Wolf Stuttmeister may become a book. One reason I wanted to ground him in reality in Belmont was to get off of Wolf Island where I have been a psychological prisoner my whole life. When I showed Mark Gall my post on Ludwig, he suggested I might come up with a brilliant philosophy, something he may have been dreaming of his whole life, because he majored in psychology at Harvard and UC Berkeley.
“What is your philiophy Mr. Presco?
“To get off Wolf Island! Whatever it fucking takes!”
The Philosopher Detective
Posted on February 9, 2021 by Royal Rosamond Press
Capturing Beauty
by
John Presco
Copyright 2021
Above is a photo of Austrian Philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, who studied the Black Mack Writers and other authors of Detective novels. He was fascinated with Norbert Davis who was a friend of my grandparents – who have redeemed THEIR family from beyond the grave. I am the head of my family. Here is a movie about Ludwig. In this scene he is attending a movie based on detective writers like Dashiell Hammet and Erle Stanley Gardener who were friends of Royal Rosamond.
Wittgenstein – Derek Jarman (1993).avi – YouTube
Wittgenstein: Philosophical discussion in Cambridge – Part 1 – YouTube
Sea Wolf Island
Posted on February 11, 2020 by Royal Rosamond Press
Red Rock Island, San Francisco Bay
Shanghaied – Kidnapped to Sea Wolf Island
A Philosophical Business Adventure and Reality School Show
by
John Presco
Copyright 2020
Learn The Hard Way
Simulated Violence – No Children Allowed
As a historian, I am amazed what my ancestors did, and everyone’s kinfolk. Most of them had only the Bible to read, and use as a reference, to see if they are doing things the right way. Everything’s in the Bible. Jack London looked to Nietzsche and Spencer, for a newer clue. His Sea Wolf is about new adventures. Has the world run out of them?
EXTRA! Three hours after I posted this, I am sitting in Burger King watching a trailer for London’s ‘Call of the Wild’. I have seen other humans for days. Last evening I’m talking with Casey Farrell (Spooky Noodles) on Irving Street in San Francisco, about the Topical Merry-Go-Round, how there exist only so many Great American Stories – and they’re all due to come around again. Perhaps it’s because we are Old Timers, now, or, we have acquired ‘The Wisdom of Solomon’ we have the sight. And, we agreed to split the gold of one of us strikes it rich. Which is saying, we don’t have much time left to strike it rich – and spend it if we do!
We are such a young nation and culture. China, Japan, Russia, are very interested in what’s going down here. Once the reign of ‘The Stable Genius’ is over, I believe all us Americans are going to enjoy an incredible renaissance!
In the top photo is Lilian and Dick, Rosemary and Vic. My uncle flew around sixty missions over Germany in a bomber. He had a huge scar up his neck and across his chin from a piece of shrapnel. This is like a Heidelberg Dueling Scar. My father served on a Merchant ship up in the Elutians. He claims a Eskimo Chief offered him his daughter after he gave him knife. When these two Veterans got in the same room, they exchanged wars stories for hours, off by themselves, they making them all fresh, lest they forget.
THE SEA WOLF
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1074/1074-h/1074-h.htm
Yesterday, I discovered Red Rock Island is for sale. How perfect, because there remains one last great adventure Out West. Have you ever wanted to be shanghaied (simulated) while enjoying a cocktail in Sam’s Anchor Café, then taken to an island and held captive by a megalomaniac, a despot, who has absolute control over you – a real man -who crams his philosophy of life down your throat? And you better swallow it, or things will go bad for you…….Very bad!
Well, apparently millions of Americans want to do just this. But, do they really know what they are getting themselves into? Is there a School of Abuse that can prepare our young for what lie ahead? According to the hired Rosamond Ghost Writer, if you were a child of Victor William Presco (who I call ‘Captain Victim’) you have a fifty-fifty chance of becoming a gifted artist if you were his child, and, you were severely abused by him! You can’t get these odds in a expensive Art School. Send them to Presco’s Pre-School of Hard-knocks, and save a ton of money!
Jack London’s ‘The Sea Wolf’ will be used as a guide. My uncle, Jim Bigalow, owned Sam’s in Tiberon, and Crucheon’s in Berkeley where he hung a painting allegedly done by Walter Keene. It was a blonde woman standing by a old white shack. Jim had the Keenes over for dinner at his home in the Marina. Female artist wannabes can feel doubly oppressed, when in Sam’s appear Larsen’s crew. They throw gunny sacks over the heads of our Victim’s, then herd them down a gangplank. Our captives have to wade ashore before the bags are removed. They will see the lights from the bridge. So close to civilization, yet, so far away. The movie ‘Big Eyes’ will be shown how willing people are t give up their free will, and allow a Abuser to control their souls.
Ruled By Bohemian Boy Lumpers
Posted on May 28, 2016 by Royal Rosamond Press
My brother and I were raised under two systems. The Roman Mafia Slave & Crime Consortium, and The Sacred Rosy Prostitute and Defiant Wife Conglomerate. Study the photograph above. Mark, Christine, and I have just been told our mother is making porno movies for Big Bones Remmer, and is a part-time prostitute for the Mafia Boss. We are told to be extra good, or, we will be taken from Rosemary and put up for adoption. We will be separated by a Judge. This did not happen till after Christine somehow, drowned, and the Judge Silver appointed Sydney Morris, who secretly blessed the affair Vicki Presco was having with her brother-in-law, Garth Benton, that I suspect Christine discovered during her divorce, and threatened to disown Vicki as a sibling. Whatever!
Garth was an artist, and he was sticking it to his sister-in-law, thus Vicki believed she was a member of the art community. I conclude she is a whore, like her mother. But, that can’t be all that bad because some scholars believe Jesus was born of a whore and Roman general. Victor had dreams of being a Roman general when he was a teenager. Here he is doing an impression of Caligula with his granddaughter, Shannon after Little Victor brought her father back into the fold because he was paying extra special attention to her, and bribing her with money and toys – even candy! There is The Piata, and the The Rosy Betrayal of Poor Papa! Vicki was Victors – Cheerleader! Vic gave up his chance to be tough like his sons when he chose to be a coward and a child molester.
“Come! Let us pity him someone!” Note the statue of Saint Francis.
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/biblianazar/esp_biblianazar_7.htm
On the wall is my watercolor that was chosen to tour the world in a Red Cross show. This was quite an honor – a Family Honor! Our house is filled with family antiques. When you are disgraced, demeaned, and defiled at every turn, this recognition can change the dynamics of a family that is on the brink of destruction. No sooner did Rosemary drive Little Caesar out of our life with a knife, then, reality set in. His children were now her children – alone! Would he give us child support, or, would he continue to Ply Barflies For Pity? Would the Souza Brothers continue to get the Lion’s Share of King Victor’s earnings in our father’s need to outdo his father?
Then there were Rosemary’s sons who were entering their pubescence. Holy shit! What is that going to be like – without a father! Our mother was scared! Would we hate her for getting rid of our Father Figure? What father figure? A year before he died I asked Vic why he was so mean to his sons.
“Who was your role model, if he didn’t have one?”
“Wolf Larsen. He was my role model when I was a teenager. I wanted you and Mark to grow up tough.”
Mark and I were tough. Our peers did not fuck with us. We were very strong, and not just in a muscular way. We were Lumpers in Oakland’s Produce Market. See these hand carts? A grown Lumper will stack crates and boxes, to the top. Vic would let us get away with one box less. He got dirty looks from the Italian produce guys – and their grown sons – as my brother and I struggled with our load at eight and nine. It was an insane scene! Grown men wanted to punch Vic’s lights out. Now if this was a movie set?
“Cut! You boys need a rest. Help yourself to all the donuts and soft drinks!”
Mark and I raised our sisters with the help of our best friends, Bill Arnold, and Rick Young. We hardly saw Rosemary, even on the weekend. On Saturday morning The Children woke up and we made pancakes. Here is a list of The Children and our friends who often spent the night. Our home was a safe and creative haven for children. It was a Commune.
Mark Presco. Greg Presco. Christine Presco. Vicki Presco. Rick Young. Bill Arnold. Sue Garnick. Linda Johnson.
There was never enough money for food, light bulbs, shoe polish, soap, meat, ect. When we four boys would go shopping with Rosemary, we stuffed all we could in our specially sewn pockets. Bill and Rick would ask Rosemary what she needed, and, off they would go to break the law. We were great Shoplifters. We called ourselves Ma Barker and her Boys. How dare Vicki work Vic for extra goodies! She worked his mother, too.
Mark almost got it right when he came out with his webpage. But, he too couldn’t tell the truth about that painting on the wall, that always impressed Christine, who did not take up art until she was twenty-four. She told me;
“I owe my success to you – Brother Lumper!”
Mark and I were paid a dollar a day which was put in the bank. No sooner out the door, did King Victor go to the bank and empty his sons accounts of about $800 dollars. The great experiment was over. You can’t raise your boys on a tale written by a Bohemian Co-Founder of the Carmel Art Community.
I never saw a dime from Rosamond’s art. Vicki lured my child away from me. When Rosemary got arrested, she skiddaddled down to LA and left us in charge of an old crone that had brain damage. She looked just like a witch. She would come over after school was out, open a cold can of pork and beans. and sit with us as we watched Charley and Humpfrey. When it was nine, she got up and turned off the T.V. and ordered us to bed. We got up, unplugged our television, and took it upstairs. She would sit on that couch-bed eating her beans, staring at where the T.V. was for three months till Rosemary came and got us. She was struggling. She considered disappearing from our lives, and pursuing her dreams she forsake for Victor.
Rosemary and her family didn’t know we were sitting on a Bohemian Gold Mine. The world wanted our story – long before Christine Rosamond Benton became famous! They still do, but, I own it……….The Last of the Red Hot Bohemians! I got a bio that real artists would kill for! Read ‘Lust For Life’. The number one best seller is ‘The Bible’. It is full of horror stories, and men who have missed the mark and gone astray. Both books of the Bible are about ‘The Return of the Prodigal Son’. Why is that?
Jon Presco
Copyright 2016
There is a cave on Sea Wolf Island, that Larsen’s Lackey’s will stay in the first two day. On the third day, tents are set up on the beach, and the cave is turned into a jail. Rebels will be lowered from a rope to scrub the graffiti away.
Spencer will be required reading, as is Rosamond’s bio. There will be discussions around the campfire about how the hell did Captain Vic’s famous daughter end up in the sea. Vic drilled water safety into us.
There will be two Art Schools of Cruelty down in L.A. Knight Templars will kidnap students and take them to Santa Rosa Island where members of the Black Mask camped with my grandfather, Royal Rosamond. Hammett’s ‘The Maltese Falcon’ will be discussed, and the Film Noir of Raymond Chandler. One will learn how t get themselves in and out of real trouble so they will own a real palette to work from.
There will be an All Woman’s Class at the Scary Dairy located on the grounds of the Camarillo State Mental Hospital where Rosemary claimed she had a scholarship. This is a week long course that ends with the faux crucifixion of a woman named Susan. You will receive a diploma.
To you father’s out there….Is your child turning into a Sensitive Snowflake, and a habitual liar? Time to take them to Sam’s, and buy them a slow-gin fizz! Captain Larsen will straighten their sorry-ass out. Who will be the next great artist and writer to emerge from the ranks of the thoroughly abused?
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1074/1074-h/1074-h.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Spencer
“I was peeling potatoes. He picked one up from the pan. It was fair-sized, firm, and unpeeled. He closed his hand upon it, squeezed, and the potato squirted out between his fingers in mushy streams. The pulpy remnant he dropped back into the pan and turned away, and I had a sharp vision of how it might have fared with me had the monster put his real strength upon me.
“Well, in a way there has come to be a sort of connection,” I answered unsurprised by this time at such gaps in his vocabulary, which, like his knowledge, was the acquirement of a self-read, self-educated man, whom no one had directed in his studies, and who had thought much and talked little or not at all. “An altruistic act is an act performed for the welfare of others. It is unselfish, as opposed to an act performed for self, which is selfish.”
He nodded his head. “Oh, yes, I remember it now. I ran across it in Spencer.”
“Spencer!” I cried. “Have you read him?”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Rock_Island
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Circle_(Eggers_novel)
Red Rock Island (variously known as Moleta,[1] Molate Rock,[2] and Golden Rock[2]) is an uninhabited, 5.8-acre (2.3 ha) island in the San Francisco Bay located just south of the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge.[3] The property is the only privately owned island in San Francisco Bay.[3] The boundaries of three counties – San Francisco, Marin and Contra Costa – converge on this high rock.[4] The San Francisco County portion is an incorporated part of the city of San Francisco since it is a consolidated city-county; the Contra Costa portion (most of the island) is incorporated inside the city limits of Richmond.[5]
Abandoned Coast Guard fog bell on southern point of island
The mountain of bright red earth and rock is 500 ft (150 m) across from east to west, 750 ft (230 m) from north and south, and rises out of the bay to a height of 151 ft (46 m).[1] It is surrounded by some of the deepest water in the North Bay – 60 ft (18 m) deep.
Contents
History[edit]
Selim E. Woodworth was the first owner and resident of Red Rock Island, where he built a cabin and maintained a hunting preserve.[6][7][8] The island was once mined for manganese. It was privately purchased in the 1920s. After a series of owners, David Glickman, at the time a San Francisco attorney and part-time real estate buyer, purchased the island in 1964 for US$49,500.[3]
In the 1980s, a plan was proposed (but never implemented) to remove the top half of the island (which would be sold for highway roadbed construction). The island would then be developed with a 10-story hotel and casino, and a yacht harbor on the lee (north) side. Water and power would be provided from lines connected to the San Rafael Bridge.[9]
In June 2007, Glickman, now a gem dealer in Thailand, announced that Red Rock Island was for sale for US$10 million. He had previously attempted to sell the island in 2001, including to the California Department of Fish and Game.[10] No conservation groups or agencies have so far expressed interest in buying the island, though some have considered it.[3]
In early 2012, the island was listed with a realtor at a price of US$5 million.[11][12] As of December 2018, the island was owned by Brock Durning, who refused to say whether it was for sale.[4]
The island is mentioned and described as “Blue Island” in the novel The Circle by Dave Eggers.[13]
There are more than a dozen islands in San Francisco Bay, but only one of them is privately owned.
That would be Red Rock Island, which you can see while crossing the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge between the East Bay and Marin County. It’s about 6 acres of mostly orange-red rock with some shrubs and pine trees scattered across it, and the highest point is less than 200 feet.
Eve Kearney has wondered about the island ever since she dreamed of shooting music videos on it in college. She wants to know: Is it for sale, and what’s its history?
History
Legend has it that pirates hid treasure on the island, though it’s never been discovered. In the early 1800s, Russian fur traders used it as a campsite while killing Bay Area otters.
In the 1850s, the island got its first and only resident, Selim Woodworth, who built a cabin there.
Fast forward to 1964, when Red Rock Island was purchased by San Francisco attorney David Glickman for just under $50,000. He had dreams of turning it into a destination hotel, but those dreams never came to fruition because Glickman moved to Thailand and got a taste for the gem trade
Soon after, Glickman’s acquaintance, Mack Durning, acquired at least part of the island. Durning didn’t do much with it except visiting occasionally with his sons.
Over the years, other buyers showed interest. The most notorious potential owner was Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, a controversial guru with a commune in Oregon and now the subject of a popular Netflix series, “Wild Wild Country.” His followers are most famous for poisoning salad bars with salmonella. The island deal fell through when Rajneesh was deported.
In 2007, Glickman and Durning tried selling the island for $10 million, but nobody bought it. The island was still on the market when Glickman died in 2011.
In 2012, Durning tried selling it for $22 million. But a few months later, he slashed the price to $9 million. His real estate agent said there were interested buyers, but before the island could be sold, Durning also died.
A Private Island For Purchase?
Today the island is owned by Durning’s son, Brock Durning. Reached by phone in Alaska, he confirmed that he owns the island, but he refused to say if it’s for sale or not.
The island is not publicly listed. However, both of Brock Durning’s parents said over the years that, for the right price, it is always for sale.
Eve Kearney, our question asker, said she’d like the island to be turned into either a wildlife sanctuary or a “Goonies” theme park.
“So us folks who grew up in the ’80s could visit it and relive the Goonies cave!”
There is one potential roadblock to Kearney’s plan: The island is split among three counties — Marin, San Francisco and Contra Costa. If she were to develop a theme park on the island, she might need to get approval from all three, which would be a planning nightmare.
“The horror of it drove me out on deck. I was feeling sick and squeamish, and sat down on a bench. In a hazy way I saw and heard men rushing and shouting as they strove to lower the boats. It was just as I had read descriptions of such scenes in books. The tackles jammed. Nothing worked. One boat lowered away with the plugs out, filled with women and children and then with water, and capsized. Another boat had been lowered by one end, and still hung in the tackle by the other end, where it had been abandoned. Nothing was to be seen of the strange steamboat which had caused the disaster, though I heard men saying that she would undoubtedly send boats to our assistance.
I descended to the lower deck. The Martinez was sinking fast, for the water was very near. Numbers of the passengers were leaping overboard. Others, in the water, were clamouring to be taken aboard again. No one heeded them. A cry arose that we were sinking. I was seized by the consequent panic, and went over the side in a surge of bodies. How I went over I do not know, though I did know, and instantly, why those in the water were so desirous of getting back on the steamer. The water was cold—so cold that it was painful. The pang, as I plunged into it, was as quick and sharp as that of fire. It bit to the marrow. It was like the grip of death. I gasped with the anguish and shock of it, filling my lungs before the life-preserver popped me to the surface. The taste of the salt was strong in my mouth, and I was strangling with the acrid stuff in my throat and lungs.
But it was the cold that was most distressing. I felt that I could survive but a few minutes. People were struggling and floundering in the water about me. I could hear them crying out to one another. And I heard, also, the sound of oars. Evidently the strange steamboat had lowered its boats. As the time went by I marvelled that I was still alive. I had no sensation whatever in my lower limbs, while a chilling numbness was wrapping about my heart and creeping into it. Small waves, with spiteful foaming crests, continually broke over me and into my mouth, sending me off into more strangling paroxysms.
The noises grew indistinct, though I heard a final and despairing chorus of screams in the distance, and knew that the Martinez had gone down. Later,—how much later I have no knowledge,—I came to myself with a start of fear. I was alone. I could hear no calls or cries—only the sound of the waves, made weirdly hollow and reverberant by the fog. A panic in a crowd, which partakes of a sort of community of interest, is not so terrible as a panic when one is by oneself; and such a panic I now suffered. Whither was I drifting? The red-faced man had said that the tide was ebbing through the Golden Gate. Was I, then, being carried out to sea? And the life-preserver in which I floated? Was it not liable to go to pieces at any moment? I had heard of such things being made of paper and hollow rushes which quickly became saturated and lost all buoyancy. And I could not swim a stroke. And I was alone, floating, apparently, in the midst of a grey primordial vastness. I confess that a madness seized me, that I shrieked aloud as the women had shrieked, and beat the water with my numb hands.
How long this lasted I have no conception, for a blankness intervened, of which I remember no more than one remembers of troubled and painful sleep. When I aroused, it was as after centuries of time; and I saw, almost above me and emerging from the fog, the bow of a vessel, and three triangular sails, each shrewdly lapping the other and filled with wind. Where the bow cut the water there was a great foaming and gurgling, and I seemed directly in its path. I tried to cry out, but was too exhausted. The bow plunged down, just missing me and sending a swash of water clear over my head. Then the long, black side of the vessel began slipping past, so near that I could have touched it with my hands. I tried to reach it, in a mad resolve to claw into the wood with my nails, but my arms were heavy and lifeless. Again I strove to call out, but made no sound.
The stern of the vessel shot by, dropping, as it did so, into a hollow between the waves; and I caught a glimpse of a man standing at the wheel, and of another man who seemed to be doing little else than smoke a cigar. I saw the smoke issuing from his lips as he slowly turned his head and glanced out over the water in my direction. It was a careless, unpremeditated glance, one of those haphazard things men do when they have no immediate call to do anything in particular, but act because they are alive and must do something.
But life and death were in that glance. I could see the vessel being swallowed up in the fog; I saw the back of the man at the wheel, and the head of the other man turning, slowly turning, as his gaze struck the water and casually lifted along it toward me. His face wore an absent expression, as of deep thought, and I became afraid that if his eyes did light upon me he would nevertheless not see me. But his eyes did light upon me, and looked squarely into mine; and he did see me, for he sprang to the wheel, thrusting the other man aside, and whirled it round and round, hand over hand, at the same time shouting orders of some sort. The vessel seemed to go off at a tangent to its former course and leapt almost instantly from view into the fog.
I felt myself slipping into unconsciousness, and tried with all the power of my will to fight above the suffocating blankness and darkness that was rising around me. A little later I heard the stroke of oars, growing nearer and nearer, and the calls of a man. When he was very near I heard him crying, in vexed fashion, “Why in hell don’t you sing out?” This meant me, I thought, and then the blankness and darkness rose over me.
https://rosamondpress.com/2012/05/21/sams-anchor-cafe/
https://rosamondpress.com/2015/12/30/easton-of-eastwood/
https://rosamondpress.com/2015/11/18/beauty-and-the-ritual-beast/
Rosamond Press 