leslie moreland gaines, “documentary filmmaker,” con man, artistic failure, hypocrite, and all around evil son of a bitch
Category Archives: science
Leslie Gaines, purported “filmmaker”
Leslie Gaines is a criminal, a con man and an artistic failure. He stole business assets from me personally, to the tune of six figures. Yes: $$$,$$$ He has left a bloody trail of many other duped & broken former “partners” behind him. I pity anyone who trusts him with their priceless time, credit rating, camera equipment, or vehicles. In addition to those crimes, he invaded my home and physically assaulted me. He is currently hiding out in Montana, plotting his next big con job. Warning: do not ever, under any circumstances, believe one word this man utters.
He is a pathological liar. He never speaks truth. He sheds crocodile tears. He is a bad actor. He is a bad “filmmaker.” He is a hypocrite, a racist, and a descendant of General Gaines, one of the foremost murderers of native Americans in this country’s history. He, himself, is quite literally cursed by the Seminole and the Miccosuccee tribes — they have judgments against him for millions: $,$$$,$$$, and he will never be able to own property in his own name as long as he lives. I believe he is suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s, or some other form of dementia. Or, just as likely, he has just rotted his brain with too much drinking & drugging.
He abuses women, uses & emotionally abuses everyone he meets, and continues to steal & abuse me emotionally by using my deceased brother’s name as a credit on his illegally obtained footage! I pray that he doesn’t harm anyone else. Look at his face and run from it, should you see him. Forewarned is forearmed. I owe the world this warning, both as a human being and a fourth generation attorney.
Filed under legal writing, notes, science
Soon After My College Graduation, a novel fragment
Soon After My College Graduation, a novel fragment
Soon after my college graduation, I became engaged to Harold. I’d known him since freshman year; we had dated casually until my senior year, when he watched me perform with the modern dance ensemble and fell in love with the way I moved across the stage in my clingy leotard and filmy skirts. Everyone in the family adored him. My father, who never learned to drive a car himself, let Frank drive our very first car home from the dealer. Though I was happy about the engagement, I wasn’t in a rush to marry. I wanted to work for a few years, get a taste of the world before settling down at home with a brood. My parents were skeptical, but they didn’t make a fuss. They knew I wanted a big family, at least six.
Harold was very good-looking: strong chin, auburn hair, lean and athletic torso. We were engaged, so it was the usual custom to sleep together. His touch was delicate, his hands smooth and lovely. It was a peaceful, dreamy experience, being with him. He gave me a pear-shaped blue diamond set in platinum — I wore it and real silk stockings to the office every day. My family was just middle class, but people thought I was rich. Nobody knew my father got the stockings free as part of his job at the patent office. In those days my hair was dark brown, cut in a short pageboy, draped gracefully over my forehead and curled at the ends. I looked good in simple tailored skirts; my legs were long and well-formed from all that dancing. Of course the stockings were a plus!
It was about a year into the engagement to Harold that I happened to work with the same young lawyer on several complicated adoptions, right in a row — Robert was Italian, short and bald, and his suits were nicely cut though threadbare. Something about the confidence in his fluid voice grabbed my attention; one evening after work we met for a drink. He wasn’t classically handsome, but he had bright, lively features and a charming way with funny stories. That night, over a pitcher of Rob Roys, he confided to me that he was leaving the Department after the first of the year. He had an office and secretary all lined up, and could hardly wait to get into practice on his own. We ordered another pitcher of drinks to celebrate his daring move.
I suppose my big mistake was letting him take me out to dinner, too. I was drunk: not so drunk I didn’t know what was happening, just so drunk that I didn’t much care. Robert touched my cheek, tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear, then closed his eyes and sighed. I was all over him in a second — he kept saying, are you sure, are you sure? As I unzipped his trousers, he asked, what about Harold? I said, I don’t owe him anything. What I had then with Robert was neither peaceful nor dreamy, but a jolt of electricity that kept my nerves humming for hours. Afterward, I held my breath for ten days, then kept right on holding it when my “friend” never showed up. I started having trouble sleeping. I was all mixed up. There was no one I could talk to.
See, if I married Robert and the kid looked WASP, no big problem. But if I married Harold and the kid came out looking Italian, what then? I went with the easiest lie. Does this seem terribly evil? I had no real alternative at the time. Now, I suppose I’d have an abortion and be done with it. It’s true that I felt a little less awful as time passed and Robert and I had three more children who resembled their father, but I was never entirely certain about Robert Junior’s pedigree — depending on the time of day and the season he had the look about him of both men.
Filed under health, legal writing, mysterious, prose poetry, science, short stories
The Healer and I, a prose poem
The Healer and I
Fay, the healer and I, the subject, both consult my body in its entirety. Fay directs me to examine the sensations within this body, the instrument of change I have placed upon her table. There is first the feeling of water dripping, ice melting, inside the body. The dripping is insistent, patient, slow. The water is flowing from the head to the feet, and from the feet down into the earth itself.
What is melting the ice? Light, and heat, from a source outside the body. The ice melts, bringing forgotten memories & feelings. A vision of mountaintops, sheathed in ice, but below the ice, green plants wait, alive, waiting to raise their heads, once the ice is gone. Luxuriant jungle foliage, frozen water holding it down. The ice melts, the water is freed — the water nourishes the plants growing on the mountainside. The water has been held in stasis, unable to feed the growth of the plants, but now it is melting.
The water is itself pure & clear, it does not care about having been frozen, it exists only in this moment, the moment of flow. The water is good, the force melting it is good, the plants are good, the mountain is good — there is no bad thing, only cycles of stasis & flux. We, Fay and I, are in a period of change.
The spine is specifically consulted, the spine feels stirrings it has not felt for some time. “Desolation is a file, and the endurance of darkness is preparation for great light.” (St. John of the Cross.) The frozen water has had its purpose — there can be no journey without rest. Soon, the ice will melt altogether. Yet the spine quivers with some unexamined tension, apart from the melting of the ice.
A sensation of another presence, another entity, squirming under the touch, ticklish, evading….
Filed under health, mysterious, prose poetry, science
MY ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY
Filed under health, mysterious, notes, science
MY ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY
of, like, not dying! from a nonmalignant brain tumor! in my frontal lobe, 35 cms. in diameter, had been there for between 17 & 34 years, they said. donated the tissue to UF’s mcknight brain institute thingie, took a month to cry, woke up, started asking for stuff i’d forgotten i enjoyed because i just thought i was tired all the time, my husband dumped me, that’s okay, he needed dumping his own damned self! so, here i am, 53, alive, happy, energetic, writing TONS, making new friends, etc. etc. etc. and, like getting my ENTIRE FUCKING LIFE back in order, which hubby darling had let slide during his ten years of freeloading off me! like, everything he wanted got done, and basically nothing i wanted got done. so, there was that little tidbit. but, to get back to the point, like, dude, i am totally alive & enjoying myself! for the first time in probably 20 to 25 years!!!!! or whenever that frontal lobe thingie started affecting me. how big does something in the most sensitive, the most HUMAN part of the brain have to be to affect you? probably not all that big. so, you can see how by the end of that little “episode” i was SORT OF TIRED. not tired now. and single! and happy! and, i have a really super hot boyfriend! who is NICE TO ME! who wants me to succeed at what I THINK IS IMPORTANT. so, like, damn! things are looking up!!!!!!
Filed under health, humor, mysterious, notes, science
my tete a tete with officer charles owens, a nonfiction note
“What can I do for you, officer?”
“Why are you so hostile?”
He asked for my license and registration and proof of insurance, which I gave him. He walked back to his vehicle and did whatever police officers do, I suppose run my driver’s license number to make sure I wasn’t wanted for some crime or something. And to make sure the vehicle wasn’t stolen, I suppose. And to make sure I had insurance, because that was something else he could have given me a ticket for. I do give Ofc. Owens points for being thorough. Just not any points for being correct.
“I’m giving you a ticket for careless driving.”
“How was my driving careless?”
“I heard your tires squeal.”
“But the road is wet, it has been misting for at least the past hour, maybe two.”
“The road is perfectly dry.” The mist swirled around his head as he spoke those words. I thought to myself, doesn’t he notice it?
“Is this the best use of your valuable law enforcement time? Giving a woman driving home alone at one a.m. in a white Toyota minivan a ticket because you heard her tires squeal on the damp pavement?”
“I smell beer on your breath.”
“Well, I did have one with dinner, about four hours ago, I haven’t brushed my teeth yet. I suppose that’s it. Would you like to perform a field sobriety test?”
“No.”
“Would you like to do a breathalyzer?”
“I’d have to call the van. Do you want me to call the van?”
“Sure, let’s have a party! No, that’s okay, you don’t have to call the van.”
Further discussion, about the ramifications of the ticket, etc., how to contest it, etc.
“Oh, you have a dog? What’s his name?”
“Justice.”
“Can I meet him?”
“No.”
“Can I take your photograph?”
“Yes.” I did so. It wasn’t the greatest, as his eyes were closed, but under the circumstances I did not think it wise to ask to take another. Ofc. Owens was clearly having a bad night.
When I first saw Officer Charles Owens, he was sitting inside his police vehicle, parked in the Lloyd Clarke’s parking lot, apparently conferring with another officer in another police vehicle. They were both inside their vehicles, each with the driver’s window rolled down, the vehicles thus facing in opposite directions. I am not certain, but the other officer may have been a female, as it seems I remember seeing a ponytail.
When Ofc. Owens first noticed me, I was turning left on to 13th Street from 16th Avenue. I had been hauling heavy vanloads of farm equipment earlier in the day, from Gainesville to Micanopy, and now my van was empty, and much lighter. After all the farm transportation, I had taken a friend to dinner and then dropped him off at his home and stood in his carport talking with him for half an hour or so, and the entire time I watched mist coming down.
I was very tired, and traveling by myself, back to an empty house, a situation I had not found myself in, in decades. Due to the mist, when I pressed on the accelerator, the wet road caused a slight squeal from my tires. I did not veer from my carefully steered path, I did not speed, nor was there any other car in the intersection, or even anywhere near the intersection. At that hour on a Wednesday, the roads were practically empty.
Officer Owens’ car was the one pointed with its nose facing south, the direction in which I was traveling, so he immediately pulled out of the parking lot and followed me, his lights flashing. I pulled over as soon as I realized it was me he was following, and turned right, on to 10th Avenue.
I was then two blocks or so from home. I rolled down the window of my car after he approached my vehicle, and asked him, in what I thought was my nicest and most cooperative voice, what I could do for him. I was exhausted and getting divorced in two days, but I did my best to be polite.
The first thing he said to me was why was I so “hostile.” I told him I wasn’t feeling hostile in the slightest, but that I was very, very tired and just wanted to get home, and being a female driving across town, alone at 1 a.m., was not something I enjoyed. I was, however, annoyed, because I thought his stopping me was entirely unnecessary and a waste of valuable taxpayer resources.
I started to tell Ofc. Owens a couple of pertinent facts that might have affected his decision-making processes, such as the fact that I was being divorced in two days, by my husband of ten years, after almost dying from a brain tumor the previous April, a tumor which had been wrapped around my optic nerve and the major aorta in my brain and had been in that site for between 17 to 34 years, and had made me feel horrible for at least the prior 5 years. I was getting divorced, as far as I could tell, because my husband preferred me half-dead and didn’t like the fact that I was not in that state anymore, and actually wanted him to get off the couch once in a while.
“I don’t want to hear any of your personal information,” he said as soon as I said my first word on those topics. I complied, and did not insist to be heard.
I live at the corner of 8th Avenue and 15th Street, and I am well aware of the driving skills usually displayed on 13th Street. Careless driving is not what I do. I am an excellent driver, and the only accident on my record was one in which my then-teenaged daughter’s car was parked in the driveway of my home, and a drunken college student plowed into it, and into the tree next to the driveway, and sped off with such haste that the smell of burning rubber could be smelt for hours afterwards.
The insurance company told me that even though my car was unoccupied and parked, I was being charged with an at fault accident because the vehicle was in my name. I was told there was nothing I could do about it. I live in an extremely loud, noisy and “party” neighborhood, which I nonetheless love and tolerate because I like to be in the middle of town. Needless to say, I know the value of the police force and respect what they do highly. However, Ofc. Owens made a bad call. It happens. Everyone makes mistakes. One was made here. I was not driving carelessly. End of story.
Filed under humor, legal writing, mysterious, notes, science
Jack, the Triple War Veteran, a nonfiction
Jack, the Triple War Veteran, a nonfiction
I met Jack, the 91-year-old, 52-years-of-service-including-3-wars, Army veteran on May 31st, 2013, approximately two months after I “woke up” from what was [then] my life, when I went to go fill my mom-mobile (white minivan) with mid-grade gasoline products (it may be only a mom-mobile, but i have a NEED FOR SPEED) at the Gate convenience store/gas station two blocks or so from my house. I saw him sitting over by the vacuum/air/water station, on the round, concrete base of a streetlamp, his sleek, black, wheeled walker/chair thingie so piled up with odds and ends of clothes, shoes, and bags of snacks that it looked more like a shopping cart from across the parking lot. His hair and beard were striking: long, silvery white, shiny and silky and clean. He looked like a very trim, fit Santa Claus, and when I first saw him, I would never have guessed he was 91 years old. I approached him because I am what some people call a “bleeding heart liberal,” that is, my heart sort of sags and melts when I am confronted with people having needs that, to them, loom insolvable, and in actuality can be solved with a couple of $5 or $10 bills.
“Sir,” I said, “I don’t want to offend you in any way, but do you need anything? Can I do anything for you? Anything at all? Do you need a few bucks, maybe?”
“Honey,” he said. “I’ve been saving my money all my life!” He took his wallet out, showed me a bunch of folded bills, and pulled a big stack of quarters out of his shorts’ pocket. Jack was born in West Virgina, called himself a good, old hillbilly.
“Jack’s a great name,” I said. “One of my grandpas was named Jack.”
“They named me after the dog!” he said.
“Well, they must have loved that dog,” I said. “It must have been a terrific dog!”
“They still named me after the dog,” he said. I have named pets after people, and wanted to do the reverse, just never had the actual opportunity. (Wait for it!)
“I went to West Virginia once,” I said. “I was in Morgantown.”
“The University of West Virginia!” he said.
“I know, it’s a beautiful town,” I said. “And the state is beautiful, all those green hills.”
Turns out, he’s hanging out at the convenience store to get away from his daughter. “She wants me to be the child, and her to be the parent, now,” he said. “I’m too old for that!”
“I hear you,” I said. “Does she know where you are?”
“I don’t really want her to,” he said. “She lives right down the street, in a house I bought her back in 1972.”
He named his first rifle Miss Betty….
He was with Patton in N. Africa, at just 18 yrs. old, he was for a brief time Patton’s assistant? Patton’s army was chasing Rommel, he and Jack started arguing over which way Rommel should to go; they disagreed (he & Patton) but Jack turned out to be right. In a rage, Patton grabbed his (Jack’s) rifle once & shot into the air with it. Yes, I could see General Patton doing such a thing. Hahaha.
His daughter, whom he is on the lam from, is nicknamed BooBoo: she got that nickname because as a baby she’d hide behind cabinets, furniture, poke her head out & say Boo, Daddy, Boo!
He is not married now, he likes it that way, nobody telling him what to do.
When I told him how nice he looked, how he didn’t look 91 at all: “I take care of myself! I’ve got to! People say I’m a loner, but it’s three of us: me, myself and I.”
God’s on his right shoulder, sometimes God tells him things, what to do or not to do: sometimes he doesn’t listen, does what he wants, not what God says. Later, he hears God saying, I told you so. God has blessed him. Every time we shook hands, me trying to exit stage right because my own 15 year old BooBoo was at home waiting for me to get back, he said, “God bless you,” and I said, thank you so much. His eyes, the pale clear blue of a child’s, the twinkle of a child’s, the mischievous, rascally soul shining out of them. But a good, good man. Stationed all over the world and the United States of America. The state of Florida was the site of his last posting. He got misty-eyed thinking about one of his predeceased children, another daughter, however, he did not mention her name, and because of aforementioned misty-eyed-ness, I did not ask.
They once had a terrible episode of anthrax on the farm, when he was a child? The cow had to get shots from the vet, they couldn’t use the cow’s milk for 6 weeks, then it was OK. That cow gave so much milk, she had to be milked three times a day, not just two.
He wore dog tags, wouldn’t let me look at them: “the last person that sees these is the one who’s supposed to bury me.”
“Well, I certainly don’t want to be the last to see them, then,” I said.
A student buying beer stopped & handed him a tall cold water bottle. Jack thanked the boy warmly, saying “God bless you,” then after the boy walked off, he handed me the bottle.
“Aren’t you going to need this?” I asked him, concerned.
“I’ve got everything I need right here,” he said, pointing to his loaded “sulky,” a plastic grocery bag hanging: was that the water? “Besides,” he said, “that’s too cold. And besides, I really like beer.”
“But you might need this water later,” I protested.
“Look,” said Jack, “he gave it to me, I’m giving it to you. I’m just in the middle.” I had to accept, gracefully, so I did, but I still felt a bit guilty. The gift was Jack’s, but he wouldn’t keep it, he had to pass it along to me.
The store clerk, a young African American lad, came out to check on us; I think he wanted to make sure I wasn’t endangering Jack. Jack handed him a huge pile of quarters, asked if he’d bring him out some beer.
“What kind?” the young man asked.
“O.P.,” Jack answered.
The clerk was confused. “What’s that?” he said?
“Other people’s,” laughed Jack.
“I think he means it really doesn’t matter what kind of beer you bring him,” I said to the young man. So he went inside with the money, came back out with a boxed six-pack & Jack’s excess change.
A woman, with a hard-lived look, came over to talk to us. She knew Jack already, addressed him by name. She was also a veteran, Operation Desert Storm. She asked me if I could spare some gas money. “It’s the end of the month,” she explained, “and I’m coming up short. I just have to make it a few more days.”
“Sure,” I said, relieved that I could at least give her something, fulfill the impulse that had brought me over to Jack. I went to my purse, grabbed a ten dollar bill. While I was doing that, I saw Jack getting his money out to give her some, too. He brought out a fiver. Jack and I handed her the money, she shook my hand & thanked us both, and went to pump her gas.
Jack was dressed like a cool surfer guy; shorts with a nice braided belt, no shirt, his dog tag necklace, a pinky ring carved out of some sort of jade on his right hand, a couple of funky/hipster/hippy bracelets on his left wrist. Quite fashionable looking, and I couldn’t get over the condition of his hair; silky & clean & shiny & sparkling silver, and the same with the beard, it grew to a natural point just below his breastbone. The only long beard I’ve ever seen that looked beautiful! His skin was amazingly smooth & healthy looking, considering the amount of sun exposure he must’ve seen! I mean, he was 91 and he had very little sun damage, not many wrinkles, though of course a bit of sagging around the jowls. No frown lines! His only physical flaw was some missing teeth; it was apparent he could have had dentures or a bridge if he’d wanted them, but I think he was more comfortable without.
When I was leaving, I blew him a kiss.
“I’d rather have the real thing,” he chuckled.
“I can’t,” I said, “I’m married.” We both laughed then. If I had known that day, May 31st, that my husband was going to dump me, unceremoniously, in front of the yard man, in the side driveway, I certainly would have kissed him (Jack!), full on the lips! Like, a billion times!
[If he’d had all his own teeth, not only might I have given him a closed-mouth smooch, but I probably would have tried somehow to fix him up with my former mother-in-law who live[d] in my attached guest house (that I built for her & her husband, who died 3 years ago, but who would be 91 now) (who was the only decent person in THAT entire FUCKING FAMILY). Said former “mother in law”
was, and is still, an ignorant idiot and would have been put off by Jack’s missing teeth. Plus, she is, as we used to say in middle school, “mental.”] *ahem* NO FURTHER COMMENT PERMITTED, BY LAW. Did you know, that for IRS purposes, you can NEVER GET RID OF AN IN-LAW? Once an “in law” for tax purposes, always an “in law.” The law presupposes that divorced persons might still have attachments to one another’s family members. Hahahahaha. Isn’t that FUNNY?????
Oh, P.S. I, myself, now have a dog named… wait for it… JACK, a rescue from the Dixie County, Florida animal rescue organization, a sweet one-year-old weimaraner/yellow lab mix! Jack the dog’s eyes are yellow/green & deep….
Oh, and P.P.S. And you’re not going to believe this! On the way to present this piece at an “open mic” at Coffee Culture on 13th Street in Gainesville, Florida, the fabulous Tristan Harvey, emcee & manager of the joint, in any case, ON THE WAY TO THE FUCKING OPEN MIC, i ran in to jack, on the way! it was raining, i pulled over & asked him if he needed a ride. he said no, i said, isn’t your name jack, and HE LIED BECAUSE HE THOUGHT I WAS THERE CAPTURING HIM to take him back to his daughter!!!!!!
GODDAMNED TRUE STORY. BELIEVE IT, OR NOT.
um, but if you know what’s good for you, you’ll take my written words as GOSPEL TRUTH.
Filed under health, humor, legal writing, mysterious, notes, poetry, prose poetry, science, short stories
Friday, June 14, 2013, 3:24:22 AM
http://doingisbeing.com/category/conscious-health-care/
“we are all the universe manifested through a human nervous system and becoming self-aware; going beyond your ego-encapsulated identity; the secret of healing is the secret of enlightenment; healing is the return of the memory of wholeness; when you’re holy, you’re healed; when you’re healed you lose the fear of death; the best way to reach enlightenment is through the yoga of meditation; cosmic ideas; when you hear them over & over again, at first you may not understand them; but they cause a shift in your consciousness & everything changes.”
Filed under health, mysterious, notes, recommended reblogs, science
Kimberly Townsend Palmer 