crazyfool's foolish story hour

amazing pointillism

2012-02-16T13:31:00.001-06:00

books without borders

2011-07-19T13:48:00.006-05:00

borders bookstore announced today that they will indefinitely sell their remaining assets, lay off 11,000 employees and close their last 399stores. some say, they simply bought too much high priced real estate that they couldn't unload when necessary, but most believe the ebook (and their late arrival to the ebook game) is to blame for the implosion of borders books. it's the advancement of that 'e' that has continued to ruin print that for centuries was sure to stand the test of time. newspapers and magazines continue to see a steady decline in circulation since today one can generally find all their news online and with the addition of the ebook, bookstores, small+large, used+new are beginning to see it too.

proprietors of the kindle, the ipad, the nook and the ebook argue that its better for the environment than traditional books containing pages made from paper. "paper comes from trees, ya know, we saving trees." (a direct quote from a kindle user during a discussion about real books versus ebooks.) another user told me they liked how small and compact it is... "it's easy to carry around," she said. "it's the size of a book, huh?" i said. "yeah, but now i don't have to have shelves of books cluttering up my house."... i stand dumbfounded. cluttering up shelves? if that's how you perceive books, then lady, i think you're missing the point.

i personally can't stand the idea of ebooks. in fact, they scare the hell outta me. take a look at this image from newsweek magazine a year ago (pay close attention to the carbon emissions of each).

a year later, the ebook has a much stronger hold on its market and is beginning to strangle the competition. while ebooks hold a mere 9per cent of the market, ebook sales climbed 164per cent last year and are downloaded more than any other media, second only to mp3s. so as ebooks continue to take a hold of the market, will we eventually loose bookstores all together? or will the ones that survive be like those we find in terminal c of the airport; big authors, big titles and less and less abstract, unconventional, enlightening works? would ebooks, then, force the production of more cookie-cutter novels, formulamatic+predictable, designed to sell? and if there are no book stores, would libraries slowly dissipate too? would future generations have to look at books from behind museum glass? would they even know what bound pages feel like to their fingers? and perhaps most importantly to me, if all books are digital, would some works deemed "controversial" begin to simply disappear; lost deep in the digital nether regions of the data/space continuum, forever hidden from us by the incalculable number of packets+pages strung together to make up the already blinding world wide web? would those of us with those books eventually become fugitives? could bradbury's vision be coming true? will we one day hide his farenheit 451 beneath the floorboards beside the words of orwell and huxley, and have to fight to protect them?

i can't understand why people are in such a hurry to go digital. what's so wrong with analog anyway? i love the feel of holding an analog book, flipping the pages, reading the print. i love how when i read a book i love, i can share it with those i love by simply passing it along. no upload. no download. no streaming. actually hand delivering it in an attempt to keep what little human interaction we do have strong. spreading art for art's sake. i continue to acquire books when i can, and it was pointed out to me how i don't even get around to reading them - though i will. and i feel while i do need to read those works that increasing my personal library, cluttering my shelves (in a manner of speaking), is never a bad thing and will continue to do so. when books are all digital and we have our first digital apocalypse, i'll still have my collection and will read them, share them and protect them.

catching up with the foolish

2011-07-07T11:09:00.009-05:00

after reading about a friends discovery of a band i've listened to for a few years now, i suddenly felt like a bad friend or least ashamed of not doing my universal job as an artist to spread art... so below i've embedded several songs from artists i've been listening to recently. hopefully you find some good vibes that you hadn't already heard. first the band that caused this post: lcd soundsystem, dance yrself clean - listen to the whole song. it grows on you. radiohead, lotus flower. what can i say, it's thom yorke dancing himself clean in his own way. it's a great track off their latest; the king of limbs. black metal by my morning jacket. this band is consistantly reinventing themselves. their sound grows+morphs with each album -- they never sound the same way twice. stephen marley, made in africa. i could post each song off his latest album, but here is track1, side1 just in case you hadn't heard yet. i'm a huge dangermouse fan too, so here is revenge (featuring the flaming lips) off his collaboration with sparklehorse entitled dark night of the soul. dangermouse's label rejected the album (what were they thinking) but after sparklehorse member, mark linkous, died in early 2010 emi (sparklehorse's label) released the work as his last. dangermouse also released a album this year, collaborating with italian composer daniele luppi on rome with vocals by norah jones and jack white. finally, if you aren't high on theivery corperation, perhaps you should be. they vibe with the beat of my heart. they can bring me up, cool me out and get me off. their music can satify any situation. the cosmic game is a great track, but there are so many more... listen to several. okay, i'm including two: enjoy.

rsa animate

2011-06-29T23:26:00.002-05:00

if you haven't seen them; these are amazing. adapted animations from a series of lectures at the royal society of arts, like my favourite: choice, by sir ken robinson.

what dreams may go

2011-04-13T00:53:00.003-05:00

i haven't dreamt in quite a while; or at least not remembered one anyway. 10years or more of no dreams. i'd accepted that i was one of those people who simply never remembers their dreams until suddenly about 4months ago, i awoke with a dream in my head. it's happened more and more as of late and some of them are just weird, ridiculous, insane yet creative projections. what follows are the notes of easily the oddest dream i've had in the last 10+years. *yes, i may make it a full story eventually. no, i'm not looking for any 'what does it mean' critiques.

i'm homeless. walking along the side of some country highway in near pitch black darkness. patches of tree then farm then field then tree line the beat up road. an old faded red pick-up truck drives by and comes to a stop just 100meters in front of me. weary as i approach the vehicle, i look into the passenger side window to see only a cigar light up the driver's face. a farmer; he tells me he can put me up and offers me work. with not too many other options available to me i accept...

when we reach the farm, he says there's a small house just the other side of a gated brush field down a dirt path where i can stay the night. the work will come in the morning. the field is washed in moonlight but the tall brush and many trees provide plenty of contrast. it's eerie; like something out of a hitchcock movie (or "alfred hitchcock presents"). and my visible breath means the temperature has dropped significantly. i'm just happy to have a place to stay. i wonder about how nice it might be and if perhaps it might have a heater, or fireplace. i walk down the longer than expected narrowing path as it becomes clear no truck or tractor had been on in quite a while when i suddenly come across an animal i'd never seen before...

the animal: stood about waist high. had a body like a small deer but not as lean, though still hoofed and moved like deer; dainty, graceful, nimble. the creatures fur was more like a bear than a deer; thick and matted. and the face was more like a friendly teddy bear except the mouth contained a big set of even spaced, sharp teeth reminiscent of a bear trap. more creatures appeared. some of these creatures had antlers which resembled a pair of rabbit ears sitting atop an old television; one longer than the other, but they were wooden and sticking straight out of the top of their head. more and more and more of these fascinating creatures began to present themselves to me. like a herd of sheep they gather around me 'til i have to shoo them from my path just to continue toward the end where i'll find shelter. they don't seem afraid of me and beyond teeth that could easily kill, give me no reason to be too afraid of them.

as i get to the end of the field i see no home, no structure of any kind, until i turn back toward the path to see a small dog house size structure made of wood and rock tucked in the shrubs. my first inclination isn't to simply turn and leave but instead i think "this is what its come to" as i crouch down, crawl in, and close the wooden door behind me. it is cold and wet and it i realise quickly that if this is the house i'm to stay in the work i'd being doing in the morning wouldn't be worth it either. i'd rather spend the night walking toward the next town than stay here and head back toward the gate figuring i might find another place to stay.

i crawl out of the structure and attempt to stand collapsing as if suddenly my legs are too weak to carry me. try as i might, i continue to find the mud beneath me. what the fuck?!

panic rushes over me and i begin crawling toward the gate as fast as possible through the mud and creatures which are now my height or taller. once tame, they suddenly begin to become aggressive with me and each other; snarling and head-butting and trying to bite. some of the creatures stop right in front of me and i have to use whatever strength i have left to forcibly push them out of the way. this continues all the way to the gate. i notice the gate closed as i approach and my panic becomes outrage.

i rattle the gate like an innocent convict tugging on bars as i yell for the farmer, for anyone to rescue me from this place. with my yells the creatures begin to snort like mulls and pound their hooves, lowering heads and rushing me like rams. i yell. i scream for help. one creature impales me with his antlers which break off in my side and i writhe in pain.

i give up on the gate and the farmer and turn back toward the structure, needing shelter from the creatures now as much as the elements. trailing blood back down the path the creatures aggression subsides and they even seem to listen as i verbally direct them from my path like a dog obeying master. it seems like hours before i get back to the structure, crawl in and lay on one side, holding the other to try to stop the blood.

the creatures suddenly continue with their aggression, clawing and butting at the door. i close my eyes as if its all a dream and begin to yell 'go, you go, please go.' there is a strange straining on my vocal cords and i figure the wet cold weather is giving me a cold, but the strain gets tighter and tighter until my 'go go' sound more like 'gaww, gaww.'

i grab for my neck with my hands but instead just jab my throat with my smooth newly formed hooves. now losing my sanity while confronted with the supernatural i examine the rest of my body to find new matted fur and the begins of two sticks growing from the top of my head. and in the midst of my life's greatest panic it suddenly occurs to me that i'm becoming one of them and that perhaps all the creatures here started out as one of me; a man or woman down on their luck.

...i wake up... weirdest dream ever.

dub fx

2011-04-04T16:54:00.002-05:00

check out dub fx. good enough for sidebar status - that should say enough. this first video give you a great understanding of what/how he's exactly creating his vibe.

random acts of culture

2011-04-04T16:42:00.002-05:00

... is a knight arts foundation designed to get local artists off the stage and out into public. a thousand performances are scheduled over the next 3years. here is one example from this year's usitt conference in charolette, north carolina.

in notebook recovery

2011-02-16T13:03:00.004-06:00

i've begun the mental recovery of losing my notebook 2days ago. the inclination that it's still somewhere along the canal behind the house haunts me, but just the same i'm trying to take my loss in stride and learn my lesson. the loss is crushing for a variety of reasons and those of you who carry understand what i'm talking about. beyond the facts that i was literally on the last page of the book and that i just had the mind the other day to finally digitise some of the work i'd laid between it's pages; this was the book that travelled europe with me last summer (a huge deal for me) and after filling and filing notebooks for years, suddenly losing 1 feels somehow like i've lost a volume to the chronicles of my life. i am flooded with awful thoughts of someone getting a free look into the pages of my mind; their disgusting hands gripping at the last year of my life, thumbing through my thoughts, smudging my memories, laughing at their own misunderstanding -- i can only hope it got washed away, tucked beneath a rock deep at the bottom of the canal by a gator who recognises its worth, or simply that whomever discovers it disgards it as quickly, trashing it before examining my intellect and judging my invention.

the economics of happiness

2011-02-13T17:06:00.005-06:00

this trailer led me to isec which is worth a click, so check it out.

also check out trailers for even the rain, carbon nation, and i am. amazing works, it appears, continuing to convince a change in thought and lifestylfe through film.

the sum of all

2011-02-07T20:55:00.015-06:00

i'd previously told you to read an article about nueroscientist david eagleman. if you read the article than you might recall the mention of one of eagleman's books entitled sum: forty tales from the afterlives which explores 40 beautifully imaginative potential afterlives; each a mirror of ourselves - examining humanity and the human condition. i was intrigued, so i picked up a copy that i've read it 3times and have become a believer of eagleman with full intentions of reading the rest of work. here is some of sum:

Ineffable

When soldiers part ways at war's end, the breakup of the platoon triggers the same emotion as the death of a person -- it is the final bloodless death of the war. This same mood haunts actors on the drop of the final curtain: after months of working together, something greater than themselves has just died. After a store closes its doors on its final evening, or a congress wraps its final session, the participants amble away, feeling that they were part of something larger than themselves, something they intuit has a life even though they can't quite put a finger on it.

In this way, death is not only for humans but for everything that existed.

And it turns out that anything which enjoys life enjoys an afterlife. Platoons and plays and stores and congresses do not end -- they simply move on to a different dimension. They are things that were created and existed for a time, and therefore by the cosmic rules they continue to exist in a different realm.

Although it is difficult for us to imagine how these beings interact, they enjoy a delicious afterlife together, exchanging stories of their adventures. They laugh about good times and often, just like humans, lament the brevity of life. The people who constituted them are not included in their stories. In truth, they have as little understanding of you as you have of them; they generally have no idea you existed.

In may seem mysterious to you that these organizations can live on without the people who composed them. But the underlying principle is simple: the afterlife is made of spirits. After all, you do not bring your kidney and liver and heart to the afterlife with you -- instead, you gain independence from the pieces that make you up.

A consequence of this cosmic scheme may surprise you: when you die, you are grieved by all the atoms of which you were composed. They hung together for years, whether in sheets of skin or communities of spleen. With your death they do not die. Instead, they part ways, moving off in their separate directions, mourning the loss of a special time they shared together, haunted by the feeling that they were once playing parts in something larger than themselves, something that had its own life, something they can hardly put a finger on.

-- david eagleman.

(i hope he doesn't mind me sharing)

i love the idea of the atoms that compiled you mourning the loss of you because i believe in science and the laws of energy. each microbe of energy, each atom that composed you is never destroyed, simply transferred from your body to something else.

so ineffable is great and each purposed afterlife is as intuitive as the next, leaving you to think about your own being and your own mortality. read sum. i'm sure you'll enjoy.

prisencolinenscinainciusol

2011-02-04T11:12:00.004-06:00

italian musician adriano celentano. the lyrics you hear are in english and you can get the subtitled version on youtube, though celentano's intension was to speak gibberish so the lyrics don't make any sense and the music+video speak well without translation. in fact, i think the translation takes away some of the luster. enjoy.

suheir hammad

2011-02-04T10:47:00.002-06:00

i could probably post everything i watch on ted, but she really reached me this morning. absolutely beautiful words. enjoy.

infinite credit

2011-02-03T10:30:00.010-06:00

the united states of america functions like a video game. infinite credit is a good thing; the more credit you have the longer you can play, and when you get tired of playing you can just walk away. credit; ie. debt is dumb. why is someone in debt more trustworthy than someone who is debt-free? shouldn't someone who pays everything and owes nothing be more reliable than someone who is already financially behind? in the wonderful us of a; a country full of video gamers, there is a debt problem. we watched the government bail out the banks before they failed to save the housing market from destruction because for decades people have been requesting and receiving huge loans for homes they'd never be able to afford. of course, the banks jumped at the opportunity to loan people more money than they could ever pay back because it meant the banks would make great profits on the accrued interest and if/when the home-owners eventually foreclosed, the bank would win again. unfortunately, the banks never expected people to be selfish+irresponsible enough to simply walk away from their bad investments and didn't have the foresight to see what would happen when those millions of ridiculously hefty loans didn't get paid. as a result, the government bailed out freddie, fannie and the nation's largest banks by barrowing trillions from foreign countries and increasing the national debt to an unfathomable number so high that it will only ever be paid with blood; not money. for years i've been saying that the housing market collapse would be a minor scratch compared to the credit card debt the nation faces. look at this report listing the top ten most debt ridden cities in the country where cities with an average of about 180,000 households each owe approximately $1billion+ in credit card debt. how will that debt be paid? likely not by the people who owe it. even more staggering figures from creditcards.com suggests that as of march 2010, the us's total revolving debt which comes almost entirely from credit cards is $852.6billion off of nearly 610million credit cards nationwide. furthermore they claim that given those approximate numbers the average credit card debt per credit card debter is $15,688. there is a debt problem in this country. the united states is not in an economic recovery. there will be another, deeper bottom when the nintendo stops working altogether and sadly, it seems it's far too late to pull out the game and blow. take a deep breath. the kids are gonna flip out!

vivian maier

2011-02-02T15:27:00.003-06:00

i was introduced to this story from a fellow photographer and was immediately blown away. it's always nice to see amazing photography, but i admire ms. maier because she shot simply because she loved to; because she loved to capture the beauty of the life around her. those motives remind me of a better version of me that used to shoot constantly - i'd like to get back into that. sadly, i think the magnitude of this photography find will never be reached again. the digital influence has made photography so much more accessible. there is so much lost in translation between the digital image on your computer screen where you can search through hundreds an hour, and the 20x30 image hanging on your wall which demands more attention and a studying of its composition. storage+printing of a digital image is easier, while storage+development of film (which nikon no longer makes) takes care, patience and knowhow. perhaps one day someone comes across a dozen external hard drives full of beautiful imagery, but will those images be 'developed' and hung in museums? or will they simply end up on flickr? is vivian maier the last great photographer? probably not. but she may be the last one the world will ever hear about.

the fire, the fight, the growth of 3

2010-10-25T20:12:00.002-05:00

momix:botanica

2010-10-24T11:50:00.000-05:00

last night at the mahalia jackson theatre i finally saw momix perform botanica. it was mind-blowing to say the least. inspirational and beautiful and sexual and raw at times, elegant and powerful and intriguing. it demanded your full attention and self reflection at the same time. it breathed an energy+chemistry that could be felt by everyone in the building, audience and dancer alike; connecting us all by frequency and pulse. botanica is moses pendleton's interpretative walk through the four seasons choreographed to the music of a dozen+ artists including bluetech, delerium, zer0 0ne, peter gabriel, vivaldi. the design team was incredible. lighting and sound design was beautiful and brilliant but it was the costume design and the projection design that blew me away. some costumes changed over the course of a dance; growing or stretching or changing shape. the projections simply transformed the stage into a sea or sky or field which when paired with different surfaces of mirror or matte or gloss finish created a truly spectacular atmosphere.

i continue to process this absolutely inspiring performance and may post more, but i had to post something before i let it slip away from me as i usually do. i will say, this show made me miss the creative process that is theatre.

fff # 27

2010-10-13T03:31:00.001-05:00

lush, plush, brush, hush, gush

you can hear the tuba boom over the roar of the distant thunder vast approaching; threat of the storm unable to stop the lush sounds of the ever growing second line as it trails through the canyon of shotgun homes. fathers wearing their father's suits carry parasols and lead the march in time with the thump of the stickered bass drum. masked women wine waists and raise plush flags like the spirits around them as the trombones slide viciously through the c scale. men follow. rifling trumpets demand jubilee, replacing inhibition and anxiety with a blithe positive energy felt through each brassy note. the crowd, high on clarinets, chant the line's 'do whatcha wanna' anthem as parked cars become makeshift stages to dance on and light posts make for temporary jungle gyms. clouds follow the wind as it blows back against the brass in an attempt to hush the streets in preparation for the inevitable storm, but the shade from the sun seems to only welcome new zealots to the celebration though does nothing to dismiss the already heavy humidity. the line continues it's weaving dance through the neighbourhood finally turning down north derbigny toward the park where the gathered crowd is greeted with the beginnings of a surprisingly cool soothing rain; greeted in return with a boisterous cheer. the brass keeps blaring over the more present thunder; the rain seems to fall in tempo.

you join in as the crowd become chorus singing "i feel like funkin' it up, i feel like funkin' it up," when suddenly the man you chose to brush up against collapses, knocking your daiquiri and several other liners to the ground. a slim younger woman who turned to see the man fall seems to throw her children from her arms. another woman collapses. then another man. a shrill chilling scream resonates from the slim woman and silences the music as she dives down beside her fallen child. the crowd rapidly begins to thin, some suddenly decide hug the earth as your eyes race dumbfounded across the chaos. you hear a gunshot and another among more screaming as someone pulls you by the wrist to the ground. screeching car tires and the smell of burnt rubber fills the air. thunder roars, tearing through the clouds and unleashing an instantly drenching downpour that almost immediately makes it even more humid than you thought possible. as you lay in a puddle of daiquiri, blood and rain, you're eyes connect with the worried mother and are able to differentiate between the raindrops and the teardrops rolling down the her face; but not between the gush of blood from her baby's head and the blood dripping from her red-soaked shirt as she holds him. sirens blare. it was most certainly his first second line, too. the storm will wash away the streets, the incident, but never the memory.

the next morning headline on the times-picayune reads second second line shooting: 2yr-old among dead.

this story was inspired by tragic true events and the +vibes of a joyous second line.

... and while we're talking new orleans brass, check out this awesome animation featuring st james infirmary.

medecins sans frontieres

2010-09-19T22:53:00.002-05:00

a great organization i've just started donating to. check them out.

the music scene

2010-09-02T20:43:00.003-05:00

if you don't know blockhead is one of the sickest dj's around right now. but this video for his music scene is absolutely stunning. enjoy.

fuck you

2010-09-02T11:04:00.002-05:00

i'm a huge cee lo fan, as you may know. man is always on the cutting edge. this, for me, has a serious stevie feel to it... enjoy.

read

2010-08-12T15:06:00.003-05:00

the art of slow reading the struggle for the (possible) soul of david eagleman courtesy of aldaily.

the way i move fff #22,3,4

2010-06-22T14:54:00.005-05:00

when i drink i smoke. glass then filter then glass pressed to lip in time over the a duration of the binge; heavy intoxication inevitable and ironcially the only way to clear my head. smoke streams from between knuckles and burns eyes long before the alcohol does. space and light wrinkle together blurring edges and faces until everything meshes into what was or could be. what is becomes irrelevant as i do. becoming more irrelevant with each sip or drag. shoulders tired from lifting bottle or jack. wrists weaken from baring the weight. my body sways to treble, my head nods to bass. music becomes the only direction i can take. ears and earlobes, warm with liquor sting against the cold air, absorbing the beat as i follow each tune aimlessly. tunes control like voodoo as i follow. drag. sip. bass booms. vision cloudier with each thump. sip. drag. boom. treble kicks. feet follow. drag. sip. step. step. step. boom. a less intoxicated me might have realised cold air meant i'd drifted outside. the final boom a car horn as heels flew over head and head crushed pavement. space and light blur edges into darkness. i think the car was playing the way you move.

let it flow

2010-04-21T21:29:00.004-05:00

check out the movie flow and consider signing article31; a petition adding "access to clean water" as a fundamental right via the universal declaration of human rights.

wall animations don't get old

2010-02-03T14:55:00.001-06:00

a week of art

2010-01-21T10:44:00.003-06:00

i've been away from this blog a while, but for just cause. this is quick, but i needed to share this with anyone who hasn't already seen it...

fff#11

2009-11-30T10:07:00.003-06:00

i admittedly kinda cheated because i had to rush. and this is completely unedited.

including block, clock, frock, rock, flock.

i was wearing a frock? i'd never worn a frock before. it was 12sizes too large for me, even the sleeves dragged on the ground; like wearing father's overcoat as a child - i swam in it. and i was running? sweating. and it was freezing. was i running from something or toward it? i tried to tell me legs to stop but they wouldn't listen. immense rock walls surrounded the thin rock road i ran down as far as my eye could see in both directions. the jagged narrow canyon was eerie, curving often and left me feeling terribly claustrophobic.

turning one tight corner, still frozen, still sweating, i suddenly came to an avalanche of stone blocking my path. i wanted to stop to consider my options, but my legs immediately started me up broken rock. on coated hands and feet i continued up the mountain, dragging this enormous frock as the rocks slid away beneath me. the frock proved extremely heavy making the chore harder than it needed to be. it seemed to consistently get caught and pulled from my body as i ran uphill until it got so caught; sleeve in one hole, tails dragged into another that i literally ran out of it, kicking it from my body as i ran. it was in that moment that i realised the frock had been my only garment leaving me naked to the freeze. i wanted to go back for it after such a realisation, but again, my legs wouldn't allow it.

banging knee and elbow (among other things) off rock and boulder to the point it drew blood i wondered if it'd ever get to the top and then surprisingly i was there. the canyon walls vanished and my legs stopped. the canyon plateau was nothing but flat brown earth in every direction. i heard what seemed like familiar chirping above me that led my eyes to the sky. there i saw a flock of winged clocks in v-formation. a flock of clocks? i'm either in a salvador dali painting or i'm dreaming, i thought to myself. it turned out to be the latter. i awoke, sheets and pillows strewn about; dreading the reality of the workday ahead of me.

relax (fff#10)

2009-11-24T09:27:00.000-06:00

so this isn't as good as what i lost yesterday. but i'm still fine with the result. we'll see whatcha think.

before i write this week, let me just say given the words i'm pretty sure this is gonna be straight uncouth porn.

so including dirtier, messier, sloppier, wetter, read.

i felt dirtier than ever before. the mess; messier than ever before. a broken recliner, two broken lamps, even a broken table (which broke drywall) among other casualties. and we were sloppier than ever before. candle wax, oils, lotions, honey, plenty lube, and wine; 1merlot and 2pinot noir. stained sheets, stained couch, stained carpet, stained skin.

it started with a long week at work and a promise of a relaxing friday night. that promise drove my foot and the gas pedal into the ground on my way to our little 1-bedroom on the outskirts of town so hard that i had to verbally tell myself to slow down; "the sex is no good if your dead" i reminded. finally arriving, i couldn't keep from running the steps around the side of the apartment to our porch door. fumbling with keys, i managed to insert key#1 into lock#1, turn, and before i could get key#2 into it's appropriate slot the door swung open revealing a beautiful woman barely wearing a white terry-cloth robe which contrasted wonderfully with her perfect chocolate satin skin and never completely covered her ass. she had my coat+bag in hand before i even realised i'd come through the door; too in awe, eyeing every inch of her ridiculous sexiness. she was the sexiest thing i'd ever seen, and i frequently reminded her of that. i suppose you could say she was the love of my life. why she was with me and treated me better than i deserved, i would never understand.

i snapped back into the present when she whipped my belt off from around my waist; i guess i had managed to step out of my shoes. she pushed me onto the recliner and staddled me, gently kissing my neck as she untucked and unbuttoned my shirt. i grabbed her bare round ass from just under the robe and pulled her forward returning her embrace on her neck+collarbone when she suddenly jumped up off me and the chair and for the first time i realised the smell of food in the air, though i knew we wouldn't eat it. she loved to tease in the beginning and walked off to the kitchen to check the meal, though she too knew we wouldn't eat it. she returned with a lit spliff on her lips and 2bottle/glass combinations of wine; merlot for her, noir for me. she poured and laid herself out on the couch. sexy.

i drank and smoked with her, all the while trying to entice her into returning to foreplay, even though she wouldn't even let me join her on the couch. she was in control of these things, so i would drink my wine and wait patiently, knowing the anticipation of foreplay was foreplay. it was always fun trying to entice anyway.

my bottle of noir going dry must have been her signal to allow things to begin. she moved from the couch and knelt between my legs, unfastening and stripping off my pants, then quickly rose and began rubbing her ass against my almost instantly rock hard boxer briefs. i suddenly felt a rush of energy that seemed to emanate from my cock and standing spun her around, lifted her by her thighs and rushed her across the room slamming into the wall where i riped the terry-cloth from her body. we bounced from the wall to the desk, eventually finding the dining table. finally back at her collarbone, i worked along her perfect breasts, down her stomach toward her already damp clitoris; greeted with a series slow kisses and gentle licks. when i felt her get wetter, i flicked and flailed my tongue over and around and across her clit+labia, sucking or spreading when needed or desired or cried for. she suddenly rocked her writhing hips forward shoving her lips permanently against mine and my tongue inside her where it continued to flit and flip and whirl.

there was another rush of energy over me and i had to enter her. coming up for air, i dropped my shorts, flipped her onto her stomach and clenching her hips thrust my pulsing cock as deep into her as possible. she moaned mercilessly as i grabbed at thigh and hip and breast, and arm and hair and shoulder; anything to pull me further inside of her. animal instincts seemed to take over.

i liked losing control. i watched my cock pump in and out of her harder and deeper than ever until the table gave way, leaving us standing in space. we moved to the couch, then the chair, then the kitchen counter, the bathroom counter, the floor and eventually the bed. when i would slow down for too long she would pour some more wine down my throat and some onto her tits and then incorporate something new into our romp. the honey was sweet. the candle wax burned. we went through an entire bottle of lube. i especially liked the vibration of her toy inside her as i fucked her ass. we fucked through the night well into daylight and i honestly couldn't say if it was morning or afternoon. hours ticked by like minutes and i was incredibly proud and surprised at my stamina. i couldn't believe any neighbours hadn't come knocking to complain about her screams and our constant thumps. how i still had the energy was beyond me, but i found myself lying on the bed, each limb tied to a bedpost.

she liked losing control too. she mounted my cock and rode me like an animal screaming and squirting repeatedly until the sheets and myself were completely soaked in her delicious cum, arching her back (her sexy back) on her final thrust before letting the weight of her exhaustion swallow me whole. and then without a word... she dismounted and left the room, leaving me bed-stricken. i figured she was coming back with whipped cream, or chocolate sauce, but then, as i laid quiet, i heard the shower. i began to worry, not because she was showering without me, or because i was still strapped to the bed, but because after her 30minute shower, my cock was still pulsing, still standing at full attention.

minutes later my love walked in the bedroom wearing her white terry-cloth robe, as i looked on in awe, like usual. she sat on the bed next to me and kissed my lips and then the tip of my cock. "thank you," she said, more to my cock than to me it seemed. she reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out what appeared to be empty pill boxes as she read "viagra, cialis, lavitra, extenze, magna, adderall."

"what is this?" i asked, almost laughing and slightly perplexed.

"hope you enjoyed your night. . . and your wine." she said. "i know i did. thanks again," more to me this time than my dick, kissing me passionately on the lips. she reached for the rest of the pinot noir that sat on the nightstand, pushed the bottle onto my lips and began pouring as i coughed and gagged, trying not to swallow. then as i caught my breath, she duct taped my mouth shut. i looked her for a glimmer in her eye to tell me this was just some new sex game, but saw none. and then there was a knock at the door.

she left the room with haste as i laid more worried about the medical implications than the fatal attraction moment i had just experienced. i briefly heard mumbling in the other room and the door bedroom door swung open. my love and 3women stood in the doorway. there was some immediate snickering followed by a series of questions and comments:

"i can't believe you did it."

"you gave him the full pack of each?"

"are you sure he won't die?"

the last question echoing my own concerns. but then my love said, "yep, there he is ladies. he's lasted this long, i don't see why he can't go longer. $200 for as long as you want. who's first?"

1woman forked over her money and sprung onto the bed in seconds, staring and stroking my pulsing cock with amasement. i thought desperately about losing my erection, but it was no use. she lifted her skirt and started rubbing her naked pussy up+down the length of my shaft. the other women, including mine, retired to the living room without a word. i jerked and pulled on my restraints with all my might, but my only remaining energy was in my penis. as this woman smacked my cock against her clit, i thought about what all that medicine meant for me? was i gonna die? was my penis simply going to explode? or was i perhaps the luckiest guy in the world? the questions didn't really matter and as this woman slowly inserted the tip of my cock, i decided, though petrified, that i might as well enjoy it.

fff#10

2009-11-23T09:52:00.003-06:00

... i was editing. blogger was doing that thing when it doesn't autosave. i came back to my fff from a different window after researching something. accidentally clicked something trying to drag my cursor to my edit and lost what i considered to be possibly the best fff (maybe the best thing) i've ever written. i'm clearly not going to make the deadline and i'm far too upset about it to even think about rewriting it now. maybe i'll try sometime after the drama of the loss passes. sorry to disappoint you with no story. i'm terribly disappointed myself. fuck.

before and after fff#9

2009-11-16T03:20:00.000-06:00

bigup sweet trini for flash fictioning our friday. and i must say i doubt i'm the only one interested in reading more erotica from you so if erotic starters are what you need then goddammit use erotic starters!

i pretty much let this piece write itself. i think i may even like it.

all that was left was/were...

all that was left were memories. i remembered giving up football for music and putting down music for more visual arts; painting and photography which, after school, proved to be my only profitable skill. i think i can remember every bride's face, but not one name.

i remembered the call from the editor that led to my job in the city and my first thousand assignments being in the living section; newly wed and engaged couples. why we couldn't just let them send us pictures like every other newspaper was beyond my comprehension. i remembered how it was her who got me my first real assignment, and how my photo made the front page the very next morning. i remembered our first date and me waiting for her to meet her deadline. i remembered the sight of her running to me. i remembered the feel of her crawling in next to me. i remembered her promotion to investigative journalism meant my promotion to investigative journalism after she fought for me. i remembered our months of great sex and investigation before blowing the mayor's procurement scandal wide open.

i remembered the threats that came to the office that week, the faces of the men who showed up at my door the next and thinking how thankful i was that she was working late; will they get to her anyway? had they already? questions still unanswered. i remembered being pulled out of the trunk over the river and realising their intent, lunging at the closest one so they would finish me fast before they threw me over; anything to avoid drowning (my greatest fear). i remembered the feel of the lead as it went through my chest, the weightlessness as they threw me from the bridge and the impact of the water like a wall when i hit, just before everything went black... and nearly immediately back to light.

i lay here now with all these memories and this story to tell, but without the motor skills to express them. those memories will fade with time and i will have forgotten them completely long before i even utter my 'first' word. a lifetime of memories cast aside for a new lifetime. looking back there was a lot more good than there was bad.

wasted (fff#8)

2009-11-09T02:57:00.001-06:00

this week's fff. not my best work, but happy i wrote and i'm on time.

including gun, tonne, fun, plum, drum.

the gun seemed to weight a tonne, having held it at point for what felt like an eternity; eyes fixated on my target. nerves gyrated my whole arm so bad i could hear the gun rattle, which i thought only happened in the movies, and i suddenly questioned the integrity of the clenched weapon realising i never had actually fired the thing; not really wanting to fire it now. my free hand (both were wrapped in latex) wiped sweat from my brow, onto the back of my pants and then plunged into my pocket for my mobile. time check. it was a nervous habit picked up since i broke my watch though this time check served it's purpose; startling me back into my task and steadying my hand. it was nearly time for the pick up and i hadn't even begun the first act: murder.

i stood over the sleeping victim who hadn't moved since my arrival which, if it wasn't for his occasional deep snore, would have me hoping he might have already been dead. i had looked over the hallway pictures of he and his family having fun at picnics and ball games on my way to the foot of his bed. he looked like a pleasant man, a good father and it had me wondering what he had done that i would be sent here to complete this chore. 'why me?' passed through my head too, but that answer was easy; father said so. mafia work had been easy, but i'd never had to pull a trigger making tonight feel a little something like initiation for a family i grew up in.

my mobile vibrated 'wtf?' from carmen who was waiting with dominic outside at the car and i nearly laughed aloud at the ridiculousness of american mafia texting acronyms (they were probably updating their facebook pages too). the text, while funny, was to be taken seriously and the gun began to rattle again. i moved to the bedside and standing over my mark interrupted his dream firing three shots; two to the chest and one to the head. i couldn't differentiate between the whisp of the silenced pistol and the victims last breath. his white sheets almost instantly turned a deep plum colour. i holstered my firearm and began wrapping the body in the soaking egyptian cotton followed by the goose down comforter.

i lugged the slightly portly father and husband by the feet down from the bed, back down the hall of family photos, down the steps and out the door to meet carmen and dom. they were anxiously waiting.

'what the fuck took ya so long kid?'

i didn't answer; instead simply dropped my gloves on top of the body and lit a cigarette, sitting on the trunk of the car to chain smoke until the night's events concluded. from there i watched dom open my gift wrapped package. 'nice work' he yelled in my direction, complementing my murderous accuracy, not aware that i wasn't proud of myself. he pulled out a machete and began hacking the body into it's six main parts; finishing the work just as the truck arrived, backing up through the yard right up to dom's butcher work. carmen helped the driver, a man i had never seen before, lower a drum from the truck bed and popped the lid. the driver put on large rubber gloves and reached for a hacked arm dropping it into the drum. an immediate sizzling sound filled the air followed by the most revolting stench fathomable hitting me like a wall. i instantly gagged as the stench hit the back of my throat, choking on smoke and eventually puking on the car's bummer. the body parts melted away in minutes and the lid was returned to the canister. all three men lifted the it back onto the truck bed, the driver received a briefcase, a handshake, a smoke from carmen before leaving in his truck which read mancini chemical and waste disposal.

with the truck's (and the body's) disappearance dominic tossed the sheets back in the house while carmen came over to give me shit about puking on the car and then ushered me into the back seat. dom took the driver's seat and drove us the hour home for which i demanded silence. upon our return my father greeted me with a proud look and my next assignment.

i threw up on his shoes. initiation complete.

poison (fff#6)

2009-10-26T01:57:00.001-05:00

bigup sweet trini for spurring creativity. sorry to be late with my fff again. i know breaking the rules isn't fair... the rules are part of the exercise afterall. i won't let it happen again.

anyway, i have no idea how i feel about this piece. the trigger begged it was the eighth deadly... sin, but i just couldn't go that route, even though i kinda did. this seems to me like a spewing of loaded words grouped into phrase, but i'll be really interested to hear what people think, even if you tell me i suck and should stop writing. enjoy. or not.

it was the eighth deadly concoction in as many days; each more potent than the last. lies and betrayal finally constructing a poison of pain and sorrow and misery that could probably kill an elephant and definitely kill a man. love, the original poison, turned heads and stomachs, blurred vision and minds, loosened legs and lips and thoughts, and prevented preventative action. it was beautifully painful, torturing victims and leaving them scarred and sick, but not dead. complacency poisoned next and brought with it occasional self-pity and doubt, but worse, brought most dreadfully worrisome silence. the silence isolates but doesn't kill; though for most isolation is more painful than death. isolation is merely an incubator of poison. leave anything to stew long enough and it will rot. it brews rancid loneliness festering in a broth of hollow despair and if left long enough, suddenly there's contempt.

contempt is perhaps the most dangerous of poison because contempt breeds contempt and carries with it all the concoctions that came before. it allows lies and betrayal to spin their way into hate and love and life; one seamless lie woven so simply into the next blanketing whatever must remain hidden. if it hadn't already, self-preservation now takes complete control. pride and lust mask self-loathing and melancholy, convincing the foolish that what is good is best. surreal secrets compress and layer like thousands of years of compacted bedrock; too hard to breakup. they can only be stood upon, buried beneath feet where they can't be seen like preserved past ancestors. they are there but are only thought of, never seen. sands of betrayal become the bed to lie on and even the waters can no longer clean the distain. reflections are lost among the ripples and muck of water that used to be so clear, so calm, so blue; leaving liars to gasp for air in a whirlpool of misinformation and distrust until eventually there are only lies and betrayal. the truth, too complicated to explain and hidden so thoroughly that it is lost beyond even knowing eyes that are too exhausted from watching behind them and studying mirrors for a glimpse of familiarity.

there is no antidote for contempt. it poisons until it destroys. leaving behind the shell of who used to be. and so i find myself concocting the eighth potion with hands i can't recognise as my own; my own voice unfamiliar as i talk myself through the process. the eighth poison mixed with pain and sorrow and misery; set for destruction. it could possibly kill an elephant and definitely kill a man.

i drink.

quick fff#5

2009-10-19T21:08:00.001-05:00

so i know i'm late with this fff, but i wanted to write anyway. my weekend proved to be extremely grueling and anything but restful. forgiveness please. flake rake break stake snake the alarm rang. 3minutes. we all knew what was at stake. our rake. my 20per cent upped to 25; leave it to ronden to flake out. 8times we had ran this same scheme and 8times successful. why ronden flake out now was beyond me. but i didn't care. he was one hell of a wheel man, but i wasn't completely foreign to the stick shift or the getaway and was prepared to get us away with haste. "everybody on the ground." they always listened. not a hero among them in 8attempts. pathetic really. we could have been using water pistols; they wouldn't have known the difference. "relinquish your wallets+purses." we filled pillow cases like it was halloween, except this was faster+easier than going door to door. 1:30. the real loot; the safe and safety deposit boxes were emptied into a pillow cases too. had become typical to break bossman's nose to get in, so now it just happened. we had our hands full of pillows. documentation of the event had been recorded and the copy came with us too; added to our collection. we watched those tapes with pride like game film before our next football match; studied+analyzed. 2:30. "shut up.. shut the fuck up," suddenly yelled over the tears+screams. a gunshot. into the air. silence. 2:52. :53. "we gotta go." out the front to the car. where was the car? where was the fucking car? that fucking snake, ronden! 3minutes. cops surrounded.

read about reading

2009-10-14T21:44:00.002-05:00

you gotta read about (and then read) the holy grail of the unconscious - the red book. you may need to register with nytimes to read the article but i think it worthwhile. enjoy.

fff#4

2009-10-12T04:14:00.000-05:00

freakishly large hands reached out toward her, flowers in tow, knuckles smacking pavement as she pulled back in disgust. her friends behind her screamed and then continued snickering about the deformity in front of them. he looked down his long lanky arms to his giant mitts, calloused and dry from always dragging the ground, and let out a roar which silenced the audience in time for them to all hear his anger turn to whimper. snickers turned to laughter. he felt the entire neighbourhood watching him. her brother stepped across the street and grabbed her by the hand to escort her the rest of the trip home leaving him to sulk on the corner, but the girl resisted. his gaze still stuck on his hands, her feet walked into view and he slowly looked all the way up to meet her gaze. she smiled. and then he smiled. she knelt to lift his monstrous left hand off the ground and held it a moment before accepting the flowers and offering her book strap as if to say, 'will you walk me home?' the books (like the flowers) nearly disappeared in his grasp. she pulled his other hand off the ground and down the street as she slowly led the way to her house; her brother and his friends staying close enough behind them that he could see their towering shadows at his feet. as they approached her house, his short frame couldn't climb the steps, having to return her book strap so he could monkey up them and onto the porch. she awaited him at the top, her brother and company at the bottom. she thanked him for the walk home and propositioned it becoming a routine. he obliged, unable to contain his joy. as she concluded her goodbye she dropped to her knees and kissed him on the cheek. his arms wrapped all the way around them both, fingers interlocking on his back. as he released and she stood her huge clumsy feet got caught among her incredibly long thin legs and she kneed him in the head, knocking him down the giant steps where her brother and friends had been watching. he was quickly surrounded by huge feet and long legs, each friend or brother looking like a two-trunked-tree against the sky. 'lemme help you up,' said the brother. his hands shot up from the ground. the brother lifted him to his feet and said 'you best treat her well.' he nodded in agreement, knowing he would. the brother nodded in return and he ran home, dragging knuckles all the way, excited for tomorrow's walk home from school.

run children, run for your life (fff#3)

2009-10-04T21:35:00.006-05:00

bigup fff foreman. complete with title track - great video. they never could get that right, now fleeing yet again to another unknown destination. they had been on wanted posters for sometime; branded fugitives in their own city. a family of five, used to be six, chased from their home on carondelet street by a demolition crew so the city could have another set of condominiums. already jobless among the failing economy, the family fled their home on carondelet for a place in the garden district. they were chased from there to the 7th ward when moving trucks mysteriously appeared out front one hot summer morning. they had found themselves part of a village beneath the highway in mid-city a while until the cops busted that up and had finally become accustomed to sleeping atop the levee in the park at the river bend. they broke the law when they must and the parents spent countless hours instructing their children on how to remain inconspicuous and keep out of trouble; though it seemed they never could get that right. the taught theory was simply the less they were seen the safer they would be and parents would still occasionally have to drag children back out of public eye by the neck. picnicking pedestrians arrived at the levee early this morning and while steak+ribs sizzled people took to the field to kick ball. the family would wait for the footballers to have their fill before sneaking over to steal a meal. they sat at levee's peak, enticed by scents of savory, tummies grumbling. the footballers eat, drink and lethargically return to the pitch, more juggling now than playing. with parents okay, the family beginnings their approach toward the picnic; slowly at first but with increasing speed as they reach the bottom of the levee and break for the field. mother+father reach first, children follow. they rush the blanket of food and begin to scarf ribs+steak+potato. after only a couple of minutes a football viciously slams one of the children in the head and to the ground, followed by the yells of angry footballers who were coming toward them, not chasing their football. the family would make due with what food was already in their mouths and sprinted back to the levee's peak. the father, stopping to make sure all his children were close behind, looked to see his son still eating at the blanket. with footballers surrounding the youth he ran back to protect his own biting the first person who reached toward his son; locking jaw and tearing flesh. snarling+teeth showing, he snapped at anyone who came near his son until a sudden kick to his head knocked him down. forced+held to the ground, he watched through dazed eyes as his son was helplessly placed in the backseat of a car. his head was still spinning when the footballers let him up and chased him back up the levee. he and his family watched in tears as the car holding his son and the picnickers drove off. the dogcatcher arrived hours later, tipped off to their location. the father led his family of four, used to be five, as they fled; thinking how his children never could to get that right.

nother cover

2009-09-30T00:18:00.003-05:00

concrete jungle (fff#2)

2009-09-28T08:20:00.006-05:00

again, big up sweet trini for pursuing the revival. this week's inclusions were: crumb bum thumb rum dumb the bum looking back at him needed a shave. the crumbs in his newly overgrown beard represented the last of his food which had represented the last of his money and he remembered feeling dumb to think that his small amount of cash would have sustained him longer than his first nine days in the big city. the dumb feeling was fleeting at best as there is (perhaps surprisingly) very little time to sulk when you find yourself living outside the walls of the concrete jungle. self-preservation skills kicked in almost immediately and he learned very quickly that living in this jungle was much like a war; a constant territorial battle, protect what's yours while still scavenging the landscape for every resource, trust no one. he had initially tried the shelter across from the nineteen-dollar-motel he resided in his first two nights where he would receive a hot and a cot but found himself too paranoid of the other occupants to sleep, clinching his bag to his chest, listening to the countless other cots speaking with... whoever. there was so much talk in fact that it was impossible to distinguish those who were engaged in conversation with the fictional from those were just crazy. the shelter's frequent screams, random gibberish and endless crying (man, woman+child) were simply intolerable to him which is how he found himself, three weeks later, beneath the stairs of the loading dock at the warehouse theatre staring at into a mirror. he knew it wasn't a great squatting spot, but made the most of it. a broken recliner made for a great chair with it's back propped up against a wall and made for a decent bed when the weather permitted. the unusual climbing temperatures had begun to melt snow+ice which dripped through his wooden roof and when accompanied with occasional rain would leave his chairbed soaking in a puddle. fortunately the dumpster that sat opposite the steps had a lid and at least provided him a dry place to be during the storms. nightly he would watch his face go dark in the mirror before he lit his tiny fire and eventually attempted sleep. on this particular night however, he laid awake on his still damp chairbed continuously flicking his lighter (also damp) in hopes that he might catch fire to the cigarette on his lips and the small kindling he had become accustomed to gathering each night in an old clay pot that used to hold the soil+remnants of some neglected office plant. warmth+light; he needed both. he flicked his lighter at least a few hundred times before his thumb was sore and he began contemplating a walk to the flaming drum at the entrance end of the otherwise pitch black lot. two veteran homeless had built themselves a refuge of cardboard+tarp over the last couple of weeks. he had watched the buildup of cardboard with some amazement as it seemed at times like their structure had multiple levels, though it consistently required fresh, dry cardboard and never looked the same way twice. he exchanged words with them the day they arrived but beyond trading some smokes for a small cup of their rum they weren't really interested in any pleasantries. he had been apprehensive about speaking with them ever since. if his lighter wouldn't ignite he would surely have to ask the certainly inebriated gentleman across the lot for a share of the light+heat source they were hovered around in what seemed like celebration. it irritated him to hear them joyful. what could they possibly be happy about? his lighter, low on fluid, flicked the tiniest flame for just a moment and his natural inclination was to draw it to the cigarette. it lit and the flame went out. he flicked his lighter a few dozen times but somehow knew it wouldn't light again. instead, inhaling hard on his cigarette he sat up, grabbed some newspaper from the clay pot and tried desperately to use the burning butt to start a fire. with no success, he lit his last cigarette off the first just to keep an amber burning and continued his challenge. little red snakes of light chased each other around the edges of the paper but wouldn't catch into flame. blowing on them in hopes they might grow only put them out or blew them apart into momentary fireflies in the moist night air. the paper simply wouldn't light and before he knew it his final smoke was out too, leaving him again in the cold ominous dark. he thought briefly about whether it was cold enough for him to die, but never allowed those thoughts to take hold of his conscious before he stood, planning to walk toward the fire at the other end of the lot. the earlier aggravating laughter had subsided and the figures around the light had disappeared. he prepared himself, lacing up boots and slipping on gloves, and began through the darkness toward the soft orange glow. he slid on a few patches of ice along the way but never made sound. as he approached the light he noticed the taller drunk had stumbled through some of their home, knocking it the ground where he evidently decided to spend the night covered in blue tarp they had been using as roof. the other gentleman was no where to be seen and presumed inside the remaining structure. finally standing right next to the flaming metal drum he enjoyed the heat a moment while he contemplated his next move. everything in the drum was burning enough that he couldn't take a piece back with him as he had planned and would need something to light before heading back beneath the steps. he looked a moment for something to light and thought about going back for a piece of the kindling he had collected in his clay pot. nothing flammable on the ground and no desire to turn back, he kicked the flaming drum toward the cardboard structure. flaming debris showered down upon cardboard+tarp and the structure was ablaze. he waited for screams+movement, but the drunks were drunk. again enjoying the warmth a moment, he grabbed one flame-less corner of their home and pulled. the house collapsed upon them. he rolled a cardboard torch out of what he thought must had been their front door and walked it and the rest of their rum back to his dwelling. lit his fire, drank his rum and slept... well. perhaps he should have left, but didn't. upon police questioning three days later he simply said he never spoke with the two men who tragically died in the fire. "one night they there, the next morning up in smoke. i figured they burned it themselves and left." not a rare occasion among bums. "it wudn't until i smell 'em this morning that i call you cops." "and you never spoke with them? know a name?" asked the officer. "sir, i trust no one. speak to no one." the police put him in the cruiser and took him away as their only suspect. he would spend the remainder of the winter months in jail: 3hots and a cot, cable television and a library, a roof and all the smokes he wanted. he smiled as they drove off, happy to have a place to call home.

the triumphant return of fff (#1)

2009-09-21T06:21:00.002-05:00

gotta bigup sweet trini for reviving fff's. they were why i started a blog in the first place. i wasn't sure i was gonna get to participate in this 1 as i was without internet access most of the weekend, but i found myself attempting it in the wee hours this morning. i'm not thrilled with the outcome, but perhaps you will be. enjoy. it was the smell of cinnamon, ginger+peaches replacing the ganja smoke that had been hovering over my terrace all evening. those sweet smells stopped my guitar dead in the middle of cat's the wind and my thoughts drifted toward the origin of that aroma and the house to my left. mrs. jones didn't bake pies. she didn't set them out on the sill to cool but those scents emanated from her window just the same. in the heat of the summer mrs. jones showered with the windows open and from her steamy shower would come essences of cinnamon, ginger+peaches. i allowed my mind to drift into the air a moment with those scents, thinking about mrs. jones soaping her wet beautiful dark skin, curious as to what she was getting clean for so late in the night. earlier in the spring that smell had saturated my sheets on several occasions and anymore smelling her only made me want to taste her again too. she suddenly appeared on her terrace, white-robed and spliff in hand she flipped open her mobile to call, i assume, the reason for her 1am shower. she took a seat in the wicker chair closest to the railing we share without acknowledging my presence, speaking in low tones to her phone. i was quick to grab my guitar and play so she knew i wasn't interested in her talk, but couldn't help looking over at her sexy-crossed-legs stretching out from beneath her robe. smoke began to fill the air again but her sweet scent seemed to cut through the smell of burnt herb+paper. i got lost in the music a minute watching my fingers on the frets and when i looked up mrs. jones was doing the same thing; now standing against the rail, robe nearly open and in perfect contrast with her skin. she offered me the spliff and again the music stopped as i walked across my terrace to accept her gift. i took the spliff and she quickly turned, tightening her robe and twisting her hair up top of her head. 'you can finish it,' she said, 'i hafta be getting ready,' and disappeared back inside. i returned to my music after adding a clove cigarette to the end of the roach, deciding i would wait to see what kind of fool showed up at her door. when my next clove burned out i stepped into my studio apartment, guitar in tow, to grab a long sleeve as the night air had gotten much cooler. i flicked on the light setting down my guitar flicked off the light upon site of my bed deciding my ganja filled head would rather just rest. i collapsed onto the bed and plunged my face into my pillow before rolling over to stare at the silhouette of the ceiling fan wobbling above me. suddenly the fan lit up with white then red lights from outside accompanied by some a bass line that i recognised but couldn't place. music+light disappeared with a car door followed by footsteps to a terrace not my own. i passed out. sometime later i was awakened by some gentle tugging of my johnson. my wife had evidently returned from her girl's night in a good mood and i'd learned not to pass up such opportunities. how often is she the drunk one afterall? i roll to stand at attention and her lips wrap around my dick; first one set, then the other. she does all the work and comes rather quickly. i join in the second time and she quickly unveils my johnson, wet and still standing at attention, to the world. it's like getting out of a hot shower and drip-drying in the dead of winter. i'd never complain. i roll toward her very naked, very warm body and slip back into sleep. in the morning i awake and the world comes into focus. the wife is standing in the kitchen 10 feet to my left preparing breakfast. i lifted my head from my pillow enough to ask 'how was your girl's night?' 'better than usual.' she said. 'glad to hear it.' i replied, as i stretched+rolled over to her side of the bed. and there on her pillow; cinnamon, ginger+peaches. mrs. jones. i was wide awake.

a bad combination

2009-09-02T21:31:00.002-05:00

...only in new orleans.

paradise?

2009-08-30T17:38:00.004-05:00

12june

2009-08-30T17:37:00.004-05:00

play

2009-08-30T17:32:00.003-05:00

thoughts from a mile high

2009-08-21T10:32:00.007-05:00

(started in dca) i hate/love to fly. i don't care much for the bullshit security checks and the nonsense safety announcements at the beginning of each flight ("the illusion of safety" (tyler's words coming out of my mouth (i couldn't resist))). and the act of being herded down that small tunnel before being mashed together in our tiny little metal tube always reminds me of cattle headed for the slaughterhouse, ulitmately penned in shoulder to shoulder destined to share the same (un)timely fate. my penpal will likely moo+maw from takeoff to landing; forcing the typical pointless conversation, refusing to see the book in my hand or, if i can manage, my shuttered eyes. occasionally, i get corralled next to a beautiful or interesting heifer which could possibly inspire quality talk (1 such occasion sat me next to a very pretty red girl with the thinnest, tightest dreadlocks i've ever seen), but i usually find myself next to a heavy-breathing talkative type, smelling like they've already been seasoned with onion+garlic. (continued in phl) sleep is always my first attempted course of action when flying (the night before a flight i tend to distract from any rare inclinations of sleep to increase my chances on the plane), but if i'm not out before takeoff any additional effort is futile. i always book a window seat because it's impossible for me to fall asleep without something more than the headrest to lean against, and if we liftoff while i'm still awake i'm able to enjoy my trip... i'll watch our world turn into a quilt of coloured patches woven together by stream+treeline before rising into another world of lesser known terrain. white clouds create land+sea. they blanket like a rolling desert or are sparse like a thousand islands in the sea. sometimes they tower upward like the treetops of the rain forest or are simply massive mountains. enough wind and these cloud worlds roll+crash like ocean waves. these worlds often layer atop one another; clouds turning to land+sea as we glide through each beautiful skyscape. the horizon line appears infinitely distant up here; the suns soft glow constantly rising to light each world. 1sun, 1light, several beautiful worlds. it's in these moments+visions that i find it impossible for me to do anything but reflect on our world, our life, my life, myself and the human experience. self-analysis is a constant process, but looking out among the clouds seems to always provide moments of clarity. at least once my reflection will be interrupted by desires to fly without the plane but absent of hollow bones+wings, i realise the impossibility and instead intend to sky-dive sometime soon. sometime after the plane soars past the upper tier of clouds, my mind will drift and i'll soon crack my book until we begin our dissent. as we travel back toward the earth i always seem to wonder what the world below me would look like without our influence. would it look quilted with forest, field+water? would the only paths carved into the surface be those left by water and wild herds of goat, buffalo+elephant? would it be more green, and less brown? would it be better off? i tend to think so.. (continued in ida) sitting in the terminal provides me with another favourite activity: people watching. airports mash us together and it's a great place to sit+watch the interaction. i'm a voyeur by nature; always studying others to learn about we humans more so than the individual(s). hundreds or thousands of people all in contact with each other trying to avoid contact. right now i'm watching the youth from @ least 3different families run around the terminal playing some form of tag; all completely oblivious to their differences and all the parents extremely aware. it begs the question: why don't we continue to get play with each other like so? when does that child-like nature dissipate and we're suddenly so cognizant of our differences? these differences, for some, will always be too large a barrier to overcome. suddenly there's an empty between each of us while we wait for a plane where we'll inevitably be forced to sit side by side. some would even prefer stand before they sit beside a stranger. don't get me wrong, as i mentioned earlier, i tend to not go out of my way to speak with strangers but it's because i like to remain private and have a naturally introverted tendency. still, airports really are a great social experiment. i love/hate them. (completed+revised back in nola)

hopeful music

2009-07-19T21:54:00.001-05:00

there's something incredibly sexy about female bassists like me'shell ndegeocello whose strong, smart lyrics and often dripping wet vocals only add to her ridiculous sex appeal. well, there's another hot bassist on the rise. esperanza spalding is an amasing jazz artist whose charm+passion radiate through her bass, her voice and her smile. esperanza could do great things for modern jazz as me'shell has similarly effected neo-soul. both artists come with highest recommendation. enjoy.

boleros+blues

2009-07-09T00:35:00.001-05:00

i'ma continue to catch up on past posts. this one is particularly tough, because i had originally decided not to post anything of this experience until my right mind made me think otherwise. the post never got published clearly, so reminiscing now is a difficult challenge. i'm not going to change what was originally written (18.7.08 11:09pm), just adding my thoughts of the process now and attempt to tie down loose ends. 2years after 3canal's caribeana imperia @ gala hispanic theatre, i was called upon by gala to design video projections for the premier production of boleros+blues: the life of agustin lara. i was excited @ the opportunity of working in a theatre that had long ago held such good memories for me and this time was giving me the opportunity to working with director; abel lopez, imperia's lighting designer+good friend; ayun fedorcha, and friend+gala's technical director (at the time); brendon vierra. the process, @ times, was certainly jarring, and everyone who worked on the show seemed to say 'this was just one of those shows;' but the overall experience was nearly pleasant. not 1design concept seemed to come together with any ease; not a single win without hours of painstaking pushing, prodding and pressure... +hundreds of hours of manual labour. set design definitely had the worst of it, though lighting+video design certainly had their setbacks, 1 designer's problems endlessly effecting the others successes. video projections, 1 of theatre's many spawned technologies, are usually last considered in design+process as the medium's functionality has yet to find it's proper place in theatre. i'ma point out the obvious right quick. theatre gave birth to video so to see video return home as it continues to find a more prominent place in modern theatre creates an interesting+exciting relationship between the 2forms; mother+daughter. i have already drawn out the technical plans for a show using multiple live video feeds of actors off stage from 4corners of an in the round space while action continues to take place on stage. my initial thought was someone dealing with multiple personalities, but i'm really looking for someone to write the right play and someone to fund what would be a technically stupid expensive show. like too many of my ideas, it'll probably never happen. back to boleros+blues. 3different projectors from 3different points each with 2different lens, squared+keyed onto the correct surface 6times, with the solution inevitably being the shortest+simplist cable run: 7500k lumen w/ long throw lens shot right from on top the lighting booth which unfortunately meant moving 2 of the hanging light fixtures out of the throw of the projector 24hours before opening the doors. borrowing projector/lens combinations from the job meant a good few extra hours in the office, but the 70+ hours i spent using the offices editing equipment creating the videos were fucking awful. it wasn't the creation, it was the extra time 5stories below ground in a place that i loathed. i even drove out to a friends place in damn near falls church 1 terribly stormy night just to break up the monotany of the office. with all of the technically difficulties i was still programming final cues 10minutes after the house opened for the 1st preview which i eventually fell asleep watching from the back row which is why when our director asked me what went wrong with the last (most important) video cue, i could only reply 'i don know.' our sm, francoise (1cool girl), later told me the technician rushed the cue. i left the theatre that night returning only to strike+return borrowed equipment to the office. as i heard it most of the designers chose to miss the opening night festivities as i imagine they, like me, were still too stressed out to enjoy ourselves. the run went well and got some good reviews. had i not moved to nola i would've been designing for 2additional shows with the gala last season. i've included some of the stills i created for the show though the more impressive creations are easily the numerous videos, particularly the final video where the actors froze on stage and my projection was accompanied by lara's beautiful music.

how to keep...

2009-06-14T16:19:00.003-05:00

while googling just now i began typing my question and got as far as 'how to keep...' into the search engine before google gave me their top 10 suggestions. they were: how to keep a man how to keep a conversation going how to keep score in bowling how to keep an erection how to keep apples from turning brown how to keep an idiot busy how to keep a girlfriend how to keep your man how to keep pipes from freezing how to keep weed fresh ... none of which applied.

.. and back again

2009-05-25T00:00:00.011-05:00

i've said that dc would be the last place i'd live before leaving the country. that statement remains true. i was in dc a few weeks ago (took fung to see scw @ wsc, raged with mundy, etc) and the short version of the story is that i haven't really felt right since arriving in new orleans and was amased at how quickly i got my head right while in dc. my creative process+productivity has slowed to a crawl while in nola and i'm left wondering how much i might have accomplished had i never left. i'ma not rush back because my isolation in new orleans is giving me plenty time to self-evaluate and there are still things to learned from that process. in that sense i've accomplished so much. + my creative output has improved last couple weeks which helps deter the worry. i'm just clearer+calmer in dc. i'ma eventually figure a permanent way back to dc and be outta the country thereafter. ... 'less i can get myself outta the country first. (added 7:09p, next day) talk soon. ps. i'm writing again... for the first time in well over a year. hurray.

art+letters

2009-05-17T22:34:00.005-05:00

some time ago sweet trini introduced me to a website called art+letters which archives wonderful articles that stimulate my mind regularly like this short article updating us about the link between creativity to psychosis. what follows is a multimedia mashup of art, letters and the psychos creating it. things that have excited or impressed me over the last while. links galore. i first+foremost gotta bigup wsc's production of tennessee williams' small craft warnings. the redesign of the clarkstreet lobby into monk's place was great. feeling like an old patron of the bar as i watched the story unfold around me, realising that while these fellow patron's had come in+out of each others lives from time to time, they were all pretty much alone in the world; like single vessels passing in a thick fog... and i reflected on my own life. the direction of jay hardee and performances by talents like christopher henley, mundy spears+kari ginsburg were incredible. after meeting, kari granted me the great pleasure of designing her new ink which we already know i like a lot. from my last stomping ground to the current, i seem to not be the only 1 to have recently made the trek. creator of the wire, david simon has started production of treme filming here in new orleans and picked up by hbo. i ran into comedian, steve zahn a few month ago in the quarter and come to find out he's the lead in simon's post-katrina look at the famous mid-city neighbourhood of treme; known for being home to the musicians. the wire spoke so bluntly of inner-city society for 5years and i will definitely be interested to see what treme has to say of new orleans and society now. next is nola artist, craig tracy. i came across his paintedalive gallery in the quarter some time ago down on royal. if you're someone who recognises the human form as an art form as i do, you'll love the way the brush strokes work with the lines of the body. unfortunately some of my favourite works of his aren't in his online gallery. favourite works = beautiful colourful thick curvy women. the last nola related art was introduced to me via a video of artists from around the world singing+playing their own rendition of stand by me. 1 of these artists was grandpa elliott, a local street musician who i had the pleasure of joining in singing sitting on the dock of the bay just weeks ago after speaking with the man a while. it was a great couple of soulful minutes for me, regardless my abilities as a singer. anyway, after very brief research i found out that this video is the first episode of many like videos for a movement called playing for change which was created by marc johnson with the purpose of unifying every creed+race through the power of music. it all started with stand by me 4years ago and the latest (7th) episode, war, no more trouble (below) was just released and may be my new favourite. as said, the movement stars artists from across the world, past+present, including house favourites bob+manu. my 1critique would be that this particular cause absolutely must have current caribbean artists involved and has none as of yet. however, i must commend the editors on their work. while the video editing is good, the audio editing is incredible and deserves it's own praise. in another musical update. dj dangermouse, who has his hand in more projects than i had realised, is fighting with emi records about the release of his new album dark night of the soul. as a result he has decided to include a blank cd-r with each copy in spite of emi. mouse's new album will also include a 100+ page book of album inspired photos by david lynch (writer+producer of films like lost highway+ muholland dr) if+when it is ever released. dangermouse colaborates with dj sparklehorse on this album along with many other artists and you can currently hear it in it's entirity right now on npr's website. give it a listen for free while you can. i also gotta mention yahzarah aka purple saint james and yusuf islam aka cat stevens. yahzarah is a rising r+b singer outta nyc who is fine+talented. i'll be looking forward to an opportunity to see her perform. yusuf has just released roadsinger, his 1st album in 33years. i love cat's music and can't wait to hear what yusuf learned while converting to and studying islam. lastly, this commercial for honda is an amasing rube goldberg-esque display of physics. no cgi was used and it apparently took 606takes to catch. cool shit. ... and with all this pop culture popping up in this post, i oughta mention chuck klosterman's sex, drugs and cocoa puffs. great book. my own art sooncome. talk soon.

mauritius

2009-05-07T01:27:00.002-05:00

i was watching a documentary about mauritius the other day and by the end added it to my list of places to visit. if you don't know mauritius is a group of small islands about 900km east of madagascar. the country of nearly 1.3million people is made up of african, indian, creole, french and chinese cultures practicing predominantly hindi, roman catholicism and muslim. citizens speak either english, french, hindi or mauritius creole and there is no designated official language. children typically learn in both english+french and public education+transportation are free. all of this is to say that mauritius is an extremely diverse country, and celebrates that diversity instead of mashing us all up into the same culture. in the states we've become nothing more than a culture of consumers; sheep. we are simply a part of the herd, here to help drive the machine and push the economy. they will take our wool time after time and when once we get too old we'll be killed or abandoned to make way for the new lamb. we've been sheared of our individuality and left with no stories, no history, no memories of who we are, what we believe and where we came from. there was a great quote in the documentary i was able to find later to share with you that speaks beautifully of the way mauritius embraces diversity. a cardinal from mauritius, monsignor bargeau is quoted as saying "we should consider each group, racial or cultural as a fruit: an apple, a pear, a mango. we want to make mauritius not a marmalade, where we mix up everything and grind everything and end up with one marmalade with one taste. but we would like to have a fruit salad, where in a fruit salad each one retains its individual flavour and taste." talk soon.

once again...

2009-04-29T03:05:00.000-05:00

... (echoes of john legend) i've found myself mentally+emotionally distracted away from this blog. 10days ago i told you posts were coming and i know we're both not surprised that nothing has been posted. still, i do intend to post soon. company arrives late tonight and through the weekend, so as soon as my role as host/tour guide is over, i'll be posting. please hang in there.

posts past future

2009-04-19T22:33:00.003-05:00

i mentioned several things i told you i'd be posting on in my 1 post i was able to manage in march, but with all that's transpired i don't find myself with the energy to now relay to you the obsolete. i don't want to be a liar though, so i will say something about each topic and get around to other post-promises i still haven't lived up to. the job is a job. the pay is decent and the more hours i can work the better. overtime seems to be the only way i can save any money. carnival season in nola was funnish but like most things in this city revolved around alcohol+fried food consumption (i ignore the fried food whenever possible), though i will say there were more beautiful costumes there than i expected. my sister's visit, immediately after mardi gras was probably a once in our lifetime gathering. we had a time. drink. food. laughs. though i'm sure we'll never lime like that again. my apartment still needs settling. i still feel like i'm squatting and can't wait for the opportunity to move back to dc or elsewhere. past-post-promises and hopefully plenty more sooncome. talk soon.

earth hour

2009-03-22T18:51:00.003-05:00

world wildlife fund's earth hour 2009 is coming this saturday, 28march @ 8:30p local time. 60minutes without running any electricity to the give the earth a brake from our constant consumption. the website provides you with a list of things to do. i'ma participate by rolling a spliff and clearing my head on the terrace. you should too.

the 3rd world of the usa

2009-03-22T01:27:00.002-05:00

february had me busy with plenty from the job, carnival season leading up to mardi gras, a visit from the sister (a first of it's kind) and the continued settling of my apartment. these are all noteworthy topics taking away from my footballing+art, but will wait as i've gotta empty my mind of a few thoughts first. "dc is the 3rd world of the states." sweet trini said it first but it's something i've since heard repeatedly across the dc metro area; typically when speaking about dc roads. having never spent real time in a 3rd world country (not yet anyway), i trust that those who have and then made these statements know what they're saying. they do. i spent 3years driving around dc so i know how terrible those roads are; worst in america, or so i thought. 3months ago i moved to a city held in regard as the true 3rd world of the usa; new orleans - something the locals state with pride and the tag line picked up by every news station after hurricane katrina. once pirate run and french owned, the near 300year-old crescent city has preserved it's way of life through isolation from the rest of the country (the next major city is at least 250miles away). the locals work hard to hold on to their history+culture and keep modern usa out, passing traditions, food+festivals down through the generations. now as i said previous, i can't speak on 3rd world countries, but i can speak on dc roads and now nola roads and gotta say that nola roads are the absolute worst roads i have ever been on. on the surface, nola roads and dc roads are plagued by the same problems. both cities have huge potholes causing endless construction to patch the roads which somehow leaves the roads more uneven than they already were. they both have a gross of 1way streets that don't need to be, adding to the confusion; particularly for the dreaded tourists. both cities are full of asshole driver's, even though they are very plainly completing different kinds of asshole. dc driver's will cut you off, fail to signal and generally pay little or no attention to their surroundings while behind the wheel. nola driver's pay plenty attention (too much in some cases; stopping for others that don't even have the right of way) but they will run you off the road (i've seen it), run a stop sign/light and use the shoulder to beat traffic whenever they can. that said, the width of roads in nola varies from streets like canal which was once the widest road in the country (6lanes, 2streetcar rails down the middle) to roads like calhoun+pitt which are 2way streets where even 1car might drop off into the ditches that line either side of road with just a degree of error. the ditches, obviously designed to gather water and keep the streets from flooding don't work. roads flood with any decent rainstorm forcing rerouted traffic on the regular and occasionally forcing me to drive through freshly made pools deep enough to flood the car a bit (not the engine luckily). being on the mouth of the gulf means plenty cargo ships+trains blowing their horns+whistles all too often. include the bells from the streetcars and you have industrial music, you also have far too many railroad tracks; great for fucking up your already destroyed suspension and alignment. oh, and more than half of the railroads don't have operational xing warnings so you'll wanna look both ways before crossing the tracks. all of this car chaos is to say that for a city that requires a car, new orleans roads really suck shit, far worse than dc and thus, judging by the opinions of others, worse than or at least comparable to 3rd world roads. the thing new orleans got right that dc completely fucked up (something i despised while living in the district) are stop lights @ roundabouts. nola has none, dc is full of them. stop lights @ roundabouts is truly moronic. i always thought that roundabouts were designed to ease the flow of traffic from multiple directions, decreasing congestion - yield, yes, but to stop defeats the purpose completely, am i right? talk soon. ps. read sweet trini's post on the subject. she makes valid points about 3rd world-ness; tackling issues like crime, class, school systems and more instead of this sour bullshit session about poor road quality. i know nola has the highest crime rate, the highest illiteracy rate and awful school systems but hafta do more research/need more experience before i post on those things.

news

2009-01-31T22:27:00.000-06:00

i'm too excited about my new bed (1st real bed in 10years) and my new sexy boots (1/2 off) to write for real tonight. i'ma instead get me some good rest in preparation for morning football and i'll try to post for real tomorrow night. in the meanwhile check out my new sexy boots and be jealous. talk soon.

whole truth

2009-01-29T22:54:00.000-06:00

having now visited at least 7 whole foods organic markets in 5cities i'm even more confident in my assessment that the most beautiful, kind, and interesting people can be found in a whole foods market in any city lucky enough to have 1. if you're not a whole foods shopper by choice than i'm sorry for you and you probably don't care or understand what i'm talking about. if you're not a whole foods shopper because there isn't 1 in your town than i'm sorry for you and encourage you to walk into the store at your first opportunity to see what i'm talking about. if you are a whole foods shopper than you likely already know exactly what i'm talking about, but i'll go on anyway. in a conversation about this with sweet trini years ago, her immediate response toward my calling whole foods patrons beautiful was "duh, crazyfool. of course." and, of course, she is right. duh crazyfool... the most beautiful, most kind people would be those trying to remain as pure as possible by eating+using organic foods+products and eliminating toxins from their bodies+lives. eating+living more naturally makes for a better, healthier quality of life and thus invokes beauty+energy, i get it. i suppose after finding the same to be true over+over again, including here in new orleans i figure it was time to post the theory to get it off my mind. some people don't understand the whole foods concept and thus never get spending a little extra money for healthier living. "why would anyone want to spend $3 on a lemon?" is the question i've gotten before. the same person told me they felt like whole foods was "some kind of cult of eco-freak" and perceived the patrons as egotistical; "as if they're better than me because they shop organic." i argue however that what some may mistake for elitism, isn't at all, but is instead a common respect between customers+employees alike which comes with smiles, head-nods and the occasional banter in passing or waiting to check-out. (i often feel i can even tell which employees believe in the principles of their store and which just do the job for the paycheck.) the respect held for each other mirrors the respect we each hold for our planet; understanding the give+take relationship between mother earth and ourselves which is at least part of the reason for our continued visits anyway, right? organic/green living is often a huge life-choice that we eco-freaks welcome the fondness of feeling surrounded by people who supposedly think like ourselves particularly when we could easily be saving $ by following the flock down the street to the local supermarket, or worse, wal-mart. strength in numbers; each of us feels good about trying to do our part to keep the world beautiful and even better realising we aren't the only ones putting forth the effort. the world appreciates our effort and returns the favour, thus whole foods patrons are beautiful people. talk soon.

living not so big and not so easy

2009-01-18T02:45:00.000-06:00

if you're the 1person who checks up on my blog from time to time then you already know i've left lovely liberal washington, dc for supposed warmer climates in the big easy; new orleans, la. first, i admit i'm sorry i had to leave dc before the history-making inauguration of mr. obama, though from the sounds of things back in the capital the local washingtonians are already well annoyed+frustrated with the thousands upon thousands of out-of-towners; foreign license plates cluttering intersections and making wrong turns down one way streets. secondly, the entire northern hemisphere is experiencing an unruly winter cold and mid-30degrees fahrenheit was not at all what i was hoping for in the deep south. so i got myself an apartment with plenty more space than i need in uptown, new orleans that been staying plenty cold night+day. forced to buy a space heater to keep warm (something i thought i had left back in dc), it moves from room to room with me, whether i'm sitting in my fold-up-camping-chair in the living room or sleeping on my air mattress in the bedroom. i'll eventually get some real furniture, i swear. uptown is actually west of the french quarter+downtown nola, but it's called uptown because it's the highest point of the city - only 10feet below sea level instead of the 28feet below where downtown sits. i'm roughly 2blocks away from audubon park (named after the artist) which, among other things (including a tea house) holds a few football pitches and audubon zoo meaning i'm occasionally woken by the monkeys or elephants or both during what i can only assume must be feeding time, and can occasionally see the giraffes towering over the zoo fences on the walk to the pitch later in the morning. anyway, the move has cost me well more than i was originally expecting so it's good that i'm easily entertained by the cheap and the free. i keep myself busy with my football, my sketches (using a couple stacked empty boxes as a makeshift desk/end table/foot rest), and a seldom trip to neighbourhood bar: cooter brown's (love that name) for fresh oyster's and 400+ worldly beers to choose from. soon as i can i'll be buying a new scanner to post sketches and some new canvas to paint. and there will always be my photography. i'm excited to get out and take pictures of my new surroundings, sorry that i haven't taken the time yet, though in my defense i have been busy getting life in order. admittedly i really need to go back into my past of photos and get them properly archived on flickr, and certainly some here too. it'll happen. the job here in nola leaves me with more free time to focus on my art so i'm excited to get to producing. there are plans to eventually even have some new short fiction, some of which are already in progress. since my return to new orleans i've confirmed my thoughts about my abilities to avoid the guns and find the jazz once here to explore on my own. i had been told, and it seems to be holding true, that there is a great art community within the city. 1exhibition that i read about in the local paper but was only able to experienced a little piece of was called prospect.1. the project was the largest gathering of international contemporary art ever gathered in the united states. it opened in november 08 and closed this weekend. 1installation was found in the lower 9th ward, a section of new orleans devastated by hurricane katrina, where houses that were abandoned after the disaster were turned into massive pieces of art. while i never got there myself, here are photos of that project and many others that were a part of this huge exhibit. i've also been introduced to local band the zydepunks. the name speaks for itself. i've linked to their myspace page because i like the offered music selection, but they describe themselves as "new orleans cajun irish breton klezmer slavic zydeco" on their website. then these guys led me to balkan beat box, an interesting sound from nyc. between their site+myspace you can listen to plenty tunes. i can't talk music without giving bigups to 3canal as they present joy+fire which is launching tonight in t+t in preparation for carnival. wish i could be a part, of course. i definitely wanna experience a t+t carnival with 3canal someday, but this year i'll be celebrating carnival with new orleans mardi gras. i'm honestly not at all interested in a million people pushing me through their river of piss, shit+vomit so i plan to avoid the quarter, but i certainly plan to walk the 10blocks to st. charles to watch a parade or 2. nevertheless, i already know mardi gras never hold a candle to carnival in t+t. that said, here's 3canal's latest: boom up history. it is, of course, a real hot tune! talk soon.

love/hate

2009-01-14T20:35:00.002-06:00

even though the spurs are in danger of relegation, i've really enjoyed the football season so far. i just caught this new cristiano ronaldo nike ad and felt to post it. i fall heavily on the side of hate, unless he's wearing a portugal jersey. then the hate disappears for some reason and i find him stunning to watch. ps. some true posts are on their way.

guns+jazz

2008-12-21T00:02:00.006-06:00

for once, it seems i've got exactly what i've bargained for. not yet an entire week in new orleans and i'm already wondering how long i'll survive down here. i knew moving south would test my ability to deal with out right bigoted racism, but what i didn't take into consideration was exactly how short my fuse is and my constant desire to speak my mind. at the new job (=$ and the unfortunate main reason for my move), where it's obviously important to make a good first impression, i've already bit my tongue so many times that i dunno i'll speak again. guns, trucks, homophobic and anti-obama talk have spilled their way into my everyday life these last 6days. exhibit a: i was dragged to a gun show yesterday (out with a friend, away from my hotel by the airport and no mode of transportation, i had no other choice) was 1 of the scariest moments of my life. hundreds of people purchasing weapons like they were choosing a snack from a vending machine. vendors, some straight neo-nazis, all missing teeth, would make a quick phone call before handing over the newly purchased tec-9, or .357magnum, etc; not to run a background check, but rather to ensure that you (the purchaser) doesn't owe the state any money. 'what the fuck?' you say. well that was exactly what i was thinking. standing over 1man's table of handguns, listening to him and another dumb-fuck redneck talk about president-elect obama like a monkey the white man can keep in check, i found myself thinking i may need a firearm just to protect myself from their stupid, small-minded, inbred selves. it was at that moment that i had to leave for fresh air, bumming a cigarette in an attempt to calm my nerves. i should point out that it wasn't as though the redneck confederates were the only assholes out to buy firearms, in fact i just realised that it was the most diverse place i've seen since arriving in new orleans. there were plenty of young black men+women making their purchases, plenty of hispanics and even a few asians; all people buying weapons under the principle of 'protection.' protection from each other it seems. i couldn't help but think about the dozen people who were murdered in cold blood around my dc neighbourhood over the summer and then about chris rock's skit 'bullet control' off his bigger+blacker tour. still, despite the racism, ignorance, and stupidity, i've found things to like about this place. the climate is obviously nicer than dc winter, but i think i'll find myself wishing for dc humidity and my basement apartment once the 7months of unbearable humidity start here. the food is great. i haven't eaten anything here yet that i won't be excited to eat again. everyone, despite their thoughts about each other, is generally friendly; willing to look you in the eye and speak to you with some degree of respect, part of which i contribute greatly to the slower speed of life here than the north where people will walk into you and over you before stepping aside and saying 'hello.' lastly, the music. walking the french quarter on my lunch break the other day i passed by a different musician on each block: 1playing otis redding's sitting on the dock of the bay on electric guitar, 1playing beautiful blues on a harmonica, 1 even playing christmas classics+louis armstrong on a trumpet and singing the occasional verse a cappella. just this week they announced the schedule of artists playing at the new orleans jazz+heritage festival; a 2weekend celebration of music. you gotta check out the lineup under 'music schedule' on the link. i'm already looking forward to both weekends. once my car makes the trip with me from dc to new orleans next week, i'm sure i'll drive around and find my own nitch in the city, but if i'm to survive my time on the dirty coast, i'll have to find a way to avoid all the assholes - and for the moment there seems to be many close-minded assholes. i suppose that's part of traveling the country (and eventually the world); it's always about give+take, good+bad, what you gain and what you're giving up. wish me luck. talk soon.

unwanted guests

2008-12-11T16:06:00.004-06:00

everyone i trust knows they can stop by whenever they want. today while continuing the mind-numbing task of packing for new orleans, i heard what is now an endless scratching coming from the small unfinished closet that holds the houses water heater. i always figured i'd have to deal with the occasional mouse when i moved in an basement apartment on capitol hill, even though i never have, but now after nearly 2years of living here, the creature trying to join me in the living room is large enough to climb, hold on to and claw @ the top of the door that is currently keeping us unacquainted. animal control are on their way and should be here within the hour. i'll be sure to let you know what unwanted guest decided it didn't need an invitation to join the party. talk soon. ps. (5:57p) it was a fucking squirrel. it scratched through an already small whole in the wall where the water connects to my washing machine, bounced around the house for a few minutes and eventually out the front door i had opened as soon as it caught my eye jumping from my dryer to the stove top; all before animal control could arrive.

minmising life

2008-12-10T01:09:00.002-06:00

1 goal of mine is to eventually have my life in 3bags; 1 of clothes, 1 for my laptop, and 1 for my camera. that's how i'll leave the states to see the world. having an obsession with culture it's my opinion that the only way to understand a culture, or maybe more importantly cultural differences and thus a further understanding of the world we all share is to immerse oneself into a culture for a length of time (something more than a simple few week vacation). so it is my intention to save my money to travel and then see+experience as much of this world as possible. some may feel that this is a lonely way to spend one's life, moving from place to place, possibly never spending enough time to get too attached to 1place or 1person; and some of you may be right. but i rarely find myself getting so close to individuals that they feel essential to my life; maybe because i know my plans and don't often allow for interference, or perhaps it's an issue i'll hit head-on someday that will haunt me forever or, dare i say, regret. not believing in regret, i tend to disagree with the latter, but as seems to be my life motto anymore: time will tell. let me add that i'm not in anyway opposed to staying anywhere for years, decades or perhaps a lifetime if the right place or person moves me to do so. that said, this post is about those 3bags. you see, i'm moving to new orleans very soon to start new work in hopes of accomplishing, or at least denting the first task toward world travel: finances. i've landed a new, higher paying job in the big easy and with money in mind have decided that selling a vast majority of my worldly possessions now instead of uhauling them or shipping them down for a large chunk of change is in my best interest. please know that i have no monetary obsession, in fact in many ways i wish the world could operate on a barter system (even though it never could), but traveling costs money and i've already explained my obsessions above. enough money to travel also means leaving the states without debt which i'm not so far from, but not so close to either. so i'm minimising life. finally. it seems like something i've been wanting to do forever and anyone who's ever moved anywhere can tell you; you can never imagine the amount of shit you accumulate when you stay in 1place. i've pitched the junk and set aside the goodwill items and now as i sit surrounded by all my belongings realising how much more i need to eliminate if i'm to ever cut down to those 3bags. the toughest part will inevitably be figuring out what to do with all my art (books, music, movies and my own personal creations) when the time comes to leave the country.. but i'm not leaving the country just yet, so all that stuff is making the near 1100mile, 17hour (google estimates) trek to new orleans with me. even now, knowing that i can't plan to take it with me breaks my heart and while i obviously should just put a cease and desist on all additional accumulation of art, i just can't help myself, and from time to time books+music still tend to sneak their way into my collection. maybe international shipping will become real cheap or i'll be a sweepstakes winner someday and then bringing my art with me won't be such a dilemma, but with neither of those options on the horizon, my art is more likely to end up in my sister's basement gathering dust and probably the eventual water damage; which i can't bare to think about... so we won't. those 3bags. i've eliminated all the easy stuff; the items i never use or will never need. the things that surround me now are here because i need/want them or someone else needs/wants them, which begins to make decisions tough. obviously, anything i'm holding onto for others isn't going anywhere, so the real questions become "what to i want but don't need?" and "what do i need but don't want?" (maybe i'm crazy, but i'm suddenly reminded of gnarls barkley's going on lyrics "anyone that needs what they want and doesn't want what they need, i want nothing to do with.") i'm working on making the need/want decisions each day. the furniture is selling on craigslist pretty well @ this point and sooner than later i may be left with nothing to sit on which only means the minimising is advancing successfully. i'll ultimately cram everything i can into my car and leave dc with only necessities; my art, my kitchen, and my clothes. i'll need a bed, but that'll come in time as will a couch and i might even treat myself to a tv someday so i can keep up with my football. the bed i might need to get new because i don't know i can get passed sleeping in someone else's potential filth+semen, but the couch+tv will hopefully be thrift items; cheap to buy and easy to return. in the end, i'll definitely be a lot closer to those 3bags and with any luck the next time you see me, they'll be all i own. talk soon. ps. stephen+ jr. gong marley's the mission is a new favourite track of mine. okay, not new, but new to me.

from capitol hill to the dirty south

2008-12-07T20:55:00.003-06:00

i'm leaving dc. i'm leaving this place where i found home, this place where i found family, this place... i'm a little heartbroken at my decision to leave. leaving behind those few places that trigger good memories and +vibes. but the harsh reality is that there is nothing left for me in dc. i've grown tired of the monotony and speed of my life, and the cold (i live in a basement, it's always cold; even in the summer). the monotony has everything to do with the job i worked that after 2years (i worked there nearly 3) in a gross environment has forced me to use an inhaler before+after each work day; doctor's orders. what sewer or factory has caused the deteriation of my lungs? the luxurious grand hyatt in the heart of downtown washington, dc. i tell you this simply so you never stay there. it wasn't too long ago they were on inside edition for disturbing practices in their sleeping rooms, so try to imagine the mold, fungus+pests (mice) that exist in their back halls that i used to walk everyday - the same back halls they'll use to bring you your room service. please excuse the rant, but seriously, never stay there. i understand that i have the ability to change the monotony and speed of things for myself but i have an agenda that involves saving money in hopes of traveling the world in the nearest future possible; and it seems that anything worth doing with those worth doing things with always involves money. and so i cringe. i go out at least half the time but going out means more living paycheck to paycheck and less saving for my dreams, which i just can't have. there are still great people here that i would like to see more of, but the opportunity to better my life has presented itself and i've taken it. in new orleans, louisiana, nola as the natives refer to it, is waiting a new life which i'll begin on the first day of the new year. a new job promising me new opportunites and a new lifestyle awaits. a lower cost of living (maybe because it's the murder/crime capital of the states) and more money awaits which can only help push my dreams to reality. i don't know how i'll adjust to living in the south besides consistantly warmer, darker skin but i figure a year in new orleans might just give me the finances needed to leave this country behind me and find even warmer climates still. i've never done well with stupidity+prejudice, both of which i've been warned exist in mass in new orleans, and tend to speak my mind too bluntly which could simply get me killed once i mouth off to the wrong people. and even though i told myself i'd never live in a red (republican) state, i know nola is quite liberal and as long as i avoid the inbred rednecks on the outskirts i'll hope to avoid trouble and keep my cool. the art community, uptown (where i intend on living) is massive from what i'm told and have researched, and the music scene in new orleans has never quit; ie. the airport is named 'louis armstrong international' (msy for those of you who come visit). food in new orleans is incredible and something i'm really looking forward to. any fish, meat, poultry or reptile can be made into a po' boy and generally speaking all food has a lot more fire than much of the country; it is the home of cajan afterall. they have a festival for damn near everything - the lamest of which seems to be mardi gras. i'm much more interested in jazz fest, voodoo fest, gumbo fest, seafood fest, pie fest to name a few. the casino's are reopened since hurricane katrina and i have been known to play a card or 2 from time to time. there are drive through daquari stands, no open beverage laws, and scores is about to reopen. oh, and i've already looked into joining the local football league which i can't wait to get back into. so it appears there are advantages to the new orleans move beyond financial and i truly look forward to making the move, the change and getting into warmer climates, particularly with the gulf of mexico a short drive away. the beaches in my dreams are never as warm+calming as the real thing and it's been too many years since i've seen a good one. so (pending a terrifying piss test tomorrow) i'm leaving this place, washington, dc, with a little heartbreak but i'll take with me all the memories worth remembering (plenty really) and those worth their salt will be down to visit. dc has been good to me. thanks for the memories, for the family... but most of all for the home. talk soon.

inspiring change

2008-11-04T22:44:00.001-06:00

there are cheers, chants, and fireworks in the streets of dc. hope seems to have flood the air almost immediately, like a new year's eve come early. a new chance. a new opportunity. remembering back when i was sure i would never see a black president in my lifetime, now overcome with excitement and pride as our country takes it's next bold progressive step. just brought to tears by our president elect, i hope for the future of this country. "...nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change."

why i love jon stewart

2008-10-02T15:28:00.002-05:00

below is last night's interview with peggy noonan, author of patriotic grace: what is it and why we need it now. jon makes a number of wonderful no-bullshit points and peggy draws a beautiful conclusion. enjoy.

see

2008-09-22T22:06:00.001-05:00

watch

2008-09-22T22:05:00.002-05:00

look

2008-09-22T21:57:00.004-05:00

feet

2008-09-15T15:00:00.004-05:00

i love this photo. i found it while browsing my archives yesterday. it was taken @ britiskink when the peong went to see paul to get tatted. sweet trini was there to keep the tatted from tears. much love to my west indies family.ps. i wanna point out that this photo 'feet' was only made interesting by sweet trini's need to elevate her foot due to a contusion suffered during the pack for trinidad. her crutches are on the wall to her right.

lively up yourself

2008-07-27T19:40:00.002-05:00

the king of bongo

2008-07-27T19:38:00.002-05:00

staying power

2008-07-21T20:41:00.018-05:00

so after designing my last two tattoos and getting tons of positive response from a variety of people, i designed a couple tattoos for ms. sierra @ request. in fact, a number of people have asked me to design ink for them. anyway, she was so happy with the work that she's already got the first of the two done. there is something incredible and a little hot about seeing my work in that kind of life-long-permanence. try to forgive her wardrobe, she's working for the banquets department @ work for the moment. i left the images big so you can see the detail - and it's not a perfect shot because the tat is still peeling. ps: i was once told by an amasing tattooist (my artist paul roe) that i should leave room for the tattoo artist to add their own touch; something i don't do with my own ink but tried to do with her designs and i think the tattooists touches are really nice.

dc: what's going on?

2008-07-20T21:01:00.004-05:00

less than 24hours after my last post went up (weeks since violence ravaged the neighbourhood) a drive-by shooter opened fire on 1corner of trinidad early saturday morning, wounding 7, killing 1; a 13year-old boy who was here visiting his grandmother from alabama. ... as a result, the trinidad roadblocks are back in place permanantly until further notice.

dc: there's no place like home

2008-07-18T12:17:00.000-05:00

after 4days away from dc over independence weekend i returned to my stomping-ground. the house baron of groceries i decided to go down the street for food and found myself walking out into the path of a police pursuit. watching at least 4cop cars circling my block and several others i suddenly was in the path of a footcop who shoved me into a parking meter instead of going around. i nearly lost it, remembering why so many of us don't trust them, but he was moving fast enough that even my words wouldn't have caught up with that asshole. the police presence has been seriously strong in my neighbourhood recently. last month, before the us supreme court reversed the gun ban in dc, 12people were murdered with an 8block radius of my apartment. the trinidad neighbourhood (just 3blocks away) played stage to a majority of these deaths. the cops were dumbfounded. not knowing how to slow the violence, dc cops set up roadblocks around trinidad, stopping every driver+wanderer for identification to gain access into the area. for 6days these roadblocks rerouted anyone without a trinidad address into the hood and forced them around. returning from a trip to home depot one evening, i skipped the west virginia ave option due to back up and decided to take montello, which has often proven faster in the past. i was stopped by 2officers who directed me to pull behind a toyota corolla who's driver was being pulled from his car. after the typical license+registration questions the cop told me to i had to go around the neighbourhood to get home. i explained to the cop that i know trinidad very well and frequent the neighbourhood on foot from time to time. he said something like 'we're asking you around for your own safety,' which is when i got angry and told the cop to let me through. 'you can't block public roads,' i yelled. he obliged, clearly knowing they were in the wrong. the corolla was still road side and the driver had found himself sitting on the curb while the police searched his trunk. trinidad was the quietest i had ever seen it that night. a few people were gathered by a tree just past the community center that had become memorial to one of the victims; a stuffed bear, candles+flowers @ its base, signs+cards hung all the way to it's branches. the only other movement on the street were a few cops, who all eyed me a little too hard as i passed, sitting on penn and 4more as i exited the neighbourhood and made my way home. about a week after the roadblocks dissappeared this article was released in the washington post: Group Sues to Halt Police Checkpoint Program By Del Quentin WilberWashington Post Staff WriterFriday, June 20, 2008; 3:08 PM A civil rights group filed a federal lawsuit today to halt the D.C. police department's new checkpoint program, saying that the screening of motorists is unconstitutional. The Partnership for Civil Justice filed the suit on behalf of four District residents against what they called the illegal use of "suspicionless seizures and roadblocks." The plaintiffs are seeking to turn the suit into a class action on behalf of all who are affected by the program. The suit says that the plaintiffs want to stop the police before the use of checkpoints goes beyond the Trinidad area of Northeast Washington, where they were run for a six-day period earlier this month. At random times during that span, police stopped vehicles at a checkpoint and questioned drivers to ensure they had what authorities called "a legitimate purpose" to be coming into the area. "The District's military-style roadblock system was deployed, in part, to give the appearance that the government is addressing this deeply felt need," the suit states. "But it is neither constitutional, nor effective." Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier and interim Attorney General Peter Nickles crafted the checkpoint strategy after a series of shootings in the neighborhood. Nickles has said that he thoroughly vetted the law and was confident it would survive a court challenge. But at a hearing this week, some D.C. Council members said they had concerns about its legality. D.C. police put a checkpoint on Montello Avenue on June 7 and ran it randomly over six days, allowing only residents and those with legitimate business there to enter. Officers reported that more than 700 vehicles were allowed through and 46 were turned away. Lanier proclaimed the program a success, noting that no shootings took place in Trinidad while it was in operation. She has not ruled out setting up more checkpoints in what the police call "Neighborhood Safety Zones." But she has provided no details. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Caneisha Mills, William Robinson, Linda Leaks and Sarah Sloan. All said that they were stopped at the checkpoint. The American Civil Liberties Union, which monitored some of the activity, said at times that nine of 10 motorists were being denied entry. The ACLU also has been considering a lawsuit, officials said. with the gun ban gone, crime is expected to go down. i guess government officials figure we'll all be too scared to act up on each other since we'll all be carrying guns for protection from each other. seems to me we finally can have all the guns we need to protect ourselves from our government - which was the purpose of the 2nd amendment to begin with.

finally.... more scratch.

2008-07-02T20:58:00.003-05:00

photography lesson #1

2008-06-30T16:38:00.004-05:00

take your camera everywhere you go. yesterday while walking the streets+national mall of dc i (had i brought my camera) would have had the opportunity to photograph: a bulldog drinking from a starbucks cup. a duckling swimming. ducklings playing. ducklings following their mother. geese lined up poolside like they were ready for a polo match. three helicopters hovering just above the trees. children climbing+playing in those trees minutes later. faces of the passionate german+espana fans (felicitaciones) cheering on their club @ the espnzone... and plenty more. the beautiful sun (while the infamous 'they' were calling for thunderstorms) contributed her share of shadows+highlights which only made the would-be-photographs even more spectacular. this mistake will not happen again. i'ma glue my viewfinder to my eyelids. ... and to prove i'm worth my stone as a photographer, i'm working on a photo post to showcase some of my favourite images in the last few months. talk soon.

artomatic 2008

2008-06-19T19:21:00.016-05:00

2weeks of sleeping on my stomach and i was ready to wander back into the place that left me scarred for life; artomatic. this time, ms.mundy made the trip with me for increased companionship, entertainment and perspective - not to mention awesome art. we were both involved in shows @ the time (she's still is: doing great work as bette in the marriage of bette and boo in the black box @ montgomery college and about to rock the capitol fringe festival in rock muscial bear beach @ the warehouse) so we could only reach artomatic late 1friday night, having just enough time to get lifted and see 3 of the 12floors of art.
we grabbed a couple beers and hit 12th floor so i could take my shoulders to paul for final judgement which is when touch-ups were originally discussed (scheduled for monday coming). two other floors made their way to our makeshift agenda; 11 and another which i can't recall. while looking @ the awesome art, mundy+i found ourselves creating too; leaving our marks in crayon, in chalk, and in blacklight paint. again, i'll let the photos do the storytelling... and run commentary whenever necessary. oh yeah, and i tend to shrink the images on this block from their original size so that they a. load faster, and b. can be viewed as a whole in one browser window. enjoy.

this first exhibit is one of the first things that really stunned me. the work is basically a graphic novel spilled all over the wall. there are tons of diary entries that go with the smaller images. i didn't minimise this one so you can see all the detail (can't really read it though).

artomatic stabbing...

2008-06-16T15:28:00.025-05:00

...millions of them actually. i went to my artist, paul roe, not too many weeks ago, anxious for another round of jet black stabbed into my skin. i took the design, originally created for sweet trini, to paul with great anticipation for what would become my second tattoo. i had a very distinct idea of where these new images would be placed on my body and @ paul's suggestion found myself awaiting an appointment three weeks later to get inked @ the dc area's largest local art exhibit, artomatic. this year, 800 artists filled a 12story building with every kind of art imaginable (even a lawn chair made entirely of aluminum can tabs+wire). britishink's tattoo parlor could be found in the 12th floor ne corner penthouse... or you could just follow the buzzing, as many seemed to upon exiting the elevator.
i arrived for my 6pm appointment, ready to feel complete again and came to realise that it was 'meet the artist night,' meaning paul and his cohort cyn would be answering questions all night long, and i would be continueously answering the same question with the same answer: 'no, it tickles.' what started as a cloudy, dreary day suddenly became a beautiful skyline on two walls of the parlor as sun seemed to kiss the low, dark clouds and the newly green treetops with an incredible orange light, before eventually giving way to the horizon and turning those walls into the faces of the crowd behind me. the needle buzzing in one ear @ a time, i was able to watch the reflections of 'oohs,' 'ahhs' and 'ouches' on each viewer's face as they watched me literally becoming my own living art exhibit.
i found myself in my head a while, the buzz+tickle drowning out the questions+comments, leaving me to think about the new images being branded onto my body. their meaning, their purpose, how somehow they make me stronger; carrying with them a strength not my own, like armor passed down from a braver generation.
upon completion, just over 4hours after the first prick, i followed paul (who carried a large mirror) toward the restroom through artomatic with an immense sense of pride, displaying my work on my body; my canvas. it turned heads. the restroom+paul, decked out in his classic victorian drab, centered me between their mirrors so i could rejoice in the inks beauty and nearly shed a tear, before losing my head with excitement and the feeling of being whole again. it really was a great night.
the next 4 shirtless days were followed by 2weeks of sleeping on my stomach to allow the tattoo to heal proper. with a few touch-ups scheduled next week, i couldn't be happier with journey and the product. the images tell the story better than i do.

in memoriam

2008-04-11T13:50:00.002-05:00

pandora's jukebox

2008-03-16T20:50:00.001-05:00

pandora.com. check it out on the sidebar.

ill

2008-02-28T13:56:00.005-06:00

for the first time in years, i'm sick. perhaps i shouldn't be complaining since it's only the flu when it could be so much worse. but my head throbs when i cough, my chest burns when my head hurts, my stomach turns when my chest burns, my body aches when my stomach turns and i've never been so cold in all of my life while living in an apartment that probably doesn't get much above 60degrees farenheit at any time. i realise, only now, that i felt this coming days ago and should've immediately went for my stay healthy regimate of h20, oj, hot tea, and h20, but it's been so long since i've felt sick that i didn't recognise the symptoms. i anxiously await a broken fever.

natural bobaraba

2008-02-18T07:21:00.010-06:00

everyone loves a woman with bobaraba; big bottom in one of cote d'ivoire's local languages, djoula. but now ivorian women are taking it to dangerous heights in response to dj mix+dj eloh's song/video entitled bobaraba that even had some native footballers shaking their ass on the recent cup of nations pitch. some ivorian women are now buying unknown drugs, commonly liquid injections+creams thought (hoped) to be b12, from black markets said to increase the size of their bottom. while b12 is not known to be harmful, it is impossible to know what else these women could be injecting into their bodies. no injections of b12 or silicon or anything else will ever beat the beautiful quality of a natural woman, ass+all. real hair, real face, real breasts, real bottom and a strong will are all we're looking for. so ms. fat booty, please keep it natural and i guarantee you'll be getting stuck with something more than a needle.

britishink

2008-02-13T20:14:00.003-06:00

my tattoo artist, paul roe, was nice enough to provide me with free cover into the baltimore tattoo convention over the weekend. i couldn't pass up such a great opportunity to shoot and w/ camera in hand traveled with a couple people up 295 to the sheraton where the convention was being held.
as expected, hundreds of freaks and geeks crammed into two ballrooms filled with the endless buzzing of dozens needles, the stink of sweat, and some of the best tattoo artists on the east coast - each exhibiting their art in books and in person. bodies (some more beautiful than others) full of art paced the hotel all day and some of the pieces left me wishing i could feel as free with my own skin; but then, why would i want a slain dragon or evil pez dispenser on my forearm?
i'm not judging anyone else, but i believe tattoos to be a mark in time, engraved to remind us of who, what and where we've been. each line a different memory. paul and cynthia, the other half of britishink, understand this concept and have a true passion for their craft; paul even designs his own tattoo machines - which after yesterday's convention i realise is a pretty popular trade, though none more beautiful and intricate as paul's.
paul wasn't selling any of his custom machines but he+cynthia were busy tattooing at the britishink booth in full victorian drab proving to be the most interesting exhibit going. i'm posting a couple pictures as well as a few full back tattoos that i spotted while wandering around.
a master of his craft, you gotta check out the work paul's done on grims' shoulder. it's freehand and looks like it could be finished, but there's another sitting to come. it makes me jealous already and paul worked on me only two weeks ago.
oh, paul also turned us on to this guy @ yourmeatismine.com which inspired some of the sketches @ the bottom of this post.

marking time

2008-02-01T22:37:00.000-06:00

i drifted off in my head as the ink bled from my chest, concentrating on the pain at times, trying to figure out which line was being drawn. other times were spent thinking about this beautiful piece of art that i was becoming, and how somehow this tattoo was completing my chest - as though it had been missing all along.
the tattoo: my design, paul roe's artwork, came from a page in my notebook from a time ago, but something i knew belonged on my body - memories branded for life. it was a time of growth, experience and change, finding me, now, a better version of myself. that kind of thing deserves to be documented. the design is, for reasons i can't even put into text, the most important thing i've ever sketched and i suppose that is why it covers my solar plexus now. it is placed at my center, my core.

feel free to laugh at my hairy-whiteness, but in my defense, i've lived in a basement for the past year while working in one for the last two. the hairiness is just a result of italian genes.

photographer: grims.

move

2008-01-28T23:52:00.001-06:00

ultimately, i see music all over this thing, but this perspective allowed for the greatest interpretation. peace.

to the wall

2008-01-23T08:57:00.000-06:00

i'm finally about to get back to painting the wall. i figured i'd show you where i left off.

in other news, i've begun developing my photography portfolio and hope i'll at least have something on flickr shortly. stay tuned.

the christmas show

2008-01-22T02:15:00.000-06:00

saturday night i was lucky enough to bare witness to a most amazing piece of theatre called the christmas show, ie. hamlet. it was an invitation only, free event gifted from the cast to their friends+family, and gifted to me by my friend+family. the invitation prompted an intimate audience who, while enjoying the complimentary hot chocolate, were asked to physically follow the action as it happened - starting @ a quaint holiday party and ending with a rather bloody new year's eve. we, the guests, moved with the play around the space (the clarkstreet playhouse) from lobby to warehouse to outside and back again; we even crammed into the men's bathroom. we followed, we watched (sometimes in the most voyeuristic sense of the word) and we became a part of the play as the action literally unfolded around us. the beauty in the show was in it's simplicity.... a well placed beam of light from a flashlight or cracked door in an otherwise pitch black scene, or a piece of chalk used to draw us to the next scene. listening in on terrifying conversation from behind closed doors, or being forced a little too close to the guy with the knife by the crowd behind me; the scenes grew organically allowing each audience member to decide their own involvement. some scenes i found myself right up front, others i let the audience become a part of the scene and watched from a distance. it was so beautiful that wish i could come back and photograph the show, though i'm pretty sure i saw the last performance. furthermore, someday in the future i'm gonna produce a piece of theatre like this one. something interactive but not invasive, small and intimate and makes full use of a space in it's natural form. i felt privileged to see the christmas show and loved every minute of it... minus the two audience members who couldn't get their high school giggling under wraps. this post doesn't begin to scratch the surface of the show... thank you to everyone responsible for my seeing it.

pom: pop-up creativity

2008-01-20T17:39:00.000-06:00

while wandering the net one day about a month ago i got bombarded with the typically annoying pop-up ad challenging me to create a 90second television spot for pomtea; a pomegranate-tea blended beverage brought to the refrigerated section of your grocery by the people at pomwonderful. having had the tea before i almost immediately had a concept and took it directly to my talent, braintrust and bestfriend; a sweet trini whose proven brilliance has recently been seen rockin' the dc stage in wsc's production of the house of yes. i presented her with the storyboards below which we later further developed into a stronger, more simplistic idea.

the concept was simple: use stop-motion animation to tell the journey of a glass of pomtea (typically marketed toward women for its antioxidants and low calories) from purchase to resting place in an empty cabinet via sweet trini's hand. she'd be seen pulling the tea from the shelf in the grocery, buying the tea, drinking the tea, and finally putting the empty glass away. the journey would repeat a number of times through the ad, each time showing the cabinet with more saved glasses. once full, the next glass would instead go to the recycling bin and thus drive the tag line 'renew (yourself). reuse (the glass). recycle.'
the wrench came when i began looking for a grocery that would allow me to shoot in their store... none would. most had a screening process that could take a week that i couldn't afford to lose, so with some serious brainstorming the trini and i refined the concept. the grocery was abandoned and the cycle became: open it, drink it, store it in the clean empty cabinet which we realised pretty quick wasn't going to be clean+empty. the cabinet to be filled with pomtea was going to already contain some items because the cabinet's dimensions were larger than expected and i didn't have 500dollars to spend on tea. it also occurred to us that starting empty would beckon the question 'why is there an empty cabinet in this woman's house?' ... and so we staged the cabinet with a gathering of random kitchenesque items, added the tea glasses we already owned and then estimated the amount of pomtea glasses required to fill the remainder. 19.
i ran to the 'ghetto giant' and the 'not so safeway' to purchase enough tea to shoot the ad and upon placing them in the 'frigerator found that the fridge light really brought out the colors of the beverages. that night the brains of a football peong and a dc bassist were poked and prodded for further input over a nice chilled glass of pomtea while i pitched them the storyboards to the right. the bassist, an amazing musician, agreed to provide the music for the ad and the peong made me a believer that the fridge shots should definitely join the cycle (they did).
we sorted through sweet trini's infinitely colorful wardrobe, picked some outfits and spent the next 3days shooting all of the photographs needed for the ad. we shot about 2200, used about 150. on a side note, sweet trini photographs incredibly well regardless of what she might say or think.
the editing process began with me sorting through all of the photos and selecting the best 450 or so. i built the first draft. then a second. then a third before taking it to the bassist to add the score.
i got trini's company at the editing suite for the next 3nights, each taking us well into the wee hours. it was worth it. the ad, later titled she drinks pom tea for youtube's sake, came together; video+audio complimenting each other beautifully. it is colorful and fun and artistic and still seems to successfully push the product.
my frustrations and failures with the piece begin at the end. the original plotline was to fill the cabinet so much that the woman has no other choice but to recycle the glass. but the last four frames fail to read, leaving the concept lacking. maybe the cabinet needed more glasses, maybe the video needed more frames - or specifically cabinet frames. i haven't figured that part out, but i do know that if the recycle concept fails it's only because my other gripe is that the reuse concept doesn't read as i had hoped either. again, more glasses might've helped, but ideally i think i should have listened to advice to fill more of the glasses with greater variety than the existing glass of straws+glass of chopsticks. the now considered good advice was left behind because i wanted to believe that the viewer could see an empty glass and know without being shown that one can put things in it. i see now that had i listened to those smarter voices, the reuse concept would've hit harder and the ad would've been stronger. removing the flower in the glass seen in the storyboard, however, was a good decision, allowing for a tighter, cleaner shot of the cabinet.
somewhere along the way we found ourselves playing around with the pomtea lids at sweet trini's request and were suddenly shooting hundreds more images of pomtea lids (each flavor a different color) moving about a stunning green wood table. creativity spilled onto the table; the peong even got involved, creating the fucking brilliant flower in the middle of the spot. i snapped one photo for each frame which made editing the piece together simple enough and we were lucky enough to raid the bassist's music for another original score. the second ad, titled pom pop-tops, presents a completely different marketing scheme than the first commerical but still carries an artistic appeal which i know everyone involved appreciates.
we find out tomorrow if either ad becomes a top 10finalist. if they do, the voting process begins and i'll be asking everyone to go and vote. if you're interested, here are both ads. enjoy.

i'm on setanta sports

2008-01-02T22:06:00.000-06:00

whether you're a football fan or not, if you haven't already caught jose mourinho @ his new job then you hafta check these video clips out. one football peong has already done the footwork so follow this link to his links and watch jose. he is fantastic. he is amazing. i think maybe he is incredible...

twisted

2007-12-31T15:52:00.001-06:00

i think this one needs looked at from all angles like some of the previous. enjoy.

wireless woes, digital hoes

2007-12-29T10:16:00.000-06:00

it was just a year ago that i was boasting about my new beautiful laptop and all of her sexiness. she came to me fashioned in the traditional 'mto-style' from dell who guaranteed her loyalty and undying devotion. they lied. that bitch has cheated on me plenty, pumping her wires full of disease that she's clearly been downloading while i'm away at work. i tried to protect her with passwords and encryptions but i still come home everyday to find her sitting right where i left her, cracked out and slow from whoring herself out all day. who knows what kinda filth has invaded her hard drive? i can't allow this disservice to go on any longer and so i am dumping her; scratching her memory and rebuilding. she'll hopefully be back in a few short hours with a reminder of where her loyalties lie.

once you go black...

2007-12-08T05:03:00.000-06:00

the theory is that a black-screen-version of google would save 750megawatt-hours per year given the vast popularity of the search engine. the goal is to bring consciousness to the importance of doing everything you can to conserve energy. read more and use it @ http://www.blackle.com/.

two halves

2007-12-05T20:58:00.001-06:00

plants and plants and plants

2007-11-08T15:36:00.000-06:00

... or so said tori. whatcha think?

perceptive perspective

2007-11-05T00:09:00.000-06:00

okay, so i didn't sketch this piece the way you're looking at it now. it wasn't sketched for me anyway. this perspective was agreed to be the most interesting but i encourage you to rotate your laptop and check out some other perspectives. i really like this piece. hope you do too.

back off

2007-11-04T16:23:00.000-06:00

cover up

2007-10-03T02:39:00.000-05:00

the notebook. i had to post it before it fell apart completely.
wanna see inside?

listen now, watch dem later

2007-10-02T16:21:00.000-05:00

3canal - womex update: a new podcast w/ 3canal is available @ caribbean free radio discussing their recent ReThePublic concert in port of spain, trinidad and their upcoming venue; the world music tour (womex) in seville, spain. check out the podcast, then buy a ticket and go see. ticket info is right here.

all scrubbed out

2007-10-01T19:00:00.000-05:00

so it's premiere week(s) on television here in the united states which means all the stations you tune in to scramble all of your favourite shows just to put you through the hassle of rescheduling your typical weeknight around the idiot box in front of you. fuck, go read a book. an example anyway. comedy central seems to believe that we aren't already getting our full dose of nbc's scrubs after making it their 'goto filler' for the last 8months so they thought it a good idea to cram more of the show down our throats by broadcasting another hour right before the one program i actually care about: the daily show. if it weren't for carla always looking so fine i could never bear to watch. thank you ms. judy reyes - i'm available. at the recommendation of sweet trini (always on top of her pop culture game), i recently picked up coupling on bbc america which helped me replace the sitcom i had become bored with (-carla) with a wonderfully witty, well-written show; the show friends wished it could have been, as it was said to me. tonight, bbc changed their nightly schedule as well so that i can no longer watch coupling @10p, not that i can complain too much since bbc america thankfully shows their best programs including torchwood and top gear on comcast's ondemand... and though i've admitted it before, it is still comcastic.

charming innovation

2007-10-01T04:10:00.000-05:00

as it turns out, i'm not the only person who likes the lucky charms cereal more than the lucky charms marshmallow enough to pick around the charms to eat the grain. ultimately the marshmallows get eaten slowly over the duration of the process with the majority of them awaiting me at the bottom of the box.
it occurred to me that the good people at general mills should package their product in a new way: separate bags of cereal and marshmallows packaged in the same box, allowing every lucky charms enthusiast to personalise each bowl of cereal. eat a bowl full of cereal, then a bowl full of marshmallows, then mix the two to your hearts desired proportions.
for general mills the advantages are obvious. eating the two ingredients in different proportions means one could often run out of one ingredient before another, sending the consumer back to the grocery for another box so they can mix some marshmallows with that leftover cereal.
... and i'm sure their marketing department could come up with an advertising campaign for the newly bagged cereal. perhaps something about lucky (the leprechaun) trying to hide his charms from a band of pirates who of course find them and separate the riches from the worthless (in their opinion) dubbing the new cereal lucky charrrms, or maybe lucky booty, though parents may not wanna buy lucky booty for their children.
i sent general mills this comment:

as someone who loves a large variety of your cereals i often find myself enjoying them piece by piece, straight out of the box. this is particularly true with "lucky charms." i so often will eat just the cereal leaving marshmallows behind only devour them later. i’d like to suggest you could market "lucky charms" in a new way. you could keep the product in the current size boxes but package the cereal and the marshmallows in two separate, half-size bags; the idea being that one could eat only the marshmallows, the cereal and/or a mix them in any proportions. imagine, you could have a different bowl of "lucky charms" every time. after discussion with others i realised i wasn't the only "lucky charms" fan with this desire, and it suddenly seemed like a worthy idea. i also fell in love with your "nature's valley" oat and honey cereal. as an avid outdoorsman and health nut, i've always counted on "nature's valley" granola bars for energy. if the options aren't already in the works, i hope to see additional granola versions of the cereal, and would suggest peanut butter (for the kids) and banana-nut.

old school lucky looked so much cooler, don'tcha think?
ps. when general mills decides to use my idea and you find yourself thanking the cereal gods (snap, crackle and pop) for reinventing an old favourite, remember where you heard about lucky charrrms. you're welcome.

come and play

2007-09-16T09:57:00.000-05:00

which sesame street character are you?

You are Big Bird. You are something of an eccentric, and not everyone always gives you credit for your inventiveness and intelligence. You may not always know everything, but people turn to you for your sound, unique logic. Plus, you have a big heart. Really big.

i suppose it's better than being labelled elmo.

3canal @ womex

2007-09-15T07:40:00.001-05:00

i wouldn't be a good friend if i didn't take a second to congratulate 3canal for being one of 36 amazing musical acts selected from a pool of 600+ to perform @ womex 07 (the world music expo) in seville, spain, 24-28 october 2007. if you have the means and aren't already planning wonderful vacations to barbados. go. it will be amazing and i will be insanely jealous. while in spain, you should travel to the province of valencia to visit ciutat de les arts i de les ciencies home of the world's largest open-air aquarium, an opera house, imax, planetarium, garden, and science museum, amongst others - not to mention that it is a marvel of modern architecture. benol in valencia also plays host to tomatina, the world's largest food fight (tomatoes only) which takes place on the last wednesday of august each year - part of a week long celebration including music, dance, parades and food. originating from a friendly food fight that broke out during a carnival parade in 1944, tomatina begins and the hundred metric tons of tomatoes make to the air when a ham is pulled from the top of a large, erect, greased pole (sexy). don't wanna dye your skin marinara red for days? watch from the rooftop.