Scorpio 3° (October 25)

I’ve been feeling really spacey lately and I’m not sure to what I attribute this but I’m just focusing on health and feel good and keeping my less favorable habits in check. Yesterday was fun in a sense that I just chilled into the weekend vibe. Found a Steve Coogan film to watch. He really is one of my favorite on screen creatives of all time. The film, called Greed, isn’t great but it felt important. Last night at two a.m. a door slammed waking us both up. That was fun. I really didn’t get much more sleep after that, just watching stupid Brittania (wow it is bad). I made a lovely cassava penne with red onion, anchovy and radicchio for dindin last evening and today I’m roasting a chicken and potatoes (lefty penne for lunch). I do also need to get a jump on making a chowder for the coming week. I have to find someone else from whom to purchase wood because the usual fellow I find rude and I don’t want to suffer fools anymore in this lifetime. As it is I can’t quite believe that I have to live under such a cloud with farmer fuck, but there you have it. To be in a little house in Maine, to lock the door and head back to our apartment in Paris. That is what I would choose for myself at this juncture and I could just go from one book to the next book. Writing is and always has been my ticket out of normal town and I need to get out more now than ever. It is baffling tome that the stupid fuck on the tractor doesn’t have a clue about the laws of this world, the laws that were in place during the pandemic and the unbelievable arrogance of being an ignoramus during times like these. But he shall learn rather the hard way I think. I am harping on this I realize but that is where my brain is today I’m afraid and that’s how I need to filter through and out this situation.

The following blocks of text are exceprts from my first year of  Blagues, nos. 1041-1045. I am reading through all of my Blagues, five per day, and posting some samples here. Now, in my sixth year of writing this Blague, by the time I get to my seventh, I will have journeyed through all the daily Blagues of my first five years. If that’s confusing I apologize. Year seven, I’ll only have to read through year six, once a day.

Everything is a thing. We used to say that about certain people. You know, with her, everything is a thing. And I remember it being a common trait amongst people, at least in the literally gay nineties when never a minute went by without thinking about AIDS and the people we loved and the people we lost and the people we slept with in the past. With luck I can write three more posts in the next half hour is what my brain is saying. You see, for over the past month I have been catching up on writing this Blague. And one might easily ask one why if one wanted. The truth is that I sense I need this Blague to be complete and to be great. I have been writing it for three full years, nigh on entering four, and I’m fucking proud of the fact I dare say.

Cue exorcism:

So I know you had famous parents and that your siblings parlayed it into even bigger fortune, but we don’t feel bad for you. And we certainly can’t understand it as the root to your problems which may be lodged elsewhere. What we do know is that we don’t care, we’ve never cared, and we just liked you. So you can stop testing us (and everyone?) and no this isn’t an open letter to Angelica Torn cum Angelica Page. Torn, Page, oh Jesus fucking Christ, I’m just now getting that this is a joke. Hominy Grits. Smokey porky smells on the chill. I can do everything, Jesus. You were all about self-belief. I can walk on water you said—must have—somewhere before you did it. That would only seem logical or poetical or a minimalistally beautiful new word to express both things at once.

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Who is Scarponi? It’s a name coming through. Sometimes I even psychic myself. So I just looked it up and it’s Michael Scarponi who died last year. I’m not saying that’s who’s coming through I’m saying that’s who popped up in a search. But he did die recently. And he was born 9/25 while i’m 9/28. It isn’t related. I know that I’m grasping. But it’s all been grasping or last gasping or however you want to look at it. I have spent the last month or more catching up on these Blagues which is all fine and dandy. But I have in many ways ran out of things to say. And so I should say nothing. But that’s not really my style.

Yesterday I reached out to Gary Lennon. It was weird because I was writing a couple a days back about how I auditioned for Hair in the early 1990s, for the writers of the show. I met Gary Lennon when he was the boyfriend of Jerome Ragni who died not long after we met. It was in Hoboken and we met in the bathroom of the restaurant where I worked. We were both younger and cuter and we just kind of took a shine to one another. Gary became a playwright in his own right and is now a television producer and writer. Anyway, at the time I was edtior of a magazine that was for and all about the club kids and nightlife. I just found out yesterday that Gary is the show runner for a new show that Ru Paul and J.J. Abrams are doing focusing on those years in NYC. And another acquaintance from back in the day Fenton Bailey, whose company is World of Wonder, is also involved. So I reached out to both Fenton and Gary to say that I would love to write for the show or whatever. It was a knee-jerk thing but I have been wanting, as Stella has, to do some writing for television. So we shall see what pans out. Could be an interesting direction for us. But, as with so many things right now in life, I feel a little unready if that makes sense. I feel as if I must get down to the nitty gritty again and clear out and just feel a bit more sane and steady on my feet, if you catch my driftola.

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There is something to be said for optimism in all its forms. As I sit here in my cold office in early March I feel myself a hinge that’s turning. I can easily look at this past year as having taken something of a toll, but I also see that my recovery is easy and should be rather speedy, that I haven’t given too much into winter and it’s frosty reduction. I’m also incredibly impressed with the fact that I have moved the spoon pretty readily but now I have to put all the pieces together which, really, shouldn’t be so hard.

In these next eight or nine Blagues I am going to have to express (to myself) what my days are going to be like under the new routine. I know that I will need to Blague daily so to never get into this situation again. But I also have to “man my station” in regard to all the social media and so forth I will need to create. I will need to strip my walls of paper and map out what might be the structure of a show which I really must begin to write by Monday if I’m going to have this enterprise be successful. I so don’t want to disappointment myself this year.

I fear that I will repeat the patterns of others’ abuse of me, self-inflicted, you know. That’s how it happens. I am proud that I stood up for myself in situations that were not sustainable with others; but, as a result, I tend to isolate and that is just self-punishment really. So I have to make an effort to stay in the picture. My confidence isn’t exactly at its peak at present so I need to do some work on the score as well. I’ll get there. It’s not always easy, but I will get there. I really want to prioritize health in the coming months. It really is time for me to go deeper in that realm. If only because I’ve been a tad lax for too long. Amazing that my health can be as good as it is. Although certain things tend to be all over the map. I still harbor the teen-age notion that I can just chill for a week and lose ten pounds. I mean it is amazing that my body still has some semblance of snapping back, but it surely isn’t as reliable as it used to be that’s for sure.

Still, I’m doing okay. And any minute now I’ll be able to take my daily walks and do my daily hot yoga. It will be three years since the accident where we were rearended on the highway, our car totalled, and our bodies put through such a fucking ringer. And the insurance company tries to keep us from any kind of recompense. We will sue that young woman and we will make her an example of the evils of texting and driving. She has messed with Starsky + Cox, after all, and I pity the poor fool who does that.

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I’m not going to lie to you: there are certain things about getting old that are just plain old fucking depressing. And things that were okay or used to be cute aren’t really that much any more. Not everything but certainly somethings. I don’t think the way we live is particularly cute at this point; then again, we make ever place we live beautiful and just have that natural magical vibe about us; but when you don’t prioritize material existence you tend not to have a lot of material trappings. And this is something else I’d like to see change right about now. I try not to be so blatantly honest in writing what should be pretty public material. That said, I don’t have much of a readership and, really, why should I. So like most things it’s all in my head. The fact of the matter is, though, I must say, somehow this time may feel different.

When I was a kid spending summers at the Jersey shore I can’t explain to you how desolate and beautiful Spring Lake was. All the giant mansions from the gilded era were there and yet they were like silent monuments, dormant gods looking on streets, each one a pantheon of architectural splendour. I could ride my bike endlessly through the town and just stare at all the buildings. Later, when I fell in with a year-round crowd there in high school and after I would visit some of these homes which were just unbelievable. But talk about a place in the past I’ve been passed out of. Jeez you’ve no idea. Now houses are five million. It’s so sad and so sick. There are enough boring people making boatloads of money who can afford to live like this. Back then all sorts of people, from various brackets, could still participate on some level, and all still go to the same public Manasquan high school. But no more.

There was an old movie theater in Spring Lake. I saw American Grafitti there when I was in, what?, fifth grade? Is that possible? The film came out in 1973, but maybe I saw it later? Gosh I dunno. It was definitely one of my favorite records. I think I saw it later, in the summer of 1975. Anway there were hardly any people in the cinema. And there were no people walking around Spring Lake. I think there was an ice cream shop near the cinema too. I can see wide slate sidewalks. The seventies were so beautiful and so anonymous. I loved the silent creepiness of it all. Faded grandeur. That’s what these former towns with their mansions were in the early seventies at the Jersey Shore, in Spring Lake, where still faces peeked through their Irish lace curtains as they silently slipped their martinis hiding from a world that would soon have nothing to do with them.

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I’m not going to lie to you: there are certain things about getting old that are just plain old fucking depressing. And things that were okay or used to be cute aren’t really that much any more. Not everything but certainly somethings. I don’t think the way we live is particularly cute at this point; then again, we make ever place we live beautiful and just have that natural magical vibe about us; but when you don’t prioritize material existence you tend not to have a lot of material trappings. And this is something else I’d like to see change right about now. I try not to be so blatantly honest in writing what should be pretty public material. That said, I don’t have much of a readership and, really, why should I. So like most things it’s all in my head. The fact of the matter is, though, I must say, somehow this time may feel different.

When I was a kid spending summers at the Jersey shore I can’t explain to you how desolate and beautiful Spring Lake was. All the giant mansions from the gilded era were there and yet they were like silent monuments, dormant gods looking on streets, each one a pantheon of architectural splendour. I could ride my bike endlessly through the town and just stare at all the buildings. Later, when I fell in with a year-round crowd there in high school and after I would visit some of these homes which were just unbelievable. But talk about a place in the past I’ve been passed out of. Jeez you’ve no idea. Now houses are five million. It’s so sad and so sick. There are enough boring people making boatloads of money who can afford to live like this. Back then all sorts of people, from various brackets, could still participate on some level, and all still go to the same public Manasquan high school. But no more.

There was an old movie theater in Spring Lake. I saw American Grafitti there when I was in, what?, fifth grade? Is that possible? The film came out in 1973, but maybe I saw it later? Gosh I dunno. It was definitely one of my favorite records. I think I saw it later, in the summer of 1975. Anway there were hardly any people in the cinema. And there were no people walking around Spring Lake. I think there was an ice cream shop near the cinema too. I can see wide slate sidewalks. The seventies were so beautiful and so anonymous. I loved the silent creepiness of it all. Faded grandeur. That’s what these former towns with their mansions were in the early seventies at the Jersey Shore, in Spring Lake, where still faces peeked through their Irish lace curtains as they silently slipped their martinis hiding from a world that would soon have nothing to do with them.

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So what to make of Roseanne and Murphy Brown coming back with Will & Grace and perhaps there are other shows, but if my writing days for the Styles section of The New York Times taught me anything it is: you only need three examples to build a story.

I am reminded of the recent-back where I wrote about the need for all to be poetry. It was stated so poetically, and rather through rather than by, that it must have gone directly to my supraconscious to rattle around for a week or so before registering as a thought in my frontal regions. Speaking of frontal regions, sometimes you just want to sit home and sip something relaxing and trim your balls, such as they are. I know I do. Weekend alone stuff to do.

Meanwhile the whole thing is like watching reality television. The president and the porn star. Tacky characters. I’m so bored that I want to change the channel, but that’s what they want us to do. The real Kim Jong-un has now become the South Park characterization of his father. I’m so ronery. Only this isn’t funny or genius it’s boring in the most literal sense of the word. And that’s the desired effect. They want to bore us into submission. Resistance is….I have to look up “opposite of bored,” and you won’t believe the leading thought form!: Entertained. Entertained. So I’m back on my rant about entertainers. But antonyms also include: interest, energy, excitement, liveliness, enjoyment. It’s not enough to laugh, we must laugh, think and act!. Entertainment and activism truly must go together now.

Note to self: What would it look like to set up a gig for yourself and/or Stella at a place like the Preservation Hall. I do get the sense that I need a microphone in my hand—stat. This might also be the rantings of someone who is sitting home on a late Sunday afternoon watching television news (which isn’t great on Sunday) starring down the barrel of bottle of Languedoc. It does feel like something of a luxury. We are supposed to get a storm tomorrow and whether it is the actual ions or something more metaphorical, I do feel something gathering. Which is a nice paradoxical counterpoint to the fact that I am really grasping at straws a bit for something to write that might be of universal interest in addition to ticking the box on self-indulgent mutterings.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree point of the Sabian Symbol may at times be one degree higher than the one listed here. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365/6 days per year—so they nearly, but not exactly, correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go! Copyright 2020 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved. Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2020 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox.