A Fifth With Papa by Chef JeM Blog entry

Blog: The U-n-I-Verse
by Chef JeM

A Fifth With Papa

A poetic musing after my fifth (and sixth) visit with Papa: "Halloween in The Twilight Zone with Boris Karloff and The Adams Family"

Date: 11/25/2012 5:16:22 AM ( 12 y ) ... viewed 11234 times

He wants to give
his "world" to me
he is pouring it out
his rare vintage wine
I only came
with a cup in my hand
yet he kept pouring
his wine always flowing
I had to stop him
and show him my cup
then tried to tell him
I just like to sip

###################

December 7th/8th, 2012

Today was my 6th visit with the one whom I was referred to in my blogs as "Boris Karloff".:

http://curezone.com/blogs/fm.asp?i=1172607

(For more on "Boris": http://www.karloff.com/)

Back home in the "after glow" of my visit I was inspired with a potential title (maybe a real working title, if I ever were to decide to pursue this) of:

"Halloween in The Twilight Zone with Boris Karloff and The Adams Family".

I think you'd most likely have to be at least a "Boomer" to fully appreciate this title. I grew up watching "The Twilight Zone", which was probably in my top five television programs, and I also enjoyed watching "The Adams Family". Just in case you don't know the old films - Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi:

http://www.belalugosi.com/

were the consummate film actors of fright!

I also grew up with a love for Halloween and getting into some kind of "alter ego" or a sub-personalty character, possibly until I was about twelve years old. Mixing these four production themes together in one title relates to the complex nature of my family of origin.

I think of Bill Cosby's presentation of the kind of parenting that included regular doses of corporal punishment for the children, which represented the voice of the mother speaking to the father (as the executioner) says: "Did you you kill them?"

The threat of punishment was at a foundational level within me throughout my entire childhood/upbringing to at least age eighteen. On top of that was the mental instability of my father who was suffering from waves of anxiety and compulsive behavior that were completely unpredictable and which only magnified the fear of painful consequences on my body and/or mental-emotional life.

My reference to my father as "Boris Karloff" is an attempt to give some recognizable characterization of what I had perceived of him as a child. The addition of "Halloween" here represents the need to safely act-out what might "normally" be rejected in daily life. This idea alone deserves expanding upon.

"The Adams Family" has a double meaning for me. One is that second half of my childhood actually included a relationship between my family and an "Adams family". Our church priest was "Father Adams". The priest's son was in my Sunday High School class.

The other meaning is the campiness of the televised show of "The Adams Family" which included the camped-up version of Bela Lugosi's count Dracula. If I could have allowed myself the aristic freedom to explore this at that time I would have taken all this material that I call: "Halloween in The Twilight Zone with Boris Karloff and The Adams Family" and turned it into a truly bizarre "Light and Sound" production. But I was too close to the "reality" and too identified with it to have the space that I needed as an artist at that time to allow for a metamorphosis. However, I did write an unpublished piece in the 80's that I called: T.O.M.M.Y - the "Transformation of My Mythological Youth.

December 5th 2014 -

Much "water has passed under the bridge" since this blog entry! "Papa" crossed the threshold one year ago on or about Thanksgiving Day! My oldest sister crossed as well one month earlier on October 24th. Her crossing apparently made a decisive impact on Papa. They both "join" with my younger sister who had crossed over about sixteen years earlier. And she crossed over to be with her youngest daughter who crossed over after not recovering from a second heart-related surgery to replace a shunt put in when she was a baby!

Now all of the memories of "Halloween in The Twilight Zone with Boris Karloff and The Adams Family" are more distant as if they were from another life time. And indeed they were!