Month: September 2023

by Travis Mateer

Has Zooey Zephyr given thanks to the white man who created the publication giving her accolades? How about Ellie Hill/Smith/Boldman? Because if it wasn’t for a guy by the name of Henry Luce, who had powerful white male friends, like Allen Dulles, we wouldn’t have the magazine called TIME giving Zooey a platform for local media to be impressed by after platforming Ellie all those years ago.

First, the accolades, as told by Marty K., a guy who has an interesting history reporting on disruptions of local and state government proceedings:

State Rep. Zooey Zephyr was listed in TIME Magazine’s 2023 TME100 Next List, an annual feature which spotlights rising leaders pushing the future forward. Zephyr is included here alongside artists, scientists, other politicians, and multiple innovators in their respective fields.

In the beginning of this year, Zephyr made history after being sworn in as the first openly transgender person to serve under Montana’s state Legislature. Her time representing Missoula in the 100th district has stood out all the more in a state that has pushed for several anti-LGBTQ+ bills.

Ok, now that we have that out of the way, how did Marty report on the disruption that happened in Helena earlier this year?

After expressing her stance, Zephyr was denied a voice on the floor by several House Republicans, including Speaker Matt Regier. A comment she made describing supporters of the bill as having “blood on your hands” caused anger.

Despite being backed by both Democratic Representatives and local protesters for a right to speak, the House voted to prevent Zephyr from being present for the remainder of the session, instead designating her to vote remotely. As protests ensued to back Zephyr and oppose the bill, Zephyr silently held a microphone in the air, an image which has since come to stand as a moment of empowerment.

After being pushed out, Zephyr settled into a public bench outside the House Chambers to create an improvised workspace. Days later, she and her supporters took legal action against Speaker Reiger and the state for a violation against both her freedom of speech and equal protection.

Is there ANY mention of Zephyr supporters storming past security in the upper gallery and someone throwing something during this infamous charade during the absurdly dysfunctional legislative session earlier this year? Nope. Because, when you have an AGENDA-driven movement on your side, which TIME’s acknowledgment of Zephyr only confirms, you don’t have to worry about a propagandist like Marty defaming you.

Years ago another rising STAR from Missoula got the TIME treatment, but I’m not sure how flattering the drawing is. Is that really supposed to be you, Ellie?

Seeing the name Paul Wellstone got me curious, so now I have another book on its way, this one about the strange death of Paul Wellstone. Thanks Ellie!

It’s not just the fact these two persons have a white guy to thanks for giving them national recognition, it’s the fact that white guy is such an obvious part of the CIA’s Mockingbird efforts to control the WHOLE media landscape.

Here’s a little context on Henry Luce’s relationship with Dulles:

Time and Newsweek magazines. According to CIA and Senate sources, Agency files contain written agreements with former foreign correspondents and stringers for both the weekly news magazines. The same sources refused to say whether the CIA has ended all its associations with individuals who work for the two publications. Allen Dulles often interceded with his good friend, the late Henry Luce, founder of Time and Life magazines, who readily allowed certain members of his staff to work for the Agency and agreed to provide jobs and credentials for other CIA operatives who lacked journalistic experience.

For many years, Luce’s personal emissary to the CIA was C.D. Jackson, a Time Inc., vice‑president who was publisher of Life magazine from 1960 until his death in 1964.While a Time executive, Jackson coauthored a CIA‑sponsored study recommending the reorganization of the American intelligence services in the early 1950s. Jackson, whose Time‑Life service was interrupted by a one‑year White House tour as an assistant to President Dwight Eisenhower, approved specific arrangements for providing CIA employees with Time‑Life cover. Some of these arrangements were made with the knowledge of Luce’s wife, Clare Boothe. Other arrangements for Time cover, according to CIA officials including those who dealt with Luce), were made with the knowledge of Hedley Donovan, now editor‑in‑chief of Time Inc. Donovan, who took over editorial direction of all Time Inc. publications in 1959, denied in a telephone interview that he knew of any such arrangements. “I was never approached and I’d be amazed if Luce approved such arrangements,” Donovan said. “Luce had a very scrupulous regard for the difference between journalism and government.”

In the 1950s and early 1960s, Time magazine’s foreign correspondents attended CIA “briefing” dinners similar to those the CIA held for CBS. And Luce, according to CIA officials, made it a regular practice to brief Dulles or other high Agency officials when he returned from his frequent trips abroad. Luce and the men who ran his magazines in the 1950s and 1960s encouraged their foreign correspondents to provide help to the CIA, particularly information that might be useful to the Agency for intelligence purposes or recruiting foreigners.

Ellie Boldman is in “good” company with her class of influencers, like Huma Abedin and this dashing looking Bush:

Here’s a joke: A Bush, a Dulles, and a Nazi walk into a bar and…they all have a friendly drink together! Isn’t that funny?

No, I don’t think it’s that funny either, but these two “social justice” pretenders getting honored by Henry’s rag? That is fucking HILARIOUS!

If you appreciate my quality sense of humor, I’ll be accepting birthday donations ALL DAY at Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF), and that donation button at my about page.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

What are you looking at here, my kink for feet? No, you’re looking at a subtle signal, for those in the know, that a woman is in an open relationship.

This isn’t something I know from experience, but from exploring the idea in order to spice up a marriage that would have marked its 20th anniversary 9 days from now had I not done my part to fuck things up for good.

Suggesting my partner go out to remind herself that she’s an attractive woman plenty of men would jump at the chance to get to know better was NOT one of the mistakes I made that ended things. And, at this point, you’re probably wondering why the hell I’m writing about all this. I’m getting to that, so BARE with me.

The book I’m working on is a literal decoding of the secrets of the universe (I’m mostly kidding), and in that process I’ve incorporated lots of media into a crazy tapestry of meaning that may or may not mean a damn thing to anyone else. One of the movies I think I’ve decoded is The Number 23, with Jim Carrey.

Before I get to the person I think this movie is really about, we need to talk about Democrat candidate, Susanna Gibson, and the scandal that has erupted around the way she has monetized her open relationship on websites, like Chaturbate.

I began this post talking uncomfortably about my own situation because, unless a person chooses to make something more public, I don’t think it’s anyone’s business what happens between consenting adults. I certainly wouldn’t want to be shamed for exploring a personal theory that, because feminine sexuality is more powerful than masculine sexuality, a confident man might find a beneficial turn-on instead of relationship-ending jealousy by encouraging exploration for a partner with other adults, male or female.

Unfortunately there are significant risks to blurring boundaries, and one risk is that it might lead to sexually berserker behavior, like trying to get caught being gratified by unsuspecting hotel staff for monetary tokens. Is this where reasonable people can agree a line should be drawn? From the link (emphasis mine):

“Tell him I want a bottle and have them bring it into the room and we’ll be naked and they can all watch. It’s gonna be great. I’m definitely a slut,” she told her audience in one video, adding “In order to leave the door cracked I need 500 tokens from 10 of y’all. 10. Otherwise not worth it. Don’t get me kicked out from my favorite hotel y’all.”

According to former Virginia public defender, Gretchen Tayllor Pousson, tricking hotel workers into seeing her acts could violate statutes such as indecent exposure, which applies to anyone who “intentionally makes an obscene display of her person in any public place or place where others are present.”

“I think it would be. It would all depend on how the court determines a ‘place where others are present,’ but given that she caused them to come in, I think that could easily be argued by the Commonwealth,” Pousson told the Daily Wire.

Before getting back to the Jim Carrey movie, I’ll say one more thing about how this relates to Democrat politics in a place like Missoula, and that’s the real risk that understandable human jealousy often wins out in open relationships, as the family of a certain deceased non-profit intern can surely attest.

Now, who do I think Carrey’s character is in the movie that’s ostensibly about obsessing over a number? I think it’s this guy:

Here’s an excerpt from the article about Wilhelm Reich:

Reich was born in 1897 into a wealthy family in what is now Ukraine. He claimed to have lost his virginity at the age of 11 to the family cook and to have visited a brothel at the age of 15. After serving in the Austro-Hungarian Army in World War One, he studied medicine in Vienna. When he heard of a seminar on sex being given by Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, he visited him to ask for a reading list and the pair hit it off. Freud began referring patients to him and Reich started developing his own theories, becoming convinced of the power of sexual healing. Laing explains his reasoning: “If undischarged sexual energy caused neurosis, mightn’t it follow that the discharge of sexual energy was in itself a healing force?” By the time Reich wrote The Function of the Orgasm in 1926, he was convinced that good quality sexual climaxes promoted physical health. When Reich gave Freud a copy of The Function of the Orgasm, the sceptical older man muttered: “That thick?” The pair would eventually fall out over their differing views. In a letter to another psychoanalyst, Freud referred to Reich as an “impetuous young man, passionately devoted to his hobbyhorse, who now salutes in the genital orgasm the antidote to every neurosis”. When Freud developed cancer, Reich regarded it as the result of sexual frustration.

If Reich’s claims about his early experiences with sex are true, that’s troubling, but so far I haven’t found the description of what happened in Reich’s childhood that screwed him up so badly, though I DID hear it described on a podcast recently.

The article goes on to describe how Reich crashed and burned with his research. I find it interesting.

Just before World War Two Reich fled to the US, where his ideas became increasingly eccentric. He discovered a mysterious life force that permeated the universe and flowed through the atmosphere in currents. He called it “orgone” and designed a cabinet – the “orgone accumulator” – in which a person could sit and soak up this energy. It was roughly the size of a public telephone box and made of wood packed with layers of wire wool and sheep’s wool, which absorbed and then trapped the energy – like a greenhouse. Reich thought spells in the box would cure cancer. In 1941, he visited Albert Einstein at his New Jersey home and spent hours propounding his theories to the great physicist. Einstein listened politely but, unsurprisingly, was unconvinced. People think I’m crazy, Reich protested to Einstein. “I can believe that,” responded the scientist.

In fact, Reich did become increasingly paranoid and delusional. He discovered that there were dangerous fields of negative orgone energy and invented a “cloudbuster” to break them up. It was a collection of long pipes and looked something like an anti-aircraft gun. One of its supposed effects was to make it rain. He also became convinced that he was under attack from UFOs.

The US authorities took a dim view of Reich’s claims about the powers of the accumulator, and the fact that he had embraced Marxism and joined the Communist Party in Austria in 1928 made him an even more suspicious figure in the eyes of the FBI. Some unhelpful press articles depicted him as a foreign undesirable, accusing him of quackery and of being the leader of a sex cult. Reich was ordered to stop selling accumulators and was subsequently arrested and imprisoned in 1956 for breaking the injunction. Tons of his papers and books, including The Mass Psychology of Fascism, which linked fascism to sexual repression, were seized and burned. According to Laing, “it remains the only nationally-sanctioned book-burning in American history”. He died in prison in 1957.

Ok, it didn’t take me long to find this article, which puts more context into the formative experiences of Reich’s younger days with screwed up parents:

Born in Galicia in 1897, Reich was the first child of a beautiful young mother and an older, authoritarian father, a rather cosmopolitan and hardly observant Jewish couple managing a family estate of some 2,000 acres. Oppressed by his father, Reich idealized his mother.

Precocious in more than his studies of science and language, Reich began having sexual intercourse with the family’s chambermaid, according to his account, around the age of 12. At almost exactly the same time, the determining event of his life occurred, as Sharaf views it. Adolescent Willy listened from outside the bedroom door over a period of several months when his tutor and mother engaged in sexual intercourse.

Reich remembered that his father had slandered his mother, calling her “whore,” but the boy was caught in a tangle of eroticism, anger, and inadequacy, Sharaf suggests, and he told his father. Cecilia Reich drank a lye mixture and died. According to Reich and his younger brother Robert, around five years later their father Leon Reich took out a large life-insurance policy and committed indirect suicide by deliberatly contracting pneumonia; he did it through prolonged exposure standing in a lake on the farm.

Yes, this messed up situation is almost exactly what Jim Carrey’s character in The Number 23 is shown to have experienced in his youth. Also, his professor friend explicitly references Orgone energy, though it’s a quick reference and easy to miss.

Going back to the first image in this post, an anklet turns out to be an important object in unraveling the mystery in the movie, which I won’t spoil. I think my interpretation of this film is pretty spot on.

If you appreciate my cultural perspective, Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF) is one way to support it, and making a donation at my about page is another.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

Have you ever heard of Thomas Nast? Neither had I, but after doing some cold-hearted negotiating with a DIFFERENT Thomas, this image from a distant century spoke to me across time. And, also, influenced the next location in my travels.

But first, my bank needs to let MY money flow freely, so that I may take a bite of that rotten, east coast fruit before checking out some important Pennsylvania locations. Ya hear me, Clearwater? Or are you too busy paying the Missoula Current advertising dollars?

I did midwest, southwest, westwest, then northwest with a car. The next phase will take a plane, a camper, and some nerve for an attitude I’m not too keen on, if my limited exposure to east coasters is any indication.

But don’t worry, east coasters, I’m leaving the Zombie Blade I packed on the streets of Portland at home.

Below are the links to the week’s posts. I’ll continue updating, as I’m able, during this next phase. Don’t stop scrolling after the links and customary request for donations because I have a song that will eventually have a video to accompany it at the very bottom. Now, links:

Hey, GUYS And Gals, Won’t You Please Dream A Little Dream With Me? (September 11th, 2023)

Maybe Instead Of Helping Others So Much I Should Focus More On Myself (September 12th, 2023)

Montana’s Criminal Justice System Is An Embarrassment From Top To Bottom (September 13th, 2023)

Provoking Public Anger Then Claiming To Be Victims Of That Anger Is The Real Trend, Gwen (September 14th, 2023)

Creating Unsafe Situation For Those Who Lack Appropriate Housing (September 14th, 2023)

Your Occult Imagery Is Boring, Mural Artists (September 15th, 2023)

And the requests for donations can be made through Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF), or my about page.

Thanks for reading! Now listen to this:

by Travis Mateer

Here’s a poem for your Friday, along with more selections of mural art from my travels. These images are from Eureka, in Northern California.

artists reaching for the cool 
with Saturn rings and easy horns 
is it the market in your skull 
instead of you that I should scorn?

public funded paint on brick
mural language no one reads 
but as I roll through your towns 
I track how these fuckers feed

Billy Shakespeare by the clown 
see the trumpet Louis plays?
he’s not there to entertain you 
as you go about your days 

just a planet?  just a cube?
color choices no big deal?
that’s a dangerous attitude 
and disconnected from what’s real

which, I’ll tell you, isn’t much 
even what you think you hold 
solid matter is illusion
dancing between hot and cold 

red my breath is dragon heat 
blue I’m gliding through a pool 
me is me, I’m not Chinese 
but if you want, I’ll play the fool

archetypal puppet hand 
do not put your fingers there 
my circuit breaker isn’t working 
shocking jolts could harm and scare 

art that threatens is art that hopes 
beauty can find form again 
sad my pen is on the ropes 
Weldon Kees, where did you end?

You can support my work with Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF), or making a donation at my about page.

Thanks for reading!

by Travis Mateer

The Poverello Center opened its new location during the winter of 2014, six years after I started working at the original location, which was in Downtown Missoula, on Ryman Street. The picture above shows the new building in the process of being built where it now stands, on 1110 West Broadway.

This stretch of Broadway was already a bit controversial due to something called the Broadway road diet, which converted this 4 lane gateway into Missoula to 3 lanes. The time frame for this conversion coincided with the beginning of John Engen’s tenure as Mayor in 2006, and the way it was handled, in hindsight, was an indication of things to come under Engen.

What do I mean? I mean Engen placated public opinion with disingenuous support for RETURNING the diet to its original 4 lane configuration while the city moved ahead with making the changes permanent. From the link (emphasis mine):

Missoula Mayor John Engen continues to promote returning West Broadway between Orange and Russell streets to a four-lane roadway at the same time construction continues to make the section a more permanent-looking three-lane configuration.

The Missoula Downtown Association and the Missoula Chamber of Commerce are attempting to support the mayor’s notion with citizen backing by circulating a petition to put the issue on the November ballot.

The two organizations are attempting to gather 12,500 valid signatures by Aug. 15 from city residents who are registered voters. To make sure they have enough the actual goal is 15,000.

About 18 months ago the MDA gathered 4,000 signatures opposing the conversion to a three-lane roadway but pulled back when it appeared negotiations might help avoid the change. MDA vice president for advocacy Rod Austin said city officials had told the MDA if the organization was opposed to the diet it would be shelved. But before they knew it the three-lane option had come back as a done deal.

Yep, sounds about right, and after 17 years the road diet is STILL in effect, and the new Poverello Center is one reason why.

It was VERY contentious to relocate western Montana’s largest emergency shelter and soup kitchen, and without the work of the National Building Coalition Institute, I’m not sure our Missoula community would have accepted putting a shelter on a busy road that brings visitors from the west into the heart of our downtown.

Here’s a little summary about the work NCBI did, and who funded it:

The City of Missoula, with support from United Way of Missoula County, contracted with NCBI in June 2011 to coordinate a community process regarding the Poverello Designed in response to the overwhelming outcry from Westside neighbors and others asking to be included in the site selection process, the overall purpose of this project was to create a constructive way for large numbers of community members with diverse interests to engage in meaningful dialogue with the Poverello Center and -making. The New Facility Community Process had four phases: 1) Assessment, 2) Community Meeting #1, 3) Working Group, and 4) Community Meeting #2. Amie Thurber, Director of NCBI Missoula, facilitated the process, with direction and oversight from a planning team established by Mayor Engen.

As a staff member of the Pov, I was very involved in this NCBI process, attending all the community forum meetings and advocating with community members for the dire need for a new facility. Like I said in comments yesterday, the downtown shelter was operating OVER CAPACITY in terms of how many people were being served in that Ryman location, but this was allowed by the Fire Chief because the alternative was more people dying on the streets from exposure, which was a seasonal reality.

Well, what about dying on the street because the homeless shelter is next to a busy road where a beautiful river on the other side of the street draws anyone, including homeless clients, to enjoy a nice stroll to a shady location where booze, meth, or fentanyl can be consumed.

The woman pictured above was involuntarily committed to a local psychiatric unit, with the help of my testimony, because she thought she was invisible, thus impervious to traffic, and would therefore regularly just walk into the street, forcing vehicles to stop. The judge in the hearing had actually almost hit this woman herself, so she recused herself and another judge came in to finish the hearing.

Since leaving my job at the shelter, I’ve had to slam on my brakes at least a half-dozen times while driving this stretch of Broadway as people simply don’t seem to care, or even recognize the danger, of walking into traffic, so it was just a matter of time before this happened. From the link:

Missoula Police officers were on scene at a fatal pedestrian versus vehicle collision in front of the Poverello Center on Wednesday night.

An officer on scene said a young man, roughly in his 30s died. The driver of the suspect car was being cooperative with the investigation, and police were working to determine if impairment was a factor.

Was impairment a factor? Quite possibly, but knowing how often the usually benign infraction of jaywalking is carried out by clients of the shelter in this area, I suspect the impairment of the PEDESTRIAN was a more significant factor than whatever state of mind the motorist was in.

Earlier in the day my comment at the housing committee warned that creating unsafe situations with allowing drug and alcohol use would lead to fatal outcomes, like what happened to Sean Stevenson INSIDE the Poverello Center on January 3rd, 2020.

I didn’t expect my warning to come to fruition in less than 12 hours, so maybe I should be more cautious when invoking Cassandra and claiming I don’t intend to play this role in our community because, well, it didn’t work out so well for Cassandra.

Cassandra was given the gift of prophecy, but was also cursed by the god Apollo so that her true prophecies would not be believed. Many versions of the myth relate that she incurred the god’s wrath by refusing him sexual favours after promising herself to him in exchange for the power of prophecy.

Interesting. I didn’t realize Cassandra’s curse derived from not putting out for a god. Also, before she was killed, Cassandra had twins.

Once Troy had fallen, Cassandra was taken as a pallake (concubine) by King Agamemnon of Mycenae. While he was away at war, Agamemnon’s wife, Clytemnestra, had taken Aegisthus as her lover. Cassandra and Agamemnon were later killed by either Clytemnestra or Aegisthus. Various sources state that Cassandra and Agamemnon had twin boys, Teledamus and Pelops, who were murdered by Aegisthus.

I know, maybe what we need is to give MORE MONEY to the HIC (Homeless Industrial Complex) so they can hire more consultants and do some more master planning, with this latest predictable casualty functioning as an opportunity to exploit community heart-strings for some donations and/or timely victim-shielding from public criticism.

If you’re tired of how human lives are being exploited by our Homeless Industrial Complex, then consider supporting Travis’ Impact Fund (TIF), or making a donation at my about page.

Thanks for reading!