I’m listening as hard as I can, but the silence is deafening. Why won’t you talk to me? Don’t you have something to say to me?
Every once in a while I hear a tiny whisper; a little murmur, as if you were trying to say something, trying to communicate, trying to form a union or meeting of our minds, but I can’t understand you.
Won’t you please speak up?
I know you have vast knowledge and important things to say. I know you mean well and have my best interests at heart. I know you love me, but why can’t I hear you.
Won’t you please speak up?
In my mind I imagine we are talking and smiling and laughing together, but I can’t quite catch your drift. What are you saying that is making me laugh? Why are you smiling? Your thoughts are not clear to me.
Won’t you please speak up?
Sometimes I feel as if we are passing in separate canoes down a raging river shouting something at each other, but the roar of the rushing waters keeps me from hearing you, and it keeps us apart.
Won’t you please speak up?
Sometimes I feel like we are strangers passing each other on our way home from work on a rainy evening without a word or a nod of greeting. I know you know me, and I know you. Why won’t you recognize my virtue? Why don’t you say what is in your heart?
Won’t you please speak up?
There are times when I feel alone, yet in the back of my mind I know you are there. Can’t you feel my desire? Don’t you know I want to embrace? Where are you? Don’t leave me here all alone. I need to know you are there and that you care.
Won’t you please speak up?
Is this the way it is always to be between us? Will out petty prejudices and hang-ups keep us apart? Are we never to know the beautiful music we could make together as we interact? Have you no mercy?
Won’t you please speak up?
Sometimes when I am asleep, I dream that we are together; gathered in a beautiful field of nature’s grand design. And we are holding hands, and talking to each other and singing sweet songs of happiness.
In my dreams I can hear you. I can hear what you are shouting to me. I agree. It’s time we came together. It’s time we made love, not war. It’s time we stopped our petty squabbling about different traditions we do not even remember the reason for. It’s time we remembered how we started, and that in the beginning we were of one desire. Together we can make a difference. Together we can change the world. Together we can make something wonderful happen.
It’s time we both spoke up and made a new beginning.
Can you hear me?
*****
Monday, January 25, 2010
Monday, January 4, 2010
CHAPTER 13 – STUD -Excerpt Johnny Oops
Adult Language and Situations
I’m home from France, two inches taller, well tanned, six pack abs from swimming in the ocean each day, and fifteen pounds of muscle heavier from Mama Gellet’s cooking. To tell the truth I’m a good-looking seventeen-year-old stud with a very positive attitude.
My folks can’t believe it. They think I’m ready to go back to college. We put our heads together and came up with the University of California in San Diego and a major in Humanities. The school finally accepted me after much pulling of strings by my Dad and a glowing progress report from Doctor O’Hara. He said my perspective on life and my emotional stability was now superior to that of most of the weirdo’s whom the school matriculated. I’m really proud, I think.
I decided to approach UCSD as the domestic version of the French Riviera. After all, the climate is similar and they are both near the ocean. Granted it’s a different ocean and Danielle and her friends won’t be there, but I intend to have fun anyway. Oh yes, I will take my studies seriously, but I don’t intend to let them occupy all of my time. The new Johnny Oops is going to be a social animal for a change.
Life seems a lot more relaxed here at UCSD than at Harvard. The kids are less intense. I guess I’m less intense. No one seems to spend much time going to class. Surfing and boozing appear to be the order of the day. I’d never been surfing before, but it came naturally to me. I guess all that swimming in the Mediterranean left me primed and ready for a surfboard. Learning how to drink turned out to be a totally different story. I come from a long line of Wilbert men who have proven time and again that they cannot hold their liquor.
It all started innocently enough. I joined the Sigma Phu Fraternity in an attempt to fit in and make my parents proud of what a social animal I have become.
“Daddy, your son is no longer a philosopher nerd, now I’m a social drunk.”
I was in a dazed stupor at a Saturday afternoon booze fest to celebrate the coming of the weekend when one of my fraternity brothers dared me to jump off the second floor porch of the Frat house. My inhibitions decimated by 3 whiskey sours, I happily complied shouting, “This is the life.”
I broke my right leg. That was the end of my surfing career. I was driven to the University hospital by two of my fellow fraternity brothers who were so drunk that the emergency room attendants at first thought they were the patients. It’s a miracle we got there alive. The doctor in attendance put my two buddies in temporary detox and proceeded to x-ray my leg, which had snapped in 2 places. He then set it in a cast, which ran all the way up to my hip saying, “The more immobilized you are, the safer I’ll feel.”
A student nurse helped him apply the plaster. Jennifer is a knockout with typical blonde California good looks, a body to die for, and a dazzling smile.
While Jennifer and I were waiting for the plaster to dry, I invited her to the Saturday night party at the frat house.
She laughed and said, “I might as well. Someone has to drive you back and show you how to maneuver your wheelchair and your crutches.”
I guess I was a little zonked out from the painkillers by then because I remember mumbling something about, “why don’t we use a stretcher, that way you can have me flat on my back where you want me.”
I woke up in my room with a terrible headache and Jennifer still in her nurse’s uniform stroking my forehead with a damp washcloth. The guys in the house thought this was the coolest thing ever. Three of them volunteered to jump off the porch next Saturday.
Let me tell you about the amazing Jennifer. Being a nurse and all she is very practical and scientific in her reasoning. After I had recovered a little she suggested that we spend the evening in my room talking as I really wasn’t in any shape to go downstairs and party. That made sense to me. We talked and talked, mostly about me, and my experiences as a philosopher genius.
I told her about Dialectic Spiritualism, my summer in France and Danielle, leaving out any reference to Alice or Harvard. She told me about growing up in San Diego, about her parents and about her life and her friends. She claimed to be a Buddhist, but I must have dozed off. I awoke with a gigantic erection that in true nurse fashion Jennifer ministered to with warmth and kindness. I never had to move a muscle, well, only one muscle. Blew my mind. I thought I was still dreaming.
I’m beginning to think there is something wrong with me. I try to be a philosopher and to go to school and study and to be a good son to my parents, but all I do is have sex. There’s got to be more to my life than this. Oh well, until I’m mature I guess I’ll have to settle for what I’ve. It’s not so bad. I can handle it. I’m pretty tough. After all I’m a philosopher genius, and we are prone to leading really mixed up, sexed up lives.
Jennifer and I spend a lot of time together. She’s a lot of fun. She has taught me a lot about Buddhism. I think my karma has definitely improved and I’m on a course to a personal nirvana. The Buddhist theories on rebirth fit in nicely with mine on the alternate realities I may live in. I’m just pursuing my chosen course of study.
I signed up for a course called ‘Recognition’ during pre-pledge week. I must have had too many champagne Mimosas before registration at a rushing breakfast where they try to show you how great fraternity life is. I thought this was a course designed to teach you how to deal with the public once you become a public figure. I’m sure I’m going to be famous.
‘Recognition’ claims to put in touch with your inner self: the real you, your authentic self. The course tries to get you to examine why you act the way you do, and how you can change all that by gaining a better understanding of who you really are. The class goes on and on like that until a minor hangover can become a major headache. I’ll never drink before I register for classes again.
The teacher running the course is a Professor Flex, or Mr. Fixit, as his few graduating students like to call him. To show you how popular this course isn’t. I was one of only 4 students out of a student body numbering over 10,000 to take the damn thing. The good part is that the professor seeing the small size of the enrollment decided to hold classes at his house on Tuesdays and Thursdays at four o’clock in the afternoon, which was when I usually played Hearts at the frat house. He probably saved me a fortune. I gamble just about as well as I drink. In this case I’m not sure it’s genetic. Anyway his wife served tea and hard as a rock chocolate chip cookies, and a miserable time was had by all, but I learned a lot about myself. Much of what I learned I didn’t really want to know, but it’s a beginning.
The good professor insisted that we all expose ourselves totally regarding the major people and events that shaped out lives as a necessary prelude to reinventing the inner self that each one of us according to Mr. Fixit has lurking somewhere deep down within us.
The class consisted of me, an ugly skinny girl named Beth who hardly ever spoke, and a black guy that looked like a cross between Richard Simons and an axe murderer. We called him Bubby. The fourth kid was a no show; too busy having his own nervous breakdown to attend class. Too bad, Professor Flex could have reinvented his inner self and split his personality into quarters.
I was forced to detail the following people and events that had a major effect on my life.
People that shaped my life:
My Mother and Father
Billy
Alice
Chaplain Bill
Doctor O’Hara
Danielle
Jennifer
Events that shaped my life:
Becoming a philosopher genius
My mother and father having sex
Masturbating
Inventing Dialectic Spiritualism
Getting kicked out of school
Having sex with Alice
Having a nervous breakdown at Harvard
My summer in France with Danielle
My first blowjob
Learning how to give pleasure
Not jumping off the cliff into the dark water
Finding out I valued my life
Jumping off the porch at my frat house
Breaking my leg and meeting Jennifer
Professor Flex upon hearing this dissertation scratched his head and said, “You are quite a case. More sex maniac than philosopher genius if you ask me, but that’s just what’s on the surface. Are you really, deep down in your inner self, a true philosopher genius or is this just an act to impress the girls?”
I blurted out, “I always thought it was both.”
Professor Flex smiled and said, “See, there is hope for you yet.”
I never knew which way the good professor was going to go when it came to helping us identify our inner self. I later decided this was part of his act to get us so confused that we wouldn’t know whether we were coming or going, and thus perfect subjects to be reinvented as people with worthwhile inner selves.
In my case his antics worked perfectly. I got so confused about who I really was and who I wasn’t and where I was and wasn’t going that I resorted to writing Doctor O’Hara for advice. I told him that I was drinking, gambling, screwing my brains out, and had a professor called Flex who was reinventing my soul. I told him I don’t know who I am any more, or where I am going with my life or whether I’m a charlatan or a guru.
I wonder if the Game Master and the different realities I may be living in have anything to do with my current state of confusion?
Doctor O’Hara wrote me back and sent a copy of his letter to Professor Flex. He told me he was pleased to hear I was doing all those things that make a normal college kid like me enjoy life. He told me to stop worrying about who or what I was. As for the good professor he indicated he was not an accredited shrink and should stop messing around with other shrink’s clients, or he would report him to the Association of Psychiatrists, and tell the University he was practicing medicine without a license.
Shortly thereafter the good professor took an unexpected year -long sabbatical. Before he left he issued all four of us A’s in his class including the sanatorium special who never showed up. And you think I don’t know how to pick my classes.
I’m still a little confused about who I’m and where I’m going. As far as my inner self, I don’t think I’m approaching my personal nirvana quite yet and certainly haven’t reached a defining moment. I guess what you see is what you get. For better or worse I value my life and try having as much fun as possible.
In terms of reinventing myself, at the end of the semester I dumped Jennifer. The relationship had begun to bore me. This was probably a little cruel and uncaring of me, but I thoroughly enjoyed the feeling of power.
I decided to get rid of the sex maniac in me by practicing celibacy over spring break. That was a joke. I never made it through the plane ride home. I ended up under a blanket in first class with a cute stewardess who was grabbing me on a free hop back to New York. Her cleavage was a real turn on. In the tight little uniform she was wearing.
You know having sex in the air is much easier than underwater.
So much for reinventing myself and finding my inner self. I’m not even through inventing myself the first time around.
I think I’m really learning a lot here at UCSD. I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to do with all this knowledge. It’s a little like packing sixteen shirts into a suitcase and then having no idea what to do with them when you arrive at a nudist colony for a week’s stay at a nudist colony.
I did my term paper on the effects of spiritualism on the inner self and got an A. Life is good. My folks are proud of me. I’m proud of me. I’m beginning to think I can fulfill my promise again. I still wish I knew where I’m going. I suppose I won’t find out until I get there. I love this reasoned spiritualism stuff, fits right in with my way of thinking. It’s logical, and gives me something to hang on to in these troubled times.
Remember these words for I am the Messenger: The good Lord gives pleasure and takes it away. It’s not for us to reason why.
I’m sensing I’m about to have something taken away from me again, but I don’t know what. It’s just a feeling, but us geniuses can tell when something bad is about to happen. I wish I knew what and when. The anticipation is a killer. I can’t imagine what I’ve done wrong, but I feel like I’m about to be punished.
Do you hear me God? Whatever I did, I didn’t mean to do anything wrong.
*****
I'm looking for a few people to read my novel in manuscript form in return for their comments prior to publication. If you are interested please indicate in the comment section.
Thanks.
Arthur Levine
I’m home from France, two inches taller, well tanned, six pack abs from swimming in the ocean each day, and fifteen pounds of muscle heavier from Mama Gellet’s cooking. To tell the truth I’m a good-looking seventeen-year-old stud with a very positive attitude.
My folks can’t believe it. They think I’m ready to go back to college. We put our heads together and came up with the University of California in San Diego and a major in Humanities. The school finally accepted me after much pulling of strings by my Dad and a glowing progress report from Doctor O’Hara. He said my perspective on life and my emotional stability was now superior to that of most of the weirdo’s whom the school matriculated. I’m really proud, I think.
I decided to approach UCSD as the domestic version of the French Riviera. After all, the climate is similar and they are both near the ocean. Granted it’s a different ocean and Danielle and her friends won’t be there, but I intend to have fun anyway. Oh yes, I will take my studies seriously, but I don’t intend to let them occupy all of my time. The new Johnny Oops is going to be a social animal for a change.
Life seems a lot more relaxed here at UCSD than at Harvard. The kids are less intense. I guess I’m less intense. No one seems to spend much time going to class. Surfing and boozing appear to be the order of the day. I’d never been surfing before, but it came naturally to me. I guess all that swimming in the Mediterranean left me primed and ready for a surfboard. Learning how to drink turned out to be a totally different story. I come from a long line of Wilbert men who have proven time and again that they cannot hold their liquor.
It all started innocently enough. I joined the Sigma Phu Fraternity in an attempt to fit in and make my parents proud of what a social animal I have become.
“Daddy, your son is no longer a philosopher nerd, now I’m a social drunk.”
I was in a dazed stupor at a Saturday afternoon booze fest to celebrate the coming of the weekend when one of my fraternity brothers dared me to jump off the second floor porch of the Frat house. My inhibitions decimated by 3 whiskey sours, I happily complied shouting, “This is the life.”
I broke my right leg. That was the end of my surfing career. I was driven to the University hospital by two of my fellow fraternity brothers who were so drunk that the emergency room attendants at first thought they were the patients. It’s a miracle we got there alive. The doctor in attendance put my two buddies in temporary detox and proceeded to x-ray my leg, which had snapped in 2 places. He then set it in a cast, which ran all the way up to my hip saying, “The more immobilized you are, the safer I’ll feel.”
A student nurse helped him apply the plaster. Jennifer is a knockout with typical blonde California good looks, a body to die for, and a dazzling smile.
While Jennifer and I were waiting for the plaster to dry, I invited her to the Saturday night party at the frat house.
She laughed and said, “I might as well. Someone has to drive you back and show you how to maneuver your wheelchair and your crutches.”
I guess I was a little zonked out from the painkillers by then because I remember mumbling something about, “why don’t we use a stretcher, that way you can have me flat on my back where you want me.”
I woke up in my room with a terrible headache and Jennifer still in her nurse’s uniform stroking my forehead with a damp washcloth. The guys in the house thought this was the coolest thing ever. Three of them volunteered to jump off the porch next Saturday.
Let me tell you about the amazing Jennifer. Being a nurse and all she is very practical and scientific in her reasoning. After I had recovered a little she suggested that we spend the evening in my room talking as I really wasn’t in any shape to go downstairs and party. That made sense to me. We talked and talked, mostly about me, and my experiences as a philosopher genius.
I told her about Dialectic Spiritualism, my summer in France and Danielle, leaving out any reference to Alice or Harvard. She told me about growing up in San Diego, about her parents and about her life and her friends. She claimed to be a Buddhist, but I must have dozed off. I awoke with a gigantic erection that in true nurse fashion Jennifer ministered to with warmth and kindness. I never had to move a muscle, well, only one muscle. Blew my mind. I thought I was still dreaming.
I’m beginning to think there is something wrong with me. I try to be a philosopher and to go to school and study and to be a good son to my parents, but all I do is have sex. There’s got to be more to my life than this. Oh well, until I’m mature I guess I’ll have to settle for what I’ve. It’s not so bad. I can handle it. I’m pretty tough. After all I’m a philosopher genius, and we are prone to leading really mixed up, sexed up lives.
Jennifer and I spend a lot of time together. She’s a lot of fun. She has taught me a lot about Buddhism. I think my karma has definitely improved and I’m on a course to a personal nirvana. The Buddhist theories on rebirth fit in nicely with mine on the alternate realities I may live in. I’m just pursuing my chosen course of study.
I signed up for a course called ‘Recognition’ during pre-pledge week. I must have had too many champagne Mimosas before registration at a rushing breakfast where they try to show you how great fraternity life is. I thought this was a course designed to teach you how to deal with the public once you become a public figure. I’m sure I’m going to be famous.
‘Recognition’ claims to put in touch with your inner self: the real you, your authentic self. The course tries to get you to examine why you act the way you do, and how you can change all that by gaining a better understanding of who you really are. The class goes on and on like that until a minor hangover can become a major headache. I’ll never drink before I register for classes again.
The teacher running the course is a Professor Flex, or Mr. Fixit, as his few graduating students like to call him. To show you how popular this course isn’t. I was one of only 4 students out of a student body numbering over 10,000 to take the damn thing. The good part is that the professor seeing the small size of the enrollment decided to hold classes at his house on Tuesdays and Thursdays at four o’clock in the afternoon, which was when I usually played Hearts at the frat house. He probably saved me a fortune. I gamble just about as well as I drink. In this case I’m not sure it’s genetic. Anyway his wife served tea and hard as a rock chocolate chip cookies, and a miserable time was had by all, but I learned a lot about myself. Much of what I learned I didn’t really want to know, but it’s a beginning.
The good professor insisted that we all expose ourselves totally regarding the major people and events that shaped out lives as a necessary prelude to reinventing the inner self that each one of us according to Mr. Fixit has lurking somewhere deep down within us.
The class consisted of me, an ugly skinny girl named Beth who hardly ever spoke, and a black guy that looked like a cross between Richard Simons and an axe murderer. We called him Bubby. The fourth kid was a no show; too busy having his own nervous breakdown to attend class. Too bad, Professor Flex could have reinvented his inner self and split his personality into quarters.
I was forced to detail the following people and events that had a major effect on my life.
People that shaped my life:
My Mother and Father
Billy
Alice
Chaplain Bill
Doctor O’Hara
Danielle
Jennifer
Events that shaped my life:
Becoming a philosopher genius
My mother and father having sex
Masturbating
Inventing Dialectic Spiritualism
Getting kicked out of school
Having sex with Alice
Having a nervous breakdown at Harvard
My summer in France with Danielle
My first blowjob
Learning how to give pleasure
Not jumping off the cliff into the dark water
Finding out I valued my life
Jumping off the porch at my frat house
Breaking my leg and meeting Jennifer
Professor Flex upon hearing this dissertation scratched his head and said, “You are quite a case. More sex maniac than philosopher genius if you ask me, but that’s just what’s on the surface. Are you really, deep down in your inner self, a true philosopher genius or is this just an act to impress the girls?”
I blurted out, “I always thought it was both.”
Professor Flex smiled and said, “See, there is hope for you yet.”
I never knew which way the good professor was going to go when it came to helping us identify our inner self. I later decided this was part of his act to get us so confused that we wouldn’t know whether we were coming or going, and thus perfect subjects to be reinvented as people with worthwhile inner selves.
In my case his antics worked perfectly. I got so confused about who I really was and who I wasn’t and where I was and wasn’t going that I resorted to writing Doctor O’Hara for advice. I told him that I was drinking, gambling, screwing my brains out, and had a professor called Flex who was reinventing my soul. I told him I don’t know who I am any more, or where I am going with my life or whether I’m a charlatan or a guru.
I wonder if the Game Master and the different realities I may be living in have anything to do with my current state of confusion?
Doctor O’Hara wrote me back and sent a copy of his letter to Professor Flex. He told me he was pleased to hear I was doing all those things that make a normal college kid like me enjoy life. He told me to stop worrying about who or what I was. As for the good professor he indicated he was not an accredited shrink and should stop messing around with other shrink’s clients, or he would report him to the Association of Psychiatrists, and tell the University he was practicing medicine without a license.
Shortly thereafter the good professor took an unexpected year -long sabbatical. Before he left he issued all four of us A’s in his class including the sanatorium special who never showed up. And you think I don’t know how to pick my classes.
I’m still a little confused about who I’m and where I’m going. As far as my inner self, I don’t think I’m approaching my personal nirvana quite yet and certainly haven’t reached a defining moment. I guess what you see is what you get. For better or worse I value my life and try having as much fun as possible.
In terms of reinventing myself, at the end of the semester I dumped Jennifer. The relationship had begun to bore me. This was probably a little cruel and uncaring of me, but I thoroughly enjoyed the feeling of power.
I decided to get rid of the sex maniac in me by practicing celibacy over spring break. That was a joke. I never made it through the plane ride home. I ended up under a blanket in first class with a cute stewardess who was grabbing me on a free hop back to New York. Her cleavage was a real turn on. In the tight little uniform she was wearing.
You know having sex in the air is much easier than underwater.
So much for reinventing myself and finding my inner self. I’m not even through inventing myself the first time around.
I think I’m really learning a lot here at UCSD. I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to do with all this knowledge. It’s a little like packing sixteen shirts into a suitcase and then having no idea what to do with them when you arrive at a nudist colony for a week’s stay at a nudist colony.
I did my term paper on the effects of spiritualism on the inner self and got an A. Life is good. My folks are proud of me. I’m proud of me. I’m beginning to think I can fulfill my promise again. I still wish I knew where I’m going. I suppose I won’t find out until I get there. I love this reasoned spiritualism stuff, fits right in with my way of thinking. It’s logical, and gives me something to hang on to in these troubled times.
Remember these words for I am the Messenger: The good Lord gives pleasure and takes it away. It’s not for us to reason why.
I’m sensing I’m about to have something taken away from me again, but I don’t know what. It’s just a feeling, but us geniuses can tell when something bad is about to happen. I wish I knew what and when. The anticipation is a killer. I can’t imagine what I’ve done wrong, but I feel like I’m about to be punished.
Do you hear me God? Whatever I did, I didn’t mean to do anything wrong.
*****
I'm looking for a few people to read my novel in manuscript form in return for their comments prior to publication. If you are interested please indicate in the comment section.
Thanks.
Arthur Levine
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Monday, December 14, 2009
Patch Of Faith Makes Miracles Happen At Holidays
The results are in and the facts are irrefutable. A patch of faith can make miracles happen. In the beginning many questioned this result, but the skeptics have been silenced. Having faith in God works, especially at the Holidays.
The truth is it works all year long, but many of us only remember our faith at the Holidays or when tragedy hits us.
At times like this we try and patch our faith together so that we can prove to ourselves, and our families that we really are worthwhile people. Well of course we are. Why would you ever question yourself that way?
Why all the attempts to be politically correct and to avoid certain symbols of the Holidays and certain salutary greetings when all that is needed is a patch of faith that let’s you know it’s how you feel and your traditions, not what you say that counts.
Why all the uncertainty about what we should and shouldn’t say and do. We used to know instinctively how to act. We used to have enough faith in ourselves so that we didn’t have to patch ourselves together to get the true spirit of the Holidays.
How about reaching back into our pasts and remembering the Holidays we spent with our parents as we were growing up and how wonderful everything seemed to most of us – how miraculous. We didn’t need anyone to tell us to get in the mood in those days, it was a given.
How about looking around at our family and friends and marveling at how much we have to be thankful for? How about rejoicing at the wonder of it all? Why is it so hard just to relax, enjoy and do what comes naturally?
I guess I’m old fashioned. I always appreciate the gifts God has given us more at the Holidays. I always make a ton of resolutions for the New Year, and I always forgive myself when I break them.
I want to wish you all, as it applies to each and every one of you, a very happy Hanukah, a merry Christmas, and a happy New Year.
You can find out more about a patch of faith and finding inner peace at
http://www.faith-patch.com
The truth is it works all year long, but many of us only remember our faith at the Holidays or when tragedy hits us.
At times like this we try and patch our faith together so that we can prove to ourselves, and our families that we really are worthwhile people. Well of course we are. Why would you ever question yourself that way?
Why all the attempts to be politically correct and to avoid certain symbols of the Holidays and certain salutary greetings when all that is needed is a patch of faith that let’s you know it’s how you feel and your traditions, not what you say that counts.
Why all the uncertainty about what we should and shouldn’t say and do. We used to know instinctively how to act. We used to have enough faith in ourselves so that we didn’t have to patch ourselves together to get the true spirit of the Holidays.
How about reaching back into our pasts and remembering the Holidays we spent with our parents as we were growing up and how wonderful everything seemed to most of us – how miraculous. We didn’t need anyone to tell us to get in the mood in those days, it was a given.
How about looking around at our family and friends and marveling at how much we have to be thankful for? How about rejoicing at the wonder of it all? Why is it so hard just to relax, enjoy and do what comes naturally?
I guess I’m old fashioned. I always appreciate the gifts God has given us more at the Holidays. I always make a ton of resolutions for the New Year, and I always forgive myself when I break them.
I want to wish you all, as it applies to each and every one of you, a very happy Hanukah, a merry Christmas, and a happy New Year.
You can find out more about a patch of faith and finding inner peace at
http://www.faith-patch.com
Monday, November 9, 2009
Virtual Reality World Becomes Real
It happened gradually as we played the video game over and over. I thought I was making adjustments to what the players looked like and how they acted – making them more ferocious and terrifying. Must have been the Game Master, not me, that was making the changes. In an instant it happened. My virtual characters became real.
I took a Quantum leap of faith and decided that this must be God’s will. When I think back on what happened next, it was really obnoxious of me to think I could influence the game of life even in video form. The truth is, some things are just beyond our human abilities.
When the changes occurred, war turned to peace as the fighting factions laid down their weapons and became peace-loving neighbors. This is a concept I never would have considered. I couldn’t believe how friendly my warriors had become. They actually tried to help people instead of killing them. Why hadn’t I thought of that? I guess growing up in an atmosphere of terrorism and fear, the idea of peace and love thy neighbor eluded my comprehension.
When I thought I was making changes to the video game of life, it never occurred to me to be a good neighbor and try and help others. The thought that God wanted us to live to in harmony with each other and with nature never entered my mind. I thought that religious differences leading to religious wars were a way of life. Thank God the Game Master knew better. Sometimes I think the two of them are one and the same.
Maybe it’s God, the Game Master, who is playing with our lives as in a virtual reality game. Maybe it’s His will that we strive for peace, not war. Maybe if we just let the game of life play out instead of trying to influence the ending, we could reach a better conclusion.
I think it’s time we stopped trying to move our Quantum Qubits around and allow God to shape the essence of our lives. Life is not a video game. We should stop trying to replicate what hasn’t worked in the past. Let’s make peace, not war. Let’s allow the Game Master to show us the way.
I took a Quantum leap of faith and decided that this must be God’s will. When I think back on what happened next, it was really obnoxious of me to think I could influence the game of life even in video form. The truth is, some things are just beyond our human abilities.
When the changes occurred, war turned to peace as the fighting factions laid down their weapons and became peace-loving neighbors. This is a concept I never would have considered. I couldn’t believe how friendly my warriors had become. They actually tried to help people instead of killing them. Why hadn’t I thought of that? I guess growing up in an atmosphere of terrorism and fear, the idea of peace and love thy neighbor eluded my comprehension.
When I thought I was making changes to the video game of life, it never occurred to me to be a good neighbor and try and help others. The thought that God wanted us to live to in harmony with each other and with nature never entered my mind. I thought that religious differences leading to religious wars were a way of life. Thank God the Game Master knew better. Sometimes I think the two of them are one and the same.
Maybe it’s God, the Game Master, who is playing with our lives as in a virtual reality game. Maybe it’s His will that we strive for peace, not war. Maybe if we just let the game of life play out instead of trying to influence the ending, we could reach a better conclusion.
I think it’s time we stopped trying to move our Quantum Qubits around and allow God to shape the essence of our lives. Life is not a video game. We should stop trying to replicate what hasn’t worked in the past. Let’s make peace, not war. Let’s allow the Game Master to show us the way.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Excerpt From Johnny Oops - CHAPTER 20 – SHARING
I watched her from the patio of our glass door poolside apartment in Tory Pines, California not far from the USCD campus as Jody, standing on her toes on a small step stool, cleaned the top of the Venetian blinds. She was wearing a bathing suit top and a pair of pink panties.
I’d finished school early because a professor cancelled my class and I decided to go back to Jody and surprise her. I couldn’t get my mind off her. I stood there watching her clean, imagining the smell of her, her warmth when I hold her, and how she presses up against me with no reserve. I couldn’t take this for long. I was getting too excited.
I quietly slid the patio door open. Entered the living room and said, “Surprise, I’m home.”
She was startled and said, “Lover boy, what are you doing home?”
Pouncing on her, I picked her up from the stool she was on, gently lowered her to the ground for a kiss and said, “My class was canceled. The old professor got the virus that’s going around. I went for coffee and started thinking about you so I cut my afternoon class and came home. Wish you would stop calling me lover boy, honey. I hate that.”
“Let me go, lover boy. I will try. Want to go for a swim?”
“How about a swim in the shower honey?” I cuddled her and started nibbling on her ear. The pure animal scent of her neck was enough to arouse me. She playfully pushed me away.
“Why Johnny Oops, whatever am I going to do with you, you sexed up maniac?”
I was not about to be that easily put off and grabbed her around her waist, pinning her arms to the side and smothered her with kisses. I barely managed to say, “You want to fool around?”
“Yes I do, lover boy. I certainly do.” This time she didn’t pull away. She started to undress me, and now it was she who was nibbling, and not on my ear.
“Do you think it can be this way forever darling? ” I said. By this time we were both in heat and rolling around on the floor of the living room.
“I think so. You know I usually get what I want, Johnny.”
“You are everything to me, Jody. I want to share my whole life with you,” I said as passion took over and I entered her face to face with Jody sprawled out on the leopard print area rug beneath us, grabbing me by my hair, pulling me closer and urging me on.
“Honey, thanks for not calling me, lover boy again,” I mumbled as I gave in to the moment, and exploded, giving way to a grunt of relief.
We stayed locked in each others arms for a few minutes and then Jody sighed and said, “You are my lover boy. You always will be. How about that swim now? You’ve gotten me all hot and sweaty.”
“I’m ready for a swim. I’m ready for anything with you, Jody.”
Life can’t get any better than this. Jody is everything I ever dreamed of in a woman. I don’t want to be with anyone else. This is the only reality I crave. I’m blessed. This is as good as love gets. This is my future. God, I hope things don’t change. I want this to go on forever.
I’d finished school early because a professor cancelled my class and I decided to go back to Jody and surprise her. I couldn’t get my mind off her. I stood there watching her clean, imagining the smell of her, her warmth when I hold her, and how she presses up against me with no reserve. I couldn’t take this for long. I was getting too excited.
I quietly slid the patio door open. Entered the living room and said, “Surprise, I’m home.”
She was startled and said, “Lover boy, what are you doing home?”
Pouncing on her, I picked her up from the stool she was on, gently lowered her to the ground for a kiss and said, “My class was canceled. The old professor got the virus that’s going around. I went for coffee and started thinking about you so I cut my afternoon class and came home. Wish you would stop calling me lover boy, honey. I hate that.”
“Let me go, lover boy. I will try. Want to go for a swim?”
“How about a swim in the shower honey?” I cuddled her and started nibbling on her ear. The pure animal scent of her neck was enough to arouse me. She playfully pushed me away.
“Why Johnny Oops, whatever am I going to do with you, you sexed up maniac?”
I was not about to be that easily put off and grabbed her around her waist, pinning her arms to the side and smothered her with kisses. I barely managed to say, “You want to fool around?”
“Yes I do, lover boy. I certainly do.” This time she didn’t pull away. She started to undress me, and now it was she who was nibbling, and not on my ear.
“Do you think it can be this way forever darling? ” I said. By this time we were both in heat and rolling around on the floor of the living room.
“I think so. You know I usually get what I want, Johnny.”
“You are everything to me, Jody. I want to share my whole life with you,” I said as passion took over and I entered her face to face with Jody sprawled out on the leopard print area rug beneath us, grabbing me by my hair, pulling me closer and urging me on.
“Honey, thanks for not calling me, lover boy again,” I mumbled as I gave in to the moment, and exploded, giving way to a grunt of relief.
We stayed locked in each others arms for a few minutes and then Jody sighed and said, “You are my lover boy. You always will be. How about that swim now? You’ve gotten me all hot and sweaty.”
“I’m ready for a swim. I’m ready for anything with you, Jody.”
Life can’t get any better than this. Jody is everything I ever dreamed of in a woman. I don’t want to be with anyone else. This is the only reality I crave. I’m blessed. This is as good as love gets. This is my future. God, I hope things don’t change. I want this to go on forever.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Carbon Tax Cap And Trade Catastrophe -- Excerpt -- Home Grown Terrorist
Driving home John, the number two man in the FBI, felt the power of his new Mercedes as he opened it up on the highway. It leapt to sixty miles an hour in nothing flat. Too fast John thought, too damn fast. He was thinking about what was happening with the Iranians, not his new car.
As he sped to his new temporary hotel apartment home in his new Mercedes, he was shaking his head wondering what was going wrong in America and why? He felt like one of those people one saw interviewed on TV after a tragic school shooting or a murder struck there small community, and they mumbled in a daze that they thought it couldn’t happen here. No, not here in the good old USA: no homegrown terrorists suicide bombings, no dissatisfied underclass, no greedy banks ruining the economy, no Iranian backed junta ready to take over. But it was happening. It was all too real. The shear horror of what was taking place hit John with full force. He had to pull over to the side of the road to compose himself. How could these people possibly make a deal with the Iranians?
As soon as John got home he called his boss Casey, the head of the FBI, and said they had to meet in Philadelphia, that it was urgent. Casey told him to make it the following morning around 10 AM and got off the phone muttering that this better be worth it.
The following morning John met Casey at their favorite Deli as planned. The first words out of his mouth were, “The Iranians gave me a brand new Mercedes for setting up Ross Phalen. I feel like a crook.”
Casey replied, “You mean more like a traitor. What do you expect, you’re a double agent?”
“I’m only doing this because it’s in our National interest.”
“Are you sure?”
John said, “I don’t like the way this conversation is going. I have something urgent to tell you. I feel like I am being set up to take a fall if something goes wrong.”
“Not by me John. Just be sure you aren’t setting yourself up. You are walking a fine line. Now what is this urgent information you have to tell me that forced me to cancel an important meeting with the future Director of Homeland Security?
“I have to tell you, Casey that the Iranians handle things in a more pleasant manner than you do.”
“I am not in the pleasant business, John. What do you have?”
“Okay Casey, you asked for it. This is the down and dirty of it. Dawa and an associate who is a professor of economics at New York University by the name of Alhali Huseini met me for lunch yesterday. After giving me the car for a job well down, they told me they had a new project for me. I was to find a respected reporter for a major newspaper and give him the story that our major banks and investment brokerage houses were hiding off balance sheet losses of about two trillion dollars in CECOFS and it could very likely wreck our economy. I am to get the details from the good professor when I’m ready to talk to a reporter and reveal this monumental scandal.
The Iranians say they are in a conspiracy with the Chinese who will sell a trillion dollars worth of the CECOFS to drive the price down to near zero as they were inflated to more than four times their real worth to begin with by the banks so they could show huge profits and recover from the sub prime disaster of 2007 – 2009, from which they have never really fully recovered. I am also to fill in some of the more aggressive bloggers on the Internet so the story will have legs.
The Iranians figure this could cause our financial institutions to crumble, and out economic system to self destruct leaving them in a position to put a junta of their choosing in control to take advantage of the ensuing chaos without the need to explode another terrorist bomb. There is more, but I can’t remember it all. The Russians are in on this in some way. I have a week to find a reliable reporter and destroy the United States. Do you have any thoughts?
John thought Casey was going to choke on his buttered bagel.
Casey said, “What the hell is a CECOF? How did this happen? Who let the banks and brokers get away with this? Where were the Banking Commission, the SEC, and all these new regulatory agencies Congress created in 2010 when all this phony profit stuff was happening? How could the banks have concocted these financial instrument and priced them at four times what they are worth? What the hell do you expect me to do about this? This could be a catastrophe. It could cause our economy to collapse.”
“The CECOF stands for Carbon Emission Credit Option Funds. I don’t know who let these financial institutions get away with this scheme. I don’t know how they manipulated the price of the options. My guess is they now have these computer geeks who make up these crazy formulas, and I’m not even sure the CEOs of the major financial institutions know what kind of a pile of manure they are sitting on top of. These computer geeks get paid fortunes, as I understand it to come up with exotic financial formulas. All they have to do is change a decimal point here and a symbol equaling something else there, and they can inflate the value of whatever phony financial instrument they have created.”
Valuing saving the Nation from pollution and Global Warming is a very subjective thing. These computer guys can have a field day determining what these Carbon Option certificates should trade for. They can raise their value by determining that the underlying Carbon fines they are supposed to protect against are going to go up sharply because Global Warming due to carbon emissions is much more of a problem now than it was six months ago. “
“Who knows what ephemeral nonsense they base their valuations on? The problem is that people and financial institutions have been buying them at these inflated values. It has something to do with the initial Cap and Trade legislation Congress passed in 2010 where certain companies got Carbon Credits verses the new taxes they were supposed to pay as fines for not curbing carbon emissions, and then traded them to other companies that needed them more because they had worse carbon emission problems and fines to pay. It’s all very confusing, and the legislation made it even more difficult to comprehend as politics dictated, which companies got what Cap and Trade credits, not actual need.”
“The problem has been exacerbated because these inflated CEOF’s have gotten into a lot of pension plans whose investment officers thought they were doing the patriotic thing. “
“The heads of these Investment Companies go along because they don’t really understand the underlying liability to their Companies, and they want big bonuses for showing profits phony or not. It is like a giant game of musical chars. Unfortunately it looks like the music is about to stop and our Country is going to be without a seat at the table of credit worthy Nations. As you have told me, greed must have driven them to this. Sounds familiar, sounds like I’ve heard this song before. I don’t have the answers. I’m only speculating based on my limited knowledge. What I expect you to do is to tell me what to do. I need answers from you. I could arrest Dawa, Alhali, and there boss Wady Hussein, but I don’t know how deep their organization is, and this information will probably get out anyway. What do you want me to do?”
Casey frowned and said, ‘Do nothing until you hear from me. I have to see the Secretary of the Treasury, the head of the Federal Reserve, and the President. I can’t make a decision here on my own. This is too big. I can hardly believe it. Wait until you here from me.”
“I only have one week.”
“Just go home and do nothing and say nothing for now. I will get back to you as soon as I can.”
“Why do I have the feeling that either way I’m going to be screwed by you or the Iranians”?
“Look at it this way John. If we screw you at least history will recognize you as a patriot instead of a traitor when the truth eventually comes out if it ever does.”
“Great, but will any one I care about know the truth? What about my family? What about me?”
“Don’t leap to conclusions John. You have been reading too many spy novels.”
“Why do I feel like you wrote them?”
“Go home John.”
As John drove home he noticed that sweat was starting to form on his upper lip again. He tried brushing it away with his sleeve, but the fear wouldn’t go away. He didn’t trust Casey any more. He didn’t trust Wade. He didn’t trust anybody. He felt alone, horribly alone. He missed Alice. He yearned for the good old days when he was a junior officer in the New York office of the FBI, and weekends meant mowing the lawn, ice cold beer, hamburger barbeques, and making love to Alice. He could almost smell the burgers.
*****
Hi, this is Arthur Levine, the author of the novel Homegrown Terrorist. To read other excerpts, or to leave a comment please go to http://johnnyoops.blogspot.com
As he sped to his new temporary hotel apartment home in his new Mercedes, he was shaking his head wondering what was going wrong in America and why? He felt like one of those people one saw interviewed on TV after a tragic school shooting or a murder struck there small community, and they mumbled in a daze that they thought it couldn’t happen here. No, not here in the good old USA: no homegrown terrorists suicide bombings, no dissatisfied underclass, no greedy banks ruining the economy, no Iranian backed junta ready to take over. But it was happening. It was all too real. The shear horror of what was taking place hit John with full force. He had to pull over to the side of the road to compose himself. How could these people possibly make a deal with the Iranians?
As soon as John got home he called his boss Casey, the head of the FBI, and said they had to meet in Philadelphia, that it was urgent. Casey told him to make it the following morning around 10 AM and got off the phone muttering that this better be worth it.
The following morning John met Casey at their favorite Deli as planned. The first words out of his mouth were, “The Iranians gave me a brand new Mercedes for setting up Ross Phalen. I feel like a crook.”
Casey replied, “You mean more like a traitor. What do you expect, you’re a double agent?”
“I’m only doing this because it’s in our National interest.”
“Are you sure?”
John said, “I don’t like the way this conversation is going. I have something urgent to tell you. I feel like I am being set up to take a fall if something goes wrong.”
“Not by me John. Just be sure you aren’t setting yourself up. You are walking a fine line. Now what is this urgent information you have to tell me that forced me to cancel an important meeting with the future Director of Homeland Security?
“I have to tell you, Casey that the Iranians handle things in a more pleasant manner than you do.”
“I am not in the pleasant business, John. What do you have?”
“Okay Casey, you asked for it. This is the down and dirty of it. Dawa and an associate who is a professor of economics at New York University by the name of Alhali Huseini met me for lunch yesterday. After giving me the car for a job well down, they told me they had a new project for me. I was to find a respected reporter for a major newspaper and give him the story that our major banks and investment brokerage houses were hiding off balance sheet losses of about two trillion dollars in CECOFS and it could very likely wreck our economy. I am to get the details from the good professor when I’m ready to talk to a reporter and reveal this monumental scandal.
The Iranians say they are in a conspiracy with the Chinese who will sell a trillion dollars worth of the CECOFS to drive the price down to near zero as they were inflated to more than four times their real worth to begin with by the banks so they could show huge profits and recover from the sub prime disaster of 2007 – 2009, from which they have never really fully recovered. I am also to fill in some of the more aggressive bloggers on the Internet so the story will have legs.
The Iranians figure this could cause our financial institutions to crumble, and out economic system to self destruct leaving them in a position to put a junta of their choosing in control to take advantage of the ensuing chaos without the need to explode another terrorist bomb. There is more, but I can’t remember it all. The Russians are in on this in some way. I have a week to find a reliable reporter and destroy the United States. Do you have any thoughts?
John thought Casey was going to choke on his buttered bagel.
Casey said, “What the hell is a CECOF? How did this happen? Who let the banks and brokers get away with this? Where were the Banking Commission, the SEC, and all these new regulatory agencies Congress created in 2010 when all this phony profit stuff was happening? How could the banks have concocted these financial instrument and priced them at four times what they are worth? What the hell do you expect me to do about this? This could be a catastrophe. It could cause our economy to collapse.”
“The CECOF stands for Carbon Emission Credit Option Funds. I don’t know who let these financial institutions get away with this scheme. I don’t know how they manipulated the price of the options. My guess is they now have these computer geeks who make up these crazy formulas, and I’m not even sure the CEOs of the major financial institutions know what kind of a pile of manure they are sitting on top of. These computer geeks get paid fortunes, as I understand it to come up with exotic financial formulas. All they have to do is change a decimal point here and a symbol equaling something else there, and they can inflate the value of whatever phony financial instrument they have created.”
Valuing saving the Nation from pollution and Global Warming is a very subjective thing. These computer guys can have a field day determining what these Carbon Option certificates should trade for. They can raise their value by determining that the underlying Carbon fines they are supposed to protect against are going to go up sharply because Global Warming due to carbon emissions is much more of a problem now than it was six months ago. “
“Who knows what ephemeral nonsense they base their valuations on? The problem is that people and financial institutions have been buying them at these inflated values. It has something to do with the initial Cap and Trade legislation Congress passed in 2010 where certain companies got Carbon Credits verses the new taxes they were supposed to pay as fines for not curbing carbon emissions, and then traded them to other companies that needed them more because they had worse carbon emission problems and fines to pay. It’s all very confusing, and the legislation made it even more difficult to comprehend as politics dictated, which companies got what Cap and Trade credits, not actual need.”
“The problem has been exacerbated because these inflated CEOF’s have gotten into a lot of pension plans whose investment officers thought they were doing the patriotic thing. “
“The heads of these Investment Companies go along because they don’t really understand the underlying liability to their Companies, and they want big bonuses for showing profits phony or not. It is like a giant game of musical chars. Unfortunately it looks like the music is about to stop and our Country is going to be without a seat at the table of credit worthy Nations. As you have told me, greed must have driven them to this. Sounds familiar, sounds like I’ve heard this song before. I don’t have the answers. I’m only speculating based on my limited knowledge. What I expect you to do is to tell me what to do. I need answers from you. I could arrest Dawa, Alhali, and there boss Wady Hussein, but I don’t know how deep their organization is, and this information will probably get out anyway. What do you want me to do?”
Casey frowned and said, ‘Do nothing until you hear from me. I have to see the Secretary of the Treasury, the head of the Federal Reserve, and the President. I can’t make a decision here on my own. This is too big. I can hardly believe it. Wait until you here from me.”
“I only have one week.”
“Just go home and do nothing and say nothing for now. I will get back to you as soon as I can.”
“Why do I have the feeling that either way I’m going to be screwed by you or the Iranians”?
“Look at it this way John. If we screw you at least history will recognize you as a patriot instead of a traitor when the truth eventually comes out if it ever does.”
“Great, but will any one I care about know the truth? What about my family? What about me?”
“Don’t leap to conclusions John. You have been reading too many spy novels.”
“Why do I feel like you wrote them?”
“Go home John.”
As John drove home he noticed that sweat was starting to form on his upper lip again. He tried brushing it away with his sleeve, but the fear wouldn’t go away. He didn’t trust Casey any more. He didn’t trust Wade. He didn’t trust anybody. He felt alone, horribly alone. He missed Alice. He yearned for the good old days when he was a junior officer in the New York office of the FBI, and weekends meant mowing the lawn, ice cold beer, hamburger barbeques, and making love to Alice. He could almost smell the burgers.
*****
Hi, this is Arthur Levine, the author of the novel Homegrown Terrorist. To read other excerpts, or to leave a comment please go to http://johnnyoops.blogspot.com
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