Fate, Fortune --Red’s Blog #3

Fate, Fortune

Dear Children, let me tell you a little story—an educational one—being that I have lived on this godforsaken earth longer then most of you and know a few more things (probably) although there are things I do not. It is a story told before:

I had this dream. I was in someplace and someone brought a bag and gave it to us—one full of pies. Pie stacked on top of pie. A big brown shopping bag. There was a woman who neatly slipped into the position of holding this bag—although she had not been there a split second before. And she reached into the bag and took out one pie. She put it aside in a bag of her own. I stood right beside her, next in line to get my pie. There were others milling about in the background, and they too would get a pie. The woman had reached into this bag and was taking out another pie. I thought to myself: in a moment I will get my pie. Yet the woman still held the bag and was taking out even another pie. The room was full of people. Bewildered, I stood there; I was next, but still the woman kept on removing pie after pie. Finally she walked away, vanishing with her own bag of the pies. I took the sack. I looked inside, amazing, there were no more pies left! The bag was empty! I didn’t get my pie! Tho I was next in line and there had been pies enough for many people, now there was nothing! ---I reached my hand in and got some crumbs, a few splinters of pie innards, and licked my fingers. The others got nothing. Later, on looking back on this dream—of a decade ago—I realize two things. By being right next to the source of this event, I did get at least some crumbs---but another thing; I got to see the dynamic, by which all these pies were removed. They were removed illegally, unfairly, and in a totally selfish manner, with no consideration; with almost a psychotically insane greed. —Pies for many, but one person gets absolutely every pie. Now those standing next in line behind me, they too knew one single greedy woman had stolen all the pies, but the ones on the outskirts of the crowd probably had no idea what had happened. Soon they would come upon the scene and see a greasy crumpled sack and think: oh, somebody had some food… they would not know there had indeed been food, and this food had been meant for them! For all!

My Dear Children, you see. YOU SEE what has transpired in this last decade in our country, its long spiral into defeat—politically, economically, and socially. No matter the best work of all our revolutionaries, our prophets, our academic lecturers, and our poets! No matter the illumination shined on the faux presidency of several elections ago—no matter the newscasts, podcasts, broadcasts, chat fests, both domestic and foreign, telling so much about America’s inner workings—this dismantling of our marvelous America is taking place—right before your eyes! Robbery! Theft! False Imprisonment! The abridgement of Civil Rights! The curtailing of Free Speech! The eradication of blax ghetto men who are turned into monsters then murdered by their own brothers and by terrified/and or racist police. We see the rise of an insanely wealthy 5% uppercrust, and the descent of the middleclass into struggling poverty, and the crash of the poor totally. Seemingly no matter how we vote or what measures we endorse, our Beautiful America is fast and truly becoming Amerikkka whither we like it or not and we are stuck in it!

Men & women walked down the streets of those times, in San Francisco on Lower Nob Hill, dressed in new casual wear, carrying take-out food, busy on their routes, most of them were young and much better off economically then much of our nation, not to mention the world. They had come here to this scenic metropolitan city, which was an international port; some of them were intelligent, sensitive. —Many of them, might have wondered what the Old Man was writing as they passed by him in the streets. It was something now private, which would some day be given back to the whole human race.

Fate! Fortune!

So this is fate, my Dear Children—we must be ever-aware of it, least we be like the unrequited lover who sings his aria, brings his flower bouquet, kneels at the feet of the object of his adoration—his lover—who stands, haughty, statuesque, against the stage prop wall gazing into space, barely hiding her boredom—and there, behind them both on the wall is scrawled in red paint Viva Escimello! ----The name of his archrival! —For already the die is cast! Fate is set! The fortune wheel has been turned & has stopped! The croupier is raking in all your green money! His plight is hopeless, but he will not recognize it, blind, kneeling clutching not her hand, but the wilted flower he himself had given her.


***
Car pulled up to the curb, its insides beating like a pulse. A blast of cold air issued out of it, as the door opened, and an upscale new-transplant to SF stepped out. These people are pleasant enough—just they don’t have any idea how their position as a rich presence is destroying the casual underclass of this place—like a coral reef being poisoned by the acid bath of a metals-factory discharging their leakage into it. & if they don’t develop this conscious, they remain soulless.

We poor, in this big city are like a coral reef of urban habitat. Everything I see on TV is being usurped. Everything I see around me is being eroded—by money, by power.

Megan Wolfe likes to see her name in my writings, so here it is—Megan Wolfe, a fine painter-drawer. That is somebody that draws, not a dresser drawer!

David Young V has his Grand Opening @ art gallery—and I forgot which one!!!!!!! It’s this New Years Eve! Drat! From 8 to 10. It will be there all month…. Oh, I bet it’s Space Gallery, specifically Lo Po Gallery. Be there or be Square!

Well thanx to Comancho, owner of the former Babylon Falling bookstore am putting up pieces of my fine trash on smashwords.com. Recently put in a chapbook THE PASSION OF ART. Written 2008, what memories it brings back of the old bookstore days and visits and diatribes many of our old group. Look for it on Smashwords and read a lot of it for free.

I hope to see you all this Wednesday!

Go buy Red Jordan Arobateau’s books on Amazon.com; Lulu.com; his art books
w/paintings & text at Blurb.com, and his fine arts prints at Fineartamerica.com.