good gravy, these pictures make me look almost dignified!

"Let's plan for the divorce first, then we can do the wedding."

Sex is only interesting when it gets you in trouble.

                             Religion is something humans added to leaven suffering. 

Whenever I feel evil, I smile without doing anything.

         The days passed through my hands like lemmings headed for the sea.

                       The most dangerous thing you can do is get out of bed.

  We live by measuring. If we can't measure it, it doesn't exist.

                                  I waited for her to seduce me.

Nothing's more uncomfortable than being tested for sleep.

            He made her think of all the things she knew she'd never have.

If I started counting my losses, I'd feel like a rich man.

                             What am I to do with myself, now that you've changed me?

             Traveling in memory has the advantage of no flies.

  I can't leave until I find myself.

               He stumbled across himself in a conversation and didn't know what to say.

                                   He wanted to give away everything, but he had nothing.

      The higher he rose, the harder he found it to fly.

                                         The distance he put between them seemed to draw them closer. 

                          He forgot why he was suffering, but the suffering itself remained.

            The nightmare of knowing it all.

                                  He felt his silence full of notes he couldn't hear.

   I'm not sure we should try to go beyond survival.

                                                   Truth won't get you into heaven.

            She tried to make a mistake. At least that would be a start.

                         Nature seems continuous to us, yet she leaps.

  The only way to slow down time is to travel or commit a crime.

                                 "Only enthusiasm can defeat death." (Cioran) 

               Don't be afraid to bend your knees.

How many more things have become criminal since I was a child? 



   ah, art is my way out: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/crocker

                

      
                 

                          

Investigation into the Vanity of Storks

Storks have a habit of delivering to the wrong address.

Storks are great gamblers, often staking their packages.

Beware of bored storks.

Never trust a stork. 

The stork refused to take the package back. 

A stork can make or break your day.

Storks have a lousy sense of direction (but a great sense of humor). Every stork born a practical joker. 

After the duel, the surviving stork didn't know what to do with the extra package. 

Never cross swords with a stork.

Stork Delivery System: "We always make mistakes."

Don't take a stork in training.

The new stork recruits had barrels of fun with the robot babies. 

There is a stork in your future.

A stork flying backwards is a bad sign.

If storks didn't pretend to be preachers. I'd trust them more.

Fear the stab of a card-playing stork.

The absorbing story of the stork caught reading porn.

When a stork gets stuck, what can a chimney-sweeper do?

Has there ever been a singing stork?

When in the mood, storks are great entertainers.

Why did they call it The Stork Club?

Storks can certainly look like stuffed shirts.

Stork: the only bird you can imagine wearing a tuxedo.

Storks have the ability to take a terrible revenge.

If the Ancient Mariner had shot a stork and not an albatross, he'd have come undone much quicker. 

To quiet our fears we pretend storks bring good-luck. 

Storks like to keep their feet warm.

Do wise people build fake chimneys for storks?

in opposition to the air, i've gone under the sea:

http://www.pbase.com/wwp/sea2

http://www.pbase.com/wwp/sea3

your shadow has a life of it's own

bizarre to contemplate: one of my art history profs obsessed by monsters. i've been to the first class of his course. to quote: "Monsters do not exist outside the human context." hmm, that means everything monstrous our creation, part of us. now, i have run across this before. here's a passage from c.g. jung:

  It is a frightening thought that man also has a shadow side to him, consisting 
  not just of little weaknesses- and foibles, but of a positively demonic 
  dynamism. The individual seldom knows anything of this; to him, as an 
  individual, it is incredible that he should ever in any circumstances go 
  beyond himself. But let these harmless creatures form a mass, and there 
  emerges a raging monster; and each individual is only one tiny cell in the 
  monster's body, so that for better or worse he must accompany it on its bloody 
  rampages and even assist it to the utmost. Having a dark suspicion of these 
  grim possibilities, man turns a blind eye to the shadow-side of human nature. 
  Blindly he strives against the salutary dogma of original sin, which is yet so 
  prodigiously true. Yes, he even hesitates to admit the conflict of which he is 
  so painfully aware.

having read 34 books about and by jung one summer, how could i forget!

what really interests me: jung maintains we must acknowledge and come to terms with our shadow side. ah-hah, i have written down those dastardly fantasies! no wonder i destroyed 125 diaries last spring. alas, dig a little deeper into what i've written and the art created, my shadow springs to life everywhere. 

long ago i realized friends have abandoned art for two reasons: one they don't want to spend so much time alone, and two they didn't want to reveal themselves. the opening of NIGHT TERRORS by my friend dennis palumbo springs to mind. that first chapter horrific. without the courage to expose himself to other therapists (he's one of them), he simply couldn't have told this sad and engrossing tale of a serial killer. i suppose, like me, he doesn't ever expect to get that kind of attention! 

this weekend i've gone through two assigned novels: FRANKENSTEIN and DRACULA, downloading the original versions on my tablet. what a shock to discover how the invention of frankenstein follows the exact path of a serial killer, with all the reasons for it. mary shelley  beat us all to the punch. and as for bram stoker, he showed the erotic nature of the vampire to a crowd of present day readers and writers. at the end i thought, "why not become a vampire, live forever, and have all those blatantly sexual adventures?" i do have a very dark theory: women like these guys cause they like the results of menstruation, unlike many ordinary men. 

where is all this taking me? i have a lot of questions:

does a monster have to look like a monster? 

did that refrain from a radio show "only the shadow knows" haunt my childhood, ears glued to the speaker? 

why do they call the sun 'the vampire of the night'?

and is 'time the biggest monster of all', as asa maintains? yes, happiness only exists where time does not. 

                   If you look into the abyss, the abyss will look back at you.

                                                                                      Friedrich Nietzsche 





that jungian summer i wrote these poems: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/alchemist

one day i'm an honored citizen, the next a parasite

no wonder i've woken up, fretting, in the wee hours, unable to sleep. welcome to the roller-coaster of life. ah, was it just a week ago they put me in a parade, cut a cake for me and gave me a little pin, later a delicious barbeque where work friends and friends from out of town mingled, as i hoped they would, thus bringing the two lives i've led together? 

and i surprised myself. i smoozed and smiled so much the muscles in my face were tired when i got back to the lookout. a wonderful day. yes, i was disappointed in one thing: i'd hoped they might give me money. ah, foolish hope, it makes us keep chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. no, no check, no provision for my advanced old age, if i'm unlucky enough to get there! once i can't work, it's the poor-house for me. 

that's not what i'm fretting about. i've had my fun, able to be creative my whole existence, travel the world. yes, extremely and gratefully lucky. nobody gets out of life alive. and that brings me to the downer: being accused of being a free-loader and parasite. i suppose if you live long enough in america, it has to eventually happen. unlike the eskimos, i haven't been left in the snow to die (yet). no, i'll limp along, paying almost half of my social security for 'free' medicare. 

the most terrible thing about our system: getting caught up in it, treated by doctors and nurses as though i were made of glass at 73, despite my grandfather living to a hundred, despite the fact one fire lookout still working at 87. i have never, ever felt like an old relic until my night in the hospital. my usual  doctor, barry furst,  semi-retired, and i got thrown to the wolves. not that everyone hasn't been extremely kind and helpful, except they scare me to death! 

barry always warned me about too many tests. though he did get me  off for a colonoscopy, to a prostate doc, and to a nephrologist (kidneys), he never used scare tactics to do so. and he said, 'they will find something.' how true that has  become. okay, i'll try your cholesterol medicine. alas, it gave me a rash on my ankles and i felt like a lead soldier on waking in the morning. yes, maybe my blood-pressure a little high. i'll try your lisinoprol. two weeks later i have what's called in the literature 'a useless cough.' not very reassuring for someone who's had asthma attacks in the past. 

hmm, okay, i threw out all the meat and cheese in fridge, cut out as much dairy as i could, tossed some prepared meals (indian, thai), and so on. i began checking my blood-pressure through the day so see the pattern. barry always said, 'if your blood-pressure ever drops to normal, you don't have a problem.' i've discovered it's highest when i lay around, like when i wake up in the morning. once i'm active, it starts dropping, and by the end of the day i'm back to as normal as i'll ever be. in the hospital i lay around all the time, hardly allowed to lift a spoon. and all those beautiful, attentive nurses, they certainly made my heart go pitter-patter. 

my credo: at some point i have to stop listening to other people and listen to myself. hence, fifty years on a mountain top, as odd as that makes me. this week i hope to re-gain my youth, despite a visit to a doctor (not barry) and a blood-test. oh, the confession, they did find a true problem. my sodium 'dangerously' low. damn, to shore up my kidneys, i'd been drinking lots of water. turns out that can kill you. and  likely my moment of dis-orientation came from it. now i drink less water, more apple juice, and, hallelujah, i can put salt on my tomatoes once again.


here are the first photos from my celebration day: www.pbase.com/wwp/50 with more to come. 



          "Never treat someone like they are old," said the Buddha 

dry lightning & smoke, just down the hill from me

and a smoky sunset

from the air

A claustrophobic candle lights a fire.

To youth nothing is final.

            I've said everything somewhere. Fortunately, I can't find it.

   Is victory in a desert really worth it?

Too much order and you lose the ability to improvise.

                         Pornography is a joke.

    He needed to die, but he didn't have time.

Don't let me stumble over your truth.

          If truth were true, everyone would recognize it.

All governments lie.

                    I remember all the times I wasn't there.

    The now can be a nightmare.

                              Freedom of choice is not really freedom. You have to choose.

Every president needs a war.

                 "Americans want a president who will kill for them."  Arthur Miller  

I'm an introvert who can't stop talking.

                                  Mortality applies to everyone but ourselves.

     The flood came too late.

            The silent ones said the most.

                                       How can a country accommodate so many losers?

Truth is generally another name for opinion.

              The first time he saw the stars he thought he understood them.

    Some countries can only be ruled by despots some groups hate each other so much.

                          Don't let your dream girl get physical.

      Sex is only interesting when it gets you in trouble.

"Be a man!", they say. But - aren't all men mortal?

                                               She's just my hype.

                   He sat on his tombstone, still undecided what to do.

     The house always wins.

Playing a game is like faking an orgasm.

                                       It cost him a fortune to get something for nothing.

                He quit while he was ahead and fell behind. 

Debt made him ordinary.

                                    Losers never lie alone. 

        The big problem is what to do after you've won?

                        There are good thoughts and fun ones.

Whether you've won or lost, you've lost.

                                    Being awake is not all it's cracked up to be. 




more pictures: when my eyes watered  http://www.pbase.com/wwp/water