3/5's

Notational funk here. I've been up all night, leaning on the window sill. The constant accumulation of details is inevitably obscuring all that I thought I knew. Facebook exists as a sort of shorthand of trivial relationships. Many people that I know and love are on the FB, and I do get minor bits of information about other people's lives from it. I'm not against it. But the substantive conversations of my youth seem gone forever now. We exist primarily to reproduce and support our interest mates in our interests. Not that I'm spoiling for an argument. But it would be nice if there were some sense of heading toward synthesis in the intellectual fabric of the country.

So, I am a patriot, a believer in the founding document and the upper class white guys that got us away from the British monarch and his need for funds. They had ideals, and they knew at heart that that slavery thing was going to come back and bite them in the ass. Looking back on it now, from this great vantage, it is clear that allowing slavery to exist stained the republic in basic ways and that that stain is still there.

And the irony of this is so very great. Those treasured words, "all men are created equal", given the lie by the founding paper. It was written that some men were worth 3/5s, and not to vote, but to count for "representation." They could be represented, not fully, and they had no voice, whatsoever, in that representation. And that representation always promoted policies that kept those human beings, those men (and women), in captivity. In labor for someone else's monetary success.

What conservatives never really get is this: Money to them means worth, value, measured by the market. Money to me and to most average people, means the hours I spend of my life doing work for someone else so that they will give me the money I need to eat and to have a place to live. Money for me is my labor. Money for Newt Gingrich is the current value of his stock portfolio.

Now, these things are not mutually exclusive. That is why the value of a psychiatrist's time is $300 for an hour and the value of my time is not close to a tenth of that. Market creates value. Like my daddy always said, things wouldn't be so expensive if people wouldn't pay so much for them. He was right, but that statement overlooks one other basic fact of being: You don't have the option of not eating, or not having heat/electricity, or not having water and garbage service. These are things that are ultimately necessary for life. So people pay what they must. And the Market? Does it help us all? Or does it ultimately only help those who have the collected means to create and farm the labor of the average?

So the southernors, the aristocracy of Gone with the Wind, made their initial fortunes from the unpaid labor of a bunch of humans, stolen from their own land, and then used and bred, like farm animals, for the fortune of white men in the south of this great land. Those fortunes still exist for the most part. Once a fortune is started it mostly stays alive and grows unless it is administered by someone who is self destructive. As is obvious from Paris Hilton, even the stupidest rich kid can coast forever on the family funds.

But, as those fortunes still exist, so does the need to justify them in the first place. And that need is the parent of all anti-black bigotry in the land of Jefferson. Those in the south, out of guilt and greed, tell themselves that black folk aren't that smart and we gave them so much by turning them into slaves. We gave them our religion and we gave them our civilization. Aren't they lucky?

I imagine it must be quite a shock for them when they die and cross over and among the first things they come to understand about reality is what a huge and destructive lie they have told themselves. It must be painful in a way that cannot be imagined. The humorous part is that they all will have had the chance in their life to admit to this lie and thus avoid the specification of their guilt and its pain.

So the Tea Party is mainly about race and guilt and fear. These people at heart are basically afraid that I am right. Guess what, I am right about this. They will all die and when they die and cross over they will confront this truth. May the Lady help them see their way clear to forgiveness and penance.

Well, catholic concepts. You never lose the bullshit you grew up with. But you can discover its truths, its falsehoods, and its uses.

May the Lady look upon this day with mercy and love.

Sara P., Blood Libel? No, Blood Lust

Sara Palin today said that blaming her for any violence at all would be a "blood libel", analogous to blaming the jews for using gentile baby's blood in their bread. What we see here is not someone to lead us back together, but, rather, someone to bring on a new civil war. I think we can all agree that Ms. Palin has a clear biblical need to foment a righteous conflagration, leading to the End of Times.

The only real question is, are there enough Americans and billionaires who share this apocalyptic desire? Is the end of our world clearly in sight? And I don't mean the end Sara believes will come. I don't see Yeshua striding into view anywhere, and even if he did show up I know in my heart that Ms. Sara is not the Queen Esther he would see.

But, an end to what has been the successful experiment in democracy that is the United States of America. That I can see as a possibility. For a democracy to have even half a chance of sustaining itself it has to be capable of tolerating a diverse spectrum of views without violence or violent rhetoric.

This is really what this last weekend's shooting brings up. I don't believe Lougher was anything more than a crazy, insane person who adapted weird language and tried to create a world in which he had some sort of personal value. But, because he targeted a woman who had been target, metaphorically to be sure, by SaraPac and her friends on the increasingly scary right, he has brought about a conversation he probably doesn't even know about.

And the fact that Ms. Sara could come out today and proclaim herself a victim, like the jews of old, of lies and inuendo and fail to note what most people understand is her relationship to this weird moment in time, simply tells us of the level of personal deceit that must live in her.

I believe that most of the time Sara Palin can convince herself of whatever she needs to believe to continue on to this goal she has of becoming President and helping the rightwing Israelis re-establish the ancient biblical kingdom of the House of David. This is an absolute pre-requisite for the End of Days.

And that is, beyond the money and fame and personal egotism so totally on display, the one actual deep thought the woman has ever had. She has faith, no doubt. She almost certainly believes that anything she needs to do to gain this dream is okay with the Lord God. The fact that her vanity and ego keep her from seeing that to really accomplish this political task she would need to court the broader spectrum of humans in this still democratic country tells us that she isn't really being driven by the higher force. The higher force, or even a moderately good advisor, would have had her make a very different statement today.

I think it is very likely that she will end up the nominee for the repubclicans in 2012. For my money I would welcome that because I think it is very unlikely that she could go on to beat Barack Obama. But, because all things are possible in this world, and because she has several billionaire backers that could pump literally hundreds of millions of dollars into her campaign, I would surely hope the republicans nominate pretty much anybody else.

I think only Sara Palin, of all the possible presidents we could have, only Sara P. would bring on the great war that would end this civilization. I think she would support Israel and Israel's use of tactical nuclear weapons. From there things would escalate very quickly throughout the world.

Esther she ain't. But Esther she believes herself to be.

It is a weird and terrible time. The rightwing is becoming a mob. And an armed one at that. Four republicans in Arizona resigned party posts today, the chief among them explaining that he would "take a bullet for no one." He had been opposed by Tea Party people who emailed him and phoned his house with threats. This is evil and it is all over this country. Read any rightwing blog's comments section. And then tell yourself that they cleaned up the really bad ones, the ones from people perhaps as crazy as Loughner.

I ask the Lady for Her mercy. Let the rabid dogs find some sort of peace in their own lives.

Two Pieces, One Review, One Complaint & Confession

Collected Poems — Pat Smith

The thing that is getting to me right now is that I got a copy of Pat Smith's Collected Poems in the mail. Apparently after Pat died, John, her husband and someone I knew very well forty years ago, went through her stuff and decided to publish a book. He did a fairly good job, though I knew Pat well enough to know there are several poems in this book she would never have published, due to inconsistent quality. Anyway,t here are several small essays in the book, from people who knew Pat well. And I knew all these same people well, too. But I am so not included here. Though one of the actual poems even mentions my name. Must've killed John to put that one in. I'd say at least twelve of the 150 poems are specifically about me;mostly truly bitter. Most of the poems were definitely written during the days we lived on Scarritt and just after. From 1973-1981. I knew most of these pieces when they were first written.

Anyway, I read the whole book last night. I have really mixed feelings about this book and these poems. Some of them are quite good; Pat is a lot like the great american poet, Ann Sexton (who if you've never read you should; Transformations, where she retells grimms stories in a modern idiom). When she's good Pat is spare and clean and gets you right there. But a lot of the time her pieces fall flat. Of course that's the problem with publishing everything. It will include the less successful pieces.

And anyway the whole thing harks back to those days. I have fulsome record of those days. I have notebooks and copies of my letters from those days and those were days I really wrote letters and got letters back. I have literally hundreds and perhaps thousands of letters from that time period. And I have lots of Pat's writing that John clearly doesn't have. Not that he'd ask me, of course. You see, John was having an affair with Pat, his across the street neighbor and the wife of his colleague at the University, Larry, when I first met her. And within a year she had left Larry and started living with me. I didn't know about her affair with John until after we were living together. Well, he was pissed off at me, though he proposed that we have a three way sometime. Which Pat would not do (though later I was in two menage a trois with Pat, one extra male, one extra female). Actually Larry, Pat's husband, also proposed a three way at that time. My life as a sex object, eh?

And another thing, Pat speaks in several of these poems to Janne H., who she did her best to keep me away from all those years. So I guess she ended up with the Janne card. Janne is credited as being among the people who ponied up to print this sucker.

Of course, Pat has her father to write about and some of the most winning pieces are those. He must've been a shattered man, after finding his wife dead in their airstream, a victim of suicide by barbiturate when Pat was 13. Thus leading to another strong theme for her: suicide. Of course she was not allowed to commit suicide, because of what her mother had done. It certainly fucked up that family. But she talks about it quite often in these pieces, or about death in general. Death is a conversation she is having with herself. She always talked about her internal monologue. "The dark night of the soul" was a favorite expression. She had real specific things she loved, but she was really pretty closed off to new ideas. She was a C.S. Lewis freak, which is only marginally better than being an Ayn Rand freak.

She once had an argument with, among other people, Janne, about how the clothes that women wear cause sexual violence to happen to them. From her point of view she was speaking pragmatically, but to Janne and the other women she was blaming the victim. I was not on her side in that particular debate. She was a product of her time, 14 years older than Janne and a world away in experiences. To her credit Pat had an affair with a black guy at ISU in the mid 1950s. And to his credit, her father didn't exactly disapprove; he just worried about her safety. It was a dangerous affair for 1956, and thus even more romantic.

Anyway, it opens up yet another can of weirdness from the life I have led.

I'll probably spend at least a couple of weeks getting through this one. There's a part of me that wants to impose my recollection of this history of this small group of people from forty years ago. Maybe I should do that. I suppose I'll have to get another job and make enough money to publish my own book of poems. I don't quite know what I think about all this.


Part Two

Here are some thoughts about the book of Pat Smith's poems that John Knoll put out recently. I acquired it online and have read it a couple of times this last week. Naturally I have extensive weird thoughts about it. Part of what I feel about it has to do with what happened to that scene. How I feel cut out of it by Peg and John Knoepfle. How my mistakes seem to loom so much larger than Pat's, or anyone else's. Ric Amezquita forced Becky Bradway one time, but they all hang out with him, even Becky. Pat slept with her husband's colleague. Janne had numerous affairs with many men over the many years we knew her, mostly while she was married.

Most of the poems were things Pat wrote during the Scarritt Occasional Society days. There are a number of late poems she wrote to Knoll that I didn't recognize, but most of the stuff I was already familiar with. I wonder why John felt the need to expose these things? There are a double handful of poems that are about or directed to me. Mostly they are about need and betrayal. The usual stuff.

And there are several short essays: Sandy Martin, Harry Martin (yes, he's her brother, the priest; he married me the first time I was married in 1970 in St Lou to Becky McGovern, Joel's mom), and Jessica Billings (Weber), oh and Peg Knoepfle. What got me about all these pieces is that they were all surprised to find Pat wrote poetry and was good at it. Yikes. And they were her friends?! Sangamon Poets even put out a book of her poems in 1979, The Museum is Closed.

So there's a poem in this collection that is dedicated to J.R./J.H. I assume JR is John Ranyard. And JH, the omnipresent nemesis chick in my life, Janne H. Actually there are two other poems in the book to Janne. It is pretty humorous, as often as Pat gave me shit about Janne and as often as they were headed in basically opposite directions and had very different ideas. What brought them together was, of course, me.

But I get absolutely no credit in this book for the role I played. And it was not an insignificant role. I suppose I look back on that time now and I can see it was important in my life and maybe in some other people's lives, but the way I have been excised from it, particularly by the Knoepfles, is very painful to me.

Nonetheless, I believe now and I actually believed in the old days, that Pat would've been a great deal better off with John Knoll. If he had left Sandy in 1973, I think Pat would've left Larry. They were screwing for a couple of years before I showed up. Yet Pat didn't tell me about that until she had to, since she had promised John she'd go spend the night with him after she had started living with me. And then there was suddenly, for me, the whole affair with John Knoll. And so, John's wife at the time, Sandy, writes a glowing essay about Pat. Well, they were best friends and colleagues for several years there. Still its all weird.

And John Knoll was a complete bastard there for awhile. I remember Sandy saying she was divorcing him because she thought he was crazy and she didn't want to get stuck with being responsible for him. And Pat was freaked out and hurt by him at that time, 1973-74. He had that whole I'm like Nixon trip (remember Watergate was breaking).

But, clearly, from his writing about her, and from everything I know, Knoll was always the guy she should've been with. And I don't know that I think those years I spent being supported by her and writing unpublished books were particularly worthwhile for me. I think it let me blow off my twenties and eventually I came to realize that Pat didn't think much of my writing. That was devastating. It made what I was doing, living off of her, a terrible selfish thing and I had no choice but to leave her then. (I will say that in 1981 Pat had started a novel which was clearly based on her affair with John Knoll; she wrote about fucking him every day, in the garage, in the closet, on the back stairs, stuff I remembered and knew about.) And then I started working, doing the shitty jobs I should've done before, in my early thirties.

And Pat navigated a careful path around the Tim and Janne story. She cultivated Janne as a friend, but she pointed out things about her to me. A strange little rondo to be doing, the three of us. So now, Janne puts up part of the money to publish Pat's book, a book that is being produced by one of Janne's old lovers. Yes, Janne slept with John Knoll in 1972-73, while Pat and I were living in Chicago. And John called us up to tell us all about it. He particularly liked telling me how many orgasms Janne had and how she sounded when she had them. Yahoo. He was in his "I'm a complete asshole" stage at the time.

But, I think John loved Pat for real and I wish I hadn't gotten between them at a bad time. I think we would all have been better off. But, I loved her too. Of course, it is unlikely there would've been a Scarritt Occasional Society, or at least that particular configuration. I couldn't have funded the ongoing salon that we had. Pat had middle class money and I had none. I had an ex-wife and a little boy I should've paid a lot more attention to. Yes. It would've been better.

And since I don't get any of the credit for Scarritt, as far as I'm concerned I think the 1970s basically fucked me over. What have I got to show for my life? Two ex-wives named Becky, and some boxes of badly written novels and a bunch of poetry that pretty much only John Ranyard and Sandy Riseman have ever read.

But my kids aren't too fucked up because of me. That is something.