A Big Margareitta is Coming My Way - I'm Lying in the Sun Reading Proust

Sand and Waves, Perdido Key Florida

At the pool – My Gal – She used to be my girl – tossing a beach ball about – there is a big Margareitta machine behind the bar – the Tiki bar – don’t bring drinks or food to the pool (the owner of the Tiki bar also owns the pool and only leases it to the Resort) . Remember you’re listening to sunny 105 today – thuda, thud da thuda – the boys sing – the girls they scream – it is hot – all the even remotely good looking women have babies in two – oh God, I’m on a family vacation – I go back to reading Proust. I have a choice – either I can sit in the hot sun or sit in a shade with a breeze as I read. Punk! Eric pounded the beach ball and it sailed over Leslie’s head – Dave is standing in waist deep water watching the grandkids – a fake waterfall cascades down behind his bemused smile – the sound of the water and the heat put me to sleep.

Among the few animal species in which sex roles are dramatically reversed – in which males make the greatest biologically mandated parental investment – males are also the choosy sex, and females are the chosen – David P Barash – How Women Got Their Curves – 2009 p112

The US government spends 15 times as much money on military R and D as it spends on Energy R nad D. Over the next decade it is estimated the the demand for biofuels will increase the cost of foods by 40%. It turns out that green energy may be brown. We already knew that war kills.

Or we can take the Ferry across the Bay / Scanning the washed view on our way / To Sausalito where the thing to do / Is look at yet another view / And take the Ferry back – Thom Gunn [Collected Poems] 1994 p411

We buried the last of them
       From our little imperial
            Affair
And the last drummer boy of
      Our last domestic dispute
      Had only recently expired
Then the doughboys of the Great War
Then our fathers who did no better
      That we might not live in vain
Now it is our generation and our
       Petty wars for which no one
       Can remember the causes


Oh God grant us a Great War
      Give us one that is more than fear
      And spawns more than just  hate
In thy name we pray

[D H] Lawrence was opposed to the world as is. The world is wrong. In this sense Lawrence was right, is still right, and always will be right. Every sensitive being aware of his own power, his own right, senses this opposition. The world however is there and will not be denied. The world says NO. The world is eternally wagging its head NO – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960 p160

A profession is an occupational grouping that has self authority to recruit, train and supervise its own members – Horchschild p103 - But the word Professional has now come to mean an occupation which is completely submissive to an institutions standards – we expect a professional demeanor from our employees.

Students and alumni of the University of Phoenix (the “As Seen It TV” university) have accured more than $5 billion in outstanding educational loans secured by the government

Starting outside, / you save yourself some time while working in: / Thus by the seen, the unseen is implied – Thom Gunn [Collected Poems] 1994 p379

Who is talking on their cell phone:
           Asians        384 minutes per month
           Whites        647
           Men           667
           Hispanics     826
           Women         856
           Blacks      1,331

Analogies decide nothing, but they make one feel more at home – Sigmund Feud

The Smell of Success, at Last - Then Bang, God Shots Out My Brains

Blood on the Hoodoos - Route 12 Utah

Functional foods: modified foods purporting to provide health benefits. In 2008 this was a $31b industry. In the US unlike Europe such claims do not need to be substantiated. Activia (a yogurt product) makes a claim in its US advertising that it “helps regulate your digestive system” In Europe it is only claimed that it contains an exclusive bacterial culture and that it is a source of calcium and Vitamin B12 (which is true of all yogurts). Food manufacturers in the US claim that having to prove their claims would cost too much and take too much time. And we know that they wouldn’t be allowed to say it on TV if it were not true.

And then suddenly she said – I think this was it – “You’re a man with a soul.” I didn’t try to deny it – I was too happy, I guess, when a whore tells you you’ve got a soul it means more somehow. Whores don’t usually talk about souls – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960 p143

People move on
You never encounter
         Them again
They re-deploy
They dis-inter
Your letters are returned
          “Addressee unknown”
Life goes on


The last remaining elder was
           Buried this morning
In the afternoon I paid cash
For the last vehicle I would own
I leave no accounts unsettled


I have a less innocent body
But the mind remains spotless

That was fifteen years ago. / Tony is dead, the block where I lived / has been torn down. The mind / is an impermanent place isn’t it, / but it looks to permanence – Thom Gunn [Collected Poems] 1994 p384

So I visited St. Mary’s this morning - Our Lady of the Maytag as she is affectionly known. At the perimeter – along the hedge, I pick up a musty smell and bend over to sniff – how would a dog take in St Mary’s?. Yes, that smell is coming from there. Recently snipped leaves have oxidized along their cut edges and fresh shoots with greenish brown growth have shot two inches high in places. It’s not the smell of a recent trimming I surmise. But this would not have been of interest to a dog.

I am not sitting on the ballasted of the frontcourt over the parking lot of the cathedral. This is were the tour busses park and disgorge their pilgrims. There is money to be made in pilgrimages. No buse is parked here right now. The sun has just emerged from a cloud and there is slight breeze which should aid in the detection of ambient odors. The court is constructed of brick and marble. River pebble sin concrete constitute the pathways. I go inside the cavernous enclosure of sanctified space. Concrete and wood are the smells. Cheep ink and newsprint emanated for the Archdioceses’ newspaper to the left of the entrance. The mass of concrete shoots skyward.

He told it as if it were incidental to something else. It rang true to me. If it had been a lie, he would have made more of it – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960 p136

I sniff the back of the pew immediately in front. It does not smell of polished wood but of the oil from thousands of long black tresses of woman who have sat there during mass one at a time – fingering rosaries, one bead at a time. I am now alone. One man with a limp clumped, clumped past wearing hard soled shoes that echoed off the bricks and the poured concrete of internal pillars as he made his way to a shrine in an alcove. Three tourists came and left. It is quite except for the Muni buses outside traveling along Geary Street . I shall sit here in silence a little while longer relishing the solitude within this arching space – this holy agitator of God. The creak of wood expanding breaks the stillness of the ton upon ton of concrete bearing down upon me.

Bong, bong, bong - a bell above somewhere above signals eleven. I walk around the Sanctuary. There is a sweet smell white lilies held over form yesterday’s Easter Sunday mass. And there is the smell of freshly oiled wood, devotionally, slavinglly rubbed in by ancient hands. These smell coalesce in the southwest corner near the shrine of “Our Lady of Guadalupe”. That is also the warmest and best lit corner in this voluminous space.

Sometimes the night takes you with it, wraps you up and rolls you along, leaving you washed in sleep at the morning’s edge…. And sometimes the night goes on without you – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993 p237

If you can’t be happy
Be as happy as you can be
And if you can’t
         Then pretend

It is only when one is not fully happy that one is meticulous about time – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993 p225

Median wealth in the United States:

Woman of color – age 36-49        $5
Single black woman                 100
Single Hispanic woman              125
Black man                        7,900
Man of color – age 36-49        11,000
White woman                     41,500
White man                       43,800
White woman – age 36-49         70,000
White man – age 36-49          117,000

“You’ve said that only a few of us can read and write.” “Isn’t that true?” “Of course not! We can all read and write, just like you. And we would, if only we’d had lessons.” – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993 p383

A Sapper Tunneling Underground For the Greater Cause

There is a blue gray in the eastern sky. Low clouds scuttle out of the northeast. The wind picks up. The tree branches begin to flutter. Cars screech around corners. There is an edginess in the air. He came in spouting his spiel and only paused for an automatic ‘yes’ – “Everyone wants to watch movies, right?” [Pause] ‘Yes’ – and his spiel reeled on. It has started with a reference to the weather – not the storm brewing but how nice that the heat spell had been broken, “Awesome day is it not?” [Pause] ‘Yep.’ And thus it began.

The more scrupulous of these [autobiographical writers] did not hesitate to admit that their principle satisfaction was in feeling that they were leaving a part of themselves behind – in other words, writing was felt to confer a certain minimal immortality. This would have been understandable in the century when it was assumed that life on the planet would continue indefinitely. Now that the prognosis is doubtful, the desire to leave traces behind seems absurd – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993 p484

The big white pick-up truck backed into a black car – kabang! – you could hear it in here. Is that your black car, someone asked? Yes, she said, and rushed outside. The driver of the truck was contemplating driving off but now she realized that that was no longer an option.

Every community is established with a view to some good; for mankind always acts in order to obtain that which they think good – Aristotle – The Politics – Book 1

It is time to start work on “I smell teen religion” wherein I visit the Catholic Churches of San Francisco from the largest to the smallest. I start with St Mary’s. I tell Neil that I am starting with St Mary’s today. It is cold and just dead inside, he says. But it’s my favorite one of the lot, I say. He goes back to his newspaper. He holds up the sports page - he never reads the sports - they have a great headline in here, he says - when I had first entered the café this morning  I also had taken of that headline -  “Rhodes squalor. A’s stumble in 10”. It’s a pun, he announces. “Rhodes Scholar”. Rhodes is a player he tells me to make sure that I had gotten his meaning.

You renounce society, but to do so you must first be part of it, learn your decision from it. This is the paradox of retreat – – Michael Ondaatje – Anil’s Ghost, 2000 p103

I turned and asked Neil, “So when you remember the same thing twice, are you remembering the acutal event or are you remembering the last time that you remembered the incident?” I can remember my office and then I can remember my office again, he says. It depends on whether you are referring to a thing or an event. An event, I reply. It’s like a word in the dictionary. You go to the dictionary and find the word. Later you go back to the same dictionary and find the same word again. Oh, I say, are you sure? No, he replies. Neil leaves announcing that “it’s time to be responsible”, meaning that he is off to work, something I no longer worry about. I once was able to remember my office, but now I can't - maybe I should look up the word "office" in the dictionary.

If we have fought / across the fields of absurdity / we have fought our cunning / fought a real army whose / perfected barracks are houses for the beaten and the dulled – Thom Gunn [Collected Poems] 1994 p342

There is a 90% chance that an individual on the federal terrorism watch list will be allowed to purchase a gun or explosives even after having undergone a background check

It is the advocates of “intelligent design” and of similar drivel who have difficulty contending with design flaw. Biologists understand that because there is no designer, flaws are to be expected… If, however, a divine designer were responsible, then she must be either incompetent, indifferent, lazy, or, on occasion, downright malign – David P Barash – How Women Got Their Curves – 2009 p129

SUMMER DRESSES


Those pink enameled adjustments clasps
         On the black straps of the bra
That clasps her small breasts
That bronzed bare back except for
         Those black shoulder straps
That held up that flimsy black shift smoothly
         Curving around those shaven underarms
A hint of hair there is a reminder of her pubes
And your desire to participate in her function
          As purveyor of creation
A lack thereof means that your aesthetic
          Appreciation can be pure
You and your innocent pecker
A sapper tunneling underground
           For a greater cause

The world is out of whack and men individually are out of whack – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960r p163

Going to War - It's a Good Cause for History Shall be its Proof

Escalante, Utah

I bought my first tank of gas for the new truck – got about 17 mpg in the city which is not bad as the window sticker gave an urban fleet average of 13 mpg. I stayed in this morning to greet the Sears repairman – the pulley for the lawnmower came and he was to come and put it on. London broil was on sale and I put three pounds in the crock-pot overnight – shredded beef and noodles for dinner. I was going to make scalloped potatoes but they can wait. A cold front is moving in. This morning is cool. It feels like an autumn morning but I know that it is not.

The eye wants to sleep… but the head is no mattress – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993 p272

It is easy enough to
       Count three score
But 992 is very
       Different
Numerated, demarcated
       Individualted
Accounted, amassed
       Collectivized
Owned, acquired and
       Disposed of

By looking at things aesthetically, just as much as by looking at things moralistically or pragmatically, we are destroying their value, their significance. Objects do not fade away with time: they are destroyed! From the moment that we cease to regard them awesomely they die… Objects die in proportion as the vision of things dies. The object and the vision are one. Nothing flourishes after the vital flow is broken, neither the thing seen, nor the one who sees – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960 p178

As combat troops come out mercenaries go in – the same old story, the privatization of war, endless war. The State Dept is taking over the chore, doubling the size of its armed contractors in Iraq – it was already employing 1,370 armored vehicles and is in the process of purchasing 60 more mine-resistant vehicles from Defense. It is expanding it’s airforce as well, from one to three aircraft and from 17 to 29 helicopters. In an age in which violence is considered an integral aspect of national policy this assumption of responsibilities by the State Department is only natural – it is just the next step in a historical progression – first the War Department became the Department of Defense then internal violence was transferred to Homeland Security (I waiting for the BIA to be transfered there) and irregular (read secret) violence as gone to our security agencies (which now conduct open programs of assignation – call the anit-terrorist Predator attacks if you want to make it sound more  civil). So it is no big stretch of the imagination to move military activity (police action to use a Korean era term) in with foreign policy – they make good roommates. And with same sex marrige on the crest of a wave - they could even get married.

No more gentlemen of the old guard commissioned to / safeguard, as Chief commanding blackguard in / the rearguard of the home guard, the / inch, / 3 inch, 6 inch, 10 inch, 12 inch. / No more 14, 16, 18 inch shells – Kenneth Fearing – Selected Poems, 2004 p53

Nicholas tore up the yellow pages – Dave is going to be sore – Maybe the dog thinks he getting revenge but he is not, he is just going to get another lesson. Yesterday after taking a dump on the dinning room floor he had his nose rubbed in it and is still sore. He went and hid under the car and wouldn’t come back in. Half a dozen rain showers yesterday from noon to midnight – a boom, boom, crack and the thud of rain on the roof and then they would pass on – ten to fifteen minutes each, intermittingly until around midnight (I suppose as by then I was asleep – nothing like rain in the summer to make you drowsy).

If a writer can incite anyone to question and ultimately to reject the present structure of any facet of society, he’s perform end a function – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993 p533

An historical success proves a theological truth

All arrangements for a better life here on earth mean increased suffering and misery. Everything that is being planned for tomorrow means the destruction of that which now exists. The best world is that which is now this very moment – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960 p99

New-home sales dropped by a third after the expiration of the federal first-time homebuyer project. Which program helped 241 individuals serving life sentences in prison to become new homeowners.

The enthroned cannot revolt. / What was the pain / he needed to kill / if not the ultimate pain // of feeling no pain? – Thom Gunn [Collected Poems] 1994 –362

You have no emotional debt for that for which you have already paid, but it is beneficial to feign one anyway

The elimination of struggle is the greatest struggle of all – the struggle not to struggle – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960 p99

Individualism is not a concrete action but the an abstract attempt to merge into a collective identity

Most of the time in our world, truth is just opinion – Michael Ondaatje – Anil’s Ghost, 2000 p102

What ever happened to Angie Dickenson? When she posed nude she was over forty and it cause quite a stir and a lot of interest - it was considered a milestone for the older woman. I looked up the images on the Internet. They were noting sensational. Llater Kathy Bates exposed breasts to Jack Nickelson and it was considered another liberating moment for all aging babyboomers. Nudity as a rule does not harm an actreess’ career regardless of age even the Singing Nun got into the act. And maybe the Flyiing Nun did also but I have no proof of such any photos.

When a story is good I listen, and if it develops afterwards that it was a lie, why so much the better – I like a good lie just as much as the truth. A story is a story, whether it’s based on fact or fancy – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960 p136

Reality resides in the language itself rather than in what it purports to describe

Human beings may be unusual among living things in being able to augment their mate-selection strategies by conscious choice – David P Barash – How Women Got Their Curves – 2009 p111

She Lingered a While Longer in My Mind

I tried to watch this second adaptation of James M Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice but Nickelson just had to be Nickelson and the dropping of the code allowed for more explicit sexuality although none was called for and it just wasn’t Cain anymore as Nickelson is no Garfied. And I tried to watch Pia Zadora in Butterfly. God, they are butchering Cain. Is it only the Coen Borthers who can do a real adaptation anymore? Marion Davies was at least a successful comedic actress. I got as far as Pia prancing around naked behind a gauze screen in front of her father (Stacy Ketch) before I gave up in disgust. My project was to watch every film noire in the Netflex collection. Then I tried to watch Laura. I am making progress but it is slow.

Those occupations are most truly arts in which there is the least element of chance, they are the meanest in which the body is most deteriorated, the most servile in which there is the greatest use of the body, and the illiberal in which there is the least need for excellence – Aristotle

Life just keeps on getting
        Richer and richer
As you get sadder and sadder
And as everyone around you
        Pretends to be happy


Its all synonymous with getting
        Older and older
And waiting for sleep
And then you sleep
        Oh so sonorous and
        Harmonious

So long as there are men and women the world itself can never become a Sargasso Sea… There is a force outside us which, because of death, seems greater than us, an that is Nature. But we are also part of something else, something which includes Nature. It is as this unrealized part of the universe that we have set ourselves up in opposition to the whole. When we can refuse to move with the movement of that great force we break the law of life, we drift, and in the drift Nature passes us off – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960 p165

Only if it is not art can it be represented


We only play at getting lost
Once it has been discovered, uncovered
        It shall remain unburied
                Putrefying
We knew it only by its stench
       It was undeniable
Into this “unbroken surface for habitation
      And cultivation” we came
Into this no-man’s land where the rising moon
      Was of no comfort

You don’t end a process by destroying its products – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993 p531

America’s workers are making hardship withdrawals from their retirement accounts at a greater rate than at any time in the past ten years and 45% of those who did so a year ago are doing it again this year.

She was not afraid of life and death because she did not feel implicated to any extent in either one. Only other people lived and died, had their lives and deaths. She, being inside herself, existed merely as herself and not as part of anything else – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993 p245

To begin the new
First return to the old

Some people are born dead – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960 p98

Beckoning me to lean in close
Nudging out the stopper
Skipping the fine dining pomp
Pouring three different samples


That third gulp might clash
A pink blush spreads across the nose
I didn’t usually fall this quick


Listening, watching, absorbing
      Unable to quite
      Then shoved aside


Laughter came in loud
      In hearty gales
A week passed in a glance
      Everything was color-coded
      Now it’s another year later

Truth is not what you perceive with your senses but what you feel in your heart – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993 p383

62% of the US states are projected to have 2011 budge short-falls of at least 10%. 52% of the states were fully funding their pension-plans in 2000. Today only 6% (3 states) are.

He who participates in reason enough to apprehend, but not to have reason, is a slave by nature – Aristotle

The smell of her
       As she swept in
       And slipped out
The door opens for her
       The hot out doors
       Mixes with the cool A/C
Her smell lingered
       A little longer
       Than did she

Fold up the day. It was a bright scarf/ / Put it away. / Take yourself apart like a house of cards – Kenneth Kearing – Selected Poems, 2004 p25

Throwing Rocks at Dogs And Oh the Flies Swarm So in This Heat

It will be hot today – no dew in the early morning – the dog and I hiked across the lawn (I didn’t have to turn the windshield wipers on). Ted’s hound dogs (the cowards) stayed in the their master’s yard but couldn’t resist a yap or two – he probably took a rolled newspaper to them after being awoken early yesterday morning. My scheme is to hurl a big rock at them each time the come after the little dog until Ted gets annoyed with breaking the blades of his lawnmower on them rocks  and decides to chain his dogs up – they won’t bite anyone, he claims, but they are cowards and if they can find a weakling and attack without risk they don’t hesitate. We got four days relief in a row from the heat so this is OK, but every time the door opens another fly comes in. The door opens a lot. The room is full of little kids – daddy, daddy – hop and leap, jump and fly – arms in the air – scream. The flies annoy me more than the yelling. I once lived on a farm. I was once used to flies. I once though that barnyards had no smells (at least none that were annoying).

It occurred to him that he ought to ask himself why he was doing this irrational thing, but he was intelligent enough to know that since he was doing it, it was not so important to probe for explanations at that moment – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993 p190

All feelings have a social attribute called appropriateness – feelings are not synonymous with emotions

Once you know what makes you tick you don’t tick anymore – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993 p530

A Map of My Domain


The white truck is white
The wheels go round and round
I sit up high and am the Lord
       Of all that I survey
The wheels go round and round
And the white trucks sits high
       Above the ground
I can go anywhere that I want
       And I am the Lord
After all I've got four-wheel
                          Drive

The men who dazzle us and lead us astray are the men who promise us those things which no man can honestly promise another – namely safety, security, peace, etc – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960 p122

Bad sex stinks
Like high school
         Bad sex smells
Like stale cigarettes

Evolution has to work with what is available, not with what might be optimal – David P Barash – How Women Got Their Curves – 2009 p129

News stories have legs because they consist of a narrative that plays out the rules of a social appropriateness that has altered by  changing circumstances - it is the process by which we search for  a new concensus on how to behave. We need to look closer at these stories to understand social change and how our rules have morphed. Stories with legs are the modern equalivant of myths. Oh OJ and Tiger you are messengers from the gods.

Each man’s life has the quality he gives it, but you can’t say that life itself has any qualities – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993 p530

Copyright laws have been seen as a great 19th century achievement that guaranteed a flourishing book market but they may have actually been a hindrance to the development of such a market. This is the hypothesis that German historian Echard Hőffner has recently posed. In a study contrasting England with German he claims that such laws turned books into  luxury commodities and permitted publishers to make a large profit from a very limited edition thus actually  preventing  a mass book market from developing. Germany had no copyright laws during the period of study. It would have been interesting to have included the case of the United States which only protected books published in the US which I would hypothesize encouraged Americans to read popular foreign titles but restricted popular access to native authors.

The species is not at all intent on destroying itself. That’s nonsense. It’s intent on being something which happens inevitably to entail its destruction – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993 p111

Kenneth Fearing is another Whitman but
      For the age of media rather than
           Democracy and hope
Fearing is Whitman coming out of a
      Movie house or what we would now
           Call a mlultiplex
Or better yet stream it through your
      Wii – you don’t even need
           To read
And Who is Fearing? And Who is
      Whitman anyway?
           And who gives a rats ass?

Someday he is going to kill all the morons, / Be applauded by crowds, /Praised in the churches, / Cheered by the gang, / Be smiled upon by the little pink mouse, his far away star. / His pure angel, with her skirts torn away over blinding thighs – Kenneth Fearing – selected poems, 2004 p29

A Break in the Weather While I Dream of Jennie

The weather breaks – the heat wave has been interrupted at least for the moment – and I’m even thinking of getting back on the road again

Simply because some facts are consistent with a hypothesis doesn’t necessarily mean that they provide support for it or “prove” it – David P Barash – How Women Got Their Curves – 2009 p24

The government now backs 90% of all new home mortgages in the US

The missionary offered a complete if unusable code of thought and behavior, the modernizer offered nothing at all save a place in the ranks – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993

3.2% of all US adults (7.3 million people) are now under supervision by the criminal justice system

We have to live / in a half-world, not ours nor history’s / And learn the false from half-true premises – Thom Gunn [Collected Poems] 1994 p69

The rich, they share
      With their own
The bourgeoisie give
      To no one
The poor contribute
      To everyone

Each moment as it is being lived exists, but not the imaginary total – Borges

She’s back
She’s the back up
        Can’t back down


What a let down
It’s a show down
If she shows up
        Can’t let up


Don’t fall down
A bumpy ride – up and down
I’m about to throw up
I want to come down
Why don’t you come up
         And see me some time

They had broken his heart, he said, but it was not true. The heart cannot be broken. The heart can be wounded and cause the whole universe to appear as one vast withering place of anguish. But the heart knows no limit in its ability to endure suffering and torment. Were it otherwise the race would have perished long ago – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960 p121

Bubba – a nickname form the word ‘brother’ and usually given to the eldest male sibling as in Gerry “Bubba” Watson the gofer. The female equlivant is Sissy as in Sissy Spacek (given name Mary Elizabeth Spacek). Both sons and daughters who share an exact name with a parent may be called ‘jr’- in which case the parent becomes a ‘Sr’ (with a capital ‘S’). The usage of this term is mainly American – in French it would be pere and fils (as in Alexander Dumas). Although the term ‘jr’ is occasionally used for daughters it is most often used for the wife as in “Mrs Lon Chaney jr” (although he was not realy a junior, his given name being Crighton). A roman numeral is also used to designate a jr – boxer George Forman named all of his five sons after himself (II though VI). ‘Chip’ and ‘Bub’ are common substitures for ‘jr’ or ‘II’, while ‘Tip(p)’ or ‘Trey’ may be used for a ‘III’.

The absolute is hard to formulate: / Failure, desire, seek out their man; the date / Is relative, they die once they belong – Thom Gunn [Collected Poems] 1994 p62

If you drill a hole straight down through the center of the earth hoping to come out in China, don’t start in the hee US  but in Argentina. If you start here you’ll come out in the southern Indian Ocean or more likely the stormy Antarctic and your hole will fill up with the salty water and maybe even a few fish and you'll drown.

A man has to have some definite view of the nature of the world in order to reject it – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960 p120

I got the new truck insured as a second vehicle which saved me abut two hundred dollars (almost enough to pay for the insurance on the old truck – I might want to rethink selling it). It is raining – lightly raining – enough for vehicle tires to go swish. The neighbor said that rattlers got her cat and also Allen’s dog. Another neighbor is out chasing down a kid from the projects who was ringing doorbells. She says that’s how they find if anyone is at home. This place is insured but….. At least they won’t get a big screen TV casue the ex took that. That cat was a good mouser, she said.

It isn’t important to be going somewhere, but that one simply feels better being enroute, being, that is nowhere for the moment – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993 p511

Another dog
Another beer
Another day

What men want is nearly identical to what woman want to be – David P Barash – How Women Got Their Curves – 2009 p95

It’s not your father’s
       Pornography anymore
Push some more
       My way
Up and down
       And in and out
Are only a dream
       A part

The world is going mad as the Italian and Spanish Renaissance went mad. But where is our Reformation, where is our new life?…One must live quiet apart, forgetting, having another world, a world as yet uncreated – D H Lawrence

I Lay by the Pool - I Drank Some Beer

We went down to the beach where there were warning signs about the oil spill. We ignored them and went swimming anyway. They were wrapping up the clean-up. Most of the workers were sitting around in the shade under canopies, their equipment littering the sands. Boats offshore were reeling in the oil booms. I was unable to collect any tar balls, there were none to be found. The public beach was only a hundred feet wide between the high condos – “private beach – guests and members only.” You only learn what you should have done at the end. The National Seashore was only a half a mile away and an eight dollar pass was good for a week per car (and I could have gotten one car in free on my Senior Pass anyway – I had told them this the first day, but it wasn’t my show and I was ignored).

When the music stops… things will be complicated. But as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance – Chuck Prince (CEO, Citigroup, 2007)

Clouds move across the sky
        Without exiting
Prawns to  whales
        Without any protection
Victims of circumstances
The sun their principle enemy

“Is suicide punished, in the Army?” “Obviously, if you bungle it… And it should be. Selfishness must be punished – so must incompetence” – Victor Serge – The Unforgiving Years, 2007 p118

I lay by the pool and read ten pages of Hellman – it began to sprinkle and I returned to the condo – whimp that I am – I’ve having my first beer of the day and it’s not yet noon.

Drinking made uninteresting people matter less and, late at night matter not at all – Lillian Hellman – An Unfishised Woman, 1969 p56

Encountering someone who you know you know but cannot place, you hope that you will get a clue from the conversation, it may be nothing that they say, but the way that they laugh - you will probably not even recognize the clue as a clue. The name will just come back to you as if you had awoken from a dream and you will know that you had always knon it  and had  just temporarly stupefied. It was obvious that you had always known it, and you had just been caught daydreaming. And this young man with a ponytail comes up to me in the coffee shop and says that he read my blog and found it interesting. His is familiar but I don’t think I know him at not at least in this here context – who can he be - oh yes, the barista in the other coffee shop (I don't thing he wroks there anymore).

The good thing about war is that it leaves no time for thinking…It puts your consciousness at ease by suppressing it – Victor Serge – The Unforgiving Years, 2007e p272

I've attended two 25th Anniversary celebrations this week -SRC (Survivability Research Laboratory) and today The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. The opening address for the Sisters is given Assemblyman Mark Leno who as given Sainthood as “Mark of My Word”. He is followed by Carol Midgen and then there is a reading of the list of past Saint Hood. A self indulgent activity and boring. I found a seat in the grass to the left of home base and waited for the Hunky Jesus contest which was as the reason for my being here.

The hero… is a sort of monster who is immune to pain and suffering… life appears to him as art, and not as an ordeal – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960 p96

Is that it. Alright, Hold it. One more. Now we get to pick the winners. Me? I though that this was their job. Have I forgotten anyone. This is your contest Mr. Time and Robo Bunny. Well you are all winners. Any one who has the time to make this ridiculous hat is a winner. Very lovely. But in the end you in the audience have to approve. And Sunflower Man and Vegas Bunny. And I put two dollars in the hat that is being passed for the Sisters just because it feels good. And the winner is Chocolate Head because who else could I eat but him of course. He looks just delicious, I could devour him. Come back at four, it’s Hunky Jesus then. The weather is changing but that is OK as cold weather means perky tits. The sisters work all year …I would like to introduce my Sister. Today we are giving out to teen …your dollars to a worth cause. So put your hand… And it gets too cold for me. And it was still an hour before the Hunky Jesus Contest. So I got up and went to the “Sit & Spin” which was only two blocks away and had a roasted ginger tea. Michael said that it contained pan roasted green tea. I have socks on today. I tell Michael that it has nothing to do with the cold, it’s because the skin of my feet began to crack and split after I started wearing these sandals. Michael gives me his recipe for a concoction to re-moisturize the skin which, it included Shae butter and he told me says to wear wool socks at night.

You’re only free if you’re in good order with your neighbors, and even then not a hell of a lot of rope they give you – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960 p117

It’s now four o’clock and I head back to Dolores Park for the Hunky Jesus competition. I just passed the potter from Bellingham and her friend from Germany. Did you find the pottery studio, I ask her? We did and we got their card. Will now, I say to her, you can say, I used to live in Bellingham. They do not stay for Hunky Jesus. Michael had said good luck, maybe you can win. I replied, if it were a ‘honky Jesus rather than a “Hunky Jesus” I would have a chance. A polka was playing – appropriate because it is Polkacide that was playing on the stage. They had four faux girls pantomiming the song. The music goes oh de la umph and the dog goes aurf, aurf, aurf. Boom, boom went the bass drum. Oh de lay od de lay who oh. My God and a sister above and behind me is blowing a cloud of bubbles over my head. And without further adieu, I want to introduce Sister… And then an old black dog with dreadlocks walks bye and the one true Jesus struts his stuff, well the one true Jesus anyway. Sweet Jesus the Sister comments. A pope sweeps by in all his robes salmon colored robes holding amiter. Never mind what do you…

The message [of Avatar] … - like the message of so much else in mass culture just now – is, by contrast, that ‘reality’ is dispensable altogether; or, at the very least, whatever you care to make of it, provided you have the right gadgets… You don’t have to wake up. There is no need to go home – Daniel Mendelsohn – New York Review of Books [March 24, 2010] p13

The bottom half of the income earners in the United States own less than 1% of the nation’s wealth. The top 1% of US households own twice as much of America’s corporate wealth as they did fifteen years ago

We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarder at an every increasing pace – Victor Lebon (1955)

Almost half the counties in Michigan have converted some asphalt roads back to gravel in recent years. Similar road downgradings have been occurring in South Dakota, Alabama and Pennsylvania. Some counties in Ohio are simply letting nature do the downgrading.

From a certain point forward there is no longer any turning back; that is the point that must be reached – Franz Kafka

Bought a new pick-up truck
Goin to get a big Stetson hat
Take a shower and put on
          Clean starched shirt
Goin into town tonight
Got cash in my wallet
          Burnin … Burnin a hole
Look out honey, I’m looking
          For love and drinking whiskey
And what shall you have dear?

To invoke fate is to expose oneself to the chaos which blind forces of the universe are ever ready to set in motion once the will of man is broken – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960 p120

Fred's on the Run Looking for Some Trouble - Here He Comes

After twenty years the old truck is still running good but it's starting to rust and the ride is rough - so I decide to splurge and buy myself a new truck. Some clean duds and some cologne and I can send out the little dog to lure in some lonley women - and I shall be back in action - drop in for a conjugal visit - but don't expect me to stay for too long for the road is calling again - gotta run, gotta go, roll roll on down the road, miles to go before I sleep - get ready for here I come.

I believe more than ever. I believe everything good and bad. I believe more and less than what is true. I believe beyond the corpus of man’s thinking. I believe everything. I believe in a collective life and in individual life also. I believe in the life of the world, the uterus which it is. I believe in the contradiction of the uterine life of this world. I believe in having money and in not having money too. And whether I believe or don’t believe I always act – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960 p100

Who is it that is getting all the government benefits? The bottom 60% of American households (those with incomes below $50,000) received benefits to the amount of $445 billion. Those households in the top 20% (income over $85,000 received $539 billion and the top 1% (households with incomes over $450,000) got $289b or $210,000 per household.

If the poor people in England can’t make a living when the government possesses the biggest empire that ever was how are the going to make a living when the empire falls to pieces – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960p116

Make a face
A funny face


A lose of face
Such a long face


Save face
Make an about face


Face up
Face off
Face down

“The greatest poets where the Chinese,” he said. “They made the little things reveal the greatness of the universe. They were philosophers first and then poets. They lived their poetry. We have nothing to make poetry about, except death and desolation” – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960 p114

61% of Americans always or usually live paycheck to paycheck. This is up from 49% in 2008 and 41% in 2007.

Do you think I’d get any satisfaction out of dying in harness, as they say? Not me! I’d rather die in the alcoholic ward among the has-beens and no-goods. At least, if it happens that way, I’ll have the satisfaction of saying that I had only one master – John Barleycorn. You have a thousand masters, perfidious, insidious ones who torment you even in your sleep – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960 p119

Banks own a greater share of residential housing's net worth in the United States than do individuals

We improve things by covering them up – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960 p118