Bla-a-a-ahg

“There is no vertical anymor it’s all horizontal . . .”

Da blahg . . . So-o-o what’s this blog about?

It’s mostly about writing . . . anyone can do a fukkn video . . .

It (the blog) is autobiographical . . . journalistic . . . public. . . I don’t know if it’s informative maybe sometimes but mostly it’s about writing . . . hmmm . . . I said that didn’t I.

It’s about writing using syntax in an unconventional manner . . . misspelling words because phonetically they don’t sound like how they are spelled . . . for example: Wednesday . . . What the fuk is the “D” and “N” doing? Do we say “wed-ness-day”? NO! . . . We says “wensday” . . . I’m sure some cunning linguist or etymological PhD gotta logical explanation but for us common folk it don’t make no cents . . . sense . . .

Bet y’all be wondering WHY I’m writing this . . . Well I got something following me like a banner being pulled by an aero plane and the banner say “The Art of Blogging” . . . so I red some the “tips” ‘n “how-to’s” and I began to question WTF I was doing . . . why I doing what I was doing . . . was I just wasting time . . . or . . . was I wasting time . . . am I just wasting time cos I like to mess with words? Good question!

(pause)

. . . I’m thinking! . . . umm . . . gimmee a minute . . . til the fog liffs . . . (foghorn in the distance).

I watched a podcast last eve with Samuel Andreyev interviewing talking with Kenneth Goldsmith . . . Samuel is a composer living in France and Kenneth is a poet living somewhere out in Pennsylvania somewhere. Kenneth is the founder of Ubuweb . . . y’all know Alfred Jarry . . . Ubu Roi . . . father UBU?

Got me to thinking . . .

Experiment . . . get yer hands dirty . . . daddy dada . . .

Do I solve problems? IDK . . . maybe . . . there might be a solution embedded subliminally . . . I’m just providing an alternative POV . . . a different perspective . . . looking at things from the other side the fence . . . from the inside out . . . upside down . . . provoking . . . I don’t follow “trends”.

Plus . . . I don’t know sh-h-h-t ‘bout who reads my blog . . . my audience. . . my “tribe!” . . . cos the neesh is flexible . . . flippy floppy . . . one day it might be avant-garde ‘n the next day it’s poema then it might be abstract porn-o-filia . . . “impure” . . . guess I could check my metrics.

I don’t subscribe to schedules . . . I don’t post predictably . . . like every Tuesday or Thursday . . . Thursday is trash day . . . that’s enough schedule for me . . . that’s when I gotta pull the bins curbside . . . pull them back . . . every Thursday except thanksgiving and then it’s on Friday . . . routine or routinely.

I’m a critic . . . I review . . . I comment . . . I dispense information.

Who is my “ideal” reader . . . hmmm . . . someone who reads . . . someone not easily offended . . . nonjudgmental open minded . . . naive?

No mind . . . never mind.

Did you see “The Last Samurai”? . . . when Tom Cruise is dueling the Japanese cat with bokken (wood sword) and he keeps getting smacked down . . . then this young boy says to him, “Too many mind . . . too many mind . . .” and so Cruise stops trying remember all the things he knows about close quarter combat . . . just focusing on the present situation . . . the result? . . . he is able to strike his opponent first.

Hmmm . . . creator . . . creators . . . a misnomer far as Youtubers go . . .

“WHADDA ya meen?”

What I’m saying is: you ain’t “creating” anything . . . you’re “creatively” editing a visual document . . . clipping splicing together a cohesive visual “statement” about something . . . an event . . . cooking or something . . . unboxing merch . . . uh . . .

About a year ago I was confronting MY identity beast . . . trying to make sense out of what I’ve been doing with my blog . . . wasting time or what . . . I was looking at Patreon . . . stumbling around looking for answers . . . something . . . and whilst reading stuff about the benefits of joining Patreon I red a blurb . . . a quasi-testimonial by two brothers . . . what they said was (paraphrasing), “. . . we don’t create, we document.” uh . . . BINGO!!

Made me think about Rembrandt photography Gutenberg the Industrial Revolution . . . like . . . Rembrandt was just documenting . . . no camera no video no internet just paints brushes ‘n linen/canvas.

Photography/videography is just documentation . . . a craft . . . in order to create “art” you must first master your craft . . . and to do that you must know the history of your craft . . . find where videography writing etcetera fits in the “craft” puzzle . . .

Yeh yeh . . . I know . . . you gotta have a plan . . . a raison d’etre . . . and not just a way to generate money . . . like clickbait thumbnails . . . misleading captions.

I’ve been writing, making 2D “art” and “doing” photography for 60 years . . . without apps no DSLR or 4K . . . ‘nuff said.

(pause)

Time to finish my oatmeal . . . re-up then med prescription.

Dinobak

The sun spilled off the dinosaur back

down the mountain.

Tuxedo skunk in the dry water ditch

periscope tail thru sea of grass

white stripe black tie skunk.

Get me?

NEWYEAR

December 22nd . . . first day of the new year . . . I know I know . . . but for me the solstice marks the beginning of a new journey . . . January 1st is for the common man.

Born in the year of the monkey under Scorpio day before dio de Los muertes in the dead hours of October . . . the leaves had left the trees naked in the cold of October sun . . . monkey in the skeleton trees . . . no leaves . . .

And I got all my candy taken away . . . got my candy taken away . . . got . . . ALL MY CANDY TAKEN AWAY . . . all because of . . . of . . . the fucking apple pie . . . that’s un-American . . . “American as apple pie” . . . so the saying goes . . . like Christmas . . . Alice in Wonderland . . . candy canes . . . but it was my fault for trying to help apple farmers . . .

Chapter 2 (Tue Dec 28)

(stole the title for the following poema)

P Ka roe pea . . .

. . . and the young sun stood up all shiny at the end of th’ canyon hallway . . . it’s smile lit up the sagebrush sand shadows . . . sand haze Jack rabbit . . . crouching Jack rabbit.

. . . driven by turbine exhaust fan blades black diesel shadows pump into the sky . . . train engine puller . . . pistons begin revolutionary grunt ‘n grind on shining steel rail . . . wood roadbed mattress sags creaking under freight car load. . . long red and white stiff wood arms fall across asphalt red light eyes winking . . . dinging dinging winking . . . red light red light.

And a black smoke curtain dimmed the light . . . dimmed the light at the RR X-ing . . . ‘n traffic stopped while iron giant Southern Pacific rolls by . . . as the freight train rolled by.

. . . down the avenue . . . east.

. . . tight young girl pants . . . tie-yight green Spanish olive pants in morning sidewalk light . . . puller . . . pull her along street . . . two dogs fighting . . . pull her by th’ hand into noon light . . . moonlight . . . dark room night starlight under full moon deserted bench spotlight . . . she danced barefoot naked in the milky moonbeam star night . . . in th’ living room sunbeam ray of light . . . in afternoon sunlight she danced naked to silent pink flamingo rhythm . . . in th’ naked summer afternoon heat she da-a-anced for me . . . she d-a-a-a-an-ced . . . barefoot.

Finis

Y’all have a good day.

Note: the title was modified to protect the innocent.

Two Sevens

Seventy seven . . . 75+2 . . . three quarters of a century or as my credit union’s birthday greeting said, “Check your passport, you’ve completed another trip around the sun.” Cool.

And what a trip it’s been . . . thru the covid doldrums . . . mask no mask . . . wildfires . . . leaves finally decided to migrate to the lawn.

Dia de Los muertes . . . day after my birthday and three days later . . . finally finished this bit of confusion.

I lived for a short while (5 years) in Lancaster California . . . located in Antelope Valley between Palmdale and Rosemond . . . Rosemond is west of Edwards AFB (X-15 rocket ship) . . . Palmdale (skunkworks/B-1/stealth).

Significance please . . .

Both Frank Zappa and Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart) lived In Lancaster . . . my residence was on the corner of Gingham Ave & 4th Street and Zappa lived over on 3rd Street E. two streets west . . . I don’t know where Van Vliet was.

Although I likes Zappa I lent an ear to some magik born of the Antelope Valley/Mojave desert wasteland . . . Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band . . . surrealities wrapped in a delta blues sandwich of Son House & Bukka White with a side of Howlin’ Wolf.

I listened to Beefheart last eve . . . “The Mirror Man Sessions” . . . specifically “Tarotplane” it’s a 19 minute track . . and I say to myself, “hmmm . . . ‘Tarotplane’ that melody sounds like Johnny Shines’ ‘Terraplane’!” JS be Mississippi slide guitar player sounds kinda like Son House . . . and Johnny Winter.

A review called Beefheart’s sound “a grunting groove” . . . maybe . . . sure does makes you wanna dance all crazy-like bouncing off the walls doing bat-shit stuff like that.

“Hey! . . . What the hells going on here?” I ask when I was listening to Johnny Shines . . . I say “Wait just a fucking minute . . . the riff sound like the Johnny Winter tune “Dallas” . . . the acoustic version!” . . . so I goes to my music lie-berry and lo-n-behold . . . yep . . . you got it! Johnny S. sounds like Johnny W.

WTF?!

The word “Tarotplane” sounds like “Terraplane” . . . what a play on words . . . Don Van V. reminds me of how Bowie swaps words.

So . . . Son House and the two Johnnys all be from Mississippi! Hmmm . . . I’ll add that little tidbit to the book of revelation.

Anyway Don Van Vliet aka Captain Beefheart was sho’ nuff dipping deep into the blues closet for a couple of tracks on the album.

Lyrics? Well now the Captain was a very creative stream of consciousness beast . . . just have a peek at his song titles . . . “Bat Chain Puller” . . . “Orange Claw Hammer” “Big Eyed Beans from Venus” to name but a few . . . WTF?! . . . reincarnation/resurrection of dada c.1960/70 . . . let’s drop some acid & go trip traveling . . .

I found out that maybe Don was a bit dyslexic or . . . he eventually succumbed to MS.

No matter . . . the music was the medium and it’s led me on an unexpected journey into my past & the avant-garde music genre . . . John Cage (of whom I was already aware) Ornette Coleman, Zappa, Jean-Luc Ponti . . . Karlheinz Stockhausen . . . Art Trip (an actual person).

You look em up.

It’s Thursday . . . I thought it was fry day.

p.s.

Terraplane was a brand and model built by the Hudson Motor Car Company of Detroit Michigan from 1932 to 1938.

Influencers

Influencers . . . not the fucking YouTube TikTok Facebook sewage that social media addicts put in the viral “spotlight “ but real influencers . . . not necessarily in order of importance or significance:

Henry Miller Celine Vivaldi (Four Seasons) Nigel Kennedy

Jan Cremer (Jane Mansfield) Sofia Loren Bob Dylan

Robert Rauschenberg (Gemini G.E.L.) Basho

Kim Bong Tae – mentor (Otis-Parsons)

Georgia O’Keefe Alfred Stieglitz Brassai

Randy Sprout – mentor (UCLA)

Fritz Scholder – sempai mentor (IAIA).

Michael Martin Murphy (Buffalo Bill “Wildfire” cowboy) Leadbelly Yusef Lateef Miles Davis

MMOG (muse) Marilyn Monroe Ezra Pound

David Zack (SFAI & L.A.) Johnathon Spaulding (L.A.) Ansel Adams

Brigitte Bardot Jimmie Rodgers Gene Autry Dale Evens

D.H. Lawrence (the Plumed Serpent) Malcom Lowery (Under the Volcano)

Ken Marcus Barbara Pearlman-Ross – mentor/muse (UCLA – photography)

Jerry Burchfield (Laguna Beach)

Russell Kaldenberg Helen Wells Federico Garcia Lorca y Lucientes

Therese – the unfaithful Banker’s. Wife (1st muse)

Anita Ekberg Pablo Picasso Salvador Dali Juan Miro

Robert Motherwell (the Spanish Elegy series) Larry Poons Andy Warhol

Charles Bukowski P. Maldonado (muse GF)

Jan Peevy Cindy W. (GFs)

Un Chien d’Andalou Man Ray (solarization-photography)

Kurt Schwitters (merz – collage) James Joyce (Ulysses)

I Ching – The Book of Changes

Miyamoto Musashi (Book of 5 Rings) Katsushika Hokusai

Edward Weston (the daybooks) Tina Modotti

Julian H. Steward (Owens Valley Paiute Ethnography) Claude Levi-Strauss (briqolage/briqoleur) – archeologists.

Lawrence Durrell (The Black Book)

Mark Rothko Minor White (photographer) Rembrandt

Fellini (8 &1/2 La Dolce Vita)

Rashomon Gojira (Godzilla) Seven Samurai

Spain Rodrigues – Trashman

R. Crumb Rick Griffin Ukiyoe (woodblock prints)

dada (Tristan Tzara Hugo Ball)

Francisco Goya (Los Caprichos)

William S . Burroughs (Naked Lunch the Exploding Ticket) Brion Gysin

Willem de Kooning (women paintings) Roy Lichtenstein

Glenn Miller (Big Band).

Thelonius Monk

John Handy – Spanish Lady

Lawrence Ferlinghetti (City Lightly) Gregory Nunzio Corso (mafioso)

Moscoso (underground comix) Lina Wertmuller (Seven Beauties Swept Away)

Woman in the Dunes In the Realm of the Senses

Robert Heinlein Pol Andersen Frank Herbert (sci-fi)

William Conrad(Heart of Darkness)

Frank Lloyd Wright – Falling Waters (Oak Park)

Kenneth Patchen e.e. cummings

Claes Oldenburg – Gemini G.E.L.

Ed Keinholz – Backseat Dodge ‘38.

Aaron Copeland

Morton Gould (Gould Ballet Music) Anna Andrade Hector Villa-Lobos

Toshiro Mifune Akira Kurosawa

Dirty Harry

Juanita Slusher/Candy Barr

Marilyn Chambers (Ivory Snow Green Door SF porn queen)

Hugh Hefner – Pepsi naked bunnies Chicago L.A. nuff said.

Sonny Rollins

Hunter S. Thompson (the Curse of Lono) suicidal in Colorado.

Lenny Bruce (How Talk Dirty and Influence People)

Toyo Miytake (photographer – Manzanar) Bill Michael Billy Clewlow

Linda Lovelace

Blaise Cendrars – la prose du transsiberien

Sharona and the girls from Cleveland.

Mostly artistas poeta/writers composer/musicians . . . some I knew personally and some known only as having heard or read their stuff . . . crap! I almost forgot to mention Traci Lords . . . 1000 Fires.

Watcha thinks . . . anyone you recognized? Yes/no . . . maybe?

Looks a TOC fer an autobiographical mem-wah don’t it . . . OMFG!!

Riprap

I red rip rap by Mr. snider . . . Les from the P.O. loaned to me . . . Les, me and Gary P. used to burn the weed and guzzle vino apres trabajo . . . down in Long Beach.

Here’s my poema . . . reminiscing about Ms.Peevy and Twinkie’s . . .

Riprap

Incognito natcherly

in the night

by bicycle my horse

down Anaheim

some took a carriage

I on horseback

I think it was.

Fools down the river

three whores

a quadruped

his agreeable niece

uprooted trees . . .

Lake Biwa

narrow beach

moon barge

in thy lap

the rubble heap

moon cusp

rushing together in silence

flowing out

from the rock.

Myrrh

giving perfume

umbrella pines

funnel of air

ascending

the boughs

rising

ascending

where once was nothing.

Rimini

Vivaldi

and

then cool rain

its shape

said the Boss . . .

Mio poema

which can be written

no longer

years later.

Autumn leaves

blow

towards autumn

by the hours.

Not yet . . . not yet.

The light almost solid

green air

in the fields

amid stars

memories

petals drift through the air

the girl

Venus

unmoving

mental velocity.

The kingdom

of dina-mite

wing of night . . .

looking down

basalt crumbled

then the fun starts . . .

l’AMOR . . .

in general language

somewhere darkness

the black obelisk

lightly written

watered by springs

date palms

the nymphs

as Homer says

the stream was clear

in Babylon.

Set it to music

with the sun

gone as lightning

not political

there is plenty of metal

in ecstasy

the bars in jail

in the old days

without face cards

.

Special thanks to Brion Gysin’s cut-up idea and the boys & girls.who gave us a DADA or dada . . . to Ezra Pound and los cantares Rock Drill for the fodder.

Dos Cantos

Dos Cantos . . . not Dos Passos

CANTO 3a

Teatime . . .

She lays out

Dirty camisoles

Kimono . . .

Perilously spread.

Nerveless old man

Awaited

Youth . . .

++++++++++

CANTO 3b

Drowned in sylvan odors . . .

Fattening

Stirring . . .

Still she cried.

The dirty ear

a pearl earring . . .

Footsteps on the stair

Upon the wall

as the king

Pursues the ends of time.

From the window

Candle flames

Colored

Her hair.

The firelight

savagely still

speaks to me . . .

Speak.

Origin of Species

Just finished a refresher course in Origin of Species 101 . . . homo erection . . . erectus . . . me.

I come from the DADA . . . BUNG !

Yep . . . I’m just old dada-ista come back in the middle of the 20th Century . . . irreverent chili dog connoisseur . . . wielding eraser . . . attacking S. Dali scribble . . . testing validity . . . btw, it (the signature) was the real thing . . . but couldn’t erase the whole thing cos I might want to sell the print later . . .

Bob Rauschenberg erased a whole fucking Willem deKooning drawing . . . the whole drawing except for bits and pieces . . . framed it and became notorious for having done the unthinkable . . . went “viral” before that was a thing . . . however . . . deKooning knew wats up and gave Rauschenberg a “drawing” made up of several different mediums . . . Rauschenberg said it took him a month to complete the job . . . deKooning was probably thinking “. . . you pop art shit . . . you’re not getting off that easy.”

Pop ART vs Abstract Expressionism . . .

. . . . so much for today’s “art” lesson.

Dah doo doo doo . . .

dah dah dah dah . . . dada . . . DADA . . . uh huh.

Uh huh . . . yeh . . . I even wrote a dada-esque manifesto . . . denouncing everything sacred precious and romantic about ART . . . promoted the use of toilet paper as writing material to be used later as toilet paper . . . for wiping yer culo . . . remember this was like 60 years after Paris Kurt Schwitters Hugo Ball Picabia dada and surrealisme . . . anyway.

When I was still strolling the halls of academe I had a photography instructor who imparted a priceless bit of wisdom one evening . . . she said, “. . . don’t ever let your photography become precious . . . if you do it will turn to shit.” and to this day I still can hear her voice in my sleep “. . . it will turn to shit.”

One night . . . rather early one morning somehow Traci Lords pushed Barbara out onto the floor . . . but that dream ended abruptly when my wife said, “Dear . . . the t.v. won’t turn on.”

Here’s a snippet of the MANIFESTO . . . manifestare.

N – o . . .

nothing

immediate negation of ACCEPTED standards . . .

t.v. sequence billboard simplicity brashly insinuating fingers

subtly feeling-up subconscious recall mechanism (MECHANISM).

I am VIDALI

alter-ego villain clothed in aboriginal vestments

stepping through deadfalls of TIME/tradition

to piss in museum sanctuary

rectify wrongs w/Polaroid immediacy

documenting with OFFSET reproduction

NO conscience.

ART is death in drag

whoring In YR neighborhood.

me . . . eternally questioning validity

CREDIBILITY

with pencil eraser

attacking signature of S. DALI . . .

okay . . . shit . . . I know I posted a variation of this a few days ago but what the hell . . .

I wrote the manifestare sometime back around 1982 or 83 . . .

can’t remember if it was before or after the divorce . . . no matter . . .

ne signifie rien.

Here’s more of the rant . . .

more like Poe-M-et-tree.

On ART:

ART IS NOTHING, UNDERSTAND . . .

ART IS DEAD!!

this is NOT a MANIFESTO

it’s a good blow-job . . .

ART is a LARGE BLUE dog

SULKING . . .

skulking in pale ocean shadow

me LIFTING corner of blanket to expose

Simone

her panties . .

I am GOD . . . MACHINA

deus ex machina . . .

Romanticism is staid skirt

concealing

fluttering nympho-manic dream date

pistoning like un-governed one-cylinder engine

in & out . . . out & in,

redhot LOVER

glowing in the dark like furnace of HELL.

while GALA/MADRE

leans enticing,

NAKED . . .

precious ASS jutting

elbows on window sill

coy ankles crossed prim

dangling

VELVET slipper . . .

DALI-child shitting ANGST/ANGER

heart bleeding ruby tears

as virgin Queen SODOMIZED by big finned CADILLAC

ME in the driver’s seat

NUDGING her with chrome nose

PHALLIC Detroit masculinity . . .

SHE . . .

MONA LISA grin

over shoulder.

I believe in nothing.

End of lesson . . . you took notes?

Just saying . . . but seriously . . . did you?

Poe-M-a-tronic

The manifesto will issue forth . . .

26 Junio 1986.

N – o . . .

nothing

immediate negation of xxxxx xx ACCEPTED standards . . .

I write from the far corners of the mind

the fuzzy out-of-focus areas p

the xxxx xxxxxx tele-imaging scan line

visibility flickering within rectangular format.

t.v. sequence

billboard simplicity brashly insinuating fingers

subtly feeling-up subconscious

recall mechanism.

I am VIDALI

alter-ego villain

clothed in aboriginal vestments

stepping through deadfalls of TIME/tradition

to piss xxxx in museum sanctuary

rectify wrongs w/Polaroid immediacy

documenting OFFSET reproduction

with NO conscience.

ART is death in drag

whoring In YR neighborhood.

me eternally questioning validity

CREDIBILITY

with pencil eraser

attacking signature of S. DALI . . .

I am cry in midnight of suburban dreams

monk standing in depths of VOID

high mountain soundlessness

scattering leaves in Oktober land.

I am XXX

monkey REACHING long arm

for moon in still darkness of oily stream

SMOOTH flow

over rocks buttocks

into slow roil of river.

ZEN man

monkey child

born of mountain ether.

Candy Barr dancing DIRTY DONKEY

trip light FANTASTIC

necessary JUICE & catholic INSPIRATION

plugged tight into nether orifice

NO MORE NOTHING!!

FROM WHERE HE LAY

ON THE FLOOR

HE COULD SEE HER

HIGH HEELED SHOES

HER ANKLES

THE BLACK SEAM OF HER NYLONS

DRAWING HIS EYES

UP THE BACK

OF HER LEGS . . .

Poe-em

Here’s a little something something for yer palette . . . little piece of cheese little piece of meat . . . stole that tidbit from the Kingston Trio . . . the first part lyric is: “Look at them or’durveys ain’t they sweet” . . . etcetera so on and so forth . . . that’s been stuck between my teeth for awhile.

Wam bam thanky m’am . . . short n sweet.

On a somewhat more serious note . . . a Poe-em.

Dying moon . .

(by SalVidali)

Kara . . . say . . .

“bla” . . . “bla”

ba bla bla

ma jolie . . .

ma petite jolie

raw moon on the wane

Holla me . . . holla my name

holla me ala time

the moon waning . . .

bung bung tympani oil drum

50 gallon trommel empty

BING!! BANG!!

BUNG!!

Taka . . . taka. . . taka

takatakataka

ta-kashi-ta . . .

ramen noodle bowl

bam bam bam

wham bam . . .

BAM!!

Moon went down . . .

bung . . .

BUNG!!

. . . bung.

ricochet

over moonless mountain . . . yama

yama tani

. . . bung.

A variation on the dada poema “Karawane” by Hugo Ball or some such Dadaista . . . just wanted to see if you were paying attention.