Radiating Love

I lived in Sri Lanka for almost a year building Jack's Place, the home for my main character Jack in Finding Jack 420. Over the years I have been back to my private tree house to write and reflect, and I have seen many changes to this island--one of which is the importance of social media that is now prevalent in Sri Lanka's culture. As in any country, trying to silence a country's voice is a violation of its' people's freedom of speech. But as in any news we see today we have to ask ourselves, how much of this article is true? If it is true, I do hope that this won't hold for very long; knowing the Sri Lankan people, they know how to fight and protest the good fight. My heart and my love go out to you Sri Lanka. #bryancallen #tfatk#theluchadoriswatching #srilanka #freedomofspeech #lovetoyou

https://www.yahoo.com/news/sri-lanka-cuts-off-access-183100093.html

 

In an effort to curb extremist violence in Sri Lanka, government officials have ordered some social networks to shut down. ABC News' anonymous source says that the blockage affects Facebook, Instagram, Viber and WhatsApp, specifically. In capital Colombo, some are blocked wholesale while others have apparently been slowed down considerably. Officials are using traditional means to counter the attacks, like instituting a curfew.

In the past, Turkey has done similar, censoring tweets and condemning social media as "the worst menace to society." Late last year, Congo ordered cuts to the internet and SMS to slow down protesters. And less than a day after that instance, Iranian officials blocked mobile access to Instagram and Telegram. Unfortunately, these reports of free speech being squashed by the local government continue to surface on a regular basis.

We've reached out to the affected companies for more information and will update this post should it arrive.

Update: A Facebook spokesperson responded with the following comment, which applies to Instagram as well:

 

"The safety of our community is absolutely critical to us. We have clear rules against hate speech and incitement to violence and work hard to keep it off our platform. We are responding to the situation in Sri Lanka and are in contact with the government and non-governmental organizations to support efforts to identify and remove such content."

 


ABC News

  • This article originally appeared on Engadget.

A Short Poem~from Q528

Eye strings, eye strings look around.

Eye strings, eye strings, we can't be found.

Eye strings, eye strings, can't you see?

Now it is a little thing called 'we'.

Save your children, save your masks,

Ain't no way we're accepting your tasks.

We are the children, the rebels, the youth.

We are the builders, the seekers of truth.

We are the painters, the poets, the writers galore.

We are the prostitutes, the pimps, the vagrants, the whores.

We are the animals that travel around,

Taking refuge, wherever it is found. 

Grab your binkies, your blankets, your sucking toys.

All of us are going to make you feel like little boys.

This is our home, our place,

Watch it fall from your fingers as we rip off your face.

We are the Rainbow Warriors, protectors of the planet,

Hard as nails, tough as granite.

"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee",

Soft as water that can cut down a tree. 

Unleash your inner beasts my warriors, 

Let them out! 

Fear is our weapon,

But do not be afraid, do not be in doubt.

Always one step ahead we must look.

This is the biggest game of chess we can't overlook.

Eyes like eagles, claws like leopards, 

Always be ready because I am your shepherd.

 

 

Edgar Phillipe~

Wanderer's Journal tip of the day--if food in the woods is in doubt, put it out. If birds and squirrels can eat it, it is safe for you too.

 

A story about Australia

The Body Shot

 

There are certain things in life that you can’t let pass without writing them down; lessons learned, people you have met, or funny drinking stories. I was in the dive bar in Cairns, Australia one year with a handful of English travelers--three ladies that had the manners of men, an English stockbroker, my buddy Jeff and Martin. The names of the other are not at all important. You can put whatever names you want with them and the story would still have the same meaning, but Martin... that name is highly significant and extremely pertinent. We all have stereotypes about people’s names, so you can probably imagine what a ‘Martin’ looks like. Or maybe I’m just full of it. This one, the English version of a Martin, was not too bright, quite homely, shy, but considerably sweet all in the same. He was not attractive in the least bit, but the girls, crass as they were, got off teasing him about it. They would say things like “Oh, Martin, if this table wasn’t between the two of us I would be all over you,” and ‘Oh, Martin, you are just too damn sexy for me.” Martin was so flattered by any sort of attention that he didn’t consider the patronizing offensive even though we all though it was too funny. 

 

I was traveling with my American Jeff that happened to be a bartender, and the subject of unusual ways to get a person incredibly drunk came up. I, myself, was a bartender at the time, so we stared sharing different things that we had seen in our past. First, we made the mistake of asking the group if they had ever heard of a drink called a ‘Blow Job’, not the act, like they thought we were talking about. They all nodded like we were naive. We caught ourselves, refrained, and explained that it was also a drink, and enthralled them with a new way to take a shot. For those of you that have never heard of the shot, ‘The Blowjob’, it consists of a layered shot, topped with whip cream, and placed between the legs of a seated gent. A woman then proceeds to take the shot in her mob, hands held behind her back, throws her head up and drinks the shot without  her hands. If she does it correctly, then she comes up with the whip cream all over her mouth. 

 

The Brits, up for the challenge, ordered up four shots for the women to do between our legs. I took the liberty of ordering up three more and decided to elaborate with “The Muffdiver” a similar shot topped with a cherry for us men to partake in as well. We all had a good laugh, ordered up about three more rounds, all the while, a crowd stared to gather around us to watch vouyeristically.

 

Not too long after, the alcohol kicked in for all of us and they started poking at my friend and myself for other ways to have a laugh. Martin, on the other hand, looked like those were all he could take; we could all tell that a woman putting her head into his crotch to take a shot called a “Blowjob” was about as much action as he had had in a long time. I think all of the guys involved started feeling a little itchy as well, but we wanted to keep going--the night was young.

 

Now I had never tried it, but I had seen it a few times wherever I was working. I think my friend read my mind, so, with a wicked grin the topic changed, to “body shots”. I could feel the crowd, that was nonchalantly trying to listen in, stop in silence for a minute to hear again what we bartenders were talking about. Glassy eyed, and drooling, Martin listened, as did everyone else, as my friend began to share with them one of the most erotic ways to drink and get drunk. It starts with a body, tequila, salt, a tongue, and a lemon. On a girl, a man licks right between her breasts, salts it, puts the shot between her cleavage, and the lemon in her mouth. On a man, she physically pushes him into a seat, licks his neck, salts it, places the shot between his legs and the lemon in his mouth. You then lick the salt, take the shot, and go for the lemon, which usually ends with the two involved in a heated lip lock. In all of the times that I have seen this occur, two people usually end up going home together.

 

One by one, we did the shots, until it came down to Martin. The three of them were actually fighting over who was going to lick and shoot a shot off of Martin. He sat back in awe, and his stockbroker friend looked over at us and made a face that said, “this is going to be classic.”

 

Martin was seated by the most beautiful of the crass women and she danced for him. She danced putting the lemon in his mouth, she danced putting the shot glass full of tequila between his legs. The rest of the crowd stood on the tips of their toes and the circle stared to enclose. Martin, sat anxiously with a hurried look on his face and made eyes over our way--huge, horny eyes, bordering on his orgasm face. She danced her way to the crease of his neck for the shot and licked his neck. Martin couldn’t control himself. He spasmed. He jerked his body. He went limp from a convulsion and lost the shot all over his pants. And the tequila soaked in and made it look like he just peed himself. The crowd just about exploded in the loudest, most hysterical burst of laughter you’re ever heard. Everyone around us kept screaming and crying so much that the bouncers got called upon and we all had to silence our laughter. The handful of us laughed until we cried tears out of our eyes. Martin thought it was too funny too, but when he stood up he had a huge stain all over his trousers that made us bust out in laughter even more. We laughed until the bartender kicked us out of the bar and told us that the bar wasn’t the place for things like that. I don’t know why he picked that moment as the time to kick us out--he was watching us the whole time like all of the others were. We left though, and on the way out the good looking, crass Brit woman leans over and whispers into our American ears-- “We go home with the ‘Body Shot’. You go home with the shot ‘Blowing Your Load.’

The One that Came Before

Could be true or false. Fuck you.

These days just about every single routine I've ever had in my life has changed. I'm still trying to figure out balance. i'm still trying to figure out when to sleep, when to eat... kind of the basic routines on how to live. Now it's getting cold, which usually means that my foot goes numb cold and is really uncomfortable for most of the winter. Which though, is a yearly routine that is something that is going to change as well.

My new morning routine consists of waking up, taking my medicine while listening to music and closing my eyes for my morning meditation. Technology has helped my music knowledge, because my laziness and lack of desire to go to huge events by myself has prevented me from getting the fullness of what I do crave. When I listen to music and close my eyes to try and drop down into the void where nothing exists I sometimes let go of feelings that I cling onto too tightly. At least it loosens my grip up enough to see things more clearly, like loosening a tense face that closes your eyes to know that I don't have to live suffering anymore, with anything in my life or anything that we as people smile through in our lives telling ourselves, "we can do it", or "grit builds character", or any of the other falsehoods we lead ourselves to believe.

These days, my belief--I'm going to be happy. I'm going to be healthy. I'm going to make decisions in my life, not based on other people, but based on the way I feel about situations, even if they involve other people. It sounds a bit selfish, but I realized long ago that if you try to light others' candles with your match, you only get to light a few. If you light your candle with your match, you can light just about as many candles as you like. And my life is going to be based on lighting as many candles as I can. I am in the stages to do so now.

So, in my meditation a few weeks ago, I realized that I don't have to live with a numb foot all winter. It was so obvious that that forest smacked me across the face for focusing on a single fucking tree--my jobs now are mobile, and although I would never want to do UBER, my teaching jobs can be done from anywhere. January though is winter vacation for China and other places in the world, which means work is abundant. I don't have to look at it as a holiday. I can look at it as a different location to work with an expensive ride to get to new, said location.

So Philippines this winter. Stoked. I've been meeting really cool people and getting some good information. And when I get back, my new course. I'm going to shed all of this shit that is festering in my heart. Get it stripped down to the bare bones of my existence, or get as close to it as I can as I am studying to be a Buddhist practioner and teacher/healer in a course I will talk about later. 2017 has been the utter and worst year of my life, but it taught me one thing that I forgot--that I can do anything I want, because I learned the fortitude to do so through many challenges in my life. This was taught to me by my father. To make a goal, just make a goal and learn to work towards it. Climb mountains, get that job, dive that ocean in the world, fly through that sky in the world... Through my course, I'm going to learn how to teach people how to do the same. Because that's what Buddhism is truly about--happiness. Learning how to find it and how to keep it.

Hovercab Diaries

As always, fact or fiction. Who knows? That's rhetorical.

Had my longest ride in Uhover today. 1 hour, 22 minutes on a single ride. When we got to our destination in the middle of nowhere we were so far gone, that my phone lost service. Needless to say we got lost. It was a huge ride, one that I would normally invite and love getting lost in, only to make more money. However the man, unbeknownst to himself, was a racist. I did my best to only listen. I chimed in when asked, and then asked questions when I didn’t agree with him. Towards the end of it I felt good because he slowly started to say, “I’ve never thought about it like that way” and even sounded surprised saying ”really, is that true?” To contradicting points he made about facts that felt as if they were passed down by rumor. That felt good. We got to the pin where I was supposed to drop him, but his boss didn’t know the code for the gate. So after about 5 minutes of him talking on the phone and me standing outside of the car. He informed me it would take more time. I got back in not wanting to just drop him out in the middle of nowhere, but after a few minutes he went back to unwittingly being a racist, I pulled the chute, said I had a Dr’s appointment and hoped he got where he needed fast. I think I peeled away screeching the tires feeling that good feeling drizzle away as my sadistic smile bore sunlight knowing that he was going to have to climb a fence and walk to his truck in a pasture full of cow shit.

Appreciation

As always, could be fact or fiction. You decide, or don't muthafucka.

I picked up a blind person today. I think it was Uber, maybe Lyft. Pretty sure Uber. She had a walking stick for the seeing impaired in her hands and was staring out into the distance and had the biggest smile on her face. As soon as she opened my door I knew she was different than any other blind person that I've seen before. Let me explain--I didn't see her as blind, I saw her as gifted. I've never felt sorry for anyone that has been deaf, dumb, blind, or any sort of physical disability. I won the volunteer award and scholarship in my high school the year I graduated for working with kids with Down Syndrome and physical disabilities, so I believe that through those experiences it has taught me that everyone has something to teach someone. There are only a few people though in my life that I have seen as gifted. I don't mean just people that are challenged in this way, I mean everyone. Out of everyone I've ever met in my life I've only met a few people that are truly gifted. That get life. The Dalai Llama for one. When I first saw her, I couldn't stop looking at her face, and only when she got into my car did I notice that she was blind and did, in fact, have a walking stick. I didn't notice it at all when I first saw her. I've never had anyone in my car make me feel so good with the things she said and how she said them. She was appreciative of everything, and I caught her, in the rearview mirror closing her eyes and breathing in life, like as if she was on stage and won an award, but she was just staring out the window without the ability to even stare. She kept being appreciative of everything when we talked. She wouldn't stop. It was overwhelming and I got thoughts in my head that put a damn tear in my eye, for realz. Just wanted to say that I appreciate you guys, Paul and Adam. Great talk last night. Miss you boys. Graduate from Pp school with honors. 

An Angry Apology

As always, what is written in this blog is either fact, fiction, or a glitch in the Matrix, which I guess would be considered fact too.

I love comics. Why? Because I understand Stan Lee and because I'm angry. In my life right now I'm angry. I'm angry for a lot of reasons. One reason is the kind of meditation I have been going through on the preparation for my Buddhist course next year is trodding up lots of old memories. Combined with the new memories that are happening right now, angry that someone I want away from my life is still pulling the marionette strings of my life. I recently left a place, a place where I had a lot of friends. I lied to them about why I was leaving. I lied to protect someone that I knew I had to walk away from, but loved anyways. In the end, even though I did so to protect them, I got proverbial fucked in the end anyways. To my friends out there, you know who you are--I'm sorry I lied, but it was an agreement with someone else. Why do I love comics so much though, you ask? Because right now I'm tearing up into The Punisher on Netflix. It is giving me comfort because as I go deeper into myself on the path I'm taking, I'm slowly alleviating all of this anger and stress. I'm watching The Hulk smash, I'm watching Batman punch and kick, I'm watching the bad guys destroy. And then I'm watching The Punisher have a sentimental moment, I'm watching Hulk turn back into Bruce Banner (David? no?), I'm watching Batman teach Robin a valuable lesson. And then I'm calm. And I'm laughing. The Punisher had me laughing today at Frank's face when he was denied a sandwich in the van. I'm proud to say that I'm in my 40's and I love comics. I now make comics. I'm very proud about my comic love. It does help me want to be a better person.

They still know how to make LSD

As always, what you read in this blog is probably fiction, maybe fact, don't remember what it was occifer.

Q-94

A digital relic was discovered in a cave outside the New Territories. It had a chemical structure never seen before. Before The Hack erased all files across the world I'm sure that it was named.

We brought the digital relic back to our lab. A day away and crawnies had taken it over. They were everywhere. Legs shed in all corners of the room and a smell that took over a week to vent, and multiple rituals of green before it was sanctified.

We didn't have the tools to start, so we had to make them. That took some time. Digital relics that date before The Hack had to be turned in to Amen outposts at any Quadrant pass, so you can imagine what it was like sneaking in the tools and chemicals we needed. 

I ventured to the city on a lave jumper. I ate a decent dinner, and I took it on Broadway, where everyone but a pure Halfling goes. I didn't know what it was at first, but during my morning mediation, The Life Force, The Energy instructed me to continue with the feelings I had inside. It instructed me to put it under my tongue. It didn't take long for it to take effect. 

My body felt floating, but I felt connected to everything, like the roots of the earth to the ground, like I do when I speak to The Life Force, The Energy. But it got to be overwhelming. It got to be where I felt everything, all at once. The music was blaring, the beings were dancing and the energy I felt in the room felt like a tidal wave over my heart. I felt only happiness in the room, and I questioned that, and it made me sad. I went outside, paused on the street that had just been raised. Wheel buses were allowed on them now and I sat and stared at something that I was still getting used to. No one could still figure out how to stop the Earth from shifting under us. They even built a noise reverberator to muffle the quake noises, so I sat there watching the being pass, still avoidant to make eye contact or talk for fear of being reported. 

I watched a beggar on the street. The Z chromosome had bent his pliable bones into a curve and left him permanently helpless to run. He looked like the last brain helmet had done him in. He ate food out of box that was already half eaten by another being that had either given it to him or left it. No way that he could run a ploy on any being in that condition. A being that plays that con can only hold their bones in place for 30 seconds in that position before they start to shake. No, it was the brain helmet that crippled him. Probably malfunctioned when he was in that position and fried him. A common problem not worthy of being fixed by the Amen. 

I sat there and watched him out of the corner of my eye. Even he could turn me in for a profit and I wasn't willing to get caught with a digital file's chemistry in my brain. I closed my eyes and connected myself to him without a mind link. I never thought that was possible. 

The 428 won't stop. I waited for a wheel taxi that had a 4.28 rating to pick me up, but my console froze in the frequency burst from the opening doors from one of the only places we could still speak in the city. He never called to see where I was, only sat there hoping to make the 3000 rallods if I didn't show. I was going further away and the moment was surging, so he missed out on bigger payout. My account was charged, and registered in the data base. Too many no shows on simple things like will get Acommanders knocking on your door, but I didn't care. I was free in my body and in my mind, able to set up a mind link without any response from any other being. 

So I sat on the street for another hour watching jisquers who were transformed into giants pick on beings who got the small side of the Z chromosome. In this Quadrant beings engaging in such a way still was legal. The human side of me wanted to intervene. The Wanderer in me got a direct line from The Life Force, the Energy. Now that The 420 Woman taught me how to tap in to its direct line, it leads me and on that night I was instructed not to engage. 

I rode out of the city and then switched to a hover taxi when the raised road ended. They were all there waiting in a line like croandas that wait to pounce on zepondias that cross nuprene streams. It was all beautiful. My body radiated in waves of colors I've never seen before on any color chart on any Amen language ever. I felt the colors. 

The lava shimmered as I went across. It was translucent in places, iridescent in others, and at one point, I could see right through it and down it, like a camera in a vein, all the way to the Queen's lair under the ground. It gave me something in that moment. 

I caught a picture in the settlement's community tent. The Knife Runner 2504. It didn't even occur to me that it was A-428 years. I cried in my hammock that night and when I was done it felt as if a weight was lifted from my back. I slept for 10 hours, which I hadn't for weeks. I woke up and felt weightless in my mind. It was then that I knew how I was going to beat them.

Lest, we forget...

Whatever you read in this blog is neither fact or fiction. It is nothing but bullshit that only should be appreciated for entertainment.

Q45 

The writing on the wall. 

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster... and if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.  ~Mark Twain

We must not forget why we fight. We must capture random moments of joy and hold onto them, no matter how long they last and occupy our minds and our hearts with what there is to lose to Them. That in and of itself is protection. ~The Book of Edgar