Love Won't Tear Us Apart

Some of us like to get bombed and have no life then mock those who do have a life because it gives us a fleeting yet indigestible feeling of superiority. I can relate to this syndrome as I lived most of my life in blinkers too. These days I am truly thankful that I no longer need to impose my will upon others, my personal happiness meter reads normal at worst and mostly I feel pretty good about myself. The optimum word here is myself, the self that I am, the self that I desire to be, and the self that exists in each moment of my being.

In short I used to be an ass. I remember when my (ex)girlfriend's son crashed his car, fortunately no-one was hurt, no-one that is except me. His mother out of love for her son found time and energy to transport him to and from work, school, and social obligations, she did this expecting nothing despite the great personal cost to her own freedom. As a working single mom driving 35 mins each way to work and back each day this act of true love cost her energy and time and money that she already had too little of. When we dated we lived 70mins apart and she had been in the habit of visiting me, a single guy with no family obligations, on Wednesday evenings. When she no longer had energy or time to give me this attention I took it personally. I went on a bender. Not just on one Wednesday but on every Wednesday and on many other days and nights either side of those Wednesdays. I believed that my girlfriends son should have to save himself, I believed her attention should come to me first in my hour of need, and I let a resentment grow and fester and fester and rot until it took hold of anything beautiful that was left of our relationship and threw it upon the proverbial rocks. Consequently that wonderful woman is now only a memory to me. What I learned was that it might have been a good idea if maybe I had gone to visit my girlfriends son to find out if he was OK, maybe I could have used some of my spare time to drive him to and fro, maybe I could have picked up groceries, or helped in some way with the running of my girlfriends household, maybe I could have let go of my self centered self pity full ego and shown a little love. It was not love that tore us apart.

This lesson though painful, brought me to an epiphany. The key to personal happiness is to take care of the needs of others, to respect the efforts of others, to cultivate love, and to live the truth of who I am and who it is that I would like to become AT ALL TIMES, no matter what the imagined personal cost might be. My desire is to be one with humanity. The people I most respect, who are capable of helping me in the quest for this truth, my true friends, my teachers, are walking a similar path.

Belittling others serves no useful purpose. The unfortunate consequence of a person succumbing to feelings of superiority seems to be the reduction of their own personal power which only results in lessening their ability to love.

some random Joy Division title

Haven't heard from Pepper or Weaver in a long time. I hope they are having fun, together. LOLz.

Kerry forever! Let's kill Kerry.

Kerry Weaver is the only guy I honestly trust.

He's the only honest guy I know.


Kerry Weaver is the last great hope for sad, disenfanchised guys. He's the last great hope for straight guys, gay guys, trans guys, whatever-guys.

Kerry Weaver is my greatest friend.

He's hot as hell. That fucker is as hot as hell.

Kerry has always wrecked justice. f-justice.

Higher Power Pays Up...money can't buy me love

It's difficult to be snippy when I feel happy. I finally achieved poverty and accept it as a lesson like a severe yet life affirming punishment by lashing. It's not too bad yet, I no longer have credit from the bank but it seems have gained some from the Higher Power 'cos I'm not short of love. My boys and I are working on a website platform to promote our visual art statements, we learned to work together building the Pennybillionaires.net corporation up to it's present grandiose manifestation. Our earnings have remained constant these last few days, at least we're not in the red, but that box of 207 pennies is sure beginning to look spendable. Anyway we're building other sites for artistic reasons and we sure could use some sponsorship for you know getting by. Also Kerry got a small sign for a restaurant for us to make and it looks like I probably have some set construction work to make the rent. Hamilton is writing code so blame him if our website hurts your eyes, but remember no matter how hard they burn they can't possibly burn as fiercely as our hope that your penny(s) contributions will someday establish the penny billionairedom we so deservedly need. Soon we'll have pictures and profiles for you to see, we're not being secretive we're just busy living hand to mouth. As time goes by I hope you get to know me better, in between if you like what you see send your contribution support and be happy knowing that every penny counts.

"The Good Life"

This morning I was watching ESPN on my bootleg cable when a story came on about Lebron James. The supposed air apparent to Micheal Jordan is currently building a home for himself and his family. This is the same kid who as a senior in high school signed a contract with Nike to wear and promote their shoes and accessories for the princely sum of 90 Million Dollars. I don't know what his NBA contract numbers are, but let's just say the kid is financially 'set'.

The plans for the home include its own bowling alley, a barber shop, and a 40'x 60' two story closet to house the clothes he needs in order to make his way through the world today.

After hearing this story, any feelings of myself perhaps not deserving the many rewards that the penny billionaires system of monetary domination may one day yield went right out the window. I am only happy that God had the foresight not to make me rich as a young man. Who knows what kind of crap I would have convinced myself I needed if I had immeasurable wealth at the age of 19.

So if anyone out there has any reservations about sending us money because they fear it might somehow make us lose sight of what is important in life, have no fear, I don't even want my own bowling shoes. The next time you go to your local lanes I may be right there with you searching the racks lined up along the back wall for that perfect house ball.

0NLY 999,999,000 MORE PENNY(S) TO GO

Recently I was called "Lazy Bastard," and "Moocher." The writer wondered if my mother was shamed by our website PennyBillionaires.net...The answer is, Mister, not as shamed as your mother would be if she heard you callously berating the working poor.

On a lighter note, last week we received a real and genuine Paypal donation. 10 bucks!?! Damn! Wow! Whoopee....For real, it's spring my favorite time of year and I got a 1/3 share of a ten dollar Paypal contribution. It didn't take much, life is good. We now have over 1000 penny(s), it is hard to imagine that less than one month ago we had none. We have already achieved 1 millionth of our goal of 1 billion penny(s) American. What was a seemingly impossible goal of 1,000,000,000 penny(s) is now a somehow achievable goal of only 999,999,000 more penny(s). Oh joie de vivre....wait, that's French....I remember Kerry once made a long list of currency we would accept via the mail and then inexplicably said "no french!" Personally I'm all good with the French, so, you know, if you've got any French money, Euros, Francs etc...put them in an envelope with c/o Pepper written above our address in tasteful pastel serif flourishes. Thanks French people and Happy Spring everyone.

Progress

I am in the penny billionaires studio today. I needed to come in so I can communicate with the outside world in some way. Rob is working on his new series of paintings and I am using his Internet service to do e mails. Apparently we received our first official donation via pay pal. That along with the hand delivered two dollars and change we received on Monday takes us up to about the twelve dollar mark. Who would have guessed making money was this easy.

I used to use my neighbors computer for e mails, but theirs is no longer working. I hope it is nothing that I did. I swear I only went on Barely Illegal's website once. I now walk the mile back and forth from my house to Rob's. I have lost thirty pounds over the course of the winter. If anyone out there wants to know how to lose weight fast I have a program.

STEP 1- Get rid of your car. That's right, you don't need it anyway. I personally cannot afford one myself so I have structured my life around the original form of transportation. I figure that right now I am walking at least ten miles a week just getting to the places I want to go. Sometimes I wonder what the people driving in their cars are thinking when they see me casually strolling through the streets of Reading Pennsylvania. When I glance over at the line of traffic stopped at a light in town I try to imagine where all of these people are going in their personal transportation devices. The fat one in the red S.U.V is probably going to see her doctor to complain about knee pain of some sort, never taking the time to realize that the human knee is not meant to carry 150lbs of weight. I bet if she just walked to her doctors office a couple of times a week just to say hi, she would soon find herself looking and feeling better without the insane medical bills.

STEP 2- Eat less. The American diet is based on ingesting 2000 calories a day. That is an insane amount of food. I don't know the official consumption rate of the rest of the world, but I imagine it is probably far less. I cannot afford anything these days besides beans and rice. These two food groups are probably your best bet for cheap whole foods. I turned to the nutritional information located on the backs of these packages and realized I would practically have to eat the whole bag of beans and half of a five pound bag of rice in order to reach 2000 calories for the day. I am a very creative cook because lets face it, there are only so many recipes for rice and beans, but the great thing is if you don't go out and buy a giant variety of foods, no matter how well you cook it is nearly impossible to over eat.

STEP 3- Stop watching T.V. The reality in reality television is that while you are watching someone have a life, yours is passing you by. Do something else.


I know that it is probably impossible for most people to follow any one of these helpful tips. Lets face it we are all bombarded with images of people living the 'good life'. I have even been caught up in that view of life in the past. As long as I had a nice car, the coolest clothes, and the newest electronic gizmo to show off to everyone, so that I could let them know at a glance that everything in my life was just fine, I convinced myself that everything was alright. What a farce. That nice car was killing the very earth I depend on for life, creating war and carnage for people in possession of the fuel I needed to make it go. Those clothes were probably sewn by some poor 10 year old Asian kids, working for pennies a day in deplorable conditions halfway around my world(out of site out of mind). And that electronic gizmo was the coolest beeper that you ever saw back in 1993.

The point is that everything is related in someway, and maybe I will never need my own computer, or will never need a car again, and the world will be a better place in some small way. I am at a point in my life where I am willing to sacrifice certain conveniences in my life. I feel no different now than I did when I accumulated things. In fact I feel the same, insecure and uptight. Its not because of what I have or don't, it's because I can feel in my soul that things are not right in the world. I am connected to everyone in the world in some way, and if you take all the experiences of everyone and put them into a blender that is the knot that has been in my stomach for as long as I can remember.

So the next time I see that lady going to her doctor, I hope she is walking on my side of the street so that I can give her a friendly hello, and have some kind of real human experience. Maybe for that one second she won't feel that tweak in her knee and I will feel less of a knot in my stomach.