Heartbeat

4 AM Monday morning in Beverly Hills. A little convoy of rag-pickers rattles down the street with their shopping carts, and every bump is amplified, like a dub-tape at 300 BPM, heartbeat of our crazy world.
 
 

1958 in the USA

1958 in the USA - Life Magazine
 
 

Date

Would you ululate on a trolley?
Why or why not?

Would you eat a triceratops?
Why or why not?

Do you live in your car?
Would you mate with a potato?

Am I the tear-drop under your trap-door?
Why or why not?
 
 

Iraq: What We Left Behind

Kurdish child in a refugee camp near Qandil Mountain

More than 2.4 million "internally displaced" refugees remain in Iraq, where at least 25% of all children are chronically malnourished.
 
 

Rare Metals

I live in a dorm.
My room-mate abuses his urinary ramrod.
We ate the sultana.
We ate her eardrums.

This is probably the end of the world.

We ate the download.
We ate the doodle.
All of us are dying.
We ate the vacuum.
 
 

Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do

Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do - Soundcloud

Update: I just added a walking bass to this orphan of an accompaniment which is apparently too jumpy and eccentric for anybody to sing along with it.
 
 

I'M VOTING FOR ROMBOMBA AND I DON'T KNOW WHY!

 
 

Spree

Are those galoots in cahoots?
They stole my cockatoo!
I sold them my papoose!
Now they want my cobalt!

Are those galoots in cahoots?

Am I whistling at the void?
Of course I'm paranoid!
They turned my brain into tapioca and
so what?

"Shoot them in their ugly fucking faces!"

Who said that?
Are my cuff-links talking?
Do they want to snuggle?

"Shoot them in their ugly fucking faces!"

Can you ride the ancestral unicycle?
Is this the hour of absolute translucence?

Is this the hour of absolute translucence?
Are those galoots in cahoots?

"Shoot them in their ugly fucking faces!"
 
 

Theda Bara

Almost every movie fan is familiar with images of Theda Bara in freakishly exaggerated silent movie make-up, and it isn't a look that's exactly out of reach for the average female impersonator, but only a few remaining images even remotely suggest why she exercised a magnetic power over so many millions of heterosexual males at the beginning of the Twentieth Century.
 
 

Omu River

Omu River - Ethiopia - Eric Lafforgue
 
 

Late-Night TV

Flocks of crows turn into mudflats!
Emeralds bleed!
Even mule-drivers tremble!

Will the familiar
river-bed
ever
be
re-
televised?

Will the familiar
river-bed
ever
be
re-
televised?

And if not,
I'm not watching any more of your crazy transformations!

As if I had a choice!

As if I had

transparent

wings!
 
 

Last Blog on Alternet

I originally wrote this sad little blog as a letter to Joshua Holland at Alternet, but I might as well also post it here, where it won't disappear quite so quickly.

.......................................................................................


Dear Mr. Holland...

I accidentally learned that Alternet is shutting down the Soapbox Community Blogs after today, when my password stopped working.

So I'm writing to you because, as you may or may not remember, you helped me get back my posting privileges on Alternet way back in 2010, when all my diaries were deleted.

Since then I've posted about 300 additional diaries on Alternet, some of them more or less ignored by everybody...

http://blogs.alternet.org/jacobfreeze/2012/07/14/dadaab-2012/

...and some of them accumulating thousands of hits on Digg...

http://widgets.new.digg.com/news/business/fukushima_could_kill_920_million_people

...with most of them falling somewhere around the middle of the scale from popularity to oblivion.

http://blogs.alternet.org/jacobfreeze/2012/06/19/capitalism-in-india-5000000-infant-deaths-per-year/

http://blogs.alternet.org/jacobfreeze/2012/06/15/us-household-net-assets-2005-2010/

http://blogs.alternet.org/jacobfreeze/2012/06/01/monthly-unemployment-non-story-2/

And now I learn from a little message appended at the bottom of my password-reset that today is the last day for Soapbox Community Blogs on Alternet, with an obvious subtext of absolute disrespect:

"Get lost, you and all the rest of you useless 'community bloggers!' Your writing isn't even worth a nickel's worth of storage on our servers."
 
 

Anjelica Huston

Anjelica Huston - Richard Avedon - Vogue 1970
 
 

Dadaab 2012

When I posted a very brief blog about the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya about a year ago, I didn't foresee how much further the situation there was about to deteriorate. After all, in September 2011 about a dozen children were dying of starvation in that God-forsaken camp every day.

But of course it's much worse today, as reported in the Los Angeles Times, with a shortfall of international funding even far below what was already less than enough to sustain the survival of tens of thousands of children, and relations between almost 500,000 Somali refugees and the local Kenyan population and government continue to worsen.

Local attitudes toward the camp's population range from indifference to hostility. Refugees compete with the local population for firewood, water and land.

Reluctant to attract more refugees from Somalia, the Kenyan government has resisted providing updated sewer systems, water, schools and clinics.

Meanwhile in Somalia the ongoing drought produces even more internal refugees, at the absolute limit of destitution.

"These people have no shelter, food or even medical care."

But on the upside, Obama's high-profile raid to free two kidnapped aid-workers in Somalia generated a flood of positive publicity!

Obama’s Lean, Mean SEAL Machine!

The Somali raid, for all of its Hollywood drama, is only one of hundreds of daring missions conducted by elite U.S. commandos in recent years. Navy SEALs and other special operators, with the encouragement of President Obama, have become a primary weapon in “denied areas” like Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.

$900 billion for "defense" in the budget for 2013!

But we cannot afford another $25 million for 500,000 desperate Somali refugees, although that's less than Americans spend on bubble-gum in a week.
 
 

Deer in the Headlights

There's no air in my house!
I lost my hat-rack!
A hearse follows me all over town!
Owls are groping my potatoes!

Proletarians!
Maybe we should hire a battalion of lip-readers!
 
 

Truman Capote - Cartier-Bresson

Truman Capote - Cartier-Bresson
 
 

Rodarte Spring 2012 at Pace Gallery

I gotta bag of rags on my back!
Catch you in my love-sack!
Bump!
Buh-bumpa-bumpa!
Bump!
Buh-bumpa-bumpa!

I gotta bag of rags on my back!
Catch you in my love-sack!
Bump!
Buh-bumpa-bumpa!
Bump!
 
 

Comrade

How much did we pay for the cult of personality?
Comrade!

How much did I pay for you?
How much did you pay for me?
How much did we pay for the sky and our
little pink houses?

Comrade!
How much did we pay for the sky?

My blue mist of infinity!