Well. I guess. At this besieged point.
Dear invincible, invisible reader. If you have followed this spontaneous cyber-transmission… this wandering, transgressive confession… this ebullient emptying of the “dustbin of the heart” as it were… this
quer·u·lous
ˈkwer(y)ələs/
adjective
adjective: querulous
1 complaining in a petulant or whining manner. "the cancer patient became querulous and demanding"
ˈkwer(y)ələs/
adjective
adjective: querulous
1 complaining in a petulant or whining manner. "the cancer patient became querulous and demanding"
petulant, peevish, pettish, complaining, fractious, fretful, irritable, testy, tetchy, cross, snappish, crabby, crotchety, cantankerous, miserable, moody, grumpy, bad-tempered, sullen, sulky, sour, churlish, snappy, grouchy, cranky
"even the most querulous patients failed to upset the young nurse"
di·a·tribe
ˈdīəˌtrīb/
noun
noun: diatribe; plural noun: diatribes
1 a forceful and bitter verbal attack against someone or something. "a diatribe against the Roman Catholic Church"
tirade, harangue, onslaught, attack, polemic, denunciation, broadside, fulmination, condemnation, censure, criticism, philippic
"the ongoing debate about the desirability of single-gender education"
Origin
GREEK>> dia (through) tribein (rub) GREEK>> diatrib(ee) spending of time, discourse LATIN >> FRENCH>> late 16th century
(How about: the ongoing debate about the desirability of single-gender celibacy in the Roman Catholic Pedofilic Cult?!)
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You must see that at this point. I was firmly committed.
Now. Consider this. If good old fashioned “relationship” is the essential “cart” of all human endeavors. Then surely “commitment” is the quintessential “ox” that drives the course.
It is true. The well-worn phrase “stubborn as an ox”. Does come in a menagerie of cheery flavors. “Stubborn as a mule, a goat, a donkey, a rock, a bull, a pigeon….”
However. Where were we?
Ah. The archetypal hero. The stubborn survivor. The cantankerous rock pigeon of folkloric legends!
Who!?
Who-who… Who-who… Who-who…
Exactly, children!!
Me again.
Yes. I was committed to resurrecting a Grand Temple of Sacred Art from the bloated modern landfills of unprincipled, polluted profanity!
Yes. I was committed to “liberation” from the crummy broke-down wheel of existence for the sake of all righteous sentient pirates!!
Yes. I was committed to discovering the precious “mind treasures” hidden in the depths of the secret sea caves of Cameltopia by the ever-present Guru Padmakara, the never-gone Chief Red Cloud, and… the still-here-forever-and-always….? You-betcha-bubba… Avatar Adi Da Samraj!
Yes. I was committed to betrothing my Beloved Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Mad River on Wednesday, to healing the Hypertensive Broken Heart of Reality, to stealing unlawful fire from the greedy, duplicitous gods, to tracking down and befriending the fabled yeti, to building a computer-generated alternate aesthetic universe for all who wander, to translating the indigenous spirit of Mythical Humboldt County into a reasonable guide book, to fearlessly demonstrating the true nature of hyperbole, to revealing the recurrent dreams and inarticulate woes of the Collective Human Apocalypse, to making Art “like the world has never seen”… Great Art, Greater Art… Art, The Greatest!
Yes. I was committed to making “American Art” great again… that’s right folks.
Art that people will appreciate like nothing they’ve ever known before. Art that people will give their bottom dollar to own. That’s right. Priceless Art. And, art that is a good deal, too. Oh yes. Guaranteed to heal, to liberate, to infuriate, to knock your ecstatic eyes out. And most important of all. Art that makes us proud to be Americans once again. Art that makes us the envy of the rest of the puny, impecunious world. Art that has them standing in long long desperate lines all over the planet… just to get a tiny glimpse of the greatness
Art that praises uproariously, with wild naked abandon
The Crazy-Wise Divine Nature of Reality Itself!!!
Art that Reveals (beyond argument) the Underlying Unity!!!!
And, the Profound Primping Primedicing Primate Primadonnas
That We All Are!!!!!
I was committed to this digital craze... cross? I was hooked on “an impossible (technological) dream”. Bedazzled by the potential of this computer-generated fad.
I had a new employee, a burgeoning art business, a holy family, a ravenous three-legged tomcat to feed! Not to mention a movie-star gorgeous girlfriend… really, I’m not kidding… the Brigitte Bardot of Oakland, California!… who liked to go out to eat every chance she could at the finest restaurants in Humboldt, Mendocino, Sonoma, Marin… San Anselmo, San Rafael, Larkspur, Mill Valley, Sausalito, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Santa Monica, Hollywood, Del Mar, La Jolla!
Don’t miss the “happy hour” margaritas, the awesome Chef’s Burger and the Kimo’s Original Hula Pie on the beach at Jake’s!!
Damn it! You can see.
I was deeply committed to carrying on with the sanctified quest for immateriality!!
But.
Where would the pesos come from to pay for my next yearly CAT-scan?!
You do know. Once you’re committed, and admitted, to the exclusive “stage three colon cancer club” and they’ve, initiated you, by cutting out your sigmoid noodle and bombarded your bituminous brains back to the stoned age… And you’re waiting ever-so patiently to be officially declared: stage four. (Which might sound grand if you’re a Rosicrucian aspirant on mystical holiday in France!) Otherwise referred to as “the end of the line”. You still require a costly computer tomographic x-ray slice-and-dice scan every six months to a year for the next… three, four, five years? Until at
such a time as “they”… the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh… the last oncologist still standing… at Eureka Internal Medicine at Saint Joseph’s Hospital in Eureka, California… declares you…. “cured”
or… you kick the bed pan
or… you kick the bed pan
So there’s that. And.
The twenty-five thousand dollar “retainer fee” that Humboldt County’s finest surfer “pot lawyer” requires. Up front. In cash. With no hope of ever seeing it again. No matter what comes down. No matter how long it takes. No matter what legal judo, karate, or arm-wrestling moves the devious, female district attorney has in store. No matter how many aces the ominous opposing black jack champions on ESPN and the poker-chip-faced dealers at the Cher-Ae Heights Casino in Trinidad, California have hidden inside their… rhinestone-studded lizard-skin cowboy boots. No matter what.
It seems. I was running short on viable options.
There was only one thing I could think of doing at that point.
Christmas of 2012. I approached my very own beloved father with the prospect of investing in an “art well”. You heard me right.
AN ART WELL.
It’s kind of like an oil well. See.
You plan and you plan and you plan. You hunt and you hunt and you hunt. You search and you search and you search. You dig and you dig and you dig. You drill and you drill and you drill. Lots and lots of perspiration and buckets of hope mud and blood.
And well. After all of this sweaty, difficult… unpaid… hard work. Well. It may or it may not work out. That is. If you’re lucky. If you’re on target by some preposterous chance… You strike it rich! You hit a gusher! Or, you blow a seal on a gasket on a pump a mile down and spew tens of millions of gallons of thick toxic crude oil all over the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico!
Hello ExxonMobil!! Hello RoyalDutchShell!! Hello ChevronTexaco!! Hello BPBS!!
Hello Hugh Liles, father dearest, one and only.
Oh boy. Was he pissed when I proposed to him that he invest with me in an “art well” of my own making. Talk about blowing a seal on a gasket on a pump on the old holy ghost
But. Look and listen. Have faith in the poor, young, tortured, radical rabbi…
Let’s all say a BIG HELLO!! To Guru Jesus.
Give it up, brothers and sisters. Put your offerings in the pot.
BIG HELLO!! Let em hear y’all on over in Baton Rouge, the state capitol!!
BIG HELLO!! And put it in the pot there, like good, remorseful sinners… don’t forget a l’il somethin for ya minister, too.
Let your hurtin’ hearts be unburden’d of all that worldly pain and suffering…
Empty your pockets sinners!!
BIG TIME!! NOW R E A L L Y B I G H E L L O ! ! !
Praises upon your sinful souls, one and all. Amen
My father has been in the petro-chemical industry in Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi…. in The South… since he struck out on his own, started his own business, back in 1954… when he was twenty-nine years young. The year before he had me. His only beloved son, for better on rare occasion, and, for much much worse.
Getting busted for growing pot. Getting busted in Humboldt County growing pot in his two-car garage, in his half a million dollar house, which he bought with cash from stock market winnings, on Kelly, in the barrio of
Mckinleyville by the Sea, on 05/28/2010. That was surely one of the lowest moments in our rocky “relationship”.
But. I was committed, see. I was determined to. Turn around the stubborn donkey of destiny. To drive the stubborn goat of good fortune home. To grab the stubborn bull by the balls of bombacity. To rock the stubborn sages in their graves of antiquity
To make something good of my one and only lifetime.
This lifetime. This transmigration. This here and now come to Jesus, Buddha, Tara, Red Cloud… grey wintry moment.
Yeah. He pretty much blew a seal on a gasket on a gas pump on the holy ghost that Christmas eve in New Orleans, Louisiana. My home town.
But. After the “rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night”… “by the dawn’s early light”… after “the twilight’s last” screaming
We had A DEAL!!
