Jose, can you see?

Si.
And being the last day of April, tomorrow we as Americans - me as a white but white American of alien heritage on both parental sides (dude, I'm Canadian, eh.) - we will get a taste of old Mexico. Or a newish Mexico that is Californian and more points just el norte. Or another Monday of no particular matters.
Let's see.
May Day!

A career in advertising

I would've been a natch. The flavor would be Cherry Jailbait.
We ALL scream....

Funny/Not Funny

Oh, it is a laugh, at times. Hardy har har.
And it has finally started to rain. I am a human barometer, but most of the time I give it up for plain old old age and sagging everything that is the me.
Oh the woe.
Ah, shut up.
Take a pill. Why, that's the brightest thought I've had in days! Self medicate and press on. Physician, heal thyself. Don't mind if I do.
Church bells clang in the 'hood - they signal 6:15, for what reason, I know not, but you can almost set a clock to it.
Take me back to the Angelus at Noon, Saint Agnes - a black-top area, devoid of anything resembling a play area for kids, and swings and slides and see-saws. And penguinatious nuns, ready for the whatever brought forth by the busy minds of youth.
There was this whole culture going on with hyperventilation - breathing deep for some time and then putting one's thumb in their kisser and blowing while holding it back, all with a compatriot grasping you from behind as the world spun and you went out, dropping like dead weight.
This didn't last long, as neither did my education at the hands of the St. Joseph nuns. Three years, the third (the horror stories of this Sister Raymond Claire that I had for the brief few weeks before moving to a public school system - aye chihuahua!) cut off just in time.
Never an altar boy, somehow I can still rattle of the Lord's Prayer in that antiquated Latin that we had drummed into us all.
Pater noster, qui es en caelis, sanctifi.... and so on and so forth. And, yeah, that is definitely where the name of this place comes from - Rex Caelis being the nom de employed for the blogosphere.
Indoctrinated and indoctrinated to a fault. I believe. Something.
I believe we are getting some rain, but nothing to write home about yet.
Caught two of my favored shows on public access this afternoon - one of them is this classic one called "Unarius." A bunch of real space cadets from the San Diego area ("No - we are from beyond."), followed later on by some white-clothed being giving the old 1,2,3 with Raja Yoga of sorts.
Why do I even mention such? Beats me. Hardly into any of it other than for entertainment, I ate a bagel while Love was again discussed.
Love it. Need it. Turn it on - turn it off.
Having once been paid to watch TV, we cannot get enough of this particular medium anymore. My makeup is applied by the glow of a cathode ray tube. Please, someone, I need a flat screen.... and a little pancake over here.

Attack mode!

Merced! I need to bitch-slap a neighbor and be done with this - this being the unacceptable behaviour yesterday as the water was shut off as I was cleaning the shower and tub and I went to check - dripping wet - what the heck was happening.
At my front door was said neighbor along with another building tenant. I got slashed as I asked what was up, not even knowing the whos or whats of what was going on with the H2O shut off.
"All you do is complain!" was one volley of heated nonsense thrown at me as I tried to assuage this most vitriolic one. This is No. Umpteen of assaults upon me for - uh - something perceived as my hideous self at work in the world, a world too close to the bones of this thin-skinned lout.
I so wanted to hit him and hit him direct and hard, but got my jollies by screaming a hearty "Fuck You!' and then slamming my door. How very adult of us all. Obviously, I am still upset.
Covered in Comet and lovely lavender soap is not favorite state to be when the water is shut off. Rinse, repeat! Get assaulted, repeat.
No; we want no repeats of this very tiring performance. What's one to do?
Not to seek revenge - lord, that is just too easy. I want this dude to be able to witness this really ugly ugly ugly thing he somehow feels entitled to throw about whenever he deems it fit. No, sorry. It makes everyone edgy and really makes you ("you" being "him") out to look like a fool; an ugly, hateful fool. Two assholes never solved anything.
Make me a bigger person. Please.
Other news today? Uh, it rained a little bit....
Watched "Crash" the other eve with Branden - both of us found it to be "cloying," if not badly written and acted in many places. Some scenes were good. It had to have something going on to garner an Oscar, but, golly, is this the best? Not even close.
Crash and burn - today's mystery message to all that need to do just that.
But I mean it in a positive, growth-oriented kind of way.
Funny weird - right after the door slam (oh, the drama!), I sat here at my desk and got this sharp pain right through my lower chakra big time. It was stunning to be affected by something so quickly, or is this just good timing?
That's theater for ya! And ain't that what this all is? And by that, I stress that this ain't no dress rehearsal, kids - get your fucking acts together.
Likewise, I am sure.
Break a leg!

Cards on the table

It's almost real! After months of languishing in some kind of limbo, there is a website that is coming into being, MY website. Slowly but surely. This will be listed therein, that will be listed herein, so let's do that round robin or whatever and post the title so it can be found and abused. http://www.charlessinclair.net/ Some elder Brit, I believe, holds this same moniker, but with a DOT COM after the facts, Ma'am. Wanna buy me out, Mr. Sinclair?
The excitement is palpable.
News of the day: Uh... got tix for a Mothers show at redcat on Saturday night. http://www.redcat.org/ will give the gory details. Mr. Zappa is conspicuous with his absence this week, as the Zappa kids are advertising for a show in June. Whatever became of his Brucemas, that celebratory event for Lenny Bruce's memory held out at the beach oh so long ago? I read of this with envy when I would get word/wind of such from the long-gone LA Free Press, from the mid-late '60s. A huge part of my ever having purchased this (thank you, Out of Town in Harvard Sq. - now a mere shadow of its former glory) was due to the advertising within those pages of - ahem - adult movies showing in Los Angeles, something lacking at that time in Beantown, but something that would eventuate. What kind of freak would I be today had I been even more exposed to suchness?
But life is funny. One of the reasons (alright-- THE reason) was for the ads coming from the Paris Theater, owned and operated by the very same person that I would some day manage one of their venues - the ever-glorious Nob Hill Cinema in San Francisco. Go figure. Is this karmic?
We'll leave that one to the fates. Could I write in depth as to this reality? "Which one would that be, Chuckerino?"
Fraught is the key word.
Back to the LA Free Press - one can see a character in the Peter Sellers' movie "I Love You, Alice B. Toklas" hawking it on the streets here in Los Angeles. Columns such as "The Glass Teat" by Harlan Ellison, resound inside my head, from years before a true appreciation of what that actually was.
Man - thinking of 'lost' volumes of whatnot -- Avatar from Boston; The East Village Other; Berkely Barb; The Other; Avant Garde, and the esteemed The Realist, but to name a few. Oh yeah - wasn't I on the staff of the Old Mole?And let's not forget the more sensational nar-porn available, such as 101 Boys Art, something I would kill for, purely for my Margaret Mead-ishness. Or is that more Jane Goodall? This bit of old-school "only in NYC" (in my mind) black and white glossies was one of the mentioned pieces of kiddie porn (really? and sold right there in Harvard Sq.?) found at Pee Wee Herman's home when his sex hit the fan.
Gosh - weren't the '60s fun? Yes, regardless of that stupid saying that if you had fun in the '60s, you couldn't possibly remember them. I remember it all in extravagant detail - excruciating detail. I'm sure I'll eventually get around to telling more.
Spill them Boston Baked Beings, Boy.

Wholly Weak

And with this I say "Whew." How does one get 'here' from anywheres else? I've sent along what comes up as to a URL destination when I get here, but to Noah Vale, as the saying goes. No luck. Hello Beverlee Blair, if and when you may ever get this thing to reveal. Heck, vealing alone would be good - but reveal does the job. Club that baby seal.
I have thought of taking the verbosity of letters written and going and posting the better of the guts here, but that seems cheap - a feeling I should revel in, but - never you mind. This'll do just fine, thanks.
The Health inspector just came by, rattling the front door. Huh? Rats, anyone? "Do you have roach infestation, rats..." Thanks, but no.
Yes, there are rats, but not inside anymore. I still have a glorious memory of finding a loaf of bread that was on top of the refridgerator, gnawed and tunneled out from the middle by some rodential resident herein. Yuck and then some. But this was before we had screens (isn't that the law?) and a screen door at the deck's entry. Oh how quickly possums could get in here back in the day. Precious and filled with fleas and who knows what else. Memories. C'Mon in!
Vermin. Can't live with 'em... And, Yes, I can live without them.
But let us now turn our heads Eastward, to the rising sun of a fresher day - and let's get the etymological on what Easter actually means, Oestra, or Aurora, as the Greeks and Romans would say. Goddess of the Dawn. And I think of the misuse of 'orientate,' which means "to face East," not the assumed 'to get a bearing on" or whatever. That word is "orient" or better, "to orient."
Class dismissed.
Hey, years ago I sat while in control (Master Control) of local PAX TV station Ch. 30 as I had to listen to this Bible thumper on his program give a very wrong definition of Easter one morning , something he stated as to being from Ishtar, which is incorrect, folks - well, what to do about that? Nothing.... "The Shepherd's Chapel" was the place - still on in lots of places, coming to us all from Gravette, Arkansas; The very Rev. Arnold Murray in all of his Hellfire and Gung Ho vitriolics. But for all of my already "you're going to Hell" antics in this life, I find his programs to be sort of fun - or 'found' as the case may be. Fund a mentalist? 'Tis, indeed.
What on Earth is this about and where is it going?
To Glory! Hal A. Lewyah, Esq.
See y'all in church.

Palm Sunday

Bless me, it's a week 'til Easter. Anniversaries abound, such as births and deaths: 1999, mother dies April - - 1918, father born -- the list goes on. Old friend Brent Jensen, of Cockette fame and then some, died 1989 on Wednesday before Easter, making that what? - Holy Wednesday? Holy Thursday we know - the following Friday, though, is called Good Friday, even with the images of a tortured redeemer at Golgotha, giving up the ghost - and then we come to Holy Saturday. It all sounds very Batman-ish, which could help explain some of the dressiness of the faith in charge of the festivities.
As kids, we always got the new drag for this one, and a new chapeau was always picked out and sent off to Nova Scotia to the Grannies. Millinery is a lost word like haberdasheries. Raiment. Sartorial splendour.
Shoes saved for best-dressed occasions.
Ah, Spring - Ferdinand the Bull goes all weak in the knees over the whole of it. Walking down from a far-off parking space this morning (love weekends for parking here - NO - the AT Center down at the end of my block must have some sort of major shindig for 12 Stepping on this holy of holy days every Sunday; it's been a constant since day one here... but I digress) - a couple of doors down is a garden hanging tight on the slope of a yard. Florabunda, baby. Lilies, roses, a flowering tree in full bloom - take me back to the Public Garden in downtown Boston when it does this same trick for the season. Yup, Ferdinand the Bull tip-toeing through the tulips: That's me. Can't get enough of this aspect of rebirth and all that.
Meanwhile, back in Jerusalem.... No. I am in the City of Angels - or should I be more correct and say the City of our Lady of the Angels. By the banks of the mighty Los Angeles River once was Mother Cabrini - why am I here/there? Just had to pass on this glimmer of knowing that she had a hold here long before becoming a known elsewhere, to say nothing of having a notorious association with the eponymous Cabrini Green of Chicago. Okay, where goest thou with this, Pilgrim? I have no clue.
Had a nice chat with Virginia McDowall - we had said that line as to suffering fools gladly, and I looked to find the origins of this Oscar Wildean sort of retort - but, NO, it is from II Corintheans, 11:19 - Paul. You go, Girl... no one need suffer a fool ever.
Ms. McD thinks she is ripe for being returned to the Motion Picture home out there in the hills, Woodland Hills. I hope she gets her wish.
I hope I get my wish too. "I wish Cotton was a monkey....." Calgon, take me away, but not too far away. I like the view from here.
As Jesus said to Peter after relentlessly trying to get him to come closer to the cross: "I can see your house from up here!"
It'll sound that much funnier in Hell.

for the birds, baby

Ka-Thud - and it is Thursday, March - am i out of it - April 7, 2006. And I almost go for "19--" for the year. yes - I am out of it.
Tomorrow we resume our quest for some sort of results with Chapter 7. No, this ain't no novel - this is the Great American search for financial resolve. Debt. And taxes. No escape, but we'll see what this will bring to an end. Our attorney is a sweet, demure, soft spoken gal years younger than the mental images produced by having gotten a description from my neighbor, Tim, who used her services for this exact same purpose some time ago.
How deep is my love? Nah, wrong song, Maestro - how deep is my debt? If this were some kind of quicksand, let's be real; we're in way over our head.
And the fat lady is still warming up in the wings.
La la la la. Hit it.