wheels...

Don't have them. And today, I begin the heavy hoofin. For real. I used to walk a lot. I'm about to find out if my feet are still on the same pavement.

"...the character of our Nation..."

Inspiring Words from Washington... ? Or a reminder we've gone astray. I think it's a little of both. Now that we've over extended our selves, such that our credit and our leisure are in jeopardy, there's little time to reflect upon our character really - or rather the character of our reflection is tainted, too. For example, I find myself becoming uncomfortably judgmental, beyond hastening to harsh impressions, whenever I see a supposed "working" individual not doing something while in their work uniforms. I get an inexplicable ache, and think to myself how many unfortunate persons would take that job in an instant and work incessantly to keep it. I think of how spoiled or complacent some of us are in comparison to many in other localities and nations where even food is scarce much less a "job." So what is this "character" of such a nation where on one hand those whom have "work" to do may have lost sight of the current value of it; and those without a way to provide for their children become bitterly envious and even "criminal" out of this current necessity; and finally those whom once may have been uncritical of strangers suddenly become activated by their new and perhaps provisional perspective that a nation has become weaker in character? Character. What other word suffices better than to refer to us as protagonists so long as we consider the "production" an absurdist play. But are we mere mummers mumbling "where is (God)ot when I need him" to explain the pain, the dread, the fatigue, the boredom? Are we so attached to the role we play that we forget to imbue it with an individual passion. Are we so type cast as not to see nor accept that the stagnancy is of our own doing? Now that the American pioneer spirit has backlashed and become cannibalistically internalized, the re-settled within us cry out: where is that snake-juice selling charlatan that sold me a ticket to this sham, let me at him! Let me out of here! But I say, never mind asking for the director?! We are each the only real authority on the motivations of our lives! Don't just read it. Re-write it and then Live it!

My Milla and Bella...

You can feel like crap physically but just one smile from your children can bring a healthy relief. Went to an open house at Milla's middle school. She really enjoyed giving us the tour. And today Bella got to choose her birthday cake for tomorrow. Bella wants a turtle. I guess we'll be keeping that at my studio. Don't want to tease the house cat, you know.

Hard luck - hard copy...

Before the computer, pretty much everything was a hard copy. You could say hard luck back then was routine. Today, when your laptop or website is down for maintenance, it feels like the universe is conspiring to defeat you as you sift and sort to find that last hard copy you're sure you printed... but only manage to scrape your knuckle on the cabinet.

If I had a Hammer- yeah, I posted this in two threads -sue me.

Why I woke up singing this song in my head I can't tell you. Maybe it's a guy thing, I don't know. After all, if I had to guess who wrote the lyrics - if I didn't already know - I'd guess it was a guy. Yup, it was a guy: Pete Seeger? But why a hammer anyway, I began thinking? Why not some other tool or object even. I mean if I'm going to fix something? Why's it the hammer the guy's gotta reach for first. Why not that little springy magnetized screw driver that comes in real handy for those of us who always manage to drop those very small pieces into the tightest of spaces. Now that's the tool I'd want to associate with fixing things - I mean come on!: do you really want to reach for the hammer when you're having problems with love, justice or freedom. It's almost embarrassing that this FOLK song comes out of the Progressive era. Okay, some of us didn't experience that - (besides it didn't really get widely heard till Peter, Paul and Mary recorded it in the sixties) so one might more likely visualize the salving meme of a flower being inserted into the barrel of a rifle, as opposed to a HAMMER or a sickle (it's kind of a socialist laborers' anthem, right?!: "Danger!" "Warning!" - Paul Revere would have appreciated this lyric, being a silversmith/dentist, AND a rebel)! But still it could have been a shovel, or a needle, or an anchor, or... I'm still holdin' out for the springy magnetized screw driver. But what the heck is that thing called anyway? And would I be able to say it fast enough or even remember it. So... now I'm imagining how easily heralded messages carried across the ancient deserts could have gotten misconstrued on account of such an imperfect word chosen perhaps only because it fit the meter? I guess we're right back to where we started: through Poetic License(?), however questionable, it would appear the poet does sometimes have the last word! So what if he smashed the distributer cap on your car - he can "buy a new one."

wiki- link on the lyric

What is it about the rain...?

...that clears away the muck and chatter
that clogs the entrails of my past;
the sudden rush of memories, the stinging
as they surpass my now. will I never catch up
with the past - the patter, the ringing, the cup at last?

"right" to have a "job"?

TheModernMystic on youtube asks "Why should there be a job for you?"



...and I respond:
Expectations vs what's there (or not there)...

You want to produce something; or invent your own work, reduce the distress over "nowhere to go"? I see a lot of empty lots. So I ask: if Corporations ( so-called legal protected "persons," by the way) can dictate the take over of a deemed "distressed" property for the supposed good of a given proximal community, why can't "actual" "persons" legally take possession of an abandoned plot and start-up urban agribusiness and husbandry for a given proximal distressed community!? There's your job for abandoned laborers who have reached the end of their tether!!

Watch all the way through - features Catherine Ferguson Academy for girls

Community gardens and Urban husbandry: an Agrarian Revolution?!

What else are we going to do with all the empty lots?

The New Agrarian Revolution.

China: lack of regard for its people

More emphasis on the combination of the worst traits of both industrial growth and communism. The rights of laborers and citizens in general are entirely trampled!

Nice goin idiot...

Well, once again I proved myself not too bright. In my attempts to remove all traces of my x from the lap-top I managed somehow to lose all my internet bookmarks too! Criminy!

Loneliness sucks...

But thank goodness I'm not completely isolated. Without private access to the internet I truly would be alone.

And as much as I hunger for hugs and all I am still able to make do with the little touches of my lovely laptop keyboard. It's true that it can't touch back, but it sure winks a lot!

devil in the details

I hate being so visual sometimes. Because of this, that is, my mind gets cluttered with some really unpleasant details.

For instance: I'm always on the alert for change in living conditions. And I don't mean financial per se. I mean things like, why is it that I don't hear the vacuum in the hallway anymore. I used to hear it once a week. Nor have I smelled the essence of mopped floors (in the elevator or lobby) for some time. Or, where did our custodian go, and why is the apartment manager taking out the trash now? And why does he not wheel the bins out, but instead carries down just the dripping bags?

At this point let me depart from the hypothetical to say these are real concerns for me. I happen to know of such a man as this, and capable as he may be, he also manages another building. And I also happen to know first hand that this other building reeks! And now I think I understand why. There's no custodian over there to pay attention to details either. But rather conditions are such that someone has hopes that the devil won't notice these particular details, or that the devil likes the stench!

So,... why must I be bedeviled?

vertiginous fact and the moss of truth

Fact(s) has a compound nature which cannot be expressed (re-played) as each (if we can indeed refer to them as “each” or “it” as a group or singularity) progresses within a multidimensional manifold of facts- and are only in immediate appearance propelled-by-their-own continuum. By my (spiral-) reasoning Fact is such an entangled reticulation outward and inward, somewhat like the meristems of the arbiform that we might visualize stretching into infinitesimal pasts and future events. Why, therefore, do I attempt to isolate "it", consider "it" separate and unto itself, calling it “A” Fact. The word “A” however does not suffice.

The natural elements, too, then are only stable or unstable because ”we” have expectations determined by the speed at which we move in relation to all surrounding facts. We are fixed this way between objects and events, and further are biased toward the object which we can define as unchanging and thus taint what we call elements by dividing them into categories of stable or reactive. Our own perspective however may itself be untrustworthy. Perhaps the so-called unstable elements are bound to a greater eventuality to which we are forbidden cognitive access by our very own slowness as it were. And the elements as facts regardless our characterization of them are always co-mingling and regardless our insistence they stay put by our “standards” they are all compatible in every sense since together they make up the world in its entirety. The idea of an element by itself is somewhat ludicrous, then; and, too, that any past “species” of living “thing” (presumed to be a once visably squirming fact) trapped within any supposed time period by stratification, “it” can not be isolated from the fact of its current state. Words, that is, do not isolate a fact. And therefore we have but come full circle only to find ourselves standing upon quick(er) sand and thus the consideration may be fated to become fossilized itself.

The so-called natural world has such an spiral logic in its appearance if we are open to it. Sadly we are biased against this concept. Meaning must apparently make us dizzy. That is, we are not fond of having to turn around, look here and there at length, least of all crane our necks- but would rather toss up our hands in defeat if denied the path ahead. Should the way to understanding reverse itself or kick us in the behind we are suddenly in denial or are offended by what we have yet to grasp the meaning of: what in fact is going on?! What grand parenthetical statement is chthonic enough or shall suffice for us now on the surface of truth to replace the word “A”? What simple caption-less photograph will do? What shrug will suffice to escape the moss stain on our behind?

Link to Health Care Reform bill H.R. 3200

H.R. 3200

This is it.

I gave my house-key to my daughter Bella. And the new guy, "e-man," moves into it with his kids this weekend. This is gonna be a real sobering month. No money; no job till September (so far); I'll see the girls a total of six days this month - ISOLATION! Being alone is good for me as an artist and therefore as a rule, but right now... I'm kind of dreading it.

Chinese progress - deception, ignorance, or ...fantasy!

China needs to get real!

Medical Insurance in the USA

I call it the "Health Care-less Industry"! Here's a new vid to watch.

And part two.

Support Single Payer reform now! Otherwise your screwed once again by a bought off Government!

Omega 3s

I can't say well enough just what this supplement does for me. But I can say that without the flax and fish oils I am a wreck! My sinuses get clogged up again, my mood dips to below dangerous, and my concentration and memory just flat out fail to support my meagre goals. I care less, I do less, I dread more, I sleep more, do harm to myself more - you name it. Omega-3 is my wonder drug! So when finances dwindle I really suffer if I have to sacrifice my omegas!

The next big youth movement?

Life on the farm at Goose Lake Organics.

Some health care reality...

some truth about health care and what to do about it

Lighten up chump...

This is what I've been telling myself lately. You see I used to dream stand up comedy... when I was depressed. But where are the dreams these days? I don't know. Maybe that's my cue to come out of the dream closet with some wake time humor, time to lighten up a bit.

whoamless

...barf in the lump in the throat... that's how bad it feels to be at odds with someone you care about. [...details deleted...]

So what kind of father could a homeless man be? He could pretend to be a woodsman - though he's never been much of an outdoorsman. A traveling salesman - selling... pity? Nahh! - and certainly not soap. Or, half a witness to Jehovah? The census guy! No, I'd have to ask the question "how many children reside here" and then it'd be all over. Hmmm. Acorn - the grassroots org, that is. Which makes me think a severe diet of lentils and beans by choice doesn't sound that bad. Awe fuck it, who am I kidding - I'm no organizer, no motivator of adults. Pretty soon this whole sham of a structure, my e-life, too will be unavailable and the isolation will be unbearable. Or rather the complete exposure, the involution of my being, the implosion of the ego, will be tantamount to complete submission of my body to earth. This must be how it happens, though; how one accepts it. The outside world suddenly seeming sanctuary and a safer place than the indoors - the indoors where one shares a large room with too many other grunting, writhing, drooling old men. Who wants to listen to, smell, see that?! So, the street must seem an almost liberating experience. When I was a kid I used to talk to the trees. I guess it's time to reacquaint myself with the local 21st Century Citizens (yes, that's a reference to the photographer August Sanders). August came across quite a few travelers. Some of them were called Gypsies, Rom. And sadly much worse. I suppose the life of a rebel or foot soldier for some peoples' resistance would be more honorable, though no more sedentary. But what would I be resisting? And whom would bear the sting of my words much less a revolver. Perhaps the life of a monk would be more apropos? To alienate rather than be shunned. Homelessness as a proactive event. Sure. That rings a little truer, a little more pallatable. But, really... how about travel writing or better yet, street documentary, Studs Terkel or perusing the entire landscape like August Sanders, the photographer/artist's eye capturing, establishing a kind of inventory of the many faces of the Twentieth Century? Fool, you need a patron for that sort of enterprize, unless you're independently wealthy. Or it's annonymity... it could happen, you know... and it is happening - too close to home.

really?

I just love (not) the response I get when I say I'm an artist. "Really" It defines pretty much what most Americans think of "the Arts." We're not very well tuned in to this aesthetic attitude are we? It's a peripheral event, a sunday entertainment, a distraction, an outsiders viewpoint, a detriment to practical issues, an obviation of necessity... Should I go on? The truth is, it is our very lack of creative thinking where it is really necessary, in the bureaucracies and institutions that oversee our daily routines, that has led us to this scary point in history once again: the very real precipice of economic crisis! So, yes, I'm an artist. And finally proud of this fact! What is not to be proud of is the fact that the term "starving artist" by way of association delegates to externalalities what really is the internal failure of most of our enterprizes. That is, while we jest about the starving sunday painter, maybe we should hire him/her to inject some inventive innitiative into our boardrooms and for that matter anywhere we convene, whether it's to make policy, re-design for a greener future, or re-design public restroom stalls that actually allow you to reach the toilet paper without contortion. So, the next time somebody tells you that they're an artist - try to imagine what they might be able to do for you and your own network, and go from there. Discover an untapped resource America! It's right under your nose.

Hey my tools are back. yipee

So, this is the sort of lending that could occur to start up small, community industries. Why not? If we can invest in the poor nations, why can't we invest in poorer neighbors seeking self-suffiency?!

buttheads!

Well, Google finally took away my audio uploading tools... buttheads.

High Fidelity.

There's this high pitch noise in my head that just won't let me sleep. It's the sound of my ex- telling me she's getting married again and that this e-man and his kids are moving into the house we "bought." [...details deleted...]Hows that for cake in my face?!

....[personal ranting deleted]....

So what now? "I'm sure you'll figure it out," she has said on many an occasion. Wow. I'm finally feeling the full volume of this. Well I did figure it out. And I'm deafened by it. This very thing ( ie., the details that have been deleted) has happened over and over to women whose husbands abandoned them for younger women! Yeah. Wow. So, I guess this is reverb, payback, huh? The saddest part of this whole thing is that my girls aren't any happier now than they were before. Though they can recite to me clearly their memory of their parents fighting, they are not at all willing to accept that we are better parents now. The constant back and forth is really hard on them. And working out summer daycare is becoming fretful.

So, to repeat the question: what now? Well, I am searching for work; and living in a far too small appartment for three (333 sq ft in fact). [details deleted]... and my thoughts and desires muffled, over-trodden by a chorus of overtly high-trebeled misery demanding like a call to prayer that I bow my head and await my fate like a faithful supplicant; that I succumb to the high irony of fidelity.

7-13-2009: So, my ex- called and is really upset.... [details deleted].... Let's see, if I can't find work... shall I just agree to become homeless so the girls will have one roof? ....[details deleted]....Perhaps I have only myself to blame and I should take the fall here. The basic objective question here is: ...[details deleted]... I'm about ready to just jump off this rock down to the hard place, you know?!

A sad day...

Well it finally happened: google will not be supportive of my browser pretty soon. For quite a while now, I haven't been able to blog on myspace for some unknown reason or update facebook (though I can export links to facebook from other sites, I can't actually post directly on my wall)--- and now google is movin' on! Criminy. I am going to go insane for the isolation! Better get busy with audio archive before they shut me down! I guess this is what you get when you hang on to decade old technology.

"Communist, Zionist, Fascist..."

"...what difference does it make as long as you get your medicine?!" from the movie, Defiance.

Yeah, so what if we call it Socialized medicine right? So long as everybody is cared for... Come on, even Adam Smith would have been okay with that.

Pink Floyd

For some reason I felt compelled to listen to Pink Floyd's Umma Gumma album this weekend - and full volume. Sorry neighbors! This album takes me back... whoah... I wanna buy a "black light" now. hah, hah... Wish I still had that wall size Hendrix poster! But, REALLY...music has this power over us doesn't it? It bonds to our memory, determined by times in our lives.

just don't have the guts (in my computer)

Wish I could utilize this engine. Time to get a new laptop!

Under-employed, unemployed ... under the ploy...

I hear these figures: 9.5 unemployed, 16.5 under-employed... But certainly there are individuals who are not accounted for in this country; but just how many is a real mysterious number?! So, 9.5 plus 16.5 equals a minimum of 26% of adults in this country are feeling a serious financial pinch. How do the census people estimate the number of homeless or individuals off the grid though? You have to assume that more than 26% of adult Americans are hurting financially and that an unknown proportion are near to losing their cool over it! I think it's time we stop going by 1960 poverty standards and tell it like it is!

time for a condiment

At costco today I had trouble extracting the onions from their dispensor for my "hot dog." A friendly staff woman came by just as I was about to give up. "You have to turn it clock wise," she said. Well, this so-called clock was not oriented to my advantage, I thought: it rotated for and against me you see, not arcing on a plane to left or right. So, the woman began to gently and slowly stroke this machine forwards and back as if to recussitate a sparrow - and voila; she conjurred my onions. I told her, apparently "one mustn't allienate the onion."

speaking of...

I finally figured out how to upload (with this dinosaur Dell) my audio diaries from my delivery route days. It could take a while but there are some jems in these tapes I just have to find before I croak from a heart attack. These audio clips are all that remains of worth to me from this time period, the only art, so to speak - except of course the immediate memories of raising my beautiful children (when I was actually present, that is!)! Here's just a few of them. The rest will be compiled on a separate archive blog .


white collar, blue collar, red face



needin somethin else



from splinters to smoking


pallet jacked up mouths to feed


every consumer is a princess

out of sync(hronic -ization)

Over the past month or so I've been obcessing over leaving a trail of sorts and, as well, keeping a detailed software calendar for managing my time. Criminy, isn't this what they mean when they say burning the candle at both ends?! Well, no, not exactly... but now that my own brain's memory is failing and so too is my laptop blue-screening me to utter frustration - I'm thinking perhaps it's time, literally, to stop depending on faulty time-pieces and to just sidle over to the park and let the sun take care of things: "Pierce Transit can have my bike, which I left on a bus rack, and Child Protective Services can have my kids that are waiting for me to pick them up from daycare..." uh...Hello! Wait a minute! Wrong! Okay, so I get out of sync, being so ch(i)ronically compulsive about this -ization, that to get back in sync I blame time itself for my troubles! Hmmm.... But all that really gets me is a kick-in-the-ass and a re-boot! So, I am forced to start that calendar all over again; but this time leave pebbles on the path instead of bread. On the subject of documenting the past however there is no such thing as double time Quicktime.

tacomauriculum

I used to get upset about the smell here. "Tacoma aroma" they call it.. Frankly the Rouge river in Detroit was far worse! But what I really want to talk about is the sound of this south Sound area: specifically the Fireman's Park area and its audible reach further west toward the Theatre District. Perhaps if one does not live in these downtown areas this is not something one would even know about. But I do. I live smack dab in the middle of it, and every sunday afternoon instead of show tunes rehearsals I am forced to listen to Christian hymns sung overlong and loudly - too loudly -by very bad singers. Apparently they are ignorant of the decibles too and how far they travel - or maybe not. Perhaps this is just another instance of a call to prayer.

Bee-keeping and dance

My grandfather was an urban bee-keeper. My mother says she remembers fondly her selling of his honey in their small town neighborhood (Ayer) just outside of Boston. He worked for the railroad, and a small cemetery there as well; but I seem to recall bee-keeping was his passion, and forgive him my first bee-sting. He had the craftsman in him as well ( as a child I could have sensed no flaws in the pool table he made for us, but made it he did, Shaker that he was!) - and by blood, he was also part eastern native american. Anyway, I'm thinking fondly of him today, a fathers' day in America, and craving badly a return to village industries.

Here's where we are today, on the east coast anyway, where bee-keeping is concerned in urban areas:

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/environmentandenergy/archive/2009/03/11/underground-bees.aspx

And so I was reading about Chopin. Huh. What's that got to do with bees? Well, I came across this passage that suggested that certain rythms in the Mazurkas and Polanaises seemed to necessitate particular dance choreographies. (Halina Goldberg)

Okay, so being me, I thought can we call magnetic fields subliminal rythms for bees, and thus with the fragrances of flowers like pitches on the wind, we have the tail-wag dance?

Joe plumber and Adam the carpenter...

First this quote from Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations: "A carpenter in London, and in some other places, is not supposed to last in his utmost vigor above eight years."

As an answer to this business leaders finally adopted a so-called five-day work week from a four-day. Pensions and medical "benefits" were also introduced into their "partnerships" with their workers. These words (benefit and partnership) suggest an ulterior insincerity on the part of business. Health and allegiance are not just privileges - they are absolutely required for any business to succeed. What is a business without its league of laborers?!

So... Adam Smith seems to have acknowledged this; but today corporations seem to be in denial of this obvious truth, that bodies break down over time. Affordable health care therefore should be available to all - however, as in 1740, this appears to be a "year of scarcity"; and while laborers may seem to be willing to sacrifice and work for meagre wages (for the scarcity of opportunities), corporations are even less willing to sacrifice and offer access to health care for these workers! Pensions as well have seemed to go the way of history for many loyal employees.

Apparently Joe and John must turn to folk remedies or the shaman for their ailments! And the upper classes are left with "physician build thyself!..."

Living life beautifully as we approach Fathers' Day.

For some reason I was drawn to review a book titled the Aspects of the Masculine by C.G. Jung. Let me quote a few passages first:

"Ageing people should know that their lives are not mounting and expanding, but that an inexorable inner process enforces the contraction of life.... How many of us older ones... [are] prepared for the second half of life....?"

"Whoever carries over into the afternoon the law of the morning... must pay for it with damage to his soul, just as surely as a growing youth who tries to carry over his childish egoism into adult life must pay for this mistake with social failure."

"We must not forget that only a very few people are artists in life; that the art of life is the most distinguished and rarest of all the arts."

In response let me say first that for many years now I have aspired to finding beauty in the events that occur around me - but not for the sake of mirroring them in a painting. It has been the act of living that I wanted to glorify by mere attempts to be original, to seek a beautiful response to all that came to me. I won't profess to have succeeded entirely, or rather consistently - but all along this has been my goal.

Sadly, in some respects, it came to be true, that a kind of social footing was sacrificed for this aim. However I think over all it has been worth it. I am thinking of another quote which I will paraphrase: "[The test of a true intelligence is the ability to retain two opposing ideas in the mind yet continue to function.]" (F.S. Fitzgerald)

Is this not the job of the parent and especially the father?! He must play and yet retain the steady footing of the guardian. And as he approaches the latter half of his life he must also continue to be open to the vagrancies of events, not be so stoic as to succumb to his age, but supply as much creative egoism as ever he has displayed.

This is what is required of the father at all times. Creative solutions must always be at hand - for this is what the child longs for; and is the most worthy of being emulated, the example of how else it can be done - this bringing of beauty into our lives in an original way. I will continue to be a kid in spite of my age for just this reasaon - no matter the scowls or ridicule I might endure.

Universe on the bus: "How it looks" to him vs. how it looks to me.

The other day I was traveling on the #2 bus and two men got on the bus independently after the girls and I. We were all toward the back with the new comers furthest back. The girls and I were the only white people on the bus. This doesn't really matter to me - except for when this inescapable reality incites others to speak against my whiteness as "whitey," which is what the elder of the two new comers did.

He spoke very graphically about how it was "whitey's turn now" - especially if "he messed with [his] Obama." He boasted of the weapons his 13 year old son had and the huge cache his "homeys" had gathered in readiness for... what? And why?

But how could I personally understand where his anger was from much less his reality; the origin of his hatred was far from my origin of understanding our differences. Then he proclaimed his age to be only a few shy of mine, and that his means were old school. But even I have used this term, "old school," for my own aprroach to my tribulations but I have never considered armed aggression. Regardless, here it was. Reality denying me access.

The other of the two men, it must be mentioned, was much younger and dressed in the way that is often presumed to be gangster attire, complete with the cloth that raps the head tightly and drapes over the nape of the neck ("doo-rag"?). It was this young man, however, that tried to convince the older one to calm down, and even in a few instances appeared to be in danger of the older ones wrath. But nothing happened other than an occasssional appology from the older one who claimed justifications like, "I'm just keepin it real brother - but I'll stop," and "I'll bite my tongue," as if it were the body's fault that anger got out.

So, there you have it. I could have made the foolish mistake of assuming - had there been no verbal exchanges at the back of the bus - that the older of the two new comers and I had a generational bond, and that it would have been the younger one who might have posed the racial intimdation. Alas, all of our curved realities are twisted too to the effect that we will never get one unified point out of it all; and thus we will remain incomprehensible to each other.

One might wonder how we will ever come to picture a singular shape for the universe if we can't even figure each other out.