[09:15 PM] More in Chicle | philipd:\>

More from Moby

Summer of 1969, moved to San Francisco for the Summer of Love. Vague memory of meeting John Wayne.

Autumn of 1969, moved to Darien, Connecticut to live in a big suburban house with grandparents, Myron Warner and Jeanette McBride Warner. Attended Royle Grammar School from 1970-1975. Strange fact: best friend in 1973 was Robert Downey Jr. Parents used to smoke pot together, haven't seen him since.

moby.com - Moby's Bio

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Read Moby's Journals

Interesting exceprt from Moby's Journals (moby.com).

Blackout Questions
8/17/2003 - New York City

another blackout related journal entry...
some questions that we were pondering during the blackout:
1-how many people were getting root canals done when the blackout happened?
2-how many people were cheating on their partners when the blackout happened and will now be faithful for life?
3-how many people took psychedelic drugs 40 minutes before the blackout happened and thus felt that they caused it or were involved somehow?
4-how many people had visited nyc on september 11th, 2001 and were also visiting for the blackout? do they feel responsible, somehow?
5-how many instantaneous/synchronous events happened as the power failed, like: deaths, little league home-runs, broken windows, spilled milk, etc. it's safe to say that everyone who experienced a synchronous event will attach some degree of significance to their event and the blackout.

Unfortunately, not all his posts are enlightening, this is rather depressing-annoying

Yuppified Journal Entry
8/20/2003 - New York City

now that i've stopped touring for a while i think that you'll be able to expect increasingly domestic and yuppified journal entries from me.
like this one.
i was upstate for a few days, and it was great.
monday morning in particular. i woke up very early (6 a.m) and watched the sun come up, and as it came up it illuminated the fog that had collected in the valleys, so the fog in the valleys was pink and the tops of the mountains were bathed in this reddish light.
it was amazing.
and now i'm being a fully fledged, dyed-in-the-wool, bron-y-aur, yuppie. ('bron-y-aur', i'm sure it means something in welsh, but i just know it as a hyphenated led zeppelin song).
i'm being a yuppie cos i'm on my roof and it's dusk and really breezy and i'm sitting up here with my laptop and it's great and i know i'm a stinky yuppie with a penchant for run-on sentences.
and hyphens.
and-hyphens.
i'll stop.
thanks
moby

[07:11 PM] Comments (0) | More in Voodoo Schmoodoo | philipd:\>

Goa-Trance

What is Goa?

Now let's jump to the sixties and remind ourselves of a place called Goa in India. During the late sixties Goa has turned into a beach for freaks, rock stars, travelers, and various other excitement hunters, who lived by the ancient mantra of "sex, drugs and rock and roll". Although the fab of Goa has dropped by the late 80's, a hard-core group of Europeans and Americans have remained in that place. By the early 90's, people in Goa have found out the wonderful effect of the Acid music on a stoned head and started to further develop the style. The first people to do so were Goa Gil (It's really THE Goa-guru and a completely insane hippie from San Francisco) and his friends, who were living in Goa and experimenting with various musical styles to dance to since the late 60's (They made a LP with their post-industrial band Kode IV on Belgium's KK label).

Hear some Goa-Trance

Map of Goa

[04:30 PM] philipd:\>

The notion that we use only 10% of our brain is a myth

[04:24 PM] More in Blogging | More in Government | philipd:\>

The Blog Politic v. Congress

Read This Column by big shot PC Magazine writer John C. Dvorak.

But where is the leverage? In the past I've complained about the inability of net-heads to make any real impact on politics. The Computer Decency Act, for example, waltzed through Congress without a hitch despite the online grumblings all over the place. The blog community may be different. It's more politicized than any other online movement, with Democrats, Republicans, and mostly Libertarian variants each yakking loudly and getting re-quoted everywhere. The real influence is still an unknown. It's possible that this newer form of carping will be just as ineffective.

Realistically, the idiotic Conyers-Berman bill is not going to happen anyway. But you can sense that something really dumb is going to get close to passing and the bloggers will have their shot at proving that the Net can make a difference.

Yeah, yeah! Totally! Let's make a difference!

One way is that just by the large dissemination of ideas and truth, people will then naturally spread that to the offline crowd, hopefully convincing them. However, politicians have been very disconnected with the concerns of the people and instead focus on big business... which is odd because WE vote for them, not the businesses. I think an informed public is the key to sound government

[03:51 PM] Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | More in Government | philipd:\>

War on Drugs

The Drug Reform Coordination Network

The statement, "The War on Drugs is like the Inquisition" struck a chord with me. It made me think about societies thrawting the potential enlightenment of individuals for its own societal expediency. It also made me re-examine the cloud of assumptions that have been imprinted through my years of education in the public systems.

I used to think, "man, those SpA**** Inquisitors were baad", but I bet they thought about atheists like we think about drug-users today. We must check our assumptions so that we can live to up the ideals of truth, freedom, and human development.

What I felt was encouraging was that the conservative Cato Institute is also calling for the Reform of the Drug War.

Thanks to the Internet, the truth about things is finally getting heard.

[03:24 PM] More in Chicle | philipd:\>

Fuzzy Wuzzy Cuddly

When playing God is fun... Funny Breeding

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Synchronized Titles

I see a lot of blogs with the tagline "Fair and Balanced" in them. This is a jab at FOXnews and it's apparent unfair and imbalanced reporting.

Well, I don't want to miss the party, so my blog will get the same title as well. You should do the same as well.

This is the web-equivalent a crowd making a wave in a stadium.

[11:20 AM] philipd:\>

History of Blogging pre-2001

Rebbeca Blood's Old History of Blogging

Which came first? Pitas, Pyra, or Livejournal?

[11:07 AM] More in Lucid Dreaming | philipd:\>

Semi-Retards and Anti-politicians

(Progress on my attempts at lucid dreaming (LD). You're reading in reverse order. WILD == Wake-Induced Lucid Dreaming. Also, attempting to find creative and more appropriate ways to relate dreams--i.e. stories and narratives aren't exactly fitting, esp. given the large deficit of clarity)

After writing down the previous dream around 9AM, I tried again with the same techniques, same position, same everything. And, as would be fitting of repetition, I got the same results, no WILD, but still, a dream that I could recall

The back of the kitchen area was damp and grey. Two steps and a guard-rail provided the stage for Steve, or Jose, or a generic Mexican. He was handling girls, guys, bus-boys, workers in a jovial manner and seemed likeable. People would go, "Aye Steve" in the way that they likeable people tend to get.

I thought he was retarded. No really, I did. You never know these days. He was happy, but possibly too happy. He had on the happiness that one could only get if they enjoyed the legend of "ignorant bliss."

He wasn't retarded. Or rather, he wasn't as retarded as I expected, but still relatively dumb. His mental incapacities and capacities seemed to arrive and depart like the disturbance and calm of a secluded pond.

I left this corridor for the sunny day. Next stop was a cafeteria bench with my best friend from high school, Chris Khosravi. Chris was like the opposite of a politician. So, to refresh your memory, a politician is like the social frat-guy in college who says, "yeah, yeah, yeah, totally let's meet up" and never follows through. Chris was the opposite in that he would rarely smile, or look you in the eye, but would help you out if you needed it or support you in times of distress.

Sitting next to an anti-politician, then, reverses the order of feelings one gets around a politician. At first, I sit there, appraise Chris's poker demeanor, as he fails to look at me, and feel frustrated that there sits my best friend. This is how one feels after realizing the politician was just putting on a show. Then, after I start talking to him, I feel comfortable and calm and realize that indeed, all is well, and that Chris is solid. Following with the reverse order of a politician, this would be the feeling you get from seeing Joe Senator's glowing initial "hello."

I leave and come back, and then Chris tosses onto the table a plastic bag of what looks like wet clothes. The bag lays there and oozes into a flatter shape like I assume a bag of fish would do. I ask him what is this show, this package. He says, "Here's the stuff I borrowed."

"Ugh" my interior monologue goes. It's kind of disgusting. Is this my underwear, shirts, and pants that Chris borrowed that he is returning back to me all nasty and sweaty. Yuck. Well, that's Chris for you.

[11:06 AM] More in Lucid Dreaming | philipd:\>

A BBQ and Spaceflight

(Progress on my attempts at lucid dreaming (LD). You're reading in reverse order. WILD == Wake-Induced Lucid Dreaming. Also, attempting to find creative and more appropriate ways to relate dreams--i.e. stories and narratives aren't exactly fitting, esp. given the large deficit of clarity)

Around 8AM, I had woken up, wrote down the above dream, and then I went back to bed. This time, in addition to affirmations, I flooded my mind with random visual imagery. This was hard beecause I was tired, but it did start to carry itself forward. I was laying flat on my back with some blanket, and I was trying to have a WILD. I lost a little bit of awareness of my space, but I think I fell into the abyss of sleep before I ever met an aware state of transition.

The sun is beating down like a wild horse. I park in a park, and encounter my best friend. He is in the side of the parking lot opposite of me, while as a BBQ is going on to the left of me on my side. Apparently te BBQ is for a political rally, and the main guy is listing off various things in a manner:

"We used $ money for this building" and that building and so fort. Chaz and I are laughing at this guy, "what is this guy" kinda... simply because we feel that way toward politicians in general.

Then there is some talk about space programs and I walk over to the grassy area behind Chaz, and then I get into a spacesip.

For a second, I thought I was Luke Skywalker, or I was in that Star Tours ride in Disneyland. There was some physics concept that upon take-off they have to keep pushing some jets on one side to keep it away from hitting rocks or something, and so you'd be making a parabolic shot out of the atmosphere. I did this, and it was kind of cool, don't remember too much. Eventually I landed. Then I think I was either floating or hung out in the trees, where I saw one of the most beautiful things ever:

Imagine a hummingbird-butterfly combination with wings and a body that form the shape of a Spade in a deck of cards. The colors were the shimmering emerald green border and crystaline azure that you find in the eyes of peacocks' feathers. A swarm of about 35 of these characters snaked together like a magic carpet. The sight of these cascading around the trees from which I was perched filled me with butterflies of the stomach, and pleasure.

Somehow, these wondorous, docile creatures became associated with the dull and irritating windows icon. This is the icon of the flag-like red-green-blue-yellow window that may start cascacading across your screen in various screen savers.

[11:05 AM] More in Lucid Dreaming | philipd:\>

Beige Parking, Hillside Construction

(Progress on my attempts at lucid dreaming (LD). You're reading in reverse order. WILD == Wake-Induced Lucid Dreaming. Also, attempting to find creative and more appropriate ways to relate dreams--i.e. stories and narratives aren't exactly fitting, esp. given the large deficit of clarity)

I started trying to sleep at 3AM. To induce a LD, I repeated affirmations such as, "I will wake up in my dreeam."

I'm driving toward five half-way constructed housing projects. The houses are cookie-cutter 2-storied buildings staggered upon a hill like the hills on the side of I-15 in Mira Mesa. From afar, I can see the lattice-like wood beams already ready, waiting for the roofs to be installed. My mom and two construction workers are at the foot of a building site. They're actually underneath the shade of possibly an empty parking garage or other construction project. They're making fun of me, and I'm unsure why. I had come back with a long piece of wood for the building, and I take it withm y right hand, and toss it onto the dirt ground so as to give it to them.

They continue laughing. I look at the wood and the white paint has chipped off from it. I ask them why, and they make some hand-waving explanation about teen-agers and their hands being a certain way that makes it easy for paint to chip off.

I take the car that I was in away from the construction zone. The place was overcast. I end up toward a parking structure on a steep curve, similar to a part of Grand Teft Auto III with a hill, and some streets on the side. I take a left turn and give the car to a valet..

Somewere I brought cookies to my mom.

[02:52 AM] More in Voodoo Schmoodoo | philipd:\>

Leary +1 Witty

Timothy Leary - Wikipedia

Leary was convicted of a drug possession charge, fled, and eventually imprisoned for several years. When he arrived in prison, he was given a standard psychological test that the prison used to assign inmates to appropriate work assignments. Having written the test himself, he was able to give the answers that got him a job working in the prison library.

Always get a kick out of that anecdote

[02:32 AM] philipd:\>

More on Huxley and Drugs

Albert Hofmann: LSD, My Problem Child · Meeting with Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley made the proposal, as a continuation and complement of the theme "World Resources" at the Stockholm convention, to address the problem "Human Resources," the exploration and application of capabilities hidden in humans yet unused. A human race with more highly developed spiritual capacities, with expanded consciousness of the depth and the incomprehensible wonder of being, would also have greater understanding of and better consideration for the biological and material foundations of life on this earth. Above all, for Western people with their hypertrophied rationality, the development and expansion of a direct, emotional experience of reality, unobstructed by words and concepts, would be of evolutionary significance. Huxley considered psychedelic drugs to be one means to achieve education in this direction. The psychiatrist Dr. Humphry Osmond, likewise participating in the congress, who had created the term psychedelic (mind-expanding), assisted him with a report about significant possibilities of the use of hallucinogens.

[02:08 AM] More in Chicle | philipd:\>

Interesting NASDAQ opening bell

Bezos and Kournikova... sitting in a tree... K.I.S.S.I.N.G. lol.

What has the opening of trading become? It's like another ad. I can't wait till Schwarzeneggar gets to go up there and do a ding on Wall St.

[01:41 AM] Comments (0) | More in Voodoo Schmoodoo | philipd:\>

Expand your mind

Timothy Leary's Eight Circuits of Consciousness