Wish You Were Here

[MKFaizi]

I know there used to be a lot of Pink Floyd fans here.

To me -- I am old -- Pink Floyd was Syd Barrett.

I remember when "Dark Side of the Moon" was released. I must have been seventeen or eighteen. I was disgusted by its commercialism.

I did not like "The Wall" either. Too commercial -- not as bad as the Moon thing.

When I think of Pink Floyd, it's "Pipers at the Gate of Dawn" and "Atom Heart Mother."

I also remember Fleetwood Mac when it was underground -- before they hired the women and went commercial.

Syd burned out long ago.

When I heard of his death, I went to my son. He said, "Syd Barrett died."

I said, "That's what I was going to tell you."

Faizi

[Leyla Shen]

Syd burned out long ago.

Yes. Dead but breathing.

He was The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and A Saucerful of Secrets.

AHM was released 2 years after he left the band.

Waters and (less so) Gilmour kept him alive; like a dead man on life support.

I went to one Floyd concert (not a big concert goer). Spent most of the evening chilled on a second floor balcony at the venue, smoking and drinking. Nothing commercial about the affair for me. Not even the huge pink pig and flying beds. thousands of singing fans inside blended into the music -- just like frying bacon and taking a piss in Alan‘s Psychedelic Breakfast.

For me, apart from the classics -- AHM, Meddle, The Wall, Wish You Were Here and Animals -- nothing really notable since Waters left.

Barrett was junkie art, Waters socio-political, and Gilmour -- though talented -- commercial.

Overall, a successful blend.

.

[MKFaizi]

Leyla wrote:

For me, apart from the classics -- AHM, Meddle, The Wall, Wish You Were Here and Animals -- nothing really notable since Waters left.

Yes, ATM was after Barrett but I still like it.

I could not have withstood the pig thing or the fans singing.

To me, the best of Pink Floyd was not social.

I was actually about twenty when Dark Side of the Moon came out. I bought it and I was so disappointed.

Faizi

[Leyla Shen]

I was eight and listening to T-Rex in England on my brother's portable 45" record player at the time Dark Side of the Moon came out. Not crazy about that particular one either.

Concert was pretty cool from the balcony though, Marsha. Out there in the darkness. I guess it was a social gathering of basically "anti-social" people.

Better than the Cliff Richard concert I went to with my sister when I was 16ish. Never liked him myself, but she somehow ended up with an spare ticket. Now, that lot of fans were something else entirely...

UB40 were pretty cool. They played at the Astor Theatre here, if I recall correctly -- a much smaller venue. All you had to do was draw in a deep breath of smoke-saturated air every 10-15 minutes and you were anti-socially set for a supremely mellow indulgence.

Have you been to any live performances?

.

[MKFaizi]

Concerts now are too expensive for me. I might scrape it together for something really worthwhile. Can't imagine what.

When I was a kid, I saw Grand Funk Railroad a lot and Black Sabbath. Chicago. Chicago cost four dollars.

The best concert I ever saw was Iron Butterfly. Probably about 1969. They were not all that popular then. Maybe about one hundred people in the civic center. So, they played whatever they wanted and it was intimate and very good.

Then, I saw the stinkin Guess Who. That was a nightmare. My idiot friend had back stage passes. Went to the motel. Really sucked. I had just turned eighteen. Left the motel and had a head on collision in front of the Charleston, West Virginia police station. Totaled the car. Horny cop said he would take us to a motel but took us to his apartment. Attacked Becky. Debbie shot him with pepper spray. I said get the hell out. Took off running down the street to another motel just as the Buddy Miles Express Band were getting out of their limosine.

Now, those dudes were some nice guys. Took us in. Never attacked anyone. Just talked to us some and gave us one of the beds and we slept. They paid for us to stay another day.

I listen to music pretty selectively. I don't listen to it in the car. I don't listen to it when I am cleaning house. I only listen to it when I am ready to listen.

I did go to a Blues concert in North Carolina a few years back. Not bad.

But I prefer to listen to music alone. I don't care for music as a social thing.

I do not condemn or criticize you or anyone else if you enjoy concerts.

I did almost make it to Woodstock when I was sixteen. Nineteen year old dude and his friends were going and he said Becky and I could go. Becky was thirteen. I thought about it but New York was so far away. I figured it was too much for me to handle. Just not that social.

Faizi

[MKFaizi]

I have been thinking about this. When I was young, Pink Floyd was the "cult" or "underground" band. Naturally, you had to listen to their records when you were stoned on marijuana or tripping -- LSD, Mescaline, Opium -- whatever. Used to bother me a lot.

Darkside of the Moon was their break into acceptable main stream -- why I perceived it as commercial.

Many people -- maybe most -- can smoke weed and take acid and it is all fun. Not me. I never could. I did it for a while but I had to stop or I may have been quite mad. I did LSD and mescaline a few times -- maybe ten times. I knew people who did LSD every day of their lives -- like Syd Barrett. Many people never suffer from it. They just see colors and fun things. They trip.

For a more intropsective person -- or someone prone to going over an edge to madness -- schizophrenia -- LSD is not fun. It is serious. Like peeling off your skin down to the bone and, then, peeling down the layers of bone; peeling the brain.

I think that is why early Pink Floyd bothered me. I know that many people can listen to Pink Floyd and consider it to be fun -- kind of like seeing colors when you are tripping on LSD.

Kind of hard to explain. My friends would be listening to Pink Floyd and enjoying it. To me, it was serious. Painful -- especially when I had to smoke weed.

This is why I have a problem with the pink pig balloon. It's fun. Fun LSD.

Forgive me, Leyla. This is not in criticism of your enjoyment. For one thing, I am much older than you.

Pink Floyd was investigation of madness. It was always all about Syd. I admire Roger Waters for that. Complete loyalty to a friend. Homage to his mind -- even if he was no longer capable of functioning in the world. Waters paid tribute to that. For what -- thirty years? He knew Syd from the time he was nine.

Now that I fully understand the reasons for the music and lyrics, I can withstand it. When I was very young, I had trouble with the madness because it pricked the potentiality of my own madness. I was fearful of going mad myself and that music came too close for comfort. Too real.

No wonder there has been nothing since Waters left. Waters channeled Syd. He was Syd's voice. It was always about Syd.

I do not think the band gave Syd royalties in the way of giving life to a dead man -- like charity.

Syd Barrett is owed much more than he can ever be paid. He never died mentally or spiritually because his voice was inside Waters.

Comfortably numb. Receiving.

Faizi

[MKFaizi]

Someone who's almost grokked the universe and then
lost the definition on the tip of their tongue knows what it's
like to be a crazy diamond.

I think that is a fair definition of madness. And madness was always my fear -- not some freakin mental illness psycho stuff -- the real thing -- a big time catatonic retreat -- nobody home -- receiving. Dead conscious. Just dead. Numb.

No longer fear it.

That kind of madness would be like being a squirrel in the path of a car tire. You dart in many directions nearly at once looking for the path to escape. Then, by seeming accident, you find it.

But, instead of escape, you collide with delusion and the impact shatters everything you once held as truth. It is not enough to pick up the pieces and put it all back together as it was.

You have to recreate -- assemble.

Faizi

[Leyla Shen]

:)

I am not so fickle minded that anything you, or anyone, might say of me -- even if it were a criticism -- would make me any less. That you have your own experiences does not make mine suddenly or even gradually disappear. Generally, I find your thoughts enriching more than anything.

I have always appreciated you, Marsha. At your best, I see a depth and fullness of thought through remarkable literary skill that, as you say elsewhere, draws the reader straight into your mind, like a piece of music that speaks without lyrics. Takes a certain union of spirit and mind to achieve that, I reckon.

That is a big part of what kept me here.

It’s easy enough to agitate others into thought. Easy enough to argue*. Even easier to hand out sickly praise. But yours is a skill desperately lacking in most everyone, and one I have and will continue to especially admire.

Even better, by virtue of precision, than an exceptional piece of music.

What I love in Floyd is the aloneness.

Wherever I am, I am always alone, despite the characters that come into view.

~

I would like to hear more about your experience here, if you are willing:

But, instead of escape, you collide with delusion and the impact shatters everything you once held as truth. It is not enough to pick up the pieces and put it all back together as it was.

You have to recreate -- assemble.

[After a quick look over in Genius Proper, insert the following at * above: ...; easy enough to preach and proclaim.]

.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

I have always appreciated you, Marsha. At your best, I see a depth and fullness of thought through remarkable literary skill that, as you say elsewhere, draws the reader straight into your mind, like a piece of music that speaks without lyrics. Takes a certain union of spirit and mind to achieve that, I reckon.

Nah, Leyla. That 'drawing' in of others in her mind and personal world is just the old feminine touch. Don't you know it? Music like literal skill is the enchantment, nothing more than blood red lips and twinkling eyes. Takes a mind still stuck in the feminine to achieve that!

Marsha has somewhere that coloured elephant hidden though, and I think you see it too. I'm still waiting for it to come out in full glory.

[R. Steven Coyle]

Bah, Diebert.

Bah.

[suergaz]

Music like literal skill is the enchantment, nothing more than blood red lips and twinkling eyes.

Yeah, bah.

Music, like the literal skill is evidence of nature more worth itself than appreciation from without.


Beauty, what do you have to 'say' about it?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Music like literal skill is the enchantment, nothing more than blood red lips and twinkling eyes.

Yeah, bah.

Music, like the literal skill is evidence of nature more worth itself than appreciation from without.

Evidence of nature, sure. Nature is all about enchantment. To keep things moving. Birds and bees. Even a sage could tempt a seeker at times by letting him smell the roses or feel the thorns.

But to understand a deeper, stiller nature is required. No worth, no appreciations.

[MKFaizi]

Bah humbag.

The world needs a can opener at one end and an emema bag at the other.

I strongly recommend sucking on some good LSD.

Faizi

[Tharan]

Marsha has somewhere that coloured elephant hidden though, and I think you see it too. I'm still waiting for it to come out in full glory.

I see it too. I sense it is part of her conflict. I suspect after her daughter moves out, she will start painting, and it will blossom again.

[MKFaizi]

So, what is going to happen to me once the painted elephant is out of the bag?

Will I then be doomed to writing upstairs about enlightenment and Buddha and crap? Will I have to be authoritative? Will I have to be boring and talk about math and a=a?

I am simply not interested in writing upstairs. I am not interested in yammering out enlightenment is this thing and that thing.

Screw that.

What makes you so sure the elephant is not already out?

Painting. That's an interesting thought, Tharan. I have not painted in about thirty years. God, the thought of stretching canvas makes me want to throw up. I hate the fucking shit. I hate gesso. The only way I could paint would be to do the Jackson Pollack thing but I don't think I would do it on canvas. More likely, I would do it on architecture and get arrested.

I could paint on board. But why? I do not think I have the patience to produce images. And I certainly do not believe in hanging the crap on walls. I like blank walls.

Roxie has left. Her notion is that she is eighteen and cannot live in her mother's house anymore. Not my idea. She just feels that she is an adult and has to live on her own. She is working construction.

My life would have to slow down to 1930 before I could commence painting. AT LEAST. Probably 1830.

I do not believe you have to go the way of QSR for enlightenment. I do think the exercises over the years help. I have discussed a=a thousands of times and masculinity and femininity and Nietzsche and Kierkegaard and God and God-nauts. Learned about the essentials of Buddhism intrinsically.

So, what am I supposed to do -- write a fucking doctoral thesis and submit it? I am not seeking a degree and I do not need affirmation. I don't need proof. I don't need a Genius Award.

The elephant is right there -- in front of your noses.

Not a perfect pose but acceptable.

Back to five hundred mikes and Arnold Layne; Baby Lemonade; Dominoes; Milky Way; Apples and Oranges.

Only three thousand or so mikes and I got it.

Why can't you see?

Faizi

[Tharan]

Painting. That's an interesting thought, Tharan. I have not painted in about thirty years. God, the thought of stretching canvas makes me want to throw up.

Do so. Maybe I'll buy it.

[MKFaizi]

Maybe, hell. Like I am going to put extreme effort into painting on maybe.

Fuck that. I actually have thought about it for a few days. I could never paint with the idea of selling the shit. Defeats the purpose of painting in the first place. Painting, like other forms of art, is exploration -- not perfect like philosophy, mind ye, but something.

I loathe oil paint. I loathe acrylics. I loathe canvas. I loathe painting large things. I like intricacy and line. I like color. So, if I do decide to paint, I will probably paint on masonite using something like enamel paint or something like guache or children's water color mixed thick. I would paint a study of intricate line imposed on fields of varying color. Shimmering things that are joined by intricate lines that do not stop. A kind of caligraphy over tiny fields of color -- unbelievably thin painted lines that mean nothing and depict nothing - just for the interest of tiny intersecting lines requiring utmost precision of wrist movement.

Kind of torturous. I mean, no matter how you connect or how you drive the lines over shimmering fields of color, there is no satisfaction. You can never make the lines small enough. You can never make things perfect -- even if the networks may look perfect to the observer. In other words, the fucking shit will drive you nuts. Perfect fields of perfect color with perfectly perfect thin lines imposed over it. Jewels. Jewels upon jewels. Jewels entertwined with jewels. Vibrant, shiniing color caught in intricate webs.

The best thing would be to find a way to produce them microscopically so that they could only be seen and appreciated on a glass slide.

That is my idea of painting -- something done on a slide that cannot be viewed by the naked eye. Even better would be able to find a way to turn my visions into injectable drugs. A patron could pay 25 cents and I could shoot the painting intramuscularly or for 50 cents, they could have it IV. For 75 cents, they could buy it on blotter.

Unrealistic, I reckon, but damn my vision is this thing that is meant to be internal. It is like a spider turning its web in your organs; like tying your liver or spleen in a billion tiny, intricate, thin-threaded knots.

Maybe, I can turn them into silk screen t shirts and give them away on ebay. I could not bear to sell them. Of course, if you or anyone like you wished to buy one, you could donate your money to the charity of your choice.

You could even send the money to yourself.

Obviously, I would need an agent. But the very idea of someone dealing something for me sickens me. I could stand it, perhaps, if I was employed and the art became an assembly line and there would be hundreds of others just like me all being paid the same salary.

I don't think I can do it, Tharan. Too commercial. I would rather be in Philadelphia -- or Baghdad -- same thing.

It would drive me insane.

I listened to the entirity of Atom Heart Mother this evening. I have read that this album is considered to be over the top; too psychedelic; too much use of orchestras and this and that.

All I can tell you is that when I stayed in Richmond and took LSD or smoked the strong weed that was available then, that album caused me to feel that I could be insane.

Of course, I was surrounded by insane people at the time -- Insane Liberation; bombers. I was scared to death of mental hospitals. When I listened to this music, I generally thought of shock therapy. I was staying with the president of Insane Liberation in Richmond and his wife. He had spent time in mental hospitals and had had shock treatments. Insane Liberation broke into nut houses and freed the inmates.

I mean, you dropped some acid and you listened to Atom Heart Mother and you considered the possibility of insanity and what that could mean. You sat in a small, dark room with other people taking acid and those people were already diagnosed with schizophrenia -- mostly incorrectly. But you were all convinced that you were going to meet a psychiatric end. I was about eighteen or nineteen. I had been to a very scary psychiatrist who suggested that I needed to be put in a hospital.

So, you are tripping your brains out listening to Atom Heart Mother with members of Insane Liberation and these other people -- one of them was later arrested for bombing a bus. There was Vietnam and Nixon.

Well, it was enough to make you plumb paranoid.

So, now I can listen to Atom Heart Mother and it is pleasant music. I am only slightly paranoid about Botetourt County cops. Mainly because if someone kills me the cops will be on the side of the killer.

But that is small paranoia.

Nothing compared to tripping your brains out thinking you are about to be cast into a mental hospital.

For anyone who thinks that Atom Heart Mother is too psychedelic, he must not remember psychedelic times. In that context, the music fits.

I could not bear to listen to it for years, especially considering Syd Barrett.

I did buy Dark Side of the Moon in 1973 but it was far too commercial for my tastes. I was accustomed to the raw meat-- the tattered flesh hanging on lines; the ripping out of cerebral matter; the intimacy with blood-letting fear; the cow in the killing booth.

Dark Side of the Moon killed Pink Floyd for me.

But I have gotten over it. I can listen to it now.

Faizi

[Blair]

Oh cry me a River faizi, please do! your suffering is so immense.

[Blair]

Oh cry me a River faizi, please do! your suffering is so immense.

[MKFaizi]

Dear Barnacle,

I was not speaking of suffering. I was speaking of delusion and the catalysts that can tear down delusion. Also, about fear.

My recommendation to you, Barn, is that if you loathe me and think me so full of crap, stop reading what I write. No one is forcing you to read it.

Beyond that, I think you might want to post something of your own rather than clinging to me hoping to somehow belittle and berate what I write and think. Your thready little voice is weak and gains you no response from the gallery you hope to attract. Your voice is the chirping of a little bird who has desire to imitate what he weakly declares to despise.

Kind of like a little brother tagging along behind an older sibling -- jealous but wanting to join in.

Come on, little barnacle -- tell us your tale.

I am ready to listen.

Faizi

[MKFaizi]

Are you a homosexual male, Prince? I ask this because most homosexual men find me to be immediately repulsive. I have never figured that out yet. Doubt that I ever will.

Faizi

[MKFaizi]

What's the matter, Baby Barn? Cat got your tongue?

I figured you would jump at the chance to belittle me once again. Well, attempt it anyway.

Come on, my little fluffy kitten. Tell Ma your story. I promise not to hiss.

Come out, kitty kitty kitty.

You must be homosexual. Come on out, dear puss.

I never have been able to figure out why queers hate me so much. Just intrinsically rub them the wrong way, I reckon.

Come on out now, baby puss. I got some Meow Mix for you. How 'bout a spot of Fancy Feast, my little fickle feline fusser?

Kiss kiss.

Faizi

[Blair]

Chill out Faizi, I don't find you repulsive. I do think you have allowed too much darkness into your mind. I think you have the smarts to overcome it.

[Tomas]

True,she isn't rpulsive ... but she is on drugs.

The side-effects vary from post - to - post. The multiple entries with little but jabber about "homosexual" nomenclature ... a cry for a meaningful relationship, perhaps some physical closeness would do her well.

Away from work, kids, shopping, driving etc. ... stripped down to her drug addiction. Unable to kick it (lest for the colorful dreams), a far cry from reality-based humans.


Prince writes about her darkness ... another side-effect of her relance upon drugs to solve loneliness. If it's like my sister's husbands (Dr. Steve) line of medicine shops. It's a constant barrage of wall-to-wall posters advertising a drug for this "condition" and another 5 or 6 for that "malady" and more are in the development stage.

The people on these drugs lose sight of reality after some time and it generally (speaking), takes an "old friend" or an acquaintance from way back ... to notice the personality change.

Reminds me of a childhood friend (Dale) whom i see every five-ten years or so. He's been on Valium for so long -- he is the only one that doesn't perceive his change in personality. Rarely has communication with the daughter that just left the house for age-18. The girl couldn't wait to get away because of the personality disorders that drug-dependence tolls on the parent/child relationship.

Prince writes (Marsha) has the smarts ... that is a dicey proposition for middle-agers who are unable to kick the drugs because they are so lonely. Nothing to fill the void as kids go their merry way to adulthood. Sad commentary that one needs a drug to dream in color. Shallow indeed.


Eating a pill day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year ... reality becomes a blur.



Tomas (the tank)
VietNam veteran - 1971

[MKFaizi]

Tomas wrote:

Eating a pill day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year ... reality becomes a blur.

After that much written ignorance, I can hardly tell where to begin.

To start with, I loathe taking medication of any kind. I am definitely not someone who learns about drugs on television and desires to take them. I have never taken anything stronger than Motrin or Tylenol for pain. I had two children without anything for pain or the need for pain med.

As for seeing drugs on TV, I know about them long before they are advertised. If I want medication, I have access to a drug closet full of the best brand names. Nothing I want. If I wanted to do it, I could pilfer plenty but I don't want Prevacid or Nexium or Viagra or Wellbutrin or Cymbalta or Lyrica or Lunesta.

I realize of course that you are again harping on the fact that I take Zoloft. I do not take it every day -- not that that really matters. I know I have written this before but I will write it again. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was to take medication for depression. I did have mononucleosis that caused a large part of the depression -- not feeling sad or blue -- lethargy, extreme fatigue. Very much physical manifestations of depression, not emotional.

I checked my blood for thyroid problems, chemistry problems, hematological problems -- only thing that turned up was mono.

I got to the point that I had to do something whether I wanted to do it or not. I could have just gone and picked some Effexor out of the closet or something else I might have seen on television -- Prozac.But I wanted another opinion.

So I got one. I had a lot of trouble making myself take medication. Zoloft comes in a starting pill of 25 mg. Took me a week of taking a fourth of that to get to the 25 and then to the 50.

I did not want to take it but I did need it. The mono was part of the depression but I also think that I am genetically pedisposed to it. Sadness has nothing to do with it. God knows, loneliness has nothing to do with it.

Which brings me to the next topic. Why is it when a woman elects to live alone, the assumption is that she must be lonely? I love living alone. I do not want company or companionship. If a man decides to live alone, no one thinks that he must be lonely.

I have lived alone for so long that I have become damn selfish with my time and my space. Don't want to share either. I won't compromise with anyone. I do what I want and when I want to do it. No negotiation -- I could not stand that sort of crap anymore. I definitely could not stomach the utter inanity of a relationship -- Kissy kissy...I love you..I love you, too..what time will you be home..where were you..come to bed..you read too much..I don't want to go there..I want to go here..on and on.

I have had several relationships in my life -- enough to know that I am finished -- been done for many years now.

I cannot imagine being lonely.

As for darkness, Barney, what is darkness? Reality? Something else?

Could be that what you perceive as darkness is reality. I perceive no darkness or lightness. Dark and light is delusion.

My guess is that you are fearful of what you perceive as darkness. That is your delusion and your problem, not mine. It is you who has the problem with darkness, not me.

Faizi