Good morning, ladies and gentlemen; brothers and sisters; vibrations in the mind of the one true God whose name is Love.

What an opening, huh? I stole it from Bill Hicks’ HBO special, One Night Stand. And while we’re on the topic of Bill Hicks, I sincerely recommend you go on youtube right now and watch anything and everything you can find concerning the late, great comedian. The man was a brilliant social critic, satirist, musician, and comic’s comic and most definitely one of the greatest standups of all time. He was taken far too early, at the age of thirty two, by pancreatic cancer. I have a mild obsession with him that materializes every few months or so with me listening, first and foremost, to the album Rant In E-Minor which is easily one of the most replayable comedy albums ever made. It’s long and loaded with gems. Check it out.

But let’s take a moment to talk about that opening. What does it mean to be a vibration in the mind of God? Well, let us first agree that there is a God. Let that be the prerequisite agreement in this, albeit already a tad pretentious, completely valid and substantial discussion. There is a God. But perhaps not in the way you’re thinking and perhaps not even in the way you were brought up to believe. God is not an old man in the clouds. I think this much can be said. No, I believe – as did Bill Hicks – that we are all one consciousness; that God is the entire being of Earth, its galaxy, and its Universe and, likewise, each and every living organism in said Universe is a part of God.

Perhaps that’s too broad.

Maybe we should focus on the Human Race.

If we as a people are all one consciousness, we, as Bill Hicks said, experience each other subjectively. I’m in your movie, you’re in mine, etcetera. As people, we have the ability for empathy, which is the single most important part of life. That, even as we are each living our lives separately from each other, we are able to, to put it in cliched terms, walk a mile in another’s shoes. As our lives are lead, we may even begin to realize the importance of empathy in terms of karma as we glide across the path toward enlightenment. Participating, we all are, in the lives of others as we pull from the Collective Unconscious.

This is God. He lives in conversation and music and literature. Speaking for myself, God is the space between the notes. He is the smell of fresh cut grass in the Summertime. He is the shimmering surface of a pond. He is the rays of the sun through the clouds. He is life. He is death. And yet, He isn’t He. He is Me. He is We. He is Us.

Life is just a dream. There is no such thing as death. We are the imagination of ourselves. Perhaps there is free will. Perhaps we are all living a predetermined script, with each choice as merely a stepping stone toward an already-thought-of future self.

This is what one of the novels I’m working on is really all about. I know I told you about it in my last post. It is about a man who has died who finds himself alone in a cave on the side of a mountain with nothing but a typewriter and three reams of paper, trying to figure out whether he is in Heaven or Hell. Early on in the story, he is met by a disembodied voice who seeks to explain to him his purpose on the plane of existence on which he has found himself.

It is a deep and convoluted and, yes, a bit of a pretentious concept. But I enjoy riffing philosophically and there isn’t really anything remotely wrong with a bit of mental masturbation here and there.

In other news, I’m smoking a Zig Zag Cigarello and couldn’t be wishing any harder for a real tobacco cigarette. A Pall Mall Red would be excellent. An American Spirit Black would be superb. But at least I have something to smoke.

Currently, I’m listening to Rod Stewart’s An Old Raincoat Won’t Ever Let You Down, which is one of my favorite albums of all time. It is my opinion that Rod Stewart from nineteen sixty-nine through nineteen seventy-six, including his time fronting The Faces, could very well be the greatest straight up Rock and Roll ever put to tape. The Faces were better than The Rolling Stones. And I’ll say it until the day I die.

Recently, I trimmed my beard all the way down to stubble but left my mustache as it was. I think I’m going to leave it this way until the mustache is just too damn long.

I’m wearing my favorite outfit.

I wore it yesterday as well

I’m barefoot in my backyard, sitting at a red picnic table.

It is a goddamn beautiful day outside. Not too hot. Not too cold.

As I’m typing, Blind Prayer has come on. It is one of the best songs ever. Look it up.

I’ll leave you here as I’m going to go back inside to roll another cigarette.

I hope you tune in next time for another edition of Words From The Midwest.

Sincerely,

Michael