I just put my Ibanez Ultraman Destroyer guitar up on eBay. The bidding starts at the inconceivably low price of $1500. There were only two (2) of these guitars ever made. I designed it myself for a promotion Tsuburaya Productions teamed up with Ibanez for at the 2005 NAMM show. This is my own personal guitar and it’s very important to me. But I’m getting rid of stuff and this is one thing I’m getting rid of.
Go bid on it now. It will be up there for a week. And please, please do not get cheap on me people! This is one of a very small number of things I own that are actually worth something both personally to me and monetarily because of the incredible rarity of the item. Like I said, I designed it. I chose the Ultraman image and the guitar model it would go on, then placed the image where it is, then approved a test version and finally got me a guitar. This is probably my personal favorite image of Ultraman. One reason is because you can actually see a little of the man inside the costume (Bin Furuya) peering out through the mouth of the costume. It looks like maybe Ultraman has a tongue. But that’s really Mr. Furuya’s chin. It’s form the first episode of Ultraman originally broadcast in 1966. The photo used was printed from the original negative from Tsuburaya’s archives, not some cheezy JPEG some dude found on the Internet.
I played this quite a bit and recorded with it. But it has never been used on stage. So it’s like new, even though it’s technically a used instrument.
The money this generates will go to help pay for my upcoming move and for my friend Catie’s wedding since Catie has been storing this for a couple of years for me.
The URL of the eBay listing is:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item;=120922276476M
***
The next bit of news I have to announce is that the blog you’re reading will soon vanish! But fear not. I’ve been working with my good friend Jayce for a few months now to design a brand new website that will be far better and more professional looking than this old blog.
I’ll have more specifics in the next couple of days. But I thought I’d give you a heads up now. The new website will go live in June and this one will go dead at about the same time.
Is your cock more smelly in the summer, Brad? More oily? More long hairs?
DETAILS, MAN! DETAILS!
Be quick to do good. If you are slow, the mind, delighting in mischief, will catch you.
Brad, please save all of the posts and comment streams and publish them as a paperback and corresponding audio book read by Misc Mike H.
LONG LIVE HARDCOREZEN.BLOGSPOT.COM !!!
I hope you’ll keep this blog online for several weeks / months / indefinitely with a link to the new site, for all those who don’t read this daily.
MAKE IT A PAY SITE!!!
WEED ALL OF THESE FREELOADERS OUT!!!
Brad,
have you read about Julian Barbour’s timeless physics? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Barbour#Timeless_physics
Sounds pretty similar to what you describe in one of your books.
Brad,
Have you read "Game of Thrones"? Pretty similar to zen!
Why on earth are you selling such a rare guitar! You must really need the money, or need to get rid of that particular attachment. If it was really important to you, you’d find a way to keep it. 🙂
I hope your new blog will NOT have a comment section.
I like this old blog, but I'm sure skulking about on the new one will be just as good. And because you are moving and needing the bucks, I bought Hardcore Zen digitally, and your newest, too. It got me to thinking-I'm not sure how many copies of Hardcore Zen I've bought over the years. It's one of -those- books–the kind that when you lend it out, it never comes home. It used to upset me, but now it just makes me laugh-and I never "lend" it, anymore, I just give it to the person in question. What does any of this have to do with your guitar? Nothing. But since I'm far too lazy to try and find an email to send you this note personally, here it is in the comments, right under a comment hoping there won't be comments on the new blog! Ha! How's that for irony?
Hi Brad
Good luck with with the sale & look forward to your new site.
"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this blog."
today, i celebrate the impermanence of your blog.
cheers,
chas
Anonymous said…
Is your cock more smelly in the summer, Brad? More oily? More long hairs?
DETAILS, MAN! DETAILS!
Dude, you made my day. Thank you! I don't know who you are but I always have a great laugh when reading your comments on Brads smell etc. I don't know why just infantile humor I guess but I can't help it (sorry Brad!) 😉
I've been working with my good friend Jayce for a few months now to design a brand new website that will be far better and more professional looking than this old blog.
If you charge people to comment, you'll be rolling in money. And Mysterion will have to come out of retirement and get a job.
Good ideas! I like the way you express your idea and the topic you choose. KEep on your sharing! I appreciate it. da vinci arizona
Be careful to not let your 'professional-looking' end up 'big-mind-looking'
for an3drew, some ox-herding:
"The trick is never to mount the ox in the first place, per the Ch'an master Foyan; he said there were only two diseases at his monastery, searching for an ox while riding an ox and being mounted on an ox unable to dismount. He asked, isn't it better never to mount in the first place?
I would say the meaning is that where we are is sufficient to act, if we can relax and accept the way our feelings inform consciousness. Our feelings do affect our sense of place, and our acceptance of what we feel allows the ability to feel to be spontaneous, and our consciousness to take place freely. Sometimes I look to falling asleep sitting up, where a little jerk wakes me up as I start to fall over, but I can realize the action without the jerk if I attend my sense of place. It's the same state of mind where I observe the dreams that happen sitting up, although those are very brief and the state of mind that catches sight of them need not be.
Why would I do that: because the sense of place from one moment to the next acts, and that is ox and rider without mounting. I can't be anywhere other than where I am, but to experience action out of being where I am requires a state between waking and sleeping. As I said, it's as simple as the sense of location as I fall asleep, which shifts from place to place; it's also as complicated as getting up and walking around with no idea of what I'm doing or why (and finding out later!).
So no special effort, and yet I practice sitting doing nothing in the mornings, as I'm waking up. I practice at night until I'm falling asleep, too, although that's usually a shorter sitting. That's my approach to riding the ox home."
(yours truly, on The Tao Bums)
brad, would the guitar fetch more on a japanese auction site?
i know the japanese can pay heaps for collectibles !
i was looking through your reading on ebay and its fascinating the extent to which you provide an example of what not to do !
thank you for sacrifcing your life to provide useful examples for me !
4. Faced Round
After long days of training the result begins to tell and the beast is faced round,
A nature so wild and ungoverned is finally broken, he has become gentler;
But the tender has not yet given him his full confidence,
He still keeps his straw rope with which the ox is now tied to a tree.
mark, you rely on the wordy nonsense of others and take that for your certainty
but all it's about is buddha/god/infinity/the absolute K N O W N AS I T S E L F and in life
you will have your own words then and certainty in the face of a hostile and disbelieving world
human collectives are exactly in the opposite direction to this truth !
The books are called "a song of fire and ice" not "game of thrones". jux fyi
mysterion, the reality is you need dai-kensho as child
it's rare, but happens, and is pretty penal because it is life abating
suzanne foxton is the only genuine dia-kensho experience i have come across on the web, in life, toni packer
they both must have had the requisite childhood experience and some ability to think clearly on the subject!
training is a waste of time, the ox is way too formed so to speak
no-one here has the requisite childhood experience, you just want to be less ambitious and let things develop productively
just be realistic about the limitations and actually that is pretty enlightened !
"enlightenment" if you want to use that word is not some desirable space of happiness and joy, but you have been shot through the head and survived
you are always wounded and i always say the only justice is to live and be healthy !
There's nothing like the thrill of playing a real musical instrument. Unfortunately for most, learning can be a frustrating and time-consuming experience. That's why we built the gTar.
online guitar lessons
learn guitar
considering THIS guitar, I would say you will fetch a couple thou above opening bid – maybe even 10K above.
It's a hurry up and wait exercise. Most bids take place in the last 20 seconds.
everybody wants to get the lowest possible price and then resell it for the highest price – GREED.
But, that's what the Junk Bond King and the Mitt Romneys have done to our culture.
an3drew,
just because your life was ruined doesn't mean you can express the relationships that matter in words.
What I write about helps me, that's why I'm here. I have actually managed to help at least one other person, someone who had trouble getting back to sleep in the early morning hours. He was able to utilize my description of following the location of consciousness from moment to moment to get back to sleep.
He also discovered he could do the same thing in the daytime, and it gave him a deep sense of peace.
I think the description is good, and the experience is easy to find when falling asleep. You might say it has nothing to do with a ruined life, and I hope you're right.
What the f**k I just read?? Answer: whole comment section
mark, i don't think your "fix" for early waking was useful, i've had so much experience with these flawed reports of recovery from a health problem, maybe he keep the light off and didn't disrupt the circadian rhythm and got some improvement, but really you have to supplement!
sleep is a very hardwired brain function and my write up is here and we will have to disagree
i notice on your web page and your general approach is to divorce any personal exposure from what you write, it's one of brad's strengths and to his advantage that he presents himself pretty much as he is and is not afraid to allow criticism, tho he could pay more attention…………..
course it's much easier if you are single like brad, but even so, you hide too much and it's curtailing your further development
so there's this on the web, we have a common interest but my approach is physiological !
This ox-herding thing sounds interesting. Where can I learn more about it? Does the ox symbolize the ego? I begin to wonder about my interest in the concepts.
"anonymous" ox herding will suit you down to the ground
it's a paradigm for retards
basically
you
masturbate
on
the
back
of
an
ox !
Hmm, interesting, but not really appealing. Where would I find an ox to begin with? I live in the suburbs.
anonymous, the principle of the oxherding story is the same right across zen and any religion, that's writing some nonsense, then have everyone goo and gaa how profound it is over many centuries, so all you need is to ascribe sense to nonsense and you are home and hosed !
in earlier times you could even get martyred over sight variations in meaning ascribed to the nonsense
just remember if you talk sense no-one wants to know and if you talk nonsense they all want to know cause they all can be little priests with their own intepretation !
Most of us live rather exclusively listening to channel A. We see the world as seemingly permanent and separate. When my eyes make contact with the plant in my office, I say to myself, “I see the plant.” Pure channel A–me here, plant there, separate and each solid and existent on its own. When I don’t get what I want, when things don’t go my way, I get mad. Again, pure channel A.
This leads us to unending and unendable dukkha, to problems with everything. As Newland points out, when we listen to channel A we become unaware of channel B. To move significantly along the path toward peacefulness, we must develop an awareness of channel B running in the background, behind the information from channel A that we need to live everyday lives, make distinctions (we need to be able to distinguish between a son and a husband, for example), and we need these distinctions to be of value and benefit to our families, friends, communities, and so on.
And therein lies the practice. Instead of locking into and listening exclusively to channel A, which even when “accurate” is black-and-white, rigid and problematic, say to yourself–whenever you notice there is dukkha, whenever you notice that you are getting upset or angry: “Where is channel B here?”
Whether it is big dukkha: the death of a child or parent, a terminal illness, the loss of a job or house, or little dukkha, noticing a ding on the car door, the moment your body sends you a signal that dukkha is arising (and it is often easier to notice it in the body than the mind), just ask yourself, “Where’s Channel B here?” and you regain your footing on the Middle Path and the dukkha dissolves.
In these examples, the wisdom of emptiness on channel B lets us see beyond our sense of loss to a greater understanding that aging and death are part of every process. This lessons our attachment to “my” loss and allows for grieving rather than self-indulgence. With a terminal illness, channel B redirects our attention from wanting things to be otherwise to being present and doing what is most beneficial, allowing us to see clearly and feel peaceful as we pick wellness strategies. Similarly, a ding, channel B tells us, is simply a chip in the paint on a piece of plastic–I can get it fixed, or not, as is appropriate, without making it personal, without attaching and suffering.
“Where’s channel B here?” That’s the practice. Having the wisdom to keep an awareness of channel B while going about our lives in a channel A world.
Impermanências, cara… impermanências. Aguardo o novo formato das tuas palavras…
Gasshô!
Brad, are you including a comment section/forum in the new site? I hope so. If so, will comments be moderated prior to being published? I hope not. Registered membership, I’m hoping, would be enough to restrict the activities of trolls…if that’s what you’d like.
Are you planning to delete this blog and/or its comment section? I hope not. This informative, challenging, uniquely irreverent blog and comment section should remain available for future generations to study and enjoy. It’s is a historical (hysterical?) document, FFS. I'm serious.
No way! Ultraman Guitar! I wish I had the $$ 🙁
Don't give it up!
Brad, are you including a comment section/forum in the new site? I hope so. If so, will comments be moderated prior to being published? I hope not. Registered membership, I’m hoping, would be enough to restrict the activities of trolls…if that’s what you’d like.
Are you planning to delete this blog and/or its comment section? I hope not. This informative, challenging, uniquely irreverent blog and comment section should remain available for future generations to study and enjoy. It’s is a historical (hysterical?) document, FFS. I'm serious.
Thanks for your suggestion Anon #108. I will ask the guy who is going to be running the new site about registered membership.
I know some people loved the free-for-all aspect of the comments section of this blog. But it really got out of hand many times. There are plenty of other places on the Internet where people can vent their various frustrations. I'll even allow some of that on the new site. But I won't let it get ridiculous the way the comments section of this blog so often did.
All of the content of this blog is being moved over to the new site. I'm not sure what I'll do with this one when that is complete. I probably will delete it. In any case it will become inactive. The commenting will be switched off for sure, so that it doesn't just become an eternal dumping ground for speculation about what my penis smells like and other such important matters of discussion.
"The trick is never to mount the ox in the first place, per the Ch'an master Foyan; he said there were only two diseases at his monastery, searching for an ox while riding an ox and being mounted on an ox unable to dismount. He asked, isn't it better never to mount in the first place?"
One is searching for channel B,
when you are already it, and two
is attachment to the void.
Can the void speak about the void?
Or is it just another program on
channel A.
A man of no distinction leaves no
trace. It is good that the past
should die.
@an3drew,
if you want to read about the aspects of my personal life that are relevant to my practice, some of that is here, although this piece was written for the Kobun memorial happening in July at Jikoji.
I try to keep my remarks positive and substantive, because I think my beliefs are the primary mover behind my actions, and it works a lot like hypnotic suggestion- the unconscious seems to respond to the positive and substantive. I have to actually make the effort to put my understanding into a description of relationships that is accurate and substantive, and that invariably turns out to be positive.
As to the physiology of practice, if you like that, you might like translations of motion in the lotus, bearing in mind that everything on my site derives from the understanding I present in the writing that is the home page, the mudra of zen. I learned to write without knowing in advance what I was going to write, a kind of "automatic" writing if you will, so that I could teach myself. Sometimes it works, sometimes it works in consecutive sentences, usually if I think something I've written is good I wind up throwing it away.
Hardcore Zen blog has been useful to me for this practice. Certainly hope that Brad does not move to a site that he cannot maintain himself, or that he expects will help him sell more books, because he will in my opinion jeopardize an excellent opportunity for him to practice his craft if he is looking to do either of these things. Just my opinion, Brad, you must do that which you feel it is time for you do, as somebody used to say!
I damn near shit mmyself when I read the second part of of your title. There is a lot diarrhea talk on your comment section but it worth shifting through to hear others legit responses. Making it a pay site would suck, even a subscription or me membership would take away from the fun.
Anon#108 makes a good point about registered membership and moderation.
I hate pre-moderated sites too, because then you never know what comments are waiting (and will appear before your own) when you are posting.
Then again, plain old registration doesn’t do away with the whole trolling problem. The most persistent ones will find their way, and register multiple accounts if you ban one. The only sure way to control trolling is to – somehow – enforce one account per person approach (it can be done, but not easily and is probably not what Brad wants or worth it anyway).
That being said, requiring some sort of process before posting will definitely deter the "I’ll just post whatever because it’s easy" trolls. And that might be enough – with the occasional ban – to keep the comments section from running out of control.
The craziness of this particular comments section is an interesting problem. I've often wished that some of the worst offenders could be banned. And at times, Brad's taken steps to clean the place up.
However, the main problem I see when this place gets cleaned up is it just gets kind of dull. And I think maybe that's why it then ends up being returned to its original state again.
I think a new website could be nice, and forums could be cool too if that's happening. But I do wonder, how you can make it a unique place like this comments section. Change it too much and I think you could end up with a snazzy looking site that has very little traffic.
Couple of thoughts/comments:
– The old 90s way of not moderating comments was to allow them but to have the IP of the commenter visible. It's certainly not a cure-all, what with the availability of proxies, but should suffice for the relatively tiny "problems" here
– The random stuff about the smell of Brad's penis is pretty much the best stuff posted here. I agree with the anonymous above that it's quite funny. Brad is the "punk zen dude" but seems downright stodgy when he complains about the penis guy.
– The random stuff about the smell of Brad's penis is pretty much the best stuff posted here. I agree with the anonymous above that it's quite funny. Brad is the "punk zen dude" but seems downright stodgy when he complains about the penis guy.
Really? Honestly?
Anyway I'm not complaining about him. It's just one example of how utterly pointless this place gets sometimes.
Hi Brad, Your blog is no more or less pointless than anything else on the net, but it is way more fun. I like it because you have always let people say what people say.. and that is a rare thing indeed. I don't mind sifting through the mud looking for gold.
CAPTCHA : soura haverford : I kid you not
By the way, I am moderating comments on this post. If you have a question that you wish me to respond to, you may send it to spoozilla@gmail.com.
Change it too much and I think you could end up with a snazzy looking site that has very little traffic.
Yeah, that’s definitely one point Brad needs to consider.
What exactly does he want with the new site, what’s it all about. Is it a free-for-all forum with lots of daily nonsense, a closely moderated civilized discussion about interesting aspects of zen / brad, or something in between. This should be reflected in the page/forum design and chosen spam-preventing technologies.
But whatever solution you choose, may I suggest it not include the mandatory reCaptcha thing in the posting form? That has sucked more and more each day. This time I had to refresh it 10 times (I kid you not) to get first readable/writable solution. 🙂
The random stuff about the smell of Brad's penis is pretty much the best stuff posted here.
Some newbie who's interested in Zen might wander by here and be turned off by the comments section, don't you think? Some bad karma there.
It's been a strange blog. I understand it's an exercise in self-promotion for Brad and I'm fine with that. He's gotta eat, right?
But the culture in the comment section has been strange.On this site not much of the talk has been on Zen. Mostly it's jokes and side conversations. I don't know what to make of that,
Brad whats up with the comment blocking is it the cock guy?