FOUNDATION SLIPPING AWAY

     jessica stockholder, installation, 1990

It's looking like I've passed the place where I have the illusion of a foundation anymore. It's like the world I knew has gone away and a new world has replaced it. The same happened to my grandparents and to parents, and now I'm seeing it. We come up and learn the world one way, and all the time it's changing until one day I wake up in the morning and it's not a world I know anymore. I don't mean the pop music, because what I hear happening now I've heard all the way along from 50s through psychedelic through punk to now, post-punk? There comes a time when what I once took for entertainment has become a racket, noise. Conversations that used to amuse me now bore me. Books I once thought were the best ever, I can't read today. I think, how did I ever find that interesting? That part and tv, I Love Lucy to whatever they're doing today, none of it I ever found interesting.



In the 6th grade I saw Battle At Apache Pass starring Michael Ansara as Cochise. If you'd asked me his name I couldn't have answered it. It just flowed out while I wasn't thinking about it. I loved it. Very big deal movie for me. I'd be afraid to see it now. White guys with wigs and man-tan on their arms and faces. I'd kind of like to see it again just to see how far film has come since early 50s and how far I have come since early 50s. I remember seeing Claudette Colbert in movies in Jr hi, and Susan Hayward movies. Foxy women of the day. 78s are gone, 45s are gone 33s are gone, 8tracks are gone, cassettes are gone, cds are almost gone. 33s are coming back. I've been rock & roll crazy since 1955. I still appreciate Allman Brothers to listen to, Siouxsie Sioux, the Clash, the Stones, Bob Dylan and a great long list of others. Like good blues of the 30s and 40s, a lot of the older rock is that kind of timeless, esp the Rolling Stones. If I were to put on a Stones album now, any of them, I'd have to stop writing, because it would pull me in like a vacuum hose. I love it that they're turning 70 and they can rock the socks off anybody that wants to move to good music.



I don't mean to think of the music as what has slipped away, but using the music as a measure of the time involved over the last 50+ years, the area where the changes are most visible in the pop world. It's all spelled out in the art world when you have the eye to see it. The arrival of rock & roll threw a lot of people for a loop in its time, esp bluegrass musicians. They were out all of a sudden. Big bands and crooners were out. Blues was out. I think we've been through another such time as the coming on of rock & roll. This time it's downloading and facebook and linkedin and myspace and twitter, constantly interacting with others by gadgets; cell phones that take pictures and make videos and you can watch movies on. These are the parts of today that hav gone away from my interest. I'm not interested in any more newness, though it is ongoing. I've give out from it. I don't care how many million hits Lady Gaga's videos get. It's getting to where I don't want to hear the news anymore. What I'm seeing now is the corporate world (our government) bearing down on us (we the people) like we're the enemy. I'm seeing it's begun.



From here to the end of my life I see myself hunkering down, living on the least I can possibly live on, if I'm able to do that. Since my awareness of government, my government has only lied to us. I've a feeling that in my lifetime I have seen our government turn on we the people. That's been the nature of the progression since WW2, our government turning against us. The USA is in sadder shape than is known, because television is a smoke screen with a big smile on its face, dance music on the Titanic. We're told to spend more money. I can't help but see it a travesty that all the people the banks bilked out of millions and millions per individual, flattened an awful lot of people's bank accounts, then the banks get baled out, but the people that got bilked, well, fuck you. The people in government now are not directing government; it is directing them. It's become like Hal the computer in 2001 Space Odyssey. Makes me want to crawl in a hole like the Feral Kid in Road Warrior. Say good-bye to all that. It's a shame to see the democracy experiment go down, derailed by the dark side within.



Looking at what's happening in Europe now with Euro economy being thrown into possible chaos overnight, fear of the domino effect of one, then another, then another, like they said countries would fall to Communism in the 50s justifying the Korean and Vietnam wars to us, the audience. Very real fear of Euro economy going down like dominoes, USA and Canada too, and maybe China. South America and Africa some of the first to go down. The poor people seem to always get hit hardest. It looks like tornadoes are drawn perhaps by the scent of mobile homes. Where the poor people live is where they hit. Sometimes it looks like God hates the poor. Like in Haiti, like in Ethiopia, like in Chad, like in Bangladesh, like in New York City, like in every American city, like in Alleghany County. It's not God that hates the poor, but people that hate them for being failures. In America, we punish the poor by making it all the harder on them. They pay dearly. I've an idea Aldous Huxley and George Orwell hit the bullseye, rang the bell, said, This is where you're headed if you don't watch it. Here we are.



The prophecies. Oh Lord have mercy. I don't even want to think about them. This is that time. This is that very time. Evidently, all that's left of the Revelations prophecies to come to pass is the Armageddon war, the climax it was all leading up to since the time of WW1. I think I have some recollection of a horde from the east overwhelming Israel. Could that be the entire Islamic world all the way to China and Indonesia? It might be called jihad. An overwhelming tide of people would be hard to stop when it kept coming on and coming on and all they had was kitchen knives. Things are heating up in that zone. It's very weird. I think we all have to be here for this and things are lining up for whatever it is that's going to climax the whole story. I'd rather not have to be involved with money, but there's no way around it. All of us will be subject to it in varying degrees. If it works out that the money goes away for everyone, we'll go to helping each other out, borrowing flour and sugar again, perhaps having big community gardens. We'll need to take care of one another. That won't be so hateful. They could be the best days and years of our lives. Stories written about in novels for years to come.



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UNREPENTANT LIBERAL BIAS

              camino real by cy twombly

Yesterday I heard an hour long interview with Joe Kline, who wrote the "novel" about the Clinton Whitehouse by Anonymous. He writes for Newsweek. He's evidently on tour about the USA interviewing people of various sorts in various parts of the country. He's looking for what it is the American people are thinking politically. The comment he received that caught my attention most was a woman asking why we can't have some civility in DC among our "representatives." The common agreement is the Congress is not representative of the American people. As a people, we are more centrist than the republican right would have us. I've watched this progression since 1980 when Reagan promised to destroy our government. By 30 years later we have no more democracy, and with democracy gone, a police state can and will do whatever it desires for its own sake. The word then will probably be something like We're a nation of laws, a mask for the absence of democracy. Freedom can easily continue as a propaganda word because it can mean anything, and is most often used by scoundrels.



I saw a picture of Virginia Foxx on facebook yesterday. Someone wrote with it, something to the effect of, Does she represent you? I'm in her district and she sure doesn't represent me. She's a republican parrot like the rest of the republicans in congress and senate in DC and throughout the states. By now sedition is republican policy and purpose. If I didn't have to live here, I'd be happy to see them go ahead and tear everything down with their cancer that destroys from within. Their determination is so lemming-like, so much a primary purpose, and the democrats so timid and unable to believe the extent of the venality in the republican party, half the American people. The other half of the American people are bewildered, because they can't believe the republican party is what it looks like, smells like, tastes like. As usual in a campaign, the side with the most money spent wins. This year the democrats are raising big money. That's no problem. The supremes made a law that corporations from anywhere in the world can give money to the republican electoral effort. Scalia and Thomas are in there not for the benefit of the American people, not at all. They were placed by the corporate takeover of our government. They have already done what they were put there to do multiple times. Maybe this is why Clarence Thomas sleeps through court sessions.



I heard somebody today talking about the Wall Street demonstrations. He was saying they're not confronting Wall St. They are confronting symbols of Wall Street. He said Wall Street, itself, is what needs confronting. Good point. Who knows what all is going on there? The demonstrators seem to reflect the thoughts of the American people. There is no one cohesive purpose to the demonstrations. Everybody has their own reasons, and there are so many that no one reason is overarchingly dominant. Therefore, it's not a political force at all. Numbers mean nothing. Money is the only power in America, in the world. The 1%  control 70% of the money. The 99% have 30% of it. Where is the power? With the 1%. The 99% get too active, the 1% control the military. This is Latin America, the ruling class and the peasants. We'll be sneaking over the border into Canada as it gets more like Mexico here. I understand that since the Bush-Cheney-Rummy-Rice coup in 2000, more and more American ex-pats are moving their lives to someplace else. It's hard to love it when it when it doesn't love you.


Yet, while Olympus is locked in intentional chaos, down here on the ground we the people are getting along with each other, going about our business or out-of-business. I saw a news report on Yahoo news today that my SocSec benefit will increase by about $23 per month in January. Can't complain about that. It's half a tank of gas. Though, of course, the republicans have a bead on Social Security and next time they take absolute power, they won't be giving it up, and Social Security will be no more. I'd like to think republican excesses over especially the last 12 years would turn everyone away from republicans, but it attracts the ignorant like a magnet attracts metal. When they get school funding cut out, then they'll have the ignorant population they want. Half a century of television dumbing down the population isn't enough. They want us without education so their propaganda can work more dependably. Easier to control. Sound like conspiracy theory? We'll see.



People I know to talk with are of a variety of political points of view and we get along well. I'm not one to require all the people I have to do with to think the same way. I like varieties of people, people with very different experiences from mine. A different race makes somebody all the more interesting to me. Mostly, however, people of other races are as prejudiced against my race as my race is against them. Because I'm not of that mind doesn't matter. Same as for a black person who thinks exactly like somebody white, nobody cares. He's black. Black people call him an Oreo and white people don't even notice. It's a difficult world to live in. It's like every racial and political division is characterized by animosity these days. It's coming more and more to the surface how unhappy half the American population is with being shut out because of their pigmentation. It feels like the races are getting afraid of each other, apprehensive. The Reagan revolution has not been kind to persons of color, the same as it has not been kind to the working class and to a lesser degree the middle class.



I started paying attention in the time of the "oil embargo" of the early 70s. When it was over, all the small independent gas stations and oil companies were out of business. Exxons went up in their places. Every time we've had a "recession" since then, small businesses fold, and when it's over only the big corporate stores are left. I see the same happening now, though this time shaving out every business that is not international corporation controlled. When they get rid of these small businesses, they have more control and make more billions per year. The corporate world controls the art world, because only corportions can afford high dollar art now. Museums can't afford it any more. When all our businesses are too big to fail, they'll all fall at the same time. A puff of the whimsical wind blows down the skyscraper of cards. Alas, total collapse of the economy is what everybody I talk with sees coming. Maybe when that happens we can start over, consciously, intentionally. Yeah, like I can turn water into wine, bottle it, distribute it and be a billionaire too. Hey, Mr Buffett, let me buy you a drink. What would you like?



One of the biggest curiosities of all is I heard somebody again today talking about it's a good time to detach ourselves from desire for more money and stuff, start giving our spiritual values some attention.
What? I've heard somebody make reference to turning inward in this time of being down-sized to peasant status 3 times in the last week, and I don't listen to the news talk shows but a little. I know that's what comes next after building a nation on mindless greed until it reaches its apex in mindlessness and the void within the heart begins to yearn with hunger to be filled. Spiritual awakenings everywhere, starting in California. Out there, they built a society devoid of the traditions back east holding them back. They got there first. All the spiritual venues could fluorish. Perhaps in that time, the thousand years of peace, we'll be over concerns about immigrants of color. These centuries of collective self-centered emphasis on money have come to their end, like any of the 7 deadly sins. All are short lived. A nation built on self-centered greed is short lived. All we need to get through the eye of this needle is a collective attitude adjustment. Like my one experience crawling through a cave at Speedwell, Virginia. Some of the holes I had to crawl through were so tight I had to put one arm forward and one arm back to make shoulders diagonal to the vein I'm crawling through. I said to myself, I am water, and flowed through easily.



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