On Monday I watched Rachel on MSMBC and the first word out of her mouth was Berlin.
“Rachel Maddow looks at a murder in Berlin, Germany that U.S. officials believe was a Russia-sanctioned assassination and notes that Russia’s past reticence to commit killings in Western countries appears to have faded, raising concerns about the recently outed Russian spy living in the United States.”
Then the weekend before I was watching an old TCM film. And a friend on Facebook said she did not have TCM and would love to have it. I then thought to myself I would sure love to go to Berlin, but I just cannot. As I looked up to the TV screen, I heard, from the 1932 film Back Street, Walter Saxel say,
“Would you like me to take you to Berlin?”
I said yes. And realize this synchronicity only rubs me the erroneous way out of anticipation.
Then to really get my goat last night I was watching one show on TV. One of my late-night bedtime rituals. The continuity of watching an episode of the sitcom Hogan’s Heroes. Of course, the whole focus tonight was on Berlin.
“Bad Day in Berlin”
“Hogan’s Heroes: Season 4, Episode 11″Hogan’s Heroes” Bad Day in Berlin (TV Episode 1968).”
Again, Berlin is on my mind. I googled and read about it and reflected on its history.
Currently it is for me about the good feeling of accomplishments and the rewards of following a project through to its end. It is what it is but seems my psyche is having fun playing with me through multiple synchronicities.
Maybe a nice finish with an Oktoberfest beer this weekend.
Brings me to this image that Dad took of a Berlin punk and Mom in the 1980s, they were traveling and visited Berlin.
I asked them to hand out Flipside Fanzines on their many journeys abroad. As a military WWII veteran, he got to travel with the military modestly. So, they did.
Trusting my insight and foresight has been a struggle for me. Often, I let others push me off my mark due to facts and figures that oppose my observations.
A current adventure with our internet service and adjourning phone line is my issue today.
I’ve been paying the same amount since we set up the service. I then noticed September’s bill increase by about twenty dollars.
I called my service to ask why in August after I got the bill. It was explained to me that the company decided to up an overall five dollar increase to all their customers who use their phone service. This of course increased many other things. The dynamo increase of those pesky taxes too.
So I nicely had the phone taken off our plan. I talked to a nice representative and technician who did the work and told me that September’s bill would decrease, and I would pay less.
I told the representative,
“I only receive robot calls from the same companies and scams. I then must play the nasty game of telling them I am from Mars.”
She laughed at that and understood.
I know the bill is due today and had not received a notice or new bill. I went online to see our bill, and nothing had changed. So, in my little “good grief,” I called the server back once more.
I was told in an argumentative debate that they base their bills on “prorating” the past month.
“The practice of prorating can apply in many areas, from billing for services to paying out dividends or allocating business partnership income. Pro rata is calculated by dividing the instance of an item by the maximum quantity of that item. This ratio can then be applied to any related item to find the same proportion.”
I told this person that is not what I was told. They told me when I cancelled the service that I would not have to pay the full amount and then I would receive a new bill for September.
They did the run around or indirectly blamed me for not listening to them. Yet I felt like they were not listening to me and trying to get me to agree with them even though my guts knew they were bold face liars.
I think I talked to a supervisor who was the same. So, after some debate she told me she would do me a favor and give me a onetime discount waiver.
“I sure had to work hard for those twenty dollars.”
I paid the whole bill anyway out of that shadowy doubt of guilt.
I called back again to see if in fact I got that waiver and if in fact the phone line was cancelled.
The new representative told me that it was all good and told me how my bill next month included the waiver. This means I got my money back.
I told the conversation I had with another representative who told me that I would have to pay the full amount this month due to the word “prorating.”
She then told me an amazing thing. That they do not do that and that they go by each month. So, I was in fact told a lie. We laughed over it, and I filed a complaint that did go forward to the other representative. I felt good about that.
This new representative had style. She told me to look on my bill on page four and so I did and read this,
“… in accordance with the…. Conditions of Service, …. Services are billed on a monthly basis.”
Yes, no mention of prorating.
I had a wonderful moment.
The moral of this real-life experience is this, if you don’t say something and just let someone else tell you something else for you to believe, believe in yourself first. Don’t be bullied, influenced, or rejected without following through to the wonderful conclusion in believing in yourself.
Ya it was all over twenty bucks, might have well been one million dollars or the good feeling of holding integrity up for the losers to see, since they don’t have any.
I was born with foresight. It was a natural part of my DNA, and it cursed me because no one from my family explained it to me. I found the answers through books, TV and others with this value of seeing life.
A curse because there are things in our lives that hold certain degrees of pain that cling to us. For me it was foresight. Knowing things before they happened. An intuitive knowing that plagued me without being able to put words to what it was.
Then in time I learned to hold on to my foresight. Waiting for found explanation to my confusion. Other friends and family looked at me cross-eyed with wonder or doubt.
Now that I am 65 years old, I see it as a gift of foresight, for that is what it is now, it reveals to me that I was OK.
I can use my active imagination to go back and be the person that listens and tries to understand. Because the youthful me needs to be heard.
It has come around to be a blessing that I will confirm as good. Now is a time to reap what I have sown. Building on this magical nature that many of us share.
It is my Cornish character, maybe. I hope to encourage others here to listen to their foresight. It is so human and feminine. An honorable part of who we are.
To bend back and embrace all the past, present and future.
The good bridge of balance.
William Blake is a friend who helped me along the way to believe…
I was thinking about what is left over from work done or from ones own experience. I think of a scene from the Musical Film Paint Your Wagon when a scheme is made to gather all the gold that falls down under bars and saloons. Miners for gold losing their gold dust. A clever way to get rich or collect from what is unknowingly or uncaringly left behind.
That is what it is like for me now as I gather my Flipside Fanzine gold that is dissected all over the place. I know I will never get rich from my gossamer shining memories or documentation of a scene during my youthful rebellion, but it seems to go on shimmering everywhere. It has a real story and narrative that I still gather.
I cannot put back together the vein of gold enduring as a solid experience that was documented but I can try and show my story, the Flipside Fanzine story, as it happened, and this is important to me. I can be a magnet pulling the gold of Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine towards me and alchemize the authentic narrative to share. A richness like gold that will endure.
“Entries from many countries across the world: South Korea, Hong Kong, Ukraine, USA, Taiwan, Austria, Italy, Canada, Poland, Singapore, South Africa and Portugal. Enjoy the show and thank you for expressing an interest in our competition.”
I have often been afraid or uneasy or did not believe in competition. The means of doing anything is an obligation I took for myself and the world a long time ago. Acknowledgement is a new feeling for me, and I like it.
What really turns me on here is that so many countries unite through sharing their art in a competition without hate or dismay. That the world can join here in peace and beauty and reflection.
This is so good. That is why I love my WordPress site. It lets individuals communicate all around the world. Communication is the key to peace and though we can get angry, expression is always best. Creative expression is our superior and the best of human nature.
* I placed as a Finalist in the April 2023 Competition. So much art… yet the renegotiation is satisfying. Below is the inspiration. A quote from a book.
“One day, having noticed my covetous gaze, he presented me with a tiny golden pendant of my own-two bees entwined together around a tiny honeycomb. It glistened in the sun light, so rich and burnished that I thought the minute drop of honey would melt and slide away in the heat.”
Daedalus gives Ariadne a gift. ~ Ariadne Page 7, by Jennifer Saint.
It says pencil in the competition. It is pencil, sharpie pen ink and watercolor.
My obligation to Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine. (1977 to 2002)
As a co-publisher, editor of Flipside Fanzine I hold to my heart a need to protect and preserve the memory of this Fanzine. Being its roughly 20 years of existence.
How it is presented to the world is important to me. At one time Flipside Fanzine supported a beginning and then growing underground, and international, punk rock scene.
Over the last few years, I have had bands, record labels, writers and major movie companies approach me for images for their work and/or production pertaining to Flipside Fanzine. I engage the many demands in a proper and organized manner.
There is not another Flipside person who has stepped forward to engage this pressure.
My intentions are good for Flipside Fanzine, and I will continue to protect it as best I can. I hold good integrity too. I can choose with whom I share or sell things from this Fanzine.
Be it the fanzine itself, videos, or records. I am under an umbrella of protection, and I can release things for such productions as I always mention those involved at the time if they are dead, or otherwise, or do not want to be bothered. Flipside was a fast moving fanzine with many who did willfully engage freely in its creative life time.
I love Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine. It is ironic to me, but Flipside’s created products become more precious with time. Everything Flipside “produced and created” is becoming more in demand.
In its publishing history there have only been two owners of Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine, its “living publishing time,” Al Flipside (Al Kowalewski) and me Hudley Flipside (Holly D Cornell).
I promise to do my best with all of Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine documented materials and all products over its full life. Yet now it is a defunct fanzine and we only see it as a history of what once was and so many of its creations still shine in many corners of the world.
Do you remember those art films you watched in class in elementary school. They got me to wondering just like a mystery or scary film. So, I decided to engage those memories with my own art mineral film.
Youngest son had to go study minerals and gems … a fun day at the LA Museum but both the LA Memorial Coliseum and Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County are surrounded by poverty and such a treacherous drive to get there.
The duality of life is witnessed! Many older women wait at the bus stop, as fast cars cut corners in the pursuit of oblivion? Strange dark corners in old broken apartments hold desperation or reflection as I see!
In return the big rich donors to the museum are great, as the surrounding community lacks such concern!
Happy unaware children and babies and a history of preservation even on a hooked tip of a once weaponized airplane!
After opening the bathroom drawer up on the Q-Tips box was a large beetle bug. I think we both were surprised. I swooped it up to the ground and got my two sleeping kitty girls. I know this is their favorite pass time going after bugs that enter the house. I am guilty because I’m prejudice on how cats think over the needs of this bug.
As the two girls altered to attention and moved towards the bug it was not a long chase. Seems beetle turned around and pinched one of the girls. End of their engagement. Yet over the week the two kitties did keep beetle bug in the bathroom.
Youngest son and I did some cleaning in the bathroom and did not find beetle bug. So, I put a small plastic container in the bathroom in case the bug showed up.
Beetle bug was there one day in the bottom closet and seemed to be waiting for me. Husband and I caught the bug and put the creature outside on the grass near the rosemary bush.
Hungry as if the beetle bug came upon the biggest smorgasbord in town. Embracing a purple anarchy flower, grass and leaves, this beetle bug’s feast began. Beautiful little beetle bug is now free.
worm
While walking around the block. A break from the rain. I saw a worm halfway across the cement walkway. Knowing about other people walking, dogs and wild things, it seemed like this little creation did not have much of a chance of survival. I often find rolled up ones dried from the heat.
I tried to gently hold the little worm that was very long. He was slimy, grey, and untouchable. So, I grabbed a small leaf and got him and softly put him on the earth near a bush.
The worm slowly moved with all its body’s muscles into the darkness of the earth. Only leaving the tip of a tail. I smiled and touched it saying loudly,
“BOOP!”
With boundless rapidity the little worm pulled a worm tail into the safety of the dark grassy earth and was gone.
If women and men and all those in between and around, don’t fight for their rights, be it small or major world changing … unfortunately there are nut jobs ready to take over the world in a very unfair, crazy, and fascist way. Most of them have lost their ability to discern and hold to a propaganda or support system that is a dark, fear inspired, hate and stupidity blended homogeneous in their coffee coffee. They are drinking it down…
No American woman should be denied access to family planning assistance because of her economic condition.
~ Richard Nixon
Dorothea: What is that?
Abbie: It’s The Raincoats.
Dorothea: Can’t things just be pretty?
Jamie: Pretty music is used to hide how unfair and corrupt society is.
Dorothea: Ah, okay so… they’re not very good, and they know that, right?
Abbie: Yeah, it’s like they’ve got this feeling, and they don’t have any skill, and they don’t want skill, because it’s really interesting what happens when your passion is bigger than the tools you have to deal with it. It creates this energy that’s raw. Isn’t it great?
~ 20th Century Women
When I was growing up my dad would not let us talk politics, religion, or science fiction. We lived in a male dominated world and that was how it was. When the 70’s hit things started to change. When the civil rights movement grasped the main media in the late 1960s and the women’s rights movement in the 1970s, it changed the main media exchange and life became a real lesson on our human rights.
“Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States generally protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to choose to have an abortion.”
As a young lady Planned Parenthood clinics became available to us all over the USA and beyond.
“Planned Parenthood has received federal funding since 1970, when President Richard Nixon signed into law the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act, amending the Public Health Service Act. Title X of that law provides funding for family planning services, including contraception and family planning information. The law had support from both Republicans and Democrats. Nixon described Title X funding as based on the premise that “no American woman should be denied access to family planning assistance because of her economic condition.”
I have a friend who I grew up with who plays by the extreme conservative playbook. Where civil rights and a woman’s rights are changing for the worst. She did not want to have children, so she consciously got sterilized. When I was about 18 after being group raped and then having an abortion, I too almost took that measure. Yet I am glad I did not. I now have two sons that I can’t imagine living life without.
Now in some states she could not have that right to choose, nor I for that matter. God did not strike us down for our decisions.
Yet now she supports a political agenda hurriedly ascending to take away those rights, well it does not make sense.
It is like seeing a big image of Nixon on the back of a stage with Kari Lake foaming at the mouth with her anti humanity propaganda. They don’t make sense. It is absurd.
How do you reason with a drunk dad who is calling you a moron when you want to watch Star Trek.? You can’t.
20th Century Women (2016) was not a big film, but it holds a high degree of foresight about what was coming and is right upon us now, again. It tells a narrative rich and believable and endearing. And yes, I got to work with the production to share a image but it is an image that is endearing to me.
It was my story about being a woman in the late 1970s and how one image was used, and I never got credit for it, until in the ending credits of this awesome film. I could not think of a better way to achieve my goal. Which makes the film so special to me and that I took my two boys to see it when they both were still living at home. A special time to teach my boys about women, civil rights, and the early punk scene. But most importantly about what it is like being a mom.
In conclusion as a mama, punk, one who supports civil rights and a woman’s right to choose, to one who wants national healthcare for all, I just had to set the scene straight… there is something off here in the time we are witnessing, and it is not good.
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