Saturday, February 28, 2009

DISTURBIA FRED & MARILYN

aloha again,
this is like a Tim Burton trip down memory lane.thanx Rampster...

MORAL DISABILITY @1980s
FRED comes to mind immediately.
a lil backstory here.i have read comic books/graphic novels since pre school and only gave up the habit when i could no longer afford it and housing.i have worked part time/off & on at comix stores in SF.now the people who work there are seldom hotties,usually fat basement dwelling comix trivia trolls of either sex but mostly males.then there was Fred, i forget her real name but it was something girly and bland which Fred was definitely not.now in the comix the ELEKTRA costume is lil more than scarves and red stretch bandages (unlike the movies) so Fred was an instant hit at comix convention with her dark curly hair,sexy lithe body and intense flinty gaze. now Fred was friendly enough as men drooled over and on her but there was an inner coldness about Fred.i think she had just dumped her BF and was looking to make some money.Iran was in the news then too as the Shah ahd fallen and refugees had come pouring into the US. so Fred hatched a plan by reading various newspaper ads from across the country,being a talented but starving artist she faked a series of legit looking IDs and went trolling.
as i rememeber it she went to half a dozen cities and married half a dozen men (no sex) for $5000 each, the men were all Iranians (Persians).now Fred came back and boasted to us,her co workers- as she had no friends,about how smart she was.i guess it was smart if you consider defrauding the Feds a great idea...then unfortunately Fred got greedy,she decided to blackmail her six 'husbands' for more money.like a permanent ATM right? WRONG! turns out the father of one of Fred's husbands was a member of SAVAK the Shah's ruthless and uber brutal secret police.Fred was informed that her body would never be found if she continued her greedy ways.
now Fred had NEVER USED HER REAL NAME Anywhere,so this sent chills down her pretty spine and we were instructed to call her anything else but her real name.i chose Fred and oddly enuff she liked it.so all was peaceful until one day Fred got a phone call at work then ran out like her hair was on fire never to be seen again.they mailed her last check to her parents.

SELF ESTEEM ISSUES @1970 NYC
she called herself MARILYN and she was blonde,busty,wearing wire rim glasses,sorta plain and broken.i met her at a commune forming meeting ( A NEW DAWN -sic) then later over a series of parties where 'getting to know each other' was the goal-several of us lost $600 each in this land & trust process.a lot of money in 1970 -sigh.
anyway i had my eye on the leggy feminist who would later leave me for the commune in SF not her.at a pot party in Brooklyn she was sitting with her shirt off (which some chose to do) exposing her large veiny breasts and asking if 'i liked her'. as opposed to what i asked? turns out Marilyn was homeless and was trading sex for a place to flop, she was being passed around the men like a soggy blonde joint. how sad. seems most of her life so far had been a variation on this theme .when this half hearted venture broke up Marilyn wound up in Brooklyn living with three other girls and a small sly pothead faux hippie guy who told her to 'earn her keep'.i went back to California....
there were no homeless services in those days except the Salavation Army and i have no idea if she sought help.
don't be like her,if you need help ASK!

DSIABILITY SNARK love da concept!!!
go see Midlife & Treachery plus Cat in a Dogs World Blogs,tasty with GOOD LINKS.

namaste
semper gumby
mega

URBAN MYTHS

aloha,
i am crushed,crushed i tell you.(theatrics-Casablanca style)
Rampster (see his blog!) has accused me of plagarism with Bloody Mary (see his Comment).ah, the thanks i get for baring my soul? Rampster are you just playfully twisting my tale? tails?

no
I DID NOT STEAL THE TALE FROM SNOPES OR THE URBAN LEGENDS TV SHOW.
it actually happened to me. i was trying to explain the context of Nasty J et al with nude therapy and whatever.her name wasn't really Bloody Mary,maybe that's confusing to some but calling her Fred (another tale ) or Lil Big Tits (biker's girl) didn't have the same allure.
the thing about REALITY (sic) is that it doesn't have to be within the boundaries of belief.short example (non fiction) i met a woman in 1970s NYC at Central Park who had a horrific tale to tell.she had been thrown out of a hotel window,where she'd been whoring, by an angry trick or pimp i forget.she had broken every major bone in her body while laying hours in the rain waiting for help, which eventually came.this woman delighted in showing off the scars from her reconstructive surgeries , yes this did involve getting naked and touching her rock hard implants.so anyway she wanted me to crew (i.e. have sex with) with her and her husband on their boat around the Carribean ( i was on their boat briefly in Long Island).
i said NO i was going back to California.she asked me to look up John Presmount (his real name) and say HI.
yeah right,23 million people in those days and the odds of finding this one man were ridiculous. so about a year later my current leggy GF decided to join a commune,i visited to snoop around and found a pamphlet listing the history of the group ,rules and its past incarnations plus the real names of the founders...John Presmount being one of them.i delivered the message so they all thot i was some kind of spy or mind raper,whatever.me and my leggy GF split then she split from them (old Arab Proverb "a dissatisfied woman demands toasted snow". amen) and i saw her later looking haggard in the Haight.no pleasure in that unfortunately.
you would not accept this in a Tom Hanks or Sandra Bollock romantic comedy BUT IT HAPPENED TO ME.
trust me, i do not have to make up crap to fill this blog, i still have tales i think the statue of limitations has run out on...
whatever.

namaste
semper grumpy
mega

Thursday, February 26, 2009

HURTS SO GOOD?

aloha,
doing my bit for BLACK HISTORY MONTH again.

BLOOD MARY 1968
when the Buick T boned the Corvair in LA i was moving with my cousin and her new ex con dyke GF.there was pain,jarring pain then chroinic pain etc etc.
one day i woke up find a strange naked busty white woman pythoned around me.now i always sleep naked and so was she.
i tried to remember if i ever had seen her before,no.
was i dreaming? no,i could feel her warm breath on my neck and her pubic fur on my thigh.so what gives?my cousin peeped in,waved and smiled then left.

long story short
she was the Mistress/punching bag GF/sex toy of a married local club owner.they were both from New Orleans so she was used to walking the streets barefoot,( literally not as a whore).Bloody Mary often walked the half mile from her place to ours naked except for fresh bruises and once all bloody from having her pierced earrings torn out violently.she never called the cops and she cried a lot.
i had learned in Harlem that some women,like my mother and her friends,always seem to be attracted to the kind of men they bitch about.Mary was one of those.she turned up in my bed once or twice a week, my furnished room had twins beds,so i soon got the idea that if i treated her in the manner expected she was all mine.
oh goody..i didn't.so my cousin's ex con GF found her a black dyke to slap her around and she was happy, i think. Mary and her new lover moved into the other twin bed until they got a place of their own.Mary continued to sleep and walk around naked which earned her a few slaps here and there.

my cousin and her ex con GF soon got heavily involved in THE CRIMINAL ELEMENT you hear so much about so i moved out after they stiffed me on their share of the rent three months running.

1990s
so that's Bloody Mary,after my divorce i worked with a curvy young woman who was a club crawler who told everyone she was dumping her new BF "cuz he treats me too good". go figure.
we are all affected by abuse in differing often bizarre patterns, it keeps life Interesting.

in other news,
i will try not to write anything else today.
i just got on to see by the Tagboard festure isn't working.no really.

semper grumpy
mega

SEPPEKU 2

aloha,me again.
a lil less dark this time,
there are boobs involved,promise.

SUICIDE 2
over the last 17 years me and Soul Mate have lost at least 3 friends that we Know committed suicide.they were all crips who had reached the end of their rope,we miss them.they were GOOD PEOPLE! momento mori.
Soul Mate has suggested the real reason i have not pulled the plug is CURIOSITY and ROMANCE. natural nosiness on the one hand and seeing the ruins of my own parents marriage lead me looking for the genuine alternative (ACA remember?)
when i stopped typing yesterday i recalled King Amfortas (sp?) from the Grail Mythos who had the vaguely described WOUND THAT WOULD NOT HEAL,some think it was an STD or gangrene,i think maybe it was Depression,PTSD or suicidal thots.Maybe huh?

LESBIAN NUDITY
completely off topic,
i told you about NASTY J & our nude talk therapy sessions (for balance there was a divorced older bisexual NICE J -AKA 'Normalwoman" who had the same birthday,when they met THEY HATED EACH OTHER.same birthday,same name,different peeps).

since i hit Californicatia lesbians have liked me. esp. the butchy/flannel dykes.
when i worked at the swank hotel where i met Korak The Killer and Andre my boss was a slender blonde lesbian dyke "EVE" who wore her shirt unbuttoned to the navel (no bra) under her loose uniform blazer,later she trained "STEVIE" to take her place,same shirt ettiquette (no bra).now the open shirt look is okay as long as you stand erect with shoulders back,the swank hotel waitresses showed slightly more skin.
now in hotels Housekeeping knows that Security is always staffed by loners,psychos,drunks and perverts (sex addicts) so whatever porn or weapons is left behind ends up in the Security office,some good stuff too.so i'd be flipping thru the latest Penthouse or glossy stroke zine and Eve and Stevie would come in to make comments leaning over my shoulder like 'i'd do her!' or 'i'd tap that!' now the first time it happened i thought it was accidental but the other times when pink nipples and entire breasts popped out and stayed out...
Eve was a large A cup or small B but Stevie was a generous pink nippled D cup easy.i knew they were both screwing with me and it was showing off sexual but basically platonic.now i am basically an ass & leg man but still this was jarring,a lil.
i had seen my then BFF Asian naked fresh from her shower and it was no biggie, we were all nude beach regulars in those days.still sunny everybody naked versus hot breath in both ears exposed in a tight space,you get the idea.so Eve quit and Stevie soon got fired,some of it for nipple exposure and dumbness.this preceded my wedding and nude reception with GriZelda and Nasty J then the nude therapy talks,just so you keep the timeline straight.i think this blog is my version of a Nasty J talk session,hmmmm...

ON OUR BACKS
ah, a crip tie in.
Nasty J had friends who created ON OUR BACKS a cutting edge (for the 80s)lesbian stroke and arts zine.Nasty J was in one of the naked 'dogpiles' photo sets and they were the first place i saw naked disabled lesbians as sex objects,now they have websites evoking CRIP PRIDE while showing 'the flag '(sic).have to ask my manhandler gay friends whether the beauty worshipping gays have adopted this yet? there are a few het websites devoted to Amputtee Porn,some real and some Photoshop (check out World Sex News if you're into that).different strokes???
(PAUSE TO THINK NAKEDLY SEXUAL THOTS- remind me to mention Bloody Mary sometimes okay?)

in other news,
still shifting thru what Obama's Stimulus Package (that does sound suggestive doesn't it?) means to crips , me & mine.
GOOGLE Marty Omoto or CDCAN to get the latest skinny,until the starveling economy kills his website anyway.
namaste
semper gumby
mega

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

SUICIDE IS PAINLESS?

aloha,
one of the consequences of Depression (and PTSD) is suicide.
it is not always logical but it is true.

once i had left my mother's poisoned nest and was living on my own in LA (after the traffic accident but b4 LSD) i became deeply depressed.here's an LSD related analogy,it's about 3 or 4 ayem, you're not sure which-sometimes you wonder if Time has even been invented yet, you're on a dark deserted subway platform,almost alone.waiting for a train (or Godot?) creatures which may or may not be human lurk in the shadows.if you're lucky they're the harmless homeless or hopped up hypes,if you're not they're vicious muggers or predators looking for the weak...this goes on for several eternities then a train comes.
in Depression the train never comes, the sun never shines and all hope is lost forever...
as a child i lived on the twelfth floor of the Abraham Lincoln Projects in Harlem,i often thot about leaping from my bedroom window to my death.unlucky or stupid people were routinely murdered by being thrown off rooftops,since we were all black the local cops always wrote it off as sucide.so yes,people did get away with murder,routinely.
somehow i didn't leap.
i thot things would improve once i got to LA but as they say in the movie Buckeroo Banzai "no matter where you go,there you are" or,as i have boiled it down over these years "it is what it is".
i was deeply suicidal, i thot of walking in front of a bus or car blasting thru a red light.i thot about it more than sex and chocolate Combined,which should astound those who know me.
i used to go to the Love Ins at Griffith Park to watch half naked hippie girls dancing,it was free beyond the bus fare.one day on the grass i found a book STEPPENWOLF by Herman Hesse (made into a decent movie with Max Von Sydow i think) about a man planning to committ suicide on his birthday-I LOVED IT! spoiler alert! it has a Happy Ending.(damn).
after I'd read and re read the book another book appeared on the grass for me (no no not on The Grassy Knoll) ZEN FLESH,ZEN BONES by Paul Reps,at least it had a murky indeterminate ending.then i found LSD and started living and feeling less sorry for myself, this worked quite well (despite chronic back pain) until my back blew up in 1993.
Vicodin did nothing for me (sorry Dr.House) and i was SO DEPRESSED I STARTED WATCHING BASEBALL REGULARLY.
now i was very conflicted,
i had divorced GriZelda ("I don't want to be Happy!" besides she'd already found my replacement) about two years before this and met my Soul Mate (after much futile searching and newspaper ads) a year previous, so i was sure i'd finally met THE LOVE OF MY LIFE (other than my kids and the good parts of GriZelda) and i had very detailed plans about taking my truck down to the beach at sunset,taking an overdose,taping a plastic bag over my head and handcuffing my wrists to the steering wheel (can't be too careful right?)-with a very visible note of course.i didn't want Soul Mate to think any of this was her fault,her life had been hard enuff already.
this plan kept me going for day to day. one day Soul Mate told me half naked women were belly dancing, for free, two blocks away and when i refused to leave my dead end baseball game,she knew i was in trouble...turns out i was dying of Liver Failure (from the Vicodin) and the chiropractor she found,(Erda a wonderful fat dyke with brain tumors who loved me,it's mutual) thot i'd be dead in less than the two weeks it took things to turn around,but i had something to live for (see above).Soul Mate also found me peer counseling groups concerned with death,dying and chronic pain where i met heroic women like Jackie and Juliette (both since deceased).
years later i was suicidal again when we lived in Mendocino County,i typed my weird ass stories on my garage PC with an unloaded gun on my actual desktop.
'self liberation' is what the pro suicide elements call it (i've been a member of the Hemlock society since the 70s,bout the same time i joined the Universal Life Church-i am a Reverend in it still), most times i agree.
suicide is like one of those funguses that doctors can't cure, that sounds too flippant but that's all i got today.constant applications of hope,joy,faith,beauty and discipline.that and be Very Very Honest with yourself,writing a journal and having great gay friends works for me (thanks G Man & Kev and my dearly beloved dead buddies).

in other news,
my oldest son has a birthday tomorrow YEA Z MAN,
his mother's is the day after Yea GriZelda.
check out the Blog about Midlife Treachery when you have a moment.okay?
note; love the song but never watched the series MASH.

namaste
semper grumpy
mega

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

PTSD POSTER BOY, NO IT'S NOT ME

aloha again,
i know i'm wearing out my welcome on this PTSD thing but it's still a brand new perspective to me.
maybe it'll help some vets family cope too???

WWII PLUS 35 YEARS
this will seem odd but it's too true to be fiction.i met Korak The Killer when i worked at a swank hotel,we were both security guards,there before us was..."ANDRE" about 55 and bulit like a short angry bowling ball.his parents were from The Old Country and Andre grew up bring fluent in both French and German and so when WWII rolled around he was in high demand on the front lines.i always wondered why Andre seems so pissed off at everything,he even called Korak "another pretty boy" (meaning a pussy) when they first met.you know those right wing jew baiting Holacaust Deniers? i think Andre badly hurt a couple of them in his rages.Andre was literally the first American to set foot in several Nazi Death Camps,his description makes it sound like opening a sizzling hot oven door to Hell.he never got over it. he had all the PTSD Symptoms BIG TIME-hypervigilance,alcoholism,rage,domestic violence,rapid and dangerous mood swings,paranoia etc etc etc.
plus he collected derringers and killing knives (oh my!), he and Korak bonded while discussing the best killing knives-a tie between the Brit Fairbourn Sykes (sp?) commando dagger and the ever popular Bowie knife.Andre was a miserable seething mess and he'd picked up fluent Japanese during the Occupation by marrying a native.i thot he could make a fortune as a translator or something for a multinational but now i see why he didn't...he and Korak both got fired 'for cause' and i quit nine years later.i saw him guarding some building near Japantown in SF months later and he shrugged off the firing,Korak later had several jobs where he abused people,women or power before debunking to the Great Northwest with a Japanese woman who owned a yacht (or so it was said).Korak left his wives,children and girlfriends behind.far as i know Andre is still with his first Japanese wife.

INSIDE OF FEAR
this is related,trust me on this.
i met a blonde commune hippie girl just after i started doing LSD in the late 60s,one of her friends had just done his first acid trip and was totally confused.'what did you see?' she asked.
the short version is he was inside a Tarot card,Judgement from the Major Arcana,wherein nude bodies in coffins rise up when the angel Gabriel (or whoever) blows his horn,his version had the coffins on a fast moving river heading for a waterfall, he was in a coffin which went over the falls then straight up to meet The Angel who told him IT IS INSIDE OF FEAR.he didn't get it.the rest of us acid heads nodded,we got it then walked off.

i have always advised people NEVER TO BLUFF A MANIAC,they can smell fear just like dogs do.i had dark rages when i was younger when i went out looking for somebody bigger and meaner to kick their ass,i never understood them (the foulness and anger). i have had jobs where i was armed,both legally and semi legally,whenever i threatened to ventilate someone's skull i always meant -it just like my Daddy taught me.
( i underscore here that i was NEVER A BULLY,if anything packing heat made me politer. as in 'is this petty sh*t worth killing this fool? NO.' not always true when i drove a taxi) despite Doc Holliday i never really thot of myself as A BAD ASS,i wasn't even in his league.but due to PTSD i had become genuinely (perhaps stupidly) fearless.FEARLESS with fast cars and weapons,everything except choosing the right partner. casual sex yes,sex with the faithless yes but A SERIOUS RELATIONSHIP????
i was not ready. i think it took having children after decades of meditation and soul searching to cure(?) that. i have been told that i have "a unique personality" but that's usually from people who like me.others quote the punchline to that old Jesus joke "everyone else just thinks you're an assh*le!"
in other news,
Judas could heal too.think about it.
scan the Blog Lists,some are really good.

semper grumpy
mega

Monday, February 23, 2009

PTSD AGAIN

hola,
NPR did another show on PTSD today,oh my.

i am torn about how to blog about this,
honestly as always but with or without the cheap laugh.
let's go for the cheap laugh then digress.

NASTY J ARMY GIRL 2
i married my Ex GriZelda at Muir Beach in Marin,it has easy access and is half nude and half textile.we wanted a nude wedding but most of our friends said they'd refuse to come so we compromised with a half anf half potluck reception (most of them didn't come anyway,screw ups).we were married in hand made (GriZelda) and self designed (by us) kimonos and costumes of authentic Japanese materials (Kasuri Dye Works of Berkeley which is no longer there,too bad a great place). several of my co workers were up for the nude reception part before we left for our brief honeymoon in Canada.
when we returned i went back to work with NASTY J (Army Girl 2) on the graveyard shift.now everybody knew Nasty J was screwed up but nobody knew why or how.well, after a very personal 'wedding gift' to me and GriZelda i came to know her a little better than most...

slight tangent,
in hard times a security guard job is golden because the building owners get a huge insurance break if warm bodies patrol the premises, the owners can make a profit and still pay the guard-bots well.

so we worked together and several nights in a row i'd come back to the home office after patrol and find Nasty J stark naked,i had no complaints and as a hard core S & M dyke i knew it wasn't a come on.(Nasty J carried a pink meter long thick dark green dildo named SIMBA in her knapsack everywhere she went).

like the shaman,first the symnbolic shedding of skin then the confessions...Nasty J had been in the Army rather than go to jail for attacking some guy who groped her.Nasty J had grown up in one of the worst porjects in SF and had been repeatedly beaten and humilated.
her mom was a single mom after her years long stint as a biker gang boy toy,Nasty J had no idea who her father might be.Nasty J slept 12 to 16 hours a day then came to work, she also drank heavily,had mood swings,depression et al.
she'd sit there crying,when she wasn't having sex with the other nude reception co worker,moaning about how hard and miserable her life was and how hard it was to 'find somebody'.well, first the all she scared the piss outta my EX GriZelda with her wild and mean streak then she was fond of handcuffing her new 'slaves' to the toilet for her roomies to find.she was a mess but she'd liked being in the army routine until she got a bad paper discharge for being herself.too much herself apparently. she eventually left for a better paying job...

notice how i mentioned shaman and symbolic shedding of skin? cute eh?

THE OLDEST PROFESSION?
hunter/gatherer of course then i think possibly shaman.
Neanderthals buried their dead with dignity,jewelry and care hundreds of thousands of years ago.Maslow (i think) had the Hierrchy of Needs and once the belly is full and fire keeps that hungry menace in the dark away humankind turns spiritutal.shaman (often disabled or different) became the gatekeepers to other realms and healing in this one (think midwives and herbalists too).off hand i cannot think of ANY human civilization which does not have a shamnic /healing element,can you?
i have a small postcard of Stonehenge on my desk next to my monitor (next to a happy Jesus,2 Batmans and the Joker toys)...that was leading somewhere,hmmm.

ah ANCIENT EGYPT and The Book of the Dead,like Babylon, ancient writing was full of spells and curses just as gypsies today still ply their trade in false faith.
FAITH is intangilbe but nonetheless real.tests have proven that water that has been prayed over is more beneficial to plants and people (holy water? holy cow!)

REALITY itself is more than the scientific jigsaw puzzle most people believe but people have jobs to go to,children to raise,adulteries to pursue,crimes to commit it is only when DISABILITY OR LOOMING DEATH ARRIVES THAT WE TAKE THE TIME OUT TO ACTUALLY OBSERVE OUR SURROUNDINGS.
TO BE,IN THE MOMENT,NOT MILES DOWN THE ROAD ATTEMPTING THE NEXT TASK.
BE-HERE-NOW!
Wake the F*** UP!
more from me later.

in other news;
don't forget to visit my friend 'rampster' who is less verbose than i.a good man and greater crip,non whiny, i like that.

semper grumpy
mega

Sunday, February 22, 2009

RACISM 2 NATIVE AMERICANS

aloha, can't sleep tonite,got a few hours maybe 3.
pain mostly,fibro and bad weather are a sleeepless combo plate.

LSD & AMERINDIANS
Soul Mate has chided me for Not pointing out my LSD and psychedlic usage was from the 60s to 90s (pre Diabetes) and not going into details of purpose et al.okay okay.
bear with me,
my Profile (see right) says BLACK NOT AFRO-AMERICANIS.
me,not a big fan of Hyphenated Americans,some of my ancestors have been buried in this beloved soil for over 10,000 years.when do we lose the goddamn hyphen?
on my fathers side in North Carolina were Cherokee and possibly Seminole,both owned slaves and let some earn their freedom.on my mother's side the fierce and deadly Apache some of whom were partially domesticated when they tired of fighting the US Army and Calvary (ironically enought the black Buffalo Soldiers).my grandather changed his name to John Stone after some legal scuffle elsewhere so tracking his backstory is near impossible, i have a treasured booklet of my mother's ancestry and family tree.

so i would be Afro-Cherokee/Seminole-Apache American,when does it end? my kids would add Irish in front of that and so on and so on and so on.
i am not African, i have had several snobbish African college students call me a "mongrel" to my face,not cool but accurate.

black... the south had a rainbow of terms for the amount of black blood you had ranging from mulatto,high yellow to octoroon to quadroon etc etc. black blood must be Hella Powerful to taint the gene pool so.i have met Africans so black they shined purple,by comparison i am the color of cardboard and genetics says the darkest partner determines skin color (except in haploid births-see Google).

back to LSD
in my research as a kid i found that Amerindians have a famously high PAIN THRESHOLD,it was my birthright so i developed it.nothing like limping around on one lung and surviving repeated asthma attacks for practice (see Doc Holliday entry).i was No Hero but i saw it as part of self mastery then i found martial arts and took it much further,i saw and did things i still find hard to believe,but that is off topic for now.anyway, you cannot study the ancestors without drowning in shamanic practices (plus i minored in AMRICAN INDIAN HISTORY at City College SF).
the ancestors live in a world much richer and yet more fragile than the Consensus Reality of our mundane average life.Carlos Castenada made a fortune writng about it but i personally .IMHO.think he's fraud (look him up,Google).when i tripped over Zen Buddhism in LA in 1968 (b4 LSD) i found an unlikely spiritual link to my red ancestors.if you've ever truly know Amerindians you will find they have a quiet but sly sense of humor,once they trust you.the Outlaw Josey Wales ( Clint Eastwood)-a great film-has several authentic examples of this.Zen taught me a lot of things and still does,one thing it taught me was LETTING GO OF FEAR.
now it happens i had done some research on LSD in the early 60s while at a community college in Texas,i had no thots of partaking merely doing research in case i wanted to write about it some day.
when you take LSD the thing you are Most Afraid Of is the first thing you meet.the ancestors knew this from their travels.i used LSD trips,among others, to strengthen my faith and to explore what was Beyond The Veil (of so called Reality).i was truly delighted to find that WHAT I THOT I BELIEVED IN,I BELIEVED IN!
is that too Zen? there are lots of poseurs and phonies (don't get me started as i can't afford to be sued) but when the Zen Temple of SF, which was three blocks from where i lived,gets closed due to international gun running THAT IS NOT ZEN!!!

Pain,Shamanic Voyages and haiku.
Zen Buddhism is technically a philosphy,open to all, not a cutthroat crusading religion.D T SUZUKI who brought Zen to the Beats and America in general was Not a Zen Buddhist himself, he was a purveyor of knowledge,as he understood it.Zen is like sushi, don't swallow anything that disagrees with you.not that it's easy mind you...
Pain is considerd 'subjective', after eons they are finally finding ways to measure it 'objectively'. people are not machines you can 'objectively' grease the gears of to help them run better.much crip/chronic pain Reality is not like that.
Zen is my bedrock of faith and self renewal (that and love & sex & chocolate,running on rage and adrenaline eventually runs dry).
it's 5 ayem now and i hope this is making some kind of sense.
haiku 5-7-5
a simple poem expressing a not so simple truth...oh boy, i minored in Japanese at SF State but i have forgotten most of it."Yurgen" -a babys smile, a field of fresh flowers, a beautiful sunset and young love all have someting in common. it's called yurgen in Japanese,English has no words for it.haiku look for yurgen.i studied and failed at writng haiku for years until i got it right.while i also studied zen koans and esoteric kung fu,but i am not getting into that tangle today.
so i was not a DEADHEAD, rarely wore tie dye before i lived in Mendocino 5 misery filled years.I BELIEVE WE CAN MAKE THIS A BETTER WORLD ONE SMALL STEP AT A TIME,WE HAVE NO CHOICE...
that's it for me.

in other news,
if you click on FOLLOWERS you can get this crap while it's hot.plus Google will think i'm not just talking to myself.
semper gumby
mega

Saturday, February 21, 2009

IS RACISM A DISABILITY?

hola, still seedy.

IS RACISM A DISABILITY?
bear with me, the ADA language is vague on this but if others recognize you as being disabled then you're disabled.my bipolar/Aspegers son does not Think he is disabled but he is recognized by doctors and other mental health professionals as so.
i was half asleep listening to NPR talking bout PTSD (Google PSTD SYMPTOMS, see Google bar below) and i noticed i had them,I HAVE ALL OF THEM.
i am an ACA (ADULT CHILD OF ALCOHOLICS) as are both my wives GriZelda and Soul Mate.my Dad was broken in WWII and my mother was a depressed codependent rageaholic from violent physical child abuse ,in rural Post Depression Texas,as were her siblings.
a short Google later i noticed there was a debate whether PTSD was transmitted genetically (sorry my sons) or via behavior mod in response to parental misbehavior ( a la Skinner).
just a tangent,
BF Skinner kept his baby daughter in a plexiglas box ( a Skinner Box) to shield her from aberrent human behavior, he hoped she'd turn out to be the Perfect Scientist, alas HO HO HO she became an artist).
so i'm thinking i recognize a lot of my life long behavior as cripplng and dangerous often to myself and others but the bedrock sanity of Zen Buddhism ( and 250+LSD,peyote,mescaline trips) plus the I Ching guided me thru the shoals. sez me...

RACISM AS BEHAVIOR MOD
what if the DSM # (whatever) defined Racism as a culturally transmitted disability? i'm not just talking White People here (altho imagine American History without racism-Native Americans,slaves,Latinos. my Soul Mate suggests SEXISM TOO but that is a much much longer blog.)

about the same time as my Cougar GFs (1970 NYC) i stumbled upon a Hungarian tourist in Central Park.one thing lead to another which lead to my mother finding her naked wrapped in a too short towel emerging from the bathroom the next morning.my Mother greeted her in English and got a reply in a foreign language...later my Mother would inquire how i'd 'tricked' a white girl into my bed who did not speak English.Mom was definitely pissed!

my Mother,despite all her flaws,went back to college after 30+ years to get a degree to teach Speical Ed but she never REALLY trusted white people or their motives.she did not believe that ANY WHITE PEOPLE WERE BORN WITHOUT PREJUDICE.
she is not alone,even today,in thinking this-but i know otherwise.my sons are proudly IRISH-AFRO AMERICANS (thanks GriZelda) and i have had too many friends of all colors and sexual traditions to count...but then i live in free range California and my mother was a product of hardscrabble Texas and ghettoized working poor NYC.
RACISM AS DISABILITY, THINK ABOUT IT... NOW THAT "THAT ONE" IS PREZ...
got Comments?

semper gumby
mega

Friday, February 20, 2009

CHRONIC PAIN- WYATT EARP

aloha,
i feel like used food, again.

CHRONIC PAIN
i have chronic pain which changes everything.i have been in chronic pain MOST OF MY LIFE, the only thing that changes is the intensity.
i rarely have GOOD DAYS, one day this year (i think) i had nearly two hours of NON PAIN,nothing hurt anywhere! maybe my nerves were all exhausted???
i lay there and savored the moment (as Buddha taught us) until it ended.i am on two or three Chronic Pain listservs but if they're not WHINING about this or that they show a doglike devotion to DOCTORS AS GOD or remind me of long forgotten aches.

how do i cope?
chocolate,violent or bizarre TV,writing,local sightseeing,internet porn, weirdness,meditation and 'being in the moment'.anything that gets me Outside the Pain.despite the classes and the lessons and years of practice,sometimes when i empty my mind PAIN RUSHS IN! oh my.

DOC & ME
can i tell you a recent discovery?
when i was a child and coping with one lung and potentially fatal asthma attacks i needed a hero when my father died.i had Batman and Sherlock Holmes but i need a real person-not Hannibal,not Alexander the Great but Doc Holliday (sp?) of OK Corral fame.Doc was a mild mannered Baltimore dentist who was given a death senntece due to TB and went West where he lived every moment until he died in bed.his last words are reportedly "This is funny."-the dying in bed part.
one of the uses of the cowboy bandana was the so called Handkerchief Fight,usually in a bar one cowboy would hold out his bandana and the crazy opponent would take the other end then start shooting, guns were not terribly accurate in those days but at that range somebody usually died.( Tombstone with Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer is the most historically accurate, the Kevin Costner version is stupid trash) anyway for years i tried to live like Doc even Zen Buddhism (which i discovered in LA after repeated viewings of Seven Samurai) was a perfect fit for this Accept Death philosophy but i found this made me a sociopath magnet,i haven't even mentioned Golden Boy at a hotel where i worked who was one of the rare few to realize that i saw thru the BS and respected that.he was later arrested for massive cocaine sales from another hotel.this was after he was caught and fired for being in the Big Boss' office with drugs and two naked hookers one night wen the BB came back unexpectedly from the Opera.i smirked at the news.

anyway, one day i had an epiphany.i was NOT DOC BUT WYATT,the normal gunfighter who died of old age in San Francisco while happily married and who is buried in Colma (nr Daly City)-see/rent Tombstone for details.it changed nothing except my perception of events.

PAIN & LOSS
chronic pain has made me patient and less dangerous,despite the abusive mindset and events of growing up in the ghetto.one of my best friends as a child had his dad move the family from Harlem to Long Island,where he and his sister became heroin addicts.there was something on NPR recently talking aout the absurd rate of failure among ghetto youth.my cohort in the projects and at school sacrificed their futures in Viet Nam (hoping for a way out) or to the heroin habits they brought home with them-which my mother wrote to me in ghastly detail."Remember Bobby Atkins in 10B,he died-" my mother's letters were Bad Juju,i used to put them on a bookcase until i was strong enough to read them.
say of the 50 or so kids i hung with one is a cop and i am in California and most of the others are dead by now.when Korak The Killer's buddy John D.(Viet Combat Vets) created the moveable Wall (authorized Nam war memorial mobile replica) i stood there perplexed at a visit in the San Jose Rose Garden.
i only knew everybody by their nicknames not their real names or even last names.it was heartbreaking and i cried for them.
basta y basta.

in other news,
my Ex who is a big fan of this blog has requested her Nom de Blog be GriZelda.granted,my Ex GriZelda.
sounds like i married a tattooed witch from Wicked or something huh?
thanks to her, G Man,Z man,unmaid,Paul and Doug for their encouragement.
semper gumby
mega

Thursday, February 19, 2009

SOCIOPATHS PENNY WISE?

hola,
feeling shabby this week,
trouble sleeping 'suit of pain' feeling upon awakening.

BROWNIAN MOTION
in biology the aimless but energetic movement of microbes.i used to accuse my Ex of this all the time.

on paper me and my Ex were a good match (altho the personal co-horoscope said otherwise,it was right). both moody,artistic,fans of horror movies and the outrageous,nudity,tattooos,morbid things etc etc Type T Thrillseekers mostly.
my Ex collected strays and one of them was Penny (not her real name).

by now you have realized that most sociopaths are not psycho killers (like Sylar on Heroes) most seem to be bankers,hedge fund managers,Ponzi schemers,pols,ruthless con artists,scammers of the elderly and disabled (draw your own list).
Penny was a South Bay trick baby of an alcoholic mother,who later turned her life around(?).when all Life gives you is a sh!t sandwich and a kick in the teeth then you never expect much else.Penny was a nomad who used to sell sex (rent it actually) as a prosititute,bikini dancer,peepshow worker or S & M bordello worker.she never did laundry just sold her soiled undies on the internet and bought new (or so she said).Penny had the usual female fantasies about Love & Soul Mates but they always ended badly.Penny was bisexual which you'd think would double her chances at happiness.it didn't. Penny saw All MEN as a natural resource to be exploited using sexual lures (why do you think they call them TRICKS???)
Penny was a sybarite drama queen and after a few months,when she got pregnant by some guy, revealed her true self as a short tempered layabout CRACK WHORE.

Penny saw the world thru different lenses than the rest of us, some of her observations were valid and some were dead wrong...in her own twisted way she loved my Ex, which doesn't explain why she stole our car (luckily it was one of two).Penny was more dangerous to herself than anyone else (see Army girl blog).

in other news,
look for more new links in the Blog area.eventually one stop shopping.
aloha
mega

Monday, February 16, 2009

BRAINS & COUGARS

aloha,
have apparently resumed my normal state of misery.
more on Pitt and Penny later.

NYC 1970
my second Cougar GF (a few months older than my mom but much nicer) was brain damaged,seriously.she'd somehow survived a severe brain anuersim which left her unable to perform her profession,acting and modeling, and left her with major panic attacks everytime she got 'lost' in the neighborhood she'd lived in for ten years.
it did leave her a gift,ambiguous at best, PSYCHOMETRY.she could touch something you owned and pick up your psychic signature and people you'd met while you wore it.not a good GF to lie to.wish i'd thought to ask where exactly her brain exploded.

SF 1980s
my Pinoy neighbor, the ghost talker, was just your average shallow immature dick obsessed older woman except when it came to the dead. the first thing she did when she moved in with us,me and Korak The Killer -for she was his wife, was set up a shrine FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE.being a mythology sponge i had some idea what this meant and sure enough the dead came trooping up the back stairs soon enough to leave messages for loved ones or to get directions to The Light (no she did not look like busty whatsherface on The Ghost Whisperer but from my knowledge of the Paranormal and ESP apparently the TV series isn't that far off).

LA 1960s
met a girl who was an Albino Native American (half blood at best) who went into trances and induced them in others (including me but i was doing lots of LSD at the time). Native Americans i've met literally live in a different spiritual universe than we inhabit,much to their detriment i think.

so when scientists tell you they can't PROVE the existence of ESP, ghosts,UFOs,dark matter or whatever.do they ever think that Perhaps NOT EVERYTHING IN THE UNIVERSE IS WITHIN THEIR MEASURE?
how much does God weigh? or True Love or the soul? or Regret? c'mon guys and gals, how much?
i read a LOT of sci fi as a kid so my brain doesn't automatically slam shut on the 'far out' as quickly as most peoples.

SEMPER GUMBY!
mega

Saturday, February 14, 2009

PAIN PIMPERY & BEYOND

Hola,howdy,aloha
yes i do feel somewhat better,almost back to my usual misery.
i think this blog has a point to make,we shall see...

"ANATOMY IS DESTINY." attributed to Simone de Bauvier (?) Sartre's lover.(see her book The Second Sex for an exercise in self flagelation worthy of The Story of O,i recommend both)

THREE BRANCHES
modern psychology can be roughly grouped into three branches.
1.Freudian (the talking cure)
2.SKINNERIAN (behaviour mod as explained in his scary book "Beyond Freedom & Dignity", makes '1984' look like a wimpish coloring book.his initial research during WWII was financed by the War Dept. before the dovish name change)
3."Humanistic"(sic) Fritz Perls,Rollo May,Paiget,Ericson etc

As a child,when my father died,i had no barricades against my mother's rage and depression except to explore Psych.i read some books by Freud and quickly determeined,via my NYC BS Detector (ghetto street smarts?) ,that he was full of it. analysis of human beings should be as true in burgher 1900s Vienna as in Harlem or the jungles of Brazil. later in my thirties when i finally dragged my cynical weary ass back to college this analysis was partially verified.Freud (who had at least one daughter Anna,who followed in his footsteps) refused to believe that the rich burgers of Vienna were molesting thier girl children in the numbers that his analysis indicated so he Sacrificed their Truth to concoct his bizarre theories of the Oedipus and Electra Complexes.yup, he lied and ignored the truth being revealed to him.
Freud=Fraud it gets worse.
Freud's mentor was one Dr.Fleiss who had bizarre theories of his own.he thot that the seat of women's sexual desires and maladjustments was in THE NOSE.
not the 'wandering utereus' of HYSTERIA but the Nose.he mutilated many upper class and some poor women with unnecessary surgery and infected gauze et al and so was put out of business via lawsuits,Freud gave his menial support later in life but never,to my knowledge,publicly disowned him.

two of Freud's disciples later deserted him over this and other issues.Carl Jung (slightly racist against blacks and asians) with his theory of Archetypes and Wilhem Reich with his orgasms and orgone energy ,who fled Nazi Germany only to have his books burned by the US govenrment and be broken by prision.( i have my theories why).
basically no matter what your training (before brain drugs) research has found that you develop a synthesis of what works (if you are honest) altho untrained volunteers and pets seem to work almost as well.

PAIN PIMPS
(all the names here are false but all the events here are real)
i lived in NYC in 1970 before retrurning to the relative sanity of California.i was about 24 and my GF (now called a Cougar) was about 46 and divorced with a son almost my age (met him,nice kid).she was into a second career as a Reichian therapist and seemed surprised i knew who Reich was (so i'm a sponge for oddity and trivia,sue me).we talked a lot, we ate Indian food in Greenwich Village and hung out in Central Park where i met her.she later treated a 'friend' of mine (see future blog SOCIOPATHS- PITT THE MONSTER)
anyway she took me to a loft party of assorted therapists of all stripes and it was a zoo.she warned me 'just act like an anthropologist from Mars,don't judge them'-i was just some over educated oversexed kid from Harlem ,so i thot this an odd request.the leader of the group was a Freudian who looked liked Kaiser Bill from WWI with a withered right arm too,he shook hands left handed which i wasn't supposed to notice or mention.there were the usual NY liberals who were impressed that my Cougar GF had 'gone black',i seemed more of a trophy than a person to them.they all drank too much and talked too much then suddenly this attractive blonde woman started crying and dropped her top exposing fabulous plump breasts.she cried that nobody loved her and he husband cheated on her with his staff and patients etc etc,she was in obvious deep emotional pain. the reaction? "oh God,here comes Joy with those old tired tits again." these were therapists!
this is how i began to formulate the diff between True Therapists who want to help for their own motives and Pain Pimps who just want to make the mortgage and car payments.in LA i met a lot of victims of PP who saw their therapists anywhere from two to five times a week.
now,i am not denying that America is deeply screwed up. without our addicitve society Columbia would be just another agricultural backwater,but as the Radical Therapy movement once preached "therapy means change,not adjustment". most Pain Pimps are content to perform an endless necropsy of every time you ever had your feelings hurt and how it deformed your delicate psyche...GROW THE F--- UP!
LIFE IS BOTH HARD AND BEAUTIFUL.
APPRECIATE APPRECIATE DAMNIT!!!
stop looking at the future thru a rear view mirror as some pundit once chided.

okay was a point made here?
if not HAPPY VALENTINES DAY ANYWAY
-FIND SOMEONE TO LOVE WHO LOVES YOU BACK.
I DID.
in other news,
my EX sends me the update that LURPS (see prior blog on Sociopaths) is actually LRRPS promounced "LERPS" for Long Range Recon Patrol.sounds good to me.
don't forget to check the new blog additions and the Santa Cruz Commison on Disability website under RESOURCES to get the help you need.it's on the right too,pagewise.

aloha
c

Friday, February 13, 2009

SOCIOPATHS

hola, the magical misery tour and my throat contines.

NYC
the 50s
the legend of Tiny. there was a ghetto gang called the Assassins back in the 50s and 60s.it's founder was a short tough guy called Tiny. one day some dude dissed Tiny's girl and he went looking for the offender.Tiny found the dude outside a police station thinking he was safe,Tiny emptied a .38 into the guys skull then got the snot beaten out of him while resisting arrest.NO DOUBT.
the 60s
i was in high school when a friend asked if i 'wanted to meeet a real bad ass'? sure why not? this bad ass went to our HS and i met him in the lunchroom,looked like just another not too bright thug kid.he smiled lazily during the introduction then told the tale about how he got his gun...he took some rocks and put them in a sock then beat a drunk cop to death (when he was about 12) and stole the cop's gun AND badge, both of which he proudly displayed.he was a 'hitter' (killer) from a Bronx gang in those days.the Banality of Evil indeed. NO DOUBT.
L.A. late 60s
my second or third job in LA i met an odd co worker,lets call him Jenks.he told me an odd tale which took me years to verify as accurate.he claimed to be one of the LURPS (forgot what that stands for) one of the guys they dropped into Laos and Cambodia during the 'Nam War with instructions to fight their way back to occupied Nam by killing EVERYONE.he told me they wore boots which left a human footprint and collected tokens/trophies of body parts.Jenks was hard core biker with the tats to prove it and a very heavy drinker,which got him fired eventually.i would assume it takes a sociopath to kill unarmed women and children who posed no threat to you even though it might hiccup guilt on you later.DOUBT.
SF the 80s
i met several sociopaths while driving cab for five years but most of them were boring and i was busy being fairly feral myself then.

my room mate of five years was a classic.
ERB,Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote the Tarzan novels (Tar Zan means 'white skin' in Ape) Tarzan had a son,(not named Boy) named KORAK THE KILLER which i think perfectly reflects my ex roomie (or 'first wife' as my Ex has dubbed him) we were like the Matt Damon and Ben Affleck symbiosis.
how to you create a sociopath? for KTK both his parents were academics,as a child he had to listen to his father nightly incest his sister while his mother pretended not to hear. by day he was phsyically abused and beaten with cord, 2x4s,car tools and anything else at hand.he got little physical affection and built up a lifetime's seething cauldron of Rage.some of which he took out on his first wife...
luckily for KTK the Nam War came along and he was posted to a FREE FIRE ZONE,basically like the LURPS Kill Anything That Moves without the parachuting and hard scrabble trekking.he told me about killing elephants and tigers and described his First Kill with all the sweetness and detail of a normal man's first non blue balls date.
it was gruesome sweaty and awkward, the knife was dull and they were wrestling to the death in a huge ammo dump so they couldn't use guns...later he would buy sharper knives.he spent months detailing all his kills, the whores screwed,the drugs consumned etc etc. like Tarzan's son KTK was no dummy. he learned Vietnamese when he was wounded and would know more about the country's history than most Non Natives and he knew his cause was WRONG WRONG WRONG.still he went out, killed people ,screwed their women and avoided booby traps and deadfalls.KTK told me My Lai was no big deal, he had personally participated in the same or worse.(i've heard the same from many vets).
after the Fall of Saigon KTK went home,beat his first wife again then re enlisted.when that ran out he retired to farm on a distant Pacific island chain.KTK was not born to be a farmer.he once told me killing was like eating raw sushi,distasteful at first then you get used to it and even look forward to it.so he got a black ops job herding refugees from the Mekong Delta to safety.(you thot they got free on their own?) he was one of many who jumped at the job.he refused to go Full Mercenary for reasons which sound tinny.
we saw Rambo together and he was not impressed altho that was the monicker hung on him at the Army Reserves,he'd been curious why. he was built like a Greek God due to his running and bodybuilding and i had witnessed more than one woman walk into a pole ogling him.KTK was also scary smart as one might imagine.most people thot him to be a thuggish knuckle dragger until we launced into some effete obscure conversation about Atlantis or interstellar reincarntion.i was asked more than once "can u control him?" like i was his keeper.KTK often told me he thot my Zen and Martial Arts training made me the more deadly of us.(???) as a 'friend' KTK was the Perfect Partner,if you were facing twenty or so opponents and he had your back-you'd only feel a threat from the rear when he was dead.when a Vet tells you 'I got your back" consider it the ultimate compliment.
KTK had PTSD and Agent Orange poisoning so he tended to be a rageholic and quite impulsive sometimes.the only flashbacks he got was not from killing but from fireworks which triggered memories of artillery barrages and a jungle ambush which butchered his squad.

on one job we met a guy who claimed to be a contracter for US Intellgence,we thot he was full of BS but we later learned differently.you'd think guys like him wouldn't drink too much then shoot their mouths off,you'd be wrong.NO DOUBT

KTK often said that to him the Best Things in Life were Killing,Drugs and Brown P*ssy.sometimes items two and thre flipped.i had doubts about him being a Total vs.Situational Sociopath until he started telling lies about me to better cheat on his wife.i will probably return to KTK subject often as he was a big part of my life for awhile and i'll probably talk some about 'Penny' who stole a car i co owned...NO DOUBT

60s button
"SUPPORT MENTAL HEALTH OR I'LL KILL YA!"
we are all born realtively innocent..see Sartre quote.

"IF YOU ARE PREPARED TO DIE,YOU CAN DO ANYTHING!"
from Ronin,a graphic novel by Frank Miller

aloha
mega

Thursday, February 12, 2009

SCHIZO 2 ARMY GIRL

it's me again, sore throat persists.
MENTAL ILLNESS...how can your mind ,which is an immaterial construct, be ill which is a physical manifesttion? just a thot.

more on the previous topic.
i am pissed off by the depiction of the metally ill (or insane) as dangerous to society,as seen too frequently on TV and in movies.
my rebuttal is Army girl who i met years before wolf girl ( i have the sort of face tatk people talk to. i'm a natural at Psych except i feel IMHO that the industry has devolved into routine pain pimps and drug pushers.i do not deny that some brains need chemical imbalaces corrected but as infants???anyway that is another rant.)
anyway i'd driven a cab for 5 years in SF and was totally totally burnt out.so i took nine months off and lived off my savings and odd jobs.i took a guard job downtown,late night-no hassles right?
that's how i met army girl,she had the shift before me.the second thing you noticed about army girl,after her massive bosom,was her maimed right index finger.being nosy i asked about it and being army girl she answered truthfully.her unit,for she was indeed in the army (-how she passed the psych screen i do not know) was being shipped out to some combat zone so she had deliberately sliced the tendons in her trigger finger so she could not fire a rifle.she told her CO it was an accident,so it being the army she became a nine fingered typist.
one night i came in to find army girl tipsy having a uniform malfunction,her shirt was wide open exposing her bare breasts.army girl did not wear underwear despite army policy.so i buttoned her up and got her talking until she was sober enough to drive home. army girl was born on an Indian Resevation where he father was a handyman/church deacon.her mother abandoned the family after her kid sister as born so the father began (?) molesting both girls and apparently never stopped.whenever he visited SF he -you get the idea.
so it became obvious to me that army girl was a barely functioning schizoprenic on a Chrisitan based scaffolding.she had several obvious addictions-drink (Jesus drank so it was ok),TV she had one for work and several others at home to watch soaps and daffy sitcoms and sex. army girl was married to a smug oblivious knowitall ( i met him) who thought that army girl's baby was his NOT! here's the pattern,army girl would drink and quickly pass out then wake up later naked or half naked depending on the rapists.

she never put the pieces together and nobody ever advised her to do otherwise. when she got raped by her unit mates and found herself pregnant-you guessed it DIVINE BIRTH LIKE MARY then she met her husband to be.it was sooooo sad but a variant of a theme i found among many homeless women later.

anyway i found army girl with her shirt open several times and it turned out one of the night janitors was slipping her booze while on duty.one night when i was off i got a call that army girl has disappeared and could i come down and check the building for her.i found her drunk naked and curled in a fetal ball with vague memories of being raped,this time anyway.i got some clothes on her and called the police,went with her to the Rape Crisis clinic and filed a report.she'd lent an irresponsible cousin her car with her house keys so she had no place to stay.i said she could stay with me,chastely, i was stunned when she came out of the bathroom stark naked and climbed in bed with me.
Nothing Happened.
army girl was fired -for drinking (and being raped this was the 80s).
nothing happened to the janitor despite a history of violent assaults.
i later met her sister,a chronic helpless flirt,who finally confirmed army girl's upbringing.
so army girl was mainly a victim and non violent except to herself.(unlike some sociopaths i have know,more later.)
most people i met in Napa on a class tour were non violent and sadly broken.like most people they just want to be happy and productive,if society will allow that. thank the legend of Ronald Reagen for most of this messy societal failure...another long rant.
there,now that i've bummed you out i have to get dressed for a meeting to bum other people out face to face.

in other news,
MHCAN is a nationwde org with a website that does peer based counseling which double blind tests have shown to be as effective as the usual pain pimpery. they are good people,check it out.
SPIN does much the same thing for parents of children with disabilites.

lo siento,
mega

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

AUTISM & DAYLIGHTMARES

Hullo, got a sore throat today.
just a few random thoughts.

THE ACTOR'S NIGHTMARE
this is fairly common among actors, they wake up onstage (sometimes even naked) where a play is in progress where everyone else knows their role and their lines. i think this is an excellent definition of High Functioning Autism (Aspergers Syndrome-see note on Ill Lil in prior blog) like my bipolar son has. geeks & nerds are savvy about machines but clueless about humans,like that only worse.my youngest son is ODD, wicked smart but not a typical PC game addicted youth.he has Issues (don't we all ?).
imagine yourself in a foreign land,say France where the natives are rude and condescending to you, you're ET and you can't phone home.at it's worse i'm not sure Autistic kids even know what being human is all about (men use that excuse with women A LOT.)

MY REVERSE WEREWOLF GF
on a related tangent,
when i was in SF Stae getting my futile Psych degree i met two women in a psych class who were attracted to me.
one was severely bipolar and had spent five years locked in her room,having food slid under her door like in prison (her parents were both wealthy and very patient apparently) because her best friend's brother had broken her heart.one day,five years later, her father happened to mention he needs something sent to San Francisco and she suprised everyone by volunteering to go.seems her BFF was in SF and unknown to her,so was the brother.
the other was prettier but ODD as Hell,i found out more later.rumor had her being a dark witch and one of my favorite teachers hated her with a passion.
(sigh)
it all came down to a cat and my being finicky.
i visited the bipolar girl at her home for one of my classes (Psych classes are the best place to find and test or quiz 'crazy people' who ususally study this crap in self defense) and she tongue kissed her cat!
now I LOVE CATS and over the years have had or been involved with over a dozen of the aloof darlings but I NEVER KISS A CAT WITH MY MOUTH OPEN! NEVER EVER.
so on to the pretty one who turned out to be an INCEST SURVIVOR AND HIGH FUNCTIONING SCHIZOPHRENIC.
she went to school, had a job and a car and eventually a place of her own.
i read up on Incest and Schizophrenia, one good thing about Schizophrenia is that when you find out their core beliefs everything else follows more or less logically.my future girlfriend believed that she was a Reverse Werewolf with fur on the inside (checked a few places intently and found none).she also had a seven foot tall Invisible werewolf familiar (like Jimmy Stewart in the movie Harvey).like me she was a fan of horror movies and horror fiction,unlike me it became her gospel and yes she was a dark witch (self taught) and a proud card carrying member of the Church of Satan ( no biggie,i'd read the books among others).
on full moons she liked to run around naked in a local park with a knife in her teeth to encourage fur sprouting, no doubt this gave the Police helicopters a thrill.no idea what the park homeless population thot of her antics.she was a nice girl within her limits. the other girl crashed and burned after renewing the relationship with her BFF's brother.me and wolf girl had a multi year frustrating semi relationship and later she even invited me and my first wife to her wedding....very Freudian!

WHAT ME NORMAL?
what was the point of all this?
Mental Wellness?
Who decides who is Normal anyway?
oh that was it.
i took a Psycholgoical Testing class at SF State(required) with a puckish and sweet professor who knew my GF but didn't hate her.for my final exam i tested her,bipolar girl and a Pinoy neighbor as well as myself.the Pinoy woman was FOB (Fresh Off da Boat) and psychic, she talked to the dead among other things (no lie, this is rather common in some cultures). the person declared most Normal and Boring, by all three tests, was ME!
i was offended. I AM NOT NORMAL!
look at what I've just written,does that seem Normal to you? i haven't even mentioned sociopaths and serial killers have i?
(sigh)
if you have seen Lily Tomlin LIVE you may have second thots about sanity, what if people like my young son,the Pinoy woman and XGF werewolf are right?
what if we live in a Consensus Reality where we chose to IGNORE most things??? (watch Fringe on Fox or old X Files episodes)
now when on LSD or peyote....

ah but that is another tale.
namaste
mega
P.S. in other news,
check out the Blog Lists on the right for Referrals and Resources and some damn good writing to boot.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

SOME DAYS

hola,still feeling crappy.

i read today 'some days you're the baby and other days you're the diaper'.well i feel like i've been somebodies poopy diaper for awhile now and i just hope it's not David Vetter's (GOP sex joke).

the crip listservs have been awash with screeds against the octuplet single mother,look at the NBC interview, the woman is obviously METALLY ILL,she's one of ours DEAL WITH IT.
speaking of which, my youngest son is severely bipolar and insists that he is OK but the rest of the planet is screwed up (hard to argue with that point) and has in the past said mean things designed to be heartbreaking and hurtful (sigh).

HATE THE SIN,LOVE THE SINNER.
i am not,by nature,an especially tolerant or forgiving man. i carry grudges like old deep emotional scars which never heal ( i am a Scorpio and like the funny horoscope says "MOST Scorpios are murdered.") but i forgive my youngest, sorta, i understand his argument-my Ex delights in pointing out we argue in exactly the same way,tis true.

Buddhist tradition says that there is no Evil merely Error,i disagree i have encountered EVIL and even Buddhism contradicts itself when it mentions The Short Path to Enlightenment-the Short Path being EVIL (see Alec Baldwin's version of The Shadow for details). my son is Not Evil merely headstrong and misguided,if you run into a goodlooking but erratic young half black man who is the stubbornest person you'll ever meet-it's him.
pray for him if you're into that sorta thing.

in other news,
we're still waiting for the other shoe to drop in Sacramento and D C.if you're a poor crip you know what the ride to the guillotine felt like...only we're getting the punishment without the pleasure first.
LIFE ISN'T FAIR,DEATH IS (see prior blogs)

joined DISABOOM last week, in an effort to reach more people.the first private message i got was from a Nigerian money scam in the UK.(sigh)
LIFE...it is what it is.

namaste y'all
mega

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

K.I.S.S.

KEEP IT SIMPLE SICKO.

i feel like crap this week which is why i am writng more often.

i ,um-we used to do a cartoon series with my soul mate,based on her symptoms which are extremely complex.one of my faves is ILL LIL ,the title character, sitting in an exam room and her doctor proudly announcing "Congratulations.They've named your symptoms after me!"
ain't it the truth.
Docs,like most people,are creatures of habit.when i was first diagnosed with diabetes in 1991,Kaiser Outpatients kept telling me "You shouldn't be in this much pain!" sez who?
now i got GREAT CARE from the Kaiser ICU and other than the usual complaints about too short visits and blunt dulled blood draw needles i think Kaiser did an adequate job with me but i was NOT a simple diabetes case as i was to learn much later.
years after i'd lost Kaiser i was sitting in a meeting of the Berkeley Commision on Disability and rocking back and forth in agonzied pain in my then manual wheelcahir (i still have it,just in case) when a woman came up to me and told me exactly what my symptoms were.
no,she was not psychic merely a fellow sufferer of firbromyalgia too.her name was Karen Craig,a good friend who died last year.once i had a name i could look it up online and see what little could be done for it.it didn't answer all my questions but it was something.

a short detour, i searched far and wide for doctors once my Kaiser ran out and i became Medi-Medi.one pond scum low life medico,who shall go unnnamed to protect the guilty, was highly recommended and and we went to it's office up four flights of stairs (no elevator) and trotted out all my paperwork. finally in fussy exasperation,it told me to get out as i was "TOO COMPLICATED". lucky i was a tired broken down old crip or i might have faced assault charges that day.
another time a drunk old medico told me i was not allergic to something which i was.my thoughts were 'oh,your're a fool.so noted'.
i love my current PCP almost more than chocolate ice cream and i'm not spilling her name no matter how much you beg.

so anyway,being me it wasn't JUST fibromyalgia,when my soul mate got a bulls eye rash which i recognized as Lyme disease (confirmed) then i went in too and got tested.CHRONIC LONG TERM LYME INFECTION atop everything else, research (and my lovely friend Kevin) pointed me at deep seated central nervous system involvement including bone deep chronic pain,stiff neck,muscle spasms,brain fog etc etc etc.(P.S. they got it wrong on HOUSE M.D.the bulls eye rash is transient NOT permanent and many of us get NO RASH AT ALL.)
so anyway i am finally getting treated for what ails me-imagine pushing a bean uphill with your nose,on gravel,in the dark,for decades.

so,for your own sakes
Keep It Simple Sicko
( and keep very good notes).

much love
mega

Monday, February 2, 2009

SICK HUMOR

SICK HUMOR

i should probably explain, i am 61 now and i have been SICK for a looong time.
i had double pneumonia about age 4 or 5 and near death experiences as a bonus,all this cost me the use of one lung,years of crippling asthma attacks and the social leprosy that goes with being a black non-athelete in Harlem.
humor was/is a survival skill.just look at John Stewart (Daily Show).
i have always had a Smart Mouth which became SMARTASS as i got older.lucky for me i could draw,(my crip toon samples will one day be linked to this blog) mostly superheros and TV monsters. at age 9 my father died of pneumonia and WWII,plus a touch of family alcoholism.
i spent a lot of time in the principal's office for my mouth and physical punishment was still legal in the 60s,so i got whipped and slapped a lot.
did that stop me? of course not.
i had almost died! what was a lil more physical pain to me?

when i was 21 and new to L.A. a Buick T -boned the tiny Corvair i was in and i lost 5 inches of height.more physical pain.
then in 1993 i went to get up from watching the TV news and years of yoga and back exercises failed totally.my warranty ran out,i tell folks.
so what has kept me alive thru all this and resaonably (?) sane?

SICK HUMOR and i do mean Callahan style sick ( famous crip cartoonist).
when i was younger and read Playboy i LOVED the cartoons esp.Gahan Wilson ( i have two collections of his toons).two that come to mind, a woman has a playsuited child on a short leash of some sort when around the corner comes a tiny werewolf in a playsuit on a stout chain.
another is a tourist in Egypt being offered a mummified hand with a huge ring from a dark alley, the caption is "How much for just the ring?" his first collection has a Dorian Grey painting with a decrepit hulk at the easel and it's called "I Paint What I See". Priceless.

sarcasm,wit,irony,crudeness,you name it and i've done it.i once worked at a job in Frisco and a stout woman coworker came up to complain that i didn't like her becaue i didn't insult like everyone else. she thought it was because she was a transsexual, i said no-i just thought she was boring. soon she was telling me the filthiest jokes imaginable and we got along fine. me and my gay friends...maybe another time.i lost a lot of good friends to AIDS.

anyway, this semi explains why i added the Colette quote today. the crips i see who are bitter and disillusioned are the ones who take themselves much too seriously.i once had a Vietnam Vet roomie once who was gloomy and ill humored until one day he came in bitching about something the VA was neglecting to do (in his warped opinion) i qupped "What are you worried about? Agent Orange will have killed you long before then." it took a few minutes but he did burst out laughing and things were better after that. i see some people like this as a challenge,but not everyone is going to like you because of age,race,sex,gender, ethnicity or disability.so just roll with the punches,okay?

FATE is the cards that God (sic) dealt you.
FREE WILL is way you play your hand.
i play my hand with a crooked smile and a cane by my side. having a crip soul mate within reach is also a great help...
enuff of me.
namaste
mega

Sunday, February 1, 2009

TAGBOARDS FINALLY!

okay,
have finally added Tagboards so that you guys acn talk among yourselves and add/trade information now that the County is facing 10-30% cutbacks.this should free up some staffers to answer the less FAQs.
have at it.
mega

NFL SUNDAY + BLK HISTORY

NFL SUNDAY,
i would like to thank all the generations of NFL players who sacrificed their bodies and careers to further orthopedic research.
my knee braces and carpal tunnels cuffs are knock offs of NFL (sports) devices and i am grateful for them.THANKS GUYS.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH
someone,hopefully NOt spike lee, made the comment that we not only got the shortest month but the coldest.can you imagine a parade anywhere but California and Florida?
that's my beef and why isn't JUNEETEENTH a national holiday?

in other news,
check out "rampster-bencblog.blogspot.com"
for a less jaundiced and more polished view of crip life in santa cruz.
namaste
mega