"...Paradise"

"Smalls Paradise nightclub Harlem. 1948 maybe. 
From left m mother, cousin Austin, unknown, then my Aunt Sybil. Next Uncle Louie, Uncle Owen & Aunt Bertha."
(This missive from my dear cousin Daryl.)

"On being an Angel,...part time"

Angel is a verb not a noun. An act not a person. ...sort of.
These are hard times. Persons stand outside of markets asking for coins or food. One should give both if you can. I can no longer give money so food instead. When I shop I pick up a few extra things. Fruit canned goods. A few things to share outside the shop.
I've noticed a conspiracy of others doing the same. My family, and good friends have given to me. I give back in the way I can. We all must pass on the kindness.
Share what you can when you can where you can.

"...off shift"

What I love about taking the subway here in the Emerald City is that it's always interesting. You can be shot dead or stabbed. Be entertained by magicians have your soul saved by evangelists buy candy bootleg DVD's.

Doo-oop guys come by singing for coins watch folks have sex watch cops harass homeless people see whether you want to or not ladies breast feeding their kids see rats run down the middle of the lurching car or as above,...a witch doctor going off shift, and I assume going home.

I love it here. 

...mostly.

"...all that"

Michael Jackson, above, relaxes with his new friends in "Old Lady" Heaven. He was sent there in exasperation by the "Divine Personnel Dispatch Bureau" They had originally sent him to Hell which Mr. Jackson thought was Heaven.

Artists often make this mistake.

He was eventually found at a demonic radio station where he was producing concerts for Wagner, and that guy that invented the tuba. Michael was stashed in Limbo to cover up this "faux pas" , but he wandered out, and came back to Earth.

He was found again this time in Central Park playing the accordion, and singing for coins, and ham sandwiches.

Loose souls are embarrassing. Ghosts, and all that.

The Management prefers an orderly afterlife for it's clients. Having the dead show up freaking folks out is frowned on. This sort of thing affects promotions, and funding in the Celestial Bureaucracy.

Anyway they tried stuffing Mike into the Queer Heaven, but it was too crowded. Then file clerk, and high school teacher Purgatory.

Same problem.

The aborted embryo nursery,...too weird even for Mr. Jackson.

They even tried settling Michael in the G-d, and G-ddess Reservation. This is where most celebrities, and g-ds from forgotten or unpopular religions end up. However too many people are 'still' praying to Mr. Jackson.

This made a lot of the inmates at the Reservation really jealous.

Sooo, "Old Ladies Heaven" it is till upper Management can figure this one out. Michael did ask to try out "Dog Heaven", but was turned down,..for now.

More on this breaking story as developments warrant.

"...device"

When I'm out in the world everybody seems to be shoving their face into some sort of device. Often I'm the only one in sight not addicted. People would be giving me funny looks...if they weren't face down in one of them 'things'.

It was a slow gradual seduction, but it's iron clad now. I don't know if it was Satan or the Space Aliens, but it's a job well done. No addiction since "China White" hit the streets in the 80's seems as set in stone as this.

Being mostly broke in my old age I though myself safe..immune if you will from this plague. Ah, but the Space Alien Satanists have thought of everything. Low cost "Budget" devices have hit the shops. Now the underclass have joined the hordes of techno slaves.

There are only a few of us still free...

Beware the day the Master Button is pushed, and all will follow the will of the Masters of Hades...or the Phone Company or whoever is behind this fiendish plot!
Deprogram yourselves while there's still time!

Never Ever Never! Read from anything that needs batteries or needs to be plugged in.

Beware! Beware!

"Paradise Now"

You Cultural Veterans out there will remember "Paradise Now" as the name of a Swell Brave Brilliant Fun Life Changing play by the "Living Theater" back in the Sixties. That plea still echoes loudly in our society. The "Occupy Movement", and now a re-born planetary Women's movement is just the latest, and perhaps most desperate expression of that desire.

A world where all is shared, and kindness, and introspection is a given. In the west at least we've been trying to bring such a world about for some centuries now.

At least since the Peasant Revolts of the early middle ages.

The founding of the United States of America is an inconsistent ongoing try. The attempted revolutions of the 18th 19th, and 20th centuries...sadly just made things worse.

The 17th century Diggers of Britain. Google them folks. Perhaps the Great Grand Parents of assorted Utopians since...Hippies early Civil, and Sexual Rights movements, and bunches of weird artists, and various sorts of visionaries n' nutters with hearts of gold.

Hakim Bey Allen Ginsberg James Baldwin Walt Whitman, and Harry Hay among many others known, and unknown come to mind.

Them diggers like the recent Beatniks Civil Rights folks Hippies Occupiers, and once again Women all wanted, and want the goods produced to be held in common...the land too. Basically all should be happy, and free no one should live in want. The whole messy lot of us should share, and help all around us, and basically have a good time.

The Christians started out this way before they became a religion, and started burning books, and people at the stake.

Pessimists would say that "We can Dream it, but still can't Do it". I think that Paradise is hard. Hard to dream, and Hard to make...not impossible, just Hard.

Making the Atomic bomb was hard too. However with total dedication, and the use of vast resources they made the damned thing...and plenty of them. The maniacs have been refining it ever since.

Imagine if that sort of dedication vast resources, and some Pixie Dust were put towards the "Paradise Project".

Unlike the Manhattan Project nothing would be secret it would all be out in the open for all to see, and if they wanted to help with.

"Hey what are you folks doing?"

"...eh,...building the Golden Age,...I think...wanna help?

That's what we're doing. That's what thoughtful folks have been part of knowing or not all these centuries That's what we have to keep at no matter what.

Amen.

"...noticed"

"...noticed"

How much longer can I keep doing this?
In some conditions we ask ourselves that. ...one wonders. 
Everyday then another, and another. We just keep breathing.

Whatever works.

There's a reason we drop dead around this age. I'm staring down 70. We've done our jobs. Now we wait. Not so bad really. 
Though it depends on your point of view.

Worries.

We have these. They're life long habits. Mine are there, but I don't care about them as much. I just noticed,...I don't. 

These are important. 
Like the forms I have to fill out for extra Social Security medical assistance. This will come in handy as shit is breaking down in my guts, and all.

However the forms just sit there. 
Once I would have done them mailed them in hours,...now weeks,...there they sit.  Complications. I have to copy certain documents, and send them in too. 

I no longer have patience for complications,...even little ones.

I figure when I fall over assorted programs will kick in to 'make' them keep me alive,...not that I want that. 
The system is there to keep your heart beating no matter how awful your existence may be.

Swell,...thanks.

I'm getting pie, and ice cream today. 
Non-sugar If I can find it. Small pleasures.

These are what makes a life. 
Laffs with pals love of family weird events doing art dreaming, and ice cream. I can ask for no more.

I want no more.

"Dreams"

"Dreams"

I'm starting to dream again. At least I'm remembering them again. These are consistent these dreams.
I'm in a cold place,...so cold.
It's sometimes grey sometimes white or silver. I'm always wrapped. Cocooned. I see my self in 3rd person. Grey silver wrapped.
I'm not afraid. I'm not anything. Just there again, and again.
A holding place? A place before something else?

"A Day in the Life",...from a year ago.

"A Day in the Life",...from a year ago.

My life once full of such comings, and goings responsibilities dramas comedies, and some tragedies. Such has become so simple. Quiet even.

My sleep is asymmetrical. I woke @ an odd hour. Showered cleaned the bathroom the kitchen floor, and hung my sox on the radiator to dry.

That radiator that Santa has yet to emerge from.
I had apple slices nuts, and answered an overnight email from my old radio friend Sharon. She asks after my health, and post-op doings. She's a dear pal. Made a shopping list,...I'm out of everything, and plan to go to the library as well.

Nurse Perez is coming this afternoon.
My windows shudder with the Zero degree winds. Frost forms on my sills. Though still no snow here all winter.

I want a big snow just one. I want to fall asleep watching the snow then wake up to it watch more. Watch the swirling snow whipping at the trees. Then sleep again.
This might be my last chance for this.

Took my meds which knocked me out. Good Nurse Perez woke me. She comes a few times a week to see if I'm still alive, and how the healing is coming.

So far so good.
I enjoy our visits. The only folks that actually see me at home now are medical techs that shovel me up for transport to hospital. Them, and folks from the City government that check on elders, and now visiting nurses.

They all comment on my digs. It's tidy, and Zen empty.
I hear from them that most folks live in some version of "Hoarders". ...or worse. We're a culture of acquisition. I think I was absent that day at class.

Nurse Perez left I took a nap, and all was well in my world.

Till I woke up checked my list of to do's,...I need that now.
Got dressed for the Arctic, and went shopping,...library too. There, and back again...it's such an adventure now.
Got stuff, and borrowed two books plus a video. Which I may or may not read or watch.

Sat read more wrote some including this act of ego,...hey it's my page. On Moon rise I took several shots, and posted them. Took more meds, and slept.

That's really all I do now. ...that, and Social Services sometimes.
Rinse,...repeat.

The upside I still live, and am mostly still in one piece.
Though yes now I am very aware.
Aware of the so far unseen wings that daily brush me.

"...100 years"

Above is a stained glass of "Servant of G-d" Dorothy Day. She was an activist, a journalist, a radical, a bohemian. Now "Servant". One of the steps to Sainthood.
Being an outsider that actually thought that being kind non-violent, and feeding, and housing the poor was what faith was about. 
She's likely 50 to 100 years away from actual sainthood. More conventional figures are on much faster tracks.

"...west"

Just off West B'way lower Manhattan.

"...nights"

Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. 126 years under construction, and still building. 

Back in the day these took centuries as will this one. 

A decade ago during my Houseless year they took me in fed me gave me peaceful nights.

"...have"

Civilization is just so comfy,...what we have of it.

"...truth"

"...truth"
Passing the days by reading. I picked Walt Whitman. This some of our hero's prose.
The Civil War Journals.
His recounts of tending the lost, and wounded on the battle field, and military hospitals.
He spoke kindly to these souls, and gave little offerings. Fruit biscuits writing paper pencils even hard candies.
In particular he wrote letters home for those too badly wounded. Mostly he did what was most needed. He just sat quietly keeping company with those healing or soon to pass.
Walt noted how so many soldiers North, and South were so young. So painfully young. Drummer boys still children frontline troops 15 to their early 20's. These were farming boys both sides. They in a maelstrom he said "beyond their tender imaginings."
Walt Whitman was witness to the actual battles. "The thunder, and bedlam" of it all he said. In his journals of the war he wrote, "The truth of this war will never be written in books."
True.
So true for that war, and any other.

"...insane shit"

Once upon a time it was "Morning in America". ,,,about 5:30. I was a young guy leaning my radio chops, and looking to have a swell time while at it. I was doing tons. of speed, and cocaine back then.

Before ya starts it was still socially acceptable to be blasted on all that. Heck most of the radio, and recording business ran on that stuff from the 1950's till the mid 80's or there about.

My gawd the insane shit we did.

Oh, but the close friendships those times created. Close friends..actually it's mostly the friends that stay with you to the end. We loved each other, and now we're burying each other.

'But I digress.

Anyway being new at the shop I was given "Transmitter Duty" at the Empire State Building. Regs. at the time required someone to be on site there. Basically you just sit, and take telemetry readings, and sleep.

Being bored I decided to check my environment out. I found that the windows to the ledge would open.

Good grief!

I went out, and looked around..wow! The whole bleeping world literally at my feet.

Unbelievable!!!!

After a while I'd have my lunch while dangling my feet over the edge. I tried to take a walk around the building. I found you couldn't actually go all the way 'round. I ran into a sheer 1200 ft. drop.

Look at the ESB pic below. See the second from the top indentation...that was the sheer drop I found. Yep 1200 Bleeping Foot Drop! ...and I don't mean maybe! Anyway all of the Emerald City was laid out before me as I munched on deli heroes, and drank cream soda.

The things one can get used to, and call normal.

Gang I routinely hung out on the bleeping ledge of the 86th floor of the Empire bleeping State Building.

Once I was insanely stoned, and sat..feet over the edge looking at the then World Trade Center downtown. It was like a bright silver tuning fork in the hazy distance.

I sang Beatles songs to myself as I peacefully kicked my feet over Manhattan like a baby in a high chair. If they make a movie of my stupid life that scene would be the money shot.

...well okay the time I slammed my fist through a double pained window to slug some rancid asshole would be on the deleted scenes disc.

That's all.

Just that simple event in my deranged life. I was on top of the world for about a year till they found out I was doing that insane bleep, and the bolted the windows on the floor.

Still wotta time!

"...1957"

In 1957 while hordes of unthinking American capitalist stooges were wasting their time watching the reactionary antics of the plutocratic puppet Lucy Ricardo.

That and having backyard cookouts or piling into their Desoto land cruiser station wagons, and driving to Las Vegas, and Disneyland on brand new wide clean safe interstates. Stopping only to replenish their supplies of Luckies cheeseburgers, and Fresca.

While these "Running Dogs of the Cabal of the Wall Street Atomic Plunderers" were on their one way trip into the dust bin of history. The Heroic Dogs of the "Great Red Banner Motherland" were fearlessly making "The Triumph of Socialist Science, and History an uncontested reality!

The peoples canines dared to challenge the very heavens!

"Laika", (Order of Lenin, Terrier first class), was volunteered to be the first mammal to travel beyond the atmosphere, and gravity of the Earth.

The Glory did not stop there!

Our beloved Laika was not the last quadruped into space. Shortly after the non-return, and un-survival of the world's first space dog,...the former Laika. Two more Heroic Hounds from the kennels of the Motherland were volunteered.

"Strelka, and Belka", (heroic likeness below), were sent by the Central Committee to further explore the cold, and pointless monotony of oblivion.
Unlike their unfortunate predecessor these two furry heros came back to the warm welcoming arms of the Workers Paradise.

In gratitude for their valor the "Ministry of Interesting Surprises" had our hero's Strelka, and Belka poisoned dissected poked about then stuffed, and sewn back up.

This so future generations could admire first hand the Peoples K-9 Space Heros. There was some discussion of bestowing a similar honor on the soon to be chosen Cosmonauts. However this was dropped as it was felt such might have a negative effect on their morale.

Forward Comrades!

"...divine madness"

A paper piece about worship I did years ago. 
Theatres began as holy places dedicated to g-ds. Temples churches are still laid out as theatres. With the "audience" facing the drama or comedy. 
I could rant about the comedy/drama of religious service, but will leave it at this.

"...spooks"

(...This from exactly a year ago when they chopped off a toe!) ...they were going to take a leg.

As I mentioned. I think I'm seeing Spirits. My visiting nurse sez it's just the strong meds. "...These can be disorienting." Youbetcha besides frying my liver, and kidneys I get a show.

They don't look like the below,...exactly, but close enough.

If they start talking I'll let you know.

My dear Nurse Mrs. Perez is wonderful,...she just left. As I say she loves how Zen empty, and tidy my digs are. She told me she could walk eyes closed here, and "not bump into anything". I asked her about folks seeing Spirits. Sez she's seen a lot of that, but it's mostly stress, and medications. ...we chatted. She felt that sometimes it might be the real thing. ...it's so "subjective" sez she.

“Michael’s Heaven”

Michael Jackson relaxes with his new friends in “Old Lady” Heaven. He was sent there in exasperation by the “Divine Personnel Dispatch Bureau” They had originally sent him to Hell which Mr. Jackson thought was Heaven.

Artists often make this mistake.
He was eventually found at a demonic radio station where he was producing concerts for Wagner, and that guy that invented the tuba. Michael was stashed in Limbo to cover up this “faux pas” , but he wandered out, and came back to Earth.

He was found again this time in Central Park playing the accordion, and singing for coins, and ham sandwiches.
Loose souls are embarrassing. Ghosts, and all that.
The Management prefers an orderly afterlife for it’s clients. Having the dead show up freaking folks out is frowned on. This sort of thing affects promotions, and funding in the Celestial Bureaucracy.

Anyway they tried stuffing Mike into the Queer Heaven, but it was too crowded. Then file clerk, and high school teacher Purgatory. Same problem.

They even tried settling Michael in the G-d, and G-ddess Reservation. This is where most celebrities, and g-ds from forgotten or unpopular religions end up. However too many people are ‘still’ praying to Mr. Jackson.

This made a lot of the inmates at the Reservation really jealous.
Sooo, Old Ladies Heaven it is till upper Management can figure this one out. Michael did ask to try out Dog Heaven, but was turned down,...for now.
More on this breaking story as developments warrant.

( The above is a little story I wrote a while ago just after Mr. Jackson’s passing. It all seemed pretty likely to me.)

"Just a thought"

Science denial climate denial has become a religious racial, and ideological position. Whereas in fact nature doesn't care what we think. It will do what it wills. It's changed before it changes now it will change in the future. Why we hate each other over the weather sez how nuts our times are. You get that...we now hate each other over the weather. Why can't we go back to fighting over something that makes sense,...like football.

"...it's complicated"

The colonial era American revolutionary flag,...the snake Gadsden flag. Which in recent years has been taken by American racists, and Neo-Nazi as their own. This banner has jumped the Atlantic. 

General Gadsden was a Slave owner, and mass killer of Native people. History, and it's symbols are complicated. Russian Liberals, and progressives are using a form of it now. 

See below banner of the Liberal Anti Putin movement while it lasts.

I say "...while it lasts" because Putin has just changed the Russian Constitution to in effect make him President for Life. That is even when he leaves he still has final say or what goes. #45 looks on with envy.

Meanwhile the Russian armed forces has also adopted some American memorabilia. They fly a slightly altered Confederate flag from their tanks. Some wear the patch on their uniforms.

Rather like U.S. troops flew the rebel Slaver flag during both the Korean, and Vietnam wars. In the Terror wars they have been known to fly the Nazi SS flag.

We are an interesting republic.

Our mythology is we are the saviors of the world.

Our darker dream is to enslave, and exterminate.

If this country were a person we'd be on meds.

That or under supervison.