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January 31, 2013

 

“Cruelty is contagious in uncivilized communities.” - Harriet Ann Jacobs

 

“People think being alone makes you lonely, but I don't think that’s true. Being surrounded by wrong people is the loneliest thing in World.” - Kim Culbertson

 

“All cruelty springs from weakness.” - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

 

“I am an optimist because I want to change things for the better and I know that blood has to be spilled and disharmony and cruelty are necessary to do that.” - Henry Rollins

 

“Men feel that cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is an injustice to equals; nay it is treachery to comrades.” - Gilbert K. Chesterton

 

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Word of the day: Superfluous (Not necessary, Excessive, Not needed)

 

All the preparations were superfluous because the guests did not arrive.

 

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Happy Thursday!

Aloha.

 

Shall we dance? Thank you, yes.

 

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Part I

 

About two weeks ago I held a phone conversation with my dada (I call my father “dada” after a Dada poem within the sub-genre of poetry).

 

We spoke about everything and anything as we always do. No topic is too taboo for us.

 

                              Anything that I want-or-care to speak to my father about, I’m able to do so and my father doesn’t judge me, my father doesn’t make fun of me, my father isn’t cynical and cruel, my father isn’t damaging, critical or overpowering.

 

                              My father is a true gentleman.

 

                              We have so much fun speaking with one another and sharing in each other’s lives. We’ve unconditionally loved each other since the very first time that we set eyes upon one another on August of 1987.

 

                              The agape love and support has been tremendous between us. We trust each other to the death, “infinity and beyond.” Ha!

 

                              I’m a successful and unconditionally loving human because my father loves me so beautifully and has listened to me talk about anything without pelting judgmental stones at me or giving me dirty looks.

 

                              It’s a gift to be the daughter of such a loving man who really cares to know what I’m thinking-and-dreaming about and accomplishing in my life. I love listening to my father talk about his life as well. My father is a fountain of wisdom and loves Eric so much.

 

                              My father is the one who helped me break up with a small group of quasi-mean-spirited-two-faced-friends who were causing a great deal of distress to me and disrespecting Eric.

 

                              In the past year my father helped me learn how to say goodbye to rotten friendships from my past because he said that it was, too, painful to listen to the stories of how horribly disrespectful those people treated me because they didn’t know how to be better friends to me.

 

                              I’d wasted seventeen years of my life hoping for the best so that the cruel in my life would become just and loving. I’d wasted seventeen years of my life hoping for the best so that the phony in my life would become real about life. What a complete waste of my time. Now, I see clearly. Thank god I’m non-violent nevertheless being taken for granted makes me want to spill blood with the warrior spirit of my Mayan ancestors (metaphorically, indubitably).

 

                              The pain that I saw cross my father’s face when I told him about the abuse and disrespect that I had received from that type of people, made me realize that I’d given too much of myself over to people who hated me and wanted to cause me injury.

 

                              My father knew better than I did at that time.

 

                              It was my father, who helped me figure out that some of my closeted male friends treated me like dirt because they couldn’t control the mere fact that I’d gotten married without their permission to a man who adores me. I would no longer be around to take care of their every emotional need and to be their emotional punching bag when they went in search of one.

 

                              It was my father, who helped me figure out that some of my female friends who had lost their social and cultural perspective had lost all sense of themselves, women who might as well be selling fruit by the side of the road but instead they now sell spirituality by bluntly beating others over the head with their judgmental organic and new age rhetoric.

 

                              My father is the one who pointed out that I’m indeed a great and excellent friend to others and that I’d wasted too many years of my life hanging unto hope for the better, to people who were cruel to me because I’m a caretaker and I want to believe that we’re going to make it even If people take advantage of my time, hospitality, resources and friendship.

 

                              It was my father who inspired me to walk away from liars, posers and cruel, cynical men and women.

 

                              I broke up with people who at times had compromised my physical safety and my father helped me to see that those weren’t friends at all they weren’t even foes, they were blobs; they were nothing.

 

                              Even our enemies will keep us from harm and death because that’s not only a duty but worth an honorable responsibility to undertake. I’ve saved my enemies from ridicule and harm and, they, well, they have yet to prove themselves. I know I know I’m a romantic at heart.

 

My father and I talked about all sorts of things as we like to do and suddenly my father asked, “Do you know what this week is?” Silence between us. “No, I don’t know what this week is.”

 

“It’s the anniversary of my father’s death.”

 

I was flushed with a rush of emotions. I loved my grumpy Minnesotan grandfather so much who held a heart of gold. Oh, I adored this grouchy man who loved so dearly and so greatly his friends and family.

 

My father says to me, “Thank you for saving my father’s life.”

 

Blood rushed to my cheeks and I felt hot all over.

 

“You’re welcome. It was nothing.” I choked back emotion.

 

“No!” My father exclaimed. “If it hadn’t been for you then my father would’ve died three years earlier than he had.”

 

I grew even more confidently shy.

 

“Yes, you did! You saved my father’s life.” My father’s voice sounded like a magnificent trumpet and sure of himself while reassuring me that I had indeed saved my grandfather’s life all those years ago because I had.

 

I had indeed saved my grandfather from death three years prior to his death from natural causes.

 

Oh, how I miss my incredible and loving grandfather who would’ve knocked out anybody’s teeth or knocked anybody’s socks off if he had so much as heard others be disrespectful, judgmental and mean to me.

 

I’m afraid to be so honest about this: but: my grandfather could smell out a rat.

 

My grandfather hated brown-nosers, manipulators, liars and social climbers. Oh, he would set any little sneak straight and make no apologies for it. He was a man as large as a thunder bolt, strong and yet delicate when it came to his granddaughters.

 

He was a man who knew his heart well and the hearts of other less honorable men.

 

I liked having him in my life because he was - a - larger than life figure and for as long as he was alive no harm came to our family. It wasn’t until after my grandfather’s death that hell broke loose upon our little family and that was it.

 

My grandfather was one of the most honorable American men I’d ever met and he adored us. Oh, how he loved his grandchildren. He thought we were the nicest little girls in the entire world because we were and we weren’t afraid to love him and each other unconditionally. We loved each other so much that we even made the sacrifice to eat his stale oatmeal cookies and drink his burned coffee every morning before going off to school.

 

Oh, my heart swells with so much love just thinking about this tremendous man who loved me no matter what and who gave me the truth with the impact of any great blow like a punch to the jaw.

 

Sincerely,

Gabriel

 

P.S. I started reading the novel “White Noise” by Don DeLillo. I read late into the night. I couldn’t put the book down. Amazing. Thank you so much.

 

January 30, 2013

 

“People striving for approval from others become phony.” - Ichiro Suzuki

 

“Leadership is getting players to believe in you. If you tell a teammate you're ready to play as tough as you're able to, you'd better go out there and do it. Players will see right through a phony. And they can tell when you're not giving it all you've got.” - Larry Bird

 

“I'm not different for the sake of being different, only for the desperate sake of being myself. I can't join your gang: you'd think I was a phony and I'd know it.” - Vivian Stanshall

 

“I despise the phony, fancy-pants rhetoric of professors aping jargon-filled European locutions - which have blighted academic film criticism for over 30 years.” - Camille Paglia

 

“As a young man... you don't know anything about yourself. And add on to that, you're on the cover of magazines. People are interviewing you about what you think. You feel like a real phony.” - Ethan Hawk

 

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Word of the day: Supernumerary (Exceeding number needed or necessary)

 

Although he was but a supernumerary he prided himself on being in the play.

 

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Happy Wednesday!

Aloha.

 

Shall we dance? Thank you, yes.

 

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Look: we live in a phony culture that teaches us praise without discipline, pride without the fall, humility without enlightenment and a shallow sense of honor because we live in a culture of cowardly, deceitful, manufactured emotions carried out by quasi-leaders who impose lies in-the-form of deceitful and subtle commands where there are none to be enforced because they aren’t any type of leaders. They’re hidden-and-sneaky merchants selling you, the very best of their personified vendor selves. Cuidado. Careful.

 

The confusion, is, that if one were to feign kindness then one is perceived to be “good.”

 

These are the most dangerous and confusing con-artist men and women of our times.

 

Even if, one, were to connive-and-manipulate one’s way through the world by creating a type of “good-doer” mirage then what, good, does that accomplish?

 

Absolutely nothing except further hallow publicity and self-interest.

It teaches absolutely nothing of value.

 

Don’t forget that the West is quite shallow about its fame especially when the famous speak in subtle absolutes.

 

Who are the famous to tell the rest of us what-is and what-isn’t best for humanity?

Absolutely no bodies and don’t you forget it.

 

Most humans feign kindness in the exchange for praise not for great actions. Period.

 

That type of confusion is what gives America its throwback idealism about success because no one really understands 1) truth vs. 2) kindness to be two very different and distinct qualities in life.

 

People confuse both attributes and believe that the two-are-one in the same.

 

There couldn’t be a more horrible falsehood than that.

 

When you can see right through others’ created confusion and the primary wish to be perceived as kind yet the ulterior motives bleed through their front shirt pockets then run.

 

A person passing for human but desiring to be thought of as a humble Demigod is only a confused coward. Yikes. Freaks everywhere.

 

Such a coward convinces themselves to be better than they truly are.

 

The worse is when their quasi-peers praise them even though their teachings and idealisms are indeed falsified information spoken like truths.

 

It’s like poetry dunk into battery acid. It makes you want to fight for something real, honorable and truthful when delusional minds hold the spotlight of discontent.

 

Dangerous men and women are one’s that pass themselves off as kind because they-say-so not because their actions show the infinite truths of their souls.

 

Question everything.

 

To be perceived as something “good” for the sake of public opinion is sinister.

 

To suggest that one’s opinions are the law of emotional effect is to teach others how to be phony in the creation of their craft.

 

To get away with a lie masked as diverted confusion to the truth is to sacrifice the brutal truth that must be conveyed, told and allow for it to resonate throughout the earth.

 

The truth is the gong of percussion.

It’s sweet vibration resonates long after the sound is gone.

 

No other animals lie to their species as ours does.

 

A writer who states that he writes the truth without the intention to hurt others is like a minister masturbating behind the pulpit. There he stands before his congregation feeling himself up and deriving great pleasure from a silent and unnoticed orgasm intellectually satisfying his hatred for his flock.

 

The entire of the universes suffer from those who pretend to be “good” while secretly they lynch the truth.

 

The truth isn’t made of whips, ropes, chains and physical violence.

 

The truth will set us free no matter how painful it may seem.

 

The truth begins with the great and brave courage to speak-up from a place of love even if it’s painful to write it.

 

Now there’s more love in telling the truth than becoming a phony because it’s expected of you to do so.

 

To pretend-to-be “good” without substance is to create large and damaging catastrophic effects across the lands.

 

Not to be aware of what it means to bend a lie into the truth is to be a brute for all of the ages.

 

To be perceived as something better than the smell of our bowel movements is the worst type of injustice; it’s the greatest lie you can tell yourselves in the hopes of magically turning Demigod. RUN!

 

The question remains: can you live with a convoluted truth that’s made to look like a covered up lie? Nope.

 

I refuse to lie to you no matter what.

Do you know why?

 

I refuse to lie to you because my peers and others will tell you that I’m genuine and kind in my actions. I’ve proven to be non-violent for thirty-five years.

 

I don’t go out of my way to lead anyone astray.

 

I can handle being told the truth so I’m entrusting you to handle the truth as well because I think of my readers as adults not as hacks.

 

A literary master once said to us: “‘if it hurts then most likely you’re doing something right because the truth gets illuminated through the fire of pain.’” How right he was.

 

Don’t deceit others especially if you’re looking to be praised.

 

If one desires to be petted-on-the-head and to-be-fed-cookies then just say so but don’t act all authoritative and pretend for that to be the truth because that type of confusion, alone, is the worse type of lie that can be uttered into the universes.

 

Sometimes, the truth will, indeed grab you by the testicles and all, one, can really do is to breathe through it. (Sigh.) Ha!

 

The truth isn’t meant to be shinny or pretty because that’s just evil talking.

 

Peace,

Gabriel

 

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Alright, step back and regain your balance.

Drink a little water and have a snack.

Take a bathroom break.

 

Now, let’s get a few things perfectly clear about my arts school mates.

 

In the recent years and for the past seventeen years I’ve had the honor of witnessing my mates’ college and graduate school graduations, weddings, being a witness to their beautiful children growing older with each passing year and we still send each other letters, emails and cards without any malice; not to mention that we now party more so like rock stars than we ever did as dirt poor kids.

 

You have no idea as to whom I’m close friends with now more so than ever than when I was at arts high.

 

The friends that I thought were friends became foes because they showed their true colors in their twenties.

 

Some within the past two years wanted me to either masturbate with their heterosexual-closeted-homosexual porn-watching group or buy into their scoundrel, made-up, spiritualism by bringing in high profile and wealthy clients to possibly get killed at some crazy retreat in the mountains; they lied to me straight to my face about who they were. I can’t stand a poser. I just can’t. Dangerous people disguised in “goodness.” Gross.

 

                              Do you know why I can’t stand a poser?

 

                              I can’t stand a poser because for the first six years of my young life I grew up surrounded by the kindest community of barrio jungle indigenous peasant kids who were just as hungry as I was, but we all ate together and everyone got to eat each-and-everyday.

 

These were children who’d take their shirts right off their backs and give it to you knowing perfectly well that they had nothing.

 

These were incredible humans who were inclusive and even though they were hungry they still had a kind word and a smile for each other each-and-every single day.

 

I know kind gestures down to the core of my DNA.

 

I know what it’s like to share dreams, hopes and aspirations with people who most likely their life expectancies were at the age of thirty-five.

 

Even though I’m considered an INFJ and prefer to be solitary most of the time I still held a strong bond to my jungle brothers and sisters.

 

They were my connection to life. They allowed for me to be who I am and I could come and go as I pleased but one thing was for certain I could always have a community of loving humans right there to support me, love me and respect me without selling me anything.

 

I grew up with kids who knew very well that the jungle could kill you in the blink of an eye.

 

Kids who survived as a village because we understood that monkeys did in fact fling poop and since they’re stronger than humans when they fling poop it’s more like being pelted with a rock than with a soft bowel movement.

 

We knew very well that a snake bite would kill you within minutes and there was nothing you could do about it because the nearest hospital was probably sixteen hours away.

 

We knew that cougars were only steps away from our tin-hut doors.

 

We understood that we could die from frog poisons, plants and other microcosms.

 

It was a dangerous world that we lived in and for that reason alone we watched out and over each other.

 

We were a band of brothers and sisters whose main purpose was to find food in the jungles without getting anybody killed.

 

I’d known real agape love since childhood that had been shown to me by other amable / loving children. That’s the reason why I can’t stand posers.

 

I catch up on all of the gossip without ever having-or-needing to be right in the middle of it and getting puke all over my beautiful shoes by former cruel classmates.

 

Thankfully, my peers from arts school love to catch-me-up on all of the latest gossip and disasters and I laugh with delight. Actually, sometimes I even come close to squeals. It’s so much fun to have my peers tell me what “Josie Pye’s” are up to without ever having to deal with them ever again. Ha! Ha! Ha!

 

No, I’m not daft.

 

Actually I do hold some of the closest bonds to some of my arts school mates and that bond hopefully won’t be broken because for the past seventeen years we’ve seen each other through poverty, starvation, miscarriages, sadness, loneliness, heartache, the loss of siblings, the loss of jobs and passed up opportunities not to mention the loss of our school mates as well.

 

Are you kidding me: I’ve been to some of these incredible people’s weddings, their children’s baptisms, their friends-and-families funerals, divorces, shared champagne, dreams, aspirations and broken bread with them as adults in our thirties. I’ve even fallen in love with their pets. Ha! Their dogs more specifically. Oh, how I’ve adored their little ones. I’ve been through the loss of their pets.

 

Let bygones be bygones.

I’m quite forgiving but I refuse to go through that all over again.

 

What I learned about some of my classmates in our twenties through their misbehavior, déclassé demeanors, trashy dispositions, cruelty and phony-attitudes won’t make me change my mind about the fact that they were always “assholes” and they’ll live and die as such. Period.

 

My dad as a professional M.D. psychologist talks about “big assholes” and “little assholes” and how they’re mentally ill because they have tunnel vision for cruelty, greed and money.

 

That type of shallow attitudes gets in the way of creating and maintaining community, standing up for the less fortunate, taking on real leadership roles and holding kind-gestures as one of the most sacred aspects to humanity.

 

I’m so excited to be able to sit here today and tell you that I was a justice bully.

 

I was confident and strong enough in my self-esteem to put bullies in their place because I was a force to be reckoned with. I was “cool,” not because I ever thought that I was but because my peers told me so.

 

The cocaine bullies hated me and still do because they knew that there was a line in the sand that couldn’t be crossed so long as I was around they couldn’t connive, manipulate, cheat, lie and steal their way through the world.

 

I had their number and they hated me with the passion of devils for seeing right through their cruelties, insecurities and hatred disguised in sugar sweetness creating clogged arteries and diabetes everywhere they went.

 

If you can’t create controversy by doing the right thing like standing up for other frightened classmates then what type of human are you?

 

A coward is one who ignores oppression.

 

And a coward I’m not.

 

A cocaine bully never expects a justice bully to come along and call them out on their bullshit.

 

Well, it takes someone with a strong spine, care for others and deep respect for humanity when one knows that their childhood friends most likely continued to starve well into their “old age” of thirty-five.

 

Sincerely,

Gabriel

 

P.S. My dad tells me not to read anymore pop-psychology because its crap. Pop-psychology is like mass media, just that. It’s written for the masses and not for other psychology professionals.

 

I’m looking for a kickass real psychological website even if its dry content. I prefer it.

 

*) I began reading “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison last night.

 

I read the first page and stopped. I’ve been told for years that I write like Ralph Ellison and I’m scared to find out that it’s true yet ever so excited to read this master’s masterpiece. Here goes nothing!!!

 

January 29, 2013

 

NO PODCAST TODAY.

 

“It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” - Carl Sagan

 

“Affirmation without discipline is the beginning of delusion.” - Jim Rohn

 

“It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.” - Leo Tolstoy

 

“A delusion is something that people believe in despite a total lack of evidence.” - Richard Dawkins

 

“When all else fails there's always delusion.” - Conan O’Brien

 

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Word of the day: Supple (Soft in texture, Flexible)

 

The supple muscles of an acrobat enable him to perform his breath-taking stunts.

 

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Happy Tuesday!

Aloha.

 

Shall we dance? Thank you, yes.

 

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Correct: Yes, sometimes, I don’t feel like writing because I’m human and not a robot, thank you very much.

 

Yes, I love to write, please don’t get me wrong, but sometimes, my mind wanders.

 

On a hot sunny day I’d rather go for a swim or a walk in a park.

 

On a cold day I sometimes want to make a cup-of-hot-chocolate-with-whip-cream-on top and curl up with a blanket and novel for the entire day, but alas I’ve got responsibilities like every other adult does. I adore my responsibilities yet, like, with everybody else sometimes as humans we need either a change-of-scenery or simply nothing to do.

 

I’m like that: I don’t mean to sound, too, lazy, obviously I work every weekday but sometimes I’d rather sit back on a hammock and drink coconut/mango/banana/guava juice and think of nothing.

 

I’ll stop and daydream about my travels far away to remote islands with the sound of nothing but a slight breeze, the ocean blue and her magnificent outgoing-and-incoming tide. (Oh, I could almost get on a plane right about now for about twenty-four hours of sunshine.)

 

You do understand: I get my “Treasure Island” moments in which I can imagine myself to be anything. I’m like that and I like it but it sure doesn’t mean that my feet stop touching the ground and I get lost for hours on end because I don’t. I’m quite aware of my daily responsibilities and feel incredibly fulfilled by accomplishing incredible human feats each-and-every day.

 

I like the work that I do. I don’t have any complaints, however, I do have to be incredibly disciplined, fed, happy and warm and then well, there it is. Nothing can stop me when my basic human needs are met which they are each-and-every single day.

 

My problem sometimes, has more to do with working overtime.

 

No, I’m not some type of workaholic, because work isn’t as important as living a fulfilled and well-rounded life, nevertheless sometimes I’ll spend an extra thirty minutes on a problem/solution that I’m working on or I’ll continue to work on whatever’s at hand.

 

I wasn’t one of those students in my younger days, who, when the bell rang I ran out of the room at flashing bolt speeds.

 

I’m someone who requires the time to transition into-an-activity and transition-out-of an activity.

 

I couldn’t stand private school’s structure for the only-and-simple reason that it had a loud bell that rang every fifty minutes screaming at us to go to our next course of study and to like it.

 

Five minutes between classes seemed a bit insane after spending fifty full minutes submersed in the intensive learning of strict, wonderful and incredibly gifted teachers who taught me about integrity, truth and hard work. I loved them as the most powerful role models of the last century who really cared what happened to their students.

 

It wasn’t until I went off to arts boarding school and lived at school at the tender age of sixteen that I took “academic-studio” courses (mathematics, science, political science and history) in which some morning courses lasted as long as two hours per course each.

 

I was mandated to take two academic classes per weekday mornings.

 

Can you imagine it? I took a chemistry course that lasted close to two hours per day. That’s a gift from above for those of us who like to take our time when we learn anything and to be scrupulous with our studies.

 

I went to school in large blocks of time.

 

I took two courses that lasted about two hours per course each morning, lunch, and one-three hour course in the afternoons (always Literary Arts), rest, dinner, and then a “studio” course at night that lasted in general for about three hours on average. I was in heaven.

 

I had about half an hour in between the two morning academic courses to drink water, get a snack and prepare for the following course. There were no bells screaming at me to get anywhere. I had to be responsible to do it on my own.

 

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Furthermore, for the most part we were dedicated art students who were self-sufficient and mostly hated each other because we saw each other as competition and not as a united body of students.

 

I went to arts school with a lot of phony bullies who would’ve been shunned at private school due to their misbehavior and careless, mindless ego driven propensities.

 

They were the most boring group of people that I’ve ever come across because they loved to live in a perpetual phony driven world of chaos and famous make-believe idealisms. When one goes to school with a bunch of people who think that they’re already famous for doing nothing then one realizes how crazy they truly are.

 

I hated arts school and made it a point to remind my classmates about it to get under their skin since most of them were drug addicts and alcoholics pretending to be wanna-be trendy hippies, rock-‘n-roll-and-movie stars who couldn’t play instruments very well, nor draw or photograph and the actors were awful anyway.

 

I did know the difference, even at that time I knew very well that my classmates weren’t much good at anything because our private school had won at state for dramatics many years running. I’d attended private school with fabulous photographers, visual artists, actors, musicians and dancers who’d danced with professional ballet companies since they had been children and writers, great writers.

 

I’d made the mistake to go to arts school, however as a student of English as a Second Language it was my only academic chance to get into a New England private liberal arts college and I knew it thus I made the sacrifice to go to arts school with a bunch of people who no matter how “trendy” they were dressed they still smelled like urine, body sweat and bad breath as well as unwashed clothes and hair.

 

My arts school classmates were truly what’s been explained to me to be “white-trash” cocaine-bully-freaks or phonies pretending to be artists and they freaked me out as they would any sober employer.

 

For the most part they were the type who’d claw your eyeballs out for a part in a play or a position with some power but then wouldn’t be able to deliver the goods in the long run because they came from a place of hatred not unity.

 

My arts school classmates hated everything with the passion of devils even when they pretended to be sweetly-sickly nice.

 

Any chance they’d get then they’d drive a dagger into each other’s backs thus one learned early on to not to turn your back on them because if they could murder you then they would just to get ahead. Freaks without moral compasses, in which all they cared about was how cool they looked and could barely read or write.

 

Today, I wouldn’t hire a single one of them to create professional art or anything remotely having to do with the arts, not even if you paid me to do so.

 

Now I’m talking about my former arts school classmates: because even the sober ones left much to be desired and weren’t much good at their craft even though they got petted-on-the-head and fed-cookies by their mediocre “white-trash” parents that they were simply exceptional when they weren’t.

 

My classmates were mediocre and they’ll probably die just that. That’s what made them so damn pissed off at anybody else who came along the way and called their bull which they had known the truth deep down inside about themselves, all along, but they weren’t quite willing to admit it to anyone else because it was plain as day to see that to them life was worthless.

 

I knew that my classmates and my arts school wasn’t as great as everybody else bragged about because I did have far more superior schooling and training than 99% of my classmates ever had.

 

My classmates didn’t know the difference in comparison and contrast to anything better and it showed.

 

Thus our visual artists and photographers were mediocre even though they had the egos of giants, our dancers were mediocre even though they tried their damndest, our writers were mediocre even though they hated each other, our musicians left much to be desired even though their classmates pretended like they were any good only to get a chance to smoke pot with them and our actors couldn’t act to save their lives; it was a horrible experience having to sit through their plays, however everyone pretended to be rock stars without proving anything to anyone or to the global stage.

 

I told them how much they sucked and they hated me for it.

 

And I, well, I sucked at English and everything else that came with it but I wasn’t a damn poser pretending like I was good at anything because I wasn’t. I had to work for everything and not pretend to be a cruel princess in the process.

 

I didn’t go around taking out my anger on my classmates because I hated them and didn’t have compassion for them, oh, no -- although, I loved to shun and make fun of some of them by making them feel less superior to their poop stained faces. They seemed to like to eat crap and it was obvious because it all over their faces.

 

I’m pissed that I went to school with a whole bunch of trendy-con-artist losers from all over Minnesota.

 

A bunch of cocaine snorting dorks without a clue as to what high art even meant.

 

A bunch of losers, who’d, pass-out in the parking lot of school from drug overdoses.

 

For the most part I went to arts boarding school with all of the derelict dreamers of the surrounding public schools in the Twin Cities Metro Area and it pissed me off to no end. I’d been lied to. I’d been incarcerated with the freak show. Its one thing to watch and it’s quite another to live through it.

 

State wide derelicts attended our arts school but no one will ever admit to that because they didn’t know any better and when you have nothing to compare or contrast to anything better then one’s ego gets stuck in reverse and they won’t move forward.

 

I’ve heard the stories about those classmates that ended up in New York City and in Los Angeles and how difficult it is to work with them and I don’t wonder why. They didn’t have the best reputations, then, and they don’t either now. I’m not surprised.

 

My arts school mates were a bunch of chip-on-the-shoulder idiots who were pissed off at the world for no good reason or phonies who were very good at snorting cocaine and called it art while bullying their way through school and taking their anger and aggression out on anybody who got in their way. Ha! What a bunch of weirdoes! I hated that arts school with my entire being and they all knew it because I was completely verbal about crushing their cocaine self-delusional idealisms.

 

“Everybody” was a bloody rock star with bad teeth stained yellow from too much nicotine and sex-smells-covered-up with urine on their lapels. No matter how much they disguised their self-hatred and loathing with chic fashion styles that made them look dumb they were destined for heartache, disappointment and disaster in their adulthoods, anyway.

 

-----  -----  -----

 

I’d never considered the thought that people dropped out of school one-or-two weeks into their junior year because they were homesick or because some got pregnant by the end of our senior year.

 

I thought it peculiar that people got pregnant and / or dropped out of school because at private school no one, and, I mean, no one ever dropped out much less got pregnant thus maybe those bells were very good disciplinarians after all.

 

In a class of about one hundred-and-twenty at arts boarding school on average about twenty students dropped out. That’s a huge number of students to dropout due to “home-sickness,” misbehavior, bad attendance, alcohol-and-drug addictions, tardy-tendencies and sexual harassment.

 

At arts school one had incredible academic learning while contending with a terrible and horrible student body who bullied their way through life as the bunch of posers and hacks.

 

Arts school phonies are not real phonies, either.

 

It’s been as of late that people are coming forth and telling me everything that went on behind-the-scenes and how terrible it was for them yet they kept up in tradition with others because they felt as though it was expected of them. Yikes.

 

Some posers talk about how arts school was the best time of their lives while everybody else got oppressed. It was my worst time in life. I hope not to return for as long as I live.

 

I went to arts school with a whole bunch of freaks who’d gotten off of the banana boat from mainly large public schools in the Minneapolis Twin-Cities area who had very little regard or respect for others and it showed, even if they’d come from some type of money they were still bitter, damaged and angry at everything and everyone.

 

The most important aspect of life for them seemed to be their egos and that was simply annoying to live amongst cocaine-snorting and drunk megalomaniacs. If you can make it through that then you know exactly what the worst of show-biz can be like.

 

I was beside myself at how my classmates were less than stellar when it came to their conduct.

 

Going from a private school to a public boarding arts school is more like signing up for a dangerous circus, however I did learn more academically at arts school than I did at private school, only because our school hours were longer, I was ESL and the teachers were indeed great teachers, and we were granted the time to truly work through problems, discussions and such.

 

However, my private school teachers did surpass my public arts school teachers in every way.

 

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After graduation I went on to a private liberal arts college in the East Coast and I got my academic can kicked so hard.

 

I’d never studied so hard in my entire life and I actually did get myself on the honor roll a few times.

 

Can you believe that? That was a feat of heroism for me to accomplish such a thing when I’d never so much as made the merit role at private school, although I had academic immunity for only having 4-7 years of learned English through my second language studies.

 

I was held to, a different academic criteria than everyone else at private school.

 

By the time I got to arts school I’d only had nine years of English and thank the gods I was intelligent and smart enough to keep up academically because it was easier than private school academics by far due to the structure of learning, it was easier. On average at arts school I studied four hours per night than to the average six hours I studied at private school.

 

I was able to stay ahead of the freak show which it wasn’t too difficult.

 

I graduated as class valedictorian even though I’m neither welcomed nor invited to arts school reunions I’ll probably not go back for as long as I live because to this day that’s one of the places and people that I dislike most in the entire world with the exception of my teachers.

 

I met liars, cheaters, abusers, users and con-artists. Shame.

 

Funny how it all comes around in a complete full circle: now we live about five miles away from arts school and I wouldn’t send our child there even if you paid me. No way.

 

I’m wiser and with everything that I know now I wouldn’t put our child through that living hell.

 

Our child would have to sneak an interview for acceptance as I did but like hell.

 

No I wouldn’t want that for anyone and especially not even my worst enemies and their children unless the child had some type of learning disabilities or drug addiction then it’s a great place to get ahead because two hours per class were wonderful.

 

Going to the arts school was like going to a Special Ed school for the emotionally inept and the drug-addict gifted.

 

Even though at private school my G.P.A. was something like 1.0 I wasn’t to be academically dropped from private school because I was English as a Second Language and even though I had perfect diction my comprehensive linguistic skills weren’t up to par by any stretch of the imagination.

 

What my peers didn’t know was that by seventh grade I was at a third grade reading and writing level as well as in comprehension. They didn’t know it and I disguised it quite well because I’m gifted with linguistics even when I don’t know what words mean. Ha! Wonderful.

 

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Excuse me: fifteen thousand dollars (ha! ha! ha! I got the amount wrong at first; ESL) just walked through the door for part of today’s work. I’ve got responsibilities to discuss. Yep, eat it.

 

How does it feel when money really does talk?

 

A decade ago I was starving and my classmates at arts school told me that I was crazy for being poor. What insane humans. As my dad an M.D. psychologists calls cruel people, “assholes.”

 

I spent two full years of my life listening to lost kids brag about how cool and gifted and talented they were when they didn’t even know how to wipe away the urine from their butts.

 

I’ve run into some of my former classmates who are supposedly successful in their fields but they still smelled of urine, smoke and rotting gums. Go figure that one out. Yeah, right! Talented; my big toe, is more talented than the entire state of...because I’ve had to develop my skills not because I was born with golden poop between my legs but because I’ve had to work for everything that I’ve got.

 

What my classmates didn’t realize was that six years prior to meeting me, I’d lived in a Roman Catholic orphanage in a third world country for four years and six years prior to that I’d lived as a barrio jungle peasant indigenous kid, who’d lived off of mangoes, guavas, bananas and Soursop fruit.

 

Fame and fortune were as far away from my heart as the mountains of my beloved Costa Rica. While they obsessed over their incredibly made up talents and funny looking clothes my goal was to get into an exceptional private college and I did that.

 

Ha! You have no idea how hard I’m laughing now.

 

Sincerely,

Gabriel

 

P.S. The panther in my dreams is my guardian spirit animal and that’s why I can finally write the truth about what happened to me as a youth about seventeen years ago.

 

I’ve got the law, legal counsel, freedom of speech on my side but more importantly I’ve got the panther as my spirit animal guide watching over…Be careful of the arts high school kids because they’ll metaphorically kill you if you give them the chance they will drive a dagger into your backs or worse they’ll step on you on their way to nowhere because it’s their nature to hate.

 

I don’t expect westerns to understand what the panther means to the indigenous but it means a great deal more than fame and fortune to any Mayan.

 

January 28, 2013

 

“We are just statistics, born to consume resources.” - Horace

 

“Be able to analyze statistics, which can be used to support or undercut almost any argument.” - Marilyn von Savant

 

“How do you nurture a positive attitude when all the statistics say you're a dead man? You go to work.” - Patrick Swayze

 

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Word of the day: Surreptitious (Secret, Stealth)

 

The note was passed around the room in a surreptitious manner.

 

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Happy Monday!

Aloha.

 

Shall we dance? Thank you, yes.

 

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Here’s the skinny on blog posts:

 

*) The average blog has 100/hits per day.

 

*) The average newspaper article has 170/hits per day.

 

*) The average blog visit lasts 96-seconds-per-visit. (Yep.)

 

*) 60% of readers will read from the first paragraph to the second.

 

*) Only 30% of readers read the entire post.

 

*) To blog; a writer must know copyright law.

 

*) The best blogs start with at least 1,000 words per post.

 

*) Most popular bloggers spend 2-10 hours on each blog-post they write.

 

*) Most popular bloggers read on average 20-40 hours per week.

 

*) SEO doesn’t guarantee a popular blog if the content isn’t any good.

 

*) Women make up the majority of bloggers; half are ages 18-34.

 

*) About 1 in 3 bloggers are moms, 52 percent of bloggers are parents with kids under the age of 18.

 

*) “Three out of the top 10 social networking sites in the U.S. - Blogger, WordPress, and Tumbllr are for consumer generated blogs.”

 

*) The average blog won’t jump readership by any more-or-less than about 20-40 viewers per day and that’s being generous.

 

*) Some of the most popular blogs are visited by bots (robots) because these blogs are written with “terms” (words) used to trigger search engines and that means that about half or more hits per day are done so by bots doing the reading and not real humans.

 

*) If a blog has 2,000/hits per day then most likely the blog’s backed up by advertiser(s) and the blog isn’t necessarily an authentically written post, rather it has “links” directing readers to read others’ authentic writing blogs and not their own content because there isn’t any. It’s considered a “Bot-Blog” not a “User-Blog.”

 

*) The “average reader” reads on average about two favorite blogs per day. (Me, too!) I read all the way through!

 

*) The “average reader” reads their favorite blogs before they go to bed at night. (Me, too!)

 

In Conclusion: Take it or leave it!

 

I spent two years studying “mommy-blogs.” (2009-2011)

 

At the end of that two-year personal study I walked away with one final conclusion: I never want to read another “mommy-blog” for as long as I lived. Nope. Not ever. For the most part they were horribly written and embarrassing to read because they were about…

 

I decided to put off having children until my early 40’s because of that two-year study reading through “mommy-blogs.” I was terrified. I didn’t want to become an American “mommy-blogger.” Oh, no. God, no!

 

By the time I’m done with my ten-thousand hours of blog-writing I’ll be ready for our one-and-only child. We decided to have one child because of those “mommy-blogs.”

 

For the most part the writing was shallow-fluff material about delusional isolated women who hardly ever spoke to other adults (in person) except for their readership who petted-them-on-the-head and fed-them-cookies to get them to shut up about their insecurities with going public on a blog about their children’s very private lives (who later-on their children will most likely hate their guts for it and they know it).

 

The only thought that crossed my mind was this: Don’t these women have their own stories to tell and let their children someday tell their own?

 

It was all, too, obvious and evidently clear through the writing that these were completely isolated stay-at-home-mothers with children, who, drove those mothers nutty, but the mothers couldn’t come-out and negatively state anything of the sort for fear of being perceived as horrible mothers; thus the fluff about how much fun motherhood was to them was evidently perceived as a lie through the writing when most women I’ve talked to about motherhood have stated that it’s the most difficult, horrible, frustrating and isolating experience they’ve ever had and some go so far as being completely honest and admit that they hate motherhood. Now, we’re talking! Talk about getting real.

 

I dislike “mommy-blogs” that are supposed to be a hobby yet the mommy uses their blog for advertising purposes that which cheapens the writing anyway one looks at it.

 

If a “mommy” is a blog hobbyist then why is she selling diapers, shoes, pacifiers and cribs?

 

If her blog is a hobby then why sell Americans her children’s stories along with her crappy products paid for by an advertiser?

 

The moral discrepancy is too large to ignore that it left a terrible-and-nasty taste in my mouth. It was as though these “mommy-blogs” were saying: “I’m a hobbyist blogger but I’m also here to sell you crap and disguise it all with the ever so cute and clever stories about my child’s smiles and incredible eyes.” Please. Gross.

 

These advertising “mommy-blogs” reminded me of the film “The Truman Show.”

 

I could sense the “mommies” occasionally turning to the audience and say something like: “It’s now on sale! Come on down and get your very own!” While pretending like the most important aspects to life were something meaningful like their children while they ever so cleverly sold the reader crappy products. What a sham.

 

I felt used as a reader by advertising “mommy-blogs.”

 

Now, experts tell me that blog-hits don’t jump even so much as two-hundred (200)/hits per month and definitely not in one day.

 

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If a blog states that their number are anywhere from 7,000-15,000/hits per month that’s mathematically incorrect by experts, web engineers and web masters because the exponential difference by mathematical standards is a jump so vast that it’s not even close to the median average which is closer to reality.

 

It’s like saying that the average wolf population goes from 30,000 to 60,000 in one single month and back again, mathematically that’s close to impossible and we all know it to be the truth. Ah, mathematics.

 

The experts state: for example: if an advertiser’s blog, if their numbers are for example: 7,500/hits per month then cut that number by half because that’s the actual number.

 

Most blogs only jump by so much-or-so little as an overall 200/hits in differential mathematics month-per-month and that’s being generous according to experts in the field.

 

For example: One may have “7,500/hits” per month on average and most likely 7,300/hits the next month or 7,700/hits the previous month but that’s about it, the numbers don’t fluctuate in the upwards of thousands not when it comes to humans unless robots are the main hits.

 

In other words any blog’s hits won’t jump from the average of 200/hits differential mathematics per month by 15,000/hits in fluctuation in one single month span according to the international data and research.

 

If an advertising blog states that they have 15,000 readership then in reality most likely they’ve got more like 7,500 readership per month and it stays even throughout the month by as many or as little as 200/hits per month as I’ve already stated.

 

Anytime that anyone sells you any product then always cut those numbers by half, always, read between the lines.

 

To have two-thousand daily/hits on a blog is to be either the President of the United States of America or to run an “advertiser blog” full of “links” to other people’s authentically written blog posts; or robots visit the site, not humans; Or so it has been explained to me.

 

No one is that popular, (not even the president, himself) as to have that type of following especially a “no body” or an “unknown” in the middle of nowhere because no one really cares what an unknown is up to and especially not “mommies.” I hate to burst that bubble. Back to the drawing board.

 

It’s proven that “blog-readers” hate advertisements.

 

They hate it so much that they won’t return to sites in which advertisements might share the same space with blog content. Here! Here!

 

I refuse to read blogs that share space with advertisers because it makes the blog seem desperate for money and looking for their next employer and / or advertiser.

 

I just don’t know but writing and advertising don’t seem to go hand-in-hand when it comes to sharing space. It definitely cheapens the writing, that’s for sure.

 

Stats are all about mathematics and there’s no B.S. about it.

 

I only take a look at the “dashboard” (stats) on May 1st of each year otherwise I don’t concern myself with it and let “the gentlemen” run the stats as they do and always have.

 

They keep the stats and our numbers while I stay away from it all together throughout the year so that the numbers don’t play mind-games with my brain.

 

Can you imagine it, 50,000 (fifty-thousand) people read our blog and we don’t advertise anywhere on the internet; also I’m being informed that the gallery series of “Self-Portraits” is twice that. What! People from all over the world go to the gallery more so than they do the blog. Ha! Funny!

 

That makes my head spin and those are pure numbers because we don’t advertise anywhere in the world.

 

I’m beside myself and well, I can’t look at our stats, except for once a year.

 

I’ve got to go on with my work and let “the gentlemen” figure out the stats without me.

 

We generate that much audience without a single piece of advertisement.

Ha! That’s wonderful! Cheers!

 

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Shall we: Yes, my entire schedule has changed starting as of this 2013 calendar year;

 

Since, I think better in the mornings, I begin with early morning prayers, breathing, exercises, early breakfast and get to work on cutting a narrative to a full-length feature, read emails, calls, mid-morning breakfast, watch-and-study a film per day, lunch.

 

From noon-to-seven I’ll sit down and do one-hour of global current event research reading, one-hour of screenwriting, respond to emails, podcast, blog and another hour of reading about anything that I’m interested in learning about.

 

I conduct all of these in no particular order.

 

I do what I think requires to get done first.

 

Normally, after lunch the first thing I do is e-mail because it takes a type of mental capacity like no other. I set a timer and when I’m done with each portion of my day then I take a breather in between, drink water or get a small snack (if I’m hungry) then I sit back down and begin any of my other disciplinary art forms which I’m under contract to do each and every weekday.

 

Dinner by 8:30pm, relax with Eric, catch up with the news of each other’s day, catch up with each other’s interests, what we read and what we were thinking about, desert, “Last of the Summer Wine,” get clean-and-washed up, curl up into bed with the tablet by 9:00-10pm and read for about another hour my favorite non-commercial 100% artistic blogs and go to sleep. Eric will normally come in around 12-1am after playing videogames because he doesn’t have to get up until 9-10-11am weekdays.

 

My job is to get paid to think thus I do.

 

Yes, the blog and podcast will be uploaded by the end of each weekday so as to meet my work schedule criteria on a daily basis but it doesn’t matter what hour I upload / (post) so long as I post within 24/hours each and every single weekday.

 

Yes, this is all work. Work that I love to do, nevertheless work. I must keep myself quite disciplined unless I pull off a play day in which I get into a mode of transport and go.

 

My days are scheduled to the fullest.

What a working professional artist’s dream!!!

Weekends, do absolutely nothing and I mean nothing. Watch the tele.

 

Earlier this afternoon I did some research about blogging and posts in general; I spoke to professional web-masters, web-engineers and html coders.

 

Sincerely,

Gabriel

 

P.S. If a “You Tube” video goes up by an “unknown” or a “no body” party and over a two-day span they get as many-or-as-little as 20,000 hits then most likely that means that “friends” increased hits by going back to the “link” as many times as they could before they got bored or tired of the shenanigans. Ha! Pitiful!

 

January 25, 2013

 

“A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It's jolted by every pebble on the road.” - Henry Ward Beecher

 

“A joke is a very serious thing.” - Winston Churchill

 

“A sense of humor... is needed armor. Joy in one's heart and some laughter on one's lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life.” - Hugh Sidey

 

“Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing.” - William James

 

“If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide.” - Mahatma Gandhi  

 

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Word of the day: Swath (A row, Strip, The sweep of a scythe)

 

He cut a swath through the wheat field.

 

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Happy Friday!

Aloha.

 

Shall we dance? Thank you, yes.

 

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Take it away Mr. Bill Maher! Good luck! Break a leg!

 

How splendid to have Mr. Maher here with us as one of our philosophical fighting contemporaries. Thank you to Mr. Maher for everything that he does for this America of ours.

 

Sincerely,

Gabriel

 

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P.S. No, I don’t want to write today. I just don’t. I want to…play!

 

Well, what would I rather be doing?

 

I don’t know; I’d rather be reading fun articles or watch “Last of the Summer Wine” right about now. I do believe that the best written show out there is indeed “Last of the Summer Wine.”

 

Usually when we watch (later-at-night) I’ve got to set my snacks aside because if I so much as eat while viewing this spectacularly hilarious show then most likely I’ll choke myself into a comma from hard laughter. Some piece of food will get lodged and trapped in the back of my throat and that’ll be that. I’ll go out with a bang. I’ll go out laughing to the “Last of the Summer Wine” and even though that would be a great type of a finale I’m not ready to pass from this existence. Not yet anyway. So the snacks are always set aside. Ha!!!

 

I can’t tell you what a wonderful difference “Last of the Summer Wine” has made in my life. If you’re looking to watch something that isn’t insulting to the viewer, sexually exploitive, or demeaning to women, girls and men then pick up the “Last of the Summer Wine.”

 

When I first came upon this show about British characters co-existing amongst each other in their later years living in a remote village I didn’t think that I’d like it but immediately from the start I couldn’t look away.

 

I found myself laughing so hard at what the characters did and said, that I even surprised myself. I discovered this program about two years ago and I haven’t looked back since. It’s one of my favorites. Thank you for existing. I love British programming with real Brits in them. I just do.

 

For as much-or-as little as I may use swear words in my writings (at times) to emphasize the many injustices in America, I don’t like swearing, grotesque nudity and overt vulgarity for viewing enjoyment at the end of a long day of exhausting work unless it’s “The Graham Norton Show” and his hilariously witty and vulgar-mouthed British guests make-it-a-point to convey a sensational point through swearing then I laugh so hard that eating and drinking becomes dangerous thus I refrain myself from doing it at all costs. Ha! Wonderful!

 

For the most part I don’t want to hear the f-bomb used as the every-other “intellectual” word in context unless it’s hilarious and then what can I do but to laugh, really. If it’s really funny then hell I’ll laugh so hard it feels so good to release everything out into the universes. Frankly, I do trust people who swear with contextual importance to back up their meaning but I don’t trust people who use swearing as any type of linguistic filler because they have no other vocabulary words to convey something of significance or the mundane.

 

I can understand the writing, the acting and the broader cinematic scope of “Last of the Summer Wine.”

 

It’s a timeless piece of writing that makes me nostalgic for my youth and it makes me ever so happy to get on with age.

 

I love to play in the same manner in which the “Last of the Summer Wine” characters do. Who doesn’t want to go sit in a field and let life happen to them, because you know that life always happens, right? Some chap will come along on his bicycle while anther climbs and falls off a tree. Oh, the small intimate pubs. Who doesn’t want to “retire” and hang out with relaxed humans who are peacemakers and can chill to a beer?

 

Oh, if retirement is going to be that much fun then I can’t wait to grow older with each passing year. Although, ever since I hit my mid-thirties the days are starting to pass me by in a blur. For some reason time has quickened its pace and I feel breathless at how quickly the years are passing by. As of this past May 2012, life has become fast and I’m not bored in the least bit which I rarely am and I do draw inspiration from everywhere I look.

 

If a great wine gets better with age then so do I.

 

I find myself quite inspired by the wit of writers, thinkers and speakers.

 

I find that the smarter, more relaxed and funnier a human is then the more attractive they become. I don’t mean anything sexual by it other than how can you not enjoy holding conversations with men and women who really understand how to open-up intellectual realms and capabilities to our humanity.

 

I have so much love for humor.

 

Even though, the friends that I feel the most comfortable with, do consider me funny, I don’t try to be a very funny person, in general, although I do have the gift to lighten-up the mood or in some crises to create laughter to opposing parties that hate each other, but for the most part I keep silent and I can’t help but to laugh wholeheartedly once I get to know someone else’s sense of humor. It’s tough, though because the translating gets in the way, at first.

 

Even though I’ve got almost close to perfect diction (at times) it doesn’t mean that my translating is perfect all of the time and my comprehension is worse at times, especially if I’m tired, hungry or crabby then I trudge through the English language.

 

The ESL still gets in the way, a little bit, but once I figure out people’s sentence structure, their mannerisms and deliverance then I’m “dangerous” in a room because I will laugh out loud and once I can understand the vastly complex wit of the most wry thinkers and some of the most difficultly understood humorists, I love it.

 

Humor says so much more than serious speech ever can.

 

Someday, I’d like to write real humor. Some of the humor that I’ve written I haven’t begun to share publically because I’m scared. Ha! (Not literally but you get my intonation.) Writing humor is like letting your heart hang out and well, I’m just not ready for that because I’m not very good at it. I’ve got a long way to go before I can get a laugh out of anyone. I’ll keep writing humor as a form of practice. I’m humbled by my endeavors.

 

Seriously, it’s so much harder to make people laugh than to cry.

 

I was taught by the masters that “‘If you can’t leave them laughing, then leave them crying and if you can’t at least do that then leave them seriously pondering the meaning of life and if you can’t do either of those then give up writing all together.’” Ha!!! Wonderful!

 

Oh, my time is up!

I can go out and play!

See you Monday!

 

Cheers!

Ciao.

Gabriel

 

January 24, 2013

 

“When you're born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front row seat.” - George Carlin

 

“L. A. is crazy. The women all look the same now. That thing with the cheeks. Like Madonna. Who do they think they're fooling? It doesn't make them look young. You end up looking like a freak.” - Sophia Vergara

 

“I've met every freak in the business.” - Quincy Jones

 

“I don't think that the writer is regarded as a freak by Americans.” - Irwin Shaw

 

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Word of the day: Dissonance:

 

1. Lack of harmony among musical notes.

2. A tension or clash resulting from the combinations of two disharmonious or unsuitable elements.

 

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Happy Thursday!

Aloha.

 

Shall we dance? Thank you, yes.

 

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                    I do place a great deal of trust upon our judicial American judges.

 

I’d like to believe that they’ll do well by the people.

 

I’d like to think that judges can’t be bought or sold like slaves or pawns in some corrupt political scheme or game of cat-and-mouse. I’d like to think that judges are fair, logical-minded and abide by the very laws they represent, themselves. I’d like to believe that our American judges aren’t corrupt as many of our politicians, lawyers, realtors and bankers are by today’s mediocre standards in professional conduct.

 

I don’t mind lawyers and their lawyer culture yet much of America’s problems stem from a lawyer mentality of suing each other over every tiny little misunderstanding without proper communication, empathy or a strong propensity to understand where the other stands and comes from. Much of that immaturity lies upon the very fact that we’re a young nation that hasn’t fully developed or become an adult yet therefore we’re a nation of…

 

The one thing I hate most is: misunderstanding or being improperly misunderstood.

 

I can’t stand the mediocrity that is insofar our legal structure and the way that it’s set up to guard corporations like people, yet to legally council the people to “never come out and tell the truth and never apologize for anything you do.”

 

What! That’s like creating a culture of disrespectful and highly irresponsible morons. No other profession is allowed to get away with that type of rhetoric unless they, themselves, want to spend some time in court.

 

As a filmmaker, if I don’t make corrections and apologize for my mistakes then what do you think will happen?

 

People will stop believing in the work that we do and turn their backs on the information that’s ever so vital for our culture to be aware of. Period.

 

We come to this open forum and tell the truth to the best of our knowledge and ability.

 

We most certainly do apologize for our mistakes and that doesn’t make us weaker. Actually that makes us stronger, because to be able to apologize for oversights, human-stupidity and careless mistakes is a beautiful thing, bold and long-lasting durability.

 

I’m making myself an example solely for the purpose to show you a picture with words.

 

As a professional in my field I’m humbled each and every single day that people bring up corrections. Now, there’s some wiggle room in that I’m human and I have-and-will continue to make mistakes and thank god I’m a private citizen.

 

It’s been explained to me that lawyers get fat rich from the misfortunes of others and if that’s indeed true then they’re no different than many used-car sale’s men and women, realtors, bankers and politicians and / or many manipulative journalists who are bought instead of doing their jobs right.

 

Now, I give thanks for our legal counsel and entertainment lawyer, each and every day because I wouldn’t go into any court without legal representation. I just wouldn’t. That would be irresponsible behavior and dangerous to do so. I’m not a lawyer.

 

No, I haven’t studied law and I definitely haven’t passed the bar exam, but let this be made quite evident between us; if any lawyer couldn’t or wouldn’t represent me to the best of their ability then I would be so arrogantly justified in the representation of myself and that’s the loveliest aspect of being an American. You can stand up in court and represent yourself and not even man-kind can take that voice away from you.

 

If no one else can do well by you in the full representation of your narrative then you can uphold to that right to take care of yourself and your own by any means necessary and why ever not?

 

If all the odds are against you and your probability to be considered justly then no amount of lawyers can represent the voice of any individual who’s willing to come to the table with evidence and facts and state their case to the best of their ability to any judge. Oh, this beautiful America of ours, indeed.

 

In conclusion to these fleeting thoughts: Corporations aren’t people.

 

“Citizens United” is very wrong in that political campaigns can be bought up by corporate dollars. Citizens United, what a bunch of hacks.

 

I didn’t realize that America’s laundry would be out in the open and that we’d show the rest of the world how corrupt our systems truly are.

 

Why do corporations get to openly buy up political campaigns and call it a day’s work?

 

Why do our currency-run-institutions get away with corruption all in the name of justifiable laws that lets them get away with starving the people, taking away our votes and corrupting the system further? Did the corporations buy up our judges in that legal fight, Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission? Oh, my!

 

Who hates the American people so much as to take it one step further and legalize the expenditure of corporations buying up the governmental ticket for presidency? Wow!

 

Sincerely and with all due respect to our contemporary times;

Gabriel

 

It’s 3:33pm. I’ve got to run. I’ve got other responsibilities.

 

*) Yes, it matters if the National Anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner” is lip-synced or not no matter how cold or warm it may be outside.

 

If you can’t handle that responsibility then don’t take it upon yourself.

 

Do you know why it matters so much?

 

It matters so much because there must be some purity, upheld, in which our traditional values must stand the test of time for the mere pride in keeping this American tapestry together and from unraveling.

 

If we allow for “performers”, no, not singers, rather performers to fake their way through our National Anthem then we allow for the unraveling of that very important patriotic fabric to fray and once it unravels say goodbye to your lives, because do you know what happens out in the open seas when rope is frayed?

 

If a rope comes undone then that’s the difference between life-and-death. Why do you think that sailors keep their ropes in great condition? To save their mates’ lives.

 

If we allow for “performers” who can’t sing then we allow for the very tapestry of this nation to turn into a hack’s game; and that will not do, it’s not good enough. Get it the hell out of here.

 

Americans do know how to wipe their rear-ends, thank you very much. We don’t have to pretend to wipe away crap we just do it because we’re not hacks.

 

Let me make this perfectly clear; Americans hate a cheat.

 

If you side with Ms. Knowles-Carter then do so, however, a poser is willing to back-up another poser only because when one loses the truth then one does indeed lose their dignity along with their face.

 

What a creep. What a creep indeed. Who pretends that much emotion while lip-syncing? My stomach turned just reviewing the video of her idiotic performance and I’m told, worse, that she was indeed singing along to her lip-sync. That’s worse. What a freak. Get her the hell out of here.

 

I’m being informed by experts that Ms. Knowles-Carter isn’t a singer she’s a performer who probably can’t sing and that’s that.

 

January 23, 2013

 

“Yeah. I mean, it just seemed to me that it was - I felt so helpless to this business of not having any papers. That seems like a throwback to a schoolboy.” - James Stockdale

 

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Word of the day: Impute (Ascribe, Credit, Charge with)

 

We should not impute false motives to those who are kind.

 

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Happy Wednesday!

Aloha.

 

Shall we dance? Thank you, yes.

 

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Nope, step back and regain your balance!

Cinema doesn’t influence culture, on the contraire, culture influences cinema. Please.

 

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Part VI

 

One of the main complaints I’m hearing about Target as a major outfitter of action figures is that Target’s buyers made large purchases of more-or-less the same “Star Wars” action figures and their earlier assortments without making any purchases towards the later assortments, which creates “peg warmers.”

 

In other words no one likes to buy the same assortments of action figures all year round because by the time later assortments come out on the market then Target’s been left in the dust and loses out on hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of dollars.

 

No, you don’t have to take my word for it, just go online and you’ll come across vast numbers of commentary from thousands of “fan-boys.”

 

No, I’m not a “fan-girl” but I do love to read and listen to what “fan-boys” have to say and complain about. It’s fun and sometimes, they’re right-on and sometimes, I love to debate with them about how wrong they are. Oh, to be intelligent, kind, lovely and open-minded about culture, pop-culture, mass-media, movies, film and entertainment yet authentic to one’s own voice by debating with an opposing viewpoint.

 

At this time of year Target is overstocked with the same action figures for merchandise as they were in the summer and collectors have been stuck buying or more-like-it browsing through some of the same action figures for about half a year and this makes them annoyed.

 

No, not violent; annoyed, rather, which is a major difference.

 

Geeks are normally the peacemakers and the engineers of culture which in other words these are gentlemen who adore intelligent and gorgeous women because both gender-demographics know how to be movers-and-shakers of the world and normally they make more money than the average citizen who sucks on their thumbs dreaming of becoming rock-‘n-roll stars without ever learning how to play an instrument.

 

Now, for those of you who don’t know much about action figures or just as much as I do, which is very little, action figures are a hot ticket item with collectors who are people that take their collecting quite seriously.

 

The cultural norms, like-and-dislikes have changed enormously over the past two decades.

 

Mass media and mass culture no longer dictates what’s cool-and-what-isn’t because with the democratization of online social media, the people get to decide what’s cool and what isn’t. Just as with fashion and with films, it’s no longer up to designers and filmmakers to dictate tastes because with instant communication, at the push of a button a twitting civilian can change the course of the future.

 

That’s about it for now.

I’d like to go on to other portions of my day because I’ve got so many other responsibilities to meet today.

 

Ciao.

Gabriel

 

*) Beyoncé did indeed lip-sync the National Anthem at the second Presidential Inauguration ceremony of President Barack Obama. Period. Fact.

 

Oh, my! What a disrespectful freak and weirdo, who, doesn’t represent our nation well.

 

Who does that? Who lip-syncs to the National Anthem? Why is it that our American singers can’t get our National Anthem right? Is it a lack of education? It is that our singers are all recording-studio hacks? Why can’t they get the words to the National Anthem correct?

 

Do you know what happens as an immigrant if you can’t get your basic American patriotic foundation down? Then you’re not granted citizenship. I had to study and memorize the Declaration of Independence, the American Constitution and the National Anthem before receiving my citizenship and why is it that most African-Americans and most Americans in general don’t and can’t recite any of those? Whatever… As if.

 

Imagine a singer not being able to pull off the National Anthem? Her sour and poser performance only leads us to think, for those of us who are mortals that she either: A) she really can’t sing B) she was afraid to be found out as a complete hack C) she’s an awful actress.

 

What a freak. Who pretends to lip-sync that much emotion into the National Anthem without actually singing. It would be like lip-syncing to Shakespeare on stage. What an embarrassment to our Nation at large.

 

She’s no different than the two black men of the early 1990’s, “Milli-Vanilli,” who lip-sync to a stadium of 50,000 people. Remember those two hacks and cultural throwbacks? I do. I want my money back for a single that I bought at the age of twelve.

 

I bet you three-mangos that Ms. Knowles-Carter can’t really sing.

 

If she really just couldn’t sing in real time then she ought to have declined.

 

There, she stood before the world pretending to be emotional while she pretended to sing. How much did that performance cost the government, the taxpayer’s money.

 

I don’t like what she did in the least bit. What a pretender. What a hack. What a poser. Ms. Knowles-Carter and her performance were just as bad as Christina Aguilera’s and her performance when she messed up the lyrics to the National Anthem at the Super Bowl. Doesn’t anybody finish junior high anymore?

 

Hell, if Ms. Knowles-Carter gets away with lip-syncing the National Anthem at the second Presidential Inaugural ceremony of President Barack Obama, then pay me to do the same. I bet you I could lip-sync with as much melodrama and shallow manifestations as she did. I could practice it in the mirror and get it down perfect as she did with her terrible acting of authentic emotion. Get her the hell out of here.

 

Why has music in America become so shallow and dumb without anything real or great to say? It seems as though everybody only cares about their faces and how cool they come across rather than looking outwards and seeing what’s happening in the world. Megalomaniacs. Yikes. Scary people out there!

 

January 22, 2013

 

“Sir, I am no sycophant or worshipper of power anywhere.” - Benjamin F. Wade

 

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Word of the day: Sycophant (Insincere flatterer, Parasite)

 

The sycophant hovered persistently near the great man. (Ha! I love that word!)

 

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Happy Tuesday!

Aloha.

 

Shall we dance? Thank you, no.

(I’ve got a sour taste in my mouth due to our contemporaries’ weird attitudes towards and about audiences.)

 

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Note: It’s 3:53pm.

Please be careful because this cold weather (1 degree) is quite dangerous out there.

 

I’ve got another four hours of work.

 

Let’s see one hour of research on foreign policy and foreign current events, one hour of screenwriting, and two hours of viewing. What should we watch today before eight? I’ve got piles of films sitting here ready to go. I was thinking of…

 

Oh, thank you for “007” and “The Hobbit.”

I loved both equally but for different reasons (more later.)

 

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Nope, step back!

Cinema doesn’t influence culture, on the contraire, culture influences cinema. Please.

 

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Do you know what’s wrong with the Quentin Tarantino interview as of last week?

 

A)    Mr. Tarantino is either extremely stressed out or doesn’t deal well with stress.

B)   Mr. Tarantino is on some heavy prescription drugs.

C)   Mr. Tarantino is a spoilt brat who has nothing intelligent to say about his craft.

D)   Mr. Tarantino lives a segregated life and doesn’t look out the window very often.

E)    Mr. Tarantino doesn’t understand the difference in definition between an interview and a commercial.

F)    Mr. Tarantino doesn’t understand that he’s made millions of dollars from his fans and does indeed require an explanation about his violent work.

G)   Mr. Tarantino doesn’t understand that he does in fact have to continue to either repeat himself in different ways or explain himself better each time that he interviews, when it comes to sharing his viewpoints and opinions about violence in his films. Otherwise, don’t sit for interviews.

H)   If one is asked the same question over-and-over again then most likely it means that one has failed at communication and in explaining oneself to others. One’s job, then, is to clarify, indeed. Simple enough. There’s no reason to be rude.

I)      Mr. Tarantino came across as a tired spoilt child that needed his diaper changed.

J)    Mr. Tarantino doesn’t realize that a rude human is rude not brilliant and the viewers can decipher the difference between the two.

K)   Mr. Tarantino doesn’t understand that other people’s time are also valuable not just his own time, especially the viewers and their time.

L)    Mr. Tarantino doesn’t understand the complexity of his business thus he gives it a horrible reputation by coming across as an ingrate who makes millions of dollars from the starving, working poor and hardworking ticket buyers. Pity.

M)  Mr. Tarantino was tired and needed to take a siesta.

N)   Mr. Tarantino was hungry and needed a snack.

O)   Mr. Tarantino’s shoes were laced too tight.

 

                              Wow, people kept asking me as to what I thought about last week’s Quentin Tarantino interview. Finally, I just got around to viewing it simply because there’s been way, too, many other important aspects of research going on in the world today such as Mali, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Syria, Peru.

 

Mr. Tarantino’s interview came across as such a nasty and mean-spirited, self-indulgent child. I almost wondered if it was a “set-up interview” except that the interviewer seemed to hold his own alright and it seemed to be impromptu.

 

Mr. Tarantino either lives trapped in some bubble and world-all-of-his-own or he’s simply mal-adjusted for the world of viewers. What a little brat, indeed. What a snot-nosed child. I would’ve gotten up and left the room. I would’ve told him not to waste my precious time and to stick a pacifier in it.

 

Wow! I’ve been left speechless and not in a good way. Aren’t there any professionals left in Hollywood? Don’t give me that guff about Mr. Tarantino being indie. Mr. Tarantino is as Hollywood as it gets.

 

Personally, as an executive producer to independent cinema I wouldn’t drop a single penny on such a spoilt-brat. I just wouldn’t. I mean really, if you can’t handle being interviewed about your films then don’t do it. There are hundreds of other more gracious people just waiting to get the opportunity to show what they can do and possibly better than Quentin Tarantino ever could and ever has. Please.

 

Conducting interviews isn’t everybody’s cup of tea to begin with.

 

Seriously, I mean there’s no greater honor than to be able to be given a spotlight to speak about your work and get people to comprehend what you mean or don’t mean.

 

If someone’s being an ingrate when being asked questions about one’s work then all I can think is that one doesn’t really know how to speak about one’s work and how it relates to themselves as directors and creators.

 

If an interviewee doesn’t want to talk about something then simply say; “I’d rather not talk about that, thank you.” The end. If the interviewer is any type of professional then they’ll respect those wishes and move on to their next question. No need to get nasty.

 

If one lives inside their own bubble of make-believe and you really don’t think that your work applies to the real world insofar as conversation is concerned; or that it doesn’t have any influence at discussion within the culture; or that it doesn’t need to be creatively justified, then that’s an adolescent masturbating in a corner, gyrating away and laughing all the way to the bank, because they’re allowed and granted to masturbate all over the violent screen without ever divulging to the audience the very importance of that very violence and or / where it’s been copied from the masters, rather that’s someone whose cum is all over the audience’s faces; just because he can get-away-with-it and everybody tells him that he’s really good at ejaculating so come harder without ever giving an audience an organism by simply forcing the audience to watch him come and make them squirm while at it. Please.

 

Films are a dialogue between the filmmaker and the audience.

 

If you want your cum all over the audience then go make porn. Just because the audience doesn’t know any better and they are uneducated about the manipulation of cinema that doesn’t justify for the director to use them as his mental slaves.

 

I’m a huge believer that violent and vulgar cinema is more than alright and that culture doesn’t follow the lead of cinema. I don’t think that humans are so stupid as to not be able to differentiate between real-time and cinema.

 

I’ll stand for the freedom of violent cinema until I die. I don’t believe in censorship, however, there’s a place and time for violent and vulgar cinema.

 

I don’t believe in the argument that violent cinema makes violent citizens, because that’s just propaganda, however, don’t expect me to watch any director ejaculate all over the screen for their own amusements.

 

I love action films.

 

I grew up with a father who took me to “RoboCop,” “Aliens,” “The Terminator,” “Total Recall,” and every type of artistic and violent foreign film out there. To my dad there was no censorship and that’s how I grew up. I grew up watching “boy-movies” because we watched what my dad liked and he preferred to watch action films.

 

I became a filmmaker because ever since I can remember, my dad and I watched one film per day for about six years and it dealt with all types of subject matter which we’d discuss in meaningful philosophical terms. I grew up holding discussions with my “Dada” about films and that’s been a huge part of our relationship as father and daughter. Thank you.

 

If I’m going to pay for an overpriced-ticket admission then I’d like to be in on that dialogue otherwise audiences will tell you that there’s nothing more ridiculous then a man who goes at it on his own and might as well be humping an armchair or a visitor’s leg.

 

I like violence in cinema but not just violence for the sake of it just as I can’t stand art that’s made for the sake of it and has no hind leg to stand upon. Welcome to the 21st century.

 

If Mr. Tarantino’s violent cinema is created simply because he likes to cinematically masturbate to his own thoughts, then he’s got a lot of explaining to do to his investors.

 

If Mr. Tarantino is simply entertaining to entertain then just say so, however, don’t for one moment make-believe that his indie cinema has to do with the larger and more meaningful aspects of culture, life and cinema because if it doesn’t then it’s just another visual wet dream with absolutely no substance behind it and no man wants to masturbate to another man’s wet dream.

 

Mr. Tarantino must’ve thought he was trapped inside some violent scene of his when he was conducting that interview and hadn’t quite realized that he had entered the real world of interaction amongst other adults who don’t live, eat and masturbate to the count of his cinematic score.

 

Sincerely,

Gabriel

 

January 21, 2013

 

Source from Wikipedia:

 

The Emancipation Proclamation is an order issued to all segments of the Executive branch (including the Army and Navy) of the United States by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the American Civil War. It was based on the president's constitutional authority as commander in chief of the armed forces; it was not a law passed by Congress. It proclaimed all those enslaved in Confederate territory to be forever free, and ordered the Army (and all segments of the Executive branch) to treat as free all those enslaved in ten states that were still in rebellion, thus applying to 3.1 million of the 4 million slaves in the U.S. The Proclamation could not be enforced in areas still under rebellion, but as the army took control of Confederate regions, the slaves in those regions were emancipated rather than returned to their masters. From 20,000 to 50,000 former slaves in regions where rebellion had already been subdued were immediately emancipated and over 3 million more were emancipated as the Union army advanced. The Proclamation did not apply to the five slave states that were not in rebellion, nor to most regions already controlled by the Union army; emancipation there would come after separate state actions and/or the December 1865 ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, which made slavery illegal everywhere in the U.S. The Proclamation did not compensate the owners, did not itself outlaw slavery, and did not make the ex-slaves (called freedmen) citizens. It made the eradication of slavery an explicit war goal, in addition to the goal of reuniting the Union.

 

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Word of the day: Emancipation (Act of setting people free)

 

Lincoln proclaimed the emancipation of all slaves. (How wonderful!)

 

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*) Please be careful in this dangerously cold Minnesota Weather.

It is -5 about now at 5:30pm at night. Cheers!

 

Happy Monday!

Happy Inaugural Day!

Happy Martin Luther king Jr. Day!

Aloha.

 

Shall we dance? Thank you, yes.

 

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Wow! What a great day to be alive!

Today’s the 2nd Presidential Inauguration of President Barack Obama.

Hip! Hip! Hooray!

 

I had to turn the tele on for about ten minutes and watch our incredible American people celebrate our gorgeous patriotic traditions such as our Presidential Inauguration.

 

I’m so excited to live through such a historical event. As a first generation immigrant I swell up with so much pride at being an American citizen.

 

Today is such a joyous day!

It’s so nice to see so many gorgeous smiles on so many Americans and our leaders, especially on such a tremendous day. Ah, how wonderful indeed!

 

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                              When President Barack Obama began his first presidential campaign I was a Republican by-and-by and I was also very excited to see an “African-American” man running for the oval office.

 

I could neither help nor deny the very excitement that I sensed from others as a Mayan-American.

 

I sensed the winds of change coming-up over us in the form of justice, humanitarian responsibility and liberties in the overall representation of one “African-American” man putting himself in the spotlight towards the running of leadership for the betterment of an entire nation.

 

I was overwhelmed to see that Mr. Obama had that much courage to run for the presidency. I figured that I, too, would be as courageous to possibly consider voting for him if he did in fact represent himself to be who he said he was without manipulating the pubic into some out-of-the-hat-rabbit trick.

 

I went to the voting booth in 2008 not having a clue as to whom to vote for.

 

I’ve always had great hope in my life and much-to-live-for but it wasn’t until I heard the excitement of the people in cafes, barbershops, restaurants and other public arenas that I began to notice and realized, at that time, that, if Mr. Obama did win his first term, then the topography of our racial-cultural nation would shift towards a more optimistic and open-minded direction. I was overjoyed and as always I was also optimistic for the future.

 

I sensed at that time that the strong currents of change were upon us and that we could and would sail through many storms with the confidence of veering our vessels towards a horizon full of sunsets through the inclusive-means for all Americans to fight a philosophical war in the name of justice, equality and liberties.

 

During the summers of 1994-2003 (nine years of service), I worked with low-income housing children. I had come across the very ugly truths about our American children who went to bed hungry and starved here in America. I, as well as many of our colleagues worked towards correcting the overall injustices towards socio-economic equality.

 

There were days in my late teens and early twenties in which I looked around at children who were quite hungry and abused and I held back silent tears for the American children that I worked with, who on a daily basis asked me for food because they were hungry all of the time while they lived in section-8 housing.

 

Our community-action program added a snack budget so that our staff were able to bring food to different sites in the form of healthy and substantial snacks to the six-or-more locations that we worked as youth workers in teaching positive-conflict resolution through arts-and-crafts and play.

 

This type of work is some of the most important work that I ever did in my life for about a six year timeframe and I shan’t forget it for as long as I live because I learned so much about the topography of America.

 

As any other first-generation-immigrant American whose caring values have been to be a proud and honorable up-standing citizen and to care about the very lives, dreams and realities of others I’ve put my own dreams on the back-burner to go and find out what this America is all about.

 

I needed to know that I understood the very complexities and truths about the very realities of those who had less than I did.

 

In the past decade I’ve passed up many opportunities to make mass fortunes in the glorious exchange for understanding, knowledge and wisdom. I’ve known deep down inside within myself that to make a massive fortune was far easier with the knowledge of what this country represents than not.

 

I’d known for a long time that I couldn’t become fortunate without knowing what this America of ours represents in freedom, justice and liberties and so long as our people struggled I decided to struggle right along with them. For as fragile as I am I’m also strong and durable.

 

I wanted to know what this America of ours was all about because if I didn’t know then I wouldn’t appreciate some mass fortune that’s been waiting for me at the end of the rainbow and when I arrive there I won’t abuse others, my hard-earned fortune, my freedom and liberty.

 

More than five times I’ve passed up Hollywood and my father said to me; “‘They want you in their corner so that can only mean that it’ll come back around like a strong wind, but for now concentrate on what you have to do to take care of yourself and learn as much as you can before you retire to private life and remember that you’re smart enough to do anything you set your mind to do.’” He smiled at me and I smiled back.

 

My father had granted me the blessing not to beat myself up too badly for wanting to discover America, first, before writing the next “great American novel” or making studio major motion pictures as a screenwriter and or as a director. (Correction: ELS blunder from “greatest American novel” to “great American novel.”) Oops.

 

My father knew that it was of the utmost importance that I get to know America, first, so as not to do America any injustice in the representation of her story.

 

I’ve known for about twenty years that the very realities on the ground; are harsh injustices and thus is the reality of many Americans. Yet, I’ve come across great and tremendous hope from people who have absolutely nothing. I’ve come across elders who do have a thing-or-two to say to anyone who can and will pass on certain messages of wisdom. I’ve come across people who smile and laugh. I’ve come across the beautiful faces of the Americans.

 

I’ve come across people whose starving children have told me that I’m beautiful and made me quite shy. I’ve come across people who, once, they found out that I was an independent documentary filmmaker running-around-without-a-camera then they opened up their homes and kitchens and fed me amazing and humbled foods.

 

I’ve been so lucky to be me and to have people from many parts of this nation want to share their stories with me without ever taking out a camera. People haven’t always wanted to be interviewed on camera but they’ve wanted me to know what they know.

 

I’ve become one thread in the tapestry of this nation’s durable material. I’ve come to find out that the backbone of America is strong but it can no longer be kicked nor starved like an alley dog.

 

If you only knew the things that I know about this great country of ours then you’d fall down on your knees in prayer and praise for the beauty that is.

 

During Mr. Obama’s first campaign, I felt and sensed at that time that this remarkable man named Mr. Barack Obama would veer us away from ice floes. I believed that he could be our captain without sinking the ship or jumping ships. I believed that he would do well by us as a people of a great nation.

 

In November of 2008, when I went into the voting booth, the palms of my hands sweat and I trembled a bit because I fought an intrinsic battle within myself, as to whom to vote for and as a Republican I stood there making one of the most important decisions of my lifetime because this man named Mr. Barack Obama kept coming up inside my head.

 

I knew that I had to do the right thing even though I wanted to vote down the party line, but I had also seen firsthand in the field as a documentary filmmaker as to what had happened to our people, our economy and our land post 9/11.

 

I cared enough to do the right thing.

 

I voted for Mr. President Barack Obama and I’ve not looked back since.

 

The only “beef” (ha!) that I have (in a joking manner and with all due respect) is that as a citizen I’d like our due process back into the American constitution.

 

I would like it if American women and men didn’t have to be dehumanized when they go through airport security and have our private genitalia shown to airport security who chuckles at our dehumanization in misfortune and make comments about our private body parts. Only the Nazis did that to their people; marched them naked to submit them to dark powerful humiliation in order to brainwash them into submission.

 

I believe in Mr. President Barack Obama.

 

I don’t believe in a Tea Party branch of the Grand Old Party. I feel that every time this great nation of ours makes strides by leaps and bounds then the GOP tries to get in the way of that very progress because time has indeed passed them by and they haven’t learned that the ideologies and the idealisms of the people have indeed entered into the 21st century. Catch up. Wake up, little ones. Wake up, little ones. Ha!!!!

 

Sincerely and with love for this great nation of ours,

Gabriel

 

P.S. Why do Zen Buddhist masters and / or teachers come across as burn-outs and / or lying flakes?

 

*) We laughed so hard at the wit of James McAvoy and Alan Davies on the Graham Norton Show from this past Friday, we recorded on the DVR and watched it on Sunday. Oh, my! We love “Jonathan Creek!” Thank you.

 

Can you say gorgeous! Oh, my!

Emeli Sande is magnificent. Hip! Hip! Hooray for real artists.

What a beautiful voice. I was ever so moved by her gracious attitude. Thank you.

 

*) Mr. Quentin Tarantino; what’s there to say?

 

Well, I’m gathering ideas about his work.

 

I’ve had a group of filmmakers ask me to privately tell them what I think of this man’s work.

 

I’m beginning a study of Mr. Tarantino’s film work and thus far, well, I can only write that Mr. Tarantino is in his freshman year of filmmaking school.

 

Mr. Tarantino makes many of the same errors that freshmen make.

 

Furthermore, he makes a lot of the same copying-errors that those in their freshmen year make when they are overly fascinated by the masters’ works.

 

Yes, I realize that Mr. Quentin Tarantino has made a lot of money but that doesn’t say much about craft. Money and craft are two totally different aspects to filmmaking. Congratulations on his economical success.

 

I did study hundreds upon hundreds of hours watching Japanese cinema over the period of many years. I had to write 20-40 page papers for each film that I watched. At times, it was mind-numbing work yet essential to understanding as to what I had watched and if I had truly understood the study of each film, then my PH.D. Professors let me know if I had indeed gotten it right or not.

 

I’m astounded by how much Mr. Tarantino copies a lot of the masters’ film work and does call it homage or a tribute to them. That’s considered a no-no for those of us who went to film school and more importantly for those of us who’ve been professionally making independent cinema for about thirteen years, beginning the intermediate professional portion of our film careers.

 

You’d get yourself punished in film school for calling “copying” a homage or a tribute when it’s more in the spirit of plagiarism and / or copying others’ work in which at film school if you copy the artistic and visual elements of another’s work down to the score, specific personalized special effects, scene-per-mise-en-scene then your contemporaries will not only consider you a hack but also game over.

 

No one will want to play with you in the sand box because they know all, too, well that if one copies the masters then one will copy and / or steal their contemporaries work and pass it off as their own. By looking at people’s work you can immediately tell who’s gone through four years of the analyses and study of cinema and who hasn’t. Ha!

 

Now, I wish Mr. Tarantino everything, good, that he wishes for, however, last week’s interview made him seem like such an ingrate after everything that’s been given to him by the gods.

 

Here’s a man who’s made millions of dollars from the hard earned dollars of the American ticket buyers and he was so rude to that interviewer. Oh, my! Mr. Tarantino does indeed owe that man an apology for how rude he was to him. How unprofessional.

 

No, an interview is not there solely for the purpose to sell film tickets.

 

An interviewer has the right, the power and the grace to ask anything that they wish to ask about of the interviewee.

 

The interviewee can always respond with stating that they’d rather not answer a question and the interviewer will respect that.

 

However to yell at an interviewer is to be ungracious, disrespectful and definitely a spoiled brat.

 

How dare Mr. Tarantino not understand the grand comprehension of what an interview entails? It’s an honor to be interviewed and don’t you ever forget that. I was so turned off by Mr. Tarantino’s inappropriate behavior that it made me not want to watch a single one of his films, however since I’m conducting a private case study here goes nothing.

 

What a spoiled brat with boogers hanging out of his nostrils. I can only imagine that his equals haven’t stepped up to the plate and put him in his place. Only an equal can do that through grace, caring attitudes and respect for the other. Get him a private tutor.

 

I don’t think that my people know his people, although my people know a lot of people who you’d never know or think that I know about since no one knows that I exist.

 

Oh, the stories I’ve heard from major motion producers. They left me feeling like… and that’s when I run away... I don’t even like hearing the stories of spoiled brats. It turns me off.

 

I’d love to sit his rear-end down and ask him some real and amazing questions about his work, career and life and he would have to swallow them down because well, what he needs is someone so different from him to come along and challenge him with respect, grace and a good metaphorical spanking if that’s what it took.

 

Yes, when celebrities are ingrates then the general public does get turned off to their misbehavior. How dare they conduct themselves as such when Americans starve? Please.

 

*) It is 5:30 P.M. already. I still have another 2.5 hours of work.

 

*) Yes, I use my tablet mostly right before bed, that’s when I like to read fun articles and blogs. No, before bedtime I don’t work or research articles. Nope. My brain needs a break from constant work. I like reading….for fun.

 

January 18, 2013

 

“The secret thoughts of a man run over all things, holy, profane, clean, obscene, grave, and light, without shame or blame.” - Thomas Hobbes (Wonderful quote!)

 

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Word of the day: Embellish (Decorate, to make beautiful)

 

The rich drapes embellish the appearance of the room.

 

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Happy Friday!

Happy 14th Baktun!

Happy 6th earth / cycle!

Aloha.

 

Shall we dance? Thank you, yes.

 

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Part V

 

I wish nothing but the very best for Target Corporation.

 

I wish them everything, good, that they wish for, and all of the success in the world. Why wouldn’t I? Right? Right.

 

I do believe, that, with-a-change-of-heart that Target will step-out and take the lead as an industry leader and take it upon themselves to get-at-the-head of the curve when it comes to their employees’ more-than-satisfactory-minimum-wages, salaries, healthcare benefits for all of their employees, part-time, or otherwise, as well as child-care services provided on site and the overall tender-care for their employees’ culture.

 

My father talks about how all employees are important from the janitor to the CEO.

 

I like to listen to those beautiful stories in which CEO’s make it a point to ask their janitors and other staff, alike, as to what they think about XY and Z. what a beautiful dream. It makes me so optimistic about the world. And, no, don’t ask a janitor how to save a company from drowning, once, the ship has begun to sink all-the-while the janitor has been marginalized for years, that’s just too insulting.

 

My grandfathers (both of them) used to discuss the very notion that, “ ‘you, really never know when someone will come along with excellent ideas about how to run a company and sometimes it just happens to be that it’s the janitor who cares more about what happens to a company than those sitting around boardrooms taking their positions for granted.’” Here! Here!

 

I like those stories about the leaders of industries who are humble-enough, gracious and respectful-enough to ask their staff members and employees as to what they think about anything in general and if they have any suggestions as to how to make a company great for the betterment of everyone all around.

 

I’d like to think that corporate America can transcend any class divide, caste system and find inspiration from even the meekest and the humblest of workers and pay them justly as well.

 

Brilliance isn’t a captive audience and granted only to those who wear suits. Brilliance is a viable resource that we ought to be showered with in the world just as the night sky is honored with the stars each and every single night.

 

Our corporate caste system and the spell that, which it’s under can be broken when our CEO’s take responsibility to be paid only so much in percentage from that of the lowest paid employee.

 

If the lowest paid employee in any company takes home roughly ten thousand per year as a part-time employee without healthcare benefits then, why should any CEO take home roughly twenty-four million per year? What an economical discrepancy.

 

Every CEO knows very well that their contemporaries starve under them and most likely the children of those minimum-wage employees suffer, greatly. What a shame. What an American travesty.

 

Could you imagine going to bed each night with that on your conscious?

 

Talk about Scrooges!

 

I can only imagine the hardships of being a CEO who knows all, too, well, that while he gorges himself; others, starve to make that happen for him.

 

I can’t imagine that any food would taste very good in the name of other’s starvation. That greed can’t be justifiable by the means of any type of practical or moral debate.

 

To starve one section of any worker-employee population but to over-gorge another is no different than any oligarch monarchy.

 

I didn’t realize that free-enterprise was a monarchy in which the oligarch ate off of the backbreaking backs of their serfs and when the serfs could no longer bare the harsh toil in sacrifice then they died off and another economical slave took their place.

 

I had a much stronger vision for free-enterprise then the one that we carry out today. There’s no excuse for wage inequality.

 

I’ve met and dined as well as visited with corporate CEO’s in their homes whose households require for their paychecks to be no less than one million per month otherwise they can’t keep their ostentatious and cheaply built households afloat. If these CEO’s were to lose their positions then most likely they would lose mostly everything.

 

Can you imagine getting paid two million per month when you’d know, perfectly well, that your lowest paid employee by law gets paid the minimum-wage of $7.25 per hour?

 

That’s practically criminal and everybody in America knows it very well, but rarely do we see leadership take the helm in which leadership does the right thing, not the greedy thing.

 

By the time a low-end paid CEO makes at least one-hundred thousand per month while every other employee struggles to make ends meet on eight-hundred per month (part-time), then what’s there to motivate that CEO to become a corporate justice titan? Nothing.

 

If one doesn’t have to live and work under the control of an oppressive wage, then, why, become a corporate industry leader of social justice? Why? What's the point? There isn’t one so long as one lives in a cheaply built McMansion and turns a blind eye to the social justice that requires amendment in corporate culture, alone.

 

Sincerely,

Gabriel

 

Part VI to be continued…

 

*) No, Physical illness isn’t mental illness.

 

According to the American Psychiatric Association who likes to “make up” mental conditions, many of whom, I guess are “a bunch of ninnies who never got…” a date in high school and are still to this day, bitter about their lot in life, therefore, they want others to feel as bad as they do, thus they impose “made up rules” as congress does upon the American people because they are a bunch of “control freaks” and when they sell more books then they make more money just like academics do even though textbooks often blatantly lie about history and have incorrect information in them just as psychologists evaluations and writings does.

 

Remember an Association is a club where people pay their dues to join.

 

Be careful as to what motives others in any given field, especially if they make themselves the authority on any given subject matter over societal culture.

 

My retired M.D. psychologist father says that more than half of the psychologists out there have mental and emotional problems of their own and the more they dictate to others then the more you have to be careful of their made-up authority. Here! Here! My dad says that some of them are also hacks who barely got through school without cheating on their school work and examinations. Ouch!

 

Question everything!

 

I’m being informed by experts and professionals in the field of psychiatry that the American Psychiatric Association is mental in their own right and not-any-type of leader therefore make sure that The People question their every move as misguided as they are.

 

Okay, I’m sure that I wouldn’t know but I’ll keep that as a mental note.

 

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*) On that note: Yes, my carpal tunnel went away, completely.

 

I’ve had absolutely no pain for about two months.

 

My closest friends and family in the medical field all told me not to go to physical therapy because not only would it be a waste of my time but also it’s a money making industry.

 

I had medical experts tell me that physical therapy is simply a branch of the medical field that makes serious money and that’s it.

 

Physical therapy is an industry thus, they told me to download from the internet the physical exercises that would improve my carpal tunnel, strictly follow the exercises and call it a day.

 

I’ve done so and I haven’t had any pain to speak of. Isn’t that wonderful? Indeed.

 

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*) Yes, we scored two tickets to the “Gregorian Chants” of “Atmosphere” on March 2012. Ha! I’m teasing but for all I know they could be “Gregorian chanters,” who knows? Right? Right.

 

After seventeen years, I’m truly excited that I waited to see them, to listen to them, live, and to attend one of their shows; I’ll be attending at First Ave, which is an intimate and small venue.

 

I look forward to joining our contemporaries (the audience) on this common experience.

 

How exciting for all of us to be there on that night under the stars in unison and together while celebrating the work of these artists who contribute to the world of an underground musical scene in general, at large. Cheers! I have no expectations. Please don’t e-mail me and tell me. I have no idea.

 

If the audience is mean-spirited then I’ll turn on my heel and leave, because why not?

 

Music is sacred and to be treated as such. As a Tica I have no qualms with getting up and leaving anything that has a bullying spirit. As Ticos, we don’t have a tendency to want to kill the spirit of others. Why would we?

 

Early this morning I dreamt about a grayish-blue female panther as my guardian-spirit watching over me and my personal peers. We were all sitting out on a hillside on lawn chairs and blankets, hundreds of us and she calmly walked amongst us, noticed each and every one of us and made us realize that she would watch over all of us. I looked over all of the faces sitting and having little snacks looking up at the sky and waiting for…

 

I can only hope that this is a great omen to attending this show; Don’t get me wrong; I come and go confidently in a relaxed manner, yet I don’t always love the Minneapolis hipster scene in which everyone’s trying to be super cool and their sweat smells of… Ha!

 

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*) Yes, all trees need their branches pruned and / or cut off. That’s part of nature. It’s cool and that’s what nature does.

 

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*) I’ve got another three hours of work still yet to go. Cheers! Wow, it’s five at night.

 

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*) There’s no greater turn off than people who name drop.

 

*) There’s no greater turn off than people whose main purpose in life is to get ahead by self promotion. I can’t stand a bragger. Yikes.

 

January 17, 2013

 

“To keep it simple you run your gym like you run your house. Keep it clean and in good running order. No jerks allowed, members pay on time and if they give you any crap, throw them out. There's peace where there's order.” - Joe Gold

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Word of the day: Emboss (To raise the surface in relief, to adorn)

 

Orders were given to emboss the heads on all coins.

 

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Happy Thursday!

Happy 14th Baktun!

Happy 6th earth / cycle!

Aloha.

 

Shall we dance? Thank you, no.

 

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No Blog.

 

I’m tired today.

I still have three more hours of work still yet to go.

 

Cheers.

Gabriel

 

January 16, 2013

 

“Without a doubt, first thing we should do is clean up our fiscal house, and that starts with balancing our budgets and digging out of this red ink. We cannot expect to continue in this fashion and remain the leader of the free world.”  - Marcy Kaptur

 

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Word of the day: Efficacious (Effective, Producing results)

 

Efficacious medicines cured his serious disease.

 

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Happy Wednesday!

Happy 14th Baktun!

Happy 6th earth / cycle!

Aloha.

 

Shall we dance? Thank you, yes.

 

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Part IV

 

If Target hadn’t been around in those years from 1995-2006 then I don’t know what.

 

I was lucky-enough to get involved with Target stores as a customer in that particular era because it was a time in which it seemed that Target was making strides by leaps and bounds, reaching out to their customer base by taking the “common person” to the next place of evolutionary customer, consumer-ship and evolving the ideals of high-end, clean, modern design at almost, if not, then, at cost.

 

Those were the days in the spirit of a true Target that was building-up our “working-poor” and “low-income” base into a classy “middle-class,” who, they, too, were able to afford the luxuries-and-comforts of a classy-and-fashionable life without going hungry in exchange with keeping in step along to a culture that went modern, overnight and quite quickly into demanding-and-wanting new, fresh and cool designs and looks while forging forth through a massive recession.

 

I liked Target’s 2007 overly saturated commercials in the form of candy filled colors and filters that showed modern products appear like candy, something that a consumer really wanted to-take-a-bite-out-of and become a part of it all. Yet I watched as the prices in products exponentially rose while the quality suffered and it still cost pennies on the dollar to manufacture such inexpensive merchandise. Oh, I could barely watch in those days (2007…): because I didn’t want the company to suffer and to seize-to-exist as the Aztecs had done before them.

 

Then in the winters of 2010-2011, while the country dragged on in this recession which still occurs today as I write; the most cynical and mean-spirited commercials were introduced into the market and well, I heard many citizens and civilians complain about how difficult the Christmas season was for most American families, their difficult familial relationships and saving-up to purchase Christmas gifts that other’s either had on their lists, demanded or greatly wished for but the money simply wasn’t there for most American families in those two winters, as well as this winter.

 

I had a reel sent to me to study those very Target commercials and have them analyzed for a third private party that simply wanted to know what I thought, confidentially. I watched them, once, and I could barely stomach them beyond anymore than one viewing, only.

 

I simply sent them back with an F for content and subject matter, due to the mere fact that those very commercials were so out of touch with the very reality of the average American citizen and the economy as America dealt with the depression of that economical recession and trying to get the country involved in donating winter coats for youth and adults, alike, while many of our civilians could barely afford to buy new coats of their own for the new season.

 

I felt like Mr. Scrooge had directed those ugly commercials and well, yes, people did complain about them on social media.

 

What a stupid dichotomy! Television selling vs. the real world.

 

To make a bad commercial is one thing, but to make a commercial that is so out of touch with the general public is to make fun of the general public to a certain extend because America has been thinking about how to put food on their tables for about a decade. What a tragedy that…

 

When the general public begins to hate anything that remotely seems to make fun of them; yet begs for their money to be spent at any one particular store, then the average consumer feels marginalized because they work all, too, much, and, too, hard in America to make ends meet; while television culture lives with their thumbs up their butts and doesn’t realize what’s happening to the consumer culture on the ground.

 

To be ignorant of consumer needs in the visual representation; even if it means instilling hope back into the culture by any means necessary while the harsh reality of people’s struggles are as they are, and people must do the best that they can, with the very little, that, they have, available to them, while they worry about how to afford Christmas gifts is insulting and the consumers know it all, too, well thus their loyalty goes out the window or they begrudge; which; that, can never be very good for any one given company at any one given time.

 

People were mad as hell about those commercials.

 

Yes, people here in Minneapolis were pissed-off at how demeaning those Christmas 2010-2011 Target commercials were.

 

I’m partial to side with the people because they are people who can see quite clearly through crap even when television culture still believes and thinks that the people are dumb, or stupid or slow; people know and feel when they’re hated thus they hate the product or brand back and why shouldn’t they? Why shouldn’t they, indeed?

 

No matter what I may write: I’ve been a huge consumer advocate towards the development of Target since 1995. I have. Behind closed doors, I’ve discussed with others the importance of Target and its ever evolving need to get back on board with the people towards the progression of civilization.

 

Selling product isn’t a joke. Selling product such as that of Target’s isn’t only serious business but it’s also something to take pride in because culture is made-or-broken by the standards that we maintain as a consumer culture. No standards; equals a broken culture anyway you want to add up that equation.

 

I went wild crazy about the women’s undergarments because “boxer briefs” made a large-and-bold statement at that time (2007). I had done much research about women’s undergarments (at-that-time) and I’m sorry to spell it out, but certain dyes and more specifically silk “G-string” underwear are a huge cause in contributing to women’s private-body-parts; infections and / or irritations.

 

When Target paired up with “Hanes” on the productive-and-intelligent venture to sell “boxer briefs” for women, in the form of other breathable, cotton undergarments that didn’t irritate women then I really got on board. Thank you. Now, quality must be reintroduced to that design of undergarment, once, again, because it truly is a winner construct in design that indeed moves and breathes like skin-- oh, so well, that that design, alone, will take us into the 21st century.

 

As someone who’s studied conceptual engineering, analytical criticism and global communications, once, you get the fundamental structure and function of design in place then you can play with other more topical aspects within that framework of reference without having to restructure the main construct all over again and not guarantee high-quality function upon the basis of constant experimentation, that, which may or may not be useful to the user. 

 

I realize that women have bought into the brainwashing ideal that G-string and silk undergarments are sexy, but I can’t think of anything less sexy than a yeast infection and giving off the odor of fish. Sorry, ladies and buyers, alike, let’s get on board with the future and celebrate women’s great health, rather than making women ill through-and-by the very products that we purchase, especially teens and young women who don’t know any better. Yeast infections are so un-cool and so are the very cheap and horribly made products that cause them continuously; such products ought to almost be banned from any buyer’s list due to the health risks that they impose upon women.

 

I have a dream that Target will become strong leadership in their industry. Wake up, sleepy heads. There’re more mountains to climb than obsessing over margin points.

 

Cheap and destructive products are serious business.

 

Just because women contend with ill made products that cause great detriment to their health that doesn’t mean that such products ought to be sold because if they aren’t good enough for the consumer then everybody who’s studied manufacturing knows it all, too, well and they ought to do the right thing; not, that, which makes money from cheap and unhealthy products.

 

Target must now set the pace and the tone towards leadership for the country in the century to come or they too, could also seize-to-exist like the Aztec and that would be a damn shame. I’m cheering for Target.

 

Are we going to have a century filled with full of responsible retailers, buyers, vendors, sellers, distributors and manufacturers or not?

 

I was ever so thankful that Target partnered up with a company’s label “G9” which I swear makes the best sports bras in the world; seriously I had been looking for a sports bra with thin straps for over two decade, yet this bra holds-up women-in-general-and-pregnant-women with a full cup in all the rights places. Amen! There have been years in which the bras were made in the Dominican Republic and the quality in the stretch and the comfort of the material has been neither high-quality nor up to par (I didn’t purchase in those years, I learned the first time, why keep throwing money away).

 

I don’t mean to go all female-consumer on you; however, these are the very struggles that many women go through in finding high quality product with an inexpensive price-tag. Personally, I think these incredibly-made bras (some years) are a bit overpriced but ultimately I’ll pay the $14-16 dollars for one simply because that, design, alone will take us into the 21st century. I’m not happy about the pricing, but there it is.

 

I’m serious, I’m of a particular body and shape and I’ve been looking and studying clothes for over two-decades now, especially someone who can’t stand many different types of scratchy materials, strange cuts that serve no real function upon a woman’s body and someone who as a child; had maybe, one-or-two outfits in general and due to that experience I really do cherish each and every article of clothing that I buy and bring home with me like a best friend to be cared for, treated with respect and considered with kind gestures.

 

For those of you who know me well enough and have ever had the lovely opportunity to dine in our home, then you already know very well that you get the relaxed royal treatment and that goes for any garment of clothing I purchase even if I have to dunk it into the bathtub and hand wash it, although I wish that real delicate materials were engineered for the washing machine, like silks and other delicate materials.

 

I’m surprised that some type of synthetic silks aren’t more widely distributed because who has the time to hand wash anything? Mostly nobody. I do hand wash my delicates. I force myself to hand wash delicate-and-beautifully put together clothing but it doesn’t mean that I like doing it; it only means that it’s keeping with traditional good values to treat all people and things well so that they may last and have an enduring run.

 

Part V to be continued…

 

I had way too many other responsibilities.

 

Gabriel

 

*) Yes, I, like every other Minneapolis-musically-inspired-human will try my very best to purchase two “Atmosphere” concert tickets come this Friday. Let’s see what it’s all about.

 

I’ve been putting it off for about 17 years. Ha! Now, that’s funny.

 

However, I’m told that tickets sell quickly.

Nope, I’m not asking for a single goddamn personal favor.

 

I guess that purchasing tickets isn’t the same like in the days where you could go down to the Electric Fetus and purchase a ticket for ten bucks and call it a day. Nope. I guess purchasing tickets is tough and not easy like sipping mango juice on a hammock and watching the sun go down over the Pacific Ocean as surfers make their way back to the beach before it goes pitch black. Bummer. I forget that this isn’t rural Costa Rica.

 

When I was in my late teens and early twenties I hung outside musical venues with The People after Atmosphere’s concerts were long done and the equipment got packed up. I liked to listen to what people had to say about Atmosphere without ever knowing them, their music or making it a point to get to know them. Why?

 

They have no idea that I exist and I couldn’t point them out in a crowd even if they stood about a foot away from me. That happens to me quite often with celebrities more than I’d care to share. I have no idea what anybody looks like. They could be African-American Jews from Finland for all I know.

 

I used to skateboard late at night when I couldn’t sleep and happened upon relaxed, young people and hung out like a true Tico, sat back and listened to how excited all these young contemporaries were about Atmosphere’s musica.

 

Other people expressed their strong sentiments about a cultural revolution that hung over our heads like a dense midst in our company and I, too, felt the music they talked about without ever listening to it.

 

I would get goose bumps at these young people’s descriptions about the change that was possible and the hope that represented a fierce intellectual tool more so than a slogan.

 

I, really, only know Atmosphere by what other people have said about them and their music for about 17 years, but I don’t know their music, because I’ve had way too many other things going on in life like everybody else.

 

I wonder what they sound like?

If not this time around then maybe in the next decade I’ll get around to listening.

 

No, I won’t call in personal favors as a middle-income-earner. Ha!

 

I like to go through the front door like everybody else because I work behind-the-scenes and I know what the magic is all about. Ha! It’s grunt work, long hours and…

 

I think it’ll be fun to purchase two tickets. I’d like to surprise my jet-setting friend. Who knows? Minneapolis isn’t like Costa Rica in which you can wander into a scene, peacefully hang, monkey watch, have a little snack, and relax. Here, everybody’s so uptight about how cool they try to portray themselves to be that people hardly ever relax while showing off their plumes and flip flops.

 

I love Minneapolis, but everything’s a goddamn scene rather than a Tico meal.

 

I’ve always been too… for this town.

 

I can’t wait to play.

Doesn’t anybody play anymore?

Remember, when we used to hang, relax and be that ever dreaming generation X?

Nope. Alright.

I guess we all grew up and got serious about getting old and dying.

 

*) One more note: In Minneapolis in general: I hardly ever get into venues because everything’s sold out. Doesn’t anybody sell tickets at the door, anymore, for those of us who come in for the second to the last song and then skateboard away? I’m only curious enough to hear one or two songs, that's how we roll.

 

January 15, 2013

 

“Just as there's garbage that pollutes the Potomac river, there is garbage polluting our culture. We need an Environmental Protection Agency to clean it up.” - Patrick Buchanan

 

“Man, if I made one million dollars I would come in at six in the morning, sweep the stands, wash the uniforms, clean out the office, manage the team and play the games.” - Duke Snider

 

“I'm known clean around the Earth.” - Minnesota Fats

 

“If we are to perpetuate the state, we must not only produce citizens, but good citizens - men and women of sound bodies, clear minds and clean souls.” - Arthur Capper

 

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Word of the day: Effigy (Likeness, an image, a figure representing one who is hated or disliked) What a word! Ha!

 

They hanged the hated ruler in effigy.

 

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Happy Tuesday!

Happy 14th Baktun!

Happy 6th earth / cycle!

Aloha.

 

Shall we dance? Thank you, no.

 

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Today we bury our dead.

R.I.P. to our dearest family member and their passing…

You shall be missed, dearly.

 

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Today’s blog is an artist statement that I wrote two weeks ago, however, after I wrote it I realized that it wasn’t an artist statement at all whatsoever: see you tomorrow:

 

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Artist Statement

Hello. Aloha.

Happy New Year 2013!

Happy 14th Baktun!

Happy 6th earth / cycle!

Happy beginning to the next 5,125 years!

 

Wow, the years are moving along quickly. Lovely. Beautiful.

 

Welcome to the “Age of Aquarius” that which will last on average the next 2,150 years.

 

We’re entering an age of electricity, computers, humanity and modernization as well as the “age of mother” which means connecting to your inner mothers, metaphorically speaking, per say. (No, you don’t need to go out and find your mothers and hang on to their skirts.) Finding your own “inner mother” means coming into your own as an adult and taking care of whatever needs taking care of with the love and acceptance of an honest, kind and authentic mother.

 

This is the age of water, currents and that means that you must acquire and learn complex analytical and critical thinking skills of your own. No, it’s not alright to pass off as a gullible sap, naïve and uninformed for your own amusement and become a complete waste of life because that, alone, will create disease and decay deep into your bones. “Mind over matter.” The mind has more brain power than western culture is willing to acknowledge.

 

No, this isn’t a “new age” to allow yourselves into getting financially bamboozled by hacks, losers, posers, scam-and-con-artists or modern spiritual charlatans trying to get you to part with your currency in supporting their “alternative lifestyles” for supposedly performing “spiritual enhancement” or “spiritual journeys.” Only you and the gods can spiritually fulfill you, which isn’t a collective journey or process rather an independent one until the end of the ages.

 

No, an independent spiritual process in journey doesn’t mean that you’re all alone.

 

If anything you’re more interconnected than ever before, however, a spiritual journey is a deeply private one and to be guarded and held close to your hearts so as not to have others misguide you or lead you astray with their theories of their own personal made-up values “of a little bit of everything” thrown into a toss salad.

 

Careful, that’s what we, as Indigenous, consider spiritual charlatans to be; people who have no clue who their ancestors are to them thus they go in search of other’s ancestors and religions and I hate to tell you this but: “blood is thicker than water.”

 

If you have no idea who to pray to: then begin by praying to your ancestors for guidance and that will always be true because it took all of those beautiful humans to bring you into existence. Most likely your ancestors sit amongst the gods and your ancestors will guide you with the guiding hand of the gods.

 

Don’t allow for anyone to make you feel ashamed of who you are and what your ancestors stand for because it’s unethical of others to do so when they don’t even have a clue as to who their ancestors were. Please don’t allow yourselves to be persuaded into running around naked, drinking horrible concoctions and praying to hedonistic gods in exchange for your time and money. Careful.

 

Yes, a “hippie” era has finally come to an end and neither will anyone conduct medicinal practices without a doctor’s license to each proper cultural practice nor much less accept currency in the exchange for “spiritual rituals” and supposedly “spiritual healing” (which only the gods can do) of any type, otherwise, the protection of the jaguar and of the gods shall be lost upon those, forever, who lie, steal and cheat in the face of their paternal ancestral guides, and forever, seems to be a very long time.

 

No, true shamans don’t ask for currency of any type because they have no need for it in their cultural daily lives, however always bring a gift of food to a shaman. Shamans who’ve passed extensive schooling, tests and rituals for years may trade and be taken care of by their communities through raw materials, foods and such, however, no begging or asking for currency from anyone otherwise that’s a charlatan.

 

No, shamans aren’t to be befriended or sought out as teachers because one can become bewitched and kept a personal slave in between worlds, an enchanted fortress of make-believe and the realities of the modern world. One must not escape the modern 14th Baktun. One must face it along with the rest of us with a glad heart and escape spiritual enslavement that which can keep one from one’s true calling and journey alongside the gods and the humans as well as the hybrids.

 

Be quite aware of pushy “know-it-all” peddlers. Careful. Cuidado. They’re quite different from those who are assertive and have your best interest at heart. These charlatans have a tendency to keep an open eye on social climbing their way to the top through any means necessary, especially by stepping right over you.

 

If this is a time to get out of any type of Indentured servitude then let it be so.

 

Those who hold you back know that they can do so, however, at a great cost to them with horrible luck on their side with possible natural death, forevermore.

 

Remember, you don’t owe anybody anything and you don’t have to pay other people’s way, projects or dreams.

 

You’re your own master and what belongs to you is truly yours.

 

Don’t give away anything out of guilt, shame or manipulation due to the mere fact that others won’t have as much as you will. Careful to become a trapped slave and to halt your journey that which is one that must be conducted in the modern world of the 14th Baktun.

 

If an exchange in currency occurs and one party gives away their money to another then let this be known: there will be neither equality nor peer duality: those who take currency from you will forever be your subordinates. Period.

 

They will neither be your equals nor your peers. It won’t be possible to be forevermore. A handout is a handout in whichever form it comes in. Period.

 

Furthermore, your time is more valuable than your money therefore don’t give it away freely and if you want to spend your days laying about in a hammock and you can afford to do so dreaming your lives away then that’s your very own prerogative and no one will judge you for it. Give yourself the freedom to revel in what your ancestors have already contributed, accomplished and what you must contribute and accomplish before you become “dust to dust.” However, you must progress forward and help modernize humanity and move it along in this 14th Baktun.

 

Humanity must keep in mind the trades of the past and never forget that we must modernize the world or it’ll be our own demise not to do so. What do you mean there’s no running water in third, fourth and fifth worlds and its 2013? Please.

 

Yes, this is the age in which we now begin to read and study the ancient records of humanity because they will be released from the Vatican vaults otherwise the Roman Catholic Church will “seize-to-exist” within “less than one-hundred years” and it shall die a most brutal death as the Pagan religions did under the cruel hands of Catholicism; everything’s a cycle and it repeats itself as the Roman Catholic Church already knows this.

 

The Roman Catholic Church must redeem itself due to hundreds of years of pedophilia.

 

It’s been written in the past as it shall be written again. All that the Vatican has to do is release every single record for the advancement of humanity otherwise can you imagine the Roman Catholic Church erased from humanity’s memory and history in less than one-hundred years as they did the Pagans? I wouldn’t like it very much because I like that nice Mr. Jesus Christ and his dad. I do. I’m sorry I can’t help it. I think they’re cute and I feel safe with those two deities in the world amongst humans.

 

Yes, the Maya long count calendar has come to an end. Yes, the theological and short count calendars are still ticking away. There‘re three in total.

 

Yes, currently in existence they’re twenty-to-thirty million Maya who populate the earth.

 

Yes, the Aztec did seize to exist (die off) however not the modern Maya.

 

No, the Aztec sun dial has nothing to do with our Mayan culture, (thank you). It’s like saying that the Swedes, Finns, Danish, Norwegians and any other Nordic cultures all share the same dancing attire to celebrate their heritages. The ancient Aztec and the Maya were not of the same tribes, cultures nor heritages as those of distinct Nordic tribes whom differentiate themselves uniquely distinctly from one another.

 

Yes, the Maya stone tablets take us well into the years of the 4,000’s. How exciting for those who’ll come into existence at that time.

 

Yes, I’m writing a “citizen’s manual / scribe’s script” for those in 7012 when the calendar will begin to see evident and effective changes to the earth’s weather once again.

 

Yes, only the ancient Mayan Royalty and their priests practiced cannibalistic theological complex rituals for the gods. No, the rest of the population wasn’t even allowed to practice such segregated and classist cannibalistic theological complex rituals for the gods.

 

Yes, the Maya are direct descendents from the gods (star beings.)

 

No, we’re not talking “fallen angels” / “demons”, here, that’s your Christian theological viewpoint; you’re the ones who believe in fallen angels, thus we believe that we share the earth with our hybrid extraterrestrial brothers and sisters whom we don’t consider gods because they are flesh and bone and smell as bad as any other animal that begins to deteriorate and die the moment they’re born (another law of nature created by the divine gods.)

 

Yes, giants did roam the earth and had a second row of teeth. Fact.

 

Yes, this is a well known fact that the European-giants especially those with red hair did roam Europe; red hair is indeed a mutation (fact.)

 

Were these European-giants descendants from “fallen angels?”

 

I highly doubt that because the ancient giants were humans made from flesh and bone.

 

I’m sure that their bowel movements smelled just as bad as those of the giants of the western hemisphere did, who neither were direct descendants from fallen angels and didn’t have red hair, either, therefore, the western-giants didn’t carry the same gene mutation as those of the European-giants.

 

Yes, five ton stones can be moved by the vibration of sonic sound. I can’t help it that the western world is lead by their ignorance. Find the key to your equations and you shall unlock the metaphysics of a lost science. What is sound but math and science combined. Duh! Please.

 

Yes, ancient Mayans celebrated the coming of age at 21 years of age, however as a modern Maya I’m determined to change that because the Sardinians of Italy have taught me that their young come into age well in their thirties and I believe that they’re right about this modern practice. A human’s brain isn’t fully developed until 28 years of age, that’s when you know if people will become complete lunatics or not. Fact. My personal coming of age was this past May 2012 at the age of 35. I’ve proven not to be clinically mentally ill. Hip! Hip! Hooray for great mental health and intelligence! Wonderful!

 

Yes, the ancient Maya used collapsing boards to reconfigure their newborns’ skulls into elongated shapes as a beautification ritual however not as an adult’s rite-of-passage ritual because the skull would’ve already been formed and much too dense and quite severely painful to reshape into such reconfiguration. Yes, Fox News got it wrong and they must make a correction for the courtesy of their viewer’s intelligence. Period. Moving on.

 

Yes, the modern Mexican Mayas lied about an apocalypse 2012 in exchange for tourist dollars and the gods shall punish them for wanting to exploit the world into fear and not development. Oh, the gods are going to get them for choosing not to be true, honest and respectful of the ancient calendars, rituals and theological writings. They knew better but they went ahead with the lie anyway. That was quite scoundrel of them to trick the world into mass panic. I wouldn’t want to be a Mexican Maya for anything going into the 14th Baktun because I can only imagine that the gods are terribly pissed off at them for being such liars. “Liars! Liars! Pants on fire!” (Careful, I personally love many Mexicans.)

 

No taking pictures of shamans, the Indigenous and others who do in fact believe that their souls are captured in photographs; such a modern practice is quite uncouth. Thank you.

 

In conclusion: for the past twenty-five years I’ve listened to the western culture tell me what being a Mayan means and their ideal of a 2012 apocalypse, as if. Please, stop being so belligerent, disrespectful and racist. I know exactly who and what I am and I know very well what my theological belief system is, as an Indigenous Maya towards my journey to flower mountain.

 

The mainstream media exploitation of an apocalypse was cunning, manipulative and disgustingly commercial. I got over the fact that not a single mainstream media source or outlet went out of their way and did their own factual research about the Maya and the beginning of the next glorious 5,125 years. We, the Maya, were celebrating the birth of a new world while the western world was preparing for a fearful, gruesome and a potential massive natural massacre. How crazy is the western culture? From my Indigenous cultural outlook. Quite.

 

What a crazy, lost, and mean-spirited culture the west proved to be, especially ignorant.

 

The Indigenous, we, don’t tolerate ignorance very well, however, it’s not our job to correct anyone much less to become spokespeople and if the west desires death wishes about an apocalypse then be our guests and be your own mental slaves.

 

Nevertheless, everything in humanity’s DNA and gene imprint is set for us to live, thrive, succeed and go on even if you don’t want to pay your taxes. Has the west turned off their genes? What has the west done with their brains? Where has the west’s logic taken them that they have deep death wishes?

 

Scary-and-weird western culture, that likes to frighten itself to death with the love of brutality, wishful death and ignorance. Oh, brother! What a queer little exploitive-commercial western culture. It’s not worth much is it? It has yet to prove itself intelligent.

 

I’m wishing you an amazing future because we have so much to live for.

Don’t you want to live?

We, the Maya, direct descendants of the Olmec desire to live.

Join us on that festive and celebratory journey.

 

Sincerely and truly;

 

Gabriela de la Holm

January 14, 2013

 

“My suggestion is that we should first work to ensure the Third World has clean drinking water and sanitation.” - Bjorn Lomborg

 

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Word of the day: Eminent (Prominent, famous, Well-Known)

 

An eminent lawyer took the case.

 

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Happy Monday!

Happy 14th Baktun!

Happy 6th earth / cycle!

Aloha.

 

Shall we dance? Thank you, yes.

 

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Part III

 

I’m ever so grateful that Target stores existed in our lives throughout those tremendously difficult years in adolescence as many of us were trying to make it by.

 

What a time and space to have grown up in.

 

I give thanks to all those who helped us get through that rough time period in our lives and as funny as it may seem, I did happen to stumble upon Target stores and that, too, worked out as it ought to have.

 

I grew up as an advocate for the environment, clean air and environmentally-friendly manufactured products.

 

In 1995, I did feel as though Target Corp. achieved many of those goals even though I did understand that they had a long way to go.

 

As a consumer I, too, had ideals and values to bestow upon Target that I thought would make them a leader in their industry and get them ahead of the pack. Why not?

 

I did find it wonderful that Target was based out of Minneapolis and that it was a corporation that could truly revolutionize Minnesota to become a major corporate leader insofar as better-than-average minimum wages, healthcare for all of their part-time and salaried employees, on-site-childcare and to distribute low-priced products-and-merchandise to their customers that would save mother nature, humanity and third, fourth and fifth worlds such as Haiti, Cuba, Mexico, India and China. Target still has much work ahead of them.

 

There’s much work to be done.

 

Target has taken Minnesota into the 21st century although it’s a travesty that Target Corp had their stores’ employees work and open up stores on Thanksgiving night and early Black Friday 2012 which can only indicate that their corporate heads don’t really care about the overall well-being of their employees’ mental health as well as for the American traditional value system that, which constitutes civilized conduct in-the-form of a Thanksgiving meal surrounded by family values and giving thanks around the dinner table, celebrating life and time off from constant minimum-wage work.

 

Now, I want to first mention that in those days of the mid-1990’s Target stores carried more-or-less generic women’s brands in which Target’s clothing could-and-would stand the test of time.

 

I loved many of their light-weight grey-bluish canvas pants that lasted me for about one-complete decade and if the hems hadn’t worn off in the back then I would’ve continued to wear such pants well into today.

 

In the year 2012, I finally got rid of a pair of Target pants in which the grey dye was still in great shape that I had bought in the year 1996. The pants were still in great shape! Can you believe that? Now, that’s great value.

 

In 1995, I liked the soft materials that Target’s manufacturers chose for women’s tops those which could also withstand the test of time; as insofar as having a rugged, girly-girl, outdoor and skateboarding, feminine, young, woman, type such as myself skateboard to-and-from classes, to-and-from work and back to my living quarters.

 

Please, keep in mind, that clothes-shopping in the mid1990’s was a nightmare at times.

 

The grunge movement had left its mark upon the culture and taken a strong foothold upon the fashions of the time or large sequenced clothing with the design of cats or poodles was all the rage for older women like my German-American great aunt.

 

It was at times difficult to find above-casual clothes (not jeans) such as cords, canvas pants and soft T-shirts that didn’t fall apart within a few washes and especially not without having to pay an arm-and-a-leg to want to wear something chic, elegant and yet sophisticated without having to donate your-first-born in the exchange for whopping mark-ups.

 

In modern culture, women’s clothing, tends to be more expensive because buyers and corporate types know that women are suckers and will pay the full retail price while men refuse to do so and thus men’s T-shirts can’t really be any more than three bucks or men will overlook the merchandise. Men are smarter, financially, and refuse to get bamboozled to buy anything with an extravagant mark-up.

 

Another great distinction is that women’s clothes in general are worse made than men’s as far as materials are concerned yet they cost more.

 

It wasn’t until 2007, that not only did I realize how much Target’s beautiful commercials had changed into a hyper-trendy and fashion-designer types, but with that trendy aspect, believe-it-or-not, their quality in the clothes and materials suffered, dramatically, and the mark-ups, on the clothes became outrages while their commercials became prettier-and-prettier to look at, the less I liked the quality of the clothes. At that time, I stopped buying Target’s clothes all completely and began shopping…more locally.

 

I remember a time from 2007-2010 in which some of Target’s dresses cost thirty-dollars or more. I did wonder who was running Target. What a disappointment to a nation that had suffered one of its greatest recessions of all time and could barely afford a single article of clothing, especially amongst women.

 

In 2007, Target went from being a large warehouse-discount-store to a low-end fashion boutique that forced some highfalutin ideals about fashion upon their customers.

 

I wasn’t going to conscientiously afford clothes that were made for giant-tall-teens with incredibly low-cuts and wispy clothes that fell apart after two-washes. I was pissed off as hell that some buyer had not only changed the entire look of the clothing department but took away, well made and inexpensive clothes from the people, which they could barely afford anything in those days at the height of our American recession.

 

I loved those commercials from 2007-2009 but I couldn’t figure out why a large warehouse store wanted to re-invent themselves into something that they weren’t nor had started out in the true-spirit to help-out the “common folks” and creating strong community action in the sense that working-people and the “middle-class” could afford soberly clean, well made and inexpensive clothes for women and merchandise without breaking the bank or having the merchandise break within hours of making a purchase.

 

Part IV to be continued…

 

Gabriel

 

*) “Xhilaration”: What a great Target brand. I had a pair of bluish-grey canvas pants that lasted me 17 years. Thank you so very much!!!

 

January 11, 2013

 

“Neither political party is clean when it comes to tactics that divide our people.” - Roy Barnes

 

“Let's clean up our environment. Let's clean up our bodies, but most importantly, let's not permit our babies of the future to be polluted before they are even born.” - Louise Slaughter

 

“Later, in the early teens, I used to ride my bike every Saturday morning to the nearest airport, ten miles away, push airplanes in and out of the hangars, and clean up the hangars.” - Alan Shepard

 

“We have some real political differences among us, but we all share the same goals: clean air and water, injury free workplaces, safe transportation systems, to name a few of the good things that can come from regulation.” - Fred Thompson

 

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Word of the day: Emollient (A softener, Soothing agent)

 

Cold cream is an emollient for chapped hands.

 

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Happy Friday!

Happy 14th Baktun!

Happy 6th earth / cycle!

Aloha.

 

Shall we dance? Thank you, yes.

 

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Part II

 

My family didn’t shop at Target in the early years of my adoption. Before the age of sixteen I wore uniquely Bostonian boutique-labeled-clothing and Patagonia.

 

We were a family, who clothes-shopped for our school and Christmas-clothes on Newbury Street in Boston at small and intimate boutiques or at Amesbury’s lovely artistic one-of-a-kind boutiques or in Time Square in NYC.

 

We either shopped at Park Point’s “Bayside Market” for our gas, “Jubilee” on Superior Street for our groceries and “Mr. Movies” or “The Co-Op” on 4th street and that was our world for the most part. From time-to-time if I needed an article of clothing updated throughout the year then we shopped at “United Colors of Benetton” at the Fitger’s Complex Building or “Gloss Block” at the Miller Hill Mall.

 

This was all conducted from the ages of 10-15.

 

Once my parents’ marriage fell apart then I began shopping for myself at a place called “Ragstock” because I was, too, broke to make ends meet on $3.00-weekly-allowances until the age of 19 in 1996 and with a bussing-tables job at “Little Angie’s Cantina” I could barely afford the essentials, much less shoes.

 

Anyway, while the good times rolled we shopped fashionably and our lives didn’t entail Target stores or any type of warehouse purchasing of any type, not completely, anyway.

 

Once, I turned sixteen years of age I really needed to find a store where I could find durable, inexpensive and well made clothes and it happened to be Target.

 

If Target hadn’t been around at that time of my life or if it had become an overpriced boutique as it’s tried to model itself after in the recent years, then I would’ve had close to nothing to wear as a teen due to sheer poverty.

 

I was ever so grateful in those days in which I could afford two-dollar T-shirts and twelve-dollar durable, canvas pants that could endure my wear-and-tear.

 

I was overjoyed and I was almost brought to tears that Target existed because on my limited budget I had to save up for months to be able to provide school clothes for myself as well as shoes, in my mid-to-late teens and into my twenties.

 

The wardrobe that I carried around with me for about a decade to boarding school, college and university was one, that, I had acquired from seventh, eighth and ninth grade of school.

 

When I moved around schools I carried them with me, so, that it looked as though I had clothes but really they were old, faded, worn and many didn’t fit; although to this day I still own a seventh grade wool Benetton sweater that fits me better now than it ever did before, in those days.

 

I weigh more now in pounds but my frame has gotten smaller, somehow, I swear it. Isn’t that interesting? Yes, indeed.

 

I’ve got a dress from the age of 10 (ten) that I can now fit into it easier and better than I have ever before.

 

I’ll take self portraits in it in May 2013 and you’ll be dumb-founded that it’s the-one-and-only dress that I came wearing to America when I was adopted in 1987 (no, I’m not Baby Jane). It fits me better now than it did when I was ten. How weird is that? I weigh more now and yet my figure and frame have both gotten smaller. What an anomaly? I’m sure that happens to others, too?

 

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The tragedy overall was, that, while in my mid-twenties, I later discovered a closet full of clothes of my adopted-mother’s with the price tags still left-on every single article of clothing, that she had bought and collected over the years but never wore, stashed away and hoarded like a squirrel stashes away nuts; the tags read in the upwards of $1,500 dollars (one-thousand, five-hundred) for a single and ugly suit with large floral prints and other uglier-than-hell articles of clothing for corporate fat women, while I’d gone with almost very little clothes for close to a decade, while she had fallen completely apart during her divorce I’d carried our household and responsibilities upon my shoulders. What a spoiled brat and freak of nature. What a liar.

 

I could’ve whipped her across the face, but rather I kept such a discovery to myself, one decade ago at the ripe age of 25 (twenty-five.)

 

I sat down and silently wept amongst all of those articles of clothing in that walk-in closet and passed on a deep and intense tragic note that I’m sure to this day anyone who wears such articles of clothing can sense the deep tragedy in them that, which I left behind that day as I wept amongst my crazy mother’s ugly clothes that didn’t smell of mother rather they smelled of unwashed new clothes never worn before.

 

At that time, she’d been swindling me for about a decade while making up stories that we were close to poverty because of the divorce.

 

According to her, my father refused to contribute to child-support, which I’ve now discovered that my adopted-mother made-out with some fat-cash-cow from our child-support. What an insane human who then went off to Harvard on our inheritance from our Park Point grandfather, which, she cashed out in her divorce settlement.

 

She owes me the world and I owe her not a single thing because while she went on to Ivy League on the backs of her daughters not only did we starve, worse, we were fed lies about our financial condition as a family. What a sham. What a disgrace. Yeah, right. As if.

 

My one sister was also a “spoiled brat” while growing up and a weed smoker who got caught smoking marijuana in the girl’s bathroom early on into her eighth grade year.

 

Later she moved on to cocaine, alcohol and heroin in her mid-teens and later into her mid-twenties. Lovely! What a miserable family, without parents with their thumbs up their arses who only cared about what happened to them in those days and left us up to our own devices and didn’t care if we lived-or-died. What a shame.

 

If I would’ve known then, before we left the orphanage, what I do know now, I would’ve never left the orphanage. Never. I wouldn’t have allowed for us to be adopted into such insanity and hatred. Nope.

 

My sister, too, had designer clothes in her wardrobe, well into her early twenties, which “mommy” and “daddy” purchased for her to keep her quiet from her misery at getting abandoned by two self-centered idiotic parents in those days.

 

Later I, too, discovered that my sister had a wardrobe that cost well into the thousands because she was persuaded into following her dreams of becoming a fashion designer, which she dropped out of college in her first year and eventually was found walking barefoot and homeless in Florida after working at a strip joint as a bartender, which to this day she can’t sew to save her life, I don’t think. What a waste of everybody’s time and money.

 

What a waste of our lives in which the wealth wasn’t evenly distributed amongst us, due out of sheer greed, thus I became a Cinderella and I was supposed to turn into an old maid and take care of my mother’s and sister’s shitty shorts. As if. They can now take care of each other’s shitty shorts.

 

The gods were watching out for me.

 

I ended up with my father in Minnesota who’s a genuinely kind man with a remarkable second wife who I consider my mother, and my sister ended up in Boston with an overly-critical screaming harpy. Ha! Ha! Yes, I win!

 

Yes, I’m now “daddy’s little girl” because I’ve been a genuinely good daughter for over two decades who doesn’t come in-and-out of people’s lives over the course of many years only to ask for money and then disappear again. Please. How pathetic.

 

In those days, I was a cleaning and washing machine, who barely got her essentials met, simply, because, I do think, that I was punished for being, too, gullible and too eager to please at the very expense, cost and risk to my health and well-being.

 

You do realize that I’m not a violent person, but sometimes, I do get these dreams in my sleep in which I whip both of my adopted-mother and my one blooded sister on their rear ends for the great bodily harm they caused me and my soul through those years of their immense, self-centered and egocentric-narcissistic misbehavior and hatred.

 

I got abused because I was a sucker and they hated my guts for being one thus they abused their position in life and in relationship towards me.

 

                    In the end they joined forces and now I don’t give a damn if they live-or-die just don’t bring lies and shameful addictions to our doorstep. Don’t you see? 

 

I lost my blood sister to an abusive adopted-mother who has some money therefore, because my sister has no real skill-set in life she must beg her way and depend upon the charity of a mother who’s always been envious of her beauty; my sister has now become the caretaker-old-maid to a crazy and ungrateful adopted-mother who doesn’t ever have anything good to say about anyone or anything. If you leave the room then mark my words, she’s already said something demeaning or rotten about you even if you’ve been her best friend since childhood. Pity.

 

While growing up, seventeen years ago, our adopted-mother called my sister a “slut” because my sister didn’t know how to wear makeup and wore, too, much of it because she wasn’t properly taught about makeup; this was in her formative years before she lost her way and I think she took it too much to heart that she was called a “slut” by our adopted-mother in seventh grade when she didn’t even know what sex was.

 

What a damn shame to have shame brought upon you when you’re innocent and forming.

 

I was called “ugly” because I didn’t wear any makeup. What insanity. We aimed to please. My mother was always envious of the fact that we were indeed gorgeous creatures, and that we didn’t have an eating problem like she did. She just couldn’t stop from stuffing herself out of sheer self-loathing and fear of failure.

 

Our adopted-mother hated that she couldn’t control her portion-intake and with each passing year she got as big as a house and all she ever talked about was her weight, yet she called us “sluts,” “ugly,” and “cunts.” Go figure.

 

You can keep this America of yours. I’ve got my Costa Rica and in my adulthood it’s never, not once called me a slur word.

 

I lost a blood sister to an addiction-filled nation.

 

I lost my Costa Rican sister to the filth of this nation.

 

I lost a sister, and the only thing that we were supposed to do was to stay together and watch out for each other but America made a spoiled-and-selfish, mean-spirited greedy little brat out of my sister and ruined her by giving her a delusional youth of self grandeur and a lazy attitude that if with a flash of a smile then one, she could manipulate others into paying for the rent, alcohol and clothes and give rides every place.

 

America made my sister an easy target of sensationalism and exploitation and she bought into it.

 

I lost a sister.

 

I gained another sister who’d lost her sister also.

 

This America of yours ripped my sister from me, my Tica. That’s the very reason why I don’t owe you or America a goddamn thing and I never shall forevermore.

 

America stole from me the only aspect of life that I ever adored that I had strived so hard to keep alive as a child of six years old in a Central American orphanage only to come to this mean-spirited and ghetto filled country that mistreated, abused and disregarded my sister as a child of the sun.

 

What a damn tragedy and a shame.

 

America hates beautiful women and I hate Duluth for giving my sister easy access to cocaine as a teen of fifteen.

 

My sister would’ve been better off staying in Costa Rica, becoming a nun and that’s the damn truth.

 

America owes me everything because she knows very well that she stole a part of my life and heritage.

 

When I’m ready to collect; America has nothing to say to me about it, except to write out a large sum in the form of a check.

 

America knows very well that I’m coming to collect like a cowgirl and it’s my life-given Tica right.

 

America won’t get in the way because she knows that what she’s done can’t be undone as well as she knows that I’ve seen her in her finest hour as a coward to her people.

 

She knows I’m coming and she knows not to put-up-a-fight or I’ll make it my damn business to take her out of the game of civilized breathing.

 

America knows that I can take her down on her knees and that’s why there’s several huge fortunes waiting for me at the end of the rainbow, but for now I’ve got responsibilities to fulfill that, which I said I’d follow through with and signed on the dotted line.

 

America knows that I’m coming and when I do, it’s not a matter of choice; she knows very well that she has to either pay up or decide on a silent and painful cultural-death, which in turn means an industrialized death and a current-market value death.

 

I paid my dues.

 

I had my love stolen from my arms.

 

I don’t hate.

 

I’m not like that; nevertheless America knows that I’m coming to collect or I’m coming to get her and it’ll be easier for her to make out many-different-large-sums over many decades than to die at the hands of a first generation immigrant who started out with nothing except with the hope for a full future for her sister and that, too, was destroyed.

 

I don’t hate you America, however, you do owe me two lives.

 

                                        Both my adopted-mother and sister hate my guts because they’ll never have the courage to thank me for running a household while my adopted-mother was at the height of her bi-polar insanity and screaming and crying all the time and my sister’s drug and alcoholic addiction took off like a kite.

 

Not only did I cover-up for them both but I also took care many of their delusional needs.

 

What a waste of their two-souls. And, because, they’ll never be able to repay me for stealing part of my youth, then they hate my guts while now the tables have turned and I do think that they’re complete losers and always were, I just couldn’t see it at that time. Ha! Funny how life works out!

 

I became the Alpha and that’s not going to change for as long as I live.

 

I was considered a piece of shit by them both and they let me know, that, each-and-every opportunity they could.

 

How can parents not know that their fourteen and fifteen year old is snorting down large amounts of cocaine and having suicidal episodes? Please. My sister had her stomach pumped a couple of times and that’s a parent’s failure, indeed.

 

At one point the two women stopped loving themselves thus they stopped loving me and I took their abuse in the hopes, that they’d find it in them to love me just a little, but once they found out that-that was their power over me then they realized that I could be made into a slave because love is all that I required in return for being a slave and there was no reciprocity.

 

I survived.

I endured.

I lived.

 

I thrive.

 

Today I’m an extraordinary person and a loving one at that because of the trials and tribulations, those, which the Gods bestowed upon me and helped me to learn about self-love. I’m ever so grateful to the gods and to their will.

 

Yes, at one point I was these two-crazy women’s emotional-punching bag, their enabler in the hopes, that they’d love me; however, little did I know that they hated my guts and they proved it to be so through their actions.

 

I don’t hate them but they sure are neither in my class rank nor my equals, that’s for sure.

 

Please don’t wonder why I have very little respect for my crazy bi-polar adopted-mother who lies about everything and an ex-drug-addict, alcoholic sister who thought that if she winked at you then she’d get “rich and famous” with her mega-watt smile. As if. What losers. What freaks.

 

All I’ve ever known is hard work and at times, I did get stepped on by people who promised me love in exchange for doing their work. Not anymore. I became an adult.

 

 

-----  -----  -----

 

As for Target stores, don’t you see? Target became a huge and intricately woven complex aspect to this narrative tapestry. Thank you for existing as you did in those days from 1995-2006.

 

I wouldn’t have made it in life without a Target store nearby in those days.

 

Nowadays, if I wanted to: I can afford $1,000.00 (one-thousand dollar) T-Shirts but I don’t and at that price they better be able to wipe my nose and my forehead....

 

I still like finding and purchasing $2.00 (two-dollar) T-Shirts because well, I love a great bargain. Why wouldn’t I? When I know, that, it only costs fifty cents to make a T-Shirt then I know that I must be a smart consumer. Please.

 

The markup on clothing is ridiculous and every exec knows that perfectly well.

 

Allow for “middle-class” and “working-poor” to thrive in America so that our civilization will develop and those who work ever so hard can achieve their dreams and goals in life without feeling shame, that, when it’s all said and done, at the end of the day after in which they’ve worked so hard for the very little that they’ve got, they, too, can have a feeling of being human rather than beasts without any hope in sight by-at-least being able to purchase inexpensive clothes. Please.

 

Let’s lift this American giant back up on its feet again and make a comeback because I remember a time when clothes were “Made-in-America” and they were relatively inexpensive. Why can’t that be so again?

 

You do realize that some of our citizens have gone for about five-years-to-a-decade without having bought a single new article of clothing (I know what that’s like) because they can’t afford today’s mark-ups much less purchase what’s considered by today’s standards to be “inexpensive” when a majority of Americans make less than $20,000 a year per household of four. What a damn shame.

 

Our jobs were taken away from us and sold overseas, only to turn around and sell us the cheap stuff made abroad at outrageous prices. Who hates the Americans so much?

 

Part III to be continued…

 

Gabriel

 

*) My “Caribbean Joe” “Made In China” soft corduroys (pants) ripped as I was trying them on last night. What a damn shame. They didn’t even make it one single day in my wardrobe without breaking apart. Remember, back in the days of the late 1980’s when clothing was indeed relatively inexpensive and damn well-made. Sigh.

 

*) For the month of December 2012 our overall household expenditures have come to a grand whopping total of $11,000.00 (eleven-thousand.) Wow! How lucky indeed!!! We’re contributing to this economy as fast as we can as middle-income-earning orchids.

 

January 10, 2013

 

“If they had told me I was the janitor and would have to mop up and clean the toilets after the show in order to play, I probably would have done it.” - Bruce Springsteen

 

“When you take a shower in space, you have to press the water onto your body to clean yourself, and then you gotta vacuum it off.” - Ace Frehley

 

“Take a commonplace, clean it and polish it, light it so that it produces the same effect of youth and freshness and originality and spontaneity as it did originally, and you have done a poet's job. The rest is literature.” - Jean Cocteau

 

---  ---  ---

 

Word of the day: Emissary (An agent employed to further interests or gain information)

 

He was the emissary chosen to represent his firm abroad.

 

---  ---  ---

 

Happy Thursday!

Happy 14th Baktun!

Happy 6th earth / cycle!

Aloha.

 

Shall we dance? Thank you, yes.

 

---  ---  ---

 

 

Part 1

 

I’ve given a great deal of consideration to the following topic for about nineteen years: Let’s discuss Target stores and without any pretenses, putting-on-airs or demonizing what it is, let’s address this topic in subject matter.

 

The first time that I ever walked through the doors of a Target store it must’ve been in the year 1994 and I was about fifteen years old or so.

 

I really didn’t know what to expect except that the lights were florescent bulbs in long narrow tubes, evenly spaced apart hanging from the ceiling’s layout and grayish-tan speckled concrete floors. I saw their brand of red, here-and-there. I understood what it was, a discount warehouse store.

 

I liked it for the service that it provided to the people in our community and for its purpose and function of great bargains to the “everyday man” looking to make purchases that didn’t break-the-bank however the merchandise fulfilled its purpose in function without having it fall apart on the spot. Durable.

 

-----  ------  ------

 

I had to step through the doors of a Target after discovering that two young women from my private school stole merchandise from Target near the Miller Hill Mall in Duluth, Minnesota.

 

                                        Both young women were eventually expelled, forever, from our private school for stealing calculators from many different people’s unlocked lockers, worth hundreds if not then possibly thousands of dollars.

 

These young women were indeed my friends, thieves and ended up at Hermantown after their expulsion from our school. I was disgusted by their misbehavior which they had a tendency to laugh off as a joke and I saw nothing funny in it.

 

I was thoroughly ashamed at the chaos that they had caused amongst our school mates because I loved our school and respected our mates even though some classmates got hung up on stupid crap like popularity contests and social bullying.

 

I almost hated the two young women for what they had done.

 

I hated being socially associated with them because we were neither of the same neighborhood nor income bracket.

 

We were definitely not raised in the same manner.

 

We grew up with an all entirely different set of rules, ethical-criteria, morals and values.

 

I realized, then, that they were on scholarship (as I had been forced to be; to teach me hard work, even though my family could afford my tuition just fine, believe it, on an M.D. psychologist’s salary and a program director’s salary, they did just fine) -- these two young women weren’t of my people and it was a tough lesson to learn.

 

Could you imagine if I had been caught stealing, anything?

The daughter of a Jew from a waterfront Jewish community?

I would’ve been strung up by my toes by my adopted-mother and that’s a fact.

 

I would’ve never heard the end of it. Nope.

 

Where we come from we didn’t steal a morsel of bread.

 

We are Park Pointers and everybody knew if you were up to no good or not.

 

We kept our noses clean.

Thank you very much.

 

My grandparents in New England would’ve whipped me if I had been expelled from private school for stealing anything not given to me with permission and oh, my god -- my Park Point, Finn, grumpy, Minnesotan grandfather would’ve gone to his grave without ever speaking to me again. Nope. I didn’t steal, lie-on-cue or cheat because I had way too much to lose. Thank God.

 

Don’t think that I felt very good about their misdeeds and what they had done.

 

I was appalled by their misbehavior because when I compared our behavior to one another, I knew, that I had always known better, even though I’d starved as a child I can honestly say that I’d never, not once, stolen from anyone or anything.

 

I took only what Mother Nature provided and usually it was labor intensive to acquire fruit from Mother Nature, such as climbing banana trees. If you’ve never climbed a banana tree then you haven’t got a clue as to how labor intensive that process can be.

 

To this day I don’t completely trust either one of the two women who were expelled from our private school, however and nevertheless there-it-is.

 

I continue to be lukewarm friends with one of them, all these years later because well, I have my reasons, although we hardly ever see each other anymore with the exception of every three-to-five-years-or-so and she’s been so goddamn unhappy for a little past over-a-decade that it’s difficult to want to be around her because she hates her incredibly hardworking husband, her wonderful life and her existence with a passion. Pity.

 

She married the wrong man because she saw him as a piggy-bank rather than as a human when she really wanted to marry another man that she met around the same time as she did her husband. Ah, what a waste of two-lives.

 

The two young women were mindless, clueless and irresponsible about their misbehavior and wherever they are, in-some-remote-corner-of-this-universe, I’m sure, that-that still applies to both of them to some extent, because I always had this feeling that someone had chipped away at their childhoods and if not, that, then the large amounts of cocaine that they snorted in high school is what made them so goddamn cruel and insensitive at times. How boring.

 

One winter night, about a week after Christmas, while roughhousing, mock-wrestling, one of the two young women swung a mug, that she held in her left hand and chipped off a small-and-tiny bit of-one-of my from teeth. It hurt like hell but I pretended like it didn’t.

 

Her indifference and reaction to the incident left me cold all the way down to my bones. She laughed it off. Our remarkable dentist at the Medical Arts Center repaired my tooth and I haven’t thought about it in about sixteen years. Wow, how the years go by in a blur.

 

As she swung with her fierce might, I saw the mug coming at me like it was a slow motion replay and I didn’t react fast-enough, in time to get out of the way because the look on her face in the background, away, from her extended arm, said, “I hate you.”

 

The look on her face looked like she wanted to take me out of this world and she let me know that she hated my guts for being friends with her best-friend. I was nineteen years old and I’d had enough of their crap, that’s when we all began to drift apart just a little until it became the Grand Canyon. Thankfully.

 

By her demeanor, I understood that she didn’t care if I lived-or-died and I never trusted her again; not with my life, my joy, my time and my friendship; thus later on at the age of 24 I went on to date and sleep with her incredible and kind-hearted brother who was a remarkable lover and I let her know about it one afternoon while sitting at a bar that she worked at, especially because she didn’t want to hear it. It was payback for the tooth she’d chipped off five years earlier in the name of hatred.

 

Ah, life has a way of getting even, although I didn’t even mean for it to turn out like that, not ever.

 

-----  -----  -----

 

I learned about Target by mistake.

 

Both of these young women were also caught stealing from a Target store.

 

I wasn’t there.

I wouldn’t know.

 

These two young women were horrible influences upon one another, and mean about their inclusive behavior because most likely they felt all alone in the world and possibly it was because they were.

 

I had to enter a Target store and figure out what their fascination was with stealing from Target.

 

One evening, while they were still at the ripe age of 14, they both got drunk on cheap liquor they had stolen and disclosed to me as to how easy it was to steal from Target stores. In detail they went on to tell me all about it and the following weekend they were caught by a security guard. Weird how life happens?

 

That following summer, I took a public city bus over the hill and walked through the doors of a Target.

 

I was overwhelmed by all of the merchandise and the vast quantity of it. I spent hours in the store studying every single item. I didn’t make a single purchase. I got back on the public transport and headed back home in time for dinner and to write about the events of the day.

 

To be continued…

 

Gabriel

 

*) Thank you, my “Fruit of the Loom” long-john bottoms were deliciously made. They fit me like a well-made, stretchy glove that breathes and relaxes well; made in El Salvador. The long-john bottoms came out beautifully made while the tops didn’t.

 

*) Thank you, I found “Caribbean Joe” petite corduroys and they’re fabulous. What a lovely cut and a beautiful deep forest green. Oh, I just read that they were made in China. Good work, gals! We’ll see how they endure.

 

*) Thank you, I finally found non-lace, black, “moon-boots” without a heel.

Thank you so very much!!!

 

January 9, 2013

 

“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” - Winston Churchill

 

“For every good reason there is to lie, there is a better reason to tell the truth.” - Bo Bennett

 

“No one can lie, no one can hide anything, when he looks directly into someone's eyes.” - Paulo Coelho (My literary hero. Thank you for existing.)

 

“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.” - John F. Kennedy

 

---  ---  ---

 

Word of the day: Lie (Falsehood, Untruth, Situation, Fib, Story, Mendacity)

 

He lied; to get ahead, but to no avail because everyone already very well knew what he was up to.

 

---  ---  ---

 

Happy Wednesday!

Happy 14th Baktun!

Happy 6th earth / cycle!

Aloha.

 

Shall we dance? Thank you, no.

 

---  ---  ---

 

No, it’s not okay for the American people to bailout large financial institutions and banks. Period.

 

As the granddaughter of blue bloods who have helped shape this nation’s vast fortunes, wealth and successful financial culture since 1699; the granddaughter of two grandfathers who were successful multi-millionaires, one was an entrepreneur and the other a corporate CFO, I know for a fact that it’s not morally acceptable for large financial institutions to take a free ride on the back breaking work of the American people. Yes, you heard it here, first, from this thoroughbred horse’s mouth.

 

If anyone tells you that it’s okay to bailout large financial institutions or banks then that man or woman is either a liar or a fool. Possibly, both.

 

Such people know better than to spew such vile upon the masses when he has no idea how much damage bailouts created for the people upon the ground; the people went homeless and starved all in the name of king and country.

 

No, don’t allow for yourselves to be bamboozled into another recession II in less than a decade.

 

What the banks and the real estate market did through the form of a recession in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 by collapsing both markets and putting it on the backs of the people was wrong, criminal and shy of dismantling and destroying the American “middle-class.” Nope. Don’t tell the people anymore lies.

 

Only a man with self interest would tell such lies on national television.

 

Why would one say to the people, that the right thing to do was for large institutions and banks to be bailed out?

 

One only says such stupidity out of sheer self interest and some type of underhanded dealings to get the masses to believe into more mass media lies. Please. Social media has made the people quite intelligent. Careful. People talk to each other constantly.

 

I’ve never heard such a load of bullshit in my entire life as someone vindicating for the bailout of large financial institutions and banks. Such a lie hits you right in the gut, doesn’t it? Yes.

 

It’s painful to hear grown men tell the hard working American people such lies due to self interest and kissing a little rear end on the side. Please. Get up from your knees.

 

Both of my grandfathers didn’t fight in the Korean war so that their grandchildren would be forced to watch such financial idiots make a muck out of this great nation of ours by telling massive lies to the American people. Nope.

 

Step back and regain your conscious souls and balance.

 

I’ll not be bamboozled again and the American people shall not lose their homes due to lies such as in the form of “balloon payments.”

 

“You shall not pass here!” Ha! I love that film!

 

Sincerely and Truly Yours,

Gabriel

 

*) Yes, former Senator from Nebraska Chuck Hagel is a Fascist when it comes to his rhetoric about military women who do get raped, “gays” and their equal familial policies in the military.

 

Mr. Hagel is in the likes of the miserable former U.S. Representative for Missouri's 2nd congressional district Todd Akin and Mr. Richard Earl Mourdock the 53rd treasurer of the state of Indiana.

 

Get this outdated, Mr. Hagel for an insensitive dinosaur out of any leadership roles.

 

What’s Mr. President Barack Obama thinking?

 

Mr. President doesn’t have to lick the boots of anybody when it comes to placing men and women in leadership positions that are vital to the development of civilization not the derailment of it.

 

*) Yes, approximately around 19,000 women in the military get raped or sexually assaulted, yearly, by our boys. What a damn shame. (Thanks for the information, “big sister.”)

 

*) Yes, Fox News is crap that not only tells you lies but also makes money off of you from their advertisers. Careful. Fox News isn’t any authority on any type of journalism because it’s television sensationalism and exploitation. Be quite careful and question everything, better yet watch MSNBC or…

 

*) Thank you Mr. Charlie Rose, producers and staff for continuing with your PBS series!

 

How splendid indeed!

I was very wrong, indeed.

 

I thought that the world needed Charlie Rose on the CBS Morning Show, but it doesn’t.

 

The world requires for Charlie Rose to be doing informative, in-depth and meaningful interviews rather than something as shallow as the CBS Morning Show, which nobody likes anyway because it became total...

 

Thank you to Mr. Charlie Rose for your continued television leadership on PBS, that’s the only place we’re catching you on nowadays. Thank you, your hard work, dedication and mastery doesn’t go unnoticed on PBS.

 

*) I can stand neither the CBS Morning Show nor Matt Lauder, therefore, I don’t watch, because my elders can’t stand either and I respect their perspective above all others.

 

January 8, 2013

 

“Clean up your own mess.” - Robert Fulghum

 

“When I go to the garage to pick up my clubs, I clean the spider webs off.” - John Ratzenberger

 

“I run like an electric golf cart. Now I look at eating as a way to feed my body and keep me younger. It's not about starving your body, but treating your body like a Ferrari. You don't put in the crappiest gas you can find. You use supreme. In the long term, you'll run clean.” - Carol Alt

 

“I am careful about my conduct because I know this cause requires clean men.” - James Larkin

 

---  ---  ---

 

Word of the day: Emit (Send out, Exhale, Discharge)

 

The geysers emit boiling water several times a day.

 

---  ---  ---

 

Happy Tuesday!

Happy 14th Baktun!

Happy 6th earth / cycle!

Aloha.

 

Shall we dance? Yes, please.

 

-----  -----  -----

 

I’m sorry this blog comes to you at around 6:30pm tonite, however, I took myself on a solo shopping excursion all afternoon. What a blast!

 

I bought new dressier-than-average clothing and had a blast. How splendid! How wonderful. I didn’t realize how badly I needed to shop for something other than deep dark brown corduroys and grey T-shirts which seem to be my latest uniform since I’ve been working from my private-study at home for the past few months and all business has been conducted via the web, phone and satellite.

 

I had a great time shopping at “H&M,” “Francesca’s Collection,” “Heartbreaker,” and “Magers & Quinn Booksellers” which I go there to buy my yearly calendars for the past many years.

 

This afternoon I shopped only in uptown as I have since 2004 and had a great time treating myself to an entire afternoon off, shopping by myself. If I hadn’t been so tired then I would’ve treated myself to a solo whisky at some posh place, downtown, hidden in a little corner without a journal since I carried none on me today. Wonderful.

 

P.S. I seem to have gotten smaller, I’m now a size 8 at H&M and I guess that store’s sizes run smaller-than-average. Lovely. I’m watching my waistline this winter which isn’t too difficult, although I’ve got apple pie on the brain right about now. Ha!

 

Wishing you a wonderful dusk. I love the sunsets, here, I can actually see them now. I couldn’t in uptown. I hadn’t seen a sunset, more-or-less since 2004 until this August 2012. Wow! I lived eight years in uptown. How crazy is that. Wonderful.

 

Sincerely,

Gabriel

 

Anyway: the following I wrote as an “artist statement” last week when I realized that it wasn’t an artist statement at all.

 

-----  -----  -----

 

Welcome. Aloha. Hello.

I just read through my two previous artist statements and I wish I could erase them from my DNA, however, I’ll leave them up as they are, so that you may experience the development of my maturity, growth and value as a professional artist.

I could cringe at reading what I wrote as recently as two years ago.

I feel as though, those words are no longer me, nor do they apply to me. As though, it’s me, but in some distant fog, reverberating an echo of some former shed skin, left behind on a rock, that came from some tiny little cocoon, which had no real idea what wings were meant for, if anything other than for flying.

I’ve been completely humbled.

I’ve become confidently-shy just reading what I wrote two short years ago. Oh, my word! How the years go by in a single blur and we grow exponentially by leaps-and-bounds, thankfully. I’m ever so glad to get older with each passing year. My life gets happier, fuller, luckier and better with age. I love growing older. I really do.

I’ve become more beautiful with each passing year, even if you may misinterpret my intrinsic-demeanor with a phony disposition. I do the best that I can while out in public as to not to disturb the flow of energy.

I was cultured, taught and educated in a time in which our grandparents existed and their authority was the final word of the land about everything.

A time in which you had to ask for permission to excuse oneself from the table. A time in which a time-curfew meant something and reading quietly at home with a cup of tea and a blanket was all the rage. I grew up like that and became that person which I adore old fashion values. I can’t help it. It’s now deeply embedded into my DNA.

I feel that my writing is indeed small and insignificant because it has so much more maturing and development to go through still yet.

I don’t feel small-and-insignificant as a human but my writing has become smaller and more insignificant every time I pick up and read a masterpiece by a master I gasp at how much more I’ve to go.

Oh, I can’t believe I’m doing this. Suddenly, I’m quite frightened and I’ve got no idea what I got myself into. I’m breathing. I’ll keep forging forth.

Frankly, I can’t believe I had any courage to take to online writing because it’s such a vulnerable medium to explore. I’ve also come to find out that online mediums are quite global and fast communication.

I’m completely surprised that I’ve been so raw, honest and courageous in this writing blog endeavor.

I don’t know if I should shell up and become quite shy or bold and quietly confident because of this experience to have the immense courage to open up without practicing my every move in front of the mirror before applying action to my motions.

I give everything that I’ve got of myself to the world which has come to my doorstep in the form of global e-mail because otherwise what’s the point of communicating without having anything of real value to say? I can do fluff any day of the week. I can. Truly. Fluff is the easiest thing to do in the world.

Believe me, when I tell you that I’m nobody special.

I’m the same Costa Rican peasant Indigenous kid that I always was fascinated by watching monkeys get along and fight with each other, find food, love, hate and make love.

The older I get the less I have to say to people because the more I really realize how much I don’t know anything. I have no answers for you.

I wish you curiosity, love, emotion, morality, an ethical compass and compassion as well as critical and analytical thinking skills. I’m beside myself right about now.

Pura Vida,

Gabriela de la Holm

January 7, 2013

 

“I think the biggest thing is clean as you go. Wash all your knives, cutting boards, dishes, when you are done cooking, not look at a sink full of dishes after you are done. Cleaning as you go helps keep away cross contamination and you avoid having food borne bacteria.” - Cat Cora

 

“There will always be cheaters. It is human nature. It will never be 100 percent clean, in any sport.” - David Millar

 

“You do a clean show and it's over and the audience have enjoyed themselves and you've enjoyed yourself, and you haven't had to resort to shock.” - Bob Newhart

 

---  ---  ---

 

Word of the day: Permeate (Pass through, Spread itself, Pervade)

 

The odor of the flowers will permeate the entire house.

 

---  ---  ---

 

Happy Monday!

Happy 14th Baktun!

Happy 6th earth / cycle!

Aloha.

 

Shall we dance? Yes, please.

 

-----  -----  -----

 

I’ve been meaning to write to you about the “middle-class” real estate market and made up values.

 

I’ve been thinking as to what to say to you for years: about the crash of the real estate market 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010.

 

I’ve sat in living rooms amongst our elders and other citizens as they’ve choked back tears while describing the heart wrenching stories about losing their homes to the corrupt real estate market and the banking system, that, which stole from the hardworking “middle-class” American people.

 

There’s no other way to put it except that real estate agents and Wall Street bankers went crazy greedy and corrupt therefore they enforced some crazy non-existent market values upon the real estate market and Wall Street, itself, while they stole from the mouths of the Americans and the government let it happen. The American people have yet to gain restitution for this corruption.

 

This real estate market crash shall be one of our greatest shames to go down in history for simply having the-powers-that-be basically get away with destroying the hard work and culture of many of the American “middle-class” people who lost everything in one single swoop. Shame.

 

Now, we’re neither “rich” nor “broke” or “working poor.”

 

We’re the orchid.

 

The orchid stands for a thriving “middle class” as the media likes to put it.

 

The orchid is the beauty between the excessive means of hyperthermia and the cold climates of poverty and wealth.

 

The orchid thrives in warm and loving climates otherwise it dies and with its last-breath of death so does the balance of nature. If the orchid doesn’t survive then neither will the wealthy because the poverty stricken hungry will take them out and this is the truth. “Middle class” perpetuates morality, ethics and goodwill.

 

It’s a new century and we’re “middle income earners.” (You can’t describe our class distinction by the amount of dollars we earn because as middle-income-earners we’re blue blooded and my class distinction is in a class all of its own without putting on airs or getting stupid about it. Money has nothing to do with class because it has to do with...)

 

With that said, let’s get to the beef of the matter: On August 1, 2012 both Eric and I purchased a bank repossessed home for the amount of $67,500 dollars plus $2,000 closing costs at a 2.65% fix rate, thirty-year mortgage. Wow!

 

No, we don’t live in a shack by any means.

 

We bought a 1952 gorgeous home that was built more in the spirit of a bomb-shelter than anything else.

 

As of 2006 the furnace and the roof were replaced along with all of the wiring.

 

We have new windows, and I mean the fancy type that you can rotate and collapse them inwards and wash them from the inside without ever having to go outside.

 

The entire home has new windows, new inner sheetrock, new hardwood floors, four bedrooms, two bath and two feet thick concrete walls and a basement walkout with a patio and a large backyard. Wonderful. I thank the gods every single day for making us so lucky in life.

 

The home was “move-in-ready” as it ought to be with most homes of this price.

 

This is where the market median for “middle-class” ought to be at, because inflation has scarred the topography of our overall American economic wealth as “middle class” Americans.

 

Our home looks like a tiny one-room pioneering cabin from the front and it’s spaciously built under a rock and into a hillside therefore, it’s not going anyplace even when the 1950’s atomic bomb hits. Do you get the picture?

 

No, this is neither a mansion nor a shack and it isn’t meant to be either.

 

This home of ours doesn’t put on any airs because she’s built like a great lady, continuously discovering new secrets about her great ability to withstand the test of time.

 

This great lady of ours was built in a time in which contractors took great pride in their work and didn’t take shortcuts on building crap. This home was built in a time and space in which contractors realized that real American families needed their homes to be built well so that the culture could thrive and continue the advancement of civilization because families would be safe and well guarded in homes that would withstand anything. Cheers to that.

 

This is a home that takes me back to the times of my grandfather’s home. I’m honored and proud to call this rock, home, to live under concrete embedded into a hillside. “Come hell or high water,” she’ll be standing here long after we’re gone.

 

Yes, we pay $618 dollars in monthly mortgage payments. We pay $100.00 in heat. We pay $50.00 in electricity. You get the point. We’re “middle-class” and we live as the “middle-class” ought to for the year 2013.

 

We refuse to come anywhere remotely near breaking the bank. Why? Why do you think? We’re a one-car household because when we drive together then we get to spend more time together otherwise we work so much that we’d hardly get to see each other as it is.

 

Choices are about quality of life not keeping up with the Joneses.

 

We wanted to have a life to go out to eat every single day if we wanted to.

 

We wanted to have a life to purchase the necessaries along with the extras.

 

We wanted a life in which we could afford two-day trips into unknown areas of the world.

 

We wanted a life in which we could save-up for retirement, future children and the unexpected. We achieved that.

 

We searched high and low for such a “middle-class” lifestyle. Why? Because we’ve met and known too many people who are “house-poor.”

 

Do you know what “house-poor” means?

 

“House poor” means, that, one can afford a lot of house but nothing much else.

 

I’ve met and spoken to people who can’t ever afford to go and get a cup of coffee, once in a great while, because they live in large or possibly medium size homes, but their mortgages are crazy expensive for their “middle-class” lifestyles because they fell for some real estate market propaganda which they ought not to have done so.

 

Furthermore, “house-poor” is when people are enslaved, ball-and-chain to their home-mortgages and that’s about it, there’s nothing more to it than that. The end.

 

The trouble with the embarrassment of the banks collapsing and the American people bailing out the banks as well as the crash of the real estate market is that these institutions took advantage of the average “middle-class” Americans and bamboozled them into buying into “balloon payments.”

 

Do you know what a “balloon payment” is?

 

A balloon payment is “a repayment of the outstanding principal sum made at the end of a loan period, interest only having been paid hitherto.”

 

When the interest hits then it hits like a flood. We’re all familiar with floods, right? Right.

 

The unethical aspect about balloon payments is that real estate agents and bankers ought not to have ever approached the people with such atrocities in financing options and they all knew perfectly well that it was corrupt financing.

 

What they didn’t know about their corrupt dealings was, as to the extent in the aftermath of how they almost destroyed the “middle-class” and the American Dream.

 

It wasn’t only reckless and corrupt of them to do so, but it was also criminal and the Americans all know this to be the truth, not because I’m writing about it, but because they tell me so and I believe them.

 

Who hates America so much that there aren’t any laws in place to protect our hard working Americans from getting swindled by real estate agents and bankers ever again?

 

What an embarrassment and what a disappointment that real estate agents and bankers are no longer anything of great consequence or professionalism rather more like used car sale’s men and women.

 

My father says that one of the more dependable real estate companies is RE/MAX and I agree with him. Although, my dad says not to trust real estate agents or bankers ever again for the sake and for the future of this America.

 

How could our government have let that happen to the people?

 

Question everything, because as Americans we’re great intellectuals.

 

Don’t ever allow for Americans to get bamboozled into such crazy state of operation.

 

We must thrive for the sake of civilization.

 

Much Respect all around;

Gabriel

 

*) I can’t stand anything not made in the U.S.A.

It has to be made in America.

 

I’m constantly returning merchandise made in other countries because no one can guarantee what the Americans can. Great craftsmanship. What a pisser that merchandise aren’t well made anymore for the “middle class” American. What a pisser indeed.

 

This weekend I returned a pair of boots “Made in China” back to JCPenny; (which I really like that store for certain items.)

 

I returned the expensive winter boots because the horribly made $65.00 boots were allowed to leave the manufacturers with serious dysfunctional properties.

 

When I got home and put on the boots I could barely make it from my front door to our driveway without limping. It felt like my right foot was being protruded by a nail and it’s because it was. Pity.

 

I don’t like to buy anything “Made in China” because once you get it home then you realize the serious malfunctions it comes with. Why so expensive when such merchandise is made with cheap labor who are slaves?

 

I can’t stand the crap made in China thus here goes another five years of personally boycotting anything made in China which makes my life somewhat difficult when just about everything that’s sold in America is made in China.

 

Goddamn our corporate heads who want to take down America. You’ve made our lives quite difficult and brought down our quality of life as hard working “middle class” Americans by selling us overpriced crap made overseas.

 

I want my goddamn “Made in the U.S.A.” merchandise that meant something in the 1980’s and most of the 1990’s before everything got outsourced, became expensive and horribly made by greedy little stupid execs that left the “middle-class” to purchase garbage to fill up our homes. Go to hell.

 

*) I’d rather go without purchasing merchandise and making something at home, if there’s nothing out there that can take care of my needs when it comes to inexpensive high quality standard. Who the hell’s hiking up the price of cheap and horribly made outsourced merchandise in America? Don’t answer that it’s rhetorical. I already know the answer to that.

 

*) My time is valuable and when I return crap then that’s when I get highly annoyed.

 

*) For the second time in two weeks I’ve returned four-size-large-black-ribbed thermal tops back to Wal-Mart.

 

According to the tag it appears as though the Salvadorians have taken over that contract.

 

Now, I’m still more-or-less the same size as I’ve always been. An overall petite ten, twelve at top with an extra six pounds beyond my average weight this winter which I’m working on.

 

I went and took out last year’s thermal tops from my wardrobe and they fit me, beautifully, however, the four tops that I bought this winter don’t fit half the width of my body and they’re size, “large” as I always buy them.

 

Whoever made the thermal tops for this wither 2012-2013 didn’t have the correct cut or the correct materials as they have for the past six years.

 

Please, understand that thermal tops are the difference between life-and-death in Minnesota and must be made with precision, stretchy and flexible materials as well as snug but with enough room to breathe. Thermal tops are a serious wear for men and women of the northern tundra and must be made with genius precision otherwise they’re garbage and not worth purchasing for those of us who must endure long winters.

 

I gave up on buying thermal tops at Wal-Mart for this winter.

 

Yes, I shop at Wal-Mart and I have issues with how little they pay their “associates” as I do with many other large conglomerates.

 

Now, there are two items that I purchase at Wal-Mart, yearly, for the past six years, one, thermal tops and two, flip-flops, other than that, well, that’s about it. Get over it. I’d never been inside a Wal-Mart until the year 2007.

 

*) I’m looking for “Patagonia” clothing.

 

Patagonia is one of my favorite places to shop, however I can’t seem to find a Patagonia shop in Minneapolis.

 

Do you know how great Patagonia is when it comes to making outdoor wear?

 

These people are like gods when it comes to outdoor wear with great quality and soberly good looking clothes. Or at least they were in 80’s and 90’s. I’d like to get back into Patagonia because the best outdoor clothing that I ever had came from them. That’s what our parents used to dress us in as children and pre-teens. I’ve got to go back to that label. Cheers. I love their colors and materials; they’re just so beautifully made and cut.

 

I’m also looking for a “Benetton” in Minneapolis someplace. I love their Italian clothing made for the “middle class.” Thank you.

 

Please don’t forget the middle-income-earning orchid she does so much for this America of ours. She cares what happens to America.

 

January 6, 2013

 

Hello, this is my first test run on Dreamweaver which is an HTML program that can create just about anything. I'm so excited to be joining the rest of you into the 21st century. I've been thinking about Dreamweaver for about 15 years when I studied the program at college and I've been intimidated of it ever since, henceforth it's taken me years to get on board.

However, here we go.

I've decided that after all these years of studying and reviewing Dreamweaver, FCP and Photoshop that I'm going to jump into the game otherwise these programs and computers will continue to collect dust for another six years and that's just not proper.

I've got all of the tools available to me and instead of staring at them with fear I'm actually going to make use of them. Finally, I've now got Photoshop down like it's the back of my hand and I can maneuver FCP. I look forward to learning more about programming and HTML coding. I'll not be afraid any longer because this is my first step towards further technological advancement and success. I can't wait to soar.

Thank you for inventing such programs for those of us in the Independent filmmaking world. This would not be possible without all of this technological brilliance.

Sincerely,
Gabriel

 

January 4, 2013

 

“It is well for people who think to change their minds occasionally in order to keep them clean. For those who do not think, it is best at least to rearrange their prejudices once in a while.” - Luther Burbank

 

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Word of the day: Tacit (Silent, Implied)

 

Tacit permission for the picnic was given by the principal.

 

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Happy Friday!

Happy 14th Baktun!

Happy 6th earth / cycle!

Aloha.

 

Shall we dance? Thank you, no.

 

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I’ve got breakfast plans.

 

I may come back later into the afternoon.

I’ve got a million things to get through today.

 

Welfare is paid by taxpayers and don’t you ever forget it!

Those who work support those who feed off of the system.

 

Sincerely,

Gabriel

 

 

*) Who let Kristen Stewart out of her house?

Just in the same manner as no one ought to date Taylor Swift.

 

These girls can’t possibly be any type of leaders in their industries?

No, money isn’t leadership. Not even close.

 

No one ought to let Ms. Stewart promote any piece of cinema because when she opens her mouth to speak, you just want to cringe at her inability to complete sentences or make any type of sense out of the English language.

 

Why is it that Kristen Stewart is the same in interviews as she is when she plays every single character she’s ever had the honor of being presented with such a gift?

 

The title of her next project ought to be: “Kristen Stewart starring awkward twelve-year old Kristen Stewart.” Who has nothing intelligent to contribute to the world only some falsified type of awkward tendencies to try to look cutely-awkward without having to say anything smart about her craft, if you can even call it that when she pretends to act? What. What a hack or a complete waste of time. It’s not good enough and we all know this to be true.

 

I’m sorry but that’s not a well developed or fully trimester fetus, that’s a soul that screams to climb back into the womb. Ms. Stewart may be our contemporary but she most definitely isn’t a leader of her craft in any way, shape or form, thus she ought not to do interviews pretending like she has any idea about anything otherwise it’s considered falsified information.

 

Please don’t put the audience through the agony of having to watch Ms. Stewart do awkward horribly.

 

I get this feeling that everything I’ve ever seen Kristen Stewart do is as though she practiced her shtick as an early teen for hours in front of the mirror and it worked for her thus she’s stuck with it however at the stake of losing any ability for development. Does Kristen Stewart have any more tricks in her bag of tools, knowledge and skill of her craft? Nope. How one dimensional, how one sided? Poor soul. Moving on.

 

*) Miss Universe 2012. Let’s address it while I’m at it. Why ever not. Thank the gods for people who make themselves freaks in saving the rest of us from the insanity of having to be them.

 

Now, I have many theories and guesses as to why 20-year old Olivia Culpo went on national broadcast network television with her tits hanging out of her dress.

 

One, she loves her tits and has to show them off, two, she has a wardrobe-team full of homosexual idiots who think that large tits on national broadcast television creates a spike in ratings which its proven that it doesn’t (do your homework), three, I can’t think of anything else other than Ms. Culpo is quite mindless about one aspect of her role model responsibilities; little girls looking up to her for guidance.

 

Ms. Culpo forgets that with her title along comes serious responsibilities because well, one of the greatest fads in the African-American communities is for the men to beat up their women on their breasts and chests. Oh, yes. I’ve been aware of this brutal fad for over two years. Disgusting.

 

African-American men don’t beat up their women on their faces because then no one will know about the abuse, but when they do beat up their gorgeous African-American women on the breasts and chest area then no one will know about the tremendous abuse thus men get away with being cowards. How sad, truly.

 

I get it that role models and television execs don’t take people and their trials and tribulations here upon the ground seriously but truly I would’ve disqualified Ms. Culpo from the title of Miss Universe 2012 simply due to the outfit she willingly chose to wear on national and international broadcast television. Not only does she have bad taste in clothing but she is as clueless as to what violence little girls, teens and women go through on a daily basis not to mention little boys, teens and men as well.

 

When Miss Universe 2012 was presented to the world, I was sitting in a room with 80-year old women who gasped and vowed not to watch Miss Universe ever again.

 

I was appalled because of their shocked reactions.

 

I couldn’t believe that Miss Universe and the execs had lost all perspective of their audiences and viewership.

 

I would’ve burst into laughter except for the mere fact that while I was sitting in mixed company, the ladies took such great offense that I couldn’t help but to side with them and take offense for their sakes. How right they were. How right indeed.

 

I, too, shall boycott watching Miss Universe for the next decade in defense for our lovely 80-something year olds and for our dearest African-American women who get beat up on their chests and lovely breasts and even though their bruises don’t show up on their faces those bruises are still there and as painful as if it were a public reminder.

 

If you get hit too close to the ribcage then it makes it difficult to bend down, sit for any amount of length or breathe deeply. I’m aware. I’ve bruised my ribcage several times while snowboarding and you can barely breathe or move.

 

Miss Universe 2012 makes idiotic choices and it’s clear to see that her Boston University education hasn’t taught her anything about women’s liberation. What a mess. What a freak.

 

*) Don’t you know that women are third class citizens because every time society allows for a Notre Dame athlete to get away with rape then all bets are off and women continue to be treated worse than cattle.

 

I get it. Women are considered commodities, objects and things to be prong open, raped, abused and used by men who have no souls, ethics, principals and athletes who are allowed to get away with criminal acts.

 

No, don’t make that damn face at me.

 

I’m one of the greatest jocks all around. I love sports but I don’t think that sports take a front seat to life, ethics, rules and regulations otherwise our society becomes a crumbling culture of hacks.

 

The last time I looked, as athletes what we despise most is a hack because either you can keep up in-and-out of the athletic arena with clean living and clean ethical boundaries or you’re just a brute; and like with any fine tuned instrument it takes a lifetime to master any one sport by any one human.

 

I believe in athletics because it’s a gift from the gods, however, I believe in principals, ethics and morality, first, because those are the guidelines to masterful athletics, otherwise what a bunch of cowards beating up women and raping women out of the football fields, race tracks and training. Please. Women endure enough bullshit from men as it is on a daily basis, isn’t that bad enough? When will this crime ridden and mean spirited culture of rape change? When?

 

*) Yes, even our military women get raped. Go do a news story about that. How sad. Indeed. Our beautiful women serving overseas get raped by our American boys. What the hell? Keep your erect penises in your pockets, excuse yourselves and go masturbate into a corner. Thank you very much.

 

*) Don’t ever touch any women who’ve been intoxicated for any reason or otherwise, we’ll get the laws changed to the electric chair for rape of any type. I believe in the electric chair. Absolutely. Especially, for gang rape. Fry those boys and send them to hell.

 

*) Yes, I do believe in the electric chair to any man or woman who rapes another. I do. I most certainly do because rape is considered a heinous crime by most societal books. Otherwise, castration could work just as well. We’re entering the next 5,125 years of the woman, more specifically “the grandmother.” Careful, men; women will take over and get you raped and killed in the same fashion that you have with women for the past five thousand years.

 

*) Yes, our military complex is running our public educational system like their military prisons. I was just informed of that fact last night. Can you imagine that? Who’s in bed with whom?

 

January 3, 2013

 

“I don't mind dying, I'll gladly do that, but not right now, I need to clean the house first.” - Astrid Lindgren

 

“Sometimes I want to clean up my desk and go out and say, respect me, I'm a respectable grown-up, and other times I just want to jump into a paper bag and shake and bake myself to death.” - Wendy Wasserstein

 

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Word of the day: Taciturn (Silent, Reserved, Not given to conversation)

 

His taciturn disposition has caused much alarm.

 

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Happy Thursday!

Happy 14th Baktun!

Happy 6th earth / cycle!

Aloha.

 

Shall we dance? Yes, please.

 

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I’ve been meaning to write about all of the incredibly gorgeous lights people placed around and about their yards and homes for this holiday season. Thank you.

 

We moved literally seven miles away from Uptown and our entire world has changed for the better. The move was rough to say the least so I won’t say anything about it here so as not to spoil the fun.

 

I can’t begin to tell you about the beautiful little lights.

 

I was amazed at the tremendous effort that the folks in Robbinsdale and our bordering neighbors near and around the Parkway put into decorating such a gorgeous part of the city that is mainly residential zoning which insulates this part of the Minneapolis proper into a cozy heaven of watchful neighbors looking out for each other and each other’s beautifully maintained properties.

 

This Robbinsdale, Golden Valley and surrounding neighborhoods are where the “American Dream” was born and has been kept alive.

 

These are neighborhoods where people are ordinary and righteously beautiful because they are hardworking citizens who take pride in keeping their yards, neighborhoods and communities clean, safe and beautiful.

 

These are the neighborhoods where we keep a close eye and the police are on top of everything and I mean everything. I love the watchful eagle eye of the Robbinsdale police force. 

 

This is where we pay our mortgages and our taxes; and it means something because if anyone is to trespass or commit a crime in these neighborhoods then the entire community will know about it immediately and react accordingly. These are not neighborhoods where hoodlums, thugs and insensitive types live. These are neighborhoods where the “American Dream” still thrives because we believe in it.

 

 

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No, I don’t believe in making allowances for low-income subsidized housing to be placed amongst middle class neighborhoods like St. Louis Park became somewhat of a ghetto on the outskirts of such a strong and immensely hardworking Jewish community who has a promise if they could just get rid of that stupid low-income subsidized housing ideal of equality then it would make it safer and more comfortable to shop at and near their neighborhood. What a shame. Who let that happen to that gorgeous neighborhood?

 

I don’t believe in giving people a handout for anything because I do believe that too many Americans abuse the welfare system and continue to stay on welfare and subsidized rental properties long after its needed, in which it creates very little reason for them to have to better themselves in any way they can, thus they continue to live off of the government, the taxpayers and a revolving door system that allows itself to be abused.

 

Yes, I do believe that assistance is necessary for many people, however I didn’t realize that welfare was something that Americans did as a long-term lifestyle option just because they could. Either way, welfare or low-income earning is a trap for most Americans.

 

I do believe that food stamps are necessary and a must. Many aspects of governmental welfare subsidies are a must for now, however, our system must change no matter what or we’ll surely implode as a nation.

 

{The Roman Emperors used to hand out bread to keep their people happy but that was barely anything while they kept the populous entertained with gladiator fights just so that the people wouldn’t complain or have uprisings. This was a great way to feed the masses and keep their minds from looking around and thinking of ways to better their cities, their neighborhoods and restructuring a crumbling Rome that fed their wealthy and fat Senators well while starving the masses. Hey, food stamps and television are the same.}

 

When did education become such a bore?

When did education become lesser than ghetto rap videos?

When did education become lesser than?

 

I’ve been informed that it’s now the military which is in charge of restructuring the insanity of our mediocre public educational system. The more they can dumb down our kids then the more they can control the population and that’s a shame because our military complex should keep its hand out of the educational cookie jar.

 

I was taught that your one lottery ticket in life out of poverty is through education and not just mediocre education but real backbreaking education that makes you sweat when you look at your homework because it is meant to be hard and difficult homework to get through.

 

I grew up doing six hours of homework per night at private school and that’s why sitting down to write, edit features and conduct business on a global scale isn’t an issue for me, it’s a privilege, an honor and fun. I paid my dues.

 

I was taught endurance, patience, self-reward and complex problem solving, analytical and critical thinking skills because my education was very difficult and there was nothing weak about it. It was an education that made you want to go to the dentist any chance you got just to get a break from the back breaking work.

 

I don’t believe in making low-income subsidized housing accessible to middle class income neighborhoods because low-income subsidized housing destroys the very nature that middle class does build for itself which is proud ownership, hard work and taxpaying.

 

Now, I don’t believe in segregation either, however, I do believe in hard work and if you haven’t earned your way through the world then you don’t deserve to benefit from the fruit of others’ labor. It’s not proper. It’s not right. It’s wrong and we all know it.

 

I do believe that it’s a stupid and an insane idea to throw in low-income subsidized housing into hardworking and taxpaying neighborhoods because crime, poverty and garbage is usually brought in by such a demographics who has no pride in ownership because what is theirs isn’t really theirs thus why should they care. They don’t. Nope. I think it’s the stupidest throw-back idea from the last century which has continued into this one, no matter how hard an urban engineer or developer may sell it to you.

 

It’s tough enough to get ownership of any property now days without having to deal with the danger of those who don’t care to move in next door. I don’t believe in subsidized housing for the poor amongst the middle class. I never have and I most likely never will, although, never, say “never.”

 

I’ve lived amongst low-income subsidized housing as a renter and it was awful, you can’t sell it to me. Nope.

 

Okay, I’m down from my soapbox. Thank you very much.

 

 

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I’m in awe as to how quiet, lovely and clean Robbinsdale and its surrounding neighborhoods are for being inside the city proper. This is city living without being held at gun point in Uptown, bad hipster attitude and garbage all over our yard weekly. I mean seriously Uptown became a nightmare to live in primarily because college age students overtook Uptown on the weekends and would leave beer bottles and cans in our yard and neighborhood. How embarrassing that must be to their ancestors. Who does that? A savage.

 

This Robbinsdale is a gem in the middle of the city, run and maintained by middle-class earners, who pay their exorbitant taxes, care about their neighbors and keep a tight sealed neighborhood watch.

 

It was those little Christmas lights that brought on the Christmas cheer. It was those brightly lit and blinking LED lights that made me think, ‘ah, this is the life.’

 

I haven’t gotten used to the public social taciturn culture of Robbinsdale and that may take me an entire year to figure out.

 

I’m used to bold street art in the form of stickers on bus posts, shoes hanging over electrical wires, sweaty skateboarders and bikers, harsh hipster-types with bad service, tattooed like sailors like they don’t care if they live or die. I’m used to poser Yoga wanna-be hippies who can’t let go of the sixties. I’m used to people hating Native Americans. I’m used to garbage all over the streets, alleyways and yards. I’m used to people going through our garbage on a daily basis. I’m used to people not moving over on sidewalks due to power struggles. I’m used to driving on narrow streets. I’m used to potholes. I’m used to cleaning up graffiti on a weekly basis. I’m used to rude neighbors. I’m used to hatred. I’m used to overprice organic food that isn’t well prepared or cooked and it leaves you heaving for hours. I’m used to drunks loudly singing at the top of their lungs, cutting across our yard at three in the morning every weekend. I’m used to snobbery from a population that earns a median of $20,000 a year per household in the Wedge neighborhood. I’m used to overprice burned coffee. I’m used to Patchouli oil in my overpriced organic scones. I hate Patchouli oil and for the rest of my life it'll make me want to vomit because it’ll bring up the memory of it in my food. I’m used to hatred.

 

What I’m not used to, is service counter women who flirt with every male in sight by giving them the desperate wet-vagina-eye. What I’m not used to is trying to figure out why service women are constantly trying to make eyes with one’s husband and why quilting leaves such a sour taste in one’s mouth due to the way its run more like a military camp than a quilting circle. Oh, well.

 

I’ve fallen in love with Robbinsdale just a little bit because of its clean streets, orderly humans who mind their own business and know how to get on in a large metropolis without putting on airs that their dirty Mohawks hairdos and tattoos are better than everybody else’s because they have nothing else going on for them.

 

I love the ordinary and extraordinary folk in this part of the city and yes, I’ll fight like hell to keep north Minneapolis out of our streets, schools and yards. Why? Why ever not? We’re not alike and we have neither the same goals in common nor the same value system of hard work, clean living and proper etiquette in conduct. We don’t. I kept a studio by the social services of north Minneapolis for two years and I learned that North hates with the same passion as uptown. I hated the garbage, the ghetto attitude and the violence.

 

I, too, have a dream that north Minneapolis will someday become gentrified and that we’ll be able to have a middle class hardworking neighborhood there creating equality because if you’ve never skateboarded north Minneapolis as I have then know this: north’s a hop, skip and a jump from downtown Minneapolis and that makes it prime real estate.

 

If I could afford it: I’d buy up north Minneapolis and rebuild its beautiful old Victorian homes, push out the ghetto to some rural area on the outskirts of the entire metropolis and polish that gem up, that has ever so been kept dormant from development and progress. Let the ghetto go gun down themselves in the middle of open fields, be buried and forgotten forever out in the middle of nowhere.

 

I do believe that the welfare offices ought to be moved to the outskirts of the city. I’ve been keeping a close eye on Minneapolis since 2004 and it seems that hard Chicago thugs frequent our streets on the 1st and on the 15th of each month to collect their welfare checks and head back to Chicago for less than $10.00 on a bus ride.

 

I don’t like the violent attitude that Chicago African-American thugs bring in with them along with their unwashed clothes that have just that little bit more dirt on them than our north Minneapolis folks. I don’t like the Chicago African-American thugs that use Minnesota like a bank whore and disperse back to their Chicago killing land with our money in their pockets while they either snort it away, smoke it away, or…

 

I want justice for this city of Minneapolis, because even if our politicians don’t realize what an amazing gem Minneapolis truly is and its surrounding neighborhoods then they must be crazy to allow for this city of ours to be overpopulated by the uneducated, the hard thuggish types who care less if others live or die and by the violence that they create.

 

“You shall not pass here!” I do love that movie.

 

We’re doing everything in our power to change the welfare system that gets so taken advantage of. Those loopholes must be closed so that for those of us who don’t ask for a single damn dime from our government can guarantee us safety at all costs.

 

Minneapolis is a difficult city to live in because of the gun violence and random brutal crime brought on by the Chicago African-Americans, which is too frustrating and annoying at the best of times.

 

I’d say kick such civilians who contribute absolutely nothing out and send them back to wherever they came from or at least relocate them because my taxes don’t go towards getting mugged, held up at gun point or having thuggish types intimidate our hardworking middle class.

 

We’ve had enough of the bullshit in this city. Mediocrity will not stand because we’re working hard to build upon this city of Nordic strong types who desire to succeed in the old fashion way through hard work, dedication and determination.

 

So, if you don’t get a smile from our taciturn Robbinsdale citizens it’s most likely because they don’t know you and they don’t trust you and neither do I. These are folk hardened by weather, time and getting up at four in the morning to go to work. These are people who know how to shoot a hand gun and aren’t afraid to do so. This isn’t a neighborhood for thugs or wimps.

 

Sincerely,

Gabriel

 

*) Who the hell is the NRA to tell anybody what ought to take place in the educational school systems? No body.

 

The last time I heard, education was a community action, locally run government system paid by our taxes.

 

When did the NRA become an expert on school gun violence? Never.

 

When did the NRA become the hired help and contracted out by the government to give tips on gun violence in schools? Never.

 

I stand by the Second Amendment, however, get the NRA out of our schools and get some real experts in there who can combine psychological support, community action support and gun violence support not some gun peddler.

 

*) The Speaker of the House seems to be on his way out.

 

January 2, 2013

 

“Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.” - George Bernard Shaw

 

“Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

“All a woman needs is a good bath, clean clothes, and for her hair to be combed. These things she can do herself. I very seldom go to the hairdresser, but when I do, I just marvel.” - Hedy Lamarr

 

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Word of the day: Tactile (Can be touched, Relating to sense of touch, Tangible)

 

A tactile substance must have weight.

 

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Happy Wednesday!

Happy 14th Baktun!

Happy 6th earth / cycle!

Aloha.

 

Shall we dance? Yes, please.

 

 

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Hello, people of the earth.

Hello. How are you?

 

Well, welcome to 2013!

This is the beginning of the next 5,125 years to our ever evolving-earth-existence.

How splendid. How wonderful, indeed.

 

Let’s all begin by turning a new leaf and starting out the year with a deep and fresh breath of air filling up the lungs and releasing any pent up energy or aggression.

 

Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to our responsibilities because the most precious aspect of being alive is that we’re adults and we’re capable of thinking, organizing, producing and applying our intelligence in keeping this world rotating on its axis.

 

“Life is hard work. You’ll be working until the very last days of your life so don’t get too stressed out about it; live, breathe, learn and relax.” My father said to me when I was a teen and I understood him perfectly well.

 

Now, with that said, I hope everything is fine, health wise and if you’re not healthy then most likely you’re in the whirl wind of thoughts in humanity’s prayers towards many of our exiting gods.

 

I want you to take a little bit of time to consider and think about how you’d like to begin this year as far as changes to your lifestyle are concerned.

 

Think about what needs improvement, especially starting at home.

 

If a wall needs paint then try to set aside and save up the five-to-ten dollars for a can of paint any color you want, that you would ever so beautifully display across your walls. Remember that bright color will make you feel invigorated, alive and ready for what’s next. Chose any color no matter what anyone may tell you or criticize you about. If a color speaks to you then follow your intuition, you can’t go wrong there.

 

If you’ve got piles of laundry that have been sitting around for months then this is the time to take a walk over to a Laundromat or washing machine and begin laundering your favorites, first, because that’ll get you motivated to do the rest, one load at a time.

 

If you’ve been meaning to launder your bedding then do so. “Just do it!” Yes, your bedding ought to be laundered once a week and if not then every other week, at least. Why? Why do you think? Your skin oils, hair oils, dust, dirt and any other pollutants get trapped in your sheets not to mention your shedding skin. You don’t want to live amongst dead skin? Do you? No. Now, make it a priority to take care of your bedding and if you have the energy at the end of each day to take a shower before going to bed then start a new bedtime ritual in which you turn off the tube an hour or two before bed time and you get the kids in the tub or shower and ready to go to sleep in clean pajamas and clean sheets as well as yourselves (become hygiene role models) because the pollution content is much higher now a days and you must not sleep in pollutants while your bodies lay dormant for at least 7-9 hours a night.

 

If you’ve been meaning to unpack your apartments or homes for over six months or more then this is a most excellent time to begin with one box at a time and take a walk down memory lane. Anything that brings you joy then keep it and anything that brings you difficult memories then it’s probably time to let it go, pack it up to be donated or to either be recycled or thrown out or stored away out of sight. Whatever you do, please don’t keep a box of mementoes laying around amongst your living quarters where that box of memories will sit there as a reminder of thoughts you’d soon rather forget while you’ll stare at it day-in-and-day-out because that’ll be depressing at the best of times. “Out of sight, out of mind.” Put it away and remember that cardboard creates and collects dust. Yuck. Inhaling dust in large quantities year-after-year is bad for your general health.

 

Now, is the time to think about the condition of your shoes and if your shoes have been giving you the slightest pain or trouble then you must save, spend or have new shoes donated to you. If your shoes hurt you and / or if they’re in bad condition then throw them out. If they’re in fine condition then donate them.

 

If you’ve been meaning to start taking better care of your teeth then this is a most splendid time to do so. Yes, floss every single day and be glad that when you become an elder then your pearly whites will still be intact in your head. There’re many free dental clinics and universities in which you can be looked at on a scale fee or for free. Please take care of your beautiful teeth and gums.

 

If this is a time to recycle and take care of your waste then get it out of your homes.

 

If this is a time to go through your closets and either start a dust-rag bag, or completely throw out torn and worn out clothing that are in horrible condition that you wouldn’t pass on to another human then throw it out in the garbage. If the clothes are still in great condition and have life left in them then donate them, please. Others will make great use of them.

 

If this is the time to make a doctor’s appointment to a clinic then do so.

 

If this is a time to turn off the television and take care of business around your homes like the adult men and women that you are then so be it.

 

If this is a time to get a haircut then do so. When I was broke in my twenties I learned to cut my own hair and it was alright. I’ve gotten better at it over the years and if you can’t afford a haircut then buy a great pair of scissors, go to a local library and download articles about hair cutting. It’s quite simple and actually more fun than you’ll ever know. I still get my haircuts at home except for once a year on or near my birthday in May I like to treat myself to a professional haircut. It feels so good.

 

Life’s coming and every year it gets faster with age.

 

If we can’t keep our homes functioning and our lives flexible and prepared for beauty, development and growth then these gifts from the gods will not come to us because the power of the gods have always been to grant us the will to take care of our own lives and that means to man-up, woman-up and take care our homes, yards, streets and communities.

 

If we don’t take care of our homes then no matter what you do to hide it, any disheveled home shows up on the faces and skin of humans and this atrocity does come across when we go out into the world.

 

Now, if you’ve been thinking about quitting smoking cigarettes but you can’t then this is a great time to smoke outdoors because second hand smoke is worse than first hand smoke and no child ought to sit, eat and sleep in cigarette smoke. Do take your lazy butts outside (no pun intended, ha!)

 

If you’ve been meaning to quit smoking cigarettes in your cars while driving around then this is a great time to pull over and take in some outdoor scenery and quit smoking in your cars, because it gets into every pore of your beings making you smell like caca. Period. When a smoker smokes in a small and enclosed space then they might as well be smoking on top of others because the smell reeks and that’s that.

 

Now, no pretending or no putting on airs about being the best housekeepers but do take pride in keeping your yards and streets clear of garbage, your children washed with clean clothes on them as well as yourselves.

 

This isn’t the time to pretend that we’re “Betty Crocker.” No.

 

This is a time for introspection, reflection and to hunker down and bring clean living into your homes.

 

Yes, it will take some elbow grease and effort. Yes, it will take an hour of your lives possibly each day for about a few months until you can get yourselves organized and going into this spring 2013.

 

Beautiful things are in store for us as humans and we must begin with a strong foundation otherwise nothing much will be beautiful, graceful and genuine.

 

You do want to be beautiful, graceful and genuine? Don’t you? Yes. Well, it’s within your grasp each and every day and it starts at home.

 

This is the year to get at least one single piece of toast and jam or butter into your systems before you leave the house. Eat some type of non-sugary breakfast and watch your waistline reconfigure to your form.

 

No leaving the house on an empty stomach because it shows up all over your faces and it creates ugly attitudes and a propensity for crabby dispositions and well, there’s nothing like men and women with distasteful frowns on their faces from not being mature enough adults in taking care of themselves.

 

Wash your faces, brush your teeth, brush your hair, eat a little something and smile at yourselves in the mirror before leaving your lovely humble abodes. If you can’t smile at yourselves into the mirror then who can you smile at throughout the day?

 

Now, this is the kicker for 2013: Please, say “please” and “thank you.” Thank you.

 

Everywhere you go, every single day for the rest of the year, make it a strong priority to become a better type of human.

 

We’ll begin with the basics because it seems that our American culture has forgotten its civilities about itself.

 

No, ghetto anything isn’t cool.

You know it, I know it and we all know it.

Dirty anything isn’t cool either.

 

Get that stupid ghetto rap video notion out of your noggins because the world is a fast paced place waiting to take you places but not with a bad ghetto attitude and bad speech like everybody owes you something.

 

Nobody owes you anything not even the sorry excuse to make absolutely nothing out of yourselves because your great-great-great “granddaddies” and “grand-mammies” were slaves.

 

Oh, no! That sorry excuse is like a slap to your ancestors each and every day. Your ancestors are with you everywhere you go each moment of the day and it’s up to you to honor them or to dishonor them.

 

Our African-American men and women must rise now and take care of their homes, children and educations without any airs or attitudes, because well, that’s gotten our brothers and sisters absolutely not a single place.

 

Will you spend another three hundred years in self-made-oppression talking big about your rights when you won’t lift a finger to dust or broom your homes? Don’t make that face at me. I’ve been inside some of the homes of the African-Americans in North Minneapolis with boogers plastered to walls, dishes ceiling high, dirt on the floor and television as the main attraction to make the time pass by that much quicker so that the misery of your own homes doesn’t get you down anymore than it already has you by the throat.

 

This is the year in which the only thing we must invest in is cleaning supplies, a better attitude, better etiquette and thought provoking lifestyles.

 

Forget designer clothing, expensive high heeled-shoes and cool looking things when most people smell like the remnants of urine with bad breath and unwashed hair while their homes look like the peoples of the depressed and oppressed live there. Nope. It’s not good enough.

 

This is the year to take back your homes before we can move forward on building a strong and steady future for this America of ours.

 

I, too have a dream like Mr. King.

 

I have this dream that our African-American brothers and sisters will take responsibility for their lives and stop making excuses about everything. Stand up. Live. Become organized in your thoughts, homes, lives, relationships and in your dreams.

 

I, too, have a dream that our brothers and sisters will become our community leaders instead of our thugs asking for government handouts, threatening the safety of our taxpaying citizens and being completely clueless about high quality of community function and success.

 

I, too, have a dream that our African-American proud and beautiful men and women will become our mathematical and scientific leaders guiding us into a safe, equal and kind future. If our peoples of the most oppressed (along with our Native Americans in reservations) can’t lift themselves from this mental gutter they imprison themselves upon then they will be left behind by a widening economical, educational and progressive gap that’s already become too differential.

 

I, too, have a dream that our African-American, Native Americans and Chicanos will learn to read. Yes, I was appalled to discover in 2012 that in Texas not even seniors in high school know how to read. What a stake driven deep into the chests and souls of our beautiful people by the hatred of an educational system that upholds to every prejudice against our urban-city and multi-racial schools. 

 

Now, this America of ours was indeed founded upon the Native American spirit, the toiling of our African-American slaves, the backbreaking work of pioneering men and women and our cowboys; even our cowboys were men enough to fall in love and say to anyone “please” and “thank you.”

 

We’re not complete savages over here and we never were thus it is time to rise, face the facts and the truths about our lives and get-out-of-our oppressive and depressing lifestyles, tendencies and lazy habits to put things off year after year until life becomes unbearable mountains, heaps of garbage, a bad disposition and crabby attitudes about not taking care of the mind, body, spirit and soul.

 

Everything is interconnected and yes, your success very much so depends upon your hygiene. You must learn to clean, wash and take care of yourselves, your lives and your homes or nothing much will take care of you in this world.

 

Put your business in order.

 

If this is a time for you to go and get a job then do so. There’s honor in good respectable hard work. I’ve worked cleaning kitchens, hotel rooms, apartment buildings and I did it with pride, honor and respect. No, you don’t get to collect welfare from the government unless, you’re destitute, without limbs (even then) or without any type of ability to rise from your beds each and every morning and make something out of yourselves.

 

Don’t you know that most couples in America have started out with absolutely nothing and build upon their “American Dream” over the decades?

 

Now, if you think that someone ought to give you a mansion and a six figure salary for having bad breath, bad speech and not an original thought inside your skull then you’re going to have a hard life.

 

I’ve gotten out of line with my speech here upon my blogs in the past and I reserve that right as a woman who’s put in two-and-a-half-decades of hard work into my education, speech, hygiene, class, etiquette and disposition. I’m a classy and beautiful woman and I work at it each and every day. Its work and I do it dutifully and with a glad heart.

 

I’m someone who takes great pride in being a well put together human in the modest of ways. No, I don’t wear makeup. No, I don’t wear expensive high-heeled shoes. No, my clothes aren’t of the latest fashions, yet they aren’t torn and they fit the contours of my body. I buy clothing when I find that I do need one or two items that require upgrade or replacement. No, I don’t hoard anything. I can’t stand clutter and I refuse to live in a pigsty. Get hip with it.

 

Food for thought.

I’ve got a million things to get through today from my home study.

 

Sincerely and Truly,

Gabriel

 

*) Friendly reminder: Color Bars are quite serious by broadcast standards and not to be used in commercials of any type by FCC regulations nor for any type of promotional or content matter other than setting up a picture and tone. Thank you. Otherwise, it looks like amateur hour.

 

*) I’ve quit smoking cigarettes once again even though I only smoked one a day and I’ve quit watching all news. I’ll still be reading news on a daily basis but I refuse to watch it because it’s so drab, depressing and full of negative content. How boring. People are doing extraordinary things in life and in their communities and I’m going to focus on the progressive actions of others.

 

*) No, I didn’t write that I trusted Mr. George Noory’s guests. I wrote that I trusted George Noory. I’ll be catching Whitley Strieber, Mr. Graham Hancock, Rachel Maddow and Mr. Bill Maher on weekends. Along with that fellow: Oh, yes “The Last Word” with Lawrence O’Donnell. We’ve got “Charlie Rose” PBS and “The Tavis Smiley Show” on PBS recording as well otherwise everything else has fallen off my radar. Everybody else we’ll try again in 2014.

 

I like WCCO but it’s so depressing; if it isn’t about shootings or killings then it’s about rapes and this and that. I’ve had it with local news and its drab content. For local news I either listened or watched WCCO or nothing. For 2013 it’ll be nothing for local news.

 

Nope, no commercial television of any type. Ah, lovely!!!

 

My favorite show is still “The Last of the Summer Wine.”

 

Our DVR is ready and recording.

 

I look forward to weekends: no work, lots of buttered and salted popcorn and catching up with visual content but for now we’re still under contract to watch and study one film per day and I’ve fallen in love with 1930’s cinema. Holy cow! Did Hollywood know how to tell visual stories in the 1930’s or what?

January 1st, 2013

 

Happy New Year’s 2013!

Aloha.

 

“Auld Lang Syne”

 

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

And never brought to mind?

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,

And days o’ lang syne!

 

Chorus:

For auld lang syne, my dear

For auld lang syne,

 

We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet

For auld lang syne!

We twa hae run about the braes,

And pu’d the gowans fine,

But we’ve wander’d mony a weary foot

Sin’ auld lang syne.

We twa hae paidl’t in the burn

Frae morning sun till dine,

But seas between us braid hae roar’d

Sin’ auld lang syne.

And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere,

And gie’s a hand o’ thine,

And we’ll tak a right guid willie-waught

For auld lang syne!

And surely ye’ll be your pint’ stoup,

And surely I’ll be mine!

And we’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet

For auld lang syne!

 

“Times Gone By”

 

Should old acquaintances be forgotten,

And never brought to mind?

Should old acquaintances be forgotten,

And days of long ago!

 

Chorus:

For times gone by, my dear

For times gone by,

 

We will take a cup of kindness yet

For times gone by.

We two have run about the hillsides

And pulled the daisies fine,

But we have wandered many a weary foot

For times gone by.

We two have paddled (waded) in the stream

From noon until dinner time,

But seas between us broad have roared

Since times gone by.

And there is a hand, my trusty friend,

And give us a hand of yours,

And we will take a goodwill drink (of ale)

For times gone by!

And surely you will pay for your pint,

And surely I will pay for mine!

And we will take a cup of kindness yet

For times gone by!

 

My favorite songs one week before the holidays are “The Little Drummer Boy,” “Amazing Grace,” and the United States National Anthem.

 

Oh, how glorious indeed!

 

Much love; be safe partying.

We will be.

 

Don’t get behind the wheel and drive if you’ve had anything to drink or otherwise.

 

With much love;

Gabriel

 

   

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