Yes...Flying Cars.

Well...
Yes, honestly...I do think the world would be a better place if we all had flying cars.

I think the problem is that we have lost sight of that type of invention. Like I said...building better bombs and missiles has become the thing. And other things like what to do with nuclear waste have been pushed aside or literally buried rather than being dealt with. Especially since Three Mile Island happened and there hasn’t been a new nuclear power plant built in this country since.
It’s only the hippies and weirdos like me that are willing to toss green mountain energy a few extra bucks every month because they use a lot of wind and solar and hydro power. And as you and I get older we will see more and more of the aging nuclear power plants being shut down and hopefully things like solar energy becoming more prevalent. I met a guy once who made his living installing solar panels on peoples roofs...for ten grand he’d put a system up there that would pretty much take you off the grid. So not only does it pay for it’s self in like 5 years...but it means you are no longer requiring nuclear power plants to be operated. Although a very small portion of our electricity comes from nuclear power...more of it comes from the burning of oil and coal than from nukes. And those are great too...imported oil or strip mined coal being burned and polluting the planet.

But we don’t care anymore. We are like ostriches with our heads in the sand.
And that is what I think has been lost.
In stead of science working towards making the planet better and getting us to other planets...it has become an industry bent on making better killing machines and penis pills (I’m sure there’s a funny joke in there somewhere about ‘make love not war’).

So yes...I was hoping (when I was a small child) that by now (a 38 year old child) we’d be living in a more star trek like reality where everyone on the planet realized we are all on the same little life boat here and we’d all just be working together and being good people.
I just saw the movie The Last Samurai and there was a line in it that really struck me talking about a turn of the century (19th to 20th , 1800’s-1900’s) Japanese mountain village...it was something like this..

From the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep these people devote their entire life to the perfection of whatever it is they chose to do.

And that’s the thing...

Just doing what it is we do for the sake of doing it well. Not for the paycheck. Being a potter for the love of the clay and not for the money the pots will bring. It cheapens them.
Tiling a bathroom because I love putting in tile.


I think we have made ourselves completely insane.
And we’re all gonna be standing there playing the fiddle this time.

One thing about lifes little reminders that it doesn't last forever...
It sure does get you thinking about what the hell you are doing with the time you do have.

and then there's the bad news.
and who the hell really needs more bad news in their life, right?
so I avoid everyone I know.

Flying Cars!


So I was watching the Discovery channel last night...
And although I missed the part of the show actually about it...
I saw enough to hear the teaser where they said it would take a year to arrive and cost a million dollars...but if you want one you can now buy yourself a "Flying Car"
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:o)

So I guess that funny tv comercial with the guy from DS9 isn't quite as relevant anymore.

All I will say is this...

Just think about what kind of futuristic world we would already be living in if for the past 60 years everyone in the world was working on cool space shit and flying cars and medicines...in stead of building a better bomb or a stronger version of anthrax.

Like Aimee Mann Said...

Fifty years after the fair
The picture i have is so clear
Underneath the clouds in the air
Rose the tyrlon and the perisphere
And that for me was the finest of scenes
That perfect world across the river in queens
Fifty years after the fair
I drink from a different cup
But it does no good to compare
'cause nothing ever measures up
I guess just for a second we thought
That all good things would rise to the top

But how beautiful it was - 'tomorrow'

We'll never have a day of sorrow
We got through the '30's, but our belts were tight
We conceived of a future with no hope in sight
We've got decades ahead of us to get it right
I swear - fifty years after the fair

Fifty years after the fair
I live in tomorrow town
Even on a wing and a prayer
The future never came around
It hurts to even think of those days
The damage we do
By the hopes that we raise

But how beautiful it was - 'tomorrow'
We'll never have a day of sorrow
We got through the '30's, but our belts were tight
We conceived of a future with no hope in sight
We've got decades ahead of us to get it right
I swear - fifty years after the fair

Damn...what ever happened to talking about stuff like this?

I guess we still are.
But man has my theory about time changed.

question

So is our history (ethnicity) something to embrace? Or shed in favor of the milado?

FEAR. Revisited (or Revised?)

(Re: FEAR.)

So I'm sitting her thinking about the nature of the universe like I always have...
And I'm thinking more and more as I get older that I really didn't have the slightest understanding about the true nature of things in my youth. I know...none of us do. But I remember the points in my life when I thought I did. They always centered around my understanding of my lack of understanding. I laugh now when I think of the little aches and pains from my teens and twenties that used to make me say things like, "I'm so old" or "I feel old." I laugh now as I struggle to hold a cup of coffee in my arthritic hand after a couple of weeks of painting and the prior construction work.
But more than just that stuff, now I'm thinking about the bigger picture in a whole different way. It makes me feel like such a dumbass I can't even tell you. The things I have done and not done because of my lack of understanding. The things I have spent my life giving a shit about are often completely ridiculous and my priorities have often been so completely screwed up that I don't know how anything could have been making sense to me. And now I am stuck living with the consequences of those years. And there are days when that just crushes me.
But...

Now there are days when in stead of crushing me...it all kinda makes sense and I am more relaxed than ... well, more than I can remember feeling in a long time.
Like yesterday, for example, while I was upstairs painting I got into such a clear minded Zen place I realized I was actually hearing the words to all of the songs on the radio! Which is good because we really do need to talk sometime soon about the ridiculousness currently going on adding to the need for best friends and Zen moments. Not gonna tell ya here first though. (I hear that whole Eddie Izzard routine in my head every time I use one of those ‘ough’ words. :o)
I’m beginning to realize that 2 of the most important lessons in life are A. Don’t sweat the small stuff. And 2. Don’t give a shit what other people think.
For example, I was talking to my sister Saturday (when you were in the shower) and I was talking about making part of my living as a potter and doing like half a dozen craft shows a year and she started saying all the bullshit things I used to say and I started laughing at what a joke it was. And then I went off about what bullshit they fed us in grad school when they said to a class of like 30 something fine arts majors that only 2 of us were going to make a career of it so what were the other 28 doing there? And I think being told stuff like that so often is why only 2 stick with it. Because that’s the key...it’s not that the other 28 try and don’t make it. It’s that they just go on and do something else. The allure of the $50,000 a year paycheck a computer programmer brings home certainly got me for a few years there! I hate Excuses. And I think a lot of the people saying those things have never had to go out and get a real job so how the hell would they know. I’ve done lots of different jobs and none of them come as easily to me as throwing pots. Or to put it another way...making a living as a potter is easy compared to having to do it ‘in the real world’

So to bring both conversational threads together...

We all have the ‘poser’ syndrome when it comes to being found out as a fraud in our career whether it’s a tv director or a computer programmer or a school teacher or an office setup technician or a potter or even as an art student. We all take our jobs and especially our Art very personally so it’s difficult to hear criticism of the work because it’s criticism of our person. Why do we give a shit? I mean that in all seriousness. Is life about our work or about our friends and family and being happy?
So how I ever could have said something like, “It’s hard to put my pottery out there at craft shows and have people not like it (and have to pack it all up again at the end)”
Ok...first of all...DUH...stop taking the crappy pots that never sell to the shows...make more of the things that do sell...play to the audience. I’m not doing craft shows to make high art, I’m doing them to make money.
Rock with me...
Give the
People
What they
Want!
And secondly, who the fuck cares what the people at craft shows that don’t buy my pots think? It’s the one thing in my entire life that I honestly know I’m great at. Like the title of one of my photoblog sites used to say, “Jack of all trades, master of one”
I’m sure the rust would come off quickly.

Ok...well...this got really long. I’m not even going to read it over to see if it makes any sense because I have painting that needs to be done before it gets too hot to deal.
I’m going to try your cell but unfortunately I think you’re on a plane.

Take the good when you can get it...because the bad finds you on it's own.