Ms. Ann Thrope

( 11:51 PM ) sisoflexx

BO TURNER RIP

I attended the Rev. Charles "Bo" Turner's funeral. It was at his church in Talullah Falls right next to the gorge, and took place at 3 pm. I am glad I went, and the best part was when members of his own family spoke. The preacher who presided over it got long winded at the end (as they all do, no exception from my experience) and that was the only insufferable part. There was a unique contradiction during the service. A prayer written by Bo himself was read aloud, and it contained many statements about the worth of the self, affirmations of love of self as the basis of all love. Afterwards the preacher mouthed the regular platitudes about "it is not for me, it is for God" etc. I thought "havent you been listening?"....of course the irony was lost on him. They played 3 tunes on a portable stereo that Bo had already picked out - "Bridge Over Troubled Water", "He aint Heavy (He's My Brother), and "I did It My Way". A couple of days before he died he rode his bike 30 miles as training for another cross country ride he was planning. You wouldnt consider that anything was wrong with health like that.

Bo was a Baptist minister, and he was very controversial in north Ga. for the newspaper columns he wrote (in one he called the actions of the Old Testament God Yaweh to be compatible with the actions of a psychopath)He recieved death threats for his opinions. He co-founded Habitat for Humanity, and rode his bicycle across the country to raise money for it. He was once mayor of Clarkesville, and recently lead the successful battle to remove the 10 Commandments display from the Habersham courthouse.

I talked to one of his sons about the need for a biography on him; I said I was interested in doing it, and that I would need his help, and I was invited to call on him in Blairsville.

Werbinox

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( 11:03 PM ) sisoflexx

Mountain Song
breathe bellows within me

carbonated, steel plated

vault of the Moon
cathedral of the Eye

glacier melt ice fanged
grizzly rivers flowing

To thrive
without a God / a Religion
or a Herd.

Drinking espresso
by the ogre cliff
looming over a small town
in the cerebral folds of a valley

Razor arms lift high slice sky
woodlands felled masts raised
sails taut Dragon chested propelled
across Grandfather's fields
rutted streets of the Wog city

Diamonds upon the water shield
I smile
upon me still

Icons aloft smelly feet swift running
eternal dream bleeding hands
unbroken chain of authority

Congre-Gator with wild eyes
hungers cold stroking barrells
freshly loaded with ammo from High School

Whip up a recipe / for War
our fantasy life

Ignite bon fires
set the boots to marching

farmers executives
/ cannot rest / hung from cell towers

abandoning works for metaphysics / build the Emperor's military monsters

Mountain Men Space Cowboys
/ climb into mysteries / round up the clones

contemplate violent relics of the past
copulate atop mounds of rotting corpses
affirm Life in the midst of Death
build molecular transporters / bridge the gulf
from the Louisiana Purchase to the colony on Mars

Azamite rises from his bed
Fellaheen before the dawn
Outcast in his exile
/ roar freedom in village streets
general stores telephone poles

Bind sticks together with fasces
Broken crosses / Wheels of the Sun
get in line, get on the page
hour for slaughter has come

Orchestra plays outside group showers
hygiene cleansing greater glory
arrogance throws a humility parade

Illusion of Unity
thrown like a net
over colorful multitudes washed
with black. white, and gray

Separate / Organize / Consolidate
cast the net yet further yourself

As for me, my Ass will stay in the Mountains

Werbinox

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( 12:18 PM ) sisoflexx

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( 10:50 PM ) sisoflexx

ADVENTURES IN WALKING

I am in my full on recuperation period right now, eating better, and exercising every day. I am this strange solitary figure who walks the neighborhood in slippers, shorts, and a beach shirt, carrying a broom handle like a walking stick. Actually I carried the stick for the first time today, and it turned out to be a prescient move. No sooner had I rounded a corner than a neighbor's dog came at me all aggressive. I tried my best to ignore him completely, but he kept trying to get behind me when I wasnt looking (the damn coward) and was snarling and showing his teeth. I raised the stick a few times to ward him off, but it only seemed to provoke him, so finally, after I decided I had had enough, I swung it at his head and connected loudly with his teeth. Aar Aar Aar! he cried and ran off, the little bitch. The owner then came out and apologized to me. We had a nice little chat, and then I was on my way. Funny how he didnt show up until after he heard his dog get injured.

Next I will be ready to take on a black bear with a wooden pitchfork.....slap him up side the head!

Werbinox

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( 10:39 AM ) sisoflexx

HEAT ATTACKS, HOSPITALS, AND HALLUCINATIONS

I suffered a mild heart atack on Thursday. I had Heather drive me to the ER, and one thing lead to another.
I am now home after a week long medical nightmare that had more in it than a Vincent Price / Ed Wood marathon, and it wasnt even really funny, tho some strange things happened.

Mike Dayton, a friend of mine, visited me while I was in recovery. I described to him the symptoms I had been having, he gave me a book on European philosophers, and he left. As I now understand it he went home that night to give himself a "stress test" on his tread mill and suffered
a mild heart attack along the lines of what I described to him. The next day I recieved word that he had his own room just around the corner from me....so I went to visit him; too weird.

I had a quadruple by-pass; just saying it freaks me out. They roll your ass out of bed quickly after it, too, and make you work that sore body. Pain is truly the only way out of this. If you dont purposefully expand your lungs you could get pneumonia, so they make you breathe into this tube and lift a small weight by the sheer effort of your diaphragm. A week after the attack itself, I am now home, and being home works miracles, for every day in that clinical environment involving needles and blood and arms squeezed and anxiety attacks and drugs that spin you one way and then another is destructive to your psyche. I only made it by seizing on logical realizations, and then refusing to even think about them. Now that it is over I feel I can abandon myself to the shivers. Apparently I couldnt hide it when I was being wheeled into surgery; my mom and Heather said I was shaking and sweating with that rolled up sinking eye look. I didnt know it showed. I am here now, ready to move on from the nightmare. Drugs and insomnia are still taking their toll, tho, for everywhere I see screaming oriental faces and stone owl generals swooping down.

Incredible hallucinations of phantasmagoric terror and grandeur. Jungle vines draped the inside of my living room. Wooden panels next to the TV played their own moving pictures. When I beheld the Owl General I wept; a vision of such power and invincibility. His eyes blazed with deep wisdom and pure evil. A spiked helmet was on his head, a weapon in itself. He commanded a dreadful army that made the citizens of entire solar systems quake with fear, even tho few had ever seen them in action. Their hides were as hard as stone, their talons were blades of the sharpest steel. They swooped in force on their enemies and tore them to shreds, or lifted them thousands of feet into the air before dropping them. The General was the fiercest of them all, and the grandest. He was a monster and my friend; my new vision of life affirming power.

Werbinox

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( 10:27 AM ) sisoflexx

SOLITUDE & THE HERD

I had an interesting study in contrast during our brief stay on Jekyll Island. Some church group / youth ministry called "Cross Up" had established our hotel and beach area into a forward base for a revival, some daily speeches and conferences, outreach education, and a general all around bonding experiment. I think they were there for the whole week at least, and our two days fell in the middle of it. I didnt mind, it was something to see and contemplate. They went everywhere together in one mass group, like an army in training, even though they were all just children and teen agers. In the morning they would assemble on the beach, and towards a raised flag flapping furiously in the wind they would recite the national anthem in a loud chant.

'What the hell" I thought, 'its not like we are at war or anything', and then of course I recovered my senses and realized yes, indeed, we are, and we had damn well better stay in that mentality and not forget it. Our entire civilization is in danger from the little brown horde across the ocean. How silly of me, I forgot.

Following the group anthem they would commence their pseudo Japanese factory drone work out with jumping jacks counted out loudly - hut - too - fee - faw! They sounded like they were preparing to assault Iwo Jima....I mean Syria, excuse me.

After this they would all march back across the boardwalk to the hotel, one big gaggling group all yakking and gobbling and making even more noise then when they were shouting in unison. 'Do any of them have any time alone at all while they are here?' I wondered. Perhaps when any of them take a shit they finally get a moment to themselves and their own thoughts, or maybe someone is reading a Bible verse to them underneath the door. I myself never got to see them except in this roving group. In the evening they would reassemble on the beach and play a game I did not recognize, a highly structured game that involved circles of shame or some such thing in which children who had done something wrong had to sit and be "isolated" - - -'O kids, you dont know how lucky you are!' Many of them would cry, and one was lead away to a lecture that went "You got out of the circle Jacob! You dont get out of the circle!"

"Welcome to the herd, kid' I thought. 'May you grow up to discover all that life has to offer - far from the crowd.'

What a contrast with my own experience. The greatest moments of my life are almost always solitary moments, with me walking down a dirt road, standing on a mountain top or high dune - staring into the abyss, struck by some exhilarating sensation or thought. I look thru my own writings and my greatest moments all occur in solitude. I am nothing but happy to be with Heather and Morgan and Jeanette and my Mom & Basha, for they are my people, a part of me. But they have fun going off for walks and talking girl talk, and they understand my need and desire to wander alone and daydream, so on this beach trip I often found myself deliciously alone, smoking in my secret gazebo, walking the shore and staring at the horizon, witnessing the sunrise that first morning.

I observed the church group in their social pressure cooker. Would any of them grow to discover that the greatest treasures are discovered inside oneself, and that to find them you must have a chance to be free of the narcotic distraction of all group activities? Would any of them discover that the juice of life is often discovered in solitude? Yes, sociability is important, but it must be balanced with solitude, with time alone. Some cannot handle this, however, and some never get the chance to discover it.

I surmised that the constant activity of the group was by design, that a bond was supposed to grow amongst them, for what purpose I do not know, maybe missionary work in another country or something. Whatever the future held, it was the moment that mattered, even to them. The purpose of the herd mentality is to strengthen itself, to push its roots deeper and deeper into the psyche of group members, and to become in them first nature, if it is not already. The goal of the herd is the herd itself; whatever results from that is almost beside the point.

Werbinox

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( 7:20 PM ) sisoflexx

HEART ATTACKS, HOSPITALS, & HALLUCINATIONS

I suffered a mild heart atack on Thursday. I had Heather drive me to the ER, and one thing lead to another.
I am now home after a week long medical nightmare that had more in it than a Vincent Price / Ed Wood marathon, and it wasnt even really funny, tho some strange things happened.

Mike Dayton, a friend of me & Geoff's as well as a frequent Progday attendee, visited me while I was in recovery. I described to him the symptoms I had been having, he gave me a book on European philosophers, and he left. As I now understand it he went home that night to give himself a "stress test" on his tread mill and suffered a mild heart attack along the lines of what I described to him. The next day I recieved word that he had his own room just around the corner from me....so I went to visit him; too weird.

I had a quadruple by-pass; just saying it freaks me out. They roll your ass out of bed quickly after it, too, and make you work that sore body. Pain is truly the only way out of this. If you dont purposefully expand your lungs you could get pneumonia, so they make you breathe into this tube and lift a small weight by the sheer effort of your diaphragm. A week after the attack itself, I am now home, and being home works miracles, for every day in that clinical environment involving needles and blood and arms squeezed and anxiety attacks and drugs that spin you one way and then another is destructive to your psyche. I only made it by seizing on logical realizations, and then refusing to even think about them. Now that it is over I feel I can abandon myself to the shivers. Apparently I couldnt hide it when I was being wheeled into surgery; my mom and Heather said I was shaking and sweating with that rolled up sinking eye look. I didnt know it showed. I am here now, ready to move on from the nightmare. Drugs and insomnia are still taking their toll, tho, for everywhere I see screaming oriental faces and stone owl generals swooping down.

Incredible hallucinations of phantasmagoric terror and grandeur. Jungle vines draped the inside of my living room. Wooden panels next to the TV played their own moving pictures. When I beheld the Owl General I wept; a vision of such power and invincibility. His eyes blazed with deep wisdom and pure evil. A spiked helmet was on his head, a weapon in itself. He commanded a dreadful army that made the citizens of entire solar systems quake with fear, even tho few had ever seen them in action. Their hides were as hard as stone, their talons were blades of the sharpest steel. They swooped in force on their enemies and tore them to shreds, or lifted them thousands of feet into the air before dropping them. The General was the fiercest of them all, and the grandest. He was a monster and my friend; my new vision of life affirming power.

Werbinox

This archive...

( 8:27 AM ) sisoflexx

HEART ATTACKS, HOSPITALS, AND HALLUCINATIONS

I suffered a mild heart atack on Thursday. I had Heather drive me to the ER, and one thing lead to another.
I am now home after a week long medical nightmare that had more in it than a Vincent Price / Ed Wood marathon, and it wasnt even really funny, tho some strange things happened.

Mike Dayton, a friend of mine, visited me while I was in recovery. I described to him the symptoms I had been having, he gave me a book on European philosophers, and he left. As I now understand it he went home that night to give himself a "stress test" on his tread mill and suffered a mild heart attack along the lines of what I described to him. The next day I recieved word that he had his own room just around the corner from me....so I went to visit him; too weird.

I had a quadruple by-pass; just saying it freaks me out. They roll your ass out of bed quickly after it, too, and make you work that sore body. Pain is truly the only way out of this. If you dont purposefully expand your lungs you could get pneumonia, so they make you breathe into this tube and lift a small weight by the sheer effort of your diaphragm. A week after the attack itself, I am now home, and being home works miracles, for every day in that clinical environment involving needles and blood and arms squeezed and anxiety attacks and drugs that spin you one way and then another is destructive to your psyche. I only made it by seizing on logical realizations, and then refusing to even think about them. Now that it is over I feel I can abandon myself to the shivers. Apparently I couldnt hide it when I was being wheeled into surgery; my mom and Heather said I was shaking and sweating with that rolled up sunken eye look. I didnt know it showed. I am here now, ready to move on from the nightmare. Drugs and insomnia are still taking their toll, tho, for everywhere I see screaming oriental faces and stone owl generals swooping down.

Incredible hallucinations of phantasmagoric terror and grandeur. Jungle vines draped the inside of my living room. Wooden panels next to the TV played their own moving pictures. When I beheld the Owl General I wept; a vision of such power and invincibility. His eyes blazed with deep wisdom and pure evil. A spiked helmet was on his head, a weapon in itself. He commanded a dreadful army that made the citizens of entire solar systems quake with fear, even tho few had ever seen them in action. Their hides were as hard as stone, their talons were blades of the sharpest steel. They swooped in force on their enemies and tore them to shreds, or lifted them thousands of feet into the air before dropping them. The General was the fiercest of them all, and the grandest. He was a monster and my friend; my new vision of life affirming power.

Werbinox

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