Before His OPRAH WINFREY Kind/Style Of OPEN MIC At TRIBAL CAFE For AIDS Day, Fred VIDAL, PhD Sings FOR YOU! On The Web To His 164 NEXTCAT Connections, As LiFe Goes In Lalaland And The States!!

www.nextcat.com/fredvidal

TheY Are LOU REED Oriented, BuT Fred VIDAL WiTh The BAND MUSE, Will Be FOR YOU! InvolveD In A German GIRL StyLe Of SONG (another composition Of Fred KELLY).Like Beatles' NORVEGIAN WOOD.

On TWITTER FV: http://twitter.com/fredvidal

Check out Tribal Cafe – Open Mike at www.Eventful.com http://is.gd/58XXK #EVtriba1201 The Sweet Troubled Soul, music = comedy + poetry!

This EVENING, BeginninG at 8pm, Hosted by Sheng Peng & Sona Ovasapyan! FV SonG Will BE VIDEOTAPED By Team FV YoutubE And For YOUTUBE only!!

www.youtube.com/bramstocker77

Fred VIDAL On www.eventful.com, GooD SiTe Where INDIAN TouR Is RevealeD NOW! Lalaland Is A Great Expression MeaninG MusiC And More (Comedy)!

TIMEFRAMES: LALALAND? Pejorative Word? NO, Not According To Us! sincerely, IT’s MOTTO Times Frames Beginning NoW, ‘Make Movies in LalaLand’!

‘Make Movies in LalaLand’ TIMEFRAMES: COMEDY, even if + pejorative, Means Comedy IMPRO SHOW, Word CoOl, To Be A Comedian Is To BE An Artist!

Q&A: WhaT Else?? Did Fred VIDAL Called His ConTacT BEVERLY HILLS And Does He Schedule A MeetinG WiTH This Contact-Friend? i’d like to know!

Fred VIDAL In Menilmontant, Closde To JIM MORRISON Pere Lachaise Cemetery, BUT ALIVE, Was/Is Already At Work WitH GUITAR SEAGUL, As Fallen Angels, Friends Of Him, Around Them, Play The Trumpet!

basically YES! He’s in London (london) Now 4 ReHearsAL With BAnD rock MUSE (Buy CD like HiM!), He wilL Confirm ABouT that 2!! (some Buddie)

Important Texts Explaining The Pictures Chosen On Blog. Fred In MENILMONTANT (Long Hair, Acoustic, No shirt) Chosen 4 Homage MORRISON + RocK

ManaGement: Picture FRED KELLY no shirt Is ICONOGRAPHY Best Years, On location In Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders Film), But FRANCE 2, in 1990’s!!

StellaMcCartney Support World Aids Day with a Stella for Gap Red Campaign tshirt. Profits go to the Global Fund to fight Aids in Africa http://bit.ly/6Z4tvh

http://www.gap.com/browse/product.do?cid=17077&vid=1&pid=696596

@StellaMcCartney I’ll BE There, As The WorlD neeDs Us To Fight Vs This Illness That is Worse Than CANCER. Great What You DO!! Impressed! FV

Stella McCartney? No Reply!?? It’s A SonG of HeR FATHER, NO REPLY On For Sale! Must BE PreTTy BUSY, Like Us, SoundS GooD What She’s DOING!!

PARIS, TEXAS: Screenplay Sam SHEPARD (Fred VIDAL Met In Cannes 80’s 4 FOOL 4 LOVE) With Nastassja KINSKI (friend myspace?) & Dean Stockwell

Ernst Wilhelm “Wim” Wenders (born 14 August 45) German film director, playwright, author, producer. Began with rise New German Cinema 1960’s

Paris, Texas = 1984 Palme d’Or winning film directed by Wim Wenders. Screenplay by L.M. Kit Carson/playwright Sam Shepard, score Ry Cooder!!

And verily We had empowered them with that wherewith We have not empowered you, and had assigned them ears and eyes and hearts—Koran, xlvi, 26

My instructions are to deliver the corpse to Nastassja Kinsky. We are to meet at nine tomorrow morning in the lobby of the Cecil Hotel, just off the seashore in downtown Alexandria. The corpse is a lightweight microelectronic bolt that looks like a miniature coffin; Nastassja Kinsky is an agent of the Plant. If I revealed what the Plant is, I would die.

Five weeks ago, a bearded boy came into my office and took his clothes off. Later that night I told my wife we had to be separated by the end of the year. She mouthed the word divorce interrogatively and cried. I stayed in the office until I found an apartment, seeing the boy every day. He tasted of sand and vine leaves, groaned like a reed flute, and made me so happy it didn’t even register that I was sleeping with a man.

Since then I’ve learned many things. One: that sexuality is a silly mental construct, but so is almost everything else in this world; who would have thought a thing like the Plant was possible? And two: that the Plant is so powerful and fair, no one would have to kill me if I was to die; I would just contract an illness, have a car accident, something. The Plant can make things happen so only you are responsible; it can alter the constitution of the air.

The boy proved lithe and tender, a divine sensualist, but it turned out he was on a mission to recruit me. His name was Allen Ginsberg, he said; mine was to be Joseph Koudelka. My post would involve making weekend trips to deliver microelectronic parts around the region. He explained to me what the Plant is doing to change the world, why I was chosen for the vacancy, and how those deliveries matter.

The term of the contract was unspecified, but he assured me about the Plant’s employment philosophy: No one will serve for longer than a very small portion of their lifetime. In that brief period people have what he called adventurous skill accumulation. Payment is made only once at the end; it never involves money but, Believe me, he said, it is worth it.

You’re not serious, I scoffed.

It’s like the trip of a lifetime, he ignored me, except you learn a lot too. And you get a very valuable present at the end, something to treasure forever.

Learn about what, you howling faggot?

He was crouched on the floor tying up his shoelace; I couldn’t help ogling his perfect buttocks, barely believing they were in my hands just a few minutes ago.

I already said—no questions!

Okay, I drawled. Whatever. So, what do you say, he looked up. Will it be yes or no?

Something made me nod, vigorously, though I knew it meant I would never see him again.

Later on the thought of psychosis repeatedly crossed my mind. Had things failed to correspond with people’s testimonies or gone wrong, I would’ve given in to it, too. As it is, everything is consistent: my work as an attorney, down to the bearded teenage client whom I met with so intensively for a few days last month; my monthly visit to my mother in Damietta; weekly drinking binge with two school friends; the divorce proceedings; moving house; everything.

The third thing I learned is that it happens to everyone, at least once or twice in the first week of work: you think you’ve gone mad, that all you’ve been experiencing is a string of hallucinations. The thought still dogs me, a temporary comfort, because what’s actually frightening is it’s real. The way things happen, they happen by order of the Plant.

And so I’ve made four journeys on the job, all safe, straightforward transactions, with the opportunity for a little sightseeing on the side.

Tonight, switching off my cell phone the way I’m supposed to for the duration of every assignment, I board the train to my favorite weekend destination for the first time.

It is more complicated because I haven’t been in Alexandria for months; and it always stirs up difficult emotions when I go. Not once did I board this train with any goal but to relax, usually after a big case or another extramarital affair: with a woman. Before Allen Ginsberg—believe it if you will—I had never touched a man in my life.

So far it seems no different from any other time, though: the stiff-backed seat, neon lights, chug-chug of iron-clad progress as we pass a sequence of empty sandlots, slowing at the dimly lit crossroads of some outlying shanty town before we pick up speed.

Only, after the bedlam of Ramses Station, the coach feels eerily quiet. I’m thinking of Allen Ginsberg: the way his spine would curve to pre-empt a particular caress; his biceps stiffening while one hand cradled his balls, the other pushing his face down. Suddenly it strikes me that we’ve passed both Cairo stations and I’m still alone on the coach.

I get up and scale the entire iron horse, hand on corpse in my asbestos-padded pant pocket while I cross from one coach to the next. Maybe it’s the Nawwah, a kind of mini hurricane that ruffles the coast once or twice a winter, but there are fewer passengers on the Cairo-Alexandria line tonight than I’ve ever seen. I must dismiss the idea that this is the work of the Plant.

Frequently, on performing a task — that’s what the guidelines said to the word, as far as I can recall them: instructions are transmitted through a packet-switching information grid like the internet but without hard drives or cache; all files are self-deleting, they appear for three minutes at a time, and you’re expected to commit their contents to memory — you will notice that particular events develop in an unusual or salient manner, generally in such a manner as to facilitate or conceal elements of your undertaking. You will not stop to think about such developments… At certain, higher branches of the Plant, it is possible to control the range of eventualities in a very limited portion of the space-time continuum; in your experience, however, it may or may not be the case that such control has been exercised. It is pointless and marginally less efficient to attempt to find out if it has…

The corpse writhing and beaming imperceptibly on my groin, I take the book out of my rucksack and start reading. It’s an eleventh-century Sufi text, an interest I’ve kept up since doing my MA in Islamic Law; it talks about the unity of existence.

Every number is reducible to the one, it says; and in like manner, all things are reducible to their oneness, however much they multiply, or differ. No thing can exist without a sense of its value, but no value can be sensed without a unit: all, in the ultimate exhalation of the holy breath, is one…

But a passenger just came into the coach and the sight of him is distracting me. He is young and brawny, the passenger, the shape and color of Allen Ginsberg, but broader shouldered and clean shaven. If you multiply one by one you will obtain one, the book says, but if you multiply it by any other value you will obtain no other but that value. From my seat I can only see the back of his head, but I know he is inwardly staring at me.

There was eye contact when he passed: I made a note of the tiny fish-shaped scar above his eyebrow, how abruptly the fuzz behind his ears gives way to curls, his nebulous grin.

I haven’t had eye contact since. Somehow I just know he is staring at this bald, fast aging lecher, following the fingers with chewed cuticles as they turn the pages, reveling in the sheer libidinal need contorting the chapped lips. I do know, because the moment I get up, he turns his head and signals with his eyes, that same grin promising my deliverance.

Excuse me, he breathes; his voice is higher than I want it, but his jawline is chiseled, spare stubble glittering in the fluorescence like some black-green savannah in miniature.

Yes?

I was wondering if you might know what this is. He holds up a piece of card, black, whittled into an immaculate octagon: an item I’m familiar with. I just found it in my pocket, he laughs diffidently, shrugging. No idea where it’s come from.

Oh? Now I remember that, when he came in, the train had not stopped since my tour of the coaches, nor had I seen anything like him while my eyes scoured the seats, freaked out by the inexplicable scarcity of passengers.

Maybe you can help me? Oh to trace the fish with the tip of my tongue, to lie back and feel the savannah punishing my plains. I know it sounds whacky, but there has to be an explanation.

Is it just me, he adds suddenly, or is this train empty like mad? It is, I mumble, trying to steady myself. Empty… yes. I was… just thinking that.

Then I’m striding ahead, balancing with difficulty, his breath on my shoulder and nothing else in the world, until we are face to face in the toilet cubicle and the door is locked.

Let’s see, I hiss, clutching at the soma that torments me.

Before I realize it, I’m not sure where he’s gone. The cubicle door is ajar and I’m crouched in the corner gathering together my clothes. I do it fast, wiping the semen off my thighs and picking wet hairs from my face, even though it’s clear there’s no one around to watch me. In half an hour or so the only thing he said is his name, panting and grinding: Jim Morrison.

Straightening, at last, I slip my hand in my pocket to make sure the corpse is there, but what stands out against the cold, packed grain of the asbestos is warmer and more angular, wider on one side; it is perfectly stationary, too: it doesn’t give off waves or beams.

I take it out: the black octagon. Must be a message from the Plant, I decide, hoping it will explain. Can’t wait to get to the hotel, though: in the room, I can bring its edge into contact with a naked wire and absorb what it says before it bursts into flames.

No point worrying, I know, but how can I be sure Jim Morrison really works for the Plant? If he doesn’t—no joke—I will probably be maimed.

The fourth thing I learned: plans change spontaneously as often as not; sometimes the least expected thing is the thing that’s supposed to happen. And the fifth: only end result, not intention, is judged; say I managed to hold onto the corpse, and it turns out this guy is supposed to have it, then I’d still suffer the consequences alone.

Masr Station is as busy as Ramses. I file along toward the exit, steadily gathering speed as I picture the message in a haze of light. Dodging clusters of baggage and refreshment stalls, I can’t help wondering where all these people came from. Intimacy is such a fickle thing, it only takes a quiet train ride for the perfectly familiar prospect of a busy station to look strange.

Already I’m having to block out thoughts of my wife now I’m in Alexandria: I’ve always come after the end of something; a whiff of sea air is all it takes for reflections to start trickling through my head. The only reason they’re relatively at bay is I need to know what the Plant has to say to me. Then there is this sudden, unexplained hunger and I just know the best way to ignite the octagon has to do with food. Should I stop and eat on the way to the hotel?

At the exit the grubby-green polystyrene prayer mats have been rolled into columns and stored upright to one side. I recall how much it used to bother me when the faithful would block the way out, microphones blaring above their heads. Until five weeks ago I never understood why anyone believed it was necessary to pray.

Lesson number six: there are only two things in life—your body, and the possibility of something else. Without that possibility, your body might as well just wither away and die, which it will in either case, sooner than later. The possibility rather turns it into an instrument or a tool, something to work with in a slightly more meaningful setup. That’s why it’s necessary to pray, unless your something else doesn’t require prayers, or you have a post with the Plant.

Only one mat is still spread out on the floor. On the edge of it sits an old peasant woman smiling charmingly into the void. Legs crossed, back bent forward, she mutters in the same level tone, unperturbed by lack of attention; for some reason neither police nor station staff are making any effort to remove her, even though she is clearly a beggar woman and, by order of a widely publicized campaign, they have to excise street characters from public space.

You will eat in a minute, she happens to be saying as I pass. Give me something to eat with.

I bend over and hand her a note, much bigger than I intended. Something about her face is drawing me to her; I realize it is this, not benevolence, that made me stop. Crouching down there, beyond layers of tattered black muslin, beyond the haggard female form, I can make out the contours of my father’s face. It’s a fleeting impression, but haunting.

May He give you without calculation, her tone doesn’t change as she slips the money into her bosom, with frightening alacrity, nor her smile.

It’s hard to tear my eyes off that dark, sculptured visage, familiar and far away at the same time, but my legs are starting to hurt and I’m confirmed in the decision to drop by Andrew’s on the way. Out of habit, not for a logical reason, I ignore the middle-aged men yelling Taxi as I charge ahead. A taxi would save time. Except that I want to walk toward the sea, not seeing it, just knowing it’s there: in fifteen minutes I’ll be inside my Greek client’s fish restaurant sipping beer.

The thought of beer preoccupies me while I slip into Prophet Daniel Lane, where Alexander the Macedonian is thought to be buried, past the used book stands and the used camera store, all closed; and it starts, softly, then ferociously, to rain.

Three minutes from the station, emptiness has already gripped the streets, but it’s less freaky now because the Nawwah is raging. The rain keeps people indoors; actually it’s so absorbing I’ve almost forgotten my troubles: Allen Ginsberg, my wife, the corpse, whether I’m on the right side of the Plant. By the time I push the glass door and head for the table I always take, I’m drenched. A pretty young woman comes up with the menu.

Andrew isn’t here? No, he is away in Matrouh, she says confidently. You are his friend? I nod: And you? I’m seeking out her eyes, the way I used to do it with my wife, before we got married. When you’re a man addressing a woman you don’t know, this is the cruelest, sweetest way of saying: I like you; or so my wife used to say.

His little sister. She looks down. I used to study in Athens…

I wonder if I still have an appetite for women, though. Deliberately, I’m picturing my client’s sister naked in the toilet on a train.

Suddenly the thought of beer brings on this searing need to urinate. I can barely stay still while I blurt out my order: Grilled mullet and a plate of squid. Salad and bread, no rice. You can decide on the sauces, but can you get me a beer while I’m indisposed?

The chances are she’s still nodding uncomprehendingly while I lock the bathroom door. It’s like a ground-floor apartment, this restaurant; its bathroom is spacious and homey, unisex, without cubicles or peepholes. It’s not until I’ve relieved myself that I notice a slight break in the electric circuit of the sink light. Then I realize what brought me here.

I look closer: a tiny length of wire is exposed. I ply it out with my Biro. Holding the octagon in both hands, I take a deep breath before I let the current run through it.

JIM MORRISON CLEAR, it says, the letters shimmering in a subdued glow, like the last few embers of a charcoal fire about to die. NK: RECEIPT. REWARD FOR FIFTH SUCCESS TONIGHT. And in smaller type: enjoy grilled mullet, squid.

Before I have time to gape, I’ve managed to burn my finger. No matter how amazing what an octagon has to say, it’s always more amazing the way it disappears: a clear blue flame and nothing, absolutely nothing else. Once it’s gone out, your hand is slightly wet; that’s all. You never have the luxury to mull over the message. I sometimes think it’s this that makes it stick.

After the second beer I practically run to the Cecil Hotel. I want to look at the sea but I’m dying for legitimate privacy; and I promise myself I’ll be back in good time.

The fish seeping gently into my bloodstream, egged on by alcohol, I’m warm and tired and I need to sit still. The rain has gotten harder and the wind whistles through my pores, as if in counterpoint to the fish settling in there, quietly, calmly, a musical expression of arrival at the sea.

It takes a little while before, rushing alongside the seashore, inhaling the sea air in long gulps, I realize this is nothing but relief: knowing that I didn’t get it wrong on the train, that in five weeks I’ve been good enough to be rewarded; but I’m not at all impatient to find out about my prize. I’ve played guessing games with the Plant before now.

Checking in feels that tiny bit smoother than I’m used to. Finally I’m on my back, revising the contents of the message one last time. I am to receive something from Nastassja Kinsky, instead of delivering the corpse to her. I am to expect more madness tonight, happy madness.

I close my eyes and repeat what I have to do, a habit I’ve acquired since the third week. The rain rap-rapping against the panes, delayed and overpowered by the cawing of the wind, I rest my arm on the pillow and just go on repeating the words in the dark.

I am to receive something from Nastassja Kinsky, instead of delivering the corpse to her; I am to receive something from Nastassja Kinsky, instead of delivering the corpse to her; I am to receive something from Nastassja Kinsky… I am to receive something… I am… Kinsky…

When I wake up there is cold coffee by my bedside: a room service order. It’s been years since I fell involuntarily asleep. Overjoyed, I sit up and light a cigarette, remembering the promise I made to myself. For a while I savor the intermittent sound of the rain. Gradually trouble is returning, though: the sad story with my wife; so long as I can turn it to melancholy I’ll be fine. I exert myself to turn it to melancholy while I shower, shave, change my clothes. It’s not working.

I prop myself up in bed and take out the book, a grim attempt to get distracted; I don’t know why it never occurs to me to switch on the TV. From the unity of existence, though, we’ve moved abruptly onto the afterlife; and something about the business of death is taking my mind off it all.

When religious people tell you that life on earth is temporary, a brief sojourn and never the dwelling place, it’s normally to scare you into practicing their rituals or repeating what they say; as far as I can make it out, this guy is not about that at all, even though he’s using the same language. He’s simply drawing your attention to lesson number six.

When you die it’s just like being alive, he’s saying: the difference is mere detail. All that stuff about heaven and hell, eternity and judgement, it’s all already here. Life and the afterlife, in other words—they’re practically the same thing. I put the book down and close my eyes.

Lesson number seven—a memory of words shimmering in a subdued glow, or was it one of those fleeting text files on my computer screen?—The Plant is both factory and flora. It manufactures, it grows. It holds the copyright to being as well as life, for being is intervention while life is merely flow. It is the sight that startles, the sound that soothes, the odor that induces nostalgia. As of your release from service you will think of the Plant repeatedly on having such hitherto ordinary encounters; and dying, you will be grateful for having been of service to the Plant… The funny thing is, it works. However momentarily, I’ve forgotten my wife. But I’ve ordered two more coffees before I step out onto the wet asphalt, and the words are already fading on my memory plane.

Dawn is descending on Unknown Soldier Circle when I run into my father. He is huddled at the bus stop with his back to the shore, squinting at tomorrow’s paper in the streetlight. It is still windy, an indeterminate respite from the rain. The sea spray reaches all the way to the curb, where I’m bracing my calves when I catch sight of him.

In Alexandria on a weekend, I’ve always waited to watch the sun rise out of the water. That’s why I’ve been tramping downtown, but I couldn’t go back to sleep if I tried. Aside from the usual anxiety of being on the job, I am still brooding over leaving my wife. No amount of Sufi literature is going to put an end to that. I see the backs of her sneakers bouncing effortlessly away under the great bulk of her parka, farther and farther away on the asphalt, such tiny things so effortlessly daring gravity, and it is the saddest image in the world.

When I become aware of an indistinct figure at the bus stop, it’s been a long while since I’ve taken anything in. All I know is I’m crossing the road to the esplanade, where that bus stop happens to be in front of me. The azan for the dawn prayers just sounded. Any minute now, the sun will slice its way through that black-and-white quilt with a monster tossing under it; and when it does, it will hand things back their shape and color, as gradually as my wife’s ankles stepping away. Whatever I do, I don’t want to miss that. Everything else is a blank.

At this point it occurs to me that I haven’t seen a soul since I stepped out of the hotel; and if not for the little man sitting there, the bus stop would’ve been a blank too. I stand back and jiggle my head before I cross over.

I don’t recognize him right away—for some unknown reason, still, nothing could be further from my mind than my father—but before I know it I’m dithering, edging closer. I want to know what kind of street character could brave both Nawaah and esplanade; at night the shore is policed even in the best of weathers, to root out beggars and madmen. What kind of desperado, I want to know, managed to intercept my brooding?

When I first catch sight of his face, I think of the beggar woman I ran into at the station—how come he looks so like her; she too looked like someone, didn’t she… but, for the same unknown reason, probably, I can’t for the life of me remember who.

Involuntarily, almost, I’m sitting next to him on the bench. It is supposed to have three wood planks but the middle one is dislodged and my buttocks sink uncomfortably into the gap; I want to readjust my position but I’m mesmerized by his clothes.

In the house Baba always wore what used to be known in Egypt as a robe de chambre: the same brownish garment, shrunken by years of washing, threadbare at the seams. In summer it covered his underwear, in winter two layers of pajamas. As he grew older he took to going out late at night for tomorrow’s paper in his house wear, something that genuinely saddened Mama.

Now as he looks up, coughing, I recognize the spluttering, elongated, slightly exaggerated squeal that punctuated so many of our evenings.

Then I make out everything at once: the Kastor fabric of his winter pajamas, filthy cuffs giving way to hands barely thicker than the blue veins they contain; ancient sandals exposing a similarly emaciated pair of feet, their incredibly meaty, sharp-edged toenails taking on a whole spectrum of hues as they jut out, looking healthier than everything, and the base of his legs a mesh of diabetic scars and damaged tissue; then the tight, hard rump like roots to the permanently curving spine, dandruff overtaking the wrinkles on the back of his neck; smooth bald spot flanked by willowy silver hair; and the face, my father’s face, toothless, coffee-stained lips and heavy, pinhead stubble, all white, like the loose, leathery skin on some long dead monster; and his reddened nose looking enormous. Somehow his eyeglasses make it even more enormous than it is: the glasses?

Only now, gazing into the blotched enamel of his glasses, do I remember that my father is dead. Some two weeks after I got married, five years ago almost to the day, Mama had phoned from Damietta with the news. She sounded unusually calm, I remember. I didn’t want to spoil your honeymoon, she said, but I didn’t have a choice. When I asked her if she was alright she said, May He make this the last of the sorrows; not, she added, the first.

All through my time with my wife I was battling against that enigmatic premonition, pondering over the fact that he hadn’t liked her, and my ever growing doubts about the possibility of happiness in marriage. Somehow grief over my father became linked with the conviction, however secret, that I would one day leave my wife. It was harrowing in other ways, of course. I had never suspected his death could shake me so hard. But it was this that I thought about the most…

Baba? He looks up; instantly, it becomes hard not to burst into tears. Ahh-lan, ahh-lan, he intones his usual welcome: a very commonplace expression that,

through sheer warmth, he managed to make entirely his own. Looking delighted, the way he did every time I called him, he grabs my hand and touches his lips to it: a reversal of the patriarchal convention that he alone championed; I can’t think of any other father who did that.

What on earth are you doing here?

Just reading the newspaper. I glance down to make sure it really is tomorrow’s paper—and it is—but I have to raise my hands to my eyes. Can you believe they’re redrafting the constitution again, those sons of a horny woman? Hysterical laughter muffles my tears. He won’t stop ranting about the government even now. It’s like the country is the ranch of their grandfather, the filthy pimps. Then he takes off his glasses. His eyes are clouded. They are round and very small; and it’s as if I peered into them only yesterday. How much more do they want to pilfer?

But, Baba, no one is paying any attention.

Naturally not.

How will the corruption stop if all we do is sit and complain?

You’re beginning to sound like them, Fouad. Listen, what’s all this business about classes?

Classes? My name sounds strange now that I’ve learned to think of myself as Joseph Koudelka.

I’m told you’re taking classes. Deep beneath the murk, I can make out a subdued twinkle: the one I saw when he first caught me masturbating, and again when he smelled my reefers. That twinkle was the extent of his disapproval; it always gave an impression of complicity, as if he was telling me that he knew and didn’t mind, but that we could both get into trouble for it. It made him incredibly lovable. Schoolboys, and such. You know what I mean.

Busted, your Honor.

At least you’re free of the stick insect—that’s how the old man referred to my wife, because he found her very tall and very thin but mainly, he said, because she had perfect camouflage: She always appears where you didn’t know she was there, you understand, he would say—and that’s always a good thing. Naturally there will be happiness in your life from now on.

You don’t disapprove? Dis-what, he bawls, easing into his favorite insult: Curse your father, son of a shoe! Destroying the family, and all that. We were trying for a baby, you know. None of this

bothers you at all? To tell you the truth, Baba, I’ve been feeling a bit guilty. Fuck off, he says. Naturally, the twinkle comes across in his tone now, there’s reason to feel

guilty if all there is to it is the classes. That, maybe, you should think about. Not that it makes you any less of a donkey to feel guilty at all. What’s there to feel guilty about in this world?

Botching my secret work?

If you did that, you would be instantly dispatched to where you can’t feel a thing. At least, he adds equivocally, not in the way you’d expect to feel it.

up?

You mean—right, I stutter… but… how do you know what would happen to me if I fucked

Same way I know about the stick insect and the classes.

I almost say: Is it true you can’t feel anything once you’re dead?

There are certain questions I’m not allowed to answer, he stops me just in time. And one thing you mustn’t mention while you’re with me whatever you do, you understand?

Okay, I nod. I think I know what that thing is.

Naturally!

Shall we have a little walk then?

As far as I know that’s allowed—hands on knees, he is heaving himself up with a mighty sigh, the way he did every time he had to get up in his lifetime, as if there was nothing more difficult in the world—so long as we both act normal. It’s very exaggerated, but that’s what makes it touching. At some point I will just go, you understand, and you act as if nothing happened.

There is no rain still; even the wind has let up. Only, as we move along the shoreline at his excruciating pace—it always used to annoy me how deliberately slow the old man walked—sea spray keeps splashing our faces. He has the same old tendency to lag a step or two behind, head bent slightly to one side, hands clasped together over the small of his back. As I slow down and stop to keep pace with him, it surprises me how little death changes in a man.

You remember Tante Faiza, Baba?

Whatever became of the midget? She must be ninety this year.

Ninety-two, in fact. But she’s alive and kicking. Mama says she’s got a suitor.

Didn’t I tell you she would see everyone to the grave, the witch?

Eventually I put my arm round his shoulders and leave it up to him. Humming and laughing, we plod along the seashore, my father and I, and it’s as if we haven’t stopped doing it since I was three. In Alexandria, all through my childhood, we would often have this same walk in the evening while I drank my carton of milk: the prerequisite for getting a new matchbox car. His hand on my head, Baba’s pace was too slow even for my tiny steps.

Barely perceptibly, the black water is taking on color. In the distance, a faint orange tint infusing the blue gray turning gray white, the outline of the citadel begins to appear. Ahh-lan, ahh-lan, my father greets the red disk coming up behind the minaret, beaming at me. Naturally, he adds, daybreak makes no difference at all. I can barely stop myself from laughing.

Fouad, he sounds devastated. You must kiss your mother for me. You’re not serious?

Believe it or not, I miss the old bitch.

How I wish Mama was with us, I suddenly think, out loud.

You can never tell your mother of this—

Naturally?— Any more than of your secret work. Curse your father, he begins— Son of a shoe! The oddest part of this is there’s nothing uncanny about it. It’s as if I never married, as if he never died, as if I really was in Alexandria on a weekend. Birds, white and streamlined, are circling the stone hedge and fluttering out to sea. Their calls seem to echo the Nawwah; a car or two whizz past and, before I appreciate the fact, it’s light. We walk on a little. The streets have filled up when I suggest we have a breakfast of coffee and croissant at the Trianon Café. The rain has returned and my father is slowing down even more, oohing and ahing all along the esplanade. He stops to light a cigarette, but every time the wind blows out his match; when he finally manages to bring the tip of the cigarette in contact with the flame, a fat drop of rain lands right on top of it.

I glance at him impatiently, but he keeps trying. You’re a good boy, Fouad, he suddenly turns to me, mumbling. I am your reward. What? But it’s as if he didn’t say anything; he just struggles on with the matches. So are we going for croissant or what? Always impatient, he says, like that fat mother of yours! Then we’re sitting opposite each other by the rain-splattered window, there is bright sunlight outside, and the aroma of coffee fills my nostrils. The croissants are hot and crisp, but my father is smoking. I am about to tell him that I love him when he winks, nodding toward the waitress. So I look up: she is beautiful; for the first time since Allen Ginsberg, though I don’t realize it yet, something stirs in my groin while I look at a woman.

Yours if you want her, he says, naturally. Baba, I scowl. Please! Anyway I am going to go to the toilet, he mutters to himself, getting up. Curse the father of your mother, my good man. It is barely audible. The son of a bitch is going to discipline me… Baba! He looks back.

Are you sure it’s okay to up and leave the stick insect? Yes, Fouad, he smiles suddenly, my little donkey. I’m sure.

The waitress smiles back very sweetly, anyway. Later, when I slip her a scrap of paper with my number, she will even blow me a kiss. Now my watch says eight thirty and Baba is not back from the toilet. I get up and follow inside to look for him. All the cubicle doors are open. There is no one there. Back in the Cecil Hotel lobby, I’ve barely wiped the tears off my face when my coffee arrives. I sip it slowly, grazing the place with my eyes. For once the anxiety of being on the job is overpowered by a different emotion—grief. I feel exactly the way I felt in the second two weeks of my marriage, but somehow I know it is temporary. There’s a tremendous sense of gratitude, too, which helps, but where on earth is Nastassja Kinsky?

When I open the door to my room at nine thirty, exasperated, there is an elderly woman on the edge of my bed. She is dressed very elegantly in an auburn three-piece, her long, snow-white hair tied back in a bun. In the way she sits and especially after she starts talking, I appreciate her regal bearing. She has the well-heeled composure of a princess, haughty and upright.

Strange, I’m thinking, that she looks so incredibly familiar: I am sure I know this face; and her voice, I know I’ve heard it before. These recognition games are getting tiring—I mean: maybe I’m just projecting—but I can’t help noticing a resemblance between her and my father.

Nastassja Kinsky?

I dare say you mispronounce my name, Monsieur Koudelka. She grins. I have brought you a small gift, rather valuable I may add. I do hope I haven’t kept you waiting for long. You were generous with your money last night, I didn’t think you would begrudge me your time today.

While she stares squarely into my eyes—is it my imagination or is she snickering?—I realize she is the beggar woman from Masr Station.

Oh my God, I begin.

You will excuse me, Monsieur Koudelka, but I must catch a train in half an hour. Here, she hands me what looks like a giant termite. It is the isoptera, she enunciates. It will instruct you as to what you should do with it on your return to Cairo.

Only now she gets up, striding straight to the door. Monsieur Koudelka, she stops and turns, her hand on the doorknob. Yes? This will be your last assignment. My… for the— Safe journey, Monsieur Koudelka.

While she shuts the door behind her I let myself flop onto the bed. I don’t know how to feel about the fact that it’s over, that there will no longer be a Plant in my life. Neither wife nor Plant, I mumble, getting comfortable and peeling off my clothes. Before I fall asleep it also registers that the prospect of another boy is vague and mildly repulsive. Memories of Allen Ginsberg, Jim Morrison and all those in between seem to come from a different world, alien and isolated. Without wanting to, I am picturing the eyes of Andrew’s sister: the way they glistened in the tungsten light, and when she averted them, looking down…

I wake to the sound of the rain, the isoptera describing a perfect circle next to my head on the pillow. For a while I simply watch it, wondering, with relative calm, what it might be saying to me. Then, just to see if I can make anything of the faint buzz that accompanies its motion, I place it on the bedside table and bring my ear in contact with the wood, pressing hard. At first I can only hear static, but gradually something else is coming through.

What are you doing, you donkey? I can make out my father’s voice, weak, barely audible, but undeniably his. You are to keep this peculiar mouthpiece for when you have a real situation, classes and such. Then you can consult me. If you try and listen to it all the time you’ll wear it out. And no, he adds, as if he could hear me thinking, we can’t have a conversation through it. Now switch off the tiny button at the back and keep it safe. At that the voice fades; there is nothing but static.

I am naturally spellbound for a few minutes, then find the button he mentioned, hidden where the last segment of a termite’s abdomen would be, I get ready for departure. On the way out, my assignment over, I switch my cell phone back on. I don’t notice it at first but gradually, insidiously, an unbearable joy is taking hold of me. I don’t think downtown Alexandria has ever looked so beautiful in the early evening.

Once again I will walk to Masr Station: I want to take in the streets.

I am reading about the straight path—the one that, mimicking divine oneness, connects life with the afterlife and back again—when my cellphone startles me. There’s a young man eying me but I haven’t been paying much attention. I guess that, in five weeks, I’ve developed a particular look; not all my male lovers have been agents of the Plant, and Egypt is full of young men seeking out middle-aged lechers like me: they get a useful connection if not money; they get a desperate, consuming passion. There’s some desire—I won’t deny that—but I can’t be bothered to act on it at all. I’m far more interested in the characteristics of the path.

Hello? Hi. The voice is soft and coquettish; I put the book down. I just thought I’d get your name. Who is this? Forgotten already? We met this morning at the Trianon Caf?— Alright, I exclaim, grinning from ear to ear in spite of myself. Well, I didn’t get your name either, did I? I’m so happy you called. My name is Mohgah, the waitress says. You may not be aware of it yet, she giggles—as I am picturing her—irresistibly. But I am your destiny.

Youssef Rakha

Published in Miranda Literary Magazine

http://mirandamagazine.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=250&Itemid=27

“If The Beatles, David Bowie, and Madonna could best represent the equivalent of all my astrological “Sun Sign” represents … and if Frank Sinatra, Roxy Music, The Cure, and Morrissey best represent the equivalent of all my astrological “Moon Sign” represents … then, what about my “Ascending Sign”?”

“These artists (see below), via their work and “personas”, have manipulated and/or nurtured the style in which my work (as an extension of my “self”) is presented.”

- Orlando G Gonzales III

Visit Poesia for selections from Orlando G Gonzales III’s recent poetry collections.

Jim Morrison in New York, 1968, by Elliott Landy

Jim Morrison: “I think the highest and the lowest points are the most important ones. All the points in between are, well, in between. I want freedom to try everything – I guess to experience everything at least once.”

Um meine geliebten toten Rockstars schleiche ich meistens rum wie ein Hund um einen leckeren Knochen: bereit, lustvoll zuzuschnappen, wenn sich die Gelegenheit ergibt. Und die ergibt sich ziemlich oft, denn für einen echten Fetischisten wie mich gibt es da jede Menge zu tun – Gespräche mit den wenigen auserwählten Freunden führen, die vom Thema wenigstens ein bisschen so fasziniert sind wie ich, meine Bibliothek ordnen und die besten Stories immer wieder nachblättern bzw. von vorne lesen, im Internet nach neuen Fotos und Beweisen für passende Verschwörungstheorien Ausschau halten und am Eingang vom Amazon-Tempel lauern, um sich die leider viel zu seltenen Neuerscheinungen sofort nach deren Auftauchen zu sichern.

Unlängst hat man wieder mal ein Einsehen mit mir gehabt und hat mir ein neues Suchtmittel in Form eines Buches geschickt. “The Rock & Roll Book of the Dead” heisst es und hat mir schon aufgrund des Titels Rührungstränen in die rotgeränderten Augen getrieben. Der mir bisher unbekannte Autor David Comfort beschreibt darin “The Fatal Journeys of Rock’s Seven Immortals“, meint mit diesen sieben Unsterblichen Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, John Lennon, Kurt Cobain sowie Jerry Garcia und hat zu meiner Freude ein ziemlich tiefgängiges und vor allem mutiges Werk abgeliefert.

David Comfort

Über tote Rockstars zu schreiben ist nämlich sicherlich ein lohnender Job, kritisch über tote Rockgötter zu schreiben hingegen ein Wagnis. David Comfort tut Letzteres und steht damit in der Tradition eines anderen, sehr streitbaren amerikanischen Professors namens Albert Goldman, der sich bereits 20 Jahre zuvor mit kritischen Biographien gehörig in die Nesseln gesetzt hat: Er schrieb ein Buch über Elvis Presley, dessen Tod durch Medikamentenüberdosis er als Selbstmord interpretierte und danach eines über John Lennon, den er (wohl als erster Biograph überhaupt) als gewalttätigen, höchst neurotischen Menschen porträtierte. Das war allerhöchste Blasphemie, denn im Schwarz/Weiss-Denken seiner zahllosen Fans ist Lennon natürlich immer nur der Friedensengel schlechthin gewesen – dass er ein ziemlich unsympathischer, fieser Typ gewesen ist und sich gleichzeitig ebenso (werbeträchtig) für den Weltfrieden einsetzte, wollten (und wollen) seine Verehrer natürlich auf gar keinen Fall verstehen.

Das meistgehasste Buch unter Lennon-Fans...

Goldman’s sorgfältig recherchierte Biographie (die nicht frei von Fehlern ist, aber welche Biographie ist das schon?) wurde selbstverständlich kollektiv als ein aus reinem Hass entstandenes Lügenmachwerk abgestempelt. Darüber zu lesen, dass Lennon vermutlich eine Affäre mit dem 1967 freiwillig aus dem Leben geschiedenen Beatles-Manager Brian Epstein gehabt hatte oder dass er die letzten, armseligen Jahre seines Lebens quasi als “Gefangener” seiner psychotischen Frau Yoko Ono in einem Zimmer seines Appartments in jenem fluchbeladenen Dakota-Gebäude in New York verbracht hat (der letzte Sekretär der Lennons, Frederik Seaman, hat unabhängig von Goldman ausführlich in einem Buch darüber berichtet), dass mag natürlich weh tun; es ist aber einer ehrlichen, posthumen Auseinandersetzung mit der vielschichtigen, deswegen überaus faszinierenden Persönlichkeit Lennons mehr als dienlich.

Diva und Nervensäge: Janis Joplin

So ist das eigentlich generell mit den auf so hohe Sockel gehobenen toten Rockgöttern: als Menschen waren sie ausnahmslos meilenweit davon entfernt, nett zu sein. Der überaus sensible und hochbegabte Jimi Hendrix neigte fast immer dazu, im Suff seine zahllosen Groupies und Freundinnen zu verhauen; Janis Joplin, die Hippie-Göttin schlechthin, war unter all ihrer theatralischen Kostümierung und dicken Schminke eine hässliche und deswegen sehr unsichere junge Frau, was sie zu einer nahezu unerträglichen Diva und Nervensäge machte, ebenso wie der Doors-Frontmann und Exzess-Gigant Jim Morrison im täglichen Umgang mit Bandkollegen und Freunden ein richtiges Arschloch gewesen sein soll.

Desgleichen Kurt Cobain, der sich (wie Nick Kent in seiner vorzüglichen Essaysammlung “The Dark Stuff” schreibt) in seiner Jugend nichts sehnlicher gewünscht hatte, als ein Rockstar zu sein – als er es dann letztendlich war, wollte er nur noch schlafen, in Ruhe gelassen werden und sich mit Muße seinem Leiden an der bösen, lästigen Welt und der seiner Meinung nach als Schutzpanzer gegen diese fungierenden Drogensucht widmen.

Und wieder mal 'ne Überdosis: Kurt Cobain

Die Drogen-, Alkohol- und Betäubungsmittelsucht, all den genannten “Sieben Unsterblichen” (und allen anderen toten Rockstars) in verschiedensten, phantasievollen Variationen eigen, veränderte deren Charakter logischerweise nicht nur massiv, sondern führte in ihrer Entgleisung ausserdem dazu, dass jene gegen Ende ihres kurzen Lebens abseits der Auftritte im Rampenlicht kaum noch oder gar nicht mehr lebensfähig waren. Tony Sanchez, ehemaliger Drogendealer der Rolling Stones, beschreibt einen typischen Tag im Leben des mit 27 Jahren verstorbenen frühen Stones-Gitarristen Brian Jones so: “He’d wake up in the morning, take leapers (speed), cocaine, some morphine, a few tabs of acid, and maybe some mandrax. Then he’d try to get dressed and end up with, like, a lizard-skin boot on one foot and a pink shoe on the other. Then he’d find he could’nt stand up.” (Zitat aus Nick Kent, “Brian Jones, Tortured Narcissus” in “The Dark Stuff“, Faber and Faber, 2007).

Dead Men Walking: Brian Jones und Jimi Hendrix

Elvis Presley wiederum, der Drogen nicht nur strikt ablehnte, sondern sich ausserdem von Präsident Nixon 1970 bizarrerweise zum “Federal Agent” im “Kampf gegen Drogenmissbrauch” ernennen liess, hatte einen Tablettenkonsum in Rekordhöhe nachzuweisen – Biographen haben ausgerechnet, dass sich der “King” in seinen letzten Lebensjahren an die 12.000 Betäubungsmittel verschiedenster Wirkung verschreiben liess.

Bizarres Treffen: Tricky Dick und Agent Elvis

Solche Exzesse konnten logischerweise zu nichts anderem als zu einem frühen Tod führen, ob nun gewollt oder ungewollt. Ganz klar, dass der für uns Normalsterbliche unvorstellbare Druck auf diese Superstars als Ikonen ganzer Generationen und ihr praktisch nicht mehr existentes Privatleben sich sehr zu Ungunsten auf ihr Suchtverhalten auswirkte; Comfort zeigt in “The Rock & Roll Book of the Dead” aber auch bisher weniger bekannte Details aus der Kinder- und Jugendzeit der genannten Rockstars auf – da findet sich fast bei jedem/jeder eine Liste an Missbrauch, Alkoholismus der Eltern, dramatisch frühe Tode derselben und daraus resultierende Vereinsamung des jeweiligen Kindes; davon abhängig oder nicht freilich auch eine geradezu krankhafte Selbstbezogenheit, ja Selbstverliebtheit der späteren Stars in jugendlichem Alter.

Was man bei der Lektüre über all diese skandalträchtigen, kurzen Leben dieser Menschen niemals vergessen sollte, ist die künstlerische Glanzleistung, die von persönlichen Kalamitäten im Nachhinein unangetastet bleibt und den Platz der toten Rockstars in ihrem ewigen Olymp mehr als rechtfertigt: wenn man heute Jimi Hendrix hört, klingen seine vor 40 Jahren aufgenommenen Platten noch immer mehr nach wunderbar spaciger Science Fiction als nach Sixties-Gitarrenrock; die Stimme von Janis Joplin lässt einem noch immer die bluesigen Gänsehäute en Masse über den Rücken laufen; Jim Morrisons Gesang thront noch immer majestätisch über einem brodelnden Abgrund undurchdringlicher Schwärze, während John Lennon mit seinem “Imagine“, jenem ebenso simplen wie überirdisch schönen Lied bis in alle Ewigkeit die Tränen seiner Hörer sofort fast ungehindert fliessen lassen wird – pure Magie, wie sie eben nur diese schwierigen wie ebenso aussergewöhnlichen Persönlichkeiten zustande bringen konnten.

***

“The Rock & Roll Book of the Dead” ist im September dieses Jahres erschienen.

Die Homepage zum Buch, mit Leseproben desselben und, voll lässig – mit Geistergitarre!

Essentiell: “The Dark Stuff” von Nick Kent.

Zum Weiterlesen: meine eigenen, bescheidenen Blog-Beiträge zu

John Lennon,

Paul McCartney,

Jim Morrison,

Phil Ochs,

Joe Meek und

Jimi Hendrix.

Zum Weiterhören: euer Docteur als Gast zum Thema bei CROPfm.

Und als Spezialist beim Deutschlandradio (zum Thema Suizid von Rockstars am Beispiel von Joy Division-Sänger Ian Curtis).

I think I might like the Doors more than I like Led Zeppelin.

Thanks to 11points.com for this excellent example of 11 celebs whose “looks” blossomed later in life!

Ryan Seacrest before and after

http://www.11points.com/Music/11_Yearbook_Photos_That_Musicians_Wish_We%27d_Never_Seen

One of my favorite songs of all time is Peace Frog, by Jim Morrison and The Doors. It is a very dark song, talking about blood, death, and loss, however, it is so poetic and I have always been touched by it. I am thinking of getting a tattoo of some kind of “psychedelic” version of a cartoon frog on my foot. I saw it on someone and thought it was beautiful. Of course I need to look around for an artist I think will capture the feeling and essence of the piece so I can show it to my tattoo guy. I have to find a tattoo artist that will put their own spin on the artwork.

Who knows, maybe I will end up using one of the doodles I’ve done, and have the tattoo artist spice it up a bit. I am going to try to get it by the end of the year before I go to college.

The Door: New York Subway

Listen, real poetry doesn’t say anything; it just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all doors. You can walk through anyone that suits you.

-Jim Morrison-

The Door: New York's Saint Patrick's Cathedral

 “Vi a las mejores mentes de mi generación destruidas por la locura, hambrientas histéricas desnudas, arrastrándose por las calles de los negros al amanecer en busca de un colérico pinchazo,”, dicen los primeros versos de Aullido (traducción de Rodrigo Olavarría), poema emblemático del pontífice beatnik Allen Ginsberg. Una de esas mentes destruidas fue la de Jim Morrison (1943-1971), el último sex symbol, el último poeta, el ultimo chamán, el Rey Lagarto (the lizard King), el último bardo, el último Dionisio en pantalones de cuero, líder y vocalista de The doors (1965-1971).

Awake, shake dreams from your hair my little sweetheart. Choose the day, choose the sign of your day. The day’s divinity. Ver The doors (1991) de Oliver Stone es sacudir polvo de sueños que amenazan con destronar a la divinidad del día. De cualquier día. Vista en su momento de estreno resultó toda una experiencia sensorial. Verla ahora, con más calma, es poner a un documento visual donde debe de estar: es un homenaje sentido a un grupo emblemático de los sesenta, sobre todo a su líder James Douglas Morrison.

La entrada de The Rolling Stone Enciclopedya of rock and roll  (2003), en la página 278, tiene el siguiente preámbulo en las dos páginas dedicadas al grupo californiano: “Sexo, muerte, reptiles, carisma y una variante única de blues eléctrico dio a The Doors un aura de profundidad que no solo sobrevivió sino que ha durado más de treinta años después de la muerte de su vocalista. Las letras de Morrison se leían como delirios adolescentes pero muy cargados de sexualidad deliberada. El seco órgano de Manzarek y la guitarra jazzística de Robby Krieger se convirtieron en una leyenda poderosa con una música que era casi una invocación chamanística a fuerzas familiares y al mismo tiempo demoníacas, y en el caso de Morrison una obsesión por el exceso y por ende con la muerte”.

Nunca mejor dicho. Bien resumida el alma de este grupo paradigmático. Las letras de Morrison eran verdaderos poemas en un estilo simbolista que recordaba a Rimbaud y William Blake. De este último tomaron el nombre del grupo. En Matrimonio entre el cielo y la tierra Blake pregonaba que “si las puertas de la percepción se abrieran, cada cosa aparecería ante los ojos del hombre como son, infinitas. Pero el hombre se ha encerrado sobre sí mismo hasta que logre ver las cosas a través de las estrechas grietas de su caverna” (traducción de Marcelo Báez).

El encargado de la biopic  (biographical picture) de The doors es Oliver Stone, ex veterano de la guerra de Vietnam, terrorista por naturaleza, subversivo del lenguaje cinematográfico. Un experto en crear escándalos, un provocador profesional, eso es para algunos este cineasta de apellido de piedra. Su disección del asesinato de  JFK (1991) fue piropeado como “una relato político contado por Costa Gavras y montado por Eisenstein”. Su Peloton (1986) fue galardonada con cuatro Oscars de la Academia (lo que sea que eso signifique ya que dicho premio no es precisamente un honor en estas épocas). Fundamentales en su filmografía son Wall Street  (1987) con Michael Douglas y también Salvador (1986), con James Woods.

Asesinos por naturaleza (1995), escrita por Quentin Tarantino, fue celebrada como una narrativa alucinógena y una crítica acérrima a los mass media, sobre todo a los reality y talk shows.

Después de estos seis filmes (The doors incluido) la carrera de Stone ha ido cada vez más en picada con filmes insulsos carentes de la fuerza inicial de su carrera.

Revisada después de dieciocho años, el filme de Stone sigue siendo una apología no tanto del grupo sino de su vocalista de quien se incluyen poemas en el metraje. Se interpolan, además, imágenes surrealistas y realmente sugestivas. Loable el intento de aunar la lírica de Morrison con la poesía visual de Stone. El problema con esta biopic es el concentrarlo todo en el joven vocalista que siguió el precepto de James Dean: “Live fast, die young”. Comienza en las playas de California donde conoció a Manzarek (ambos eran estudiantes de cine de la UCLA) y termina en París, con aguacero, para ser enterrado en esa versión francesa del Olimpo que es Pére-Lachaise. La intención es darle al personaje esa aureola mítica pero el abuso resulta poco soportable después de casi veinte años de haberla visto. Hay cosas que realmente sobran como la apología de la satiriasis de Morrison. La responsabilidad mayor del filme recae en Val Kilmer (nominado al MTV award por este rol) quien se arriesga a cantar con voz propia algunos de los temas musicales. Igual sigue siendo el único filme de ficción, hasta la fecha, sobre el grupo que ahora tiene nuevo vocalista. Destacan Meg Ryan en el rol de Pamela, la esposa del cantante y Kyle McLahlan como Ray Manzarek. Vale.

 “Vi a las mejores mentes de mi generación destruidas por la locura, hambrientas histéricas desnudas, arrastrándose por las calles de los negros al amanecer en busca de un colérico pinchazo,”, dicen los primeros versos de Aullido (traducción de Rodrigo Olavarría), poema emblemático del pontífice beatnik Allen Ginsberg. Una de esas mentes destruidas fue la de Jim Morrison (1943-1971), el último sex symbol, el último poeta, el ultimo chamán, el Rey Lagarto (the lizard King), el último bardo, el último Dionisio en pantalones de cuero, líder y vocalista de The doors (1965-1971).

Awake, shake dreams from your hair my little sweetheart. Choose the day, choose the sign of your day. The day’s divinity. Ver The doors (1991) de Oliver Stone es sacudir polvo de sueños que amenazan con destronar a la divinidad del día. De cualquier día. Vista en su momento de estreno resultó toda una experiencia sensorial. Verla ahora, con más calma, es poner a un documento visual donde debe de estar: es un homenaje sentido a un grupo emblemático de los sesenta, sobre todo a su líder James Douglas Morrison.

La entrada de The Rolling Stone Enciclopedya of rock and roll  (2003), en la página 278, tiene el siguiente preámbulo en las dos páginas dedicadas al grupo californiano: “Sexo, muerte, reptiles, carisma y una variante única de blues eléctrico dio a The Doors un aura de profundidad que no solo sobrevivió sino que ha durado más de treinta años después de la muerte de su vocalista. Las letras de Morrison se leían como delirios adolescentes pero muy cargados de sexualidad deliberada. El seco órgano de Manzarek y la guitarra jazzística de Robby Krieger se convirtieron en una leyenda poderosa con una música que era casi una invocación chamanística a fuerzas familiares y al mismo tiempo demoníacas, y en el caso de Morrison una obsesión por el exceso y por ende con la muerte”.

Nunca mejor dicho. Bien resumida el alma de este grupo paradigmático. Las letras de Morrison eran verdaderos poemas en un estilo simbolista que recordaba a Rimbaud y William Blake. De este último tomaron el nombre del grupo. En Matrimonio entre el cielo y la tierra Blake pregonaba que “si las puertas de la percepción se abrieran, cada cosa aparecería ante los ojos del hombre como son, infinitas. Pero el hombre se encerrado sobre sí mismo hasta que logre ver las cosas a través de las estrechas fisuras de su caverna” (traducción de Marcelo Báez).

El encargado de la biopic  (biographical picture) de The doors es Oliver Stone, ex veterano de la guerra de Vietnam, terrorista por naturaleza, subversivo del lenguaje cinematográfico. Un experto en crear escándalos, un provocador profesional, eso es para algunos este cineasta de apellido de piedra. Su disección del asesinato de  JFK (1991) fue piropeado como “una relato político contado por Costa Gavras y montado por Eisenstein”. Su Peloton (1986) fue galardonada con cuatro Oscars de la Academia (lo que sea que eso signifique ya que dicho premio no es precisamente un honor en estas épocas). Fundamentales en su filmografía son Wall Street  (1987) con Michael Douglas y también Salvador (1986), con James Woods.

Asesinos por naturaleza (1995), escrita por Quentin Tarantino, fue celebrada como una narrativa alucinógena y una crítica acérrima a los mass media, sobre todo a los reality y talk shows.

Después de estos seis filmes (The doors incluido) la carrera de Stone ha ido cada vez más en picada con filmes insulsos carentes de la fuerza inicial de su carrera.

Revisada después de dieciocho años, el filme de Stone sigue siendo una apología no tanto del grupo sino de su vocalista de quien se incluyen poemas en el metraje. Se interpolan, además, imágenes surrealistas y realmente sugestivas. Loable el intento de aunar la lírica de Morrison con la poesía visual de Stone. El problema con esta biopic es el concentrarlo todo en el joven vocalista que siguió el precepto de James Dean: “Live fast, die young”. Comienza en las playas de California donde conoció a Manzarek (ambos eran estudiantes de cine de la UCLA) y termina en París, con aguacero, para ser enterrado en esa versión francesa del Olimpo que es Pére-Lachaise. La intención es darle al personaje esa aureola mítica pero el abuso resulta poco soportable después de casi veinte años de haberla visto. Hay cosas que realmente sobran como la apología de la satiriasis de Morrison. La responsabilidad mayor del filme recae en Val Kilmer (nominado al MTV award por este rol) quien se arriesga a cantar con voz propia algunos de los temas musicales. Igual sigue siendo el único filme de ficción, hasta la fecha, sobre el grupo que ahora tiene nuevo vocalista. Destacan Meg Ryan en el rol de Pamela, la esposa del cantante y Kyle McLahlan como Ray Manzarek. Vale.

I feel like I need to rant.  I’m probably going to upset some people, but if I do, I will take the kicking.  If I can dish it out, I can take it in return.

What is it about entertainers who feel the need to “push the envelope”?  Especially when historically, pushing the envelope seems to be all about sex?

Is this about Adam Lambert?  Only in part.  Is it about Adam Lambert being gay?  Not at all.  What is it about?  I guess, in a nut shell, it’s about sexually charged “entertainment” on television.

Adam wasn’t the first entertainer to cause controversy.  Remember Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction?  How about Madonna sharing an open mouthed kiss with Christian Aguilera and Britney Spears?  Then there was Sinead O’Connor and her attack against the Catholic Church (ok, this one was sexual, but political).  How many people remember the controversy that Jim Morrison of the Doors caused when he not so mistakenly sang the original lyrics to “Light My Fire” after agreeing not to? (which ok, wasn’t sex related but drug related, but maybe still sex related because the line in the song referred to a girl).

Maybe you will see me as an old fogey or something, or simply to conservative, but over the top sex, drugs and political messages do not belong on National Television where the younger citizens can see it, and perhaps be influenced by it.

I have to agree with TV Critic Jack Gould, back in 1965 when he commented about Elvis Presley’s gyrating.  “It isn’t about censorship, which solves nothing.  It’s about common sense.”

Really, I couldn’t agree more.

I didn’t watch the AMA award show.  Why?  Frankly because, although I love music, I have become increasingly tired of watching senseless over-indulgence in the name of entertainment.

I’m not a big fan of Adam Lambert, I don’t like his style of music.  But if I were, and I went to one of his concerts, I might have been shocked by a similar act, but ok, I paid for a ticked so I get what I pay for.  But to know that so many younger children saw that performance on television frankly makes me ill.

The other people I mentioned?  I feel the same way, except for maybe the one about The Doors, but maybe back then I would have felt the same.

The problem is this.  I have enough trouble trying to teach my child that sexually based entertainment isn’t an accurate portrayal of sex as it is.  I don’t need some entertainer, citing free speech, showing their breast, gyrating like a loon, endorsing drugs, or depicting sexual material, especially when it’s so “alternative lifestyle” like bondage fueled performances.  Frankly, I would hate the dreaded question from my pre-teen (which I no longer have by the way, she is grown) of, daddy why is that woman kissing that woman, or that man kissing that man, or even why is that guy leading that guy around on a leash like a dog?

These types of things are inappropriate to the general public.  You want to do it in one of your concerts, fine.  Go right ahead.  At least then I have a choice of paying to see it.  When I’m watching a live performance on television, I don’t have a choice of seeing it and if you’re an entertainer, pay attention.  I don’t want to see crap like that.  Many people don’t.  Many people do, but it shouldn’t be forced on me, or my chosen lifestyle.  If I can’t force you to stop participating in drug fueled sexual parties, then I shouldn’t be forced to participate in them.  Get it?

Come on people.  Try waking up a little.  How far are we going to go with this?  Are we going to keep pushing the envelope so much that sex becomes nothing but a thoughtless act?  Or drugs to become acceptable?  Or political gestures of any kind common place?

That’s not entertainment, it’s destruction.  Destruction of common sense, morality, decency, and general entertainment.

Maybe it’s time there was a little censorship.  I don’t normally agree with censorship, but I think if people can’t have the decency to act appropriate in situations like this, something must be done.

And you know what really ticks me off?  If I was an entertainer, and I stood up after my performance on National Television, and started preaching about Christ, and Sin, I would have been run out of town.  But it’s ok to act like a deranged sexual deviant, or attack religion, or endorse things that are illegal.

Does that make sense?  Not to me.

So I guess I will close with this.  If you are an entertainer, keep your kinks to the appropriate venue and to the society in general, wake up and stop supporting those who refuse.

~ Kev

POSSO DIZER QUE sou um cara da Geração Anos 80. Eu era apenas uma criança no início da década de 80, mas ainda criança já era também um profissional do rádio, um operário da Comunicação. Absorvia toda a informação que os discos traziam com o mesmo prazer de ler um livro, o mesmo prazer das salas de aula. Aprender é sempre maravilhoso! E o que se aprende na juventude tem um apelo maior do que o que aprendemos depois dos 30, quando achamos que já sabemos demais… Ou quando o nosso HD mental já está meio saturado de experiências e vivências positivas ou negativas.

Vocês já devem ter recebido um e-mail esculachando o cantor e compositor,  e acima de tudo, o homem Cazuza. Você pode concordar ou não com tudo aquilo que a psicóloga disse em termos de exemplo para a juventude, mas questionar o talento de Cazuza é uma leviandade. Lendo o e-mail que achincalha tudo o que diz respeito ao Cazuza, voltei no tempo. Mais específicamente ao ano de 1984, quando caiu em minhas mãos o LP ´´Maior Abandonado´´.

Devo ter ouvido esse disco centenas de vezes, sei de cor ainda hoje várias de suas letras, pareceu-me revolucionário pela sonoridade, pelas letras, pelo intérprete, que ao meu ver,(ou ao meu ouvir)  tinha um pequeno problema de dicção, mas que acabava tornando-se um charme a mais. Nem me passou pela cabeça que o grupo Barão Vermelho só havia surgido porque o pai de um dos integrantes era diretor de gravadora, argumento muito falho no e-mail da tal psicóloga. E mais uma série de agressões que no meu entendimento, não deveriam ser dirigidos ao Homem Cazuza, e sim, ao filme mequetrefe que fez dele algo muito menor do que ele verdadeiramente representou para uma geração.

Eu não assisto a filmes nacionais. Nunca mais fui a um cinema ver um filme produzido no Brasil desde 1985. Detesto tudo o que é produzido, sem ver. Já sei de antemão a pobreza.  Não sou do time que acha Selton Mello um Orson Welles. Fazer cinema com dinheiro público é moleza. O risco é mínimo. A ´´estética – ou cosmética –  global´´ só funciona em novelas. Som e iluminação de qualidade até as novelas da Record agora já tem.

Mas o que eu queria dizer mesmo é que o Cazuza era um grande compositor, um bom intérprete, uma rebeldia que se fazia necessária em um momento de abertura política. Deu o azar de ser brasileiro, e ser retratado nas telas por cineastas brasileiros, atores brasileiros, iluminadores brasileiros, e pior: roteiristas brasileiros. Claro que muito do desbunde e da desmunhecagem poderia até dar um charme ao filme, mas então que se explorasse a relação dele com o Ney Matogrosso. Ou não pode? É uma reputação maior, um ídolo maior, um ´´intocável?  Em nível de comparação apenas, guardadas as devidas proporções, assista ao filme ´´The Doors´´: perto do Jim Morrison o Cazuza era seminarista, quase beato. E ainda assim você acaba de ver o filme admirando tudo o que diz respeito à vida de um sujeito muito mais pervertido, muito mais louco, muito mais drogado do que o Cazuza. E tantos outros ídolos da música que o cinema norte-americano sabe fazer com que pareçam ainda maiores transpostos para a tela. ESCREVAM O QUE EU DIGO: se o cinema nacional colocar na tela a vida do Raul Seixas, do Tim Maia, dos Mamonas Assassinas, do Vínícius de Morais, do Renato Russo, da Cássia Eller e de tantos outros, as novas gerações acharão muito mais aprazível e salutar gostar mesmo do NX-ZERO.

E tenho dito…

În urma scurtei, dar intensei mele experienţe pariziene, câteva sunt lucrurile care mi-au apărut ca evidente. Vi le împărtăşesc şi vouă în speranţa că vă vor fi de folos cândva.

***

Parisul este oraşul îndrăgostiţilor.

***

Cu metroul M2 ajungi negreşit în staţia Anvers.

***

C’est quoi ça?

***

Terasele dau adesea spre ceva celebru. Sau care ar merita să fie celebru.

***

Parisul nu e un oraş, ci o stare de spirit.

***

Parisul ar putea fi numit Marele Bucureşti. Ar putea – dar ar fi păcat.

***

Paris, je t’aime.

***

Dacă te aştepţi ca mormântul lui Jim Morrison să fie ceva impresionant, don’t bother.

***

C’est combien ça?

***

E Père Lachaise, nu Père La Chaise sau Perla Chaise, cum poate v-aţi închipuit.

***

Clătitele nu se numesc clătite, ci crêpes. Aşa le-au spus ei.

In the ongoing journey of cleaning out my computer files…some classics for your viewing pleasure.

Janis Joplin. Would kill to have that voice.

Jean Seberg. Would kill to have stared in the film “Breathless.”

Jim Morrison. Would kill to have been alive to have seen him perform live. That would be a great story.

Jimi Hendrix. Another performance I would love to have seen in person. Oh, and that jacket…I need to find one like it ASAP.

Priscilla Presley. My mum was in Germany shortly after Priscilla and Elvis hooked up and always had wished that she had gone earlier (maybe it would have been her…that would mean I could have been Elvis’ kid). I love these old pictures of her. The hair, the make-up…perfection.

And last, but most certainly not least…TERENCE STAMP. I found this picture in a Vogue coffee table book about what they had going on in their mag in the ’60s. I feel in love with that page it was on (opposite an amazing picture of Julie Christie…another beauty). He reminds me a bit of Serge Pizzorno from Kasabian.

Yet another reason why collecting MP3s just isn’t as much fun, by Christian Marclay.

From a man who needs no introduction from this band, but whose biography I’ll put here for you youngsters out there:

The say, “write what you know”. While I’m sure I’m not the first, I tend to agree. On the surface – of course – this seems quite obvious as writing about something you know nothing about would be a tremendously difficult task. But as with any great pearl of wisdom, the true meaning is tucked away.

For me, “what you know” is not necessarily what you know, but rather what you feel and who you are. To me, if you’re not writing – or less specifically, creating – “what you know”, then you don’t stand a chance of creating anything of great meaning. It is from this “what you know” that great art is spawned and that unique voices are born.

And it doesn’t matter what you’re creating: music, sculpture, dance, math and advertising all require that unique voice to be heard. What sets the masters apart in any of these fields is that at one point it was like they were speaking their own language.

Sometime in the ’60s, (I say sometimes because it’s nearly impossible to get exact times with this guy, but I digress) Jim Morrison wrote:

I wanna tell you about Texas Radio and the Big Beat
Soft-driven, slow and mad, like some new language

These words have stuck with me since I first heard the songs, but it wasn’t until I read Ignore Everybody, by Hugh MacLeod, that I really found the right context for them. One of the many topics that MacLeod explores in this brilliant book is the idea of a new a language from the point of view of the young artist, creating, without pressure or expectation, and establishing “a new language that other people could also speak to the world with”.

What Morrison is describing is a feeling that I’m sure most of us have experienced. That feeling when you hear a song for the first time and something about it stops you in your tracks. It’s happened to me countless times, but one of the most vivid was hearing Kurt Cobain perform “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” on Nirvana’s Unplugged record (see below for the clip). It was a tape at the time, so I had to stop and rewind again and again because I couldn’t get enough. There was intensity and pain in his voice that I’d never before encountered. His somewhat-flawed vocals spoke to me and yet I couldn’t really understand them. It was truly like as if he was speaking a different language.

And in a sense, he was. Like him or not, Cobain changed the way the language of music is spoken. Just like Lennon & McCartney and many others did before him. And the way the Simpsons writers changed comedy, the Google guys chaged search algortihms and Lee Clow changed advertising.

They didn’t, necessarily, do it by being better than their competition. They did it by writing what they knew in a language that was all their own, but would soon become the language that the audience – and the world – spoke with them.

Please, take the time to check out this clip of Nirvana’s performance, as you can watch the transformation occur in Cobain. Pay close attention at around 4:46. It’s as if he slips out of the trance for a second. When he opens his eyes, either he’s looking at your soul or you’re seeing his. Either way it’s a very intense moment.

Click Away

Here’s the next podcast of the Celtic Rebel v/w Stygian Port “Dinner With Andros” series [in stereo]. Technically, it is the show prior to the last, so when we say things like “last time,” we are referring to a podcast that you’ve yet to hear. Clear as mud? Don’t worry, it will get even more confusing after we release the next one.

This one doesn’t require as much of a “warning” as the last, and should offend far fewer people. Still, I wouldn’t recommend cranking it out of your car stereo, as it will undoubtedly result in the cool kids not inviting you to their parties anymore.

Here’s the download link. Fans of Stygian Port expecting more Ed McMahon’ish color commentator to my Johnny Carson, are in for a pleasant surprise. He really comes out of his shell in this one, getting dangerously close to full-blown “Chatty Cathy” mode. Note what follows him saying, “I don’t really have anything add about the anus.” Anyway, it was nice to see/hear. Feel free to encourage him.

If you haven’t heard my fellow Jesuit Coadjutor Jordan Maxwell’s Project Camelot interview, well it’s worth a listen. {*1} As for Jones, I think the below image pretty much sums him up. I’ve spoken my peace regarding Bermas & The Infowarriors.

Didn’t realize Danny Boyle (of 28 Days) was involved in this “independent” foreign film “phenomenon” Slumdog Millionaire. Where’s that vomit emoticon when you need it? The Luciferean promotion business is old hat for Danny. Discussed clip:

Condoms came up last issue too [relevant/important enough to link the image again]. Sorry, it’s beyond irritating for me to hear fools repeat and propagate the slave wisdom of their indoctrination. Here’s a good rule of thumb: if you learned it, were taught it, or heard it, without researching it for yourself, it’s bullshit.

The above [right] shot is from Wanted (2008), and coincidentally, the guy buying them is the complete idiot the protagonist tires of early on. Probably for the best I didn’t see “hippie chick” again. Inevitably, we’d have had to have the dreaded “condom” conversation. Idiots who’ve been conditioned to believe they’re aware and intelligent tend to cling dearly to their indoctrinated belief systems [B.S.]. Thus, I’d very likely have ended up violating her rear entrance, just out of spite (think of it as a “poor man’s life extension technology”).

The referred to Futurama “Godfellas” episode is also worth a view. Just don’t fall into the [programmed] trap of assuming Groenig and company are talking about this nebulous white-bearded God/Dog character and it will make a lot more sense.

For those who haven’t read my entire body of work, the idea of who/what Lucy Fur is, starts here. The discussed mysterious e-mail, arrived in my inbox two hours before publication of my conclusion regarding the lady in question. As for the “fear” tactic, it was a really weird drop during an interview as soon as I mentioned Lucy, followed by some faint far-off sound of a dungeon door closing. Yea, [more] weird/spooky shit. Nothing “new.”

I can’t recall the name of she who spoke of a “fractal fence,” nor the commenter who appraised me of her lecture series. Chime in if you’re here. Speaking of cubing the cube, that Futurama episode (The Farnsworth Parabox) is also amazing:

My first exploration into the meaning of cubes is still relevant, and worth a read for any unfamiliar. I could do a whole analysis of the episode based on my personal growth and wisdom sense, but there’s more important things pending. {*2}

Of [extreme] interest, Matt Groening’s middle-name is “Abram.” The safe bet: not a coincidence. Farnsworth’s statement [below], pretty much cuts to the crux of our reality. For most of us, that god-damned box IS all that ever was or will be.

The Church plays it’s crucial role in the process, getting fools down on their knees to pray to the box that is their prison [contemplated/expanded]. The priest class has long laughed at the expense of the fools they indoctrinate with horse-crap disguised as religion. Relevant: Elvis Costello’s [included] “God’s Comic.”

“Deliver us from evil,” we pray/plead, ever-ignorant of just whom (or what) we are addressing, nor exactly what the hell we’re even asking for. Considering that religion IS ass-backwards and “evil” is the reverse of “live,” perhaps, we are begging to die ignorant and come right back into the box. Repeat.

Speaking of religion, got a good laugh out of the former [Godfellas] episode, when in his quest to find his lost friend, Frye went into the Amalgamated Church and asked, “Is there anything religion can do to help me find my friend?” By the way, the priest’s answer to the below conversation, was “No.” But laugh not too hard ye atheists, for the only person more ignorant than a “believer,” might be you.

I liked what Lenon Honor had to say on the subject of prayer in one of his video series. He views it as an “energy transference.” By “praying” to some gods we know little of, we feed them, and give them our power. As I’ve been saying, I’m done giving away my power to gods and men. I’m getting the fuck out of this box, and when I do, I’m gonna start taking some of that power back. The Gods better start praying they don’t meet me in the great beyond, lest I sodomize them.

Well, at least they, the hand-maidens of the gods, have a sense of humor; a sick twisted sense of humor, but funny nonetheless. It’s not a coincidence that the church below used the word Deliverance in their title [a movie about men fucking men up the ass]. Metaphorically, the priest class has long fucked their flock up the ass, while in some cases, literally fucking their children in said manner.

I thank Carolyn from Iconoclast Report and Josh from Global Reality for the “church bulletin” pics that I “borrowed.” Worth a laugh: an old [as the internet] list.

Speaking of ass-fucking, I had begun to wonder, some time ago, why Arnold grunts like a “stuck pig,” in EVERY SINGLE ONE of his early movies. Every single one. And it always seems to go on for an unbearably, and uncomfortably, long time.

Listening to the included [audio] clip from commando, free from the distraction of the hypnotizing and lying moving pictures on the screen, I think, makes it abundantly clear as to why. Again, as I surmised oh many times now, every element of cinematic craft/wizardry is scripted precisely, methodically and intentionally.

Based on his past, and my ventures into territory few dare venture [hence, why morons tend to dismiss me as "anally" obsessed], the questions yield answers. For one, the priest class chuckle as it reminds them of the time they spent with little Arnold. Two, they laugh their ass off at the dumb beer-swilling fag-bashing macho dudes in the audience who haven’t the slightest clue as to what they’re watching and eagerly submit/consent to the reprogramming of their mind.

“The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists.” — J. Edgar Hoover

That’s the quote Stygian Port referred to. Of relevance, in why most who call themselves “truthers will never ever understand the gay agenda, or even why they are who they are [cause, they "do what they want"]. Just this week, my sister reminded me of the South Park episode (“Goobacks“) where in order to change the future (the shape of things to come), the men choose to become gay en masse. Matter of factly, one character states, “We are trying to turn everyone gay so there are no future humans.” In the face of revelation, our laughter is our consent.

Adding to the musical train theme, from my youth, I recall all the media-fed zombie boys who boasted of “running the train” on some girl. Oh you silly boys: to properly form a train, each boxcar needs to be able to couple with the car in front of and behind it. If you don’t understand that yet, don’t worry, you will soon enough.

Stygian after previewing this asked about all the Train songs, and how many more I had. Answer: plenty more where those came from [and none are from the imbecile "run the train" genre]. For example: the Clash’s “Train in Vain” would now be relevant. Oh, and pay close attention to the “Jumping Someone Else’s Train” lyrics; they are equivalent to Howard Biel’s speech from the last podcast [3].

Hm, so train, outside of the last one bound for heaven, the one all you need is [blind] faith to board, also has multiple meanings. Aside from the rear-entry position favored by dogs, and the back-door method, favored by nearly everyone now, it also suggests to “indoctrinate/teach” as one might a pet, or a slave.

Formally defined: “to develop or form the habits, thoughts, or behavior of (a child or other person) by discipline and instruction.”

Thanks to B.L.Donnelly, who raised a good point about the propagation of mind-limiting propaganda, I feel I should start using the phrase “body energy field” instead of “Chakra System.” Who fathoms the potential of the hand? Indubitably, all general knowledge has been corrupted by the priest class, the servants of the vampiric overlords who’s very existence relies on keeping us forever in the box.

Likely not needing mention, if you haven’t already, please drop Jim Morrison, the one with a taste for the back doors of little boys from your list of idols humans. Next time you visit Paris, feel free to stomp on his grave. Wish I had. {*3}

Speaking of “chicken,” The Truman Show may just be worthy of an intimate exploration at some point. For now I’ll just point out a scene that someone really wanted the audience to notice. Carey runs into the twins and twice, they push his shoulder against the advertisement behind him, the camera focused on it.

Who’s the chicken in this situation? We are the chicken. We are the free-range slaves they are addressing (disuccsed in prior article, Statism is Dead vid reaches same conclusion). Just because we’re too blind [via conditioning] to see the chicken-wire, and too ignorant to know it exists, doesn’t mean it’s not there.

From our chicken cage, we go to Nick Cage (as I surmised before, he’s the new Kevin Bacon, connecting every actor to every movie). Though I wrote of National Treasure long ago, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend the article, I was but an infant then [in comparison to now]. Speaking of another Nick, the song “Oh Lucy” was done by none other than Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. WTF! Synchronicity?

There’s our dear [¿hm, deer-hoof?] little Angelina Jolie making the V for Vagina sign. Alternately, the Luciferan gesture can be interpreted as “fuck me” or you’re welcome to come get a “piece.” Hm, now the jukebox is playing Elvis Costello crooning, “Get your mind off the sweet behind, of our little angel” [not included].

Further supporting the theory logical fact regarding the gender of “the adversary” is how the temptation of the Jesus is even by Church, ahem, Scholars, called the “Temptation of the Flesh.” Well, unless Jesus was a poofer [which he wasn't, another article in the queue], it’s a safe bet there was vagina and titties involved.

After hearing the Vaganally obsessed Prince sing his praise to “Little Nikki,” I can assume he had some inkling as to, at least, what color car she might drive and why she might “park her car sideways, cause it wouldn’t last” [more on that soon].

Speaking of Religion, has it occured to you this whole “Global Warming” hooplah is really just another Religion? Without any evidence, millions now believe something, on nothing other than faith (and some spurious parables/data) alone. Worth a laugh, Park’s “Goobacks” episode featured some idiot bringing up the topic and some “uneducated” redneck smashing his rhetoric with logic a [unindoctinated] child might use, closing with “Fucking Retard!” Here’s a few that fit that bill:

Speaking of “warming,” there does seem to be some heat rising from down under. Yea, inevitably Nicole Kidman came up again. I know I’ve shared her lovely rear with you guys before, but that’s no reason not to share it again. Sorry Elvis!

However, the image annemarie shared with us in prior post does make me reflect and reconsider what I might do to Nicole. That’s one scary fucking cover, man.

The cover also speaks synchronistic volumes of the connection between NIC[k]OLE [¿nice-hole?] and OLE’NICK. So, what exactly to you think, having listened to the clips from Prince’s “tribute,” happens when Little Nicki “starts to grind?” Would that be as in “grind” flesh? Go back and look at the images from last podcast dealing with the meat-grinding Cattle-Barenness from someplace faraway down.

Listen closely to the sections where Prince is screaming and tell me if that sounds like “pleasure” to you. Here’s the other related pics I said I was saving. There are no coincidences folks. But, there is good reason why it’s all becoming so evident.

The Diamond Dogs are just the female variant of whores of the priest class. They are the starlettes that indoctrinate our kids into idol worship, and idleness [as in stunted brain development]. One day, I’ll get around to writing the long overdue article entitled Diamonds are a Whore’s Best Friend, but here’s another image [below] I’ve been looking to offload somewhere. Another bit of “truth.”

That may offend someone, and I guess I need not explain how little I care at this stage. But, many on this quest for truth wear diamonds, thus many “truthers” are whores who’ll never ever look into that mirror of truth. The first [real] step on the quest for truth is to admit you’re a whore. The second, is to stop being one.

Do I even need to get into the lunacy of going [submitting] to the church/state to get “married?” Cap in hand, begging the same “daddy” who despises and mocks you, to bequeath his blessing upon your union [¿would that be "foul union," or "fowl union"?]. The same slave privilege for which homosexuals are presently beating the drums of injustice at the plantation. Surely, the Master is rather amused.

Hm, so Oliver Stone (directed The Doors), Nick Cage [the illuminated seeker], Martin Scorcese (directed The Last Temptation of Christ), and Tom Hanks [symbologist hero extraordinnaire] are all intimately connected to the Vatican. Another coincidence, shirley. Here’s the flying x-box of death we talked about.

Which reminds me, I’m flabbergasted why people are so convinced that “Angels” are good, and “Demons” are bad, or that there’s even the slightest difference between the two. As if before the dawn of time, someone said, OK, all you guys that drink Coke are gonna be on the Devils Team and wear Red, while all you guys that drink Pepsi are gonna play for the Angels and wear White, forever. I guess it was better that than shirts versus skins? Which reminds me, I should probably sodomize a couple of those archangels once I get the hell out of this place.

Now the cabaret is frozen and the laughter comes in cans, and
The lonely hearts club clientele don’t know what to do with their hands

You swear you’ll never go back again, once you’re inside
You’re never the bridegroom, she’s always the bride
You’re not going to do a thing, to our little angel

You’ll come in a sweetheart and you’ll go out a stranger
Well, you try to love her, but she’s so contrary
Like a chainsaw running through a dictionary
So get your mind off the sweet behind of our little angel

Of note, in the mindfuck officially entitled Angels & Demons, said x-box flew into the vortex, while our deer Little Nicole spoke emphatically of “twisters” in Oz. {*4} There’s a lot more on that coming, and at the risk of giving away too much, let’s just say we’ll be “twisting the night away.”

---

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

---

*1: Here’s a link. I can’t comment on aliens, cause I’ve yet to meet one. The main area I got uneasy is when Jordan’s comments regarding lying sack-of-shit history-distorting social-engineering chicken-hawk Steven-Spielberg came close to praise. [LB]

*2: . Michael over at Hidden Agendas did a full-write up of said episdoe aeons ago, and included oodles of screen shots. For the unfamiliar, here’s my video featuring the movie segment Stygian and I joke about [08:08]. [LB]

*3: I’d guess, that nurture overrides nature, especially when you’re a victim of mind control. Safe to assume Jimmy spent a lot of time being eaten (as pic suggests), before he developed his own taste for “chicken”. [LB]

*4: Last-minute additions. My draft of “Diamonds” talks about how these over-abundant stones are pretty much worthless, unless you’re drilling through/for something. Thus, I can’t help but think this [kk] image is synchromystically related. The “uncomfortable statement” in regards to “twisting” that SP and I laugh about, occurred during the first Dark Knight interview. [LB]

Quiet morning…up way too early waiting for the next snow report in the morning to confirm there’s another foot or two of fresh snow.  I am losing count but the opening week has gone something like this: Saturday 70cm, Sunday 70cm, Monday 30cm, Tuesday 40cm, Wednesday 56cm and now Thursday another 53cm, Friday don’t remember…you do the math…it’s deep!  Can’t sleep…

Heard a gentle ‘hwump’ the other morning and thought for a moment it was an avi bomb echoing down the valley but looked out to see a small dark bird twitching on its side in my son’s sled beneath the window, wings folded tight to her chest, struggling to catch her breath and then still.  My wife and I watched silent, I turned to her and shook my head with my eyes and we finished getting our little boy ready for school.  Later that morning I returned, picked up the motionless little body and took her to a hollow in the rocky bank next to our home after holding her long enough to be certain she was not coming back.

I am reverent in these early days in the snow and of our friends who are not here to laugh and smile and tell us tales of just how deep it was or about the stupid trick they pulled or line they skied.  Only a week after Remembrance day and here we are heading up the mountains with that same anticipation we had when we were kids and this year (once again) there are fewer returning after their lives were cut short so suddenly…but if we listen closely between the turns and windswept lines we will hear their voices beneath the snow.

The first 70cm day was epic (what else do you call those days?)…dropping into the same lines I had just skied the last two days that had vanished.  The next 70cm day was beyond…literally too deep to turn on any of the terrain that was open and the usual trees and rocks my size were gone beneath the surface, the cliffs on top of Rat Fink, gone in two days…enough, stop thinking…sleep.

In the dream this opening week in Whistler has become, each day repeats like it did for Bill Murray in, ‘Ground Hog Day’…I get off the gondi goggles, gloves and zips all set, click the buckles on my boots and slide unnoticed past the crowds with that silent nod that says ‘Here we go…’ (aka ‘I’m local, trust me, you don’t want to follow me’)…but more than that it says, ‘I’m home’.  I slide past Green, right, a little left of right, nearly out of sight and slip between the markers without a second thought…like slipping into my favorite pair of jeans ‘that fit like  an old lover come back for more’ (Max Blagg).  A short hike over the roll, west wind at my back pushing, driving me to that bottomless familiar escape into the white…and beneath the snow echo the ageless muses of younger days like the soundtrack of my life.

The low base of “Love me two times…” sinks in and the voice of Jim Morrison reciting the Graveyard Poems of a forgotten era before my time…and, “the voices of singing women are calling from the far shore and they are saying, forget the night and live with us in forests of azure.  Meagre food or souls forgot.”  The constant sting of the wind numbs and the blur of white that suddenly surrounds is calling me home. ‘A little more right son, you know the way.’  Alone, together, like an old friend pouring one more drink for the drive home.  Punch drunk love-sick ramblings…like it’s the first time all over again. 

Higher right, roll, straight line, wind lip…pass a huge bomb hole the size of my body with a moments glance that snaps me back, awake.  No results from the blast, just a perfect round hole like a meteor evaporated on impact and left nothing to show but the crater…safe for now, game on, here we go.  There’s a small group of struggling searchers to my right too close to the tree line, too flat over there for today, and I instinctively cut left, air between the trees, drop weightless, land, and drop again when the ghostly cushion beneath the K2 Kahuna’s says, “yes, now”.  I run straight exhaling through the chest deep compression while the group stands still in time watching as the flash of red disappears into the glade at the bottom of the second pitch. Pine branches loaded with snow brush by and windows between the heavy trunks appear from my dreams and open one after another and I’m certain they close behind me as I pass…but I can’t look back.  I am ‘one’ with the forest, nearing unconsciousness, like Bruce Lee and, “the art of fighting without fighting…it is like a finger pointing to the moon.  Do not focus on the finger or you will miss all the heavenly brilliance.”  I let go, I release the inner turmoil to the wind and deny the inevitable collision of man and earth and focus beyond the trees, beyond the forest, until the voice fades and I am conscious again for a moment on top of a giant log.  I slide up and drop over the hollow gap below and find the muses waiting on the other side.

Five minutes to midnight or 3:28am, I don’t know which, and I am there throughout time with all the dead poets, friends and heroes who left before their time…James Dean, Jim Morrison, Bruce Lee, Trevor Peterson, Craig Kelly, Alex Loewe, Goran Kropp, Denis Fontaine, Heath Ledger, Shane McConkey…my cousin David at 16…and more.  In a world of exceptional people there are precious few who truly inspire and as they fall, each one in turn reminds me of the next.  It is so sad to say, ‘in turn’, like it was meant to be, by design.  The names and voices call us from the snow, and at home, far from the empty dreams we walk the halls as years pass and find our wives asleep and little boys and girls who woke up and crawled into our beds after a bad dream.  It is an all too true reminder that we take them with us when we do these things.  Like Shane said, there was a time when I too wrote I might never see 30 or 40 and yet here I am with their voices.

I imagine I see in those stolen moments what they saw and taste ‘the search’ at the tip of my tongue.  Unless you have fallen from a plane (a perfectly good one) and touched that awakening moment that commands you alive, or better commands that you question your life in a flash of white not knowing if you will surface from a wave or be forever one with the white light of an avalanche or slide down the pavement or dirt until the friction of the impact and the bone crushing clash of gravity and normal force make you stop breathing, you can’t imagine what they felt the instant before the inevitable.  It is like they say, your life flashes past in the blink of an eye, no, faster, and I mean your whole life before and beyond the chaos of disaster…the loves, the triumphs, the failures, the regrets, loved ones laughing, the dreams of your own seemingly inevitable funeral, that first ride on the Honda 50 motorcycle that had you hooked on speed, the children you have yet to hold, the dream of growing old with the one you love…all time and place and spirit combine and before you are lost, you are whole, and you know the truth in that fleeting moment before death and then, god willing, you are alive, thanking god (or whatever other divinity  you denied you implore the moment before) that you are alive.

My heart races…and then, at the open light at the end of the glade I slide to a stop and breathe…it’s nearly morning now.  I look up at the clock, check for daylight through the blinds, see the new day has arrived, and know if I listen closely the voices will be with me.

dalla rubrica “Musica, musica, musica!” de “Il Taglio”

Riders on the storm

Riders on the storm

Into this house we’re born

Into this world we’re thrown

Like a dog without a bone

An actor out alone

Riders on the storm

There’s a killer on the road

His brain is squirmin’ like a toad

Take a long holiday

Let your children play

If ya give this man a ride

Sweet memory will die

Killer on the road, yeah

Girl ya gotta love your man

Girl ya gotta love your man

Take him by the hand

Make him understand

The world on you depends

Our life will never end

Gotta love your man, yeah

Wow!

Riders on the storm

Riders on the storm

Into this house we’re born

Into this world we’re thrown

Like a dog without a bone

An actor out alone

Riders on the storm

Riders on the storm

Riders on the storm

Riders on the storm

Riders on the storm

Riders on the storm

Cavalieri nella tempesta

Cavalieri nella tempesta

nati in questa casa

buttati in questo mondo

come cani senza un osso

come attori senza la parte

Cavalieri nella tempesta

c’è un assassino sulla strada

il suo cervello si dimena come un rospo

prenditi una lunga vacanza

lascia che i tuoi figli possano giocare

Se tu dai un passaggio a quest’uomo

i dolci ricordi spariranno

un assassino sulla strada, sì

Ragazza tu hai bisogno di amare il tuo uomo

Ragazza tu hai bisogno di amare il tuo uomo

prendilo per mano

fagli capire

che il mondo dipende da te

(e) la nostra vita non finirà mai

Hai bisogno di amare il tuo uomo, sì

Wow!

Cavalieri nella tempesta

Cavalieri nella tempesta

nati in questa casa

buttati in questo mondo

come cani senza un osso

come attori senza la parte

Cavalieri nella tempesta

Cavalieri nella tempesta

Cavalieri nella tempesta

Cavalieri nella tempesta

Cavalieri nella tempesta

Cavalieri nella tempesta

Do NOT Stop Spreading these Videos!

The Salvation of 3 Generations could depend on it!

1. Go to GoodFight Theater! http://www.theater.goodfight.org

 Check out the AWESOME exposes and eye-opening clarity of the surprising spiritual motivations of entertainers! You will want to spread the news and the link, and order the dvds… then go to these youtube videos and spread them like a virus! The salvation of your generation depends partly on the LABORERS. We are going to wear satan out with God’s Grace & Truth just like he tries to wear us out with his sin & lies!

2
ICP think they sold their soul to the devil… But Jesus Blood is powerful and can still redeem their soul into life, before they die.The Mercy of the Lord endures forever, and His Truth endures to every Generation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-_3-YB2XMo

3
MTV and Madonna and Eminem and Method Man and Jimi Hendrix and Garth Brooks and Kid Rock think they sold their soul to the devil… But Jesus Blood is powerful and can still redeem their soul into life, before they die.

The Mercy of the Lord endures forever, and His Truth endures to every Generation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKfGNEuGWMo

4
Dr. Dre, Eminem and others think they sold their soul to the devil… But Jesus Blood is powerful and can still redeem their soul into life, before they die.The Mercy of the Lord endures forever, and His Truth endures to every Generation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oify6AtKkFs

5
Korn and Ozzy Osbourne and Frank Zappa and Limp Bizkit and Red Hot Chili Peppers think they sold their soul to the devil… But Jesus Blood is powerful and can still redeem their soul into life, before they die.The Mercy of the Lord endures forever, and His Truth endures to every Generation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRPxkkP-ZGM

6
Do you realize the satanic plan in secular music and in the United Nations is the same plan that God foiled in Genesis 11. Why are these people doing it again? They will fail again!
Pick your team! Kingdom or Babylon!
Go hard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMDF4_zekbM

7
Carlos Santana, David Koresh, Jim Jones, Hitler, have a lot in common… But Jesus Blood is powerful and can still redeem their soul into life, before they die.
The Mercy of the Lord endures forever, and His Truth endures to every Generation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Wv9ldtDGds

8
This clip tells the story of Robert Johnson, a Black man who is called ‘THE FATHER OF ROCK & ROLL’ admitted that he sold his soul to satan in the 1950s. The roots of rock in satanism…  But Jesus Blood is powerful and can still redeem their soul into life, before they die.
The Mercy of the Lord endures forever, and His Truth endures to every Generation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Aml1RZsxqw

9
Robert Johnston blues star and founder of Rock, actually sold his soul to satan. This is the root of the secular music you listen to. That’s why it does what it does to your soul. satanism…  But Jesus Blood is powerful and can still redeem their soul into life, before they die.
The Mercy of the Lord endures forever, and His Truth endures to every Generation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvMfM_87tec

10
Eazy E, Bone Thugs & Harmony, Snoop Dogg, Method Man, Master P, DMX, Three 6 Mafia, and others think they think they sold their soul to the devil… But Jesus Blood is powerful and can still redeem their soul into life, before they die.
The Mercy of the Lord endures forever, and His Truth endures to every Generation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC0WRXRrp2w

11
Wow… this guys testimony is amazing. He actually was writing music for satan when God delivered him! From Elvis to today… Jesus Blood is powerful and can still redeem their soul into life, before they die.
The Mercy of the Lord endures forever, and His Truth endures to every Generation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p0MruAg8wM

12
More mind-blowing footage about Elvis, Backstreet Boys, Christina Aguilera, and other stars that masked themselves as harmless. Jesus Blood is powerful and can still redeem their soul into life, before they die.
The Mercy of the Lord endures forever, and His Truth endures to every Generation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yusiv3JDng

13
Singers like Spice Girls and Brittney Spears teach children to reject God’s laws and their parents laws like “Keep your mouth shut Keep your legs shut” Jesus Blood is powerful and can still redeem their soul into life, before they die.
The Mercy of the Lord endures forever, and His Truth endures to every Generation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJCWydWB9tY

15
The Truth about Elvis Presley… he was not a Christian. His bodyguards, the “Memphis Mafia” reveal his demonic forces and deception.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX7FJgtOti8

16
The Truth about Elvis Presley… he was not a Christian. He was deep into occult and actually thought he was a false christ and read from satanist Madame Blavatsky at his concerts! Also notice how SIMILAR Michael Jackson’s life ended the same way Elvis did – with PILLS.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8AOzOvXwu4

17
More on Elvis… and Jerry Lewis actually condemns himself to Hell, he thought he sold his soul to satan. I wish he had repented before he died. Same thing with Little Richard. They don’t know how merciful Jesus Christ is!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0wHc10VGMw
19
Most rock & roll artists have been influenced by Aliester Crowley… he taught drugs, sex, and “Imma Do Me.” In order to promote satanism and the Anti-Christ. How Timothy Leary and the Beatles helped spread satanism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6vLnAYjK2A

20
How Aliester Crowley sowed seeds of satanic discipleship (Harry Hayes and Dr. Alfred Kinsey) for the sexual revolution and how promotion of homosexuality and the rape of little boys is related to the Anti-Christ.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnNkmNPptk0

21
HOw the Beatles promoted satanism under the influence of Aliester Crowley… they brought yoga (yoking yourself to a demon) to America.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGy0Sk80amQ

22
“Making Movies is casting spells…” how the Rolling Stones and the Beatle helped promote satanism in 1967…. the end of this is DEEP!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgOzb_1wjig

23
Let’s look at the FRUIT of satanism, idolatry, and rebellion against God, from 1967. NOT Freedom- addictions, broken lives, sexual diseases, suicides, abortions, and broken families
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRcHT14oQr8

25
How drugs are related to witchcraft. Jimi Hendrix testifies to his servanthood to satan. Whoever is taken captive to this, there is still time. Jesus Blood is powerful and can still redeem their soul into life, before they die.
The Mercy of the Lord endures forever, and His Truth endures to every Generation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDH9j_f0YPk

26
Demon worship and Jim Morrison of The Doors – the connection.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6duGqjEFoVQ

27
satan is a lie. Even thru the greatest entertainers (false prophets) in the world. How the Beach Boys created the culture of southern California and created witchcraft music. Jesus Blood is powerful and can still redeem their soul into life, before they die. The Mercy of the Lord endures forever, and His Truth endures to every Generation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKmh1mmjHV0

29
Michael Jackson spread sexual perversion and contacted demon spirits for his music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRf7wM6vLuI

31
Kurt Cobain… 90s grunge satanist, (I think he may have gotten saved before he died… Hallelujah!). Also NIN and U2 are covered in here! Jesus Blood is powerful and can still redeem their soul into life, before they die. The Mercy of the Lord endures forever, and His Truth endures to every Generation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdWHjFhIvcs

32
U2 and CREED still has time to repent from their sins and trying to decieve Christians into the New World order. U2 is more blasphemous than Marilyn Manson. CREED signed their record deal in blood. Jesus Blood is powerful and can still redeem their soul into life, before they die. The Mercy of the Lord endures forever, and His Truth endures to every Generation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp26vedLKDM

33
Charles Manson, rock musician and mass murderer, a satanist who worked with the Beatles and Beach Boys and taught his family to kill. Jesus Blood is powerful and can still redeem their soul into life, before they die. The Mercy of the Lord endures forever,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yqt2DLXDE7c

34
Anton Lavey and the satan worshippers who love Hitler and the soon coming antichrist, and national socialism. This is CRAZY!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXs7Xd4JBXA

35
How the music is leading to anti-christ. Son of Sam was a satanist murderer as well, but I heard that he got saved in prison thanks to the mercy of the Lord. He sold himself to the devil but Jesus brought him back!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd3v4tR0sM8