Three Sketches of Fraggle Rock

09.09.201707.12.2024 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

Back in late 1982, a couple of evenings after rehearsals, I made it home to the Trockadero loft which Merlin had sublet in Chelsea — across the street was a massive green-painted block long edifice at 645 Sixth Avenue — there would be Merlin and Jim Henson at the rustic kitchen table, hammering out ideas for what would become Fraggle Rock.

Both artists would be feverishly sketching away at design ideas that they kicked around. Of course, after having briefly been an actor, Merlin did work as a set designer at one point whilst at Tarragon Theatre where many got their start in the theatre, including playwright David Tipe. David, of course, was instrumental in getting Merlin and I together.

These three sketches are details from the final sketches for Fraggle Rock which went into production back in Toronto at CBC studios. Whilst Merlin, Jim Henson and other directors worked on the inaugural season of that show, I remained in New York City working: classes, rehearsals — very rarely auditions — and working with choreographers who favoured my Vaganova-based technique.

Great it was to have recently come across these gems. They will feature heavily in my renovated home which is chaotically being whipped into shape. Later this fall, I will be hosting a book launch here and, of course, it will serve to feature some of my art collection. I will keep you posted as I begin work on starting a podcast to feature dreams, anecdotes, interviews and critiques of art exhibitions and musings on travels. I will then be launching volume two of what is human civilisation’s first dream memoirs.

If already you have not, I implore you to get your copy of book one which launched June 2017. Each memoir comes with an accompanying appendix of Michael overleaves which were channelled by an authentic Michael channel. Sadly, the Michael Teaching has become overrun, like a weed-infested abandoned garden, by charlatans aplenty claiming to be channelling Michael when indeed they are merely transparent third-tier failed actors/Madoffs preying on others.

I have every intention of scouring the internet and removing all signs of these frauds as they pass-on. This is the only sane thing to do, to rid the Michael Teachings of the current blight of hoodwinking charlatans that abound.

As ever, Sweet Dreams dreamers, I thank you for your ongoing support and more than ever, I appreciate the support you afford me by purchasing the published and upcoming books which are filled with dreams and Michael overleaves aplenty.

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Dolphin House Pets and Glimmers of El Greco’s Muse (Redux)

01.04.201707.12.2024 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

On the cusp of the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Georgia O’Keeffe Exhibition opening this month, I am repost this blog. Do please enjoy.

Whilst the Moon transited both Libra and my fifth house, these next dreams occurred on October 1, 1989. Too, it was the seventh anniversary of that magical, and a bit cool, Friday evening in Hell’s Kitchen when Merlin and I would meet… yet again.

Of course, at the time, he was rather ill with full-blown AIDS and horribly suffering from Candida. However, as I have known more than 200 persons to have passed of AIDS, Merlin’s AIDS-related illnesses were mild manifestations of what can eventualise with AIDS. I have always been grateful for that.

These dreams – one a touchstone dream with Olaf Gamst’s old-souled son as he was during a life when he was an assistant, muse and lover of El Greco’s, the other a dream set remotely in the past on this planet or possibly on another world where the indigenous folks were decidedly extra-human though Sol III human-looking enough – were welcome inspiration.

Too, the dreams were dreamt during the second sleep cycle that day. Back then, I took naps as often as I could afford. Merlin fainted several times each day and the sheer gravity of what we moved through was exhausting at times. As he would have it, no one knew that Merlin fainted multiple times daily.

At the time of these dreams, I had taken to the pyramid to meditate with crystals and eventually ended up privately crying at the share stark finality of what imminently loomed on the horizon. Thus, sleep was a welcome refocussing of my energies – if only briefly. Of course, sleep and its elixir, dreams, ever kept me focussed, inspired and aware of the macroscopic.

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In this the first dream, I see Eleanor Bissell – my Canadian-History and English teacher at Harbord Collegiate Institute; she was doing some gardening in a blue dress that was floral-printed. This garden had tall old trees in it. There were hydrangea plants – large ones at that.

I went over and I greeted her and said, “Hello, Mrs. Bissell.”

I told her who I was and she had on her glasses and her breath was short. She was just the same as when I knew her in the waking state.

This dream, the second, was set in another time and another place. I was captured by this man in a castle-like dwelling. A very Moorish setting, like in Spain, it was; it was not Moorish architecture like in Northern Africa but it was more so in southern Spain. Perhaps, it was Andalusia or thereabouts.

It was brown stone which had been burnt by the Sun for years and years, tens of millennia, as a matter of fact. I got captured and I was taken back into a room with a man; he was saying to me, “Of course you’re mine. You’re 63%!”

This percentile was supposed to signify, if you like, being bad or evil.

He was describing things to me because he was the epitome of what one would consider evil. I was saying, “No I’m not.”

I was saying that I didn’t want to be there and wanted to be let out.

The thing is, it was not me; rather, I was the son and he was a bronzed person; he was very swarthy but not Black. I was his offspring; I was, in fact, his son. Then some people came in and they were all there and I asked if I could get out with them. They, however, said no that I couldn’t because they were alright.

They said that they were all 50% and that I was not. I supposedly had to be 50% and therefore, as I was his son, I had to stay there with him. I was really upset and somehow I managed to be stealthily taken away during the night, after the father left, by a woman.

She wore long flowing garb and she was again very Mediterranean or Middle Eastern-looking. She had long limbs and café au lait complexion. She told me how it all went that I was her son, by the same man, and that she was one of his many lovers.

However, he was never supposed to have a child by her; as a result, when she became pregnant because he so loved her, he broke with tradition and he had her put up in this particular part of the castle.

It was really fortified and very abandoned-looking but she held out there. Nobody ever came to this part of the castle and it was very terraced and had a lot of inner walls in it.

The walls here were of a slight sandy colour and we were alone at nighttime. As we were talking, there was battle going on behind us over in another part of the castle; the battle occurred in another part of the fortified town that supported the castle.

There were a lot of cries because there was battle going on. You could hear a lot of horses neighing and cantering, as in the Crusades, if you like. I don’t, however, recall having heard any gunfire.

She was telling me not to worry because he would never harm me. Said she, I was quite well protected. He did love me in spite of his cruelty and there was no way that he could hurt me because she was fiercely protective of me.

If he had done anything to me, she would be forced to expose him and he knew and feared that eventuality. She told me to just go on outside and play. So, I went out into the yard and it was a wonderful elaborate garden – very organic.

It had this pool and there inside were dolphins. I went in to play with them. It was a muddied pool but very large like a manmade lake. They were playing with me as I frolicked in the water with them.

One of them had its fluke pressing down on my bum from above me. Whilst sandwiched between them under the surface the other used it nose to push up against my breastbone and solar plexus; thus, they propelled me through the water at great exhilarating speeds.

It was a beautiful sense of motion because, of course, they travelled quite fast and they always stayed clear of going out too far. There was a point at which they had jokingly made a fast turn and I hadn’t caught up.

So I went to stand up and it turned out that it was a very large pool and a rather deep, deep pool. I panicked when I broke surface and they assisted me back to the shallow area.

When I came back indoors both the father and mother were there now – the swarthy humans, that is. I said to them that there was something here in the pool a big opening, you could feel it.

I also sensed it from the dolphins as being something in the pool that they themselves feared. The father figure was laughing and told me not to worry about that because he knew, of course, what it was. The mother had remained quite silent and looked at me, all the time, because she was slightly to his left and behind him as he spoke.

All three of us were next in a room in the castle and, somehow, the dolphins were here as well. There was a break in the floor, a wide open hole, and they came up and were swimming and churning up the same muddied-looking dark water.

A man then entered who looked like and was, in fact, the American actor who starred in the film, Paris, Texas. I think that the actor’s name is, Harry Dean Stanton, but I am not certain of that; he is a scrawny, hard-faced, thin-lipped man.

He came in and had a gun and said, “I want to get paid. I’m doing work in this building and I’m not getting paid. I’m tired of being held up here. Deliver! Or else I’m going to take you out and shoot you.”

It was an interesting-looking silver gun. I was standing up on a cabinet and he went to shoot me but I knew that he wouldn’t shoot me. He had, in fact, turned the pistol so that the two shots rang off to my right.

What surprisingly came out, when he fired the shots, was water; however, it had light in it. It was like lasered water and it shot out in a large chunky jet and went almost instantaneously to the wall and crashed there.

He shot rounds of it and both parents remained absolutely icy cool; they paid him very little mind. Later on, the mother telepathically told me not to worry because he couldn’t harm me; too, she telepathically shared that I was not to move and give in to fear. I was not to show any signs of panic.

*This was clearly a civilisation which was set here on Earth long millennia before the current ape-central, fear-ruled madness we now know. This was a time long ago in human history when there was contact between both humans and cetaceans. Telepathy was de rigueur; too, psychic abilities were more evolved then.

Perhaps, this was an Atlantean society or some other civilisation which predated the Atlantean. The persons were seemingly of Mediterranean extraction and it was, however, definitely not Egyptian.

I would guess that it was post-Egyptian – the latter having occurred easily more than 60 thousand years ago; although, Europeans in their racist elitism – never having had anything to rival pyramids in Europe – reworked the agedness of Egyptian civilisation to their ends.

**I am now left to believe that this was in some way an Extra-Human civilisation where the humans closely resembled Earthly humans. They were, however, swarthier and were archly telepathic.

Too, their foreheads were also considerably higher and had a slight concave look at the top. Dolphins, it seems, were kept as indoor pets – just as cats and dogs are for humans. Hence, there was the watering hole, which led to a vast underground network, where the animals could come and go from the fortified castle to the ocean, however far off. END.

Almost instantaneously, in this the third dream, I was in another scene; it was one in which I was playing and my companion was Lars Gamst^†. We were drawing, in fact, we were painting.

Lars said to the same actor, Harry Dean Stanton, who was now with me in this new dream – both the parents, incidentally, were no longer about. Lars wanted the actor to assist him by editing.

The guy misunderstood him and didn’t know what was what. What Lars was doing was covering the painting with a black wax and, later, he was then going to strip it off. So he needed the actor to go and get the chemicals and equipment to go and strip off the wax.

He was somewhat impatient that the guy was so stupid and didn’t understand; Lars had had to spell out what he wanted. I was trying to explain to the guy what to do and what Lars meant, as well as, the process involved.

When he did go away to get the things, I came over and approached Lars and assisted him in the painting of the work that he was doing.

*A rather insightful dream this one and the energies with Lars were, as ever, pleasant and sublime. I find this a rather telling dream too because, in later years, on having Lars’s Michael Overleaves charted, I would learn that not only is he an old soul – first level old slave and entity mate to his equally old-souled father (Olaf Gamst) and sixth cast artisan like myself but he was the favoured muse of Doménicos (El Greco) Theotokópoulos and his chief assistant.

Naturally, for Lars to be so immersed creatively in a painterly fashion – in the dreamtime – was truly about revisiting a skill and time in the past which brought him great fulfillment both spiritually and creatively. This was so clearly an astral plane encounter between us.

Being in Lars’s presence was quite expansive; you could actually feel his soul being deeply creative. So fully dilated were his pupils, Lars’s eyes were almost pure black. He was terribly eccentric and clearly there was much bleed-through from his having been greatly inspired in that lifetime by El Greco. He worked feverishly with great attack.

He quite appreciated the fact that I was not a dolt and could be of able assistance to him. This was such an astral plane encounter that it was as real and connected as that time we rode the subway together and the connectedness we shared blew my mind.

Incidentally, in that sixteenth century lifetime, Lars was much younger than the great artist and they did have a passionate relationship. I have a distinct impression that there was a bleed through of what Lars looked like, in that lifetime, as his features were not as they are now; he was more Latin and darker, strong-nosed.

It was an aquiline nose. Too, he was robust-energied and had massive hands like those of a sculptor’s. Terribly expressive and passionate, too, were his hands. END.

I was on the phone whilst speaking with Owen Hawksmoor, in this the fourth dream, and I could see about his apartment as we spoke. I was calling him because I wanted to get laid and I was really raunchy and stir-crazy but he was not up to it. I start calling him on it and I told him, “Oh yeah, why don’t you get up and go to the bathroom? And drop your teeth in the glass of water, on your way, before you come back?”

In a very sarcastic manner, I had laced into him to which he responded by being coolly dismissive of me by broadly laughing at my desperation.

Somehow, Pandora da Braga was part of this dream and she had an awareness of my play for Owen and my resultant rejection.

*Featured art: Santiago el mayor by El Greco. At the time of the dream, Lars appeared as he did in a past life; his was a strong aquiline nose in the dream. This look features prominently in many of El Greco’s works. In that past life, Lars was a favoured muse, assistant and lover of El Greco’s who was in a recent incarnation the sublime American artist, Georgia O’Keeffe.

As Lars is a slave soul, the look of St. Francis and also the look of Christ carrying the cross are those of a slave soul; at least that’s my impression. Since, Christ was a seventh level king soul on his last life, the El Greco Christ of the aquiline nose is decidedly not a king soul and more so a slave with priestly airs. Perhaps, this is how Lars looked then.

What I also love about this particular El Greco painting is that the green draping proves an evocative prelude of things to come, as it were, with regards Georgia O’Keeffe’s sublimely sexualised flower paintings.

For that matter, I love how Georgia O’Keeffe’s sensual masterpiece, Jack in the pulpit No. IV is a reanimation of El Greco’s Christ on the cross which is in the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, Japan. END.

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Art: Santiago el Mayor

Oil on Canvas

97 x 77 cm

1610 El Greco

Provenance: Museo del Greco

Christ on the Cross

Oil on Canvas

95.5 x 61 cm

1600 El Greco

Provenance: National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, Japan

Jack in the Pulpit IV

Oil on Canvas

40 x 30 Inches

1930 Georgia O’Keeffe

Provenance: National Gallery of Art, Washington D. C.

Grey Lines with Black, Blue and Yellow

Oil on Canvas

48 x 30 Inches

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Celebrate: Frank Sinatra 100 Years!

10.12.201505.12.2024 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

Whilst the Moon transited both Taurus and my twelfth house, I would dream the most lucid astral plane dream in long ages. At the centre of that dream encounter was the man of the hour, the newly refocussed, Frank Sinatra.

Over the years, I have had very few dream encounters with this man. As befitting his Michael Overleaves, I found this man to be rather arrogant and abrasive.

*Frank Sinatra’s Michael Overleaves were channelled as those of a young soul sage. END.

This for me has always been an indicator that one is dealing with a young soul. They are just so damn impatient, arrogant and socially aggressive – sorry but these spiritual boors just bore the living shit out of me.

Prime example of the young-souled zeitgeist is deftly validated in the dream encounter with the quintessential young-souled female of the 20^th century, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Add to all that animus-charged angst is the fact that she also happened to have been a young-souled king.

Her effect on me during the dreams of December 30, 1992 – which in this blog are entitled: King Holding Court – are the dynamic of a late mature soul (self) being socially shunned by a young soul (Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis). These persons, for me, are extremely enervating and real crushers of my aura.

Although, to be sure, when Merlin was incarnate I would have suffered much with regards socially aggressive young souls, now I simply do not suffer. I simply walk away – life is too fucking short to suffer spiritually dense-energied boors.

In any event, the dream was of Frank Sinatra being feted as the arrivé astral plane habitué that he then was. This was one of the most beautiful, healing and lucid dreams imaginable.

Well you can bet your bottom dollar that I spent the next several days saturating the walls of my Montréal home with Sinatra’s sublime soulfulness. I have chosen to include all the dreams had that day as they allow me to fill the spaces between with another YouTube video of Sinatra’s shamanic wizardry.

At the time, it was Sunday, May 24, 1998 and the dreams were audiocassette-recorded on tape CCXLVIII and are to be found in Volume XXV of the 25-volume dream opus. Be well and as ever, know that the love you afford me by being herein focussed is relished with every fibre of my creative soul and, in turn, is returned to you tenfold.

Sweet dreams – for we are, you and me, marvellous shamans. I love you more!

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A room, where there was a tall countertop, proved the setting for the first dream. Two large books were sitting on the countertop whilst a fat Jewish man was putting on a play.

I too was supposed to have been putting on a play. Going to one of the books, I opened it and looked inside.

A black-covered book, it contained fascinating information. For starters, it stated that on June 5^th, I had tested HIV+.

On learning this, I remained rather detached. I was not in the least bit devastated by the news.

I thought that, perhaps, this had likely occurred when I had been off being frisky in Vancouver’s Stanley Park. Being blasé about the news, I shrugged saying aloud, “Oh well, that’s life.”

Next I was naked and squatting. I looked back over my shoulder at my body and thought that at some point my body was going to become excessively skeletal.

Honestly, I was not upset to have learnt this news. Later on, I would get together with Xerxes Hamelin who was seated on a bunk to my immediate left.

Turning to look at him, I told him the news and adding that he needed to go and get tested. He, too, was not especially upset and remained seemingly resigned to the ramifications of the reality at hand.

Holding my hand, he said that it was okay with him and that we would move through this together. Furthermore, Xerxes said that whether or not he tested HIV+, we would remain together.

He assured me that we would go through it all. I was reminded of how fiercely loyal an individual Xerxes Hamelin is.

The Jew was stout with curly black hair; too, he had a bit of a receding hairline. He was most intent on putting on his play and was quite passionate about it.

Myself, I had lost all focus with being creative. I knew that it was going to take me some time to adjust to experientially being in this new space. There would be a lot to have to assimilate.

At the time, I had told Xerxes Hamelin that I was already taking a whole battery of pills – vis-à-vis being HIV+. Seemingly, among other things, I was also taking AZT pills.

So far, none of the drugs were proving toxic which was nice to have known. I was wearing a black jockstrap whilst seated on my folded legs and looking down at myself.

Looking at the outside of my left thigh, I was inspecting myself with visions of what aesthetic horrors laid up ahead. There was a moment there of chilling terror.

The interlude was, though, brief as I realigned my energies by starting to do deep yogic breath exercises; thus, I eclipsed all negative thought processes. Quite simply, there was no time to be negative as nothing was to be accomplished by being thusly focussed.

After having known so many people who have passed of AIDS, I had to be accepting of the inevitably of Life. In the end, I chose to be philosophical about this change in my life experience.

I must say that one had to be more positive about the inevitable. After all, death was merely a transition into the greater community.

Indeed, more persons have died than have lived.

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Next, in this the second dream, I was in a salon where on one side there were large floor-to-ceiling windows. This was a long salon and 18^th century in style.

The style was decidedly French and the colour a soft, soothing blue. Lots of chandeliers dominated here which were pear-shaped.

Lots of persons were here and everyone sat on Louis something-or-other chaises. The chairs were white with gold filigree.

Down the centre of the salon ran a plush-looking red carpet. I sat, down in one corner of the room, being none-too-loud-personalitied.

There were all kinds of famous persons scattered about the salon. Too, there were non-famous persons none of whom I recognised.

As for the famous persons, some were no longer incarnate whilst very much so alive at present.

A door stood off to my left across from where I sat. Though I was with someone, I cannot now recall who exactly it was.

That particular door opened and revealed an incredibly intense blue light. The light flooding into the room was also the same intense blue and, by far, was more than sunlight.

Nor was it platinum-hued or matted as if the Moon’s light. The light flooding the room through the opened door was incredibly intense.

The large regal-looking double doors had opened simultaneously from outside. Goodness, I could not believe what next happened.

Into the stately salon walked the recently discarnate Frank Sinatra. Quite simply, this man exuded power itself.

God… I simply had to sit up, straight-backed, in my chair.

*I can’t recall ever having had a dream encounter with this man whilst he was incarnate, though, I may have. Too, I have never really paid much attention to his musical career.

Certainly, I was not anticipating a dream encounter with this individual. Indeed, as it is, I am loathed to have to admit dream encounters with famous persons. END.

Straight away, I stood up in deference to the elder creative statesman. Quite obviously, Frank Sinatra had now awakened from the so-called ‘soul sleep’ to being an astral plane habitué adept.

After having completed the transition to being no longer focussed on the physical plane, this was a coming-out party for the much-loved entertainer. God, it was good to have been there in the salon.

Frankly, I had no clue why I was there. Way down the exceptionally long hall were Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr..

The latter two, of course, are older astral plane habitués than Frank Sinatra. Too, the comic genius Charlie Chaplin was closer to the door with Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. to greet Frank Sinatra.

All the stellar personalities, who had already passed on, were closest to the door through which Frank Sinatra entered. Next in line, were the incarnate celebrities who were familiar with Frank Sinatra at the time of his passing.

Jay Leno was one of the incarnates present at the astral plane salon. He got up and nobly walked over to greet Frank Sinatra.

Jay Leno had been the one to usher Frank Sinatra into the room and was quite an affable easygoing host. Frank Sinatra was so fuck-all fantastical and magnetic.

What was most extraordinary about this dream was how undeniably Alive Frank Sinatra was. He looked no more than fifty years old.

Above all else, Frank Sinatra looked well-rested. There is simply no other way of describing how he looked and energetically felt.

There was such an abundance of love in this room – even more so than outpoured at his passing. Truly phenomenal was it to have been in this salon.

What remained with me, long afterwards, was what an honour it was to have experienced this transcended being’s awakening. Truly uplifting an experience it was for me.

I think that I may have been with Xerxes Hamelin. In any event, as we stood there clapping and cheering, excited to see him, the arrogant one simply turned his back on us as though we were so much uninvited guests. At the time, I had been thinking that he was going to make his way over to us and whilst en route he would be shaking hands with everyone.

Alas, no such luck. He did shake hands with some long-dead celebrity who remained seated on the ornate-looking chairs.

I believe that it was someone whom he had known earlier in his career and who was a record or film producer. Someone, it was, whom one would never have known for being a member of the public.

I was left with the impression that Frank Sinatra was not only difficult but arrogant as all hell. I for one was not put out by his behaviour.

I was thrilled to have seen him awakened, as it were, into the light. This was not about gawking at celebrities but, rather, I was there to salute his just concluded and quite accomplished life.

After all, he had creatively achieved a fantastical amount. Truth be told, 200 albums is nothing to sneeze at.

My companion and I had been the first and, it turned out, only ones to have gotten up and clapped. This made us look that much more out of sorts.

As if to show his disapproval, Frank Sinatra had suddenly turned his back on us.

We had made embarrassing arses of ourselves; his reaction was, more or less, “Shut up and sit down!”

Way down at that end of the salon, there was a great deal of laughter as he, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. got reacquainted. Frank Sinatra looked so incredibly on; he was so in tune with his very soul itself.

He was in total command of the situation. He knew where it was at.

There were no misconceptions as to what was going down. After having moved on from a rather accomplished life, he had just arrived in grand style.

Power to him!

*I think that it should be stated that part of the reason for Frank Sinatra’s arrogance is owing to the fact that he was authentically channelled as a young soul. Furthermore, this was a young soul sage which means that he would be possessed of much dramatic and aristocratic airs.

With such Michael Overleaves, at the very least, Frank Sinatra would definitely come off as acutely arrogant. As a recent astral plane habitué, Frank Sinatra could be expected like all young souls to be arrogant, blunt and frankly rude.

Either way, that does not detract from his stellar creative accomplishments. Certainly, I was not going to hold it against him being merely human even when an astral plane habitué. END.

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I was working in a corner, in this the third dream, at the offices in Vancouver. Whilst walking south, I was looking for a place to sit and work.

Rashima Mittal was trying to pre-set something on the seat which I wanted. Calling out to her, I let her know that I had already taken the seat.

There were no hostilities between us; in the end, she ended up taking the seat ahead of mine. At the time, it was nighttime out.

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Whilst in another office working, in this the fourth dream, I noticed at the supervisor’s podium writing away was none other than Kari Laitinen. He was writing on a writing pad.

On noticing me, he blushed – he was being shy. Going over, I warmly greeted him whilst marvelling at his handwriting.

He remained shy as we warmly visited together. For most of the conversation, he shyly looked down and not because he was trying to avoid or shun me.

Initially, I had been standing before him and then moved around to the side of the podium. By so doing, I ended up standing on his immediate right.

What struck me most was that he was not writing in French. Rather, he was using a language of symbols which seemed more so Middle Eastern; possibly, it was Arabic if not Hebrew.

Though there were others around, they didn’t factor into the scheme of things. What struck me, too, was the fact that aspects here were set simultaneously outdoors.

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Francis Albert Sinatra!

06.12.201505.12.2024 Arvin da Brgha2 Comments

Veni… Vidi… Vici!

Happy 100th Birthday Frank!

That’s Life

Vocals: Frank Sinatra

Album: That’s Life (1966)

Label: Reprise

Writers: Dean Kay & Kelly Gordon

Funny how some songs capture a time and a moment. Late 1982, Merlin was in town and though he was subletting the Trockadero Loft in Chelsea on Sixth Avenue, we had checked into the Chelsea Hotel – why did it have to close? – for a romantic weekend. The Chelsea had always been Merlin’s favourite New York Hotel. Merlin chose a suite on the third floor. The first night as we staked a passionate claim on each other’s hearts, from the suite above, one of Hotel Chelsea’s many tenants played this song over and over and over and over through the night. The room was too hot and it wasn’t too cold that night; so, we left the window opened a crack whilst we loved, sinned and forged our bond anew in this lifetime to Frank Sinatra’s stellar magic.

Photo: Promotional studio portrait of Frank Sinatra, 1950s. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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Happy 100th Birthday Billie Holiday!

07.04.201505.12.2024 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

Billie Holiday.

07.04.191517.07.1959

God Bless The Child

Voice: Billie Holiday

Composition: Billie Holiday, Arthur Herzog Jr. c. 1939

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Fine and Mellow

Written: Billie Holiday c. 1939

Live TV recording 1957.

Voice: Billie Holiday

Piano: Mal Waldon

Double Bass: Milt Hinton

Guitar: Danny Barker

Tenor Saxophone: BenWebster & Lester Young & Coleman Hawkins

Baritone Saxophone: Gerry Mulligan

Trombone: Vic Dickenson

Trumpet: Doc Cheatham & Roy Eldridge

Drums: Osie Johnson

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Strange Fruit

Written: Abel Meeropol c. 1937

Composition: Billie Holiday c. 1939

Voice: Billie Holiday.

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Lover Man, Oh Where Can You Be.

Written: Jimmy Davis & Roger Ramirez & James Sherman c. 1941

Live performance 1958, Oakdale Music Theater, Wallingford, Connecticut.

Voice: Billie Holiday

Piano: Mal Waldron

Bass: Milt Hinton

Trumpet: Buck Clayton

Drums: Don Lamond

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One of my all-time favourite Billie Holiday tunes. I first fell in love with it whilst working at the Underground Railroad Restaurant on King Street East just west of Sherbourne Street back in the late 1970s – all whilst finding time to run around the city taking ballet class and studying in high school then later at York University – when Salome Bey was doing her Cabaret show and her husband, Howard Matthews was part owner, along with Jazz drummer, Archie Alleyne. There was an intense and wonderful Jazz education!

Too, there was that memorable Sunday Brunch in late 1982 at the actress, Patricia Neal’s grand Upper West Side apartment which Merlin took on a short-term sublet. Frederick Jones and his Puerto Rican-born lover were there, along with a couple of dancer friends of mine and, of course, fellow dancer and friend of Merlin’s, Miguel Godreau.

Merlin the night we met, Friday, October 1, 1982, had excused himself from dinner at the Afro-Cuban restaurant, around from my West 49th Street apartment, on 9th Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen. He had gone to make a phone call – ah yes, there was an age before the cellphone’s ubiquity – and cancelled getting together with Miguel. They had been dating after Miguel had appeared in Ken Russell’s 1980 film, Altered States starring, William Hurt and who at that time was a member of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

Just in case, I had proven an utter bore, Merlin had made alternate plans; however, after I had passed most of dinner to the groovy music massaging his burgeoning lap across the deuce from me with my nimbly dexterous pointed feet, Miguel did not stand a chance.

Besides, one does not exactly say no to one’s task companion when first meeting on the physical plane… again, especially when it was planned. In any event, after fruit-filled pancakes drowned in Canadian maple syrup, Merlin and I – who by then had had multiple ménage-à-trois with Miguel – blew each other soft kisses whilst he sat admiringly looking at Miguel and me slow dance to this truly haunting tune.

Merlin almost never danced; however, our pas de deux between the sheets has left Merlin an unsurpassed lover of magical skills.

Happy Birthday Billie Holiday and, wherever you are, may your current incarnation be a most blessed lucid dream. You know, I really ought to do her overleaves…

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The Racial Predator and A Fistful of Dreams. 2.0!

24.02.201504.12.2024 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

*After having spoken to WordPress, I was assured that they did not delete this blog post of dreams and commentary which was originally posted on February 20, 2015. Again, if you find anything herein objectionable just move along because, just so you know, apologies and obsequiousness are both foreign to me. Again, if you follow this blog and believe in an artist’s right to be free from all forms of terror and censor please do reblog this post. END.

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Dreams involving travels in consciousness to anchor point metropolises are always welcome. These next dreams represent just such travels to far-off distant worlds as transported to via the astral plane and through the expediency of the dreamtime.

At the time, it was Monday, September 4, 1995 and the dreams were audiocassette-recorded on tape number one hundred and ninety-eight. As such, they will yet be found in Volume XX of the XXV volumes of dreams. The Moon then transited both Capricorn and my eighth house.

As has been previously stated, my Saturn retrograde is posited in the eighth house which, in concert with my Venus/Uranus conjunction in Leo, afford me this commendable facility which I would trade for no amount of platinum on this or any other world!

Speaking of worlds far-flung or otherwise, what a maudlin little backwater world of a planet we’ve got here. This past Tuesday, February 17, 2015, I was well aware that it was an 8 day and with a life path of 8, there are times when on such days it is best to stay indoors and avoid it all. This past Tuesday was just such a day, nonetheless, I elected to head out into the big bad world.

As I am never late for any of the three jobs at which I income earn, I had headed out 1.5 hours before start of shift. Before leaving my Jazz saturated home, I had mapped out how best to do my banking whilst en route to work. Off I went through the icy streets of Toronto where there a few water main breaks which left spots of the route an icy mess.

Luckily, I had long weeks earlier switched to my steel-studded winter bike wheels which when partially soft make riding on ice or in snow feel as though riding on sand. Alas, no need to go slipping and crashing for no good reason. I rode along the bike lane on Wellesley Street East, hung a left and headed south down Sherbourne Street.

The major water main break just south of Dundas Street East had me abandon the bike lane for the street where the single southbound lane was an icy slushy mess. I was rather impressed at how well my steel-studded wheels navigated the thick ice without incident. The past couple of days have been the coldest, snowiest, iciest and windiest in long memory.

At Shuter Street, I hung a right and headed westward to Church Street where I made another left and headed south to Queen Street East. There, at the southwestern corner of Queen Street East and Church Street is a Scotiabank in one of those old buildings which has been around since before the start of the last century; however, this being Toronto, it is highly likely that in 1.5 decades it will have been gutted to form the podium of yet another condensation-prone glass and steel condominium; these gems are readily gobbled up by offshore investors and soon infested with parasitic parvenu dreck that have neither class nor intellect.

As all the bike stands on Church and Queen Street East close to the bank were buried in at least 1.5 feet of frozen-solid snow to make a path for pedestrians, I ventured into the large-interiored structure which I have always favoured. A few years back, when I worked in the neighbourhood fundraising for the Royal Ontario Museum where I brought in three times as much money as the second best in sales, I loved frequenting the lovely building to do my banking.

Having safely left my bike in a corner where I could clearly see it, I progressed south down the length of the narrow bank and waited in line where there were two female clerks attending to the male and female customers. I smiled and readily turned off the front light on my helmet when the teller on the left whose hair was a hennaed affair, much reminding me of Québec, dramatically frowned and covered her eyes.

Since I noticed her from time to time looking away from the dumpy Sri Lankan female before her at the counter, I made a point to avoid her and use her blonde coworker when the other customer took his leave. I had left the light on the back of my helmet on – as for that matter the lights on my bike on, one in back and front.

Even though this was a less frequented bank, I had a good view of my bike and kept on looking at it. Back in late 2011, whilst riding westerly along Carlton Street and coming up on Jarvis Street where to the right in the low-rise condo the actor, Gordon Pinsent resides, I had a man in a black Ford F-350 with monstrous tyres open his door without looking whilst talking on his phone.

I went flying and nimble soul that I am I got from the streetcar track and scurried me and my trusty bike to safety. I then watched a grown man with the softest blues eyes become a nervous wreck as he cried and profusely apologised for having opened the door on me without first looking. I had actually clearly seen him in his side view mirror and he honestly hadn’t been paying attention. Though I had cautiously rung my bell, I was just as surprised as he would be after the fact when he opened his door.

Since then, I have worn lights on my helmet and kept them on regardless the time of day – you can never be too safe; besides, vehicles sport lights all hours of the day so why not bikes.

As I can spot a racial predator from here to Times Square in a heartbeat, I elected not to go to the teller on the left as both customers simultaneously took their leave of the tellers on concluding their business. Approaching, I watched the menopausal woman with a bit of darkened fur on her upper lip leaning to her blonde coworker and say something.

At the time, the blonde was busy finishing up the paper work from her last customer. I approached and avoided the faux redhead whose looks were hostile and predatory. Leaning in, she said something to the blonde who immediately looked up as I approached her. She was both startled by what the faux redhead said and the sight of me wearing two balaclavas, a toque and earmuffs beneath my helmet – being in motion on a bike in -37° Celsius.

As I have several times over the years frequented the bank and in past winters entered said bank in my winter face bike gear, I specifically chose it as branch into which I could slip where it would not be too heavily peopled and therefore would not have to take my balaclavas off and all that head gear – the nylon balaclava is a great fit but it is the most bothering thing to both put on and even harder to take off when sweat sheened.

Though I had not paid the faux redhead any mind and was now standing before her blonde coworker who fixed me with a cautious smile, old dry-pussied, displaced lazy haus frau just had to prove my instinct for spotting racial predators to be still sharply focussed. Again, though I was not at her counter – why would I? – she spoke up stating,

“Please remove your mask, we feel threatened by you?”

Imagine that, the racial predator has now evolved to the point of being telepathic even empathetic… NOT! Of course, it does go without saying that many of the university-educated other bank employees who were comfortably seated in their offices to my rear had seen me whilst I waited and some I recognised and they too recognised me from my many visits to said branch.

However, our estrogen-challenged faux redhead just had to go proving that yet again when you assume you make an ass out of you and me. At no point did the blonde utter a word; frankly, I rather suspect that she was more in shock by having been prompted into fearfulness by her coworker faux redhead than anything else.

Meanwhile, one of the bank managers, a jovial large-bodied fellow, left his office and walked past me to go and speak to a contractor in blue uniform towards the back behind the tellers. I had seen this man before on prior visits to the bank and naturally, I should think that if he found my attire threatening, he would have approached me and said something.

In a cool but civil tone which readily betrayed my loathing for having to deal with bullshit of any kind, I graciously greeted and informed the blonde that I would like to deposit my pay cheque into my account.

“Remove your mask; we do not have to serve you. You are threatening us with your mask.”

My god, what if I were carrying a gun and intent on holding up the bank? Did this dumbass think that she would be the first to deflect a bullet with her stupid insolence?

“You have no such right to tell me to remove my balaclavas. When was the last time you asked a Muslim to remove her burqa because you found it threatening? That’s right, you don’t find that threatening but strangely enough you find me threatening.”

She began mouthing off yet again at which point I interjected, “Tell you what, I will just go to the main branch where they know me. Happy Black history month to you, too!”

I took my red Scotiabank card and cheque placed them in my red Metro Toronto Convention Centre marvellously waterproof, wind and winter jacket all-in-one and began the long stretch of the bank to my bike. I was not surprised, on turning back, to see old hirsute-lipped monster come into the aisle to approach me.

That’s right, the same one who claimed to have been so threatened by me, leaving the safety of her counter to come address me. She looked down the way at me with that vapid smugness her ilk owns so well when letting me know that she was putting out an alert on me so I would not be served anywhere.

Regardless of the fact that on the video any Legal, Human Resources, Public Relations professional at Scotiabank would readily conclude that this faux redhead did not provide their customer with good service. What could possibly have possessed this supposedly threatened woman to come from behind her counter to face down the aisle at me as I got my bike to leave the branch?

Again, whilst she called out to me that she would alert the other branch, I wished her a happy Black history month to which she callously laughed after replying, “Yeah whatever, same to you!”

I got from my bike and left the branch, headed down Church Street and made my way westerly along King Street East crossed Yonge Street and headed a block still westerly for the main branch at Scotia Plaza’s gaudy, blood-coagulated-maroon, 68 storey marble edifice. I got in line as I had many times before in the same winter gear. This time an Indo-Canadian teller turned around when free and noticed me. I could not make out if she had gestured for me to join her or not. As my bike was locked outside, I carried both bright yellow paniers in hand.

As I watched, I noticed the same teller saying something though she was alone; perhaps she was speaking via intercom to someone. Again, she gestured, this time her motion was less confusing; she really meant to invite me to join her. I walked around the circular island and said hello and placed my card in the handset and entered my PIN then signed my cheque whilst sharing that I would like to simply deposit it.

Whilst finishing my signature, along came another Indo-Canadian female. The look on her face was rude, ugly and confrontational. Right away, she launched into her racially predatory assault, “Remove your mask or leave the bank. We are not serving you until you remove your mask.”

Again, as elsewhere, I informed the ignorant boor – whose clit failed to have fully descended leaving her, for all intent and purpose, a lifelong-frustrated pussied man – that I had no intentions of inconveniencing myself by removing my balaclavas which were not a mask simply because she said so. Too, I pointed out that there was no need for me to remove my balaclavas when she would never make any such request of a burqa-wearing Muslim.

You can bet she was full of more bile as she let me know we were not talking about that but I was being threatening and she would rather I left that bank than not.

The intense racial animus from this woman was so repulsive that I simply took my card from the machine picked up my paniers off the floor and said, “Hey, Happy Black history month to you, too.”

I now got from the bank feeling more than a little bit impatient. I am never late for work… ever. By now, it was within an hour of the start of my shift which for me is late. I rode along the sidewalk and turned onto Bay Street heading north for a couple of blocks to the Scotiabank on the west side of Bay Street between Queen Street West and Richmond Street West. I managed to tie up my bike atop a two-foot frozen bank of snow to a bike rack.

Once inside, I recalled what inordinate focussed grace I had had to impart when a few weeks earlier I had been to the branch to deposit another cheque and replace my demagnetised bank card. For more than 40 minutes, I had been asked a million questions and kept waiting again and again. At the end of it, the beautiful, raven-haired Muslim teller had laughed and said in a lowered tone to me, “You are a very smart man…”

She, of course, knew that the rest of the tellers – almost exclusively White save a lone Black woman who was segregated to sit by herself at a desk in the middle of the floor where the rest of the public comes and goes – were doing their best to provoke an impatient response out of me.

To say the least, it was not going to happen and did not. I got my card replaced that day, though, they made every attempt at having me return to my home branch at Yonge and Wellesley Streets and for no good reason.

Finally, it was my turn to see a teller. A tall White male with facial hair likely in corporate security and wearing a tattoo on his right forearm proved the most remarkably human and civilised interaction that I had had that day.

He very charmingly began by letting me know that he would prefer it if I were to remove my ‘balaclavas’; I replied that though he had been the most civilised customer service representative thus far, he was not within his right to ask me to remove it anymore than he would presume to think that any Muslim woman would remove her burqa when asked.

More to the point, I asked what kind of society is this when you would never think to make any such demands of burqa-wearing Muslims as you would myself being racially profiled during Black history month.

As I like giving as good as I get, I charmingly reminded him that in this Black history month, it bears mentioning that Blacks have not flown planes into buildings, shot soldiers in their backs or stormed Parliament et al. He smiled, my balaclavas remained in tack and when he assured me that if security were to ask me to remove my mask I would have to.

Cutting to the chase, I assured him that I was well aware that he was corporate security and both he and I knew that he had no legal right to ask me to remove my balaclavas as it was not summer outdoors, it was not a mask and I was protected by Canadian laws against being treated differentially with regards to a burqa-wearing Muslim entering all three branches visited in the last hour whilst trying to make my way to work on time.

Finally, he conceded and with a smile reminiscent of the raven-haired Muslim teller of a few weeks earlier, asked me to sign the cheque which already had been. Addressing me as Mr. da Braga, he asked if I would like any cash back or just a straight deposit.

Of course, I knew he was corporate security as he appeared in the teller area soon after I entered and proceeded to call out that if anyone strictly wished to make a deposit to please see him. I was the second person so inclined of the six or seven of us in line.

Damn right, it was high time I got service that I deserved.

Of course, it goes without saying that a good one-third to forty per cent of women in the workforce are emotionally unfit to be in professional life. Period. The only cause for concern either woman at both banks should have articulated is if I had presented in balaclavas whilst it happened to have been 30° Celsius outside in July. Just so happens that it was -33° Celsius that day.

Naturally, I had switched to Scotiabank close to a decade earlier when on leaving my employ as civil servant after 15 years of what was truly no end of constant workplace harassment and strife, was then made to wait for three-plus hours at the Bank of Montréal’s 72-storeyed headquarter branch at Bay and King Street West. As part of my separation, there were two settlements one was in a cheque for several tens of thousands of dollars.

When first presenting the cheque to the teller, the little silly-looking, cumfarting twit took off to go lisp and snicker to his equally otiose coworkers. Naturally, there was much snickering and giggling as one experiences of Whites when being racially predatory towards Blacks in public. This is behaviour they exclusively engage in and reserve just for Blacks.

After 20 minutes, the little cumfart – who would probably suffer a collapsed lung of sneezing and coughing incessantly from the sight and smell of pussy for the first time – approached and thanked me for turning in the cheque and asked where I had found it. Within a femtosecond the thought of pinning his empty skull beneath my booted foot and fucking his brains silly was soon dashed aside as it would be just what the little manginaed twit would hungrily, noisily crave at any of the few bathhouses left in the city.

After several hours of being made to wait whilst their ignorant staffers made calls to god-knows-whom and passed off the cheque to several of their colleagues to shuffle about whilst dicking me around, I asked for the cheque went across Bay Street to the Scotiabank headquarters and offered to start an account with them using the cheque; they were only too happy, with one look at the cheque, to have started the account.

That cheque in 2006 was the result of my travails with the same corporation which made it possible for me to continue my employ whilst living in Vancouver and Montréal. Of course, on arriving in Vancouver from Toronto, I had finally been made fulltime and sought to buy a first home. I had been looking at condos and naturally my Bank of Montréal branch on Denman Street had had to be in touch with my employer as I investigated getting a mortgage whilst looking at condos in the West End neighbourhood.

Just like that, I was thrown out of work and when returned to work five months later did so, on the proviso that at any time whilst on probation for 24 months I could be fired. Naturally, a stipulation for my return was having to see that little Egyptian Semite who told me on my final visit that Merlin, in fact, never existed that he was all, like my dreams, a figment of my imagination.

There he sat within mere feet of me pouncing and ridding the planet of him with that little blissfully smug grin on his face known only to the fraudulent few who feel themselves chosen of a fictitious god.

From arriving to work in February 1994, to being dismissed in November 1994, I was on a daily basis harassed with glaring, alarmingly perverse intensity; I was after all the first fulltime Black male in the workplace in Vancouver. On four separate occasions, I had my cheque withheld for a day or two.

This only ever happened when a former police officer who allegedly had been kicked off the force for targeting visible minorities would hand out the cheques and let me know that my cheque had not arrived. Too, it involved being constantly name-called an ‘anti-man’ – West Indian term for Gays, by a thuggish Indo-Canadian lout from the Southern Caribbean.

One Saturday morning – November 5, 1994 – whilst I worked overtime in a bid to save towards purchasing a condo, I had the usual onslaught of racial animus as two White female coworkers next to me carped on about both the Susan Smith case and the O. J. Simpson arrest and upcoming criminal trial.

Whilst I slowly did neck rolls and deep breathe – it was my first autumn in Vancouver and the constant rains were making a mess of my back and neck injuries from a decade earlier when dancing. One woman said of Susan Smith that she at least had the perfect alibi; it was too bad that she had to be found out. Meanwhile, the other said of Black men that they were all nothing but trouble and should be all put away.

Soon, the one who had spoken of Susan Smith’s perfect alibi got up and went to get the Indo-Canadian louse for a supervisor and lied when claiming that I had been sleeping rather than working. Of course, her shift never got overtime so clearly there was some degree of grudge.

After being relocated and made to stand, I then had the Trinidadian louse claim to his Japanese-Canadian manager that I had three times been to the bathroom and when told to go home rather than do the overtime was told to fuck off and that I was not going anywhere.

I stood there not believing what I was hearing. Though I protested, the Japanese-Canadian manager claimed that being insubordinate was unacceptable and for that reason, he asked that I leave. Said he, I was free to file a grievance if I felt I ought not to have been sent home. With that, I returned to my locker, which twice I had had to move – once there was nigger scrawled across one, the other had been smeared with faeces.

As I came downstairs from the lockers, there was the fat overbred swine cackling his head off with, surprise surprise, the White ex-cop. To avoid the hideous sight of them, I elected to take an alternate route and returned to the area where I had been initially working to sign out using the electronic system.

Whilst standing with my back to them at the machine when signing out, the shorter of the two women yelled, “Go home and don’t come back!”

Turning around, I spat in their direction and told them to fuck off and go to hell. Quite the little ham, the dwarfish troll screamed out, “Oh my god! Oh my god, he spit in your face!”

She immediately began calling for the supervisor who had speciously had me sent home – just like she was speciously alleging I had spat in someone’s face who was more than ten feet away from me.

As I left the area and exited the building the portly bigoted Indo-Canadian from the southern Caribbean and his equally racially predatory White male ex-cop colleague came chasing after me as I exited the building.

I got home that Saturday, November 5, 1994 and had a good phone visit with my father who promised to make a gift towards buying my first home; it was also his birthday that day. The following Monday morning, I received a registered letter informing me that I had been suspended for having physically assaulted a coworker and then leaving work without permission.

I was dumbfounded. What proceeded for the next 4.5 months was the most soul-gnawing travel through the six million levels of hell thanks to the venal invidiousness of the union rep who can only be charitably described as a hybrid bipedal bastard of Jabba the Hutt’s.

That Monday, I met with the porcine fucker at dawn at the union offices where she informed me that since I was a member of two known high risk groups: Blacks and Queers, I needed to immediately go get an AIDS test and let her know the results because my faux accuser, in whose face I had not spat, and her family were hell-bent on pressing charges and they were fearful that I might have infected her with AIDS.

I assured her that I did not have HIV/AIDS and had no intentions of jumping any hoops of hers by going out and getting tested. What business was my medical history of hers or the faux accuser? As agreed, I provided a copy of a letter to the accused wherein I apologised for my inexcusable conduct. I made it perfectly clear in the letter that in frustration at being sent home, I had lashed out her when being profane but beyond that, I categorically refused to apologised for having spat in her face when I had not.

A couple of hours later, we met with the employer’s labour relations and human resources personnel plus the very two persons who had laughed their heads off whilst I made my way from the locker to sign out days earlier that Saturday.

Both thuggish supervisors sat across the narrow table from me whilst I was flanked by two union reps: Jabba’s offal and another female, also Jewish. The letter was proffered and though I was made to believe that it sufficed and that it was understood that my actions were isolated, I received another registered letter later that day informing me that I had shown no remorse and was indefinitely suspended.

For the first time, I truly considered suicide as I crumpled to my bathroom floor and came undone. Finally, pulling myself together, I decided instead to sacrifice my full mane of thick gorgeous hair and cut it all off. For the next several months the only thing that saved me was doing volunteer work with persons with AIDS and offering my West End home as a place where PWAs could stay overnight whilst they were in town for a battery of tests and appointments.

Too, during that time of unemployment, I discovered and became readily devoted to the sexual bacchanal in the deep woods of Stanley Park just a few blocks away.

For the next several months, Jabba’s Goy-hating offal lied, lied and lied with hungry relish about when I would be returned to work. Naturally, for being a unionised worker, there was no chance of filing a human rights complaint into the matter. Eventually, after someone from the union’s regional offices assured me that there was nothing to be done because, ‘let’s face it, she is a Jew and you are Black and she is just not going to be challenged,’ I knew that other avenues had to be explored.

Finally, when I told the porcine boor that I had been in touch with Labour Relations Board who felt that I definitely had a case, I was hastily offered a meeting with her at the union offices where the fugly scum proceeded to demand that I, in essence, submit the exact same letter of four-plus months earlier to be returned to work.

I got up and walked out of the union offices got home and proceeded to unload on her by phone the most violent verbal abuse I had to that point articulated. She had actually had the fuck-all temerity to huff and gag because this is truly how she breathed and talked, “You know, I do think that you are anti-Semitic.”

The next day, the Ides of March, 1995, I was offered to be returned to employment without a letter of apology as she refused to put in writing her demand that I take an AIDS test.

Too, before walking out, she had stated that anyone could have typed up a letter and back-dated it, then made a photocopy of it; this said of the photocopy to the original letter of contrition offered in an interview which was all about racial predators having a field day.

There was I returned to work then having to see a psychiatrist for 24 months whilst on probation for being an out-of-control, violent Black male in the workplace about whom people felt unsafe, unsure and uncomfortable.

During those 24 months, Jabba’s offal had cunningly provided work for a Jew with whom she was well-acquainted, she had shared in that none-too-charming way she had of name-dropping, when telling me of the terms for returning to employment. With that, the chance of buying a condo had taken flight.

Whilst in the workplace, I endured no end of intense harassment whilst the O. J. Simpson trial endured and most definitely thereafter, for such is the power of television to fuck with the sphinctered and well-groomed-into-somnambulance collective psyche.

This included having my return from breaks, arrival at work changed in the computer to reflect tardiness. I was spat on… surprise, surprise. I was pushed, twice got crazy-glued to my combination lock. Further, I had a rather beguiling-looking Muslim supervisor, who was featured in the corporate magazine as a sign of the company’s diversity – she with the uncanny resemblance to Benazir Bhutto – tell me with lethal calm, “Get out of my sight before I don’t kill you.”

She was being confronted on yet again having changed my time, though, she and every supervisor swore up and down that there was no way for them to change one’s time in the system. Of course, a Rhodesian-born Chinese coworker whose husband also happened to have been a supervisor told me that there were at least four plans in the works to have me terminated – one apparently involved me seemingly leap from the company’s rooftop.

Alas, somehow, I managed to have upped my frequency and spirited my way out of that hellhole. The day that I had gotten my transfer to Montréal, I took off a few days to pack and it was known that I would be returning to work for half a shift to clean out my locker and say goodbye; I never did go to my locker because who wants to be crazy-glued to a lock for a third time?

Naturally, as Jewish guilt knows no end, there was phlegmy Jabba’s hybrid offal standing outside the doors to the office on the sidewalk. She had actually had the guts to air out her bedsores by getting off her fat arse at the union offices to come by the workplace and gawk.

Naturally, Jabbette was standing there talking to someone or other whilst making sure to lock eyes with me as I exited the building. Of course, as I never miss a chance to give back, I paused whilst making for the attendant cab and hissed, “Of one thing you and I are both certain, you will rot in hell eating your god, Hitler’s arse.”

With that, I returned home, took a nap, dreamt my last dreams in Vancouver then made my way to the airport and caught an overnight flight for Montréal. Just when I thought Vancouver to have been a god-awful work experience, Montréal was hell-bent on giving it a run for its money.

Boy did Montréal prove a marathon and then some… Stay tuned, for as you shall yet see, until you have lived in Québec, you cannot truly claim to know Canada…

For now, sweet dreams as ever and may these dreams continue to richly inspire your own spiritual journey. For your support, I remain ever grateful. I love you more.

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This was a night-time dream and the first that was set in an amphitheatre. I had had to step-in for the host who had fallen ill. The crowd was large and this being at home in St. Kitts, to say the least, they were hostile.

Though nervous, all audaciousness and charm, I stepped up to the mic. Once centre stage, I began eulogising for Euleka Gumbs; Catherine Angelica Montpelier’s daughter.

Whilst speaking, I did see a woman who reminded me vaguely of her but I was not certain that it was so. I then went on to thank Juan-Carlos de Madrid for his work as host.

Whilst standing there looking over the crowd, I saw a ball of white light explode. This was the most glorious sight imaginable. From it shot the most joyous spray of white light sparks.

This was something that resonated with the soul itself. This was on the order of the uplifting essence contact experienced in that dream on Tuesday, September 22, 1992 – it is dream blog entry herein entitled A Rose Like No Other. The same degree of inspiration and sublime beauty was experienced again.

For having experienced this manifestation, there was no way that one could not have had an ecstatic moment of transcendence. For having overcome my fears, of going out onstage, here was I having the most blissful of experiences.

Funnily enough, no one else here experienced the manifestation. This was such a thoroughly grounding experience.

Once I was onstage, the audience soon became hushed; they were readily impressed by my eloquence and discernible intellect. I was really pleased to have seen Euleka Gumbs whom later I would learn was indeed Catherine Angelica Montpelier’s daughter.

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Pericles da Braga and I were together, in this the second dream, and I had to fast take control of the situation. He began insisting that I was sexually obsessed with him. Talk about taking oneself way too seriously.

We were face-to-face and, despite there being some serious bones of contention discussed, the energies were rather intimate. One had a true sense here of Pericles’s true nature.

There was a deep sense that he was fearful of me. Somehow, it was as though he knew at the level of soul that he had reincarnationally wronged me in past lives.

Thus he has been plagued with a sense of dread and fear of me that, somehow, I would get him. There has never been any such scheme in my thoughts. I have been keenly aware of this man’s manipulativeness and have always guarded myself against falling prey to his head-trips.

His eyes here were strong, clear, direct and shamanic.

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Sting, the performer, was backstage waiting to go out onstage in this the third dream. Goodness, this was such a lucid experience. Sting was very real with a real puckish glint to his playful eyes.

Eventually, I ended up going out and introducing him to the stage.

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Here, in this the fourth dream, I progressed up the paved incline into a large schoolyard. There were lots of Black and Hispanic kids playing here. A large glass and steel, black tower in the style of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe that was very minimalist in design looked over everything.

Sleek and nondescript it most certainly was. These were Babel-like buildings in proportion; they stretched on for some six city blocks. Easily they were, the smallest ones at least, all 100 storeys plus.

They were quite layered affairs with some storeys having an architectural theme. One to the other, the sections were vastly different. The school building had a second section that had walls which, rather than vertically, moved outwards from the base.

These sections were each ten or more storeys and maintained a single architectural theme. Even though it was an overcast day with heavy grey clouds, I could clearly detect klieg lights to the southwest.

I then asked some of the kids for directions but they were non-too-forthcoming with me. I could immediately sense that there was some danger in their being so guarded with me.

I passingly joked about gangs when next, a dark-haired guy and I were being hotly pursued by Black youths from a gang. This decidedly was astral plane an experience in its intensity.

We were then cornered on a side street before a large building. This did not at all feel as though here on Earth. What with the massiveness of these buildings, it may well have been part of an anchor point metropolis.

The Blacks here were so beauteously dark-complected that I would hazard to guess that not even Nubians closely approximate their purity of melanin intensity.

Just because they were gangsters does not imply that they were African-Americans which they certainly didn’t feel or look like. These were very strong, proud Black people who had never been enslaved nor were they dredging through life oppressed beneath the weight of that most hideous form of low psychic terror, racism – the racial predator’s birthright.

Soon, their leader stepped forward and there was no mistaking him. He turned out to have been the Rap star, Tupac Shakur. Beyond his open black leather vest, I could make out that the pock marks of his bullet wounds had been filled in with solid gold.

Seemingly, this was the fashion statement du jour, here on the astral plane, for gangsta arrivés. Throwing caution to the wind, I felt like bolting rather than having to face such hostility; I did not care whether or not I would be shot in the process.

Of course, I would not have survived. After all, this was a dream so it was not as though I would ultimately have died. I just didn’t care to be caught up in a jam like this… no how.

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A large sprawling apartment at night time, proved the focus of the fifth dream, plus a man with whom I had just become involved was getting moved in. Trying to figure out how they worked, we were playing around with the curtain rods.

Each was four to six inches thick with vary-sized grooves for different pins. Just then, Moses Znaimer walked in at which point, I went over and introduced him to my young beauteous friend.

I then asked Moses Znaimer if he knew how the bloody curtain rods worked. Not remembering his name, I introduced Moses Znaimer as Mr. Hoffmann by which, of course, I implied to my friend that he was Jewish.

Clearly, Moses Znaimer took offense but I could not have cared less anyway. I had no desire, in the first place, to go sucking up to him.

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Photo: Toronto February 2015, Queen Street East, looking north towards Yonge & Bloor Streets.

Bubble Nebula.

Sting.

Tupac Shakur.

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Pink Chair II.

07.09.201404.12.2024 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

Conté Drawing

3.5 x 4.0 Feet

Provenance: Artist’s private collection.

Though this drawing of me was completed before I left Toronto for Vancouver in 1994, I never did see it until returning to living in Toronto, from Montréal, in 2004. I loved it and still do. The work is my favourite George Hawken and, of course, as it is a one-of-a-kind and not in my possession; this, of course, makes it that much more covetous!

What I especially love about it is that whilst living in New York City in 1983, I dreamt of the drawing and didn’t, at the time, realise that it was me; the eye-colour in the drawing is the same as a very exotic-looking female past-life of mine about whom I often dreamt back then – especially when studying classical dance in Winnipeg prior to that (1980-82).

At the time of that dream of this drawing which was yet to be – I had not even yet met George Hawken, Merlin and I were staying in the Chelsea loft of Natch and Zammy, the Artistic Director and his dancer lover, who since passed of AIDS, of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo.

Of course, prior to leaving for Vancouver, I was happily ensconced in relationships with Daryll Newcombe, Gustavo Vadim – the masochistic art thief in Washington D.C. and Manhattan cabaret singer, Frans Bloem… plus a few others.

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Ball Game.

05.09.201404.12.2024 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

Oil on Canvas

36 x 36 Inches

Provenance: Private collection

http://www.wimheldens.com/

Love Wim’s masterful sensual use of light and colour.

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Twenty years ago, when flying in to Manhattan from Vancouver to be with then lover, Manhattan cabaret singer, Frans Bloem, I would meet Wim. As all I ever do is sense energy and think of anyone encountered as a Michael Overleaves puzzle – is this a warrior or just a cynic? – I knew without a doubt that he was an old soul. Like every other old soul encountered whose overleaves I have done, I felt a sense of home, acceptance and harmony for being in his presence.

At the time, Wim was sick in bed with the flu and so I went out shopping and got him some Campbell’s soup – what do I know about making homemade soup? – and spent part of an evening hanging with him. The interlude was truly memorable; it was like being in a dream which, incidentally, is also another hallmark for me of being in the presence of an old soul.

Wim truly is a great human.

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Ghosts of Future-Past.

10.03.201323.10.2024 Arvin da Brgha1 Comment

I found myself hovering over Times Square. I was intently looking at a hotel in Times Square – the one that has the large oxidised globe on it. I thought – this may be the Drake Hotel.

The building, at its upper storeys, had aspects of a pyramid or a ziggurat to it. This was one of those monolithic sandstone buildings that were built in the 1930s – a decade when there was a real architectural renaissance in Manhattan.

It had a very large base that culminated in a stepped formation near the top. The building sat on the west side of Eight Avenue, if I correctly remember.

Perhaps, it is not even a hotel – I thought, maybe, it is the headquarters for one of the city’s newspapers – with the globe at its zenith. So, perhaps, it formerly housed or still does The New York Times. After all, it is in Times Square – hence the name of the square.

After having hovered for awhile, I began to move very slowly; I was high up – several storeys high up. I watched as the ubiquitous yellow vehicles of the city’s taxi fleet, way below, negotiated the congested traffic. I was able to see beyond the usual as well.

I saw Carl Leroiderien† going to pick up tickets for a Broadway show. He was walking past the stage door; he was going towards the front of house.

There was something about this man which I found rather sagely. Soon, he passed out of view; he went off to see someone. He stood out like a sore thumb.

I knew well enough not to come down. Carl has never had any interest in me, save to be aggressive and socially hostile, so why bother? He was off to be in his element because basking in the glow of the klieg lights was what his soul craved at the moment.

However, when Carl was leaving his Chelsea apartment, I saw him talking to Merlin. I still hovered in the air outside a front window that faced Carl’s fire-escape.

“No, no. I sent those manuscripts for you and you can just go over them,” he was saying to Merlin as he returned some of Merlin’s writings.

Carl, arrogant prick that he is, was insensitively dismissing Merlin’s writing by returning it. Of course, he did so under the guise of being too occupied to read the manuscripts.

I could tell from Merlin’s tone that he was really hurt for having his creativity dismissed. Merlin felt rejected. Carl was a disingenuous schmuck.

Carl’s offhandedness with Merlin was obnoxious. Clearly, he did not think that Merlin’s writing was worth his time but – platinum-tongued palaverist that he is – he also did not give an opinion of what he thought.

Carl had cleverly placed the writing into a small trunk, which had languished in the Bourbon Street basement of his tiny cottage, abandoned there for over a decade. The manuscripts were water-damaged.

In presenting Merlin with the trunk, he would minimise the rejection by making it look like he had been intent on returning the trunk and its damaged contents. The snub was not lost on either Merlin or me.

I was, at the time, just down the hall; it was a short distance from where Carl had been talking to Merlin. Wounded as he was, Merlin never did come out from the apartment.

Whilst standing by two apartment doors, I kept watch. People were coming and someone said,

“I think that there is someone by the door; I can just tell…”

Since I did not want Carl or Merlin to know that I was about, I hid in back of both doors to the landing. In that way, I avoided being seen by Carl’s neighbours; I averted the kind of trouble that I did not need.

I then went down the hall. The door on the right was the apartment where Merlin had been. I went to the door and knocked.

On opening the door to answer, Merlin looked totally different. Though the eyes were unmistakably Merlin’s, he was considerably taller.

Merlin was very light-skinned and unmistakably Black. He had off-blond hair that was naturally curly which he wore in a loose, soft Afro hairdo. He was casually dressed.

He pleasantly smiled, on recognising me, though he was wearing a different body. He familiarly, warmly said,

“Come in…”

Oh to hear his voice embrace me. Such sweet, sustained magic!

I entered. It was obvious that he was making one of his spectacular meals. I, almost immediately, noticed that he had bought a cake. It was a wonderful loaf. Obviously, from the look of things, he had spent a great deal of time working on the other dishes.

There was a baked squash dish which was flavoured with a sweet liqueur. A veal loaf was surrounded by a sea of sliced onions. It presently was atop the stove, though, it was supposed to be returned to the oven.

There were marvellous vegetables that were all at various stages of preparation. He stood at a sturdy, wooden-topped, central cutting board table. He was cutting up an assortment of the vegetables.

My mind relaxed, as the pungent aroma of all the different herbs and spices being liberally used proved satiating and filled me up.

It was wonderful to again be in Merlin’s presence. I had the impression that he was Straight or, perhaps, Bisexual.

At the entrance of the apartment, on the left, there was a little alcove. The kitchen began there but it also opened up into a larger room. This actually was part of the living room; it was L-shaped and hugged the kitchen area.

There, in the apartment, was a young woman with Merlin. There was also a woman who seemed infirmed; she was lying on a cot. She was close to the kitchen area where Merlin was. They kept each other company whilst Merlin chopped up the vegetables.

Merlin and I were affectionate but there wasn’t any physicality to it. We did not hug each other when the door opened even though we recognised the revealing, shockingly displacing sight of each other.

Merlin had immediately recognised my eyes, on opening the door, just as I had his. However, there was now a dimensional void between us. Merlin was a ghost from the future for me whilst I was a, vaguely familiar, ghost from the past for him. He was warm towards me.

Merlin was a very decent human being, I must say.

He was, now, easily 6 feet 3 inches tall. Though not mesomorphic, he was also not the classic ectomorph that he had been in his immediate past life.

He was angular but not in the same way as I remembered him. Merlin here did not wear glasses. His eyes were large and even more soulful than they had been in his last incarnation.

It was so beautiful to see him.

The seasoning was so… spot-on. It actually made my mouth water.

The woman then asked him, from the cot where she reclined, if he had put onions with the veal loaf. When he said that he had, she told him that this was not right.

“Let me show you how to do the onion rings,” she called to him in a familiar, intimate tone.

Merlin then asked me to give him a hand and help him carry the things to her, just inside the larger room, on the cot. I helped him get the veal loaf onto a large tray with some other things. For whatever reason, at the last minute, I got some bananas and also put them on the tray.

We then came out, into the other room, where the younger woman was. She seemed like a nurse or a caretaker for the older woman. She was sitting there very silently observing us.

The older infirmed woman was very detailed with her directions for the preparation of the dishes and the garnishes. Some party umbrella garnishes, which are often used to decorate foods and cocktails, were also on the tray with the food.

Merlin had sliced the bananas – actually, they were plantains. The older woman had her arms clasped at her chest like an Egyptian mummy’s. Merlin then bound her body with blue-striped gauze. The blue stripes were like those of the Israeli flag.

She laid there immobile with her head raised on a cushion which had been strategically placed beneath the cot’s mattress. She looked at Merlin and wearily said,

“Please, will you give me my last rites? I want to hear you say that prayer.”

At that, Merlin began saying the Lord’s Prayer except that it was not at all the traditional Christian prayer of Christ. Instead, this prayer seemed to hearken back to Egyptian times. When he was finished the prayer, she uttered a soulful breath; it was the equivalent of Amen.

“Avuum…”

It is simply impossible to convey the sound she made. It sounded like a three-syllable word. Quite simply, the breath went out of her when she intoned the arcane breath. Perhaps, at the end of each lifetime, this was the call the soul made when exiting the body.

Together, Merlin and I had said the word with her but not as she had soulfully done. It was the chant of the dying which only a departing soul, accepting of the inevitable, could properly invoke.

When Merlin and I said it, in my mind’s eye, I instantaneously saw the word written out in bold letters of blue light.

Merlin got up and slowly, silently, walked away. I got up after him and thought about the potency of the word. I looked into Merlin’s face and saw that he was no longer the youthful man who had greeted me at the door.

Instead, he truly looked drained as though he had been channelling for too many hours. He was truly exhausted for having performed the rite on her.

Merlin returned to the kitchen area. I followed after him. I began eyeing the cake thinking that it would make a nice snack.

‘Hmmm, doesn’t that look nice,’ I thought, although, it needed to be warmed up.

It was a wonderful, fat lumpy cake with sweets in it – rather pleasing to look at.

“My, my, won’t I be glad to get some of this come dessert time.” I said in a quiet whisper.

On Tuesday, March 24, 1992 as the Moon transited Sagittarius and my seventh house, whilst in dream flight, I projected myself into the future.

Whilst there, I dreamt the preceding dreams which proved the most sublime encounter with Merlin. It was not just a glimpse into the future but proved to be illuminating, inspiring even.

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Ran into an old dancer friend from eons past… we sat about chewing the fat – and god was there much to chew at… I riotously laughed out loud when he said, “My god who knew you had this rich inner life going down back when I knew you… you just seemed so removed, remote even, from it all…” Indeed, sometimes it seems – at least back then – it is best to just keep quiet and not engage in the Maya. As there are never lies in dreams, it seemed an utter waste of time to bother engaging far too many persons met along the way back there. It was a surprise to me in late teens when I discovered that not everyone dreamt with the same élan as do I. Then again, who wants to be burnt at the stake – at least socially. Too, persons can be so terribly insensitive and quick to judge… Either way, it was good to hang out and meet up with an old friend. Funny though how things turned out for many, ultimately it proved no surprise. Then again who gives a rat’s arse and as Sweet Brown so succinctly stated, “Ain’t nobody got time for that!”

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Photo: Merlin in Montréal opening night play he directed at Centaur Theatre, late 1970s.

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Slaying the Dragons.

21.02.201310.10.2024 Arvin da BrghaLeave a comment

The dream in question occurred, on Sunday, June 13, 1993, whilst the Moon transited both Aries and my eleventh house. The dream deals with having the courage to, ever vigilantly, slay the dragon – the racial predator.

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Whilst walking along, I happened on a short line of people waiting for something. In the very back of the line was Johnson Swift – my astrologer. Looking none-too-stylish, he was decked out in chintzy polyester clothing.

Moving up on him, whilst studying his right profile, I energetically called out his name saying hello.

“Oh hi, how are you?” he was very distancing… as well he can be.

I excitedly told him how pleased that I was to have seen him because, as a result of our rendez-vous, my trip to Washington D.C. went quite well. I told him that I was just wrapping up my trip after having dashed up to Manhattan.

I also told him that I decided not to let any of this stuff, my breakup with Gustavo Vadim, get to me.

“I did do the bigger thing by removing myself from it. Instead of staying there, I went off to New York where I ended up having a really good time.

“So anyway, now I’m about to head back to Washington D.C. to catch my flight back to Toronto.

“I’m really, really glad that I saw you. It quite helped…”

“Well, good… good. It’s quite good to hear.”

Seeing that he was intent on ignoring me, I abruptly took my leave of him. We had been outside on a narrow road that seemed set somewhere in an Old World country.

*In the waking state, I had changed my original flight itinerary from Washington D.C. to Toronto, instead to from LaGuardia to Toronto after heading for Babylon from Washington D.C. After leaving Gustavo and all that dross behind, I had no desire to return to Washington D.C. anytime soon. END.

The second dream had me arriving in an open area where I noticed lots of Black persons around. Men and women, for the most part, they did seem to be African-Americans.

They did have guns which they used in the rapid exchange of gunfire. I never did personally feel in danger since none of this violence had been directed my way.

I knew that I did, nonetheless, have to protect myself. After having decided that this was not a place where I would want to be, either in the waking state or here in the dreamtime, I desperately made my way from there.

Soon enough, these extremely large doglike creatures came on the scene. They were dark-brown-to-black in colour. Two of them, however, were red.

They were as if astral plane projections of souls who wanted to shift their appearances so as to appear noticeable yet unrecognisable. There was simply no way to get around the fact that these were intelligent creatures of reason.

One of the creatures leapt from where it was, unprovoked, and launched into a harrowing attack of a group of kids. The children had been playing by themselves nearby, however, they were not disturbing anyone either.

Infuriated, I leapt onto the creature without a moment’s hesitation and proceeded to beat and kick it. I ripped at it trying to pry it off the children in coming to their defence.

I was quite the warrior-spirited taskmaster when coming to the aid of the vulnerable children. I was not to be messed with; mine was a real maternal instinct.

My response was much as one would expect of a mother in defence of her newborn. With a longer neck than normally any dog’s neck would be, the creature seemed to be a dragon.

It was most bizarre and aggressive. A ferocious, deadly creature it was. At the time, the child being mauled was White – his race ultimately was a non sequitur. We were both human; I had been a child once and just as vulnerable.

The child – humankind – had done nothing to provoke this attack and for that I would kill this beast using sheer force of will. These beautiful children, who had been recently loved and now reincarnated to make their way in the world, needed me.

No one deserved to have their futures interfered with like this and for that I was a frightening foe. Whilst struggling with the groaning creature, I noticed another across the way. Whilst seated there, it was being very manipulative.

I intuitively knew that much of what transpired between the creature and me, with whom I struggled, was being directed by the other dragon-like creature across the piazza. Grabbing a sharpened pair of shears that were nearby, I hurled it through the air at the one engaged in mind games.

My will fiercely focussed on the pair of shears, I directed it through the air with increasing speeds. Before the red dragon-like creature could even react, the shears as intended had stabbed it in the chest which like the rest of the body was covered in an inch-long fur.

My rage still directed on the creature, I caused the shears to rip down its chest. Instantaneously, it began gushing blood everywhere. The creature acted as any stunned creature of reason would: it suddenly became terrified at the realisation that it was going to die.

Terrified, it began protesting, its waning breath struggling in the throes of death.

Some of the Black persons, who were all armed, came over at this point. Much to my surprise, they were genuinely upset. They were so enraged that they started heading for me because I had attacked the creatures with which they were clearly aligned.

Whilst still struggling with the creature beneath me, I gutturally shuddered and swept my arm at them sending them a massive wave of impenetrable energy.

The invisible wave of light energies swept over them and stunned them in their tracks. After momentary paralysis, they came to and cowered and thereafter took noisy flight from the open square.

In one last violent move, I impatiently grabbed the creature beneath me by its neck. With a vexed shudder, I sent the predator beneath my enraged body hurling through the air.

It crumpled to the ground. It was close to where the other, whose chest I had magically ripped open with the shears directed across the way, which now lay quite dead.

Looking down at the child, a dark-haired boy, I sent him a ton of energies knowing that he would be alright. He did just then, looking pretty much like a ragdoll, simply spring to life as a result of my transference to him of loving, healing, light energies.

Drained and infuriated, I turned and walked away. I simply did not want to be a part of a dream which had such dark and violent magus energies about it. I don’t like energies like these.

This was no way to be focussing my magus energies. Resolved about my role in the matter, I kept on walking away never looking back.

*The one consolation was in knowing that the children would be protected from harm. Indeed, those who had fiercely loved them and lost them in their former lives had their prayers of their loved one’s safety in the beyond protected.

Of course, this was a future which included their current lifetimes and therefore the immediate future lifetime for their loved ones left behind END.

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Photo: Phantasm Books Phantasmbooks.wordpress.com

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Dreams are the poetic expression of the soul.

Tag: Manhattan

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The Racial Predator and A Fistful of Dreams. 2.0!

Pink Chair II.

Ball Game.

Ghosts of Future-Past.