Art: a work of Art.

I like to paint. Today I have spent much of the time in an intense sense of bliss at the thought of not having to go to my job during the week and actually having moment to be free. It was essential to mention the job because I just got paid today and could, therefore, spend a little bit of money.

Back to painting. Sometimes I do watercolors of the same subject more or less. I see them as emotional reflections of a mind at thought, at thinking, at listening, at wondering, at stating, etc. Really, they are just sketches for much bigger paintings that might never get done.

I looked at some ads for new places to live, but I'm sorry, I want to be able to have fun and not have to feel that I have to be away from the place a certain amount of time to make every one happy. And these people never take cats. Although I no longer have a cat, there are to two cats here in the house, Pablo and Buddy. They have varous other names like Pineapple, the Pubbers, Chunky Monkey and the Budders.

But I digress again. This was supposed to be about Art. I watched the film ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAl tonight. Why did John Malkovich have to be in it? Wasn't the story line completely tired (the boy who wants to be an artist so he can have beautiful women...)? Sexy this film was not. Enlightening this film was not. Pubesxent this film was. It was supposed to be a play on some other film (Terry Zigoff can't be this bad of a director??). I really liked Steve Buscemi and the casting of non-Hollywood actors.

I haven't said anything about Art and neither did this film. I haven't said anything about love and neither did this film.

American Hardcore

I tried watch THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP but got lost on the premise:"Love is an extrapolation of a dream" or some poopoo like that. This film is really sick. Now, I haven't seen it to the end, so I might have to correct myself. But I found myself wondering what "love" the film is referring to. The main character loves no one, really. Oh yes, his name was Stephane. And oh yes, he's Mexican in France. The woman he has a romantic relationship with is named Stephanie. Is she an extension of him and he and extension of him?

Back to Derrida, what's in a name? What is "love"? As we know, the Greeks (and, sorry, I'm not shedding light on this for anyone with a reference to what love means in an idigenous culture) had a couple of words for love: agape, love for all and eros, "romantic," i.e., love involving sex. Is Western culture still stuck on this? But, of course, because sex sells. It's all about the money. Once again.

I don't feel like elaborating on this much further. And the whole concept of self-love, as taught in many cultures and espoused by many therapists for those who find themselves in doubt, is another issue. But, I wonder, is it?

Some of the poems...

Yeah, I got to play tabla at the Club Deluxe!!! It was very cool for me to sit on the floor next to the stage and be kind of from somewhere else. I'm in a good mood. Yes. My room looks like some kind of weird bazaare, with stuff to look at everywhere--and defnitely a lot on the floor!

But I digress...Just wanted to post a couple of the poems I read the other night at SHE SPEAKS #2:


RIver Tongue


You see inside my billowing, soft-magenta lips
With yours, hard and driven, spreading to open
What is seen inside...


A cavern of the raspberry popsicle where
Sweetness resides and deisre wants to fall
Into the moonlit sky.


Your truly musky, muscular tongue sips
And licks its much-wanted candy cane
That lives year-round.


Your rows of growth in your brown garden,
Your cheeks and chin, burrow into mine,
And we smell greenness.


But pink is our color because we live
Inside pink and glow outside pink and
Play in pink.


Let me rip out your black eyes and stick
Them inside my head that I may always
See as we do.

That's enough for now. No, maybe I'll type out Prem:


Prem (Love)

Judging and unjudging (a proper gerund?),
Your nose to the right or to the left,
A droit ou a gauche, meories stilled
In the movement de mon coeur without a
Relationship. In your compassion, you know all.

The lake is full and open to your remembrances
And what ripples and what is now calm.
Oh, esta mi agua, and nosotros podemos.
Pero yo quiero the pink smell of happiness,
I know you want it, you have it, you give it.

Yours truly, and the fairies and sprites have
Joined us in the celebration. What will you
Have of me now? Gibt es Blumen everywhere,
Traversing the planes of being, being with you
Among those who sweep and ponder distantly.

SHE SPEAKS

March is the month of women, drinking in the name of "Christianity," the Amurrikan flag, and Cesar Chavez. I have been blessed to be a part of the women who make up SHE SPEAKS. We are woman musicians, poets, performers, etc.!!! This has been the creative outlet I've needed for a long time. Today I sent off one of my performance pictures for a bio thing. The photo was from May of 2002--five years ago!!! Scary.

Although I've been doing The Bro Jud on Love Energy Show for a number of years now, I have practiced with the band ahead of time only once! And, although there is not enough room in my room for even me, I will be playing tabla every day for at least a half hour until next Tuesday when I'll play at the SHE SPEAKS event at Club Deluxe on Haight (March 20th, 8 pm).

They want me to sing and drum to the Goddess. As one who knows Hinduism might know, the Goddess has many forms: Lalita (Lakshmi, Goddess of Love and Money), Saraswati (Goddess of Music and Knowledge), Durga (a form of Kali, but much prettier, and, according to a customer from Japan who came into Love of Ganesha last week, Goddess of Wisdom), and, of course, Kali, Jagd herself. I think the bhajan I'll sing is to Kali. But my tabla is sooo out of tune. I need some help!!! Too bad one of my boyfriends who plays tabla went back to Gujarat a year or so ago. I'll just practice my na. Everything else will fall into place.

I don't want to talk about the love life situation at this point, but I will. Last week a guy I had a heart connection with called me. He was in town after coming and going since last June. He would e-mail me that he was in town and then would never meet up with me. He must have done this at least 5 times. It's too bad that I couldn't deal with being let down any more. It would have been good to see him. Then there's the white guy (I don't think I've gone out with a white guy since 2002) whom I would like to have as a friend. We met up some time in late February when he played at a performance at The Beat Museum which I shot video of. Then there's one of the Mexican guys I know who had me to dinner but never inquired into my health (I was dying from the flu and bronchitis) after I went to his place for dinner. He seemed into being validated as a lover. To be honest, I was not really attracted to him physically. But I would have liked to hang out with him as a friend to find out if we could be lovers. Many men I meet don't think that getting to know someone should have some mystery to it or that sex is tantamount to any meeting otherwise it would be a waste of time for them.

Now I know I have more to offer than just my body, etc. But there really haven't been any guys around who can recognize and not be afraid or threatened by my intelligence and stupidity. Such is the karma of the moment. But I feel good about the fact that my having been so sick and really still recovering is making it much easier for this Scorpio/Sagittarian woman to resist sex!

I just signed into the New Blogger...

Ok. Now I have a new blog. It's been a while since I've written anything. I was very, very sick with the flu, acute bronchitis and a cold. Stayed in bed for four days at the end of last week. Was out of work for two days;; the whole classroom fell apart. Working now is even more depressing. There were fights among the assistants as to who knows how to run the class. Going to work is the worst it's ever been.

I took a nap for two hours this evening, and when I woke up I was sweating. The heat was really high in my room for some reason. Just this simple biological event ant the rest and visit to the astral and dreamland helped me see that work is not the most important thing. It couldn't have been furthest from my mind. My comfort came first. I think this will be my approach to the next two hellish days: I will concentrate on what makes me feel good about myself. My actions will take the form of well-intentioned, well-spoken and thought-out activities and events.

There is much to do. I've cut out the chai and the caffeine for the week. This is helping in a big way. It's too bad that I can't wear these new jeans I bought--because they keep falling down! (don't use animal products--don't have a belt) So, I don't care. I'll wear my long skirt tomorrow with ripped thermal leggings underneath. I will compromise and wear my white high top converse tennis shoes (in case I have to run after a kid).

As you may infer, life has been on the dull side as far as sex and love and tantra. There's a guy I met a few weeks ago I have to contact to give him something I made of his music. i hope we can be friends. A person from the past called me and wanted to bring everything up to the present at 1:00am in the morning last night. I had to say I've been sick and can't stay up late--not to mention that work has been so shitty. He didn't call me today. This is not a pattern I want to continue. So I go to work and try to get better physically and emotionally. I still think alot about Arlo but not as much. I think he is happy with Lita again now on some other plane or even as her newly-born kitten.

Soon to be over being sick with the flu.

It seems like I haven't written in this blog for a long time. Lately I've been so tired from the flu and bronchitis that I haven't felt like typing. Boohoo.

Just wanted to write about ROCK AND ROLL SWINDLE. A friend of mine lent it to me, and I'd seen it before. It's from Malcolm McLaren's perspective. Today a friend came by and was talking about all this stuff from out punk pasts (presents?). She's from Ireland and has a totally European perspective--from the gentry side. Her family was gentry in Eire and had lots of land. She doesn't have to work for, perhaps, the rest of her life. But she refuses to "own" things.

Anyway, she was telling me she saw The Slits somewhere on Tehama...I don't know this club. Why didn't I call her? I couldn't understand her message, and, the times she was callilng me before, about 3 years ago, she was going to live in a camper van across from the house she's rented with others for years and years.

This has become a digression about abouts, a bout de la mer. I was at work! So, I kept doing what I was supposed to be doing and listening to her talk about different bands (Noh Mercy, The Seemen,,,_Swell Maps.... In any case, she brought up Johnny Rotten's answer to THE R...SWINDLE. I think it's called THE FILTH AND THE FURY. I do want to see it. But I'd rather draw my own conclusions from it than listen to my "friend" and her take on everything.

Oh, the gentry thing. She acts, when I say I'm busy and can't come over tomorrow, she says, "Oh you don't have to make excuses..." This means to me that she couldn't give a shit about my life. I am mere working class--something she aspires to in dress only.

I still miss my kitten.

The blog has been empty recently because I've been doing too many things at once and with alot of rushing around and around, trying not to think about anything but work, of all kinds, from what I do and get paid for and what I do and don't get paid for like doing The Bro Jud on Love Energy show, playing guitar and singing, getting home late. Tonight I got the chance to laugh until I was crying. My friends, another couple, I know, were out tonight in boring Glen Park at the last bit of sleaze in the area, the bar called The Glen Park Station. My friend was tripping, and I was tripping. The air was full of mistrust and yet of the serious desire to have a good time because it was Friday.

The point of all of this is that I couldn't help thinking about something that was distracting me. It was an empty thought in the back of the mind that I couldn't identify. When I was asked if I were preoccupied with something, I had to say yes. But I still don't know what it is. The grief I feel over the loss of my cat Arlo, my friend, my protector, my connection with the sense of family.

I can still laugh, and that is a good thing. It made me cry, which is also a good thing. It's difficult to convey the comingling of loss and desire.

First, I'll Take a Shower.

the course of the nameless blog after 10 days of not writing a thing. THE SLOTH. The Grief. The ...

Tijuana, Ziggie Stardust, and grief.

he last time I went on an airplane was in December of 2001. My friend and I did one of those things to San Diego on the Tijuana line. Tijuana was almost empty because it was December 12, a day of the Virgin. The shops were empty. I bought a ceramic candelabra with dolphins and mermaids and mermen. (I don't have it anymore--another karmic story). It was so cool to be out of this country for a little while and out of the city which is wonderful but can get dull. I think it is now 2007. That was six years ago. Imagine how much I long to see something new!

Six years ago my cat Arlo was 3 and 1/2. He was so cute forever, forever, forever. Whenever anyone came over, he let them know who was also present. He was a friend, "he was all right..." I don't even have to mention that he was one of the more beautiful cats ever created, with sleek black hair and body, green-grass eyes, a small tuft of white hair in each ear and the longest tail I've ever seen on a domesticated cat.

{My mind is swirling, my muscles tense and guarded. My eyes are about to burst. "I want you to walk...")

My cat Arlo is dying.

"Nothing could be more fun than watching an animal die." Have you ever heard anyone express such an opinion? I wonder how people who work in slaughterhouses feel about this.

For me, in the past two years, I have had to watch two animals die: my 17-year-old female cat, Lita (named for guitarist Lita Ford), and now, tonight, my 9 1/2 year-old cat, Arlo (given the name in deference to the poet/activist/musician Arlo Guthrie). Now, the real animal lovers in the crowd would ask, "WHY ARE YOU NOT SPENDING TIME WITH YOUR CAT--instead of writing in your dumb blog?"

The answer is that I can't find him right now. He's hiding in the room. I rented a really heart-filled film from Iran, THE WHITE BALLOON." I thought Arlo and I might watch it together. I hope I find him. Oh, he's under the bed. I will sleep with him tonight and take him tomorrow, if I can get an emergency appointment. It's so awful. He's not even purring.

When Lita was put to sleep, she was purring so was Bat, her son, when he died in the mid-nineties.

Arlo and I will stay together. I can't let him go, that's the problem.

Still in December

It's supposed to be January, but I haven't noticed the difference between December and now. It's really cold. How trite an observation one might comment, but then what else has been said that hasn't already been said? I mean, really. Family Guy and South Park say most of it in new ways. What will be my way of saying it?

"It's my way or the highway." Some people say this. I think they live in the suburbs.

Meanwhile I got my car tuned up this evening. What a miracle. There was no oil in the car's engine. It's really incredible that it was still running. I suppose this is what makes it not December: I got something important done that I was planning to get done during my vacation. It's a good think I didn't go to the ashram this past weekend. Ganesh was letting me know that I hadn't prepared for the journey.

This brings up the question if one can ever truly "prepare" for something or "be prepared to" do something. In Spanish "to be prepared to" is "dispuesto a" which is actually an acjective. I wish I had studied Foucault--it's not too late! The various adjectives for "dispuesto a" are listed: "ready; clever, disposed, helpful."

I saw VOLVER today.

The first "day" of 2007, in the Judeo-Christian tradition and etc. Whatever. It will also be the Year of the Boar in China, and in Southeast Asia New Year's Eve won't be sometime until April something. I hope it's a year full of love, compassion, understanding and healing.

Meanwhile, I saw two films over the weekend: OLIVIER, OLIVIER (1991, France) and VOLVER (2005, Spain). What was common in both films, ironically, because I didn't know what either was "about" before seeing them, was pedophilia. Olivier is raped at the age of 5 or 6, leaves lhis family estate for Paris, gets involved in street sex (it is suggested) and return at 15 to find the old.young Olivier.

VOLVER (from the Spanish verb: "volver" to turn (either up or down, or over) finds the mother--there are a few mothers in this--of the young teenage girl arriving home to find her lover dead. He had been eyeing the young girl in a sexual way, and when he finally attacked her, she killed him with a knife. It turns out the young girl's mother (played by -always-tightly-clad Penelope Cruz) had been raped by her father and bore the young girl in the film who is also her sister.

I can't talk about any of this anymore. Tomorrow I have to return to work and be there at all times for the kids. The hours are the best part of the job: 8:30-3:00 most days. I am trying to look at the positive aspects of this type of work. I wish I were the kind of person who could take a nap. So, getting up early means a long day for me. There are so many creative projects I haven't gotten to (video, music). I also will be doing yoga this year again. I'll make space in my tiny room!

I saw VOLVER today.

The first "day" of 2007, in the Judeo-Christian tradition and etc. Whatever. It will also be the Year of the Boar in China, and in Southeast Asia New Year's Eve won't be sometime until April something. I hope it's a year full of love, compassion, understanding and healing.

Meanwhile, I saw two films over the weekend: OLIVIER, OLIVIER (1991, France) and VOLVER (2005, Spain). What was common in both films, ironically, because I didn't know what either was "about" before seeing them, was pedophilia. Olivier is raped at the age of 5 or 6, leaves lhis family estate for Paris, gets involved in street sex (it is suggested) and return at 15 to find the old.young Olivier.

VOLVER (from the Spanish verb: "volver" to turn (either up or down, or over) finds the mother--there are a few mothers in this--of the young teenage girl arriving home to find her lover dead. He had been eyeing the young girl in a sexual way, and when he finally attacked her, she killed him with a knife. It turns out the young girl's mother (played by -always-tightly-clad Penelope Cruz) had been raped by her father and bore the young girl in the film who is also her sister.

I can't talk about any of this anymore. Tomorrow I have to return to work and be there at all times for the kids. The hours are the best part of the job: 8:30-3:00 most days. I am trying to look at the positive aspects of this type of work. I wish I were the kind of person who could take a nap. So, getting up early means a long day for me. There are so many creative projects I haven't gotten to (video, music). I also will be doing yoga this year again. I'll make space in my tiny room!

Where were we?

The year is coming to an end (kind of--there New Year's celebrations in many cultures at different times), some people look ahead and backward and others just are glad that it is now and that's all that matters. For me, it's all of the above; but I try not to let past and future draw me in.

Today I felt the first pangs of exhaustion that comes from doing too much. Working alot. It's been a good week and a hectic week. I'm glad I feel tired. I need the sleep. One could write a whole treatise and a half about sleep. I recommend "The Confessions of an English Opium Eater" the author of which slips my mind. Sleep can mean lots of things, but mainly surround dreams and visualizations.

Yeah. I need the time to hallucinate, visualize and otherwise dream.

Yesterday was my birthday.

A birthday just records one's solar return; the sun returns to the place it was the "year" before based on the natal chart. One is supposed to be more tired. Perhaps that is why I am drinking so much black tea, chai. Actually, today a good friend of mine gave me thermosful of the chai he makes. I like it so well, that I couldn't resist drinking the whole thing? I've been buzzing ever since! He gave it to me mainly because I was working at the store today. Not that many last minute shoppers, so we had some time to talk. He had been to the ashram in San Ramon the night before and recounted a story told by the swami there.

Apparently Amma had asked him to watch the fanning of a banana leaf that was refreshing her. He had said that so many people wanted to have this honor of fanning Amma, that he was very nervous in carrying it out. Actually, he hit her by accident and Amma gave him this "look." Amma explained to him that the subtle bodies were upset with the way she had been treated although it were an accident. The subtle bodies watch out for Amma.

The question of Amma came up between another friend of mine who is from India. He says that he has no interest in meeting her nor in doing any Hindu practice. This person has the same birthday as me. I thought we might share it (I used to share it with my brother growing up--we're not twins, just two years apart). However, he must have been doing something fun, I hope. I didn't hear from him.

However, I did see a lot of friends today and exchanged gifts and all that. I also saw the film BOBBY. I'm not sure about how I feel about this fictional drama. It has too many Hollywood trashy actors in it. Lawrence Fishburne and Sharon Stone were the most gifted of this ensemble of "actors." The acting aside, the quotes from video footage of Bobby Kennedy was very rewarding to hear. I didn't really know what he said because I was far too young to listen to candidates for office or anything. What I'm getting at is that this man was truly eloquent in speaking from a humanitarian point of view about real problems.

So, it was a good birthday. I felt transformed and somewhat interested in something new to do with my time. I'm not sure yet.

I won't get into how much of a brat I was about the gifts I got.

The time of gift-giving and all that.

Tonight I spoke with a friend with whom I have had a strained relationship for quite a while. This woman talks incessantly about herself and her life ad nauseum. Actually, I just put the phone away from my ear when she starts talking about her week at work, day-by-day, detail-by-detail; all this is about subbing in K-12 schools. SInce I work in a K-12 school, some of this is either quite boring for me or just annoying. When do I get to talk about what happens, day-to-day, detail-to-detail in my week? This person doesn't have time to listen to that. But she must be listened to. (She's mainly German-American.)

Actually, she reminds me alot of my mother--who is far from German-American. She exudes the manic, vaporous, narcissistic tendencies of the "bad" Irish-American matron. Enough about her. At least my mother didn't tell me what she wanted me to buy her for Christmas.

This friend basically told me, when I said I would be making cds for people, that she only wanted Persian, world or Middle eastern music. I was thinking, " Wow, you're limited in your experience of life. Just because you're not into 'rock'any more (even though she likes U2 (yuck--even though Bono has his moments) and Beck (she thinks he's cute, is what I see). there is music she hasn't heard before that is made by experimental, albeit western, musicians. It's cool to be into "world" music, and I really like Indian and Arabic music and know the music of some artists well, I just don't like being told what to buy for someone. This person plays the starving artist (although she is light years away from being starved) and gives people gifts from the thrift store and things she finds on the street. Just because I work really hard--full -time--and have a bit more money than she does, I don't have to buy her anything. I'll check out the Senior Center's thrift store in the neighborhood or go down to Community Thrift and buy her some cups or bowls or something. Yeah, that's it. I'll buy what I know she likes and pay less than I would for the incense!!

"Money, money, money; nickels, nickels, nickels. How I love the sound!" (Lucy lines in "A Charlie Brown Christmas.") Greed, greed go away. I just want to have time to play.

I forgot to mention vacation.

Today is my first day of vacation. I am really enjoying my emotional and intellectual freedom already. I want to go to Mexico for a few days in these two weeks, but I don't have the cash, really. One has to plan for trips, right?

Seeing stars very large and close-up.

I wonder how many people have had the experience of travelling around the city at night while they're eyes are completely dilated. No one can describe the glistening colors, red and charcoal-grey and whites with haloes and sculptures in movement. This is the second Friday for me of spending the evening enjoying the view from my eyes.

Last week I went to the opthalmologist about my eyelid infection. Boring, right? How long (it's been since Halloween--hmm) that my eyelid has been some shade of red and either puffy or just red. Today they told my at the clinic that, looking at both eyes, that...well, both eyelids "kind of look the same." OK, fine. They can't figure out why I got "cellutis" on my eyelid. But when will it go away???

Maybe I should start meditating it away. It's served its purpose in getting me to finally have a full eye exam and all that. Today they told me that I could have had this eye disease at birth. I believe it's weird to have eye issues. So many people deal with them but I never really have had to wear glasses or anything. In any case, they told me that it would probably take a long time--if at all--for my eyes to get to the point where I might need surgery. Ok. I agree with that.

Meanwhile I took my final exam last night in the film class. I wrote about Dorothy Arzner's CRAIG"S WIFE from 1935, one of the Depression years. Arzner was the only female director in Hollywood during the "Studio Years," 1917-1954 or something. (I didn't read the chapter on this.) CRAIG'S WIFE is about a woman who loves her huge, mansion-like house over her husband and everyone else. Because the "Studio Years" were punitive (there was a Production Code written by and enforced by a Catholic layman, Joseph Breen)--if you didn't love your wife or husband or were a gangster or a non-patriot you were somehow punished from above or below. These films are hard to watch. For example, in CASABLANCA Ingrid Bergman makes the correct choice in going off with her husband instead of living with Rick, her lover for a time. Actually, CASABLANCA made me want to puke it was so overdone. CRAIG"S WIFE is disturbing in a different way. The music, the camera angles all point to a woman on the edge--and being vulnerable in that way was not permitted in film depictions until ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST. But that's just my opinion.

The film history test and THE BRO JUD ON LOVE ENERGY SHOW

Thursday I have to take the final exam in my film history class. I really hate art history. It's really subjective, putting parts together that may not fit just to prove some sort of point about nothing. CASABLANCA was so boring. So was STAGECOACH. Actually the latter film was degrading to watch. Being human can't meant that one human has a right over another for grabbing land.

So, I'm not studying for my exam. I've been thinking about what I'm going to read on THE BRO JUD ON LOVE ENERGY SHOW tomorrow night. Also, I want to sing and play one of my songs. I have to work tomorrow. This is such a busy week. I should mention that I'm going to try to understand Jud's utopian plan with alot of love energy.

Studying for the film history test and eye disease.

This semester I took the first half of Film History 20 at City College. One thinks, CIty College...really difficult, huh? Actually, I've not studied so much for a class than since I went to UC Berkeley. I took my papers really seriously. In this class, I have to take the TESTS seriously. He gives us mass information about the early days of film and Hollywood and all that. Classical cutting, parellel editing, the master shot, medium shot, close-up, deep focus cinematography (CITIZEN KANE), reverse shot/shot editing (CASABLANCA), the musical (THE GOLD DiGGERS OF 1933), and etc. I did my paper on the films of the only woman director in Hollywood in the 1930's: Dorothy Arzner. She did melodramas, which, according to our instructor, starred women. My paper dealt with the class struggle depicted in two of her films: THE BRIDE WORE RED and CRAIG'S WIFE. My instructor found my discussion "interesting" but not "deep enough." I didn't make a big deal out of the fact that Dorothy Arzner directed women in films about women. To be honest, I'd rather not have to talk about LIFETIME television. I'd rather watch "Family Guy."

Speaking of what can befall a woman, I'm dealing with the loneliness of having NO BOYFRIEND and having been just diagnosed witih an eye disease--in both eyes. I've had an eyelid infection for almost two months now. The eye disease is in the back of my eyes. It's called "lattice degeneration." A lattice is a physics matter. Apparently, not enough blood flows to the affected area and it breaks down. On Friday when I return to UCSF for my follow-up exam to probe into what might help deflect the onslaught of retinal breakage that results with lattice degeneration.

Not a real font of good news today. Feeling like I want to write a personals ad, since I never meet anyone at work or in the usual places one meets prospective loves. Somehow I'm ready to face this week at work, because Friday after 3 p.m. means Christmas vacation!!!!