A New Look Around vers2 – Hope or the Same Shit in the Future? – 8-30-13

What the fuck is going on in my life these days? It is safe to say that I see the world as a gurgling fucking cesspool overflowing with puke, bile, piss, blood and, yes, of course, Scheisse. It is safe to say that my general attitude is festering with anger directed outwardly but against nobody. All is deception. All is emptiness. There are no promises to hold onto or hopes to work for.

The millions of others are busy following their favorite fantasies and self-delusions, one solitary person trying assiduously to convince himself or herself  that the moronic behavior displayed on the carnival grounds today, somehow, will be different tomorrow, for then, they hope and truely believe that the fetid piles of elephant manure, the shrieking monkey squeals and drunken and the two-headed lady with a horse-like smile will have found other and more satisfying employment. Today like many yesterdays, there are empty promises, broken hopes, unfulfilled dreams and fickle, unrequited love, but tomorrow all will be beautiful, and peace will reign again (did it ever reign?) in Happy Valley.

Christians and Muslims also, I believe, are fed the soothing reward of eternal bliss in this Happy Valley, of sorts. What a crock of shit! Millions of folks have been sold this bill of goods, which the Sears and Roebuck, S&R, catalogue imitated for our benefit with brilliant colors and fancy stuff, many years ago. Work hard, and your S&R dealer will fill the empty shells that you have become with material rewards in bright Technicolor.

Why are we so hesitant to admit to ourselves that most people on Earth are daily groveling to make ends meet, simply to stay alive on the dung heap of our socio-political and economic environment?

As a young man in my mid-teens, I often remarked to myself that life seems to be a series of disappointments dotted with an occasional, crushing disaster, a few pleasant moments. Maybe, I was a bit cynical as a kid. At that point, my best friend, Jacqueline, had been murdered by her suicidal mother (involuntary homicide, the judge claimed), My grand father, Paul Ouellette had passed away from a heart attack and my dad had licked the bucket (such a graphic and no nonsense expression) leaving my mother at her age of 42 with four poorly clothed children ranging in age from two to thirteen. This little known fact made the Bolduc clan eligible for the largesse of the Massachusetts Aid for Dependent Children program. Although I do not personally subscribe to an All Knowing, Infinitely Loving, Resourceful, Infinitely Powerful, Caring and Good God, I can say, without embarrassment, “Thank God for Roosevelt’s Administration in providing help to indigent and lost families”.

For me, attractive and sensitive young girls, and later women, provided an essential source of acceptance, affection, safety, companionship, emotional connection, value and worth. How does one become an acceptable member of the neighborhood, my personal small world of daily existence, when poverty seeps through each and every pore of your stinking existence?  A revolting case of halitosis can nicely be handled with a strong swish of mouthwash. This gargling practice permits the user – I am assuming it is a male – to deceive his entourage into believing good things about XXX

But, where is the equivalent magic product to be found on a pharmacist’s shelf to hide, and possibly cure, a revolting case of family poverty? Unlike an offensive breathe whose source resides on the inner surface of the throat and mouth, the penetrating stench of poverty resides deep in the cortical regions penetrating each and every brain compartment like a rotting leprosy of uncertainty, fear and unworthiness. Like odorous clumps of fresh horse shit on the cobble stone pathways of our lives, a person’s poverty is displayed in clothing, manners, speech patterns, haircuts, aspirations, beliefs and stated opinions. A poor boy knows his unworthy place in the city and in the nation. Nothing that he could possibly achieve could erase the stench of his rotten beginnings. Even a modest academic success is but a transient victory for the interior rot is more than simply skin deep. In the holy land of overflowing dollars nothing revolts the casual observer more than a financially unsuccessful person even when he or she reached high levels of worth in fields not readily bought and sold in the marketplace.

Girls and Women of my Delusions

1. a) Jacqueline Deschenes – ages six to ten
2. b) Annette Langlois ages 13 to 14
3. c) Jacqueline Ducharme – ages 16 to 22 (?)
4. d) Helen Cylpinski at LTI – ages 17 to 21
5. e) Patty Sheehan – ages 36 to 39
6. f) Pamela McKeever – ages 39 to 41 to 51 (?)
7. g) Stephanie – ages 67 to 73 (?)

These persons – all neat and beautiful in a special way – somehow managed to make me believe that love, intimacy and tender feelings would somehow override my deep inner belief of life being an uncontrolled ride into a nauseous sewer of dark and ugly realities.

Curiously enough, my first wife, Beryl, and my second wife, Linda, don’t make it in my romantic notebook of memories. Beryl was a good compromise for me at the time of my days at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, 1963 to 1965. There was no emotional stroke of eternal connectedness – I was always a little embarrassed by the ring that I gave her with the engraved message, “Je t’aime aujourd’hui.” Yes, I admired her spirit and her spunk plus her wit and intelligence, but if abiding love means the dramatic and unconditional swell of emotions, then I was not “in love”. We were working at being man and wife, but I certainly did not want deep affection to ruin our working arrangement. Still, the relationship had many positive aspects like sex, political disdain for non-Republicans and also an appreciation for material evidence of financial success. Crass materialism was important, true. However, we still a managed to accept academically struggling persons even if their material success was not yet evident.

i am reminded, as I plod ahead, the essence of the Buddhist belief system:

“Blessed are they, who expect nothing, for they shall seldom be disappointed.”

Although a bit bitter sounding, this philosophy rings true to the life experiences that I have had and to many that close associates have confided in me.

8-31-13 Anything new on the agenda?

Today, my general attitude improved some as I more clearly saw the utter foolishness of my life choices, hopes, aspirations, endeavors and dreams – everything is a lie or a partial lie, a delusion shaded with deep beliefs all based on the happy horseshit fed to me and others living through the putrid streets of Lowell-town.

Such crap, to have us believe that the Universe, namely God Almighty, working closely together with the Departments of the U.S. government, gives a shit about the lost and bewildered creatures that we call our fellows, our friends, our colleagues, our brothers and sisters, those other people who also need to find safety and shelter.

Looking back, I chuckle, now, realizing that while I studied hard at St-Joseph Boys High School and, later at LTI, there stirred in my mind and throughout my body a conviction that the sludge of previous disappointments, the hand-me-down clothing, the empty pockets of trousers that fit poorly and the fucking shame of being a freak and a beggar, who was making efforts to be acceptable in the Charles Dickens workers hell, my own town of Lowell, the Textile City.

When did I ever believe that I would later be cleansed of this poverty of soul and of garment? What could a fourteen-year-old youth do to feel okay, safe, secure, accepted, appreciated, recognized, respected, encouraged, valued, supported, validated, and more?

My father’s life seemed to be weighed down with crushing responsibilities as the main bread winner plus those imposed upon him by his own mother’s needs and the shaky, low-income demands that he assumed in trying to take care of Aunt Florence, la Vieille,  (the old one) then living as a border in a cute house located on a side street of Hildreth near Bridge Street.

Following the examples provided by my dad, I would give up entirely the thought of escaping Lowell’s economic despair and simply work until I died of xx in one of the city’s many sweat shops that were then world famous for the quality of their woven fabric. That message might read, “Work hard putting in long hours in an unhealthy work environment for decades of your life without benefits such as paid holidays, annual vacations, health insurance, etc. and, later, enjoy the rewards of this labor by watching fresh garbage slowly float by your three-story, rat-infested, tenement block overlooking an industrial canal.”

Fortunately, this bit of promotion and advertised never persuaded me to become one of the many rat-race survivors, who enjoyed their old-age, material rewards living the good life on Race Street, just a short block away from that colossal Gothic church that dominated the corner of Aiken and Merrimack Streets. There, the lucky survivor of several decades of the textile mill’s psychic and physical abuse could be uplifted by the glories of 15th century religious dogmas, cerimonies and prayers.

How curious is the human brain that simple magic and childish fantasies can quell the painful abuses of years of benign industrial neglect. How is deep religious conviction similar to the soothing effect of a mind-altering drug to the user? Are religious folks really drug addicts in disguise?