300820 - Extinction Chronicles ·

“Wherever you stand, be the soul of that place.” - Rumi · I have been unkind to myself for so long that it makes me afraid to take my soul anywhere but where i stand. I am not exactly sure why i have been so unfriendly to myself. I have learned to watch my behavior such that it has been described to me as “hyper vigilance.” I have learned that not everybody will claim that behavior, but i’ve met many who will act it out - for example, the leader of the free world, “he who would call himself my president” routinely spews falsehoods, if i had to take a guess it is because he doesn’t possess a very healthy self-image. I know this because as a teenager, i would embellish the truth about things, or circumstances about which i lacked confidence. A better example might be “reaction formation” to the circumstances where i now live. Originally i sought sanctuary from my native land because of the “fakeness” it had come to embrace about what it means to be successful - i brought my fakeness with me · regardless of my intention, i feel i am a contaminate ·

I had grown up in a Southern California suburban city in Orange Country - renown for its conservative demographics and home to the richest per-capita community in the nation, at the time, Corona Del Mar. As such “keeping up with the Joneses” took on a diabolical complexion that was schizophrenic on its face. My 2nd hometown after Santa Monica was known as Goat Hill; at the base of Goat Hill's cliffs, the price per square foot on the bay was the highest in the nation. There was no escape from the mythology of the “Haves and Have-nots.” When ma married her 2nd husband a CEO from an insurance brokerage firm and moved to Beverly Hills it tore the working class roots of my family’s history down the center and called into question every closely held prejudice i possessed. He, my stepfather loved my mother well and mended wounds she’d carried alone throughout my childhood, mostly because she and my father did not communicate well - and i believe he was tending to his own wounds without any help, ironically the same as she.

I loved my stepfather, but never held solidarity with his faith in wealth - my kin, not so much · Each, to my limited understanding about their lives and what they believe, embraced in part, or in whole, the notion that “life is like a shit sandwich, the more bread ya’ got, the less shit you have to eat;” it is, i believe a fiction that my native land has bought hook, line and sinker. But it also became my nation’s greatest export - the delusion of the “infinite growth paradigm.” This paradox has come home to roost in my magical window. I live adjacent to a farmer family who are as decent as the day is long and as indefatigable as the day is to the morning. At some point in our relationship as neighbors, food began to appear at my window. Simple meals and delicious - what is difficult to explain is that i had moved to this country because it allowed me to fend for myself as i have for the past 50 years, and still have enough left over to contribute. So no matter how i phrase my appreciation, and explain that i have more food than i can prepare, or how badly i feel about food i bought to eat going to waste - the window remains filled daily with delicious food, i would be a beast to decline.

There are worse dilemmas i know, but the paradox cuts to the core of our world - how to get what the haves have to the have nots · What i have found in my travels has been the recurring contingent of humanity bent on the reverse logic that is oh so popular with the Capital of my country - pun intended · Those fake entrepreneurs in their Brooks Brother suits that wouldn’t last a day in any market that i have shopped in for the past 5 years of my life are so brazen as to buy air time to convince poor people the only hope for success is to give more money to “empty suits” because that shows faith and good business sense. As a cocky kid i remember very clearly the first time i got “sharked” playing pool. The pool hall was close and housed a slot car track which allowed a lot of juvenile traffic. My neighbors at the time i was age 12-14 owned a pool table which i utilized a lot. This particular afternoon at the pool hall, my opponent set his hook and drew me in like a flopping fish out of water; i must have ridden my bike back to my secret stash of “summer allowance” a half dozen times before i had to accept the fact of superior forces - a hard, but long lived lesson·

I worry about lessons - self reliance was very nearly beaten into me by my pacifist, but not militant pacifist father · so when i am faced with a magic window that acts like a cornucopia, my inclination is to feed it rather than be fed; and “therein lies the rub” as Will might say. Wasichu is the name given to the white man in my native country - Wasichu means “he who takes the meatiest part of the bone.” So today in the midst of my existential conundrum, i determined to return the plate to the magical window with vittles from my day’s catch which included the long armature of a chicken; the paradox in a sentence is i chose the thigh for myself and cut off the drumstick to share with my friends, a gesture that sticks in my craw for its selfishness and exposure for the Wasichu i am, or the Wasichu i do not want to be. I D K. I know that until our generosity toward others is the same as we would show toward ourselves, regardless of self-image issues or assertions of fake kindness our world is gonna remain unfucked; the paradox for me is, i will never be able to give fully to another until i can completely accept that what i have is enough .  .. ··· go figure; what can i say? i like thighs - ask any one of my last 3 wives.

jts 30/08/2020  

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com 

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290820 - extinction chronicles ·

 “If you want to know me, look inside your heart.” - Lao Tzu · It seems in the midst of all the world’s current turmoil, the most difficult thing for me has been to help others; at least help in a way that aids them, not me. At another time in my development i’d chastise myself for ______fill in the blank, but sitting here puzzling the logic of contribution i realize that that frustration reveals my unacknowledged desire for approval. If i was honest with myself about my motivation to help others, failure would not factor into the equation, i would simply step back and readjust, and then seek a more effective way to serve. But my insatiable ego, my indestructible ego, my ever present ego - it’s almost as though the more i try to escape it, the stronger its hold on me · So do i simply let go and accept the “I” in my life reigns supreme and the ineffable, eternal soul i barely understand exists be abandoned¿ that is a question?

Even writing that i am aware of my facility for language that disturbs most and unsettles very nearly everyone i’ve ever known, except Winston, and Dave Simpson; et, very few al. Winston would simply look at me kindly and remark “you’re sick,” David’s strategy when faced with my withering repartee would whinny in his highest pitch mockery “CRAZY JOE” like the mutant hatchling clone from the bowels of aerospace hell that he could never be - just too human a guy · Russel Price took greater exception because we suffered similar maladies - mutual affection across party lines; David was invulnerable; he knew it and let it be, Russell was a reformer who felt if he could find the right formula, the correct combination of words - i would then understand and align myself with the killing work of the company. Our discourse finally distilled down to a barrier about knowledge - Russell asserting knowledge to be finite · i believing then, and now, in the infinite.

The irony being - regardless of the truth · we have only ourselves to blame. Were i to keel over right now struggling for the next word in this essay, the answer to our dialectic would have very little bearing, likely as true then as now. A truer discussion would include my affection for Russell as a person, and the loss i feel not knowing what he or David are experiencing right now. I left the computer lab where these semantic hijinks took place just as my 2nd marriage was collapsing - a move 400 miles North while in my 3rd semester of a Bachelor’s degree in English that did not improve my life much, but was a great career move for my wife · What that move did serve to do was clarify how exceedingly destructive my labor was, that no matter what bonhomie we’d conceived our computer lab tribe to possess - the fact remains our work made the lives of our children more precarious and less safe.

I accept that my attachment to that time in my life is the memory of belonging - i have always been drawn to periods of my experience when bonds were strong and enthusiasm high · in retrospect i felt the same alienation and self-doubt that plagues my steps today, but the feeling of mutual purpose and affection transcended, or deluded (depending on one’s perspective) much of the travail of that time, which in retrospect was as powerful then as now in its own way. How is this useful to the time we occupy facing the extinction of our species? I cannot recreate that delirious time, nor would i want to wander down that slippery slope of nostalgia. I think the more valuable lesson to take is to identify salient flags that might be recognizable in the path we all face. Our tribe was an unmanageable lot, and the smart leaders simply assigned us tasks and waited for outcomes. Mischief was a principle condition of the computer room we occupied - replete with an “apoplectic” button drawn on the blackboard for no other reason than to terrorize the sysadmin, for bringing the servers to their knees was routine sport for this band of renegades. 

And not - i can see it was the delusion of being within the “circle” and the sense of strength that feeling provides. It gives me sad insight into the reactionary base which the fascists are now playing like a bad fiddle. I know how it feels to draw strength from the frustrated ire of an opponent perceived to be outside of range. The zeal one draws from taunting the weakness of one or many who would restrict your agency and sovereignty, however real or imagined. This feeling is not all that much different than the personal strategies we each employ to retain the fictional control our egos demand about a world that is uncontrollable. Where i get into trouble is when i leave the moment and try to apply previous experience to current choices - a conceit that was beaten into me under the guise of learning from our mistakes · one must strongly believe that s/he has made a mistake to believe that something can be rectified; when in fact, if you are doing the wrong thing, just stop it. The world will adjust itself without your help.

jts 29/08/2020  

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com 

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280820 - Extinction Chronicles ·

I like pure chocolate without sugar and am not sure if it is because chocolate reminds me of my father’s excesses, or if my father’s excesses remind me of what is good about living. I worked a long time in engineering labs with people i considered very smart only to find that their well paid occupations determined far too much about that which they they believed. I was was lucky to have those the universe chose as my family - this even as 3 of the 6 are unified in their dismay of my ways and one whose maternal leadership was so confused as to render me a pariah for no more reason then my sibling’s apparent inability to individuate - or my own i’m sure, depending on where one is standing. Shit is in play and there is no conclusion until, as the renown bigot Yogi Berra was fond of opining - “the fat lady sings” · i’m not holding my breath anymore than i am relying on ma’s “intrinsic” confidence in my elder brother’s integrity about our shared estate.

Talk about your microcosm within macrocosm’s - and yes it is purely coincidental the elder brother favors cigars, unions and golf courses · talk about your “left-handed sleights. I tried the direct approach in our last conversation in the company of our father. My limited understanding of this particular visit - a walk around a very long block in our father’s last independent living circumstance · was candor. So i was honest and forthright about every reservation i had about the relationship of “our three.” It didn’t go well, no matter how much i implored the elder to “come clean” his only reply was the party line, “this isn’t about you,” like what the fuck is that supposed to even mean. I did my best, but hurt his feelings such that 10 years later he refuses to shed his nurtured hurt - it can’t be easy being him.

To pay me back for my effrontery for having candidly stated my reservations about my place in the family constellation - this same individual in whom ma had “intrinsic faith” in his integrity is so bitter as to share nothing about her condition with me, her estate, her frame of mind · much less how he feels to be the patriarch of a dying branch of a noble house. Do i sound bitter¿ do i sound open? do i care what you think. Should i admire by elder sibling for abdicating his responsibilities to openly and honestly share the state of our matriarch? I anticipated this pettiness and told ma early on, “I am not fighting my way to your side during your transition. You set this up and i will honor your desires to be left in the care of those who would judge me so harshly and describe it as your wish.” to which ma, bless her heart replied - thanks a lot ·

If you the reader experience this candid expression as a rant and vituperative reproach of one who is not present to defend themselves from baseless accusations; know that within the month i have forwarded a photo of a locale to my elder sibling which i’d hoped would be of benefit to the heart of a dying woman about a place she had described to me in our travels as having complex and rich memories - my sibling did not deign to reply or acknowledge my sharing of such, anymore than he accepted my request for “friendship” on facebook, the same as my sister who had also declined my similar request. I am not a dog; i may be faithful to you to no end - but there is a stop. I am old and alone, suffering with deep psychological scars from a family experience of which the valence has never been in my favor. From that experience i do not seek allegiance that comes with a price, nor do i veer from contributing to any circumstance i feel is necessary and worthwhile - as long as there are no trails to my efforts to help.

Am i superior - i am an asshole with violent often conflicting purpose · but i struggle with all the corpuscles of my being to remain neutral and observant, such that the actions i take are dictated by a higher purpose. “The high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule.” - Albert Einstein · who the fuck am i to argue with cogent logic lacking argument to the contrary¿ that is a question? I do not fault my siblings, i fault my own failure to adhere to the exaltation of existence - i am old enough and have encountered the unexpected enough to welcome surprise, yet in my haste to define my demise, or what Leonard Cohen so euphemistically described as the “preliminaries,” i’d be a lying dog to say i am not afraid: i am afraid of the wounds on my body from lack of motion, i am afraid of the company of people i know not - i am afraid of my own myopic guilt about things i haven’t resolved in my heart · but i am not afraid to die; i have lived amongst too many brave people happily assuming the yoke of existence to fear that my absence will detract from that noble struggle, and so i mean to die in peace - and wish the same for you · to the sound of ducks quacking in the background .  .. ··· (if they only knew)

jts 28/08/2020  

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com 

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270820 - Extinction Chronicles ·

“Thunder on the Mountain” is a lot of fun - musically · a little messier when it hits the streets, with respect and love i close my doors and windows when i turn the volume up. Not sure if i will ever lose that deference to the comfort of others, not sure i want to. It would seem the universe has other ideas and what i have to say is necessary and important, if to no one else but myself. There’s a paradox - a universe of one · I do not understand how else to communicate; i can observe as all the sage wisdom of the internet advocates, but even so, what i see is merely fantasy about what another experiences; and in those infrequent conversations when someone shares openly and honestly what they feel - that still gets filtered through my own limited ability to understand and convey what someone else feels. Literature and Journalism attempts to reconcile this missing link by protocols and admonitions about quotes and attribution, but in the end it is always one interpreting another if you are not speaking in the 1st person.

Is that to say i can only understand what it is i think and feel¿ or that we are doomed to the envelope of isolation defined by skin? To a large extent, yes; for so much of your understanding of me and what i say depends entirely on how honest i am able to be about what i share - admittedly · that is not very. Still i try, for the more open i can be with you, almost directly correlates to how honest i am able to be with myself, there’s a fucking scary thought. While on the other side of the chasm is reflected a listener who may be very similar to myself, with great difficulty about hearing clearly and openly the expression of another without overlaying ideas i may be experiencing while listening. I don’t think my experience is all that much different than many who read this while thinking about: washing their hands, the insult at the checkout counter, the disappointment with the job interview or the plucked daisy that answered, “she loves me.”

Our minds are aflame with all that is around us and barely able anymore to hear the quiet murmur of our own souls - i don’t like it and relish each second i spend here with you searching for the sound of our own voices. My voice is tired and afraid, but not. The more i try to imagine the empty space we share between us and how it is that i cannot clearly hear you as i am learning to hear myself is a puzzle. I try to resolve that confusion by absorbing myself in detective dramas, because i feel that “high” literature is part of the problem. George Orwell sacrificed the last of his mortal strength alone in a solitary state plumbing his fears about our futures which ultimately became a roadmap for unscrupulous sociopaths devoid of imagination using his loving caution to maim the human spirit; i don’t think i’m wrong about this suspicion and so posit - if you are scoundrels who bottom feed the fears of the human experience for leverage · know that you can run, but you cannot hide.

There is no such thing as deception, for every dodge you make to cover your tracks leaves a trail for anyone in the crowd to see. It’s like watching the little nazi with the hammer breaking windows to provoke greater mayhem and was found out by the lone stalwart witness who simply confronted him asking “what the fuck are you doing?” The corporate goons are lazy sots who have achieved what they believe to be impenetrable positions of power and strength tormenting all those that their running dogs reveal to them using the corrupted power of technology. Think of this, because it is very likely nothing you have ever encountered, but the reason one does not carry a knife in the streets is because it is as easily taken away and used against you as it is protection from the unknown. The only protection from the unknown is correct behavior, which i am sorry to tell you at this late date is something about which you have no concept.

You who believe yourselves in complete control of the field of battle don’t even know what it is you are fighting - the only thing you can conceive it would seem is control, a state of existence that has never existed and never will · so good luck with that, meanwhile on planet earth and her yet untapped power to stymie the megalomaniacal dreams you believe your fictional wealth represents, i will continue to spotlight the simple fact that you and yours are naked, and always have been. Remember while you plan your retribution though the abuse you have heaped on those same running dogs you will be relying on to cover your ass - i think we’ve all seen the how strong the thread of loyalty is with those who bank on hatred and fear when faced with loving solidarity for a happy existence. You will always be welcome once you have come to your senses and have accepted the fatal flaw in your logic - we all die, some happier than others · ta ta .  .. ··· 

jts 27/08/2020 

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com 

reprinted with permission - all rights reserved

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260820 - Extinction Chronicles ·

So how does it feel knowing, but not really understanding why, you and your family are very likely to be numbered amongst the last few generations of our species? I used to be galled by the thought; maddened, murderous even, and then i realized that was helping no one, least of all myself. It’s helpful for you to know i am of a cohort that when young and in school routinely held air raid drills where we as a group would drop below our desktops and bury our heads between our knees in preparation for “anonymous incineration.” Apparently this drill was so effective at instilling fear in an entire generation, it was arranged that “deranged gunmen” would replace the too vague a threat of nuclear holocaust - what does that even mean¿ like “climate change,” why the fuck would i care about that? Yet for those who have harnessed the remarkable brainpan of our anatomy to suss logical sequences of events and to peer into the ever increasing reams of data available to our world, it is pretty clear we are fucked.

And not - our kind has been dodging superior forces from the first time we witnessed a Dingo run off with one of our babies, yet i’d bet my life savings that it was much harder for that same pack to steal another child from us · what has changed, how have we become such easy marks for predatory behavior¿ that is a question? When exactly did we abandon a unified and cooperative front to those aspects of our existence that threaten the very foundations of our happiness - our families¿ that is another question? The stories would have us believe we have always been at each other’s throat - even the kindly “song and dance” man Bob Dylan remarked in his elegy to the “Titanic” about our disloyalty to our brethren: 

Brother rose up against brother

In every circumstance

They fought and slaughtered each other

In a deadly dance

Yet, much science argues to the contrary; that in fact we have survived as long and as successfully as we have due to our ability to coordinate and work cooperatively on behalf of the greater good - whatever the fuck that means · To hear Michael Douglas tell the tale in the movie “Wall Street,” ‘greed is good,” but like most of the elite in Hollywood, Michael Douglas is a politico parroting some party line, in this case, endorsing Micheal Bloomberg, the billionaire spoiler who bought his way into the current fake-as-fuck democratic caucus to determine who gets to pick the next “leader of the free world.” Those days are over where anyone in their right mind can adhere to a party who refuses the popular candidate simply because he did not sell his option to the capitalist class. Having sacrificed his candidacy to demonstrate a moral point, Bernie Sanders showed every honest conscious citizen in the United States of America exactly where they stood and who had abandoned them in the interest of “greed.”

Talk about your brass testicles; it’s enough to make me want move to Vermont and propagate the species with any dame that would have me; i know, not all that different from where i am at my age - but still · you get my drift. Had it been Michael Douglas, who i’m sure is a nice enough guy, in the tribe at the beginning of this essay who’d witnessed a baby getting dragged off by a Dingo, we may not have even made it out of the starting gate much less accomplished what the ruling class would have you believe has been their exclusive contribution to civilization. No, i’ve seen on too many job site injuries, witnessed too many collapsed marriages and known too much misery compassionately mended by loving hearts to believe anything but what Leonard Cohen stated so simply, “love is the only engine of survival.”

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” ― Margaret Mead; she should know · together with Charlie Chaplin, they managed to desecrate the holy island of Bali in less than 3 generations, for as near i can tell, no better reason than “self-aggrandizement.” ‘Hey world look at me, see what i found! ain’t i cool?’ Though hardly the last and little different than the destruction wrought on the healing world of Maria Sabina by the fucking banker - Gordon Wasson, et al; maybe he thought he was absolving his sins by turning the world “on,” something he apparently couldn’t accomplish with money alone. Are we to stop attempting to grow, because sometimes our intended outcome is so destructive from what we thought, or do we continue to delve deeper into the mystery of dawn; to find why it is that puppy breath is so calming and provokes such care in our hearts or how an eyelash can gentle the most fierce heart and turn fury into loving tenderness for a baby yet to be born - i d k · you tell me, please. 

jts 26/08/2020 

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com 

reprinted with permission - all rights reserved

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250820 - Extinction Chronicles ·

The thing i’m finding about literature from sitting on the other side of the equation - writing vs reading · there are a lot more “painter’s corners”, my last wife painted houses for celebrities, and so i know what it is to not have a well-planned escape route, euphemistically known as a “painter’s corner”. With reading, one can always simply put the book down, when writing one almost needs to bite off the trapped limb, lest it become the end of the story. Though i write mostly “non-fiction,” there are so many intersections in my vignettes between “fantasy” and fact that the two are nearly indecipherable. This asserted truth is mostly because i doubt my memory more and more and question my interior more and more - both i believe to be assets in any search for “TRUTH”. What i particularly enjoyed about my study of mathematics is the logic - kind of like a piano falling from the 5th floor · either it lands, or it doesn’t · hope does not factor into the equation.

I do not possess a mathematical mind and could not truly enjoy the process like i could puzzling the facets of a painting or drawing into focus. It wasn’t until many years after i had devoted my being to following the trails left by masters: Rembrandt, Caravaggio, Michelangelo, Rodin, Dürer, Paul Cézanne, et al i had to acknowledge a visual anomaly effectively partitioned me from anything but an intellectual appreciation of their work. I cannot emulate what i cannot see. I’m sure there are reasons for this challenge, but at 65 turning 66 what they are, eludes me - kind of like all the pretty young girls (now aging women) on my block · That is more their problem than mine, i’m way past the point of tolerating being tolerated. I had an emergency appendectomy 5 April 2005 - my last wife left me 12 April 2005 · i ran the Los Angeles Marathon 18 March 2006, i’m still having fun; and i’m pretty sure she is still blaming the world for ______fill in blank. 

Yes, i accept that is not the kindliest endorsement of a fellow human being - she really was, and likely still is doing her best, i’m sure. It’s just that the best for some people just doesn’t rise to the threshold of interest for me any longer. This may be due to my having to reassess my own “best” effort, only to find myself, lacking, or it may be that i still search for one who holds love and pleasure high on her list of ambitions in a world where so many “wannabe” companions are still clinging to their _______fill in the blank. Cowardice is not a gender specific trait, and as much as i can admire and respect my mother for the choices that she made to survive, that doesn’t mean i am honor bound to repeat her two husband’s mistakes. Let me rephrase that - i did not, do not, nor now know what my mother conceives of as Love · not because i wasn’t listening or paying attention with the whole of my soul but because i believe in my heart of hearts that she does not know herself. 

She is my mother and i love her; however she guided my family into a quest for riches - a lack that i honestly believe she thought had deprived her of a “decent childhood” and a “worthwhile marriage” to my father. How do i reconcile such emotions¿ do i again seek a companion that does not appreciate what she has, rather one who seeks? Is that so bad to want better for your lot and those whose lives who are entrusted to your judgement, what is the truth - my father who loved words and believed in his misbegotten way that fun and pleasure were worthwhile ambitions in a civilization whose objectives grew more suspect daily . .. am i a “chauvinist” to have more solidarity with my father than my mother. In our later discussions, Pop’s tongue was loosed due to dementia and would simply divulge to his mind her truth “she is a victim.” Is that such a bad thing, my own sister wanted to dismiss her contempt for me using the same condemnation, possibly without ever considering her own projection of such remarks.

Oscar Wilde — 'All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does, and that is his.'

I’ve got my gullet full of tragedy but am certain there is more of it for me to stuff; the question remains wether i do so willingly and happily or choke and gag like we are depicted to do on the corporate news feed¿ Do i have a choice? I think we all do just like Sophie Scholl, the “White Rose” in prewar Germany who for her objections to the egregious attacks on freedom by the nazis chose to die rather than recant. Her comments prior to her assassination tell all; when asked about how she felt, she replied, “Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go... What does my death matter, if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?” There are 1,000s upon 1,000a more Sophie Scholls amongst us today. My ma in her own way wanted to be that spirit; ma was too wounded and too hungry for that to happen. That does not make my parent less a hero, or detract from her great effort to make the world better - but it is also a grand reminder there is more to be gained from love than can ever be found in greed ·

jts 25/08/2020 

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com 

reprinted with permission - all rights reserved

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240820 - Extinction Chronicles ·

“Divide and Conquer” is more than a one-horse hick town nestled in between the celebrity dude ranches of the rich and famous somewhere in the backroads of Montana - it is also the mail drop for Steve Banoon’s personal slush fund “i’ll build the wall you stupid motherfucker’s, but you’ll pay for it”·

Welcome to the end days, or depending on where you stand - the beginning of history · Naturally i’m disposed to believe the latter, for it is more practical and eventually more cost effective. Having bought back my life from the pawn shop where my parents hocked me at birth, i value you my agency highly. I have no debt and the most difficult financial decisions i face are how to support as many entrepreneurial spirits i can find without their knowledge. I prefer the sustainable business people to the old school gold diggers looking for a strike so they can sit at the “grownup’s table” and act the “big shot;” I don’t do well with big shots, or wannabe big shots, not because they are more vile than the rest of us, but because they are often too stupid to be trusted with money. Anyone who can walk upright and earn more than they need, who then wants to use that surplus to lord-it-over others who have not managed that evolutionary milestone strikes me as too emotionally tangled up in their ego to effectively use their mind.

But that’s just me; i used to try and explain my thinking to others hoping to gather an army of like-minded lovers to shine light into a dark world, only to realize it is all i can do to keep my own candle lit such that i might better see where it is i am going to fall into my demise. Not that that matters, but i do favor cogency to oblivion as a state of mind - conscious, or unconscious. Of the many advantages cogent thought reveals is the benefit of fun; with all the current focus on social distancing, the deep state and who’s blowing who between donny and vladimir - it’s hard to keep in mind the real reason for our existence on this moist orb suspended in the midst of more dark matter than our pea-brains can process, is to be happy, to have fun, to enjoy each other’s company. Truly, if you are not cheerful, you are pretty much waisting your breath. I’m not talking about the fake giggly horse shit you find on the reels of “studio mother’s” schlepping their children’s future from studio to studio, but the kind of joy when you realize how beautiful the woman you are looking at really is deep down inside.

Or the kind of joy one finds in watching a puppy dog wake up, or the look on a sibling’s face when they smell the skull of an infant brother or sister for the first time. Our world is full to the rafters with ineluctable delights to which we have blinded ourselves. Even the act of raising one’s consciousness has been co-opted by the a content starved media monster who used to be called Frankenstein, but now uses the alias, AI (artificial intelligence). You can googol WAF and find it’s corporate meaning is “woke as fuck” without ever having woken up. That’s a neat trick. PK Dick says ‘if you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them’. Having lived on 4 continents in the past 5 years, or vice-versa, where my native tongue was never the dominant language, it has became very important to 1) learn the alphabet of body language 2) rely far less on what i can say, compared to what i can hear, and 3) pay careful attention to who speaks with you and who speaks at you, especially if they are communicating in your native tongue.

I have not abandoned my original mission to leave the world better than i found it, but Bob Dylan pointed out well that you can try and help someone and end up making things a 1,000 times worse. I think taking the long view at this turn is most helpful; raise your hands if you are aware that somewhere on the planet there is a cohort working assiduously to fabricate a 10,000 year clock? Don’t ask me to what end, i just asked if you were aware. In one of my incarnations i worked somewhere where very smart people were fabricating a “frequency standard” meaning the variation in the measurement of time became almost indiscernible, again don’t ask me why they would be wasting their time like that when they could have been searching for the end of war, or the difference between men and women. This is part of the problem - our priorities are out of whack. Communication is crucial for understanding, and i am just now learning after close to 66 years alive that listening is much more fun than speaking.

Ironically i don’t get much feedback on this channel; at an earlier age i’d interpret that to mean what i am saying is unimportant or not interesting, but compared to some of the tripe i sample on this “information super-highway,” i’m proud to present my take on things. So then i have to ask myself wether it is a level playing field - is the language i use and the questions i ask useful to any reader. In social settings i find my disregard for “things” normal can be very off-putting to most, but i consider “normal” a fraud intended to exalt mediocrity aimed at the lingua franca of the public domain. Human beings to my thinking are remarkable in every way, including their frightened capitulation to an effete ruling class which has for the past 500 years demonstrated more than adequately its lack of fitness or worth for respect of any kind. The furthest thing from the speech of today is nobility, yet it is the those minions who are most maligned by "conventional wisdom" who deserve our gratitude and solidarity - the Palestinians of every democratic construct, the Black, the Indigenous, Women, Children and Old People who are trampled by the corporations, not because these demographics are not the backbone of our world, but because those who would claim to be the representatives of those same cohorts are in actuality greedy little cowards looking to prey on what appears to be the weakest link in the human chain - in my humble opinion · please prove me wrong.

jts 24/08/2020he http://stoanartst.blogspot.com 

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230820 - Extinction Chronicles ·

My last gainful occupation was as an “heir hunter” at the Los Angeles Superior Court of Los Angeles - i gained the requisite hours for my Private Investigator license, but the outfit i worked for out of Tucson was then owned by an alcoholic in training who had just inherited the 100 year-old firm from his father who’d recently keeled over - i was too stupid to know i’d been hired as a “bag man” who was supposed to keep his mouth shut and make no real effort to track the estates of the recently deceased, it wasn’t a good fit, but a very interesting end to my own checkered career. When i say checkered, i don’t mean that in the pejorative of “dodgy,” like my last employer who was in over his head, but checkered in the traditional pedestrian condemnation of a familial “black sheep” who wasn’t quite dark - more like ______fill in the blank · resistant to the judgement of others who had not the patience nor inclination to look more deeply than that of their own self-righteous prejudice. 

I probably see that character defect so often because of my own myopic predilection for sanctimony - we all have our cross to bear · In terms of synchronicity, it is more than fascinating that this particular period of my life would intersect with the looting of my own father’s estate, which i can assure all concerned was to the “letter of the law,” but lacked the humanity that i understood to govern my father’s complete existence. He once ceased communicating with his 2nd father-in-law because the man had the temerity to call my father a “liar” - not a good move. Pop may have been delusional, emphatic even rigid, but he was a “truth teller” to the bone. He was the kind of guy who would interrupt a phone conversation and demand that you drive the additional hour out of your way, just so he could look into your eyes and gauge for himself his feelings about what you were asserting in your phone call - regardless of the obvious inconvenience of his request.

We live in dodgy times, full of dodgy characters - a reality that must be accepted simply by the physics of money. Consider that 12 human beings control more wealth than 5 billion other human beings, unless you’re just stupid or without any real world experience, where exactly do you think all that surplus wealth is going, if not to pay off a considerable portion of the human population to turn a blind eye, and/or actively participate in the rape of our planet. Am i the only person who is suspicious of ostentatious wealth in a time of such depravation and suffering by so many? What kind of character is going to align themself with a handful of criminals attempting to subvert the, however dysfunctional workings of an 800 year-old attempt to establish democracy¿ that’s a question?

How greedy does one have to be to sell-out the generations of their unborn children based on personal gain - another question · I’m through waiting for an answer to that question, just, as “Judge Judy” might say, "don't piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining". The world we see on our screens bears very little resemblance to the world we live in - I am surrounded by pettiness, and suspicion, jealousy and subterfuge · but with people who are largely decent when push comes to shove; what i see is a population struggling mightily to do the right thing; yes perhaps mostly for those that are close to them, or those that are only within the family circle, but still making an effort to benefit and protect those they care for. Show me where this is reflected in fact by any leader today - “free world, corporate, political or legal” · morals do not exist for the people who claim leadership; the only guiding principle is greed.

To that end “they” who would claim your allegiance utilize power - a power that is paid for out of your pocket to subordinate you to their control: be it police, management, media or _____fill in the blank. No where do i find a direct correlation to the email polls asking this or asking that which results in “you” being heard, conned maybe, coerced and shamed maybe - mostly manipulated. And they are not content to post content, it is propagated flagrantly that if you resist or are otherwise disposed to act independently, you are an enemy. What is missing is to whom exactly are you an enemy. No one in any position of responsibility that i have heard, save Bernie, Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, Julian Assange and a handful of muted others actually raises red flags about the danger we face, rather they are depicted as enemies of all that is good and right in a world being poisoned for profit, imprisoned for dissent and raped for no reason other than intimidation and mayhem - are you okay with that · i am not 

good luck to us all - may freedom ring · and reason resume, soon.

jts 23/08/2020he http://stoanartst.blogspot.com 

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220820 - Extinction Chronicles ·

Four minutes ago i had written the entire 1st paragraph of this essay in my head - and now ______ · Something must be working, and i have no idea exactly what that might be. From the thunder i hear, i know the rain is coming and so closed the cover to the laundry room; i have been able to return to my normal bicycle circuit and found in my short absence the same hills were no longer insurmountable and my vanity nap was no longer a vanity. The large city just to my North is now testing every foreigner for the virus, and to believe my small hamlet is not next would be too ignorant for even my feeble intellect. Just yesterday, my temperature spiked to 37.3 and dropped to 37.1 within minutes - all i can do is observe the protocols, wash my hands better than i have and continue to “shelter in place” which seems to suit my ways far better than butting up against the fence like some rutting ram i never was, nor hoped to become. Where exactly does that leave me in the the cultural crossroads of miasma, biology and fear¿ any ideas?

Yeah, me neither, but i did manage to recall the thread i was aiming at with what had once been described in my collegiate days as a “scattershot” approach to literature - it was a party · an epochal party in the early 1980s in a 1940s dance studio at the corner of 4th & Main in Santa Ana. I like to party and began practicing that peculiar alchemy seriously on the 1st “Earth Day” 22 April 1970; it may have even been the 2nd or 3rd "Earthday" - things get hazy when looking into hazy days. Unfortunately for my single mother, i was more of a budding druid than ecologist and the revelry she returned to after teaching art to spoiled Newport Beach middle school brats, scarred our relationship to this day - but they say radical accountability · and i nothing if not radical; i am sorry ma, please forgive me. The party in Santa Ana nearly a decade later was simply the apex of those early experiments in merriment. The party in Santa Ana was a Masquerade with a remarkable mix of characters, from college professors, doctors, engineers to tradespeople from all walks of life that might have been found anywhere in the roaring 80s of Orange County.

I had just commenced an engineering career as a “C” draughtsman in the same factory i had worked swing shift fabricating aircraft antennae when i graduated high school nearly a decade earlier. At this party, enter one too old to know better, and too vain to understand fellow, but genial enough Senior Engineer replete with comb-over a la early _rump. One of the elder “solder ladies” most certainly an emigre without documentation, and conservative to her core dressed in costume of her native country - wearing an elegant mask making her identity apparently unrecognizable to to said engineer; she also intrinsically understood the spirit of the Masquerade and chose to speak not a word throughout the entire evening. Our poor swain was enamored from the tip of his balding pate to the toes of his, if i remember correctly white patent leather shoes. Chapters would be inadequate to describe the lengths this poor smitten fellow went to that night to charm our mystery lady, a mystery i fear only to he who could not gain traction with her whose heart he coveted, maybe to save his soul.

You need to understand that in her normal workaday world this man’s contempt for anyone who could not benefit his professional standing or resonate with his grandiose self-image simply didn’t exist; yet here on her Cinderella Night she held his heart in the palm of her hand the entire evening. He could not see sideways, up or down - though the dance studio was full to the gills with young nubile and sensuous dancers from the local college, for one of the guests was in fact a modern dance professor who appreciated a good party. To our mystery lady’s credit, when Monday came and work resumed there was never a hint of humiliation for the engineer, though there was a sizable contingent from the proletariate who witnessed her quiet dignity to he who in any other circumstance would have barely acknowledged her existence, much less _______ fill in the blank. To this day, it remains an object lesson for me about the relationship between fact and fiction, the heart and reality, and courage and dignity.

Years later, or maybe even closer i was gifted “Man and His Symbols” by C.G. Jung. Within this concise compendium of human psychology/anthropology/mythology was a passage on the 30s movie “The Blue Angel” (German: Der blaue Engel) a 1930 German tragicomedic film directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich, and Kurt Gerron. The gist of this poignant story was the blindness of an aged professor when faced with the self-aware beauty of a vibrant young woman simply being all that she could be - however the dice may fall · I cannot say for certain that the “Mystery” woman at my party did not eventually exact her pound of flesh, i was too young and arrogant to understand what i had witnessed much less know that i too would be faced with similar circumstances even to this day; i know young women who have witnessed my aged “game” with a patience i have  misunderstood as affection. Was the professor in "The Blue Angel" a fool, or was Marlene Dietrich a predator - it is an ancient game; i remember from my art school training a Renaissance painting of a young swain offering in his open hand his bag of riches to the young love of his life, while in the same frame an ancient hag was reaching around his blinded waist lifting the purse from his belt; as the French proverb goes, so goes the world: “Plus les choses changent, plus elles restent les mêmes” - A. Nonyme ·

jts 22/08/2020he http://stoanartst.blogspot.com 

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210820 - Extinction Chronicles ·

Just now my kind neighbor - the farmer’s wife is rinsing my floor, and i am trying to act like nothing is happening · i’m very unaccustomed to other’s in my home, much less cleaning my dirt; oddly it is in everyone’s interest - she gains some currency during harder than usual times; the landlady gains the comfort of having her rental swept by one she knows along with periodic peaks at my curious lifestyle and i must acquiesce to someone doing me a kindness which is not my long suit - when i say kindness, i mean when was the last time someone brought you rice and vegetables when they came to clean your house. The good news is my temperature is very close to normal, my floors will be clean for another 2 or so weeks and i have contributed something to a community i find difficult to do good in (know that that feeling is entirely in my own mind and not based on external indications of failure). 

This morning i found my normal bicycle shoreline circuit once again open after a momentary lockdown which with the pitch emotions of dodging viral particles with tobacco tuned windpipes does not inspire the deep sleep that engenders hard work and a cheerful face for the savagery that comes from species collapse, but these are not your problems, they are mine. I am attempting to rewire my mind to observe rather than react, and to open myself to the possibility that though my current existence does not include a “loving other,” there is a spirit seeking me as i seek her. That she might resemble the courageous cheerfulness of my friend The Farmer’s Wife, would please me to no end, though as never before i do not covet the company of she who has become my friend in the small hamlet i live. I simply accept that the qualities of my neighbors embody those native parts of my self such that the admiration i feel for my friends may aid me in winnowing a reasonable match for what i feel inside to be a good companion.

I have read that one should find those with which you have much in common: i add the lemon rinds from my daily ration of whiskey and beer to the skillet i sautee my rough-cut vegetables; i wash my body with a bristle brush from coconut fronds and rinse my body with apple cider vinegar; i do not own a phone and communicate mostly with characters i have known in person during my travels on a social media platform that is making clear daily its allegiance to a corporate putsch that is unfolding worldwide as i type - where am i to find a woman in common with such. And the only child i know of that was mine, was aborted by a model from a weeklong tryst without my knowledge or consent nearly 40 years ago - the two elder siblings in my family refused my friendship on fb, and the younger brother does not respond to email questions about his or his family’s wellbeing, i understand that is known as “estrangement.”

And still i believe, even at this late date, alone in a foreign nation that i will find a companion who will help me to understand those last lessons from my time here at University Earth. Not only learn the lessons but feel the sublime pleasure of a woman’s soft skin; so certain am i of this that though i have pisspoor dream recall i know that last night the vivid tactile memory of the softness of a woman’s skin literally hovered over my awareness only to surface just now in one of those events that gives credence to the concept of “synchronicity” whatever that may mean to you. To me, it is communing with those parts of my being that have been cauterized by too much “socialization,” too much ego and too little simplicity and love. And yet, even in so fragile an existence as mine, seemingly friendless and perhaps bent on self-destruction, the beauty of our world bubbles up like some mountain spring out of this mountain of life we cannot seem to stop climbing.

Nor should we, anymore than i, though i be aged and crusty, possibly toxic, should ever cease expecting a caress or deprive myself the opportunity of “copping a feel” or continuing to explore the sensuous richness of a vital dynamic emotional state however beaten i may feel each night i frighten myself to sleep wondering if the painful tension in my frame is from a growing tumor from living in a land laced with agent orange, or early exposure to the carcinogenic materials during my career building weapons for the “man,” of simply the arrogance of youth never believing that i could be taken down by something as pleasurable as “smoking and drinking,” yet compared to the quiet comfort i just witnessed of the farmer returning from his day’s labor is all i could ask for from this existence - he to his loved ones and they to his quiet courage is all there is for us in this lifetime and to aspire to more than that is to live in a delusional landscape devised by well-paid advertising execs who likely haven’t slept a peaceful night from the moment they devoted their energies to floating a fake dream with a fake ending to a people who simply want to love genuinely - go figure.

jts 21/08/2020he http://stoanartst.blogspot.com 

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200820 - Extinction Chronicles ·

i just spent more time than my delusions about time understands resolving technical issues to publish my previous post; i could be frustrated, but am sure i am more amused than frustrated. My purpose is not to publish content that can be monetized, which i now begin to understand is at odds with the platform on which you may, or may not be reading this. This glitch is not for me to resolve - my assignment in the later years of my existence is to plumb as deeply as i may for language that is comprehensible to as broad a spectrum of an imaginary reading audience as i can imagine - my imagination may be the only aspect of my existence that remains vivid. I have read “By all means marry, if you get a good wife you will be happy, if you get a bad wife you will become a philosopher” - (attributed to Socrates) · an ancient Greek philosopher who was forced to drink Hemlock, but was later resurrected by an unscrupulous poser wishing to link his/her thinking by simply assuming the moniker of the original. It is sort of like discovering that the “Desiderata” which i had painstakingly copied onto vellum at the height of my draughting career, only to discover the document ostensibly dated 1692 - but later attributed to Max Ehrmann, was written sometime during the 1970’s.

It doesn’t really matter does it, whether the tale of the two wolves fighting for the soul of humanity was a weathered warrior of the Sioux Nation or the last wheeze of some LSD sojourner from Woodstock - what is important is how each of us resolve the multitude of “truths” placed in front of us, of which there are more and more each time you refresh your screen · or so “they” would have you believe. I accept that my time here is shorter and shorter which sweetens my freedom like nothing i’ve ever known before. What is peculiar to my fantasy is love. I have honored the feeling as best i know through blizzards of lust and deserts of longing, only to find there is no external confirmation enough to quiet the ache. But when i look inside and accept the hunger is my own to satisfy, the pieces begin to fall in place. I am not the failed son who could not prevent his mother from declaring about him publicly, “how can you talk to him - he has fangs ·” What i can do is tend to my wounds however much time later and try to understand the pain of another that would provoke such a cruelty to one of her own.

At this turn in history with so much subterfuge and dishonesty about emotion, i count myself fortunate to have been raised by someone with so little control over her own boundaries. At least i have some measure of perspective when i see “it” coming toward me. Not that that was always the case and that i haven’t to too large an extent internalized another’s reality as my own, but at least i have a point of departure for my own investigation of reality. What i feel is compassion for my Mere. She must be in much pain to have wanted to displace her’s onto the shoulders of one as aggrieved as my physical reality has determined. As a Franks Breech, i’m still not sure which is up and which is down, and as a two-eyed cyclops it is difficult to know always which way i am facing - but i make do and with the added challenge of deciphering the emotional landscape of one 26 years my senior · i realize what a benefit such foreshadowing might be in approaching my end with some measure of peace from maelstroms not of my own design - of which there seem to be more and more ·

And again more importantly and perhaps useful is the determination to allow that natural flow of events that is the greater reality of my existence than the conceit of willfulness borne of ideas and ambitions by my own volition having abdicated personal agency in favor of compliance - an obedience toward some voice that did not, nor does now acknowledge the deeper recesses of peace within which i believe we all possess as long as we peer deeply enough  past the the wounds we have inflicted on our own souls simply from longing or confusion about what it is to die. I am the person who’s life will end, and it is my responsibility toward that life to live as fully, openly and honestly as i can learn to do by accepting my wrongs, atoning for my sins and doing penance for any unwillingness to accept the responsibility for having drawn my allotted portion of air during my lifetime.

Whether i can transmute that privilege using my energy creating “Carbon Train” into useful product for those that will be left upon my demise is not for me to determine. My job right now as i “Slouch toward Bethlehem” is to wreak less havoc, have more fun and do more kindness than would be suggested by my previous 65 years of behavior - a time that has at most been occupied by dismantling the fictions of my cultural indoctrination, shredding mythologies about my intrinsic nature and searching for the being below the persona i have yoked myself to in service of accommodation to some overlay that i do not own, nor have agency over. And again the central focus of any such renovation must be in service of the one aspect of my character for which i have no doubt - i love you as i hope to love myself; how the two ever became so inverted is of little concern to me insofar as i may once again sit in the Captain's Chair and steer my ship with all that i felt as i awakened to this mystery which i am too soon to leave. 

jts 20/08/2020he http://stoanartst.blogspot.com 

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