Oakland: Colorado County

Speaker for the Dead

The grave digger, Douglas Fairbanks, did not speak of Ghosts.  It was not that he had never seen an apparition. The reason was he felt it rather rude to speak of the dead.   He believed that the souls should rest in peace, and as everyone knows, to speak of the dead causes certain extreme irritation.  (18:356)

Attention Deficit Uccelo Responds

"It's just because of how he is dressed..... "

The grey, short cropped, business-man, riding the Bart transit under the bay bridge,  looked down at his I-Phone.  

"Oh my goodness Daryl Hannah, a grandmother.

"The horror.

The horror.

How Horrible."

She once was an icon of sensuality, at one time she was every sixteen year old lesbians passionate muse. But now...and then blurting aloud:

"The grotesque it just creeps me out, man."

Meat on A Cargo Plane (Original Writing by Gregorio Roth)

Rattling in the oppressive tin can, with recycled, filtered oxygen; the tin can lifts into the air.   Apprehension air a baby cries, an old man coughs into his handkerchief, and I sit there thinking... "how much longer".    My wife Jessica is busy taking pictures out of the window of the plane.  She hates to fly, so finds something to occupy the time; she snaps digital pictures of the airplanes wing.  Apprehension, things appear to quickly in this universe.  Fear and a baby cries, an old man coughs into his handkerchief, and I sit there asking myself,

“How long is the flight? Where is the first stop?-Dallas. “

Let me look at the Dallas airport in this complementary magazine.  

“Dallas looks like an easy to manage airport!?”   

 I can’t wait to get back to Florida or at least Texas so I can stretch my legs.   The seats are so jam packed in this plane.  (I guess they are looking to maximize profit margin.)  I think back to how difficult it was to get our baggage stored in the overhead compartment.   Even though I am so far away from my family and my origins I can reach out to old friends on viral machines and fuselages in orbit.   Why do we pack ourselves into a tin can and soar to other places?  Oh yeah for the love of family.  

My wife continues to snap pictures of the wing of the American Airline’s plane.   

I think to myself, “What if she takes a picture of a Gremlin, or a goose that is about to take down our plane. Are there even geese in San Francisco, I know there are seals, but geese... I am just meat on a cargo plane. I wish I could open a window...but the lack of oxygen created by the crack in the window would be more stifling than sitting here cramped in my seat.  I am going to die, I am going to die, damn not here, not now, later…I am  going to die on a tin can, packed like a sardine, bound to Dallas Texas! Man I have always hated Texas! ”  My fears  surround me, I feel more crammed as the man in the seat ahead of mine leans back!  The plane has flown to its cruising altitude. "I wish I could open a window."

Jessica asks, “Do you want to see the pictures I took?”    

I snap, “No!”

Correcting myself, “Yes dear, but lets wait till you are sitting safely on the ground.  I am afraid that one of your pictures may have a gremlin or a goose on it! What would we do then?"

Jessica grins and goes back to snapping pictures.

James and the Dusty Machines

Once upon a time, and still to this day a man named Adam lived in a dust bin of an universe. Adam worked as a mechanic in The Dust Creating Machine.  Each machine part was tainted with dust, which added more and more dust, and made piles of dust each and every day (365 24/7). 

No matter how hard Adam tried to get rid of the dust, the dust was always there. 

The King of the kingdom, had kept an eye on the machinery of his subjects and was not pleased with the continual accumulation of dusty particles.   King El, knew that the only solution was for him to step into man's story.  The king knew that Man was bound to the factory and too endebted to the factory cycle.   The only thing that could be done was to send his son into the factory.  Joshua turned over the factory and busted the machinery into tiny pieces.   He redirected man's energy to the king himself. 


The machinery would no longer be able to produce the sinful dust that had so plagued man.  
 
Man was/is stubborn and it took time for man to see the awesome power of Monkey wrenching Joshua.
 Some men even went and started building more machines.
 
So Joshua proclaimed, if you join that crew you can not be part of my kingdom.   

Joshua knew the answer was to return man back to an agrarian society absent of dusty machines. 

{The Beginning}

Original Story by Gregorio Roth

 

Red Head Boy on a Grey Distant Planet

On a grey planet of a little no named star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some dusty corner of a universe;  lived a screaming eight year old boy.  He believed in America and wove an American Flag with Gusto.  The boy wore a purple viking t-shirt, a present from his grandfather.

 The eight year old jumped up and down in patriotic splendor during the annual Boulder County Colorado Fair kick off parade.

The Daily Camera photographer saw the red-haired kid, (heck who could miss him, he seemed so animated) and took the kids photograph to be placed on the front of the paper the next day.

Carl Sagan "A Gift for Vividness," Time, October 20, 1980, 61.

Dark Dreary Night in Monticello

UPON THE HALF decayed porch of a small frame Old Catholic Church, we were waiting for the HauntedMonticello Ghost Tour to begin. One could tell that the Church was made out of a love for Christ, because of the detailed masonry and eye for perfection found in the sanctuary's design. 
Outside the church it was a dreary night.   Tallahassee was being washed out by torrential downpours, and lightning strikes every ten feet. Monticello was so far clear of any rain or any threats from lighting. 
The tour guests were arriving with expectations of seeing a real ghost.
"Do y'all find any actual ghosts on this tour?", said a man wearing an "Astro Boy" t-shirt.
"Well last night… one of our guests thought she fell into a spider web; but in all actuality it was a ghost." said the tour guide.
The tour guide, Margaret Defraud,  was dressed up in a Victorian style dress.  
She knew what the guests were thinking,  "history is spooky".  
But I will show these Yahoos, I will disprove their doubt that "History is bunk!" I will replace this notion with History is a living breathing thing.  History is a monster that stalks its victims." 


I will walk them down that darkened street damned street Stoneham.  Stoneham Street which served as a conduit for lost souls.  Stoneham Street which was always five degrees cooler compared to adjoining streets.  She had witnessed that the wind moved constantly there. 


Margaret Defraud  believed Stoneham Street was an express way for Lost Souls.

Re-Wind: Traveling the Western Highway Route 66

When my friend and I were traveling one time the lyrics to this song helped us plan our route. You never know when pop culture will aide you in discovery. Sometimes you might end in a farmers field but hey that's only in Flagstaff. 

Well if you ever plan to motor west

Just take my way that's the highway that's the best

Get your kicks on Route 66

Well it winds from Chicago to L.A.

More than 2000 miles all the way

Get your kicks on Route 66

Well goes from St. Louie down to Missouri

Oklahoma City looks oh so pretty

You'll see Amarillo and Gallup, New Mexico

Flagstaff, Arizona don't forget Winona

Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino

Would you get hip to this kindly tip

And go take that California trip

Get your kicks on Route 66

Well goes from St. Louie down to Missouri

Oklahoma city looks oh so pretty

You'll see Amarillo and Gallup, New Mexico

Flagstaff, Arizona don't forget Winona

Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino

Would you get hip to this kindly tip

And go take that California trip

Get your kicks on Route 66

The song to me has come to mean America for me.   I can not think of anything more freeing than pointing my car towards distant horizons, and doing that Route 66 dream.   The dream that Kerouac would have said, "Jack, gotta go!"

Happy Fourth of July Everyone!

Twilight Series: Eclipse

Yes, I asked my wife to go see the matinee of Twilight.  According to the bro-code, I probably lost about 30 man points in watching this movie.   But so what?  Because my wife and I both enjoyed the film.

I learned something from the new Twilight Series about the need for traditional values in today's youth conscious. Edward (the Vampire) is a great character of heroic stature. If I was Bella's father I would want the right guy to marry my daughter. Edward would truly be someone who I would have no problem saying"Yes, you can be my son in law!" He stands by his girl. He is respectful of her body. And he believes in traditional values.

At first Bella's dad thinks there is something different about this boy. No one can be this respectful these days. I would not expect boys in 2010 to act so courageously. He desires to be right with Bella's dad, and wants to ask for his daughter's hand in marriage.



Too bad Edward is fictional and is also a vampire, but perhaps we can dream of a day, when boys become like Edward and court the girl. Lets hope that the good bachelors are not vampires.

Goodwill and the perfect Shirt (Insight from Gregorio Roth)

What is the perfect shirt? What makes something good and something trashy?

I went to Good will today to find the answer to these questions:


Americans, I mean you and me, (yes I am just as bad as the next guy) love the new thing. We love to buy stuff that will exhibit our evolving personality. We love too be considered cool in our own evolving Face Book profile.   Our profiles are blown like a kit flown during a Tornado, no wonder we say are tired.  We go to great lengths to be unique in a world that wants us common; for more on this idea check out my Mom's Blog on the Blue Allium?


As I was saying before I rudely interrupted my own thoughts, I went to Good Will today to look for the perfect shirt. I went through 100 or more shirts in order to find two that would be bonuses to my collection. I love the thrill of a good deal, $5.00 for a one of a kind shirt. We all love to search for something cool; (my brother loves to look through records to find the perfect album). 


 I looked through the Short Sleeve dress shirts.  And I found a University of Oregon replica jersey with the number 96 and tire treads on the sleeves.   Finding an Oregon replica jersey in Florida is something that makes me smile.   

BTW: Happy Birthday Mom I love you!!!!!!

Crayola and Semantic Mysticism

Crayola in 1999 changed the name of their Crayon "Indian Red", because of a misunderstanding in language.   Words have two meanings the literal one in the dictionary, and the connotative meaning found in the culture's use of a word.  

Parents were raving madly in a superior din when Johnny brought them a Crayon with the words, "Indian Red" printed on the red crayon.  

"How dare they print this racist term on my child's crayons." they roared in protest.

Crayola seemed to be residents from a bygone era.

But in fact Indian red was a term for a type of red found in India.

This incident proved that words do in fact have power, a sort of semantic mysticism.

Eric El Camion Hates Imperial Bedrooms by Brett Easton Ellis

Imperial Bedrooms

By Bret Easton Ellis

(Knopf, Hardcover, 9780307266101, 192pp.)

Publication Date: June 15, 2010

Categories: Literary

Eric El Camino has hated me for loving Brett Easton Ellis novels. His feelings were a flame of burning desire. His rage burned like a bonfire set by an eddy on the beach.   He would put a chock hold on me and hang me in my locker, because he was the authority on what was good literature.  He was only thirteen but he knew better than all the other kids, and he was willing to use violence to prove it.


I consider Brett Easton Ellis one of the best writers of all time. He is one of my guilty pleasures.  There was a time when his books, even American Psycho, shaped how I interpreted the times I was part of. Ellis books are always dark, but inside that dark is a flickering light that gives hope, a promise of future glory. They are a true reinterpretation of the American Dream. Something happened to the American Dream between 1997 and 2010 (tragedy at Columbine, the twin Towers, space shuttles exploding on a return flight, the dot boom fiasco, the BP Oil Spill) taking the alluring world of Ellis and twisting it into a knot. An unyielding knot holding hope and joy locked into an affair with disillusion.


Today, I listened to the album that coincides with Ellis's new novel Imperial Bedrooms and think,

"Wow, I can't wait to read his new novel!"


I also think I will download the soundtrack and raise a toast to my innocence.

Thomas Hart Benton An American Original

(Kansas City)  I recall enjoying the brisk September air, and that flap jacks were sitting heavy in my stomach.  I had just eaten at a local greasy spoon.  I was enamored with all of the big pretty white suburban houses.   Then, I chanced upon the former residence of Thomas Hart Benton.   I had no idea who he was.  I decided to go and visit and find out!   I am glad I did.  His studio was left just as if he had gone out for an errand, downtown.  Coffee cans held paintbrushes.  His studio was a  place where work had been done, not necessarily orderly and clean. A place reserved for creative expression.  Thomas Hart Benton embodied the Western Landscape just like the buffalo did long ago.

 Thomas Hart Benton
on the model for Susana: 
"that delightful hillbilly girl (a true Ozark product gone wrong) who became the model for "Susannah" - My boy- what a skin what a blood pulsing skin - just enough yellow in the belly to make the tits look pink - we don't find models like that anymore."
on his art 
"We were different in our temperaments and many of our ideas, be we were alike in that we were all in revolt against the unhappy effects which the Armory Show of 1913 had had on American painting.  We objected to the new Parisian aesthetics which was more and more turning art away from the living world of active men and women into an academic world of empty patterns."

Simpson Marc, Sally Mills and Jennifer Saville The American Canvas Paintings from the Collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1989), 218.

Nostalgia’s Thread Ten Poems on Norman Rockwell Paintings

a compacted punch,

 of literary power 

We yearn for a return to Eden; we yearn to return to commune with the untarnished world, a world that lacks pain, ugliness, and evil.  Nostalgia's Thread by Randall R. Freisinger takes another look at the perfect world illustrated in Norman Rockwell's paintings. Freisinger constructs words that eloquently juxtapose the imperfect world we live in to the perfect 1950's portrayed by Norman Rockwell. 

 He speaks to the desire to be 

"young again, and clean

of conscience, returned to the embrace

of a loving family that never truly existed

and which you mostly now visit

only in fading photos or rote prayers

at church when the liturgy's script

cues you in time for the dying to remember

the dead. You want to recall the vanished home

of childhood without the collateral damage of wrath

and uneasy laughter." (Page 24-25)

Freisinger's thoughtful poems are an invitation to remember our childhood dreams of a more perfect place. We once thought that life could be endemic. We are now older and have hung up those childhood dreams in our walk in closets; and yearn for prelapsarian dreams. Freisinger is a master of creating images by selecting pertinent words: "postman's pouch heavy with grief." Freisinger's book is small, but is a compacted punch, of literary power that knocks the reader out. 


 A definite Cluck, Cluck, Cluck.

  Nastalgia's Thread: Ten Poems on Norman Rockwell's Paintings

Randall R. Freisinger

Holartbooks.com

U.S. $12.95

ISBN: 9781936102037

Genre: Poetry (Secular)

Note from Human Resources, one should update their Read Across the United States Map:  Randall R. Freisinger is from Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  One should color in the upper peninsula of Michigan as soon as possible.    

 

120 Minutes Archive.

Do y'all remember 120 minutes?

 Do you remember a time, when MTV attempted to play interesting music? 

When MTV did not become another teen reality network? 

 When MTV mattered? 

 Do you remember these times: then head to the 120 Minutes Archive put together by Tyler C..  

Reprint:

Toy Publix truck on mantle,
Van Gogh Flowers Poster
Flogging Molly Banner
Mountain Riders Maui Poster 242-9739
White (the hero's color) Cowboy hat from Ocala
Cologne: Burburry London for Men
Obsession Silken Body Lotion C.K.
Compass pointing out Due North
Date Jar full of Dimes
Wind in the Willows Poster from London's National Theater
My bedroom lies cramped with so much character.   

Where we Stand? Open for Business

The United States is going through a period of change.  Change theory says that the first reaction will be shock; then the US reaction will move to denial; than the People will find blame in themselves; this period of Self Blame will be followed by acceptance.  Once we find acceptance and move from the river of denial we will than learn to experiment and find new ways of conducting ourselves in the United States and in the World at Large.

 The United States of America is slowly tilting to a change, a change, a change.  A change between the Old Guard watch dog conservatives, to a newer vision framed by a younger mind set.

  In a way we can blame the 1970's curriculum of "Free to Be You and Me" for the shift.  The new frame of America is shaped around acceptance of diversity, and a need to resolve all conflicts peacefully.   Their will be a battle between the old guard who desire self reliance, to the new guard who see possibility of unity in Big Government.   The important thing to do is to hold onto the rails, keep your hands and legs inside the cart, and get ready for the bumpy ride.

It is good to get informed.  It is good to comment as we will all be responsible for shaping the United States today.   Conservatives don't stop critiquing and editing the thoughts of well intentioned liberals.  For the liberals will dream and the conservatives will edit these dreams so that they are coherent to what the United States will publish to the world.

I do believe the United States will reshape itself into something we won't recognize today.  But don't fret to much,  for we (The People of the United States) will regain our footing and continue to set the tone for what it means to be a Freeman in the 21st Century.

How can you be neutral on the point of a bullet?

Book Sandwiched In: December Reading.


All Things, All At Once: New and Selected Stories by Lee K. Abbott

How can you be neutral on the point of a moving bullet????

Lee K. Abbot's collection of short stories provides a gateway to the dusty roads in the rural south-west. Abbot's writing covers a wide range of themes including: violence inside a man, lawn mowing, Methodists, UFOs, dreams, choices, shadows of reality, Zodiacs, Wars, Envy, Lust, Friendship, Father and Sons, Golf, New Mexico, Lands of Enchantments, Deserted Byways, wives, and the lost Art of Conversation.

The book may stretch your rigid cultural lines. The characters in the stories are not the type we would necessarily want to hang out with. They are all rebels who may seem at first morally irresponsible. But the characters redemption lies in telling their tales honestly. One of my favorite lines in the stories is "All of this happened years ago when I was the son of a bitch I am not now." (92)
He shows the dark closets full of secrets hanging on clothes hangers ready to be worn.

He forces us to look at our relationships with others and shows how these relationships may not be true to our pretenses.

You can't hate Abbot for his bold strokes, for his bold strokes are his alone.



View all my reviews

Next Month BSI Reviews- The Conjurer's Bird by Martin Davies

Going Westside: Space Needle

West Coast-California Basketball

a. lakers fast break makers
kinds of the court shake and bake all takers
back to back is a bad ass fact a claim that remains in tact
m-a-g-i-c see you on the court
buck has come to play his way and his way is to thwart
m-a-g-i-c magic of the buck
other teams pray for dreams
but he don't give a [fuck]
penetrating the lane like a bullet train
comes the magic blood a telepathic brain
knucklehead suckers better duck
when the buck comes through like a truck
scott stops pops and drops it in
on his way back gets a little skin
from the hand of a man named a. c. green
slam so hard break your t.v. screen
worthy's hot with his tomahawk
take it to the hole make your mamma talk
i hate to burst your bubble but triple double trouble
is coming to your town and he's going to make rubble
l. a. lakers fast break makers
kings of the court shake and bake all takers
back to back is a bad ass fact a claim that remains in tact
lakers are the team that i watch on the telly
cause they got more moves
that a bowl full of jelly
the buck stops here - pops - then cheers
a roar through the forum
that deafens my ears
the one and only know if his kind
sits in a throne
not for the records that he holds
but for being bald and bold
kareem abdul jabbar
all time great super super star
i hate to burst your bubble but triple double trouble
is coming to your town and he's going to make rubble
does anybody want some magic johnson
l. a. lakers fast break makers
kings of the court shake and bake all takers
back to back is a bad ass fact a claim that remains in tact

From Greg's Journal of Found Things

The Fumble Heard Around the AFC
the Story of the 1987 AFC Championship

We humans like to take one event from the whole set and make that the truth. We can not tell a likely event from one event, or one piece of data. We need a large sample size to make a statistical likely-hood.

Ernest Byner of the Cleveland Browns statistically never fumbled; but one day in 1987 he fumbled on the 3 yard line redefining his identity forever.

"Browns running back Earnest Byner took a handoff and appeared to be on his way to score the game-tying touchdown. But he was stripped of the ball by Broncos defensive back Jeremiah Castille, and fumbled at the 3-yard line. The Broncos recovered the ball, gave the Browns an intentional safety, and went on to win 38-33. While Byner took a lot of heat from Browns fans and the media for his fumble, what is often overlooked is that he was one of the main reasons Cleveland came so close to winning the game. He had a superb performance with 67 rushing yards, 7 receptions for 120 yards, and 2 touchdowns." Wikepedia Article the Fumble.


If you see one bright red swan, you are not likely to give up a theory that says that all swans are white, you will instead go looking for the person who painted it." Smolin, Lee Trouble with Physics (297)