Noise from the high desert....

591. January 31st….Last day of the first month…vs…first day of the last month…

Robert Redus — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:47:07 +0000

: “Night Beast” ©Robert Redus 2012

“ I subscribe to the myth that an artist’s creativity comes from torment. Once that’s fixed, what do you draw on?” – David Byrne

So January is making way for the shortest month of the year…I’ve little opinion of January…either way…but like each and every month…if I pay attention I will see emerge what is significant on my own…personal horizon…I am then left with the choice to either do or not with regard to my observations…

Observations much like advice…have value given they are something that directly changes the situation in a way that the outcome is what I the observer/advicee am seeking…but not always…. The Tao Te Ching 24 says:

“The kind of person who always insists
on his way of seeing things
can never learn anything from anyone.”

Many times an observation may become an entry…the first few seconds of a thought…the method it begins with is not and more often never what it finishes as….

in January….I revisited a great deal :

The less I have…the more I appreciate…what I do have
Admitting the truth and Telling the truth…are two very different methods of arriving at different truths…
Even a really bad plan is better than no plan at all…
The amount of air inside of an apple is what makes it crispy…
Many interests have many distractions…
Divide by 2…in most cases
The harder and smarter I work…the luckier I will become…
Any age is to old to be…fooling yourself
I prefer Romano cheese hands down over Parmesan
It’s easier to slip than slide in most cases…

so there you have a wrap of January…2012…..

“My dad liked how January went with Jones.” - January Jones

590. January 25, 2012….The real problem with…

Robert Redus — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:37:52 +0000

"High Wires" ©Robert Redus,2012

“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” – Oscar Wilde

Charles Osgood said, “There is no exception to the rule, that everyone wants to be an exception to the rule“…he is as right as it gets…each of us comes to the table with these great ideas…at some point or another…and really more often than we realize…these great ideas…if we’d just think about them for a few days before we burp them out like a thanksgiving belch…we’d hide ourselves in shame thinking that…”That” idea had any merit…and was doable…unless of course it’s doable… because we are who we are and we’re doing it….or not…

we either know everything or nothing…we have either done everything or done nothing…we are certain we’re going to do it but do it when the time is right….we either speak a bunch of languages or can’t talk to the drive up window microphone in complete sentences…we often profess when we should confess…our fragile delicate ego does not allow us to be anything but mostly right….and mostly all of the time….we can open businesses because we like what the business is about…and somehow think that the connection to liking the business somehow opens the portal to understanding P&L statements…financial forecasting…taxes and developing a good sound…workable business plan…oh and we have $63.00 in savings…when we still struggle with “Does business have a, ‘z’ in it somewhere?“

we try to fill the soft spots with softer stuff…thinking it will work…

it all boils down to a simple question…to ask yourself

“AM I EXCITED EVERYDAY ABOUT WHAT I DO?”

if the answer was hesitant…or had a question mark at the end of it…was “Most of the time“…or “I have to think about this“…reread chapter 1 of your life…and Hell Yeah

I have always believed that once I had all of the tools…both literally and figuartivly…and I knew clearly…WHAT I WANTED …(not to be confused with what I don’t want…as knowing what I don’t want does not mean I know what I want)…then I could accomplish anything…anywhere…anytime…

Here are the lists I made to get here today:

“THINGS I REALLY WANT AND REALLY WANT TO BE DOING”
Decide what’s real…and unreal…My unreal… was going back to the university for an MFA to be a teacher at a university at 55 years old…I crossed that right off of the list….
The Real Tools, (tangible) I need…ex. laptop, video camera, Westfalia Camper Van…etc….
The Real Tools I have…
The Ether Tools, (smarts and skills) I need…ex. education, business skills , etc….
The Ether Tools I have…
Build the tool box..start the project(s)….and make sure I start the projects long before I have the tools so I can keep adding the “Right” tools

there is something about working hard on an idea or project even if you have only part of the tools…as what we need usually arrives when we need it… “The harder/smarter we work…the luckier we become“

Most of us…who are trying hard to be right or fill in the soft spots with softer stuff…are also probably working in the… “THE WHAT YOU ARE WILLING DO”… position rather than from the ”I CAN DO ANYTHING…ANYWHERE….ANYTIME”… place….

and spending far to much time on making certain every “i” is dotted and “t” crossed…might indicate an enormous suggestion….but bottom line… if it’s not “HELL YEAH“….well…..nothing else really matters….

“I’m not wise, but the beginning of wisdom is there; it’s like relaxing into – and an acceptance of – things.” – Tina Turner

588. January 22, 2012…Visibility… a few miles…maybe a few feet…

Robert Redus — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:07:29 +0000

“Everyone smiles with that invisible gun to their head.” – Chuck Palahniuk

I’ve not been reading that much lately…really not at all to speak of and I think it is because my magic carpet has been temporarily grounded…in for a few minor repairs…and small adjustments…and very soon..I will again be airborne….

the obvious is often not there in the lens…not because it is not…really there…it’s just not visible…you know sort of returning to dot…i’s and cross t’s…as what really is important is the penmanship…the grammatical construction and the punctuation…rather than the true gristle and meat of the sentence…paragraph…words…it becomes filling a void…only because a void is there…and because it’s a void…it clearly needs filling…

I knew a kid that had a scar across his left eyebrow from his brother’s inaccurate golf club swing…or rather….he was standing to close to the recoil…but either way it was a clear path of eybrowless…rippled patch…bisecting his eyebrow…it was brilliant…a real ice breaker and conversation piece…something he would have for a lifetime…I always talked to the white hairless patch of skin…which I’m sure most everybody did…there were a few dots from the stitches themselves…a raised rather larvae looking scar…with small little rib like discolored skin going across that…I’m certain under a magnifying glass it was a completely other world down there…the impact of the wood…fattened his brow a bit so it appeared his eye was considerably smaller than the other eye…many years later it looked like the golf swing event had happened just a few days before…I never could figure out why years later it looked just as bad as the day the stitches were removed…he seemed to have held on to the scar…was all I could think…

I awakened the other morning to these words… “wash your face“…where they came from…what they meant or what I was supposed to do with them was a mystery to me…at first I thought someone was in my room…talking to me…I then thought maybe it was divine intervention…a message from the afterworld…..or perhaps the cat coughing up a hair ball…I’ve washed my face a few times since then…nothing miraculous occurred each time…then I got it….

I lived in a small beach community in Northern California…the entry to my house was a glass sliding door covered by a wooden carport….each morning I would fill a large bowl with water…set it on the porch rail…I’d walk past the entrance to the carport look to my left and there was the Pacific ocean a few hundred yards away….straight in front of me was a long abandoned military installation…just the concrete foundations remained…they were over grown with a myriad of colored flowers…I’d pick a few flowers and return to the carport….where I would set the flowers down…and wash my face in the cold water from the bowl…I’d then float the flowers in the water…sit for a few moments and take every bit of it in….it always worked….

as a child….I always wanted stitches….

“Hold me in your arms, lava lamp! Let me seek magma comfort and peace in the warmth of your kryptonite embrace.” – Isabel Yosito

586. January 18th, 2012…

Robert Redus — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:57:04 +0000

Say…NO to…PIPA…and…SOPA…!!

586. January 14, 2012….The last gulp of a good epiphany…not hard to swallow…..

Robert Redus — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 17:20:17 +0000

“Anyone who doesn’t take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.” – Albert Einstein

the term “Double Speak”….not to be confused with…. “Double Talk”…is everywhere…Double Speak is designed to deliberately disguise…distort…make the truth appear less unpleasant than it really is… it shadows the nature of the truth…minimizes it….and of the many results it creates a level of ambiguity…that makes the pack of lies….the infidelity…the theft…misrepresentation…deception…(Fill in the blank)__________….all seem a very small blip of credibility deficit on the character radar…

Double Speak does have its advantages…well single advantage…it will continually support the person lacking character…and credibility…for as long as they … say what they don’t mean and mean what they don’t say…(example of Double Speak)…

we’ve all done our share of Double Speak….but it’s much like a broken toilet….there is never any conversation or complaint about the toilet…until…it doesn’t work…while it’s working…it is doing exactly what it is designed to do…and everybody is happy…much like the Truth which is the closets antonym to Double Speak I could find…when we’re all working from that position…(Truth)….even if parts of it are unpleasant…there is at least some grip that allows us to know that when we speak the truth enough…we become credible..believable and can be trusted…and don’t live our life as a pussy….

I am most fortunate …that things….that shouldn’t happen…don’t happen….that moment of …. “whew…glad that didn’t happen“….engulfs me…gets my heart racing a bit…like the end of a good…bad dream….lately epiphanies have been like a spectacular summer meteor shower…I’m in the middle of the road…in a comfortable folding chair…a bowel of garlic cheese popcorn and Marble Brewery Citra beer in hand…watching the show….

and at the age I am…I like that a good epiphany is much like the last sip of a fabulous wine…unforgettable….

“Many people wait all their lives for the opportunity to be good in their own way” – Freidrich Nietzsche

585. January 6, 2012…Louisiana Pancake Batfish really do make good pets…

Robert Redus — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 14:32:28 +0000

“I am a deeply religious nonbeliever – this is a somewhat new kind of religion.” – Albert Einstein

2 New Elements have been added to the Periodic Table…their proposed names are…flerovium (atomic symbol Fl) and livermorium (atomic symbol Lv)…are up for debate…the interesting thing about both of these elements is each is created in a lab…not naturally occurring…

so a couple of questions arise here on the high desert at 6:04 am…if it can be made is it an element or an invention? and secondly what does “New” really mean?….

that brings me to the top ten “New” species discovered in 2011…and of the 10…my favorite is the…Louisiana Pancake Batfish only because I like the name much more than the other 9 and “Pancake Batfish has a rather superhero sound to it….nevertheless….what is thought to be new may not necessarily be new…and chances are…it is not…

the highlight of both of my cat’s day is a spoonful of wet food in their bowl each and every morning…outside of that…their excitement level remains pretty flat line…boring and really nothing new happens for the most part…of course with the exception of a noise that may sound new yet is passe in a matter of seconds…becomes old business and falls into the memory category…if that…and they go on about their day in complete oblivion to the new elements…species…technology…blah…blah…blah…

I am still very much amazed at new discoveries…and simple ones at that…latest…folders for my I Phone…my buddy showed me that process and I’m downloading apps just to file them away…

I awakened this morning at 4:19…thinking of everything there is to think about…I must admit at the top of my list was the concept and thinking about “New”…the entire notion that…was…the ”New World”… New… certainly New York was not the Newest version of York…and did New Math spring from the loins of…Old Math…and I get… “New Born”…vs…Old Born given there is an Old Born

New oozes the idea that change has occurred…the old version was somehow lacking while the update has a few more bells and whistles…maybe a different look but it’s still basically the same…perhaps a bit more difficult to look at from the big picture…and maybe the changes that made it easier…more user friendly…more efficient….effective…prettier…smaller…sleeker…more colorful…available…have also made the essence less of the essence…

who knows….maybe subjecting the Louisiana Pancake Batfish to just the right amount of flerovium and livermorium might very well produce a new Louisiana Pancake Batfish species….

“Existence precedes and rules essence.” – Jean Paul Sartre

584. December 30, 2011….Tortillas are not the only place to see Icons…you know…

Robert Redus — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 15:50:43 +0000

“Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies.” – Elie Wiesel

In the next day or so…some people are going to make a series of commitments that range from the benign to the extreme….hoping that by the sheer act of verbalizing their resolution ….the resolution now has a beautiful new set of pearly white wings…rather than the old cutout cardboard…water stained wings hanging in the garage from few years ago…that proved flight was fantasy…or at least extend flight was…yet the new wings…well of course they’re different…right?

Friedrich Nietzsche used resolution with Christianity much like Taoism defines the notion of what ever we are looking for we will find….Nietzsche said… ” The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad…sort of what ever you look for you’ll find…and I guess this takes me to here:

Australian Aborigines believe:

The great Father of All Spirits awakened the Sun Mother and told her to go down to earth and

wake the sleeping spirits, …”Give them forms”…when Sun Mother arrived on earth…every step she took plants began to grow…she walked into the dark caves…her light awakened all the spirits and insects of all kinds flew from the caves…soon the insects were mingling with the plants..Sun Mother was happy…She ventured deeper into the caves…her great light melted all of the ice forming all of the rivers and streams…she then created the fish and small snakes, lizards and frogs. Then awakened the birds and animals…she told all of them to enjoy the wealth of the earth and live peacefully…Sun Mother returned to the sky and became the sun…everything watched Sun Mother disappear into the west…they stood frozen thinking she had left them…until they saw her the next day peek up on the other side of the earth….Sun Mother thought to herself that she must create new creatures…She gave birth to two children. The god was the Morning Star and the goddess was the moon. she sent them to Earth. They became our ancestors.

Iroquois believe:

Before the world was an island floating in the sky where the Sky People lived…no one died or was born or was ever sad…a Sky woman realized she was going to give birth to twins, she told her husband…he was enraged and pulled up a tree from the center of the island…creating an enormous hole…the Sky woman curious peered down the hole and saw the earth below covered with water…her husband pushed her through the hole…surely going to fall into the water filled with water animals…seconds before hitting the water….two birds caught her on their backs and brought her to the other animals…there was only water…and try as they may the birds could not get enough mud to make land from beneath the ocean…then little toad tried…when he returned his mouth was filled with mud and they began covering the back of Big Turtle…the mud grew until it was the size of North America…Sky Woman stepped onto the land, she sprinkled dust into the air and created stars. Then she created the moon and sun….Sky Woman give birth to twins sons Sapling and Flint….Sapling was gentle and kind…Flint was hard and cold…they grew and filled the world with their creations…Sapling created what is good. He made animals that are useful to humans. He made rivers that went two ways and into these he put fish without bones. He made plants that people could eat easily. Flint destroyed much of Sapling’s work and created all that is bad. He made the rivers flow only in one direction. He put bones in fish and thorns on berry bushes. He created winter, but Sapling gave it life so that it could move to give way to Spring….Sapling and Flint decided to fight and Flint was beaten…but since he was a god…he could not die…Flint was forced to live on Big Turtle’s back. A volcano is his anger….

What ever we choose to resolve…we must do it with a great story…something that this time next year…when we’re wearing Beatle Boots…maybe driving a convertible….eating ice cream right out of the container…and saying… “Bitchin” instead of “Great”…oh and eating more with our hands than with utensils…we can look back and say it was ….bitchin…..

Be well…..

583. December 28, 2011….A gift baskets filled with nails….somebody’s gonna like it….

Robert Redus — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 18:25:02 +0000

583. December 28, 2011….A gift baskets filled with nails….somebody’s gonna like it…..

583. December 28, 2011….A gift baskets filled with nails….somebody’s gonna like it….

Robert Redus — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 18:20:30 +0000

"Well Said" ©2011, Robert Redus

“Let’s hope you feel better now.” – Jack Kevorkian

we’ve all dreamed of being in that perfect place…the one we…”Belong” in…I too have dreamed that dream…sort of making knots without ever actually tying them with my hands…intertwining me with the situation…or other people…or scenarios…and the nice thing is…it always looks fantastic…you know the glossy magazine sort of look…full heads of hair…the ocean view just… “Over There”…and it looks like none of us work…or have really any place to be other than right there….but me…just like every movie I’ve ever seen…at the end…I always ask the same old question…. “What happens next?”….

Anybody who has a last name that ends in “IAN” or “YAN” is of Armenian descent….they belong to a group of people who not only share the same name ending but perhaps many other things…just like with extremely little exception…two blue-eyed parents can only produce blue eyed children…and two red-headed parents…can ONLY produce redheads…

people belong for many reasons some based on experience….others on choice while still others by no choice of their own….at all…the truth is the group is a great place to be as long as it is serving both you and the group…once either one loses the serving aspect of the relationship…you can quickly become a Captain Bligh character in your own personal Mutiny on the Bounty…and perhaps set adrift with a bit smaller group…who also share the same liabilities and attributes you too have…

the idea of belonging is a great idea…when it’s true…and how we have decided to define that truth to ourselves…so filling out the application for membership to belong…becomes an endeavor of desire rather than filling a hole with something…and if ….really anything would do…maybe it’s time to check the desire -vs- the need….

the Tao talks often of the void being the value…the nothingness…creates the everything…the large can only exist because of the small…the interior of a coffee cup is no doubt the void the valuable part of the cup…but without the exterior the interior fails to exist…so the valuable is the invaluable as is the invaluable the valuable…

I guess what seems often as the “perfect place”….may well be in opposition of that perfect place…but is as close to that perfect place as possible…

here are some photographs I took yesterday during a mile and a half walk…some of it belongs…while some of it does not….yet all of it does and doesn’t belong….

Thanks Jack…I do feel better now….

582. December 24, 2011…Meaning sometimes gets lost in the…”Meaning”

Robert Redus — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 16:58:42 +0000

“A belief is like a guillotine, just as heavy, just as light.” – David Hockney

I began playing with my camera in one of those “fit” sort of moments…you know the ones…when we have discovered something so earth shattering that it takes precedence over all we know…and yet it usually is a rather simple sort of thing…like maybe a bendable drinking straw…or velcro…or worse…a method…something some completely out of the realm of the tangible that trying to make sense out of it is like wondering why there was never a pony for Christmas…every year for 10 years…and finally getting that…a pony never entered into Mom and Dad’s equation…regardless of planetary alignment…positive thinking or how good you might have been…

Signs are some of the most interesting things that are generally right there in front of us…yet for me…I spoon my cereal with the fatalistic ideas that there is truly a sign on the cereal box…somewhere…a message waiting to reveal itself in some secret decoder way…while my existentialist side negates it all …allows my shoulder shrugging mechanism a greater berth… other than my selfish desire to exist and experience my experience… and allows the question/statement…”What’s the use”….a much freer flow …from my lips…a dilemma no doubt…yet this is where method comes in….

by changing the nature of an existing sign…to another version ..I have opted to create….again based on my selfish desire to exist and experience what I will experience…suffer what ever consequences may arise…and of course by offering a unique personal experience by expanding my freedom of personal choice….thus giving you….the viewer the opportunity to make what you will from the image…be it a sign from whatever…whomever…whyever or maybe it’s just another guy doing what he wants…to express some weird bendable straw wrapped in Velcro sort of thinking….and ….it then….doesn’t matter…as what you have taken…well…what you have taken….sort of the end of that conversation…so to speak…

when it’s all done…hand..fingers…thumbs…all props removed…image returns to original…and we both have hopefully moved on in our separate directions…one that again displays our selfish desire to exist and experience what we will experience….suffer what ever consequences may arise…and of course offer a unique personal experience that has and will continue to expand our freedom of personal choice ….

that being said….here are the photographs…and have a nice experience…

Have a Happy Holiday….