How do I know that enjoying life is not a delusion? How do I know that in hating death we are not like people who got lost in early childhood and do not know the way home? Lady Li was the child of a border guard in Ai. When first captured by the state of Jin, she wept so much her clothes were soaked. But after she entered the palace, shared the king’s bed, and dined on the finest meats, she regretted her tears. How do I know that the dead do not regret their previous longing for life? One who dreams of drinking wine may in the morning weep; one who dreams weeping may in the morning go out to hunt. During our dreams we do not know we are dreaming. We may even dream of interpreting a dream. Only on waking do we know it was a dream. Only after the great awakening will we realize that this is the great dream. And yet fools think they are awake, presuming to know that they are rulers or herdsmen. How dense! You and Confucius are both dreaming, and I who say you are a dream am also a dream. Such is my tale. It will probably be called preposterous, but after ten thousand generations there may be a great sage who will be able to explain it, a trivial interval equivalent to the passage from morning to night.

from ‘the book of chuang tzu’ which i’ve had on my nightstand for like two years

black ca[t/r]s / oakland, california / 2 july 2018

— ryan starsailor ☆彡

i have been doing this thing, whatever it is, for six years. that’s 583~ posts a year, when you get right down to it. i don’t even want to think about how many of those posts are juvenile and embarrassing and whiny, and so on. i’m alive, ok?! i have no filter and i’m a big dumb baby. so whatever! if you want to sound more stable and grown up than me, which would require as much effort as blinking, then you can start your own website and say stable and grown up things there. but as for me and me own: we will continue to dwell, spiritually, in the gloomy basement rooms of our YOUTH (why am i using the editorial we??), and say the things here that we ought have stopped saying a long time ago, but can’t because it’s just too much fun.

ok?!

i will conclude this post with a picture of SIR MICHAEL CAINE from ‘THE IPCRESS FILE’ (1965). i took this five years ago at mccune’s house when i first moved to oakland to salute the bravery of a continued existence, however bleak, in the face of endless darkness. at this point in the story, our hero, HARRY PALMER, has just emerged from a psychedelic torture chamber where he was being brainwashed into following orders on command. break a man’s mind and he becomes a tool! but harry palmer is too smart for that: every time he feels as though he is losing his mind to the invisible forces which have besieged him on all sides, he cuts himself with a nail he took from his cell. the pain reminds him of his own agency, and returns him to himself. he is alive in a living world which is candy-cane-striped with beauty and hideousness, and nobody can take that away from him. . . . !

thanx4reading~ ☆

Hey!! Haven’t you heard? My friend Sophie and her band PEACH KELLI POP are coming to San Francisco tomorrow night to play a show in support of their new album. OK yeah! And it’s the last show before they go back to Los Angeles on Friday!!!!

I’m driving over at 8 p.m. PST. That’s 2000 hours for you military folk (or for dumb creeps like me who us a 24-hour clock on their phone). My roommate and spirit brother Matt Stites has already claimed the passenger seat of my 1981 Datsun 280ZX, which is a two-seater, and so I have no room for anyone else unless you want to lie on your back in the trunk. It’s not that bad. I’ve done it before. Just let me know OK~

Maaaan it’s gonna be cool. It’s at Hemlock Tavern on Polk Street, so come on by. I’ll be at the bar with a Tecate tallboy and a double shot of the worst tequila they got in the place. Yeah ☆★☆★☆~

My friend LAURA ROKAS is having a big show next month! She’s been stressed out about it for like a year. Anyway I made this postcard for her show . . . front and back! If you’re in the Bay Area, come on by. Hell, I’ll be there!!! ☆

And for god’s sake someone please hire me to do more of this stuff!!!!!

ok for real have y’all noticed this: that people sometimes end their INSTAGRAM POSTS with corporate-y social engagement questions that are wholly disingenuous? so for example someone who professes to be a photographer (which is to say they own an expensive camera and have an adobe creative cloud license (lol)) will post a picture of a trail near the hollywood sign with a caption like: “had a great morning run. sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is to get out of the house and hit the trails!” which, whatever, people are going to be boring as hell till the end of time . . . EXCEPT that the next sentence is some bullshit question like “where are some of your favorite places to run?” followed by fifty god damn esoteric hashtags signifying absolutely nothing. what??? you don’t freaking care where i like to run you absolute creep, and don’t you even dare pretend for one second that you do!!!

how did this happen? whoever invented the startup world’s favorite call-to-action phrase “join the conversation!” should be put in front of a firing squad, because not only has this hateful trash infected every square inch of the once-beautiful world wide web, but it has also (unsurprisingly, given that this is The Point Of Such Speech) transmuted itself into Normal People’s everyday way of interacting with their fellow human beings, meaning we are now spoken to by OUR PEERS as though we are the target demographic for . . . something i guess?? what are you selling, man? do you even know? in an age where people are encouraged to Become Brands Themselves and to run their own phony PR for their own phony lives, it is disturbing to me that this idea-disease has not only rapidly picked up traction, but has also, in many ways, become THE NEW NORMAL.

you want some advice dudes?? start talking like a human being instead of talking to me like you’re trying to sell me a fucking vacuum cleaner. and: stop sanitizing the internet with your safe, sterile, falsely playful / engaging horseshit!! the internet needs to be weird and dirty again. it’s gotta be, dude. i’m doing my part, OK?! my soul is prepared. how’s yours????

Listen: I’ve never had children, so I don’t know what it’s like to raise them and worry about their comfort and safety every waking moment of my life. And we all know they’re ungrateful shitheads most of the time. But for GOD’S SAKE, please stop fucking yelling at them all the time