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GABE'S BLOG.... |
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JANUARY-JUNE 2009 6-26-09: Seldom do we know or truly understand the why or what of things truly bigger than life. Perhaps, if we squint or cloud our eyes, we see silhouettes and shadows. Perhaps.
However, when it comes to Michael Jackson's death, logic breeds a tale darker than most conspiratorial yarns.... FACT: Michael Jackson owned a vast music catalog that included most songs by the Beatles. His ownership in the SONY/ATV catalog was valued at $400 Million in 2005. FACT: Michael Jackson had taken out a loan for $270 Million from Bank of America Corporation. Two hundred million dollars of the loan was secured by Jackson's share of the SONY/ATV catalog. Another $70 million of the loan was secured by Jackson's personal catalog Mijac Music.
FACT: By December of 2005 (just months after his possible incarceration), Jackson's partnership with SONY would close. At that time, SONY could opt to buy Jackson out of his ownership of SONY/ATV (the Beatles catalog) for $200 million....unless Jackson could find another buyer, and/or cover SONY's $200 million.
SONY Music President Tommy Mottola Jackson compared Mottola to the Devil.... FACT: Bank of America, during the Jackson trial, sold the $270 Million Jackson loan to Fortress Investments--a hedge fund in New York City with ties and relationships with the Big Apple's media giants, including....SONY Music. FACT: With Jackson serving a long prison term, it would have been impossible for him to organize a debt restructuring, since there would be no future potential to make money. This would have resulted in him defaulting on the loan owned by Fortress. Also, in December of 2005, he would not have the $200 million to pay SONY Music, and they would exercise their option to buy the SONY-ATV catalog for $200 million. Of course, the $200 million would go to the new owner of the catalog, Fortress Investments.
Santa Barbara County District Attorney Tom Sneddon Alleged dealings with SONY executives-- Dom Sheldon in Jackson lyrics?
FACT: If convicted and imprisoned, Jackson would lose everything--his share of the Beatles catalog (SONY-ATV) AND his own personal catalog--Mijac Music. SONY Music would TOTALLY own the Beatles catalog, valued at $400 million with their $200 million payment to Fortress Investments. Also, SONY Music could own the Jackson catalog for a paltry $70 million payment--again to its new owner, Fortress Investments. Fortress Investments would make a killing and receive $270 million for a loan they reportedly purchased from Bank of America for a quarter on the dollar. Anecdote: Board members of SONY-ATV Music, had direct contact with Gordon Auchincloss one of the DA's prosecutors and hatchet man for Santa Barbara District Attorney Tom Sneddon. Tom Sneddon had an open vendetta against Jackson, as Jacko had bought his way out of trouble in 1993. Judge Melville and Sneddon go way back and have had a number of law suits and criminal investigations into their joint collusion, including witness tampering, jury tampering, document falsifications, etc.
Imagine if the DA's office, which already wanted to see Jackson jailed, were urged and abetted....by a media giant. In the words of the real Jimmy McCann, "With that kind of money, people can get dead real easy."
Lyrics from Jackson's song, D.S taken from his 1995 HIStory album (released in Europe).... They
wanna get my ass dead or alive Dom
Sheldon is a cold man ******* 6-11-09: "When you can snatch the pebble from my hand it will be time for you to go...."
Every Saturday I used to get up at 5:15 AM so I could watch the replays of KUNG FU on TNN. All things were good when the plaintive theme song wafted into my family room at early-thirty those years ago. TNN, in its wisdom, discontinued playing the program, and that forced me to buy DVDs available for three of the seven seasons KUNG FU ran on network TV.
Master Po was played by Chinese immigrant, Keye Luke--born in Canton in 1904. Luke spent his early career in America providing artistic services to the entertainment industry. He worked for a time at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood and then as an artist for RKO pictures where he designed and developed all of the press and media for the movie KING KONG. He got his big movie break when he played Charlie Chan's number-one-son across from Warner Oland. In the early 1940s Luke played Kato in the GREEN HORNET serials--preempting martial artist extraordinaire Bruce Lee by more than twenty years. Luke had an amazing career--starring in over 150 movies--acting across from many Hollywood luminaries. After a successful entertainment career that never saw a retirement, he died quietly and without fanfare in 1991 at the age of 87.
David Carradine was plagued with excesses throughout his life. He married and divorced five times and acknowledged lifelong addiction issues. On June 3rd or 4th Carradine passed at the age of 72. He was filming a movie called STRETCH in Bangkok. He was found dead, bound and hanging naked from the bar in the closet of his five-star hotel room.
Since Kung Fu, Carradine's career languished to a large degree. There was a critical bright spot when he received a Golden Globe for his role in the Civil War movie, NORTH & SOUTH. And his fortunes got a bit of a jump start with the KILL BILL series, albeit, according to some insiders, it being too little, too late. The last movie he played in was CRANK-HIGH VOLTAGE. He played Poon Dong (Catonese slang for penis) a 100-year old Kung Fu master with a penchant for hookers.
Carradine As Poon Dong In CRANK-High Voltage With Hooker When I first heard of Carradine's passing I intuitively felt that his death was the result of a sexual escapade gone tragically awry. Regardless, it appeared that Kwai Chang Caine had finally snatched the pebble from life's hand. But our heroes are not supposed to die sordid, creepy deaths. They are our heroes. So, Carradine couldn't have killed himself, nor did he die as a naked, 72-year old man masturbating as he tied up and hung himself, chasing the sexual gratification of a breathless moment. And to think that maybe a Patpong girl-boy got things all knotted up, and left Kwai Chang Caine hanging.... Way too creepy. Almost instantly, the bloggers and hero worshipers created their conspiracies--dark, sinister accounts of Triad complicity, or even Kung Fu Masters having gone to the dark side. The Illuminati was even tagged as Carradine's murderer. Free Masons and Gnostics, as well. After all, Caradine's father was a member of the darkest of secret societies: The Ordo Templi Orientis! In fact, papa Carradine was a member of the Agape Temple of the OTO. Boy Howdy but does THAT cinch it! Those evil bastards! Nope. No suicide. No hanging around in closets....naked and trussed. No siree.
Forget all that. There are no doubts. It was a dark conspiracy, death-touch or dimak murder perpetrated by the Winged Monkey Manchu Triads in league with the Ordo Templi Orientis, the Free Masons and the Illuminati. Throw in the Vatican, too, for good measure. Those
bastards! 5-14-09: Who's to say that this isn't all just some really elaborate and obsessively detailed....dream? For years after my death experience on Mt. Kenya that was my secret view of life. Life was a dream. My dream. An imperfect dream. After having looked God in the white light of His Eyes, my life seemed only tentatively fabricated with an a-priori collage of people and places moving about, guided by repetition and remembrance. Often, my daily view precariously shifted toward madness.
RIP: July 28, 1979
Late at night I would look at the stars, and deeply within myself I would search for an old memory--a genuine fragment of my past--evidence that I had lived before Mt. Kenya and had truly survived. And then there was the night hike when I did not have an echo, and my daughter looked at me with concern and maybe even fear at my being....different. I would lay in bed with my wife and we would play with our daughter, as I feigned a front of happiness. But deep down I just did not know if any of it was truly....real. Or, really true. As the years went by I gradually learned of the true nature of my reality. Sure, I had made it with my own two hemispheres, but everyone does. It was just that the death-and-dying episode gave me a contrast that most people don't have as an adult. I had died. I had started over. I had dreamed my reality anew, and thus, I had a uniquely mature, intellectual and spiritual view of how a child creates his/her world. I had a Sky-Box, fifty-yard line view of how we humans....dream our being. How we create our own reality.
As we age, we forget. Our dreams become perennial and permanent and morph to become our accepted reality. In fact, we often forget that we once dreamed at all. On Mt. Kenya I was given an impossibly blank canvas, and the more impossible task of painting my own reality. But Boy Howdy, when you are spiritually standing there in front of the blank canvas of YOUR life, with a palette full of paint and a hand full of brushes....you paint. At first I painted with caution--tentative--not wishing to make a mistake, for this WAS my reality. But soon I threw caution to the spiritual winds, and painted like my life depended on it--because it did. So, there was that divine imperative to create, but also, it felt good to paint away the darkness, and paint over the void with new color. It felt good to paint. And it feels good to again, actively dream--to have the openly creative mind of a child, with the perspective and perhaps the wisdom of an adult. The making of our respective reality is OUR expression of divine creativity as it is given form by our human intent. Our reality is a sacred creation, and it is, at the end of the dream ultimately....human.
I am certain that, as a people, we can collectively make a gloriously exciting roller coaster ride of life, and have a hell of a lot of fun riding it. I am certain we can. So, life is just an amusement-park ride. Yeah, just a ride. But what a wonderful and interesting ride it can be if we make it so. It is our lot in the scheme of things, to be on the ride of reality as we are. However, many people do not like the ride they are on, and lack the understanding (or the confidence) that they can make the ride pretty much anything they want it to be. Their dreaming and divine creation has become perpetually permanent--static. They've forgotten how to....dream. They've forgotten the spiritual act of creation that is given form by our intent. They've forgotten that they can truly....create their world.
Humans are meant to be on the rides they create. The only way off the ride is through death. And then, who knows? It's probably back on the ride of our making--back to the creative child who dreams, and makes their reality real through the intent that is their human nature. It is my experience that through a spiritual practice, we can more naturally create our own reality--become proactive in the making of our reality. By establishing ourselves within the quiet spark of our divinity, creation is an imperative. The divine in us....creates. Once manifest, the creation is given form by our human intent. And our intent is ours for the choosing. A spiritual practice also helps us in living with intention. Our intent is focused and strengthened through spiritual practice. Creating our reality starts as a divine act that becomes uniquely human. And the divinity that we all share is creating all the time--and doing so....perfectly. The divinity within us is perpetually creating....perfectly. Only the mold of our human intent can be flawed or sloppy. But no worries. That, too, can be fixed through practice. With practice, our spiritual will can be made strong. And our intent grounded in love, kindness and compassion. Life's reality is meant to be a sacred dance of our own divinity....
And our laughter is the echo of God's love.
*******
Here is, some unedited, SEALS back traffic communication about what President Barack Obama contributed to the recent Somali piracy and hostage situation: "Despite the Obama administration’s (and its sycophants) attempt to spin yesterday’s success as a result of bold, decisive leadership by the inexperienced president, the reality is nothing of the sort. What should have been a stand-off lasting only hours--as long as it took the USS Bainbridge and its team of NSWC operators to steam to the location--became an embarrassing four-day standoff between a ragtag handful of criminals with rifles and a U.S. Navy warship."
This, too from the SEAL back traffic (Font color indicates my added explanations):
2. Once they arrived, BO imposed restrictions on their ROE that they couldn't do anything unless the hostage's life was in "imminent" danger. (ROE is Rules Of Engagement) 3. The first time the hostage jumped, the SEALS had the raggies all sighted in, but could not fire due to ROE restriction. (raggies are....well, you can guess)
- From the fantail of the USS Bainbridge - I have had run-ins with Somali bandits myself--feral things who skulked down the Kenyan coast from Somalia and preyed predominately on Westerners--including businessmen, expats and tourists. In the summer of 1973 I was walking along the beach on the coast of the Indian Ocean North of Lamu. I had just finished a dinner of curry and rice with sweet yogurt for desert. Chased the food with a Tusker beer. The small rural diner had featured a slow-moving ceiling fan that did little more than rearrange the heated air. As I strolled out of the roadside diner the setting sun lit fire to its white stucco walls and thatched roof. I stupidly walked alone to the beach with my rucksack dangling off of my left shoulder. I was almost immediately aware that I was in grave danger.
I saw a band of about a half dozen human hyenas cutting across a rock outcropping up from the beach--making their way toward me. Their intent was evidenced by their focused pace and by a lack of banter that one sees within a normal group of young men. Also, I could see that some of them were were armed with pangas that reflected the setting sun despite they were carried discretely beside their legs. I remember an expat's warning of the coast's roving bands of shifta. The man had sat there at the Harrambe Bar outside of Ras N'gomeni, nursing a White Cap beer as the ocean breeze blew his dusty, blond locks across his mahogany-tanned face. His eyes were much older than his years. "They'll cut your throat for a bag of rice if they're hungry." I saddled up my rucksack over my right shoulder and ran for my life, for that was the stake. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the band of coastal jackals break into a sprint. They were ululating out of genetic memory as they closed the gap between us. Shards of light flashed across the sand as the sun caught the bright metal blades of the pangas they now waved in the air. At that time in my life I ran over forty miles a week. I could clip off back-to-back six-minute miles, no problem. There on the beach of Northern Kenya, I calmed my mind and began to stretch out my stride and soon found myself comfortably within a long, steady gait that ate up the ocean-front real estate. I could hear them as they pursued me for more than a mile--all the while taunting me--announcing what they would do once they catch the tall mzungu. I ran. Despite I hadn't heard them behind me for some time, I continued with my loping pace. Just out from the public-beach I saw the two-askari security patrol of the hotel that was near our tented camp. I began to shout the word danger in Swahili at the top of my lungs, "HATARI! HATARI!" As I approached the two askari, I turned around and saw the bandits were a distant blob of darkness on the beach about a half-mile back. They were moving away from the more public beaches of Lamu with its hotels and security forces. It seemed that I had successfully run for my life. A few days after my foot race with the shifta, Somali bandits (perhaps the same crew that ran me) waylaid a German family who had broken down on the road just North of Lamu. They robbed them of everything they had--jewelry, their packed bags, and even food snacks they had purchased for their trip. The bandits had demanded the father's wrist watch--an expensive Swiss chronograph. Seems he wasn't quite fast enough in giving it to them, so they cut off his left hand with a panga. He was then held and made to watch the bandits first rape and then behead his wife and daughter and place the severed penis of his son in the mouth of the beheaded wife and mother as the band's signature. Afterward, they severely slashed the man with pangas and left him for dead on the road. The man had somehow survived and a member of our expedition who, while jogging along the road, had found him lying amidst the carnage. People who perpetrate horrors like this do not really understand, nor do they have any concept of basic, human mores and morals. They are feral predators. And they do not deserve the consideration of reason or negotiation. It is these types of animals that Captain Richard Phillips was captured by a few days ago off the coast of Somalia--and these types of devolved creatures that held a U.S. Navy Cruiser full of SEAL Team warriors at a stalemate. Thank God some officer on the Bainbridge knew what must be done. And also thank God that we have warriors to execute those orders--warriors who my publisher refers to as....Those who are necessary.
3-31-09: Rabbi and learned theologian Martin Buber once wrote, "Words are prisons." These three words aptly express the challenge of writing. They also highlight the audacity of novelists and the sacred communion we craft between readers and a new reality. In the hands of most people, words are clunky bits and blocks that often don't seem to fit. Words are maddeningly incapable of projecting what we really hold in our heart and mind, and come out clumsy and awkward--often exposing us for the Rube we fancy we are not. But, in the hands of a writer, lumbering prose can become quicksilver and the stardust of being. In the hands of a writer words inspire us. They teach us. Words make us laugh, cry--and when they are close enough to our heart, they can make us better human beings. Words are sacred chants that guide us to the creative process. Through the writer's alchemy, words transmute from script and sign to smells on the breeze and fear in the gut. Structure and sentences morph into fantastic worlds of painful beauty and exquisite horror. Words can become a mantra to reach the satori of creation....
Words, if well-fashioned, feed the creative process. Simply, we can create our own world when we read or write. And that world is....real to us....and if crafted well enough, that new reality can....change us. Adequately crafted words are indiscernible from magic incantations. And they increase our intellectual and spiritual equity. Years ago, and in another life, I virtually lived on airplanes. When I checked in before a flight, the screen of the agent's CRT would suddenly fill with dollar signs. Literally. Once, I was in Hawaii, San Francisco, New York and London within forty-eight hours, and then, in the coming week, went on to Sweden, Germany, again to the UK, and then back to the U.S. with a final meeting in Philadelphia. I hung in the air more than most State Department diplomats. While on a red-eye from Los Angeles to New York, I was wrapped around a tumbler of Tanguerey, and washed down a Halcion sleeping pill. Before my flight, and in the bathroom of United's Red Carpet Club I had changed out of my Armani suit into my airplane pajamas--an Adidas running suit. As I reclined the seat back I could not help but hear the noisy conversation between an executive sales jockey and his manager. I tried to go to sleep, but the pull of the Halcion could not win out over the drone of the sales guy. The sales jockey was like every other rain maker sitting in First Class: highly paid, well dressed, and with laser-beam focus on the next deal. He was quick-witted and could tell a joke. His kids went to private schools and he enjoyed driving his Porsche Carrera Cabriolet on the rare weekend he was home. Despite he was rarely able to go to her soccer games, his daughter wore the best kangaroo-hide, soccer shoes money could buy. I began to hate the guy--listening to him extol his own virtues as he reported he had just that day sold a train load of....gaskets. GASKETS! GASKETS for Christ's sake! Friggin' gaskets for Jet Skis--or as he called them, "Personal Water Craft." I mean he was not saving any lives, nor was he really making a difference to anyone except those aquatic gear heads who raised hell when one is trying to fish. It was then I detected a slight prickle of my own conscience. How was I any different than this guy who sold Skidoo gaskets? We dressed the same, and had many of the same strengths and weaknesses (which we both totally ignored). We both could rub more than two nickels together and we were used to First Class service. We lived on airplanes, between visits of the major cities of the world. At the end of the day, we were both executive sales people. We sold things to highly-placed people in large companies. He sold gaskets, I sold....research data. CHRIST! DATA? Was selling data the reason I risked my mental and physical health and the prize for which I risked losing my family? Data? Was selling data why I could never do normal things like belong to a softball team, see my daughter off for her first day of school, or be there when my wife's mother died? Selling data? For me, that flight was an epiphany. At 30,000 feet, somewhere over Indiana was where I heard it for the first time. What I was supposed to do. Why I was put here on this earth.... To increase the intellectual equity of large numbers of people. Read that again a few times. So now you know.... It rang true for me right down to my mitochondria. And so, from that time, I changed my life--I changed what I did and why I did it. It was not so much to be different from the guy who sold gaskets as it was truly to be an agent in increasing the intellectual equity of a lot of people. In my day-to-day, I changed my approach to what I sold. I no longer sold data--I sold intelligence--market intelligence that would enable my clients to make media products that would....increase the intellectual equity of millions of people. By the time I was on the Grand Central Expressway into Manhattan, I was a different man--and a monomaniac with a mission. It wasn't until some years later that I began to write novels. And it was then that I found more depth of my life's purpose. It was then that I found the alchemy of words and the power of fiction. As I sat down to write my first novel, DREAMS OF THE N'DOROBO, I set off with the mission of increasing BOTH my readers' intellectual AND spiritual equity. When I realized the dream of becoming published--and as thousands of people read my....words....I came to further understand my life's calling.... To increase the intellectual and spiritual equity of large numbers of people. And the fiction of a well-wrought thriller makes such a powerful reality for the reader. So, this is my work, and why readers with an affinity for this kind of fiction tend to be those who are on a personal path of intellectual and spiritual growth. To read fiction is like dreaming while awake. Then the dreams become a reality.... Words are sacred mantras that manifest our very dreams. And as a painter of words, I am blessed to be somewhat of a....dream maker.
Salama, Gary 2-24-09: This last weekend, ghosts from the past issued from the Kenyan radio broadcast that streamed through my computer speakers. Raila Odinga, opposition candidate for President and the new Prime Minister of Kenya, was pressing President Mwai Kibaki on the perennial issues of political violence and corruption. When Odinga was defeated amidst reports of voter fraud and intimidation, riots broke out throughout Kenya. Then, just last year President Kibaki was pressured by the international community into accepting his one-time rival as the country's Prime Minister. Of course, it is the tribal politics of Kenya all over again. The Kikuyu tribe is the largest tribe in Kenya and holds the lion's share of government control--economic control. The Luo tribe is the second largest tribe--and must share the country's economic and political crumbs with the other tribes. President Kibaki is Kikuyu. Prime Minister Odinga is Luo. Kenya never changes, hence, the struggle never changes.
From Left To Right: Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki---Newly Appoint Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga
So, ghosts drifted into my study last weekend. They came and my view shifted to a Kenya of thirty-five years ago. What a strange name it seemed to me that day in September of 1974--Oginga Odinga.
I sat in the bar of the New Stanley, eyes shot with red, new worry lines cut into my face, spirit thin as a rail. A victim of too much reality--too much....Africa. I was loitering a final few days in Nairobi when a messenger appeared. A young, sweaty Luo man dressed in a cheap suit asked if I were Gabelhouse. His eyes darted between my government handlers: Ricki and Muneje. Despite the presence of the Government minders, the Luo claimed that the first Vice President of Kenya, Oginga Odinga, wanted to meet with me and any of the other Americans in our party. After making his invitation, the Luo man avoided looking at Ricki and Muneje--staring intently at me--imploringly....hopeful. Ricki leaned across the table and whispered in my ear that it was not a good idea to meet with this Odinga. He told me how he was recently jailed for treasonous acts and was a dangerous rebel who opposed Kenya's first President Jomo Kenyatta. Ricki fervently told me to avoid the meeting--told me that I may even face jail by just meeting with this Odinga.
Seems Odinga had seen me in a Daily Nation newspaper article that had touted our expeditionary accomplishments during our months in-country. In reality, he saw there were Americans in town and he wanted to have the ear of ANY American. Seems he had a story to tell.
I knocked back my Tusker beer, and despite Ricki's protests, I agreed to the meet. Joe wanted to come, too.
We walked through Uhuru Park and past the Intercontinental Hotel. It seemed that many of the street people were staring at us--two Americans--probably expats from our dress and the weariness that had claimed our eyes. And with us, a cheap-suited Luo who continually looked over his shoulders. For me it seemed surreal and as though it were happening to someone else. After months in the bloody belly of Africa, my world had ceased to exist. Then, Africa appeared to me not as a tourist destination but for what it was: jackal nations fighting for scraps in a world defined by death.
We turned down the street and passed the Hotel Tropic which would some years later, offer me refuge from a violent coup-de-tat. We found our way into a second-floor apartment building that, for Kenya, was probably considered upper middle class. However, the apartment was grim. Despite the rough ambiance, the Luo man who greeted us was quite impressive as he stood, his broad, Luo face smiling. He offered us his hand. Three warm bottles of Fanta orange drink sat on a side table along with three filmy glasses.
Odinga sat on the edge of his chair and leaned forward, facing Joe and I. He told us of his visit to America and how American Freedom Fighters--civil rights activists had secretly visited with him in Atlanta as he was under State Department security control. He told us how the famous American Freedom Fighter, Malcom X had embraced him (Odinga) and that there was even a song written in America called, "Oginga Odinga of Kenya."
He told us how the CIA of our America had not liked him and wanted to keep him out of office. Further, he claimed that the CIA had wanted to keep Kenyatta out, too. The American CIA's support was allegedly given to Tom Mboya--a fellow Luo with Odinga.
From Left To Right: Jomo Kenyatta; Tom Mboya; Oginga Odinga
A 1960 TIME Magazine Cover Shilling for Mboya As Kenya's Future President Media manipulation to influence the politics of a sovereign country? Surely not.
"Their pet was Mboya," I remember him saying of the CIA--referring to Tom Mboya. "They wanted their pet as the President, and at first they wanted both Kenyatta and I out. But I think they must have reached an agreement with Kenyatta. They succeeded in running me out of office. I was then thrown in jail by those loyal to Kenyatta and his new friends--your CIA. They killed Mboya."
As I sat there listening to this revolutionary zealot, I had been unaware that Mboya--who Odinga alleged was the poster child for the CIA's Kenya--was later assassinated on a city street in Nairobi. His assassin was whisked away and then hung despite numerous reports of his living freely upcountry.
Our meeting with Oginga Odinga lasted just over an hour. We heard how the United States Government wanted to keep U.S. civil rights leaders from collaborating with the revolutionary leaders of a Black Nationalistic Kenya. We were told of the jet-setting life of being a CIA puppet, and the danger one faced in the form of both a foreign government AND a powerful chieftain of a rival tribe. It was a story we would never have heard stateside. And finally there was the obligatory proposition for us to lend financial aid to their cause of a free Kenya--a Kenya free of Kikuyu and Western conspiracy and corruption. It was quite a pitch.
But regrettably, Odinga got nothing in return from me and his investment of one bottle of Fanta. As reality would have it, I had less than two dollars to my name, and still faced four days in Amsterdam before coming back to the States. I had no Shillingi to give to the cause.
Now, thirty-five years later I hear on the streaming radio broadcast that the son of the revolutionary leader I met with decades ago is carrying on the tradition--fighting against Kikuyu conspiracy and corruption. But there is an interesting twist to this story....
It seems that the CIA-sponsored, Mboya-endowed scholarship program of the 1960's, financed the American education of one Barack Obama Sr. And now, the newly-appointed, and Western-friendly Prime Minister of Kenya touts his being a cousin and fellow Luo with....Barack H. Obama, II. Ahhhh, what a world.
Oginga Odinga Of Kenya Song By Marshall Jones
I went down to the Peach Tree Manor To see Oginga Odinga The police said " Well, what's the matter?" To see Oginga Odinga.
Oginga Odinga, Oginga Odinga Oginga Odinga of Kenya. Oginga Odinga, Oginga Odinga Oginga Odinga of Kenya.
Uhuru, uhuru Freedom now, freedom now
The folks in Mississippi Will knock you on your rump And if you holler FREEDOM They'll throw you in the swamp.
2-9-09: Nostalgic warmth turned ice cold in my gut this past weekend. Too many times in my life have I had to just stare into space trying to understand the dumb, casual horror of the Third World. Such rudely crowded into my life on Sunday.
I often listen to streaming radio broadcasts from the different parts of the world I have called home. This is such a gift of technology. This past weekend I was listening to Capital FM 98.4 in Nairobi, Kenya when I heard of a tragedy that did not even register on the radar of mainstream, Western media. Seems an oil tanker truck had overturned outside of Molo, Kenya on the road that transverses the Mau Escarpment of the Great Rift.
-Burned Wreckage of Tanker Truck-
I've seen such accidents....and the crowds of human carrion that appear to strip the wrecks clean. Outside of Molo hundreds of salvagers were reported to have gathered around the over-turned tanker--many siphoning its fuel cargo into Billy cans and plastic jugs. Nearly 500 people were burned--many burned to death--as a static spark turned the roadway wreck into an inferno.
They never knew how many died since many were reduced to ashes, born away on the wind. Today, Monday, they buried 132 burnt bodies in a mass grave close by. Hundreds more were in mission hospitals and private homes across the Rift. Fact is, we'll never really know how many died--how many were rendered worse than dead. All because they sought the rubber, metal and fuel that was their would-be largess....just before the beast awoke and came for them.
As I sat in my den thousands of miles and lifetimes away from the Mau Escarpment, I remembered back to 1974. Thirty-five years later, the horror of it was still fresh in my mind. I remembered....the crowds of desperate women and children that appeared as we tried to dispose of our rancid expedition rations at a public dump outside of Ras Ngomeni. As a 23 year old kid from Nebraska, I was not at all ready for what unfolded. It is difficult for Westerners to understand the almost casual--lazy Third-World violence that can quickly become....Hell on earth. But I've seen such terrible lassitude all too clear and close. Gutted women dead over a handful of garbage. The dumb and totally hopeless look of a daughter squatted beside the body. It happened so casually--lazily--almost as a perverse after thought.
And so, hundreds of desperate Kenyans found their reward last week as they mobbed around a topsy-turvy tanker truck. The bounty of rent rubber, twisted metal and Kerex fuel baited the trap. And there amidst the beauty of the purple forests of the Mau Escarpment, death came so casually for so many, and finally sated, it....yawned.
Small things in Africa can manifest huge body counts. Poverty and despair fuels the death tolls. I remember years ago reading a back-page article in Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper as I sat on the lawn of the Fairview Hotel sipping a gin and tonic. As the peacocks screamed on the lawn, I learned that seventy-five people had died as a country bus swerved to avoid an elephant on the Escarpment road on the way to Narok. Apparently, it careened off the macadam and plummeted down the switchback road. It was not reported, though it was certain, that the bus was over-packed and probably had a full compliment of unpaid passengers clinging to the top of the bus like tick birds on a rhino.
Oftentimes death is the only thing that can be afforded by the poor and desperate of Africa.
And we rarely hear about it here. After all....it's Africa. |
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JUL-DEC '09
JAN-JUN '09
AUG-DEC '08
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Michael
Jackson died yesterday. It wasn't a creepy sort of death like
Carradine's trussed and nude passage of the River Styx. And
perhaps for that reason the bloggers and the conspiracy theorists
remained relatively quiet....or maybe they were just keeping it to
themselves. I don't put much stock in most conspiracy theories,
and tend to approach things in a logical manner.
Truth
is I got a bit tired of David Carradine's sometimes apish portrayals of
Kwai Chang Caine. However, Master Po always thrilled me.
Master Po had all of his shit in one sock. He had more wisdom in
his mustache than Kwai Chang Caine could ever muster. 
Of
course, the main character of KUNG FU was Kwai Chang Caine, played by
David Carradine. Bruce Lee was promised the part after serving as
a journeyman actor in the short-lived Green Hornet TV series. I
can only imagine what Lee felt when he saw Carradine as Caine in the
pilot for the series. After all, Lee was a consummate martial
artist with years of Kung Fu/Chuan Fa background. Carradine was
the connected son of a famous actor. And also a gwailo--round eye. 
Instead,
murder it is. Murder--dark, Kung-Fu overlords who had secret blood
feuds with the Carradine line. And of course, the Bangkok police
are inept--also likely corrupt. Hell, they were probably in on it.
And as to the reports from three of Carradine's ex-wives about him being
into self-bondage and having sexual proclivities that were physically
dangerous....
During
those years after dying, life was translucent--never solid or certain.
As I wrote about Gabe in DREAMS OF THE N'DOROBO as being haunted, in
real life I, too waited to awake from my elaborate dream, and find
myself dying, entombed within the cold basalt beneath Firman's Tower,
wearing hoarfrost as a funeral shroud. It was a hard way to live. 
I
have also viewed my life's reality as a roller coaster ride in the
amusement park of the cosmic mind. And that's what's manifested
when I'm wide open--and when I, as a sentient being, give myself the
freedom to be playful and light in my intent.... 
4-20-09:
I received an email from the real Jimmy today, and it really got to me.
Recently, Somali pirates attempted to capture a U.S. merchant ship, and
did succeed in capturing and holding hostage the ship's Captain, Richard
Phillips. After a four-day-long game of cat-and-mouse, Navy SEAL
shooters killed the pirates and rescued the merchant ship Captain.
The SEALS' Commander and Chief, Barack Obama, was later touted as being
decisive in this final resolution of the hostage taking and Somali
piracy. 
After
reading a description of the REAL reaction of the White House during the
hostage situation, and after understanding what REALLY went down on the
fantail of the USS Bainbridge, one can conclude that our president was
indecisive, lacked situational understanding and was hesitant to take
action. Further, the successful outcome of this hostage situation was
due to orders given by an unnamed Naval officer deciding ON HIS OWN
AUTHORITY to use extreme prejudice, such being in CONFLICT with the
orders of the Commander and Chief to seek only a peaceful resolution.
1.
BO wouldn't authorize the DEVGRU/NSWC SEAL teams to the scene for 36
hours, going against OSC recommendation. (BO is Barack
Obama--DEVGRU is the Naval Warfare Development Group, sometimes referred
to as SEAL Team Six. NSWC is Naval Special Warfare Command--OSC
stands for On-Scene Commander)
Recently,
I had the opportunity to hear Ted Kooser, former U.S. Poet Laureate and
Pulitzer Prize winner, read from a recent book of his poetry. I
sat there stunned and slack-jawed as the man powerfully painted pictures
on the canvas of my frontal cortex. It was a masterful display of
creation and intent. And all of it done with....words.
The
man was a believer. And he was on fire with his belief. We
sat on a thread-bare sofa in an apartment that overlooked the Jevanji
Gardens. The scent of curry and vindaloo competed with the
offerings of charcoal braziers full of corn on the street below. 
And
a fiery death found even more just days before at the Nakumatt
Supermarket in Nairobi. It seems as if a small fire began when a
gas kitchen canister exploded and the ensuing confusion drew looters to
the popular supermarket. More accurately the chaotic cover and
goods for the taking lured Kenya's ever-present human carrion to their
death. Thirty-two were confirmed dead with an additional 40
missing and presumed dead.