Don't Say the "M" Word!
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts!
Whoever enters here honors me; whoever doesn’t- pleases me.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Live Yet Pre-recorded- Episode LVIII of:
Don’t Say the “M” Word!
A Silent Radio Hour: Live Yet Pre-Recorded
J: Hey we’re back!
D: Live yet pre-recorded!
J: Here on silent radio!
D: We’re Jonathan and Drew!
J: And thank TheJefferys! We’ll never aspire to become the Property Brothers!
D: Jonathan?
J: Yes Drew?
D: Why should we thank TheJefferys for that? I thought we always hoped to become the Property Brothers?
J: You really want that kind of pressure?
D: Maybe? I don’t know?
J: Just look into the “smiling” faces of the Property Brothers! What’d you see?
D: You tell me Jonathan? What am I supposed to be seeing?
J: Pressure! Tense anxiety! They both look constipated to me! Is that what you want, Drew?
D: If it gets us all the money! Fame! Clothes! Cars! Houses! And especially the womens? Yeah! I’ll live with a little constipation for that!
POW: And so we’re all agreed! Jonathan and Drew must never become the Property Brothers so as to not become even more constipated then they already are! Hey guys!
J&D: What Warren?
POW: Maybe you two could become Jonathan and Drew the Anal Brothers!
J&D&NOAC&MSC&W: Agreed!
POW: And so than! Let’s get back to “our” Tell Of Tales or TOT concerning Walt Ohno and his beaning of Bruce Jefferys of Com.com, mighty online retailer! And “Mr.” NOAC please!
Mr.NOAC: From the i ching ‘The Book of Answers’- Interpreted by Wu Wei!
The situation is reaching a point where you can achieve what you want and cause the people to see you do. It will be to your benefit to prepare for this time which is coming. If you hope to achieve success, do not let your thinking be rigid and inflexible. Instead, rather make yourself aware of changing conditions, keep abreast of the times, and change with them.
Mr.NOAC: The rush of the moment left the entire stadium on the edge of their seats as the Angel’s hitter fouled off pitch after pitch on the three and two count.
D: Exciting stuff! How about some Good Ole Fashioned Chinese Green Tea or GOFCGIT sold by Mother Eu-funh or Playful Phoenix, a Mom and Pop Corner Tea Store in Hong Kong, China or MEPPMPCTSHKC and popcorn please?
W: Get right to it my darling Drew!
D: Thank you!
W: What a sweet boy!
J&NOAC&POW&MSC: We’d like some as well please!
W: Get right to it my darlings!
POW: Now back to the game! “Mr.” NOAC!
Mr.NOAC: Walt Ohno, in preparation for his next pitch, steps off the pitchers mound whereas he circles said knoll and readies himself for what he believes to be an inning ending strike-out. In his wind-up, Ohno focuses and releases the ball. ‘Strike three!’ As the batter angrily protests to the hated home plate umpire to no avail.
J&D: Damn the umpire!
Mr.NOAC: In the stands there’s a brief moment of relief after which the synchronized jubilation begins as the roar of the home crowd screams in harmony: ‘Ohno! Ohno! Ohno!’ And yes, a hero’s welcome in the home team dugout as Walt Ohno takes his place at the end of the bench as the traditional no-hitter silence will be played out for the rest of the game. Walter’s alone with his thoughts and former dreams.
D: Why do they do that Jonathan?
J: Mostly, it’s just your basic superstition/tradition! Nothing personal!
Mr.NOAC: In his mind, Walt Ohno returns to the minor league bus schedule and the constant mode of here and there as he and Becky-Sue so enjoyed the endless travel as the sights and sounds of places never before experienced excited the newlyweds to no end. And yes, motel life wasn’t always comfortable but hey, the SEX was great and the basic belief in a future family and the awaited rewards of a life in the Show made everything alright as even Walter’s blackouts become a normal happenstance here in the world of being prepared for that time which is most certainly coming!
D: What’s coming?
J: A trip to the Show!
Mr.NOAC: And while his stay in the home dugout was short lived this inning, a rare one-two-three experience for the Mariners’ hitters, Walt Ohno’s adventure back to the minor leagues and his marriage to Becky-Sue brought both pleasure as well as pain as the remembrance of things past and long forgotten flooded his soul with regret.
The soul emanates or generates from Eternal Spirit like the conception of a child from its parents. The child has the physical properties from both mother and father whereas the child could not exist as anything without them but there is also something there which goes beyond the limits of the material. It’s an energy which emanates from them both which originated from the divine eternal. Both personages are separate but complete wholes whereas you cannot have the one without the other. The child, while being a composite of the two is also a separate self in and of itself [or] the triune nature of Life, the Universe and Everything.
Mr.NOAC: Brother Andrew the Heretic from his ‘The Sovereign of the Soul: The Soul’s Journey into Personhood’ speaks about an energy which emanates from the divine eternal and becomes incarnate in a physical presence here in the material world! An energy which is eternal!
POW: And this’ important because?
D: There’s that mysterious unknown former monk who’d been defrocked by the Malankara Syrian Orthodox Theological Seminary in Udayagiri India again!
Mr.NOAC: It’s important Warren because it’s what holds all life together! Walt Ohno desperately wanted to be back with Becky-Sue and the children and this raced through his head at incredible speeds. Gathering himself, he intently took in a breath and released the ball: ‘Strike three!’ And all’s well as the Seattle superstar pitcher silently walks back to his lonesome little corner of the home dugout and once again reflects on the past and the hopelessness of it all!
POW: It’s getting kind of deep here “Mr.” NOAC! Is this really necessary?
Mr.NOAC: Yes! This relationship between Walter and Becky-Sue’s a perfect example of this principle in action!
J: Kind of the ‘Li’ and ‘Qi” or ‘Chi’ in Chinese thought?
Mr.NOAC: Very good Jonathan!
POW: Amplify please?
Mr.NOAC: ‘Li’ is the Guiding Principle whereas ‘Qi’ or ‘Chi’ is the energy or vital force! The two become one while remaining two!
J&D: Walter and Becky-Sue!
POW: Very well then! “Mr.” NOAC, continue please!
Mr.NOAC: The Tacoma Rainiers triple A minor league baseball team became an extremely short stay for the powerhouse pitcher who’d advanced so quickly through the Mariners minor league system; Walt Ohno wouldn’t be stopped as his sights were set on a Major League assignment: Now! And what with the September call-ups in progress, Ohno’s name hit the papers with the force of one of his amazing fast balls as The Seattle Times proclaimed: ‘Genuine phenom to start this evening!’
J&D: Ohno! Ohno! Ohno!
Mr.NOAC: And start he did as seven inning of no hit ball left the sold out stadium angrily shouting at the Marines manager for taking Ohno out of the game, which the Mariners lost after the bull-pin couldn’t hold the lead established by Ohno who left the game with a Seattle one to nothing lead! But what was the manager to do? As stated in the post-game interview in his office: ‘The organization wants that powerful right arm of Ohno saved for the coming years!’ And so it went!
J&D: Not fair!
Mr.NOAC: But it really didn’t matter all that much to Walt Ohno who knew that fame and fortune would come in its own good time. But as for now, Walter and Becky-Sue Ohno had arrived in Seattle, Washington with two adoring children and a new home provided for by that powerful right arm!
J&D: Ohno! Ohno! Ohno!
Mr.NOAC: But what did matter was the constant reality of Walt’s black-outs and the annoying situations which caused everyday life to be extraordinary in its scope of what was and wasn’t possible when living out said reality on a day to day basis! Face the facts! Walt could very well black out at any time in any given moment with its varying degrees of circumstance!
J&D: Ohno! (With hands on the side of their heads palms inward while doing the ‘Ohno!’)
Mr.NOAC: ‘I can’t leave him alone with the children ‘cause who knows what might happen!’ Becky-Sue constantly on the phone to her mother back home in Mississippi. ‘Mother! He can’t ever drive! Do you know what life’s like when your husband can’t even drive himself to the store let alone to the stadium?’ She was nearly screaming: ‘Take the bus you say?’
J&D: We’d drive him!
POW: I doubt the Mariners management would permit that guys!
W: But it was very thoughtful boys!
J&D: Could we get some more…
W: Good Ole Fashioned Chinese Green Tea or GOFCGIT sold by Mother Eu-funh or Playful Phoenix, a Mom and Pop Corner Tea Store in Hong Kong, China or MEPPMPCTSHKC and popcorn?
J&D: Yes please!
NOAC&POW&MSC: Us too please!
W: Get right to it my angels!
D: We’re the Mariners!
J: Not what she meant Drew!
Mr.NOAC: Becky-Sue was nearly screaming again! ‘Take the bus you say?’ ‘I guess so dear?’ ‘Mother! Who knows where he’d end up or what would become of him?’
J&D: Not us! Jonathan and Drew who could never arrive at that Spiritual State or SS known as the Property Brothers!
Mr.NOAC: Becky-Sue stopped so as to clear her mind if not emotions before shouting back into the phone: ‘I have “three” children and an off and on again husband! What am I supposed to do?’ And on and on it went until finally, as reported in The Seattle Times during the off-season: Super-Star pitcher and wife heading to divorce!
J&D: Say it isn’t so NOAC!
Mr.NOAC: That’s “Mr.” NOAC to you two!
J&D: Sorry!
Mr.NOAC: Very well! Now! Preparing to head back to his vaulted island of isolation still known as The Pitchers’ Mound, Walt Ohno silently lowers his head while acknowledging the roar of the home crown as they once again howl in delight: ‘Ohno! Ohno! Ohno!’ The perfect game still intact, life must go on as Ohno tosses his warm up pitches while awaiting destiny and its forces to descend for the good or for the bad. Hey, you pick and choose as we’ve nothing but time and space to contend with or so it seems?
The senses do not enable us to cognize any entity in its Being; they merely serve to announce the ways in which ‘external’ Things within-the-world are useful or harmful for human creatures encumbered with bodies…
Mr.NOAC: And so proclaims Martin Heidegger from his masterful word: ‘Being and Time’!
POW: And this means?
Mr.NOAC: This! ‘Nurse! I need that adrenaline stat!’ ‘Will he make it?’ ‘Nurse! The defibrillator stat!’ ‘Will he make it?’ ‘Thank God!’ a brief snickering pause. ‘I mean,’ speaking loudly for the company drones while again snickering: ‘Thank TheJefferys!’ while looking at an anxious Steward: ‘My family’s grateful!’ ‘They should be!’
“How many humans do you see?”…In a flash, I understood the meaning of the story and the idea. Most of the people I was seeing, in the inner state they were in at the moment, were not really people at all. Most were what the Tibetans call “hungry ghosts.” They did not really exist. They were not really there. They were busy, they were in a hurry. They- like all of us- were obsessed with doing things right away. But right away is the opposite of now- the opposite of the lived present moment in which the passing of time no longer tyrannizes us. The hungry ghosts are starved for “more” time; but the more time we hungry ghosts get, the more time we “save,” the hungrier we become, the less we actually live. And I understood that it is not exactly more time, more days and years, that we are starved for, it is the present moment. Through our increasing absorption in busyness, we have lost the present moment. “Right away” is not now. What a toxic illusion!
Mr.NOAC: Professor Jacob Needleman in ‘Time and the Soul’ gives an account of a conversation he once had with a Tibetan monk on one of the busy streets in San Francisco! ‘How many humans do you see?’ asked the smiling monk!
J&D: How many humans did he see NOAC?
D: More monks I see!
J: Quiet Drew!
Mr.NOAC: Not many guys! Sorry to say, he mostly saw what the Tibetans call ‘Hungry Ghosts!’
D: Kinda frightening!
Mr.NOAC: Kind of true sorry to say!
POW: To say what?
Mr.NOAC: That hungry ghosts do not really exist! They’re not really there! They’re busy, always in a hurry! They, like all of us, are obsessed with doing things right away! But right away is the opposite of now! It’s the opposite of living present in the moment where the passing of time no longer tyrannizes us!
J: Like Walter and Becky-Sue and their lives together?
Mr.NOAC: Perfect example! When having SEX they lived in the moment! When enjoying the children while they noisily, joyfully played! Living in the moment! Throwing that perfect pitch! Living in the moment!
J&D: When delivering ‘A Silent Radio Hour!’ The perfect moment!
POW: Questionable moment!
Mr.NOAC: Be that as it may! And that may well be! The hungry ghosts are starved for “more” time! But the more time we hungry ghosts get, the more time we “save,” the hungrier we become! And the less we actually live!
J&D: Ohno! (With hands on the side of their heads palms inward while doing the ‘Ohno!’)
Mr.NOAC: We therefore need to understand that it’s not exactly more time, more days and years, that we’re starved for! But more to this! It’s the present moment we desire! Through our increasing absorption in busyness, we’ve lost the present moment! “Right away” is not now! It’s a toxic illusion!
J&D: Ohno! (With hands on the side of their heads palms inward while doing the ‘Ohno!’)
POW: And where does this lead us?
Mr.NOAC: Into the Realm of the Bruce Jefferys’ of this world! The Jeff Bezos’ controlling our planet! Com.com! Amazon.com! All those companies giving false promises to their customers about instant gratification when they “know” with a certainty, that emptiness only waits! The ghosts stay hungry wanting more and more and more!
J&D: The bastards!
D: Kind of strange don’t yeah think?
J: What’s that Drew?
D: Bruce Jefferys or BJ! Jeff Bezos or JB! Strange?
POW: Don’t bother people! It’ll only encourage him!
Mr.NOAC: Indeed! We click the mouse incessantly expecting instant fulfillment if not satisfaction! And what do we get?
J&D: Stupid Ass Scratching Stuff or SASS!
Mr.NOAC: SASS to the MAX! That’s what we get! Possibly, deservingly so! Let me finish with a quote from ‘In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts’ by Gabor Mate, MD:
The inhabitants of the hungry ghost realm are depicted as creatures with scrawny necks, small mouths, emaciated limbs, and large, bloated, empty bellies. This is the domain of addiction, where we constantly seek something outside ourselves to curb an insatiable yearning for relief or fulfillment. The aching emptiness is perpetual; because the substances, objects, or pursuits we hope will soothe it are not what we really need. We don’t know what we need, and so long as we stay in the hungry ghost mode, we’ll never know. We haunt our lives without being fully present.
POW: And Com.com and Amazon.com and all those other blood sucking companies are nothing but drug dealers selling the mantra of addiction: Shop Until You Drop or SUYD!
D: For Stupid Ass Scratching Stuff or SASS we don’t need!
J: With Stupid Ass Scratching Money or SASM we don’t have!
Mr.NOAC: Click! Click! Click!
MSC: FAKE NEWS ALERT!
J&D&NOAC&POW&W: Whatever!
POW: Whatever more! And that’s good night Irene!
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To our cherished listeners out there hopefully if not finally glad to “not” be “VIEWING” “their” Com.com’s Live Streaming Service or CCLSS! But instead listening to our ‘A Live Silent Radio Hour’ which’s live yet pre-recorded here at The Spank the Monkey Café in the heart of downtown Seattle, Washington of the United States of I’m So Afraid of Those Hungry Ghosts Here or USISATHGH in: America!! I’m Producer Only Warren or POW and many thanks once again to “our” cherished listeners who are finally delighted that ‘A Live Silent Radio Hour’ which’s live yet pre-recorded has returned! We’re so sorry you had to live through that nasty “VIEWING” pardon the language, Crap or C! I mean to say! Really SORRY! But I wish to thank all of you for tuning in once more while again leaving any semblance of rational thought at the door as for the sake of TheJefferys: How in the hell can you listen to silent radio? Never understood that one but hey folks! I’m back as the show’s Producer! (Inspirational Pause!) And please cherished “LISTENERS”, come back next time to hopefully Find-Out-the-Facts or FOFs concerning the nature and cause of our Collective Delusion or CD as we Tell Our Tale or TOT of Misery or M here in a land known as America! Please stay safe and always watch out for those Frenzied, Extremely Agitated Regrettables or FEAR who see their own reflection in the Mirrored Sunglasses or MSs of those who would Un-Naturally or UN ridicule our Blessed Way of Life here on Silent Radio or SR! And please! Make sure to thank TheJefferys! And so I’m pretty certain! And Good Night Irene!
* * *
D: Jonathan?
J: Yes Drew?
D: Is baseball included in the realm of hungry ghosts?
J: For some I suppose!
D: What’d you think NOAC?
Mr.NOAC: Jonathan’s correct! Baseball’s a great example for the passion of being in the moment as the game’s built around this very supposition! And as an example of this, a personal Tell Of Tales or TOT if I might, please?
POW: Quickly! Time NOAC! Tick tock! Tick tock!
Mr.NOAC: Just minutes before my father passed-away I called out to him: ‘Dad!’ he looked up! ‘Dodgers three Braves two!’ And with both thumbs held high in the air, smiling; my dad passed into that long dark night happily supporting his beloved Los Angeles Dodgers!
J&D: The man was in the moment!
Mr.NOAC: Amen to that!