Deep into that darkness peering, 

long I stood there wondering, fearing,doubting, 

dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, 

and the darkness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was 

the whispered word, `Lenore!'
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, `Lenore!'
Merely this and nothing more.  

POE

The Human Remains

somewhere inside of us

A shell that contains

somewhere that part of us

The bodily crust

Submerging lust

Love- are you kidding?- you must

the Human remains inside of us

dense milt 1979.

The world of right is black or white

So says the blonde known as Miss Grey

Remembering a rendezvous she had that day a deja vu-

What a way to live

dense milt 1982

Some people never leave.  

Their presence so strong that we need only to pause, 

and they are beside us, inside us, all around us

within us.   

And so it is with Lenore.  

I can hear you laughing. 

the unmistakeable cackle

Chortle and glint in your wink

Still breathing, still fighting for what is right

In a world of wrongs,

You the trailblazer, 

the visionary outsider

enfant troublemaker

supreme shitdisturber 

libel loving Lenore

uncensored when provoked

Her mission to seek out 

new forms of life, art, love

new words,

new visions

she boldly goes where no man has gone before

and no woman either

this spirit mother

mushroom shaman witch doctor

Conjuror of video visions

never fading to black

Only to Grey

Miss you, Miss Grey

Five years and counting

Five Years

Pushing through the market square
So many mothers sighing
News had just come over
We had five years left to cry in
News guy wept and told us
Earth was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet
Then I knew he was not lying
I heard telephones, opera house, favourite melodies
Saw boys, toys, electric irons and TVs

My brain hurt like a warehouse
It had no room to spare
I had to cram so many things to store
Everything in there
And all the fat-skinny people
And all the tall-short people
And all the nobody people
And all the somebody people
I never thought I'd need so many people

A girl my age went off her head
Hit some tiny children
If the black hadn't a-pulled her off
I think she would have killed them
A soldier with a broken arm
Fixed his stare to the wheels of a Cadillac
A cop knelt and kiss the feet of a priest
And a queer threw up at the sight of that
I think I saw you in an ice-cream parlour
Drinking milk shakes cold and long
Smiling and waving and looking so fine
Don't think you knew you were in this song
And it was cold and it rained
So I felt like an actor
And I thought of Ma
and I wanted to get back there
Your face, your race, the way that you talk
I kiss you, you're beautiful, I want you to walk
We got five years, stuck on my eyes
We got five years, what a surprise
We got five years, my brain hurts a lot
We got five years, that's all we've got

David Bowie

Today marks the five year anniversary of what I will call "the end and birth" of another one of the many lives of this cat. 

As you can see with the before and after, lucky to be here.  So many changes in the past five years, but I take much solace in the fact that so many people still comment on how young I look.   That is a choice of how we live our lives, and a throw of the genetic dice.

These are the same loaded dice that got me into this pickle.  We see our capricious fate can be.  A year after my incident, Scotty Hard had his life change in a way we could never have imagined.  My good friends Liz, Saeko, Matt, and Lenore were taken from us; the pain is still there, the memories will always be there, and the feelings of thanks for not being included in that number.  This is a club that I'm not ready to join.  In the past seven years, I lost two fathers, two sister-in-laws, and two beloved dogs.  The new math is not so kind.

And yet, I am here.  Against all odds, I am here. 

And I love life.  And those around me who keep me so young, and laughing, and living the fullest life imaginable. 

Thanks

dense

Pancreatic Cancer is the 4th most common form of cancer

Well it's been building up inside of me for oh I don't know how long....

"

Well its been building up inside of me
For oh I don't know how long
I don't know why
But I keep thinking
Something's bound to go wrong

His volcano was embedded 
Behind the lines.....
"Well, you said it."
With emotions embroiled,
His Fuse lit, his words oiled.
"Who left the baby in the bathwater 
with the water on the boil?"
Tension simmers and empties fill the room Smoke hangs in the air
All you can taste now is the grease inside your lungs from the fires in the soil, from the fires in your soul.

Birds of Black Feather

Birds of black feather fuck together
Crow jam on eggs
See them fly against the wind
Waves of black matte and dark shadows

Birds of black feather flit together
These are not your typical social butterflies

They know where you live
They even know your name


Birds of black feather frock together
Bored, hanging out  in Gothic drag

Watching and waiting, killing time while

A murder takes place

This Cartoon Life

Spinning Mad Tunes
The Needle hits the wax
and the party starts
Homer J. in the da house
Here's George Jetson
His son Ellroy
Jane his wife
Daughter Judy
Flinstones, Meet the the Flinstones
There a modern stone age family.
Lester B. Goodman already drinking salutes you
Dense Milt up and writing
and me- off to work I go, Hi Ho Hi Ho.

The Beaver

"This is an ongoing debate that boils up around people like Phil Spector, Roman Polanski, and Michael Jackson: Can we—and should we—enjoy the art of people who are personally morally reprehensible? If they make amends and try to redeem themselves, I would say yes. But Mel Gibson doesn't seem interested in doing any of that. "  
The preceding quote is from an article in The Atlantic magazine explaining why the reviewer did not bother to watch the movie The Beaver.  Hi review of the movie became the three reasons he chose not to watch it.  He had already made up his mind  and could not separate the actions of the Mel Gibson, the actor off camera with Mel Gibson, the actor playing a role on camera.  
There is a strong wave of judgement in our world today.  From the fundamentalists in the Middle East to the fundamentalists in our own backyard, some people just like to judge.  In fact, they feel it is their duty to judge.  And anyone deemed to be morally reprehensible is simply not eligible for any kind of review, attention or evaluation of their art- if their personal actions are so unacceptable.   
So we condemn Mel Gibson because his actions have ben described as "sexist, racist, anti-semitic, verbally abusive and perhaps even physically violent toward women."  And we condemn him because he is an admitted alcoholic.  This we do  even though we encourage him to come forward and admit his issues, and deal with them.  Just because alcoholics or drug addicts admit they have a problem, and may even be getting help, there are those who say we should still boycott their work, and shun them publically for their private lives, what little we know of them.
Are we setting up our celebrities to a higher standard of conduct just because we consume their art in a pubic forum?  Should any alcoholic deserve a free pass for their harmful actions, or  ill behaviors that may have resulted because of their alcoholism or because they could be mentally ill, or because they may claim that  they suffer from depression?  
 Because Pete Rose gambled on his own sport, ( and we know gambling can be a form of mental illness) should he be banned from the sport he loves, and shunned from the Hall of Fame, even though he clearly belongs there based on his record as a baseball player?  Is this question complicated if the individual is generally not a nice person to be around?   
What about the genius of Phil Spector or OJ Simpson or Michael Jackson?  Should we devalue their accomplishments in music, football and entertainment because of actions that proved to be criminally actionable, or    a form of suicide by celebrity?  Who do you despise more- OJ "The Juice" Simpson, who set countless records as a running back in college and the NFL, but who later may have murdered his wife, among others or someone like Barry Bonds, who broke Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth's home run records, but who allegedly cheated by Juicing himself with steroids to assist him in achieving those results?
Is it possible for someone like George Bush or Stephen Harper to actually do something that may have been good for something?   Or should we blanket hate them for all the other nefarious actions that so offend our good consciences?
I happen to like the skinhead art of Attilla Richard Lukacs, even though the subject matter makes me uncomfortable.  I respect his vision, and his sophisticated talents, even though his work seems to celebrate this violent, racist sub-culture that I abhor.  I think the music that Burzum created in prison, serving his sentence for murdering another heavy metal singer, is beautiful.   Does that mean I support his Nazi views?  
Getting back to the Beaver, I was moved by Mel Gibson's portrayal of a middle aged man who suffers from depression and anxiety.  The movie premise seemed to be silly at best, but he makes it all seem possible.   Some critics have said that his change of personality is too sudden when he "adopts" the Beaver persona.  Have they never seen someone who is in a manic phase of their depression?  
I have a friend who lives with this, and he would often come around and say, I'm much better now. He would say I"m better now so many times, that you knew he was not better, but just in a different phase of a complicated illness. 
Can someone who is mentally ill appear to be inspiring to a young child- yes.  They can also scare the living daylights out of them, causing the child to wonder if they would someday also fall victim to this illness.
Is it believable that a wife would try to do anything to keep her family together, even having sex with a hand puppet?
People do much worse all the time.   The sub-plot with the son who writes term papers for other students for money, who falls in love with the young girl who became a graffiti artist to deal with the trauma of an older sibling's death all seem very plausible to me.   
In the hands of less talented actors, or director, this story would have been a failure, but instead, it is an allegory of families dealing with mental illness, and families dealing with grief, and families dealing with a loss of their own voice or art.   And it is a movie in which a deeply troubled celebrity gets to show the world that he is still an actor of immense talent capable of creating a performance that goes far beyond expectations to reach redemption. 
Here is a review of The Beaver that pretty well nails it in my book. 
http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/reviews/the-beaver-review-sxsw-mel-gibson.php