THIS Rhett Butler Will Never Die

A summary of my June trip to Los Angeles. On the outset of this trip, sitting in the departure lounge of Oakland International Airport I wrote to you that the purpose of this trip was about photographing Francesca Lia Block, but that I was not going to get to do that. And in fact, I did not. I did not call her while here in L.A. Nor did I feel regretful about the loss of opportunity to have this creative time with her. I'll tell you though, her influence was strongly upon me the entire time I was here anyway. I'm really tired now and my writing is a bit sloppy because my back is in a lot of pain and I have not really had enough sleep this week. Not my normal amounts of sleep at least. I've slept in strange beds, talked more in a week's time than I usually talk in 3 months time, driven hundreds of miles (never made accidental contact with another vehicle or living creature or inanimate object), used Google Maps on my Android phone like an expert to get to everywhere I w...

so about a month ago i found out from using http://geni.com that Rita Hayworth is my 22nd cousin. that’s a pretty complex and distant relation, but hey, she’s kin and that deserves acknowledgement. i got it in my head that when i was in L.A. on this visit that i’d pay her a visit at her final resting place Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City. and i did. i went there on Monday, around noon time. i stopped at the main gate and asked the guard for directions to her grave. he was a delightful, old Chinese man who seemed pleased that people came to the cemetery with specific visitations in mind. he smiled and said, “Oh, she is easy to find.” and pointed to the top of the nearest hill. “Right there, next to the grotto.” he also mentioned that Sharon Tate was buried near the grotto and asked if there was anyone else i was interested in seeing. i told him i would like to visit Bela Lugosi too. “So easy.” he said. “Just four rows down from Miss Hayworth. Enjoy your visit.” so i shot the follo...

Hollywood Forever - Mausoleum Originally uploaded by daryldarko Just a few sample photos from inside the main mausoleum at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. I was never approached by any staff members inside here and I think that if I were with a casually dressed model (who pretended to be my girlfriend, or sister, it would be possible to do CG photos in here. What also makes me think that I could take CG photos inside HF is that the one person who told me she was "kicked out" for modeling there was an extremely high class fashion model who must have made it obvious that she was doing professional work. More of my photos of HF can be seen on my flickr account.

Hollywood Forever - Mausoleum Originally uploaded by daryldarko Just a few sample photos from inside the main mausoleum at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. I was never approached by any staff members inside here and I think that if I were with a casually dressed model (who pretended to be my girlfriend, or sister, it would be possible to do CG photos in here. What also makes me think that I could take CG photos inside HF is that the one person who told me she was "kicked out" for modeling there was an extremely high class fashion model who must have made it obvious that she was doing professional work. More of my photos of HF can be seen on my flickr account.

well, yesterday was supposed to be the day that i was to spend photographing Francesca Lia Block as a Cemetery Girl, but it turned into a day in which i did what i do best; i adventured solo. i’ll do a proper photo blog later in which i show all the places that i went (and man, i went to some AWESOME places yesterday!). this photo epitomizes my life in so many ways though. i sought out the company of a beautiful, talented, living woman yesterday to spend a few hours alone with to use to create art. yet what i ended up getting time with was a lifeless form, devoid of any emotions but sorrow and loneliness. i sat with this statue for at least 20 minutes yesterday. trying to hear her voice. all i heard were whispers of the wind in the trees. as a cemetery man, i did find my own style of peculiar comfort in her company. in fact, i was moved to tears in the heart of this cemetery as there is so much intense missing and longing AND forgetting being felt here, by the spirits that come to visi...

i’m sitting at the Oakland Airport waiting to board my flight to Los Angeles  and my heart is full of bittersweet emotions. i would not be making this trip if it were not for one single person; Francesca Lia Block, yet for reasons (and i was going to try to blame this on –=the gods=- by saying “reasons completely beyond my control”, but it is not their fault, it’s entirely my own fault) unfortunate, I am not going to get to spend any time with her on this trip. it’s too fresh and delicate of a matter for me to talk about right now though, so i will tell you about the OTHER really wonderful reasons why i am going to Los Angeles today. my beautiful soul-mate of a friend Vicki, who i had a monster-crush on in high school has arranged a photo shoot for me today with THREE extremely beautiful, young actresses/models/dancers/artists. Aviva Farber, Sita Young and Anastasia (i forgot her last name) will be meeting me in a cemetery near Pasadena around 3pm this afternoon. also on this trip...

something started to move inside my heart-space earlier this week. an old feeling that i have not recognized as being there in a number of years, and when it got stirred a few days ago, i was like, “oh where have you been! i’ve missed you soo much, my love!” what i think it is is the spark of spiritual connection of my heart to the divine. there have been different ways that this has manifested in my understanding over the years, and of course, my understanding now is different than it ever was before. my first memorable powerful experiences of this pitter-patter were when i was 13 years old and felt the flooding of power of the Christ-spirit into my heart. years later though, the pitter-patter felt different when i developed a romantic crush on a teenage girl at high school. there are times when the heart pitter-patter is subtle and other times when it is overwhelming and all consuming. sometimes the pitter-patter is just a dull ache and reflects how i miss something/someone or ...

San Francisco - Summer Evening - a set on Flickr photographic evidence that i do NOT only hang out in cemeteries. my good buddy Jeff and i went to a Giants game last night. we had an awesome time. learned a lot of new things about the game (like a 6-3-4 double play is when the short stop throws at the runner at first base then the first baseman throws out the other runner at second base) and that everybody loves Captain Morgan! also, last night was Halloween in June night and only some people wore costumes. i thought EVERYONE was going to wear costumes. i ended up keeping mine in my backpack. next stop? OAKLAND COLISEUM:JULY 6, A'S vs YANKEES!

old friend jeff and i went to our first game at Bobby Bonds Stadium tonight. we had a great time, despite the fact that we froze to death in the bleachers. and the home team won!! gonna have to do this again.

I met a girl while standing in line the night before the last, great Led Zeppelin concert performed in America in July of 1977. We crawled into a sleeping bag together in the back seat of my mom's station wagon and just talked for hours while we waited for dawn to come when the gates to the Oakland Coliseum would open. It was going to be a long day and there were going to be thousands, upon thousands of people. We had just graduated from high school and this was going to be the night of our lives. This new friend and I connected on some inner level and wrote letters to each other for many months. Despite the fact that she just lived across the bay, we never saw each other again after we got separated in the mob scene of the audience at that infamous concert. Here is the first letter that she wrote to me after the show. (Sadly, she has all of my letters and I cannot show you what it was that I had written to her.)

well, the pains in my lame limb subsided quite a bit today so i was able to get myself to the urgent care center and have an ultrasound of my femoral vein performed to determine if there were any blood clots. NONE present, thank god! so the next stage in diagnosis were blood tests to check the levels of uric acid in my system. yep, they think it was a gout attack that struck me in the ankle. makes sense to me. i looked up what gout is and what causes it. two things on the list jumped out at me. sardines and sudden weight loss. don’t laugh! i really do LIKE sardines. and the omega 3 fatty oils they supply are supposed to help fight depression. i was eating about 3 cans of them (in spring oil) a week. and the other change recently came about from replacing coffee in my diet with green tea. i can only handle drinking one or two cups of coffee a day. it’s too strong for me. but green tea, man-o-man, i can drink 8-12 cups of that stuff a day! it’s smooth and subtle and gives me a much m...

a couple of days ago i got a shooting pain in my ankle, out of nowhere, like i had broken it or something. i hadn’t though. nor had i twisted it. it was like a ghost stab or something.  the pain got worse by the hour and my only idea of a remedy was to sit in the hot tub and let the hot water massage it. that helped but it did not fix it. i hobbled to my car and got home after midnight. got into bed and propped up my foot and hoped for a good night’s sleep. that hope didn’t come true. by 7am i was having cramps in my calf and the back of my thigh. one good thing was that my ankle was not swollen. it’s still not, 3 days later. but the pain in the ankle and the potential for cramping is right under the surface of my skin. i’ve had to use a cane to get around the house today. why have i not gone to the doctors yet? partly because i can’t drive the car to get myself there. partly because i don’t want to sit in the e.r. for 6+ hours for them to end up telling me that there is nothing w...

this makes me feel MUCH better! :) BBC News - Creative minds 'mimic schizophrenia'

well, i’m not picking up exactly where i left off. there is much more to talk about in regards to the work and counter work that Gurumayi and Clive Barker did inside of me. but for right now i have an important new discovery to share with you. the name “darko” actually comes from a character in a movie named “Donnie Darko”. i felt a strong sense of identity with this character a few years ago when i was in a particularly “dark” stage of my emotional progress through the turmoils thrust upon me during my bipolar/depressive breakdown years. Donnie was this young man that was suffering from schizophrenia and was wrestling to come to terms with matters of sanity and life/death/love in his life. it was easy for me to latch onto this character as a moniker for my own spiritual turmoil. plus, it was a really hip movie with a really hip cast. the cast, oh yeah… a couple of kids by the surname of Gyllenhaal starred in it. Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal, to be exact. Jake was Donnie and Maggie w...