"...jokers"

Artemis returns from the moon. The three dummies on board Helga Campos and Zohar sez they’re more or less fine. Tho’ pissed the rover they dropped on da damned Moon don’t work. Campos thought it was the bathroom. ...jerk. These stuffed jokers should be back around the 2nd of December if they don’t burn up on da way. Worth every Bitcoin we spent on them.

"...strange daze"

These are strange times. Emotionally disturbed Negros allied with Nazis. That and them Nazis welcoming them in. Georgia has a mentally challenged Colored politically supported by Kluxer MAGA fans. This is confusing indeed. Objectively it shows that in a Bizzaro World sort of way Negro Civil Rights won. Albeit not in the way anyone expected. We are now free to hate Jews Fags and the assorted inconvenient like everyone else. ...Free at last!

"Aw FOC!!!"

 

"... Signal to noise"

We're just gibbering hairless or mostly bald bipeds. Our civilization is based on descriptions. For us that means words. Our words are profoundly lacking in the tools to describe where it itches much less eternity.

 

 

Loss is the greatest gift. 

From it we learn from it we give. 

Dreams whisper. Hope persists. The Earth Abides. 

"...change"

 

Five shot dead at a Queer club in Colorado Springs. Five dead and 18-22 wounded at ‘Club Q’. ...numbers of wounded still vary. Said President Biden:

“We know that the LGBTQ community has been subjected to horrific hate and violence in recent years, Gun violence continues to have a devastating and particular impact on LGBTQ communities across our nation and threats of violence are increasing.” 

The president of the United States said this. The year I was born there would have been stone cold silence. Such places were routinely assaulted by mobs the police and hostile press. Progress. It may not seem so but if of an age you for sure see it. Regards the latest event. Officials are charging first degree murder which is far more serious than charging a Hate Crime. In the same way the murder of Black people are now taken as actual crimes so also for Queer folks. Slow progress. More varieties of citizens are now being seen as...human. 

So here we are...again. Why does this happen what’s the history of it where does it go? Here’s some snarky notes on who we sort of are which might be a beginning. Once upon a time: 

Beware inking down of your dreams. They'll either end up in some future scripture, and or as evidence at your trial. I'm an old school mid-20th century Queer. The whole point back then was to stop people from killing us. Marriage adopting the works. That was science fiction to us. I’m glad we’re moving along but at heart before the alphabet soup stuff we just wanted to be left alone and not shot. 

Life in the future. I wonder what it’s like to be a Trans Gendered kid now. Like I wonder what a post Jim Crow youngster feels. These folks are different from me and my cohort. They have problems but not the ones we had. It’s still dangerous even deadly but we have moved along for both.  Thing is we don’t have a clue about the human heart or the formula for the perfect doughnut. 

100 years ago, they explained queers as the Third Sex and called it a day. 40 years after that we became Gay. Moved on to Lesbians and Gays then all those ever-changing letters now this. Gender-fluidity. It even sounds like it’s from the future. Wonder what ol’ George Jetson would make of this. You youngsters google him. 100 years from now if they ain’t wiped us out. They’ll see the Fluidities in the same way we view that Third Sex mayhem. We live we learn we change.

 

Life and times. Lost six friends this year. From my radio and online life. Some were pals for decades. Gone. When your moment comes ...Puff. No movie death scene. If you're of an age you know this. 

Saw my first death when I was seven. An elder walking down our street fell. Literally just fell over. He had on such a nice suit. The things you remember. Ambulance came covered him up put his fedora on his chest. I remember it had a small stylish feather in the brim. 

None of the kids that witnessed said anything. After a while we went back to playing. As Mr. Barrie author of Peter Pan said: 'Children are gay innocent and heartless." So we were. Yet I remember tho' it was 65 years ago. Now I wonder at the last moments of those I cared for. I wonder at my own. In my journey it's got on time to wonder at these.

"...tone"

Folks here and other pages have messaged me or commented at the site about this image. Seems I touched a part of them with it. I never know if or when that might happen. When I take an image it's the same as when I edited radio programs stories picture books. There's the subject then what you do with it. The above is a small portion of the original shot. Trees left building right plus tone adjustment. Tho' I try to keep it true to what I saw. I think we all do this no matter our subject. We see something then make a personal interpretation of it.

 

It's bleeping 2022! Da fucking future is here...again.

There are now Eight Billion humans stumbling around the planet.  There was a mere two Billion the year I was born. One Billion seventy years before that. Seventy years after my birth we managed an additional 6 Billions. 

At this rate we'll need either better virus pandemics or move out into the solar system. Which we refused and now can't do. The window for that was slammed on our fingers in the 1970s. ...never to reopen. On that note Artimus our moon colony program finally launched tonight. 

Decades late in construction. Then further years months weeks delayed in launching. Vastly over budget and still seriously questionable tech. These things are about as safe as them 30 year old Shuttles we so enjoyed killing our astronauts in. 

Like I sez: "...slammed on our fingers..."

I so regret not being a drug addict anymore. Life was so simple then. Sadly, and foolishly, I got clean and went on with my life. Should have stayed coked up as it all ends the same way.

Btw it's winter around here now. Snow in the region and even freezing temps in the Emerald City. Rough but it beats 96f and humid. Ain't life grand?

I've always lived alone.

Though I love people I'm solitary.

Tea for one.

 

"...has been"

Lately I'm seeing lots of dead people I used to know or at least their shadows in my dreams. That and for real spirits...ya know the kind. Illuminated from within...yeah them.  Ain't this some shit. All this seasoned with thoughts of cashing my chips. That's always on the table for a depressive. And I ain't even depressed these days...just tired as hell. Like plenty of old bleeps I'm just had enuff and want to leave. Reasonable idea but ya know...complicated. I told a shrink all this once. Bad idea there's laws. He pressed a button under his desk and these guys in white coats showed up. Eventually. He stalled me with phyco-babble till they busted in. Ended up in a looney bin for three days. This till they realized I was just a has-been tech and hack writer. In other words, a waste of their time. Think I'll pitch this static to Netflix.

"...real"

 

The real world. At the supermarket a few weeks ago. I saw an elder asking shoppers for food. This has become common. No ambiguity here. No fit young men hanging around semi-threatening for handouts. She was the real deal. Could be any of us in these days. She was a sweetheart. A retired house cleaner with no pension. I asked what she'd like. Pretty much what I did...basics. I wondered if she minded a wait...she was cool.  Btw who does that music that seems to come from under the broccoli in them places. I came out shared stuff. She said was sorry to ask. Told her I sometimes asked friends so we're in this together. We blessed each other and went our ways. Another day in the life.

"...shared"

 

We just had an election where 60% of us embraced democracy and rejected nationalist autocracy. That 40% wanted the latter is part of the ongoing evolution of this imperfect but hopeful republic.

America is an idea. A shared dream. One based on our Constitution. Something most have never read…like the Bible. Yet have rather profoundly strong opinions about. As a public service here’s our Constitution…all seven words.

“Life Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”.

These particular words almost didn’t make it. They were saved from the cutting room floor by Jefferson. A slave holder who valued such things. Dramatically contradictory, that’s us. We’re an imperfect, but evolving republic. The United States of America. The greatest experiment of the Enlightenment.

"...words"

 

I’ve sat here through the years of the pandemic. I’ve thought of my surroundings. My digs are in a 126 year old building. The Western era in these lands are so recent our oldest makings are still new. In other parts of the world things are very different. People live in places that have been in continuous use for 300 to 500+ years.

I think of that film “Brother from Another Planet”. An alien ship quietly crashes into NYC harbor. It’s only crew person swims to Ellis Island. There as he touches the walls. Through his fingers he hears/feels the voices of the many generations that passed through that place.

Right now, this moment I touch my walls. If I could I would hear Polish Yiddish Spanish French Creole even English. The murmurs of over a century. All those hopes fears loves. Words of the generations that lived in these very rooms. Rooms from which I now post to the world.

"...above"

Dear Santa, you judgmental fuck.

See above ...I want one.

You owe me!

 

Here's a story: 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 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

like the Tardis it was much bigger on the inside. ...a local.

Penny lane was playing in the background. Folks in costumes from 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 685th floor. I was dumped sideways 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 looked like my Aunt Dot and was smoking a pipe. 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 neo-Nazi in a bowtie was saying how they want to exterminate the world...but in a nice way. Lately these guys are trying to appear reasonable. Anyway, he was going on about how everybody could 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 who now looks like Nat King Cole: "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."

Gawd who is now Eleanor Roosevelt smoking a joint sez to me: "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."

She went on as Emily Dickinson: "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 peace, and stuff. Ya printed little broadsides about it too. Not too bad. You're full of shit about everything else though."

"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 the 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...there being no hell the digs was real cute. Like from the neat stuff in Architectual Digest.

There was some sort of 3-D Google, and all the greasy food I ever wanted. Being dead there's no craping or farting. You can eat like the frigging Sun King and keep ya girlish figure. I needed wheels so I used the complimentary iPhone to order a 1932 fusion powered handmade 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.

Last summer when I collapsed in my hallway. I was helpless. Couldn't even crawl. In time I felt systems re-booting. My life went on days go by. I didn't fear this might be my end. For reasons uncertain I never feared that. However, being helpless...

My Ma as part of her death spiral endured a stroke. Helpless...totally. The cruelty. Still, they insisted on using their machines to continue her suffering. For fear of losing her we let them. She just wanted to come home so she could pass in peace. This was a great lesson from her for which I'm grateful.

Dignity over survival.

Years ago, when it seemed I might cancer. I agreed to invasive testing. However, I told them if they found something I was going home. I wanted no part of their slow death rituals. Just wanted pain management and a ride home. I was told this was an unhelpful attitude. I replied: "...for who?"

This is a note from a friend of a friend. I'll use no names to respect the privacy of all concerned. I just thought it important to record and save this personal missive from one about to leave us. And yes, it is cruel to keep person here against their will. They use all the tech they can to keep you alive. However not a thought to the quality of that life.

She writes ...I don’t know if I will keep posting. It is becoming increasingly difficult. If I do, it will likely be just a brief thought without a picture as todays post is. I spend more of my days napping. In anticipating my death, I had not imagined a long time of diminished capabilities during which my interests and books are not companions because of an inability to read much or communicate. I’ve learned that it is not possible for someone who has never been seriously dependent on others for help even with something like opening a bottle or package to imagine what the decline to death is like.

But I remember this is all just what it is—objective. My opinion is that it is unfortunate. My mood is accepting, but I wish death not to linger as I am ready. I regret that euthanasia is not possible for it is needed not just for pain (which I am not plagued by--yet anyway) but severe, growing disability.

This post is clearly for those who wanted the truth of my journey. The truth is that it is harder than I imagined as I did not imagine the loss of even basic capabilities like reading and doing simple tasks without help. And when there is no help available there are things that wait until help is available. When they shouldn't wait, they will still have to and there are limits to what friends can do or can be asked to do. They are not caretakers.

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day." ~Albert Einstein.

"...dusk"

Warm and humid November dusk in Brooklyn.

Climate altering faster now.

Took a walk and saw the three quarters moon.

This between the trees and buildings.

Evening an hour sooner.

Watch this it's two minutes long.

It's cool weird and makes good sense.

 

Things are so murderously evil, and shit in the world that coming to this fucked up country sounds like a good idea. Sort of like fleeing Poland in 1942 to go to Alabama. Btw I went to the fucking Stats for the first time in a few months. There's 647 of you here today.

You have nothing better to do? ...that, and welcome.

 

I just invented a cult/religion/hobby. 

Da Lawd who breathed Fire, and Dreams into the Void hath come to us. Seems the Holy kid was born to a Black Asian Mexican crack whore. Birthed on a couch in a fucked up motel somewhere in San Diego. This on November 7, 2012. The little savior will be 10 tomorrow. Who da fuck knows where his dad is...dead or in prison. Anyway, he don't matter. 

Tonight, is Edwardo Eve. Tomorrow is Edwardo Day!

Praise His Name!
Edwardo Darnell Keong. Lord of Hosts! ...and he don't mean maybe!

For he will bring Love, and Joy unto all the World!
That and fiery vengeance down upon the false lawgivers the wrongly rich the tormentors, and other assorted assholes that have given everybody nothing, but trouble. This kid is cool, but 'this' time he means fucking business.

Watch the Skies comrades ...watch the skies.

 

"...dream"

A sunless world night eternal night. Ruined city. I sat on a pile of bricks watching huge dirigibles. Vast floating cities silent as they floated by.

Silent burning. They sailed over me one after another bright flaming clouds. Burning but not consumed.

"...Psalm of the Hungry Child"

The "City Dept. of Old Farts" thinks I'm nuts so sent me to a Shrink. This while deciding which Geriatric Gulag to deport me to. The doc' is a mid-thirty-something with turquoise hair, and 1980's jewelry.

She asks how I feel. "Swell" I haven't foamed at the mouth or shit myself in weeks now. Although I just had a dream where I was being chased down the street by bed springs." She takes notes nodding calmly. Ms. Turquoise wanted to know what sort of meds I'm on, and if they're effective.

"A bunch, and more or less. I mean it stops me from jumping out of windows or slashing my wrists...again." 

She lifts an eyebrow..."Again?" "Yeah." I show junior my scars from various boyhood attempts. What a mess. I never got it right. Sure I learned how later but won't tell you as a public service. It was about this time them floating Angel clutching teddy bears showed up again. They came through the wall above the shrink. I decided not to mention them. I'm asked if I've ever had "urges of violence?" The Angels start weeping. "Violence...sure. I mostly dream of kicking the bloody crap out'a bullies’ neo-Nazis and the IRS." I warm to the subject by going into medieval detail. Vats of acid piano wire woodchippers heavy objects dropped from great height. It’s raining Angel tears. If she felt them she didn't let on. Anyway, I ask if she could do me a solid, and slip me some morphine. Love's that Morphine! She changes the subject wanting to know if I was abused as a kid. Gimme a break what kind'a question is that. You kidding who wasn't? It was like the worse parts of the Bible. You want details watch Jerry Springer re-runs. I mentions how I could use a pastrami hero about now. She looks up from her notes, and sez, "...you associate your memories of abuse with food?" I tell her I was hungry all the time as a kid. Mostly for kindness and safety. It was a childhood Apocalypse. What with getting beat up terrorized robbed and humiliated by bullies everywhere all the time. I decided to turn the tables...I do this to shrinks. "What's the worst thing that's ever happened to 'you'?" A pause then she sez... "I was raped" Silence....... Christ on a blind pony. ‘This' is the worst thing that can happen to a human being. I mean other than waking up an Orthodox Jew in Dachau in the winter of 1943. I got ‘done’ too. Gang raped. Three big kids at day camp took turns fucking me up my 11 year old ass. I screamed. They said: "...you can scream all you like". I did. Nobody came. Just like prison. Like them floating Angels I kept this to myself. After a bit my doctor tells me I'm not crazy. She sez, “I'll up your dosage, and throw in some Valium." She closes her notebook. 

Sez she "I think we're through for today." Stay Tuned. (Like all my stories this is part history part fantasy. The major shit happened. Like I say think of these as docudramas.  Makes it easier to live with.)

"...work"

Soul to brush stroke.

Dream to pencil tip. Ink as living vines. 

So much work to do.