“…Five cents”

Things being what they are in 2019.

I needed to get out of Dodge for a while. See below I time portaled this morning to West 38th Street Manhattan.

November 19th1953, CE 1:43pm.

I was dressed in my 2019 jeans Nikes Lady Gaga sweatshirt, and SpaceX cap. No one noticed. I love NY.

What strikes one are the smells. Unfiltered exhausts smog, and soot from light industry which was all over the city then. Also a vast background radiation of cigarette smoke. In them technicolor days everyone over the age of 14 smoked like a chimney.

It made me lightheaded.

I weaved into the street taking the snap below. ‘Was almost hit by a '53 Hudson delivery van. The guy yelled assorted ethnic slurs, and traffic rules at me. I would have taken his portrait but didn’t want to start a race riot.

I stumbled along a side street time shifted ahead two months and came to a news stand. I asked if the guy had “Fantastic Four” No.1…he never heard of it. Seems I was about a decade early. Anyway, I got a Hershey bar which is twice the size as ours, and costs 5. cents!

That, and a copy of the December 1953 New Yorker which I’ll sell on eBay, and I was on my happy way.

Btw common 21st century home computer printers are swell duplicators of ancient currency. The downstream yokels are impressed.

I went behind a phone booth…yeah these were all over the place. I then temporal shifted phased or whatever back to the glorious freedom loving demented, and expensive future.

So I woke up at what I thought was Social Services. White halls with the smell of antiseptics long rows of hard plastic seats, and them flat screens with lately Fox News on them.

I was the only one there. It pays to go early. Still wait I did. 40 minutes into some Fox guy "proving" the moon is made of baked ham. I see my code blink on the board. This is when I realized I didn't know why I was there. No cards or ID. For that you gets sent to another hall to wait some more.

However instead of being drop kicked by security.

There was loud music. Sort of like "Tubular Bells" from the 70's. Santa the Tooth Fairy my Guardian Angel...the worthless jerk, and my Grandma shoves me into a sedan chair. I'm processioned to the elevator with the tune of "Penny Lane".

Like the Tardis it was much bigger on the inside.

...a local.

Folks in costumes of different centuries was coming on, and off. They talked shop with my pallbearers or had faces buried in their devices.

Me I was just along for the ride.

We got off on 485th floor. I was dumped sideways off the chair into an office...smaller on the inside. Gawd or one of them was sitting at Her desk piled high with parchments audio cassettes floppy disks, and Edison Cylinders. She was smoking a pipe. She puffed away on "Holiday" tobacco...like my dad. She nodded to an old folding chair, and I sat.

Fox was yacking away on the wall screen.

This time some Nazi in a bowtie was saying how they want to exterminate everybody...but in a nice way. Lately these guys are trying to appear reasonable. Anyway, he was going on about how the lower orders could all be killed cheaper and faster with Neutron Bombs. Gawd turned off the screen.

Sort of like that scene in "1984".

Where that Inner Party enforcer had the juice to turn off the tele-viewer...much to Winston Smith's amazement.

Sez Gawd: "First off ya dead pal. Dead as a bag of rusty hammers in Hiroshima.

No, I dunno how. Those details get lost up here, but ya a goner. No there's no Heaven or Hell...eh ya not going to cry or some shit? Religion makes people do that. No? ...good. Well, there's an orientation to bring you up to speed. Eternity dark matter the non-temporal realms all that crap. Ya gots a lot of unlearning to do. Religion, and science has fucked you guys up bad.

However, that old time Abolitionist Beatnik Hippie stuff was close to the mark. Your file sez you was into some of that. Let's see...you was on da radio talking love, and stuff. Ya printed little broadsides about it too. Not too bad. You're full of shit about everything else though.

So I'm sending you up for remedial ironic humor, and maybe reprograming about the properties of the Multiverse. You guys got that one wrong big time! Galileo took it well. Niels Bohr, and his crowd of smarty pants was really pissed though. ...fuck'em."

There was a gong like at the fights. Me, and the folding chair dropped through a trap door, and I was in Heaven. Well not that, but the name will do. A vacant lot in Cincinnati 1946.

Like some stories say they start you out with stuff you're used to. So for me working class Negro mayhem. Segregation evil cops, and keys to a tenement apartment. The upside...this not being hell the digs was real cute. Like from the neat stuff in Architectual Digest a cool 'zine.

There was some sort of 3-D Google, and all the greasy food I ever wanted. Being dead there's no craping or farting, and ya can eat like the frigging Sun King. I needed wheels so I used the complimentary iPhone to order a 1932 hand made sky-blue Bugatti.

It appeared in my living room. I called back and told them to quit fucking around. I heard a room full of kids laffing. They sent it down to the street. I decided to start a journal blog thing...Chapter One.

"I'm fucking dead, but the food's great."

*To be continued.

The real origins of the Republic.

George Washington: "You're bleeping kidding me right?"

Betsy Ross: "Well ya wasn't exactly specific. You was also Drunk."

George Washington: "Gimme a break. The Brits is kicking my butt into next Tuesday." All I ask for is a new flag for this hot deal we're cooking up with the Masons and Knights Templar. What do you hand me?! A deranged nightmare of Bleeding Zebra Stripes, and Satanic Stars?!"

Betsy Ross: "Take it or leave it pal!

You can always go with what your Slave raping buddy Jefferson wanted. A severed Native head Impaled on a pike. Or what that Franklyn pervert asked for. Samson butt fucking the King in Hell."

Betsy's Daughter: "That or the weird shit 'you' wanted. A big Eyeball on a field of Snakes."

General Lafayette: "I'd go with the Zebra George."

 

A dream. My brother in the Vietnam war.  

I felt shame I didn't serve. I was young still in school. However, everyone I had grown up with did. They were conscripted. They fought they suffered they came back with wounds seen, and unseen. As my mother said: "They took my son and sent back a stranger."

They told me all in their way that I was well out of it. If they could they'd have stayed home too. My sense of betrayal remained. Not country but to them.

Till that dream.

I was with my brother. We were in the war. Just he, and I out in the open. My brother John was calmly explaining how to stay alive. How to tell if gun fire was coming towards you or moving away. I had wanted to be with John to help him get back alive. However, here he was tutoring 'me' to do the same. 

I loved him. 

He pointed out trip wires ...mines. Some hidden in trees just above head level. He said as to how they "...really hated them fuckers." Mortars coming down. Their screams visceral. John said that so long as you can hear them you're okay. If not you either die or you don't. On que the screaming stopped. John said, "...this is how we die."

There was no explosion no death. 

The dream morphed as they do to other places other times. I had shared my brother's war. Now I knew some small piece of it. We went our ways.

 "The Secret Histories of NYC"

Some of an age will recall the "Great Days of Absence". March 20~22, 1970. 
This when the whole then seven Millions of the population of NYC left for 72 hours. They camped in shelters malls army depots schools, and public buildings. Even some private homes. 

These in the immediate surrounding counties.

After which we all calmly came back and resumed our normal lives. Never to mention the event again. However, of late some who lived those strange days comment. However, no one cares.

I myself stayed with friends up in Rome NY for those three days. It was uneventful. I mostly watched TV where it was never mentioned, and just passed the time. Coming home I was somewhat surprised it was not an issue. In time like everyone I forgot all about it

A reason was never given.

We were just told we had to go. We got government instructions in the mail where to wait for army trucks Buses or train and did. That was that. It was before the age of conspiracy theories, so we all forgot. Tho' it might have had something to do with UFOs. That or the Beatles breaking up.

 “A Kind of Time Travel”

“Life is But a Dream”


A dream it was all a great strange dream.
Long ago I imagined that all my life was a dream. A dream I was having as a child. Even my posting right now on a sunny day in June 2019 is part of the dream.
I’ll awake. I’m in a bunkbed. My brother asleep below me.
It’s winter I can see snow in the back yard.
I’m seven. It’s January 1958.
I dreamed in fine detail a whole history.
I hear our dog “Brownie” padding about below.
My dad getting ready to go to work.
School, I have to go to school.
I have the experiences, memories of a lifetime.
I hold more than 60 future years.
Who to tell what to do?

 "Samhain"

 "This is the World Queer Pacifists Want"

~Blessed Saint Jampa of the Snows~

(Jampa Tibetan for Loving Kindness.)

Consider this my homemade Holy Card.

This for the Feasts of saints Ralph Chubb, and Harry Hay.

 “Happy Holidays”

There are 45+ Millions Americans living near or in poverty. 4 Millions of these live in "Absolute Poverty or 3rd World level want.

Perhaps near 2 Millions are Homeless.

The figures are uncertain because these are difficult to count.

Many are partial houseless.

That is as seasonal workers can be.

That or being put up by family or friends. 

This is always very temporary.

Also a million or more never show up at shelters.

 They don't apply for assistance. 

This for many reasons.  I didn't when I was Houseless.

My main fear while out there was being rescued by cops or social

workers. The worse were the paid hunters. 

They got paid by the head to collect the Homeless.

You get sent out of the city to one of them hell hole containment centers isolated in the middle of nowhere.

Folks get raped and killed there.

In that mind a festive beginning to your comfortable oblivious Holiday Season. All the best to you, and all your families.

Calculating a middle-class holiday meal from my poverty. 

One plate one serving would feed three. 

If rationed it could feed one for days.

Been there done that.

Eat well.

 "Angry Witches, and the Yule Ram"

It is time to call upon 'all' forces to defeat the Darkness.

 ~O~"

Fires. The ground trembled.  The Queen, yes ‘that’ Queen.  She gave me one of her great grandsons to protect.

Said she, “…Be like the brother of Jesus to him.”  “Be near, but not close.”

Night. 

Stars were falling.

"...has been asshole"

 

"...has been asshole"

"Angel of the Houseless"

Above one of the Card Art things I used to do.

Yeah cute, and who gives a fuck.

Something broke inside, and I just don't

or can't do this shit anymore.

I don't believe anything will get better for most anymore.

It's that end of Empire crap taken to heart.

Sure if I was rich or something maybe I'd do shit.

However not with any heart in it.

I think artists have a short window for that. 

Then it's gone.

Rimbaud was like that.

He did all his wild magic shit as a kid.

After that he's a drunk has been asshole.

That's me,...only I don't drink.

As Art Carney said in a play once.

"I either drink or I weep"

I do neither.

I just bear witness.

 "...drive"

I just want to get into this damned thing, and fucking Drive!

I'd drive, and drive, and never look the fuck back.

I'd have a sawed off pump action shotgun.

This on the seat next to me.

A crate of ammo 10 bottles of Jack Daniels.

A few handy eight-balls of speed, and coke.

A box with rolls of Hundreds in them.

Passports to several Central American countries.

A letter of introduction from Hillary Clinton,

and a pack of aspirins.

Eh,...the latter just to be on the safe side.

 "Oh, for an Ounce of Faerie Dust"

If an alien ship actually came to rest on Earth. I’d like to see it come down in a less expected place. If in America perhaps a Native reservation. A laid off Coal Town. A neglected Inner City. Millions hear a series of sonic booms as it streaks over Indiana Ohio, and Pennsylvania. It slows and comes to a peaceful stop over a Queens school yard. Then slowly settles on the grass. First Contact is made by six 12 year old black middle school girls, and their teacher. They become the human liaison with the star folk. This as the Aliens take them as representatives for the Human species. Attempts to push them aside, and install “official” political, and military reps are rebuffed. These youngsters, and their Brooklyn College Jewish teacher will speak for the Earth. They will be our bridge between the stars.

The two most dangerous words in any human language are, "...What if?"

Timelines are malleable. "What if" we learned from our mistakes what if there was a small change that became a great change. So I set my dark matter pocket watch for a jump. 

Brownville Brooklyn NYC May 26, 2102~2:53pm

I appeared in an alley. There was...snow. The climate had become more chaotic. The street. Ruined abandoned. The buildings were pocked with military grade jagged bullet holes. The area had been violently cleared. There was something hovering next to my ear...a drone the size of a fly said, "...Freeze!" The traditional militia announcement that you are about to die. My body was covered with multiple red, and amber laser spots. I shifted.  ...not all futures are good.

I had a dream which took place in a library. I was reading works about Fifth Century B.C.E. cultures. Well Jimmy Carter comes by, and sits next to me, and we get into a chat about the subject. 

The former President…and btw he’s the first head of State in or out of office to ever visit my dreams. Anyway, we hit’s it off and compare our contemporary world to theirs. We also seem to be having dinner…dreams are like that. The President sez how other than the tech we’re pretty much the same as them folks so long ago. The center of our lives he told me, “…are family, and tribe”. 

True enough.

We spoke further about raising kids. I helped raise my nieces, and nephews. Carter of course has a daughter, and grand kids.  “…the center of our lives.”

Well, this reading room has a nice nap area…btw libraries really should. A pal, and I often discuss plans for a live in Library, and Theater for Ladies, and Gentlemen with Artistic Proclivities. I think I’d rather enjoy living in such. I believe in ancient times this did happen. 

After chatting, and dining President Carter goes over to take a snooze. Me I continue reading and enjoying the dumplings…such are dreams.

Autumn in my shipyard. I just tinkered with my unfinished HMS Iron Duke kit. The image is from eight months ago. This happens now. Like that cathedral model I'm still sometimes working on battleships, and cathedrals take time. 

A Room of One's Own" 

"...A woman must have money, and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." 
Ms. Woolf was on to something.
I would add a room that locks from the inside. A room with your quiet treasures. A room where you make dreams come true.