What will it be?

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

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?

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

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

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?

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

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.