Better in Theory - Chinese Democracy

I am sitting here listening to an album that I thought only existed in my dreams and stoned, nostalgic conversations revolving around the hard rock 80's:

The elusive, mythical - Chinese Democracy by the even more elusive Guns and Roses.

Oh Axl - why???

Some thousand years in the making, 13 million dollars in production costs, THIRTEEN studios - by all rights this thing must be the goddamned apocalypse of G'n'R albums.

Bloated, excessive - over produced - this is work of a man who is second guessing his every note. This a band who was kicked off the charts by the lean, hard, gritty resurgence of punk and Nirvana. Once again (as in the late 70's) punk reared it's tattooed, pierced head and kicked the shit out of over wrought corporate rock.
Maybe Axl (the only remaining original member) felt that if he sat on this baby it's time would come again. That if he incubated this turd it would hatch into a resplendent swan. So he sat in hiding, put the finishing touches (for 15 years) on an album that he probably hoped would put him in the rarefied strata with Brian Wilson and his legendary album Smile - alas - this is to be Axl's white whale.
There are moments of brilliance and you cannot deny Axl is man conflicted who wears his heart on his sleeve for better or worse; often to great dramatic effect. It's almost a welcome sound - his snarl, that slithering signature vocal but this record is full of EVERYTHING - piano, movie dubs, a speech of MLK - it goes everywhere and nowhere. it's angry but so filled with sappy sentimentality that it drowns out the former.
All in all - we would have been better off if this baby remained at the bottom of the Loch Ness or what ever mythic place such a legend resides. It was much better in theory.

So Dani won't even tolerate my presence - this is frustrating...I feel like the pups whose world has been completely turned upside down...trying to share a full size bed with Christy, my fat ass, two 40 lb puppies and 1 darling 2 yr old. It just doesn't work. Dani wakes up screaming at about 2 - 3:30 AM almost every day - guess who get's kicked out?

So the couch is pretty comfy tho...

On politics:

I don't think Palin's clothing allowance is a battle we need to fight. Who the fuck really cares?

So in the space of 4 days - I have become a daddy.

We (Christy and I) have become the court appointed guardians of Danica - technically Christy's niece but we love her.

She isn't too fond of me right now and I am assuming my charm will rub off on her eventually - in the meantime - I get to break the pups when they start tearing the place up at 10:30....PM.

So not really a Daddy...yet.

Oh man

So in a moment of confessionality I decided to mention my unfortunate arrest over on the boards at Filmspotting. Like fart in church it smelled up the election thread but yet was never commented on...good people don't mention other people's (or apparently their own) rap sheets.

I was talking about the idea that Ayer's past can be used against Obama as negative when obviously the guy has moved on and left that past behind him.

Where is the forgiveness in the world?
Are we to be followed forever by our fuck ups even when are truly sorry for them?

Now I don't think the nice people over at Filmspotting are deliberately avoiding my questions but rather I let my own self importance color an answer to a question that had nothing to do my own colorful past. I was just full of myself.

Happens a lot.

Sick Puppies

And so I have been absent from here for nearly a month - Christy and I recently added 2 new members of the family: Jules and Vincent - 2 lab/pit puppies (brothers) we adopted from the Mesa Animal Shelter.

It's been one of the most trying but rewarding experiences of my life. They were sick when we got them with Upper Respiratory Infections and it went downhill from there. Vincent quit eating or drinking at one point and we were injecting fluids subcutaneously and force feeding him until he lurched back from the near dead. Now they are both infested with Coccidia and Giardia (intestinal parasites)and are on a new barrage of drugs.

That being said - they are wonderful, wickedly fun and full of life and on their way to health. Love has been the one constant drug we have given them and it seems to be working...they had me up at 5:30 for a trip outside and then breakfast followed by 2 hours of barking and fighting and now they lay in a happy exhausted heap snoring obliviously and farting contentedly. Life is good for them.

Leaving Angry

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed today - don't know why, don't know how but Marty was just not in a good mood at all.
Thursdays are sale day at the auction which means $$$ for them and headaches for me. I spend the morning getting nickle and dimed with tiny little, annoying requests to get this unit (car) cleaned over here, wipe this one off, take a sticker off here, dress these tires - you see the pattern?
Any way - it's 110 acres of hot Arizona blacktop and the temperature is rising and not just outside. So I find my zen-like center, swallow hard and put out the many fires that seem to keep flaming up. I don't actually do all of these inane little tasks but rather I have a crew of guys who I keep sending out to various locations (like little orange-clad cleaning taxis) around the lot. I hate having them out there and I hate having to be responsible for someone else's mess but also they all seem to come in the same stretch of time every week - about 30 minutes before the sale. We are here about 3 and half hours before the sale but no one is too concerned with how things look until the last minute...
I know it's my job and tomorrow I'll be fine - but today I was rage-boy all morning so I concocted this story about how sick I was feeling and conned my boss out of the rest of the day- met Christy and she bought us some tasty Chipotle (we call it Chipoodle) - I suggest taking advantage of their online ordering at lunch - I walked in and walked out while the line was wrapped (literally) around the store...I would have HATED me.
Feeling fat smug and full - I made my way home where I took a splendid fiesta and now am typing away for you fine people.

Life is good.

Monkey mind on the cushion

So I joined this meditation group: Phoenix Shambhala Meditation Center and I went for the first time on Sunday. I have been looking for a spiritual path for some time now. I read a lot of things Buddhist and I have been putting this off for a while but all the books in the world won't substitute for actual practice on the cushion.

It was 30 minutes of sitting meditation, like 15 minutes of walking meditation and then another 15 of Tonglen and or sitting meditation...

The point of this is to strengthen my mind, to quiet it and focus on my thoughts as they arise - so the goal is to not think but I found myself only too often thinking about not thinking and then thinking about that and so on and so on and...you get the picture...

As meditation goes, it was total disaster and pretty much what I was told to expect: Monkey Mind. As I fought with uncooperative, painful joints and what seemed to be ADD smothered in hyperactivity I noticed the Zen-like beautific calm of my fellow meditators and I hated them for it. I want that, I want to notice that one stray thought that arises from my trance-like state (which I imagine to be in the form of a devastatingly simple but meaningful haiku) and experience Nirvana. I want to see universes in a flower, experience dimensions of existence not induced by animal anesthetics - I WANT SPIRITUAL PURITY DAMMIT!

I can't wait to go again, it was great.

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On a more realistic note - I just got a phone call from work - the air compressors are failing and we are losing pressure. I just know I am going to have to go back...