“Plan B” Art Exhibit

2010 – 2014

Joining in and participating at a few art galleries was fun. Getting out and showing my work with others was so rewarding.

The Haggus Society, now a part of history, serves as a poignant reminder of the complexities of cultural engagement. Once a gathering place for those seeking unique experiences, it offered a space filled with earnest discussions.

October 1 – December 30, 2014

Haggus Society Art Exhibit “Plan B”

Opening Reception October 11

6 – 9 PM

Participating Artists

Karen Joy

Liz Huston

Nina Koumachian Ehlig

Jorge Bernal

Joanne Adams

Hudley Flipside

Four watercolor paintings presented: 2014

1. Cromemantis

Life, death and rebirth is what the Praying Mantis teaches me. We have formed a relationship over the years. Each year in my garden the many small perfectly formed baby mantis come to my garden each spring. The mantis matures through the summer months. In August the big golden green mama mantis lays her egg sack. Then she dies. The continuity of life comes forth again next spring. In this watercolor painting I capture the essence of Cronemantis’s charm and beauty. She shows off her wings in the glow of moon phases within her flower garden.

2. Sunflower Soul

The sunflower symbolically represents the soul or solar plexus. The harvest time of experience and adventure. Pomegranates balance out this watercolor painting with the memories of youth and fun at the end of summer. Heading to the hill to pull the fruit from the trees to eat the jeweled sweets.

3. Praying Mantis Mandala

The colors in this watercolor painting blends colors of flowers and the Praying Mantis. This symbolizes my reverence for nature.

4. Baubo Protagonist

Baubo’s myth and archetypal archaic knowledge is symbolically shared in this cartoon magazine cover. A new twist on Flower Power. When Demeter lost her daughter Persephone to the underworld she is deep in grief. It is Demeter’s maid servant that pulls up her skirt exposing herself. Naked below, Baubo, made Demeter laugh. Baubo Protagonist transforms!

As a woman, as a flower pollinating humanity with the thoughts of equality and love. Men are transformed by her mighty power!! She is awesome glorious in her nakedness! Lampoonery!! A Flopside Comic production.

Laura Only !

Laura had second sight and told me things. She once owned a Soul Kitchen. She successfully ran her business and had a devoted family.

Purple Flower Hudley Watercolor

This is the time of the year when memories bubble up. When I left the punk scene at the end of the 1980s, I was angry and looked for love in all the wrong places. I found real love through my experience as a Home Health Aide.

I learned compassion. I came to realize that I was a responsible person that needed to be loved in return. I had given so much. I felt used up.

The punk scene took and took and often there was no return of friendships or the compassion that I wanted. On the east coast I like what I found there.

When I came back to the west coast, I began to build healthy boundaries. Laura taught me life can be a very beautiful reality, a healthy place of work and family. A balance of art, life, and inspiration. Real caring.

Describing her portrait sitting on the hearth is a difficult memory after so many years. A picture taken of her from the 1940s. Laura had long dark hair and wore a black beret. A smile as sweet as she was all her life.

Laura was my first patient as a working Home Health Aide in the city of Rochester New York. She suffered a stroke. I was there to help her recover. Her soul kitchen smelled foreign to me as I must have looked to Laura’s family. Me in my white nurse outfit, white stockings, and soft leather shoes.

This contrast to Laura and her family caused silence to fill the rooms of her home; at first not a word spoken. Eyes dashed as family members shuttered around. Slowly, family members left. We all learned to relax. A new warmth and trust developed deeply shared by all.

As the weeks went on I arrived at Laura’s home. A comfortable place to be.

Laura taught me kindness does matter and diversity blends as sugar-water. Swallowing it down was wonderfully rewarding. How grateful I am for her memory.

Round-Up 30-minute Maniac

Hudley Flipside | Punk Rock Colleague • Historian • Archivist

2014 Post

“…and those of you in the balcony can just rattle your jewelry.”

~John Lennon

Cause no one needs a fanzine anymore…

Originally a 2014 post I was 56 and youngest son was 14. Now I am 64 and he is going to college at 22. The bands are still playing around the massive kaleidoscope exposition of festivals. I watch them explode and march on from town to town, city to city and country to country.

The punk festivals are grandiose to see happening. Fun for the bands yet this little fanzine gal can’t go back to being a face in the crowd during a time of a terrible pandemic with an ‘ebb and flow’ which is rather unpredictable.

I am glad I got to see them before festivals became a phenomenon of big and bigger shows with long and longer lists of bands. Or even the weird funky boat cruises. It leaves me a bit perplexed yet I can listen to the music anytime and my “amber moments” are still in my brain as fresh and palpable moments of a once punk scene.

Mockingly and nasty, as we stood in line in front of the Fonda Theater marquee, an older man on a bike wheeled by yelling,

“Ha ha maybe forty years ago!”

Saturday Night 2014 Hollywood,California

My son and I were standing in line. In front of us was a twenty-year-old and in back a couple about my age. These punk shows bring out the underground punk community. The good and disgusting levels. I love it so much my head almost burst.

01 – race against time 0:00
02 – knife edge 2:45
03 – lycanthropy 5:00
04 – necrophilia 7:34
05 – sick boy 9:33
06 – state executioner 12:06
07 – dead on arrival 14:39
08 – generals 12:18
09 – freak 19:37
10 – wardogs 22:06
11 – city baby attacked by rats 23:37
12 – City babys revenge 26:13

Smiling Punk woman and son Shyane at 14

Last night I could hardly make it through Lycanthropy while fighting off some guy who wanted to continually throw my son up on stage. Even though son seemed to like it. He said,

“I saw Colin’s face flash by me.“

Up front the stage was hot. All were intimated by the solar flares of sun burning in the Fonda Theater. A halo hot sauna of extreme is how it was there. A full house.

The 5th Wave at the Fonda Theater pic by Hudley

The 5th Wave slashed the theater with some questionable lyrics, mixed with saxophone and trombone ska. Excellent! Their fans shining. I was very impressed by the courtesy of the young punk women this evening.

A smile was easily shared and that communal feelings of a punk rock community ran in my heart. Strangely different from my generation. I was very impressed indeed. A lot of women in groups and alone gave me hugs for having a son with me.

I hope son takes advantage of this when he gets beyond my reach, because now he has a silence about him that I respect.

The ADS were so satisfying I cried. I love them and again always superimposed images from over the years blended with the reality of now. Fast songs have matured nicely into longer ones. Remarkable! As Steve Soto was there still playing his original sound.

GBH were wild as they always are. Yet, they were a little rushed. I hear it is an intense tour. Colin’s voice was hoarse, yet it was hard to tell over the audience singing their songs. Colin made a stab at the fans in the balcony who were not moving.

Who were just sitting there as being lazy and with other critiques? I don’t know why so many young punks came up to me trying to exchange my receipt with theirs so they could sit in the balcony. It all was a bit confusing from my perspective.

Fun and eye-opening show with the usual subtle instilled words for those listening!!

We enjoy our punk rock community…so go screw Mr. Bike man over 50! This 50 something year old loves it still!!

Leather Jacket bye bye !!

It never was mine, really. This mature Leather Jacket is ready for something different. I moved it around over the last thirty years.

I embellished it throughout the early 1980s with the bands that inspired me. Something new is in the air. Time to be an organizer and let go of this Jacket.

The kids played in it. I grieved over it, those youthful days of punk rock glory. Now my big kids play new games. I am no longer pulled by a nostalgia of what was but live in the present.

I am trying really hard too!!

All the things I need to create a letting go party,

Flipside stickers found in a pocket. Must have been there some thirty years??

My farewell picture with a bottle of beer.

All rolled up with green bubble bag. Put in a box for mailing.

Acrylic paint and recycled cardboard for the Leather Jacket Biography Book.

Book complete for mailing in the box with the Leather Jacket.

Green praying mantis stencil hides in the dark acrylic paint.

She’s not there.

If she laid her egg sack, which she most likely has, I have not seen her. Every year she comes and I paint her image, or take her picture. From the pool mesh fence, I take her and let her crawl over my shoulders. This year only she indirectly shows herself. A floating exoskeleton on top of clear pool water, or images from friends.

Her Praying Mantis tree with the beautiful purple anarchy flowers are as a waterfall and arbor waiting for her return.

She will be golden green, large and graceful now. She facing death. I wear her tattoo on my left wrist. The purple anarchy flower. Last night at a local club again she told me that I was at the right time and place.

I was meant to be here, even though she was not. The leather jacket with silver studs addressed me.

The young man stood in front of me. There splashed upon his back, drawn and painted, is her anarchy flower. Holding up my wrist I knew it to be true. I tapped the young tall man on the shoulder and showed him the image.

He acknowledged it and the music blew through and around us.

The longitude and latitude the continuity of life. It was all meant to be, I was where I was meant to be…. but she was not there.

A safety pin from the Punk Rock God !!

(New edit 3/17/2023)

Hudley Flipside | Punk Rock Colleague • Historian • Archivist

RIP Dix Denney

The Weirdos at Cobalt Café (rip) Canoga Park, CA. Aug. 2014

“Such knowledge is beyond my reach. Where could I go from your Spirit, or escape your presence? If I ascend to heaven or descend to the depths, you are there. Even across the sea, your hand will guide me.”

~Psalm 138:2 New International Version

My heart aches and I feel guilty. I think upon what Ross Lomas bass player for the punk band GBH said to me once,

“That is no excuse… I have seen punks on their deathbeds at shows. If you are sick, we can put you in a wheelchair and roll you backstage!!”

Ironically, this quote from Psalms is how I feel about Punk Rock. Exactly! How can this be? Is Punk Rock God to me? Yes, it is, in a sense it is to me. Where can I go from the punk rock spirit? It is true it will not let me forget it! If I make my bed in the depths, punk rock is there.

Like many others who were taken up by it, punk rock gave me a voice and spoke.

“Do it.”

If Punk Rock is dying to popular culture, this has no bearing on me. Punk Rock is an accountable community.

Punk Rock is a cultural underground musical phenomenon of holy sound. A spirit that rocks & rolls around this planet. It is a rogue wave that generates change. However, you plug into it, Punk Rock is a continuity that identifies a generation and so moves on in different ways.

I may not always be true to it; I often hide from it…but when I try to… it finds me again. I rise on the wings of dawn. Inspired and filled with that spirit of Punk Rock again.

I was enlightened in an alley, where beer, anarchy and music became my God.

To those that are vastly superior …those in bands, fans and, that strange brew called record collectors, I salute you.

AMEN!!

So, what is all this Mambo Jumbo about? One of the original Los Angeles Punk Rock bands is playing around. I have been avoiding them.

“That club is too far to drive to.”

“I have to get up early the next day and take my kids to school!”

My heart aches and I feel guilty.

This is the punk rock accountability I was talking about. I have been absolutely avoiding but I can no longer look the other way!

The Weirdos are going to play a few blocks from my house.

“If I go far across the sea, your hand will still guide me.”

This is a punk rock confessional.

Now for some oysters before the big show …. enthusiasm!

Weirdos Enjoy the BIG PUNK ROCK 1984 the real deal

Flipside Radio Tape Number Nine.

This tape was released around 38 years ago. Where a process of recording, organizing, mailing, and airing tapes live turned out to be an extraordinarily successful project indeed !!… Wow!! Projects took some time back in the 1980s. All sent through our post office box. The Flipside post office was a busy place in Whittier California.

One little, tiny post office box oversaw vast number of gifts. Which consisted of records, mail, ads, and money. It was like Christmas every day. Then there was the Post Office Master. A lady that I hated at first but who turned out to leave little gifts for us in our P.O. Box each Christmas season. She thought we were weird at first with our wild ways… but later she became a part of our unofficial crew in her own dependable way. Enjoy a cameo appearance by Henry Rollins.

A punk rock musical narrative a year of cutting edge punk 1984. A very good year.

https://hudleyflipside.com/13-tapesthe-bad-and-the-beautiful-a-kiss-in-the-wind

Click on images to order books…

You’re A Big Girl Now

Mr. Fuck watching the film Love Story. “that Ali MacGraw babe would make one great Go Go Dancer.”

When the film Love Story came out in 1970, I was around twelve years old. As a tom boy everything in the film repelled me.

My nemesis and best friend Lynn looked just like that annoying woman Ali MacGraw,

“Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” PLEASE??!!

The guys followed Lynn around like puppy dogs and the time we use to have, playing football and baseball on the golf course hole near her home, ended. All the guys who I use to play with started talking about the film. The naked scenes especially. Just like the pages form the first Godfather book.

Everyone was reading the page where Sonny screwed some lady before his wedding. I felt just like Betty White, when the character Rose form the Golden Girls said, that sex;

“Was some colossal joke.”

I had it down. Life was about running as fast as you could, sliding down hills on cardboard, and having dirt fights with massive weeds. It was about hating school, and all of your teachers, and only enjoying kickball.

My prime objective of,

“Never stop running as fast you can,” imploded when puberty hit. I blame the whole darn thing on the film Love Story.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/matters-of-taste/

Big Boots and Dancing, and reading the book Generation X while trying to find Prince Buster’s 45s. RIP Terry Hall

Punk Rock Historian and Professional Consultant

Hudley Flipside

X-8, HUD and AL 1979 San Fransisco
In this picture X-8 represents the original punks of Los Angeles. Who were creative, loud and in your face! 1977-79.

Pete woke up on the Chinese New Year looking out of the hotel room window while a chicken’s head was chopped off. Right across the street at a restaurant café.

Big boots and dancing…it be a trilling time for me.

This is one of my favorite images. I have posted it a few times before. It contains a lineage of Flipside Fanzine characters who worked on issues. It has an interesting foresight; from left to right are X-8, Hud and Al. Peter Landswick takes the picture. All four of us worked on Flipside together at an interesting time in the world of Punk Rock. It was before the Orange County scene exploded as well as the new generation of punk English bands. The early Los Angeles punks were much more silent now. X was going for a major label.

The Go Go’s, The Bags and Fear were changing their places and goals. The original punk scene of LA was dying, and a new one was forming.

I like the texture and graphic perspective of this image. Pete is a creative photographer. This picture taken at an alley in San Francisco when we rebelliously tagged and followed the touring underground mod scene. At the time, The Specials and Madness were unfamiliar upcoming bands. As wild as any youthful band. It is the best time of crazy characters and wild free adventures.

1 – 16 Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine Covers. Post

Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine Staph 1977 to 1989 Those Who Caused Considerable Trouble

Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine Covers from 1979 to 1989.

A Worthy Life

“Heads Will Roll”

Coagula Curatorial

Curated by Kelly Tompson

Reception

974 Chung King Rd. Los Angeles

This consciousness simply happens–as moments of synchronicity happen, as symbol happen…We know from both Plato and Jung thit its health is its psychological integrity and that eros is the integration factor which binds, holds together, and conjoins opposites”

Pg. 87 The Myth of Analysis by James Hillman.

Sober and alert we went to the art event. The bases of two friends that have lingered if only indirectly over time, have come together. Alice Bag and Matt Coagula and a community of their fans and friends

I found out that it was an obligation not an inspiration. My heart and mind had a reflective discussion while driving on the 101 north towards home. I realize the pain and discontent I felt were mine alone.

“Mom how you doing back there?”

The crew consisted of oldest and youngest son in the front seats. One was driving. I was in the back of the car. Sons and I had bellies full of Chinese food from Foo Chow Restaurant, because they did not have the snail like nature to stand around and feel and observe like their mother. This I get from Dad.

“Are you finished time to go don’t you think?”

“I think I need to hang and observe the crowd and check out a few of the faces!”

“Mom, these people seem fake to me.”

“It is the art scene and socializing…it is never easy.”

I realize I cannot blame my kids because at their age I know an event like this…lets see, something would have been destroyed. Breaking wine bottles against the concrete walls the “guilty we” would have run into the night. That was a different crew at a different time. These angers of a past youthful generation have not passed on to my kids.

“Look there is Alice dressed in pink swaying to the lady singing!”

With close friends around her I did not want to go up to say hello because the picture was the perfect symbol for this event. Alice as a beautiful expression or mandala. Earlier Matt gave us a quick handshake with art talk smile.

Oldest son offered to drive me to the art event and China town’s twilight delighted their eyes into a realm of Dragon Ball Z.

I was disoriented by flashbacks of a punk rock fog.

As we mature finding a community to create with and grow with is important. Sharing who we are, as in art or music, at any particular time and place is essential to a worthy life.

This is what I feel Kelly, Alice and Matt have achieved this evening.

Eros and Psyche

Mr. Fuck Gets Connubial

Ya, we are not alone.

Driving south on Topanga Canyon Blvd. a parked car pulls quickly out in front of me. He is not a normal man driving a car, as I see and dreadfully feel: but who is driving this black rather small sedan?

July 5th 2014 real event.

Shopping on Saturday at 1 PM is not a thing I usually do. I have to do my chores. Instead of walking down to the stream to gather berries and water to put in a jar and basket and them put on my head, I go shopping at a supermarket. Driving away down the asphalt jungle I hear the large watermelon moving ‘round in the back of the car.

“Damn I did not secure it properly!”

I held a vision in my mind’s eye of cutting the watermelon open in half. Propping it round as a big bowl of cold watermelon soup.

“Ah, that sounds refreshing!!”

Putting all the groceries away, I then walked over to open the washing machine and put the cat’s beach towels into the drier. I like to make sure their beach towels are clean, fluffy and ready for them. They like to sleep outside on their beach towels in the cool of the morning and evening.

This summer he, the man I live with, bought me more books to read. The esoteric door of magical and syncretistic events awaken in me again. Those places that sleep slow and drowsy in my deepest Psyche. Yes, I saw him again too. That man in the rather small black sedan who pulled right in front of me.

I drove around him just to see who it might be. I wish I didn’t because as I looked at him, he looked back at me as we raced south on Topanga Canyon Blvd. He, dressed in black, gave me a sideways glance. A deep confrontational look, with his black hat, beard, and dark Noir focus, at me!!!

The esoteric doors are open, and the game is on. When one plays with the archaic mysteries the archetypal characters come to play. I have not seen him, Mephistopheles, in a long time. He is darkness incarnate! The only cure for this is the dew of a red rose.

For now I type in my cave filled with a stream of cool air and also read, do my housewife chores while trying to forget the large consuming cartoonish eyes reflecting my face back at me.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/an-odd-trio/

Punk Rock Humor and the girly girls…

Punk Rock Historian & Colleague and Professional Consultant

Hudley Flipside

“And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

Today is a day of going back and falling into another time of my life. It happens a lot at the age of 56. I was thinking about older age and youth. I have much more experience at being young then being older. Each day I wonder about what to do next.

With all the experience I have this is amazing to me. I can open the many doors from my past and jump in. I get pulled in like gravity too. I am closer to the stillness of my center now. As in a maṇḍala, which is basically a round image with the center within. Me.

Time seems slow and reflective. I don’t feel the need to grasp the ring from the merry-go-round. I feel like I am in Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death (1969). Like Billy Pilgrim I am in a place where I time travel back and forth.

Though my Tralfamadorians are silent and the only time I have a view of the future is by insight or in some vague dream. My punk rock life is on the same track.

Diving into each back issue of Los Angeles Flipside Fanzine brings up memories and I find that I need to share these images with others.

A affirmation of reality and fun.

The picture below is of Dee and Hilda who are on either side of a police officer in China Town at the Hong Kong Café. Lower right girl looking straight on is me.

I think it is Punk Rock humor about Los Angeles Coppers.

“Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.”

― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hong-Kong-Cafe-China-Town-Los-Angeles/85219892243

A jest of summer solstice drums!!

A promotional trashy subliminal Jester plot to share a little ridiculous joy in this troubled world!!! Happy Summer solstice…. As the world turns !!!

rebellious hit

we-are-the-best-04-06-2014-6-g — Bobo before she spits at herself in the mirror !

At Starbucks the young woman behind the counter said,

“I like your shirt!”

“You like G.B.H.?”

She gave me an intense look of inwardness.

“Yes…like Minor Threat and…China White!”

“Yup!”

“No one listens to Punk anymore.”

“Only the old punk folk!”

I was referring to myself. She gave me a sheepish smile while giving me a receipt for two Grande Café Lattes.

It was the first time we were in this Starbucks. Walking the streets here in the evening is pleasant. Noticing the many closed storefront businesses along Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena made us wonder. Our conclusion was that the businesses that offered a service survived. This is where the people mingled. As colorful clusters around most coffee shops here. Foundations of parking lots, businesses and apartments went up above this! This gave me a dreamy concern. I imagined living this way.

“John, After the kids grow up and are on their way, maybe we can get an apartment and live this way?”

“It might not be so bad.”

“I wonder if they allow cats?”

It was because of a longtime friend that we were out here, a few miles from out hometown. The Laemmle Theater a couple blocks from our home closed down about three years earlier. Once down the street from us now Pasadena was the nearest one.

My punk rock heart asked me,

“Do you really want to see another film about punk rock, I mean didn’t you experience the real deal already!?”

“I don’t know? A friend told me that the film has “girl energy,” it seems like I could use some of that!”

Researching the film I was pulled to it more and more. I decided to get a ticket online and drive out to see it alone. Husband jumped aboard and said,

“We can visit the Yard House or Lucky Baldwins after the show!”

This we did later.

We Are The Best does have “girl energy,” it has something more that touched me deeply too. Something, that I must say, defines the punk rock experience for me! It always has and it always will.

Since its creation and migration around the world. punk rock , has been raped-skated-and-donated!! What this film brings forth in a true way is the experience of punk rock. The film puts you in the world of three 7^th graders. Three thirteen year old girls that don’t fit in! So they reach out to music, each other and to other punks.

Having guys call you ugly and being ignored by popular culture are two real initiations into the punk rock girl experience.

It is all about rebellion, ideologies, music and fun! The film is sweet, innocent and honest! Defining that having a band and friendship is more important then the guys you’re sleeping with.

I enjoy the freedom the girls have to get around on subways. The film is based in Stockholm Sweden during the 1980s.

After the film and a nice long walk I found myself perching at the Yard House with a dark beer before my gaze. The monitors were all about Hockey. I am naturally repelled by organized sports as well as the commercials. The ones before the film were awful too…Porsche to Lexus commercials. Madmen designed to get that needed uplift. Why did we pay money to watch commercials as well?

Anyway, I thought upon Bobo, Klara and Hedvig and how the punk culture was portrayed in the film compared to my real experiences. As I sipped my beer I made my usual under the breath insult about the Kings game. With wide eyes and mouth grinning,,

“Hate the Sport!!”

Adding another rebellious beat to this old folk punk heart of mine.

@@@

http://www.laemmle.com/theaters/6

http://www.yardhouse.com/CA/pasadena-restaurant/

Mr. Fuck’s Fucking Summer 2014

Have you ever experienced an Aqua Fart?

Out Of School

A vinyl fanzine…

At this time in punk rock history of the 1980s… life was moving fast. Projects at every corner. This kept us running before the wild-fire of punk rock, which was a passion that could not be controlled.

So many individuals’ hands were in the multitude of projects that it was hard to know who to thank and whose’ hand you should slap.

It felt like being under a wave. We were overwhelmed! SO many wants, needs and desires geometrically multiplied with each day.

Flipside vinyl fanzine Vol. 2 is a motif of that era.

A GASATANKA / Flipside production.

Ya…. kinda cool

delicious good

You walk into your home to find a couple you don’t know sitting in your living room, eating a slice of cake. Tell us what happens next…

I listened to and knew the song that was playing in the room. There before me were two men, one of the men reminded me of Timothy Leary. Between them on a small wooden table was a cake. It was a large white cake with colorful candies on top that slowly changed into a round bowl filled with many-colored candies, no wait… pills… red, blue, yellow, and black.

I had walked into a psychedelics party. Then one of the men said,

“Hello there Holly, I see you are coming back to us, honey!”

“Yes” said Timothy. “It seems you were lost somewhere other than here in this room.”

The two men still seemed strange to me. I told them I did not want any more of the pill candy. They looked at each other.

“You have had enough sister!”

“We opened up some crazy stuff from yon unconscious and wrote it all down for you in this funny looking red book you brought us, sweetie!”

“You did, why?”

“Ah look at that? Maybe a cup of tea will bring you back to us!!”

The little red book was half the size of a paperback book that you see at most libraries. I put it to my nose, and it smelled like earth, rain and I could not put a name to the other smell. I opened the book, and it was filled with images, words, and poems. One of the images was of a floating woman. Her hands were raised up and she was doing cartwheels through space. I then became that woman. I was flying over the eye of a tornado and said to myself,

“It is so peaceful up here. I know it is not the same down there.”

Someone grabbed my hand. I was sipping on some warm tea. I grasped the teacup in my hands. I drank it all down. The sugar on the bottom was delicious, good.

The two men smiled at me, while one said,

“Holly, it is all ok. Everything is just fine!!”

“Hello there… it is good seeing you two again!”

If you don’t know the song,
If you can’t put the words to the tune,
Tell the rhyme from the reason,
What should it matter
To the fool or the dreamer?
~ Moody Blues

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/unexpected-guests/#like-78205

Excerpt from My Punkalullaby~I thank her now !!

A sketch from Chapter Five

“Old stucco house with wood floors and Mexican Marilyn Monroe next door: Issue 48-57.”

In Whittier California and at the time we lived in and old stucco house between two apartment buildings. The one on the left I knew no one and the one on the right is where she lived. It was the late 1980s.

“She was a couple of pounds over an hourglass figure and about six kids followed her around town. Just like a mother duck and her ducklings; one right after the other.“

The story goes that each child had a different father and the truck engines in front of our house revving their engines at 2 AM, night after night, told us her story. She was sexy. She oozed it.

I was jealous of her because she had those kids of hers. At twenty something I was craving a kid. I was not as lucky as she. The wild days of my punk youth were not a good place for kids, but I still was craving a babe in my arms. I often spied on her from my living room widow as she spent time with her kids.

It seemed to me then that she was not very nice or smart. She yelled at her kids, but they were always dressed nicely and well fed. Once I heard her say to one of her kids,

“This time I will break your arm and not take you to the hospital.”

For a few years one of her youngest boys would bring me a little cake with a candle to blow out on my birthdays. I never knew how he knew. Hearing a soft knock at the door there he stood. Standing alone and holding up the cake just for me.

“We listened to her as I am sure she listened to us during those times of frustration and loneliness.“

We sat on the porch and ate the cake together. I imagined how proud I was of him. How he was my son. He was so smart, sweet, and intelligent. How did such a loud sexy mama as Mexican Marilyn Monroe have such an amazing son?

“I realize now she must have had a lot to do with her son coming over and with him bringing me the cake. What she did indirectly was one of the most comforting moments during my overwhelming wild years. She shared her son with me. I thank her now and wish her well!”

Click Image to see and buy book.

1981 punk shot

I am cleaning up and organizing all my stuff from 5 different places into a few plastic containers. Pictures, art, writing and miscellaneous important stuff.

The Punk Rock stuff goes somewhere special too.

Here is a miscellaneous punk shot from 1981… we had a multitude of images like this in the Flipside office. Along with a multitude of T-shirts, I should have saved them all.

Well here is one image.

Ichabod Crane in a 1960s straight legged suite, A bow to Saturn and Jupiter…

1960s straight legged pant suit.

As we approach this year’s Aquarius celebration of Saturn and Jupiter both in 0 degrees Aquarius 2020 December 21^st, I think back upon a time of my life when this song from the musical Hair was immensely popular. I have been watching the two planets hang together over the last couple months. In clear eyesight. Two thousand years from Pisces to Aquarius what will this bring to humanity…? What will tomorrow be like… we sure could use a lot more light.

Mr. Kennedy was a tall grey-haired man. He kind of looked like Ichabod Crane who wore a 1960s straight legged pant suit. He read my poem to the whole class. When the well-read and the popular girls looked around at me, I should have given them my tongue. I should have stuck it way out so they could see it as clear as the sun. I didn’t. I just sat in my seat as I am now…. years later. I was happy to be understood. I still am.

To Mr. Kennedy who taught with kindness.

http://www.drapervisualarts.org/?page_id=10

Paper, pencils, crayons, and watercolors were always around the house. Grandma’s old player piano was in the boy’s room with a pool table. We lived a rustic life. The smell of food, the sound of children, parents and nature contrasted the rather harsh world of a classroom. Going to school was not for me. It was social torture where I turned off, only to turn on during time on the playground.

In second grade I remember Mrs. Bracka shaking me,

“No Holly, I told you do not do that. Put them in alphabetical order!!”

I would just write down any number when it came to math. The smart girl went around the room correcting everyone’s papers. When she got to me, she said,

“You got them all wrong. I will have to give you an F!”

She kept trying to get the teacher’s attention while she was correcting papers; after correcting my paper she went pee all over the chair next to me.

When I got to 6th grade it was about the same. I only watched the clock until kickball on the playground. I was put in the back of the class in the slow learner section and believe me the other kids let us know it. Until one day when Mr. Kennedy asked the whole class to write poems.

He said,

“Write about what you feel, write about what interests you or inspires you.”

Mr. Kennedy, who played the song Aquarius over the PA sound system at Serriania Elementary school, woke me up to the power of writing.

This is my first poem.

What will tomorrow be like?

Will there be day or night?

Will it be like today?

Or will there be other planets too,

For us to play.

Will there be rockets taking us to Mars, Venus, or Neptune?

This is what people think about,

If we wait awhile, we will soon find out.