Ron-Tweedie

"This is not anger, its RIGHTEOUSNESS!" -Douglas Robertson

When I was in high school, 1980, in the 10th grade, I met this senior student in art class. This guy was definitely an odd bird, a unique individual. Actually I'm not sure he even belonged in public school because he was a schizophrenic. Maybe they had determined it was OK as long as he took his medication, but I'm not sure he really did.

The only thing we both had in common was our love of art. We both liked weird art, like Dali, and we shared an enthusiasm for Picasso's graphic work.

Once, in this class, we had to do portraits of the other students. He did his in pen and ink. The picture at the bottom of this post is an example of one of those. I have maybe one or two more examples of his work that maybe I will scan and attach to this post sometime. The portrait below is very interesting I'm sure we can all agree, but what is actually more interesting is that it does, or, did rather, look remarkably like it's subject, who was a 16 year old weight lifter/body builder I recall. He didn't like his portrait very much, and criticized it by insisting that it looked nothing like him, despite the fact it did, though in a very weird way that's hard to put into words. I wish I had an actual photo of the guy for comparison so you could see for yourselves what I mean.

He also did a portrait of me, which is, unfortunately lost. A profile, contour line drawing, in pen and ink, traced over in colored marker, on which he had given me a long, serpentine tongue on the tip of which was a purple hit of acid.

He kept a notebook in which he had cartoons and writings. I can only remember one bit of writing from it, "Don't put your feets on the railroad track when the trains coming!" The book was full of these quirky statements, observations, drawings and poems. I was very taken with his work. It was reminiscent of Lewis Carrol, John Lennon, Kenneth Patchen, even a little Jack Karouac in parts. It was a chunky soup of all kinds of things, stewed in a rich, creamy 1970s flavored broth.

He had a reoccurring character named 'Hal', like the computer from '2001: A Space Odyssey'. 'Hal' is a cryptogram for 'IBM', made by spelling it with the letters which immediately proceed the letters "IBM" in the alphabet.

I recall that Doug's father worked with computers either for the government or maybe it was actually for IBM.

This character, 'Hal', wore over-sized garments and a big, floppy, wide brimmed hat which obscured his face. He dressed a lot like a 1970's ghetto pimp.

Pointing to a representation of this character in his notebook, he told me that once, late night when he was in his room, this guy had burst in brandishing a baseball bat, but he stood up to him and yelled for him to 'get out', which he then promptly did.

I frequently thought about Doug when I was flying on acid. Doug and his geometric hallucinations and the strange people and situations which seemed to populate his imagination.

Also, when I was on acid, I wrote two pieces, one called, "The Boy", and one called, "The Girl". Doug read them, and he seemed very taken by "The Boy", so he rewrote it in his own style. In my original 'Boy' I had wrote about him thinking about 'The Girl' as a loose conglomeration of disassociated parts. Doug wrote of "feelings sweeping through the boy like ocean tides" while thinking of her as a 'rotting corpse', and says to himself, "I killed her, but she's not dead". I wish I could remember more about these pieces, I may have his among what's left of my papers, and mine in my old notebooks, assuming they still exist and I can find them.

His family had moved once since I've known him, neither residence was very far from me, so I always visited him from time to time. After he finished high school he took a few classes at Los Angeles Valley College for a bit, but eventually stopped that and was always home. He often drank cheap beer and wine in the evenings. I think it was the only time he got out of the house, going to the corner liquor store for these beverages. During the day he sometimes smoked weed, which I seem to recall he got from his sister when she came to visit the family.

As time progressed he kept getting stranger and more distant. Around the last time I saw him he was really into the bible and was having lots of religious hallucinations. When I asked him about all his artwork he told me he had put it all in a big plastic trash bag and buried it in the back yard of his old home before they had moved.

I remember, for a brief period, Doug had this friend who lived in the same neighborhood he did. He was also kind of crazy and drew real cool pictures of dinosaurs and monsters. He drew the best Godzilla pics I've ever seen. It was almost like his mind hadn't changed since the 5th grade and he just perfected what 5th grade boys in the 1970s liked. I think they used to smoke weed together and draw. Whenever the police helicopters would be flying low over the valley, likely looking for robbery suspects or whatever kind of criminal it was that was on the loose, they would run around the neighborhood with plastic machine guns, running from cover to cover as though they were trying to elude the authorities. Once when the three of us were just walking down the street he picked a big rock up off the ground and dropped it in a mailbox. At some point this guy moved away.

Last time I asked about Doug my Grandfather had told me he heard he had died. Since he hardly ever even left the house, and, also considering his deteriorating mental condition, I assumed it must have been a suicide, however I heard a few years ago from a woman online who said she knew his family that he had actually died in a gruesome accident. I won't go into details since they are so unpleasant, but according to her he caught fire and burned to death.

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DOUGLAS on CHRISTIANITY:

I found an old letter Doug wrote me while crating up my things. Although much of it is copied from 'sacred texts' (not perfectly though), it is emblazoned with the imprint of his own unique personality, so I feel it is worthy of note and I think it would be a nice way to conclude this article about my dear, old friend.

In this letter we can see that Doug, in common with most schizophrenics, is obsessed with defining his own identity, and he is by no means unique because he had absorbed himself in religion searching for answers. Many people who are considered mentally sound do the same all over the world. I suppose now, decades later, I can understand his obsession with Jesus Christ and Christianity when I recall how chaotic his own thinking and perception was. He felt he needed to be possessed by a loving force. I'm sure he was frequently frightened by his own delusions and hallucinations.

Anyway, without further ado, here it is. His handwriting was pretty hurried and sloppy in parts so it could be very challenging to decipher, but I did my best so I think I got everything right.

"Here's my letter- DOUGLAS Dear Ron: Let me explain something to you. "This is good. This is "Doug Robertson" (as much as you should care.) (Don't stop reading this.) 1. The pro-noun "I" is our ego. 2. The proverb "my" is self. 3. Within us is: 1a. Consciousness b. Unconsciousness c. Subconsciousness d. Self-consciousness 2a. Super-ego b. ego c. "The", Id- pronounced 'I'd' I sometimes think of myself as containing no ego. (Here he wrote "Funny thing 'eh'" and drew an arrow pointing to the "I" at the beginning of the previous statement)

During the time of Greece and Rome the philosophy of Man over beast. Meaning the only thing that separates us from the animal kingdom is reason. I just kicked Darwin's theory off the shelf. I have feelings of worthlessness. I have to remember but it's gone forever. A blocked thought lost forever. I hate having my thoughts blocked out. My thoughts were being blocked for a long time. It happens to me all the time with others. It seems that I have always been held back. (You can tell from my writing)

Maturing and thinking for myself. Making decisions but always at the point of certainty and uncertainty. So on and so forth. "Selfish man you are...I'd like to say."

At working in a Warehouse for 1 1/2 yrs; I lost my memory. A complete memory loss. Didn't know where I was, what I was doing, my own name. Lasted about 3 minutes. I know what I'm writing this for? really but not really But that's the reason we are writing. As far as the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I say unto them "Salutations." The testimony of Joseph Smith was that he had seen a vision of God and his son. The problem of struggling with this church is that- supposedly Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were baptized by Peter, John and James. Then, supposedly John the Baptist rebaptized Joseph Smith. If these occurrences did happen, I am led to believe by the spirit of God that these things took place. So there I am left struggling with my Relationship with Christ and his saints. And the above. But why should I be? I don't understand.

It may appear that these beliefs are somewhat unusual; but after all- are not all churches somewhat unworldly Materialistically. The facts are true. But abstractly the facts differ. Why must people congregate in buildings? Why not groves? In coves? A Church building separates us from nature. Of which we are. (Nature, I mean)

Aren't all religions sort of strange? Wrapped in Myths and Mysticisms- fables and stories. Acts of the Supernatural? But what?... Although it was 2001 years ago since Anno Domini (or year of our Lord). 2000 years ago since the life, death and Resurrection of Christ- "God Lives!" From Proverbs; "As the Heavens shall roll up as a scroll And the earth shall pass away- my Words will remain forever." And again "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet And a light unto my path." We have a living Being as God. Jesus- Emanuel- Son of Man- Son of God King of kings Lord of princes- the Prince of Peace- Savior- Lord and Christ- God. Wonderful, Counselor, Redeemer, Mediator. "But we have the mind of Christ." Christ- Revolutionary Christ- Teacher Christ- Philanthropist Christ- Humanist. But mostly The Almighty Christ. Deity- God. God incarnate/ God in man's form. (Imagine the power and inertia of Jupiter and it's orbit This mighty presence of Rotation and Centrifugal force This unimaginable power is but a fraction of Christ's Sovereignty.) The Almighty Christ. The word 'Christ' is actually translated "Messiah." The long awaited Messiah of the Jewish People. Again, the Jews wanted a conquering Messiah to lead them. A conquering being. In this stead was- "Christ- meek and lowly- uncomely- gentle." A conquering Messiah to reign over the earth.

In the early church the Pharisees Scribes and Sadducees could presumably regard this strange new preaching /Gospel/ as a simple sect of Jewish heritage and religion. If this latter statement is true why then this?: Mathew- slain with a sword. Stephen- stoned to death. Mark- dragged to death in the streets of Alexandria, Luke- Hanged from an olive tree in Greece John- Boiled in oil. James- Beheaded in Jerusalem. Philip- Strangled. Bartholomew- Beaten to death. Andrew- Crucified. Thomas- Stoned to death. Jude- Shot to death with arrows. Peter- Crucified upside down; (Because he did not want to dishonor his Lord) Paul- Beheaded. Why? Because Christ dwelled in them. But really- I can't comprehend why they were slain. My finite mind can find no explanation for the crucifixion of Christ. Through all this persecution and death, isn't it surprising to see how Christianity flourished in such a way? Proliferated on the Earth. As regards : again the LDS church: Are not all congregations sort of true? BUT! My belief differs from all churches that I have been too. I believe! All believers compromise the Church, LDS or not. (I mean the people on earth who really have devoted their lives to Christ.) One Corinthians 12:12 Heading: "Every believer is a member of Christ's Body-" In my own words: The Body of Christ is the Church: and as such has definite ministry. 12: "For as the body is one, and hath members many, and all the members of that one body: being many, are one body" So also is Christ." 13:"For by one spirit (of God) we are all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we are bond or free, and have all been all made to drink of one spirit." 14:" For the body is not one member but many." 15:" If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the (bible) body: is it therefore not of the body?" 16:" And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body: is it therefore not of the body?" 17:" If the whole body was an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole body were hearing, where were the smelling?" 18:" But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him?" 19:" And if they were all one member, where were the body?" 20:" But now are they many members, yet but one body." 21:" And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet I have no need of thee." 22:" Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary!" 23:" And those members of the body, which we seem to think be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor: and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness." 24:" For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked." 25:" That there should be no schism in the body: but that the members should have some care from one another." 26:" And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it. Or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it." 27:" Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular."

A poem! I have my God for perfect love and peace. I'll hold her tight and always as or and always mine forever now love so great so divine trees the grey day has changed everything it's beautiful just beautiful so beautiful this first grey day is ourselves always my loving child child of by grace of God we live my child and love I crawl to my knees my dear love will you promise to kiss my perfect healing hand and fingers and make a promise to me you will always obey my each command and never ever fail me you'll be mine forever more the Sun is here my love my love My son else son complete God bless all perfect perfect grey day with trees so bare so bare but O so beautiful so beautiful The grey blue sky the World is here else (else)just justing just air (else) all own Hold us tight I am yours just a dream And go on dreaming May June's airs never ever come My love my love Pleasant Sweet love is tender

This is all I can do I put a lot into it with his own mind.

Signed Douglas Robertson

8/12/91 Nobody can be my best friend. They may come in second- but I am my own best friend and if I can’t get along with myself I can’t get along with any body. Wed. Aug. 13, 1991 Hello and Good Day. Its 11:48 AM by the old clock on my desk and I have but a little free time before I must go to work and get to work. I’ve a full eight hours to do today, nine if you tally up the lunch hour as well, which you may as well do in all fairness. For although i don’t have to run around performing little thankless tasks for insatiable employers and cranky customers I am still limited to the immediate vicinity of the store due to my careless situation- and you’d be surprised how many times one can look up at the clock in the mere space of an hour. It has occurred to me that I devote very little space to describing my day to day existence- particularly my interactions with my fellow human beings. I’m sure this has come about because I don’t feel that my waking/working life holds anything of interest to anyone- most of all myself! I don’t like to waste my time writing anything no one would want to waste their time reading. Sure, my life is not exactly an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, but it is my life and I am still in charge of it, ultimately, I think. Maybe my own life bores me because I’ve gotten into the habit of not thinking about it.

Hi! My name is “Matches” Tweedie. When I was a kid I was very lonely. Mothers always told their kids “Don’t play with Matches!”

Aug.15,1991,THUR The world disappeared today- so now I sit brooding in the void- overlooking eternity here on the outskirts of infinity.

AUG. 21, 1991 You go ‘head and sleep on your bed of nails while I crucify my head on this here pillow, ’cause when I get that dog alone he’s gonna be burying his bones in the clouds from now on. Don’t think my feet can’t smell out his footprints- I don’t care how clean they are, I’ll suck’m up in his direction and he wont be long in flying backwards right into my lap. Sky-mommy sees what he done and she’s gonna tell Star-daddy tonight when he gets up- gonna shout it out from one horizon all the way across the heavens to the other! Then you know what? You’ll come back as a paddle in a reform school’s Principal’s office and be having your head beat against bad boy’s bare butts for decades. HA! If that don’t make me laugh back here behind my teeth you tell me what does! (By the way- why you got a pair of dirty old socks hangin’ out of yer back pocket anyway? “I don’t care what people think , cuz I don’t think much of people!”, said Tommy the turtle right before he sucked his head back into his graffiti vandalized shell, looking to all the world like a glans-penis withdrawing into the private sanctuary of his own foreskin.

“HALP! MY COCK’S ON FIRE!” Screamed Goonbob Jones, as he ran frantically up and down the street simultaneously attracting and repelling stares like a crazy, naked eye magnet out of control. His erection was a towering inferno! Sirens sounded in his ears. He burst into Snoozie SlaSlime’s house and found her sleeping nude on the couch as if in a decadent painting. He wasted no time and acted twice as fast, plunging his torch into her front pocket. He was happy to find her wet as a seal as usual. “Tsssssssssss”- Steam filled the room and the oder was both inviting and repulsive. The End For Now.

11/22/94

So- So I'll be hornswaggled here we go again. Time to immortalize and magnify all of my mundane activities and observations. Only this time puh-leeeeeze spare us the drolleries RAWN.

Would you like to help the homeless today?

Would you like to help the homeless today?

Would you like to help the homeless today?

Would you like to help the homeless today?

How annoying. I don't know how much more of this I can take.

Light, shadow, substance, space.

Shopping carts dragging these fat little people around, sucking the items off of the shelves into the basket- money whisked out of pockets into cash registers, customers ejected into the parking lots screaming- the cars inhale them and rush them home catapulting them out into the driveway- the groceries clinging to their arms- houses then drink them in as they hysterically heave with terror- the trees laugh deeply and distortedly as bushes twitter with childish giggles.

On the windows we can see expressionist shadows painted angrily across the shades as if by some suicidal hand- figures dripping in black and grey- force fed- choking- the food tears through their guts, they urinate and defecate burning acidic excretions all over themselves.

In a shed in the back she sits on a box with a picture of a chair on it, whenever anyone approaches her her parasites run barking out of cracks and crevasses on her body baring their fangs, their antennae thrashing about violently. Her eyes crack open like exploding windows and all the little parasites run whining back into their hiding places. Her feet have grass growing on her soles. There are clouds and stars entwined in her jungley hair. Her hands are made for tools our minds can not even visualize. She can reach in and out of several dimensions and do things that would drive us stark staring mad to even contemplate.

For today’s post I combined some more super old posts and reworked them into one. This post is both embarrassing and interesting to me. It is embarrassing because it’s kind of sappy and overly sentimental in parts, yet I find it interesting because it taught me how delusional nostalgia about people from our past often is. This is mainly because people can change for the worst over time, or, as I think is the case in this instance, they just weren’t being completely honest and genuine with you at the time you knew them.

Obviously I had been left with an unrealistic and idealized impression of this girl after we grew apart and lost touch. This impression was cruelly corrected later on in my life after everything I had managed to build up came apart (again!) and I heard her viciously slandering me on that trash television show from a neighboring room in an Oakland welfare hotel. Also, not long after that, I found a recent picture of her online and saw that she had really let herself go physically. Unpleasant as that was to see I don’t suppose it’s fair to fault her for that since she’d been married for a while at that point, had a kid, and, well, none of us are immune from the ravages of time.

Anyway, enough for the introduction, now lets bite into the meat:

Had yet ANOTHER dream about Kathy last night. In this one I was taking that writing class I was taking a few months ago but had to drop because my computer gave up the ghost, and I was seeing Kathy. Well, I was messing up in the class, not showing up and shit like that, but I had figured out a way to ‘fix’ my attendance using a sort of ‘palm pilot’ I had. I’ve only heard of these things and I don’t even know what they really look like, but I had apparently figured out a way to hack into the class records with this thing and alter them to my advantage. In my dream the class was large enough where this kind of deception was likely to go unnoticed. I was also worried about Kathy and I. I had been neglecting her, off doing my own thing, which, in the dream, involved me editing video footage of myself on a sort of camcorder. (an obvious “show” reference) I felt her and I had grown distant and cold, and this made me sad. I decided she was a great girl, and that, well dammit, I was just going to do it and propose to her!

After I saw the teacher, and this part is a little confused, I wanted to go see Kathy, only I was having trouble remembering where she lived. I then remembered it was near North Hollywood park, then felt I had my bearings. I say this part was somewhat confused because I think I may have ran into her somewhere else, and then was trying to remember how to get us to her house, but that wouldn’t make much sense. You know how dreams are. I also hadn’t been with Kathy for a bit, so I was kinda eager sexually, too, but my dominant concern was our betrothal. I remember thinking that if I was with her it would be much easier for me to do all the things I knew I had to do, and about all the domestic bliss that would be ours to enjoy.

Anyway, I was with Kathy, and it seems to me we were in our late twenties, but I recall thinking about how we had been together for 20 years, so based on that it would seem we were really our own actual ages. I recounted to her how bad I had been messing up in regards to us, how bad I felt, how much she meant to me, and all the rest of it. I was feeling very bad because I thought Kathy had had enough of me and was through putting up with my nonsense. Then she whispered in my ear, “I love you”, just as she did the first time she told me. I couldn’t believe my ears. I was so happy and I just couldn’t wait to ask her what I had came to ask her. Then I woke up.

This dream really had an effect on me. Normally I wake up feeling kind of overwhelmed by all the work I see before me, all the things I don’t feel like dealing with, but that I have to do anyway. This morning it was the complete opposite. I remember my eyes were misty with the tears of happiness and my heart was full. I actually had to talk myself DOWN this morning. Now, a dream like this makes one kind of crazy. I was thinking this morning, even more so after this dream than any other about Kathy, kind of like our hearts had been conversing across the distance. But as I have said before, so much time has passed and I have grown old apart.

Maybe this dream was telling me that I will find love somewhere else, with someone else? Or maybe it only meant that with all my troubles everything yet will turn out alright? I really don’t know, but it was a positive experience, I would even say ‘spiritual’.

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Women are not sentimental about old relationships like men are. Rather, they are usually spiteful and bitter about them. I’ve finally been able to hear that criminal show for myself because my half-wit neighbors don’t know how to put the volume down on their televisions to a reasonable level, and yes, most of the women I’ve dated had hurtful things to say about me, but none hurt me more or cut me deeper than those said by: Kathy Oberg (Even though it has been thousands of years since the conception of the myth of “Pandora’s box”, women have not changed in that they often don’t think very far ahead to see the end results of all hey themselves have set into motion. Was a time where you could not provide incentive enough, or pay them enough, to get women to publicly discuss the details of their intimate lives. Seems times have changed considerably. Since all these women seem eager to play out, albeit very biased versions, stories about their intimacies with me, I am just not comfortable with these stories being only known the way slandering tongues relate them, in fact, I’m mortified. However I feel it’s important to keep in mind the trashy, tabloid nature that show has assumed, especially in recent years, so this is the kind of slander they encourage, and since these people are obviously compensated for going on this show, it’s normal they’d want to give their employers satisfaction.

The following is a very incomplete account, but I post it here as I originally wrote it inspired by the passion of hearing her voice again after all these years, even though her intent was clearly to harm my reputation. I still think she was wonderful, and if she had only tried to be a little more honest with me about the big picture, even without giving everything away, I have no doubt it all would have worked out and that we’d still be happy together till this very day.)

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I’d always been keenly fond of Kathy since I first met her in the spring of my senior year of High School when she was in the 10th grade. My first memory of her was… when we were all high on acid and she literally came dancing into the room, all dimples, curves, strawberry blond hair and big, beautiful blue eyes which seemed to refract the light like a child’s toy kaleidoscope. Yes, although it was well past midnight she danced in and brought the sunshine with her, and lit up the room with her joyful spirit.

She was seeing someone else at the time. She always was. An endless line of thin, pale men with black hair, like myself. When we finally did get together, 10 years later, I felt everything was happening far too fast. I had fully intended to play the field and enjoy my young life, but suddenly I found myself once again clamped into a monogamous relationship.

As I said, it happened all so fast. We slept together the first night after our reunion, and it rapidly escalated from there. It amazed me- she seemed to agree with me about everything, had many of the same peculiarities and eccentricities as I, and seemed to know an awful lot about me. Although this was all rather charming and endearing, I had a very queer and alarming sensation that this was all very wrong, even sick. As time progressed I became increasingly used to this feeling, which was not altogether unfamiliar to me as I’d been having it nearly all my life, only now it was urgently intense. Despite this, she pleased me. I was happy, mostly, except for this premonition that all was not right. It was this feeling which gnawed away at my entrails, usually gently, sometimes more insistingly.

I started all of our arguments. I admit this, but it was only because of my growing mistrust of her due to this distressing intuition. On the surface, she was an angel. Thoughtful, always helpful and forgiving, and as submissive as a piece of wet clay, which I always felt funny about as she was much more educated and better bred than I, who came from a class of common laborers.

Except for this constant psychic discomfort, my life was idyllic. I mean, I suppose it would have been if I could have learned to overlook the incessant sense that I had no real control over my own life because I was really just the actor in somebody else’s badly written play.

I spent hardly any time at my one bedroom apartment in Studio City, as I spent every available moment I had either at her place or out and about with her exploring. We spent a lot of our time going to all the Art events, including my own openings and shows, in the L.A. area, laughing and kidding around with each other. We were what everyone considered a ‘cool, couple’, and everyone admired us and we had many friends, although we spent most of our time alone together, enjoying ourselves and each other.

Occasionally the sensation that all was not right- that this was all contrived and artificial, would overwhelm me, goading me to act out and start awful arguments. I just couldn’t shake that constant feeling that I was being lied to, that the people in my life weren’t being sincere and that big secrets were always being kept from me. Surprisingly, although I was invariably clearly proven in the in these disagreements, she would always take me back and blessed me with her forgiveness. I know this all sounds heavenly, and it was, but the feeling of being manipulated was eating away at the back of my brain all the while and I felt that I was quietly going insane. Had I known exactly what was happening, I may have simply been grateful- but I detest mysteries, and this one was tormenting me unto madness. Also, it’s a given that young men need their freedom, so obviously this niggling awareness that I was nothing but a deluded prisoner of deceit and lies made me profoundly uncomfortable.

This feeling of being manipulated was so insistent that I began drinking heavily, and yes, I did begin disrespecting her in the bedroom, but she didn’t seem to mind at all, she even seemed to welcome my trespasses. They were mostly of a verbal nature, but I honestly felt she would have gladly allowed me to beat her had I wanted too. In fact, I now recall that she even said as much upon a couple of occasions. However, this I could never do. It would have been an unforgivable violation of both of us. She only complained once. I was in my apartment on my day off, drunk on vodka, watching some Russian movie when she dropped by. I don’t know what came over me, but I suddenly just peeled her clothes off and started savagely fucking her from the back. Afterwards, she reprimanded me, crying hysterically, asking me if that’s all she had to look forward to, me “fucking her from behind’. This was all very odd to me because I rarely took her this way. To this day, although I regret having made her cry, I still can not understand why this particular escapade distressed her so much more than the verbal abuse I occasionally indulged in. I can only suppose she was in a particularly sensitive frame of mind that day and needed me to be more gentle and caring than I was. Maybe this is why she visited. I suppose I’ll never know now.

This feeling of unreality- of laughing, faceless entities controlling my life continued to grow- also, now there was the guilt associated with my little transgressions against my darling girl. I felt like a heel, but I also felt like a puppet tangled up in his own strings. Whenever I tried to exert control everything came out twisted, dark and distorted. Alcohol was no longer adequate to quell the pain, I began using heroine. The major disadvantage of this avenue of release was a drastically reduced libido. This hurt Kathy much more than my old selfish sexual behavior.

“You always take the sweetest rose and crush it till the petals fall you always break the sweetest heart with a hasty word you can’t recall”

We started having more arguments, louder ones, and now she was starting them too. On our last night together I was very weary, and wanted only to sleep, but she had just examined a phone bill she had extracted from my pants pocket and noticed that I had recently called an old girlfriend of mine. Honestly, I had only called to chat as I would never dream of cheating on my Kathy. Oh well, I confess, I did dream of this occasionally. I had tried, once or twice, seeking a little variety- but I could never bring myself to actually do so, always calling the girl at the last minute to break the engagement.

NOW Kathy was very cross with me about the call and all I wanted to do was sleep as I had to rise early in the morning for work. Also, what bothered me even far more was what I felt was her nerve and hypocrisy. Some nerve she had flying off the handle like that just because I made one drunken long distance call when I knew she was hiding an entire world of secrets from me, and then implying I was crazy whenever I was bold enough to ask questions I flew into a rage and when I came to I was in my dark apartment all alone.

I did think that she really loved me, possibly much more than I even loved her, but if so, how could she keep secrets from me and deceive me so? How could she keep a big secret like that away from one whom she loved so tenderly? A secret which has, over the years, eaten my very life out from under me as insidiously as though it were a virulent cancer?

No matter how many young women I sleep with it doesn’t quell the dull ache in my heart. My heart aches because I still want to grow old with my Kathy, my one golden ray of sunshine in my otherwise drab and grey existence, the one true love of my life.

I miss you dearly, my sunny funny Kathy.

please forgive me

the sand blasted face of an Egyptian god guards your heart as though it were a Pharaoh’s tomb. with all the strength of a bird flying against the winds of a storm i have begged you for forgiveness over the years since our worlds flew into disarray- all because we both loved me too much. i am sorry, but i had to be alone because i was a young fool who had to live a fantasy before he lived a dream to have Roman orgies and stab holes in my arm with golden daggers. but you couldn’t have known that. it was like being in church for you whenever we fucked it was a sweetly religious experience for you whenever you prayed at my alter. but i was too busy playing rock concerts in my head, spinning through the LA freeways, head in the smog, as i dimly heard a whole squadron of sirens trailing behind me while i blared Tom Waits and ate peanut butter cups. oh- it was a dream while it lasted dancing mad and obscenely between ecstasy and disaster. i know- i squandered my dreams foolishly. the dingy cruelty of the world has made me pull your faded ghost out of my book and shed tears of regret and jism and howl at the gods for cursing me with that arrogant idiocy that made me turn my back on you when you were so perfect and yielding and all at once clearly the stronger of the two of us. regret had aged my features and darkened my soul and my life has been nothing I’ve ever wanted ever since.

Man- is this pen a worthless piece of junk or what, I ask you!? (In case you didn't notice that I was looking right through you as I said it)

Imagine sitting inside a cooked turkey- inside the abdomen walled in by stuffing. You hear the knife sawing through the flesh as the turkey rocks gently back and forth. Little by little, as the bird is carved up and pieces of it removed, more and more chinks of light appear here and there, till suddenly, as the last fascia of tissue is scraped off the ribs you see the stupefied family staring dumbfoundedly at you through the ribs. Then you could fly off the dining room table as if it were an aircraft carrier in your turkey skeleton Flying Fortress, and then you could fly through the halls chasing the screeching, horrified cat.

Turkey skeleton with an egg in it. It hatches and looks hungrily through the ribs.

There were no 'nerds' in the caveman days.

OK- Its the day after the day after Thanx Giving- now we stand sated upon the bones of the great turkey holocaust, alternatively picking our teeth and belching. Visions of great roaring gravy rivers and singed turkey limbs floating over it into our waiting maws- like the river Styx flowing into the abyss of The Dead.

What's next for us, the Damned who still move about entangled in this mortal coil? A hellish maze strewn with tinsel and bells, burning in hot isles frosted with artificial snow. Over us a fat, red attired devil laughs uproariously at the frantic holiday shoppers, greedily grabbing this and that while working their way deeper and deeper into a sucking bog of debt and financial distress. "HO HO HO!!" he maniacally repeats over and over again, periodically cracking his red whip over toiling department store wage slaves.

Finding a place to live with a microscope. I'll live imagination runs dry. Call the library- the library satellite. Observatory head: a telescope comes out of a crack in his skull.

Semen squirting gag flower. fake food, fake vomit, plastic dog shit- even rubber severed limbs. Glass eyes in cocktail glasses. "I can't see a thing without my glasses."

Cigarette dangling from a rope of smoke, grab it with your lips and be hoisted away by the clouds.

Stick a spade in the earth and blood gushes out. A mountain as a huge festering sore with a gigantic worm living in the center.

Do medical work with carpentry tools. It don't work, its broken. I'm broke, I don't work.