GARGOZO MANUSCRIPT

I can recall three experiences where for a brief moment I was perfectly aligned with the forces of nature.  I came to understand at an early age that some events that are considered to be supernatural are in fact natural.  It's only due to the rarity of these events that they appear to be beyond the normal world.  When I was a little kid living with my parents there were a lot of books in our house.  My mother started out as a librarian and later managed retail book sales for Nash's department store in Pasadena.  She was always bringing home books for a "quick look see" but few were ever returned.  My mother favored no particular genre and our collection spanned the full range of the Dewey Decimal System.     I was partial to some of the books that fell into the Dewey 200 classification that covers philosophy and religion.  I wasn't able to read yet but I discovered a few books with lots of pictures that I found tota...

Having just finished five years of fine arts college courses, there I was, just like Elliot Gould in Little Murders , taking photographs of shit.  I can't recall how Mr. Rosen got my phone number but he called, explained the work he wanted done, and we agreed on a price.  Once I shared with Hartwig the details of the phone conversation he insisted on coming with me.  A few days later Hartwig and I drove out to a residential neighborhood in Pacoima to meet the man who had hired me and take the photographs he wanted.  Mr. Rosen lived with his family in a three-bedroom house located at the northeastern end of the San Fernando Valley.  When Hartwig and I arrived and got out of the car we were met by the foul stench that plagued the residents of Pacoima during the 1960s.  The ongoing problems with noxious odors had been attributed to various sources including pesticides stored in warehouses, decomposing corpses at the Pacoima Mausoleum, seve...

Scientology’s flagship church is still located on Sunset Blvd one-half block west of Vermont .  The “Scientology Cross” is displayed on the curb-side marquee and their building’s façade.  In the 1970s I worked directly across the street in the Blue Cross building before they moved the company to a classier neighborhood.  The Blue Cross building featured a cross facing Sunset that was twenty feet tall and painted onto the exterior of the 5 th floor of the building. Blue Cross of Southern California started in 1937 and adopted the same symbol still used today by Blue Cross and Blue Shield partners throughout the USA .  The cross is a blatant attempt to subliminally influence the California Franchise Tax Board and the public at large.  Until 1996, despite being neither a charity nor a religion, Blue Cross of Southern California was classified as a non-profit entity for tax purposes.  This decision was based on section 501(c),(4) of the IRS requi...