100920 - Extinction Chronicles ·

I live in bicycle heaven - a good thing too, for i own no vehicle other than my Asama bicycle, and my CA DL expires in one week · lucky me. I did not own an automobile until i was 23 years of age, which in California time is the equivalent of getting married at the age of 40; i forget exactly which was first, a mini cooper, or the 67 Chevrolet Impala station wagon i bought from Mr. Edwards next door to where i grew up. Had i been wiser, i could’ve been still driving that car, but on my 1st excursion to San Francisco from OC, my ignorance of the importance of oil to an auto seized the motor outside of San Luis Obispo. Whoever said “life is nothing but lessons,” wasn’t lying. It has been a good thing that my twisted mechanical comprehension favors the simplicity of bicycles, for at my age, given my prior renegade lifestyle, keeping my heart rate up daily is the only thing that stands between me, Covid-19 and senile depression - a state of mind id’ve rather been less conversant with than i am and a retrovirus i’ve been told is lethal to my demographic. 

Yeah, whaddya gonna do - the nazis in DC are making big noise about making off with my lifetime contribution to SS, and i don’t mean the ‘merican version of the Schutzstaffel however much that pissant wannabe Jabba the Hut in office would like to say it has been. I washed dishes when _rump’s daddy was paying lawyers to declare little d’s bone spurs were too severe to serve - at least i had the testicles to ignore the registration, and to this day i’ve no idea how that conscientious decision wasn’t met with similar consequence that my elder brother faced refusing to muster to Vietnam: May my dossier reflect such for the fascist goons managing data for the corporate overlords too fucking pink in the cheeks to even know what i’m referring to -

“Bicycle Heaven,” you too-dumb-for-consumer-fodder-running-dogs is how i remember where i learned to ride in Old ‘merica; the kind of place where your father wouldn’t let you drive his bright red Mustang Mach II, not because he didn’t love you, but because you didn’t pay for the privilege and he still required its ride for his failed real estate speculation entrepreneurial escape from the social tedium of teaching literature to mooks who’d rather be watching “Soupy Sales,” grooving to the “Beach Boys,” or trying to fathom Bob Dylan, rather than listen to a soon-to-be-forgotten minor poet out of Bellflower CA on his 2nd marriage plumbing the rising wisdom of the indigenous voice in reactionary Orange County California.

It is a complicated world we are leaving too soon, and i remain at a loss as to how to prevent unnecessary mayhem. I believe that it has something to do with daily exercise which my magic bicycle yields as long as i possess discipline enough to apply, though old habits die hard and the noble beast should have more oil more regularly than that which i grace it. I’m still trying to get my head around smoking less, and drinking for flavor, much less minding the mechanical g_d which in her infinite wisdom has bestowed on my later years. It was difficult enough to de-couple from a family constellation that in many regards was as noble as any one might find in history or literature. The reality though has been much different, for the recurring recrimination i find in strangers faces too much resembles the disdain reflecting my siblings conceit about my place in my funny little tribe.

I am getting better though and accept how awful it must be for my own brethren to suffer their collective delusion that my weird ways have been intended as destructive; i, at this late date am doing everything in my power to preserve the kindness, however brief i learned at the feet of my elders. I understand now that they were and are dealing with demons and likely wished to blunt the same suffering i have discovered - not of my making, any more than deliberate behavior on their part - how fucking awkward is that¿ I am petitioning forgiveness for people who behaved at the time with their best intentions · a truth to which i can close my eyes and recall hearing nearly 40 years ago by a stone carving journeyman whose own rigid view of his place in history allowed him to disallow my 7 year’s of apprenticeship carving stone and deny me journeyman status, but still i love him for what he taught me that day · “they are doing the best that they know how.” LIKE US ALL I AM SURE . .. 

jts 10/09/2020  

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com 

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090920 - Extinction Chronicles ·

It’s nice to be nice - and there is no amount of criminal thuggery i’ve ever witnessed or have been aware of that will contravene my decision · The problem gets to be when fakeness gets into the equation, for example; nice thuggery, what is euphemistically described as coercion. I once spent months carving a statue of a gargoyle based on this dishonesty. It was part of a slice of a 36” marble column that had been turned on a machine in Italy at no small expense, only to find a recalcitrant municipal inspector who declared its mass was insufficient support and required a steel girder to bolster that particular architectural feature - picture a package of “Lifesavers” with a wedge cut out from it’s length so that a piece of metal could be inserted longitudinally in order to support a 5 lb bag of sand · I carved two pieces from this ugly piece of stone, one - “Liza Doolittle sans patrons” · the other my beloved “Gargoyle”.

The outer curve became his wings, and the inner diameter constituted the portal to hell which he was tasked to guard against incursions from the nether regions of hell. It was a challenge to fit this into a short semi-round piece of marble, but i’m a two-eyed cyclops carving 3-Dimensional statues i can’t even see because my world is comprised of 2-Dimensional glimpses toggling back and forth searching for mass; challenging designs don’t really enter into the mix; i’m lucky if i make it through the door, much less execute a work of art. The idea for the persona of this guardian whose mission is to be scarier than evil, was to evince the face of the “ultimate salesmen” with his penis in his hands, because everyone knows how frightened the world is of an erection, especially one that is being used for purposes other than the loving procreation of our species.

I was showing an emerging version to my friend the door-maker/carpenter and he asked “well what are the two hands supposed to be doing¿” - a fair question which i tried to explain, after which he asked, “why not just show the penis?” I had no good answer, and could find no good reason to not, forgive the pun, “cut it to the bone.” I don’t regret the decision, and have never had any real evil befall me or my world that i’m aware of since its creation; so i guess it was a good idea. There sits Mr. Gargoyle, salesman par Excellance ready to face any unwilling vendor from the depths of hell with even better explanations than what that demon might try to sell in our world. We are surrounded by men selling shit no one wants or needs until they are told “you are incomplete until you own ______” fill in the blank - to me that is a scary abdication of personal agency. I decide what i want, what makes me whole, what helps me to be more human than when i was born.

Yet here i sit arguing metaphysical realities about which i have no substantive proof, while the entirely rational world i am supposed to have faith in is on fire and the leadership so corrupt that a thug family has cowed a 250 year-old democracy into subservience and the caretakers of that tradition have been entirely overrun by racist minions advocating death or slavery to all non-white citizens. The rule of law in the land i was raised has been suborned by corporate entities claiming person-hood, but remain entirely unwilling to assume the mantel of civic responsibility, rather they would replace the legal apparatus with an Artificial Intelligence (AI) upon whose android frame deviant intellectuals are planning to infuse uploaded emulations of the human experience - and they say metaphysics is bullshit science?

I can only marvel at the kindness of my neighbors who have welcomed me into the bosom of their community as much as that is possible for one who can only parrot simple phrases much less wend his way through the eons of nuances of a culture capable of not only resisting, but defeating the empire my once vibrant democracy has mutated into. Writing this i realize i am in no hurry to die, and welcome the opportunity to limp with my gimp to a future that may possibly turn out more favorably than my dystopian-flavored education might have anticipated. The most encouraging truth i face is even at this late date i accept how little i know, and how much i have to grow - something i may still do with a little help from my friends, known and unknown.

 

jts 09/09/2020  

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com 

reprinted with permission - all rights reserved

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080920 - Extinction Chronicles ·

“War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength” - George Orwell · What if George wasn’t just being ironic, what if Mr. Orwell was on the right track, but didn’t expand his thinking far enough to provide a real roadmap for a successful future for us all? Imagine having license to wage protracted war on every wrong you have ever witnessed; line up thugs and mow them down with brutal force¿ What if our free will yoked us to some mythological condition where restraint from violence only yielded greater oppression, and what if keeping the gloves on when faced with the nazis of our time only results in greater oppression by spineless apes serving as handmaidens to the “stinking rich”? What if disallowing every sacred text ever written about love and forgiveness rendered all of mankind, as Dinah Washington opined “better than the rest”¿

Interesting fantasy for a sultry afternoon when my home state is burning to its roots because a handful of petronazis want to extract more fossil fuel from mama Gaia at a time when all of non-venal science has proven that to be a “suicidal act.” What do you suppose master Lao Tzu meant when he recommended “empty their minds and fill their stomachs, . . . treat people like ‘straw dogs’.” A movie which BTW, though i find Dustin Hoffman generally tedious was, and remains a favorite. When master Tzu says ‘empty their minds’, is he referring to the placid surface the mind can achieve after disciplined meditation in a concerted effort to open our anatomical passions to the metaphysical reality of star dust filtering through our semi-tragic, semi-comedic existential protoplasm?

When master Tzu says fill their stomachs, is he referring to the “comfort food” one might find in cajun ribs out of Louisiana where black and white folk sit cheek-to-jowl chomping BBQ pork ribs and sucking down white lighting and lemonade¿ I’m lost anymore, but am willing to bet were i to sit at the bedside of her/his hurtingnest-hangover-wakeup; of the dumbest jackass in _rumpland with a half-pint of Jack Daniels and photos of the blackest pornography this sick world could render, that person rather than be inflamed would simply succumb and become the base character that s/he has aspired to since the 1st moment in their socialization said “you may not". 

Master Tzu has said elsewhere “give evil nothing to oppose, it will disappear on its own.” No passion i have ever asserted resulted in any cosmic success i am aware of - decades of increasing decline, maybe; countless doubts and questions, certainly - but never acquisition of the complete nature that my conceit provided as a standard. We have nothing left to lose, except everything this speckled planet of blue and green gave to us openly and freely from the first moment we found voice for the moon other animals could only howl at. We who claim such wisdom with our convictions and who have been completely unable to cede her power, just as “man” has never allowed himself the subjugation only “she” who delivered us in the 1st place can provide. (autobiographical frustration, no doubt - but ultimately of her own design · for ‘she’ is diabolical, and i am simply a faint offspring) don’t believe me ask her, she’ll tell herself if she still lives.

So who, or what came up with this pacific hysteria of calm love in the midst of an emotional inferno? It wasn’t me, but i feel like i’ve been blamed for it, and every injustice any other person has ever committed  from the time i first learned to listen to other people's feelings. I do not regret the that ineffable capacity, however sleight; Leonard Cohen himself said “i could not feel so i tried to touch,” so who am i to complain about some possibly emotional fiction that i possess ‘empathy;’ i say empathy based only on the narrow number of humans i’ve ever met who actually, “Grock” me, or i them. Anymore, my expectation for understanding is pretty much exhausted and i look forward to the ice cold reality of dead corpuscles surrounding my once vibrant consciousness - not from surrender about things i have no control over, but curiosity to learn more about the abundant things in this huge universe which i clearly have no control over - happy trails, mother & fatherfuckers ·

jts 08/09/2020  

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com 

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070920 - Extinction Chronicles ·

Is the correct life a case of wanting nothing and accepting everything¿ i d k? I have created much havoc in my life clinging to concepts and ideas i had developed lovingly; believing emphatically that they would enhance, not just my life, but the lives of all i could share with clearly enough that those with whom i shared, could also see the wisdom i found in such logic - guess again. Is it as Herman Hesse concluded in “Siddhartha” a question of sitting by the riverside and watching the current pass without attempting to interfere, contain, or impede¿ i d k? What does this say about romantic love and its implicit obtainment of, or presentation to, devotion of one’s love interest¿ i d k?

What does it mean to be of service¿ is writing 5 paragraph essays, however high-minded i might wish them to be, a devotion? Leonard Cohen in one of the last of his compositions stated quizzically “I didn’t know I had permission to murder and to maim;” i know as a child born within a decade of the last World War (now just a polite euphemism) me and my classmates spent a great deal of time playing “war.” We had generals, lieutenants and toy guns enough to kill every living thing within range; no one told us that we were not allowed to pick our own enemies, or that our games would make it easier for us to be trained for real fighting, with real death and absolutely no good end.

We relied on our parents, our teachers, our clergy and increasingly, what Pop disparagingly described as “The Boob Tube,” for providing the worthy enemy for our childish games. Having been a happy member of the YMCA’s “Indian Guide” program, cowboys and indians didn’t hold much interest, but owning more than one “GI Joe” made it important to lobby for trips to the toy store to procure the latest killing instrument which sometimes came with sparks and the ratatattat of automatic weapon fire. Short of that, there was always the realistic squirt guns that often ironically resembled the German Lugers of the WWII fame. After my eardrum was ruptured in an unsupervised firecracker frolic at the local park, my zeal for warlike fantasies took a far less physical path and i amused myself drawing military planes or building models of military planes; an activity which eventually culminated in a stint designing parts for real killing machines in the aerospace industry.

A shame, i will never live long enough to atone for. I used the money earned to put myself through college; helping two wives do the same and partially raising a young girl whose father had poor impulse control - and that doesn’t begin to unwind the karma i have taken on, consciously and unconsciously. I have learned to accept my interest in improving the moral choices of others is more resistance on my part toward anyone curbing the flow of this river of one i seem to have become; isolated - without beginning and whose end appears to be the last conceit which the universe seems to have every intention of depriving me - this should be interesting. I have no idea what steps to take, or which direction to go, but go i must, and yes of course that imperative seems to coincide with my ability to walk - go ahead, tell me g_d isn’t the ultimate ironist and her humor doesn’t border on the wicked.

It may that i have provided her so much mirth with my cross-eyed confusion about where i am, what i am, even what i should be that she has taken pity and removed all delusion of control from my path such that all i will require is appetite enough to maintain motor control, thirst enough to keep my diapers damp and blindness enough that i can’t see so far ahead to become frightened¿ i d k? I do know it has been a jolly good time, and i am, and have tried to make up for the pain i have caused - intentionally and unintentionally, with differing degrees of success. I welcome any insights, near and far as long as you don’t dam up my current or divert me from the most direct course to my logical conclusion, wherever the hell that might be. And by all means you are welcome to take a dip and refresh yourself if you find my fluid refreshing, but know that if you attempt to pirate my water for profit, it will dry up like the desert my genes hail from and whatever moisture you manage to seize will only be the echoes of tears you’d like shed but may no longer, ever.

jts 07/09/2020  

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com 

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060920 - Extinction Chronicles ·

My father was a man of infinite aphorisms - i exaggerate, but not by much. As such it is difficult to refrain myself at times, like the beginning of essays, e.g., “Postpone short term gratification in favor of long term satisfaction” is sage advice that has been entirely winnowed from the public domain by the digital overlords imploring ever greater immediacy, regardless of it false face, while rapaciously seizing the monetized benefits of such a stampede. ‘Merican workers are the most productive workers on the planet by every metric i’m aware of, yet the disparity in CEO to worker pay is the greatest on the planet - an irrationality so much so the conman of this or any other century i’m aware of was elected by that same oppressed electorate based on his promise to “rectify” that inequality · “rectumize” is more like it.

Nor is much going to change when he is removed by his handlers for egregious looting that called too much attention to their systematic dismantling of an imperfect, but far more equatable distribution of the world’s “GDP.” Gross Domestic Product which is a bullshit name for how much a population can generate wealth for an increasingly narrow segment of that population. GDP has no relationship to the efficient distribution of food, housing, or medicine. A wiser measure of the success of any economy would be how many children are taught to read, analyze and criticize; or the capacity for any civil agency to decarcerate and inspire individuals who have not yet found ways to contribute to the commonwealth, but above all a metric for broadcasting the level of corruption and political performance of public representatives and bureaucrats similar to the tracking of sex offenders.

In short, what i am advocating a complete overthrow of the social order, with the preservation and safety of Mother Earth dictating every policy made now and ever after. 

People are not widgets that can easily be replaced on a whim by a petulant manager - human beings all are complex creatures with very real requirements to perform at their optimum. Calm, loving regard is a need at the core of every human i’ve ever interacted with, even the most violent and irrational of personalities will respond to respect and honest regard for their needs. Many are wounded and are in great pain, so without a public awareness of each of our sorrows, there is no way any public servant can be expected to provide adequate service to the client which they are being paid good money to support. Severely curtail the compensation of political leaders who are being guided by avarice and sub-rosa agreements with unscrupulous entities, public or private. It is not rocket science - throw the books open to public scrutiny, most importantly the public utility known as the “internet.”

This is an electronic path that was developed using public money and then hijacked by profiteers no different than the pissant people who would charge $24 for a liter of water after a climactic tragedy - and make no mistake there will be more and more pissant people charging higher and higher prices for water after more and more climactic tragedies. What i am advocating is not an easy life for nothing, for you will not be able to achieve what i advocate without sacrifice and determination. What i can promise you is that if you harbor delusions about getting a suite in _rump tower because you stiffed your neighbor on the price of repair for his vehicle or charged the old lady down the street twice the "going rate" for the same light switch repair, it is your own throat you are cutting and Mssr _rump has already demonstrated that you are not welcome at Mar-a-lago, so where ya' gonna go mah homie¿?

The running dogs with large caches of armement are not the enemy, they honestly believe, maybe for the 1st time in their lives that there is some respect left for all that they have lost - only because they were never taught to understand how little they were respected in the 1st place? Delusion is blood sport in the land of ‘merica; the business class fought their own war amongst themselves once they had purchased the mortgage on your soul and committed you to a life of servitude. All we are witnessing is the last gasps of the war of the titans, which for all its media hype is more like the war of the pissants, based more on their paucity of purpose than their their presumed efficacy - they do not give a fuck about you, or me or anyone that cannot help them to achieve the delusion that the more wealth one owns, the more valuable that human being is. Just now the rain is coming, and my loving neighbors pointed to the sky and suggested in a language i have yet to understand, “be careful, the rain is coming.” We, all of us need to be those kind of neighbors for each other.  

jts 06/09/2020  

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com 

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050920 - Extinction Chronicles ·

How to get our species back on track toward a benign future and loving embrace for this sublime experience of life - i d k · and i’ll be go to hell if i stop asking that question. It’s become very popular to become a nihilist, especially at the higher echelons of the social order, but i think that is in part because of the cowardice of people unwilling to break their fingernails on the barbwire, and because to possess $200 billion and remain impotent to aid anyone in what can only be described as a “target rich environment” has to be more than debilitating - more the ideal metaphor for a “deer caught in the headlights.” How embarrassing that must be to scramble over the last hurdle to find oneself at the top of the heap only to find nothing but zeroes within one’s inside.

To have the deference of world leaders, but be unable to find anything of worth to see when looking in a mirror must be a terrifying experience. I stay away from mirrors myself, but for entirely different reasons. I’ve yet to find a reflecting surface, idea or friend which shows me honestly the fear or the love i have struggled to achieve on the other side of that fear i know is mine, though further from daily, or what is that perception which presides with me over confusion, disgust and self-loathing and which daily, breath by breath resembles me less and less¿ What angle of incidence is capable of peering pass my increasing blindness into the regions of my being that embraces a better world than the one i see reflected on the faces of those suffering around me?

We’re getting into touchy-feely gobbledygook, but i hate to be the one to tell you this; we be neck deep in that shit, and have been for some time. To live on an abundant sphere of moisture in a desert atmosphere of “dark matter” and not be able to, for lack of a better expression, “capitalize” that reality for everyone’s benefit is at the root of our extinction. That we today have numbed ourselves such that we cannot, or will not witness the  wheezing expiration of barely born infants, and then scroll to the latest Diva declaration of _____fill in the blank, with nary a peep in our pulse rate describes more the behavior of a corpse than that of a dynamic loving creature of very nearly any species but our own.

And still, how is this alarming discussion moving anyone, much less myself toward the stairway which might rise us from this morass we, every last man-jack one of us is asshole deep in¿ i d k? I was kind of hoping you did when i started this exercise in daily futility - thinking somehow the argumentative proclivities i’ve encountered on every continent i’ve ever stepped on would rise to the occasion and declare to me in front of g_d and country, “you stupid motherfucker, this __________fill in the blank is how you solve the problem you are whinging about!” But Nooo, just like schoolboys on their first dates, when it comes push to shove and your dicks are on display, you shrivel like a bunch of surprised George Costanzas, and step far enough back to let the women of the world fix your fuckups - i know this only because that is me to the bone.

The problem is i’m no longer sure whether my reticence to take charge and order people around is from spiritual maturity or existential fatigue after tilting at wind mills from an early age when it became clear to me that i was not a good fit for this world, this time, my family or my own skin - not a good sign for a blissful life. Yet there could not have been a better climate in which to grow old. By the time i figured out that i was not alone in feeling awkward, i began to see more clearly how many others of my species have absolutely no resemblance to the cartoon characters commercials trotted out as examples of how “bliss” smelled, walked, talked and appeared, but never farted. I can’t say i’ve found kindred spirits as yet with this emerging awareness but have come to believe the more i can reflect well what i find the better are the chances that i will come to encounter an accurate depiction of my “self.”

jts 05/09/2020  

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com 

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040920 - Extinction Chronicles ·

It’s closing in on my older sister’s birthday - 11 september 1952 · i pity her and her birthday, but not so much that she could hear; she’s kind of deaf that way, and me with the ruptured eardrum.I’m not sure how i can face anything but a most abbreviated post. I learned yesterday that my life’s work is facing seizure from a “storage” concern because the bank i rely on sent accurate information for payment, but the concern rejected my payment telling the bank that the CVI number didn't line up. I didn’t sleep the same day my neighbors inexplicably ceased sending food through the magic window just as the food i’d bought for myself but had abandoned began growing rancid. I am sure in the world of today, i am not alone facing confusion about adaptation to changing roles.

I sluggishly shifted gears and contacted all i could to resolve the storage circumstance, but not having slept the night before required a nap so i could make best use of a borrowed phone to make the "bank" phone call. I understand the links that failed and why, but am at a loss to explain to all the parties involved how much i appreciate their kind consideration of my predicament. Not the least of which the dame in the same city whose storage space i may have to abandon and my more than confusing "out-of-thin-air" plea for assistance. Most of the people i matriculate with on fb are humans whom i have shared air with and have some semblance of human contact, yet at mid-morning i found myself both intrigued and beseeching a perfect stranger in the same breath.

The predicament i am trying to convey covers about 50 years of creative effort. The plan i'd conceived included fantasies that the work might constitute, in whole or part, my retirement fund. My elder sibling reigned over the theft or mismanagement of 80% of the last four years of my drawing efforts, and so with this SNAFU about a errant payment, i faced the loss of nearly 40 years of labor. She who entertained my concern will be long remembered for her gentle, though arms-length interest. I don’t know any other way to roll and had previously expressed my more carnal desire to know her more intimately that what fb could provide, but today, this morning she rose to the occasion with pointed questions of how large are they, what prices do you expect and stating simply i have been alone since _____

One has to appreciate the flexibility of a world where one as phoneless and friendless as myself could still manage resources enough to discuss account information with multiple business entities and enjoy some marginal emotional support from a perfect stranger, or numbers of strangers in the service of a “greater good”. Not that my life’s work constitutes that necessarily, but i am not a lying fuck looking to prey on the sympathies of people already distressed with their own realities; i have made myself vulnerable revealed my need to the generosity of people i don’t know such that they too can expand and yield kindness to one such as myself in dire straits.

To be honest i would like to bed this woman who has generously considered boarding my life’s work within her personal compound - but i made that desire expressly clear prior to this unexpected set of circumstances, so this event is not entirely mercenary on my part. I just like sensuous women with generous hearts because i think there is much for me to learn if i could only unplug my donkey ego and apply the loving heart g_d gave to me for reading this peculiar landscape of death we now call life; that and i like to watch shit grow that i don’t understand - like how woman after all she has suffered from the stupidity of man can tender a gentle caress to his cheek and make all things right with the world, while all it seems he can manage is to need her more - dear g_d show me how to serve · please 

jts 04/09/2020  

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com 

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