The Traveler Takes a Dive

 

 

"Kill the headlights and put it in neutral
Stock car flamin' with a loser and the cruise control
Baby's in Reno with the vitamin D
Got a couple of couches sleep on the love seat
Someone keeps sayin I'm insane to complain
About a shotgun wedding and a stain on my shirt
Don't believe everything that you breathe
You get a parking violation and a maggot on your sleeve
So shave your face with some mace in the dark
Savin' all your food stamps and burnin' down the trailer park
 
(Yo, cut it.)
 
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?"

- Lyrics from I'm a Loser (Soy un perdedor) - 1993, Beck, Carl Stephenson.

"Forces of evil in a bozo nightmare"

I haven't listened to this song by Beck in a long time. And, then, about 2 days ago - like a bolt from the blue - it started running through my head non-stop.

So, as these (spontaneously emerging) tunes are generally the kinds of tunes I tend to post, I put it up. But, first, I listened to it on YouTube because I did wonder about it. Usually, an unconsciously inspired tune relates to some aspect of my life I haven't really expressed as of late... and, as is also usual with these tunes, they don't stop running through my head until I pin them down and decipher the message.

"Loser" was always an ironic video (and it has a good back-beat), but, now, in 2022, I detected a darker aspect I hadn't really noticed in 1994. Oddly enough, the first thing I surmised was that Beck had once been homeless. My second idea was that I was merely projecting.  But, as it turns out, I was right the first time. According to Wiki, he had become homeless just before he wrote the song, "Loser."

"(In 1989...) daunted by the prospect of another homeless New York winter, Beck returned to his home of Los Angeles in early 1991. 'I was tired of being cold, tired of getting beat up,' he later remarked. 'It was hard to be in New York with no money, no place... I kinda used up all the friends I had. Everyone on the scene got sick of me.'

...By 1993, Beck was living in a rat-infested shed near a Los Angeles alleyway with little money. Bong Load issued 'Loser' as a single in March 1993 on 12" vinyl with only 500 copies pressed. Beck felt that 'Loser' was mediocre, and only agreed to its release at Rothrock's insistence."

Of course, this may just be something out of a press kit, but I think it's quite possibly true. I think I recognized this song and, for a homeless person, it's actually a very powerful song. In fact, I would say it's a Traveler's song... conveying the sort of attitude that, perhaps, the  world's refugees should share: if you imagine I am a lesser person because of my present fate,  then, wake up. Bad luck is like a car crash... a flood... a tornado... or being struck by lightening; you're in the wrong place at the wrong time; there's no reasoning with it and it's impersonal. Or, as my friend, Moo, once planned to use as her epitaph: "But, whatever was good... didn't happen."

And, it's not happening to a lot of people these days. Including me.

Welcome to the New Mexican Lottery...

"Kill the headlights and put it in neutral

Stock car flamin' with a loser and the cruise control"

 That's me in my car at 10pm trying to find a place I can pull into and park after a long day on the road. No, I don't own an RV... or a van... just a small black sedan with bucket seats in front and 3 years of added detritus stacked on the back seat. I look like a vagrant; I am a vagrant... one of the many homeless people in New Mexico driving their cars day and night from one point of refuge to another point of refuge... as seamlessly and invisibly as possible. Mostly we're talking parking lots, gas stations, libraries, etc. That is, public places which have little to do with actual people... artificial watering holes where cardboard animals sniff each other and back off. The dimensions of these constructions are truncated in such a way that nothing is allowed to connect. Bad magick.* But, every now and then, a traveler comes upon a strangely sheltered and secluded spot by the side of the highway. It is an island... a portal in every sense of the term, in this very parched environment... with foliage, insects, birds; and bits of a natural 5-dimensional existence you may have forgotten while trapped in an urban residential address - if you once had one - or a warehouse!

In other words, it's not all bad being homeless. It's economical... anarchistic without having to prove anything. It's also mildly liberating.

But, no, I do not recommend a traveler's life (unless you're below the age of 40). I might wish it on some people... notably politicians... but, recommend it? Well, ask Beck.

PS  This is an Interlude post... recording a personal place in time. The Phi & Pentagram Show is not yet over... merely delayed.
 
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  * Regarding the difference between the words "Magic" and Magick" (via this page):

"But Crowley gave several other reasons why he used the term "magick," and these reasons are often ignored. The central reason was that he considered magick to be anything that moves a person close to fulfilling their ultimate destiny, which he called one's True Will.

By this definition, magick doesn't have to be metaphysical. Any action, mundane or magical that helps fulfill one's True Will is magick..."