. "He's got a tiny little surf board mounted on wheels...!" Are you getting all of this, PAULIE? .

Rock

James Staples

T Rex knew about dirty-sweet,

But kicking your can all over the street

Is Freddie’s lesson for hanging out,

So shake it up, baby. Twist and shout.

That shit you write up in your bedroom

Didn’t just come from out of a vacuum,

And before you trade your tears for fears

That you have to go back over fifty years,

Consider the ways and whys and hows and

Some of the stuff that goes back thousands,

Like, “Bup de-Bup de-Bup, de-BUP BUP!”

Think Bo Diddley made that shit up?

All your gothic doom and gloom and

Anger’s part of being human.

Murray the K said “Rock ‘n’ Roll” cuz

You can fuck and still have a soul.

Elvis didn’t work that out.

That’s just what he sang about.

Eddie Cochrane didn’t invent it;

Just passed it on from whoever sent it.

The beat goes back to that first Big Bang.

Ev’rything since is “just a thang,”

It’s just a gig.  It’s just the scene.

You know exactly what I mean.

The music biz is just a racket

For any fool in a leather jacket.

Corporate chumps got no juice with ‘em;

Got the bread, but got no rhythm.

Fuck that shit. You want to fly?

You have to make it D.I.Y.

The beat was yours when you were born,

But since that day they’ve had you torn

Between parents, duty, country, church,

And each one left you in the lurch.

They said they’d help you find your way

And everything would be okay

As long as you obey the ley

And don’t question author-i-tay.

Well, enter: My g-g-generation,

Custom Les Paul liberation,

Crazy, fucked-up mosh-pit nation:

Fucking punk rock infestation.

Fuck that other shit!  Rock ‘n’ Roll:

The only thing to save your soul.

3

James Staples

It’s called witches’ midnight: three a.m.

            A lot of people die

            Right about three a.m.

Around the world,

From time-zone to time-zone

            …three a.m.

It’s almost dawn, but not quite.

Are they looking for the light?

            The new light?

            Right after three?

In my time-zone, in my town,

            I got myself born

            Right about three p.m.

Is that witches’ noon?

Are a lot of us born then?

            …three p.m.

Around the world (love or hate)?

Time-zone to time-zone (give or take)?

            …three p.m.

It’s almost dark, but not quite.

Are we born looking for the night?

            The old night?

            Right after three…

…times three…

            …times three….

What the fuck’s it gonna be?

Counting Ravens

James Staples

Shiny black ravens: one, two, three….

How man ravens can you see?

One for sorrow, two for mirth,

Three for a funeral; four for a birth.

Five is for sunshine, six is for rain.

Seven is pleasure, eight is pain.

Nine means sickness, ten bodes well.

Eleven’s Heaven.  Twelve is Hell.

Thirteen’s old age.  Fourteen’s youth.

Fifteen lies to sixteen’s truth.

Seventeen feet to eighteen’s head….

Nineteen – you're living.

Twenty – you're dead.

THREE RULES FOR A HAPPY LIFE

James Staples

(1) ‘RED OCTAGON’ MEANS ‘STOP.’

(2)  YOU ARE NOT FROM THE PLANET KRYPTON.

(3)  DO NOT BE AN ASSHOLE.

Thank you, that is all.

It’s a Spot/Here I Am

James A. Staples

April, 1983-

            Slovenly Bureau-Pigs, masturbating in the darkness like they’re the only ones:  It’s like that stuff you find on the floors of movie theatres, ‘cause it’s nasty, but it’s still a control factor.  These are the same “people” who would confiscate your goods and then keep ‘em.  After all, what difference does it make, if you’re up against a self-perpetuating madness whose entire purpose is to thrive?  The Monster was built with no other reason than to be.  It thrusts its all-powerful, neo-plastic, surreal semi-thoughts about religion-and-politics on the masses of subconsciously anarchistic souls, whose drive is more genuine than genocidal, because we want comfort instead of power …although neither ideal is a very likely end to the system of Neolithic, infra-stone-age events, which play themselves out on the rotty, spotty canvas of a grey creation that’s loosely based on a chaotic interplay of heretofore seemingly unrelated factors.

            Let’s face the ultimate Truth of truths:  The basis of the knackered and worn society is greed (in the form of the aforementioned administrational Bureau-Pigs), playing off the mental starvation of the working-class/learning-class lonely-only children of a grey day in the cold sun.  We wander aimlessly and shamelessly through the garbage, which was the food of our forefathers (a rude bunch, that), and we squint through the quasi-mist (i.e. smog) with a vacant hope of spotting a salvation that’s more genuine than what the TV-and-pamphlet people ram down our throats.  What do we find?  A man …chewing gum …with a stick in his hand …and grey hair; a man who’s preach-teaching the dictates of boredom and confusion.  What we learned instead was a definition of contempt that they and their last ten thousand ancestors never understood. 

[May, 1983 – 17]

June, 1983 –

…So, here I am, looking out through my dirty, semi-boarded-up window, like third-world stained glass, into the slum-Chicago streets.  It is dawn and I have not slept.  Instead, I have sat and sung silently to the neon light, wondering why, in the vastness of Chi-town, there is not one person with the quality of consciousness required to …understand …at least, no one I’m aware of as I stare at the decades of carnage in the labyrinth below.

            You see, reality, for me, is what I perceive.  As drunk as I am, it’s hard to perceive anything, least of all compassion.  So, it’s my fault, then, isn’t it?  Well, fuck it.  Maybe that’s what I wanted.  We all wallow selfishly in our own problems, afraid to get help; afraid that help (rescue?) might ruin some tragic martyr’s delusion.

            Okay …another big swallow and I’m cool again.  So, staring out into the street, I’m trying to figure out why I love this shitty little cold-water flat so much.  …Because it’s mine, that’s why?  And why do I love to get so fucked up that I puke, pass out and feel like hell for two days?  …Because that’s mine, too, and even after they take my money and my life, I’ll still have my personal, wretched ways to my very own. 

This is an add-on to my last blog. Enjoy it. It's some of the purest and best rock music ever performed.

Won’t Get Fooled Again ....

Pete Townsend....

.. ..

We'll be fighting in the streets with our children at our feet,
And the morals that they worshipped will be gone,
And the men who spurred us on sit in judgment of all wrong.
They decide and the shotgun sings the song.

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution, take a bow for the new revolution,
Smile and grin at the change all around us;
Pick up my guitar and play just like yesterday.
Then I'll get on my knees and pray:  We don't get fooled again.

The change it had to come.  We knew it all along.
We were liberated from the fold; that's all.
And the world looks just the same, and history ain't changed,
'Cause the banners, they were flown in the last war.

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution, take a bow for the new revolution,
Smile and grin at the change all around us;
Pick up my guitar and play just like yesterday.
Then I'll get on my knees and pray:  We don't get fooled again.  No, no!

I'll move myself and my family aside (If we happen to be left half alive).
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky, for I know that the hypnotized never lie, do ya?

Yeah!

There's nothing in the streets looks any different to me,
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye,
And the parting on the left is now parting on the right,
And the beards have all grown longer overnight.

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution, take a bow for the new revolution,
Smile and grin at the change all around us;
Pick up my guitar and play just like yesterday.
Then I'll get on my knees and pray:  We don't get fooled again.  No, no!

Yeah!  ....

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Meet the new boss:  Same as the old boss.....

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[Track #9 - Who’s Next, by The Who, 1971, Polydor/Decca/MCA]....

There IS an ‘I’ in ‘Inane.’

James Staples

.. ..

There is no 'I' in 'Team.'  There is also no 'I' in: "Shut the fuck up and leave me the hell alone, you malodorous crap-weasel!  Your cutesy tone really gets on my nerves, duck-face, so, please, just go somewhere far away and then drop dead."  See? Not one single 'I' in two long sentences.  So, what's your point?  Besides, even if there is no ‘I’ in ‘Team,’ there is a ‘u’ in, “Fuck off.”

Now, while it is true that it takes more muscles to frown than it takes to smile, it also takes more muscles to point that out to me than it does to shut the fuck up and leave me the hell alone (...crap-weasel ...duck-face, etc.).   Given that a smile is just a frown turned upside-down, if I knocked you ass-over-elbows, would you still be smiling?  What if there was no one else around to hear you fall?  Would you still be making those annoying noises, about smiling, teamwork and how words are spelled?

.. ..

If I followed the chirpy advice to "treat every day like it was Christmas," I would be in a hell of a fix, and so would everyone else, because all the stores would be closed every day forever, and none of us would make any money ever again and the economy would collapse, and I'd probably be stuck eating at Denny's at least five days out of every week, and everyone's electric bills would be sky-high, and Christian hymns disguised as "Carols" really, really get on my nerves, and Jews, Pagans and Africans would be pissed off that no day was ever treated like it was Chanukah, Yule or Kwanzaa.  And, anyway, none of that holds a candle to the really major fact, which is that everyone would end up hating fruit-cake as much as I already hate it, and we would have to confront our hatred of it every single day.

.. ..

If there’s no point in crying over spilled milk, then there’s really no point in crying at all, since one reason is pretty much like another.  But that’s bullshit, because crying is good for you.  It’s better for you than milk; that’s for sure, especially if it’s pasteurized and homogenized, turning the calcium into aluminum nitrate, which is poisonous.  Crying, on the other hand, inhibits serotonin reuptake (i.e. makes you feel better), stimulates the flow of endorphins (i.e. makes you feel better) and eliminates toxins (i.e. makes you feel better).  There’s a point to crying; just no point in drinking milk.  Go ahead and spill it.  It sucks.  Then cry.  Fuck that stupid advice. 

.. ..

The star on which you are wishing might have burned out a million years ago.  When you threw that penny in the well, you made the water taste like crap, so I hope you wished for some Evian (which is naïve spelled backward, you gullible sucker).  And as for the milkweed fluff ...give me a break!  What else could you wish for except, “Oh, please don’t let my yard get infested with milkweed, now that I’ve blown seeds all over it.”

.. ..

Looking on the Sunny side means you go blind and get skin cancer.  Whistling while you work makes your co-workers fantasize about beating you to death with your own shoe.  Always seeing the good in everyone is a great strategy, as long as you enjoy being conned, robbed and assaulted.  If today is always the first day of the rest of your life, then there's never a second day of the rest of your life, which proves that life is short and you are doomed.  Hanging a dream-catcher from your rear-view mirror invites falling asleep at the wheel.  The blue-bird of happiness is surely just as filthy, disease-ridden and insane as every other bird.  If you bless me when I sneeze, why do you leave me twisting in the wind when I cough?  When you thank me for not smoking, you should also thank me for not farting, urinating or spitting on the floor.  And, for the last time, yes, goddamn it, it’s hot enough for me.

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...You’re going to tell me to have a nice day, now, aren’t you?

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Thor’s Hammer: A Racist Symbol?....

James Staples....

.. ..

A friend of mine, Professor Khaos Sixxx, sent me a question:  “I saw a special on gangs the other day and it said that Thor's hammers were a racist symbol. How did this happen? Can you shed some light on it?”  Here is my answer: ....

I'll try.  Mjollnir, the Thor’s hammer, has become a racist symbol in the same way as the swastika, and for pretty much the same reason.  Modern white supremism indelibly bears the stamp of Hitler and the Third Reich.  In this century, the terms "white supremist" and "Nazi" are held synonymous in popular culture (although there are plenty of white racist groups that are at odds with the Nazis, including, famously, the KKK).

Hitler used Asatru very heavily to prop up his particular line of horse shit.  He twisted the old writings so badly that even now, 70-plus years later, popular culture assumes out-of-hand that Norse heathens are all fascist bigots.  The trouble is: a whole heaping lot of Truar really ARE fascist bigots, and they do a lot to validate the media's association of Tru icons with white supremism and race separatism.  

It's pretty much the same as the association of the pentagram with Satanism:  I'd love to be able to say, "The pentagram is not a satanic symbol," but there are thousands of self-described Satanists who would say, "It is so!"  In the same way, I can say Mjollnir is not APPROPRIATELY a racist symbol, and as a Thorsgodi, I even have the balls to say, "Thor does not recognize or approve that use of his icon."  But sadly, wherever you find a brain, you also find an asshole, and you never know which one will speak louder.  So, while I certainly employ swastikas, Mjollnirs, pentagrams and all manner of other esoteric symbols in my magic, I tend to avoid using them in ways that put me in a position to have to explain and justify.  I might put a swastika on a candle for a prosperity spell, but I sure ain't wearin' one around my arm!  And, for what it’s worth, I have worn a small gold Mjollnir around my neck for fifteen years and I have never once had anyone confront me, thinking I was a racist, which I certainly am not.....

That's the anti-climactic fact of the matter:  Mjollnir is perceived as a racist symbol because a whole lot of racist douche-nozzles wear Mjollnirs while they're out sublimating their latent homosexuality and superstitious insecurities on the rest of us.....

I suspect it feels the same way for reasonable, intelligent Christians to be confronted by those bible-thumping, evangelical hell-mongers.  Every time one of those guys says, "Jesus" so it has four syllables ("jay-EE-zusss-ah!"), it must make the mild-mannered Episcopalians in the area cringe and ball their fists up.  That's how I feel every time some jag-off with a beard-you-could-smuggle-a-badger-in and an ancient tunic with machine-stitching and Velcro fasteners starts wanging on about race purity and the spiritual imperative to stomp on gays.  Those fuh-REAKS always have at least three Mjollnirs around their neck like Bronze-Age bling-bling.  ...ridiculous fuck-nuts.  How embarrassing!....

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They can't spoil it for me, though: ODHIN IS NOT A NAZI AND THOR LOVES EVERYBODY!!!....

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-THINK TRUTH.-....