From: bogus@mail.com   
      
   On Fri, 19 Dec 2003 10:09:46 GMT, alias    
   wrote:   
      
   >so.. he's a sell out from the go ; ) and thats about as CP as it gets.   
      
   Actually that's bohemian from the go.   
      
   The Beat poets and the Private Eye Pulp characters lived lfe on the   
   edge, as in: don't know where the next meal is coming from, the rent   
   is over due, can't get a real job because no one takes them seriously   
   as they are or they drink too much, life sucks 'cause 'The Man' is   
   always on your case for being a little bit shady, you scam people   
   lightly so you can make ends meet.   
      
   I bet a good percentage of you have "been there" and not even realized   
   that "edge" is "CP without Silicon". You can trace the "edge"   
   literature back into "classic Literature". Charles Dickens' "Oliver   
   Twist" is "on the edge" for its day. You can find some of the stories   
   in the "Thousand and One Nights" that reflect the "edge" of that   
   culture.   
      
   CP is that "bohemian edge" with "wires and silicon". It pushes the   
   envelope of human hope and desperation. Of course this might be seen   
   as a rather slanted view of things [i've lived on that edge a while as   
   well as having married into a family of jolly bohemians who've made   
   their living for 25 years in an open air market] but it is also a   
   "you've really had to have been there" kind of thing to understand.   
      
   I live a kind of double life. Marshall Motley coined the term "stealth   
   punk" that describes this. By day I conform to "corporate life" as a   
   network administrator providing "care and feeding" of a farm of 50   
   some servers.   
      
   Away from work i'm someone quite different. A pagan in a land of fire   
   breathing bible thumpers. A teknoise / folk musician in a place where   
   there are only two kinds of music: Country and Western.   
      
   i live in a rather odd mental continuum. there is only 'now'. I don't   
   look too far into the future because placing my hopes in a 'bright   
   tomorrow' is an invitation to a sucker punch or getting my hopes   
   destroyed. My past reads something like a weather report: "scattered   
   light and darkness until today arrives". Today is like a kind of   
   gnawing at my gut 'cause I don't know what to expect in the next ten   
   minutes.   
      
   In my head i figure this is what some of WG's characters experience, a   
   vacuuous "NOW". In that vacuum anything is possible. anything... but   
   then again i might be wrong.   
      
   Is that a CP life style? Who cares? I certainly don't go around   
   beating a drum. I don't need or want to do so. Which brings me to the   
   point of asking: Why is "The Question" important at all. Either you   
   'get it' or you don't. Either you know or you don't. Explanations   
   cannot replace experience. Knowing both ghost and alias i can say   
   they've known "the edge" as a lifestyle, a few of the others here know   
   where the edge is and what it feels like.   
      
   For those college students or high school students who want to feel it   
   just for a moment before they head back to their safe 'Burbs, i   
   suggest a trip to your local ghetto / 'Hood / Barrio to get a taste.   
      
   Cross that feeling of fear and desparation with a little drugs, rock   
   'n roll, and some silicon trappings and you come pretty close to the   
   way CP was envisioned by some. [me?]   
      
   the ded 1   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)