EPHEMERIS
THE BOOK OF TIME
Red Jordan Arobateau
EPHEMERIS—The Book of Time
Copyright © 2010, by Red Jordan Arobateau
All rights reserved.
Any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental.
All un-attributed quotes are from the Prophet Red Jordan Arobateau.
ISBN: 978-0-557-69853-0
Published by RED JORDAN PRESS
Redjordanarobateau.com
USA
THE OLD MAN’S JOURNAL
2010
Book 1. – June 7 – July 12
Book 2. – July 12 –August 10
Book 3. – August 10 – September 10
Book 4. – September 10 – September 28
Book 5. – September 28 –October 19
Sometimes what God would have us do goes against everything we have known and learned for our survival. It is for a new purpose; a different sort of survival. It is a step further.
Book 1
1.
Time & persistence.
1-Penny.
PM
Pigeon. A 14-Brush Night.
I was young, 8 years old? When I first heard the term Boogie Man, and had seen how my neighborhood friends were terrified of this Boogie Man, and asked my parents about it and was informed the Boogie Man was something ignorant people believed in and was a superstition and it wasn’t real. At that age I was aware of my status as ‘higher’ then many of those around me, (tho not my blax friends at our private school). I was middle-class, from a college-educated family; Colored bourgeoisie --which I knew what that felt like and saw the subtle differences between my parents & theirs, and my home & theirs, tho I did not yet understand the terminology.
Toxic people in church drive away others. These toxic people are full of the wrath of God and not the love. These toxic members may be of good use—as ushers, deacons; maybe they are big donors w/deep pockets, but they should not be allowed to mix freely with newcomers in the congregation—they should have their Hospitality (Oneg, Friendship Hour) in a separate room, where they can sit among themselves & study all the Shall Not’s in the bible and get happy over sin, hell & the devil, —their dishes of food can be delivered to them—because their meanness of spirit will poison any newcomers so they won’t want to come back to the worship again:
Well sister-so-&-so is mean!
Well that brother-so-&-so is mean! Meaner the sister-so-&-so!
Yass, brother-so-&-so shore’ is mean! He a mean man!
Well he say he got the Spirit!
He mean! What spirit do he got?!
Monday, June 7, 2PM
Saw ad on TV which gives away flash drive as part of its promo material—called in & signed up for me & a friend (the Malaysian of course, whose idea this is) for next Tuesday—at Hilton hotel. Hope there is coffee & snacks-- which aren’t sugar.
Young white woman in big truck pulls out of driveway without looking both ways---only the way that benefits her, watching for vehicular traffic, which might be coming towards her. But T stopped protectively, and waved his cane at her. She had pulled into the place he would have been! She then saw him; her face fell in shock as T stood there, waving his cane; thru the windshield T saw her apologetically shaking her head, & waving her hand at him. She realized what could have happened. The learning process. She is young? One of those under-age 18 drivers?
Why? Thought Transman. Why oh why? Somebodys’ were buying his Black Lesbian novel HO STROLL—biggest book he had & he had to manufacture it! He had to go print it, go somewhere else to have it professionally cut, take it home to collate it, punch holes in it, put it into a spine, and then package it, and then take it to the Post Office—since it wasn’t on disc!!!!!!!!
Shit! Maybe I have arrived—but what a huge amount of shit work ahead! It is momentous.
A review of Lucy & Mickey he had found on an Internet site; he hunted for it and found the empty space where it had sat w/the warning; This Review Has Been Deleted & Purged!
T climbed to the tip-top of Nob Hill, at whose foot his neighborhood lay. From this vantage he surveyed the lofty view of the financial destruct; there the Trans America pyramid’s outer space architecture rose. He was thinking:
Anybody in my shoes who has pushed this long to achieve a goal, has a vision & a course set for themselves and it is their independent thought; not to be usurped by the dreams or ambitions of others---those who will claim, why don't you do this? Or try that, or you should endorse this, or that. Good suggestions pour in, but they might not be what the creative person freely wants.
China market? China market? He is approached in broken English by two East Indian tourists. To whom he gladly gave instruction to the colorful bazaars in Chinatown, from out of the map in his head.
This city has taken the flavor of New York. A global village—our world; all Creator asks that we do our half of the work—peace, cooperation, & Creator Herself will do the other half. All a human needs is to bask in the sun of their achievements, feed upon meats simmering in the oven; sit w/friends on a full belly, full of delicious food, companionship, community, love, safety, a nice adequate house, a warm bath at night & a comfortable bed.
The warming sun is blocked by Grace’s towering edifice. Top of the hill. It is cold in her shadows, 8 floors of grey stone.
News presents a chilling reality; a recent court litigation in which the accused might testify on his own behalf. It is a risk putting him on the stand, because he could make or break his own case. He could spend years behind bars, or go free by just the skin of his teeth.
The outcome of how he presents himself before the jury is what is in question. It is horrible to think human civilization is still so primitive as 12 humans gazing at another human, having power of life or death over them, all depending on their opinions of the person. To be able to discern their motives and sincerity, whither they are truly remorseful or not. People grow up & build up along with maturation all kinds of defense mechanisms—traits; often they skillfully and irrevocably learn how to hide their true emotions, to mask their hearts from disclosure. How can any 12 humans be an accurate judge of the true heart of an individual?
That old abandon church on the corner of Larkin Street --sharks have their eyes on it--& construction looms, to build another of their monstrous For Profit condominiums, sadly which are Not For People, that no poor who have hardworked all our lives can even dream to afford—tho we have lived here, paid our dues here, our taxes here, built our communities here.
Dear Children, we will fight the battle!
As he descended the hill, Transman calculated how much he would actually profit from the sales of these books—after everybody got paid, the printing company, the distribution site, the mail delivery service… what do I truly make on this expensive book—it sells for $75. After these deductions, what is my share?
There are people who sit on top and control everything, making themselves the modern-day plantation owners. These people find a way to juggle the dollars so you, the creator, you the worker, get pennies. Those who control find a way to get to the top of every enterprise they touch. & we slowly discover we have become their slaves, their serfs.
1-Penny on corner.
T sat awhile in the sun, the pigeons @ his feet. In lieu of a sketchbook & energetic pencil strokes of his youth, drinking in vision of the birds etched on his inner eye—the mental eye—to come out, on brush tip from the files of his imagination, @ some later date.
PM
Some people live their life always in the world, and never in Spirit. Other live sometimes in Spirit, sometimes not. Others dedicate their lives to the degree of an aesthetic nun, living their lives as much in Spirit as they can.
I am devout. I am a Christian. I believe Christ is the highest dispensation of the manifestation of Creator, to Her/His people, and is the most profound of humans link to God yet manifested on earth, but that all worships of God are valid.
The Dutch murderer of 2 young women is caught in Peru—South America. With tens of thousands of currency in the coin of various nationalities, a laptop, expensive clean sports clothes, travel tickets. It is what so many of earth’s citizens dream of having—an unimaginable affluence—willed to him via inheritance— free to spend a life of leisure traveling the world. And he ruins it all by becoming a murderer.
PM
Whooo wee! Feel like some delicious sex down at my crotch! Yum yum! So good yuh kin taste it!
Pigeon. 1-Pallet Knife/ 1-Scraper Tool/ 11-Brush Night.
Tuesday, June 8
Some get all they can take; others, they never see their dreams come to fruit.
All that’s left in their lives is old age, is piss-poor poverty, bitterness, aloneness. Which fate will be mine? I do not know.
When you go to get in your bed & you see the place you always lay—on your pillow—the cat is there in your place staring at you with luminous yellow eyes like the sphinx on the river Nile who shall not be moved; then you know! You know!
1-Penny.
PM
An artist is a big gambler. Your whole life a throw of the dice in pursuit of the novel, the canvas—w/little provision for your future but that. Only at the end will the cards fall, and you see your placement. State of your survival. The quality of your life.
Got 3/4ths of HO STROLL II photocopied. But upon taking it home its mixed up—the master and the copy, and what wasn’t finished copying, and what was, and now its up to me to put it together properly like a monstrous puzzle.
Let me tell you why this HO STROLL is so horrenchus. It was originally written in 5 parts:
HO STROLL
SAN PABLO
STREET FEVER
OUTLAW!
CHOOSE!
All that means is as I typed out the singular giant novel, completing chapter after chapter, foreseeing there was no way to bind the whole deal, I bound it together in segments to the capacity of my half-inch staples. Each book, naturally, being separately stapled together and sold individually, had pagination, which ran from 1 to maybe 180, or 220 pages. It was always intended to be one giant novel with a plot, theme, characters who developed --but it was published in these separate sections, now when bound together into most recent final edition, the pagination runs from 1 to 200 5 times, instead of continuously to 800 pages. Further more, since it was too difficult to bind that thick of a work into one single volume—as hopefully the future will do it justice—it has to be sold in two volumes, part I. and II. So HO STROLL has condensed itself in bulk but not text, from five volumes down to two---each of these volumes having sequences of pages going from 1 to 200 several times, & if any of the pages slip out during assembly, or any of the master copies get mixed up, it is necessary to go thru each book page by page to make sure all the pages make sense, and are not mixed up with the same number but in the wrong section! What a lot of spent energy!
To make matters worse, on the ill-advice of some long-ago feminist, who didn’t work out whatsoever as an agent, when I had money I paid a typist to type it double space---; so editors can look at it---this was the advice of middleclass, college educated idiots—and their advice never works for me. How would they know that one day I’d be selling these books—just as they are—thus effectively doubling the cost, since it makes the book twice as thick! And harder for minority or poor women to purchase!!!!! Oh—by the way, this was in the mid-70’s and the typist typed it (onto hard copy, not disc, being the computer ages had not yet gone into full swing). Well, anyhow, as stated:
One day the page will come up blank. It will be over.
Life is so hard as it is---enough that would think people would not make it even harder for each other—here in our world.
Ten thousand artists sit at ten thousand drawing boards all over the world hoping they will be heard, recognized.
Wednesday, June 9, 2PM
Bancroft not yet arrived. Must call Bonnie. Numerous HO STROLL’s loom before me, a mountainous task. Lean years. Can’t submit new shipment until July due to fiscal year—they aren’t accepting anything for sale. Thus July goods won’t be paid out until September! If I am lucky. Thus this tiny check due any day now, will be the last for 3 months! GADS!
Lean years, and fat.
First of 3-Amazon boxes wrapped, ready for mailing. However Transman didn’t have the postage or the time. Sometime by tomorrow afternoon he must procure the $4.00 mailing fee.
On my way out to face the day at 4PM.
Wow! In mailbox money order for $25 from play cousin Angelo! Transman speedily galloped downhill to bank, deposited check, then off to the Grant Writing Center, but on discovering the elevator there was out of commission, rather then lug the heavy cart up 6 flight of stairs, he ran back home—as fast as an elder man w/cane & cart can run—got his precious package of books, went to mail them at PO. Then on to hotel feeding/ food hoarding, then on to Angel café. Here's how it went:
25-Cents (1 Quarter) near 2 lovers embracing; in gutter on Snob Hill…
Some are saints. Some, ordinary workers. All nourish the earth.
Def. KKK: Korporate Knglomerate, which has its economic stranglehold on the people, their chief aim is greed, pure greed. Klu Klux Klan racism—and homophobia. Both are poisons, which have tarnished our Great America.
25-Cents, one quarter, in worst part of the TL, outside a liquor store.
The pigeons sail everywhere they please. Perch on 5th story fireescape rails. Their red feet strut on top of this antique hotel marquee. Red sat in the windowsill of the emergency exit hall on a paint-flecked old windowsill. Wind blew in. His gut was grumbly, not having dined. He surveyed the old terrene where he had lived & over the decades, watched gentrify. An artist w/canvas goes in next door. Torn curtains, faded grey from 40 years of endured poverty in many windows. Fancy pastel colors of upscale students in the others.
Sometimes Transman felt he really didn’t fit in because his responses were not the same as natural born bio guys, or one raised to be a bio guy. That his voice was too shrill. Plus he was still somewhat socially dysfunctional from his bad upbringing, so he chose to sit alone. Here he was at the end of the fire escape hall, while the other middleclass volunteers chit-chatted in the kitchen. He had company tho. 3 fat black-grey/white pigeons flew onto the fire escape. Big, since they were unusually close & higher up then him, and @ this vantage point, they watched Transman from bright beady orange eyes. One had its foot turned out, broken at some point, and healed into a crooked position all the weight baring done with the other foot alone. Still obviously fat, healthy.
A strong wind blew pushing the smell of fresh urine up to 2nd floor where T sat. A petty drug street criminal zipped up his fly down below. Ah! Summer has arrived.
1-Penny.
1-Dime in front of Angel entrance.
David Ball sold a painting off his on-line web site. It was an old painting.
I really like your new stuff you’re doing these days. The buyer had said—because this painting was in fact so old he’d never seen it before. The painting was 21 years old. David got $1,000.
We spoke briefly of time management:
--Less time for girlfriend—just have to tell them, I don’t have time to spend, gotta go, I’ve got work to do…
--I go to this group on Wednesday, and another guys group on Tuesday—and those nights I don’t paint. I get some writing done, but no time to paint.
Home. TV. Switched on usual comforting programs while he painted. We must extrapolate from one of his favorite shows—which must remain nameless least it be an embarrassment to the individual once a great movie star, the Brightest Star of Hollywood who was questioned by the host:
Host: Did your career continue?
Former Brightest Star of Hollywood: Well, I was asked to star in several more roles, but my husband said I really wish you wouldn’t.
So many careers are cut short by a spouse who does not want their domestic tranquility disturbed. I believe this is true of a very, very dear friend of mine… So, young Painters, Dancers, Writers, this is something to be leery of---.
Pigeon done. Untitled, 28” X 23½” Acrylic on Canvas, begun. Canvas stretched over found picture frame.
Untitled. A 1-Pallet Knife/8-Brush Night.
In the 1950’s, Dad & I went on drives up a section of the newly built American highway in our blue Chevy automobile with a round hat-shaped body. We soon got past the city limits and were out in the country on that 2-lane highway, w/green grass, trees, flying past on both sides. We’d drive into the past, because here and there occasionally were old farmhouses, decaying, only few splotches of white remained on their grey boards, rain and snows had worn away all paint, worn down to the bare blackened wood; taken off by time. Glass broken out of the windows, and weeds growing up to the farmhouse’s mid level; vines snaking thru its open portals. What had happened to those tenants? Why did they leave their hard-worked-for farm abandon? Couldn’t make a living? What became of their dreams to build a homestead? To live on the land?
“Maann
dig it,” a woman in sunglasses, toreador pants, and a sleeveless
blouse, which revealed her white skin—pallid, seldom seeing
daylight, spoke. A smile flicked over her face in anticipation. “To
kill the pain, the doc’s give ‘em a cocktail—they call it.”
The two other dopefiends laughed little breathless laughs, subdued;
in a laid-back manner behind their shades. “It’s Heroin,
Cocaine, Morphine, Whiskey, sugar substance and 'tranks, all together
in a bottle.”
“They shoot it man?” Questioned one, eagerly.
“Naw.” The dopefiend responded sarcastically, the corners of her lips twisted down. “Naw, they just drink it. Ha ha.” The dopefiends moved as underwater creatures in an ultraviolet world. I saw them as beings in pain. Severe pain. They are good people—but you can’t trust them. Their yen is bigger then they are! It’s outgrown them like a skyscraper outgrows a house!
--IN THE STRANGE EMBRACE OF A PRODIGAL; 1969
I remember one of my telemarketing jobs back in the 19980’s; we worked in two shabby rooms, w/a crappy toilet; there were two nice rooms w/nice toilet, which were for the boss & his assistant. In our wire room was a decaying rug and 10 small desks & chairs, each w/a phone. The boss had hired two new employees, --one w/epilepsy; an attractive white woman w/blond hair and quite shapely figure, she dressed in rough clothes, bluejeans, feminine blouses, but disheveled, hair wild, clothes in disarray, makeup smudged; because her severe illness kept up its steady onslaughts against her. Contrary to the advice of medics she was a chain-smoker, and sat there, smoking cigarette after cigarette while she worked. Like clockwork, once per day I’d be intently on my phone & notice some disturbance behind me; when finishing the phonecall, would turn around to see her lying on the floor having had a seizure. She'd get up moments later and be woozy, sit @ her desk a while but soon collect her stuff and leave. There was always a wet spot in the seat of her pants where she’d lost control of her bladder. This happened every day for nearly a month, then she gave up the job and left. There was no other employment I know that would have tolerated this disruption to its offices. The other was an older unattractive black woman with Rheumatoid Arthritis, the worse kind of Arthritis. Her arms were twisted and swollen from the disease. She wrote painfully, with great effort on the small cards of customer calls we had to fill out. She was a substandard producer because of the barriers of her disease. Again, unemployable but for a shit job like this.
Thursday, June 10, 2PM
Jasmin has called for me to send her funds—bank account overdrawn. Must leave house earlier, no time to do more HO STROLLS.
I am really positive that I am not going to everlasting fires of hell when I die—my life has been too difficult, much too insignificant. Feel I have not oppressed others, because of having little power.
He said, she said, & what should have been said but went unsaid. So the human race continues to exist in a mild state of dysfunction -- all the way up to bloody murder. T gained the hilltop, walking, these were the thoughts he had about the drama in his own life and what he saw in others.
Came in late, no food left. But a brother transman was the guilty party. As he had dished himself up another load of food before which he’d announced in a cavalier fashion; I’m getting another plate, nobody else is coming this late! And he was wrong.
Is there any food left? Queried a breathless Transman, just having emerged from climbing the stairs plus up/down hills.
The group leader was only too glad to tell:
Group Leader: X said, nobody is coming this late and fixed himself a huge plate! --His second!
Red: I always get here late—because I’m working!
X: I feel bad. Here, let me give you $2, will that help?
Transman declined the $2, but took $1. It would help him on his journey. Also he felt more kindly towards the brother.
Speaking of Aggressive Panhandling, T saw what he thought was a derby hat behind a garbage can in the street. Turning it over w/the tip of his cane he found the brim was too small to suit his needs—as a block from the sun & rain. But then he caught sight of humanbeings—right around on the other side of the can. He went around and there was a Latino man, weather-browned & a white girl practically naked, their arms entwined. —This young woman had on only a short pr of shorts & thin blouse. No shoes. They clutched together in others arms and she was asleep.
Is that your hat?
Yeah; si, my hat.
He said—not even having enough strength to rescue his own hat from out of the street. So there it sat, in the gutter.
Some of the public might want to rid our streets of these eyesores, and label them aggressive panhandlers and try to force the law down the public’s throat—but this couple is about the furthest thing from aggressive there is. But if this law had passed it would have given police the power to take them off to jail. These mad crazy drivers in a hurry who speed round the corner on the red light unaware of pedestrians, these korporate raiders, these venture kapitalist junk bond stock market manipulators, those hawkish war-mongers these are the aggressive ones! Not some sick, weak, homeless couple locked in an embrace, sleeping!
PM
Birds squawking. Cat gazing @ me with luminous yellow eyes. And Huell Howser is on Catalina Island.
Person/Untitled? A 12-Brush Night.
Friday, June 11, 2PM
My therapist hit on something; as we discussed my numerous fights in these drop-in-centers in which food has been the basis of it; being deprived of food by a crazy person.
Great News—in fact Two Great News heard @ Trans Space—a tranny can now go down and get a passport without birth certificate fooling around with that shit—just put male or female and they take it!!
Why? Obama, that’s why! The new liberal constituency in power!!!
The second Good News, also due to the liberal Democrats is that currently, that means right at this very moment, the government is calculating what cost of living increase to give seniors on Social Security next year! Wow! For it was said at the being of this year (when there was no increase), that there wouldn’t be an increase 2 years in a row. Apparently wisdom has prevailed and we will get a raise next year—to be announced in September! Thank God! That increase should cover my Rent Increase, which was deferred this year but will be passed on the next, 2011.
1-Penny.
300 million years old, Sea Urchins are prehistoric creatures who predate most life forms on the planet. What extraordinary vision gleaned via TV program!
PM
T picked up a free rental guide posted at one of those many egregious landowner sites who have a propensity for trolling for fresh tenants, after exhausting the old ones, around The City—and found all studios remaining ludicrously overpriced---this is a joke, being we are on the edge of a Great Depression…
Well, my big long mad frenzy to finish this on-going Journal, realize why-- I feel it is my SOS to the world. Save-Our-Ship! I’ve sent it out frantically to you, you and you—in times present, in times-to-come, to portray the conditions of my life, my dreams & hopes & wants; while describing, concurrently the state of this world.
Time for T-shot.
Cat is sleeping in my painting chair, so I am standing/sitting using writing chair. Grey cat sits comfortably; lounges, blinks luminous yellow eyes.
As I’ve said, a vague apprehension and un-ease follows my mental mind during waking hours---only allayed by the solving of some problem—like money worries, or noise. What a struggle.
Ho-Tell? An 11-Brush/1-Scraper Tool Night.
Yeah! Spread the luv around! —Megan Wolfe linked Red Jordan Arobateau to some of Master Photog Shaun Roberts’ pix of him, on her art gallery site—Fecal Face—linked it to Yoke #2. Am about to look @ that file inside my computer now and see what embarrassing stuff it holds!
Well must remind you, haven’t talked about my long ago completed Retro -#3—because have not had funds to purchase it! Only 2 have been sold. One on line by a dear friend --whom will not mention because we have just had an argument, --and the other to Shaun Roberts. Since then have not seen hide nor hair of the beast because of lacking funds to purchase it!!!! And I already have 4 promised sales—when the book materializes! (Oh I’ll buy a copy! Sure dude! And these people are true to their word in that department.)
Saturday, June 12, 3PM
Late for Latina Day—transgirls cooking.
Put scientists to a test. They say there is no Creator, and that human/animal life, the flora & fauna, is a natural random occurrence. So do test to see how long it takes to randomly create life if all the elements of our prehistoric world are present, then look back and see how many billions of years it actually took, and if it falls in line with history—give or take a few million years---then something has been proven.
Transman exchanged his 4 rolls of pennies for $2.00 out of the cash box @ Trans Space. Now he had 3-dollar bills and $1.06 in change.
Police called on some out-of-control tranny. Can we ever have a day up here without some fight breaking out? Yeah, she lost her temper.
The pretty, but horribly unwanted child had sat singing, not bad actually, but afterwards she erupted in rage—perhaps because she had not been voted Best Female Vocalist Of The Year. We heard her loud screeching:
Could we ever have one peaceful day up here without a fight?
It started out so quiet. Its been quiet all day.
That’s how it is, the worst days start when its very quiet. The calm before the storm.
As Transman left two stocky police officers in blue uniforms were rushing up the stairs.
A very dear friend is very ill in hospital, awaiting a liver transplant. She gets bacterial infections easily; her body can’t fight it off because of lowered immune system. Ravages of Hep C slowly working on her over decades. The nurse has changed her IV drip from one arm over to the other. —A constant stream of antibiotics. She is being sent home with the IV drip on Monday. The doctors have examined every inch of her body microscopically and can’t find out the entrance point for these bacterial infections. How in the hell is she getting this over & over?
Oh, this is not the same girl who I told you was sick last week. --For there's more then one of them. No one has been able to find out anything about her condition or her whereabouts.
Found a banana covered in cellophane; tested it w/tip of cane, saw it was soft, but will work quite well in the juicer to sweeten up nightly Greens Shake.
T was forever getting food & other things full of the scum & grit of the road.
And so are the people he finds. As so is himself.
Downtown. All the smudgy, dirty, clusters of brick tenements punctured by an occasional modern steel, glass, & concrete brilliantly clean condominium building.
PM
Got great new pr trousers @ Trans, fit me perfectly. Another khaki. These aren’t as nice as the others—w/bulging front— but these don’t have a bulging dick-gone-hard fly and the cuffs are smaller. A great substitute when the only pr —which still fit—the new-found black ones are washing/drying. Now am prepared for anything! Oh weight went down a tad today.
The cats tail curled, then uncurled, gently rhythmically as she fed @ her dish.
The found banana: unwrapped it from plastic covering, peeled off its soft yellow skin, the meat was totally soft, but held together in pieces and was perfectly usable for juice! Sweet!
Italian drama. Human entanglements. ---That deal with power, greed, erotic love, jealousy, coveting, hate. Transman Red watched his favorite TV show, Italian mafia series which was filmed initially w/Italian actors, speaking in Italian w/subtitles on backdrop of Italy’s grimy cities, fabulous countryside’s & seashore, deserted factories, villas, and historic castles… Hot, passionate, sexual. It’s actors/esses handsome/beautiful!
Sometimes when under stress, just want to pop somebody in the face, even my beloved cat. Fortunately I do not. My mental problems aren’t that great. I am no longer a drug/alcohol abuser, which overcame me 5 years of my life—out of 66 clean & sober. It is something I cannot undo, this baseline feeling, but only strive to avoid confusion and stress in my life. And remain sober.
I have raised my voice up to God Almighty and asked God to place me where I am to be placed, not per se to make me famous and great, but to put me wherever my art and my life truly belong!
Without all the hindrances of cronyism, connections, all societies petty blackmails—.
I recommend Buddhism as a discipline for everyone. I cannot see my way into it, beyond this. Buddhists say that Buddha is not God but Teacher. My God is a teacher but also God. I have recommended the coming together of all religions---not to usurp each others belief, nor to convert each other, no, merely to worship/practice side-by-side and on a worldly level engage in Acts Of Kindness to help save and then to maintain our planet and all its outerspace environs.
Frankly I am Judeo-Christian in belief, and the Judaism is only by way of understanding my Christian roots, Christians technically are the New Jews! Christ and St. Mary being Big-Time Hebrews! So tho on one hand am recommending great encompassing wholeness, and in reality am quite single-focused.
Sun? Ho-Tell? A 2-Pallet Knife/12-Brush Night.
I must say that currently I have 3 friends who are in hospital w/extremely challenging conditions. All 3 are male-to-female transsexuals—male genome— and they are all younger then myself. Science has been saying that female genome people live longer then male. How does this play out in the female-to-male transsexual who, tho not genetically male, is using the same male hormones that men experience coursing thru their bodies all of their lives? What is the reason for this gender age-death disparity? Is it how they’ve handled their lives? The risks, or lack of personal care? Or is it something else?
It is challenging to have these friends in hospital and me not traveling to hospital (all of which are out of my district) to visit, and only a few feeble phonecalls & weak prayers on my part.
Trans folks sacrifice so much, somebody is saying… And the stress of our way of living sure wears us down. Some might say the individual who follows their aberrant gender angst to find some solution for their pain, or the artist who follows their dream and in so doing make such great sacrifices—one might say they are selfish, as this is a personal or private need where as religious persons giving up the world and all it’s comforts in favor of total relationship w/the Divine, total obedience to the Higher Force, like Buddhist, Christian & Hindu monks & nuns, and other aesthetic disciplines, are truly making a sacrifice, yet both are from Creator. It is up to us to follow our Call. God may have need of it!
Sunday, June 13, 2PM
The Hen has called informing me of paella party—late @ 8pm. (Paella —rice, tomato, green pepper, red sauce, lobster or clams, onions, so delicious! Will rush there after after-church meet.
Sometimes what God would have us do goes against everything we have known and learned for our survival. It is for a new purpose a different sort of survival. It is a step further—as the nun told me.
These outpourings & utterances…
Just closed DAYS BEFORE THE YOKE—Book 5, which is now @ its entirety, & am beginning a new thing, —EPHEMERIS—The Book Of Time.
You are invited into the inner circle of friends so you meet people there who are unfamiliar; to them you come across as kind of crazy & wild, a misfit and privately they think perhaps you should not be there, & in short are an undesirable person; but fact is that you are an artist & a little sensitive & no more strange other then that; however, fortunately you have an advocate, the artist friend who is also in the circle, he/she’s the one who brought you in—this person understands you; knows you are a decent person; they are of a similar temperament, being an artist also.
The women secretaries of the past, not listened too.
Disappointment; & long-time failure. It can get to you make mistakes. Failure & no success, so people make deals, they sell their treasure for artificial gold.
Gained the hilltop @ Pine. Behind him a host of grey-white/black pigeons feasted on cookie crumbs.
Almost every humanbeing asks: what is all suppose to be? What is my purpose on earth? If they are fed, housed & now gained these all-important essentials and aren’t eternally struggling just to live day-to-day and have a moment of breath, a peep of sight, they might have this realization dawn on them. If they don’t think raising children, tho it was a goal, is the entirety of it, and wonder is there another purpose beyond populating earth; if they have made themselves into great scientists, doctors, artists, who aid or save, or inspire billions of people on their life course—still they must wonder: is this it? Is this what the Eternal desires of me?
2.
Fleeting light shone thru stained glass windows to the north. Green, red, yellow, blue, where, as the sun set further, alternated into greens, purples, subterranean colors; for it is the light of the Son* which gives illumination to our stained glass windows & gives us light indeed.
T sat in the front pews of the great cathedral, facing the nave—he was thinking—he did a lot of thinking—his day had progressed excellently—finished off YOKE--#5 & thus the entirety of that book. He had had an audio vision telling him, ‘payday’ so he had a feeling his long-overdue check would soon be there & he’d have funds, plus a sense of worthiness one receives for being rewarded for their labors. He was coming down the home stretch of Sun Hotel (?) his most recent art painting & had 2 others of his colorful paintings ready to photograph to show his friends @ Angel Café and post on his on-line art painting galleries in hopes of peddling some, and to make posters to take to his archivist.
This big place is similar to a university. Before him, about 400 feet @ distance hung the big gold crucifix. The cathedral was indeed a magnificent structure; 1-ton statues of saints reading scrolls of scripture jutted out of its rock walls, others, angelic, protruded w/wings & harps. Curlicues & entwined garlands. Doric columns & gothic arches. Pews of the choir loft of brown–burnished wood ascended up the grey rock wall climbing also towards the Son, as eagerly as their inhabitants in white gowns would climb towards the divine in song.
Dais of the sacrificial alter lay out flat awaiting its preverbal moribund penitent etherized upon a table which is us—mass humanity partially unconscious but struggling to awake.
*Sun/Son or Daughter as you prefer.
Japanese tourist in full kimono & clogs stands gracefully, gazes upon the magnificent Holy Alter; clicks her camera coyly as a wink of a human eye.
The Lord told him—hold nothing back. So that would be part of his instructions, he felt, when called, that he should hold nothing back.
Jesus in the house of Simon, in the first scripture. A woman of a low estate came to Jesus and began bathing his feet with her tears and wiping them with her hair and Simon came to him said: if you were a true prophet you’d see what she is---meaning a woman of very low class, a beggar or a prostitute; hence what was Jesus doing talking to her in the first place? So this reminded Red that just to be an all-seeing prophet is not the most genuine goal, nor to do great miracles before multitudes, but to be one compassionate, and understanding to the depths of the human heart’s capability. The acts of raising someone from the dead back to life, of cures, of prophecy are not the first, most profound of our commandments, which still remain:
Love God.
Love your sisters & brothers.
And he feared he might have flunked both!
When they went to pray, and got to the place about praying for the ill, he noticed that all 3 people he prayed for had changed their names to female somewhere along their life’s difficult journey.
At some point that evening a group of them, now including Transman, who was invited, gathered together over a dinner; it was interesting to note how some people spoke on how they traveled to various churches showing them how to take back their services from the lay ministry. For the sacredness, the holiness was dissipated in the laity’s hands, and their service was no longer a holy sacrament, but a more worldly commune. But immediately dissention broke out around the table—as this philosophy was obviously an elitist one, which would instantly and irrevocably bar any person who, tho holy, tho gifted, tho pious, tho deeply spiritual, but who had not, could not, and would never be able to attend Graduate Theological Union or any other high educational seminary where one is degreed & bestowed with a frock. —Yet, still on the other hand, the common kind might let what is holy slip away in dips & drips, until the whole thing collapsed in a sea of mud.
Oh, mishaps during service: The priest had a nasal inflection and instead of saying: forgive us our debts; seemed to be saying bets. HA! HA! HA! HA!
And at one point was saying false teachers, but it sounded like false preachers, which is just as well these days—witnessing those corrupt televangelists & pedophile Popes.
Monday, June 14, 2PM
Thank God saw on Internet funds were being deposited! Money is here!
1-Cent.
Have noticed for the first time the old hotel St. Moritz which was my home when just got to SF, room rented for $13.50 per week, that it’s just a short distance from the Spaulding Hotel where Dominique Leslie made her home for many years w/husband.
Girl in high heels, dress, quite fancily attired, passable but w/no money --immediately upon her exit from Trans Space rushes to the curb, stares into the gutter searching for a cigarette butt, desperate to smoke, then reaching down, snatches one, & soon begins to puff away.
1-Dime on worst part of Geary Blvd.
2-Cents by parking meter.
Johnny Ace; always see him carrying clothes-- shirts, suits on hangers in bags from dry cleaners, he has to look good for his gig as band leader/singer in North Beach.
Meg & I discussed various & sundry things over coffee, one of which was to reminisce that when she moved she hired a truck, and got free labor to help pack it, but none of her friends could drive! None had a Driver’s License! That’s bad out of 5 male friends!!!! Transman could drive & had a license to drive and had driven cross-country and driven on freeways, highways and thru cities for years---however he had stopped driving in the mid-1980’s and had driven only one time since, 9 years ago.
They also had a hearty laugh about how we’d all find out everybody’s little secrets if we ever were forced to live together on a desert island for survival and Meg mentioned: we pretty much are on a desert island together already—being we are artists and rare types so we have begun to cling together w/each other here, surrounded by the big, unfeeling masses—water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink.
Tuesday, June 15, 8AM
Two wake-up calls back-to-back from Jasmin & the Malaysian. Fixed coffee. Must leave here by 9—in 40 minutes.
Had a strange dream. I was out by the coffee machine getting a coffee. There was a big black drug dealer there, talking drugesse to some hoodlums. My dad was inside, I told him & he was enraged. He went out and confronted the dealer. My dad was big; huge arm muscles, he was an equal size to the drug dealer. I tried to step in between them because I didn’t want to see my father hurt. I told him, its not worth it, but he was incensed, and told me it was worth it to stand up and fight what was wrong.
Outpourings & utterances—good title for a book.
We view upon another w/such critical eye, --a judgmental eye. Look at them w/different eyes.
So this is what the morning people do. Chinatown, small park; two white women, strangers to each other sit side by side on bench in the sun reading their books. Clusters of Chinese women in poor, drab blue & brown clothes, playing board-games on upside down cardboard boxes. Mahjong. Peaceful people do Ti Chi in this park. Then onto the great hotel, which looms over Portsmouth Square, for the seminar. It has been under various ownership: Empress of China, Four Seasons, and now its a Hilton hotel.
The hotel bills itself as being in The Financial District—but actually it’s slummy Chinatown full of poor Chinese & others w/no money.
Malaysian greeted me in front, and told me how these seminars work—she’s been to a number of them, to get the free gifts:
If there’s food when you go in, that’s breakfast, and that’s all the food you get. If its at night there’s sandwiches.
It was morning food. A repast spread out lavishly, but only sweets, and fruit slices. What poor deluded Transman had assumed to be slices of pink hams and white & yellow cheeses & turkeys rolled up to make a stunning presentation—upon approaching the buffet table saw these shrink into their proper dimensions—here were slices of pineapple, cantaloupe, watermelon. Got delicious coffee(s). –Secreted some to take home.
The Malaysian told of the many seminars she’s gone on, and gifts she’s gotten and how the things are run and she’s never spent one thin dine for any of the stuff they’ve promoted, not one red cent.
Listened to a high-powered pitchman do his spiel for 2 hours.
Even he said it—tho about more worldly stuff—by far, then what God says, — concerning making money and climbing to multi-millionaire status:
Step outside of the box. A box is our comfort zone & we’re not very comfortable in it.
The top-notch salesman spoke about: performing assets, foreclosed properties, land trusts; he gleamed like a shark in his expensive suit.
Hip National bank. Declared the handsome presenter, patting his rear pocket as he spoke of banks. He told a sad, sad tale of how desperate his family had once been for money—and squeezed out a convincing tear before the audience of 70 of us. His hard luck story of woe before he discovered:
How to get access to 1 million dollars for real-estate—without spending a dime of your own money.
No money out of your pocket. No credit!
Absolutely no risk to you or you family!!
Transman recalled 6 months back as he & the rest of the nation watched news of plummeting housing prices in America due to the financial rip-off & subsequent national economic collapse, eyes glued to TV in faint hopes that the whole market would fall so low as a simple person could procure their own private home to own and live in—seeing the statistics on TV how suddenly from nowhere all these investors were pouring in—buying when the market was down, for profit. Not to live in, but as greedy profiteers. He thought: It is people like these I am looking at, right here in this conference hall in the Hilton Hotel, sharks in expensive suits delivering memorized speeches w/perfect performance, who can manufacture tears on the spot; salesmen extraordinaire, who are robbing the rest of us. And then he recalled the dream w/his father, so strong, who’d said about standing up for what you believe in. He thought of two presentations juxtaposed:
Blessing over the meal
Performing assets
Welcoming
Foreclosed properties
Stewardship
Land trusts
Worship
Hip National bank
1-Penny covered by leaves in the gutter, glistening golden.
1-Nickel.
Here is a cluster of dopefiends, ragged, drab clothes; haggard, white faces craven, long greasy hair, a crack pipe smoking between their dirty fingers. They’re having a sad picnic, a dope picnic, seated on a shabby blanket on the concrete, no food, only their poison crack pipe passed between them back & forth.
He say he gave up sucken’ on that crack pipe, sucken’ on that glass dick. He said he gave up meth. – Yeah. For 24-hours.
1-Penny.
CAW CAW CAW! Black Crow proclaims itself from toppermost firescape balustrade.
1-Penny.
Well as they say, its not what they tell you—but what they don’t tell you.
PM
Oh, last night a clinic, Dr. M. told me:
You are notorious! --All over the country!
I think she might means famous, being English is her second language, but she kept insisting:
No, notorious! Notorious!
I’m a notorious artist--but I don’t have any money!
Of course not! Artist! Money! She shrugs: You know…
Yes. How well we do all know! It’s funny but some, who appreciate artists, and revere us as national treasures also equate art with poverty & struggling—just like for a priest or a nun; they expect it. They naturally assume us to be poor, suffering, struggling perpetually! The Rodans, the Van Goghs; poets starving in Parisian attics. Edgar Allen Poe dropped dead of malnutrition & bad alcohol on the street in Baltimore. So many of us have had that history.
Laying down @ night after the struggle. The struggle to do art, to hustle up food, to remain mentally positive.
Had a dream was a child again having to physically defend myself from my mother’s abuse. Solemn, & highly vigilant be prepared to duck & block the blows, to flee from her into bathroom the only room in the house w/a door that locked; & wait until finally the evil winds which blew thru her mind changed directions and she finally gave up and went back into her room and shut the door.
Am in rush to get outdoors @ 3PM, as usual: Wednesday, June 16. Much work now awaits. The re-editing of YOKE #5, publishing it, then the combined editing of all the YOKES, & publishing that. Megan Wolfe, has linked a photo by Shaun Roberts to YOKE #2 via an art gallery website she does show reviews for—that these young hipster artists follow avidly, & in it YOKE’s preview has at its end the beginning of a kinky/funny SEX scene, ha, ha, she didn’t realize what the Text POD would preview. Then at some point have to sit down with donated laptop & see if it still works—and begin setting up Retro--#4. Not to mention finishing up Sun Hotel painting, and the beginning of EPHEMERIS—THE BOOK OF TIME. Busy, busy.
Green bird screaming in cage. White bird patiently sitting in her cage out in the sun. Wouldn’t it be lovely to let him sit out in the sun also, w/his cage uncovered, like hers? But can’t as he will scream his fool head off, until the moment I depart the studio; he will literally squawk, squawk, squawk, until the front door closes.
Down an alley, a sight; 3 white tourist girls, long hair flouncing, well dressed, laughing & screaming in glee; they have a black street-man down the alley, his filthy shirt is already off; their cameras aimed; he’s puling down the blue jeans over ebony skin, off his bare ass: SNAP! SNAP!
PM
I believe one reason, which drives me onward in my Fine Art’s Painting—is the knowledge that I have given time to it during several points of my life amounting to 10-years dedication to the craft, in 2, 3 year, 5 year increments up until age 30 or so, and now, with the addition of those years between ’08 and’10, my investment becomes 13 years. It’s a lot of time to devote just to stop! Must keep on!
Frankly I do not know in what galleries I should try to exhibit, if at all, --how, where, who, and by what means I should proceed in, towards the presentation of The Work to the world—other then my on-line gallery sites, which number 3.
@ Grant Writing center Eleanor & Red carried on a louder then sotto-voice conversation w/blax attitude towards the white, polite, studious people surrounding them of: yo’ betta not say nothin’ 'bout me, you already owe me somethin’.
Her & me, in this small major city we are busy climbing up the ladders of our careers; no time even to go visit a sick friend in the hospital—and I have 3 of them there.
Eleanor, who is most knowledgeable on the subject, having graduated w/high degree from a major Art College, speaks bitterly of all the dirty-double-dealing @ art galleries, how in fact everybody in this city is a cut-throat, & they are all about the dollar! She speaks of a topic seldom heard—where as we discuss fine arts, politics, and petty gossips—she is talking about: what is the quality of a person? Are they decent? Or a Shark!
Eleanor mentions her landlord (not blax of course) who is building onto his place, adding on a space to their rooming house in the back yard; she has this Japanese friend who has done volunteer work of a humanitarian nature all over the globe, but cannot get a job here in hi-tech SF. She needs a place to live bad and can pay only $300. Eleanor mentioned to this shark landlord how much would he charge to live in his back yard in the shed he was constructing? Eleanor states:
It’s got no electricity, no bathroom, no kitchen. I wouldn’t change any rent at all for something thrown up out in the yard upside the house! And he wants $300! He’s so greedy!
Oh, this attractive sista’ had a bad incident Shopping While Being Black. (Transman thought privately, it’s a burden I don’t pay because of light colored skin. T paid a different burden.)
She was walking home in her neighborhood, which has a fair amount of crime—a woman was found murdered there recently. The last 3 blocks to her house are very poorly lit. She had gone into the Safeway store first for a treat—Chocolate ice cream. She had noticed when she walked thru the door going in, her cellphone made the store beeper alarm go off, but paid little attention to it. She purchased the ice cream, going thru the line & paying for it, and headed out—of course the beeper sounded at the door, upon exit, but again she paid no attention to it. Eleanor was much more worried about the darkened streets of danger she had to navigate to get back to her room. She’s walking home, and notices this man running after her— an ordinary dressed man; it scares her; she speeds up walking, but the man gets closer and:
He begins yelling at me STOP! STOP! And I’m thinking; oh my God what kind of maniac is this loose on the street this time of night? What have I gotten myself into now! And then he runs right up to me and says STOP! I’m from the store! Open your purse! Open your purse and let me see what you got! & didn’t know who the hell he was, or what he wanted, was he a robber who wanted my wallet? He’s asking me to open my purse! Is he a maniac who likes to kill women? I was terrified! I work there I work there he yells and is pullen' stuff off his shirt, store badges, —anybody can put something like that on his shirt! He says, open up your purse! So I fished into my purse and showed him the goods, the receipt He’s steady yellen’ I’m gonna call for backup! I’m gonna call the cops! I said, well why don’t you just go ahead and call the cops! They could walk me home these last two blocks because I’m scared to death!
1-Penny.
Angel Café; we spoke of various & sundry things, one of them Teppi Ando who does marvelous text & graphic drawing books, and how he has to work in a bank all day to earn a living:
Good thing he’s stuck in a crappy job so he’s forced to describe what world he’s in—he has it to laugh at. It’s very good as a character-study.
--David Ball. Artist
1-Penny.
5-pennies. Walking home from Angel.
“I had a lesbian. She walks with her hands in her pockets. She was salty. Her hands crawled over me. I licked her crack with my tongue. She doesn’t remember me now. She was drunk. Now she has forgotten.” Actually the vagabond herself would have never remembered her lover of some weeks past, but that with the intuition of paranoia, she’d noticed the woman trying to pass by her without being seen. Twisting her head, as tho looking at unseen pictures on the wall, to avoid meeting eyes. —And then the face had struck a bell.
--IN THE STRANGE EMBRACE OF A PRODIGAL 1969
Well, must say I’ve never spent so much time within a small art circle before. Of course I’ve been in circles which included Fine Arts Painters, but never one which was 90% painters. –Painting, drawing, camera. I’ve been in groups which were writers, musicians, and painters. In groups of actors; in groups composed of dancers; in groups of writers exclusively, but never this many visual artists.
The horror you are terrified of—all your evil ideas are related to it.
Drill thru the thick skin of the ocean bottom, 18,000 thousand feet deep & the well broke, now oil continues to gush out @ 50 million gallons of oil per day—and they can't put a cap on it.
Man has skill & greedy fingers, opening up the earth for her treasures, but don’t know how to control it, once begun. I am wondering about nuclear fission unleashed. About experimental zero-gravity, -- dark holes created in laboratories, into which a whole city can be sucked up; anti-matter which can continue to consume matter into ever-growing void swallowing a city, a state, half a nation… then they will say compared to this Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Valdez and Gulf oil spills, Chernobyl’s nuclear reactor meltdown--- in comparison, these are little & insignificant.
Thursday, June 17, 11AM Seniors Day
Fun. Good conversation until 3:30. Obtained:
3 take-out dishes Chinese chicken
3 yogurts
4 tunafish (to give to friends)
6 bananas
Butter
Grapes & apricots
Health food bars for pigeons
Sugary oatmeal for pigeons
Coffee w/cream
Outside, 9 women w/big bellies walk in a circle traversing the labyrinth under the sun; many w/hands on their bellies. Are they contemplating their conceptions? As a corkscrew, life eternally grows inside of them—the future about to be born.
Inside, in cool shadows of the church dinner hall, us equally aging seniors, time’s corkscrew moving thru us also---these unborn will replace us…
Only two Asians @ Seniors group—and they hate each other. So its me, my crazy Chinese friend Mae on one side, and the Malaysian on the other out in the sun w/older Caucasian women who uses a walker and is declining in physical mobility. Seated on bench in the sun 3 of us on the bench and the crazy Chinese in golden sandals dancing around clicking her fingers like a flamenco dancer, shows off her nice body. And the Chinese & the Malaysian are fussing & fuming, so the older white lady just bows her head down on her walker and you can hear her praying right there in the sun.