WALKING ON THIN ICE

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the church of not quite so much pain & suffering

finally found  when i created the church of not quite so much pain & suffering… it was part of my endless letter started april 21, 1997 (so we’re 9 years old and discounting.

excerpts from endless letter 1997:

Me?
I had bad ant blood within
but nurtured my grasshopper core more
these 30 yrs past Mother Mary coming in me
Multiple Orgasmicly in the green green grassijuana.
And old rabbit dead died in vain in vein when I became
the central sum son n sun tent tenet n tenant
of
THE CHURCH OF NOT QUITE SO MUCH PAIN & SUFFERING
where I sing the song 6 Sins Assorted
sporting pearl for spine.
Swineless.   Spartan.   Shrine.
But, my me mine.
Look! 
Up in the why…
Vaster than a greedy gullet!
Stranger than local motives!
Able to leap sheep in a single bound!
It’s…. just Smith
at all your loco malls petit mals seizures xtra
bogus points for mass deception
For the iniquitous are ubiquitous
And that is entirely too many vowels for me.

I can walk on water now I
no longer see my reflection on the shore
but in the slow beach of each.                      
Dust for must.   Lore spore.   Ire fire fuel to fame.

assorted oddities at best unkept; wheelchaired enterprises;
self made degeneracies; mutilation melodies;
sin song long with redemption implied.

Not to kill messenger but seems mess is message.
They say tv violence hasn’t changed us.
They say our biomass heat waste no greenhouse effect.
They say killing customer with flaming pinto cheaper then fixing flat.
These sayers are the same people who taught me Civics and Ethics

Last year/year before, THE INSURANCE COMPANY proclaimed
their great god Status Statistic said
we are now more likely to be harmed by total strangers
rather than friend, relative, neighbor and enemy.
Ever since life began you’ve always been eaten by friend & neighbor.
I grok you grok we all grok to the bop stop.
Now after billions and billions and some pocket change
it is the stranger you don’t know won’t see can’t predict
who will accidentally eat you.

Adventure is the measure of soul’s fiber.
For most no grizzled bear in grandma’s bed
no hero hopes to happen.
Tho hope our mass mind matrix needs only quantity
cuz quality’s TV sitcom.
At least art is a mistress if you are true to lets you lie a lot.
Perry Mason, Zippy, Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes
all knew truths were lies’ silence
the dog that didn’t fuck.
We need ritual grander than daily grime.
So
I make my own magic.
Within and without.
And watch the ripples spread

It is the late 20th century.  
Do you know where your god is?

The top 5 attended Chat Rooms:  Michael Jordan  /   the Hansons  / 
Michael Jackson  /   Rosie O’Donnell  /  Koko the gorilla.
Miserable people love company.
Monsters to match your mood, monsters to mood your mind.
Tongues clung to regurgitation rite.
Ugly is as ugly does.

“You are now carrying at least 500 measurable chemicals
in your body that were never in anyone’s body before the 1920s.” 

1945: 1 Air Force General per 244 planes        — 1998: 1 per 23
1945: 1 Navy Admiral per 130 ships                — 1998: 1 per 1.6
1945: 14 Army Generals per 1 combat division — 1998: 30 per 1

The rich get riper, the fat more foolish. Us rest be dead n dying.

China’s cities = world’s most polluted air: 178,000 dead last year.
Mexico City’s sinking into its own apathy excrementally.
Chinese termites now eat concrete & copper pipe.
Latin American bees incorporate industrial plastics into bio-wax.
Arachnids blend our toxic wastes with own toxins.
Super viruses grow on the corpses of too healthy chickens.
Yet bankers, lawyers and politicians still allowed to breathe.
Global warming, corporate downsizing, televised violence. . .
Killer beings blend in our blindness.
May you live in interesting times    (Chinese curse).
And may the face you wear be your own    (Chinese promise).

Night has fallen and it can’t get up.

Why where what are we. . .
Contrail in the sky, or contract on the ground?
Process or Product?

back to september 26, 2006 – see, i’m not all that much different now than i was 9.5 years ago – except thnx to kathy and being out of amerika, i am much happier now, & the world even more f*ck*d up than it was then.

so go thee, and suffer less.

PODGORSKA STREET

Lady K’s eyes found:

a city in the wall

 

another clue from the bird king

 

who? what? why?

 

down to the wisla river

truths du jour

from a 1998 brain scan study on the differences between women and men (not to worry, women win…. basically women are wired to nurture life, while men want to kill stuff):

>Women use more of their brains:  “when a male puts his mind to work, neurons turn on in highly specific areas.  When females set their minds on similar tasks, so many brain cells light up that our brain scans look like a night view of Las Vegas…the female’s thicker corpus callosum allows more crosstalk between emotional, intuitive right hemisphere & rational left.”

> Female brains respond more intensely to emotion:  “The differences were so huge I hesitated to report them…melancholy feelings activated neurons in an area 8 times larger in women than men…the female brain also detects others’ emotions more accurately…men had a much harder time recognizing sadness, especially in women.” 

> The female brain is wired for expression, not aggression:  “when studied in states of relaxation, men idle in the evolutionarily ancient reptilian areas of the limbic system which give rise to unsubtle active expressions of emotions like aggression and violence, while women rest in a newer higher region related to symbolic forms of expression like gestures and words”.

> The female brain is twice as sensitive to sound, half as sensitive to light: “Women can hear whispers & whimpers that never even register on a man.”

> Female memory sharper: “At every age, women’s memory outperforms men.”

> Women notice more, navigate differently:  “men are best at 3-D, women excell at disembedding; men see direction & distance while women see landmarks.”

we all walk on water. we are all all wet. which in its own way is wonderful. it turns the curse of textbook times into sufi punch lines. soft pie in the face no disgrace rather place of honor.

so sayeth this book of fool.

blog doubts from a 25 year long friend

blog doubts from a 25 year long friend:

I’m beginning to truly question some of your postings.

We who are still over here – I’d say even fighting in the trenches, maybe some of us as double agents, maybe some of us by presenting alternative views to folks for the first time in their lives (think about that) – we’re subjected constantly to religious diatribe. I’ve gotta say, the blog is starting to sound just like more of the same.  You’re beginning to sound as rigid and self-righteous as any hard-line fundamentalist christian.

So, I have questions:

What do you suggest we all do?  Sell everything we own, and follow your example?

i’ve never ever suggested anyone follow my path – i doubt they could, or would even want to (why would anyone EVER want to be me – being me is hell). in fact i’ve always espoused dylan’s, “don’t follow leaders, watch the parking meters, you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” my message since 1968 has been to look within for the truth, your own truth – never trust anything anyone outside you says. we all know what is good and bad from our OWN inner voice. if something is bad, your quiet voice inside says so. so you should say so. point your finger. say unclean. do everything in your power to get cheney and bush indicted for war crimes for mass murdering 200,000 to 800,000 iraqi civilians – 43% of them children (ergo, genocide). write your congresspersons. vote. in your case, inculcate your students. cheney and bush need to be driven from power and indicted.  my leaving america could be seen as taking the coward’s way out – i didn’t stay and fight. but then, i haven’t stopped fighting just because i left either.

What, exactly, does that do to change the political and financial makeup of America?

punish current evil and it will deter future evil, or at least slow it down, make it more cautious.  remain silent, encourage worse in the future.

What about people who have no possessions to sell, or the worth of whose possessions wouldn’t buy them a ticket to Ashtabula, let alone London? 

what does that have to do with anything?  i have created art against the bad guys and written poetry against the bad guys and spoken out against the bad guys and demonstrated against the bad guys for 42 years now. my possessions or what i was worth had nothing to do with what i did to expose these people.  in fact, my actions actually cost me money, possessions, friends, advancement and probably fame and fortune along the way. that i finally sold everything and left is because i became so disgusted with america’s lack of morality i couldn’t stomach the country’s lack of outrage anymore.

Who did you work for to get the possessions you sold, to get the money to be on this journey?  Did you check into backgrounds, refuse to work for any corporation that had ties to the government, stay steadfast to your ideals then – or did you bite the bullet and earn because you needed to take care of your mom and yourself? 

as i said above, this has nothing to do with my actions these past 42 years. i find this argument disingenuous. i spoke out when i had nothing. i spoke out when i had something. and i never attempted to acquire anything along the way. i’m not asking anyone to stop working, or to sell everything – not once have i ever suggested that.  all i say is speak out. silence is cheney and bush’s best defense. i don’t understand where this possession thing is coming from.

Would you have refused an Ohio Arts Council grant, an NEA grant, or any other government-funded chunk of change? Or a corporate collector (like, say, Metro hospitals)?

not if they offered me fair value for my product with no strings attached. and i DID pay $200 to buy back an art piece i sold for $100 once because i found out the collector thot cheney & bush’s bombing of iraqi civilians was ok… so i put twice my money where my mouth was and bought my piece back from an immoral asshole for reasons of principle.  i don’t know of anyone else who has done that. and my metro commission was for the children’s wing of the hospital, and it has brightened their days and lightened their load. so i did moral good.

What about people like Wilcox, who have young children to support?

i think the primary duty is to raise our children with a healthy attitude, as my parents did me. healthy children will lead to a healthier future.  we each have our own path to walk. it may be raising a child, it may be helping your mother, it may be teaching young students there are other moral roads to walk, it may be sacrificing your life to stop a mass murderer. as i said above, all i’ve asked of folk is to speak out. you seem to be protesting stuff i’ve not said.

Are you refusing to stay in countries that support the US?  Are you refusing to travel to countries that support torture, allow other countries’ prisons to be built within their borders? Are you refusing to fly on airlines dependent on mega-corporate fossil fuel?

no – but i have given up my own vehicles, my own electric appliances, my own mass consumption, my access to medicines, my local fame and reputation, even my marijuana use – and i am risking my life and freedom by speaking out. i think it prudent i left america, because eventually i’d be on one of their secret lists, somewhere in one of their brain camps. but again, i’ve not called on others to do any of these things you’re saying. i’ve called for folk to speak up, to vote, to think, to do what little or large thing they’re able to do. that’s all i’ve asked.

I understand you’re in free-fall, you’re taking perhaps the most major risk you’ve ever taken in your life.  I understand you need to attach huge meaning to this.  I’m not saying enormous meaning isn’t there to be found. But what I am suggesting to you is that the meaning you are searching for is yours, yours and Kathy’s alone.  You made a choice to pursue your life and art in this manner, and it will, I am certain, make you both better, richer artists, but it is a PERSONAL journey.  I respect the considerable personal integrity in your search, but I am losing respect for the fact that you appear to not to return that respect. Bush is a classic megalomaniac. Are you becoming one?

i’m sorry, but it IS also a MORAL ETHICAL journey. this is important. we’re talking mass murder here. we’re talking gutting the american constitution here. a german who was in germany before the war said that every day it became just a little worse than it was the day before. if it had gone from a to z in one week, everyone would have been up arms to stop it – but, it was just a little worse each day over a long time. each day he’d look around and see no one else seemed bothered, only him. so he kept quiet too. well, i cannot keep quiet. i’ve seen the concentration camps here. the torture techniques the nazis used are the same torture techniques cheney and bush are using, the same ones the american government is actually discussing legalizing. the fact that you know this and are silent astounds me. the fact that there’s not one mention of 1 dead iraqi baby in your questions astounds me. how can this not be important? what can possibly be more important?

I’ve been one of your lifelong friends and fans, through thin and exceedingly thick, and I need to say that the diatribes accusing all your readers – who are largely poets and artists, thinking humans perfectly capable of drawing their own conclusions and taking their own steps counter to the hell America is in now, whether subversive or overt – these sermons are actually beginning to alienate me.  At the very least, you are preaching to the converted.  I don’t think you have ANY republican, tv-addicted, torture-supporting readers.  So: you might think about who you’re casting stones at.

i naively assumed all my poet and artist readers agreed with me 100%. i thot we were all on the side of the angels here.

End of my own diatribe…  love, believe it or not, MadM

i believe you, madder me – as i said earlier. i’ve always been a morally hard person to be around… thot you all were used to this by now.  also had hoped the humorous blogs in between (like my 1st climax etc) would soften the edges of my preaching. but i am a preacher man.  no way around it.

When you sermonize with a big sweeping “you” – as in, “this is being done in your name” – no – you are not being clear at all regarding who it is you’re talking to.  “You” means everybody who’s reading.

“You” to me means anyone who remains silent.

But I guess the biggest thing for me is that you offer no solutions.  When you wrote about the man at the bus stop in Leeds who said, “America bad”, you called him uneducated. So: what else are you saying BUT “America bad?”  We KNOW that. I’m asking: how would you fix it?

actually, he was a mentally handicapped person … i felt it would be rude to say so, so changed it to uneducated. my thot at the time was even the mentally handicapped knew right from wrong, so where did that put cheney and bushy boy in the brain chain. and i have offered a path, a solution – several: DO AS YOU WOULD BE DONE. speak up. speak out. vote. teach the young the moral path. do what little or large thing you can. but DO NOT REMAIN SILENT. silence is acquiescence. silence is sin.

As a thinking, fully capable human, I have the right to question anyone who’s preaching: Bush, republicans, fundamentalists or friends. As you are preacher, I am teacher.  That’s what we do; we ask questions. You’re wanting to meet intellectuals on your travels; I think they will question you as well. cheers, MadM (you can use whatever I write in the blog…but put in the questions, too. ) (I do this to hard-line christians, too, when I have the inclination: I tend not to bother much with those I don’t care much about in the first place. It’s a big component in the fact that me own mother hasn’t spoken to me since 1991 – I asked her questions ).

i welcome questions. especially when the answers are so clear. do you welcome answers?

alfa home mega

since we lost our home in tremont cleveland ohio usa june 16th 2006
we’ve stayed/lived/existed at:

fairy trap love shack out back of chiplis tremont usa – 6 weeks
hotel leeds england – 1 nite
sheep shit sheep field in grassington england – 1 nite
bed & breakfast burley-in-wharfdale england – 7 nites
hotel leeds england – 1 nite
house london england – 23 nites
city hotel amsterdam netherlands – 1 nite
mouse infested room in hotel alfa amsterdam netherlands – 2 nites
slightly less rat infested room in hotel alfa amsterdam – 4 nites
inn in lodz poland – 1 nite
studio flat in krakow poland – 7 nites
pension/hostel in krakow poland – 4 nites

we’re moving today to a flat in old jewish quarter krakow poland for 35 nites. and then…?

chiplis was free (for friendship). the sheep field full of sheep shit was free money-wise, but oh boy did it cost us. the other places, only the london house was reasonable.

two days ago kathy gave me “the finger“, and a “fuck you.” yesterday i got “the look,” “the frown,” “the threatening fist,” and an “asshole.” this morning she just told me i was “a sick fuck.” all because of my perhaps over the edge perhaps overly tasteless definitely absurdist comments.

i think our relationship is progressing nicely, don’t you

Cracovia

nevermore

the urban-jellen test & dada cabaret

The Urban-Jellen Test according to “Lost In Krakow” magazine: “You are me and I am you. Psychedelic art-rock cabaret with a heart. Strange and beautiful OTHER happenings around. Adult and inspiring…. Oh yeah and did we mention the ROCK!? Imagine the Doors and the Velvet Underground challenging Kraftwerk and the Kronos Quartet to a game of Pictionary and you’re getting close to what the Urban-Jellen Test’s music is all about… rock, theatre, and cabaret.”

or in my words – bertold brecht gone mad on acid… controlled chaos… melodic mayhem… mutilation melodies… a real good time.

kathy and i read our poetry as one of the 4 Dada Cabaret acts leading up to the Urban-Jellen Test’s concert last night in a hundreds year old domed cellar underneath the Tytus i Koka club in Kazimierz, the Jewish quarter. could have been 100 people in the small space. great reception… got a thumb’s up from mr urban-jellen test - blue seven.

before the concert, we sat back under an arched old brick dungeon-like area and watched a surreal matthew barney film about female ovaries marching over a football field while lady attendants ate grapes in two goodyear dirigible breast balloons and an alice in wonderland kept rearranging the eggs.

this is the life.  this is what we left cleveland for.

on the other hand – not much hot water in a pension/hostel shower… too many bodies. it’s rather bracing, invigorating even, to soap your naughty bits in the shower and then find no more hot water to rinse. you can’t leave the soap on, cuz it’ll mate with the toxins and fungus in your dirty clothes and meld to your body – probably turn you into a republican. so i’ve learned to quickly wet, soap, and rinse the sticky stinky smelly bits (nudge nudge wink wink) – and then wash the rest, maybe.

we’ve this new ritual – we pick up each bit of clothing and sniff it… if we don’t pass out or shudder from the smell, we put it on.

this is the life. this is what we left cleveland for.

head cheese sandwich

 

when i was young – younger than 10 – the doctor, during an examination in the big city, pulled my foreskin back over my penis head. it hurt like heck since the foreskin had to be stretched to make it. doc told me i had to wash under the foreskin every bath, or else head cheese would develope.

so i did. i washed it – a lot.

one night while reading and fondling my penis, i had my first climax.  i had no idea whatsoever what had happened. all i knew was it was wrong to touch yourself, and that i had probably broken something essential.  i wiped away the sticky clear goo, lay down in the dark, and waited to die.

next morning, still alive, i touched it some more. made it break again. kept on breaking it over and over.  one day at my aunt norma’s (who played piano for lawrence welk), i put some milk on it so that the small kitty cat would lick it… i wanted to see what it’s rough tongue would feel like. aunt norma came home and caught me hastily pulling up my pants with the kitten’s head still inside.  she never said a word. i burned red in shame.

few years later, same doctor mentioned that my left testicle had dropped considerably lower than my right… said that was usually caused by playing with myself too often.  i burned red in shame.

shame and guilt were my middle name growing up.

but i kept on breaking my penis 2-3 times a day anyway. i must of had one of the most broke dicks in town back then.