Ron Whitehead
Ron Whitehead
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Ron Whitehead & SOUTHSIDE and THE HONEY HIGHWAY COUNTRY and BLUES SHOW january 10th, 11pm to 4am The Hideaway, Bardstown Road, Louisville KY "The Honey Highway is the best rocknroll band on the planet today. I wan t the drugs that killed Elvis and I want The Honey Highway." "SOUTHSIDE i s as good if not better than The Clash." for more info: www.tappingmyownphone.com & www.myspace.com/thehoneyhighwayc ountryandbluesshow or email/call Ron Whitehead, ron@tappingmyownphone.com, 270 403 6941 We refuse. We will not bow down. We never give up. We are The Storm Generation!!! www.tappingmyownphone.com
hello family and friends!!! there's an Icelandic saying, "a good journey st arts with a fall." 2009 is gonna be the best year yet! walking home from am azing New Year's Eve concert at Headliner's (The Honey Highway Country & Bl ues Show, Cornbread Mafia, Johnny Berry & The Outliers) I passed out and hi t my head on car. lost much blood, black eye, 12 staples top of head. thank s Ashley (University Hospital) for doing great friendly job stapling. yes! what a show! tonight i'm participating in 5th Annual Townes Van Zandt Tribu te (produced by Brigid Kaelin) at Monkey Wrench. 2008 was an amazing year. so much happened don't know where to start. so i won't. whew. check out www.tappingmyownphone.com archives. also please welcome Raven, new webmistress for my official website, www.tap pingmyownphone.com. Raven is beautiful wonderful healer (reiki) artist. che ck out her art. many many changes happenings in store for 2009. stay tuned. Happy New Year have fun love and friendship always Ron headquarters We refuse. We will not bow down. We never give up. We are The Storm Generation!!! www.tappingmyownphone.com
my New Year's Wish for you: please watch listen to my longtime dear friend and spiritual warrior cello master brother Michael Fitzpatrick's beautiful performance @ National Cathedralvideo
while reading
NEVER GIVE UP by His Holiness The Dalai Lama & Ron Whitehead Never give up No matter what is going on Never give up Develop the heart Too much energy in your country Is spent developing the mind Instead of the heart Develop the heart Be compassionate Not just with your friends But with everyone Be compassionate Work for peace In your heart And in the world Work for peace And I say again Never give up No matter what is going on around you Never give up His Holiness The Dalai Lama & Ron Whitehead copyright (c) 1994-2008 Ron Whitehead
my ex wife Sarah Elizabeth, who i still love, and yes we're still best friends,
gave birth tonight to baby boy Stone. altho he has high fever, they are healthy
and happy. altho i am broken hearted all tore up, i am happy and relieved and sending
Sarah and Stone and Wes healing creative energies blessings of deep thanks and gratitude and happiness and welcome.
Raven Hair and Turquoise
Ron Whitehead
Through God's or a raven's eyes,
from high above,
the turquoised car is seen
winding southward through
the hunting grounds of Kentucky:
Your soft lips kiss the colored stars,
the red giants, the blue dwarfs,
on my chest. Your tongue draws
a slow line round
the blue, green and yellow lotus flowered
sun at the center of my pyramid.
And as I breathe your raven hair
your tears wash my red and orange lightning
bolts, wash them clean of color and sweat.
My love
these bodies, our home
in this windless place,
prevail for pulsing moments but
pulsing moments like your kiss,
your tongue, your tears,
last forever, and, through God's or a raven's eyes,
from high above,
an invisible force sings like a secret wind:
Our turquoise windhewn
Love shall be our palace.
copyright (c) 1996 & 2008 Ron Whitehead
I am thankful for every event every moment
every person every being in my entire life
past present future. I am thankful.
We are The Storm Generation!!!
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Life is a walk in
the park
Ron Whitehead
a leaf, a snowflake, the wind
a crow caws in the distance
another crow answers the caw
crows flying home
a creek, running water, ice
a fish in winter
a magic gateway
conversation, listening
lovers, trees
a dark sky
beauty everywhere
life is a walk in the park
Ron Whitehead, 12/30/08
copyright (c) 2008 Ron Whitehead
I am thankful for every event every moment
every person every being in my entire life
past present future. I am thankful.
We are The Storm Generation!!!
www.tappingmyownphone.com
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The Dance
by Ron Whitehead
we wear these garments
dwell in these temples
briefly we are
short lived temporary
sun worshippers we
are delicate pale
pink blossoms on
Van Gogh's almond tree
our fine attire covering
bones dancing bones
the bones of life
loving bones
bones in love
the dance
a waltz fragrant
spring wind carries
us to the end
of the night
copyright (c) 2000 & 2008 Ron Whitehead
I am thankful for every event every moment
every person every being in my entire life
past present future. I am thankful.
We are The Storm Generation!!!
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Riding With Rebel Jesus, The Wanderer
Ron Whitehead
holed up in Oaxaca we'd reached the end of the line
the government was against us an army waited for us outside
Jesus wasn't nervous he never was but neither was I
holed up in Oaxaca we'd reached the end of the line
Jesus was a wanderer wherever it was we'd been there a time or two
Bogota Buenos Aires Rio de Janeiro Machupicchu in Peru
Tucson Arizona New Orleans Louisiana Havana Cuba Mexico City
Jesus was a wanderer wherever it was we'd been there a time or two
riding with rebel Jesus people turned their heads and stared
who was that they asked did you see his eyes did you see his hair
Jesus the wanderer was a mystery to all
Jesus the wanderer was a mystery to me
riding with rebel Jesus people turned their heads and stared
how much longer can we hold out how much further can we go
we're hold up in Oaxaca with the army outside our door
looks like the journey's over our wandering days are done
how much longer can we hold out how much further can we run
holed up in Oaxaca we'd reached the end of the line
the government was against us an army waited for us outside
Jesus wasn't nervous he never was but neither was I
holed up in Oaxaca we'd reached the end of our time
copyright (c) 2006 & 2008 Ron Whitehead
I am thankful for every event every moment
every person every being in my entire life
past present future. I am thankful.
We are The Storm Generation!!!
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A Ruin I
Ron Whitehead
at Howth I stand looking to sea one purple crocus at my door a ruin I have few walls left to secure myself from storm bold I stand vines to mortar stretch spring, a ruin I wonder enthralled by wind and rain sun and sea ships see I come and go but I remain a ruin rumination filling cracks gaping low and high windows doors roof all gone only angel song and me a ruin I you me all one we be copyright (c) 1998 & 2008 Ron Whitehead
I am thankful for every event every moment
every person every being in my entire life
past present future. I am thankful.
We are The Storm Generation!!!
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5th Annual Townes Van Zandt Tribute Concert
New Year's Day 2009
Monkey Wrench
1025 Barret Ave
doors at 8:00
music starts around 8:30
no cover, free show
Esteemed singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt ("Pancho and Lefty," "White
Freight Liner Blues") died on January 1, 1997. For the last five years,
Louisvillians have come together on New Year's Day to celebrate the life a
nd music of Townes. In years past, Townes's widow, Janeane, and son, Wil
l, have attended the shows, and many friends of his have appeared to share
stories and music. It's a beautiful coming-together of musicians in cele
bration and collaboration.
This year, at least thirty regional artists will perform the songs of T
ownes Van Zandt, including Louisville favorites Tim Krekel, Brigid Kaelin,
Ron Whitehead, Leigh Ann Yost, Joe Manning, Kathleen Hoye, Mickey Clark, Pa
ul K, and many many many others.
I am thankful for everyevent every moment
every person every being in my entire life
past present future. I am thankful.
We are TheStorm Generation!!!
www.tappingmyownphone.com
hello folks! exciting news. 1st ever Storm Generation Festival happening in Iceland
june 19-21. that's right midsummer's night, summer equinox, daylight 24/7.
i'm co-producing the festival and Ron Whitehead and SOUTHSIDE gonna perform.
festival will be held at Stora Klopp/Big Rock, 3 miles outside of Reykjavik, at the foot of The Viking Mountain, which i'll probably climb again. anybody want to join me?! hellyes!!!!
have fun
Ron
wildass outlaw poet
headquarters
p.s. new books and cds and posters will be released at festival including:
Ron Whitehead's new book
I AM THE FUCKING STORM
God's Open Nerve
The Storm Generation
new poster
The Storm Generation Manifesto
by Olafur Gunnarsson and Ron Whitehead
Olafur is Iceland's leading novelist, he will also co-produce the festival
new poster
Mad Woman, Wild Woman
by Rani Newman and Helina Berryman
plus other new books and cds.
stay tuned for many amazing updates!!!
"I am facing and embracing
mystery paradox uncertainty
not knowing." Ron Whitehead
We are The Storm Generation!!!
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Velocity: My wife insists on letting our dog and two cats sleep in the bed with us. I hate it, but what can I do? I don't want to end up sleeping on the couch. A0 Ron: Do you and your wife and your dog and two cats sleep under the covers or on top of the covers?! What the hell?! Sometimes you've got to put your foot down, you've got to step up to the bar and order the drink, stop waiti n for the waitress to come to your table. Get off your ass go to the bar an d order your own damn drink! Come on man, take a stand, let your wife know exactly how you feel bout the situation. When you and your wife make love ( do you still?) do the animals watch? Do they get horny? Do the cats get it on while you and your wife are gettin it on? Does the dog hump your leg? Sa y "look woman I love animals, especially you, but the dog and the cats gonn a find a new place to sleep else all four of you can sleep on the couch." W hy in the world do you think you'll be the one who'll have to sleep on the couch?! And you don't have to be a grouch when you tell her all this. It' s high time to be open and honest, not just bout the dog and cats sleepin on the bed situation but bout everydamnthang!!! Come on dawg, let it all hang out!!! Be freakin real, with yourself and your woman and the do g and the cats. When you hide the corpse in the closet it's just a matter o f time before the stench seeps out under the door. Come out of the closet a nd be your honest self, regardless of the consequences. "I am facing and embracing mystery paradox uncertainty not knowing." Ron Whitehead We are TheA0Storm Generation!!! www.tappingmyownphone.com
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this holyday season i share with you
a poem i was blessed and honored to write with
His Holiness The Dalai Lama
NEVER GIVE UP
by His Holiness The Dalai
Lama & Ron Whitehead
Never give up No matter wh at is going on Never give up Develop the heart Too much energy in your country Is spent developing the mind Instead of the heart Develop the heart Be compassionate Not just with your friends But with everyone Be compassionate Work for peace In your hea rt And in the world Work for peace And I say again Never gi ve up No matter what is going on around you Never give up His Holiness The Dalai Lama & Ron Whitehead copyright (c) 1994-2008 Ron Whitehead "I am facing and embracing
mystery paradox uncertainty
not knowing." Ron Whitehead
We are The Storm Generation!!!
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sharing: Joujouka Festival June 2009
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:21:33 +0000 From: joujouka@gmail.com To: joujouka@gmail.com Subject: Joujouka Festival June 2009 Hi all, I hope you have all been well since we last spoke. I have been talking with the musicians and am pleased to announce that next years festival will take place from the 4-6th June. Booking will be available from next week. Next years festival coincides with the 50th Anniversary of the publication of Naked Lunch. I have added two rough mixes from July that Dave and myself have been working on to the Myspace page where some of Jill's photographs have also been added. http://myspace.com/mastermusiciansofjoujouka You can she her fantastic joiner image of the main night here http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=58849694&blogID=455969698 I will send an email when booking has opened but if you want to reserve a place just send me an email. NB:Next year there will be a strict embargo on video taping and flash photography during the main performances. I spoke to Ahmed on Saturday and he sends you all his best wishes from Joujouka and a welcome for your return visit. On behalf of all the musicians and myself I would like to wish you all the best for 2009. Frank -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Add maps and directions to your party Show them the way! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LEO/Mountaintop Removal/KFTC/Heine/Reece/Ron Event
LEO Weekly, staffpicks, 12/17/08 Through Jan 7 Mountaintop Removal at Heine Bros. photos: This exhibition of photos depicting the general awfulness of mounta= intop removal mining is typical in many ways: formerly majestic mountains w= ith their tops shorn; a parent and her child, whom she must bathe in poison= ed water because there is no other water but that which a coal operation ha= s contaminated; the aerial view of an eastern Kentucky county that looks mo= re like a moonscape than lush, forested terrain. Kentuckians for the Common= wealth, a social justice organization, has been fighting MTR for years, and= is using this exhibition to keep it in the fore. Additionally, Heine Bros.= will donate 50 cents per bag of each sale of its Mountain Dream coffee to = KFTC; as well, Erik Reece, author of "Lost Mountain," and poet Ron Whitehea= d give an MTR-themed reading Jan 7. Stephen George Heine Bros. (Gardiner Lane) 3010 Bardstown Road Louisville, Kentucky 502 458 7770 www.heinebroscoffee.com
www.kftc.org
www.leoweekly.com
from Hopi shaman
ou have been telling people that this is the 11th hour. Now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour. And there are things to be considered. Where are you living? What are you doing? What are your relationships? Are you in right relation? Where is your water? Know your garden. It is time to speak your Truth. Create your community. Be good to each other. And do not look outside of yourself for the leader. ........................................................................ The elder pauses... clasps his hands together , smiles , and says... ' This could be a good time! ' ........................................... There is a river now flowing very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to cling onto the shore. They will feel that they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know the river has its destination. The elders that came here before me that now speak through me say ' we must let go of that shore , push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open and our heads above the water.' And i say , see who is there with you and celebrate. At this time in history , we are to take nothing personally. Least of all, ourselves...for the moment that we do , our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt. The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves! Banish the word struggle from your attitude your vocabulary. All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration. We are the ones we've been waiting for.
"If you can't talk about everything what's the use of talking about anything." Ron Whitehead We are The Storm Generation!!! www.tappingmyownphone.com
Ron Whitehead
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hello folks! yes i'm doubly ignernt. i've signed up on facebook and myspace. good Lord help me. if you want to be my friend (this is Mister Rogers Neighborhood junior high bullshit but yes i'm doin it so go ahead and kick my ass and get it over with) if you want to be my friend give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek and go to:
www.facebook.com and search for Ron Whitehead (i'm still searching too)
this similar to early sexual encounters. tryin to figure out the right button(s). it may take weeks/months but i'll eventually get myspace/facebook full throttle. i'm stubborner than a damn mule plus i'm a workaholic but it ain't work cause as many of you know i've been livin my dream for 20 years so it's all play all fun and every day is a holyday.
thanks!
have fun. what a beautiful day!
Ron
headquarters
p.s. altho there's been delay, my official website, www.tappingmyownphone.com, still being overhauled. should start seeing changes tomorrow, 2/15/08.
"If you can't talk about everything
what's the use of talking about anything." Ron Whitehead
We are The Storm Generation!!!
Ron Whitehead Updates/Corrections/Deletions/Additions
I'm A Bigger Rat Slut Than You Final Hangoutology 2008!!!!!!!! by Ron WhiteheadI'm A Bigger Rat Slut Than You Final Hangoutology 2008!!!!!!!! calling all ultra creative rat slut bitches and bastards!!!!!!!! yes this gonna be the final rat hangoutology of 2008 don't be late you rat muthafucka!!!!!!!! friday december 19th 2008 9pm to 4am brang big bottles red rat wine and whatever else makes you rat happy yo rat mammy yo rat pappy!!! and if you gotta rat track for our new Lousville Rats RATSTYLE cd then brangit so we ken here it and mayB incloodit on the new Louisville Rats cd. ok. theme for final official hangoutology is LOUISVILLE RAT SLUT so dress like you usually do be yourself you LOUISVILLE RAT SLUT see you here happy new year have fun we always do King of The Rat Underground Ron headquarters 1520 Cherokee Road #10 40205 cell 270 403 6941 "I have long admired Ron Whitehead. He is crazy as nine loons, and his poetry is a dazzling mix of folk wisdom and pure mathematics." Hunter S. Thompson We are The Storm Generation!!! international hangoutology & storm generation & SOUTHSIDE headquarters www.tappingmyownphone.com
4th person singular The Adventures of Brain Man an alchemical story (a work in progress) by Ron Whitehead A Ruin I at Howth I stand looking to sea one purple crocus at my door a ruin I have few walls left to secure myself from storm bold I stand vines to mortar stretch spring, a ruin I wonder enthralled by wind and rain sun and sea ships see I come and go but I remain a ruin rumination filling cracks gaping low and high windows doors roof all gone only angel song and me a ruin I you me all one we be The Other I told you I am the oldest of six children; my parents Goliath and Grendel, my younger brother Muscle Man, my sisters Lamia and the Three Furies, but I forgot to mention the Other, the shadowy figure, the older brother I never knew who left home when he was sixteen never to be seen again and only heard of in newspaper reports, magazine articles or from so and so saying they saw him dropping into some dark alley or slipping into a second hand bookstore. He never wrote so we never knew where he was. He studied for two years – after leaving home – at Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, won all kinds of academic awards: ESU and JBE scholar awards and writing awards but we didn’t go to any of the presentations because we weren’t invited. We always found out about them from some other source. We read the occasional poem in the New Yorker (the librarian would give us) and of course we read his deadly strange books. He was a prolific writer: On A Mission To Procure Molasses For The U.S. Army, Numinous, From Marduk To Urantia, Approaching The New Age: A Pilgramage, Eve & The Ophidians: The Red Flower, The Plot, The Life of Pierre “POM POM” Revoir: Anarchist, God in Heaven, Oh Melchizedek, My Daughter Just Loves Her Vulva: Portraits of Life in A Small Town, Stone Thief, A Legend in His Own Mind, WO-BA WO-BA, Monkeys Rule The World, Down and Out in Louisville, My Daddy The Czar, Myweeni’s Satyricon, The Mosquito Extermination Commission, Rishikesh, He Lives and its sequel He Dies, his academically acclaimed work on comedy Aristotle and Anassoyes, his award winning one act expressionist play: The Absurd Turds, the Onan Award winning short story “One Armed Adulterers: The Masturbatin Blues,” his astonishing book on literary and cultural criticism titled The Politics of Marriage: Parallelism, Convergence and Transmutation in Three Stories by Tolstoy, his work on esoteric mysticism Mysticus Memoria Rhythmus: Ignis Fatuus?, to name a few and of course the most controversial one, 123 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List: Guilt Without Sex, oh and who could forget his internationally acclaimed UR-Feminist Fantasy: Fellatio With Dirty Men Made Them Grow Moustaches. I call him Brain Man. Why not? After everyone started calling me Bone Man I started calling my younger brother Muscle Man and felt it only natural to call this shadow intellect Brain Man. I remember walking into his room when I was a kid, I was in my I’m gonna be a spy stage and I was taking notes, writing everything down for future reference, god the books everywhere and he was just in high school: books about the holocaust and the apocalypse, Gibran, Rumi, Sufi books, Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, Freud and Jung and their followers, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Corso, Ferlinghetti and The Beats, Hesse and Mann, some guy named Hamsun, Ibsen, Munch, Jacobsen, Strindberg, and all kinds of esoteric mystical occult stuff: crystal skulls and pyramids, Egypt, Great White Brotherhood, Atlantis, the Bible, Alchemy, Gnosticism, the Essenes, Egyptian and Tibetan Books of The Dead, Cayce, Hopis, all the major religions, meditation, levitation, invisibility, Dylan, he was consumed by Dylan and Gregorian Chants, God the sounds that came out of his attic bedroom: scared the hell out of us kids some nights. There were lots of posters and pictures on his walls, surreal and psychedelic stuff, sayings and poems tacked all over, covering the walls like wallpaper, one poem by Hesse titled “Stages,” one by Wendell Berry titled “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front,” and then one he wrote I never understood, “3 A.M.”? 3 A.M. I stare at three prunes on a white napkin on the brown arm of an Indian couch against a brown carpeted floor with three steps leading up to…a white wall. A tiny bug crawls from one prune trying to escape my finger which smashes it. My finger leaves it exactly where it dies as proof that it did exist. See what I mean? What the hell was he getting at? I don’t know. He was so strange. He had tea bags hanging from his ceiling, a tombstone in the center of his room, candles all over, a human skull on his desk, a stuffed raven perched on the back of his chair, incense going all the time. Totally weird stuff and he never talked. I never heard him say a word. One day he was gone. We never saw him again. I heard once he decided to become an Essene, read tons of books. May have helped translate some of The Dead Sea Scrolls, got rid of everything, started fasting and one Easter Sunday – I read this in the newspaper – he burned down hundreds of acres, said it was an accident, said he was burning off a plant bed for an herb garden. No charges were pressed. He disappeared again. I heard he went to Greece for a couple of years, lived near Delphi or maybe on an island, traveled all round east on the Enlightenment Tour to Egypt, Persia, India, Tibet, and back again. Your Arrogance Squinting my eyes tighter: what I first thought was a wormhole my narrowed vision now transmuted to a keyhole. I rubbed my hand across the smooth wood paneled wall and found the seams of the door, a closet door, actually more than a closet the narrow black room reminded me of some ancient burial chamber, perhaps a catacomb, as my flashlight revealed deep shelves embedded in the walls and at the end of the room an opening to the left as if the room extended to other, hidden, areas of the large attic. But I stopped just inside the door at the first of Brain’s large black file cabinets in which I discovered manuscripts, filed manuscripts, some typed, some handwritten, and letters, file after file of letters. Working my way from top to bottom of the first four-drawer cabinet I pulled the bottom drawer open and my eyes flashed on the red TERROR file. The first letter was written by two professors from the University of Tulsa: Your Arrogance, We do not consider your (unfortunately best selling and so-called ur-feminist fantasy) novel, FELLATIO WITH DIRTY MEN MADE THEM GROW MUSTACHES, even remotely humorous or interesting. How your publisher sold any copies is beyond us and reflects the oh so sad state of our patriarchal society. We don’t think the text is well written, as a matter of fact we don’t think you can write at all. We are performing research (investigations!) on certain sections of your text to determine whether you have plagiarized older (perhaps ancient) documents. You sir have performed a great injustice and disservice to the cause of women’s rights, to the emancipation, yes emancipation, of women! If there is ever anything we can do to hinder your progress be assured that we will. We will create detours, roadblocks, whatever obstacles we can: YOU are on our list so BEWARE! Despitefully, Professors Sparrowsworth & Frogbait University of Tulsa This letter shocked me for three reasons: 1) I had read, I thought, all Brain’s published work (English translation) and he always, explicitly and implicitly, advocated the freedom and personal rights of every individual regardless of race, sex, creed, etc. 2) Brain had always been a loner but the terrorist attacks that had driven him to complete isolation, to invisibility, started within a month after the date on the Sparrow/Frog letter and 3) FELLATIO was published long after Brain left home; the professors’ letter was dated nearly a year after the book was published; how, how did the letter get here? Brain hadn’t returned home since he left, years ago! Or had he?! Brain Man After Brain Man, my invisible older brother, The Other, without a word to anyone, left home I started slipping up to his attic room. For months, then years, I made notes. I was secretive about my journeys because, for all I knew, he might come bolting in the moment I sat down in his dark green leather chair plus his room scared the hell out of me what with the heavy smell of musk, the creaking floor, the low whistling sounds of the wind, the wind moving the tea bags – dangling on strings from the ceiling – to dance a slow circling dance, the tombstone in the center with Reverend Roscoe Rankin January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849 inscribed on it, seven candles cross the top of it with old wax down the sides and on his desk a human skull, an Egyptian ankh, and obsidian stone shaped like the head of a spear, a small crystal skull, a bronze dragon, a gold Seal of Solomon with a strange design at its center hanging from a turquoise necklace, the bookends of some character I hoped was Pan but I feared was the Devil, with three books between them: Gustav Meyrink’s The Golem, Bruno Schulz’s Sanatorium Under The Sign of The Hourglass, and Knut Hamsun’s Hunger, the stuffed raven perched on the back of his chair and on the walls a Munch painting: “Death and The Maiden,” a Van Gogh: “Skull With A Cigarette,” psychedelic posters, a stained glass three-dimensional hanging of a pyramid that drew my eyes to its center: sides of diminishing multi-toned browns flowing into a dark-blue pyramid flowing into a circle of fire into the center: a golden pyramid. At times, with all the sights and sounds of the room, sitting in his chair, I found myself staring, drifting, deep into the golden pyramid and the next thing I knew I had passed through the fire, had passed through a blinding light that lightened my electromagnetic field and I entered a chamber, the upper chamber of the pyramid and in that golden chamber I levitated over an open, golden sarcophagus and as I floated, relaxing, moving deeper and deeper, a brilliant light filled the crystal ceiling of the chamber, filled the room permeating my entire being and particles of gold from the room danced with the light and found focus in my being and from time to time I left the chamber through the ceiling and found that I could travel anywhere I wanted and see whatever I desired to see and then return, reversing the process until I was conscious again sitting in his chair. The first thing I always did (after the first few months) before I sat down in his chair was to light his Spiritual Sky incense. He had a large hand-carved wooden box full of packaged musk. The package had a For Madmen Only, Inc. stamp on its face. At times, sitting there, in the quiet, with the wind, with my eyes closed, I could hear laughing: distant, soft, closer, hysterical, never long before fading and gone. I wondered if it was him and he could see me, perhaps traveling through the pyramid. After a few months of sneaking up there and sitting quietly and taking in the vibrations I started looking through his books and papers and listening to his music. His Gregorian Chants were my mainstay – they seemed most appropriate for this microcosmos – but I worked my way through his entire music and book collection and I was nearly finished with his papers when, at the back of the bottom drawer of the black file cabinet in the corner of his closet I found a document, actually a small file, in his handwriting, that along with my questions of why and how he wrote Eve & The Ophidians: The Red Flower, made me determine to find him no matter where I had to go. The document I first, mistakenly, thought was one of his longer novels had two words stamped in red ink on the front cover: CODENAME: BANKRUPT. C.I.A. VV Four dogs, snarling, growling, teeth gleaming in Delphic moonlight, had us squared. The square of dogs stood at the edges of the circled temple: the temple of Apollo at Delphi. The hair on my arms and the back of my neck was standing. I had goose bumps and felt like I might piss in my pants. I had been dreaming: I was hot on the trail of Brain Man. I was in a cave high on a peninsula off Mykonos. On the ceiling of the cave was chiseled “The Other was here.” Then the dogs woke me. Luckily I kept my walking stick next to my sleeping bag. I moved slowly. I let the fear pass. I punched Gene, sleeping about six feet away, with my stick. --- What the hell! He said. --- Be quiet I said. Move real slow. Look He saw the dogs. --- Oh shit! Was all he could get out. He didn’t move. I got up in slow motion. I’d seen my Dad deal with packs of wild dogs in western Kentucky. Daddy was always meaner than they were so he always won. I crouched. I growled. --- Okay who wants me first?! I screamed a vicious growling scream and swung my stick hard and fast in a circle --- come on you Bastards! Before the words were out the dog with its back to the valley, to the Gulf of Corinth, came leaping with teeth flashing. I gripped and whirled my ash stick with all my might landing a blow that crushed the dog’s head. It went down with a thud and a whimper. I turned quickly to the other three. They stared for a moment then turned and ran. Stuck down under Brain Man’s CODENAME: BANKRUPT file was a thick, bound, manuscript, that I think was his doctoral dissertation, titled “Quest For Self In The Ocean Of Consciousness: The Origins of Expressionism and Modernism.” Copious notes were written on all margins. Jammed inside the front cover were letters from Richard Kain, a photo of Brain with Richard Ellmann in front of Ellmann’s home at 39 St. Giles in Oxford and notes on their conversations related to “the ocean of consciousness novel,” comments on a lecture and meeting with John Kelly, editor of Yeats’ letters, discussions and notes from a Valentine Cunningham of Oxford, a note from Michel Butor, and other old letters and notes from various persons. There were several paper-clipped pages, tucked inside the back cover, with the heading “The Ocean of Consciousness Movement.” Brain had created characters he called Numinous: The Group of Seven. They were the founders of the OC Movement which was to be a poetry/prose movement that would transform and redirect the literary world of Brain’s Categorical Vision: Modernism, postmodernism, Ocean of Consciousness. He predicted that out of the Post-Modern surreal chaos would evolve a structure, more vast than presently perceivable, that he called The Ocean of Consciousness. The structure is difficult to perceive because we are the structure, the structure that encloses the chaos. But where do We, do I, my Self, begin and end? Do we begin? Do we end? The Earth was once thought of as the center of the universe but our view, our perception, thrown out, like a boomerang, through the creative imagination expanded and is now returning and we will soon see that we, each one of us, are the center of a vast, perhaps infinite, universe. Brain had submitted individual pieces by The Seven to a number of journals and magazines with many accepted and published. A list was typed for each fictional author’s works. Each one specialized in a different genre. Probably the best known was short, two stanza, poem published in the Paris Review: Ocean of Consciousness Penumbraic Penultimatum of The OC Movement All streams reach Here polyglot commingling blood filled vessels racing to The Heart Vapors rise Thalass fees Herself all come and go Her Way The mention of “OC Movement” created quite a stir and initiated a stream of questions as well as anticipation of the ultimate statement. The poem was attributed to the Numinous: Group of Seven member named Alfred The Great. I wondered why my brother had abandoned this apparently lost text and associated project. Had he forgotten about it? Certainly not: what with his encyclopedic memory not to mention his psychic gifts. He’d written so many things in so many areas perhaps he just lost interest. Whatever the reason. None of it had been presented to the public, so I started excerpting sections and submitting them – with a brief history of the ‘lost’ document and crediting Brain – to various scholarly/literary conferences around the U.S. and abroad. I decided to make good use of my presentation of an excerpt, “The Ocean of Consciousness Novel: Knut Hamsun’s Hunger,” at the Annual International Modern Language Association Conference in Athens to continue my pursuit of the invisible brother. Gene’s uncle, Robert, was C.I.A. agent extraordinaire and a Russian expert. Since much (not all) of CODENAME: BANKRUPT dealt with Russians I decided to take the manuscript, show it to Robert, and see if he could offer any leads. I’d been in Greece for three months when I met the tall, slender, regally-goateed Stranger, who Robert later (erroneously?) identified as the grandson of the last czar of Russia (Robert was dead serious about this man’s identity and never changed his story.). Gene and I had been in Athens all day crawling around the Acropolis, drinking retsina, kicking tailless, one-eyed cats, and shadowing new and used bookstore with the everdiminishing hope of spotting my brother. Returning to the Erythrean terraced northern suburb that overlooks Athens Moni, Robert’s lovely wife, asked us to not make any noise and not to go in our bedroom as there was an unexpected guest asleep there. Upon waking, the czar, with a genuinely friendly attitude, after three martinis and suggestions on how to improve our GO game, with a heavy accent, began, with some obvious evasionary side-stepping, to answer my queries. Yes he knew my brother. Brain, with his incredible mind and his psychic gifts, was involved with a group of Russians, and the C.I.A., working outside and inside the Iron Curtain. He had been having, and recording in CODENAME: BANKRUPT, visions of events that had occurred, were occurring, and, he thought, were going to occur in the Soviet Union. He said the Marxist walls were crumbling and would soon be tumbling. The czar (if that’s who he really is), who is not, at least publicly, known to exist, stands ready to re-enter the new Russia as monarch if conditions allow. Brain Man, The Other, having learned of my quest, passed word through the C.I.A. to Robert that since the czar doesn’t exit let him go and at least give Bone a truncated view of what I am up to. Sequestrating the czar to the back balcony overlooking the valley and Athens I handed him a sealed envelope, a short letter to Brain with a plea: Brain, How did you know about Eve and me before it ever happened? And what about everything in the book that hasn’t happened yet? I want to know about my future. I you know will you tell me? We have never talked. I must see you. Bone Oxford Looking out the window I toast my tall glass of Harvey’s Club Amontillado Medium Dry Sherry through the heavy noon rain to the tall walking stick leading the little man in the green coat and his black and white border collie across Broad Street to the White Horse Saloon next to Blackwell’s bookstore. My room is on the third floor of Exeter. William Morris, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Richard Burton studied here. I can see Balliol, the Bodleian, the King’s Arms, Clarendon Press, and to my right the heads of the twelve sages of the Sheldonian Theatre. Two years have passed since Athens and only a few clues have surfaced as to Brain’s whereabouts. I am drinking a liter of Harvey’s a day. Not getting drunk, merely glowing. I continue the same routine: reading, drinking, exercise, drinking, searching, drinking. I have already presented Brain’s conference paper at the Oxford Union. The paper is from Brain’s lost text and is on Knut Hamsun’s Mysteries. The title is “To See, To Create, To Lie, To Die: Johan Nilsen Nagel’s Singing Myriad of Blind Angels in The Tower of Night.” Yesterday, with a letter of introduction from Richard Kain, I spent the afternoon discussing Brain’s “ocean of consciousness” theories with Richard Ellmann at his home, 39 St. Giles, in the heart of Oxford. This morning I signed a contract with Oxford University Press to publish the lost text which I believe was Brain’s original dissertation although he actually received his Ph.D. for a book he wrote on Edvard Munch’s Self-Portraits. I have never discovered why Brain abandoned the Quest for Self text. Hell I’ve searched the planet but I haven’t found the Brain Man, that damn invisible older brother of mine who refuses to reveal himself to me! Brain, you lousy bastard, I’m about to give up on finding you; as if you care you invisible sonofabitch! But if I do ever find you the first thing I’m gonna do is kick your ass! Dublin Space. Time. Rhythm. Static. Kinetic. Truth. What is truth? Silence. Do you know? Movement. Rhythmic movement. What is the shortest distance between two points? Creative distance. How do we move forward? Imagination? Mysticism? Lies? We move forward by the aid of symbols and we change those symbols as we move forward. Who said that? Is there an echo in here? A catalectic tetrameter of iambs marching. Who said that? Who is in this dark room with me? Who is standing by my side? Whispering in my ear? Breathing on my neck? Giggling? Who is laughing? In the Aer Lingus terminal at Gatwick Airport outside London Brother Patrick Dominique Allende is writing the litanies of Mary, mother of Jesus, on envelopes. He is quoting the rosary prayers and is now describing his daily personal encounters with Mary, his guardian. It is interesting. A week ago I heard an interview on NPR with a nun whose new book on her daily personal encounters with Mary had just come out and was expected to be an international bestseller. Brother Patrick had been standing, looking lost, near the Aer Lingus counter. I said hello. We entered into discourse. Are you going to Dublin? Yes. The flight is two hours behind schedule. But our flights were different. His left an hour after mine. Brother Patrick, the youngest of seven children, is from the Phillipines, has just completed his training for the priesthood in Spain and has received his first assignment: Bray, Ireland. Bray is south of Dublin. We talked for two hours. He wrote his Bray address under the last prayer and invited me to visit. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a bone rosary and said I’ve carried this with me for eight years, here, take it. I’ll get another. I accepted the gift with thanks. We hugged and parted. I meet a woman on the plane. She is for women’s rights. Her husband is picking her up at the airport. Where am I going? We’ll give you a ride. What brings you to Ireland? The International James Joyce Symposium. Ah. Do you know Senator David Norris? He spoke for women’s right. He and I were on a panel together. He’s wonderful. Perhaps you’ll meet him. He is a homosexual and has done more for women’s right and gay rights than anyone in Ireland. He’s a Joycean. Teaches at Trinity. I’m sure he’ll have something to do with the Conference. She was right. He was one of the Directors. Head of the Host Committee. And I did meet him. More than once. Where am I now and what am I doing here? I have arrived in Dublin in June to present one of Brain’s papers at the International James Joyce Symposium. The paper is from the last chapter of his dissertation, the chapter titled “Stephanoumenos in Quest of the Numinous: Mysterium Tremendum and Gnostical Turpitude: The Big Bang Epiphany in Joyce’s A Portrait and Ulysses.” The first section of the chapter is titled “Alchemically Transmutative Symbol Decipherment: The Book as Sacred Elixir” and the second section, the section I am presenting, is titled “Me. And Me Now. I,I: The Ocean of Consciousness Novel II.” I recently discovered another unpublished Brain text Modern Monk Beat: Joyce at Gethsemani and City Lights: James Joyce, Thomas Merton, Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Apparently Brain met Merton once. Somehow Brain and Ferlinghetti had gotten to know each other, met at Gethsemani, and the text evolved out of that initial visit. I had already selected a piece from Modern Monk Beat for the next International Joyce Symposium in Seville but now I’m in Dublin, still looking for Brain, and in the process having all kinds of strange experiences and meeting some remarkable people. I had met August H. Altmulig at the Oxford Conference, she had attended my Brain presentation and I heard her presentation on the great Norwegian feminist writer Cora Sandel. I had been intrigued by Sandel and Altmulig, introduced myself, and we maintained a correspondence. August had received her Ph.D. from Oxford. She now lives in Oslo and is considered the greatest female scholar of modern Norwegian literature and art (Harald Naess, of course, being the greatest male scholar). I made downtown Dublin mid-afternoon. Signing in at Trinity August was the first person I met. While we were visiting, Robert Spoo, the editor of the James Joyce Quarterly, entered the conversation and the three of us headed to Davy Byrnes’, where we met Fritz Senn and Suzette Henke, for dinner which was followed by much drinking, talk, and, finally, song. Like a lantern run low of oil the sun casts its last embers into a multitude of diminutive waves dancing restlessly cross the River Liffey. From the center of the arched bridge I watch the dance of Dublin slow, falter, change rhythm as the embered waves sink, the flame finally extinguished. After I’m not sure how many pints of Guinness Stout, stumbling from the bridge, finally finding myself back in my room, I make some coffee and sit down to finish reading Lytton’s A Strange Story: An Alchemical Novel when suddenly a gust of wind blows the paneled windows open. A cold chill fills the room, something runs up my spine, bumps jump all over my head and my hair shoots straight up with electricity. Sobered I place the book on my desk and sit still, listening. I can see the yellow cover out of the corner of my left eye and the cover symbols, the sun and moon, the river, the male and female emblems, juxtapose themselves, a double-exposure, cross my view of Grafton Street as I stare out the window from the third floor. A fog crawls towards Trinity, towards me, from the River Liffey. A figure in a bright red hooded cloak appears from narrow Wicklow Street, directly across from the college, from my window. Her face is shielded by the red hood but I can tell it is a woman by her lithe, graceful, catlike movements, and from the Indian mound curves that charm her body. In the distance I hear the two songs I hear so often: Jimi Hendrix playing Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” and Bob Dylan playing Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower.” Where is Jimi Hendrix? Where is Bob Dylan? Who is that woman with the red hood and why is she sneaking through waist high fog on this dark night and what the hell am I doing standing outside my third floor window peering over this tower’s parapet? “the curious warning sign before our protoparent’s ipsissima verba?” A warning sent to Bone from a magician named Ogmios Brain? Should I hattract her hattention? In Sandycove…The day will start early at the South Bank Restaurant where the customary Bloomsday Breakfast (with entertainments) will be served from 6 o’clock in the morning. Breakfast is priced at seven pounds and bookings may be made at 280 8788. At 8 o’clock the Joyce Tower will open for the day and will be the scene of readings (official and unofficial), parties and shenanigans until closing time at 6PM. The Tower, which marks its thirtieth birthday as a museum on Bloomsday, has recently been given a facelift and the Round Room has been partly restored to the condition it was in Joyce’s time. One of Joyce’s two death masks is displayed. Where are Joyce n Beckett? In Re-Joyce N Beckett by Phyllis Carey says Catherine Malloy and I’m searching for Joyce n Beckett. In the Heart of the Hibernian Metropolis, Joyicity, events of all sorts, in addition to those on the Symposium programme, will be going on all day. Where is Eithne Strong? In Monkstown chanting lullabies to her nine children, whispering to her dead husband, smiling at the rest of us. And I’m searching for Eithne Strong. Where is Seamus Heaney? At the Peppercannister Church with Joseph Brodskey at University College Dublin with Mark Strand at Lenoir-Rhyne with Rand Brandes at Bellarmine with Bert Hornback at Queens with Donatus Mwoga at Ulster with Cathal O’Searcaigh at Poetry Ireland with Theo Dorgan at Harvard with Ron Whitehead Published in Heaven and I’m searching for Seamus Heaney. And the fog, with Brain somewhere deep in IT in IT yet lost to Bone, the fog has come from Liffey from the sea and covered Trinity Dublin all copyright (c) 2000 & 2008 Ron Whitehead
Spanish version: the evil of loneliness in the morning by Ron Whiteheadel maleficio de la soledad a la manana para Diana y Catalina y Maria y Dangella y Sarah 
this tore me up:
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