THE SKULL ARMADA

GOING TOPSIDE WATCH YOUR ASS

2012-01-11T19:28:00.001-05:00

If you step back far enough from all the fine lines they end up looking like one big fat line, or maybe a complicated stringed instrument - in any case you start to think about other shit or catch a girl's eye or the tail end of a joke.

Self-medication is a label that has become a diagnosis which has become a disease. You could drive yourself crazy thinking about it because it seems like everything you do to make yourself better is some sort of med that will drain you crazy after X period of time. But that could just be a healthy fear of the stagnant, a common hatred of standing water. People don't love of the ocean because of its stillness.

In stories about heroes when they get their realisation and it's like POW, a sudden injection of health and power and clear-headedness, it's a juvenile admittance to the desire for severity and consequence. "If I had to face every possible negative consequence of my actions I would quickly become the most amazing person in the world." I'm sure of it. So sure I almost want to do something bad. Why did I lose interest in vandalism?

Trying to find the pulse of the world and hack it or bite it or break it

The sustaining energy that could be had from corrupting a perfect cycle

I've spent decades figuring out things my dad failed to impart, like car shit

I don't believe that you end up gay because you're daddy treated you weird

I mean everything helps everything along

But man just live the miracle and throw the crutches down

Give victory a MF hug

You made it, asshole

WORK ETHIC slash BOMBS AWAY

2011-12-07T00:17:00.001-05:00

I claim a Grade A for keeping track of my own life.

For a relatively lazy person I have a good work ethic. When I am at work the only person who can "waste my time" is my boss. I don't mean that negatively, I mean the only time I perceive myself not working is when I'm shooting the shit with my boss. Today it was, as always, conservative vs liberal BS. BS meaning were both pretty set in our ways, to each his own, and good luck to us both. High five. Back to work.

(Because it doesn't matter.)

I'm not a lazy person, that's just an accurate description. That's what it looks like if you could see it. When I don't do something I do nothing violently. The torrential reign of indifference is not as such the mad pursuit of sloth but the wild disintention of success and the six-ton shoulder-pads of failure threatening to sew themselves into a new coat.

Screw commas, they don't work like I talk. They don't work at all. Commas are lazy.

For as many horrible things I can think of to say about women I like them. All the women in my life right now are pretty awesome.

But my guy friends RULE. I sometimes wake up jealous of myself.

I've already written what I meant to now I find myself trying to be clever, a vain pursuit, so I'm going to admit to myself that I am really, really hellishly tired and am going to sleep.

MY TOP THREE FAVOURITE GINS:

Plymouth
Hendricks
Magellan

MY TOP THREE FAVOURITE WHISKY/EYs

LAGAVULIN
JAMESON
LAPHROIG

MY TOP THREE FAVOURITE BEERS

Carlsberg
High Life
Coor's Banquet

MY TOP THREE FAVOURITE ARTISTS

BRUCE NAUMAN
RICHARD PRINCE
??????toohard

MY TOP THREE FAVOURITE COLOURS

GREY
BLACK
RED (brown)

MY TOP THREE FAVOURITE ANIMALS

Elephants
Tigers
Bears

Dogs&Cats (decategorized for obvious reasons)

MY TOP THREE FAVOURITE WOMENS

Redheads
Kate Moss
Hot ones

CIGARETTES

Lucky Strike
Marlboro Red
Navy Cut

ASLEEP

WiggidywiggidywiggidyWACK

2011-11-17T00:33:00.001-05:00

Raleigh's back.

You realise later, but it's always a decision. Heaving your fat personality up from miserable self-loathing and selfishness to realise that that's not what you given people to expect. I've chosen to tear down a lot of the hoo-ha that separates personal from private. For a shallow example I know people my age who don't let their parents know they smoke cigarettes. I started this journey at the age of 17, telling my mom as a fact "I smoke, but I'm not asking permission [and not confessing]." I don't really believe in confession, but I believe in honesty. Confession provides too much consolation to the confessor, undeserved. People who keep secrets deserve shame and rejection. By secrets I mean things that people deserve to know taking their perspective into full account. "White lies" are usually called such to calm the beating hearts of people who don't want to ruin a good thing they've already fucked up.

All along the way I've attempted different "gives" of personality, of melding the 'who I am with my friends' with the 'who I am at home'/'with parent'/'with sibling'/'with roommate'/'with girl'/'with the elderly'/'with the young'/'with father' (....) and finally 'alone'.

It's a weird road, with definite obstacles and graduation. I made this blog public, my FLICKR public, my Facebook public, maybe one day I'll let people know where the bodies are.

(That's a joke, as much as I like Dexter I refuse to even kill bugs, especially spiders because they're hated on so much by the lesser sex,... or lesser of two evils....whatever.)

Women are like Kryptonite because they think they have power over stupid boyscout idiot super-douches. It's okay because they're 50 years behind the futility of the American Dream.

So I got the ix-nay on a kitten, but it's actually okay because now I have a dog named Dr. Zhivago who follows me around and presents toys for me to play with him with. If I don't play, he comes back with a different toy. He has lots of toys. I eventually give in. Every time.

He's SOOOOO cute.

The Courts of Ego and Sand

2011-11-10T22:12:00.001-05:00

I keep seeing something out of the corner of my eye. It freaks me out every time. These are the demons closing in. They flank and scurry. One of them is named Gerald and is not to be trifled with. He's always off the right eye. He's the one responsible for the daydreams in the asylum.

In 1993, in the "Fatal Attractions" storyline of the X-Men, Wolverine's adamantium skeleton is ripped out of his body (liquified), being separated and torn out through his skin by Magneto leaving only frayed bone. It was drawn by Andy Kubert, an X-Men regular and legend. The memory is visceral.

One day back in 2003 I was living on the North side and was driving down Ball St. I opened my eyes and panicked because in an almost audible snap my brain had reset. I had no idea where I was or who I was. It lasted maybe a split second, but long enough for the genuine feeling of loss and panic to enter my body and leave a lasting impression. I have no idea how this happened, it was like I just popped into existence for the first time in that moment, and then remembered everything shortly afterwards.

I have an intense imagination, I'm sure many can relate: this isn't special, nothing is. The Cult of Originality can burn in their unique flames. But I get things I call daymares. Yeah, it's that obvious, it's a daytime nightmare. It will sometimes occur at night while falling asleep but definitively before falling asleep, but often during the day too (always alone). I creep up on a thought and suddenly my brain/imagination takes over. I lose control of the thought/story. I lose vision (literally), I don't know where I am, it's just like dreaming and being asleep but I am not. Different phases in my life produce different scenarios. I have limited and sometimes no control. More recently it has been stories of me finding myself in an insane asylum/loony bin. Straight jacketed sometimes. It's usually a visit from someone close to me that urges me back to reality finding myself wide awake. I am watching myself as myself aware of myself. All conscious and all not in control. There is usually a breaking point where my storied self summits an uncontrollable emotion which "wakens" me and I realise I haven't been breathing or moving for the period of daymare. The reality of these daymares is inconceivably real, just like the most realest dream you've ever had, where you wake and have to bring things back in and take back control over your mind. Stupid insane asylum. Anyway, I've had probably 500-1500 daymares in my life, I can't be certain.

I feel pretty good about things. Today I will enter high-activity mode and produce results. It snowed. Rest is coming.

HAILING SHIPS FROM AFAR

2011-11-08T22:06:00.001-05:00

Moving reminds me that we all die alone. When you gather your belongings around you, initiating the displacement, when you perceive the emptiness of space left behind, when you get the bird's eye view, there's just... that immeasurable smallness of substance. What you've just packed is meaningless, they do not carry anything, they just work to support the facade of public and personal character which isn't in any way intrinsically self-defining. In an empty room and I am no more or less than in a full room. People or things. What can I see my reflection in? Boba, Darth, Stan, Roberta, Vishnu... all a harmless but appetite-less reflective bond of abstract ideas of quality. Does that reflection have any relevance or truth stowed away in it? It's annoying like walking up to friends, hearing their conversation and asking "what's a squirfil?" and them saying "If you don't know you wouldn't understand." Irrelevance to not know the answer

A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion. A woman crossing the road means you're on the leaving side. A man crossing the road means nothing.

Comedy is, black or not, exempt. When it is comedy, and people know it's comedy, there are no excuses needed nor explanations necessary. It can be scary, but it's a dare to laugh. You can reflect later. Some truth is hidden in comedy as there is in some art or creativity in general. The same people that say "don't judge a book by it's cover" will turn around and call you a racist for telling a white/black/Mexican/Polish/rabbi/little person/blah blah blah joke. Or a sexist for saying women are crazy. As if that's news. Lighten up. If you know me judge me by what you know, not by what I say, especially on Facebook, blogs, public spheres, impersonal trojans of media... or at the very least consider that I mean it but that it can be taken different ways, and may simply be contrasting or complimenting something else entirely. I understand generalizations and their relevance, therefore I use them often and pointedly.

Women who are passive aggressive should be poached, taxidermied, and sold. This is because they are often both beautiful and useless.

I just realised over the last year that I do not know what to do with my life. This makes me a very undesirable bachelor, but a very desirable bachelor-friend. I have varied interests, but if I have any legacy other than "that guy" I should probably figure something out now. There are motivated 20-somethings out there people, watch your backs. They're just as clever as you thought you were, and that scares you.

Oh, but why does moving remind me that we die alone... because we do. Mark Twain, Mozart, Moses, Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe, Mariah Carey, Mussolini, Mickey Mouse... will or have all died alone. It's okay, too. When you die, you'll be the only one dying. The only one leaving Earth. The only one realising that a lot of this shit didn't matter. And a lot of stuff you didn't think mattered did. Watches. Watches don't matter at all. I hate watches. I hate wearing them, I hate it when I see other people's. Especially now when you ask the time and they still check their phone. If the devil was an object he would be a watch. And women that ask why God is a he not a she should be just as defensive about the Devil, our closer relative. We are islands and we die alone. Sometimes our islands are closer to other islands, though.

Besides, who would you be dying with? A warm fuzzy feeling?

HUMAN BATTLES

2011-10-25T01:12:00.000-04:00

Every time I cease to be in a relationship it's like being an animal released from a cage. Sort of like a dumb animal. When a dog hears the word "walk" or "outside" and anxiously rises and stretches its legs while wagging it's tail.

I don't mean dogs are dumb, I mean dumb without negative connotation. Simple, basic, genuine.

Whether this arises from my reaction to hearing of my parents divorce, a jubilant extraordinary moment in time, or from pure good ol' American Psychological Association dysfunction: whatever.

Getting into a relationship is like going on holiday, like seeing old friends, like warm possibility or the intro to an erotic novel. It's like getting a good buzz+ after a good meal and great Scotch. It's like winning at something you really wanted to win at, or getting an awesome compliment you weren't expecting but hits a nail on a head you didn't realise was there. Or how I imagine a battery feels when it's fit snugly into it's charger and is plugged into a strong matronly 110 current. Like starting a painting that you can see so vividly that the physical rules of drying paint impede your genius.

Or "genius".

Other times I lie in bed with every muscle in my body silently taught maybe ripping a little before I can break free from the waking dream of merciless imagination. Last night it was an imaginary conversation between my Ex and her sister. I wasn't even in the story. I thought it would never end. At one point conscious that I wasn't moving or breathing it continued until my brain gave way and admitted angrily that I had run out of dogma.

Ever have a memory of an embarrassing moment so vivid that you turn pink remembering it? Hot even?

Sometimes I look at my Sailor Jerry pin-up calendar on the kitchen wall and sigh and tell myself that it keeps me sane. You just have to have the fantasy of women who have absolutely no affect on you whatsoever. They don't make you hot, sad, sentimental, bold, confused, falsely empowered, good, annoyed. They're sort of dead but still look good. It's okay because it's a fantasy. That's what that is. I hope no one ever fulfills it. I'd run like the wind on fire on Saturday on Tuesday and diarrhea.

I'd like to create a bodysuit of speakers all connected to their own subs but turned inward. And then I'd blast Black Eyed Peas. Runnin runnin and runnin runnin. See if it can shake a little bit of my soul loose so I can grab it by the neck and axe it some serious questions.

One night I had three bottles of white wine and didn't get drunk. Says a lot for white wine. White wine blows. The next night I had a bottle of red and a glass of whiskey and was able to conjure demons with names like George, Whittaker, and Donald. Those are not good names for demons. Uug that was a bad night.

So I've decided a few things, one is to paint more. I'm not sure where my paints are, probably my mom's house. I'll have to buy canvas and masonite. I'll go back to painting women in skirts and formal wear, maybe armed. It's the most innocent life I can breathe into a relationship. When I finish a painting there is a sense of accomplishment, some rogue effort that bullheadedly produced a picture of stuff. It feels good. It's worth staying up late for. I don't feel released from any cage. It was succinct. A start and end. It was temporary, manageable, challenging, learning, awesoming, stimulating, and DONE>

KILL THE FIRE

2011-10-04T00:24:00.000-04:00

It's true, it's not what you think. It never is. Ten times out of nine you think you're right you're only sort of there. Stress is like a weird goblin waiting to find out what you least expect/want/need and then just sorta collapses it like a tent of despair thinking Damn, I got 'im now! Well HA! This tent is breathable and water-resistant and

Being alive is like having a cramp in your groin that sometimes goes away. When Leland decided she wasn't much for work-out videos she started eating less and a lot of good that did her. She lost her ass and made stupid friends. That was a year ago, now she's sitting at the end of Main St. near the water craving intelligent conversation. By intelligent conversation I don't think she means NPR comedy stoicism but just someone listening to her say 'I love Britney Spears and Sinatra' and going "Yeah, I get that."

LEIA is out there right now in the cold brandishing edge and keeping the wolves at bay while I sit in front of the space heater (Dear Space Heater I Have Missed You SO) safely contemplating my return to glory. LEIA while yes, named of famed golden bikini babe, disacknowledges the joke and perseveres against hard rain and selfish women taunts the demons that crawl beyond our spectral vision. Captive in bolted steel her wrath is not contained but measurable. I painted her to keep her safe.

There was a time when I really was invincible. When I was like 5. Before I understood and gained the temporal prowess to re-attach feeling, understanding, anger, and memory. I still remember my brain going feverish relentless at single thoughts, like a cat being held tight for a bath. (Dammit I do NOT want to update Adobe Reader right now. QUIT. Stop popping up and down like you're something sexy or alcoholic.) I wonder if I will have the same backthought when I'm like 60? Well, 60 is pretty assumptuous. 45. I wonder if at 45 and about to be hit by a speeding Vanagon I'll re-re-attach any multitude of educated feeling to the experiences I'm putting myself through now. Best not to tempt Fate, but really, what's Fate going to say? "I told you so?"

These are the lyrics to my favourite Beach Boys song, "Let's Do It Again". The Beach Boys are in my top 5 favourite bands of all time.

IT'S AUTOMATIC WHEN I TALK WITH OLD FRIENDS. THE CONVERSATION TURNS TO GIRLS WE KNEW WHEN THEIR HAIR WAS SOFT AND LONG AND THE BEACH WAS THE PLACE TO GO. SUNTANNED BODIES AND WAVES OF SUNSHINE. THE CALIFORNIA GIRLS AND A BEAUTIFUL COASTLINE, WARMED UP WEATHER. LET'S GET TOGETHER AND DO IT AGAIN. WITH A GIRL THE LONELY SEA LOOKS GOOD IN THE MOONLIGHT, MAKES YOUR NIGHT-TIMES WARM AND OUT OF SIGHT. BEEN SO LONG, HEY NOW HEY NOW. WE'LL I'VE BEEN PLACES WE'VE SURFED AND DANCED AND ALL THE FACES WE'VE MISSED SO LET'S GET BACK TOGETHER AND DO IT AGAIN. Ow!

The beat is great I recommend a full listen at top volume. I mean TOP. VOLUME.
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Neurotisism, fake tits, and charcoal

2011-09-28T01:49:00.002-04:00

Who is no one? Who is nobody? We refer to he shit all the time. Crack the neck, shake the keyboard, blink up and down at the screen and the keys. Those buttons.

Nobody either doesn't exist or is the First primal existence. Who? No one, just some guy I knew. That's not true, that's taking a No One's name in vain. Why do the muscles flinch? At truth? Or simply at looking around the computer desk and finding trail mix, beer cans, two day old coffee, speakers, rum, old mail you thought was important, gin, and a crappy mic you use to turn your voice into Darth Vader just to see if you still ring back through 1's and 0's as the same person... Ellipses, the question mark's bastard son. Bastard is such a word. The RD at the end has such questioning finality and used-ism. Sometimes you want it to stand still for a sec to gather your thoughts but it's like a boat and the water won't stop moving, tilting, encroaching, and you know it's changing your coarse, like being lost in the desert and remembering that your legs aren't even and you can't walk in a straight line no matter how hard you try.

Being creative makes you feel special. People want you to be special. Creative energy is like a magnet of want or freedom that everyone wants, sees in other people, assumes they don't have, and yet manages to promote. Fuck right and left sides of the brain, they don't quantify, they provide a symptom like bullshit psychology naming my uncle as a paranoid schizophrenic chemically and genetically doomed and then him becoming lucid and straight and they move on to the next patient/victim of their pigeonhole revolution. Some of the best artists who ever lived were left-brained engineers, mathematicians, and purveyors of science, biology, chemistry. They all had sex and at one time or another were legit assholes.

So who is nobody? Nobody. We all refer to him/her all the time but no one I know has ever met anyone who is actually no one. It's a parallel justification for our opposite. Or at least of our least desire. Everyone wants to be someone right? How awful would it be to be no one? I can't bring myself to the comfort of saying that no one doesn't exist. Reference seems to make real. So. No One. I acknowledge you.

Bring everything to life. Make everything talk back. Find a reason, even by artist BS means, to surround yourself with a living world that sees and communicates. Everything around you is your conscience, if you let it breathe. Relying on yourself is a highly misunderstood concept. When I rely on myself I have to confer with either imaginary people in my head, Darth, Stan, Roberta, LEIA, the color black, my empty beer can, my full whiskey, or a sky that's so beautiful I could fuck it. Why the hell not...

In other news I watched Willow tonight and it was AWESOME. Mad Martigan ruled. "Wanna breeeed???" "Let's consult the bones!" I also need to buy new work shirts. I've been rotating TWO for SIX months. I was rotating three but I was told the third wasn't cool by a hot Korean. That happens. Sometimes you just gotta be told.

I'd like to start writing my video blog script. It could be awesome. Or lame. I don't care. My problem comes when I realise that I write these in like 15 minutes when I get nervous and so planning something 5-7 minutes is like a giant creative block. For someone without clear linear thought this is overwhelming.

THE CATTLE STORMED THE MESS HALL

2011-09-13T01:38:00.001-04:00

It wasn't a clear black night. My mind split in eight different ways, like an octopus with tentacles hanging off the edge of a soup bowl. Partly escaping and partly dealing with being undermeasured by womb. There were deaths of thought blowing up and shrinking like explosions underwater, whole ideas left to fend the void of absent thought. It was that focus that was lost or being set free which is trying to become a bed of feather pillows. Comfort is outlaw and circus to the repository of ritual. Is repeating unnecessary under the vail of experience addiction, a pointless step shallowing the gift of understanding? Memory loss and stories highlighting the chant of youth. Disgusting youth, threatening and suspending the animation of drawn horses ready to plunge forward in the dark. Beautiful youth, seducing a hammock held taut by the thieves of weight and posterity.

On a different note, women have ruled long enough. No more concessions. Buck up.

I got new chapstick which rules.

Stan is everything good in the world. He's been neglected by the business of Josh's return. Poor guy, he'll get more recognition soon. He has no idea what's in store for him. His battery is dying. He doesn't have much longer. I need to think about his bucket list.

TENT
AXE
CAMPING CHAIR
MACHETE
AIR MATTRESS
PUMP
POCKET KNIFE
COOLER
WHISKEY
TOOL BOX
MEAT
WATER
VEGETABLES
THREE CAMERAS
BEER
CIGARETTES
FIREWORKS

I'm going camping, bitches!

Oh yeah...

BATMAN UNDERWEAR

Cost Experience

2011-08-15T21:10:00.000-04:00

When I cook I try to finish plating the meal and kitchen clean-up at the same time. Its an amazing way to eat. Sometimes it looks furious.

When you hear about your friend's mother's death you think immediately what would you feel if your own mother wasn't there. It's an immediate selfish response but brought on also by the need to tap into what your friend is feeling. When he told me last Saturday of the news this thought process caused a spur in my throat to transcend whatever barrier lies between emotional and physical. My throat hurt like you get when impending sadness might break through the walls of Troy. It's like in the esophagus or something. Like where a ninja would straight-finger jab to take you out silently.

Today on the way home from work I kept imagining a dragon chomping on the smoke coming from its mouth, like eating it or chewing it. I was having a cigarette so it could have been that.

People's importance in our lives leave divots where they fill in. Who do you call when something really exciting happens to you? Who's cooking do you love? Who calls you every three days if they haven't heard from you? What happens when that divot isn't filled? Is this where loss plays god with your stable life of inimitable regularity?

I'm a social person not often found in the throws of blunder or speechlessness. The visitation was an open casket. This was my second visitation in my life, but the first open casket. It's an elephant in the room. At first I was a little scared and could not look directly at the body. After a while of looking at pictures and a slideshow I was able to cast glances that brought back nothing. The looks were too quick to resolve the nothingness and soon a full look was required. I didn't want to stare. That seemed rude. I don't know why or who would think it was rude. I was unable to successfully function in conversation like normal. No new thoughts popping up to quip out.

Early I was washing my hands after making and eating two grilled cheese sandwiches. I used sharp cheddar and mayo inside 7-grain bread. I put olive oil and a garlic pepper seasoning mix on the outside. I burned one pretty badly. Washing oil off your hands has a distinct look. It's like someone Rain-X'd your hands, or covered them in white crayon. You have to use Orange or dish soap to get them squeaky clean.

I didn't know her but had heard about her many times. Sounded like a tough cookie. She raised four boys so I'm not sure how tough you can afford not to be. After all the pictures and hearing my friend comment on her past I felt I got at least a glimpse of who she was, but with details that could never be filled in, like what her voice or laugh had been like. "That's when I would have liked to have known her" he said as the slideshow showed pictures from the 50s of her and her friends all laughing and being young and hot and devil-may-care. The next picture all the girls in the photo were showing their knees and laughing.

At the camera store where I work I helped a man buy a camera and had just finished ringing him out and bagging his new goodies. This was three years ago. There were lots of people waiting to be helped and we were busting around trying to provide the best we could to the most we could. I handed him his bag and said I knew he'd like the camera, that it was going to do really well indoors. He took the bag and stood there for a moment as I waited for him to look away before going to the next customer. He just kept looking me in the eyes for a beat too long and finally blurted "I lost my wife. It's only been a week and it's really hard." I relaxed my posture and looked him right back in the eyes and immediately said "I'm so sorry, I can't imagine how you feel." "Thanks, I'll give you a call if I have questions on the camera." He left and I helped the next customer.

I finally got up the nerve to really look at her. I wanted to because I didn't know her and felt like I needed to reach some level of familiarity with her if I was going to be of any support to my friend and genuinely be there. I kept watching to catch her breathing. She was so life-like, which is fucked up because she was alive and it's the same body. But there's nothing in this one anymore. Animation has stopped. "It's weird," he said, "It looks just like her sleeping on the couch, which she did a lot. But it's not her because I know she's not there really. There's nothing inside."

Moms are, especially good ones, big divot fillers. Our fathers may hold us high in victory or crash us on the rocks in punishment or disappointment but it seems the mothers are there to fill the gaps with support on the highs and lows and check-ins and worry and extraneous cares and diet and nature and comfort and many other things better described by wordless people.

DECEPTICOUGH

2011-07-18T21:07:00.001-04:00

I'm only going to tell the story once because it bears repeating.

In an attic in Ireland there's an old chest full of trinkets, three of which could reverse time.

Peace, vulgar peace, peace without compass. Complacent peace, trampled pride peace, peace at cost. Forced peace, and peace which prevents outcome or righteousness. Peace out of reach, peace as unattainable goal, peace as a liberal idealism or conservative toolshed. Peace that's a lie and a farce and a mask and an excuse. Peace that saves lives but mutes souls. Peace that seems talked about a lot for being alien in nature.

War I know. War I understand. War that paints horrible pictures of victory. War that for many motivations devastates and gets results of some kind. War is the option of those at last thread/threat/throat. War is freedom and dominance and romance and brutality. War has rules? War doesn't specifically kill animals which is nice. War spelled backwards is "raw" which doesn't really have any significance. War is a boring card game where the winner is at the mercy of the cards. War is a good band. A very good band.

Balance balance balance! "I feel I have a good balance of..." Define balance as an identified theme.

When she moved she was able to stop motion short and retain the momentum that had been building. At will she learned how to release the momentum by speed and power so accurately she could touch your face softly and in the same instant release the power of a punch so powerful you would be knocked back up to 14 feet. This was a problem if she had a few drinks.

REBORN AND REBOUND

2011-07-14T22:44:00.001-04:00

Cotton rolled around in his mouth, snagging on the sharp bit of an old filling. It was excruciating work. The mother's tongue of indecisive daughters is a hateful trap when unguarded by maternal trust. It's rampant disknowledge a curse to the orators of feeling and assumption. The mouthpiece of freedom and honestly seems locked in a distant battle which will never draw near but cause supply shortages when you most feel their need. She felt pity remembering a time when she witnessed a man trampled by a feminine victory, and curious about her feeling victorious and prideful herself. Was there an automatic win within her breast, or was she just climbing around on a monkey gym of stupid standards. When he came home and saw his daughter hurting on the inside he became overwhelmed with disgust at boys and brothers and sons and fathers before they were grown and ultimately himself but couldn't say anything about it also there wasn't anything to say. It was vanity or pride or not being able to tell the difference. She fantasized about being raped as a shy cheerleader in the cab of the quarterback's pickup because it was a fantasy that made it easy to hate men, she had no interest in being raped herself. He flipped out and threw the burnt loaf into the trash but it had nothing to do with the bread or the trash and he burned himself in the meantime which made him angrier but he had nothing else to throw so he activated his voice and cursed the stove but it had nothing to do with the stove either. She felt like someone was in her mind opening doors and slamming them.

CRACKED ADVENTURE MOUTH

2011-07-10T19:12:00.000-04:00

Was going to write something but slowly deciding to eat instead. Otherwise it may be an ANGRY STORY. Roberta is a giraffe.

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I haven't eaten yet, I folded laundry. I put a pork loin in hot water to unthaw. I folded this unassuming Dockers grey T-shirt that fits really well and my Batman underwear which needs no introduction.

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Now I have to go to the store for olive oil, because I've forgotten to get some between 4 and 6 times and now I really need it. Doug is the mountain, Stan is the truck. (Doug talks more than Stan.)

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Veggie Hash: broccoli, collard greens, brussel sprouts, sage, olive oil, black pepper, salt. Foil and grill.
Capsicums: yellow and red capsicums soaked in balsamic vinegar. Foil and grill.
Bread: Vienna loaf wrapped in foil, grilled. Butter later.
Pork loin: deep cuts end to end, fill and rub with steak rub, garlic herb seasoning, basil. Foil and grill.

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Check phone, she has not contacted me. Language is like swimming with words and sharks and spectators. Focus is longitude and a peach smell.

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I've said some awful things in my life, and have apologized to myself accordingly.

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Cornered, Linda did not like the feeling - like eels morphing into birds and the taste of an orange going bitter; Linda crept back into the house and shut the door.

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Saul stared at a finite expanse of blue paper and couldn't think of any other colour to apply than white crayon. He worried this was birthed in him by the illustrated Bible from Sunday School as a child, which used the same blue and white in nearly every frame that included sky. No cloudy days in that Bible.

+

Rosa crashed back into bed, it had been a long night. She felt ten times heavier as she fell backwards and landed with a thump into the comforter and pillows. The bedding was cool from central air but she was still hot from dancing and the warm summer night and a boy. She was late the next day to work and decided not to call the boy back.

+

I'm really excited about the pork loin I'm about to cook. It's seasoned with all my favourite vices.

+

The past is like an I.V. filled with water, like were amphibious or have been cross-bred with Mer people. The present is draining like your soul peeing and never being able to stop, or diving into the water but never reaching it.

+

Daniel laid out all the Pez dispensers he'd collected since middle school.

+
+
+
+
+

TAKING A BREAK FROM LONGER THAN SHORT STORIES, MORE SOON.

2011-06-21T20:38:00.001-04:00

Tonic River Blues, Chapter Two

2011-06-12T02:03:00.000-04:00

Madeline had a long history. She looked normal, beautiful. She had those big brown cow eyes, a figure not too boney and heavy and not too corn-fattened. Mostly creamy white she had brown spots gracefully placed around her body. Her hooves were dark and strong, she was young in almost every way. She had been born on Earth, split-parented by a renegade Armourian bull and an oblivious, scared domestic.

Their arrival had many consequences but changed little. The stableships had come to land on American soil almost accidentally. From space it seemed the most cow-looking landmass. They were immediately fascinated by the humans and their abilities. Humans were however petty, handsy people. Their undeveloped frontal cortex was made up for by the utility of their two free hands. They were slow, though. Their first landing was tainted. Armourian cows are shaded differently. Their communal ranks are listed by colour, "red" being the most influential. The hotter their hue the more preconception played part in their telekinetic abilities. In most cases this would lead to a more violent wolf-pack hierarchy however like Bonobo moneys their natures tended to fall towards voracious love every time conflict arose. This is one thing that changed from their experiences on Earth.

4000 arrived on Earth, there are now a mere 1200 living in a secret utopia in the Rocky's. Infighting and crossbreeding were the two primary catalysts for the downsurge in population. The bickering began after the first month when the clan finally agreed to telekinetically reduce their auraish hues to blend in with the local population. Not only did a new visual concept of power enter their minds but the idea of secrecy did too. Their eager disappointment with the cognitive abilities of their distant cousins was making a mess of their intentions. When they spoke telepathically to the domestics the fear and distrust played out with panic and fleeism. They reacted to the Armourians in a similar way as to their human owners. There were a few performance bulls on the rodeo circuit which didn't panic when contacted, but their responsive signatures tended to err on the side of damaged soliel cells. They often only heard back FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT RED BLACK BLACK or similar uncourse.

Their disappointment settled in throughout the clan and they realised that there was little hope of building any larger community than the one they arrived with. The elders of hotter hue (disguised in plaincoats) had decided to try different methods of resolving the issue, feeling the need to provide hope while watching their seniority dwindle into a monochrome sunset.

They decided it wasn't rape because they were exactly imitating the courtship and mating methods of the domestics. A few disagreed, calling on the philosophy of knowledge and awareness as the demonizing or demoralising factor in the forced relationship, but they were overcome by popular opinion; something had to happen.

It was nighttime. They woke a particularly friendly domestic cow. They made sure to quiet their thoughts and not talk to each other lest she overhear and panic. They didn't corner, and tried to reflect the movements of the bulls they had spent time watching. There came the point finally when a senior Armourian bull made the mount and inserted himself, holding the panicky domestic tightly to ensure good contact and a fruitful take. The others watched in cast horror. The Armourians who witnessed the event became changed; they could feel their hidden hues flutter in temperature. The recognition of violence became mental cyanide, their ability to perform logic an emotional snare.

Over the course of a few years this event came to pass many times, and young half-Armourian calves were being born. The matrial cows developed selective telepathy languages to ensure the growth of the proper parts of the new breed's frontal cortexes. There was a mild scent of relief amongst the Armourian population; their continuance was finally an option here on Earth. There was some benefit to their stay. This was a feeling deeply cut with factionism and spurry quarrel. 19 murders were accounted for in all. There were rebels in the group supporting their traditional attitudes of peaceful resolve. There was mild terrorism and overall a sense of loss of control. Their concept of colours and rank and preconception were fading fast. There was a fear that they were degenerating. The more adventurous thinkers in the group suspected the domestics to be long forgotten ancestors who may have come to Earth and degenerated to the point of being enslaved by humans. There was so little truth and known substance to their thoughts that suspecting insanity was made a useful tool in weeding out those of disagreeing opinion.

The event that was responsible for the great separation of the clan involved the humans. Their relationship with humanity had been a mute point until now. They avoided them, the looked normal like the domestics, so the humans left them alone. They blended in, but were able to avoid slaughter. They also generated their own food telekinetically, making the Armourians one of the most successful colonizers in the universe. (Their food looks like enormous purple (purple being the closest colour in our spectrum for description but is also strongly affected by shifts in Kelvin temperature) strawberries.)

Their method of avoiding slaughter was a creative use of their telepathic ability to "direct traffic". Without fail they were communally able to either re-herd the domestics or in cases of emergency telekinetically co-conceptrate on a vulnerable member using the simple colour spectrum of the Earth's sun and taking advantage of the human's limited scope to present stealth invisibility. It was during a situation requiring the stealthing technique that the distracted members of The Umber Resistance failed to concentrate fully on the vulnerable Armourian cow named Tchilda. Their fractured effort caused Tchilda to panic as she could see her body appearing and reappearing in the chrome of the gate. She wouldn't have known but for the reflection. Like the quasi-opposite of a vampire, their vision became entirely human in reflections. She went crazy causing a ruckus. The cowboys tried to force her onto the truck but were terrified by the visually kaleidoscoping cow. The leader finally took the lead and produced a pistol. Before the other Armourians could comprehend the consequences (the precon leaders were not present) the shot rang out and Tchilda fell.

Anger and resentment spread fast through the clan. Those on the fence easily fell with the majority, finding solace in the idea of developing more forced and protective (violent if need be) methods of survival. The Umber Resistance lost members and were rounded and exiled. This happened over the course of 3 1/2 months, time enough for the leaders of the Resistance to make a game plan. Upon their exile they took a smaller stableship and flew from sight, leaving the rest to act as they saw fit. Their goal was to find a place for themselves. Someplace where they could simply be Armourians in peace. They did find it. A few members had known about it for sometime. They had secretly been developing distance tele-vision, and had developed about a 1500 mile range of sight. They headed for the Rocky's.

In the 1970's Rhawn Joseph, Ph.D had led a secret experiment in the Rocky's. It was wiped from most maps and was in a very uneventful area. It was called Heat Bubble No. 4. It was abandoned during the late 80's with uncompromising failure and out of laziness never added back into the maps. Impatience was their real downfall, though. Late in 2003 changes began to take place in that locale.

The small stableship soared over the cliffy white caps of the Rocky's for about 12 hours before finding it's destination. It was a night and day difference from one peak and around an almost-circular turn right and downward. They landed and hoofed out into the soft green grass and humid climate of old Heat Bubble No. 4. Fruit trees and bushes, berries, tropical vegetation, fresh water and a basic ecosystem of tiny animals and bugs lay before them. They hoped they would never be found. Their mistake was of course underestimating their integration of secrecy.

Three months after their arrival they were able to start shedding their disguise and regain their natural hues. The concentration it took to keep a domestic visual presence had taken on such an autonomic character that they actually had to relearn their original chromatic state. By seven months it was safe to say they were all back to normal. All except one. One very special and very beautiful Madeline.

Tonic River Blues

2011-05-22T00:52:00.000-04:00

Shantuk was old, around 60. Wasn't fat and wasn't thin, just a little bigger in the middle. His hair was white, turned instantly when he was about 40 'cause he was a carrot top. Smoked a lot and did his fair share of drinkin'. Had a yellowed part of his beard crawling up the south side of his face from holding his cigarette in his mouth while it burnt down and he worked on something.

He lived in the Rocky's somewhere, he forgot where; it had been a while and he never planned on a trip back to the wasteland. His cabin had a million-dollar vista that cost him nothing. Mountain peaks stabbed at the sky with every blink and shift. The amount of snow never seemed to alter, time was oblivious and he threw away all the clocks years ago. He was low enough to still get the seasons a bit. He could wear just a T-shirt if he was going to get sweaty working on something.

He had been a teacher a long time ago, taught at an all-girls school in Nevada. It ended horribly and it was only his fifth year teaching. He was accused of being sexually inappropriate with his students. This was, of course, a complete lie and the administrators mostly knew it, however couldn't defend him or take his side. He had bent some rules and broken others, been a little closer or more "equal" with his students on some occasions, but not out of anything more than trying to help them be more friendly as a teaching tool. His theory was that a stoic teacher would decrease information retention by more than half of what a "cool" "friend" teacher could accomplish. He had an extensive library at home of art books, and made it open to any of his students that wanted to do research. Twice a group of three to four girls had stopped in to peruse and borrow half a dozen books that related to points of interest. The third time they came over they didn't call and he was in his wallows, a wretch drunk grasping for reason for reasons long past due. Just a bad time. He tried to "sober up" and let them in to do what he had offered in class, however the drink took hold and he became angry and kicked them out yearning for the solace of his own mind on whiskey. That was all. But the reaction was bad. It turned into "advances" and "suggestion".

Realising quickly that he held no hope of reinstitution to the respected persons of community club, he went to a board meeting to negotiate. He laid down the exact truth of what happened that day. He acknowledged and absolved the board for their situation and whatever decision they made, but then said the following:

"My colleagues, this next proposition is unbecoming of me and yourselves, however in my position I'm left few choices in the matter of self-preseration. What I propose is that I leave with a ridiculous sum of your money. That money buys my disgrace and disappearance. It pays for your ability to reprimand and protect. It actually pays to protect your money and your institution. I am made out to be a villain, and I will leave as a quiet, guilty villain for your benefit, for a certain price. The opposite side of this evil coin is that if I'm forced to leave a guilty villain I will not do so quietly. Their is no legal substance to these claims against me and this had already been discovered by the authorities, however I will, if not compensated for my sacrifice, lay claim to horrible acts which will incriminate your ability to provide a safe environment for your students, and alarm the community not just here but beyond."

They wrote a check and it cleared. He was run out of town like a Frankenstein of misconceptions.

Shantuk liked the cool seasons of the mountains. He was well prepared. He felt he knew exactly when he was going to die, and that his sustenance was to be mostly concerned with just getting there. When he left for the mountains he researched a great deal. He purchased solar panels and advanced battery systems and learned how to fix and replace parts and solenoids and convection units so that he was able to provide himself with not just emergency heat or electricity, but was able to calculate that he would be able to run a computer (for music and writing primarily) for more years than he could hope to have on Earth.

When he left he wanted to really leave. He didn't want a trail. The check he got from the school he cashed. He operated on cash for quite some time. He kept a few credit cards and a bank account and updated his addresses with the Draft Board, but only enough to show up on the Social Security radar. The night that he was fully prepared, after buying a helicopter, learning to fly it, building his cabin to a rough start, trucking supplies, he burned his house. He put a cadaver in it and hoped they didn't run dentals. They didn't, they assumed, and he was dead.

He flew the helicopter to the cabin and in the security of over-thinking torched the helicopter minus a few may-be-valuable parts. There were no roads from his cabin, no trails, no panic-walkable distance. There was running water within 500 feet, and he made sure he would retain access to it in the winter months. He built his cabin such that it didn't call much attention to itself against the forest. He was on government land and never OK'd his stay or build. He had brought a good deal of dried meats, seeds, baking supplies (though field mice got into the yeast so his bread for the rest of his life was flat and dense), canned foods, SPAM, but also hunting and fishing gear. He made a conscious decision not to bring pornography or anything that looked or smelled like women. Not because of any dislike, but he figured it just didn't matter.

Shantuk wasn't depressed, and wasn't really just waiting to die though it looked an awful lot like it. He was energized and excited about this final adventure. He wasn't worried that he'd had any oversights or mistakes because they were part of the fun. He had dedicated the rest of his life to this life, if his life left early because of something he forgot it was no less natural or proud or unwitnessed. He was the tree falling with no one to hear it.

Everything actually seemed in place really. It went exactly as expected. He got up in the mornings, he went to bed at night. The freedom was unimaginable. The relentless will and untapped aggressions he discovered were more than the best adrenaline rush. Not every day, of course, but generally on a day to day basis he was happier and felt more free than ever before. He found himself on the cusp of originality. He felt things unfelt and thought things unthought. Contemplated structures of humanity that were free from the confines of community logic and was able to either confuse away previous preconceptions or discover new continents of reason and belief. What wasn't possible without the confines of known science to prove otherwise?

This was all before Madeline.

Shantuk had his encounters big and small with critters and wolves and bears and rabbits. He even had a few scars and a few pet-names to show for it. He couldn't, however, ever account for the encounter with Madeline.

It was, at best guess, early Spring. He was chopping firewood since the winter at least felt longer and he had burned up most of his supply. It was hard work because most of the wood was hard and cold and he had forgotten to sharpen his axe. (He took great ceremony when sharpening the axe, it took him days, so naturally when he suddenly had the opportunity to cut wood a quick sharpening was out of the question. He had to pay for his forgetfulness with extra effort.) That was when he first spotted her. He stopped chopping for a minute to take a drag from his cigarette and catch his breath. The pounding in his ears ceased a little and the familiar quiet of nature came back. He looked around and tried to guess when a real thaw would settle in. To his left, a double-take. If he wasn't mistaken there was a cow standing half in the tree line. He squinted a little to confirm. Yes, it was a cow. It was looking dead at him, obviously thinking. It was almost menacing, but it certainly wasn't. He stared right back. In his mind he tossed and turned with the possibilities. Was he not alone? Was there a cow owner? Was this a wild cow? A wild cow? Were wild cows aggressive?

He decided to take a walk to the other side of the small clearing to get a better or different look. He didn't move closer, just over. The cow's head turned slowly and smoothly with him, watching his intently.

Still more questions. It was creepy. But not bad creepy, just unknown creepy, alien creepy. After a while he decided to call out. He hadn't spoken in probably seven months, and that was just a yelp when he hit his leg with hammer accidentally. "Come 'ere cow!" He said loudly. He felt instantly stupid.

TO BE CONTINUED.....

Eagle/Hawk Dolphin/Shark

2011-05-19T00:40:00.000-04:00

Sandra was pretty plain. Pretty and plain. Her hair was brown and took on a dull grey in the sun. Her body was flattish and unassuming. He face was pretty and got a lot of second looks, but no feature stood out enough to recommend stayed interest.

To her friends she was loyal and they loved her, but to new acquaintances well, they didn't really make an effort to get to the Real Sandra. She drank little and when she did it was a Rusty Nail, which no one liked but reminded her of Christmas. Christmas's growing up were quietish and unrevealing. No one drank Rusty Nails. She always got one thing she wanted and five things they wanted for her. She entertained the idea of being jealous of families that drank on holidays, like Greeks or Irish people, but not really because she didn't know what their holiday foods tasted like and that was the measure of a good holiday for her. Like cranberry sauce existed to no one except in Sandra's household three times a year.

It's easy to sympathize with Sandra but it's useless. She's oblivious to feeling down about not being exciting, so empathy just sits there across the room wondering why it's there, bored out of it's mind. She had one great hobby which was probably the worst hobby to have. It was not fixing things. Well it was fixing things, but they never got fixed. Two Saturdays previous there came a leak in the trapway of her toilet, on the water side of the weir, so it started letting water loose all in the shag toilet-carpet thing that's shaped like a U. She readied herself with many a tool, epoxy, watertight cement, tape, and a file. She flushed the toilet and it stopped, so she started knocking away of the trapway to get a hole big enough to fill with substance, understanding that you can't simply "fill" a crack that small. TAP TAP FWOOOSH. Clean toilet water flooded the floor. It didn't occur to her to turn off the water at the ballcock before flushing. Regardless of this not being the way to handle the situation at all she had to call the landlord and not use the toilet for a day and a half. The landlord informed her she would not be receiving her security deposit if and when she moved.

Two days ago a light burnt out. It was in the kitchen and was on a dimmer. She replaced the bulb but it blinked like crazy. She decided it was the bulb, not understanding how filaments work, and replaced it again. This one didn't turn on. She re-replaced the previous one and it didn't work. Her powers of deduction ended here, but her fearless resolve did not. She decided there must be a problem with the ground at the switch. She got a phillips head and took off the switch cover. She wasn't afraid of wires. She used the screwdriver again on the light switch and loosened it from the box. She stuck her finger in behind and gave a tug to pull it out to get a better view. A good jolt of 110 scoured her body for a split second and she forgot where she was. She bought a lot of candles yesterday and duct taped the entire light switch.

These are two of many situations in which Sandra had tried her hand and been bitten. She never gave up though. Her attitude was that if someone else could figure it out, she could. Not untrue, but not at all accurate either. Her self-esteem remained untainted by failure. She was resilient, but rather boring.

She went on a date two months ago and they ate in near silence the entire night. They talked more during the movie than dinner. She had no idea "how it went" but never heard from the male again. It crossed her mind that he might have been a prude or didn't understand her advances. Her advances consisted of 2 1/2 smiles at dinner, and using the armrest between them in the movie.

It was next Tuesday night when she remembered her dream from the previous Monday, tomorrow. (Oh, she has a cat the same colour as her hair, named John.) It was one of those falling dreams where you wake upon fall. Not impact, just fall. The moment your fingers give out gripping the ledge, the loose gravel that resists your foothold, the catch-line that snaps in two just as you lean out to enjoy the view 1/2 mile up a rock face. She had never had these dreams before and wondered why now. That Wednesday night she had another such dream. They just seemed so real. She would awake perspiring, catching her breath. She almost made an appointment with a doctor but realised how stupid it sounded.

The dreams became more frequent. She read on the internet about myclonic jerks and the idea of insecurities or instability in life playing out in the dream world in this manner, but couldn't really connect the dots. The Freudian idea of wanting to give in to a sexual urge seemed stupid. She never felt urged to do anything except fix things. She masturbated on a regular basis once a month, usually to Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting where he was real dirty English hot, or Scottish or something, but disapproved of his addiction in the film.

After three months of uninterrupted falling dreams she decided on a few things. The main thing that bothered her was that she felt her myclonic jerks were more severe than normal. Eight times now she had found a bruise or two on her body, usually an extremity. What was more, she found herself twice on her stomach (she NEVER slept on her stomach) and once with her head where her feet should be. The most serious concern was sleep walking. Why she would sleep walk at all, much less follow it up with a falling dream to wake herself, was a point of major confusion. So the first thing was she was going to record herself during sleep. If she was sleep walking she had planned on a series of bindings to hold her down, but first things first. She went to the local camera store and explained what she needed a camera to record her while she slept. "All night?" "Yeah all night." The salesman didn't argue but did fantasize about her later, about what he wasn't sure. She ended up with a Sony, regardless of her dislike for the brand. It had a patented nightvision mode which was green and sharp and would get the best picture.

That night she set it up on a cheap $30 tripod she bought from the grocery store. The salesman had taught her how to work it. She plugged it into the wall so it wouldn't lose battery. She had bought one with 128GB of memory to hold the night's adventures. She set it to the highest compression as well to take up as little space as possible. She wanted to record ALL night, but knew that most falling dreams occur soon after the chokehold of sleep, while your brain is still reminiscing about the tortures of life.

Three nights in a row she slept like a baby, but felt anxious all day. Nothing on the camera. No jerks, no walking, nothing. She kept filming, though, believing that her body would break down and give in to being found out. Why did her body not want her to know what the hell she was up to at night made her all the more resolute to find the answer.

Two weeks later, not well rested, feeling constant electricity in her body and sort of a dead adrenaline rush every minute of the day, it finally happened. She jerked awake all of the sudden, having felt the loss the gravity and the panic of certain doom. Her heart settled after a minute or two and she worked through the satisfaction of dread.

Her eyes popped open! It had happened. She ran over to the camera and shut it down. She got out the HDMI cable the salesman had sold her and found that she didn't have a connection for it (she didn't have an HD television like she thought). She found the box for the camera and grabbed the A/V cable it came with. Everything plugged in, she rewound and pressed play. The sight that blipped to life on the screen stole her breath. She was watching herself levitating above her bed about four feet. The covers were off. She never realised that before, that she always woke with no covers on. She was just up there, right above her bed, no panic, just asleep. She moved a little on the screen. She decided that she wasn't levitating, she was floating. She had a definite sense of control over movement, but unconscious. Her recorded self then made a movement which made her real self jump a little. In the picture she wrapped her arms back and folded them behind her head, calmly, like it was comfortable. It was a strange sight, just black underwear and a black bra on her flattish body floating above the bed. She started to spin her body a little, slowly. She moved up and down. She stretched out which looked like it felt really good, specially because while watching she was extremely tensed. This made her aware of her body all of the sudden. In a very new way, too. Her body, the one she was wearing right then, was apparently capable of flight. Or float. What really freaked her out was that she realised she was floating at that very moment.

It all made sense in a way, that once her conscious knew about her midnight renegade flying parties her physical body would in turn reveal the ability. She dropped suddenly to the chair, only an inch but it felt like gravity times ten. She almost lost her breath. In the video five second later she lowered to the bed, and at the last 10 inches or so dropped onto the bed. She watched herself pop suddenly awake and have her feeling of panic.

She couldn't sleep the rest of the night. She watched the video 7 times in awe until she realised there were no more clues and the same thing happened every time. She was almost afraid to go to sleep, like an idea of her sleeping self being different from her awake self was a threat. She did actually doze off a number of times, but not enough to tempt fate or flight or whatever.

The next morning she went to open her bedroom door to go take a shower and the handle fell off in her hand. She stood there puzzled. What to do. The door was shut. She had heard the other side of the handle fall to the floor on the outside. She didn't have windows in this room. No other entrances. No tools. She went to the bedside to get her phone to call the landlord but realised she must have brought it into the living room the night before and left it there. She sat for a while, wondering about being late to work but more importantly how long she could go without food and water. Her body began to float. She held her breath in fear for a long while. She just floated. She thought about concentrating on a certain direction and her body followed suit and went in that direction. That was cool. She concentrated on turning over in mid-air. Her body did so. She was fascinated with this for a good four hours and then finally realised that she still couldn't get out of her room. She concentrated on landing. She lowered herself successfully and readied for the drop onto the bed.

Nothing.

No drop. She thought and thought and tried and tried but couldn't release weightlessness. She couldn't retrieve gravity no matter what she did. Every bit of her body, including her hair, was weightless. Nothing she could do could change her position. She could get against the bed, the floor, a chair, but she could land, couldn't release into or onto these things. This was a bigger problem. It lasted, too.

Four days later she finally fell to the ground. She wasn't ready. She died four seconds earlier. It was a heart attack, panic. Her consciousness of flight had filled her body and refused to let go. Sandra's hair looked brown in the lack of sunlight, her face still pretty. Her flattish body deflated against lack of nourishment, gravity, and finally death. I don't think this was what she wanted, but it was probably still some relief.

Sunshine & Ass

2011-05-17T22:41:00.000-04:00

It's a parallel universe, except only one thing is different: hearing gets better with age rather than worse. Baby's are partially deaf right out of the womb, so they're a little calmer. Children yell and scream and don't really notice the pitch of their voices. Parents are even more annoyed, being more sensitive to the sound. They tell their children "You won't understand until you're older..." The teenager storms off in disgust, blaring their rock music even louder. There's a whole market around sound dampening devices of variable control, devices for different ages, different occupations, different situations. They're sold in malls like sunglasses. Secrets are harder to keep.

Sam was a normal kid but got into an unusual amount of trouble. Not real bad trouble, not like hurting animals or ending lives or taking sexual pleasure at another's cost. He was actually very nice, but he always ended up thinking that stealing a truck filled with cases of beer was an awesome idea (and did it), or that smuggling the best weed ever from Canada by the shoebox-ful was the best way to go (it wasn't). He did a lot of community service. He was actually known as a real volunteer, kind of a "perfect son" (to a mother) sort of helper. He made the best of paying his dues and did it smiling (genuinely).

He was in good shape, whether from running from the law or regular exercise was never asked. Good enough shape that he didn't feel guilty ordering the Big Buford Combo large size with bacon and a Coke at Checker's, which was at the end of his block. He lived in an apartment building that was full of single moms and bad boyfriends. His life was a sort of perfection-by-contrast. He got along great with, and was often seen with, the "baser" characters of society. He defended them when they weren't around commenting on their intellect or loyalty or sympathizing with a bad family situation. Why get down on dealers, pimps, and runners? He asked. Eradicate them? Let's just all be buds!

It was mid-July, and he had an idea. It was the same idea as before, about smuggling weed from Canada, but this time decided that he would be smarter about it. When packing the those sweet buds he put them in little plastic baggies. 400 little plastic baggies. Then he bought 400 bars of good-sized soap and carefully unwrapped them with flatiron set to low. With a sharpened knife he cut them open, and with a hot spoon scooped out their middles. Each bar got a baggy inside of it, and was re-sealed and shaped and wrapped back up in it's packaging. Then he got blank boxes and stacked them all neatly with packing supplies.

So he got arrested at the border for trying to evade import tax on copious amounts of soap. When they confronted him and he realized they had no idea there were 400 baggies of weed in each one he started laughing. Hard. This pissed them off, and if you know border guards, this is the absolute last thing you would ever want to do. They put him in holding for 12 hours.

After 12 hours, most of which he slept soundly, an officer came in, said little (mumbling) and handed him some paperwork. The officer left, leaving him a pen designed very awkwardly, I think so as not to be used as a weapon. It was sort of bulbous. He read the papers. It was all the usual jargon but at the end it gave him three options:

[_] $2,500.00 Fine
[_] 3 Months Prison
[_] Permanent Exile from Canada (Seriously? No way! Strippers are waaaay better here!)
[_] 6 Months Community Service in the Yukon
[_] Eternal Life

Well it was that last one that seemed like the odd one out. He stared at it for a while, and wondered if the copywriter would get in trouble when he outed him or her. Then he decided that they all probably thought it was an awesome joke. Or was Canada witnessing to him? Were they really trying to force Christianity as a federal punishment? It really was the most plausible idea. He decided not to sign or check any boxes until this was figured out.

7 1/2 hours later the door latch clacked open and in walked the mumbling officer. He grabbed the papers from Sam's hands and looked for a Hancock. Nothing. He stone-eyed Sam for a while then winked. Sam couldn't recall if he had been staring back or hanging his head or what. The officer handed it back to him and said "Choose and sign or I'll leave you in here for 20 more hours. With water though, I'll bring you a giant bucket of warm bathwater." It wasn't the solitude or the time, but the thought of being parched with only warm bathwater moved him to make a sudden decision. "What if I choose Eternal Life?" Sam asked. "What the hell, find out." The officer answered. Sam checked it and signed it and handed it back.

The guard left and suddenly the lights went out. He felt dizzy and went into a dreamy state where he remembered a beautiful, vein woman in a black dress with a doc's coat on over it. She was talking, stuff about a first patient, a human experiment, first of his kind, may as well be an American, soap? really... soap? well at least he's not dangerous...

A car drove by inches from Sam's head and he woke with a start. Actually he woke screaming, he was terrified. He was laying next to a road just a block from his own house. He stumbled home.

He never could decide if it was a dream, really. He remembered back but it was fuzzy. His car was at home like normal, but it smelled like soap. He hadn't told anyone he was going to Canada so had no precious alibi. He had no idea if he went or just got really wasted and mixed something up.

7 years later Sam was "volunteering" at the Salvation Army. Every time he walked in the door he couldn't help but think about his option for Eternal Life which he had in a dream or something years before.

4 years later his friends started to show their age and compliment his genetics, his skin, his youthful nature. Didn't seem like he had their crow's feet, undeflatable guts, cankles, or inability to recover from hangovers.

At age 40 he started to get suspicious of himself. He looked the same in pictures as 10 years earlier. Not a single grey hair. He made younger and younger friends and his old ones got married, had kids, moved on. He was a big social guy, night owl.

Finally at age 50 he started to begin a long slow road of panic. He looked the exact fucking same. Still not a single grey hair. His old friends avoided him in public should their paths cross. He started lying about his age to his new friends a few years before, getting sick of their reactions to his age. One thing he started to hate though, was the sound of his friend's voices. They just kind of screeched. He knew his hearing was getting more and more sensitive, but he found his temper had a short wick. He never blew up at anyone, he was too nice. So he complained of headaches and would shop for more sever sound-dampening devices. The market wasn't fast with it's technology, though. The older people got they eventually had to just bear with it and avoid noise as much as possible. There were special parts of town that were quieter, with noise restrictions, special sound walls to reduce the amount of noise bouncing around. The only problem with all this was that every time he went to these spots he was told to leave. He was made to feel uncomfortable. He looked too young to deserve quiet. He ended up fairly driven out of every bearable atmosphere.

10 years later his friends just started dying. They went, one by one, into their graves. They found eternal quietness 6 feet under. He envied them. He really did have headaches now constantly. He took all kinds of medication for it, even though he didn't like to. He couldn't sleep. He didn't have any friends now. The younger ones "his age" he wanted to murder even when they whispered. His other friends were dead. He felt like a vampire with no special skill set. If he could've turned into a bat he thought he would, then he'd fly so high he couldn't hear anything. Then it occurred to him that he wouldn't ever be able to out-fly the batting of his own wings. What a wretched idea.

Sam died at age 103 in his apartment, which was boarded up with sound-proofing walls. He had ran out of food and starved. He had no way to mail his bills so the water was turned off and he suffocated from thirst. He had no one he knew and died of loneliness. His ears and head hurt so much that every morning he woke with large blood-stains from his ears; he died of blood loss. The electricity was out too and in the colder months died of frostbite. But he couldn't die. Or who knows if he ever did. He was never able to explain it.

PRECISION SCREWDRIVER SET/arid states

2011-05-07T20:39:00.001-04:00

I've started work on a manifesto. The next few nights I'll want to re-read the Futurist manifesto. I remember only the feeling of forward movement and a sort of trashing of the past. Ignoring the mountainous egos which presently seek the glory, calling them out on having no vision of what the future is, and is certainly not. Just a good amount of effort in the recent past, but past all the same. In an effort to get in the mood I trimmed my hair down short, my beard a notch longer, cut my fingernails, washed my best jeans. I don't know if the concentration of a manifesto as a "we will" should focus on the future, or how in the future we will deal with the past. It's most definitely reactionary either way. Today my boss-lady said I was really smart. Score.

A manifesto is a communication made to the whole world, whose only pretension is to the discovery of an instant cure for political, astronomical, artistic, parliamentary, agronomical and literary syphilis. It may be pleasant, and good-natured, it's always right, it's strong, vigorous and logical. Apropos of logic, I consider myself very likeable.

--Tristan Tzara, Feeble Love and Bitter Love, section II from 12.12.1920

I also have great love for the De Stijl Manifesto I:

In an exact manner. In an exact manner. That's right.

Of course my manifesto, if ever finished, would suppose a smaller attitude. Instead of a great wink, a muffled giggle. And I'm sure there will be something "sexist" in there, something about handcuffs and unachieved pride.

Waking with a start realised I hadn't spilled the wine in my hand. Good thing. Didn't know I was that tired of it. Credits were rolling, couldn't recall what I was watching. Stumbled out for a smoke, no cars, must be late. Remembered writing a blogpost about something or other, trying to stick to my 15-minutes-or-less rule. Must have been a hard five minute nap or something, caught me off guard. Guard, what guard. I've got a fortress. Not drunk, must be exhausted. Turned the heat off, checked the alarm. Didn't remember the order of the days so set it as if I had to work for posterity. In the morning I look at the alarm. 7:40am and a jingle. I have never been able to read the word "snooze" in the morning. It gets all mixed up and other letters are added in, like Steve Jobs is messing with me. Complete habitual singular instances of dyslexia. I can stare, rub my eyes, cough, look again, focus, wait a minute... doesn't matter, I simply can't read it until after I get out of bed. Then there it is: SNOOZE. The first time it freaked me out. This morning I think it looked like this STIHLL
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Heroes & Pestilence

2011-05-06T00:52:00.001-04:00

There's a a cowgirl on the pinup calendar for May. The frustrations of a minute can last hours. How far an ant can go in a minute is amazing, but that his path home takes hours is depressing. It's a confusing scale, two things next to each other. When I stand next to that person the scale of the events in their life may increase or reduce speed based on their capacity for failure and success. It's like setting a Warhol next to a Malevich of the same size and wondering why they don't just mesh and get along. Their only commonality is their existence as art (ordained) and their size (homo-sapien). They present different gods, different mortality. Their sitting next to each other seems anachronistic and pointless. But anachronism is no excuse, there is always a morality to the begrudgeoning skepticism of art.

The baby's face is pushed toward the breast. The initial pain of outgoing pressure like soreness akin to painful gums or a scratch harsh enough to draw endorphins- it settles. It's a blameless pain. The idea of blameless pain is awkward to consider; the idea of something that hurts without any intention. No crucifixion today, no selfish hurt. Oneself is blameless in certain circumstance. The thought of blame blamable. The realisation itself sort of hurts. Hurts ego, at least. Connecting the dots and finding that the dots merely circle around the situation and explain in it the most simple of terms. The guilt or blame or placelessness of such an emotion which thrusts upward from lightless innards second guesses the daily routine to reason. Reason is not logic, logic is a sterile justification of a happening. Reason is closely related to blame. Reason is trying to answer the Why within the confounds of our understanding. Logic does not predispose itself to our levels of understanding. Our pursuit of reason is a logistical nightmare of colore and creativity. Pride in coloring outside the lines, limitless potential for the abstract, justified by reason. Break me of a piece of that Kit-Kat bar.

My day was great! I got real tired in the third quarter, though. Saw Kim at the bank and she's so happy all the time that it's a highlight to the work day. My boss helped me fix up the hatch on the Jeep so it's not so noisy, that was cool. I got to sleep in an extra 2 hours, so felt rested enough to have a little fun with customers. I guess I get along great with strangers; I know for a fact about four people I helped today were really comfortable working with me. In the back room, the "free" zone, spirits were good. I made a few mistakes which I always take really hard, like it sort of stiffens by body. As a rule I don't make mistakes. I thought a lot today about a photo I want to create with a subtly geisha-faced character in a bedroom with window light. It's not a hard photo, but I just need to put together a place, time, circumstance. I have every day off booked with either working or helping or fixing for the next month it seems like. The thought of it makes me tired. At least I got laundry done. Chris is coming into town this weekend and I'm excited to spend some time with him. It'll be fun if I can manage to afford going out for a bit. I miss my dog. And my cat. Everywhere in this apartment I can hear the damned clock telling me how empty of life this place is. Nothing brushing up against my leg or meowing or happy-hopping. It's like there's a chunk of Raleigh sitting outside but when I go outside the chunk's inside all of the stupid sudden. Anyway, that's what I might have said.

I'M BACK IN THE U.S.S.R.

2011-05-05T00:50:00.000-04:00

It was a slow zoom in on the egg. Size was indifferent, scale abstract. It was still, unable to comprehend the orange of movement and the succulent sensation of breath. It was architectural and pristine. It's wasn't white, especially not eggshell white, it was just egg. It was pre. It was containment and promise. Minutes were slurred like a drunkard's request for another round, sticky saliva making its way around the contours of words that were ejaculatory. In a moment the experience of time passing seemed to hyper itself at the suggestion of an inner nudge, but it was unclear, cataracted by the history of falsehood and doubt which precedes all revelation. Unlearning the point of our race, a human NASCAR of carelessness; it was required for belief in the idea of origination and beginning. To training-wheel the hypothetical it was as if nothing outside of the opaque shell of birth could break into definition the unseen. Times and time and T minus infinity could only attest to the report of suggestions shot off in the void like a military funeral in a snowstorm. Half the population felt shot for an instant and looked upon their torsos with revenge, looking for blood. On their own feeble bodies they pretended were stout until the moment of loss. Shaken by the sound of salute AND AGAIN, AGAIN, AGAIN. Silence befell an awkward gathering of individuals brought together only to bear witness to a passing that held nothing but questions. What they really hoped for was a nothingness out of fear that their best ability to project heaven was knowingly thwarted by their unwillingness to submit to a god. It was a lost cause. But was this egg lost before it's conception - was it an idea or a trace of forgotten faith? Did it come from animal, tangible bodies or was it gifted from the "stork" of disbelief? Having only to face its existence, it's live, penetrating suggestion and dominance we are left with... well, we are left. Each question one's own, a target course of terrorists and Madonnas dressed alike. It moved. That time it definitely moved. By all that is holy, and I don't know what is, it moved. Wherever it came from, it moved. Wherever it ends up when it ends, it moved. Movement, the strictest rule of life, has begun.

He rested the whiskey on his stomach which was much larger than when he was 20. He never wore "jewelry". He thought it looked showoffish. He liked watches, shiny objects, accessories, absurdities. But he couldn't wear them. He felt it would be a false pretense of wealth. He was concerned with wealth. The wealth of knowledge, of possession, of birthright, confidence, quantity, and to only the most certain of extents, quality. Equality. That fact is that he had choices, and felt guilty about every one he didn't make. He didn't mind, he didn't have to admit, when he decided something along the lines of egocentrism or superfluousness, because he knew he had decided to end it that way. What really bothered him was when he refused to choose, to decide, to separate, to acknowledge. That was an ultimate incapability. A denial of humaneness. It was hurting an animal. It was slapping your younger sibling. It was ignoring the Check Engine light. It was the support of falsehood, disillusionment, escape. He rested the whiskey on his stomach and caught his head about to fall from exhaustion and cracked a beer. Used the coldness of it to wake his senses to the dullness of existence. How could something so dull and misunderstood be causing so much wreckage in his chest? He wasn't barrel-chested, but if his chest was a barrel it was at sea, bobbing for answers, concerned with the well-being of others.

FINITE MEASUREMENTS & THEIR UGLIES

2011-05-04T21:37:00.000-04:00

It's all commandeered wisdom, matchstick battles, and miniaturized ideals. Organized these miniature ideals would be a force to be reckoned with, instead they are disparate and nomadic. Their coming together from recognition merely insights the panic of loss of control and the confusion of being incapacitated or overwhelmed by no singular thought. It's a process that craves being beaten and hated, but enjoys itself too much to throw itself at the stake. Outcome and income ride jealously together in a carriage pulled by Weight itself. And Weight doesn't fuck around (or have 4WD).

Sloshing back and forth like gravy in a galvanized bucket, for feast or famine, intended to be used only with the greatest caution and the lightest touch. Slowly it boils without fire or conduction, the scientific awe at the miracules and fatons. Frankensteined thoughts of victory and accolade are grilled next to bad fish and fresh faces.

These thoughts collided within his head as he finally opened his eyes and observed his physical situation. He was at a party, but tied to a piano back arched over the open strings. He couldn't see below his bellybutton and his body had long since lost feeling in the majority of his extremities. At first he wondered if people knew he was there; pretty girls drank from red cups and dudes laughed spilling brown-bottled beers. But then he noticed that every once in a while someone would be looking at him, but then look away when he made the effort of eye contact. He had no shirt on, and wondered if he was wearing pants or at least some underwear. Numb, couldn't tell. He didn't dare speak out in case there was some malpractice about to befall him and so simply looked around. The music was loud enough to drown out his ability to think positively. He had no recollection of anyone in the room, or of any wrong-doing which would support his present state of distress.

All at once a pain came from his back. He couldn't see, strictly speaking, what was going on. He had a vivid imagination though, which took the truth of his abnormality and pranced it in front of his eyes when they were shut. Five hands were pushing their way out of his back, trying to reach the piano strings. Exactly like you would imagine, fingers pushing and prodding trying to get through the thick skin of his back. The pain was excruciating and felt like rods pushing his vertebrae back and forth over each other. The hands were actually managing to stretch out the skin enough to take handly form - nearly to the wrist. In another few centimeters they found the strings but didn't pluck them. They were blind and upon touching the chorded strings fell suddenly still and stiff. All at once the pain crescendoed and his brain became a choir of screeching. The hands had grabbed the strings and began to play furiously. Overtaken with the surge of endorphins he started to laugh.

This is when the room fell silent and the laughing faces became grim. He shuddered but kept on giggling, and the crowd took a step closer. The hands played, faster. His laughter brought tears which bobbed up and down into pain and then relief. Finally the nearest dude slapped his face so hard a red welt immediately appeared on his left cheek. "Shut up! You're back has the floor, show some respect for your only talent, shiteater."

She woke from the dream violently, sweat staining the sheets everywhere her body met them. She'd only been asleep for eight minutes and already had suffered the torments. She had the unfortunate disposition of narrating a character in a cult classic, and never felt good about it. It was called "Musical Hands" and well, she never really got a good night's rest after watching the first screening. On paper it seemed so innocent. Having it deployed to the senses and the masses with her smokey voice was something different. It created a bond of its own, a split-consciousness which shuddered to think of life without the possibility of intimacy. How something so stupid managed to create an emotional rush so strong that she couldn't control it's arrival or departure was shaming enough. She thought her sister was a slut but at the same time would give anything for a shallow experience. Every moment seemed like running with a heard of panicked elephants. Always existing in the split moment before getting trampled to death but not dying. The curse of survival, no matter what.

CHALK & CIRCUMSTANCE

2011-05-03T21:28:00.000-04:00

There's enough to go around, she mentioned with eyeful whim and someone else's truth. A rumble in the stomach occurred and changed the temperature of his body like hot and cold magnets polarizing his sense of even-keeledness. So he took a shower, made his body a single degree celsius. The wizards were amazed at the simple solution and ampleness of payoff. They stroked their beards. I stroke my beard.

Beards and Scotch and spicy foods, popcorn at night with unlikely company. World map to my right insists that my nature has been dormant and childish. An increasing need for solace and confrontation and fear arises from neglect and escapism. It's a bear, a bear to bear the idea of losing my bearings. What a fantastic word!

The light was quizzical and meandering, and I know how to figure out light. It seemed to deny its source and reflect upon invisible planes of red silver. How could my body glow like this? Is it something coming in burning, or coming out exploding, or meeting at the surface and enjoying a chemical reaction which in turn changes my visual sphere and relationship with the available light? Am I seeing into another spectrum? One that actually is definition, or attempts to suggest it, regardless of hoax. The truth of the matter is surrounded by tiny dancing stupid people who always get in the way. Miniature me's that operate on 1/5000th of my brain capacity. They make 50 decisions per minute without knowing why. On a bad day.

Curled up on the couch attempting to recreate that idea of comfiness that was on the television that day and then breaking bread with wine and a Tootsie Roll. I'm totally unsatisfied with my ability to narrate right now.

CURDLED GUINNESS AND STALE FUEL

2011-04-26T02:41:00.000-04:00

He was a king once, respected. Not a king of anything, but he had friends. There came a day.

Like free-falling without wind. That's the best way he could describe it. The wild flailing of falling, the weightlessness, and concept of trying to stay upright. The panic. But without the blowing, hissing, dryness of air pushing past the body, the face, the hair. Flapping clothes, chilling... none of that. Was it warm or cold?

He had forgiven someone he shouldn't have. It was a human enough attempt at salvation, but he failed to recognize the power of hatred, and started to feel it now. That hatred could inspire, or conspire, to ultimate goodness or grace or truth or dignity. It's a mere matter of rightfulness, notwithstanding ourselves.

It took a long time to grip the reality of the physical experience. It took a lot of grasping and hyperventilating. Firm thoughts about a high school lover's legs. The face of his mother from the crib. The distraction of anger at an unfaithful father. But eventually the witness of reality took hold in a way that was almost calming but for the massive overhaul it had on his consciousness.

It was a simple matter, nay tiny. It just had to be the one that lead by example, the needle that broke the cloven-hoofed element. It builds up and must have recompense at some point. There's a trigger inside which decides and blindsides. Unlike a ninja, like an elephant, unlike a holy man, like a tiger. He had to eat the past and taste every deceitful minute and hour and second and week. It was like curdled Guinness and smelled of stale fuel.

Once enough time had passed without hitting a surface, logic attempted to take hold. Was there a parachute? Did he have jeans on? What was the level of invincibility of his clothing? Long underwear, wool socks, hoodie.... anything for the head? Was it cold or warm?

The lie was small. Of course, all lies are outside of politics. Our personal lies, our human rationales, they're tiny, insignificant, meantful. The greater good, for which there can be no greater calling, for which we will sin again and again for. But not at this point. It's time for a stand against. We're not holding in our inner walls here, no. He had only one wall to deal with, one wall to push over. The wall which said I Can Be Lied To.

It then occurred to him to speak. Or try, or find out about it. To his great relief and stupidity he found he could hear himself. "Herr Commandant...." he said without really knowing why. He felt on the spot, so said something without any particular meaning, lest it be held against him. Then he felt stupid, and thought about it for a while. Was anyone listening?

Once the initial rejection went through there's a barricade of pathetic sympathizers to deal with. Why'd you do it? It wasn't really that bad. Remember the time he helped you out? Yes, and he talked to me all the way home about how he was so glad we were friends and he could be there for me. I would have rather died of chronic convulsive projectile diarrhea. From my mouth. Into my mouth.

For the first time he attempted to open his eyes. This was possibly the most terrifying moment of his career as my example, because when he went to open them he found that they were already open. That there must be a darkness such that it could trick the mind into thinking he was closing his eyes as hard as he could, even covering them to keep the penetrating sun from glowing through his eyelids. This is when space and time failed his pretense. It took faith to be faithless in another. Which brought to mind the idea of faith, which was too much to bear in a void.
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NECK FIBRES AND DOGS

2011-04-23T18:49:00.001-04:00

The Lead Dog managed to keep the runner-ups at bay until he was antiquated. Soon his grey nose gave way to constant nipping and cruel eyes. Afraid to sleep he left one night. He knew that he would be unable to feed himself without the pack, but wanted to die on his own terms, empty, and not simply bleed all over the young. He didn't want to feel defeat and death at the same time. One is ominous enough without the aggravation of the other. After getting a half mile outside the pack, gravity took hold and his shoulders relaxed. His bones felt brittle and his years-long wounds began to reopen. At first only clear fluid welled up around the bites, scratches, stabs, kicks. But now a mile away the blood started to seep out. He had to start limping as his right hind leg was now so unbearably sore it seemed broken. Panic at first settled into his mind, behind logic and in front of memory, but there expanded to confusion. Was he kept up only by the circle of the pack? Was there some perverted immortality attained by being included, or by participation? Or was his departure a sin of some mortal nature, or possibly an absolution to a purity which rips at the very fabric of existence? The blood had begun to stink a quarter mile back, and now there was a rustling in the bushes back off over his right should, 30 yards or so. Another rustle this time ahead of his position. At once he realised the natural order which he had tried to subvert was the fabric being torn and demolished by past events colliding in the space of one act: his act of departure. From the rustling, now coming from seven positions around the glade in which he found himself, bound the runner-ups from his pack. Snarling, growling, and... bleeding. Their fates were similar to his, their past wounds opening up and bleeding, bones breaking themselves voluntarily, bruises swelling. They had come for their natural order, and for the future of their pack, their clan, perhaps cursed or maybe lucky. As the Strongest of the pack leapt in ambush, the Lead Dog barred his teeth for show, but bent his bloody neck revealing an easy target. The Strongest opened his mouth and sunk his teeth deep into the neck of the Lead Dog. He bit and bit without relieving pressure, working his canines in-between the fibres of muscle and around tendons. When he felt he had reached maximum grip, that they were one unit of violence, he started to shake. Jerking, shaking, pulling, jumping, ripping the innards of the neck from their natural order. The Lead Dog did not fight the Strongest but couldn't simply let himself go. This was not suicide, possibly sacrifice, or submission, or tiredness. He felt each piece inside his neck rip apart from other pieces. He felt the gush of blood pouring into his throat by some other avenue. He didn't choke, he tensed and held and stayed and waited, concentrating on his paws or some other part of his body that wasn't under such immediate duress. A fog finally came over his eyes, after 34 minutes of being thrown around, and 50 feet from his original position. A grey fogs just entered his mind and started cutting away memories, feelings, concerns, ideas, notions, fantasies. It was best to let go now.
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Victory is NASCAR

2011-04-15T19:33:00.001-04:00

The ejaculation of champagne after the win foaming, spraying, wetting, celebrating. Victory is NASCAR, buy the cheap stuff. Don't hide it under a bush, as they scream and roar and cheer. Take off the helmet, thank McDonald's and Home Depot and Charles Schwab, and just get soaking those thunderous few close enough to get your victory on their clothes and in their faces. Jump around and quit the bottomless overflow, triumphant this is what they came for. You beat everyone out, ended them, drove them off the road. You went faster, better, harder, stronger. Flex, tighten let the speed release you into the linear dimension. Careless like breaking in doors and shattering vacant windows, explode. Like a constant rocket never shedding boosters, soar and fly and float and energize. Contain the power in your head, pressure on the back of your eyes, boiling point it's an orange glow at the cracks of eyelids. You could take out entire cities, shake the bottle. Are they stars, flashes, blessings from beyond a grave it doesn't matter, just shake the bottle, they're going to turn around at any moment to witness this. The foil's off, the cork is loosening and reaching that point where it's gonna pop, jet Fival to America, take an eye out. Now everyone's focused on your hand and you push it that last bit, and FFFFFSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH they go wild, you go wilder but look and feel funny about it, wondering how long this lasts. Victory is contained in units of pressurized fatality. To partake is like the sideways of drinking from the Holy Grail. All accomplishment is leading to your 9th Symphony. You can't skip it like Mahler tried to.

I Can Be The Trouble, You Can Be The Bass

2011-04-11T21:02:00.000-04:00

A friendly switch, roaring motorcycles trying to rebel reliving "open road" in mounting traffic, clogged up like a nose or a head or a vein. It's all in-body. And day-old wine in a rocks glass, like gals with lipstick. Pretension is the confidence of the lap-swimmer, when alone it would turn to red rage, but to cut, to cut! it becomes a great game for winners. Sliding backwards into the cushion of the Hell Couch. Wandering around walking on the ocean, unclear if it's the Indian or Pacific; there are no indicators in open water, sort of like I want to be in it, but then there are always sharks. Just walking around on the ocean. Like the story, but with no moral, no real important point, it's a losting not a proving.

Going in for the kill in dead of night, high summer humidity, low grasp of danger. Enlivened by the thought that I may not succeed, a victory seems eminent. If I fail I will be eaten, digested, turned into nutrients and shit. If I succeed I will turn it into the same. It's got me on weight, I must only be a fifth of the poundage. Eyes on the sides of it's head, that's an advantage, too. Can't seem to really get the jump. Do I stay low to keep a visual on the more tender parts of the body or hold high like a larger threat? The confident would lay low. I have to believe that I'm a little crazy at this point, and more or less ignorant to the dangers. Can it hear the pounding in my chest? Smell the fear or libido? Will I have a libido after this victory? Can it be topped by anything? Not the killing, but the surviving, feasting.

There's a single-file line of women outside the courthouse, all readying for some sort of judgement.

There's a single-file line of men outside the bar & grill, all awaiting approval and feeling shitty about it.

There's a single-file line of dogs bringing humanity together with their cuteness.

If there's a secret society I don't want in, I need to be able to say I turned something down.

If there's forgiveness, I hope I don't need it.

If there's a dying man suffering, I hope I know in what way to help.
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CREATURE from the CRAB RANGOON

2011-04-11T02:32:00.000-04:00

I just deleted an entire post composition. Really, like I selected ALL, and started typing this. It wasn't fresh enough for how unfresh I am. Dammit, I need to conquer by opposite. Always and apposing force, never an opposing GIANT WITH GREAT STRENGTH ENTERED THE ROOM AND SHOOK ME HARD, MAKING ME QUESTION MY DECISION TO STAY.

I must cordially intercept the communication of my brian, lust it stray too far from course or careen into another dimension. Other dimensions cannot handle that shit. It's an egocentric way to say that I'm being beared down upon by unknown forces of guileless, semi-transparent nature. To each his own? No, to everyone everything, and dissolve.

The light burnt out about 3 hours ago. I turned it on to shed some light and PFT! There are two lightbulbs, only one went out. This leaves me 1/2 the light I previously had. It's on a fader so it's a constant scale of half-light. Because my brain is part camera, this is a dramatic difference. In my mind it's like "Oh no! I just went from f/2.8 to f/4!" Well, dammit, I should have got a CFL or a fixed aperture lens. It's all my fault. And now it's like having a fader that goes from off to half. I wonder if this can describe a state of being.

THE STATUS OF THE UNIVERSE/tiny screw drivers

2011-04-07T02:09:00.000-04:00

The upheaval is pronounced, dismayed, excited, and contradicted by my excitement to sit down with a Sailor Jerry and talk to the gentle void. All the lights are off and the space heater and 22 inch LCD are a beacon of possibility. It used to be the blank page. Her skirt was so nice, somewhere soft legs and freckles. Like a moment ago, the idea of a moment surrounds logic and laughs in the schoolyard at Just punishment, like the kicked kid kidding about scars on his forehead.

The mark, colossal, amidst the idea of a bunch of consonants having a party on your tongue. Gee and Guh, See and Kuh, Chrench and Truck. There are backwards ways of saying. To which I owe the honour, I owe nothing, just a patient. Admitted to the ward of dysbelief, hydonyms between legs are so far from cowardice, but play at will in mock-ceremony to the gods of high school.

Should I edit myself. I'm stating a question, not asking it. Far better: Does editing oneself compromise transparency, and is transparency in bed with validity? That was a question. Granted, both in bed would be quite right, so by instant-association the answer is Yes. I'm so pissed that my iPhone is updating and I may not be receiving reddish foreshadow and payoff.

A sweet six-year-old blonde girl runs around in sunshine, forgetting about the ice cream cone she was so excited about (and promised to love forever), forgetting to keep track of the drips and sticky fingers. The mint chocolate all over her beaming face at the opportunity of stresslessness, childhood, and saccharine faux-innosense. The father, proud of their innocence and begettingly confident of his treasure, plots the Catholic Book of Golden Legends. The mother, meanwhile, preoccupied with the punishment of bad behavior and knowing that laughing is treachery, spies behind enemy lines to an action so tight even she may not undo it. It's fortified, like a fine brandy or Civil War post, fortified by virtue and defense, cleavage and cleaver. NO I INSIST THAT THIS IS FAR BETTER THAN THE ALTERNATIVE REALITY.

So does anyone else find it odd? The new Coors Banquet cans with the "ADOLPH COORS" logo... Man, you just can't name a kid Adolph anymore. I mean, he was certainly a predestined hipster. But no one cares when a hipster dies, because, like, you probably haven't heard of them.

How on earth do I have 97% battery life on my laptop when it's plugged in? Just count it as a cycle and give me 100%, MacBitch!

I'm sorry that there aren't any pictures, block-quotes, or videos.

Grass like in slow motion, peak of summer, overgrown. Tide lapping at your timid toes. Fireworks exploding like a terrorist wetdream on the 4th killing their hard-on, feeling the pressure-impact on your chest, being wowed, more imbued with amor for present company. Bottles clink and voices raise, forever, forever, forever.... The grill, smelling of salt and smoke and blood, sparking like a song to reignite for that last hungry late-comer. Enough buzz that the awkwards arrive to welcome, Ex's joke, no longer BFF's remember. And still that sinkhole of idiocy remains permeating the liver of conscience. You know what the liver is, right? It thwarts attempt, like a prude, or confession. It filters, like Jiminy Cricket, Clement Greenberg, or your Grandmother. The good, the bad, and the ugly - all of it. But those who have claimed its villainy and demand it's punishment for long enough recognize it's value. That for some reason you need it to live, so FINE (tightass).

Well, I had planned on a much more careful plot of rampage, filth, cursing, and brilliance. Instead you got this. I'd promise it won't happen again but I've loosed the reigns to whoever's driving.

THE COURTSHIP OF PRINCESS LEIA

2011-04-01T21:55:00.003-04:00

I bought a Darth Vader bobble-head. It was on sale. No it wasn't, but I bought it anyway because I really wanted it. Gotta have a chat with the Dark Father himself, but he's simple and his greed and anger have overtaken him, his advice tainted by the power of Force-choke. So he'll just bobble his head. That's what I bought him for, no light to shed, no wisdom to warrant nor arrest.

Why is it that steak and Caesar salad go so well together? It's like meat salad. I guess it is meat salad. I like meat and salad. When the Caesar dressing runs brown with the mixture of blood and fat the Scotch cuts through like a pseudo-savior, splitting the texture with the taste, enlightening both. The knife cuts both ways though, I suppose. In and out. Back and forth. Constriction and exhaustion/plugging/vacuuming, no divots in this blade here. Light and oxygen aren't so different.

In slow motion the dog's paws transcend space and time, impossibly alighting upon the concrete, like the opposite of a rugby scrimmage in a field of marmalade cake and ice cream and chocolate. It's not like that, but realistically that's not it's opposite, it's the observance of a dual thoughtymology. Ideas of both being so equally confounding that the imagery pleads the obsolescence of any linkage, suggesting an arbitrary opposite. Am I arbitrarily opposite to anything? If so how many things? Is it meaningful because it's so many or so little? There's no harm in being concerned with this, because all it provides is the notion that we are unlike our our image with our supposed opposite images. There's no commitment in the idea so I see no reason that anyone should challenge.

Let's put it a new and better way. My image of myself is arbitrarily opposed to all other images of myself. Same with you. Their differences don't matter, but therewithin lies the trickery. Their opposite because they're all not true. All counterfeits are equally and undeniably false and opposite to their inspiration, whether or not they are visually opposite, or one can differentiate.

This doesn't help at all in most cases. Mainly because we may try to see the inspiration as differentiated by it's counterfeiters. However this will lead blindly with no clues. What help this can provide is in the mind-health of one trying to discern. Our ideas and contrivance of definition or assumptions of the actual character of X must be supplemented by the knowledge that our powers of deduction are based on our villainy in spirit and vengeance of heart and general disparate attention span.

And confusion is the mother of all brain-fucking. Be more comfortable with non-absolutes, because they win 10 to 1. I am not confused, which is the only place where solace has it's appropriate chemical compound required for healthy respiration. If I was to be confused, I should know that I failed to make decisions a lot earlier than 'now'. That this sudden culmination of horror is not sudden, just previously denied. We can all make small understandings which promote the wrangling of confusion, the devil's Comedy Central.

Anakin had Midi-chlorian counts off the charts, unseen and unpronounceable. That means potential, but only potential. His image of himself and the world was quadropolarized between control, emotional conviction, expectation, and talent, and, being polarized, their opposites. He failed to properly address his resident bias and received no training in these matters. Unfortunately the Jedi Council's greatest shortcoming isn't their insistence in being virtually emotionless, but as a fatherless clan it's their inability to guide anything but the infant through to their ideal point of fruition. Their mentorships and tutelage are contradictory as they pretend to fulfill the roles as father and Jedi. Anakin is the only one known to be without a father. Great lengths taken to suggest that there was indeed no father at all. But anomalies aren't immune. Luke may not have had a father (eh?), but that soon plummets as an idea because his having a father is so central, and really a story only told to support and contrast the story of Anakin having none.

Okay okay okay.... My point is that Anakin was victim to the visual counterfeits of himself, and which were supported by those around him who refused to see his needs and only focus on his potential. Thus when his mother is held captive and tortured til her sightly death by the Sand People of Tatooine, when it all really has to matter he makes a decision that comes from a place that has remained unfostered, counterfeited, prostituted, and original.

If we could only be so lucky as to be immune to our training and make such honest decisions. To have tragedy trigger our treacherous trajectory into such brutal honesty.

But, as bobble-head... I suppose he provides just a shadow or space to think.

(this was from my phone, please excuse any misspellings and such.)

--Posted using Blogpress via iPhone 3GS.

Location:Force Witches and Rancors

MOCHI POWDER IN MY BEARD/HOW IT SHOULD BE

2011-03-29T00:54:00.000-04:00

My obsession with the Wild is born out of fear. Not from woods or wilderness, but because it's not a closed word. One of my favourite titles to a book is Wild History, Richard Prince's first publication, a collection of essays. I was horribly disappointed to find that it was a sweet title, but with very little to do about the Wild. I think Richard Prince at least pretends to know that, you never know because he can't really be trusted in public; I guess that's sort of case in point. It should have been a book of essays about the sublime, like Uncontrollable Beauty. Which is why I keep them together on the book shelf. Maybe one day I'll pick up Wild History and want to read it because it turned into a threat.

I'm very surprised to find that I'm doing just fine today. It was a weird long weekend. But the Skull Armada plows yet through silent black waters. No storms, just threatening clouds. It's like pounding out red hot steel for a sword, folding it, pounding it out again, folding it... I know the more folds the stronger the steel will be, but the hammer's heavy and in the end will it really be strong enough.... It's not like you get a redo, man. Finish when it's damn well finished.

I keep thinking about this blue colour I talked about before, Napalm Blue. I don't remember if I suggested that it might have some teal in it. Teal sounds a little weak, but it's a legit colour. Unlike... I don't know, peach? Peach is dumb colour. I used it a lot in college but I didn't really think of it as peach. When I mixed colours it was always just a colour I wanted (and mixed until achieved), or a colour I wanted to be just far enough away from another colour to not replicate that colour's character. I didn't want to use dumb colours. You can only get away with that when that's the point, or when it's being asphyxiated by proximity by another colour. (Re: Kasarian Dane (my old prof), Robert Motherwell, Barnett Newman) You have to provide some sort of judgement, some explanation. You have to enslave it or free it or fear it... you can't simply hold it's hand and walk down the street, especially the dumb colours.

I'd keep them in my bed. Sometimes in my pocket.

~~I just don't want them to get hurt.~~

Go search Google Images, choose a word, say "awesome", I mean use that as a word, but it could help to say it. Turn off "Moderate Search", that only ruins the fun. Search it. Find it. (It's a joke because it can't be found.) But now on the lower left side of the screen notice the Color options, along with Size and Type. Choose different colours. What's happened is that the word awesome is falling apart. Or being put back together, I'm not sure which or if it matters. "Awesome" is now being redefined with basic color parameters, but equally, like socialist healthcare. And before you go "Hey that Chicago Bear's wristband isn't PINK, it's ORANGE!" like attractive redheads do, then realise that Google doesn't see object colour it sees pixel colour. It's why your printer runs out of Light Magenta or Photo Magenta when you print portraits. Or you're constantly refilling Cyan for your landscapes. Maybe this doesn't redefine anything, but it sure is fun!

It's funny, I thought I'd have more to say about that. You know, it's like a big deal for five minutes and then it's over. You're like.... "oh". I guess that's how that ended up. Circling the crops only to find bare ground and dead corn stalks. And crows. Crows thinkin' the exact same thing. Lookin' at you all cockeyed. Like crows. You just stare back, think about The Birds, and then run. The pounding of wings becomes more imminent, cowardly close, maybe day's turning into night or they're just overtaking you or you live in northern Alaska or you live in a basement but you won't look back, up, out, around. You won't even blink, man. Your eyes would start to water really badly like you were crying but you weren't, and your side would ache. You'd give just about anything to sit on a rock and puff on a cowboy killer, or turn over realise it's your day off and drowse out to birds chirping. But then there's the spike of cold air sucking into your lungs or whatever's still operational and the realisation that the sounds of the crow's nasty wings has crept back like an evening tide on MARS. You're on effing MARS. This is JUST like Total Recall! Holy shit it's Sharon Stone!

Anyway, it's not about the people you surround yourself with, it's the people you entrust yourself with. If I blamed my past for my future, I'd be leaving out the most important part.
.
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Why Can't You Feel It Sometimes When Your Body Does Something?

2011-03-25T02:27:00.000-04:00

When left, imagining the videolog of my own panic. Sometimes it just bursts through like a comet in your stomach/brain. Brain/stomach, stomach/brain. It's a simple life.

It's a departure. A fleeing. Not in the physical realm, but the one that you feel every now and then. Fight or flight, those are panic terms. I'm fine, just thinking it through. I'm not panicking. ("Panicking" looks like "Pancakes".) No one doesn't like pancakes. I've never made them but I bet they'd be good if I did. I'm not bad a cooking. I'm not bad at a lot of things. But no invites.

On the bathroom chalkboard at Greydon's Crossing (a Larry and Brian endeavor which features their characteristically-high, horrible bar height), was written "Who is John Galt?" To which another patron offered "John is Ayn Rand's phantom cock." This may or may not be entirely true. It's very accurate either way. Both have obviously read "Atlas Shrugged", which I have not, nor care to. (Lie, I actually do.) So I do want to read it. I just said I didn't then changed my mind. I'm not a liar. Not that I never lie, but I try my hardest not to. The devotion instilled by treachery and confession.

CRITERIA CRITERIA CRITERIA, just doesn't have sound semblance of the life-wrench, but so demanded. That is so demanded. Required, judgementatertots. I swear that's not an adverb. Imagine actually flying, like how Superman does, but without Superman's impenetrable eyeballs and boy scout swagger and faux-innocence and idyllic male demeanor and horrid taste in underwear and just the pure hatred that he inspires in my body... but imagine flying, fast. That would hurt your eyeballs so much. You'd close them! You would fly blind, and then remember your were flying, and open them. And then it would hurt SO much! And you'd close them again! Are you flying blind??? I mean you could slow down, right, and it would be okay, but then you can FLY. What's the point of flying if you do it so slowly? Well, I feel I've made a valuable point, but I have to blow it up, like Bruce Yippee Kai-aye Motherfucker Willis. Because the fantasy is to lift off from your very seat wherever you're sitting and with whatever going on around you and simply lift off, just lift, suspend (No!) and lift. Who the hell would wear lead-lined underwear anyway? Louis was a prude.

Miller High Life started putting pin-up girls on their 24 oz. beers. It's pretty exciting. What's weird is the ethnicity. She's not black, hispanic, asian, caucasian, polynesian... she's like neapolitan ice cream or something. She's beautiful, which supersedes ethnic colouration of course, but personally I enjoy all of our variations and am a little weirded out by the mixology. Granted I speak Chinglish, love Eurasians, mulattos, Indo-whathaveyous, and whatever in- or appropriate descriptions that are commonly thrown about. And I care, too. Because you can easily spot someone who's in personcolour-denial by the claim "I don't care." Not caring is always a downfall. We're not all treated equally, and we all have selfishness in common. F I hate Superman.

I like needle-nosed pliers. I like tools. Tools have purpose. But really, I really love tools. Nothing more is expected of a tool than it's own logical purpose, which is usually singular, unless you're owned by Josh, then you never know what you're in for. However you will always succeed or exceed your purpose. Failure is always blamed on the manufacturer or on the strength of the wielder. The tool is an oak. Stand corrected. That's why guys like power tools so much, they can finally escape the gaze of women and exceed the expectation of the simple tool they're made out to be. Women are one of the two most mis-led sexes on Earth.

Just In Case You Thought I Was Serious All The Time

2011-03-20T22:06:00.002-04:00

Cocktails & Dreams, Robot Lament, Kisser

2011-03-20T19:48:00.000-04:00

I just switched the font to Helvetica. We'll see how this goes. It's so plain and pretty, but it's so brochure. The medical kind about how to talk with your doctor about private issues. Times has the quality of mashedesign paperbacks of great stories from history that sacrificed their physical presence for mass high school reading requirements. It's just trashy enough to still be charming. "CHARACTER" Call your deficiencies "character" and witness the ebb and flow of fatalism and moral resource. Green Day was just yelling "Down with the moral majority!" and I don't disagree. Our greater moral conscience interrupts reports of Libyan unrest with the trifold pancake of celebrity updates. It's not like anyone's holding a gun to our heads, we can make these choices, but not as a nation, so.... I guess we can't make these decisions. We've built a great decision-making device with no ears.

If I just get this one thing I'll be happy. Haha, with rain and a messy day, space heater comforter, reading about how to increase gas mileage and mount safari racks. Is it really already another work week? There's a fixture cursing under the weight, it's placement a pinnacle of thoughtless planning, a void of consideration. It had different purpose, but as they all left one by one we found an exceeded weight limit being firmly held tight, like real magic or air tunnels or adrenaline. Our concept of wind is like a character-actor out of character, like nothing special, just tasteless strawberries that look really good.

I just purchased a blue/white/brown plaid dress shirt that I'm pretty into. There's a line of chevrons in one of the plaid lines going on and on about not being technically plaid. It's a great conversationalist and reminder that there are always other options, different breathe-holes in different sized boxes. Lots of ways to exist and function and normal out the great cacophony. Saxophones are just a little trashy. Telephones are rad. Phonemes are funny because they don't mean anything, they're backwards engineered. Do you feel backwards engineered sometimes? Like the anti-product of what you can't achieve or haven't yet without reasonable belief that you will? Don't worry about it, it's not contrived but it is character-acted. Use blunt force. Think of all the little chevrons insisting, defying, clarifying.

The Culmination Of Efforts

2011-03-14T21:26:00.001-04:00

Kill it. Like a whistleblower at sunrise on the last day. March it, march it down the street, while confetti stings your eyes, keep a close eye. The girls lean over the banister, scolding with cleavage and inexpensive makeup. You're a hero, this is your moment, don't cry about it. The boys look up to you.

There's a crack in the dash, not romantic. Like the plastic sighed with relief and let go of all the hopes and dreams of the 1980s. Or someone was mugged in here, or a girl's foot slammed into it. Maybe the glass was tempered wrong and somehow magnified the sun's heat, focusing it like a schoolboy with an ant. Whichever fate it fell, it rattles endlessly the encrypted story. Over, and over, and over again. It was so good or so bad.

When you live in a basement, a solar calculator blows. It could barely calculate my standard deduction. That's how the 1040 talks about me, and a possible spouse or child. The Federal attaches the most value to my being, the State less, and the City even less; less this year than last. The standard deduction. I've been deduced by local, state, and federal government. It's like the closer it is, the less you're worth. The less people you have to blame. The clearer they can make you out, the more they realise that money can't express this tangible cacophonous explosion of ripe meat.

My hands get red often. They get red because I have bad circulation. I have bad circulation because I smoke. I smoke because I love to smoke.

To what do I owe the pleasure? To my black and yellow BMX bike when I was a 8. There's a song about it. And my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles skateboard. My first skateboard. Plastic guard rails and all. It was a tough fight, because at the time I wasn't allowed to own any of the action figures. And I'm an action figure kinda guy. I got lots of 'em. 'Nuf said.

To Be Alone And Well Equipped (edited)

2011-03-12T19:45:00.001-05:00

Damn, I forgot my coffee upstairs. Mo money less problems. There are always two ways about it. Looking for new music? Try GNOOSIC, it's fun. Want to read the two single funniest blog posts that I've ever read? Vodka Mouth and Subway. That whole blog is hilarious and so well done it's sort of unbelievable. Music that is new(ish) to me that I've been listening to that you may also enjoy: Melody Club, You Say Party! We Say Die!, Dananananakroyd, Theresa Andersson, Discovery, The Knife, The Blow, The Whitest Boy Alive, YACHT, The XX.

****PAUSE****

I roll in a 3.00am, but it's the time change. Is it actually 2? Who's right? A great stalemate trespasses. I take off my vest, grey sweater. I take off my pants, my invincible long-underwear. I pull on my sweat pants with the cigarette burn right in the crotch, and contemplate whether or not to edit this post. You see, my desire to edit this post begins with feeling a little uneasy about the conveyance of the initial impression. It went like this:

To be alone and well equipped is key. I'm sick of selfish women. No matter what it seems, you will be tested by The Constant Suggestion, The It's Not Me It's Me, The Convex Mirror, The Drop Kick, The I Know Better, The Help Me Hate You, The I Understand, and The Great I Need. These are voids. There are good and bad voids. These are bad voids. Good voids are like feeling lonely in bed. If you're lonely in bed then you at one time knew what it was like not to be lonely in bed. Man is a solid Janga tower (on an island), when he experiences something a piece slides out part way creating a void. The void can be satisfied, until impasse, but is now a constant space (full/empty). This is a good void. A bad void is what happens when at some point you accept a negative experience, or take it at false value and move your Janga piece out a little, creating a void. A bad void. Bad voids create mistrust, questions, inabilities, pressurechests, gangly thoughts that don't end. Bad voids happen when impasses are not acknowledged properly.

I had a lot of other horrible things to say, but I guess I'll end here. At least I got to talk about those voids a little bit. Take care, fair weather.

And yes, I realise that this sounds darker or more ominous than it is. Some may wonder if he's nuts. I react not wanting to seem nuts. In reacting I feel I've overdone it, I've scared them off. Catch-22.

I guess I'm questioning being Well Equipped. Not whether I really am, but the faculty of processing these things creatively and with diminishing effect. I have no write to reright the parables of manhood, but I would enjoy some engagement. The idea of a giant Janga tower embedded like a YouTube video on a typical stranded island isn't sufficient. The only reason why not is because every visual of this debacle of manhood involves a looming white, and I mean pristine Madonna white, cruise vessel cut-n-pasted into the foreground, reassuring the Janga tower of it's birthwrite.

Have I not done my best to succeed and reright the passages of my unholy typeface? Have I not peeled back the slippery bark of precedence and retaliation? Inspired only half the time by the sub-clause of my situation, what more do you want before I can win the lottery? There is no lottery winning for people like us, just taxation, amendment, and equal views.

Every time I get excited I faceplant in self-erected fortunes. Gung hei fat choi. Sometimes I wish I'd begged for the red packet as a child, followed through, dismissed my sidetracks. But I am sick of selfish women, and always will be. I will wrestle with selfish men, in attempt, but women hold a colder que, and to such stature must break judgement and fastidiousness. As product our children are not innocent, and will suffer our love with demons.

But enough talk of demons and passage and asphyxiation. Let's talk about relevant items, like steadicams, reworking paintings, writing novellas, TECHNOLOGY, Scotch, hot redheads you want to devour, new RAM for laptops, Carlsberg, the mussels at the Winchester, the way Aziza used to make your Pasta Orleans, cleaning rooms, making mix CDs that you can't quite figure out, and why the hell I feel like writing like a stoic verse poet bastard infidel all the time. I'll never spill my guts, this is constructed.

Crash Course In Paradigm Shift

2011-03-10T00:08:00.003-05:00

The guilt of a Police Chief without a Batman. The guilt that the mayor is oblivious to. I saw a rabbit running through the snow tonight, and thought to myself that I would mention it here. Dear, dear Chief Gordon, I know why your wife left you.

The main songs I remember from 1998 are "Funk Soul Brother" by Fatboy Slim, "Got You Where I Want You" by The Flyes, "Sex and Candy" by Marcy Playground, "Closing Time" by Semisonic, and "Cruel Summer" by Ace of Base. 1998 is when puberty finally expired by body and I gained unnecessary weight. It may have had to do with working at Baskin & Robbins. Man, the cocktail of oral dreams that come true with all those ingredients at hand. When I went back to HKG, Anna, who I had sort of dated for a moment before leaving for the summer, slapped my arm and said, "Wow, you really bulked out!"

My beard is getting too long. I mean, there's no such thing as a beard that's too long, but for work I suppose. My regular hair too, the brown hair. I feel a little unkempt. That doesn't mean I won't sleep any sounder. After every death of breath there's a pause before the withdraw from the air bank. Economy.

"My first thought was to arm myself. I would have called it instinct, but the only instinct we posses is that of selfish preservation and fear. None of that survival shit. I’ve watched enough TV to fashion a spear, my primary inspiration being Predator; the first one, with Arnold Swarzeneggar. So I started observing the animals. They knew what to do. They would help me survive.

A rabbit looks up from it’s hole and says, “Dig, you stupid cunt.” An owl swoops in and carries it off.

But you have to know which animals to watch. The little guys are cattle for the mid-range hunters like bobcats, wolverines, birds of prey. They’re the ones to watch. Mainly because it’s suicide to try and watch bears, wolves, or cougars.

Clothes inhibit you. Get naked. But keep your clothes around because you don’t have any fur.

I didn’t learn anything. I only got to know my fear better, which was being fed like a bonfire surrounded by drunk collegiates. I’d give anything for a whisky about now.

I’ve totally stopped masturbating. The woods are always watching, and I’m afraid the pheromones from my cock might attract the wrong kind of attention. I only shit in rivers and streams because leaves don’t work and my diet of berries gives me the runs. When Madonna was on Letterman back in the 90’s she said that urine is sterilizing, so I piss on my feet to ward off disease – I don’t know why, maybe because the thought of being sick out here scares me more than being torn apart by a bear. She wasn’t stranded in the wild. She had nothing to live for. She might be saving my life… or I’m just pissing on myself.

Remembering songs is funny. I remember every song. The wild doesn’t interfere with trying to remember something. I remember everything. Every pop, twang, and doot-do-doo.

Sorry, I told myself I wouldn't talk to you anymore. It's hard to keep a silent brain, you just don't exist like I thought you would.

You can’t go to hell here. You can’t commit mortal sin in the wild. It’s true, I could rape an unsuspecting critter, I could revel in the idea of murdering a bunny or something bigger, drink it’s blood. But to rationalize this you have to admit you were going to hell all along. I feel I have a pass. Not a free pass, or sense of unsubstantiated religious self-worth; maybe I go somewhere else. Maybe I stay in the wild. Realistically I think the only thing after the wild is complete darkness. Joseph Conrad darkness. The soul’s worst result. A void. A darkness not defined by light. Like before, before it all, when there was nothing. That’s where I end up, I guess. With no age, no ill, just the demonic mind. Time only as a past, and incomplete concept of future that only reveals itself as the existence of the minute before, with nothing in nothing. Nothing on nothing. No sight nor sound, only my own idea of senses that haunt me of it’s essentialness without end. The ultimate void, black, whiteness, an eternal exposure to medium grey. An unsustainable constant of being. Being nothing and everything you might be without definition.

Sorry, I told myself I wouldn’t talk to you anymore. It’s hard to keep a silent brain."

The Mere Tormention Of Earthly Delights

2011-03-08T00:06:00.002-05:00

Sometimes it bothers me that I capitalize the little words in-between the big ones, but not so much that I don't gallantly carry on the tradition. But What And Who We Were Laid Rest. Lana Laid is a fantastic paper, recommended at first I believe by Adam Wolpa. I ordered it from Stephan Kinsella Inc. (RIP) and while on the phone with them, they informed me that it was no longer produced, so I ordered the rest that they had. It's possible that I own the last 40 sheets now. It's a printmaking paper, off white, ribbed if you hold it to the light, with a LANA LAID (with coat of arms) watermark. It's soft but firm, like the idea of the thin skin over a jaw bone. I may have the last 40 sheets until I kick the bucket. How could I ever know before hand if X is worth the cost of failure and loss. It's a perfect question if you never want to find out. Bullshit seems more constant than truth when you look around.

How do you make a blonde? I chose Unbleached Titanium and Cadmium Yellow, chopped and smeared. I think it looks good, like dead, but accurate.

Tonight I ate Havarti on a Vienna loaf, some thin red wine, papaya with lime, and Pa Tong Go with sweet milk. The Pa Tong Go (Chinese doughnuts in Thai) wasn't like it was in HKG, but the smell was right at least and brought us back. Then I had Miller Lite, Sailor Jerry, and popcorn and watched Cobra with Sylvester Stallone.

Alice Cooper said that he went to Jamaica to escape his alcoholism which ran rampant with the party atmosphere in the rock n roll circuit of American buffet. He discovered rum, and came back to dry out. He doesn't advise Jamaica for escaping alcoholics. Evidently the only thing that was able to distract him long enough to know better, was the human condition to believe in something higher that has faith in you, and likes you. The condition isn't a revelation, it's a stooping of our gorging ability to place the blame elsewhere "humbly". It's a sinner's world and I'm a sinnamon girl. Feverish. It felt like the very second time. Celebrity. Justify my self.

Unfortunately it works, it's available to everyone, so jump. Heal that wound, man.

Lost a brother today.

I figured out what the little dumptruck of irrelevant size is moving to different locations within my body. It's grey matter. It makes more sense now, right? It's a shifting, shuffling mess. Loyalties are strong, but with the crash of moments there must be a movement of delights and horrors. Today I had to do a data recovery of an SD memory card. It was a 2GB Sandisk Ultra II, in use for years at it's task. I couldn't bring myself to recover it all day. I did finally. It was dead children. Parents with stillborn children often want or need the service rendered of photographs of their beloved child, now deceased. Before your brain attempts to thwart the logic of this, pretend you've fostered a child in your body for 9 months, loved it, felt it, maybe alone or with someone. I don't know what that feels like, but this is how I rationalize it. And for the rest of your life you can't ever even see what occupied your heart and body for so long. It's not pretty, but it's not sickness, and I myself don't know what to do with the information emotionally. Two stillborn twins were photographed in early February, and those photos were accidentally deleted. Today it was my job to attempt their recovery. After speaking about what to expect when seeing the photographs, and what to look for, around what date... I found them. I think I was able to recover them all. I was really happy. I was actually almost brought to tears I was happy. I can't imagine failing such a pursuit that carried emotions I hope I never feel because I don't know if I have the constitution to survive feeling them. There were lots of other pictures I couldn't help but see from searching for the correct ones. I don't want to describe the nature of the visual/emotional impact. It simply can't do justice, even with the fucked up way I write.

Bring All The Boys To The Yard

2011-03-04T21:48:00.004-05:00

This sounds like a fun time. My life is full of chihuahuas, taxes, and girlish embarrassment. And of course a lot of pride. I wonder for how many hours I played with G.I.JOES as a kid. She's got great teeth.

I stayed up way past my bedtime last night with some charming ladies and gents. Bushmills is really smooth, and 24oz Coors Banquets look really odd in 12oz cozies. Wii golfing where you pop balloons is great!

I don't want to get too wordy or transparent, I try to condense and obfuscate and deploy. Condensation, like sweating on the inside when the State of the Interior is at odds with international policy. "That makes my blood boil." "Cold hearted." "Makes my skin crawl." "Shivering with delight." "I was so afraid my throat stopped working." It's like all the boxes around all the ideas that I consider relevant were selected and feather-edged 100%, given vignette for the impression of a time when all this could be defined. The more experience you have with trying to answer, the emptier they get, like fluorescent light tubes being used as lightsabers there's a moment of clarity when they meet mid-swing, where the clouds disappear and what remains are a thousand shards of an idea giving the middle finger to gravity. Two left standing bloodied by their indifference to the origin.

Get off. There's no guilt in this hour, hour by desire. The smell of fresh cracked black peppercorns, and a pound of spinach Popeyeing your trust. Give me a break, little man, I've had enough talk of stature, because of it I'm poking a Sharpie in the retina. This so I lose a dimension, the world flattens and you can't deny it because you're looking at it. You're operating in the 3rd, but watching it in the 2nd, in realtime. The massive divot where perspective used to hide has been punched up in the air. If only I could coordinate these 3-dimensional body parts to catch it when it comes down, and I'm always about 9 inches off. Some professional sadistic golfer always one step ahead of me. But it's fresh if you just sit and stop trying to make sense of it you don't miss it so much. Yeah, it's flatter, but the beer still tastes good, the whisky still barrels around your ear-nose-throat, there's still nicotine working just as well as the first time. Nothing changed. You can always rely on things that are closer looking bigger than things far away, you just can't see the distance equation, written in 2nd.

Sometimes I think there's a dumptruck inside my body. It's small, but irrelevant to size. The driver you never see his face. He's not sinister, you just don't know he's not not sinister. Mr. Not Sinister. What he does, I think, because he's inside me and I can't always tell for sure, is picks up stuff in one part, and calculates a new location, then goes and dumps it there. He just does this all the time, but I never know exactly when he does it. I don't question Why, because I assume it's necessary. If he stops, something else stops. Something will seem out of place. Stuff from one part will have no way of getting to another part of my body, which is like a wonderland for small dumptrucks of irrelevant size.

Let's Kick It In The Crotch

2011-03-04T13:56:00.001-05:00

Terrycloth and wax paper share a portion outside the pie chart of common materials used. So should sympathy. Gullibility and trusting people come from the same sad source of begrudgeoned fear or the echoes of an escaped portion outside the pie chart of common materials used.

I really want this to work, like all my greatest ideas the Death Star was a flawed design. Who could truly defend our Endor of opportunity and smashing power? The real problem is how it was going to defend itself after the construction was over and the warm shields of our Endor could no longer provide static solace. We can't just take Endor with us everywhere, but it's a great idea.

Not that Yavin 4 was that awesome. If your only protection is your secrecy, you'll find that fault of droidic subversiveness coddling all your plans. It doesn't matter how much of a cowboy you are if the prospects are endless, but you do have (built in) a tragic death available.

--Posted using Blogpress via iPhone 3GS.

Let's Get Things BENT out of shape

2011-03-03T21:55:00.002-05:00

Last night Bob and I were smoking these cigarettes, and then we both threw them at the ash can and both missed. We walked away and he mumbled "alliteration".

What was Katy Perry's first hit?

My grandfather died, I found out yesterday. I haven't been close to him or seen him in about 12 years, but it is sad because you think about the time you did spend with him. I was young, he was my first employer. I was paid about $6 to pound nails out of boards when I was about 7. He was a life-time logger. Logged most of the newer developments of suburbia in his town, the malls, the Safeways, etc. He grew up in the Cascade Mountains skiing for supplies to the nearest town. They lived there before the National Parks got there. I believe he was chased by a cougar or bear on skis at one point. I remember him as a nice man.

I've been staring at this painting I did when I was in college. It's good, I like it, but it's not done. I tried to add to it a month ago, and it has yet to be determined if I killer her or started a landslide of pigmented genius. I can't touch it again yet. Maybe next week she'll tell me what to do. Damn figurative bullshit. Give me some words to work with and decorate. Give me some nice ligatures, descenders, apertures, counters, terminals, and spurs.

I've got this awesome nub of graphite. It's so smooth you wish it was how like girls feel, but it's cold and grey so that wouldn't be so nice, I guess. Accurate for some, I suppose.

This guy came into work with a really cute baby and I think he felt one upped. Why don't we all just sell off our pride? I don't think we should, pride is good, especially if you have something to be proud of, or it's good because it's self-worth. The worst is people who remind you of their pride, and eventually you figure out why; they don't actually have any stock.

The backbone of America, a winner, with 7-foot tires and perfect jeans, leers drunkenly at pedestrians about to get plowed.

RALEIGHCATS ARE GO!

2011-03-02T11:30:00.003-05:00

Charlie Sheen really has it going on. There are so many reasons to admire Charlie Sheen, it's hard to know exactly where to start. Who wouldn't want tiger blood? I can't think of a single damned idea why I wouldn't want tiger blood. I almost believe Charlie when he talks to me, which is easy because he's unabashedly honest (debatably to a fault) and imaginative at the same time. I almost think that if we became blood brothers that I would go through some sort of bodily change, like The Hulk but on the inside. I don't understand the polygamy though, I mean I appreciate how classic rockstar it is and it looks damn good in print, but really what a mess. Sometimes if I just try to talk to two girls at the same time I think my head's going to explode. I one time experienced a loss of vision and hearing at the same time when I tried to multitask. My proper response: never again.

I haven't turned on any lights in the house today, not even in the bathroom, because of how much sunlight is showing off inside the house. Soon it will stay light out until 10pm, and we'll sit outside drinking a Coors Banquet waxing about the delights of the vented wide mouth, the slightly thinner circumference of the can, and the unique creamyellow color of the classic. Then I'll pull out a Red Lady, a Tall Blonde, the Longneck, the Champagne of Beers, and crack open the second-loudest cracking beer can on the market, and enjoy that too.

Limes kick lemon butt.

I ordered this book called Whiskey and Wild Women because of the title. I won it on an online auction called Ebay (great site, btw). I haven't read it yet, I mean to, but I've been struggling to get through Catch-22. Not struggling because of any fault of the book, I love the book so far, but struggling to outweigh time spent on reading against sleeping or pretending I'm going to do my taxes. I shuffle some papers around.

I have a ton of small shish-kebab sticks with my art supplies. I can't figure out what creative hoo-ha I was getting up to when I put them there. What was I going to do with these small arrows? Unplug the dried tips of 108 Elmer's glues? (That stuff just cracks off, anyway.) Or was I about to construct a bridge to nowhere. Maybe all my possessions are mini bridges to nowhere, and all my good ideas are like political earmarks that keep getting thrown out between my inner House and Senate. There's nothing to sign off on.

Green Glass Toy

2011-02-27T18:11:00.002-05:00

I moved a lot of heavy things today with Josh. Like a couch and some industrial storage shelves. The color of the shelves is pretty awesome, it's like a bluer teal; you don't find it naturally recurring in our present color-culture. Even for faddy people. It sets off old construction orange like a static explosion, like a freeze-frame of the beginning of Apocalypse Now when the napalm hits the palm trees. That's one of the most beautiful beginnings to a movie ever, in my small book of big opinions.

It's just that there is something awesome that happens when one thing is next to another thing. There's a relationship, of course, their can't not be, between whatever those two things are. Sometimes there's an explanation, like a color wheel. Other times though, you just stare at or feel the energy between two forms, colors, characteristics, mentalities. It's like competition, but its not, it's not a comparison, it's a new single unit with it's own original thought. Not to retread the paths through the cult of originality, 'cause that shit's BS, but there are subtle ways something can strike as new or unthought-of.

POST MUNCH

Like those two words together. What the hell is going on with that. Speed and daftness, carrier fiesta.

Tonight I am watching the Oscars with my mom and Cliff. It's going to be fun. Good people make up for bad awards ceremonies.

Last night I drove in an icy snowy empty lane on the highway to Holland to meet up with dear friends. Everything had pretty much changed since the last time I saw them. It was nice that nothing had changed since I saw them. Peter and I went to the Sandbar Saloon, one of my all-time favourite bars, around 11:30pm. We drank pitchers of Fosters and lit up the Spider-Man pinball machine. It loved us back and gave us a free game. After returning home we read some sweet new and reworked writings until we passed out. The drive home was very nice, and I didn't feel the onslaught of pressure that always happens when I near Grand Rapids. At least not as much.

I will clean this room, dammit. But not now. I'm hungry now. And a little fixated on something. I'm still thinking about the bluer teal, too. Napalm blue.

PANTS ON FIRE

2011-02-25T14:54:00.003-05:00

Conflict, bond, acres of mess. My mom got me a sweet book for my birthday. It's called "The Sriracha Cookbook" and should be pictured left. I haven't made anything out of it, but I'm super excited to. Things like Sriracha Cream Cheese, Srirachili Con Carne, Maple-Sriracha Sausage Patties, Sesame-Sriracha Crusted Ahi Tuna, and Sriracha Lamb Kebabs. Are you hungry now?

Get back to where you once belonged. Not sure what it means. Home? Self? I'm not sure I believe in "knowing who you are." We are essentially made of action and response, indicative of our natural training. I hate being lied to. I pretty much can't conceive of how to handle it, and will react strongly. And there you go!

I will never write a symphony, because I have no interest in writing a symphony.

Fulfillment is an interesting concept or constructed oblivion of concepts. Don't shoot the messenger. Not being fulfilled or content seems a much more natural fact of nature, I think, because it helps define drive or motive. If that's true, though, then striving for fulfillment or contentedness seems a little like a hooker who accepts Monopoly money. Damn odd.

I'd like to quote Peter Berghoef's one, two, three... poem right about now. Peter if you read this would you mind commenting it? I don't want to get the words wrong.

I don't seem like it but I'm actually very excited for the coming year and it's divide and conquer scenarios. It's like a complex pie chart without labels and a few non-linear lines to throw you off a bit. Like a paint by numbers but the numbers are algebra equations. Solve this and win burnt umber!

FOX IN A BOX!

2011-02-24T20:49:00.002-05:00

Sometimes I feel like Nelly really gets me. You know, like "The fish don't fry in the kitchen, the beans don't burn on the grill; it took a whole lotta tr-y-in just to get up that hill. But now we're up in the Big Leagues, and dirty, it's our turn at bat..."I did buy the Sweat/Suit doubledisc hoping for the same insights , but no, the young complex Nelly would prove to be gone forever. Now he's gone more country than he knows what to do with, singing from a girl's perspective about girls and himself, to girls, sometimes sung by girls... Nelly, my friend, you better trade in the bling for the boots. On the other hand, like Tevja, I can't help but be a little excited for his Spring release.

Scotch scotch scotch.

I've got a few hankerings that few substitutes can provide solace for. Like a good night's sleep, seeing Peter and Erin, ******** **** *** ****'* *******, the feeling of dodging a bullet, the feeling of catching a bullet, the feeling of firing a bullet. I wish I had a printer that printed on CDs/DVDs. I'll just have to get creative and draw on one.

All my photography stuff is still lying around. I found out I like taking pictures of myself. How messed up is that? I was a good one-man show. An island of possibilities. For some reason I started retaking tons of photos with different objects in my mouth. I almost crushed a disposable flash bulbs from 1967 in my mouth. That would have hurt, I bet.

Carlsberg was the first beer I ever had. I think I was 13, with my friend Anthony on top of Llama Island near Hong Kong. We had hiked up in the middle of the night (daytime was too hot) amidst thick, thick fog. There are cows up there, that scare the shit out of you when you can't see them and you accidentally wake them. It took two hours to get up there, which is really good time. I was playing music from my backpack (which was literally filled with powder cement to fix up a cabin up there), using battery-less speakers and my discman. Once arriving at the top and flinging off our pack in unbridled relief, we cracked two beers from the six pack in Anthony's bag. Took a sip, it was horrible. So we shotgunned them. Not a real shotgun, 'cause we didn't know how to do that, we just drank them fast. We thought we had a buzz, no idea if we really did. The next morning we did the same to the other two each before heading back down the mountain. (Exaggerated foothill.) I've loved beer ever since, and Carlsberg remains to this day my favourite. Sometimes you just have to take the plunge, see what gives.

FLICKRPUNCH

2011-02-21T13:47:00.002-05:00

As I posted earlier on Facebook, I've unlocked over 11,500 images on my Flickr account for free perusal by anyone. I locked it down 3 years ago because it wasn't fair at the time with certain relationships. Enough time has gone by that I'm opening it up again. I documented just about everything since New Years Eve 2005; not just my own social history but the histories of all the wonderful people I've been close to over the years. I almost feel like I'm giving it back to some people. I don't have a single regret in any of this pictorial barrage. It's all good, so let's enjoy it.

FLICKR

This now presents a new direction. Flickr will be added to. I am forgiving myself some old rules, for instance I will not post every single image I snapture. I may edit. There is still one ultimate rule: No Delete. No pictures deleted at the time of capture.

I will not delete an image of you from Flickr, unless there is a VERY good reason. Please feel free to approach me on this, but try to appreciate it as a static document of a neutralised past. Neutral, because it's past.

In other news it's been an incredible week. I've loved it. It was my 30th birthday, and you guys really showed me a good time. I had a fantastic actual birthDAY, at the Winchester with Josh, Kathy, and Cliff. I had a roaring good time on Friday at my birthday party at the Sazerac Lounge. Saturday was a lazy relaxed day with a new sense of quiet and health, and Sunday I had a few close friends over to my mother's house for the best Thai feast in recent history. Incredible food, including Panang Gai, Green Curry with eggplant, Pommelo salad with garlic, ginger, and dragon peppers, plus lots of veggies and a wonderful mango and sticky rice and coconut milk desert! And I got a snow storm to boot! Thank you, friends. I feel loved and supported.

This year's going to be great. I'm gonna do everything.

--Posted using Blogpress via iPhone 3GS.

Location:Parking Lot

Gut Light

2011-02-20T01:52:00.002-05:00

On you go, fell pigment. On my way, stud faint. Floodgates open, and you know what? It's been a dry spell, there's no flood.

Friends are great, they really are. Mine are the best. I know this because sometimes I feel like other people get jealous of my friends, and they should be I've worked hard, dammit, and it's paid off.

This year, this calendrical series of punches, is going to be awesome. I will have to say goodbye to a few friends for a spell, but I've got plans, and since turning 30 I'm undertaking my sister's advice to list what I want to do not just this year, but the decade ahead. Not a "bucket list". Just a list of what I'd like to accomplish. For instance:

I'd like to revisit Hong Kong for at least 10 days.

I'd like to live in Thailand for 6 months.

I would like to buy a gun and go shooting.

I would like to fish and catch a monster trout.

(this includes the purchase of an aluminum flat-bottomed dinghy and a canoe)

And I want my friends to do all of these things with me. And they will, because they're great.

I would like to paint more. (which surprises me)

I would like to print more.

I will write and self-publish a novella.

I will avoid crazy, and if crazy comes anyway, I'll kick the shit out of her.

I would like to see dogs constantly. Is it okay to go to the dog park without a dog, and just play with dogs? I don't know, I think that might be creepy as hell.

Well, I'm happy right now. My gut is a great conscience, and the electricity has left my body. I mean, like, machines would reject me as a power source. I think everyone should give their gut more credit. Something you suspect for weeks and then proves itself, giving history to itself like a backwards memory... yeah, that was your gut. You have to be careful, though, paranoia is what you feel when you become out of touch with your gut, or rather, your gut is compromised by your clever mental prowess. And of course we all know we're clever.

So in a few/4 weeks I will have my own kickass apartment (okay, okay, 6-month sublet), which is gigantic and spacious and downtown. (They don't know it yet but I'm turning their front room into an art room with easels and tables! Shhhhhh)

Raleigh Has Left the Building

2011-02-11T03:10:00.003-05:00

So it's about snow. Sometimes. Sometimes it's about more than snow, but tonight I'll try my darndest to keep it about snow. You know, the flakey stuff on the news.

Do you know what winter is? I don't mean our falsified calendar. I mean, do you know why winter exists?

I used to live in Hong Kong. It's like my home town, but home is only on a plane, so go fetch. But Hong Kong is tropical. The plants are weak. Sometimes abrasive, but always, beautifully, weak. They're 90% water and break and weep and coddle around your feet if tread upon. They don't know winter. They get maybe a moments slow, not rest, slow. For a couple months it's not swelteringly hot and humid, and they get a much needed break. Thus spawns the harvest of tropical fruits. But for the most part, they're weak.

In Michigan, now home, it's an entirely different story. I was very irritable in HK. It was a feeling I hold close today, which is that if the temperature rises about X degree, I get extremely uncomfortable almost to an allergic extent. My feet and fingers swell. I lose patience. I dream of snow.

In Michigan, we get some seasons. We get summer, fall, winter, and spring in varying and contrasting terms. Our leaves are as famous as our piles of white. But I'm getting away from myself here. I asked you if you knew what winter is.

Winter is rest. Peace. The balance of peace and chaos. Just look up into a street lamp and witness the chaos and quiet of falling snow. It's erratic and mesmerizing, and yet soft and welcoming, like death.

Winter is a death, not like DEATH death, but like a dying of the past for good fortune and future. Death gives way to life. The trees you see and think are shivering naked, are actually resting. Rest: it sounds like a luxury, doesn't it? The plants here have it. We even have a native orchid. An orchid that relies on 5 months of death, snow, cold, sleep, rest. It's a way of life, it is life, it's a period where we fret about the forecast but no matter what, the earth around us is still and breathing, like a necessary coma. If you have a bad thought and feel like going to sleep, well, welcome to life. But also welcome to what is actually a natural rehab for the necessity of life. Trees that are strong can't just keep growing at the same pace forever. They need their hardened shell to build upon. They're not in a coma, well maybe, but it's not an escapists coma. I hate escapists. They'll never be honest, they're not capable. Even with no wrongdoing they'll be incapable of hiding. So love snow and winter and death, and breathe new life into what's actually going on. What's going on is a perfectly natural transition that is required for life and what we think is beautiful. Without a bottom it's pretty hard to define a top. Without a contrast of definition, the definition fails. Love/hate, cold/hot, up/down... these terms are common in description for self and place, but the identity of the opposite really gets the shaft.

Maybe it simply comes down to caring. I'm up, but my friend's down. Do I care and provide empathy, or do I say "I'm up, so who cares what other people are."? Define by actual state, not by symptom.

When I have a smoke outside the rear entrance to Sazerac Lounge and watch the snow fall, I'm truly comforted. Yes, it provides other pleasures. The silence, the muffled sounds, the peaceful maneuvering of screaming snow realizing it's end. The playful nature of it which denies it's adversity on any terms. It's simply nature breathing. The trees, the weeds, the plants, sighing in the most wonderful way, that deep down they're glad for a break. Yeah, they'll be there in spring, cursing of growing pains and blossoming defects loud and proud, and we'll probably fawn over them. But we will definitely forget to recognize the source of solitude which enabled this mass of beauty.

On a White Horse at the Disco

2011-02-10T02:14:00.002-05:00

Let there be no misunderstanding. You wouldn't do the same. Kinda like that song. My space heater is acting funny, too much pressure on the poor little machine, heat heart can't live without my space heater, keeps blowing strong, but without the gale of soft warm care and compassion it did when first out of the box. I have the box. Will they take it back? Can I get a store credit? I made the mistake of an uncredited brand and want a Holmes.

My vacuum is called "Eureka: THE BOSS", and my heater was called "Space Heater." my vacuum has never failed me, though called on seldom. The dependable ones are always available when necessary, nice to look at otherwise. But this space heater is confusing. I am space, heat me.

I'm delaying a little because I'm afraid to go to sleep. Not the sleep, I crave the sleep. The harsh purple under my eyes will prove I'm a good person. No, it's that little or unending time between deciding to set the space heater aside and turn it to fan, plug in the iPhone to charge, check the alarm, snap out the light, and rustle the covers up to your neck, and the time you really slumber, that's the problem. The little problem that got bigger. The little engine that couldn't. The little engine that hates flying but used to love it. Flying is the only home. If you don't like flying, well, you might as well try to make sense of Georg Hegel and how he pretended to have any say in the artistic process amidst his anti-Kantian rants. I mean, Kant was a....bullshitter too. Because that's the hardest thing I remember trying to figure out, that, and C.S. Lewis' idea of being unable to judge the ones you love. Isn't there a rebate program? Some sort of intellectual recall I can use?

Can't win a space heater, but keep your Eureka's close. Don't rely on fake heat, fake air, fake fake, or fake real. And if your heater don't blow, well, save the box. Shop at Meijer.

I'm so glad people rely on me for good advice. Where would they shop?

Come on, Monster. I hold no real issue with myself. I don't think I'm actually bad at anything I do. Maybe hit or miss, but not bad. Brake's are squeaking on the street just now. Counting down, ten minutes til takeoff. This is ground control to Major Tom. I'll rest.

--Posted using Blogpress via iPhone 3GS.

Location:Home

Contrary

2011-02-08T13:24:00.001-05:00

Lunch break, trying out my new blogging app. I figure if I have easy access to blogging around all the time then my incredible writing will continue regularly.

--Posted using Blogpress via iPhone 3GS.

Location:Breton Rd SE,Grand Rapids,United States

What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor?

2011-02-03T22:56:00.001-05:00

What do you do with a drunken sailor?
What do you do with a drunken sailor?
What do you do with a drunken sailor?
Early in the mornin?

Weigh heigh and up she rises
Weigh heigh and up she rises
Weigh heigh and up she rises
Early in the mornin

Shave his belly with a rusty razor
Put him in the long boat til he's sober
Put him in the scullers with a hose pipe on him
Put him in bed with the Captain's daughter
Beat him with a cat til his back is bleeding
Put him in the bilge and make him drink it
Truss him up with a runnin' bowline
Send him up the Crow's Nest til he falls down
Tie him to the taffrail when she's yardarm under
Soak him in oils til he spouts a flipper
Put him in the guard room til he's sober

THAT'S WHAT WE'LL DO WITH THE DRUNKEN SAILOR!

Why Would A Dog Bury His Bone?

2011-02-01T23:06:00.001-05:00

So what sort of dog are you? Slaphappy? Loyal? Mean? Abused? I can't figure it out; if I was a dog what sort of dog would I be? What breed? Been thinkin' about it for minutes and minutes.If I was a bird I'd want to be that one that flies for extremely long periods and actually sleeps in flight. Autonomic flying. We need to study that bird's brains. Bird brains.

I've been told Hendrick's gin is so good it should be enjoyed over ice with a cucumber. It's cucumber-infused, see. At this moment it'll be well. Only fancy when I can afford to be.

Volvo is upset with me.

Art is acting like it's not pissed, but it really is. Art's a sore loser. I am too, sometimes. Only really when it's my own game, right? Self-defeating criticisms of self-promoted ideals of self. Sounds selfish, and probably is, but hey, who's everyone favourite critic??

Knock it off.

If I haven't figured out this blog app, then instead of separate paragraphs, you're unfortunately seeing (br) but with pointy parenthesis instead of curvaceous ones.

SOMETHING HARSH

I've Decided To Be A Big Deal, Naturally

2011-01-31T00:12:00.001-05:00

I haven't posted in a long time. "Blogged." but I have a friend that has been hemming and hawing on her first blog post, and I remembered what it was like to care if people read it. I do. You need to like me.Thankfully, enough time has passed that no one any longer asks me how my blog is going (because they don't read it, I just told them about it so it's a nice thing to ask), and I feel like writing on it now. It's comforting to think that my few good friends who "follow" it have probably lapsed their memberships, like so many good ideas from well-meaning people.....and I've decided to be a pretty big deal. You know, somebody you've really gotta check in with to get the scoop. The Grand Rapids Scoop. This will require a lot of work on my part. I may have to make some new friends. Go to some community events. Attend 'good idea events' by people who think they know where the GR art scene is going. I actually have never witnessed a city that has more art promoters than artists. Realistically when we refer to our thriving art scene it's ArtPrize, art downtown or something, artist walks, hipster parties, what's your art, coffee shops, vacant mammoths, one-person BIG IDEAS, and other "volunteer your art, everyone's an artist" events. That's great. I support every single one. I can't say, though, that I ever expect to see some good art at a GR art event. You know, art may be photographic, but photography's not art. Art may be painterly, but painting's not art. It's a water or oil based gummy liquid thingy that's really cool. I like it. I used it today.See? No one wants to read something like this! So I'm not changing the name to GR Scoop Blog, I'm not attending more arty events (I will), and I'm not going to voice my opinion on how awfully the GRAM has bent over for $. I mean like touched their toes.:)I should delete this tomorrow. G'night.