Category Archives: essay

A Thousand Lies (Bridge to Nowhere)

A Thousand Lies (Bridge to Nowhere)
NEW SONG ALERT!

The best liars don’t really need a reason.

They’re glib. They’re creative. They enjoy lying.

They’re not sociopaths… clinically speaking. They have feelings, stirrings of empathy; they indulge in sentimentalism and symbolic emotionalism… in fact, it’s the language they speak… all too fluently, at times.

A Thousand Lies (Bridge to Nowhere)

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Special YouTube Version— A tribute to Warhol’s epic, “Empire”

The delight they take in their lies helps sustain them. It invigorates them. In a very real way, their lies give meaning to their lives.

Because they lie from the inside, out.

In a way, the skein of interlocking lies that lace their lives, is their lives.

They lie to themseslves even though they are perfectly aware they’re lying. Their lies are simultaneously excuses and self-entertainments, creative endeavors that provide endless hours of diversion and delight.

And… sometimes… they become politicians.

lyrics
A Thousand Lies (Bridge to Nowhere)

I’ve got a thousand lies
I can’t wait to tell you
I’ve got a bridge to nowhere
I know I could sell you
I’ve got a real nice dream
as phony as hell
you know it’s all a
part of the game

I know the rules
I’m making them up
anything that works
just to stay on top
I don’t care who
else takes the drop
’cause it’s all a
part of the game

tell a lie often enough
people forget
where the truth leaves off
but sometimes that truth
can be pretty rough
and usually the truth
is just not enough

besides it’s all a part of the game

I’ve got a reason
for all that I do
life’s got a meaning
I’ll explain it to you
it’s all about me
it’s not about you and
it’s all a part of the game

2008-09-19
(C)2008, TK Major

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Superstition is where you find it…

Bold & Rational Men

The search for cause and effect has not always been carried out with a rigorous methodology carefully crafted to return reliable results.

Sometimes, folks make cognitive leaps that are breathtaking in their intuitive scope but are still just plain wack.

Many supposedly scientific westerners have elaborate personal systems of superstition which they keep separate from both their secular science and whatever formal religion they may choose to practice.

The supposedly hard-headed Chinese Communist ruling oligarchy picked the suposedly supremely lucky western calendar date of August 8, 2008 (8-8-8) to kick off the olympics. (8 is a lucky number in Chinese culture for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the it sounds like the word for prosper — not to mention that the characters for a double 8 resemble the popular shuang xi “double joy” design.)

Now, today’s date really had little or nothing to do with my picking this song for today’s post; I’ll admit it. If anything, I was thinking about an ongoing dialog I’ve been tentatively participating in regarding unfair prejudice against the religious.

Sometimes how one comes in on a contentious dialog depends on who has already staked out what position — and in what fashion — even if one’s own beliefs are all but immutable.

Normally I find myself lining up with those who profess to exalt rationalism and a scientific approach.

But all too often in some sectors these days, one finds those who claim adherence to scientific principles making irrational or unsupportable, often absolutist claims, flying far from the surly bonds of logic and fact.

Maybe, like beat dogs, some of us who’ve been subjected to one too many proselytic haranguement simply go nuts at the mention of religion; folks whose abreaction to repeated attempts to convert them to some religion or another have metastasized into a generalized scorn for anyone who dares entertain the idea that there might be something beyond this universe or something which transcends or perhaps informs our physical reality.

Even as science peels back layer after layer of how this universe works — revealing increasingly that the more we know, the more profound and strange the next questions become — some of these individuals cling to the notion that they know with absolute certainty that there is nothing beyond what we now see and think we know.

previous versions
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Friday, August 10, 2007

lyrics
Bold & Rational Men
Bold and Rational Men

Come now y’ bold and rational men
and march y’ straight ahead
y’ fear not the fire of the dragon
nor the carrious teeth of death

And come now, lad
fear not the gods
you’ve often said we’re all alone
d’n’cha see your where your path must lie
straight into the unknowable
good speed now
you’re on your own

But wait now put your hand on the earth
and see where your life flows from
this good dark earth
is the mother of us all
y’know you are her son

and come and gaze into the sky
see how dark and deep
you are the prodigal lost in time
lost in a dream kept sleep

(C)1973, TK Major
(C)2008, TK Major

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Desperation is in short supply…

Winged Victory

It is often said that trouble, trouble, at any rate, that doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger.

But there are times when you’d trade all life’s hard-learned lessons and ennobling sorrows for a little rest… a break in the action… the pain subsiding into a dull ache… even for a little while.

You slog forward because you think you remember somewhere that to fall behind is to succumb… to fall in the snow… to be forgotten because no one else has the strength to remember one more fallen comrade.

The point of survival is soon forgotten and it becomes a habit… or the struggle toward it… the weary momentum.

Ah… hell… it’s a beautiful faux spring day here in Southern California and I live near the beach. Y’all can listen to this song — I’m going outside…

2 Dazed 2 Care

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previous versions
Monday, November 07, 2005
Sunday, February 05, 2006

original 1982 dark new wave recording [soundclick page]

lyrics
2 Dazed 2 Care

Turn down this street
back down that alley
there is no escape and there is no stalling

The future is here
and it’s more of the past
All I remember
is falling and falling

Leave me alone
just let me be
with wounds this deep
they just have to bleed

Desperation is short supply
I used up my panic in the crises last year
It’s hard to worry, it’s hard to care
when you’re so tired of anger
and you’re so tired of fear

Leave me alone…

No point in crying, laughing or dreaming
no point in love, no % in fear
desperation is in short supply
so tired of anger
2 dazed 2 care

(C)1981,2008, TK Major

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Throw the bums out…

A Whole 'Nother New Morning

Since I’ve written before in this space about being an anti-war, environmentally concerned Republican (unnecessary war only benefits the arms dealers and a dead planet is bad for business — what’s hard to understand about that?) I figure it’s probably appropriate for me to announce some changes around here…

I wish the GOP was still the party of Lincoln, civil rights, and honest, responsible government. But that fantasy is unsustainable.

It’s not a perfect fit — but I’m now a Democrat. That’s right, a capital-D Democrat.

And, like a lot of folks walking away from my former party, I’ve been drawn steadily to the new guy.

Not only is he likable — he’s whip smart and serious in a way that seems to elevate the dialog away from the same old do-anything-say-anything-to-get-elected politics of his closest rival for his party’s nomination.

Do I have qualms? Sure, I’m a fiscal conservative and he’s… well… he’s kind of a progressive.

But when’s the last time there was a genuine fiscal conservative Republican in the White House? That would be… not in my half-century-plus of memory. No, the Republicans who’ve crossed that threshold have been, by and large, disgraceful spend-and-borrow profligates and any cursory investigation of the ups and downs of US deficits and total debt will throw that into stark and unmistakable relief.

And those Republican spendthrifts have by and large thrown away the money enriching their cronies and donors — often as not on weapons systems that do not work as advertised and erode the security of the U.S.

So, while I’d certainly be more comfortable if someone, somewhere was promising smaller budgets — and might actually be counted on to deliver them (ah, there’s always the rub) — I’m actually more comfortable with someone who wants to put his spending to use in actually improving the lot of U.S. citizens instead of greedy, corrupt warmongering arms makers.

I’m voting for Obama, today.

[reprise]
A Whole ‘Nother New Morning

Internet Archive page for this recording

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