I heard last night that Fuck You Bob was dead and it made me sad.
The Record Pub website put up this obituary about Bob. The Kent Patch put up an article about his memorial service. And Nick Rock put together this video tribute to him.
Bob’s friends are making an effort to put the proper spin on his life as an artist and his contributions to the town as a philosopher and intellectual. I appreciate that. I think it’s a good thing. But the tribute-makers seem to want to avoid the one thing that most people remember best about Bob. And that is the fact that Bob Wood walked around Kent, Ohio for decades telling people to fuck off.
I first encountered Bob when I was a freshman at Kent State University. I was sitting in one of the big lecture halls one night to see a movie. It was some sort of indie artsy film. Maybe Eraserhead or something along those lines. I don’t remember the movie at all, though. What I remember is Fuck You Bob.
I was there with Mick Hurray, the drummer of Zero Defex. Bob was directly in front of us. And he kept giving us the finger. He never turned around. He never said anything. He just flipped us the bird over and over. And he was doing it in a really weird way. He kept turning his hands at different angles (he was giving it to us with both hands) so as to make certain we got his message.
We thought this was hilarious. So we gave him the finger back. I’m not sure if he saw this, though. Like I said, he never turned around. We weren’t angry or offended at all. It was much too weird for that.
Throughout my time as a student at Kent State I saw Fuck You Bob around town. He had a load of bizarre behaviors. For example, I once saw him walking down the middle of a busy street. Every time a car would come by, he’d jump up on the sidewalk and wait for it to pass. Then he’d get back into the road and continue walking.
Several years after this I moved back to Kent after living in Chicago for a while. I was walking down Franklin Avenue from downtown toward the Kent Zendo, where I lived. I saw Fuck You Bob coming my way. I wondered what he was going to do. He didn’t say anything as he passed me, didn’t even give me the finger. And I found myself being a little offended at this. He said “fuck you” to everyone else in town. He’d even said “fuck you” to me on more than one occasion. Was he snubbing me now? What did I do to him?
But a couple seconds after he passed I heard him say, “Suck my dick.” And you know what? I felt good. I’m not even joking. I still remember how nice I felt to have been told by Fuck You Bob to suck his dick. If he hadn’t said anything to me that day I’d probably still feel I’d been slighted.
I never encountered Fuck You Bob again after that day. But I remember being in Japan and hearing from friends back home that Bob had gotten better. He was getting his art exhibited around town. He was studying for his Master’s degree. And shockingly, he wasn’t saying “fuck you” quite as often anymore. Though I was relieved to hear that he still did it sometimes.
Bob had a lot of what most people think of as “mental diseases.” A lot of people said he had Tourette’s Syndrome. But I never heard of anyone having officially made that diagnosis. Still, he was an odd character.
I always wondered if his habit of telling people to fuck off ever got him in real trouble. Kent State University is not one of those schools that attract the best and the brightest this nation has to offer. Heck, I even went there! One of these days I’ll tell you about my first roommate. God that guy was as dumb as a box of putty. If Fuck You Bob was flipping the bird to guys like that, especially when they were drunk, which they always were, he was surely getting the crud beat out of him on a regular basis. I hope he was at least targeting wimps like me who weren’t likely to get very mad at him.
The concept of mental disease is an interesting one. We know enough about the proper functioning of the kidneys or the bladder or the spleen to be able to diagnose when they’re working incorrectly. But when it comes to the brain, things get a bit murkier.
Take someone like Bob. In many ways it would be easy to dismiss him as crazy. But from what I can tell and from what I’ve heard he lived pretty much the life he wanted to live. He was by all accounts a very intelligent and even kind person. He probably had no desire at all to fit in with regular society. And he didn’t. I admire him for finding a way to live his life on his own terms.
He was also, from what I’ve heard, kind of a pain in the ass to people who knew him. I don’t know the details. But I can guess. I mean, for gosh sakes he was saying “fuck you” to everybody in town all the time. That alone is hard to deal with.
One of the things Zen has helped me with is my own tendency to be a sort of Fuck You Bob type character. My difficulties in dealing with society are not as deep seated as his were. But I too have some serious problems reconciling what I know to be true with the bullshit most people seem to believe. I could have easily gone in a direction that would have ended me up in much the same shape as Bob. The Zen thing helped me be able to laugh at the collective illusions society shares and yet still play the game well enough to get by.
This is why I get so annoyed when some people try to turn Zen into what most religions these days have become, a way to placate people so they’re numb enough to function as cogs in the social machine. It’s not about that.
To me it’s about finding your inner Fuck You Bob and making peace with that. But without killing it off or boxing it up either. That’s also important.
I’ll miss Fuck You Bob. I wish I could’ve met him just once and sat down and told him how much it meant to me when he told me to suck his dick. I really wonder what he’d have said. Maybe he’d have told me to fuck off.
…
Fuck you Visual Viewfinder!
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Maybe FUBob was just singing?
Anonymous Anonymous said…
"…"
Get a life.
If you can't get a life, at least get an Avatar.
Yes, once upon a time, TV was monochrome.
BTW, did you go to school?
If so, how long did you last?
Just wonderin'
anonymous mysterion said, "Get a life."
Not everyone can have a life as fulfilling or rich as yours mysterion. We all wish we had so much time to waste endlessly searching the internet for that perfect silly picture or fascinating YouTube link. It is amazing what you have be able to find on the web. I think it's a gift. You are a product of higher education there's no doubt about that.
Quoting Brad
"I mean that when Moe hits Curly on the head with a sledgehammer, Moe is really only hitting Moe on the head with a sledgehammer. It only appears to be Curly getting hit."
I think that "fuck you Bob" was actually just cursing himself.
I too, when a teen, had this fascination of the weirdos, they seemed to me to have "that view", to be "out of the box", to be "real" while the rest was so "unreal".
Now they just seem to me very out of balance, this doesn't mean that they cannot view the other people unbalance, but they just are on the opposite side of the scale.
I think that buddhism teachs the middle way, kind of Huineng minding his own business.
Tsangnyön [author of the Biography of Milarepa] abandoned his monastic costume and engaged in outrageous behaviour, such as offering people shit to eat and throwing urine over them, which surprisingly inspired a devotional response amongst the populace.
Believing that normal behaviour would limit his ability to benefit beings, he covered himself in human ash, adorned himself with human grease and blood; severed fingers and toes from corpses and made them into a garland that he wound into his hair. He extracted intestine from corpses and made them into necklaces, armlets and anklets. Later in life he wore sartorially more upbeat carved, human-bone jewellery that were offered to him by devotees, but at this time, naked apart from these dead body parts, he would come into town, sing, dance, laugh and cry. With his penis erect, he chased women. Sometimes he bound his penis so that only his pubic hair was visible and chased men, shouting, ‘Fuck me!’ He also drank urine, ate faeces, and threw them at people, who, unsurprisingly, were usually terrified by him.
(from The Bigraphies of Rechungpa)
Show off.
Jinzang! Wow, I was just this morning thinking about how long it had been since you graced this blog! I figured you must be on retreat or something.
Can you give an answer to Moni @ 1:32 PM up there? Seems a Tibetan Buddhist response is appropriate.
Welcome back (from an old regular who's not signed in)
Anonymous Anonymous said…
"We all wish we had so much time to waste endlessly searching…"
It takes very very little time.
It takes only a cursory understanding of Boolean Algebra. But you knew that.
Mysterion,
The biggest detractors of what I have to say here have not studied the Buddhist canon sufficiently to know that all of what I write has a scriptural basis. Their source of information is other than the Buddhist canon. Perhaps they are content with reading what a pop Buddhist author, like a Brad Warner or a Stephen Batchelor, has to say about what the Buddha taught. Frankly, these interpretations of Buddhism are usually lacking in depth and off-base.
There are really two views of Buddhism that are going on. There is the view of this derivative pop Buddhism and there there is the view of Buddhism from the actual, real canon (both the Nikayas/Agamas and Mahayana canon). In most cases, the two are not even close.
How much time did you waste reading that canon John Baker?
Anonymous John Baker said…
Mysterion,
"There are really two [or more] views of Buddhism that are going on…"
A point very well made.
Brad is talking about Dogen (and Sh?b?genz?), not the Pali Tripitaka. Brad is first to admit that he is no 'hardcore' upstream Buddhist scholar. He is heir to DSI and, as such, is charged with keeping the reading of Sh?b?genz? [a PDF] alive. He is doing quite well at his assigned task.
As for Stephen Batchelor???
If anyone is seriously interested in Buddhism, they need to do a little 'upstream' reading on their own – D.T. Suzuki's books come to mind as a starting point.
The Pali Tripitaka and the Sri Lanka Tripitaka are suggested reading – each with a slightly different flavor of corruption in each (neither being 'pure').
Beyond that, find an accredited college or university and take some related classes…
a few resources:
http://www.buddhanet.net/ebooks_s.htm
Hisako Feb 12
to me:
As I was reading Wikipedia info about Waseda, I found the name I often heard from Josen, my mother, and Tomako:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaichi_Aizu
Yaichi Aizu left many unpublished translations of archaic Japanese literature – many now lost. Too bad. He was 'the pro from dover' when it came to 'ancient Japanese' language, writing, and literature.
Anyway, I would never claim to be the smartest man in the room. THAT is up to Newt Gingrich.
John Baker, man, what are you up to! I have read the Pali Suttas, Nikayas one through four (five is a later composition). Where do you think I get this gibberish!
Thanks Mysterion, for the link to the Sri Lanka project, I'll be interested to see how they translate the chapter on "intent concentration on in-breathing and out-breathing" in Sanyutta Nikaya when they get there.
As near as I can tell, and speaking strictly to myself, here's the deal: it's an exercise in writing, for Brad, for Mysterion, for john e mumbles, for Khru, for gniz, for brokenyogi, for anon#108, and apologies to those I've left out (like anonymous, where does Brad get these reality checkers extraordinaire), and if you can keep a sense of humor which I seldom do you get extra points. If we can throw enough stones in it, we have soup. Brad is a writer, who happens to have credentials as a zazen instructor. So to speak. If you say you want a revolution, you'd best be prepared to eat shit, put body parts in your hair, and chase guys down the street; if you discriminate and pontificate, anonymous will have your ass, and you'd best know you are talking to yourself and there's no one else except some stones in an electronic kettle so let's get positive and substantive and rock!
F*#*!@k us, as the Tibetan saint exclaimed.
This comment has been removed by the author.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Well written, Mark Foote! I liked "Waking up and falling asleep," too.
As for Stephen Batchelor… Stephen Batchelor is cool. I'll not countenance a disapproving word thereunto appertaining.
There's more at stake here than what books you've read (and Mr Batchelor has read very many) or what scripture you adopt to justify your creed.
An edit button would be useful.
Captcha = enspoker
John Baker,
Your mom is lacking in balance and off base.
With Metta
Brad
Schmee said:
I could've also made a small fortune this way, having been groomed by a gallery in Chicago as an "Outsider artist" until my credibility as an "innocent" was shattered when they discovered I had a bachelor's degree. I was unceremoniously dropped like the proverbial hot potato.
That's pretty funny. I never realized it worked that way.
Fuckin awesome – thanks. As someone beginning to practice Zen – this totally made even more sense to me. I may not be into punk rock or the like – but agree whole heartedly of the bullshit of society – and I myself have to play along to make do, support my family, etc. Meanwhile – I question the shit out of everything, laugh at the "go along with the majority", and try to keep my integrity all along the way. Fuckin A – and thanks again.
Anonymous said…
"There is just the universe
manifesting itself."
Who's saying this?
There is no who; there is just the
universe manifesting itself.
I suppose anonymous is appropriate
since no one is there anyway.
Like a gurgling brook, the universe is yipping and yapping to
itself.
Mike B,
You sound like you're about 14 years old. A little more sitting and a lot more shutting up is what you need to focus on.
BTW The Tree of Enlightenment [PDF] is available for download HERE
by Dr Peter Della Santina via the Chico Dharma Study Group & buddhanet.net.
Link:
http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/tree-enlightenment.pdf
NOTE: It is a BIG file and a slow download unless you have a high-speed cable or DSL modem.
Can you give an answer to Moni @ 1:32 PM up there?
How to practice sleeping meditation and dreaming meditation. No real secrets, it's a "just do it"thing, just like sitting meditation.
Brad,
I just wanted to write to say thank you for this post, especially this part:
One of the things Zen has helped me with is my own tendency to be a sort of Fuck You Bob type character. My difficulties in dealing with society are not as deep seated as his were. But I too have some serious problems reconciling what I know to be true with the bullshit most people seem to believe. I could have easily gone in a direction that would have ended me up in much the same shape as Bob. The Zen thing helped me be able to laugh at the collective illusions society shares and yet still play the game well enough to get by.
This is why I get so annoyed when some people try to turn Zen into what most religions these days have become, a way to placate people so they're numb enough to function as cogs in the social machine. It's not about that.
To me it's about finding your inner Fuck You Bob and making peace with that. But without killing it off or boxing it up either. That's also important.
This well summarizes where my own thinking has taken me of late. I have this visceral negative reaction to what I think of as the "three kids and a golden retriever syndrome" as it filters into Zen. So many pop Buddhist figures are mouthpieces for the status quo. That's fine for those folks who comfortably fit in to the status quo. But for those of us who don't, there can be this enormous pressure to change to accommodate it. It's irritating when the very thing that brings me to Zen – the lack of faith in prevailing cultural myths about what is important – is expressed from within the Zen community as if it were some universal truth.
Fuck You Bob sounds awesome. I appreciate people like Fuck You Bob and the mirror they hold up to society: "this is what you won't accept." It makes me think of another Bob – the BOB from Twin Peaks. In Twin Peaks and elsewhere, David Lynch explores the splitting and duality we create in refusing to face or acknowledge certain things. To me, this is the heart of the spiritual journey – facing all of these things and making peace with them. Developing fearlessness – the fearlessness to go to hell if you have to because you have made peace with the hellish aspects of yourself, let yourself feel and explore and come to understand them.
I don't understand how anyone can undertake a spiritual path and not face the equivalent of Twin Peaks' 'Red Room,' our doppelgangers and repressed feelings and memories… Where our psyches throw up the things most tuned to inspire fear in our inner world of symbols. Even the traditional story of the Buddha references this in his sitting at the foot of the Bodhi tree and facing down the armies of Mara. And yet… So few in Buddhism talk about this experience or aspect of the path. Which makes me question how deep most people actually go.
This is why I was so inspired by 'Zen Wrapped In Karma' but so quickly shut down when you resumed blogging from a voice of 'Rightism' (as in, "my way is pure and right and correct"). You had the guts to chronicle your own 'Red Room' experience publicly but then went back to that comfortable voice of Moral Authority. It seems most of us drawn to this path have that tendency. We want to get on our pulpits and preach to others. I've been guilty of it and it seems most folks on Buddhist forums jockey for the opportunity to offer someone else instruction.
But to me that is the total expression of ignorance. It's our comfortable illusions of certainty, moral purity, perfection, etc., that arise from ignorance, not our honest expression of confusion, pain, or demonic intercourse. But we treat it like the opposite is true in the funhouse mirror of society. Thank God for people like Fuck You Bob. At this point I think I'd rather have someone like that as my guru than these squeaky clean cardboardmen that have been nominated as Official Buddhist Talking Heads by the New Age cuddle toy factory.
Stephanie
Stephanie,
Bow down and suckle the teat of Jundo Cohen.
Do it!
Now.
TREELEAF SANGHA
Like a gurgling brook, the universe is yipping and yapping to itself.
This is a spectacular phrase. It's like this, in a word:
READING
"Which makes me question how deep most people actually go."
Get over yourself. You're wasting time "questioning" the depth of others' practice. You know that, don't you?
tattoozen, I will not apologize for my thoughts and feelings, as wrong or right, time-wasting or not, as they may actually be. To quote Greg Dulli, "God knows I got my reasons, for every motherfucking thing I say." Or, as Fuck You Bob would say… well, you know.
"tattoozen" – you are not tattoozen. Stop being a silly billy.
Fair play, Stephanie.
By the way, I've stopped kibitzing Treeleaf. Are you still over there? Still in touch with Chet? How's he doing?
I do like the flies in the ointment!
I took my leave of Treeleaf, but bear no ill will toward it or Jundo as I once did. I believe folks there are sincere and that the teachings and practice offered there do good for people. It's just not for me. Let's just say there is a mutual lack of inspiration- our interior decorating preferences are different. I sit with a local sangha now and have bonded with them. I am still good friends with Chet. Who is as Chet-like as ever.
Thanks for asking… Now who, exactly, are you? 😉
thanks, anon#108. Hope you like "waking up and falling asleep"- I'm slowly but surely feeling my way along, and although it seems like two, I rely on one thing at a time.
@Stephanie,I like this: "It seems most of us drawn to this path have that tendency. We want to get on our pulpits and preach to others. I've been guilty of it and it seems most folks on Buddhist forums jockey for the opportunity to offer someone else instruction."
There's also the opportunity to teach ourselves.
I think Bob was probably getting SSI for it. I go to visit my sweetheart's sister with my sweetheart sometimes, and in the mental rehab lockdown are a number of individuals whose presence is profound and not a little scarey to me. I know they have a challenge, I know it's an opportunity for me, and the amygdala is working overtime as I do nothing. I have volunteered to play guitar and sing there twice, and I hope to again; a better audience I could never hope to find.
I am now experiencing ease and absorption sometimes in sitting the lotus, my mind finds a place and there I am. I think, this is why people say God is love, or Jesus is the way, it's true that there is the positive in me and I just glossed over place and the impact of place and the feeling of impact before, looking at everything else. Like waking up and not looking at falling asleep. "Bad luck streak in dancing school, down on my knees in pain; I been dancing like a fool, swear to God I'll change"– Warren Zevon
Jinzang,
thanks for the links, I read both articles. The dream meditation is more familiar to me from my own experience than the sleeping meditation.
I am not forcing these things too much though, because I do not have anyone who could supervise my own limitations regarding these things. It might sound very profane, but I do not want to overestimate my own capabilities and starting to have some mental disorders because I started to get involved in something which is too much for me at this point.
But the articles gave the answer for my questions about the book, so thanks a lot for showing them.
"The democratic revolution is the necessary preparation for the socialist revolution, and the socialist revolution is the inevitable sequel to the democratic revolution." Chairman Mao
The new captcha format is not 100% effective because I am, in fact, a robot.
"Fuck you Bob" was neither Tsangnyön nor Ikkyu.
I think that "FYB" was able to see the meaninglessness and centerlessness of the maintream while being unable to balance himself or to come to terms with it.
Which is profoundly different from Tsangnyön, Ikkyu or other dharma crazed people, who from experiencing the basic emptiness of every being/self/phenomenon choose some shocking approach to express it.
Who said FYB was like Tsangnyön and Ikkyu? Besides, how do you presume to know what they were like?
Here is a recently living breathing person (R.I.P. FYB)whose story is well known to those at Kent State and you presume to know him as well?
I don't get it. What is your point?
Who said FYB was like Tsangnyön and Ikkyu?
No one, in fact it is written:
"Fuck you Bob" was neither Tsangnyön nor Ikkyu.
Why are you infering things that were not said?
Did you read carefully?
Stepping Down?
boubi said: in fact it is written:
"Fuck you Bob" was neither Tsangnyön nor Ikkyu.
My question is why on earth are you making this comparison and then rolling out why FYB was not like them?
Pretty random observation!
You are making a comment and then ruminating on your own opinion.
Weird.
SFZC introduction to
shikantaza (just sitting)
Anon, Your Mom is ruminating on my dick..
What dick?
Brad:
When is your next visit to SFZC?
Any plans?
Cheers,
Chas
BTW, don't compare Ikkyu with anyone other than Ikkyu (e.g. Ikkyu as a youth v. Ikkyu as an old monk). The case does not apply.
CAPCHA = torto
Brother Brad,
Have you ever scratched your balls and then sniffed your hands?
Thanks for your answer and for all you do.
It ain't me, babe.
And for what it's worth, I could care less about the scratch 'n sniff.
But I agree that thanks is in order for all that Brad does. He's magic.
You know you care, Mumbles.
Hell, we all care. And I for one want to extend my appreciation to the "stoned philosopher" version of you for asking this question.
It just occurred to me that one thing FU Bob might have been lacking was GREED!
Fuck off with your links to your shit site, FAGsterion.
"Fuck off with your links to your shit site, FAGsterion."
That was a low blow to write that shit in my name. Wasn't me Mysterion. Hard to believe that nigga's interested in zen. He's a hater.