brilliant light

I'M DEAD i'm dead, i'm dead....

2011-02-25T23:28:00.004-05:00

While googling my name to check if my website is finally launched...
I uncovered a grizzly secret....

I DIED ABOUT 21 YEARS AGO!!

CHECK IT...
Somehow this seems appropriate listening whilest contemplating this unnerving fact:

HERE...

No wondered I am so tired....

2011

2011-01-09T21:19:00.003-05:00

Sunday the 7th....already a week into the new year...and FINALLY a chance to come up for air after the holidays...I havent really had a moment to myself until now...to plan for the coming year...I EVEN wrote some resolutions down....

I used to dismiss this practice in the past, but I just turned 39 this December, and as I get older I am starting to see the need for SOME sort of plan if only for the illusion of "direction".

(What those resolutions are is really for my sake only, but suffice to say I preferred to address things I wish to DO rather than things I need to STOP doing...)

Last Sunday...after working New years eve and day...I went out to the nearby branch of Powell's bookstore and bought a copy of poems by Charles Simic...a new favorite...it was a crystal clear cold day with an etched blue sky....a good day to bring home some new poetry...

I found this poem in another anthology and hunted down his work....it is very appropriate when contemplating time and a new year...

THE ALTAR

The plastic statue of the Virgin
On top of a bedroom dresser
With a blackened mirror
From a bad-dream grooming salon.

Two pebbles from the grave of a rock star,
A small, grinning wind-up monkey,
A bronze Egyptian coin
And a red movie-ticket stub.

A splotch of sunlight on the framed
Communion photograph of a boy
With the eyes of someone
Who will drown in a lake real soon.

An altar dignifying the god of chance.
What is beautiful, it cautions,
Is found accidentally and not sought after.
What is beautiful is easily lost.

-Charles Simic

Here's hoping we all appreciate what we have, and make things happen in this fresh new year...

100TH POST:up and coming

2010-07-19T02:15:00.008-04:00

The beginning of a series a started in NYC but had to scrap
because of my move: some site-specific guerilla art....

...let's just hope this stump stays "in situ" while I slave
away at putting this project together...as it is very
labor intensive.....

I wouldn't have it any other way.....
(I am lookin forward to the sekrit late-night reveal....
..if you behave i might invite you...)

STAY TUNED!!!

The dust that hides the glow of a rose....

2010-05-18T19:53:00.011-04:00

Last weekend I went to a cheapie movie theater and finally saw SHUTTER ISLAND....Definately not the most origional plot for a film....worn slightly thin in parts, but overall a beautiful movie with a pretty stellar cast (Leonardo DiCaprio is pretty impressive with his sustained intensity)....visually beautiful...and with an awesome soundtrack....

I have this thing where from a young age, I HAVE TO stay in the theater until just about the final moments of the credits rolling up the screen...kind of a religious ritual....when you begin to return from the place a film has taken you...like shaking the sleep off ones frame....talking to those beside you about what you've just seen....

Lucky for me I did....For alot of people sprinted for the door the moment the credits appeared...only hearing the opening strains of the final music....a lowing cello....The beginning of MAX RICHTER'S piece "On the Nature of Daylight"....and then a female's voice joins it: the Queen of Blues: DINAH WASHINGTON....and I couldn't move until the final credits rolled by and I could uncover who's haunting voice I was hearing....

Turns out that Dinah Washington's origional version is alot more in keeping with the time when she was alive...She was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in August of 1924...just weeks before Clyde Otis...who was born on September 11th, 1924 in Mississippi...who went to war and later moved to NYC to try his hand at song writing. He ended up writing "This Bitter Earth", which Dinah Washington recorded in 1960, just 3 years before her early death at age 39. She was married eight times (one can easily project all this into her voice as she sings about the hardships of being alive..), and it was her last husband, NFL player Dick Lane, who discovered her dead beside him on December 14th, 1963...she had mixed two different barbituates together in a deadly combination....
It was 3 more years before Max Richter was born in Germany in 1966....who would go on to write On the Nature of Daylight, which would later be remixed with Dinah Washington's voice to create such a beautiful piece that I have already listened to it at least 10-20 times today (and cried just about every time I did...hey, I DID tell you before I am a BIG SAP)....Clyde Otis would go on to live until 2008.

There is something so beautiful to me about the artistic process, and the nature of collaborations as well, that an artist can be years in the grave and continue to live amoung us...literally collaborating with others, inspiring them and pushing their talents higher and higher...that a song writer can write such beautiful words...and a singer can bring them to life...and a composer can lift them even higher...and enrich a film....long after some of those participants have gone from this earth.....you really can live forever inna way....

ON THE NATURE OF DAYLIGHT/THIS BITTER EARTH

for Dinah:

Blessed be the candle that burns half as bright...

For in burning, burns twice as long...

And the brighter light knows only night...

But the lesser may live to glimpse the dawn...

LONG time gone.....

2010-05-11T01:56:00.004-04:00

Someone I knew...long time ago....when I first moved to Seattle almost 20 years ago now...(eek)...played this song for me...and it has HAUNTED me since then....I have always wanted to hear it again....

Tonight upon arriving home from work...I somehow managed to think to look it up correctly...and was able to find this site where I could hear it in it's entirety
for free.....

It is still very bit as beautiful as I remember...

I have to qualify this by saying that I do not care for alot of Irish traditional music...(though I just found out this band is actually from Scotland....perhaps part of why it was so hard to find...? I find it, as a genre, too sentimental...if that means anything...forgive me.....(though I will also say, that WAKING NED DEVINE, the Irish film, has gone A LONG WAY to turning my sentiments on that issue...AN AWESOME FILM...see it right away...)

Anyway....listen to it and judge for yourself...I think this song is utterly beautiful....

THE TANNAHILL WEAVERS: (CULLEN BAY album), Braw Burn the Bridges

(click on "PLAY BUTTON" icon in top left corner, and select "play full song"...you'll need to wait a few secong before prompt will appear...)

Can't understand the lyrics? Read them here...I think I wanna learn these by heart, so I can sing this at the top of my lungs whilst stumbling home drunk in the future: I tend to wanna sing when really ripped at times...)

all by myself with RACHMININOFF

2010-04-29T14:14:00.006-04:00

I have been neglecting my classical music education for a while so I picked
something at random from the library shelves...
2 Russian heavy-hitters...Peter Tchaikovsky and Rachmoninoff....while listening to the 2nd movement of ROCKY'S 2nd piano concerto I was suddenly havin deja vu.... (right at 1 minute and 50 seconds....listen to the reed instrument solo....):

LISTEN TO IT HERE:

And now listen to this.....

SOUND FAMILIAR?

HILARIOUS.

the TRASH heap: POSTSCRIPT

2010-04-21T16:21:00.005-04:00

Who knew that on my latest trip to the G-WILL that I would also discover it to be a conduit for soul searching...which is apparently what I have been doing alot of on a subconscious level....

This poem was hiding amoungst the frames on the shelf...and usually I am buying the frames for future art projects...not for what is in the frame...usually cliche or amatuerish...(again, Not being a snob...)...But there is was the DESIDERATA: I had thought it was part of the teachings of some wiseman...Plato, or the writings of some medieval monk....

Turns out it is the work of an attorney turned philosopher from Indiana....written in the 1920s...though ironically, a rumor was widespread that it was discovered in St Pauls Church in Baltimore, Maryland...and had been written anonymously in 1692...around the time the church was founded....not, as in fact the case, by MAX ERHMANN....who knows why this happened....

...but there it was...And I had seen it before...written it down in fact, from some source I had forgotten....I had no idea my soul was in such a quandry, but when I saw it again it was a shock....is if some force had been reading my mind....and knew it was what I was crying out for...it is hanging on the door in my room now...and has been giving me strength for days now....

Goodwill: land of second hand goods, and sustenance of the soul....

DON QUIXOTE

2010-04-21T14:40:00.008-04:00

Recently, I saw the movie LATTER DAYS. It is the story of the intersecting of lives of a gay L.A. partyboy and a Utah Mormon missionary on his two-year mission.
Though not 100% perfect, it is a beautiful movie, (and makes me wish that Jaqueline Bisset was my friend)...I feel that gay films are finally becoming contenders in the cinama mainstream (not discounting the earlier HEAD ON and THE SUM OF US to name a few...), and addressing the life of homos in a more balanced light...and can be seen as films and not just GAY films....though of course this is coming from a liberal city-dweller homo....

There is a song strung through the film by the band TOAD THE WET SPROCKET that has completely overtaken me...and I have already listened to it at least 30-40 times....In the mid eighties, as an awkward, shy, dorky, closeted teenager, I was really into the absurdity of Monty Python, and this is perhaps why later, in the early ninties, when I became aware of TOAD that I discounted them (the band's name comes from a Monty Python skit...), assuming it was goofy and dorky, like the kid I wanted so desparately not to be any more....

It has some great lines: "I spend too much time seeking shelter", and "take the darkest hour, break it open...water to repair, what we have broken..". I get the chills just listening to it, and it makes me feel so vulnerable and exposed...naked....to think about things that I have been trying to ignore.. It's a pretty powerful song that can do that...And reminds that the most productive times are when you are forced/force yourself to go places outside your comfort sphere... I can already tell this will be one of those songs 20 years hence that will still be able to root me to the spot when I hear it...

LISTEN FOR YO'SEFF

onna GOOD day....onna BAD day....

2010-04-20T03:06:00.005-04:00

TWO great songs with simular video concepts...

One for when you KRANKY....

One for when you ready to save the world with yer GROOVINESS....

the TRASH heap

2010-04-19T02:36:00.021-04:00

Its natural to establish routines, and rituals...especially when you moved to a new town. It's a way of slowly carving some order outta the big block of chaos it can be....but that's part of the fun...

One of my rituals is my weekly Tuesday visit to the Goodwill in far flung southeast Portland. I jump on the bus and ride out there to poke around, see what I can see, and get a little inspiration from out of the chaos of crap on the shelves.

I love wandering the aisles, scanning the crowded shelves, on the alert for the unique, and unusual...the odd...the priceless (and for such a low price...).

It reminds me constantly of a scene in the movie RETURN TO OZ, when the young Dorothy must wander through the rooms of the Gnome King's underground palace...looking for objects that may be the reincarnations of her friends...recently transformed for the purposes of a cruel game...and hidden
amoungst his formidable tchochke collection: there are amazing things hidden in the vast huddle of detritus, if you only pay attention.

I always manage to find things that leave one marveling:

"WOW, Someone actually thought this thing into existence.."

I have two special weaknesses:

1. Homemade ceramic projects (banished to a goodwill shelf possibly because it's creator was embarassed at their lack of artistic prowess... or the receiver of this piece felt they had held onto it long enough- I am not being snarky or snobby by-the-way..),

2. Fascinating CANDLES: you would not believe the objects out there with a wick spouting off the top....(someday I am going to start a collection, because someone needs to get them all into one room...).

It takes discipline to be focused, and be able to single out objects in the chaos, and yet, remain relaxed at the same time:

concentrating, but out of the corner of one's eye...

I love seeing a mate to a coffee cup or vase, seen (possibly bought) in another store, hundreds, even thousands of miles away in another state...like running into family.

Or the juxtaposing of different lives...different religions brushing up against one another....

...the shelves lined with endless milkglass flower vases send me back in time to catholic grade school...the bouquets of roses in those vases in front of a painted ceramic statue of the virgin mary were in every room...never far from your sight...

There can also be something sad and depressing about it: the unnecessary purchases, the things that MUST be had, only to be discarded. The mementos of trips embarked upon, t-shirts from amusement parks to remember the occasion by only subsequently to realize it ain't really that worth commemorating...
How fickle and frivolous we all are...

POSTSCRIPT: Someone needs to tell where this obcession with owls comes from? Why they are represented in almost every material, and not just from the seventies either...and why they all seem to gather at goodwill...? Does the OWL represent something to the human subconsciousness...?

PEARLS before swine

2010-01-27T20:07:00.005-05:00

For those of you kids who don't know, I just got a show at COFFEHOUSE NW here in Portland....

I usually write off coffeeshop shows....perhaps a bit of snobbery, but I've seen to much bad and overpriced art in them...and also bought into the notion too much that valid art is only seen in galleries....But with my embarking upon finally trying to establish myself in the art community (upon arriving in NYC) I started to question even galleries as really "fertile" places to present work: The whole notion that this is the only acceptable model for artists....to slave away on work and then you get to hang it on four walls and wait for the fish to bite....and the people who visit tend to be artists or those who love them....just seems short of the mark somehow.
I don't want to trivialize or thumb my nose at other peoples' accomplishments, but it just seems a shame that alot of good art is hidden away from where it might play a more active role with the larger community.
I am, finding myself more interested in site specific work....or public art and I am excitied to see where this may lead in the future of my own personal work.
BUT, for now, I am working on this show. I saw this big wall, from the street on Burnside, and started thinking about implementing a large wall paper cut-out "mural" and this got me going, and a whole show has grown up around the idea....
I am thinking about ellaborating on a smaller piece (more on that later), and trying to come up with a cohesive theme...and have started thinking about fables and fairytales...both my own personal mythology, and the larger cultural one.

This morning I started thinking about that great PIETER BRUEGEL painting in which he depicted a whole slew of NETHERLAND PROVERBS (of the time), some of which are still in use to this day.....My dad had a reproduction of this painting in his office, and I used to stare at it all the time, trying to figure out what all these odd people were doing....it looks like a gaggle of nutters from the local looneybin have escaped and wrecked havoc upon some small unsuspecting hamlet....animals run wild...nothing is as it seems...and others simply seem to cower in the safety of their houses from this surreal onslaught

So I looked it up on WIKI...and they have a detailed explanation of what is going on in that painting...finally a small part of my perplexing youth has evaporated and I can breathe a sigh of relief....

CHECK IT HERE.....and stay tuned for more developements in this project and the show, sometime in SEPTEMBER....

happy as a KING

2010-01-23T23:07:00.009-05:00

....alot of people don' know what a
SEKRIT SAP I can be.....

...I luv this song: I first heard it while watching
the awesome BBC Television production
of DENNIS POTTER'S "THE SINGING
DETECTIVE"......with the ever amazing
Michael Gambon.....

....there's a montage where the writer
remembers his sad childhood...a sunday after-
noon spent about his disfunctional family....with
all the tensions of parents who no longer know
how to be happy with one another...if ever they
did...

...I'd be whistling and it would just spring to my
lips...where ever I walked.....

I associate it with happier things though....
...walking in a park under an achingly blue sky....
or laying about with some one
you dig.......or floating in a hot tub of water...
a cold beer nearby...watching the sun beams
fluttering about the ceiling.....

THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU

the night before xmas....

2010-01-23T01:09:00.006-05:00

....a number of years ago....back, when my older brother was still in art school..

...we had his then girlfriend staying over...most of the family had run off to midnight mass
that christmas eve (back when attendance was still somewhat "enforced")....maybe we were supposed to meet them all there, or we had all finally fallen out with the Catholic religion for good...but we stayed home...just the 3 of us I think.....

...our big old house was quiet...but pregnant with the excitement we still managed to conjure up for the holiday....and we were huddled 'round the television watching IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (a film I can STILL watch and never get sick of.....)....

....for some reason we flipped to the Los Angeles public t.v. station and this amazing little ditty of a film was on....we all held our breath in awe....the house totally still...the snow falling inside the t.v. set seemed to expand to include us there in it's wintery umbrella...huddled around it's glow....breathless....

PART ONE

PART TWO

twilight ride......

2010-01-22T04:14:00.004-05:00

.........the Moon in a paling sky

a cheshire grin.

more fun stuff....

2010-01-06T21:20:00.005-05:00

I luv pretty much any pop/rock outta the skandinavian countries....

ROYKSOPP is definately up there....

they also tend to have great accompanying vids....

here are a few....

HERE...

AND HERE.....

ALSO HERE.....

..........oh yah, and HERE

X it OFF the list.....

2010-01-05T01:40:00.004-05:00

Sometimes I think about the point in history, If one had the where-with-all, when one could have read ALL THE ACTUAL PRINTED BOOKS IN EXISTENCE....(though when I think about it...this may have been even BEFORE Guttenburg invented the printing press in the 1400s...back when manuscripts were written out by HAND...by monks....)...

Granted you would have had to exert some sort of power, or otherwise have access to those books, ...been from some sort of priveledged class....(been able to read Latin etc.)...but it could have been DONE.

Nowadays, just the sheer magnitude of magazines published is enough to occupy one...assuming you wanted to read half the crap they contain....

We grew up around TONS of books....my Dad was constantly going to library sales and dusty old book stores...it pretty much cemented my love of the printed word....so that, even though I KNOW it is impossible to read all there is out there...I often seem like I am giving it a shot....sometimes I am reading 3 or four at a time...and I ALWAYS write down any recommendatons on a scrap of paper...

As if to start the new year on a good note...I FINALLY crossed one of those books off my list...that scrap of paper has been following me about for a couple of years (literally from the west coast to the east coast and back again....)..

It is called THE OUTER EDGES, BY CHARLES R. JACKSON....and my Dad told me I should read it a while ago...(It's the same author who wrote THE LOST WEEKEND that was made into a black and white film ages ago....)

It's about a really horrible murder and the way it effects everyone who comes into "contact" with the tragedy....If you have seen the lost weekend...or read any books written back in the 30s and 40s, they can come of a bit "melodramatic"....perhaps it is because the way people acted in movies back then or just the way people talked, period, by today's standards...Regardless, Charles Jackson not only makes his characters believable, but he really understands the motives behind peoples' actions....

.... Perhaps this is understandable, because on reading up a little on him, I discovered that Charles Jackson had had a bit of a hard life himself....a hardcore alcoholic (THE LOST WEEKEND is loosely veiled autobiography I think...), he ended up comitting suicide in the late 60s while only in his 50s....

They say "the sick oyster gives the pearl"...and while Mr. Jackson ain't around, this great book is...put it on your list if you have room...or not....see if I care......I am glad I finally got around to reading it.....sigh..............

2010-01-04T04:53:00.006-05:00

I'm thinkin that, what with all the INTROSPECTON everybody be doin right now, that we need tunes to put us in the mood....

Here's a lil ARVO PART....(just as much for the cool archive footage this person spliced together to go with it...it really enhances something in the music...all that old yellowed, saturated color....like angels are watching all those sad confused human beings scurryng about...ala WINGS OF DESIRE...)

(OKAY, as an afterthought, had to throw in this one too....is a new favorite ARVO)

don't stop the beat

2010-01-02T19:00:00.003-05:00

A good pop song is like junk cereal...one bowl just won't do....

Here's a new (for me anyway) JUNIOR BOYS song I cannot stop listening to....

LISTEN HERE....

MILES TO GO.....

2010-01-02T02:38:00.014-05:00

It has been almost TWENTY YEARS since I abandoned Los Angeles....town of my youth....for the Pacific Northwest...

It was a last minute decision...only a handfull of days to go before my second year at college, and I walked away from it....taking the long ambling drive up the most gorgeous highway in the US: highway 101....me and Brother Tom were to look after my parents new home while they sold our childhood home in San Pedro...(There are few points in my life that I can return to and really view the actual CROSSROADS of an important decision....how different my life would have turned out if I had decided to remain in Los Angeles....moving to a new place really allows you to REINVENT yourself....)

When we got there we drove out into the overgrown grass and conifer woods outside of Oly...there was a meadow with an old collapsing red barn ..(now long gone...)...the air full of the seed pod fluff of some plant or other....like a shot from the beginning of Ridley Scott's LEGEND....

During that summer it was idylic....wandering through the endless woods of Fort Lewis...the local army training base...over 30000 acres....exploring Olympia, overrun with self-righteous Evergreen College hippies (a.k.a. "greeners").....

One day I came down the road with our dog Luke (also long gone now...) and saw a van driving down our road slowly....seemly sinister....Back then there weren't as many nearby houses and so you didn't see many folks on that road...When the driver pulled up and rolled down the window, I asked if he needed help...more as if to ask him what he was doing there than to actually assist...

He said he was just visiting..that he had lived in that very area of the Evergreen Valley some 20 years ago...(this would have been in the 70s shortly after/before? I was born...), and just wanted to see the old place again....he now lived up in Whitehorse in Canada...possibly owned some inn or hotel?...I forget.....

He also went on to tell me that when he had lived in the area, that there had only been himself and 2 other people in the whole stretch of forested lands...(!!!)...I marveled at the image..like something outta Laura Ingels Wilder's time.....I have thought about him from time to time since....through that first winter...when my brother returned to Cali for a bit, and I spent a month or two secluded in that house...through all the ENDLESS rain ...ALL BY MYSELF..(it was heaven....coming from a family of 5 kids...)...every so often going into town, but mostly wandering about the country...through those woods...getting to know them intimately...it really did feel like a second childhood in a lot of ways for me...

Later I moved up to Seattle with some of my siblings who had shown up on the scene, and went to art school there...and then on into the thick of life.....

Recently, I was back at the ol' homefront for the holidays....walking down TUCKER ROAD as I had a million times since that beginning, and I thought about that guy again as I looked up to the ridge over the shoulder of my folks house across that field...now sans barn...there was a house now up there in the trees where once I had roamed without any thoughts as to whose property it might be....just wandering through thick untamed woods...once discovering an old auto mobile from the 30's or 40's ...sitting there in the trees long after any road that might have brought it up there to that spot had vanished into stinging nettle and wild buttercups....

Alot had changed since way back then...more and more people had moved into the area....sections of trees had been chopped down in that endlessly frustrating cycle wherein people move to the country and slowly forget WHY they moved there in the first place and try to TAME IT...thus completely changing it from the sprawling countryside...all lazy and scruffy...to a miniature golf course....go figure....

And here I was almost 20 years later....feeling that time gone and now it was my turn to step into that man's shoes....who would remember if not me...what this place had BEEN...after the cranky old gal nearby and her husband had died...and the kids divided up the property and sold it off and scattered to the wind...?

I wondered what this area would be like in ANOTHER 20....and where I'd be THEN?

Somehow it was all very appropriate to be thinking about as the new year closed in for the kill....I imagine it will haunt me like that guy did driving down the road...is he still around?...still in Canada?....Where will I be in another 20? Alive? Will I come back and drive down this road? Will I like what I see...?

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all of you.....here's to a new year with lots of good things in it.....

TOO HOT to hold...

2009-12-10T02:07:00.009-05:00

Today....while up in SEATTLE....finishing a sign for an old employer...I got to witness a big learning lesson for my lil nephew....

...we had a lil bonfire in the yard....burning some wood that was lying around...just the remedy for this FREEZING COLD....it was HOT...creating a lil bubble of warmth arounds us....Joe put a pail of frozen water near it to watch it thaw....and then lil J grabbed ahold of it...the fire had made it super hot...and he howled in bewilderment at the pain...thinking, somehow...it was the water in the pail...he howled and sobbed for over an hour...reduced to almost animal-like shuddering and babbling incoherently...his face a mucousy mess....he had never experienced this sort of throbbing agony....it was hard to see him learning these lessons...FIRE HOT...

After at least an hour and a half...he passed out from shear exhaustion...he slept for quite some time...and when his mommy came home he was just returning to some sort of normality...ready to laugh and goof about...maybe bolstered by her presence...that despite this horrible event...life could still go on the same...and us trying to make him laugh even harder..as if trying to erase any last glimmer of pain from deep in his brain...trying to reassure ourselves there were no permanent scars.....but his body had learned too...that really bad pain goes away...and life goes on...AMAZING how resilient kids need to be in the face of the infinite unknown experience...
I don't remember experiencing that first pain...obviously the body needs to forget...thank god...so it was amazing to revisit that moment through his eyes....

PICK A CARD

2009-11-22T00:14:00.006-05:00

HELLO.....KIDDIES...

bEEN here in Portland....(when I ain't in Seattle pickin up shifts at my old job at the Paramount Theater...)...jUst tryin to find some steady work....and working on my art projects....

Lately....ths means looking around on craigslist for CALLS FOR ARTISTS and seeing if there is anything worth going for....just trying to build up the portfolio, learning to make deadlines, etc. etc...gives me something to focus on.....

I have already been in two lil tiny shows here...

...including a piece for the PORTLAND'S AUDUBON SOCIETY ....the 6X6 PROJECT ...you pick up a 6x6 canvas free at Art Media and create anything on the theme of BIRDS....me and friend TER-TER...went to check it out today....was way better than I thought...and good exposure.....I also went because in my haste to meet the deadline, I had no time to document it....was hoping to snap a few pix...UNFORTUNATELY...it was one of those things where you buy it and leave with the piece right away....AND MINE HAD ALREADY been adopted...(or fortunately I guess..)...am currently in the process of huntng it down....

...the other cool thang is that I got into THE PORTLAND PROJECT!!!

(CHECK IT OUT HERE)

they get a bunch of local Portland artists (that's me! barely...) to represent each of the cards in a deck of cards and do their own thang...it's gonna get produced and sold around town....and the proceeds go to artist non-profits....so a big hand to the folks who are making this happen.

I AM DOING THE KING OF CLUBS!!!

...so I went on the wikipedia to get my brain going on ideas...I mean, what do I really KNOW about the origin of playing cards anyhow??

Here are a few interesting facts (or as verifiable as THE WIKI can be...):

- the suits as we know them, went thru alot of changes.... IN GERMANY: the suits LEAVES(spades), ACORNS(for clubs), BELLS, AND HEARTS....The modern decks deriving their suits from MEDIEVAL FRANCE....!!!

- ...later....in the 1800 Parisian decks, the royalty were represented by well-known Historical and mythic persons....MY CARD was represented by ALEXANDER THE GREAT...another big fag....

- One possible reason why the ace (a term meaning the lowest..) changed to become the highest card,and the deuce moved into the lowest position, is because of the FRENCH REVOLUTION, in which the lowest class rose up against the royalty...usurping power....neat....

- there is a small history as to how and why the reversible face cards came about...

- and JACK as a term for the KNAVE was consider a peasant term, due to the lower class game it derives from, and therefore crude....

- ...there are an unbelieveable number of card games you have probably never heard of....

GO HERE TO FIND OUT MORE.....

aNYWAYS...It's good to be back....I'll keep you posted on this cool project...which shows the promise of some really good exposure....you know how i likes gettin naked....

still HERE....

2009-08-15T17:10:00.003-04:00

tO ALL YOU SWELL KIDS WHO HAVE BEEN FOLLOWING MY HUMBLE LIL STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS....

I am still here....

I have just yanked up ALL my roots and relocated to PORTLAND, OREGON. What a great idea: I cannot tell you how happy I am....I guess either NYC isn't truly a place for me, or it just wasn't the right time....But I can already tell you that Portland is just where I need to be...YES, it is ALOT quieter, and the weather is taking some readjusting, but it is a good place for the next chapter of my life to begin....

Please stay tuned to my posts...I don't have my own computer, and no money to get one right now, so It isn't easy to post posts, let alone photos, right now...I am usually limited to my ONE HOUR RATION at the library, which ain;'t conveinient, but so much more HEALTHY, I think....(My new roomies have offered the use of their computers, but I don't want to become the annoying roommate always asking for favors every few minutes...(there's that independant streak again...)).

I will post when I can, so for now: Thanks for reading, and stay tuned....

BOWL OF CONFUSION: that's what the world is today....

2009-06-29T11:51:00.005-04:00

OKAY: FOR THOSE OF YOU who like to keep it clean...this link probably ain't for you....or if you are one of my parents...or the pope...or a friend of THE christian right....or a gradeschool teacher...actually...I know of few of those who could teach John Holmes a thing or two...so never mind grade school teachers...but the nice lady who lives down the street who has 20 cats and knows everyones children...watched them grow up and go off to college...maybe NOT her...

....then again...I've know some foul mouthed old ladies...thank god.....ETTA wouldn't mind this link probably....

P.S.: HOW ANNOYING this country is....when I went back to this link after posting this..."FUCK" got changed to "DATE" in this song....What's the point of bein an adult if you are treated like a child!?

P.P.S.: I FOUND ANOTHER "ADULT" VERSION!!! HERE.

OUT DAMN SPOT....

2009-06-23T12:42:00.004-04:00

After sleepin in this morning...I jumped into my grubbys and strolled down to the river with my coffee to pick tomorrow's breakfast....

Last week as I was walking along I saw several people picking and eating berries from bushes that I assumed were just ornamental, since I didn't recognize them...and I wasn't gonna try 'em neither...you never know...BUT I stopped to asked both people what kinda berries they were....first gal didn't know but said she wouldn't be eating them if they weren't safe...and the father and son, who had been eating from these bushes for several years, told me they were "MULBERRIES" and "BOYSENBERRIES"...and that you can eat them if the birds are eating them....And I sure dont recall eating either...least of all FRESH....

Well so soon after reading the below mentioned book, it was exciting to be able to put some if it to practice...(being pretty broke these days, I cannot afford to buy fruit, let alone berries, at the market...and here was a bunch for free (several weeks worth..), and as far as I have seen "pesticide free"...

The mulberries are like a less complex blackberry...and the boysenberry, like a fluctuating plum/ apricot/ almond paste flavor...depending on how ripe they are...

It's pretty cool to be stepping outside the loop produce-wise even if it is for only a week or so....and learning about new things to eat right here in my hood....

In "IN DEFENSE OF FOOD" Michael Pollan talks about how thousands of years of intuitive learning, and food culture have been robbed from us and replaced with this belief that only a scientist and/ or the FDA know what's best for us to eat....HAH!! In the old days...we learned from our community and all the experimenting...trial...and error (eeek!),AND FROM OUR MOTHERS what was good to eat...trusting our instincts...(if it's sweet and smells good), it's edible....THAT IS WHAT OUR SENSES ARE THERE FOR...right?

It's nice to get back in touch with that, a little bit anyway, today....the animal side of ourselves...which still knows these things...but needs to relearn these instincts....

Standing there along the bike trail reaching out with my grubbin fingers...stained with juice...putting them one after the other into my mouth...I felt kinda like a grizzly bear...getting ready for fall...

is THIS the world PAPA?

2009-06-19T21:56:00.004-04:00

I have been trying to figure out what I am doing with these last few months here in NYC....I love this city, BUT I am glad to be va-moosing....

My friend Ryan...I used to work with him, bartending at the Paramount Theater in Seattle....invited me to be part of a migration outta frustrating big city life...(him in LA..)...

...so I am also trying to plan for the future....

I just finished reading MICHAEL POLLAN'S: IN DEFENSE OF FOOD....
It is slated to change my way of thinking about the world around me, the same way that 50 THINGS YOU CAN DO TO SAVE THE EARTH did when I bought it in junior high(?)..ask my siblings....i think I drove them crazy with all the eco-friendly info I spouted at them after that read....

...this book has me planning a garden in my new town to be...visiting farmer's markets....etc etc...dinner's made from scratch for friends....

...I have been trying to envision the next evolution of THIS BLOG TOO....not sure I want it to be so...VERBOSE in future...and more of a scrapbook..snips of image...scraps of dialogue...something more free-form and mutable...and EASY TO DO ON A DAILY BASIS....

..stay tuned and see where I (we) go with this...and thanks for keeping in touch thus far....

AT THE RISK OF BEING A NEGATIVE NED....

2009-05-27T15:07:00.006-04:00

I'm not normally one to be the critic...I prefer to TRY and be the "BETTER TO LIGHT A CANDLE THAN CURSE THE DARK" kinda guy....BUT...

I just saw THE BROTHERS BLOOM and am concerned that we are facing the rise of a whole sub-genre of film here...who's ranks seem to be growing (Wes Anderson, etc.)...and disturbing me....

It kinda feels like an advertiser decided to try and SELL the "WEIRD KID" at school and make him look hip...(okay, I was sort of one of those "weird" kids....but this ain't no axe-grind...). Or better yet, THE JOCK trying to sell the WEIRD KID...and making a lil cash doing so...

THE BROTHERS BLOOM is just that: JOCK ART: let's make it really big because I don't have much to say...so we gotta magnify it so it's loud and clear. All the elements are there for a good story to be made possible: a good cast of actors....some exotic locals....quirky visual chapter headings (like we're trying for cool grown-up kids book look...), and OF COURSE lots of eccentric characters with all sorts of weird goodies, masquerading as hobbies. Granted, I love all that stuff....great...BUT I am feeling the way I felt after the last few M. Night Shyamalan movies: This guy needs to get himself some REAL friends who know how to say "NO!" to their friend Mr. Night....who seems to have surrounded himself with a bunch of YES MEN instead: "...yah, and that part where the monster/animal thing chases the LADY in the water? The thing with the REALLY DUMB name..? That's SO COOL!!!..."....etc....

It's worse with the Wes Anderson effect, because, like the BROTHERS, there are all sorts of indications of the possibilities of a good, entertaining film in the works. Lots of beauty beauty beauty- and NOT the WB kind of beauty...it's the ugly duckling beauty, prettied up so brain-washed people can SEE it....The sensitive character with the puppy-dog eyes, the broken (sexy) nose, and the palpably yearning heart...the crazy around-the-world trek on some folly or other...and then the carpet getting yanked out from under you at the end when you realize there's nothing behind it. Though, actually, you have this growing feeling of unease that there isn't going to be a pay-off...and you are left feeling disappointed. The only thing that would make it a little better is if PEGGY LEE singing "IS THAT ALL THERE IS?" started playing as the wacky credits rolled....THEN you would get to let out a bitter snort at least...

It's hard to know for me just WHERE these films go wrong, but I suspect it's in the fact that the director is also the writer...Even actors-turned-director (and after a lengthy time spent acting in other peoples films at that...) don't make this mistake too often. I read some comments by Mr. Johnson regarding falling into directing which seem to express a disregard for all the talent that goes into it...using the obvious metaphore of THE CON in his winging it and just "pretending" to be a director in order to become one...How can you expect to put out anything worthy, if you think you can just bluff your way through it...? (And this guy went to film school...). It's almost like responding to a painting by saying "I could do that...", though no, not everyone CAN.
Perhaps if this strain of directors were to put their visual packaging skills to better use tackling other people's stories they might be more successful?

But this brings me to ANOTHER point: All these movies seem to have another trait in common: Someone REALLY likes J. D. Salinger. Those quirky siblings who are super smart without really knowing just how smart they are...or how cool....
Salinger is really good at sucking you into these stories and making you relate to these characters...so much so that you start to suspect that you might be really smart and really cool too- because you GET IT.
Salinger is good at selling the story to you: whenever someone reads Catcher in the Rye- don't they always say how they "totally relate to the Holden character.."?

And while we're on it: all those references hinting to how well read the writer is....feel like nothing more than an attempt to "lend credibility" to his own work by inviting older and wiser folks to the party...

This is not all to say how we all ARE NOT UNIQUE..(come on, hands across the world everyone...), but it doesn't mean it would be something you should invest millions in turning into a film...

The BROTHERS BLOOM reminds me of The Emperors New Clothes story: everyone standing around, saying how beautiful the clothes are because they are afraid to say: "huh?".

Rachel Weisz's character SHOULD fall for Adrian Brody's- he's interesting, and he's vulnerable, and he doesn't spend all his time talking about himself...(and he's got those puppy-dog eyes that are ready to tear up, and the schnozz...), so why does he have to take her on this chase around the globe to do so...I am a romantic like anyone, but I do not see it.
Or "THE CURATOR" (Robbie Coltrane-whom I love..)...who just shows up and turns out to be "in on it"...Let's just leave it all vague so that we don't have to tell a story.... NOTE: If you are making a movie: CON MEN as a theme is a really great way to go if you have lots of gaps in a story or unresolved issues...because you can just fall back on "Oh, they were in on it too...it was part of the scam".

So back we go to the problem: lots of great visuals, not enough heart or soul...This movie really feels like it was made by a rich kid who never has gotten his hands dirty, never struggled...everthing seems effortless and elegant...nothing FEELS important because nothing worth having is gained easily. I kept WANTING to care about these characters, but I never did.
Also, usually in a truly good performance, you forget an actor is who they are. And while the acting was completely competent (it's a character actor movie let's not forget...), I didn't stop thinking "That's my man Adrian..." or "Go Mark!!!"....not a good sign.

A budget is nice for a film, but The Lord of the Rings this is NOT. So, ask yourself this: Do you think Mr. Johnson could have made this an absorbing film if he didn't have the budget or the big names? Maybe... alot of times it is the Lack of resources that make you work harder...pushes you to make things happen like they wouldn't have otherwise. The lack of a cushion beneath you forces you to really THINK about what you're saying....

As a fellow artist, I feel for Mr. Johnson...it takes alot of courage to set out on the journey of honing your craft, and making your art....of putting yourself on the chopping block for all to scrutinize....But this film indicates to me that he has a long way to go. And that's okay....as long as he can accept that.

THE PERFECT STICK!!!

2009-05-19T22:08:00.002-04:00

NO, SERIOUSLY....I was walking along the HUDSON last week, and just happened to look down...and their she was....something about the form I guess...and it is as light as a feather like a bird's bone.....You just have to come over and check for yo'self....

I walked home with it...and was talking to my brother on my cell and accidentally snapped it in two as I was putting the key in my front door!!! So I painstakingly glued it together....like triage...I noticed that the tinniest bit of bark was missing so I went out into the hallway and found it!!!

I guess sculpture, or 3-d art has been in my bones since I was a kid....I used to take shoelaces and start tying knots in them over and over until it was one big knot-ball, just to see if I could get a cool shape outta it...see?

So, I have a cool idea for this stick, but I am unsure if I want to do anything to it.....It's so beautiful just the way it is.....(?)......

WHY... I can sell you that FONT for only $19.95!!

2009-05-13T19:34:00.000-04:00

For me: ANYTHING is likely to trigger a set of dominoes, sending me off on a tangent....

I was playin around one day....experimenting with ways to achieve effects with some cardboard I'd found at one of those big ol' stationary stores (run by old cranky men...) that just send my salivary glands into overdrive (the stores...the stores!!)...and YOU KNOWS just how much I DIG CARDBOARD....

Here's what I came up with...

...at first I thought that it was a bit too cute...until I found my bearings and figured out how to tweek it...
...which led me to climb into the old internet saddle and looking up some fonts...

I AM A BIG FONT WHORE...Fonts are to the printed word what SOUND is to a film...(unless you are a big design dork/ film geek...(raise yer hands...)..)...
Often it goes undetected...content to float along...bumping against the pilings under the pier of our subliminal consciousness....

I am very fond of certain fonts...though I'd be clueless as to their names...they're almost bookmarkers to certain nostalgic memories for me...the casual scrawl with childrens tempura paints in orange and blue or red and black...on butcher paper, for the signs in the pungent little Italian deli my mom would take me into when doing the shopping, for example....

Well, after a few false starts, I was rewarded with the discovery of MYFONTS.com- a new favorite site...

THERE IS A FONT FOR EVERY OCCASION.

And most of them evoke feelings or moods that have some basis in our experiences...whether we like it our not...like a song we're humming...because we picked it up at TACO BELL ten minutes ago...on a late night, post booze pick-me-up...(put-me-down-again...) excursion....

So I started browsing....

(font: BLUEBEARD)

And you are forced, if you are really in search of something in particular- in my case: something FAIRYTALE-ESQUE...BROTHER'S GRIMM-ISH- into thinking about what it is you are trying to convey...And while I really find only a handful that I would say I "dislike"....One was too "sch-prockets"...another...too perky...tooo hard...too thin...too "HITLER"...too "It's all good"...too ...puppy dog...etc....etc....etc....

(fonts: LUMINARI, and CASTLE)

Over an hour later, I crawled away from the screen...eyes BLEEDING...stomach gurgling...completely hooked...

(font: ATTIC ANTIQUE)

And it get even more surreal...Thinking about people developing these fonts....(going to school so as to develope these fonts...)...Alot are based on great classics...some on an obscure script, for only the most esoteric purposes...some are downright LOVECRAFTIAN...And most are for sale...?!

What a strange concept: The sale of letters...Then again, there was a time: the equivalent of the other end of the pendulum's swing: When there were those who printed out and illuminated manuscripts because they were one of the gifted few who could write at all...(let alone read...).

Needless to say I will have to schedule time before I revisit said site....

THE FRUIT OF THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE

2009-04-08T15:14:00.001-04:00

I just got this email from a sibling this morning....of a book telling kids (presumably...) ....about how baby's are made...it is very straight forward (and German), and shows everything, but as a cool well done kids book (in a language of pictures they can understand...)...HOW GREAT it would have been to have had sex revealed in this matter of fact way...so you could enter your teenage years with at least something less to freak out about....(I am speaking from my own experience, or lack thereof...).

I have thought on it recently: about the nature of knowledge...and the fact that WHEN a child comes to an adult and asks about, say, SEX, that they are ready to know...JUST BY THE FACT THAT THEY HAVE ASKED.
When an adult denies them that knowledge, you are putting a barricade across their progress forward. And I wonder at the motives for this: ONE, that parent/ adult is not ready to let go, or see their child as becoming something else...OR TWO: POWER, and this is scary, because then you have to wonder at what sort of power...

When my cousin was on the cusp of becoming a teenager, he came to me and my sister and asked us about sex-thangs (and it was while walking outdoors..what is it about THE SEX TALK and the OUTDOORS..??)...(inside I thought OH MY GOD!! I get to give him the talk!!). It was cool because we both made sure to be very matter of fact about it..."It's no big deal...", "You will understand..", "It's nothing to freak out about..." etc. etc. etc....(How ironic that then I was still in THE CLOSET!!!).
Funny, I haven't asked him about that, if our providing him with knowledge he was seeking help in any way....

I hope is did....

new york moment

2009-04-07T17:41:00.000-04:00

Just had a cool subway moment: I was waiting for the subway at BROADWAY and 110th, and was listening to some tunes....In particular the NADA SURF song (forgive the ANNOYING VIDEO) ..with the line "I got Blonde on Blonde on my portable radio..." ..don't remember the name...and across the platform on the downtown side were these two guys...performing a lil jazz number on keyboard and sax....and their chord progressions, surprisingly, matched my tune perfectly, while maintaining that kinda loose jazzy improv effect around the mopey, emo melody in my ears...I kept waiting for the dissonance but it never arrived...(you had to be there...)

...it's the little thangs....

OUBLIETTE

2009-04-06T23:34:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite authors, PHILIP K. DICK....was constantly obsessed with the substance of reality...WHAT IS REAL?

I have had experience with this myself....One of my earliest "memories" is of me, with a large red lollipop standing outside a white picket fence, with a gate and a white wooden archway over it....And while I know that the place exists (see STREET VIEW)...I feel like the memory may have been a dream or something I made up....(a "long" and uninteresting story...).

THEN there is a "memory" I have that I have no clue about whatsoever:
when I was a kid there was this street going up to FRIENDSHIP PARK in my home town of SAN PEDRO, CALIFORNIA, and in front of one of those houses on this drive was a WELL (click on STREET VIEW). It's STILL there, though the place is totally renovated and lacks any of the character it had then....(I know it is still there thanks to GOOGLE MAPS- WHICH ALLOWS YOU TO SPY ON YER OLD CHILDHOOD TOWN VIA SATELITE AND STREET MAPS...it's cool too, because as you move down the streets the weather changes, and sometimes there are construction crews where you know there aren't any...(when I am searching NYC streets...) as some of the pictures were taken at different times, or updated))... I later discovered it was a FAKE WELL, but by then it had already, for some reason, lodged itself in my mind, and I had already imaged all sorts of possibilities for what lay at it's bottom...(I don't know WHY wells intrigue me but they do...)...And it is as a result of this memory that another one exists...

I have an image of a JESTER sitting at the bottom of THAT well....I think...and I seemed to remember him being rather sulky about it...(SEE IMAGE AT TOP, FOR MY QUICK SKETCH OF THIS, AS WELL AS I CAN REMEMBER IT...).

Now, there were a bunch of odd animated movies during my childhood in the seventies and the eighties...like THIS ONE....and THIS ONE (one of my favorites!). And I am unsure if maybe my jester inhabited one of these strange films, glimpsed on a gloomy saturday afternoon....

Alternately, it may have been a dream I had...(though it seemed like a movie....I can almost see the animated colorful style)....as dreams have a way of being utterly convincing....

Recently, I had a dream in which I was stuck in an elevator, and the cable snapped and it began to sway and lurch dangerously....And this somehow triggered, I think, this older memory for some reason- (the mind is a mystery)- of which I had completely forgotton..And it is just as much of a mystery as it was then...

I don't think I shall ever know what the truth is about it...but it has been shouldering it's way into my work...or rather the image of a well, has continued to fascinate me for some reason that I don't know either....

I'm not sure I really WANT to know the truth...For it has grown into something bigger than this one small memory can contain....and something about it is pleasing to me...reassuring....ANCHORING...so does it really matter...?

In a way, this JESTER, down a well, sitting there...sulking...or waiting to be let out....or just...representative of my subconscious....has BECOME a reality to me: When you live with something long enough inside your head, who's to say it ain't real....?

NOTHING'S certain

2009-03-31T13:04:00.000-04:00

I took a quick trip downtown to a soho bookstore....They were giving a reading with Robert Pinskey, of the new book he's edited on reading poetry aloud...called ESSENTIAL PLEASURES....an anthology of poetry from down the ages, with thoughts towards those which lend themselves to being read aloud, I THINK,...Anyway, There were guest readers..including my one of my favorite CA-NOOKS: MARK STRAND, who not only deeply affected my ideas on poetry, but I also discovered, after the fact, was one of our POET LAUREATES a few years ago....AND he as cool as I could hope: very dry sense of humor, which I love...I was pretty stoked because I'd never heard him read, and also it gave me a chance to GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!

So, afterwards, I am waiting for a friend who is in town....so I sat at a bowery bar, waiting and sippin a beer. These 2 guys come in and order a beer...an ANCHOR STEAM which was one of the first "micro brews" I had...freshly in college...and I started thinking about who I was then, and what kind of beer that was and how they probably have changed it, made a corporate recipe outta it...."It probably's nothing like it used to be...", I thought...
And I became aware of how I was joining THAT stupid club again...the ranks of people who love to say "I LOVED THAT BAND BACK BEFORE THEY WERE POPULAR"...or "THAT USED TO BE SO GOOD WHEN IT CAME OUT"....or "THAT LUBRICANT WAS SO MUCH MORE LOOBIE WHEN THEY FIRST PUT IT ON THE MARKET..." blah blah blah ad infinitum....
I guess it's a way if saying "I've been around", or "I KNOW SOMETHING!!" (as my friend K. likes to joke...).
I have already had my fill of those crusty old New Yorkers (even as I drink them in, and get off on them..) who always like to tell you how New York "HAS CHANGED SO MUCH", and "AIN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE"...

We live in a world of CONSTANT CHANGE...

And so the thought for today is:

"NOTHING IS WHAT IT USED TO BE"...

Let's all just get on with it SHALL WE?

GIVE ME YER FOOTLONG, baby...

2009-03-28T18:30:00.000-04:00

Wow...homo-rights have come a LONG WAY!! As evidenced by the latest series of commercials for QUIZNO Sandwich company, taking their cue from HAL in 2001 with his creepy monotone voice and resolute suggestiveness.....There are too many double entendres to keep track of....And the dirty imagination flies ahead, trying to picture it...? You'll never look at your kitchen appliances quite the same again....

EXTRA DRESSING ON IT!!

SCAFFOLD-DISPLACEMENT-EXIA

2009-03-19T17:51:00.000-04:00

It happened again the other day: I was walking down BROADWAY on a sunny day, whistling a snappy tune, in busy Columbia University area, when I suddenly felt something was wrong....No, not WRONG per se, but Different....It took me a second to hone in on it...my spidey-sense tingling away...

AND THEN I had it: the block I had been walking along, that I used to walk down every day for half a year to my current job at the time, was no longer shrouded in the gloom of big ol' scaffoldings...clinging to the big brick building like barnacles....
Sometimes these set ups last YEARS...I don't know what they are doing...sometimes pressure-washing the outside..or it helps facilitate...moving construction materials up to the appropriate apartment...Whatever the case...you kinda forget about it after a while...That stretch of sidewalk has ALWAYS BEEN THAT WAY AND ALWAYS WILL BE THAT WAY (it's how you deal with all the info you are constantly being bombarded with in a big city)....until one sunny bright day...you feel as if the ground has shifted under your feet...like the sensation of thinking there is one more step at the top of a staircase and coming down hard with your foot on thin air...

I always find SCAFFOLD-DISPLACEMENT-EXIA to be exhilarating..like a dizzy spell...
and it is always accompanied by an audible sigh of relief...
I can only imagine how the folks working in the shop, or living in the apartment under the eaves of the said building feel on that fateful, day...a little like MOLEY in Wind and the Willows, in the opening chapter, when he feels the call of spring and hurries up to the surface, the sunlight intoxicating him with joy...

Next time you find yourself walking down a busy street and wonder what is wrong...look about you...or rather above you...and if you find that the only reason you are confused is that you only see the blue sky above, then you know that you have just had a case of SCAFFOLD-DISPLACEMENTEXIA......

Enjoy...

GRAB IT or it's GONE!

2009-03-01T10:41:00.000-05:00

RULE NUMBER ONE, in dumpster diving: If you want it, grab NOW, because it ain't gonna be there when you come back for it later....when it's more conveinient....
That goes double in NYC....So I was pretty lucky yesterday, when walkin down the WEST END in Columbia University area, and saw this bed frame...(I've been living on a twin on the floor since I moved here...and have been yearning for a better BED life....)...
It looked in good shape...but I had errands to run....BUT I kept thinking about it, and how I needed one...and turned around and came back about half an hour later....at first I thought it was already gone, but finally I found it propped up against all the other garbage waiting on the curb...I pondered how I could get it home...And finally figured out a way to walk with the important parts without too much awkwardness....
This was on 104th street, and I live on 141st street...so I started walking....
After what seemed like a COON's age I arrive at my domicile...weary, but glad I had made the effort....(I went back later for the slats...that go in between the rails, that the mattress rests on...but the trash collectors had already come by (and I thought they just came late at night to piss us off...), and the street was empty....WHEW! That was close....I just look at it in my room and I'm so happy I grabbed it...it's a beautiful light color, and looks hand made....

NOW, If anyone can give me a solution for another way to atatch these rails...the hardware seems a bit worn out...so I'm trying to come up with another way to fix this without ruining the over look of the frame....Any suggestions?

LET ME OUTTA HERE!!!

2009-02-27T23:26:00.000-05:00

Hello friends...I have been so self absorbed contemplating the inner lining of my bellybutton...that I have forgotton to make more entries HERE. It is true that I am currently under the spell of a rapidly dwindling bottle of 3 month oak-aged merlot (don't be alarmed, it was just something a little better than the 2-BUCK,...I felt like splurging...)...where was I....??

I find myself lacking the needed energy to keep up with everything these days...I got laid off from my studio job...Fabricating at the art studio in REDHOOK, Brooklyn, and "luckily" a friend was vacating her doggie walking job, and I jumped right in...HEY, after months of being finacially frustrated, I figure I can suck it up like everyone else, and do what needs to git done! BUT it is SUCKING THE LIFE OUTTA ME!!!!....I feel like I can properly relate to my brother JOE and his wife KIYOMI, and their 2+ year old...It's like taking care of kids...and being a big ol' fag we shouldn't have to be exposed to this shit...There have gots to be perks to bein' a homo in a no homo zone....

I have handled more poop in the last month than I ever hoped to handle....Which is saying something considering the fact that people here in Harlem and northwards...just don't believe in picking up after their dogs, I MEAN how about picking up the crap? You own a dog, YOU pick up it's shit, FAT ASS!!!....NOW I know where THE HARLEM SHUFFLE of Rolling Stones fame gits it's meaning....NOT TO WORRY...I just came up with a brilliant public works/installation/guerilla art project I shall be implementing in the near future, JUST in time for spring....Stay tuned....

The UP SIDE of spending alot of time out of doors with my four-legged friends, is that there are alot of great parks up up town...like THE CLOISTERS...They shipped bits and pieces of several medieval monastaries over and reesembled them up on a lofty hill... (one of the few parts of NYC not to get razed flat...overlooking the Hudson River and the George Washington Bridge), along with those famous UNICORN tapestries...and I just saw the first crocuses opening up in the dirt out there in all the surrounding grayness....I guess I better hurry and bury some of those doggie while I still have places to hide them....(just...kidding...???)....

But enough of all this cliche LIFE and DEATH stuff...There'll be plenty of that on NPR in the forthcoming weeks...here's a little ditty I totally forgot about until today...One of my synapses popped and there it was... I came across this song randomly on KROQ in Los Angeles, growing up...and was rooted to the spot...I satisfied myself with a crappy recording I made off the radio for all those years...it wasn't easy to find...or I just weren't that resourceful back then....anyways: VIVA LA YOUTUBE.....why didn't I think of it sooner....This is right up there with my favorite things to put on when trashed, like E.L.O....need I say more: enjoy... NOWHERE GIRL BY B MOVIE...

P.S.: I just came back to this post for easy access to the song, to listen to it again...a few days after posting this...and as MY LUCK would have it...they had to erase that particular FULL LENGTH VERSION, as there is a dispute about the film footage (Fritz Lang?) the accompanied it...so I went back, and of course...no other full length version available...I don't know why people bother posting the butchered version...it just aint the same without that great build up at the beginning...OH WELL.....
P

Bubbling up from the abyss

2009-01-22T18:56:00.000-05:00

I was sitting...didlin' on the computer when this tune popped into my head...I didn't hear it "back in the day"...we were all bein' big highschool dorks listening to "RED WINE" over and over...to death...NO, I heard this at THE EAGLE in Seattle for the first time (they always had awesome djs there), and DJ EUGENE played this one and it was A REVELATION....The lines: "I'd rather be with you than anybody else...But if you make me mad, but if you make me mad, You'll wish that you had not..." ...pretty much somes me up relationshipwise....(PLUS, there's this great goofy moment in the video, when the song skips...)
So take it: here's another little piece of my heart baby
Don't worry..I'll post some "real" posts soon....

May a host of angels sing him to his rest....

2009-01-16T16:27:00.000-05:00

WEIRD... I just posted this photo yesterday on my flickr site....happening to mention how much it felt like an Andrew Wyeth scene....Hadn't thought of him for quite a while....And lo' and behold: this morning, less than 12 hours later...he's dead...creepy...

It's a really sad thing....I was obcessed with his work for a while....I remember the first time I saw "CHRISTINA'S WORLD" in a book as a kid...how mesmerizing it was...and then someone (probably my dad...) told me that the woman in the painting was a cripple (polio it turns out)....and it changed the whole painting...made it's meaning deeper..and showed me how appearances weren't the whole story....here i thought it was an idylic scene of a girl in the middle of nowhere...playing make-believe or something...It was a HUGE deal for me, when I got to see the actual painting at the MOMA sometime after moving here to NYC....

When I moved to Washington state....there was a time I spent out in the country at my parents new house...before they had finished closing up and selling my childhood home in Los Angeles...(another end of a chapter...and a huge turning point for me...)...I even spent a fall and winter in the house, a good chunk of it alone...it was bliss...and something about the country...in the rugged beauty of the Northwest must have made me susceptable to Mr. Wyeth's work...because there was a good while where I could think of and look at nothing else....there is a mystery, and silent contemplation to his work...the visual manefestation of lots of long ponderous walks alone...surrounded by nature's quiet....I even wrote him an (awkward...) letter trying to express how I really got his work...how I was a kindred spirit....Though I was probably none of those things ...I believe he was a bit of a grump, and that my emotional effusiveness was probably pretty off-putting to someone of his nature....

He came from an interesting family...lost his father, the famous artist N.C. WYETH when a train happened upon him and one of his grandsons (I forget whose kid...) stalled in a car at the crossing...Later the scandalous HELGA pictures came out...(scandalous....?)...I was aware of him mostly out of my periphery...but his presence was huge on me...especially my early artistic awakenings...and what a powerful thing an artists work can be....

My condelences to the Wyeth clan...Fortunately for the rest of us he left a body of work that will blow the minds of many future generations of artists as well as anyone fortunate to come across him...

Good bye Mr. Wyeth.

THIS is the picture....

2009-01-11T02:24:00.000-05:00

I was up late watching the BOOB TUBE ...when I stumbled across this on the SCI-FI channel....It's based on the comic by and directed by ENKI BILAL (who inspired the Blade Runner movie with some of his work apparently...) with music by SIGOR ROS...(french?)...and is sorta a mash of FIFTH ELEMENT/ BLADE RUNNER/ animation-ish...? REALLY COOL.....Takes place in NYC in 2095, and has a very bewildering, and dreamy quality (with Egyptian gods running around...)....PLUS the very very sexy German actor THOMAS "now I need to take an ICE-BATH" KRETSCHMANN (the new KING KONG, and THE PIANIST...)....mmmmmmmm. I think I'm gonna need to get my dirty hands on a copy of this...'cause it definately bears watching over...

HERE are a couple of clips...

Here...

...and HERE....

HEXED

2009-01-07T17:56:00.001-05:00

For some reason I am obcessed with hexagons as a motif these days...for the last 3 to 6 months....

And now I see them everywhere....especially under my two feet...all the time....

I have been fascinated for some time with how shapes and structures seem to resonate down thru various levels and sub-levels of nature...those cool basalt formations like THE GIANT'S CAUSWAY in Northern Ireland....and honeycomb....

...(people who know me also know how much I dig BOXES of all kinds...as a thing, and as a metaphore...and honeycomb, if you think about it, is just a series of thousands of tiny waxen boxes fused together....)...

Why is it the you suddenly see something everywhere, once it has grasped yer attention....

It has been creeping into my art pieces now....

....everywhere......

...and if it's like the times before..... Eventually I'll figure out what it symbolizes to me...

revealing why it has resonated so deeply......

...eventually.....

AND THE winner is...?

2008-12-30T21:58:00.000-05:00

While I'm at it...I stumbled onto this animated film a little while back...YOU know how I luv animation...and I have been pretty well obcessed with cut-out paper art these days...which the style of this one sort of feels like...paper cut-outs that is...
The story could use a bit of sprucing up...I kinda feel like this was taking a long time to make, and so they kinda rushed the end to get it done...a shame...but the story is a bit lacking anyway...it needs something...
Anyway it's beautiful all the same....
I believe it's nominated for an oscar...

Just in time for THE END

2008-12-30T20:43:00.000-05:00

HEY EVERYONE!! Sorry I have been so negligent....Hope you all had a great holiday...full of family passive-aggressiveness, needless drama, and LOTS of necessary booze!!! (I know I did...)

Here's a lil' clip I found thru DRAWN...a cool canadian illustration/cartoon blog (tipped off by friend RY-RY)....this is so cool...I wish I was involved in cool art projects like this one....One step at a time I guess....ENJOY!

OH YEAH, and...HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

NO KIND OF A LIFE FOR A CHICKEN

2008-11-12T18:14:00.001-05:00

MUST BE ACTIVIST DAY: 'cause I am just sending emails to people and gettin' insensed....I saw this sight while walkin' home thru Harlem...Now, I ain't a vegetarian anymore, and I DO like my eggz, BUT is it too much to ask that the little gals get a place in the sun 'till their number's up...I got so mad....I start to understand the zealots throwing red paint on rich ladies fur coats for a second....

OH,YAH, and let's just put their misery on public display while were goin' for the sensitivity award of the year....

P.S.: ONE OTHER THING: check out this site for news of impending laws to be passed (?) this friday against street artist selling work on the street...It was supposed to be voted on in secret and got leaked to an artist...I will be there at city hall this friday!!! Join ME OR SEND AN EMAIL TO THE CITY...there are links for this on the site:

HELP US HERE....

An ARTIST is born

2008-11-07T23:26:00.000-05:00

It has been a long road to my personal acceptance of the fact that I AM, myself, an artist....I have been creative my whole life- something that a huge number of us creative types have probably stated when writing an application cover letter for a grant or scholarship or what have you, at some point or other. Now adays, as I see myself becoming more of a sculptor (though really, why is it neccessary to state these things? Why can't we be involved in all sorts of creative endeavors? Perhaps I say I am evolving into more of a sculptor (Thank you, Martin Puryear...), because it seems to me that I have spent a good deal of my life figuring things out that others seemed to just know right away...SCULPTOR is simply a marker or chapter heading anyway....there is too much out there for me to lay down and SPECIALIZE after all this struggling...). AHEM. As I see myself evolving more into sculture...I recall, or can see how this was laying dormant in me from early on: I used to collect those quartz (or agate?) rocks, with smooth milky colors, and I'd take colored markers to them to create my own GEMS....or the dioramas I loved to make...I've always been obcessed by 3 dimensionality in art....breaking the 2-d wall...

In high school, one of my english (or was it history?) teachers, MR. LLEWELYN (spelling?) recruited me to do some illustrations for the school literary supplement at Bishop Montgomery High school. I always was doodling in the margins of my textbooks, and notebooks (even going so far as to create some pretty elaborate flipbooks), but never thought of it as what I would do...There was already one artist in our family: my older brother JOE, and for some unfathomable reason, I didn't think 2 was allowed, or I thought people would just think I was trying to copy him (?!)...but Mr. LLEWELYN, turned that tide....starting a very small shift in me that would take quite some time to show results....I've always wanted to thank him for believing in me enough to make that simple act- I really hadn't had anyone really show that kind of belief in my abilities that I can recall....I did end up going to college for a few years...but going into art was just some vague gesture...I still refused to believe in myself for some reason (probably because I still hadn't dealt with coming out of the closet)....Then I got a scholarship to go to PENLAND SCHOOL OF CRAFTS in North Carolina for a concentration in blacksmithing, to add to my skill arsenal....before deciding to come to NYC (a fluke in and of itself, but I felt I'd spent enough time in SEATTLE-15 years!!!- and thought it was finally time to move on).... I was finally starting to be aware of having some kind of talent or natural ability, and was now struggling to put it to words...trying to make DECISIONS about what to do about it....And then New York reared it's beautiful skyline, and I was hooked. Maybe I wanted to make those I'd left back in Washington proud, or I was sick of not giving myself enough credit, but in New York everyone is rushing about trying to be something, and it was the first time I felt comfortable using that often loaded phrase: I AM AN ARTIST, with confidence, with real knowing that that was what I was, and am.

One day I was working for a stylist in Chelsea, one of the many good fortunes I've had come along at the right moment thus far...and I was rushing somewhere on an errand, and stopped on the side walk when I saw this: (CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO READ PLAQUE)

When I read the plaque around this small fenced in area, my first impulse was to climb right in, but I was self-conscious about it, and hurried on my way, only to kick myself for worrying about what anyone else thought.
But later I intentionally walked by again on my way home, and this time I climbed right inside and sat a while, proud of the group I belonged to. Proud that I could finally get on with the DOING, now that I knew what I was....

Thank you New York for letting live here amoung the many struggling artists, trying to find their voice.... And Thank you SCOTT KAPLAN for this wonderful park, that's ALL MINE....

FUNNY....I THOUGHT JERSEY WAS A BLUE STATE.

2008-11-03T21:20:00.000-05:00

And so, here we are: on the eve of election night!! For something that felt so far off for so long, that sure came up fast! Tomorrow, hopefully, we shall have a new president.
Those of you who are planning on voting for JOHN MCCAIN: Just letting you know that if YOUR candidate does lumber his way across the finishline, and into our oval office, that I shall be implementing PHASE ONE of OPERATION: GET THE HELL OUTTA THIS STUPID COUNTRY (this is NOT a joke).

As an American Faggot, you eventually get pretty tired of waiting for enlightened humanity to become the majority, and of being treated as a SECOND CLASS CITIZEN...MIND your own damn business: my sex life isn't. (SIDE RANT: Why is it that the people who are the loudest to scream "I AM A BIG OL' CHRISTIAN" are always the biggest hipocrates, and first to pass judgement on others that do not fit into their lil' jigsaw puzzle of a 'world view'? Didn't Jesus say: Do not judge lest yee be judged? Hmmmm....)
Ahem...Anyway, you have got to pick your battles, and I for one am sick of living in a country that doesn't value me. There are plenty of places I can go where they aren't so FUCKED UP ABOUT SEX, and who will appreciate another creative mind in their ranks.
Should this country flow red, anyone who wishes to visit me is going to have to buy a plane ticket to do so....

THAT SAID:

You better vote regardless..... or I had better not hear any political whining coming from yer ambivalent lips.

HE IS RISEN!!!

2008-10-24T13:24:00.001-04:00

I luv this story.....I luv these kinds of stories....Whose to say it's the power of the mind or the strangeness of the universe....I still like to believe there is magic out there....I don't believe that god is a MAN in a white beard (How obnoxiously arrogant we humans is....)...I don't believe in ORGANIZED religion....
I SAY EVERYMAN FOR HIMSELF.....This guy sees what he sees and more power to him whatever it may be...(as long as he stays outta MY way....)...CHECK IT...

those GROOVY SWEDES

2008-10-08T18:56:00.000-04:00

I love swedish bands...all they have to do is open their sexy sexy mouths while shakin' their sexy sexy bods...Recently I was checkin' out their videos on youtube...this awesome little clip is from "MARBLE HOUSE" off their first album (?) "SILENT SHOUT"...how cool is this.....?

JEALOUSY and what to do about it...

2008-09-02T15:53:00.000-04:00

Yesterday...I was sitting on the couch, "minding my own business" and happened to look out the window....AND THERE, floating down the Hudson, was this big contraption.....something, as I got a better view through my handy-dandy binocs, that resembled something outta TOM SAWYER.....and there were people crawling all over it....

I got onto a mailing list for this hip little gallery up in BEACON, NY. near DIA's museum....and I get them all the time, so I recognized what I was seeing right away.....I wanted to be on that boat, or, actually boats....there are about 7 of them all lashed together at points during their trip....They have been traveling down the river for over 2 weeks I think....How do people get invoilved in this shit? Or do you just simply DO IT YO'SELF...? I guess either one is true....SO, I continued to think about it as I went about my "business"....

Later, I decided to go for a walk along the riverside bike path...something I do at least 4 or 5 times a week now that I've found the southern arm of the trail running down the west side of Manhattan.....There is so much variety to the trail...and yesterday there were tons of people milling about.....I ended up walking from my place at 141st all the way to the pier at 70th...which ain't such a big deal to those who know me.....

And who should be tied up at the pier but these very same boats!!! And there was some doofous on a jet ski doing all sorts of look-at-me tricks for them in his spandex suit.....EEKKK....

It seemed like such an odd coincidence...and they were all laying about on top of the boat drinking beer, and eating hotdogs....It just seemed like the life to me....

I wandered down a bit farther...past couples at the waters edge dancing to music from a boombox, playing accordion style music....God I LUV THIS TOWN, I thought....I jumped on the 1 train and headed back to my place....it was after nine when I got home, with all sorts of visuals floating in my head from my big walk....

I discovered today that a last minute show has been added tonight, at the very pier I found them at, so I will be heading back down this evening...maybe I'll convince them to let me stow away on board....At any rate, they'll be in LONG ISLAND CITY, next Sunday....and I may have to go see them there...If tonight is any indicator.....

I AM NOT ALLLOWED TO PEE IN NYC

2008-08-27T19:45:00.000-04:00

Today I went downtown to court...WHY?

Well, a month or so ago, I was at a friend's birthday party in Brooklyn...on my way home I decided I couldn't wait until I got home to HARLEM...(a good 45 minute ride...assuming I got on the one train right away..)...SO, what did I do? I looked around for a discrete spot to relieve myself...It was a quiet area, and I couldn't justify going back to my friends as they were already getting into bed when I departed, so I stepped behind one of those BIG containers they park next to the sidewalk when they are gutting a building...it was further hidden by a tall stack of pallets or some such privacy-inducing material. AND was under a tree for added shade...Behind me was a school...closed at 2am...BUT a cop happened to see me duck-n'-cover, and came to explore..."HEY, when you gotta go, you gotta go..." I said. A minute later, and he would never have known I was there....

I was all ready with a statement when I arrived at court....But, all that happens is that there is an officer of the court who mearly assesses your verdict solely on whether you are guilty....No testifying or allowed explinations....So it was "FIFTY DOLLARS" from the crabby man and whether I wanted to pay or not...I could have made a court date, and now I wish I had just on principle...but do I really want to spend so much of my valuable time on such a minor thing?

So, I just want to say: NEW YORK CITY....BEFORE YOU START WRITING ANY MORE CITATIONS TO PEOPLE FOR PUBLIC URINATION...HOW ABOUT ACTUALLY PROVIDING A GODDAMNED PLACE TO TAKE A PISS...IT IS HARD ENOUGH TO FIND A PLACE IN THE DAYTIME, IN MANHATTAN...AT 2AM? IN BROOKLYN? LONG AFTER ALL THE GOVERNMENT OFFICES AND LIBRARIES ARE CLOSED? WHAT ABOUT RESTROOMS IN THE SUBWAY?! WHAT A CONCEPT..AND IF I AM NOT COMPLETELY INSANE, I BELIEVE I HAVE SEEN THEM IN SUBWAYS IN OTHER CITIES/COUNTRIES...SO HOW ABOUT IT NYC? HOW ABOUT PONYING UP AND PROVIDING SOME BASIC SERVICES...AND NO, 6 NEW RESTROOMS ON MANHATTAN EARLIER THIS YEAR IS NOT ENOUGH...THERE ARE OVER A MILLION OF US HERE LAST TIME I CHECKED...PICK UP THE PACE ND GET YER HEAD OUT OF YER ASS!!!

Ironically...I was trying to find a place to pee TWICE, later this same day...and the library I went to didn't even have a public restroom....words failed me....

WATERlogged

2008-08-13T20:08:00.000-04:00

I guess this is part two of the last post, as I haven't got all I have to say about these things yet...

The other day I found a bike trail near my apartment...going south...and wandered at the waters edge...

...discovering all sorts of cool detritus....How is it that water can reclaim that which we consider trash, and turn it into something so beautiful...as if has become part of nature again with the scrutiny of watery hands....

...everything is about texture....wooden beams become soft as velvet to the touch....plastic no longer looks cheap, but poetic....and all those endless schools of plastic bottles...become just more raw material for some forthcoming sculpture....

...things that have been thrown away go through a kind of purgatory...wandering the streets...blown about...until they find their way back to river and ocean (especially ocean-there is something profound about their exposure to salt water...)...There...removed from their burdens...and from any mundane context...they take flight under their new identity...weightless....their colors...somewhat faded, granted...seemed to burn with an inner light...One longs to touch them...hardly the case when they are still just "homeless"...on the street...searching for a new purpose...

...I even found Britney....cast ashore here....I had no need of her at the time...so I returned her to her plastic sanctuary and sent her on her merry way....

...and then there are other discoveries...

...I want to build a museum to detritus...I'd call it THE FLOTSAM AND JETSOM HOTEL...(2 of my favorite words....)...built out of washed up beams and boards of course....and housing all sorts of wonderful objects discovered by myself on my ramblings....A memorial to the forgotten, humble, and obscure....

......a thousand ideas for object-specific projects bloom in my brain on these excursions....And I have glimpses of the old pack-rat I might become if I do not exercise ruthless editing power in these moments of weakness....

..I wander home...these lessons in potential....setting every cell in my body vibrating with energy....and determination...and most impotantly...with realizing, yet again, that I really and truly have found my calling....

AN EXCAVATION...

2008-08-04T19:47:00.000-04:00

AT the risk of sounding too nostalgic: (I've had a few, and god knows THAT doesn't help...)...This morning I got up early, and took a walk along the river...(I am broke right now, so I gots to find ways to enjoy this town on the cheap..)
I love walking along this stretch of river....There are so many things that, to the alert eye, make you aware that this place, like the rest of this gol-darn town, has a history...Should you be inclined to DIG for it...

There is a certain stretch along the water, that is constantly eroding, giving up chunks of rock displaying the layers of fire and compression eeeked out over millions of years...(SORRY, I have a geologist for father...PLUS I have read that fascinating book,, about the "father of geology, William Smith...(the name eludes my right now)...you never see rocks the same after either of these occurences...), plus the bits of ceramics, or other found objects that the ground has given up-I think this area was land-filled at some point...

There are all sorts of odd architectural features as well...slowly smoothed over by the elements...hinting at one of NYC's previous incarnations...

One this particular morning, it was still too early for the NYC sanitation folks to come and clean up after the revelries of this past weekend (TONS of families BBQing, setting off fireworks, etc.....NOT that it would matter, because after coming from Seattle, a very progressive, environmental community (even though they did overturn the monorail bill 3+ TIMES!!!)...witnessing NYC's attention to sanitation, and recycling is like leaping head first back in a time machine to before even sentient beings walked this earth...Guilliani got rid of recycling for a while because it wasn't cost-effective (!!!!), or some such bullshit....(Sorry, I just cannot believe the ineptness of such a "cutting-edge" city on a concept that has been around for at least 6 DECADES!!!) So, skirting the main trashed area, I wandered up towards the George Washington Bridge...

Anyways, (ahem)...underneath expressway overpass...Jersey benignly glinting across the way....I looked here and there...noting architechtural features...overgrown with greenery and time....I found out later that day on a return up to the Heights along this route with friend CARE-BEAR that this part of Manhattan used to be "the country"...where people came to relax...all along the Hudson were farms....and green...In fact there is a farm house somewhere up near Inwood, still standing, so I am informed....

There is something about this area...because you aren't distracted so much by all the noise and craziness of the city proper....You can feel it has been thru many lifetimes....Has seen much living...

I came home much recharged...and ate a hearty breakfast....

ABRA LOS OCHOS

2008-08-02T19:13:00.001-04:00

SO, here I am minding my own business, riding the D TRAIN out to Coney Island, wool-gathering, when this add on the train snaps me to attention....I had been staring at it for 15+ minutes before I realized what it was....You know how it is: Your daily routine, plus this massive city with all it's noise, etc. just slowly grinds down yer brain like a riverstone in a deluge...You may miss all sorts of amazing things after a while if you are worrying too much about money, or who you are, or why you are here...Well, thats' why I love shit like this...It's like a slap to yer noggin...reminding you to PAY ATTENTION!!!

It is pretty flawless, as for as I can tell...I am wondering who did this, and how the hell it got onto the train....

adventures of a BABY WRANGLER...? OR, WHY IT'S CHRISTMAS IN JUNE...

2008-06-12T22:52:00.000-04:00

As most of you know...I got fired from one of my latest restaurant jobs here in da' city...Not because I was doing a bad job, but because one of the owners was an uptight gal who thought it was okay to let a loyal, hardworking employee go without notice....or reason...(NO baggage here, really...).
So I found myself drifting and feeling like one lost and aimless 36-year-old...

I was burnt out on the restaurant biz, angry at work, and unsure how to proceed...BUT, the entity that is this city heard my cry (as it does all of us if we are paying ATTENTION...)...and one day my friend GRAY called to asked if I wanted to earn some money working half a day on a set for a photo shoot as she had to be somewhere else..."SURE" I said...(I said it to anything that offered cash...)...

I ended up meeting the gal I am now working for as an assistant to a stylist...working on photo-shoots, making(like a skateboard with the Swedish flag emblazoned on it) and arranging, and buying props...
I get to go to all sorts of places, and funky prop-houses in this town I would otherwise be clueless of. I get to meet some interesting people, like the older Jamaican gal at a trim store who told us stories about the last 30+ years of people coming into the shop for various flamboyant needs: including the prostitute who was loosing her marbles and came in for a yellow feather boa in nothing but a bright yellow rainslicker....apparently you could hear a pin drop...

It is a job with creative outlets and endless possibilities....And everyday is different...Just today I was on the set of a shoot for a Portland, Oregon based kids clothing company for an x-mas/ winter catalogue and spent alot of time squatting behind the photographer, waving bright colorful toys to get lil babies to smile and look at the camera...surreal...

Who knows where I'll be and who I'll see......or meet...I'll let you know though....
Funny how life can change so quickly....But then again this is a city that has seen many changes....

THE BEST LAID PLANS OF MICE AND MEN...

2008-05-15T18:14:00.000-04:00

There's the commercial on the television for CRESTOR...One of the whole onslaught of commercials brainwashing people into thinking that health is something that comes in a bottle...not something that is as simple as taking the stairs instead of the elevator..(there is a guy in my building who rides up one floor in the elevator...he WAITS for it, even if it takes a minute or two...)..
Anyway the commercial goes like this:

(Man and wife...affectionately clinging to each other....)

Woman: While we were building a life together...
Man (interupts): Something was building in my arteries...

WHAT?!

This is such a stretch I am speechless....I laughed out loud I couldn't believe this...I want to meet the person who wrote this...I can only imagine the brain-storming session involved in birthing this gem....

THE SICK OYSTER GIVES THE PEARL

2008-05-10T19:40:00.000-04:00

And this dude definately ain't right...I got turned onto this lil' gem by my friend BETCH....I am curious to anyone else's interpretation....We have a few theories....enjoy "DRINKING OUT OF CUPS". (Not to be confused with another, more nefarious, youtube item...)

Never say NEVER........

2008-05-06T20:58:00.001-04:00

Recently I was listening to the soundtrack from KILL BILL VOLUME ONE (Both are favs o' mine...), and there is this flute piece...I think shortly before or after Uma slices and dices Lucy....That is really beautiful...It's got some great Tiajuana brass in it( It's called "THE LONELY SHEPARD",awwwww)....Only to discover to my horror, that it is by none other than ZAMFIR!!! Of cheese-ball legend...I myself have used him as an easy laugh on occasion...You just never know when you'll be eating some CROW....

ANIMATOR.....IT'S ALIVE!!! (fiendish laughter...)

2008-05-05T19:49:00.000-04:00

When I was a kid, my parents exposed us to alot of really interesting and unusual events, and artists, films, etc....to which I am eternally grateful...It was not your normal existence...All kinds of things were discussed at the dinner table...(something in and of itself unusual, as I later discovered from friends)....I often felt I was watching my own family when watching various films, like Merchant Ivory's Room with a View....) a multi-faceted, and eccentric group of personalities...

One of the things my dad would do, was take some of us to the Festivals of animation...These were movies at the local art houses (like the beautiful RIALTO THEATER) featuring short animated films from all over the world...There was even one of these that featured commercials from all over the globe....This cemented my eternal love of animation, and gave me a view of the world, and all the creative souls at work in it, that has never left me....Later, when I was inevitablly exposed to the BROTHERS QUAY, and their strange STREET OF CROCODILES...(very loosely based on Polish author BRUNO SHULZ's work of the same name- a masterpiece in its own right....whose career was sadly shortened when he was shot coming home after curfew one night by a nazi soldier in occupied Poland...), I knew that someday I would embark on my own animated work...(I have an idea for a short stop-motion piece in the QUAY vein that has slowly been gestating within me for some years...Even in grade school I remember toiling away, while one teacher or another droned on and on about something that meant nothing to me, on elaborate flip books in the margins of my textbooks (GOD!! How I wish I still had some of those...), later even obcessive-compulsively colorizing some of them....

While I have occasionally checked out Youtube for some "obscure" little gem, recommended by a friend, it was only a few days ago, remembering a film seen over a year and a half ago, while bartending at Mike Judge's animation celebration screening at the Moore Theater in Seattle, that I realized how a vast wealth of animation was just a click away via Youtube...(what an amazing site!!!). I started hunting down old favorites...some from my father's forays with us, and new favorite's, discovered while hungrily searching on the site....And a bonfire has been rekindled to my love of all impossible things rendered possible, via the amazing medium of animation....

Here are a few samples to send you down your own path to that incredible art:

RABBIT ,by Run Wrake: a brilliant allegory to greed, canabalizing old childrens illustrations by Geoffrey Highgam, and a soundtrack collab with HOWIE B(!!!), very hip...

MINILOGUE/HITCHHIKERS CHOICE, by some very talented guy...there are even remakes of this one by other artists that are really cool as well...

BALANCE, an old favorite, with the dark humor only a German can bring to these stories...again about that good old sin: GREED...

FATHER AND DAUGHTER, by Michael Dubok de Wit, if this doesn't move you, then there's a rock in the place where yer heart should be....(reminds me somewhat of TRIPLETS OF BELLVILLE, or is that just because of the accordion?...)

GOTTA GET MY ASS TO queens...

2008-04-26T16:24:00.000-04:00

I have been spending a few days a week in Queens....I am helping a sculptor with her work....A mamouth piece to be sent to a show in Europe next month....It ain't a paying gig, but I get an oppurtunity to help a fellow artist, learn some new materials, and techniques, and see a part of NYC I might not see otherwise....It is a learning experience....And no one knows where it will lead me if at all, but you never know....

Right now we are attatching hundreds of bones to a steel armiture with a resin putty.....cool stuff, but if you don't wash yer hands every half hour....they can get nasty....(you can see some of the stuff on my hands if you look close....I had to clip my nails after the first day, because the stuff gets under there and won't come out no matter what....And I look like I've had a french manicure....fabulous as it was...

There are two cats they have out back, and they just whine nonstop for an hour straight, then the other one takes over for a while...no kidding, they work in shifts...!

Then it's home again on the M train to Manhattan....I love riding around Brooklyn and Queens, 'cause the train is above ground and you can stare out at all the great old buildings....awash in the waning sunlight....I am tired, but in a good way...

Early one MORNING.....(i went for a walk)

2008-04-23T17:05:00.000-04:00

What could I have eaten or smoked or drank to cause such tossings and turnings last night? As it was I lay blinking at the ceiling for a good hour, tried
watching a movie to trick my mind into letting me go back to sleep, but nothing doing....
SO I got up and went for a stroll along the river to find a place to write a letter to LITTLE FRIEDA....

It was relatively quiet ,for NYC, and I got some time to just think....Near the bridge there is a small stretch of "beach"...nothing like the beaches I grew up on, but I'll take what I can get....And as I was poking around on it I started to uncover all sorts of interesting finds in amoung the rocks and debris, left by a receding tide...

...I started to wonder if this stretch of riverside was filled in to make these trails, as I was finding things that looked pretty old....bottles, the proportions of which you don't see these days....Old pottery, layers of tile, cement, and rock, like bits of the walls in the subway had washed away in a flood....Like the tides coming in, were scraping away at the layers of debris...slowly drawing out its secrets...

I have a deep love for the FOUND OBJECT, so it is instinctual that I poke around at the waters edge...And I always marvel at how nature, especially the ocean or a large body of water, can reclaim garbage, or flotsam, and sift it through its fingers, softening it's edges, fading its colors, and create something so much more alive upon depositing it back on solid ground.....

..Or it brings something to us we have never seen....Though, actually I HAVE seen these before...at a really cool shop in SOHO called EVOLUTION, where they have all sorts of fascinating stuff, like the penis bones from mammals (yes, some really do have then..), to glass from lighting strikes, to fossils millions of years old...And these weird lil' dudes...which look like something from a Geiger painting...but are actually seedpods from some tree or plant indiginous to the Hudson River Valley area....

Or my favorite: this delicate lil' piece of crap....of barely any substance at all....

THE RIVER GIVETH....and the river taketh away....

INSIDE a box.....

2008-04-14T19:56:00.000-04:00

(work in progress...)

I've had a love affair with the BOX since I was small...I used to take the lids off of shoeboxes, turn them on their side, and glue cutouts inside to make lil' kid dioramas of haunted houses, graveyards...etc. I think this was something I picked up from my oldest sister....who was into a more refined version of this....

I've had many favorite boxes over the years, some lost to me now, others, much loved and disintigrated....Presents, with their inner cargo....a mystery until they are opened and then they become superfluous....

(present from sister suzie..)

I've become fascinated by them as a metaphore for the inividual...what goes on inside of them....seeing them as an object, rather than a container...They are endlessly fascinating....

(cabinet above my workspace)

When I was in my second year of college, I was introduced to Joseph Cornell, and the rest was irrelevant....His boxes were a revelation....Like the ones I had done as a kid, but elevated to the realm of poetry...beautiful in and of themselves....and any meaning was what you brought to them....(I found out later that he had an interesting life as well....including a relationship with a young woman, who eventually ran off with someone, and stole a number of his beloved box assemblages to boot...)...Every time I see one of his assemblages in a museum it is like Christmas morning, walking into our living room as a kid, and seeing the presents under the tree....I dream of owning one, some day....

(Marblized paper box from VIV)

Discovering a box is one of my not so secret pleasures: An old toolbox, an empty cigar box(though they are a bit too trendy these days...), an old rusty utility casing in an abandoned building...

or this old box, found in my present apartment, one of many things left behind by some long gone roommate....At first I thought I needed a missing key to open it until I figured out the trick to the hasps....and inside I found this....

An old SINGER sewing machine, begging to be fixed up and used, instead of forgotten, which it very nearly was...(and I mean REALLY old...)

There are many other definitions for a BOX (although I am still a sucker for the classic square or oblong variety) ...like this thang I got as a trade for services rendered to a very talented ceramics student, while at Penland in North Carolina...

The BOX continues to fascinate me...there is something that resonates with me....some affinity or symbolic association that I have yet to uncover....And like the truth, they sit patiently, waiting for you to come along and discover their secret....

CABIN-fever

2008-04-08T23:46:00.000-04:00

Since getting fired from my job...unfairly, I might add, by people who apparently DO NOT know how to treat people with respect, I have gone through a whole range of emotions....I choose to see it as the universe cashing in that check that I wrote with my big fat mouth, the one regarding this as my last food service job EVER....I guess I have been much in need of a swift kick to the arse as to making this art-thing a career....I was enraged, but felt free...although, having no warning, I also had no cash....
Soon after I went into a nose-dive...worrying about said cash, what the fuck I was doing with my life, etc. (It's been a while since I've felt this way....). Finally I spent the whole day yesterday being self-indulgent, watching t.v. all day and eatin' snack-food...(though I made occasional forays into my room to work on bits of art, or send emails to possible jobs....).

Today I finally decided I need to get a bit of the FRESH (air), and so I sallied forth for what turned out to be a long walk north along the Hudson river....

If I lean out of my livingroom window I can see this lil' red lighthouse....I think it's the one at the end of the movie: INTO THE CUT (it's real good, if you haven't checked it out...Jane Campion), and just past it was this abandoned boat...instantly reminding me of me and SWEET PIXEL'S abandoned house adventures...It's odd seeing this right on the isle of Manhattan, but I had almost forgot I was in NYC while on my walk (walking near any body of water always tends to ground me when I feel scattered)....I even got up close and looked inside for clues...but there wasn't much to detect...

The sun was setting as everyone hurried home to New Jersey, over the George Washington ...Back to their homes, just I was thinking I needed to do...

Passing through the HEIGHTS, talking to my friend Ry-Ry on my celly, I saw that kind of light you get in the summer, starting to show we were moving into warmer times, when the sky just vibrates...My favorite time of day...

My friend RY-RY made me see the light, as he is in the same jobless predicament on the Other coast, that I need to stop seeing this as me being without the security of a job, and more about the limitless choices open to me, who knows what kinds of part-time work I might end up with, and all the free time to pursue my art besides...It's all my choice as to how I see this...Instead of draining myself with worry....
adventure is all around me right now...

When I came home I felt much better, calmer, and plesantly tired...I'm going to sleep much sounder tonight....Thank's RY-RY....and all my friends and family who have helped me with advice lately....

noche de la STRANGE COINCIDENCES

2008-04-05T00:57:00.001-04:00

Whenever there is some sort of humidity ratio reached, and old battlescar, someone having spilled a nice gooey beverage on this keyboard, causes the keys to stick in the most stubbornly maddening way................. like that. So, if I get frustrated I may just give up and let you decipher it yourselves rather than backtracking to correct..

THE ABOVE PHOTO is not about my old roommate CARE BEAR (in foreground, looking unfortunately dorky..) ,BUT the short-haired gal off in the murkiness to the right: JEN CURRIN, a poet visiting from Canada...CARE BEAR, an old roommate of mine in Seattle coincidentaly, told me she was in town from B.C., having a reading (which coincidentally, I would have missed, except for a crucial bit of info you shall discover, when I uncover, it later on). Now i'd never heard her read, so I said I'd come to a bar in Williamsburg, THE LUCKY CAT, which I'd never heard of until a couple of days before when me and friend GRAY walked by it on an outting to said neighborhood.........coincidentally.

Needless to say, JEN is an amazing poet, only eclisped by the fact that she reads with such command, and as if she is slowly eating her poem, and savoring every line along the way, not with the usual annoying spoken word voice I find so grating......she's lovely. Coincidentally, she, CARE BEAR, and my good friend THE PEARL (whom, coincidentally, is married to my brother), all met at BARD college in upstate New York, some years ago now.......
But BEFORE JEN came on there was an alluring talented girl named [cannot find paper, but will insert later], and BEFORE her a blond haired thang came up whom it turned out had broken her arm playing soccer recently, and read a very enthralling segment of and essay on fishing. Besides being a more talented writer than I had suspected, she recently was fired from her job, which by a strange twist of fate, coincidentally, had happened to me just yesterday afternoon, and not only did the assholes not give me any notice, but couldn't give me any valid reason for such shitty treatment........ Coincidentally, the only reason I know that this blond cutie had been fired 3 weeks before or that she broke her arm playing soccer, is that we chatted at intermission, because coincidentally, we work together, or rather worked together, and neither one of us had known that the other had been fired. I had no idea she was in this reading that night as well. It was, um, a coincidence.

Fortunately, I got to see these swell coincidental people tonight, and then incidentally, we danced our asses off for a while and me and CARE BEAR, and CARE BEAR'S MAN (STRAT) wandered the hip to overflowing streets of the 'BURG, to our train and back to the upper backwaters of Manhattan.

WEIRD HUH?

big fat CONGRATS TO AN AMAZING GAL...

2008-02-18T16:13:00.000-05:00

Just a quick congratulations to SISTER GINNIE on passing her oral....I have no doubt you have been stressing about this one...as evidenced by a lack of returned calls- she's usually so on top of these thangs....This must be one cosmic turd to have passed.............Go buy yerself a PONY...you've earned it...We'll all be waiting for you when you stop reeling and come up for a breath....

HELP UNKLE JOHNNY...YOU'RE MY ONLY HOPE

2008-02-16T19:55:00.000-05:00

I am posting this to see if anyone can help me speed up an organizing project: If you can find me any of these vintage containers....They are made of light-weight aluminum..come in sets..origionally 4(?) with the words "COFFEE", "FLOUR", "SUGAR", and..(?) in descending sizes. I found these 2 for $10 to give you an idea...I saw them in an overpriced vintage knick-nac store in Brooklyn for $75 for a set of four...I THINK NOT...I will reimburse you, but don't spend alot for them...I DON'T need complete sets, but I want to get alot of them....LET ME LET YOU HELP ME...

tHANX IN ADVANCE....

Ruminations on LUV

2008-02-15T12:48:00.000-05:00

Yes...yesterday wuz Valentine's Day...We got murdered at the restaurant I bartend at....I was almost at wit's end, and had to put on my blinders and just shoulder thru it...Naturally, I had to go get drunk with my coworkers afterwards...

These days I am trying to put a more positive spin on the holiday...I had two friends sitting at my bar last night...arguing about what meaning such a day could have(peolple from religious backgrounds tend to be biased against non religious days reflexively)...and why we need a DAY to celebrate with our loved ones, and I found myself defending the day to my own surprise....

....My logic being that rather than spending a bunch of money on this day, and making it merely a day of consumerism, people should get more creative, and MAKE something..a meal, a card....thereby bypassing BIG BUSINESS. Creating yer own meaning for a holiday rather than adhereing to someone else's...especially when most people don't know ,when asked, why we are celebrating Valentine's day in the first place...

I have yet to actually celebrate Valentine's Day with a guy (which tells you something about the average length of my romantic entanglements), but I have decided to jump off off the bandwagon regarding Valentine's Day bashing regardless....

...When it comes down to it, WHEN DONE RIGHT, I can think of alot worse things to celebrate than love....

Turning bACK da CLOCK

2008-02-12T14:22:00.000-05:00

I love to fix things up....Things that have been neglected...(Or even discarded...), bringing them back to life before they are passed hope...like a sort of ressurection...The other off shoot being using found objects in art...not even restoring them, especially, but finding new uses for them....

When I moved into my new apartment, however, there was/IS alot to be fixed...AND SO I take it one little step at a time. Perhaps this can all be seen as an excersize in futility: I don't own this place , or any of the other apartments I have practiced this "useless magic" in, and they will probably rebegin the slow decline right after I leave due to a future owners lack of interest, but I find it comforting, and empowerig to continue nontheless...

Like these transom windows....Painted over ages ago (judging from the layers of paint I stripped off to free it from it's surrounding frame...), which used to open to ventillate, and let light into the gloomy corridor in the middle of the apartment...I always wonder what possesses people to PAINT OVER THINGS, especially rendering them useless, like windows....Just laziness I guess. And then everyone after them continues the tradition of not caring, until it takes days of work to right the error...

But then there are the moments when the end is in sight and, if you're lucky there is a payoff of some kind...Something even you hadn't suspected you were unearthing in the process....

As it turns out, these windows are beautiful cast or etched glass...in little starbursts....Why would someone want to obliterate this? It is the feeling an explorer must get when they excavate a tomb...

There are others of these cool windows to "make right", but of course I do have more important things to do....So they will have to wait....

Until I am good and ready.....

ONE MAN'S TRASH......

2008-02-03T20:54:00.000-05:00

As far as musical instruments go, the piano will always be my first love....Probably because I took it for about 8 years as a kid....I love the glassy quality of it....I actually have my own baby grand sittin' at my parents house in Olympia, Washington.....(the gift of my godmother, the gal my mother took piano from in Long Beach, CA., when she moved here from Germany after she got married to my dad...Irene Trepanier was her teacher, and therefore I inherited the piano when she died....ironically, I was the only one who kept up with the thing...).

The other day I was running late for work, and happened to glance off the 1 train where it comes up for air at 125th, and saw what looked to be some cool wooden structures lying on a trash heap, waiting for the pick-up next morning....I had no time to get off and investigate, but I wrote a reminder to myself so I'd come by after work later that night....
Of course they weren't anywhere to be seen when I made my pass after midnight, nothing ever is. RULE # ONE, when "dumpster diving in NYC: there are over a million people here, if you see something cool, grab it or hide it, or lug it home somehow, 'cause it WILL NOT BE THERE when you come back later"....BUT,I did find this whole trashcan full of piano keys....and started drooling. Something for a future sculpture or two...Anyone who know me, can understand what a find this is for me.
It was like finding a human leg bone or something..., because I know pianos fairly intimately, having been around them so much, but never had I seen one disassembled, into it's separate parts and lying at my feet...

SCORE!!!

There has been a tradition of "trash diving" in my family for generations...My grandmother on my dad's side: Valerie Shlichta, when my dad was growing up right here in New York, in Brooklyn, his mother found an old chair someone was throwing out. This amazing carved wood throne with lions a foot high on either side of you as you sit, carved out of some hardwood....She cleaned the big ol' thing up and had it reappolstered, we just called it "the lion chair". (My parents bug me these days with the morbid task of deciding if there is anything I'd like to have when they die...The 2 things I can think of are 1. The piano- that's already mine, and 2. The lion chair....

{PHOTO COMING SOON........}

Then there is this thang:

(Sorry for the bad photo..)

This thing is about 4' x 4'. And I found it one drunken night after carousing with a bunch of co-workers at a nearby bar after work....I can barely remember picking it up, but there it was staring at me from across the room the next morning (kinda like some guys I know)....I couldn't believe it! This is so me. I do not know what it will become, but it will be amazing...I just know it...If anyone knows what it is...tell me.

My sister Ginnie finds the most amazing shit too. There is always stuff being thrown out at her school....Like these cool old science models.....

{PHOTO COMING SOON}

....or this cool lab glass.....

So you can see how this runs in the family....

A few mornings later, Saturday...I am laying in bed, just letting the week wash over me, thinking...And I hear from somewhere up above the distant sound of a piano...a beautiful sound to me, always freezes me i my tracks...PIANO HEARD FROM A DISTANCE...Later it occured to me that I may have been hearing the last bit of residue, the soul of the piano laying discombobulated on my bedroom floor, as it floated off into oblivion...Who can say?

Stay tuned and see how these thangs are put to use....

SPEAKING OF LISTS.....

2008-01-23T16:38:00.000-05:00

While we're on the subject....Everybody has that LIST, the one of THINGS TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE, or IF I HAD ALL THE TIME AND MONEY IN THE WORLD....you know, those things which symbolize having "arrived" in your own personal, indiosyncratic way....

Some of mine are VISITING EASTER ISLAND.....SEEING THE AURORA BOREALIS (or australis for that matter...)....SCUBA DIVING.....

And, or course, this lil' gem, that someday, I'm gonna own...along with the cool old dodge pickup, for me to drag it around with...

This probably has it's inception from two events I can think of...both T.V. related. The first being the disney cartoon where Mickey and Goofy, and Donald go on a camping trip and they have this neat lil' camper, everything perfectly in its place, like a ships cabin, until the thing gets unhitched on some mountain road, and starts downhill.....The second is when LUCY and RICKY go on the camping trip in their camper (an early winnie)....Neither of these was an AIRSTREAM, but the both had that same compact micro environment thing going on....I do not remember the first time I saw the silver sausage, the same way there are a number of my friends I do not remember meeting for the first time...As far as I'm concerned, I have always gotten a thrill outta seeing one...the way they gleam in the open air, bending and distorting everything, like a big droplet of mercury, with wheels....
Silver has replaced whatever boring color it was as my favorite color, for some time now...I wonder what that says about me? It is the color of VANITY, but also of REFLECTION/MEDITATION....I always said, as a kid, that I would rather have the olympic silver medal over the gold....thus revealing, even at a young age the impractical, and shallow side of my nature...
Anyway, all I know is that if I ever get my head out of my ass and awake to find myself in the above scenario: wind in my hair, sexy man at my side and a BAMBI AIRSTREAM behind me...suffice to say I'll probably be feeling pretty durn good....

The only other thing to top that would be living in a lighthouse....(How could I forget to mention that one?)...even if only for a short time...If anyone knows how I can get that one crossed off my list please let me know....(I'm serious.)

"I WANNA LIVE IN A LIGHTHOUSE....HOW 'BOUT YOU?"

p.s: It really is a shame about ol' Heath...Hope he's doin' better whereever he is now....

making.....THE LIST

2008-01-22T14:51:00.000-05:00

I am fond of saying that the truth is the truth, regardless of whom the messenger is....
Now, I don't really take horoscopes seriously, but I do like to use them as a sounding board....if something resonates with me, then I see it as something to take heed of....
And lately....Sagitarii(?) have been told over and over, that for this new year, which apparently has the potential to really kick ass, to really kick ass, we need to sit down and plan it out in detail, and not get so distracted by influences around us. Now, I was already thinking this on a subconscious level...But it took this warning to really wake me up to the fact that I had already been thinking that I need to be organized, if I want this next year in a brand new, and very distracting city, to "count".....
So, last week I sat down and hacked away at the list.

I have a number of friends whom I know will understand this profoundly....the satisfaction of making a list, getting it out of yer head and onto paper in front of you where you can see it....Then comences the refining and eventual hacking away it it...'till some sort of fruition is reach, then the revision of whats left, which gets absorbed into the new list of what's to come....maybe it's just my German ancestry (Monty Python: "vee make a little list..."), but it is very fulfulling....
I am now ready to move forward, and start to make things happen...the list is almost my shield that I put in front of me as I go into battle, and into the fray....

STAY TUNED....

WALKING HOME TO 635 RIVERSIDE DRIVE

2008-01-20T13:54:00.000-05:00

According to something I read a few months ago, New yorkers (no, I do not include myself in that catagory just yet...) have one, if not THE highest life expectancy of towns and cities in the US. This is apparently due to how much they walk everywhere, as well as climbing all those subway steps- a sort of forced aerobics routine.....

I love walking, especially in THIS town, as it is the best way to really get to know all its secret ins and outs....When I am feeling energetic after work at my restaurant job at Columbia, I love to walk home...especially as the sun is setting over Jersey, across the Hudson river...like some strange promised land....bathing everything in orange....

And there are interesting spots I like to pass along the way....

Like the tomb of THE AMIABLE CHILD....(I'm NOT kidding that is what it's called)...Some kid that died (fell off the cliffs here to the rocks of the Hudson below...) towards the end of the 1700s on some rich guy's land, possibly related to him...his father or uncle...and even after he sold the property, he included a stipulation that the site be maintained...). I am pretty sure Edward Gorey lived in NYC at one point....or nearby, and if you have ever read any of his illustrated books, you would swear that this was lifted straight out of one of them....It is tucked away in a shabby little corner of Riverside drive, collecting leaves...

Or this abandoned boatlanding, from when the Hudson river used to flow hundreds of feet higher in between its banks, and lower Manhattan was under water.... (just kidding, making sure you were paying attention..) But it could of been a bandstand or some other public space....There are hawks nest in the trees nearby that you only can see in winter...

And, of course, Grant's Tomb, where, as they say, Grant ain't buried ('cause he is interrred ABOVE ground, which makes it a mausoleum)...with wife in tow.....It's pretty spectacular, as tombs go, even if it ain't no TAJ MAJAL....Origionally there was to be a grand staircase down to a boat landing and train depot....which never came to fruition....The folks at the Manhattan School of Music come there to practice...it can be very odd when every corner you round reveals a hidden trombonist or tuba, being violently throttled....

It is afternoon here, and as I look out at the park, the people are gliding about at the ice rink nearby, the traffic drones along the water, and I can here the icy wind roaring, and think of all those homeless people who can't find shelter tonight....I hope they're all okay, and that you are too....Ciao-for-now.

bLEEDING EYE SOCKETS

2008-01-17T16:44:00.000-05:00

Sistah Ginnie came to town with Johnny and we embarked on an art gorge-fest. Something which NYC is tailor-made to accommodate... We saw everything from a hipster show in the L.E.S. ...to a random Damien Hirst installation that we just stumbled across....completely at random....and cool subway music performances that left me in awe.....as if the CITY was conspiring to give us as much creative inspiration as it could cram into 24 hours...

Poor lil Ginnie was so tired at the end of the day, that she could barely stand after being subjected to the erratic schedule of the ol' ONE TRAIN during a "routine repair weekend"...

I had to drag her to MOMA to see the MARTIN PURYEAR show....he is my new idol....Such humility, and spirituality...not to mention technical skill....nothing seems to be an accident... (I have an instant negative reaction to BIG ART as I ussually feel that the size is pretty much all the piece has going for it... but this show is not the case....though, of course... I tended to gravitate towards the smaller works....) Perhaps this sounds a bit melodramatic, but both times I went to see this show I found myself on the verge of tears at seemingly random points, such is the power of his work...

Of course...there are always other surprises to be has at MOMA... this Jean Debuffet foil painting...I could have stared at it for hours...(silver is my favorite color after all...), since all I've ever seen of his are the Keith Harring-like cartoon paintings, this caught me off guard...

...And one of my favorites...Giacometti's ominously titled WOMAN WITH HER THROAT CUT... I've always loved this one for its abtract jumble of shapes...

..And then there's Alexander Calder...another of my long time idols... I was surprised to discover, Martin Puryear was a resident artist at his studio in France...where he found this beautiful old wheelbarrow, featured in one of my favorite sculptures he has created...

...The Damien Hirst, already alluded to...Me and Ginnie both agree that the highlight of this show wasn't the art, but the surprise bit of dialogue overheard:

MEATHEAD'S GIRLFRIEND: (upon stepping into the midst of all the dead sheep) "OH MY GOD!!!" (She is wearing a flashy white fur jacket)

MEATHEAD: (to a security guard, in appropriate meathead accent) "Hey, what is this?"

SECURITY GUARD: (in blankest tone) "It's art."

Later, we went to meet up with Johnny, and Kristen and Saul Becker, at Sol's beautifully realized studio in Williamsburg, after putting up with as much exposure to the hipsters at a nearby vintage clothing store (of course) as WE could take....

A WORD ABOUT SAUL: He is a very talented guy, and is so dedicated to his art that even the natural task of equiping a studio, and searching for the mode of expression, seem like art in and of themselves in his very skilled hands...

It was a busy weekend, and it was nice to get some time to myself, but it was so satisfying to my soul, that it will be feeding off of it for weeks...

GETTING AWAY FROM THE CRY OF THE MILLIONS

2008-01-06T22:39:00.000-05:00

Today was the day I promised myself to get out of the city...to remind myself that there were other places to be seen besides the isle of Manhattan....to open up a path in my mind so it would become easier the next time to venture forth, before too many months have gone by....
So, this morning, I went to Grand Central and bought my ticket out to see some trees, even if they didn't have leaves on, and some water...away from the visual din of nyc....

Riding on trains is by far one of my all time favorite modes of travel, hands down....

Today I was heading up the beautiful Hudson river valley to the tiny town of Beacon... now a name on the map, because the DIA foundation has opened a beautiful museum there, in an old box printing factory.... Like the new Getty, its worth a visit just for the space itself..... but in this case it doesn't drown out the art, but inhances it... I have never seen a Richard Serra piece so at home in its surroundings... As I was walking around inside one of his big rusting coils, imagining myself in some narrow canyon in the southwest, the sun was setting....I was deep in shadow, except for the top lip of the "canyon", picked out by a line of bright orange light...I could have stood there forever, and was so lost in thought, that I had shit scared out of me by three men who had noiselessly crept up on me in the narrow curving passage... The art is all lit by the natural light filtered in through the windows in the roof, that bounces off high white walls, and old pale, time stained floors.... (I was instantly compiling a long list of people I have to bring here...).

[Sadly, I have no pictures, as they won't let you near a camera...sigh....]

The town is beautiful as well...heavy in brick, with a thriving art scene, and I could easily see myself relocating here with a group of friends.... hint, hint... (again, no pictures, my camera loves to run outta of juice whenever I really need it most)

Which is why I have no pictures of my own of Bannerman Castle....This amazing gothic castle sitting on its own island which we passed on the train, just before arriving into Beacon... I might have passed and not been looking out the window, and never have seen it if my friend Joe hadn't warned me about it.... Luckily, there happened to be a book on Hudson river ruins at the bookshop of the museum, so I read all about it..... The short story being that it was built by a Scottish immigrant at the dawn of the 1900s partly to store a growing inventory of military munitions... the building actually proclaims in stone carved letters: "BANNERMAN'S ISLAND ARSENAL"... There are limited tours (guess who's gotta go on one of those?), and restoration of what is left (a mysterious fire around 50s(?) gutted alot of it), including the gardens.... It's nice to know there's at least on cool castle this side of the Atlantic....

As night fell on Beacon, I headed back to the station...happy with my little adventure, which makes me wonder what is waiting up ahead for me... Tired, and cold, I climbed onto the train and was soon back in the busy city....which hadn't even noticed I'd left it....

AND SO IT GOES....

2008-01-05T15:16:00.000-05:00

I remember describing to family and friends, that if I was writing my autobiography....something I like to amuse myself imaging in an felacious(sic) way.....always coming up with new titles for it...THAT when I arrived at the chapter on having moved to THE BIG CITY, I would start with: "And so one day I awoke to find myself in New York city....", it seems so impulsive (?), the decision to move here, and so random (?), to actually find myself here...(I have a hard time actually making concrete decisions...the options being so ridiculously immense).

And so here I find myself, and the new year begins....Will I even be here in another year....I may become so drunk on the realization of being able to make anything actually happen in my own life, that I may embark on a whole series of random choices...ending up weaving baskets with an unknown tribe of the Sahara (I have always wanted to see its uncluttered vastness...) I MEAN THAT COULD REALLY HAPPEN....(do they weave baskets there....?).

(no.....this is just one of the Bergdorf Goodman windows.......ain't it a beaut?)

So now that I have gotten through with, in my case, the ridiculously easy task of finding a job I can stand, and an apartment I do not loath returning home to...I can concentrate, I hope, on the task at hand....The creating of art as a life...

FOR YER CONSIDERATION....

2007-11-08T20:11:00.000-05:00

HELLO ALL....In between being unhappy with my jobs...I have found time to witness/record some beautiful and bizarre NYC SCENES....here are a few...

A kids carousel....closed for the winter..in morning light...

The gargantuan block of apartments outside my bedroom window....

Some street art....right near the underpass in my hood where Michel Gondry filmed a White Stripes video....

While thew siblings were in town....A composition that caught my eye...

A group of buildings in fall afternoon light...

My livingroom....as the sun sets over Jersey.....The apartment looks about to catch fire...

The Jews are evrywhere....And we love their sexy sexy noses...

More soon....Stay tooned for news of my fourth job since moving here....In Columbia University area....Will Johnny ever find a job he can tolerate? ....we shall see....

A gloomy day for a grim rememberance...

2007-09-11T17:02:00.000-04:00

This morning while walking down the street, I suddenly remembered that today is 9/11...How is it that we move on so easily from such aweful happenings...? I guess that if I had been unfortunate enough to lose one of my loved ones, (3 of which were on planes headed to nyc or in the nearby vicinity), that this event would not be so easily shaken off, so I cannot begin to imagine what those unhappy souls are going thru right now, that have this burden to shoulder...

I have yet to loose someone I really care about (KNOCK ON WOOD) to such a happening, or even in their sleep for that matter, so I can only imagine what I will do to hang on....I am not the self destructive type...not in any obvious way that I can detect, so at least I have that going for me...

Recently, I had the realization that I am still in some sort of shock over the move to this mad city...On the surface, things have calmed down, but inside, I realize I am still in some sort of daze...Still trying to find where I will truly enter the massive dialogue, that makes up this incredible place...All I can do is plod on....and build some sort of structure for navigating this chaos of a million voices and experiences....

I have been fighting to remain in a conscious dialogue with the entity of this city...which I feel will actually communicate with one, if you are willing to read the signs all about you...and to actually talk back...(perhaps this is the universe as a whole, but I really feel it here...) AND THIS CITY REALLY DOES TALK BACK....So lately I have been trying to get back to that fresh hyper-awareness of that prescence, to let it know I am still listening, to keep my mind from shutting off...letting the pathway clog up with everyday reality, and mind-numbing routine....

I have given notice at yet another restaurant job....I was....AM... being drained of too much energy in that chaotic place...and find myself in shouting matches more often than a laid back dude like me cares to subject himself to...even though standing up for oneself can be a liberating and energizing experience....Luckily there are more jobs of the like in this town than one can shake ten sticks at so....

I proclaimed the goal of wanting to be in a creative means of making an income, whether thru odd-jobs, or some actually satisfying creative endeavors, by my sister Ginnie's birthday next year (We were out celebrating and made these vows to each other on her day...), and getting outta food-service seems to have been a necessary part of realizing that said goal....so there it is....

Hope you are all being productive in whatever way you can find to be.....and hope we are all that much closer to attaining what will truly make us happy, by this time next year...if for no other reason than to make this sad day a little easier to deal with....

AND ONE DAY, I AWOKE TO FIND I WAS IN NEW YORK CITY

2007-08-02T11:36:00.000-04:00

That's how my memoirs will read at any rate....It really feels so random...THINK OF MOVING TO NYC....LIVING IN NYC... Can life really be that simple? It still surprises me...and I'll be doing something: walking about usually, and suddenly think: "WOW!! I'M LIVING IN NEW YORK CITY!"

I JUST SPENT THE 1ST NIGHT IN MY NEW APARTMENT

And I cannot believe it! It's HUGE!!! If I've learned one thing it is that people are full of shit!!! For years and years I had no interest in coming to this city, because a few well placed comments from individuals were taken too much to heart by me....I thought I would just spend all my time working just to squeek by in some little box...and that ain't no life for me, and so I thought I didn't want to live here like that...Well, perhaps I have been lucky, I don't know, but I have a gi-normous pad here, and I am paying the SAME AMOUNT OF MONEY I PAID IN SEATTLE!!! And my place is at least 3 to 4 times bigger(!!!)...I guess the point is: DON'T LET OTHER PEOPLE'S LIMITED VISION OF REALITY LIMIT YOUR REALITY AND IT'S POSSIBILITIES. YOU CAN GO ANYWHERE AND DO ANYTHING IF YOU REALLY WANT IT.... Of course, knowing my own special brand of Karma...The fates are probably getting together right now to whip up something esspecially frustrating and miserable for me, just to knock me back in line....

So, this is the view from my lofty perch...on the eighth floor, by the Hudson river...up on 141st street and Riverside Drive...in Harlem...I had to go thru some bullshit to get here too:

First, living with some lame roomates, who screwed me over, and I had to move from BENSONHURST....well, and glad to be rid of my sad landlord downstairs...a suspicious, sour old lady...

Then, in a hurry...moved to lovely BUSHWICK...in east Brooklyn....where people drive by your place at 4 am blaring their favorite music...'cause they want to share it with you....(at 4am!!!) Same goes for your downstair neighbor...and everyone is deaf, 'cause they are all yelling at each other from down the street at the top of their lungs...or let their car alarms continue to go off....instead of fixing the damn thing...etc.

And then a coworker calls you and says some guy needs a roommate (a painter from Serbia), and you go to check the place out, hoping it is as cool as it sounds, but trying not to get yer hopes up, 'cause you already looked at a couple places....and are getting a bit discouraged...and then you see it's right by the river....and it is really amazing...shabby, but amazing..in a BLADE RUNNER/ BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB kinda way....

And there you is....

And you are happy for something cool in your life again and you can stop wondering why you left so many great friends, and a great apartment, and some really great jobs...And you really are living in new york city....(!!!!).

coming soon.....

2007-07-28T13:49:00.000-04:00

I will be starting up the next chapter soon......please be patient....as I get my so called life in order.... JOHNNY.......JULY 28TH, 2007

CIAO P-LAND!!

2007-05-04T16:34:00.000-04:00

The end is here!!! And Here's a little sample of some of the things I missed out on tellin' you about due to technical difficulties/busy with class, etc.....

There was kite flyin'...

And work...

And more work....

And more work....

We awarded our teacher a special Trophy (which we all contributed to....)

AND BEHOLD!!! My sculpture....(Unfinished by a long shot, but presentable....)

And there will be goodbyes soon.....

And soon we will be outta here....

P.s. Whoever put "M. WARD", on my I-POD..."Thanx", I got to go into Ashville about a week ago to see him perform, which I wouldn't have been able to do if I hadn't come across it on the i-pod...only a week before....IT WAS A GREAT SHOW....

wrapping it up....(JUST WORDS)

2007-05-02T09:55:00.000-04:00

Yes p-land shall be a distant memory soon.....I am scrambling to finish as much of my sculpture as possible, and a few side projects....but I know now that it ain't gonna get done here....I will probably see if I can find a forge in Brooklyn to work on it....
I try not to be too result-obcessed, and when I think of all the things I know how to do...I feel very happy with it all....and yet, so many ideas I want to work on....I guess I caught the fever a little late in the session, but not a waste of time by any stretch...

So lil' sistah GINNIE will be here on saturday, with Johnny to get me and then we will head to Chapel Hill for a visit.....I feel like we have been at the looney bin in the mountains, weaving baskets, and now must return to reality to see if we can join in again....It has been nice to step out of the rat-race for a while....

By the way, Sorry about the lack of visuals, but I cannot find my cord, for downloading pictures, so until it shows up--things tend to do that here....you don't have to watch everything with a third eye....--until then NO PICTURES!!! So sorry.....

I AM STILL HERE.....

2007-04-30T09:36:00.000-04:00

JUST WANTED TO POST THIS TO LET YOU KNOW I AM ALIVE, WELL, AND WORKING MY LIL' ASS OFF...

uNFORTUNATLEY, I forgot the cord in my room, so expect a post later today....I have been working late nights in the shop...trying to get everything done....so not a moment to spare....GOTTA GO...

IN MEMORY

2007-04-22T13:13:00.000-04:00

TODAY I JUST WANTED TO TAKE A MOMENT TO REMEMBER THE HUSBAND OF MY LITTLE SISTER'S FRIEND STEFI...

He was one of the casualties in the Virginia shootings this last week....

I didn't know him really, but they were nice enough to put us up on my return from Penland 2 summers ago...

Stefi, we hope you won't hesistate to call on us if there is anything we can do to get you through this unimaginable sorrow...

...You are in all our thoughts....

BACK IN THE SADDLE

2007-04-21T11:50:00.000-04:00

Sorry to all of you that are hangin' on my ever comma, and period.....I have been very busy of late, so here is a quick review....(I already tried to post this once and the damn site thought it was better for me to erase it and start over, than publish it.....God I hate computers...I MEAN I LOVE THEM...YEAH...HEH HEH...)

So the other night....after leaving the iron studio late....with the new moon up...

(The blur is the wood studio to our left....all lite up under the dark mountain...)

I have designed a sculpture worth sinking my teeth into...and which my teacher Toby informs me is pretty complicated....involving al sorts or radii, diameters...and numerous "jigs" to bend the metal to the right complex curves...leave it to me to pick something like this....but I am very excited to see it thru...especially since I only have 2 weeks to complete it in...wish me luck...

...I will be spending the whole weekend sweating away.....but before I go....some photos, courtesy of Aran Galligan....

....some pictures from the "PROM"....which we had last Saturday and was full of...

....all sorts of embarrassing moments...that seemed really good at the time....

(That's my date "VIV" on the right....I may be called by "VINNIE" in this picture...Please note my "holster" for my "piece", strapped to my "leg"...I am a cross between a pimp, and Axel Rose blasted back into the 70s...)

SAY WHA?! Part Two....

2007-04-16T09:56:00.000-04:00

No....Your eyes are not decieving you....Someone's hand slipped on the dial and bumped us back to winter....By nightfall, everything was white...the wind was howling and the power was threatening to go....No swimming anytime soon.....

This weekend was pretty nuts but I don't have time now....So for now....WHO IS THIS WOMAN AND WHY IS SHE DRESSED LIKE THIS? (No, we ain't stuck in time warp here at p-land...) More soon...I hope....

Greedy Lil' Kids....and The Parents who Use Them...

2007-04-09T14:13:00.000-04:00

Now there are rules to this aforementioned egg-hunt...You can kick children with a swift hard foot, but only below the knee....and you can only take their eggs, if you managed to knock them out of their hands first...easily done....At least these are rules we had decided upon, before we were informed otherwise...
...the preceedings were overseen by a rapidly melting, psychotic-lookin' snow bunny...all alone on the opposite hill...which resembled Oedipus in that his eyes had fallen out days ago, giving him a haunted and resentful quality...I would have taken that carrot nose and eaten it right in front of him, but it was a waste of time, once his vision was gone...

And so a plague decended on Penland...and yeah, it was horrible....A pestilence of little children....pimped out by their parents, armed with large baskets...and ready to grab as many hand made eggs as possible....leaving the rest of us empty handed....
Or so was the picture in my head as Easter morning approached....I had all sorts of strategies in mind....but it ended up being alot less bother....I didn't get the egg made by the metals teacher, however, but I did get the one made by her teaching assistant.....

Who is a bad-ass in her own right, and does some amazing work...like the one I got: electromagnetic paint, applied to a balloon...submerged into a bath conducting a current...that attracts copper to the paint....the bath wasn't working right, but result was this fragile thang, which makes it even cooler in my eyes...just the kind of thing I'd pick up walking home: rusty, and beautiful...You know me....

The one I finally made was much sturdier, by comparison...

....a simple spiral of steel...I 'd tell you how I did it, but then you'd realize how simple it is, and not think I am the iron stud...that I rightly am..... I found the gal who found mine, later, after the egg-riot was over....and had to get a picture...

Hope you all had a swell easter....

Erin Jones....HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

SAY WHA!!??

2007-04-07T09:54:00.000-04:00

No, yer eyes ain't playin' games on you.....this started sometime last night, just before a handful of us decended upon the Northern Lights...(where slide shows,yoga, etc. happen...), to watch "RIVERS AND TIDES", about the artist Andy Goldsworthy. He is amazing to me...and embodies the artistic struggle in such a simple and pure example...so unfettered (for the most part it seems...), by all the gallery-type things that have come to represent the artists' path....SEE THIS FILM!!! There were times I almost cried, it is so beautiful...

So this morning has changed...

Things that were familiar...ordinary...unnoticed...take on new roles...unintentional sculptures....

To my mother: YES, I DO HAVE ENOUGH CLOTHING.

To evryone: Happy easter.

(There is a cool Easter tradition here at P-land, by the way... All the different classes make easter eggs out of their medium...iron, glass, clay, etc., and after brunch on eatser day...there is a massive search underway to find and claim them... there are a few I have my eye on...if I can bribe the right person....)

cIAO...(and stay warm...)

The Odd Couple

2007-04-04T09:18:00.000-04:00

My roommate and I are like two ships passing in the darkness......I am sleeping when he gets up (them glassblowers have early hours sometimes...), and when I come in for a moment in the afternoon, he is passed out....

and look at the difference in our sides of the room...

His side......

My side....

Such is life......

The Curse of P-LAND

2007-04-02T10:00:00.000-04:00

Last night, after a large, large meal I went into a food coma....in the dining hall lobby, on a couch...and awoke to someone having piled all the sofa cushions on top of me....it was very womb-like...and as anyone who knows me ...knows, I have done this myself....
I got up and shook the sleep from my frame...got out my big bottle of bourbon, and walked over to the core student house, as they were going to watch several of the TEXAS CHAINSAW MASACRE spawn films, and you know I couldn't resist....

....Especially if Elizabeth Brim was gonna be there...

..She lives down the road from here, and she is a role model for all women everywhere....the only blacksmith I know who wears pearls whilst hammering on hot metal...a Tupac fan...and A huge horror film aficianado...and to top it all off, she has the sexiest Georgian accent that you could listen to for hours....

...lots of gore and blood was seen that night....bourbon consumed...it is funny how other peoples' plight is funny, when view from the safety of yer arm chair...in this case...pretty god damn hilarious...

Later I walked home under the full moon....my big bottle of booze sloshing by my side...

....I even managed to hobble out from behind a roadside sign and scare Elizabeth as she drove home.....

...I left her to go home and launder her under garments, and cut across the field, and up the hill...the big ol' moon getting bigger...the tree branches trying to grab it down...Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter, (courtesy of all the swell people responsible for furnishing me with my i-pod), keeping me company....I felt so damn happy all by myself under that moon...up in the mountains....miles from anywhere...thinking of all the people I know tucked safely into their beds....

....I went to bed and slept like the dead...

...I also pulled some jewelry I made from my damascus (mentioned in an earlier post...) out of the ferric chloride...and I was so damned proud of how it turned out....check this out...(you would never guess how much work went into making this....):

P.S.: If anyone out there can send me a dvd copy of WITHNAIL AND I, I am trying to have a viewing of it here, as there are too too many people unaware if it's existence, walking around up here....help me help them....SEND TO:

JOHN SHLICHTA,
CARE OF PENLAND SCHOOL OF CRAFTS
P.O. BOX 37(if us mail),or P.O. BOX 67((for fed ex)
PENLAND, NORTH CAROLINA, 28765

THANX.....

And dee rain...It come to penland...

2007-03-30T09:21:00.000-04:00

No sooner than I go out to WalMart..(I know...I feel really skanky about shopping there...it's like this fortress on a hill, no less...but there really isn't anywhere else near by....)..and buy my flip flops...then the rain pays a visit...and I revert to Seattle-Mode...(here we are in the iron shop loading bay)...

We have had alot of cool people pass thru this week...We had a guess teacher in iron....Jay Kidwell (above)...who is the coolest guy...he wore leather pants all week, because after he got here...he tried to pull on a pair of his jeans only to realize they were his wife's...(yeah, whatever Jay...) He came and did some demos in forge welding...where you are basically getting metals to fuse together by getting them really hot and hammering them together...We have been working on damascus...where you layer different metals together, and fold them over and over again, until you get patterns in yer metal...(photos later)

It's a strange coincedence, because the visiting book makling guy..Stephen Pittlekow...does something simular with paper....

Marbling paper was something I thought you found inside old classic books and it all looked the same...well this man, who was as charming as an old snakeoil salesman, showed us some amazing work, and opened my eyes...He will be in nyc this fall, and I may take a class... What a badass...

So, back to the studio, where we apparently, are gonna get a talking to this morning for making the studio coordinator's life hell....Sorry Nate in advance...But, before I go....here's a lil' picture of clinker....it is the crap that sits under yer forge coal fire and makes life a pain...(It's the impurities, dirt, silica, that all setting at the bottom, and you have to dig it out with a poker to keep yer fire clean...kinda like picking yer nose....and I find it very satisfying to dig one of these lil' bastards out...(Its the big chunk on top...)...

Week Three....

2007-03-26T09:52:00.000-04:00

It's getting hotter....Sunday was a ghosttown here....everyone running off to do stuff....I made myself spend time in the studio.....

Some of the guys in Iron decided they wanted to build a smoker, and bbq...I didn't know, in the south, you smoke and bbq at the same time to add flavor...I am used to smoked salmon and that's it....So they whipped this bbq up in a day....

...that's the smoker on the end...the lower, extra cylinder...pretty amazing...

....meanwhile I worked on my lil' projects.....including this coat/towel hook...I was pretty proud, as I was learning how to split the metal, and "upset" the end to make the balls for the towels....
...But it wasn't to be...I started to close the shop, as I was the only one left...and left the iron in the fire too long...and as it was thin...when I came back to pull it out and bend it into hooks...it was sparking and white hot...and only half of it came out of my coal fire....
The lesson is....WHAT YOUR METAL!!!

You never learn anything by doin' iy the right way I always say.....

Back to the ol' drawing board.........dammit...

2007-03-24T14:35:00.000-04:00

Last night...after a busy work session in the dish pit....I stepped out back, and looked up to see this....

Spring is coming, up here in the mountains...and already a fourth of my time here is over....and I am thinking of what will happen to me in the near future...WHO KNOWS? I t has been good for me to get this outside of my comfort zone, which has, for some reason, been so important to me...guess it is where I've needed to be...But I see that there is value in being shook up, and a chance to try on other parts of your persona, to reinvent yourself....I want to learn to be truly confident, even when all about me is chaos and change, and strange people, and different customs...that is true confidence....

There have been changes to this place since I was last here....including this porch...and they got this sculptor, who I found out, is from North "Cacalacky", to do this instalation...Some of you may have seen his work in various magazines...His name eludes me at this second....(My apologies to him...)..It lends a strange and surreal presence to the porch...as if a crazy, and confused bird had decided to take up residence here....

Time to go and put in some overtime at the studio...been working alot of extra hours for other people, so it is time to catch up...

But before I go....a SHOUT OUT to miss Fisher....

...

yer legacy lives on!!

Another day at P-LAND

2007-03-23T09:56:00.000-04:00

This is the view from my window this morning....Things are heating up here, so the mornings get foggy, and I dig the fog....Ain't this a purdy view?

I must be going thru the male equivilant of "THE RAG" as I have been really short-tempered alot these last few days....Perhaps it has something to do with being one of the few people in my class who do not have a bunch of experience....I feel like a moron and an imposter half the time, but that's the way it goes I guess....NOTHING WORTH HAVING, COMES EASILY, as they say....

Some of you have been asking for pictures of things I've done....Well, we have mostly been doin' tools, and as I am still unsure of where to begin on my own projects....here are a pair of tongs, made from 1 inch mild steel I believe....They ain't easy to make, so I can be fairly proud of 'em....

Appropriately enough, my life, besides being filled with the breathy calls for attention from THE BEAST.... are also filled with this.....

....it's the scale that forms on the outside of the metal you're poundin', and I cannot remember the exact scientific occurence going on, but it involves heat, and cooling, and molecules and atoms redistributing....which, I guess, descibes alot of scientific occurences..so whadda you gonna do....
...anyways, it is called "SLAG", and it is all over the ground in the shop, like silver snow....
.....some of you reading this have been called slag as well....but for different reasons, I imagine....

.....ciao-for-now

The Beast that Never Sleeps...

2007-03-20T09:38:00.000-04:00

This is THE HAMMER....the hammer is a big air-hammer...that acts like a hammer, but puts lots of pounds of pressure on your red hot metal...you simply put it between the two "dies" or blocks, and step on the treddle at the base and it comes down..."WHAM!!!"...It is not a good idea to have yer hands there when it does....
This big behemouth is my life right now....We started forging on an actual anvil with a hammer, but have moved on to the Beast, to deal with issues of getting things done faster...alot of people in this class are interested in making this a career, and in a career, time=money, and speed=money faster.....ENTER THE HAMMER.... There are 2 of these in the shop, but this is the heavyweight....
My days are accompanied by the CHUFF CHUFF CHUFFING of the machine, like an asmatic with a slightly metalic rasp to his weezing....
At unsuspecting moments, I will catch myself tapping my toes to the beat of this machine...if I am here long enough I may never be able to stop....tapping....help...

I must go now, and pay hommage to the Beast.....

The Show so far....

2007-03-18T15:02:00.000-04:00

This is what I looked like after a 13 hour greyhound busride extravaganza!!! This included 3 layovers, and riding next to all the really bigpeople (...I do not know what is in the water around here BUTT...) By the time I pulled into Carlotte,N.C....needless to say I wasn't feelin' all snuggly fresh...and when they loaded us onto the final bus to Ashville...I glimpsed the chance of havin' my own seat....which was quickly dashed by this guy (If only I had a picture...) with a t-shirt reading "BAIL BOND SECURITY"...and lookin' like a giant duffle bag stuffed full of bed sheets...i.e. BIGG N' LUMPY ...and of course he climbed on board and made a b-line right for me and asked to sit down, as if he was reading my thoughts and wanted to make me crack...which I very nearly did....but instead I smiled and said "Sure" through clenched teeth....
...the shuttle bus to P-land, on the other hand, turned out to be almost a limo, and was very relaxing...and I turned out to be in the company of 2 other fellow Seattle-ites...

So here I am a week later...a lil' hung ovah, on this sunny,if cold Sunday, and I'm lookin' back on a very busy week....

....there was coal fire building...

....and grindin' on metal....

...and incredible glassblowing demo, by a 27 year old teacher from the Czech Republic...

There was even this gang-land style shooting just outside the iron studio...you gotta be careful what colors you wear in P-LAND...

So that's it for this weekend....more soon, as I better learn how to do this blog crap....

testing....testing....

2007-03-07T20:39:00.000-05:00

SO, here I am in D.C. and quickly trying to learn how to use this blog.....we shall see how this works out, or whether I shall just pull out my hair and revert to just sending you all an e-mail from time to time...or worse yet...A GROUP E-MAIL...

My sister is telling me that I am yelling when I write in ALL CAPS, and hence the photo....

more soon after I get on the greyhound bus ride from hell....I am not kidding...it is bleak......