civic virtues succumb to the need for self-preservation. in this north american society the needs and the desires of the individual out distance and out weigh the needs of the others around you. in the day of the sunny bright philadelphia on the hill along the convergence of the rivers delaware, and schuylkill, the bifocals of the sage from the east (but in his time there was only like the amish, the german and the indian, now we have the world at our doorstep) on the ordered red brick buildings along the town hall and the market, there arose a philosophy of giving back and helping those around you, and in that same city a century later the erosion of the principles from the industrial revolution gave rise to something else entirely, the corporate boss, the pool shark, and the gangster (although, he might be a symbol of the people), who usurped the community when the disconnection between the people became like stone. "corrupt and contented" was the motto after the old man went to the bottom of the murky polluted river. but do we subject the moderate for the dynamic. do we crave the wildness and the chaotic, the clint eastwood types riding off into the desert to nowhere, but was this impossible - - - the tribe in the nomad days knew nothing of this singular person, the wife and the husband, the relative, and the children live possibly in more symbiotic relationships (we got the electric communion, but whether this is bad or good, whose to say), not in any bullshit utopia, but more dependent on each other and the realization of that said fact, as i become so certain of myself that unbeknownst to the normal being i stand on the soapbox of infinite jest and wisdom. just kidding. but is it not good to stretch the bounds of this life past the television tube into the realm of thinking, not excluding your favorite shows, those ones on the other stations. we are all racing against each other, with no respect or the common decency allowed, but we have to change that, if it is possible. this new philly magnificence was to beacon forth, and give way for the death of the individual conscience and back to the people around you and in this short sighted galaxy, just like some new age bullshit, and so on. but what i attempting to say is that we have to incorporate the "freedom" the great destroyed word, ha!, of the descarte, the isocratic person and become that along with the nomadic wandering self of the people and for the angel dust people. no taxation without representation! whoa where did that come from, i will stick that one back in the front pocket and be on my way sir. embrace the dance of a different tomorrow in that we will find salvation, or destruction. He that has once done you a Kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged. maybe this is based on some granola notion of love and such. but this is with the knowledge that life is in the struggle and the dance of the dead in this butterfly dream within another murky dream, and in these steel metallic rust belt from out of the poverty and the moutains and the coal mines like mother jones giving them something every step of the way. back to the techno earth type people, in the clarity of the touch, in the hills of the ozarks fighting and biting each other trampling and searching for that isolation, and to be away from the dreaded streets of the dense cement fortress of brooklyn, with the golden knowledge, etc. as the people curse at each other from afar, and wonder why there is no bound. and as the words keep trailing on, the same could be said of this the scribbler hack writers game and the spoken word beauticians who are struggling and scrounging to get through, the divide between the academic life of the hack and the word and the one who plies his trade on the street or in the hollows of the valley, from robert lowell to arundhati roy to zadie smith to patti smith to shane allison to donald goines to jorge luis borges to saul williams from a.d. winans and the infamous bob, in order to foster some type of community in which to enrich the lives of the crowd and the poetic beautician, the scribbler has to survive, either through the university or through some other means. we need each other, from the physicist to the passenger pigeon flocking through the blue taught sky, to the janitor and down to the troubadour and the business man on high, we need something else. a reinvention of the philly way, waxing words on some trivial things, but it feels good to have a voice. just a thought.
maybe i'm too naive.
Ray currently resides in the suburban shithole known as Atlanta. It's not that bad, if you get into the city and away from the traffic. Check out his blog at http://mexicoblues.livejournal.com/.