After a Spiritual Awakening, a Sexual Awakening
"All You Have to Do Is Dream - Take 2" Bob Dylan, The Band
“All You Have To Do Is Dream - Take 2” Bob Dylan, The Band
Where to even begin?
Should we even re-begin??
Where have you even been???
Well, I was in Berlin, and I finally finished my graphic novel after ten years, and I finally resigned from my day job also after ten years, and I was backstage at a Boygenius concert, and in the pool/pit for their opener 100 Gecs
Which is where I met someone new
This was on 10/31, 2 months after I last posted, 8/31, was also the day of the birthday of the person I was last with, for about ten years, who I wrote a lot of words about here
I had just given that previous person the second printed copy of the graphic novel because she inspired the story and was a muse of many sorts and because…
But that person texted me to say not only were they unblocking me just to say that they still did not want to ever talk to me again
But they also wouldn’t open up the package or read whatever was inside
In fact, they threw it away
I remember talking to someone in my life who is one of the two people who have known me the longest and the only one still alive about this
And how it felt like I felt like I did all that I could
I, in part, wrote a book for 10 years to ‘win’ this person back, and that was not at all what they wanted seemingly, and seemingly not maybe what God wanted after all, only maybe my ego, or some other parts of me, I don’t know
Don’t forget Brian Wilson, infamously manic depressive, was married to his muse, singer Marilyn Rovell, when he wrote God Only Knows, before they divorced, and in his book about the album, Jim Fusilli noted a closing phrase Wilson had once written to his wife that year: ‘Yours 'til God wants us apart.’”
I told this person who has known me since I was born, before I was born, actually, I guess, that I had been remaining partly available to this person and felt that I should model remaining so for the rest of our lives
But that I now wanted permission to let that go
And they said, of course you have my permission, that’s not what I expected of you, after what has happened, and it’s up to you to live your life, how you want to, you give yourself permission to or not, not me
But I still wondered what the other person who had died who knew me since before I was born I guess you could say would say
Who I think of as the spirit of synchronicities, shuffled or otherwise, as part of the Spirit
What saythat
But they say for God, The Father, The Holy Spirit, the Word is made Flesh
So I had two tickets to see 100 Gecs, my favorite newish musicians at The Hollywood Bowl, who I have written about a number of times
And they were bad seats in the way back of the bowl, but I had 2 of them, that I didn’t sell, because I had hoped beyond hope that the person above would change their mind, after reading the book
Instead, someone who is like the person running what’s happening backstage at the Hollywood Bowl offered me special tickets to hang out with them
I now had 4 tickets to the show
But only ended up using 1
We had so much fun backstage for the first opener, the incredibly humble person who basically like runs the show, and I got to be next to Boygenius’ Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, Julie Baker, and their special guest Dave Grohl, and also Billie Eilish and the Kardashian that’s dating Chalamet, and wow musicians really do it for me
Music in general honestly
I gave him a copy of my graphic novel to say thanks, because I had never had an experience like this backstage, let alone backstage at The Hollywood Bowl
Which is my favorite venue in LA and the world
And we talked about tennis, our romantic relationships, and the book The Way of The Superior Man and then the person said go enjoy myself in the pit for 100 Gecs, I’m good up here working, come back after
And so I went down in my Halloween costume, which was a white sweatsuit top and bottom, and I was wearing no underwear and no shirt underneath, and I called myself a Sexy Celibate to anyone who asked what I was
Because if you remember I had quit pornography back in April 2022 and had started a new practice then of no masturbation and no orgasms unless with a partner
And it was October 2023 and the last partner was April 2023, so you do the math
So with my friend’s blessing, I ventured into the pit or the pool of The Hollywood Bowl which is incredibly expensive and exclusive or whatever and close to the stage
I honestly didn’t know there even was a pit at the bowl I had never been nearly that close to even notice it
But I was shocked at how little the crowd of less than 300 were dancing or even seemed to be into 100 Gecs, as in not at all honestly, unlike at their other two shows I had seen, smaller venues, with them as headliners, but still, they’re like the gen z Nirvana of hyper-pop versus grunge for gen x, I had said before we even noticed that Dave Grohl was the special guest
And I realized it’s a fancy LA crowd here to see Boygenius, and so there might literally be no one to dance with, unlike the other shows, where you can just go around as the hyper-pop pops and hypes and dance with any and everyone in ecstasy, sober for me, who knows for them
So I was feeling a little disappointed or a lot and was dancing by myself in my white sweatsuit with no underwears, when I saw way back of the pool, in the other side too, these 4 women dancing, exuberantly, just the way you’re actually supposed to, in my mind at least, to 100 Gecs, and seemingly many other fans of 100 Gecs
Because I mean they were playing for The Hollywood Bowl for the first time people!
And when I say these women were the only proper dancers in the pit, I mean literally 4 out of 300, minus me, of course, and I know I am prone to hyperbole, but really
And if I was to be hyperbolic but not really so, honestly, the entire Hollywood Bowl wasn’t dancing right, I was looking behind me, because the person who runs it was like, you can go anywhere with this pass, if you don’t want to be in the pit, go wherever you want, and so I was looking around for truly anyone who was as into it as I was, but no one, until these women
And so when I say only these 4 women were truly into it, I tell you it still took me a bit of extra self-confidence to dance my way over, because they were very cool, hip, and attractive, and um young women
Don’t forget I’m 39, even though I am Benjamin Buttoning downward with my sober joy, these women are very like 24 years of age ok you get it
But one in particular, who I would later find out, helped turn the others on to 100 Gecs, leading up to the show, because they were mostly like everyone else Boygenuis core, she, who knew them before, happened to be the one I felt a connection to dancing, and then talking after the set, and flirting and yet not trying to grasp hold, just enjoying the flow, of energy, of abandonment with the essence of the feminine
I went backstage to see my friend and took photos of the Boys and sent them to her phone, because she gave me her number, and this seemed like a cool thing to do, send photos that no one else could see, I never had backstage tickets or whatever, and they had paid hundreds of dollars each to see the Boys, so I played that game self-consciously with her, openly admitting I am not the guy who has tickets like this, like ever, or whatever, so don’t get too excited about knowing me, or something
When Phoebe, Lucy, and Julian came out, she immediately started crying, and pretty much seemed to stay that way for the entire show or some version of extremely affected, not pretentiously, like how I am, tbc I am not pretentious, at least not always, but both of us often letting your mood and soul and self be completely affected by what you are hearing, seeing, feeling, and I kept my respectful distance so she could have her experience with her other band and her friends
And when it was over, I said bye, and she said, Did you like it?
I thought, that, probably, she also meant, Did you like me?
So, I said, I loved it. It was truly special.
She smiled.
And that was supposed to maybe be the end of that
But then we texted
I shared my Instagram
And she said a few days later:
You sure post a lot
I told her I’m a very very very very niche micro celebrity, mostly to myself
Then she said she was leaving for Germany in a week
Berlin for a year
She had been a groupie for the past 8 months or so
Gen Z groupies mean they don’t have sex with the band, she said
It just means they follow them on tour
And like take pictures with them at airports and get to know their partners in the pit, and moreso their other fans who become their best friends for ever
She had done this with The 1975 and Taylor Swift and Harry Styles and basically a whose who of the Gen Z musical zeitgeist
Her dad was in the music business or had been
She grew up in Chicago
Next to Nico Segal aka Donnie Trumpet
She had strong opinions on Chance The Rapper
And Kanye West
She was also Bipolar
And boy she could dance
I hadn’t seen someone dance like that
With me
At least
Maybe ever
So she went to Berlin
To nanny for a family
She’s a Cancer sun
So she’s very domestic, nurturing
And an Enneagram 2
So she’s incredibly loving, interpersonal
I’m an Enneagram 7 which is also called The Enthusiast
But Enneagram 2s are also called The Lover
When people asked me what do you like about her?
They often expect, it seemed to me
Something like
Oh she went to this school
And she has this job
Or she’s doing this thing that when it’s done is going to be amazing
But to me it was just like
She’s very very very very good at
Loving me
And others
Her family
Friends
Community
Like that’s what she’s good at
We forget that that’s an important thing
Especially in a relationship
What is the quality of the relations of a relationship
Loving
She’s also a 44/8
Which is a very rare master number in Numerology
I’m just a 11 master number
22 and 33 are similarly rare as 11
But not as rare as 44
Because most birthdays don’t add all the way up to 44
But she was born on 7/9/1999 which is a lot of 9s
So not only is she 24 years old
But her numbers add up to 44
Which got me ego-planning about our future
So gosh we are off the rails again
But somewhere along the way
I finished the book, the graphic novel
And just started living my best life at work
At the day job I’d been at for 10 years
I was basically like gen z or millennial Office Space the movie
Instead of being a slacker and hating the job at the end which made me finally do whatever the h— I wanted to
I appreciated it finally, and so I brought my true self to it finally, and did whatever I wanted finally, which was serve people creatively, happily, enthusiastically
This seems to make everyone like me more
Or at least know me more
I realized at the very end what a fun job it can be
When I wasn’t also trying to write while there
Giving my all to the job
Made more non-day job opportunities happen at the job itself
Which are unfolding
And I’m optimistic about
Along the way, there was a lot of texting and FaceTiming with the person who was now in Berlin
And Berlin, Germany on the whole, was a place I really never ever ever ever wanted to go
Like pretty much any other country I would go to in Europe
As a Jew Germany no good
But this person
I must really L this person
To do what I did
Which was buy a ticket to Germany
A place I never wanted to ever go like a coward I was
But no more!
Look it wasn’t just all sexting and then phone sexing
But we are both Mars in Scorpio ;0
And we are both Venus in fire signs
So the sexting and phone sex was very good
Way better than even the one I wrote about before
Which was my first experience in January 2022
Which culminated in an interesting emodied experience
Except it was very challenging talking to that other person from then about anything because they were so political and Enneagram 6y
Point is:
Also those experiences were sort of within only the realm of proscribed fetishes
Like the ones that you can click on
Or always hear about
While these experiences it was like
Oh I saw a bee today
What kind of organic sex conversation about bees where you don’t even really say anything explicitly about sex can be so fun and romantic and sexual
Weird that the last post 6 months ago was also about bees!
So this is what gets me to the Bob Dylan song and the reason for writing today
“All You Have to Do Is Dream - Take 2”
Wait
Do people already know that sex is so healing
or can be
That you can bring old pain or new problems
into sex
And if you’re really open
Both partners
Just exploring what comes naturally
Some truly otherworldly, spiritual, holy spirit, secret third things
Can arise from the connection between two people
???
I didn’t honestly know this
Marvin Gaye sang about Sexual Healing
And I was always like
OK whatever man
Literally what even is that?
Unfortunately, my experiences were so circumscribed by pornography
Or also trapped in my own ego
That when I finally got to Berlin
I had what I can only describe after the spiritual awakening of 2019
And whatever has come from that integrating self
A new Sexual Awakening of 2023
For both of us
Fortunately
I kept saying we need to record this
Everyone needs to know about this
This should be a movie
Why aren’t they making movies about this???
We didn’t record it lol
But I do still honestly wish I had recorded the audio at least
Because the stories and games and healing and alchemizing that was happening
Should be spread to others
Who are/were like me in the past
Not having bad sex
But not having whatever this was or can be
And I’m not special
Because when we got back to America
She came back with me spoiler alert
And I got Covid pretty much right after
For the first time ever somehow in 2024
I completely forgot again how we did this
The Sex portal magic healing thing
It seemed like it was a folie a deux
Or a fugue
Or a romantic psychosis
Never to be repeated maybe
#neveragain
But what I’m realizing
Is that just like Bipolar is both real and not
This spiritual-sexual connection
Is similarly both a shared psychosis
But also a psychosexual awakening
I’ll say more about it soon
The particulars I guess
If I can find time to systemize it
I will do so after 02/02/24 which is my last day at the day job
But suffice to say for now
For me, us, at least
Completely abandon yourself when you’re together
Say whatever comes to mind
Do whatever comes to your body
And your heart will open
In ways that connect all three centers of intelligence
And new somatic information arises
Transcendently helpful healing
And new visions for how to live
That you can apply to your life
People always say what is practical about these practices
Whatever this is
You can bring anything to the portal
And you will learn something you would never have gotten to understand through anything else
To be honest, it doesn’t seem to work with a condom
LOL
But I also didn’t ejaculate
The whole time
Until New Year’s Eve
Not um inside
I think that’s key honestly for the man
And the woman
The no ejaculation
It makes the woman trust and open
Knowing it’s not just going to suddenly end
And I’m sorry
But I do think there’s something special about that male/female portal
Sorry crucify me, hate me for saying it, whatever
I’ve been wrong many times before!
And I could very well be so very wrong ok
But other portals were tried as well
And not as magical
I dunno!
OK but if you have a minor or major problem
Past or present or future
You try talking about it outside the portal
But
Bring it to the portal too!
Literally bring the problem to your making of love
A play will unfold
That will tell both of you
From a third spiritual thing
What might be the new way of thinking about it
It sounds crazy
Or maybe everyone already knows this
And I just sound crazy for not knowing it
For so long
At almost age 40
But if this embarrassing description can help anyone
I feel no shame in being your Sexual Awakening Shaman
OK, so back to Bob Dylan finally!
What does:
“All You Have to Do Is Dream - Take 2”
Have to do with this person and our sexual awakening
Well it’s a song about maintaining this connection
And how it can be lost
Which unfortunately was what happened a bit
When we came back from Berlin with me
Instead of staying with their wicked German employers
That’s a whole other story
Of how the Jew saved the American from the Germans this time
Instead of the Americans saving the Jews from the Germans
Or whatever the heck is going on somewhere else ummmmmmm
Or also how half of Germany, the institutional establishment side is pro-Israel
While the other half, the graffiti streets is pro-Palestine now
And how much anxiety I felt there
How I was basically a Woody Allen
With my name David Cowen
And the Germans literally changing their perceptions of Jews again
Over night
or not
But the energy was unreal
Life or death
It felt like
And I was the hero slaying the dragon of the wicked employers
Who asked her to work for them on Christmas while they had Covid
Knowing I was there
And had never had Covid
And she had no infectious diseases in her contracts
So I slayed the king
And she was the heroine letting herself a dragon queen be won
Which is not that hip right now
Or maybe it is
Maybe is what we need somewhere sometimes
In the bedrooms
Again
I dunno!
OK so Bob Dylan sings:
If the farmer has no silo
And his fuel cost runs up high
Well, that's just how much I would love you
If you'd just only let me try.
Which to me is a metaphor for a man who hasn’t had sex or love or a woman in a long time
He’s got no silo, no place to store his love, to turn it into sustenance, and his fuel, his lack of love, the cost has run high
Well, that’s how much Bob would love you, woman
If you’d only let him try
Which seems to suggest that it’s a state of mind
Not just a literal circumstance
That’s how much you can love someone anytime
In some nice young up to date kitchen
Let us get acquainted, dear
And them old floor birds will just quit eatin'
And just grin from ear to ear.
This next thing seems to be about like getting acquainted, dear, you know, making the love, in the up to date kitchen, which is funny because we rented an air-b-n-b but it was so unromantic, not just dirty and student-like but full of political propaganda art, particularly about the Holocaust and Palestine, that we rented a hotel instead, so we had a nice romantic up to date place to enjoy, and honestly, Berlin is cheap right now, the Euro is low or the dollar is high, I dunno, but we had two places for the price of less than one in the US right now, especially during the hotel strikes in LA, OK, guilt for living life how I want to whatever the cost avoided ;0
But the old floor birds will just quit eatin’ and just grin from ear to ear, which is like, that gnawing part of me, men, or anyone, maybe, who is like, never satisfied, it’ll stop gnawing at the floor, and be so happy, to be making love
Two floor birds and a prudent baby chick
Yes that ain't, that ain't much to bust
But restriction causes damage
And damage causes lust.
So what happens to this couple of lovebirds well they got a new ‘prudent’ baby chick
Which I’ll be honest I wasn’t thinking much about
When we were having full unprotected portal sex
Yes, I wasn’t orgasming/ejaculating
But this was hours and hours a day and night
When people were and are like what did you do in Germany
I was and am like well when she was not there for the first two days in Berlin at least before she came back from the mountains with the wicked family I went to all the Holocaust places non-stop getting that done for my next Haggadah and also to honor my people and family and not be a fucking coward about it even though it was scary, and I felt like paranoid and pronoia at the same time, like wow it does not get more real than being in Germany less than a hundred years still after all that
But when she was here, no we didn’t go to Berlin clubbing or museums, but yes the city closes down for Christmas, and do you know they are like so Lutheran slash Atheist slash too hip, black clothes, cigarettes, don’t show joy, except for maybe these dance clubs or sex clubs s&m, they let go finally, I dunno, we didn’t go there either, also that on Christmas Day, I literally asked/greeted everyone Merry Christmas! and almost no one said it back, again this is not hyperbole, but this is like 1 out of 20 people maybe 1 said anything back, and truly nothing with jolly joy, it was surreal, we even passed the main cathedral, and they at first wouldn’t let people in because it was full, the very few people who wanted to be inside who were late, and I was like wow rules are rules, things don’t change here, human nature, judgmental, bureacrats, gonna do whatever to anyone, but then the guard, turned his back, gracefully, and let the 15 people inside, and God showed me I knew nothing again
Just like I might know nothing about human nature
Or what is happening right now some places
But maybe I do
Anyway the me being wrong
It’s constantly happening and will still happen
So whatever I said above or will say below
Remember I am often wrong, hypocritically, ridiculously, absolutely, relatively so
So poor little girl, come blow this horn
Hard as any whole night seems
It's very easily done actually
All you have to do is dream.
OK so this is the line with the title of the song, which is important, it almost always is, especially with Bob, also did you notice it’s take 2 with The Band, this version of the song, I shuffled to when I sat down to write this post, no joke/no lie, it was this song
So poor little girl, come blow this horn, which you know that means something sexual to me at least, spiritually so, too, hard as any whole night seems, and Bob says hard and it’s very easily done actually, which is true, the paradoxes, of life, hard/easy, stay in them poles, those binaries, polarities, dualities and a third thing reveals, this is basic all spirituality, philosophy, math, memes, etc. but here’s the key line of the title, All you have to do is dream…
Which to me means like let your unconscious work itself in the sex, All you have to do is dream during the sex…the waking dream, when you are un-self-conscious, the portal connects, and the spirit is there in the sex, it’s not just sensual, because that can grow tiresome, it can become desensitizing, not enlivening
Which is what happened after I got Covid and baby chick scared
And I was so depressed
After the highs
I hadn’t been that depressed since I was first hospitalized maybe
Flus and colds and injuries can do that to me, dark moods
But this was wild, I felt like a PT Anderson character, and it didn’t help that I made us watch Phantom Thread, like some cliche maniac
And you can’t help but be a bit of a cliche in life
It is what it is
The 39 year old and the 24 year old
Taking her home
To LA
The new studio apartment of all things
To save money for the full artist’s life
THE GRADUATE moment
um
And now what do we do!
Well, them old back scrapers are a dime a dozen
And I can get a call for a nickle
Yes, but look what an earful I get and it's all awful too
Every time I try to go get me a little tickle.
And this is Bob’s next lines, those old floor birds start acting up and he calls up or wants to call up or go find some new back scrapers, women, who he mistakenly thinks are a dime a dozen
He’s like I can get a new experience with someone new
This portal isn’t working
Or we fell asleep to its power
And stopped practicing
But boy would he get an earful not just from her or his community, but his own conscience, his own inner self, perhaps, and it’s awful too, that is hell, heaven on earth is honesty, truth, risking it all for that, and something good comes from it, third things, not holding things in maybe, or keeping things, and then you turn heaven within you to hell within you which is depression and black moods and the other pole of bipolar disorder maybe, so every time he tries to go get another little tickle, either from someone new or from the person he’s with, or maybe even from himself, it doesn’t work, when it’s just that, a tickle
So, gimme one sweet loaf of bread
Just one sweet loaf, fill it up and I'll be gone
But then he sings the end which is gimme one sweet loaf of bread, which seems way different than a tickle, it seems way more productive, for him, and sustenance, and healthy, and nurturing, loving, and do you know I am down to 156 pounds which is my high school weight basically, and I think a big part of that is feeling sustained by sex, sorry not sorry, but like food can replace sex, it’s a form of that energy, sensual, and you can get trapped just eating with your partner instead of loving each other, but you know me, I say things, and then do the opposite, you can’t trust Dave that much, David yes, David more, we learned that too, but yes one sweet loaf, fill it up, and I’ll be gone, Bob says, so is that the truth, is this just an affair, a spiritual/sexual awakening and that’s it, I don’t know slash I don’t think so
Yes, just like some of these old floor birds
Who fly from dawn to dawn.
Oh yes, who fly from dawn to dawn
Yes, who fly from dawn to dawn
Oh, fly from dawn to dawn.
Because the title of the song is all you have to do is dream, if you keep that practice going, then the portal is open, you don’t need new portals, and your shared portal, remains open for both of you to learn from, that’s what it means to be an old floor bird who flies from dawn to dawn, or the opposite, hard to say with irony sometimes, you can look at it as everlasting unsatisfyingness, gnawing want, or the opposite of satisfaction, contented being, and maybe there’s always both is the point, there’s a dusk between dawn to dawn, so yeah that’s where I leave things
I met this person’s dad, he’s a music executive or was, now he’s retired, and lives in SoCal, and he loves Bob Dylan too, and I gave him Ray Padgett’s book about Dylan’s live shows, because he used to book bands, and here are some more things I love about his daughter, and yes Love is a good word, nothing to be afraid of there
I love how positive she is, how supportive she is of me moving to a new chapter in my vocational work, no longer a day job, how she loves herself, and loves others, and I love how she sees the world so differently, due to the generational gap, and how much work she’s done on herself, since her parents divorced she’s been in therapy since she was 7, and we have this whole language not just psychological, but meme, and not just meme but post-sitcom, where something that would create a fight in a sitcom or in an old relationship, like a dish dropped, we comment like, Oh, did you want me to get mad at you for doing x, or can we move on and back to joy, this post-self-consciousness is so funny, like so healing to be like, oh you left the light on, could you imagine a house where if you left a light on, it could ruin an hour or the rest of the night, could you imagine, and yet still have such love and respect for that old house or houses, and those people, and why and how come, and love everyone in the world, as much as I love her, and that’s the paradox, or as boygenius might sing:
And gosh this old floor bird can still forget, crazy floor bird Bob adlibs at the end, sometimes I get crazy and I forget and denigrate what’s good, her even, and sometimes I get crazy and make up things to be more beautiful than they really are, her even maybe, so it’s probably in between, and OK, I’ll really leave you all alone for a bit again…
I hope you take a little helpful thing from all this
Larry David had an episode about not saying Happy New Year after January 7th
But he also had another episode about a widow with a magical pussy
But her husband killed himself despite the magical pussy wife
So that’s another way of saying what Bob said maybe
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Bravo my man. Bravo to everything. What a trip! Both figuratively (me reading this opus love declaration in its entirety) and literally, you Woody Allen-ing in Berlin! So so happy for you. These scribbles made me smile.
From ear
To ear
Not literally.
Figuratively. My smile doesn't stretch that far.
wunderschoen!!