i went to the doctor
went to the doctor
and guess what he told me
guess what he told me?
he said "girl, you better try
to have fun
no matter what you do."
he's a fool!
'cause nothing compares
nothing compares 2 you ...

Rod Amis - Unbound

NEW ORLEANS - 7 May, 2003: I commented to the Mailing List Members in our previous newsletter that I felt I was becoming more and more New Orleans these days. That is true and considering how many traits of this city I have reviled can only mean that I am acceptant of becoming more and more revolting myself.

Living with Dave and working construction have come easily in this time when I want to resist nothing. I move completely on the winds of emotion, like a true spirit of the air. I am whimsical and mercurial. I look down the road ahead and see nothing except the horizon. This hejira no longer has a destination. The only thing to fear is the illusion of importance or substantiality in a world where I know I can have neither.

As usually, as my life becomes a disaster area, The World's Magazine is thriving. Readership is up - twenty or thirty percent higher than our latest record dates back in July, 2002; page views are up; requests to join the Mailing List flow in daily. It is some perversity of the gods that GENERATOR 21 does best when I am stuck or floundering,

Meanwhile, I meet more women; sirens and sea nymphs with names like Lorelei and Ariadne. I am not sure what to make of this newest development or of them. Dave says this is an easy town in which to meet such women if you are willing to let yourself go. Lorelei agrees and says that I am a very guarded person, hidden behind any number of shields. I am surprised that she has read that so quickly. I am never as open in person as I am with you here, my love.

I still need to make it up with Fashionable that I missed having lunch with her last Friday. But there is time as she is only working the cocktail waitressing job now. There's no hurry in that quarter, I'm sure. I have no idea what she is about.

Rod Amis

One of the small group of old high school friends wrote in this week to say she has difficulty picturing me as the same person she remembers from back in the Jurassic era. It reminds me that I'm one of the few columnists here whose column does not feature a mug shot. I suppose I shall correct that omission henceforth, if only for reasons of editorial consistency. What's good for the goose and all that ...

---

8 May, 2003: IN THE DREAM, I am reading all the words I have heard from people who I believe care about me and they are all saying the same thing: "You must fight!"

And I am thinking Fight what? I have been fighting all my life. To what purpose?

Everybody seems to think being Zen is a beautiful thing. So what is so wrong with me becoming completely Zen about everything that is part of this crisis in my hejira and just floating like a feather on the wind? Butterflies are, by nature, after all they have endured to achieve this wonderful state, spirits of the air. In this final stage, you live on nectar and flit from flower to flower until ...

When I was a child, they (my teachers) told me that a flashlight beam directed into space, toward the stars, would travel at the speed of light and eventually been seen somewhere.

I tend to believe the same about this Cathedral of Words. As long as the Web survives and is archived, what we say and do here will endure like a beam of light. That is something.

I imagine another dreamer partaking of the manna in this dream and finding sustenance.

Of course, all my imaginings may be mad fancies, but they are my own. There is no reason they should trouble you, my love.

---

WHAT IS IT ABOUT DRAGANA AND I? She writes me a missive from ten thousand miles away about how what I am doing here, with The World's Magazine, matters. She says that we "old souls" should not be ashamed of remembering history.

Here is a rapturous moment: When Dragan and Dragana and I entered the gates of Romuliana, after coaxing their ancient French car up the mountain sides, a light rain began to fall.

Dragan had told me, "Rod, you will see Romuliana, I swear it. This is why you are here and the car will have to make it. After that, I don't care!"

When we reached the Roman city, it was as though the three of us where falling back into a time we had cherished but lost.

I was hung-over from Serbian brandy and much talk the night before. Dragana has a talent for telling you stories. She keeps you awake and listening like an intravenous connection to adrenaline. I'm not sure if you get stronger or if you are drained;

We were walking among the ruins of a city built two thousand years ago by the emperor Galerius, the co-tetrarch to Diocletian, and Dragana said: "The gods are crying tears of joy because you have come here."

She was making reference to the fact that I have always followed Alexander, my hero and model. I went to Egypt because Alexander did, and Flaubert and every writer I have felt who matters. But it was mostly Alexander, the world-shaper, who inspired me and drew me on. Galerius believed, because of his mother's tales, that he was a direct descendent of Alexander.

So the Emperor Galerius built two imperial cities in Yugoslavia - one Romuliana, to be his capital and garrison, and one on the crest of a hill overlooking the city which would house the shrine of his mother. Some say that he planned a cult (in the ancient sense) religion around her shrine. We may never know.

Having seen that ancient Roman city near Zagecar in the former Yugoslavia, I could walk away with two feelings:

• Triiumph that I had breathed the same air as the ancients, had a glimpse of their dreams, and
• Sadness that I might be one of the last people to see the walls, wine cellars, baths and mosaics, because no money is being spent to save human history - for all intents and purposes.

I left Serbia thinking that Job One was to set up a foundation to save that historic site.

Poverty intruded. I was struggling just to get a meal. Dragana was working on getting a new documentary film assignment. Life was going neither of our ways and hasn't really since. The dream of saving Galerius's city is just that, only a dream.

Local farmers will dynamite away the walls to build their houses. The mosaic tiles will eventually be stripped up and taken away by looters and just plain vandals. Another, another part of the life of humanity, the great story of who we are, will be forever lost. I wrote weeks ago about the sacknig of the museum in Baghdad. For a man who cares and deeply feels for what has passed before in human existence, these are all great tragedies.

Dragana, my sister, says that "dinosaurs" like us will survive the latest imperium, our love of the past of this species will sustain us, she says. "You must keep Hope, Rod!" she says.

I try to believe.

MEANWHILE, I WALK THROUGH THIS LIFE AS THOUGH THROUGH A DREAM. I have done that before, as you know, my love. I have only a tenuous hold on the separation between my life in dreams and what passes for my life among all of you.

What is best in life?

---

11 May, 2003: Doing my laundry at Checkpoint Charlie's today again, my love. Boo LaCrosse, from Lacrosse, Wisconsin, is bartending again and I have respectfully put on the music of his band, Fat Cock. (Their posters and flyers say: "Chicks love Fat Cock.") He was an interview subject of mine, as you'll recall, month's back. A very droll and accomplished musician. Not a bad bartender, either.

Tomorrow I go back to my construction work. Today I dream about a better life. I dream that I am dancing with you in some honky-tonk in Texas and everything, everything, from both our pasts has evaporated and disappeared. We are floating on air and dancing like there is no one else in the room accept you and I. We are dancing like nobody is watching. We are young again, but with this new knowledge, and we are in love. I smell flowers and hear the songs we have cherished; I am the best pagan and God's Own Fool; you are every woman who has ever lived and channeling the spirit of Athena. We are eternal because of our love. A nation of two, as Vonnegut put it. And it is the last moment of the dream. That is all I want.

Things I Need This Week

1. Cold, hard cash.

2. A new bar for The Rod Show.

3. The roadmap to my Separate Country.

---

Thanks for coming back this week.

"Work like you don't need the money,
"Love like you've never been hurt,
"Dance like no one is watching..."
Rod

Search www.g21.net [ ] Our Link Partners the Web for

ROD AMIS has published this magazine since 1990. It first appeared as a hardcopy 'Zine. In March, 1996, he launched it here on the Web. Rod was a Contributing Editor at Suite101.com, where he wrote the " 'Net Publishing" feature. His work has been featured in the San Francisco Bay Guardian Online, NRV8, and at WebLab's Reality Check site. Rod was also a contributing writer on technology for Faulkner Information Services. He wrote on Web issues for MethodFive.com's Hyper newsletter.

Rod was a columnist for the Andover News Network, where he wrote over two hundred articles on web design and development issues. He was also principal writer and Editor for IT Manager's Journal, where he reviewed technology issues weekly, producing 383 editorials. He became the Managing Editor for Electronic Mail/Newsletter Publications at Andover.net at the end of February, 2000, and left in September of the same year. He was a contributing writer for ACCESS magazine, which appeared both on- and offline for 10 million readers in 100 newspapers like the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Post, Boston Herald, Austin American-Statesman, Denver Post and Orlando Sentinel, among others. Rod was the US reporter for Silicon.com, a division of Network Multimedia Television in London, UK, reaching 3.5 million European readers, until May, 2001.

Last year he worked as Assistant to the General Manager of a Big Easy company that does restaurants and nightclubs. (Think: The Boy.) Oh yeah, Rod's had Day Jobs working construction. Mostly renovations of old New Orleans structures, houses and a bar. Sometimes he designs Web sites for other people so that he can get his creative juices flowing the way he can't at a staid publication like this one. And he's been the instructor in Editing for Internet Publications at the Novi Sad School of Journalism in Yugoslavia. Right now our Resident Philosopher has left the pantheon of New Orleans bartenders and still doesn't know when he'll have a "permanent residence" that he likes.. He's decided that maybe it's time to be an entrepreneur again. Working with "employees" and Bosses doesn't suit his temperament. In his spare time, he chases women in the manner that a fly pursues a spider.

Rod lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. This town is eroding his normal sense of driven purpose. He wants to live somewhere civilized when he grows up. Wish him Luck.

He continues to be committed to integrity, chastity and a dose of humility.

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