Characters & Locations
Part 3
Amsterdam USA Italy
( Breaking Though The Simulation )2005 - 2009
In April 2006 Loid was invited by a friend to join him in Amsterdam for a weekend.
In a small hotel room Loid had an experience that didn't have a beginning or end. The experience didn't last for minutes or hours or days... it lasted FOREVER.
Sometimes even now and just for a moment it can be felt. Loid is still inside the Infinite Melting Hotel Room in Amsterdam... and all of reality is an illusion.
Nothing was ever the same after Amsterdam.
Amsterdam
April 2006
Wooden Shoes
Back Ally with Bird
Amsterdam canal with street art
Public urinal
My friend who invited me to Amsterdam for the weekend
House being held up by a wooden pole
Hand on breast with lock between cobble stones
The Flag and Symbol of Amsterdam
Amsterdam's "Red Light" District
The Magic Mushroom Gallery
Purchased Mushrooms with "Facts and Tips"
Loid was 34 years old and had never tried any psychedelic or mind altering drug in his life up to that point and rarely even drank alcohol. Nothing that he had read on the subject of psychedelics or The Psychedelic Experience before the trip to Amsterdam could have prepared him for what happened in that hotel room. He imagined that the mushrooms would make him see beautiful patterns and colors that would be pleasant and inspiring. Loid did not comprehend how completely unprepared he was for the approaching apocalyptic experience of Ego Death. He could not have known that the next 10 hours (Earth Time) would irreversibly and completely change his life forever!
New York
2005 - 2006
Manhattan 4 Years After 9/11
Strawberry Fields (memorial) Central Park
Friend Dancing at a Manhattan Nightclub
Friends Dancing at a Manhattan Nightclub
Loid In Wonderland - Central Park, New York
Like any normal day until the chest pains began
38 years old and recovering from his Heart Attack
Recovering in a hospital in Manhattan
Circola della Domenica
Subway at Christopher Street in Greenwich Village
GO HOME TOURISTS
Can almost see the hospital in The Village where he died in front of Loid.
It was only a moment for his boyfriend... he took no notice... but for Loid, the trauma would forever trap his soul in a very specific moment in time.
California Arizona
2005 - 2006
America in Iraq. War protest on the beach of Santa Monica, California
A cross for every dead American in the Iraq war, War protest on the beach of Santa Monica, California
Top of Runyon Canyon, Los Angeles
Loid's Boss's 2nd Exhibition in Los Angeles
LIGHTRAY
Loid's best friend in Los Angeles calling Gio in Italy
Circola della Domenica
Wiggin Out
Friends at a Circle K in Phoenix
The first time. September 2006 Phoenix
Los Angeles Sunset
Rimini, Italy
2007 - 2009
After wandering the Earth most of his adult life, never staying in one place for more than a couple years, the 24th floor of the Grattacielo di Rimini (Skyscraper of Rimini) in Italy was to become Loid's 'permanent' home...
View of Rimini, Italy from the balcony of Loid and his boyfriend's new home. ( To the right side is the 2000 year old Roman Tiberius Bridge )
Loid had been living with his italian boyfriend though most of the 2000s in Italy as an illegal alien by overstaying his tourist visa a month or two each year without incident. It did however began to complicate and intensify his lifelong struggle with paranoia. Since highschool his oldest friend would always call him, "Paranoid Loid".
Home renovation in progress on the 24th floor of the Grattacielo di Rimini (Skyscraper of Rimini)
Another Brick Off The Wall
Rehearsing something. Always something.
Raised platform complete
On the Balcony above Rimini
In 2007, after already overstaying his tourist visa by a whole year, Loid and his Itlainan boyfriend bought a condominium on the 24th floor of the Grattacielo di Rimini, Italy (The Skyscraper of Rimini). This place in the sky had southern facing windows overlooking the beach and Adriatic Sea. The large balcony faced west overlooking the Roman and Medival town of Rimini, Italy. Rimini is one of a few cities along a couple miles of coastline famous for summer beach vacations and famous restaurants and nightclubs.
Home Restoration Complete. Even then it seemed like a dream. Now it seems completely unreal.
Loid's desk in his studio on the 24th floor of the Skyscraper of Rimini. Gustav Klimt inspired acrylic on wood board.
Picnic above Rimini
The LIVING ROOM
In the Skyscraper elevator
TAO was the best cat in the whole world
Night view from the balcony on the 24th floor of the Skyscraper of Rimini with 2000 year old Roman Tiberius Bridge
There was always hope that gay marriage would someday solve both their immigration problems. Until then Loid had painted himself into a corner and there seemed no way out that did not leave a mess. To go though airport customs in Italy, where his passport would show the length he had overstayed his visa, could well end in deportation without the possibility to ever reentering Italy again. Or to stay in Italy illegally would mean living under constant threat of also being deported. In Italy when police pull your car over for a routine check everyone inside the car must get out and present their Identifications to ether the regular police or the militarily police. Every time Loid left his home in Italy and ventured outside he suffered from the constant paranoid fear of being deported and loosing everything.
Loid's Italian Psychologist
Another Italian Psychologist Above Rimini
In your 30s all your friends start to have babies
Gio and another friend's baby
Tango Party Above Rimini, Italy
Loid's Guardian Angel
LaRie & Gio Dancing to the DJ set up in the woman's restroom at Cocoricò Nightclub, Riccione
Loid's melancholy friend choosing an outfit for The Costume Party
Making a choice for The Costume Party
The Skyscraper of Rimini and Loid (Grattacielo di Rimini)
Loid had overstayed his tourist visa for the last 4 years in Italy. Living as an illegal alien in a foreign country, under constant threat of deportation, distorted Loid's reality. The paranoia he had experienced his whole life was now amplified and made real. The very real threat of loosing everything and never being able to return to Italy caused panic attacks and psychosis. All because gay marriage was not yet recognized by ether country.
Coast of the Adriatic Sea seen from Loid's studio on the 24th floor of the Grattacielo di Rimini (Skyscraper of Rimini) at night looking south with train station below.
Before the New Years Eve Party 2007/2008
Guest Dancing at New Years Eve Party 2007/2008
Guests Dancing at the New Years Eve Party 2007/2008
Wating for Fireworks at the window of Loid's studio. New Years Eve Party 2007/2008
New Years Eve Party 2007/2008
2 Italian Psychologists Skyping at Loid's desk at the New Years Eve Party 2007/2008
For a month in Spring 2008, in various apartments throughout the Grattacielo di Rimini (Skyscraper of Rimini), peoples homes were transformed into stages for the SOLD OUT theatrical extravaganza CAMPANELLI "Door Bells".
Azzurro Polvere (Blue Dust) Photos
Preformed in front of an audience in our living room twice a night
Azzurro Polvere (Blue Dust) Video of Performance
Preformed in front of an audience in our living room twice a night
A Void of Loids
In 2008 Loid began having a series of severe Panic Attacks. The stress of the attacks began to form cracks in his relationship to everyone around him.
"L'amore Cava Dalla Carne le Bestie e le lascia libere sotto un temporalele"
( Love Carves the Flesh of the Beasts and Leaves Them Free Under a Thunderstorm )
Photo credit Chico de Luigi
Skyscraper of Rimini at night as seen from the 2000 year old Tiberius Bridge ( Grattacielo di Rimini )
Loid Experiencing Zen Psychosis As THE TOWER Begins To Collapse
THE TOWER (Tarot Card) .--Misery, distress, indigence, adversity, calamity, disgrace, deception, ruin,. It is a card in particular of unforeseen catastrophe. Reversed: Negligence, absence, distribution, carelessness, apathy, nullity, vanity
Loid's studio on the 24th floor of The Skyscraper of Rimini ( Grattacielo di Rimini )
That vision became the video art project:
Loid and The Technological Singularity in his studio on the 24th floor of THE TOWER / Skyscraper of Rimini ( Grattacielo di Rimini )
Loid's cat TAO Yawning and Yawning and Yawning
Loid's oldest friend experiencing The Technological Singularity above Rimini, Italy
In Loid's studio with his Best Friend from Argentina and his cat TAO X 3
6 months after Loid's experience in Amsterdam his Italian boyfriend had a heart attack in front of him and appeared to have died while they were renting an apartment for 6 months in Greenwich Village, New York. Since then Loid had begun to exhibit symptoms of psychosis and an increase in the paranoia he had dealt with his whole life. These symptoms greatly increased during the last years in Italy living as an illegal alien on the 24th floor of a Tower on the opposite side of the planet from where he was born.
Il fuoco di San Giuseppe ( Saint Joseph's Bonfire) on the beach of Rimini below THE TOWER
Loid's psychologist friend recommended a therapist to help overcome the fear of being deported, getting on a plane, returning to the USA, leaving Italy, and leaving his only home. All sessions of therapy were done with the idea that taking the chance of leaving and reentering Italy legally would give Loid more options to stay permanently and become a resident of a country that had felt like home for so many years.
On The 24th Floor of THE TOWER Walking Away From It All
Video of Loid and his best friend's last Sunday together in Italy
Loid and his best friend from Argentina saying goodbye in front of the 2000 year old Roman Tiberius Bridge and the Skyscraper of Rimini ( Grattacielo di Rimini )
24 floors above Rimini, Italy they would talk endlessly about Space and Time and about the approaching Technological Singularity,
Last view from Loid's studio window before leaving Italy forever
Rimini, ItalySeptember 2009Some Things Are Not Meant to Be
is the hypothesis that all of reality, including the Earth and the universe could be in fact an artificial simulation — for example by quantum computer simulation — indistinguishable from “true” reality. It could contain conscious minds which may or may not be fully aware that they are living inside a simulation. This is a proposed technology so advanced that it would seem realistic enough to convince its inhabitants the simulation was real.
This is quite different from the current, technologically achievable concept of virtual reality. Virtual reality is easily distinguished from the experience of actuality; participants are never in doubt about the nature of what they experience. Simulated reality, by contrast, would be hard or impossible to separate from "true" reality. There has been much debate over this topic, ranging from philosophical discourse to practical applications in computing.
CHRONOLOGY
