With corporate influence into government you receive faceless unaccountable decision making. Corporatization of healthcare, mortgage lending, and 19^thcentury energy resources take advantage of individuals rather than aid them. The person is buried for profits.

There is nothing more aggravating than having to talk to some third party corporate broker (who only gives you their first name) to determine how much your sickness is going to cost.

There is nothing more disgusting in borrowing money from some abstract corporate bank who then slice and dice your debt and then change the fine print behind your back. There is no one to talk to in the end except an automated phone system.

There is nothing more disturbing than corporations that make billions of dollars who then barely put it back into the environment and whose profits are based on waste. Try rationalizing and breaking down your electric bill.

-XF Pine

In Tesla’s mind it was also capable of transmitting energy without wires. If you are unfamiliar with Tesla you must read this as a premier to get the whole picture. He conceived AC current, radio controlled robotics, cell phones, and a plethora of influential inventions (+700 patents) which set the foundations of the 20th century mad sciences.

Construction on the extensive laboratory and tower began in 1901 to become a part of Tesla’s Global System with J.P. Morgan as a primary backer. Also in 1901 Marconi successfully transmitted a radio signal across the Atlantic by using patents Tesla had invented although Tesla received no credit until after his death.

According to this In 1904 NY Times article, Tesla received the land for free to help develop a wireless radio resort community and had plans of putting similar towers in population areas. He claimed that the magnifying transmitter would be able to emit a wave complex of 10 million horsepower.

By 1903 the tower stood 187 feet high and was visible from New Haven, Connecticut across the sound. There were accounts that year of the tower briefly being turned on and bolts lighting up the night sky from the top of the tower. People noticed electrical sparks from their feet to the ground when they walked nearby. There are tanks in the main building which were reportedly used as massive batteries.

As the ambitious prototype neared completion Morgan backed out of the funding. Historians speculate that this was due to Tesla’s philosophy of giving electricity away for free and there was no way to “put a meter” on what Tesla had planned.

“Homes, farms, offices, factories, villages, libraries, museums, street lights, etc., could all be powered wireless and produce brilliant white light 24 hours a day. Motor energy for any industrial applications, transportation, tractors, trucks, trains, boats, automobiles, air ships or planes could be powered freely-anywhere on the planet from a single Magnifying Transmitter.”

Without Morgan the entire laboratory was in jeopardy. Tesla secretly mortgaged off the property to the owner of the Waldorf-Astoria to cover debts of $20,000 dollars. By 1917 they had the tower blown up for scrap. The site changed hands a few times over the years.

What remains is very perplexing and mysterious. The site was taken over by AGFA in the 1960s and they proceeded to poison the site with photo chemical toxins. It is now posted as restricted Superfund site although it was supposedly cleaned up by 1993. I also discovered it is currently for sale for $1.65 million dollars “as is”. The complex has 14 buildings on 15 acres. The original low brick building with the ornate smokestack which was designed by Stanford White is partially still there. The site of the huge tower is a strange octagon shape which is fabled to have honeycombs of tunnels and dormant spiral staircases beneath. Depressing rusted barbed wire surrounds everything.

As I walked around the lonely perimeter I was struck by the concept that this is where the 20th century branched off in the wrong direction. We’ve built a superstructure on dwindling commodities that we are fatally dependent upon from food distribution to heating our homes. Telsa’s execution may have been premature, but the concept of free energy transmission is profound given our current global circumstances. To think that this lost dream collapsed over a century ago is disturbing. The deeper you look into it the more you realize that Tesla knew things we still cannot comprehend. To go forward you must look back. The greatest scientific achievements are giant leaps of faith.

-XFP

Man has a clipboard and confronts an old woman.

MAN: Well, If you don’t want to sign the petition, it’s up to you.

OLD WOMAN: That’s right.

MAN: It’s a…

OLD WOMAN: You can’t make ME!!!

MAN: Fine.

OLD WOMAN: I’m not going to sign it!!!

MAN: You don’t have…

OLD WOMAN: That’s dirty money…

MAN: Mammm…

OLD WOMAN: Regan wipes his ass with my money!!!

MAN: I’m not trying to…

OLD WOMAN: He took it from me and he’s wiping his ass with it.

MAN: I’m sorry.

OLD WOMAN: He took it… You RAT-MEN took it!!!

MAN: I…

OLD WOMAN: You RAT-MEN. You stay away from  me!!!

MAN: Just…

OLD WOMAN: You RAT-MEN.  You took my money… RAT-MEN with your cocks!!!

MAN: Be…

OLD WOMAN: RAT-MEN … I want my money back. You can’t take it. You’ll see.

Man with clipboard leaves defeated.

OLD WOMAN: You RAT-MEN can’t get away…

- X.F. Pine

I must rip all the bushes and branches from the grotto, with long swoops of a scythe. The bricks from the garden must be removed to make way for the pathway. The trellis is now visible by the entrance. It holds the vines and the brush high above your head as you enter. By the end of the days work, the pathway is cut perfectly to the yard. This will be a place to retreat for he summer. A table and chair are needed.

4-3

The bridge is filled with nameless faces from the past. Persons whose faces you can only remember through a picture. Their names evoke a lost distant place and memory.  Most of us are traveling in one direction. I see JD approaching from the opposite way down the causeway. We barely acknowledge each other in passing. She wears a thick red jacket which is much to heavy for the warming weather. I realize, that upon reaching the center of the bridge I must return to the side which I came from.

4-4

BB and I wait outside the bar for hours. We joke about the performance we are about to see. Inside, I find myself alone at the end of the dark wooden bar. JD is at the far end of the restaurant wearing glasses. RR appears and shows the barmaid a map or drawing he has done. The barmaid is excited by his appearance. He explains the drawing on the bar right in front of me. JD walks over, glances at the piece of artwork, and walks away.

4-9

Deep within the Scum House is where all the low life from the town live. Walking down the long hallway I am trying to get to the hidden door. I need to get to school. I almost stole a bicycle to get there on time. In the hallway I see the police in their riot gear. Their radios are buzzing. There are circular floating lights. The police have just taken some piece of scum out the door. People are stretching and screaming with vengeance. There has been a fight in the small room where I almost trip over an empty beer bottle. The floor is covered in vomit. Everyone is trying to get out the small door. A man walks up to a spigot to fill a bucket with water. The sound it makes sounds exactly like more vomiting. This causes a bum to appear sick right in front of me. His mouth is about to burst with vomit. His expression is extreme. I manage to dodge out of the way and get out the front door. On the great big green front steps is the rich man’s daughter with her scum boyfriend. She looks at all the confusion with wild innocent eyes. She is from a home very much unlike this. She is here because it confronts her rich daddy’s life.  She wears the thinnest silver chain around her neck possible.

4-10

JD and I meet on the street and we both become very coy. I ask for her number. She giggles with delight. I tell her mine on the condition that she doesn’t send any big friends of hers over to beat me up. She laughs more. We are headed in the same direction laughing.

4-11

Sitting at the table, they bring out the new hat design which perfectly resembles a bowling ball cut down the center. It is also bright, furry and friendly. The finger holes rest right above the forehead. The hats look supremely stupid although it is our job to pretend otherwise. We soon discover the practical problem that the wearer cannot hear anything at all while the product is being worn.

4-13

The convention is taking place across a sunny field from the house of science where our team is staying. Within the large space of the hall are exhibitions featuring gas weapons and torture devices in different colored booths. The fascists are involved in this to some degree. Their streamline human statues of the state stand at either end of the hall. The bronze statues hold spears. Suddenly a revolutionary pulls a machine gun from a black bag he has over his shoulder and begins to destroy one particular display related to historic gas masks. The display is riddled to pieces by bullets. It is then that the seemingly solid statues become mechanized and launch their spears towards the dangerous revolutionary. The spears meet their target perfectly and impale him in an ‘X’ fashion. He is dead within moments and everything has grown silent. All of us on the team realize that we are under complete automatic surveillance all the time. The fascists control everything we do. Later as we are headed back across the field to our quarters we see a tremendous Calvary offensive far in the distance. We think it’s a movie it is so perfect. Before reaching the house of science we meet a little black child who wants to play some more football in the field. He pretends his arm is withered and glowing green, and then it turns out he isn’t pretending. It is all bone and he brags about how it glows in the dark. These are the curious effects of our science. It is then years later and I am standing outside of myself as I have become a religious preacher in a pulpit. I am watching myself repeat the same words over and over tying to get my new profession correct. I have traded in my life of science for one in God.

4-19

I leave the Irish vixen with the dimples on the train and return to the city and its white sculptures.

I am lying beside PW in a hotel room bed where I  read a book and watch television simultaneously. I look to tell PW she is beautiful. A group of elegantly dressed ladies appear on television dancing. Their dresses are classical and shimmery. An announcer mentions that they are “voguing” as I notice that they all have tails like animals. PW makes a comment to herself about her bra. She says it’s far too tight. She knows this will excite me.

The bicycle has incredible torque in its gears which make the ascent of hills very easy and its speed impressively fast. I am traveling so fast in fact that I am losing consciousness as I travel down a giant hill. There is no air, or I have been mistakenly drugged. As I see the bottom of the hill my vision becomes blocked. I am unsure if I have shut my eyes. I can only see shadows of trees on the inside of my eyelids. The afternoon summer sunlight is orange and warm. I feel my sense of balance wavering as the speed increases until I blackout.

The department store intercom is telling a story as the elderly sex therapist shuffles in a slow circle. The story is about the ways a man shows his love for a woman. It says that when a man walks astray, he can hold his woman’s hand and lead her or he can forget his love and walk away until he returns, thinking of her all the time.

5-23

All my friends and I are in the back of a pick-up truck where we are instructed to take the first part of the test. We do not know how many parts of the test there are. As the truck drives down a street we are supposed to record everything that passes by our view. Every garbage can, every doorway, every light in every window. The town is a sleepy one, and it is in the after-hours. I find considerable anxiety in writing down what I see because I cannot concentrate. My friends find it easy. My jottings are barely coherent to me, let alone the instructor, who was once a terrible science teacher of mine. After just one pass down the street, we are supposed to have a complete description. I look at my piece of paper to find it blank. I know I am going to fail.

5-26

Connecting the two rooms is a hallway where a tremendous brown horse runs back and forth uncontrollably. It is the largest animal I have ever seen and I am trapped in the hallway with it.

5-30

I am considering a sculpture of the Ninth Circle of Dante’s Hell with a jealous husband. We examine the small model of Satan and the underside of the platform in which it is half submerged. We try to figure the logic involved, after Satan consumes someone.

6-3

A group of us are in a house with white walls. KKR directs us to paintings in the back which are representations of cartoons. As we look at the large black and white paintings, we discover that the Mob is killing all the witnesses involved, and that each one of us must go our separate ways, or risk torture and capture.

I begin my life on the run alone and still free. After disembarking on a trail in the woods, I come upon a split level house high in the hills. Within the cellar of the house is an incredible assortment of caves, and hiding places. The cellar was molded out of blue molten rock formations. Unfortunately for me, the owners of the house have cemented up all the openings. Local teen-age kids, full of rebellion and destructive angst, have spray painted the cement with swears. I know the teen-agers are wise and right somehow. I decide to break out and climb out of the cellar window to get outside, but I am unable to fit through the white window frame, I break it off as I go through.

Outside on the patio, there is a vicious light colored watchdog waiting to attack me. It approaches snarling, and before it bites I throw the old window frame into it’s mouth, and it becomes distracted long enough so that I might escape. However, also on the patio, is the owner of the dog, and the sheriff caretaker of the house. He can only yell, “Mr.” in a sly condescending voice, before I am gone from the scene.

Hours pass and I have dozens of other adventures all ending in escape. I finally end up jumping off a cliff to see if I can land in evergreen treetops.

Years later I am standing outside of myself in a bachelor pad where my cohorts and I listen to various jazz albums. The good old jazz albums with the colorful covers, and the scratchy vinyl sounds. We discuss meanings, and interpretations from our past. We look at the covers as we listen to the selections.

More attention should be paid to this man who may soon cease to be. He was gigantically strong once. Now one notices his skull. His recognitions and hearing are perfect inside while outside there is the panic and the heavy smothering air of losing touch. He tries to hold on. It’s so much safer back at home. It’s so much easier to slip away. He has a vision of his wife from fifty years ago. They first met at a swimming pool in Jersey City where he was a lifeguard. He said, “That’s the woman I will marry,” She said, “Who me?” with a marine bathing suit on.

X.F. Pine

In the middle of the fourth heat wave this July I needed to seek answers as I turned my AC up a notch.  I came across this fascinating data on weatherperspectives.com gleaned from NOAA and broken down by states in the U.S. over a hundred years or so.

It seems it’s not my imagination or my aging memory over the last  twenty years in the New York region.  There has been something strange going on.

What’s  fascinating  about this perspective is the spike which appears in the mid-1950s? Could this have been a latent result of WWII and huge industrial production or even firebombing in Europe?  Or could it have been due to the peak in  atomic testing that took place in the atmosphere. Or a combination or everything.  The ramp up starts in what looks like early 1942 so there must be a connection there.

In addition, there are other states listed and it’s interesting to see patterns in comparison. For instance it looks like Arizona is getting much hotter than other places.

But then places like Missippippi are getting cooler over decades.

The overall data of all the states looks like this.  I think the only long term solution as far as comfort goes is to move to Maine or Cape Breton to become a Mi’kmaq Indian. One must change and adapt to survive or die in the process.

X.F. Pine

The famous store had been around since the 1920s and specialized in Oriental Philosophy and the Occult.  It was an interesting period of time because it was at the beginning of the commercialization of the New Age movement, but the place had this older eccentric atmosphere. There were people who worked there who were practicing Rosicrucians and others associated with the Golden Dawn. Crystal hunters would come in to sell their finds. A customer would rage about the Planet X and be escorted to the door.

Now that I tend to collect books, I cannot even imagine what amazing obscurities the manager Chip had behind the counter towards the back. I realize that places like this in New York are more obscure than ever now. Places with old magical knowledge you could talk to people about in person. The Store is just online now.

Once I remember I went out for lunch and wondered down 23^rd street. I came across a card table where an old man sold used books. I immediately noticed the Burroughs’ classics Naked Lunch and Junky on the top. The copies were old worn paperbacks. When I picked up the copy of Junky, another man with serious eyes and who looked like a ghoul took notice of my interest and said, “That’s a good book.”

It took me a while to realize that the man was Herbert Huncke himself, one of the characters in Junky. I was spooked. Had he put the book there as bait? I believe I shook his hand and we had a discussion of where Burroughs was now. We talked about the bunker Burroughs’ had on the Bowery. He looked remarkably good for all he had been through. I believe I bought the copy of Naked Lunch to avoid feeling like I was being hustled. The idea of having Huncke sign the copy of Junky passed through my mind, but then I realized he didn’t write the book. He just lived it. I went back looking for him a couple of times, but never saw him again.

I find it disturbing that CORBIS owns the best pictures of Huncke via Allen Ginsburg. I’d like to think they are all somewhere laughing at the fact that their images are held by the one of the richest men in the world.

I encountered Ginsburg a few times. Once on the north side of Union Square. I recognized him and he smiled. He was just standing there. We were across the street from the old Max’s Kansas City which was now a deli. He looked like an old ghost passing through the city. The other time was at a New Year’s Day reading at the St. Mark’s church. He would be sitting there cross legged like a wise Buddha listening, always listening.

Another day when I was working on the floor at Weiser’s, a strange old man with a scrawny beard came in and started asking about books about pyramids and archeology. He had of stack of these books in his frail hands. He had glasses and a loud almost shrieking voice that got your attention instantly. He said he had a film card which gave him a discount. I am positive now that this man was Harry Smith. I believe he lived at the Chelsea Hotel at the time where he died a few years later.  For those who might not know, Smith was a polymath, ethnomusicologist, filmmaker and mystic. CORBIS has Ginsburg’s photos of him too. What would they all think of our strange world now?

X.F. Pine

Now in comparison with today, TV didn’t make you as numb. TV was like my dysfunctional brother although he was always there when I needed company. I think I had a TV in my room from when I was a toddler.

In surveying some of the creepiest kids’ shows from the 70s and 80s, I’ve noticed the blatant influence of mind altering drugs, which go beyond a Marty Seals and Kroft type of west coast post smoking ouveure such as Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.

Or Far Out Space Nuts. Nuff Said. “I said Lunch not Launch!” I think I saw this intro a thousand times.

Maybe it was when cocaine became an issue. Of course the road to hell is paved with best intentions even if you are on drugs.

Somehow this all makes sense. As drug culture seeped into the kids that grew up in the 70s and 80s they became the first wave of hyper-consumers. Take it from Mr. M when he says that “there’s room for more.”

This is from show called The Letter People which I never saw till now. And I’m glad. This song is sort of catchy though. Watch it a few times.

I keep feeling as though as you are focused on the puppet something very bad is going to come out of the darkness in the background and GET YOU.

Next is some Christian propaganda show with the mysterious name of Circle Square where all the kids look seriously depressed. There is something to be said for FORCED HAPPINESS. I like their logo.

It’s clear that the adults who wrote and directed this are the ones that are depressed. Maybe their parents were depressed. Maybe Jesus was depressed.

On there other hand there was The Magic Garden. Now this show had the Chuckle Patch. Who could forget the Story Box? Sherlock the squirrel and his duck friend seem creepy in retrospect. The comforting hippy ladies make up for it. “Hope you have a shiny day.” The set makes me feel boxed in though. The nice bright colors are trying to distract me enough to stop worrying about the only way in our out.

Another posting from Cringevision on Youtube was this one from Peppermint Park. The way the hands move is just wrong.

The Adventures of Mark Twain. A lot of work went into the claymation which was done by Will Vinton of California Raisin fame. This is also not technically a show. It was actually a movie. This segment called the Mysterious Stranger was taken out by Disney when then showed it on TV though. Wonder why? The kids talk to Satan.

I just find Fun with Grids tedious. There is just something wrong with the rabbit and the lighting. Something also wrong about the way the rabbit is manipulating the human.

The Adventure Game – The Vortex. The birds are hot in a British sort of way. I don’t trust the guy at the controls who seems like an early computer nerd who doesn’t get out much. It looks like he believes it is real. The controls makes me pine for Dr. Who in a big way though.

If you got this far, I’ll just say in conclusion I believe that TV was a factor, but probably not the main one that has caused so much pain in my life. I believe this now because I didn’t see most of these shows that are TRULY DISTURBING until now. I cannot blame TV my dysfunctional brother any longer entirely. TV is almost absolved.

- X.F. Pine