From The Vaults: Samurai Death Eye (originally posted October 2011)

Akashi Gidayu writing his death poem before committing seppuku

I don't agree with every aspect of the samurai code, otherwise known as Bushido. Nor do I fully agree with everything the samurai did historically. Many of their ranks were rife with hypocrisy when you really get down to it. One thing I CAN really respect about the samurai  was how they learned to face and embrace death every moment of their (sometimes short) lives.

It seems morbid to overly  preoccupy oneself with death. Naturally, being alive, we think of matters that pertain to life left and right. Yet what of death? Since it can strike any time without warning, and this fact is certain, is it really such a bad idea to dwell on it? It's not suggested to do so just for the sake of becoming death-obsessed. If one were to go about meditating on it in the right way, instead of getting trapped by deathly thoughts and subsequently being paralyzed from true living, the opposite should occur. Done correctly, daily ruminating on death can actually propel one forward to a mindset where they can fully embrace life, and NOT be a slave to death and fears surrounding it.

A genius work by the great M.C. Escher

What is the 'correct' way? I think each person would have to find out the way that suits them the best, there is no one path. But a post-indicator of 'healthy' death-thinking would be if it causes you to lose a substantial amount of fear and doesn't hinder your living, rather it enriches it..as just discussed. Personally, my method is as such: I get a few glancing thoughts when I think of death to start. The Grim Reaper, skulls, coffins, stuff like that. That's just trimmings. I have to go deeper than mere word association. Facing death is something I should aim to do daily and I usually find it convenient to do it for some number of minutes after waking up and greeting the day. You can find whatever time is good for you though. Beyond the trivial surface thoughts, when I go deeper it involves these levels or aspects:

*facing death physically, facing physical pain
*relinquishing life hopes and goals
*guilt and leaving loved ones behind
*fear of the great beyond, fear of the unknown, fear of divine judgement
*other people dying

There it is, those five. I can't think of anything else that wouldn't cover facing death in all its forms. Now, for some more detail....

The first aspect or point is physical death. Not all of us have the luxury of dying without physical pain. Death usually hurts like hell!  So, I picture myself in a variety of 'ouch' situations (haha): getting smoked by a truck, getting knifed by a mugger, getting shot, etc. Usually we can't easily comprehend the sense and nature of pain involved with these situations. We can use our imagination to the best of our ability though. Beyond just these wild imaginings, in our day to day life we can also practically train our bodies to push past pain. This could be accomplished through anything from heavy workouts to involvement in the martial arts- any situation really that punishes the body (yet sound reasoning still being involved, we allow ourselves to heal and not be mangled to a foolish level.)

The second aspect: relinquishing life hopes and goals. It can be hard dying with unfinished business. This is an exercise in letting go and just saying in the grand scheme of things, will it matter if you completed this or that before you died? Bucket lists and all that, will they really change who you are as a spirit if you have an afterlife? How solid are your legacies? Leaving behind money and material things is good and fine, but they all get spent and broken down in the end. In terms of legacies of character, this can easily be accomplished even by living a single day as a pure and strong upright person.

What about an idea like 'don't let the music die in your head'? All our neat ideas many a time are just for recognition and affirmation by others. Solely basing your deeds always on what others approve of is death of character, and as if you had no life of your own to begin with. It's a form of self slavery. Writing a great song or book or whatever it is...think of that as if you were the last person on earth. Who is going to enjoy or utilize that? No one. Maybe aliens if they stumble across it. Would you still do it? Maybe, probably not. What that loosely proves is that wanting to complete many things before death has do to more with wanting high regard of others than anything else.

Chances are that great painting will just gather dust in some attic, and at best be appreciated by a very select few. Or, you could be the next Shakespeare or invent some world-shaking medical cure. Surely THAT is worth it? Tell me, do you think Einstein or Sir Alexander Fleming can enjoy what they created, being dead? Perhaps if their spirit lives on. All inventions or works of art aren't flawlessly beneficial though. There can be a downside, side effects. If you did have some amazing treasures in your mind and you died with that all still undiscovered, if there's no afterlife you wouldn't be conscious to care either way. If you did live on spiritually, would earthly matters even concern you so much or compare to the vast power and complexity of the realms beyond? Would Earth just be another little anthill? A supreme higher power would also have the wherewithall to preserve your ideas even after you died, keeping them safe. Perhaps they could show up in a new person's head back on earth, or brought to life in the afterlife itself.

This all doesn't just mean totally give up all aspiration in life. By all means, enjoy life and work hard to make the world a better place. Yet instead of a WIN/LOSE mentality, change it to WIN/WIN. If you leave a great legacy or influence humanity for the better somehow, great.  If you don't get a chance in this life, there may be another, or in the supreme scheme of things it may just not matter. So this is the second tenet of facing death in my mind, strive to win but learn to graciously lose and let go. Life should be enjoyable and fun, but maybe something a million times better lies beyond. Appreciate both. Goals are not only for this planet.


The third is facing guilt of dying. You can try your best to live and survive at all costs, but if that's not good enough with the universe, and it's your time to go, why feel guilty over it? Everyone will die- we'll all end up the same more or less.  People will all have to cope with losing someone in their life sooner or later. It's not that we aren't equipped for this either. Going a bit sooner, what will it mean? Even 50 years is a microspeck in the grand scheme of things. 

Which brings me to the forth, facing the great unknown. The unknown can be scary, it is, after all, the root of all fears. So fill in some blanks, make the unknown known. Even if it's not the full truth, it's an attempt. You can fill your mind with all the possibilities you can think of as well. Fear will dissipate. There are generally three ways you can go when you kick the bucket: heaven, hell, or worm food. These are just nicknames and generalizations based on pretty much all schools of thought out there. Put another way, you can exist after death in a pleasant way, you can exist in an unpleasant way, or you can just sit there and unconsciously rot. Heaven is no worry at all!  According to some belief systems, sometimes death involves hellish torment, but that's usually only the case if you are truly evil. So don't be a malevolent jackass! The worm food part (kinda covered already) means if we just rot, at least we won't be conscious of the fact and dwell on how much a bummer it seems. Physically, it's a way of giving back to nature and the Earth, in the least. That part ain't so bad.

The fifth and last great deep dwelling on death is quite tricky. Even if you come to terms with your own death in a million shapes and forms, what about facing the death of others, your loved ones?
It can seem a lot harder to live on after losing them! Yet it must be faced. As said before, we are all technically equipped to deal with death and grieve and heal, and we will all die in the end anyhow. Reunions are a very good possibility too.

So all in all, this isn't a throw away your life recklessly kind of deal. It's about appreciating life more, but at the same time not fearing death. It's about feeling content with whatever comes your way, and feeling capable of dealing with it. This can only, like all things, come with practice.

From The Vaults: Cobra Versus Mongoose (originally posted October 2011)

The crafty mongoose shall overcome...

From The Vaults: '68 and '72 In Music >>>Part 2-1972 (originally posted October 2011)

See part 1 of this article at : http://fox-actors.blogspot.com/2011/10/68-and-72-in-music-part-1-1968.html

Last time around I was checkin' out what made 1968 and 1972 so great for music, according to the one record shop dude I know. I went into detail about 1968 and concluded that yes, indeed, that was a killer awesome year for music. This is where it gets a bit more confusing. When I did my digging to see if 1972 was great, nothing stood out in the same way. Or put another way, there were fine moments, there were not so fine moments, but it all averaged out to seem so-so.. as if you could pick any other year and find similar amounts of good and bad. At least for 1968, it seemed overwhelmingly obvious that it was awesome.
Don't get me wrong, plenty great stuff happened in '72 musically, it just seems that to isolate it over say, '73 '74 or '75 or whatever doesn't hold much grain.

Here a little list of some standout albums of the the time: (* denotes timeless classic you should probably own, though all these albums are pretty darn good...)

 Al Green-'Let's Stay Together'
 Aretha Franklin-'Young, Gifted and Black' and 'Amazing Grace'
 James Brown-'There It Is'
 O'Jays-'Backstabbers'
*Curtis Mayfield-Superfly OST
Gil Scott-Heron-'Free Will'
War-'The World Is a Ghetto'
 Big Youth-'Screaming Target'
 Seals and Crofts-'Summer Breeze'
 Dr. John-'Dr.John's Gumbo'
*Neil Young-'Harvest'
Arlo Guthrie-'Hobo's Lullaby'
Allman Bros. Band-'Eat a Peach'
Nick Drake's-'Pink Moon'
Todd Rundgren-'Something/Anything?'
Jethro Tull's-'Thick as a Brick'
*Deep Purple-'Machine Head'
 ZZ Top-'Rio Grande Mud'
 Wishbone Ash-'Argus'
 Blue Oyster Cult-s/t
Captain Beyond-s/t
Uriah Heep-'The Magician's Birthday'
*Black Sabbath-'Volume 4'
Hawkwind- 'Doremi Fasol Latido'
Capt. Beefheart 'The Spotlight Kid' and 'Clear Spot'
*David Bowie 'The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars'
*Roxy Music-s/t
*T. Rex-The Slider
*Mott the Hoople-'All the Young Dudes'
 Eagles-s/t
 Alice Cooper-School's Out
 Buddy Guy and Junior Wells- 'Play the Blues'
Yes-'Close to the Edge'
The Osmonds-'Crazy Horses'
Slade-'Slayed?'
Edgar Winter-'They Only Come Out At Night' and 'Roadwork'
*Lou Reed-'Transformer'
Frank Zappa-'The Grand Wazoo'
Herbie Hancock-'Crossings'
Can-'Ege Bamyasi'
Faust-'Faust So Far'
Groundhogs-'Hogwash', 'Who Will Save The World?'
Neu!-s/t
Night Sun-'Mournin' '
Atomic Rooster-'Made In England'

General trends we see developing include a greatly increased popularity in progressive and experimental rock, more use of synthesizers and atmosphere, and a more 'soundtrack-y' sound to many albums (some actual soundtracks themselves). There are a lot of stories or concepts behind the albums instead of 'let's just plug in and rock like hell.' A tiny bit of the gritty bluesy rock n' roll is rubbed off and polished smooth for a more cerebral and ambient composure in the music. Soul and funk and other black music styles continue to be popular. A genre known as Krautrock is big (experimental German prog...note bands in list such as Neu!, Faust, Can.) Long jams and jazzy snazziness are big ideas. Space rock is noticeable (think Hawkwind). There's a lot of folk continuing onward as well. Glam is one style that really starts to take off, especially with artists like David Bowie, Mott the Hoople, T.Rex, Slade, and the fresh and hip Roxy Music.

Some less than ideal things that have happened by or during '72: Jim Morrison's dead, Jimi Hendrix is dead, Janis Joplin's gone, the Beatles have broken up, CCR puts out their first mediocre album (and their last album ever) and breaks up, The MC5 break up, the Velvet Underground break up, and Led Zeppelin has a concert canceled in Singapore because they have long hair and aren't allowed off their plane by tightwad authorities.

So '72 wasn't all bad I guess, maybe not as killer as '68...but DEFINITELY better for music than shitty 2011, at least in terms of mainstream or widely known stuff.

Neil Young in rare shot

Al Green gets fonky

Part of the cover artwork by Roger Dean of Uriah Heep's 'The Magician's Birthday'

Slade, experts in atrocious fashion

Old school ZZ Top

Gil Scott-Heron. Helped invent Rap.

Alice Cooper and his motley crew

Neu! are now quite old....

Early Eagles..

Lou Reed, post Velvet Underground mode

Wishbone Ash rockin' out

Allman Bros.

Nick Drake in weirdo poet mode

All that glitters....a young Roxy Music

The enigmatic Can

Hawkwind....spaced out

See part 1 of this article at : http://fox-actors.blogspot.com/2011/10/68-and-72-in-music-part-1-1968.html

From The Vaults: Koset of the Light (Originally posted October 2011)

This is one of the coolest pictures ever. It's called Koset of the Light and it's by Keith Parkinson.
It was used in this fantasy card game called Guardians published by FPG back in the mid 90's. Guardians was kinda like Magic: The Gathering but in my opinion cooler. Better art overall (for one thing way larger on the actual card) and a more wicked sense of fun and humor. For example, you could bribe some beings with beer, babes, or gold. According to Koset's card, she could be bribed with beer. If she ever walks into one of your local bars you should buy her one.

From the Vaults: CHARTREUSE LIQUEUR (Originally posted October 2011)

Ugly chartreuse plateware, for example

 Let me start with this, chartreuse is a color. It's like..between yellow and green. I liken it to a sort of nuclear booger green. The cool thing being that the color itself is named after a liqueur! That's right. Imagine a color called Bloody Oath, Glayva, Limoncello, or Goldshlager. Cool.  The drink tastes probably like a rich man's Jagermeister meets gin....or perhaps like aftershave or cologne. Which is funny, since the first man to put the story of this drink into play was born in the city of Cologne (in the year 1032), in what is now present day Germany.

Yo yo yo checkit..it's Saint Bruno

This man was Saint Bruno. He spent much of his life doing church-y kinda stuff-> educated from a young age in a French cathedral, became a professor and rector, then went off to be a reclusive monk with six of his homies later in his life. They traveled to Grenoble in France, where the presiding bishop welcomed them. The bishop said he had a dream where God called him to build a place of worship up in the Chartreuse Mountains, which were pretty rugged and wild. Seven stars hung over the spot where the place was to be built. Waking from the dream and later meeting St. Bruno and his posse, the bishop recognized the 7 men to be symbolically the 'stars' that would bring the show to life.

The dream coulda been as trippy looking as this...                             

So they went up in the mountains and saw the spot from the dream in real life, and started building. There were some community type buildings including a chapel, and then each monk had his own individual hut for solitude. They would congregate here and there, and the rest of the time be alone in silence and prayer.

Saint Bruno was called upon to Rome by the Pope, who used to be one of his students! He sorta got stuck in Italy and built a monastery in Calabria, where he spent the rest of his living days more or less. Anyhow, the remaining posse eventually became known as the order of the Carthusian Monks, and their brotherhood, set of rules and monasteries slowly spread through Europe over the years. The original monks in the Chartreuse mountains learned to become quite self sufficient. They cleared trees and sold the wood and charcoal, made a bit of land for farming, became masters of metallurgy, and eventually the distillery.

La Grande Chartreuse Monastery closer to present day...the home of the monks

A marshal of the French king's artillery, a certain Francois Hannibal d'Estrees, gave the monks a mysterious ancient manuscript in 1605 containing an 'Elixir of Long Life.' It took like more than 100 years for the monks to make head or tail of the damn thing, but they finally got it down. 1737 is when the monks began distilling.  The year 1764 was when Green Chartreuse was created, a milder form of the original Elixir (55% alcohol) and chances are very close to the main kind of Chartreuse you would find in your local liquor store. There are other variations of the stuff, but this is the base...and the closest you'll get to the original Elixir. The monks passed down the recipe through generations. It contains over 130 herbs and spices, more than any contained in other liqueurs worldwide, as far as I know! The monks weathered much turmoil, including being scattered during the French Revolution, and hiding out in Spain when the French government greedily took over their little stint in the mountains. People were pissed and refused to buy the government wannabe version Chartreuse. The monks came back and were able to sell their 'medicine' as before. Leading up to today, the monks have sold millions of bottles all over, the drink being in much demand. The monks will usually meditate in silence and solitude, and occasionally a brother will come and stir the pot or whatnot and keep the process running. Cool stuff.