So I was noticing the other day that people on this site, they are again having the bickering. Sustained bickering. So much so, that, JtC, he has several times had to go in, cranky, in his bathrobe, to tell people to go to their rooms, or go sit in the corner, with the duncecap on. In one instance, a person became no longer a survivor, and was removed, wholly, from the island. JtC. As Thor. Hurling. The hammer.

Then, when I sat down here Friday night, to draft this Sesame, I noticed that it was still happening. The bickering. Sustained. And even the Giant, he appeared, here, in this room, to confirm. That: indeed. It Is Happening. Again.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWa0dZMHYeE]

This bickering, it has occurred, is occurring, across multiple threads, and on multiple topics. None of these topics, at bickering issue, are they really new, or nuclear. All have, here, on this site, been previously discussed. Without the bickering. Sustained.

So. Why the bickering? Now?

Then: I had a brainshower. Maybe the Problem, it is astrological. Maybe, as the site is moving through time and space, it is encountering planets and moons and aspects and nodes and conjunctions and squares and whatnot, that are stimulating effects that are Bad. Maybe people here, they are being whipped about, by Saturn & The Sabian Symbols. Which sounds like a band. And. Maybe. It is.

If I were cloned, I would set one of my selves, to examining this Problem. But, I am not. So, I'm not going to. Anyway, I would have to first know the date and the time the site was born. I know JtC mentioned this once here, but I don't remember it, and I'm not going to look it up. Also, I would have to know where, the site, it was born. I assume that would be JtC's computer. But, maybe not. I have never cast a chart, for a tube. Maybe the birthplace of a tube, it is considered the server. Who knows? I have no idea. I assume tubular astrologers, they have long ago solved this problem, of where it is, that tubes, are actually born. Or, maybe not. Because, after all, astrologers, they are humans. So, no doubt, there are endless heated tube threads, out there, somewhere, where the astrologers, they convene, to be all about pinpointing, just where it is, that a tube, it is born. And: lo: look: there they are. Bickering.

A tube has a chart, just like everybody else. Back in the day, I cast charts for all sorts of people, places, and things; animals, minerals, vegetables. Charts of nations, those can be fun. For instance, it is useful to know, just the basic astrological fact, that the sun-sign of the United States, it is Cancer. And that an attribute of a Cancer, can be an overweening desire to "help"—even when that help is not wanted, not needed, and results, inevitably, in but a raging, inextinguishable, tire-fire.

All my charts, I cast, in the era pre-tubes. This meant consulting these great thick musty books called Ephermeri—lunatic assemblages of numbers. There were also all these various other steps. All culminating in filling in the chart with pretty multi-colored pens. And all this, it would take a while.

Today, all this shit, they say, it can be done, and instantly, with tubes. But, to begin, I don't trust the numbers, there on the tubes. Because, I know, that those numbers, they are Lying.

I know this because I know that it is impossible to find, anywhere on the tubes, the essays of Geroge Orwell, as he actually wrote them. Whoever the humans are who have uploaded them, they have somehow felt free, to cry havoc, with his word choice, word order, paragraphing, punctuation. Orwell, he was extremely picky, about how his work appeared. And if Orwell were here today, and looked into the tubes, and regarded there his works, he would, surely, stab and shoot.

He would also grimly go for the machinegun, or the Medicine, or both, when observing how tubesians, they just make shit up, and then put it into his mouth. For instance, the most popular Orwell quote on all the tubes—"in a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act"—is something Orwell never wrote, or said. Orwell addicts, like myself, can detect the stench—of fraud, of mendacity—upon encountering such "quotes": it just doesn't sound like him. But, to millions upon millions of tubesians, that "quote," it is, Orwell.

So. I am not trusting. The Ephemeral numbers. In the tubes. Because, if the tubes, they can't get right, a hundred thousand words or so of Orwell essays, no way, are they getting right, the millions upon millions of lunatic numbers, there in the Ephemeri.

Once upon a time, I wrote a weekly astrology column, for one of the newspapers. It was meant as a lark. But, I soon had to give it up. Because, although the thing was not serious, people took it, seriously.

In the column, I trafficked, in the broadest, of astrological stereotypes. It was called "Sign Here," and it was written by "Elmo." I figured that, alone, should have been enough, to signal to the people, that, here, we were in the land, of the Not Serious.

But no. The first serious Problem, that was when, in a forecast for the Aquarius people, I predicted that, in the coming week, and pursuant to the Aquarian predilection for luluing, that, while the Aquarian mind was elsewhere, the Aquarian, s/he would accidentally back the car over a child, playing, there, in the driveway.

This caused extremely awkward domestic discomfort. When my lover, she informed me, that her mother, an Aquarius, had actually done this, to my lover's brother, some years before—run him over in the driveway, while her Aquarian mind was luluing; fortunately, to no permanent ill effect. Somehow, I had never been informed of this story. But, my lover, a Capricorn, and therefore always alert, to Plots, and Conspiracies, and Disrespectency, believed that I had, somehow, though admittedly not by her, been so informed, and then had set about, intentionally, using the newspaper, to wildly, and publicly, cruelly, dis her mother.

The plug was a couple weeks later permanently piulled on the column after an incident involving—yes, again—a Capricorn. I had predicted in the column that in the coming week the Capricorn would wake in bed in the night to discover their lover, lying there beside them, spasming in some sort of serious seizure . . . but then the Capricorn would just roll over in bed, and do nothing about it, having determined the lover had, in truth, been Replaced, by some sort of pod, or replicant, or clone, or whatnot, and was not, Really, their Real, True, lover, at all.

A couple days after this edition of the newspaper went out to the people, I was informed, by a coworker, that a friend of his—yes, a Capricorn—she had excitedly to him related, that she had read the Elmo, and thereby determined that her lover, though not suffering in the night any seizure, was, indeed, and in fact, and just as Elmo had Said, a pod, a clone, a replicant, a Replacement, of some sort, and, therefore, this woman, she had broken up with her, her lover.

No. I decided. No more Elmo. I am not going to have daffy-duck nuttery from out of my brain, squirted larkily into newspaper ink, cause Real people, to Change, their Real lives.

The editor, he implored me, to continue with the Elmo. Who had become quite popular. The editor, he even tried to bribe me, with mass quantities, of Medicine. But I held firm. Elmo, I put him to sleep. And Elmo, he continues to sleep. To this day.

I had something of a similar experience, some years on, involving the local music people.

First: I was assigned to an interminable all-day music fest. And, about halfway through, I realized I had been sentenced to mostly hearing white people play the blues, white people play reggae, and white people do rap. I had a fearful creeping brainburp that I was now into the third generation (blues . . . reggae . . . rap) of listening to white people in blackface—it was, like, really bad, eternal recurrence—and, what's more, and as a complete Outrage, I had not, for this assignment, been provided, with nearly enough Medicine, to withstand it.

I subsequently offered these sorts of observations, in the article, that was printed, in the newspaper.

Which then caused waves of musicians—white musicians playing blues, white musicians playing reggae, white musicians doing rap—to storm the newspaper office, like it was the Bastille.

There was Shouting. A phone—yes—it was Thrown. And, not a single one of these people. Had the simple common decency. To bring me. Any Medicine.

Later, I reflected. What difference, really, did it make, that these white people, they were trying to make, the black music? They weren't doing it, out of any, onerous, motive. They were doing it. Because. They loved the music.

I had been right, I decided, in writing that, ideally, such people should not ape the music, but rather—as, say, has Van Morrison—absorb it. But then. That's probably. What these people. Were trying. To do. They just . . . couldn't. They tried to do their best. As Neil Young, once, did say. But they could not.

And, I further reflected, who are you? To throw stones? At them? Without also throwing stones? At your own face? Because, haven't you—(me)—consciously, or unconsciously, aped, in your writing, everyone from Lou Gottlieb, to Celine? Though you, yourself—(me)—are not a bass-playing Hebrew with multiple PhDs, or a clinically-insane anti-semitic French sawbones? Or any of those other? People?

Shortly thereafter, and for my sins, I was assigned, to an open-mike night. (For I have committed. In my life. Many sins.) Taking the stage, eventually, was some sort of metal band. Not exactly my cup of—though not quite polonium—tea. These people, as pure instrumentalists, they were passable. But then, a singer, he was brought, onto the stage.

This singer, he reminded me of what I had once experienced with Waddy Wachtel, as guitarist for James Taylor, at an outdoor show, in 110-degree heat, when Wachtel went through these incredible and endless and limb-shaking gyrations, that wildly shook every cell of his body . . . to play just one note. I noted that if Wachtel were compelled to play an actual solo, he would require an oxygen tent.

This local metal singer, he was like Wachtel. Flash and grab and all over the place. But: he couldn't, really, sing. I said something in the article, sort of like that. I don't really remember. I do remember, that I wrote, that the band, was better, without him.

Flash-forward a couple months. I am standing outside the same club. Smoking. Also smoking, there, I notice, is the metal singer guy. I ask him who, now, he's singing with. And he replies, "No, man, I gave that up. I was slammed by ---- [me]. Didn't you see that? Creamed me. So, that's over."

Instantly, I was distraught. "No, man," I told him. "Pay no attention to that ---- [me] guy. Who is he? Just a guy with an opinion, who gets his opinion in the newspaper. Fuck him. You should keep going." Eventually, I admitted to him that I was ---- [me]. I said I hadn't meant to fucking drive him out of the music. But, he said, that's what I'd done. I'd humiliated him. It had been hard enough, from the get-go, he said, to get up on the stage. But, after reading what I had wrote, he just couldn't do it. Not any more.

After that, I didn't write about the local music people anymore. Unless I could say something positive about them. If I thought they were no good, I would go back and tell the newspaper people I wasn't writing the piece. I was freelance, by then, and on the verge of living in a refrigerator box, under the freeway, but I didn't give a shit. Because I wasn't going to do that again. To a flesh-and-blood human. That I had experienced. In the flesh. I would save my vitriol, for people it wouldn't, couldn't, hurt. People around here, they still cackle, about a piece I wrote, many moons ago, about Gregg Allman, when he moved through town. Wherein, as example, I tried to divine why Allman had decided, once upon a deep Medicine haze, to intensively explore, Cher's genital region. And I concluded that, Allman had concluded that: "50,000 crabs, they can't be wrong."

That sort of thing, it's fun, and it's frisky, and all. But it's, also, at root, cruel.

Would, you, rather, be remembered, for Cruel? Or, for sweet, Melissa?

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0GiRGl2dIU]

Orwell, before they put him into the tubes, and fucked him all up, and shoved shit into his mouth, he knew all about, what it is, to be a journalist.

These days, people, they sit in the Cheetos, there in the basements, and they but leap from tube to tube. And then, they "report." And they call themselves, "journalists."

No.

Journalism, it requires encountering, in the flesh, and over and over and over again, real, live, human beings.

And, through that, you Change. As Orwell, he, in April 1938, wrote, to Stephen Spender:

You ask how it is that I attacked you not having met you, & on the other hand changed my mind after meeting you. I don't know that I had exactly attacked you, but I had certainly in passing made offensive remarks abt "parlour Bolsheviks such as Auden & Spender" or words to that effect. I was willing to use you as a symbol of the parlour Bolshie because a. your verse, what I had read of it, did not mean very much to me, b. I looked upon you as a sort of fashionable successful person, also a Communist or Communist sympathiser, & I have been very hostile to the CP since about 1935, & c. because not having met you I could regard you as a type & also an abstraction. Even if when I met you I had not happened to like you, I should still have been bound to change my attitude, because when you meet anyone in the flesh you realise immediately that he is a human being & not a sort of caricature embodying certain ideas.

I had all these ideas, about what to write here for this Sesame—some of the words would even have been about the politics!—but then, before I even began, I got diverted, by the bickering, still happening, that I noticed, out there on the site, and then I got all lost, in the astrology, and then all the nonsense that came after, and, now: look at this: I am here in this mess: and I have no idea. Where I am. Or where to go next.

I have a prayer plant here. It is called that, because, at night, the leaves fold up, as if in prayer.

A while back, I noticed, that my prayer plant, it wasn't doing that, any more. Folding its leaves. Praying. Otherwise, the plant, it seemed to be perfectly healthy. So, I concluded, that, the plant, it had just lost, its faith. Can happen. I figured. To anybody.

Then, last night, on a lark, I decided, to sing, to the plant. And—please know—I sing, much worse, than did the local metal man. So, there was the real possiblity, that my singing, it would, might, even, kill the plant. But, I tried, anyway. And now. I look over there. In this minute. And the plant. It seems content. Asleep. Leaves folded. Again. In prayer. And so. Regaining one's faith. I guess. It can happen. With anybody.

Did you ever notice that, in the true-life documentary series The Newsroom, composer Thomas Newman, he employed, for the most Important music, a theme he snatched, he reprised, from his earlier score, for the true-life documentary film Angels In America?

I mention this, first, mainly so that I can embed, the Truths, of Harper.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og70dU7TP-Y]

Harper, she is embodied, in Angels In America, by the same wizardly actress, who regularly took over, The West Wing. A true-life documentary series, written by Aaron Sorkin. Who also wrote, The Newsroom.

Because. Everything. It is connected. As is. Everybody.

But the tubes. They are not, connected. In the most, essential way. In, that, there, in the tubes, there are no bodies. Only pixels.

When one bickers, on the tubes, one is bickering, but with pixels.

There is no understanding, no feeling, no Reality, that, behind those pixels, is a body. A human being.

There are, just words. In pixels. So let's see. Who can sling. The most bitchinist. Words. Kool! Cruel! Score! Yeah!

I don't know. If the astrology, it is making, the bickering, on this site. But, maybe, we could pretend, that it is. And then, when we feel the need, to go, Bad, to Badly bicker, we could pull up, and Decide: "this isn't me—this is, like, Mercury and Saturn, fighting, in the captain's tower."

Maybe we could pretend. That even though. We are all just pixels. Here on this site. To one another. That when we are speaking. To one another. We are speaking. To a flesh-and-blood human being. Real. And lying right there. In the bed. In the night. Right. Beside you.

Right. Beside. You.

if you love someone
if you love someone
you don't do that to them
even if you hate them

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBFgKNOXIyc]