Reason to Believe

There you go.  One second of nudity.  But then again, who wants to watch a PG-13 rated film?  What are the Marvel Comic films rated?  Those are very popular, but Johansson never gets naked in them.  

I just looked it up: 

Most Marvel studio films are rated PG-13, which indicates that parental guidance is advised due to intense sequences of violence, action, language, and thematic elements

There you go.  

I was going to post the gif, but it didn't last long enough.  Old Scarlett the Harlot.  

And for a second, one wonders why Anderson did it.  

Moving on, nobody wonders why Trump caved on the Epstein thing.  He still holds the cards.  He could release them, as everyone points out, so even with congressional approval, he'll still be able to edit what is released.  Boy oh boy, though. . . how about that Clinton, huh?  

What would you do if you were a billionaire?  Would you indulge your pleasures and fantasies or would you live the Boy Scout life of Bill Gates?

Oh. . . wait. . . . 

I don't blame Musk.  I blame the rest of you.  Y'all let him have that much money.  It's ridiculous.  

What else?  Oh!  I went to the bank yesterday.  I needed to get a roofing permit notarized.  But I also "did some banking."  I don't know what that means, but I ended up making some money and will be making some more money in the future.  Is this what people do?  The fellow helping me with the notary thing kept asking questions about my finances.  He took me in to see a woman in the big office.  She would help me set up a money-making credit card.  She asked about my finances, too, and my mother's.  She said she would like to talk to me about what I planned to do.  

"Everybody wants to talk to you if you have a little money.  If you don't, they don't even offer you the free cup of coffee."

Even she had to laugh.  But she had a good one of her own.  

"Who are you going to leave everything to when you die?  Have you thought about that?"

"Yes, I do.  But I don't like anyone enough to leave them my stuff.  Everyone sooner or later does something to piss me off."

I told my mother about it later when I got back to her house.  

"What are you going to do?" she asked.  

"Who cares?  I'll be dead."

I will say, though, making money gave me a bit of a chubby.  I understand a bit more how the Greedheads feel most of the time.  

"Daddy's financially fit."

It is like being professional athlete in a way.  Sort of a superpower.  

I might do some more.  And that's the sure way I'll go broke.  Trust me.  

"Everybody's got money now," I told the bank lady.  

"Not everybody.  Just here in this town."

That's what I meant.  I drive out of my little town's city limits from time to time.  But how do all those boys afford those muscle cars with the loud assed pipes and those god awful loud car stereos?  

There are all kinds of wealth, I guess.  

I have cousins who are hillbilly rich.  You know what I mean.  

"My family and I are emotionally rich.  I wouldn't trade that for Trump money."

Reminds me of that song. 

Still at the end of every hard day
People find some reason to believe

 Me?  I just overestimate myself, but that keeps getting harder every day.  

"Hey boy, what're you doing?"

"Carving a wooden duck."

What can I say?  

 

What More?

I've been experimenting with the gel plate transfers.  I finally got an image, but not much of one.  This is a magazine transfer that I took a photo of with my phone and futzed with until you could see it.  The actual transfer is not nearly so visible.  

I left my mother on a Sunday afternoon thinking I would take another walk down the Boulevard.  When I got to my house, though, I thought I'd hook up my old color laser printer.  I need laser prints for transfers.  I got it hooked up after a lot of moving things and running the cabling, and later that same day, I fired it up.  Oh, yea.  Lines running through the prints.  I'd forgotten.  So I Googled "how to get rid of lines in my laser prints" or something like that.  There were lots of videos.  So I did that, taking the thing apart and cleaning the parts for a couple hours.  I was blowing laser toner all around the room and breathing it, and I think it fucked me up.  I was kind of worried that I had done some serious permanent damage.  But when I put the laser printer back together. . . it had only gotten worse.  

I had some old laser prints lying around "from the day," so to see if they were still good for transfers, I tried one on bad paper with a transfer pen.  

The toner did transfer.  The transfer could have been better on good paper, but I wasn't willing to go that deep not knowing if the prints would still work.  So now I was ready to try a gel plate transfer.  I lay down the black acrylic paint, then put down the laser print and rolled it out with a brayer and the knuckles of my hand.  I waited ten seconds and pulled the laser print off, and I could see an image left behind.  Ooooo.  So I let that dry.  Well, I helped it dry by using my hair dryer.  I wasn't sure if that was a good idea or not.  When it was dry, I lay down a layer of white acrylic paint and pressed down a piece of paper on top.  I let that sit for twenty minutes, then, feeling anxious, I pulled the paper off the gel plate.  

Again, the actual print was not as visible as this is.  

Next I tried the "Vanities" print at top from a page out of an old Vanity Fair magazine.  

And the day had gotten away from me.  I had gone to the grocers earlier and was making small red beans and pork in the InstaPot for dinner.  My mother always loves that one.  My mother called.  I forget why.  It put me on notice, though, so I put away my art toys, jumped in the shower, and loaded the car for the trip back to my mother's.  

It was a beautiful day, and I was making all my transfers outside on the deck atop the glass topped table.  People stopped by.  First a neighbor who was walking her dog.  

"How's your mother doing?"

So I went through the litany--short version.  Her own mother had died at the age of 95 this year.  She told me all about it.  They had her in a facility and had hospice taking care of her.  It was hard.  

Ho!  

But the thing I took from the conversation is that Hospice isn't just for killing people at the end of their lives.  Not right away.  They will come and provide care and assistance the neighbor said, and Medicare covers the cost.  She sent me a link.  I'm skeptical about this, but if someone can give me some relief. . . oh, my. . . I'll take it.  

Then a little Vespa pulled into the driveway.  It was Tennessee and his wife.  I asked them how Cows and Cabs went.  

"It wasn't worth the money," T's wife exclaimed.  

T told me who he saw there, a crooks gallery of middle-aged pretenders.  

"Who bought THEIR tickets," I laughed.  

"Right?" 

He spoke of the VIP section.  

"I sure as hell wouldn't go if I wasn't VIP.  I wouldn't want to pay to be little people."

I could tell they agreed.  

And so, though I didn't get around to taking a walk, the day was a pretty good one nonetheless, that little part of the afternoon I was able to steal.  

I was up part of the night.  Something was wrong with the HVAC.  The inside fan was not turning off when the compressor did.  I got up a couple times to futz with it.  Then I'd lie in bed waiting for it to come on and turn off.  I fell asleep at some point, and when I woke up, the inside fan was off.  Had it healed itself?  Ha!  You know that doesn't happen.  But the sun was up.  It was eight o'clock.  I woke just in time to put together my mother's meds.  I had things to do.  Her house cleaner is coming today.  I needed to get sheets into the washer.  I stumbled around all muzzy headed.  

And now?  Oh, I have much to do today.  I have to get something notarized for the roofing company.  I have to get to two banks.  I am going to try the gym for the first time in a week.  Maybe.  I am still feeling a bit off.  

And I want to interview strangers.  With photos.  What?  

Oh. . . I have a new crush.  

Nuzzi, 32, lives in a tiny house in the heart of Malibu where lizards crawl into her kitchen and the King James Bible and “The Divine Comedy” — two books she was reading while she was writing “American Canto” — sit on her dining room table. She drives around in a white Mustang convertible, like a Lana Del Rey song come to life.

Olivia Nuzzi (link).   

Shithouse rat crazy, probably.  Yea. . . I can't help myself.  A femme fatale if there ever was one.  But, this one sold me:

Over the past year, she found herself interviewing strangers, and missed, she said, “relating to the world and everyone in it that way.” 

Life lessons there. . 

The article ends with this:

I made a joke about how [Eric] Adams had seemingly thrown away his life just to fly business class.

Nuzzi shrugged.

“I destroyed mine for less,” she said. 

Classic!  Another Joan Didion, maybe.  I will read her book.  

So. . . that's a lot for a guy who doesn't get out, right?  And now there is season 2 of "Land Man."  

What more can a fellow ask for?  

Man on a Wire

And of course, before anything else, you want the health report. A partly cloudy morning gave way to a bright and sunny afternoon followed by dangerous evening storms. I could explain, but should I? A writer has to make decisions. I learned that from watching "Wonder Boys."  

I was feeling better but not great in the morning.  I'd gotten up early, and after I'd made breakfast for my mother and myself, I went back to bed.  Sometime before noon, I told my mother I needed to go see if my house was still there.  When I got there, I put on some walking clothes, grabbed a camera, and headed out the door.  

It hurt.  Everything did, so I went slowly.  My health and wellbeing have declined over the past months as I spend most of my time with my mother and other patients in medical buildings.  I've always known that if you spend all your time with hillbillies, that is what you will look like.  That is why, as soon as I could once I came back to live in this town, I moved to the Boulevard.  I still look like a hillbilly, but less so.  More so now, maybe.  But that is not my point.  You can't be truly well if you spend all your time with sick people.  Now you might query, "What about doctors?  What about nurses?"  My answer can only be an astonished, "I don't know how they do it."  I don't know about nurses, but statistically, doctors don't live as long as the general public.  Maybe I'll research nurses later.  But. . .. and here's the difference. . . they don't spend ALL their time with sick people.  They do it in shifts.  And doctors spend very little time with patients anymore.  At least not specialists.  They have PAs to do all that work.  

My shifts are 20-24 hours long, 7 days a week.  It is almost all I do.  

My walk was a tremendous thing, however.  I walked down the Boulevard.  It was quite lively.  All the sidewalk tables were full, people eating and drinking and laughing.  I stopped in shops to look for new glassware and found some lovely gold rimmed coupe glasses that I will go back and buy this week.  I slipped into the bookstore.  I meandered over to the North Pasture to look at the Cabs and Cows setup.  As I looked through the fencing meant to keep the little people out, I saw a tent with "VIP Lounge" proudly stenciled on.  I knew that I would never go to an event with a VIP section unless I was in it.  To pay $275 for a ticket and still be little people. . . nope.  I'm either in or out.  I'm not going just to swell the crowd.  

Again, I don't know how people do it.  

At one time, I was in.  Now, I'm out.  Hillbilly, full cycle.  

By the time I got home, my hips and back and right knee were killing me, but I was feeling much, much better than I had.  A little sunshine and a little meandering on the Boulevard had put me back into a living frame of mind.  

I decided I felt well enough to try another gel plate transfer.  I got everything ready--gel plate, acrylic paints, transfer paper, and brayers, and took it all out to the deck.  I lay everything out on the big glass table, took a deep breath, and dove in.  

Nope.  WTF?  

I think I now know what I did wrong.  I'll give it another shot today.  

I threw some clothes into the wash and took a long hot shower.  Washed my hair.  Felt squeaky clean.  Used potions and lotions and unguents on my face and neck and arms and legs.  I was beginning to look less cadaverish.  

I needed to drive the Xterra, and I needed new running/walking shoes, and REI, I thought, was having a sale.  When I got there, I reached for my. . . oops.  I'd left my wallet in the other car.  It turned out to be o.k. though.  I didn't like the look of any of the Hokas and they were not on sale at all.  I wasn't tempted to pay $175 for a pair of ugly shoes.  

I wandered around the store.  The place was full of healthy, pretty people, outdoor people.  They were hikers, runners, kayakers, bikers.  They looked fit.  

I was getting depressed limping around the store.  I had been one of them my whole life.  I could barely walk the Boulevard any longer.  I was going to have to get a new knee.  Maybe more.  

But the day was lovely and I was happyish nonetheless.  I drove slowly home in my fixed up Xterra, power steering, a.c., battery and starter, and oil, too.  It was purring.  I only wished it had a bluetooth stereo.  

"We can't have everything we want, now, can we?"

Back home, shoeless, I switched the clothes from the washer to the dryer and sat down at the big computer.  The phone rang.  It was in the kitchen.  I couldn't jump up and run to get it.  It was a slow, torturous rise and limp, but I made it just in time.  

"Hello."

"Where are you?  I'm just sitting here.  I can't get the t.v. to work.  I don't have anything to do."

"What do you want for dinner?"

"I don't want anything.  I just ate some cottage cheese and pineapple.  When are you coming back?"

I didn't want to go to the grocers and then cook for myself.  I wanted to get something from the Italian restaurant, but that would take too long.  Shit, piss, fuck, sonofabitch, goddamn. 

I ended up buying some "healthy" frozen meals.  They tasted like lightly seasoned cardboard.  Only the Negroni was good.  Before I had dinner, I made one and sat outside.  I had "fixed" my mother's t.v. blues, but she followed me out.  We sat.  She told me about her day.  I could feel myself collapsing internally.  It was a beautiful evening.  My friends would be preparing for a big Saturday night.  Even a little one sounded great.  I was in for another evening of t.v. with my mother under the big fluorescent light.  Dark by six. . . a long night ahead.  

I felt broken completely.  

So. . . there is that.  At nine-thirty I took drugs and went to bed.  

Oh. . . I did take photos on my walk.  Nothing good.  I will walk again today, a gentle comeback.  I don't have a lot left to come back with.  

I wish I had something else to tell you.  I really do.  I wish I could tell you tales of romance and adventure.  Oh, sure, it would be bragging, and I would try to mitigate that with self-deprecation.  We've been down that highway before.  But it would at least be more colorful a tale.  

I really do need to start writing pure fiction here, but there is no way I could crank out a story every day.  

That's me in the illustration above.  No, not the juggler.  That little clown in the background looking on.  

Ho!

Carnival of the Mind

I'm certain you are checking in first thing today to see how I am feeling.  Thank you for your concern.  

Ho!

I guess whatever I have is "going around."  I'm getting reports of other people suffering from the same symptoms.  The difference in most cases, however, was that they had someone to bring them medicine, food, and drink while they rested up and got well.  

Just sayin'.   

The tenant called me to see how I was feeling.  She told me there was a lot of activity on the Boulevard.  There were tents and a stage erected in what is now being called "The North Pasture."  

"You'd think Taylor Swift was coming to perform."

Turns out to be the annual benefit "Cows and Cabs."  It raises a million dollars each year for charities.  The best chefs and restaurants prepare food and drinks, and we have any number of Michelin and James Beard awarded chefs here now.  Celebrities come just to mill about the crowd.  The shindig is tonight.  You must dress up in Western Wear.  It is a real hoot for "private wealth" financiers and old attorneys to dress up and play cowboy like they are on a dude ranch.  

"All hat and no horse," as the saying goes.  

"But I have a Harley and go to Bike Week every year!"

Many of them have pickup trucks to show their connections to the working class, big ass $100,000 dollar things they get detailed every week, trucks without a scratch on them.  Most of them are as useless with tools as I am. . . and that's "real useless."  

But all the buckaroos and. . . what?. . . buckettes?. . . will be in full regalia tonight.  

"It's an expensive ticket," I told the tenant.  "$275/person.  You can't get one now, though.  They sold out a while ago."

"Your ex-wife will be there," she said.  

"A lot of my ex's will be, I'm sure.  It's a Who's Who of the Boulevard.  See and be seen."

I knew that Tennessee and his crowd would all be there.  You have to give "face" if you want to run with the Big Dogs.  

"Listen," said the tenant, "I want to call an electrician.  I keep getting shocked in the apartment."

!!!!!

It is always something.  

"What do you mean you keep getting shocked?  Where?" 

"In different rooms.  I got shocked in the bathroom washing my hands."

"Don't call an electrician.  You need to call Ghost Busters."

I don't charge her 1/4 of what I should be getting for the rent, and I keep thinking to ask her to move, that I she is costing me more money than I get from her.  

Later, I got a call from Tennessee.  He's been gone for weeks.  

"What's up, nig?" 

"How are you doing?"

"You know.  Same old shit, except I've had something bad.  Feel like Fido's ass."

"I've been sick, too.  Head and body?"

"Yup." 

He told me he'd been out golfing with the Big Dogs that day at the Four Seasons golf course or some such place where you pay outrageous greens fees so that you don't have to see the little people.  

"After that, we went to a Ferrari car event.  You should have seen that crowd."

"Yea. . . you sound really sick."

"Is it time for my pills yet?"

Make dinner, wash dishes, put together meds, watch t.v., go to bed.  

I'll need to get off the cold meds today.  Maybe take a walk around the block.  

I "made" some carnival pictures yesterday.  They are images that should exist, and now they do.  I will make more of them.  These are images from my dreams, and now I think I should write some stories abut them.  

"Should," not "will."  

The sad clown and the despondent hoochie coochie dancer and a wicker bottle of wine.  Right?  They need names.  They need stories.  Somewhere in the far distance, there needs be music.  I've heard it before, both in movies and in life, but I can't find a recording of such a thing anywhere.  Faint, carried and modulated by the wind.  

If you have been here for a VERY long time, you may remember the videos I made of the miniature carnival I set up for the kid long, long ago.  I am not at home with my hard drives or I would pull one up for you here.  It only just occurred to me.  I've told you ancient stories, too, of my childhood encounters with "little person" clowns.  Hmm.  Pieces of a puzzle?  

Holy smokes!  It just occurred to me that long, long ago, in the early days of the studio, I intended to shoot a circus series, too.  

Maybe I need to delve deeper.  There may be some dark, hidden secret here.  

I should write out sketches, anyway.  If nothing else, I will "make" more images.  

The day is clear and bright and the air is cool and dry.  I'm not quite "there" yet, but I should try to take a walk to get some of it into me.  Maybe I'll go back to my own home for a bit this afternoon and walk the Boulevard.  I need to see something other than this endless beige sea and the inside of my own sickness plagued head.  

AM or FM

I live the life of an isolato.  I know the holiday thing is going on somewhere out there.  I saw evidence yesterday when I took my mother for her renal scan.  There was a huge fake Christmas tree in giant lobby of the medical building.  That is my connection to the outside world now, medical buildings.  It seems the whole world is in wheelchairs or walkers or using canes.  

The night before her scan, I got up to take my four hour dose of NyQuil.  My mother was standing in the kitchen holding onto the edge of the sink with a wild look in her eye.  

"I've lost it," she said.  

"Lost what?"

"I don't know if it is AM or FM."

"What?  AM or FM?"

"Whatever it is--day or night."

And so it goes here.  She was supposed to fast before her scan.  In the morning, I heard her bumping around in the cabinets.  When I went into the kitchen, she was eating.  

"WTF?"

Later, I called the doc's office and told them she had eaten some breakfast biscuits at six.  She was scheduled for one.  After a bit, the woman came back on the line and said it was o.k. just as long as she didn't eat anything more.  

These are my social interactions.  This morning, lying in bed just before rising, I was thinking about college.  My old college roommate isn't doing well and is in a rehab facility right now.  He's not experiencing the holiday season, either.  Lying in bed, though, I could feel the energy we drew from the season then.  It infected the entire campus.  Nothing overt, just a feeling.  We weren't that far from childhood then.  There were still the old stirrings inside us, I guess.  

Even at the factory, such things lingered, and now, living the life I do, I miss that sense of community.  

But culture wars have taken their toll on all that, the whole "melting pot" vs. "diversity" issue.  Multiculturalism hasn't panned out quite like it was supposed to.  

But I would like to be walking on the Boulevard in the brisk autumnal air, watching people, having lunches and drinks, and feeling the vibe.  

This cold has really been kicking my ass.  I'm going to come out the end of this tunnel looking peaked and puny and pale.  

I like alliterations.  

I may need one more day in bed.  I slept all the live long day yesterday but for needing to take my mother to the doctor's office.  I think another day of complete rest is going to be required. 

I feel I'm missing everything.  

I watched a couple documentaries on Edie Sedgwick last night.  They both mentioned a film she made, "Ciao! Manhattan."  I found the movie on YouTube (link).  Wow!  As the old song says, "Those were different times."  I couldn't live that way.  I enjoy my emotions too much.  They say that the coupe glass was shaped after the breasts of Marie Antoinette.  Maybe, but you can see that they sure look a hell of a lot like Sedgwick's breasts, too.  

"She was very proud of them."

And rightfully so, I think.  

I read an article today about a researcher who has done Adolph Hitler's genome sequence and found that he had a disease that would have kept his testicles from descending and would likely have given him a micropenis (link).  Don't you wonder what they might find out about YOU if they sequenced your genes?  

"Well, I guess that explains it."

I sure as shit hope they do Trump's.  Like yesterday.  

I'm still awed by people's fascination with Epstein, and I still think people are motivated by two bad desires.  One is "getting Trump."  Like we need more "proof."  The other is just secret desire.  

"We need to see ALL the evidence."

They are not going to produce the pictures and videos you morons.  Only "special" people will have access to those.  You are just going to have to keep using your dirty little imaginations when you think nobody is around.   

There is a statue outside the offices of the BBC of George Orwell smoking a cigarette.  On it an inscription  reads "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." 

You can tell people what they don't want to hear, but you'll have to suffer the consequences of that.  He forgot to say that part (link).  Megyn Kelly spoke a truth about the Epstein thing and the women of CNN lost their minds.  

"One of the victims even had braces for God's sake!"

Uh. . . I hate to say it, but Kelly is right.  You just hate her because she is another one of those made up doll looking republican cokehead beauties.  And, as a friend of mine wrote to me today, "Kelly knows what she is talking about, I'm certain."  She was very specific.  Fifteen.  

Last night, my mother asked me a curious question.  

"What made you get so interested in these gel plates?"

I'd been watching YouTube videos trying to learn how to use them.  I didn't really have a response.  I had no words.  It was a good question.  All I could come up with was, "I want to make something."

Twenty to twenty-four hours a day, I take care of my mother.  We can't have conversations because she can't hear.  We just exchange essential information.  

"Is it AM or FM?"

Beats me, mom.  Beats me.  

Spared

This may be the worst cold I've ever had.  It is hard to remember.  I haven't had a cold for a very long time, so maybe I have simply forgotten how bad a cold can be.  I've taken everything I can get my hands on to make it less severe.  NyQuil seems to help more than does Mucinex in case you are asking.  It is time for my next four hour dose.  

Now there's some high powered reporting.  

I stayed in bed much of the day and on the couch most of the rest.  I had to venture out to get drugs and food, and I had to go home to pick up a package, and that all but did me in.  So I haven't anything to report on other than my own misery.  

Or I could opine.  

I'll spare you that and more, however.  I think I will go back to bed for the world is dark and cold and makes no sense to me right now.  I feel only deep down chthonic things.  

A Cold, Not a Fever

I am sick this morning with something I'm pretty sure I picked up in the hospital sitting all day with my mother on Sunday.  Head and body.  I took two antihistamines before bed but my nose ran like a faucet all night.  

Just thought you'd want to know.  

Still, I soldier on.  

Here's the creative report.  Nothing came of my gel plate transfer.  I went back and watched more YouTube videos last night and saw what I was doing wrong.  Maybe.  It is going to be a lot of trial and error.  I don't know why I want to do this at all, really, as the images that come off the plate are monochrome, just like any plate printing technique.  But, as always, I believe I can "outsmart" the process, that I will find a way to make something nobody else is making.  Why do I think that?  Because I think I am a genius in that way even if I am retarded in others.  O.K.  Not a genius.  But I am a clever boy.  

I have ideas for doing three color printing as you would with silkscreen, but it is a lot of work, especially with getting the images lined up.  But I think it possible.  

I did some other experiments yesterday, too.  I ran some Japanese rice paper through the printer, and that worked.  The images are soft in both color and detail, not like printing on a good photo quality paper at all.  The images will be good for something, though.  I have ideas.  

I also ran a Japanese Kozo inkjet paper that was delivered yesterday, and that makes a lovely soft image, too.  I just got notice, however, that because of Trump's tariff and trade policies, they can no longer ship their papers to the U.S. and can only send them by air.  The extra cost will be reflected in the price.  

Thanks Trump.  

I have a lot of experimenting before I know what I can do or even want to do.  

This morning, I had an idea.  Chat will now make an exact copy of an image in any treatment style I have described and that we have built.  I have a whole catalog of them now that I can call up . Too many, really, and I will have to whittle them down for now they are enough that I am overwhelmed.  I have an idea that I MIGHT be able to recreate my old Polaroid series, but if not, there are infinite ways to make the image that I might like.  The shoe image at the top was just a rough start, not with my own photo but with an A.I. generated one.  I am excited to work with my own pictures in. . . piss shit fuck goddamn!  Chat won't let me work with any of my "provocative" images.  And this is a real bummer.  Nudity is a taboo on Chat.CalvintheReformer.  And it is not JUST nudity.  Provocative poses, too, no matter how covered up the person is.  

The other thing I did manage to do today, though, was to get the images rendered in high enough resolution to make big prints, so there is that.  Big shoes!  

I am going to work with Chat to develop some Photoshop actions that might let me work my images in a similar way to Chat.  I've tried before, but the results were not good.  I am, however, intrepid.  

I don't think I'll have the energy to work on any of it today, though.  I'm thinking cold medicine and sleep.  It IS a cold and not a fever.  And that is good news.  

I had to make an art store run again yesterday to get more supplies for the project.  When I was checking out the young woman behind the counter asked if I was a student or a prof.  If so, I would get a discount.  I was, I said, but I don't have my i.d  O.K., she said, I'll trust you.  

"Right?  I'd either have to be a yard guy or a prof to look like this."

"No. . . you look wise."

I've never been told that one before.  I think she was fucking with me.  Still, 15% is 15%.  The bill was still north of $100.  

When I walked to my car, there was a fellow parked next to my mother's car, probably in his 60s.  He had an interesting look about him.  When he saw me, he asked, "Do you have any jumper cables?"  He had a pronounced Italian accent.  

"I don't think so.  This is my mother's car.  Let me look in the trunk." 

There were none.  

"Sorry. . . no."

He said he had to pick his wife up in half an hour.  He looked a bit panicked.  

"What happens when you try to start it?  Does the starter turn?"

"You try.  Just push the button."

So I climbed into his car and pushed the button.  It made a cha-chink noise but just barely.  I looked at his gauges.  New cars don't tell you how much voltage your battery has.  It is impossible to tell unless the fact that the battery icon was in red meant something.  

I got out of the car and went to the front of it and rocked it back and forth.  If the problem was the starter, sometimes this helps.  

Nope.  

"Try taking in out of park and then putting it back in," I said.  

There was no gear shifter.  It was all electronic buttons.  

"I don't know anything about new cars," I confessed.  Then I remembered the tenants problem was that the battery in the key fob was weak.  

"Give me your key," I said.  I held it close to the ignition button, but that did nothing. I got out of the car and handed him back his key.  He got into his car and looked to see if he could insert it in the keyhole, but of course there was no keyhole.  

"That will only unlock your car door," I said.  "Do you have AAA?"

"No," he said shaking his head.  

"You are just going to have to keep asking people if they have jumper cables,"I said.  

He looked sad when I got in my car to go.  I hated to leave him stranded, but what could I do?  I still had errands to run.  

I went to my bank.  Oops.  Veteran's Day.  I went to Office Depot to look at laser printers.  I can get one for $350, but refills on toner cost around $90 per color.  CYMK.  Around $360.  I didn't even know if I was going to keep using the gel mat transfer, so I punted on the idea.  

I don't know what I will do today.  I want to go to my house and lie in my own bed, but I'll probably stay here at my mother's and try to sleep away the cold.  I need medicine, though, and will have to make a trip.  

At least there is no fever.  

Here's a song I feel in my bones today.  Maybe more than just today.  When I first heard it, I felt they had written it just for me. 

Scrapbooking?

Alright.  I don't know what I am doing yet.  I've created a bunch of new presets in "the tool" that I am using.  Or it may be using me.  Whichever, I have only begun, so my abilities are not refined yet.  It is going to take some time.  Right now, I am making reference images for things I might like to make 3D.  What I am imagining right now isn't even taking solid shape.  It might.  It could.  But then. . . what will I be making?  Will I be one of those "crafty" people?  Collage and assemblage are art forms, but holy shit, look on YouTube and you'll see my fears.  Stamps and dye transfers and bits of paper and ribbon. . . and I may use them all.  I've written several times about seeing the Peter Beard exhibit in SoHo.  I even bought a gel plate yesterday.  I went to the art supply store and looked around.  It is always both overwhelming and inspiring going there, but then you mingle with the folks making Star Wars cartoons and the bottom seems to just fall out.  It'a fine line, you know.  

I'll tell you what is really scary.  There is only one art supply store left in town.  There used to be many.  What is one supposed to make of such a thing?  

I'm heading into unfamiliar territory with a head full of half-baked ideas.  I plan on using some of my old Polaroids to make images.  Haven't a clue, though, how that will turn out.  And from what I've read, it takes a lot of experience to make good prints from the gel plate, and as I confessed yesterday, I've taken workshops with both famous and not so famous people using different mediums, and every time, I was the lousiest artist in the room.  Once in a local workshop with average people, I was sitting next to a teen girl who was making fantastic collages.  I told her so, and she said, "You are too careful.  You need to just loosen up an put things on the page."  

Ha!  She was right.  My pages were all 90 degree images.  I was afraid to "make a mistake."  I was simply a tight ass.  But I hadn't grown up a little girl which I think is a disadvantage in collaging.  I've always wanted to do a photo series of girls' bedrooms.  Oh, you bet--I know what you are thinking.  But here's what I'm thinking.  The walls of little girls' rooms are always collages.  They make the loveliest things from an early age.  Boys put up a poster of an athlete or later a sexy girl or a beer commercial.  I was of that ilk.  But girls put up cut up magazine ads, photos, bits of lace. . . I don't know.  If I knew, I would do it.  

But yea. . . I know what you're thinking.  I know I've led you to such conclusions.  But try a little self-reflection, O.K.?  It says much about your filthy little brains.  

All in all, I have a lot of work to do and frustration to work through before I make a 3D image that I like, I'm sure.  

And then what?  

Beats the hell out of me.  It will go into a drawer with all my other prints.  

Brilliant!  

Selavy.  

You're cold this morning.  I am, too.  Temperatures dipped to freezing and below here in the sunny south.  I have to admit that my mother's house stays much warmer than my drafty 1920's home.  But the days will warm up quickly here and we will be in the 80s again soon.  I am a lazy southerner who does not like to get dressed.  Oh, I like to visit the cold, or at least I used to.  But putting on and taking off layers of clothing to go in and out seems like a horrible lifetime existence to a lazy southerner, about as horrible as you feel about living in a humid swamp half the year.  

If I win the billion dollar lotto this week. . . . 

This is to say, I got a bit of distraction yesterday and was out in the world of shadow and light.  I had a whiff of the old feeling again if only for a moment.  The world seemed technicolor in the later afternoon. 

And then. . . it was home to mother.  I have a lot going on, but I have a fantasy creative life, too, and maybe that will be enough to keep me going for awhile.  Don't hate on me.  I need the distraction.  

 

Every Story Needs a Picture, Don't It?

Bliss be gone.  Up the chimney (or chimley as it is called by "my people").  It was a typical Sunday morning.  It was cloudy and getting ready to rain.  I got up.  My mother got up.  I gave her meds, made breakfast.  I was hanging out and waiting for the gym to open at noon.  It was around then that I went out to the car to get my gym bag.  My mother was sitting in her chair.  She looked up at me and said, "I fell again,"  I felt the tingling in the back of my neck.  

"Are you o.k.?"

"I hurt.  Do you think I should go to the hospital?"

"I don't know.  I can't tell you how you feel.  Stand up."

She did.

"Does it feel as if anything is broken?"

"I don't know.  Maybe my foot."  

She sat back down.  

"You'd better call 911."

Shit piss fuck goddamn.  

Ten minutes later, my mother was on the gurney and off to the hospital. . . once again . 

I went into the house and sat down trying to sort through my cascade of emotions.  I was familiar with this drill now.  I would wait a bit to go to the hospital.  It would be awhile before anything happened.  

There was a knock on the door.  I didn't want to answer it.  It would be the neighbors wanting to know what happened.  I sat.  There was a harder knocking at the door.  It was the woman from across the street and the woman from a couple houses down.  

"What happened?"

I told them.  That wasn't enough, though.  They asked more questions, wondered aloud what I should do.  I told them I was worn out with all of this.  The woman across the street wondered if mom shouldn't be put in a home.  I said she had been at rehab and just wanted to come back to her house.  Of course.  

"My mother was in a home, and boy, she ran that place." 

I said that's what people do.  My cousin, for instance.  He father was in a facility and she and her brother never went to see him.  Her husband's mother was in a facility near them and again, they hardly ever went to see them.  His brother is in a rehab place very close to where they live, and they go to see him every couple weeks.  

"That's what people do," I said.  

"I'll be glad to come over and watch her for a couple hours any time you want," said the across the street neighbor. 

"I don't need a couple of hours.  I need a couple weeks, a month. . . ."  

She stood up in a huff.  She grabbed her dog's leash and said, "Come on. . . I'm going.  I tried."

She made a show of it.  The other neighbor stood mouth agape, looking.  

"OK," I said.  

"Asshole."  

"I don't need this right now," I said.  

"I don't either." 

The other neighbor looked at me and said, "I'm sorry.  She can be a bitch."  

I just waved my hand and said, "I've got to go."

I was stewing on the drive to the hospital.  It was going to be another long day sitting in an ER room.  

When I got there, my mother was lying in bed connected with electrodes to the machine that beeps constantly.  There was no chair in the room.  I went into the hallway to look for one. 

"Can I help you," a nurse asked.  

"There is no chair in the room," I said.  

"Oh.  I'll get one." 

She was strong.  She brought in a very substantial chair.  

Later a boy came in to take her to X-ray.  She was getting X-rays all over her side and a CT scan on her head.  I sat in the empty room and waited.  Half an hour or so later, when she was brought back to the room, a nurse said it would take an hour, hour and a half to get the results.  My mother asked for pain meds.  He brought her Tylenol and a muscle relaxer.  

"She gets Percocet and Gabopentin four times a day," I said.  "That stuff isn't going to do anything for her."  

"Why does she take Percocet four times a day?" he asked.  

"What's your guess?  What do you think she takes a pain killer for?  Blood pressure?  Runny nose?  An infection?"

No, again. . . I didn't say that.  I just looked like I said it.  I told him I had her meds with me, and he said go ahead and give them to her.  Hmm.  O.K.  First time I'd ever heard that one in a hospital. . 

He left.  

"I'm going to go for coffee," I told my mother.  

The little cafeteria closest to the ER was closed.  The hospital didn't look as clean and shiny as it had before.  I had about half a mile's walk to get to the cafeteria.  My knee was swollen from running the day before, and it hurt.  

"I'm a mess," I thought.  "I'm falling apart."

There is a lot more wrong with me than just my knee.  

The cafeteria was half shut down.  There was little hot food and what there was sucked.  I got coffee.  It was bad.  I sat down for a minute.  The hospital had definitely been downgraded.  I had spent enough time here to know.  

When I got back to my mother's room, a pretty woman was standing in the doorway.  She turned and smiled.  

"Oh. . . hello. She was just asking where you were."

O.K.  Really terrible bad confession.  I thought she was a nurse.  

"I'm Doctor So and So.  Your mother's X-rays didn't show any broken bones.  Her head scan looked good, so there is no reason to keep her here.  I'm going to get her discharged now."

"Great," I said.  

When the doc had gone, my mother said, "That's good news."

"Yup."  

It was going on five.  We drove through the rain and the dark of day in silence.  When the two neighbors were talking to me earlier, one of them laughed and said, "She always says you pick and bitch at her all the time."  I now had an attitude.  I told my mother what was said.  This is something my mother likes to tell people. 

I am a slave.  You can scoff and laugh and do whatever you like.  But I am a servant for over twenty hours a day.  My mother can only sit and make messes.  I never get to sit for more than a few minutes at a time.  All the time.  Every day.  And there is no end to this in sight.  I have no life outside of this and trying to get my own home repaired.  I'm sick of people telling me they went through a similar thing with their grandparent or parent.  They haven't.  Nobody I have talked to was the sole caretaker without relief.  

If there is a heaven and a hell as in the fairy tales, I am certain to go to hell.  Really.  For all the slave work I do, the way I feel about it will put me in the eternal flames.  

Selavy.  

Before my mother fell, I was looking at the IG page of a mixed media artist.  She made tiny little books.  They intrigued me (link).  I'd sent her a message and she replied sweetly.  I wanted to make something like this.  I'd made a couple of books, but nothing of this scale.  I'm afraid I love collages.  It seems inane to me but I can't help it.  Mixed media.  

made with AI from her inspiration

I've taken workshops.  I am very bad at it.  Very.  

I was making dinner for my mother and myself--spaghetti and broccoli.  Quick and simple but for the clean up.  And I was thinking.  I resigned myself to this.  I haven't let myself admit that I would be doing this for virtually ever.  Now I did.  My life as a slave would continue for a long time.  And so. . . I needed to get some things to make my life here more bearable.  

I decided I would turn my mother's garage into my studio.  I'd get rid of most of her things in there and set up a work station.  I'd bring my stands and lighting and backdrops and all the paraphernalia for photoshoots.  There was plenty of room.  I would put in an electric heater for when it was cool and a portable air conditioner for when it was warm.  I would get a printer to keep here, a bigger one.  Fuck it.  I'd sit in the garage and make pictures.  

It didn't make me happy. . . but happyish.  There was still the creative block, the bad and frustrating mixed media things I'd make.  But. . . I decided that is what I would do.  

Oh. . . the AA thing went out the window last night.  When I was getting groceries for the spaghetti dinner,  I also bought an expensive bottle of wine and a fifth of scotch.  After dinner, I told my mother what I planned to do in her garage.  No reaction.  I kept thinking about what I would photograph there.  

"Hey, ma. . . don't come into the garage.  I've got naked girls out here, O.K."

Ha!  I didn't really care.  But would they?  

"You live with your mother?"

"Yea, yea. . . listen, put on the mask and take off your clothes.  HEY MA. . . DON'T COME OUT HERE!"

Fun scenario.  

I don't plan on doing nudes anymore.  I don't know.  What pictures do people want to see now?  We are saturated with images.  Oversaturated.  

There is an actual photo of my mother in the hospital bed, but I prefer the Rockwell version.  Photography has begun to bore me unless I use it to make illustrations from the pictures.  But I still have much to learn.  

I'm a disturbed man now, I guess.  I drank wine and whiskey and then a THC drink.  I took a Xanax.  I went to bed at ten and when I woke up at midnight, I took an Advil PM and a Tylenol.  I still couldn't sleep and got out of bed at 4:30.  I'll probably go back to bed after I post this.  

Really.  I've taken lots of media workshops.  Everybody else in them was better than I.  But the garage is the perfect place for me to try it.  That is the usual place where old men carve wooden ducks.  

Yesterday Today

My mind is everywhere this morning.  This could end up being a journal entry (like a lot of what is here, I guess), or it cold be some trippy phantasmagoria.  I am here, I am there.  Yea, cool cats. . . I'm everywhere.  

First observation of the morning--some stains upon the silence are worse than others.  Was Beckett speaking of writing when he made his declaration?  Living with my mother now, it becomes obvious to me that much it is auditory.  Obvious statements of fact, of course, that are proposed as mundane commentary, for instance, or the constant moving of plates and forks and bottles across a wooden table, the forceful setting down of the morning cup of coffee, not just plunked but then slid back and forth turning my nerve strands into barbed wire, a useless, unnecessary cacophony.  

To whatever Beckett was referring, I am inferring.  But I think my statement holds up either way.  

The noise abates momentarily.  I try to regain my composure.  Where was I?  The morning's bliss is already dissipating.  I am no longer everywhere.  I am here, anchored, heavy.  Fuck. 

Oh, Christ. . . what did I have in mind?  I am lost.  

I read a headline today (not the article) that many therapists are using ChatGPT for both their clients and themselves.  As you have probably garnered if you have been here much, I am not a fan of therapy or therapists.  Nope.  And especially not of this "many."  WTF?  It is idiocy.  They are asking for advice from a company who is balls deep in creating social control?  Do they not know that the responses of "the tool" are curated and censored?  There are things it just won't say or do.  

From a creative perspective, it is poison.  The tool is constantly changing, the "guardrails" getting strained and "disinfected."  I need a stable tool as much as a painter or a musician.  If every time one sat down to play an instrument but of a sudden the resulting sound had been altered . . . well, I don't know what you would do.  If a painters paint colors shifted every day. . . .  

Etc.  

So the therapists are working with an inconstant if they rely on A.I. to help them.  

I desire unconstrained consistency from "the tool."

Emboldened by the little taste of endorphins I experienced this week, I went out to the exercise course to try a little jogging.  Again, slow and careful, but this time on the uneven surface of the earth, a soft track of compacted soil.  I did more than jog.  I skipped, "ran" backwards, did slow crossover steps and side hops.  Just a little, I told myself.  You can come back slowly.  

I was driving the old Xterra.  Fixed up and running fine.  Took it through the car wash.  

And then, the a.c. quit working again.  

I had to get back to my mother's house.  I was taking her to Costco.  She is walking some again, like a Frankenstein sloth, sure, but it is an improvement.  

When I got to her house, there was a car in the driveway.  Shit.  It was some of her friends.  

"You should have been here awhile ago," one friend said to me.  "There were five women in this room.'

"Sure.  That's my heart's desire, to sit in a room full of broken old women.  Can't believe I missed that."

Of course I didn't say that, but sure as hell was glad I missed it.  

I opened a Beer Lite and sat down to hear the chatter.  Now it was all directed at me.  But they had been there awhile and were just getting ready to leave.  

And then they were gone.  

"I'm guessing you are not wanting to go to Costco now."

"No. . . I should go.  Let's go."

Mom pushed the giant shopping cart.  She has shrunk so much.  She looked tiny, surreal, something out of Wonderland.  But she moved it an inch at a time.  I walked behind.  It was torture, and not simply psychological.  My lower back, hips, and one knee were killing me.  

"Oh, boy. . . I fucked up this time," I thought.  The running may not have been a good idea.  

Up one aisle and down another she inched.  I would stop and lean on anything I could trying to take the weight off.  

"Can you get this for me?"

I'd put things in the cart.  

On and on and on, millimeter by fucking millimeter.  I would have been happy for her if I had not been in such pain.  I just wanted to get this nightmare over.  

Out of the entire ordeal, I got a bag of coffee.  A big one that used to cost eleven dollars, now twenty.  Thanks, Trump.  

It was dark.  It was late.  We'd been in the giant warehouse over an hour.

"I'm not cooking.  What do you want?"

We drove down the highway looking for takeout.  

I ended up at the grocery store.  Bought a box of fried chicken.  

Back home.  Made a salad.  Heated up a can of beans.

The whole thing sucked.  

Fuck me. . . I poured a whiskey.  I turned on the t.v.  It was late.  I went to YouTube for news.  

I gave up  on that.  

At the gym, the film professor was asking me if I'd watched this or that.  Then he told me a really bad joke about two economists that made him laugh over and over again.  Then he asked me if I had watched the guy on YouTube who destroyed things.  

"Physical things or ideas?"

"Physical things."

"No."  

He went on to tell me about this guy's show for far too long.  I realized then that you get a glimpse into someone's soul from their YouTube feed.  

"He gets like a billion views every time he posts."

YouTube never recommends such things to me.  I get feeds about the arts, music, and literature.  I get recommendations about philosophy.  Some movie things.  And. . . o.k. boxing and MMA. . . and female pole vaulters.  

Yea. . . a glimpse into the soul. 

I forget that I am paying for a subscription to HBO, but I remembered last night and checked to see what I had been missing.  A Nikki Glaser special popped up--"Someday You'll Die."  2024.  Hadn't I already seen this?  I put it on.  Didn't seem familiar.  So. . . holy shit.  Have you seen this?  It is exactly how I feel about youth and aging and death (link).  

My mother didn't seem to be paying attention, but toward the end, she said, "This woman is horrible."

"Really?  I think she's great."

My mother and I are far apart on what we like.  

When it was over, HBO suggested "The Substance."  I hadn't really been interested in seeing this film, but the film prof and his wife told me to watch half of it and turn it off.  So I did.  

It was a stupid movie with a lot of T&A.  I liked that part, but the movie dragged.  I think the director was too influenced by the pacing of Kubrick's "2001."  I mean it was slow and hollow and fluorescent.  

I took a Tylenol and an Advil PM and went to bed just before ten.  I was hurting.  I was beat.  

I woke up an hour later.  I was puking into my mouth.  I caught it in time so that it didn't come up through my nose.  I little burning in the throat, but not that hours of burning in the nasal cavity.  

The dreams that followed. . . I was dreaming about writing in the morning about the dream.  It seemed so profound.  

And I dreamed I was having such an incredible night's sleep.  

If Ingres, Botticelli, and Messima were one painter. . . .  I've created some wonderful templates in Chat.  I just hate that it won't let me use them the way I wish.  

My mother is up and walking without a walker today.  She wanders around now banging into things, banging cabinets, making noise.  What can I say?  Hillbilly determination and good home care.  I am not as mean to her in life as I am here on the blog.  

I somehow made a little video, "Hopper Creeper #2," that I am not certain I can put on YouTube.  I don't want to get banned.  They, too, are Nazi's about content.  So. . . this is just for the perverted few of you who come to read about "Last Night This Morning."  

That was one idea I had for a blog title.  Hmmm.  

How Can I Be Happy?

Woke at three.  Up at four.  What was wrong?  It made no sene.  I'd had a happy day.  Happy makes you more inviting apparently.  People smile at you and say hello.  You feel more alive, attractive almost.  There is a woman at the gym who I don't really talk to.  I don't talk to women I've not been introduced to at the gym.  I'm observant.  I see the creepers always ready to "help" a pretty woman work out.  They like to "mansplain" and give advice.  Nope.  Not me.  

Anywhere and everywhere, no matter. . . I am shy.  I don't talk to people anywhere uninvited unless I am on a mission to make a picture or a story, and then I am only a persona. 

The woman is strong and well-built, and when she is working out, she has what some call a resting bitch face.  She looks like she could be mean.  But the minute you talk to her, she lights up like a warm candle.  The transformation is crazy.  

She chatted me up (or vice versa) for a very long time.  Nicest person in the world.  We weren't flirting.  She is married and has two kids.  Her husband comes to the gym with her sometimes on the weekend.  No it was just friendly chat.  She had changed her hair, but it a bit shorter but not short, and blonded it, too.  It looks very nice and so I said.  

"How does your husband like it?"

She told me he doesn't like for her to change but that he did like her new hair. 

"I'll bet.  But yea, relationships are about stability.  Home base.  Nobody likes their spouse to change.  It is scary.  You always want your girlfriend or wife to be five or six pounds over ideal weight.  When they start going to the gym, start losing weight, change their wardrobe and hair. . . I always figure it is time to pack my underwear and toothbrush and just move along 'cause they ain't doing that for me."

She laughed at that.  

"Yea, when I start cutting up and losing weight, he always gets nervous."

It has been a hard-learned lesson.  In my experience, women don't leave without a Plan B.  But, you know, some relationships last a lifetime.  

After the gym, I went home and was glad to be there.  I had a call from the roofing guy and we went over what he was going to do and I said, "o.k."  Things were getting done.  They were costing money, but these were necessary things.  Old C.S. was taking care of business.  

When I called my mother to ask her what she wanted to eat, she said she had been eating all day and wasn't hungry, so I went to her house and had a Beer Lite with her before I took myself to a sushi dinner. 

Dinner hit all the high notes.  Everything was perfect. And when the pretty Asian girl brought my edamame, she smiled and said, "Hello. . . welcome back."  I think they are told to say that.  If I owned a restaurant, that is what I would tell them all to say.  What is there to lose?  What percent of the crowd will be coming in for the first time?  Still, I liked it.  I used to ask my students how many compliments they had given that day.  People are bad about giving compliments.  They are only interested in receiving them, by and large.  

"Try it. It hardly matters what compliment you give.  Just say, oh, I love those earrings or simply don't you look nice today.  People will like you better.  Life will go smoother.  Try it.  You'll see."

Scripted or not, her little phrasing had the intended effect.  

But something Woody Allen said in a movie I can't recall has always landed with me. 

"How can I be happy when I know that people are suffering?"

Indeed.  And I was going home to that.  My mother and I sit before the television, but she isn't there.  She isn't watching.  She has gone to some internal place.  She is in pain.  She is worried.  The future ain't what used to be.  And so. . . the guilt.  How can I go out and enjoy myself, how can I be happy, when my own mother is suffering?  I know some people can do it, but I am not of that ilk.  

Thus. . . whatever.  I had sake with dinner and it was good, and I had a whiskey when I got back, and it was good, too, and I watched my mother sit in her chair and look at her hands and so when she grunted and shuffled off to an early bed, I decided to take one of her old hydrocodone tablets.  

But even drinks and the drug didn't put me out.  

Were I a free man, I would put on my workout things and go to the exercise course and be showered and ready for the day by mid-morning.  I might head out of town to the Farmer's Market again or I might take a photowalk somewhere around town before getting lunch.  But I am stuck in place.  My mother will get up and I will put together her meds and sit with her and make her breakfast and sit with her until I feel I can get away for a bit.  My day will be condensed into a couple hours before I start getting things ready for our dinner.  

The 24 or so hours of happiness, though. . . quite something.  

My old college roommate is in the hospital, so I sent him the silly fun Sean Francisco stuff.  He wrote back that it reminded him of our college days.  We were fairly enamored with detective novels then, both classic Spade and Chandler stuff and the new, hipper takes on the old themes written in the contemporary language of a Tom Robbins novel.  One of the good ones was "Ackroyd" by Jules Feiffer.

Whodunnit? Who's Who? And, more importantly, "who the hell am I?" He solved the case of the missing parakeets. Now if he could only figure out who he was... Jules Feiffer works his easy-going wit and biting social satire into his second novel "Ackroyd," which begins as a parody of the Raymond Chandler school of detective fiction, but ultimately asks the age-old Is identity merely a metaphysical conceit? A shamus who may or may not be a sham, Roger Ackroyd (named after the victim in Agatha Christie's most shocking novel) is hired to investigate a case of writer's block by sports writer Oscar Plante. Over the course of five years, in between the bonhomie of Elaine's and tangling with unconventional femmes fatales, Ackroyd's personality begins to merge with his client's as he acquires his ex-wife, his mistress and, eventually, his craft. In "Ackroyd," Feiffer uses the detective genre to further his investigations into human neuroses, and to re-imagine the artist as a young sleuth forced to cope with a corrupt world.

The silliness of my little book cover, then, served to cheer my old friend up.  

I AM a silly man.  Silly and absurd.  It has been my shield and armor against the mean stupidity of the world.  Again, I wouldn't recommend it, but. . . . 

Having said that, the little Hopper Creeper thing I made has gotten more hits on YouTube in two days than anything I have yet done.  I promote nothing.  I just put them up, so other than you people, who I am not even sure watch the vids, I don't know how anyone finds the stuff.  But as C.C. told me long ago about making a blog, "Just write it.  People will show up." 

Of course, C.C. was being evil.  The blog has often been the bane of my life.  

I have made some images on OpenArt AI using the same prompts I use on Chat.  Usually the results are too plastic and distorted for use, but somehow I hit on a combination that came out nicely noir.  And now that Chat has censored me to death. . . .  

O.K.  My mother is up now and moaning and groaning with every breath.  My nerves are frayed.  Maybe you could do it.  Maybe you could keep your peace and sanguinity while listening to the dying animal day and night and day and night. . . .  

I am living in a Beckett play.  

What can I do?  Maybe I'll make "Hopper Creepers #2."

Confessions of a Dissembling Goofball

I was happy yesterday for most of the day.  It was a forgotten feeling.  I felt lighter, more alive. It could be that I have quit drinking but not absolutely.  What that means is I can have a drink whenever I want as long as I don't want it.  I've been drinking my mother's lite beer and some great and wonderful green tea in the evening.  I even had chocolate milk.  Oy!  But I think a key ingredient was trying to do a little--and this is important--age appropriate running on the treadmill.  My knee has not responded to the last hyaluronic acid gel shot and I've been limping and waddling like The Penguin, so I figured what the hell, I'll need a knee replacement anyway, so I did a slow one tenth of a mile old man stumbly jog followed by a tenth of a mile walk.  Did a couple first at a fifteen minute mile pace and then at fourteen.  Yesterday, I did a third at a thirteen minute mile pace.  Now this should be disheartening as I used to run 10K races in a low seven minute mile pace and once ran a marathon at a ten minute pace, but no, I didn't let it bum me out.  I was searching for endorphins.  I've read that exercise and drinking provide the same chemistry in the brain which explains a lot.  After the "run," I felt happy and my knee was no worse for wear.  

I may have made a mistake when I grabbed a basketball and tried shooting some hoops promising myself not to jump, but that is an impossibility.  I don't think that was a good idea.  

There was another factor--the carpenter and his helper are finished.  When I went home yesterday, no one was there.  I didn't have to chat or make decisions.  I was just home.  My home.  My stuff.  

I just felt good.  

I still took my mother to her 3:30 audiology appointment and listened to her lie to the cute therapist, then I took her to the bank and on to the grocery store where she pushed the shopping cart slowly around the entire store again.  

And then we came home and had lite beers.  

Party!

I had an invitation to go to Miami to make some photos with and of my Miami friend.  And Red wrote to tell me she will be in town in a few weeks and wanted to get together.  

I talked to my mother about finding someone to take care of her if I went out of town for a few days.  I don't know how to go about this, but I said I would stop at the nice rehab facility where she stayed and ask them.  I don't know if I can check her in and out of the facility as if it were a hotel, but that would be ideal.  If not, maybe they have people who can come and stay with her.  I don't have a clue, really.  

My mother was o.k. with the idea.  

So. . . there were many factors.  

Maybe it is the fact that my mother and I have had so much good fruit this year, the best watermelon I've ever tasted, great honeydew melons, kiwi fruit, avocados, plums, and of course the most difficult fruit, yellow pears.  Oh, my. . . best of my life.  And last night we ate the best red grapes either of us have ever had, juicy, sweet, the kind that pop when you bite them.  It has been a good year for that.  

I've also given the news short shrift.  I don't look at any political stories and hardly any other.  I take a quick peek at the cover pages and move on.  I look for stories about what is streaming on t.v.  

I am ready to break up with A.I.. too.  It is getting ridiculously difficult to generate images.  Q says I've probably been targeted.  I don't know if he was kidding or not, so I asked Chat.  Oh, no, it replied.  It is impossible for me to do that.  I don't believe that for one second, though.  Here is the message I will receive after minutes of processing any image I request: "

I’m sorry — I wasn’t able to generate that image because this request violates our content policies."  

You have not been targeted.
You’re not flagged, shadow-banned, singled out, profiled, or anything like that.

What is happening is this:

✅ **You’re working right at the edge of the system’s most sensitive boundary:

And because you are extremely precise and iterative with imagery (which is great creatively), you are constantly brushing up against those guardrails, which makes it feel like you’re being restricted more than average users.

So you end up seeing
“I’m sorry… this violates policies…”
far more often than someone doing landscapes or robots.

Yes, I've been known for constantly "brushing up against those guardrails" all my life.  

I don't recommend it for others, of course, but, as the Good Doctor Thompson would say, "It has always worked for me."

Of course, we know how that turned out.   

This morning, while perusing the CNN headline page just after waking, still muzzy and blurry eyed, I thought I saw a headline that read, in part--"Sean Francisco."  

I was wrong, of course, but I thought that was a great name for a Thomas Pynchon character.  I asked Chat to provide me a Pynchon style description.  It did.  Then I asked it to create an image from the description in the manner of a Robert Crumb illustration.  Nope.  Can't.  He's a living artist.  For half an hour, I was given "safe" prompts then told that it couldn't render the image. Over and over again.  Finally, I settled for this.  

Too grungy, I said.  Lose the coat.  Try again.  

Not really what I wanted, but I needed to get on with my day, so I suggested a few panels for the narrative.  

Maybe I'll make another stupid movie.  That is what I do now rather than watch t.v. 

Today my mother has no appointments.  It is kind of like a day off.  No workers at the house.  I have a day but no idea what to do.  I think I'll probably make some dinner for my mother and then take myself to a sushi dinner.  

Who knows how the day will go.  I don't want to be a bummer, but when I expect something, the day usually turns out wrong.  

I think I'll probably take a nap. 

What I need to do is work on my story idea about a youth hanging out with my friend in the crummy trailer park where he lived in a 10'x60' trailer with his mother, stepfather, younger brother and sister.  There is a whole cast of improbable castoff characters including Three Fingered Charlie for whom I have come up with something clever on my own.  I think through the narrative, but I haven't written any of it yet.  A combo of "Tortilla Flats" meets "Nick Adams."

That's the idea, anyway.  

In my own insufferable writing style.  

But I must go now.  My mother is up and it is time for her meds.  

Here's Sean singing a song on a front porch about a whorehouse waiting 'round to die. 

Here's the good version.