at an environmental conference in ashland, oregon, a native-american woman maintained other people couldn't use her tribe's symbols and ceremonies, these private property. despite my urge, i didn't stand up and declare, 'lady, if this knowledge would benefit all of humankind, cough it up. what's at stake now is survival of the species.'
last night i watched the art of the steal, moving of a famous art collection, the barnes, to a new building in downtown philadelphia. one of the good guys opposing it said, 'the collection belonging to walter, he could do whatever he wanted with it.' alas, his family died out and everybody else in the world jumped to secure the paintings, the most famous in post-impressionism. and i believe these a treasure to be shared with everyone. in an art book, when i see, in a private collection, i grit my teeth, knowing i will never see the original.
no, i don't believe in the government owning everything. military dictatorships simply don't know how to do business. and a individual life given by a room of our own very precious. when radicals exclaimed, 'the personal is political', i realized they were asking for the police to step into the bedroom, sex having become a public football.
yet national forests and parks for open use make life for me livable. and i really enjoy little perks like the return sunday fare free on the new york subway. this lost, i felt diminished. there's something about freedom of access which stimulates me, widens the world.
added a few free pics of my own:
http://www.pbase.com/wwp/meso2
http://www.pbase.com/wwp/net
i read, if you use the wrong fly long enough, it becomes the right one, an analogy from fishing. i guess i must believe it, cause the emptiness of our fate in the universe hasn't stopped me. for example, i got out of bed this morning. of course i had to fight my basic human laziness. first thing, i turned on the computer. now i know 99% of my time on it an absolute waste. i delete ads for half an hour. my in-box never empty, yet i feel a foolish sense of accomplishment.
various wise guys have come up with answers. bliss, feeling alive, carrots and rewards. these work for children. ah, christmas morning, i couldn't wait, up at the crack of dawn to stare at the presents. we didn't have a lot of them so each individual one meant a lot. as an adult, i've attended feeding frenzies, the packages so many the kids go glassy-eyed, the whole mission to unrap everything while what's inside merely decoration. talk about a nietzschean reversal of values!
the cartoonist hugh mccloed states, 'we need social objects.' okay, i hate the term, yet he's onto something. the local bookstore survives only because of it's cafe. for hugh we crave company like seals on the beach. and i'm no better than anyone. i go for coffee every day just to watch the faces, the combinations of people. for example, last night i sat near a table of three girls studying. they looked so young, being so small and beautiful, and i couldn't place their origin, though opening their mouths they sounded like every other american girl with a twang. puzzles like this confront me every time i go out.
i admit a fascination with portraits. yesterday, these popped into the camera: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/meso2 and a couple weeks ago i indulged my fascination with japanese netsuke: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/net did these give me a purpose? no, they gave me a thrill, opened up mysteries i can never fathom. personally, i don't know why people keep having children. social objects? probably. they pull you into a different world and team you up with parents and teachers. plus, you think you have them figured out? hah! you'll never know why the tw0-year old walked over to a plant and perforated its leaves with a hole-punch.
you don't need a reason to be happy. astounded by this mantra, i try to keep it in mind. maybe all we need digging ditches is movement, smoking a cigarette: the motion of our hands. even if alcohol kills us, it's a pleasant form of suicide. ultimately, we know too much, and understand we know nothing at all and can't let that stop us.
electricity remains our greatest wonder. without it everything human would come to a stop, including our bodies, our brains 80% water and electrical impulses. is it an accident the dynamo discovered? for the survival of the species, certainly not. electric-shock therapy, we're born from it and experience it every moment of our lives!
gawd, i hate myself when i'm dogmatic. just yesterday i had to repeat my old mantra: everyone is enlightened except me. once more, like during my first asthma attacks, i carried the world, trying to figure everything out. i can't tell you how heavy and congealed my body became, slowly turning into stone. i had to go back to zero, start over, give up. and i immediately felt relief. it's like unfocusing my eyes. as soon as i do it, i relax. evidently, we use enormous energy to spy out danger and pleasure, tightening our beam of attention to a pinpoint.
and once i surrender, i discover my place in the universe, my function in this immense brain we call the earth. you see, when we say we're all connected and part of the whole, it's literally true. we've fifty-thousand thoughts a day, all electric charges, lightning created biologic life and continues to hit the ground 200 times a second, all day, every day. and with the internet we've finally discovered the truth. we can't do without each other.
true, just as millions of cells born and dead every second in our body, humans come into being as others snuffed. the world mind acts exactly as our own, constantly renewing itself. and every part necessary for the whole, too large a war like a huge stroke. recovery comes slowly and may shift operations to a new area. civilizations come and go, sparking new lines of inquiry and old defeats. so far our blood has been oil. hopefully, this will shift to sunlight.
has anyone analyzed the globe in this way? i think it might be an interesting endeavor. and meanwhile, the androids toil behind the scenes: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/android3 the wizard of oz pulls the switches back-stage.
a former friend, rich, once said, 'happiness is realizing your potential.' unfortunately, we've way too many alternatives in the modern age, and that can lead to despair. i console myself with gratitude to others for doing what i don't have the time for. alas, rich despised me and cut me dead for not fulfilling one of his fantasies. so be it. can't please everybody.
that said, i want to thank sam shepherd. once, wandering around fort mason in san francisco, i dropped into a rehearsal of inacoma which sam in the middle of directing. famous as an avant-garde playwright, he adoped one of my alternative selves, the way i thought i'd retire with millions. friendly - we'd had pieces on the same program at the first bay area playwrights' festival - he invited me to see the show. i wasn't sure a play about an unconscious woman had much potential. pedro almovadar finally did it with talk to me.
at six i'd wanted to be an actor, immediately dropping the idea when my mother proposed i memorize the poems of winnie-the-pooh. my ambition didn't quite end there and later i wrote and acted in a movie, the same with a stage adaptation of kafka's metamorphosis. i imitated professors and did a bit of stand-up comedy at the university. in the meantime sam starred in movies, wedded a famous actress, and roams a ranch in new mexico. that's not all he did for me. before he became a star, my sister send me a postcard: made it with sam shephard last nite. he took care of my long-standing urge toward incest, kept me out of trouble. thanks again, sam.
on a much more decorous side, i'd like to thank my friend dennis palumbo for taking care of several potentials. first, he made a name for himself as a screenwriter. i met him when kevin bacon and others shot whitewater summer, available to view on amazon, at and in the neighborhood of my lookout. i watched another actor play me. then the scenes were cut. damn. still, i got to hang out with that crowd for several days.
dennis had been called in to doctor the script, though he'd only get a bit of cash and no credit. unhappy with the whole scene, he decided to run off to nepal. after three months he returned to become a therapist. you can see where this is heading. too many people have told me that's what i should have done. trouble is, did i really want to sit in a room baffled by other people's anguish when i couldn't cure my own? dennis did more than that. he wrote a column for screenwriters and turned in into a book http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Inside-Out-Transforming-Psychological/dp/0471382663/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323018515&sr=1-1 he's helped wannabees realize they're not really that good, or better than they think.
a couple days ago i read his latest novel, fever dream, and i couldn't put it down, squeezing in minutes between other opportunities (read my review on amazon) and haunted by the story still, i'm experiencing a gritty pittsburgh, his hometown, and plenty of rapscallions, and the difference between the haves and the have-nots depicted with a scarifying flair. thanks, dennis, for being a screenwriter, therapist, and novelist. you've freed me from way to much work. and i didn't mention your family. yes, you've done it for me.
sam shephard needs no introduction. look at dennis palumbo's website:http://www.dennispalumbo.com/
or simply google him. lots of columns on huffington post, etc.
now i can go back to drinking my morning tea and allowing the doctors, lawyers, and pimps out there to pursue the many fates i'm too lazy for.
especially in matters of the heart. if the woman i'm with smiles at another man, i'm suddenly in baudelaire's hell. look at all the soap operas. doesn't take much to set off disaster, even the hint of infidelity. being that insecure in my own powers, i certainly wouldn't make a safe mate for life. the oedipal complex struck me deep and hard, sleeping plagued by dreams of the lover i desire going off with another man.
actually, i find it a matter of identity and power. with the arrival of private property, inheritance, etc. our survival depended on protecting our domain. and our individuality expressed in what we own, especially 'our' children. true, this creates us. if you've your own room, you become a dreamer, a person who exists independently of other people. no wonder we're tormented by our imagination!
in terms of trying to find an individual destiny without being banished from the crowd, this is my favorite example:
it cracks me up. by the end they look like a pack of nazi stormtroopers. not that i don't feel nostalgic for adolescence. i'd like to buy a motorcycle and immediately spend even more money than the asking price to deck it out and reveal it as 'mine.' the rallies all about show and tell, me, my and mine.
tattoos the same way. i've thought about getting one so my body can be identified. see, i even want to own this dissolving animal! everybody in town has a tattoo, i suspect. the parlors invaded years ago and there must be at least ten of them: lucky's, jade eye, the sacred cross. join the club, but be obviously yourself.
alas, if we lose our favorite spoon, what sorrow. yet letting it go, we become truly free, though it stolen off a japan airlines flight and brought back exciting memories of the past, 'our' past. maybe that's why i like museums, the feeling all of us can enjoy a painting, it not hidden away in a private vault. here are some examples from my last trip to san francisco:
pictures from an exhibition: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/ex
especially in matters of the heart. if the woman i'm with smiles at another man, i'm suddenly in baudelaire's hell. look at all the soap operas. doesn't take much to set off disaster, even the hint of infidelity. being that insecure in my own powers, i certainly wouldn't make a safe mate for life. the oedipal complex struck me deep and hard, sleeping plagued by dreams of the lover i desire going off with another man.
actually, i find it a matter of identity and power. with the arrival of private property, inheritance, etc. our survival depended on protecting our domain. and our individuality expressed in what we own, especially 'our' children. true, this creates individuality. if you've your own room, you become a dreamer, a person who exists independently of other people. no wonder we're tormented by our imagination!
in terms of trying to find an individual destiny without being banished from the crowd, this is my favorite example:
it cracks me up. by the end they look like a pack of nazi stormtroopers. not that i don't feel nostalgic for adolescence. i'd like to buy a motorcycle and immediately spend even more money than the asking price to deck it out and reveal it as 'mine.' the rallies all about show and tell, me, my and mine.
tattoos the same way. i've thought about getting one so my body can be identified. see, i even want to own this dissolving animal! everybody in town has a tattoo, i suspect. the parlors invaded years ago and there must be at least ten of them: lucky's, jade eye, the sacred cross. join the club, but be obviously yourself.
alas, if we lose our favorite spoon, what sorrow. yet letting it go, we become truly free, though it stolen off a japan airlines flight and brought back exciting memories of the past, 'our' past. maybe that's why i like museums, the feeling all of us can enjoy a painting, it not hidden away in a private vault. here are some examples from my last trip to san francisco:
pictures from an exhibition: http://www.pbase.com/wwp/ex
ah, i can hear all the angels in heaven protesting. actually, i don't completely believe it, not the sex bit, but the encounters, the adventures the quest brought, these definitely worth their weight in gold. the act, however, i think we can all agree, messy and fraught with peril: pregnancy, herpes, aids, jealous husbands, angry wives, the law.
let's take messy. when young, i could ignore the taste of a smoker and i lived with one. i could ignore blackheads, as long as i continued to float on a cloud. alas, older and disillusioned with love as we know it, i can no longer blind myself to smells. for example, finally, a woman i chased for years decided she might as well give it a chance. unfortunately, she'd come straight from a marshal arts session and hadn't taken a shower. in the middle of an attempt at passion, i detected the odor of poo, and that's all i remember these many years later.
smells go to directly into our brain, much quicker than any other sense. and even the slower ones move pretty fast. in terms of touch, skin texture means more to me now than it did in my salad days. having had a brief exposure to a type last year, i realized how those with different colored hair feel. i won't name my preference, yet i do have one. and my trekkiing across the racial divides has provided exquisite alternatives.
oops, now i'm praising the reality rather than deflating it. trouble is, we don't often have a choice. we take what we can get. so she's blond and i love brunettes, she's available. he's too old and hairy and he loves me. i'm in norway and i dote on italians. hey, get real, which is what most of us do. and this is where the imagination comes to the rescue. it saves us when we are a twosome under the covers, and it saves us when we're alone.
once i did put together an 'homage to eros'. one must looks at all the possibilities, any choice better than none: www.pbase.com/wwp/eros
