The Midnight Ghost has always been (as in the Aerosmith song, “Living on the Edge”) a journey, not a destination. One thing I never stipulated way back when I wrote the piece is that even the most famous people are Ghosts, too; actually, that, in essence, was the whole point of what a “Ghost” is.
So, with the change in culture, the lack of students for a teacher to teach, what does that teacher do with his efforts and his perceptions, for this outcome was unforeseen?
Back To Shaolin.
Ride Tight
Early Years
My early years, those of high school, consisted of hiking with Richard Fritzinger, working two jobs, writing, smoking, drinking, tripping and saying goodbye to my childhood, as to embark upon the journey I am currently on. If I were to do an autobiography right now, it would NOT bore the shit out of you, but I am not going to go that route, because the message I intend to convey goes beyond those physical experiences and bounds, un-stoppingly beyond the realms of general thought and behavior.
Richard,…
that is a story of its own time, but it was his influence which prompted me to seek out The Midnight Ghost, hop on it and forever, thereafter, live the life of a travelling bodhisattva, similar to how Kerouac wrote about in The Dharma Bums, but with my own, style.
What is the Scope and Purpose of this Blog? What is it’s Style; Who is the Audience?:
To complete the journey by telling the story of The Midnight Ghost and intertwining it with what it has become in the voice of Hunter S. Thompson, using a Kerouac-genre tone….
The audience is nobody but myself.
The Introductions, or Transitions, may use Charlie (who is me,) now, The Voice That Knows, playing “devil’s advocate,”… the devil’s advocate only in order to provide a canvas on which to tell the story- just like the “Invisible Warrior”‘s author did. So, The Ghost now speaks from Charlie’s first-person prospective, speaking to the current ME, now, who is: The Mind that speaks while it is tripping, but knows that it is just tripping.
In order to accomplish this setting, an intro must be written explaining who Charlie is (exactly from Kerouac’s book). From there, it introduces me sitting on there;… the train is most likely a horse van, not a boxcar.
Timeline:
^An Autobiographical Novel,In congruence with Black Book Ramblings, pics; and soon in-line with win pics; PLUS, goes along with google maps fly-around/ Timeline of “the bit Thirteen” {“of the month pages}…. Leaves breadcrumbs for OLC book.^
- Find Pic
- Create Spot on Page with Anchors
- Create Blog Post with link to Anchor.
- Schedule Post
Outline:
Back-Story/ the Childhood Years
Annandale
Homeless, in Churches
High Bridge, Hippie Haven
HB Middle School
Pat Farr, Richard Fritzinger, (the enemy,) CJ Hopson, Justin Waller The Corner Game, High Bridge Culture
Keith Ruthe, Hardcore Music, Skating
Patti Bill, First Exposure to Bad Religion, Anarchism
Raymond Mancini “Mance”
Lizards
Dad Died
The Crazy Farm
Voorhees High School
First LSD Experience, Smoking Weed out a Can and smoking bowls with Cappis on abandoned buildings in Hampton, NJ during a snow/ice storm
Windy Hill Farm, Working Student
Charles and Cindy
Centered Riding by Sally Swift
“Neutral Hands”
Rendezvous, Native American Mindset
Tom Durkin’s Call
Sweet Sensation
Wood Boy Hiking
Introduction to Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson, Zen Buddhism
Purchase of the Black Book
First Exposure to The Best of the First Ten Years of the Breeders’ Cup VCR Tape
The Other Side
Lenape Trail in Washington, NJ,
Warren Hills
Back to Voorhees
Wrong Side of the Tracks
Purchase of the 1982 Chevy Chevette
Land of the Gnomes
pics
Living at Kathi’s
Play Station, Cool Boarders
Hiking With Richard, Working at Windy Hill Farm, Smoking in the Snow on the Tracks above Uptown
Move to Bruce Miller’s
Started to Write the Ghost In Black Book, Purchase second Black book…
The Zipper
Miller Tree
Hurler
The Springside Delhi, Steeplechase Tapes, First Dive Bar
The Lonesome Glory Saga/ (portion of life)
Chip Miller
Blythe Miller
Trish Daniels
Keith Cooper
Andrew Simoff Horse Transportation
Eddie Graham
Amy Taylor
Sheppard
Kathy Neilson, Toe Rag
Rush Barn, M-80’s
Eugene Weymouth at Fair Hill
Living in BMW, sleeping in parking lot of Bruce Jackson’s at Fair Hill Training Center
Gilli, Alan Watts
Delaware
First Smell of M Magic Favorite Incense Nag Champa
Built Square Hut in woods
Check Black Book for trips home to see Richard and to find more relevant material.
Joe George, Iwinski
to Gulfstream, syringe opened, phone call, “not back to Gilli’s”
Oak Street Back to Delaware
Brian Gray and Shao Lin San Kung Fu Temple in Delaware
The Fair Grounds, Pino, Nial O/Callahan
who let the dogs out?
Carl O’Callohan
Vindicated Lady,
Find in Black Book, Print Unprinted parts not related to Ghost.
blowup bed with south African Girl; Tomb Raider, Play Station One, Medal of Honor
Camden to Delaware Colonial Downs “They’re waiting for you.”
Ten Pound Bug
Colonial Downs
James Burtis
Midwatch
Tracy Campola
Jeff’s House with Sherry, Rouse The Cat
Monmouth Park, The Brighton Inn, Poetry Slam, Cibelli lay-off to Kathi’s and Larry Ghetto’s farm, Ana Rogos, “burning the candle at both ands,” three hour drive one way
Tampa Lee
Cicero on the Rancocas Creek
Galloping in New Egypt, NJ for Gold Broker
Amy Lewis
Parx, Danny White, smoking weed in Preciado’s tack room during break, snow,…
Carly
dorochenk
From Dale’s to Gulfstream to WMTR…
Living on third floor by pizza shop to Joe’s cancer lady’s apartment to Bumps in the night to
Living in the Sheep Cart at Charles’ to
Doing 42 stalls a day for witch woman living with Guatemalan to
Back living with Kate Papp in Brown, Penn National Country for three days
charles, bridlewood, charles,
Diatribe 2016
I’ve pondered why there exist anomalies that seem to separate science from religion as well as separating insanity from solid ground. I retreated to solitude and considered this happening for months. In loosing my identity on the social level, I had also victimized my psyche and allowed the emotions of depression to experiment with me both mentally and physically. I write things that make sense only under particular circumstances, while attempting to apply the universal happening as the overseer. With all crazy thoughts and written declarations, when reality is not always what we think it “should” be, the line of sanity is historically defined by witch hunting societies and academically nurtured falsehood bearers (those falsehoods being society’s conditioning of humans to be polite and to pay taxes and to follow certain laws and customs, how we view our interdependencies with our physical environments, along with our political and social assimilations.) So the people who define “sanity” are the most introverted and insane of the bunch- insane because they think that their town is secure and that their fellow humans will assist them in their daily plight to be comfortable and to accrue more money; all the while, they are stealing from and lying to us with the wink of the political eye. How insane is it for a politician to lie, then pretend that the lying never happened; then to ask his fellow men to vote him into political power? It is even more insane that the people reelect lying politicians! One must wonder if that such dichotomy is the “fine line” between rational thought and insanity! I must interject the following: how are we comfortable if it is always a plight, a fight, a legacy? In other words, how does society protect us when social conformity is the exact same thing we frequently fight to change? What good is being civilized when we do so only by allowing certain evils, such as war, to protect us?
When a man loses his identity within any social construct, he begins to exhibit behaviors that are not familiar with his conditioning. He becomes “different” when compared to the norm. Unfortunately, society does not pedestalize the fact that he’s different until he looses his shit and shoots-up his office building in an extensively planned renegade spree. The crazy man shooting a gun at coworkers is viewed as insane, whereas a government body that collects money from citizens then wastes it on personal extravagance (lying to the citizens as to where their collective monies will be allotted)… These government bodies are considered to be the norm and are comprised of “sane” participants and are absolutely necessary in order for us to be civilized. They are the criminals who get away with it. Most times, after they’ve been caught, they “deal with it,” which is a way of… still getting away with it.
It is collectively agreed that the “crazy man with the gun” must be dealt with, analyzed and “bought to justice”. The government bodies that steal from you and me- they are analyzed using flawed, self serving “logic” and are bought to justice infrequently and merely on a non-measurable, arbitrary scale. Every single person on this planet is insane for enabling each other to create an environment in which a man will go “crazy” and shoot his fellow citizens. Can you admit that you understand at least part of the crazy man’s ultimate frustration with human interaction? We would be insane not to admit that the system we live in drove him crazy, not the individual people he shot.
Before writing the crazy words that began this sermon, I wrote the following, whether relevant or not:
How to not react to your environment:
First, realize that it is Your own micro-environment. You create the environment via your thoughts. You feel things- situational factors are of your own definition. Mental Conditioning shapes how you perceive the environment; therefore, you define the environment, rather than being a mere player within it who is also defined by it. So as to not be an actor, nor the director, one must shift their perception, not only of the situation, but of themselves. A paradigm shift in totality. It is difficult to use skills we do not have; furthermore, to think in a language that we have not yet learned is a seemingly impossible thing to do; but when you change your mind about who you “are”, how you act and react, if you want to change all the things that (to this point) make you “you”, you must become Not you, therefore come-up with a new way in which the voice in your brain talks to you.
You must exercise to change perceptions that the inner voice brings to your attention. When that voice no longer comes from the “you” that you perceive yourself to be, and begins to question and becomes unfamiliar with the environmental change, only then can a new brand of thought and a new person emerge. We are frightened by things unknown, just as we are positively excited by the unknown. As the voice in our head uses what it knows to make sense of any given environment, when the unknown is strived for- a language in your head becomes a new, learning adventure! After creating this new realm and becoming conditioned by it, you again fall under the repetition of that new conditioning. Not really a fallacy- it seems to be the nature of the human mental process. The moments between the paradigm shifts are the moments of clarity and wisdom. The moments between paradigm shifts are the reason for paradigm shifts.
Michael Matz, Miller Mouse Piss House
Evan
Courtney
Stronach Compound
Jonathan Thomas
Sheppards to:
Witch Woman on the Mason Dixon
eddie
Rusty’s House, Bad Weed, Leslie
The Big House
o L C
Leslie Young’s, Bri’s
Cyril Murphy
Joel’s Farm
Green Spring Hounds
I used to say, “back on the Midnight Ghost,” but I never jumped off of it! The memories I knew I was building put me in a state of “nostalgia-for-the-now”.
I have always lived this nostalgia-based mental paradigm; it is a bit of a depressive tone, I agree, however, it has been the bass-line of the music in my head ever since I can not remember. This sad tone has been understood to be the result of my empathic intuition. Being an empath, I have been living the inner-life of a bodhisattva.
The conversations between me and Charlie have become mute and moot. The thought crossed my mind that I have become Charlie. That, in fact, has become the case. I am no longer that young jockey, aspiring to build a future. The future is here. This is it! And the main sing-song is that baseline that thumps in the back of my psyche.
Why Do I Feel This Way?
you ask yourself
Well, maybe, Jordon Peterson said it best when he said,
“If you follow what’s meaningful and you do it honestly, it will take you somewhere you really do not want to go; and until you go there, you’ll never be able to climb up higher on the other side.”
-Jordon Peterson
So, I Guess This is what they call a “mid-life crisis””.
“…The change that has occurred within the racing industry is not something that is lasting.”
Retired Journeyman, Christopher Van Hassel
I had always planned to train racehorses after I retired from my successful riding career, but I had not predicted that the racing business would change the ways in which it has. The change that has occurred within the racing industry is not something that is lasting. Why do I say that? Because the change is in the function of racing in our culture, not our culture’s function in racing.”
The difference is that, “evolution,” is a gradual shift towards further survival; whereas, “change,” is not a gradual shift, but a metamorphosis.
The Racing industry young adults of today are actors in is completely different than that of the scene we enjoyed just back in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. This change is parallel to the change you see in our culture’s lean towards this social-media-society; and the old ways of doing business and interacting with (even family) has completely changed.
This societal change has created a racing business that looks forward more to the money, and less back at the horse.
All in all, I am lucky, because I have lived my dream; I was a top-notch jockey. I lived the fame, the money, the travel. But I walked away from it all, …
“If you can’t find it here, you’re not going to find it anywhere.”
Dr. Wayne Dyer
Ann Stewart
Willie Dowling’s
Tom Proctor, Ocala,
Greg’s to
Ocala Stud
Soul Essentials
Bobby Jones Equine
Larry Ghetto
Mom’s
Crazy Lady No Toilet
Rustlewood Farm
Crazy Quarter Horse Couple
Kelsey Danner, Colonial Downs
Doug Fout, Middleburg, VA
October 3, 2021
So, my whole life, I’ve wanted to interview Tom Durkin. …
So I did.