Taliesin Red

What will it be?

2011-10-12T12:28:00.000-07:00

The national television media keep asking about the 'Occupy Wall Street" protesters "What do they want"? I think this is strange. They have been saying what they want for thirty years now. They want their nation back from the slavocracists who have taken over America.

You know the ones- the "job creators" who are making jobs for Chinese people in China and un document illegal aliens, Chinese, Mexican, Irish, Slovakian here in America. They create these jobs for Chinese people in China and illegal aliens here, because Americans attempt to not do those jobs for slave labor wages at inhumane conditions. They resist profit maximization for the Slavocracy through their own economic and health destruction. Therefore these are now "Jobs americans wont (be allowed to) do." We want protectionism.

The 99% want our jobs back and we want them back on our shores where they support local economies and where they are performed at a fair wage in humane working conditions. We want our economic health back.

We want what EVERYONE else in the industrialized world has: Single payer universal coverage health care that works for everyone. Pick a system, the French one, the Dutch one, the Canadian, British or German one, or pick the best features of them all and make a great American system that works for the people. 50% of all bankruptcies are due to people not being able to pay medical bills. That's crazy. It's inhumane. We want a decent society where no one has to deciede "Do I die or do I live homeless?"

We want an end to socialism for the rich where they can make insdane "investments" designed to fail and have the government bail them out, but the rest of us are exposed to a economic system best described as "Nature red of tooth and claw." In that system the only two values are protecting the rich from loss and making everyone else struggle just to live.

We want open free access public education of international quality for all of our children. A educational system that prepares America for a prosperous future instead of for slavery.

Finally, we want a world where the richest 1% of the population have less than 10% of the nations wealth, rather than 30% of it, and we want the rest of the nation to share that wealth and prosper.

Yes we want to redistribute the wealth, and taht will come to America, either through reform of revolution. The 1% will decide - what will it be?

Opprotunity: The Chickens are Roosting

2007-10-22T13:02:00.000-07:00

Today Malibu is on fire. The Chapperal, local bushes equal in flammability to their weight in gasoline, are bursting into flame as they outgas and the gasses touch flame. The fire is beeing fed upon the Southern California "Devil Winds" and are creating their own faster winds as fires in hillsides do.

This fire is resulting in a terrible loss of millions upon millions of dollars in homes. It's natures way of shaking off the ugly. yeap I said it, shaking off the ugly.

A quarter Century ago, my buddy Mike Canfield and I had this idea of developing much of the then undeveloped land in Malibu. Being an Organic Architect, I wanted to do a bunch of nearly invisable Earth Sheltered Sod roofed homes cast in concrete with cantilivered concrete decks and wildflowers on the roof. Mike was a salesman. He wanted nothing to do with that Earth sheltered stuff, can't see it from the highway, doesn't announce itself, No he wanted BIG Showy white or pink stucco wood frame houses on the TOP of the hill where they would really SHOW. We never did get investors and never did build in Malibu, but the people who did build, agreed with Mike. They built BIG, they built traditional, they built wood framed white or pink stucco monstrosities.

Today those hillside monstrosities are buring. Millions of dollars in bad ideas are evaporating before our very eyes on television. Here is an opprotunity for Malibu and Southern California. People can rebuild safer, more fire and earthquake resistive, better to live in homes that act in concert with the local environment and local conditions. They can build lovely earth sheltered fire resistive homes, or they can again make the mistakes of graniosity.

We shall see.

Organic Architecture?

2007-02-06T15:17:00.000-08:00

Yes my Bio states I'm an Organic Architect. No, it doesn't have to do with nuts, berries, or Birkenstocks. It's a good thing too, because Birkenstocks make my feet hurt like hell.

Organic Architecture is most closely identified in the public mind with Frank Lloyd Wright. As Mr. Wright often pointed out, he did not invent Organic Architecture, it was practiced by Louis Sullivan before him, and before Sullivan, by Frank Furness. There were Organic architects before them, and there are Organic Architects now. O.K well so that's nice, but still what is it you ask? Fair enough.

Organic Architecture is a way of being, a philosophy of life whose practice is close to religion, and a series of specific Architectural Acts that bend a building towards an expression of our Organic Faith. O.K. Still confused?

A brief bit, really the merest outline and fragment that can suffice, about our philosophy, a Credo, if you will:

1. I believe the Universe is one product of an intelligent designer being.

2. I believe this designer designed creation to be both functional and beautiful. In fact functionality is in and of itself beautiful, and beauty has itself the function of creating joy.

3. I believe the creator takes great joy in function and beauty.

4.I believe the Earth and everything on or in or surrounding the Earth is designed to function as a part of the whole planet and the whole universe.

5. I believe all life creates structures, because all life was created by a structure building creator and all life being from the creator is like the creator.

6. I believe in creating any structure, a designer of that structure, or it's Architect, if you will, may either do good or evil. Good being design that is functional and beautiful, evil being a non functional and or ugly structure. An Organic Architect has an obligation to himself, the Creator , Society and the Client, do good and not evil.

7. I believe all structures to be good and not evil must exist in harmony with the larger creation (The earth and universe) of the Creator.

O. K. You say, that's nice, you have a religious design philosophy...You're kind of a Architecture monk or freak or something...but what is Organic Architecture?

Well there are several intentional components, Acts of Architecture if you will, that are expressions of this philosophy:

1. The building will be designed from the inside out, meaning that the functions of the building and the interplay and flow of space will be first designed.

2. The building will express it's construction.

3. The facade (exterior) of the building will express its functionality and constructive technique.

4. The building will in the main be oriented and landscaped for passive solar heating and cooling.

5. The building in the main will be daylighted.

6. There will be a entry that takes the user through a psychological rebirth process. Ask me.

7. The building will be heated and cooled in such a manner that is both energy efficient and relies on fresh air.

8. The building will reflect, respect , and push forward local, regional building practices that are in concert with the earth.

9. The building in its floorplan, materials, detailing and construction techniques will be designed to last as long as possible.

10. The space within will have a "transcendental" effect upon the user. (As a Supreme Court Justice once said "I cant define it, but I know it when I see it.")

11. When moving through the space, it will be so designed as to cause the user to be aware of her/his movement through space and time.

12. The space will have multiple ceiling heights used for psychological effects.

13. The building will have built in furniture and lighting.

14. The details will express the construction of, and be individual to, the building. There are no "Borrowed" or stolden effects.

15. The user will be able to easily and comfortably flow through the space.

16. Building will abstract the environment humans existed within throughout the majority of our time on Earth, the meadow. There will be places of shelter (protection) that provide views outward (prospect) There will be abstractions of tree branches (generally lighting soffits) Bushes or stones (Built ins) cave fires (Inglenook with skylight near chimney to recall the smokehole of the cave)

There are of course more. Each Organic Architect has her/his own list, but most will have most of these. The more present, the more "Organic" a particular piece of Architecture is.

I hope that helped.

Burn Howie Burn

2007-02-04T13:43:00.000-08:00

God is strange and wonderful. Mysterious even. Last Monday, I was talking to Assasinations Researcher Mike Canfield on the phone. I asked Mike if E. Howard Hunt was still alive. We concluded that E. Howard must be, since we hadnt heard his wickedness had died.

I wished Howard a speedy but painful trip to the hottest confines of hell. The Holy Spirit moved upon of all people, me and Mike to pray for E. Howards soul and salvation. Never had such mixed emotions. I knew God was wanted me and Mike to pray for E. Howard, but I really wanted Howie to burn brightly in hell. I was pissed that E. Howard had already lived 88 years fouling the earth.

It wasnt for E. Howards role in the Watergate break in, what he is most famous for, that made me dislike him so. No, it was his role in assasinating duly elected governments throughout Latin America, his role at the Bay of Pigs as one of the head CIA spooks in charge,His role in the assasination of Che , E. Howards role November 22, 1963 as a spotterfor the assasination of John Kennedy, that made me want him in hell. It was the betrayal of Democracy for the lusts of Empire, and his central role in turning my country from a Republic to an Empire that endeared old E.Howard Hunt to me.

So God has me and Mike pray for E. Howards soul. Such a sense of humor God has! I was confused by it all. Didn't sleep all night, alternativly praying for E. Howard and meditating upon his misdeeds. I got out of bed early and drew for a few hours. I went to the Java Joint for my daily ration of 60 ounces of Joe. My buddy Tom Turner walked up and informed me "E. Howard Hunt just died." I let out a shout for joy. I did. Right there in a public place. The Holy Spirit said "I counted your prayers for righteousness". I hoped that prayer was one that got a no answer. God wouldnt tell me where E. Howard was spending eternity. Said it wasnt for me to know. He's annoying that way.

Me and Mike of all people praying for E. Howard Hunt. What terrible mercy and sense of humor God has.

Still all and all,speaking only for myself, knowing perhaps I am not as "evolved" as I should be- "Burn Howard, Burn. Burn for all eternity you Rat Bastard Murdering King of Lies Empire building CIA creep. Burn in the hottest darkest lonliest stinkiest lowest bowels of hell. Burn forever you bastard."

A Morning at the Building Counter

2007-01-06T15:23:00.000-08:00

I am standing at the Building Counter in a local city hall. I hate building counters more than any place on Earth. They are evil. Just having to be there is an insult. Imagine a Doctor, a Lawyer, a Dentist, a Accountant having to submit treatment or work plans to a governmental agency before she or he could do a job. Well...in the case of lawyers it may be a good idea...

After a client finds me, I design his, her, or their space to the clients needs or desires. With an eye ever cocked to the Building Code and my well thumbed SIMPSON catalouge, the plans take shape. Compromises between art, desire,the code and the budget are made, then my ever helpful very conservative Structural engineer, Sam Knowels, who will be lawfully responsible for any building failure, has me make changes and revisions. Then some pinhead at the building counter, a wonder who has never designed or built anything, will judge my plans. So it is on this morning.

We are flipping through my plans, the cover sheet, the existing site plan, the remodeled site plan, the existing floorplan. Ah, we get to the remodel floorplan. Mr. Pinhead notices my five foot overhangs on the South and East facades and my mitred corner glass windows. The pinhead looks dismayed. He points out the overhangs and my mitred windows and announces to me "Frank Lloyd Wright is dead." I am shocked. I could swear I heard Mr. Wright standing over my right shoulder just two months ago as I drew the drawings chuckling with bitter amusement that I had stolden his effects, but that at least I stold them well. He did like my horizontal 1"x 12" rough sawn redwood siding (one hour fire rating and still comparatively inexpensive).He liked the idea of each 1"x3" batten providing a deep line of shade a horizontal ground line.

I flip through the drawings way down deep to the structural details. Thirty eight pages of 36"x42"sheets full of details and notation, for this 1546 square foot house. I show the posts, the double pinned finger jointed urathane glued structural select Douglas Fir 6"x14" beams cantilevered a whole 8% to support these corners. Next page I show the columns this is supported on in addition to the framing. I show the various SIMPSON connectors and hold downs and straps with their nailing. I show the oversized footings made just for his jaundiced squinty eyes. Mr. Pinhead looks at me and repeats "Frank Lloyd Wright is dead". The Pinhead then offers that mitered corner windows are forbidden in his City. I ask to speak to Mr. pinhead's supervisor.

Mr. Pinheads supervisor, his Excellency the Rat Bastard, arrives. We repeat looking through the drawings. Mr. Rat Bastard looks in fright at the corner windows. He is concerned with my cathederal ceiling, those "huge overhangs" deeply disturb him. I explain that we have have these overhangs to prevent heat build up and create a micro climate of of shade, and that I've ruffled the edges with a built up redwood facia to cut down the speed of our yearly "Devil winds " to a dull roar. I point out that a quarter of the overhang is actually open framing that will cast ever changing moving shadow on the building and walkways in August and again, slow down the wind near the house. He is troubled by my UL approved spray in fire resistive urathane foam insulation. he demands to know why I insulated the overhang. I explain that urathane foam has one of the highest R values per inch of any product, that we will be keeping the summer heat from building up on the home, that Air Conditioning will not have to be used, that the urathane actually is structural and stiffens the roof, and heaven forbid, should my Standing seam metal roof fail in fifty years, the urathane will keep water from entering any part of the house structure. METAL ROOF? NO METAL ROOFS IN MY CITY!! WE DONT ALLOW SHACKS HERE!! The Rat Bastard is yelling in public that the house I've designed is a shack, just because I've specified a roof with a sixty year rated lifespan? I contain myself. This is a miracle.

Mr. Rat Bastard shoves the plans back towards me and demands I revise them before submission. I insist he review them as they are. Mr. Pinhead stands in obvious proud joy next to the Rat Bastard.

I demand he justifies his denials in written form with findings. I mention that every product in my design, except the zero clearance fireplace and the now State of California required flourecent kitchen and bathroom lighting lighting has existed and been an approved material since before either of us was born. I have IBCO or City of Los Angeles numbers for everything written on the plans. All of my shear panels,headers, floor and roof sheathing, columns are in excess of anything the code requires. Mr. Rat Bastard and Mr. Pinhead are clearly pissed. I have insulted their governemental majesty by failure to instantly yeild and appropriatly grovel.

In spirit at least, Mr. Wright is not dead.

This is a normal day for a designer. I always wonder why Frank Lloyd Wright or John Lautner never pulled out a gun and went postal on a bunch like this. They never did. It was a miracle.

I leave. I go see Dwain Lind, a Nuetra apprentice and friend, who always suffers these problems. It's ten AM in the morning. We down a couple of Belgian beers each. The Belgians make good beer, good chocolate, and still allow each person to build INDIVIDUAL buildings. Nice people the Belgians.. Dwain reminds me that a average house is a eighteen month battle, a good one three years and an excellent one five.

This is why our whole built environment SUCKS. Mr. Pinhead and Mr. Rat Bastard are everywhere, gleefully announcing like a demented old drunk parrot "Frank Lloyd Wright is dead", and doing their wicked dead level best to make it so. Should they fail to destroy any art in a building, Greedy Developer Maximus stands by to help in the execution.

No one seems to notice that all the good or really great buildings sell or rent for price premiums when they are advanced of age, and the Architect is dead and may not enjoy this small victory. Why are those buildings more valuable on our heartless "market"? Because quite simply people WANT, they DESIRE buildings to BE in that feed their souls in addition to being places to sit out of the wind and rain. Sadly, one almost has to be a bizillionaire anymore to get to experience a space such as that.

SO another three to five year battle begins for a small house fit for a human being to live in. Can and will the client hang on?

This is why America is so ugly and mind numbingly the same as a place, the desire of some to make all others no better than themselves. As I use a church key to remove the top off my third Belgian beer, I wonder to Dwain " Will the next Revolution be fought by contractors and Architects?.... Hey we could build catapults and fire SIMPSON ECCU heavy timber hangers at the enemy.....

Et Tu Emilio?

2006-12-05T15:36:00.000-08:00

I just went to see the new Emilio Estevez movie "Bobby". I wanted so dearly to love that flick. I wanted to send all my friends.

I admit parts of the film are seductive. Place a film in the middle 1960's and my brain will get confused for a couple of hours, my mind will tell my body I'm a youth again. I can again feel the California sunlight, and its cool purple caressing air at sunset on the hairs of my still youthful arm, the air has a faint almost perceptable aroma of sage, orange blossoms, cheap incense from India and change. Time changing time changing time bending life.

Those long far away views of the Ambassador Hotel, once the Crown Jewel of Los Angeles social life, there at sunset, warm, alive again, full of activities, diners, dancers and lovers, the once lost ghost of an old aquientance joyfully glimmering past for a moment, smiling and winking with a "com'on baby, lets roll" flirt as she passes...

The clothing, remember when everyone who walked precinct and petitions wore a coat and tie? Life even in Southern California had some formal aspects, remember Tie Clips? Those gold plated bejeweled male notations of individuality within the uniform of the suit.

Remember when those walking precincts believed in the future, in hope, in of all things, the idea that merely voting for the best person would and could solve the worlds problems? Ah innocence.

Innocence is a bitch. You dont know you have innocence, or what a delight she is while she posseses you, then when your head slams straight into reality and shes gone, innocence is then longed for, but can never be recovered.

My mind smells the incense that isnt really there, I feel the caress of a long lost sunset, my legs stand on that manicured yeilding lawn, then the head slams into that one inch thick rusty steel plate.

There on the screen it's that night. The night my innocent psyche was deflowered by the rapist of world empire. Those small black and white images that ripped me apart inside out in an instant are now gigantic and in color. I am weeping and convulsing in psychic pain. I sit straight up as I realize the real footage is inter cut with synthetic realities. False realities. falsehoods. Lies.

"Where are the security guards? where are the guards dammit? Thats not the kitchen! Its a different freakin kitchen, the volumetrics of the space are wrong! the layout of equipment is wrong. What the Fuck is this shit?" My wife pats my arm and tries to quiet me. I'm embarassing her in her own grief.

In the movie we hear a muffled distant "Kennedy you son of a bitch" twice and we see injured cast members,bloody fallen to the floor, dismayed and confused. We see a fake Senator Kennedy laying on the floor, no security guards tie in his hand and then off to the side no tie at all. "Son of a Bitch!!" I scream. "You lieing Son of a Bitch where are the guards and the tie? Son of a Bitch!!!" My wife is hunkered down now in her chair, she wants the other crying people in the theater to turn back around and stop staring.

After the movie I'm standing at a urinalin the bathroom opposite the concession stand. The guy next to me in the suit starts talking. "Right on, man-the CIA got Bobby." "Yeah, no shit brother!" Both our faces are stained by tears. We wash our hands and then the salted streaks on our faces, but the tears are in deep ruts in our souls.

All the money on this movie. All the fucking tie clips. Delaying the destruction of the Ambassador just to film this movie. The critical moment. The moment all America will mistakenly believe was the real moment, the synthetic cinematic "truth" and its a GOD DAMMED LIE!! Can I believe they "just screwed up"? How do they spend all that time, that attention, that money and forget the guards clip on tie? The critical touchstone that points the finger to the second gun. It just happens to get forgotten? How do you mess up the most Historically significant instant?

Bobby Kennedy got stabbed in the back with this movie. The cover up continues, even through his so called "friends". With friends like this who needs Republicans and the likes of E. Howard Hunt and Thayne Ceaser?

I'm riding the escalator to the parking garage. In my mind over and over my voice mumbles : Et Tu Bruti? ? Et Tu Emilio, Et Tu Emilio, Et Tu Emilio?

Justice in a 53 Chevy

2006-11-22T16:28:00.000-08:00

Its that day again. It's forty three long twisted years. I wake in the morning to that thought and the idea that forty three years used to be a whole lifetime. He was forty three when he first took the job. I am now older than he was at the end...

I long to take a bath. A hot bath that will clean my soul. A bath that can help me forget and remember. I want to forget all of the corruption, the hidden things, the racism, the imperialism, the endless God dammed lies that I have discovered my country consists of. I want to forget seeing prophets shot like rabid dogs in the street. I want the sound of mourning droning bagpipes to leave my psyche.

I want to remember what Camelot felt like, to be able to touch the thought that we as a People could and would live up to our best selves. I want to remember Thanksgiving as a joyful holiday that is not tinged with my Presidents head exploding in a convertable under the bright cold sunlight of a Southern fall morning. I want high noon to have no meaning to me.

I want to forget spooks, mafiosi, sick bastard triple dealing National Security functionaries, Cubans, Clay Shaw, Oswald, Jack Ruby, Bunker Hunt, E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis, G. Gordon Liddy,Loren Hall, Camp Street, Carlos Marchello, J. Edgar Hoover in a dress, the grassy knoll and the Texas School Book Depository. I dont want to know so much about crappy Italian rifles, ballistics, Killing zones and triangulation, and the arguments about why a head may explode and the jet effect. When I see Arlen Spector, I dont want to think "Yeah"magic bullet" you asshole."

I even wish I could forget the heros. Mike Canfield, A.J. Webberman, Lisa Pease, Jim Garrison, Congressman Henry B. Gonzales, not that they deserve to be forgotten, but that remembering their heroism, I must remember the crimes and the coverups. I must remember our Government is always lieing to us. Always. That of the People By the People for the People is an slogan, not a reality.

I wish I could forget the horror of my fellow citizens on that day. The grieving that never really ended, the horror of the various revelations slowly unfolding year after year. Fat Frank Sturgis talking to Jack Anderson about the super secret CIA agent who named the Bay of Pigs landing craft after his adopted City, his Wife, and his Oil company- Houston, Barbara, Zapata. Hmmm Who was that? (Hint both he and his son have served as President)The House Select Committee owning up to the fact that there was more than one shooter, uh duh.

I want to forget Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald on Saturday morning Television before my childhood cartoons where the bad guy dies and lives in the next frame. The good guys and the bad ones die and never get up. The death of the good paralyses others who would be.

Somehow, amoung all that would be forgetfulness, I dont want to forget driving to In N Out Burger with my Father and Grandfather in Dad's 53 Chevy that Sunday evening when we all didnt go to Church. Dad and my Grandfather were upset about the Texas police not protecting Oswald and letting him get shot. I piped up. I was a super patriot of a kid. I was happy Oswald got shot, he had killed our President and deserved to die. In that forest green 1953 Chevy Bel Air with the white roof, my Father and my Grandfather, slowly and carefully and while loving me and something sacred and eternal, explained to a seven year old the concepts of Justice, of due process, the idea that it was better for the guilty to go free than the innocent be punished. I came to understand in that short drive, that all men stood before the Court as innocent, that even a man accused of assasinating the President deserved a trial and had to be proved by facts and evidence to be guilty. Oswald was, as far as we could know, innocent, perhaps there were others, how would we now know? It was a profound series of moments and revelations. Justice became a real thing to me that evening. I and many of my generation have spent our lives looking for the others.

Foley and Ruling class ethics

2006-10-09T17:54:00.000-07:00

Ah Congressman Foley has a thing for young pages...Tisk tisk. The Republican Party, recently empowered in no small account for its "Hate the Homo" supermorality stance seems have a Congress replete with guys who are homosexual, armies of skilled homosexual senior staffers, guys who use their power relationships to abuse and annoy employees, and guys who cover misdeeds up "for the good of the Party". The right wing wing nuts on talk radio are full of excuses about why this isnt bad and why somehow its all the fault of the Democrats...Somehow after six years of Republican super majority, they still claim Bill Clinton made them do it.....LOL

Congressman Foley's actions of course were wrong, and so were those of the Republicans who knew and covered them up. They should do as he has done and have enough integrety to resign.

In the meantime, lets talk about some really disgusting deeds. It seems there is this private little club of frat boys at Yale. It's an old club, long established and a place where generations of Americas ruling class has cemented its "bonds of Brotherhood"to each other. Long ago a particular member unearthed the skull of a famous American Indian warrior and Chief and is alleged to have brought said skull back to the frat house house for ritual purposes. The skull is said to now have been used for generations in the initiation rite into this Fraternity.

The Fraternity itself is said to be the American branch of a ancient Masonic order, said order having been also the parent corporation of many a pirate ship and none other that Hitler's SS. Very impressive group, these frat boys.

Seems the skull is very important to these boys. They after passing various other tests and indignities, are required to strip naked, lay in a coffin, recount all of their romantic and sexual relations while masturbating. they are to, it is said, ejaculate into the eye sockets of this skull. Thats right, the frat boys are necromancers, performing sexual acts with the dead. Now thats SICK. Thats immoral, thats disgusting!

Whose skull? Geronimo. Who robbed Geronimo's grave? It is said President Bush's grandfather...Who have been members of this sick litlte fraternity? Both Presidents Bush, John Kerry, a Secretary of State or two, a handful of Senators and Congressmen, leaders of Corporations, men of supposed standing and honor. Such is the American ruling class.

A disgusting crew, if the rumors are true. Skull and Bones have never confirmed or denied the rumors. What happens in Skull and Bones, stays in Skull and Bones. This is the essence after all of a "Good Old Boy" network, the performing of acts that are repugnant to the public and kept from it, while allegedly working for the public.

It is these secret fraternities, brotherhoods, sisterhoods, rites of initiation and passion that train young men and women to do what is disgusting to fit in, be "members of the club" and believe that only by serving such corrupt groups can they ever hope to have the opprotunity to serve the Country. Of course out of either habit or fear, the public will not be served, but the "Brotherhood" whatever it is, will be.

This is why no one should vote for any "Bonesman" or member of any other secret society. Secret Societies by their nature demand loyalty to the Secret Society above all else. No person can belong and serve the public good.

Paul Revere Williams and Pasadenas velvet racists

2006-10-09T15:46:00.000-07:00

Pasadena. Town of old homes, tree lined streets, dappled light filtered through leaves, of a certian genteelity often missing in Southern California. A City of acceptance and multiculturalism. Thats the Hype anyway.

Hype is a peculiar thing. It's well polished, and it's the lie, the quartered burl walnut veneer over cheap nasty termite infested pressboard, in one case a waste of wood, in another a waste of words.

Architecture is perhaps the most difficult of all art forms. Becoming an Architect takes many years in school, passing difficult tests and years of working often at below minumum wage, even after you pass the test before they will give you a Architects license. Then the Architect must go get clients, make designs that please both the client and his own artistic and career needs, and somehow get past the bankers and the dim bulbs at the local Building department. It's a Hurculean task to be an Architect.

Imagine on top of all those "normal" difficulties that one is a black man in the 1930's. Imagine that one is never allowed to own land where one builds, that one may not socialize with ones clients, that one must learn to sketch upside down so one will never be sitting next to one's clients, who are white while one is black and therefore always on guard not to offend the sensibilities of American Racism. Such was the case for Paul Revere Williams, who in spite of these almost insurmountable difficulties not only became an Architect but a highly skilled one who was most prolific.

Paul Revere Williams went beyond the facts and circumstances of his race to not only master Historic Style Architecture, but to pioneer "Hollywood Regency" and be the only practicioner to pull off that blend of Historicism and modernism without clunckyness, to pull it off seamlessly as one true thing, and then to move on to a American Organic Modernism. Paul Revere Williams was a MAN, in the sense that Louis B. Sullivan would mean, he owned his work and his effects, completely. He made spaces of trancendant spiritual being. Each of his works, small and large, is a complete work of art, yet a completely useful thing. Most Architects never master a single style. Paul Revere Williams mastered three and was a pioneer in two. What whould he have become, had his skin color not been used to hold him back? What blessings could America have had?

There was two years ago a Paul Williams masterpiece, the Landau house, that was to be demolished. Preservationists swang into action and found someone with an appropriate lot and the means who could and would save it, Anne Marie Villicanna and her husband Robin Salzer. They were ready to place the house on a lot marvellously simular to the lot Paul Williams had placed the house on in the first place, a blessing almost unknown in house saving. Everyone was happy. Then the neighbors found out. Pasadena's would be brahmin class. They were most displeased.

Seems that Ms. Villicanna had bought her lot from her father, Dr. Alex Villicanna. Dr. Villicanna is a well known local plastic surgon, art collector and all round heck of a nice guy. Over the years he has taken a lot of sag out of the old biddies of Old Pasadena, and you would think they would be happy and grateful to have him around, but not so. It seems Dr. Villincanna was born in Mexico City. Thirty years ago, Dr. Villicanna seems to have done the unforgivable, he moved into San Rafael, Pasadena's most uptight elite stuffy neighborhood. The neighbors are most displeased to have this kind, well educated, discrete, genteel man living near them. Seems they didnt want a house by THAT Architect on THAT piece of land. So they swang into action, wrote letters, filed objections and have seen to it that THAT house will not go THERE. When talking to some so called Preservationists, after getting past whatever persnickety code problems they could find or invent, the question, accusation, phrase would come up "You know she's a M e x i c a n" Thats the real deal.

Never mind that Anne Marie is the most Westridge girl one will ever meet. Never mind she does her job well and is professional to the bone. Never mind that Anne Marie represents what the people in San Rafael say they want out of immagrants, that is a totally assimilated into America high quality human being, they remember, ever so quietly that her father and therefore she, is a Mexican. Doesnt matter that her passport is US of A- shes a Mexican. Then they use everything else they can find to cover up what the real objection is.

At least in the old American South, the racists were an honest group. At least they told you, as they told Paul Revere Williams here with restrictive deed covenants, nothing will ever matter to us, your skin in a shade not pale enough. Here and now in their false genteelity, they can not be so forthright, so honest. Here in Pasadena's velvet racism, Paul Revere Williams, one of the best Architects America ever produced will be denied for all time the existence of one of his most treasured masterpieces, and Anne Marie Villicanna will be denied her house, the use of her property, and her equality, all on the basis of skin tone.

We have come such a long way, have we not?

2006-07-20T06:49:00.000-07:00

When I first met Michael Zin Zun, I was a white guy who had just been brutalized by the Pasadena Police. The ACLU was not interested. My City Councilman could not care less. Pasadena's then Mayor, Loretta Glickman, told me she couldnt help me because of her position. Loretta gave me Michael Zin Zun's phone number and told me to call him. She said he would help me. He did.

Mike didnt care that I was white. He didnt care that at the time I was a Republican. Being suddenly subjected to the Police beat down and the threat of prosecution for assaulting the Police officers who had beaten me, I didnt care that Michael was a Black Panther. Michael explained the complaint system to me. As I went through that system, Michael was there to give me advice, cheer me up, explain how the system had just violated its own rules, tell me jokes and fire up my spirit.

Over the years, no matter how much surelliance was conducted against him, no matter how many times the police broke into his home and office, no matter the number of false arrests or beatings he sustained, hope never seemed to leave Michael Zin Zun. I never really thought about the source of Michaels hope. We were each busy in our own arenas attempting to enforce Justice and Righteousness.

As I went to Mike's Funeral, I was depressed. It was that more than a brother, a true champion in the fight, had died. I was depressed because I had thought I had more time, I didnt need to share today,the Good News of redemption through Jesus Christ with Mike. There was time for that when we were old. Mike died before he was old.

I arrived at the funeral an hour early. The place was packed. I saw every local activist who was doing the work in the place. Dozens of people got up to speak and tell of the Michael Zin Zun they knew. Wave after wave of young man told how Mike encouraged them to learn, to get a trade, to stay out of trouble. Gang leaders told of a man who negotiated peace between the Bloods and the Crips. Family members told of Mike as a friend, a Uncle, a Dad and a believer in Jesus Christ from who his help came.

I was stunned. Black Panther, Marxist, Internationalist, do gooder, litigator against the Government,Fighter against Intitutionalized injustice, born again? I thought to myself, here this man believed in Jesus, but he had to go to Eldridge Cleaver to learn how to do the work of a Prophet. Most white church people I knew had no use at all for him, yet he was even their brother, who was doing the Greater Works of the Gospel. It was confusing, but exhilarating.

Black Panther for Jesus!! Black Panther in the name of Jesus! Revolutionary for Christ.....Yeah for the first time in a long time I was in a church service that squared up with who Jesus in Mathew, Mark, Luke and John was.

Michael fought hard. Like all activists he paid in personal ways that are immeasurable while waging each battle. The victories, while sweet, were bittersweet, because they were, compared to the ongoing injustice of our society, temporary, small, difficult to enforce, and fleeting. When Mike won millions of dolalrs from the County of Los Angeles because it did not use designated funds for youth hiring programs, he took nothing and made them spend the money for what it was designated for, hiring at risk youth. When he was beaten and injured, he won a great deal of money and took it, spending it taking minority kids to the beach, to the mountians, getting unwed Mothers cars, getting training for young men in careers, and expanding lives of young people by taking them to conferences around the world. At his funeral, the People of Haiti, of Brazil, and the ANC of South Africa draped his coffin with thier flags, he had helped them from Los Angeles a great deal in their struggles.

There were two Flags missing from Mike's coffin. Mike was a warrior in the best Christian tradition. Certianly the Christian flag belonged on his coffin along with that of the American flag, whose Constitutional form of government and highest ideals Michael Zin Zun spent his life fighting for. He was and remains, a true son of America, and a true Brother in Christ.

All Power to the People.

The Apostle and the Apostate

2006-07-06T10:39:00.000-07:00

Long ago in Chicago, after the fire, America began to rebuild itself. There emerging out of the ashes of the ground were entire new systems of building, and the opportunity to by expression, birth an American Architecture, true to its People.

Many technologists grew up and contributed in Chicago. At the turn of the 19th to the 20th Century the two giants of American Architecture and Chicago were two firms: Burnham and Root, artistically headed by Daniel Burnham,and Adler and Sullivan, artistically headed by Louis Sullivan. At first there was little to differentiate these firms. They competed arduously for commissions, but their early works were very like each other. They each began by expressing in wide open glass areas the new steel construction and its long spans, each ornamented throughout with new details. Adler and Sullivan began to build more complex buildings, buildings with performance auditoriums, offices, retail and living spaces within them. Adler and Sullivan built their buildings each one as a individual whole artwork designed ,yes to meet the needs of financial return, but also to fulfill the human spirit.

Burnham and Root built bigger, taller, and always with an eye towards immediate and maximum return. Often their buildings are functional, well planned and totally joyless, commercial space.

As time went on, Louis Sullivan more and more refused to compromise Art for money. Burnham was only too happy to take the money and run. Eventually all of Burnham's buildings had whatever ornament or decoration they possessed ordered out of standard office catalogues. Major portions of floorplans were lifted, one building to another, standardized. The Greek, Roman and whatever piled on top of each other, meaningless, but appealing to those who felt the need to borrow from others, thier culture. Burnham and Root prospered and the firm lives on today.

Sullivan would have none of it. No mans hard won work would adorn even his smallest structure. He was no thief, no vampire, he was an honest hard working Craftsman, Artist and MAN. His buildings were that, HIS. Every line, every shadow, every curve, shade color and reflection, came from his fertile mind and was meant to excite and free every spirit that beheld and entered it. These were each temples to the ideas of Whitmans transcendence, to what would have been the American Spirit. This was to be the form of Americas true religion.

The forces of America's False religion, Mammon welded to a false Christianity, would have none of this. All art was to be subjigated to immediate fiscal return. The Human Spirit? The Soul? Where are those found at autopsy?

After Sullivan's triumphal Transportation Building at the Chicago Worlds Fair, the gauntlet had been flung upon the table, the direction and intent were clear, and Mammon arrayed itself to destroy Louis Sullivan. They did for decades, deprive Sullivan of his greatest joy, work.

The man who once built the tallest most complex structures then known to the world was reduced to building a few homes and banks far far away from Chicago in little Midwestern rural towns. They stand and are known and loved throughout the world. In the end, he was able to write books and do one last treatese on Ornament. Mammon celebrated his death and in puriant detail regaled would be Architects, would be MEN with the tale of his misfortune.

Sullivans firm died. Only his disciples remained, each in small practices, Purcell, Elmslie, Frank Lloyd Wright, himself by the time of Sullivans death in 1924 also at that point in (temporary) decline.

Burnham and Root, the masters of commerce, of lunch, of the sublimation of all artistic intent to immediate return, the men who invented quarter hour billing, they survived, they prospered, full of unknown un named interchangeable Architects who made buildings of interchangeable universal inspecific parts and plans. Burnham and Root eventually became Haliburton. Today they stand world wide for corporate greed, destruction of the earth, and all that is indecent in the Corporation. Many long to be them, and thus, serve only Mammon. Their buildings,rightfully, are reviled by all who enter.

Out of Louis Sullivans office was birthed Frank Lloyd Wright, who himself also offered the world transcendent Architecture. Out of Frank Lloyd Wright either by direct apprenticeship or extreme influence, came Richard Nuetra, R.M. Schindler, John Lautner, James De Long, Dwain Lind, Harwell Hamilton Harris, Bruce Goff, Jack Himmler,Eric Lloyd Wright, Elizabeth Ingram, Edgar Tafel, Lloyd Wright, Wes Peters, Aaron Greene, John Lloyd Wright, Bart Prince, and many others go forth and preach healing to the mind, body and Spirit of Man. Their buildings are treasured.

Today the fight wages on in America, and around the world. Architects sublimate their authority, power and knowledge to the profit of greedy debased clients, who add nothing to their communities, dishonor the landscape, and have no idea of the Spirit. Others, work less, but they do more, because what they do must endure, as each small example of their work brings with it life.

In the Long run, Louis Sullivan will triumph. The tale of the shabby spiritual life of Burnham and Root will some day be spoken of in hushed tones, and MEN will clebrate Louis Sullivan as the Apostle of the One True God he was.

Prophets

2006-06-01T12:19:00.000-07:00

Summer has hit Southern California. Winter had been battling to stay with last flurries of intense ground pounding rain, but the heat is on. It's the first week of June, my personal week every year of the Agony and the Ecstasy. It's a week of anniversaries.

5 June 1968- The California Presidential Primary. Senator Robert F. Kennedy wins on the Democratic Party ticket. Shooting erupts in a kitchen at the Ambassador Hotel. Senator Kennedy is shot in his brain by a bullet that according to Tom Noguchi's autopsy was no more than three inches from the back of his head. Sirhan B. Sirhan, local Pasadena Coptic Christian whose family immigrated from Palestine, and whose gun was at no time closer than three feet to Senator Kennedy and pointed at the front of his head, was blamed for the Assasination. The media cast him as a Islamic Palestinian Terrorist who hated Israel. Except that he was born in Palestine, wrong on all counts.

Sirhan doesnt remember a thing from 2 June 1968 when he was met at the Dutch Oven Bakery in Altadena,(where I often have breakfast) by a blonde Crew cut man and a woman in a Polka Dot dress. I always wonder about her.

Did she have that "Pasadena" look wealthy and would be wealthy local women once had? Lightly tan, sun streaked pony tailed and ribboned chestnut hair, long limbs,Manicured nails, between five foot six and five foot eight, bright energetic eyes, expressive but not flamboyant speech. Was that her? Who was she? She is a ghost an enigma, a snare, bait dangled before the fish's eyes.

Sirhan got a sham trial where evidence was buried by the police and prosecutors and ignored by his first batch of lawyers. Years later in College I would read Sirhans autobiography, written before his birth, Kafka's The Prisoner. The last weeks of May and the first week of June, Sirhan, injustice, those brave souls who investigated the assassinations of JFK, RFK, Dr. King, and Malcolm X, brave men and women who risked their lives for the prophetic call of God for justice. Mark Lane, Judge Garrison, Mike Candfield, Rose Lynn Mangan, Lisa Pease, Paul Kangas, many many more, who hit the bricks, and in many ways lost their own lives to pursue the truth, to seek that dream of America as a shining light of Freedom and Justice on the hill. I think also of MK ULTRA, of CIA mind control, of powers, principalities, and dark forces of Satanic evil arrayed against all that is just right and good. Those prophets are the hope of America, the hope that as Dr, King once said, we will someday live up to our creed. The first week of June is always a long month.

8 June, 1869 Frank Lloyd Wright, a prophet is born. Frank Lloyd Wright, remembered mostly for a vacation house over a waterfall, is not remembered for his message. Mr. Wright believed deeply in the Truth and that all Truth came from God and was to be embraced. Wright believed to his soul that all men were equal, and when no one else would, it was Wright who designed integrated housing developments.

It was Wright who was the first white Architect to design decent housing for Negroes of every social class and not do so in a condescending manner. It was Wright who designed homes for Lesbian and Gay couples and made no notation of their orientation as a peculiarity. It was Wright who designed for small businesses, and captains of industry. He designed a clients sons dog house once. He liked designing chicken coups.

It was Frank Lloyd Wright who designed his buildings as expressions of Freedom that were to serve the body, mind, spirit and soul of the inhabitant. It was Frank Lloyd Wright who stood on principle, even if it would cost him favor or money. Frank Lloyd Wright spoke truth to power, long before Edward R. Murroh, Frank Lloyd Wright opposed Senator Joseph Mc Carthy in public. It was Frank Lloyd Wright who sought and found a Architecture true to the promise of America's creed.

It is the first week in June. At Wrights grandsons house I will gather with others to celebrate not just an Architect, but a Poet, Engineer, Philosopher, Artist, and most of all a prophet.

Would that America had a few more prophets, a few more people with some backbone, more people who didnt understand the phrase "Well, thats how it is."
More people, who like Wright and Senator Kennedy ask not why, but why not?

When we do, the innocent will be free, our homes and cities will be fit to live in, Our work will be decent, and the first week of June will only be a celebration of our victory over inertia as a people.

I get dizzy a lot these days.......

2006-05-30T10:43:00.000-07:00

Hubert Humphry. There is a name you dont hear often anymore. Hubert Humphry was a politician. He was a Senator, and he ran for President once. Humphry was once a giant of the old Democratic Party, a champion of the working person and Civil Rights. Humphry ended his days an almost instantly forgotten goat. His fall was so fast and so far it almost makes one dizzy to contemplate.

Senator Humphry got caught up in what was called the "Milk Scandal". It seems a Milk industry group gave "donations" to politicians in exchange for favorable legislation that kept the price of milk high for the consumer. Humphry when asked about his "campaign donation" said something like "I'm only sorry I didnt get more." Then he just disappeared more or less forever.

One would think that after Senator Humphry's instant fall from grace and fame that the lesson learned by all would be to not take the graft. This seems to not be the case. At every level governmental officials seem to have learned the lesson: "get more".

In Altadena California, where I live, I serve on a little body that advises County ,State and Federal agencies on the needs and desires of Altadena residents. At our last meeting, a member attempted to pass out free gym memberships "for members only". As he tried to pass one to me , I said "I cant take that, it's a bribe, its something worth more than five dollars that can not be consumed within twenty four hours, given due to my position, I'm sorry, it's a bribe and I cant take it." One would think after that no one would take it, but members did. Kind of makes a guy dizzy.

A couple days later, another member emailed the whole group notifying us that a free trip was available from a local power company to go look at their dams and "better understand issues"....Yep all transportation, food and lodging FREE..... I wrote back complaining that it was a bribe, an improper gift and we should only go if we paid our own way. I got a note back from a friend saying I had to look at it differently...I got dizzy. To me, if you put a pig in a dress, apply lipstick to its rear end, and kiss it, you've still kissed a pigs rear end...How you look at it doesnt change it.

A few days later I went to another meeting held by another agency. There a member who I once respected, insisted on the group voting on a endorsement of a State ballot proposition that directly favored his Industry and employer. He took part in debate and voted on the issue. I was dizzy. Then later in the meeting, a member of the public cautioned a member of that Board to recuse himself from an issue that was the awarding of a contract to his employer. He gleefully took part in debate and made a spectacle of his vote on the issue. I felt like I just took a ride on that rotating rising and falling drum at a carnival. I was so dizzy I almost Puked.

Whenever I go to hearings or governmental board meetings I see gross violations of even the concept that Ceasers wife should not only be beyond reproach, but should appear to be so. It seems ethics are missing from several generations of our "leaders" and nothing can be done about it, because everyone seems to think its the way it is, or its just cute somehow, like the pig in the dress.
I get dizzy a lot these days.

I'm not sleeping again

2006-05-29T05:44:00.000-07:00

I'm not sleeping again. I start to sleep, but I wake up early in the night, always its the same nightmare. The nightmares had stopped for a time.

Art Snyder had sued me, and for the first couple years, I was so worried about being homeless that I didnt sleep at all, then I was so exhausted, I slept like a log, six hours a night, for the first time since I met Mike Canfield and read Coup D etat in America. After the lawsuit, I maniacally tried to live a "normal" life. I refused to discuss or think about conspiracies. I had no nightmares. I had no dreams. I wanted to get over my anger. I wanted to be a good consuming mind numbed American. It didnt work, I kept trying.

I walked into this health food store. It was the smell of all that healthy stuff, potions and vitamins, it was the taste of the honey crunch bar, just like they had at Bee Balser's House of Health when I was a kid. I should have stuck to cigars, much safer. This nostalgia crapo can kill you. The honey crunch health bar- just like the one I bought that afternoon from the skinny dark kid in back of the counter at Bee Balser's.

The nightmares came back. I wake up and Senator Robert Kennedy is laying in a pool of his own blood, eyes open,staring upward and ever into my soul, crying out against injustice, against the wrong man doing the time for this crime. My mind jumbles to images of things I've never seen, Rev. Owens horse ranch, the inside of the strip club where that skinny dark kid was publically hypnotized,I wonder to myself, did Zorthian and Fineman see and enjoy that Hypnosis show on their famous rounds of debotchery? The blonde crew cut guy and the woman in the polka dot dress sitting down at the Dutch oven for coffee with the skinny dark kid. These images flood my mind as if I have been there and have seen them.

I lay in bed and walk through my home town in my mind in an uneasy familiar terror. During the day, I try to walk around and be a normal citizen, unaffected, but at night, I hear that skinny dark kid, now gray and old, his whole life spent locked in a cage, wailing from Corcoran prison. He wants nothing more but to recover his memory, to know if he was, or wasnt the killer, so he can know is he, or is he not, the prisoner in a Kafka novel. I think as morning slowly rises that Sirhan Sirhan must also not sleep.

Sirhan must lay awake, searching, traveling in his mind to the same places I travel to, looking, trying to know, trying to remember, trying to go beyond the fog of hypnosis, trying to remember the dappled light of trees, and the taste of honey crunch bars.

Buster Keaton- Assassinations Theorist

2006-05-28T14:37:00.000-07:00

I was once a good Republican child. I believed Oswald acted alone. Buster Keaton would change that.

It was the 1960's, but I was conservative to the bone. So conservative that I spent a great deal of time studying the past. In 1968,as the rest of the world was looking to a new future, I was starting my early research into silent movies. In my local branch library was a book by Buster Keaton about his career and in particular his early creativity in inventing film technique. Buster was most proud of having invented the "Triple Shot".

The Triple Shot is a technique whereby the viewer through three or more fragmented and separate images, is made to believe he has seen something he hasnt seen. In Keaton's illustration in the book, he shows himself dressed as a caveman throwing what looks like a huge rock. Next he shows the rock flying through the air, and finally he shows the rock landing on someone far far away. In the movie one believes one has seen Keaton throw the rock a far distance and hit someone, when this is not at all what one has seen. Brilliant.

On 5 June 1968, as a dutiful Republican junior politico, I was staying up late, viewing the television returns of the California Primary. I believed that if Senator Robert Kennedy won the Democratic Primary, he would be the Democratic Party candidate, he would win the Presidency, and my candidate of choice, Richard M. Nixon would lose, and lose big time. It would be a w i i i iiiipe OUT.

As the Democratic Primary results were announced and Bobby Kennedy gave his speech, I was one despondent Republican kid. All was lost. I announced this to my parents, and was going to go to bed, when suddenly on camera, I saw this waiter shooting in the room, a jumble of distorted images as the camera jerked all over that little kitchen in the Ambassador Hotel, and then Senator Kennedy, laying on the floor. Oh My GOD!!! A TRIPLE SHOT!!!

In that brief moment, I became a Conspiracy Theorist. In that second, I stopped believing in lone nuts. I didnt know how, at that point I could not imagine why, I just knew that a whole lot of people were involved, in ways large and small, known and unknown to them, that the conspiracies were real and they were active. A triple shot! I was dizzy with the implications. My parents thought I'd slipped a gear.

Unknown to me at that moment, my little town of Altadena California and our neighbor to the south Pasadena , were the centers of action in this conspiracy. The place where my Grandmother bought her cake decorating supplies, the strip club that excited my pre pubescent imagination with its sign, the health food store where I bought honey crunch bars and Grandmother got her arthritis "cures", the gun store where my Father bought targets and ammunition, the gun range where we took target practice, these were each places central to the assassination of Robert Kennedy. I walked through them my entire life. The ghosts of untruth and injustice whisper in them still, the feeling of "wrong" chills your skin in them for reasons most people can not imagine or quite touch. An innocent man is yet convicted and imprisoned for a crime he could not have committed, a crime that altered America and the world forever.

Tom Noguchi says his "professional judgment" is at odds with the physical evidence and shrugs. Buster knows. Buster told me, it was a triple shot.