The Island Journal

I usually have something to say, be it opinion or factual information correcting a misconception. I usually feel the need to share this information with those who don’t have it, need it, want it, and so on. If the person with whom I am sharing wishes to remain blind to the facts, that’s fine too… I say whatever it is I came to say regardless never really getting my point across. This is a failing on the part of communication in general. As an idea, something can be expressed in a myriad of ways but language is lacking as I am reminded constantly. I am, however,  a few things in order… If nothing else I am a son, a friend, an artist, a poet, and psychotherapist (unlicensed of course), a political analyst and about fifty other things… listing those gave me another idea for a blog post, but I’ll get to that later. Oh, yeah… and tangential, but that’s a character trait and not subject to doing without.

The point I’m trying to make is that I have come to know… no, that’s not it. I have always known but never realized that words are a medium in which one can loose the original thought that spawned them. The driving goal of the words is it illustrate the thought, but rarely does anyone see what is actually being illustrated. You could say, “I know somone who is a horrible person.” and I guarantee, at least three if not all of your friends would think you’re talking about them. People see what they want.

This leads me to the reason for this post. I have been trying to work up the inspiration to paint using a new medium (well, new-ish to me anyway) called Gouche (pronounced Gwash) which is a kind of watercolor. I have not been inspired in the least. I was looking around at some sites for ideas as to what I should paint and the works of a couple of these artists spawned a poem… not the inspiration I was looking for, but my muse is a whore and she’ll take it where she can get it. What was birthed from the need to create something, anything, is what follows:

The Road Home

The world does not cover me as well
as it once did
when I was a child looking outwards
never with internal vision.

The myopic nature of media madness
and typhoid flip-flopping
brings about the bastard generation of
ADHD and you tube attention spans.

The world does not blind me as well
as it once did
when I was a kid with dreams and
sleep was my only desire.

What are we creating when our
teens and twenty somethings can’t sign
their names in cursive letters and
our cultural goals include
still laughing at one another.

The world does not shine on me as well
as it once did.
When I was deep in the miasma
of my adolescence, reading eastern
philosophy and Kerouac.

I dreamed of the road.
I traveled it.
I am home.

Tags: art, poem, writing
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I hear quite a lot that travel, specifically the travel I do from coast to coast, is interesting and exotic. While I do get to do things others admire and go to places I have not been, the actual travel part of the gig is just a way to get from point A to point B. When I first started out, I complained under my breath each time the security checkpoint stopped me because of all of the gadgetry in my bag. I then progressed to a point where I was no longer annoyed and just moved through like one of the cattle. That’s what we become… cattle. We accept our lot and move through with no complaint.

Once the cattle phase was firmly in play, I started to take the energy that I had used to complain to myself about all manner of things and put it towards observation. It takes a fare amount of energy to notice little things about your environment and the other cattle around you. Looking and seeing are not the same as observing. Observing is a science… it can be a penetrative act or it can be a subtle and reverent affair. One of the things I noticed were all the laptop users of which, at first, I was not one. I did not see the point of whipping out a large and unwieldy hunk of tech just to check my email… that’s not what they were doing. These people… were blogging.

I am an intermittent blogger. When I blog, it’s usually from a dark room somewhere strange and away from the prying eyes of the world. It’s safer to unleash my usually frantic ravings from the privacy of somewhere a little dank and cave-like. It’s almost as though I am expecting someone to stop by and sell me some exotic drug or to purchase pirated software (I don’t do drugs and I don’t sell pirated software, just painting a picture). These people publicly pouring out their deepest thoughts, thoughts that could not wait to be shared, thoughts the world has to be made aware of, became something brave in my mind… something to aspire to. Then I read one of these blogs, the last bastions of free expressions. It was nothing I expected.

I was sitting at a counter by my gate and noticed over the shoulder of the woman in front of me the title of her blog… the name escapes me at present. I immediately produced my hunk of technology and connected. I eagerly anticipated reading of her trials, her overcoming adversity, her deeply personal and probably anonymous statements of truth that would touch my soul and induce tears to fall. It was a cookie recipe. Much like the hidden track on that Tool album that sounds like something from a Nazi youth rally, it was a simple cookie recipe that she wanted to share with her readership. Could that not have waited? Why was this worthy of the spektical that hyper observant people were being subjected to?

I wanted more. I began to wander around the terminal (I had a long layover) and I found more bloggers and more disappointment. “See the pictures of the car I bought?” and “I’m so sick of having to sit by fat people on planes…” and “I thought I might die if she bought the same scarf I was looking at.”. Drivel! Heresy! How very dare they? How dare I? I was the one spying and skulking around looking for… well, I don’t know what I was looking for. I felt guilty for judging people who were just doing nothing more than sharing… much as I did from my dark corners and mysterious hotel rooms. These people with their new cars, scarf purchases, and hatred for fatties (like myself I might add… not a small fella here) were simply taking it to the streets. Their drivel is revolutionary, I began to realize.

I decided, this time, to write in the open. This was written from an airport terminal in Saint Louis Missouri. I am now the douche who blogs from the airport. How do I feel about that? Do I feel like a revolutionary? Do I feel like I sharing something more important than usual? Do I feel my expression is vindicated? No. I’m just another terminal blogger. How dare I?

I’m going back to the cave.

Tags: airport, blog, travel
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I find it amusing that people get reiki symbol or kanji tattoos without understanding the meaning behind them. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against the culture. On the contrary, I tend to lean more towards an eastern philosophy in my own life and I have no genetic ties to the far east. I do not, however, adorn my body with the symbolism of these cultures because I am a white, middle class American. I have yet to meet a Japanese or Chinese person with the word “Water” tattooed anywhere on their body in times new roman or book hand.

I like tattoos for the artistic or meaningful inspiration they provide the wearer. I don’t have any ink myself, though some day in the future, maybe I will. I just believe people should carefully consider whether they are getting permanently marked for a good reason. My friend Andy has a tat on his left arm, a Celtic knot work band. To my knowledge, he’s not a Celt and as far as I know, he’s not entirely happy with it. It’s not meaningful to him in a symbolic way… it’s just his first tattoo. Recently, on his shoulder he’s had a paw print done that I designed for him. He was specific in his wishes about the content and structure of this tat. The paw print symbolizes his connection with the spirit of the wolf. Now, by the same token with the Celtic arm band, he’s no more a wolf than he is a Celt, but people in all cultures, including modern western civilization, animals factor into how people view themselves. I think that justifies his desire to have the paw print. It’s his mark.

I know others who have symbols of their own design or mythical creatures that encompass who they are or how they view themselves, or how they relate to others and these are the most important and informative marks they have on their bodies. Many are beautiful and delicate, others are forceful and proud but they are all personally meaningful and culturally, unbiased. Far be it from me to down someone for trying to express themselves. I am all about self expression in a multitude of forms. My primary point here is, try to express yourself within the bounds of your own culture.

What does that mean to a modern, melting pot society like the U.S.? Well, I know that I’m Scottish, French, German, Italian, and so on. I know what distinct relationships I have with the places of my ancestors births. I feel a distinct connection with those origins and so I could see having some Celtic knot work, a flur de lis (not in a million years), an iron cross (the Nazis ruined everything), or pretty much any Greco-Roman or Germanic symbol (ie Thor’s hammer, a Fenrir symbol). I could see heraldic blazon or a crest of some sort. I can not, however, justify in any way, shape, or form a kanji symbol on myself because I am not related to the far east, no matter how much I admire the culture.

All I ask is that if you get a kanji or reiki symbol on your body, have it placed correctly. Who’s to say what correct is? Well, the culture from whom you’ve taken the symbol. There are specific placements for reiki symbols on the body, most of which are in “hidden” areas. Kanji for specific forces, earth, air, water, metal, and so on placed on different parts of the body mean different things… it goes far beyond the simple “I’ll put a cool looking symbol on my coccyx to draw attention to my butt.” Which brings me to another point… A tramp stamp is placed on or no more than an inch above the coccyx. Higher than that and it’s just a lower back tattoo. I don’t make the rules.

In conclusion, get inked… by all means don’t let me stop you from displaying something meaningful to you on your body for all time. Please, consider the meaning before you usurp another’s culture for your the purposes of your own expression. Respect the culture from which you take “your” special symbol.

Tags: culture, tattoo
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I always seem to turn to a particular book for comfort in times of disappointment, awakening, or triumph. I find that there is wisdom and solace to be had in the pages of the Hagakure, a book I read when I was 14. I have owned several dozen copies of this book over the years both in hardback and paperback and I never seem to be able to hang on to them. The text is simple and describes the substance of the way of the Samurai in an era before they were outlawed.

I am picking up another copy tonight from Borders here in Saint Louis and I thought I would share some of the quotes I’ve found most enlightening over the years. I hope you glean as much from them as I have.

In the words of the ancients,
one should make his decision within the space of seven breaths.
It is a matter of being determined and having the spirit
to break through to the other side.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Our bodies are given life from the midst of nothingness.
Existing where there is nothing is the meaning of the phrase,
“form is emptiness.”
That all things are provided for by nothingness is the meaning of the
phrase,
“Emptiness is form.”
One should not think that these are two separate things.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Among the maxims on Lord Naoshige’s wall, there was this one:
“Matters of great concern should be treated lightly.”
Master Ittei commented,
“Matters of small concern should be treated seriously.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the Kamigata area, they have a sort of tiered lunchbox
they use for a single day when flower viewing.
Upon returning, they throw them away, trampling them underfoot.
The end is important in all things.

Tags: book, bushido, philosophy, samurai
Posted in Informative, rant | 1 Comment »

I have been having odd dreams since I’ve been back on the road. Honestly, I don’t usually remember my dreams, but recently I have had quite a few, two of which were decidedly disturbing. One included a former love trying to get me to hang a painting for her. She was always a much better artist than I (portraiture is her specialty) and though she wounded me deeply, she’s one of the few women who’ve done so that I don’t really hold a horrible grudge against. During the course of the dream, she and I were decorating her apartment and she was directing me as I perched on a step ladder that seemed a mile high trying to hang a delicate painting above a couch. I don’t know why this was so disconcerting aside from the fact that it was her (though I hold no animosity towards her) and I was up so high. I remember very clearly that once I was on the floor safely I felt I still loved her and she burst into tears professing her undying devotion. I woke up with a start and sat on the edge of the bed feeling drained and tired. Weird right?

The second dream was last night and featured an enemy I had not thought about in years prior to a few months ago when he ran into a friend of mine. I remember a dread from the dream that forced me into a mental corner. He was trying to apologize for past wrongs, though any time in the he’d ever tried to make reparations was a ploy to twist the knife so I figured he was trying to do the same thing in the dream. Once I felt he was sufficiently frightened off, I sat in the floor of my dream living room and thought about where I’d have to move to in order to avoid further contact with this person. He’s obsessive and a little unstable and I would be worried about my pets and the security of my home so obviously I’d have to move on after over a decade in the same home. There was another knock on the door and it was him again, “returning” a Rainbow vacuum cleaner I’d apparently loaned him back when we were in college which in real life, I’ve only known one Rainbow vacuum belonging to my mother and I would not loan it to anyone… especially this person. That’s when I woke up.

I know the mundane nature of the events of these dreams are not really what one would call “bizarre” but I found them deeply disturbing. My ex is now happily married and she has a child. She’s happy, though I have very little contact with her and only get facebook updates. My enemy, as far as I know, is still the same mooching miscreant looser he once was and is safely not in my life. The detail of these dreams and the feelings I had upon waking are what effected me most of all. She made me feel horribly alone and unwanted despite her comments, though I’m not alone and I have a great life with a close handful of people who love and care a great deal about me. He made me feel like a caged animal ready to kill which is not something I’d felt for quite some time and hoped not to feel again.

A friend told me the other day something about one of her ex-boyfriends and the finality of her comment struck me as uncharacteristic of her. She said “Exes are exes for a reason.” A truism if I’d ever heard one indeed. Ex-friends and ex-romantic relations are indeed out of your life for a reason, sometimes for the simple reason that you feel a certain way when around them and sometimes because you don’t feel secure with who you are at the time. My enemy brought out the worst possible aspects of who I was back when we were friends. My ex brought out both love and joy as well as fear and self loathing at the time and now she brings nothing substantial to the surface. What role would these people play in my life now? What does their presence in my dreams represent?

Time to bust out the dream dictionary.

Tags: dreams, odd, relationships
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That was a chore! Setting this blog up was no easy, though it was neither the fault of WordPress nor DirectNic, my host. It was a faulty unzip and my own unfamiliarity with the process that caused the hiccups. Now we’re good, at least as good as we were before. I hope to move all of the posts from my blogger blog so keep an eye out…. that is unless they’re already here and dated properly, in which case… enjoy the ramble.

CJ the BP

update – Yup, there all here now.

Tags: news, website update
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I think life would be simpler if I believed all the hocum around the horoscope. I am a cancer… the crab. Sure, that sounds like a bad thing, but supposedly I’m an artistic, family oriented, sensitive person who’d rather stay at home than explore the world around me. Hmmm, maybe I should take this a little more seriously. I do often travel and explore, but that’s because I can’t be home, I’m away on business. I have been known to doodle from time to time…. and paint…. and write…. O.k., I’m creative damnit! I also have an attachment to my parents as any “good child” should. We haven’t always gotten along (we’ve down right butted heads from time to time), but I still feel that parent / child obligation and I love them both. I don’t care to have a “family” of my own necessarily, but at some point a wife might be nice. Alright, we’re batting 3 for four, but sensitive I ain’t. Well, not anymore… but that means I was. Darn you astrology!

As a lark, I decided to look up my sign and a woman on a dating site just for curiosity’s sake. The compatibility chart (Yes, there is one…. crazy right?) says that we would not get along because of the differences in personality. Looking at the personality traits she is supposed to have and looking at mine, it would seem that not only would we not get along… we’d kill one another. So looking at this logically, if the horoscope is right as far as I’m concerned, then it follows that it should be right where she’s concerned. If that’s the case, then we should never date. If we don’t date we don’t fall in love and we don’t produce little hellion offspring there by never starting world war three and not ruling the earth. Alright, went off on a tangent, it happens to Cancers, but still… my point is valid. Who says that two people can’t overcome the stars at the time of their birth. I know plenty of people who don’t fall under the template of their sign.

More importantly, it’s all wrong anyway. Due to stellar drift, the sign you’re born under is, well, just plane wrong. Modern astrologers get their layout from the ancient Persians and Mesopotamians… I mean ancient! We’re talking 2000 to 1500 BC. Add to this that is was developed over a naked eye perspective of the night sky, the system does not allow for modern discovery. Your sign today thanks to stellar drift, is off by nearly a month. In another 10,000 years, Polaris won’t be the north star according to some calculations. On top of all of this, the distances, movement, and scale of the stars involved as well as the force (if any) that they exert on the planet or it’s inhabitants is negligible. What does this mean? Well, it means signs don’t really mean a thing…. or do they?

I am a cancer. I was born nearly a month late so I should have been a Gemini. Since the stars are out of sync with the horoscope, I am actually a Taurus. I do exhibit personality traits of all of these plus more dominant traits ascribed to three others. Observation is always colored by the observer so you can read into the individual’s behavior, anything you want and attribute it to (or blame it on) the stars in the sky. Heck, I worship a deity that no one has seen in person (well, not all of him anyway) for at least five thousand years. Granted, he sent his kid to check up on us two thousand years ago, but still…

Seriously, if you look at the facts and history of any religion or system of beliefs, there isn’t one that can’t be debunked or at least criticized for some inaccuracy. There are about 101 contradictions in the Christian bible, regardless of translation or interpretation. I still believe it… it’s a text book, a guide, not a claim of concrete supreme knowledge. I, however, am an observer… bare that in mind.

Addendum -

I read something interesting at a native American gift shop site (Animal Totem) that struck me as funny and a little suspicious.

June 21 – July 21 (which would be Cancer)
Salmon, Woodpecker, Flicker

Salmon strive to return home after a long journey. Salmon people are home-loving, giving and sensitive. They are also very imaginative and sometimes moody. Their goal in life is to live in harmony with the environment.

Tags: astrology, bunk, false, stars
Posted in Informative, rant | 1 Comment »

My vocabulary used to get me into no end of trouble. I would rattle and ramble some conglomeration of words to the mass of idiots surrounding me and because they were confused, frightened, or thinking the word “conglomeration” was an insult or a magical conjuring, I would find myself in a bit of a pickle. In college, my large vocabulary, while not antagonistic, was still something of a hurdle. I knew the words to use but fumbled with them and dropped them to the dirt in favor of simpler ones. Though I now believe I was on a higher intellectual rise than those around me were, I still fell short of the mark when speaking… at least for the first few semesters. Once I hit my stride, I was able to select easily the words from my storehouse and speak them with confidence and some modicum of pride.

In the last decade or so, I have found that the storehouse has been raided by a mis spent youth. After years of “dumbing it down” as it were, I have lost those colorful phrases and razor sharp statements that were once so much a part of my speech pattern, that I’d rather speak them and have a bloodied nose and cracked knuckle. Where have they gone? I could blame technology and the computerized thesaurus that often aids alliteration or I could blame the ruffians with whom I associated for so long but one of them is an English teacher now so I can’t rightly cast a broad blanket of blame nor can I blame individuals as I often brag on my superior, unaffectable nature.

If you don’t use it… you loose it. This seems to be a truism not only in the case of one’s “groove” but also with one’s vocabulary. I would like to say that I have improved considerably of late, but alas… not the case. I should invest in a word a day calender. Perhaps that will increase my verbal efficacy. Maybe that will hone my linguistic lash to the razor sharp grasping talon it once was. Maybe I just need new people on whom to sharpen them…. in a good way.

Tags: language, speech, words
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Tags: beauty, fashion, opinion, sweat shirts
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I have found recently that made up names (of course, they’re all made up if you think about it), phonetically spelled names, state names used for people, and last names used as first names truly unnerve me to my very core. They’re everywhere these days. There’s a Dakota on the news or a Garminy on a reality show or a Talulla-shay (spelled incorrectly) on a sitcom. They’re popping up online now in the strangest places. I read several design blogs. I am an artist after all and an artist needs inspiration… don’t give me that look. Any way, I slammed smack into “Saxyn”. That’s not a name, it’s a people and I’m sure they’d be very angry to find out that they’re cultural name has been usurped by an obscenely perky suburbanite mom with a penchant for decorating ideas and odd names.

I have a strange name and some may say that “Palmer” is a last name. In truth, it’s a title. The palmer would hoist the sanctified oil on his shoulders for pilgrims in the middle ages and carry these urns to the holy lands. The point is, it has meaning. It has a past. All of the Shaquitas, Bargundys, and Ashawns out there are never going to know the joy of what they’re names truly mean because they are meaningless. I love African names… truly African names, not the misprinted, misspelled, and overly abundant false names used with such flair by less than educated teen mothers who just think it sounds cool. NO! I love the culturally significant names purposeful chosen and artfully pronounced. They’re beautiful and actually have a meaning in a living culture somewhere in the world. I love the simplicity and understated Asian names and more over, the naming practice of what we would consider “last name first and first name last”. Anglo names, while having a distinct lack of panache, do have meanings and correct spellings, but the names like Jane, Barbara, and Timothy are comparatively rare and I think they need to make a come back.

When you are about to have your child and you consider a baby name book, don’t buy it. Simply read some ancient history from your ancestors’ part of the world and name your child something significant, powerful, and meaningful. If you hear a name you like, do some hard research into what that name really means and if its modern usage is actually correct. Don’t name your kid after a place, drug, or beauty product… you’re just asking for your daughters to be strippers. Some common names that are uncommon in today’s world would be:

Molly – Irish origin, Latin derivative, meaning “Star of the Sea”
Emily – Latin / Roman origin, has 60 some odd different acceptable spellings most starting with A, means “imitating, rivaling”
Rebecca – Hebrew derivative, meaning “to tie or bind”. Nick name “Becky” or “Becca”
Jennifer – Old Welsh origin, meaning “Smooth”, “Blessed”, or “Fair”. Nick name “Jen” or “Jenny”
Rose – Germanic origin, meaning “Horse” or the more flattering “Fame”.
Margo – Old Greek origin, meaning “Pearl”. English derivative would be Margaret.
Christina – Latin derivative, meaning Christian woman.
Jacob – Hebrew origin, meaning “God will watch” or “ Yahweh will protect”. Nick name “Jake”
Keith – Celtic origin, meaning “a windy place” or “Forest”.
Palmer – Old English origin, meaning “Crusader” or “ Bearer of Palm Oil”
Stephen – Old Greek derivative, meaning “Crowned” or “Royal”. Properly pronounced /Steh-Fin/
David – Hebrew derivative, meaning “Favorite or friend”. Unrecommended nick name “Dave”
Gregory – Old Greek origin, meaning “Vigilant”. Nick name Greg.
Orin – Celtic origin, meaning “Green” or “Sallow”. Thought I would throw an weird one in.

There are so many options that are NOT Dakota or Shartruce. Do your home work and give your kid a meaningful and correctly spelled and pronounced name.

Tags: history, meaning, names, opinion
Posted in Informative, rant | 20 Comments »