# Cheeta says Hi / magic castle squatter film vision



## tony longshanks (May 2, 2018)

Hello squatters & misfit travelers, my name is Cheeta (that's not the name the housies get, but it's the name that you get!). I've been semi-lurking & occasionally posting on this forum for a while, minus a proper introduction. I finally thought of a good one. So, a couple years ago I was squatting in this under-construction house where construction had stalled in Portland. I got ten months out of that place, to my surprise, & though it had no utilities & was stripped down to studs & boards & I went through a winter there with no utilities, it still ranks as one of my favorite squats ever so far, so fond did I grow of its humble, dusty, empty perfection during the time we were together. (I kind of date my squats & homes instead of people...) And when the construction workers found me there, they turned out to be crazy cool, treating me almost like a rare wild animal & giving me a wide berth, finally (after months of quietly observing my presence there) they requested I begin leaving so they could resume construction, but they were gentle & cool about it & even offered me a job working in a trailer & watching the construction site for them.

This is the setup to what I'm about to share now. One morning in this squat, after I'd made it through the winter & golden days had come again, I woke up from what I immediately felt was one of the most significant dreams I've ever had in my life; the dream I'd been waiting for, that was like the kernel of an art plant I want to grow in the forest of my future.

It involved a couple kids who go wandering up in some green endless hills, not unlike the ones I'm currently in & out of in northern California, & discover the ruins of a crumbling castle. They & some friends starts hanging out there, then squatting in it, turning it into their pirate playhouse, fixing it up & adding things, returning to their normie home in town less & less frequently, until finally they want to spend all the time at their squat castle. 

(I was going to call it _The Magic Castle_, until I realized that kind of sounds like _The Magic Asshole_, & I don't want hardcore porn jokes to ruin this vision, it's too sweet...)

They ultimately face some conflict, something that threatens to take the squat away from them, which could be a veiled parable about no trespassing / private property vs. freedom of land & life. I want it to have the tone of a children;s book for adults, though, like Where the Wild Things Are, or Pippi Longstocking, rather than a strident anarchist political propaganda piece.

I want the early parts, before the threat materializes, to have a warm & glowing splendor to them, the excitement rush of starting a new radical housing space with friends on free land... translated into the form of a storybook

I am working on a script & seeking collaborators to make a short movie of this idea. It has such potential. We need a location. Abandoned sights such as the decaying amusement park I heard about somewhere in Oregon could be used. Anyone know of any crumbling castles or stone structures, closer to California than Transylvania?

CHEETA is all ears....


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## AAAutin (May 3, 2018)

tony longshanks said:


> decaying amusement park I heard about somewhere in Oregon



Wait, there's a ghost park in Oregon?! Rad!


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## tony longshanks (May 3, 2018)

AAAutin said:


> Wait, there's a ghost park in Oregon?! Rad!



An art friend of mine in Portland, OR told me about it years ago... I wish to gosh I'd paid more attention when she was telling me where it was!


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## AAAutin (May 3, 2018)

It must be this one near the Enchanted Forest in Salem.

Gotta check it out the next time I'm in Oregon!


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## tony longshanks (May 3, 2018)

AAAutin said:


> It must be this one near the Enchanted Forest in Salem.
> 
> Gotta check it out the next time I'm in Oregon!



Thank you for clearing up that mystery! Please do post about it after you visit. Photos would be delightful....


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## tony longshanks (May 5, 2018)

The artist colony where I'm landed right now is having art parties this weekend & next, as part of Marin Open Studios, & I've been invited by one of the 275 local artists to participate, so I cobbled together a few paintings / artworks & put together this little 2-page "Cheeta Post" to hand out to a few special friends, along with copies of the Summer 2018 issue of the Sling Shot, which just arrived today in time...


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## tony longshanks (May 6, 2018)

Here lemme post image JPEGS of the two page document


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## tony longshanks (May 8, 2018)




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## tony longshanks (May 20, 2018)

Wow, this weekend while down-low camping in West Marin County, CA, I saw a red fox, the most vulpine of animals (Latin name _vulpes vulpes_), for the first time... felt blessed by nature to see that! And felt blessed by the universe to have finally discovered Bolinas. But I won't talk about it.


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## tony longshanks (May 20, 2018)

CHEETA JOURNAL
Sunday May 20th, 2018

Just now on my way back from visiting Stinson Beach & BOlinas (wh0A!!!) for the first time, I met a fine young hobo, from Delaware, outside the Mill Valley Safeway. He told me about someone calling the police on him for drinking beer & having a large, visible hunting knife in the morning in public. "If you have a problem with something I do, don't go hide with your cell phone & CALL THE POLICE!" he roared indignantly, "COME UP & TALK TO ME, LIKE A HUMAN BEING!" He criticized the "plastic" nature of some of Marin County & California. It echoed comments by some of the people I moved with the other day in Sausalito, who spoke disparagingly, & truthfully, of the abundance of spoiled rich kids in this area who "only care about how much money you have, nothing else matters for them." Yeah. I've noticed that, too. But he also said numerous people were generous & friendly, coming oup to him outside Safeway to ask if he needed anything, one woman handing him a twenty dollar bill, another guy buying him two giant cans of Foster's malt liquor & a magazine, & other things like that that made me smile to hear. He said Delaware is largely populated by folks who are a hippie / redneck hybrid (which honestly sounds alright to me); as well as a not inconsiderable black population; plus a sturdy showing of the Amish, riding by obstinately on their old-school stagecoaches (which look like a better idea to me by the day, the way our technology-obsessed culture is heading...); that it is largely flat farm land, a peninsula, about 100 miles long & 50 miles wide at its widest point; not so far from Baltimore, Maryland, my nearest geological reference point in the area. He had intense, direct eye contact, & made me feel like "this guy is something like Thoreau reincarnated." Like I imagine Thoreau to have been, no doubt. I was convinced of his solid integrity. He said jail in Santa Fe was hellish. It sounds like you really don't want to be visibly homeless in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

But I am just back from a town on the West Coast of Marin --- the west of the west of the West (Marin, California, USA) --- that blew my mind. I can't talk about it.


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