Fingernails, New Mexico - A Remote Location

I envy your location S'tan.

Last September I was up the Gila River canyon. About 75 miles from the nearest stoplight. Only saw rattlers, wolves, bear and plenty lizards. Not to mention the truly magic surroundings. Had to run off a 7,000 foot high ridge in the middle of a wild lightening storm with hits blasting trees apart on the left and the right of me. I kind of wanted to just stop and turn on a video camera but thought a hand held electric device might make me a little too tempting for those bolts.

Did you have any luck scoping out spaces on 28th Street before you left?

Have a great time in magicland.

Where is the Gila River Canyon?

Don't ever mention West 28th or any location in midtown to me. They are Hells straight out of Swedenborg. But then Hell is everywhere, acc. to him -- as is Heaven.

http://swedenborg.newearth.org/hh/hh61.html

"Some hells present an appearance like the ruins of houses and cities after conflagrations, in which infernal spirits dwell and hide themselves. In the milder hells there is an appearance of rude huts, in some cases contiguous in the form of a city with lanes and streets, and within the houses are infernal spirits engaged in unceasing quarrels, enmities, fightings, and brutalities; while in the streets and lanes robberies and depredations are committed. In some of the hells there are nothing but brothels, disgusting to the sight and filled with every kind of filth and excrement. Again, there are dark forests, in which infernal spirits roam like wild beasts and where, too, there are underground dens into which those flee who are pursued by others.

"There are also deserts, where all is barren and sandy, and where in some places there are ragged rocks in which there are caverns, and in some places huts. Into these desert places those are cast out from the hells who have suffered every extremity of punishment, especially those who in the world have been more cunning than others in undertaking and contriving intrigues and deceits. Such a life is their final lot."

So proud of you S'tan for gettin out.....
Due to my baby daddy being here am sort of stuck but believe me a day doesn't go by without my thinking how shite NYC is these days... really... you can always visit but live here full time I think is 'over' unless u have bottle service $ and even then u must be some vacant kinda stupid cunt to pay $600 for a bottle of $12 gin! so ... all power to ya... really...

The river is north west of Silver City. Down near the Arizona/Mexico/Texas border.

I like the Swede's take on Manhelltan. Very medieval flavor.

I think your just about right about Manhattan Anna. The only thing that will turn it around is whatever is going to happen to empty it out all of a sudden. Then it will be like New Orleans is now, just waiting for the fatalistic to move back in.

I'm a big believer in making your own fun, wherever you live. The southwest will no doubt be a livelier place with you in it, Stan. And rumor has it they're much more partial to titty bars, seedy saloons and back room what nots in those parts, even if it is "red country". Enjoy, my black flower of the desert and stay connected online.

Lexxy hons -- and Anna! -- thanks for the notations!

There is a very cute Japanese spa on a mountainside called "Ten Thousand Waves" that I've heard tell
is cruisy as hell, but mostly for the guys. Jackie Bigelow was enjoying herself there...
her friend works there and he is trying to help me get a job.

My hearing in my left ear just went "boink" on the trip cross-country with Father Paul. I've had massage, acupuncture, meridian channeling, heavy-metal flushing -- in short everything Santa Fe has to offer. I even went in for some AMA bullshit... I am still deaf.

Father Paul had a Harvest Moon party at the Hell Hotel last night. I warned him that the Madroids -- that is the indigenous hippy-folk of Madrid -- would stay until the last drop had been drunk and the last scrap eaten. After my acupuncture in the Apfelschnitt Chapel at midnight, I went out to see what the denizens were up to. They were literally gnawing on the ham-bone and drinking up the last of the cheapest tequila in chrissendom. Told him so.

We woke up to weirdly carved pumpkins that looked like the handiwork of a serial killer. Father Paul was almost crying realizing all the pies he's gonna have to make.

The smoke is fantastic this season. Father Paul's in-house pharmacologist made magic mini-muffins for the party, lands' sake.

In the meantime I am getting broke, broker, brokest by the minute, so let me answer a couple of Santa Fe slaves' petitions.

LOVE!

PS: Jackie Bigelow should be scooting through here early November if you have any messages. She says she doesn't come on these Boards no more for whatever reason.

Tonight in Fingernails New Mexico

M.Madison lets me know the 26th Street
Whipshack is getting boarded up ready
for demolition I'm just laughing
to think of the rats trapped

this cat escaped.

Jackie Bigelow just flew into town
on her broom
and is dancing the road map off her butt in some boite in
Santa Fe with other travellin' Faeries.

I was unable to interface with said gal as I was
holed up in the Pojoaque Pueblo Casino
escorting drunks to their hotel rooms, no not what it sounds like...
I'm working for an Indian Security Firm...
the 11 PM to 5 AM shift

Bigelow's unloading the primo somewhere in town
Will she stay for Thanksgiving or will I be
one of the lonely people
professionally thanking
the sad drunks to take to their rented beds

and drive home drug-tested and injun-dominated
the rx7 rotary engine climbing the mesa roaring
with the lions
baby lions
Binky Pearl and Beauregarde send you
Meow, Mew and Mrrow
wish you could see them now glowing white running wild
under moonlight

momma can still make the catfood cash
Driving home in absolute darkness climbing the mesa in the frenetic li'l rx7
rotary engine tearing along a dirt road,
gasping at rosy fingered dawn
over black cutout mountain next door.

That's my neighbor.

I'm dancing over the edge into a free life
Making nine dollars an hour feels like
heaven
in heaven

Beautiful S'tan, so so beautiful.

stan, is your car prepped for such high promintories? my father once pulled a trailer cross country with an old 1957 Fordfairlane station wagan and had so much trouble with the engine's water temperature valve at differing altitudes, we almost didn't make it over the Rockies.

gawd, just love the land out there stan. almost stayed meself, once, had an adobe with a walless roofless outhouse out back and all the lamp oil merlin could use. just me and the coyotes up north of las vega new mexico, much greener over there compared to Santa Fe.

am sure you are having fun...... did you find this job on craigslist?

Were you with the Donners, Merlin?

Oh... station wagon!

yes, hatches, a station wagon to carry a seven piece matching '57 Samsonite set of luguage set Mother bought for the trip from Central France to Anchorage alaska with three children and husband with several uniforms. Mother got it all - the perfect sized top handled makeup box with interior mirro, the undies satchel, the pant/suit hanging case, and one large and several small cases. all in that matching pleathera brownish blond scuff finished plastic to popular in the mid fifties.

I have always thought that airplanes ruined travel and made it less grand-- the basic carry-on just doesn't hold a candle to those Samsonite sets or the steamer trunk.

Ugh, travelling!
If I ever set eyes on a piece of luggage or a brown cardboard box again I will just scream.

... Jackie Bigelow hijinx report coming up!

'LOCAL FAERIES GO WILD AT HELL HOTEL --
PEE ALL OVER STAGE"

More later ... I am really pissed, I have to drink this hideous shit called "STRIP"
to beat a
drug test in the morning.

Hie gorgie! So glad to hear you got that job. Details, please. Steam shovels have now moved in over on W 26th. Oh, and Anthony is back at the Food Hole! That's today's Chelsea report.
smooches

YEAH Madge! mushy grayshes for the shining review of her many sterling qualities. *Dominatrix* as rent-a-cop, *Dominatrix* as nurse for the mentally challenged. She's over-qualified to say the least.

My old neighbors on West 26th are beseiged by construction types checking the basement daily for signs of imminent cave-in. I wish to hell my favorite lady would move out, fuck the buy-out, I feel she is a sitting duck for a real-estate grab-disaster...

Miss Marti sent me NY Post clippings about Western Beef disappearing (I know you will be happy about that Madge.) But that place fed alot of poor folk! The developers were oozing, "We're sorry we didn't buy the whole place when we had the chance..." that is, the entire Meat Packing District. Oh just go cover the world in steel and glass, assholes!

I feel bad for my friends being in a place where money rules everything.

Meanwhile back at this'ere ranch, after several glasses of local Gruet Rose Champagne, Jackie Bigelow got back on her broom and is flying under moonlight under the radar to Tennessee with multiple Faeries in her glittering wake. All the Love Weed was dispersed, she will be safe through Texas.
Father Paul is still picking the shards of Fiestaware out of her hairs, in the wake of the Hell Hotel blowout on Monday.

Daddy, I picked up a (hot pink) flyer for you at the Madrid General Store:

FREE
Green Couch
9 foot long
sits five folks
YOU COME AND GET IT
505-473-1052

for when y'all open a nightclub out here.

PS: MERLIN! honey you are invited with all the vintage Samsonite you can lug. I've got plenty of pasture to put y'all out in.
YOU COME AND GET IT.

Just a week ago I was gloating I wasn't going to get on a plane for a year...
But, then, my Daddy came home from his eightieth birthday party...
and who knows what he went through that night,
but he was found the next day on the floor.

"He went out partying."

So I will be flying to DC for more parties in his honor.
Then driving to New York next week (the 12th) to
ravage my hairdresser and chiropractor and all those guys I miss so much!
And some of y'all too.

Quit/got fired? not sure from
the Security job after being chastised for being Too Authoritative.
I guess with my "Superiors" I should be cowed. A corrupt as hell job anyhow,
everyone fucks off and sleeps but I didn't...
I guess my work ethic did not go over. They just keep saying they don't need me this week.

The Daddy "Bob" says Hie from Hell.
He says it's HOT.

See you soon

Bless beams to your Daddy.....
Hope we see you for a swift ales in the Rotten Apple...
Keep fighting!

Many condolences S'tan.

It sounds like he went out in a far better way than the majority do.

I hope you will be able to celebrate his life in a way he would be gratified to see done. And, perhaps, he really wanted to give you an excuse to travel to the East again.

My mum's 80th was in October. I said I had to ask her what it felt like to live to be 80. She did this huge laugh, AT me, like to say, "Let's see if you even get this far and then you'll find out."

I am back in Fingernails alot worse for wear. Thank you Anna and Seven for the notes and Bobby too. I got up to NY for one day to see my chiropractor and cry and the hairdresser and cry and see the Goodie girls and laugh... Romy and I had similar Daddies, bad boys who drank and were literary. It did me well to talk to her and get the news about the end of things.

I hate it when things are over, isn't there anything that lasts forever in this damned world?

Daddy wrote for the little newspaper called "The Georgetowner" in DC and his pal wrote him a beautiful eulogy. I would put it here except my damned dialup is still downloading it for the next 1/2 hour it looks like.


I am writing about Daddy, here is something in his spirit --


I visit Daddy's grave at Walker Chapel twice more before I leave Virginia, for perhaps years... I have to go to see the pompous ass sedulous minister whom I rather deplored, but anyhow submissively avail myself of his function to rave against my sister and mother who hated Daddy and who have been hypocritical/awful... He does help a little, basically by saying that their problems are not mine.

When I go to the grave that afternoon, I notice they haven't even filled in the little rectangular hole fully, which I think is a bit much! As I stand there muttering like a baby, "Daddy.... Daddy... Daddy..."
I realize the hole is exactly the size of his enormous, ratty, moldy Oxford English dictionary, which I had been wondering what to do with... did not want to throw it away. I decide I'm going to put the dictionary on top of the urn and fill in the damned hole.

I creep into the cemetery, naturally this operation takes place under the full moon, to drop the big old
well-worn beloved thing he probably had all his life right on top of him. I light up one of his Parliaments and sit there talking to him. I tell him I am pissed off about death in general. I can't stand things to be over.
I pop open a Budweiser, take a few sips, then
sprinkle some into the grave. I don't forget to give his Daddy Chase next door a few sips too. Then I drink the last of the Nuits St. Georges I carried all the way from Burgundy country. We always did that when we were in Paris.
He'd have a beer, I'd have a glass of red wine.

With the help of Gar's shovel-andiron, I steal some dirt from another
fresh grave and fill in around the dictionary, the pack of Parliaments , and Daddy's hopes and dreams of being a famous novelist. Goddammit. The earth is red, wet, sticky and awful heavy. It's the only moment I feel like a crazy, digging dirt off of another person's grave, stealing for my Daddy...
I've got mud all over my long leather coat I forgot the flashlight and I can't see jackshit, the moon is all fogged up. I pack the dirt in around the dictionary which comes up exactly to the level of the ground. A more perfect fill could not have been designated.

I spread the leaves over and wonder when the
cemetery man's probe will hit this big old pile of words
that is all that is left of my family. He used to read the dictionary for amusement and I still do too.
Well anyhow I know that big old book will keep him warm.
Nothing much else did.

Bless you S'tan. You did all the right things and now he and you sholud both be free. Sending you beams of love

S'tan, many beams from me too. And the ritual of the dictionary and the grave is just about the most beautful thing I have ever heard. Somewhere your Daddy must be smiling with joy.

My mother passed away also just this past summer... and one of the (many) things that struck me was that when a parent goes-- no matter what the state of your relationship with him or her has been-- one of the two people that have known you absolutely the longest in your entire life... from the very moment of your conception, in fact... is no longer there anymore. It's a very strange and sad feeling of loneliness. And one that is a rite of passage-- especially for those of our age.

But I am glad that your Daddy went out partying. I think if all of us were given a choice, that would be the way we would want to exit the world-- with beer and ciggie and laughter!

Darling ol' Hatch,
It does make one feel pretty ancient I have to say, and every emotion is back again, relived and active, that you ever felt all those years.

Though I feel neither merry or bright and my tiny tot eyes are not aglow, there was
Hairdresser Wisdom at hand, when I was in NYC -- Mario told me, Go ahead and make a big old Xmas for Daddy. So I went out (with the flu) got a live tree and dragged out all the decorations. Made Daddy a little altar too with his gloves and cigarettes and other imperishables. The spirits must be fed.
Wouldn't you know it now bloodie Budweiser is holy essence to me...

Merry Xmas to the Ancestors!!!
Love to all a youse.

S'tan Claus,
Yes there is something in the Eastern worship of the ancestors. The Romans did it too around their home hearth altar.
They do live on in us, you know. It used to horrify me when I was younger, but now I revel in it!
I would send you a dusty bauble from my old family tree to add to the beauty, but it would arrive much after XXXmas, and might not make it to you before you cast yours into the ritual bonfire on the Feast Of the Magi.

Happy all, and especially Happy St. Stephen's Day!

S'tan thank you so much for posting the recounting of your visit to your father's resting place. It reminds me of how important it is at times to feel the aloneness of having been put here on the earth and the tangible reach that manifests within one when those who brought you here have departed to the very 'place' out of which they brought you giving one the truely sensed expansiveness of what being alive is -that your physical location is such a finite reference -I don't know if I am conveying this acurately or well- but when you stand at the piece of ground feeling like a physical trace of the person that ground commemorates, following that life in to time, whatever else you had done in your own existence has such a clarified measure there, then, in a kind of proximity to the person whose purpose for you only becomes clarified with each year of your own life.

When I visit the grave of my father my senses are all in opposition. Below is only a box I know that he has left. What I say could be rain or wind. I am listening to the earth. Stone, metal, wood, bone, I would hold you to all my empty parts; future, fulfillment, final thought.

marker designed by me! at age 17.

Thinkin' about you Stan...
and Daddy.

Oh, and give Brown Paul a big New Years kiss for me.

Happy New Year from Fingernails!
Staying put with Bob's ashes.
But thanks for the beer and ciggies Daddy, we needed that!

Brown Paul is moping tonight, but I don't wanna drive 2 1/2 hrs. to his Madroid Hellhole. DWI stops are all over the place too. I hope the herd is well-culled after tonight.

lots of love coming up for the '06
S'tan

I feel like such an idiot. I haven't read this topic in weeks and had no idea what you were going through Stan ("my black rose of the desert"). My deepest sympathies are with you at this tough, life-defining moment and may your Daddy rest in pease. Thoughts and love are with you.
Lexxy

quote:

Thinkin' about you Stan...

hmmm the above was in the box when I clicked "Reply!"
Are there ghosts in the machine? Who is thinkin' of me!?! How did you get in my box!?!

Well anyhow "Hello from Fingernails,"
I am feeling VERY culturally challenged. I missed the big opening of the "Downtown Show" which I am sure was insanely gorgey, I was told 1500 people were there. I was so anticipating that Proustian moment: a roomful of people who meant so much to you 25 years ago, all of you together again, and all of you oh-so-OLD!
Well, I was sent the book, and look forward to reading Chi Chi's essay in it... but the book is still... NOT THE OPENING!!!!! grrrr

Go see it at NYU's Grey Gallery through April 1. I gotta get back before then!

I look out my window onto a pristine landscape: gorgeous red and white desert with patches of snow a week old... that are still WHITE! The cats are living outside, splendid in enormous fluffy winter coats. There isn't a sound around, except the music of the spheres. It's beautiful, calm and perfect.
And I know Manhattan this time of year is ugly, chilled, grey and dead. My life there wasn't the greatest... But DAMN I miss getting in a cab at midnight and going to a warm and raucous nightclub.

Bitch bitch bitch...
I'm going to miss the Schiele show.
The Peter Berln movie will never come
to Santa Fe
(wait, hey, they say this town is the highest per capita of gay households in the country? ... we'll see.)

Well ONE THING did happen to make me feel connected... I'm a Goodie!

http://www.goodie.org/goodiemag/currentissue.html

and Angel Stern also got interviewed online, for the delectation of the FBI ...

http://www.allstardoms.com/messageboard/showflat.php?Ca...Main=53380#Post53471

I have to find out where the freaks are, who live here... And I'm not talking about the Rainbow People either, thanks. I need pals!
Brown Paul is great, but he never leaves his hidey-hole. He's always renovating that big old piece of junk we call the Hell Hotel. He's replacing the floor in the attic, so my clients won't fall through into the crawl space when they crawl around. Nice Brown Paul!

He is Brown as ever, Johnny, and sends you a big fat one too.

Sick in the head as ever and loving you all'ins, S'tan

S'tan..LOVED the interview with Mistress Calico.

xoxoxoxooxox thenkyew

a few folk complained I wasn't darned serious enough, but hey how can you be serious about
a sexual soap-opera you've been watching for 30 years.

My Daddy's best friend dreamed about The Dictionary last night. It was sitting up on the sidewalk in front of my Dad's office, like -- LOOKING at him!!!

brrrrr

The interview was SO choice. You need someone to get you to do some book-length thing or on film.

Hie, thanks,
bring your camera I will be in New York
on March 26 for a week, the Goodie Girls are planning a party for me and Armen Ra then!
Possibly at Le Petit Versailles.

You better post the details or else Bobby will come to Fingernails and pull some of yours.

Why I oughta... I would NEVER pull S'tan's fingernails but if I get a hold of Seven's seven I'll pull on THAT!

Kids kids no fighting. I will post info when the Goodies get it together.

I just saw Seven's Dad! or rather his Spiritual Father at the Fingernails post office.

This wretched rusty Toyota truck on jacked-up big wheels pulls up ...
it's dotted all over its ass with spray-paint color.
A long lanky man gets out... with a shaved head,
but that long strip in the back intact. Couldn't see if it was a cross... he's wearing a black leather hat adorned with both silver and esoteric bony regalia. He's also got a gorgey Van Dyke in salt and pepper... earrings, nose ring, a beautiful freak.

I follow him into the PO and note with pleasure the custom leathers, black, pierced and decorated with bone and silver... stylishly ragged but clean, precise, very nouveau hippie.

I walk by him and he is absolutely redolent of powerful indica. I'm stoned just sniffing him.
I look at this long, oversensitive face, pale and sunglassed. The nervous jaw... and I'm just about to say HELLO, I mean I'm believing this is some hipster for me, at last...
when he bursts out in gibberish, staring into space...

"Heyay hiya weeya golly wolly moogla alla ..."

Poetic consternation? Visionary syllabics?

I see him opening one of the older PO boxes. He's a low number like me.
Never saw him before!
People crawl out of these mountains looking, and sounding like you don't know what... Once I stayed home for a week and when I got to the general store, I couldn't even say Hello.

Maybe that's what's got into your Dad there seven. Permanently.
Maybe he was telling me his life story. Wish I could tranlate him... I followed him out of the PO... when he got outside he went
WHOOP WHOOP OONAMOOONNNA ZOOOOO! gave a few little jumps and got into his shitass truck. I checked out the front seat -- it was full of
what looked like nesting materials. I hope I have conveyed how much
he looked just like your paternal reality, seven.
He was pretty prosperous in the costuming --
the Fingernails version of the trust-funder possibly. Definitely one of the poetic unemployables.

YIP YIP WIGGA MAMMA WOOMA ZOOMBA

by Rene Ricard from "God With Revolver"
Poems 1979-82
copyright 1989 Hanuman Books & Rene Ricard



GINGER ROGERS

In the movies we can be young and clever
With stylish wit. In 'Swingtime' unemployed
and down and out there were still flowers in all the
vases
And poverty an art deco suite. We manufactured
our lives
In this New York. Not knowing when our
Next meal would come we knew it would be in a
Fancy restaurant if we just wore the right clothes
And trusted our wisecracks. And beauty we knew
Was just a matter of the right angle and lighting
We had the gift of improvisation. They would love
our
Cleverness. Didn't Holly Golightly end up alright in
The Movie? We would be that kind of sparkling
Mischievous queen.
Now we know Melville's New York in 'Pierre'
Scrounging beers when the champagne ran out
The New York where brilliant salons are closed to us
Dirty feet and busted heels. We claw where we
Once sat up and begged.
Our makeup following the same outlines
The features shrunken and hard beneath
Loved only when our eyes are shut
Hands sticky afterwards
If only
We're been cynical at the beginning
We could've turned out ok
If only we'd believed the book
Where Holly Golightly disappears from the
face of the
Earth at the end.

That post office apparition sounds a lot like some of my relatives from Vermont. Isolationist eccentrics with their own language too. Kind of a cross between animal language and emotional invocations to the elements.