THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND RELIEF

 Relief? Of course. Christmas is over! Nothing now but a passing memory. Not only relief, but also release from holiday bondage.

Perhaps you enjoyed it and want no release.

As for me....

This Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were so unbearably miserable and appalling that I won't dare attempt to describe it. 

It would be much too painful.

I spent Christmas in a chaotic insane asylum. Screaming and yelling inmates, horrible food. A nearby television (some other room) blasted full-volume all day and most of the night. I had to use makeshift earplugs.

Peace on Earth. My ass.

I haven't told the worst. I wouldn't dare.

The good?

I had this room to myself. My roommate was taken to the hospital for a bleeding ulcer.

He came back yesterday....pissed in his bed and it overflowed to the floor, heading towards my bed.

Joy to the World!

Damn the world. How the heck did I get here? How the hell do I get out??

Illustrations for you pleasure

To my left....

An enthralling window to see

To my right....

The curtain that seperates me from my enchanting roommate

It's an absolute delight to wake up and face another day.

BUT - - - -

Just before Christmas, there were people bearing gifts!

A group called Visiting Angels brought me a big package! It contained a new pillow, a new blanket, a (yes, new) shirt and pair of pants. Slippers.....and a word puzzle book.

I was pleasantly astounded.

THEN

One of the workers here brought a lovely gift bag, containing at least a dozen edible goodies.

A blue gift bag, these are a few of the contents.

A chocolate caramel reindeer with pretzel antlers

Holy goodness - - there is a Santa Claus!

The kindness of others always makes a very positive impact. Thank God for caring people.

I am truly in the most serious depression of my life. I have considered ******* to escape. And I'm not jesting.

These unexpected gifts buoyed my spirits. Simple things mean a lot.

What's next?

New Year's Eve.....

and perhaps a new path towards light.

...do I use too many dots?

Don't you wish I used some of my AI creations? Of course you do!

Jon  ⛄️🌲❤️🌲⛄️

a lousy post, but I can't be perfect or charming all the time......

Can I?

HOMAGE TO AUTUMN

 

One of my obsessive habits. I post my video,  Homage to Autumn, every year at the end of autumn. It exemplifies the deepest feelings buried in my soul.

When autumn wanes, I grasp at it fiercely - - never wanting to let go, nor wanting to say goodbye. I am transfixed, bewitched by its haunting beauty - - like the ghost of a long lost lover.

When I made this video, there was no doubt what music I would use.....

the andante from the Piano Concerto no.2  op.102, by the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 - 1975).

It is steeped in exquisitely haunting beauty which echoes the essence of my soul: a deep sense of melancholia enmeshed with  sentimentality.

The irony is that I never liked the music of Shostakovich. It wasn't until I first heard this andante, and became convinced that it's one of the most beautiful compositions ever written.

The somber introduction is about a minute long. In my video, I portrayed it with images of misty dawn.

When the piano begins, I add moving visuals.

Towards the end of the andante, the music seems to convey a persistent sense of yearning - - the reluctance to let autumn go......

Note-

Dmitri Shostakovich composed this concerto in 1957 and dedicated it to his son Maxim for his nineteenth birthday.

The recording that I used for this video:

Maxim Shostakovich is the pianist and his father Dmitri is the conductor.

The Musici de Montreal orchestra.

Dmitri Shostakovich with his cat

Jon  ❤️

All sensitive, brilliant people love cats.

Video best viewed full screen

with full volume

(sorry, no updates on Sunday)

 

PUSHING FORWARD

 I still have the cold/flu that has been annoyingly lingering around here. I could aptly call it the Non Covid Malaise.

Sounds innocuous to me.

Another weekend is unfolding and two weeks will be left in November. Weekends are very slow here in Appalachian Alcatraz.

(you gotta admit I have a deliciously unique way with words......sort of) 

Can't establish an absolute attempt to escape. Weekends here are maddeningly sluggish.

When I was compelled (forced) to sign up with Hospice at the end of March (that's when my insurance stopped coverage) Hospice people visited me at least four times a week - - eagerly waiting for me to expire.

When they established the fact that I wasn't going to croak, the visits dwindled. Three, two, now....one.

They might be here Monday or Tuesday. That's when I'll drop the Big Bomb about severing myself from them.

That's also when the prison gates will crank open......almost like Heaven's Gates where St. Peter will distribute your wings.

I'm ready to fly and never look back.

I really don't know what the heck is gonna happen, but we can hope for the best.

I DO know that Signature will desperately try to stop my flight to freedom by saying that I'm not physically sound.

 Don't doubt me.

Hell, at least I'm mentally sound - - which is more than they can say.

And I have Quality Home Care on my side. Which is a great relief.

I have an enormous amount of things here that I need to take with me. All the things that I bought, like the ancient Egyptain items. And many other things.

Don't start a sentence with a conjunction. You'll look like you're ignorant.

The storage cabinet in this room is full. I have at least three tote bags, six or seven duffle bags, assorted boxes. 

Stuff accumulates.....in almost a year...

SO.......

I've been ordering food from the Walmart deli. Gives me some semblance of....freedom and resistance.

I won't be able to officially begin my escape until Monday or Tuesday.

I'm going to try to relax this weekend and look forward to positive things. I have to make it happen.

And I will.

Jon  ❤️

The turkeys want to escape, too!

BTW after the radiation treatments, my arm hasn't bled in nearly four weeks! Can hardly believe it!  

I don't know how I'll get through Sunday, and I'm afraid of Monday....but I have every right to go home. I am not incarcerated and nobody has a legal right to hold me here.

FOUL!!!

I'm in one of my notorious foul moods and don't know exactly why. I'm thoroughly tired of the endless battles of existence. I'm disgusted of being trapped here in this physical "therapy" prison. I'm becoming a hater of humanity. A possible misanthrope.

Now that I established that horrifying fact, I'll enchant you with a medical update (I've been writing them for the past two years, and they sicken me).

Psychotically depressed?

If you were trapped in this friggin' place for six months, I guaran-damn-tee you'd be suicidal.

People coming in and out of my room unannouced all day. Checking my vitals, plying me with pills, examining me, questioning me, gawking, showing up EXACTLY when I'm pis- - peeing in the urinal. That's an unmitigated joy.

I've had a fever for two days. All I did last night was shiver uncontrollably.

What about the radiation? Two wound care doctors showed up yesterday. The new one is a clown. The last thing I need is a visit with Bozo.

My "regular" wound care dr. rebandaged my arm, MUCH too tightly. The pain shoots down to my fingers.

She said the cancer is shrinking and it's not bleeding too much. Last night I put a pad under my arm and it wasn't leaking, like it always does.

We're supposed to wait a week or so, to see if the radiation is continually working.....

another interruption while I'm writing this.

So waiting, waiting, waiting waiting, endlessly perpetually waiting

In the meantime, I created a lot more autumn images......which I know will thrill the dire unimaginative.

I'll put them in my next post and I know you can't wait.

Boys and girls, if I didn't have this as a haphazard hobby, I'd be cutting my wrists....and I am NOT jesting.

You have your sweet begonias and ice cream socials.

I have nothing

Jon   👹👺    Foul

HALLOWEEN

Another photo of Bosco in my bedroom window, taken yesterday.       

The last day of October -
out of breath, shrugging indifferently, not caring that it passed so quickly that I hardly had time to embrace it's fleeting autumnal beauty.

The color is gone, the golden warmth, the intoxicating magic. On this final day October leaves with a colorless, damp, chilly, dismal mist. A dank, indifferent, monochromatic day that echoes with nothing but the promise of a dreaded winter.

Is my poetic ramble annoying?
It is an apt observation that helps keep me reasonably sane.

It's Halloween. Trick or treaters will not be annoying me. There's no chance in the distant realms of hell that anybody would ever find this place.
The only annoyance I'll have on Halloween night is the haunting howl of coyotes, the lamenting hoots of the owls, and the silent echoes of isolation. The forest, of course, is populated with spirits and ghosts.

So what will I be doing in my purgatory of isolation?

I started baking again. I haven't baked in a very long time, since I live alone, but I recently decided that's a necessity. Instead of driving a zillion miles to town for a loaf of bread, I decided to bake my own. I make a lot of my own stuff now - including tortillas.

This afternoon I made my Halloween feast, which includes pizza and a chocolate brownie cake. I'm thinking about baking some cookies.
I also have apple cider and popcorn.

Brownie cake

doesn't look impressive but it tastes good!

I make the pizza from scratch, including the dough. I didn't have any of the toppings that I wanted so I used onions, sausage, and olives. It's delicious!

Halloween dinnerware

Today is extremely dreary and colorless. It was useless to venture outside, so I took these two photos from the front and back porches.

 

Two of my Halloween videos, which I think I made last year (my memory is fading.....)

Videos best viewed full-screen.

Happy Haunting!  Jon

HOLLYWOOD HAUNTS

Few places are filled with more haunts than Hollywood. And few places offer a more perfect backdrop for perpetuating tales of the supernatural: a stardusted Neverland steeped in glamor, fame and fortune, broken dreams, sex, scandals, murder, and suicide.

If all the purported Hollywood hauntings are to be believed, then the entire place is brimming with spirits and ghosts. Unfortunately, the vast majority of these stories have little substance and are generated by rumor, legends, imagination, and pure hokum. It's a deliciously intriguing subject, nevertheless.

I was raised in Southern California but didn't really hit the Hollywood scene until I was in my late teens. At that time I had an insatiable appetite for ghost stories and things macabre and spent a lot of time exploring the dark side of Tinsel Town. I visited just about every place that was rumored to be haunted or had a sinister history.

I saw the shabby apartment on Harold Way where the definitive Dracula Bela Lugosi died, as a penniless drug addict. I found the house in Laurel Canyon where Ramon Novarro, screen star of the silent era, was brutally murdered in 1968 on Halloween night (or, more aptly, the night before Halloween morning). 

 
I visited Falcon Lair, the last home of 1920's heartthrob Rudolph Valentino, which is reportedly haunted. At the time that I went there, the home was owned by heiress Doris Duke (who died there in 1993).

Falcon Lair, the haunted home of

silent screen star Rudolph Valentino

When I was in my early twenties I lived for a brief time in a Beverly Hills home that was very near Cielo Drive, where actress Sharon Tate was murdered. Ironically, the Valentino estate Falcon Lair was also near the Tate mansion (which was rented by Tate and her husband Roman Polanski and has since been torn down) - -  and the horse stables were located on Cielo Drive. A friend took me to see the stables and we were told by a caretaker that it is haunted by one of Rudolph Valentino's horses - - the phantom stallion roams the grounds after dark.

I was familiar with the haunted Chancellor Apartments on Cherokee (just off of Hollywood Boulevard) because an acquaintance of mine lived there. The Chancellor was the last known residence of Elizabeth Short, better known as the Black Dahlia, whose savage murder in 1947 still remains (officially) unsolved.

The famous Hollywood sign on nearby Mount Lee has long been haunted by a "mysterious" lady in white. The  original Hollywoodland sign was erected in 1923 as a real estate advertisement. Fledgling actress Peg Entwistle committed suicide by jumping off the sign in 1932. The full story can be read in my post entitled Suicide Sign

https://lonewolfconcerto.blogspot.com/2022/07/suicide-sign.html

The places on (or around) Hollywood Boulevard that are supposedly haunted are far too numerous to mention. Among the most well-known are the Knickerbocker Hotel, the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the Pantages Theater, the Vogue Theater, and Grauman's Chinese Theater. 

The Vogue Theater had originally been the site of an elementary school. In 1901 the school burned down. Twenty-five children and one teacher were killed. The spirits of children have reportedly haunted the theater ever since. The Vogue Theater is also haunted by the ghost of a German man named Fritz, who was the projectionist for forty years. He died of a heart attack in the projection room in the 1980's.

The Vogue Theater at 6675 Hollywood Blvd.

first opened in 1935 and still exists today.

I especially loved the fascinating history of the Knickerbocker Hotel, but by the time I lived in Hollywood it was no longer a hotel. It had been converted into a home for senior citizens in 1970. I liked to walk past it - especially late at night - and reflect on all the things that had occurred there.

Ill-fated actress Frances Farmer lived at the Knickerbocker, when - in 1943 - she was arrested, dragged half-naked through the lobby, and eventually placed in an insane asylum (at the request of her vindictive mother).  In 1948, silent film director D.W.Griffith died in the lobby of the Knickerbocker. Strangely enough, actor William Frawley (Fred Mertz of I Love Lucy fame) collapsed from a fatal heart attack on the sidewalk near the Knickerbocker in 1966.

The Knickerbocker Hotel on Ivar, near the corner of

Ivar and Hollywood Boulevard was built in 1925.

This photo looks exactly as I remember it.

Even more gruesome was the suicide of Hollywood costume designer Irene Gibbons (simply known as "Irene"). In 1961, while staying on one of the top floors, she cut her wrists and leaped out the window. Her body landed on an awning and wasn't found until the next day. In the 1930's Harry Houdini's widow Bess used to hold seances on the roof of the Knickerbocker on Halloween night.

The old Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery, final resting place of the stars, is reportedly haunted by numerous movie star ghosts - including that of Rudolph Valentino and Clifton Webb. It is located directly behind Paramount Studios (on Melrose) and has recently and inexplicably been renamed the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Tacky. Very tacky. 

On several occasions I had sneaked into the cemetery after-hours for romantic trysts (I was young and adventurous). One Halloween, I and several friends went there at midnight in search of famous ghosts. It was a very creepy experience but no spirits cared to manifest themselves.

Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery,

now known as the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

A creepy place after dark.

The Roosevelt Hotel at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard (newly renovated) harbors the ghosts of two former residents - - Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift. Marilyn supposedly appears in a lobby mirror, and Monty haunts his old room (which is # 928). Also the Blossom Ballroom has several "unexplained" cold spots. This old ballroom was the site of the very first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929.

I've heard rumors that John Belushi's ghost has haunted bungalow #3 at the Chateau Marmont on Sunset Boulevard ever since his death there in 1982. The spirit of Howard Hughes supposedly lingers at the  Hollywood Boulevard Pantages Theater. Hughes didn't die there, but he purchased the building in 1949.

The Hollywood Wax Museum, still located on 6767 Hollywood Boulevard, is a gathering place for restless spirits. A reporter for the National Enquirer once spent the night in there alone and was terrified, claiming that he'd never go back.

There's also a lesser-known Hollywood Boulevard ghost  that still lingers on the famous corner of Hollywood and Vine. There was a bus stop on the northwest corner of this intersection in the 1920's that was frequented by actor Lon Chaney. He would go there every morning to catch a bus to the studios when he was looking for work. His ghost is still seen late at night where the bus stop used to be.

Speaking of ghostly places, the infamous Suicide Bridge is probably the creepiest place of all. Although it's located in Pasadena, not Hollywood, it is worth a mention. Originally called the Colorado Street Bridge, it was built in 1913. One of the workers accidentally fell from the bridge and landed head-first in wet cement. His body is still entombed in the cement, under the bridge.

Suicide Bridge in Pasadena

(the Colorado Street Bridge, built in 1913)

Site of over 100 suicides and ghosts galore

Since the bridge first opened, it has reportedly been the site of over 100 suicides. Attempts to make the bridge "suicide-proof" have been futile. It remains a notorious jumping off point to this day. Spirits abound at the Suicide Bridge, and I can personally attest to the fact that it's an incredibly spooky place to visit at night. There's a strong sense of restless ghosts.

This post is getting lengthy and I haven't even scratched the surface of Hollywood haunts. Tinseltown has had a long surplus of ghosts - - many of whom are more popular than the undead residents.

copyright 2019

 Note: 
I originally posted this four years ago, but figured it's a good rehash for the Halloween season.  Jon

 

THE AGONY CONTINUES

This is a possible, or perhaps probable, continuation of my previous post.

I was so intensely overjoyed when I finally got connected to the Internet again, that I almost did an interpretative Dance of Elation - but it would have destroyed my bad back and probably put me in traction.

Good thing I didn't dance. My joy was short-lived. 

My Internet connection lasted less than 24 hours.

I was doing work on my laptop, in bed, late at night, during a horrendous thunderstorm. An urgent weather alert warned me that the storm was severe and I should seek shelter immediately.

Shelter? Where? Under the bed? In the neighboring forest?

The deafening thunder encouraged my cat Bosco to take shelter under the bed covers.
I watched the lightning from the bedroom window in awestruck amazement.

Then it happened:

A massive lightning bolt zapped down with atomic power and struck the front of my property. It hit with the force of a bomb and seemed to be streaked with fire, like the hand of God.

The most incredibly amazing part of this incident is that the EXACT thing happened nearly two years ago, in July, 2020. A lightning bolt struck my property almost in the same place!! (I wrote a blog post about it, which lurks somewhere in the archives).

Needless to say, there was a power outage - and my computer and landline phone were dead.

I think it happened on Thursday night. Friday was a useless day, because I knew I'd have to wait through the weekend before anyone from my Internet customer service brigade could come out and survey the problem.

I called today (via cell phone). The service guy came surprisingly fast and restored my computer and landline phone.

With the luxury of having Internet access again, I immediately got online and paid all my monthly bills.
Who knows when the next storm will blow in with another Biblical lightning bolt?

I just realized that I haven't recently been posting any photos on my blog.
Well, hell, I'm interesting even without photos
(he says with a wry smile)

Here are some breathtakingly amazing photos of my bedroom window - from which I saw the lightning bolt.
I always love looking out the window from my bed - even at night. Even during storms.

 

 

A view from my bed.

I now have blinds on the windows, but seldom use them.

NOTE:

I'm still having enormous problems with Blogger. I am generally forced to comment anonymously on some blogs - - and on other blogs I'm unable to comment at all. Apologies to Myra and Kim - - I can no longer leave comments on your blogs. The comment "icon" doesn't work!!