the gonzo media archives.,

the final words on the gonzo media archives., though we will resurface like a phoenix from the ashes,... good bye.,..

2009-03-09T18:52:00.000-07:00

The Futurist Manifesto

F. T. Marinetti, 1909

We have been up all night, my friends and I, beneath mosque lamps whose brass cupolas are bright as our souls, because like them they were illuminated by the internal glow of electric hearts. And trampling underfoot our native sloth on opulent Persian carpets, we have been discussing right up to the limits of logic and scrawling the paper with demented writing.
Our hearts were filled with an immense pride at feeling ourselves standing quite alone, like lighthouses or like the sentinels in an outpost, facing the army of enemy stars encamped in their celestial bivouacs. Alone with the engineers in the infernal stokeholes of great ships, alone with the black spirits which rage in the belly of rogue locomotives, alone with the drunkards beating their wings against the walls.

Then we were suddenly distracted by the rumbling of huge double decker trams that went leaping by, streaked with light like the villages celebrating their festivals, which the Po in flood suddenly knocks down and uproots, and, in the rapids and eddies of a deluge, drags down to the sea.

Then the silence increased. As we listened to the last faint prayer of the old canal and the crumbling of the bones of the moribund palaces with their green growth of beard, suddenly the hungry automobiles roared beneath our windows.

`Come, my friends!' I said. `Let us go! At last Mythology and the mystic cult of the ideal have been left behind. We are going to be present at the birth of the centaur and we shall soon see the first angels fly! We must break down the gates of life to test the bolts and the padlocks! Let us go! Here is they very first sunrise on earth! Nothing equals the splendor of its red sword which strikes for the first time in our millennial darkness.'

We went up to the three snorting machines to caress their breasts. I lay along mine like a corpse on its bier, but I suddenly revived again beneath the steering wheel - a guillotine knife - which threatened my stomach. A great sweep of madness brought us sharply back to ourselves and drove us through the streets, steep and deep, like dried up torrents. Here and there unhappy lamps in the windows taught us to despise our mathematical eyes. `Smell,' I exclaimed, `smell is good enough for wild beasts!'

And we hunted, like young lions, death with its black fur dappled with pale crosses, who ran before us in the vast violet sky, palpable and living.

And yet we had no ideal Mistress stretching her form up to the clouds, nor yet a cruel Queen to whom to offer our corpses twisted into the shape of Byzantine rings! No reason to die unless it is the desire to be rid of the too great weight of our courage!

We drove on, crushing beneath our burning wheels, like shirt-collars under the iron, the watch dogs on the steps of the houses.

Death, tamed, went in front of me at each corner offering me his hand nicely, and sometimes lay on the ground with a noise of creaking jaws giving me velvet glances from the bottom of puddles.

`Let us leave good sense behind like a hideous husk and let us hurl ourselves, like fruit spiced with pride, into the immense mouth and breast of the world! Let us feed the unknown, not from despair, but simply to enrich the unfathomable reservoirs of the Absurd!'

As soon as I had said these words, I turned sharply back on my tracks with the mad intoxication of puppies biting their tails, and suddenly there were two cyclists disapproving of me and tottering in front of me like two persuasive but contradictory reasons. Their stupid swaying got in my way. What a bore! Pouah! I stopped short, and in disgust hurled myself - vlan! - head over heels in a ditch.

Oh, maternal ditch, half full of muddy water! A factory gutter! I savored a mouthful of strengthening muck which recalled the black teat of my Sudanese nurse!

As I raised my body, mud-spattered and smelly, I felt the red hot poker of joy deliciously pierce my heart. A crowd of fishermen and gouty naturalists crowded terrified around this marvel. With patient and tentative care they raised high enormous grappling irons to fish up my car, like a vast shark that had run aground. It rose slowly leaving in the ditch, like scales, its heavy coachwork of good sense and its upholstery of comfort.

We thought it was dead, my good shark, but I woke it with a single caress of its powerful back, and it was revived running as fast as it could on its fins.

Then with my face covered in good factory mud, covered with metal scratches, useless sweat and celestial grime, amidst the complaint of staid fishermen and angry naturalists, we dictated our first will and testament to all the living men on earth.

MANIFESTO OF FUTURISM
We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness.
The essential elements of our poetry will be courage, audacity and revolt.
Literature has up to now magnified pensive immobility, ecstasy and slumber. We want to exalt movements of aggression, feverish sleeplessness, the double march, the perilous leap, the slap and the blow with the fist.
We declare that the splendor of the world has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing automobile with its bonnet adorned with great tubes like serpents with explosive breath ... a roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.
We want to sing the man at the wheel, the ideal axis of which crosses the earth, itself hurled along its orbit.
The poet must spend himself with warmth, glamour and prodigality to increase the enthusiastic fervor of the primordial elements.
Beauty exists only in struggle. There is no masterpiece that has not an aggressive character. Poetry must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man.
We are on the extreme promontory of the centuries! What is the use of looking behind at the moment when we must open the mysterious shutters of the impossible? Time and Space died yesterday. We are already living in the absolute, since we have already created eternal, omnipresent speed.
We want to glorify war - the only cure for the world - militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill, and contempt for woman.
We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice.
We will sing of the great crowds agitated by work, pleasure and revolt; the multi-colored and polyphonic surf of revolutions in modern capitals: the nocturnal vibration of the arsenals and the workshops beneath their violent electric moons: the gluttonous railway stations devouring smoking serpents; factories suspended from the clouds by the thread of their smoke; bridges with the leap of gymnasts flung across the diabolic cutlery of sunny rivers: adventurous steamers sniffing the horizon; great-breasted locomotives, puffing on the rails like enormous steel horses with long tubes for bridle, and the gliding flight of aeroplanes whose propeller sounds like the flapping of a flag and the applause of enthusiastic crowds.

It is in Italy that we are issuing this manifesto of ruinous and incendiary violence, by which we today are founding Futurism, because we want to deliver Italy from its gangrene of professors, archaeologists, tourist guides and antiquaries.

Italy has been too long the great second-hand market. We want to get rid of the innumerable museums which cover it with innumerable cemeteries.

Museums, cemeteries! Truly identical in their sinister juxtaposition of bodies that do not know each other. Public dormitories where you sleep side by side for ever with beings you hate or do not know. Reciprocal ferocity of the painters and sculptors who murder each other in the same museum with blows of line and color. To make a visit once a year, as one goes to see the graves of our dead once a year, that we could allow! We can even imagine placing flowers once a year at the feet of the Gioconda! But to take our sadness, our fragile courage and our anxiety to the museum every day, that we cannot admit! Do you want to poison yourselves? Do you want to rot?

What can you find in an old picture except the painful contortions of the artist trying to break uncrossable barriers which obstruct the full expression of his dream?

To admire an old picture is to pour our sensibility into a funeral urn instead of casting it forward with violent spurts of creation and action. Do you want to waste the best part of your strength in a useless admiration of the past, from which you will emerge exhausted, diminished, trampled on?

Indeed daily visits to museums, libraries and academies (those cemeteries of wasted effort, calvaries of crucified dreams, registers of false starts!) is for artists what prolonged supervision by the parents is for intelligent young men, drunk with their own talent and ambition.

For the dying, for invalids and for prisoners it may be all right. It is, perhaps, some sort of balm for their wounds, the admirable past, at a moment when the future is denied them. But we will have none of it, we, the young, strong and living Futurists!

Let the good incendiaries with charred fingers come! Here they are! Heap up the fire to the shelves of the libraries! Divert the canals to flood the cellars of the museums! Let the glorious canvases swim ashore! Take the picks and hammers! Undermine the foundation of venerable towns!

The oldest among us are not yet thirty years old: we have therefore at least ten years to accomplish our task. When we are forty let younger and stronger men than we throw us in the waste paper basket like useless manuscripts! They will come against us from afar, leaping on the light cadence of their first poems, clutching the air with their predatory fingers and sniffing at the gates of the academies the good scent of our decaying spirits, already promised to the catacombs of the libraries.

But we shall not be there. They will find us at last one winter's night in the depths of the country in a sad hangar echoing with the notes of the monotonous rain, crouched near our trembling aeroplanes, warming our hands at the wretched fire which our books of today will make when they flame gaily beneath the glittering flight of their pictures.

They will crowd around us, panting with anguish and disappointment, and exasperated by our proud indefatigable courage, will hurl themselves forward to kill us, with all the more hatred as their hearts will be drunk with love and admiration for us. And strong healthy Injustice will shine radiantly from their eyes. For art can only be violence, cruelty, injustice.

The oldest among us are not yet thirty, and yet we have already wasted treasures, treasures of strength, love, courage and keen will, hastily, deliriously, without thinking, with all our might, till we are out of breath.

Look at us! We are not out of breath, our hearts are not in the least tired. For they are nourished by fire, hatred and speed! Does this surprise you? it is because you do not even remember being alive! Standing on the world's summit, we launch once more our challenge to the stars!

Your objections? All right! I know them! Of course! We know just what our beautiful false intelligence affirms: `We are only the sum and the prolongation of our ancestors,' it says. Perhaps! All right! What does it matter? But we will not listen! Take care not to repeat those infamous words! Instead, lift up your head!

Standing on the world's summit we launch once again our insolent challenge to the stars!

bon soir.,

2009-03-08T21:22:00.000-07:00

bon soir.,

thanks for all the laughs.,

good night, bon soir.

we are tired

&

we are bored.

this is the final signing off.,

cheers.

hector "hollywood" swanson.,

xx.,

happy new year gonzoids.,

2009-02-20T03:47:00.000-08:00

Gonzo Media Archives first year is over. In fact our year has had fourteen months but we never troubled too much about the details.
The aim of gonzo media has always been to compile archives of art work, of articles, of short stories and the ever present cultural references, society unearthed, put back together, taken apart by a thousand hands.,
it's been a good year. all of us here at the desk have been happy surprised with the random snippets of society that have rolled in to us.,
great. so we have moved to set up a new archive - same idea - just another year so another site., you will find it at www.gonzogallery.blogspot.com .,

see you there where we also present an exhibition of world art "artists of the world unite".,

happy new year and thanks for all the gems., you crazy diamonds you.,

hesq.,

REVEALED : the strange conversations in the "art" community.,

2009-02-18T19:57:00.000-08:00

Claire Askew to Samantha, SA, Ryan, rosie, Neil, Gerald, Billectric, Nessa, Timothy, Jared, brad, BRETT, Chris, Hanna, Christina, James, Matthew, Naomi, danmussett, Sofia, Robyn, Chang, ed_ballard, Elizabeth, ella, Fox show details Jan 26 Reply
Dear All,
Just a quick note to say --
I have been nominated for New Scottish Writer of the Year 2009 for my work with Read This, One Night Stanzas and my own writing. The awards are decided by public vote and since by nomination came in late, I am trailing quite a bit! Can I ask you all a huge favour and get you to go to the following website and give me your vote? I am the only young writer on the list, the only Edinburgh writer, and one of only two poets. It would be a huge boost to Read This, too. Please do just take a couple of seconds and respond to the poll (right hand side of the site!).
http://www.realradio-scotland.co.uk/events/nomination-criteria-for-our-svas-2009-fedc/best-new-scottish-writer-2009/dut4esd1/
Thanks to all of you! Read This will now stop clogging your inboxes!
All best wishes,
Claire Askew
Poetry Co-Ordinator'this collection'poetry@thiscollection.com
Editor in ChiefRead This Magazinewww.readthismagazine.co.uk
Editor in ChiefOne Night Stanzaswww.onenightstanzas.com

gonzo media to Claire, Samantha, SA, Ryan, rosie, Neil, Gerald, Billectric, Nessa, Timothy, Jared, brad, BRETT, Chris, Hanna, Christina, James, Matthew, Naomi, danmussett, Sofia, Robyn, Chang, ed_ballard, Elizabeth, ella show details Jan 27 Reply

claire.,
you write me asking for my vote in the upcoming "new poet of the year awards 2009..." . what is this you are trying for, the X factor. the poet is not some canvassing electable candidate. a good poem as bukowski would have said is like a "good hot beer shit, it's just done, there it is, nothing to analyse..." to be a good poet - a poet of the year as you might say - is not to get the most votes (! i feel a fool for even saying this!)... there is no scale on which to judge... you know this in your heart? i guess you do.. but perhaps you're a poet like obama, breaking rules and boundaries without saying a single honest heart felt word and standing unashamed for all to see..? when the beautiful art of poetry is corrupted through the canvassing of votes i humbly put the point that it is time to make your own path, to rise above your own vanity and forge a way that is the truth that is honest and not be subdued and personally degraded as an artist by the ugly art of P.R. and canvassing votes. ee cummings (a poet - if you know, i'm sure you do) once said "seeker of truth follow no paths for all paths lead where truth is here..." he was right. the poet was never meant to chase votes or follow opinion polls, no, the poet ought to forge the way following their own great mysterious light and by following that light with all their heart and life make it known through the beauty and magic of their art, not through calculations of votes and swaying a silent listening majority, the poet ought instead to give to their loved ones, those strange collections of audiences, a part of themselves for ever to keep, to give without generousity their whole being and not ask for anything in return, not barter for their votes but give them surprising beauty through the truthfulness of their words. i also want to ask you, "how long have you been a poet"? one year, two years, or in 2009 or 2487 have you come of maturity, come of age? no, you have been a poet and an artist, a secret traveller of the heart since you were born.. no vote can change that. no election can decide whether or not it's true... so i ask you to abandon this display of vanity and once more take up the path of the poet. a poet is not a piece of paper, a poet is not an election result, a poet seeks not to sway opinion through barter but through truth and beauty, a poet is not made in a year or a century but reflects the wild currents of their times in ways that surpass the meaning of their words (and here is the lyric, the magic, the song of their words.. you know this claire i'm sure you do,..) i have taken the liberty of copying this footnote in the evolution of culture to those whom you sent this message to. i'm sure you wouldn't mind. before i sign off, i want you to listen to it from another of our brethren say it better than i ever could... http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=NIoXV-HXobo yours sincerley, a trouble-worried loving heart,. hesq.,

REPLY FROM CLAIRE ASKEW :
Thanks for sending this round 1/3 of the RT mailing list, Gonzo. This morning I woke up to 99 emails in my inbox (I shit you not) -- mostly messages of support telling me what a pretentious dick you were, and to ignore you.
Since you ask -- I was nominated based on my writing, and also for my work with RT, One Night Stanzas and various other projects around Edinburgh. Were I not a deserving candidate, I wouldn't have been nominated (but if you don't believe me, Google "Claire Askew" + poet and see what comes up). As for the public vote thing -- yes, it's open to abuse, and I wish there was a little profile or something on there so people could see my writing, but really, I was asking people on the RT mailing list to vote for me based on their opinion of Read This. If you don't think RT deserves an award, just don't vote. It's fairly simple.
I'll take you off the mailing list so you don't get anything else that flings you into laughable diatribe (I dread to think how long you spent writing this garbage -- some of the people who emailed me back had obviously read it all... I'm afraid I got pretty bored pretty quick). And you don't really need to contact us again -- every time we've had a submission from you, we've had a good laugh at how terrible it is, but we can live without that little distraction in future I think.
Best of luck on your, er, righteous path...!
Claire...

A heady mix., c/o : Dr. Zimbadean.,

2009-02-18T18:41:00.000-08:00

Agoraphobia. Cabin fever. Endemic paranoia. Nightmare wet dreams of anarchy. Fantasies of ultra-violence directed at the innocent.
A Cocktail recipe for A heady mix.
And Garnished with out of body experiences of seemingly random criminal acts and wild displays of poetic terrorism. Shaking with screaming eyes and hands the sleepers from their sleep.

But when analysed and replayed in the deep cold sweat of curled foetal shivering listening to the heart beat erratically it makes a perfect sense...

The mall creature is clawing back its own identity. The mall creature has been bent too far out of shape and it lurches between insane acts of social violence and docile servility. Like a pendulum counting out the internal time till ground zero is reached once more on the face of this clock, heaving within the restraints of the numerals printed - like an undisciphered code - in a clear black font mapping out legal legitimate time for all to see. But what horrors are being suppressed within the lurid and pornographic time zone of the cult of the Shopping Mall? What sacrifice will the 2 for 1 offer eventually ask of each and every one of its Faithful followers? What can the subliminal command "70% discount on selected lines for a limited time only" possibly mean in the mind of a mall creature?

Time as an index of value. Value being denoted by temporal points of reference,. inflation when value increases over time and deflation when values decrease over time. What can our mall creature make of this? Time no longer the passage through space but its evacuation. And as our Mall Creature prepares for the final evacuation of space to pass into the realm of pure relative value denoted by time, what will it be forced to leave behind? When value no longer refers to space and its contents but time and its control what will Mall Creature mutate into? Some kind of super rubix-cube covered in temporal destinations over laid with abstracted values? Is the Mall Creature a Time Traveller, a Temoral Nomadic Being escaped the bondage of space, or a Victim of the Total War against its own sense of Time, warped into a state of semi-comprehension constantly obeying contradictory commands?

Eventually the imbalances will cause the rift to erupt into a series of seamless tragedies. An exhibition of atrocities. A house of vile energies. The mall creature must keep silent, masking what’s within; for if it shared its inner emptiness it would be in a constant state of implosion : like a black hole, taking all the light with it on that suffocating inner journey to the centre of where it started out from.
Is it possible that We live in a society of black holes that wear more and more glitter and shiny things to avert attention from what is going on underneath?
Perhaps. Perhaps not. But whatever else you don't do., please Mix this cocktail with care and discretion.

Inevitably though., Whatever happens, one day sooner than you'd think, even the mall creature will refuse its consent, or else be swallowed into the void of its own non-being.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROn_9302UHg

Dr. Zimbadean., (a leading psycho-analyst at the insititute for consumer well-being and part time voodoo witch-doctor).

celebrity end game., c/o : the deep blue dreams.,

2009-02-17T18:20:00.001-08:00

so jade goody has cancer. its spreading. she has been given months to live. we get to watch the brutal destruction of her body in front of our unbelieving eyes... it is a tragdy. very few people can deserve the suffering that cancer brings., and though goody is a racist, stupid and, as much as i hate to say it, she's probably not going to be one of those who find a cure for cancer... it is still sad to see her suffer like this., just as watching scientific experiments on animals is heart rendering so is this.
what ever you may or may not think about all this, it sells. somewhere inside the majority want to see someone else suffer, witness with a tight stomach another person's demise. plato always maintained that democracy would descend into tyranny. he was speaking of a city state but the meaning applies here as well. the majority have decided that it is fit to display images of grotesque personal suffering in the public sphere, and not only that, consent to profits being made from the act of doing so. what is it about a fully grown woman facing the end of her life in a bathroom and breaking down - not hysterically, just with the inevitability of it all - that makes us fork out our wallets and hand over the cash..? the tyranny of the eye. television - literally vision at a distance. real enough to feel but far enough away not to make any difference to our own lives.
but the celebrity cult is constantly in danger of loosing its shock factor. just like the economy requires inflation to maintain its steady pace (if prices are constantly rising - especially if they rise quicker than real wages do - the buyer is encouraged to buy now now now now always now not tomorrow... and therein lies the danger of deflation., that consumption might slow down, that people might not spend spend spend but sit tight and wait for prices to fall - cutting profits - and if this were to continue for long enough the whole system would come to a standstill... remember that...) . but the celebrity industry is a mirror of the economy in reverse. its not inflation that drives it but deflation, or degradation. the quest is to find out how far people are prepared to degrade themselves and their privacy to be famous. the "game shows" where celebrities are made fools - big brother to name one where even elected MPs have partaken - where they eat insects, perform acts that would not be out of place in hard core dominatrix porn movies., and all to stay in the public eye. of course, its not really that which they seek., they are bought, they do so at a price (orwell "a bought mind is a spoiled mind"). they are paid big money to do these things but all the while its generally hush hush that its not the public eye they desire (though some do i suspect) . in truth it is the public who wants to feel like they own the celebrities. and that's really the whole point of this grand sharade. when we see these human beings degrading themselves they are in our hands., or at least in our field of vision. they entertain us. we think, i won't do that. we think they're just like us and that brings us hope in our trampled down futile solitary lives., yes this is the essence of the celebrity cult. we pay for it so that we can relieve ourselves of the guilt of not living our own lives the way we had dreamed them to be and so we make them suffer in front of us... its worth remembering that christianity - undoubtedly the religion of the western consumer world is fundmentally based on human sacrifice - jesus died in agony to save us from our sins...

jade goody does have cancer and it is spreading. but there is a metaphoric cancer also that she has succumbed to. a recent series of the big brother program was getting pretty bad ratings. basically people had figured out that it was boring. so jade goody was brought in adhoc almost it must have seemed to viewers, and within minutes of entering the big brother house she was making racist slurs against an attractive indian film star. of course in a country such as the uk where racism is endemic (to the point where we have our own ministry of truth which dictates what we can and cannot say - goes under the general name of political correctness but do not miss what it truly is, it is censorship of speach to a terrifying degree that requires us to "duck speak" whenever confronted with someone who is not white middle class and fairly well educated and institutionalised - in other words we repeat words and thoughts that we were told to use in these situations., positive discrimination is one of the ministry's greatest acheivements., and jesus wept., )
now before this drifts into the realms of a tirade,. let me tie it back together. the celebrity culture and the economy is the story of jade goody. jade goody once heralded as a working class hero for being the most popular person in a house where she and other "contestants" were incaserated, watched by uncountable cameras and on the other end uncountable eyes, where the contestants were deliberately encouraged to fall out and argue (live pain and hurt are good for tv ratings)., then after she'd sold all the newspapers and filthy rags that she could she was reintroduced as a racist (something which we are allowed by law to hate, and more importantly to publically get together and hate - this also sells newspapers...) and now finally the circle is complete. we can't hate someone who has cancer. that would be un-PC as the jargon goes, it would be too wrong to hate someone for whatever reason who now has cancer and is prepared to publically humiliate herself and share all her trivial concerns. and so now we in our hearts make the transition back again to loving her, poor her, how she is suffering. and we become complicit to the whole pantomime., and though i do not wish to be the voice of cruel truth surely it's sadder that kids all around the world are dying of thirst or diseases that we can cure simply because we don't really care as much as we do about this grotesque maronnete
perhaps next, after a "black" president the usa can vote in a man who is actually suffering from terminal cancer, with only a matter of weeks or days to live after his puppet inauguration, perhaps then the nation would know what it is to love... positive discrimination is another way of terming nationalism., or today, the requirements of the consumer society. each week several people are refused entry to the UK on the grounds of their political or social beliefs, yet as a nation we are happy - in fact pay - to watch a pathetic woman dying without any dignity in our own living rooms... and what's more, we sleep just fine after watching it...
so here's a clip of this woman :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krpFoZN8nSs .
perhaps we're all secretly glad that she's been taken down a notch. who did she think she was anyway. someone like that was probably bound to get cancer it can't be totally random, i mean take smokers, they deserve it too... or maybe, her death is ours. perhaps we all share in the crime. or perhaps, just maybe, this is the beginning of the end game of the celebrity cult.
*

portrait of the artist as a young indonesian shadow puppet., c/o : hesq.,

2009-02-11T18:45:00.000-08:00

painting..."because a painting has a life of its own i try to let it live" j. pollock.,

2009-02-09T16:25:00.000-08:00

jackson pollock painting and speaking about it.,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bICqvmKL5s&feature=related

good news for the GonZ., Florida's new Honorary Mayor, Sammie GonZo Mays.,

2009-02-08T15:16:00.000-08:00

Sammie Mays,. a.k.a. Gonzo Girl., now Mayor., it's official...

the video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSmgkJEyYnU

If it looks like a duck, walks like a
duck, and quacks like a duck,
it’s probably one of those obnoxious
rubber chickens.
Seems like only yesterday that I
was Roto-Rootered on U.S. 1 when
another car careened into my SUV.
Now, several months later, my doctor
is actually trying to wean the
pain meds from my hot, happy
little hands.
Can’t say as I blame ‘em, though.
Guess it’s a bit unsettling to see
your patient running around clutching
a rubber chicken and proclaiming
to be the new “Mayor”of the
Conch Republic.
Now for those of you who don’t
know your island history, you gotta
understand that we’re not talkin’
about just any old skanky rubber
chicken. We’re talkin’ about THE
Official, Honest-To-Goodness Florida
Keys Mayoral Rubber Chicken! And
the person who holds THE Florida
Keys Mayoral Rubber Chicken, also
holds the title of “Mayor” of the
Florida Keys.
And that, my friends, would now
be me!
Captain Al Flutie was the longest
reigning Mayor in the history of the
Florida Keys. He held THE Mayoral
Rubber Chicken and honorary office
for some thirty years. Dave Whitney,
former Publisher/Editor of the Free
Press, told me that after Flutie's
death, THE Official Florida Keys
Mayoral Rubber Chicken was auctioned
off for a whopping $18,000!
Of course being “Mayor”isn’t
about the money; it’s about all the
free cocktails. But beware: due to
the island’s unique electoral process
(i.e: he who holds THE Rubber
Chicken holds the title of “Mayor”)
the Mayor should always be very
wary of rubber chicken scams that
involve alcohol.
Anyone obsessively ogling the
chicken while buying rounds of
drinks is, most likely, an aspiring
politician and chicken thief. As the
Mayor slowly gets stewed, this no
good wing dinger is known to fly in
and grab THE Mayoral Rubber
Chicken right from under the nose
of the bleary-eyed and very hammered
Mayor. Then it’s bye-bye
office!
I am now seriously considering
having the chicken surgically
attached.
So far being the Mayor has kept
me busy struttin’ my stuff and making
promises I have no intention of
keeping. If my Rum Runner
Investiture Party at the Whistle Stop
Pub in Islamorada is any indication
of things to come, well, I spose I’ll
be doing a lot of cocktailing.
In the meantime, I need to clear
something up. Although Monroe
County Mayor Mario Di Gennaro
and I share the same moniker, our
job descriptions couldn’t be more
different.
Mayor Di Gennaro deals with the
more serious day-to-day operations
of the County -- so please direct
any gripes, moans and groans to
his office.
On the other hand, because I
was elected by chicken proxy and
deal with only surreal issues – please
send any and all invitations for dinner,
parties, public appearances,
yachting excursions and donations
to my office which is located at a
number of fine watering holes
throughout the Keys. Oh, and if
you’d like to receive one free political
favor from Mayor GoNzO , just
visit my website and mention that
you read it in TRAVELHOST. Cocka-
doodle-do!
Sammie Mays resides in the Florida
Keys and is a critically acclaimed
“Gonzo” writer (voted two-years running
"Favorite Writer" by The Mississippi
Press). Former celebrity desk reporter
for the National Enquirer, the Gonz is
a regular contributor for TRAVELHOST
Florida Keys & Key West and is also
the host for "Spotlight on the Keys"
on COMCAST Cable Channel 5. You
can reach her at :
Mayor@GonzoIsland.com
Gonzo Girl On The Loose:
Oh, Hell The New Mayor!
"Gonzo Girl" Journalist, Sammie Mays
Website : http://www.gonzoisland.com/ .

portrait of the artist as a young shadow...c/o : hesq.,

2009-02-06T19:49:00.001-08:00

i fought the law and the law won...

portrait of napoleon...c/o : hesq.,

2009-02-06T19:43:00.001-08:00

portrait of Napoleon.,

recycle your litter...

2009-02-06T19:39:00.000-08:00

sammie mays, the gonzo girl wears beard of bees...

2009-02-06T18:39:00.001-08:00

one of our cousins across the water may be on to something... working for the National Enquirer at the time, a british run tabloid, sammie braved the bees for the bucks., here's to the GoNz.
http://saminthekeys.com/BeeBeard.aspx .

the only cocktail that's guaranteed to make you feel surreal...

2009-02-06T18:25:00.000-08:00

the surrealist:

ingredients :

50 ml scotch whisky

25 ml cointreau

good splash of fresh orange juice

1/2 lime

& plenty of free time.

method :

add whisky, cointreau, fresh orange juice, 1/2 fresh lime sliced and ice cubes to shaker. shake well. pour over crushed ice into highball glass. garnish with slice of lime.

repeat process until you feel "surreal"... guaranteed results.

the sweetest tori amos...

2009-02-05T18:24:00.000-08:00

now there's one you'd want to whizzgiggle at you...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRrbzs1lGME&feature=PlayList&p=2EDF38E67C7530F9&index=1 .

lets go...high high happy happy ho ho...

and on that note, here's one to watch, the gillyflowers, a great scotch band.,

here, in the voodoo rooms, edina., http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=835aTcjYF2o .,

here, on their myspace - more mellow than the live show above : http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=386878991 .,

dolls always whizzgiggled at me... c/o : Guesswork site..

2009-02-05T17:02:00.000-08:00

spam mail as beat inspired?
http://www.guesswork.ca/blog/?p=284
i guess your guess is as good as ours...

thinking man., c/o : Jason Jenkins.,

2009-02-05T15:37:00.000-08:00

Erotic supper on the beach at Aguadulce., c/o Geoff Cervantes.,

2009-02-05T14:57:00.000-08:00

2001,33x24,oil on canvas.

Inspired by the night of San Juan,which is celebrated throughout Spain,in the month of June.

( www.artmajeur.com/axis )

"the day i swam the channel"., c/o : geoff cervantes.,

2009-02-05T14:52:00.000-08:00

The day I swam the English Channel.1995.33x24,oil on canvas.

Geoff Cervantes says "Probably my greatest artistic acheivment... I've always wanted to be a fish."
to see more of Cervantes' work, please visit his own site : www.artmajeur.com/axis . it's a stunning journey through the mind of a surrealist., and one you can't fail to enjoy.

newsflash just in :

2009-02-04T17:09:00.001-08:00

but then again...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16u0wwCfoJ4&feature=PlayList&p=2EDF38E67C7530F9&index=2 .

self immolation in peace protest.,

2009-02-04T06:17:00.001-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CamN53CmEIY

the new evolution., clip from waking life.

2009-02-04T05:59:00.000-08:00

to view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saxX-Z6w3p4

Balance., a stop motion short from Lauenstein, 1989.

2009-02-04T05:16:00.000-08:00

to view short : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Yj3x4AELDw .,

there's a lesson here for us all...

a true classic c/o : lee whiteman.

2009-02-03T16:15:00.000-08:00

Depicting Three Death metal fans Singing "Got my mind set on you" by P McCartney. In to a Playstation, Singstar game in a Luxury Bultlins holiday chalet. Title "Got my mind set on you" Dimension 125 x210 cm. mixed on canvas 2009.

The Great People Bailout - opinions an overview

2009-01-30T07:46:00.000-08:00

The UK governement announced today a shock measure to restore people's confidence in themselves.

"The Banks have given us a stark lesson in self-castration" said Alistair Darling at a hastily assembled press conference "so we've decided to save ourselves a lot of money and give £5,000 to every man, woman and child irrespective of wealth, job status or legal recognition as a UK citizen."

The £300bn reappropriation - which represents approximately 20% of the UK median wage - signals recognition by the government that the fundamentals of the economy are shifting and in ways too unpredictable and complex for one government or sector of sperm-bloated irresponsibility to decide on its own. It is hoped that by diffusing the bailout in a series of lump sum grants the decision will help shift the economy onto a footing that people would rather see it go.

"For too long we've been behoven to a bunch of public school schisters deciding the fate of humanity. It's time for a squeeze of economic democracy" Darling added, himself squeezing Gordon Brown's knee.

As well as extended binges, mass polo matches and clumsy street parties, the decision is seen as a test of whether people really knows what's good for them.

"Everyone knows the UK public is brainwashed to the eyeballs on a daily diet of talent contests and bullshit propogated by the overly paid and morally destitute. What we're interested in seeing is if people cast off the shackles and work together to forge a society that is a little more human and a little less grimy" A leading psychiologist noted before ripping off a lab coat, shitting in his hand and smearing "You've no self knowledge" on a nearby Mercedes.

Optimism has reached the UK from south west France where a similar scheme was launched to bribe people into not voting for far-right leader Jean-Marie LePenn. "We took it hook, line and sinker" said Jacques LeFruit "alzo' instead of spending money ourselve we combine in a mighty collective way and invest in projets de communites."

Much of this, M. LeFruit describes went into the highly successful Marechal Petain appreciation society with the slogan "Les 68ards ne savent pas de quelle cote leurs baguettes sont beurres" therefore conflating two episodes of history into a single prescient political point. "It was a great example of somezing people really want to see and most important it come from ze people."

Humanist optimists on this side of the Channel are hoping for savings and loan trusts, rural commerce and indigenous welfare to thrive.

"Yeah, we're all for an Indigens revival. Never the same since they broke up in the 70s" said Spinal Pete amongst the wafts of a fan shirt that hadn't been washed since then either.

Not surprisingly Darling's announcement caused a storm in the Commons, with several MPs astonished at the diminuation of centralised control. A refutation to which Gordon Brown was scornfully smug "I've spent a lot time telling the public that no one knows how to spend their money better than me. Besides, we've undereducated folk for long enough now that they understand that collective voluntary actions are the stuff of tooth fairy idealism and can never really actually happen."

Nevertheless, a poster campaign encouraging community investment will see the soon-to-be-not Prime Minister winking from a thousand 30 foot blilboards "Remember your schools!"

Other initiatives belied the government's professed faith in the will of the People. "What we're trying to avoid," boomed Alistair Darling from the loud speaker of a helicopter specially comissioned to fly over middle and lower England "is that people think that this money is in any way enough. For goodness sake, do not stop working, drinking or ignoring each other five days of the week "your Economy has never needed you more than now!"

A bout of non-descript warbling could be heard from the direction of Hazel Blears until the fascist Terrier was scissor kicked in the jaw by a protestor now flush with legal expenses.

hallelujah for the shopping mall generation.

2009-01-29T16:19:00.000-08:00

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=iP17undSOek

how did they screw up this song while possessing a puppet with such a technically good voice. and what are all the theatrical hand gestures about... and when it kicks in with the hollow metallic backing the less said the better and then when you thought it couldn't grate any more the "judges" - who are they by the way?- chime in with the real perfomance, but the crew cut van dam wannabe got it right "unbelievable.." i agree, and so here it is, hallelejah for the shopping mall generation. perhaps a nice spin off from this competition could be credit cards that spontaneously burst into scratchy renditions of this song every time the card is swiped in a shop cash register, at which point streamers could explode from behind the till where upon the shop assistant bursts into tears flinging her arms up in the air yes you've done it, you are a customer. the satisfied customer leaves, the process only to be repeated with the next customer though it won't take away from the effect of it all. shopping malls as government approved rock n roll... bring it on.

... i guess the only good that can have come out of this is that leonard will be living it up for a while to come on the royalties... have a good one leonard, for us all...

i guess it's only fair to include a decent cover of the song for the sake of comparison and to restore some kind of hope in our fellow man... so here it is, a beauty, and you even get the feeling that he really does mean it, one guy and his guitar, beating out the notes of his heart, r.i.p. dream brother... http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0wxj0B7vsss .

that x factor sl*t to sales has the same dazed look of incomprehension that a lottery winner has, a millionaire on who wants to be a millionaire (see http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=HsW_WfJCYy8 , it's hard not to be drawn in as she takes her bows, the hysteria, the insane justice handed out by, in fact of a number of clips that could have been chosen this one topped the list because the ritual makes more sense in a foreign language, we all secretly want to be a millionare, don't we? and here's another in english equally absurd when you consider it in reality, http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tAmCYTvfJjU&feature=related)... but seriously, why even write these things, why even bring them back into the mind, these more than obvious comparisons, why, well, so that we don't forget what is what.

someone else said it better :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRkA6zugNMQ&feature=related .

2009-01-28T19:29:00.000-08:00

its something that never ceases to amaze. the usa, a world power. perhaps the greatest world power owes its position to one act. in the mid 1940s the us airforce dropped two atomic bombs on highly populated urban areas. fact. tens of thousands were instantly killed. fact. hundreds of thousands died on cancers in the coming years. fact. this was a war crime. fact. this was a crime against humanity. fact. very little in the usa has changed since then. fact. the usa owes its position of world dominance to its massive arsenal of weaponary. fact. the usa still is currently engaged in an illegal war - already death count on civilians totals over 1million in iraq alone - in order to gain control of oil supplies. fact. the us administration showed itself to arogant in the face of this - re: Greenspan "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil"... Greenspan seems to suggest that he is saddened merely because it is politically inconvenient to say thus.

The administrations changed hands last week with hugs and kisses and big camera smiles. fact. the two party system is the usa is a joke. fact. one party differs from another only in their packaging and so many people are taken in by this stage play that it is still working. already the crimes of the last administration are being forgotten and put to rest. we must not allow this to happen. oh but with all this depression and me not being able to go out and buy things i dont need i havent got time to think about these things, anyway, what does it matter? who cares. who gives a store credit card for those lives lost? not i. i stand with the powerful. i believe whats easiest to believe. i want nothing more than to spend the next decades of my life swallowing experiences like micorwave meals and to buy spend and be happy watching MTV and BBC news when nothing else is on the watch box and i want more than i have already and i want to be happier than i've ever been and i want to spend my free time in a mall browsing through lines of garments i know were made by our slave labour forces but they're cheap and so i can forget or not think about those people - who are they anyway to complain, they're lucky we gave them jobs and freed them from their subsistence living... -and i want to come home and browse the internet shopping sites and load up virtual shopping carts while i wait for a meal to cook itself in the microwave and have stuff delivered to my front door and i want to go and watch plastic models in a thousand different versions of the same film on the weekends in the cinemas and i want to get a tingling feeling when we win again in the movie and the arab terrorists are blown up and shot down (payback for our boys in iraq) and murdered again and again for my consumption and for all of us cause it makes me feel a part of something bigger and better than i can buy - yet at least cause one day i might win the lottery and then i'd really be happy, real happy with a swimming pool and a house maybe in L.A. and i could see the stars in coffee shops where i'd drink starbucks but paris hilton would be there and i could just go the premiers of the movies and then i'd be happy all photographed on that red carpet, i could be a star, i could be in the movies, if maybe i just had some plastic surgery first, then i'd look better, then i'd look right, then i'd be happy, but till then i'm happy anyway cause why should i not be happy and why shouldnt i have what i want?...

and in the time it took you to read that some poeple would have died of thirst lacking water, people died of starvation, suffered in the sweat shops or looked forlorn at a clock on some factory wall and thought only 10 hours to go now and someone would have just been destroyed by a bomb and a mother lost a child and brother lost a sister or wedding party evaporated in the blast of a bomb and diseases we know how to cure has taken more lives and it continues but really, it's a price we can afford to pay so that we, so that i, can walk aimless following the glowing adverts with their plastic models around the galleries of a town sized mall and finally be on the road to happiness.

new initiates for the cult of finance,

2009-01-28T15:57:00.000-08:00

new initiates into the cult of finance, see here, just learning some of the ritual customs of the religious practice of the Economy.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=S_uzYhmVIMg&feature=related .

the actions, behaviours and the blind faith of the majority in the market system, in economic theology, and the cults that it habours can more easily be understood when it is seen as a religious activity. the economy is all knowing. the economy can be benevolent but if not properly attended to with the necessary ritual sacrifices of human and natural resources then it can be wrathful as well. what the market gave it can take away. however whatever claims of injustice that can be made by non-believers the market system does encompass all that is good. even democracy, we are told by the high priests of the market and politics, requires a free market type system in place to be able to function. choice. choice is what the gods of the market give us. one thing that can help this transition to democratic rule, particularly in the vulnerable and developing world, is the acceptance of multi-national corporations as missionary-type gifts from the democratic world to bring jobs and new material wealth to groups of people who can only truly be understood as undeveloped savages practising unspeakable rituals such subsistence living. of course in return for the saving graces of the market system the necessary sacrifices will have to be made, such as the handing over of valuable natural resources to the free market whose distribution will be overseen by the high priests of the market for only they can truly understand where those resources are most needed.

there are certain difficulties of course. but, with a properly grounded faith these can be over come. just as the seeming contradictions of the christian faith - such as an all knowing all powerful all benevolent god - can be over come through faith or by simply ignoring them, so too can we over come certain contradictions in the messages of economic theology. for instance the seeming contradiction that the market system requires perfect information to operate while a great deal of time money and resources are used by many of the high priests to propegate false and misleading information. this seeming contradiction can be over come by trusting that the high priests understand what's best for their congragations. in fact only a novice in the religion would be capable of even perceiving this as a contradiction and many a charlatan has been caught out thus. for instance, this misinformation (which in other less advanced religions would be called lying) is often a means to boost consumption, which benefits the markets and so in turn benefits us all through its growth and the trickle down kindnesses it will in the future bestow on the faithful.
choice. while many other lesser religions lack a sense of choice our new market based religion offers us choice in such abundance that we can barely know where to start spending the tokens of faith that the market has bestowed on us. while christianity had one bible, now, in the new religion we have an almost infinite number of bibles which the believer can tailor to their own spiritual and physical requirements. however, the wisdom of the high priests is such that no matter what doctrine of faith any particular believer takes into their hearts, to live by, the fundamental message contained within the doctrine will be identical. so the real choice is whether or not to believe. but fortunately for the would be believer the high priests continually parade their material wealth in their day to day lives to show how greatly the market rewards its faithful followers. also, there is a very large part of the public flow of information (much of which is actually misinformation of course but only for the benefit of the markets and so can be seen as a positive in its outcome rather than deception or bait) that focuses its attentions on the details of the lives of the materially wealthy serves to reinforce the ideology of more is better and money - the trinkets our new religion, is the route to happiness.
even today in these dark times of depression, caused by a lack of credit and consumption, we can see that although some of the high priests made mistakes of judgement and many lesser people around the world will suffer greatly for this, that suffering is good and will help to cleanse us for the next coming of the great Boom and Bubble. For we had sinned and so we must accept the penance. Yes, houses will be repossessed and returned to the banks and mortgage lenders and will not be resold until the high priests in their wisdom think it fit.
And although it may seem to a novice in this religion that the cause and therefore the blame lies at the doors of the high priests (who still live in their palaces) this would be a mistake for although they did gamble the monies of those they lead with what may seem to an uninitiated on-looker a wreckless abandon it is their congragations that must suffer for the high priests were only acting in good faith trying to appease the great forces of the markets - and not only for themselves for see how they suffer each day in their work, but for us, for all people that they too, with enough faith, may benefit from the great market.

at the races... c/o : hector "hollywood" swanson.

2009-01-27T18:44:00.000-08:00

who'd have backed
the horse
no{t} one body
for sure
but i did :
and saw through
wild/wide eyes/surprised
my very own
ho{pes} rse rise
to take the late{st}
hedge alive.
*
hector "hollywood" swanson - at the races.

a toast in the ten bells., brick lane london.

2009-01-27T18:20:00.001-08:00

A Toast in the Ten Bells…to the beautiful Bedouin bohemian, bedding down shaking up & shacking up where ever all things allow, for its only a ride, while behind the silent cinema of those eyes is an eternal spring-time blossoming for this sojourn-dancing until the darkness claps like rolling thunder, deep beneath the tracks that the camel train of our lives glides like liquid lightning down and all along every instant moment,.. and so raise a cup for the Bedouin beaux-homme, and drain the red nectar and swig the drink to your own health, may peace be with you, warm heart light feet, pinning all hopes on a luck away fly high draw of the cards or roll of a dice then once the wager is too kind its heading for another no bother its outcome my Bedouin friends that fall like stars from the bars between hours whether its moon-gazing or navel gazing there’s always a story for the spring time that lies hidden behind the silent cinema of those beautifully watching eyes..,

*

haikus from hesq.,

2009-01-27T18:15:00.001-08:00

The Blinkered Working Horse

A horse grown restless
Behind his half drawn shutters
Shakes his white deity.

***
And Revolution

There is always one
Drop in every cloud that will call
Its final
Shot and hurtle its dissent.

***
Tiananmen Square

In Tiananmen Square
A tank stopped and the whole
World watched it there.

***
hesq.,

shadow puppetry... c/o : his story...

2009-01-27T17:54:00.000-08:00

The fascist shadow is the waste-product of the pre-meditated explosion of an atomic bomb. This shadow can also been seen lurking beneath the skirts of crimes against humanity and is often brutal, vicious and is never to be trusted.

beautiful illustrations c/o : Colin McAllister...

2009-01-26T17:34:00.000-08:00

"the tip of the iceburg"... Colin McAllister.

"the business of war"... Colin McAllister.

in terms of viewing these we advice you to click on the images in order to see their fantastical detail better. for more illustrations from Colin McAllister please visit http://www.snublic.com/ .

Enjoy.

GO GIRL POWER...there's something strangely compelling about skateboarding mannequins...in fact it could almost be the spice girls...

2009-01-26T16:58:00.000-08:00

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mNWYqs-p1Gk

c/o : of our eyes on the ground in pradaland... many thanks for this demonstration you space cadets.

Welcome to President Barack "Mulligan" Obama... artwork c/o Edwin Lue-Shing...

2009-01-26T16:08:00.001-08:00

so, two schools of thought.
either the two party politics of the USA is doomed because both political parties are in fact backed financially by the same groups of people with the same interests made especially plausible given the margin between election campaign "war chests" and profits in the private sector (the total of obama's campaign "war chest" came in at around $600 million, a not impossible figure for a successful wall street firm to be paying out even annually.!..). this argument is only made stronger when one considers that obama and his PR gurus saw it fit to deceive the public with regards to where his finance came from. they certainly suggested that his finances were mostly derived from small donors (we were led to believe that his financial support came from straw chewing buck toothed never understood politics before he showed them the light types...). by small donors we are talking $200 and less. however, now that, post election, his financial backing has become a little clearer it appears that only 26% of his financial backers donated $200 or less; compared with 25% of the former President Bush's support in 2004. This can only leave us wondering as to why the whole deliberate and highly tuned sharade of deception (with regards to his fincancial support) took place at all. the obvious answer is : to deceive the audience and present a false image of the man in order to help him become the president elect. well, barack "mulligan" obama, even those in this school of thought will no doubt want to be believing your strong words about change though you seem to have got off on the wrong foot by deceiving your voters right from the start.
so we come to the second school of thought. barack is the next best thing to jesus and is a triumph for the civil rights movement (this is hard to deny given that the blacks in the USA - land of freedom... - were only given the vote after the violent struggles of the 1960s and before).
and to his credit obama hasn't overtly used his colour to divert attention (though he refered to it repeatedly in his inauguration speech) from the real issues. For this we should credit him.
so, we wait barack "mulligan" obama, to see whether you will be a president we'd like to do again...

so here are the written words that accompany the image (above) sent to us by Edwin Leu-Shing : "Well as they say a "picture can say a thousand words”, what can be said about Mr:Obama that hasn’t already been said? Well what led me to paint his portrait was he simply inspired me! When I heard him speak it was like he was speaking directly to me (this I believe this is his secret to him winning), there was something sincere and heartfelt in what he had to say as well as giving hope to the disaffected and hopeless of the world. And the other thing about him being mixed race, being half and half and not been black (this being said by black people than white, that’s personally speaking!).Well being mixed race myself, I believe he has a unique perspective of being from a mixed background as he can see both sides of the fence. He reminded me of a mix of Martin Luther King Jr. and a JFK in his deliveries of speeches and presentations. His visit to Berlin was a sign that Europe, NO the rest of world is ready for a change! I try to capture his essence and power of an leader speaking to the Janitor,housewife,factory owner,office worker, student and to the C.e.o’s of the world, saying what ever we need and want ,we can get there as united people of the world…….Yes we can! "

*

For Barack Obama, c/o : Cocoa Tea...
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Zxn9jhypHfo .

(also if that got your attention, the editorial staff at gonzo media can further suggest that you see cocoa tea's cautionary theme tune for phaedophiles, "18 and over" ... http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=dqRQBBcpLzU&feature=related . )

the big lebowski... the short version... (a lesson in script writing c/o the Cohen brothers)

2009-01-25T16:43:00.000-08:00

the short version...
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RqtgfjkB6Pg

linked to the following post on gonzo media archives.,

http://gonzotext.blogspot.com/2009/01/f-word-co-hst.html (educational material).

one silent vigil... c/o : Dr. Eams.,

2009-01-24T18:31:00.000-08:00

diary of an unborn writer #14. c/o : Si Arjuna.

2009-01-24T16:10:00.000-08:00

The crunch, the crash, the confusing fusing chaos of it, the shift, the anxious wait for a clue to see way of the fall.Beautiful.The collapsing uncertainty of it.
I couldn't have known a meltdown would be so joyful. I love it. Pillars and monuments of tumbling. Dare we breathe to consider them in freefall?
Absolutely should.
Helps you enjoy the scrabbling, the laughable noise out of every politicians welping mouth that they know what they're doing. How seriously they can knot their brow this time when the worst case scenario grew a cousin that stank and heaved and hurled worse than its relative.
Dear times. Good times. Rollercoaster reasoning is required. So please read and follow carefully.

It's not that we're in a new world, just that our uncertainty is now cripplingly exposed, I heard a sage say recently .
The stock market, credit and bank collapse is irresolvable precisely because it is a systemic shift in the way people use and understand money.
There's been a sleeper sickness threatening unbridled capitalism for a long time. In the rush to manipulate the consumer the Big Boys gave usa lot of freedom, make them think they were making the decisions all the while mocking the perceived freedom with new brands and banana stands, more complex and absurd manipulations of What We value and What Is True.
The Spectacular Society had set in and thinking folk decried the sleep walk towards inauthenticity that humanity seemed destined to take.
Sorry was taking and just at saturation point opened up it's cruel devices and deception to the 17/20ths of the global population who hitherto thought they were missing out on the party.~~~Can we talk in this way about such serious macroendokaledeidoscopic issues?
Doesn't miss the gravity, this hap-clappy narrative, spilling its theorems in irresponsible fashion?
Might not someone get hurt?~~~But the free-walking people in their slumber began to wake up and breathed God Damn It!They remembered those far off coloured days - the 60s - that thing their parents talked about and completely forgot about - apart from at $240 occasions when they got to see the Rolling Stones and remembered, smugly, what good times they had had.
Dear people, the lost began to find themselves! They shoehorned their choices towards wooly jumpers, vinyl recordings of Django Reinhardt and sang the songs of sweet freedom in appartment huddles in the manner of their forefathers all the while stepping the line of happy oppression. So unknowing but now beginning to know.
More importantly (seriously now) they began to buy organic food and fair trade clothes. Fig leaves in their significance but vital signs of the silent shift going on underneath.The consumer had grown up, started tying their purchases to the concerns of people and planet and damn it, the workers started waking up too.But not in a romantic revolutionary way.
Silently. Quiet steps and unspeaking. Making choices so loud The Banana Farmers had to listen.And here it starts coming together.
The workers with their choices were fleeing the Big Boys Without Morals forcing the Big Boys to change, far more substantially than many of The Shouting Young Bretheren of the Outside dared admit.But how to turn back to authenticity in a system designed to perpetuate illusion? The Magpie Greedy Cathedral Bankers forcing us to look up, up and away from dear Mother Earth and out to the ever widening sky, that could not be filled, only polluted with wilder imaginations about how the Flying Trough Eaters could be decieved into flying a little higher, a little more uncertainly and more reliant on The Great Cathedral Builders to guide them safely home (which, by the way, they'd long forgotten, so successfully had the Greedy Magpie Cathedral Builders carried out their work)*
Answer to the question way at the beginning of the previois paragraph: you can't!
So hallowed had the Cathedral Halls become and so well tended to perform their purpose that they could not permit suggestion of the outside - an Untainted Earth or Unpolluted Sky. The Cathedral was designed to cater for both, give no hint that the others could be true.
But some had discovered and it was only a matter of time before the corridors began to shatter.
And they're shattering now, even as their hymns are most shrilly being sung.You see now how the 'Crisis' cannot be understood in current academic terms?
Because the folk who wrote the rulebook never lifted their heads from the pew bench and realised what they were praying about, praying for.
The confusion's becoming unsewn.And thank Fuck for that.It'll come back again, settle amid the chaos again. Fall in furrows and hallways more suited to our time and custom until those too become obsolete and discarded** through a similarly chaotic chaos.
The time we're brewing up is not the conclusion of 400 years of market trade but MILLENIA, Aeons, since the ancient sands of Babylon when Man looked at the Earth and didn;t see a Mother or look at brother and didn't see his own frality gloried before him.We forgot.But what bliss to remember.*
Sorry by the way for the mixed up terminology. I am trying so hard to be academic.** Schumpeter, by the way, when describing Creative Destruction was mis-taken for sermonising on the prayer of capitalism. He was referring to none other than the failing of static concepts in ever-shifting time sands. Clever man.

to see more : http://doauw.blogspot.com/2009/01/diary-of-unborn-writer-14.html

dylan thomas on poetry...

2009-01-23T19:45:00.000-08:00

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=NIoXV-HXobo

The Perenial Summer - the only cocktail thats guaranteed to make you feel "cubist"...... c/o L.W.R... (little white rhaj...)

2009-01-23T18:58:00.000-08:00

the perenial summer...

Ingredients :

50 ml . Dark Rum.

6 - 8 Red Grapes.

1 teaspoon Brown Sugar.

1/2 Fresh Lime.

8 Good Leaves of Fresh Mint.

Generous Splash of Apple Juice.

Method :

Muddle the grapes, fresh mint leaves and brown sugar in the base of mixer. Once muddled squeeze one half of fresh lime into mixer. Add a good splash of Apple Juice. Add a double shot of dark rum. Shake with ice cubes. Strain into Martini glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish with slice of Lime and Mint Leaves.

(For a Tall perenial summer add soda water...)

Instructions for Use :

Repeat Process until you feel "cubist" ...

Enjoy.

You heard it here first... c/o : the Little White Rhaj...

adam meets eve., c/o : Dr. Eams..,

2009-01-23T18:30:00.000-08:00

naughty jazz fun., c/o : tori amos...

2009-01-23T17:49:00.000-08:00

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xm3HAfHukEM&feature=PlayList&p=9B26D62734E56AB1&index=30&playnext=19&playnext_from=PL

and it seems only fair to add this beauty : http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=adJ_Ptg4chU

love it or leave it.

notes on the poet's heart.

2009-01-22T18:20:00.000-08:00

the poet practises a secret art, hidden deep within his groins, a world of lucid dreams and magical spells cast to no one but himself and that last final patron his friend in those long nights on empty streets the moon; and she, that moon, moves every drop of blood in him as she swings about on her orbits of the skies, transfixes his eyes to stare bleary drunk the whole world disposed to every word that he springs from the well of the soul out to the silent unhearing air but what can it matter if noone hears or he never writes down those lines that have his spine all a singing and all a tingle-jangling self obsessed half the time and cold stinging sober longing for the release of her giant orbit all the rest...

the poet speaks in codes and encriptions, and always i'm sure in his deepest confessions fears nothing more than the breaking of that code, for what use could his encription machine be then if its meanings and noise were ringing loud down those peaceful moonlit streets cluttered up in the bars and dukeboxes and whores and lepars of society... what use would it all be then?

sad truth dear poet it would be a great use and the world would rock happier on the tragedies of life's seas for knowing the mystic language you yourself taught your pen to speak, but for you it would be over, for you only death awaits now, only release into the orbits of invisible sky.

The 2nd Intallment of the Cumcumber Man., c/o : Grant Oddoye.

2009-01-22T14:30:00.000-08:00

**3
Right at their most intimate moment a swarthy little man approached. One might presume that his eccentric eyes and bucktoothed grin might make him ugly, but they did not. They only added to his presence and mystique. His disheveled hair flowed, quite neatly, around the contours of his face, and with a slight stoop and hunch, he began his discourse. “Does the good Sir or Lady require any hot beverages?” he bellowed – the tone of his voice akin to that of a mating bullfrog.
“No” the lady replied, the sternness in her voice quite evident and eminently commanding “but I would like a cucumber sandwich.”
“No cucumber here m’ lady I’m afraid, but we do have some lovely smoked sausage sandwiches, perhaps a little smoked salmon if the lady would care for something a bit lighter on the palate and…”
“Enough!” the mullet laden gentleman proclaimed, slamming his palm down vigorously on the banister “there will be no talk of smoked sausage in this house!”
“Very good Sir” the swarthy butler replied, staggering slightly from his obvious inebriation “the good Sir hath spoken” and with that he about turned and waddled on his merry way, quite unaware of the gentleman’s state of agitation.
A small can of hairspray was now dancing around the distinguished gentleman’s head, furnishing his quasi-autonomous Jeri curl with lashings of nourishing goodness, and the lady was now fidgeting with her handbag strap. She was trying to hide her heightened state of arousal; it was the rampant sheen of it. That magnificent mane of stately prowess and honor engulfed her – it overwhelmed her. She could hold onto her confession no longer as she stated “I know now why they call you El Cucumber Grande…” to be continued
**4
The cool moonlight now shone into the half-lit room, illuminating the figures and paraphernalia alike – it’s presence at once cold and distant, full of knowledge. The gentleman proceeded to step back from the banister and to slump into a nearby armchair, causing the surrounding candles to flicker and the floorboards to reverberate. The lady slowly stirred her drink, the ice cubes tinkling gently against the glass. She moved gracefully towards the window and stopped suddenly, gazing out into the expansive night sky.
“I wonder where it all began, and where it all ends” she said softly, her tone now eerie and wistful “but I don’t suppose we’ll ever know”, and with that she stared into the darkness, her dress brushing lightly against the windowsill. “A man once told me that what lies beyond the stars is locked deep within our imagination, if only we care to look…”
“I too met that man” a muted voice echoed from the armchair “but he not only told me… he showed me.”
The candles flickered out. A great coldness descended upon the room, and time seemed to stand still. The man’s eyes closed shut, and as they did his mind became both open and translucent – the membrane between his consciousness and the vast unknown removed. A dark tunnel through the fabric of space and time curved right and forwards, following his mind’s eye, decorated with mystical colors and a spider’s web of light. The subtle music of the universe played to guide his path through his dreams, all the while the destination undetermined and unimportant. He could make out the woman’s voice faintly in the distance, and a spiral staircase pointing downwards and backwards. He followed his vision onwards in perpetual motion, his current dimension simultaneously contracting and expanding. A pulsating neutron star caught his attention, and the rhythm of it’s radiation awoke him.
“I know now what I must do” he stated “I must go back” to be continued

shoe mr bush, shoo... - c/o : david dees.

2009-01-22T14:27:00.000-08:00

NEWS FLASH : ITS OFFICIAL, IGGY POP IS DEAD IN THE WATER.

2009-01-16T17:28:00.000-08:00

OBITUARY -IGGY POP IS DEAD.

Iggy Pop struck off artistic role call forever...

who would have believed it ? iggy pop skipped the draft in pretty extreme ways but it's happened., he has recently been trying to sell us insurance policies... the day the music died...

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tEcFlyrgcUY .,

this is tragedy, true turn-coat tragedy., has the recession really hit us all that hard., unless he has an astronomical tax debt to repay, there's no getting round it, Iggy Pop is Dead.

the artist that brought us "passenger",

let this be his tomb stone : http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzO8cBSw9zg . and if it doesn't move you tears to see how that strange great man has died a death then its heartless you are...

May god rest your soul sweet pioneer; as long standing fans, we will miss you here at the gonzo media archives...

spangled rain, wish you were here... c/o : hesq.,

2009-01-16T16:43:00.001-08:00

the f word.,

2009-01-15T17:48:00.001-08:00

educational material...

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=VqxlGWNoh-o&feature=related ...

bukowski on poetry...

2009-01-15T08:21:00.000-08:00

charles bukowski monologue on poetry... poetry should be like a "good hot beer shit...nothing to analyse nothing to say its just done..."
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=r1e5Jeh2Fk0

on people., "the further away i am from the human race the better i feel... i don't like their roses..."
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=MHRcKjvX1xE&feature=related

what is there to say about the man?...
well, i think that we would like to think of the man as being a tortured soul, but i doubt he really was. more likely it was the rest of us that he too often tortured with a truth that we didn't always want to hear...

long live the words of charles bukowski.

something for the new year., take up hockney rhyming slang...

2009-01-15T07:24:00.000-08:00

something for the new year., a strange tribute to the grand benefits of the internet... we are proud to invite you to view the conception of hockney rhyming slang...

http://theflowfieldunity.com/2009/01/11/hockney-rhyming-slang/#comments .

enjoy.

woman in a crowd., c/o : hesq.,

2009-01-10T17:35:00.000-08:00

heaven is within... c/o : hesq.,

2009-01-09T18:22:00.000-08:00

heaven is within...

it's only rock n' roll... c/o : hesq.,

2009-01-09T17:55:00.000-08:00

Pete Wylde of the Conflict Diamonds...

2009-01-09T05:54:00.000-08:00

So we just found this site :

Glasgow based Pete Wylde., member of the conflict diamonds., here playing solo :

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=261707567

enjoy.

girl in gaza...

2009-01-06T15:45:00.000-08:00

by now most of the words that can be said have been said, most of the hopes that can be hoped have been hoped, most of the motives seem to be known and most of the perpetrators are clear to see - on both sides... and so nothing remains then but a vacuum, a black hole into which we sling our phrases and actions again and again; but not quite for there are people in that vacuum, living feeling hoping dreams to grow up and be a doctor or a teacher or a musician or a fireman or a clown, or just to grow up and live yes live in some kind of unimagined yet life and who owns what land which god said what to who really doesn't figure all that much in the mind of a ten year old as the flash of bomb or shell or mortar explodes and in that last blind white light moment its scared and pain she feels.

stop the bombs.

memory fails us but...

2009-01-05T17:02:00.000-08:00

memory fails us as to whether we have put this up before, if not, we should have, if we have, it's worth a second airing... a beautiful strange scene with perspective...
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mKoV1yJnqAI&feature=related .

you just never know who you're going to meet...

reports from the news desk # 1., - marks of the stigmata.,

2009-01-05T15:46:00.000-08:00

Is the Anorexic not the true Ascetic of competitive capitalism ?
Like the ascetics of the Ganges who wander naked ?
Unconscious & Insane Acts of penance to remind the rest of their guilt and complicity.

To view the Hesq News Desk see : http://www.hesqnewsdesk.blogspot.com/ .

The Tramshed Exhibit.,

2009-01-01T06:22:00.000-08:00

Exhibit of Urban Arts : see www.thespeakeasycollective.blogspot.com

apple. c/o : hesq.,

2009-01-01T06:07:00.000-08:00

A Pembrokeshire Proverb.—‘Eat an apple on going to bed, And you'll keep the doctor from earning his bread.’ [1866]

The Cucumber Man., c/o : Grant Oddoye... the first 2 instalments...

2008-12-29T05:47:00.000-08:00

The Cucumber Man (Copyright Grant Oddoye 2008)

She knew instinctively that he was a man of some considerable bearing, not because of his exquisite attire, but because of his bulging pocketbook and afro mullet – a man of connections and credentials. Her voluptuous bosom heaved at the thought of all that wedge, and with a small sigh of elation she inched towards her prey.
“I do say” she proclaimed “do you have a light? My fine young man…” and with that he raised one eyebrow tentatively and began to rummage vigorously in his trouser pockets, seemingly oblivious to her dastardly intentions.
“I believe I do” he retorted “but for snakes and cigar ends I can’t seem to find it”. He looked perplexed, and, somewhat absentmindedly, flicked a piece of caviar off the sleeve of his tuxedo.
“Ne’er mind” she giggled “that’s not really why I wanted to talk to you anyway”.
“Oh?!” he exclaimed, and with his interests now aroused he added “pray tell”.
“Well, I had noticed your bulging pocketbook” she pouted “and was overwhelmed by your potentially sizeable assets” she confessed, her gaze now wandering playfully over his manly stature. “I was just wondering, how does a lady such as myself become privy to such splendor?”
His nostrils flared slightly at the directness of her words and the sheer inappropriateness of her gaze and voluptuous bosom, but he could not hide the intrigued and lustful look in his eyes any longer; this lady of questionable means meant business, and he wanted a piece of the action. Lord knows, she wanted a piece of his cucumber… to be continued

**2
“Your flattery is duly noted and appreciated” he remarked “however I feel I should warn you that my pocketbook contains a little more than you expect, and more than even you – I fear – can handle.” His eyes now flitted from side to side, and a small bead of sweat, mixed with grease, trickled from his mullet. “I cannot be held accountable for the consequences.”
Her hands, once full of tension and anticipation, now relaxed and slowly caressed her thighs, as if to prophesize their impending exertions. She writhed, and her gaze now became fixed on his ever so anxious expression. “Really?!” she teased “sounds fascinating. But I assure you that I can more than handle anything you have to show me” her voice lowering to emphasize the seriousness of her claim.
His eyes now became still and distant, and his posture fluid, as if some part within him had surrendered to her spell – succumbed to her desires. He stooped to clench the nearby banister, and his grip tightened slowly, deliberately. “You are absolutely sure of this?” he queried, somewhat nonchalantly.
“A lady is always sure of herself” she replied “if she were not, she would not be a lady” and with that she pressed herself against the banister, grasping his free hand in her cold, slender grip. “I want to know” her voice trembled “I must know, for my spirit depends on this divine glory, this heavenly pleasure. My body demands it – my soul yearns for it.” Her eyes now flared and her bosom became more and more animated with every breathe she took. His eyes moved to meet hers, and their gaze became locked, fixed, intensified.
He now knew the inevitability of their union, their fated partnership. His eyes slowly dropped, and as the intoxicating smell of her perfume mixed with the manly fragrance of his mullet he whispered “but cucumber is not meant for ladies…” to be continued

hotel diaries... c/o : anon...

2008-12-27T10:00:00.000-08:00

Hotel Diaries… or the chameleons on a mirrored back-drop.

The music in the hotel lounge is an endless loop of pan-pipe classics from Bridge over Toubled Waters to the unforgettable theme tune from the Hollywood blockbuster Titanic. It is enough to make me want to drink down a boiling hot starbucks coffee so as to scald and burn the entire mouth and throat, then choke the blood mixed with froth over the other bewildered listeners, yes, one day these pan-pipe classics may tip me over the edge, one day fair trade free trade, no, just free the pan-pipes from the endless loop reel…

***

Meanwhile the hotel finance manager is a golden toad type figure. Pale yellowing hair crown his beaming pink pock marked face; he wears think gold/diamond studded rings on his fingers, he reads the Sun and the Daily Express, his beady eyes gleam intensely, he is jovial and kindly in his way, giving off the rare sense that he is genuinely happy to be in the hotel…rare for employees…

Momento mori… at the back of the hotel the kitchen porters/plongeurs sit smoking on the steps, the ground is wet, littered evenly but thickly with food waste, paper and other waste…
“biscuit tin…” one said.
“who..?” said the other.
“biscuit tin…” said the first more heavily, “biscuit tin” heavy emphasis on tin…and an air of authority swells in his blue eyes, looking round the small but nevertheless gathered audience,
“who..?” the other said again.
“how long you been working here and you don’t know who biscuit tin is..?”
the other looks at his feet, concentrates on smoking,
then the first utters some inaudible clue and both laugh hard and loud, but only for a second then the other said “biscuit tin, yea…”
I had to return to my duties.

One of the essential aspects of the hotel industry – with respect to understanding the psyche of the worker there – is that one begins each work day shattered, splintered glass, and slowly, as the hours pass the person comes together – invisibly to anyone who has never made this type of daily metamorphosis. And a peak emerges from the clouds, strong and insurmountable for a time, and so this time is perhaps a half to two thirds of the 12/16 hour shift, forgotten hours of work, the travel seamlessly by with the work, rushed cigarettes, tit-bits of stolen and concealed/hidden food from the many halls of the kitchens, the endless exchanges in the long dirty corridors that run above, below and all around the hotel’s guests without their ever knowing it…

In short, the peculiar phantasmagoria of the hotel – the ‘hotel’ that is that the guest sees – is also the phantasmagoria of the worker there, a sore eyed fantasy that they become through the delirium of their own sheer toil; strange chameleons on a mirrored back drop.

And to the reader who has never worked in this environment, ‘sheer toil’ may seem an overly indulgent term to use, merely a writer’s lazy turn of pen, but in fact, when one sees the work, hours and conditions endured, combined with the complete lack of thanks – I’m speaking now of the unseen staff, the plongeurs (k.p.’s), the laundry staff wearing masks to keep out the fumes and dust while sweating in the cellars, the cleaners on hands and knees scrubbing the floors and stairs of the place – all working 12 hour shifts at a minimum – the total endurance is considerable, and even, I would suggest, unimaginable for most of those who dine on the very tables held up by their labour; for within the belly of the hotel is an engine that powers the whole machine, and it is toil, thankless and consciously hidden from sight…

One of the receptionists walked across, then looking up at the chandeliers said, I really want to hang myself, what? I said, oh, just this letter here to be posted, thanks, and she returned to her desk…

In the hostel the showers were a row of shower heads, with a drain running down the middle. When this blocked the floor would be inches deep in icy, filthy water.
The rooms were large, high ceiled and unheated, even in the northern winter.
A Sri Lankan in the bed next to me would shiver all night and this could be seen even at a distance in the half dark of the early morning as I got up. In the morning I gave him my blanket, but at night it was sad to fall asleep like that.
The hostel was a friendly place to stay. It was run by staff who worked there to live rent free. Guyllimero was an Italian native, though he had not been to Italy for nearly 20 years. He had a strong dark complexion, almost severe but for his two front teeth with a child like gap in them. He was always laughing, a huge booming laugh slapping shoulders. He had been travelling for those 20 years or more, having worked illegally in the U.S. for a decade, worked in the Caribbean, criss-crossed Europe innumerably, and was, when I met him, on his way to Poland to get some dentistry done there where it was cheap and high quality he assured me.
In his late 40s perhaps, weather beaten, his hair was periodically shaved to the skull, though normally his crew cut accentuated his Mediterranean features. He had lived on the road and he seemed to shimmer with untold stories.

Portering affords one a great insight into the hotel. Not only does one meet/greet every soul that enters and leaves the building, giving one a constant sense of the hotel’s population, an ever changing sea of faces, words and individual gestures, but also, during the course of one’s day, one is continually on the move about the great battleship, a messenger of a thousand tasks. All of the crew of the battleship become known, their toiling, cursing, sweating, the dizzy euphoria of days off, the moments of reflection while smoking, the conversations, the singing of the Spanish waitresses as they polish the silver river of cutlery, the deeply knotted sweat covered brows of the red faced plongeurs, left deep in the cellars endlessly making clean what the guests soil, the child like expectancy of the maintenance staff always on the search for something to fix or repair, the eager friendliness of new staff that so quickly recedes into the exhaustion if the shift worker…

Standing in a heavy coat, I shave. Having left the hostel I had found a room in a tenement block near the docks of the Stone City. It was cheap but I was broke, and would have to be packing again before the end of the week. This was it I thought, a temporary refuge from the storm, and it would serve, but I, the silent calm eye of the hurricane would survive…walking through the docks I was excited by the macabre scenes. One night returning late we saw a man run out of a bar on fire, his coat burning in large flames…

to be continued in another life...

anon/.

celtic song of independence...

2008-12-25T12:31:00.000-08:00

in the valleys it rains

but the mountains sing

for the highlands

are on their feet again.

..c/o Si Hodges

2008-11-18T15:00:00.000-08:00

Love lift us up where we belong

Put us done where we don't

So to show that loving

Lines every beggar's coat

----

http://everrollingsnowball.blogspot.com/

Icke's bigger picture c/o Si Hodges

2008-11-05T08:05:00.000-08:00

Posted below the talk David Icke gave while standing in the Haltemprice by-election - the one that re-elected David Davis on a podium of civil liberties.

Icke exposes this position as a sham - Davis's own campaign website was funded by a member of a consultancy that has been persuading governments worldwide to take up ID cards.

More shocking is the discovery that Shami Chakrabarti, the often-quoted head of Liberty, is a member of several think tanks that promote British-American relations with funders such as GM giant Monsanto.

Icke is brilliant at exposing the shallowness of the UK civil liberties debate, a stage show to distract as the bandwagon marches on to ID cards and eventually chipping.

Also impressive is his exposure of 'The Agenda' and the group of people seeking to assert increasing worldwide control. He talks about how The Agenda is designed to split right and left, black and jew, gay and muslim as well as nation states - dissolving their natural unity into forms more easily manipulable.

Conspiracy theories are a big turn off for many people but here is man who has evidently done a substantial quantity of research and whose past predictions are turning out to be true. The video stretches our concepts of what takes place in the world and for this alone deserves to be seen.

For those that find it a bit hard to swallow, consider the following analysis of UK politics (my own interpretation, not Icke's):

A few years ago the Guardian relaunched itself and drifted rightward, hiring former Times editor Simon Jenkins and his counterpart at the Telegraph Max Hastings as prominent columnists.

At the same time Cameron’s Tories began espousing an agenda that many Guardian readers found palatable, indeed a life that is promoted relentlessly in the lifestyle section.

The Guardian openly supports Labour but with a mish-mash of unconvincing columnists such as the clueless drum-beater Polly Toynbee. The headlines shout ‘Brown’, the content speaks for Cameron.

Is this another case of divide and rule?

Remember this takes place in one small theatre with networks of control that make it easily replicable over and over again.

Watch Icke and decide or yourself.

"Asian Affairs" c/o : Edwin Lue-Shing.,

2008-10-30T05:46:00.001-07:00

untitled exert from "Dark Days in a Pool of Light"., c/o : hesq.,

2008-10-30T05:17:00.000-07:00

And so while some raved

half mad tearing and biting

at their own brains

to find out some answers to the questions

they'd scrawled lewdly on their own walls

others would flip through

bright coloured magazines

in hair and beauty salons

mesmerized by the

turnip-urined gossip

of anorexic cunts

and plastic dripping models

And yet by some strange quirk of

our magic universe they both could

find a perfect calm

from the storm outside...

hesq.,

Do something beautiful... c/o : hesq.,

2008-10-30T05:13:00.000-07:00

So dig a Deep Hole in the Sky,
then curl yourself up and Sleep,
to dance dream all through
darkest (pitchy black) night
and then waking up
dew damp dusty cold
and (freezing) fresh as first light
dare to believe the
day is all yours...

So do something beautiful,
like the princess who smuggled
silk worms out of China
and released the secrets of silk
to the whole (sky) wide world.

hesq.,

The Grid-Locked Dream., c/o : hesq.,

2008-10-30T05:02:00.000-07:00

Philosophy of the "Rolling Road Block".,

Phantom traffic jams,
smooth flowing traffic suddenly comes to a halt
and the ripples spread back
cars bumper to bumper
bringing road rage - like clouds bring rain -

road rage : the stiffled frustration of sexual impotency
while imagining high speed automobile accidents
and car wrecks with all the metal eroticism which they imply.,
sexual repression as the precursor to the death fantasy,
halted snuff movies backed up for miles
listening to the traffic reports on their radios...

We are coming to a standstill. Our imaginations dreamed up super-highways with the same cold logic as the concentration camps., detention to create efficiency : we feel tragically alone but we are not, we are all locked inseperably together. We feel impotent yet secretly we know that we could turn the world on its head with one shared heart beat...

Drop the illusions, shake them from you like Shelley's lion shook off the morning dew
and never quietly accept your own defeat.

hesq.,

Enric Duran., the Catalan "Robin Hood".,

2008-10-14T21:10:00.000-07:00

Enric Duran borrowed (through fraudulent loans mostly) nearly half a million euros from banks then used the money to support local anti-capitalist social movements and action groups as well as to print 200,000 copies of Crisi; a paper that explained why he had done this, why he never intended to repay the loans and in which he (and the others who co-wrote the peice) expressed his hope that this action would be understood in its true light. Ultimately though Duran claims the robberies as a form of social disobedience as an attack on the power of the banks.

Here is a copy of his statement :

"I am writing down this pages to announce that I have expropriated 492,000 euros to 39 banks through 68 loan deals. If we include interest on arrears, the present amount of debt is over 500,000 euros which I will not pay.
It has been an individual disobedience action towards banking that I have carried out deliberately to denounce the bank system and to use the money for supporting initiatives which alert from systemic crisis that we are starting to live and which intend to build an alternative society.
It is an action totally unconnected to any violence form, that I claim as a new way of civil disobedience, up to the height of the times we are living. When consumption financing and speculation are dominant in our society, what could be better than robbing the ones who rob us and distribute the money among the groups which are denouncing this situation and building alternatives?
How could I get such amount of money without neither properties nor bank guarantees?
After some research and attempts, in the spring of 2006, I started going ahead definitely with this idea; I was making various banks, savings banks and finantial credit establishments think that I wanted to refurbish my flat or buy a new car. In some cases, I was doing that by using a company I created with the aim of justifying certain investments as the purchase of audiovisual materials for a production company.
The advantages of asking for a loan by a company are that debts as a company, even when it is a sole shareholder company, do not get registered in your personal credit history, so you can always increase your debts indefinitely without being detected by CIRBE (information system about debts from the Bank of Spain). There are some other ways to deceive CIRBE that I will explain to anybody who want to carry out an action with a similar purpose than that to mine.
These loans were applied without any guarantee neither from another person nor from any properties, just by my signature and an invented occupation with a great false payroll that was making them believe I was earning enough money to cover the financing by far. The crux of the matter is banks have no way of checking wether the payroll one presents to them is real or not, as long as the company and the person really exist.
I also had to present them some right bank statements that I could get by circulating money from company accounts to personal accounts through payroll transfers in order to pretend some personal deposits, which banks were believing at all. In some cases, they were asking me for a job contract, Income Tax Return or work history. They were asking my companies for the quarterly VAT return and, when they were older than one year, for the Corporate Income Tax.All this can be properly presented: sometimes with real information and when it is not possible, with a printer, a photocopier, scissors and sellotape it works wonders!Sometimes, I had to buy the car I had asked the loan for and then I had to sell everything before I stopped paying so they could not seize anything and so we could have more funds to finance popular struggles.
Achieving this can be surprising, achieving 492,000 euros with no bank guarantees in an economic downturn context. It shows how the banking promotes indebtedness from families over any control or over any risks contingency plans and common sense.
In conclusion, there is a fact which can help us understanding the possibilities and opportunities that exist for this kind of action: banks need to grant loans because that is the main way for them to get benefits and, as we have already explained in a previous article, because the financial system needs to sign out more and more bank credits to create more and more money each time. It is a wheel that will not stop until the system brings to a standstill. As individuals, instead of keep on helping the wheel to roll by asking for loans for production or consumption, we have the opportunity and responsibility of making things difficult to this system, making them believe we want some loans and so they think they will create this money thanks to us. Afterwards, by not giving back these loans we make disappear this money and the one created out of the blue from the guarantee we had signed for refunding debts. This system works on the basis of trust so if we can spread mistrust by carrying on similar actions, then we will be able to abolish it (destroy it?)!
Why this action?
This crisis, that has been already explained in previous articles, was to be expexted -specially in its energy aspect. Three years ago, I heard about peak oil theories and I thought that when the crisis triggered it would be fundamental for us to be ready to face it. This could be an opportunity for social change, a time to make the most of it. But if we were not preparing ourselves for it, future could turn even worse than what we are living now, as shortage management by economic and politic authorities could lead us into new ways of fascism.
Very often, one of the problems we find nowadays when we talk about social transformation is that it is difficult to identify the main enemies. As we have seen in the article related to the finantial system, there are hidden and evil mechanisms which permit that the money creation process is controlled by a minority and, because of that, they make the economic system work according to their interests. Revealling the identities hidden in this minority, hidden in this banking system which is getting us towards environmental collapse, seemed fundamental to me and it was a clear motivation for encouraging me to carry out this action and to announce it openly.
Another convincing reason for me was the opportunity to strengthen social movements so they could be ready to face the crisis, trying out some alternatives which could turn into the example of a viable way of life when the crisis breaks out. I thought we would need more money than we could get by other normal means as, according to my experience in social movements, one of the main restrictions for transformer projects has always been the lack of enough economic capacity to run strategic projects that are ready to start when it is found convenient and to maintain them for the time it is considered necessary.
There are society alternatives which are just getting off the ground from practice and with no really stablished ideas. There are so many initiatives that, from autonomy and self-management, are starting to practice new ways of life that they consider to be alternatives to the current capitalist system. There are clear and driven efforts to get coordinatet and organized jointly through nets, to start puting into practice another society model. The path is set off, now we need to keep on going and gather strength.Where is the money?
Once the commissions, interests, notaries, taxes and various expenses related to the action but not directly related to social change were paid, there were leaving around 360,000 euros that have been assigned, amongst others, to the publication you have between your hands1. Other destinies have been various actions and initiatives addressed to raise awareness about the systemic crisis (energy, food, aconomic...) as well as, and specially, to enhance a wide social movement which promotes different ways of living in society while it is also facing present capitalist model until it can replace it.
I will not give any more concrete details in this document because it could cause some problems to the projects that have received this money without being responsible for that, but I hope that people with whom I've been sharing time lately will start the word-of-mouth which will make possible that a lot of people know for sure that the funds fate has been directed towards this sole aim.A call for action
Above all, this action aims to be an appeal for everyone to think about what can and want to do for changing the state of things within its means or even for changing what could seem impossible to change...If I have carried out this financial disobedience action, risking my own freedom to show that the economic system is more vulnerable than it seems and to obtain all this amount of money for the construction of alternatives, maybe there will be many other people who can do something else if they trust themselves, if they get to free themselves from the false fears we are deliberately educated in by the system and if they resolutely think that just through the people, from below, we can change the state of things.
Taking as an example the style of action I have carried out and taking into account personal and economic context of each one, some people will perhaps realize about some things they can do within their reach:
* Tenants, undergoing with the continuing increase in the costs (usually linked to the increase in purchase prices) can join together to commence a rent strike, as the one from 1930 and 1931; I am sure there are some people who are alreadythinking abou it...* If you are paying a mortgage since not too many years and you still have to work for many years in a job you do not like at all, you could maybe stop paying the mortgage and squat your flat. If you do it alone you will probably have a problem (not a bigger problem than the one you already had though, and what is more: you can consider spending your time doing what you like, consistent with your ideas and vocation) but if a lot of people does the same in an organized manner, it will be the banking the one who will have a problem...* If you are committed people and you want to collaborate with social movements, now you know there is the possibility of asking for some loans and not paying for them so you can finance the struggles, while you put obstacles to the financial system at the same time. There are some ways of doing this without getting any criminal charges for it, you just should do it in a smaller scale (related to mine) and you should not spread your action. I can give you a helping hand on this, hehe.* If you are already on the way of living with no bank accounts because you have any sentence-fine (very common nowadays) that you do not want to pay, why don't you expropriate some money to the banks before you get to the point of no having any checking accounts?
With these various options and any others you can think about you will always be delinquent accounts (or at least until this system in crisis lasts...) so it would be advisable to think about an action followed by a personal plan of living in a different manner, with neither checking accounts nor properties.
* Anyway, if you can not or you do not want to carry out any of the actions before mentioned, there are two easier things that everybody can and must do as soon as possible: not asking for any loans and taking out all the money from the banks.
By keeping loans, credit cards and checking accounts, we are an accessory to the banks which represent the heart of a capitalist system that is spreading our planet's destruction, poverty and our life's slavery all around.Taking out all your money from the banks is something that everybody can do simply by getting a little bit more organized to manage payments and earns in a different way.
And if you receive too late this call for action, because there are some debts you could not pay and you are already in the banks' delinquencies lists... why don't you contact me to set up a delinquencies union? There are more people registered in delinquencies lists than in unemployment lists...and living without checking accounts is some kind of art which deserves to be shared!What I am going to do from now on.
While writing this public document, there has not been presented any criminal charges on me; this fact proves that I have been able to carry on the action to its end without any control or any police suspicion.Anyway, according to the Spanish state's judicial system (not taking into account its ethical motivation), since I have done this confession, I should be charged with greater fraud (from 50,000 euros and over) and punishable insolvency. I can be charged from 2 to 6 years for the first accusation and from 1 to 3 years for the second one.So I have preferred to claim this action publicly as civil disobedience so everybody can know what can they do and to question the very financial system instead of hiding the action as any person who thinks first in his/her own integrity would recommend me.
But as my position is that of clear recognisement and that of moral and political defense of the facts, as I do not think that the judicial system is legitimized to judge me (as a part of a completely undemocratic political system, depending from the same economic authorities to whom I direct my action against) I have decided to accompany this public explanation of the facts with my physical disappearance. By this way, I will avoid possible reprisals against my freedom or my body which would prevent me from continue defending and explaining these facts openly. I will keep on being an active member within catalan social movements through virtual participation while I have to be phisically in some other point of the world from where I can also take part in social struggles.
Further forward, I reserve the right to come back an physically appear in catalan territory if it is proved that catalan civil society is prepared to defend freedom for the people who publically face our society's economic and political authorities.
If I was ever judged, of my own will or not, I can tell you the only verdict I will accept will be the aquittal from court as considering that my action does not constitute a crime because of its ethical motivation and because it is a gesture of solidarity against the authorities which are more damaging this society and because it is an action in favour of the common good. Apart from this, I will not negotiate any lower sentencies for avoiding serving my sentence, neither will bail nor pay a fine or negotiate the debt. If state is uncapable of getting rid of the pressure from factual powers, then everybody will be able to see it when they put a person like me into prison.
From this moment on, you can reveal my identity and contact me on the web http://www.17-s.info where you will also find further thorough information.The merger between two activist traditions
This action from Enric, even innovative, does not emerge out of the blue; historically, activists from various trends have been risking for common good over current legality either by directing actions against the banks to finance struggles, or doing public civil disobedience actions to transform something. In banking expropriations field, tradition begins at the beginning of twentieth century, in countries such as France and Italy, as well as in the Spanish state, with the spectacular robbery to the Bank of Spain in Gijón by el grupo de los solidarios, in 1923, for instance.
Mythical figures in our history such as Durruti, Quico Sabaté or Salvador Puigantich have carried out this kind of actions, which are always dangerous as they put in danger their lifes and branchs workers ones. Some other methods, safer for people but much more complicated, have been those of notes or traveller's cheques forgerying. This last action against Citybank, helped Lucio Urtubia become known all over the world. He is still alive and has recently given some talks around catalan territory to present the documentary Lucio, el anarquista irreductible.
Civil disobedience strategy begins in the ninetienth century by Henry Thoreau and gets very well-known through names like Gandhi and Martin Luther King. In the spanish state, pacific disobedience just started to get considered as a possibility after dictator Franco's death, given that in times where violence is committed by the State with total immunity, non-violent disobedience is completelly impossible. Since the 70's up to now, some of the most recognized social movements -as the successful refusal to serve in the military and the squatter movement- are based on this disobedient premise.
One of the problems for the meeting point lies in the opposite situations starting point. The first situation needs to work underground; the second one is a public action which bases its strength on its social support and its actions legitimacy. The action we are talking about now can fuse them both because it has two different parts: the direct action one (which has already been carried out and its secret nature has enabled the action success) with the civil disobedience one (which is starting today, with the confession and public defense the author does, seriously questioning banking's moral legitimacy.
If this example will still remain as an isolated action or if it will represent the seed for a new action strategy, either public or hidden, time will tell. All of us, each individual who want to change the state of affairs, have the last say. "

from scotland with love.,xx.

2008-10-14T19:49:00.000-07:00

busking.,

2008-10-14T19:45:00.000-07:00

Manifesto for general consumption strike, Paul Ariès

2008-10-09T21:48:00.000-07:00

Manifesto for general consumption strike
This text can be used freely with indication of the source : http://www.casseursdepub.org/index.php?menu=doc&sousmenu=greve_conso_english
Conclusion of the book by Paul Ariès : No conso : vers la grève générale de la consommation, Golias editions, Lyon, France, october 2006.

The society of consumption is sad, unfair and impossible : 20% of the human race monopolizes 86% of the world's natural resources and this "air-conditioned hell" is not generalizable because it overshoots the regenerative capacity of ecosystems. Therefore we must end this domination of one over the other and of all over the planet to simply live as humans. This is the choice of responsible action but also of utopia : only this choice can bring meaning back to our values like liberty. We want to compare the bulimic economic logic with the goal of living with « less goods but with more relationships ». Building a political project based on « free use and expensive misuse » would allow us to solve both environmental and social issues and enable us to see the return of politics. Only the prospect of a « general consumption strike » can give power back to the weakest facing this tiny powerful minority which thrives on our bad-being and the destruction of all things.
The idea of a general labor strike runs throughout the XXth century. But who can still believe in it nowadays ? The general labor strike had many failures but it would be absurd to remember only the failures. Indeed the general labor strike actually became a myth and the essence of a myth is both allowing action and accepting the inevitable failures. Hardness of hyper-capitalism and its new means of management muzzle employees and many people are unable to go on strike because of unemployment or extreme poverty. Furthermore there's often a big difference between claims and our emancipation dreams . That's why some people now think that a consumption strike could take place.
What would be a general consumption strike ? It would be a real social movement with its collective claims against the government and employers. This strike would neither be the continuation of a simple way of life nor a well-targeted boycott but a collective way of refusing to be consumers.
The worker is chained more materially than mentally to the society of consumption. It's the prospect of the difficult (or impossible) end of the month which makes him or her go back to work, not the supposed love of labor. However hyper-capitalism has not invented yet the material structure to chain the consumer to the society of consumption. It is the false enjoyment of consumption which prevents him or her from stopping consuming and not material obligations. How could capitalism force someone to buy beyond his necessities, beyond needful consumption ? In the case of a labor strike time runs against the striker but it runs in his or her favor in case of a consumption strike. The power lost by workers who refuse to produce (this is the deep meaning of any general labor strike) can be found again by the consumers who refuse to remain consumers.
A general consumption strike would indisputably be the crowning glory of a consistent strategy of civic disobedience. First because it would infringe the absolute dictates of consuming; the most vital and sacred part of the system would then be attacked. Second because it would be a social movement against the State and employers to force out another hierarchy of legal norms based on the satisfaction of real human needs. Of course that requires preparation, mobilization, theatricalization and negotiation.
The future ex-consumers must learn to use this weapon. By celebrating each November the "buy nothing day". By organizing actions around simple claims, easily understandable, quite easily victorious. By considering general strikes with goals more difficult to perceive but fundamental to get out of capitalism. The other advantage of general consumption strike is not separating the goal from the path since getting out of the consumption sphere is both the beginning and the end of this revolution.
As long as we remain in Fordism, capitalism needs our daily compromise. The only way out of this is a general consumption strike which can restore collective force to the weakest. It would allow us to stand up as long as possible in front of this opponent who doesn't want to satisfy our desire to live a better life. At best it could unite the weakest and divide those who thrive on the domination of one over the other and of all over the planet.
Let's not delude ourselves : the system will react. It will use blackmail with employment, it will threaten with firing; the shopkeepers will cut prices and manipulate consumers. Luckily, the production system is not fluid and producing for exportation or for the opulent ones will take time. The general consumption strike, like any social movement, is fundamentally the creation of a battle of wills. Probably, it will first be defeated. It will be the hyper-consumption rush again. A seed will remain and gradually germinate. Another consumption strike will take place. We'll probably learn a lot from the failures. Objections against this strike are not appropriate, since not being sure of success never justifies giving up.
Furthermore any general strike is a collective catharsis because it discloses the intimate mechanisms of the system. That's why it is so difficult to get back to normal after this disclosing whose emancipating effects can be very important in one's life. Every strike starts, necessarily, with conventional claims but ends up quickly with un-negotiable claims. It's just a matter of giving time to an un-alienating process. The consumption strike, like any strike, will aim at social conquests but it will actually go much further. Similarly the employee who goes on strike claiming for better wages also experiences another existence. That's why it's always painful to get back to work. That's why even with success we don't know how to end a strike. Let's bet it will be as difficult to become simple "consumption convicts" again after having experienced another life.
This general consumption strike must be an action so that use defeats misuse and gratuitousness defeats venality. We'll go on strike to get free public transportation, to get free social housing, to get different pricing depending on consumption levels, to give everyone a universal existence income so all can live in dignity, we'll go on strike to have those who ruin the planet pay more, to have advertisements limited to a few spaces, to redistribute wealth according to a maximum permitted income, etc. Thinking this strike would be a hunger strike is understanding nothing about what is consumption. A consumption strike means refusing to be a consumer, the kind of human being who belongs to the system. The goal is not to threaten our lives, our hyper-consumption society does that very well without us. On the contrary the goal is to learn how to fully exist, to live as a user in control of his use and no longer as a labor and a consumption convict, no longer as a capitalist market slave.
Let's trust collective intelligence to rediscover long-forgotten use. Let's think right now of our consumption and try to consume much less adopting a minimalist way of life. However we must watch out for purists who could turn this citizen action into a religious, moralizing, or authoritarian posture. Let's trust the collective sensitivity to allow this action to grow in size and consistency.
Of course this general strike will require the boycott of some products vital for the hyper-capitalist system (not only economic products but also ideological products like TV news or most newspapers). A consumption strike wouldn't make much sense if the strikers keep shopping (even for necessities) in those capitalist temples (supermarkets).
Let's bet that soon this invitation to a general consumption strike will become popular, that it will replace the general labor strike myth. We really need it to unify our hopes and to encourage our action. This prospect forces us to realize that real power is not the pseudo power of consumers, who would vote with their wallets, but the power of citizens who refuse to be consumers, as strikers refuse to be producers to adopt a political way of life.
Paul Ariès.

Hakim Bey.,

2008-10-06T19:24:00.001-07:00

"Dress up. Leave a false name. Be legendary. The best PT is against the law, but don't get caught. Art as crime; crime as art." Hakim Bey.,

Poetic Terrorism :

"WEIRD DANCING IN ALL-NIGHT computer-banking lobbies. Unauthorized pyrotechnic displays. Land-art, earth-works as bizarre alien artifacts strewn in State Parks. Burglarize houses but instead of stealing, leave Poetic-Terrorist objects. Kidnap someone & make them happy. Pick someone at random & convince them they're the heir to an enormous, useless & amazing fortune--say 5000 square miles of Antarctica, or an aging circus elephant, or an orphanage in Bombay, or a collection of alchemical mss. Later they will come to realize that for a few moments they believed in something extraordinary, & will perhaps be driven as a result to seek out some more intense mode of existence.Bolt up brass commemorative plaques in places (public or private) where you have experienced a revelation or had a particularly fulfilling sexual experience, etc.Go naked for a sign.Organize a strike in your school or workplace on the grounds that it does not satisfy your need for indolence & spiritual beauty.Grafitti-art loaned some grace to ugly subways & rigid public momuments--PT-art can also be created for public places: poems scrawled in courthouse lavatories, small fetishes abandoned in parks & restaurants, xerox-art under windshield-wipers of parked cars, Big Character Slogans pasted on playground walls, anonymous letters mailed to random or chosen recipients (mail fraud), pirate radio transmissions, wet cement...The audience reaction or aesthetic-shock produced by PT ought to be at least as strong as the emotion of terror-- powerful disgust, sexual arousal, superstitious awe, sudden intuitive breakthrough, dada-esque angst--no matter whether the PT is aimed at one person or many, no matter whether it is "signed" or anonymous, if it does not change someone's life (aside from the artist) it fails.PT is an act in a Theater of Cruelty which has no stage, no rows of seats, no tickets & no walls. In order to work at all, PT must categorically be divorced from all conventional structures for art consumption (galleries, publications, media). Even the guerilla Situationist tactics of street theater are perhaps too well known & expected now.An exquisite seduction carried out not only in the cause of mutual satisfaction but also as a conscious act in a deliberately beautiful life--may be the ultimate PT. The PTerrorist behaves like a confidence-trickster whose aim is not money but CHANGE.Don't do PT for other artists, do it for people who will not realize (at least for a few moments) that what you have done is art. Avoid recognizable art-categories, avoid politics, don't stick around to argue, don't be sentimental; be ruthless, take risks, vandalize only what must be defaced, do something children will remember all their lives--but don't be spontaneous unless the PT Muse has possessed you."

H.B.,

from the lazarus corporation - the text mixing deck., inspired by william s. burroughs infamous cut-ups.,

2008-10-06T18:52:00.000-07:00

here is the blurb : " the lazarus corporation have provided this cut-up engine to replicate the cut-up technique used by brion gysin, william burroughs and others.
this fine piece of technology was expertly lifted from the prone body of a junkie who was discovered "on the nod" in one of the more disreputable quarters of marrakech. it was marked with the maker's name of "benway" but apart from that nothing else is known about this marvellous piece of equipment. "

and here is the machinery : http://www.lazaruscorporation.co.uk/v4/cutup/textinput.php .

Road Poem # 2 : Salvation., c/o : jwh.,

2008-10-06T15:46:00.000-07:00

Salvation : coughing on the light eyes all swollen pupils screaming out to be saved with one damp from sweat hand gripping wetly the 78pennies blindly looking about for a drip of salvation in amongst that glitter-ball moment all traffic sounds hurtling walking at the wrong moment swivelling giddy on heel to avoid just in time a car horn blasts deep right through inner quiet moaning shamelessly walking on out shamelessly through the chic-hipster-art-house crowds thinking fuck this fuck & obscenity you but it has now its been started to be done this whole cheating of the death thing doesn't feel too good :

but beyond
all our crazed ideals and ideologies
we all share
the forever-people memories
of running water
hot grass on face
the touches of fleshes
the tastes of tears
and a million other most beautiful {est} of things.

jwh,.

Is America still in an official State of Emergency.?

2008-10-05T18:14:00.000-07:00

The "website is intended to be an easy-to-read, fully-sourced resource for Congress members, Senators, reporters, and others who wish to discover the current legal status of the United States of America."

link : http://www.constitutionally.blogspot.com/ .

Enzo Marra., "Feline Portrait".,

2008-10-05T17:00:00.001-07:00

Enzo Marra., "Lobster man Standing".,

2008-10-05T16:57:00.000-07:00

Enzo Marra., "Large Bird Man".,

2008-10-05T16:55:00.000-07:00

Edwin Lue-Shing., 3 depictions of the face of Buddha...

2008-10-05T16:46:00.000-07:00

Edwin Lue-Shing., "The return of jesus christ and the paparazzi's"

2008-10-05T16:41:00.000-07:00

And the artist says :
"Each culture and region has its own independent celebrity system, with a hierarchy of popular film, television, and sports stars. Celebrities who are very popular might be unknown abroad, except with culturally-related groups, such as within a diaspora. In some cases, a country-level celebrity might command some attention outside their native country, but not to the degree that they can be considered a global celebrity. For example, singer Lara Fabian is widely-known in the French-speaking world, but only had a couple of Billboard hits in the U.S., whereas singer Celine Dion is well-known in both communities.
This painting is painted on a deep boxed canvas which can be mounted directly to the wall to give that modern finised, and also doubled varnished to bring the depth out of the colours.
What would happen is Jesus Christ made The second coming in this moment in time, he is known through out the world and in an ever shrinking world, it would be hard not to know of him. In this celebratory. Obsessed world and culture where everyone was hustling for a place to be the top celebrity in the world. I would think that Jesus Christ would be the No1. Celebrity of the 21st centaury and if this was the case (I would be most certain it would be!); any paparazzi worth his salt, would be hot on his trail to get that million dollar/pound/euro shot of the number one celebratory of the centaury. Shot of him. This is my depiction of Jesus coming back and the paparazzi’s flash bulbs flashing away to get shot of the number one celebratory of the century."

David Dees., "Russia".,

2008-10-04T18:23:00.000-07:00

David Dees., "Webd".,

2008-10-04T18:21:00.000-07:00

art from David Dees.,

2008-10-04T18:18:00.001-07:00

In the atmosphere of created panic surrounding the financial crisis on Wall St. its too easy as the U.S. elections appraoch to forget the war crimes etc that the election of the administration ought to focus on.

Hector "hollywood" Swanson on bridges...

2008-10-04T16:11:00.000-07:00

Hector "hollywood" Swanson says :

"If you want to take out a bridge you don't have to destroy every god forsaken brick - you just blow out the supports..."

H."H."S.

2 Essays by Hakim Bey on the T.A.Z. and P.A.Z., (Temporary Autonomous Zone and Permanent Autonomous Zone...) a master poet-philosopher...

2008-10-03T20:42:00.000-07:00

Permanent TAZs by Hakim Bey

TAZ-theory tries to concern itself with existing or emerging situations rather than with pure utopianism. All over the world people are leaving or "disappearing" themselves from the Grid of Alienation and seeking ways to restore human contact. An interesting example of this--on the level of "urban folk culture"--can be found in the proliferation of hobby networks and conferences. Recently I discovered the zines of two such groups, Crown Jewels of the High Wire (devoted to the collection of glass electrical insulators) and a journal on cucurbitology (The Gourd). A vast amount of creativity goes into these obsessions. The various periodic gatherings of fellow-maniacs amount to genuine face-to-face (unmediated) festivals of eccentricity. It's not just the "counter-culture" which seeks its TAZs, its nomad encampments and nights of liberation from the Consensus. Self-organized and autonomous groups are springing up amongst every "class" and "sub-culture". Vast tracts of the Babylonian Empire are now virtually empty, populated only by the spooks of MassMedia, and a few psychotic policemen.
TAZ-theory realizes that THIS IS HAPPENING--we're not talking about "should" or "will be"--we're talking about an already-existing movement. Our use of various thought-experiments, utopian poetics, paranoia criticism, etc., aims at helping to clarify this complex and still largely undocumented movement, to give it some theoretical focus and self-awareness, and to suggest tactics based on coherent integral strategies--to act the midwife or the panegyrist, not the "vanguard"!
And so we've had to consider the fact that not all existing autonomous zones are "temporary". Some are (at least by intention) more-or-less "permanent". Certain cracks in the Babylonian Monolith appear so vacant that whole groups can move into them and settle down. Certain theories, such as "Permaculture", have been developed to deal with this situation and make the most of it. "Villages", "communes", "communities", even "arcologies" and "biospheres" (or other utopian-city forms) are being experimented with and implemented. Even here however TAZ-theory may offer some useful thought-tools and clarifications.
What about a poetique (a "way of making") and a politique (a "way of living-together) for the "permanent" TAZ (or "PAZ")? What about the actual relation between temporariness and permanence? And how can the PAZ renew and refresh itself periodically with the "festival" aspect of the TAZ?
The Question of Publicity
Recent events in the US and Europe have shown that self-organized/autonomous groups strike fear into the heart of the State. MOVE in Philadelphia, the Koreshites of Waco, Deadheads, Rainbow Tribes, computer-hackers, squatters, etc., have been targeted for varying intensity-levels of extermination. And yet other autonomous groups go unnoticed, or at least unpersecuted. What makes the difference? One factor may be the malign effect of publicity or mediation. The Media experience a vampiric thirst for the shadow-Passion play of "Terrorism", Babylon's public ritual of expiation, scapegoating, and blood-sacrifice. Once any autonomous group allows this particular "gaze" to fall upon it, the shit hits the fan:--the Media will try to arrange a mini-armageddon to satisfy its junk-sickness for spectacle and death.
Now, the PAZ makes a fine sitting target for such a Media smart-bomb. Besieged inside its "con-pound", the self-organized group can only succumb to some sort of cheap pre-determined martyrdom. Presumably this role appeals only to neurotic masochists??? In any case, most groups will want to live out their natural span or trajectory in peace and quiet. A good tactic here might be to avoid publicity from the Mass Media as if it were the plague. A bit of natural paranoia comes in handy, so long as it doesn't become an end in itself. One must be cunning in order to get away with being bold. A touch of camouflage, a flair for invisibility, a sense of tact as a tactic . . . might be as useful to a PAZ as a TAZ. Humble suggestions:--Use only "intimate media" (zines, phonetrees, BBSs, free radio and mini-FM, public-access cable, etc.)--avoid blustering-macho-confrontationist attitude--you don't need five seconds on the Evening News ("Police Raid Cultists") to validate your existence. Our slogan might be:--"Get a life, not a life-style."
Access
People probably ought to choose the people they live with. ''Open-membership" communes invariably end up swamped with freeloaders and sex-starved pathetic creeps. PAZs must choose their own membership mutually--this has nothing to do with "elitism". The PAZ may exercise a temporarily open function--such as hosting festivals or giving away free food, etc.--but it need not be permanently open to any self-proclaimed sympathizer who wanders by.
The Emergence of a Genuinely Alternative Economy
Once again, this is already happening--but it still needs a huge amount of work before it comes into focus. The sub-economies of "lavoro nero", untaxed transactions, barter, etc., tend to be severely limited and localized. BBSs and other networking systems could be used to link up these regional/marginal aeconomies ("household managements") into a viable alternative economy of some magnitude. "P.M." has already outlined something like this in bolo'bolo--in fact a number of possible systems already exist, in theory anyway. The problem is:--how to construct a true alternative economy, i.e. a complete economy, without attracting the IRS and other capitalist runningdogs? How can I exchange my skills as, say, a plumber or moonshiner, for the food, books, shelter, and psychoactive plants I want--without paying taxes, or even without using any State-forged money? How can I live a comfortable (even luxurious) life free of all interactions and transactions with CommodityWorld? If we took all the energy the Leftists put into "demos", and all the energy the Libertarians put into playing futile little 3rd-party games, and if we redirected all that power into the construction of a real underground economy, we would already have accomplished "the Revolution" long ago.
The "World" Came to an End in 1972
The hollowed-out effigy of the Absolute State finally toppled in "1989". The last ideology, Capitalism, is no more than a skin-disease of the Very Late Neolithic. It's a desiring-machine running on empty. I'm hoping to see it deliquesce in my lifetime, like one of Dali's mindscapes. And I want to have somewhere to "go" when the shit comes down. Of course the death of Capitalism needn't entail the Godzilla-like destruction of all human culture; this scenario is merely a terror-image propagated by Capitalism itself. Nevertheless it stands to reason that the dreaming corpse will spasm violently before rigor mortis sets in--and New York or LA may not be the smartest places to wait out the storm. (And the storm may already have begun.) [On the other hand NYC and LA might not be the worst places to create the New World; one can imagine whole squatted neighborhoods, gangs transformed into Peoples' Militias, etc.] Now, the gypsy-RV way of life may be one way to deal with the on-going melt-down of Too-Late Capitalism--but as for me, I'd prefer a nice anarchist monastery somewhere--a typical place for "scholars" to sit out the "Dark Ages". The more we organize this NOW the less hassle we'll have to face later. I'm not talking about "survival"--I'm not interested in mere survival. I want to thrive. Back to utopia.
Festivals
The PAZ serves a vital function as a node in the TAZ-web, a meetingplace for a wide circle of friends and allies who may not actually live full-time on the "farm" or in the "village". Ancient villages held fairs which brought wealth to the community, provided markets for travelers, and created festal time/space for all participants. Nowadays the festival is emerging as one of the most important forms for the TAZ itself, but can also provide renewal and fresh energy for the PAZ. I remember reading somewhere that in the Middle Ages there were one hundred and eleven holidays a year; we should take this as our "utopian minimum" and strive to do even better. [Note: the utopian minima proposed by C. Fourier consisted of more food and sex than the average 18th century French aristocrat enjoyed; B. Fuller proposed the term "bare minimum" for a similar concept]
The Living Earth
I believe that there exist plenty of good selfish reasons for desiring the "organic" (it's sexier), the "natural" (it tastes better), the "green" (it's more beautiful), the Wild(er)ness (it's more exciting). Communitas (as P. Goodman called it) and conviviality (as I. Illich called it) are more pleasurable than their opposites. The living earth need not exclude the organic city--the small but intense conglomeration of humanity devoted to the arts and slightly decadent joys of a civilization purged of all its gigantism and enforced loneliness--but even those of us who enjoy cities can see immediate and hedonic motives for fighting for the "environment". We are militant biophiles. Deep ecology, social ecology, permaculture, appropriate tech . . we're not too picky about ideologies. Let 1000 flowers bloom.
PAZ Typology
A "weird religion" or a rebel art movement can become a kind of non-local PAZ, like a more intense and all-consuming hobby network. The Secret Society (like the Chinese Tong) also provides a model for a PAZ without geographic limits. But the "perfect case scenario" involves a free space that extends into free time. The essence of the PAZ must be the long-drawn-out intensification of the joys--and risks--of the TAZ. And the intensification of the PAZ will be . . . Utopia Now.
Hakim Bey August 1993

And.,

PIRATE EUTOPIAS.,

" . . . this time however I come as the victorious Dionysus, who will turn the world into a holiday . . . Not that I have much time . . . "
--Nietzsche (from his last "insane" letter to Cosima Wagner)

Pirate Utopias

THE SEA-ROVERS AND CORSAIRS of the 18th century created an "information network" that spanned the globe: primitive and devoted primarily to grim business, the net nevertheless functioned admirably. Scattered throughout the net were islands, remote hideouts where ships could be watered and provisioned, booty traded for luxuries and necessities. Some of these islands supported "intentional communities," whole mini-societies living consciously outside the law and determined to keep it up, even if only for a short but merry life.
Some years ago I looked through a lot of secondary material on piracy hoping to find a study of these enclaves--but it appeared as if no historian has yet found them worthy of analysis. (William Burroughs has mentioned the subject, as did the late British anarchist Larry Law--but no systematic research has been carried out.) I retreated to primary sources and constructed my own theory, some aspects of which will be discussed in this essay. I called the settlements "Pirate Utopias."
Recently Bruce Sterling, one of the leading exponents of Cyberpunk science fiction, published a near-future romance based on the assumption that the decay of political systems will lead to a decentralized proliferation of experiments in living: giant worker-owned corporations, independent enclaves devoted to "data piracy," Green-Social-Democrat enclaves, Zerowork enclaves, anarchist liberated zones, etc. The information economy which supports this diversity is called the Net; the enclaves (and the book's title) are in the Net
The medieval Assassins founded a "State" which consisted of a network of remote mountain valleys and castles, separated by thousands of miles, strategically invulnerable to invasion, connected by the information flow of secret agents, at war with all governments, and devoted only to knowledge. Modern technology, culminating in the spy satellite, makes this kind of autonomy a romantic dream. No more pirate islands! In the future the same technology--freed from all political control--could make possible an entire world of zones But for now the concept remains precisely science fiction--pure speculation.
Are we who live in the present doomed never to experience autonomy, never to stand for one moment on a bit of land ruled only by freedom? Are we reduced either to nostalgia for the past or nostalgia for the future? Must we wait until the entire world is freed of political control before even one of us can claim to know freedom? Logic and emotion unite to condemn such a supposition. Reason demands that one cannot struggle for what one does not know; and the heart revolts at a universe so cruel as to visit such injustices on our generation alone of humankind.
To say that "I will not be free till all humans (or all sentient creatures) are free" is simply to cave in to a kind of nirvana-stupor, to abdicate our humanity, to define ourselves as losers.
I believe that by extrapolating from past and future stories about "islands in the net" we may collect evidence to suggest that a certain kind of "free enclave" is not only possible in our time but also existent. All my research and speculation has crystallized around the concept of the TEMPORARY AUTONOMOUS ZONE (hereafter abbreviated TAZ). Despite its synthesizing force for my own thinking, however, I don't intend the TAZ to be taken as more than an essay ("attempt"), a suggestion, almost a poetic fancy. Despite the occasional Ranterish enthusiasm of my language I am not trying to construct political dogma. In fact I have deliberately refrained from defining the TAZ--I circle around the subject, firing off exploratory beams. In the end the TAZ is almost self-explanatory. If the phrase became current it would be understood without difficulty . . . understood in action.

Link to a Site with the Complete T.A.Z. (including Communiques of the Association for Ontological Anarchy) by Hakim Bey : http://www.left-bank.org/bey/default2.htm .

Dagger's regret

2008-09-23T14:53:00.000-07:00

You could almost taste the self loathing in her as she applied the sheath. Shaven pubis designed to impress rather than express wild theatricality. On insertion she clenched like the teeth of a rabid hound, pulling at my cock like an adolescent hand; nervous, desiring approval. This was sex like a murder scene and it depressed me more than any unspoken word in our three week relationship.

It was alarming how quickly the cracks began to show. There was an incredible connection , seductive in the extreme which at finger tip touch felt like the romance you'd make up in the depths of loneliness - embracing, exhilirating, complete. Our bodies too felt like they'd known each other for centuries or more, rolling, swimming, arching and caressing like a fluid song without need of lyrics or crib sheets or even communication to show us where to go. It was poetry, the kind poets never speak.

Until penetration, which was by contrast horrific. The lady's head would rock back remembering lines from a school play, or maybe sex ed class or teen manual. As if recalling was easier than direct confrontation. Relaxation and release more harrowing than the fight it would let loose in her body. Her eyes weren't closed but rocked back almost showing the whites, memories self-recalling to avoid scrutiny. Clockwork rotations of her hips lost of the sublime rhythm that characterised them moments before. Characterised us for fuck's sake, but now us polarised to them - careening now far apart albeit locked in a clench akin to a strangle and me horrified at what torture had converted this girl's mind to translate to physical agony.

Men: we have an easy time, we fuck and play, bury our trauma in antagonisation of others. In playgrounds and sport cars we mete our revenge. But the lady she takes it in and buries, not permitted to even moan or be afraid, part of her lot, Eve's curse, be glad-wrapped, anaesthetised, turned from the eyes of prying man.

How did we learn to hate her so?

Polluted mother's expression chastised, unable to to vent and so here lays another of her precious dames, beyond attempts of tender caresses to reassure, make good what this body's been through. As if I could - hate myself for even trying as the lady drifts further into a somnolent, verging on ecstatic purgatory. Making myself responsble to bear the pain better, that my faults easier than the twisted molester who made her like this - whether lover, father or media hypocrisy he's made these eyes unreachable, robbed us of our dream.

Could I leave her here? Or reach ever further back behind the whites, bring some sense back into sight, see the lady again not the corpse that she's become.

-------

The Ever Rolling Snowball

police chief colin terry at fancy dress party in cornwall, the uk.,

2008-09-16T11:12:00.001-07:00

sara palin for president.,

2008-09-16T11:10:00.001-07:00

air/gas heads.,

2008-09-16T11:09:00.000-07:00

a great find., thanks for mailing it to us.,

purple sunset, c/o: edwin lue-shing.,

2008-09-16T11:07:00.000-07:00

gongh li,. c/o : edwin lue-shing.,

2008-09-16T11:04:00.000-07:00

one fine poem by ee cummings., the first of all my dreams.,

2008-09-16T11:00:00.000-07:00

the first of all my dreams
was of a lover and his only love,
strolling slowly(mind in mind)
through some green mysterious

land until my second dream begins -
the sky is wild with leaves; which dance
and dancing swoop (and swooping whirl
over a frightened boy and girl)

but that mere fury soon became
silence:in huger always whom
two tiny selves sleep (doll by doll)
motionless under magical

forever falling snow.
And quickly this dreamer wept:
and so she quickly dreamed a dream of spring
- how you and i are blossoming

wilting stilts., c/o : james honey.,

2008-07-25T04:35:00.000-07:00

'meet me where the pavement rests

and the leaves become too deep to wade our way through

commute to a cul-de-sac on a cloudy chalk walkway,

oh the bracken dense banks.

picture weaving with the hands of history and straight lines in mud tracks

lost within the space between

the sky and me.

burning bright paper lanterns now guiding the clouds over the rolling earth

my loose tred sends a rock scuffing,

nothing's ever lost hereself portraiture through another.

crumpled trouser legs form a new and new againall over.

dust dance

all over swelling mountains upon wilting stilts

dust danceupon the wilting stilts.

james honey.,

road poem # 2 : over and above the radar., c/o : jwh.,

2008-07-21T07:55:00.000-07:00

fate, circumstance or luck - whatever you will call it - will see us in positions and places that we may never have foreseen. we may feel cheated, jinxed or double crossed and want to fall into fits of bad temper at the cards dealt us by fate; for events may be out of our hands, the whole outward universe may even be pre-determined (!!) but in the dark shineth the light, or, in the darkness the light shines all the brighter - we do have free will; we can always choose whether we INTEND to hurt or to heal, whether to create and build or destroy, whether we consent or refuse our consent, and herein lies the essence of Free Will.
There will always remain that internal enclave of the soul, that minefeild of plots and unwritten stories, imagination denies determinism.
Freedom is what makes us moral animals, it is what makes us kind and it is what makes us cruel; without freedom 'good' and 'bad' cease to have any meaning.
Returning to 'fate' : we can choose to be either the victims or the victors of our fates, no matter what those fates may be, and it is precisely this that makes us humans being rather than human beings.

jwh.,

c/o : on the road.,

the monkey-shrews... c/o : Dr. Eams with art from David Dees .,

2008-07-11T03:01:00.000-07:00

And so the church bells are ringing wild on and on in the heavy overcast shadowy night. walking with great lumbering difficulties we climb up the steep damp from the night dew verge of the grassy verge - towards a gathered crowd lit up ghostly by a thousand flickering flames - towards the 0 so hollering and screaming lurching jeering crowd of people, some sat on haunches others giddy on their feet full of the exstacy,. we sat at the edge nervous timid wondering 0 so wondering 0 what could this be all about 0 who 0 what and 0 why... we two sitting there were straight away given small metal cups in which we see a thick ginger tasting sweet wine, very warm in the blustering damp night. before us a tall figure - priest like mastering ceremonies - and he is speaking a language we do not understand, my companions and i and he is walking now towards a pen which we suddenly notice - had not seen somehow until that moment as though it were he that were our eyes and sense and 0 he was in control maybe mind manipulator and in this pen - with wire meshing around it - were dozens of small fury creatures - something like a cross between a monkey and a shrew or a rat, but about 2 feet maybe in length, their fur is quite long and thick and seems to ooze from their skinny bodies with imp little faces strangely human but their legs are more like a hare.
The priest expertly caught up one of these little beast by the scruff of its neck and drags it out of the enclosure. the swaying crowd cheer roucously spilling and swigging the thick wine in equal measure, none of their clothes stand out only the grinning staining faces - as if the skin is too tight - could be seen clearly in the flickering light. above us a long wire ran horizontal about 3 feet above the ground on which was another shorter wire about 1 foot in length. the priest then attached the beast to the short wire hanging down by a ring on its ankle. the small beast is now flailing about wild on the end of the wire just above the ground - what sick madness is this ? where are we and suddenly who are my companions... - then in a quick movement the priest has pulled out a hooked shape blade and the volume of the cheering increases deafening all at this insane old witchdoctor and the spectacle is sinking away as i sip deep swigs on the sticky wine and i realise with a cold tremor i am cheering too and that my voice is rasping desperate pleading and meanwhile the priest has hooked the blade into the animal's leg - holding its neck in his other hand - and within a minute the priest has skinned the leg to the bare flesh and bone. the animal is screeching now and one its neck is released it is spinning and pivoting and thrashing about on its wire - always just above the ground - and it is screeching screeching horrible terrible sound above within the crowd's groans of lusty joy and i am mesmerised by the shiny reddish bleeding leg caught up there and i dont notice the priest tossing the skin into the crowd who fight and scabble to catch hold of it and then again the priest pulls out from his coat a bottle which he is pouring over the animals exposed leg - it seems to be some thick oil liquid - and it soothes the animals pain, for it stops screeching and just dangles calmer from the wire but its eyes still are screaming, and the rivulets of blood still flow slower now but still the drops drip drip of its twitchy nose. at this the crowd are quiet watching the thick oil wrap about the tendons nerves joints flesh healing healing and in this eery silence the other animals in the enclosure are restless, buffeting about against each other.
the priest then throws the bottle aside and has the hooked blade in his hand again, holding it high above his head, the silence remains, then quickly very quickly in a flash of the eye could be missed he has light a match in his other hand thrown it onto the oily leg - which ignites instantly - and cut the wire cord on which the beast was tied and the animal is screeching again its leg ablaze with a blue flame and it is bucking and kicking its leg and the crowd has gone into exctasies of noise and the animal is running around and around the blue flames standing out against the flickering red yellow of the thousands of small flames that are everywhere - in the trees in the bushes scattered about the grass and on high pillars - and the monkey shrew is screeching and leaping about and at this minute i turn seeing one of my companions - who is she - screaming with straining face and my face is straining i can feel it i am screaming too shouting but in the midst of this i catch her wrist she tries violently to shake me off but i hold on and feeling giddy still screeching myself now i fall backwards dragging her with me and we fall fall hit the grass behind us on the slope and roll roll backwards tumbling getting tangled up as i cannot let her wrist go and her screams are not fits of noise and i cannot hear my voice now only the fading roar above us behind us and in an instant the spell is broken...

Dr. Eams.,

road poem # 1, "from under the radar" . c/o : jwh.,

2008-07-10T05:34:00.000-07:00

sail on gypsy brothers

you roaming nomad freaks,

spread your wings and never

fear to fly to higher peaks.,

so rock the boat

but be the waves

and not the slaves

sat safe in their lifeboat ways

just waiting for their

lost at sea selves to be saved...

And so i walk slow stumble right out up on top of this pair of cats jamming on the Royal Mile - as it's called in old edina sweetest stone city this side of venice or rome - and they're jammin' one on a sitar long hair eyes always to the east and one on a guitar with a mouth harp and he's puffing in out away and he's got the drawl of dylan as he's singing Rolling Stone and i sit sat down there myself and get caught right up remembering that i'm a bum right now total beat up out not even wanted maybe in this old town here but i couldn't just can't bring myself to care cause there's always some people who never you want you somewhere anyhowlll who can be every-single-where at once to care or not be there and this song they are singing was written just for me and for every-single-nobody who ever just a sit sat down feet glad to up in the air heart dancing breathing the freshest free-est air and the man who knows he's a bum but not a done in bum just yet just a man who knows the road and learns to love the turns it makes blind corners like snakes' heads catching their tails eating up their wisdom to shit it back out no-one hearing 'cept maybe some forgotten moonlit street rant jamming to nowhere learning to love the mistakes and the lucky falls that turn into those great breaks again and again and anyhow his friend is chiming in now on his sitar all magic eastern exstasies and i'm away with his trip happy happy happiest glad to watch the world go by a minute while i just sit here and think on it at the edge of it a complete unknown in it a no direction home in it a no turning round to see the frowns in it just a rolling stone in it no letting others get your kicks for you in it this most holy communion breathing prayers without speaking in it feeling the divine riding the back of every note and it's good to be and good to be a bum everyone should be a bum but not the done in done over junkie kind of the bum just the free air light feet warm heart beat breathing type of one...

jwh.,

from under the radar.,

The Monkey Files, c/o : Phillip Ghee

2008-07-09T04:45:00.000-07:00

Even through the ramble of construction equipment, the ruckus and, the general busyness of assorted workmen and contractors; he was able to discern the delightful sunny pitch of her voice. Surprisingly her voice was still much as he remembered it, full sparkle and naivety of uncorrupted bliss. He halfway had expected her to have forcibly lowered her voice a few octaves or so, much in the manner that many upwardly mobile women do, when they find themselves competing in the professional, business and, science worlds. He thought her either
un-indoctrinated to this point or totally self assured in her abilities to not have done so. He was however please that she had not. The musical qualities of her voice always struck him in a fanciful way and induce in him pleasant thoughts.
The welcoming tour, he assumed must have been drawing to a close, he reasoned since his lab station was in the vicinity of the main entrance. Doctor Samuel Poser, Professor of Physical Anthropology at the Kinderstein Institute of Primate Studies, checked his teeth, adjusted his, fresh of the cleaners’, brilliant white, lab coat and made his way into the hallway.
“Doctor Poser” Spoke the silver haired distinguished gentlemen conducting the tour. “Just in time, I believe you and this dynamic young lady graduated from the same East coast warehouse.” Professor Hollis flashed an all too smug soap opera spattering of manicured teeth. Had Hollis not been a world renowned scientist, Poser reflected; he probably would have ended up a world renowned televangelist. It was at times like these that he wished his superior had opted for the latter vocation.

“It was more like an ant farm back in my day.” Retorted Doctor Poser, happy with his quick witted return. “However, some of the worker ants nevertheless stood out amongst the colony. Doctor Poser reached out and grasped the new associates extended hand. “I believe it is Ms. Jennifer, Jennifer…” He took the opportunity to hold her hand longer than necessary while performing the charade of assessing memory.

“Jennifer Lin.” The petite, smartly dressed woman piped in, not at all unnerved by Poser’s pretense of having to juggle his memory for her last name. He knew her name very well and in the years since learning it, it had rolled off his tongue many a night while lost in narcosis of sleep and dream. He was already conducting his Post-Graduate work when she had arrived at, as the students liked to call it, into the MIST, The Maryland Institute of Science and Technology. He had the opportunity of conducting a few classes, her first semester, while serving in his role as a teaching assistant.

“Oh! I remember you.” She continued. You taught a few Clinical Statistics classes during my freshman year.”
What Doctor Lin, visiting professor of Social Biology honestly failed to remember, was the night that Sam Poser took it upon himself to escort a slightly inebriated Jenny Lin back to her dorm room. Like many young women, fresh out of high school and sudden out on their own, Jenny had succumbed to frat house peer pressure. He suspected the incident was probably her first and only. Unfortunately for him, the opportunity to escort her home was his first and only. A less than honorable escort probably could have had an easy time in forcing himself upon such an intoxicated girl. And although Sam held her close and firmly anchored her staggering body against his as they made their way across the campus field; the only liberty that he availed himself to was the deep and copious inhalation of her fragrant, long and silky jet black hair; as it lay nestled under his chin. He kindly patronized all her dizzily muttered resolutions and nonsensical edicts, much the way a father consoles a wonder lust daughter. Despite all his academic accomplishments and accolades, memories of that night remained one of the best moments of his life. To Dr.Lin, it was a moment of time forever lost in the dusty, seldom visited passageways of the subconscious.

All of this had occurred at least six or seven years ago. Now before him stood that same Jennifer Lin, now accomplished, some of her incoherent edicts now fulfilled. Rather than aged, she had bloomed; she had become even more beautiful and endearing in Sam’s eyes. Academics always took a front seat in Doctor Poser's life and he had given it the full attention due. Now looking at her made him wish he had settled for a less demanding major and, a more active social life.
His reevaluation of his life was interrupted. Several other scientists made their way down the hall and general introductions were made all around. Professor Hollis broke ranks from the huddle to approach one of the workmen, oblivious a foreman. Although he did not whisper, his conversation was directed solely for the attention of the workman. The Institute was in the process of taking full advantage of a new round of grants and awards afforded it. Other funds had been freed up and had been appropriated for Professor Hollis to allocate at will.
It had been documented that quakes, shakes, tremors and other natural maladies were taking place with increasing frequency here in the early decades of the 21st. Century. The Institute itself was stealthily and precariously perched in the picturesque hillsides of seismic prone San Diego. Although the building was less than fifteen years old, taking advantage of any and all the recent and newest innovations in retrofitting and the likes was an investment best acted upon. Professor Hollis had siphoned off large tracks of the allocated funds to improvise some specific changes of his own design.

Situated in the center of the facility, much like an enormous atrium was a Bio-Square and Wildlife Habitat. The lifeblood of the institute focused around this area. Had it not stood where stood a sizeable auditorium could have filled in the space. Much of the commotion and going ons with the workmen and craftsmen centered more on this area than any other of the building.
The foreman who spoke a little louder than Hollis and with a certain frustration informed and assured the Professor once again on the quality of his product and service. The viewing panel was constructed with Octive/8 Sensing-Nanobytes technology. The panels would be able to shift gradient from crystal clear to pitch black at command. The Chamelion-Protron embedded sensors even allowed the controller to give the viewing panel the high definition appearance of anything from a city nightscape to a lush rain forest or, any other image the user desired to upload.
"And the other thing?” Queried a nervous and slightly apprehensive, Professor Hollis.
"Yes it can stop a seventy four caliber amour piercing shell at point blank range with hardly a scratch.” Declared the cocky foreman.

Dr.Lin could not stop wondering what bullet proof viewing panels had to do with retrofitting and earthquake proofing. She unintentionally overheard bit and pieces of the conversation. The others took no note of the adjacent conversation. Professor Hollis orchestrated the final dismissal and assured Dr.Lin that by the time of her start date that the construction should have been completed and that the residents of the Habitat should be back on board and well settled in. Dr. Lin beamed as she took one last look at the home of her soon to be new clients, and then parted company. The Return
As not to cause the animals’ undue stress during the reconstruction period, the animals had been moved to the San Diego Zoo’s Wild Life Preserve. Upon their return they found numerous things much to their disliking, most notable was the absence of the man-made playground delights, toys, fun tools and the much adored and prized tire swings. But being the beast they were they soon settled in to the new surroundings without much debate.

Once things had returned to some degree of normal a staff meeting was called for all supervisory and lead personnel. Professor Hollis briefed the department heads of the various sciences and disciplines. He informed them on a new round of progressive experimentation and direction which he planned to take the Institute. His manner of speech and mannerisms seemed almost prophetic in nature, Moses-like in quality, as he addressed the spell bind crowd.

“Esteemed colleagues you have been appointed here at the Kinderstein Institute because you are the best and most prolific scientist in your field. Yet the field that you have appointed yourselves to is in bad need of an overhaul”. Professor Hollis now expression turned deadly serious.

“We, here at this institute as well as others involved in Primate Studies and Sciences have been studying, writing papers as well as pontificating so eloquently, the same damn things over and over again. For instance we go to great lengths to boisterously publish our reports. We pontificate upon glorious myths of evolution as if they were truly proven as scientific fact. Yet in our multitudes of experiments and studies ‘ monkeys and apes do as monkeys and apes have always done’ since man has had the ability himself to master writing and communicate his observations.

We construct these false environment for study and when the beast finally adapt to one of our little experiments, we proudly proclaim that this in someway validates the Evolutionary Theology that we proselytize upon the rest of the world.

Wherever Hollis was going with this, he most certainly had the attention of the room. Poser even caught sight of an excited Jennifer suggestively squirming in her seat as if sexually aroused. Hollis waved his pointer rod at the assembly as if it was the ‘Staff of Aaron’. Hollis had all the outward appearances of a phony but he was perhaps one of the most brilliant minds on the planet .Poser’s internal acknowledgment of such did little for his threatened self esteem. But, he had to give the man his due.

Hollis went on to explain to the assembled group the certain modification which had taken place inside the Bio-square/Habitat. Gone were the man-made applications. In their place were natural items from the environment that with minor manipulation could be fitted, used as, or supplant the former man-made objects. For instance, situated roughly in the same area of the favored tire swings were sturdy crafted hanging vines the ends of which were fashioned into hooks. Nearby these sights were scattered reef-like woven wheels of branches and natural twine. If an insight ape were to make the connection, that the reefs could be affixed to the hooked vines; such an ape would find itself once again delighting in the ecstasy of first class swing.
Sam knew that Hollis was on to something. In his own field he had often wondered what the point was. Every other year or so, someone would discover a new fossil that they would cite conclusively established the link between man and ape, only to have it supporting evidence refuted in following years. For all its uproar, even monumental discoveries such as
‘Lucy’ had now been so discredited that it had been mysteriously erased clean from memory and all anthropological texts and journals. He applauded the Professor’s presentation but not nearly with the enthusiasm Jenny or the others had shown the professor. Interestingly it was Sam, many weeks later, who was the first to discover that Bonzo, his favorite of the primates, was gently rocking himself to and fro, high amidst the treetops, over the turbine generated brook.

Sam took his time about making the announcement. By the time the summoned group had assembled at the viewing panel on level A-4; Bonzo’s peace had been interrupted. Chornos, the dominant Alpha Male had pirated control of the newly designed swing for the pleasure of his own clan.
The center was ablaze in merriment and excitement. Champaign was uncorked.Scientist from one study group compared notes with scientist from another. Jenny must have truly learned a valuable lesson that night on campus because this time, much to Sam’s dismay, she did not take part in the celebratory Champaign consumption. He did find an opportunity to briefly engage her in conversation through. She retrieved for his pleasure certain notes on evolution from the Social Biologist perspective. He managed to move his hand, ever so gently to come into contact with hers as she displayed her notes. She very politely and not at all abrupt but, she even more ever so gently disengaged that contact. Dr.Poser's concentration returned to academics with a vengeance.

It was in the weeks following the breakthrough ushered in by Bonzo that several of the other primates had also made connections. They had fashioned some crude tools and toys from the items crafted from natural products. Bonzo spent most of his time sulking in the fact that he was never able to capture his swing throne back from the dominate clan. Rather than fashion a new swing Bonzo would from time to time try to re-stake his claim only to be frighten off by the usurping Chornos.
It was in the weeks proceeding the breakthrough ushered in by Bonzo that several of the other primates had also made connections and were able to fashion tools and toys from the items crafted from natural products. Bonzo never was able to capture his swing throne back from the dominate clan. Rather than fashion a new swing Bonzo would from time to time try to re-stake his claim only to be frighten off by the usurping Chornos.

The development that most pleased Professor Hollis was Experiment KI/1005. In this experiment an abundance of sharpen branches had been left near a shallow pond. Even before the renovations to the habitat it was well documented that the primates had shown more than a curiosity towards the plump Oscars and other pond fish inhabiting the pond. On a few occasions a primate had actually managed to catch a fish or two. The prize was then quickly and happily consumed.

Now the primates had figured out that by throwing the sharpen branches into the water that sooner or later one just might spear a fish. Within days of that development, more critical aiming had begun. It was shortly after this development that Professor Hollis once again summoned his inner circle and all essential department heads. He announced that the, so far, successful experiment was to be propelled into even a new level.

Most the center's ancillary staff was reassigned to the Institute’s other buildings and locations in and around San Diego and Southern California. Even the security functions and patrols for the interior of the building were given over to surveillance cameras. Professor Hollis noted that for secrecy and safety all but essential personnel would still have access to the building. "Why Safety" wondered Dr.Lin.

Dr.Lin puzzlement over safety was soon addressed. It had been several weeks. The Bio-square and Habitat was functioning just fine with the base skeleton crew left aboard. A new crew of craftsmen arrived to make further adjustment and modifications to what purpose the staff had not been informed. After their work had been completed, Hollis convened another meeting.

.
“What two factors, in the history of mankind, have championed the quest for ingenuity, inventions and innovation like no other stimulus”, Hollis quizzed the assembled group as if they were once again students back in their college classes. Naturally, as an assembly of accomplished scientist, each attendee had his own views on this question. It was only Dr.Lin that verbally provided one of the answers that Hollis was searching the group for. “Yes that right, Dr.Lin, The use of tools. Hollis had taken a special joy in the fact that Dr.Lin provided at least on of the answers he was looking for. He had come to think of her as his personal protégée; amongst his other thoughts about her

No one provided the other answer he was searching for and this equally pleased the Professor as well as he once again lapsed into dramatic rendering. Hollis, clicker in hand, dimmed the lights and made his way over to a projection board.

“Violence begets Weapons” The bold font scrolled across the board, supplemented by montage of weapons from primitive clubs to laser and ultrasound guided missiles. “Weapons beget War” Scenes of carnage from the various ages of man greeted the group. Enactments of ancient wars to real time sequences of the more than 42 major conflicts currently taking place in the world “War begets Progress”
Images or jet travel, battlefront advances in medicine. Radar/sonar applications advance from their wartime operations to their use in modern integration in the hospital sciences and communication fields. A lengthy and impressive list of inventions that owe their existence due the causation of war concludes the presentation.
“And Progress begets Evolution.” Professor Hollis had turned off the projection board, and in the dark room, verbally added the final summation without the benefits of graphics. The lights slowly emerged. Professor Hollis supplemented his last statement by removing from his lab coat pocket something that made Dr.Lin issue a light but audible gasp. The world renowned scientist produced, to the discomfort of the assembled group, a nickel plated firearm, which appeared to resemble a 44 caliber magnum handgun yet at an approximate 30% reduction in scale.

The first few weeks, Professor Hollis himself lead the experiment. He had chosen a small group of a select few to assist. Once a safe environment had been secured inside the habitat, the professor’s in-service to the apes began. He would aim the pistol at various targets. The target bore on their surface a representation of a favorite fruit of delicacy that the apes were only treated to on special occasions. If the bullet were to properly strike the target, above a container would release the true item. The gun had several safety features. Upon leaving the enclosure Hollis would remove the live rounds and in its place load digital tracer rounds. The tracer rounds would have the same effect upon the target without the lethal fire power. Also an embedded microchip allowed the gun to be turned off from a remote station. The professor and his entourage would then leave the semi-functional weapon for the curiosity of the primates. At first the primate assembly would simply gorge themselves on the released treats but as the weeks progressed and the day in and day out demonstration by the professor and his personal entourage continued; a connection was ascertained by the apes. They first tried hurling the gun at the target when this failed; closer inspection of the article by the entire dominate clan was initiated.

One of the younger adolescent apes managed to accidentally squeeze off a round. The frighten horde took cover in the dense bush, spooked by the sound. Although the digital tracer rounds did not have anywhere close to the impact that a live round would have had nevertheless the clumsy discharge of the weapon did draw blood from one of the other clan members. After sympathy and mild attendance was administered to the stricken member, Chornos took full possession of the gun; the time for public inspection had drawn to a close.

The professor was ok with Chornos taking full possession of the weapon. When the daily display of target practice would occur, Chornos’ weapon would be inactivated via the implanted microchip and the professor would produce a twin pistol to conduct the lesson.

Much to the professor’s dismay Chornos still took no real interest in firing of the weapon though he clung to it and examined it almost hourly. Chornos being so occupied by his new possession allowed the elements of his clan to roam free and from under his watchful gaze. Tam Tutu one of the younger members, and as humans we assume more desirable members of the Chornos harem had found the unsupervised time liberating and chose to spend many a delightful hour in the throes of the babbling brook swing. Bonzo from a distance eyed this as perfect time to retake his claim however, rather than oust Tam Tutu, the two eventually wound up making beautiful swing together.

Doctor Lin was the first one to discover the tragedy. She had arrived earlier than the rest of the remaining small group. She had not planned to engage in observation but, passing through one of the corridors housing the display panels something amiss caught the periphery of her vision. The lush jungle images projected by the viewing panel did not allow for optimal viewing, even so she stopped. What was it? Something looked disturbingly out of sync. She adjusted the viewing panel to clear window vision.
It was still early morning light in the Habitat so she had to strain to make it out. In a dense patch of bush was the motionless protruding belly of one of the apes. What appeared to be blood had spilled over and matted its thick coat. She rushed to the closest lab that she had access to and like a submarine captain, commandeered the rotating video cams. Once she had found the right cam to bring her into range she proceeded to zoom in for closer inspection. The hump was indeed the protruding belly of one of the primates. The beast belly was indeed matted with thick congeal blood. Although not a medical doctor or a veterinarian, Jennifer Lin had no doubt that she was witnessing the aftermath of a gun shot wound. However, she did not in the least suspect that the several still shots she took of the scene could have been submitted into evidence as photos of the crime scene; had apes been subjected to humanoids courts of law. How could a tracer round have done such damage puzzled Dr.Lin.

Thinking fast Dr.Lin secured all the video-files from the various cam stations and downloaded them directly to a private account that Professor Hollis had set up for her personal use only. Even though Professor Hollis had a great amount of leave way in conducting activities at the Institute, everyone has to report to someone. If her boss or colleagues had made an error she wanted them fully prepared to address any inquiry that might arise from such.

She then phoned Hollis and briefed him on the situation. He instructed her to deny access to all personnel until his arrival. Much to the dismay of Professor Hollis, after viewing video tape surrounding the time of the gunshot captured on audio-scope, Hollis was unable to view what he was sure a murder. It was what he was able to see preceding the shooting that confirmed his suspicions. Since the monkey-made and natural swing was the sight of the experiment’s most celebrated breakthrough thus far, a camera had been fixed upon that sight.

The camera captured the melodrama of a brawl that had occurred in the vicinity of the crime scene. The gun toting Chornos along with his favorite off-spring Prince Valiant had made their way towards the swing for late evening gymnastics. Chornos was startled than enraged to find that movement in the thick bush was being generated by Tam Tutu and Bonzo. Chornos rained down blows upon both of them to breakup the coupling. He signaled out Bonzo for an especially vicious beating and biting. Bonzo finally managed to wrestle his way from under the girth of Chornos but his flight was not without incident. A still enraged Chornos hurled the gun at Bonzo. It caught him alongside an already bleeding scalp. A quick reacting (or possibly even thinking?) Bonzo quickly scooped up the gun. He then made a few threatening gestures towards Chornos and promptly disappeared into the density of the foliage. This alone would have been significant circumstantial evident to at least link Bonzo as a prime suspect in the murder of Chornos had they been denizens of the Homo Sapiens world. But there was something else, a single thing that excited Hollis the most. He needed the opinion of a Physical Anthropologist.

When Poser was finally allowed admittance to the center, he was quickly set upon by an ecstatic Hollis. Hollis had masked his enthusiasm in the presence of the mournful Dr.Lin but in the presence of Hollis he could no longer contain himself. He shared with Poser the video recording of the scuffle at the swing. He then went to slow motion and zoom to capture the imagine of the fleeing Bonzo. He got Poser to agree that first in the fleeing there was something about the gait that seemed un-monkey like almost human. Poser deflected this to a surge of adrenalin, probably at a level never before experienced by the beast. The wild waving of the gun and threaten gestures Bonzo had displayed once at a safe distance, Poser concluded was nothing more than primate chest thumping now with an accompanying prop. Poser offered no explanation when triumphantly Hollis freeze- framed and zoomed in on the eyes of Bonzo just before fleeing. The vengeful look was not that of an ape. It was cruel and it was calculating.

It was this look alone that moved a jubilant Hollis to cast his guilty verdict upon Bonzo. Dr.Poser kept mum and non reactive, at least on the outside. He asked
if he could have a copy of the tape for further viewing. Once sworn to secrecy Hollis granted Poser his wish.

Once in the solitude of his office Dr.Poser watched the video over and over again, countless times. He took detailed notes. He paused the tape many times in order to referrer to his collected volumes of information on primate physiology and psychology. The work day was drawing to a close. In his excitement, Poser had not even left his office to take lunch. The observations by the professor had been on target even the ones that Poser tried to dismiss or explain away. Something had triggered in Bonzo a wave of evolutionary adaptations never before witnessed in a single lifetime, if at all.

It was now falling into the evening hours. Poser wanted to have access to more of the tapes. He wanted to chronologically trace the actions and development
of Bonzo since the invention of the swing. Most of the staff had already left. Upon approaching Professor Hollis’ semi opened door he heard the soft giggles and gasps of Jennifer Lin. She was seated in the professor’s chair. Hollis leaned very closely over her, one hand lightly grazing her shoulder, as he shared with her notes of an unspecified nature. Poser lost train of his thoughts and left the institute more agitated than excited.

Professor Hollis was the last one to leave the institute that night. He made no effort to retrieve the pistol from its formidable new possessor as the others thought he would. And the clandestine depositing of a second pistol in the vicinity of Chornos’ former clan was also by no means an accident. The next day Professor Hollis ordered that viewing panels remain on rain forest display. Such a display greatly reduced the optimal viewing ability. Any intensive viewing or video scans and searches of the Habitat could be obtained with Hollis’ permission.

Posers although already a member of the inner circle was now unofficially promoted to second in command as it were. He was given access to all but a few codes and secured areas. Hollis had seen through his smoke screen. He knew that Poser was hooked in regards to his theory of the rapid evolution of Bonzo as sparked by violence. He confided to him that the rounds were live by design. What he did not inform him of was that of the second weapon. The interior of the habitat was off limits to all except the Professor for the time being however, he did share the new entry codes and showed Poser how to deactivate the handgun(s) in the event of an emergency. A master switch could shut down all weapons even the ones that Poser did not know about such as the one now in the midst of the Chornos clan and a third snuggled in the waistband of the Professor, under his pristine lab coat.

It was Poser himself who made the discovery of a second tragedy.
If the Habitat at the Kinderstein Institute had a daily newspaper the headlines could have read

. “MURDERS ROCK THE BUSH, The recent spat of violence continues”

But the amount of monkeys, time and typewriters had so far thus not been allocated to the Institute.

In the days following the Chornos murder, Poser had become quite fond of Bonzo. Not only was his fondness and fascination with Bonzo based on the seemingly rapid rate of evolutionary patterns that the beast had adopted. There was a certain attachment, identification with the underdog that underlined some of the doctor’s sentiments and affection for the beast. He viewed Bonzo as the bullied one who eventually rose not only to re-claim his rightful invention but also to assert himself and his brain power as the dominant factor in the role of evolution. In this case of Survival of the Fittest brains had clearly prevailed over brawns. And wasn’t that the way evolution, at least in Homo Sapiens,
was supposed to present?

Poser did have carte blanche to video scan and to increase visibility to optimal viewing. Poser could not hold back a tear as he viewed Bonzo’s body, in plain sight, not hidden like Chornos’ corpse was. A gaping hole of goop now stood in the place where Bonzo jaw once had chewed the organically grown snacks of the Bio-square. The pistol lay close by. Had Bonzo grown too curious about the pistol?

Poser wrote down as many observations as he could before informing Hollis. His
access to the complete video monitor history had been denied although he had believed that this was one of the codes that the Professor had given him. He was about to make his report when he heard a second shot.

Damn! He forgot to shut off the master switch to the weapon(s). Another primate must have swiped up the gun from Bonzo’s objection-less presence. He hurriedly fumbled for keys to gain entry to a small room that housed a single computer terminal. Now that the danger of more carnage was over he rushed back to the viewing panel to see what ape had swiped the weapon. He was stupefied to see that the gun which he believed to have done the remodeling to Bonzo’s jaw, was laying right where it was in his last viewing. But how, But what? He ran the length corridors of the Habitat looking at this viewing panel and commandeering that video cam. Finally he came across Prince Valiant, contently sitting mid court of what was formerly known as the Chornos Clan. He was munching on kiwi fruit, one of the treats accessible only through the grace of humans or by correct aiming. By the pistol lying by his side, Poser had no choice to conclude that it was by the latter by which Prince Valiant had obtained the fruit. Prince Valiant dark fur belly also contained the remnants of splattered blood, body tissue and teeth. There was no doubt about it, Prince Valiant, Chornos’ favorite off-spring had killed, no assassinated Bonzo, at point blank range. Based on his shooting skills at hitting the target, he had shot Bonzo at a distance not necessary.

Dr.Poser ran back to where Bonzo body had fallen. Finding the nearest entry portal into the Bio-square/Habitat, he entered. With out much ceremony or hesitation he went straight for the discarded pistol. What he did next showed no sign of evolution in the Humanoid’s camp.

He re-entered the computer room and re-activated the enabling chip within the weapons. Poser had planned to kill Prince Valiant and would have done so if the distinct rhythmic sound of the short taps of Dr.Lin’s stylish yet professional heels had not distracted him. Her presence caused him to re-think? He tucked the pistol into his waistband and frantically went to inform her of the second murder.

No mention of a second weapon was brought to light by Dr.Poser, Professor Hollis or any other of the esteemed scientist as a day long agenda of meetings, briefing, mini-meetings and consultations progressed. Begrudgingly, Poser had a new assignment study to analyze. Complimenting his pistol play skills, Prince Valiant appeared also to be enacting some physical manifestation and mannerisms unknown in the residents of the Habitat, except in the case of
The now deceased Bonzo.

Professor Hollis could have easily tracked down the whereabouts of the second weapon via a computer search function. Poser was not informed of that capability. Imagine Hollis’ surprise if he would have done so, only to find, it location confirmed; tucked in the waistband of Dr.Poser. A condition that Hollis knew well.

However presently Professor Hollis interests outweigh such a maneuver. Dr. Lin still had not outgrown a provocative girlish excitement that bordered on arousal when stimulated by academics, discovery or anything else. Professor Hollis had no intention of allowing such energy to merely dissipate into thin air. He made his best attempts at corralling and harnessing such energy for his own delights and pleasures. As he showed her more and more relevant and classified information on the experiment, the more and more Dr.Lin squirmed, gasped in ecstasy and graced her lips with her tongue. As the work day ended, Professor Hollis gathered as many personal binders both relevant and not, and escorted Dr.Lin out. They both left in the same car. Their departure, especially since loaded down with such a magnitude of paperwork, had not particular effect one way or another on any of the other colleagues; except for Dr.Poser, the world’s foremost expert in Primate Anthropology. Perhaps it was his training or perhaps it was his jealousy but, Dr. Poser could interpret primate body language better than most.

Professor Hollis, being a married man, would have to return to retrieve his own vehicle. Dr.Poser hypothesized. He then decided to stay late and burn the midnight oil.

Poser ignored the directive concerning the viewing panels. Now that all had left he adjusted the panels to clear glass and 100% optimal viewing. He wanted a full examination of the beast, the killer’s actions. He also wanted the beast to know that his condemning eye was taking precise inventory of its actions and it’s every move.
And although assumingly, Dr.Poser had returned to his senses; we still can not say that murder was still not on the back of his mind. But for the time being, Prince Valiant as a scientific study subject proved to be more valuable alive than as a corpse.

Professor Hollis and Dr.Lin returned much sooner than Poser had expected. Perhaps this was no midnight surrey after all. His relief was however short lived. Although the both of them still held volumes of notebooks and papers under their arms. The long lashed doe eyed Dr.Lin was no longer in her sleek professional skirt. She now wore bulky sweats, and oversized MIST college hoodie and, her usually salon quality hair was pulled back in a loose bun in the manner reminiscent of Saturday house cleaning detail. Professor Hollis no longer hovered over her. The was no need. She now walked very close to him attempting to mimic his every step in order to stay in unison. The panels were still at clear 100% visibility and the professor was conveying his anger over this insubordination to Dr.Lin. Poser spooked them both by soft stepping down the hall to where they were engaged in assessing the situation. Poser held back no pretense and attempted to put forth his best sarcastic tone.

“Oh Professor Hollis, I thought I heard your voice and, at this hour, I assumed that of your wife.

“Dr. Poser I know you are excited about the new findings but I suggest you go home and get some rest.

“Well by the looks of things it seems that you in Dr. Lin have gotten in some sack time, Poser said with a boldness that frightened even him.

“I don't know what you are trying to insinuate Dr. Poser but I must say I don't care for your tone”. Hollis was quite visibly angry. He puffed up and closed ranks on the distance between him and Poser.

“Lawrence”. Intervened Dr.Lin, addressing him by his first name. Professor Hollis was a man of authority and he when need be, he commanded that that authority be respected. He whispered some of that authority into her ear and she turned to leave. It was in her leaving that she spotted the gun tucked in Poser's waistband

“Dr.Poser she stressed, is everything alright? Maybe the three of should go out for coffee sit down and talk”. Unaware of the gun, Hollis rebuffed this idea as another imposition on his authority.

“Sam is my employee, not my confident and certainly not my priest or psychologist. And I truly hope not a nosey neighbor attempting to mind my business. His business is the performance of the tasks I assign to him. Is that clear Dr.Poser?

Incensed at the derogrotory way he was being addressed, Doctor did what many humanoids, equipped as his was equipped would do. To gain the upper hand on the issue of respectability, he allowed his lab coat to fly open and with all the bravado of a street corner thug, exposed his weapon. Jennifer clung to the professor. Such an action greatly annoyed Poser and he moved his threat level to the next color. He withdrew the gun from the waistband and promptly aimed it at the professor.
“Weapons beget Violence “he continued to repeat, verbatim, the entire diatribe that the professor had offered at that eventful meeting. Concluding with a certain madness in his voice he summarized.

“I wonder what sort of life form I might evolve into?”

“Dr.Lin was horrified not by one but by two gun shots, as the professor rapidly withdrew his own weapon as a response to the bullet left in his lower abdomen. Both men fell to the immaculate polished floor of the Kinderstein Institute for Primate Studies.

END

Phillip Ghee 7/5/08

Pastry Office Tea Break

2008-07-07T09:48:00.000-07:00

She kept quiet company.

That is to say almost none.

Indulging in student fantasies from her bedroom. A career lost, life about to begin. She was 40 and single but still amused.

Jane was ordinary. Overtly there was nothing remarkable about her. Inwardly, she would tell you it was the much the same. A job in a pastry office - she posted pastries at the depot of an internet pastry seller - her job required conversation only with her colleague Mary and her boss Stephen.

Stephen was satisfied with her work, though wished she'd open up more; engage in get-togethers with the other pastry officers. Fun things like the annual staff beer and skittles evening at the Thorn's Foot or cornish pasties on the common - an innovation of Stephen's more and less well-attended that happened once a month - were an anathema to her and made it harder for Stephen to divert her attention towards an after-hours drink, alone, with him.

Mary was her other company. Fifteen years younger and just as drifting, Mary would be comforted that she could drift a few more years and still not end up like Jane. And Mary gave Jane a youthful hope, a freshness to her own ambitions which were by any standard modest:

1) To open a bakery

2) Make love to James Meek

Mary and Jane would spend two fifteen minute coffee breaks together per day. Lunch times were staggered for efficiency. These conversations over rosehip, hibiscus and biscuits were pure delight. For anyone listening: a drudgery.

Theirs was a shared imagination, a collective tale they sought to embellish between sips. Characters would be illuminated, killed off, forced together in matrimony, acrimoniously split apart. Given jobs, plastic surgery, fired, have affairs. Clothes were a particular speciality - coloured and designed to the finest detail and ensured they didn't clash.

It was a shared imagination, because it couldn't be said to belong to either individually. As months went by it became clear to both that what was in the mind of the other was perfectly recreated in her own. References to Miss Frimm's yellow slippers or David Hendryson's arm-worn bottle-green sofa initially admitted mild surprise but became commonplace as the other had already imagined not just the name but the garment or furniture piece exactly.

By eight months delighted conversations of the ever more convoluted lives of characters were no longer necessary. And this is why for the observer the drudgery set in. What seemed like innocent, playful exchanges with warm grins, some times outrageous laughter, at others gasps of surprise as they collectively unfurled a tale-twister subsided into dazed silence. You could have called it frosty with barely a hello as they took seats opposite each other, settling into a somnolent gaze over the edge of cups. But you might have missed the occasional look, eyes directed engagingly at the other, a lidless wink betrayed by dint of shining; knowing and understood. Enough recognition that they were on the same page that for the other it was just as miraculous but there was no need to say it.

For the story had not stopped. In the silence of their minds, what had started as dog walkers exchanging morning pleasantries on rainy park corners had born communities, council offices, systems of exchange, trade commisioners, corporate dealing pools, international credit facilities, grand sporting events and their accompanying stars, moguls and entertainers, world leaders and political games players. In short they had founded a mental civilisation.

But do not think the dog walkers, post office keepers, music hall entertainers had been forgotten. Far from it. Doing without public bodies and international actors was fine for a time, it was simply that Mary and Jane discovered that as personalities and dramas had multiplied they needed appropriate systems and institutions to allow them to play out as well as provide cunning set-pieces for more drama to unfurl. The play needed a stage and occasionally the stage would intervene to shake up the play. But the Stimmersons baby would still be born 7lb 5 and Adebola Gamaya would still be surprised in Ghana when the new stadium was built on his street corner.

There were two things they would not allow:

War and dictators.

Civil unrest was fine as long as it resulted in a warm hug-match between confronting parties allowing for closer union between governments and people and an unending dialogue that enriched the interests of both.

For Mary and Jane, the story stopped at the tea table. Folding and posting pastries to every corner of Britain, (soon expanding to Europe and the USA courtesy of the new past-fresh technology that treated the pastry as if it was frozen but allowed it to stay at room temperature, thus able to travel thousands of miles and still arrive ready to eat, without the need to bake or defrost. Delicious home-baked pastries at the click of a button, with next-day delivery and no need to leave your desk) absorbed their full attention. They imagined the varied destinations, the sort of mouths the food would fill, the people they belonged to. Occasionally one would linger before being parcelled, bring a tear to the eye, followed by a prayer for the well-being of the consumer and wishes of comfort for their loss. Though notice that this happened quite individually, without the knowing of the other though no doubt enriched their ongoing story as new characters came to mind as they sat in grey cubicles, surrounded by boxes of pastries, piles of wrapping and lists of address to which their packages would be farmed.

At the day's end a brief goodbye would part them, take them to separate flats and again no further imagining would embellish their utopia.

On the walk home they would stroll past advertisements for the Sims, conversations about Second Life and the marvelling hysteria it brought out in those around them, and chuckle wryly to themselves that such games needed things as clumsy as mouse pointers and motherboards, when a pastry office tea break was quite enough.

-----

This story also appeared at The Ever Rolling Snowball

Starve, c/o : David Dees.,

2008-07-02T02:43:00.000-07:00

this picture up there., it begs the questions that we all know the answers to but are usually - literally - too damned unconcerned about to answer or do anything about... is it right that 20% of the world have no access to clean drinking water yet alone decent food supplies whilst just around the corner in the global village there is a thriving industry to suck the fat out of people who have over eaten to the point of it becoming dangerous to health..? of coures you know the answers, but the questions themselves have almost become cliche, not cool or anti-social or whatever the consumer junkies dubb them, anyway, once again, a pot of gold from our old friend David Dees.,