Thank You, Turing!

Dear Friends,


If the sun rises tomorrow, it will herald what would have been the 100th birthday of Alan Turing. He was a hero and an enigma, a gift to humanity who gave us all of his own gifts, but was scorned and persecuted by the men to whom he gave those treasures in his own brief time. His best efforts were bequeathed to the future.

He saved millions of lives and helped end the most horrible war that our species has ever waged. I could not now be touching so many folks' thoughts nor their hearts with the flicks on the keys of this little computer that has at its basis an invention of his mind. For billions of us, without Turing, we would never know each other through this seemingly magical medium of expanded mind.

Yes, this fellow had a fine mind, strange but a very generous one. I think I'll go buy an apple tomorrow, take one bite out of it and put a little candle by the core, wishing the too long gone hero a happy birthday.


Hic Finis Est,


SS

A Vision?

Dear Friends,

Last evening I could not sleep. I was possessed by a vision. I think it was a vision. I apprehended eleven dimensional space folding upon itself like a crumpled piece of maroon linen to a crux of four dimensions such as the reality that we Humans experience. This fabric drew itself in so that the dimensions beyond our normal "reality" were in such close contact to each other that there was no resistance or "space" as we think of it between them.

In this space, Mind was born. That Mind had something like an intention, although in the friction-free and superconducting environment of unified dimensions, intention was not really required. It just was and was doing It without doing anything but being. It just seemed reasonable to me as I saw this image and it ate my own consciousness, that Mind is what Space/Time does and it folds up all the dimensions that we can see and experience into this "thing" that presents Itself as a Human mind. We, our consciousness, are solid Space/Time.

Now, I'm no physicist. I can even do arithmetic, never mind math. I do have a pretty good grasp of physics for dummies, string theory and such for the garage metaphysician, and I have read a bit of  Sir Roger Penrose's ruminations on his proposed quantum basis for consciousness. I have been reading a bit of more recent writings by Michio Kaku and Brian Greene on current ideas in cosmology and quantum weirdness on the super-duper-itty-microscopic level of the Multiverse. But, I am not equipped to provide a shred of data supporting the veracity, if any exists, behind my gut feeling that consciousness is simply something that The Universe likes to do.

Oh, and I'm not of a religious bent, either. This was not like Our Lady of Fatima came to me and kept me up all night. It might have been fun to tipple a jug of sangria with the old bat, but that was not the nature of this powerful insight. It's odd that the crumpled fabric of dimensions seen and unseen would be dusky. No white light. It was just Isness without ornamentation. It was like a bar napkin you might blow your nose with and throw away and, at the same time, as permanent as the very fabric of Reality, as impossible for me to deny as the Arrow of Time.

Yeah, that's the last thing about this little experience. I felt Time loosed from the other dimensions to help them on their ways, so Everything could happen. Nope, no drugs were involved. I had nothing spicy to eat before retiring to my comfy bed. Whatever the hell happened, I think this experience might be in the category of what old Alduos Huxley termed a gratuitous grace.

I'm a lucky guy. If any of my physics or psych friends want to chime in on this, please have at it. Until then, I will remain yours in profound wonderment.

Res Ipsa Loquitor,

S

A Solemn & Reverent Look Back on The Mighty Grateful Dead…

Dear Friends,

It was June 23^rd, 1995. My Rider and I had just decamped from what would be our last run with the Mighty Grateful Dead, their last tour before dumb ol’ Jerry’s demise on August 9^th. I was exhausted after all the driving back and forth through the Berkshires to Albany from my little city by the Connecticut River. But, as dawn broke over my home, I had to write. The following is that explateration retrieved from the archives.

SS

Ho-ho-ho!!!

What you gotta understand with this Grateful Dead situation, you know, that musical outfit, is that it is weird. It’s just a weird situation. You got a posse of mainly homely guys, a couple of the gang now truly dead.

One of those dead guys was so ugly that he scared Satan himself when he showed up with a note from Saint Peter beggin’ the Lord of Darkness to please take the fellow off his kind hands in exchange for an unlimited supply of Ripple and Southern Comfort and all the charcoal briquets The Devil might wish for in an eternity of unspeakable cruelty and sodomizing dead people with hot pokers. Ol’ St. Pete even threw that Joplin girl into the deal. He was fond of Janis, and she could sing, but our Minister of The Pearly Gates was desperate to get that Pig Pen guy out of his house and figured that nasty-ass Lucifer deserved her bibulous attention, anyhow.

Whatever. The rest of the crew, except for that lovely and long legged lady was not so charming. She, of course, could bend your ears quite well with that wail from beyond the grave. Hoo-boy-howdy! But, look at the rest of those beasts. You got a kid with giant hands, digits like a gorilla’s, who makes a noise with a guitar that sounds like Quasimodo busting up the bells of Notre Dame with a jack hammer one minute, and the next it’s an ear shredding racket akin to a locomotive skidding off the rails into a gully full of roiling lava bubbling with titanium spikes and human skulls.

Then there is that freak, the nine fingered guitar player that doesn’t seem to know any discipline at all. Right when a song gets solid and almost surpasses his ability to fuck up the lyrics with that singing soundin’ like a teenager going through the voice change or finger nails on the chalk board, well… he takes the whole thing to pieces and ruins everything in all possible ways. This guy has destroyed more good songs than most folks could write in a lifetime. One after another just melts away into the next that melts away itself or gets blown up and on and on and on. That shaggy monster seems to never have met a tune to be content with. He treats notes like a cat worries a mouse.

Oh, speaking of tunes… what is that lyric writer going on about? Craziness! One minute he’s prattling on about something that I think might be from the bible, maybe not, and the next we got some bums on a locomotive yelling at some underwater green guy on their way to see a fellow who might be dying or not while a lady with ribbons in her hair is laying behind a broken window in a bed of clover with a cat from China. Yeah, and there are tigers and soldiers in a campfire with a sailor torn loose from the axle of a paper canoe full up with alligators and gypsies. Man, can you just write a simple story, or are we supposed to figure all this out ourselves?

Now, the sound guy of many years, prior to his incarceration for violating every law of G-d and Man, was a mad chemist who excelled at unraveling his own DNA. Yes, there are ugly rumors that drugs may have been involved this Grateful Dead Enterprise®.

Anyhow, there’s also that guy on the bass. He plays it like it’s either a trombone or the detonation of an atom bomb. The drummer is an eight-armed dragon that eats its own tail and never seems content to rest in that endeavor. The guys on keyboards, the ones without the sense to flee before their hides are aflame, reliably self-combust after a few years in that seat. It’s a hideous sight, but the fans keep paying to see the conflagrations.

Yes. It is a weird situation. Unaccountable, really. There is no satisfactory explanation for its duration nor the satisfaction that their growling, howling, moaning, often confusing, oddly inspiring even while lilting and off-angle tilting, bone jiggling, giggling, skull eating, mind melting, soul mending, back breaking and healing strangeness imbues upon children of all ages over so many years. Yes. Although the band has left and gone, nobody has noticed, not at all.

Res Ipsa Loquitor,

SS

Cannabis Deprivation

Cannabis Deprivation

Today, we have a President who has boldly sort'a proclaimed that he sort'a, kind'a smoked, uh, well, er, pot, actually choom or boo, in a time when our children need to hear this message. The ravages of Cannabis Depravation among our youth, particularly young men, is leading to a scourge of bad music and even physical deformities. The Lawrence Stanley Denton Foundation has well documented the instances of shrinking Hilarity glands and overactive production of Seriousity neurotransmitters in the brains of weed starved kids. Another effect of the syndrome is formerly luxurious blond locks of hair turning white and falling out in clumps from the heads of previously handsome fellows in their late teens to early twenties. The mangey clots of hair roll like silver tumble weeds down the empty streets. 

In the most severe cases the Mary Jane malnourished are known to spontaneously grow wingtip shoes that cover their webbed feet, sprout uncomfortable worsted wool from their bodies in the form of poorly fitting and itchy suits, horn-rimmed glasses that encrust their dilated eyes, and eventually can be found prowling the streets of suburbia for days at a time accosting strangers with pleas that innocent, horrified citizens buy insurance from them. No. No. This is no joking matter. Yes. Yes. As the revered St. Zimmerman said: "Everybody must get stoned!"

Indeed, it is difficult to overstate the immensity of the tragedy of Cannabis Deprivation Syndrome. Take the impact on just one community, Lavatown, NV. Once a thriving small city of suburban tracts surrounding the principle employer, The Lawrence Stanley Denton LavaLamp Factory, it is now a virtual ghost town. In the interest of full disclosure, The LSD estate endowed the research provided in this monogram through the good works of the Lawrence Stanley Denton Foundation, created as some small amends for the tragic proceeds of his cultural and financial empire building and personal, willful abandonment of sanity while violating every law of god and man.

In any case, Lavatown, is largely abandoned. The LSD LavaLamp factory is shuttered and decaying, inhabited only by murders of crows and colonies of rabid bats that eat rampant beetles as big as small cars and gnaw on the skulls of hairless rats as big as cats. The streets of the once fair city are empty but for the clumps of white hair blowing like tumble weed in the desert wind. All of the grown ups have moved on, leaving their tidy homes for the safe shelter of dumpsters in Reno. They had no choice, of course. Their children were quite mad, prowling the streets with mom’s Pyrex mixing cups, knocking on doors that would never be answered, pleading “May I have a cup of choom? Will you buy insurance? Please vote for Willard “Mitt” Romney.”

In the early days of this catastrophe, The Centers for Unease Control (CfUC) proposed dumping large quantities of bong water into the local reservoir. The Bong Water Association, a major lobbying group, opposed this action and Congress refused to authorize Federal Agents seizing bongs except in the case of a Member of Congress of the opposing party getting caught actually huffing down a choker of kind bud. Thus, once again, our legislators found themselves in deadlock and reconciled to permit orgies in the offices of Senators with seniority to continue unabated, untaxed, and without interruption. However, it was stipulated that no more than three grams of the finest Peruvian cocaine, six magnums of expensive champagne, and four Thai trannies would be delivered between normal business hours (every ten minutes during two hour breaks between 1:PM and 4:PM). Otherwise, all the coke, hookers and booze was fine. But, no pot! “We have to draw the line somewhere!” proclaimed Senator Comedentures (R-AZ).

So, the CFuC turned to Plan B. Without explicit authorization, out of desperation, the Foggers, helicopter born bombs of a super-double-secret mixture of MDMA, 2Cb, and NO2 were deployed over the entire area. Alas, the only thing accomplished toward staunching the advance of the plague of Zombie Insurance Kids for Romney was the melting of their already quashed egos. Yes, already lacking any self-esteem or self-regard, the ego loss had no effect. The brave folks who executed this extraordinary and perilous mission did, however, come home to giggle quite a lot and hug everybody.

On September 12, 2012, Secret President of The World, Cheney V.4x, was informed of the unsanctioned and failed mission that he had sanctioned. He then made the most difficult decision of his life since he had to figure out if he wanted pickle relish on his hot dog, and mustard as well as ketchup. He ordered the “nukeyurl bombin’ of Lamptown.” “Do Belize, too. I’m sick of those whiners and I don’t care if they’re bilingual. I am too. Si, comprendo par lez voose!?!”; he continued. “And, do New York City, too! Pronto!!! Enough with that Bloomass Jew bastard. Don’t tell Obama that Bloomass and The City are smoke. You don’t have to. Okay! You’ve got your fuckin’ orders.”

Twelve minutes and fourteen seconds after the order went out to Secret Military Command, fourteen million souls were no more casting a shadow upon liberty and All that is Right. Of those relieved of their corporeal baggage were some four-thousand and sixteen zombified insurance and Romney election workers. A grateful nation bowed its head into a pile of radioactive ashes raining from a dark sky to give thanks to The Secret President and good riddance to Belize, that odious City of New York, its Jew bastard three-term Mayor, and noisy kids who smoked flowers.

Hic Finis Est,

S

© Solomon 5/26/2012

Levon Helm, Ad Astra…

Hey-ho, Mr. Helmsman           ©April 19^th, 1:58AM, 2012 by S. Solomon

Hey-ho, Mr. Helmsman

Heard your ship has been run aground

Heard you that have bought Maggie’s farm

That juke box don’t no more turn around

Yeah, old Mr. Richard no longer come to town

What’s in the music

What’s in the rhyme

There’s more to the beat

than just keepin’ good time

Hey-ho, Mr. Helmsman

Carnival wheel run off the rails

The weight just got much too heavy

No common sense to keep her steady

But you and the boys remained rough and ready

Hey-ho, Mr. Helmsman

So, now where do we go from here

The coliseum all broke down

The ghosts are stumblin’ all around

Your masterpiece is revealed hidden underground

What’s in the music

What’s in the rhyme

There’s more to the beat

than just keepin’ good time

Hey-ho, Mr. Helmsman

Now, tell me the ways of this road

Please tell me the way to the creek

I need to get somethin’ to drink

I need to know what I’m supposed to know and think

Hey-ho, Mr. Helmsman

Now you’re sleepin’ with Ophelia

beneath the wondrous Northern Lights

Plenty of time to the still stage fright

you’ll have no bothers on the wide Endless Highway

What’s in that music

What’s in that rhyme

There’s more to the beat

than just keepin’ good time

You had your last waltz

You took your best shot

You spoke for the mute

smithing iron words

You met extinction

with right distinction

You done it right

You done it right

You done it right

You done it right

You done it right…

Thank you, Levon Helm!

Demon in My Marrow…

Dear Friends,

Here's a little gospel inspired drivel soon to be set to music. You know what all it's about…

Res Ipsa Loquitor,

S

Got The Demon in My Marrow      ©Solomon 2012

Whoa-oh. Got the Demon in my marrow
Whoa-oh. Got it climbin’ up my spine.
Oh, no lord, got no respite from this craving
So, lord do let it ride. Do let it ride. So fine. So fine.

Whoa-oh. Got a notion rollin’ my mind
Whoa-oh. Got it wrestlin’ in my heart
Oh, my lord, give me a little more reason
So, lord do let it ride. Do let it ride. So fine. So fine.

Whoa-oh. Got passion crazy in my heart
Whoa-oh. The last time I say goodbye
Oh, my lord, got the devil in my marrow
So, lord do let it ride. Do let it ride. So fine. So fine.

Got that demon in my bones
Sunk so low it’s in my bones
So tight with my marrow
So thorough in my bones
So complete I got nowhere to go
Got that demon in my bones

Whoa-oh. You think you know and how it goes
Whoa-oh. Got her climbin’ up yer spine
Oh, it gives you no pleasure your desiring
Your lord do let it ride. Do let it ride. So high. So high.

Got that demon in your bones
Sunk so low it’s in your bones
So tight with your marrow
So thorough into your heart
So complete you got nowhere to go
Got that demon in your bones

Get some love in your marrow
Rise so high love’s in your eyes
Get tight with your visions
Soak them into in your loving bones
So complete that you need nowhere else to go
Got that demon in your bones
Tell the devil where to go…

Mitt.V.2x and His Rise and Demise…

Dear Friends,

As we left Mitt V.2x, he was ready to join the campaign in the guise of Mitt V.1. Nobody should be the wiser, or so it is supposed. There were, admittedly, some kinks to work out, but things seemed to be sailing smoothly until a stop at A.B. Won Pat International Airport, Island of Guam for a little meet and greet with the local League of Women Voters prior to the upcoming Republican primary, now an apparent cinch. Little Ricky was out of the race and likely headed toward an anguished end after thorough debriefing on that cannibalism incident. Word has it that “Uncle Dick” himself, fresh from his deal with getting a working heart from that kid dead in the mysterious car wreck mix-up, was going to personally supervise. Anyhow, Newt is the only remaining trouble spot, though surprises can always pop up on the trail to The White House. Options have to remain open. ~ Ed. Note.

Mitt.V.2x is now on wheels and ready to roll. He is poised at the edge of the runway after being debarked from his private jet, having been borne prostrate and in servo-lock mode by his manservants before greeting the press waiting on the tarmac. Once made erect and placed on his robo-motorized skateboard, he was activated with an injection by Doctor Wellbody: 120mg of WhooHooYeah® (Adrenochrome HCL), a fine product from the good folks at Phiztter Pharm® (a wholly owned subsidiary of Bain Capital, Inc®). Administered directly to the base of his skull and into the brain stem of the marginally mutant replicate human, the effect was immediate and electrifying.

Apparently extensive company funded and FDA approved field tests of the medication on cloned human beings of perhaps inbred genetic inheritance from generations of polygamous sires of a common and deeply weird great-great-great grandfather had not been conducted. Who knew that the fervently enthusiastic banjo playing genes of old Parley P. Pratt would suddenly engage and their impulses emerge with such gusto as the inanimate Mitt clone sprang to life with the giddy zest of a good ol’ time picker. Mitt seized the plinky-plink meskeeter-box from a young Biff Puddfusser. There Biff was, the son of steely eyed Rear Admiral Puddfusser (thrice decorated former quartermaster of the USS Brigham Young) in shock in the front row of the Yellow Hollow Pacific High School Blue Grass band as the stately handsome and likely Republican candidate for President of these United states come over on a CREDO Model 7 Board® to swipe his instrument in a swoop with a whoosh.

Next thing you know, Mitt.V.2x is wranglin’ with those silvery strings, liquid notes are a’flying as a crazy drizzle of mercury from some heavenly cloud wreathed like it was smiled upon by god’aw’mighty. And, he’s a’yoddlin’ like what’all!!! “Yo-dee-lae-hee-hoo-hee-ha-ha-ha!!!” It was grand, alright!

Then the drug wore off. Mitt.V.2x got stiff as a board, turned all greenish, the Nutty Putty plugs in his head popped out of his fevered skull. His brain was boilin’. The straw cowboy hat flew off his skull like a skillet top on firecracker. The speech program chip melted back to its “normal” or default state and Wiilard, er, Mitt.V.2x could only be heard to gasp and murmur as he drooled to repeat again and again, “I am Mitt Romney. Please vote for me. I am Mitt Romney. Please vote for me.” Next, the projectile vomiting and profound flatulence started. Must have been those Micronesian spicy wild boar hot dogs with Cycad relish that set off his ill-trained sphincters and tender digestive glands.

The entire crowd, the ROTC cadets, Reserve troops and their officers of the Joint Force Headquarters-Guam at Fort Juan Muna, that little band, all their teachers from Freaklin HS, even the cops and Secret Service guys run for cover. But, the candidate is frozen stiff as a toad under a rock in February up in Wasilla, AK, near where you can see Siberia (that’s in Russia, y’know) on a clear day.

Next, a fearsome gust of ocean wind came up. It was all downhill from here for Mitt V.2x… indeed it is! His undead frame slowly animates under the meteorological pressure of tropical breezes and slowly, then more swiftly, he rolls and accelerates on his rubber wheels along the sloping grade of the runway toward a providently placed gap in the fence. Disaster is averted as the fake Mitt skid-addles just so fine into the marshy rift between old and indigenous farmer Hector Hoothefukahwey’s place and the airport runway strip. Fortunately for the phony Romney, Hoothefukahwey was nearby, slopping his hogs, as he heard a “splursh” sound, some subsequent gurgling and ran to investigate what all was going on at the edge of his small farm.

He discovers a man lashed to a skateboard, dressed in a nice pair of overalls but with holes in his head. The apparent corpse is as firm and upright as a plank of Ifil, the official state tree of Guam. The tall and handsome greenish creature startled Mr. Hoothefukahwey in saying: “I am Mitt Romney. Please vote for me. I am Mitt Romney. Please vote for me.”

Of course, Hoothefukahwey understands that he is presented with perhaps both an opportunity and a burden, here. He opts for the former. “Can ya slop the hogs?” The reply, “I am Mitt Romney. Please vote for me.” The wise farmer takes that for a yes. This specimen is fit to slop the hogs alright and likely will work for vittles and a stay in the barn. Hoothefukahwey has such accommodations in the stall next to the old barrel where Bossie’s noggin is cornin’ to make the head cheese. Hoothefukahwey’s a generous man so he fixes a fresh pile of straw a’top the manure and sets up the “presidential candidate” on his skateboard for a night’s rest before turning in himself. He carelessly leaves the wick on the kerosene lamp on the sill still lit before heading in to get some few hours of dreamless slumber ‘till the sun comes up.

Hoothefukahwey awakes before dawn to a horrible fire in and out and around the barn. Pigs are running every which way. His prize and only goat, Eulie, is perched with all fours atop the slender fence post by the corner of the barn as flames lick her ankles and she bleats terribly. Through the smoggy, cindered smoke of the dung fed pyre, Hoothefukahwey can see the silhouette of a large man erect and with an odd emerald glistening goop slathering from his ears, bubbling, frothing and seemingly with a life or energy of its own. This figure is apparently immune to the scorching flames engulfing his limbs. The strange man again slowly murmurs the phrase “I am Mitt Romney. Please vote for me. I am Mitt Romney. Please vote for me…” over and over as the conflagration consumes his fancy-pants overalls and his skin peels away from the undying body in rags of flesh burning in its own fat.

As the sun finally rises over farmer Hoothefukahwey’s small slice of island paradise, now a smoldering wreck reeking of pork renderings and sizzled excrement, his hovel a pile of ashes, his livestock barbecue, the corpse of the stranger that came to him with so much promise of low-cost labor still looming upon his skateboard, standing tall, quietly, gently, reasonably pleading “I am Mitt Romney. Please vote for me. I am Mitt Romney. Please vote for me.”

“By the gods Puntan and Fu’una, by all the gods of The Chamorro!”, weeps poor farmer Hector Hoothefukahwey, “Take this beast from my life! He has laid waste to all that I have owned, taken my livelihood, my pigs, my only goat, and my home. And, he won’t shut the fuck up!!!”

The Mitt.V.2x continues to intone “I am Mitt Romney. Please vote for me. I am Mitt Romney. Please vote for me.” Hoothefukahwey can only weep.

Hic Finis Est,

S