DAYS BEFORE THE YOKE
Red Jordan Arobateau
DAYS BEFORE THE YOKE
Copyright © 2010, by Red Jordan Arobateau
All rights reserved.
Any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental.
All un-attributed quotes are from the Prophet Red Jordan Arobateau.
Cover art: Students In The Night Café; acrylic on canvas, 29” X 29”, by Red Jordan Arobateau.
ISBN: 978-0-55737417-5
Published by RED JORDAN PRESS
Redjordanarobateau.com
USA
I have a story to tell you—said the old Transman.
THE OLD MAN’S JOURNAL
2010
Book 1. – January 11 – Feb 18
Book 2. – Feb 19 ---March 16
Book 3. – March 17 –April 10
Book 4. –April 11—May 8
Book 5. –May 9—June 6
Book 1
These are the Days Before The Yoke. Success has not yet come. It is pretty clear that God has a work for me—but not yet put that yoke around my neck, so I am completely free. One day when I’m yoked up, churning down the path of fire, will I miss these days? ---Of free-floating, yearning, searching? Then I will Know, and Be A Part Of What God Has Intended. ---As Mother Teresa says in her letters: Ad majorem dei gloriam.
*For the greater glory of God(ess).
1.
We are in a rush to get there. In anxious hurry to achieve our goal but upon reaching there, our troubles may only be beginning. From our pinnacle, having arrived, will we look back and think ‘those were the best days, it’s nothing but hell now?’
I have a story to tell you—said the old Transman.
He was currently tapping contents of soiled boxes---awakening memories for this memoir—like manure for a green growing plant—this for you.
Featured in it is, The Eternal Light.
Here is what he had said earlier:
We are born on this planet; we can’t get out of it, not with ease. We sit outside a lot—there is too much pain inside—by some point in maturation, we realize it’s the pain inside ourselves. We long for advanced beings, Aliens, from outside our galaxy to arrive and transport us away from the misery. We long for a savior to save us from the pain. & hope—let there be peace. We haunt the churches—not simply for free food.
His was the diary of an outsider. Long envisioned is our last sleep to come, when they close the lids of our eyes, & pull the silent blanket over our head.
Currently @ Trans Center. —The only center on planet earth, for us Transsexual beings, an advanced species; these men/women of Sodom. –(Vichè.) The last of the newest dead girl appears on the floor in the Directors office. Her white alter cloth rumpled & tossed aside, her gold candleholders w/wax drippings stacked together, her photograph —the very last snapped—with a list of names who signed to her memory sending the girl off to repose in heaven, removed from it’s frame. The stage has been struck. The frame will be used again… The mantelpiece reverts back to a functionary cup & plate buffet used during tranny support groups.
PM
The old man found 1-Cent. Had to rush for it behind a car w/motor running as a passenger debarked. He thought: Hard to find a penny and have to fight for that! That night he found a thin silver dime.
At night TL figures loom large & strange; they loose their color, darken, shadowy; block-like, take on additionally ominous feel. He walked down there to a low-cost SRO, which houses the formerly homeless, for his duties as volunteer server @ the homeless dinner.
In unlit places strange dark figures shift in front of garbage cans. Music that taverns exude, amid showering golden light, but you can’t get in without coins. Fry smells exude from Fish n’ Chips joints where munch a couple of overweight lesbians; they have a little more then you, but just this little is why they are inside.
At the Grace feeding, teacher-principle S. and her charges discussed the devastating effects of our economy on the poor. People don’t realize how we are inter-connected. Don’t realize how 1 person is connected to everybody else. One store closes, and families have to walk further for food. A single person can impact their entire community. One law carelessly passed closes down life-saving resources for a disenfranchised group.
Oh did I tell you found a 6 pound 8 oz can of sliced apples--- industrial size laying beside the gutter? Very heavy to lug home. To flavor my Greens Shake. It is delicious.
Now, regarding my work, which is the main theme of this journal:
If you are doing a work for God—it is understood that God will not call for His/Her work to: Come Forth; until S/He is ready to make use of it. So the artist thus called must labor on & on in their tiny shop until that day! Only those ignorant of this fact are complaining: Whaah! Why aren’t I successful yet! The more the idea that God(ess) might be the reason for my lagging success—that God(ess) isn’t ready to bring it forth into the world—has just come to me gradually, over the last few years & in recent days—really strong. The hippies would say stuff like this back in the ‘60s: It’s not time for the Great Mandela to turn in your favor. It was Ancient Wisdoms: God’s Time & God’s Will. To every thing there is a season, turn, turn, turn. But nobody listens to none of this, not even the Christians. They just drive, drive, drive, push, push, push—which is a creator’s job—hoping:
Any day now!
Success will be mine—with this newest book!
Pretty soon my ship will come in!
I think this next art project is gonna be my ticket to fame!
Aw! This is it!
Almost there!
So, if this is true, then I pray God just Keep Me Until The Day—and make sure my Rent Is Paid!
Keep us until that time not far…
2.
Monday, January 11, Noon
So much pain.
So many people.
So many animals.
Such unspeakable pain.
**
Limping along finish IN PARADISE! Must be fighting depression. No painting, nun. Nun, full, in 2 panels, yet unfinished, stares at me with an unfinished face.
I am going out to help keep myself alive emotionally, socially, —by mixing w/others.
He walked, tossing crumbs to the pigeons, writing on his sheaf, looking for dropped coins & spare food. Last Monday found 4 bananas, green/yellow in a bunch on top garbage can, but none today. Free eats: BBQ-chicken, cheese, & veggie pizza; delicious.
Transman walked thru the TL, heart of the cities slum. Grey bent-over wretches, broken souls in horrible clothes, matted hair, mumbling insanities due to drug braincell burnout, alcoholic wet-brain—all of this stemming from being born crazy and for this, abused. Look behind, underneath, there lies the problem.
The girls arrive to the group; and when each arrives & she takes off her coat; the others OHH & AHHH! Colors spill out, multi-match ensembles gleaned from free-bins; hand-sewn frocks & outfits. It’s like a fashion show.
We number 5 today; sit and kivetch, bitch, gripe, grumble, & philosophize. This great dissatisfaction that has seized most transpeople, & the world.
The worse person to lie to is to lie to yourself.
--Breonna McCree
Found 1 Dime.
PM
Nicole Hen’s monthly party @ hotel. Fun. Food—Paella & salad. Delicious. Spanish cheese, nuts. Coffee, bottled water. Good conversation. A lovely baby in attendance—3 months old, very happy child.
A Satanist who does Native Practices & is not diabolic, just an artist trying to survive without a home, on-the-road, crashing here & there; doing ritual, painting & writing—Steven Leyba. Visiting Native tribes over America—he is 5/8ths Indian. Several poets, painters, writers, a performer—Lady Monster— a guitarist. Bill Taylor Jr. Poet. Artists all. (Almost.)
Tuesday, January 12, 2PM
Had a great Monday. Breonna’s group. Nicole’s party in the lobby of that old hotel. Says she will do this again next week. However due to her hyper-active imagination & abundant good intentions, I believe we will be lucky if the party is in a month!
One assumes, regarding history—that great painters are just that, and writers of genius are solely writers—period. I’m not sure if two-discipline artists are something exclusive to this modern age, but often in circles today when we artists assemble over table I hear practically everyone state that: “I’m a Master Painter, and I write.” Or: “I’m a writer who paints also”. Another offers; “I have books of my writing along with some of my paintings”. One remarks; “I’m chiefly a painter, but I write”. ---This was just heard last night at the Henhouse—(Nicole Hen’s hotel) around a table of pieta, cheese, nuts, & beverages. Last week David Ball recounted how he had spent the last week writing—an art textbook—to accompany his class. Megan writes reviews, does photography, plus her illustrations, (art). And among us only a few are strictly visual with no text. —As David Young presented about 100 drawings in several shows this last year—practically none of them titled; he is strictly devoted to one-discipline.
PM
I’d like to tell them, I been there, in the queer community, since the beginning, since my baby years cross-dressing @ age 2; & out in the streets since age 15, in the late 1950’s and remember me fleeing on gymshoes feet w/the big pretty sissies & little man studs lit up by the blue flashing spotlight of cops squad cars converging on the gay clubs to harass us.
People underestimate the power of biology. So much emphasis is on power of the mind, on spiritual inspiration, that people feel they rule themselves by their thoughts and by their mind, and this is the sole controlling factor of who & what they are—they will find out the truth when their sails are in the wind--- when biology kicks in pushing them in unheard of directions. On the battlefield of war with bombs crashing they will discover their inner vulnerability. As new parents when infants wail inconsolably, they will discover unimaginable stress. As they will see it in the emerging life-choices of their children over which they have no control. Choices which they did not shape nor try to destine. As a transsexual you see it in yourself—growing up w/normal peers, assuming their roles on the surface, but realizing your True Direction underneath.
Goodness! My Journal has found it’s way onto religious bookseller sites!
PPM
Found 1-Cent.
There is a story to the way lost coins appear on the street. First the plentitude of pennies—no one cares enough about them, look on these copper 1-cent pieces as practically worthless, so if pennies fall to the street people don’t distain to chase after and capture them like going after some wild beast who escaped off it’s leash to bring them home to their pockets. Often a load of pennies can be found on a ledge, or on top of a newspaper rack, or on the shelf of a public telephone, which someone disgorged from their pockets as a nuisence; too weighty, too bulky to carry a lot of them inside form-fitting clothes. Dimes are the thinnest and easiest to let fall, and hardest to see for a sight-challenged person; and you find more dimes then anything else but pennies. Nickels are rare to find—they are so thick, and large, that seldom do they slip thru people’s fingers, so hardly ever come across them, even tho they aren’t worth much more then pennies. Then quarters. 25-cent pieces are something worth bothering to stop and pick up. Those are the rarest, but one finds them fairly often on the city streets.
Stopped and talked to S. today, another photographer who gave me great insight as to purchasing a sellers permit & going out to tourist sites like Fisherman’s Wharf or North Beach to sell. We talked of our beloved Babylon Bookstore owner’s moving away to Austin, and S. stated:
Austin’s OK. But outside of there, its redneck. The outskirts of San Francisco is different then San Francisco city. But the outskirts of Austin is much more different from Austin then the outskirts of San Francisco is from San Francisco. This whole area up here, even the outskirts is still a big city, they've seen a little of everything; living so close. They’ve been somewhat acclimated to a lot of sights, of different people and so forth over the years. Outside of Austin, its Texas, rednecks, cowboy hats, gun racks in the backs of Pick Up Trucks. I wouldn’t go there.
Wednesday, January 13, 1PM
Times when 2-desires vie with each other—the good food w/boring people, or the great companionship w/only coffee. –And you can’t be both places in once. The material vs. the spiritual. And it is rare to get both.
Thursday, January 14, 9AM
Oh do you recall my itemizing of un-natural events occurring last week or so, re: earth tremors? The Big One struck in Haiti—over 100,000 feared dead in this, the poorest nation of the Western Hemisphere.
PM
People climbed up the sidewalks steps of Nob Hill towards the Cathedral; lean hips, no stomachs, no x-tra pounds of flesh, trudging by him up the hill. They’re all skinny. They’ll live forever. —I’m killing myself. He thought.
An old timer climbs up the steps besides him. At the top he points back down behind us. Do you see that gully down there? —Now they call it the Tenderloin. It was never called that before. It use to be called St. Anne’s Valley. There were whorehouses up here—all along Pine. & Bush. Including Sutter. So—the ‘red light area’ was actually in what is now known as a better area.
Sister Linda, African-American woman greets me in the street, in her slow, soft, volume-filled voice wishing me a Happy New Year Red. She brings attention to the fact that: This is a brand new decade.
Each picture tells a story. I have not painted for a week. Show is tomorrow. Perhaps it will bring renewed inspiration. Let me remind you that the bookstore was a sort of emotional support for me. An ersatz family. When that went, my artistic production also weakened. Its not like I don’t see any use in it---I am getting somewhere because I love the Retrospect’s—and my paintings are going into that ongoing project and people buy it, also the poster & postcard prints. Still hold with my original theory that I’m a kind of person who would have done better having been born into a big loving family with a lot of relatives, and friends looking in on me from time to time; and of course having a lover. A companion.
30-odd paintings I’ve newly created in the last 2 years is a great bedrock of material to encourage me onward.
I hope my work will help the world & all beings in it; whither its impact be high or low, great or small.
Well hell. Now when final-editing IN PARADISE! I see another of my callings… slightly fallen by the wayside:
Oh, and another thing about dealing with the mad, the homeless, the broken—or whatever—you cannot have an agenda. You have no plans for them! Simply one thing—to introduce them to the higher world—and that is not this world, nor this society in which we are standing, booted feet on grimy concrete—it is God’s world, of heavenly spheres! A galaxy of love-in-waiting—In Paradise!
And so, the old man figured; one day the Lord(ess) will send me where I must go, and Her/His Words will come to me, and I must say them because my soul will be on fire!!!!!
Looking back over editing of IN PARADISE! I see this statement, from only a few weeks past:
I would go to-- The lost and broken people, of the very lowest sort—but not the criminal sort—they still have too much ego, power, going for them, which is necessary to concoct their crimes. No. Those totally broken in spirit beyond repair of the ordinary world.
And this is important. Found myself engaged in conversation w/a healthier of the street people, who’s convoluted brain doesn’t work properly & has stopped her from getting past the first or second rungs of survival—but she’s hanging in there. We have engaged in dispute about Grace Dinners, says she went up there but they would not serve her. I’m not sure I believe this, now I hope I will not be arguing w/this person every time she sees me. Also, as I see her around town fairly often, seemingly housed, and with a purpose, I still believe the more severely damaged people would be my calling.
Friday, January 15, 1PM
1-Cent—first in 2 days. 1 dime shortly after. You find dropped coins besides rows of parking meters, at newspaper racks & bus stops.
On way to Shrink, hang out @ Trans. Get coffee/food. Dominique, a witch; in attendance. Found that today, the first art opening for me in 40 years is also a full moon lunar equinox!
Shrink tells me:
So you learned to comfort yourself w/food to make up for deprivation. Food is your mother.
--L, Therapist
At group, only 2 of us trans guys. Playing a board game. You see the MTF's interact. You see where their allegiances lie. Transmen will always be second-class, in groups of them; left out. This is an important survival tactic to remember for the future.
Some of the girls who are the best jobs w/smooth womanly skin, and a passive, naturally sweet demeanor—(one which does not frighten animals, cause cats to scurry off and hide under the furniture, or dogs to bar their teeth)—are girls who as children were effeminate by nature from their very first years, thru no conscious effort of their part. They thus had a good beginning for transition. Sadly, most were tortured and ostracized and ridiculed even from age 3 or 4 or 5—all for something they could not help. So there is a price tag to everything.
Girl there says part of her transition was due to her older sister dressing her as a girl:
My sister use to dress me as a girl because she wanted a little sister, there were 4 boys and mother was out working, she’d left my father; so my sister dressed me as a girl, like her, and got me to help her do housework. There were 5 of us. 3 boys, one brother younger then me, and I always wondered why it was me she picked on to effeminize me and blamed her at first for me being transsexual, but people have told me that my sister just saw something effeminate in me at a very early age, and that’s why she did this---she was a child herself, she knew no better, she just did what seemed natural to her.
Found 1-Cent.
Went home to prepare self for show tonight.
PM
Later told Meg about this full moon lunar equinox and she says:
That explains a lot of things. That have been happening the last few days.
If you live in an all male world, or a exclusively female one—like a gay man’s world, soldier, mercenary of war; or a nurse amid all female nurses, a women's school gym teacher, these will predominately be your associates. People build their loyalties. It is no use comparing the exclusivity of a gay male world to that of lesbians, because traditionally by gender division the vast greater resources go to males, thus as par with all of civilization, men have much more then women as far as material goods, privileges, and women far less, including lesbian women. As transmen who are female born we are fortunate to fall under societies radar as far as passibility and encounter far less obstructions then our male born sisters. We can escape street bashing, lurid sex-murders. However when we climb up the ladder too far into the male world this will inevitably bring disclosure and complications.
Do we trans brothers help each other? Not nearly to the extent that male born women have come to rely on one another. —And betray each other as well. But mostly ‘sisterhoods’ of transsexual women, their galaxy’s of mothers, daughters, aunts—(all male born) their created families, their communities of intent are far greater, and closer linked then anything us men---female born-- create. We remain outside. We are the lone wolf. Like the butch dike looking in the window of the gay men’s club at the boys and boy-girls having fun; back in the day in a town which could not support a lesbian venue—for lack of participants. An outsider. A lonewolf. Allowed to live out his life, to exist, but not have too much fun.
The beginning of inclusively of us by the greater society in the last ten years has turned this all around. Instead of passing voiceless men-women who haunted the streets and made allegiances with prostitutes, we new guys are being accepted into church organizations, families, gaining professional status everywhere. Some families are proud to have a new Transman ‘son’ in their families, freshly reborn out of a vial of testosterone.
3.
The hour has come! Preparing to go out to fate unknown!
Vision of dread; a human being crumpled on the street like a folding pack of cards. Transman frets, will I get to the show alive?
I am hung. Publicly. Out There for public view. 2 canvases on sale. $2,000 and 1,000 apiece.
Well, Harlequin’s Reward & Christmas Gaming Table Indian have been out of the house for an airing. Some comments. Some love. Show to come down Sunday. --Brief! Shaun Roberts took photo of me posing w/cane beside Adam Caldwell’s paintings of me on the stairwell—which Adam had painted from a photo of me, online. Comancho purchased the small one—w/hat—for $150! Right There On The Spot!
My name is not on the flyer! Harlequin’s Reward & Christmas Gaming Table Indian are hung--there on the wall they sit bold as life w/no nametag on them! ---This is because I committed to the show too late! ARRRRGGUH!
The old crew from Babylon Falling. We were all together one last time—and it was a first. A whole gang of 15 of us sat there kibitzing in one unit occupying about 3 tables and a dozen chairs. Art aficionado Chris testified how he hated his job. So nice to be among functionary people after the craziness of trannys. Oh, not a single tranny in this sea of folks. Then heard the news, Caldwell sold one of his pix… Rat’s! I didn’t sell a painting, but Adam Caldwell’s picture of me sold. And this painting was from photo by Shaun Roberts. –It sold to Comancho & his Lamb who are leaving town for good. And me, having my first art showing in 40 years—all on the lunar equinox. Everybody was there—mostly painters, and a few art collectors. Old Transman’s timeclock told him to leave by 11.
Like a princess how stayed too long at the ball, Red was gone! Out the door!
We use to party in our gay clubs, and upon occasion, especially near the end of the Bar Era* in the 1980’s we’d find straight people in there --not voyeurs but just a decent heterosexual couple out to drink and dance, and why were they in our clubs? Because the straight clubs wee too dangerous, too much fighting, too much hell; —because of straight males. Period. No other reason, straight heterosexual male violence.
*When the bar era was in its prime; it was the only venue gays had to assemble publicly; it was the era before the gay clean & sober movement began, ending excessive drinking for many of us.
Well this drunk came up to us—while we were outside regrouping, standing by a lamppost, a pure white man, stocky of build and thus self confidence; he was not bad-acting, just drunk and presumptuous, and because of his big build, all of us might be a slight bit apprehensive of crossing him. He walked right up to a crowd of us and began to babble his little shit about how he was Scots-Irish, and were we artists? And so forth & so on… And then he focus’s on me, with the inevitable question: can I ask you what your… your… great, great ancestors were? What nationality? Were they like …from South America? I said: Yes. Honduras—leaving out the black part, and refused to shake his hand for the 3rd time. Those idiotic black people who want to kill me, because think I can pass so easily for white, they never see these little interactions w/genuine Caucasians—oh well those were the old days, I stay away from both these kinds now –Ordinary Mundane White & Black People. --Not necessary in my life.
Went off down street w/Paul & Shaun, going home. Weaving determinedly amongst the yups who have spilled out of their packed nightclubs into the streets.
A blax street woman stares on passively, caging sparechange. Was she amazed at this huge rich white takeover of the city?
PPM
Came home, smell of cigarette smoke strong on my shirt, tee-shirt, & coat.
Must confess, felt a sugar taste in my mouth @ the show, feel like am coming down w/diabetes because am so fat? I must loose weight. I believe I will begin the glutton-free diet again. No white flour stuff---pizza dough, bread, pasta. I will not do this 100% but will work on it drastically. If all there is to eat is pizza will eat the slice, but omit the crust part at the big end. If given a pasta & meat salad will take it home pick out the pasta and mix it with other food so it stretches out over several days—instead of all in one helping. Will avoid white flour. In this way I will bring down the gluten from 100% to 30% and that is a major difference. Thanks to advice of my therapist who witnessed me taking moos –many, many moos-- home in my backpack, will forgo moos. She read the box these little round bastards come in, and discovered 10 moos are like 100 calories—something I had not been aware of. I thought I was doing good by just using moo in my coffee sans sugar. Now I realize these fake moos are very high caloric. So from now on its just straight milk, or even half and half cream, —but not these detestable, clever fake moos which have sneaky secret sugar in them in addition.
I must reign in my weight. It is the last thing that stands between me and having good health. Chiefly because do not want to check into this journal to inform you I am dead!
God speed Red Jordan.
Finally tonight I must say I have come home somewhat apprehensive. It is not my world I’ve just been in. The world of friends—some 15-young men & women I know, was fun—but not the whole of Polk Street itself; in that area is solid white heterosexual yups, I don’t belong there and I know it.
It is good to be back in my place and regroup. Many of us do not fit in that world. The world of poor seniors for instance, gay or not. Black, white, green, or polkadot or not,---just po’!
Here are some of my thoughts & feelings at the end of the show: I am just an ordinary person—w/talent. My pictures priced at $1,000 & 2,000 did not sell. They are priceless to me, hence the pricetag! So maybe I will not be world-famous, of world renown! And just be a poor simple soul, deluded as to their true worth. Worth only the currency of heaven—which is prayer, and am garbage to the affluent of this earth who despise the poor. Those racially mongrelized like me, and of a transex? They hate, scorn, don’t understand, joke about! I see none like myself among these affluent yups milling about in front of their fancy clubs!
Further I must admit to myself, I may never have my organization, RED JORDAN PRESS. —I may never have St. Anne’s 24 Hour. I may never ever… ever… ever BE, who I dreamed I might become!
There are other artists in this show who are more proficient, and young & dynamic enough to crank ‘em out.
4.
Saturday, January 16, Noon
Recall popular songs from before my time---1930’s—which were still being played on occasion, as ‘golden oldies’; songs not of my era, the 1940’s, but of my parent’s youth. Songs still in the memory of those days.
Stupid overpopulated family stomping on my ceiling. It is nerve-wracking Saturday. There should be a law against cramming so many children & adults into one tiny space 8-total, --for the sake of peace of mind of their neighbors! We should have rights too!
Frantic stomping of adults on my ceiling. Banging of furnishings. Running about of stupid brainless children, is there no solution for this? Is it fair to have 5 kids & 3 adults crammed into one tiny space—when both adults have decent jobs & could get a more adequate place—instead of torturing their solitary neighbors?
Got on scale, discovered had lost 5 pounds—from not eating much at all, all day yesterday and walking my 23 blocks. Now hovering right at around 190. Want to get down to 180 that is my goal. The goal I was approaching 2 years ago when weight had dipped right under 185, and headed towards 183.
Worrisome black man lunging down the street; dressed in hoodlum clothes; hoody, jeans; he is weaving back and forth. He is taking up the space 7 polite respectful people do. Stops to pu something from the gutter. –Is it a spare coin destined for some poor seniors pocket? Or a moldy cigarette butt!
Sunday, January 17, 10AM
1 Dime to put in my pocket lays at the curb. Contents of which has climbed up now to 80-cents. Another dime—in a newspaper rack coin return slot.
Well am setting here right in the place where one of the Calla brothers was murdered defending their store cash register in 1955. With a shot 2 people were lost—him and the stupid robber. Its all about the money.
If you are an old gay man, or lesbian, and you have spent your entire life—since a teenager— dreaming that one day you would be settled down in a loving marriage—with the man or woman of your fantasies, even thru the party times, the running-of-the-streets times—daydreamed this with overwhelming focus, and one day you wake up in your mid 50’s and realize, chances are great you may never be in a partnership like those lucky few and that you are probably going to live out the reminder of your life alone, and will be lucky if you’re not destitute or without friends; so at this point you bite the bullet. You get, what many old hetro women have had to get, (realizing their chances of husband-catching have passed); its called Grace. The Grace to face the reminder of your years as happily as possible, even tho you are single; reaching out and making friends wherever you can, being part of any events within your scope, to make the time go by pleasantly. Renewing a spiritual focus in your life.
***
The most devout preacher, the most pious priest are fallen in the true eye of God. Biography of the renown medieval priest who took for his quarters a tiny slant-ceiling space under the stairs, forgoing even a humble monastic cell; so pious he was labeled a saint by his faithful—yet he was a major instigator in the 3rd Crusades—a failed attempt to invade Islamic countries, tear down the minarets & replace it with the Cross. There are some facts which must be looked at concerning these Crusades—a periodic swing of zealous Christens to conquer the ‘heathen’s of the Middle East. Monies raised to finance these Crusades—for, armament, foodstuffs, animal feed etc., was by means of a tax; it came only in part from the Royal treasury. This tax was a severe imposition on the poor peasants, but they dared not complain in public for fear of the iron hand of the church. The Jews received 2 taxes. Furthermore, Those who volunteered to go on Crusades were often former criminals, nare-do-wells, looking for one last chance to prove themselves, who were un-hirable at home. After the Crusade’s huge army, Knights, horses, foot soldiers, camp followers had spent their way thru France paying for supplies, foodstuffs, animal feed, lodgings; then thru Spain and were headed down into Italy and Turkey their monies ran out; so the further down into Europe they went they began to resort to stealing, looting & rapine of the host nations thru which they passed. These Crusades were an anathema to many; their reputation in lower Europe was sour. –So much for the great pious priest who slept under the stairs of the monastery and inspired a great Crusade. He brought pain to many innocent.
Unending Love—title of pix? All The Company Of Heaven—title for book?
In Paradise, you will see everything ever known about all other eras. Medieval days. Prehistoric cave dwellers --our first human ancestors, dim brained, who raised up their eyes up to heaven asked for help.
It was such a long time ago—I was at my grandmother’s kitchen table in the ghetto, a shorty, in jeans, plaid shirt and little brogan shoes, licking the cake-mix bowl, there in that bourgeois oasis, 20 blocks from the black/tan slum’s cut-throat poverty, all dignified Colored people, but still well behind the race don’t cross Jim Crow line, back in the 1940’s. Then I didn’t know in my days to come I would easily live peaceably amidst mostly white people in a city on the West Coast—whereas back then you weren’t allowed to live out of the ghetto, unless you were passing and nobody knew what nationality you truly were. Nor did I know I would finally be enabled to change my sex, ---while in the early 1950’s, Maude, our neighbor across the street, a slim, brown-skin he/she, had died as a passing man who forgo medical intervention for a serious medical emergency, laying in his rented room, dying in pain, in worse fear, least his secret be discovered. I’ve done all this in my time & place.
I sat before the high alter of the great cathedral. I rally didn’t know where I was going to go or what I was going to do. —Just bare up under the pressure on & on, while struggling with the same art. Did God have something better planned? Just go on & on w/same problems as before?
Well, things do change you know… Maybe one day soon, there would come The Spirit speaking: I have an idea. Says God. & it sounds right, and I will be off and running down the track of fire, my yoke well-harnessed! For after all, (tho it was such a long time ago, it seems just like yesterday) wasn’t I just a small transsexual child; cross-dressing in boy’s clothes, & shoes who thought he’d always live on the Southside of Chicago…?
Transman lay on his bed. He was sad about his situation. Then the Savior came to him:
I’m not dead.
--Jesus Christ.
Monday, January 18, 2AM Holliday Blues.
Awfully night of children and man stomping on floor even at 4AM. Am praying to win the lottery & get out of here. I cannot hate immigrants—want to—but their population is what is bolstering up our nations economy, their work is paying my Social Security. 5 kids and 3 adults in one tiny space! Get Them Out!
Final touch ups editing the combined 3-book IN PARADISE! Then it’s enter to my POD @ soonest available computer—then wait for 2nd Bancroft Funds, and purchase the global distribution packet for $100.
My only comfort is my art because it makes me feel I’m getting somewhere---in a world which has left me behind. A fixed-income senior’s $870 per month, —which is just at the poverty line. For isn’t it said that God helps those who put up a good fight?
One fact about transsexuals--- why we spend time together—there is no one else on this earth like a transsexual—but a transsexual. This cuts beyond class, race, type, age. A bond in common, uncommonly strong.
We are in a rush to get there, in an anxious hurry, we loose things…
1-Penny. Now have 95-cents.
For the lonely there is these little coffeeshops… churches…
Over coffee, Red had a very interesting conversation with Megan Wolfe:
I get invited to the openings; I am a serious artist; I don’t know if its because I am a serious artist or because I am (Red filled this in for her) an attractive young lady. It’s bothersome.
Back in the late 1800rds in Megan’s hometown of Mississippi there was a female artist, which was rare for those times. Her mother encouraged her to paint, for by high school it was apparent that she was gifted. The two of them moved to New York, and the daughter enrolled in Art School. There she excelled, despite the misogamist viewpoints of instructors that women could never produce fine art. Her professors urged her not to take art seriously. In those days female students were not allowed to paint from nude models. —Neither female models nor male. Male students could paint from both. The only models women could use were female models—clothed—and holding a baby! This is why all of Mary Cassette’s work, and other female artists of those days contain so many children—it was the models they were forced to use. Despite all the opposition, this woman artist was doing well, and then her mother died. Her mother had been her chief support. Back home in Mississippi all her friends and relatives & the whole town was writing her, begging her to come back home. To forget the art stuff, and come back where she belonged. Finally she gave in and returned home to that small town. She never painted again. When she died they found stacks & stacks of her paintings in her attic.
PM
Footfalls like a panic-struck animal upstairs. He wants to get away from his own children! Stomp! Stomp! Stomp! GET OUT OF THERE!
I have talked to other tenants in this building—they say they don’t have any problem with the people above them— Tomorrow is D-Day. Am calling The Housing Authority downtown.
Tuesday, January 19, Noon
Blessed peace above me. They are all gone out somewhere. Called Housing Authority but no answer. Don’t feel like getting up. Must be suffering from melancholia—because of lack of control of my life. If my art career got recognized this would help. If I had some money and could change my housing situation that would help.
Looking forward to publishing IN PARADISE! –will send disc off Thursday at Shaun’s, so he can help me w/the cover—using one of his photos. Then it will be done, and can start selling copies to those of our group who fancy seeing their name in print!
The average person just does not go all the way. That’s all there is to it! Very wealthy people who started out poor. Geniuses w/strange inventions. Master authors/artists. Those with radical dedication. These are the ones who push themselves off & running down the track for however long it takes until they cross over the finish line. This is why figures like Mother Teresa are so compelling, or Mother Ama—they take severe vows of poverty & obedience in this world, and do miracles among other humans. –They have Radical Dedication!
Thoughts of success with IN PARADISE! inspired the old man so he soon leapt out of his bed, coffeeid, & seated himself before computer to do his nights NOTES; taken before going to sleep, the night before
I have spoken of my desire for permanency in this world which by now seems all but impossible to get—a home, a homestead, accommodations, fans to appreciate my work.
Finally got thru to Housing Authority.
1-Cent, brings my total to 95-cents—enough to buy 3 cans cat food w/senior discount!
Well people being so greedy, corporations being so greedy, make it harder for human’s life. I.E. 1 toilet in huge restaurants, with tables full of people or coffeeshops, with a line of customers uncomfortably waiting for it!
@ clinic the nurse pastes up notice about a TG death, but would not give me my supplies last time—thus I ran out of 2 things! Vitamins & Metamucil.
Another day in paradise—or purgatory—I haven’t figured it out…
Transman threw down all the coins he had in his pocket—they spilled out, quarters, a lot of dimes and pennies, and lint. Painstakingly he counted out the amount due—95-cents. W/senior discount, 91-cents. 7 pennies left over. The cashier took the 91-cents, counted the coins into her cashregister. As he fumbled w/cell phone, to put the remaining pennies away the tan hand of the cashier reached out once more, began to sweep those coins up too! ---To stuff into the over-fed mouth of the engorged korporate kash register! Greedy Mexican beitch –caught stealing my 7-cents change!
Wednesday, January 20, noon
Think of hope.
Yes, this is the answer! When all problems engulf—think of hope. Remember the collateral you have put up in prayer for all those years! Remember God’s great ability to deliver those who ask, from their sorry situations. Think of hope!
Found 1-Cent.
Why are not Islamic women worshiping @ the mosque? Stand in the street outside, on Polk in a position to observe the women’s entrance down Hemlock alley, (the rear of the Mosque) & saw nun. Plentiful males walking fast, running to be in time, chatter Arabic as they zoom past; swarthy, dark haired, bearded. One couple, an Arab and a black American—all of them turn into the door of the mosque. But no sisters.
In regards to the Black Muslims; many black men have turned to Islam because it gives them a backbone of strength in God. They begin to discipline their loose ways. They get uprightness, and ambition. They are given limits & rules. One perk is very negative however—it is the misinterpretation of the Holy Koran that purports to give men power over women—including light physical violence used as ‘discipline’. —This is a misreading. But so often black men come from an essentially black matriarchy of mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, in which males and masculinity have abdicated their role, or been cut out, so some black men are going over to Islam feeling it legitimizes the power and control they want to have over this dominant black woman.
Men posture in physical strength to intimidate weaker men and women, but a strong man should walk lightly and be gentle—this according to Mohammad, to Jesus, and to all wise thinkers. He should be a strength of gentle power and a source of reassurance thru his peaceful strength to all women, children, other men and the elderly. He is to hold his muscles in abeyance not for intimidation. --When the wolf is at the door that is time for the show of masculine strength! When the army is attacking that is the time to pick up arms with brute force! When the harvest is in the field that is time to yoke yourself up and go raging down the rows harvesting with productive energy.
Well about this garbage of whose God is the One True God, --God is God! And evidentially many nations have devised divergent names for this Being. I compare this situation to a parable. If there is a woman named Sally. She was named Sally. On all her documents it says Sally. Her DNA is composed of Sally chromosomes. Her blood type is Sally. Her photography is Sally. All Sally’s clothes fit Sally. She is Sally! But if somebody sees her in the street and calls out to her, Hi Alice! —Does this make her Alice? No! She is still Sally! And our Creator by many names –God, Allah, Hashem, and the plethora of Others, is still our Creator!
PM
I’m sitting here—apprehension in my heart & mind about returning to my home—not a safe comfortable space, but one full of shock and noise & worry.
Found 1-Cent.
Some of my most dearly beloved companions —compatriots in the struggle for justice and equality— have been instrumental in passing this law that you can’t evict children. Well that sounds like a good thing, until you consider other aspects of it! What about the destruction caused by a pack of howling children plus too many adults all crammed into a closet-size room?
Our people are so liberal—they pass laws of justice and equality, but you have a population migrating over here who pour in with no thought of civility or respect, or rules of co-habitation for their aim is purely on survival; they dump 10 people into one tiny room, regardless of the constant noise that will cause others & despite the fact they are destroying the quality of life! My liberal friends are so just, so righteous—they make all these laws—without thinking thru the consequences. Without returning back to the drawing board immediately to fix the new problem that has now sprung up in the wake of repairing the old wounds. They can’t admit they were short-sighted. They are tired of battle, so silently those who can afford it pack up their belongings & slink away in the night to perch higher up on the tree, where the bustling, disturbance of the immigrants can’t touch them, leaving their poorer constituents to suffer it!
Eventually when a mass of people broils in rage over this unjust circumstance, a new law is proposed by suspect agents, gerrymandering in the rights to peace & quiet and cession of 2nd hand cigarette smoke—the poor fools fall for it, cast their vote—low and behold, tho their wishes are granted for no overcrowding and no other social disturbances—they fail to overlook that this clever new law is cementing in the pavestones to overturn Rent Control! The very major law which keeps them in any unit in this city to begin with!
Re-read part of the visitation of St. Mary while laying in bed w/cat, encouraging me about having a home, and a peaceful home! And the Spirit came to me and asked: where is your hope? As the Spirit this morning had told me—think about hope.
Hope is from God. It is the beginning to this following equation:
Faith is the substance of things hoped for. The evidence of things not seen.
Heb 11:1
So this hope must be a step. Some daydream, fantasizes. Then actuality arrives. Like me, hoping, dreaming, for the desire of my heart. Now I will call it hope—in the context w/prayer, for what I want. Hoping about this wonderful, peaceful affordable place to live—my hope, and this is my prayer.
These are the steps, as scripture has it, I repeat---substance of things hoped for, evidence of things unseen.
I must add some more material about my St Mary Sighting. Or, the Event. --When I sensed Her presence so great, so strong and lasting quite a while—it took about 30 minutes to totally fade out of my conscious-- Her appearance was so far out of the ordinary that I have not spoken to others about it, or even think about it much myself.
Again, some 30 years prior, the first Event I experienced of this nature, that one regarding me being miraculously transported to a different place some 6 long blocks away from where I had just been — per my desire that I would not have to walk such a long hot laborious way after a hard day at work—and missing my connecting bus which would have took me directly to my block—this miracle too, — one would think I’d be telling the world about it, chattering about it on a thousand occasions—yet have remained basically silent for decades & decades about it, but to commit it to print in these last weeks. The first ‘Event’ happened some 30 years ago. Whereas the Sighting Event happened last year.
I can see how it is that a woman testified they were on a sinking ship down in their stateroom, facing eminent death, and she reported having had only a porthole in the room to escape thru—for the hallways were awash with water, and her body was much too big to squeeze thru this tiny porthole, and she said she remembered looking at it, knowing she was too big to get thru and the next moment, she found herself out on the other side, in the water, swimming away, free. What happened to me that day at the bus line was not in a life-threatening situation, just an ordinary day of weariness, frustration, but it most definitely showed me what God can do.
Thursday, January 21, 1PM
On way to Old First. Prayed to Mary & Jesus last night—for them to make this house safe, quiet, shock-free. And had read the riot act again out of many agains to Property Managers—and did have a nearly totally completely noise free night, as it should be for all of God’s Creatures.
Its raining out.
Peace.
1-cent. Another 1-cent. Isolation. —Good title for a book. 25-Cent (a quarter). 1-Cent. .
This from Old First. Confucianism, Mencsus:
All people have this heart where if they see another person suffer, they suffer too.
Thereafter is given a parable about the person who saw a child about to fall down a well. The person was shocked, and took all measures to speedily rush over to the child and save it. This was at no gain to themselves. They did not say, oh I will be regarded as a hero. They did not anticipate a cash award granted to them by the parents of the child. They thought of nothing but horror and sadness that a tiny child be drowned in the well, and rushed to its aid out of a pure heart.
While on computer there I found that Bancroft had come in! Boy did I jump for joy! Right out of my seat! My bank is in the same end of the block as the church! Scurried outdoors and went 200 yards into my bank—the deposit had materialized.
The Bancroft delivered itself! Yippee! Jasmin is overjoyed at being paid back. I am relieved. Am starting to save on this check. Bought nothing for myself, —but batteries, and a new TV antenna. (No Sparkling Waters, no super burritos; nada.)
If any had observed the old Transman taking free coffee filling his thermoses for tomorrow, begging sox, dental floss, free food; using free Internet, only to scurry around the corner, insert plastic card into automatic teller and pull out $440 they’d be amazed. The real truth under this is, I have no extra budget. All of these supplies will be used so that precious few are purchased, saving dollars. Or the money will run out and will again fall short of rent in 2 months.
Finally dared open the PGE bill—tho no $ to pay it—its only $14!!!! Thank God.
Saturday, January 23, 2AM
Last nite, stomping on my ceiling at 1:15AM, called manager today & told him, and will e-mail property management. OUT! GET OUT YOU IMMIGRANTS! YOU ARE MAKING ME PREJUDICED AGAINST YOUR KIND!
HOORAY! Got TV antenna! To muffle the sound of the immigrant breeders who don’t believe in birth control & are having child after child and cramming them all into one room studio apartment above my head & causing me to be prejudice and a growing fiery hatred against those of their kind!
Hooray got TV antenna! Can watch world-wide disasters & educational programs!
Hooray! Watched 4 episodes of Babar! The elephant cartoon!
1-Cent.
TV News. So now we are killing the sea turtles. Dear God, please keep me from asking for anything that will hurt your ordering of things. Nor ask for anything, that by me getting it would harm the beasts.
Friday, January 22, Noon
Called and had phone service canceled (landline) was informed it had already been canceled. --As it has not been in operation for 1 month. One more bill to pay, but no more after that!
Go send IN PARADISE! --The full document away in a few hours! IS this the book that will make me famous?
1-Cent.
Put in file for IN PARADISE! Ordered 4 copies and other books for Bancroft. Ordered 4 copies Art POD Photobook.
PM
Interesting note from brother Jay of Tuesday social meeting—T’s need meat! Adolescent boys require more protein because they are growing. Ate some red meat, felt better right away.
I suppose the reason that I want to get close to God is selfish because I assume God will give me the things I’m asking for—according to the scriptures:
Ask and you shall receive. Speak and it will be granted to you.
Your faith can move mountains.
Surly if you say to the mountains, in my namesake, mountains be removed, they will flee from you.
And many, many people go this route. But also on the other hand I am seeking God so diligently because am curious where God might lead me.
The Allah is the way to truth.
The Crucifix is the way to truth.
The Allah is the door to God.
The Crucifix is the door to God.
Leading me on the Great Highway.
Regarding the desires of our hearts; all the food one could possibly want, all the love one could possibly want. —This is a dead end. The Will of God, the path God would lead us, is the highest importance.
The Holy Way. The King’s Highway. God’s Way regardless of our way—and this, by our free choice.
My father when I was young told me the voice I heard in my heart was God’s voice. Try to follow it no matter how painful.
--Angels & Demons, the Movie.
Interesting news item about a young man who turned down contracts in the multimillions of dollars to play sports—he is entering the priesthood. He has followed the Way.
When you write of us, --and I know you will, write of us gently.
--The Cardinal, in Demons & Angles.
In my journals have written gently of those around me. When someone does something horrendous, I change their name, divert the attention from them personally, for it is not my intention to embarrass. This is only a journal.
Religion is flawed. Because Humanity is flawed.
--Demons & Angels.
PM
There is a lot of physicality associated w/painting that there is not w/writing. Setting up the easel, getting out the paints, dragging the canvas down from the loft—unless you are lucky enough to have a studio and the materials await you already set up, but still you have to haul yer' ass over there to the studio where the stuff is set up, then, like any artist must overcome ennui, procrastination, writers block, painters block --to actually do anything. This Nun is wearing me out—broad strokes of gray-blue, white-black background covering big spaces w/paint. Arm motions. Want to stop and jerk off. Must work on journal. Must let birds out. Must finish background one last time while Nun is totally assembled. Finish it! Then individual panels; define hands on bottom, face & Nun’s hands on top, and reline the Cross w/brown which has become over-painted with the wretched grey blue white black background! Actually this is a simple affair, should be done soon. Wish I had the strength of photo representation –Dali like—so as to make everything more realistic. I am not a great painter, cannot do it. But this is a great idea—given to me by God in that dream—reference my journal (IN PARADISE! -- November 8). Few have these visions and attempt to paint them; as also did nun Julian, of Norwich.
Lord, you give us gifts of people; you give us these saints who extend themselves out greater then the laws of man can reach—who walk out on faith, on water—as the parable goes—on thin air, on no material substance but belief, in their journey towards the Most High.
Take nothing but one coat, one pair of shoes for your journey; God says thru the prophets, taking as little human substance into the realms of God and God will extend Her/His hand down to us, aiding us further up towards towards The Higher Places. Helping us thru the saints, thru friends of the church, thru obedient animals, thru fortune. …
They died of a broken heart says the Spirit. And then you pray. Lord, I pray for them that they be comforted. Pray for them that they be loved. To this person, or animal, or whatever conscious being… sea turtle, whale. You pray for them, for love to abound around them and fill them once more with life.
So this is the prayer journey, in part. Even the primitives do this! Do this likewise children!
Nun--A 2-Brush Night.
This Saturday, Latina gals fixed tuna fish on fire! Muy Caliente! Even the sisters & brothers born south-of-the-border who eat hot chili’s every day were fanning their lips! --While declaring politely, Muy caliente! Brother D. kindly dumped his plate into Transman’s. I can't eat this brother, he said, shaking his head. Transman judiciously placed all the tunafish fumar into a plastic dish and took it home. Whereupon he picked out the green slices of peppers threw them down the drain, and mixed the fiery fish with some aging eggs, bread, and macaroni to dilute it.
Oh got this food over the last few days:
3 slices pizza
8 pieces fried chicken
6 chicken wings in sauce
Mash potatoes & gravy
Biscuits & butter
Potpie & vegetables
Tuna fish caliente!
Container milk
Coffee w/cream
Chinese food-6 dishes
Croissants
Beef & cheese burrito
Loaf of bread
Package of eggs
Oranges
A huge apple
Ham & cheese croissant