Lucy Leigh, In The Lab of Our Implausible Lives

I have a dog. She's smart and also dumb. Sort of like a scientist. Or an Eskimo.
(This is an allusion to the Eskimo Paradox, referred to and explained in a previous posting, possibly on another planet.)
All aliens, check your messages!
I'm what is euphemistically called an animal person. I think of myself as both man and beast. I also prefer animals to people. True, a case can be made that animals, in their own way, are as annoying as people, but they rarely, if ever, have stupid opinions which they feel compelled to tell you all about.
Dogs, for example, have fairly basic urges. They make no attempt to disguise these in long-winded verbiage punctuated with ample servings of cliche. And a plate of platitude for dessert. Yummy!
A dog's bark is its basic statement about life. It's self-explanatory. Direct and to the point, albeit annoying.
Basically, it's not that easy not being annoyed.
But as the great Zen prophet and wizened old Buddhist poet asshole Bassho said, 'Plenty of time not to be annoyed after you're dead and dust.'
Which, by the way, Bassho is. How's that dead and dust remark sounding now, old man? Bassho walked the entire length of Japan, spreading wisdom, dodging the swords of neurotic, annoyed Samurai, dreaming about a future in which 7-11's would dot the countryside, greatly easing the demands of walking forever in the Japanese wilderness. A friendly clerk, with any luck a pretty young girl wearing a kimono cut short enough to reveal an ankle bone, a rice ball wrapped in plastic with perhaps a bit of incomprehensible fish substance inside. Yes, Bassho was a visionary. He was also a masochist and a freak who spent 30 years walking around in the woods.

Who's to say what makes sense?

Walk on children. And no talking.....

I'm listening to a Jeff Beck CD; live, 2003, at B.B. King's Blues Club in NY.
Now I do not plug music as a rule, but my son does it on his blog and seems to get away with it.
Jeff Beck is clearly not for everyone. Particularly those who insist that a song has to have lyrics or it's just not a song.
But for those with interest in what it's possible to do with an electric guitar, live, that is, not in a studio, I recommend it.
And let's not forget that Jeff is 60, if he's a day. How his heart holds out through some of the riffs he manages to pull off is a mystery, and possibly a medical miracle.

Jeff Beck meets Bassho in the dusty, silent void of pure sound.
They meet on the top of a hill. Two out of their mind poets.
Beck with a Strat in search of a power source not yet invented.
Bassho with a book of happy pure dirt and in need of a bath.
The great gate of the northern mongrels awaits them.
Neither man speaks.
Packs of wild dogs sniff the air, pee harmonically and bark a vision of a future in which the wounded man/beast gets to have sex with the angel of creative madness.

So, Lucy and I walk the middle-sized holy mountain behind our house almost every evening.
She runs, I walk.
It's pretty much spring now and we're looking for bears.
She's looking for stuff to eat, I'm looking for anything that will make me feel alive in a direct an uncomplicated way.
She experiments with being a dog in the woods, I try to stay inside my body and have real thoughts.
Bear Warning Signs are everywhere.
So where are all the fucking bears?

Jeff Beck is playing his version of 'A Day In The Life.'

I saw an amazing shooting star one night on the mountain.
I always stop for a moment beside the stone graves of monks from the nearby temple.
What a cool place to be dead, I say to the dog.
We're already dust, but there's no point dwelling on it.
The humans don't have much of a clue. Just as well.
The smell of mud and wood on the wind.
Bamboo grows here, too.
We're in the Asian dream world
Slow-moving and full of fantasy.
Girls float on air here.
Ghosts are nervous and shy.

Now go find me a bear, you dumb mutt!

Blogging in the dull and hapless void

Something seems to be going on. People are, for reasons which remain unclear and somewhat suspicious, reading this blog.
Why, I'm tempted to ask? But then why should I? Whole gift horse in a mouth thing comes rushing back.
I'm read. And remember, better read than dead.
All right, I have to be honest.
I am dead.
I died of neglect. Now I'm merely suffering from hay fever.
Which I have to say is not as bad as when I was alive.
Always a silver lining.
And yes, I know. Cliches annoy the piss out of me, as well. Unless their mine. But only because I have studied irony extensively. I know how to use them in a way that makes it seem that I know how to use them. Something that cannot be taught. I also know how to iron quite well. Which is also ironic because although my name is Lee, I'm not Chinese and have never worked in a Chinese laundry. Not that I wouldn't be interested, in theory.

"Suffer from allergy, do you? Well, not anymore. Take our medication just once and we guarantee an end to the seasonal agony of allergen incompatibility. Forever!"
(Manufacturers advisory: Not applicable in states where euthanasia is illegal.
*Never take high potency poison without first consulting your doctor!)

Anyway, death and distractions aside, I had a lot to say at one time, but nobody had time to listen. I ended up having to talk to dogs and Japanese people. Pretty much exclusively.
Fair?
Hardly.

So let's recap:
I'm a dead writer who people now want to read, possibly because I'm dead and they suspect a postumous wave may be in the offing. Hey, better late then never.
Forget the fact that no one made much of an effort while I was alive. I could have used a little attention, a little help, maybe a bit of cash from book sales. But it doesn't matter. In all honesty, I didn't make much of an effort while I was alive, either. I've just never been sure that anything which seems to be happening actually is. I privately blame this on the alien encounter I had in 1971. It changed my life, in ways that were both unfathomable and ironic. Ask Diane Becker, who lives in Italy, if you don't believe me. She was there. Okay, she's not talking to me, for things which, as far as I know, never happened, but she was there. I'm almost sure she was.
But that's neither here nor there. I don't dwell on the past, not constantly, anyway, let alone the failure of others in my past, however hypothetical they may turn out to have been.
The past is dead, as am I.
Happily so, I might add.
I've never been happier.
What is happiness?

Let's move on.

Okay, I'm lying.
I'm not dead and no one reads this blog.
I don't care.
Even I don't read it.
I mean, why would I?
Language is merely the medium we employ in order to avoid the difficult questions.
Like what the hell happened to all my socks?
Was that a question?
Should I make rice?
Do you love me?
You're driving me insane. Is that what you want?
Was that a question?
Am I?
You mean...?