100121 - “Pre-Extinction People” · PEP plot

    She closed her tattered copy of “1984” for the last time in the dim dawn light of the determined to sleep before her afternoon shift serving seafood to plague refugees at “Pensione Excelsior, Bar & Grill” in Punta del Este, Uruguay. Sleep was fitful and rich with the answers to thorny questions about Orwell’s deeper reasoning rising like molten bubbles bursting onto the surface of her next conscious ‘fucking day in paradise.’

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Prologue

What was left of the corporate hegemony understood, if there was ever to be continuation of their empire-based business model it would require a population capable of utilizing the technology which had both enriched the corporate overlords and doomed their customer base to extinction resulting in the unexpected outcome of “no product, no profit”, ergo free tele-communication/media access, free housing and “free lunch” provided by a guaranteed universal income. The social media platform of Zchnarkzy Marskburgh’s became a public utility providing news and interpersonal telecommunications, regulated by the “Federation,” formerly United Nations. Public Records, banking and the judicial system was consolidated under “Googol,” a resource tool that had been assigned the controversial task of uploading the “human experience” into its Artificial Intelligence (Art Intel) silicon matrix secreted in the salt caverns of an abandoned nuclear waste dump in the wastelands of Utah, a former state within the Western Hemisphere North Territory of USA.

Angela Vigoda

Guildern Seur 

Pasqual Ortega–

Mordecais Liszt

Domhall Schmuck, Reynaldo Schmuck, Demsford Schmuck 

Lammele Dama - executor Schmuck’s estate

Thich Tok Longh - Bhikkhu @ Từ Hiếu ‘Root Pagoda’ Hue · Pasqual’s uncle Jose Ortega had been in contact prior to becoming MIA during the Tết offensive of 1968

Perma Cauldron - grief counselor to Angela and Pasqual · Montevideo

Faik Besos 

Zchnarkzy Marskburgh

Reiman Curzewel

Leslei Coerktern - operative par excellence · researching death of Demsford, France

Tieh Ngong - owner of “Duyên Dáng” (Graceful) Homestay

Ngài Trâu - artist, guide

Archdai Tryump - foil at cottage of Demsford Schmuck · Earl of Rye, 3rd Duke of Avignon. Aix-en-s Provence 

Sysa Phish - Angela´s superior · Excelsior Bar & Grill, Punta del Este

Gonzo Veneno - operative Mexico, DF

Corina Abeja - last companion, Domhall Schmuck · owner of Artist Colony, Buena Vista Oaxaca; bruja, paramour to Mordecaise in transit

Sra Luz de Ley - Mordecaise Abogada in Oaxaca

Comandante Fernando Gonzalez - Oaxaca, Chief of Detectives

Rojita y Rojo - entertainers “Crocodile Cafe” Montevideo

Venceramos Brigade - entertainers sharing the venue at the Croc. due to missing a gig 

- Che Chimera - charismatic front man

- Jaime Quioxote roady, 

Tito - meth addict, stabbed Guildern in the arm, was punished by Mordecaise · nemesis, later tried to gang rape Angela

Madame Ouvière - landlady at Demsford’s cottage near Bibemus quarry Aix. 

Prologue: 2021 - 2026

The body count in ‘merica had grown exponentially for 5 years after D.J. Trump, 45th POTUS was deposed following an unsuccessful putsch in 2021, reaching a peak of 10.5 k deaths per day in 2024. This eviscerated the health care system and neutered every effort to counter the ever increasing death toll. When Jamie Dimond sold American Health Care Inc. to China for 37¢ on the dollar in late 2023, 4.76% of the population had received the 1st vaccine inoculation, but only 3.14% received the 2nd dose in time to protect against Covid’s mutations. Angela Vigoda and Pasqual Ortega had quick-deeded their home in Simi Valley in 2023 straight across to a “coyote” for transit to Uruguay where the daily death toll at 1.5 k per day was amongst the lowest in the world of semi-permeable borders - those nations with closed borders since the beginning of the pandemic were charging a premium for entry visas.

By late 2031, internet and Wifi telecommunication channels had been automated and ruggedized to the extent that any abandoned phone could be activated by a universal sequence necessitated by the enormous number of dead and dying during the 2nd Wave. This radical corporate measure allowed for a consumer supply chain which was all that remained of the Amazon empire, after its founder hung himself at the end of the 2nd wave when his fortune was reduced by 75%

The May/December marriage of Angela (35 yo) and Pasqual (55 yo) had not survived the death of their only child baby Jesus soon after their arrival in Punte del Este, Uruguay. They parted company after she stabbed Pasqual in the liver during a violent quarrel over a too friendly waiter a year and half after their arrival. Pasqual moved to Montevideo and began working as an apprentice for Mordecaise Lizt a Bavarian piano tuner/organ builder - estate industry wunderkind. Mordecaise ran a spider web of enterprises, from international estate tracking, to a shipping concern for delicate instruments and fine art

Part I chap 4 Leslei left the continental U.S. to investigate the death of Demsord Schmuck (1 in France; Pasqual left Uruguay to research the death of Reynaldo (2, six months later at the Từ Hiếu Pagoda in Hue, though he was interred in Hoi An Vietnam,) Chap 6 Mordecaise arrived in Oaxaca; Mexico - arrested · to investigate the death of Domhall Schmuck (3 who materialized after his recorded death in Oaxaca, Mexico in Montevideo, Uruguay minus any travel documentation

Angela and Pasqual had been able to bridge the chasm of grief from the loss of their child Jesus during their divorce and remained friends. It was through Mordecaise Liszt that she had met Guildern Seur in 2026 and began commuting between Punta del Este and Montevideo where she worked weekends at the Crocodile Cafe. There had been a 2nd killing wave in 2027, and a 3rd “killing” wave erupted in late 2031 that by all known statistical models exceeded the boundaries of repopulation leaving nothing but a dwindling window during which the homo sapiens faced certain extinction, or transfiguration.

Chapters 1-9

Part II

Chapter 10

Part III

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Conclusion: 

There was no vaccine devised for the rapidly mutating virus in time for the 3rd killing wave of the original Corona Virus and the remaining population lived with the unspoken reality of extinction. Guildern was the 1st of the quartet to expire, leaving his estate divided between to Angela and Mordecaise. Leslei, had traveled to France where the 3rd brother had died first at Plum Village - a Thich Nhat Hanh monastery in the South of France. Pasqual had left for Vietnam where the 2nd brother Reynaldo had died in Hue at the root pagoda of the Master Thich Nhat Hanh. Mordecaise was following the trail of a possible heir in Oaxaca, Mexico. He was joined by a Bruja poetess/artist from Oaxaca who mysteriously spoke an ancient dialect of Chiricahua that Pasqual inexplicably understood. 

jts 10/01/2021

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090121 - Extinction Chronicles ·

Not sure if i’m anti-social or no; i’d have to imagine if you base your opinion on accounts of others - that’d be an affirmative · yet .  ..  ··· just now it is raining - a cold rain the day of a wake for a stranger i know not at all. His passing was tragic and i represented out of solidarity with a widow and son facing humongous “right@xmas” hospital bills in a foreign land. Mustering in the early afternoon rain, i saw no reason to remain and commune with strangers mourning his passing and so vacated the social field for “friendlier” terrain, then the power grid of the more congenial bistro i retreated to collapsed, and reignited just as i was getting into my musical laptop workaround. Yesterday my nation was faced with the first occupation of its capitol since 1824 when the British invaded just prior or after the Constitutional Congress. These insurrectionists were homegrown fascists incited by scurrilous claims of a stolen election from the outgoing MT Suit #45, and left unanswered by the incoming corporately ensconced #46.

I’ve elected to ride the crest of the coming maelstrom within the conceit of a novel - something i’ve been threatening since “My Life in a Sea of Anonymity” bobbed into my 20 year-old something imagination. In the unlikely event some of you search for “Extinction Chronicles” they may be found under “Extinction Chronicles - "The Post Extinction Inception · stay tuned, its hardly a weight i welcome on this cold afternoon, friendless in a community that prides itself on friendship but gorges on ______ fill in the blank; a clue: t’ain’t “friendship,” near as i can tell, but you should know that i am well represented in every anomaly about that meaning known to man/woman or governing agency - a renegade with regards to language signifiers. My attention to such fine points hasn’t as yet seemed to bridge the gap from “weird” to un-weird. 

Luckily this personal evolution occurs just in time for me to die in peace alone and without external reinforcement for what i feel or what i think - so i say · Whether that is spiritual acceptance of the incontrovertible fact that i will die alone regardless of the proximity of a loving expression of personal affection, or utter indifference about my particular passing in the midst of hordes of other dying humans is unimportant. To me what counts is the feeling i bring to that instant i become an inanimate object of collected corpuscles continuing to decay just lacking consciousness, into a film resembling spontaneous combustion, only at a much slower pace. Ergo the possibility of my words and ideas receding at a much slower pace possibly providing aid and comfort i was unable to manifest while breathing.

If there is a residue from people’s experience that distinguishes happy from sad, or fulfilled from desperate, I D K, i do know from witnessing the pathetic expressions of wannabe patriots trapped into lies of their own conceit, and cowardice, i’d rather not commingle my tenuous wants and desires with the vagaries of vanity, prefer to leave my traces amongst the more vital fields of promise, hope and honesty - whatever that may cost me in dignity or humiliation, (for g_d’s sake, look out over the horizon and ask your supple intellect how many persons have crashed and burned in an effort to leave a footprint on the face of this planet when not welcomed by the ultimate editor, happenstance.)

I’m not afraid, i’m terrified, but have lived so long with this curious condition that to persist for a few more months before i am crushed by the weight of my own blood pump is a small sacrifice if even a single new sentence i might conjure through innocent play allows one child from one family to procreate in a loving way with one other human and thereby continue our miraculous strand of DNA which barely has become aware of its potential before being evicted by appetites and hungers that required distinction one from the other, more than providing something for the sake of other. Oh well - maybe if we remain playful and non-judgmental in support of enjoyment and loving recourse, others might follow suit, if not a scent toward a place we may once again propagate with gusto and kindness into unknown, less frightening realities.

jts 09/01/2021

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080121 - Extinction Chronicles ·

Last night was another bifurcated sleep with a break spelled by “Barney Miller” humor. I prefer to rise early and so try to truncate my middle of the night wakefulness as much as possible. Thinking about today`s writing i was going to try to depict my early friendship with the newly arrived “Boat People” in what became ground zero for “Little Saigon” of Orange County, Ca. Last night there was no indication of the mayhem in the capitol of my nation that i was to wake up to. It is not a putsch as the corporate media would so like you to believe, rather a staged circus designed to destabilize civic authority and solidify the autocratic corporate oligarchy attempting to rule the planet - I would rather reminisce about my friends Hoa Le, and Ngay Phan by describing their heroic journey into ‘merican culture, however sad it is that i haven’t seen them in 40 years, and that they are very likely ardent _rump supporters.

The first nguoi Viet to arrive in California were sent to Camp Pendleton Marine Corps just South of San Clemente. From this location clusters of immigrants were released through a sponsorship arrangement with local communities to aid in assimilation of acclimating to their new home. I was living in Santa Ana, close to downtown when this happened. Peering back through the haze of time, I believe that we met as participants in a Comprehensive Educational Training Act (CETA) program where we were to be trained as “Maintenance Mechanics” at one of the local community colleges. They were living close to one of the first Vietnamese Shopping Strips at the corner of Hope St & Sullivan in Santa Ana; i was living at Bishop off Broadway, also in Santa Ana, and we all commuted to Fountain Valley for training: welding, renovating assembly lines, rebuilding power hacksaws, etc.

Our class was an eclectic group during the year of the Biennial 1776-1976 and people were optimistic and happy to be alive; crossing cultural barriers came easy, and ours contained a broad spectrum from homeboys out of SA, soldiers from Saigon and engineering dropouts out of Irvine. What i remember vividly was the aplomb my new Vietnamese friends confronted their new reality - the restaurant at Hope & Sullivan included a social club and it became immediately clear how cohesive they were as a community, but also relentlessly expansive and curious about new experiences. My neighbors in the front house were a fractious couple with a young child and the husband’s volatile belligerence contributed much to their unhappiness. You can imagine his surprise when Hoa took a shine to the Señora and just moved in; as far as i know there was never an altercation of any kind, Hoa simply assumed head of household & that was that.

This was within a many generation deep latino  barrio with routine murders and gang strife, but my friends were never daunted and routinely marched in loose formation with a confidence that gave the homies pause - a not easily accomplished feat. Of course it was not a reciprocal welcome, there was no easy admittance at the social club, and without an escort you may as well have been waiting for the midnight bus if you expected to order. Yet they were entirely open to foreign social events regardless of any language or cultural barriers. I remember my friends charming strangers in any number of different settings using generosity, warmth and kindness as their only entree. They, and my memories of their indomitable courage are responsible in large part for my decision to move here Vietnam when i did.

The courage of my friends is still more remarkable after i have viewed first hand the echo of havoc: physically, ecologically, culturally my own country wrought when occupying Vietnam for entirely venal reasons then - and more dubious now. It may be the lessons i was learning then, were left incomplete and required review, or i am just part of some karmic continuum for which there is no rhyme or reason and like a blind man in a darkened house i am feeling my way from room to room searching for something i didn’t know i’d lost, or bringing something necessary for some purpose i will not understand until i get there. Crazy as it seems, i believe it is a theory more practical than the hysteria being acted out in the seat of power in my own country by zealots who possess no scrap of doubt in their minds about behavior that is as dangerous as i’ve ever seen in my long life - i can only pray & occupy myself with peaceful activity until the light of reason returns to our darkened world. 

jts 08/01/2021

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070121 - Extinction Chronicles ·

Once the delusion of changing the world recedes and we are faced with the prospect of controlling the one domain we can influence - ourselves, the equation changes and all the helplessness and frustration one might have struggled with while strategizing about changing the world become victories and accomplishments · what a happy thought. So too grows the capacity to care, for there is no more delusion about being a source of joy or misery for another, rather you are sharing the mystery of life and simply a witness to another’s breath. This is not to say there is not much to be gained by listening carefully to the stories of others and lending aid where possible, but only as a fellow wanderer occupying this vale of tears for a moment in eternity.

Nor is it necessary to travel hither and yon to find what you always carry within you - the thump, thump, thump of your heart muscle as it oxygenates the cells of your body with its steadfast rhythm regardless of where you stand or what you seek. If that ain’t a miracle, i don’t think they exist. Realizing this i cannot imagine myself every being friendless or lonely again. Not one of my wives was as faithful as my heart has been, though they protested to the contrary. As always, i have to assume full responsibility for that charade, and am nearly certain each was only attempting to reassure me about what i must have ceaselessly expressed a  hunger for - that i was loved; it was only much later that i learned that i would never be loved until i found love for myself deeply buried under the scars of socialization and the imaginary specter of impossible approval.

The more that i tried to understand another, the more i realized i can never know what someone wishes to obscure. The best i can do is to witness behavior and reflect that observation back as neutrally as possible without condemnation or judgement - i’m not there yet, but i’m getting closer. I’ve learned to accept that anger inside of another does not translate into my behavior, good or bad but rather a choice that person makes and for which must remain responsible. It is likewise for my own actions; if i veer from someone, i owe it to myself to understand what it is about that person from which i clench my heart closed, and to know that i am not being destructive through dishonest denial, or whether the person i veer from is actually dangerous or just unintentionally obtuse.

In which case, we may have much in common - a different kind of danger · “Only your friends can hurt you, your enemies can’t get that close.” - A. Nonymous · Blindness is its own delimiter, which may be a reason i can be seemingly cerebral, when i am in fact a very sensory individual; amongst an entire constellation of contradictions that comprise my conscious reality - don’t get me started about my unconscious fantasies, a shaggy beast i’d rather befriend than tame, if only because denying its existence only seems to strengthen its hold on my outward behavior and wreak havoc with interpersonal relations as well as “peace at heart,” whatever that might mean.

For my money it is the promised land where there is no air between behavior and affect; i do something because it pleases me and don’t do other things without questioning my prerogative or rueing the consequences - a life of action · as well as inaction without remorse. Mostly i wish to return to a state of love with all i encounter and be free of fictional burdens about things that are not of my making, while acting freely on my loving impulses with those i understand to be receptive to my peculiar aura, and tolerant of my aberrant inclinations understanding that they are not part of me for destructive purposes but rather as sensory tentacles to aid me in my distorted visual, aural and emotional capacities by providing vivid feedback that helps me to recognize subtleties of human interaction that others with more acute faculties would experience normally - whatever the fuck that means.

jts 07/01/2021

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060121 - Extinction Chronicles ·

Why does it seem so easy and practical to me for human beings to live in peace and harmony - and yet find so many human spirits i cannot, or will not abide? I have gotten far enough to understand i have no control over another, and harbor great resistance to others’ attempts to control me, overtly or covertly. Paradoxically i fancy myself as one of the most cooperative individuals i’ve ever known: mote in one’s own eye - aside · Yet for example, anyone reading this, please feel free to provide me criticism to the contrary. I welcome others ideas, to a limit. It seems others welcome the opportunity until their thinking is countered by alternative reasoning; an observation that may be pure “projection” and wishful thinking on my part. I feel good just getting that far, for there was a time that i was in such pain from internalized familial judgement, that i likely more resembled a spitting kitten at the end of one’s wrist than a supple existential panther looking for a sunny place to lounge.

I welcome doubt, and abhor conviction because the former allows for inquiry, while the latter is a constraint on curiosity. But the paradox regarding circumstantial ethics and its incursion into historical foundations of decency leaves me cold - not the priggish conventional thinking of moralists, but the time-honored practice of kindness and generosity which seems to have been derailed by the manipulations of social engineering that demands we as a species turn a blind eye to egregious income inequality, ecocide, perpetual war and genocide, be it racial, cultural or religious. I come from a family of teachers, several generations deep - it is one of those two-edged swords that is useful until you start teaching and stop learning; my experience in the class has always been most fruitful when the students take possession of the process and lead the way.

Now i believe the bigger the classroom the more valuable the lesson and find teachers and lessons every which way i turn. The difficulty is that the questions become more challenging commensurate with the import of what is being considered. These is the “Extinction Chronicle”, and as such leaves little to the imagination - seek a path for all to survive or perish - there is no middle ground. But if you never tried to induce conversation with a stranger about the odds of our species surviving mid-century, you’ve never really induced a conversation. And you can’t really fault people who have been up to their assholes in a virus that has now mutated and grown 70% more contagious after having killed 350,000+ ‘mericans in less than a year. Then again, talk about your “striking while the iron's hot.” What better time to drive home the threat of mass extinction than when people are dropping like flies? 

You may find that to be a gruesome simile, but from what i understand about exacerbating climate catastrophe coupled with the 13+ typhoons and resultant flooding i witnessed on the mid-coast of the Southeast Asian nation where i live, you might feel differently motivated about finding the next Gucci knockoff or latest gaming console or trendiest gaggle of hipster doofus homies to hang with. I’d like to say i feel a little like “Chicken Little” clucking about the sky falling, but the only trouble with that thinking is the sky is actually falling. What are the odds at 66 years of age i would have been taught a children’s fable at 6 about exaggerating dire consequences only to find 60 years later that it was a non-fiction-fable after all? Aside from being a passionate teacher, my father was relentless and did not know the meaning of surrender until at age 86 he tripped and crushed the neck of his trochanter of his right femur - it was decided that replacement was not viable so he was left to convalesce as best as he could incontinent with a catheter to pee through.

He crossed the dangling leg with his other to the point of callouses at the intersection: two months later x-rays showed the compound fracture while not knitted had in fact calcified to the extent it was determined that he could, if he chose, attempt walking. I watched my grimacing father take 22 steps from his bed to the door before exhaustion and narcotized pain determined an end to that experiment. For me it became a lesson in self respect - that he succumbed to his injuries less than four months later is not the point, that he literally sucked his existence to the marrow is. Whether that anecdote will jolly you into a conviction that your individual existence is powerful, or whether you feel greater solidarity with the general suffering of mankind, enough so to join forces and work toward mending the broken leg of our kind and hobble to our collective future is not mine to say; i can tell you this sharing was from the heart and meant to fortify and enlarge you, rather than demean or discourage your very likely similarly brave and courageous efforts. 

jts 06/01/2021

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050121 - Extinction Chronicles ·

I don’t know what to make of “experts” - either they are the dumbest motherfuckers on the planet or the smartest · i’d be working with someone else’s painter’s corner. I'd not have survived my 1st year of life without expertise, and that is about the nicest thing i can say about the silly ass notion anyone could be an expert. I contracted pneumonia before my 12th month; whether i survived from a Doctor’s expertise or a Nurse’s common sense is anybody’s guess - today i’m banking on the nurse; Doctors are the ones who developed the Covid-19 virus in vitro, and who were responsible for its escape into the general population. Dr. Fauci, bless his existential confusion is intimately related to the “weaponizing” of viral matter, just as the Doctors of Psychology were intimately related to weaponizing Psychology at Guantanamo Bay under the guise of protecting democracy. 

Leonardo da Vinci designed a tank, and took 4 years to paint the Gioconda (Mona Lisa). Artists today do not use his example for creating art; instead they refer to Henry Ford’s assembly line logic and glom onto Alla Prima painting as recourse for the insatiable demand for “sound aesthetic investments” by the HNWI art industrialists for valuable creativity - all from the wise counsel of “experts.” I’d slit my wrists and paint my own demise a la Jaques Louis David, because that is how the story was told during my art training - rather than his having been murdered by an agent of the Royalists as it happened · however, i’d be wasting good blood after bad, so live to fight another day. Whether i dare to intrude into the effete clime of the “jeffery koons” of our superheated Art Basil funded fine art glut rivaling the plunder by Adolph’s fit of pique at never being recognized, we’ll never know.

What i do know is the joy of abandonment to creativity that is not only discouraged by the art industrialists, but actively opposed. Marcel Duchamp identified the corruption of art early in his creative life and mocked modern art's “flatness” and its commensurate economy to the time consuming modeling that 3-dimensional depiction required when he painted his “nude descending a staircase” and further chastised the opportunistic thrust of modern art to mimic “time saving” economic models with his “Bride Stripped Bare of her Bachelors” - work that was executed by the patient, however bizarre at the time, application of dust gathering on plate glass within his studio confines - little different than da Vinci advancing the radical notion that images be gathered by the careful observation of stains on a wall · 

But Leonardo was a radical and there are apocryphal stories in Vasari’s - “Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects” wherein it was described that Mr. da Vinci would invite the personages of his time to his studio for a “viewing” during which he would proceed to step on bellows attached to stitched together pig bladders that would expand relentlessly pressing the gathered dignitaries into a corner, much i’m sure to their collective chagrin - if the egos of today’s important dignitaries are any indication - little has changed, except maybe the willingness of the artist class to articulate independence from those who would “forswear” patronage while simultaneously stipulating more and more what is and what is not permissible using nothing more than the hook of “greed.”

Fuck your greed - our species is being murdered by your creative cowardice - artist and patron alike. Your willing acquiescence to the dictates of the monied class disgusts me and motivates me hopefully through to my demise. A young friend i loved, but who presumed to seize my voice in a “film” about my work has not forgiven me for the transgression of mocking his presumption that his storyline would take precedence over my reality rankles him still - i rue the loss of that type of closeness, but willingly sacrifice the sanctity of a loving friendship to the truth which i wish to die with - i did my best and said that as clearly as i know how without help or permission from anyone or any agency · May we all arrive at such resolve about our destinies, not because they represent expertise, but because they depict us honestly.

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040121 - Extinction Chronicles ·

I was just reminded by a stranger, (or new friend depending on one’s orientation) of the importance of mindfulness and loving gratitude, this from a passing greeting at a friend’s table. It is just past the nuyier and i’m exhausted from the sham and pretense of the recent holyday celebrations and gave the stock reply about 2021; this wizened bloke was having none of that and proceeded to pin my ears back and share the abundance of personal discoveries he had made during the past year of adversity; he did so without a trace of criticism or commentary - just simple exuberance, and it brings tears to my eyes to imagine the power of such an act amplified by the billions of hard-pressed humans in our world at this time. Last night i found a key for which i’d been searching a long time - unconditional self-worth: essentially laying claim to your right to exist.

This is distinguished from the touchy-feely psychobabble about feeling good about one’s self by building self-esteem which always presupposes an arbitrary set of standards representing accomplishment and achievement, activities i grow more and more leery of because they are fungible and external making them easily manipulatable by unscrupulous characters that pass through one’s world. Self-worth is a different beast that is immutable and as personal as breathing - it is the right to exist; to take up space, to be alive however one conceives that to be. It is also something the ruling class is attempting to redefine, by depriving human beings of the essentials of shelter, water, food and air. That is unacceptable and must be opposed by the strongest possible actions.

This planet, cannot be owned - most especially by a handful of amoral parasites who increasingly represent little more than luck as a measure of value - luck that is in fact nothing more than where eggs were fertilized, much less by whom. The gentleman who kindly turned my morning around with his timely generosity about sharing his personal response to adversity is to me a gazillion times more valuable than the billionaire class that has well established its reluctance to face facts, much less act responsibly about distribution of diminishing resources to a growing population which the ruling class is goosing to grow like some dystopian protein farm, or reality depiction of “Soylent Green.”

We are being forced into a corner which is untenable, lead by murderous ideologues wielding weapons they do not own, did not build and from whose destructive power they do not suffer. The telephone indoctrination is nearly so complete that “they” are now just fine tuning their ability to manipulate people against one another, without ever having identified their hand in the struggle. The Vatos where i come from call it the “Black Hand,” - the shot caller - all these billionaire kiddy programers see is the boogey man of poverty breathing down their necks if they do not get with the program. Divide and conquer is being accomplished on a scale unimaginable to our parents, and we have seen its destructive capability in the rending of the very fabric of ‘merica.

Not that ‘mericans hadn’t long ago sold their soul to the satan of consumption without any help from #45 who obviously can’t grab his ass with both hands; we were on a long spiral arc toward doom long before the 1st MAGA hat. It is the destabilizing effect at a time when climate and contagion will further exacerbate isolation and fuel the divisions so necessary for social control. I do not know much outside of the simple timely and oh-so-useful commentary of the kind man pointing out the benefit to his own growth through his willing immersion in tribulation. So maybe that is what Buddha meant after all: if you wish to live, you must suffer, and to live deeply, you must suffer deeply - like listening fully to a single note of a Mozart piano concerto, or fully experiencing a single brush stroke of a Cézanne fruit - again, i don’t know · i’m mindfully guessing.

jts 04/02/2021

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