STILL PO' Red’s Blog #2

Sometimes I wonder how I veered so far from childhood… What did I want back then? I wanted to grow up—so I could be free and leave where I was and go out and find something… what was it I wanted to find? To be happy again—like before, just a few years back when I was even younger, and our family was happy. I wanted to go all the adult places… then in my teens I decided I wanted to be a writer, a painter… I always knew I wanted to find happiness again.

A writer’s art is a tool for justice. Thus begins my book Lamentations In The Cool Of The Evening; a book w/everything with quotes from everything from the Maoist International Newsletter to the Holy Bible... I’ll give you a few excerpts:

Saw a fellow traveler yesterday-- a bum from whom I turn my head at first glance assuming to be an intrusive insane panhandling pest, but as walked by with a quick step noticed on the sidewalk at his feet an oversize attaché case covered with duct tape & streaked with color, --- and a tell-tale folio bulging with painted-on paper of an artist! Another special being of God(ess), another 'set aside' out of the common realm and work-a-day-world. Suffering quite obviously.

I realize now God has filled the sails of my desires with inspiration-- it was my great love to see things in a super interested way and jot it down in verse on paper or a quick sketch in a drawing book Likewise this starving watercolorist on a bench, he is gifted—as well as afflicted. He must persist thru the adversity! And also I am here to inform you that the great artist does not really desire fame—but for their works to survive—if that takes fame, to push their art out of the impermanent shadows of obscurity and invisibility into the blazing light of day within some spotlight, so be it! A great commotion might be needed!

My documents might be considered subversive by agents of our current government! Does it say somewhere in the US Constitution that treason means disloyalty to the nation itself, but not necessarily to a current body governing our nation? Back under the last administration I was most upset with then president—Shrub? Was that his name? Shrub? Because I am a patriot, but loath, hate & detest almost every single thing that particular stolen-presidency puppet had done! Have you see what the French are doing? They are burning down their whole city just to protest the government only for raising the age of retirement by 2 years! While in America our government—which is becoming a front for korporate kapitalism—is robbing all of us poor people blind, literally, having taken away renters rebate, eyeglass care, dental care and are talking about cutting Social Security payments, and also robbing the middleclass to the point they are fast falling into a high state of disrepair!

I’m poor in 1967! I’m poor in 2010!

Let me tell you the story as I sit here and eat my delicious hotdog---of the 25-cents hotdogs. First in 1967, that TL (Tenderloin) Market Street hotdog stand, that featured 2 hotdogs for 25-Cents, with all the trimmings you could dish up—unlimited ketchup, mustard, piles of onions & relish. It was a simple, slum joint with counters that ran around the walls and red plastic seat barstools w/silver legs, w/napkin dispensers placed intermittently. The service counter was in back. You pushed over your feeble quarter and received two dogs in a bag… Starving Young Transman woofed down one, licking his fingers w/relish—then saved the other precious dog for later that night, it was all he had to eat all Sundays. On Mondays a $10 check from his father faithfully arrived. This supplemented the Welfare food vouchers he received from the City, being jobless—tho not artless.

Now, this early evening, some 42-years later Old Transman w/his $10 gift coupon has come from the Supermarket without his food for their ‘bargain sandwiches’ aren’t bargains at all, just more price-trickery. He goes hopefully to the nearest Subway sandwich shop on the instructions of a kind Asian checkout lady, but there finds that Korporate engaging in more price trickery, so he leaves, still foodless, tho not coffee-less, for he already has his bottled, vanilla-flavor. Right nearby is a smaller convenience store, w/several poor people milling about. T goes inside and again discovers the $1 hotdog! Yeah! Just when you need them, these $1 hotdogs pop up! It is the deal that for a buck you get this dog on a bun in a big plastic carryout container—and the joy of it is @ the condiments station, the push of a button dispenses a geyser of chili, and another button, one of cheese—as much as you can pile on so it overflows the container! He did this, pressing both buttons until the dog was completely buried under a mountain of hot chili & cheese; then scooped up free red tomatoes and onions & dropped them ontop of that. Grabbed 20 packets of mayonnaise in one fist for his food bank tunafish cans @ home, a spoon, napkins, and out he went! Hovering behind him was a shabbily dressed poor blax brother holding a dog, who was waiting to do the same thing! T thought: I hope the Ethiopians who run this concession don’t go broke, ‘cause I’m coming back again! He found a ledge around the corner at the foot of some gigantic billion-dollar building and sat regally w/a spoon dining on chili, and drinking his StarFucks bottled coffee.

1-Penny.

Aw shit, looken’ thru my crap to find something to read @ Tracy Jones’s Poetry Reading @ Space gallery next week! All this crap I’ve written but can find nothing to read!!!! Aurrughhh!!! Well, here is some gossip—David Young, & John Felix & Shaun Roberts are back from Miami, they went there wheatpasting & photographing—and I’m sure will hear about the Art Festival in South Beach. Oh and Dominique Leslie is finishing up her novel Our Lady Of The Gutters. Jean Genet will be pleased I’m sure.

Is anybody else’s pets acting strangely? My birds have been have been driving me crazy the last 2 days! Is it the weather? Are we about to have an earthquake? Is it my holiday stress they’re picking up?

You’re in the church, the font of all gossip.
--Sherlock Holmes to the Minister

Oh my God(ess) here is something so funny, so tragic that I must tell it—even tho it is confidential—so won’t say who said it or to who:

Someone came in and told a story about being summoned for jury service. They went in, and stated:

I’d like to serve on the jury.

The official asked this person:

what do you do for a living?

And they replied;

I’m a poet.

& they were excused from jury duty!

Isn’t that a sad commentary to us who are poets!!!

I’ve heard of those who walk politely in and sit down and put on a pair of glasses and begin reading an oversize copy of the Communist Manifesto—one with a red cover (red like the color of Mao’s Little Red Book—but this being a Gigantic Text version of the commie manifesto for the visually impaired, so it can be seen from a distance), and just silently sit there turning page after page, pensively reading until they are told: Sir, or Madame, you are excused! However this sad case of someone actually being eager to serve then being turned down—for being a poet! Aurgh!

Does anybody out there have access to a machine that can turn manuscripts into PDF files—fast? And for FREE! Some Korporate machine, not some dinky machine, which requires tedious scanning page by page.

Lamentations In The Cool Of The Evening (See lulu.com to get a copy or read some of it for free on Google.)
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.