title tbd
Audio = Stream from the bar; download from the dots
05/05/1997
Summary = TBD
Condensed News Items = See below
News Item Gallery = jcap 97045-1849
Transcript = None
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The News
1849 97045 05/05/97 Copyright J. M. Cox 1997
97045-1
There was once a world on which many of the creatures spent many years in
the attempt to rid the planet of certain vermin which were not actually
there.
(And do note: You are in a backward solar system if you think that worlds
such as the one just described are backward.
“Foolishness” alternatively defined is synonymous with “the potential for
progress.”)
In one school, the children who were held back and forced to repeat were
those students who took the courses seriously.
…And one boy eventually realized, “Insofar as relates to me personally,
these books are not mine, the instructors are not mine, the lessons being
taught are not mine, and above all, what I believe that I am learning is
most definitely no part of me.”
‘Tis indeed a most marvelous universe in which the only way to knowledge is
by becoming aware of the nonsense of knowledge.
To be assured that you’ll be left ashore, all that’s required is that you
believe you can be rescued.
97045-2
A woman once asked a stranger, “What’s with all this crap I keep hearing
about “being enlightened” or “awakening” from some dreadful, unrecognized
state of sleep, and all that kinda stuff?…what’s with it?”
And the stranger replied, “Well, normally a question such as yours is
unworthy of a sincere response, but inasmuch as I am close to dying (either
that or I’ve reached the limit of my Visa Card), I’ll answer you.” “What
such ideas refer to is simply the difference in a person knowing what is
possible in life, specifically pointing to the mind, and what is not.”
And upon hearing this as the explanation to her inquiry, to say that the
woman was beset by severe disappointment would be a severe understatement.
According to one mail-order catalog, after you die (if you’ve been well
dressed most of your life), you’re not required to waste any more of your
mental time on useless matters than you did before you died. (Postage,
however, is not included.)
It’s quite easy to look where the nap of the carpet has been pushed aside
and the backing revealed, and mistake it for a piece of foreign matter.
…(Nap, neuron, what’s the difference, they both start with “n.”)
97045-3
There were once two brothers who were in business together, and they called
their operation “You’ve Gotta Have A Plan — You Mustn’t Have A Plan.”
And the tricky part of doing business with them was that you could never be
sure if they were open or not.
(“Just the way we planned it,” noted the brothers.)
A woman not far from there says that, if you listen passively to the
broadcasts, you’ll believe whatever they tell you. She then wonders who
tells them what to say, and before that, who told the ones who told them,
and on back like that.
(Perhaps she and her brothers might get together and develop a recipe that
takes into account the reality that the script is already written; concerns
regarding “what’ll we do next” are moot.)
97045-4
If it wasn’t for the ida that men can somehow be other than they are,
children’s toys wouldn’t be so commonly coming apart.
One man’s complaint: “Why are we issued something of such a delicate nature
that its permanent safety seems impossible?”
Huh! — I guess if some people had their way glue factories and other
renowned human institutions would be out of business.
A boy asked a stranger just how long you can live in one particular place
and continue to mis-feel its actual year-round temperature.
There was once a world on which school children were issued books not that
they could hold and read, but books that would grip them and pass to them
the direct sensation of what was meant.
All who say that they don’t get it, and who think they might eventually,
never will.
97045-5
Question: What was the origin of the notion of “overstaying your welcome”?
Answer: Men thinking about themselves.
Okay, if that one was too difficult, here’s an easier one. (Liar!)
Question: How can you always definitively spot an ordinary man?
Answer: The continual pursuit of the impossible troubles him not.
…And don’t tell me that one wasn’t easy, or you’re gonna knock over your
plate of beans.
Regardless of its prohibition, if you live in a reality of theater, someone
will always be yelling “fire.”
97045-6
More About Human (Specifically Mental) Expenses
The cost of anything is in direct proportion to your lack of understanding
it.
On one of our invisible sister planets were once some creatures whose
classification was listed not as “Homo sapiens” but as “Sign us up.”
Don’t worry about the draft in this universe’s league, the idea of there
being a “first round” of choices and a final one is but a localized
illusion, and one which becomes obvious to everyone — when it’s too late.
But how can it ever be “too late,” you ask, if there is no final round.
It’s too late in the context of a man trailing behind the thoughts running
through him until he can no longer conceive of any alternative thereto.
It is then too late in that his mental life has cost him everything he
potentially possessed.
The cost of anything is in direct proportion to your lack of understanding
of it.
97045-7
More Regarding Sleep — And Professional Perspectives Thereof
To try and “get somewhere,” one man at first tried to sleep less at night,
then switched his approach and tried to sleep even more than before, and
then built an alarm clock that would ring at indeterminable times, then
finally consulted an expert in such matters who, as soon as the man
mentioned the word “tried,” laughed himself into an uncontrollable fit.
In one city, the train station sells tickets only to those with nowhere to
go. You know who you are! [Which is not true. For it is precisely those
who do not know who they are who want to buy such tickets, who believe that,
if they can but go someplace else, then there will they finally discover
exactly who they are.]
Such travel is not “broadening,” indeed, for a mind with potential the name
of that rail line should be Anaconda.
97045-8
After many years of wanting to bake the universe’s most astounding cake,
one man discovered that you can either pursue a course of cream puffs, or
one of iron bars, but no matter which way you go, you’ve eventually got to
get out of the kitchen once, twice, and three times, for good.
A boy asked his father how to tell a standard story from one with a
supernormal potential. And the elder replied, “The latter never have a
fuckin’ moral — just chocolate frosting.”
One man enjoyed his first real head-on collision so much that he came back
for more.
To believe that there is “secret information” is to check your mail on the
basis of there being an undiscovered zip code within your home one.
97045-9
One man awakened from the dead conditions of local reality to find himself
not in hell but inside a sound-proof booth on a quiz show, in there, locked
up for eternity, alone. Alone, that is, other than for that other self of
his.
One man stood in his backyard and announced to life, “You can’t pay me
enough to remain here.” “But come to think of it, neither can you pay me
to leave! So there!”
And just then flew past his head a hummingbird of such swiftness that it was
its own twin reflection; not its actual twin, mind you, but twin reflection.
Children count to one,
adults count to two,
a man who’s been around counts,
“Three, north, and blue.”
The measurements a man uses to measure reality measure not reality but
rather the mind of man.
97045-10
One man believed that he would understand the secret of existence if he
could just comprehend the purpose of toys.
97045-11
A man went seeking entry into a monastery devoted to achieving
enlightenment, and was told he had his choice of two ways by which to
commence his participation therein: he could either retire alone to a cave,
to meditate and wait it out; or go to his room and stay there, just
thinkin’, until (as they called it) “things worked themselves out.”
What he didn’t know at the time was that not five miles from there was a
competing school which described it as “until things come to a head,” and
the particularly attractive aspect of it was that they didn’t charge a cent
more.
There was once a man who went on an indeterminate train trip, and for quite
a while had high appreciation (and warm feelings) for the tracks, without
which he apparently — nay, obviously — could have never commenced his
journey.
But a day eventually came when he began to rue the tracks which for so long
had seemed to serve him well, and rather than being of assistance he began
to see them as a hinderance.
Realizing the true nature of anything always results in it costing less.
97045-12
In the beginning, one man was gregarious, then he became not so gregarious,
and after that he found himself losing track of exactly what “gregarious”
meant, but just in time (thank God!) he was run down by an overly friendly
herd of reindeer and brought back to reality.
In one galaxy was a planet on which the most popular pastime was the
inhabitants all holding hands and jumping off a cliff together — a cliff
named “Here’s Proof We Know What We’re Doing.”
There was once a moth, in a closet, who looked around and pronounced,
“Who’s gonna say otherwise?”
97045-13
If you swallow a virus it can go either up or down in your system; if it
goes down, treatments are possible; if it goes up, forget it (unless you’re
ordinary, then you can try and treat it ’til the sun catches fire).
A man once asked a stranger, “If you can’t immediately stop all talk, might
it be good to just shorten your–“
“Yes,” he re–
97045-14
There’s a certain place in our universe where there’s an off/on switch, but
no one who lives here knows where it is.
There are a few people in our universe who have a private understanding of
what “living here” means.
Only men of undeveloped ability need drugs to make them dumber.
Life told one man, “I don’t deliver.”
And the man thought, “Ah, but if only I could stop accepting.”
(Which in fact is possible for those who discover the off/on switch.)
97045-15
One man thought, “If I was but fast enough, nothing could ever catch me.”
And a dead grandfather from Amsterdam contacted him to note that if you
would just go ahead and catch everything to begin with, there’d be no need
to go faster.
Although atoms can obviously communicate with planets, many people still
cannot conceive of the reverse.
…(Which is one reason for the demise of the two-pants suit south of the
equator.)
Those who believe that someone or something is “watching over them” should
rent an educational video detailing the attitude that most statues have
toward pigeons and other flying myths.
One man began to think that he was now on the right train when the conductor
started committing suicide at every stop.
97045-16
Certain myths say that man, long ago, was split into two parts, and that
the purpose of human existence is for each person to now locate their other
half. Which ain’t a bad little story, but a more useful taking of the tale
would be to realize that the familiar ring to the myth resounds within each
person individually, and that there is no missing piece to be found, neither
externally and certainly not internally.
The song “There Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens” is close…about as close
as any other sacred scripture.
– – –
The Universal Curse in a certain other universe is
“Division to those who division think.”
* * *
97045-17
There used to be a land here on Earth where some people lived who believed
that they would grow taller if they learned to kick themselves in both
ankles simultaneously.
(I’m not positive, but I think this was the same bunch who claimed that “the
gods love a moron.”)
And so was one chap moved to muse, “No man is so dumb as when he stoops over
to help a child, and the child is him.”
97045-18,19
There was once a race of men who could talk directly to the dead, but they
abandoned the practice once they realized they were only talking to
themselves.
(Oh yeah, everybody else but them went on believing they were doing it.)
There’s a particular spot in our universe that you can yell into and sounds
will come back that sound like whatever you want them to sound like.
97045-20
Tonight’s Little Story About Life
Life once decided to torture one group of creatures by making them believe
there can be more to life than there actually is.
…Wait a minute: we can do better than that. Okay, here it is.
Life once decided to favorably single out one group of creatures by making
them believe there can be more to life than is actually there.
A man asked a stranger, “What’s the difference in feeling unique and having
someone stuff a hippo in your backpack?”
And the stranger had a really good laugh once again from the sparkling array
of local conditions (as perceived by the locals, that is).
There was once a woman who for many years believed it was possible to “tell
lies and misrepresent the truth.” Then she undertook what proved to be a
rewarding examination of this question: In what place, within a finite
space, does some space hide from other space?
There was once a planet on which it was prima facie cause for involuntary
psychiatric confinement to say that you wanted to “know yourself” better.
97045-21
One man’s most recent “private tattoo” reads, “Do as conditions demand but
do not think about the conditions.”
(It’s in a nice blue and gold script.)
A mother thought molecule told some baby molecules, “If you’re going to
spill coffee all over everything, at least be sure it’s loaded with sugar.”
‘Tis only the dumb sighted who undervalue the everyday need for “the
sweetness of stickiness.”
There was once a house whose internal space dictated the outside weather.
This house is the perceived domain of the routine mind, and do note that its
IQ cannot be increased by taking it outside and bringing the weather
indoors.
* Coming or going — a swinging door will still hit you in the ass. *
97045-22
One guy’s question of the hour is, “Is it my mind that produces me, or my
me that gives the impression of a mind?”
(“Ain’t it funky?” he adds.)
97045-23
Another Tip — For Those On The Trip
If you’re still talking about travel, it is possible to miss hearing them
announce the end of the line.
97045-24
There was once a planet whose creatures were made up of leftover parts from
other planets.
It can still be seen if you will look in a mirror just above your neck.
(Now that for sure — is funky.)