I sit in Hoi An, Viet Nam 17 days into “shelter in place” orders from the central committee. My circumstances given what the world faces are comfortable, if not benign. As ever, most torment in my life is at my own hand. My vices are in check and what relations i allow are kind, or gone, yet i would presume to take your time for complaint¿ WTF is that all about? I have music, means to express myself and a vehicle for expression though it be a 50 cc 2 cycle in a world ruled by Maserati technology. My faculties are intact if that is a word to describe my framework some 65 odd years past my breech - more accurately a Franks Breech · ass 1st i arrived and from what i understand about intestinal rectitude on death - ass first i shall depart. (coughing jag @ during the corona-19 epoch not withstanding)· Los Lobos visits just now on my music channel which is restricted to a single processor, owning no phone and eschewing apps of all kind. Internet is highly suspect due to the obtuse supervision and contribution of Art Intel which may or may not have misinterpreted the human’s fascination for the word “viral” and zigged when it should have zagged.
Who knows, and who cares is a condition which seems to remains fundamental and immune to interpretation, or it’s polite euphemism - spin · Yet from where i sit watching a country struggle to remain close to the blessed wonder of a leader who actually led - such that by simple loving logic, Ho Chi Minh literally handed Uncle Sam his ass on a platter. Yet in less time than it has taken my life to past, the land my nation once conspired to denude, destabilize and destroy is even at this time of “defense against contamination" building more and more “units” for entertaining that same destructive wolf now wearing the cloak of entrepreneurial infusion - this deceit drives me to distraction. However, i am old facing my death spiral and my progressive zeal is blunted by self-awareness and fatigue - i will not help those who will not help themselves · I search my experience for unconditional love and see my own selfishness at each turn - that ego declaration i am repulsed by from others handing out bezo bounty calling it the “future”.
I do not wish to wallow in my history which is unique and rich, for if past is prologue, where i sit now is as rich and worthy of my entire focus - such as it is, as anyplace i have ever been in my life. Just now my farmer neighbors with whom i hold most solidarity are entertaining the newest child in the clan. I editorialize my excoriating judgement about tobacco infestation and cultural contamination which are norms for me, but can be seen as newfound “social distancing” for the world i have yet to find a place in. I love Hoi An, there is a rich history which allows for immersion into an environment which can only recognize itself in hindsight, but is yoked to the present by how to "make a living" - not much different than my own world view. My limited strategy has been to evacuate at the first sign of dissension - while in many ways practical, also is in many ways a precipitous life strategy· If that sounds like complaint, it is not - what you read is simple fear, mine own. Having been birth-evacuated to a ‘merican beauty besought by two prior births and a husband as poetic as his life’s trajectory to which he and his loins were condemned - a confused infusion to a regional DNA strand delaminating from the greed of a WWII victory.
How does greed fit into a limitless universe said every billionaire who has ever raped and pillaged from the dawn of time¿ From what i can see around me, the answer to that question has been the ability to frame such a selfish ambition as honorable - “if i were ‘he/r’ i would be different; i would disperse my gain, however achieved more equitably, because i am more noble." I say this because of my own conceit that i am better able to give to others by simple virtue of my “enlightened” upbringing - (picture tongue piercing cheek) · still i press forward in my mist of fatigue and surrender. I have now finished my allotment of vice as it closes in on the witching hour which contains my few hours of substance surcease. My sole objective is the partial paragraph of personal profile i can provide to strangers who do not join, but from data the googol state provides, preview.
Pop was a HS english teacher who advocated the elegance of a 5 paragraph essay for expressive clarity, and who also demanded of me on a phase of his death bed to never quit writing. The past weeks have challenged that pledge which he pulled from my chest - not because i don’t enjoy the act of sharing, but because i am afraid that what i hold dear is unimportant to anyone but myself - so i say to you “unknown reader” Fuck you and the thge horse your rode in on" - an expression i learned from my mother’s 2nd husband. I loved him with great respect, mostly from the calm he brought to ma's brutal heart. My mother is 91 facing 92 in a locked facility in LB CA; her last exclamation to me was “you are obsequious” and as with most of any of the other unkind declarations she has ever made, i join it to the same confused judgement of those i’ve met and who do not possess imagination enough to peer beyond the harsh persona i struggle not to be, while focusing more closely with the character i am learning i consist of;
or as Bernie Mac said so much better - “Fuck you, i’m not afraid of you.”
jts 17/04/2020
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
reprinted with permission - all rights reserved
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