Friends, I’m moving the production to a new channel. The original two podcasts — The Zen Revolution and Field of Weeds — will remain. Now I’m adding a third — The Void Project — a video serial. Explore with me the edges of reason.

This is episode #21 for February 10, 2011 — A Caustic Reaction

A meeting with an old friend… detractors… being ejected clean from the husk.

I just began communicating  with a man I met on a retreat at Southern Dharma, before I moved to Providence Zen Center. It was my first retreat, what convinced me to move to a residential Zen center and begin a string of long retreats. Although I hardly remember him, I recall he was very nice, shared his home with me on my way north and found me after all these years — really a gentleman from a moment in time I can hardly piece together, before the training began. What dreams I held then were all proven wrong. Naive, but very fresh, enthusiastic. It would be hard to reconstruct what I was then. For this reason it was very difficult to write The Zen Revolution. I prefer the work I do now, the life I have now, the practice, understanding, clarity. I would prefer not to exist rather than go through all that I’ve gone through to get where I am today. So it is with a tinge of remorse that I recount the old days with this Southern gentleman, who asks that I fill him in on all the details since. The revolution isn’t enough. He wants details. Is there another way to tell the story? How narcissistic can I be? Another version of my life? Do I get the girl at the end? The treasure I was after? Was there a magical potion to be found? Are unicorns real? Do we live forever? Are your eyes still green? Do you have any spare change? What so you do to survive? Were you a writer then? Do you have any savings? What was Korea like? Do you get lonely? Do you still dream? What is your fetish? Have you ever been arrested? What do you listen to? Have you ever painted your fingernails? Was it your girlfriend? That bitch. I guess you weren’t emasculated… You enjoyed it? Why? …because it was strange? What kind of quality is that? You like the oddity? Isn’t that the same thing?

***

After the interview I flowed into a fiberglass molded seat like a thing of jelly. I understand his curiosity, so allow the probing. All of you. What else? You want to control my limbs? Pick out my clothes? Live my life for me? Throw things at me? Go ahead. I’m sure you’re right. Under the glare of your scrutiny I secretly change the channel. Sorry. It was only a fragment anyway. We never met. I never existed. For instance, someone remembers me from the old days at big dog radio, a role I played for a few years. It put me on the spot, his expectations. Where had I gone from that? I didn’t figure into his dream. “What was this Zen thing all about?” But the moment in time that identified me to him was such a small thing when I was famous, a rock God lording over the rednecks… maybe a man doesn’t aspire to lording over a dirtbag town, whatever perks. For me it was a downward spiral into the maw of preternatural bliss. The cacophony on the surface became like the clattering of hooves, the ramming of horns; bellows, snorts; the smoke of civilization.

“Would you like a cup of milk?”

For me, I found the important part and abandoned the rest. For him, I was a dropout, a teenage success gone to withering. But I’ve hardly moved. Whatever it was the fueled the rising is still boiling in me. It required a larger vocabulary, a world of experience. It is my master, this thing that speaks through me. It doesn’t care for my schoolboy fantasies or passing fame. I write in the dark. I destroy what I create, throw it to the ground. It can’t be stopped. I’m powerless against it. No fame or infamy. Though nothing reflects back at me from this dim well, at times I doubt even that I exist, or that I exist empirically. It hardly concerns me. What’s important is that I continue this work — however long, whatever angle, until I am fully satisfied.

“You’re a writer now? Have you been published?”

“Forget it. Five copies only. One for the priest, so he can wipe his ass.”

What I’m doing isn’t important. I should’ve remained in the abandoned fields of my youth. Indeed, I’ve never left them. What would it matter if I moved a tree branch? My voice is stifled by the rustling of swamp grass. The crows find their way across the barbed wire. How far will they take me?

***

Back underground to a stalled train, the thing chasing me down, to stand with my back against a pillar, to let it catch up to me. What is it, old friend? Did I do something wrong? The bundle of concerns crests and breaks against the wall, now indecipherable, but clearly I see the poor mutterings of those who haven’t found their place, who’ve squandered their lives down dead alleys, who’ve turned bitter. Easy to do, to miss the sweet life spilling out everywhere. The need gets ahead of itself. Constantly scheming… it’s been that way forever. The true voice is there, but you can’t discern it, not until the noise has abated — a real conundrum for my old friends, who constantly create more strife. Truly there’s no hope for them, but you can’t say that. Whatever twisted logic they’ve worked out stands. By the time it gets to you it’s been cooked to a fine patina. There’s no tempering the sauce. My old man was constantly in a rage over nothing. Whatever he’d worked out the kids were all just looking for something to do, trying to escape the leers, the indignation — a pointless exercise. The law is broken time and again for convenience. It’s the police who bear the burden. Are we governable, knowing that nearly everyone is frustrated, driven, full of rage because of their own blundering swath? Why are people so different when you get to know them, when you finally pry apart the veneer and see the primitive workings? Because the dream can’t be made real, and what is real is avoided at all costs.

In my case, I was fortunate to have a caustic reaction naturally occurring around me that rose to the point that I was ejected clean from the husk. It wasn’t the practice alone that cured me of my afflictions, but the afflictions themselves. Attempting to attain liberation through practice or faith, how many can accomplish it? Instead we have a lot of people crowding the scene who are after the title, so the landscape we have today. The whole business of attaining the formless realm is subverted by all too human needs, instead we have a placard with someone’s name on it, who cares which one? And a cheap vase with flowers. A lot of quality people on the path refuse to participate in the stampede. After a lifelong practice in obscurity, they are the real jewels of dharma — effectively suppressed by the king of the hill players. Who understands this?

I don’t think we’re ready for it. In reality it is the final movement on the stage, for there can’t be anything after. That’s the question you should ask yourself, are you ready to end this affair?

The brakes squeal, the passengers fling forward, then back. No one questions it. Two old friends talk easily through the crowd, what the children are eating.

“I’m a fish person.”

A man outside easily outpaces us on a bicycle. I get out at Wilshire to get a coffee. Long sitting tonight at the Zen center.

***

The Field of Weeds series is an integral part of my work. The concept, introduced in The Zen Revolution, is far too subtle to describe. I touch on it briefly in Chapter 13 — Totem, with fragments in Chapter 1 — Fall to the Ground, Chapter 8 — Gye Ryong San, and Chapter 11 — Leap Year. It wasn’t intentional. I was unaware of it until it became apparent in the slant of the work. After finishing The Zen Revolution I immediately wrote the 21 Field of Weeds essays, to further define it. I’ve only begun the work, but have finished the series. The next body of work will be The Void Project — a video serial. I’ll post an update here when I’m ready to roll it out, and will return again, soon, for another season of the Field if Weeds essays.

Surrender. I surrender to it, this field of weeds.

This is episode #20 for February 3, 2011 — The Uprising

A change of seasons… a trickle of blood… the universal sound…

The lights cycle quickly at Northrop Grumman, for the important people in nondescript cars. Everyone is vulnerable. How to stay ahead? The software companies do it by changing the formula for every iteration. No choice. You’ve got to upgrade to the new version every season — everything has changed. I’m constantly refreshing my own content. I’d like to make a living at this, but I’m not going to do it for the money. It has to be uncontrolled, or else why write the revolution? The only control or filter I apply is structural: moving paragraphs together that continue the thought, dropping repetitive things, changing a word here or there. I have no concept of audience, marketing trends — although I do push through social media. I feel the work only marginally, subconsciously. It works itself out before I understand what it is, as of appearing from a mist. It looks like it will develop into my own brand of micro-doc. The video shorts and these 2,000 word essays will probably merge, or a new show will branch from it. The first 21 essays are sketches only, toward a new expression. After next week’s episode, I’m going to reconfigure the whole show. I want to combine the essays with experimental video, something crazy, compelling, ten minutes — the same thing, only condensed, maybe a long essay now and then, to feed the wolves. I want to descend further, out of the hyperbole and concrete, down to the subconscious. I want to write the way a child draws, with no reservation or control, completely wild.

I’m being watched. It draws them. The old man stoops nearly to the floor. An imaginary fire, bones and animal skins. The river courses underfoot, steel rails. The light through the trees “exit to street.” What do we know? A trickle of blood remains on the seat in front of me. It draws a woman with a straw hat, who turns her bug eyes to the door, suspicious. Her long nails ring on the handrail. Another leap through black spaces lit by blue fluorescents, and we drift under the bridges. I’m not able to stay adrift for long. No place on the green, everyone taking two seats. I took one anyway, half out in the aisle.

Micro code. No location. Writing the ground. The story exists only momentarily. It comes out from the page, remains there briefly. can you remember even the last sentence? What’s to tell? The thrumming sound of the black-line state as I pass over Raytheon. A woman crinkles a plastic bag like she’s trapped in it, eating her way out — another crime of these toxic things that never erode. We fly over a slow moving soccer game and one of several fields of weeds. If they would only open the razor wire. We never have a chance. Every street, every sidewalk has a purpose, all the street lights hang in gentle arches. My eyes fall closed, my mind vibrating coarsely. “Excuse me, are you a writer?” How does she know?

I’m exhausted from the weekend, a marathon whirlwind of work in Rancho Mirage remodeling the home of a wealthy client, his plasma screens flickering scenes of the Egyptian uprising in every room. It was tremendous! How long the people have been enslaved. How many repercussions? You can’t grow good quality humans in a dog pen. We are our own demise — and what for? Who benefits? More importantly, are there any heroes anymore?

We were not raised in an age of heroes. What few there were we’re gunned down. I didn’t know any growing up, had no role models to emulate — maybe the astronauts, more likely the fake ones in science fiction novels. We live in fiction. Movie stars are our royalty. Kye Soen’s oldest, now 14, lives almost entirely inside his Xbox 360. He doesn’t want to talk to the people on the outside. We are far too one-dimensional, and probably disappointing. Maybe it’s better. A revolution only happens once in a lifetime. Otherwise it’s all flashing lights, “registration please,” punching the clock, candy for sale… somebody sings a few bars of an old song, then switches on a radio and sings along with it. He’s good. Sunflower seeds from the guy in front. “I’ll give you some.” What a crazy, vibrant chord. My nerves are shimmering. Everyone is gentle tonight — this dream — this blue state. The train moves on impervious, but the pulse through the floor, the beat, the moaning… what is life?

“Good to meet you.”

My hands are in bad shape from the rat tunnel I’ve been crawling through, my tiny heart still racing. I would live some other way, but I need the freedom to sit long retreats, to leave town, to be pressed to the ground. I wasn’t given a break, so I don’t believe in them, and I don’t admire those that ride on the sore backs of others. My choice. This state of fatigue and adrenaline, I sleep in increments. Dreams boil to the surface, all the small worries magnified, all the fake conversations, overwrought emotions. I’m always glad to pull away. Here I’m a man. Here I’m invincible.

The sweet humming of a train descending underground. We all leap out as if escaping our dreams. A laughing lady passes me, surely freed from some pleasant node. How much is real anymore? How many of us on the platform observe the fine details here, like an exquisite painting? As I struggle to break my gaze from the handicap sign, a young woman with a strange accent ducks into the train, my guess at a red-line train to NOHO.

“I’m from Texas. We don’t have stuff like this. Hell yeah.”

And so I felt again the sting of my superior existence to those less fortunate than I. All the people in Burma, Egypt, whose lives are eaten up in the struggle for basic freedoms, necessities. How can we rise above our constraints when it’s all we’ve known? Doesn’t the rabbit want to return to its cage? It must be the image we portray, those of us in their eyes privileged. If it’s any consolation, I’m doing what I can to give back, to use any advantage I have to illustrate the madness of intersecting timelines, coursing emotions, thoughts, projections; lives embroiled in them; lives in fragments; symbolic lives embedded in archetypes, stereotypes; pulled from the mold as nearly exact replicas of the father, the grandfather — how we think, work, process. Be thankful that we don’t have to join a revolution in this life, to waste our lives rebuilding the frame so our children can grow a different way. How much do we already sacrifice for this?

Whatever living we manage to eke out, there’s a greater existential quandary we face, all of us. This is my ground, so of course I mean to reveal it, but there’s more to life than feeding the stomach. Whether or not you agree with this, the question remains. Here is where the real revolution takes place, where you stand up, as an individual, and take command of your affairs. It has to happen this way, for inside each of us is the answer to the rancor, the unrest. The uprising may be a black mark on our history, but what is history compared to the well-being of a single man, woman, or child? In the same way we must revolt against the institution — our tendency to follow the words of others, their dreams, rather than make our own. What good is the arc of a movement, its popularity if it doesn’t liberate you even from its own devices? The mark of a good teacher is one who pushes you away, in some respects, who helps you to find your own way. It’s a subterranean process, as much heat and pressure. The revolution begins here, in discovering the enormity of it, releasing hold on the surface peculiarities. Who is so arrogant as to offer advice, to channel your attention elsewhere? And whatever arrangement of things, rituals, mental constraints… I feel that I’ve been shouting, finally, my mouth open constantly to the roar that escapes me. It is the sound of 10,000 leagues.

I do not choose to exist here. I am here, so I take care of the things around me. Sometimes I forget, disappear. The man beside me folds his newspaper, impervious. Is he here with me, or lost to the streams of imagery? If we were in a dream I would talk to him through the page, rewrite the story as he reads it: a love story, a tragedy, a thousand tragedies; a wake, a single note from the orchestra for which they’ve studied their entire lives. The conductor is astonished, faints on the spot. The note widens. Everyone hears it now, the universal sound, every mouth stretched to its limits, every ear turned inward, every face full of tears. There is no end of crying now, no more sadness, intimacy — no lack! All heads turn down, as if in prayer. Everything is God. All the weapons, placards, burning flags — all of it on the ground, trampled. There are no more words.

My friend folds his newspaper, rubs his eyes. The door closes on metro station.

***

That’s all for this week. Next week’s show will be the final chapter in the first edition of the Field of Weeds series, probably the wildest, the most uncontrolled. I can’t be certain, as it remains unwritten. It certainly boils in me. The first print run will be released on the streets of North Hollywood and Downtown Los Angeles, the second on Amazon — both a Kindle and print edition. Read it for free on www.scribd.com, listen to the podcast on iTunes and feedburner, download the Android app — coming soon to iOS — and stay tuned for the further evolution of the show. I’m sure it will be interesting.

Surrender. I surrender to it, this field of weeds.

Welcome to Field of Weeds, an ongoing series of essays from the streets of LA. This is episode #19 for January 27, 2011: E.O.C.

The devolution of society is entertained briefly before the ground of rebellion, and a hustle on the blue line.

***

A very nice guy, dirt poor, talked to me about what I was writing. I told him how podcasts work, my circle of influence, my signature carpentry — all of this. He was missing a few teeth, and didn’t have on the right clothes for an interview, where he was headed. “Have a wonderful, wonderful…” and he was gone.

There’s a lot of hustling in the world. I guess that means everyone. Too bad we can’t all be born into money. What kind of world would that be? The end of civilization? I push the button for the crossing light a hair too late, so I didn’t get the little man telling me it’s OK to cross. I wait patiently for the next, and my bus passes. If you miss an LA bus you’re damned sorry, let me tell you that. But you’ve got time to work that out.

At 18th and Sepulveda a couple get on wearing backpacks, the whole setup. LA’s that kind of city. I never thought about it, but you could camp for the night in a million places. You’d have to keep moving. A boy outside on a skateboard pleads with the bus driver to let him in. He’d been running for blocks. She didn’t bother to respond. I’m sure there was a cold bench somewhere where he could suck it up.

Right now I’m taking three trains and a bus. Survival mode. Maybe I’ll try to find work in North Hollywood, but it’s not exactly raining jobs. It does take the wind out of you sometimes, living this way. It’s how I adapted after being a Zen monk. Now the work is the important thing, what I’m scribbling here. Before I worked to support Zen practice, now it’s to put me in the right place where I can produce some quality work. Maybe it doesn’t pay off. If I had plenty of money, would I be pressing this hard, going so far into the scenes I pass through? Can you write a compelling story of luxury and ease, that gets down to the crazy depths? I’m sure you could do it, right? For myself, I can only imagine what it would be like of course, but I’m suspicious of what it would do to my character, and you probably wouldn’t hear much from me. Our story is our struggle. Without it there is no plot, no victory. But if you think about it, the end of struggle is what we’re after.

There’s a group of mentally handicapped that always get on in Manhattan Beach, by far the happiest bunch. Have we grown too smart for our own good? Our tracks are erased as soon as they’re set. Forget wanting to be some other kind of human, wanting things to be different. Maybe a bit of devolution could do some good, but I wouldn’t change a single hair on a single head.

The freak show begins near Watts, friends with much lower requirements than mine, who don’t mind asking for a handout. I was lost in thought for a moment and I got hit with the deaf person selling pens. He moved to fast for me to hand them back, so I had to hold his deaf pens for awhile. If it’s true, why take it to the subway? You have to have your facilities to be homeless. The whole thing smells wrong. Of course he could be deaf, and I’m sure he needs the money. A sad contact, a sad exchange. The signal was jammed for most of the way with a comedian talking loudly behind me, some kind of mental tap, someone begging for attention. “The Golden Globes, did you hear that? Ricky Gervais said that everybody in Scientology was a homosexual.”

It was a relief when I finally got on another train. Somehow it went the wrong way, so I got some down time at Union Station. I was churning with lost time, but there was a point where I passed where I was before and my hope was renewed. There were no carcasses to delay our progress, not tonight, but the thing is run by jackals. What we need is Bruce Willis to stand up to the broke machines, the slow stoplights, the double no -U-turns. He’d burn down the signs. Instead we have this half-working, frustrating transit.

I open a new bank account and they inform me a few days later that they’re holding the money for 15 days. I guess it makes sense to someone. Kye Soen assures me it’s because I’m not listening. How often I’m put into peril these days, and I have detractors. It’s a good thing we’re civilized. I go to the bank to see what can be done and it’s closed, so I’m on the rail. A new route today, down Vermont. The hustle quotient is high. The tension settles over me like a blanket of fire. Underneath all of the snapping, crackling, I’m completely at ease. The day is full of sparkly things going red. A lady stands over me in a pretty green blouse with tiny mirrors sewed in. Under all these witnesses I appear to flutter madly. I have to watch the stops, as my sense of direction is crap. I get by on landmarks and logic, which is often backwards. As the woman turned to leave, her silhouette was animated with a preternatural awareness of her limbs, her movements dripping with it, like a demon possession, a zombie with a million eyes. The girl that followed her out was just a girl, no hyper-awareness, no puppet-like movements. As if to complete the picture, an extremely large woman came in after and communicated with the driver. They knew each other.

How much cement and steel hold the train above the city lights? Just for the small number of us, comparatively? Who made this decision? In all the time I’ve spent on the subway, I’ve seen few suits, none of them crisp. It’s definitely the low end of society. As much as I’m confounded by the inefficiency of the system, it’s remarkable that we have the luxury, we meaning the sad lot I’m thrown in with these days. I walk under Vermont to the subway, my brain frozen. All of my life is traveling now, handling problems, waiting. I could use a cup of coffee.

The path to success for those with some ability or unrelenting drive — this is something new for human society. You can exist without using your skill as a hunter or farmer. Now we are hyper-specialized for the production of money, and no one understands anyone else’s abilities. A rocket scientist? A factory worker? A taxi driver? I don’t know any of these. None of the peculiarities can be accurately conveyed. We all live in sterile cages. The loneliness that devours us! It is the cancer that eats away at our delicate humanity, surely a dark force for most of us.

We can live in darkness, celebrate it, fuse with it. I guess that’s what is required, to externalize it, to work with it symbolically, as in a dream. But a lot of people I know are lost in this process, identify with it. These are the ones you can easily name, the stereotypes: stoner, goth, skater, thug. Can these living souls be defined by their external processes? Doesn’t any of these have the same range of emotion, needs, desires, as anyone? We are constantly judged by those unqualified to judge us, never understood for accepted for what we are, or given the benefit of the doubt. The degree of alienation is insurmountable. It becomes a quest for money, prestige. Maybe people will see you as important, as more than the image you portray — but you merely pass from archetype to archetype, and no one cares which one. To truly be what you are is the intent behind all these movements, but the self can’t be defined.

I’ve always felt this way, refused to take any role seriously. It’s not a path to riches. It’s very specialized. Everyone will still peg you to their own satisfaction. I don’t know why this matters, to anyone, but we don’t like to be observed. We take it personally, however unqualified the source. Peer pressure — the ground of rebellion. Someone, maybe a group, has classified you in some way. You’re no longer a living thing to them. Who wants to be alive? I hear a crash and bang — is it the sound of your retreat? Go back then.

To be accepted for what you are doesn’t happen externally — whole lives are lost to this. Once you resolve your own existence, once and for all, you’re able to resolve everyone else’s — you can see their truth, beyond the stereotype. It doesn’t mean anyone will reciprocate. You’ll still have to filter what people say to you through their tendency to label, compartmentalize. Funky vision, but if you love them you allow the failing. Who cares? But the world is ruled by its insecurity. The modern condition creates itself. We have no place.

I pass a handsome couple on the platform. The woman looks at me in desperation, so intently that her boyfriend noticed. As I read the story, she was frustrated with him, looking for a way out. He was aware of this, defensive, angry. A kid gets up in front of me and asks for money to buy a drum for a trip to Washington. The people in front gave him a few quarters, but thought twice about it. “That kid ain’t goin’ to no Washington D.C. Look, that’s his mother back there.” She heard the grumbling and sat beside me. She was dressed like a gypsy, pretty. Shit, everyone’s got to hustle. It really upset everyone, but the kid was good — a fact that escaped them. If I’d had any amount of change he would’ve had it, no question. They got in an argument that lasted nearly all the way to Rosa Parks.

“My boy will get up and speak his mind. He will not be a street thug.”

“Why isn’t he in school?”

“He’s home schooled. He’s getting a good education.”

While this was going on, a poor Mexican walked the aisle with a box of candy for sale. All that indignation was making them hungry. Everyone seemed revived from the outburst. The enemy had been found, named, and expelled. Liberated from the beast, I was soon liberated from them — quick alliances that form and dissolve, and reappear. When I got to the green line, the boy was in the car again, with his dad. He didn’t mention Washington D.C.

The train was a refuge, no question. I don’t understand its importance. I don’t share this with anyone — well, with you. How could this be in any way soothing? We are pressed together here. No choice. All of the faces carry such turmoil. The communications are forced, humans encountering each other in the wild. My observations you already know, but I would add here that most of our encounters are positive, supportive. We are great, noble creatures, like dogs. The lights on the street flash through the glass in complex patterns. Humans. The overall experience is haphazard, no sense to it.

Tonight I learn the sobering fact that trains no longer care if they are red or purple. It’s a gamble. Try it out — you may end up in Koreatown. Why would a train say it’s red when really it is purple? I guess it makes sense to someone. Maybe it’s funny. Who cares if I or anyone wastes an hour down below? People wait in droves, like cattle. Yeah, there’s a train coming. Some time there will be a train.

***

That’s all for this week. Thanks for joining me for another episode, another look into the decaying fabric of our modern world. Fascinating to witness, certainly a good time to be a writer, to be engaged. A lot of great things coming up — I’ve got a limited release of this Field of Weeds series, that will be for sale on Amazon so you can enjoy at your leisure. The first printing will be local only — free copies left in a few spots around North Hollywood, the cover of the book will be a photo of the place, with the book in it. These should be ready in a couple of weeks — I just have to typeset them. Also you can read the series on Scribd, buy the Android app, coming soon to the iPhone — all the links on www.fieldofweeds.com

Surrender. I surrender to it, this field of weeds.

Welcome to Field of Weeds essay #18 recorded on January 20, 2011: The Train to NOHO

Under the black heart of the city with Kye Soen. A new life emerges from the quaking ground. Some bastard of evolution, this – how can it be? Run for your lives! Run!  Ha ha…

The move from South Bay to North Hollywood, more wisdom from Kye Soen’s wilderness, and a few nights on the train.

Only with violence, as I’d hardly disconnected from the last dialogue before boarding the subway for another day of peril, this one beginning at 6AM. The sky has been pink for a week now. I don’t know what it means. I enjoyed the people out, the inner-city mix of races, social strata. People stand over me but it’s accepted here, so I don’t feel dominated. Still, I would stand on something higher than them if it was available. The sweet morning air gives way to our pressing madness. How many blue-collar heroes are left here? Whatever warriors have made it through the downturn are now legends, gladiators. You can hear the crowd behind them, wild.

As for me, I shuffle behind a couple of Asian kids, scribbling in a notebook. I look at the pretty girl with her boyfriend more than once, she’s radiant. I hope it goes well for her. The subway fills to the brim, until the brakes are moaning. They must be made of titanium. I stare so intently out the window that my friend is drawn to it, but I was only trying to work this out. I look again, on his insistence. He was right. It was lovely through the singed glass, all the soft colors of morning.

Another train, a different scene: morbid. It so easily falls to this. A nicely dressed lady sits beside me with an enormous purse, pointy shoes. Is this a funeral? The sun burns into my retinas – UV rays, vitamin D – how long will I live? There doesn’t appear to be any murderers on board. It’s so quiet, cold. The man beside me reads a book. Remarkable. It must be pornography. He holds it out at arm’s length as if it’s suspect. Maybe it’s one of my essays. I should write another book just so I can leave copies in random places. I’m going to scout out a few release points: the park, the subway entrance. I’ll describe the scene that it’s in, the person that picks it up, start a dialog –  turn the place into a totem, an archetype, or reveal it as such. The cover will be a photo of the place, with the book in it!

The train to downtown takes some time, enough that the people onboard begin to know each other, their scent. If there were something we had to do together, if we were put to the task, we would already know things, fall into a pattern, organize. We are extraordinary. The lady with the bag gets out, so we’ve lost a porter. I suppose I could carry more. The sun rises too high for my tastes. What can be done about it? I move to the other side.

***

It wasn’t until the papers went through that I began to notice the strange conditions that I’d faced. I can’t say they were hardships, but I certainly paid for the freedoms I enjoyed. It was a very good strengthening phase, a constant test of adaptation. If you don’t own the place you don’t have the privilege of following your own way, or turning off the tap. You’re always entertaining, whoever appears, and since everyone knows you’re sleeping on the couch it’s doubly hard, or it used to be. I’ve had so many difficulties with this, until these last few retreats. Now I’m happy anywhere, and genuinely love all the strange cats that pass through the Monterey house. A good time to leave.

But it wasn’t about me, really. I was moving to see Kye Soen’s oldest through high school, as he was accepted in the gifted program in North Hollywood, and all his friends were there. Kye Soen was at UC Berkeley, so we pitched in together for him. I’m very happy to be spending time with the boy. He has a wonderful, fresh mind, very smart and vulnerable. There’s so much to learn! I hope I can clear some obstacles for him and give him the sublime nurturing and care he deserves, teach him how to drive a truck and all. I don’t know about women.

Moving from the South Bay to NOHO, money was moved from the back of the pile and placed near the front, which took some adapting to, but it wasn’t hard because I was doing it for the boy. That was another change. I was no longer holding my own against the shit storm, but carving out enough space for two. I’d also be commuting three or four hours a day on the subway, which meant a lot of time to develop material.

The move was a massive change of personal freedoms, a rewire unlike any I’d experienced. It was time. I’d spent too long adapting to the flow of the Monterey house. I could tell because disconnecting was somewhat jarring. Always the struggle to write, to record these things flowing through me, now a river of time for this, and a quiet environment. Time had shifted, my own time. I was the rabbit who wanted to return to the cage, at least today. Fortunately, I don’t follow my emotion.

But the South Bay had had its fill of my and thrust me out on the cold pavement, on through the banana trees, all the way across the mountain, past Universal City to the end of the line. It was quiet there, the people friendly. My first commute I nearly fell asleep before the first stop. The move was exhausting, the smell of fear and death and pancakes. The mountain opened its bowels and we shot through like a cold bolt of lead. Inside, wood-like statues froze in the speed-waves, a vibrating pulse, a rising noise floor – a heightened state. The drug of sleep began to wear off not long before 7^th and Metro, the black heart of LA. You could feel the trembling. Here there’s enough density to fuse the signal – to its own entity. These are the only places where I feel this. Interestingly, the most bleak and forbidding.

I watch a young couple playing with each other in the parking lot, they were so young of course they were in harmony: pulling arms, testing each other’s strength, my lesson for the day. We have to know each other. I’d just went through another of these with Kye Soen, just a moment with her where I realized the other side of this, that people are just what they are. Someone saw us together and thought we should get married. We are very synchronized after all the years, harmonious in the sense that we are very comfortable together. I tried to explain where he’d gone wrong, but you can’t explain things to people. They have to figure it out themselves. You can paint the scene,  illustrate it, but they have to discover it. So, when the inevitable lecture began, what Kye Soen delights in, a chiding, insulting barrage of ubiquitous information, as if you were incapable of grasping the thing and seeing what it was, at once, the man changed his mind.

“Oh, I see now. You’re not the right type for her.”

I carried this for some time, a question I couldn’t crack. Who would be the right person for her? Someone more domineering? I felt inadequate, not able to correct the flow of hate, not enough man for her. Then I spent some time in the car with her new partner, who pleaded his case like a lost boy in the wilderness. I got it! No one changes, for anyone. They’re always the same snarl of plumbing, the same arrogance, and it’s not your job to straighten everyone out. There’s too much of that already. It’s not productive. How long did it take you to figure out this life? Are you prepared to stop the machine, to rewire the synapses? Hell no! If you decide to change anything, there must’ve been a cataclysm. To that end, isn’t that what the Bible’s getting at, the hard work of the evolution of the soul? If you really want to affect change without resorting to the end times, crucifixions, and plagues, you have to do the hard work of self-realization. Don’t worry about what everyone else is doing. From the point of view of the Absolute, it hardly matters. Leave everything as it is, the world will manage without your second-guessing, micro-managing. You should take a page from the big Lebowski, knock out that waistband, get a pair of furry slippers… am I taking this too far?

For all of Kye Soen’s unbridled fury, she’s got her place. A badger is really good at being a badger, and there’s no one better at it than her. In fact, if we’re ever running low on badgers… so I let her be what she is. If she would only allow me the same, but how am I to put this together? If someone has a defect, should they be thrown out? She certainly doesn’t want to hear about being a white American from the South.

The night was full of swan songs, sad musings on the faces on passing trains, empty escalators pressing stair treads beneath the floor, flickering lights that come back to life when it’s time. I caught another train, watched the car lights down on the 110. The door opened at LAX to a flood of deranged people. If I had the courage to film it. A fight broke out in the seat in front of me, but it was only men being men. They worked it out. Everyone got real busy with their cellphones after that. Man were they piling in. You’ve got to take the night train to Watts sometimes. It’s really marvelous! I don’t know why I love them so much – to Rosa Parks.

“Kiwi/Strawberry two for a dollar.”

“That’s a good deal.”

The lights were flashing there, the ones overhead growling, so old. I saw the train in the distance so small it reminded me of Riverside, so I mistrusted it. Some of those lights look like a train, you think they’re moving, you swear it’s getting brighter. I don’t know why everything flickers so much. It wasn’t a train – probably someone’s porch light. I got tired of staring at it and watching other trains receding down the line. The rest was a shuffle from light pole to…

“DVD’s, CD’s, Movies, Music…”

Crying babies, poor ladies who need change, who take all that I have. The night is here, with the people on the train. The only way to fathom the depths of despair is to plunge through the heart of it.

“Who’s running this mutha fucka?”

Dr. Dre on a broke radio.

We haven’t got anywhere near the core with all of this, but allow me to illustrate this world – that you can discover it on your own. If I’ve learned anything from Kye Soen, it’s to leave the damned thing where it is. I owe her so much, for the river that courses through me has been averted. Impossible! I can say with certainty, friends, that everything is in the right place.

That’s all for this week. This is a new season, what I’m sure will be a flowering of this Field of Weeds series, as I’ve finally got a work desk set up in a quiet loft in North Hollywood where I can focus, a nice hexa-core workstation, plenty of room to set up gear, and a lot of time on the subway to develop material. Producing a show like this takes a great deal of time. It’s all worked out on the streets, typed out, recorded, edited, uploaded – what amounts to three or four working days. Yeah, it’s a quality show I’m running here.

Surrender. I surrender to it, this field of weeds.

This is episode 17 for January 13, 2011 - The move to North Hollywood, what does it mean? And sexual machinery…

As I welcome in this new year of sidewalks and angry cars, there is a sudden quiet — the sound of birds, someone drilling through a wall. Good idea. I walk peacefully down the greenbelt and there slowly make my way to the market. The fog has not yet burned off. People are pressing through it, in a hurry, some of them stretching, bending. What’s the hustle about? The Farmer’s Market, who’s fresh produce draws a particular crowd, mostly the aji ma, the middle-aged housewife, and domesticated men who seem to have sprouted teats, old couples grabbing after things. Superimposed from the past, they seem to live there still.

What is it about the produce displayed on folding tables that’s better than the grocery? Am I going to get a good deal? I can’t tell if the prices are different, but I did enjoy the humanity of buying a pile of greens with weeds mixed in, how it affected the lady I bought them from. It went straight to her heart. I don’t know why.

On facebook this week another round of dialog on the sexual abuse of women in a prevailing Zen lineage. Nearly every male in the world gets a stiff cock now and then. How to deal with it? Maybe it’s the future described in Woody Allen’s “Sleeper,” where everyone has sex at the drop of a hat, or uses a machine if nothing else — the orgasmatron or the orgasmic orb. People do like to have sex and whatever else. Can we be OK with this? I suspect if we had a healthy sexual life there wouldn’t be these dark undercurrents. The problem comes with ownership, attachment. People bond through sex. It’s not hard to attract a mate, we’re programmed for it, but it’s not very mature to attempt to capture or manipulate people this way. Only a moment. There’s a lot more on the table than primal urges. If you play with this and you’re hurt by it, figure it out.

What about spiritual teachers? That’s like taking heroin, are you serious? You want to snare one of those? Who the hell are you? If you’re not grabbing for power, why not take the low end? There’s plenty of quality people who haven’t made it. If you’re a spiritual leader and you’re seducing people, what the hell are you doing? Give back the robes, put on some blue jeans, some nice cologne. I don’t know. One of the reasons I quit the hierarchy was because I didn’t want to break the rules. I knew I wasn’t finished with relationships. Everyone I know on the inside struggled with this, did various things to alleviate the pressure. I didn’t want to play both ends. I either wanted to be a Zen monk, and celibate, or not. Now, thanks to a lot more time in the world and a bit of seasoning, I wouldn’t have any problem living as a monk, I live as one anyway, so I don’t have a lot of respect for the players wearing the cloth. There are plenty of good ones, but just shaving the head and changing clothes doesn’t mean shit.

You can tell what people are about, the way they talk. Most people are concerned about what everyone else is doing, fighting with someone, going over some detail, someone else’s business — in other words, external. I can tell right away, and operate with them in that space, but don’t go into it with them. It’s my business to remain unperturbed. I don’t date for the same reason. I can’t say that I’ll never have another relationship, but it would have to be someone very far along — and to be honest it doesn’t matter past a certain point. I’m sure it would be the same to her. The mind changes, no longer falls into loneliness or conflict.

If they haven’t faced the Absolute, they think it’s impossible to live without being in a relationship. Why enter the practice stream at all if the partner has the answer? Or, to draw a more accurate picture, why not do a few retreats, figure out how hard it is, then spend the rest of your life trying to convince everyone that you can do it from home, or, my favorite, that you don’t have to do anything? And it follows that, if you don’t have to exert yourself, why should the teachers? They’re already enlightened as well, right? What they need is more domestic stuff so they can be more like you. Jesus with an apron – I like it…

A famous old Zen master, when asked about the meaning of renunciation, said, “Not caring about fame or infamy,” meaning wanting to be liked, not wanting to be disliked. If that’s true, the basic mechanism of relationship is removed.

We don’t know anything about operating from the Absolute because there are so few examples. Since we don’t know what it is exactly, it’s hard to tell who knows what. We depend on the hierarchy, which I don’t have a lot of respect for these days, but not because someone gets a stiff cock. Who cares? It does seem the whole thing is a charade, however. Bunch of freaks…

I’m on the rail again, local, going across town to see the old man at the Zen center, making the rounds. I have to get away from the workstation now and then, offline. The subway soothes me with its gentle swaying, the screaming wheels through Firestone, Florence, Slauson. I enjoy the people struggling to survive alongside the birds and insects, the grass and trees, the heavy clouds. My eyes begin to flare before I make it downtown, probably a toxic reaction to the massive amount of vitamins and immune system boosters coursing through my veins. I had no peripheral vision, the damned flickering heat nearly to blindness, but I ate something and walked a few dozen blocks and got through it. It’s strange to be on foot down Broadway with limited vision. There’s always something weird jumping out at you. A bizarre woman came up to me and said, “I see that look on your face. If you see something, call the police.” How did she know? There were Christians broadcasting the holy word, in Spanish. I could tell because of the Hallelujahs. The light was murky as it was, so things sort of blended into the haze. Even with this visual impairment, I noticed all the cheap clothing on sale and the threadbare condition of the streets. Some day they’re going to have to demolish the whole thing. I don’t know what they’ve got planned, but if it is in the cards, I’m pretty good with the sledgehammer, and I do work holidays and weekends.

If you’re going to have a vision blackout, you might as well do it on the streets of LA. It may look dangerous, but there aren’t any snakes or bear traps, and most of the natives are busy talking to themselves. The thing fell apart when a tall woman stepped on the bus in incredibly tall heels. French. She sat behind me with her friend dressed like a cat. I noticed something peculiar right away. They weren’t hissing. Whatever’s going on with women hissing appears to be regional, or that these two didn’t have the gene. Instead, they chewed gum loudly.

The rhetoric is high, the hyperbole – I certainly play with this, but my intent is both to entertain, and disarm the guards, to undermine the propaganda, the accepted views of our day. It’s all for efficiency. If you think about it, there are few prime years given to us, and these often encumbered with the struggle to maintain -  appearances, a semblance of order, status, achievement points. I like to drop off a cliff right away, to free myself. The free-fall state has none of these hindrances. Everything becomes startlingly clear. As I’m falling I notice a wild strawberry. Have you heard this case? It’s a famous Zen koan. I mention it to Kye Soen whenever she attempts to encumber me with too many tasks, which is her natural way of getting things done. “Please, let me get that strawberry.” We are learning, still, how to exist together. I know she will never change, that she’ll always be quick to anger, to panic when something new is introduced, usually an innocuous detail, for how often are we really threatened? Kye Soen is the type who descends into a fearful state, from which all things are seen as terrible adversity, and she lashes out! She’s in such a hurry to move quickly through the trauma she herself creates that she can’t make sense of simple details. It’s really difficult to work with her under duress. I don’t carry much fear. Fear is for people with something to defend.

This week I’ve spent a lot of time with her, as we’re setting up an apartment in North Hollywood that I’m to share with her son, 14, who’s struggling to get through high school there, with both parents in different cities. His father is an emergency room doctor and college professor in Santa Cruz, whose never been part of his life. Kye Soen, the eternal scholar, is at UC Berkeley. The boy grew up in Los Angeles, could not part with all of his friends. Since I come from a wilderness environment, with no friends accessible, I see this as important.

I’ve known him since he was three. I suppose I’m an important male figure in his life. Isn’t it strange how things work out? So I’m going to watch over him for the next year or so, the crucial years, and commute to work in the South Bay, and hold off on the next solo retreat until there’s a window. That’s one of the aspects of being a Zen adept, that you’re free to engage when appropriate, to be of use to those in need. I hear the sentiment from a lot of practitioners, that they’re unable to sit long retreats because of family and career. That’s like wanting to be an engineer, but no math. The whole thing is the practice form, the arrangement of your life so that there are long periods of deep meditation, the ability to go off on your own when it’s time, to be directly influenced by the play of events, not shielded behind some demanding lifestyle or unnecessary obligations. If you decide to raise a family, then your mandala will reflect this. Zen master Seung Sahn said, “Getting enlightenment is very easy. Keeping enlightenment is very difficult.” If you want to dwell in it, to live the life of a sage, to ring like a tuning fork this whirling poem of existence, maybe you should put it on top of your list.

There’s always a struggle, this human life. I’ve managed to carve a path through it because I’m very skillful with most things. Not at math, or memorizing data, but building things, art, design. Because of this, I can always generate income, usually as a carpenter. I can do hard labor all day, whatever is required. I’m not saying this is ideal, but I would never have made it through otherwise, I wouldn’t have had all the wonderful experiences, worn through the bindings. I can’t speak for anyone else’s process, but I know from my own example and through observing others’ struggle to break through, that it didn’t loosen up until 20 years had passed, the robes long gone, a dozen long retreats behind me, until I was unknown, forgotten – no one in the lineage knew that I’d returned. I forgot all the practice forms, substituted my own. Even my old habits were impossible to recall. And there it was as plain as daylight, my mind as easily absorbed as not – all of the experiences noted in The Zen Revolution, all of this occurred only after I’d completely surrendered. Of course everyone I know is attempting to go through the front door and sit on the golden throne directly. No one can do it. Man is it difficult. The point is, don’t assume because of your superior breeding or superhuman abilities that you won’t require going to the end of the earth to accomplish this task. It requires the whole life, exactly all of it. You can’t hold back even one percent, so I find it amusing after all these years of specialization, to the point of finishing this work, that I’m put to the task of caring for a teenage boy. Sure I can “make this my practice,” anything, but I’ve already done the work. That’s like asking an engineer if he knows how to do math.

***

That’s all for this week. As I mentioned I’m in the process of moving to NOHO so haven’t had a great deal of time or stability to refine the work. I can always write, but video takes time at the machine. I hope to start releasing the video supplements on Sunday nights. You can see all of them on the hgrevemberg youtube channel, or through the Field of Weeds android app, which also includes the text of the show specially formatted for the small screen. If you like the app, give me a few stars or a short review, as it’s impossible to find in the app site without your feedback.

The move to NOHO will be a great influence on the show, as I’ll finally have a stable location to work from, a new environment to explore. This is going to be a great year… surrender. I surrender to it, this field of weeds.

How to Save the Girl

I venture deep into the Inland Empire. This week, a brief look at suburbia…

***

The elevator to the platform stinks of musk and perfume. I think someone’s been living in it. It strikes me as a good idea. They shut down the subway after 12, no one would know. It sure beats sleeping in a storefront or bathroom.

There are many instances where my life as an artist crosses lines with the homeless, but I’m too productive to sit around all day. What does it mean to be an artist? Does becoming an artist mean you’ve stepped out of the stream, faced down the fear? I don’t know. I don’t think it’s authentic until the artist has thrown in the towel at least a million times. I don’t know what fear or stream could bother one past a certain point.

The train stalls at Aviation, pulling me from my thoughts, which were heavily bent toward figuring out what happened to all of my pens. I’d not yet exhausted one, yet all of them were gone, this one nearly useless. There’s a certain pressure you feel, the clamor of those with needs, frustrations, who want what you’ve got — even if you’re sleeping on someone’s couch. I was nearly to Watts, late as it was. I wouldn’t have a chance to find another pen until Fontana, but I was exhausted anyway. Maybe I’d enjoy the downtime, read, talk out loud, work with the camera. I realized I’m not much of a pedestrian. As I struggle to write with the last bit of ink, a homeless man begins playing guitar, Feliz Navidad, introduces a shit storm of society coming apart — this New Year’s eve on the train… I keep my head down, but without a pen I’ve become newly vulnerable.

I was surprised when I finally made it to the kiosk. The man behind the window was pleasant, gentle. Did he have some kind of one-way glass? I don’t see how anyone could watch the shitty parade, the beaten-down remnants of the American dream, without throwing up a little inside. I guess he had his guarantee of a fat steak every week and whatever it was keeping him off the streets, his little hat and uniform. Well good for him. I finally sat down, watched the stream of humanity packing into Union Station. I can’t say there was a feeling of hope in the air, but something. Maybe they were keyed up, for the change. I’m sure if you asked anyone they would say they didn’t care, but a brand new year? Things were clicking into place, famous people falling off the map, new ones appearing through mysterious means. These are turbulent times. The new year promises like none before to invigorate our tired old ways — though we’re certainly dragging our heels. A few pointers:

1. Women — stop hissing like snakes.
2. Men — learn how to be the snake.
3. Snakes — you’re on your own.

We could use a little more survival training, to allay the fear — more bags of rice under the bed, more kimchi, more spices in general, more wild animals and the wilderness they require; more fence cutters, blowtorches, off-road vehicles, search lights, underwater gear; more hand weapons and plowshares that we can beat into weapons; more recipes that use less than five ingredients; more warehouse lofts, mom and pop stores; more thunderstorms that leave everyone quiet; more lines that move, lights that change, antacids that work, water we can drink, films that don’t stink, that aren’t made by corporations; books… can they be saved?… forget the books — more Chinese in our schools, more Koreans, Afghanis, less people who look like they’ve spent their entire lives in small rooms; more exchange students, especially the handsome ones — we could use a refresh here at Union Station.

The line lurches forward, then snaps shut. You’ll be happy to know there was no privileged class. We all stand and wait. A man tries to sell me a sleeve of silver coins. I get through the line to pace back and forth past the entrance tunnels to numerous tracks. No trains anywhere, no number that matches anything on my ticket. I was told to stand near the kiosk and wait for the track to be announced. There’s a lot of down time waiting for a train. I can’t imagine what it was like before, but I wouldn’t be drifting around as much.

The train was delayed, the payphones broken — no way to contact my friends and tell them not to wait, so I let it go. A beautiful young woman walked past, through what I imagine must be a life of gentle ease and overflowing compliments, until I realize she requires a mate. No one stays in the dream. Even the beautiful, delicate ones have to enter the shit stream, eat the cheese, wear the crown. The noise begins to pick up on the floor. There needs to be some kind of train or bus or schedule, or else start handing out raw meat. There was a burst in the perimeter. Like an amoeba the crowd oozed down the corridor, growing by the second as more and more struggled to see what it was about. Yes, the Southwest Chief had arrived.

It was reckless and I had a tough time riding it through, the train more than an hour late. No one knows how to handle it. Travelling these days, you get shaken loose all the time. I’m getting the hang of it, but I wasn’t to ride the train all day. I had only two stops before entering suburbia.

When I finally got through the fog, my friends waiting patiently, I was removed from my leather-clad dreams of the open road, put into a new space they were struggling to adapt to. A dog barked in the neighbor’s yard. The place had carpet. I slept in a room with no light.

Welcome to the suburbs: kid’s toys everywhere — two young boys in the house, domestic things, a continuous dialogue I take part in, but not with a sense of urgency. My friend was happy in her marriage, raising her children a great source of joy, but there was a war going on inside — a long, complicated story that requires a show of its own, and how to intercede? Truly a battle is won or lost every day, and no one’s keeping score. The whole bloody thing must be done with. You have to surrender.

The rhythm is muted. Everyone has their comfortable nest. The grass is clean along the sidewalks. There’s no graffiti, no sign of despair or unrest. This must be the core of the empire, the part that works, for no one could survive here without playing major in the system, and they all seem to be bearing it OK. It’s not a life I would choose. I don’t really get it, the business of owning a home, here. Fast food, the mall, TV — it all seems so empty. As I say this there’s the tinkle of wind chimes, children’s voices. I suppose for them it’s all magical, full of promise. Maybe that’s the game here, to never grow up. We can’t have everyone wandering the streets, the fields, living on other’s couches, on foot, seeing the world in a microcosm, whatever landscape is at hand; to walk here is to go from one place to the next. There’s little contact with other people. Do not attempt it or they’ll figure out that you’re not one of them. You’re supposed to stay in your car mostly, to wear clean shoes, and stand peacefully in line. Yes, I can do it, but what for? I don’t want to go deep on you, but how could this be enough, for anyone? I suppose I could close down and accept it. Let me try…

“Another day in the cubicle. Maybe I’ll order a pizza so I won’t have to strain myself. Tomorrow I’ll go buy some new tennis shoes… this isn’t working.”

As I pass through this place I’m confounded by the objects around me. What do they suggest? The sidewalks are very wide and perfect, but there’s no one on them; the landscape green and alive, but monotonous, bland. We don’t know how to do this, to plant things with some sort of purpose, artistry. It would be better to fling wild seed everywhere, but who has the courage?

The dog barks constantly, straining against a leash — I can tell from the sound of his voice. As I make my way down the fake streets of South Ridge, I can’t help but feeling oppressed by the colossal tide of pre-manufactured dreams, all of it in beige stucco, with fake shutters. I’m sure you don’t need further details. There are moments: the low, grassy mountains with boulders thrust out like a Grecian Isle, the strange section of Birds of Paradise thrown in to the abysmal landscaping. As I struggle to record this, two guys ride by on horses. I pass through what looks to be a park, but it’s really the land under high-tension wires, a suburban fire-lane. In the Louisiana pine forests these are cut between most 40-acre tracts, a network of trails running on forever through manufactured forests of pulpwood. Everything modern is banal. Here, on the streets of suburbia, it can’t be denied. I’ve never operated within this environment, so I can’t give you anything authentic. This peaceful place that isn’t a farm community or forest, that doesn’t manufacture anything or aspire to. It’s a settlement of houses alone, and their bastard children town houses, condos, and apartments. There’s a certain paradise here, but along with it a terror, a forfeit of whatever promise of greatness. Not the American dream, surely, to drift through an entire life with no real demarcation, no contribution to society. To exist in this bardo of suburbia is to quietly expire. You’ve already signed the papers.

A realtor comes over, just being friendly, skimming information, hunting for the scent of carrion, the foreclosure, the short sale. It’s all money to her. She was real happy to hear I was a Zen guy, non-threatening, not playing the market, “Isn’t that nice?”

The streets are clean, the air is clean. Welcome to Fontana. A motorcycle cop hands out a ticket, allays another dangerous motorist. A beautiful young woman at the café — I think these suffer more here. She picks up on my vibe, that I’m an outsider, and nearly clambers over the counter to get at me. I can’t save her anymore than the dog on a chain.

“You have to break out on your own. Start plotting. Get a savings account. You’ll need about five grand for a cushion. Figure out how to get at what you want — a university, a plot of land in the Philippines, a Zen master you admire. Don’t tell anyone about it. You have to go rogue.”

She smoothes out her apron and recedes back into the white noise. Ah well, it was worth a shot. Back to the cold isolation of the perfect sidewalk, I make my way back up the hill to finish putting together IKEA furniture, mounting plasmas, picture frames, door chains… and it occurs to me suddenly that what I’d uncovered here was far more significant than I’d thought. Here’s the much maligned socialism. Remember it used to be the Russians, now the enemy has been internalized, it’s the Democrats. Forget them. The real socialists are the architects of corporate housing, we ourselves.

The Southwest Chief was more than three hours behind schedule. I suppose this is what it means to travel, really, to be stuck in a drafty corridor with an empty stomach as crowds form and disperse. Stop motion. Another hour is eaten away. The station at Riverside is a row of benches on the tracks. No way to get out of the weather. I resort to pacing, checking in at the security station. The guards laugh at me, whatever I ask. I suppose it is funny, the hopeless time lost, being devalued, thrown to the elements, no voice, no rights. Well, the right to spend all day travelling a few miles, to use the payphone, to listen to the automated system. If I were running the station, I’d give everyone friendly reminders every few minutes.

“Welcome to the free world. Look at our marvelous service provided by our perfect government. Enjoy the stimulation and fresh air of our open platform. If you want to get to work on time, we suggest you leave four hours early. Expect delays. Do not try to walk, as our security personnel are trained to intercept stragglers. Please enjoy your stay at the cement waiting slab.”

That’s all for this week. I’ve been out of town through most of the holiday season, so everything’s being done at breakneck speed, on the spot, no time to second guess or explore a new avenue. Maybe it’s more honest than what I would produce if I had limitless time and a cast of B-movie actors – I’m not sure. It does feel like it’s coming together.

If you like the show, buy the app for your android device — iTunes coming soon — join the Field of Weeds facebook page, follow me on twitter @zenrev — the fascinating world we will explore, to the depths. Friends, surrender. I surrender to it, this field of weeds.

The show just went live in the Android marketplace, the past two episodes have video content already in place. The text of the show will be uploaded soon, for all of the episodes — formatted for the small screen. I’m still developing a workflow and experimenting with various programs so I can bring this to you in a seamless fashion. This week I begin to unravel the myth of persona and dig up some of its inherent problems. This is:

The Illusion of Grace

I ‘ve unhooked from the play of events through concentrated effort, but I did not expect this. I had no idea what liberation meant, how it felt — and now the daunting task of illustrating it. I’m always out collecting footage for the week’s video essay, and to write — always pressing forward. There’s a constant hustle to this work.

The train blasts through the tunnel. I can tell we’re deep because the pressure changes. Not to worry — the engineers have put a lot of time into this. We drift under the bay to Embarcadero with mechanical ease, the train spacious, carpeted. Christmas Eve. The subway is nearly empty. I send the day alone, with the camera, the same process as writing, though much less heat. My nose takes me to Haight Street, down another node of desperation more colorful than skid row, but the same malaise. There are a lot of homeless in San Francisco, a lot of them in pretty good shape, a lot of good old-fashioned drunks and the more common drug addicts. The camera has me trigger happy. Whenever something moves I want to pull focus, dial in the light. When I write I’m in a tunnel, tuned to the shit frequency waiting for the signal to continue. It doesn’t work if the hopper’s empty. I have to continually fill it, with anything, life. When the reserve runs low, when there’s not enough heat to catalyze it, there’s no use picking up the pen.

I’ve know a few men, great for their own reasons — one a Zen master, one a public figure — through the entire arc of their  lives. I was fortunate to witness the devolution of their psyches. The old man is nothing like the one in his prime. Vitality is lost long before the road ends, and what is left is only a husk. The personality is organic. Like a fruit, it has its moment of perfection and quietly evaporates.

The season, the tide; the land glowers with a whole range of emanations, now all kindness and harmony, street thugs and criminals. I can’t count how many I’ve encountered lately. Not that I seek them out, but that’s where the beauty is, for me. I’m forever driven to the abandoned areas in cities that are large enough, old enough that the built up core — what was once manufacturing or some other waning industry, collapses, leaving a hollowed-out desperation that gets repurposed as an art district. Whatever founders made the metropolis have long gone, and with them the dreams that held their companies there, disintegrated into the empty bones of days past, gone to more profitable spaces. The Blade Runner effect. It’s not only how you build complexity in an urban environment, but in people as well. The broken soul is the poet. Show me one who is not.

But downtown is not a place to dwell, as indeed no place is. The curtain falls and the rats and vagrants emerge, the true dharma of the street revealed. Booming voices with their pleas, bizarre statements, threats cascade like the notes of a minor key, all of them out of tune. The thundering bass is the city bus, the violin the wail of the siren and honking horns of those in a hurry to leave the show early. Unlike the wilderness, you have to enjoy it at a fast pace, or risk becoming part of the production, this modern relapse.

Where do you go? We all have our archetypes, themes. I always go to the sordid places, by instinct. Kye Soen brings me to Macy’s, where I’m left to pace the floor under the halogens, through clouds of heavy perfume; the steely chatter of gazelles as they leap from aisle to aisle, the clatter of hooves and hangers.

In UC Berkeley housing, I take several blocks looking for a café, the second time I’ve done this, in different directions. No luck. The place is run by savages! You can get a good coffee here, but only on a particular street that branches off from another in a direction I wouldn’t normally go. My own instincts here prevent me from this simple convenience. I come back with a dry mouth, bleary eyes.

***

Security checkpoint. Since I’m not a criminal I eventually pass through, sit in an overly-heated chair behind the A-line. Again I’m struck by the different strain of citizens here than the bus depot, like two separate streams that run oblivious to each other. In the seat next to mine a blackberry left behind. A few minutes later a woman comes to collect it, who was surprised that it was still there. If it had been a bus, the thing would’ve sprang into someone’s pocket instantaneously, who would boast to everyone about the prize they’d found. It’s a privilege to know both, to encounter these alternating currents with hardly a thought to my own welfare, or how I’m being perceived, but I’m not immune to their pressings: the noise and dust and turmoil.

You don’t think of the risk until the 737 guns it at the end of a mile of asphalt. How long it takes before the beast is airborne! The back of the cabin is full of fumes. Blasted back into my seat, we drill straight across the bay, into the God-fearing blackness of our inevitable end, then the thing rolled its belly to the south and I could see nothing but cabin lights reflected on the glass. The jets vibrated through the floor, driving us to what incredible height, velocity only the captain new. There were dips, shimmies, sideways lurches, drops, but the beast was remarkably stable.

The madness waited on the ground at LAX. Though only 7PM, the info desk was shut down, and no one on the floor knew how to catch the 232 down PCH except a maintenance guy in a yellow vest who had me going down a bus lane to save time. I eventually staggered to the other side of the airport dragging my luggage, where I was informed there was no 232 around here. I had to pack it down to area 6 to catch the shuttle to lot C. I stood under a sign that posted which shuttles were arriving. Unfortunately, it was dead wrong. Whenever a C bus was due, it was simply wiped from the board, or steamed past on the other side of the street. I asked several bus drivers about it, who assured me I was standing in the right place. Los Angeles is a dirtbag city if you’re on foot.

It’s hard to detune, the long fit of activity a blur of some kind of shut down mode that travelling seems to induce. I can’t recall much of it. I remember saying goodbye to Kye Soen. It wasn’t like a Zen master disappearing silently by night, but a complicated shaking of limbs, promises and last minute details. I was happy to be away from all the uncomfortable things she secretly carried, secret to her anyway. We exist together for a short time, move together, but how different our worlds! Outwardly it seems we are the same, the illusion of grace.

There’s nothing complicated about transcending the self. It’s old technology, well proven. No one can do it because there’s no reason to take the apart what has been so carefully wound, like a tourniquet. Only someone who’s untied the knots, and does so continuously, would be aware of this. When I’m around her, most people, I sense all the suffering tightly bound to her, to them, and it pains me. Here is the face of the devil, the real one. I’ve weathered through so many years beside nearly catastrophic failures, and with all my insight and lifelong devotion to dharma I haven’t been able to staunch the flow. They’re coming apart before my eyes, the illusion of self broken into myriad aspects, which they count and worry over as if they were stripes on their sleeves. Surviving your own ignorance, suffering through it, is remarkable in a way, but why not strive to become liberated from it? Not only I, but everyone you meet will thank you, throw flowers at your feet.

Bumper music Perl and Porto – 3rd Culture – Sutra

My mother has a pond on the back of her land, which is never full enough, according to her. As the water evaporates through the summer, her worries increase to a frenzy. It’s a great concern for her. As for me, it never occurred to me to judge the pond. It seems to operate correctly, within the laws of nature. I spoke to her about it.

“The pond has its own way. It’s OK for it to be low.”

I don’t know if this had any effect, bit I assume that it didn’t. It’s rare that a mind realizes its weaknesses, its hindrances, and corrects  its behavior, especially for the older ones, whose habits are so deeply ingrained.

What is it about our world, that it must be painted over in vivid colors, when truth alone, in its bare essence, is limitless and profound? It’s not art that is at fault. The artist isn’t trying to exist in some heightened state. Art is observation, communication, wisdom. It’s the schoolyard dream that dooms us all, the longing to be something we are not — to the extent, the degree. If we could lean, instead, toward the pursuit of knowledge, understanding — toward a greater harmony, a deeper continuity between the thought and intent and the play of things… which is why I stay out of relationships, why, I’m sure, all saints are singular. Because everyone is so complicated, so many things needed to keep their illusions aloft — a colossal waste of time and energy. It‘s like taking daVinci and putting him to work in the sewer.

The more I see the beauty of existence, the less inclined I am to filter it through whatever colored glass. It has to be authentic or it infuriates us, whether we give voice to it or not. A great friend of mine, the very elegant and well-spoken Nick Perl, who wrote the bumper music for this show, a track called Sutra from the upcoming Perl &Porto album 3^rd Culture, just posted this on facebook:

NP: WARNING WARNING!!! New Agers are serial killers waiting to happen. Do not trust anyone that is manically happy on wheatgrass and Reiki, they can snap at any moment and go on a killing spree…. seriously. Repression anyone?

A few responses:

• I have meet some angry “new-age-peace-love-pink-cloud-around-the-head” … scaaaarry!!!
• I thought new age was dead? I’m not up on all the fairies and what not.
• I call them “uptight liberals” —  I love Berkeley but it’s full of ‘em —   why I had to cut.

Today we hate everyone, especially the good guys, because it’s all fake. Layers after layers of deceit we hide even from ourselves, but to anyone who cares to look at it plainly, who isn’t following the program, it’s blatantly obvious.

That’s all for this week. I hope you find your truth. We need it. We need you. Surrender. I surrender to it, this field of weeds.

The Field

The whole thing began back in 2000 with a pile of notebooks from Korea and the desert that would become The Zen Revolution. I bought an old laptop to begin editing the manuscript, and there encountered the beast that was Windows 95. I began reading manuals, learning programs, editing the material almost as an afterthought. I had no luck with being a writer: finding an agent, getting anyone to look at the manuscript — I suppose no one does at first, but having no reaction or feedback, and believing fully in the quality of my work, I reached the only possible conclusion: people weren’t reading anymore. The book went on a shelf, for years, and I built a series of workstations, through all the major revisions of software and hardware — to learn how to edit video. It’s really come into its own. I’m excited for what the next generation will bring with the tools they have available. What a world…

I’m sitting in an IMAX theater in Los Angeles a few minutes before Tron Legacy. The sound system is the best I’ve heard: electronic music, the rise of humanity, the thing being built, musically. Despite the mixed reviews, I loved the film, but no time to waste, the next moment a flight to Berkeley. So many people traveling for the holidays, the corridors thrumming with beautiful human noise: silly dramas, jumping children, security checkpoints that change on impulse.

I can remember not too long ago when I was boiling inside with whatever pointless thing: frustration, dwelling on my shortcomings, those of others. Knowing this state so well, I easily recognize it, see it constantly, understand that most are caught under their own spell, drugged by it — I can’t find fault with them, not anymore. We aren’t ready yet to go beyond the form, to become liberated. If you are not ready, no rush. Stay in the dream a while longer. For those who are no longer amused, not satisfied with the human situation… there’s no escaping it, of course, but wanting to escape isn’t the way to go. The grasping, rejecting, judging remain, no matter how far. It’s truly an end of its own, this freedom, an orchestration. You’ll only know how the notes are struck when the madness recedes of its own and the drug loses its hold; the thousand entanglements fall away, in their place the great peace.

You may ask, “Isn’t this an escape?” How to explain? The first real breakthrough I had depended on holding no concern, being in harmony with all beings. This is the way of the Mahayana, the great vehicle. The whole must be taken in at once, and thoroughly accepted, all facets of reality given proper respect, for this is the field of mind.

***

I fly north to spend the holidays with Kye Soen and her children. A man can’t always take the low road. Up in the affluent clouds the turbulence is fierce, the peanuts few. There’s been a great and steady rain blowing through Los Angeles county, something unusual for all the years I’ve spent there. The 737 slices through gusts of it like a cheese knife. Apparently there’s a range of atmospheric conditions this beast can handle, but it is strange and certainly troubling to watch it unfold.

Back in North Berkeley, the first thing I notice is a large fenced off field that fronts the housing unit. The Gill Tract, it’s a ten acre block once famous for Edward Gill’s roses, now run by the Albany Unified School District and UC Berkeley as an educational farm. The first time I saw the corn, I wanted inside the fence — to record it. I never made it in. It’s surrounded by a hurricane fence seven feet high, forested on one corner with a small stream running through it. Signs everywhere warn against trespassing, the treasures inside out of reach, this modern world. How many boundaries, borders, fences, walls? Do we respect them, stay within their confines? Yes. And so our world is confined to the public spaces and easements between them: thoroughfares, sidewalks, the open door of a neighbor or friend. But I was not raised this way. I grew up in an impenetrable wilderness. There were fences, barbed-wire, easily crossed, and vast distances of unbroken forests and fields left to go wild, and no one, not even a single friend, to hinder me. As a result, or consequence, I hardly tolerate the way things are.

As I make my way around the fence, hounded by traffic and glaring windows, searching for the smallest opening, I’m left with no recourse other than to observe the trembling mudholes through the wire, look upon the pale yellow flowers as they move gently in the breeze. The muddy furrows of the cut-down field will not destroy my city shoes, the cold ground will not find me embracing it — instead the sterile cage, and me pacing, knowing what it’s like to have it firsthand. But without the proper credentials…

Everything is parceled off, the satellite images of Google Earth show it in fine detail. If you zoom in to any area, what you see is not a free-flowing wilderness, but a patchwork, a mosaic of fields. We’ve changed the terrain substantially from what it was. There’s no way to pass freely through the fields, to know them. Our understanding of the world, and by extension ourselves, is from outside the fence, the gate, the latch — all of it cordoned off. In our inexorable move toward the cities, the hive, we’ve all become prisoners. There is no freedom, the restrictions we face cauterizing; there’s no point that we aren’t confounded by them. We can only enjoy the amount of land we can pay for, and whatever public space left to us. I’m not saying we should do things differently, but that our world is one of constraint, sacrifice — to learn discipline is to learn to breathe. The dance, the drill… the child cries because it has found one of these barriers, obstacles, limitations. How many tears? This is how we live, from within the confines of our property, never knowing an open expanse. Do you think this is a metaphor?

If I should perish outside this chain-link fence, at least I was prevented from stepping on this protected land that beckons so sweetly. But our world has changed. Already it has gone internal. Why venture out of our rooms? It reminds me of the wikileaks controversy. Kye Soen asked, “Why was someone able to access those files?”

I answered, “He was young, so knew everything about computers. Probably the ones in charge were older, had no idea what the flashing lights were about.

‘What’s that?’

‘Oh, I’m just defragging the page file — strictly maintenance. Don’t you know how delicate these PATA’s are? Isn’t anybody concerned about security around here?’”

The conversation over dinner turned to what must be, the underpinnings, and how a writer has two souls, that the writer’s voice is something separate from the known. She didn’t believe me, had no way to grasp what I was driving at.

“It’s not me, it’s almost like automatic writing. The words often appear that I’m to use and remain there like an imprint until I record them. Sometimes I refuse because it seems pointless or mundane, but the imprint does not relent until it is done. It began… the first time I noticed it was after a 90-day Zen retreat in the early 90’s. I suddenly realized that the thoughts coursing through me, what I’d always thought was personal, was actually something I was picking up from my neighbors! Their firing neurons were somehow registering as my own. We think what appears in our minds is our own creation, but this is a ridiculous notion — completely false. These days I’m in a secure, safe place, so there’s no danger of interference. Even so, I’m very careful about engaging with others, their propaganda. The stream that is my writing voice, I know it well — I’m very friendly with it, but I don’t claim that it’s me anymore than I would take credit for the wheel, or space travel.”

Across the bay in a busy subway, a different scene than LA by leagues. Here society embraces the train, the only sensible way to commute to the city. Everyone is dressed in rugged clothes: goose down vests, slickers, windbreakers. The foreigners mesh seamlessly, overlap in waves of complexity only possible in a city of such magnitude, importance. Walking among the towering buildings is to enter the church of the Republic. It must be true, for I’m not the only one with a sense of awe.

The train rises in a gentle grade above the city streets, the light muted through heavy clouds. Past Macarthur a snarl of freeway overpasses; the veins of the city more complex here than any place I’ve seen — or maybe it’s that I’m new to this network. Back underground, my face reflects back at me distorted from the smudged glass, concerned, concentrating on these details, and that it’s a long way to the Bay.

San Francisco was all rain and fog — who knew? I waited under the street with some Chinese friends, who were very patient, but eventually grew weary of watching the steady downpour and made it down the passageway to an unknown end. A man worked at the base of the escalator, sunk to his shoulders in the maw of the machinery. I wait until the rain lets up, then emerge at Market Street into a dazzling cityscape. No time to enjoy the soaring structures, I catch the 21 Hayes, to meet an old friend, the swordmaster; a wonderful ally and brother, one of the few I’ve met who knows the terrain, who’s ahead of me. Of course no one understands him. He gives me poetry and gifts, and talks to me until my limbs are shaking. I stop listening and let him do his work. Many teachings are transferred to me in the course of an hour. He’s very efficient. Both of us are deeply involved in the propagation of dharma, we recognize it in each other. Seeing each other, we are both negated and confirmed. It can’t be, yet there it is, again — the God among men, the magic gate thrown, the wild unknowable thing encountered… both of us empty, we operate in the world only through intent, for all beings, otherwise we would vanish on the spot like RDX. I would introduce you, but things have to align for him, like a mandala, and it’s far too hot for your bones I’m sure.

On my return the energy courses through me, churns my entrails, my bowels, leaving me incapable of speech, movement. He always does this to me. It’s like the writing process magnified to such a degree that the self loses hold. I finally move, with difficulty, sit in a dark subway tunnel waiting for my train somehow pulsing, beating just like a human. The train makes it through the tunnel in a rapid succession of events, a blur of lights racing past. Whatever this is can’t be called a place. We exist as a tribe launched through blackness, a screaming tunnel, invisible, impossible to know. Beneath the ocean, encased in a concrete shell, we burst into daylight, into a network of shipping containers, intertwining streets, sidewalks, brick walls, clapboard. Our world expresses our inner confinement, reflects in concrete and steel the story of our race, how our consciousness flows, our anger and ambition, our frivolous nature, and above all our fear. We know we are weak, we know our hunger, so a latch on every door, steel bars, reinforced glass, security cameras, razor wire, armed guards, black and white ninjas, scarecrows, fighter jets, polished nails, sunglasses, diamond studded wristbands, background music, quarantine.

As I wait for Kye Soen to pick me up I watch a dozen people before me shoveled into cars, warmth and light emanating from inside. I imagine stepping into one of them at random, of living a different life, leaving all of my things behind; how an old man amuses himself under the sycamore trees, but what would they do with me? Truly there is no place for me other that what I’ve hewn from the landscape that I must ceaselessly work, like a trail through the jungle. Having no place in the world is a feat of engineering.

All of this is more complicated that I’m able to convey. This is only poetry. If the bright emanation that appears through limitless worlds could be adequately described, there would be no more trouble in the world. If the trouble were removed now, we would collapse into our own mire as if we’d lost our bones. We will surmount it. People now, here, have accomplished it; maybe someone you know. But it is something rare, only won through great endurance and sacrifice. Few are able or willing to run the gauntlet, and so the miserable state of the world today. Not to dwell on our shortcomings, but that we must accept them, our place. We’ve hardly risen from the mud, yet we expect to live as Gods!

Communism depends on the intrinsic goodness of humanity, that it will prevail. The Republic realizes this is false, that people are corrupt, and will behave badly, so allows them the illusion of freedom while monitoring them with careful scrutiny; life under a microscope, a hint now of what it will be. Why must we bear this? Are we all criminals?

***

That’s all for this week. This series, what started as a branch of The Zen Revolution, is now available as an app for your android device, and soon for the iPhone. It includes all the episodes plus extra content, a video supplement for each show, photos, scans, homemade music, and the text of the show formatted for the small screen. As I’m in Berkeley for Christmas, this week’s video will be delayed — but I’ll usually rotate the essay/podcast on Thursdays with video uploads on Sundays. Surrender, I surrender to it, this field of weeds.

Welcome to Field of Weeds, a weekly series from the desk of H. Grevemberg. This is episode #13 for December 16, 2010

3^rd Street Bridge

Today we’re venturing deep into the wilds of Los Angeles: Hollywood, Watts, and skid row.

I’m spending a lot of time with the homeless these days. Living in LA, if you go outside of your neighborhood, between places, you cross paths with them. I don’t mean to dwell on their misery; it’s the poetry of these regions. Since my rounds usually take me through Watts and skid row, I’ve become driven to record these environments.

It’s one of the reasons I’ve changed to this new format, so I could build an app that would include video. The android app will be up in a couple of days with my first video supplement. The iPhone/iPod app is coming, but there’s no way to tell how long it will be. I moved to another channel because my host requires a paid app, and once you have revenue stream, copyright becomes crucial. I didn’t want to re-edit The Zen Revolution chapters. It was time to cut the cord.

Here every note, every frame is from my own hand, or a friend — really it’s all homemade.

***

Out of the house after midnight, the fog had surrounded the South Bay, nearly through the day. Someone lurches from the sidewalk, hands in his pockets, soon gone. I had all sorts of jobs to do, but spent half the day modding a shoulder bag, adding a concealed camera. I told everyone after. I wasn’t trying to escape my duties, but follow-through is important. I spent the whole evening working with the tiny camera, getting the workflow right so I wouldn’t be wasting time. It turned out the only small camera I had access to shoots mpeg1, which is very primitive. When I get the money I’m moving up to HD. But I don’t think it matters. The footage I’m going to shoot with it doesn’t need a sharp focus.

Tonight at the grocery store, the Russian rang me out. How deep his despair. How can one fall so far? We are beautiful not only for our greatness, but our lack. There’s something grand about it, the scope of it. I’m sure he’s trapped somewhere — and no one to comfort him. Why do we need so much? The life I have, is it one of privilege? Slowly the details will become known. I don’t want to describe myself too fully. You’ll have to trust me.

I left the Russian to his horror and entered the fog. Night. No one out, anywhere. It must be 2 0′ Clock now. Tomorrow I’ll make another escape.

***

Stuck in traffic, I see a row of trees on the sidewalk. I want to abandon the truck and walk there. My mind returns to its blissful state so easily. The pace has been so hectic, but my Buddhist heart remains. I walk softly, the cars jamming against me, like I’m going somewhere. All the way I’m buoyed behind a group of five women, clopping their heels. The tall one notices me, and all of them make it to the other side of the street. Back to the truck, I’d parked in a sketchy area, I cut across the greenbelt, a small strip of park, all that remains from the trolleys of the 20’s. I make it without capsizing, though my flipflops gouge at least a rick of peat moss. I gas the beast and lurch toward Marine.

After the Sunday Zen center ritual, I try the camera out in Hollywood. No one notices. It’s very easy to take the shots I want, though most of it is from the waist, shaky. I have to learn how to use it. But already it had grown too dark.

Punks on the street; pink ladies walking sideways, leaning on poles. I catch a bit of them as they pass, “No… but you know me, I’m expressive.” The stream of it like a dream sequence: sirens, a motorcycle, an old man steps carefully past — no meaning. I’m no longer looking for it. A beautiful woman drifts by, effervescent, so many soft things, her own kind of poetry, so many concerns — a difficult work. I want to study her, record her.

I make it across the street, but not with grace. I’ve really gotten to shambling between things, ducking into shady pockets like it was a damned living room. I don’t know why I’m so comfortable here. A Korean woman joins me at a table; they just know how to do it. She plays with a baby at the next table. They’re very open with children. Great mothers if you plan on being born into this world again. I like it here, but really have no reason to return. I let her have the table and shuffle on.

The sun was gone. Ladies were taking tiny steps and singing to themselves, draped over the Hollywood stars, or sitting on them, adjusting their bra straps, looking at their watches. The men were busy projecting, mating, being freaks; their faces, moods! Tourists everywhere, the street performers were out in full force: silver santas, golden statues, Marilyn Monroe on the subway grate with Zoro, pirates, iron men, avatars, Sponge Bob, fat Elvis, whore cops, a Cuban princess with a black Zoro, bikers, balloon twisters… at some point I closed down. Hollywood has its charm, but it hangs too long in the dream. Why it turns garish is telling. Everyone looks exasperated, all of these projections, everyone clamoring for attention.

The next day I could hardly rise, my skin prickly, numb, like I’d been poisoned. I made an appointment for a blood test and stumbled there. The vampires behind the window were busy sorting through the catacombs of file cabinets, but perked up when they saw my blood-filled carcass. The nurse’s eyes bulged from a recent feasting, “Yes… let’s see what you’ve got.” The needle went in silently, painlessly…

Back at Monterey I get a call from Kye Soen, spreading her tendrils into my affairs. Her son was staying with friends in Studio City to get in the High School he wanted. He needed a better environment, a room of his own, an adult who cared about him. I’d been a part of his life since his earliest memory. His parents were divorced during his first year, and I began dating Kye Soen soon after. We’ve had a lot of good times together, and he came to my rescue more than once when his mother was out of her mind. I’m to get a small apartment near the subway early next year and look after him. She’s busy with college and raising a young daughter in Berkeley for another year at least, and needs some relief.

The subway pierced through Watts, the familiar crowds of dejected souls. Here there was no question of taking care of someone else’s child. It would seem ridiculous. What are they after, these hordes? It doesn’t seem to be working for them. Not just dissatisfied, but tortured by the conditions they face. What hope rises from their lips, to find a partner, riches? There are countless lives spent in emotional turmoil, that were wrought from it so have no inclination to abandon it. It’s a primitive grasping that holds them to it, for life in its simple truth is quite profound. All of the troubles in the world are because of this, and that we hold to things so tightly, things that should be ephemeral — to force our own sense of order on the caterwauling, disorderly masses.

The white haze hung like a dirty curtain over the desolate scenes on the way downtown. The withdrawn and their musings, what the weather has to do with it both obvious and beyond our grasp. Is it our frailty against the clouds? A man in a wheelchair rolls in with a large basket of candy to sell. How long his day, scrambling for change? Does he have freedom within his constraints? Why do we exist, if only to suffer through this life? The choice isn’t ours. If so, if we cannot stop or control or fathom it, if the thing can’t be kept, why be overwrought?

The train on the outbound rail rattles past so quickly that our train pulls toward it. Poetry. The spell is broken suddenly when a mother and child sit beside me, the young girl bouncing on her chair, exhilarated, filled with joy. The sun burned through, maybe it was her. LA returned to her usual graces.

The candy sellers were piling up on each other. It’s rare that I see anyone buy anything. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be so desperate. I suppose these poor, dejected souls have no other choice? I walked down 7^th, a much brighter mood, some were even laughing. Here existence made sense, not something to suffer through, with your hand out, but delight, in companionship, in whatever small victory. There must be some line that many can’t cross, and there is no other place for them. Nature doesn’t reward failures. I start to feel it past Main, the bottom dropping out. People begin talking to themselves, magazine vendors hunched inside their boxes, people became amorphous, so can’t be described.

The noise and heat did me some good, helped draw the poison out. I walk through all sorts of strange scenes on the way to 3^rd, nearly all Mexican. The fashion district is a bit of a misnomer, in my opinion. The homeless here are hard wired — they see you coming long before you see them. A small woman with a very large cup stands before a whole street of head shops, past these I cross into Little Tokyo. There are many people in wheelchairs sitting on the street, staring at nothing. How do they eat? Where do they go? I pass a shopping center soon after — the dumpsters here must be full of treasures. Still farther on the lone and lonely homeless are propped against a fence or brick wall, waiting for the night.

The angel’s wings reach even here. They were scratched onto doors, painted on the sidewalk. What dream, that some creature with wings has any interest in our affairs? How arrogant! I’m sure the angels are busy enough with their own. Who comes up with this stuff? It’s obvious we’re doomed to a nonsensical string of events that ultimately come to nothing; the hidden meaning of helping others — that happiness can be realized only by giving freely, that the energy flows outward — the real meaning of the angel’s wings. Sadly, we’re unable to penetrate this without great sacrifice. If it were otherwise I would surely tell you.

A small man pees gallons against the wall. It was then I realized I’d entered skid row. It looked like some were praying, so quiet. Some of them stood like statues, some looked almost normal, so well-dressed that they appeared to be just passing through, but they all have the same unmistakable look in their eyes. Anger or something more refined: the end of hope — something like the silk that forms as things decay. What is that called?

A stretcher appeared on the next block, the paramedics cleaning up, taking away a carcass. I work my way down to 7^th, past the Midnight Mission and a man with his pigeons, a handsome young man with sad eyes… what to do? The police were heavy through here, some of them shouting, laughing. If this truly is the end of the world, why would they bother? Maybe it isn’t an end, just another layer of humanity, so foreign that it seems depraved, but what do we know? Who do you know that lives fully, like an angel?

The madness fades, past wedding gowns and suitcases and half-mannequins wearing blue jeans — no need for a torso here, but there are many sad faces through the financial district as well — a different kind of sadness. Underneath Flower, the platform was already crowded, though a train had just pulled away. I melted into the seat like an amoeba, my legs pounding from the miles of concrete.

The same candy lady as before, her box still full, another one followed a stop behind. No one’s buying. It’s a dark place, there’s no way to get around it, but there’s a truth in the simplicity of it: survival in its crudest form, whatever can be salvaged, and staring blankly, waiting, shuffling between streets to kill time, clinging to a familiar spot. Watts has its own flavor, its own brand of misery. It’s impossible for me to fathom their suffering. I can only observe, and pass through undetected. Like this work, which remains unknown; like a ripple in a pond, it has an element of beauty, and destroys itself. What other act is available to us? What can we do against the backdrop of eternal quiescence, other than to give voice to it?

That’s all for this week — be sure to look for the video supplement to this week’s show on your android device. Surrender. I surrender to it, this field of weeds.

Welcome to Field of Weeds, a weekly series from the desk of H. Grevemberg. This is episode #12 for December 9, 2010:

A look at Black Swan and More of the Los Angeles Underworld

As we venture deeper into the dark recesses, things are lost along the way. It’s to be expected.

For those of you who know me from The Zen Revolution, thank you for following me here, and welcome, to all, to a modern version of the autobiographical novel written as a weekly series, as it unfolds. Alongside this podcast I’m developing video shorts available through upcoming apps for iPhone and Android devices – to add more detail, more of the poetic imagery of this work, and still photos, scans, whatever adds to the story.

Episodes from the Field of Weeds series previously broadcast on The Zen Revolution podcast have been archived here, stripped down to my content alone.

***

The waste, the amount of Sepulveda required to take care of all possibilities couldn’t exist without the mass of people to allow for it. Tonight, beautiful, crisp air, couples walking slowly, waiting for each other; groups of women together, a cloud of concern; layers of bonding, from office mates to last vestiges. But here all is light, topical; a concern for each other’s day; the human species in its native habitat, outside an upscale movie theater in the South Bay of Los Angeles. Maybe this is the height of it, what we’ve been able to reach. It seems this place, this cinema, is made for joy and release. No judgment, no witness. No one here expects anything of you.

The fountain pours rivulets of light, the music low, slow, desperate; the crowds have turned bleak, something sudden. The sidewalk crackles to life with three armed plain-clothes men, walkie-talkies reverberating in the background. A movie lets out and a mad stream of concerned families press out onto the cement, strangely animated, happy yet resigned.

I go in early, at the last few scenes. There was a disheveled feel to the room. It seemed everyone gave up on the film and left quietly, muttering, the credits out of focus, the music bland, hypnotic. Not a good sign. A last couple storms out, and I’m left alone in the red-carpeted hall. The lights, the fading music warm, little angels and violins and a descending piano. I wait for the music to resolve, instead it hangs, and rises again, and there remains in a sad wailing, like a funeral.

I was the only one there for a long time. I thought maybe I was in the wrong place. The movie was really bad: flat, dull, pitched for a different audience than I. But Black Swan was sold out. This was an alternate.

The next day, another attempt, the subway downtown, the stop, thirty feet above Marine, pressed me into the cloudy vapors with scattered, frightened birds and a grey blimp nosing higher. It was OK because it was Sunday and I was alone. I enjoyed it immensely, piercing through the overcast in an ugly train, surrounded by the roaring traffic of LA’s central aorta. It doesn’t mean much, I’m sure, but you really notice it, you miss it, when you’re on the outskirts. The density of it, the complexity, the mental power… all of the images, the angles that pass through me; the mood of the place my mood, one of flat rooflines, soccer fields and ones gone to marsh grass, everywhere else paved, sealed in concrete, with colored glass and awnings, industrial grey, shades of brown. The train fills with Mexicans and blacks, nearly all withdrawn. They size you up, look for the weakness, how you reflect their scrutiny. It’s a dharma exchange, a communication. If we could measure it, map it, the extent of consciousness – how different it must be than what we’re able to perceive.

Though I enjoy going to the theater, it’s the time on the train, on the street, that I’m after. It’s where all of the work is done. It seems peculiar, even to me, but everyone has their method. I’m cheating, drawing on the various things as they pass through me. Sometimes I go to the central library, walk through the building to 5^th, and return. I don’t look at a single book.

We don’t travel well together, have you noticed? It’s something like prison I imagine, being on lockdown with random people who have no interest in you, other that you move on, or die on the spot.

The green line from South Bay connects to the blue line at Rosa Parks, the only way to get downtown without a punishing bus schedule, or driving for an hour, which doesn’t allow for writing. But I enjoy being pressed together with these characters, these magnificent creatures of the LA streets, unlike any other street culture in the world. It’s certainly tough here, perhaps deadly. Occasionally an officer will walk the cars with a shotgun, but usually it’s the worn and frayed homeless with their bundles of aluminum cans. Most of the recycling in LA is sorted through by homeless armies, who know when the recycling bins are put out on whatever street. They go through everything. What’s left for the city to collect must be nearly useless.

For some this day in the clouds is bleak. There are all sorts of torn and toothless staggering through the fog; the landscape we drift through desperately poor, given to industrial yards full of pipes and poles, piles of metal junk, old warehouses with layers of heavy graffiti and counter measures. Now that all the manufacturing has gone elsewhere, what will come of it? Miles of dead city not high or elaborate enough to convert to artist lofts. Corrugated tin, for instance, with no windows, and rows of indiscernible shops with Spanish signs; liquor stores with payday loans. If there were a Mexican part of town, it would certainly include this.

A fat man watches from a rooftop near Grand. I suppose it’s a slow day. Finally the train makes it past the Staples center and down beneath Flower. Farther underground to catch the next train, it arrives instantly. I imagine some cities run like this, with a new train every few minutes. If they would do that here, around the clock, I would live so much more broadly. Instead I’m confined to a fairly small window of time, really only enough for one destination. The way LA’s laid out, there are a number of different scenes, and vast distances between them. I usually go downtown for walks, to Hollywood to see a movie, or hit a cafe on Franklin, Melrose, or Sunset – each of these far from each other.

The red line to North Hollywood is a good train, always bustling, with a younger crowd, a lot more Asians and foreigners. I get the Portuguese friends who talk loudly about how to buy snakes or pitchforks, I have no idea. The familiar blue of smartphones and babies and small children in strollers. A gay man wearing shades and jodhpurs walks dramatically toward me. He spins on a polished heel at the last moment thank God.

I get out at Hollywood and Vine. My Portuguese friends are out first. They were real cool the way they stretched near the door. I suppose they had some training to do, some feat of dexterity far greater than mine. The long blocks down Sunset, a beautiful part of the city. There were a lot of ninjas out, flappity-spoked bicyclists, scummy art types with security passes around their necks – on to their important computer stations, their underground bunkers, and an old crone outside the bank who asks for quarters.

Black Swan was sold out again. It’s doing well. I’d purchased tickets online this time – not to worry. The café was nearly deserted, warm and cozy. Shit coffee. I love the place. Making the rounds every week now to write the show is a certain privilege I enjoy. It’s why I live in the city, to remain abstract in the middle of everyone’s lives. I can rest here in the crest of the wave.

A midget hands out flyers. I want to talk to him, to use him in a film project. I have to get a phone soon, and business cards. I should be collecting people. I want to write a show about strangers. They would say things like, “I just don’t know…” I could film their legs walking, how they swing their arms, some idiosyncrasy. Every line would be something personal and abject; like Wings of Desire, detail and poetry – from the side of adoration. How much closer could I come to being a writer of truth, to revealing the bare essence as it unfolds? How much easier to record it if it’s in the stream of it, what Miller was after, though his was highly amplified — you can’t just stay in the stream unless you live a life of constant wonder. And HST — what he gave us.

Talking to a schoolteacher recently, who was afraid that I was one of them, “Tell me you don’t love Hemmingway.”

“He ruined literature.”

“Oh thank God…”

I enjoy the theater immensely, the quieted hive of people milling around the enormous marquee, the red carpeted hallways and staircases, the overdressed ladies wearing sunglasses. A Hefeweizen before the show, with lemon of course – the hall echoes with optimism, friendly chatter.

“I was here until 2-o’-clock last night… and I opened… yeah.”

She never made eye contact, like an Asian, but the smile was there, the secret eye absorbing my emanations, pulling me into her palate, her nostrils. I want to be a feast for her, something gorgeous.

There’s a buzz about this film. A crowd gathers long before the show, many of them sitting on the floor. A great deal of beautiful young women, so pretty with their dreams of the ballet, striding elegantly back and forth like it was a damned catwalk, or hunched inward like frightened children.

Row C is good here. Kye Soen showed me this, so many things… for her, she had to always be in the absolute center chair, by number. The seating was really the important thing, and where we parked. Row C faces an aisle, so it’s very roomy. The next row of seats are ten feet in front, so a parade of people pass through. So many interesting lives flicker past; this human striving!

A pretty blonde sits beside me: leather and carefully torn jeans, platinum hair, soft tones, holding her boyfriend’s knee, looking at her engagement ring, stroking her legs… the Portuguese! I thought surely they were headed for the dojo. A very handsome party to my left, all of them in black jeans, combat boots, too skinny and dyed black, tattoos and squirrely voices, magnetic as Hell.

The show began with previews three months in advance, Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks” in full THX theater sound. I’ve had a film play at a festival, know the feel of my own music blasting through this environment.

Natalie Portman, she has the neck for it. What an expression: grace, beauty; her eyes luminous, dark; searching NYC panic. There’s certainly a dark side to this, the ballet full of tragedy.

“Now show me your black swan, Nina… all the discipline, for what? I never see you lose yourself.”

Crushed blacks, it’s shot very close.

“You’re scratching yourself again.”

We never escape her neurosis, her fear – she’s not able to seduce Yevna, every scene deeper into her madness, multiplied by her mother’s failures. This must be the height of despair.

“…because whatever Beth does comes from within, from some dark impulse.”

Frightened bathroom escape.

“Wait, where are you going?”

Impossible to love anymore, fragments, fragmented.

“She’s after my role… she’s after me.”

“Where is it? How do you find it?”

The dark stage in quick edits – no time wasted.

“This world is destroying you.”

How does anyone face such terror, to the point of murder, mutilation, but how else this beauty? The black swan appears, the crowd erupts! She’s done it! She leaps to her death.

“It was perfect. I felt it.”

“What?”

“I felt it.”

I go for a walk after, glad to be finally released from Nina’s torment. How large the dream, yet it passes unknown. To be chosen, recognized, don’t we all fall prey to this? To go beyond it means it has already been taken up and discarded. We aren’t allowed to cease striving. No one gets a free ride. We did not build these empires for the years to consume, but that we may stretch further, higher – to no end. The mannequins, all provocatively dressed, smile down on me, the streets glistening from the rain.

“The end of night is not a longing, but a demand.” – The Zen Revolution

The theme of Black Swan was to embody both sides completely. For Nina, too innocent, too protected to express herself fully, her power was revealing the fear. There was no way to emulate the dark voice without first succumbing to it, what for her was a violent process that proved deadly. How we approach this in our own lives, it must be the same, though most escape these extremes. We must live fully before we can give expression to it, certainly before we can master anything. It’s no easy task.

There are some similarities between my life and that of Nina’s: the drive for artistic expression, against any amount of reason, to the point of deconstructing the psyche – only that she wasn’t ready for the process. Who is? Having not yet defined herself, she had an untenable fear that couldn’t be surmounted. In my case, after many long retreats in the Zen tradition, there was no fear. Anxiety, yes, that’s what drives this series, and restlessness; an undying need to come out with it, to reveal it, and, yes, some amount of exhibitionism. These are the fine ingredients of Field of Weeds.

On the way back, it’s sad to see how the homeless turn up. The rain drives them out, the desperate cases. I suppose they would choose to die if it were offered. Sometimes I can read it in their faces. What is noble about this? Aren’t we to be judged for our weakness, not our strength? I suppose nobility is only a façade, the impulse to live beyond the human, for we’ve already accomplished our objective.

“Can you hit the mark? Can you carry a tune?”

Not even that.

“Can you run a mile? Can you digest a steak?”

But we are somehow driven, the same impulse that pulled us from the primordial ooze. That’s our work: to pass the torch, to climb higher, farther… not all of us, but to the extent of our abilities to press the matter forward. Maybe you don’t think pursuing the arts is pressing the matter forward, but you can’t judge this unless you consider the homeless who suffer this rainy night. Is their expression of any value to you? That’s the more revealing question.

***

That’s all for this week. I really enjoyed Black Swan, but it’s a challenging film. If you love the arts, by all means see it. I think Aronofsky has captured something important, magnified to ridiculous proportions. How hard we push ourselves, to the end of life, and to what end? Don’t ask again, or I may abandon this project and simply stare intensely at things, what you must be doing now. It always hangs by a thread, the unknown artist’s life, these performances. Fortunately, this pen has a mind of its own.

Surrender. I surrender to it, this Field of Weeds…