Gaylee: News Flash:
Today there was a bill passed deregulating the FCC, meaning that the Big Fat Cats can own all of the radio stations they want (that part had already happened) but now they have added the TV and newspapers to the list...so some towns could have NO competition and hence no real voice of the people.
I am upset and I need to write to the Congress etc.
Love, Charlotte

Dear Charlotte,
Today found me struggling with being an aging poet/writer while seeing myself as a late life new wife looking for my younger body self and reading the Kama Sutra. Then you write me about your struggle to be a political activist in DC while still being a mother/healer. At this point I think I am beginning to digress:

Charlotte Dear, in this letter to you I started rambling on and on. No, I am not drunk or lonely. I just started writing and this is what happened. Most of it is crap, and I apologize early, but I think this kind of shit all of the time, and you just activated the serious thoughts down deep in my mind as I sit here on my lake and watch the birds hatch their young on my island. There is a new peace around me and love in life with Paul. But my brain just still churns on and on about the injustices of man and money and greed and gain and malice winning out so often over the little guy who just keeps on believing and trying and struggling to be a gift of life to his fellow travelers on the planet. So you may delete the rest, or read, up to you. Take care. Gaylee

As for the newspapers and the TV and the internet all being run by one big News Media Syndicate in the Sky, it just may momentarily and monetarily unite the syndicated voice of the happenings for it was only a matter of time before all of the embedded reporters got into bed together. They were all saying the same thing anyway out of fear of being sued for plagiarisms or some other 'ism: a suffix that seems to signify the means by which to sue or kill one another.
Come Let Us Sue One Another. Hummm, has a special ring to it, doesn't it.

The news, as we now know it, is merely fed to us today by readers, not reporters. I have watched TV around the world, well, half way round at least. If I know the language I am able to listen, but if I do not know the language, the motions, inflections and sing song rhythms of learned delivery, they all came off of the same CD-Rom and were translated electronically for delivery and faces adjusted as to nationality.

We have had the technology to electronically dub voice inflections for some time now. It isn't recognized unless you travel the country and listen to news broadcasts and realize that the same person/voice is giving the traffic warnings. The voice is exactly the same, but the streets and towns are states and situations apart. I am amazed. I was called up short the other day listening to PBS here and hearing a recognized voice tell me where the wrecks on Gulf Freeway were located. I thought for a minute I was some how listening to a Richmond, Virginia PBS station. NOT SO!! It was Houston, Texas.

It is just like in Pinocchio. The little boys yoked together looked more like donkeys to the innocent puppet eyes, but they were truly little boys in ass suits slowly becoming what they wore.

So the next time you watch your favorite TV show, just see the "reader" not as Connie, Dan, or whoever, but see Twenty Mule Team Borax coming down the Mountain of OZ with the news, prepackaged in a feeding tube with a brain adapter, that only the wizard, knows and only the wizard gives. The question remains, who be the Grand Wizard?

This world wide problem will last for a while. But one day, somewhere, somehow, in a corner, in front of a computer (our new printing press); someone hooked to a rogue thread on the web will start writing with the spirit of his own mind, and he will slowly eek out a strand spinning truth on the silky woven net of pseudo communication. Those who view with clear eyes to see will know it to be truth. A new Thomas Payne and a new Edward R. Murrow will find a way.

The newly woven thread will begin the opening It will be the crack in the crumbling political WorldWideWealth dam. More threads will be woven and will follow, reverently and respectively, knowing that all news is human and must be dealt with precisely and truthfully; not interpretively. We now interpret our own President before he closes his notes and reaches for a glass of water.

The voice of the seemingly insignificant little thinking man of little means will again be heard, and chasing fire engines locally to get a true and accurate story will again be the news next door that is heard accurately from a voice that is there on site.

I realize that Charles Kuralt died and Sunday Morning changed. I know that Walter Cronkite has gone also and yesterday yet another: David Brinkley joined Reporters In The Sky.

No one is chasing fire engines anymore. Those men were the foot soldiers of news. But we do not have to kowtow to the new News Czars of Dot Com. For this was the reason the little garage owned dot-coms collapsed on the stock market, for they could not be bought or owned by the wealthy of the world. Inventive Idealists are a difficult lot to control or manipulate. They were pioneers and go-getters and self-starters and yes for a while, to entice them with the carrot of wealth, they were allowed to accumulate vast wealth. Old Money of Wall Street just sat back and twiddled their thumbs patiently waiting for New Money boot strap entrepreneurs to cave in on themselves.

The wealth was taken away as fast as it came and now the real wealth in the entire world is buying up the lines of communication that these little garage grown gargantuan gone greedy upstarts set in motion. But now we can each begin to flood the networkings of the universal mind with our own thoughts on what is happening around us, which is all we truly know to be real. The universe will send to us the story not bound by the "isms", the fences and the borders that we have put forth as truth and then fight for and behind to keep them.

Until then, we are not about human beings. We are not about goodness. We are not about shared wealth for the good of all. With our own hands we camouflage the truth to prevent our own eyes from seeing what our own minds can no longer recall. So we will wait to be spoon fed tomorrow's news. Yesterday's news either went straight through ear to ear or competely over our head. Faithfully the syndicated reporting network will dish up the story we will choose to believe it, given we can remember it in the onslaught on the information highway.

We call it, "Moving On."

Take Care, Gaylee

So, are you on some juicy trial? You got the Jury Duty letter in mail?
They never let me be on a jury but once, and I swung the jury.

The courthouse had me pegged ever since and the attorneys would just boot me off first thing. It was like I had a big X on my forehead.
I wrote it up in my web page; One Deer and Two Beers.

The next time I almost made the trial of a drug related minor offense carrying a federal sentence. I told the two separate attorneys and the judge that I thought pot should be legalized, sold at the ABC store (authorized Liquor stores in the State of Virginia) to get the money and smuggling out of it. It is interesting that the State of Virginia also wants to get tobacco only to be sold by the State of Virginia at the same ABC stores. So I figured why not pot. Then Virginia could set up state funded rehab centers like all states do for alcohol abuse and that would support more rehab workers, create new jobs and increase the lagging job market. Insurance reimbursement would then get involved offering kick back incentive money to the rehab centers.

Mental Health Workers could get back to treating the real crazies: religious idiots thinking they are God's EarthArmy with special dispensation to wipe out abortion clinics and legalize the KKK so they can get lumber to build crosses and buy blow torches as a tax exempt funded Right Wing Christian militia.

The chewing gum industry would invent a pot gum to help addicted users and aid the new smoke free society. The pharmaceutical companies would release a medicare approved patch for old Viet Nam hippies who cannot inhale or chew the gum because they are on a trac from inhaling agent orange while serving their country to save the world from orientals whose only crime was speaking French and wanting a unified un-occupied country.

These inventions would be allowed to advertise the new items on TV and put more money nto Public Broadcasting as a public service for better television. Then I would be watching less inferior television. I am not only a movie snob, but a TV snob as well.

The outcome of all my suggestions would be Better Television for a large majority of our 5 year olds who sit in front of a TV for 8 hours a day watching soap operas about wealthy people who never go to work or busy mouthed daytime talk shows where the guests are biker rednecks who sleep with their sisters who have female lovers demanding equal time. In the mean time their mothers are in the chat room or playing computer bridge tournaments.

I have digressed again. I always do that; seemingly to float upon a sea of loosly attached sentences leading down unconnected paths. I can actually see that action photo in my mind.

Anyway, I made such a good case that the judge himself dismissed me from the jury box. I never got another call from the long arm of justice.

Sometimes I wake up in the early morning with really weird thoughts.
The problem is I write them down.

A NIGHT WITH BOB DYLAN: HOUSTON TEXAS: 2003

The SCOOP

Well, what can I say, good concert but Bobby Dylan has chosen to change his act from a smoke filled coffee house motif with a single light, tall stool, an acoustic guitar with harmonica to a band, and he plays the keyboard. What is up with that?? I am in retro-flashback-shock.
Behold, The Times They Are A-Changin'.

God knows I have changed in 40 years, I suppose he can also. But I wish I had been warned. Some of his new music was bumpin hard, but I wish I knew the words.

He still does not speak English, so that has not changed.

I think everyone there wanted to lay back while visions of a young Dylan, pot clouds and police danced in their heads so they could forget they have big toe gout, sagging guts, and large memory gaps. One thing Dylan has kept, HIS FIGURE !!!!!!! Some hot legs on that old boy. Yup-62. Can you believe it, black hair ! Hey, I use Loreal, I suppose he can also. And yes, the keyboard does convert into a really cool walker should he soon need one.

The stroke prone audience seemed to leave on a whole note. I came home, put on my new Dylan Forever shirt, got out my old albums and returned to a former life in my mind.

The start up pre-band, The Waifs from Australia, was VERY good. Two long skinny old girls and three fat guys. One of old girls plays the meanest harmonica to ever hit the Blues Scene. The song "Bridal Train" was pure Australian Folklore. We aren't the only ones out there writing stories that have tunes.

That about wraps it up.

Except: I am really stuck on this Aging Changing Dylan Syndrome thing. I found this reading in The Big Orange Book of his drawings and original writings of the songs and poems. Great Book. I have had it and read it for what seems like forever and ever.

So:: I write quoting:
"An the only beauty I can feel
and I dove back in by my own choice
T feed my skin a hungry holes
An rejected every other voice
An I walked my road an sung my song
Like a lonesome king
Standin in the fury a the queen's garden
Starin into a shallow grave."
Page 77 half way down.

So he knows that continuing to sing and play and write and do your own song your own way could get you beheaded by your oldest & dearest fans or the pimp who owns your contract and also your manager.

Therefore, I am encouraged to continue. I pray for the same willingness to change with time and seasons. Most of us are in the 5th world of our extended earth-trip. It is a good time to write new songs, change our hair, play different tapes, different tunes, throw out all our negatives and only keep the life/photos that we really like (be they on paper, computer or etched into the memory eye of our mind). This entire earth trip may just and only be about change.

Oh Dear, I think I have just heard too much Dylan in my life.

And now considering the Saga of Bill & Hillary Clinton.

It is not 1998 now, it is 2003 instead and Bill Clinton
is a flash in the news now, NEVER over 4 seconds, if that.
So I realized upon glancing over something I wrote in 1998 is
of little consequence on the May Day, 2003. It is difficult
to realize just why I felt so inclined to write, must less
post it like it was eternity or something. But write it I did,
actually thinking it was worth writing about at the time.
Now here it is, just another bowl of day old cream-of-wheat.

Everybody wrote or thought or said something about
President Bill Clinton this past year. If you tire easily
don't read this one. No need to scroll down for this is the bottom.

August 18th, l998
Hail to the Chief

Men forever have not told of a cloaked liaison with some young thing, or
some married old thing. It is the established code of all affairs.
Southern Men of standing never never told.
Too many of the affairs were black mistresses.
Clinton's just happened to be young and vulnerable.
That is sad.
I came from a generation and so does Clinton
who were taught that it was the woman's fault.
We are the sibyls of the sea, the sirens on the rocky shores of destruction
and like Ulysses, Clinton should have tied himself to the mast
of the Ship of State.
It is interesting that Clinton is taking the
family to Martha's Vineyard to get away from it all.
He acted terribly foolish in his personal decision making process.
The Grand Jury is another thing indeed.
But here again, the list of lies, half truths and out and out denials
that have been told the American Public by our elected public could sink his ship.
That ought to be enough said. But alas, there is more.

In Virginia we are now with Mista Jeff-a-son's illicit affair
with a black slave. It was not an affair or a relationship. It was to keep
Mrs. Jeff-a-son alive: not having any more children. Remember, abortion has many
sides. It was how things used to work for the good of all. She died anyway,
and when he fell in love in Europe with a married woman, the estate of Jefferson
sent a young black woman across the Atlantic to "care for his daughter" who was
along for the trip. Monetarily, the child of a slave was another slave.
Not bad for the plantation business.

Let us consider other of our elected officials further.

The Kennedys including Jackie (whom I adored) behaved shamelessly.
Who is or was good and chaste among our elected officials?
In this list I will not even begin to look into the House or Senate
for chaste men and women.
I am certain they have been and are seated there.

It is our next generation that we truly need to think about seriously.
So many of this next generation are terribly disillusioned, shallow,
non-committal; cynical and roll over dead wishy-washy.
They await the big meteorite in the sky.
Fundamental Christians await Jesus's second return.
Those who lean heavily toward the extra conservative Right
or the ultra liberal Left
or sit back awaiting the pie or The Christ in the sky to scare us awake.

But we, as a nation on this planet, do not want to become Dr. Martin Luther King's
apt description of "the survival of the slickest." If we do that we become the
sickest of the once greatest of all nations: and we will 'all go down together'.
Add us to that ever growing list of vanished or impotent nation's
only found in dusty books.

The peoples of the planet earth must loose the need to stone in order to cleanse.

It is The Presidency that must be protected.
Another man is a year or four away,
no matter what happens to any elected official tomorrow or today.
I believe the issue is:
"The Presidency of the United States of America."

America is about you and me going to the polls with our good-list, bad-list:
casting our ballots in line with true personal inner convictions and beliefs;
not something we were told was true by ABC, NBC, PRI, UPI: ad etcetera; etcetera; etcetera.

So, here’s to America and the lies we have believed; the truths we have not
believed; the hopes we lost; the realities we wished would get lost; and the
future, good or bad that we certainly will receive whether we want it or not.

This is our country. We vote, and we don’t get shot in the 90’s for doing it.
This is good. I love America, and I want my grandchildren to be able to say
the same thing as they go to vote for their tomorrow and the future tomorrows
of their children's children. The Native American puts away hope enough
for the seventh generation. To do that one must stretch out his vision
far past what he will ever know or touch.

That is what America is about: expanded vision.