12 October 1994

12:30am

Dear E. (Sort of)

Not fair of me to even try this.  Just back from third night of Grateful Dead shows at the Capital Center and am flying.  The sounds! 

I like the art of music because it attacks.

What?  What to write?  All is fine at the current time.  Been places, seen things, heard even more.  Girl dancing in between the drums and little cymbals on her fingers and the blonde girl in the sweater and green stretch pants who danced with me about the circle of the drums and then left and came back and never a word was spoken between us and yet....

E-1.wp5 is the name of this if you can believe that and maybe some guitar would help. (Edit...and insert Mad Scientist song of Ron's making....sorry, reread and stopped her for some guitar...)

A guy I know says he spends hours on America on-line in the chat rooms.  Lets see, I saw it tonight on a t-shirt, it was :-) which took me a while but is a computer-chatter smile on its side but you know that.

So what don't you know being a librarian and all?  But then again, what is there to know?

"But then again...".....sounds like a line from a DEAD song.

You didn't respond to any of my last writings.  That bad?  You said I was a poor writer and you sure are right but I can't keep from trying.

Heart pounding and it should not be.  Excited I guess.

It is 12:45 am and I should go to bed but can't yet.  The DEAD encore was the Beatles song, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (LSD).

Heat pipes making noises coming on here.  I guess your heat is on?

Tree leaves in the process of going but most not yet fallen.

Postcards from the Edge....wasn't that a book by Carrie Fisher?  Ever read any of her stuff?  I like what I have heard on tape.

I am going to send you another tape of the DEAD.  Murray gave me one Monday and after a listen, I have already made 5 copies and sent them out the door for others.  You are next, so watch out.

Sometimes it is overwhelming isn't it ?

Over

Overwhelming.  Overwhelming.  Over-Whelm-ing.

Overwhelming.  Overwhelming.  Over

Sat on a bar stool one night and envisioned writing this network packet piece which could be broadcast throughout the network and I could see all these heads as nodes on the network and each sending and receiving packets of info and asking for network service.  (I prefer the collision detection and retransmission mode over the token passing architecture.  Oh sure, everyone gets a turn with passing the token but........the DEAD have a song which goes "Wake up to find you are the Eyes of the World".)

And I wondered if I could get Uncle Dean in the same net as you E., Elaine, and you in the same net as Uncle Dean and my straight brother Tim and Chuck and Murray and Zooie and Candy and Marina and Bill the gambler who bet it all on one hand in Vegas and my rolodex of names and heads and thoughts and stories to tell.

And what story would you tell E or Uncle Dean or Marina or Tony?  I don't seem to have a story.  As I watched and listened to the drummers in the parking lot tonight/yesterday before the show, I tried to remember it all and see it all so I could write it down someday, to pass it on.  The incredible life that was in that circle of drummers and the comings and goings of drummers and rhododendrons morphing from jungle beat to jungle beat and maybe 10, 12 drums of all shapes and sizes and colors and drummers to go along.  Men, boys, girls, black, Asian, drumming and the crowd on the outside of the ring/circle, swaying with the beat and hearing it change and they changing with it.  Just a bunch of people and a pickup game of drummers on a sunny afternoon and a black man on the edge in a trance, remembering something very old and hollow logs and messages sent and received.

No story to tell.  I continue to survive and even thrive.  I am disappointed in myself some now and them.  I miss all sorts of opportunities with the kids and am not what I could be with them or Priscilla for that matter.  Oh, I try hard sometimes but like the DEAD say "Can't you try just a little bit harder.  Can't you try just a little bit more"

I wonder about you and Uncle Dean and Chuck who just moved into his Mom's old house 75 miles from the city and wants to live them and work here and if any one can do it, it is Chuck.

Wondering about you Marina there in Georgetown and your new son-in-law and probably new work and back recently to the area of Federal Computer Week and wondering.  Have not seen a copy of WEEK in several years now.  Wonderings...  See Dali exhibit ?

Wondering about Uncle Dean.  Always a smile and interest in you and it is authentic.  Wish you could meet Uncle Dean, M.  And wish Uncle Dean could me you M. and E. and Chuck and Zooie and Murray and the whole network light up like the night sky with stars and I feel that way sometimes, like a star shooting off matter and energy into space.  An eruption into the void and instead send it down the network and hope the breakers don't trip and knowing they won't and like I told Zooie, people make a big mistake underestimating what they can really do and so all suffer for it.  But you know that Uncle Dean.

Not a true interactive network is it.  Traffic pig on the circuit, the wire, and the network inside my head and only one quarter of an inch think?  All jumbled up in there, all those nodes and connections and for what?  Some master planetoidplan?

Network.  Networking.  Bring the network up.  When you connect a bunch of computers together in a network, you have to "bring the network up"  Bring the network up.

And on the bar stool, it all seemed so easy!

More guitar I am afraid is called for and I know you can't hear it which is too bad.  Some word processing, I think, allow the inclusion of sound now and this would be a good place for it.

Was up to the 10th annual Harvest Moon camping trip at Gore, Virginia, back in the mountains, by a lake, in a clearing in the woods, on the porch of an old log cabin and there I played music with other folks for hours and smiled and the dogs came and lay beside me and Mama's fed their little ones and I am sorry, I like it even though I was one of the least human type peoples there.

Beginning to calm myself now.  Network Control......yeah that would be a good job description for me.  Network control!  "Who is kidding who here", the network message comes?  "You don't control nothing."

Illusions.  Think after 25 years of marriage I have finally gotten Priscilla to understand, I THINK, that it is an illusion to think we have control of anything.  And on this point, I agree with the eastern religions but as for pulling yourself away from desire and expectations because you will suffer the pangs of disappointment, well shit, guess I gets disappointed and what does Chuck have to say?  Could he speak?

All is masturbation.  Talking is masturbation.  Amoebas, we all, seeking the light and warmth and pleasure and little more. One acid trip, I was a bug on the walls of eternity and I skittered down the walls, farting and no more or less that I am now and it really did not matter.  Does it?

Grand are we as a species?  Mankind?

Zooie has so many existentialist professors and I wonder why?

I am so dumb.  Only years and years after hearing something or trying to learn something will I finally understand it.  Network connections and I wonder what the blonde in the green stretch pants really had to tell me.  Sometimes real "stuff" is in the strangest of places or faces, if you look at it\them right.

Talking to a country music AM, as in amplitude modulated, station DJ and he got on my case cause he thinks I ought to be in charge of something or another!  No way.  I like following, don't you?

Follow the leader.  Jack be nibble.  Jack better be quick. 

Bar Net stools in fish net stockings.

"A Clean, Well Lit Place" by Hemingway.  (That is not the exact title but close enough.)  Everyone read it on the network?  Now on a true network, each of us could open up our knowledge base for access by any other noodle.  But the times I have tried this, it was very intimidating.  Good thing we don't have ESP or IQ for that matter.

Lost in the woods.  Zulu's don't have a way of saying "lost in the woods" cause they don't get lost in the woods.

Always on track, always with a direction, are we?

Global memory variables are language elements, shared by all.

Direction like an arrow in time and space.

GE...Progress is our Most Important Product.  Progress, yeah that is what I want and right, fucking now.  None of this take years shit to achieve.  Impatient, ain't we?  Can I access your network servers from here, now?  Can I expand the network in my head and link you all and touch each as you lay dreaming and you will awake and not remember me being there but yet, a sense will make you wonder?

WONDER.  Sure like to wonder.  Wander too.

James Joyce mind falls and over the edge and the mixing and thrashing as it cascades down onto the rocks below and then out into the quiet stream, flowing with a direction.

We all got directions, don't we?  Marching orders?  Instructions?  Shit, I must have come in a returned box, cause I didn't get any and Uncle Dean having the fellow cadet complaining about the education process and him not knowing, at his age, that it is a do it yourself job!

Masturbation.  Circles and spheres.

20 Billion galaxies?  Billion?  And life will not come in a tin can to our door looking for gas money to the next stop.  It will come across space and time into our dreams where we can accept.

Can anyone feel the presences of alien life?  Actually, lots of creatures right here seem pretty alien to me, like cats.  E, you have a cat don't you?  Murray and Gretchen do.

The old crow sits in his perch and looks down as James goes over the falls and the old crow just looks away.  "Told you so", he says.

1:58am says one clock and the arm says 1:50.  Close enough.

(Insert guitar here...pretty little piece about "It might be a dump, but I call it home.")

Pornographic country music.  Such a talent I got to let it go to waste.  Ain't everything and everyone of value in a great society?

Questions.  Yes, questions.  Still haven't ventured into Blade Runner, the movie, have you?  I wouldn't if I were you.

Over the falls.  Every let your mind trickle down through images, thoughts, free form, like Joyce?

Questions?  E is an Librarian.  The keeper of the stuff.  The keeper of the RIGHT stuff.  Here in Fairfax county, they are arguing whether gay materials should be in the public library or not?

Free speech.  Free spinach.  PoPEye.  Strong to the finish....

And not really doing service to any one on the network.  Sorry.

How to end it?  "End?" That would be a good question.  End implies beginning, package, encapsulation.  An egg.  Dali's man coming out of the crack in the cosmic egg and Priscilla just about out of egg production, we think, and not all that sorry about it.

Shit...sorry folks for the intrusion today but you have helped me and I finally got that silly network linkage idea out of me head and sent to you all.

Speeches.  I was never good at speeches as you will attest E.

Monologues.  Mono logs, a reference to jungle drums?  Mono logs?

So, lets bring the bar stool network down and let the nodes and noodles rest.  Off line, one at a time, you go. 

E. sorry about this mess, but it just had to be and please do not read anything into this as to the state of my mental condition.  I am fine or as fine as I always was or will be which isn't saying much at that, is it?

Uncle Dean.  I need to get you to a DEAD show.  So much happening there, it is a treat.  Talk with you soon.

Chuck.  Sorry I have not returned your call but the timing has not been right.  Maybe tomorrow.  I hope everything go settled on the house.

Zooie. I missed you tonight and thought of you back at school.  All I can do for you is give you a big smile and see you at Thanksgiving.

Marina.  How about lunch soon or at least a call to see how you are?  I was looking at an old Mercedes 230SL in your area recently and still may buy it to engine repair.  Wonder if you moved to Greece?

I wonder if I should pass around addresses?  Every node has an address on the network?  Maybe next time and maybe I should ask, if E wants to be on the network with Uncle Dean and so on?

Uncle Tim.  Glad work and school is going ok for you.  Sorry you did not get to go down the river with us this August.  Maybe next year cause I know you would love it.

Bill, Tony, Ray, Jessie, Randy, Marilyn, Gretchen, Murray, Molly, the girl in the green stretch pants.....good night and sweet dreams.

Ron.......Shut the Fuck up.