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AMERICAN EYEBALL

Trailer for the Benny Pristine mystery, American Eyeball. The notorious North Beach detective reappears after a twenty year disappearance to find his best friend murdered, a psychic spy still wanting to take him to bed, the fate of the world threatened by incompetent aliens and more.

HOODOO SHAMAN

Visit the BLACK VELVET HOODOO gallery for the totally unique and enlightening products of the fake Tijuana black velvet mojo man...

Chuang Tzu

Chuang Tzu dreamt he was a butterfly; he didn't know he was Chuang Tzu.

He awoke and he was Chuang Tzu. However, he didn't know if he was ChuangTzu who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Tzu.



Chuang Tzu also said:
"The bait is the means to get the fish where you want it, catch the fish and you forget the bait. The snare is the means to get the rabbit where you want it, catch the rabbit and you forget the snare. Words are the means to get the idea where you want it, catch on to the idea and you forget about the words. Where shall I find a man who forgets about words, and have a word with him?"



Benny Pristine wrote in his blog:
"Now its my turn.
I have realized that I am a fictitious character. An illusion. I am not a "doer". Somebody else..."my" source...is doing through me. So I guess I am that source in some way. I would like to hear from you Mr. Source. I seem to "exist" right now on the internet. My email address is: bennypristine@yahoo.com. Fill me in you bastard."

Buddha At The Rio

SATORI



TANGO

Here's an excerpt from the last chapter of SATORI TANGO...

Benny's suite in the Palazzo Tower of the Rio has been decorated for a grand occasion. Musicians have been flown in from Buenos Aires. All are present. Benny, Moondog, Quantum Coyote, Rosebud Peru, Julio the driver, Zeno Murray, Crysta Bella, The Rev. Dona Juanita Medusa and the professor, Dixie Evans and Charlie, The Buddha impersonator, the Alan Watts impersonator, several Elvis impersonators, Orson Welles, the Client's casino host, a small army of tuxedo clad waiters, showgirls, dealers, Cirque du Soleil performers, celebrities, etc. In short, a vast and strange collection of "Characters".

A female voice with a slight French accent (The Client?) is heard briefly above the buzz of the crowd.

"In certain dances and especially in Tango, the appearance of two dancers is only an illusion - the two are not two, but a sensuous, perpetually moving, changing One - inseparable and outside of time…never stopping…. "

At midnight the orchestra begins a Tango. Penetrating and seductive. The crowd goes silent. All turn in unison - entrained, like a leaderless flock of birds - with one mind. The entire group dances extravagantly, with one motion, in pairs, but all gliding and swaying in such synchrony and rapture that the effect is one of unnatural creepiness as well as utter beauty - simultaneously frightening and exquisite.

This continues until dawn and on into the next day….

At Mandalay Bay?

Another document found by Crysta Bella in Benny's apartment after his "disappearance":

The following ideas are paraphrased from:
FINITE AND INFINITE GAMES - A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility
by James P. Carse

There are at least two kinds of games: finite and infinite.

A finite game is a game that has fixed rules and boundaries, that is played for the purpose of winning and thereby ending the game.



An infinite game has no fixed rules or boundaries. In an infinite game you play with the boundaries and the purpose is to continue the game.

Finite players are serious; infinite games are playful.

Finite players try to control the game, predict everything that will happen, and set the outcome in advance. They are serious and determined about getting that outcome. They try to fix the future based on the past.



Infinite players enjoy being surprised. Continuously running into something one didn't know will ensure that the game will go on. The meaning of the past changes depending on what happens in the future.

All finite games have rules. If you follow the rules you are playing the game. If you don't follow the rules you aren't playing. If you move the pieces in different ways in chess, you are no longer playing chess.

There is no rule that says you have to follow the rules.

Infinite players play with rules and boundaries. They include them as part of their playing. They aren't taking them seriously, and they can never be trapped by them, because they use rules and boundaries to play with.

In a theatrical play the actor knows that he really isn't Hamlet. The audience knows that he really isn't Hamlet. But if he does a good job, Hamlet can express himself through the actor. The playing is most enjoyable when it is both clear that it is chosen play, that it is the actor doing it voluntarily, and at the same time it is so convincing, following the rules well enough that it seems real.

You can play finite games within an infinite game. You can not play infinite games within a finite game.

You can do what you do seriously, because you must do it, because you must survive to the end, and you are afraid of dying and other consequences. Or, you can do everything you do playfully, always knowing you have a choice, having no need to survive the way you are, allowing every element of the play to transform you, taking pleasure in every surprise you meet. Those are the differences between finite and infinite players.

Benny And The Rat Pack

Here's a little background on Benny Pristine from the novella...

"In the early sixties a very young Benny went to Vegas and created a lounge act...stand-up and some singing, met Sinatra and the Rat Pack and started running “errands” and doing a bit of extracurricular snooping for the boys and, at times, their shady friends. Things got too hot for Benny in Vegas and in the mid-sixties he decided to get away to someplace “quiet”...San Francisco.



"He quit show business and opened a detective agency first in Sausalito then North Beach. Although Benny made a lot of money and became famous, his family thought he was a sell-out and a failure. Never able to stay off the stage completely, one of Benny's favorite places to relax was his best friend, Bob “The Voice” Ono’s Karaoke lounge and “hostess” bar in Japantown where insiders could catch him doing his old Vegas act for a few friends on off nights.
At some point in this section of the show we will be taken on a small walking tour of Benny's old haunts...the vacant lot where his Victorian office building used to be, a boarded-up North Beach bar that he and Bob “The Voice” once owned, Enrico's sidewalk café, etc.

The last line of this section, spoken emphatically by one of the people being interviewed, is, “On New Year’s Eve of 1979 Benny Pristine just vanished...gone! Benny Houdini we used to call him...sure do wonder where he is now..."

"Benny turned up of course…several years later. What happened during those years I guess nobody will ever know. Events involving Benny that occurred during the weeks after he re-emerged wound up being tabloid fodder too, but that's another story. He did reconnect with Crysta Bella, a flamboyant psychic and interior designer, after standing her up at the Hooker's ball."