Burnt

In high school, my friends called me Burnt, perhaps because I was born with Phoenix blood. I must burn to live. I must burn to be reborn. The Phoenix is my metaphor. Do I work with red dyes? Certainly. I also work with red eyes.

As the day is born of darkness, so I wake full of piss and vinegar, which is not a popular salad dressing, but rather a distillation of memory and to do lists.

My restless mind cannot sleep, as I must feed the night weasels, the damnable creatures who torment me, and whose hunger cannot be slaked.

In the morning, I jump into a lake of fire, and swim to the middle of the lake. I look around me, and my body, which is in the water, is also filled with water, and the water is heavy with memories, and I start to sink. Down I go, like Shelley Winters in Night of the Hunter, my hair floating sideways with the current.

Because I am drowning, I remember the words of the wise centaur Chiron, who tells a young hero Achilles the following:

A chattering crow lives now nine generations of aged men,
but a stag's life is four time a crow's,
and a raven's life makes three stags old,
while the phoenix outlives nine ravens,
but we, the rich-haired Nymphs
daughters of Zeus the aegis-holder,
outlive ten phoenixes.

Yes, the years have passed, as I pissed them, and although we are in the hours of 3, soon it will be 4, and on and on until the sun comes up. So I pile on, and we no longer count time in years, but in Phoenix (plural).

I recall Herodotus from past lives. Hero, as he was known, for every story needs a hero, wrote in the 5th century BC, the following account of the Phoenix:

The Egyptians have a sacred bird called the phoenix which I myself have never seen, except in pictures. Indeed it is a great rarity, even in Egypt, only coming there (according to the accounts of the people of Heliopolis) once in five hundred years, when the old phoenix dies.

Its size and appearance, if it is like the pictures, are as follow: The plumage is partly red, partly golden, while the general make and size are almost exactly that of the eagle.

And this is the origin story for the Phoenix, who coincidently, is now the new bird of Canada. Praise Carney, and pass the Chilli Pat Carney, which is an Easter egg for those who have been following my rambles for some time- say 44 years of Phoenix guano.

From here we go from the mystics to the Gnostics. The mystics tell a story of the Phoenix, which does not seem credible. As we are dealing with myth here, credibility is overrated, and not germane to our now early morning discussion, for the sun has risen. Also the son has risen. Or the son also rises. And if you think this is a reference to morning wood, the ship has sailed. Or was it a canoe that sank? Either way, the moon is sinking as the sun is rising.

According to legend, He comes all the way from Arabia, and brings the parent bird, all plastered over with myrrh, to the temple of the Sun, and there he buries the body. Since it cost extra to check his luggage, for even the mystics have new baggage rules, in order to bring him, they say, he first formed a ball of myrrh as big as he finds that he can carry; then he hollows out the ball and puts his parent inside, after which he covers over the opening with fresh myrrh, and the ball is then of exactly the same weight as at first; so he brings it to Egypt. This was the birth of carry on.

Except, as the parent birds were dead, it was actually carrion. Travel light on Air Phoenix. Enjoy the memory of free drinks. I hear that the Phoenix was plastered. They were lucky they weren’t thrown off in San Antonio.

Is anybody going to San Antone, or Phoenix Arizona? Anyway, our boy deposits his ball of smuggled parent birds deep in the temple of the Sun. Such is the story they tell of the doings of this bird.

He said, “I hollowed out the ball and put my parents inside. There they live in my memory.” The US customs were not amused. They called ICE, who were not versed in the Gnostic manuscript On the Origin of the World, which clearly states:

The Logos and the Light (Sophia Zoe) resides in all humans as the divine spark. She/They were/was indignant when they saw that the rulers of darkness had laid a curse upon her counterparts. She chased those rulers out of their heavens and cast them into the sinful world, so that there they should dwell, in the form of evil spirits upon the earth.

The agents of ICE, which did not descend from Isis, but rather Cerebus, the three headed dog that guards the Hellmouth, the entrance to Hell. In their world, they might pass a thousand years in paradise, or they may be redacted from history, and their near corpse sent to El Salvador to work as slave labour, a Godless place for the men who are held 23.5 hours a day in cells containing about 80 inmates each, with no programs for rehabilitation. The lights are on 24/7, except in solitary confinement, where it’s pitch black. The Salvadoran government says no prisoner who enters the prison will ever leave.

Later they qualified that statement. No prisoner who enters will ever leave alive.

But what if the prisoner is a Phoenix? A shift shaping Phoenix? They are reborn as a soul-endowed living creature called "Phoenix".

According to Operation Phoenix, there are three phoenixes in paradise—the first is immortal, the second lives 1,000 years; as for the third, it is written in the sacred book that it is consumed. Sometimes the chicken crosses the road, and sometimes the phoenix is spatchcocked and consumed, which may be the origin of the phrase Winner Winner Chicken Dinner.

The fowl deed kills itself and brings itself back to life as a three headed Phoenix, which includes the spirit-endowed Phoenix of eternity, and the soul-endowed Phoenix, and then there is the well endowed earthly Phoenix, who according to ICE is just nasty.

It is written that Sophia conceived the universe. She makes the Sun and Moon. But the state of Texas has determined that the worm that has been born out of the phoenix is a human being as well. It is written concerning it, "the just man will blossom like a phoenix". And the phoenix first appears in a living state, and dies, and rises again, being a sign of what has become a tradition of March Madness, and not an extradition in time for Easter.

Today is April 1. Fools suffer.

In High School, my friends called me Burnt. Our Principal MD Richards, brother of noted Swing bandleader in Vancouver, Dal Richards, was called Mr. Gumby, as in the Monty Python character who famously utters, “My brain hurts!” We would see him at the end of the hall, and start clowning, MISTER GUMBY! MY BRAIN HURTS!

High School was not a highlight. High School was endured. High School was to be survived. There were better times ahead where we would get to reenact High School. We called that Punk Rock.

Punk Rock was a revelation, and eye opening revolution of the soul. I have described the creating process, the desire to reinvent oneself. But it is a bit of a lie, as I have always been the same person, and yet, I have been many people. I was born with phoenix blood,

I was a young man with a thirst for knowledge, I had a hunger for experiences. Like Rimbaud, I used to think. In the old days, I used to think.

There was once a young man who lived in his head. It was a place that he built with memory, words, thoughts that would keep him up at night. Years of these thoughts he endured. Through the mist of reinvention, he created songs, he put words together because he had no choice. Fallow times are important. We need them to recharge, reflect, and gather obsessions. And yet, he cannot sleep, so no Fallow for you.

I wore Burnt like a badge. We had fun, and God knows, we have stories. But I am thankful that high school was not a highlight of my life.

Punk Rock was like high school all over. All the weirdos from all the suburbs, invaded the Big City. Within months almost, this enclave of misfit boy toys and sweater girls, had created their own subculture, complete with dead ends, and pecking orders.

This explains why the anthemic Fuck You by the Subhumans became the song that defined us- much more than Disco Sucks. Don’t forget we were only a few years out of Disco. Who knew that it would come back? Disco that is. Again, and again? Rising like a ……Phoenix.

I know it feels wrong to do nothing, especially with the world burning all around you. I So I encourage you to be like the Phoenix, and raise your middle finger along with your glasses to toast the real extent of rebel culture.