The madness of black ice on midnight pavements on the ride home: the madness of keeping the two wheels steady as the moon glistens off the ice like crazy diamonds in a sea of darkness. The crack and crunch as the bike tires dig for traction. The madness of this winter beauty and this anxious, slow ride home through empty frozen neighborhoods to a warm meal. The madness of the couple standing in the middle of 12th Avenue at 1:00 a.m. gazing up into the heavens as I ride past saying "looking for UFO's?" and the madeness of their quiet amazed laughter... The madness of January, yes, the cruelest month of all (except for T.S. Elliot)...

More Madness (cont)

The madness of a dim light burning in a corner coffee shop in the early morning as I’m trying to read the morning’s sad news with my aging eyesight

The madness of laptops and i-pods and cell phones and digital conversations empty of heart and soul

The madness of another day of work with the cold driving drizzle coming down and the wind beginning to blow

The madness of lawns where moss is coming back trying to proclaim it’s original territory and those homeowners who are hooked on grass and chemical fertilizers

The madness of solid moving traffic coming to a halt like a logjam on a river and all the engines idling, belching out more CO 2s into the atmosphere as the summer heat rises off the asphalt

Mad as the driven snow.
Mad as the hatter.
Mad as a winter's sunset dissolving in pale shades against the shrouded horizon.
Mad as hell.
Mad as a three dollar bill.
Madness of the economic "kick start".
Madness of midnight in a freezing night's dream.
Madness of the neighbor's bright patio light left on all night.
Mad as the smile on my face.

More Madness

The madness of a creative slump as I’m sinking down inside the thick slimy ooze of stagnation and all other matter is frozen solid with no thaw coming soon

The madness of the pain and agony of the world sitting here trying to forget where I am or who I am on a cold dark lonely night with no one to talk to and no place to go

The madness of waking up too early and pissing in the middle of the night because I’m getting older and can no longer sleep like I used to

The madness of my digestive system going berserk, moaning and groaning like a wounded animal with my intestines feeling like they’re on fire

The madness of inevitability. None dare call it fate. Fewer yet call it karma.
It has to do with the future, that nebulous place where the tracks of our lives are leading. One wonders, on occasion, if those tracks are perhaps already laid out before us, invisible, although at certain times, and in certain situations, and in certain mental dispositions, visible to us. Have we been here before, as the boys sang about? Are we reliving our personal dramas, possibly trying to get something right, or, possibly just trying to find the way out? Is it the madness and curiosity of the Grande Puppeteer in the sky that keeps us rolling down the tracks, chugging along on our bitter sweet excursion through this particular life? "No strings attached"; I'm not so sure.
Tick tock; destiny rides the clock....

The buzzards of madness circling the frozen january skies looking for an honost meal at the right price. The madness of hunger, and the hunger of madness. Yet in the midst of it all, a stark beauty clothed in the midnight icy trek home last night: the moon, and the roiling void and the burning, raging stars held in its impossible grip, all defying human hope and faith give me reason to believe in the force of life in all its bare boned reality. THE MADNESS OF REALITY! The beauty of one cold moment under the dome of the indifferent heavens. HOO RAH FOR SUCH A MADNESS. Hoo rah for such a solitary moment of respite in this "winter of our discontent".

the madness of
NOISE!
never ending noise. noise like a stampede raging down the road, trampling over your meditations and contemplations.
"In the begining there was NOISE" - and there shall be noise in all its grotesque manifestations all our born days. NOISE, not to be confused with sound. You dig?
Shhhh. It.
noise
noise
noise
and yes,
MORE NOISE!

the madness of.......IF.
and the madness of....IF ONLY !
The madness of these two has surely driven many a human mad with desire, regret, wishfullnes, chagrin, embarrassment, longing and so on and so on and so on...
If only I could get some sleep......

Today's study in madness is Lies - Official Lies at that. Union Officials, Corporate Officials, yep ZR, even City Officials. An official lie is much better than a run of the mill person-to-person lie.
It carries clout. It carries power and it carries dishonesty to a greater level. No white lies in this territory. It's the mega lie era now, bigger than a Whopper, bigger than a Big Mac. It attempts to  venture into legendary status. After all, there is the past Official Lies that must be bettered. It's a sort of BIG BOY competition. Too bad for the little bastards that believe them and get squished as a result. That's also part of the game, learning not only to tell the lie, to believe the lie, but to be calloused to the consequences, as long as the consequences are not on your immediate (and manicured) hands.

OK, so i'm mad and still believe that honesty and honest effort mean something. i am certain there is still time for a change, though once you get to be an old fart as myself, that sort of time is very limited. And besides, i am heading off to night shift this weekend, so the only time i have belongs to Officials of one sort or another anyway.
zk

The madness of talking to the city about our little neighbor problem, which we have come to accept is a losing proposition. The madness of a polite city "nuisance" complaint official, who "understands" our concerns, but seemed to me to also understand that nothing was probably going to break in our favor. NOISE RULES! seems to be the norm..
Yes, it has driven me to the edge of madness, a place where insanity is the norm. Therefore, i seem to be being driven sane ("normal"), by the above equation. It is a collosal waste of time, but then so is so much of what we are forced into spending our time doing by the forces of MEDIOCRITY... speaking of which, back to the madness of the jobs Friday night...

Madness is -

i is standing at the gates of Heaven. St. Peter idly chatting about the music section, as he reviews my life-long list of deeds .....

oh - No, it's not St. Peter. It's the toothless gate guard (that we affectionately call "Fang") checking my ID. It's not heaven, but the gates to Whoreville (the real name of the papermill it seems).

this is madness. No, the foreman says, this is reality and i need to get my ass in gear.

Madness is not knowing where you are, what day of the week it is and how many more nights you have to work. This is the reality of Whoreville. There is no difference.
zk

The madness of make-believe: divine and diabolical... The madness of attempting to lift the veil... there will be more regarding the madness of make-believe soon. For the time being, I will simply say that in the best make-belive fashion, all is well in the neighborhood and that it is because of the profound evolutionary nature of the human condition that the gods are compelled to come to us for the answers to their nagging questions about the meaning of it all.
"once upon a time..."

It's the madness of last night's dream, which seemed to hold the key to something, but as luck would have it dissolved into whisps of brain fog drifting away into the aether as I awoke. The madness of attempting to piece it back together, to arrange the pieces of the puzzle. In another dream last week I was transporting the dead, in a van, although they were "awake" and seemingly content. they did sit very still. But then some substance, like raw eggs landed on their heads and I had to stop and clean them up. They seemed unfazed by it. The madness of raw eggs on the heads of the dead.

It's snow, snow snow madness of snow... flittering, flaky, fluttering snow
in the twilight time. It'll be the madness of bike rides to work tonight, and the return much, much later. Beautiful madness, this snow. Hope to be still saying that in the wee hours when I head home from work!

Tonight we have the madness of the barking dog at 11:00 p.m. in the patio of the evil apartments next door to us. The hip hop crazy tuffs have left their pit bull in the small enclosed patio and gone hip hopping and rapping somewhere. The dog is not happy, and the dog is barking barking BARKING! The madness of trying to decide whether to call the cops, and perhaps suffer the consequences of revenge, or just sit here and try to excrete my madness via this blog. Is the world really getting more disrespectful, or am I just getting older and grumpier. Both I suppose. MADNESS! MADNESS! MADNESS!

The madness of beauty. What it does to our senses and how it moves our emotional beings in ways that defy explanation. How it gives us a pleasure divine in its singularity. The beauty of the silver slivered moon suspended in the southwestern winter sky. It transports ones very soul, momentarily albeit, far from the trials and tribulations of this modern mad life. The madness of beauty is exaltation. It is good. I can dig it. I AM MAD FOR IT!