On Being Useful

5-31-06 Words Contain Potential Dynamite


What is my use to you? It is my psyche. My peculiar storehouse of memories & the odd manner of my recollection of the same. That is my use to you. I often wonder why I am not standing in front of a classroom full of students holding forth & asking piercing questions &, as we say, "Teaching." I did teach school for 6 years. My last class was a group of students at Long Beach State University. I remember breaking open Shakespeare's Hamlet in front of these young college students. It is the only time I ever taught or tried to teach this piece of literature often called Shakespeare's greatest and most profound play. It was a non-event. I do not now see how anyone can teach literature to students though I love it especially American literature. And am frequently surprised at some of the thoughts that overtake me concerning this and that piece of literature. But mainly what gets me is love songs I hear over the radio or very often over the intercom while I am sojourning down the aisles of just any general store buying groceries or just gazing at the merchandise in a department store trying to find my bearings. I'm always looking for that beautiful woman I seem to have missed the last time & at the same time I am looking for My Story. The story of my life.

What else is writing? It is always The Story of My Life. What else could it be? Well, of course it is at the same time the story of Your Life. Otherwise I'm not really nailing it. My only use to you is to narrate to you The Real Story of My Life. Believe you me. You have no idea how hard that is to do. And how easy. How to let it loose from the chains that bind it. We are all in jail in some very literal way. Every one of us. How to experience The Liberation. For there can be no Love without Freedom. Now I realize there is a notion that has been around for a long time that we are all incarcerated and condemned to be in prison simply by virtue of having a body. To own a body is to be relegated to the eternal status of inmate on the planet Earth. We are hostages to the eternal laws of Earth. I am not talking about that particular view presently. That is a view that was especially popular in the Puritan Biblical tradition. It has a certain amount of merit apart from the theology I believe. But that is not what is on my craw at this moment. I am thinking more along the lines of the mores of society that have become so entrenched that we have begun to assume their inevitability and their Necessity. Social customs rule us with an iron hand. We can never have a true love affair if only one of the two partners is Free. We can never have a Free Society if only a few members are genuinely Free.

This is an Experiment. This BLOG is. It is a Thought Experiment. And I have yet to do much actual laboratory work here as you may note. I am presently feeling my way. This is New Ground to me. And of course there is that whole other part of my life that remains totally unresolved. And I mean the whole business of Love. That is completely unresolved for me. What is my purpose on earth I have been asking myself every day for the last 25 years or so. I must have some very particular USE. I believe to purify the American dialect that has become my own language and idiom---and the rhythm of my sight and hearing and my perception of the world---that may be of some use. And how not to squander essence. How not to waste that which is Life-Giving. If I could discover that in my searching and in the Effort I am making then that would be a worthy Revelation. And I suppose it would come without warning. Without a neon sign advertising it. I suppose you could see it in my skin and in the few words I use. I suppose this mystery & miracle---this Glory---I suppose it contains its own means of revealing itself that is totally Independent of me. I am a mere Vessel. The words themselves must hold some secrets that go far beyond me. Why else would I spend my entire life permitting this Experiment to take place?

This Whole Operation is an Experiment I am contending. Not merely this Blog Site. But this Society, this State of California. This country---the USA. This attempted Republic of democratic states and cities. It is an Experiment. An Hypothesis. As is Every Love Affair in the history of Humankind an experiment and an Hypothesis. 'Let's see where this takes us.' Marriage & family are surely Experiments. And I shall go one step farther. I believe the human race itself (Homo Ludens, if you will) is a tremendous experiment. In most respects thus far it appears to be a failure. But there are promising aspects to this prodigious Hypothesis. And I believe the most promising of all remains Love---which we have yet to Experience as a species. There is nothing quite like the true love that may exist between a man and a woman. How is this love so composed as to evolve and become not lessened and deadened but rather enhanced and continuously purified and increased in scope and in surprise? This has to be one of the most salient functions of any artist worth a dime---as it is of every separate human being. To Explore & Discover The Sources of Love and the Renaissance of human being who seems to be beset from the very moment of birth with a Death Wish that exists in the same body as the Desire to Survive---The Libido. I'm not talking magic here. But also I AM. For the truest words contain nothing less than Magic & Miracles. This may be the Ultimate Use of The Poet.


RLG Copyright 2006

Memorial Day Weekend

5-30-06 Love of Cuntree



I saw 2 superb movies Memorial Day weekend. The first of them DEAR WENDY I stumbled across at Hollywood Video that has a movie special for 99-cents per video. It is a stunning & original American movie about America's absolute obsession with guns. No sermons no editorials. Just a very genuine piece of first-rate film making. It is a Story. And the persons & characters in this film 'take on a life of their own.' This is about magic. This is a dark romance concerning our individual & collective Death Wish. And like I say it is beautifully wrought. It is not like other films. It is deeply Romantic but it is never sentimental.

The other movie I saw on Memorial Day itself---'HISTORY OF VIOLENCE.' It also is an original film of great power if somewhat less enchanting than my first exemplum. It is an absolutely compelling tale. You won't take your eyes off the screen for a second. It is a gripping story of a man who has found the love of his life and is living out The American Dream. The only fly in the ointment is this gentleman has another life from long ago that his wife and two children have not heard about. It is a beautiful telling. It is a parable. D.H. Lawrence once wrote that 'a parable is an earthly story with a hellish meaning.' I wish Mr. Lawrence had been my sunday school teacher who told me an entirely different tale concerning parables. D.H. Lawrence also said this: 'Trust the tale---the artist is a damned liar.' In other words don't pay any attention to what authors say about their novels. The tale tells all. So much for C-Span and all the bullshit sessions of authors and their new propaganda machines. The mills of the gods grind slowly but exceeding fine.

If you, Dear Reader, witness the 2 above movies, give the space of a week between separate viewings. Because these are works of art that deepen the soul. Wonderful concluding family scene in 'History Of Violence.' Look out for the beautiful dinner being served. I counted 4 vegetables-----so American, so colorful. And I swear to God there was a plate of delicious meat loaf on that table that made my mouth water like Pavlov's dog. That of course will pass most viewers by. But it has Power. Lends force & plausibility to the movie. I love first rate movies books songs paintings cars radios computers t.v.'s-----gurls!


RLG Copyright 2006

The Fall Of Barbaro, The Horse

5-24-06 At The Preakness





The fall of Barbaro on the track at The Preakness on saturday afternoon just 40 yards out of the gate sent a chill of terror up the spine of the crowd assembled and the other millions of television witnesses. The rest of the race felt irrelevant---as Barbaro was the most salient Reason for the mass attraction of viewers. The Silent Question raised by these tragic circumstances is: Do horses exist for the exclusive purpose of pleasing & profiting opulent homo ludens and his eternal schemes of profiteering & gambling (is it merely another unsubtle form of prostitution); or, might the question better be reversed as in Jonathan Swift's great chapter on the horses who ruled the Country of the Houhyhnhnms in his "Gulliver's Travels?" In Swift's version the horse is the noble & elegant and graceful ruler of the land whereas mankind (by Swift named The Yahoos) is a symbol of corruption, cruelty & stupid vulgarity. Millions of human beings gazed at the track on Saturday as the elegant animal Barbaro stumbled and snapped the delicate bones in its right back ankle:

"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"





RLG copyright 2006

The Return Of The Repressed

5-22-06 The Hero With A Thousand Faces



Rose from the cave of desolation & darkness & nothingness to come out into the Open to slay the many-headed beast & all its millions of soldiers slaving for Moloch. It was easy as being born a cherry or a pasture. Or for that matter to be born the Pacific Ocean or the sky above it. Is Sky reborn every year? Every ten years? How about The Heavenly Bodies? Are they incessantly being reborn? I felt the darkness of hell in my heart & I woke up in the cave of the most bleak universe of the Nothing. And all I could see for light miles was nothingness pointing in every direction & containing every object. I felt the universal death wish at the crux of my soul. I watched my fellows prestidigitate day after day after day. They fidgeted before the bars of justice and repeated the cliches of their trades almost without exception. And they smiled at the eternal cycle of birth & Wish & Disease & Death. They collected their pay checks boarded the next plane for Paris & hauled out their cottage industry notebooks to record the latest of the yearly connotations from The Outfit. There would be 99,000 (ninety nine thousand) novels printed this year. Many of them mystery thrillers. And they would all vie with one another for the golden prize. Thousands of critics would scream on the white page concerning the virtues of the famous or the unknown. And millions would gather at book stores and sweat & get their copies signed and go home & say yes, we did it again. And at midnight the world would go to bed & have nightmares about itself.

The next morning everybody would be back up out of the sack. And the basketball fans would be spouting opinion at one water fountain & the movie goers at another & the book people at a third & the economists at a 4th & the musicians at a 5th. And the truth is that Monday morning is nothing but an endless saliva of opinion concerning greatness in the human world and who has or has not attained it. There are names for each of these would-be heroes. But first we must decide what constitutes an heroic deed in the present millennium of the Apocalypse. And this would be the mightiest killer of all. That person, man or woman or child who had the singular ability to strike terror into the soul of the most people. He or She would walk off with all the most devastating prizes. The rest would be left to the opinion mongers and the BSers. In the meantime there would be no surcease of sorrow and tragedy and nightmares and multiple madnesses perpetrated on the world of consumers hungry for more power and more instruments and more mansions and more luxurious objects and lavish places to go and eat dinner or hallucinate or enjoy opulent sexual frenzies that cause the insides to scream with shrieks of satisfaction and Ecstasy. Then everybody must go home for the next round of suffering & disease and funerals and the speeches that with them go. And throughout this entire round of births & eating & drinking & fucking & getting educated & then sick & then half well & hungry for fame & knowledge and more money, especially a lot more money then and only then Death is permitted to visit the True Church to find out if its Believers really Believe as they say they do. Then the great Goddess will test the Actaeons of the world. And if the latter have not shaped up then tough shit it's all over. No second chances in the realm of Queen Diana The Goddess of Virtue. Now the drunken sailors and the rapists and the clandestine child molesters & serial killers & the secret murderous governmental agencies all pay to the last bone. No last minute confessions & repentances accepted. No death bed conversions have passed The Test of Time. Game Over.


RLG copyright 2006

Walking

5-20-06 Walking Is like Writing Or Making Love



Scripto ergo sum. Coito ergo sum. Ambulo ergo sum. (I write, therefore, I am. I make love, therefore, I am. I walk, therefore I am.) My last university essay occurred in the English Department PH D program at the University of Texas where I composed a paper on Henry Thoreau's famous essay "Walking." The paper wasn't much good. I didn't have anything to say. I simply didn't know anything at the time. So I just scribbled out a bunch of graduate school malarky and got an A-. Actually all of my ideas in that paper came from Irving Babbitt, the famous anti-Romanticist, whose book "Rousseau And Romanticism" I had read and reviewed as an undergraduate. Babbitt I later heard was essentially a Taoist and a Humanist and found Romanticism uncongenial to both of those movements of thought because it was essentially egomaniacal according to Babbitt's lights and anti-social. I gained the pleasure during that time, the Spring semester of 1968, of poring over Thoreau's wondrous essay in a strange city away from all my friends---and in fact surrounded by a complete world of strangers. I did not know one person in Austin, Texas. I write these words having just completed a 90-minute brisk walk.

Let me lay down a few ground rules that come to me after many years of jogging & now walking. This is a primal Esthetic experience. And as one walks one unwinds and one evolves. I like to not know where I am headed when I leave the house on an intended walk. That way I am surprised at where my legs carry me. And my interior then will also grow. I don't consider anything under 60 minutes an authentic walk. And in fact any decent walk should take at least 100 minutes or so. In order for one to realize any inner development. People who walk because the doctor says they should may indeed receive "benefits" from their walk. But they are not true Walkers. A true Walker walks because it is a Necessity & a True Love. As a True Writer must write---come hell or high water marriage or divorce----goddammit, I am going to WRITE MY BOOK. And if my love life goes to hell in a handbasket as indeed it has now for me for many many years so be it. The Woman must Understand this or she will never fathom me. So it is also with Walking. True Walking is A Vocation & an Obsession & an Ecstasy & it is also a continuous transformation of the Soul of the Walker. A walker is a Seer. There is no doubt about it. To walk is to see. And the world opens up as one hits the 80 minute mark, say, or the 100 minute mark or the 150-minute stripe. And one begins to experience the rapture of Sky, the absoluteness of air and trees and the Natural World. This will happen to any true walker. You will become one with Nature. And don't talk to me of mysticism. I am no mystic. But a Visionary, yes. Walking cleanses the body. It works on your liver and your inner organs. That is why I say a true walker is going to take longer than a half hour. You must really get that engine humming in order to purge your liver and kidneys and your heart and also your brain, your testicles. Walking is sexy. It is a tremendous goad to health of body and of mind. It clears the tracks. Today in total I walked 145 minutes. That is barely 2 and one-half hours. And the first 50 minutes was not at full tilt.

I'm recording this now for my own Pleasure. And it is seminal, embryonic. These are fragmented thoughts from one who has been running & walking very rigorously & sometimes laxly for the past 25 consecutive years in Los Angeles & Venice & Santa Monica & Goleta. I am a terrific admirer of Beauty. First of all in Woman. But when I'm walking I also love to note the structure & texture and ambiance of houses and buildings and of cars and vehicles & of course of the whole blasted world of Nature. I am a sky worshipper. Today walking through the parking lot toward the bus stop I noted a bumper sticker on a white Volvo that had these words: "WE DO NOT OWN THE EARTH, THE EARTH OWNS US. Chief Seattle." Ladies & Gentlemen of the Jury, those were some of the most powerful English words I have actually SEEN in quite some time. And they gave me a tremendous burst of LIFE! In this age of debris & noise with superfluousness all about us. YES, I rejoiced. The sky is greater than all of us and does not need any one of us. What do I have to add to that!


RLG Copyright 2006

A Few Notes On James Joyce, 1882-1941

5-18-06 Joyce The Complete Esthete



In his first novel "A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man" J.J. set about recording the The New Scriptures pertaining to Aristotle's "Poetics" and he recycled Aquinas to set his own new secular literary Code. "Portrait" is a brilliant book sharp and clean as a fresh razor. However, it is an extremely limited book as are Joyce's 2 later novels "Ulysses" and "Finnegan's Wake." It is a prodigiously boring chore to read the Scriptures if not to quote juicy passages therefrom which always come in the rarest moments of the longest dullest treatises. I myself quote often from Joyce's "Portrait"---less often from "Ulyssses" and never from "Finnegan's Wake." Mr. Joyce was giving his own version of the Hebrew and Greek scriptures from the Old Testament to the New Testament to Aristotle to St. Thomas Aquinas to the very Catholic rectory in which he was schooled and knotted. "Portrait" offers the Joycean narrative of his conversion from the Holy Roman Catholic Church in Ireland to secular estheticism---it is his marvellous telling of his discovery of Art as The Source of Salvation and the Only Source. His denigration of the Catholic Church is almost incidental in his telling. For he is bent on forging a new Gospel, the Gospel of pure unadulterated Art.

By the time Joyce conceived and gave birth to "Ulysses" he had already evolved as an author and Artist to the next stage-----the Early Modernist Cubist era of the broken image and the Age of Freud and the free association of Ideas whereby the Omniscient Author has been displaced as it were by the omnipresent kaleidoscopic Consciousness wherein The Imagination performs its labors with no limits to a here or a now but maintains access with a constantly evolving past & present eternally juxtaposed and contending for the rights of the territorial imperative of The Mind. So Joyce's Fairy Tale of the Human Experiment evolves concerning several separate episodes in the lives of his principals, Leopold Bloom, The Father, Stephen Dedalus, The Son, and Molly Bloom The Holy Ghost & Wife & Virgin Mother & Mistress (& finally, The Sacred Muse). She is at once the glue that holds the trinity together.

For Joyce the Real Trinity is the one that occurs in the authentic work of art: Harmony, Wholeness, and Radiance. These are the sine qua nons of any successful work of art by Joyce's lights---taken from Aquinas of course. "Ulysses" is a transformation of scriptures into the New Chaos of Modern linguistics & the New Forms. The time of the novel is Dublin the 16th of June, 1904. And the whole novel occurs during that one day. But one ought to keep in mind the scriptural injunction which states that one day with The Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. For James Joyce is the Lord of "Ulysses" and his is a twentieth century tale of a busted Family in Dublin which is re-living the saga of ancient Odysseus transmigrated into Leopold Bloom to the tunes and riddles & propaganda of the second decade of twentieth century Dublin. Joyce lays a quick intellectual history of himself and The West via his scholarly tryst through the city and bars libraries hospitals stores courts---virtually the Institutions of the Age. There is no emotion in this story which concludes in a non-stop stream of consciousness monologue by Molly Bloom who lies in bed reciting her sexual history of suspicions & longings & delights & descriptions with nary an end punctuation for 30 consecutive pages.

Joyce believed the goal of the work of art is stasis not kinesis. He contended that his tale is intellectual not physical. Here are a few of his important words from "Portrait Of The Artist":

"Beauty expressed by the artist cannot awaken in us an emotion which is kinetic or a sensation which is purely physical. It awakens, or ought to awaken, or induces, or ought to induce, an esthetic stasis, an ideal pity or an ideal terror, a stasis called forth, prolonged and at last dissolved by what I call the rhythm of beauty." (p. 206)

This is brilliant. This whole novel is luminous. But it is not easy. It is not very sexy. It is not sensational. It is a powerful piece of literary propaganda contained in the tale of Stephen Dedalus. It is an intellectual masterpiece.

One more quote from this book which will not leave my mind---probably because it is part & parcel of my own Autobiography. This comes from "Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man" also:

"You made me confess the fears that I had. But I will tell you also what I do not fear. I do not fear to be alone or to be spurned for another or to leave whatever I have to leave. And I am not afraid to make a mistake, even a great mistake, a lifelong mistake and perhaps as long as eternity too." (p. 247)

Mr. James Joyce is echoing here the audacity of that great love affair that occurred during the Middle Ages between Heloise & Peter Abelard---two Roman Catholics sworn to chastity by their sacred vows to The Church---but who fell totally & irrevocably in love. Heloise took that risk of declaring her passionate and unequivocal love for Abelard in public knowing that very act might result in the eternal damnation of her soul. This was in an age when virtually Everybody who was Roman Catholic The Only Christian Church believed in the literalness of Heaven & Hell and their eternal status. True Love had entered the world of Heloise & Abelard and they could not deny it. Later Abelard recanted. Heloise-----NEVER! In a way, James Joyce is expressing above in that marvellous quotation a similar defiance toward Heaven & Hell & church doctrine. He is expressing his One & Only Allegiance to Art and the sacredness of the Esthetic Way. The whole novel is a testimony to the independence and the purity and the divinity of Art. Everything else in the world takes second place for Joyce. There is no other loyalty. There is no other God. There is Only Beauty!


RLG copyright 2006

In-Crowd On The Golf Course

5-17-06 The New Yorker Wonks: God, Golf, & Updike's Sex Life



Picture this scenario. Long time New Yorker in-staffer John Updike who is noted for his novels dealing with marital sexual infidelity & a kind of blase Protestant Christianity oozing over everything & blessing the sexual promiscuities that add up over 120 novels or so is out on the golf course in a foursome with Jorie Graham, Joyce Carol Oates & David Denham. Denham & Oates take up the cudgels against Updike & Graham. Miss Graham herself is somewhat stooped from her attempted & failed prayer bouts with The Deity over the past dozen years that she has religiously documented in her poems. Updike sees a real challenge to his enormous sexual appetites here---a relatively young lady in her early 50's with reasonable good looks & quite a bit of local prestige. A Harvard girl & darling of Helen Vendler's and someone devoted to the pursuit of God and she 'doesn't care who knows it' in the immortal words of Raymond Chandler. It just turns Updike into a tiny little melting meat ball on that roaring green golf course-----with of course Editor in Chief Denham & his sidekick Oates pounding the links from the other direction. This is Classic for Updike whose verbiage is almost like Bible Commentaries-----Endless, innocuous and finally, tedious. Not to worry. Joyce C. Oates has been sending off emails to friends of friends of friends of friends of current Members of The Nobel Prize Committee for several years now and she is screaming inside for that final Ultimate Recognition so she can spend the rest of her years scribbling her Memoirs which she hopes will exceed the Fourteen Labors of Hercules. She added a couple just to give herself incentive to do something Ambitious, Homeric, and to make us forever bury the the swollen memories we have of James Joyce & Marcel Proust. Mr. Denham of course is merely watching this whole serenade of intellectual & esthetic & theological violence while he tees up or lines up his putts. He promises to publish all three reports of these stalwarts separately & unexpurgatedly in successive issues of The New Yorker come autumn or come Hell or high water. I don't read The New Yorker any more so I won't be writing the reviews on the golf course dilemmas of The New Yorker Magazine.


RLG copyright 2006

Make Love, Not War

5-17-06 The New Love Revolution



Send manna from Heaven to the Palestinians rather than bullets. Send them food & open up the roads to them. Give them what they deserve---ALL the privileges of a democracy. Ditto Afghanis. And surely also send food to Iraq & nurses & doctors & medical supplies. If The Democrats can't do better than Bush & his monstrous murderous regime then they better cash in their chips & let us Independents take over. Did John Kerry ever suggest sending food & medical aid and American physicians to Iraq? Did William Jefferson Clinton do so? No he was too busy kissing the ass of his militant Israeli Zionist supporters who paid all his bills. Are you ALIVE, Dear Reader? If you are ALIVE then you are not dead to Love & Freedom which are the offshoots of Truth. And it you are not dead to Love & Freedom then you have come into the sacred presence of Beauty as I have and you have found it irresistible. It's not ok to murder strangers who live in far away countries in the name of patriotism. Patriotism is a false & useless concept in the absence of Love. And when I use the word LOVE I am not talking about some frail perishing whisper used by the church or politicians or weaklings to further their agenda. I am not talking about that cheap crap you see so often in the movies---I love You as a device to curry favor with the beloved or the beloved's family. I am talking about the Real Revolution that first occurs on the inside when you experience Freedom from the lies that have encrusted this whole society in every single one of its institutions. The minute you begin to love one other person as you love yourself with that totality of Acceptance then you have opened the doors and windows of your own soul. But before that can happen one has broken the chain of neurosis that previously connected one to the system of falsehoods that incarcerate human being.


RLG Copyright 2006

Dead Women

5-15-06 For The Victims (the tens of millions Robbed of their beautiful lives & who died miserably & forlorn)



They lie hidden in the woods & in rivers & lakes & oceans, in dumps & under the ground in back yards & scattered inside dumpsters, in anonymous places-----the Victims of Ted Bundy he of The Republican smile & the line of horse shit Americana, Can-I-Walk-You-To-Your-Car patriotism. The Green River slaughterer of female prostitutes out there in green rainy Washington. Don't call the cops-----they're busy hunting Arab terrorists in Utah while 5 yr old girls get raped & chained by the latest right wing Bibliofiliacs who own their multiple Slave Wives starting in first grade or kindergarten at age 2. Their boys are indoctrinated by the latest version of The Klan & The Sicilian Mafia---only these maniacs hate their children & wives even beyond the scorn traditional Mafiosi Males feel for "women"---the Fifth Sex, and children (the Sixth). And as Bob Dylan sang---I repeat: "The cops don't need you and, man, they expect the same."

Visit The Mormon Tabernacle Universal Cemetery just any old place west of The Rockies if you want to go back to your old dead American Dream about How Good It Is in the land of The Free & home of The Brave. You won't find any markers there. You won't find any monuments bearing the names of these anonymous dead. Oh, yes, there may be a few exceptions---just to prove The Rule wrong. But for the most part these women & children passed on into The Ether without acknowledgment of their presence & Value on Earth. Indentured Slavery has been going on non-stop with the full acquiescent knowledge of the community & the FBI---who knoweth all things the CIA & the other obscene agencies that protect the rapists & murderers from the threat of Justice & The Law. There is only one law for these tyrannical polygamists: White Men Can't Sin & White Women & Kids Can't Not. Throw away your copies of the U.S. Constitution & the New Testament. They do not apply to the state of Utah & Idaho. Here MAN is The Measure of All Things & Love conquers nothing. Don't throw away your Confederate money. Christ had white blood. And his mother was made out of white milk.

Roger Williams, Quaker, was considered morally unfit for America not by The Natives but by the troglodytes who came swaggering onto the new continent bent on reaking havoc on the savages who lived here and on their savage land untempered by the shafts and swords and shot guns of The Holy Bible which these Invaders carried as Weapons of Mass Destruction. These Assaulters of the Human & The Natural & The Sacred later attempted to temper their violent obscenities by inventing euphemisms. They called themselves "pioneers" and "pilgrims" and even "settlers." These were property-mongers who Terrorized the land and its original inhabitants-----The Primary Characters who simply LIVED their lives according to the unwritten Laws of the Wondrous & Awesome World of dazzling self-sufficient Nature. The Ancient Law---The Golden Mean---said this: Avoid Extremes. Stay away from Excess (Wealth) as well as Defect (Poverty). Store not up for yourselves too much of anything but make sure everybody shares in the opulence of abundant Nature.

But there was a maniac run loose on the Earth. A devil whose name is GREED who wants MORE & MORE & MORE & MORE rather than merely Enough. He wants all the OIL & Real Estate & Millions & Billions of dollars & a Plurality of houses, cars, women, and Other Luxuries. Ask Mr. Joe Good, Founder of The Billionaire Boy's Club. Mr. Good offered Members all the de luxe cars, luxury apartments, expensive jewelry, blue ribbon clothing, & every Extravagance necessary to The Successful Superman of Wall Street---all of these items stolen by Mr. Good for The CAUSE of his Company---Joe Good's Billionaire Corporation whose Constitution was written & enforced by, and only by, Mr. Joe Good himself, the Great Me Myself & I Trinity of The Billionaire Boy's Club. The Members were Promised Everything they Wished for. And Mr. Good guaranteed the success of every Member enforcible by Himself to the point of Death to any human obstacles. He required each member to take the Oath of membership. And be willing to do Anything including murder for the Good of The Cause. And murder He himself did of those who stood in his way---including mighty people of the world of MONEY. Ladies & Gentlemen of The Jury: Be ware of what you Wish for. The Author of your fulfilled Dreams may very well be The Devil.


RLG Copyright 2006

Did Elvis Go To Heaven Or Hell?

5-13-06 Questions, Said Rutger Hauer in "BLADE RUNNER"


Yesterday I was reading another biography of Elvis Presley whose tragic life has so consumed me the past 5 years or so and I came across the question at the head of this page: Did Elvis go to Heaven or Hell? Apparently this question has labored the minds & consciences of millions since the death of The King of Rock & Roll on 16 August 1977. I understand that this question concerning Elvis's eternal status in the beyond has not only vexed those Evangelical Southern Fried Chicken Christians but also rank & file Unbelievers. They also are greatly concerned for the eternal Soul of Elvis Aron Presley. And this is a telling datum on the whole business of Superstar or Celebrity and metaphysics and religion and of course America itself above all. For Elvis Presley was he who became America's Soul circa 1956 and never stopped being so. He as it were assumed the mantle of America. He incarnated America in the flesh. Elvis came down to Earth to put on the garment of American flesh and blood and hope and Suffering and thus his death was sacramental as his life was an Allegory as the poet John Keats once wrote the life of the poet is an Allegory.

Elvis passed out of his mortal flesh at the tender age of 42. But from all the written accounts he had already died long before that. He had ceased desiring women which surely is one of the fundamental signs of Being Alive. For years Elvis had thrived on popping drugs morning afternoon and night. He slept days and lived it up nights. And he always had a trophy woman within striking range. But in those tragic latter years he was content to have his lady lie beside him in the bed watching t.v. and going to get his pitcher of water & his pills. He had no more desire for sex and love. He was by this time a Musical Machine. And also a Cash Cow for several people. He still commanded tremendous fees for live performances and received tremendous sums from record companies from the cash sales for his recordings. He was only 42 but his closest friends had seen death coming for a long time. There was always something slightly Un-Human about Mr. Presley from the age of 21 since he began taking immense quantities of Speed in the army. He always stood apart. He was The King of Rock & Roll. And he could drive an audience into the sea of Frenzy when he began to strum his guitar and sing his songs and swivel his hips. The women began to shriek and throw their arms about in ecstatic cries of sexual delirium the minute Elvis ascended the stage. No other singer in history commanded a crowd of women like Elvis did. He was their one and only God. And therefore when He died they denied his death. Had to. Of course! The God never dies. Many of them of course knew he died. They were aware that he had shuffled off his mortal coils. But He remained Elvis Presley. How to square THAT with The Facts.

Did Elvis go to Heaven or Hell asked these people. Because wherever Elvis went they were bent on going down the same path. Heaven and Hell somehow became realer with the death of Elvis Presley. NOW it must mean something truly real. How could it not if it took Elvis into its domain? There must be something here that we did not previously understand. Elvis' death threw the whole world of religion into immediate Limbo as it were. For all of a sudden everyone was there with Elvis. First inside the box in Memphis. And from there to wherever that Great Carriage carried the soul of Elvis Aron Presley. Thus, men and women were ripped out of their comfortable atheistic lives. For, truthfully speaking, everybody in decent health is essentially an atheist 24-7-365. O sure, some people mumble a few prayers before meals & once in a while might get down on their knees before they go to bed just to cover the bases. But in the day light of money song & sex boys & girls & men & women are all slaves of Moloch. But the minute Elvis' death came over the inter com of The World a strange new obsession penetrated the whole world of The Elvis Worshippers. They could never again be the same. Nothing would ever again resemble Reality Pre-Elvis. There would only be Post-Elvis and Pre-Elvis to the True Believers. Like pre-lapsarian & post-lapsarian humankind. Those who lived before The Fall & those who came after.

Is Elvis in Heaven or Hell? And if so will He stay there or is this a volatile situation? (Or, has Elvis been Re-incarnated as the Dalai Lama claims to be the Way of Death)? Elvis himself had begun experimenting with the ideas of those who practiced various forms of immortality. He had not arrived himself at any hard and sound and safe place that we know of. We do know this: Elvis Presley drove the Question of Immortality into the brains & hearts & souls of his listeners as no man had accomplished since the death of Jesus. This is an experience that does not translate onto The White Page. It does not fit comfortably inside the vowels & consonants of Written American English. Somehow it is closer to the language Elvis himself spoke---the inimitable & forever mysterious language of music---The Melody. And we cannot go beyond it. It is futile for us to try. Did Elvis go to heaven or to hell? What a stupid question. What is Heaven and Hell? Are they a place? And who has any control over it? And once there should it be a place you can get out of and go to the other place and vice versa? There is no book of Rules on this subject. This is a realm of Superstition and Legend. Elvis fans will have to find new ground to break for their own souls. The King of Rock & Roll is not coming back for an en core.


RLG Copyright 2006

Clean Up Your Plate

5-13-06 Or Bust


Sometimes I'm glad I'm not a little kid any more---not often, but every once in a while. O-----for a lot of reasons. One of them being I hated the idea of cleaning up my plate & being told about five times a day that the little boys & girls in China would just love to have that abundance of food I was letting sit for the dog on my royal plate. Well, can't anybody see the reason I was not eating that crap is because I despised it? Fat for one thing----I never ate fat as a kid. Hated the stuff. It choked me. That ugly fat did. It got lodged in my throat and wouldn't go down the hatch. So I usually dumped it on the floor under the table close to one of my brothers' places when nobody was looking. Beef fat was ugly stuff. I fled it like the black plague. Chicken fat the same. Pork fat-----No thank you. The little boys & girls in China are welcome to every morsel from my plate circa 1942-1955. I will wrap it in tin foil & mail it Special Delivery. By the time it gets there it may be fit to eat. I don't know what other rare culinary effects I let sitting there. I think fat was the only real sore spot with me. Although as a kid I also hated onions and refused to eat them & was no fan of carrots either. I am surprised now all these years later I could never sit and reason with my parents on this delicate subject. But obviously I was not equipped with the necessary information at the time. What does a kid know about anything? Well, of course that was pre-computer child.

These days, according to a book I read on the new Millennials, little kids are already online as early as age three! And they have fully formed opinions on the burning questions of life by age 7. Good for the kids. I'm on their side. I was just thinking the other day there are the married people and then there is Everybody Else. The Unmarried. Which includes kids and all bachelors and divorcees & actually even quite a few married people who want to Get Out as fast as possible but can't find the EXIT. This is a constant state of war. The married people have declared themselves owners of this plot of ground called EARTH. And we the Underlings have declared war on The Owners. So how are we ever going to come to a working relationship I wonder since this whole operation is being waged underground. Nobody even admits it exists. Until this moment I introduce The Great Silent Subject. Whenever I have brought up the topic of The Conspiracy I get the same old shit from the comfortably employed home owners with kids. Conspiracy?-----You sound paranoid, Jack. Get a wife and kids and we'll talk over the back fence some day. You'll be singing a different tune. Hmm-Hmm. Heard that before some place. I think it was at a swap meet.

In the meantime though it's tough sledding. Hard to get a grip. Don't know who's Really Married as opposed to Wanna Get Otta Here married. And then all those millions of ladies with boy friends who look like they exist in a state of incarceration. Well, yes, it could be an interesting ball game if the women ever left the house the same time I do. But I guess most women prefer prison to the natural spontaneous Romantic Situation. However, it has recently begun to dawn on me that this IS the New Romanticism. The Free Market. Marriage and Family and lots of money & cars & houses & games & stuff for the kids to get the Best Education Money Can Buy and a free ticket to The Lottery of Life. And: Don't confuse me with new facts. And please don't drag politics or ethics into this---I've got enough trouble raising my kids. It just started striking me this morning----I am The New Realist. THEY are the Romantic Idealists. Realists tell The Truth no matter how it falls. Romantics are forever bending the facts to make misery look like sweet apple pie and smile smile smile just like Tony Bennett sings in that stupid song about: "smile when your heart is breaking" to prove how tough you are. NO! When your heart is breaking let the world SEE that----not your phony macho bought in honky-tonk smile.

It's exactly like Thoreau said it was in his book WALDEN. He wrote, "the mass of men (and I add women) live lives of quiet desperation" throwing away their lives on futile labor 6 days a week in order to pay off the mortgage while their minds go to rot so when it comes time to die they have "never truly LIVED---LIVING IS SO DEAR" (capitals mine)! Too dear to be squandered on mere possessions considered valuable by The Market and its adoring citizens. And I include here as UNNECESSARY debris (We can live better Without It!)at least 90 percent of the books that clog Borders & the major book stores. Walk through some day. Examine the whole bloody lot. THIS IS AMERICA. Like the sidewalks full of empy coke cans & cigarette butts & candy wrappers & soiled napkins & other refuse that somehow escaped the trash bin. Or just examine the local rest room you use in any cafe or restaurant. Note the floor strewn with debris as Starbucks is every morning or afternoon or evening I enter one. Every time I leave the floor has been rescued from the litterers & spoilers. But I note the next day the same old crap prevails.

These are American premises habituated by the great American Average Citizen we hear so much praise concerning. Shall we talk about the anal retentives that presently rule the roost and who have murdered as many as 1,000,000 Iraquis (and probably closer to 2 mill.) in the last 15 years of this Apocalypse---with American bombs & U.S. sanctions. SANCTIONS, they called their MURDEROUS acts that slaughtered the children of Baghdad & devastated their schools & hospitals & infrasructure. Almost all the weapons around the world originate in the USA. Go then, Brothers & Sisters, fill your houses and arms with The Loot invented & manufactured in America for your seduction and your degradation & your & my eternal distraction. Get Knowledge said some old geezer & in all thy getting get UNDERSTANDING! Throw away the garbage surrounding you, says mighty irresistible Feng Shui. Dump Wall Street for a more reliable religion. One that loves Peace come hell or high water& values True Knowledge.


RLG Copyright 2006

Epistemology

5-11-06 poem from my college days



she had on a long face
& i had a temperature of 103.5
my feet hurt
my intelligence was waning
& i was beginning to sweat
profusely in a lot of places
she was very erotic
& my head was thumping
i wanted to have a good stiff
drink with her
& set our lives in order
i was a little jammed
in the cerebrum
she was so tall
& her face made my temperature
go up another notch and a half
105 on the nose
i was hot
i had the fever
& all these little creeps began
to gather around us
& interrupt our opening move
so i stumbled out to the cafeteria
& began to prepare for epistemology class
but inside my gears never stopped
grinding
as i tore into my coffee &
croissant


RLG copyright 1984

Nourishing Your Organs

5-11-06 Fasting



There is a basic amount of Fasting necessary in order to cleanse our organs and our arteries and tissues. Our livers are overloaded and need continuous periods of rest. The way to make this easy on the liver is to go on periodic water fasts. You can't do this cold turkey. Here is a simple trustworthy approach. Begin by eating only cooked vegetables for the first day. Don't use canned vegetables. Don't use any sodium or spices. Simply raw cooked vegetables. The second day eat nothing but raw vegetables & fruits. Tomatoes, celery, orange, lettuce, blueberries, pineapple, banana. Hold off on avocadoes & peas, sources of protein. The third day you begin drinking nothing but distilled water. Try it for 3 days. Nothing but distilled water. You probably have some illusions about fasting as most people do. Put aside the prejudices and try this simple Cleansing diet. It cleans out your liver & your kidneys and all of your inner organs including your heart. It strengthens The Organism, believe me---if you do this regularly & THEN cut out your regressive eating habits that damage the system. You will have renewed energy just from this brief fast and cleansing process. It is wise to fast several times a year---if only one day at a time. A one-day water fast every week is ideal since you can regularly put it into practice and it gives your liver that important day off to cleanse itself.

We dump unnecessary junk in our bodies every day---at least I do. Every time you put another donut down the hatch or a large order of fries or anything canned you are asking for trouble in the long run. Avoid sugar & saturated fat that comes from many sources but mainly in meat. Maybe you consider fasting a thing for freaks. Many people do. But many people also pull up to McDonald's three times a week & dump suicide materials into their digestive systems without blinking an eye. If you eat meat more than three times a week especially red meat you are probably locked into a bad eating schedule. Who's the real FREAK---the person who has the guts to cleanse his system regularly & who strictly regulates what he (she) puts into the mouth & stomach or the promiscuous eaters who let sugar romp around their insides and get diabetes & heart disease by age 40 or 50? Get plenty of rigorous exercise doing something you like. And eat wisely. When you do eat meat always put at least three times as much vegetable as meat into the meal. This distributes the protein & carbos in a reliable pattern and eases the process of digestion. And always drink lots of water during the day rather than eat pastries or junk food. If you have any eating tips for me to boost my culinary habits & also any advice concerning working out jot me a note right here. Remember this: Everything you eat has to go through the liver. Protect your liver from death: Water, Raw vegetables & fruits.


RLG Copyright 2006

Catholics Don't Eat Meat On Friday

5-7-06 Lies My Family & Church Taught Me


This I guess is why I became a Catholic---at least an intellectual one. I never regained the church habit after losing it in college. The original was a losing proposition----a crazy Hollander Calvinist Protestant outfit that gave me enough dogma & smugness & hatred to last a few lifetimes. But as a kid I heard in my home and about the church my family attended this very strange sounding notion: Catholics don't eat meat on Friday. Which meant: Catholics are weird & unBiblical & Unbelievers. Yes, one of those kind of Protestant denominations. One of those outfits that busies itself in judging other churches to be ineligible for Heaven because they have so many idolatries. Those words had terrific moment for me as a 7, 8, & 9 yr old lad and even beyond that to age 11 & 12. Nobody in my family or church whom I talked with went behind the custom. Nobody! These were essentially ignorant church-going peasants who had no interest in the WHY of The OTHER. I did cultivate an interest in The Other. But it took me a while. My real eye-opener came when I entered the public high school & immediately & naturally began to befriend Catholics & Methodists & Lutherans and even a few agnostics. Immediately I perceived these were human beings much like myself---without the trappings of a self-righteous & prosecutionary church such as the one I was forced to attend as a child & adolescent.

To this day the sentence "Catholics don't eat meat on Friday" is a potent statement to me because of the undertones it carries coming from a violently anti-Catholic base. It was never explained to me that Roman Catholics decided as have all major religions that it was their duty to make a sacrifice for the Source of their Redemption---as it would have been described in my own family & church. And so they considered it a minimal act to give up eating meat on the day Jesus was said to have been crucified. Catholics also give up meat during Lent. I have never heard of Protestant Christians of the orthodox breed to give up anything as part of the custom of their religious practice. They became part of the capitalist program of the USA that plays whore to the ruling State Pimp of Absolute Consumerism. These new right wing fanatics that call themselves Christians have essentially eviscerated the 4 gospels & The Sermon on The Mount & The Life of Jesus for their own measly capitalist purposes.

Thus one even hears of them spewing out calls for revenge against for example Muslims as their forbears called for the blood of Catholics (or Protestants if they were zealots from the other side). In today's LA Times one of these hate-mongers and fear-peddlers glorifies those good wars that he affirms save the good from the wicked. Such stupid & monstrous paranoia does not belong in the pages of any respectable newspaper ever. It suggests that the newspaper believes it is addressing its opinions to morons & imbeciles & idiots. There is a better way of operating a newspaper business than allowing such fools to vent their rage & stupidity. One simply allows the very best minds to express their views. Plato once argued with tremendous powers of persuasion that the only truly fit rulers for a successful Republic are the philosopher kings. These would be the persons who had been trained their entire lives to rule fitly. And why shouldn't we have the best trained and most wisely educated men & women ruling us at all times? I await your answers to these brief disquisitions & sometimes confessions of mine


RLG Copyright 2006

Belle de Jour

5-4-06 How To Get Out Of The Dungeon



I woke up in the Place. But I didn't really wake up. Just opened my eyes and began to move about the general area. Began to take walking lessons. Read some books. Viewed numerous movies---always trying to alleviate the boredom that was threatening to devour me. The boredom came from all those postponed women. All of them. Thirty years worth of postponed women. I set up this terrific defense system. And here it is. I watch films every night. I get them from the library or the video store---usually Wherehouse or Hollywood Video. I became so adept at it (watching movies alone every night) I actually believed what I was doing. I loved these damned films after a while. I'd really settle in. Sit down on the sofa & let the presses roll. Sure, I thought about the beautiful one also. Wished she was here with me. But I had no hold on her. And I was slowly turning into a robot.

And when we would meet suddenly unexpectedly at the university after a while her eyes registered absence of knowledge. There was no recognition of me in her eyes. That was a shock to me. A form of terror that I instantly buried. I spoke to no one concerning any of this. And I continued to behave like a zombie. She had been in the center of my mind while I wrote & studied & hosted my television show. Now all of a sudden she appeared in my path & all I could think was God, her life is empty of me, her eyes are blank. And I couldn't thus express the intimate powerful feelings I had for her they seemed so out of place. I'd go home & then the old Conspiracy Theory would kick in place. THAT was the reason she was so non-involved. She had to conceal her real feelings for me or she would be punished by The Enforcers. I'm making up the terms here as I go along. But there was some script she must have been abiding by which I had no access to that made her so indifferent. Otherwise wouldn't she have written me a friendly acceptance to my written invitation to dine with her? It seemed rational. Yes, it certainly did seem rational. But no date in all these years. No longer weeks and months. Years! And the world goes crazier every minute.

So I didn't go to bed with any of them---the beautiful ones who loved me. That is correct----LOVED ME! We didn't even kiss the kiss of love. How can that be? It does not seem possible. Yet day turns into night turns back into day and back into night and weeks turn into months turn into years and the most lovely possibilities are still remote possibilities sitting in the closet of my psyche now & then leaping out. In the meantime (and much of it is MEAN time) these women have been accumulating memories. They have followed second or third choices. And followed what they believed to be their only destiny. While I waited. And waited and waited and waited and waited. And am still patiently waiting. I exuded Poetry there at the beginning. It exploded inside of me & came to a fullness. But then I got disillusioned with the game of poetry. And now I am happiest working in prose forms. These women no doubt have been eating and drinking, talking & working & thinking & also having sex & in some cases having babies. O yes. They go on with their lives without consulting me. I get no emails or post cards from them. Occasionally I meet a new one. And many of these are tender & friendly & they make me feel vulnerable---in the good sense, open. But only for a moment. For they rarely have time to sit with me & pause & gaze & speak. Haven't had lunch with a woman out here in 10 years.

And so I watched movies every night. And it became an established ritual. But it did not quite satisfy. It took me to bedtime, that's what it successfully achieved. But no more than that. I slept alone every night "knowing" that things would change soon. But things didn't change soon. A new female face occasionally. And even every once in a while intense attention from one of them---almost always when I was in love with another which makes the beauty of the challenge impossible to estimate. I stayed in my dungeon. Why? Because my imagination for change was so warped by inexperience. As strange, almost unbelievable as that seems. My mind was full of vigor and power and accuracy. Yet, I could not move my body in the necessary way to position myself for erotic success. So I wrote every morning of my life. And for a long time I played with the faces of the university women. But after a considerable time had elapsed I finally got the picture. We were not connecting. These women lived on a different wave length than me. I am slower than they are in the realm of the emotional and the sexual. And I am wary of transmitted sexual diseases. But mainly I was emotionally commited to one specific woman who had commited her eyes to me without reservation. That is the sum of it. Nothing else. She never gave me a verbal commitment. I just assumed at some point owing to the craziness of the incidents that this woman must be laboring under the terrors of the Conspiracy. Otherwise how could things be so goddammed mad? Unless the woman has a heart full of hate which obviously she doesn't.

And so 18 years passed and I am still living alone in the same apartment. I've met 25 new women in the past year. But I am not a presence in their lives as they aren't in mine. We pass eachother of a morning or afternoon at Starbucks. We might exchange several words and sometimes even an intimacy or near intimacy. So far no lunches or movies or long walks. No love seances. No sexual intercourse. Not even any kissing. Shall we begin by shaking hands? Shall we find a comfortable private place to have lunch or late dinner? And then meander to a movie.


RLG COPYRIGHT 2006

The History Of The Woman

5-3-06 Her History




You asked me for the details. They never give me the details concerning their life. Not present and certainly very little of the past. That's why there is so little female story in my Master Tale. It isn't as though I'm not hungry for the facts myself. It's just that by the time they leave town they have left me an empty book regarding their entire lives. And believe you me it is a hell of a note to have that blank tablet. Today's Wednesday by the way. That matters to me. There are no little things in love. And every Wednesday since I first encountered Wendy Reeves has been a day that stands apart from the other seven because of the name: Wednesday=Wendy in some inevitable sense for me. As far as details go I have not seen her in more than 25 years. I have met remarkable women since then. But to meet is not necessarily to know. How do you ever find that miraculous Other who is instantly & automatically & irresistibly your Equal? That is what I mean when I say the name Wendy Reeves.

A few years ago I encountered the actress Julia Roberts on Main Street in Ocean Park. She was giving me the eye. That's correct. She was giving ME the eye. She had her head on her shoulder & she was gazing into my eyes the minute I nonchalantly accidentally on purpose began to look at her as she walked past me going in the opposite direction. She came out there to send me a specific message. I was headed for the Ocean Park branch of the Santa Monica Library to return or to pick up a book. And there was Julia Roberts on the path nailing me with her eyes. And I mean penetrating me. Why? Well, it immediately became obvious to me that she was 'Acting Symbolically' at that moment. She was singling me out to tell me that the Other Roberts Woman in my life whom I hadn't seen for a couple of years was still IN The Big Picture. That is what I gleaned from that little miraculous direct encounter with the famous Hollywood actress. It was a direct hit. But the information contained in that encounter was immediately absorbed & known by me as a FACT. Thanks, Julia! That is how my life has been unfolding these last 30 years. When I ask a woman directly & specifically for information about her life I seldom receive a substantial answer---especially, if she is a woman I am powerfully attracted to which happens only rarely of course. When I am interested but not Romantically thrilled to have such information I note that facts often flow my way rather freely. One of the signs of beginning intimacy I have observed is whether I know a woman's actual birthday or not. When I ask for that date and I get back the month or the sign but not the actual day I realize we are not on equal terms.

So they leave town, the women, and I am left without their new addresses phone numbers or emails. So be it. That is the nature of Reality in the year 2006 as I experience it. Not everyone is so unlucky. I'm talking about women now and only those women who have given me the same level of intensity as I have given them regarding our relationship up to that point. In other words the mutual attention was strong, the eye contact unbroken. A true bond of deep intimacy had been established which was renewed on each occasion we met however few words we often exchanged. Number of words exchanged is no barometer of the depth of feeling two people have for eachother. The intensity of the gaze and the manner of the look during our encounters is a much more accurate indicator. The content of our conversations will vary of course. Often it is banal. We talk about the minutest details of the moment of our everyday lives. That to me is of no consequence whether we speak of the great books or of trivia. There is no trivia in love. What IS of consequence is that we do meet as often as possible and get to stand or sit as close to eachother as posssible in order to establish intimacy. The words will come at their own pace. But there must be occasion. We do need to sit down sometime to have a conversation. Get in her car at some point and go to a movie or merely to the mall to stroll through the stores and open up the channels of communication.

Wendy & I never got to that delicious point. The point of getting in the car together & going for a stroll. That is itself an achievement to me that precedes sexual intimacy. Although most of my contemporaries seem to favor beginning it all with a one-night stand. I prefer beginning with the long deep Unplanned frontal kiss. In other words this is pre-nuptial table talk here. I don't walk around the streets with a blueprint of how I am going to woo a woman I haven't even met. I'm just saying the ideal thing here. And it has happened that way before. And it is Natural. I.e., it does not come from my intellect. OK. I'm in Limbo now. Got home today & felt the absolute Emptiness of my career. Haven't given a LIVE performance of my Writing in 4 years. Half the time the people I meet don't even know that I am an authoritative WRITER 24-7-365 without exception. A Take No Prisoners Writer. And known to be such! This is no joke. This is no game. I am in this for The Whole Ball Of Wax. And my BOOK will be published. Indeed, my First Book is already written. It remains only to be accepted by a Publisher and sold to you out there------THE READER. And this love story will be in it inside out and outside in. Keep your eyes open. Stay tuned!


RLG Copyright 2006

The Pleasure Principle

5-2-06 The Ego Negotiates



I have a strong drive for Pleasure. But this Desire involves the knowledge and agreement of one significant woman. And even before such negotiations can take place between her & me I have to come to terms with The Reality Principle. Libido is full of wishes & wants & lusts. Super-Ego however is always preaching about duty and responsibility and politeness & obeying the customs and mores of family & church & a whole lot of other phoney stuff. Phoney but nonetheless real obstacles to my immediate satisfaction---since they are invisible characters that have set up shop in my psyche and are constantly at work undermining my intentions. They operate under fictious names so I can never recognize them unless I call the whole operation to a halt and set myself down alone in an empty room. Ego on the other hand is trying to set up situations that are realistic for my ongoing happiness. And here I must say, Hold it! What ongoing Happiness? This is a dead-end street we are talking about here and there has been no on-going happiness for the last ten years. Therefore, Ego itself is existing in a state of misinformation if not out & out delusion. If Ego has been at the controls of this Operation for these last 10 years what are we to say of his competence at running the whole show? I must give him an absolute 'F' for Failure to direct the organism toward Happy Boulevard & The Palace of Pleasure.

Therefore the only sensible thing for me to do at this point is to nominate a fresh Ego to take over the controls. I have no jurisdiction over Libido who is running wild day & night screaming for Pleasure Pleasure Pleasure---I WANT I WANT I WANT I WANT and once more I WANT!!! That is all I ever hear from Libido. Although L. has luxurious tastes in women I am beginning to note. Where did I pick up that habit? I always choose women who make about 10 times as much money as I do. It does make a kind of sense since that way we shall be well provided for. It's just not customary in this country of weak male egos who have accumulated all these cowardly habits of opening doors and buying flowers & generally filling closets with unnecessary accoutrement----such as 25 or 50 pairs of ladies' shoes, dresses, coats, sweaters and such. The houses keep getting larger & larger in order to contain the junk. The yards keep expanding in order to maintain the vast collection of debris that grows like an empire. While the Desire of the owners keeps dwindling. With me it's the opposite. I have no warehouses full of cars & planes & 100 business suits or 50 pairs of Italian shoes for 1,000 bucks a crack.

But this empire of Desire that likes to call itself Libido is like an army and a navy & a marine corps that keeps giving me orders to receive satisfaction NOW---and that includes always the most inconvenient hours of the night or day---including especially times the ladies are absent & I am without their phone numbers. Libido doesn't seem to know anything about clocks or calendars or family sleeping habits or respected customs let alone legality. L. cares nothing for rules concerning marriage or society or propriety. Nor has any respect for work days or weekends or for that matter 3 oclock in the morning. In short, we have a problem here of Who is minding The Store. I don't know if I'm running this ship or if Super-Ego is in charge or Libido. L & S are both throwing a lot of static my way whenever I cross bows with some really hot new dame. For instance yesterday this really lovely smiling babe came prancing up to me in the cafe as I sat at table. She was ripe as a fresh cherry ready to fall off the bough and I couldn't even find the words to say hi, let alone hey, wait a minute, I'll walk you to your car. Super-ego had me distracted with small talk about some damned stupid book I'd been reading---The Intellectual Trap. This dame was lean & clean & tall & smiling. And she was smiling at me! She was good looking. Here I sit 26 hours later mumbling in my half sleep. And Who is telling this story now? Is THIS Ego or Super-Ego or is it more Libido blabbing out in the open trying to find an opening for me? Well, I hope it is Libido because I am beginning to miss his point of view & I need some Life in my life. And I'm sick of these excuses coming down from Super-Ego---who is nothing but a talking book, if it's not the Bible it's some damned word-monger philosopher who is too busy talking to ever get laid. Libido, the track is open---let's hear from You! I need some smooth new easy love in the flesh of my life Now. And I don't care who knows it.


RLG Copyright 2006