NO-ga

I’m quitting yoga. Spare me your admonitions.

It’s been a lonely, solitary journey wracked with frustration, pain, stress, embarrassment, and emotional unease. Sure, I’ve noticed a physical change (when I actually stick to the regimen), but otherwise, there has been nothing positive about it. Those people in that room are in a different social class from me; I feel like an intruder, and imposter, mentally segmented off with the handicapped, old, and infirm who chance into the class. The peace-y, love-y, compassion-y, be-kind-to-yourself stuff is nothing but brahman-shit. I’m there to work out, not feel a cosmic connection, or look inward, or expand outward. That’s just not me. Does that make sense?

Maybe Hatha isn’t my path. Maybe I need to be in Hatha Flow, something less meditative. Or maybe Yoga-Yoga is the wrong place for me. It just might be. But where, then, will I feel welcomed? I imagine every yoga studio has the air of a church, a temple, where there’s an unspoken etiquette, a somber, forced peace, where everyone is there only for themselves and their connection with the divine. I feel constricted in that environment, not welcomed. I know it’s an individual path, and that you’re not supposed to compare yourself to others, but when the class is supposed to move in unison, being not on the same motion really makes you stick out. Nobody at Yoga-Yoga has made me feel welcome. So, where then? Black Swan? Some other place? I just can’t fathom running from work to change and rush to class to sit still in a room with healthy, trim, flexible caucasians who all have it right with their lives. Everybody’s broken, except for these people. Monsters.

I’ll keep my floor mat and workout shorts. Maybe I’ll take up a home practice where I don’t have to divert any attention to how fat or ugly or slouchy or unattractive I may be, where I can just do the asanas in private. Less embarrassing. I just couldn’t see myself going through it again, so I sat out of tonight’s class, looked over my membership contract, and made dinner. I’m done.

Turn Down and In

Hate living in apartments. No idea how badly my sound carries through the walls, but I’ve had a history of carrying a grudge against my neighbors over how much I can hear them. I have to wonder if they can hear just as much of me as I do them, so I constrict myself and my activities in my own damned apartment, trying to be nice, quiet, unnoticeable, just so they won’t have any ammo to hate me with. This is bullshit.

Found myself turning my subwoofer all the way down because I’m listening to music after midnight. All the way down? Really? I can hear no bass. Actually, I can barely hear the music, because I’m wanting to be blameless, blameless against people I don’t even know. Complete strangers who share my wall and floor. Once bitten, twice shy, I’m sure. But why the stricture to this extreme?

It’s no wonder that my lifelong love of listening to and making music has completely died. I can’t feel it anymore. Can’t get into it without the impending fear of hearing that thud, that stomp, that slap on the floor, that bang next door that maybe, just maybe, is a signal from my neighbors demanding me to turn it down. Hell, it’s the kind of thing I’d do if I were them. So any unexpected low-frequency thud I hear pushes me, shell-shocked, into turning it down, laying low, losing my vibe with the music, just to listen for further signals that my neighbors might be sending me. By then, the joy is gone, and I’m conscious of The Other People. I can’t enjoy myself anymore.

I hate apartments. A house is right out of my budget. And a strong sense of self is too expensive to maintain.

Never mind. I’ll rant again when I have real problems.

Ce n’est pas un Imbécile

Got an inspiration a month ago to write a song in the style of Kraftwerk singing in French with the snap of INXS. It was going to be euro-fabulous, sexy, sensual, and in French. The problem here being that I do not know French. I know a few swear words, but that’s the extent. I’ve made a stab at doing some guided automatic translation with Google Translate, and have gotten results that I’m halfway comfortable with. But it’s an automatic translation; I have no idea if Google’s translator software is aware of subtleties and nuances in the language to make the best phrasing and choices. At least it rhymes. Sort of.

The problem is that I have no idea if what I’m intending to sing will, in fact, make me sound like an idiot to any French speakers who may hear it. So I’ve considered borrowing the services of someone to help me translate and craft the lyrics, correct me where I’m wrong, and help me learn to pronounce it suitably. Therein lies the problem. It’s just a song. It’s just my song. It’s not important enough to warrant paying a trained translator, or even bothering a helpful friend, to help me write my little song. That’s how I feel now, after weeks of waffling between holding back cautiously and plowing forward with abandon. I should just do it and damn the torpedoes, but I really, really shouldn’t. And there’s the problem.

I listen to a lot of music from bands whose first language is obviously not English. I love that sound, the sound of “otherness”, that a foreign tongue places on my language. It’s interesting. But English is a very, very forgiving language. The French? I’ve no idea how forgiving they are to a non-native trying to speak their language. Would they appreciate the effort? Would they like the “otherness” that an uncultured American rube can put in their delicate voice? There’s a ton of well-meaning stuff on the Net that goes viral because the general public chooses to lampoon the hell out of it. I don’t want to be that target.

But should I even fucking care? It’s just a Glass Door song. It will never win any Grammys.

Here’s what I may end up doing: take the English source text, sing that. Use bits of French throughout, mostly in the choruses. Sure, that will diminish most of the mystique of the song, destroy the worldliness, possibly even kill the sensuality, but if I sound like un imbécile, at least it will be because I actually sound like one because of stupid lyrics instead of the untrained recitation of same in a foreign language. I don’t know what I’ll do eventually, but what I do know is that this is just one more quandary that’s killing my joy of making music. If I have questions, what-ifs, unknowns, technical problems, then all my enthusiasm is right out the window with the wash.

Henry Wordsworthless Longsuffering

Even in my booze-fueled state, I’ve made a sobering realization that most of the poetry I wrote in the 90’s is absolute shit. We’re talking creepy, sketchy, pedestrian. Wow. Damn. I mean even if it were to be put into context, what the fuck was I thinking? I mean I was in my 20’s, and trying to figure shit out, and trying to move myself forward while sitting in the darkness of my bedroom hunched over a notebook, but it all comes out so dirty, so adolescent, so junior high. I shouldn’t be glad I stopped writing, but really that’s just causing more problems than solving. I need to write more, a lot more, so I can get better. Shit, any blathering nonsense is better than radio silence. But do I have to produce so much low-quality dirt?

Update: Yeah, I know I’m being a little too hard on myself. I’ll grant that. Yes, among the piles of rock I mined, there were a few real jewels. I just need to keep chiseling to find the mineral vein that will lead me to the motherlode. And as far as “creepy” goes, there are musicians who’ve made millions on lyrics that, when held up to the light, reveal ten different shades of wrong (The Toadies, The Doors, and Weezer come to mind).

Baisé Trois Façons

The current political climate in the United States can be summed up with this contrived example.

Republican candidate: Our platform is one of job creation and innovation through support of the SexBot industry. Our tactic is two-pronged. By reducing taxes and providing incentives to sex robot manufacturers, we can create jobs and stabilize the economy. And by supporting our homegrown sex robot companies, we keep ourselves free from the moral and economic complications of prostitution. Since robots are not blessed with the same breath of life endowed to us by our Creator, the Christian principles our great country were founded on will stand firm and strong. Vote for me, and let’s take our country back.

Democratic candidate: What our opponent proposes is to undermine small businesses nationwide, starting at the bottom. Every sex worker, whether working alone or as a member of a small business team, will be put out of work. That money paid by American consumers will instead go to multinational sex robot corporations who, though may have offices in the US, have offshore accounts and factories located outside our country’s borders, where the money will filter to the top with little left over for the outsourced factory workers at the bottom. This is unfair to honest American workers who deserve fair pay for fair work. Our platform proposes full recognition of all forms of sex work, and full medical testing and care for all people, no matter their choice of career. Vote for me, and let’s sponsor true job growth and move forward.

Libertarian candidate: It is ultimately up to the consumer to decide with whom they will have sexual relations. It is not the Federal government’s position to interfere with the invisible hands in the jobs sector. What our party proposes is to eliminate all restrictions and provide full legalization of sex work, and allow sex workers and sex robot manufacturers to compete on a fair playing field. I also propose to eliminate funding for the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Health whose standards are infringing on the rights of private businesses. By lifting the Federal burden, private sex businesses can cut costs and deliver services at more profitable and competitive levels. Vote for me, and let’s get to work.