Perhaps its all of the digital ink

The first time I experienced sleep paralysis occurred at 9am on a Sunday morning when I was 15. I was laying on a salmon colored couch. It was a bright day outside, but the blinders shaded the living room. I was suppose to take care of my cousin and I had arrived at 7am; my aunt left and I stayed in the living room. I dozed in and out of slumber, laying on that couch.

Across the couch is a window. The image of a shadow walks, as if dragging its amorphous shape, behinds the curtains. I try to get up, but I feel a heavy weight and my thoughts are warm with drowsiness. I'm still on the couch. I've just seen something bizarre, but I'm melting into pinkness and warmness, like a gooey substance into the pores between a grilled cheese. 
  
Suddenly, this black uncanny formless mass emerges from around the doorway and makes its way into the living room. And my rest becomes panic. Realizing that I'm experiencing a bizarre state of consciousness, I try screaming for help, but only the feeling of pressure on my chest from the swift glide of this thing has covered my whole body. My mouth moves and I feel my pipes vibrating but there aren't any words nor sounds forming. There's a laughter in a deep tone, "Haw Haw Haw Haw Haw Haw" and every fiber in my body moves as if submerged in tar. I'm in a state of complete confusion: my vision blurs back and forth between varying shades of black as this mass pushes and pulls and laughs.

Still griped by the experience, I finally wake up yet remain motionless, trying to make sense of this senselessness. I hear crows outside and my skin tightens--"goosebumps" form on my arms.

I eventually get a grip on myself and go about the day; it was just a dream.

These episodes have reoccurred since that day, not as bad as the first time. Having become familiar with these experiences, I usually remain calm while, at other times, the clasp and squeeze in the absorption becomes nerve-racking. The laughter and the crows, however, has only repeated once.

This "phenomena" goes by various labels: sleep paralysis, night terror, or, as I've heard, "se te sube el muerto". The rationalization of this phenomena does not interest me so much; I'm concerned with meaning, and purpose. poor chap. These things can mean something or nothing. And of major significance is how one contextualizes the misery, joy, and absurdity of life into something that means anything, even if, as Camus suggests, it's all for nothing. Even if, as he suggests, life contains no meaning whatsoever and the only certainty is death. You didn't choose to live but you can certainly choose how to die; that is, of course, if fate doesn't cut your decisions short. Anything can happen at any given moment, yet the universe seems organized in its chaos. And, yeah...nothing means nothing.

So what do these reoccurring "paralyzed" states of consciousness mean? is there any purpose? I don't know. Sometimes I think they reflect the trauma I've absorb into the "subconscious", and other times I think these things are just nightmares. I don't know...perhaps its all of the digital ink coming back from the times I've deleted words that end with "-cide". 

"Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. If an inferiority is conscious, one always has a chance to correct it. Furthermore, it is constantly in contact with other interests, so that it is continually subjected to modifications. But if it is repressed and isolated from consciousness, it never gets corrected."

-Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion (1938).    

I guess this is me trying to modify and make the shadow conscious.

"I've got no strings"

“Underneath the reality in which we live and have our being, another altogether different reality lies concealed.”―Friedrich Nietzsche

It's a MayAztecOlmeChichiMecca themed coffee shop, and I can't help but think that this place is a space that maintains ideological misapprehension through a facet of liberal expression. The barista, a causasian male flaunting his mustache--a cross between a Dalí and a Villa--probably for "ironic" reasons that I "just don't get", asks me if I would like a pastry with my coffee; it's the day's deal. No thanks.

I prefer the Conchas, Orejas, and Besos at the Aguila.

On the coffee table, a copy of Urban Xic--purchase your cultura--displays a brown body beauty that I've seen around the "chicana/o" art scene (I place this in comma's since the term means a lot of things to many people...sorta reminds me about arguments over what it means to be "punk." But the way I'm using it is simply to mean art coming from Chicano/a, and what does that mean? I don't know. I owe you an explanation, right? I'll write a book about it and bake you a cake another time).

Next to the magazine, a number of flyers scattered about promote historical observance that attempt to assert a sense of identity; solidarity through "our" collective hardships. At least one item from the w-hole stock of Chican@ catalog iconography makes an appearance: Morrisey and Belle and Sebastian. Luchador masks and Ché buttons and Virgen de Guadalupe, Pachucos, and Lowrider paintings. Cholos hugging Moms. Chicanas in Rossie the Riveter pose and a flower on their head. Abuelita's chocolate, chiles verdes, tequila and tacos, Mariachis and sombreros. Migrant workers and Crosses. Baldheaded, hooded, Cortez wearin' mustache brocha Carnales. Raised fists. Calaveras and Frida Khalo. The emblematic ensemble exhausted by reconfiguration, misconfiguration, disfigurement, and gimmick; the whole staple my dear voyeur.

I'm having a house brew at a chic cafe replete with "chicano" decorations. I'm Huitzilo-pocho  iztaya-ndose through occasional doses of Abuelita's Xocolatl with cocoa or a warm cafe de olla. A modern day Ixtic: look at me code switching, that's bona fide cultura homes, man, bruh, dog, whatever. Not brown enough to be down and too ethnic to be...whatever. I've got "culture" up the yin-yang. The pan dulce runs in the fam; oh no, wait, nevermind...these days I'm "clean" eating and going "green". Make it a coconut milk latte and a flaky vegan apple turn over. grasy-ass amigo! Tenga!


I start drafting my blog about consciousness: how it would feel to have mind and no body. How the experience of floating through cyberspace would feel. 1This is all pure fantasy; I mean, I have no mind to begin with! and I don't think the first type of consciousness to be uploaded would be that of a Mexican-American, would it? And, how does that even look? Holy guacamole! Hermanas e hermanos,  Maybe it already happened and this is all a dream!? where's that damn gong sound when you need it! anyway...

As I sip the coffee, I realize my sci-fi fantasies and possibilities of alternative realities illustrate an aloofness of being lost in place.

Thinking about love and e-motions and about going back to my space or your place so long as we attempt to fill the void of the innerspace reflects a sense of detachment. I'd like to love you but...

The consumerist empire continues its avaricious, insatiable growth, and I'm wandering and wondering, Star-Trekkkin in the twilight zone, effectively zombified by the a congenial type of terrorism that I've been taught to enjoy in every bite from value menu soy-reezo burritos. Every time I update my "status," I see infantilized crowds going ga-ga-goo-goo-gle through massive exploitation of instinctive behaviors--Kandy Krushing life away.

Perhaps its the result of 100 years of suffering for every life sacrificed for the glory of the Hummingbird (or maybe that's just the cultural hegemony speaking); if so, then 100,000 years for every person erased in the name of a people in search of gold that continue to shout glory hallelujah! "In God we Trust" from the gilded gates. I was not part of any of it, but my blood suggests otherwise.

Inheritor of dis_ease: the Bible, Smith & Wesson, lawyers and "documents," underemployment, liquor stores, welfare, rape, Ronald McDonald, Mickey Mouse, Indie music/film...and low-self esteem (I'm sorry señor, does my (l)_anguish offend you?); the whole enchilada, chingado! But it's puro pedo; everyone has an "equal" chance, right? It's all a matter of perspective and vantage points.

All I have to do is absorb all of it and then say a few words here and there in Castellano and I can assert both sides, or whatever side. Orale! you got me? Insta-camaraderie: you eat Chiles Rellenos too? Awesoooooome~

Soooometimes I feel as though I've been conditioned inside an invisible Skinner box (wait, how do I know? how can I "see" the invisibility of the box? It's a bit tricky. But you can demarcate the boundaries by obsessively observing the behavior of those inside and outside the chamber (for what other way could you observe? passively? Perhaps passivity is the issue at hand). Sometimes those outside of the box are unaware of their place in the game as well, but it becomes clear to those on the inside when those on the outside misdirect their feelings of offense by scapegoating the ones on the inside, i.e., markers such as "faggot" "nigger" "bitch" "spic" serve as sign posts, but even those signals are silly since they're too obvious and explicit. The trickier one's to spot come from the mouths of those conditioned in the objective rationalization of "-isms": by those institutionalized in the craft of justified bigotry. Nevertheless, the basic formula remains of Us v. Them, but there's always more than two parties at play. It's more like Us and Them make We and so, you gotta ask yourself, who is really pulling the (invisible) strings. And when the fingers begin to point, the operants become visible; indeed, the invisibility "forces"---I will call this phenomenon forces for I have no other means to express it at the current personal time-frame---become visible; the system glitches, and for a millisecond, people all over the community, state, country experience the possibility of metamorphosis. For a moment, everyone realizes that what happened between the cop and the kid, between the executioner and the victim (emphasis Camus) should not have been. And then, everyone in the game realizes something; we're being taken for a ride; the system malfunctions, and the blitz to recover the theater of operations becomes priority for Reality managers. Re-imagers divide tasks to various Stations of Reality making sure the proper film is broadly cast over those eyes which have caught the glitch. I make myself "invisible" by playing along; I'm the blind man! ha ha! ho ho! I'm just crayyyy and stupid! lol, omg, lmfao, smh! ha ha!--shh, it's a survival tactic. J/k lol. ;p....Feign participation; fake it and make it. The thing is...I've repeated it so much that I'm probably already indeed a bit "cray" like a fish, a piscean fish, swimming with the school).

Divide and conquer. The battle takes place in the mind; the objective has always been ideological; this is the reason I tend to think on my feet than use my head. The usual implication of intellectuals is that the mind is located in the cranium, as some sort of by-product of the brain. Indeed, intellectuals are quite correct (they're sharp and cutting intellect illustrates the cunning tactic: using the very mind to locate its position!); however, the mind tends to wander. One of the common spaces it migrates to is the human gut. I've been honing the "gut feeling" skills slowly, but assuredly (or is it surely? I'm unsure, the gut tells me so!). I think that's why women tend to be called "crazy" when they get "emotional," i.e., they're not thinking "straight", they have amazing stomach powers, but more on that labyrinth some other time. What all justified irrationality seems like to me is logicized bullshit. Maybe it's all in the hair?

Ideology: the history of divide and conquer--my ego and philosophy has the bigger dick, look, here, let me explain it to you so that it can makes sense. Get it? now, give me the credit.

In any case, I'm sipping coffee in this cafe. And instead of writing about the police towing the car of what looks like a Mexican migrant man, and how he and I are in that tow together, I start my blogging about tek-no-theology:

"And on the 7th day the Applelord created iPhones. His holy aim was to allow people complete rest for the Sabbath. Why attend service? download your confession app and wire thy tithes. Taking a walk down the street and feeling lonely? Search for the nearest booth and enter thy praying station. Don't forget to log-in with your finger print! Remember that our services are provided in part thanks to the generosity of the National Security Agency. God bless them and our country!" 

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I stop. I'm just too out of my mind to think about anything. Or, as I stated above, I've no mind to mind. It's just an empty coconut. Can't get right. It's alright here it come...that sudden drift-off.  
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These stories about outer space/earth2.0 sci-fi tend to overlook inner space and somehow reveal what I attempt to conceal: shreds of fatalistic passivity to blend into the melting pot, erase and forget about my smorgasbord of chorizo, salami, and hot-dog with bacon from a street vendor identity.
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I'm sitting in front of a screen, inputting data

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Overhead, from within the AC, a crackling sound echoes through the metal gills. Something inside is loose; electro-mechanic cooling of air has lost its hold, and as the machine struggles to exhaust it's dying breath, it goes krack! cack! tink! before the force grows feeble, dwindles down, and completely gives out.
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I continue typing, deleting, editing, rewriting, completely throwing paragraphs away, playing the part of the "coffee shop writer"....カ-ta-カ-ta -カ-ta-tap-tap-[space]-click*click*click* krack! cack! tink!
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Carpe Diem and all that Jazzz~ (or, no se me aguite!)

"'Where is it,' thought Raskolnikov. 'Where is it I've read that someone condemned to death says or thinks, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he'd only room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once! Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be! . . . How true it is! Good God, how true! Man is a vile creature! . . . And vile is he who calls him vile for that,' he added a moment later."

           -Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment (1866)

"you remain dead for all eternity, but you're alive only for a brief moment"

clip source:  

Lilya 4-ever (2002), Dir. Lukas Moodysson.

Smoke and Mirrors

"[commodification] stamps its imprint upon the whole consciousness of man; his qualities and abilities are no longer an organic part of his personality, they are things which he can “own” or “dispose of” like the various objects of the external world."
     -György Lukács, Reification and the Consciousness
                      of the Proletariat (1967).

It's rush hour at McCircus, the Las Vegas fast-food epicenter of the world. I can't help but think that more people would recognize the "golden arches" than they would the Gadsden flag; customers order by number, one after the other, and workers scramble back and forth to deliver the folded rubbery eggs (unless you ask for "egg-white" (remember, you have a choice)) between a nice warm biscuit.

It's Automatization right before my very eyes.

Board games such as "Logo Party" illustrate capitalist consciousness reinforcement through commodification of commodities consumed and re-commodified by the conditioned subjects-- in other words, it's too early to surrender my will into the zombification process, but I need an egg-Mcmuffin. I need an extra value meal.

By 10am, virtually anyone becomes a node in the (zombie/hive-mind) network and lets go of control (remember, you have a choice); Uniformed Structure of "Awareness"--an organized chaos #oxymoron. Collective Consciousness and the Unified process of capitalism by uni-frying the structure of consciousness. Robbery through commodity, i.e., fragmented reality.


This particular hub is located in El Sereno.

"I'll take a number 1, hold the putty and cosmetics. ha ha!"
"uh..m..."
"uh...nothing, sorry, a number 1 please."

Two old timers sip coffee, refilling and perhaps reflecting on memories, and for some reason it seems a little terrible--the loneliness and old age. One of them stands and proceeds to the restroom. He leaves his cup sitting on the red table, next to the other old man. The other old man, the one that remained, is missing his index. The old hands of an old man, calloused, scaling, and swollen. I leave before I see the other return. The old man remains alone, and it's not so bad.

The people in uniform scramble back and forth shouting orders and looking at screens for instructions. The drive-thru merits a paragraph, a book, an essay all on it's own; that's a job for critical theorist and philosophers.

I lift my arms and raise my hands to the sky, yawning and exhaling. The iphone buzzes in my pocket; I forget about trying to answer it or even look at it; the noise invades everything, all the way from the outside to inside of my pocket. I get in the car.

As I drive off, I think that it's way too easy to become nihilistic in a situation like this...it's no so bad.