Bo's Request (an Art Thread)

[pan]

Been writing cover letters for job applications (two submitted yesterday). More of a movement artist than a wordsmith but, to get things started, here is something I wrote for Migrant, my section in Train.

Where is home?

Moved twelve times in the last 16 years. The transient in transit. Pierce Transit runs through it. Before I came here I was in Rush Limbaugh’s home town before I was surrounded by corn fed Norwegian bred Lutherans singing praise in perfect four part harmony to that Home on the Plain before I’m taken Home – Praise Jesus. I grew up in Iowa, Little Town on the Prairie an island afloat in the ocean of corn. Lived in SoCal, in the Desert where golf and plastic surgery reigns, might have the grit to stay in rainy Tacoma, but, I always say I’m from San Francisco - though I rarely visit anymore.

Home, where is home?

Home is where you are. Correction, home is where you and the two cats are.

What is home? That safe place. That place with love. I love that old car, it always brought me home. The ’75 Westphalia could be home. Or rather, the place that used to be home. Too old, too unreliable to be trusted anymore. Baling wire and duct tape. Just like the U-Haul I drive to the next place, hoping for home.

Searching for home. Migrants with heavy furniture. U-haul. Our orange travois with wheels keeps getting bigger. Full of stuff. Heavy Stuff. Stuff that anchors us. To a home of nostalgia. Anchors to a home that never really existed. That place. This is the place! Well bully for you Brigham Young. Bring ‘em young. Not young anymore, with more stuff each move to stuff in the moving van and every move leaves behind anchors that are mourned in passing.

A house burns down and the anchors are cremated and the past has passed on.

The bubble is burst. The house is on the market. The anchor is weighed. The trees we planted are left behind. Do the new owners love that Japanese Maple we planted as our 10th anniversary gift to our dream of home? Have they maintained the landscaping? Have any of the plants, the dreams, the love we planted been cared for in our absence? Or have they been torn up by the roots to make room for the next owners’ dream of home?

Where are the anchors? Is there a home port? Adrift. Without a home. Drift wood is picked up for beach fires to warm the beach rats without a home. Their shacks have been bulldozed like West Bank ancestral olive groves to make room for more condos and home-loving dreamers blowing a bubble. Pop!

[waldopaper]

Yeah i keep writing. Doesn't seem to be having much effect. Affections and affectations aplenty. What a difference a vowel makes. All about time now. Could bitch about how my life my has deteriorated for 2 fucking miserable years... possibly 4... i dunno. But one of the reasons i went West was to get to Pocatello to begin work on Bind Sided. And to meet Ashley Guy in Payson and fly the Quad-4. Annndd... just so happened to have an old girlfriend who lived in SLC. But bitching won't do any good now. What's done is done. DBS played in Pocatello in 2012. All i got is a poster on the wall*. And i didn't take that down. Couldn't get shit for it. Sell dad's paintings? Jesus christ on a bicycle. Couldn't get much for them either. But the Coffey is big and colorful and has a nice frame i thought it might fetch a fair price. Not like there was no story behind that one either. It almost fell out on the kid pictures.

What's done is done. Even though nobody seems to care just wtf that was or why. How much are your kid pictures worth? So excuse me all to hell but that is what i do do. Find out what exactly was done and why because that is the story Cinderella. So Petunia was more than happy to get me the money to get out of town so everybody could tape off the property for Mac's party. And the rest is history. Her story. Ha ha. And now the fucking calliope is firing behind the trees... and now yer tryin to tell this ol man there aint no circus. Especially one that's seen the Elephant.
Elephant in the room. Because baby boy moved out with his girlfriend. So she started collecting young boys, etc.
Expected she was fixing to make at one of the boys and was to send me off on a mission.

Got cotched prisoner with them boys at Chancellorsville played cards und drunken secession. They never found the gold. It was buried with my comrades. So then i had to go to Pennsylvania to rob graves.
Then she disappeared one day without a word or squat. And then her baby girl was moving and she was gonna show up to up to help Amelia move heavy shit. Expected one of the boys might show up and might get froggy and might have to shoot him. Never showed. Didn't happen. What was done. Oh wait. No it wasn't.
Because the deal is not what was done was done. The deal is: what is done was done.

Think this story is about to start writing itself thanks to you guys it's about time. Difference between was and is. Ja ja forget the past tell that to the Deutsch. Not dead. Not even past. You can feel it in Germany. You can feel it here. Txt is more powerful than text. And i forgot speech is more powerful than txt. Especially since i cant do it so well anymore. But i may have been touched by the hand of god. Ezekiel has seen the wheels of fire. Amelia it was just a false alarm. Been txtng Amelia all afternoon. Baby wants to dodo show business. Does not know... that she is in the show. That makes her a prop. Wah. Now she's mad. Now it is a suffering contest she is bound to lose.

So the war will never be over for old Henry. And Rosa was having dreams of Verdun. Perhaps it is good that she opted out Early. So now we can see easy as can be the past is only a pun. Nobody knows anything and it is all conjuncture unless there was someone there with a camera and a notary public shooting the porn scene so they can put it up on the internet. Facebook. Instagram. YouTube. What kind of candy-ass la la titi le bullshit is that? Don't hear that calliope? Behind that tree? That's artillery. Thump. Thump. Jesus starting to scare the horses. And the screens of the lying soon follow. Have you nieber sieben wot that kin do to a House? Nobody tells the truth... so nobody lies. Nothing is forgotten. But it gets covered up with strip malls and cellphones and party and la la and nobody talks like a civilized human being. Never try to speak literature.

You will be taken literally.

*and i also got paid.  that's important to the story.   

[pan]

Still want to produce DBS again.....gotta figure that out in Florida.  

*and we will make sure to include royalties for the creative staff in the grant request.

[waldopaper]

well it was designed as a costume drama before we lost the costume possibility... but the soul of the thing  was still there.  Set design pulled it all together.  Gburg should be jim cracky now that the characters have emerged.  Story is probably a year away.  Libretto about 9 months after that.  But the story is splicing itself into the carbon world... and my fam thinks i have gone mad.  

The're probably right... but they look like the nutzoz to me.  

[pan]

Looks like the Gettysburg Artist in Residence thing is an annual event.  Maybe, after you got it ready we could propose a performance on-site.

http://us9.campaign-archive2.com/?u=eb6fe56f2127a53be980200a9&i...

[waldopaper]

yeah but the deadline is in 3 days...  

[pan]

But they will do it again next year...and the year after that.

[waldopaper]

Official story:  poor long-suffering mom driven away from her home by evil drunken dad and domestic violence. hopes that her children will help reconcile her broken family.  

 

Real story: wants to do art but aint got the heart... so gets bored with life and wants to recapture lost youth... turns into hillbilly fuck-pig who thrives on drama parties and speed. fucks with the kids' heads.  

 

[waldopaper]

Today's Brain Dump:

Don't worry... I aint gonna all Mormon on ya.  Just ran to these lyrics... and they're spatial.  

1. If you could hie to Kolob In the twinkling of an eye,
And then continue onward With that same speed to fly,
Do you think that you could ever, Through all eternity,
Find out the generation Where Gods began to be?

2. Or see the grand beginning, Where space did not extend?
Or view the last creation, Where Gods and matter end?
Me thinks the Spirit whispers, “No man has found ‘pure space,’
Nor seen the outside curtains, Where nothing has a place.”

Far out, eh.  And here's some local girls to sing it for ye.  You can see the neighborhood in the background.  And speaking of local girls, one of wrote a book that's getting lots of attention.  Here she is singing with John Reed in Cambridge.  But Sianna C-R is starting to make a name for herself in Old Blighty.  

[BO]

Feeling a bit like Aqualung after spying all those videos. 

Glad you made it to spring, Waldo. What's happening in your own personal universe?

[waldopaper]

How are YOU old man?  My red cells are out of the danger zone and avoided the tube.  Not afraid of it or anything... but the meds frequently fuck something up while trying to fix something else.  Maybe cos it's their business now to sell procedures or something.  Living in the Suggahood (aka "liberal containment zone") surrounded by insane fascists.  Used to that... from back in Duckburg... but these guys are into some 19th century version of Scientology.  Pretty wierd.  Still recovering mentally from loss of the Jenny.  

[BO]

Luckily, no one in my family has needed much in the way of 'healthcare' over the last few years. But the amount we're paying into the system now in the eventuality that someone needs it, is incredible. 15% of of our income. That and the Seattle area's exploding property taxes are forcing a lot of older people out of their homes and many are moving away. Sanctuary city madness combined with typically, neoliberal politics is turning the city into a total shithole -- with resulting increasing crime rates and homelessness. And our civic leaders have no idea how to deal with problem. So they just keep raising taxes and keep adding more sports arenas and convention centers.

But hey. Everything is Trump's fault, right? Just need to put democrats back in office and everything will be groovy again. Seems, the oligarchy's scheme to divide and conquer never stops working. And to make sure they aren't challenged, now, they're in the process of shutting down all dissenting voices. Not sure how to label this country now outside of calling it a dead democracy. 

[pan]

We are trying to figure out how to retire early - before Jo is vested and before we are eligible for Medicare or Social Security. The Insurance costs are a big concern, probably the only thing keeping her from resigning effective immediately (academia sucks no matter where you go).

Dems would be better but....not good enough. Not enough to fix a very broken system when they have a vested interest in keeping the system exactly the way it is. Unless and until they decide to actually become the Party of the Working Class it is pretty much going to continue to go to shit.