", or the white trash sit around and think "my my my, but we are the trashiest white trash that has ever lived, but I love me my Mexican Amway No Sugar No Fat No Caffeine Strawberry Flavored Energy Drinks, dented up '94 Ford Tempo and fanny pack!" No, but they still roll in their money, and drive their Ford Tempo.

There have been a number of occurrences lately in my life that are prodding me to take stock. A friend of mine is broke and being evicted, though his own mismanagement of his life. My roommate, at a faster rate than every before, is transforming our home into a white trash bastion of garbage, Eggo waffles, piles of old mail, dirty dishes and laundry. My car is still beat to hell, and my clothes are getting thread bare. Something needs to change. I don't want my life to ever degrade to the point that I'm getting evicted, I don't want my home to become an urban double-wide, and I don't want others too look in at my life and think "trash," rich or poor.

So I'm taking action. If the rich and poor trash lack good taste, civility, sanity, and perspective, then I will have them. I will clean my house and demand it stay that way. I will make enough money to have security, and then I will spend my hard earned money on good things, quality things, not because of what they prove to others but because of what they prove to me; that I am who I choose to be, and I refuse to be trash.

Praise the Gods!!!

I have found Religion.

Yes, that's right, I am a man of faith now, all ye who have been trying to convert me to your ways for so many many years can now end your toil, bathe your feet in the waters of success, and sit in glorious self righteous holy self satisfaction.

Sean Barker has found Zeus.

Well, Zeus and all his fabu friends. I've adopted Greek "Mythology" (for all time now to be called Greek REALITY people. Respect my beliefs. Do it.) as my faith of faiths. Ever since I was a kid I have loved reading the holy tales of Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite, Apollo, Artemis, Hephaestus (I blame him for my gayness, I read a book many years ago where he was this muscled, bearded, bearish God pounding away on some metal object on his anvil. Woof.) Athena, my my the list goes on and on of frikin' AWESOME Gods!! Why have only one?!?!? That's no party, and you have not partied until you've partied with Dionysus! That man's a FREAK!! WOOT!!

But seriously, I take my new faith very seriously, as all religious people should. I have set up an alter, I give offerings to my Gods so they will keep me safe and provide for a plentiful harvest and a fertile wife (I don't try very hard on the last one, but I read somewhere I was supposed to do it, so I obey. Kind of...). I read The Scriptures daily, basking in all the tales of the downfall of the Titians (GO ZEUS!! YOU ROCK!!), the divine parable of Cupid and Psyche, and the many and sundry sexual liaisons and rapes of and by the Gods and Heros. It's a cornucopia of blessings and faith inducing poetic prose. I'm filled with radiant happiness (and a good bit of fear, 'cause Zeus has a temper....)

You ask "how did you come to this blesséd holy revelation of spirituality and truth?", and well you should ask, my brothers and sisters. I had a dream. A vivid dream, one that resides with me even now and gives me a warm feeling, deep down, deep. Zeus came to me, in a deamlike vision. He was bold, handsome, strong, in a loosely draping toga which accentuated his pecs while only tantalizingly covering his Godly bits. He spoke to me, though it was all in Greek so I have no idea what he said, but it filled me with religious desire, cause who can resist a man with an accent? Then he took me. Yes, he made sweet Greek God love to me, and it was glorious. I think I may be carrying his child now, I expect it will spring from my head or perhaps I will vomit it out at some point, and our half- breed-demi-god-love-child will either save humanity from some evil, or will be that evil itself. One never can tell with these things, and that's half the fun!

I can hear some of you laughing out there, and I am offended. This is my belief!! This is what I hold true and holy, and what gives meaning to my life! I was lost before, but now I've found a wacky dysfunctional family of Gods and Goddesses to believe in, to give me strength and hope, and a reason to drink wine until I righteously puke my guts out. My beliefs are just as valid as yours, and I demand your respect! Or I'll fucking cut you.

Peace and love my brothers!! Death and an eternity in Hades for the rest of you!! (COOOOOL!!!, I get to damn people to Hades now!! Will the perks of religion never stop?!?!?)

Ubiquiosity

In the spirit of "language is ever evolving" and of "structuring interesting word usements", I propose this formulized communicable craftation; Ubiquiosity.

And it means this: The state in which things are no longer consciously perceived because of their omnipresence.

They say that the hearing centers in your brain block the various sounds that your body makes on constant basis, like your heart beating and often your breathing (other sounds that are regrettably sometimes subject to this censorship of the brain in some people may also include the vaporous emissions of a Mexican dinner, pulsatingly annoying laughs, and verbal idiocy.) The theory goes that if forced to listen to the constant beating of our own heart day in and day out we would be distracted (from the hunting), or driven slightly crazy, so the brain blocks the sound. This begs the question, is this internal censor is faulty in some people? It would account for some of their behavior. But I digress.

How much of the rest of the world we experience around us falls victim to a similar censorship? How many things slide past our consciousness only because out mind has become so accustomed to them, or has perhaps never experienced an alternative? Many things in life are so omnipresent that after awhile we stop paying attention to them, stop thinking about them. Often we stop realizing they even exist, that is if we ever realized their existence in the first place. That picture on the wall that you put up 6 years ago and have not looked at since, even though you walk past it every single day. There are no stars when you live in a city, so who looks for them in any given Metropolis? Who thinks about the night sky? It is so breathtaking in some places, though who living where there are starts marvel at them if they have never known anything else? There is also the fact that everywhere you go music is playing, good and bad. Everywhere. Listen sometime.

Others things are so deeply tied into our paradigm of what reality is that we can go a lifetime never really being truly conscious of their presence. Direction. Time. Our own consciousness. Cows.

Yes, cows. They're everywhere! Can you really imagine life without them at this point? How many products come from cows? So many things that we often don't even think of them as living creatures anymore, but only as inanimate automatons, if we think about them at all. What if the Cow was some exotic wild animal though, wondering the plains where no humans wanted to live? What if it was an animal that children and even adults dreamed of at night? Great mythic creatures with a holy white glow emanating from their bodies, or perhaps terrifying beasts with evil glowing eyes chasing as you flee in terror. Perhaps they tell you in the voice of your dead Great Aunt the secret family recipe for dog meat balls (this is of course assuming that dogs would take the place of cows. Pekinese makes for a-tasty-meata-balla I hear).

Let's also look at it this way; can you imagine a living creature that does not resemble, in any way whatsoever, another living creature or thing on this planet? Can you pull from your imagination something that does not already in some part exist? It is exceedingly difficult; we nearly always find a frame of reference from our reality around us. To create something from nothing, that is the definition of genius, and few can claim that title.

We do not live in a vacuum. We are inundated with experiences every second of our lives, with our only respite the few hours in the night when we fall deeply asleep. How much of the world around us, and in our own heads, do we take for granted? "Take for granted" usually brings up thoughts of "I should conserve on gas...", or "I should call my Mom....", but what about on a deeper level? What things are we so profoundly wrapped up in that we can actually no longer imagine a world without them? In addition, will we ever even be asked to imagine a world without them? Others are just as wrapped up in the ubiquiosity of reality as we are, and the questions never cross their minds, just as they may never cross our own.

So, just for fun, let's ask those questions, a bit in this blog and perhaps more through the rest of your day and week. Let's imagine, if we can, the world with or without a few things that are all around us, things that we take for granted now and could easily continue to take for granted for the rest of our lives. Bring all preconceived notions to the table, and put them out there for the world to see, and take a look at them yourself while they're there.

We’ll start easy. What if you could no longer hear? This one is fairly easy to get a taste of with the right ear plugs. But, does that really capture what it would be like to be UNABLE to hear? Even when we plug our ears our own breath and heart can be heard (despite our brains censor switch). To have no sense of hearing, to never hear the garbage truck lumber up, or the hum of electronics, the sound of music, the sound of our loved ones voices, what would that be like?

What if you couldn't see? Again, cover your eyes and it's easy enough to imagine. But that’s too easy. What if you had never been able to see? How would your world view (pardon the pun) be different? Can you even imagine how it would be different? Forget simple blindness for a moment, what if what you see now is entirely different than what other people see? Would there be any way of knowing? What if the color you see as "orange" is actually "puce" to my eyes? The names of the colors were told to us many years ago, we'd have no frame of reference to compare our perceptions of colors to. Or for a more interesting example, I imagine you’ve never though about your stereo vision, or what it would be like to not have it, but this story may change that. I love that the one guy asks the woman if she thinks she can imagine what having stereo vision is like, and she replies “of course!”, and then later has to recant when she actually experiences it. How often does reality turn out to be far different than we had imagined it would be?

What about religion? What would a world be like completely without it? Many of us live our personal lives without it, but we can’t actually escape it. It’s everywhere, and it shapes the way we all think about the world whether we a church going or not. We almost all have this generally self centered idea that somewhere out there someone or something is watching us, be it some god or maybe aliens, and they are interested in us, either because we are their dysfunctional children or because they desperately need anal cavities to probe. Many base their actions on this idea; that no matter what happens someone is watching out for us. But what if no one is? What if a cosmic father figure is merely a security blanket for the consciousness? Take away those watchers and our fate takes on a markedly different perspective, one of finite bounds as opposed to infinite. What if we’re completely on our own? Would anyone care if the human race were gone if there were no human race to care?

Our consciousness is our own, and no one else’s. Empathy allows us to imagine how someone else may think or feel, but we can never experience their mind for ourselves. We live with ourselves every moment of every day, with the occasional transcendental mediation or acid trip to take away our sense of self, we can feel isolated and overwhelmed by this at times. Do we realize that everyone else around us is dealing with similar, if not the same, emotions, thoughts, and issues? Does it cross our minds that other points of view do exist? And not "points of view" in the post-modern definition that is synonymous with "opinion", but equally valid personal views, each from different vantage points than our own. How often are we both right, yet we look at each other knowing the other is wrong? Can we, for a moment, imagine a reality where our thoughts and emotions could be shared, as readily as a hand shake or an ice cream cone? Can we imagine not having to take on faith the love someone feels for us, but actually be able to experience their feeling for ourselves? To be able to share with their soul how we feel as well?

While there are many things out there that can be chalked up as "that's just the way things are", say for example the sun rising and setting, the pull of gravity, and the inevitability of our own deaths, there are many other things that get that label erroneously. So many of the events and things that happen around us happen merely because someone made a choice, not because of fatalistic inevitability. It’s not "just the way things are", or fate, or divine intervention, but instead a decision or set of decisions was made and a result occurred. Cause and effect. Another saying, “it’s just human nature,” is equally as misleading. Human nature has been defined as a lot of things, but I was always under the impression that at the core of human nature is that we have control over our human nature. We choose, consciously. Sub-conscious be damned, we are conscious beings. But we are rarely asked to act like it.

How much of the Ubiquiosity we experience around us could be changed if we so desired it to be different? What if that silly phrase "that's just the way things are," could be said with relish, joy, and smile, instead of frustration, sadness, and abdication? As Rufus said, "Wouldn't it be a lovely headline, "Life is Beautiful", on the New York Times?” We are in control, we call the shots, we just need to open our eyes and our minds to the possibilities around us.