I think I found the ideal mate for Squabs here. He likes architecture, after all, and his second wife accidentally became a municipal building in Illinois. He visits her twice a year. He's so sentimental.

I have no topic. It happens sometimes. Nothing on my mind. Well, actually I've got quite a lot on my mind which is ordinary and of little interest to you who have your own ordinaries to contend with. I believe you want something out of the ordinary by coming here. I'm sorry I can't supply it today.

That reminds me of Roxy Music's first album. Band leader Bryan Ferry wanted to make the album one way but by the time Brian Eno got done tweaking everything through his synthesizer it came out another way. The result is sublime, but not the way Ferry envisioned. The two would not struggle with artistic differences for very long, however. Eno was out after two albums. My mind works like an ensemble in that sense. Ordinary thoughts go through a tweaking process and come out changed into something interesting. But it takes time. Right now my writing will be as uninspired as all of Roxy Music is after Eno left.

Birds are thoughts. Thought is music. This is my old familiar chamber.

I live in a town that fancies itself "Tree City." We have too many bloody trees. They were planting more yesterday. I think of that Dick Van Dyke episode where Danny Thomas is a space invader who throws walnuts at you, and wherever the walnut hits you on your body an eyeball grows. We are like that with trees. A person cannot stand in one place for too long without having a tree sprout up beneath him and carry him aloft. It can be quite a nuisance.

Yesterday the natives were having boat races with giant pumpkins. There's a better way to express that. I mean they were using giant pumpkins as if they were boats. Once the original novelty wears off there isn't much to see. My son and I sauntered on down - the younger fella - his brother being off somewhere on his own like some playboy of the Western World - and I noticed something peculiar. No one present at the event was known to me. Or, that is, very few. The local big company CEO was there, the local chamber of commerce folks, the mayor, but no one else. No one from the actual village. So, the people who were there were from out of town, responding to radio advertising which promoted the event. That means the locals are tired of it and just don't bother showing up anymore. Too busy planting trees.

Nice looking girls. Hey - I can look. In fact, I can do a great deal more than look. But I learned something about women a coupla three years ago, something important: all the good ones are taken. So I'd better hope there's something more to life. Turns out there is. There's - ah - blogging, for instance. Let's hear it for blogging! Hip-hip...

Yes, life is like a crazy quilt sewn together from discarded scraps. Not an original analogy, I admit, but an apt one. I did warn you my thoughts were still ordinary this morning, yet you decided to keep reading. Such loyalty. That's why I love you, one of many reasons.

I also like working. I like making money from nothing. It's God-like. I like being like God. But lately I must confess (or endorse) having a case of unwholesome discontent. The things that pleased me yesterday don't please me quite as much today, and the one thing I suppose that would please me is unattainable. Well, that's a useless state of mind, and I need to get beyond it. One particular patch of the quilt is crazier than the others.

It will pass on its own in time. My experience informs me well.

Today I go do an estimate on the upper story windows of a 14,000 square foot house. Heights don't bother me; falling from them does. We shall see...

It is later. I have seen. I'm impressed. I expected to see a McMansion or "hodgepodge" house, but it is in fact a three tiered modern with interesting lines following the contour of the landscape built right into the mountain. A concrete level is surmounted by a zinc-plated level surmounted by a cedar level, all of which curve, the uppermost having the appearance of floating. In addition the architect created three clear story areas which resemble the shape of the surrounding hills. The view from the house is, needless to say, visible from every room within.

It turns out both the builder and the architect are known to me, which if I stuck my head out into the community a little more I would already have known, and they are both men whose services I have frequently recommended as being the best in the area.

So - do you think I'm crazy enough to take the job? If you think I'm not, keep reading - you'll get it eventually.

Good day to you.     

Halfway there an ear-to-ear grin took over my face. I thought of her – the gal who works the desk nights at the hotel where I deliver food. Seeing her fills me with joy. Just thinking about her makes me smile. Why? Some people just do. I hardly know her. Our longest conversation may have lasted 30 seconds. We exchange pleasantries. The exchange always ends with her peculiar and appealing way of saying, “OK bye” as if it were a single word with the emphasis on the third syllable. I look forward to seeing her because she makes me happy. I’ll betcha money she knows the Lord.

The boys are here with me this weekend. Suddenly, life’s too short to waste on a computer. Last weekend was a nightmare of loneliness. Bacon and waffles this morning, I think. I’ll play Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast. What the heck? Do the laundry, clean the house – sexy stuff like that. It’s so exciting to do those sorts of things when the family’s here.

Have you ever been so weak and sick that you were unable to move? I have. It’s terrible. Well, the body may be animated but the spirit not. One who is sick in his body but full of life in his spirit is like my mother was – her own sun-like source of light and warmth. But many there are who walk about with the appearance of health but whose spirits are crushed, too weak and too sick to move. I don’t wish to see people like that today. That will require staying far away from mass media of any kind, of course. Perhaps also staying away from the main roads. It’s hard when you’re moved to pity on a day when you have been sick and your arms feel like anvils. What to do?

I can think of several others who are like my little friend over at the hotel. Some of them are you who are reading. It pleases me to know you will be reading and it gives me that ear-to-ear grin.

OK bye.

My icon image is by William Blake. I often quote Blake, make reference to Blake. When I was a teenager I thought it oh so cool to read The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. For everything that lives is Holy. Well, no it’s not, actually. I also read The Great Divorce, an allegorical tale by C.S. Lewis, at around the same time, little knowing its title was a direct rebuke of the Blake. You think I’m smart? Chew on that fact a moment. Both works were attractive to me.

“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” Now, why shouldn’t that be attractive to a teenager?

Lewis describes becoming aware of being in a city, which he illustrates in some detail as being largely deserted. The city in The Great Divorce is impossibly large, it turns out. Its inner city area at its center is totally abandoned. The people who find themselves there – as Lewis the first person protagonist has done – discover that they can build houses out of thought. Now, we already know that everything we build we build out of thought, but in life we must also use our bodies to alter matter. The denizens of this city, this world that Lewis describes, we begin slowly to realize are dead. He is showing us an idea of an afterlife in which it is no longer necessary to use our hands to build houses for ourselves to live in. Indeed, not having a body how can one?

The inner city is abandoned because the people there – a long, long time ago – stopped getting along with one another and decided to build new houses (with their thoughts) to get away from each other. And every time they develop the slightest whim to move and build yet another house they may do so as easily as one might decide to have a glass of water. The city has subsequently grown in ever widening circles until it is now unimaginably large. There does not seem to be any sort of immediate punishment for wicked people in this afterlife. The wicked and the virtuous arrive at the same place, but it’s fairly obvious the thoughts people carry within them will determine precisely where they end up. Redemption requires nothing more than making a decision to get aboard a bus that leaves regularly from a certain place which goes – it is said – to Heaven.

When the bus miraculously leaves the ground and begins to ascend into the clouds our protagonist – Lewis, we presume, now dead – is able to see and describe for us the full horror of that city, its impossible size, its ugliness. He also becomes acquainted with several of the other passengers, each of whom have a symbolic significance in character and also help advance the story in an expository way. But I’m not going to summarize the whole tale.

The city, we begin to realize, is a sort of Purgatory which quite literally turns into Hell the longer a soul decides to remain there. It is because of the wickedness that people carry within them – their resentment, their greed, their lust for power – that it is so. The people do exactly what they wish to do for eternity, free at last of the limitations of the flesh. It is only when we see through the protagonist’s eyes the full horror of how that fact portends to the quality of life in this place that we begin to get Lewis’s point. He is not attempting a theological treatise about the true nature of the afterlife – though there are several very fruitful arguments contained in his idea – but he is telling one of the most thought provoking morality stories – (a story about truth) – that I think ever was written. It’s certainly easy to read, not at all obscure, and immediately gratifying.

In other words, stop wasting your time reading The White Lodge and read this little book immediately. Take the day off, stop everything, and read The Great Divorce. It is more important than anything else you may have going on. We’re running around busy with living – to what end?

Once the bus gets to a field above the clouds which has a view of Heaven beyond distant mountains the loved ones belonging to each passenger begin to arrive to greet them. They come from Heaven – from beyond the mountains – in their Heavenly form, with bodies perfected, to escort the passengers home to Heaven, to invite them, cajole them, in most cases argue with them(!) – make the case for leaving self behind. But even in view of everlasting life in Heaven many of the passengers decide not to go. They decide to get back on the bus. The famous author decides he still has one more great book to write. The housewife is still too resentful, the chartered accountant is still too filled with self condemnation, and so on, and so on. Many people have made the bus trip many times now and each time have decided to get back on the bus and return home – to Hell, unwilling to leave life behind. It’s not about the afterlife, is it? It’s really about this life.

I keep saying Christianity is a renunciation. I can’t express anything as well as this little book does. Renunciation of what? – of what your neighbor is doing? No. Renunciation of Self. Renunciation of the things of the world – the world a city of ever-widening circles made of houses of isolation self imposed.

My father tells a story which is probably far more rewarding than what I have just written, and I beg your indulgence a moment more so that you may also hear it. A certain saint is granted by the devil a tour of Hell, and so to Hell he goes. The devil gives him the whole $5 tour. And he sees a gigantic table in a very splendid room, and on that table is piled high an infinite and everlasting variety of the most delicious foods ever imagined or imaginable. Standing around the table are the souls of the dead, and they are emaciated and wasting away from hunger to the point where even looking at them would fill the cruelest most hardened heart with pity. Even the devil pities them. So, seeing this, the saint asks, “Why can’t they eat?”

The devil explains, “Their arms are locked; their elbows will not bend. They cannot bring the food to their mouths.”

The saint says, “Well that’s easily enough solved. All it would take is for one to turn and feed the one next to him.”

The devil says, “If they could think of doing that they wouldn’t be here.”      

Happy day. It’s going to be a long one. Maybe. I was the most popular man in town last night with my rented carpet cleaning machine. Oh – Is that a carpet cleaning machine? Why, yes it is. I could really use a good carpet cleaning. I wish I could borrow it. Do you clean carpets? It just so happens I do. I’m still vibrating. Of course, it might have been worse. I might have rented a jackhammer. Sometimes when you spend all day driving you continue driving in your dreams.

The Lady came by the other night with some new pictures. Smoking clove cigarettes. I know, I know. Don’t say it. The smell made me hear King Crimson in my head, so I played some Crimson on the big stereo. She said, Wow, they’re playing hard. Yes, they are.

She took pictures of my furnishings, objets d’art, and so on. As you know, were it not for garage sales, rummage sales, and the like, I would live naked in an empty house. People talk about recycling as if it has something to do with soda pop cans. Rubbish. I recycle junk that other people don’t want anymore, beautiful things. Q: What’s the difference between an antique and a piece of used furniture? A: The sign over the door. I don’t drink soda pop anyway. Now, what have I told you about things? Take care of your things and you will own them. If you do not take care of your things they will be taken from you.

Thou Shalt Not Steal. Like the other ‘shalt not’ Commandments it means you cannot steal; it’s spiritually impossible. A thief may move matter from one location to another, but only if it is unclaimed, not if it is owned.

Nearby there is a meadow of bones of all the children who died before they were born. We give them a home, and we bury them in our garden. Happy and laughing, in summer dress and golden hair they run across the green grass with arms out wide and say I love you to everyone still buried in the sorrow. It is the dead Christ that freed them, the virgin sacrifice. Come up and see me. Do whatever you want. Live with me. Kill me. Ridicule the size of my cock. There comes a time when love crushes all, and our corn fields will ripen in time to be cut.

Now, let’s see, a million bits are buzzing around in this piece of wood between my ears this morning. I’m leaving a trail of gummi bears so I can find my way back. It’s a funny thing about rules, spiritual and otherwise. Sister Mary Tabernacle Door used to say to us young Christian gentlemen Whoever told you life was fair lied – a lot. Because of rules, because of natural laws, because of the law of being, people will make judgments sometimes about matters that are none of their business. Well, it is not because of the law, which is fixed, permanent, and unchangeable, but because of their arrogance. If I say what I have said above, and tomorrow a thief makes a liar of me, there are those who will say that I must have done something wrong – that it was because of my sin, or the sins of my ancestors. It is that way with suffering. People often suffer for absolutely no fault of their own. In fact, suffering flows through life like water. If a person should become ill it is not because he has fallen out of Grace from God. That happened a very very long time ago to a couple named Adam and Eve. Let’s not get confused about who they were. The Grace is working within the suffering. We live in shadows, away from the sunlight. We don’t live in the Garden. My mom suffered terribly – physically. Through her suffering she found joy. It is through suffering that we come to joy. But there are some – I call them spiritual elitists, people who think they are God, pantheists, Gnostics, New Agers, health & wealth gospel types – who have virtually no answer to the reality of suffering. When one of their number gets sick the others turn their backs on him because obviously he has sinned, or he is possessed by a demon. Rubbish.

So I want to open a store. I’ve spoken with many people about this. Many people have said to me, Wal-Mart can sell the same items for less than you can buy them, so it is useless, don’t bother. Other people have said, Oh what a good idea for a store – we could use such a shop here in town. Well, it happens that the ones who told me not to bother have found failure in their own enterprises, and the ones who told me it was a good idea have been successful in theirs. Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t. A lot of decisions we make in life are going to depend on the answer to the question Who are you gonna believe?

I have a friend whose logic is very different than mine. I know quite a few people – as we all do – whose thought processes seem a little off beam. Well, he told me that Wal-Mart’s slogan – their secret, internal slogan for the little devils who strategize the company’s growth – is We ARE retail in America. He finds that quite threatening. But I say can any enterprise be successful if one has a different attitude? No – of course not! A person must go into business determined to win. David slew Goliath not because the government regulated Goliath. The only way to make a killing is to kill. So, when Wal-Mart says We ARE retail in America I say Dream on, Sunshine. It pays to have one. I told my friend this. I don’t think it registered in his brain. I don’t think he possessed the platform to understand, or the hook to hang such a thought upon. Well, he is an avowed socialist. No surprise there. It is a completely different mindset. Looking for God in all the wrong places, as it were, but not where He is – within himself – complete with all the God-given power of creative intellect. He tells me I am a classic individualist, and then snorts the way college professors do when you try to argue with them.

Sometimes I get comments that begin with words like I think you are oversimplifying the… Oh, shut up.

How on earth did I get here? Where did I begin – cleaning carpets, right? Gummi trail leads back through – where? I’ve been in this room with you already. Well, it’s one of my favorite rooms in the house. It has a big, comfy couch I got for $75 from a neighbor down the street here. It’s gorgeous. Not like new – better. Kinda pulls the room together.

Anyhooooooo, I’m waiting for the White Tornado to show up. Then we’ll venture forth into whatever joy the day may bring. I think I’m going to spring for a decent camera. The Lady was showing me how the card reader slots in the front of this computer are supposed to work. It’s pretty cool, convenient.

Oh – I got about 300 records yesterday. High-end stuff, major labels, all Classical, in great shape. A friend of mine has a dad who’s going into a nursing home. They were his records. Out on the curb, no less. I put them in my car. My son says What are you going to do with those? Ah – listen to them?    

Guildersleeve is surprisingly helpful unloading the McGee's car as they return from their long vacation. You'll hear his blustery "You're a haaaaaard man, McGee" early on in this episode, and every one featuring Hal Peary as the combative next door neighbor from here on in - until he leaves the show, that is, next year. In the meantime, this program really begins to hit its stride.