Artsy-Fartsy Dunroamin, Camp Dunroamin....where the Choctaws, Chickasaws and Cherokees play....and we have a lot of fun every night and day.......

I Still have the striped beach towel that I wore, as Chief of the Choctaws, at Camp Dunroamin......in summer of 1957....as I accepted the 1st Place Prize for 'fastest swimmer, on his back, while reading a magazine, aloud'......and an award for 'inverted breast stroke', wearing a black  'bathing suit' covered with pink spiders.....and got to wear a feather headdress, as Chief of the 'bottled peroxide and ammonia  blondes'......thus, Big Chief of Dunroamin Camp~!   All of this was 'macho' enough to satisfy my parents.....who were grateful that I had not chosen a career as a tap dancer or Artist......Their contentment was short-lived! thanks to the indulgences of Jimmy and Havelon Gearish, the Camp's owners/operators, who taught me to weave feathers into coiled baskets, roller skate...wearing a French bikini and Jay bird feather headband, and play mixed doubles tennis, wearing my mother's old 'cabana set'.....

And, five years pass, but little changes.........This is the Stigma of Aging

Ground control to Major Tom.......are you there? I've been lost in abstract thought........conscious abstract thought, rather than lazy reveries....... This always occurs when faced with complex emotional scenarios, suffering from the despair of avoidant disappointments, having to do paperwork required by Government, being put 'on the spot' by other's demands, or experiencing the perceptions of existential crisis.........Time to 'shape up' and get on with the business of functioning in the outside world........I still have not found my keys, although I have found much, deep within, that seems to require expression....However, Veristes just won't fit into the box that I made for "it"......and is knocking on some closed doors of perception and some neglected drawing skills, having been relegated to a solitary diet of automatic drawing and the expression of seemingly random juxtapositions of Science and Art.....

1963.....I was given an old Royal typewriter to 'take to school'........

What a dinosaur!   It took a lot of energy to type, on this antique device...that had been 'demoted' by my mother, after she bought a new, electric IBM Selectric, in 1962.......I could see why so many Writers 'turned to drink and smoke'......I still have that fan, the ashtray, glass and cigarette lighter, decades later.......ever tried 'drawing' with an old typewriter?  

THE PIVOT POINT.......No 'turning back'....who'd want to?.....I'm on my Way......wherever that would be!

in my 1967 Commodore Yearbook....,a Impact Symposium Program, from a highly political Gathering at The Memorial Gymnasium,,,,on my birthday, no less! This day still lingers in my Consciousness over 50 years afterwards,.......Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Stokely Carmichael, Strom Thurmond and Allen Ginsberg.......by the next morning, i had experienced a huge shift in my thinking, got drunk with Stokeley Carmichael, smoked weed with Allen Ginsberg and 'slept' with my housemate after breaking up with my girlfriend, Barbara Stein, only hours before...A week later, i awakened at Vanderbilt Univ. Hospital from an overdose of sleeping pills...then, ..a month later, i sold my gold watch, bought a ticket for Proud Clarion "to win" the Kentucky Derby....which he did!.....and, inspired by Allen's poem about 'sooty penises', left Nashville to live in an Airstream trailer...in Warner Robbins, Georgia.....where i wrote a book, put it in a box, and mailed it to my 'lover' who had escaped Vanderbilt, also, and had landed in Washington State......Later, the Book was returned to me, via Parcel Post, and became the first of my many 'book burnings'.....A sheet of yellowing pulp paper brought this all into focus.......Hmm.....rather than worship this Nostalgia.....i'm going to burn the Program in my driveway.....Yes! Perhaps this prevents 'Living in the Past', even though it WAS the year of The Velvet Underground and Nico, The Electric Prunes, The Jimi Hendrix Exprience, Surrealistic Pillow and The Doors......Then, suddenly, i was almost 24 and the page turned.....i drove my car off a cliff and moved to Atlanta......with only a camera, a typewriter, some notebooks and some thrift store bellbottoms, fringed leather boots and a couple of psychedelic t-shirts....turn the page....new chapter.......

A VERY PERSONAL LETTER, STAINED WITH BLOOD......WRITTEN BY MY FATHER'S YOUNGER BROTHER, JOHN......DATED: MAR 27, 1944

INFORMATION STORAGE AND NEUROPLASTICITY

 As I read, recently: "The neuronal gene Arc is essential for long-lasting information storage in the mammalian brain, mediates various forms of synaptic plasticity, and has been implicated in neuro-developmental disorders." (like autism, for one) I have long considered this possibility, and am pleased that 'real' scientists, rather than just philosophical tinkerers like myself, are actually performing Studies.....When I wrote, rather conjecturally, about this possibility 15 years ago....many of my friends just thought I was nuts and that my writings were just conceptual Art.......We are but worlds within worlds within worlds of chemical bonds and molecular-level interdependency.....as William Burroughs said, decades ago......"Language is a Virus........from outer space.." Perhaps Consciousness is really that......

 My interests are in the details, sometimes disassociated from the surround, sometimes oblivious; other times suggestive of a view of imagination sprung from the obvious, through the arcane, to veiled super-reality, frequently to mindless and unexamined places that remain obfuscated by ambiguity. That being, mingling with The Normal is a bit of a challenge that I generally avoid, except in grocery stores and other places where people stand in lines..... Ironically, I have little in common with those who gravitate toward lines of other people; yet, must mingle to get bread and cat food.......