posted October 04, 1999 07:24 PM            

I became Visible.

I used to care about Reality. I used to think I had it all understoodÖ so what happened? What caused me to stop caring? Why did I give up? It was probably the result of a number of factors, all of them horribly mundane. It was the mundane that finally dragged me back down. Despite the efforts of my (very recently ex-) girlfriend, I allowed my cultural conditioning to take over. Five years of fighting my conditioning, and being fairly damned successful at it (I thought), and in the space of six months everything changed back and I was once again the spotty little 18 year-old, too scared of the world to attempt to live in it.

And now it has cost me the only thing I ever truly cared about. More than that, it has cost me my Self.

I need to feel like I once did, when I thought I had understood something fundamental about the universe. I need to stop playing by the rules of our culture, and go back to defining My Reality on My Terms. I had forgotten that that was what I had truly believed ñ that we are all God, and we are in control of our ultimate destiny ñ there is no skeleton-faced hooded guy with a pair of dice playing Games With Fate. I believe that in some form or another, I control everything that happens to me, everything that affects me. Everything.

Chaos theory, baby.

ìAs above, so below.î

ìItís like when Jacqui walked out. Like when my cats died.î INVISIBLES continues to serve as my personal Bible (I say without a trace of sarcasm and/or irony). I agree that there is a chance that I could be projecting my life onto the comic, in the same sense as a Rorschach blot, seeing what I want to see. But I canít accept that ñ thereís only so much weirdshit coincidence you can have in your life before you step back and ask yourself ëwhat the hell is going on?í

To my Personal Jacqui, thank you. Your departure was the shock I needed to jar me out of this culturally-imposed Routine that I embraced all too willingly. Now that I realize what had happened to me, I can get back to being who I once was ñ someone that is trying to understand the nature of Reality, and how best to deal with it, to make it work for me.

I will be Invisible again.

posted October 05, 1999 09:34 AM            

It's a funny one really. If someone said to me that I would find my head full of postmodern, counter-cultural stuff from reading The Invisibles, and that it would have such an impact on my life, well frankly I would have laughed at them.

But somehow it is true. None of the characters have had as much that I could react to as viscerally ("cool!") as Crazy Jane, Rebis or Buddy, and yet I find the combinations of ideas so fascinating. Oh I don't know.

posted October 18, 1999 07:01 PM            

Vortex Nine, your fears echo mine. I don't want to be a slave of society, but some whoring has to be done in order to survive. There's no avoiding it -- and there's no reason to. The true meaning of subversion is to affect change without anyone realizing that you're doing it... the guy in a three-piece suit with a briefcase in one hand and a lit Molotov in the other. I guess I can say that I don't sell my time, but I'm perfectly willing to rent it. :-)

Courage is the key. I have gone through a monumental change in outlook in the past two weeks, and others have noticed. I'm starting to wonder if my "Personal Jacqui" wants to reconcile now that I'm again the same guy she originally fell in love with. But is that all I wanted to gain? If she and I get back together, does this mean I fall back into the drone pattern?

Not a chance.

I'm Invisible again, and I'm not leaving... I finally feel like I'm in control of my own personal Universe, and I like that feeling. I'm not giving it up. Not again.

posted October 20, 1999 03:57 AM            

I thought, and this is for you and iao adonai, that burning the locks that avoid us from fully breathing the life inside our body (and soul) was a somehow a fast and exploding process. Either was it via Reichian therapy or Chaos Magick or by being an average better person and a more courageous one.

But that takes time, the time we want it to take, the time our guilt, shame and fear make longer in order to postpone (delay) the full disclosure of a 'refreshed' self. You know, It is like what Grant said about the Fantagraphics grimmy artists, sometimes I just want to say to myself (and I do): 'get up, stop moaning and do what you want with your life; live with it, pal'

In fact one friend or another have already told me that =). But, you know, as things are when 'we can't find the time' (or don't want to?), isn't it?

Sometimes I just want to jump from a tall building to see if I have the balls to do it. Of course I'm kidding....

posted October 20, 1999 08:23 PM            

i was browsing elsewhere on the bomb and ran into the section on (dare I bring up the title?) the matrix.

posted October 21, 1999 04:36 AM            

Man, this Smiths song was great when we needed it. Imagine reading 'Saint Swithin's Day" while listening to it. A suicide for sure...

posted October 22, 1999 02:49 AM            

You know, I've been obsessing on that song for about six weeks now, ever since my live-in galpal (as the folks at work referred to her) moved to Texas for her corporate job and left my sorry ass to move to metropolitan Lake Worth, Florida.

posted October 24, 1999 12:25 PM            

It's the same old thing, I've said it from the start, living together is something you do, and married is something you are.

And;

I will be your namesake, I will be your headache, I will be your wits end, I will be your girlfriend.

posted October 25, 1999 03:41 AM            

I got curious, and... chalk one convert up to CDNow's audio samples.

posted October 25, 1999 02:32 PM            

Vortex Nine: (did I mention 'cool name?') I can't take credit for the three-piece suit image -- somebody over at The Tower put it in my head. Definitely an image that stays with me, though.

I don't know if I can convince My Jacqui that the "true me" has returned -- and I wouldn't blame her for doubting. As for her being Invisible -- well, she still hasn't returned my copy of SAY YOU WANT A REVOLUTION, so who knows?

posted October 25, 1999 08:25 PM            

I recently realized I'd never make much of an anarchist because the system has never made me suffer as much as girls have.

posted October 26, 1999 01:52 AM            

On the topic of the Smiths . . . I prettymuch tossed all of those LP's when I started Raving . . . oddly (or maybe not) enough that music just doesn't speak too me anymore. aside from a bit of nostalga I find it too self indulgant.

Which brings me to the topic of service. As a result of much of my Shamanic endevors (& I would like to pose the ?? of if there's a difference between Shamanish & Kaos Magik) service to the comunity has become paramount.

Now I don't really stop to help old ladies cross the street or anything, but that all hings on the difinition of "comunity" there is certainly a tight circle of people out here in the Bay area that I consider "of my tribe" I guess in part as a result of us all predominantly being transplants from other parts . . . still they borrow plenty of copies of Invisibles, & we have thrown some PHAT party/gatherings/pot-lucks in our time.

posted October 26, 1999 09:46 PM            

Out in Cali, most people who refer to "raves" match what you where discribing LookNik,

in Present tence we would talk about a party, or thing . . .some of them are HUGe, expencive and in very far out of the way places.

CANDYRAVE is the term we've come up with to best discribe the 15 year olds on twice as many Es or speed or whatever.

Amongst my "old-school" compariots the term Rave is used in a definate nostalgic sence.

There still is ,I believe, a differeence between going ravin', Clubing, and Dancing. The latter being truest to what the original "Rave" was striving for: ie

1--"we going dancing tonight?"

2--"sure I heard about this rave going on."

3--" Naa, that shit's a CandyRave man, don't wan'na be hanging with some 15 year olds!"

2--"I hear that."

1--" well SoNSo's throwing a party tonigh, heard it was out in the boonies though."

3--"my car ain't makin' it"

2--"well I gotta work tomorrow, so why don't we go clubbing instead?"

1--"you driving? 'Cause if we hit come Clubs i'm gonna drink"

2--"I'll drive your car"

3--"Cool, but I wan'na hit that afterhours then should be phat!"

1--"Cool, les' go"

2--"hold on, I'm not finished rolling this blunt"

posted October 26, 1999 09:50 PM            

My computer was freakin' out . . .

posted October 28, 1999 07:44 PM            

Oh, how I miss the Bluenote.

posted October 29, 1999 06:09 AM            

My girlfriend dumped me, I stopped losing weight. There wasn't gonna be another invis issue out for a month and a half. I sprained my ankle, I was smoking way too much (yes, it is possible) pot, and taking a lot of motrin, which can cause low levels of sub-clinical depression. I was actng like a dork, not shaving, walking weirdly and saying all sorts of stupid, paranoid things to people who barely knew I was probably kidding.

But I never stopped being invisible. You never stopped being invisible. You never became invisible either. That's the kicker right there. The kingdom in your mind, it's always been there. You made it, remember?

I feel a lot better now, and have heard, over the last few months, similar stories of depression, angst, and crappy weirdshit happenstance bullshit mucking up the gearworks of everyday life. I can only say that Jupiter is less visible, and I don't believe in any of that crap, but I'm feeling at least 17 times better than I was two monthes ago, or however long it's been.