I have been trying to form The New Jessie Scouts to do battle with the enemy within.
My Stalker said he wrote down some bad things I said about him. Well….
WHO THE FUCK IS HE!!!!
That fucker did not offer to help pay for the cremation of Drew Taylor Rosemond Benton – who has distant cousins back East!
“She is survived by two children with homes on the Vineyard, Anthony Benton Gude and Cybele Benton McCormick, and another daughter Daria Lyman who lives on Cape Cod, as well as by 11 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.”
I’m done responded to devils who get off implying something isn’t RIGHT about me!. Enjoy another Crazy Trump Clown Show! Stalker Boy may have considered sending me a check, but, then I would know where he lives, and, I might show up and peek in his window! Enough!
The monent Trump puts his hand on the Bible, I will declare the Rebublican Party – DEAD!
Kamala Harris is considering writing a book that will begin in Oakland – where we both were born! I would like to contribute a chapter. The book ‘The Death of the Republican Party’ is my book to write. I am looking for a Co-Author.
John Presco
President: Royal Rosamond Press
Jessie Benton Fremont at Blackpoint
Historical Essay
by Jo Medrano
Mrs. General Fremont on porch at Black Point, 1863.
Photo: San Francisco History Center, SF Public Library
Jessie Fremont – The Yosemite Muse
Posted on August 29, 2014 by Royal Rosamond Press
- Jessie Benton was born in Kansas City on July 10, 1939 to Tom and Rita Benton.
- Jeanna Shepard
Jessie Benton Carried on Her Parents’ Legacy
Jessie Benton, daughter of renowned artist Thomas Hart Benton, died surrounded by family in Los Angeles on Feb. 16, at the age of 83. She had been a seasonal resident of Chilmark all her life.
Born in Kansas City on July 10, 1939 to Tom and Rita Benton, Jessie was known and beloved by many. Her genius lay not only in music and artistic design, but in forging deep and lasting relationships with young and old alike.
“Her behavior was restless and bold, and her natural incandescence made others pale by comparison,” the actor Peter Coyote wrote of Jessie in his memoir.
As a young girl, Jessie spent long hours in her father’s Chilmark studio, where she would curl up on the floor and draw and watch him paint.
“I loved the enormous inner silence, the rhythm of my father moving forward to paint and backward to look, and his funny incessant whistling without whistling,” Jessie wrote.
Jessie spent each year of her life at the family home in Chilmark.
Tom Benton created paintings for Jessie as gifts on her birthday. The first was of Jessie as a one-year-old, surrounded by her kitty and wild roses, and in background the Vineyard Sound and Elizabeth Islands. Painting her portrait, she later learned, was “a difficult job, because I never stood still. I had just learned to walk.”
The number of objects in the painting were generally coordinated with Jessie’s birthday year as she grew older. Her 10th birthday portrait was one of her father’s masterpieces, Butterfly Chaser.
When her parents came to Chilmark in the early 1920s, Jessie said there existed “suddenly the freedom of living in a place where there were no critics, no pressure, and it freed his heart.”
Electricity and running water didn’t come to the neighborhood until well after the end of World War II. During the war, blackout curtains covered the windows by night, so light from the Benton family’s kerosene lanterns wouldn’t offer a target to offshore German forces.
Every weekend during the war years musicians would gather at the Chilmark house. Tom played the harmonica, Rita the guitar and Jessie’s older brother T.P. the flute. In 1942 Decca released a 78-rpm record, Saturday Night at Tom Benton’s.
“Money was scarce during those days and while Daddy painted I fished and searched out berries and other fruit for our meals,” Jessie said of those days.
“My father and mother had so many friends, famous and not, and they stretched through time and interests and cultures. My father moved through the echelons of social worlds with great ease, brought them home and taught me that all men are created equal. Daddy and Jimmy Cagney used to fight about politics, but that did not mean they could not dance and drink and have dinner together. My mother was the kind of woman who gives femininity a good name. She was strong, beautiful, courageous and full of life. What was truly valuable to my mother were someone’s gifts, talents, and a sense of soul.”
Over the years many remarkable people devoted special attention to little Jessie. The novelist Somerset Maugham read her bedtime stories at the age of three. Roger Baldwin, founder of the ACLU, taught her how to ride a bike. Musicologists George Seeger and Alan Lomax brought Jessie her first songbooks. She learned her first song (She’ll be Comin’ Round the Mountain) from Pete Seeger’s mother, Ruth Crawford Seeger. The poet Carl Sandburg suggested Jessie take up playing the guitar.
In 1955, Jessie would join Pete Seeger performing at the unveiling of Tom’s River Club mural in Kansas City. Two years later, enrolled at Radcliffe College, Jessie began giving concerts and singing on the Harvard radio station at the very beginning of the folk music revival.
In January 1957, she appeared singing Elizabethan folk songs in a segment about her father on NBC’s Wide Wide World TV program. In 1959, she played guitar and sang on Edward R. Murrow’s Person to Person interview with her father.
After graduating from Radcliffe, she lived and studied in Italy. Returning in 1962, she and her first husband David Gude gave memorable concerts together at the Moon-Cusser coffee house in Oak Bluffs. She turned down a lucrative contract to become a star folk singer.
“I had grown up surrounded with the music and to me it was a conversation with other people, a sharing of expressions, not a single voice,” Jessie explained.
In 1966 she began living with a group of musicians and kindred spirits on Fort Hill in Roxbury, an experiment that continues to exist almost six decades later. Her parents supported the community wholeheartedly until their deaths in 1975.
“My father taught me to tell the truth, never to let go of who you are, believe in socialism, be more than a democrat, play music whenever you can, don’t care so much what people think, and enjoy what you do.”
With her extended family, Jessie, an avid fisherwoman, involved herself in environmental causes such as a successful effort to restore the striped bass population on the Vineyard and across the Atlantic seaboard. In recent years, she and her husband Richard Guerin designed a beautiful residence, now an eco-hotel called Villa del Faro, along the East Cape of the Baja Mexico peninsula, as well as homes in Boston, Kansas and Los Angeles.
She is survived by two children with homes on the Vineyard, Anthony Benton Gude and Cybele Benton McCormick, and another daughter Daria Lyman who lives on Cape Cod, as well as by 11 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Jessie will be irreplaceably missed by the 24 remaining original members of the extended family that her unifying presence held together for so many years. Their own children and grandchildren, and countless friends who came to treasure her hospitality (and marvelous cooking), laughter, and abiding spirit will surely miss her as well.
“She felt immortal to me,” one friend wrote upon learning of Jessie’s passing. “I will never forget her infectious smile.”
A private interment for immediate family and close friends will take place on Martha’s Vineyard.
Message To Chief of Police
Posted on September 21, 2024 by Royal Rosamond Press
TO: Police Chief of Bullhead City
When Cameron Bosley called me, he told me he and his brother tried to get Drew Benton to move in with Damien Bosley – BECAUSE SHE WAS HEARING VOICES – and they were very concerned her dark studio was making her depressed. The Bosley Boys did not tell me she took leave from her job at Walmart because this guy named Kenneth went to jail because he made a “KILL LIST” with Drew Benton’s name – AT THE TOP! A guy named Bill told me Damien did not believe Drew was in DANGER. When I asked Bill for the name of Drew’s Stalker who was escorted out of Walmart last week, he texted “Kenneth”. I asked Bill for the last name, and he never gave it to me. Bill stopped texting me. This goes with officer Holstrom who asked me why I wanted a report….
“I’m writing a biography!”
I’m also working on OUR FAMILY TREE, and Jessie Benton and Mel Lyman are in it. Rumor has it Charlie Manson was inspired by Mel who was the leader of the Fort Hill Commune that was, and is, a cult. I suspect the Bosley Brothers play video games. They are in their forties. They lived together. Are they still living together? They take credit for……
TRYING TO SAVE DREW’S LIFE
All they wanted was a copy of Drew’s DEATH CIRTIFICATE…………….and her ashes! The B-Brother told me about packing Drews’ belongings in boxes – and mailing to me WHAT I WANT!
I WANT EVERYTHING including Drew’s computer, her phones, her papers, and even her clothes. I want the neckless I gave my niece – and her jewelry box! I don’t want these Video Game Hexters to have any object they can cast spells with. I declare they have no right to own anything that belonged to Drew – that now belongs to me! Of course they own the suspicion that Drew did not commit suicide! But, they conspired to not let me know because they wanted that DEATH CIRTIFICATE! Officer Holstrom should give the Bosley Boys a call – and ask why they WANT IT!
John Presco
“But Lyman is nowhere to be seen.
His Family says that he died in April, 1978, after a lingering illness. He would have been 39.
But there was no funeral and no death certificate, and the Family’s leaders will not discuss with strangers, or even some members, what they did with Lyman’s body, if he did die. They deny rumors that he fled the Family and lives in Europe.
“I was told that Melvin died and I believe that,” said Wayne Hansen, a Boston businessman who belonged to the Family for 13 years until he left in 1979. “If they didn’t get a death certificate it is because it really isn’t anyone else’s business. I have to take on faith that he died.”
Posted on March 17, 2012 by Royal Rosamond Press
The Art Avatars
Posted on March 6, 2024 by Royal Rosamond Press
Capturing Beauty
by
John Presco
I believe The Who was inspired by Andy Warhol and my cousin, Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, in creating their album THE WHO SELL OUT, and, the beans were used in the scene where Tommy’s mother eats, and roll around – in beans! This is a “Pop Art” rock album. The article about this album – ties everything together for me! Like a fishing net, it protects all aspects of Art and Culture, I have been gathering together in my blogs, especially Royal Rosamond Press “A newspaper for the arts”
Mel Lyman titled himself an American Avatar, and married my kin Jessie Benton, who was an artist like her father, Thomas Hart Benton. I listened to the acceptance speech of Donald Trump who is a Pop Art Grifter and Political Avatar for the End Time Christians. The rock opera Tommy is very apocalyptical. The Who are critical of Western Culture that I AM and expert in. The Who – are in my wheelhouse.
John El
Candidate for American Avatar
The Who, by contrast, accentuated the Pop Art elements of the music by commissioning art director David King and designer Roger Law (both of whom worked for the Sunday Times) to create what has since become an iconic sleeve.
Using giant props made by Law’s wife, Deirdre Amsden, the pair worked up four visual skits based on specific songs from the album. Photographer David Montgomery did the shoot at his studio in Chelsea. For their individual photos on the sleeve, Townshend pampered himself with roll-on Odorono; Keith Moon said goodbye to acne with a tube of Medac; John Entwistle,
Art Dynasty vs. Art Nonsence
Posted on October 15, 2018 by Royal Rosamond Press
Here
Campbell’s Soup Cans[1] (sometimes referred to as 32 Campbell’s Soup Cans)[2] is a work of art produced between November 1961 and June 1962[3][4] by the American artist Andy Warhol. It consists of thirty-two canvases, each measuring 20 inches (51 cm) in height × 16 inches (41 cm) in width and each consisting of a painting of a Campbell’s Soup can—one of each of the canned soup varieties the company offered at the time.[1] The works were Warhol’s hand-painted depictions of printed imagery deriving from commercial products and popular culture and belong to the pop art movement.
Warhol produced a wide variety of art works depicting Campbell’s Soup cans during three distinct phases of his career, and he produced other works using a variety of images from the world of commerce and mass media. After considering litigation, the Campbell Soup Company embraced Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup cans theme. Today, the Campbell’s Soup cans theme is generally used in reference to the original set of 32 canvases, but it also refers to other Warhol productions: approximately 20 similar Campbell’s Soup painting variations also made in the early 1960s; 20 3 feet (91 cm) in height × 2 feet (61 cm) in width, multi-colored canvases from 1965; related Campbell’s Soup drawings, sketches, and stencils over the years; two different 250-count 10-element sets of screen prints produced in 1968 and 1969; and other inverted/reversed Campbell’s Soup can painting variations in the 1970s. Because of the eventual popularity of the entire series of similarly themed works, Warhol’s reputation grew to the point where he was not only the most-renowned American pop-art artist,[8] but also the highest-priced living American artist.[9]
“I think the idea of doing commercials was already knocking about in my head,” Townshend recalls. “I’d already written two songs for [co-manager] Kit Lambert for the American Cancer Society – Little Billy and Kids! Do You Want Kids? – and I had Odorono, about a girl who loses a record contract. It wasn’t meant to be a commercial, it was just a song about body odour.
“That’s the kind of thing I was writing at the time, totally off-the-wall. And it just came up when we brainstormed. Subsequently, Kit Lambert pulled it together and made one half of the album into an emulation of a pirate radio station. For me, that just saved it.”
The album, soon to be titled The Who Sell Out, also happened to be very timely. In August 1967, the British government had passed the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act, which outlawed pirate radio in the UK. The offshore stations had been a lifeline for pop music fans over the previous few years, as well as providing crucial airtime for bands and artists including The Who. In what could be seen as a cynical move, the BBC now attempted to woo the same audience with the launch of their own pop station, Radio 1.
Bold and brilliant, The Who Sell Out was both a valedictory salute to a lost art form and a satirical take on 60s consumerism.
“It was really done as a tribute to those ships that used to beam that wonderful music,” says frontman Roger Daltrey. “We’d been raised on pirate radio for the last five years. For the first time ever we’d had DJs, these kinds of renegade people, who were just so happy to be playing the music they loved. It was really special.
Mel, Manson, Jones, and Trump
Posted on June 15, 2022 by Royal Rosamond Press
Charlie Manson and Donald Trump
Posted on June 28, 2021 by Royal Rosamond Press
Both Trump and Manson wanted to start a Race War. This is no exaggeration. Trump needs to be LOCKED UP! HE IS A LUNATIC – who instigated several religious cults. Consider David Koresh, who was a David, also.
America has always wanted to be A CULT and not A DEMOCRACY. Time to accept THE TRUTH. Donald Trump could not wait to get elected so he could START the Trump Cult.
I am kin to Mel and Jessie Lyman. Jessie Benton is the daughter of the artist, Thomas Hart Benton, the grandson of Senator Benton, whose daughter, Jessie Benton, married John Fremont, the first Republican Candidate for President of the United States.
Trump’s twelve-page open GASLIGHTING letter to HIS CULT FOLLOWERS, that rewrites real American History – for the benefit of the Cult Leader – makes it official. Mitch McConnell is obligated to condemn this un-legal defense, and side with Senator Liz Cheney, or – it’s official. The Republican Party – is now in a CULT STATE!
The Anti-Abortion Cult was invented by Paul Weyrich for the sake of Bob Jones. With the involvement of Ginni Thomas in The Refusal, and with the ruling by her husband making abortion illegal, the integrity of the Supreme Court – IS DEAD! The Thomas’ had to know that Ginni’s Love of Trump jeopardized the Court.
John Presco
Trump Refused To Pay Warhol For Paintings of Trump Tower
Posted on October 3, 2023 by Royal Rosamond Press
Today, Donald Trump appeared before a Judge who found him guilty of massive fraud – without a trial. I’m going to launch a massive investigation into what happened to Warhol’s paintings of Trump Tower – that Trump may have commissioned but, refused to pay for/ Did Trump, and Cohen, reason that Andy would just give Trump the paintings, because – who else would want them?
Poll: Half of Americans now predict U.S. may ‘cease to be a democracy’ someday (msn.com)
Anew Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows that most Democrats (55%) and Republicans (53%) now believe it is “likely” that America will “cease to be a democracy in the future” — a stunning expression of bipartisan despair about the direction of the country.
“According to a recent Washington Post report, Ginni Thomas’ involvement in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election is even worse than previously known. It turns out that Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sent two sets of emails to a combined 29 Republican state lawmakers in Arizona — 27 more than previously believed, and more than half of the GOP members of the state Legislature at the time — urging them to overturn President Joe Biden’s win in their state. In one email, she demanded that they “stand strong in the face of political and media pressure.
In other words, Ginni Thomas was more systematic in lobbying for efforts to overturn the election that we knew. This latest bit of news is disturbing, but the silver lining is that it will likely intensify calls for overhauling the high court, and help strip more people of the illusion that the Supreme Court is an apolitical branch of government and a neutral arbiter of the law.
These revelations have exposed how vulnerable the Supreme Court is to corruption.
The emails aren’t the only piece of Thomas’ known Jan. 6-related activism. After the 2020 election, she sent then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows dozens of text messages encouraging the Trump administration to take steps to ignore the election results, maintain faith in its bogus legal claims, and keep Trump in power.
Legally, the spouse of a justice is allowed to engage in political activism. But legal experts say Clarence Thomas should not be weighing in on Jan. 6-related cases before the Supreme Court because his spouse’s Jan. 6-related activities pose a conflict of interest for him: He has an interest in making decisions that shield her (and potentially himself) from scrutiny and possible legal exposure.
And it appears that Clarence Thomas has already done just that. Even in a highly partisan court where justices often break down along party lines, he was the only justice to dissent and side with Trump when the Supreme Court ruled that Trump’s White House was required to hand documents over to the House Jan. 6 committee. And it turned out that the very collection of documents that Thomas had voted to block from public exposure contained the texts messages between his wife and Meadows.
Two-time Trump voter was under no illusions about the man’s integrity (msn.com)
The Ginni Thomas Jan. 6 scandal keeps getting worse. But there’s a silver lining. (msn.com)
A man who went on a tour of the Capitol with Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) on January 5th, 2021 was caught on camera outside the Capitol the next day threatening lawmakers.
Punchbowl News reports that the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol riots “has video of this person taking part in the Loudermilk tour on Jan. 5, as well as documentary footage of the same man outside the Capitol on Jan. 6.”
Scientific Church of Last Judgement
Posted on March 18, 2012 by Royal Rosamond Press
In 1970 I awoke on the top floor of a brownstone building in Roxbury, to behold a beautiful young woman standing at the foot of my bed wearing a long blue robe with a hood. She had lovely blonde hair and baby blue eyes. She was right out of a Tolkien Trilogy. She smiled at me, then came and sat on the edge of the bed and asked my name. We exchanged words, and she asked if she could crawl in bed with me. When I later saw a photo of Robert DeGrimston, I understood my Jesus-look was reaping a dividend. This is before Dan Brown, and the idea that Jesus was a sexual being.
Darcy and Janette had been up all night doing LSD, and had come to my commune to crash. Janette wore a black cape with hood. This was the first time I met her. A year later I met Dottie Witherspoon through Janette, whom I saved from the Mafia in a meeting held in a bar down the street. Both young women were members of the Process Church of the Last Judgement that was founded by a couple whom L. Ron Hubbard titled “suppressive persons”
“English couple Mary Anne and Robert DeGrimston (originally Robert Moor and Mary Anne MacLean).[1] Originally headquartered in London it had developed as a splinter client cult group from Scientology,[1] so that they were declared “suppressive persons” by L. Ron Hubbard in December 1965″
In the year 2000, I believe I was titled a “suppressive person” after my meeting with a woman who was at the top of the Scientology Church that had just bought this winery and was turning it into offices to program people. Her husband was off to Africa to end slavery, and she did not like to hear my accusation that her ilk had taken my sixteen year old daughter hostage, and was treating her and her mother – like slaves!
Patrice Hanson disappeared my daughter after that, in hope of getting Heather in the the terrible biography about my late sister, who is the family tree of Jessie Benton, who claims her clan came from outer space – which is what Hubbard believes. I believe the Lyman’s borrowed from the Process and the Scientoglists, as did Charlie Manson, who my ex-brother-in-law, Larry Sidel knew. My friend, Bryan McLean, was invited to the Hollywood residence the night the Manson family butchered Sharon Tate, but, luckily – got detained!
Mel Lyman’s Culture War
Posted on March 17, 2012 by Royal Rosamond Press
Mel Lyam married Jessie Benton, the daughter of the artist, Thomas Hart Benton, the cousin of Garth Benton, the father of Drew Benton, the daughter of my late sister, Christine Rosamond Benton.
The Gooch genealogy ends thus;
Children of THOMAS BENTON and RITA PIACENZA are:
i. THOMAS PIACENZA7 BENTON, b. Private.
ii. JESSE P. BENTON, b. Private.
I met Jessie once at the Fort Hill commune. I lived down the street two blocks in a commune I and four friends founded in 1970. We exchanged food and ideas.
With the rekindling of the Culture Wars by the Pope over sonic imaging and birth control, I must assume the War on Hippie Bohemians has been rasied from the Dead – Heads. When you add together my history with alternative societies and thinking, you can conclude I am the Big Boss Bohemian Man – the Last Hippie Man Standing!
Come and get me – Ratzinger! You dirty rat!
Jon the Nazarite
Melvin James Lyman (March 24, 1938, Eureka, California – April 1978, exact date and location unknown) was an American musician, film maker, writer and founder of the Fort Hill Community.
[edit] Musician“ Mel Lyman played harmonica like no one under the sun / Mel Lyman didn’t just play harmonica, he was one. – Landis MacKellar[1] ”
Lyman grew up in California and Oregon. As a young man, he spent a number of years traveling the country and learning harmonica and banjo from such legendary musicians as Woody Guthrie, Brother Percy Randolph, and Obray Ramsey.[2] In 1963 he joined Jim Kweskin’s Boston-based jug band as a banjo and harmonica player
Lyman, once called “the Grand Old Man of the ‘blues’ harmonica in his mid-twenties”,[3] is remembered in folk music circles for playing a 20 minute improvisation on the traditional hymn “Rock of Ages” at the end of the 1965 Newport Folk Festival to the riled crowd streaming out after Bob Dylan’s famous appearance with an electric band. Some felt that Lyman, primarily an acoustic musician, was delivering a wordless counterargument to Dylan’s new-found rock direction. Irwin Silber, editor of Sing Out Magazine, wrote that Lyman’s “mournful and lonesome harmonica” provided “the most optimistic note of the evening” [4]
[edit] FilmmakerIn the early Sixties, Lyman had been drawn to New York. The music and fellow musicians that he found there led in turn to a larger circle of writers, artists and filmmakers. He became friends with underground film-maker Jonas Mekas, which led to the studios of Andy Warhol, and Bruce Conner all of whom he counted as both teachers and inspirations for his later film work. Several of Lyman’s films have recently been digitally restored to be included in the permanent collection of the Anthology Film Archives,
[edit] WriterIn 1966, supported and funded by Jonas Mekas, Lyman published his first book, Autobiography of a World Savior, which set out to reformulate spiritual truths and occult history in a new way. In 1971, Lyman published Mirror at the End of the Road, derived from letters he wrote during his formative years, starting in 1958 from his initial attempts to learn and become a musician, through the early Sixties as his life widened and deepened musically and personally. The last entries are from 1966 which simply express the profound joys and deepest losses which defined and gave his life direction and meaning in the years ahead. The key to the book and the life he lived afterwards are stated simply in the dedication at the beginning “To Judy, who made me live with a broken heart” .[5]
[edit] The Lyman Family, The Fort Hill Community and the AvatarIt was his relationship with Judy which brought him to Boston in 1963. Again, Lyman became acquainted with many artists and musicians in the vibrant Boston scene including, among others, Timothy Leary’s group of LSD enthusiasts, IFIF. Lyman was involved for a very short time and, against his wishes, so was Judy. Knowing LSD’s power, he felt she was not ready but, “the bastards at IFIF gave her acid… I told her not to take it. I knew her head couldn’t take it.” Lyman’s fears turned out to be justified and she left college and returned to her parents in Kansas.[6] Lyman was by all accounts very charismatic and later, after Judy had left, a community or family naturally tended to grow up around him. At some point thereafter Lyman began to realize himself as destined for a role as a spiritual force and leader.
In 1966, Lyman founded and headed The Lyman Family, also known as The Fort Hill Community, centered in a few houses in the Fort Hill section of Roxbury, then a poor neighborhood of Boston. The Fort Hill Community, to observers in the mid-to-late Sixties, combined some of the outward forms of an urban hippie commune with a neo-transcendentalist[7] socio-spiritual structure centered on Lyman, the friends he had attracted and the large body of his music and writings.
Although Lyman and the Family shared some attributes with the hippies– prior experimenting with LSD and marijuana and Lyman’s cosmic millennialism–they were not actually hippies either in appearance (female members dressed conservatively and male members wore their hair relatively short by the standards of the era) or beliefs (while Lyman and other Family members had fathered children by different women, polyamory was eschewed in favor of serial monogamy).
By the Spring of 1967 the Fort Hill Community had become an established presence in Boston and it, along with members of the wider community in greater Boston and Cambridge, came together to create and publish the Avatar. It contained local news, political and cultural essays, commentary and more personal contributions, writing and photography, from various members of the Fort Hill Community including Lyman. The paper and magazine set new standards in content and design later adopted by more mainstream publications. Throughout the first year of its existence it created what became a national audience and many more people visited Fort Hill at that time, some eventually staying and becoming part of the community.
Rather than the gentle and collectivist hippie ethic in other publications of the time, Lyman’s writing in Avatar espoused a philosophy that contained, to some readers of the time ‘, strong currents of megalomania and nihilism and to others a powerful alternative voice to the prevailing ethos.[8]
“ I am going to reduce everything that stands to rubble / and then I am going to burn the rubble / and then I am going to scatter the ashes / and then maybe SOMEONE will be able to see SOMETHING as it really is / WATCHOUT ”
—Mel Lyman, Declaration of Creation [9]
After working very intensely on each issue, in the Spring of 1968 the Family gained complete editorial control (some say adversarially) of Avatar for the final issue of the paper. Later they founded their own magazine, American Avatar which continued the editorial directions of the newspaper. Lyman’s writings in these publications brought increased visibility and public reaction both pro and con. His writings, along with others in the publications, could be poetic, philosophical, humorous and confrontational, sometimes simultaneously, as Lyman at various times claimed to be: the living embodiment of Truth, the greatest man in the world, Jesus Christ, and an alien entity sent to Earth in human form by extraterrestrials. Such pronouncements were typically delivered with extreme fervor and liberal use of ALL CAPS.
“ Love isn’t something you find, something you do, something you study. Love is something you BECOME after there is no more YOU. – Mel Lyman[10] ”
[edit] Later developments, and Lyman’s deathIn 1971, Rolling Stone magazine published a cover exposé, an extensive philippic on the Family by associate editor David Felton. The Rolling Stone report described an authoritarian and dysfunctional environment, including an elite “Karma Squad” of ultra-loyalists to enforce Lyman’s discipline, the Family’s predilection for astrology, and isolation rooms for disobedient Family members. Family members disputed these reports.
“ The only difference between us and the Manson Family is that we don’t go around preaching peace and love and we haven’t killed anyone, yet. – Jim Kweskin (perhaps in jest)[11] ”
The Rolling Stone article and the earlier trial of Charles Manson, who seemed to share some traits in common with Lyman, raised the Family’s profile and – whether fairly or not – established Lyman in the sensationalist part of the public mind as a bizarre and possibly dangerous person.
But although Lyman deeply understood Charles Manson and even corresponded with him once, and was sometimes revered as a Messiah-like figure by the Family, it would be inaccurate to overstate the similarities between the Manson Family and the Lyman Family. The Lyman Family was larger and more stable and productive than Manson’s. Unlike Manson’s group, Lyman’s included many persons of accomplishment and note, such as Kweskin, therapist and actress Daria Halprin,[12] actor Mark Frechette, and pioneering rock critic Paul Williams. And although the Family was often accused of strong-arm tactics in dealing with neighbors and alternative-community groups, they certainly never killed anyone or even manifested serious homicidal intent.
However, in 1973, members of the Family, including Frechette, staged a bank robbery. One member of the Family was killed by police, and Frechette, sentenced to prison, died in a weightlifting accident in jail in 1975.[13]
Frechette said the place was not a commune: “It’s a ‘community,’ but the purpose of the community is not communal living. … The community is for one purpose, and that’s to serve Mel Lyman, who is the leader and the founder of that community.”[14]
Thus it has been said that, unlike the Manson Family, Lyman’s did not explode in a dramatic denouement. Rather, the Family took a lower profile and carried on, quietly building on the relationships formed in the turbulent early years. Lyman died in 1978, age 40, under unknown (but presumably natural) circumstances.
After Lyman’s death, the Family evolved into a more conventional extended family- small, low-profile, and prosperous. The skills and work ethic honed in refurbishing the structures of the Family compound led to the founding of the profitable Fort Hill Construction Company. The Family acquired property in Kansas and other places. Many Family members went on to successful careers. Although some former Family members have rejected him and perhaps that part of their own past, all current members still revere Lyman, as do many former members.
Jonas Mekas (Lithuanian pronunciation: [ˈjonɐs ˈmækɐs]; born December 24,[1] 1922) is a Lithuanian-born American filmmaker, writer, and curator who has often been called “the godfather of American avant-garde cinema.” His work has been exhibited in museums and festivals across Europe and America.
Jonas Mekas (Lithuanian pronunciation: [ˈjonɐs ˈmækɐs]; born December 24,[1] 1922) is a Lithuanian-born American filmmaker, writer, and curator who has often been called “the godfather of American avant-garde cinema.” His work has been exhibited in museums and festivals across Europe and America.
In 1954, he became editor of Film Culture, and in 1958, began writing his “Movie Journal” column for The Village Voice. In 1962, he co-founded Film-Makers’ Cooperative (FMC) and the Filmmaker’s Cinematheque in 1964, which eventually grew into Anthology Film Archives, one of the world’s largest and most important repositories of avant-garde films. The films and the voluminous collection of photographs and paper documents (mostly from or about avant garde film makers of the 1950-1980 period) were moved from time to time based on Mekas’ ability to raise grant money to pay to house the massive collection. At times, Mekas personally paid its housing rent and, at low points in external funding, he had to restrict access to the collection. Easily, he can be credited with single-handedly saving large portions of the avant garde films and associated materials.
He was part of the New American Cinema, with, in particular, fellow film-maker Lionel Rogosin. He was heavily involved with artists such as Andy Warhol, Nico, Allen Ginsberg, Yoko Ono, John Lennon, Salvador Dalí, and fellow Lithuanian George Maciunas.
In 1964, Mekas was arrested on obscenity charges for showing Flaming Creatures (1963) and Jean Genet’s Un Chant d’Amour (1950). He launched a campaign against the censorship board, and for the next few years continued to exhibit films at the Film-makers’ Cinemathèque, the Jewish Museum, and the Gallery of Modern Art.
From 1964-1967, he organized the New American Cinema Expositions, which toured Europe and South America and in 1966 joined 80 Wooster Fluxhouse Coop.
In 1970, Anthology Film Archives opened on 425 Lafayette Street as a film museum, screening space, and a library, with Mekas as its director. Mekas, along with Stan Brakhage, Ken Kelman, Peter Kubelka, James Broughton, and P. Adams Sitney, begin the ambitious Essential Cinema project at Anthology Film Archives to establish a canon of important cinematic works.
http://www.trussel.com/f_mel.htm
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Ground Hog Day At Zabriskie Point
Posted on February 4, 2020 by Royal Rosamond Press
There is a old photo of the Borox building that was in downtown Eugene. I believe it was part of the Buck Monopoly. My mind is still blown after discovering Henry Brevoort is in John Astor’s family tree – that meets in Oregon. Then, Sir Walter Scott employs my Lee kindred in his Woodstock. I feel like Rip Van Winkle. We could have seen a remake of West Side Story at the Super Bowl, that brings the Jets and the Sharks together – with love – to usher in the Peace and Love of the Woodstock Generation, but, we didn’t.
“The location was named after Christian Brevoort Zabriskie, vice-president and general manager of the Pacific Coast Borax Company in the early 20th century. The company’s twenty-mule teams were used to transport borax from its mining operations in Death Valley.”
I have been preaching the Bohemian Philosophy in this blog – till I am blue in the face! Now we got Fremont wanting to go to war with Mexico. It’s the same ol merry-ground. We haven’t gotten anywhere. It’s back to Zabriskie Point, one of the worst hippie-radical-like flicks ever made.
I want to premiere my Bohemian Musical at the Buck Institute. I want Halprin to do the choreography. We got to stop dicking around and get back to the traditions that Henry and Washington Irving lay down for us – forever! When you are a Jet….you are a Jet all the way!
Has anyone compared Washington Irving to Bret Harte, who spent time with my Fremont kindred out at Black Point. Yes, some have. But don’t tell Meg Whitman and her staff writers for Quibi, this, because they have already run out of ideas – if they ever had one.
Fitser called me yesterday. They want to help me do a webpage for the California Barrel Company. I think I’m going to promote myself. I want to make money – now – because morons don’t want free ideas. They want to pay other morons millions for a good idea, and, they don’t have even one. The spectacle on the fifty yard line – was the last straw for me!
I had a wonderful conversation with my niece, Shannon Rosamond, yesterday. We are the only family members – speaking to one another! We had an Art Talk.
John Presco
President: Royal Rosamond Press
In 1868, after publishing a series of Spanish legends akin to Washington Irving’s Alhambra, he was named editor of the Overland Monthly. For it he wrote “The Luck of Roaring Camp” and “The Outcasts of Poker Flat.” Following The Luck of Roaring Camp, and Other Sketches (1870), he found himself world famous. His fame only grew with the poem “Plain Language from Truthful James” (1870), better known as “The Heathen Chinee,” although it attracted national attention in a manner unintended by Harte, who claimed that its satirical story—about two men, Bill Nye and Ah Sin, trying to cheat each other at cards—showed a form of racial equality. Instead, the poem was taken up by opponents of Chinese immigration.
Belmont Historical Society Minutes
Posted on July 19, 2024 by Royal Rosamond Press
Here are the minutes of the BHS. Posted July 19,2024 at 6:16 A.M.
http://belmonthistoricalsociety.com/sites/default/files/BHS_6-9-90.pdf
Capturing Beauty
by
John Presco
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
At no time in my five day discussion with the BHS on Facebook, did they tell me where Carl Janke and his wife were buried so I might visit their graves, something a billion Earthlings have done over the centuries, thus they defeated the purpose of cemeteries. Here is a real record of human beings getting permission to desecrate graves, and dishonor…..THE DEAD! They never dreamed they would be caught. They never had a vision of JUSTICE……arriving, one day! I can not resist employing the image above to DEMONSTRATE the real drama these people created.
I am kin to Puritan Leader, John Wilson. Cuddle by the fire, and listen to ancient tales – of the dead! You do understand the process of burial, with names on tombstones, is for the benefit of the Loved Ones? Being deprived of this, in a conspiracy – is really being played down by the Belmont City Council and the Mayor of Belmont who I made aware of this travesty on numerous occasions. The City Leaders are supposed to keep records. To not do this – is illegal! Will they use my dark reaction as a defense? How many gravestones were moved. There is just one – with three people in it. Where is the missing stone? Is Denny Lawhern talking about an old pioneer graveyard – that was IN THE WAY of a freeway? The cemetery still exists – under a thousand tons of concrete? And, the only thing the BHS can do is ask for a JANKE plaques be placed on “the fabulous Bay tree”? Is this, the title of the book and movie that – Satan made? Will God’s Justice – prevail? I want to read more discussion! How about you?
“She suggested that a plaque be placed on the fabulous Bay tree in Twin Pines Park. This is to be discussed.“
‘Denny Lawhern discussed documentation of grave site location and proof that the grave stones were removed to prevent vandalism during routing of new freeway 280. The cemetery still exists & bodies are still there . “
John Presco
President: Royal Rosamond Press
http://belmonthistoricalsociety.com/sites/default/files/BHS_6-9-90.pdf
page 1 of 3.pages.
BELMONT HIS~ORICAL SOCIETY
MINUTES
SATURDAY JUNE 9,1990
The meeting was called to order at 9:30 am by President Tom Seivert.
PRESENT:Rose Ozwirk, Ellie Woodard, Doris Vannier, Eve Sterry, Tom
Seivert,Barbara Johnson, Denn y Lawhern, Bert Johnson, Russ Estep,
Hally Rogers, Trish le Edwards,Hartley Laughead.
OLD BUSINESS:
- SECRETARY ‘S REPORT. Read and ap p roved.
2.TREASURER’S REPORT. Read and approved. Barbara Johnson presented
Financi a l Statement. Balance on hand May 31, 1990 … $1,977.02.
Russ Estep a sked if Ruth Parri s h’s du es are paid and they are up
to da t e. Tom Seivert is unab le t o get ahold of Fran Fa rme r conce rni ng an
upda t e of membership. Ellie Woodard has membe rship information
from Anna Scott f or Fran Farmer . Eve Sterry had discussion of Robert ‘s Rules of Order and distributed copy of Con s titution and by laws of Belmont Historical Societ y
Back t o the Agenda ..
1 . Report on Art and Wine Festival. Trish le Edwards reported the
people were delighted with the Room, so ld 4 pams, Donations of$20.35,
3 new members,42 Heritage Books. Total was $315. 35. Many wanted
these as gifts for children & housewarming gifts fo r neighbors .
Hartley to get more Pointers to The Past pams from AAUW. Denny
est imated over 1,000 people visit ed t h e room & 300 signed the
Guest Book. - No progress report on Belmont, As We Remember It. Anna Sco tt did
not attend the meeting. We have $250 available through a grant . It
must be used by August. Denny sugg e sted Anna Scott may need help.
Ell ie Woodard said first few pages ar e set up and plans are t o put
it on a disc when printed and available for future copies . - Eve Sterry read report on Heritage and Newsletter and h a d copies
available. Discussed infor mation on missprint of Belmont Community
Catalog which had been corrected. Tom Seivert discussed la st Board
Meeting where it was decided our Society was created primarily because we were asked to form a group by Parks and Rec. & Jim Mc Laughli
since a place was needed fo r Histrical Belmont Pictures .
Eve Sterry said she is resigning her post as Editor of the Newsletter,
if it isn’t true to history. Trish leEdwards said the Newsletter
mu s t represent views of group at large. Eve Sterry said,”Please
accept my resignation. 11 Tom Seivert accepted r esignation.
Denny Lawhern discussed documentation of grave site location and
proof that the grave stones were removed~to prevent vandalism during
routing of new freeway 280. The cemetery still exists & bodies are
still there . Records are at San Ma teo County Historical So c iety.
Doris Vannier reported that the History of Be lmo n t was b rought up
long before gravesite subject. In 1972 Doris Vannier & Ju anita Doyle
had wo rked with a group at The Belmon t Congregati on al Church & attempted to get together a Belmont History Group. Finally , Tom Seivert
was able to take over as head and made some thi ng of it. Eve Sterry
asked that it be put in the recor d that the placeme n t of grave stones
was made by ou r Society. She sugge sted that a plaque be placed on
the fabulous Bay ~ree in Twin Pines Park. Th i s is to be di scussed. - Ell ie Woodard reported on photographs from Mrs . D. Bl ank . Carlmon
Camera made negative for reproductions. There ar e now 142 it e ms in in
tory a nd new things ar e coming in. Deed o f gifts hav e been given
to a ll, c opy to donor , info on file and als o in b i nder.
Bert ,Johnson, a s Docent on Wednesday ,talked to Ea rl Miller and
identified people in picture of dog racing track . Russ Estep mentioned picture o f Florence Vannie r on Firetruc k & his ph oto of S . F .
Bay from Belmont hi lls showing Red Rock Hill. Doris Vannier has
picture of sister Flor ence, whe n 6 years old,during dedication of
cabi n in Golden Gate Park for Ca lifornia Pionee r s . Bill Kn owl and is
hol din g her hand. Ellie will have pictur e copied . Tom Seivert mentioned picture of people in grandstand at dog track from Earl Miller .
Doris Vannier sa id there were more people at the dog track than l ived
i n Belmont. There were thousands. Eve St e rr y discussed Hi s torical Bay
Tree in the Pa rk . Doris Vannier told of Carl Janke & wife being buried
there bef ore being moved to Union Cemetery in R.C. Denny suggested
further discussion & permission from City Council . Tom suggested that
this was a good idea and should be put on the agend a fo r new business - No repo rt on membership,since Fran Farmer did not attend. Denny
suggested we mu st contact Fran Fa rmer and get information by next mt g
6 . Tom Seivert r eported on display of California Express Comp any
envelopes & Historical Belmont postals at Belmont Library , which
ac companied talk on Belmont’s First Library . 20-30 p e ople attended
including a professor from S . F. State Col l ege & person involve d
wi th first Library in Belmont. Plans were made to have Gordon Seely
of S .F. State to speak to group. Intermission: Time for coffee & ” Fabu lous Lemon Squares” from
Redwo od City Heri tage Cook book, served by Trish le Edwards and Barba r
John s on.
NEW BUSINESS:
Russ Estep men tioned Mt . Vernon and trail down to River and tombstones. May be d one in a simil ar sty le here . To be discussed next meEing . Ell ie Wooda rd discussed St ationery & had it done with instructions from Park & Rec., u s ing picture of Manor Hous e by Artist ConnieMorgan.
Cost is $1 00. to sell at $3.00 each. Russ Estep moved that we
complete this this pro ject, Ros e Ozwirk 2nd . It was voted to purchase additional supplies . Barbara Johnson, as Tr easurer to pay e xpE ses . Trish to do copy work .. Voted approval.- Tom Seivert discussed Council Mtg. Tue s . June 12,1990 concern ing
Pres e rvation Survey. MvK ent Seavy , histo r y Pr o fessor f rom Monterey
will be working on p roject. There is $6 ,0 00. 0 0 avail able t o do the
Study. Volunteer s will be needed to get information & do cuments
from Co unty Cour thouse .
Doris Vannier discussed work done to trace information on El Camino
Re al Mission Bells done b y Russ Estep & Juanita Doyle . Russ said
t here were three in Belmont ; one at train station and one no rt h &
one s o uth . Discussion about Belmont train s t ation sign. Ruth Barrett Ross
Parrish has the sign and wants to know when someone can pick it up. - Victor ian Da ys i n the Park will be August 25 & 2 6 , Sat. & Sun. 10; :
5:30pm, reported by chai r person, Barba ra J ohnson . Plans were made to
dressup a nd a sign up sheet was passed.
page 3 of 3 pages. Eve Sterry said $66 worth of books were sold last time . Plans to set
up booth on Fri, August 24. Suggestions for photos, artifacts and
‘Hands On’, participatory Activities. - Plans were made for changing of meeting time to 2nd Thurs . eve .
7-8:30 p.m.Sept., Jan.,March and June, starting in Sept . to see how
it works.
Eve Sterry discussed the number of Newsle tters per year,& plans to
get one out by Sept. Doris Vannier suggested a follow-up with phone
calls. Doris Vannier suggested we ask for a duplicate key to Restroom - Denny Lawhern discussed display of tools as new acquisition. Also
picture of early Baseball team present ed by Betty Slay and Sea Scout
di spl ay,” Porthole of the-Past”, with porthole from the Barge-1959-1990
He also showed displa y of col o r e d photos of older building s in Belman
Doris Vannie Ddiscussed residents of ea r ly h omes.
Eve Sterry, as Corresponding Sec re t ary, r ead l e t t er from Belmont
Libr a rian, Linda Chiochios, with a positive comment regarding the
Historical Program & mentioned the natural partnership o f the Librar:
& the Historical Society.
Denny plans to put a mail slot on t he door for delive r y p urposes when
the room is closed . Denny sugge sted a noth er Preservation project witl
the cemetery a t Adel a ide & Chr i s t ia n Dri ve . It has b ee n there since
depression times du r ing the 1920′ s with 200 graves an d wooden markeJ
for poor people.
5 . Summer Concerts and Shakespeare Days were discussed and the suggestion was made to have the room during this peri od of Park Activiti es .
Plans were made to request another sign for directions to museum .
Trish reported on research of activities on Park during summer. Since
the room is a community effort , it should be open at peak hours . Eve
Sterry and Denny moved we accept as a group the plan to keep open
wheneve r the staff is available.
Under OTHER BUSINESS: Barbara Johnson requested permission to buy a
coffee pot for the room.Moved a nd Ell i e Woodard 2nd, al~a pproved .
Barbara Johnson suggested that any bills be turned in to her·.
Tom Seivert mentioned work projects Denny has completed, such a s the
lectern & cupboard. Eve Sterry mentioned the Guest Book, and Hartly·Lat
ead mentioned the chest of drawers & findings from the Tannery .
The meeting was adjourned at 11:50 a .m .
THE NEXT MEETING OF THE BELMONT HISTORICAL SOCIETY WILL BE HELD IN
THE EVENING ON THE SECOND THURSDAY OF SEPTEMBER: 9/13/90 at 7:30 p.m.
Respectfully submitted ,
Hally Rogers, Secreta.l!’.yr.
Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again
Song by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Lyrics
Little Lotte thought of everything and nothing
Her father promised her that he would send her the Angel of Music
Her father promised her
Her father promised her
You were once my one companion
You were all that mattered
You were once a friend and father
Then my world was shattered
Wishing you were somehow here again
Wishing you were somehow near
Sometimes it seemed, if I just dreamed
Somehow you would be here
Wishing I could hear your voice again
Knowing that I never would
Dreaming of you won’t help me to do
All that you dreamed I could
Passing bells and sculpted angels
Cold and monumental
Seem, for you, the wrong companions
You were warm and gentle
Too many years
Fighting back tears
Why can’t the past
Just die?
Wishing you were somehow here again
Knowing we must say goodbye
Try to forgive, teach me to live
Give me the strength to try
No more memories, no more silent tears
No more gazing across the wasted years
Help me say goodbye
The Puritan Spirit Is With England
Posted on August 18, 2021 by Royal Rosamond Press
The Spirit of Cogswell family – are on my side! They have raised – KANE! The people of England and Europe are wondering if they can trust the United States any longer. The Evangelical Insurectionists want to make war on half of America – till kingdom come!
Last night I put forth the idea of the Three Friends having a reunion in Boston, at the Ritz-Carlton. I am going to contact Anthony Hayden-Guest and see if he wants to be there for….
THE RETURN OF THE PROPHET
John ‘The Puritan Prophet’
I Am Solomon Kane
Posted on September 17, 2018 by Royal Rosamond Press
I am ordained to carry on the cosmology of Solomon Kane!
At the first snowfall of winter, I put on my boots, my Bobby cape, my black hat, and took a walk up to Fort Hill that was in the center of the Mel Lyman commune. As I walked across the open square, enjoying the sound of the fresh snow cracking under my boots, I saw a man shadowing me as I made my way to the tower.
Solomon Kane
Snow Down On Fort Hill
Posted on March 19, 2012by Royal Rosamond Press
The man who was stalking me, got to the tower as I did.“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“What are you doing here? I asked.
“I’m guarding this place? he answered.
“Are you packing a gun?
“Yes!” he answered.
We now had an ecorteric conversation on freedom of speech, and the idea of folks carrying guns to protect their point of view. There is no doubt what-so-ever that I was talking to Paul Williams, an armed guard for Mel Lyman and his wife, Jessie Benton, who are found in my family tree, after Christine married Garth Benton.
Paul would later flee for his life from the Lyman Family, he convinced they were a dangerous cult who would kill anyone who threatened them.
Defying the Boston Mafia
Posted on February 12, 2014by Royal Rosamond Press
Rosamond Press 
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