Sunday, July 29, 2012

Rallying Cry Protest Protest, speakout, rail! Act!

Reject the cartridge! Poor quality blades, two dollars a piece. Reject canned goo! Unnatural smells, numbing agents. Scrape, scrape, scrape, scrape. A better shave with obsidian and fat. Reject burning faces, rashes, and blood on the collar. Reject the siren of marketing- five is not better than four, better than three, better than two. Countdown- five, four, three, two- one is the only one you need! One blade, machined with care, shiny, (razor) sharp. Treet, Tiger, Feather, Dura, One fifty for ten, not ten for five. Embrace the gestalt. First, hot water. Then, a brush, profuse with lather. Rose, lavender, citrus. Menthol. Soft. Soapy. Hot. Smooth! Upon your face, the brush and lather coaxing your beard to attention, The menthol a continuing cool upon your face, tickling your smell, making the cat sneeze. Grab your shaving instrument rescued from the scrap heap of Aunt Polly’s Interesting Junk shop, loaded with just ONE blade. Blue Tip, SuperShave, Merkur, Weishi. Glide. No pressure. No pain. Like shaving a peach. Like shaving a balloon. Shaving, not scraping. The sound of ice being scratched resonating along your jawline. With the grain, against the grain. Rinse blade. Lather. Repeat. The civilized man emerges. A bracing splash of Floid, Porasso, Tabac, or Anherb. No sissified, over-priced scent-of-the-month. Leave those to the metrosexuals. Join the underground. Transform the morning! Electric? Blasphemy!

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Salmon On My Bagel...

...makes me happy. Pickle on the side, makes me high. I don't care who listens, I'm still kosher. Salmon in my life, gets me by.

Friday, July 6, 2012

Ground Control To Major Tom

Take your protein pills and put your helmet on. That is all.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Disneyland

Disneyland House Captain · Anaheim, California I am chief bean-counter and administer of unfair punishments. Finding my missing manuscript Dec 13, 1975 to present Yes indeed! I grew up in Eagle Rock (born in Glendale.) In 1969 my folks moved us up to Red Bluff where I attended 8th grade at Reed's Creek elementary, then High School at R.B.U.H.S. Class of '74. Then, thanks to my mom's father, I moved to the Shasta College Dorms where I lived (and partied) for 2 years (Art Major.) Failing to complete my A.A. during this time and in perhaps one of the most ill-conceived, over-priced endeavors of all time, Grandpa decided I should move back to L.A. and enroll at Oxy for the Fall semester of 1976. And so it was, with an enormous bag o' weed and 100 hits of purple micro dot, I moved back to Eagle Rock and jumped into the (then robust) ceramics and glass studios at Oxy, with a heady connection/reference from good old Cliff Sowder and Max Penington. The whole gig ended in disgrace around Christmas Time 1976, when one of the many lavish partys I hosted at Grandpa's mansion ended in a raid (Symbionese Liberation Army connection) and with me fleeing back to Dairyville. I never went back. Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory Meanwhile, back at the chocolate factory, the oppression persists. As the only "straight" Oompa-Loompa in the joint, I am often the "whipping Boy" to Charlie's manic rage against the state of the economy and his business affairs. It's an extremely difficult life here in what looked, at least on paper, to be a veritable cake-walk of a job and a wonderful opportunity to advance myself in life. Now... well, there are times so dark I just feel like diving into that river of chocolate and sinking away to that eternal obscurity. College In a Goddah-da-vida Baby! In a Goddah-da-vida Baby!

Friday, June 29, 2012

The Search For Slavko

When I was a young lad, I had a friend named Slavko Limonczenko. We lived on the same street in Los Angeles back in the 1960's. We dreamed of the many things we would together, when we were grown up. One of the things we put at the top of the list of things to do was to attend a World's Fair. The ruins, depicted here, are still standing in Flushing Meadows in New York, from the 1964 World's Fair. I am still interested in visiting the site, all these years later. I also hope to someday visit Chernobyl in the Ukraine, where Slavko's family immigrated from.

Sunday, June 17, 2012

The_Flight_of_the_Phoenix_-_1965

With no functioning radio to call for help, the survivors wait to be rescued, but the storm blew them too far off-course to be found. Although they have a large quantity of dates for food, they calculate their water will only last for 10 to 15 days provided they avoid physical exertion. Seely and Blevins attempt to walk to an oasis. Blevins leaves his monkey behind with the men. Seely and Blevins refuse to let Natch Biz go along due to his increasing mental instability, but he defiantly follows and dies. Days later, Blevly, a sort of amalgamation of the two men (Seely-Blevins) a twisted and grotesque abomination, returns to the crash site alone and barely alive.

Sunday, June 3, 2012

Clockwork Angels

I have been asked by the "Boys" to mention very especial pair of young men, they are of course Dr. Heckle and Mister Jive. Born in a time, here in America, when men were men and beer was a cool, refreshing beverage, not a loaded gun on a nursery school playground, rocket ships were sending huge payloads off to space at hypersonic velocities, cartoons were rife with senseless violence and God had his hand firmly on the dome of of the White House like a fragile egg safely nestled in a cocoon of Tempur-pedic foam. No one really knows what happened to these lads, but their work in the mid-to-late 70's can still be felt today, especially in the world of journalism. Poets these chaps were, and poetry, as the the old saying goes, "Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotion know what it means to want to escape from these things."* We attribute much the those slayers of great dragons, those players-with-words, those Kings-of-things-that-always-brings-us-back-to-where-a-robin-sings-and-when-we-find-these-pretty-things-we-tend-to-cease-destructive-flings. Say good night Ed. *T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) American-English poet and playwright.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Foucault's Pendulum

The plot of Foucault's Pendulum revolves around three friends, as relevant to the rule of three, named Belbo, Diotallevi and Casaubon, who work for a vanity publisher in Milan. After reading one too many manuscripts about occult conspiracy theories, they decide they can do better, and set out to invent their own conspiracy for fun. They call this satirical intellectual game "The Plan". As Belbo, Diotallevi and Casaubon become increasingly obsessed with The Plan, they sometimes forget that it's just a game. Worse still, when adherents of other conspiracy theories learn about The Plan, they take it seriously. Belbo finds himself the target of a very real secret society that believes he possesses the key to the lost treasure of the Knights Templar. It's a tough read with numerous plots twists and endless references to societies that I must separately research. Oh, and then there's the translating from Italian.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

The Potential Well

Zero-point energy is fundamentally related to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Roughly speaking, the uncertainty principle states that complementary variables (such as a particle's position and momentum, or a field's value and derivative at a point in space) cannot simultaneously be defined precisely by any given quantum state. In particular, there cannot be a state in which the system sits motionless at the bottom of its potential well, for then its position and momentum would both be completely determined to arbitrarily great precision. Therefore, the lowest-energy state (the ground state) of the system must have a distribution in position and momentum that satisfies the uncertainty principle, which implies its energy must be greater than the minimum of the potential well.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Is The Caller There?

As a young boy, I always thought that Wilbur, the man from the hit T.V. Show Mr. Ed, had it made. I loved that his place had a stable (where Ed lived) that had a phone and a desk and fridge... I always thought that was so cool. I used to think that if I were Wibur, I would just move my bed out there too and my clothes and everything and just let Carol (his wife) live in the house. Carol (and my mom for that matter) only seemed to make Wilbur (and my dad) nervous and upset, whereas Mr. Ed was obviously a guy and I thought guyfriends were better than women friends. We have a lot of fun and it's just a lot of fun. Say good night Ed.

Friday, May 11, 2012

Tee Polyphosphate Ef

Six o'clock - TV hour. Don't get caught in foreign tower. Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn. Lock him in uniform and book burning, blood letting. Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate. Light a candle, light a motive. Step down, step down. Watch a heel crush, crush. Uh oh, this means no fear - cavalier. Renegade and steer clear! A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies. Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline. The other night I tripped a nice continental drift divide. Mount St. Edelite. Leonard Bernstein. Leonid Breshnev, Lenny Bruce and Lester Bangs. Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, boom! You symbiotic, patriotic, slam, but neck, right? Right.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Living Hell!

Here is a picture of the man who has made my life a living Hell, here at the Chocolate Factory. Little Charlie is all grown up now and runs the place like some kind of concentration camp. Oh, how I miss Willy Wonka. Why, sometimes, I get so down-hearten I just want to climb into the taffy puller and turn the machine on. Really what I'd like to do is shave that bastard's smug mustache off and sprinkle it in the candy. That would shut this place down real quick. Oh, I'm going to Hell. In a handbag y'all.

Monday, May 7, 2012

It Ain't Over

Meanwhile, back at the chocolate factory, the oppression persists. As the only "straight" Oompa-Loompa in the joint, I am often the "whipping Boy" to Charlie's manic rage against the state of the economy and his business affairs. It's an extremely difficult life here in what looked, at least on paper, to be a veritable cake-walk of a job and a wonderful opportunity to advance myself in life. Now... well, there are times so dark I just feel like diving into that river of chocolate and sinking away to that eternal obscurity.

Monday, April 30, 2012

My Memorial For The Next Reunion

Seely, an inveterate avant-garde in the field of Mind expansion through Native American ceremonies and arm chair anthropologist, was last seen in the Sonoran Desert near Maricopa, Arizona on December 20, 2012. He is presumed dead.
Onward from vast uncharted spaces, Forward through timeless voids, Into all of us surges and races The measureless might of the wind. [...] In the steep silence of thin blue air High on a lonely cliff-ledge, Where the air has a clear, clean rarity, I give to the wind...my pledge: ”By the strength of my arm, by the sight of my eyes, By the skill of my fingers, I swear, As long as life dwells in me, never will I Follow any way but the sweeping way of the wind.” __________ (published in On Desert Trails with Everett Ruess, with introduction by Hugh Lacy and foreword by Randall Henderson, Desert Magazine Press, Palm Desert, California, 1950.)
He is a monster He is a monster Was he really born this way? He is a monster He is a monster He is always there when you turn the page. No Restraining He's retaining Everything he sees While the world shook He's eating another book I hope he shares some with me He is a monster He is a monster Was he really born this way? He is a monster He is a monster He is always there when you turn the page. SFC

Friday, April 27, 2012

So Long And Thanks!

Well as they say, all good things must come to an end and by gaw, the end drawer nearer. The old polyphosphate filter has served us well for a few days now but alas, I feel it has grown a bit long-in-the-tooth, as it were. But fear not! For I am planning an entirely new new Weblog entitled, Ode To Ed. A Blog based on all the Eds out there that have shaped my life into the magic caravan o' fun and fear that we see rolling along the prairie of purple imprudence, day in and day out. So stay tuned fellow caballeros! We're in for a new long haul down the dusty trails of imagination. Brought to you by Bubba's Bar and Grill.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Dreamers Learn To Steer By The Stars


Dreamed that I was back at the old Propane Driver job. And I was miserable. And in a way, I really am. Here in heaven, just another hell. Just another winner, pours his life down the drain
Just another island in a hurricane
Just another loser, like a cat in the rain
Just another day ace up...in the path of a speeding train.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Happy Easter


The Donkey
By G. K. Chesterton

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil’s walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.