Pluto in Capricorn & in Opposition – Pandemic & Retribution.

11.05.202109.12.2024 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

Last February as I made my way by subway to the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing arts, the season’s latest opera was on that night – of course, what I then did not know, was that the rest of the opera season would eventually be cancelled – the most jarring thing occurred. A young Amerindian male with the glossiest black mane, took two steps back on the TTC train platform and dropped his black gym bag. “Are you fucking talking to me? No bitch, I’m talking to you! Did I invite you into my country?” The rage and the booming power of his voice was arresting. The tall effete Caucasian male tried brushing him off as though he were so much raped and abandoned non-whitedom. Before I knew what next, The five-foot-nothing, proud Amerindian punched his adversary square in his girly man face. Crying out like a right candy-arsed sissy, the Caucasian weakly protested, all whilst rushing backwards. My proud Amerindian brother was just getting started. Of course, I, who have grown soft for making peace with being a black male in this racially suffocating society, cried out when the first punch landed. Bam, another punch to the face as the much shorter warrior defended his land, his people, pride and history. “Yeah you, did I fucking invite you to my country?” and another blow. Bloodied and cowering, the all-mouth, cowardly closet cocksucker was resoundingly handed his arse and put in his rightful place.

The opera, Hansel & Gretel, was beautifully staged – set in the stark isolation of Toronto condo living. I was, though, never fully engaged as I spent the next several days readjusting to having had that young warrior shaman heal my spirit by his very proud actions and the conviction of his words. The next several days, I kept returning to the incident with the proud Amerindian. My reaction at the time had stunned me and in hindsight, I kept revisiting why I chose to be so upset at the attack on the arrogant male, who was being pummelled. He had taunted and dismissed the Amerindian male – a socially aggressive behaviour from whites with which one was long familiar. I realised that so many times in situations as then, we as blacks are programmed to sublimate and ‘take it’ rather than defending oneself from the hideous ugliness of the spiritually stunted.

Then something quite remarkable happened, the murderous lynching of George Floyd in callously stark veracity that cell phone ubiquity has afforded in the modern age. The event was seismic; the raw brutality of the racial predator on the hunt was so glaring, so jarring that it set ablaze protests across the planet. Indeed, the cell phone, like the beating of Rodney King, has been able to capture the ugliness that is whiteness which prior to, meant that one could lie away and grin away with exquisite triumphant glee, fucking with the enemy – an enemy on whom one preys never having been preyed on by that enemy. Slowly, the exoskeleton with which one straitjackets oneself in order to make peace and to be a black man peacefully making it through one day to the next, began losing its grip.

Scenes like in the early days of lockdown 2020, I was in line at Pusateri’s at Yorkville Avenue and Bay Street to pick up a couple of bottles of VOSS water. Old, ugly as fuck, the woman in line ahead of me turned around and began screaming at the top of her hateful lungs in a scene that could easily have been played by her in South Africa. She demanded that I get the hell away from her because I was clearly not practising proper social distancing and remaining more than two metres apart. Of course, this had nothing to do with the coronavirus pandemic but everything to do with her seizing an opportunity to be a hate-filled racist boor. As much as I wanted to readily turn rapaciously vituperative and tell her to try 2 metres below ground; instead, I took two operatic steps back and coolly and eloquently boomed with scathing condescension, “Look at you! On your hind legs and everything! Seriously though…” With that, after having laughed a vulgar dismissive breath, I impatiently strode to the back of the line to be rid of the fugly parvenu boor. Everyone, staff and clients, froze. She, of course, squawked and grumbled as I focussed my discriminating attention to a conversation via Whatsapp video about dinner with my transitioning spouse at our art-filled home, who on the eve of Bob Marley’s birthday, two decades earlier, I wedded at Montréal’s Palais de Justice both decked in gold-threaded, crisp white linen Yoruba agbada with her a matching gele. As can be expected of cowardly fare, the anaemic-looking young couple now two metres in front of me, simply ignored the social dustup by hungrily face-fucking in their best escapist Bonobo turn. Naturally, the old harpy got from the line to kvetch to whomsofuckingever and when the cashier asked if I wanted a bag, I declined, telling her that I would rather be kind on the environment. Turning to leave the tightly spaced store, I paused and shot down her evil glare by raising both VOSS waters, one in each hand, and shouted, L’Chaim! That ought to have left her pissy knickers smelling louder on leaving the store.

Soon enough, the acts of racially predatory social aggression became more frequent and pronounced. There was the incident one cool morning where a hirsute covering of blond furred redhead stopped jogging in front of me, grabbed a hold of my bike’s handlebar and began screaming as though I were both blind and deaf as he demanded that I keep the hell off the sidewalk. It wasn’t enough that cell phones had exposed their murderous ugliness but as though to protest, whites have grown more emboldened with the affront of blacks and Black Lives Matter movement to demonstrate and demand change.

By early June last year, 2020, I had had enough, each morning on the ride to work through tony Rosedale, I was being accosted by various burghers of the beautifully tree-lined streets – then again, which Toronto residential neighbourhood street is not beautifully tree-lined. There was one Jew in particular, who caused me to go out and get the above bodycam. Each morning, as I am a creature of habit, he was in the habit of leaving the sidewalk to come into the middle of the street, approach as I bike-ride to pepper me with hideous racial slurs and demand that I keep the hell out of the neighbourhood. Good morning, Shithead! Good morning you black piece of shit. Get out of here! Finally, one morning, having quite had enough of him and his special brand of ugliness of spirit, I told him to go fuck himself to which he incredulously demanded at the top of his lungs, unlike his usually sotto voce delivered insults as he approached the bike, “Get back here! Get back here now! I’m talking to you. Come back here now!” The nerve of some people. That last incident occurred on a Friday and thank god for Jeff Bezos, by Monday, I had me a bodycam. So as my special kind of fugly, hairy back and arsed nuisance came bopping off the sidewalk, ready to be racial predatory white male asshole number 1 billion, 500 million and 99, he caught sight of my bodycam, lights on and all, and like the bipedal, über poilu Rottweiler-hybrid that he is, he readily retreated for the cover of the sidewalk. I have never seen him since and, of course, I had ignored everyone’s advice to take another route to work. What the fuck for? As I am born in the year of the Rat, I am no different to any other rat; we live firmly self-aware that rats fear no one.

A few months back in between spells of too much snow, I abandoned my bike and elected to take a ride. On the way home, as I go from job A to job B, I told the unibrowed, wild-eyed driver that I was in a bit of a hurry and would show him a shortcut to my place. He again said nothing, just as he hadn’t as I got into his ride and said hello. Though, I wore a colourful silk mask over the daily disposable N-95 mask, his shitty ride I swear, smelt like what no doubt just-fucked camel pussy does. Told to take a left off Yonge onto Roxborough, finally not surprised was I when he proved a short-tempered fuck whose pointy fingers on that wheel had me dismissing him as so much forgettable small-cocked fare. He barked rather than spoke that he followed the GPS, which had called out to make a left onto Crescent so many metres ahead south down Yonge Street. Thus, we ventured, clearly grudgingly for him, along Roxborough and as we approached, I announced that I wanted him to make a right turn onto Wrentham to Crescent. Immediately, the über-poilu beast, which made me think Ursa hybrid, stepped on the gas drove east past Wrentham, down the hill and pulled onto Mount Pleasant without so much as having looked left in the process. As it was rush hour, there would be no left turns south of Bloor along Jarvis which Mount Pleasant becomes before Gerrard Street East or possibly Shuter Street East. To be sure, I was more than a little bit pissed off when telling the inbred, short-fused jackass to turn off of Mount Pleasant, onto Elm and turn right at Sherbourne North as had been intended. “You fucking idiots, who the hell are you people to talk to anybody like you own something?” Then he violently broke the car, just north of South Drive and demanded that I get out of his car. Coolly, I got out and left the door open and when he swore at me and demanded I shut his fucking door now, I told him I thought I would do him a favour and air it out, seeing as how it stunk of camel… the camel-fucker did not, of course, get the insult. Readily, I pulled out my camera and told him, ‘yeah come out here and get some of this.’ He got out of his shitty little car, cut the beady eyes at me, slammed the door shut, told me and my people to go fuck ourselves to which I replied, “happy black history month to you, too…” By the time I got onto Sherbourne North, my Samsung S20 had died. Naturally, thanks to coronavirus, I had no cash and there was no way to call a cab or Uber. In this neck of the woods, a random taxi was a nonstarter.

Foreground Bloor & Parliament in St. James Town, to right distance, Yorkville, Centre distance, One Bloor East currently tallest condo at 76 storeys, at Yonge & Bloor, Centre mid-distance Sherbourne to Church (east to west) Upper Gay Village or more pretentiously south Yorkville (ha!).

Doggedly, I decided to simply walk it home, just as I got unto the Sherbourne Street bridge, I began experiencing an anxiety attack. Years earlier, I had witnessed someone leap from the Jacques Cartier bridge that spans the St. Lawrence in Montréal. Suddenly, out of nowhere as anxiety attacks tend to function, I was in the grips of crippling fear. I knew that there was no way that I could cross the bridge, even to try and make it back seemed a feat, there was a sudden desire to start running, which I knew that I could not do. A young Amerindian couple in the city, for the first time it turned out, crossed the bridged, going south on the west side – same as me. I explained my dilemma and asked if they would call me a cab. The proud warrior-looking man, barely into his 20s insisted that I simply conquer my fear by walking beside him and his beautiful girlfriend. I tried…. I wanted to. I could not, though, as I began shaking… just the sheer weight of why I was there in the first place simply for being black and asking the driver to take a preferred route – it all seemed so absurd, yet it is an indignity that one endures at every turn in a million ways every frigging day in this society. The warmest eyes winked at me as he smiled and the Beck taxi came up the bridge made a U-turn and the young warrior closed the door on me, wishing me well. Eventually, I got home late and when I was done job B where I fundraise in the arts and remain unrivalled, I wrote a detailed account of my ride with the bigot who kicked me from his car and was summarily refunded. As if Jazz the blasted motherfuck were invented by unibrowed, camel-fucking, hairy back-and-arsed dreck.

Days later, and still black history month, I was riding my bike through the wet streets of Rosedale where the snow melted fast after the latest snowfall. As I emerged onto Crescent Road from the footpath which Scrath becomes, to cross the bridge that spans Mount Pleasant Road, a white female in a black, skin-tight, jogging suit was way in back of a group of jogging white males whom I had seen with fair regularity. She was clearly not part of their group. Jogging in the street as she was, she moved to the side as I approached and then with the arrogance of the truly somnambulant, aggressively called after me in a tone that was both accusatory and possessive as I moved past, “Excuse me, where are you going?” That morning, I happened not to be wearing my bodycam as when I got downstairs, realised that the snow had sufficiently melted such that I could actually ride my bike rather than take a cab. Without so much as missing a beat, I broke hard and stood straddling my bike when reaching into the shallow depths of her sphinctered psyche, “I’m going to your house to fuck your man!” She stood there arrested, catatonic as my use of language was both vulgar, rapacious. “That’s right, I’m gonna hog-tie that fucking cocksucker of yours and fuck him good… Yeah, you wanna come watch? Come on!” Arrested in place, her eyes welled up as mine remained unflinchingly enraged, her lizard-thin upper lip actually trembling. With that, I resumed riding my bike to job A to which I was already running late. In this the age of Trump, some whites at every chance, turn racially predatory at the drop of a hat.

Then there are the casket fugitives; these blasted tiresome, overstayed boomers, who simply will not stop showing off and just crawl the fuck in their caskets. What other generation but boomers would find a new way to show-off in their smelly diapers and drug-wasted dotage? They, these lost souls forever hurrying about way off-piste, are ever bitching and at times raising their silly poles at me, demanding that I not ride on pathways but dismount and walk. Once confronted by a turkey-necked mannish boor, I leaned in and asked near-inaudibly, “Don’t you tire of breathing? Go on, go chill the fuck out in your casket”

And then November 3, 2020 turned into January 6, 2021 as that porcine pathological compulsive liar – America’s biggest loser and racist swine, finally left the stage with crooked tail between his fat thighs with the Eurotrash escort cum parvenu snob in tow. The cold-blooded murder of George Floyd, staged or simply instinctual racially predatory behaviour, like the big fat coward that he is, having miserably failed at leading and taking command of the pandemic, Trump latched on to the murder of George Floyd to win the vote. That’s right, it was all about not haemorrhaging the white vote; thus it became all about cops and law and order – all code language for white privilege and racist white supremacy. Well, it did not fucking work! Fuck you!

Not only did Trump fail to steal the vote by declaring Marshall law and leading an insurrection on the Capitol, he and his racist ilk’s poster boy for racially predatory murderous scum was convicted on all three counts. George Floyd’s murder occurred at the Pluto opposition in Capricorn and thus the past four hundred years of murderous racially predatory blood sport of blacks finally led to George being anointed as the One. That’s right, for the first time in 400 years, a cop has been found guilty of the murder of a black male. For blacks, America the past 400 years has been nothing but a giant game reserve where they are hunted with the arrogant impunity of police getting off time and again when murdering blacks. Let that sink in for a moment. America the land where whites can murder whilst dressed up in the hunting gear of the police uniform – all the while, other whites the world over perpetually on holiday having predatory sex with minors whilst everyone looks the other way. Thanks to his murder, and trophy-hunting racial predator Chauvin having been found guilty of murder, George Floyd became a martyr who has broken the long 400 year tradition of the justice system in America condoning the racially predatory murder of blacks at the hands of police. Pluto in Capricorn indeed. The hijacked American justice system where blacks are corralled to spike the profit margins for BlackRock shareholders… talk about genius, indeed.

Always… with every breath… it is quintessentially Jazz!

Recent ride through Rosedale because of whose venal classist/racist aggression, I have taken to wearing the bodycam. As ever, Jazz permeates my every breath; how could it not when my father’s first cousin, the recently deceased actor Cicely Tyson was wife of Jazz genius Miles Davis? A new friend with lots of past-life history, asked why I am always singing the same Jazz tune when cycling; it is a form of meditation, I shared, as I move from job A to job B. By vocalesing and singing a favourite Jazz tune, I am getting refocussed to the task next in hand – fundraising in the arts… at which I am damn good. In the above clip, at the 06:24 mark, one can clearly see the septuagenarian white female with bags in hand, walking north in the southbound bike lane. Likely she chose to do so to avoid being too close to persons on the kerb. Either way, her choice and no business of mine. Minutes as I got further down Sherbourne Street, at which point, I had stopped recording, as I was now going south in the northbound bike lane a total of 3 white female passing, violently yelled and called me every kind of asshole imaginable. White females are ten times more likely than white males to be verbally abusive in such situations; however, non-white, non-black males and females almost never engage in such predatory social aggression. The idea that I am going to time-waste by yelling at someone for simply going in the opposite direction of the usual flow of bike traffic in a given lane is beyond absurd. So fucking what? Last winter before getting the bodycam, there was a white male in early forties with about 4% body fat running north in the northbound bike lane along the Sherbourne Street bridge. As I approached at a leisurely pace, I could tell that he was wearing air buds and not wanting to surprise him simply rode pass saying and doing nothing. Shocked, though not surprised, was I when he upped his jogging pace and began running alongside on my right. Yelling as though a drill sergeant, he began calling me an asshole and demanded to know why I had not used my fucking bell when passing him. Not jogging on the kerb was he, nor was he jogging towards oncoming bike and vehicular traffic; yet, he and his perceptions had perceived me as being at fault for riding alongside and passing him without having given him warning of my approach. This world is overrun by truly blind assholes, very well-armed, truly blind assholes.

A few days ago as I hopped off my bike with time to kill between jobs A & B, I slipped into the reconstituted shrine to Canadian ice hockey which became the flagship store of Loblaws, another of the Weston family’s retail gems. On entering, there was a police officer just inside – a new pandemic feature. Tall, handsome and of South Pacific heritage, the male officer engagingly greeted me, willingly, I ambled over and he commended me on the bodycam. Said he, every person of colour ought to be wearing one; indeed, I agreed, it amazingly affords one peace of mind and a harassment free ride about town. He laughed when told of how hostile the burghers of Rosedale can be, adding that he was not surprised in the least at the account of in-your-face open bigotry.

With nimble vivacity me and my paniers whisked through the place, emerging minutes later with organic ginger, beautifully pungent organic turmeric, Ocean Spray’s Cran-Grape drink – this drink screams sugar is the drug y’all – and of course, the most exquisite cheddar cheese. Whether at tea, with pâté or dark chocolate, the President’s Choice (Loblaws house brand) aged 5 years crumbly cheddar cheese is as musky and satisfying as a full Moon night spent indulging rugged mansex in the moss-saturated bois of Vancouver’s Stanley Park. Slipping outside, as I loaded up my paniers on my trusty brown Schwinn Gateway, the four bottles of VOSS water made the paniers hard to close shut – larger than the VOSS available in Yorkville, who needs Pusateri’s and Yorkville’s parvenu pretentious bullshit anyway?

As ever, life is like a flying dream; if you look down, you’re fucked. Enjoy the ride and fear no one!

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Well, Of Course, They’re Frigging Racist!

31.03.202109.12.2024 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

Time and again, the British tabloids, media and royal sycophants keep repeating that there is no racism within the BRF and that it is rather a damning allegation to have made on the part of the Sussexes in their sit-down interview with Oprah Winfrey on CBS. What the hell are these people on about? There she was Princess Eurotrash of Flat-Arsedom, going full gansta in her blackamoor brooch; yet, there is no racism within the BRF tabloid sycophants loudly protest.

Of course, right on cue, along came the knock-kneed, flat-flooted Bourbon, displaying his frightful lack of awareness, tack… to say nothing of intellect. Indeed, let’s take Meghan & Harry detractors one and all to task as well they damn well ought to be. Please know this, if you don’t like black people… fuck you!

That’s right, Britons are not in the least racist. God only knows, it is at American baseball, basketball and football games that fans make monkey noises, make Nazi salutes and toss bananas on the field/court… indeed. From top to bottom, whether emboldened royals ie HRH Princess Michael of Kent to chavs and others at a football game, Britons are hideously racist and this need to deny their ugliness is betrayed by their need to sublimate all that by forever masquerading the aristocracy in cinema and art as though to entice and beguile the wayward, rebellious kin across the pond.

Petra…. seriously. Unlike you, Meghan married a blood prince. You, however, fittingly wedded a greasy-looking, conman with obvious substance abuse issues… Come on, you actually laid there and had that walrus slither atop you and pass out after another drunken orgasmic fit… Ew fucking ew! Moneyed trash is still trash… you are but another bigoted, spiritual blackhole aimlessly flitting about from beach to yacht to shopping whilst waiting to finally lay your casket chic looks in a casket. Not surprisingly, that chaviola father of Petra’s has proven himself, vis-à-vis Lewis Hamilton’s phenomenal F1 success just another moneyed bigoted pigmy.

Child, after a lifetime of being all god’s children’s favourite windup fool, there you’ll be all smiles and perky only to hear St. Peter say, “Do me a favour, go on over there and grab that candelabra, I could do with some light…” Honest to fucking god, self-loathing fools are the most contemptable of fools. Leave Meghan alone… you know nothing, save looking for another opportunity to make yourself beloved by those for whom Billie Holiday sang Strange Fruit.

You Magazine | Emotional Ties Penny Junor pictured at her home in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. 5th December 2017 Photography by Gareth Iwan Jones http://www.garethiwanjones.com

A veritable chavfest of pretentious elitist boors. Imagine the fuck-all temerity of these jackasses to insist that CBS and Oprah postpone the Meghan & Harry interview out of consideration of Prince Philip, HRH Duke of Edinburgh, spouse of HM The Queen, being hospitalised. Naturally, it never once occurred to these ugly-of-spirit, racial predators how their unrelentingly racialised aggression in the media against Meghan & Harry was affecting not just the Sussexes but HM The Queen and her spouse Prince Philip, HRH Duke of Edinburgh. For nine long excruciating months, they badgered away at the pregnant Duchess of Sussex for having dared to have wedded at the apex of their racist society but to go on and start breeding mongrelised royal blood, was simply untenable an affront.

There is not a single white female who would have been racially preyed on by the British tabloids the way that Meghan, Duchess of Sussex has been. Whilst this racially predatory feeding frenzy has endured, not a single protest ever emanated from the BRF or the Royal Households on their behalf. The tabloids knew that in an archly racialised society – apeing black footballers on the field – the business of open racial animus towards the Sussexes was big business…. indeed, not since the phenomenal business that Diana represented for them, had they enjoyed such profits. What neither the royals nor the tabloids had envisioned, was the Sussexes not playing along; they had never fathomed the notion that an American, a black American, would simply pick up, take her blood royal prince and son and relocate to a society where for being a self-made woman, a self-made black woman, she could be challenged, engaged and supported rather than being eclipsed, dehumanised, demonised, silenced…. lynched. No star ever takes second billing to a dull as sodden cardboard ingenue of neither awareness nor discernible intellect… ditto Catherine, HRH Duchess of Cambridge. The problem with the British tabloids and media who cover the BRF were how homogenous they are; with the exception of BAME Roya Nikkhah, this semi-feral herd of racist cattle are overwhelmingly white, which means that everything that they plotted and schemed about meting out to Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, was gleefully done with a racially predatory agendum – it is in the nature of the rabid beast.

By extension, both Oprah Winfrey and Gayle King have relatively demonstrated what a racially suffocating society Britain is. There simply aren’t any paths to success in British media for blacks as in the case of American society. This all begs the question, why again when America has ceased being a British colony, is there a need to lionise British actors in American cinema and all but relegate and ghettoise American actors to the hinterland that is television – although what with the devastating restructuring that the Coronavirus pandemic has caused, Netflix and by extension all cable, have become the newly dominant medium rather than cinema.

Thomas Markle deftly validates the Michael Teaching knowledge that from lifetime to lifetime, you have only one parenting agreement with one of both parents. Obviously, in the case of Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, who was formerly Margaret Beaufort, Doria Ragland is the parent with whom she has the parenting agreement in this life and that’s that. In a manner which deeply rips off the scab of American racism, Thomas Markle in essence treats his own daughter as property… as a mere runaway slave, who needs to be punished at all cost for disrespecting him and not staying her arse on the plantation where she belongs. It can never be forgotten that Thomas is possessed of a 9 in his numerology which would make him just as archly bigoted, conservative and interfering as the Duke & Duchess of Cambridge.

There are two families in each lifetime; the one chosen by soul into which to reincarnate and once incarnate, the onus is on one, to use the greatest discretion in choosing in whom you trust and such persons are family. Sadly, Samantha is like 7 of 10 white females who simply hate Meghan because she married a blood prince; this reality has proven an affront to their lifelong cherished fantasy, indeed, their sacred notion of whom a prince should marry – clearly, it should not be a black woman or else the white female tribal psyche goes on the warpath… as most definitely it has. Meghan has never been perceived by Samantha as anyone but the otiose, nappy-headed bastard who needs to be pinched, bullied, spat at and reviled at every turn and Samantha in her blind rage, was not going to miss her chance to get on the stage before the world and remind us all what ugly malaise of spirit this thing called white privilege is and how it thoroughly immolates thusly focussed persons.

What more proof does one need? Thank you, Master Archie Manners for doing right by your namesakes’ honour; your slight of hand was truly masterful. The whole lot of these blasted dogs have been exposed and as for Victoria Arbiter, she needs to be fired by CNN. Sorry, it is the vicious lynching of the American Duchess, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex by this group of racial predators, empowered by the hideous Bourbon-Bucklebury duo, which drove Meghan to being suicidal.

See this right here; these blasted fucknuts would like to have the world believe that there was no racism to which Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and by extension Harry, Duke of Sussex were subjected and that because the Sussexes chose to have a private moment whilst being counselled by the clergyman and romantically take their vows, which could not have been legal, thus it was a lie, somehow, everything else was a lie. Well see here duckies, the big, flat-arsed princess Eurotrash’s racist shade-throwing could not possibly have been racist, right? Bullshit! Not only was it vile, racist cowardly social aggression, it was also completely and utterly sanctioned by the Cambidges who do no give two fucks, which is precisely why HRH Prince Charles was not allowed access to HRH Prince George for long months after his birth. These are the same Cambridges who leaned forward across the quire aisle from the keenly observant and savvy Mulroneys at the Sussexes’ wedding to hiss and ridicule as well persons possessed of 9 can be expected to do. One should never forget that as a mature soul warrior in perseverance mode with a primary need for power, Catherine knows and understands full well her power.

Britain’s Prince William and his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge appear with their baby son outside the Lindo Wing of St Mary’s Hospital, in central London July 23, 2013. Kate gave birth to the couple’s first child, who is third in line to the British throne, on Monday afternoon, ending weeks of feverish anticipation about the arrival of the royal baby. REUTERS/Andrew Winning (BRITAIN – Tags: ROYALS ENTERTAINMENT HEALTH) – RTX11WFQ
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with their son Prince George photographed at Kensington Palace, March 2014. Also pictured their dog Lupo. Usage terms: This photograph is strictly for editorial use only, no commercial,souvenir or promotional use permitted. The photograph cannot be cropped, manipulated or altered. OBLIGATORY CREDIT LINE JASON BELL/CAMERA PRESS.

The moment that Catherine gave birth, and to a firstborn who proved a prince no less, she immediately became the second most powerful woman in Britain after HM The Queen. This is precisely why she showed her power by retreating to Bucklebury and refused her father-in-law access to her child and future sovereign as this was a direct snub of Camilla, HRH Duchess of Cornwall who at most would be Queen Consort, though, never Queen Consort and future Queen Mother. Hers was the second most valuable womb in Britain, she had given birth to a future sovereign and fuck everyone else… all the social/classist aggression that she had endured was, like an irritating mirage, suddenly collapsed into nothingness. Like Camilla, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex could not eclipse, challenge Catherine… What other response could one expect of an inarticulate mousy woman of another who is articulate, self-made, charismatic and unacceptably non-white. Again, all women with a 9 energy body are the biggest shit-disturbers, saboteuse and are fiendishly controlling. I love the official portrait of Catherine, HRH Duchess of Cambridge at the National Portrait Gallery as it truly captures the complexity of a mature soul warrior in perseverance mode with a primary need of power. She was wedded at her Saturn return and it is at that point that you truly start manifesting, who were born to be. Power corrupts and it is obvious in Catherine’s face in the later photos in the above set. Seven years into her marriage and mother of a future sovereign, Catherine was power mad at the point of the Sussexes wedding and there is no way that she wanted Meghan at court anymore than she suffers the non-threat of Camilla who will never be Queen Mother.

Some fucking how, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex was supposed to have endured the unrelenting racially predatory harassment never before experienced by any other black woman in history and, somehow, these bipedal dogs were in essence braying, “Come on, you’re a nigger, come on play along, come on, you can take it… it’s only a poplar tree, what’s the big deal? Why are you afraid to be lynched? It’s your birth right; this is your role in our national sport… we decide and you are not allowed to be in our fairy story. It’s your history to be lynched for fuckssakes. Stop whining and fall into line.” And whilst all this endured the culpable Cambridges, used tampon et al simply sat around inebriated and somnambulant, chuckling, “one ibble dibble, two ibble dibble.”

Sharon Osborne, fired! Now get out of America. Piers Morgan, fired! Fuck you, you rabid racist coward. Victoria Arbiter, CNN needs to fire this charlatan Briton and soon; that exposé by Archie Manners is all one needs to get a fair assessment of these clowns, claiming to be royal expert this and royal expert that. These same clowns in a post-Oprah CBS Interview are claiming victory as the Sussexes poll numbers have plummeted. Seriously, the Sussexes now live in America; trust you me, neither they nor Americans give a rat’s arse about what island-dwelling xenophobic bigots think. No matter how you keep grasping at straws, the Sussexes are well out of your lives – they do not give a blasted damn.

25/12/2019. Sandringham, United Kingdom: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with Prince George and Princess Charlotte arriving at the Christmas Day church service at Sandringham in Norfolk, United Kingdom: (Stephen Lock / i-Images / Polaris) /// Royals at Christmas Day Church Service

This now frees you up to focus your jaundiced tabloid and fabulist biographies on the rest of the royals… you know, the one with a proclivity for minor fare. Then there is the knock-kneed, flat-footed Bourbon oaf whom you have yet to have a million body language experts opine about the royal brushoff during Mary Berry’s A Berry Royal Christmas Special. That’s right, their marriage is a volatile, shattered affair, which was just as plainly obvious during the BBC Christmas baking special as it was the day of their marriage a decade ago as they rowed all the way up the Mall and whilst on the balcony at Buckingham Palace. Even their miserable-looking kids betray the froideur of their sado-masochistic arrangement.

William is a flawed, weak oaf who hasn’t a clue. Catherine, however, is as rapaciously shrewd as they come. This is why the day after Oprah’s Interview for CBS with the Sussexes when asked by the reporter if the royals were a racist family, William walked right into the trap and spoke up, declaring: We are very much not a racist family.” Catherine, though, pretended not to have heard any of it and simply kept on walking away – indeed, she knew it was best to run away as every coward does. The Cambridges are the architects of it all and unfortunately as he has had to be screamed at and brushed off time and again by Catherine, William stupidly fell for the bait and shot off his mouth where he most definitely ought not to have.

This Betty Carter tour de force, Thou Swell, deftly sums up the superior strategists that the Sussexes are to the Cambridges. Meghan was a Queen Mother too and what is past is present is always future. I played this tune for a couple of hours after William outed himself as the Sussexes intended in their interview with Oprah for CBS, enjoying the deliciousness of their groove which like Jazz, is sophistication most rare. Jazz touches those for whom it is native, it is breath, like it does no one else… go on ape the culture all you want but we both know that, like Billy flat-foot, it don’t mean a damn thing…

As ever, life is like a flying dream; if you look down, you’re fucked. Enjoy the ride and fear no one!

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Once A Queen…

13.03.202109.12.2024 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

Back in May 2018, at the time of their dazzling wedding, many television commentators asked, how is Meghan going to change the monarchy? Well, now we know how… certainly, not as anyone had envisioned. However, the need to demonise, vilify and make sport of being racially predatory, was the singularly focussed agendum of many – especially those of the tabloid press and obviously some royals.

Meghan is a master strategist; like every artisan, she knows how to lay a trap and watch mere fools reveal their hand.

Britain’s Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, (L) speaks with his wife, Britain’s Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge during the wedding ceremony of Britain’s Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and US actress Meghan Markle in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, in Windsor, on May 19, 2018. (Photo by Jonathan Brady / POOL / AFP) (Photo credit should read JONATHAN BRADY/AFP/Getty Images)

Hey Stooopid! Well, of course, the thick-as-a-plank William would take the bait, which was issued by the Sussexes when speaking with Oprah Winfrey before everyone on either side of the pond. William’s rebuttal, the pissed off double negative uncharacteristic outburst, naturally serves as a validation of whom the Sussexes wished to protect, though, not really. “We’re Very Much Not A Racist Family.” Naturally, he who chose during his gap year to travel to a Catholic South American country to assist disadvantaged persons – persons they were who were not part of the Commonwealth, of which one day he will be king – more importantly, a country to which he travelled where not only was it not a Commonwealth nation but it is also not a predominantly black country.

Really, William, the mother of your closest royal male friend, shows up to your brother’s future wife’s inaugural Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace and she wears a blackamoor brooch and this is not racist? Certainly, it could not be racist when that male best friend royal’s wife is Jewish and works as an actor in Los Angeles. Nah, there couldn’t possibly be malicious, racially predatory, shade-throwing afoot in such an open display of racism, which you did not object to, especially when it was your supposed much-loved brother’s affianced. For that outburst of William’s to the reporter, the prosecution would say to his colleague, I’m afraid you’ve a fool for a client, to which the defense attorney would not object. If Princess Michael of Kent wore the blackamoor brooch to the Sussexes’ wedding as a result of Meghan allegedly having made Catherine cry, days leading up to the wedding that would be one thing – doing so as a way to put the upstart American in her place. Either way, it would have been no less controversial. Indeed, it would have been more controversial had she worn the blackamoor brooch to the wedding as more blacks with the televised global audience would have been aware of the racist attack than were aware of the Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace.

Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry (R) attend the wedding of Pippa Middleton and James Matthews at St Mark’s Church on May 20, 2017 in Englefield Green, England.

For being task companions and both possessed of 9 in their numerology, William as he guilty admitted by his outburst, have been the major racist architects of the Sussexes banishment from court – all of which they orchestrated by having the tabloid press do their bidding and the sycophantic ‘royal experts’ vilify the Duchess of Sussex at every turn. As ever, this being a patriarchal society, thus two prominent women had to be pitted against each other. Catherine, a weak, mousy inarticulate woman was threatened by a self-made woman… a black woman and that simply just could not be tolerated. Of course, Catherine fully empowered as future Queen Consort and future Queen Mother, disinvited Meghan from her sister’s wedding to the exceptionally well-hung, odd-looking billionaire whose father’s legal troubles are not dissimilar to prince Andrew’s. At the short-lived Royal Foundation press conference, Catherine sat there hissing an already full bellied python ready to unhinge, strangle and expediently devour the far too challenging prey that was her brother-in-law’s affianced. At Wimbledon 2019, Catherine much as she had at Ascot was just grinning her best ‘fuck you, fuck off’ mask, telegraphing to her sycophants that the American was truly done and finished. Catherine, energy body of 9 – the fiendish shit-disturber, dominatrix and archly discriminating snob held court and telegraphed much at Wimbledon and Royal Ascot 2019.

Back in March 2017, Harry and Meghan flew to Tom Inskip’s wedding in Jamaica. Two months later, betraying their grudge and racist ill-conceived plan to ban Meghan the American, the self-made black woman from the wedding, the Cambridges devised a scheme whereby Pippa was made to ban anyone who was neither wedded nor engaged to attend the church service of her wedding. Meghan, though, to be bullied and shown by the petty Cambridges that she was not welcome was invited to attend the wedding reception in Bucklebury where there was no press. This naturally was a message to Meghan that she was not going to enjoy a long lasting relationship with Harry if they had anything to do with it. However, there was one glaring omission to their bold-faced lie at excluding Meghan from Pippa’s wedding to the billionaire son of a sexual predator – Princess Eugenie attended the church service of the wedding with her boyfriend Jack Brooksbank. Though at the time, the media lied for the Cambridges by alleging that there was assured knowledge that both Jack and Eugenie had been secretly engaged in December 2016; therefore, this enabled Jack to accompany Princess Eugenie to the wedding’s church service. Time as ever always reveals truth; thus it was that in January 2018, long months after Pippa’s wedding HRH Prince Andrew proudly announced that Jack and Princess Eugenie were engaged. So in Pippa’s aka the Cambridge’s alternate reality, Harry a senior royal to Eugenie cannot bring his lover, Meghan, to non-royal Pippa’s wedding; however, junior royal Eugenie was accompanied by Jack at both wedding service and reception. Damn right, slam the door in her damn face and toss the goddamn flowers in the trash – that is what any self-respecting, self-made woman would do. Americans are no one’s inferior and black Americans definitely do not have time to play Prissy to anyone.

4.2.7

All of this drama has originated with the Cambridges, who for being possessed of 9 and being task companions readily became obsessed with banishing Meghan from court. After having successfully banned Meghan from Pippa’s wedding, Meghan was the last person to be surprised at princess flat-arsed-no-calved Michael of Kent showing up to Buckingham Palace 7 months later, sporting the blackamoor brooch because that’s damn well what Catherine & William would have wanted and directed princess Eurotrash to do. Now it was Meghan’s turn to repay Catherine in kind. Catherine who studied art history at university and who had clearly chosen the bridal party for her sister Pippa’s wedding, felt herself perfectly entitled to insist that Meghan’s flower girls and page boys should follow the royal tradition and be stockinged – her son and daughter were part of the party after all. Finally, Meghan gets what Meghan wants and there was damn well no way after being banned from Pippa’s wedding and Princess Michael’s blackamoor brooch that the Mulroney twins were going to look like blasted little stockinged poufters before the world simply because power mad Catherine knows best. In the end, though Meghan won the day, she broke down and cried after being yelled at and put in her place by future Queen Consort and future Queen Mother over-compensatory commoner Catherine. Catherine first number of 9 (shit disturber, dominatrix), perseverance mode and primary need of power could make the strongest self-made woman cry – especially within the confines of the hereditary system that sees her do as she damn well please without ever being challenged and certainly by über milquetoast William.

Britain’s Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, (L) speaks with his wife, Britain’s Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge during the wedding ceremony of Britain’s Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and US actress Meghan Markle in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, in Windsor, on May 19, 2018. (Photo by Jonathan Brady / POOL / AFP) (Photo credit should read JONATHAN BRADY/AFP/Getty Images)
In this image released Tuesday Dec. 24, 2019, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II poses for a photo, while recording her annual Christmas Day message to the nation, at Windsor Castle, England. Excerpts released by Buckingham Palace of the pre-recorded message to be broadcast on TV on Christmas Day, show the Queen acknowledging that both Britain and her family have endured a difficult year. (Steve Parsons/pool via AP)
25/12/2019. Sandringham, United Kingdom: Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with Prince George and Princess Charlotte arriving at the Christmas Day church service at Sandringham in Norfolk, United Kingdom: (Stephen Lock / i-Images / Polaris) /// Royals at Christmas Day Church Service

There they were sat, William and Catherine, throwing shade at his brother’s wedding before the 2 billion onlookers across the planet… to say nothing of the shrewdly observant television industry insiders across the quire’s narrow history-worn aisle. They betrayed their true nature because this is the bane of whites when being racialised towards blacks: open ridicule without a care in the world is more the norm than not; indeed, without the lightest awareness are they just how stupidly ignorant such behaviour is perceived by all humanity, who happen not to be small-minded bigoted whites. Indeed, smugly racialised are such persons who are possessed of zero awareness of just how stupid they are; alas, such persons never own their racism. It is that fix, like all other addictions, that they simply cannot get enough of. Catherine’s visit to Clapham Common was a PR stunt, which only occurred thanks to the truth of what occurred, leading up to Meghan’s wedding being outed during the sit-down with Oprah Winfrey. Meghan made only 2 balcony appearances at Trooping the Colour and on both occasions, she was relegated to the back of the balcony whilst HRH Prince Andrew, who is not a more senior royal than HRH Prince Harry and wife, was given a front row placement. That was not happenstance; just as it was not happenstance that as the Sussexes were banished from court, HM The Queen’s 2019 Christmas address would feature four sovereigns in a crafty way of eclipsing the much too popular Sussexes then along came the jealous Cambridges with their Bourbon-Bucklebury muggles on parade for Christmas Day service in Sandringham; as ever, there the Cambridge kinder progressed, looking just as lost, stupid and clueless as can be expected of bastardised Bourbon blood. Do you think that after that bit of “Fuck you, one of these things just doesn’t belong here” ploy by the Cambridges (the 4 sovereigns photos and the Sandringham walkabout) Meghan was going to sit there before the Queen, Oprah, and not lob a torch over the castle wall by mentioning the royal’s racist obsession with what intensity of melanin Harry’s children would manifest – to which, of course, William could not keep his damn guilty yap shut.

Diana, Princess of Wales spoke across time to her boys and the message was loudly and deeply embedded into the very fabric of Harry’s being: “If you find someone in life, you must hang on to it and look after it. And if you are lucky enough to find someone who loves you, then you must protect it.” Protecting the love with the soul which previously was the matriarch of the Tudor Dynasty, is a true mark of fealty and valour in love. Who has time to remain at the court of two bullying, grudging, jealous boors, who not only have 9 in their numerological makeup but are also task companions? William is not smart in the least but he is stubbornly rigid and exactingly uncompromising; he is also driven by an equally bullying dominatrix whose remarkable jealously has seen Meghan’s articulate command of the stage, scrubbed from the Internet as was deftly and elegantly on display at the 2018 British Fashion Awards.

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Paul Buck/EPA/Shutterstock (7717380be) British Actor Colin Firth Holds Up His Oscar For Actor in a Leading Role For ‘The King’s Speech’ During the 83rd Annual Academy Awards at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood California Usa 27 February 2011 the Oscars Are Presented For Outstanding Individual Or Collective Efforts in Up to 25 Categories in Filmmaking United States Hollywood Usa Academy Awards 2011 – Feb 2011

Not only has Meghan shrewdly outed the Cambridges for the racist boors that they are, she has also cast a rather unflattering light on racism in American cinema, which must and will change. The small-islanded, arch racism that Meghan for simply being, exposed in the British psyche, will lead to Americans taking action on the constant influx of Britons, jumping the queue into Hollywood and being afforded American awards when Americans find themselves being passed over time and again in favour of Britons as arrivistes in Hollywood suck up and seek entry and access to British aristocracy by tossing Emmys and Oscars at British thespians. Honest to fucking god, why in the hell did Kate Winslet and Emma Thompson, to name but two, get awarded an American acting award when they aren’t Americans and there is a nation of more than 330 million with actors of every range and hue, being passed over time and again in favour of hideously racist Britons. And what exactly does one get in return but stinking arrogance and a complete contempt and disregard for American culture and its people. You never ever hear Britons in American, commenting on race; then again, Meghan for marrying at the very apex of their classist/racist society, exposed Britons for being even more hideously racist than Americans can ever possibly be considered. How is American cinema thriving when the tendency is towards brown-nosing Britons and for what? So many American stories from American civilisation are being eclipsed by these arrogant, archly condescending, cultural boors who can never decade after decade of being in Hollywood, shake that godawful, small-island accent that sounds as though talking whilst juggling hot coals up your flat arse. How much longer is American cinema to be deprived the celebration of Hispanic, Amerindian, Asian, Black and all the other rich cultures, which make up the American quilt, in favour of being recolonised by these racist boors?

What gives this displaced, boorish haus frau the right to go on an American talk-show and bully and belittle Americans? Since when have Americans been tolerated on British television? That’s right, regardless the Oscars and Emmys tossed their way, it has garnered nothing for Americans on the other side of the pond. What exactly do you think that racist boor, storming off set was up to, save looking to be relocated by the Murdoch family to America so he can grandstand on Fox TV, spewing his obsessive, racist hatred for Meghan, Duchess of Sussex day in, day fucking out – God only knows, an American could not have been found to replace Larry King on CNN. For having been there and done that, Piers’ plan in walking off the set of GMB, is to relocate across the pond and continue his racist diatribes with Meghan, Duchess of Sussex in mind; after all, someone has to take up the space recently vacated by Rush Limbaugh on American conservative talk radio. Indeed, Piers is yet another racist, hate-filled white male, who is adored and empowered by the tribe for “telling it like it is…” though perception for such persons is tribal, thankfully for the rest of humanity, perception is entirely a personal matter.

The second photo is a screenshot of ITV’s broadcast of the 2018 Remembrance Day in Whitehall. The red line of the YouTube video passes just below my right ear as I gazed across Whitehall to the balcony where directly opposite stood Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex. Ahead, there were persons 4 deep in front of me, I never did see the royal males who stood directly before me, facing the Cenotaph and laying wreaths there. I went home that night and when I got in, I was so overwhelmed with the amount of hatred directed at the Duchess of Sussex from every single person around me that I just silently lay there in my hotel bed and cried. It was the longest release…. I knew that I was crying because the vitriol made me recall the exquisite isolation and pain I knew for living in Winnipeg. Moreover, I recalled at one point as I walked back to the hotel what Diana, Princess of Wales had said in her televised interview with Martin Bashir: “There is no better way to dismantle a personality than to isolate it.” In that moment, I knew that Meghan’s life was not as it seemed; yet, I hoped against all hope that this pang of fear was not true. Yet in the end, we have all come to realise that it was true; this was especially evident when Meghan appeared in the landau with Harry and the Duchesses of Cornwall and Cambridge – she was bloated, depressed and at an obvious low point. What is even more disturbing, is knowing the amount of pain that his mother suffered, William has unrelentingly charged forth with his court of sycophants – blackamoor brooch and all – making Meghan’s life exquisitely unbearable… Can you not just imagine the amount of racially predatory peals of laughter that regularly rang thorough Kensington Palace as Meghan was being further subjected to some hideously racist indignity by obsequious staffers, courtiers, his friends and wife. Why if it were not for a campaign of racist attacks would the Sussexes refuse to move into the refurbished Kensington Palace apartment next to the Cambridges and settled instead on Frogmore Cottage?

One fact has become increasingly clearer, William is HFA. Though he is well-practised to within an inch of his life, beneath that deceptive Neptune conjunct the ascendant veneer are the giveaways; among them, he has a marked aversion for blacks, regardless what his handlers have made him get out there and do – it is after all a job. This explains why he never tours predominantly black Commonwealth nations. It also explains why he goes steely even deadly at times in that manner that is common to spectrum fare and no other humans.

Bully and violently loud to say nothing of stubborn are also marked HFA traits, which he possesses in spades and which are borne out by both his geniture and numerology. There is also that vaguely je ne sais quoi aspect to his totally; it is that babyish quality that all spectrum persons possess and his Neptune is conjunct the ascendant – talk about your loaded piece of burnt toast indeed. As with a preponderance of HFA persons, William’s geniture is marked by a stellium. If ever one needed further proof, his dark Moon conjunction sits at the descendant – Catherine the dominatrix revealed to a T.

All of this racist, immature, destructive behaviour would have, after the Sussexes, more devastated HM The Queen than any other royal. The Sussexes as Commonwealth Youth Ambassadors were going to keep alive The Queen’smost cherished legacy, the Commonwealth. Meghan attended Royal Ascot only once, June 2018. Naturally, her arch enemies, the Cambridges, stayed away so that they could stay at home and watch the procession on TV whilst bitching and ridiculing just as openly as they did Meghan and her culture before 2 billion people at the Sussexes’ wedding. Then there were the Cambridges the next year, 2019, with Catherine smugly celebrating because to that point, it was a done deal, Meghan had cracked and it was just a matter of time before they were kicked out of the Firm and be banished from what was soon to be Wiliam & Catherine’s realm.

Well thank the good lord the BRF and empire has no power over American media and in particular very powerful American media persons who happen to be black. William apart from having a stellium has Neptune conjunct the ascendant opposite the dark moon conjunction which sits squarely at the descendant. William is a weak, deceptive, not very swift eel, who is totally dominated by a unrelentingly power mad partner Catherine (dark moon in Gemini at the descendant). Numbers, astrology and overleaves do not lie…. you can fool no one and William and Catherine will never win in the current power play against the Sussexes for ultimately Americans neither care nor defer to royalty and once a Queen, Meghan is supremely in control and empowered by the supremely knowledgeable Harry born in the year of the Rat.

These are the all-important supporting power hitters who not only know where the bones are buried, they have the emails and texts. More than that, they are all strong, self-made, shrewd, intelligent women and absolutely nothing is more thrilling than the empowering laughter of a strong woman.

As ever, life is like a flying dream; if you look down, you’re fucked. Enjoy the ride and fear no one!

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Beautifully Breathtaking…

14.04.202009.12.2024 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

Self-Portrait

Oil on Canvas

50 x 40 in

1962 Faith Ringgold

http://www.faithringgold.com

______________________________________________________________________________

See You Soon… 30 Years On, Merlin’s Magical Departure.

16.11.201909.12.2024 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

Almost instantaneously, as the Moon transited Leo in my third house, my lungs besottedly drank the warm and dank, dark air. Thus I effortlessly drowned into sleep. Whilst wintry winds howled outside the window, this cold early Saturday morning – November 18, 1989 – my lucid focus seamlessly shifted into the dreamtime.

I readily knew that I was dreaming.

Here, just as moments earlier whilst awake and meditating, Merlin was uppermost in my thoughts. I could sense his presence. The shift from one dimension to the other was seamless. Lucidly self-aware, I was immediately come to in a dream that was set in the bedroom where I slept.

I was in bed with the artist Olaf Nordstrom – a source of loving support at present in the waking state. I was lying in bed, leaning on his bony chest, as he sat up in bed. It was obvious from his body language that he did not want to be in bed with me. I felt a still and quiet vibration to this dream. The moment was truly serene and peaceful. This was not a sexual or post-sexual interlude. We were both reflective. It was obvious that we were on the cusp of something momentous. It was the sort of vibration that signalled that something extraordinary was about to unfold.

Olaf behaved as if he was uncomfortable being there – it was a grave moment. He wanted to be there, however, to merely lend his support. It was obvious that he was wary of my clinging. Clinging, however, was not my intention. The moment together was brief – just a preparation for things to come. With that we parted. It was time to get up and participate in the events of whatever was to unfold.

This dream was possessed of inordinate lucidity; its every detail and nuance my faculties absorbed with acuity beyond the norm.

In the second dream, this cold Saturday morning, I found myself in the familiar territory of the Cabbagetown streets where we lived. I went into a store which does not exist in the waking state. It sat just south of the Pet Menagerie store, on the east side of Parliament Street, between Amelia and Winchester Streets.

It was a tailor’s shop that carried rather high-end fabrics. I was there to pick out some fabric because I had a definite idea of what I wanted to wear to Merlin’s funeral. I knew that the only way, to get the look that I wanted, was to make the outfit myself. The kindly, gracious salesman was trying to get me interested in a rather conservative plaid fabric but it simply was not to my liking. My aversion was not because it was plaid; rather, the tone was too sombre.

He was not insistent but let me know that it was appropriate. However, I would have none of it; I simply did not like the fabric or the colours. I simply was not going to have it. Unable to make up my mind and not wanting to make a decision about fabric, as there were so many ramifications to what it all meant, I left the store stepping into the light of day. It had been a very dimly lit, nicely wood-panelled, stately shop.

Once outside, I became acutely aware of Merlin. I was now returned to the yard of Cabbagetown’s 20 Amelia Street, where we lived, and Merlin was present with me. Thoughts of Merlin, on leaving the store, had me immediately posited in the front yard of 20 Amelia Street where I happily joined him. We were watering the lawn even though it was wintertime. Next door at 18 Amelia Street, where at this point Club Monaco designer Alfred Sung no longer lived, there were lots of potted plants hanging from the lone, purple-leaved, sugar maple tree.

Merlin was telling me to water the plants. He then began telling me, rather matter-of-factly, that I had to start taking care of the apartment – I had to make it a home again. Merlin asked me to start preparing things. He meant that this was not the time for procrastination. Of course, moments earlier in the prior dream, I had been procrastinating when down on Parliament Street to pick out fabrics to wear to his funeral. By avoiding the matter altogether, I had chosen instead to forego the purchase. As Merlin spoke to me, I became so aware of him that I completely became self-aware – both in the dream and in my sleep whilst in bed at 20 Amelia Street.

I was standing there very intently looking at Merlin. He, too, was very intently looking at me. Whilst we were unflinchingly looking into each other, I thought aloud with quiet resignation, ‘Merlin has died.’

I knew, too, that Merlin had heard my thoughts in the dream.

At that moment my sister Pandora da Braga, with whom Merlin enjoyed the best relations of anyone else in my life, suddenly became a presence in the dream. She never fully became physically manifested but her energies became overwhelmingly strong. Her energies were just to my rear as she played a loving and supportive role.

Suddenly, introspectively, I recalled a dream which I had had earlier in the week. With everything moving so quickly, in the waking state – with little time to collect my thoughts, let alone overlong time to record any dreams- it had slipped by unrecalled on awakening. However, now it was not merely being recalled, it was being relived in its entirety. I stood there and as I recalled the dream, rather seamlessly, I actually entered the dream which was being reanimated as it was being holographically recalled.

Within the reanimated dream being recalled and relived, I was again on the lawn at 20 Amelia Street in the warmth of the Sun’s rays. Just as in today’s dream, I was on the front lawn facing due north and the house with 18 Amelia Street on the left to the west. As Merlin and I were visiting in the outer dream of today, I had turned my body. Being in the same physical position had triggered the recall and reanimation of the dream from the past week.

To my left, I saw an incredibly ancient-looking, wise being who progressed across the lawn. The slowness of his progression was so measured that one’s experience of time, in the reanimated and recalled dream, progressed outside of time itself. It was simply magical to experience the progression of the very ancient and mystical being. The millennia-ancient figure progressed across the lawn, of 18 Amelia Street, heading towards our home at 20 Amelia Street. The being was male and small in stature; he was hobbit-like. His head was large, disproportionately large, compared to his tiny, frail-bodied frame.

He could not have been more than four feet tall. His head was absolutely massive. His forehead arched up and was high like an African’s. Too, his head was elongated in the back, reminiscent of Pharaoh Akhenaten’s skull. More striking than the majesty with which the august being progressed outdoors, towards our home at 20 Amelia Street, was the look of his face.

It was simply magical. From beneath the translucent skin, soft yellow-white light escaped revealing his very visible aura. Nothing but pure love, along with the same nonjudgmental look that ever peered back from Merlin’s eyes to mine, radiated from this being. The love radiating from the being towards me was awesome, immense – intense. The great being’s progress was purposeful. He was on a mission; he was unstoppable. The process had begun.

I was struck by the uncanny resemblance, which the face of this being bore, to the planet-being in the skies of Sandy Point, St. Kitts in a momentous dream during September 1983. It was a dream whose potency and beauty would lay unfathomable for years to come. The being progressed as though levitating mere millimetres above the rather zingy, extra-green grass of the lawns at both 18 and 20 Amelia Street. Though he did not pause as he progressed, the radiant being did turn and look at me. As though he was familiar with me, he acknowledged me by slightly nodding. However, he continued on towards our home.

He moved past me as I stood there, still and silent, drinking in the majesty of the experience. At soul-centre we were familiar to each other. I knew him. He knew me. I stood, alone and awestruck, in the front yard being refamiliarised by the vibration of his beauty as the effect of his potent powers spatially affected the dream. As he moved past, I was reminded of the film The Dark Crystal, by Jim Henson – with whom Merlin had worked, directing two episodes of the Fraggle Rock television series in its inaugural season. This movie would for several months, after we saw it together in New York City, be our favourite film.

Thereafter for several weeks, whenever we looked at each other – even when not being intimate, we had hummed at each other as the rival beings in the film did when communicating. The being here was much like the good beings in the Jim Henson film The Dark Crystal. The being progressed up the few stone steps, to the wooden veranda at 20 Amelia Street, and began making his way inside the house. As I watched him ascend, from the lawn to the veranda, it was clear to me that he was levitating. Though it was a dream and I too could have levitated and flown, he though had a power which surpassed mine.

This august-souled, mystical being clearly originated from a dimension which vibrationally and spiritually was of a higher plane than the astral, where the dream occurred, and the physical in which I am incarnate. Indeed, the same physical plane from which Merlin was rapidly taking his leave – it was that discernible. The moment the mystical being entered our home, being lost to view, I came to from the inner holographic dream which was a recall and reanimation of a dream that I had experienced within the last week. As I came to, I was about to go indoors to see what had become of the being that had clearly entered our home.

It was then, having returned to being fully focussed in the outer ‘shell’ dream of today November 18, 1989, that I saw Merlin anew. He was standing at the front door looking out at me. I stood there, in the front yard, transfixed whilst the bright daylight bathed my body throughout. The look on Merlin’s face was purely transcendent. He was perfectly still and perfectly radiant. Merlin stood in the midst of a nimbus of dazzling, blue-white light. As he lovingly glowed out at me, this splendid light only intensified.

Merlin was transformed and as his face lovingly lit up, at me, the light grew to more completely envelop his body. Whilst lovingly glowing at me with the warmest, most familiar knowing smile, Merlin slowly brought his right hand up with the palm facing me and more completely smiled. The radiance of his smile soon became lost in the glow of his aura’s light. The nimbus, enveloping his transformed body, radiated even more intensely at that point.

I was blown away. Arrested, I readily knew what I was experiencing; I could feel it. I knew that across dimensions, in the waking state, Merlin had just died.

However, as is my wont, I protested. I dropped the hose which was still bleeding its nurturing water onto the frozen, wintry lawn at my feet. I stood – paralysed. Determinedly, I then bolted for Merlin. I headed up to the veranda as my lover, as my mentor, as my friend stood transcendent in the doorway to what had been the most beautiful sense of home ever experienced. “Merlin!” shrieking in protest, I yelled out his name.

(Detail of oil on canvas by my sister Pandora of Toronto’s Mount Pleasant Cemetery where Merlin is buried.)

Suddenly, the thunder of my protesting breath abruptly drew me from sleep. I sat upright in bed, my arms outstretched and beyond, after having crashed back into my body and no longer astral-projected. From the foot of the bed both cats – Zora and Whoopi – knowingly, silently looked up. I was arrested by the frozen horror-struck face staring at me from the mirrored closet doors across the room.

In the near-darkness of the bedroom, a few rays of early morning light made it past the blood-red, velvet drapes heavily hung at the windows. Those rays starkly cast light on how horribly desolate my life now was. Merlin was gone. His spirit had taken leave from this world. It was that discernible as my world, my very universe, had experienced a massive vibrational shift.

I had been abruptly displaced from the astral plane. I had been lucidly dreaming a dream within a dream. I was being told so long as Merlin, transitioned from incarnate to astral plane habitué, bade farewell to our magically glorious union on the physical plane. I was heartened by the peace and knowingness in his transcendent face because I knew that it was a, “See you soon…” parting, for now.

I knew that there would be dreams aplenty up ahead. Just as he had pledged, he would magically weave in his indelible promise to me, before departing from the physical plane. There was such a cold silence, a stinging finality to the moment, as I sat there in bed. After having looked back at myself, silently waiting, I placed a call to the eighth storey nursing station at Wellesley Hospital.

I was immediately aware that the tone of the nurses, with whom I was by now long-familiar, had changed. In very little time, it was official… Merlin had indeed passed. Truth be told, it was not a surprise; I could sense it on awaking. He simply was not there. As always, I had reached out to sense him on awaking – his energies – just blocks away at Wellesley Hospital. Now, there was nothing.

Then, as if needing further proof, I thought about Merlin calling each morning. He would do so, to lovingly say hello and thereby, to lovingly wake me up. Merlin would then lovingly ask for a call-back, after I had audio-recorded the dreams. Merlin had, thus far, not called. Once again, I saw the stillness of my reflection across the room. I knew then, really knew… Merlin was gone.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

As ever, thanks for your ongoing support but if you really want to make me levitate then do buy my books!

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Catherine: A Deeper Shade of Vermeer.

08.07.201909.12.2024 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

Girl with a Pearl Earring, Oil on Canvas Johannes Vermeer 1665.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Camilla, HRH Duchess of Cornwall. HRH Prince Charles, Prince of Wales. Doria Ragland. HRH Prince Henry, Duke of Sussex, Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, Earl Dumbarton. Jane, Baroness Fellowes. Lady Sarah McCorquodale. HRH Prince William, Duke of Cambridge. Catherine, HRH Duchess of Cambridge.

As I stated to a dear friend, “Doria is all the Queen they need in that photograph!” Not for a second do I buy the notion that HM The Queen stayed away because, when it is all said and done, she does not approve of Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex. Her Majesty also did not attend HRH Prince Louis of Cambridge’s christening last year.

It is so immensely satisfying to see HRH Prince Henry, Duke of Sussex matured into fatherhood and his numerological double-sixthness is validated by his open warmth, love and protective care of both his wife and his beautiful baby boy.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Archie, a seventh-level mature priest soul; he is infinitely more evolved than either his parents, or the Cambridge’s for that matter. He is, though, the same soul age as his paternal grandfather, HRH Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, however, Charles is a seventh-level warrior to exalted role priest, Archie. This man is going to perform a rather dynamic role within the history of the House of Windsor.

Much has been said about Prince William’s demeanour in this portrait. Without doubt, both the Cambridges attended Archie’s christening with an agendum of their own. I don’t know if William put his wife up to her power play but I do know this, it was decidedly vile and you can bet your bottom dollar that none of this went unnoticed, nor for that matter will it go unchallenged by Meghan – she who was Margaret Beaufort in a past life.

So, William threw shade. Quelle surprise ça. William does as William does. Born on the summer solstice of 1982, he has a geniture that is most unique; it comes with an intense stellium. That is not necessarily a good thing; with so many planets closely concentrated, this gives him a tendency towards short-sightedness and in his position as future Prince of Wales, he takes very seriously his role as future king and acts autocratically at every turn. He did not invite his aunts to the christenings of any of his three children. William did not invite, Sarah, Duchess of York to his wedding. After the birth of his firstborn, he decamped at the Middletons in Bucklebury and avoided his father, the future king. As with most people with a numerological attitude of 9, which is the hardest number to master, he does things more often than not for spite.

Of course, he could not be more different to his brother, HRH Prince Henry, Duke of Sussex who is born in the year of the rat, like his father and his paternal great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother. Rats, I am one, are deeply loyal and will always be inclusive of family to the point of appearing sentimental. This would be especially pronounced in a rat like Harry who is a warrior soul and such souls are deeply loyal. So, too, is HRH Prince Charles, Prince of Wales a warrior soul and also, HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh a mature warrior born in the year of the rooster like Meghan. Warriors forget nothing and do not readily forgive insults – a pity William in his myopic blissfulness remains unaware of this.

Saturday, for Archie’s christening, true to his warrior/rat spirit, Harry had his beloved mum’s sisters present at the christening just as Jane, Baroness Fellowes read scripture at his beautiful, historic wedding to Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex. Every rat would do exactly the same. Well there were TRH Duke & Duchess of Cambridge smugly telegraphing their ennui for all the world to see. As a warrior soul, I would not have expected such a gutter snipe move on Catherine’s part on Saturday.

As this was Harry’s firstborn’s christening and he was so deeply bonded to his mum, Catherine who had never worn those earrings of Diana, Princess of Wales’, to any of her three children’s christening, rather than loaning the earrings to Meghan by way of affording them to Harry so that his lovely wife could wear them as they would mean so much to Harry as his mother had worn them for his christening, instead, there sat Catherine feigning hauteur whilst smugly smiling to those in the know. Indeed, this was Catherine’s star turn, which was just as vile as HRH Princess Michael of Kent’s infamous blackamoor brooch outing in December, 2017.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Positively nothing that these courtiers do is happenstance. In essence, in wearing those earring of Diana, Princess of Wales’, which she had worn to Harry’s – and William’s for that matter – christening, Catherine was in effect saying to Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex, as much as Harry would like for you to have them, seeing as you are straight outta Compton, there is no guarantee that you’ll return them. No matter, as long as I wear them, Diana’s spirit will be present. This was a very cruel and low blow and not the sort of dirty pool that warrior souls engage in. I am betting that William put his wife up to it; however, as Catherine’s right eye has become increasingly pained and umbraed in the past few years, she is clearly deeply stressed by the pressures of being married to William, who also happens to be her task companion. Notice the way that Catherine, HRH Duchess of Cambridge wears her hair at Archie’s christening; the high headband, with the hair fully pulled back and the headband ruby-coloured to best set off the pearl earrings, worn by Diana, Princess of Wales at her sons’ christenings. With the headband, there is no chance of Catherine luscious main covering the pearl earrings, the choice of which are to telegraph much to those courtiers in the know.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Catherine’s right eye since HRH Prince George of Cambridge’s christening in 2013, has become pained, saddened and distant. I also suspect that she may have become anorexic from the stress of being wedded to William who as a scholar soul is void emotional depth and can be expected to be keenly spiteful.

In this clip for William’s christening, at the five second mark, Diana, Princess of Wales turns to the left to look and speak to Charles who wanted to mop up William’s dribbling and it is then that you see that Diana is wearing the same earring. It is not lost on me that clearly Diana is being rude to Charles when he offers to wipe away the dribble. Of course, William was christened on August 4, 1982; it was Charles’ beloved grandmother’s 82 birthday, which is precisely the sort of gift that a rat would present his much loved family member. Ironically enough, on that day, it was Prince Charles’ future daughter-in-law’s first birthday, the admired and adored Tungsten.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

At all three christenings for her adorable children, Catherine did not wear those earrings of Diana, Princess of Wales’. I am sure that if she wanted to, William would have decided against it as there is nothing sentimental about him and scholars by their nature are not given to being sentimental. Three different earrings for all three children’s christenings. I think that it would have been especially cruel if Meghan had thought to ask her husband, Prince Harry to request those pearl earrings that Diana wore to his christening, only to have William veto the request then turn around and have his wife parade them at the christening – this of course would play beautifully to those courtiers like the Michaels of Kent et famille; it is precisely the sort of petty spitefulness that would have made Meghan put her foot down and insist that they relocate to Frogmore Cottage and away from the vipers’ nest that Kensington Palace so clearly had become for the Sussexes.

Of course, wearing the earrings would be seen as further rejection, coming so close on the heels of the disbanding of the Royal Foundation. Not to worry, as an American and Black American, you can bet your bottom dollar the very shrewdly canny Tungsten will have a rebuttal. Besides, who is Catherine to Meghan, she is a mousy little thing, who did not walk the aisle at her wedding alone; indeed, how Meghan must sniff and look sideways from beneath raised, bored brows every time Catherine has to go gag on a mic as William pushes her to be more relevant and not be eclipsed by the Compton interloper. As for William, Meghan is likely little bothered by a petulant, spiteful man-child, who has to be told not to sit with his back to the horses on entering the open landau on his wedding day.

Just as including his aunts, Harry would have thought to have his wife wear the earrings that his beloved mum wore to his christening. This is the sort of warrior/rat thoughtfulness that saw Prince Charles salute his beloved grandmother – another rat, though, a second-level mature slave soul – by having his firstborn christened on her 82nd birthday.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

HM King Henry VIII’s ruthlessness was the result of having been mentored and much loved by his grandmother, Margaret Beaufort – Matriarch of the Tudor Dynasty… kingmaker. Well, that soul who was then Margaret Beaufort is back and did not return to be anyone’s pushover, as her entrance unaccompanied at her wedding in May, 2018 demonstrated. A mean-spirited move, it most definitely was on the part of both William and Catherine by having Catherine wear earrings, which I am almost certain, Harry would have requested of them that his mother’s pearl earrings be loaned to his wife as a continuation of that rat/warrior reference and homage to both history and his beloved mum. Naturally, such a request would have been a perfect opportunity for William to have been callously spiteful as he has proven time and again with others – Sarah, Duchess of York, HRH Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, his father.

Naturally, the media did not portray Catherine, HRH Duchess of Cambridge as having been duplicitous by having worn the earrings that Diana, Princess of Wales wore to Harry’s christening. Why on earth had it never occurred to Catherine to wear those earrings to any of her children’s christenings? Just imagine if Meghan had done any such thing, it would have garnered an excessive response of outrage on the online tabloid portals with their legions of bigoted trolls.

Indeed, lynching Meghan is now big business, just imagine, even that Trenchtown jagabat came yammering that can’t-shake mid-Atlantic accent of hers as she opined on both Meghan and Diana, Princess of Wales. Running off at the mouth as though she knew Diana, Princess of Wales. Would that she would just shut up and crawl into her casket… I want a damn good return on that godawful, and justly pulped, ode to specious slander – a copy of which sits in my library, awaiting her exit. She no more knew Diana, Princess of Wales than she does or ever will know Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex.

At the end of the day, the real masterpiece, worth more than a gaggle of Vermeers, is the product of the love that Harry and Meghan share; it has resulted in the most beautiful baby boy, Archie, the Earl Dumbarton.

_________________________________________________________________

As ever, thanks for your ongoing support. Here’s wishing you the most gloriously lucid dreams. I love you more.

__________________________________________________________________

Otello: Race and the Arts.

07.05.201909.12.2024 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

After having pored through an interesting OperaCanada article that featured the opera Otello’s lead, Russell Thomas, and a predictably snide review in The Star – look there is no black lobby in Canada, so one can always be expected to be as curt and dismissive of blacks at every turn; this is after all the culture where the obsession with Jazz is almost as fever-pitched as the predatory late-night runs of Klansmen with nooses at the ready – I comfortably settled into my usual ring three seat, next to trusty Lucian Mann-Chomedy and warmly awaited the magic that is theatre to unfold.

After a month that was not soon revisited, my mind was at times distracted by the dreck that one must at times endure in order to get by. I thought of the heaviness in the air that the subject matter of the opera addressed; the quartet of retired ladies who usually chat about who has taken ill, moved to hospice or died since last they gathered, did a lot of coughing, sniffing and whispering. And as these things are as predictable as flies on shit, sure enough, I heard one of them whisper, “Meghan Markle.” Will these people ever just leave the damn woman alone and stop hunting her at every opportunity?

Otello, Verdi’s take on Shakespeare’s take on race relations did also from the row of retired and widowed ladies spirit the whisper of O. J. Simpson’s name. Some things just never change… alas. Indeed, at some moments as I looked at Otello onstage, I began to realise how we as a people are stigmatised and stereotypically projected onto. I soon got greater insight to why Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex is so reviled. Objectified, she as a black woman was only ever to have been nothing more than a bit of rough, a tryst.

Naturally, HRH Prince Henry, Duke of Sussex with his double sixness is seen as being readily taken advantage of and needed to be protected against the lascivious bit of rough who clearly conned her way into the royal family. Born September 15, 1984, Henry born in the year of the rat has quite beautifully empathetic, compassionate numbers and with his double sixness is given to OCD behaviour as displayed by his need to fidget with his clothing – right hand inside his jacket et al. Six people are awesome beings and Henry, a double six, is no exception. 15.9.1984 = 6.6.1 = 4.

With Otello, this projection of the black male as emotionally volatile, violent, easily manipulated has certainly proven an archetype that fits blind fools like Tiger Woods and O. J. Simpson to the letter. Either way, it was uncomfortable to watch this production in places as it so mirrored the warped perception of a people by persons who question our humanity and who never seem able to perceive us beyond their generationally custodial perception of a people.

Be that as it may, I so hungered to be removed from the morass through which I recently waded at the end of which, I dismissively remarked of yet another power-mad woman in the work place: “She certainly doesn’t look like a fucking horse for no good reason… Oh please, it’s just a matter of time before she rots the fuck in hell, eating every pope’s arse!” If you cannot take offence then don’t damn well give offence… Honest to god, some women in the work place are nothing but dickless faggots addicted to creating drama for the sheer sport of it and simply because they are just so drunk with power… to say nothing of being bored out of their frigging minds. Well, like a bowel movement, it did not take too long for me to sniff, flush and walk the fuck away from the BS,

This Desdemona was an earthy, warm, beautifully soulful portrayal of a wronged woman, a woman dominated by an insecure and deceived man. This production was a beautiful sweeping affair; I especially loved the dark broody look of the sets that captured the essence of the human condition portrayed. Indeed, it proved a good elixir after all the dross that I had recently endured in the work place.

During Otello’s intermission, I received a forwarded Instagram post from an old dancer friend, which he labelled #everythingwasbeautifulattheballet. Of course, it was a direct response to my last blog, which highlighted the intense isolation and racial animus that I experienced for two god fuck-all maudlin years in Winnipeg. Yes, indeed, the world of art is saturated with lisping, bottom-feeding, small ‘b’ bigoted boors who see positively nothing remotely gauche about this sort of fare well into the 21st century.

On yet another too cold, rainy day, which proved all too reminiscent of Vancouver, I abandoned my art-filled lair in search of more inspiration the day after the opera. I cannot quite recall a season in recent memory that has proven both so cold and rainy as this protracted winter.

That’s right, the day before attending Otello, there was a break in the perpetual rains that gave way to snow and hail… truly, the dog days of summer cannot get here fast enough. As more of the city’s 19th century streetcar tracks were being ripped up and replaced so that the racket that is the TTC outdoor workers and the local constabulary can make a killing in overtime, it took close to 40 minutes on a bus for me and my fuck du jour to get from Yonge and Dundas to Dundas and McCaul.

My date, a lissom twenty-something with smoky hazel eyes, which were vaguely reminiscent of Merlin’s, was good company. I had for the past several hours pummelled his prostate as his daddy issues were satisfied and my angst from work place tensions were nicely dispensed with. We men when in our 20s can be so alarmingly insecure; I have often wondered how Merlin managed to stay with me during those angst-ridden and redundantly solipsistic years.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

My date on exiting the Yayoi Kusama Infinity Room expressed chagrin at not having done magic mushrooms before leaving my place where incense and Jazz magically perfumed the air, intoxicating our spirits as we riotously fucked our way out of winter’s gnawing frigidity.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Without question, no trip to the AGO is completely inspiring without a visit to the galleries where the stellar art of Inuit artists are housed. There are some real masterpieces in the AGO collection.

As it was the tail end of this exhibition and I still had not visited, I simply had to make it there. Whilst walking along the long corridor to the start of the exhibition my fey-eyed beauty suggested that we take a break and go make out in a stall in the washrooms. Fingers interlaced, I assured him that there was better intimacy to be had the sooner we got through the exhibition and hightailed it back to my place by Uber.

To my very discriminating eye, the moment I saw this verbose title, I fully expected to observe a show that was curated by too much extraneous fare and not enough impressionist art. Tumescent and impatient, I had no time for reading, reading and reading more yada yada, all of which was to compensate for the lack of genuine, to say nothing of quality, impressionist art. Just as well, I was growing achingly moist by the minute as both my energetic ectomorph and I hungered to be carnally consumed with each other… yet again.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This marvellous bronze fully captivated me; it would prove my favourite piece in the shoddily curated exhibition.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Highlights from a rather underwhelming show.

Detail featuring two of the most beautiful creatures. Their depiction is not the most masterfully executed but there is something rapturous about the look of the dogs as they ambled with their human companions on a journey which they had taken countless times before that made me stop and gaze overlong whilst being truly inspired.

Detail of what for me proved sheer magnificence… the lighting is phenomenally executed.

A masterpiece to be sure; however, where it was hung and the palette of the salon were decidedly inappropriate. This was all I needed to see to finally wink the left eye at my horny power bottom and to speed home by Uber in the rain for noisy, exhausting, passionate play.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

As ever, for your ongoing support I am both deeply grateful and indebted. Sweet dreams and don’t you ever forget to push off and start flying because life is a most beautiful drink. Cheers!

_________________________________________________________________________________________

#BestDespinaEver!

08.02.201909.12.2024 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

Opening nights are always such fun… Tuesday night past, I was reminded of all the opening nights that I would attend with a slightly neurotic Merlin as some show or other that he had directed was being presented to the world… As ever, it was great to see my plus one, Lucian Mann-Chomedy as the ideal partner for these occasions. Always reserved, pleasant and just the right amount of chatter and wit.

Whilst Lucian enjoyed the pre-show lecture in the Four Seasons Centre Amphitheatre, I slipped next door into the warmth of the Sheraton Centre Hotel and warmed myself on a glass of sherry whilst finishing off 2018’s Scotiabank Giller Prize winner on my KOBO.

What an utterly stunning tour de force. It was a moment to reflect, this Black History Month on just where we blacks are in the scheme of things. God only knows, it has been bruising to watch Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex become the print media’s most reviled and hunted fugitive from justice of that most vile creature, the racial predator.

I was still smarting at the events of a week earlier during the winter season’s first major snowstorm. I had been recalling to friends how strange it now was, compared to my first winter in Canada. December 1, 1974 and it snowed that day more than 8 inches. Back then it generally was guaranteed to snow once if not twice weekly. Now at end of January, 2019 and we were finally having our first major snow. This was not like snow from years past… Now it was a dirty, sooty-looking hard mess that lingered, largely in part because the city has contracted out its snow removal services.

As there are no windows in my apartment – Sol’s too damn bright by far and besides, boarded up windows afford me more art-hanging space – I got down in the early afternoon that Monday with my bike, only to be met by falling snow and several accumulated inches. Back up I went, retired the trusty chrome steed and returned and hopped into a snazzy Audi A6 Uber ride with a Macedonian whose spirit was as smooth and elegant as matchingly was his car. The mood set the tone for my day. As I am known to work 16-hr days, I called another Uber at the end of gig one whilst hoping to get to gig 2 in good time. The snow was still coming down; it was also bitterly cold and windy.

When finally, Uber #2 arrived, cold and dark with icy pellets mixed in with the snow, the driver rolled down his passenger side window and declared, “Sorry Buddy but I am going to have to cancel this ride…” Already running late, with my wheeled suitcase at the ready, he edged along as I tried to open the door and raised his voice, his eyes almost feral-looking beneath his turbanned, narrow skull. “I said I am cancelling you. One: I never take people like you in my car. Two: you have a shitty rating… Sorry, not sorry. Fuck you Buddy.” With that, he stepped on the gas and I had to swiftly haul me and suitcase out of the way as the rear of his red older model car whose interior did have that blasted malodorous melange of curry, dirty armpit, dirty arse, smegma and whatever the fuck else that passes for immigrants of choice these days. Finally, after having struggled out onto a still-not-ploughed Bay Street, I managed to hail the fourth cab whose West African driver insisted that I call Uber and report him… Days later, I was afforded assurances that the racist Dravidian was no longer part of Uber’s fleet. Similarly, when calling a Beck Taxi with a fairly generic name as Arvin, on coming downstairs the Indo-Canadian drivers on several occasions as though staying on script would feign obsequiousness and state that they were deeply sorry but owing to a family emergency, they were having to take the cab out of service. No sooner than having refused me a ride, they would then be observed heading out to Wellesley, turning on their unoccupied light and picking up a fare off the road. As if the blasted motherfuck, the likes of your overbred arse invented Jazz.

Each and every time that one experiences racial animus, is preyed on racially, it always harks back to that first winter in Toronto. My best mate from two summers earlier, when I would come to Canada to visit with my dad during school break, had been sick. After Sunday church service at Knox Presbyterian at Harbord and Spadina before returning to our beautiful home at 122 Mortimer Avenue, I would visit – my dad and I – with Tommy who was holding up at Toronto Sick Kids Hospital on University Avenue. My father explained that Tommy was sick with the winter flu, which sometimes could last for months and well beyond winter. I was a scrawny little fourteen-year-old who looked like most ten-year-old Canadian kids as I crawled the halls at Harbord Collegiate where among my mostly Italian-Canadian chums was future lawyer, Rocco Galati. As Tommy, who was a couple of years older than me, had gladly shared books with me the two summers prior that I would take to Knox summer camp and read then have a good stroke off, lusting after my inamorato, Tommy, I readily agreed to do his newspaper route for him until he came home. My first Saturday, the cart was overflowing with the thick Toronto Star newspaper and there was a good foot of snow everywhere. It was hellish but for Tommy, I was game to go the distance – who knows what hot frottage, docking and more was in the offing for having done his route for him! When I got to the northeast corner of Floyd and Bater Avenues that first Saturday to collect the funds, the door opened to a woman whose response to me was the most hideous display of the displaced madness that is white bigotry. Screaming at the top of her lungs, the woman in her upper seventies, vituperatively cursed my black bugger arse off and laid down the law. Never again, “you dirty little nigger” was I to set foot on her verandah.., I was to put the paper between her screen and front doors, knock then return to the top of her steps and wait for her to pay the bill. That first Saturday, she ripped the paper from my hand, flung the money at me. She was terrifying, in her faded blue A-line dress, black spectacles that had those upturned pointed edges at the sides; she wore faux pearls. Most of all, she wore the most hideously terrifying eyes. I remember how much they looked like eyes of a rooster, especially so for being such puffy eyes. Like the evolved, winged and feathered reptilians that roosters are, her eyes truly did look not the least bit human. She was so consumed with racial animus that it was truly frightening. By the time I made it home, I found myself regurgitating. Thereafter, every Saturday, I would take my spot at the top of the steps and consistently she would hurl out pennies mostly at me rather than the verandah where that first winter I had to suffer the indignity of picking through inches of snow on the verandah, steps and lawn to collect my money. Naturally, without fail she called most Saturdays to the Toronto Star, complaining of either not having received her paper on time or that it was missing altogether. This would mean having to buy her a replacement at the corner store, take it and only to be fed on by the hideous-of-spirit racial predator. Like a true cockhound many an indignity I suffered in hopes of my spectacled, full-lipped and scholarly inamorato, Tommy hooking up with me for having been so loyal to him. The summer prior, I had ventured to the public pool on Broadview at Riverdale Park with him and a couple of others and thrilled beyond belief was I to spy his large pendulous balls and that hammer-headed girthsome salami that pummelled his bikinis. Indeed, for Tommy I would suffer much indignity. There was a low-rise apartment building at 1111 Broadview where on the ground floor, there was another predator, this one equally septuagenarian who lived alone, smoked incessantly and always answered the door in various stages of undress, mostly ever only wearing a soiled merino. He was always a generous tipper; a whole 2$ bill in 1974/75 was serious cash. Naturally, in the pre-Ciaslis epoch old anorexic, drunken paunched predator would sometimes tug on the old bulbous semi-flaccid/semi-tumescent, though, pendulous but perfectly useless appendage, trying to lure me in. Sitting there in all that squalor and acting as though he was sugar daddy material… indeed. He was always keen on trying to grab me when giving me the “tip” and I was ever sly and crafty enough to get away from him each time. He, too, lead me to regurgitate, which I had not done since age nine and suffering my first racial attack. Of course, to this day, neither academia nor medicine will concede that there is any such a thing as the racial predator and the effects it has on those preyed on – mostly blacks – and the psyche/mental illness of those who prey on others chiefly non-blacks in varying degrees of severity based on otherness.

Finally, the house lights went down and I was met by the whimsical vista of the COC’s production of W. A. Mozart’s glorious opera, Cosi Fan Tutte. Previously, I had caught productions of this Mozart gem in Chicago, Montréal and New York City. I was not expecting much at this rate. The Frida Kahlo connection was a bit of a stretch but the butterflies fast won me over.

From the moment that she stepped onto stage, my spirit soared aloft higher than Mozart’s glorious music to that point had spirited me. Never before had there been so captivating a Despina. My eyes teared up and I was ever on the cusp of explosive giggles. Then what made me truly come undone was the moment Tracy Dahl took to the stage as the notary… by now, I was losing tears and beginning to emit choked snorted chuckles. Each Saturday back in 1974/75 when doing Tommy’s newspaper route, I would end off taking the Saturday Star to Giovanna an octogenarian Italian, who was plump, charming and more adorable than any mere mortal ought to be. Soon, we were fast lovers and she loved fussing over me, baking me each Saturday nice, warm, oven-fresh biscotti washed down with a glass of ice-cold “gingah raleh”… her thick Italian accent was part of her charm. Hers was a large black and white cat, simply known as pussy gatto, who always sat nesting on the armchair. Each week, Giovanna sat transfixed as I read her the newspaper; her vision was to that point fairly deteriorated. As a way of better forging our bond and because most of my mates at Harbord were Italian, for three years, I studied Italian and that really impressed Giovanna, who was simply known as “Mama Mia.”

As the opera progressed, Ms. Dahl as the notary, dashed and took cover beneath the table at which point, I buried my face in the program with explosive laughter. Straight away, I was reminded of each Saturday when the ever silent pussy gatto would bolt from the armchair and take cover beneath the sofa where I sat as Giovanna began an explosion of long-winded farts. Even the singer’s voice sounded much like Giovanna’s as she sang the role of notary. Remarkably, it was as though she was channelling Giovanna. In that moment, I was healed of the bile, which the recent Uber incident had caused to surface, bile that dated as far back as 1974.

In the end, Tommy’s parents sold their house and it was not until a couple years later that I discovered from the neighbour next-door that Tommy, who had never returned to their Mortimer and Logan home, had died of Leukaemia. Indeed, the winter flu was my dad’s way of protecting me from the callousness of having to lose a friend so early in life.

Apart from the catharsis that Tracy Dahl’s performance personally effected, I don’t think that it would be biased of me to state that hers was the runaway performance in the COC’s fantastic, and fast-paced I might add, production of Cosi Fan Tutte.

_________________________

As ever, mischievously push down and melt with laughter in celebration of the joy that is life and start having yourselves a most glorious of flying dreams. Thanks for your ongoing support of this happening astral joint on this side of the astral plane. I love you more.

_______________________________________________________________________

At Last, The Day Has Finally Arrived.

09.12.201809.12.2024 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

With a spring in my step, I came up for air at Piccadilly Circus Station, whistling Ludwig Minkus’ glorious recurrent melody from La Bayadère with thoughts of the astounding Natalia Osipova uppermost in my thoughts.

I was returned to the Royal Academy to hunt for coffee table books.

More than that, I was on a mission; returned to Fortnum & Mason was I, directed there by the gracious clerk at The British Museum’s Grenville Room.

Armed with just over a dozen rose petal jellies, there was no less spring in my step as by now I sang aloud my merry little melody from La Bayadère. I truly felt as though, on this trip to London, I was lucidly awakened in the most sensual dream. Dreams so luscious are the ones which cause you to pause, smile and whisper near-mischievously, “Arvin, this is a dream and you’ve earned it. Now push off and start flying.”

At such times, there is no thunder more glorious than the roar of my very soul as I laugh, enjoying my creative soul fulfilling itself. I was reminded of those early days in our relationship in Manhattan when whilst ambling late at night for staying at Merlin’s agent Joyce Ketay’s Upper West Side apartment, whilst holding hands, I would push down as in dreams but end up doing an assemblé, in place of flying. His rosy choirboy lips would warm in a smile whilst the ubiquitous fag or joint was elegantly perched between left index and middle fingers.

Bailing into to Piccadilly Circus, still feeling mighty spiffy of spirit, I opted against heading back down into the Underground – the place leaves me with sooty phlegm each time nose-blowing. With that, I bailed out of the Circus and onto Shaftesbury Avenue and made my way to a favourite joint, Ben’s Fish n Chips.

There at a cosy table in the rear, I leisurely pleasured myself whilst finally reading the HRH Princess Margaret biography; it is delicious.

Blisters be damned, I elected to walk from Shaftesbury Square up to The British Museum and take in more art. This being a Friday, there were school kids everywhere; my goodness, children have got powerful noise-making lungs! Then again, what is childhood but play for the soul, which after having recently lived and died is now reborn and gets to celebrate and run up and down in a brand spankingly new and excitingly different body – to say nothing of being in the company of reincarnational travel companions some of whom now you can get a good schtup off of this time around, seeing that last time he now she looked like Quasimodo and even so, you weren’t then same-sexed focussed. Ha!

In the bookstore was a clerk with whom I shared an interesting conversation last winter; he was a dead-ringer for scholar soul, right down to the glasses. He suggested that I could take refuge in the Japanese wing and avoid the madness that was happily reincarnated souls screaming their lungs out and running hither and yon.

Before I could get there, moving around one corner from one gallery to the next, will you look at what I happened on.

On seeing it, I was readily warmed of spirit and let out a celebratory, “Yeah, yeah, yeah!” In that moment, the sense of fellowship and belonging I only ever feel when in Canada for being around First Nations cultures, whether at a pow wow or not, proved the most refreshing drink for my questing soul around a corner in my favourite city, London.

Up one elevator, down one corridor then up another elevator and one was then posited into the most serene of galleries. Now this is more my kind of groove.

All this exquisite splendour and not a single recently reincarnated soul running about and screaming way too powerful lungs out for such a tiny body.

This proved an interlude of slow-dancing with my very soul… the vibrations here were utterly harmonious with spirit.

Photography can never do this masterpiece justice.

I am reminded with this gem of the fabulous kimono of Merlin’s hung in our Cabbagetown home.

Can you hear my soul purring…

Phenomenal.

My very favourite piece in the gallery; warm, fecund, sensual, curvaceous, feminine, grounding. It truly is perfection; this after all is what womakind are: perfection of creation – we men just can’t handle it, hence religions which all without exception oppress womankind and tell them that creation is outside of themselves and some warring male god somewhere. Ha… we men can never endure the pain of labour then get up a completely new aspect of creaturehood – no longer a woman but a mother to whom that child will ever be more closely bonded. Love this piece.

This was the most beautiful adventure… for now, with a couple of coffee table books and toys for kids of a friend’s, I crisscrossed Russell Square Park and slept with my blistered feet raised whilst being held closer in sleep’s warm nurturing bosom and was readily tugged under into the world of lucid, inspired dreams.

On a gloriously balmy mid-November evening, I emerged from Covent Garden Station into a sea of humanity filled with love and laughter as the weekend was begun. As lovers ambled past holding hands, I was reminded then of my life twenty-nine years earlier when the Berlin Wall was being toppled. I was grateful in the moment because back then, two days before Merlin’s passing, I could not imagine myself being still focussed in this life with so much death and dying around me.

Yet, here was I with my happy little lambious (Merlin called me Lamb because I was more 9 parts enraged grizzly than timid lamb) self, in Covent Garden about to see a ballet because Marianela Nuñez, Natalia Osipova, Vadim Muntagirov, Matthew Ball, Francesca Hayward, Joseph Sissens, Steven McCrae, Iana Salenko were part of the most glorious group of ballet dancers.

Oh my, look at this; there have been changes afoot since last winter.

My pilgrimage to the shrine of high art is finally here! What’s this, new coat check, new toilets, new dining area… wow!

No sooner than was I sat and along came a Jurassic hybrid, no chin, back so long may well have extra vertebrae and a neck that is too thick and long to be on a woman’s body but I am not judging just saying,..

Well I did not cross the Atlantic just for this obstruction and her pheromone were decidedly reptilian. As Frederick Jones would say, “I’m not havin’ it!” After a few gracious words with the accommodating ushers, my offer to stand through the entire performance seemed reasonable enough.

I stood on the steps up to the last row that was more centre of house than my ticket. I did my best to ignore the chinless spinster who sat at the edge of the row, who promptly repositioned her handbag, as if it were a blasted Birkin! Naturally, she kept eyeing me. As I always carry Shaniqua in my back pocket, I was ready to hiss, the minute she stepped out of line.

During the performance after the Bronze Idol danced his spectacular solo, I lost myself and yelled the loudest bravo in the house and wouldn’t the old bat have something to say, “Be quiet!” to which I leaned in and hissed, “grip harder on your butt plug and shut the fuck up!” Why do people insist on leaving their homes and act as though they are lord or lady of anyone else’s reality.

Never mind her, the lovely Russian couple who sat in the front row looked back and approvingly yelled “Da!” at my exuberance. Truly, what a glorious night in the theatre. You cannot possibly begin to fathom the amount of flying dreams I have had since that night; it is as though, I perpetually am now flying-without-moving. Of course, I haven’t yet shaken that exquisite Minkus melody from my lips but so be it. There was something simply transcendent about having experienced the purity and perfection of the Kingdom of the Shades opening of Act III that will ever keep me richly inspired.

Love is all and whatever it is that makes you want to fly without moving when awake grab on and tightly hold on – drugs don’t do it, they do you! As ever, come closer let’s have a group hug and a bit of air frottage because life, alas, is the sweetest of dreams!

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Oxford Circus. Pimlico. Barbican.

03.12.201809.12.2024 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

Bright and early Tuesday morning and it was off to Oxford Circus in search of more art.

No faking this; the hustle is fucking real.

As I poured through this joint, I recalled my advice to the London cab driver whilst crawling along Pall Mall two days earlier.

Well if Daddy Warbucks’ little girl ain’t toothless, what is one to do but vacuously laugh with every breath.

As though I had just walked in on the most malodorous dump, I was out of this dive in a New York minute.

As I came up out of the Underground, I felt as though I had just endured a room whose stench was dirty ashtrays, liquor and coffee. Once at Hyde Park Corner, I made it to Apsley House, only to discover that it was not open during the week. Took the time to breathe the crisp – though not cold like Canadian – air with Hyde Park’s trees’ transitioning foliage predominantly apricot-coloured.

Vauxhall Tower (St. George Wharf Tower.)

Arrived at Pimlico and the air was comfortably cool; so nice to have a brilliant sunny day for a change. Nonetheless, you can bet your bottom dollar that I was protected by my extra thick-lensed black shades.

After working almost exclusively at nighttime and since before that when in the theatre, I have developed a genuine sensitivity to sunlight. You cannot convince me that we are not much too close to Sol for comfort. So to Tate Britain I was returned. After the scam that was the Klimt / Schiele, I was not rolling the die on Turner Prize 2018.

I went into this exhibition with zero expectations. Like the British Museum, I love the gift shop at Tate Britain as opposed to Tate Modern’s. I was on the hunt for unique gifts to purchase; this ticketed event was a gamble.

You cannot begin to fathom the degree to which I was wowed by the breath of this artist’s genius.

Remarkably, there was no end to this genius’ vision.

There is, throughout his art, movement and fluidity with the greatest grace and attack.

This is a colossal retrospective and his talent was unmatched.

The sensuality is breathtaking.

Every painting was a newly discovered masterpiece.

The breath of his work is astounding.

What a truly marvellous discovery.

His work left everyone moving through the exhibit in a state of harmony. There was such peace and serenity in each salon and every salon had some wow moment masterpiece.

One key element of his art was that each work was hung in the spot-on perfect frame.

Masterful!

For me, Edward’s genius epitomises where dreams and genius merge and produce the most uplifting art.

Quite simply, there are no words.

Besotted.

The moment that I laid eyes on this tableau, I immediately thought of Francis Bacon.

Breathtaking…

Now, this is Art, Next-level tapestry. The fluid sensuality is overwhelming.

This is everything.

I would gladly have paid thrice as much to view this exhibition.

This was like nothing I had seen before and it far exceeded anything that I had expected. Truly beautiful. After dining on a late lunch in Pimlico, it was back to Bloomsbury for a nap before heading out into the evening.

Though I was rather looking forward to hanging out at Ronnie Scott’s, the idea of listening to Charlie Parker and John Coltrane (an entity mate) being butchered by some Israeli appropriationist was not exactly high on my must-do list.

Happy was I to be in the comfy seats at Barbican Centre Cinemas to watch a LIVE relay from Covent Garden of that evening’s performance of La Bayadère, which at week’s end I would be attending. By far, this was the most glorious of cinematic experiences. I could not believe the sight of Natalia Makarova when she appeared on screen.

She was now full-bodied as we mostly get on ageing. Last time that I had seen her was during a class we took together at NYC’s Harkness House ballet school during summer 1983. That late spring was the last time that I had also seen the ballet live; it was May 19, 1983 and my favourite dancer, the dimpled, shy and oh so sweet, Fernando Bujones was dancing the role of Solor.

As ever, thanks for your ongoing support and dream as lucidly as you want to…

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Dreams are the poetic expression of the soul.

Category: Painting

Pluto in Capricorn & in Opposition – Pandemic & Retribution.

Well, Of Course, They’re Frigging Racist!

Once A Queen…

Beautifully Breathtaking…

See You Soon… 30 Years On, Merlin’s Magical Departure.

Catherine: A Deeper Shade of Vermeer.

Otello: Race and the Arts.

#BestDespinaEver!

At Last, The Day Has Finally Arrived.

Oxford Circus. Pimlico. Barbican.