"...time"

A dear FB pal sent me a book of cut-out dolls. 

These from Harper's Bazar.

1860~1890's

No scissors these took X-Acto blade work.

Three four hours each.

Cutting sculpting.

Loved every moment.

Two done so far.

I'll hack my way through the book.

Something to do as the ocean boils.

It kindly passes the time.

 

"...life'n times"

Now that Trump alumni are writing books. I asked our hero Bob da Bunny about his former pal Steve Brannon. They were both NSA Black Op vets. This before Bannon went rouge. Between deployments he, and Bob used to hang out in decommissioned B-52's. This out at the old bomber "Bone Yard". Aka Davis-Monthan AFB outside of Tucson. There they'd drink laugh shoot up speed balls sometimes cleaning fluid or root beer. Well Bob shot the root beer. Btw that drug road is written all over Bannon's face.

Anyway he, and Bob had a falling out over joining up with some covert FBI Nazi nutters. Seemed they wanted to terminate all the Good Humor ice cream guys in Cincinnati. ??? Said Bob, "...I only plugs guys for da Constitution." Bob also passed on joining them nutters that run the self aware A.I. systems that control the world. Sez Bob, "...I won't work for Satan. Seriously bad retirement package."

About Bannon, "...gotta hand it to him. Da deranged fuck had balls."

"...Biz"

Nippon Barbie

This in front of a Timothy Ely illustration.

On the shoot.

Above Barbie is a trooper.

Though burning up in costume.

She stands fast 

as we wait for the right sun, and shadow.

Show Biz sucks, but we're in it for the Pizza!

 

Just over 100f~37c.

This in direct sun on my Barbie-ometer.

 

"...Watch the Skies"

The feds released that UFO report today. Turns out UFO's or UAP's as the defense department prefers are real. Yeah ya heard right...real. No they didn't say saucer guys from planet Mongo. They did say they ain't lens flares swamp gas Chinese drones or assorted fakes. The latter is too bad. As a kid I made a bunch of neat UFO fakes with my Ma's polaroid camera.

They come to this conclusion from the fact that these things have from the beginning been picked up by various means of sensory data. Radar infrared electronic target tracking systems the works. That, and testimony from folks that work in or watch the skies for a living.

The damned things show up in the controlled air space of military facilities assorted nuclear power plants. They even buzz our Naval Battle Groups at sea...they seem to like our carriers. So after near 75 years of telling us it ain't bleep, and we should shut up about it. They come...somewhat clean. That, and no one cares. Leave it to a government agency to take the fun out of stuff. Sort of like how NASA made Mars boring.

Anyway like I sez if these were normal times this would be a "Stop the presses!!" moment. Explain to your millennial friends enemies or kids what presses are. As many are saying that noticed any of this, UFO's are real. Now what? Me I think given who we are now no one will care. This will disappear in a few days. Folks will go back to trying to reinstall that insane guy who used to be president or watching porn online.

 

 

"...weeping ink"

I drew this years ago

for the Rwandan genocides.

I offer it now

for the murdered children 

of the Canadian Catholic residential schools.

 

“…MURDER”

 

News reports that near 800 remains have been found on the grounds of a Catholic residential school in Canada. Places where native children who were taken from their families were sent to civilize them. That is beaten till they stopped speaking or living their native languages or customs.

Now this…murder. They were being regularly killed. Murdered.

What were they doing,…how many did they kill? They found 751 so far, and are still looking. When asked one of the investigators said there are more to be found out there.

How did they hide it for so many years. The Church the Nun’s Brothers the Priests…they were murderers or accomplices in their silence. Their schools all over North America were dens of routine abuse. I was there It happened to me. It’s so common people call themselves “Catholic Survivors”. In my life I never met one person that went to catholic school that didn’t have stories of what they witnessed or what happened to them. 

Now this. Not only did they beat traumatize, and rape us. They were killing kids too. They were murdering kids for decades. I had thought the beatings, and humiliations was the crime. My g-d! It turns out they murdered kids too!

 

What human words can explain death?

"...worse"

Speaking of mass killing,...see post below. I'm having dreams of the slaughter on the streets of the Emerald City. Took long enough. You'd think that noise would have got into my inner stream before now. Been months. It's getting worse. 

It's like the 1970's, and 90's rolled together. Folks point blank shot stabbed beaten bloody for no reason other than they were there. Kids adults old folks everybody is fair game. The cops? They seem to be looking the other way. 

In those earlier times they were under staffed, and poorly equipped. It was said at the time that they were regularly out gunned by the gangs. Now the cops are an Army, and armed like one too. So folks are saying "...where da fuck are da cops." 

Eh,....that talk of defunding them, and trying them for crimes against humanity may have something to do with this. Yeah they need to reform. I got roughed up by some one evening a few years ago for leaving the library while Black. 

However we still needs them Nazi Kluxer fucks. Or do we call Al Sharpton, and AOC when we got beat stabbed or shot for the hell of it by some post industrial savages out for laffs.

"...fucked again"

We fought in Afghanistan for 20 years against Terror. We are finally getting out. Today I read in the Naval Proceedings that they expect Kabul it's capital could fall six months after we leave. This after supplying training the Afghan army for ten of those 20 years. We left Vietnam after 15 years of war, Our then client the South Vietnamese government fell less that a year after we left. 

There's also a general expectation of mass killings of Afghan officials their families, and those opposed to the Taliban. Intelligence agencies are urging the president to evacuate these now while it's still possible. So far no response.

The next time a bunch of deranged fanatics act up, and start killing everyone in sight for the fun of it,...we need to stay home. I mean even the Romans let the locals slaughter all they liked as long as they paid taxes to Caesar. 

I think we're doing this Empire thing wrong.

"...ice cream"

It's still Queer mayhem month so I'll just say this. There's Seven Billion folks running around lose on this planet. That means there's 7 Billion unique orientations genders, and hat sizes. It's just we're so fucking stupid we think there's two genders one orientation,...period. That's like going to a grand banquet staying in the back by the coats, and just eating napkins. Try to fucking smile more, and have some ice cream.

Like Jefferson said, "...It is self evident."

"...Queer Mayhem Month fun fact #258.

Apparently Tadzio from that "Death in Venice" now banned book. Seems he, and that maniac a young Stalin had a thing going.

...who knew?

 

"...time, and again"

 

I wrote this several years back. It was the first installment of what became my Time Portal series.

One upon a time,...

On being a Black Time Traveler in America's past. One would have to pick the place year season time of day, and location with extreme care. Unlike pink temporal travelers that can wander into near any era of the West, and more or less not get killed.

Colored temporal researchers have to have rather a lot more care. For example I could appear on the above street safely. Jazz Row 52rd Street in NYC. It's November 18th 1946 9:00pm. I could explore the area with minor cautions. Earlier the 20's or earlier I'd need to take profound care.

For example the Court House steps in Jasper Mississippi at noon on Jefferson's Davis's birthday in 1906 might be a serious problem.

Walking while Black in any part of North America from 1609~AD thru roughly 2200~CE. This would be a life threatening though interesting adventure.

I'm thinking of spending the summer working on a science fiction story called "Black to the Future"

Sub-titled "Safety Precautions for the Black Time Traveler".

Below more recent adventures.

"...kind"

I took my dark matter pocket watch from the fridge. I set it for July 18th 2:24pm 862 BCE Manhattan. Wilderness, and rather cool even though summer. The long jump froze my unit. There four days subjective time as it rebooted. No sign folks I could find. Though they found me, and were watching. I awoke on the second day to dried fish, and nuts wrapped in leaves next to me. I spent four days living being fed, and protected by the Mannahatta people. I never saw the kind folks that took care of me. I left them a figure of a robin I carved. A neon shimmer, and I was gone.

"gone"

I was weary anxious,…like everyone now. So used my dark matter pocket watch, and portaled. 9:23pm Saturday June 14th, 1958~CE, Queens NY.
This to my aunt Agnes’s house.
There through the living room window she was watching TV with my now deceased little cousin Henry. I stayed till the commercials,…Chesterfield smokes, and left.
A Dairy Queen. These were new for them. I had a vanilla cone a coke, and chatted with the lone clerk. He asked about how I was dressed. I said I was from 2020. ‘Came to look up family. He took it at face value. I said “…for me they passed long ago.” …said he was sorry. He asked if we ever went to the moon. I said yes, “…fifty years ago, but we stopped,…we have stuff on Mars though.” He nodded re-filling my coke. I paid with a 21st century $5 dollar bill. Shimmered neon blue,…and was gone.

"...living"

A year ago my dark matter pocket watch my sentient time machine shut herself off. She’s slept in my fridge since. Today she chimed, and woke up.

October 22nd, 1148 CE, 5:36pm.I portaled to what would one day be Virginia. I came to watch the sunset. Still. Quiet. I could hear the faintest breeze whistle in my ears. The buzz of every insect the step of every living thing near me.

I sat, and beheld a pre-industrial evening. The sky empty of men was already filling with bright stars. I scented the aroma of ocean half a hundred miles away. If not for bears I would have slept the night. 

West 28th Street Manhattan,…current time. Neon. Noise. Chaos. 

I had dumplings, and tea.

 

"...Play this it's neat"

 

"...Vast"

It is the longest day.

We inhabit a living stone that sails eternity.

We are part of something

Vast, and Wonderful.

 

 

"...quick"

We're having Primary Elections in NYC. From sending in my application with registration confirmation. Getting a Mail Ballot filling it out, and today mailing it in. I was able to do all this in less than a week. Without personal appearance questions or delays. This because I live in the American part of this country. Voting is 'supposed' to be this free this easy, and quick.

 

"...beer nuts"

Everybody should play with dolls, and make music.

We invented these before we invented

Beer, and War.

Does this tell us Anything?

 

 

"Brooklyn Heatwave 2018 BC" ... before COVID

 

From 2021 '18 seems a simpler more innocent time.

Well summer has air-burst like a tactical nuclear warhead over Coney Island. Which I still haven't seen this season. Coney not the bomb. It was 238f degrees, and humid in the Emerald City this afternoon. So of course I went out for a long walk in the sun. See around the corner above.

No I didn't end up in the hospital though I did think of going. This as I hung half off a park bench gasping for air, and clutching my chest. The phrase , "...What da Fuck were you Thinking!!" did come to mind.

They were handing out bottles of water outside my local library. With special attention to kids, and elders. I didn't even have to ask. Some nice NYU grad student City Volunteer came up to me as I stumbled by, and shoved a bottle in my hand.

"Are you alright sir?"

Aw crap do I look that bad? Well okay I'm 138, and wandering about on the surface of the sun. So yeah I could see her concern. Actually I wish they was handing out ice cream I could 'a used a hit of that. Yeah that stuff will kill me now, but so what I likes it.

Wait it get's better.

Another NYU kid, they were wearing the t-shirt, this do-gooder comes over, and offers to help me into the library. For those of you reading this in the civilized world. Thanks to the new Hotter Climate in NYC public spaces in summer are now Thermal Shelters. This includes libraries,...just like science fiction.

I imagine these nice kids are trained to see folks in trouble, which besides gasping for breath I had no idea I was in. What the heck I let them walk me,...they held me by the arms. Which was sweet. I like that folks are nice to old folks, and kids. The "Baby Snatching" by armed enforcers at our border has awakened humanity is some.

Anyway they dump me in a nice chair, and I'm good. Wait again,...get's even better. One of the librarians asks me if I would like a book or magazine to read while I got better from the heat.

Did I just win the humane society lotto or something?

Hey I'm game. I asks if she could find the "Collected Prose of Walt Whitman" the Penguin edition if it was handy. She smiles, and goes. A few minutes later she, and Uncle Walt appear.

I'm figuring this is Candid Camera or whatever passes for that now. Anyway there I spent the balance of the afternoon. In the air conditioned womb of the same library I've been going to since I was six. I moved back to my old 'Hood after some decades of ambiguous adventures.

Today was a good though profoundly hot, and interesting day.

"...hope

 Art by Arthur Szyk.

In the illuminated manuscript style.

The Covenant of the League of Nations

Paris 1931.

(...for all the good it did.)

And still we persist in Hoping.

 

 

“...Postage paid”

 

The United States of America is a Troubled Democracy. This as listed by Freedom House. An institution founded by Elenore Roosevelt, and Wendell Willkie. We’re in company with Brazil South Korea, and others. Part of this decade’s wave of anti-democratic nationalist governments.

We're a big country with many States at different levels of democracy. This year some States are reverting to type by writing, and passing new voter suppression laws, They are making voting very difficult for specific targeted groups. Difficult, but still possible. I say “P” word because in my life time I recall voter suppression at literal gun point in Southern States. It has not regressed that far yet, but it’s on a direct path to it.

I say all this because in my mail box today I received my Vote by Mail Ballot. It was a very simple matter. I filled out a form that confirmed I’m on the registered voting list. Mailed it in, and here a week later I received my ballot. Easy direct democracy. In other states I’d have to personally deal with the state government to make sure I haven’t been purged from the voting rolls. This takes days in some states weeks. In those places they do not inform you. Instead you’re told when you show up to vote,…that you can’t.

However I live in the American part of the country so I can now at peace in my home in the company of my books my dolls vote for the incompetent egomaniac of my choice. Well I’m voting Liberal Democrat which comes down to the same thing.

Others in say Texas Arizona Wyoming Nebraska Alabama will have rather a longer, and more intrusive complicated experience. Some will not be able to vote by mail or in person at all. One of the two major parties knows that if more people vote they may not be elected. Trump himself said “…If everybody voted no republican would ever be elected again.”

For once he spoke the truth.

So tho’ I make lite. This is because I live in a State still governed by those that respect the rule of law as opposed to the uniformed whims of one disturbed man or his followers in State governments. For all the above I take my enfranchisement as a life, and death matter.

“…words”

On a friend's music page we were speaking of where we were when we got the news of John Lennon’s murder. I was standing in the hallway of WBAI radio in NYC. I had just come off the air, and a friend called. She was weeping, and could barely get out what had happened. 

She just kept saying, “…he’s dead he’s dead he’s dead.” 

I thought it was her boyfriend. This till I realized who she meant. I was silent. I mean struck silent. We immediately went on the air with this. Usually on mic there’s no shutting me up. However that night I barely said 10 words. What human words could describe the meaning of death.

 

 

“…do not forget”

From my Pandemic Journals a year ago.

Emerald City

"Day 80. We’re under both Virus Lockdown, and Civil Disorder Curfew. Here, and downtown also across the bridges to Manhattan. Arrests there. Curfew 8pm-5am. It’s calm in my ‘hood.  Many patrolling choppers though. Subways will run for Essential workers only. Above Eastern Parkway during what would have been rush hour. Be brave be safe. G-d save our Republic.”

“…high octane”

From my Pandemic Journals as I posted them last year, and this on FB.

A year ago today June, 2020.

“Day 96.  Weeping. I’ve been actually weeping. Not just those one or two tears weepy, but weeping. Yesterday, and today,…last week, and last month. I haven’t done this since my brother passed, and before that many years ago when my parents passed on directly one after the other over just months. Environmental cancers.

My reasons for this state are much the same as yours. These times past times my life your life our lives the world, and the awful cruel boring grim irrational routine we accept as normal.

I guess it’s the accumulative effect of my 70 years in this republic of such brutal contradictions. Now topped off with our Pandemic, and our never to end race wars. I am weary of them both. That’s all. 

So I sit by my window taking in the early Summer sun. Listen to the wind the rumble of the police choppers the unending ambulances the cops cars the yelling. Mind you things might change a bit maybe for a while. It’s happened before may again. I don’t know, and I begin not to care. 

I’m holding up the best I can. Just like everyone else. This is perhaps selfish. It is not a plea for anything. It’s just what I feel. My FB friend Di is so right. I am a high octane Drama Queen."

"...a long drop"

Speaking of time space, and our notion of reality. This above is roughly the physical spot I'm posting from. I'd be a block to the right. Tho' there are not yet blocks. Same space different time. In this case 1890. Brooklyn was then ungraded farmland. Where I'm sitting right now in 2021 is fifty feet above these working folks. They're widening Eastern Parkway. If I portaled, and suddenly appeared. They'd be amazed at the strangely dressed "Darkie" that fell out of the sky,...with assorted strange devices, and money from over 130 years in the future. Fortunately I would not be alive to end up as a living exhibit at P.T. Barnum's downtown Hippodrome.

 

"...Kapow"

As is traditional in Brooklyn.

 It's once again fireworks season.

It usually erupts in mid-May. 

However Spring being cold it's just started.

The one above detonated 

outside my living room window.

My what gleeful fun this Summer is going to be.

 

"...ink"

Taking helpful advice from Comrade Z. I went looking for the art of winged faeries. These from the early 20th century classical fairy book artist Andrew Lang. As I mentioned in a comment. I wanted to draw a new series of Blog, and 21st Century safe Faeries. 

See below in "...echo" for one of my modest pen, and ink gleeful Fae. This as near all of my decades of work are now unpublishable. Too much naked ink for these enlightened times.

Well seems things being what they are. Even fairyland has been cleansed of anything gentle or suggestive of Dionysian beauty, and magic. It's all monsters knights, and babes that know their place.  

Even the adventurous Fae from Brian Froud's work has been culled. I noticed he removed or re-painted his spirits, and fairies. He covered them up head to toe, and altered them to seem older.  Above is his Peter Pan also deleted. I have a years old file of it. If he re-did it he'd probably give him a beard.

I've portaled to a demented timeline. 

I'll have to depend on my own sweaty imagination for new work. Fuck'em,...where's my pen!

 

"...summer begins,...mostly"

In a garden across the street.

The Earth, and Beauty

insist.

 

"...in the beginning"

How it all started.

Me meeting a Faerie in Central Park

when I was three.

 

 

"...echo"

You can fly! ...At least I thought I could. Back when they delivered milk in bottles cars had fins, and Good King John was on the Throne. Back in the glorious times when comic books were .10 cents, and they 'gave' you a free Coke with your Hot Dog at the movies.

Back in them forever lost years of the former American Empire,...I thought I could Fly.

Made perfect sense. Every night we sat out at the park or in the backyard to watch the Satellites slowly sail over us. The night sky was familiar to us.

We knew the stars, and their arraignment as constellations. So we knew it when something new appeared. Oh those magical ships of stars. We lived in an age of Miracles.

Within that former realm of magical promise we believed we could fly.

I believed I could perch on the window sill, and,...Leap!

Leap into the air land on the tree in front of our house then leap again into the starry night.

As I sit here posting as an elder I see my young self planning this great adventure.

I think kids 'do' fly.

They perform any number of miraculous acts as a matter of norm. They fly appear, and disappear walk on water speak with both Angels, and Demons. However they don't tell.

Never.

Because these are secrets for the very young in body, and heart.

Secrets soon lost. We've forgotten. All those adventures are thought as mere Dreams.

Perhaps the "Peter Pan" myth is an echo of our lost magic.

Maybe there is a Far side of the Moon a Never-land or any of the thousand names the culture of children have for the "Magic Place".

Maybe without knowing that's what we're all trying to re-capture.

 

 

 

"...online"

I just got an email from my arts grant server whom I filed an appeal with. My account has been renewed. Long story, but that's the bottom line. For heaven's sakes such times. 

Thank you all for your concern you're my pals. Thank you especially that offered information on alternatives. Loves you comrades. Especially thanks Nat for being my pal through the centuries going back to our radio daze.

Loves ya all.

"...parts"

Speaking of Nijinsky I found my old late 50′s Mack truck diecast model. Looked like hell. Had it for 20+ years. So I worked on it. Replacing busted or missing pieces, and touch up painting. Here she is,…not too bad. ‘Couldn’t find all the right parts. The real thing has the same problem these days. Working on these little guys is very meditative.

 

“…Nijinsky”

This a little story I did near 20 years ago. 

I love Nijinsky. As a youth I read everything I could find on him. I longed over the photos that survived. It wasn’t that I wanted to be a dancer. It’s that his story, his difficult creative life spoke to me. Touched my soul. Perhaps It’s good that we were separated by half a world, and more than a century of apocalyptic history. 

If I were 16 had a time machine, and could speak French, Russian, and German I’d be his shadow. A Queer colored teenager from the 21st century pursues the object of his wonder. All this amid the intrigues of 1911 Moscow. 

I can see it now, Romola, Nijinsky’s long suffering wife sits me down in my hearts desires study. She pours me mint tea. 

“Young man. You must understand my husband is very busy.”

Steam curls.

“His work is very important, and he can’t be disturbed”

I sip.

“I want to see him. Please. I want to look into his eyes. To see his soul. I must understand him”

Romola offering gingered bread.

“I wish the same,…so do we all that love him.”

That’s as far as I take this.

How to explain to Romola my time machine becoming a lad again or YouTube.

“…black, and white” ...an old fav of mine.

 

If my life were a 1956 TV program this would be my outro script.

*Uncle Sydney, Outro theme,…live w/ recorded effects. 

“Good night folks, and thanks for coming by. Remember next week our special guests will be Eleanor Roosevelt, and Chee Chee the amazing singing dog! So goodnight drive carefully, and please give to the Charity of your choice.”

*Applause slowly fades…Que announcer. 

*Network Announcer,…booth six,

“Uncle Sydney’s True Life Adventures” was brought to you by Dr. Pepper the makers of fine cleaning products. Alternate sponsor Flame Guard protect your home protect your children with special formula Asbestos “Flame Guard!" 

"The Uncle Sydney Dancers appeared courtesy of Sydney-Co Enterprises Ltd. The Uncle Sydney Negro Puppet theater is a co-production of the Du Mont Television Network, and the Greater Pacific Co-Prosperity Sphere Media Combine."

*Outro theme applause bed fades out.

*Que "A&A" slide...

“Please stay tuned to most of these Du Mont stations for "Amos, and Andy 2000”. 

“Laughs aplenty as Lightning invents a time machine, and the King Fish who thinks it’s a washing machine accidentally goes to the future. This will be coming up after these brief commercial announcements.”

*Local Announcer,…booth three,

“You’re tuned to WNBT, Channel 6, Edison New Jersey. 

The time is exactly 8:29:59 pm Eastern Standard Time”. …*Tone,

*Play local PSA… *Que Ajax, DDT, and Nash Rambler commercials.

*Que network feed for Amos, and Andy…