"???!!!"

Okay here's a conversation stopper. I was abducted by them Saucer guys back in 1955. From my Aunt Sybil's back yard. Eh,...my Auntie is the one in the middle in the third photo that's me in the second. And that's Swedish jet fighters taking down one of them weird annoying bastards in 1953 or so.

Good shoot'n guys!

These family photos taken at about the time of the,...eh incident.

Both Aunt Sybil, (...to center),and I were taken by these weird robot guys. We ended up in what I thought was a big airplane hanger...I had seen a few by then. Ya see they didn't shoot you in them days for wandering around airports.

There's me above at he time of the gleeful incident.

Anyway this big robot guy was carrying me to who knows where...I didn't know what they did to Auntie...still don't. Anyway I ended up in what looked like a room full of giant washing machines. Hey that's what they looked like to my five year old self from dream recall.

They gave me a bath.

????!!!

Yeah I don't know why either.

Next thing I know I'm with Aunt Sybil again, and we're looking down on the City. We're flying over the Brooklyn Bridge...thing is I remember details like the fact from above the bridge looked rusty needed a paint job, and serious repairs...which it did at the time.

Interesting.

Next we're in the kitchen, and Auntie is cooking dinner.

Years later I asked her about that. About how could we have the same dreams. That's when she told me about the mysteries she experienced in her life...ghosts, visions, music in the sky. Basically all the stuff that folks do perceive, but mostly never talk about...for obvious reasons.

Me I have no shame as I just posted somewhere. In fact I told the story on the air about how I called the radio station's manager saying I couldn't come to work because I was having flash backs of my UFO abduction.

WBAI radio, wbai.org,  for all it's current sins 'is' the only job on Earth where your boss will give you time off because of UFO flash backs. She even asked if I wanted to talk to a UFO post abduction counselor...whom she knew.

??!!

Good grief.

Anyway I think them space guys have been messing with my family for years. My brother had some of that missing time jazz both when he was in Vietnam, and here at home. That on the highway at night upstate. Other relations mention stuff from time to time.

Granted most of this is bullshit shit, but there's that 2% or so that ain't. Who or what them folks are...who the bleep knows...excerpt maybe the NSA, and the Phone Company. ...and 'they' ain't talking.

Stay Tuned.

"Oh Yeah?! ...Well Mine's Bigger!!"

Some serious un-thoughtful outfit run out of someone's basement, "Formlabs", is producing 3D printers that can make complex circuits. So now you can make triggering devices for bombs or toasters using the raw material found in any kitchen. I think there was a science fiction short story about this mayhem back in the 1990's. The "printers" in that long ago future-cast were called "Makers".

Cute.

Great now I can make an ashtray whenever I need one. Comrades you get that this is bullshit, and like VCRs in 1970 just for rich nerds? ....you got that right? 3D trinket making will play itself out, and vanish. Industry will use it for certain things. However the main users most non-opioid addicts foresee will be terrorist of all sorts. (...nothing against them opioids.) Assorted maniacs,...Nazis religious nutters. That stupid kid at school. The weird guy in the editing lab the pissed off boy friend the moron that just feels like it will use it for making undetectable firearms, and bomb parts. In fact that's the first thing folks chatted about online when these 3D things showed up.

Yeah sure they'll be fig-leaf safeguards. However any bunch of 14 year olds will get around these in an afternoon. Thank you "Formlabs" for making the world more interesting. Let me know when you patent your "Mr. Surprise" pocket Anthrax nail bomb.

"Pensively departs..."

Barbie realized that life as a cloistered nun was not for her. She departed the convent of "Saints of the Burning Hook", and slowly walked the wet cobbles to her waiting limo.

From my dear friend Lucile:

"Somehow I doubt, as Barbie must have also doubted?!"

She "doubted" as so many have,...and left. As for the limo it's a 1955 Caddy. A gift long ago from Elvis. Which btw is indeed enchanted. This since it drives itself services re-fuels, and every 3 years repaints itself.

...Black.

She 'never' leaves home without it. Nor would I.

"Cashless'

American money is one of the most uninteresting currencies in the world. I mean even with the up coming change for the $20 dollar bill. Heck Canada ya know them nice quiet folks that live upstairs? Well they have some of the most weird, and colorful wads in the world.

Them African countries have dough that's always interesting, and amusing. Some printed on only one side, and they tend to change what with astronomical inflation out there. There was even one with a UFO on it. Seems the local President for Life or till the next Coup was a space alien fan.

...good for him.

Anyway the above  is a modest proposal to jazz up the scratch we carry around. I have an idea for a $13 dollar bill with a homeless family huddled on the front, and a foreclosed home on the back. I'd put Walt Whitman on the $7 dollar bill. Bart Simpson on the $60, and Lenny Bruce on the $150 buck ticket.

All garishly colored in the style of Peter Max of course.

(...more on this as I think about ways to abolish the whole ridiculous idea of money in the first place.)


Stay Tuned.

"More of my Crap"

( Here's an old silly story I wrote years ago. Com'on it gave 'me' a chuckle.)

I your all knowing Uncle am good. I mean rat shit in grandma's Apple Pie Good! Truly the Angels piss on my foes, and grant multiple orgasms on my pals.

Indeed so decent a fellow am I. So righteously Good that I walked a blind person across the Brooklyn Bridge. Mind you he didn't seem to want to go. He kept screaming kicking, and clawing.

I had to knock him out.

However I did get the old bastard across the damned bridge! Did he thank me? Ha! All he did was whine complain, and threaten to call the cops.

There's gratitude for ya.

Fortunately, for him, I was in a generous mood, and so forgave him. Anyway having shown mercy to this poor soul. I decided to show even more beneficence. I decided to take my blind, and now highly agitated charge on a trip to Atlantic City! This for a weekend of wild parties, and gambling.

Yet again not one sign of gratitude.

Just his usual screaming, and kicking. I had a deuce of a time getting him into the trunk of the Sydney-mobile. Like the "Bat-mobile" tho' my wheels are well...different.
It's lime green covered with Christmas lights, and Hanukkah candles has bright red wheels moose heads on each fender a big Godzilla head on the roof with strobe light flashing out of each eye, and a CD player in it's forehead blasting a recording of R.Crumb reading Howl.

Well off we went!

Unfortunately when I got to the "Gem of the I-29 Bypass Motel" my companion was not well at all. Aw gees. So I left him next to a parking meter by the bus stop.
That done I went on to have a merry old time gambling, and partying the weekend away!
Now let this be a lesson to all of you. "You just can't please some people"

Blessings on all My Faithful!

Stay Tuned.

"Responsibilities"

The idea the original idea of Knighthood. That is the transforming of mere armed robbers into something honorable, and moral. Which back then is pretty much what it was has always fascinated me.

The transformation of wrong into good.

There is the traditional words of Knighting, and the ones from the movies, and tales. So long ago I decided to make up my own. Okay yeah I pinched some of it from books, or movies though basically the words are mine. I hope it may come in handy for you if you ever have to Knight a worthy person. Be they old or young no matter, one size fits all.

"The Oath of a Knight"

Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be Brave, be Honest, be Generous, and Kind. Oppose evil in 'all' of it's forms. Have the Wisdom to do not what is easy, but what is right. Respect Women. Safeguard the helpless,

Honor all faiths.

'But beware of "Pride" the source of all error.

Now in the name of G-d the founder of Dreams. She who filled the "Well of Forever" with Souls, and put smiles on the lips of the yet born. In the Name of She who painted the Void with Fire. In Her Name!, and in the names of Saint Michael, and Saint George the slayers of Dragons,...You are Consecrated,...now rise, a Knight, and Assume your Responsibilities.


Stay Tuned.

"Born in the USA!"

I was born a Negro in 1950's America. In that era my family, my community had no real rights that anyone need respect. We awaited the Second Emancipation. We were invisible as Richard Wright said. So were women, homosexuals, and other inconvenient peoples.
Invisible, absolutely, and completely.

Jump ahead half a century, and a bit, and things are slightly different. Granted the ideologically zealous on the left say not enough has changed, on the right they say far too much. Like most I live in the middle of this American conversation.

A "conversation" with a body count.

Sometimes when I stand in the middle of Times Square , and see dark faces on the many video billboards I am moved. Remember I am from the invisible generation. I like to think how white time travelers from 1952 would react to all this.
Everywhere they looked they'd see us. That is they wouldn't see themselves as 99% of the crowd. I imagine they'd be confused perhaps outraged.

Never mind.

Me I'm happy to see it. Happy to see all the hues of humanity on the streets, and media of these times. Negros Asians Hispanics Natives Whites the whole happy crazed lot of Humanity in our varied shades all over the digital landscape. Here we are as far as the eye can see.

Imagine.

Mind you this means nothing to the kids. They were born into it. All colors, and types are part of their everyday world. However to us. To the last of the Jim Crow generations both Black, and White it means much.

It means the country is evolving. Accepting more, and more of the world as it really is. The Republic the Constitution is growing.

It grows, and changes, and now includes more of the people it always said it represented. Despite all of the contradictions, and the quiet body counts. As unjust, uniformed, and violent as this country can be I still believe in it. ...when I calm down.

I believe in this madhouse of Democracy.

Why? Because as I say it can, and has changed.

The ability for slow yet positive change is built into our system. Yes corporate bandits, illiterate social movements, and crooked politicos rule now, but they will fall. I don't know how or when, but they will.

It's inevitable.

Don't think so? Ask the Politburo in the Kremlin,...oops that's right. It's a Pizza Hut now.

I still call myself an American, and I still identify as a Progressive, because progress is still possible, and yes inevitable regardless of how dark, and vicious these times are. They're trying to take food, and medical services away from immigrant children.

Vicious times indeed.

Change for the good happened in this nation within my lifetime. Indeed it took more than half my life for me to be acknowledged as a whole person. That is both sad, and hopeful at the same time.


Addendum.

I was in America once. It was only for a month or so, but I was there.

Just after 9/11 this nation was united. All of the bickering irreconcilable parts of it came together as one nation. The, Great American Tribe awoke for a short time. That underneath all the mayhem is who we really are.

I miss America.

I really liked being there. In my unscientific polling so does everybody I've asked over the years. "We want our country back." Maybe the Tea Party folks speak more truth th...an they realize.

We all want that warmth of being one people. E Pluribus Unum Latin for "Out of many, one", the motto of this Republic. I want to go back to America. I think we all do.


Stay Tuned.