How I Escaped Jonestown

In 1977 I was hitchhiking  through Guyana after leaving Venezuela.  I planned to head down the Atlantic coast visiting Charity ending up in the capital Georgetown.  I had scored some badass dope in Caracas including some yage, so I ate a handful and it starting doing a job on my head. I was stumbling through the jungle feeling like Simon Bolivar being chased by local Indians. When the Indians finally caught up on the peripheral, I saw large Mayan heads with no bodies and big toothy grins.  I fell down in the jungle mud consumed by hallucinations. The leaves and vines wrapped themselves around me so I couldn't move. I just looked at the mosaics unfolding before my eyes. I felt intense burning as though consumed by white flame. Then I saw the ugly head of Satan who was puncturing my body with his pitch fork, leaving holes, as if he was checking to see when the barbecue was finished. I was stuck in this shit hole alone, tripping my fucking brains out, somewhere near the Cuyuna River. I knew I had to get up and out or something bad was going to happen. You could get strangled by a Python or shredded by Pirañas here. Sometimes when tripping on yage, you felt your soul could leave your body and not come back, leaving a corpse. Maybe Satan wanted me back in hell to marinate.  I pulled it together and started walking, looking for the Cuyana River.

The People's Temple was a fundamentalist cult that was founded and led by James Warren Jones  (1931-1978) RIP.  Jones held degrees from Indiana University and Butler.  In the 1950s Jones set up The Peoples Temple in Indianapolis, Indiana, as a mission for the homeless and sick with a following of 900 members. The Rev. Jones was doing stuff with his flock in the name of the Lord, that was unheard of in the 1950s.

Jim Jones as a preacher was a combination Marxist and fundamentalist. His sermons spoke of helping the poor and downtrodden with  love. He would also talk of freedom for all, witch meant freedom for him from the Feds, reflecting his distrust of big business and government.  He preached on racial equality and his flock was interracial.  He would preach against White Christianity saying they didn't connect with God. Thinking to himself how unhip the Whites of the 50s were compared to him, and it was true, because Jones was eating white crosses like cotton candy and getting all the hot Black Pussy he wanted (cherry picked from his flock).  This was very radical for the times.  You could say that the Rev. Jim Jones was so ahead of his time that it made him invisible, shielded by the cloak of the Lord and his intense out of control weirdness.

The Rev. Jones knew how to suck up spirit energy like a vampire. He really didn't care were it came from,  scripture for him were just something  to use to get what he wanted, he was a son of Satan.  The dude was a hip dresser though, burgundy silk shirts, black and white polyester trousers and Crocodile skin boots. The Reverend dressed like Howling Wolf. He was what Norman Mailer called a "White Negro", this is why he chose to live in the hood and preach to Black People. I think the other reason the hood appealed to Jones was that all the good dope was there in the 50s and 60s. And like Robert Deniro, the dude loved Black Pussy.

Any  Pentecostal tent preacher with chops would stage "faith healings". The healings attracted followers and brought in big bucks.  Jones was no different from Jerry Falwell, Oral Roberts, Earnest Ansley and the Devil himself, Pat Robertson.  All the aforementioned preachers who are now legit and on TV, were tent preachers back in the 50s and 60s. They would roam rural America parking outside of  towns  and set up tents, like the circus.  Every night in every town miracles happened, people threw away their crutches and were cured of cancer as the money baskets filled up by the second.  Of course the miracle scene was bogus, partly staged using such paranormal aids as emotional pandemonium and self hypnosis. In the end thanks to short memory, the healed patients settled for a moment of glory in the spotlight of the Lord and hopefully were given their crutches back. 

Reverend  Jim Jones was of course  a master of the healing scam.  I can see him now in his  silk burgundy shirts, Croc skin boots and purple tinted specs, heavy vibes emanating from a potent mixture of Satan and speed, having the power to knock people to hell and back with one touch of his claw like hand. 

By 1970 the Feds were investigating Jone's "faith healings", and he was preaching about the end of the world and nuclear war. Feeling the heat from the Feds he moved his flock from Indiana to San Francisco and then LA. 

While in California the Rev started to have powerful hallucinations, thanks to his experience shooting  speed, smoking cocaine and eating demerol .  Jim would connect and talk to aliens as he astral projected into the universe beyond, space tripping, bringing home messages that went beyond scripture. Jones became a space cadet in the literal form.  He called the tripping out process "Translation"  and his vision qwest  told him to commit suicide with his flock in mass. And that all their souls would transcend planet earth and go to a new home in the galaxy living in perfect harmony and spiritual bliss. 

Meantime back on planet earth the Feds in LA were watching The People's Temple and the space prophet Jim Jones. This time they were wanted for selling illegal fire arms and dope in East LA. The Temple was facing a major bust so Jones leased 4000 jungle acres in Guyana and moved his flock there establishing The Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, a co-op, that by fate would become more like a concentration camp. As Jones became more paranoid the heavier the brainwash became and once in Guyana, the Rev began to practice the routine of drinking  Cool-Aid and having his followers lay down and play dead. 

After walking  through the jungle for a few days, Northeast, on the Cuyuna river I stumbled upon a dirt road. Without a compass or a map I decided to flip a lucky coin to determine my direction, heads was left, tails was right, it was tails so I started walking  East. I felt like puking from eating yage and drinking river water full of Croc shit . I was carrying a good supply of dope, but had no food or water. Only a junky thinks of dope first and food second. I rolled a bone and headed down the road with the blues in my bones to the promise land. 

At this point recollection is  hard for me. I have blacked out most my memories of Jonestown in drunken drug stupors. I was getting hungry and thirsty, talking out loud to myself, eating any mushroom in sight poison or not, who could tell? Then I heard a vehicle coming down the road. It was a dude in a Toyota pickup, oddly enough a White Canadian dude says hello and asked me what I was doing this deep in the jungle? I told him I was lost trying to find my way to Charity . He then said "dude you are 900 Kilometers from Charity and headed in the opposite direction". Then he started talking about a spiritual commune not far up the road that grew their own food and followed a very high (on dope) spiritual master named Reverend Jones.  It was called Jonestown, he asked me if I wanted to check it out?  I had no food or water so I didn't have much to lose. I didn't want to seem desperate so I asked the dude, " is there any pussy and dope at this place" ,  checking  to see if the cult was redneck or not ? And Dave said " yeah dude we got plenty of it!" So I jumped in the bed of the truck and we headed to Jonestown. As we rolled down the dirt road Dave opened the rear window panel and began to speak. He told me his Jonestown story, how he was wondering the streets of LA one day blasted, broke and on empty.  Then he heard screaming and odd noises, so he followed the sound. He could see white flame coming out of a marble building down the block on Picos Blvd. He felt a strong urge and went in. It was like a scene out of Hell, people were throwing Rattlesnakes, spraying vodka from their mouths like voodoo priest and talking in tongues. Dave said he fell into the fold, swept away bye the Holy Spirit , invigorated, he never looked back. Dave made the trip to Jonestown with Jim Jones and his flock.

At the entrance to the commune there was a red and white painted sign that read  " Welcome to Jonestown". Dave drove the pick up to a warehouse and we picked up some blankets and towels.  The one level housing was built of lumber, drywall, aluminum siding and cheap asbestos roofing. Men, women and children were segregated. Jonestown was like  a voodoo  summer camp. Dave told me to go relax until supper and I got a chance to meet my roommates.  There were four dudes of mixed race in there twenties, they nodded and started talking to me. One said he was the keeper of the poison snakes used in worship, the other said he worked in the vegetable garden.  Then one of them said he worked in the temple pharmacy. I asked him what they had in the pharmacy and he said " you name it we got it, if you want to come by after chores and sample pharmaceutical grade shit you are welcome". And then to my amazement he said  "if you want buds it is grown up the hill in a jungle clearing". At this point The Peoples's Temple, weirder than weird, began to feel like home. My  new roommates were  speaking but I knew their minds were detached from their bodies. They were vapid, their speech was vacant of emotion, flat. I knew I couldn't fuck these dudes up anymore than they were, so I rolled a bone. As we were smoking the killer shit, I realized that even good dope couldn't bring these zombies back to life. 

Supper was very plain, vegetables, pork, chicken and potatoes all boiled together in the same pot with no seasoning of any kind. Then  slopped on your plate. The gathering of the flock gave me a chance to check out the ladies. There were some hot Black and Latino babes cleaning tables.  They looked ready as they bent over flashing cleavage. I knew they would put out easily because they were in a trance. Usually blissed out chicks are not good lays, but as they say, any port in a storm. After dinner a temple lieutenant told me I would be working in the banana field the following day.   

Then he said "the Reverend wants to  talk to you".  I was extremely  nervous  and wondered what my fate would be. I felt as though I was asked to visit Colonel Kurtz the evil special forces officer who "went rogue" as played by a wasted Marlin Brando in the film Apocalypse Now.  So the dude pointed to a well lit house on a small hill and said " the Reverend lives up there". I walked up a erie path and knocked on a large carved wood double door. Two Black Chicks and a Latino Women, all three with huge Afros and major tits and ass answered the door and said " we have been expecting  you sweets". The three were wearing see through blouses and short shorts.  When I entered the house I immediately saw a man sitting in a dark wood chair that was designed to look like a Cobra. I recognized the Satanic figure as the Rev Jim Jones. He wore the usual garb but this time he was wrapped in a black cape, also wearing  a upside down silver cross and heavy chain around his neck, very bizarre for a Evangelist.  Then he asked, " what's your name partner"?  I told him "Victor Burgundy" .  The nasty smell of freebased cocaine and sulfur filled the room, the vibe felt as evil as Hitler's bunker . Jones then asked me " where's you home mister" ? I said  " ah nowhere dude, like nowhere man". Jones then switched the subject to more important things, " what kind of shit are you carrying Victor" ? I said  " got some killer weed and coca leaf ". The Reverend gave me a  look like he couldn't be bothered with weed and leaf and pulled out a kilo of pure cocaine and a kilo of "China White". Jones then said  "do you know how to cook a speedball son"? I told him "sure Rev".  At this point the bitches wanted to join in on the fun so they walked over and laid next to Jones. I started refining spoonfuls of dope mixed with glycerol, cooking it down over a church candle, then locking and loading  Jone's works ,a large black syringe with a silver celtic cross on it.  One of his bitches  was strapping and tightening a red patent leather belt around his arm, struggling to find a vein that hadn't collapsed.  I was happy to just snort cocaine and China White with a  rolled up old Peso while  "cooking up the sauce " for the Reverend as he shot up speedball after speedball. The dude made Sid Vicious look like a light weight.

After awhile we were  totally blasted, moon walking in outer space. One of the girls came over and sat by me and I buried my head in her  hooters and started sniffing like a dog.  Her Afro looked as though it had vines that were growing upwards into space, like a hundred sprouting beanstalks. At this point Jones became expansive and said "as we speak I am in another galaxy negotiating with the masters of the universe. My flock and I will be mind traveling to our planet of love and peace". Going on to say "Victor tomorrow is going to be a special day for planet earth, 900 souls and I are going to commit suicide by drinking  Cool-Aid  laced with cyanide , sedatives, liquid valium, pentagram and chloral hydrate, ( wow man, if you took out the cyanide that would be one awesome mother fuckin cocktail!).  I realized that Reverend Jones wasn't kidding and had been doping so long that he believed his own hallucinations . I then told the Rev a tale of how my loving mother used to force feed me Cool-Aid when I was sick, and that it made me puke. Then I thoughtlessly said " Reverend, what if your travel plans don't take off  as planned and you end up killing  your flock for no good reason" ? Jones  screamed " Boy, come on over here and kneel before the Lord",  I thought he was going to take confession , but he pulled out a 45 caliber hand gun and put it to my head.  He said " Son do you want to be the first to go" ? and I said, "  No sir Reverend dude, but ah…. who will cook your dope for you" ?  The Rev was passing out but I asked  " you know that Cool-Aid makes me puke, and I haven't been initiated into the cult, so could I take a pass on the trip to the galaxy" ?  Then Reverend space dude  passed out, I thought about shooting the fucker with his own gun! Then a group of  temple guards walked in, armed with rifles, and told me to get the fuck out!  I passed out in my bunk feeling, "10,000 light years away from home."  The following morning I woke up to the sound of loud speakers blaring at unnatural decibel levels. I looked out of my window and what I saw was not reassuring. 


The people of Jonestown were being and herded by the Reverend's enforcers and lieutenants carrying carbines. Some folks went on their own volition and others had to be forced at gun point and even shot if they refused.  The enforcers still hadn't seen me so I took a run for it in the jungle and of course ran into a goon with a rifle. The man put his gun to my head so I said, "cool no problem, I was just out here taking a piss cause I didn't know if there were any lavatories on the space ship." When I got to the lift off area I could see people lined up to drink the poison Cool-Aid. 

They knew it was for real and looked resigned for one reason or another. The fucker Jim Jones was so full of the himself that he looked as though he was in a convulsion, like James Brown dancing, speaking in tongues and preaching scripture. What happened next has no explanation, Jones said looking into the crowd of people, " Victor is that you? come on up here and help mix the Cool-Aid". The crowd  parted and I made it to the Cool-Aid, I took one whiff of the stuff and immediately puked in the barrel. The Reverend looked back and saw what happened, he said " come here son", I knew it was the final curtain. Then Jones says to me " Victor go get a bundle of coconuts in the jungle and bring em back to mix with the Cool-Aid". Well, you know what happened next, I walked away from the Cool-Aid cool and nonchalant and once I stepped into the jungle, I bolted, setting  a Olympic speed record and never looked back till I made it to Georgetown. 

Once in Georgetown I checked into a "love motel", turned on the TV, took a shower and snorted some cocaine I ripped off from the Rev. Not to my surprise every channel had the news of the Jonestown cult of Death. They were piecing together the story as the authorities looked for survivors. Well I didn't want anything to do with the  Georgetown cops, because cops seem to like to keep folks from having a good time.

So I kept my mouth shut and staid in my motel room for a couple of weeks, only going out to eat.

My only thought after escaping death at Jonestown is, I hope the Rev Jones and his flock made it to were ever it is they were soul traveling. 

Love and Fest on the Sinai.

I was working as  night watchman in Nama Bay, on the  point of the triangle were the Red Sea meets the Bay of Elat. Sorry to say for you surf monsters who read Demon Factory there were no waves in Nama Bay, or much wave action in the Red Sea to my knowledge, there was a major wave when Moses parted the fucker though. Here is a vision of insanity, a rag head with a suicide bomb duck taped to his chest on a wind surfing into Tel Aviv to become a martyr. He wants nothing more than  50 virgins (what a bloody mess, the virgins I mean). I am finding it harder to control my thought waves, mental synapse, sparking problems at the nerve ends, a jumper cable might help. Anyways, the attraction of Nama Bay was for divers, the coral is the most colorful in the world, intense blues, yellows, pinks. I went snorkeling on acid one day, dude it was like floating in a rainbow. Early pre Avatar, 30 years ahead of Avatar.

At the time, in the late 70s(before the Israelis gave the Sinai back to Egypt)the Sinai beaches on the Bay of Elat side were just one big doping, boozing and fuck fest. The geography was like Mars, treeless hills, red mud iron ore color. People lived in straw huts, module housing units and caves. My preference was sleeping on the beach. Even the Nama Bay Inn was module. For entertainment there were cafes and bars made of straw that had names like Mosha's or The Lost Oasis. They served grilled Parrot Fish, coffee, beer. I tried to put a beat joint together, I wanted to serve hash brownies and blast Coltrane and the Rolling Stones from the loud speakers. I planned to call my place "Moses Stepped Here" (who the fuck knows maybe he did part the fucking Red Sea and step into Nama Bay  years ago, BC).

  

The Israelis new they would lose the Sinai in war or through diplomacy, so they built Nama Bay to be dislodged in the future. The scene was total primal insanity mixed with  "Lost Horizons on Mars". Nama Bay was invaded by people who wanted to party and get lost. United Nations soldiers, Bedouins, Israeli soldiers, German scuba divers, nomadic hippy expats. The UN people would bring cases of Heineken and Irish Bristol Crème as well as hash. The UN dudes were unreal, they had more dope and booze than the Amsterdam  Hells Angels. God knows were they got it all? If I had to venture a guess, I would say the borderless organization is and was the biggest smuggling network in the world. They move everything from Heroin to contraband Toyotas, weapons too.  The Bedouins (also smugglers) would bring hash and sell it. Then the Israel Defense Force would bring more hash (the IDF puts hash in coffee to prime for battle). The hippy expats, who were broke and lost, brought nothing with them and were scammers, but would provide entertainment for handouts, food dope ,and booze. The hippy chicks and the Israeli soldier girls would show tits and ass with little provocation. When it came to tits and ass the Israeli soldier girls had the hippy chicks beat. You could get any of the girls drunk and high and you had em man. Go find a spot in the red desert and fuck like junk bunnies. Every night was a party, smells of fish cooking on grills, Pink Floyd " "Shooting the Dark Side of the Moon" also Bob Marly, Peter toss "Ja Fuck a Rasta Man" tripping till dawn, all night long baby. People would go naked during the wild evening dope parties. Guys would just pass women around , there were orgies, it was insane(I can't tell u how many blasted Israeli soldier girls I poked on the beach). The only thing that was missing was Charles Manson. I was overwhelmed as the Night Watchmen, trying to keep order, so I just joined in.

As I said I was  night watchmen for the Nama Bay Inn. The guest were mostly Euros who came to scuba dive in the Red Sea. All kinds of shit went down in Nama. Bedouin fisherman would often throw hand grenades off of boats, blowing fish to the surface and harvesting them, also blowing the bi-jesus out of the beautiful Coral. The Arabs didn't give a fuck, the Coral was Israeli. I once saw a Beduin fisherman drop a hand grenade and waited. When he didn't pick it up I walked over to the grenade and grabbed it. It was stamped IDF (Israeli Defense Force)the Beduins were clever smugglers, using camels to move goods, they were famous for hiding stuff. The Beduin traded Heroin to a junky Israeli soldier for the grenade. In the day time and I was off work, of course "work" meant, partying all night. So I was hungover bad most mornings. Always needing a drink, (I am no goddamn Chinowski, but I drink and drug). So I took the grenade,  and walked to the the Lost Oasis bar. The owner a Israeli, Palo, was cleaning his grill. I went up to Palo with one hand on the pin and the other on the grenade, I threatened to pull the pin if he didn't give me a bottle of Jack Daniels. He went to the bar and and threw a bottle of Jack and ran. I happily walked into the desert with my prize Jack and my grenade. Latter, dead drunk, I pulled the pin and threw the grenade at a hill thinking it was a invading tank. The grenade went off and left a crater size hole, I felt like goddamn John Wayne.   

I was on my rounds and saw the Red Sea diving center on fire, it was made of straw with a separate room for filling diving tanks. The fire started in a grill left burning by divers shit faced drunk earlier. A Beduin boy passed out on the floor was suppose to be the watchmen. I connected a hose to the kitchen sink and put the fire out before it reached the scuba tank area. There would have been one major explosion if the tanks caught fire and the Beduin boy would have fried like a burnt piece of bacon. The maniac German divers would have eaten him for breakfast. The diving center was owned by a Druse dude, Rafi. In the morning I asked Rafi for a case of Macabe beer as a reward for my heroics. He drew a gun (some cheap pistol) pointed it at me, then this cheesy little fucker had the nerve to say to me. "Victor (swearing in Arabic) you probably started the fire, get out of my office" If I hadn't have set off the hand grenade earlier that day, I would have brought it to the diving center and blown up the diving tanks. The explosion would have killed Rafi with little problem, with no parts of him left to bury. He had no family and was such a wanker, the IDF would have applauded me for the job.

One night I was in the hotel kitchen with the cook, Boaz, we were eating cous-cous and falafel, washing it down with beer. When I walked out of the Inn to leave the hotel I felt a sharp pain on my lower calf. I was bitten by a Scorpion. I saw the creature dead on the sand so I picked it up and put it in a styrofoam cup. I felt a buzz but noticed in the ensuing minutes that I was not dying. I went back to the kitchen to ask Boaz what to do. Boaz said, " Victor you crazy fucker you got it all wrong, usually when u are bit by a Scorpion you die not the Scorpion "!

There was a crazy British Expat living on the Beach, Bryan. I will never forget him. He was half in the bag mentally. His only possessions were the clothes on his back, a pair of one white overalls with one pant leg cut off, slippers and a shoulder high walking stick with a plastic baby doll head (that had washed in from the Red Sea) perched on on the top of it . He was Pre Road Warrior for sure. Bryan who could have been the inspiration for “Life of Bryan" would organize poetry readings for the Israeli soldiers, he would read the same poem by Browning over and over, it was a endurance test. Byran was always preaching about something, but you couldn't understand him half the time. It was obvious he was losing his mind slowly, he enjoyed living on the edge and losing his mind. People said that he was love lost or broken hearted. He was the leader of all of the nowhere hippy expats because he was the furthest out on the edge, that counted for allot. This dude was a total speed freak, I have no idea where he scored, but people said he was screwing a Beduin transvestite for speed, the dude had it made with that Beduin punk taken care of him.

By the time I left Nama Bay to go to Greece I had slept on beaches and in the desert so often that I had trouble sleeping inside a room or in a bed. I would stay in a cheap hotel room and sleep on the floor. When I visited a Kibbutz I would go to a open field and sleep looking up at the stars on a grassy field. Finally the day came after a long time in Israel, the Immigration Service would no longer give me a visa, not being Jewish. I could have lied to stay by saying I was Jewish, but I would have taken a chance on being drafted in the Israeli Army. Being in any Army is not my idea of a good time. So I decided by default to leave Israel.  When I got to the docks in Haifa to catch the ferry to Greece there was a small group (a hundred or so) of Israeli soldier girls that I had fuck there to see me off . They were weeping and pulling their hair out by the root, many holding my bastards in their arms, begging me not to go.  

My plan was to take a slow boat, car or train, destination Amsterdam, dope haven of the world!  I took the ferry to Olympus. As usual I sniffed out a group of German free love acid freaks in Corfu. They lived on a deserted strip of beach, naked men and women, fucking, talking, eating, doping, smoking rolled Drum tobacco with hash inside.(I puked the first time I smoked hash with tobacco) Before I knew what hit me I had been on the beach naked and shit canned for 6 months, my mind went blank, time to go North!

This is a hard story to close, because it just goes on man. But I think I will close like a true Socratic philosopher with a question. What was the purpose of two years in the middle of a fuck and dope fest? I certainly didn't leave Israel and Greece a enlightened soul. The answer is, it was a test of limits, he who can party and screw the longest and hardest before he drops, WINS! 

Better than Hemingway or Faulkner

Being a film buff in Thailand can be frustating. But I found a street vendor in Silom neighborhood of Bangkok selling bootlegged avande garde and art films for 100 baht, that's about 3 dollars US.

We get maybe 15% of world film here in Thailand, art value, great screenplay has nothing to do with the films served up on Thai Cinemas. It is a matter of luck to see the great ones, and sometimes you can find them bootleged even if they don't make it to the Cinema.

Thai film is another story, very loud, like soap opera, with lots of flash, migraine headache stuff.

Living in a Thailand, a western film wasteland, you have to lower your film viewing standards. So in a downtown a Bangkok mall I reluctantly chose a film to watch, just to waste a couple of hours, called "Love in the Time of Cholera". I expected very little from a film with 'Love" in the title, but the idea of linking "Love with Cholera" was intriguing.

I did see the name Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I had heard of him, he won The Nobel Prize for Literature, but how do you take someone seriously that writes in Spanish? And the Nobel must have given Gabriel the prize because it was the year of Latin affirmative action, or because Spanish writers were hip that year.

English is of course the language of great literature, and maybe you could throw in a German for a the prize, a Gunter Grass or the like.

But great literature coming from a person who writes in Spanish, that's a second or third world language.

I entered the theater and after standing in respect for the King of Thailand, and the Thai National Anthem (written by the King who is a Jazz lover). I settled into my seat expecting hot Love and Cholera in the jungle.

What unfolded on screen was one of the most amazing, human, insightful , deep, wise, soulful, fun, magical screen plays and films I have ever seen.

I immediately went out and bought every book by Gabriel Garcia Marquez I could find in Bangkok, and am of the opinion that if I wrote for another 2000 years or wrote forever, I would never be able to write like this giant. He is better than Hemingway, Faulkner, comparable to Mark Twain and Tolstoy, but much more fun than Tolstoy. Reading his work leaves me feeling like a mosquito looking at a a literary elephant, awe struck, wondering how he got so big)?

Someday I am going to dig my way out of the hole I am in here in Thailand, and move to South America. I will fuck dark women with huge asses, great titas, long curly black hair and bushes to die for. Sit in in outdoor cafes day and night, read books by Latin authors , eat Coca leaves and drink coffee while savoring Bosa Nova riffs. This is my dream! I think I have one left in me maybe, if Thailand and the world doesn't kill me first.

Sleeping Colossus! Da Stuff Heart is made of!

"Seabiscuit floated along in a state of contented bovine torpor. Sleeping was his favorite pastime. He could keel over ( most horses sleep standing up) and snooze for hours on end. While other race horses at the track raised hell demanding breakfast, he slept long and late, stretching out over the floor of his stall in such deep sedation that the grooms had to use every means in their power to get him to stand up."

"He may have been a amiable little horse, but his career prospects looked dim. He was as slow as growing grass, he barely kept up with training partners, lagging along behind in happy ineptitude. "

Seabiscuit went on to become da winninist horse is history. His story is one of great heart overcoming mental and physical handicaps and patient trainers who took time to understand the sleeping colossus of a horse, bringing out the champ that lay waiting inside da Biscuit.

Maybe there is a "champ" in all of us really, maybe allot of us were knocked down by mean trainers or keepers, parents, institutions, jobs, systems or just bad luck. Certainly for those who have charge of or take care of others, a little tolerance, love and understanding can go a long way to pave a future.

The stuff of Seabicuit is the stuff of big hearts and cruelty! Man on the moon size hearts and cruelty. If you look at the day to day dynamic of the human and animal world it is gut wrenching. The cruelty and insensitivity, people to people, people to animal, it is enough to fill Niagara Falls with tears. And on the other hand, you have all of the nurturing and caring that goes on in this world, maybe in the future kindness will replace cruetly. This is the stuff that heart is made of!

The quotes were taken from "Seabiscuit, A American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand

Carl Sandburg, dated, but at the door of new stars!

Washerwomen

The washerwomen is a member of the Salvation Army.
And over the tub of suds rubbing underwear clean
She sings that Jesus will wash her sins away
And the red wrongs she has done God and man
Shall be white as the driven snow.
Rubbing underwear she sings of the Last Great Washday.

Grieg Being Dead

Grieg being dead we may speak of him and his art.

Grieg being dead we can talk about whether he was any good
or not.

Grieg being with Ibsen, Bjornson, Lief Ericson and the rest,

Grieg being dead does not care a hell's hoot what we say.

Morning, Spring, Antira's Dance,

He dreams them at the doors of new stars.


If I was Oprah when reading ole Carl Sandburg I might say " go boy go"!
Help route this burdensome journey of mine, with all of its aches and pains to the door of new stars supreme!

Lying in Media, Industry, Church and on your own!

Today I wrote a comment at E Online in reference to a story about the Rolling Stones switching music labels. I basically said I have been a fan of their music since the 60s. But as far as Rock Bands in general, fuck em (self censored using fu*k), Aerosmith, The Bloody Beatles, any of em, who cares! a bunch of androgynous minstrels performing for your benefit when you tune in, little puppets on stage. And from my end, without much pay going their way. Since I have bought bootlegged DVDs for the last ten years living in Asia.

I then went on to say what pleasure I get out of pimping Rock Bands and the Record Executive pussies (using pu*sies to self censor) out of their royalties by buying bootlegs. E Online took the comment off the page as they censor most of my post. E Online is hardly a forum to pimp the Recording Industry and brag about buying bootlegs!

Another thought on censorship is in reference to a story told by Peter wolf about Keith Richards, how he pulled a Bowie Knife on a DJ playing mostly Disco and not much Rock n Roll at a party in the 80s. He was right to do that, but he is Keith Richards and I am not, so he can go uncensored through life (I know I have done more time than him). Bands like the Stones fought against censorship and look at em now, pandering to superficial social rags like E Online.

Sometimes it feels like history leads us nowhere, it just doubles down! So cut down the mother fucken Cherry Tree Abe and do yourself a favor, lie about it, cause if you can't lie you will never make it in America or the World for that matter. Even the Pope is a good liar, he bends Biblical Truth to benefit the Church right? And the bloody tent preachers in America, Billy Graham, Jerry Farwell and that lot, total bullshit, total grap, turning good people into Ugly Americans to make a buck. Predators praying on fear. The Liturgy of Lies goes on and trust me it's endless.

Just a personal note here* Even though I haven't lied too much that I can think of, oh maybe I bend the truth once in awhile. I do buy bootleg, so that makes me just as bad as any of the bad guys who lie (I know what the truth is, it frees me). I am worse than the liars and like it, I am shameless and without guilt or remorse, I can screw my brains out all night long on crack with a crack ho, and wake up and go to Mass (just kidding there, just a "Bad Lieutenant" movie fantasy/dream) . Screwing your wife or long time girl friend involves much more lying than screwing a crack ho. And it sure as hell cost more! There is allot of lying incurrent in traditional button down screwing, screwing is all about lying on every level, and is a bootleg proof industry.

Watching Jim Cramer last night on CNBC railing on the CEOs of City Bank and Merrill Lynch for being a bunch of fucking liars. Saying that he could car less if he loses his job over it, and that he was sick and tired of watching these people lie. Cramer went totally off the edge, falling off his chair (I loved it because that kind of behavior is so rare with the button down geek set).

Jimmy Cramer, GOD BLESS you son , you are a true American Hero! The Rodeo Clown of Wall Street!

Bumble Bees and Baseball Glove Romney

,, Bumble Bee Days


The bumble bees clammer on the saw edges
of gladiolas.

Lemon-rusty honey bees drone in the ears
of hollyhocks.

Two leaves of a poplar drift among the
watching asters.

Carl Sandburg


I gotta tell ya folks about the empty feeling I get when one of the "league of clowns" running for President of the United States, Mitt (baseball glove) Romney prostitutes himself to his own constituents, lies to the jobless to better his own lot " we will bring back the jobs in Michigan if I am elected!" Both "Mitt" and the jobless who believe his lies deserve their fate. Mitt will be blown out of the race by next week, and the jobless will stay on Welfare watching their wives get fat on handouts amd bio genetic food substitutes.

Dear jobless in Michigan, don't believe the hype, just wait for the spring and focus on the stuff of life that will calm you aching heart; bumble bees, gladiolas, aster and hollyhocks!

Maybe thinking about Bee Keepers and field Hippies in clover and poppy!


Look to the truth of Woody Guthrie, Paul Robeson and Carl Sandburg!

Touching the Sky

Visiting a Cha'n Master Among
Mountains and Lakes

Like Hui-yuan fostering Ling-yun,
you open the gates of Ch'an for me;

here beneth rock and pine, serene,
it's no different than Glacier Peak.

Blossoms pure, no dye of illusion,
mind and water both pure idleness,

I sit once and plumb whole kalpas,
see through heaven and earth empty.

Li Po

Ole Li Po, saintly wino, breathing mountain air and touching the sky.
A bit of Gary Snyder up in Big Sur bathing in a hot tub fired by spruce,
Or Dylan Thomas falling down drunk in snow through pine needles.
Maybe Mick Jagger reciting Browning in Chelsie Park, singing Mary Jane.
And Allan Ginsburg reading Howl for the first time in a basement on Grant St.
As well as Jack Kerouac with his head twisted into a bulb radio, speeding through the universe, criss cross yogi, listening to Sun Ra!

How in the hell can I get back to kalpas, blossoms pure, Mary
Jane, pine needles, Big Sur hot tubs, Spruce, Sun Ra?

Even I can remember sipping Stoli in Central Park, on a mountain top, infinite, tasting cool air, sheltered, rich, broke, touching the sky!

I bet Iris Murdoch had fun!

My lot of favorite folks are heretics, lunatics, pagans and the poor. The rich have too many crosses to bear to have much fun.

Last night I watched the film, "Iris" about Iris Murdoch.

Iris's fiction doesn't appeal to me, but, her philosophy of life is marvelous. She and her husband, John Bailey, were a couple of Loons frolicking in fields of Poppy and Lavender Clover.

Iris like, Tolstoy and Orwell, was a visionary who loved words and lived in a world of her own invention, not unlike heretics, lunatics and pagans. She refused to be contained by institutions of church or state, because her vision was the food that sustained her. A true Bohemian ahead of her time, a non monogamous lover, loving, who ever she wanted.

Irish borrowed from Plato's "forms". She gave the "absolutes" a most marvelous twist, which I know to be true. Perhaps we all are exposed to collective memories of "goodness" before we are born. My own twist on these collective memories is " flying with Angels" in "goodness", heroic, Celtic, incorrigible, only to be thoroughly corrupted by the material world from birth onwards . Emily Dickinson also touches on this in her belief that babies come into the world with perfectly clean consciousness that is corrupted as time goes on.

Iris believed we could focus on pure " form" memory as we aspire and become whole, living in " goodness form" as much as possible.

Cheers Iris, you got it kid! I bet you and that loony husband of yours, John Bailey, had allot of fun!

The Anti-Christ Mass

Religion for me is personal and subjective, it does not need to be hung from a crucifix, memorialized in Rome, participate in unholy wars or wear payot.

Modern day religion; anochronic, out of touch, restraining Mother Earth and human kind from breath taking spirituality and transcendence. If Jesus, Mohammad or Mose came back to earth they would be appalled! You could liken this to Norman Mailer's metaphor on NASA Rockets blowing spent jet fuel into space, disturbing the Angels highly tuned sensitivities.

My best Christmas memories are unconventional and have nothing to do with garlands, cozy fires and egg nog.

In December,1968,I went to Mexico with my parents. We were staying at the Las Hamacas Hotel on Acapulco Bay. In front of the hotel, on the bay, there was a small taco cafe that had a juke box with a few Gringo hits of the time. Psychedelic music; Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Rolling Stones.

One Christmas Day, I met a Californian surfer dude and his younger sister, both my age, at the cafe. We shared a common interest, scoring some refer. We were told to look for a Beaner by the name of "Maestro Magico". The process of scoring was like a pagan ritual. When we found the Maestro, we scored a few fingers of "Gold".

We Three Kings went back to the Las Hamacas, hid in the toilet and turned on. It was my first time; we sat at the pool and threw small stones in, watching the water ripple outwards in a circular motion, each ripple a Sacred Madalla of life.

When we got bored with the pool we decided to go body surfing. We were 15, but the Beaners on the beach sold us all the Corona and Tequila we wanted. Corona was great in those days, comparable to German Beer in thickness. We were smashed in a seconds.

After the sunset, we went back to the Los Hamacus to crash. I passed out with my surfer friend’s sister in their room. We fumbled and managed to get it on somehow. I didn't know where her vagina was. Back then, tongue swallowing kissing, was the best thing happening.

Through the haze latter that night, I realized I missed Christmas dinner with my parents. When my mother got hold of me, she hammered out the "riot act" in triplets. She even smacked me a few times.

But I am going to tell you, that was the best Christmas on record for me. No church or crucifix, no cozy fire, no fat dinner, could make me as happy as the partying and virgin sacrifice I enjoyed that night.

Poetry and Great Faces

Great faces, Lincoln, Sitting Bull, Carl Sandburg.

They don't make em like that anymore!
Not a Tom Cruise, or a Jason Timberlake, or any
of the Clowns running for President of the United States,
can compare to the kind of character that these great faces have.

Surely a sign of the times, great faces, carbon in the sands, buried in the Western Plains with White Buffaloes, Indian Blankets and Arrow Heads.


Some definitions of Poetry by Carl Sandburg

1 Poetry is a echo asking a shadow dancer to be partner.

2 Poetry is a series of explanations of life, fading off into
horizons, too swift for explanations.

3 Poetry is the Phantom script that is telling how a rainbow is
made and why they go away.

4 Poetry is a sliver of the moon lost in the belly of a golden frog.

5 Poetry is the tracing of the trajectories of a finite sound to the
infinite points of its echoes.

I think C.S. was the Fatboy Slim of the 20Th Century, he could trip the light
fantastic in a single bound. Reading his stuff puts me in a transcendental, mystic place, say, a full moon evening on a hidden lake in a deep green forest, surrounded by golden frogs and fire flies glowing like moon beans!

This is something that going to Church on Sunday could never do for me! That Carl Sandburg does!

The woods, are lovely dark and deep

STOPPING BY THE WOODS
ON A SNOWY EVENING

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though:
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To Stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost

ioqeurvnoiqwueboituewoinu2pouv ndajcnaolldkjfalkjlka
Muse of nature disappearing before our eyes,
Replaced by cement and carbon for fast gain.
Try to enjoy that Porsche ride without any trees.
It will come back on itself, Man is a big fool.
God help our Poor Children.


The Amercian Indians believe Spirit will " reset by default" the Earth's Surface by turning it over on itself and burying all the concrete and re bar. Hence, we would have to start over and try to do it again, maybe without greed this time! This could be a metaphor for allot of potential cataclysmic happenings. If Crow Dog is wrong God Spirit help us All!

The New Holocaust is the Black Tar Earth we will leave our children to choke and die on. Al Gore is a thick, preppy nerd, but " An Inconvenient Truth" is on the point. And he has balls to come out and say it!

Horseshit and coal smoke mixed with diesel

"When I was growing up there was a feeling in the air that things were really changing....before the 60s you grew up in the middle of all the bomb sites and rubble left over by the war. London had enormous buildings, but then you could turn the corner and suddenly there'd be three acres of nothing--and the streets were full of horseshit because there were hardly any cars then. I really miss that about London: horseshit and coal smoke, mixed with a bit of diesel here and there. A deadly mixture--it's probably what turned me on to drugs!"

Said with his asshole, nose, ears and eyes firmly rooted to all Earthly, Heavenly and Sensual Muse.

The King of the Opium Charioteers, Keith Richards !

Porno King of Marietta Ave

I had this Town House on Marietta Ave. I worked my ass off on the place and only made Twenty Grand when I sold it. My Stock Portfolio use to go up and 20k a day, but not since 2007.

One time in Milwaukee I was though about renting a room with Tom Mule and realized it would be impossible. He was very meticulous about putting soap back in the soap dish.

In my Milwaukee days I was using coca and herio in the end, shooting speedballs. The Hood was my second home, I use to go into it at all hours. Jimmy Glynn and I had a friend who was a Jazz Trumpeter, Neal the pawnbroker, maybe you knew him. He knew every smack and coca house in the Milwaukee hood. I would travel around like I owned  the black hood, whitebread, with my chest puffed out, going to black clubs and soul food restaurants. Black people can make sweet potato pie, white people don't try!



One day in the hoot at a blues concert in the park, a colored gang(bloods)came over to me and I figured I was dead. I opened my mouth and said, "Hey dudes got weed"? And the black killer blood says to me "Jerry Lewis, how you doin brother?"

I had this black girl I was paying for sex from time to time, she had long legs like a Giraffe. I used to bend her over at the window and poke her from behind, while she was saying hello and waving to my white neighbors outside. I would take pictures of naked women with in front of curtain-less windows too, the white neighbors called me the porno king of Marietta Ave. I am sure they are happy I am not living there anymore. For awhile, we were the biggest thing happening for them white folks, me and my black girl



They might have done worse things than me in their closets or on their computers. At least I didn't hide it.

I broke them up like merinques

A Study of Reading Habits

When getting my nose in a book
Cured most things short of school,
It was worth ruining my eyes
To know I could still keep cool,
And deal out the old right hook
To dirty dogs twice my size.

Later with inch thick specs,
Evil was just my lark:
Me and my cloak and fangs
Had ripping times in the dark
The woman I clubbed with sex!
I broke them up like meringues.

Don't read much now: the dude
Who lets the girl down before
The hero arrives, the chap
Who's yellow and keeps the store,
Seem far too familiar. Get stewed:
Books are a load of crap.


Told like only the Irish can tell it, poet Phillip Larkin. The Irish, way more human than the rest! They were dropped on the planet by God for relief and humor, as His personal Jesters. They have set the mark for humanness and affability!

This poem sums it up for me, laugh!...hahahah! Books...crap!!!!!!

Hell out West

Our Hells

Milton unlocked hell for us
and let us have a look.
Dante did the same.
Each of these hells is special.
One is Milton's, one Dante's.
Milton put in all that for him
was hell on earth.
Dante put in all that for him
was hell on earth.
If you unlock your hell for me

They will be two special hells,
Each of us showing what for us
is hell on earth.
Yours is one hell, mine another.



Carl Sandburg, the most just, enlightened and connected person to live on earth in the 20Th Century. Often when reading his stuff my mind leaves the world, lapsing into long train rides in the Wild Wild West looking at Buffaloes, smelling Pine Trees, sleeping on Indian Blankets.

He like his heroes, Whitman and Lincoln had something that seems to have dried up today!

There might be some who call Lincoln, a poetic and soulful version of George Bush ( I like G.B., he has potential, I think he needs to go back to his ranch in Texas and do some serious reflection and screwing around ).

Where are Vision, Heart and Soul today? How has Sandburg, Lincoln and Whitman evolved into Jason Timberlake, Michael Jackson and Paris Hilton? ( I like her though, she has potential!). Are we living in Elliot's Wasteland, are we having fun yet out there?

I am only having fun in my head, riding a "opium chariot" somewhere in a holding pattern.