Boneyard Fancies

Bone-yard Fancies are the term I have decide to employ for the new series of B&W drawings I have been doing the past month. Bone-yard seems appropriate because bone like shapes occur in almost every drawing, almost like a mordant theme announcing itself,
although there is as much humor in the images as dark messages. What kicked off this new series are two drawings from the sixties that were on slides that I recently had digitized to put on my computer. Right away I thought they were something I could develop and enlarge upon. I have done 14 in the past month, with 7 or 8 really top-notch. All of them are done with a felt-tipped pen and in the last few I introduced pencil to create a soft gray to go with the the stark B&W. I haven't shown them to Jim yet, but I'd like to included a few of them in the book. We will need to discuss how many drawings we want to include in the book because I would like to add a few old drawings and the same with these new ones; or save them for another book which is a possibility I suppose, at least in my own mind.

Chuck Hegel resigned over the weekend. In truth he was pushed out by the President and his advisers. I haven't read much about why this has happened, and it comes at a bad time, when approval from Congress is going to hard to obtain, if at all. The same will be true with Obama's choice to replace Holder, Loretta Lynch. It will be real fight in both instances I would imagine, because both are critical cabinet posts.

As I expected the Grand Jury let Darren Wilson off the hook, which caused considerable anger and destruction Monday night. The destruction was inevitable after all the hope and anxiety over waiting for the news. In fact, it was more like token reminder that black people are fed up with this parade of black youth being killed by cops, who get away with socially sanction murder. Four days ago a 12 yr-old boy with a fake gun was gunned down by two NY cops. It goes on and on. Wilson acted like rookie cop with a vendetta toward blacks. He had no business using deadly force. A more mature officer would have used pepper spray of a tazer to control Brown. He used Brown as target practice. He released a fusillade of shots at the kid.

Trip to Vegas

Tomorrow Sue and I take off for Las Vegas, our first trip there since 1982, which means it'll be much different then we lived thered, For the last two days we have been gathering our shit together, meds, art work, clothes, etc. Today we tried out the new concentrator in the Subaru and it worked fine. I am also going to take three tanks and the shoulder pack for going places. Sue took the car for a check up, spending $350 in the process. It is going to be hot all the way as it has been over 100 in both places for 10 days. We will spend tomorrow night in Kingman and get to Vegas mid-morning on Thursday, if all goes well. We are staying in Jim's guest house on his property, which is fully equipped he says. He also said Tom Holland wants to meet me, the fellow who took my place in 1971. I am not sure he is teaching or not. There are some other people he wants me to meet. I an not too anxious to be on a social whirl, as I am anxious enough about being back in town and on campus. There are a lot of old ghosts there and god knows how we will feel once we are in that milieu again.

Yesterday morning Sue and I had one of our serious talks about her sexual past and how I keep punishing her for it. It all started about a note I wrote to Skip about Bridge in the Fog that she happened to come across by accident. We went round and around and around for 45 minutes and she felt better afterwards. I told her I realized that Bridge as it stands is Paranoid fiction. But I would like to try again. She said she had no problem with personal art, unless it was unfair and vindictive.

Happened again

I could not sleep last night s at 3:30 I got up and slept an hour in the recliner in the studio. I had another one of those day-time nightmares involving difficulty with Sue. I the dream I got to the library which to my surprise is crowded at 4 AM. I have trouble fining a place to sit. When I returned to my spot my books on gone. Sue is in the library too, meeting with two men. She is much younger and her hair is in a French roll I think you call it, a hair style I haven't seen on her in decades. Finally, she sees me and says let's go home. But she is walking ahead of me with four people who show her a lot of love, hugging her and such like gestures of affection. I lose them as I get all tangled up in some bushes off the side walk. By the time I get clear Sue has disappeared. I walk around several blocks hoping to locate her or her to find me. Eventually I find her near the library, although she is concerned with some guy named Red she had been with. I ask whose read . She says someone named Jim Pryor (I notice his initials are the same as mine.) Right about then I woke up saying to myself, god damn it another one of those punishing dreams that occur in naps. After I cleared my head a bit I thought of those remarks she made in her journal in 1973 when we went through that double inferno about how she had told me she had never been turned on to me physically, a terrible blow coming from her lips, even though I knew it by her attitude.. She wrote: "Poor Jer, he has suffered so much at my hands." And the suffering goes on, especially in my dream life.

While writing about the play in which she played Ruth the slut, I remembered she got the part because the director of the play--I can't remember his name--chose her for the part because she was a "ball-cutting type of woman," like that came out of somebody she had class with that first year in Eugene when she, so to speak, ran free with her ass up in the air. I asked myself how did he know that? By being in class together or was there more too it. The dude was a blooming star in the Drama Dept. who went on to great things at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, a situation somewhat similar to her bedding Wolfgang because he was the guy all the dancers in the workshop in New Haven set their sights on. Then it hit me: she went to bed with director dude for the same reason, and in that way he discovered she was the one to play Ruth woman , a "ready-made" Black Mother Succubus. I'm sure I am right. My intuition rarely fails me. She probably wanted the part, too. She was collecting stars all over the place in Eugene. Harry Gross would fit that description as well.

July 4,2014I

I took another look at the drawing I called "Clown Down,"a title of one of Suzie's dances when she was teaching at the university, and it stuck me what a knowing look into myself is  on display in the image. It is almost as if the C. diff I am suffering from this week has altered my perception, as I have been hallucinating all day today. The clown is a pompous performer hiding behind his mask and costume. But the more private and pathological me is the guy peeking out from shoe in the saguaro. He sees the woman in the water, desires her, but he's trapped with the cactus, even though his phallic prison is on fire. Another of broken off spook ID is in the fellow in the water to the clowns left who has his eye (his voyeur mode) on the 'Dark Madonna'  at the bottom right of the picture. The women in the water seems to yearn for the clown, almost pleading with him for erotic attention. But he is too busy posing. His Ego is still his master, his shell like the tall cactus is his prison. Towering over events below is a masked female face beyond the threshold of ordinary consciousness, like the image of the dark Anima, as it were, the unconscious prototype of the female that has disturbed my life for a very long time. I also looked at the ladder in the scene in a new light. Instead of a vehicle to reach the moon or some other height of achievement, I saw it as more a sign for help. like something to help get out of this hole I am in. It's a mode of rescue not a stairway to heaven.

Home Alone

June 23, 2014.

Sue is gone and as soon as she left I experienced a flare up thrush and it has made my gums very sore, to sore to eat normally. The real problem is a bad fit with my dentures. I have a dental appointment next Monday. Not having a car is a serious handicap. Even if I make an emergency appointment, I have no way to get there. Everyone I know is working during the day. I will call Duarte today and hopefully once she sends a script to Walgreen's, Cathy will be able to take me to pick it up. I ate at Kai's house last night and it wasn't much fun tiring to eat with out teeth.

During a discussion around the table I noticed a reaction in Aaron about the poetry book I hope to to publish through Jim Standford. He asked does he have money? When I said yes, he dismissed the project as just another self-publishing venture headed nowhere, that I was exploiting the good graces of an ex-student of mine. I am seizing on an opportunity,
no doubt about that, but I am not the first artist/writer to lean on someone with money to accomplish something.

I am working on another poem, in between a lot of drawing. It's called "Obession."

I once knew a man obsessed with
his wife's affairs, even though he
knew what she intended to do even
if married, so he knew, sort of, in a
vague iffy way what he was in for.
When they did happen he wanted
to be the proverbial fly on the wall.
The details, he said, the details,  
tell me what  you, he, did and where,
knowing softens the blow
knowing would be like being there.
being there is like sex by proxy,
as if, he could dial back to their
coitus, the aroma and taste of sex,
her moans, groans, sounds of climax,
seeing her take the penis of another man
and clearly enjoying it more than he
thought she could or should.

There was always the trail of clues
the spot on the new blue dress, the
black bikini panties stuffed into the side
pocket of the pool table, the misplaced
phone call, calling him by the wrong
name while they were making love--
the many slip-ups of simple treachery
that trip up the cheater. True, he never
traced her movements, always leaving her
be the free agent she wanted to be. She
was free to fuck whoever she liked in her
Secret Palace of outside pleasure, but
never threaten the pledge of marriage--
that would not stand.

Deja Vue all over again

Incredibly, in a flash of unexpected drama and a changing face to events and trends, the world is different than it was a few days ago. First it was the defeat of Eric Cantor in the 7th District of Virgina, whose star-struck role in the House got torpedoed  by bad polling that had him way ahead and therefore complacent about winning. A economics professor at a small college in the district, David Brat, roiled the locals in opposition to immigration
talk, which enabled him to win by 11 points. Some say he is further out on the right than Cantor was, to the point of craziness. It goes without saying he was the candidate pushed by the Tea Party.The anger at the Party base is still intense, still wants a hardcore Republican president, but still want to aim for it with goofy tactics that ignore reality. In any case, the upcoming election will be closely watched to see what direction the GOP is going and what leader will stand out as a major Presidential candidate. I see a lot of intro-party scobbling ahead and no change in gridlock pattern. The base wants all-out war with Obama, no compromise any where down the line. Add to the mix the odd couple that
killed the cops in LV saw themselves as revolutionaries, comical jesters and plain dumb-ass wingnuts.

The other crucial event is ISIS, the Sunni, hardcore jihadhist who took over Mosul yesterday and now on their way toward Baghdad with the Iraqi army in disarray and with  ISIS intent on turning Syria and Iraq into one Islamic state under Sherie law. The regime in Iraq has already asked for American air support, which won't be granted because it is clear our occupation for 9 years did nothing to stave off what is happening again. We would be nuts to repeat the same mistake in the region, plus there is no way to pay for another war in the region and the American people would not vote for another bad adventure that will never turn the Middle East into a democracy.

Lobster on Tiptoe

Amusing image found
as leftover in a poem
by D. H. Lawrence, the
mentor of my youth
about sex & love
how to deal with the
opposite sex under
life's daily slog, irony
frustrations, bitter pills
as well  as those few
triumphs a person is
allowed by fate & luck
stuck as we are betwixt
thunder & mud, itching
sores, kissing bug bites,
tables turned, cups
drunk, wine spilled
dishes broke but
glued back like new
to once again dust off
my duds and stop the
reign of terror, to go
up the stairs to a warm
bed to dream about a
lobster on tiptoe.

June 10, 2014

Eric Cantor, thinking his power position in the House would guarantee a primary victory, got soundly trounced by a total unknown, David Brat, a professor of Economics in a small college in Virginia who was backed by the Tea Party folks. It was a real stunner last night and there was much speculation on MSNBC afterwards. They all called it a "stunner" and all wondered what the repercussions of Cantor's defeat would be.

I put the final version of "Happy Birthday Darling"on the blog yesterday. It's a playful overview of our romance and troubles over the years of our relationship.I think I will include it with the body of work I plan to give Jim Standford.

I took pictures of 5 of the new colored drawings and I did two more yesterday, one is not quite finished. Taking pixs of the new things with my new Camera was an experiment and the result look like it, as I shot them on my desk, using the flash only once and that's the one that came our the best.

Happy Birthday Darling

It's been quite a ride with you
for 50 plus years my dear,
sometime dizzy, never boring
other times on the wild side
especially during the years
before we had children---
but let's start with those Circus
Lions roaring while we made love
in that apartment I shared with
Frank Kearful. Do you remember that?
Yea, and we ate melons too, in bed.
It was a day of young loony love
a season as bright as the moon
when I called you "blazing eyes"
they were so lit up with sex and
love. But alas it came down to earth
when other men sought to dance
with you and you did not hide your
sex appeal and bright light under a
basket. Recall Dennis the Menace
in San Jose, and the elderly Leftist
William Winter who slobbered all
over you in my presence (a preview
of things to come) during that first
tough year at NSU, my inprobable
initial academic way station in the
desert where I came into my own as
teacher, artist, big man on campus
with you attached to me in ways you
loathed, "Professor Pfaffl's decorative
adjunct." That would not stand for long.

So after six years in the salt mines
of LV we took off for Oregon so you
get your Masters in Dance and Film
to learn and shine as I knew you
would, in truth becoming the star
of Department. To support us I got
that post in Corvallis to help us
survive our first "rainy season"
away from the desert. But again
the scent she gave off attracted the
opposite sex to start a new orbit
around her even brighter moon
30, lovely, eager, available, a star
you spread your owlish wings to
plat Pinter's whore dancing naked
on moonbeam beach in Florence
while a chorus of eyeballs slitherd
in the sand, kissing your feet, wanting
to be "in tandem" with you when I
hit a bad patch: impotence, my horse
quit running for several weeks, my
rainbow faded till one day I "raped"
you on the floor, a redemptive fuck
that broke me loose from self-pity
and remorse and you too did a
turnabout, telling me you wanted me
to father your babies, a tipping point
for both of us as other parties began to
fade away. Those choices and decisions
put us back on track, the dynamic duo
bent but not a fracture, wounded but the
blood has stopped flowing...

To be continued

Anne Sexton's Poetry

Rewite 8/25/1991I   I had never read Sexton's poetry, after reading Diane Middlebrook I went out and bought her selected poems edited by Middlebrook. I've read 20 plus poems and I am impressed, both with her flare for words and her courage to be so personal. She also believed that her personal pain was redeemed only by sharing it, that her life was valuable only if she could help others by writing about it. For years I have been advocating for collaborative reparations, or, following the ideas of James Hillmam , creativity as pathologizing or "falling apart."In any case, it is a healing of the self and the community. Sexton often claimed poetry kept her alive; writing gave her a way to work out an understanding of herself and the culture that her underlay her multiple pathologies. Many people in her large audiences at her readings seized on her words as revealing as a condition they shared. Critics classed her the "confessional school" of poetry which they said broke with tradition. She had a considerable reputation at one time because she was striking looking woman who was a very good reader of her own poems. Like Sylvia Plath and Diane Arbus she was a suicide, burned out and dead at 45.

About Sexton:

----she used female sexuality as a theme in the late sixties it was controversial and         unfashionable. Her friend Louis Simpson found it trivial and embarrassing.

----Her analylst has released tapes of her sessions.

----Suburban lady out of her element, hampered by mental illness, managed to become  a poet of distinction and rare gifts. Sold half a million books in 10 years.

----Inescapable feminist drama, with unusual candor of self-presentation

----Confrontation changes to self-display. Work went downhill.

----one shrink slept with her she
 while being treated and she committed incest with her daughter

....Had no regard for her privacy     


                                                                                 

Dreams

James Hillman, a third generation Jungian, takes the dream as the paradigm on the psyche
having close association with death. Dream-work builds an imaginal vessel, or, as DH Lawrence wrote in a poem, "Build yourself a Ship of Death." What matters is soul not life.

Homer thought dreams issued from the underworld of Hades. The general attitude about dreams in the West is negative: they are unreal. Hillman thinks dreams are poems about themselves. They emanate from a faraway pneumatic world that is a dimension not available in itself. Unlike Freud and Jung, Hillman refuses to bring dreams into the day-world. We shouldn't interfere. Underworld is cosmos in its own right. Hades is the brother of Zeus--his shadow brother. The underworld is a purely psychic world whose mythological figures are metaphorical statements about the soul's comportment beyond life. Dreams are like dark spots, a shadow world in the depths where this world is experience as a metaphor. ONLY THE SHADOW KNOWS. During sleep we are aware and alive; in life asleep. The Imaginal ego at home in the dark, moving among images as one of them. We have a foot in each world, the shadowy "between" of the underworld. The home of the soul is a twilight zone. Matter is turned to soul: soul-making. To encounter the realm of the soul, one must die first

This was certainly the lesson of THE INFERNO. I was aware I was in a shadow world, I was behind the painted scenery of ordinary life, being a ghost among ghosts. Literalness melted into thin air. I was an airy something that could walk through walls. Our substance comes from death. Hades becomes the archetypal background of life. The underworld is is "devoid of life," that is, liberated from our entanglements in the literalistic perspectives of the so-called real life. Reality is down there.

Inappropriate

JoAnne had an odd response to my story about the kerfuffle with the Racine Pfaffls. She thinks I was the person who should have aplogized because, "If she thought it was 'inappropriate' then it was as far as her FB wall was concerned." Now she is talking about Terie not Hananh, as if Hananh's opinion is less than her mother's, when in truth I have no idea how Hannah felt about my drawing. I aimed the work at Hannah not her mother. At twenty surely she doesn't need her mother's imprimatur on everything she wishes to experience. If she does she is in trouble.

JoAnne seemed iritated that I even bothered her so now I know it is time to back away.

Boiling Cauldron

In my twenties the image of a boiling cauldron was for some reason was a significant image for me. I don't remember where it came from. It was a recurring image  for a number of years while I was living in San Jose. I took it to be a usable metaphor for what was happening inwardly for me, on all levels of Being.

Those were also the days my initiation in to sex. Sue brought out of me what previous contact with other women did not uncover, passion, real inner fire, sex as a baptism into fire. That "cold fish" problem  I had with Shela simply went away with Sue. After that the boiling cauldron image faded away. There were other images that I trotted after for a while, all like stars-guides for a short spell. Though the image was gone, I had a sense that some progress on inner harmony had been made.

The Inferno was dissociation of personality that was not pathological. It was no doubt an extreme state, a swing from a pole to the Dark Side, I began to have second sight in the new found darkness. I became the eyes in darkness. My "bizarre infirmaries" got confounded with  a new mystical reach. Sickness and insight were two strands I have never been able to disentangle. The inferno was alternately a dark secret and embarrassing nervous breakdown. I kept it under wraps for years.

James Hillman says that the soul is perspective not a substance. It is a mode of consciousness that recognizes that all realities as primarily symbolic or metaphorical. Jung said Images are Psyche. Sounds a bit like Nothingness in Zen. What is are images not dependent on a ground for existence. Blake once said, "Spirits are organized men."

John Keats said the world is "the vale of soul-making" We create our own souls through the medium of this world. This is salvation. "I think it is a grander system of salvation than the Christian Religion." I have felt for years that inner work is soul-making. My creativity is my vehicle to do it, my "Ring of Power;" it plugs me into Anima Mundi, the world soul. The Inferno was the one of the luminosities that abide in the psyche which ignited the process of soul-making.

End Game

My brother, acting as go-between , speaking for his daughter, Terie, now 50 years old, let me know I was way out of line by sending her, on impulse at the last minute, one of my drawings, as she, nor her mother, has ever seen any of my work. I thought it was about time. Well, in 24 hours the shit hit the fan, as Terie let me know "it was an inappropriate image to send an innocent young girl."That jerked me around to start with because I knew she was seeing a lot of movies with nudity, sex and violence. Her mother was suggesting I was a corrupting influence, perhaps in the same way I influenced Mike Pfaffl wrongly, which has wrongly been held against me since his death. Then she took things farther: she insisted that Don tell me to never again contact any of the six grand kids again. She effectively cut me off from interaction, which in one fell swoop cancelled our thoughts about another Pfaffl reunion in 2015. I was furious that my niece, who didn't know diddly-sqat about art, much less my art, had the balls to insult me at least on three levels at once. I wrote back to her that she better apologize to me post haste before she shreds the good will of the two families irreparably. Don was on the same page with me in regard the damage done was bad enough already, so let's not throw gas on the fire. He had been embarrassed by her original bitching and view of me. So then there was a loll for about 10 days where I heard nothing from anybody.

Then yesterday came news that Terie wanted to say she was sorry for what she said and did. She said she flipped out do to the fact she was having a bad day and she let it get the best of her. She regrets the whole thing and hopes the damage she caused was minimal. She understands I am a serious artist not wanna-be pornographer. I wrote her back right away, telling her thanks for the apology and let's go forward from here. Now that she has apologized I fell much better.

The beginnings

The idea of the Hieroglyphic Theater began to germinate in my head that first summer in Eugene in 1969. I was determined to move away from my "horror period" in Vegas as drawing all that grim, ugly stuff had finally got to me. Within a couple of weeks I was at the drawing board and for the next several weeks I experiment with a few ideas. I had plenty of time on my hands, especially when Sue started summer school, a class on the History of Theater. The first series of drawings were pretty rough and inconclusive but did look promising. The black ball, a spin-off symbol derived from the black pearl necklace a former lover had given Sue before we got together. I equated the ball/pearl with Sue's extra-marital sex activity which she wasted little time getting into our first year of marriage. In brief, although I knew about the men, indeed, they were all part of our circle of friends and acquaintances in California and Las Vegas. I did see her activity as suspect, as black, that is, hurtful for me. I hardly remember the first batch of drawings I did, they were that vague and unfocused. But what was consistent was the black ball showed up in every image. One night she decided to meet a classmate at a play on campus and I stayed home to read. Actually I wanted to masturbate as we hadn't made love since summer school started. I was sleep when she got home. She had gone out with some people after the play. One of those people was Brent Armstrong the cat from Yale who taught that History of Theater class. She didn't tell me about hm till about a year later, although that late night made me wonder what was going on. He was her first score in Eugene. She told me later that she had given him a blow job in his office on Campus. Such is how our first year in Eugene started.  Why she didn't tell me about the cat around the time it happened, I don't know. She wanted to fuck whoever she wanted and in the back of her mind she did not believe we were going to stay a couple, as I just not the physical type she preferred. She might have accelerated the process if I had know from the start. And of course this applies to the Larry romance as well when we got back to Las Vegas. None of her lovers were marrying material. It's interesting that that never happened.

The best drawing in that original batch of drawings was "The Alchemist,"which is owned by Stan Nishimura. All things considered that axial period in my development lasted from 1969 to 1973 when I finally hit stride with a different style and altered content that followed two intertwined elements, a fresh new symbology based on The Hermetic Tradition, and the shadowed sexual activity of my wife over time, a combination that fueled many a drawing going forward. (This is why I felt the way I wrote "Bridge in the Fog" was justifiable and to the point, whereas Sue thought I should skip the personal stuff and discuss only relevant art. But to leave out the sex stuff leaves out an explanation why so many drawing look the way they do. To fully connected on image and meaning the two things meld together.) The idea for H.T.came from an esoteric source, from a Renaissance  humanist, Pico Della Mirandola, who saw man as a creature who exists on the demonic middle level between the beasts below and the angels above. It was man's duty to elevate himself  above "the dung-heap of the inferior world." What an irresistible goal! Image=three-decked cosmos='hieroglyphs'=a deep way of stating hidden truths related to a sacred universe. I am a myth-maker who needs to operate with a mask on. One must remain sly and hidden--a shadow without a shadow.

Dust-up and Can you go Home again

The past week has been out of the ordinary, very intense and eventful, bombs dropping all over the place, debris flying through the air, I am ducking for cover, so far so good, but the evening is young.

The first thing is the dissolving of the relationship I had with JoAnne Wilson which lasted about a year. She turned out to be very thin skinned lady, pretty much a reluctant novice when it comes to inner work. Her attempts at change were and are to protect her self-made fantasy about her and her husband, L.A, Wilson with whom she is incompatible but won't face the music and has this daffy idea that they have separate abodes in Eugene and live separate lives but somehow have a meaningful marriage. Her tastes were another problem for me. She liked what was save on the yellow brick road. To an extent she is a carbon copy English major like Doni, only JoAnne is very competent on the practical level where Doni specializes in bad decisions. On the other hand, it was unrealistic of me to even try to play the change game with someone like JoAnne whose not ready for prime time transformation. Not many people are. She's a dabbler. It is also a story concerning FB. She wants to continue playing doling the fun games with Larry and I. Relationships crafted on FB are fragile and short-lived. Rather than digging in she consoles herself with her social network, all the people that love her just the way she is.

Banner Day

Today was banner day: it is the first day that I have attempted to draw since 2011, a rather startling truth, even for me, the victim. I mention that date because I spent a couple of hours last night and today going through three portfolios of the best of my work and the last date of the last batch was 2011. Four fucking years, down the drain as far as drawing is concerned. In my obit thy will probably call them "the lost years." It has been a long haul back to normality or a semblance of normality. The "benign tremor" seems to have backed off as I did not have much trouble controlling my lines. When I saw the drawing I called "Atomic Scarecrows,"which is a black and white drawing, I saw a possibility to add a little color to the image. I was right; the additions I made enlivened the drawing as I thought it might. Sizie was flabbergasted to see me drawing when she came home with the boys. She's been hoping it would happen soon. I put aside a couple of other drawing I'll work on tomorrow or soon. Starting drawing again is another reason to see the last 10 days as pretty special...

As I looked through all the drawings, I was very impressed, it constitutes a bloc of very good work, consistent within its aims, and it's a shame the work isn't out there being seen and appreciated.

Scenes from the Anima

It's funny how thing can go along for years with no serious bumps in the road, and then Whamo, every thing is turned upside down and a mess, all in a mater of seconds. My brother and I have worked hard to keep friendly relations, if not burning love, among the Racine and Tucson families. There were spots of weakness, like Terei Carpenter who could be flighty and unpredictable, especially around her kids who she is very protective about. A few days ago I had written Hannah about the health of Don and Josie and in process sent along a copy of one of my drawings. I picked one and that was that.Yesterday
received a short note from Don that said Treie was upset over the "inappropriate" picture I had sent to Hannah, her 20 year old daughter who is a second year student at USF. Moreover, she wants me to suspend all communication with her kids, to never engage them on Facebook when it is public information--in essence, she sees me as a corrupting force trying to undermine their virtue, and so I should fuck off. Don wrote the note to me at Treie's request, a responsibility's he wasn't happy with. I was shocked as I thought we were past these kinds of moral-catholic issues. I wrote two responses, first an angry reaction, and then at 3 AM I wrote a longer, calmer e-mail. But I did push back telling her her action would damage family relations and I would accept her apology before things get worse. But I went ahead and cancelled the family reunion of 2015. Don called me late morning and we discussed matters. He would talk to Terie. So that's where things stand at the moment.

11:30  PM 5/21/2014

Today I finished a 4 part poem on the INFERNO, all part of my Poetry Project. Dylan-like I was able to turn on the spigot and let the images flow. This is the form I should have used in the beginning, not knotty prose. I am dealing with a counter-world and poetry works much better. I should have realized that long ago.

I have divided the experience into four parts, something I have never done before, and I think It gave me room to move.

Each section has a title that suggests what stage is being dealt with. Such as:

1. Dark Night of the Soul
2. Period of Chaos
                                                   3. The Abyss
                                                   4. I have come through

I think each title is accurate and foretells the subject matter and where it is headed. I go from falling apart to total chaos to the utter depths where there is a turnaround and eventual rebirth--becoming a twice born man. In the aftermath  I am re-tooled as man and artist and ready to rock and roll.

My makeover in the studio is virtually over. I am  physically very tired as I am just not used to putting out like that anymore. I took four bags of shit out to our garbage can.

No word from Joanne, which makes it close to a week since we connected. Looks like she is going hold to her "divorcing" me. Too bad, it was fun while it lasted. She was never good material for meaningful change. It's no skin off my nose.

Heard from Frank Kearful this morning. It took his wife three weeks before she got out of hospital, but he is hoping she'll be well enough to go to Alicanta for a vacation. He mentioned nothing about the death sentence the doctors gave her.

Fateful

5/18/ 2014
All women must be on the look-out for a man to take care of them, in case life leaves them in dire straits. It is the oldest instinct since the dawn of time. Nowadays it is a bit easier for women to make it on their own; they are much less dependent on a man's
physical strength for protection. But the instinct is still there in the shivering chill of a winter night. Sue and I came very close to a divorce in the early 1970s when I decide to return to UNLV for at least one more year, a great disappointment for Sue as she did not like Las Vegas and had promised herself not to return. In time-honored fashion she looked to another man to keep her in Eugene. If she had to sleep with a "banger," so be it. Things could be worse. She was already sleeping with Harry Gross, a man 24 years older than she who was quite willing to move her in with him.They planned to work together on her movie, her Master' project. It was pure survival mode, although she saw other aspects to the situation. He did give her the rent-free house he had promised her. I wasn't happy how things worked out but I understood her options were few. But happily it worked out as she came home from the trip to Asia with a change of heart. She had taken a second look at our relationship, a ten year investment, and decided to stick with me, mostly because she wanted to have her babies with me, as Harry was well beyond being a father again. On the practical level she now had a Trust to look forward to when her parents died. It was an insurance policy for both of us. I ended up putting in 29 years of labor to contribute to our passage through time.

Rops

5/17/2014

You (I am addressing Skip) to mention that Rops was a prolific 19th century pornographer. That's where I have heard his name before, the context was a small porn book I picked up at Bookman's when I was working there. One drawing was of the naked woman  being crucified on Christ cross; the other the Prussian soldier leading a woman away with iron collar around her neck. There is hundreds more images on the internet, all of them dripping with sin and horror and de Sadian fascination. I know where the cat was coming from for I have long been trapped between the naughty and the sacred.
The tendency goes way back to 'Toys in the Attic,' that is, the
 things I'd do when I was alone up there, which is of course is masturbation, the first sign
of sexual revolt against the Catholic Church. Somehow some way I got a hold of deck of cards of naked ladies--one was Diane Webber, one of the Va Va Voom girls--and I spattered a lot of seed digging those luscious females. Then on Saturday I'd confess my sins and start the cycle all over again. Hell, since some of my potency has come back--why I don't know --I've masturbated 5 days in a row, which has really cheered me up after all the fruitless wanging I have engaged in since 2004 when I went through radiation treatments. My cock has really gotten hard which is unusual and I can climax in 5 minutes if I want. Sexual rebirth at 78. Nice idea. The next step would be to see if I could reawaken Sue's Libido. I still don't experience ejaculation but the orgasms are very good. Maybe I am just a Frankenstein monster in reverse. Much better than being in a hearse.

Swiss artist H.R. Giger who I recently saw on "Jodo's Dune" doc, died on May 12 after a fall. He was 74. I did notice he did not look very good in the doc.

Dream

5/17/2014 

A commotion in the parlor wakes me up and as I approach the bedroom door I realize that I am not at home but in a strange house. Sue is working on a play with four young men. She is dressed like Pierrot, in a lavender and white costume. The boys were dressed as clowns. Sue acts like she is not aware of my presence on the set and I perceive her as if she were a great distance away. I watch them rehearse the play, which seems to be shaping up okay. The boys are taking turns making love to her and paying her for her services. She takes one boy by the hand and walks outside with hm. I follow them.The air is heavy with humidity, as a monsoon shower has just finished.  Summer is in full swing in the desert.It is the middle of the night, very quiet, and the moon is near full, shedding quite a bit of light all around the landscape. A soft breeze is blowing. I don't know where the couple is; then I see them in the dark bushes. She has the boy's pants down and has his cock in her hand. I play the only audience, as she performs fellatio on the moaning young man.  I told myself she was having sex with this fellow because she had to have hard bodies on her soft body.

The dream is haunted by, first, Sue's history of infidelities, and second, seeing her play Ruth on stage and get felt up for all to see. I have a history of putting myself in these sexual scenes, as if I didn't want to miss anything.  Being there was to be part of her experience which is what I was after,   

This is image is a self-portrait 1966 at Mouse's tank ourside Las Vegas.The picture of Sue is roughly from the same era. Mouse's Tank was in the Valley of Fire; Mouse was a reengage Native American who rob from the white man--took supplies, enough to live alone in for a couple months in these complicated rocks and canyons--and bothered no one else to live in peace all by his lonesome. I bestowed on him mythic stature for his bravery and courage. I can't remember if he came to a bad end. He probably did.

The picture of Sue, if I am not mistaken was shot in our Waterbury abode before we were married and still living in San Jose. The Waterburys were this cute elderly couple who lived downstairs. We were living together but not yet married. It was when I had more sex than ever before and I liked it. All I had to do is reach out and there was the smiling quim.
Well, I exaggerate somewhat because even in those day I still lack aggressiveness in regard asking for sex. I always worried, was I asking for too much or too little. It was hard for me to tell. Another sign of some trouble in bed was I always waited for her to put my cock inside her, and I did that for years, at least ten I'd say. I know that wasn't true with her lovers. Gary Hess, for example, she told me he directed her completely: whatever he told her to do she did it with no question or resistance. They fucked a dozen times over a weekend. Her sexual experience in High School was a little blury to me after all these years but I doubt any of it hit the score in Utah. One of the excruciating experiences I had in those early days when we virtually had an open marriage when we got to the Campus in Las Vegas was a night in a casino with some political guests, one of whom was William Winter, a liberal radio commentator, a wily, slick customer who made love talk to her in front of several friends and colleagues. She ate it up, this 63 year old Lothario was too much. He called the next morning a few hours before he flew out of town and invited her but not me for a drink. She went and was gone more than three hours. To this day she has never surrendered the truth about that rendezvous, and if she thinks I believe they talked politics I'll eat my hat. One of the things about her outside sexual activity is she regards it as super-private experience. However, with some she is quite open, or relatively open, while with many others she is absolutely tight-lipped about what they did, how and when

That was all there was to it. I told her about Marge who I met every Wednesday night for six months, and about Jane, Scott Bell's girl friend, and the divorced woman I fucked one night during the INFERNO.But none of it was of much interest to her. If it was a feint or true indifference I could never tell. The only time she seemed to react was when I tried to bed Sharon Murphy. Sharon was sensitive to Sue and said forget it.
Maybe that's why they got along last summer like long-lost sisters.
.

Fako

5/14/2014

Fako was this proto-beatnick I met at Lucky's where I found a job when I first got to the Bay Area. He has remained  a contact person and friend for many years, with two exceptions, one absurd but typical of our up and down fortunes together. He spent seven years in prison (Solidad) and didn't talked to me for 15 more years because a girl friend didn't like me for asking to check the score of a Super-bowl game, so he threw me out of the house on her instruction, as liking football was contrary to her hippy-dippy religion. And to think I traveled a thousand miles to see him after no-see for seven years. I was pissed and I wasn't sure if I ever wanted to hear from him again. But 15 years later he called and apologized for his behavior. He came to visit shorty after that. When we first met I was real greenhorn from the Midwest. I had no idea what an avocado was, nor did I know any beatniks, some kind of wild man I thought. Fako had Musical ambitions at the time and hung with players of different quality. He was a piano player himself. I was too green to judge how good or bad he was. I went to a number of Jazz joints with him, hearing local talent in San Jose and real pros in SF---Dave Brubeck, Sonny Stints, , many others of that caliber, all of which warmed me up to the beatnik movement or what  rob. My first date with Sue Baker was to a poetry reading in SF. I can't remember who the poet was. Fako and his beatnik friends though I was cool enough to be sworn into the club.   They actually voted on my qualification. I didn't hear about the vote thing to later. I faded away from the club scene after that, as Fako life too shifted to the different life. He fell in love with a Prostitute and they had two boys. She complained about not having much money so he bought a gun and tried to rob a jewelry store with a loaded gun--a dumb mistake.It failed miserably. He was sentenced to seven years during which time he got his after-prison meal ticket, working in waste management. He was also away from the rest of the prison, a good thing for him as he developed a real hatred for black men there. His attitude was a spur under my saddle, but he wasn't about to change any time soon. When he got out he got a job in waste management in Monterrey, Ca. Thirty years later he retied at $50,000 a year pension. Just goes to show you crime does pay, or not the way it would. One of his sons just retired from 35 year service in a atomic submarine. The other son is a Mormon and he hardly even mentions his name.

Memories

5/13/2014
(email to Skip W.)
...I grant you, there are days I stay clear of emails for a day or two. First of all I am dragging my ass due to a bad case of allergy problems, the like of which I haven't had for a number of years. Ironically, I saw the doctor yesterday and she thought, relative to my past, I was doing very well. I tolerated her optimism because I knew better. She did write me a few scripts that should come in handy to fight the allergy lock on me. I am taking 5 days worth on steroids (prednisone) to cut the swelling in my sinuses, the main cause why I can't breathe through my nose. She also prescribed Fluticasone Propiobate, a nose spray and last but not least, EYE ITCH for my eyes. Will see how I feel in the morning. Sleep has been hard to come by, so Bobby Zimmerman has been singing  for me the last two nights. I am still taken up with "the Poetry Project." I have hit the level of obsession with the poetry project and methinks I should take a few days off...if I can. Sue tells me I babble poetry in my sleep. Kai brought over Mary Oliver's book on how to write poetry. I should spend some time with it.

Dylan's skill at at phrasing and internal rhyme are fucking amazing. John Dearstyne, an old friend of mine from my days in Corvalis used to see B.D. in small cooffee shops in Hibbing, MN. He'd do his folk song number in those days. Those were the days before Von Ronk, when he was "hanging out."So was I. flying by the seat of my pants. Living on nothing, sleeping on couches. And Like that. I learned from Henry Miller to vary who I visited every night for dinner. Is it any wonder I weighted in at 160 lbs in those days. Today I weigh 250 which is considered moderate now. Anyway, all that hanging out was ages ago. Another life time as they say today. I remember seeing SLY and the FAMILY STONE in small club in Vegas. It was the first time Rock &Roll made my bones vibrate, a memorable event. That was in 1964. I didn't know who they were at the time. That's a lot of bilge under the bridge, a lifetime away. I keep waking up thinking of the funniest things
from the past. This morning it was about those actors I hung out with my first year at SCSC. I don't remember their names. They took the place of Fako and that ragged band of beatniks he introduced me too, who were more fun than the actors who were pretty straight for those days which were on the crest of a real revolution. My time in Vegas, although the crest of my personal wave, and noteworthy as a small piece of history, seems
now like a detour that lasted as long as a cheap firecracker. It was intense but a measly six years. I am amazed that a handful of people still remember me or what I tried to do while I was there. In those six years I rode those giant worms of DUNE though some much shit I hate to think about it. Like so many say, it was all like a dream. Maybe that's all it was. Now I am just a shadow waiting to blow away. A demon trout is on the lookout for me.
He'll find the worm that is me.

Sexless in Gaza.

5/10/2014  

Things have really changed for us us sexually since the onset of menopause in or around the start of 2002. Actually it has been going on for two years, and recently she let me know in no uncertain terms that her Libido is kaput and that she has no interest at all in sex. She wasn't even into her beloved "self-pleasuring" routine. (But that picked up later but is all but gone these days.) Of course masturbation has always been big for me and it's frequency had gone down appreciably after the radiation treatment in 2004.So I was left bereft with no sexual outlet for quite a long time, we are talking years. I got into porno for vicarious thrills and occasionally I'd wang away with no or little success, The juice producing jism was gone, dried up by the radiation. A couple of weeks ago Sue had two orgasms in bed when half awake. She enjoyed the experience quite a bit, and she told me all about it. Just recently something seems to be happening to me. Masturbation suddenly works again, that is, all but the ejaculations, which is still only an ooze of watery stuff. Not only do I get hard, it doesn't take me long to reach the crest of coming, and when I do the organisms are pretty satisfying. I haven't talked to Sue yet about this development.

Back in San Jose, when we first got married in 1961, and Sue was really "hot," more then I had the experience to see or to take advantage of, here I was, married to this horny young wife, who I should have been fucking five times a day, but I was not inclined to do that simple because I was still very much locked inside a Catholic straight jacket, only I didn't know it--but Sue did, you bet she did. I had spent years running away from pussy so when I had, theoretically, all I could possibly want I was frozen in place and stuck to fucking her twice a month. How insane was that? I was a walking contradiction. So what was the upshot of my situation? Two results. She had two affairs the first year of our marriage, in both instances with men who had considerable experience, and I jack off a lot, sometimes while looking at her asleep in bed. How sick is that? I did not get release till my late thirties, and it came dripping slow, not in one big rush. I was in the grip of years of denial which had tightened me organically. During the early stages of the INFERNO I had this terrifying vision of being on boat in a sea of Priest monsters who kept trying to pull me into the green putrid sea with them. People may have heard of Tinkers to Evers to Chance, a great double-play team of many years ago, well, I had to fight off the team of Schmidt to Enders to Ludwig, three influential priests I had at St. Joseph's. Sometime I see a third predatory threesome chewing on my balls--Sue, her mother, and Cora, her grandmother.

Entry for 7/31/2002  More Larry

This is how it went last night. Suzie finally admitted to me she has carried on an intense sexual relationship with Larry Masters ever since that night they met each other at a party.
There was a lot of realism in the details she told me about last night in the dream. They had to sneak around at times and at other times I would be gone out of the house which made it easy for them.The stories went on and on, like a form of torture.They obviously had a sexual compatibility that rival that which she felt with Gary in California....suddenly I was awake and shaking like mad. I felt cold so I pulled the blanket up around my body. At first I thought it might be an insect bite.The shakes were from hearing the truth, even if it was in a dream, or maybe because I would know the truth no other way. Sue has never been straight with me about Larry. She guards what they had together like it was none of my business. She never has cracked once.

Big Dream

7/12/2002--Big Dream

I am watching two groups of wild turkeys fighting each other ; next a grizzly bear jumps into the fray, grabs one of the turkeys and begins to eat it. Shocked by the scene, I make a series of loud noises trying to shoo the bear away. The bear rumbles off, disappearing in some bushes. I think I should tell Sue there is a wild bear in the vicinity. There is a drug store attached our house (it resembles Clark Drugs in Racine) but when I circle around the house I am confronted by a deep canyon and I am standing on the edge of the the Canyon. When I look down I see a gorgeous woman. She resembles the buxom actress Pamela Anderson . I shout down to her I am coming to get her out of the hole she's in. She starts to move away, like she didn't want to be rescued. I throw a stick at her and say"I won't hurt you." But she continues to flee as if I was trying to catch her. Once I see how deep the hole is I panic and believe I am the grizzly bear. I am worried about myself, if I have to get out it by myself 'but then I realize I am a walking out the hole by myself. I am not restrained by my limits or by the dream. When I get back in the house there is a Hispanic couple in the house; they ask me if there's any Jews living in the neighborhood. They don't like Jews.

I can easily see myself as a large Grizzly bear who loves Turkey (the bird) and Wild Turkey (the whiskey, a high.) Pamela Andersen is just the kind of cheap broad that haunts my unconscious. I would love to eat her. She has the body type that is favored a lot on Internet porn. But alas, I remain at a distance from her, me the voyeur, always at a distance. I can only throw a stick at Ms. Andersen--read dick, not stick--which misses the target. But the most interesting part of the dream is my ability I am dreaming and how to act on that ability.

Here's an entry from 18 July 2006 about waking up from a nap." I was in this awful state when I woke up from what I would call a narcoleptic nap. My arms had fallen asleep in the recliner. I was groggy beyond belief. It was ten minutes before I could move, it was that bad. I managed to make it to the dinner table, but found I wasn't very hungry, mostly because I was still in this blur of consciousness. I have got to anticipate these incidents where I literary "fall" asleep. I have no recollection of falling asleep.

The really weird thing about these sudden sleeps they are, at least eight of ten, reveal very negative feelings about Sue as herself or sometimes as representative of her sex. The usual thing is she is sleeping with someone else, oft times flaunting it, as if to abuse me. Who she is sleeping with runs the gamut from Bill P., Larry M. to William Winters, Harry Gross, Dennis J. and so on.The other strange thing is I can tell when I am a dream because I could reach out and I know if I tried to touch  any part of the dream it would dissolve in my hand.The experience is like the dreams are frozen in time in my unconscious, dating back to that window of ten years when most of her affairs took place. But why these "nightmares" occur mostly when I nap and not during nighttime sleep. There are times wake up feeling our relationship is over with, or I have the lot of them tied off as a knot of bad feelings that still plague me after years and years.They don't represent the whole of our marriage, only the cancerous part. Why is it I can't transcend those early hurts? Is because the me who experienced them was this green catholic kid from the Midwest?

Preocupied

Wed. May 7, 2014
I could not sleep so I got up at 3 AM to fiddle-fart around at my computer. I am having a devil of a time breathing due to allergies, one of which has me snot-nosed and coughing. Strangely enough I am both energized by the poetry project and dragging my butt because of the allergies. I had lain in bed for a couple of hours listening to Dylan albums, trying to pick up on his phrasing and internal rhymes. His skills blow me away. But I am better off than my brother who is currently in a hospital in Milwaukee. He went to the ER Sunday night, which happened to be his 76 birthday, with sever abdominal pains. They are telling him it is a bowel obstruction. They might have to operate. If you ask me he is having so much stomach problems because of his 55 years of eating rich Italian food prepared by his wife.

Through Linkin I have gotten hooked into a group of writers, professional and amateur, who criticize each others work. It's called "Poetry and Literature." I jumped right into the fray with a couple of poems that elicited some response from some black woman in Detroit. She jumped on my "cattitude,"a neologism that takes some explanation. CAT means woman/pussy, so cattitude means how you see women. Quite clever me thinks. Anyway, she eviscerated me, really extrapolating from what little information I gave her. She somehow sniffed out my rage against women which has been constant in my dream life. I rather enjoyed the pounding, especially since she was so damn intuitive. I am still writing daily and have about 30 good poems. I haven't been on FB at all. I guess I am waiting for Larry to return.

We went through all of Nasima's photographs from Hawaii and selected 88 to have made into glossies through SNAPFISH.

Ron's advice to me was buy a camera I can carry in my pocket for around $200.

July 31, 2005. Buga finally got the tape machine to work so we were able to see Wolfgang's tape of her that they made in Conn. He saw Buga clearly, as the black satin witch of sex, the dark Queen bee who can behave as if she is not married. He used three different cameras as she revolved on the on a pedestal. He had dressed her in a black transparent negligee. She wore no make up. Her face looked tired and sever. As the pedestal rotates it picks up speed. At the end she is spinning to suggest fucking, at least so says Wolf. No wonder she called him her "Magician husband."He saw through her games, her stance of Miss Innocent ( or you wanted to have sex with me. I had no idea) when she had already told me Wolf was the prize male at the workshop and all the women did what they could to entice him to their bed. He knew her game and showed it with is treatment of her. He had forced her to reveal two things: her aggressive sexuality and her fierce competitiveness. She makes things happen as opposed to have things happen to her. Her desire to fuck with openness, like most whores would feel, always has to be disguised as the sex energy coming at her, like she is the vulnerable victim. But in truth she is the decider. The classic example is her deal with the physical therapist she fucked in Eugene. It took her years to admit that she seduced the guy, that it was not the other way around, which is how she sold it to me for the longest time. She could be super pussy on a rampage but afterwards she'd still sell herself as a victim, one who made no pretense of not enjoyed the seduction, getting a hold of that penis on more time, yummy! If Wolf and I suffer from the Madonna/prostitute complex, she does too, inside out so to speak. It was no surprise that we ended up in bed after putting the tape away. She did me up magnificently, sucking my dick with unbelievable enthusiasm. Then I fucked her from the rearward position, a position she favors right now. I came with a lot of force and noise...she did not break this time. I was asleep in five minutes.

Hawaiian Vacation, Part two

After seeing the "smoking hole" we took a long ride in, through and around the vast lava fields on the Chain of Craters Road to the south of the smoking hole. We stopped so Nasima and Kai could take pictures of several members of our crew tromping around on the irregular rocks. That would include little Cora holding her dad's hand. The whole area
strikes one as a different world altogether, and it was created by more than one flow. It took us an hour to drive around the road. At the start the ocean was 50 yds to our left but we climbed away from the water near the end. We stopped at a small park that had a gift shop where I bought myself a small ceramic dish to keep my pills in every day at home. Two colorful birds showed up, obviously male and female, and we threw them some scrapes of food. They could have been in pheasant family. They were beautiful and I was sad I lacked a camera. Not far from there we decided to eat at small Thai restaurant, which was a good decision as the food was superb. That was in Volcano Village. Before we left out waitress gave Cora a small silver purse which delighted all of us. After that we decided to stick around the Puna area.

That's when the big boys rented some bikes and the younger boys started playing chess, with Conner seeming to grasp the essentials of the game rather well. I spent some time reading the two poetry books I brought with and sipping wine through the afternoon. Nasima and James disappeared for several hours in Hilo. They were shopping for food and clothes, and enjoying being alone no doubt. The rest of the family went for a swim at Champagne Pond and it was there that Sue met a massage therapist named Loke or Rose, take your pick. That led to Kai and I getting massages. She was pretty good but talked to much. My only defense was to go to sleep. Sue was very generous with her giving her $125. I had been using oxcy pills all along because my back was so locked up and painful
and at the same time I was drinking quite a bit of wine which probably wasn't too smart. It was in those minutes where I would tell myself I was getting too old for these kinds of trips. Since I didn't participate in many things I felt like a camera on the sidelines. I was there but not there.

Sue and I had one day where everyone else was gone. Sue said hello to me and wallowed in the quiet. It was only for a few hours but it was sweet. Sue danced, did her yoga practice, and chanted at the ocean. I think it was the same day of the "Red Moon" event, something that occurred once every 500 years. The dark clouds cleared in time for us to get a good look at the slow change of the eclipse, from bright moon to red moon--very dramatic. Aaron got  into opening some coconuts and then shredding the meat. Everyone enjoyed that.

A word about a neighbor--it was a friendly widow my age named Glorious Schreiber. She took a liking to this crazy family across the street. Every day she brought us the local paper which I really appreciated because it allowed me to keep up with the situation in Ukraine and with sport scores. Two days before we left she baked us a chocolate cake which was really nice. She was a lovely lady.

Thursday the 17th on April was our last day. We had to be out of of VRBO by noon so the adults were busy packing all morning while the boys took a last swim down at the black sand beach. We ate our last lunch with leftovers and gave some of the rest to Glorious. When we left we took the scenic route along the Nanawale coast road that Aaron and James had traveled with their bikes. It was lke driving through the "Heart of Darkness,"an amazing jungle-dense mass of trees and hanging moss and pot holes galore with the ocean always in sight. We drank the tropical forest to the dregs for the last time. I found the trees the best treat of all. We spent the rest of the day in Hilo. We treated ourselves to dinner at the famous Cafe Pesto which was pricy but very good. Sue told our waitress that she was very beautiful. She was indeed.

We boarded the plane at 8:30 and took off for home at 9:15.  Aloha USA.

Plane Travel Sucks

Plane travel may suck but it sure the hell gets to Hawaii faster than you could any other way know to man. I fucked up with my new POC (portable oxygen concentrator) when I set it at two rather than one, and when our arrival got delayed by some wacky weather which made us an hour and half late, I had to turn to the airline for some help for what Oxygen I had left had to be saved so we could reach Uncle Billy's Hotel in Hilo where we planned to spend the first night. A Flight attendant came up with two canisters of oxygen which was just right to get to the Big Island. Wised up for the flight home I set the machine at one and I had plenty to spare by the time we got to L.A. On the whole I think the POC worked very well indeed. (NB: the flight back to the mainland was 45 min. early. With flying you always take your chances.)

I had a mishap on the plane: I fell forward on the narrow aisle on the way to the bathroom. Kai and some other woman lugged me to the bathroom to see what the damage was, which was two bloodied knees. (Later I saw all the bruises.) The gal with Kai was an ER nurse who happened to be on the plane. Lucky me. They bandaged my knees and that was that that. On the way out of the plane several Passengers gave me a pat on the back and wished me luck after my dramatic spill, which apparently added some excitement to the flight.

Uncle Billy's was a rather rundown hotel that needed some serious updating. But we all got the rest we needed. The two vehicles we rented were Chrysler products, a Town and Country van and a T & C suburban. Aaron, an aggressive driver, drove the black T & C Suburban. James, Nasima's husband, drove the van. Most of the time he followed Aaron as he was a more cautious driver. Most of the time I went along with the van because it was the "non-talk" vehicle. I needed a rest from all the chatter and the high-pitched noises of the three boys. Going with Aaron was more fun. In any case, I sat back and enjoyed the ride. Sue enjoyed being with the kids who were too rambunctious for me.

The VRBO was fine and well situated. Clustered with about two hundred houses on the easternmost tip of the big Island, a place called Champagne Cove. Sue made a good choice for ten people. There was a lanai porch on the second floor that stretched the length of the house which faced due east, along with 75 yd path down to the ocean and a black sand beach. The swimming pool proved to cold to swim in, although Conner braved it once. Palm trees circled the pool, as did various species of flowers. There was an outdoor shower made out of lava rock. Between the pool and beach there was a band of lava rock, and plenty of it. The house was aired-out by the trade winds that came through the dozen open windows on L-shaped lanai porch. It wasn't quite as warm as I thought it would be. I wore a long sleeved shirt to bed at least 4 nights.We had only two days in the low 80s which seemed pretty warm. I got up one night when there was a howling gale with lots of rain to shut the windows which the owners requested we do. The second floor is where we all gathered together to eat, play games, talk, do puzzles and play Gin. Nasima took command of making the evening meals using fruit and veggies from a Farmer's Market in Hilo. The meals were delicious and we all appreciated her efforts in the kitchen. Kai's main job turned out to be caring for Cora. She loves Cora so much she was happy to do it.
The older boys went bike riding a few times and Aaron took the boys swimming often.
I got a kick out of James who took on a thousand piece puzzle of a peacock. He finished it by staying up all night the day before we flew home. None of us thought he'd make it. But he had the resolve to do it. One thing we did not do is watch TV. Wait, there was one exception. Sue is a fanatical "Survivor" fan, so she caught two programs in Hawaii.

Of course the main feature of the Big Island is the five main volcanoes, with Mannu Loa and Mauna Kea being the twin giants of Hawaii. If measured from its base deep under water Mannu Loa would be a taller than Mount Everest by about 10,000.' They call it the Big Island because all the other islands would fit with in its outline, and Mannu Loa fits that Big category as well, in spades.  We visited the unique "hole" volcano that is between the twin towers at the Kilauea Crater and Volcano National park. You could see the almost perfect circle of the hole, which was created when the above-ground volcano collapsed into itself becoming this smoking hole with steam vents in the same neighborhood. When Sue saw it in 2005 you could see molten lava  inside but from the distance we were looking at it the stuff in interior looked gray and inert. There is a vast black and gray field  for miles all around the hole. Nasima found a great book on the volcanoes in the Jaggar Museum in the park. She also accidentally broke my 10 year old Fiji camera by letting it drop on cement. It doesn't appear to be fixable. It severed me well for a long time. I took a rest in the Van and even snoozed for a while the rest of them walked around on the lava fields. When I asked Sue do the volcanoes threaten the population, like Mannu Loa might blow big-time at some point, like Mount St. Helen did? She said the Hawaii volcanoes don't blow, they ooze at fissure points. In short, one can have more peace of mind than in California with all its earthquakes, as they wait for "the Big One."

End of part one

A Surreal Party

The cool Sonoran winter is gone
the equinox is upon us, tiptoeing
in like a quiet sneeze at daybreak.
Cora the Explorer, the lass with
The lease on charm that dazzles her
Cousins who love to play with her
boxes of Legos has nightmares
that creatures called Red Eyes run
through meadows painted by
Monet while a giraffe in heat
mates with the ghost of Liz
Taylor who was beastly cold
out of her grave. The Duke came
riding a black & blue stallion,
he showed his skill at twirling
his six gun that he put back in
his crotch while Dumbo did the
Lindy hop with a stripper named
Blaze whose hair was on fire.
Tender burns the night as Jean
Harlow made scambled eggs
over easy with hot salsa to garnish --
homemade of course--Prince Harry
preferred oysters while his date,
Rita Haywire, showed the crowd her
lucky bucket list. Downing some
Champagne was Calamity Jane,
slut-shamed in Deadwood with
one tit hanging out of her shirt
while she shouted, "See you varmits
at Black Rock when you folks
can sock it to me all night."

Self-indulgence

3-30-2014
Poems are on their way to Eric and Jim Standford. Eric sent a poem and 20 stunning cards with examples of his photographs on the cover of each note. He has gone into business I think, hopefully, to supplement his income, now that he no longer has a full time job. He calls himself "The Monkey Mind Press." I sent sent more samples to Jim because he needs to see more of what I have been doing. Decided to tell him I was madcap surrealist who uses illogic and humor as weapons. The two of them are the first people to read my poems. I have no idea how they might react.

Skip was writing me every day for 2 wks than he dried up. He's funny dude, very idiosyncratic. He has has his own ideas about art and if it ain't funky it ain't art or at least not to be taken seriously. He gave the painting I gave him years ago to young Mike Pitt. Sharon's son. He didn't want me to know he did that. From that I assume he isn't that impressed with my work. It made me think of Scott Bell's comment to me when I first started made the turn in the early 70s. He called my work self-indulgent, a notion he got from one of his Berkeley art profs. Then this morning I read in the NYT Magazine an interview with Barbara Ehrenreich whose new book is titled Living With a Wild God. A big surprise coming from her, something she is aware of, too. It harks back to an experience she had when she had when she was 17, one that was "spooky" and maybe even "pathological." She never thought she'd write a memoir because she views them as "an exercise in vanity." She described her experience this way:"The whole world came to life, and the difference myself and everything else dissolved...it was a world in flames."She was honestly worried what people would say, particularly on male friend who she thought he might call her a "petit-bourgeois self-indulgence."However, the friend surprised her by saying the book would reach a lot of people with similar experience. "You are not alone." God, do I understand her dilemma. I felt in the quandary while I was still teaching. Fred Spratt led the way by thinking my work showed traces of pathology. Then I discovered James Hillman's books that said we can work with that condition and I believe I have. But my books have gone nowhere, maybe because they seem vanity-driven.

The Spear and the Lily

The Spear and the Lily

She: To understand frigidity in one self you need
To adjust your thinking to what it is. It is not the
Inability to fuck, nor being unable to permit
Penetration. Now I see it is the kind of thing
suffered by most whores who only once in a
While break through and actually feel what's
Happening.

He: Between the  waters above and the waters below
A dark female wearing a black mask and a sinister air
And little else, her arms hiding her breasts in a gesture
Of false modesty, her hair on fire and flowing like a
River down to the funny edge  of the world.

She: Self-deception is the black mask covering the eyes
I nowunderstad I have been dealing with my self as male
Not female. I fundamentally believe that women make it
Across the threshold of self-realization by themselves.
They need the male. Now I must marry myself and
And divorce men, men as authorities.

He: A shaman moonlights as a ragged clown backed by
The sands of times as an invisible cat sits on his shoulder
And whispers in his ear, "She loves me, she loves you not.
Advance with or without her." He lifts his fiery rod with the
Serpent curled around it as a court jester rolls the "Circle
Of Destiny" up the hill.

She: A stubborn woman won't listen to a man, won't accept
Him, yet she relies on him to accept her, to affirm her existence,
And to say YES! to what she does. But should he say
NO! he'll pay for it---by being castrated.

He: Last night I saw porn star Traci Lords, and I must say she
Is the epitome of a sexual performer. She made herself up as a gaudy
Geisha with slant eyes, overdone red lips, black dildo in hand
And whispering seductively into the camera about her"fabulous
Pink pussy." She called herself "your dream harlot." She's right...

She: Your sympathy for the female lies in your recognition of
The female  in your self; your rage, hatred, and anger toward
The female lies in the refusal of equality in you of the male
In me---but the fire alchemy is the transmutation of those
Polarities into each other---your femaleness, my maleness,
My maleness into femaleness---into wholeness.

He: As Pierre Bonnard grew older the paintings he did of his wife
Marthe became more rarefied. If in the first stage she was a sexy
Presence, in the second she was an object among many objects.
In the final stage she became a soft luminous apparition, a
Gossamer creature who existed on the edge of illusion.

She: Hail spawning center of the universe, the river is torn and
Beaten with the desire of the male-female salmon; their shining
Light is merging with the light in the water. If the salmon can make
It upstream so can I to get pregnant and to give birth to a child.

March 7, 2014...Putin's Gambit

It seems rather remarkable that we are once more on the cliff of another cold war, maybe even another Cuban showdown. After the revolt in Ukraine which brought about the exit of their corrupt president and the installation of a temporary government--they plan to hold an election in May--Putin stepped in, had troops from Russia march in to both Ukraine and Crimea, called the revolt "unconstitutional" and blockaded the Ukraine Navy so they can't put out to sea. Right on script John McCain and other Republicans are up in arms over this action by "Putin the thug." They are climbing all over Obama as a weak and ineffective leader, while Obama knows damn well that in a war-weary society like ours he can't call out the troops in a situation very far from our shores, or have the money to pay for another conflict half way around the world. McCain is just blowing smoke and trying to score some brownie points with some Republicans. He has to know his call to do something is not realistic.

As I see it, Crimea is already gone and I won't be surprised if Russia reabsorbs Ukraine too. There is a plurality of ethnic Russians in Crimea and if they follow through on that referendum in 9 days the Peninsula will be back in the fold. Ukraine is a tougher call, inevitably, because rebels want nothing to do with Russia, while the Eastern portion on the state is predominately ethnic Russians. The blood and culture go deep; it can't be denied or argued away. In short, Putin can make a better argument than either the President of John Kerry, as history and tradition on on the side of Russia. In fact, Kerry's comments two days ago, about the illegality of the moves that Putin is contemplating, is laughable when you consider what we did in Iraq, our war of choice not necessity, where we intervened in a sovereign state to control Iraqi oil interests, and our long occupation of the country. Right now I wouldn't guess what the final outcome might be but I'd say Putin has the better cards to play.

The Eruption at 3 A.M.

March 6, 2014
Mike is gone. Two weeks with him was a bit of a chore. I seemed to bring out the worst of him, I am not sure why. He kept calling me "Boy," as if he didn't understand its racial implication. When I told him to knock it off, he slowed up some but did not quit. I also saw what a bully he has inside him. Part of it is his size, only 5'9'' but a solid 205 and likes to throw his weight around. I met his new lady friend who was unimpressive: a club woman type, a widow who winter's in Tucson. After they went golfing she called him up and broke things off with him. His reaction was no sweat; it doesn't matter. If there was a deeper response he didn't show it. But I now feel I have a clue why two women left him.

He cooked dinner Tuesday night, his last night with us. It turned into a disaster for me. He made spicy curry eaten over rice. I had some reservation when I heard all that was in the sauce, so I ate a small portion to be on the safe side. It didn't help. At 3 AM I woke up with shit oozing out of my anus. I tried to make it to the toilet but I didn't make it and there were three more eruptions after that first blast. The brown uncontrollably flow lasted 2  hours which utterly drained me. My dear wife ran to my aid and hardly complained when cleaning up the mess. Neither of us went back to bed at 5 AM but within a half hour I fell asleep in my recliner and slept till 10:30. As a matter of fact I slept on and off for the rest of the day and that night I slept from midnight till 6 AM. But I felt OK this morning. (I heard from Skip this morning and he has the same problem I have with his gall bladder gone. "Wherever I go I stay close to a toilet.")

Other than that I reworked two poems all afternoon, "The Big Dream" and "A Pale Horseman Hiccups." It was about the 4th try with both poems.