Ok, I'm crazy, but I think I can do it...

Put a set of fully articulated angel wings on a beautiful woman that she can move at will, and have them look like they grew there.  *chuckle*  Yes, of course, spun off of the Victoria's Secret thing on TV, but hey... a better challenge than figuring out how to say blow up someone's satellite in orbit without them knowing who done the dirty deed.

The First rule of Warehouse...

See the floor? Sweep the floor.  That's the first rule of warehouse, and it's a good rule because you really never know how long it's going to be before you see that patch of floor empty enough again to run a broom over it.  It's my rule, and I follow it.

As it stands right now I'm looking at a lot of clean floor.  My life at the moment isn't nearly as full as it has been in years past, pretty much everything will fit on the shelves with room to spare.  It seems almost empty by comparison, even though it's really not.  The job is done, the kids are raised, the wife has gone on and I'm standing here looking at what's left now that for the first time in a very long time my motives are truly just my own. 

I did this once before as a matter of fact.  That was 1974, and I stayed on base through the holidays.  I remember, sort of, what I was thinking then.  I was thinking how empty the holidays always felt, how they always carried that sour tang of exclusion.  I beat them to the punch that year,  I Scrooged that Christmas bigger than Dallas. 

This year Christmas isn't getting scrooged, this year the kids and I agreed we'd celebrate Christmas on Jan. 7th along with the folks on the far side of the world where Jesus is remembered by the Eastern Orthodox people rather than the Roman Catholics and Protestant churches.  Just works out better that way for us since the son will be working open to close so some folks with kids can spend the day with their families and there's a good chance the daughters will be pulling half shifts as well.  By the seventh those who are celebrating now will be back and time off won't be hard to come by.

So this year while the rest of my land is celebrating what I'm doing is looking at all this clean floor and wondering what should go back to fill it, and I suppose it's fair to say I'm being a bit picky.  As of right now the only promises hanging are the ones I made to myself.  They were always the last ones considered anyway, I knew I'd understand.  And I did.  But now it's my turn, and the very first thing I want to put back is a good plan that actually reflects the me I've become during those years of keeping the promises I made to the other folks.  I think that's probably the best thing to do, really, now while I've got the chance figure out what should go where since there's a good chance I'll never see this much clean floor again.

Why the Anglo World is totally f***'ed up...

I saw it today, I saw it in print, saw it on Anne of Carversville's emerging power blog.  It only took three words.  I think the three words were intended as the title of a one woman art show somewhere in Gotham City, or was it New York?  No matter, those two play about the same. 

But did the artist chose those words?  Is it possible she actually understood the problem, but had no voice other than her colors on canvas?  Or is she just another of the multitude who suffers away a lifetime to the contradiction? Mux nix, the three words stand on their own.  They define exactly how totally twisted the language has become... and as a consequence of that twist of implied meaning, that twist of shorthand convenience in support of mandatory immaturity as a condition of social acceptance... why so very many are so confused and helpless and hurting, trying to build a life when the very symbols they've been taught to think in sabotage their every effort from the get-go.  What three words?

Love before Intimacy.

That has got to be the most impossible contradiction ever set into symbolic communication.

Orcs, Trolls, and the Culture of Sexual Othering…

Folks, this post is in response to an unsavory phenomenon my friend CJ mentioned in a post on her blog page, one she and her sister models are all well acquainted with: the often truly disgusting online behavior displayed by certain elements from the male half of the world towards the lasses and ladies who model nude.  In a comment on her post I said I might have a bit to offer as to why they are subjected to such behavior, offered to write out my thoughts on the subject if she'd be interested in reading them.  *chuckle*  Me and my big mouth.  She took me up on it.  I am one hundred percent certain I'm not the best qualified to speak to these thoughts, but apparently I'm what's available.  

So before I jump into this to get… as the saying goes in my part of the world…  naked and nasty about the subject lemme' go brew a pot of coffee, and put this out there right up front:  if any of you girls who knew me back in the MET days should read this please don't think ill of me, I am working on the problem where can as can, and please don't hesitate to continue my education with a comment or three.  You're the ones who were face to the foe, I was just an observer.

Compression Bruising...



What follows is my comment to a most excellent post over on CJ's page.  I'm reposting it here because the thought involved is solidly part of my (slow to press but ongoing) series "The Third Reality of Man."

***   ***   ***

To Darkwolf, Rand-J and Karl: well said gentlemen.  Somehow I feel I might be at risk of hearing a chorus from a Carly Simon song to commenting on this post at all, and worse might even deserve it, but why not.  Here goes nothing.

"Othering" sounds to my ears like one of the many words reassigned and modified by those who are (unwisely) attempting to homogenize (and ultimately bottle for retail) all of humanity, a word well chosen to carry Big Brother's disappointment and displeasure, it works well as precursor to a veiled threat.  Still though, the function has been present in the human condition from the beginning, it deserves a name.

If it is accepted that Othering has been present since the beginning it would seem reasonable to assume it served some needed function, to my thought probably more from the realm of security than sustenance:  if the others helped there would be plenty for everyone, but the others might simply take our effort and leave none for us, there are after all more of them than there are of us.  To state the obvious, but there are always more of them than there are of us.  Us refers to those within our personal sphere of empathy, a local variable,  the Other refers to those who are not, an all inclusive default definition very global indeed.

Child abuse...

One of the cruelest things you can do is do someone's homework for them. You've just robbed them of something they're going to need from now on. You see someone doing a child's homework for them? Report them to child welfare, because that is child abuse, pure and simple.  End of subject.

Screwdrivers in the Dark...

Screwdriver Love
from the diner doodle series

Life in the refrigerator is not easy, no, it isn't.  In point of fact it is quite similar to any other prison.  The door closes, the light goes out.  The door opens, someone goes away.  Sometimes they come back almost empty, sometimes they don't come back at all.  Some only stay for days, others are confined for months or years, and there is no understanding of why.  Vodka soon enough became the eldest survivor on the shelf, seemingly forgotten completely, left to entertain pitcher after pitcher of orange juice with stories of his homeland, with each new lover secretly hoping she would be the one to make an end to his sentence...

Baby sitter blues...

Yup, me.  A fifty something proto-geezer in charge of three girls, none of whom have seen their fifteenth birthday.  I got drafted to give the brother a break from their weekend long sleepover.   Both by their words and their actions between them pretty well cover the full spectrum of the modern feminine: my niece (S.) who adamantly calls herself strait, one a sweetheart of a bi (D.), and one (R.) seeming pretty solidly lesbian.  Right.  And me.  Needless to say, it were an interesting night. 

Of course the dvd player got in the game while I fixed the kids something to eat, none of them are eating particularly well.  It was a double feature: Mel Gibson's "Signs" (by their request from the library) followed by "GI Jane" as my pick.   Signs is a good flick, but it was their response to GI Jane I was interested in.  I wanted to see how the girls responded to Demi Moore's portrayal of an awesomely strong sister.

Waiting for the Ship...

Just a "diner doodle" that turned out well, thought I'd toss it up just to have something new to post.  I found my big box of Sharpie magic markers, couldn't resist playing with the colors.  I touched this up lightly in Photopaint on it's way into the computer, but nothing radical.  Made the black be black, got rid of a few stray pencil lines from before I began inking, smeared the water a bit (not sure that wasn't a mistake, the original was done pointalism, more or less, and it was kind of neat).  That sort of thing.  Think I'll swallow hard, and break out the India ink for the next few, see if I can do a couple of decent nudes worked with stipling I think they call it for shading.  Never done such before, may take a couple of tries to get it in the ballpark.  *chuckle* A goal, a goal, my kingdom for a goal (to bastardize Bill).  Onwards and outwards...

Bedlam in a leaky bucket…

I've been sort of dreading today.  Every year the two major state universities meet on the gridiron to fight it out for their annual bragging rights.  One of those rather meaningless things really, but it happens every year, and this year it's here.  Ok, the idea of going out to find a burger is not an option, not today. It's bedlam out there.

I really have no gripe with the boys playing ball, no different from the young bucks out knocking horns so the does can decide who they want to father next years fawn.  It isn't the ball game that bothers me, it's the attitude of the fans.  Good grief folks, it's a ball game, hope it's a good game, hope someone wins, hope no one gets hurt.  But the fervor and hype is so totally and terribly overblown.  I liked playing sports at first, at least until the time I saw genuine bloodlust on a fan's face. 

Number 3...

There is a poem called "The Highwayman" by a fellow named Alfred Noyes, a narrative in point of fact.  I met the poem courtesy of Loreena McKinnet's most excellent song of the same name.  It's a bit of a sad story, really.  You see, the highwayman loved Bess, the innkeepers beautiful daughter, and in a midnight conversation at her window he confides to her he's after a major prize that night.  He tells her if the pursuit is hot to look for him the following night, I'm supposing (it doesn't really say in the poem) with the intent that they should elope and take his newly won treasure with them.  But... he is overheard by the ostler ( had to look that one up, the ostler was the stable hand) who also loves Bess, a hopeless love, bitter jealousy, and he betrays the highwayman.  A troop of King George's redcoats arrive, and set Bess to be the bait in their trap.  They bind her standing in front of her window, several are in the room with her waiting the chance to shoot the highwayman.  In point of fact, they lean a spare musket against the girl, wedge it under her breast where the muzzle points at her head!  But Bess loves the highwayman something dear, through the long hours of waiting she works, and in the end she manages to get one finger on the trigger of the spare musket.  Yes, when she sees the highwayman on the road she fires the musket, sacrifices her life to give him warning.  He flees, escapes the trap, but the following day when the full tale reaches his ears he is stricken mad with grief and guilt and charges back to be promptly gunned down in the road.  Not such a happy ending, in point of fact the poem speaks to how when the moon and the wind reprise that fateful night you can still hear the highwayman on the road, can still see Bess at her window. 

So much is in the poem, but somehow I don't think the story is full told.  Somehow I don't think Bess stays at that window, no, I don't.  I think Bess walks the night from time to time in anger, such anger that not only can she manifest at will she can manipulate the world of the living as well.  I'll leave it to you my reader to fill in the details of who she hunts, I'll leave it to you to speculate on how a spirit came by a long slide Colt .45, to guess if she can actually wield the weapon.  I will say I'd not like to be a soldier among the redcoats should she appear!  Certainly not one who misuses the innocent. 

Blown bigger than Dallas...

My front channel speakers, that is.  Old age got 'em.  I asked them to do what they did when they were young, and... they died trying.  They went together, both woofers and one mid-range, by looking the other mid wouldn't be far behind.  A mated pair if ever there was one.

For damn near twenty five years they served me well, one of my proudest possesions.  I'm not going to abandon them now.  The funny thing is I never meant to buy them, not really.  Things like that were for rich people, not folks like me.  I got juked into the whole deal.  Point of fact, they were part and parcel of the most expensive phonograph records ever bought.  The story goes like this.

Jonathan Swift, where are you now?

Today is a holiday here in the United States, Thanksgiving to be precise.  But more on that a bit later.  Today's post has been several days in the building, and it was inspired from several different directions that somehow converged.   Anyhow, a few days ago I took it into my head I wanted a new drafting board, the last one got sacrificed fixing a rent house I don't live in anymore.  So, down to the store I went, and came home with a new board, and some drafting tape.  These days I'm taking stock of my skills, and I wanted to see if I could still work a T-square.  Working either of my CADD programs is a given, but a T-square is a hand skill that demands more forethought than digital.    Of course, it sat there a day or two, I had no idea what needed drafting.  No biggy, mostly just boredom.

It was boredom sent me web surfing as well, looking in on pages I don't visit often.  One was Anne of Carversville, a fashion/feminist page where I'll check in occasionally just to see where that segment of the world seems to be heading.  Not my usual cup of tea mind you, but every now and then something interesting.  Another page I visited is a French fellow's offerings in the realms of artistic nudes gleaned from the web, and hey, he has good taste and the French do have a way with their postcards.  He also has some adds as well, and one of those in particular caught my eye and started me thinking.  So, now that all the pieces are in place I can get to the thought that emerged from such diverse beginnings, which is...

A Best Guess on Life's Biggest Question...

What follows is an excerpt from the "Wanderings" writings, my free writes while listening to PBS's most excellent musical program Hearts of Space.  These words are what fell off my fingers onto a keyboard, they were not written by deliberate thought, but rather were freed by a deliberate lack of deliberate thought.  They are about a decade old at this point, and are offered just as the title says... a best guess.

***   ***   ***

You only live twice.  How appropriate, to say that a man has two lives to his credit.  Strangely, only one life is ever seen,  the life of the waking hours.  The other life, the one which by far does greater justice to defining the man, that life is hidden and secret, often even from the first life.  To sleep, to dream, to journey in the inner life and landscapes, these are solitary journeys into an entire second universe created by the mixings and minglings of the man and the outer reality.

Concerning the Lords of LaMancha...

Some time back I made a quip in conversation, a self deprecating joke on my own attitudes about the world.  I said I rode with the Lords of LaMancha.  You know the land of LaMancha, that's where Don Quixote hailed from, the land of insanity, and romantic idealism.  Like I said, I was basically poking fun at myself.  I got a smile... warm and wise, soft and sincere... from the lady I was speaking to, I got what I wanted.  She understood my intent. 

In the days since I've used the phrase a time or two when I want to describe myself in only a few words.  Of course, the longer the idea has been with me the more I've had to realize just what it really means. By and large I don't like society, I call myself contra-social, and yet there I claim membership in a group, a society.  Dealing with individuals is no problem, each a unique human being and only a very few found truly offensive, and yet I really don't like the beast called society.  Somehow it seems all the good and noble things I find in the individuals gets suppressed when those individuals are gathered into the group called society.  It is a curiosity, it is.  Why when you look at the individuals is there so much goodness, but when you look at the society the greater majority of that goodness is not  to be seen?  What is it about collecting people into groups that suppresses what is there in the individuals?

I've about come to the conclusion a large part of the phenomenon is powered by an association I made in the first paragraph, the all to common assumption that only the insane will aspire to live their life guided by romantic idealism for a philosophy.  A true statement, and yet a very cynical one inspiring a deep concern for the fate of my world.  It is said, and I've found it true over the years, that the most you can expect from the world is the least you'll demand of yourself.  How is the world to ever improve if the majority of people consider such cynicism to be part of sanity, part of maturity?

I suppose I've found my windmill, now, just where did I park that lance?

Water filters, quick and dirty...

I'd recommend using the commercial, 20" size filter units... they last a lot longer than the 8" units commonly found at Lowes or Home Depot for whole house  service, and the elements aren't really that much more expensive and there is a much wider variety of cartridges available.  Hope this helps.

Blinded... in so many ways

Filters, that is.  Filters for water, and filters for things a lot worse than what's floating in the water.  Had to use up my last two cartridges for the water filters today, someone remind me to buy a couple more here in the next month or two. 

There at the end of her life my wife's skin got terribly sensitive, I did what I could to keep her bath water as clean as I could get it, installing a water softener between a pair of high capacity filters.  A bit of experimentation and it came clear you can go down to a five micron sediment filter without sacrificing to much water pressure.  Fair enough.  I've had the softener off-line since she died, no need to feed it, but of course the filters are still in line and they finally blinded out to the crud.  If you've ever seen what a five mic filter will pull out of a city water supply you'd go "yuuuuckkkk!" just like I do, and be glad it was there.  Ok, enough on trying to sell you on the idea of water filters, most generally you can live without them.  But there are other kinds of filters you really do need.

The Games Children Play...

You Never See the Assassin...
Until he Smiles.
by
CDM.MMXI

"Children, children play at the things they’ve seen their elders do, for sport, for livelihood.  But the children of the damned play at damnation, Jean Luc.  That is what has come forward, just that, a compulsion to play at damnation..."



The quote is the heroine SQ St. Marie, speaking to her husband Jean Luc on the fateful night she reclaims her past, the past hidden from her waking memory for survival's sake.  By Sun or Moon is a work of fiction, a story of love, the healing power of love in support of a courage that will not be denied, an erotic story as the erotic should be.  It is a story of love and courage matched against the evils of abuse and rape, it is a story of an inner victory over those evils restoring life in full to the victim.  It is a story of the inner justice which in the end is the only justice which sets such horrors to peace.  But sadly, it is only a work of fiction, not all victims find their victory. 



These last weeks keeping the company of the young folk has brought to ever sharper focus what SQ said to her man about the children of the damned playing at damnation.  Among those I've conversed with are several who are serious gamers, who spend a significant amount of their time involved with the worlds and characters they create in the complex structures of the modern games.  These are not games as their elders knew games, these are deep fantasy worlds that reflect the gamer's perception of the world they see in their day to day lives, a perception they set into a game in order to deal with what their perception has inflicted upon their lives.  In all fact, the gamers I've been in contact with were among the most intelligent and sensitive of all. 



It is a terrible and indefensible condemnation of our culture, the things I see echoed into their games from their perceptions, their imaginations, of what they have come to believe life must be on an emotional level (if not a literal level perhaps easier to deal with from a standpoint of maintaining full humanity) based on what their world showed them as they passed through childhood.  I have only guesses as to what they saw, what may have happened to them, but I am very sure of one thing: they never saw the assassin until the assassin smiled to see their innocence fall bleeding at their feet.  The modern world of instant communication, the media of the modern world catering to the damned of the generation before, the modern world provides the assassin plenty of cover.  You'll not see him, until he smiles.

Doodles and other stuff...

Sally in the City
CDM.MMXI

It's funny how habits come back to you.  It used to be I had to show up every day and do things for the company.  Now that I don't have a company I've had to invent things to take its' place.  Currently it is getting out of the house (so I actually see live and living people) once a day, and of course you really need some sort of an excuse for hanging where ever you hang (so the establishment doesn't come to the conclusion you're a Criminal Minds grade pervert out scouting for dinner or something) the art stuff rides with me for cover.  Well, if you're carrying it you might as well use it, good for the cover and all, and some of the things showing up from letting the world wash through me and onto the page are getting, well, interesting.  Figured it would just be courtesy to post a couple of them here, so if the damn dream police decide to hire an assassin to kill me (causing the 282 mega-ton thermonuclear warhead I keep in the bottom of the refrigerator to detonate when my bio-monitor goes flatline) at least it will happen here at the house and not disturb the gang down at my favorite coffee shop.  No need to ruin their day ;-]

The Consequences of Lunar Orgasm Revealed
CDM.MMXI

Or something like that.  But seriously, it has turned into a strange, strange world.  The things I hear going by just make me shake my head and wonder sometimes.  What a world.

Brain Droppings on the Short Bus...

This little pile of brain droppings is salvage material dating from 2002 relating to the women folk, one from when I was compelled to not only buy but sit through an induction and indoctrination course at (hack-spit) Oklahoma State University for the sin of enrolling thirty five years late for my freshman year, two others from the infamous freshman comp where the lad running the class (a drinking buddy of my son's) was trying an almost desperate mind to mind resuscitation on thirty assembly line kids (I'm not knocking him at all, he did a good job for what he had to work with).  I'm posting this as a conversation starter for some friends to read, I'll tag in a few modern thoughts in italics along the way.

***   ***   ***

This One's for You...

Sing it Shirley, sing it... it's all comin' back around again.

Folded...



"Pluto: Planet or Asteroid?"
Photographer: Mic-Ardent
Model: Nikky Case
Source: DeviantArt.com

The name she shows the world is Nikky Case, she's a Czech, a skilled photo model and as beautiful a woman as God ever saw fit to grace planet Earth with.  She's one of the women who can, when she wants to, tell you a story with only one or two frames if you'll pay attention.  She is both artist, and catalyst for art,  I have no doubt she hosts the muse for those she agrees to pose for. 

There is another artist in this story, a French fellow, a photographer who is known on DeviantArt by the name mic-ardant.  As a photographer he is a good match to Nikky, skilled at capturing the nuances left floating by the women who pose for him, obviously skilled at setting them into a frame of mind to float such nuances for his lens to capture.  

There is little reason to doubt that for Mic just as for Nikky the nature of how the erotic represents itself is well known, for them how that deep ache and poignant trembling hope that defies all description will manifest itself is part of their profession, part of the palette from which they draw to create their art, an understanding they use to seed a dream within the minds of their audience.  For those of us who are their audience their skills can be almost narcotic, give them your full attention for five seconds and they are quite able to hold you captive for an hour using nothing but wonder and delight.  That is how it is for us, we who are their audience.  But how is it for them, they who provide that wonder and delight? 

Of Mother and Muse...

Once upon a time I wrote a poem called "Of Man and Muse" inspired by and dedicated to the beautiful woman who hosted the muse for me.  Like all gifts of the muse the older that work becomes the more facets I find within it, things I didn't realize were there while wandering in the expansions of her tender spell that allowed the words to find their way to me. 

An Original Sin is hard to find...

I'd thought about writing out some long winded ramble on the subject, but in the end decided there was no way I could match Meatloaf's version in his great but not so well known song by the same name... listen to what the man has to say, he's saying quite a lot.

Once Upon a Time...

A self portrait of me in say 1977

Once upon a time I thought I might earn my living with art.  I had this odd idea I might eke out enough income to keep body and soul in the same place.  But that was back in the days when I was young, and very poor, and what the hell you could live on a dream five dollars a day.  I didn't need much in those days, not really.

The Exile of Love

In my post "Of Sex and Secrets" I spoke of Ira, the woman who gave me quite a gift, a rare gift really, a gift that cost her dearly even though that cost was not something she chose but rather something she endured and overcame in her own life.  Thinking back on those days when I kept company with she and her sisters-in-seduction was pleasant, they worked magic with their beauty, their skill and their understanding.  But I am not such a sister, I am a man, and as a man every time I visit those memories I find myself asking questions of myself, first among those questions always why was it those women could do what they did? It is a question of deep introspection, it really is, you have to look deep inside yourself to find an answer that fits the reality of yourself.

Theme for a protest...

This one is from my son, who said if the British can use "The 1812 Overture" to blow up Parliament (in "V for Vendetta") then by golly gump we American's should use "Hall of the Mountain King" for a theme song for the assualt on Wall Street.  And you know what?  I think he's right.  Somehow it all fits.  The version below is a bit off (ok, a good ways off) the way it would have been performed in Grieg's day, but somehow?  It fits today, it fits the mood boiling below the surface of our country.

Pink Floyd had marching hammers in "The Wall" so why not rank upon rank of head-banging electrified cello's to lead the charge against Wall Street?  What better a way to show the hypocrites and traitors of the conservative establishment that even their own will turn on them sooner or later?  Boys and Girls, can we say "Bow Attack?"

That... would be me.

Yup, that's me all right.  No doubt about it, not anymore.

That time of year...

It is autumn now, the old year fading into winter, a time of endings and remembrances.  But autumn must proceed winter, and winter leads off for spring when all things are renewed.  There is a distinct air of melancholy and loneliness in the air.  I feel it, I do.  But there are many things survive the years, the changes, the winters, they survive and return.  I was thinking of my father this morning, gone over forty years now, thinking of the things he left to me, the memories. 

Among those memories was a song, and old cowboy standard that many people have covered, a song my father liked to sing.  I remember him best singing it the night I was riding with him (he was a long haul trucker), the night the muffler blew out on the truck somewhere west of Texas on I-40 and he had to pull it off the pipe to let the engine breathe enough to get us down the road to where he could get parts for a repair, which was up the mountain in New Mexico.  As diesel engines go it wasn't a terribly big engine, but even a little diesel has a full throated roar when the muffler is gone and it's pulling the slope with a full load behind.  The cab was almost painfully loud, there was nothing could be done about it.  Daddy stuffed some cotton in my ears, in his ears, and into the night we went with hammer down hard: the only way to run the engine was flat out, he didn't dare let it suck cold air up against hot exhaust valves, that would have been the end of the engine.  Soon enough I was all but punch drunk with the noise. Somewhere in the middle of that six hour run up the mountain I remember him singing this song, out shouting the roar of the engine that had somehow hit a minor key resonance in tempo to the song.

Just for whoops and grins I've included two versions of the song, one the original and the other a cover by someone modern so you can pick your vintage.  My Dad would have raised an eyebrow at the modern fellows appearance, but hey, he would have fully appreciated his music.

All good things come back around, one way or another.

Floppy Recollections

I was cleaning today, well, last night, and lost in the bottom of an obscure drawer I found an old floppy disc.  Yes, one of those things, 3.5HD 1.44meg floppy from back in the good old days.  The label was bare, the contents a mystery.  Since I'm in possession of one of probably twenty working 3.5 drives in town I crossed my fingers (that the dust bunnies hadn't converted the inside of the drive into time share condos), stuck it in, and lo!  Everything spun up like it should, the disc read perfectly.  To most folks what I found would have been a total case of WTF? of course, as it was for me for the first few moments.

The contents were rather cryptic.  Four text files, named in a code of some sort.  I wasn't sure what I was looking at, not right at first. I glanced into the files, and found a DOS command line, next a long string in the all but forgotten command line language of VAX/VMS followed by long columns of numbers in text and tab format.  The memory returned, a bit slowly, the facts have been in the deep archives for fifteen years.  Those four files document one of my greatest triumphs, and betrayals.

Of Salt Suspended…

I've come to understand something, something that might possibly apply to others as well as myself.  Against the chance these things might be of value for someone else I'll share them here.

What I am speaking of is a thing akin to a form of momentum, emotional momentum.  For five months now I've been in mourning, various stages of the work.  But for the last say six weeks it has been of an ever stranger nature, seemingly the same mechanisms in play and yet the peripheral environment diverged from what had been.  It's dawned on me that I'm not mourning the same event.  For a while this worried me, and I suppose it still does, but for different reasons than at first.  Any powerful emotional mechanism can take on a life of its' own, run on beyond where it should, a danger I've understood for a long time.  Searching about for the why of these last weeks has brought me to understand it is not time to worry, not just yet. 

Concerning Feminism: Girls, it worked…

For the last couple of weeks I've been returning to my artistic roots, taking the sketchbooks and pencils to one of the all night  diners during the dead hours after supper and before the bar rush, brushing up on skills atrophied from disuse and the forgiving nature of digital media.  Last night however brought me a distinct chuckle not related in the least to perspective or shading, at least not on paper.

Dancer



Dancer by CDM.MMXI



Oft she'd dance a solstice wind

Sleek step the chanted chords

Of minstrel lute and mandolin,

Booted tread drum the boards

With tatted veil loosed to flight

Fan embers into lover's fire,

Enchanted smile beguile alight

The hope of hidden deep desire

Laid soft beside the rising moon,

Seduce the rainbow's secret son

Return to life the ancient boon

Of melodies known Merlin's run

Pairs lad to lass as man and wife

Bond blended hearts in fertile life.

***   ***   ***   ***   ***   ***   ***   ***

Dedicated to Alexa:  

muse, mentor    

and Lady of her Land...

artists note:  this post brought forward from March, so it might stand beside the  story of how both poem and painting were inspired... so as that great radio personality Paul Harvey would say, just so you know the rest of the story...

Long Road of a Gift...

Once upon a time there was a young woman, and the young woman had a sister, and the sister had a boyfriend who was in one nation's army.  Now the boyfriend had a buddy who was in another nation's army, and that soldier had a sister.  The sister discovered a music, and she sent it to her brother, who shared it with his buddy who shared it with his girlfriend who in her turn shared it with her sister, the young woman where the trail began.  Which if memory serves me is the full story of how the music of Blackmore's Night found its' way to my muse Alex, who shared it with a great many of us.  To this day in my heart it is her music, the magic Ritchie and Candice weave with sound the perfect complement to the spells of love distilled Alex would cast.  Let me share a few favorites with you here, for a gift of that sort is a gift that needs to be passed on to others.

Music beneath the fold...

Equality in Education

I violated my own rule last night, I did.  I pitched a bitch at the world and didn't include a possible solution to the problem I was complaining about.  But, according to the calendar it's still the same day, so I can still slide it under the wire and redeem my resolve.

Up in Smoke...

I am going to (re)post and expand on a comment I made over on CJ's blog WWST concerning smoking.  Like so many hot button issues nicotine addiction is rarely examined for functional reasons, it is far more often used as marker for an "us and them" social discrimination line.  And in actual fact this is not an inaccurate indicator, but the politically correct reasons given are not the reality of the situation. 

Sonnet for a Lady

There is no doubt in my mind, none, that this is the lady Frank Sinatra was singing about, the one when he was 35 and it was such a very good year indeed.  I do miss her, but since I carry a love for her as well I can balance the missing against the hoping that about now everyone is getting to sleep through the night.  I'd love to say just that to her, that hope, and watch to see if she'd laugh and shake her head, or if her smile would shift soft and real for the moment it took her to wink.  I'll not know, but a boy can hope, and hope I will.

Movie Night...

Ok, I've done my homework.  Yup.  I did.  Didn't used to, not all the time, so I figure this is just penance for all the totally creative lies I cooked up to get around the more obnoxious of the assignments.  Amazing what you can get away with when courtesy of a box of old checks and a couple of hours of practice you can sign your mother's name better than she can.  But you gotta be creative, and make it something they'll believe.  But that's a long and unrelated story to the theme of the night.  The subject tonight was camera's.  Yes, camera's and what they can do to people and their lives. 

By Request...

The model is Leia, as truly beautiful and talented a woman as I've ever had the honor to know, the image of her a screen shot captured during one of her live shows when something said touched her compassion.  I don't know where to find her to ask her permission to use her image to illustrate this thought, but Leia being Leia?  Somehow I don't think she'd be upset with me.  So often it seemed this very thought was on the tip of her tongue... but never spoken for kindness' sake.

Man Hater and Harpy

Today brought a sadness into my life. I can't complain, I initiated the encounter quite deliberately, with good cause and good intentions. But the net result was a good long look at the absolute bottom of the female spectrum. Physically nauseating in point of fact, far below revulsion it was pity running under nitrous and a supercharger.  The story goes like this:

Face of a Stranger, Face of a Friend

What follows is a dream transcribed. I have no idea, none at all, if any of this is true in fact, true in essence, or quite false in all regards and simply the product of wishful thinking.  But for what it is here it is.

See a city enjoying a pleasant afternoon, moderately warm beneath pillow clouds floating across a blue sky.  See people, shapes of people moving along their way, some in haste, others strolling slowly, the sense of dense population.  Look at the buildings, take note of their age, the close spacing, how they are crowd one into the other leaving a sense of an old city where every square foot has a history, a story to tell.  Such was the setting for this dream that perhaps was more than a dream. 

Eight Miles High...

A few posts back I put up a video I'd found of the great old tune "Summer Wine" being performed by a couple I'd never heard of (ok, I live under a rock, sue me), Ville Valo and Natalia Avelon. I thought they did an awesome good job with the tune, one of the few times I've found a cover to rival if not exceed the original. The video with the song was good, but strange and confusing, it fit but not in any way I could quite pin to the lyric images. I'd always thought the song about a cowboy, silver spurs and all, and a saloon girl of some sort, not really a prostitute but certainly a seductress. Well, anyway, back on utube I decided to watch it again full screen, and by accident clicked on a slightly different version labeled as high definition... and yea, *grin* the full grown up version is most definitely very high definition. Natalia is one hot sister when she wants to dial it on. Song was the same, but the video was different in more ways than just Natalia trying to melt my monitor.

Smoke and Ashes

These are difficult days for me.  I'm about as depressed as I think I've ever been.  It's no great mystery as to why, that's easily seen.  Nor is it a frame of mind that looks like it will persist in perpetuity, it is shifting and drifting and occasionally absent.  But when it is present, when it returns, the things it is showing me are so strange to deal with.

Sleep is now a very fragmented thing, all normal rythms off line, perhaps one day in four or five a full double rem cycle somewhere on the face of the clock.  Ok, survivable, I don't have many things to do that require I be somewhere at some particular time.  But sleep is more than just rest for the body, it is rest for the mind as well.  Sleep is the domain of dreams, dreams the outtakes of the mind maintenance going on beneath the surface.  I'm doing some heavy mind maintenance, no doubt of that, and the dreams associated are hallucination grade strange. 

As a matter of fact they are more than hallucination grade strange because for the most part the symbols and settings, the actions and the words that are in them are full understood even as they're happening.  A side bar consequence of having practiced lucid dreaming in the past, I'm pretty well familiar with how my sub-c likes to communicate.  It's a bit of a conundrum though since defending yourself, maintaining mastery of yourself in a dream means you're only partially asleep and it sends these echo-like little loops floating off to reappear later: you dream a thing, respond to the dream, and then later because you remember the dream you dream the consequences of the response.  Very strange.  And no, I'm not drinking and no, I'm not doing any form of drug illegal or otherwise.  I'm just riding with it, and waiting. 

This thing will run it's course and be gone when the reformatting work is complete.  I thought that thought and a song jumped into my head.  I'd like to share that song with you, it probably says it better than any words of mine.

Damn Greeks

Well, the brats are back and no mistake.  It used to be a quiet neighborhood, until it was invaded by the fratrats and sorwhores.  Two years ago there were a few college kids living on the street, three or four houses, quiet natured serious students for the most part.  Their parties were at most half a dozen friends, easy to live with, they were good neighbors.  No gripes with them at all. 

Then two years ago some rich frat daddy bought a house rather than pay rent, and the situation went south.  Of course the fratrat boy takes full advantage of having a huge old house built to house a large family to throw huge hundred head parties two or three times a semester, and well, of course someone from a competing house found out about the new neighborhood to abuse and had his rich daddy buy him a house at the other end of the street this year, and of course now for the permanent party folk just like for the serious students we're trapped in the middle while the revelers make sport out of seeing who can out shout the other in the middle of the night. 

Takiea Ch 25

Shifting ripples of light surfaced across the inky blackness of Richard Driwell’s sleep, fragments that vibrated and shuddered with terrible force. The ripples fell across themselves, braiding into convulsing knots, knot piling upon knot, shifting and melting, rising above the surface in a shadow form. The figure turned, stretched down a hand and gathered in an upwelling in the knee deep blackness, and Richard knew it now perceived him. The figure turned and beckoned, rivulets of pale blue falling from long fingered hands as the illusion of liquid failed.

Richard shifted, aware of his dream, uncomfortable with the presence of this new creature. The creature offered no threat beyond its own strange appearance, but the menace of the now vanished black water still hung thickly. Richard grasped onto the dream, awakening himself within it, pressing his will onto his own image. The creature beckoned again, urgency flowing from its form as Richard took command of echoed senses.

They stepped and the surface fell away, leaving the darkness slashed with the ribbons and blocks of light a major city shows to those who ascend. Richard took no notice of the thousand meter drop beneath him, to hang suspended in space was nothing new. The companion creature basked in the lights, floating and rolling in the glimmerings, gaining definition as highlights lifted features from the blankness. Richard held himself in the extended waiting, floating with the creature. In a short bit they began to descend, slowly at first, then with a giddy rush.

The city filled vision to overflowing, the passage compressing time into slices and fragments. In fleeting moments the creature had conducted them through a long sequence of places, doors and halls, large rooms and small. Common to them all was the sensation of desperation ingrained in the very fabric of the space. Richard slowed his flight, dragging the images out, compelling them into a more normal time frame. The companion creature did not protest, but neither did it seem inclined to give clue as to the reason for their flight. After allowing one long look into a room of people the creature lifted and soared, and Richard soared with it. As they gained altitude the creature again began to morph, features becoming recognizable. When they had resumed the altitude of the first vision the creature was an image of Sashi worked in electric blues and silvers, the high cheekbones and feline eyes beneath the flowing mane unmistakable.

Richard reached for his friend of many years, but the image moved just beyond reach. He swam in the air, in the manner learned aboard the orbiting factory, and the image moved just beyond grasp. For a few seconds he paused, and the creature paused in its flight. An effort to speak brought immense fatigue, to the depth of nearly shattering his hold on the vision. The Sashi creature seemed to understand the intent, and approached. It extended a hand, moving slowly, as if to not frighten an animal or a child. But the expected contact did not occur. The hand paused, and gnarled, and withdrew. The face of the creature shifted, battling in its form between Sashi and a man of oriental lineage. No emotions crossed the faces as they contended for the form in Richards dream, but in the heat of their battle they began to glow in shifting colors, and they began to settle: falling ever faster into the city below. Richard released his hold on the altitude, and willed himself to descend, but even within his dream, diving in full pike into lights, the creatures outdistanced him. They splattered against a sharp hillside, the iridescent colors splashing up and over the city. For a tiny fraction of time the running colors defined a landmark, and Richard sat bolt upright in his bed, eyes that had the moment before stared at the dark approaching earth staring now at the dark wall of his chambers. “San Francisco,” he said, and wondered why.

Solo...

Life at My House No. 8...

Mark my days in measured tread

Marched sentry from the start

Ward wounded from the gender wars

Laid waste to willing hearts

Left bleeding on the field of love

From front line combat starts

Between hot blades of Eros's charge

Braved Aphrodities darts.

Bars of Music...

I'm trying to break the habit of silence. For the last say three years or so I've lived in deep silence, I pretty well had to for the wife. Any noise at all and she'd lose her focus, get confused, and being confused get frightened, and the fright would often turn to anger. It wasn't her fault, but it wasn't easy on me, not at all. Still though, the silent times have shown me just how much of my life was and is tied to music, triggered by music, stored in music.

Now that I'm trying to reclaim my life, reformat my life of course there's music involved, like I said, I have so many of my emotions, so much of my history tagged to this tune or the other. What I realized is that where music makes a great marker for a life, sort of an emo-gps kind of thing it can also become a cage for your life, every song you've ever heard trying to drag you back to see the world, feel the world, as you did when the song was imprinted with a certain frame of reference. Music can be a cage just as easily as a storage locker, you really do need to be careful in that way.

After mulling this thought over from a variety of angles while working on a pint of cheap whiskey I've decided that about the only way to make sure I don't get locked in, one way or another, is to compel the feelings from the tunes into words. I free write to Hearts of Space fairly regularly, let music new to me instigate emotions on a sort of random play shuffle if you will, but I've never really tried the same technique on music that has a history for me. What follows is a ramble through 'Nos generated by a couple of recent play-lists… I suppose it would fall somewhere between emo-exhibitionism and a cyber confession. But what the hell, why not.

The good old bad days...

For the last couple of days I've been suffering with a bad case of GFA, a really bad case. Why give a fuck about it, it won't matter anyhow. Anyway, I was out and about, stopped into my favorite little greasy spoon diner for a burger and ran into Chuck. Now Chuck is a buddy of mine, a few years older than I and retired. Back in the day he was a contract pipe-fitter who spent so much time at our place he kept a coffee cup in our break room, it was just simpler that way. It was good to have him around, if he piped it up it didn't leak, and when a lot of what's in the pipes is stuff you really, really don't want running loose that's an important thing. Anyhow, we bumped into each other and of course it turned into a back-when session, tales of adventures and misadventures from back in the day.  Lord knows there was some bone headed bullshit piled on us by folks who didn't have a freaking clue what they were asking for.


Back then? Back then I really didn't like my work life. Of course it didn't have a thing to do with 115 degree summers or 38 degree winters or twelve hour rolling shifts where after a year or two you just forgot what being rested felt like. The fact we had near 200 horsepower of ventilator fans trying, not always successfully, to keep the mind-burning fumes sucked out didn't matter, after a while you get used to working in the eye of a hurricane, perpetual low pressure just wasn't a big deal anymore. You get used to suffering, you get used to being used, you knew they knew you had a family to feed and didn't give a flying fuck at a rolling donut that you didn't really have any choice in the matter. It was a habit, back then, to walk in the door, look around and ask the place "ok, which part of this screwed up clusterfuck is going to try and kill someone today?" Lord knows it got close a time or three. Just luck no one ever left in a body bag, just luck. By rights we should have killed a dozen or so over the years.

It sucked, big time... and yet, looking back, it really didn't suck any more than now does, not really. Just in different ways. We'd pretty well agreed on that, Chuck and I had by the time fourth or fifth cup of coffee had gone away. Don't have to sweat so much now, most of the time. But there's still way to much to worry about, and even less to be done about it. It comes up about even in the wash. I look back and realize I did some of my very best writing in those days, just trying to stay sane. So yea, here's to the good old bad days when at least there was a reason to be seen. Here's to you Grover and Dan, Oren and Arthur and WillieBob, Pecos and Pam, CajunOb and TomV and Scotty Hellraiser who'd been in the trenches with me even before they built that damn vertical hole in the sky… a toast to the good old bad days... may their likes never be seen again. Cheers!

Calling the Ghost of Sigmund Freud...

Don't ask my why, if I even bothered to fake an answer it would be a premeditated lie, but this question popped into my head today, and sort of stuck.  Is it possible for a true and full gay to be home to an Oedipus complex?  Or for a lesbian for that matter to host the Electra equivalent going the other way? 

*chuckle*  If poor Siggy ever seriously engaged with such questions I'd be betting he'd never have said "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar," no, I'd be betting the quote would have been "yo man, you know a spleef is just a spleef until you light it..."

Glass Lovers

Glass Lovers by CDM.MMX

Sometimes, sometimes you can see right through people.  Sometimes what you see is a thing of more beauty on the inside than what was visible on the outside.

Bugs and Stuff...

No, I'm not talking about the kind of bugs that crawl around in the kitchen, nor even about the kind that crawl around in the woods or in the lawn, I'm talking about the kind that crawl around on a microscope slide. The kind you harvest and culture up from a sample of bullshit, which is how this idea got started, just pure bullshit for sport. But, the longer I've looked at it the more I've realized hey, sometimes bullshit is the most fertile environment going to conceive and gestate an idea that really, really needs to happen. So I'd like to talk about bugs for a minute or two in relation to something most folks wouldn't think is related at all. Bugs may be one possible solution for global climate change.

things they didn't tell you at the career fair...

Living in a college town I've given thought to printing up a few of these, and posting them (most illegally, I'm sure) on various bulletin boards around campus.  But, for tactical considerations, think I'll wait until my local properties are all sold and I'm not sleeping where they think I am.  I'd like to get a round or two off in return, and have a fighting chance to escape with my life...

Bar Room Blues...

Listenin' to blues, lookin' at babes
And wishin' I weren't as old
As the whiskey I'm sippin'
Shuts down that whistlin'
Through the empty place in my soul.

***   ***   ***

One from the master I'd like to be...
Or maybe I wouldn't like to be...
It gets confusing around closing time...

Takiea: Ch 10

The room hadn't changed in years. The projection screen, the curving expanse of the polished pine table, the unit insignia hanging on the grass cloth walls. Different gray clad bodies had sat around the polished table over the years to decide the defense of the Republic, collar insignia glittering softly in the San Antonio sun shining through the filtered glass of a focused skylight. The group assembled on this morning filled the room to capacity. The high command of the Republic of Texas was gathered to hear for the first time the complete plan for the relief of the siege of Zion. At precisely 0800 hours the principle speaker mounted the short steps to the pedestal which filled the center of the room. A silence fell over the room as he cleared his throat.

Torn on the Fourth of July

A bit of arithmatic: 2011 - 1776 = 235. Statement of fact, two hundred thirty five years since the founding fathers told the King of England to shove it up his ass and formed the United States of America, declared themselves free men who would bend a knee to no monarch. Good job, guys. No, great job guys, truly a phenomenal work of self realization to shatter the crap and bullshit of religion empowered tyranny. Across the centuries I send you my salute, the world hasn't really seen your equal since. It is one thing to pull off a successful revolution, dislodge the tyrant by force of arms, a work of courage and dedication, but gentlemen your accomplishment goes far, far beyond that. It is one thing to pull off a successful revolution, it is another thing entirely to convert that victory into any working nation, much less a nation such as the United States of America. Yours was a magnificent work endured on a par with the run of Athens across the height of her glory, on a par with the majesty of Rome. I offer no false compliment, such is the scope of your achievement that history has rarely matched and never exceeded. I send you my salute, my forefathers. I am descended from a man who signed the Declaration with you, who helped you toss a load to tea overboard one evening. I think on your accomplishments, your wisdom and your forethought, and I stand in awe of what you showed the world.

Life at My House #41

Shattered glass and scattered tears
Shallow'd mind drown'd sunken fears
In so-so lines and high point beers,
Perhaps he'll fake a few good years...
Before the curtain falls, and smears.

Sonnet to Silence

Oh, I could tell of love soft made
Laid summer nights for winter wine
To toast sweet siren's song replayed,
Such bounty young beseem divine
Faux sage to mourn the bygone times
With tales oft told of feasting hoard
Winéd poets' lay spake lover mime
Enact the plays hot passion scored
Pen'd carnal parts set soft sin blued
Blind dance away the autumn's purge
Worn cinder hearts burn amber hued
'Ore hearth in home of silence merge
Pale whisps of sleep like fallen leaves
Scant winter solstice ne'er will grieve.

HOS: The Art of Isolation

I heard of a story once, didn't read it, just heard of it.  The name of the yarn was "The Hunger Artist."  I'm not even really sure if it was prose or poetry.  But the plot?  Ah now, the plot I do recall.  It had to do with a culture where starvation was an art form.  I suppose you might have deduced that from the title, but oh well.  In that story the hunger artist starves himself, as all such artists do, but in his case apparently he starved himself to death.  Like I said in the beginning, I never read the work, but somehow I think the whole point rolled down to this question:  if the art is the focused will to create such inner distractions one can endure the agony then what says the art concerning death?  The dead do not hunger nor thirst, the dead no longer feel the body.  Is it art to starve yourself... even unto death?  Was he really an artist, or simply suicidal in the slowest of forms?

Improvisations in Aqua

Ok, I'll admit I grew up a long time ago, a full thirty years BC (before computers). So of course all us kids figured out other ways to entertain ourselves through the long afternoons when Mom kicked us out of the house and told us to stay out of mischief. Most generally those were summer afternoons, hot and dusty, it was a given if you wanted a drink of water you knew where the garden hose was. And of course, once you'd turned on the hose to get a drink there was water on the ground, and water on the ground? Oh lord, rivers and lakes and, and dams and is that enough dirt in the dam for the Tonka truck to drive over without getting the wheels muddy? The answer to that one was usually no, but anyhow. Spent a lot of hours playing with a trickle from the water hose and some dirt.

Dodge City Lament...

A great version of a song about a cowboy, and a cam girl... who met a hundred years before the internet was ever thought of.

*chuckle*  They been doing it to us for a long time bro's... might as well smile, and love 'em for what they have to offer.  Just don't carry in what you're not prepared to leave behind.

Garage time...

Today I signed off on the kitchen, it is clean, it is rebuilt.  I've got a decent work flow set up to feed six at a time.  Wooohoooo.  BFD.  I only have to feed me. 

The living room is restored as well, still full of odds and ends going out the door to here, or there, but restored.  For now it only serves me, and the beasties.  I've discovered that dogs get addicted to television just like humans.  Several times they've asked me to turn it on for them.  They don't seem terribly picky about what they watch, but there's supposed to be pictures and noise over there, and without it they get nervous in the evenings.  Who would have thought.  Turn on the tube, the dogs relax and start to snooze.  Something for PETA to foam and fornicate about I suppose. I've often wondered if PETA ever read any of Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer to be specific, the chapter "Peter and the Pain Killer" to be precise, the one where Aunt Polly finally comes to the conclusion that what is cruelty to an animal just might be cruelty to a boy as well... Oh, well. 

Among the Ghosts of Gomorrah

I left the house tonight with nowhere to go.  I just drove around my deserted town, ended up at a taco joint on the far side of town, bought a taco and burrito, turned around and drove home.  It wasn't such a long drive, my town isn't that big, not really.  But it felt way longer than it should have.  The deserted streets, the surrealism of the streetlights laying a perspective stolen from the closed shores of limbo, the red lights... red lights, stopping what?  The flow of ghosts?  (and iTunes brings up Ghost Riders... how appropriate... how very fucking appropriate... I think this machine reads my mind sometimes) 

The drive felt so long because it perfectly reflects my world at the moment: all but empty.  The last few days I've come to realize I've been deluding myself.  I do not belong in this world, it isn't mine, it never has been, long odds say it never will be.  No, I'm not suicidal, yet, and no, I'm not drunk even though I probably should be.  It's just that there are so few who can even begin to understand how I see the world.  The deserted midnight streets of this horse and a half little town lost in the backwater boondocks of Oklahoma are such a perfect symbol of how I feel right now, riding out a case of the it's time to pack it up and move on again blues.  It makes no sense to stay when the only thing staying will do is add sin to your soul.

An open question, oh finder of this message in a bottle:  which is worse?  Suffering because you don't know why, or knowing why and suffering to the fact you seem to be the only one who does know? 

Fuck the internet.  No, don't fuck it, it might get pregnant and have more of it's kind.  Don't need any more of that, the amount floating loose is already ten times the safe tolarance limits for the survival of humanity, at least as people.  Not quite enough, yet, to put all the people in pods and release Agent Smith to go hunting, but not far shy.  So no, don't fuck the internet.  Bad idea.

I want... a Peterbuilt.  I want sixty thousand pounds riding low and rolling easy behind me, I want a destination on which ever coast is furthest away.  I want the hypnosis of the highway, I want that six hundred horse kittycat to purrrrrr me the happy highway song, that half hallucinagenic soundtrack for the waking dreams of the highway, the dreams of a welcoming smile from a woman waiting warm and willing who doesn't care that to my eyes the world bears no resemblance to the lies we were told so the shitbitch of society stays glued together with tears and pain, all she wants is a smile and a soft touch to go with a verse or two of love poetry written just for her.  Sanctuary, in the cab or in the arms of a three night woman who doesn't need to know what I am, just who.  Yea, I want a Peterbuilt.  At least I think I do.