AD.

WALKING ON THIN ICE

off time


detritus – foto by smith

Out of 2,922 days as The Decider, George W. Bush spent 487 days vacationing at Camp David and 490 days vacationing at his Crawford ranch. That’s 977 days of vacation in 8 years, 33% of his time in office.

And I say THANK GOD. If he screwed us this much working part time, imagine how much trouble we’d be in if he’d put in full weeks.

Now if only Cheney had taken time off.


Oaxaca grafitti: Dick Cheney in prison garb – foto by smith

flora & fallibility


plant cat – foto by smith

I took our six foot ficus tree in its five gallon bucket of dirt for a walk and a bicycle ride yesterday. It isn’t easy walking a six foot tall tree balanced on a bicycle eight blocks. All the locals were smiling and laughing at me, with me. I hate to part with the tree because the plants are like our offsprung, but I’ve been slowly killing it these past six months–too much water, not enough water, too much sun, not enough sun–so I took it to its new daddy who might save it.

Lady keeps buying plants figuring I’ll keep them alive because she’s a plant Kevorkian, but she doesn’t realize I’m faking it – have zero sum flora knowledge in my brainpan.

Next I have to walk our 6 foot lime tree over. The ants are slowly stripping it of leaves. They live under the potted soil and run up and down the trunk constantly taking little tiny ant-bites of my leaves. I thought of spending the afternoon sitting by the tree killing each ant as it ran up the trunk, squishing it with my fingers, but I think that many individual murders would depress me, cloud my karma, so I’ll let our friend MadManMax kill them instead with his ant poison, put their little sufferings on his soul. Does farming out insect murder keep my karma clean?

I’m keeping the two cactuses, the other two succulents, the bamboo thing, the decapitated lily, the fern and the rose until we leave the country in 6 weeks because they bring us so much daily pleasure. The one succulent I keep slowly turning in the sun so it’s growing in undulating S-curved waves.

They’re all our children. I think the succulents take after Lady, while the cactuses look more like me.

here’s a plantish poem I wrote for Lady when we first took up:

Plant Shepherd

I water 3 plants at work

Just now went to each, thrust
My fingers through their leaves
Into their soil to check for moistness

And flashed on this morning
You on your stomach
My fingers deep
Sampling your wetness

None of these need water

Though I may need to sample you more
To see your need
So I’ve made an appointment
For you to be closely examined
Tomorrow after work in my sanctuary
In the Church of Not Quite So Much Pain & Suffering

– Doc Smith – 10.4.2005


our Zapotec friend’s garden – foto by smith

cheerful idiot exits smiling


tears for fears – foto by smith

The public opinion approval ratings of the last five Presidents as they left office:

Jimmy Carter – 44%
Ronald Reagan – 68%
George H.W. Bush – 54%
Bill Clinton – 68%
George W. Bush – 22%

Barely 17% rated Bush’s presidency as very good or good (these are probably the billionaires he gave all our tax money to), while 83% said he was average or poor. Even 34% of the Republicans in his own party said he was worthless.

Never has an American President been so reviled. Never has an American President so screwed the country, the economy, the world. Never has an American President murdered so many civilians. And never has an American President been so clueless about his own crimes and stupidity – one of my favorite recent headlines is “The Cheerful Idiot Exits The White House, Smiling”.

What really rubs me raw is Cheney/Bush weren’t elected in the first place – they blatantly shamefully stole both elections, and the thefts have been thoroughly documented by the both the media and the Government’s Conyer’s Report – and no one cares.

I want retribution, I want justice, I want an accounting. I only hope there are war crimes trials in both their futures.

But we can’t say the Bushleague-Boy didn’t warn us: “There’s no cave deep enough for America, or dark enough to hide” – George W. Bush, Oklahoma City, 29 August 2002

Where’s the Fool Killer when we need him?


fears for tears – foto by smith

dinner 4 1


Para TV – foto by smith

Here’s what happens when one blogs every day for 31 months.

Dinner For One

I feed upon myself
have depleted me
digested all
excremented myself
and now the taste of shit
is bitter on my tongue


Piñata’s cantata – foto by smith

the secret sacred grafitti graveyard


4 cuantos veces ha / 4 how many times have you – foto by smith

The Royal Spray Club – foto by smith

paper face – foto by smith

No – foto by smith

Blunt Spliffman – foto by smith

Girl in heart with heart – foto by smith

To give you an idea of the scale of the above grafitti – foto by smith

a thru e


Welcome to Oaxaca – foto by smith

Our poet guest Michael Salinger just left in a cab after a successful 7 day 6 night visit.

It’s lucky we had a guest to leave. Last night he took a cab to the Temezcal Indigenous sweat lodge cleansing ceremony. Our Temezcal lasted 90 minutes, so we agreed to meet him in Centro 2 hours later. We sat for 45 minutes, no guest. We text messaged his fone, no answer. We called his fone, got voicemail.

So we figure . . .
A – his fone died
B – his fone was stolen
C – he’s still in the ceremony with his fone unreachable in his backpack since he’s nude during the ceremony
D – he’s lost, wandering the city, his fone unhearable in his backpack over the city sounds
E – he’s dead, broken, hurt, kidnapped, or ran off with wild sheep.

I can live with A through D but find E problematic because then we have to contact the Mexican Police and even worse call Sara and say gee we’re sorry but somehow we lost your mate and partner we hope you don’t hold it against us. I’m not real good with either the Police or missing mate fone calls.

About the time we decide to go home to see if he’s there and call the cops if not, he showed up – he was inside the sweat lodge a full hour longer than we’d been and it being pitch black, steamy, clockless and foneless in the sauna, he’d had no idea he was late. Then when he got out and saw his fone message and tried to call us, he got a Spanish recording saying something he couldn’t understand so couldn’t call.

Waiting for Guest for 45 minutes is one long night, but now all is all right.

We’d stopped worrying about him because each morning he’d take our map and ride his rented bicycle off into the unknown mountains for hours and hours, each afternoon returning, so we figured he was indestructible.

This morning we all got up at 5:30 so we’d have time to find a cab in the empty pre-dawn streets. Walked a quarter block to the corner and a cab zipped to a stop beside us without asking.

Michael has luck, that’s all I can say.


Seize you on the down size – foto by smith

the cleveland oaxaca corridor


Michael Salinger: poet, performer, teacher, traveler – foto by smith

Walking out of an excellent stone oven Mediterranean pizza restaurant last night, I heard an anxious “Señor, señor” behind me. I turned to look, and the waiter handed me my money pouch I’d left lying on the table. After all the openness and courtesy we’ve received from the Oaxaqueños here this past year, his honesty didn’t surprise me (though my absent-minded professor dudeness did).

Our friend and fellow poet Michael Salinger from Cleveland Ohio is staying with us for six nights. He and mate/poet/partner/collaborator Sara Holbrook stayed with us in 2006 in Liznan, Croatia. They travel around the world teaching students how to write and speak expressively using Slam Poetry techniques. They have a batch of poetry and educational books out, a good rep, and they just finished gigs in Cairo Egypt and Bali, and’ve been to China, Thailand, Alaska, Bahrain, Istanbul. It’s good to see creative people actually surviving doing what they want to do, on their terms.

Mike is approaching his time here uniquely: he rented a mountain bike and every morning spends 3-5 hours riding up and down the mountains (one was an hour and a half up, 20 minutes down). Oaxaca is a mile above sea level and lies in a bowl of mountains rising another 2 to 4,000 feet. Each day he looks at the map and takes off in a new direction.

The weird part is the bike shop rented him the bike for 4 days for $44 cash. No deposit, no credit card, no proof of identity. In the U.S., he’d have had to put down a $600 deposit before they let him out the door.

I don’t function well as a people person (I’m best in the 15 to 45 minute range of inter-personal interaction) and I seriously suck as a host, but the visit is going well and Lady says I’m doing fine, so it’s a good day today.

Tomorrow we’ll take him to the secret sacred graffiti graveyard and ancient walled cemetery for fotos.

See ma, I do have social skills after all.

Sara & Mike may be analyzed and viewed at SaraHolbrook.com and MichaelSalinger.com. Their card offers Assemblies / Professional Development / Writing Workshops / Speaking Skills / Standards Based / Vocabulary Development / 440-255-1124 in the U.S.A.

PS – in the foto below, the cover of the middle book on the left with “LOVE” is my 2007 foto from inside the walled city of Essaouira, Morocco. Someone had chiseled the word on the inside of the city’s wall. I got paid actual money from the publisher for its use – $100. Received $100 once to read poetry as well. Of course, I’ve been trying 46 years now, so that averages out to $4 each year. Does this make me a pro?


Sara & Michael’s postcard – foto by smith

the u.s. pyramid


Jesus – foto by smith

Weary and wordless, I use wife’s words instead. I chose this poem of hers because she was saying yesterday the entire U.S. economy is essentially a Bernard Madoff Ponzi pyramid scheme waiting to collapse even further:

Jesus Came Back

He was sick of all the shit–
the pyramid scheme where
144,000 angels cashed in
their pensions.
He’s down here,
with me, on Earth.

God closed up the
retirement plan.

Jesus cooked me dinner,
the last fish
in our frying pan.
He performs minor
miracles in our bed
and it is all for me.

– Lady


Jesus – foto by smith

lady a


Lady – foto by smith

Yesterday’s blog was two fotos: of of an “A”, and one of Lady. I titled the blog “A Lady.” Then Jesus Chrisis at the Crisis Chronicles sent me this – it fits Lady just fine:

d.a.levy wrote a poem called “Lady A“:

Lady A

lady a
something of you
catches in my throat
on a sunday afternoon
it is raining silence
i could scream
when
something of you
miles away dances
into my mind
and i wonder
what you are thinking
in the back of your head
miles away
that makes me wonder
Lady A
Lady A
the silence is soft
as kissing your cheek
in the dark of our mind
something of you
needs the miles away
to remember
something of us
reaches out in the
silence

– d.a. levy

The Crisis Chronicles–The Tao, Ow and Wow of Jesus Crisis–is at crisisblog.crisischronicles.com/.


A – foto by smith

a lady


a – foto by smith

Lady – foto by smith