Always on a Sunday and It Really Is Sunday in Spite of the Date on This Blog

On a Hill Far Away
I have been discombobulated (one of my father's favorite words) over the past few days. The Wolf Moon hath ceased its lycanthropic ( λυκάνθρωπος) sailing and now the moon is back in the good graces of the Sun--"Let its ever lovin' light shine on me"--a release from the prison of the Wolf Moon's grasp--the Wolf Moon a favorite of witches, vixens, covens, and martyrs--none of which I am a practitioner of. I'm only a practitioner of a raving maniacy that comes from having to be a writer in a changing time when published books are becoming like cassettes, vhs, and analog tv, things of the past--a new publishing world is opening up that is totally computerized and highly competitive--I mean, I would feel so lonely without my computers--but I still have to write in spite of writing becoming a mass media. And even though the paradise of the old-time writers is now the hell of the avant garde, I still roaringly praise de lawd of de writers, and ask for more Parks sausages, PLEEZ (I'd like a side of pure cane syrup with that, too, PLEEZ), for making me what I am, a god-damn writer, cathartic or otherwise. I am a worshipper of the words that have accumulated in my brain's attic over many generations of generated words--words that have accumulated in my brain's word files--and these words are the little gods, goddesses, muses, witches, and impish demons in my thinking life. Seeing my thoughts blurting out at me from a once-blank-white Microsoft Word new file page gives me reason to fly high above the norm--and I roar: LET 'EM BLURT!--let them blurt as printed words--in black font, red font, whatever colors of the rainbow or the hyperpalettes--hell, even gnostically translated into flipped-meaning words--games writers play--and I read my self-published words over and over and eventually get very pompous when I feel good and safe about their arrangement on the page and finally what the heck they are combining into as a chorus. Vain of me--but I say, so what! I like being vain. I knew a woman once who used to sing that song, "You're So Vain," in a whispering voice to me, a song that Carly Simon wrote after Mick Jagger had screwed her and then like the Jolly Tinker of the medieval ballad, Mick shouldered up his load and went whistling off down the road on his way to tinker with his next conquered vestibule of love [or was that Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better" that woman used to sing to me in those mornings when Electra was blessing me?]. And I read my own words and then I say, "A job well done, Wolfie, my lad," and then I cruise around my Alexandrine library and I pick up a stray book and soon I'm trying to relate what I'm reading in that book with the books I'm reading in other places and how all this reading relates to all my writing--reading really is FUNdamental, it really is.

Like I have books scattered all over my place--in my bathroom: I'm reading three books in there. Besides Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward Angel, my bathroom books include Mary Austin's Earth Horizon, a book I've read two times already in my life--the first time in Santa Fe, New Mexico, sitting in a dry arroyo just to the rear of the house she once owned and lived in there, right up the Camino del Monte Sol from my house. Whatsoever, I find this book so fascinating I am reading it again, following Mary Austin from Southern Illinois in the mid-1800s on out to the turn-of-the-20th-century Owens Valley in eastern California, due northeast of L.A., a gorgeous valley that was once a Garden of Eden-type paradise, with a huge clearwater, mountain-snow-fed lake that let water out to nourish many orchards and farmlands, a beautiful valley surrounded on the west by the Sierra Nevada mountains and on the east by Death Valley and the Death Valley Mountain Range, with the highest of all those mountains, Mount Whitney, aloofly gazing down on that once-lush valley now a ruined and barren desert--a paradise until a man named Mullholland in Los Angeles diverted the Los Angeles River so that it took away Lake Owens's water source and Lake Owens eventually dried up and remains a dry lake bed to this day--famous now for the red color of the bed--caused by a red algae that lives in the saline slag that covers the old lake floor--but the story of the drying up of Lake Owens has been told by better writers than I--plus it was immortalized momentarily (until it's forgotten) by the movie Chinatown. Here's a 2005 article from Grist about the once-mighty Lake Owens:

www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/01/19/maisel/

The other book I'm reading in the bathroom is Jose Ortega y Gasset's Revolt of the Masses all about how qualitative minorities are better than quantitative multitudes (the masses)--I think, Jose, this can also be compared to qualitative and quantitative thinking in general. Giving up quality for quantity. Sounds like David Stockman and Reaganomics (and outsourcing). Sounds like the computerized models of qualitative and quantitative physics. Here's a beautiful layout of the differences in the terms in terms of research from Del Siegle at the University of Connecticut (Del is a Social Scientist):

www.gifted.uconn.edu/siegle/research/Qualitative/qualquan.htm

Down in my music studio I'm reading Molly Haskell's From Reverence to Rape at the insistence of the woman in my life. And up in my loft by my bed, forget it--I'm reading 20 books at once including an Alice Walker novel Jazz, about the "jazz" a strong black woman can put on a girlizing black man, a handsome black man selling women's hair products; about a pissed off cheated-on wife who went to the funeral of her husband's girl lover and stabbed her with a butcher knife just to make sure she was dead and out of her and her husband's life. And then comes a dialog with the dead girl's mother. Brilliant writing/brilliant book. And up in my loft bed, too, are several of Albert Murray's great blues-idiom books, one I just finished, Stompin' the Blues, a book that should be the Bible of the blues-idiom. Brilliant writer Albert Murray; my kind of thinker; we share similar experiences--on parallel lines, yes, but still close enough to each other's experiences that I can certainly follow Mr. Murray's way of thinking as easily as I can understand a William Faulkner novel for the same strange reasons. And up in my loft are my books on Charles Ives, including his own Essays Before a Sonata. And, of course, my Gestalt Psychology Bible is always right there by my side when I need to check the Good Book for spiritual and supranatural messages (I jest, of course). But there is always a new book calling out for me to read it; and then there are the hundreds upon hundreds of writers that I've never read, both ancient and modern--and there are contemporary writers writing their asses off that I will probably never read. For instance, a friend gave me Charlie Stella's Shakedown to read and like with a Danielle Steele or a Steven King novel I got through the first paragraph and had to put it down the writing was so vulgar and bad. I'm not into New York City punk-Mafia-goon imitator writers, copycats of Mario Puzo, who to me was a big fat putz whose best work reminded me of a Playboy short story turned novel--and yes I know, he wrote The Godfather, which to me, and I'm sure it was to Molly Haskell, too, was a glorification of a bunch of Italian peasant male fools who are so neurotic and insecure the greatest achievements in their lives are the murders and assassinations of foes or friends or whoever doesn't follow the Sicilian-Italian peasant code of allegiance to the Godfather, the Holy Father, the Big Daddy, Catholicism in the crime business. So these writers sell big and get to live out the short years remaining to them rich and privileged in places like Vegas and L.A. I used to be amused by professors in college who tried to convince me that Raymond Chandler was a great American writer. Sorry, but I couldn't see it.

Contemporary youth doesn't impress me. It has allowed its producer idols to misdirect it. White kids are now totally Europeanized by their respect of Brit rock and world musics and seeing what I call folk musics as progressive musics. Even to the point of what they read! And what do they read! They don't read much at all--or if they do read it's something simple like text messages; in fact, with today's young folks, the less they read the quicker they get the message. Dig?
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A Definitive Look at the Beautiful Word "Dig"
dig (dg)

v. dug (dg), dig·ging, digs

v.tr.

1. To break up, turn over, or remove (earth or sand, for example), as with a shovel, spade, or snout, or with claws, paws or hands.

2.

a. To make or form by removing earth or other material: dig a trench; dug my way out of the snow.

b. To prepare (soil) by loosening or cultivating.

3.

a. To obtain or unearth by digging: dig coal out of a seam; dug potatoes from a field.

b. To obtain or find by an action similar to digging: dug a dollar out of his pocket; dug the puck out of the corner.

4. To learn or discover by careful research or investigation: dug up the evidence; dug out the real facts.

5. To force down and into something; thrust: dug his foot in the ground.

6. To poke or prod: dug me in the ribs.

7. Sports To strike or redirect (a ball) just before it hits the ground, as in tennis or volleyball.

8. Slang

a. To understand fully: Do you dig what I mean?

b. To like, enjoy, or appreciate: "They really dig our music and, daddy, I dig swinging for them" Louis Armstrong.

c. To take notice of: Dig that wild outfit.

v.intr.

1. To loosen, turn over, or remove earth or other material.

2. To make one's way by or as if by pushing aside or removing material: dug through the files.

3. Slang To have understanding: Do you dig?

n.

1. A poke or thrust: a sharp dig in the ribs.

2. A sarcastic, taunting remark; a gibe.

3. An archaeological excavation.

4. Sports An act or an instance of digging a ball.

5. digs Lodgings.

Phrasal Verb:

dig in

1. To dig trenches for protection.

2. To hold on stubbornly, as to a position; entrench oneself.

3.

a. To begin to work intensively.

b. To begin to eat heartily.

Idioms:

dig in (one's) heels

To resist opposition stubbornly; refuse to yield or compromise.

dig it out

Slang To run as fast as one can, especially as a base runner in baseball. [I never heard this!]

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[Middle English diggen; perhaps akin to Old French digue, dike, trench; see dhg^w- in Indo-European roots. V., tr., sense 8 and intr., sense 3, perhaps influenced by Wolof degg, to hear, find out, understand, or Irish Gaelic tuigim, I understand.]
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Fuck Digital Teevee
I am seriously contemplating doing away with television in my life with this coming farce of doing away with analog signals and forcing the whole country to convert our obsolete sets to be able to receive digital signals or buy new sets (digital teevees much more expensive than analogs). By the bye, some musicians feel analog tape preserved sounds better than CDs or DVDs. I have a huge CD collection that a lot of my CDs are not holding the groove--disintegrating in terms of containing the digital transfers of sounds). Ironically, I found a pile of cassette tapes in a corner on the darkest and dankest area of my floor, covered in fuel oil dirt, dust, and dust mite kingdoms. I pulled out one, a Wardell Gray (yeah, I know, Who?) tape, cleaned it off, took out the tape, put it in my cassette deck, and it played divinely, in beautiful mono. I just got a batch of CDs I made for an album of my best stuff I'm producing and not one of them will play on my CD decks--they suddenly start skipping and slurring--and, yes, I know, they tell me the blank CDs they were dubbed onto were probably no good. And JVC (Japan Victor Company) have said they are stopping production of all vhs blank tapes now. Everything's gonna be digital now. Hot damn. And yes I know, I can download beautiful stereo shit onto iTunes (what happened to Real players, remember them?), but still, I like holding a real book when I'm reading and I like having a real album in my hands, with liner notes and personnel information, when I'm listening to music.

On the Otherhand, I May Buy a New Teevee
I watched Obama's speech in Philadelphia this [Saturday] morning before he boarded his special train to head for Washington, D.C., and his inauguration (estimates of 2 million they say may show up for this unprecedented affair. Several thousand in attendance will be Secret Service, FBI, CIA, Washington Police goons--they say D.C. today is like a damn fortress).

This was one of Obama's best speeches yet, I think--though he did mumble-bumble occasionally which puts his timing off--but it was an encouraging speech in terms of doubting his honesty. He's weird in his approach to enemies. Adelaide Sanford says this is an African tribal way of handling opponents and enemies. Her idea says yes hire the men who wrecked our economy to fix it since they know how they fucked it up; therefore shouldn't they be the best at putting it back together again--now unfuck-it-up! I don't know if this will work but you gotta give the guy big Es for effort right now. I'm still cynical. Too many Clintons and Neo-Cons surrounding him for me, but I do wish him well and hope this guy can pull off his idea of Change. Anything's better than Bush Junior, as thedailygrowlerhousepianist tells me.

This is reading like a young silly girl's blog--"Ooooh, Britney was so hot last night. Ronnie tried to kiss me. Dee-Dee says she is jealous I have such cool boyfriends."

thegrowlingwolf as a young silly girl. As far as Molly Haskell's concerned, I'm a god-damn male character trying to live up to the emulation and expectations of my sportin' daddy friends and my tale-spinning male-competitive friends. Yes, Molly, you're write, as a male writer I find it hard to give girlish qualities to my female characters, which I take from real females. Of course, all my writing is from a male point of view. Do gay writers write more respectful of how women want to be written about? Is a woman a male turned inside out?

I am in limbo at the moment. I haven't even felt like writing over the past week, though I have written, concrete hard stuff, and a couple of poems, having to keep on writing every day of the week, even if what I write, as William Saroyan said, is gibberish.

Most of what I write may never see the light of day. Even this blog is beginning to make me want to hide it somewhere--make it disappear into a hidden cove somewhere off in the digital hereafter. I haven't decided yet whether or not this blog adventure is really worth the time & effort--except like I said, in a cathartic way--yet, I'm compelled to keep publishing some kind of blog. I've been contemplating on the encouragement of my musician friends to start a music-oriented blog, a serious blog, you know, written with the most qualitative of respect for the music I and several thousand others are still devoted to. No fictional bullshit like's on this blog. Can you see the Huffington Post admitting it had a horse for an editor? I'm sick of seriousness; that's why I (with the help of two other fiends) started this "fictional reality" blog and cast my breads upon its waters.

And a final disturbing note: I just saw where Josh Groban is going to sing with some unknown black chick at Obama's inauguration. Where the hell did Josh Groban come from? He's sucks so bad; yet he's everywhere. I can't stand the little prick! He looks like he should be playing a klezmer clarinet in a Jewish social club. And he's so creepy when he's being idolized by giggling silly girls or millionaire teevee talk show babes who adore him. He reminds me of John Tesch, another talentless boob whose popularity I don't understand. Both these jerks have been given PBS specials--why I ask? Yanni, too. I hate fops. And fops in music are the worst. One of the greatest ever American musicians died in relative unnotice (only the jazz aficios mourned Freddie's loss) a week ago, Freddie Hubbard. Listen to Freddie blow out his song. Freddie weren't no fop and that's for sure. If you think Freddie's a fop, you can, like he told a bunch of German fops from the stage, "kiss his black ass." Blow, Freddie, blow.

thetappedoutgrowlingwolf
for The Daily Growler

From antifascist calling [see my blog list at right of post], a Remembrance of BCCI and Its Involvement in Black Market Nuclear Weapons and Aiding Terrorists
BCCI, the CIA and Nuclear Proliferation

During the 1970s, the Safari Club, a secret cabal of intelligence agencies including France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the Shah's Iran, Morocco and the United States, decided that it required a network of banks to help launder illicit funds and finance intelligence operations, according to investigative journalist John Cooley's account in Unholy Wars. With the blessings of George H. W. Bush, then Director of the CIA, the task fell to Saudi Intelligence Minister Kamal Adham.

Within the space of a few years, Adham helped transform Agha Hasan Abedi's small Pakistani merchant bank into the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). According to investigative journalist Joseph Trento's account in Prelude to Terror, under Adham's guidance Abedi created "a world-wide money-laundering machine, buying banks around the world to create the biggest clandestine money network in history." Indeed, BCCI was a major player in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, with powerful American intelligence officials deeply involved in the drugs-for-guns financing of the Nicaraguan Contras and Afghanistan's "holy warriors."

In 1991, Time Magazine described BCCI as not just a bank but also as "a global intelligence operation and a Mafia-like enforcement squad. Operating primarily out of the bank's offices in Karachi, Pakistan, the 1,500-employee black network has used sophisticated spy equipment and techniques, along with bribery, extortion, kidnapping and even, by some accounts, murder. The black network--so named by its own members--stops at almost nothing to further the bank’s aims the world over."

While the United States was pouring billions of dollars in aid to finance drug- and organized crime-linked "holy warriors" in Afghanistan such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, much of the money was actually siphoned off by the ISI. Sarkis Soghanalian, a "middleman" profiting from American largess, told Trento that most of the money flowing into Pakistan was diverted into BCCI accounts controlled by the Army and ISI and then distributed to A. Q. Khan's weapons program and proliferation network.

According to Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark's account in Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons, Abedi created a "charity" called the BCCI Foundation. Pakistani Finance Minister Ghulam Ishaq Khan granted it tax-free status while simultaneously serving as the foundation's chairman and overseeing finances for Khan Research Laboratories in Kahuta.