Herpes of the Mind, The Presence of God and no Stopovers in Wine and Cheeseville.

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Dog Poet Transmitting…….

I was talking to my friend today and somehow we got on to the subject of Grammar; probably because I am near the completion of my new book and I made a derogatory comment about ‘dry academics’, followed by this statement… “they are experts at things no one cares a wit about and are only able to talk about them with others of their kind who are also experts at things no one gives a wit about.” I did not use the word ‘wit’ but the word I did use… rhymes with it.

This put me in mind of all the experts who are out there in White Wine and Cheeseville. These are the people who know all the intricacies but none of the implications. I am an expert at nothing, except perhaps, screwing up. Having achieved this exalted position, I was forced to abdicate, due to my phobia about crowds and having lost interest or getting promoted; I forget which. That certainly affirms the loss of interest. No doubt there was some element of both.

While so many are captivated by building a legacy and jockeying for prominence, some of us are working in every way to be made free of such things, recognizing the painful confinements that attend them. To be known by the ineffable, is to me, the greatest accomplishment possible in this or any life. It is usually accompanied by being roundly diminished by the experts to whom the efforts of people like us are judged as nonsense. This is in line with the wisdom of man being as foolishness to God. This put me in the mind of a couple of lines of scripture; “Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” and… “but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong,”

I was speaking with the ineffable a few years ago about my songs; musing on the lack of success I had attained in the production and recording of them. He answered me by asking, “Who did you write those songs for?” I replied, “for you Lord, mostly.” Then he said, “Well… I heard them.” There was a period of a minute or so when I pondered the meaning of this, followed by a warm glow of true satisfaction. When I say, as I have said a few times here that, “I consider myself one of the most fortunate of men.” I most definitely have my reasons for thinking this.

Now it is most likely true that there are some who think it a delusion that I have conversations with the divine and some who don’t believe there is such a creature. It matters not at all to me what anyone might think in this regard. I have the lasting evidence of the truth of the matter and it is reaffirmed, more than once, on every single day. When it first began to occur as a regular event, rather than an occasional experience while I was in an altered state, I wondered about the verity of it. I engaged in several conversations concerning this and… more often than not, I was interrupted while thinking about it, by the divine, who then went on about my doubts before I had even voiced them. Over time, the nature and contents of the exchanges have proven to me, beyond all doubt, just who I was interacting with; not to mention, occasional commentary on events that had not yet occurred and which then took place precisely as I had been told. Then, there was the evidence of cardinal moments, prior to the inception of regular discourse, where powerful truths were demonstrated.

On Maui, I think it was in April (April having often been, ‘the cruelest month’ for me in past times) of 1984; about 15 minutes before I was to meet with an undercover policeman at a car, in the front of the Maui Mall, I was walking from the other side, where our car was parked and while in the middle of the mall, I realized that I had to take a leak. I went to the bathrooms and had to walk through a lime green corridor to get to the men’s room. This is the same color one sees in various institutions everywhere and which I had previously seen in some of the places where I had been confined on other occasions. I was already feeling a nervous quality in the air. As I walked down the corridor, a voice came clearly into my head and I was told, “You are going to see walls with this very color shortly but do not be fearful or distressed, I will get you out of it.” Then I realized that I was going to be arrested. Did I turn and take off at a run to avoid the inevitable? I did not.

I did my business in the men’s room and then walked to the undercover’s car. As soon as I displayed the goods, the undercover said he had to go to the trunk where the money was. He got out and went round the car and very shortly, following the opening of the trunk, I heard the pounding of many feet upon the parking lot macadam. The other officers had been hiding in the True Value hardware store across the way behind us and the opening of the trunk was the signal for storm-trooping over.

I was charged with 3 Class A felonies. Each of them carried a twenty year mandatory sentence. Hawaii had the highest conviction rate in the nation at the time (probably still does). According to the police and everyone else I spoke with in the 18 months leading up to my trial, I didn’t have a prayer. Well, the truth was I most certainly did have ‘a prayer’.

I was locked up for 90 days before my friends on the mainland could bail me out. Bail on Maui is far more difficult to obtain than anywhere else in the country because people sometimes pull a runner, so you have to have some kind of equity-escrow to get out; property, a house etc. Eventually my friend, Howard, put up a portion of his land to secure my release. I was let out on The Fourth of July (grin). Of course, the cops, who continually harassed me through the time to my trial, had me arrested again by getting the bail-bondsman to demand yet more equity, which we got together rather quickly this time. In the time leading up to the trial, the (hanging) judge I was going in front of, retired (allegedly drunk by noon each day. I think his name was Hirito) . The experienced prosecutor was transferred and I wound up having my trial in a nice airy conference room, because my new judge did not yet have a courtroom; one of the ancient, yellow walled courtrooms, drenched in the anguished, astral tears of previous victims. The trial that followed was one of the most amazing and truly funny occasions that I think had EVER taken place in that locale.

On the evening of the day on which the verdict was announced, we were all (my lawyer and I and my supporters) in a nearby bar; I was getting ‘plowed’ in case the judgment went against me. However, I was in an inexplicable celebratory state… no real physical reason for it. No one had EVER been acquitted by reason of entrapment in the history of the state. We had only been in the bar for a little over an hour when we were informed that the jury had returned. That quickly was NOT a good sign. We went into the courtroom and took our seats. Behind us, quite close were 9 of the biggest cops in street clothes that I had ever seen. They were waiting to haul me away.

The judge came in… the jury was asked it they had reached a verdict… yes they had… the bailiff went and got a slip of paper from the foreman. I looked at the jury. They were looking at me, with no indication of anything. The judge directed the bailiff to read the decision. “On the first count… not guilty. On the second count… not guilty.” By now I knew what the third count would be and I was right. The courtroom was shocked! Nothing like this had ever happened before. I turned to my lawyer (a former mob lawyer from Detroit, who thought he could dry out in the islands- not hardly), Bruce Metz and I put my hands on his waist and lifted him straight into the air. He weighed at least a hundred and eighty pounds. He was in good shape (surprisingly) as well. Under no circumstances could I have ever done this with my usual strength. It just happened. I turned and looked at the cops. Their faces were a wonder to behold. Later, my lawyer (quite the Lothario) dated the cute bailiff and she told him that the jury said it had only taken them 15 minutes to acquit but they stayed longer so as not to embarrass the police.

The first vote was 9 for acquittal and 3 for guilty. The three for guilty were all little, elderly ladies. The foreman asked them how they were convinced of my guilt. They said they weren’t convinced but they thought I probably was guilty. The foreman told them that wasn’t good enough. They had to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. One of them laughed and said, “Oh wonderful, we didn’t want him to go to jail anyway!” heh heh.

A couple of months later, my lawyer was riding down in the elevator at the county building, with the District Attorney, Cardoza. He turned to my lawyer and said, “You know Bruce, your client and his girlfriend were two of only three people who never cooperated with my office in my eight years as the prosecutor.” When I heard this, such a thrill went through me. I was never going to cooperate anyway, period because, NO WAY was I going to wake up with a rat jacket for the rest of my days. It was a beautiful thing.

For a good long time afterwards, every case like mine and even some that weren’t, tried to use the same defense. It never worked again. I wish I had the time to tell you about what occurred in the courtroom. There was a constant progression of supernatural events. On several occasions the jury broke out into laughter and we had to wait some time for things to continue. On one occasion it took a good long time because, every time proceedings were about to recommence, someone from the jury would start snickering and then they would all start in laughing again. It was at that point that I somehow knew I was going to be okay. That event was triggered by the title of one on the songs from my first album, “Jews from Outer Space”, which was, “Herpes of the Mind.”

This was only one of a number of other times when similar results occurred; not in a courtroom but some other environment, when disaster, as well as life and death were on the menu. I’ve got far more proof positive than I require in order to know that the conversational back and forth between me and The Luminous One is real. People are welcome to all the power and wealth, position and fame they can acquire. I am completely satisfied with what I have gotten and which includes none of the things just mentioned. It is impossible for me to describe the impact that the Presence of God has had on me. It has been worth all the acrimony, slander, ignominy, pain and suffering, as well as dreadful confinements which it has cost to get here. It is worth whatever it might have cost… whatever.

This is all just by the way of also saying, the company of the ineffable is available to ANYONE who wants it ‘more than anything else‘ and who will go the distance and it is far, so far beyond priceless that the true value of it can never be measured and it grants a level of enjoyment to every single thing and event, no matter how simple or pedestrian …and that can be had NO OTHER WAY.

End Transmission…….