REGURITATIONS OF A 20-YEAR OLD, PIVOTING ON A SPIN, AS THE WORLD AROUND ME IS BUT A BLUR OF CONFUSION.....

It's April of 1965 and I was not yet 21......had just entered a pre-med Program at Vanderbilt University......thinking I would become either an experimental psychologist or a psychiatrist.....eventually.....Having spent the previous 2 summers working as a Spam Card Data Entry 'Person' for The Army Ballistics Administration, then...the next summer....as a courier for Nasa's Aero-Astrophysics Laboratory.....I had been 'primed' for a 'career' either as a Technical Writer or "Human Factors' engineer......But spent most of my 'free' time writing and drawing......even some 'mechanical' drawing.....but was hardly a 'Leonardo'.....The Cast of Characters.....aging Agrarian poets and novelists began to reward me for my writing, which led me farther and further from numbers, statistics and Science as I leaned closer and closer to words and pictures....without graphs, equations or formulas.......'safe' places.....into the 'terrible' world of Art and Literature.... I dug this old, decomposing sheet of cheap paper, upon which I had typed out 'my poem' with my ancient Underwood Typewriter.....the one with round keys and fading 'characters' covered with yellowing plastic....at the bottom, was all the encouragement that I needed to change course, completely.....two words, 'your best', written by Dr. John Aden or Alan Tate or John Crowe Ransom or Robert Penn Warren.....I don't remember which......The next day, I 'dropped' Physics for Engineering Students (!) and Statistics & Probabilities II....just in time to substitute History Of The English Language and History of Modern Art.......An overdose of sleeping pills, washed down with a glass of Jack Daniels, may have been another catalyst in this Evolution.....the Drawing and Painting 'Lab' was far more satisfying than the Cat dissection Lab......This poem is certainly no 'masterpiece', but it was far better than my performance in that 'dropped' Statistics Class! I would have missed making those "drawings from the microscope" in Dr. Nunnaly's Genetics, Morphology & Embryology Class, however......I stuck 'that one' out.......Then, it was 'catch up' time.....21 semester hours for 2 years.......of plays, novels and poetry......to get my 'useless' degree, with a 'specialty area of concentration' in 17th Century Metaphysical Poetry......The 'Diploma' is hanging on a nail in the basement, next to a set of Tibetan Bells........go figure!

A MEMORY FROM A TRIP TO THE EMORY HOSPITAL EMERGENCY ROOM....SEVEN YEARS AGO........

This afternoon, while waiting on an oil change, a businessman in a blue suit, rep tie and tassel loafers, and carrying not one but two Google phones, sat next to me in the waiting room.....We did not speak. He then received a call on one of his phones and began to converse with his caller......about fags and dykes....laughing and expressing both ridicule and contempt.......I was already in a crappy mood, from all the miasma of crap that I'd already experienced in the past 48 hours.... The 'suited' man, between calls and twitter/facebook check-ins, asked me what I thought about 'faggots'.....[yes, he's asking this guy, me, who is wearing black and white polka-dotted harem pants, red white and black squid-print socks and stark white croc shoes and a neck pendant of a Greek God.....hello!......]. I asked him for his e-mail address, under the pretext of sending him a link to my (non-existant) Lexus repair facility........I did send him a link to a Macklemore & Ryan Lewis video. As he left, I noticed that he had a "i voted for Trump' decal on his vehicle..........Other than having gotten some really great strawberry iced cream and blackberries at the grocery.......today was NOT very uplifting.

JUST DECOUPAGE YOUR LIFE FROM THE BITS AND PIECES OF MEMORY.......AS THE PAST DWINDLES......THE KILLER LABORATORY OF LIVING WILL JUST LEAVE BEHIND THE PIECED-TOGETHER EFFORTS OF YOUTH

 

Rupaul at the 688 Club in Atlanta, Ga./The Basics - “Beggin’ for Beer”

VISITING MY '6TH GRADE MEMORY LOOP'....

....I recall trekking to the "Grand" Theater, which showed Universal International and 3-D films, to be amazed by this existentially philosophical movie..."THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN"...Even then, I was annoyed by its ending, that was poetic.....but the references to the 'God' stuff that 98% of American, especially Southern American, brainwashed youths bought into were irritating....even then.......After the film, I crossed the street to visit my Grandmother, who was playing on the sliding ladder of the shoe department of Becker's Store, to quiz her about the thoughts that were pumping from my frontal lobes to conceptual awareness........She replied, "Ask R.W." (my Grandfather} "He's probably thought about that.".......Not wanting to wait, I took out a nickel, jumped into a Westbound Bus and headed to my Grandfather's "Mop Shop".......finding him, labeling and shellacking maple handles......When I asked him my big question...."Can people be shrunken, and live...and where would they go after they're so small that they were undetectable?".....He pressed a pedal on the old, iron Industrial Revolution machine that he was tinkering with, and replied: "It's a big place....out there......." Wait....he was supposed to know the 'answer'......he was an old, sagacious man, wasn't he? He was probably my age (now)! And, what do I know? I listened, with him, to a transmission of Radio Free Europe blaring from his old 'console' radio.....totally uninterested......then walked to my grandparent's home to ponder the 'questions' that no one ever discussed, trying to engage my flippant Aunt Nell, who was visiting......

When my Mother picked me up for the jaunt to our home, I again asked a question: "What's left, after 'you' take out all the 'stuff'?".......She stopped the DeSoto at a Phillips 66 gas station, went into the office and brought back a milky way candy bar....halfing it with me.....then, finally, replied: "Where do you come up with these crazy questions, honey?".......Aaargh......I realized that no one seemed to think about the 'stuff' that was on MY mind........So, stalking our neighbor, Werner, walking his dog, I asked the same questions....to which he replied, in his thick German accent: "I'm not allowed to discuss such things.".....WTF!......Does anyone know what time it is? I got more science from Timemaster and Flash comics! Gimme some truth!

REFLECTING ON THE DEMISE OF OLD COLLEGE FRIEND.....AFTER THE RECENT SUICIDE OF JOHN WHARTON LOWE, WHO ...RECENTLY.....OFFED HIMSELF AFTER DECADES OF SUICIDE IDEATION AND DEPRESSION........

Two friends from University days, reading my rambles and mention of my friend, Bert, who died, just past his 40th b'day of 'complications of Aids', the 'then' death warrant 'condition', asked me about what 'happened' to Bert........and why he and I had been such good friends during college days.......Bert and I met during the first day of 'orientation' at Vanderbilt, quickly discovered our love of contract bridge, baroque music and fine dining.......we had breakfast and dinner together almost every day for 3 years, afterwards.....over the years, Bert learned many languages, including Attic Greek, Latin, French , Italian, German and bits of others, and became a PhD classical linguist/scholar/professor in Toronto.......and, later, became embroiled in a 'sex scandal' with some students and some priests and nuns....he had a strange sexual fixation on 'the cloth'.....was fired from his professorship, for 'sexually inappropriateness', worked on his family farm raising chickens and pigs, then decided to work with plants and landscape gardening.....a hobby that we also shared....went into partnership with another friend who had completed medical school, but REALLY wanted to do gardening.........I just 'came across' this old magazine cover, featuring a very dapper Bert......Somewhere around here I have the 'alternate take' with Bert, stark naked, as he would have preferred, but for the censorship of the repressive bourgeoisie......At 18, Bert introduced me to good cognac, pot, the importance of scholarly research, French restaurants and leather 'posing' straps....and those really cool GE portable 'stereo' units with wood-veneered, 'swing out' speakers........and, importantly, 'interchangeable' photo cartridges...for different types of music.......I still have a miniature suitcase, fitted out for my photo cartridge collection.....Who else, but Bert, would have thought this a very importantly practical and pragmatic consideration.......Now, alas, A.N. Bottorff III has been dead since Elizabeth Taylor donned her first sequined, padded shoulder pads for Dynasty......I still have the collection of records that I would haul to Bert's room to play on his 'swing out', as the 'boys' on our dorm floor banged on the door for us to 'stop that noise' so they could hear Paul Revere and the Raiders and The Swinging Medallions on their new FM radios........My point? (and there generally, even specifically...is at least one.....even if hidden in a haystack of verbiage and images).........One of the greatest treasures of Life is that of Sympatico.......a rare thing for the most eccentric of us.......Life is not a target that we must 'hit' or 'miss'......1955 was, fortunately, a long time ago......'If you get what I'm sayin', that is'........

MERLIN ABELARD......SUFFERING FROM INCESSANT BOUTS WITH SEIZURES........I'M FREAKED OUT! MERLIN HAS BEEN MY BEAUTIFUL COMPANION SINCE HE WAS A FEW WEEKS OLD....AND, NOW....SIGH!

after ten seizures in the past 24 hours.....he refuses both water and any form of sustenance......labored breathing, foaming at his mouth and with crusty eyes.....spasms have been increasing, overnight.....sensitive to light and sound, I've held him, wrapped in a blanket, during his convulsions....10 1/2 years is just too young to die!