2016 was a great year.

I'm posting this now and getting a little bit of a head start on the rest of you who will be posting something like this on new years eve I assume.

2016 was a great year.

Yes, bad things happened. Yes, terrible things happened. To you. To your family. To people all over the world. As you read this someone is being murdered. Someone is breathing their last painful breath. A city is burning. There may very well be an immeasurable amount of collective sadness pooling on the biosphere.  I cannot prove that there isn't. 

However. Despite all of those things, this was a great year. Take a moment and think of some of those great things. They may not be social media post worthy, they may not be international news worthy, but they're there I'm sure of it. For starters you're here to read this. Unless something tragic happens to you in the next week or so, you will have survived another enormous cycle around a giant ball of burning gas, floating on a water covered rock in deep, dark, cold space. Think about that fact alone. It's horrifyingly beautiful and very true. Every moment cannot be utter bliss and equally so every moment cannot be miserable. There is a balance and more importantly our perception dictates how good or bad the world around is. We can argue all day whether things are good or bad, but how we get through or past and beyond every day matters. It does. I'm no perky positive world traveler by any stretch of the imagination so don't go thinking that's the reason for me writing this.  Nor am I delusional or diversionary and seeing only good and nothing else. I have terrible days. Horrible bouts of anxiety and worse.  This isn't about that.  I'm writing this simply because of perspective.  We need it, or more of it in my opinion.  It's not just about looking at the less fortunate and being thankful you're not them, but looking at the less fortunate and knowing how easily it could be you. Just a slight shift in one direction or another,  an adjustment too soon or too late and it could have been you on the news, in the coffin, in jail, on fire or any myriad of horrors the infinite universe hurls in our direction. Not to say you're going to walk out of 2016 completely unscathed but you're going to finish. You'll live to fight another day, if you're lucky.

It's almost like some kind of trendy mantra. I see sentences beginning with "2016 sucked" or "this year was the worst..." etc. Was it? Was it just a list of loss and let downs?  Is there nothing you're thankful for, happy about, proud of?  Did you overcome nothing? I don't believe what I'm reading. It seems like just another trendy thing to post online. To be part of the collective group-think hate of whatever the thing of the moment is.  It's the end of the year so I suppose that's the thing to pile on. I'm not really sure though. Most people I know and see and interact with have it pretty good.  No I don't know your whole struggle. Money,  home life, work are just a few things that make up our everyday and yes for some of us it's not good. I'm working two jobs and I'm broke.  I get it, but life is chess not checkers. A great line I recently heard from comedian Tracy Morgan. It takes time to see through to a goal. Patience. We have very little. We have stuff. Plenty of stuff. A new phone to bitch on. Computer to watch porn and bitch on. New shoes. Stuff.  Lots and lots of stuff. I'm working at UPS, I see the boxes. 100,000 a day. Yet, everyone sounds miserable. Claiming this was the worst year. What I truly attempt to do everyday and what I want you to try to do too is appreciate the moment. This moment. Practice gratitude.  Simple stuff. I don't pray. I don't have a smile plastered to my face 24/7 but I try very hard to be happy in the moment. Enjoy the uncomfortable.  Your job sucks. So will the next one unless you take your deep breath and try to live in-between not caring and caring. Not taking things too seriously but still functioning.  The voice of your ego that fights with your other voice all day in your head isn't necessarily reality. Try to find the balance. 

I don't want to ramble or make too many different points. I think you at this point know what I'm getting at. I didn't write this to have people agree or disagree with it nor am I equipped to prescribe anything of any kind lol. I just wanted to share this idea,  this thought with you. I hope your year ends on a positive note and the cold dark winter doesn't break your spirit.

Expect nothing and accept everything.  I try to do this because it's better than the cynical bitter option.

See you soon,

Lou

This one's on me

Another innocent life is laid to waste

Another body lays on the slab and the streets are full of blood again

It’s time for us to start holding people accountable starting with ourselves

We here in this room

I’m going to hold myself accountable

No more blaming

The bullet

Or the trigger

Or the finger

Or the badge

We need to start making those with badges earn them

People in power earn that power

We give it up so easily

We can’t even agree whether or not someone being killed in the street is wrong

People argue about someone being murdered in the street and look for the minutia to find blame in the dead

How the fuck did we get here?

Why are we here?

How did we allow this to happen?

From here on in I’m accountable

Because I did nothing, we did nothing

We’re doing nothing

Nothing is happening

Nothing is changing

And it’s only getting worse

We’re blaming protesters for protesting the very things that are the most disgusting about us

People are in an uproar about the peaceful ways we’re trying to change the most violent of our ways

It’s so fucking stupid

I don’t know what to do anymore

Who is to blame?

Another body

Another bullet

Its’ not enough to talk about it

It’s not enough to write about it

It’s not enough for me to tell you how I feel about it

It’s not enough for you to feel something about it

It’s just not enough

When people begin to burn down their cities out of frustration we’ll wish for days when people took a knee during the national anthem

We’ll wish for days of people marching in the streets

We’ll wish for black lives matter

We’ll wish for arguing on social media

How did we get here?

How do I get the blood off of my hands?

(I added this meme I made for obvious reasons. Shame on us all. )

The in between

I walk through these doors a realist rational atheist

I find that today dare I say spiritual

Somehow I have tapped into the underlying river of things that flows out of me and out of you and under my feet

I feel it

It’s not god, but it’s definitely not nothing, I know that now

I don’t know what to make of all of this

It’s a new idea

It’s almost like a new organ in my brain is being born

And I’m having trouble putting it into words

But that’s what we are isn’t it

Poets

To take the unspeakable and put it into words

That’s all that we do

That’s why we’re special

We’re not better than anybody else but were certainly different

Take the things, the nuances of life and existence and the universe and write about it

Put it into words

Metaphor, humor, sex

We take our personal experience and make it digestible for anyone else who wishes to hear it

Personally I find this very tolling

I’m constantly trying to make sense of things or constantly trying to define things that may or may not need defining

I wish I could just say

“Look at all those beautiful trees!, Look at the beautiful sky”

I can’t, I’m constantly trying to reorganize, rearrange and reinterpret for myself and for it to be told to other people

I’m trying to constantly make poetry

It’s very taxing on me

I find myself in-between realms

I’m afraid that I’m going to slip in-between the subatomic particles under my feet into a place of nothingness

If I get exhausted I might lean over on a wall and pass through it into a place I never thought existed and still not be sure it is does exist

Some part of my being will pass through and fall between this place and some other

The problem will be that on this side of the looking glass all you will see is an adult writhing on the floor speaking incoherently as the him passed through the wall and the me on the other side of the wall can’t come back to answer any questions or shed any light

And nothing is resolved

Sounds ridiculous, but the thought enthralls me

The only way I can get to the focal point of anything is to go out of my mind

Some people say it’s inside some people say it’s external

Somewhere in-between constantly riding that razor edge

I’m cut and bleeding

I’m not the same person I was yesterday

I’m not the same person I was last week or ten years ago

And I’ll be someone else tomorrow

Constantly in flux as everyone is yet hyper aware of it

So critical of every moment and nuance to try to decipher and interpret it

It makes me wonder what came first me or the anxiety

I am it, the physical tangible amalgamation of it

That is my role, the thing I will have to get used to and ride out for the rest of my life and maybe beyond

If there is such a thing

Remembering Monday September 10th, 2001 the day before operation everyone's fucked commenced.

        If I remember correctly this was my third day of college. I attended the former C.W. Post campus of Long Island University now known as the LIU Post Brookville campus. This was a Monday and the first Monday after having moved out of my house and into the Brookville dorm after my first weekend alone with just my thoughts, strangers and as much booze as my arms could get to my face. It was a good time. The campus had "overbooked" the dorms, however that happens and were placing kids all over the place including off campus locations like hotels, broom closets and gutters which was bullshit. Three other guys and myself lucked out and were placed in a huge room on the second floor of three. The first floor was the boys and the second and third floors were the girls and the four of us. We were warned not to use the incredibly convenient bathrooms across the hall from our door as those were the girls bathroom and we had to walk downstairs to use the boys room. If we were caught in the girls bathroom we would be expelled from the school so, BONUS! They never caught us taking the occasional late night piss, or my roommate drunk sleepwalking into there after a bender and making a bed of toilet paper and sleeping on the floor or more obvious, on the sink. At least three times I woke in the middle of the night after drinking, saw him gone and dragged him out of the bathroom back into our room before the sun came up to burn all of our good fun. We had a lot of fun, but that was all after 9/11. The five days of my college career prior to 9/11 are kind of a blur, obviously, but mostly because my entire college experience occurred in a post 9/11 world.

I do however remember a pre-9/11 world. The memories and experiences get more selective and foggy with each passing year but I lived for seventeen years prior to 9/11 and I do recall the kind of world we lived in, and the kind of world I lived in, my small circle consisting of fifteen years in Queens and two in Deer Park, NY. I remember people. I remember the news on the television. I remember President Clinton leaving and President Schmucky the clown taking office. I remember the instability of the middle east. I remember the state of the African continent, Europe and the rest of the world or at least how it was fed to me via the news and my parents and teachers. That's the best a seventeen year old kid can do. Pay attention and listen to the people in the know in his life. I'm sure people who were well into their adult years at the time might remember more of the world than I can recall but if they're honest I bet they'll say they never saw the world we're living in today careening toward us. I remember Americans. My family, friends, neighbors and every single person I came in contact with. We were Americans and still are today. I remember Democrats and Republicans, I had a number of both inside and out of my family. We didn't see completely eye to eye on every subject. Religion, the Pro-life/Pro-choice issues, bombing overseas, etc. Issues existed back then as they do today but there was and is a crystal clear difference. The difference is that on Tuesday September 11th the entire world as we knew it changed. Now, I'm one to say things like "change is good" and "we need to change in order to evolve" etc, but the "evolution" that I've witnessed over the past fifteen years is different. I've witnessed my country and the people around me divide into smaller and smaller groups with each passing year. I've watched nationalism and patriotism turn into hate for the "other" whoever that may be in the present moment, whether it be brown people, white people, muslims, mexicans, etc. I've seen the American flag turned into a status symbol, a "with us or against us" logo to be used spitefully against American and "other." I've seen and felt this attitude grow and flourish under eight years of Lord Fucknut Jr and get even worse under Obama. Now look, I'm not defending any politician one way or the other. I clearly hated the last guy for more reasons than simply him being a crooked politician. I don't hate Obama but feel like most before him and probably after him the status quo took place while he lived in the White House the same events would have occurred under any other President. I don't think 9/11 was g.w.'s fault directly as I believe the President has no real power as far as moving the gears of history are concerned. He can sign papers and have someone arrested and probably have someone killed but isn't the one making the demands or paying for them. I will not discuss who "they" might be, that's for another day. However I do believe "they" had a hand in the events of 9/11. I do not deny the deaths of thousands of innocent people or that the buildings were hit with planes and fell. If you lost someone on 9/11 and tomorrow will be a day of remembering your loved ones or honoring your fellow man I'm not stopping you and mean no disrespect. However, I will not be spending tomorrow reflecting on the events of that day. I will not be waving a flag, or posting some kind of flag/eagle/veteran photo on social media either. If you do, that's you. I will not participate. 

The world we live in today is the shockwave from those two buildings hitting the ground still reverberating and choking out our lungs and eyes with thick black soot. The suspicious events raised more questions about the who, rather than the why. The evidence for the plane hitting the pentagon and crashing in PA are weak and thin. The original news footage still exists on Youtube, take a look for yourself and believe what you want, at this point as we're so far past the point of no return it truly does not matter what any of us believe. We're here in this world and it's moving towards whatever goal it was intended to with or without the public. The speedy declaration of war on Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq and the complete destabilization of that entire region is on the United States of America and the black sickness that we created over there has followed us back to our homes and cities and all you need to do is look at your social media account or the news and if you focus past the subterfuge you will see the true state of things all made up in what the powers that be deem news worthy and what is deemed not. As a nation we cannot come to a consensus on whether or not people being murdered in the street is good or bad. That's where we are. I want to say that it's our own faults but brainwashing takes a long time. You, me and everyone you know has been brainwashed. Distracted into becoming the people we are today. At each others throats at the drop of a hat, but not really. This happens in cyberspace. Our lives have been converted to digital. Technology is good and inevitable but those same people who pulled off the murder of over three thousand people have weened most people off thinking. I am not writing this to be agreed with, I'm writing this because somehow I remain a thoughtful human being. Somehow I have staved off most of the negative vibrations aimed at my head. I'm not totally free of it as most aren't, but somehow I know I am able to look in from the outside. You know who you are out there. Not better, just lucky I assume. This is post 9/11 Earth. 

Those few days of college prior to the 11th are still banging around upstairs, but will soon fade. I can Still remember a little bit of my high school years. My childhood is very foggy, some is nearly hardwired in but it blends and disappears with each passing year. I don't live in the past, as best I can, and I won't ever revert to doing this but I hold these memories dear to my heart because the one thing they all have in common is that they occurred before the entire world went crazy. Before everyone was out to get me and no one could be trusted. Before obvious blatant bullshit was shovel fed into our faces and eaten so willingly. We now live in a time with all the facts and information the world has to offer laying motionless at our fingertips yet we cling to willful ignorance like a life vest while floating out at sea. Tomorrow is a tragedy wrapped in a lie that we're turning into a hamburger and hot dog holiday. In time ALL the facts will fade into obscurity and no one alive will know enough or want to ever question why they get back to back three day weekends in September. Those today who were too young to remember that day or were born after that day will never know a world prior to 9/11. All they see is the anger and disagreement that goes one between people who were there. They see the world on fire but know no other world. They grew up after the most controversial tragedy in the world's history, not because it happened in America and we're American, but because those of us who were here before know what the world was like before and they do not. All they know is that shit is fucked up while simultaneously being the most connected technologically advanced era in human history and they get shit for that. The very devices designed to distract us from that event and everything important since that event distract them in ways I may never understand because I know what it's like to not have them, they do not. This is the state of affairs. The rug was pulled out from all of us, some before they were even born and it turns out it's all our own fault. So, tomorrow morning you'll turn on the television and the reinforcing of how you're supposed to feel about the day will begin. Stories will be retold, events will be omitted, moments of silence will be had and no one will question a thing. Almost no one.

For the anxious

What's it like to have both feet flat on the ground at the same time
I've done it a few times
It was like feeling the electrical current of the earth pulsing through my body
It was so good it nearly sent me into pure panic
Relaxation was such a new feeling
When your peeked at all times for as long as you can remember
Stillness is like death
Like slipping away
You have no idea
But maybe you do
At least some of you do
To be ever in motion
Rocking back and forth
Pacing
One foot down and the other constantly attempting to walk away from the rest of the body
My arms moving always
Folding and unfolding
Hands in my pockets then out then back in then wrapped again then one arm at my side with the other across my chest holding the opposite elbow.
Not still
Never
When I'm seated I'm tapping
Shaking
Moving
Looking to get up sit up sit back crack my back fix my leg
I'm getting pins and needles
I've literally pulled muscles contorting  into my comfortable positions
Sitting hurts
Standing is exhausting
Sitting seems better until I sit then I'm stuck
I need to get up to breath
My veins are constricted
I'm losing circulation
Is this sitting up straight? 
Is this?
What's the proper way to position myself in order to utilize my spine best
Are my legs supposed to be at 90 degree angles or is it better to extend my knees? Or fold them under me?
Should I let my arms lay on my stomach or rest on the desk?
It all feels weird and wrong and who do you ask about this sort of thing?
Will my mom know the proper way to sit or stand to reduce tension?
Do I have a bad back?
I wish I could just be
With two feet flat on the floor
Sitting or standing in this room in THIS moment.
Not reliving todays events or worrying about 3 hours from now or tomorrow or next summer when will I die how will it happen where will I be will it be fast and painless or slow and scary as I lose my balance then my breath and fade deep into a darkness I've never felt before knowing this horrific moment is the last thing I ever do
Or just two feet flat on the floor
Listening to the sounds of this moment
Mundane and beautiful
Peaceful boring moments thrill me
Maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about or maybe you missed every word I've just said because your counting your heart beats or finding tumors all over your body
Either way this poem is for you

Operation Grow My Own Hemp: DEVASTATION!

So, it seems this second attempt is not a success as well. I don't know what went wrong. I had 12 germinated seeds. I had "good" as far as I know top soil. I watered them everyday. The soil was not too moist, it was not too dry. I even covered it with some bubble wrap, leaving plenty of room for ventilation, to give it the greenhouse effect and keep the soil as moist and warm as possible and ward off small critters and after 5 days this is what I'm left with. 

The soil was still moist, but as I dug through it to see if any of the seeds began to take root which none of them did I noticed the soil had a bad smell. Like a bad water smell. So, the only educated guess I can make is that the soil itself was maybe packed too tight or the seeds even though they germinated may have sat in the water glass for a little too long. I don't know for sure. If you have any kind of green thumb and can pass along your two cents I greatly appreciate it. 

Since I planted these seeds last Saturday night I have picked several dozen more seeds and placed them in water to germinate them but none of them did. So, I will this weekend attempt for a third time to germinate more seeds and then plant them in the hopes of growing my own hemp. It's all about trial and error and I've got the error part down pretty good the only problem is that I'm not quite sure what my errors could be. I will try again. I will before this Summer is over grow my own hemp. MARK MY WARDS MOTHER NATURE! I WILL WIN THIS DAY! 

Wish me luck and thanks for reading! 

The Louniverse. 

Operation grow my own hemp: THE GERMINATION!

THE SEEDS HAVE GERMINATED! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!



After three days of letting about one hundred hemp seeds soak in water, twelve of them have germinated with visible shoots sticking out. I attempted to take a photo last night of the seeds but my phone was too low on battery power and would not let me take the stinking shot! So, I have attached a photo I found on the internet of germinated hemp seeds with shoots showing because it turns out they all look the goddamn same. I put all twelve seeds into wet soil last night and they have been sitting in the sunlight all day. I am very confident that I will have twelve little hemp plants by the end of this week.

I also took the remaining seeds and placed them in soil in a red solo cup. I'm calling them "Plan B hail mary seeds." If they grow something, GREAT!, if not I won't be too bummed out. If half of the germinated seeds survive the elements, the animals and my incredible procrastination I will be VERY PLEASED!

The animals are my biggest concern. Everything can go great but if the birds or squirrels get their bloody snouts and beaks into my soil they will cause devastation. If need be I will resort to thermonuclear weapons, but only if it gets to that. I may experiment with the green bubble wrap again as an added protection and for the greenhouse effect as well. I don't know if the bubble wrap made a difference last time because nothing grew with and without the wrap so it will just be that, an experiment. At the very least it will keep the monsters away. 

I will keep you updated! Until next time...Good morning, good evening and good night!

The Louniverse