Tag: #FraggleRock

Theft of the American Crown Jewels…

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These are America’s Crown Jewels.

1. Cambodian Crown Jewels, British Art Dealer 2. Koh-i-Noor Diamond, Imperial State Crown of UK 3. Benin Bronzes, British Museum 4. Elgin Marbles, British Museum

Like the Cambodian Crown Jewels, the Kohinoor, the Benin Bronzes and the Elgin Marbles, the rapacious barbarians of the island kingdom must have them. If it is of value then it is theirs for the taking as it has been for 1.5 millennia, most especially so for the last century with regards American awards and the last half millennium through enslavement of African peoples, the spoils of Apartheid at the dehumanising expense of South Africa’s millennia aged original inhabitants. Justifying that rape and pillage has occurred with a reanimation of Brahminism.

When Will Smith walked onstage at the 94th Academy Awards and slapped Chris Rock; he kicked opened the doors for a sea-change; however, at the time, no one could quite perceive the event for the golden opportunity it actually is. Within days of the shocking event, the violent Black man who to that point had the squeakiest image in Hollywood, at least for a Black man, was dealt with. The Academy board of governors decided to ban Will Smith from appearing at the Oscars for ten years.

Back in the autumn of 1983, Merlin and I were holding up in actor, Joe Morton’s Upper West Side one-bedroom apartment that looked south. It was there that we took vows and became committed to each other until one of us passed… we kept those vows. Joe was off in England filming a television series whilst I nursed an injury caused when in a nasty car crash. We looked at a lot of film from Joe’s library, one of which was Black Orpheus. One evening, Merlin cooked a chicken paprikash and had two other couples over, both Black. There was talk about the Oscars earlier that year and how exciting it was that Louis Gossett Jr. had one best-supporting actor Oscar for An Officer And A Gentleman, which was a landmark first. After dinner and more great sex, we returned to the discussion about the Oscars that year and Hollywood politics. I had failed to see anything exciting about winning a best-supporting actor rather than best actor Oscar. Merlin in his charming way made an analogy after he declared that not in our lifetimes would a Black woman ever win best actress Oscar; Merlin was also just brutality pragmatic and honest that way.

Hollywood, Merlin stating the obvious, was a business of make-believe where one staged the desired outcome. In that sense, Merlin shared it was the greatest propaganda tool. It is a world where reality is made in the image of what those in control, would want it to be; in such a reality, Blacks could never be seen to be triumphant. Merlin then touched on the 1936 Olympics in Berlin where Jesse Owens won four gold medals before the debased terror, Adolf Hitler, thereby shattering his belief and propaganda of a master race that’s superior and always the winner. That event, said Merlin, was a real time event which could not be manipulated to achieve the desired outcome as Hitler would have it. Then, said Merlin, Hollywood and its awards are the antithesis of real time events like the Olympics. In the world of Hollywood, even if nominated, Blacks simply were never going to be allowed to win Oscars, just being nominated was good enough and a show of Hollywood elitists’ largesse. Hollywood said Merlin is a Jewish town, after all, and thus Blacks could never be expected to win Oscars, unlike winning Grammys or even Tonys. Besides, said Merlin, Hollywood elites were obsessed with making it in London society and were in bed with royals and getting to play in the truly big leagues. At the time, that angle escaped me; however, he had made the reference to Ben Kinsley winning best actor Oscar that year for his phenomenal performance in Gandhi which Merlin and I had seen the autumn prior at the Ziegfeld Cinema on West 54th Street at midnight, which I then thought the height of sophistication.

The following afternoon, Shawn Kerwin dropped by whilst we listened to the marathon live matinée broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera Centennial Gala. Shawn had designed the golden rolodex which was on display at Lincoln Center and dropped by as she would soon be designing a play back in Toronto that Merlin would be directing. The concert was mind-blowing; we made more love, napped into evening, made more love and then had dinner in the neighbourhood, came home and talked long into the night after he finished devouring another book. As was customary in those nightly discussions, we revisited the talk of the Oscars. Merlin apologised if he sounded pessimistic but he assured me that not during our lifetimes would a Black woman win best actress Oscar. Alas, that proved true for him and just about true for me; truth be told, if 9/11 had not occurred, Halle Berry would not have won best actress Oscar at the 2002 Oscars.

Along with Will Smith slapping Chris Rock – as well he damn well ought to have, based on the latter’s hideous Netflix special of March 2023 – the unfolding drama of the Sussexes has made total sense of Merlin’s predictions of four decades earlier. I have come to see how Hollywood keeps Black actresses at bay by favouring Britons and other White non-Americans. This is not just a disservice to American cinema but it is also illegal activity. I came to see how in Meghan, Duchess of Sussex’s lynching at the hands of the Prince & Princess of Wales in concert with the Courtesan Queen cast greater insights to what causes the embargo on Black actresses winning a best actress Oscar. William is president of BAFTA which has its only foreign branch in Hollywood, which it dubiously called BAFTA North America – it has nothing to do with Canada and everything to exclusively do with Hollywood.

So why after their wedding and their first royal tour to Canada did William and Catherine, now Prince & Princess of Wales, travel to Los Angeles? As the newly minted president of BAFTA he had to be feted in Hollywood where he was expected to continue the tradition of British film artists, being disproportionately represented and winning at an American awards. They had to continue a relationship begun by Prince Philip in 1959 as first President of BAFTA. As a fledging awards, BAFTA desperately needed the cachet that the Oscars afford; old world Hollywood glamour, worldwide brand recognition and star power that remains unsurpassed.

From Prince Philip 1959 to 1965, the baton was passed on Prince Louis Battenberg (Earl Louis Mountbatten 1966 to 1972, Princess Anne, Princess Royal 1973 to 2001. Next up was Lord Richard Attenborough 2002 to 2010; the current BAFTA president, Prince William, Prince of Wales from 2010 to present.

So with the current BAFTA president, we get Tom Hanks sitting in the royal box at a Aston Villa game and we all know that this football team has been BAFTA president, William’s favourite team since childhood. The day after, Tom’s wife, Rita Wilson, attended the 2023 BAFTA Awards where its President, which is customary, rowed with his hawkish wife, Catherine, Princess of Wales. Another example of influence peddling, Mr. Hanks is a multiple Oscar winner, two-time Oscar winner Michael Douglas and his Welsh wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones live in an apartment at St. James’s Palace. Again, Oscar winners are favoured and you can bet that these American Oscar winners have been afforded honorary membership in members clubs like Annabel’s as part of the influence peddling as the BAFTA president hobnobs with Hollywood movers and shakers, in a bid to secure work and Oscar nominations for Britons working in Hollywood.

Well, if the angry Black male, Will Smith, is going to be censored for disrupting the Oscar telecast then Tom Hanks and the Douglas Zeta-Joneses should lose their Oscar vote for clearly engaging in influence peddling with the president of BAFTA. The Windsors are notorious for engaging in sketchy business deals, what with the now King Charles III, taking bags of cash from Saudi members of the Bin Laden family. There would also be nothing to stop William and his predecessors from engaging in accommodating Hollywood A listers for the sake of securing nominations for Britons at what is an American awards, the Oscars; of course, in keeping with all that elbow rubbing offered by royals, the Tonys, Grammys and Emmys will gladly favour British talent. It is not America’s responsibility to provide work for British actors and industry professionals. With a populations five times as large as the UK’s, there is clearly a dearth of talent out there, such that America never needs to go courting or employing Britons over Americans. And that it is all about influence peddling and getting to hobnob with royals, where do you see Americans favouring Canadian talent, which relative to UK’s is considerable with a population twice as large as Canada’s should see more Canadian actors being nominated and winning Oscars all this time.

1. The Great Ziegfeld Luise Rainer, 1936 2. The Good Earth Luise Rainer, 1937 3. Gone With The Wind Vivien Leigh, 1939 4. Suspicion Joan Fontaine, 1941 5. Mrs. Miniver Greer Garson, 1942 6. To Each His Own Olivia de Havilland, 1946 7. The Heiress Olivia de Havilland, 1949 8. A Streetcar Named Desire Vivien Leigh, 1951 9. Butterfield 8 Elizabeth Taylor, 1960 10. Mary Poppins Julie Andrews, 1964

Just look at this, 20 best actress Oscars afforded British actresses for an American award.

11. Darling Julie Christie, 1965 12. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf Elizabeth Taylor, 1966 13. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Maggie Smith, 1969 14. Women in Love Glenda Jackson, 1970 15. A Touch of Class Glenda Jackson, 1973 16. Driving Miss Daisy Jessica Tandy, 1989 17. Howards End Emma Thompson, 1992 18. The Queen Helen Mirren, 2006 19. The Reader Kate Winslet, 2008 20. The Favourite Olivia Colman, 2018

Naturally, with the House of Windsor involved, acquiring Oscars is infinitely easier accomplished than trying to spirit the great pyramids of Giza to London, which if it were possible, there’d likely be one at the expanded forecourt of the British Museum, one on The Regent’s Park and the other in Hyde Park. Obviously, Princess Anne’s tenure as BAFTA president likely saw her innate disdain for Yanks and general arrogance rule, which resulted in little return on investment. The same was true when Louis Mountbatten was BAFTA president. Of course, with Woody Allen, Steven Spielberg on Epstein’s flight manifests and Roman Polanski being too ‘special’ to prosecute, Old Dickie was in his element in Hollywood. Let’s face it, the IRA had nothing to do with Mountbatten’s explosive demise, born 25.6.1900 Year of the Rat, as ever numbers never lie. 7.4.5 = 7. Two 7s and a 5 alluding to sexual scandal; one or more 7s especially if one is placed in the fourth position, will indicate assassination of a public figure. In Mountbatten’s case, the poor villagers were sick of their sons being preyed on by a known paedophile and that was that.

1. Amorous Prince David, Prince of Wales & Earl Mountbatten in India. 2. David & Louis frolicking in Hawaii. 3. David & Louis playing. 4. Prince Charles, Prince of Wales & Earl Mountbatten. 5. Charles & Mountbatten. 6. Prince Charles, Prince of Wales & Jimmy Savile. 7. Gary Glitter. 8. Jimmy Savile & Gary Glitter. 9. Steven Spielberg & BAFTA President, Richard Attenborough. 10. Steven Spielberg & Harvey Weinstein. 11. Jeffrey Epstein, Prince Andrew, Duke of York, Woody Allen, Bill Clinton & Donald Trump. 12. Prince Andrew & Jeffrey Epstein. 13. Jeffrey Epstein & Donald Trump. 14. Prince Charles & Equerry Jonathan Thompson. 14 Prince Charles & Valet Michael Fawcett.

Prince Louis of Battenberg aka Earl Louis Mountbatten was human and it would certainly not have been the first time that persons associated with the House of Windsor, have had a preference for minor meat or favoured paedophiles. Sexual predators who are deemed untouchable for being of royal, Queer or Jewish persuasion rule a town called Hollywood and you can bet your bottom dollar that there is no room in their worldview for Black actresses being worthy enough for best actress Oscars. I’ll always remember going to an Upper West Side dinner party in winter 1983 whilst Merlin was in Toronto, working on Fraggle Rock with Jim Henson and talk of Hollywood came up. I was with a dancer who was transitioning to the world of fashion and design and successfully at that. Before then, he had lived for a couple of years with a famous actor in Hollywood; he hated having a sugar daddy so returned to New York. Aaron, who was great fun, died too young of AIDS but I’ll always remember his assessment of Hollywood: the world’s most exclusive escort service successfully masquerading as an entertainment business. “It is nothing more than Mecca if you are a sexual predator.” Two others at that dinner party wholeheartedly agreed with Aaron’s perception. Aaron had the thickest cock I have yet in all my years seen; thankfully, he happened to have been the most aggressive bottom yet encountered.

Indeed, what Merlin implied by not in our lifetimes, would there be a Black best actress Oscar winner, is that the Oscar is the penultimate icon of White female exclusivity and superiority. It is the most racist iconography in American culture. It is also tied to the UK Royal family in a display of American inferiority complex after having fought a war to be rid of Britons and their monarchy. Especially sobering is the fact that the very President of BAFTA, Prince William, Prince of Wales has been outed in his brother, Prince Harry’s phenomenal royal memoir, SPARE, as being the leader of the racially predatory campaign of harassment, mental, emotional and likely physical abuse, all of which was glaringly accomplished with the tacit collusion of the Fleet Street abattoirs and persons like Princess Michael of Kent who happens to be the mother of the Prince’s known closest royal friend, Lord Frederick Windsor.

Meghan, an American actress has been treated like absolute filth, yet no one in Hollywood has spoken up in her defence. Meghan’s articulateness and impeccable social skills are seen as reasons enough to resent the ‘Yank’. Moreover, Meghan is that most unacceptable of propositions not just to the British royal family but to the very core of its collective consciousness, Meghan is Black and descended of slaves of which no nation profited more mightily from the enslavement of displaced Black Africans than the British and its royal family. Of course, Hollywood does not care to get involved because the only sanctioned troubled history that is celebrated by the Academy, is the pain, struggle of Jews in Europe which resulted in the Holocaust. For that reason, it is almost an existential threat to the Academy and Hollywood’s sense of self and entitlement to ever have to acknowledge Black American history in America cinema. Indeed, Hollywood has never even done more than exploit the indigenous American population’s rape and pillage of culture and genocide of a people, because as with Black Americans, it would prove more worthy of American cinematic focus for obvious historic reasons than sectarian European history.

Anything and anyone who remotely threatens Hollywood’s sense of self and its agendum of focussing almost exclusively on the Holocaust with respect to what is deemed disturbing history and worthy of being focussed on and highlighted, is simply cancelled. Good god, look at Tom Cruise in what clearly is sectarian bias, no matter how much of a box office champ and how compelling his acting chops have been, an Oscar continues to elude him. Apart from his blockbuster actions films, all of them, what I love about Tom Cruise is how exquisitely he captures young soul angst with his acting. From Rain Man (1988), to Jerry Maguire (1996) or the exquisitely cinematic, Eyes Wide Shut (1999) the man’s a brilliant actor and no one but a young soul would so daringly do his own stunts in film after film after action film. All this deliberate denial because he is a Scientologist; just imagine if Jews were being so targeted and overlooked by the Academy but there it is in bold, unmistakable reality.

Similarly, James Cameron, a Canadian, is simply not great enough of be imbued with genius such that his towering greatness must be celebrated. In 2009, that society that serves as a paragon of racialised superior consciousness (Britain) and arrogantly so, did not award a single BAFTA to James Cameron’s 1997 film, Titanic though receiving 10 nominations. In America that year with 14 nominations, Titanic was awarded 11 Oscars. As far as Britons are concerned, it is not a British film, therefore they do not care and their grudge and disdain for ‘Yanks’ is all the more reason why Titanic was shut out of the BAFTAs. How is this even possible when there was a direct involvement with Britain with this very real and ground-breaking film? The Titanic did set sail from Britain for America; Britons were lost at sea when the Titanic sank.

Not wanting to seem like an afterthought and god forbid a third-tier awards, on taking over as BAFTA president, Richard Attenborough had the awards moved up to February, post Oscars April or May, thereby preceding the Oscars. This afforded the BAFTAs cachet as they were seen as a forerunner of how the Oscar winners would be determined. In a bid to maintain relevance and continue its role of influence peddling in an American industry, BAFTA has set up a wing in Beverly Hills and had the balls to call it the North American wing; leave Canada out of your influence peddling racket, the objective is to influence the Oscar nominations and winners. Of course, in turn Oscar winners find themselves being afforded the exclusivity of the royal treatment as with Tom Hanks at the Aston Villa game on the eve of the 2023 BAFTAs and Oscar winners Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones being allowed to live in an apartment at St. James’s Palace. So that no one should go getting ideas, she is a Briton and he, of course, is Jewish Hollywood royalty and it certainly would not be extended beyond such persons. Certainly, not when the current BAFTA president and his wife and known anti-Black racists.

Thanks to Britons’ gross sense of entitlement and flagrant superiority complex, they do not care what the world thinks. Their awards criteria and their members decide who is deserving of winning a British award and you can bet it won’t be a damn Yank. From Beyoncé being snubbed at the Grammys in favour of Harry Styles then having the Brit Awards favour Harry Styles over anyone else. This fruity little drip regardless how flagrantly he swishes his AMS (arse-munching ‘stache) and cross-dresses, above all else, he is a White male and he will not be ridiculed by radio DJs the world over. I’ll always remember my proud First Nations brief lover whilst at a pow wow in Merritt, B.C. saying, “Gay people are first and always White people… people like you and me do not count at the end of the day.” Sage words indeed. Look at this silly photo of the flagrant little industry-used manwhore, I am reminded of the swell little, ridiculously hysterical French-Canadian actor friend of Merlin’s. From the moment we met, it was evident that it was merely a matter of time before we would be carrying on like gibbons en chaleur. A friend of his had approached Merlin and asked if I would step in for him whilst he covered elsewhere for someone whose lover was severely ill and dying of AIDS. It was supposed to have lasted all of two, at the most, six weeks.

Standing in for a friend of Merlin’s, dressing on Cats at the Elgin Theatre, was a memorable experience because Jean-François and I would be sharing the same floor backstage as the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical printed money like it was going out of style. Post intermission, JF and I would have the most fun. As all theatre folk are predominantly sage souls, which he was, he was entertainingly witty and given to reciting dialogue from a range of Bette Davis films. Mostly, Lauri whose wife also did wigs and makeup was fun to be around as JF and I carried on. One Wednesday, after matinée performance, JF and I returned to the theatre off the Victoria Street tech entrance. We had just rushed down from the top of the street where it dead ends into Ryerson Polytechnic Institute, which now goes by whatever name du jour. As we returned, we were laughing hysterically which Lauri with a sly wink declared, he could well imagine what trouble we’d been up to. Truth be told, we were detained by aggressive security as JF, Toronto Dance Theatre dancer René Highway who was a lover of Merlin’s who preceded me by at least two others, actor Denis Simpson of TV’s Polka Dot Door were caught in a stall together being riotously salacious. Little did I know that as I banged on the side of the stall, “Oh fuck yeah, put your fucking tongue right there!” there was a security guard in the stall next door spying on us. His radio went off, giving away the plot and to prevent my raucous laughter, Denis began aggressively kissing me. The damage was done though, because before we could scramble out of there, the security guard’s colleague had come to join him as he braced himself against the door in an attempt to have us detained. In no mood to be messed with, I grabbed JF’s half finished Styrofoam cup of coffee and tossed it over the stall door onto the killjoy guard. Though we tried to bolt, his backup had locked us inside. Denis copped hauteur and feigning outrage, demanded to be let out at once as he had nothing to do with any of this. The cheek! Tall, imposingly debonair, just like that Denis abandoned us with René, who never said more than two words at any given time, slithering out with Denis. Merlin said of René, you have a great fuck then afterwards, there’s nothing there; simply no signs of intellect. You can bet your bottom dollar, I howled at his assessment. After too much silly cop-playing nonsense, JF and I were released and told to never set foot on the campus again… as fucking if.

Stage left alcove with Lauri close by, JF fell to his knees, doing a deadpan Bette Davis impersonation from Jezebel, “Arvin. Arvin, I’m on my knees… I’m pleading to you…” All the while he kept looking from my crotch to my face his eyes large and yearning whilst suggestively licking his lips; Lauri’s laughter in the corner almost drowned out the caterwauling coming from onstage. Next, it was my turn to be witty, removing the band that gathered my recently permed hair, my Bette Davis rebuttal came from Cabin in the Cotton as I giggled and replied, “Well, of course, I’d love to hogtie and fuck you silly but I just permed my hair… bye now.” Turning, I made towards Lauri in the alcove whose laughter was continuous and just then, JF put his hand in my hair, making it an unruly mess. With that, he took off rushing to the back and through the door onto Victoria Street with me giving spirited chase. As it was the mid-1980s the street was a darkened affair with the foreboding sight of St. Michael’s Hospital across on the east side of the street. Facing north on the west side on the street, JF squatted on the kerb and began offering his arse whilst I grabbed his hips and soon we both dissolved in laughter, working off the stress from being earlier held hostage by aggressive security up the street.

Of course, today Victoria Street is no longer a deserted affair after dark. Last year, Massey Hall at the southwest corner of Shuter and Victoria streets reopened after 190$m renovations. Of course, it is just in time for the 70th anniversary of the most phenomenal live Jazz concert recording with the famous ‘Salt Peanuts’ performance. To Massey Hall’s rear and half a block down Victoria Street is the back of the Elgin Theatre. The 60-storey Massy Tower condominiums sit on the east side of Yonge Street and two doors north of the Elgin Theatre’s marquee between Queen Street East to the south and Shuter to the north. Jean-François was devastatingly funny and vulgarly laughed at everyone and everything; he was as intimidating as he was diminutive. He favoured me as ours was a physical relationship that was purely fraternal and nothing more than robust, healthy sexual play.

A couple of years after Merlin’s passing, I was then habituated in the Beaches, one of Toronto’s more glorious neighbourhoods which, like Moore Park, is lorded over by the tallest oaks, and bordered to the south by the boardwalk, beach and Lake Ontario beyond, which proves a putrid malodorous cocktail in springtime. The Beaches’ high street is Queen Street East with its noisy 501 streetcars; I then lived just beyond the end of the Queen streetcar loop at Neville Park on the south side of Queen. To the north the Upper Beaches was the tonier part of the neighbourhood with the most commanding views of the city and lake beyond or below. I really loved living there. About that time, in 1991, I received a call with news of Jean-François. I had last seen JF a couple of months earlier as he came by and visited but we didn’t have sex; Merlin was dead of AIDS, which meant that I had unredeemably become perished fruit. Years earlier when we had just moved to Cabbagetown’s 20 Amelia Street, JF dropped by unannounced whilst we visited with chef Gary Martin who was a source of playful raucous man-loving. Having heard about me JF came calling, whilst we visited in the back garden, Merlin cock-sucking a joint, Gary sharing on it, JF lit up a cigarette and offered it as he tried charming me; grabbing his hand at the wrist, I elegantly moved the cigarette away and coolly stated fact, “Sorry, I never suck on anything less than nine and a half inches… ever.” Jean-François tossed his head back and roared and declared that he was besotted. Gary cooked yet another sublime dinner and after, Merlin continued enjoying a joint whilst onlooking at me ploughing Gary who always had to have the large mirror in the hall on the floor to look at himself being ploughed right; Jean-François leapt in and kept his faced hungrily buried between my pumping buttocks.

Luckily, in a big city, you can nicely experience a new incarnation which has positively nothing to do with your previous existence. Soon enough, lovers aplenty were de rigueur and I began exploring my true metier, the world of S&M. For Jean-François, in a bid not to become HIV-infected, he began going after barely legal youth, freshly arrived in the big city and on the make, whom he enticed with his snazzy motorcycle. So it was as JF brought home a couple of straight boys to his lovely apartment above a drugstore along Eglinton Avenue West just west of Upper Forest Hill, his couple of tricks stole his sporty motorcycle after murdering him, cutting off his cock and sticking it into the gash of his slit throat. There unsurprisingly was blood everywhere and my response on hearing the news of JF’s demise, was to have done as he would have, “Well thank god those fucking forensic guys carry a tweezer in their toolbox…” a quip at JF’s tiny, boyish cock. The laughter the friend and I roared, was a fitting tribute to JF and also the only way to have responded to such shocking news of such a violent passing… Jean-François honestly would have appreciated the humour of the situation.

So there was the BAFTA President, Prince William, Prince of Wales with his combustible wife kitted out in her ‘fist-me-now’ black opera gloves, onlooking as Cate Blanchett won best actress BAFTA for TAR, a film which frankly is much ado about fuck-all. It is about her iconic whiteness – her blondness and blue-eyed superiority which is what the Oscars are about; however, when it comes to best actress the BAFTAs afforded the royal seal of approval. Thus Michelle Yeoh sat there at Royal Festival Hall and watched Cate win best actress BAFTA and that was that. Britons do not give a damn; besides, they are royals and all that, never mind that that blasted uncouth boor will break protocol more frequently than a duck shitting, lui même Madame Plotte-Visage, the Courtesan Queen – more of that later.

1. Kerry Condon 2. Dolly De Leon 3. Carey Mulligan 4. Angela Bassett 5. Hong Chau 6. Jamie Lee Curtis

So the BAFTAs decide that this is a good enough field for best supporting actress BAFTAs 2023. Of course, Kerry Condon is not a Yank and is close to being British for being Irish and that’s that. In this pre-Oscars awards, both Angela Bassett and Jamie Lee Curtis were passed over.

1. Cate Blanchett. 2. Viola Davis 3. Michelle Yeoh 4. Danielle Deadwyler 5. Emma Thompson 6. Ana de Armas

With the Oscars, Cate Blanchett who had been favoured was defeated by Michelle Yeoh. Of course, though much was made of Angela Bassett being a sore loser to Jamie Lee Curtis for the best supporting actress Oscar, Jamie Lee won it for two reasons, she is second generation member of a Hollywood acting dynasty; more importantly, she is Jewish and in Hollywood that trumps everything else. With Michelle Yeoh’s historic win, no one dare levelled accusations that it was mere tokenism or some woke agendum.

1. Ana de Armas 2. Andrea Riseborough 3. Cate Blanchett 4. Michelle Williams 5. Michelle Yeoh

For that matter, there was no talk anywhere of Cate Blanchett having been cheated out of her rightful best actress Oscar award. Naturally, the argument is that Black actresses are just not good enough or worthy enough to be cinematically lauded. Of course, Angela Bassett, Viola Davis and Danielle Deadwyler, in the case of the latter two, they portrayed not just strong Black women but they were also historical figures. This for Hollywood is wholly unacceptable; American history simply cannot expand to cinematically include African Americans. What’s more, avoiding American history at all costs is preferable, this explains why a film like Everything, Everywhere All At Once fared so well at the Oscars, it had positively nothing to do with American history and did not in any way threaten what Hollywood deems the only history worthy of being cinematically celebrated by the Oscars. As the saying goes, in Hollywood – the land of make believe, Shoah business is the only American history worth celebrating… cartographers be damned. And unlike the unpredictability of Jesse Owens’ performance before Hitler in 1936, Hollywood does not real-time events. Hollywood as 1968’s best actress Oscar tie validated, is about manipulating reality to serve its need and one’s heroic place within the culture: better than, special, innately entitled.

Broadway Actor, Audra McDonald

Though Hollywood would like to keep Black actresses oppressed and give the impression that they are not capable of commanding the screen and thus not deserving of Oscars for best actress, that is all challenged by the fact that Audra McDonald, is the most decorated leading actress on Broadway in its history with 6 Tony awards. Naturally, if Audra were an actress in Hollywood, she would never have been considered for any Oscar nomination above supporting actress. Hell, even Viola Davis won best supporting actress Oscar for a role which was always a lead on Broadway and won a Tony award in that category for the play adapted to film, Fences.

Halle Berry Best Actress Oscar Acceptance Speech 74th Academy Awards, 2002

Just look at how Briton, Helen Mirren looks on at Halle Berry during her best actress Oscar acceptance speech in 2002. She was clearly displeased and thought that the award ought not to have gone to some Black upstart, who was making some ridiculous ‘race’ speech or other. There, too, was that blasted little garden gnome whom we know is a favoured inner circle member at the court of the ugly-no-blasted-motherfuck Courtesan Queen, who has time and again made no effort to hide her disinterest in the otiose Persons of Colour the world over.

Maori Dancers Performing Haka at Commonwealth Service, Westminster Abbey, 2023

Just look at the way she walked past the barefooted Maori celebrants outside Westminster Abbey at the Commonwealth Day Service, 2023. It was heart-warming to see the Duchess of Edinburgh bump her left shoulder into HM King Charles III’s right shoulder and humour him as he clearly needed to be pulled away from the displeasure, he no doubt would have been experiencing for being born in the Year of the Rat and disrespected by that blasted Couchon, who has been unrelentingly wrecking the House of Windsor for near half a century. The damage ‘Ugly Duchess’ continues doing to HLM Queen Elizabeth II’s 70-year legacy, is incalculable.

Perception Is All.

The video above is of French colonials in the then French colony of Vietnam. That was in 1900, not 1900 years ago or 19,000 years ago. In less than 6 generations tribal perceptions change little. This is how the White tribe perceives non-Whites with varying degrees of scorn and animus. What most Whites have had to do is aggressively adapt such that this primal perception of their place in the scheme of things, is deeply guarded, camouflaged and made to seem irrelevant. Of course, the power of the gun assures them that this sense of self and place in the scheme of things are little challenged.

Indeed, the House of Windsor has been possessed of this entrenched sense of self and place, in its most recent incarnation, since the reign of Queen Victoria. The two White females tossing grain and coins at the ‘natives’ in Vietnam, were contemporaries of Queen Victoria’s, whose misogynoir was emulated and upheld by Queen Mary who groomed both Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mother and HLM Queen Elizabeth II.

Queen Elizabeth II Sharing Racist Anecdote

One should not be surprised at the Queen’s 1969 documentary in which she tells a racist joke, to which Charles heartily laughed. Charles’s heir, rather than son, Peggalicious & Fisted is an avowed anti-Black racist; of course, so too is the Courtesan Queen, who has made no bones about giving no fucks about the otiose little non-White peoples.

Royal Tour 2019: St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Vincent, Grenada, St. Lucia & Barbados

The four minute mark of the above video and on their arrival in St. Vincent, Camilla carries her trusty parapluie and to make sure that she doesn’t have to shake any of the ‘natives’ hands, she carries a handbag in the free hand. This woman is a right piece of work and a true heir of the French colonials tossing grain and coins at the Vietnamese.

Just look at her! Couchon…

The infamous open ridicule of Inuit throat singers, causing Governor-General Johnston to look at her as though she were a lunatic from Mars will not soon be forgotten.

Just Look at the Old Kook; Always Looking As Though She Just Fell Off Her Broom

Her most recent I’ve-no-fucks-left-to-give moment: 2023 Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey. She just walked past the irrelevant persons of colour and of course compensatorilly clutched her hat as though it were Dorothy’s cabin about to take off; as if she’s not always got a broom to hand.

1. Norma Shearer 1930 2. Luise Rainer 1936 & 1937 3. Judy Holliday 1950 4. Simone Signoret 1959 5. Elizabeth Taylor 1960 & 1966 6. Barbra Streisand 1968 7. Marlee Matlin 1986 8. Helen Hunt 1997 9. Gwyneth Paltrow 10. Natalie Portman

There is much that you can glean from the line up of the best actress Oscar winners above. They are an insight into where power lies in Hollywood and one should never be mistaken about that. This power block is whom, much like the two French colonials in 1900 decide what pittance Blacks in American cinema receive. Of course, had 9/11 never occurred, there would have been no need for Halle Berry to have won best actress Oscar in 2002. This was hastily done as there was great fear that if terrorism were to become de rigueur, a guaranteed weekly affair across America, one would need to lay low and not provoke wrath from the American public at large. Of course, by the 76th Oscars two years later, there was no such threat and it has been back to the norm of Black actresses chances of winning best actress Oscar decidedly negligible.

How Like French Colonials in Vietnam, One Tosses A Best Supporting Actress to A Black Actress Now and Again

That Hollywood does not have two fucks to give what it looks like, was validated when in 1968, it was speciously alleged that there was a tie and just as with Gwyneth’s Cinderella Oscar, so too was Barbra Streisand awarded an Oscar because one can and did. Obviously, it is not a question of Black actresses not having acting chops, deserving of best actress Oscar, just as with the French colonials of 1900 Vietnam, Hollywood’s elite have long decided that Black actresses are not deserving of any such accolade; goddamn it, they are just not people enough. Goodness, that would make them more than maids, whores, junkies and dumbasses.

Hollywood as throughout human history, is just another society with its various strata and the one stratum that gets you lifetime membership at LouLou’s, Annabel’s and Maison Estelle is the one that sees you awarded best actress. In the case of best actor Oscar that’ll get you membership at Mark’s, Harry’s and Oswald’s. Alas, Black women need not dream; as Meghan has validated, Black actresses are the one group of actresses who are most undesirable whether for senior royal status or Hollywood’s ruling elite. Don’t ever fool yourself into thinking that Hollywood’s elite are a liberal bunch; they are the most vile, racist, royal sycophants on the planet – this is why Oscar winners Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas live in an apartment at St. James’s Palace. They have wanted in, have gotten in and it’ll all culminate with Prince George marrying a nice Jewish girl – actress or otherwise. It will happen; in the meantime, they – royals and Hollywood elites – have seen to it that Meghan’s Cinderella moment could be undone and how handsomely they toiled and won. It’s a perfect business arrangement, Hollywood wants the exclusivity of royal sanction and access and for the royals and their shitty, third tier BAFTA awards, Brits get Oscars in return for preferred Hollywood elites sitting in the royal box at an Aston Villa game, living at St. James’s Palace and everything else in between, including all the minor meat they favour.

Hell, what’s all that to Harry and Meghan; they’ve got each other and are growing richer in spades with every venture they explore. Meanwhile, when the Pegged & Fisted Bourbon bastard finally gets a divorce, the inarticulate Edward Gorey silent era ingenue will draw on her coalminer pedigree and go full Jerry Springer on the House of Windsor. No Sir, Catherine will not go quietly and doe-eyed like her mother-in-law, Diana, Princess of Wales did. She will fight dirty and shake up the pantomime in ways that not even Hollywood could fathom.

Whether Emmy Awards, Grammy Awards, Oscar Awards or Tony Awards (EGOTs), American awards are about celebrating American culture with the able contribution of American actors and artisans being cited. Clearly, as demonstrated by repeated instances mentioned herein this blog, there is a clear-cut case of influence peddling on the part of the Presidents of BAFTA past and present, resulting in examples cited be it Michael Douglas & Catherine Zeta-Jones Oscar winners living in an apartment at St. James’s Palace to fellow Oscar winner Tom Hanks, being afforded VIP access to Aston Villa matches. If indeed Armenian-Americans were the most powerful group in Hollywood, American Cinema, then there would doubtless be greater inclusivity and all American actresses being celebrated for their work. Indeed, all aspects of American culture would be celebrated in such a paradigm. As is obvious from Viola Davis winning a best supporting actress Oscar for a role which is a leading role, clearly there is a validated case of discrimination and double-standards at play.

Warriors of the High Country

Oil on Canvas

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©2008 James Ayers

American cinema has to reflect American culture in all its pandimensionality and this is not the case. From the number of British and Jewish actresses who have won best actress Oscars relative to Black and Hispanic/Latina American, there is a definite case for legally challenging the discriminatory practices of the status quo. When is there going to be a film about the human drama that unfolded as a result of the terror attacks on 9/11? When are there going to be historically accurate films, telling the story of Indigenous Americans sacrifices and genocide. Heroic films from varying perspectives have yet to be made that dealt with the human costs of the American civil war. It is incumbent on the actors unions and others in the industry to challenge this discriminatory practice by way of legal action, ACLU, class action lawsuits, hearings in congress and legal action going all the way to the United States Supreme Court. The exclusion of Viola Davis or Danielle Deadwyler at the 95th Oscars is a clear example when they were passed over in favour of a British actress, Andrea Riseborough who appeared in a utterly dismissible film and performance about which no one knew a damn thing. Two Black actresses were passed over at the Oscar nominations for very strong roles where at the BAFTAs they were celebrated by being nominated.

If any practice is an insult to intellect, demonstrates influence peddling and proves a clear-cut case of discrimination based on race and or gender then there is no dearth of lawyers in America, who cannot take on an American actors union class action suit to address and correct so glaring an ugly case of racism in America, to say nothing of that decades long practice being an injustice. Hollywood elites do not fill movie theatres, nor for that matter do Britons seeing American films lead to blockbuster box office results… Americans do! Unlike the Festival International du Film Cannes and Toronto International Film Festival, the Academy Awards, despite tacking on international to the name, is not an international film festival. Furthermore, the Academy Awards are an American film awards and not obliged to be featuring and awarding prizes to Britons as the awards have become. If you want an Oscar then damn well choose to reincarnate an American. Period. Just as if you want to be elected American President, the onus is on you to choose to reincarnate an American born citizen. The House of Windsor has no right to be wielding influence on the Oscars or any other aspect of American society; a damn war was fought and won about being bullied and over-lorded by Britons and their royals. If this is not challenged in due course, the problem of Black actresses being passed over in favour will endure for the foreseeable decades of this century and well into the next. Of course, if Blacks protest this, Hollywood’s elites in collusion with the British royals will simply see to it that all many of non-Black non-Whites will suddenly be favoured and awarded Oscars.

Brits Are Not Played Off At An American Awards, Or Are the Academy Awards Exclusively An American Awards?

Darling, the rules are very clear; if you don’t like Black people, fuck you!

Samara Joy live in NYC [full concert] | Trinity Church Wall Street | Nov 8, 2022

Samara Joy – Vocals

Ben Paterson – Piano

Felix Moseholm – Bass

Evan Sherman – Drums

At long last, a griot of the highest order has incarnated among us; long live Black high art, Jazz!

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

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©2013-2023 Arvin da Brgha. All Rights Reserved.

4.3.4 = 11

Arvin da Brgha

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Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex has the most masterful numbers. She does, indeed, have master numbers: 11. Look at those eyes, the eyes of Queen Mother, to HM King Henry VI, grandmother to HM King Henry VIII and great-grandmother to HM Queen Elizabeth I. She has staying power, thanks to those double 4s and with an attitude of 3, she is renowned for being most articulate and a skilled communicator of the message.

4 – focussed, solid, self-made, resolute, inner-directed, reincarnated with an agendum.

3 – attitude of 3 – gracious living, the great communicator, when one speaks others listen. There is only win-win, failure is never an option for these persons. Incidentally, Ben Mulroney is an attitude of 3, which is why he is a gracious interviewer – non-confrontational. Also, I have noticed that a lot of persons who planned a life in the public sphere tend to have 9 and 3 in their make up, as in both HRH Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and his lovely wife, Catherine, HRH Duchess of Cambridge. Incidentally, these three persons, Ben and the Cambridges would have been very relaxed in each others company and true to her 9 energy body, Catherine would likely have made a dig at her husband along the lines, ‘He certainly has a great head of hair…’ As it is perfectly naturally for straight men to be attracted to each other, they would not be human if they did not, both men would have been pleasantly warmed by the other’s make-up with their similar 9 and 3. Catherine and Ben both are 9 energy body; they would have found each other more than passingly fascinating. Catherine is a warrior which means that she will always be steely; as for Ben, don’t know his overleaves but I am guessing that he is more so on the expression axis rather than not – an artisan or sage soul. In my experience, whereas 9 women can be extremely rude and dismissive, 9 men are reserved and not given to readily passing judgment.

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There is also the matter of Catherine, HRH Duchess of Cambridge being in perseverance mode, which is as unrelenting a foe as you can ever imagine, on top of which she is a warrior. This woman was born to be Queen Consort and that’s the end of that, there will be no Camilla rewriting the script. Interestingly enough, both Diana, Princess of Wales’ sons are wedded to very strong women – as well they should be. In both cases, both couples are entity mates, which is as good a partnering as one can hope for. Meghan, however, with double 4s and master number of 11 is here to rule as when previously she had as Queen Mother and Tudor dynasty matriarch.

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Not only is 11 a master number but it also leaves all such persons lone wolves, regardless how popular they are. This explains why Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex will faster-than-a-sneeze dispense with persons when need be. And yes, she has every damn right to be done with the blasted dreck that do not know the meaning of family: honour, fealty, discretion. I am, where the master number 11 is concerned, just such a person… 2.1.8 = 11. Of course, like Catherine, HRH Duchess of Cambridge that attitude of 1 means that I am more inclined to be shy and reserved than ‘on’. At least that was the rule when Merlin was incarnate and we were together. Now, more of the 11 comes to the fore and I simply give two-fucks and sound off loudly and most articulately.

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Recently, owing to a host of prickly transits, to say nothing of the mercury retrograde, I have found myself beset with some entanglements that have provoked the less polished side of my Venus/Uranus conjunction. This all began around the time that I wrote the blog about that blasted tarbaby frog finally showing his true colours. I had no less than 8 French Canadians getting up in my business, demanding that I delete aforementioned blog and that these were the indiscretions of youth. Bitch please! After having lived in Montréal for seven years with the best task companion/comrade-in-arms an equally seventh level mature soul, though, she a warrior, we gave as good as we got. Of course, said warrior became my wife at Palais du Justice on Bob Marley’s birthday in 1999. Today, we remain the best of friends and she now he, has a fully beard than I have ever sported…. alas, I digress. A couple of weeks ago, I was being regaled by my sister who lives in Nevis about my mother’s cousin whose funeral it was that day. She died at age 107 and was attended by quite the turn out with le tout Nevis’ elites in tow. Though I have never met, her great-granddaughter was part of the descendants who eulogised the grand dame; that great-granddaughter was Mel B (Scary Spice) of Spice Girls fame. I have though several times met my fathers cousin, the inimitable and truly regal, Cicely Tyson, wife of Jazz genius, Miles Davis a man who did not gladly suffer people who hate him or his race…. as well he damn ought to have.

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As I entered the little school in my neighbourhood, a spry spirit who always is good for a laugh, beamed on seeing me as he sat on his scooter with equally situated mates and inquired, “And who will you be voting for?” to which I shot back, “You can damn well bet it won’t be for no blasted motherfucking, cocksucking tarbaby-arsed frog!” raucous laughter peppered the air as I went in and voted conservative for the first time in my life. Enough of that sissy-arsed twat, who is nothing more than Modi’s pappishow with his displaced femme au foyer, fag-hag frau, Madame Plotte-Visage herself, who looks more and more each day like Tammy Faye Bakker. You don’t like black people… go fuck yourself… god only knows, you did not invent Jazz!

Days earlier en route home with my little suitcase in tow, I got up off the bench to take the Wellesley 94 bus eastbound to my art-filled lair. The bus pulled in and queerly parked such that the back door was a good three feet away – I have never seen the appeal of metric… nothing beats knowing whether you are dealing with 9.5 or 10.5 inches! Though my suitcase was too heavy, I was prepared to step off the platform to make for the rear doors, yet, the doors did not open. Finally, I joined the Dravidian male who had been waiting to board the rear doors as well. When I got to the front door, noisily pulling my suitcase, I looked up stunned as the doors slammed shut just as I was getting ready to board. The doors then opened after the driver looked at me with a smug smirk creasing her lizard-lipped face. I got in and as ever, I said thank you. As I progressed towards the double seats by the rear door, the bus suddenly broke, causing me to lurch forward. Taking it all in stride, I opted not to assume anything by this trio of events which most blacks would see after the third incident as being racially provocative. Up the couple of steps I got with my heavy suitcase; this only made me realise my advancing years as suddenly the urge to pee came on. I had switched from Bleu par Chanel a couple of years back when senior leak suddenly meant that after five minutes Bleu fades and gives way to god forbid that most malodourous of bouquets: loud-smelling, dribbled piss. Now it is Christian Dior’s Sauvage as the scent lingers and dissipates any provoked thoughts of raunchy water sports.

Having made my way to the back seat, there were all told less than a dozen souls on the bus. On arriving at the first stop from the station, the driver got up at Church Street. I thought that there must be someone wheelchair bound, trying to board, hence she got from her seat to assist. As I was otherwise engaged in thoughts libidinal and what I’d like to do with that burly mesomorph at work, whose woman just upped and left him, I remained focussed on artisan channels 3 to 5 instead. Just then, I noticed the bus driver step up the two steps and make it towards me, seated at the centre of the bus’ long back seat. Leaning her, her nasty-looking perm straight out of the 90s, she gruffly barked at me in a manner that suggested that couth had ever been foreign to her. “Look, everybody has bad days okay. There’s no need to swear at me.” I said nothing, looking instead past her as the thought occurred to me that the bus was being driven by duppy incarnate. Since my name ain’t Shaneequa, I remained calm and looked up at a face warped uglier by rage, which I also found uncomfortably too close. I was hemmed in. “Get off my bus or I call the police!” As I chose to say nothing or move a single muscle, she got even more incandescent with irrationally unprovoked rage, “That’s it get off my bus now, I’m calling the police!” As she turned to walk away, it gave a good look at her flat-arsed, no-calved god fugly hideousness and I got up and began making it for the bus’ front doors. As I slowly strode for the front doors, I expertly memorised her bus ID and every detail of slender hipped, extra-vertebrae-looking alien body and realised that she was likely trans; either way, just then a definite non sequitur. For once, I said nothing on exiting and as I really needed to pee, thought of hailing a cab when noticing another bus directly in back of the scene of my misadventure. I got aboard, said hello to the driver, a guapo Filipino and grabbed a seat on the even less populated bus. Also, I memorised the ID information associated with his bus. On exiting the bus, as per usual, I said thanks and exchanged pleasantries. As soon as I got situated at home, with Buster on my lap purring away, I took to the TTC’s site and chose the tab that allows for filing complaints. In exquisite detail, as well you are I shared what occurred and confidently knew that at no point would any of the bus’ cameras capture me saying anything to the female driver. She is, as per her contract, never to leave her seat nor confront a passenger. I have never seen her since.

Well in the grip of Mercury retrograde, I strolled into one of many little joints which I love frequenting as I like chatting with the proprietors and in the process, giving them my business. On close to a decade of frequenting this particular store, where I picked up a lottery ticket or two, my bike was leaning against the row of sugary treats, I turned just in time to see an old weathered hag out on Yonge Street beadily gawking in and cutting her hateful eyes at me. Possessed of some right afforded her by god only knows fuck-all whom – the blasted motherfuck, she bounded into the store, well into her ninth decade and looking and smelling of ill-health and poverty, “Get that goddamn bike outta here.” I was wearing my helmet with lights attached front and back in broad daylight as one does. Without so much as missing a beat, I launched into her with a ferocity, she likely had never before encountered, which is why she felt perfectly entitled to take such liberties. “Get your fucking ugly arse out of here, go the fuck to Wal-Mart make your way to the back of the store and tell them I sent you to put a down paying on your fucking casket as you are obviously too fucking poor to afford to die all this time…” Never having had her racially predatory behaviour challenged before, she stood there suddenly catatonic. “Go on, here you go, start that fucking down paying today…” with that, I tossed the few coins in my pocket at her feet and barged on in full throttle loud, vituperativeness. “Pick it the fuck up, high time your fucking ugly, broke arse and casket were lowered into the ground. Come in here opening your motherfucking lizard-lipped mouth, barking at me. Pick it the blasted motherfuck up and crawl the fuck in your casket.” She tried to weakly say something to which I kept up my defense against being racially preyed on, “Shut up and die, go on… scoot. There’s no need for your fuck-all ugly, broke arse, smelly cunt hanging around… get the fuck off the planet.” Never ever during a mercury retrograde will this venus-uranus leo hold his tongue when being racially preyed on. Faster than the loudest sneeze, I rammed my fist up her rotting arse, yanked and ripped at her calcified soul, pulled it out, wiped arse with it, then slapped her silly in the face before making her gag on a soul being held hostage by her useless maudlin existence. I have become so less inclined to tolerate this perpetual abuse which we as blacks endure on a daily basis yet pretend as though it does not exist. There are, though, times when you need to protest. Back in 1988 after meeting Wayne Robson’s firstborn, as I moved south down the west side of Bond Street to go visit Merlin at St. Michael’s Hospital who was suffering his first bout of AIDS-related pneumocystis, I screamed at the top of my lungs at an old Caucasian female who on noticing me began hurriedly crossing to the east side of Bond, “I don’t want your fucking handbag…” Never ceases to amaze the arsenal of behaviour that non-blacks project onto us as they get their racially predatory fix: sniffing, outright ridicule, dragging feet, yawning, bumping into you, blowing cigarette smoke in your direction… those are the passive racially predatory acts. More often, it is like that act in the convenience store, so racially obsessed that one feels oneself perfectly entitled to project that ignorance in a malicious, accusatory, bullying manner towards blacks. Indeed, ever notice the inordinate number of overweight blacks; they like all persons who were sexually preyed on in their early years more often than not develop eating disorders.

With Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex’s lynching daily in print media, social media and just about everywhere else, I have become increasing intolerant of any and all such BS. Do not because I am black start, apropos of fuck-all nothing, braying about how much you hate and can’t stand that Meghan bitch as if the blasted fuck these arsewipes know the woman. Out of the blue someone whom I thought had long made the only logical move viable to her sorry arse and crawled into her casket, called up trying for the nth time to get me to start today and join that pyramid scheme of hers for which she is ever travelling to some rah-rah seminar and on the cusp of getting rich yet still ain’t and needs you to join this very day; this, I can assure you, is about as appealing as trying to get me to bed some moneyed old fuck with a micro penis and bad breath. Nah… I’m all about the dharma.

Last summer everyone called up, demanding to know if I were not going to the Raptors championship parade. Hell no! Crowds you say… not happening. The day of the parade, I kept being called up by excited friends, asking me if I was watching and wasn’t it phenomenal. Very matter of factly, I declared to one, “When these fucking Goys do Yom Kippur, they certainly do know how to go all out.” Of course, after having explained myself days later at a dinner party, the point was well taken. This is a country with soft ethnic cleansing of blacks: negative immigration and population growth, a entrenched history of employment discrimination, which sees blacks being ghettoised in casual positions in the work place, especially at crown corporations (government-owned) – I have worked at two: Canada Post and the Toronto Convention Centre; in the case of the former, I arrived in Montréal from Vancouver to find myself the first full-time black in the work place; as fighting is nothing but foreplay in my books, I organised a lone Haitienne and got her to file a Human Rights complaint which she won. This resulted in back pay and all the mostly Haitian blacks awarded full-time and back pay where they had served as casual for 5, 10, 15 years. Naturally, the messenger/lightning rod always comes into someone cross-hairs. At one point, where they tried firing me the local union president told me to go to hell and go back to Canada; thus, I ventured into my firing interview with a lawyer in tow – had never happened before and was not then fired after multiple frantic calls to Ottawa to find out how to deal with him. Before being fired, that blasted porcine pequiste fucker decided to avail himself of my tax dollars by running in the federal election, thankfully he did not win but when he tried two years later, I wrote to Jack Layton who had frequented our Cabbagetown home in the 80s when we lived next door to a rather parvenu and highly snobbish Alfred Sung and informed Mr. Layton that if he did not withdraw that vile racist, my lawyer and I would go to the media and expose him – the letter of course was cced to all the other federal party leaders. In the end, the Bloc Quebecois thanked me for the letter and ran a black Haitienne in the riding from which the union head was summarily dropped and that Haitienne, Ms. Bardot won her seat, only to be replaced in Papineau riding by that blasted, racist tarbaby-arsed frog… but I digress. Two million persons cheering on black excellence when this is a country that actively eradicates any participation of blacks in its cultural fabric – hello JazzFM where you would be dismissed as stupid for thinking that Jazz is black culture. Sure, there are window-dressing blacks in the TV medium but they are not the norm. Not a single prominent Canadian protested and demanded that the vile racist politician resign when his blackface past emerged. Naturally, his people stridently argued in his defense. Would that these ungrateful fucks who hold the country to ransom would finally fuck off and leave. No one outside of Québec, who does not work in the government, is remotely bilingual. Seven years of living in Montréal made one thing perfectly clear: theirs, by its sheer ubiquity is nothing more than a northern confederate flag… and they certainly are possessed of unapologetic xenophobia. The only people deserving of having a party in the Canadian parliament, which not all Canadians can vote for, are the First Nations and Inuit peoples.

Back in late 1982 whilst Merlin and I held up in the Trockadero loft in Manhattan’s Chelsea on Sixth Avenue below 23rd Street, I got in one evening after looking at rehearsal of the Nanette Bearden Dance Company, to find Merlin having dinner and strategising with Jim Henson. As they shared the same agent, Joyce Ketay, they were prepping and throwing around ideas for how to thematically film the series, Fraggle Rock which would be shot in the coming new year in Toronto at CBC’s studios. Merlin had made his favourite dish a chicken paprikash which John Hirsch had taught him. Joining them, I dug in to what was my favourite of Merlin’s prepared meals. I will always remember Jim saying, “first you start with a compliment and then you hang back and listen, listen to what’s said but most of all, what is not said…” Sage advise that I have always followed. What I love about us artisan souls is that we always reveal our nature and the fact that we input on five channels whenever we speak. Listen to Naomi Campbell in her acceptance speech for the CFDA Icon Award. Straight out of left field in the tenth minute, she remarks, “God my lips are dry… sorry.” No other soul but an artisan soul would shift subjects so abruptly so seamlessly and carry on without so much as missing a beat. This quirk of ours, mine, Naomi, Meghan and every last artisan soul who has ever breathed, makes for a master tactician and someone not easily understood or shaken. With a destiny number that proves master numbers like Meghan, HRH Duchess of Sussex, she is a 11 – she is a diamond through and through and why HRH Prince Charles, Prince of Wales refers to her as Tungsten.

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

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©2013-2023 Arvin da Brgha. All Rights Reserved.

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

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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(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.  

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

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© 2013-2023 Arvin da Brgha.  All Rights Reserved.

The Fawn… It Definitely Was A Miracle.

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Merlin Christmas 88

On this the eve of what would have proven Merlin’s 72nd birthday, I share these rather totemic dreams.  This November 18, 2019 marks the 30th anniversary of Merlin’s passing of full-blown AIDS, on a cold November Saturday morning when icy snowflakes aimlessly drifted across the city streets.  Whilst at dinner recently, a dear friend asked if I am never saddened at the loss of Merlin and if I ever do miss him. Of course, as I write this blog, I am warmed by the fact that on December 2, 2006 – almost 13 years ago, Merlin was reincarnated in a canalled northern European city.  Merlin is now female and the third of three children – two older brothers. 

What’s more, Merlin reborn has eyes that would now be even more phenomenal than when last I gazed besotted and rhapsodic into those large, soulful hazel eyes.  Whereas Merlin was on his sixth life as a seventh level mature scholar soul, now reincarnated and female that soul is now living its first incarnation as a first level old scholar. These next dreams were dreamt in May, 1989 when Merlin was then still incarnate and at that point, he daily listened to the audiocassette recording of my dreams.  This he did because they fascinated him; more than that, he did so because ever the director, he was keen to give insight and direction. 

“Come on, Arvin, you have to be more descriptive.  I have no idea if the car was blue, green, for that matter a convertible and was it a tan or white leather interior?” 

Certainly, it can never be underestimated the pivotal role that Merlin played in the depth and thoroughness of the audiocassette recorded dreams.  He was ever a loving but tough taskmaster and happy am I to have had his loving input and direction. After having listened to the recorded dream being now shared herein, Merlin came to dinner at our 20 Amelia Street home and declared, “Well, let’s not get too caught up in trying to interpret and figure out the symbolism of those dreams.”  After, he winked, we softly kissed; his lips as ever warm and full as internally an unrelenting disease determinedly consumed his body… but never alas his spirit. 

These were potent, lucid astral plane dreams.  To say that they were totemic would be understating fact.  The dreams were a glimpse beyond the veil as Merlin shamanically wound down another incarnation and got ready to put to rest another life. Ever focussed on my spiritual maturation, I am immensely proud to have survived so long after Merlin’s passing.  Had anyone wagered that I would be still in the game 30 years later, I would have said, “You are reading the wrong tea leaves.”  

Well, here I am still shaking arse and the Rathore to the core.  These totemic dreams were dreamt on Monday, May 22, 1989, audiocassette recorded on tape IX of the 250 audiocassette recording of my dreams and yet to be found in Volume one the 25 Volume dream opus. Too, at the time, the Moon then transited both Sagittarius and my seventh house – wherein my natal Moon is posited.  Truly few are they who are brave enough to drink from the chalice that is life. 

Your support and choice to be focussed herein are both humbling and a source of inordinate pride.  I am immensely grateful. Sweet dreams and as ever do remember, death is just a shift in focus; one is merely focussed at a different frequency.  Besides, as one rather beguiling astral plane habituée put it, “Trust me, death is not wasted on the living.”  

Dreams serve as the most expedient conduit for sustaining the bonds and communion of souls between persons who are no longer focussed in the physical plane but refocussed on the astral plane between lives as astral plane habitués whilst resting, reviewing and weaving the tapestry of future incarnations.  So, drink and live in the moment.  Take a deep breath, open your eyes within – don’t be afraid – and there within the silken folds of self is the massive beauty which is spirit.. go on explore and discover the true you.  I love you more. 

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The first dream found me posited on a hilltop looking down into a valley which then rose up into a lower hill.  From the vantage of the mountains in Sandy Point, St. Kitts or Nevis, the view was of being down towards the ocean.  Topographically, it seemed more like St. Kitts – however, this was definitely set in Nevis.  I looked out and what did I see but a house on this hill; it was a very huge and lovely house.

Down from the sky, before the house on the rolling plains, fell a column of white light that shimmered.  The manifesting light had the power of a tornado and it was a force that moved… it undulated.  Truth be told, this was a liquefied white light – not unlike a waterspout.  As compared to the left and right sides of the shaft, it was as though the centre of the light was faded.  The centre of the column of light seemed invisible but it wasn’t.  As a matter of fact, it was sort of greyish-coloured.  

*A very fleeting dream this was but it was one that was potent.  The sky overhead was ominously dark as though the cloud cover was simply to mask something else.  There was no getting around the fact that the light was used as some sort of transport or conveyance.  The light was being used for the relay of energies between the house’s occupants, if there were any, and whatever was beyond the clouds.

The dream seemed to have abruptly collapsed because I had happened on the scene.  There was no one else about.  Too, it was the only house on the landscape.  I felt as though I had been ejected, from the dream, for having been there and witnessed what I wasn’t supposed to have been privy to.  The dream collapsed around me; I was deprived any further knowledge of what was going on.  In light of the dream that would follow, it became fairly obvious that the light column was channelling.

Eventually, the astra-human soul quality of Merlin’s would quite potently manifest.  Of course, just as in the dream of Thursday, July 7, 1988VI, again, there was a lone house on the landscape.  As will become evident, in later moments of the dreams, Merlin’s soul quality would manifest.  END.

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Satiro de Aaron Sims

The next dream immediately found me in bed with Merlin.  He got up and he looked very old.  Looking very tired and old, he turned around to me then went out into the hallway.  He turned around and asked me, “When are you going to start moving on because I’d like to die by the end of this year?  When are you going to go back to school?  I’m really tired of this; I’m tired of this illness… I just want to move on.”

He was terribly impatient.  Indeed, Merlin here was very forceful.  That was when he began shapeshifting; Merlin underwent a metamorphosis before my eyes.  He became, as he spoke, more impatient.  I watched spellbound as his physiology morphed into the very astral-looking faun – though elfin-looking, he was taller than his known humanoid self; Merlin became the archetypal Chiron.  I started crying sounding real childlike and said, “No… no!  Please, please don’t!”

His face then became part of the pink walls, thus his transformed face was flesh-toned.  Here his face looked faunlike; his eyes were on the sides.  He had the face of a faun and I only ever saw the right eye.  The eye was black-within-black.  The eye looked down at me because the head – which was the only thing visible when mounted – was up on the wall.  Shapeshifted, Merlin’s was a very hard-looking eye.

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Merlin’s eye rapaciously looked right into the soul.  An ancient eye it was.  I caressed the softness of the fur-like skin and pleaded with him and said, “Please, I can’t live without you.  I couldn’t go on.  Please don’t lose your strength and get ill,” I pleaded with the shapeshifted Merlin and cried.  I was aware of being here in bed asleep whilst dreaming and that my body was going through the motions of crying and being pained.  Merlin did not hear me, although, I thought that as I slept that I was talking aloud in my sleep.

*This was an intensely upsetting dream because it dramatised how Merlin wished to be allowed to move on.  He no longer cared to be focussed in the life.  Though it was obvious that he could have soldiered on for months more, he simply lost the desire to go on being focussed.  Clearly, this was owing to the bilious discord created by Tytanikka and Oleg’s betrayal.

Though he never physiologically resembled the classic centaur, Merlin’s face not only further morphed becoming like a fawn’s, more accurately, his head and face did have the eventual shape of a young bison’s – very Taurean, strong and potent.

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On preparing for the video to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Merlin’s birth back in 2017, I decided then to head off to the costumer, Malabar on McCaul Street where artist and lover George Hawken lived in the late 80s to early 90s.  Inspired by the first dream of Merlin had 41 years ago in July 1978, I decided to get a cowl as a tribute to the cowl Merlin wore in the inaugural dream encounter with him, four years before having met on Friday, October 1, 1982 in New York City.  So, there was I at Mount Pleasant Cemetery on Saturday, July 15, 2017 in my cowl and the panama hat purchased at Versailles to escape the heat.  I thought it fitting as Merlin always loved wearing panama hats.

My trusty friend, J.J. who happens to be an artisan entity mate whom I have known in 20 past lives –- which is a high incidence of contact -– was the director.  Initially, I had hoped to throw a white party on the lawn to the southwest of the chapel at Mount Pleasant Cemetery and have a drone film the event where a gathering of friends would raise a glass to Merlin on the anniversary of his ennobled birth.  Merlin always threw a white party each year for his birthday at his parents’ stunning backyard in north Toronto’s Servington Crescent.

The plan was not approved by the cemetery and thus, one had to improvise.  I got my panama hat and my cowl and together, we proceeded with a dozen long-stem white roses to visit Merlin’s resting place.  I had a pretty good idea what I was after.  With the matching white cowl, I wanted to evoke the magic of meeting Merlin in that initial dream which is shared in volume one of the dream memoirs, which is already published: Merlin and Arvin: A Shamanic Dream Odyssey.  

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In the hardcover edition of human civilisation’s first dream memoirs, the initial dream encounter with Merlin is shared.  The dream begins on page 110 in the hardcover edition.  I wanted the same sense of wonderment and magic that I felt for having met Merlin in that first dream four years prior to having met reflected in the video.  In that dream, Merlin’s appearance was preceded by a white totemic creature which seemed, in its astral plane outréness, to be part Russian wolfhound, part alpaca, part dog.  

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So, moving to the lawn, having descended the steps of the chapel, I began walking across the open lawn towards the statuesque lion-festooned mausoleum with the five remaining white long-stem white roses.  Seven roses, of course, were left at Merlin’s grave -– one rose for each of our seven glorious years together.  As I stepped onto the lawn, it seemed magical… timeless even.  Slowly, confidently as I approached the filmmaker at the other end of the lawn, I thought of Merlin and that initial dream.  

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Just then, I very distinctly thought of Merlin greeting me by purring, “Hello Lambs.”  As if right on cue, from off stage left, an adult deer came from behind the bushes and tombstones that line the far edges of the open lawn.  Never before had I seen a deer at Mount Pleasant Cemetery.  Indeed, the good burghers of Forest Hill who clearly regularly jogged in the park-like setting stopped and were overheard remarking that they had never seen a deer in the cemetery before.  All that I could do was tear up and continue walking as the deer then bolted and ran from stage left to right as I continued my stride uninterrupted –- unfazed by the appearance of an adult deer on the grounds of the cemetery.  What is more astounding, is that J.J. at the time was filming my walk; at the last minute, I decided against a run-through as I was concerned about the natural light possibly changing if we were to rehearse the shot.  

Unbeknownst to me, the deer after having made it to stage right, then returned to the centre of the lawn and stood there perfectly still whilst observing my progression across the lawn.  J.J. who was astounded by the occurrence remarked that he had just witnessed a miracle.   There is no doubt in my mind as I tried to recapture the magic of that initial dream encounter that there was a subtle validation of that dream from the magical shaman himself on the other side by having had Merlin’s spirit step in as director emeritus and had the deer enter the shot as validation and a token of his appreciation of the love that we shared and my steadfast loyalty to him.  After crossing the lawn and turning to watch the deer stand there, looking down the lawn at me, I felt such utter peacefulness and abandonment of spirit — just as when alone and intimate in the dark with Merlin.  

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Yes, I believe in magic as did Merlin and as though an appreciation of having stridently done everything to fulfil his mandate to me, Merlin’s astral body conjure up the same magic here and now as he had in July 1978 –- four years before slipping inside a Hell’s Kitchen walk-up and readily winning me over with his sexy elfin charm, magic and sex that proved the most grounding shamanic passion… every time.  Standing there, I was reminded, too, of that dream in 1989 before Merlin passed wherein he shape-shifted and became a fawn-like creature who morphed and became one with the wall in our Cabbagetown home.  

All the music chosen for this 13-minute video is music that Merlin loved whilst incarnate and to which he returned time and again -– whether at Joe Morton’s tiny Upper West Side apartment in autumn of 1983, Toronto’s 20 Amelia Street in tony Cabbagetown.  From Glenn Gould’s mastery of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations, to Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight and Dionne Warwick singing That’s What Friends Are For –- in that segment of the video, I included friends whom Merlin valued: Kareem Benezra, myself, Wayne Robson and his oldest and most loyal friend, the ever-gracious, Maxime Gascoigne-de Montigny.

Of course, for Stevie Wonder’s Isn’t She Lovely, I exclusively included photos of Merlin and his very handsome and gracious father, David Ben-Daniel.  Whereas I favoured Sir Paul McCartney’s Hey Jude, Merlin ever loved George Harrison and especially My Sweet Lord.  Of course, one Saturday, whilst staying at actor, Joe Morton’s Manhattan apartment, when Merlin and I secretly committed to being together, we slow-danc