I just discovered that there is a mermaid name SIRENA. She is a Filipino Legend. How perfect. Marilyn and I spent all summer at the ocean in Santa Monica. Her mother married a Filipino and had two children. Then she had Marilyn by another husband. I’ve compared Marilyn to a mermaid. She married a black man. Her sister did too. Sirenetta is the name of Hans Christensen Anderson’s mermaid. Rena is a River Mermaid. The story of Marilyn and I is already a book in itself.
I took a break to watch the Trumpower Show. His cheerleader said this;
“Democrats don’t love America – and they hate Trump!”
Here’s the mirror image.
“Republicans don’t love America – and they hate Biden”
Republicans are saying Biden should be tried – too – if Trump is going to be tried, even though he did nothing wrong. This is to say, the present and former president – should be tried together – or not at all. This is supposed to be – clever – and not bonkers?
Whether you are Racist, or Woke – can be determined if you buy a can of Bud-lite and a ticket to see the new Little Mermaid. If twelve American Jurors find Trump GUILTY, then he is going to prison. Folks who vote with a ticket – are destroying Disney!
The Little Mermaid may have just destroyed a $1 billion box office trend, causing many to wonder if Disney’s live-action remakes will ever be able to recover. 2023’s The Little Mermaid remake was supposed to be one of the biggest Disney movies of the year, with the film getting an immense amount of marketing and hype. However, the film has seemingly fallen flat, with The Little Mermaid not living up to many of Disney’s other live-action remakes. Because of this, it could be possible that The Little Mermaid could be the final nail in the coffin of the trend of success for Disney’s remakes.
A poll says Race Relations have gotten worse since President Obama took office. What is going on? This question is very topical as our Presidential Candidates are claiming they have the solution to improving relations between the races. Who is being more sincere?
The Sirena is a mythological sea creature from Filipino culture. In some regions of the Philippines, particularly Bicol and Visayas, Sirenas are known as Magindara and portrayed as vicious mermaids. Like Sirens of Greek mythology they have alluring and irresistible singing voices; unlike Sirens, which are portrayed as part woman and part bird, Sirenas are often portrayed as mermaid-like creatures that live under the sea. In Philippine mythology, the Sirena is a mythological aquatic creature with the head and torso of a human female and the tail of a fish.[1] The Sirena is an Engkanto–’ the Filipino counterpart of English mermaids.[2] Engkantos are classified as one of the Bantay Tubig, (guardian of a body of water) a Filipino term for mythical guardians of the water. In addition to the Sirena, other examples of Bantay Tubig are Siyokoy, Kataw and Ugkoy. The male version of a Sirena is called a Sireno. Sometimes Sirena are paired with Siyokoy. A popular mermaid character in the Philippines is Dyesebel.
The Sirena has a beautiful and enchanting voice that can attract and hypnotize males, especially fishermen. Sirena sing to sailors and enchant them, distracting them from their work and causing them to walk off ship decks or cause shipwrecks. They sing with enchanting voices while hiding among the rocks by the shore. When the men hear these songs they are hypnotized and are abducted by the Sirena. Some folk traditions claim that the Sirena carry their victims under the sea, sacrificing them to the water deities. Other stories claim that the Sirena pretend to need rescuing from drowning, luring men into the sea, but proceed to squeeze the life out of any man who falls prey to their hoax.
A malevolent Sirena may tease and attract human males with its spellbinding songs. Occasional reports had Sirena grabbing seemingly hypnotized humans and drowning them or taking them under water. Another view had the tempted human chasing the Sirena into deep water until he drowned or that he had a heart attack upon seeing such an Engkanto and toppled into the water to his death.[3]
When a mermaid falls in love with a human she or he becomes tame and obedient to the human.
Sirena are beautiful sea creatures with the upper body of a human with long, flowing hair that is often curly or wavy and the lower body of a fish or has a tail of a fish. In pre-Hispanic Philippines they were believed to be beautiful.
“Vivien Leigh was my heroine,” Elizabeth once said. “She was innocence on the verge of decadence, always there to be saved.”
On our first date, Marilyn Godfrey and I went to see ‘Withering Heights’ in an auditorium on the grounds of the University of California at Los Angeles. Not having any money, and our mothers being poor, this love story was chosen because it being shown for free. Our father’s were absent from the home. We got no help from them in launching our fifty-five year friendship that began with the deep consideration as to how this agreement between two teenagers was going to go. Would I make it to first base, or, will we make excuses as to why we have to hurry home?
“My mother just got another calling from God. I feel it in my bones. I must rush home to be by her side.”
“My mother has just finished off a gallon of Pisano and his pulling my sister;s hair out by the root. I can feel her pain. I must rush home to protect her. See ya sometime!”
I was fifteen. I had never been on a date, and thus did not know what a bad date looked or felt like. I was at the mercy of Marilyn who had gone on several dates. She had kissed – how many of them? I kissed my childhood friend Nancy when we were both twelve. I assumed she was a good kisser. I had not kissed a girl hence. This kiss was waiting in the wing, as Heathcliffe made his famous haunted pledge. I include most of his commitment to love, because, at the end of our long bond, I receive a death threat from Marilyn’s black husband, and, a Cease and Desist from the black Director of the Gospel Choir Marilyn is the President of. For the moment, we are studying how White Folks love, in Merry Ol England made famous for this tale of woe.
‘May she wake in torment!‘ he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion. ‘Why, she’s a liar to the end! Where is she? Not there—not in heaven—not perished—where? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens—Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you—haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot die without my soul!’
Wow! So this is – love! You can’t even share anything that resembles this in a AA meeting without being accused of being selfish, and on a dry drunk. But, at fifteen Marilyn and I would give it a go. However, this was not our only blue print. M had a master plan that I still have not seen the whole of! Women are Secret Lovers. They play their cards very close to their vest, to their most Secret Heart. So, on our second date she took me to see Black Orpheus. She paid our way. From that day on, I was her puppet on a string.
Chazelle wrote the screenplay in 2010 but did not find a studio willing to finance the production without changes to his design. Following the success of his 2014 film Whiplash, the project was picked up by Summit Entertainment. La La Land premiered at the Venice Film Festival on August 31, 2016, and was released in the United States on December 9, 2016. It has grossed $370 million worldwide on a production budget of $30 million.[6]
The strange Ayn Rand dynamics lurking in the relationship of Ginni and Clarence Thomas that caused “The Kraken” to be released on our Nation’s Capitol.
John Aglialoro, the producer of the movie Atlas Shrugged: Part 1 (2011), recently announced that due to bad reviews and poor box office, he is abandoning the plans for parts two and three of the story. As someone who read Ayn Rand’s long book Atlas Shrugged many years ago, I was interested when I heard they were making a movie version. But when I saw the trailer, the movie looked terribly boring, so I am not among the few who have seen it. I might have watched it on DVD when it came out, but now that I know it may leave me hanging without any resolution, maybe not. Yet, some recent reports indicate the second movie still may be coming out next year.
One person who might be disappointed if the sequels are abandoned is Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. In the book The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court (2007), Jeffrey Toobin (p. 119) wrote that Justice Thomas often requires his law clerks to watch the movie, The Fountainhead, which is based upon another book by Ayn Rand and directed by King Vidor. That one sentence in Toobin’s book jumped out, raising questions about the connection between the movie and Justice Thomas’s judicial philosophy, and what it means for America.
Ayn Rand incorporated her philosophy of Objectivism into her novels. The philosophy has several parts, but she described one of the basic tenants this way: “Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.”
One may debate the value of a philosophy of self-interest. A number of conservatives have embraced the philosophy as connected to laissez-faire capitalism, so one might understand why the conservative Justice Thomas admires Ayn Rand’s work. In his memoir, My Grandfather’s Son, he wrote about reading Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and how the books affected him: “Rand preached a philosophy of radical individualism that she called Objectivism. While I didn’t fully accept its tenets, her vision of the world made more sense to me that that of my left-wing friends.” (p. 62) A website devoted to Ayn Rand’s fiction writing, The Atlas Society, has more about Justice Thomas’s connection to Ayn Rand.
Still, The Fountainhead (1949) is an odd movie choice, even though it features excellent actors like Gary Cooper, Raymond Massey, and Patricia Neal. One reviewer summed it up as “one of the strangest and most florid pictures of its time, possibly of all time.” The Fountainhead is about an architect named Howard Roark (Cooper) who has his own vision and does not want to compromise his beliefs and art to popular ideas. When the people who hired him to create a public housing building do not let him do it his way, he blows up the modified building. And he’s the hero of the movie. Okay, I get the idea about not compromising, but isn’t blowing up the building going too far?
One might wonder why Justice Thomas loves this unusual movie so much that he has the recent law school graduates who work for him watch it. And one might speculate what message the new lawyers take from the self-interest theme of the movie regarding one’s lack of compassion for the poor and underprivileged.
Considering Roark’s destruction of the building in the movie, and in today’s atmosphere of terrorism, I hope Justice Thomas has selected another movie. Maybe watching the new Atlas Shrugged will lead him to opt for another movie to show his clerks. And he could even stick with films featuring Republican and anti-Communist Gary Cooper. If Thomas wants an excellent movie that teaches about the importance of the individual and duty, he might select High Noon (1952). Or if he wants to go further, he might choose Cooper in Frank Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) or Meet John Doe (1941), both which would give the new lawyers lessons on the importance of common people and the corrupting influence of power.
“Dec 10, 2013 – Belle Burch, 23, shares her sentiments about needing a place to sleep during a rally for the…..”
So, Belle Burch had no problem telling the real new media what it feels to be homeless. Why wasn’t this, reporter, informed? Did she fear I would ask her to come sleep with me?
Before our, Bohemian session, I begged Belle to allow me to turn on my camera, set it down, and record us, because;
“This is a historic meeting between muse and artist that needs to be put on record without extrapolations.”
But for the fact Belle concealed her true identity, it was an amazingly beautiful experience! One of the crucial subjects we HAD to tackle was our age difference. Was I a Dirty Old Man? If I was a young Bohemian Radical under thirty, there would be question I would want to get in her pants, and she mine! Young Bohemian Bolsheviks are famous for this. After doing a very beautiful dance around this topic, Belle agrees to be my muse, after she lays down the law.
“We are not going to have sex!” “That’s true, because after my treatment for prostate cancer, I am not the man I was.”
This made Belle, flinch, and I wondered if it was because her hold, her hook in me, was not nearly as strong as she built it up to be!
If the truth be known, the day before our Bohemian Boo-Ha-ha, I asked my beautiful young pharmacist how much a Viagra pill costs.
“That much! I’m not sure if it will work. Dr. Estrich said he would give me a sample months ago, but he forgot.”
When I walked out of the Target, I stopped in my track, and asked;
“What is wrong with you? You’re within ten years of death (if you’re lucky) and you are going to pass up a very slim chance to make love to a very beautiful young woman – for the last time – because Viagra costs $30 dollars a pop?”
When I discovered Belle was arrested, and was possibly homeless, I had to change my plans. I was going to exchange my blue woman’s bicycle for ten hours of modeling, not all at once, but when Bell had the time. I did not want to get caught with my pants down, an old man lusting after a woman younger than my daughter – especially when she may be at your mercy. This exchange gave rise to other concerns, such as being a pedophile with a bag of pretty candy. This confession is proof not all men think with their penis. However, when you are old you are typecast – so shut up already!
My muse of forty four years had filed stalking charges on me. She lied to me about being married to a man she divorced fifteen years ago. And you thought being an artist and a writer was sissy-shit! I’m in fucking trouble here! If I had known she has a gang of anarchists backing her up, who might want to come to her rescue, I would still have that bike….that I informed Belle I named after her……….BLUEBELLE! Ouch!
I think Belle was wearing a wire in that handkerchief, and when she got back to Communal headquarters, Little Lord Flaunteroy was on pins and needles to hear it.
“Yeah! He’s a cop. He didn’t get no cancer treatment. He’s got a hard-on for you till next Friday!”
During our, parlay, I showed Belle a site about Marilyn and her radical family. Here is Marilyn’s daughter reading Rena’s poem while her stepfather’s Jazz band accompanies her. Niesha played in the Gavelan group Belle’s mother founded when she attended the UofO. She looks like Belle and Heather.
Nieshas aunt co-wrote ‘Fela – This Bitch of a Life – and lived in Paris. Her son and I got along famously when we met at Christmas. I presented Marilyn the portrait I did of her. Fela is a musical on off-Broadway. Belle mistakenly thinks I am going to whisk her away to the Big Apple to see a show on Broadway. Who does she think I am – her sugar daddy?
The first questions I asked Belle was if she had a car or bicycle. She said she had no car, but had a bicycle. Why then was she on skateboard. When I gave her Bluebelle she exclaimed;
“How did you know I needed a bicycle?” “A little birdy told me!”
Homeless Belle loves being a “real person” off the Broadway Triad , where in Luckys, she is shoving dollar bills into a Juke Box – and tripping the lights fantastic. I asked for a rewrite of her poem!
I asked Belle Burch in an e-mail if I can call her BB, the nickname of Bridget Bardot, the French Sex Kitten. At our little table she proved to me she could speak French – quite well. Where’s my little pill?
Not a peep…………or a chirp! Gone is my bird. Farewell…..to my joy! I had my Bohemian fun!
If this was a French Art Movie made in 1966, it would be titled (in English subtitles)
‘My Beautiful Blue Bicycle’
I see BB riding down a narrow street in the South of France with little boys running after her, and old men at the outdoor tables, giving her a whistle.
“BB!”
What I was asking Belle in that e-mail, was if this dancer would want to help choreograph ‘Love Dance’ an idea that has inspired me for five years. Did Belle wonder if I was gay? No! Why?
If you want to make sure a Bohemian chic never lays you, tell her she writes bad poetry. Why, why did I do it!! I did it because Belle sleeps in the gutter with bums, winos, and mad men, and not one of them did she inform they were out of the running! Why me?
One answer can be, she was beginning to like the cut of my jib, and, she understood I was in love with her. I admit in a e-mail I sent yesterday, that I fell in love with Belle within seconds of beholding her. And, now, after our Bohemian session, she has to admit, as I have to admit………we were/are everything we ever wanted in a Bohemian other, accept for our age. This is a great Bohemian Story! Perhaps the last one of our age.
I awoke this morning reciting the poison scene from The Princess Bride. I had written something eloquent and used Iiocane as a means to explain the dilemma I have been ever sense Christine Wandel told me she was certain that Ruben Blades is Julie’s father. This was two days before she was going to have Thanksgiving Dinner with Ruben’s daughter. They were going to go to the Washington Square Diner, but, Julie canceled. Christine had me email Ruben, but, no response. I wanted to go with full disclosure – from the get – because I know Christine. We would end up at a round table with two goblets playing a guessing game……What is real? Compared to what?
After several calls, where I was bid to change the dictated email, I posted the final version on Ruben’s Facebook – for the whole world to see! I took a cue from Ruben’s son, replicated what he went through to get his father to acknowledge he has sired a child!
“There! It’s done! The whole world will soon know the truth!”
“What did you do?” Christine asked. I told her.
“Remove it. You are invading my privacy!”
I told Cristine invading folk’s privacy – is unavoidable! You have to tell Julie. Leave a message on her phone. We now talked about – not hurting Blade’s daughter.
“Perhaps it’s better she doesn’t know?”
Night before last Christine gave me permission to write about Ruben Blades on this blog-newspaper. She told me that one of her grandsons looks like Ruben. This – changed everything. Do we all own the right to know who are people are? Ninety million people are obsessed with genealogies. Remember the series ‘Roots’ ? I have been looking at newspapers about Ruben, his son, and his daughter. Ruben says he does not want to make a big deal about it. He does not want to elaborate on the matter. However, he does talk about his Englich father. Christine heard this in 1975. She was not aware of Ruben’s Latino Race – as much as Ruben – is! It was no big deal.
What is a BIG DEAL….Ruben had an affair by a Saxon Woman, and, she became pregnant? Christine and I concluded Ruben had reasons to cover this up, and, Julie could get hurt by realizing how powerless she is. The truth would not set her free, but, imprison her. For this reason I am going to send this story to other newspapers that covered the other child of Ruben – Julies half-brother!
Millions of people can relate to being told to stay out of certain neighborhoods. West Side Story is a famous movie and play about this command. Today is the world premiere of Spielberg’s Story. I am going to purchase a ticket. The original Story was life-changing for me. Months after I saw Westside, I fell in love with a Mexican girl named, Maria, who was in my English class. Her friends knew I had a crush on her, but, I was incredibly shy to the point I admitted I was mentally ill. I wrote poems to other women in other classes. Maria may have heard me recite one of my poems. The last day of school, she approaches me. We are alone in the classroom. I want to kiss her. It is mutual. Our moment, gone, Maria hands me a paper with her address on it.
“Come to my birthday party!”
I almost fainted. My friend Bill drove me to the address that was in the Bad Part of Town. We stopped up the street. There were about ten Mexican teenagers standing on the steps to a Victorian. Some were wearing colorful shirts. I asked Bill of he would come with me, but, that could be trouble. Best I go alone. Being a visual artists and poet, I made several movies of me walking down the street – and up those stairs. How would I be received? A year later this would be a painting. Here is a photograph of my ex-wife, Mary Ann Tharaldsen, walking towards my neighbors in the Mexican neighborhood I lived in. Mary Ann lived with Thomas Pynchon in Mexico.
It was my adopted mother, June Rice, who told me not to go……into the Sawtelle. I detected there were racial reasons. My famiy had just moved to LA. What I heard next, was chillling.
“And don’t go into those theatres. A pervert will stick an icepick in your ear and molest you!”
I was a virgin. I wanted to lose my virginity to Maria. I did not go to her party. I know this morning she kept looking for me. She told her brothers to look out for me, and make sure nothing bad happens to me.
I was sixteen and a student at University High School in West Los Angeles, when a Mexican girl in my class handed me a folded note and asked me to give it to my friend, Mark Owen, who I met at his birthday party that Bryan MacLean took me to. It was Mark who noticed these two girls that were following us after school – that he said were interested in us.
“I want the blonde! You can have the other one!” Mark said. Mark got crazy drunk at his party, and his father gave him a prostitute to sleep with. I was still a virgin. I gave the note from Marilyn to my best friend, and off…….into the Sawtelle he went. I set up my easle, and began a new painting. An hour later Mark comes in the door, and hands me the note I handed him.
“This was meant for you!” Mark said.
I just now realize I dreamed about writing and reading this post. What had happened was, the girl who handed me the note was a good friend of Judy, the other girl walking with Marilyn. Judy wanted me, and heard about Marilyn’s note to me. She asked her friend to do a switch! Here is the scene from the Princess Bride that resembles Romeo and Juliet.
“She wants to see you – now!” And off I go into the Sawtelle.
Below is a photo of the son of Carlos Moore with his arm around me. Carlos wrote the biography of Fela that he later sold to producers who made it into a musical. He was married to Shawna, Marilyn’s half-sister, who lived with Les McCann’s drummer. Shawna gave my first girlfriend a black doll. M knew Bryan who formed the first mixed-race rock band. Peter Shapiro was a member of The Loading Zone who hired a black female singer. Peter was close with members of The Tower of Power, a mixed-race group. Love later became an all black band and celebrated Black is Beautiful.
Christine knew very little about Julie’s father, so I filled her in. She met Ruben at The Bottom Line where her friend, Bill Graham, took her to see The Tower of Power. She was not happy about the Nobel Prize article that seemed to do a switch, saying Ruben deserved that prize, and not Bob Dylan. Now, here is the bottom line that came to me – in a dream…..
One is not worthy of a Nobel Prize for how well you get along – with your race – but how well you get along – with other races!
PANAMANIAN salsa singer Ruben Blades, winner of multiple Grammy’s and a man with presidential ambitions has confirmed that he is the father of a 39-year-old Puerto Rican.
He made the acknowledgment that Joseph Verne is his biological son, on Facebook. Verne has a 13 year-old daughter, so Blades is also catapulted into the grandfather role.
On New Year’s Day Puerto Rican newspapers carried a statement released by Blades on his Facebook shortly before the end of 2014, which clarifies that biological tests conducted in February showed that Verne is his son.
“I want to make a necessary public statement that I am pleased and satisfied,” said Blades in the statement, recalling that a two years ago Verne publicly stated that there was a possibility that he was the son of the folk singer which Blades, had always rejected he acknowledged
“In May 2013, however, a relative of mine agreed to a DNA test for. Verne and although the results seemed to demonstrate a clear relationship of consanguinity between the two I was not notified of it. Six months later, in December 2013, a letter was received at my father’s home in Panama giving thr the fact, “says Blades in the statement.
The singer told his lawyers to locate Verne and arrangements were made for a DNA test be conducted with all three (his son, the mother and himself).
“Those tests were achieved in February 2014 and the results were conclusive. Joseph Verne, a man of 39 years old, is my biological son . Joseph’s conviction proved to be true and I, of course, was wrong to have considered that there was no such a possibility, ” says Blades.
“Although nothing can ever appease my shame with him and myself, we met in March 2014 and since then have maintained optimal communication including my granddaughter, a bright young 13- year-old,” said Blades in the statement.
The singer said he did not want to make a public announcement without first establishing the basis for a real relationship with his child.
“I do not plan to make any public statement on the matter. Joseph and I believe that this public notice is clear and sufficient” concludes the statement.
Blades was Minister of Tourism during the administration of Martin Torrijos (2004-2009.
Moore is widely recognized for his outspokenness against racism,[4] defense of pan-Africanism, his scholarly work and for writing the authorized biography of the Nigerian singer, saxophonist and activist Fela Kuti, Fela, Fela: This Bitch of a Life,[5] which inspired the stage musical Fela![6]
Moore’s first wife, Shawna, was from the US, and they had a son together, Kimathi. Moore’s second wife, Ayeola, whom he married in 1992, is from Guadeloupe.[7]
Rosamond Press 
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