I lied

You know, last blog I said I wasn’t going to go down the negative road. I wasn’t going to preach anymore about these horrible times and just focus on the good.

Fuck that shit now!!!

We have just elected a corporate fascist clone of Il Duce and it’s going to be rough!! We can weather the storm of bad governing-we do it all of the time. We can also weather the storm of partisan politics, we’ve done that as well. But America has never had a true ideologue like Trump in power before, and it is fucking dangerous.

Check it out.

I doesn’t matter if he’s proven wrong on something, it doesn’t matter if he lies and doesn’t care. If he spews hate rhetoric and divisive racist remarks, they have no effect negatively on him. What matters are that his followers-and I say followers because this is now a cult of personality-will do his bidding. They will follow him gladly to the hall of glory, gun in hand singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

He will take us to war with Islam and the whole rest of the non-Christian world. Don’t believe me…just look at who elected him. Looked at who backed him. The “Alt Right”, neo nazis, White people who believe they’ve been done wrong by a world that naturally is coloring. This is passions last dance for them and they are not going to give it up so easily.

Not today, Not tomorrow, but most definitely in his first term.

I realize I sound like an alarmist and my mother would say-listen to my dermatologist everyday will be just like the last. But republicans love war. Republicans love the war machine (and not the dude  from Iron Man). It feeds the corporate brotherhood of military-industrial cabals that have suffered during the Obama administration.

Children who are not born yet will have more rights than women will. It will be open season for cops on African-Americans. Cats will sleep with dogs-But the LGBT community will be prevented from marriage and equal rights. Sharia law-or his version of it, will be the law of the land.

We will become everything we hate and we will do it with a smile, wink and a nod.

I said it here, today November 9th 2016.

Selah                                                                                                                                                                        the rev

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On Death and Dying……..Fuck that Shit!

So I’m not the poster child for the mourning crowd. Never have been, never will be. I believe in the wheel. It carries us from life to life and from moment to moment. It allows us the ability to get through the tough times and reminds us all, that the good pass as well. The wheel turns whether we want it to or not. So my question is;

Do you enjoy spinning?

Come party with us at the Brick and Mortar this Saturday August 27th starting at 8 pm. It’s my way to say goodbye to those who have passed and hello to those yet to come. LordRifa will be welcoming some new members and new songs. We will be joined by our friends the High Card Drifters as well.

It will be a rocking night of NEW AMERICANA!

Selah

The rev

LordRifa Live this Saturday!!

Just a quick reminder to come on down and party with us this Saturday 8 pm at the Brick and Mortar in SF. We will be featuring awesome films from Frieda de Lackner and Kerwin Berk.

 

Gold Mountain

Hey All, I just wanted to turn everyone on to this Awesome web series that we have had the honor to score.

Crime Drama, Cop Story, Hot Actors, Evil Empire and San Francisco. What else does one need?

From the mind of the great Film Maker Kerwin Berk……….Gold Mountain

The Future of Man

Since I was a kid I have always wondered, what man would look like, a millennia in the future. How could I not? Since I first appeared on this earth man/woman has been essentially the same, arms, legs feet, hands, toes all in proportional alignment.
But in this lifetime, as a avid consumer of baby boom science fiction, I was raised to believe that man would have this Gigantic bald noggin with nasty veins that throb incessantly sticking out of his head. All to accommodate his enormous brain.
We were given to believe that man would become so smart, that naturally his head would expand.
Naturally….

Wrong!!! Not just wrong, but so far from right, that there is only left.
Man is going to look like Quasimodo. For those of you unfamiliar with the works of Victor Hugo, Quasimodo was the “Hunchback of Notre Dame”.
A big freaky looking guy with a hunch the size of a basketball between his shoulders. A dark furrowed brow and a vocabulary of a child. He was shunned by the world for his deformity and lived his sad lonely life in the abbey ringing the bells for the priests.

Let me make something perfectly clear- I mean no disrespect to any living being today struck with the terrible malady of Kyphosis nor any person of middle eastern descent, unfortunate enough to be blessed with one big eyebrow.

None what-so-ever. I wish you the best in your life and loves.

But we as a species, are pointed in that direction like an arrow to a target.
Don’t believe me? Let’s see if I can help elucidate this problem and then you can judge for yourself.

Let me know what you find out, am I right or am I wrong?

Everyday-wait no, every hour of everyday- here in my-used to be-fair city by the bay, I see hundreds of people walking around hunched over, completely oblivious to the world around them. Ears plugged, eyes bulging and squinting to see the tiny screen. All of them busy fingering what I could only describe as a form of tactile lover. Caressing it to the banishment of the world around them. This is how we communicate today. This is how we get information today. This is how we have sex today. This is how we will look tomorrow.
Hunchbacks.
But the way… we will no longer have hands either!

What you say…Impossible! Outrageous!……No…The Future!!

Yup…we will no longer have hands, they will be replaced by these mitten like claws that only have opposable thumbs. Picture a lobster wearing oven mitts with a golf ball on it’s back and a caterpillar on its eyeballs.
That’s us.
The sad truth about the Quasimodo comparison, is that he was so hard of hearing, he didn’t mind ringing the gigantic church bells of Notre Dam, and by today’s standards most of Americans will also be that as well. They will be deaf to all around except for what they hear in their tiny little ear buds. Maybe it’s more like the Cybermen from Doctor who, only hearing the sounds their masters allow.

Speaking of masters, I was watching a cooking show last night-one where they actually cooked and not just ran around like a bunch of morons, all for the benefit of the camera.
Greater intelligence they said….????
But I digress….the show was broadcast from Kangaroo Island which is off of the south coast of Australia. They had just pulled some Crawfish out of a local river bed and were going to grill them “on the barbie”. Now these Crawfish, they were terrified. They knew something bad was going to happen when the big hand snatched them out of their peaceful lovely creek. The cooks that were fishing on the show, just laughed about their predicament and talked about how sweet their tail and back meat was going to taste.
Well needless to say they were cooked alive-as is tradition in that part of the world-and enjoyed by all. Well almost all!

But I wonder….is there some great hand in the sky putting us on the path for their barbie?
Will someone in our future say-Gee this hump will taste so sweet once we dip it into butter?
I wonder……

Selah,
the rev

The Oracle and the Surfboard

I was out surfing around the Farallon Islands the other day and I came across a beautiful women on sitting on surfboard, whiling a way her time. She had thick black hair that dropped to her shoulders with deep, deep brown eyes. She looked at me as if it was completely natural for her to be there in this time and place and asked:

“Would you like to know your future darlin?”

“Huh?” I responded in my normal doltish manner.

“Do you want me to divine your future silly? She replied.

“Do you do this often,” I ask?

“Do what, darlin?” She looked deeply into my eyes as if waiting for me to put two and two together-never a chance for that!

“Sit around an island, in the fog, in the ocean, waiting for schmucks like me to come around so you can tell them their future?”

“No”, she said. “I live here, you came to me!”

She was right of course. I had paddled out to this crazy ass rock for no particular reason other then an urge, so I thought, why not. Let’s give the oracle a whirl.

“Sure” I said, and she then scooped up a bit of water from the ocean and let it fall gently onto the surfboard. As the drops hit the board they became tarot cards that formed the Celtic Cross. Good trick, I thought!

As far as tarot goes, it went pretty much as expected. Past, present, future all laid out on the board before me, couched in ancient symbolism, to be interpreted by a person of extra special abilities, who had all of the knowledge and certainty of a person you would expect to do this. A woman-on a surfboard-at the crack of dawn-in the middle of the ocean. (My shrink will love this!)

This thing about the tarot though, is when all is said and done, it’s just a card game, a bit of chance and interpretation. Generalities and non-specifics abound. Everyone has money issues, love issues, health issues in one form or another, so it’s a safe bet that if you run with one of those, you will look like a bit prohetic.

But I wanted to like the oracle. Hell, she just grabbed a bit of water and turned them into cards for me. (Not an easy thing to do).  So I wanted the oracle to be right. Not because it foretold of great things -cause it didn’t-but because I wanted to touch that part of reality again. It had been a long while since I let anyone go there and I wanted to believe.

I remembered the spirit wars of the 80’s. Ascended master battling ascended master for dominance of the arena. (Very much like the Kung fu movies of the time). It was bloody! I had my astrological charts done, Tarot, palm, numbers, tea leaves and entrails read (The last one hurt!). Psychics healed me, warned me, told me my future, told my of my death, you name it and much to my dismay, none of it came true.

So I just watched and waited to see would win. I stayed out of the battle zones and took no sides other than my position of non-interference. I guess I was Switzerland- I even had the chocolate hook up!

After quite a while and an immense loss of spiritual blood by the community, this master, this Shyster, this con artist won. He/she then proceeded to take this flock up to some remote town in Washington State and begin the indoctrination that is still going on today. Milking the poor bastards for all they have financially, as well as spiritually. He /she used all the great tools of the trade, fear of big cities, fear of government, fear of disease, fear of anyone who wasn’t part of the “tribe”. Sound familiar?

All religions, every god damn one of them uses these tools to get you to join, cause they work! These things are close enough to the truth to almost stand up in the light. But they never really do, because a thousand generalities do not add up to a single truth.

So I never went, partly because running has never been part of my make up. But mostly, it was because I didn’t believe, even though I really, really wanted to. I read all the books, took all the classes, met with all of these shit heads in person, but could never turn the corner and suspend my belief. I had an easier time believing in “knight Rider” than this. It’s the same reason no religion would have me. I do not believe in something that I cannot feel.

There I said it.

My spiritual beliefs are based on my intuitive reactions to a situation and I trust my intuition more then anything else on this plane. (Not that I always interpret them correctly).

So based on this, my search for god is one huge sham right?

Wrong.

We are a society who relies on the messenger more then the message. The messenger makes us feel the way we want to feel-not the message. The message just becomes a bunch of buzzwords that we can regurgitate for conversational use.

But the messenger gives us identity- a face we can think of when looking into the recesses of our hearts for our lives troubles. But the message is the thing that changes our lives.

It was during this era that I had my first encounter with my past lives and that changed me completely and forever. To be honest, I was not the tea totaling kind of guy I am now (Although I do like my cocktails). So a good majority of my time was spent in a drug induced fog. But I shared a visceral experience with another person that was impossible to debunk. A shared memory, where we both filled in the blanks of an image we saw independently.

Damn, if I didn’t try to debunk it. With all of my heart I tried to rip that shit to shreds, give reason or rhyme why we both remembered that. But the physical manifestations of that image changed how this person slept and what they feared. After this revelation, they no longer suffered from ill sleeping and could now sleep in all positions. (Where before sleeping on her back was impossible) and the errant pain of her abdomen ceased to exist.

For me, the flood-gates opened. I not only remembered that moment, but all of the moments that I had forgotten from my thousands of years of walking this amazing planet and I found my sense of god in it.

So when the exodus for Washington came, I no longer needed to believe nor cared to.

My eyes were opened to the flow of life. The cycles of birth death birth, pain joy pain so on and so forth. My eyes were open to the only metaphor that I can give about this:

We all live in the ocean of eternity. We are more then this manifestation currently, but cannot or at least have a hard time fathoming it. The responses of the heavens to our pleas are meaningless because the heavens are the waters of the ocean and they seem to do what they want.

So when my oracle reached into the ocean to pull out the cards I knew it was worth a listen. Maybe the oracle is right and maybe the oracle is wrong. All we can do is hang on to our surfboards and ride the waves as best as we can.

Selah

the rev

The Confluence of the Personal/Impersonal Man

We live in the time of great juxtaposition. Things that never should be seen walking down the street together, are now in bed, entangled in a lover’s Gordian knot.

It’s more than cats and dogs living in harmony!

It’s more then love and hate for the same being!

It’s more than liking both Taylor Swift and Kanye Kardashian!

It’s the battle of the impersonal vs. the personal. For eons and I mean eons, we as a species have generally migrated away from singular activities in favor of the community….

Fuck this, I want to digress a bit! I want to talk about regret.

It’s something I swore I never had or ever will have. In my hubris of existence, I walked around claiming, “If I did it, I did it and it added to the sum total of who, that is me”!

What a croc of hippy metaphysical bullshit!

Yes I regret. There it is in print, in the air, to the world and as a declaration to both god’s of the underworld and heaven, you’ve won. All of you regretting bastards, who suck up to self-pity like a sycophantic sponge. I am now one of you. I can look at my life and finally think, I regret some things in this life.

Fook me….

No, Fook u?

No, Fook me!

The problem is, as soon as these bold and meaningful words leave my fingers and hit the keys, I feel the lifting of that mood. It is as if I have confessed my sins and the confession-the public confession (because a quiet conversation with just god and myself would not have had the same impact on me as this)-has cleansed me of my regret for now.

I am so easily manipulated by myself (as well as others, it seems).

The personal dilemma of my regret as communicated to you the reader, has delivered this emotion into the world. The world of the Personal/Impersonal and has become meaningless. It no longer lives in me. I can look at it, see it, understand it, but it is not in me.

But I finally begin to understand what the modern allure of the impersonal is today. We can say or feel anything we want to and once we air it to the world we release it from our psyches. Who needs priests?

I guess it’s why I write-no actually, I write because I am a total egomaniacal clown who actually believes in his heart that god/devil gives a shit and listens to him rant.

I guess for others there is Facebook or #whatever.

But the impersonal/personal battle is real. We are looking for things that are utterly personal. Love, companionship, communication, friendship and we search for them in the most impersonal ways via the broad strokes of online meat markets and the cattle calls of the web.

We now have personal shoppers who will find us anything in the world at the touch of an app. But we can’t take the time to talk with people directly. We text, we email, we electronically poke and prod.

What did we do before the personal device? How did we live? How did we exist in this impersonal world with the only thing that mattered, our personal feelings?

In science fiction we used to think that the human head would grow monstrously large to fit our massive brains. Big bulbous foreheads they predicted, with huge veins to move oceans of blood into our skulls. But they were quite mistaken.

As we walk down the street today we can finally see the new shape of mankind. From monkey to human, from human to hunchback. All of us glued to our personal devices.

But that’s what is not making me regretful now.

While reading the Sunday Chronicle –yes, I still like to read the physical paper-I came across a small article about the city of Chibok in Nigeria. It had just been taken over by the Boko Haram insurgent group causing the citizens to run for their lives.

If you don’t remember who these folks are, let me remind you. They are the group who kidnapped the 300 schoolgirls from the self same town in April of this year.

When asked about the girls in a video interview.. well here is the exact quote;

“Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau in a video released last month said the girls were “an old story,” that they all had converted to Islam and been married off to his fighters.”

An old story, sitting on page 3 of the useless Sunday Chronicle. Buried beneath a pound of Christmas ads, stories of crab boats and architecture.

I regret that I am not powerful enough to make any meaningful change in these girls’ lives.

I regret that very much.

The regret that personal truth of their plight has become the impersonal nature of our media. I regret that Michael Jackson took more media time then they did.

I pray for them and their safe release. I pray for their families and the forthcoming children from their marriages.

I pray for our backs.

Selah

The rev

One more time-Killing My Lobster Goes Radio Active

I have finished my first week of a two week run with the amazing sketch comedy troupe “Killing My Lobster” and I have to say, it’s pretty fucking funny. I have never worked with comedian/actors in this manner before and I find it to be a total eye opening experience. I stand in the back, behind all these props and machines and make noises, play music, utter unintelligible things in the mic and people seem to laugh.

Me likey!!!

The timing between the actors and myself is also a different beast from what I’m used to. I wait for them and they wait for the audience to respond before they move on. Be it a chuckle, belly laugh or silence. In the music and preaching world, I just charge on and wait for nothing, except maybe the hand of god to come and kick my ass. Sometimes, my drummer thinks it’s his job-and maybe it is!. But we just keep charging on and passing the conceptual ball around the band until we are done with it and say to the audience,

What do you think?

Killing My Lobster Goes Radio Active

But in this format the interplay between the stage and the audience is instantaneous.

No laugh, No Glory.

Big Laugh, Full house tomorrow.

It’s exciting to live and die on every sentence, utterance and facial movement. Not for me of course because they do all of the heavy lifting in this project-and I give them all of the props they deserve, because they ARE lifting heavy items and are making them seem effortlessly  funny.

So we have only one more week left-Four shows- to see this wonderful moment in time, before it fades into memory. Come and see it. Be part of the creation of a moment, part of the ebb and flow of art, part of something that you can effect the outcome-for better or for worse.

Exciting isn’t it?

Selah

the rev

 

CATS Benefit-Golden Gate for Seniors- June 6th

Normally, I ponder and pontificate about the more elusive things in my life. The search for myself in terms of the world, god, mankind’s inability to be civil and other such bullshit. But today I want to advocate and urge, everyone who is in reading distance of this blog (That means all of you!!) to help out this great organization.

https://www.facebook.com/events/295997780567150/

CATS has been on the forefront of the battle to end homelessness and Substance abuse for 35 years. Our programs have help thousands of people find their way-in this sometimes dark existence-who are lost.

Some of the more familiar programs include; A Woman’s Place,  San Francisco Homeless Outreach Team and the Medical Respite Center. This event is focusing on one of our longest running programs:

Golden Gate for Seniors.

This amazing program helps underprivileged seniors dealing with substance abuse and mental health issues. Golden Gate for Seniors is one of the only programs of its kind in the country, designed not only to help its residents deal with their mental and physical issues but also to honor the role of elders in our society and reunite elders with loved ones.

The Amazing K2 will be there to entertain us as well as free food, wine and beer. Come on down and help those who need it. If you’re not in town, buy a ticket anyway, God will love you for it!

 

Selah,

the rev

 

Bridges

I have been crossing bridges for the past few months. Both physical and metaphorical. I would drive across them and they would vanish, beneath me. Even before I got off. I would look in my rear view mirror and the white lights of the cars behind me would drift off into the fog. The toll booth in front would lose it’s shape and the neon sign that tells you to pay-vanishes. Then the mighty towers, the wide roadways, the other vehicles…all disappear as well.

All that was left, was the space in between. The space where I dwell.

There I would fall, into the chasm of my demons. Not strong enough to keep the bridges in place. Not strong enough to vanquish the ghosts.

I came into the light very late in this lifetime. Some lifetimes, it comes early, some-like this one-it came too late. It is a hard realization to understand that when you exit from chrysalis, sometimes nothing awaits you except the knowledge that you have been changed.

So be it.

I would like the bridges to remain solid.

It is also a funny thing that for lack of a better term, this knowledge, insight, re-birth – whatever you want to call it always comes on the heels of the sorrow, plague and pain. What the fuck is up with that?

The heavens have a strange sense of humor.

I used to declare with a huge amount of arrogance and pride that I was here for the change of human social evolution. To help it on it’s way towards a better moment. (I was a hippy in those days and was so full of drugs and ego I couldn’t see past the shadow of my own joint).

But in some way I was right. I was put on earth for the change, just not the one I was expecting nor hoping for.

Just my change. My small intimate moment of truth in the dark of night.

I was/am/will be you.

That’s it. That’s all it will ever be. And the real kicker is, that is all I ever really should be.

But I was/am/will be, caught up in the mire of societal success. No amount of mediating-martial arts-Zen Buddhist-religious-cult fixations is going to change that. And there I have failed, like so many before me and as will, so many after me.

Just a simple single link in the chain, that wished to be the lock.

I look in my rear view mirror and I can see the top of the tower peaking out of the mist.

Maybe it’s a good thing.

I went out last night to see one of my childhood idols or what was left of him. And I learned some things I didn’t know.

I learned that some of us are caught up in the flow of tide and time and are carried along by this. I learned that I was not one of them and it was OK. I learned I am old and in the way. (I have been old and in the way many times before and it’s never easy). I learned that it didn’t matter if I accomplished what I set out to do, but that I set out to do, is what matters-even though I am sorely addicted to finishing things. I learned that I want success even though I am not destined for it.

I want. Even though my wants mean nothing to the heavens.

So the clock that ticks, decidedly looses it’s meaning. After ego, after illness, after winning, losing and everything in between, I am not sure what to do. The race I have fought so hard to win, looses its charms and all that’s left is;

what to do with what’s left of me.

I guess I will do the things that make my heart sing and give me joy. For as long as the opportunity is afforded me and as long as I can breathe. Time and tide will take care of itself.

Ahh, the toll plaza re-appears, I guess I have to pay.

 

Selah,

The rev