my old friend JD popped back into my life at the park last Saturday, and seemed to have something on his mind. So the girls were staying in town, I asked ole JD over to hear what he wanted to talk about.
We chatted for a bit. Brought each other up-to-speed on our lives. I told him about about a recent development on Friday., the day before, when I went to put in my last time card, and pick up my stuff, and had a very nasty confrontation with Alan, my ex-boss. Hmmm... Alan C. Donelson... http://alandonelson.com/ , in case anybody wants to know what he looks like and where he lives. You have a picture in your head. Kindly features, doncha think? So did I. Anyway, what happened with JD is that after shooting the breeze a bit, he wanted to invite me to another meeting with his "group". I'd written<http://lists.moqtalk.org/htdig.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/2010-January/044340.html>about JD and his group before, and JJ Gold, the prime guru of what I term "justinanity" because the first J stands for Justin and the way they refer to the guy sounds like he MUST be some sort of deity. And that I enjoyed his book, but I had a rather unusual experience in meeting the author himself. It was kinda neat because Khaled commented upon my story then, and my "Value of a Chair<http://lists.moqtalk.org/htdig.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/2010-June/049312.html>" post recently. So that ties 'em together in an another way as well. And I really wanted to respond to Khaled's response, but because of what happened with Alan lately, it got real complicated, this question of, the contextual aspects of values of objects. Take a given chair - Antique? Firewood? Object of meditation? I'll let the jury decide later on. JD invited me again to attend another meeting of his communal group. If you bother to re-read my original story, you'll notice that I ended it with: "He keeps inviting me back. He says I should give it another chance. I always laugh." And so with this most recent invite, I laughed harder than ever. It's not that I don't believe in True Community (goodness knows) It's more like, "won't get fooled again" myself. It's a remedy that the doctor can't take. See, I think true community, or as Royce terms it - the Great Community - is the only possible hope for humanity. I truly believe that. But I also believe that every community effort I've ever been involved with has been an absolute failure, and thus it always will be. I've given up myself. I'm pretty much of the Platt persuasion now: A remote cabin, good fences and dogs, my own garden and chickens, lotsa guns and a misanthropic outward demeanor. In other words, as far as I'm concerned, Humanity is screwed. I think my particular problem with finding community is I'm at the wrong point on the intelligence continuum. I'm too smart to blindly worship the leader, and also too wise to wish the burden of leadership myself. Or too lazy, they're sorta synonomous in my book, wisdom and laziness. But too stupid to keep from compulsively trying to solve the impossible riddle, over and over and over again to detrimental personal effect. What a joke! But really, the latest lesson has completely convinced me, once and for all. I'll never be tempted again. And at the same time I've completely given up on the idea of community, I had one of the best weekends of social involvement with my community of my life. My daughter was the parade queen. Steve and Oxsana came to our house after for the first time in years and years and Steve's even contemplating rejoining MD. Life is strange. For instance, when we got around to what JD wanted to discuss with me last week, he was concerned to reassure me that his guru did not have a thing for my wife. I was floored, at first, since the only interaction Justin Jaye Gold had had with my wife was a sort of stare-down over dropping the sunglasses as described in my story. I guess when you use real names of gurus, acolytes seeking comments upon same, are likely to google. My story was notorious! What frisson of happiness runs through my soul. Simply through the expediency of story-telling, justice is done. I assured JD that I understood Justin wasn't hung up on my wife, or even particularly attracted to her. She was just the one woman in the audience, not staring at him with rapt adoration, and thus the alpha dog has to bring harmony to the group by coercing/seducing the attention of the dissenter. Especially the feminine dissenter. I think that's the way these things (cults) always revert to basic social/sexual patterns. Its hardwired I guess. But the realization that the google settles scores solves problems for me, because my issues with Alan C. Donelson, of alandonelson.com, just scream for some sort of fitting retribution. But going on to his property and dousing all the good work I did for him for free, with diesel, and creating some REAL dynamic art, and smashing the chair he seemingly appreciated so much, back into the separate pieces of wood I found it in... while appealing to a certain aesthetic sense, would probably, as Lu keeps reminding me, end up just multiplying my sorrows. Sigh. I know she's right. Now Justin, I'm sure, is a much better leader than Alan. He's certainly got a much bigger and more devoted following, and he wrote a pretty good book to boot. Thus with a reputation to protect, I understood when JD asked me kindly to refrain from using Justin Jaye Gold's name in any future stories I might feel like posting, and once again, I laughed my ass off. I understand people's need for privacy, and fear of public humiliation, but the truth of my experience is something sacred to me. I've lost good friends over my propensity to tell it like I see it, and I'm not gonna tread lightly just because some cult leader or his followers don't like my version of their reality. I mean, if a man can't share the truth of his experience, what hope is there for any sort of realization in life? After a while, censorship becomes self-imposed and self-perceived, to where you can't even think the truth, since you can't say it. About Alan: Alan C. Donelson, Ph.D, the goose that lays the golden eggs at Soleil Farm is a conspiracy theory wacko who makes his large six figure income as an expert witness confounding the will of the people by getting drunk drivers off the hook and back on the road so they can kill again and again. His seemingly benign and wise face and figure disguise a mind warped by decades of new age philosophy and esoteric priesthood that amounts to thinly disguised worship of Lucifer. He's an arrogant prick, who lords it over his employees to make up for the fact that he can no longer get it up for his younger wife and he hires attractive women so that he can still feel like a man, even though as far as any real useful skills, he's a completely worthless piece of shit. At the same time he believes the world is going to end and he's gonna be sitting pretty on a food-producing farm, he alienates any men from his domain which guarantees that if it really does hit the fan, he'll be a befuddled old man trying to guard a yard full of chicken and a house full of women by himself, while a hungry, local militia roams the area looking for such easy pickings. So in many ways and with many demonstrations, he's an idiot, despite Ph.d. Or maybe its more, because of it. Specialization breeds a particular brand of idiocy. His idiocy is confirmed in his treatment of me and Lu, Friday before last, when he slandered me as a thief for stealing a drill bit and a truckful of water, through a locked screen door with a yapping dog at his feet and his remaining employees behind him. Lecturing me on Karma - a guy who gets drunk drivers off the hook. What shocked me so incredibly, was that up to that point I was hoping we could part amicably. I mean, sure I quit without notice, but I was part of a jobs program that was supposed to be about training me and getting me back into the workforce, off unemployment. And according to the rules, I didn't have to give notice. All I had to do was find a better opportunity. I knew there were better opportunities out there. A handyman who can do plumbing, electrical, framing, fine finish work and furniture restoring, welding and shovel chicken shit too, is an unusual enough commodity to demand some recompense above minimum wage. I'd already turned down one opportunity to make 12 bucks an hour more than I was getting at Soleil. But I'd held on through the beginning of my busy season, taking Alan and Gaetane at their word that they wanted to build a sustainable community and wanted me to be a part of it. But a rancid monday, three weeks ago, changed all that when at a company meeting, Alan put the figures on the board, demonstrating that the chicken business doesn't pay. Oops. Surprise. As it so happens, that was also the monday I loaded up my water tank. A poor man with a non-functioning well, because I spent too much time working for the community. And at the same time, I instinctively didn't ask permission because I knew they were so stingy they charged their free employees, retail for eggs. I'd been harangued once before for leaving a shop light on all night. Multiply 14.5 cents a Kwh times 80 watts times 14 hours and you'll see we're not talking about even a dime. But the upshot of the meeting was that right when the construction season would be winding down, I'd have to move all of my tools out of Soleil shop, and try and get some sort of shelter built on my property with the rains threatening. No thanks. I gave them a week to consider, and offered alternatives that I thought were very fair - just let me use the shop and the small studio apt attached, in exchange for my continued work. But Alan said, "nah, we got burned on that scheme before, the guy never did anything." This really pissed me off, since I'd been doing quality work all along, the question of my ability shouldn't have come up. Obviously I wasn't good enough to be part of his grand community. Obviously the whole thing had been a scam from the start, since they didn't really want anybody living on their property. So I quit. And when I went to drop off my last time card, and get the last of my crap out of there, I got yelled at. The only legitimate reason for Alan's hostility, was that he was losing out on another three months of free labor, and since I was the only guy on the friggin' farm who even knew how to do anything, including back up a trailer, they were well and truly screwed. Thus the harangue over my stealing water. The pumping cost which I calculate at slightly less than 29 cents. Meanwhile, I'd foregone a list of materials and supplies from my own stocks, on Soleil projects, whose bill came to 173.00. But what really, really frosted me, was the context. I was being harangued through a doorway I'd built myself, 20 years earlier. I'd done a great job on the place, for a very cheap price. I'd gotten tons and tons of accolades from the owner at the time, but when he sold the place to Alan, he told him that he'd been the builder. He took so much pride in the work I did for him, he appropriated the reputation for himself. Which obviated the reason I'd done such a good job in the first place. I was young, and idealistic, and devoted to getting a reputation for Quality. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity. And here again, all the work I'd been praised for, was for naught. The man who was the recipient was now my implacable enemy, and if anybody commented upon the good things I'd done, the response from Alan would amount to "Yes, I brought in some help and got this done through my own cleverness." Fantasies of raging fires dance in front of my eyes, just thinking about it. Also, fantasies of taking legal action. How appropriate it would be, getting this arrogant prick in front of a judge and accusing him of discrimination, slander, false promises, etc. Or even better, sue him for 1.5 million but offer to settle for an apology, and a chair. Then I'd know the value of the chair, once and for all. 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