Photo-Ma-Graphy

Nostalgia for the Present

2012-02-01T22:11:00.003-05:00

(Mysterious Beach Babe, from Aloha, and HI, 2011)

Thanks to the lovely ladies at Laid Bare my snapshots will finally be exhibited for the public to see in real life. The entire exhibition is a collection of snapshots from a wide range of photographers and artists, with some being street photographers and some being conceptual artists that like to take snaps here and there. There's some fantastic work in this show so I suggest if you're in Toronto on February 2nd you should probably come.

The show opens February 2nd, 2012, at Forgetus Collective, 163 Sterling Rd, Unit 29, 7 - 11pm.

Here's the complete list of participating artists:

Alexander Alekseenko, Pauline Beaudemont, Kyle Brohman, Timothy Burkhart, Michael Raymond Clarke, Kira Crugnale, Nathan Cyprys, Erich Deleeuw, Lisa Folkerson, Ben Freedman, Aaron Friend Lettner, Amy George, Hudson Hayden, Eriver Hijano, Abby Hutchison, Vid Ingelevics, Chelsee Ivan, Andrew Jarman, Joachim Johnson, Michael Juneau, Dimitri Karakostas, Santa Katkute, Gavin Keen, Nicole Kim, Brendan George Ko, Sasha Kurmaz, Lindsay Lauckner, Drew Lint, Elena Malkova, Fraser Mccallum , Joshua Macdonald, Andrew McGill, Ania Mokrzycka, Andrew B. Myers, Ryan Nangreaves, Katie Newman, Mark Peckmezian, Andrea Leigh Pelletier, Deanna Pizzitelli, Claudia Puchiele, Marishka Radwanski, Anne Rawn, Van Robinson, Andy Schmidt, Kelsey Stasiak, Kyle Tait, Matthew Tammaro, Michelle Louise Wilson, Kavin Wong, Aaron Wynia, Aabid Youssef and Carina Yu.

learning To Love Yourself (More) pt. 21

2012-01-29T10:58:00.006-05:00

(Ωmega, from We Soon Be Nigh!, 2012)

Replica (on Loop)

In a cave. In a swell. In a dark and secret fold in the earth where one can yell and scream as loud as they wish and give it their all is swallowed whole and taken from them. Where you can lose yourself. Lose a part of you that is dying and in need of renewal. There's fragile things along the cave walls and there for you to grab and throw deeper into the cave. You can hear the sound of porcelain shatter into a million and sprinkle down into powder. You can burn the world a new down there. You can forget all your troubles. You can be swallowed whole yourself and eventually you throw yourself into the mess of darkness and uncertainty, -and be forgotten, destroyed, shattered, and lost yourself.

But unlike your yells and unlike those fragile things you threw into the darkness your body and mind will not produce a sound. It is almost sad that they don't, giving no satisfaction in destruction. But that is exactly it, nothing is being destroyed, just renewed. Your bones crunch and crack, your flesh is tore and ripped, the sound of bones breaking resonate internally and your nerves are burning with pain. You shake and you see white flashes as your face smacks against a solid rock wall, which is just darkness against darkness -an invisible wall. Eventually your body, lifeless in its decent, comes to a rest upon the jagged rocks below. You call for help but only the echo in your mind swirls around and eventually fades to nothing. You are high from the pain your body is feeling, you are lost for the darkness that is absolute and all around. Your flesh is burning and your thoughts are distracted by the pain occurring throughout.

No angels come to rescue you. No guiding light from the world above shine on your hopeless mess. Instead you get up and crawl out of the cave. Each step you crawl hurts like hell and you laugh at how ridiculous this all is. You keep pushing yourself further and further until you no longer hear the drops of cave sweat falling from the ceiling above. The sound of a jungle surrounds you, the softness of soil meets your dirty hands and though it is completely dark and there might be tigers or panthers or other things that can very much kill you you feel relieved, perhaps even safe. You have the strength to walk again and so you walk. Brushing against you is the softness of leaves and branches. You wonder where your body is taking you and realize it doesn't matter, -for you are in a jungle in the middle of the night, surrounded by the calls of nocturnal creatures and the howling wind. Your feet are shoeless, your legs are pantless. You are naked and your gentiles are vulnerable to things that can catch or poke them. You realize you have the strength to run and so you run. And by some sort of miracle you run and you run freely without hitting something hard and something that could stop you. And though your feet laid bare there is no pain in the peddles and twigs. The dry blood on your flesh and the open wounds give you strength, they tell your body that any pain your endure now is a joke, is a half-ass excuse, is only just the tip, to what you have gone through, that you can perhaps survive just about anything because you have survived just about everything. Bullets could come flying at you, they can even hit you, they matter not to you now. That panther can come roaring out of the bush and it could grab you with its teeth and tare you apart, -it matters not to you now. You run, your face is smiling, and you are laughing again.

Isn't it ridiculous, isn't it amazing, aren't the gods crazy, and aren't the cosmos and everything in-between absolutely absurd and amazing and beautiful and fucking grand, great, and puzzling? A grain of sand on a beach. A drop of rain in a hurricane. A brick in New York. A leaf in a forest. A key in all of the music there ever was (past, present, and future). A comma in every written word. An "uh" in every talk. A cancer cell, a particle of light, a single-cell organism, an earthworm, a flake of dust, a woody cell, a pigment, a pixel, a dot, a sample, a clone, a cry, a river, a bend, a wind, a word, a thought, a feeling, a place, a history, a nothing, and everything. All fading, all folding, all going away and coming back, blowing, touching, rolling with the tide, in and out as the moon comes closer as the moon moves farther away, away, away. Until...Until...And then...and Afterall...Is Said. Is Done. Undone. With Vengeance. The Return of. pt. II. pt. III.

The sky above / The clouds rolling by / In patches of gray and grayest blue / A white and rainy dreariness / Rolling by / Just / Rolling by

On repeat. Endless. Endlessly. Rolling by. In time-lapse. In slow-motion. In a still. In a moment. Everything lost and everything found. Slowly coming to an end and then a deep breath in and a final exhale. Ahhhhhh....

Infinity and Beyond

2012-01-22T13:09:00.005-05:00

(Workers Disappear in Stanley Park in the Summer of 11')

The times are a'definitely a'changing. And so Wildly Beau-Billy goes into a drunken fist-throwing rage screaming about the apocalypse and his sister's second child. We were wild and wilder then but the times have changed and who we are today are ugly adults of what we once were: ugly kids.

-When was the last time you cried?

-I'm not sure if I was crying sad tears or just tears of pain but it was definitely in the summer.

-What made you cry?

-I felt like the doctor was cutting my umbilical cord. I came screaming into this world and I swear I remember being born and being content in my mother's womb. As soon as that fucker cuts that connection with you and your mother it's over you're stuck with this world, -there's no going back.

-So what happened this summer?

-What?

-This. Summer. What made your eyes swell up out of pain?

-Oh. I felt something being shivered from me by someone else's hands. It was after the funnest week ever and when it came to the end, that end that just had to happen I was driving home from the airport and came home to a household that was suddenly quiet and abandoned. It was all too obvious that something was definitely missing and it wasn't something I couldn't put my finger on I knew damn-fuckin' well what was missing. The feeling of lost is like being free from a day job for an entire week in the summer and the weather is just perfect, I mean PUR-RR-Fect, and you're having one adventure after another and you are in a state of absolute carefree-ness and then you have to go back to work, it starts to rain and get colder, no one is around anymore to hang out when you finish work, and you realize you're broke and broken and summer is over. So I was in my empty bed and I felt this well inside of me press hard against the cavity of my body it forced my eyes to swell up and cry. Not bitch tears, I wasn't sobbing my whole was just dealing with this intense feeling. It was how I imagined my father crying, some heavy shit just happened and his eyes would more or less bleed tears out.

-And this was the last time you "more or less" cried?

-As far as I can remember, yes.

-Did you feel any better afterwards?

-Probably not, but I feel like I have some dark well of sadness and shit inside of me that would prefer if I cry. In crying you release some steam, you let it all out. I remember when I was much younger I would let it all build up inside of me and then just release it. It was like eating a lot of food for months without taking a poop and you have the urge to go number two but you don't let yourself do it. Weeks go by and you're practically sweating it out and then when you can't take it anymore you still hold it in. Gofers and Turtleheads. And then when you pass that threshold and you are now in the space which is Infinity and Beyond you release it. It comes raining down and by then what is pouring from your eyes aren't sad tears but painful tears. And the feeling felt like a weight being lifted from your shoulders having lived a significant amount of time with it pushing you down. I can't remember the last time I did that and I feel like some damn rock got lounged in the pipe that lets it all out.

-So what chu sayin'?

-I secretly want to cry like a small child. Cry uncontrollably and with no sense of reason or rationality.

-But you can't because of this theoretical rock that is lounged in your theoretical pipe of emotions.

-E x a c t l y.

WWB told stories but most of all he told strange predictions that always turned true. All of a sudden his eyes would roll back at any second and his voice would grow deeper and slower as he told you of his foresight. Hauntingly, his altered voice would narrate a tale of soontocome. It would be sometimes hours, days, weeks, and even years (which were the most troubling since you were waiting for something to happen for a long time,anticipating and it was always when you were relaxed about it when it would strike) before the predictions came into actualization.

-Watch Out!

-What do you mean? Why are your eyes rolled back? Why are you talking that way?

-It will come to you when you least expect it. It will strike you when you are down. It will bring you even further down and you will swear you feel the heat of the hell below. And when you reach that threshold you will continue down and when you finally reach Infinity and Beyond it will disappear. As if waking upon a dream you will return to normal, but this normal is suddenly renewed, you are relieved, gaining another chance, a new lease at life. Everything will taste sweeter and what you have is suddenly rendered precious. We all need to be renewed.

[faints and falls to ground and starts to shake violently]

-WWB. You alright? What just happened? Stop shaking like that! You're scaring us!

-MOTHERRRRRRRR! NO! NO! STOP MOTHER! NOOOOOOOO!

[wakes up and stands up on his feet, looks around, and says:]

-Why do you all have that look on your face?

The bike ride home was haunting. I couldn't shake what was shaken from his words as the street lights passed by I felt as if hovering above my former self. What is going on? My world was now a strange dark place and even the comforts of home were robbed of their safety. My bed felt colder than before and as the cat crawled up to my feet and my eyes felt heavy I escaped. Leaving one world behind and entering another. What a strange feeling lingered on the end of my tongue before becoming tasteless. I was asleep.

EVERYTHING THAT HAS HAPPENED TODAY. HOW I FELT. WHAT I DID. ARE ALL BEING DECONSTRUCTED AND RENDERED INERT BEFORE BEING PLACED BACK WHERE THEY CAME FROM.

(All while I sleep deeply of tropical adventures and a place called Kokomo, that's where I wanted to go.)

A faint light glows in the darkness before becoming brilliance like a thousand suns. Within the glow is a face, it is too bright to see any features but my mind knows it is a face, one of the first abilities we learn as new borns. I try to peer through the brightness willing to go blind to see but still nothing but pain. Something draws me to this vague face, I feel its gaze upon me and yet I struggle to realize it. My voice calls out but it seems does not acknowledge me. It continues to glow too brightly for me to see it. It continues to stare, watching me struggle to look into it. All I want to is see it, it is so bright, it makes me go crazy, I feel the sanity bleeding from my eyes in a warm ooze. I have a fever. And before I overheat from its glow it disappears. Just. Like. That. A flash, a fart in the wind - gone.

This brings us up to speed where we are now. Waiting and occupying our time as if we are doing something greater than waiting but that is exactly what we are doing. The time spent between represents the void that is being filled but the void is still a void and still very much a canyon, a valley, a grand lower plane. And as the rain spits upon the window and as the cars swoosh by on slick surfaces the sky above is painted a gray dull that can't seem to quit nor change for an entire day. Why if moments like dull rainy weather only lasted for half an hour, that they'd come and go like the sunset. Would we romanticized them then, and what would become of the sunset if it were to stay a brilliant red, orange, yellow, and pink for days on in and never change? Like a beautiful moment on repeat, some minimal piece by Philip Glass repeating over and over with moment made exactly the same replaced over and over. Like each great moment of life replaced over and over. And whether you want that moment to last, whether you are trying to hold on to this light, oh so brilliant light, it will be replaced and it will move on just as the sunsets and Philip Glass arpeggios. A dance, a furious cycle, an endless ending, or the final hour of The Return of the King. Where mercy is meaningless and the beginning and ending are forgotten and all you have is the middle. To look at your future before you with squinting eyes for it is far too bright and far too grand. Over time you become desensitized and the light is now easier on the eyes and what you see fits the phrase, "It is what it is". What then? No more Trouble or trouble, no more distraction, no more no more, just this. And what is this, I ponder, what we have, in our hands, before us now, standing, sitting, waiting, but not waiting, and hovering through time above its former self. What do we have, baby, what do you not, and everything in-between and all around. To infinity and beyond.

-We got something now, we really got it.

-What is it?

-I don't know but we got it. That's. All. That. Matters.

[The world grows dark and then bright and dark again and bright and it continues into infinity]

Learning To Love Yourself (More) pt. 20

2012-01-15T23:37:00.004-05:00

(Kevin on the Fire Escape, 2011)

Nothing Is.

If it doesn't matter it won't happen.

Before you is the air of your life and it is in reach of your hands. You can grab it if you wish but something is stopping you. You can't quite move and even your voice doesn't seem to want to speak. You're not frozen but are completely still as if something cut the connection from your brain to your hands and vocal cords. If you search deep within yourself you know what may be the cause of this but you care not too acknowledge it.

Like a shadow it has been following you for almost eternity. Over the years it has been growing stronger as you push it further away from you and your thoughts. Not letting it enter and ruin a good mood as you push on. But it follows you and it knows where you live and it knows who you are seeing. And worst of all, it wants to meet them all, it wants to interrupt a perfect evening party with close friends or that special someone walking naked into an intimate setting and completely ruin the mood. It will if you let it. And that's the whole thing, you have been fighting it forever. You haven't won but you haven't lost and perhaps you will never rid yourself of it. But this is not the end nor do you have much reason to fall to its power.

Your doubts, your fear of rejection, and its permanence in your condition are obstacles but taken on a case-to-case approach you can push on and you can conquer them. You may not win every time but you most certainly won't lose either. The air of your life is in front of you, you are sitting down with your hands on your knees and looking forward. You are thinking of running and you are think of getting up but you're not sure what is ahead. You try hard to focus your eyes well enough to see vague objects and the edge of the horizon but they are just blurs (you must go closer to see them to see for sure). The phrase, "Leap of Fate", in this case is more of a marathon of fate, and fate isn't some divine manuscript but your own will and your own destiny. And though you may feel powerless at times and though it may be too much and that you have too little these are just illusions. Your mind plays tricks on you. Your heart does too.

Your bum feels light after you lift up from your seat. Your fists grab the air before you and swing down towards the earth violently. Your legs begin to pace forward graduating at speed as a crawl turns to a walk turns to a light then medium jog and the jog turns to a galloping run. Something fires off in your mind as if there is something life-threatening scary behind you and you run like you are running from the devil himself. But there is no fear in your heart as you push yourself you're just running crazy. The wind starts to scream by your ears. Your breath becomes hard and your legs light. And soon that horizon starts to take shape. You are having a moment of clarity. Things such as failure, doubt, and regret are non-existent for now. The feeling is good, at an utmost positive and the reality is: Nothing Can Stop You.

Carry on, burn your legs and grab that air. Look all around you, your movement makes this world and makes it possible. Without you there is nothing. Never forget that. Nothing is the opposite of you.

ARTBOMB

2012-01-10T22:18:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow I will be having a piece up for sale in an Auction, ArtBomb. It is done through email but if you wish to participate you can do it directly, here.

ArtBomb is project curated by Andrea Carson, publisher of View on Canadian Art, link, which serves as a need-to-know blog on what's really going on with Canadian Art.

The bidding begins at 6am on January 11th, 2012, and ends at 11pm. Now Is Your Chance. Chance. Chance.

(now dance)

I Don't Want To Live On This Planet Anymore

2012-01-10T02:19:00.003-05:00

Curling up in a ball I imagine myself like Sputnik readying itself for a voyage beyond anything imaginable at the time. I will be shot toward the heavens at extreme velocity and I will meet the point in which nothing man-made has ever surpass and I will surpass it. Passing that point I move on and until I reach infinity. And though my body will fail me before I arrive to the end of the universe I will die knowing my body was on its way there. The words, "On Its Way There" linger in the silence of space as I float on.

In the deep of the night I cannot think and my mind lingers into cycles of endless dialogue. The person on the other end of my mental conversation is always me but who it represents always changes. Tonight and like nights before it is the same person. Cycling over my head what steps I will take next, the words I will speak, what questions to be asked. All of this stirs to the point where it upsets my natural sleep cycle and I listen to ambient music until sleep finally does arrive. Until then I talk and talk and share my thoughts and listen to this person which is myself but is someone completely different share theirs. I turn and turn until my head starts to itch and I feel lonely knowing the moon is too far and too obscure to see. Did you know I wanted to share its sight in fullness and shine with someone else I ask myself. Did you know I wanted to replace myself alone with its site for one in which I share it with someone else? Perhaps not, those words though thought and said were all within my mind.

The wall stays and I rest my bottom on its top and dangle my legs off. I can see the ground and I can see the grass which is greener on the other side. I do not leave my post nor do I retreat behind the wall. Instead I just wait and watch the horizon. What I wait for is probably someone but who I'm never too sure of. In the past it has taken on the form of many and ultimately they had failed just as much as I failed on them. Where I rest now is not a shear drop nor a painful one I just simply can't move from my spot. If one were brave enough one could give me a push or grab my hand and pull be down. I watch the sun set and the night take over. Here, in my mind, I can see the moon. There is no smog nor an ominous cloud to obscure it. I am out in the country and running free. Of course I am just sleeping and what wonderful sleep it be. But the truth remains I am still sitting idle on that wall which rises not much nor too little and I feel too comfortable doing so. The worst part of it is that I can't help it, as if my buttock has turned to brick. All I want to do is tear it down and split and crumble the brick. All I want to do is escape, to disappear, to forget, will a brick come flying at my head and bam, I forget, I really did forget.

The moon sings, "Not Until The Time Is Just-A Right, (Tonight-Tonight), Not Until the Time Is Just-A Right!".

(Tonight-Tonight)

Long Long Long

2012-01-06T23:32:00.004-05:00

(Coconut Palms, 2011)

Long, without looking at a dictionary is extensive, on-going, and sometimes appearing endless. When used for longing, the feeling which comes from a withdrawal of something pleasing and favorable. To miss is to long?

Belong, without looking at a dictionary is to be apart of, to be joined by something else and to be one element that is connected to another and be rightfully placed. When you remove "Be" from belong you have long and when you think of missing something, and missing something you felt you belong with, than that separated notion of "be-long" is now just long missing be.

Being, without looking at a dictionary is to exist as something, as simple as that you simply just are. To be or not to be. That really is the question.

So we have longing, belonging, and being. And in this context I understand this notion of longing, the lack of being and the lack of belonging. But to break down "long" even more it is a adjustive that describes distance and to long is to have distance from something and the idiom is what is associated with long distance is to notice the distance -to know your position to what you are comparing it to. And commonly it is act that comes from noticing something is lacking and missing. This thing whether far away physically or far away emotionally is baring some distance, long distance.

The top of the lower half of the building I live in is far from actually being a ship with a bridge that extends to an island but I cannot help but always think of it this way. Standing between the island and the ship I look up to a midnight sky and search for a moon. I find nothing but small points of bright light. These points aren't stars but man-made from construction sites high in the sky (the heavens) and passing airplanes. Above is a thick foggy cloud that is diluted and more milky than that of a nimbus cloud in consistency. Perhaps the moon is there in its imperfect fullness but this milky cloud doesn't have any concentrated illuminance and shows no sign of hiding anything but darkness and faintly glowing stars. And in this night it feels as if the moon simply does not exist where I am. Elsewhere and especially in places with little or none light population the moon is there, but here where I stand in-between an imaginary island and an imaginary ship it does not exists.

My memory remembers a time with a moon in the same location but it was of a different time that is clearly separated from this current moment. For some reason my memory holds the consistency of a dream in comparison to what is happening before me. And perhaps this moment feels more or less like the dream and the memory is the one that is real. And then I am caught between the two, what is real and what is not between a not ship and a not island and where a moon very much should be isn't but where my memory tells me it is.

I reach a point where I hear a voice telling me what the world is. I trust this voice and yet I know it isn't always right. But it is the most right thing I know and so it is I follow it as my primary understanding of the world around me. Usually I am not aware of its existence but right now in a quagmire I questioning it. And when you question your notion of reality and the constant voice of reason that exists within you the grounds that you stand on are not as solid as you think. And what is solid what is not and value itself from one thing to another and what the thing is and concept that makes a thing that particular thing are all rendered without color, density, mass, or reflection. They are all indiscernible and meaningless.

On longing to extend outwards and to bridge and yet never make it there and left in a quagmire that is neither being or not being and is simply is a state of missing. Where the moon should be is not and where my mind tells me is neither, my thoughts float up and take me with it to heights too high and frightening to look down. All because I can't place a moon in the midnight sky and all because I want to see it and perhaps it was the very thing ground this world to the next. I seem to have misplaced it somewhere. I long for it to return.

Luna

2012-01-04T10:54:00.004-05:00

(In a Trance, 2011)

This wall will fall. And when it does I hope it takes everything with it. The people surrounding it will be engulfed in smoke and will lose touch of security and find themselves naked. The world will seem new and although only just a simply wall fell everything will be completely different. In the time of leaping horses and raining frogs we carry the burdens of yesterday. To which and to why is a question beyond our understanding. The modes of survival have made us and form the very reason why we are standing today. But what I propose is an alternative in which we abandoned any form of safety and where we set ourselves free of any security. Let the wall fall, let our voices return to us as if we were reborn. And perhaps that is exactly what it is, to be reborn for not a chapter to be simply turned but a completely new book to be made before our waking eyes. I grow mad with furious each and everyday I let myself place another brick on the wall. And as I look up the tower I had made around my body I see a faint light of the day. I want fire I want the mightiest of guns to come smashing it all down. I want to cry for a moment as I watch all that I had made in careful measurements and exactness to be rendered into rumble and for rumble to be turned to dust and dust to float and flutter far away.

The oceans turn and the tides come in and roll away what was left behind. The moon hovers above and I am taken to a time when palm leaves cut the silence of the evening with a dance of the coming of wind. The world is not complete darkness but it is very close to it. All the traces of humans are gone as I sit before an ocean swell. The ripples covered darkness tipped with moonlight and everything around me would be fine if I disappeared. I dig my bare feet into the soft moist sand and watch the approaching tide come closer. The air is hot almost sticky and the taste of sea gathers in my mouth. Many memories roll pass me and I remember them all being alone; sharing a moment with the moon; and being under its power. The clouds roll by and pass the full moon. In an instant they are illuminated like ground glass before a bright light and the bridge between reality and dreams is blurred and obscured. That's what it is, the moon, a bridge between one world to another.

On somedays I am surprised to see the moon high above. I can't help but feel like the only one that sees it there in the bright and clear sky. It followed me outside of a dream-like scene and is there to watch over me. Its hovering presence is there to remind me that my reality isn't any more real than the night before. Its glow is absent and yet it still holds some power over me. Confused I sit and reevaluate my memories. If it wasn't for photographs I'd lose touch with what happened in this world and what was a dream. A collection photographs with a white sphere hovering in the sky, clouds in blur, and little of the moon's surface detail gather dusts in a box somewhere in storage. I used to be obsessed with capturing the moon many years ago and I wonder what has changed. Perhaps after many failed attempted I gave up. That I came to realization that there are somethings that I cannot capture with any device but my memory. And rather than scrambling to retain as much detail as I can of a moment I should let it pass by as I enjoy it to its fullest. The grip in my hand eases and eventually lets go and the memory passes by floating, drifting, hovering away. Without a goodbye and without a look back it disappears. All I am left with is a feeling and a sequence of events that slowly dissipates from my recollection.

There are somethings I never want to forget -things that are so beautiful they seem to make the everyday feel unreal. There are moments that capture the soul that hold the power to take the individual away from whatever it is he or she is doing and leave (without a second thought). Like a flute with magical powers we can be lured into a moment just as a the moth flutters to the light. And perhaps it is that we have been waiting for that very moment to arrive and when it happens you could be sure as hell we will not let it pass without us being caught in its storm.

The full moon approaches and I wonder if this moment which is before me now will also be like the memories of all full moons, watching it alone and isolated somewhere on earth and somewhere high above floating amongst the clouds. The stars tinkle and the glow of the moon bridges the gap between one reality to another. And when the sun comes burning through the darkness it will all be over. Or will it.

The wall is still standing but for how long I am uncertain. Perhaps something will appear from the darkness and take the form of a wrecking ball. They will, "OH YEAH" their way through to the other side. And as they make their grand entrance what their face look like, will they be a stranger or friend, will they be happy or sad, or nothing at all. The words, "Take me away to a moony full and await the days to come..." appear on a single brick which has escaped total destruction.

Veine Magazine

2011-12-27T11:00:00.003-05:00

A couple of months ago I did an interview with the France-based fashion magazine, Veine. In the interview I talk about some of my uncle who disappeared, the bridge between the present and the past, why I shoot square, my installation work, what I'd rather be doing, and future projects. I learned through this interview that some of my images might be considered violent and calm, at the same time. The interview is in both French and English, and if you know french I'd suggest reading that over the english (apparently I sound proper in french).

Click for the interview.

Plenty of Fish

2011-12-05T00:21:00.005-05:00

(Galveston, 2004)

Shark eyes.

A battled wind.

A topple down.

To and in.

The deepest of pits.

Whispering.

Down.

(to himself)

A solid wall, a solid ground, a thud on dirt, a slap of flesh, a crack of bone, an ouch! without a sound, just the feeling, God, this is pain. I look around, and give a good-grief to myself. It can only be, yes, only be this place again. This place, like an old familiar, that person you can't quite shake from your past, nor from your present, like a sibling at the distance of a cousin, coming in and out of your life without warning, without you ever liking it. This place is exactly that, I've been here so many times and over so many years I can see my progress from early caveman drawings to life-like renditions by hand. How I get here is completely different every time, this cave has a million entrances, just one exit.

I forgot what I was looking at, some ad that was covering the window, I just looked at it without ever reading it, I don't think I could have read it anyways, my mind was somewhere else. The train kept screeching away on the tracks like it shouldn't have been moving that way in the first place, and that ad, there in front of me, telling me I was far from home, and home wasn't any better. Similar to having the wind knocked out of you, it felt like that to my soul, a soul punch, something interior, a mental broke rib, a black eye, a fall in front of too many strangers, but at least then they offer you help, what do you do when your heart just feels messed up and your face and body looks completely normal, just regular sunny day in Florida, on my face. I was far from anything sunny, sonny.

I remember my father and I used to go fishing, we owned a Bayline, we used to take it up to Navajo Lake, and my mother with my older sister would go diving beneath. Underneath our rocking vessel was a flooded town, my mother and sister would go diving from house to house, shining their hand torches through the murkywaters of a house, through the window into the living room. It was as if they were looking into post-apocalyptic scene, the only thing missing was skeletons, gathering around the kitchen table, still in the same positions just before the world ended. Now fish would swim in and out of their lives, or rather, what used to be their lives, and the settlement would slowly bury their homes into the seafloor. While they were down there they'd spot out where all the fish were hanging out, they'd surface and tell us to move the boat this many feet or yards in that direction, and we'd throw our lines down. Never have I caught that many fish in my life, so many, so much, that I still look to that day when I end up with no fish on my line like I caught all the fish I would ever catch when I was twelve, on that particularly sunny day in Navajo Lake. Every two minutes I'd be pulling my line back up, oh here's another fish. It even got to the point where if I simply pulled my line up fast enough a fish would get hooked by the gills. That many fish.

My father was never anything like the Hollywood stereotypical father, not by any means, but fishing with his son was probably as close as he ever got to it. When I go home, my father can't help but want to go fishing with me, and for some reason I can't help but not want to go, it just wasn't the same. I remember late nights in Galveston, TX, at the pier, fishing. Galveston at night was beautiful, I used to bring my Nikkormat with me, and take a few snapshots, my father taught me how to keep the shutter open by jamming the camera strap between the winder when the shutter is cocked. I never minded the smell of the live bait, sitting around and watching nothing happen, seeing the waves crash into the pillars, the smell of the ocean, the Mexicans smoking in the beds of their truck, telling jokes to each other, in Spanish, and I'd only know it was a joke by the smiles on their faces and the laughter in their mouths. Something in moments like those hold on to me, have become me, even.

I remember the most beautiful moment of my life. My father was there. We were waiting to catch the ferry out of South Padre Island. The sun was setting when we hit the long line, and it looked endless, with no hope of ever moving. My Mother and older sister stayed at the resort, and for some reason the boys just had to leave early, we had business on the other side, and I wanted to keep my father company. Night fell, and we still hadn't moved. Hours went by and we started our slow approach to the dock, someone next to us said they were finally loading the ferry again. Hours dipped by like the slowest dip coffee ever: one dip at time, with eons in-between. The landscape slowly changed, from the gates at the entrance to a winding road through forest lit by charcoal lamps. With engine turning on every half an hour, you'd see the slowest chain reaction of brake lights stretch on ahead until it got to us, it was our turn, and then it would pass through us and carry on to those even more unfortunate souls behind us. Sometimes I think that there are people still waiting in line, that they must have gotten there right when we got on the ferry. I wish I could've met them, I would've sent them letters, photos and stories from the world outside that line, but I didn't, I was too busy listening to The Strokes' This Is It and Beck's Sea Change on my portable CD player at the time.

Eventually we reached that ferry, but I don't remember that moment quite well. What I do remember is that it was three o'clock in the morning, that I had never waited in line that long in my life (and still haven't waited nearly that long even to this day). Once on the ferry, when all the cars were settled, and their headlights were turned off, and we were surrounded by almost complete darkness, looking out to that ocean, under a full moon, with all those stars twinkling above, all I know is it was the most beautiful thing I ever witnessed. If I was a painter I'd paint a canvas black, with small clusters of tiny white dots, a giant yellowish white sphere hanging somewhere in there, with illuminated clouds, and the faint detail of ripples before a surge at the boats edge. I'd look at that painting and see a moment without a continuum, without a twelve hour wait at the ferry dock, without the sand in my hair, without the four hour car ride ahead, with my father yelling at himself every ten minutes to wake himself up. No, all I would see is an imperfectly black canvas, with white dots and white smears, and a memory that can never be captured.

And so, there may be plenty of fish out there, but some, some can be hooked to a line, and put up a fight, only to rip away, taking a piece of your line, your hook, and of course, your bait. You can either head back to the truck and head home and sleep, or you can fix your line, rebait your new hook, and cast away. And though it doesn't seem like much of a process, and though there doesn't seem like that much time in-between, there has been change, something is different about this occasion, or at least you keep telling yourself that, as the hours dip-dip-dip by, something just may come by, and you just may catch it. But you never know. And isn't that beauty of fishing, the uncertainty, in both the not knowing if you are going to catch anything, and what you are going to catch in those murky dark waters below.

Photorama IV

2011-11-29T21:54:00.003-05:00

GET READY TO RAMA!

Gallery TPW's annual group show/fundraiser, PHOTORAMA, is a'coming, and they need your help, love, support, and your eyes. In a collection of absolutely fantastic artists, TPW celebrates its 25th anniversary of Photorama. I'll be showing alongside these fine forks, a beautiful space, new work.

TPW @56 Ossington Ave, Toronto, ON

Collectors Preview Thursday, December 1, 6 – 9 pm
Opening Reception Friday, December 2, 6 – 9 pm

Sale continues Saturday, December 3, Noon – 6 pm
Tuesday, December 6 – December 10, Noon – 6 pm

For more info, click here.

City To City

2011-11-29T20:35:00.007-05:00

(A Younger Version of My Father, Cruising Around in Someone's Boat, Feeling Rich But Feeling Free, 199-)

Did I ever tell you how my folks met? I'm not sure, I probably talk about myself or movies too much, I'm really sorry about that.

Both my parents came from boats, they came to this country (Canada) on two separate boats, coming from two completely different places, and then their paths one day, one fateful day, met. And it wasn't just seeing some beautiful stranger on the street, or in a cafe, smoking and reading Catcher in the Rye or some Vonnegut book, or off the internet (which didn't exists at the time), it was something romantic, something that if there weren't two people in the world that can back it up it would sound like a work of fiction, something old people in their eighties or nineties say how they met. Well, it isn't, ok, this actually happened, and I'm not lying on this one either.

In 1970-something, downtown Toronto, in City Hall, on the iceskating ring the city prepares each and every year, open to the public, my dad was figure skating, graceful like a bumble bee glided over hard slick ice like it was air. It was night, the mood was just right, people sipping on hot chocolates, bundled up, keeping each other warm, it was colder then too, but my dad was out there in his dark red leotard and shiny black skates, Italian made, probably the most expensive thing he owned at the time. He was all but missing a headband, in the same dark red as his leotard, but he had long hair, smiled a lot, loving every minute of it, doing a 360 in the air over the fat kid who fell on his face. Somewhere in all that mess of tourists and clumsy idiots a white swan, also in hi-end Italian made skates, pierces the crowd like shots fired in a riot, my dad, who wasn't my dad at the time caught sight of her, probably in mid air, floating back to earth like freaking angel, and saw her, long red hair, soft white skin, blue in the eyes, grooving along the ice in her own rhythm, in her own world. My dad probably thought that his moves would one day get him a girl, and that one day that girl would be his wife. He probably spent all the money he had on those hi-end Italian made skates, and probably someone, one his few white friends at the time told him, in Canada, that's how you get 'em, by skating. I was never told how my father came to learn and become so well at ice skating, let alone figure skating, I couldn't imagine it being that popular in China during his youth, all I know is he was a natural. A Natural.

My mother, who wasn't my mother at the time, caught glimpse of my father, she was watching his moves, he was moving for her, without ever looking over, confident like a stray bullet, curve after curve with that grinding of ice being shaved by perfectly sharp stainless steel blades here and there, to show off, points for style. Eventually he had gotten my mother so riled up she couldn't take it anymore, she wanted to know this man, this graceful asian man on ice. And so she went up to him, and started to skate beside, and they just moved with each other, in their own grooves, but in the same rhythm. All night long, or at least until City Hall ice ring closed back then.

I could imagine them doing this every night, at the same time, for weeks before actually dating, seeing each other outside, with non-bladed shoes on. They both had to know, without words, that they were meant to be. And they have been with each other ever since.

Now this part of my father not knowing English at the time is true too, at least he didn't know a lot of it. Which is probably why he just skated and communicated in that way. And with his moves, the only one that could understand those wordless words was my mother, who is very understanding. They would eventually date, and a few years later they would marry. How much English my father knew when that happen is still left a mystery, some say he never knew he was getting married, he wondered why this event just for him and his Irish girlfriend was happening outside of their anniversary. A priest spoke to him, telling him to repeat after him, and he tried his hardest to replicate those meaningless sounds as good as he could, and when the priest motioned to apply that ring around my mother's thursday finger he did exactly that, sealing a bond that which he may or may not have known he was sealing. Whether he knew mattered not, for they are still married, after over thirty-four years. And these days, when everyone is surrounded by divorce, dysfunctional families, whether you're in one or were in one, close to one, had friends, or an uncle, that bond is cheaper than some hollywood version of what love is, it appears beautiful, wonderful, amazing, everything at first, and for a while, but the movie ends, ends before things could get bad, and if you think about it, why do so many Hollywood romance movies end with marriage, like there is any reinsurance on that shit, happily ever after, like a skipping stone, or the ending of Inception. Is it all in our minds, no, there are some things that stay together, that are tales of true romance, and it is real, it is possible to love someone forever, but you're going to probably hate them, possibly imagine killing them but never doing it of course, just curious, and you will find love again, in them, and things will be good for a while, and just like your life before marriage, it was up and down, but this time you have someone, which makes it harder, easier, harder, ahh-idontknow-anymore...,better, worst, like a square wheel rolling down the road, the sky is clear, animated birds are singing, the sun is whistling, and everything is good, until that pointy edge of the wheel meets the ground, the weight on both of your shoulders hits you, and some of the load is displaced, your wife is covered in oil, your husband in covered in manure, then the point passes, the threshold is over, and you're back to the planes, and you suddenly appreciate when shit isn't crazy, when you're not yelling at each other, ASK FOR DIRECTIONS, I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING, YOU'RE DRIVING THE WRONG DIRECTION THERE ARE CARS COMING AT US!, YOU FORGOT TO PICK UP THE KIDS, THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE! When you aren't using all caps in your voice, when you're able to stand each other, when the sting is gone, when it is easier. When it is easer, ahhhh (relaxed, deep exhale, ahhh, the opposite of a sigh). Easier.

Learning To Love Yourself (More) pt. 19

2011-11-23T18:55:00.004-05:00

The Future/The Past

Once, twice, three times a charm.

In a moment, in an open gas station, with stained concrete, cars passing by on a highway turnout, and the ding of pressure hoses being ran over an asian man with long hair, in a red vest, slim wore jeans, and handsome face is walking back to his car. The car has been counting down this moment for its entire life, it was right before this asian man as the odometer ticked up the number of miles. It has reached its final mile. Something sparks inside the car, something that still to this day remains a mystery, and some electrical wire meets gasoline and they form an ignition, which in turn forms a fire. This man, wearing his vest, steps inside of the car, it has been on fire, from the inside of the engine compartment for over a minute, and he tries to start the engine but it is already going. Smoke bellows out of the hood, which is soon followed by flame, the man had already clicked into his safety belt, he struggles to free himself, his mind goes into survival mode, and the moment slows down. Small details like the crack in the windshield, the molding around the passenger side window peeling off, the smell of gasoline burning, the piercing bright sun engrossed in smoke, all heighten for this moment, all will be forgotten once this man escapes from the burning car, kneeled over breathing hard.

I don't remember ever being there when all of this happened, but in my mind I remember everything like it happened to me, I remember watching my father run from a burning car, over the years it has changed into a smoking car, an exploding car, but burning car is the most accurate to what really happened that day. The gas station is one off of Route 66 in Gallup, NM in my mind, it is the same one in southern Ontario where my father escaped a fiery death. I imagine him doing a barrel roll upon escaping the car, the car exploding, my dad's hair looking marvelous in the wind, in the slow motion of the scene, and I am there, as a three year old boy, looking at my father the same way I look at Arnold Schwarenegger in some awesome action sequence. And that memory of him was left unchanged somewhere deep down inside of me, where the three year old boy hangs out with all those things that slowly come back to me over the years. Mainly from smoking pot and having my childhood return to me in vivid representations. My father is far from that man of action now, he is old, somewhat grubby, somewhat amazing, and we don't get along, nor did we ever really. My definition of father is someone who was there when I was growing up, taking care of me, but showing love in a very mysterious and ambiguous way, it was there, but there was no face, it was just completely self-less, behind-the-scenes, done perhaps unintentionally.

Every time I see him I feel like a dick, that I'm a horrible son, and where I once thought I was a kind person, a caring person, at least my mother tells me so, and I used to feel like that, I am not. Some people are hard to be around, to be able to take them, for who they are, like opposing forces. There are some people that I absolutely get along with, that I feel totally comfortable around, and I am myself, the self that doesn't come out for 99.9% of people I meet, sadtosay, that there is this lingering feeling like I care so much to keep this alive I'll probably fuck it up by trying to hard to hold on to it. I can't, I can't hold on, it isn't mine to hold on to, that it will fluttering away, the more I try to keep it down the more violent it rips out from my palms, and the farther it goes. Fuck.

There are 6.8 billion people out there, if I'm lucky I'll meet some high number in the tens of thousands in a lifetime, and even then that is a lot, that might just be too much, and I am going to be constantly changed by these people, coming in and leaving my life, always. For. Ever. There are traces of who I am, the essence or whateverthefuck it is, from all the people I ever met or known of, and even the people that the people I meet met that transcends through them into me. Where one great person is replaced by another, and to spite how stubborn I am, how much I just want this one, just this one, don't take this one away from me, waaah-waaah-waaannnn goes the baby, I can't, I just can't. And out of all the things that are shitty in life, that is the shittiest, saying goodbye without a bye, just an abrupt ending. And it isn't over then, no, they eventually get replaced by someone else, and all those feelings, all that they were that remains in you, as far as you can tell, is given a new face, a new body, and you carry on, oblivious to your past. I can say I put my foot down, but I can't, it isn't up to me.

My father survived that fiery car, I wasn't there, nor was I born yet, and if he had died in the car, and exploded with it, I wouldn't be here. And if my grandfather from my mother's side hadn't gotten stuck in that barbwire in Africa during the second World War, and his friend, who toured with him through Europe, who survived with my grandfather, hasn't gone ahead and gotten blown up from a land mine, I wouldn't be here either, neither would my mother.

The Point: Crazy shit has happened for me to get to this point, for whoever you are to come here, and for you to read this, to be alive, for me to be alive, for us to be sharing this moment, and hopefully the next. And we are not giving an answer to why this is significant, nor the meaning of life, but it is the fact that we are both alive, living in our respectable worlds, meeting people, watching the sun set and watching it come back up the next day. We are lucky to be where we are, to ever to have friends, family, to have fallen in love, or come close enough to it. We are lucky to have each damn moment into the next, and over and over, everything. So this is where I tell myself to stop being a bitch about ever, ever complaining for something, for wanting something so bad, and not getting it, I have no right, after all I had been given. Chillout man.

I fall asleep rambling tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow as Daisy's fog light glows through the night, forever, after seeing everything that happens in the Great Gatsby.

Jesus!

2011-11-15T13:49:00.004-05:00

(Mother and Son Reunion, early work image for The Barking Wall, 2010)

I think I only really asked for one miracle ever in my life, it was for my parents to sell their condo and not to have two montages. They had found a beautiful little plantation house for the right money, and couldn't let it get away, they just had to buy it, and so they did, and put their place-at-the-time on the market. It remained on that market for two years, maybe even longer, I just remember it being a long time, and that the word, recession, was in everyone's mouths. I prayed on most nights, even the nights I came home stumbling drunk, I sobered up to have a one-sided conversation with God, asking him, like I did the night before to give my parents a miracle.

Eventually it reached a point where I wasn't sure anymore, things in the regular scheme of life show signs of change within a year or so, it was well over a year, and I kept at it, avoiding being a negatron about the whole thing. My mother would call me, tell me how bad it was, how the broke got broker, and how she and my father were working their asses off, literally. In my prayers I usually say the same thing, asking for my folk's condo to be lifted off of their shoulders, and to take care of those I care the most for (my parents, the rest of my family, my close friends), and ask to say hi to some people I know up there (heaven), how they were doing. When I think back at it, when I was doing all the praying, I wonder now, in retrospect, what I really thought about putting my hands together and thinking, clearing my mind and directing my thoughts to nowhere, somewhere, idontknow. If I pray today I feel the same, there is a bit of uncertainty, but just as much certainty as well, and that whether or not a miracle did happen for my parents when their condo sold, or if there is a God or gods, I will never know (at least, in this life time). The whole thing is a mystery, leaving me alone just as much as I have been all my life. It is the fact I am completely neutral I find no need to change, to believe or not believe, for there is no advantage or disadvantage being in this state. I could never stand church, in Junior High and Middle school when my mother would occasional ask me to go with her, I'd sleep with my head in her lap, it was an Episcopal church, they're not a lot of people in there, everyone was chilled out, the priest was always funny, so no one ever paid me much mind if I was sleeping.

When I moved from the bible belt of the south to Toronto years back I remember going from knowing a lot of religious people to knowing none, it was then I became very neutral. I never really presented myself ever as religious, or even as a God-believing person, then again I'm not really quite sure how one does that, look like Ned Flanders in green cardigans and maintain a perfectly meaty moustache? I once tried to go to church here, it was two seconds from my place at the time, it was this baptist church in the middle of chinatown, they sang gospel. And to spite it being mono-racial, I didn't necessarily feel out of place, or uncomfortable, I felt closer to them than any other church I had been to. I didn't know any of the words they were singing, I lipped once and while, and stood or sat when everyone else was standing or sitting. At the end of ceremony I left the same way I came, without a word, and I never went back. That was the only time I ever went to church on my own will, just to experience it, and when I experienced it, once was good enough, it was fresh enough to keep me around, but I could see nothing more in continuously going.

I often wonder what the future will be like, if I have kids, will I start going to church, simply because that's what my mother did, and simply because we all turned out pretty good, none of us turned into nasty people, crime-committing evil-doers, we care, and at least until we were old enough to decide if there is a god or not, we were never really alone. Alone. Maybe that's it, the thing that holds me to a deity, is that, to spite how separated, how alienated I become, I will never be completely alone, there is a god within me, keeping me together, keeping some sense of hope alive, like coming home and there always being a warm fire, on some days being just amber but still there. I have a strong sense of self, but even that can be destroyed, knocked out by a storm temporarily, and instead of falling into an endless pit of despair I have the illusion of something, something being there, a light of guidance, showing me there is a future. This is all ridiculous, this is all nonsense, but even all of my experience and all of my acknowledgement of future can be rendered useless, I know after heart break, after everything goes to shit that I will recover, things will get better, and that I will mend and recreate, step up, and climb the ladder, I will return, stronger, and that this has happen over and over, time after time, and that this will always continue to happen sodealwithit, I know THIS, but even that can be useless. In a place where I know my feelings are illusions as well, a chemical response to the state I am in, that I am machine, my body feels this way because of this, that, and that it is a mechanical reaction, that something that happened without my control of it, knowing that I have no control of the sequence of events nor my feelings, there is comfort in knowing it is just a reaction, but sometimes the feelings, the chemistry is too strong of a poison, and all my experience and all my knowledge is not good enough to keep me from falling completely apart. What then? I fall to religion, I fall to this god which exists within me, and it is blind-faith, the strongest illusion, that overrides feeling hopeless, lost, and alone. This may or may not for others, and I could care less, what people do, if they choose to believe in something or not, and that in the end, once the shit hits the fan all we got, all I got is myself, and whatever else remains, is an illusion, something, a mist, a cloud, a fog, a transparency, a miracle, a nothing, something that cannot be explained, something left undone, something something, something that is something, not a void, not a lack of, but something. I got that. I got that, at least.

After the universe expands to its limits it will eventually (in theory) contract, and return to a singular point, once everything is undone, everything is compressed into a vacuum, and all is gone, there remains one thing, a singularity, just one point, everything that was anything in one point, and perhaps it isn't a god, or anything that could be given a name or a definition, but just a singular point in the middle of the universe surrounded by a nothing that isn't even nothing it just doesn't exist. It is something I will never see with my own eyes, something that is only a theory, an idea, a thought provoking thought, spoken, written, and given to anyone to believe or not to believe, changing very little about your life, and changing it all like a table being turned violently underside down and thrown against the ground hard, and the ground itself gives in, and everything around it falls into a darkness that swallows everything. Destruction, chaos, peace, harmony, angels singing Aquarius, beams of light piercing the clouds, halos, levitation, walking over water, once-blindness now clarity, miracles happen everyday.

Can you hear that, not the music you're listening to, or the people chattering behind you, not the sound of traffic, not the sound of wind, or objects hitting the floor, nor birds chipping, the cat's meow, the dog's bark, the couple in the apartment above having passionate-sounding sex, none of that, can you hear nothing, can you hear the void of your soul, that static linger, the hum of your body, when you are not thinking, when you are free of distractions, and notice it has always been there, living between the noises of your everyday, your very thoughts, and will continue to be there, it is the space above our heads, below our feet, it is absolutely everything, it is neither god nor human, it is just, just, just, that something, we can give it a name, we can rise buildings in its name, it doesn't make it any stronger, nor does it give it a life in which can be taken away and die, it was here before us, after us, and will always remain. Can you hear this?

WORD-UP

2011-11-14T21:40:00.004-05:00

I'm dying, I'm dying, I'm dying (without you). And other things that will never be said, spoken, let loose in the air with a pound of flutter, and flap-flap-flap flop. So many things. Yes. so many I feel tongue-tied. Release me and I will spin, shake, rattle, and roll so hard I'll scare everything from here to Tucson. And so it begins.

In Carlsbad, a few of us, the brave, ventured off. A legend of a bet was made, to dance and to keep dancing as long as you could, enter the darkness of the desert and to make it to the other side, alive, if there was another side. Was there? At first I felt embarrassed, I was dancing alone, with no music either, like extras in a movie, but at least they had someone, they had purpose to their dance, what was mine? A strange rhythm took my body, entering it with cold fingers, unknown to me, I felt not myself, but I was lost in myself, in my dance, the more I moved, the more it made sense, but it was otter nonsense. The boys who entered at the same time were off to my sidelines, I could hear them shuffling, I wondered how they were dancing, and then thought of them thinking of me dancing, I sudden had an audience, but I already felt eyes burning into my back when I was giving her my back, and eyes burning into my chest and my hips when I was giving her my front. I wasn't trying to be sexy, I was, which isn't normal for me, but in moments like this, I felt I had some sex appeal, or else all was lost (long before being lost in the desert, long before the set of sun).

I felt the ground beneath me rumble, I was digging myself into the ground, foot by foot, I dug myself a grave. I was still moving forward but I was just underground now, not to be seen, to spite I still felt her eyes burning into either my chest or back, occasionally butt, burning my butt. The rumble grew louder, the darkness of night was now complete, and I couldn't tell what was approaching (only the things around me as they glowed in faint amber from the fiery burn my feet were making and feeling). Everything was rumbling up, my words, my feelings, all that I couldn't say them, all that I couldn't do then were moving my legs, bleeding in the sweat of my thighs, steaming up, and producing a mystic scene of my fiery feet. I swear I could hear moaning, and truth-be-told I wasn't sure if it was her or me, but it was somebody, and that was when the ground, the very ground that stretched endlessly in the darkness ended, spending me to a violent plummet off of a merciless cliff. My shirt ripped open, waving like old glory in the winds of freedom, my long wild and curly hair danced in the wind, wiping my cheeks a red. I started to sing, what I sung, I cannot remember, something my heart was feeling the moment it blew up in my chest.

I saw her, her eyes were crying with blood, drops fell into a dish of water she carried in slow motion. A giant made of boulder grew from the desert, and I hit flat like a lifeless piece of shit, and I swear I didn't die just then, no, I didn't even feel anything, just a bit of sand in my mouth, ahh-bah-chew-wee as I spat it out. I got up, and rather than brushing the dust off with my hands I continued to dance. I figured I had about four more levels of desert floor to go, my feet still on fire, I couldn't help but grin, look back to those eyes, piercing, forever watching, and just say back, with my eyes, "When are you going to join me, all I want to do with dance-dance-dance with you." Word-up.

Slug Life

2011-11-08T12:49:00.001-05:00

(Currently Untitled Stalactite, from The Barking Wall, 2011)

Darkness never lost it's evil, it's crawling with demons, all things scary dwelling within, -ness. I made the transition from a child to a tween to a teen to a young adult without darkness ever changing. Growing up my mom thought it would be better to sleep in the same bed as my sisters, and since I had two I often switched between the two, or when one was gone there was always the other. I'm better sure my mom was careful of who was sleeping over at who's that night because my sisters were never both out, both gone, both leaving me alone in bed. When my oldest sister left the house after highschool and my older sister started dating on the regular, often having some boy over, or she would sleep over at his place I'd sleep in my parent's bed, with my parents. My dad snores, and I'm pretty sure my mom does too (sorry, mom), but that was fine, I had someone there beside me, protecting me from the darkness. When I was old enough I'd have the girls I was dating sleep over, it wasn't every night, they'd have to lie to their less-lacked parents about sleeping over a girlfriend's. Those nights, spent with someone outside of my family were different, better, but different, perhaps not the same comfort, something missing, and the part of another person that you never grew up with, that stranger part of them, was in the bed with you. Each girl sleeps differently, some more inviting than others, some fitting alongside your body better. Some would always put your arm to sleep, you'd take it, wake up in the middle of the night without an arm, and some just fit perfectly. I remember having "snuggle buddies", those few that were always down to sleep over, without sex, without any chit-chat, just sleep, holding each other, all night long. I often wondered if they too had spent their lifetime sleeping around, finding a bed that isn't so alone, hidden in the darkness.

I can count the times I slept alone in bed, not enough for someone my age, and over the years I've learned to accept that I slept in the same bed as my parents until my highschool graduation when I moved out. Those first few months, looking for friends, and people OK with just sleeping in the same bed as you were hard, the darkness seemed to grow more menacing. I've become good at asking, and convincing, people to sleep over, sleep in the same bed, it was either that or the darkness, something I still can't get over, something that still remains this meaningless demon haunting me in same effect as the day I was born. Now as an adult, I look at the darkness the same as I look at sadness that has always been there, I can analyze it, demythtify it, breaking down my emotional response to a chemical reaction, seeing the full scheme of cause and effect, and once I understand why I am sad, what darkness is, and the fear it produces, it starts to have a face, I start to know it better. My imagination ceases to be, it is no longer wild, but explained by reason, in a logical state of mind, I breathe easy, take each step one at a time, and enter the void, the cavity of darkness, the part of me never complete, something left undone my entire life.

Slugs. Yeah, slippery, holding on to each other, becoming one, fitting within, like pieces of a puzzle. I think we're both puzzling pieces, but when we're together it all somehow makes sense. The darkness falls, it is late Autumn, it get dark sooner these days, the sun is far from it's happy place it has in the summer, and it now burns the sky, is absent, and is mysterious. I can smell something that enters my nose, fills my lungs, and enters my bloodstream, it is intoxicating, it smells beautiful, something that lasts all night long. My fingers creep, I hold to what is faintly before me, in the faintest of light, I watch endless, eyes closed, sleeping away, beauty, beauty, a moment captured only in that state borders on dreams, I am barely here, I am drifting away.

Art from the Heart 11/12/11

2011-11-08T10:32:00.003-05:00

This Saturday, November 12, 2011, from 7-10pm (at 25CPW 25 Central Park West), NYC, I'll have a little piece in a group show. This will be the first time I'm showing in New York City, and I'll even be there. Special thanks to The Vanderbilt Republic for putting this night o'art together and for thinking I cut the mustard just right for them. More info on the show and the organization, click here. And a special thanks to Nathan "Shnasty" Cyprys for referring me to this submission.

Flash Forward

2011-11-08T10:24:00.002-05:00

This Wednesday is the Flash Forward book launch and exhibition, at the Airship 37 (37 Parliament St., Studio 2), 7 - 10pm (with the show continuing in that space till the 16th of November). Flash Forward is a collection of emerging artists from Canada, US, and UK, organized by The Magenta Foundation, and it was a tough cookie to get into if I might say. This year I will be in it, and will have work in the traveling exhibition, which starts this Wednesday, and will continue to Boston in the spring.

Shift, Shifting, Conventions

2011-11-08T10:18:00.002-05:00

Tonight is the Shift 5 book launch tonight at the OCADU Student Gallery, from 7-9. Big thanks to Antonio Lennert and Symon Oliver for their work, and for having me on board. For more info on the book, click here.

Honey Dripper

2011-11-01T15:49:00.011-04:00

(Stealth Site No.1, 2011)

We lost him. Never been sure enough about anything. I sat there watching the road move in reserve, the yellow dotted stripes slowly passing like star trails during warp speed. The rain came rolling down the window, my eyes were dry but I felt like I was crying, watching the darkness of the world creep into my very soul. Every now and then headlights would shine through the darkness, coming close to hitting us, and veer just in time, just in the nick of time, and pass by. Darkness returns until the next car, or truck. Jesus Christ, what is wrong with this bus driver.

Jimmy Page was a chocolate lab, I took him everywhere I went, not that I did a whole lot of traveling, he was just always there, with me, waiting for me to return from work, waiting for me to finish my shower before finding his favorite spot to sleep, at the end of bed. I never married, not that it is too late for that, nor did I have children, which was too late for that. And I was fine with all that, as I walked Jimmy Page through the park, throwing him a tennis ball with my catch/toss stick. Sometimes I'd imagine myself deaf, blind, and mute, and when I really let myself go into that idea I imagined Jimmy Page being able to guide me through my world, he would save me from a burning building, a vandal on the street biting him in the boys. Perhaps I would never know my life was being saved, the world would be lined with fur and sharp things, all darkness, just that fur keeping me there, safe, never alone. I started to cry, thinking of what that dog would have to go through if I had lost all those senses, walking aimlessly, and depending completely on him. He would carry the weight of two on his shoulders.

The snow hasn't fallen, it is actually quite warm for November, the sun is out, and on a day everyone was expecting rain it is quite lovely weather. I can't help but feel miserable, like a part of me has been removed, and perhaps that is more true than anything. Something is missing.

There is a moment just after I wake up that I feel free of this feeling, like it was a bad dream and I escaped. There is no mercy from my feelings, my dog, my Jimmy Page died. I feel caged in a small box just large enough to fit my bent over body, the walls are cold and the tips of my fingers stick to its surface. Everyday this box oscillates from bigger to smaller, on the days it is smaller I can't help but feel absolutely lost. On the days it is bigger I can appear to be happy, content with life, which is far from the truth, what if I went blind, lose my hearing, and worst, I can't talk, what then, who will be there for me. Not Jimmy Page, as much as his spirit was with me, he was very much not here anymore.

One day, wearing my shirt that has Jimmy Page's portrait on it with the numbers, 1999 - 2011, a coworker of mine asked me if I believed in reincarnation. I never gave it any thought, thinking it was some Buddhist stuff about watching where you step, not to eat animals, and to believe life never ends -it just takes on another form. She told me that she once had a rabbit when she was a girl, and that one day it stopped moving. She had carried it around for hours before her parents realized that her rabbit was dead. She was seven when this happened and instead of her parents telling her that her rabbit, Fluffles, had gone to rabbit heaven, they told her that it went on to become another animal. Sofia, my coworker telling me this story, tells me she didn't believe her parent's words, that she was too sad at the loss of her dear Fluffles that she didn't want to imagine him anywhere but here in her arms. It wasn't until she went on a camping trip with her parents when she came across a frog by a small pond. The frog stood there, watching young Sofia slowly approach him, and when her small little fingers came climbing over his head he didn't move, he let her take him into her hands. Sofia looked long and hard into the frog's eyes, she saw something in them. After about a minute of this staring contest she let him down, the frog stood there for a moment before jumping away into the bush somewhere. Sofia, the one which has turned into adult, tells me she believes Fluffles, her rabbit, found new life in the form of that frog. And that she was happy, knowing that he was free now, beyond any kind of Heaven, he was to roam the earth in all walks of life. Something in her words struck me, gave me peace, and that night I found sleep that wasn't followed by tears. I prayed to Buddha, I asked him where my Jimmy Page was, what was he now, if I could see him again, to have a moment like Sofia's, to say goodbye, I really needed to say goodbye.

Every minute of free time I had I spent on looking for Jimmy Page. In those days I was neither happy nor sad, but anything was better then how I was feeling prior to Sofia's words. I read everything on the subject of Reincarnation, with a focus on pets being reincarnated. I came across personal accounts of owners finding their pets in new forms, they all talked like they had been abducted by aliens, no one believed them, only the ones who knew their pain and didn't give up on their pets even after they passed away in whatever form they were would understand these stories, these pet owners. I wondered what Jimmy Page was before he was a dog I owned, I imagined him as a wolf, where he was free in an endless desert, I imagined him as an owl flying high above looking over the forest late at night. I imagined him as a human, a small boy, with parents, did they know he would be a dog some day? I wanted to meet these people, I wanted to live in the forest he was an owl in, the desert he was a wolf in, I wanted to be reincarnated as well, I wanted to be whatever he was, I wanted to be happy with him again.

Every weekday I worked, I can't remember the last time I took off, my days all blend into each other. Eventually all the material I could gather stopped bringing anything new to me, and that was when I decided to leave, to take my search out from the books and into the world. I started by spending my Sundays feeding the pigeons and squirrels in the park. I took the bus to Montauk, to Mashomack, to Rocky Point, no sign, no frog, no cat, no such thing sitting there, waiting, looking at me, not running away as I approach it, no staring contest, no soul that matched my Jimmy Page. I was sad again. I wanted to roll up and die, as pathetic as that was, an middle-aged woman wanted to just die-die-die. For the first time in my life I had no purpose. Sofia, save me, tell me something new, something that would give my spirits some energy, I was down, I needed something to keep me going, I couldn't do it alone, I need some guidance.

...

And something did happen. I swear to God, I swear to Buddha, something very much happened. In all my doubts, after letting go of everything, everything being everything but my will to find Jimmy Page again is when it happened. It was a day like any other, I was looking down to my feet, I felt strange, not having any hope, little will to live, and just kept on going on in whatever this life I had when I stepped on a dog. Rather than it barking out in pain, or even moving, it just continued to lay there. This was in the middle of the city, coming from work. I stepped on its tail, not all the way, I realized halfway into it and pulled back. He looked up at me, it was a white lab, he had a smile on his face, he looked to be still a pup, no more than seven months old. It had been seven months since Jimmy Page had passed away. Things were making sense. I kneel down and pet him on the head, he gets excited. I scratch his neck, focusing my efforts behind his collar, he loves it. At first I was afraid to look him in the eyes, I didn't want to look into them only to realize he wasn't Jimmy in there, golden boy, a miracle, but miracles happen everyday, I needed to know, I needed to be strong and so I took a leap of faith. Into his eyes, they were the same eyes as Jimmy Page's, and in a vortex of black we made a connection. I thought of Sofia's story, and something was complete now, I was no longer a bystander to it, I was experiencing exactly what she had, I was staring at a life which was thought to have ended but had transformed, finding its way into another vessel, and what a beautiful vessel it was. Soft to my hands, I heard a voice calling out.

"Roberta. Roberta Plant."

Roberta looked over to her, then back to me, he was a she. I can't tell you what I thought about him changing sexes and how that would feel, and how I never thought about sex change during reincarnation ever. Her master came up to the two of us, she looked over and apologized. I didn't know what she was apologizing about, I was the one who had stepped on her dog's tail, and started petting it. I asked Roberta's master how old she was, the dog that is, and I was right, she was seven months old. I told her how beautiful her dog was. She thanked me. I told her I had a chocolate lab just like it, and when she asked how old it was I started to cry. I wasn't sad, nor happy, but in something bittersweet, I had found Jimmy Page, after all was almost lost, I found him, her. Her master, Patricia, asked if I was ok, and when I didn't respond she came over and padded my back then started making small circles. Her face said, I'm really confused but something inside of me feels pity for you, you look like you've gone through a lot, a lot of what, I don't know. I stopped crying, and showed signs that I was returning back to my normal self, Patricia had been with me the whole time, and it was getting dark. Patricia excused herself, said it was really nice meeting me, we didn't exchange names so we introduced each other while shaking hands.

-Laurie.

-Patricia.

-Nice to meet you.

-We honestly must be on our way. I hope you feel better, I am sorry about your dog.

-Jimmy, Jimmy Page.

-Yes, Jimmy Page...(linger)

As they were walking away my thoughts were all over the place. By the time I cleared them up enough to talk they were far away, faint representations in the setting sun. I ran after them like a crazy lady, and when they stopped I came up to them in a pant.

-Could I. Could I see Roberta again someday. Your dog reminds me of my dog so much, and like no other dog, it is the only thing that makes my heart stop hurting so much?

Patricia's choices were to run away, say yes and give me a business card with a false number on it, no, or yes, and actually yes, I will let you see my dog every once in a while you crazy lady.

She said yes.

Now every Sunday, instead of going alone to the park I see Jimmy, I see Roberta, I see him, I see her, growing up again, growing old again. I know I must sound crazy, I know I must be ridiculous, but there are things in life that are as simple as a dog's love, as easy as petting its fur, as loving as you know you two were meant to be, in this life and the next. Some things are strange, some things are stranger, where one life ends another begins, and this keeps on going on, over and over, until my mind starts to swirl, and I fall asleep, but this time without the tears. I know how to smile again. The bus continues to move backwards, I forgot where we are going, Patricia lost Roberta, and we're going to find her, and somehow I feel like it won't be hard at all. Not this time...(again with the linger)

"A Shitty Way To Go"

2011-10-26T01:27:00.003-04:00

(Me, Alone in the Tub, As My Whole Family Watches, 198-something)

I can't remember a lot of my childhood, and things before twelve seem vague and far away. Only bits and pieces come to me, like a desert with only a few trees large enough to make a mark on the land when viewing from bird's eye. Usually photographs this old allude me, seeing a smaller and younger version of myself, somewhere I don't remember with smaller and younger versions of my siblings, and younger and dated versions of my folks. Not with this photograph, at first I was really confused when I saw the reflection in the mirror, my entire family, my sisters laughing their heads off. My father is wearing some funky shorts with that nineteen-eighty's splashed paint effect, a flash illuminating from his head like the poster for John Carpenter's The Thing. My mother who is the family documentarian is off on the sidelines, coaching my father in composition, she was able to convey him well enough the photograph is perfectly composed. The question of why I was abandoned, why is there this separation between me and my family, why am I alone, left there, in cooling water, being laughed at. The adult in me sees something that hasn't changed; I always felt that way, alone, in cooling waters, naked and alone, with an expression on my face between confused and contemplative, a face I still make that confuses people as they remark, "What's with that strange look you gave me just now." Perhaps that is the reason why I remember it so well, that it was the moment I realized I will never escape this, this loneliness, I am bosum-buddied with it in a three-way with fate. My whole family lies ahead of me, but they aren't there, in the same room as me, no they are in a parallel world, separate from where I am. I am in Phaedrus' glass sarcophagus, seeing my family from behind glass, being able to see their faces, as they look on to me, I try to talk to them, to tell them how I feel but they can't hear me, the glass separates our realities, they can only look at me, see in my face that I am frightened, not ready for this life, that I am too young, too inexperienced for my heart to break, to be mended, broken, and to be alone. All goes dark, I am sitting alone, the water has cooled so much that it makes me shiver, the water feels like blood, but not mine, it is someone else's blood, I start feeling faint, the air is thick and sticky like a swamp. Soooo cold. Soooo alone. (as white mist appears from my breath)

Now I remember what was going on in that photograph, I remember I once pooped in the jacuzzi (my father had turned our standard tub into a jacuzzi with jets), and that my poop just orbited my entire family, around and around pushed along by the jets. I remembered how we all took baths together, and I was allowed two toys to play with. At some point my family jumped out of the tub without me, they all looked at me and laughed, I was so cute, I just pooped the tub and I was cute, who couldn't love that.

Welcome To Earth

2011-10-25T16:03:00.004-04:00

(My Father as a Monument by the Sea, and Fan-Submitted Image of Me Photographing My Father, 2011)

Something comes along. It pulls at the roots until what was once foundation is ripped, teared, and shivered (forever). Of course there will be blood, the roots were veins and the veins carried blood throughout the body. Everything is a mess, this something just came out from nowhere, batoutofhell-like, and when it left it left a grand ruin. Of course we're all standing around, handsinpockets-like, wondering how to clean it all up, to restart, and to find normal again. The way of wicked passes, one must fall, and peace will return.

There was a great meteor shower the day you were born, did you know that? Those who weren't sitting in the waiting room went outside, it was dark, Uncle Bobby took his telescope out of trunk of his car, and we all sat around looking at the stars, the ones that were shooting. One by one they all fell, and soon enough they came showering, by the word, by gully, it was something to see! Everyone was silent, everything was still, we all stood where we stood, adam apples poking out as our necks bent our heads all the way back. Wow was the general feeling, dumbfounded and whoa whoa wow. I couldn't remember ever seeing something that spectacular. The closest I ever got to seeing that shower was the time my mother took me to this bat cave somewhere in Northeastern New Mexico. We arrived at the scene just before dark, there were about twenty others, wearing flannel and fleece, warm looking couples, gray in their hair, lawn chairs spread, all was quiet then too. The pine trees in that region weren't tall, but old, and strong, they produced seeds the native kids would harvest every year. Through the pines, the chatter of a million bats sung, it was a dark-dark blue when they first appeared, like an evil cloud, a school of fish in pattern, as they pierced the early evening sky. All around, swallowed whole, they came one by one then by the thousands, their number uncountable but someone was counting. The meteor shower was just that, but with small balls of light falling, burning up, disappearing, no sound, just the faint breath behind our tongues.

Auntie Barb came out to tell us you were born. Bobby broke down his telescope as we headed towards the light of the hospital. Something magical filled our hearts, it seemed like a perfect moment, a baby girl being born during a meteor shower, memories long-forgotten coming back, everything felt warm, and it was, it was July in the Sonoran desert, we were all in shorts and t-shirts, smiles and something sweet, nothing for words, just something that came along.

Eyes still closed, the florescent glow sagging to yellowish green, Ruth holding you, sweat drying on her face, us all standing around like you were a campfire. Inside a fire burned, it kept us all warm, a warmth against the coldness, -a coldness that one can carry even on the hottest and sunniest of days. At the sight of you, all slimy, confused, gentle, soft, lovely, it was absent, the cold, replaced by something else, something warm, something forgiving, something that seemed to give us hope. It was in everyone's eyes, I speak for them all, on behalf of a mutual feeling, and when the lights went out in the hospital there was a brief moment of silence, in the dark, and I swear I could hear the hissing of space rocks burning up in the atmosphere above.

The lights came back on only a few seconds later, the darkness was soon forgotten and we were welcomed by your newborn face again, never losing that warmth.

Tearing through the planes, all turns to crumble, crumble turns into bramble, apple crumble, and oh-my-my-apple pie. All delight, fallen, broken up, eaten alive, the yum going around like the sound of thunder in our stomaches. I'm hungry. I really am.

The End.

New Odor

2011-10-23T22:41:00.002-04:00

Chih-Han from New Odor, a lovely blog on contemporary photography, did a little interview involving my work, my dreams, and my likes. Learn about the weird dreams I've been having (if you haven't gotten enough from what's written on this blog), and the books I've been reading. I read. Books. Click here for the interview.

Stargazer

2011-10-21T11:31:00.004-04:00

(Beach Baby, 2011)

I call to you, Stargazer. The sky opens, what was once day in blue and white is now black, the air is being sucked out and lost in the cosmos and the little dots of white that float aimlessly in the darkness are burning balls of nuclear fusion. I sit back in my lawn chair smoking a pipe I found in a box of my grandfather's things and just say to myself, yes yes yes... I put my Ray Bans on, I smile, and take puffs of mary until I am completely numb.

A comedian once said that out of any other death, no matter how unique and bizarre it was, dying of the apocalypse would outshine any death. You'd arrive in the afterlife, a celebrity, "Hey, that's John, he died from the Apocalypse", the man eaten by a shark would say.

I often wonder what I'd do if I were to face something so brilliant so fearful it made no sense and yet it made all the sense in the world. I wonder what the end of the world would look like, then I wonder how I would feel about all of it. Inside me I'd want to capture that moment, remember it forever, it was one of those photographic moments that speak for the crazy world we live in, it would have to be captured and shared as a mark of history. But there would be no history afterwards, everything will be gone. I really hope the animals and plants can go on, just take us, humans, in whatever blast of furious energy that sends us all to our deaths. But let this planet keep going, let us go the way of the Dinosaur, may our bones serve us as vague reminders of our existence, may it take generations after generations to put the pieces together. May there be movies about whatever intelligent beings that come after us interest us, such as Twenty-First Century Park, The Humans (a spin-off of the 90s Television show, The Dinosaurs), The Land Before Time-Time, and then go as far as to name basketball teams after us. The list goes on, we will be remembered but remembered for all the wrong reasons. All our mistakes will be buried. All of our greatest achievements gone. Beethoven, Space Exploration, The Encyclopedia, Wikipedia, The Internet, The Computer, Classical Rock, Dancing, Michael Jackson, all forgotten. Somewhere in the future they will discover an iron-clad instruction of how to do the Thriller dance, all is not lost.

The moment it actually does happen, that flash of light, like lightning, silence as the sky starts to burn, then moments later the sound of explosions, and everything going to shit. Everyone's head is looking up at the sky, some are crying, some are lost in thought, some running with their children (running where, we're all fucked). I'd use those last moments to think about the life I lived, what it all means now that it has a definitive ending, perhaps then it will all make sense, perhaps then we can all truly appreciate what limited time we had on this little big now fiery rock.

When I think about my childhood I think how amazing I was at Legos, not to brag but I was honestly the best out of anyone I knew. While I was watching my friends put their yellow bricks mindlessly in their already blue and red wall I made functional vehicles in uniformed color schemes, in perfect symmetry, and they wouldn't fall apart. I would take a kit box, build the model from the image, and then deconstruct it and improve upon a previous idea. I thrived for perfect in my construction, there was an idea in my head that must be achieved or else it was nothing, it fell short, it was nothing until it reached that high. My very nature was defined in Legos, I thrived to achieve what my mind saw. Over the next couple of decades I'd come to learn the meaning of this practice, why it was so important to convey something inside of me in an external medium, which has been many of things, and now that the world is coming to an end, at least for my species, I could contemplate if it ever reached what I had in mind. I wonder if anyone has ever successfully conveyed that, that sort of reversed transfusion. And then, did it ever really matter, once it is a medium it loses something, it is given form, it is given a body, it is its own, it is no longer yours, just like a child is not it's mothers, but it's own. It becomes an episode of How We Say Goodbye as we watched our creations become their own, you as the proud parent, the medium as the offspring going off into the world, it learns to crawl, then fall, then walk, and then run, it survives on its own, becomes greater, becomes worse, it learns heartbreak, it learns love, it goes on to impregnate others, and as a result parts of it get broken down and reassembled with parts of another, and form something new. The idea is born, and then it is born (again) in new form, and the jolly Elton John sings on something from the Lion King Soundtrack. It all goes on, the idea, influence, and the creation.

In the end, the real end, when all that matters matters not, we are given a new purpose and that purpose to give our bodies up, to fall, to be blown away, and to turn to dust, our bodies become something else, our spirits, I'm not entirely sure what happens to them, but the idea of us floats on, lingering underneath the ashes of what once was. When the Earth is bald, stripped of humanity, and the landscape returns to nature again, time has happened, something has happened, it made take years before this brief and crazy history of us is recovered, in bits and pieces, sometimes more wrong than true, we continue to live on, like the dinosaur that lives within us, we will live on in animals, as they learn to trust the world again, not fearing a hunter's bullet, a fisherman's hook, Rambo's knife.

Up in the stars they watch on, as one episode ends another begins, or they grow bored and surf the channels of the Universe for something more interesting. AND SO IT WAS, IT WAS, IT WAS, IT WAS, WAS, WAS, NO LONGER, BUT NEVER SAY NEVER, JUST STOPS, FOR HOW LONG, I'M NOT TOO SURE, BUT IT STOPS, AND IT BECOMES SOMETHING THAT WAS, IT WAS, IT WAS.

Hot Shot

2011-10-19T17:13:00.004-04:00

Qian Ma wrote some really insightful words about my word for a submission I did for Hot Shots, a photo-based competition for a shot at a group show at Jen Bekman's gallery, with the potential of cash prize and future exhibitions in her space. You can read the article here. As for the words themselves, they reach deeper than my smallish artist statement, and make me happy to hear that visually my thoughts are being understood for exactly what I intended them to speak for.

Let's Give Them Something (to talk about)(ver.1)

2011-10-19T11:44:00.009-04:00

(Untitled, from We Soon Be Nigh!, 2011)

Sitting across from a complete stranger I stare into his diverted eyes, he's reading something. He looks up and sees me, I am an attractive young woman, I have very beautiful eyes, and he smiles, I don't smile back, and my eyes continue to stare, looking for something. Eventually I divert my eyes, off to the scene behind him. He didn't have it. Have it. The room grows cold, people leave and people come and the hours pass unannounced. It is going to rain today, the air is cold, stiff, and almost completely dead. It is a feeling that stirs in my head, that I need to get out of here, but I don't leave, I go nowhere, for there is nowhere to go, I am neither here nor there. The room itself fades away and I am left alone. All is quiet, the book in my hands fades into a new reality, I make my escape and I am gone, so gone that I am dust, dust that is so fine that if it wasn't for the occasional sparkle in the dark it would seem not to exist. Just. Like. Meeeee.

(fade out)

When I return to my body it is no longer mine. I walk, my feet which aren't mine touch the ground differently, the bareness of flesh against the hardwood has a different slickness to it, I could be pushed and I would fall. In the mirror I see a face, my mind tells me it is mine, but I know it isn't, something else tells me so, something hidden and ambiguous, it is my heart. I point and probe my face for minutes, trying to return it to normal, normal whatever that is. Normal never happens. I put on clothes that aren't mine but are, I play a role that isn't mine, and I leave the apartment I woke up in. Down the street it is spring, it is in the flowers, it is in everyone's hair, a small white dog comes up to my leg, it seems to know the leg I move to walk more than me. My feet seem to walk for themselves, where I am going I don't know, I move with the flow, hiding amongst strangers.

"How's it going?" says a young woman, her eyes shaded by sunglasses.

"Oh, you know, pretty good."

"Come here."

"Where?"

"Here." The young woman points to her chest, she starts unbuttoning her brightly colored blouse, then when she peels that off she starts to undo her bra. Her breast sit there in front of me, I look at her face then back to her nipples, feeling like if I look long enough some form of answer will appear in their shape. Her hand grabs mine, they are cold and dry, and she places it over her left breast, it is not cold and dry. I try to say something but she shushes me before I could complete a word. She closes her eyes, opens her mouth slightly, taking a breath in, I follow suit, closing my eyes, taking a breath through my mouth, and focus on my hand within her hand lying on her soft left breast. In the veins of my hands I feel a pulse, at first it feels violent like an erupting volcano, it kicks my hand, it turns into a sort of pain only a heart can produce, I am being kicked, my eyes still closed, I am falling deeper and deeper into a darkness. The pulse continues, the connection between my body and mind grow in distance, I no longer feel my palm, the pulse is all that is.

A voice in my mind starts to speak, it is not my voice for I still have my own voice as I think, as I realized this voice is not mine.

Do you feel me. Are you apart of me. Are we one. Are you there. Are you afraid. Come with me. Follow me. Don't look back. Just come. Bummm-puh Bummmmm-puh,..Bummmmpuh-baaaaah-bump. Follow me.

My body no longer feels surrounded by my person, I am freed of it, I float, without levitating, I roam without leaving, I am one but now two, I carry the voice inside of me, the darkness echoes the pulse, and I am two, three, four, diversion, cells multiplying, becoming two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two, etcetera, etcetera.

And soon even the pulse of the heart disappears like the constant of chatter that fades to deep thought. The feeling of my hand that isn't my hand is gone, and I reach a new level of loneliness.

The woman that was before me, the nude one, falls to the ground, I look down at her, her face is in stock, I don't know how to feel, I feel an impulse to feel sad for her, but there is no sadness to feel, just a voice that tells me I should, but I am not. I reach my hand down only to fall myself. There is something in the air, something on the ground, something that is making everything fall apart. I lie next to her for what feels like eternity, I look at her the same way I looked at the man yesterday, when I was more myself, and in her eyes I search. Is she, I wait for a feeling, a gut feeling telling me yes, without a doubt, she is a clone. I look at her, something tells me something but I can barely hear it, my heart is being pushed down my throat by my thoughts. Like Galileo, I have discovered something profound and yet far away.

I cannot feel like you human, your flesh is not right to my soul, my body is too large too clumsy, your feelings are not mine, your life is not mine, you may fall, you may cry and I may cry back, only because I am confused, I don't know what you want me to do, I feel void when I am here, I feel lost in thought, not as much as heart. It is gone...

The voice within me called me out, put me in my place, my face which was never my face looked like mine. I looked at my body, it wasn't mine a minute ago but now it is mine. And as the rolling stone raced down the hill, the mountain, the peak, the erupting volcano, I realized this life is mine, very much mine, the only one of mine, and the only one I'll ever get. One step into the future, dragging my hide leg from the past, telling it, it is time to leave now, come-come-now.

Outside it is a city I am familiar with, I have lived here for five years now. In any moment now it will transform into a place I am vaguely familiar with, the landscape will be a distant memory, one in which could be from my distant past or embedded within me from someone else, all-in-all, uncertainty covers the land. My hair will turn from black to blond, my heart will oscillate from there before me to once there behind me. I care or care not, I see and see not, for the person inside of me is shifting, I am losing grip of who I am, the only notion with foundation is the only notion that is challenged the most. I slip away, I turn into her, I call up her friends that are strangers to me, I lie to them with my eyes, my uncanny resemblance to their friend, snickering at the fact I am getting away with it, without a doubt without a thought in their minds I am not who they think I am and yet there is no mistake, I am who they think I am. We decide to go to the movies, we see a film, we talk, we head to the bar, we drink.

"Hey, Charlotte, remember that time you fell so hard you fractured your hip?", says Charlie with a face I mistaken for a goofy expression but really is just his dumb face.

I think hard, what would Charlotte think, how would she feel,

"I try not to think about that, when it rains I still feel it."

"Sorry to bring it up."

"That's ok, what is done is..."

"Done. Yes, buried."

"Yes, buried, alive."

"Why alive, it didn't die before it was laid to rest?"

"Nope."

"Did you at least say goodbye?"

"Nope."

"Why not."

"I was done with it as soon as it stopped hurting."

"Oh."

"Besides, pain is all the same, it hurts, it reminds you that your body doesn't like falling, neither should you, so you should try not to fall so much."

"And..."

"And. What, there's nothing more, nothing less, we fall, we get back up, we continue whatever it is we were doing before that, avoiding making that same mistake twice."

"And so goes life."

"Exactly. Now enough about my hip, my fall, I want to let that movie soak up inside of me for a while."

"Wasn't it good?"

"It was, but I'm not sure yet."

"Sure of what?"

"What kind of good it was to me, I mean, somethings take time to comprehend, you need to experience a bit of life with it inside of you, and then when you have some good examples you can compare your life with a story you saw, you read, you heard."

"You lost me."

"Forget about it, are we going to dance or what?"

"YES!" says the entire group unanimously.

We're all walking down the street, it is a Saturday night and the feeling is alright when I stop, leaving them to carry on a few steps before they realize they're missing one.

"I hope you've been practicing those dances moves because this time there will be no curfew to save you from the Lord of Dance." I gave one of my menacing smiles but it didn't translate as devious as in my other body, the one in which was truly mine.

Gist, Jest, Geist, Christ

2011-10-09T23:12:00.004-04:00

("Aliens are beautiful," 2011)

The grand and late mister of the cornflakes fell to his knees saying, "Yi-yi yi-yi", over and over until no one can hear what they were thinking, just "yi-yi" in the air, in their minds. Everyone fell to their knees shortly after he did. It made people cry for some strange reason, the words were insignificant, it was how he delivered them, how it made so much sense at the time and yet now, in retrospect, it is completely and utterly nonsense. When you talk to people that were there, the ones who do talk (most being quiet about the whole thing, giving you the impression that people think they're nuts), they say it was something that formed a plane beneath their feet, that before them was an infinite horizon, the plane was black the sky was as well, a faint red glow grew in the distance, that was him, his words were the rumble of that plane, their foundation was being touched, rocked, and turned upside down. That's the gist of it. Always the black sky with the black ground, the faint red glow. Some decided to leave one element out, or describe in great detail of how the sky black was a different black. Is there a difference in black? If we all see colors differently, how can we see the lack of them differently, there's nothing there, black is the neutral, it represents the void, space, darkness, and the unknown. But this person who saw blackness different, he came up to me during the interview, grabbed my hands, his hands were like sand paper, unusually cold, but not moist, they felt like my father's hands, but less worked. With my hands inside of his he then felt comfortable with telling me how this black wasn't like any other black, it swirled without swirls, it moved like an explosion traveling through a viscous fluid, slowly turning, spiraling and twisting in a pattern that exist in nature, it was forming and deforming to the laws of nature itself. To spite how scaring the sight sounded, it did not scare the sandpaper hand man, if anything, he said, "It felt comforting. Somewhere in all of that I felt like the day I was born, one world ended, my whole universe and all I knew and thought existed disappeared in an instant and was replaced by pure white light which was then was replaced by objects and people slowly fading in from the brilliance." I stared into his eyes, he didn't once blink, his words stuck with me, and I felt my ass start to numb. Later when I reviewed the tapes I noticed that I sat there, frozen for twenty minutes, the crew didn't want to interrupt the scene so they just sat or stood in whatever position they were in, the boom operator's arm started to shake, but kept the mic out of frame.

Years have passed since that interview, I have gone on to do mediocre stories since, all dim and meaningless in comparison, and as a result I have grown bored, cold, and almost lifeless. A connection with another human being, a certain connection, a certain human being goes a long way, so far of a way that it pushes you up into a plateau region when you are still able to communicate with the sea level below, and those snobs in the mountains, but there is still a distance between you and them. Once in a while my eyes do this thing to me, they zoom into to someones face, and it's the worst when I'm doing an interview with someone, especially if it's the first time they're meeting me and we are a little awkward with each other. I think it's some sort of tunnel vision, it feels like I'm high, but I hadn't taken any drugs, my eyes just zoom in to their faces, my eyes feel lazy, endlessly staring, and when I get this sensation I am absolutely lost in it, staring into their faces. The room fades away, and it's just their big ole face in front of me, around me, all of what I see, my words as I give the occasional response to their words is never effected by this phenomena, and for the most part it is a secret I have against them, that my eyes may be a respectable distance from them, but in actuality they are closely orbiting the surface of their face. If I may say one more thing on the subject before changing the topic, it first started in 99', when I was interviewing this group of men who had claimed they were abducted by aliens. Each gave their account of the clearest detail, and not once did I feel a lie was being spoken, I believe them like I believe an old man telling me he remembers a time without television, when photographs did not have color, and that it was harder back then, whenever then was then.

In the summer of 02' I was sent on assignment in Nebraska, not far from the house of Mister Cornflakes, I decided to venture up to his place. He had passed away a few years prior but I was curious who was living there, if he had any family, or if some young couple were now living in his house. I looked up his surname in the yellow pages, and found one Cornflakes in there, gave it a ring, and after the fifth ring an old lady picked up.

I asked if it was Mrs. Cornflakes, she corrected me and told me she was, Miss Cornflakes, that they hadn't married but she certainly and legally changed her name. I asked if she would be as kind as to exchange a few words in person about her late partner and she agreed. It was a Sunday afternoon, without a cloud in the sky, the sound of chainsaw echoed down the streets, it was late summer. When my rental crept up to her driveway, Miss Cornflakes came out to greet me, as if she had been waiting the night before and in the morning after. I grabbed my notebook, a recorder, and exchanged my sunglasses for my regular glasses and greeted her with a smile, a handshake, and a pleased-to-finally-meet-you, giving her the impression I had been interested in The Cornflakes for a while now. She took me around the back, telling me she doesn't let anyone in through front door, not since her partner had died. We walked through the garden, a beautiful one at that, and I could tell it was something she worked hard at keeping it as beautiful as it was, and that it was the best time of year to see it (I felt privileged to see it in this state). We entered the back door, the interior was completely naturally lit, looking dim at first, a touch of gloom but I passed it off as just the lingering feeling of entering a house of a widow. She made tea, and we sat at the kitchen table. I asked her when Mister Cornflakes had passed away, she said a two years ago, in a cold winter, and that she was actually talking to him at the time he suddenly stopped living. She wasn't sad, nor in stock with his sudden death, it just felt natural, it was natural, to die, and to die without some sort of unusual cause. She told me she kept talking to him before she decided to call an ambulance, and when they took him away, she returned to the chair she was sitting at, and continued to talk to a now (then) absent Mister Cornflakes. She had been doing that ever since. She says it helps her avoid the loneliness of having something and not having something anymore. She may have lost her partner's responses, but she hasn't lost his presence.

On one wall in the living room there is a large collection of images of Christ in various sizes, frames, both catholic and protestant depictions. I pulled a camera out of my breast pocket and photographed the wall as Miss Cornflakes filled the kennel for more tea, she was in her own world at the moment. In the corner of my eye I saw the table where we were sitting, and there in my seat was a figure, white glow, and when I turned around I saw a table, empty, with Miss Cornflakes putting teabags into a teapot. We continued our conversation, and eventually it led us to the significance of the Yi-Yi. She grew quiet, as if lost in thought, and after a few minutes I looked at my watch, not as a sign of impatience but to make sure I make it to the airport in time. Time was running out, and it was on my mind for the remainder of my visit. She eventually broke the silence with a call, a cry, something animal-like, the words were, "Yi-yi". As if it opened some portal within me, the words were just words, a key to a door to another world, necessary but functioned only to summon something much greater. I started to stare at Miss Cornflakes aging face, white with small folds, pleasant but lost, and her slowly disappearing nose, and though I was looking at her, I wasn't. My mental vision was all black. Two black parallels, one red glow in-between, I was racing towards the glow, as if I had been waiting a long time for it. To spite my velocity, I felt nowhere closer to the glow, it seemed to continue forever, and to keep its distance. Yi-yi...yi-yi. Over and over, calling me, what did it want from me, why me, who was me, the sandpaper hand man's words came to mind as I looked to the ground as I looked to the sky, there was that black, that black like no other black, that was formless and black but faintly changed, melting within itself, in a slow explosion, and yet its surface remained solid and unchanged. The rest is indescribable, something I only knew from an experience of having my hands in another man's hands, and hearing him make sound with his mouth, being in his house, and his story. Now this was my own story, I was experiencing it with my own body, I was there. And somewhere in all of that I thought I have to remember this, as if I'd forget something this significant as insignificant as it was. I wanted to be able to come back to this place, this dream-like place one day and escape whatever reality I was living to be lost. When I returned to Miss Cornflakes dining room I was on my knees. I felt embarrassed and she smiled at me from her chair. I apologized and thanked her for her time. She was happy to have company she told me. I was happy to be that company I replied.

A photograph of wall of Christ sits at my desk at the office, on the back of the print I wrote the words, "Yi-yi", there is something sad about those words, as magical as they are, written there, on the back of that print, they are powerless and without magic. Grim reminders, they fall short of something breathtaking, and even maddening. The memory of that moment they represent has reclined far back into my mind, as I watch it from a great distance now, seeing a shade of myself that has died and been replaced by many generations of me.

I scroll through my Rolodex and find Miss Cornflakes address and decide to write her a letter. I started writing it, but stopped, and it has been left unfinished at my desk, covered in papers and cards, and will probably never be completed, sent, and received. I close my eyes and try to put the pieces back together, I sigh as I fail to recreate a moment that has passed. Yi-yi where have you gone.

Worth A Thousand Words (932 words)(not including the intro and outro)

2011-10-08T22:38:00.007-04:00

(Quiet, static popping, the record starts off slow, but promises to build up.)

I can talk to photos. I can make someone up in my mind and hold both sides of the conversation pretty well. I think I've been doing this my whole life, as if I lived on an abandoned island, that I was a lonely boy when I was a boy and a lonely man when I was a man. And perhaps for the most part that is true, but isn't the truth, the whole thing, from all angles and that can truly be a fair representation of one's character. No, it is quite far from that.

I can hear a voice through video or audio recordings I had forgotten I had (I don't really make much of the two). When I hear the voice it brings me back, perhaps more than photographs since it changes before me, not in a silent way that occurs in the mind like a photograph, but kinetically, with a life of its own. I think of Stone Tape, how crystals in the ground record energy signals given off by humans, mostly during grand tragic moments of their lives, and once they die, those energy signals continue, in a perfect loop, over and over until the energy in those crystals dissipate. I can be interacted with, the voice calls me, the face, in movement, an uninterested expression turns to a smile then looks away, hair flying in the wind, I hear myself say, "Take off your shirt". The video ends, and it starts from the beginning again. I let this play over and over, taking in each nuance, trying to find something I didn't see from the last viewing. I hear a voice, it is familiar but distant.

As much as I want to interact, I want to place myself in that scene, and say, "Take off your shirt", with my voice now, I can't. Ultimately, this amateur footage of a vacation can only bring me to close, before I start to feel supremely disappointed. Only memories. A stack of photographs sit collecting dust on my desk, I know each and every one of them, could play the moment before and after each image, and though they illustrate a week quite well photographically, there is something that is supremely missing, missing in a way that beckons emptiness, loss, like the interior of an abandoned house that represents a family (that once lived there). All they represent is something missing, something not within the photograph, that is perhaps hidden behind the photographic surface and before the paper backing of chromogenic print.

The space between forms a natural vacuum, keeping things in as much as it keeps things within. If one were to enter into this realm it would be like entering the cosmos, a space endless void would unfold before you, it would be tiring to look to where a horizon would normally be. Here is where time is infinite, yes, infinite, it continues before the surface of the photograph, it exists beyond the photograph, and it is there as a byproduct of the photograph, that the photograph captured this endless space vacuum when the shutter opened and stole it, storing it on a light sensitive surface. Later it would go through a chemical bath of bleach and fixes, changing the very property of the light-sensitive emulsion, and rendering it blind and mute, no longer able to change (fixed). Each grain reflects and represents the reality that was placed before it. And each neighboring grain to it gives it a place, a portion, and scale. Together in a matrix they form a flat surface of reality, and with each moment passing, the reality is falling apart, being replaced by grain by grain by the past. The reality eventually seeps from the surface grain and enters the void, what is left behind is a graveyard of dead stars, hence the appearance of the cosmos. Far off is the present, it is the only thing that travels faster than the speed of light, bending time/space around it. It moves so fast that humans struggle to comprehend it. Like a darting bird that flies passed the peripheral it is a blur at most, but even then we are able to conduct it was a bird, and even the color, in this case, black, but the present doesn't move as slow as a darting black bird, it moves so fast that once in a great great great while we are able to catch a phantom of it.

The owner of the voice, the same owner of the image in the photograph comes to me in a dream, I wake up alone, and reach towards a photograph on the ground of my bed. I whisper something to it, and put it on my window sill and examine it for a while. I imagine it coming alive, like the video I watched the night before, on loop, for twenty-odd times incision. But of course the person in the photograph doesn't move, the prop shark's jaws do not close down on her face, they do not rip her head apart, and she doesn't smile back, or looks worried, or blinks, or even breathes, she is dead, not in this reality, but in the reality of the photograph. Grain by grain that moment happened, each one of those grains perfectly represent a reality of the present that has passed, and is now lost, floating in a void, in a dead cosmos, and the real person is somewhere off, living, alive, breathing, blinking, un-looped, un captured, changing, sleeping, waking up, talking, eating, running, walking, looking at photographs, looking deep and long, and is thinking, what is she thinking...

(The record comes to a peaceful end, the piano repeats its last bars endlessly, each time it is questioning itself, has it become something better, each repetition means something, without each one it is not complete. The needle reaches a treshold and signals to a specific motor to lift the needle above the moving black surface and for the arm to return to the rest. Once the arm and the needle fall to the rest the turning table stops with only a brief moment of still-movement (it doesn't last nearly as long as belt-driven turntable, it just ends in an satisfying instant)).

H.M.A.I.W.

2011-10-05T14:11:00.004-04:00

(Untitled, 2011)

Skating on the thinnest ice imaginable I didn't care nor did I realize what I'd do if I were to fall into the chilly waters below. I remember watching Man vs. Wild, with Bear Grills jumping into ice cold water, he was testing out his body under the cold shock, and he swam for a while, and couldn't really imagine that being useful for survival. I remember taking a trip up to Northbay once, and a friend of mine decided to jump into the water, completely naked, it was early December, snow everywhere, not the type of weather to be naked nor getting into any water, but there he was, first his toes, then his legs, hand still cupping his boys and then splash. He made all types of sounds, sounds I hadn't heard from him before, he was suffering, he let out more man grunts and we both watched from above as he struggled to submerge himself. Later he told me that seconds to us, watching him from above felt like minutes, hours even, was it that cold that time itself froze in those waters. Perhaps to something not used to it. When I think of time now, not skating on thin ice, but just waiting, sitting, reading, writing, living my life, waiting, how used to it am I, for time itself seems to have slowed down, unbearably so. Waiting, waiting for something.

I stopped skating, took off my skates, and walked back to camp. There I was frozen, waiting for the fire to grow large enough to throw my entire body on to, that sounded like paradise right about then. I rolled up a joint and occurred my time spacing out, watching the fire dance before me, thinking of all types of things. Out here, alone, it felt nice, at first when I was being dropped off, the radio on in the truck, the driver speaking, made the sudden drop out from civilization feel awfully isolating when he finally left me. Now that feeling was replaced with peace, time slowed down, but bearable. The pink of the sky, the blue of the snow around, the simplicity of land and sky, unobstructed, endlessly, I could die somewhere here I thought, but death would not come to me for a while, I don't think I earned it yet. After the last puffs of pot left my lungs I was beginning to feel all good inside. The fire was perfect, perfectly warming me up, and my tent, lined with mounts of fur, and inside was cozy as hell. To have a woman out here, right here, right now would be fantastic, I pictured me telling her things like, "Looks like we're going to have to warm each other up." I'd shoot her off some hungry looking eyes and she'd give me some i.r.f. eyes and we'd just go at it, surrounded by fur, animals! We could live happily out there, there was a fair amount to eat if you knew how to go about doing it. I had a hatchet, a rifle, a pipe, a hook, some line, a knife, a will, an iron will, and I had a lady to impress. Coming home with a deer or a line of rabbits on my shoulder, a proper beard on my face, with some flannel over my chest, a beanie, and eyes that pierced the soul. All types of images conjured up and before I realized it I was hungry, high, and getting sleepy.

When I woke it must have been sometime around three or four o'clock in the morning, a person was sitting by my fire outside my tent. He looked endlessly into the fire. I watched him for a while, not sure if it was real or not. Eventually I'd get some heavy clothes on and exit the tent. Approaching him he did not move one bit, just kept on looking at that dancing fire. I sat beside him and pulled a blanket over him, he was only wearing a business suit, and yet wasn't trembling at all. A faint, "thankyou", came out of him, I wasn't sure if it was some bird flying above or if he was actually addressing me. His hair was slicked back, it was gelled and I couldn't tell if it was frozen or just stuck like that. He looked about his mid-twenties, and when I asked him what he was doing all the way out here, why he wasn't wearing something warm he just said, "uh...uh...uhhhhh. bah-bah-bammmm".

"In english, please."

"Iwas. Iwasjustsenthere."

"Sent here, but who?"

"Thethesameasyou."

"You must be mistaken, I came out here on my own merit, no one telling me to come freeze my ass off."

"Youweresenthere."

"Fine. By who sent the both of us out here."

"Thewave."

"The wave?"

"Yesyesyes."

"Yes."

"Ok."

Silence fell over the both of us, I could tell he wasn't one for words, and I didn't feel like talking to someone who made no sense. I liked him more when he was just staring into that fire, not talking, not making any sense but not making any nonsense either. I thought about how I got here, I decided to come out here, I planned this trip for weeks, and finally got the time to get out here. I was happy to leave, I was really getting sick of the city, the life, I needed a break. No one sent me here. At least directly. But I felt something stirred up in me, something loosen, and it was itching to be picked at, but something told me not to. It glowed a bright white, almost blinding, it was eclipsed by something blocking it, a door, it called to me, to be opened, but I was afraid. Let's just say that light is the truth, and perhaps somewhere deep down inside of me knew exactly what was waiting for me. I knew I was running away from something, but never did I realize I was being sent somewhere, by something, that isn't here, that is there, waiting for me back home, and that same thing was the thing that drove that guido-looking fella out here too. I just thanked the stars I wasn't sent here without notice, he looked like he was in some club downtown when all of a sudden this thing sent him hurling in the tundra. He was still looking deep into that fire, his eyes marked some great sign of despair, he was lost.

"Hey, what's your name, kid?"

"Greg. Gregthegent."

"The gent, huh. I'm Survivorman."

No response. I thought he'd be taken by surprise like most people who discover who I am, but he wasn't with us anymore. Off on planet Greg the Gent, I was orbiting him at most, watching him, without him noticing me. I cleared out some of the camera equipment from the tent, mustered up some form of blanket and pillow and invited Greg in. Waving my hand in invitation he followed, hunched over with that blanket still over him, for the first time ever Greg started to look cold. His hand brushed my arm, and I realized he was frozen to the touch. When Greg was inside, I closed the tent, I threw my sleeping bag over him and made him look like a fur/fabric burrito mix with his head poking out. I knew if he didn't get warm soon he'd probably die before rescue could come around. I started to shiver when he started to cry, or rather, when tears rolled themselves out of his eye sockets. I wasn't sure if he was in pain or was just sad, either way I gave the kid a hug, a bear hug. Sometimes its the touch of another human being to make you feel like you're not alone for a moment. My arm grew wet with tears, and I felt something inside me again. That glowing light again. Blinding as ever. That door pulsed, the light seemed to be brighter than before. I couldn't look away. I wanted to douse it with water, pour it out like a campfire not needed anymore, but there wasn't enough water in the world to exhaust this light. Only one way about it. I touched the door, it was flesh-like and woody at the same time, some sort of hybrid texture, I moved my fingers across it looking for a handle, and when they reached one it burned to the touch. I didn't care, I had been branded before, there is a way to ignore the pain of being burned, and I pulled back with one mighty swing. Light flooded everything, and was no longer just inside of me but encompassing the entire tent, then outside of the tent, and the fire, and the frozen ground that the fire and tent lied on, and then everything, white, bright, glow.

Somewhere in all that I was still holding Greg, crying myself, or rather tears rolling themselves out of my eye sockets, and I knew right then and there that I was sent here the same as Greg, not knowing why, nor where we were exactly. The only difference between us is that I was pretty prepared.

Morning came, and I made us both some coffee and sausages. Greg seemed to be back to whatever his regular self was. He fist pumped to get his arms back into gear, and if he could leg pump he would've done that too, but instead he just stretched out. We both looked on and watched the sunrise.

"Isn't it something, Greg the Gent?"

"Sureis."

Kinda made it worth it, whatever drove us out here, whatever and wherever we left wasn't this, it wasn't peaceful, tranquil, endless, majestic, mysterious, timeless, enchanting, and and and...

A Dog That Looks Like Tim Allen

2011-09-30T18:21:00.006-04:00

(Bad Girl Natasha, Hanging Out Beyond the Keep Out Sign, 2011)

Woof!

Can you hear me?

Woof woof!

How about now, was that a bit clearer?

When I am alone I just curl up in a ball. I have no one to look cute for, nothing to wag my tail to, just me being me, the me that isn't so eager to please, that lives to be petted, and that is quiet, to himself, as he just sleeps curled up, occasionally looking out the window, and waits, waits not for my master but for something, I don't know what, but I wait. Some days I wait for so long that I forget I'm waiting. Some times I try to imagine what it is that I'm waiting for but I'm never quite sure, maybe a man with ice cream cone for flesh and a face of melting ice cream, little clusters of chocolate chips for eyes. I want to lick and eat him out of existence. Maybe it will be another dog, this thing I'm waiting for, another Pomeranian as well, and maybe it will be female, and just maybe after we're done smelling each other's butts she'll like me. Just maybe she is my type, she's cool, beautiful, and makes me laugh. At night I bark profusely, completely out of control, my master yells at me, telling me to shut it, but I don't, I can't, and so he starts padding me, hitting my nose, and finally I stop. I want this something so bad I can't control it, maybe it is just being out there, outside, and that I stare endlessly, day in and day out, looking forward to something I don't know what is, but it is there, right in front of me. Maybe I'm blind. I close my eyes and try to imagine being blind. The world disappears and is replaced by my memory, I picture a chair being placed in a certain place, beside the chair is a couch, and beneath and before that couch is a carpet, and at the edge of that carpet is a coffee table, I am given an empty room, darkness and give it life, light, and furniture. I imagine the circumstance of being blind, there wouldn't be a seeing eye dog for me, for blind dogs don't have such things. I'd just bump into things where I was new to. Running would be out of the question, and I'd avoid outside, and hard surfaces, thinking that they were road, and roads being where cars drive on, where drivers may not see me and hit me. I didn't want to think of being die, that I would never see or get to this thing I've been waiting for. I want to know real bad, I wage my tail in distress, it is the only thing I could do. I feel powerless. And so I start to bark some more. My master is out so there is no end to my barking. I bark and bark until I lose my voice. All barks become dry and drier until there is nothing left. The motions of barking remain. I imagine being a mute dog, having to watch strangers come near our house or even into it, without me to warn my master, or to scare them off. I'd be able to watch this stranger step up the stairs and enter my masters room with something sharp in his hands, I'd chase him, tug at his pant legs but he'd kick me off, I was a small dog after all, I'll probably be broken from that one kick. Then I'd be mute, broken, and maybe even my eyes would go blind too, with no seeing eye dog to help me through the world of infinite darkness.

I wake up, curled into a ball, I see my master stepping out of his truck, he's got a lady with him, he's wearing his best and has sunglasses on, the same ones he wears, and only wears when he takes me to the beach, not anymore. Of course I try barking but it doesn't work, I'm the only dog that has ever lost his voice as I scramble in a panic. I don't like this, I don't like this at all. She's going to enter your room with something sharp, I know it, I know it. When my master opens the door I rush to his feet. He almost trips on me, not noticing me by his side, trying to save him from this stranger. He calls my name in a stern voice, I feel helpless and point my nose down.

"NO, Lucifer, no..."

I feel like I am powerless, I walk away because there is nothing more I could do, I tried, I tell myself, I really did try. I find my spot by the window, I try to go back to sleep but I can hear her talk, she's annoying, her voice too high pitch, she's a cat, I hate cats. I try to distract myself, I look outside, I look at the mountain, cyan chill, a steep face, the sky overcast, it is quiet. I can still hear her in the background, her high heels clicking on the marble, her and my master head up to his room. And as I point my head towards the stairs I see my master with a bottle and the lady with something sharp, twisted, a spiraling pin. I imagined the pain it would cause to be stabbed by that twisty pin, I run over to her ankle and give it a good bite. In my fangs I say, NO, you will not get that far, NO, you will not do him harm. I don't remember the rest, I just wake up concussed, at the bottom of the stairs. I hear heavy breathing upstairs, and as I enter my master's room, I see a trail of blood. I reach him, his arm reaching over to the phone which was knocked over at some point. I'm not sure if he had dialed for help so I did it for him. 9-1-1 with my wet little nose. A voice appears on the other end, and I try to tell her the address, what's going on, but she can't understand me, I try again, but she just seems to grow impatient. My master's hand pets me, his eyes are fading behind his eyelids, and I wag my tail. This is my way of saying goodbye, I curl up next to him, and want to die there right beside him. But I don't. I wake up surrounded by something cold and the night has come. My master was no longer there, just his body, and as I walk down the stairs I see the door is open. The door is open I repeat to myself, it is open, it is open, it is open. One paw then another, step by step, come on rear legs, let's go.

I go, I dip my head outside, I venture to another world. And though I witnessed my master's death, his last breath, the soul that carried me to where I am now, fed me, and everything, there was nothing I could do for him, not now, not then. I took a few more paw steps forward and said, "I am no longer waiting, I am going, going, and gone, gone gone."

Angell 2011 - 2012

2011-09-30T10:01:00.004-04:00

The lovely folks at Angell included me in their annual catalogue, and inside they wrote up a one-pager on me, and included some of my best work from The Barking Wall. It is a really beautiful publication, full of amazing artists that also show at the gallery, and who actually look really look in their bio pics (unless me, I'm a total dork). If you find yourself at Angell, pick up a copy, and check out the work there, where you can find some of this city's finest and cutting edge artists.

Toronto-based emerging artist Brendan George Ko won the Flash Forward Emerging Photographers award in 2011. Still quite young he has an impressively expanding exhibition history, and his work has already attracted attention for its stylistic maturity. The almost rococo beautification of his images borders on morbid obsession, and a tendency to characterize all subjects - whether living or inanimate - in much the same terms, somehow equating them materially, describes the initial gist of his photo-based works.

Ko's art is dark and moody from one angle, but light - both as a symbolic agent and pictorial aspect - is paradoxically the purveyor of the spookily mythical atmosphere we encounter here. From individuals shots as portraits or figures in dramatic contexts, to objects as still life, Ko manages to make them all seem like denizens of the same flash-lit, momentary world.

Ko fuses memories of game-playing and dreamlike fantasies and as a result, his images express a double-edged, troubling sort of insight. The trope of hiding in plain sight is important. Bringing our attention how masking and deceit can produce a clearer metaphoric representation of reality than a blood and guts, existential expression of angst or struggle, his glittery pictures seem to glow intensely. He assembles the incidents of a broken narrative, as in his haunting piece Doreen's Bible, often borrowing stories and incidents from his own life, but altering them so as to become discrete and synchronic objects as much as images in their own right.

Glimmering with the force of having excluded all other possibilities of being, a chandelier shot by Ko as much as a person's face obscured by a nimbus of dazzling light, is rendered as imminent, somehow on the verge of the supernatural.

The problem of belonging, to place or to story, of being and incarnating a vaguely uncanny hybridity are of great weight for Ko. His symbolic phantasmagoria thus engages a Poststructuralist theory in what might otherwise remain a photographic almost expressionist art practice. Double natures and binary realities, both inner and outer, fascinate Ko and provide his point of departure; and in this he doubles his doubling through dialectical action that relies on constant juxtapositions.

Brendan George Ko is still in flux - changing, improving, modifying - but already highly achieved in what he is trying to do, for himself and for us.

Feature Shoot

2011-09-29T16:32:00.002-04:00

The folks at Feature Shoot did a bitty on me. You can find it here. And while you're there do yourself a favor and check their fabulous website, full of some of the hottest in newschool art photographers. Here. Thanks again, Alison!

New Mexico July 14th, 1997

2011-09-28T14:54:00.006-04:00

(Animal Stage (Abandoned) #2, 2011)

We're all cursed in the end. Some more than others. And that's the balance. Sometimes it's easier to imagine that we all lived lives before this one, and that the balance of life is not determined by the lives that we currently live but the lives we have lived and are living. It is easier to think that how wicked and twisted our lives are that we must have done something equally wicked and twisted in another life, sometimes going as far as thinking what if one was Hitler in another life, Jesus that would suck. But if that theory was true, I can imagine you'd be the world's most unfortunate soul if you had in another life been Hitler.

I remember once writing about that feeling of past lives, how life itself is so full of different phases and periods and divisions that the borders of one reality to the next, how one's mentality changes throughout a lifetime can sometimes feel as if one has lived previous lives. When I think back at my childhood in New Mexico it almost feels like another life, and even further back when I was living in Canada that life recesses so far back it is prehistoric. But to spite the time and the places in-between, I still don't imagine them as another life, no, but some memories that have been forgotten, that could be just as much dreams as lived experiences that are only conjured up by flashes of Deja Vu. There is a certain type of uncertainty that is associated with those memory flashes, this confused memory. Somewhere in all that mess of tangled memories, forgotten and distant is a childhood, are dreams, and are memories that one either wished to be forgotten or your mind simply shut them out, tragic kingdom forgotten.

I'm not the reincarnation of Jim Morrison but I did once witness a road accident in New Mexico as a child. And on that day I did once witness an Indian fellow die as our car passed by in slow motion. Looking out the backseat window, I saw people crying and a man covered in blood and dirt looked at me, but looked beyond me, endlessly, staring without a blink or a breath. He died looking in my direction, and like Morrison I wonder if his soul entered mine, through my eyes, the windows or THE DOORS to the soul. I have yet to forget about that day, just like a lot of the things that happened in the desert, I just find them less relevant with a life in the city, where there is nothing sacred nor haunted, to spite how historical a site may be, the hairs on the back of my neck have yet to be moved and the only goose pimples I get are from the cold heart of winter or stepping into the polluted waters of Lake Ontario.

Something occupies my soul, I was a child when that man on the side of the road died, and I was changing everyday, but something unnatural and perfectly natural in a supernatural way changed me from that particular point of my life. Just like how my boyish voice changed over night into a young adult voice. I swear it did, I had been at a punk concert the night before and was screaming and pushing and kicking, going crazy and wild, and the next day I had lost my voice and when it returned the following day I was a man. This thing that lies within me, that changed me that day in the summer of 97' has been the source of inspiration as well as spirituality within me. But I often wonder if it could have been a curse, a curse that isn't black and white with bad things being death and direct results but something like a slow working poison (it was far more twisted than that). The string of cause and effect was so complex and so extensive that it was impossible to trace other than going back to that particular day in the summer of 97' when it all started and recount each and every tragic and less-tragic event since. For years I believed I was cursed to remain to walk this earth alone, but then started to come across beautiful creatures that would walk along side me for some time, that never completely dissolved. Perhaps my curse isn't my curse per say, but the curse of the soul that is exists within mine, thatthat Indian is dead and yet living within me. I can name off 50+ dispositions I find myself in, that the word hybrid and in-between-ness is like breathing, I am neither inhaling nor exhaling nor holding my breath, I simply am in that brief pause between, in a temporary space that the likes of infinity hang out in. Nomadic, the mind is split between the right and the left, the borders of the soul and the body are undefined and obscure, the race I run is few and far between, I am the crack and the rumble, the moment after lightning the moment before thunder. The unspoken saying that exists between the glass half empty and the glass half full. And somehow I let this betwixt feeling invade everything else, that even the way I saw things were split, I lived and breathed a parallax view of the world. And perhaps I never had a choice, that what existed within me was me, a me that I had no control over, just like almost everything in my life, if not the entire shebang. I was born, given a name, put in a place, and grew up around certain people and all my primary establishment as a human was made without my choice, without my say-so, so how much of me remains original, of my own doing, that my choices haven't been preconditioned? The curse grew more complex, further I travelled along the belly of its length the darker it got. Something existential about the whole thing blew up, and at that point I decided to quit. Yes, to give up. What has been done is done, what is going to happen will only just happen, and if I were to die right now the world will still carry on, just as it was before and after me. The curse though will continue, I imagine that is was something far greater than me, my life, and even the people that were mixed up with it. That even before that dying man who sent the curse spiraling into my very soul, the same curse that had entered him, and it enter the thing that was the host before him, and so forth. No one could be blamed for cursing who and that, I just wondered which poor child or thing I'd curse myself. How the curse would resonate within them, change them, would they too lose their boy or girl voice over night, and will feel in-between just about everything. The crack would be back, and the crack was perfect word for it, the bottom side of humans once was an uninterrupted mount of flesh, such as the back until some point of history the curse introduced it's self to our species and split the two legs apart in two directions, and when early Man tried to sit he sat between two great divisions, where they met was a great blade, and the blade broke the even flat of the bottom of Man and produced a crack. We would never be the same, we started to wear underwear from that day on, though in those days it wasn't called underwear just a lion cloth then robe then something else then underwear. We decided to hide it, shameful of our disposition, our indecisiveness, and most of all, ashamed we were cursed.

The world is divided by two hemisphere, where as one half has winter the other has its summer and vice a versa. The toilet boil water flushes to the right in one hemisphere where as the other half it flushes to the left. I often wonder if people tend to walk differently in the southern hemisphere from whose of us who walk in the north. There is night and day. Tea drinkers and coffee drinkers. Lovers and haters. Birth and death. North Korean and South Korean. Going uphill and going downhill. Rockbottom and Rocking the top. Flying and falling. Sleeping and being awake. Being happy and being sad. Feeling full of hope and empty and hopeless. We live only in the present and yet we are divided by what just happened - what did happen, and what will happen. The present only last for that brief pause of time that is invisible to the eye, and as soon as we see it it is no longer the present but the past, if we try to anticipate it it is the future. And if we focus too much on both the past or the future we will miss out on what is right in front of us. There are a million Hallmark quotes and there is a million more, you can probably find the answer to life in all of that, but we choose not to taken by a cheesy little card written to a mass audience for times where we can not think of the right words to say ourselves.

I reach a point where I find myself as an adult, in a car, in New Mexico, but instead of being in the backseat I am driving, and we are slowed down, there is an accident ahead, we see flashing lights, and a broken parts and smashed up cars appear beside us. Through the window I swear I see the same old Indian fellow from years ago, he is even wearing the same things, looking the same after all these years, and I wonder to myself, has he been here all this time, or is this some sort of roadside attraction, something synthetically acted out day in and day out like the Waterworld show at Universal Studios. There he is, Kevin Costner, the man in the other vehicle is Dennis Hopper, and we watch the protagonist die, but this time his soul, his curse did not fly into my eyes and into my soul, not this time, something leaves me, and I feel light and lighter as something heavy and sticky leaves my body and enters his. His eyes roll back and an eagle above shoots up into the sun, eclipsing it for a moment before I realize I am staring at the sun. I turn to my passenger and grab her hand, I tell her everything is going to be ok, she looks back at me, confused, and doesn't say a thing, we ride pass the accident and soon forget it entirely.

We are at a crossroads. I slip the words beneath my tongue in a secret exchange I keep to myself.

(low whisper) "See you at the crossroads, crossroads, crossroads."

The eagle flies on heading north to what appears to be an endless landscape.

"...So you won't be lonely."

The Light Shines Through Me

2011-09-28T10:27:00.006-04:00

(Rachel Somewhere in the Woods, 2011)

When I think back at the time my father and I went over to Jorge's, the real Jorge's, house in Albuquerque, NM in 99', I remember being confused. No one ever sat me down to tell me what had happened formally, that he had disappeared and left all of this things behind. I was given bits and pieces of information, where I catch the chatter of the adults as I roamed the empty house. There was a strong sense of emptiness in there, and his things, the things I grew to know were his, had a life of their own, now were just things, belonging to no one. I never got to see the letter he left behind back then, I didn't even know it existed. Eventually I would have to ask about Jorge, what exactly did happen with him, over the phone with my mother, who still wasn't sure herself. He had left this world, but not world as in he died, he had vanished like a phantom. He could be amongst us right now, camouflaged as everyone else, and all we have is speculation. All I have is a feeling, and at the end of the day, that is the only thing that seems to remain true. He is far away, amongst strangers like he always has been. Seeing the world one last time, as Jorge continues to explore the world as well as himself. And perhaps he did die that day, leaving this world, in an Obi Wan Kenobi way, watching us as he is gives up his life only to guide us, to be that voice in the back of our mind when we most need guidance.

I have yet to hear a voice calling me from another universe, and perhaps I haven't been in need of anything that deep and immediate yet. Something in me changed that day, and I haven't been the same since. All I know is I feel less alone, that Jorge can be anywhere, but most of all, he is with us, inside of us, carried in our hearts and minds. I've never told anyone before but every once in a while I have this reoccurring dream that I am in the desert, sometimes alone sometimes with old friends, and the sand and all the plants are an ashy black. I could see storm clouds far off in the distance and the little blankets of rain fall beneath them. Two glowing eyes appear from far off, and come closer and closer, floating as if they were just two spheres of light. Then they disappear. A moment passes and I feel fur against my body, I look down and it is a black coyote, brushing up against me. I pet him on the head, then the heck, and he brushes up against me some more. The moon is out, and he howls, I turn into viper and cover the moon, the light shines through me, and the dream ends. It almost always happens exactly the same, with the same sequence of events and atmosphere, that coyote and the moon. To me it is Jorge inserting his presence in my mind, telling me he still roams, and that he is by my side, brushing up against me.

I wonder if I'll ever seen him again. I picture that being the climax of my life, during this huge shoot out, and I'm on the run or something, and when I am all alone against some army of thugs or cops or something, he appears, and is some badass god of destruction blowing them all away with a lifetime of experience of doing just that.

When the whole world is against me he'll be there, and perhaps he was always there. Right by my side, waiting for that moment to happen.

Something Worth Fighting For

2011-09-27T09:38:00.004-04:00

(Animal Stage (Abandoned) #1, 2011)

We lost him in the fire.

A shoot out between some mobsters and cops, a car chase, everything going wrong, everyone for themselves. Somewhere in all that chaos a bullet pierced his chest, he didn't notice until his chest goes wet with blood, and when he looked down at his chest he crashed the car, his passenger took off, to each their own. To each their own, amigo. Adios! The car sped up and made some distance only to get stuck underneath a trailer. The fuel tank is ruptured and the metal against metal friction ignited the fumes and the car was set to flame. It was time for him to leave. His badass character, heartless and mighty, something of worthiness long time passed, the true grit, pulled his pistol and fit it beneath his chin.

"FUCK IT"

A shot fires and the car explodes instantly after. The explosion echoes down to the cops shooting mobsters and the mobsters shooting cops. They all suddenly stop what they're doing, realizing their actions are meaningless. All of them share a thought, what am I doing. Forgiveness is shared equally upon them. Everyone started laughing and looking to their neighbor, shaking their hand, "What was it all for!". Some go as far as giving each other hugs, and we leave this scene with a mobster hugging a cop, they even kiss, on the lips, and say, "We are nothing more than fools".

The scene grows quiet, and off in the background a pair of shifty eyes creeps in the shadows. No one sees this, but they all hear an evil laughter echoing from all around. Joy shifts to fear, and something like a tidal wave coming in from all directions and swallows them whole. The fiery car that exploded moments before is now put out, and sinking under the waves. Mobsters and cops alike all drown, and the evil laughter grows louder and louder until it appears to be coming from a giant omnipresent monster. No one is there to hear it as some still struggle to breath underneath the waves, others just float like buoys. Disappointed, the source of this evil laughter stops laughing and begins to work. One by one he gathers up the body. The few who remain on the borders of their lives are put out of their misery with one glimpse of his face, what a horrible sight and then gone, eyes rolling back, the light in them fade to blank, blank, gone. He grabs them and pulls them on to his boat, some ancient gondola in all black with skulls carved into the wood crafted from some haunted evil looking tree from Ferngully. And though he shares similar duties as Death, he isn't, no, but he is a cousin to Death, and for now we'll call him, Sleep. Those men he is pulling from the blood filled water are not asleep though, and he looks on like he is tired. Eventually all the dead are on boat, the gondola surprisingly fitting them all on there, including the one who shot himself beneath the chin moments before exploding. Sleep paddles away, and as he leaves and disappears from the scene the water does too, leaving behind no trace of water ever filling the space. We don't leave this scene, the story pretty much ends here, as we look upon a landscape filled with a violent history, that didn't happen years ago, but moments prior there is a static in the air. This landscape is haunted with the spirit of thought within us all.

Lightning strikes in the darkness of night, the clouds all dark and heavy hover over an old mansion. The place looks long abandoned, the paint all dark and bruised with decay. We approach closer and closer, floating across the equally dark and decayed lawn, and we fly up the pouch and just before we hit the front door, a door which hasn't been opened for a long long time it opens. There is a crackling sound as the scab that has formed in the gap between door and molding surrounding the door is relieved and we enter the house. It is a scene out of Casper, ancient furniture cloudy with dust and cobweb mixed with the faint light showering detail to the darkness. We find our way to a small hidden passageway and head down a stairway. The steps are stone, and spiral down with each step growing warmer and warmer in a yellowish glow. Something is alive downstairs, has been living here for a long time, and hasn't left in an equally long time. The basement is another world, it is dark while being lit with amber glow, and there are bottles of odd mysteries and one lone coffin. We approach this coffin, still floating, and we look at it, knowing that something wicked is going to come popping up. We ready ourselves for disappointment. AHHHHHH! Twisting its head, the corpse tries hard to scare us, it sticks its long dead tongue out, screams, and has its hair whip back and forth like a dead super model. Nothing phases us we say with our dead pan stares. It grows quiet, and gives up. It is our friend, Sleep, and he was doing exactly that before we came flying into his house.

Sleep puts on a robe and pours water into the kettle and disappears into what appears to be the kitchen. Just as the water boils he reappears with cookies, and to spite everything looking old and dead the cookies aren't, in fact, they're delicious! He pours the boiling water into separate cups, each with their own teabag, and smiles as he hands them out to us.

"How are the cookies?" he says with his wicked voice, a wickedness that he struggles to fight against but it is with him for afterlife.

"Yummy!" we say unanimously.

"Good, they aren't poisoned, in fact, I made them myself, only an hour or so before you arrived."

"Did you anticipate us?" Thinking he might just well know everything, before and after it happens.

"No, I just felt like it."

A silence takes over where words once filled a space and we start sipping our tea, which is also very delicious. Sleep puts on a record, one of us remarks, "Mussorgsky?".

"Night on Bald Mountain", Sleep replies.

"Fitting", one of us says.

Silence again.

The wind picks up, the windows start shaking, and the house creaks like all is wants is to die. We wait for something to happen but it doesn't. Off somewhere far away a rock is falling to earth and is going to land in a field on some farmer's land. Off even farther that someone is having laser eye surgeon done to both their eyes and will no longer need glasses nor contact lenses. They will be temporary blindfolded for a few days, something that seems almost necessary even if it wasn't required, to go from having glasses to not is sort of a miracle, Jesus-like, and to have a buffer of blindness in-between only sweetens the miracle. Without the struggle, without taking something away, when it comes back you will never realize how much you needed it, how much you missed it. Take it away and you'll cherish it alone, milking off the memories you had with it, longing for it, seeing it from all angles in your mind, in your heart. But there are somethings you don't need to have removed to realize how much you need it nor how much you'll miss it, that you immediately and always cherish it, when it is happening, realizing that each and every moment is worth all the fighting, struggle, laser-eye surgery and the blindfolding for days, for.

Sleep comes to wake us all up, we had fallen asleep out of boredom sometime in the night, and it was morning. Sleep made us sausages, vegan ones for the vegans, and eggs, of course tofu eggs for the vegans, and we ate them down with orange juice and freshly grounded and pressed coffee. He took us out on a ride on his gondola, we sailed across the sea that he made just moments before. We held hands and looked up as the stars above disappeared.

"Children," he said.

"This was all worth fighting for."

Silence as something profound stirs from within. A face appears in my memory, it sets me in a mood that is both full of excitement and wonder for the future. How long must I wait I tell myself, how long until, I ask myself, before, before I repeat, I find that peace.

I fall out of the boat and exhale all the air out of my lungs as I sink to the bottom of the sea. The bubbles that float to the surface each contain some of my last thoughts, and when they reach the air above they fizz out a whisper. An ear pressed up close to them struggles to comprehend my words. It is a lost cause. I turn into a fish and swim away. I transform into a mermaid and swim away. I transform into a shark and swim away. A whale. Swim away. A dolphin. A zebra. A tiger and an eagle. Fly away.

Pumpers Vs. Tumblers

2011-09-25T22:34:00.004-04:00

(Time We Disappear, 2011)

I'm going to put all my heart into it. I'm going to sweat until my face appears to be melting. And when they take me away, hands locked together, I want you, yes, you as I point to you with my big red finger, you, to remember what I did today.

Years later you come back to that same site, you look at that beach, the volley ball nets dipping from the rain that only moments before came down on this place. The ocean's dark, with harsh waves crashing down as they approach the shore. You look upon the landscape and to spite the rain you can't help but see the past unfold.

His heart was beating so hard from his chest, it was ripping through his rims and then flesh like an alien being born from the stomach, over and over, ripping from his rims and then returning back into his body. Those shorts were shorts, and his face was so excited to show me, and whoever was around at the beach that day. He carried on like it was the only thing he knew and wanted to share it with the world. He was sharing it to us all, and though it was broad casted to all to see deep down inside of me I feel like each pump, each swing of his arm, and the loop that he formed with his empty shirt sleeve was for me. I'm not a selfish person, I just FEEL like it was for me, and now that I think about that day, perhaps everyone there, that stood and watched felt the same, that it was all for them, individually. That didn't take away from magic of the moment, not the intimacy, we were all there, experiencing it, with different paths that brought us there, to this moment, with each different eyes, and different hearts. Going pump. pump. pump.

Something happened on that beach and you made your journey out to that beach each and every year, a journey that spans from coast to coast, you were met by a disappointment each time.

He's not here, there will be no pumping.

I'm sorry, I'm still locked away, and would love fan mail if I wasn't such an obscure phenomenon that only ten or so people had witnessed before the cops came and took me away. I wish I could continue to pump for you, honest. In my cell, I recall my life over and over, looking over each and every detail. I am able to see a past I had almost entirely forgotten, a lot of my childhood is coming back to me day by day. I have so much time on my hands I reminisce and read books all day. At night, when the guards go to their stations I pump, I pump alone and know very well I am not being watched. I feel guilty, I am not sharing this gift with others, but I'm afraid I cannot do that anymore, I am not allowed. My soul grows tired. I write letters to each one of those faces that had seen me at that beach that day, my last day as a free man, and though I don't know their names, I write, I keep up the conversation for the both of us as I write both for myself and for those who watched me. There's one who tells me it gave her hope, another that tells me he wants to do more with his life, kids going to college and they're looking for a new thing to focus on, all I explain what pumping means to me.

It's been years since my performance when you are finally able to locate me, and when you do you write me a letter, a real letter that is written by you as you, and not you as in me, and when that arrives at my cell at first I think it is mine. I had written so many letters to myself as other people that I'm not sure what's real anymore, but I realize that your hand writing is none of the hand writings I've been using for those silent fans I made up.

Dear X,

it has been four years to the day, I cannot stop thinking about your actions that day. I have tried my best to live my life to the fullest, and to disregard the fact something is missing, it is missing real hard. I think of your face, how you were the happiest person alive during that moment you pumped, you gave it your all. I don't think anyone who wasn't there would ever realize how spectacular it was, and so I have grown tired, alone, and full of something I can't quite express. Something in me was born that day, we had a child, you penetrated me with your hidden fist from within your over sized sweater as your imaginary heart pulsated from half-arm's length. You were yards away, but I was touched in a way that birth something in me. I will never forget that day. You changed me. You were inside of me. Are still inside of me. And when I think of you, I am warm, but I am also reminded I am without you, pumping away, forever, seeping into eternity.

I receive more letters over the months, I write back each time. I am eager to learn more, I am touched to know what my actions have done for another soul, and that I wasn't writing any more fake fan mail to myself because I had real ones coming in. We would go on letter dates, she'd describe the events, and slip into something erotic. I'd continue, giving great detail to where my hands were, what they were doing, how they were doing it. I'd receive another letter a week later and we'd go passed foreplay, and I'd describe certain parts of my body doing certain things, and they went on and on. She started seeing someone else, the letter hit me hard, and I didn't receive a letter from her in a long time. I had gotten very much used to receiving those letters that they were all I looked forward to. There wasn't much else, I was in jail after all, I had books, words written for everyone or certain people that I wasn't, and old letters from you and from myself, self-addressed to myself. Nothing could make up for the new, the still-living, still-changing, there was an unpredictability I had fallen for, and now I couldn't do without. I needed it. You were like a growing an addiction that I couldn't deny.

Out of the blue I received one last letter, it would never be opened, my heart swelled with sadness, it was the end. I wrote myself a letter with your name, as you, and in it I wrote what I thought you wrote in the real letter from you. Inside it was how you met a Tumbler, that he was fresh, new, and didn't get arrested when he tumbled. He was sexy, those short-shorts even shorter than mine, it was like a dream, and he still pumped, but without the baggy shirt, take it off baby and put on this sleek and tight shirt, in black. I was old fashioned in comparison, the thing that once did your fancy but was replaced and now looking obsolete. My pumping was just something flimsy trying hard to impress you and it was only trying, never doing it for you. I cried myself to sleep and thought of pumping, how it was meaningless, how I am rotting in a jail cell because of something so lame. I looked at your letter one more time.

In the morning I grabbed the guard who usually greeted me with a smile, and saw me as not a threat, and threw him against the bars, punching him over and over, and grabbing his tongue with both my hands. I did it until I felt the animal inside of him switch over to survival mode, I then let go. I let him slip out of my grab, and I fell back in slow motion. His punches hit my face over and over, until I heard a crack from deep within my face, still falling back, still in slow motion. Repeated blows, I was growing number and number. I lost vision in my right eye and then saw his fist hover over my left eye and said goodbye to the world. The rest I cannot remember. I felt my soul leave that body, and parts of me remember seeing the guard stop punching me, crouched over me crying as other guards rush over to him to try to stop him only to realize he had stopped. They take him away and when he leaves I catch a final glimpse of my body, face completely gone covered in dark red blood. I look closer and I see a smile.

I'm wondering what I'll do now, I've been roaming ever seen I got here. I want to read that letter but my hands pass through it each time I try to grab it. Later that night the janitor comes by to clean the cell up, he looks to the letter as I hover over his shoulder, eager, and motions to open the letter but then stops himself, why, I don't know he was almost there, he was curious, and then throws it into the waste bin with all paper towels covered in my blood. I watched as my blood stained the surface of the letter. I pictured it being sealed inside that garbage bag, the garbage bag being tossed into a shoot, where it travels down to central collecting pin, a garbage truck comes by bi-weekly and loads up with the garbage bag containing your letter, still unopened, and it leaves the prison. It travels for a few miles to the landfill and dumps its load into a pit. Bulldozers push the new pile of garbage over, and a week later steamroller compresses the trash down. Years pass by and the land fill is covered in sand, and pipes are installed that gather heat from deep with the hills of buried trash. The letter is broken down by the moist that gathers around it, and with the heat of the earth around it it starts to break down. Letter by letter they all disappear. Somewhere thousands of miles, the only person that knows exactly what is on that letter has completely forgotten what was written on it. She or he has grown older, and is married, has kids, and one day she or he decides to teach their kids what pumping is.

Come gather my children, I have something special and dear to show you. Now pull your left arm into your sweater, and with your right arm grab the empty shirt sleeve. With your left hand pump outwards like a mighty heart beating within your chest, as you push out your left hand bring your right arm down, repeat this for as long as you could. Never forget this. Keep on doing it.

You start to cry and remember something left incomplete, you wonder, but soon feel regret and a sharp pain you had trained your heart to forget.

Don't stop, get it get it. Forever.

Carl and Carol

2011-09-23T12:15:00.005-04:00

(Son, One Day This Will All Be Yours, Said the Large Hill to the Small Hill, 2011)

When I looked up in the sky in the morning the stars really did disappear, they were gone without a trace and I felt my thoughts move me along, ushering me to forget they were ever there. That was the impossible, they would always be there, years down the road, an entire lifetime between, I'd still look up and see them not with my eyes but with my mind. When I came to this great city, they did exactly that, vanished to the glowing city below. I imagined an aspect of human evolution, how it grew so large and so advance it was able to build a light that outshine the heaven's above. Orbiting above, like Satellites, we could see a sea of lights, the cosmos contained in a gigantic black sphere, a droplet of the stars. Each one of those stars is a life of someone, that the streetlight is being watched by someone who must attend to it if it goes out, the light from that building where people live, the lonely radio tower that broadcasts conversations between one person to another and music in-between. All those things somehow reflects the nature of the universe, that the natural spiral happens from the Golden Rule applies here, in us, as humans, as animals, a pattern that exists everywhere.

I never grew tired of looking up, perhaps it was something that was passed on through me from my parents, they always had a natural affinity for the stars, they were stargazers, and over their lives they trained their neck muscles and the bones of their spine to allow them to look skywards. It must have been painful at first, but soon realizing they had no choice, that they were captivated by the sky above, the one thing in this life that makes sense no matter what happens on earth, from this war to that, were the things that were never effected by life on Earth, the cosmos. And for a while there we used to be able to say, no matter what happens here, it can never touch this (as I point to the stars and imagine myself touching a burning rock in space).

In their flicker I imagined the stars talking to me, when I was lonely I saw them, speaking in ancient language to which I did not understand, but it was comforting. Later I'd learn those flickers were the result of passing of planets in a star's orbit that would eclipse star's radiance for a moment that has long passed. Something that I cannot describe, this feeling of something that eclipses us as things in this universe, renders us useless in comparison, the things that are so massive and powerful and old and old beyond any concept we can muster exist, are there, floating in space, effecting the space around them in a size of effect that is also beyond our understanding. I close my eyes and try to imagine what the sight of a red giant going supernova, it the silence of space would have on me, the brilliance of such an event would shake my very soul, would perhaps rip it into pieces, that something so absolutely beautiful and menacing in destruction can exist. It makes human life seem so irrelevant, that perhaps it is why we built those lights that could outshine the stars, that we could not take being so small and meaningless, and that we had to isolate ourselves to see the relevance of our lives in relation to the rest of life on Earth. Nothing more. And maybe that is why we both in fear and curious towards alien life. To know we are not alone, and that something from the darkness of space lives, has evolved in conditions we are just starting to discover exist, and that they want to make contact with us, traveling light years to do so, and for what reason?

Years down the road some kid with his mother and father will be traveling the southern New Mexican desert in a white home-made RV, and they will come to visit Very Large Array in Socorro. The boy in wonder, the mother happy to see her son's curiosities find a new level of fulfillment. Where the father is we have no idea, he was the one doing all the driving, making the dinner once they arrived at their campsite, and will be photographed by his wife wearing his CNN hat against the backdrop of the Midwestern United States, a small canyon there, a sunset here, it is quite the Kodak moment. And even more time later that kid will be an adult, visiting home, and finding that photograph of his father as he looks through a window, an un-patched hole in the fabric of time, and will project his thoughts to what his father might have been thinking of in that contemplative pose. In the end, the boy who is now an adult will never know, and will never ask his father as he approaches with the photograph in hand wondering his father was thinking about? In the closet that coat the father was wearing is still there, the boy now man tries it on, and for the first time in his life it fits. Somewhere deep down in this man child he fills like he was become his father, not the distant and strange man he knows as his father but that he is a man like the man his father is, or was, when his father used to wear that coat. There are bleach stains on the right shoulder, and the color of red the coat has isn't really in these days, still the coat is a coat, and a symbol of something becoming. The adult boy dons it with a vague sense of pride, it isn't just a coat, it is something much more, he tells himself he is close to his dad.

Up above stars shine, they are almost selfish how they can shine on even after the worst has happened on Earth to humans, and also the animals and dinosaurs, but they aren't because the truth is they have no idea what is going on down there, once their light leaves them it will travel for years before some animal's eye catches glimpse of it and it realizes that that little white dot is the same as that giant sometimes red sometimes yellow, sometimes white, and sometimes orange sun taking floating above like a balloon feet away are the same thing, one being closer than the other, and one being bigger than the other (most likely the one farther away).

The Greatest Pick-Up Line of All Time pt.1

2011-09-21T01:18:00.008-04:00

(Blacklight Test Image, 2011)

Close your eyes.

Dream.

Take yourself away from reality.

Right now.

Ready?

1...

When you wake you can hear screaming in the street below, then the honking of car horns, you look down on the street from your third floor window and you see something out a Holocaust movie. People lined up, slowly marching down the street, cars beside them, stuck in traffic, everyone trying to get out of there, but it's not easy, there's everyone trying it at the same time and the paths to escape are narrow. Why aren't you there you wonder to yourself, why wasn't I aware that it was time to vacate, to blow Popsicle stand? Were you asleep for a long time, did you miss out on the news reports on TV or the headlines on the paper, small talk about everyone needing to leave the city to where, you don't know where, but this is all happening, with or without you, and you're not sure if you should stay and or leave, and try to find a place in that endless line, walking somewhere you're not sure of where it is. Confused you just sit there, finding your favorite spot to normally admire the world but today, you're not really sure what to think, it's for a lack of a better word, surreal, probably one of the most surreal things you have ever seen. You know you are clearly awake but you question if this is a dream. The idea is floating a few feet above you, it looks almost like a horrifying hallucination but it isn't, is this the apocalypse?, you ask yourself. Is it, I don't know, I'm not sure if I should reveal that or not, for now I want us all to be on the same boat, being as confused as you are. We are confused, what is happening, please tell us, you.

You decide to go check it out, you grab a coat, a few things that you'd like to have on you in case you never return, and fill your backpack with necessaries for survival. You enter the street and the light looks different from the ground then when you were above, you had seen this difference hundreds of time, but the street before you is now another reality from which you came from. People all look stressed, tired, confused, and some even lifeless, moving aimlessly forward, unsure of where they are going. You stop and try to ask what's going on, what is going on, but no one seems to give you much mind, if anything, they just stare off to the distance moving forward. One by one, no one responds to your questions, even a little boy that look like a momma's boy gives you no time, no words, no attention, you do not exist, even to the sweetest level of humans. You give up and pull a sigh out from your throat, mumbling something like, this is useless. Someone looks at you, and you sharpen and give a what the fuck you looking at look at him at the same time as a hey wait I didn't mean that you're not one of them, I can tell, talk to me, please, tell me the heck is going on? The moment your eyes catch his he turns forward, acting like nothing happened, as if he was aimlessly staring like the rest, but it was too late, his sweat beaming down his forehead says it all, he was fucked you knew his secret. You gun for him, the crowd of slow moving zombie-like people barely move out of your way, having to push them, some to the ground, to get where you're going, and that lad that gave you the stare is trying hard to escape your approach but isn't as strong and as determined as you. Still he holds up a fight, scared that his secret is revealed, and when you catch up to him, he eventually stops, looks you in the eyes, and says, "ya got me, I'm not one of them".

Later you escape the crowd with him, no words are exchanged during the swim against the current, and you two walk for a bit where all signs of human life are gone, besides from the man-made structures that surround you, as well as support you (e.i. the concrete your feet rest on, the bench your butt rest on). He tells you his name is Willis, and the only thing that comes to your mind is Bruce, you tell him your name is Cynthia. He tells you that it is a pretty name, smiling then looking serious for a moment in your eyes, you cut his stare down with a you're not allow to look that deep into them yet look and he backs away with an awkward laugh. Ha. ha. haaaah...

"What is going on?", you ask him.

"Everyone's leaving, going somewhere neither I or nor them know, we're, err, they're just going."

"Why are they going?"

"Something happened, something real bad, and now people have something bad in them, and they're leaving."

"You're being vague."

"Listen, I'm not sure myself..."

"You're avoiding something, you're a bad liar."

"I'm not sure if you want to hear it, but I know by me telling you that it only makes your curiosity that much stronger, that much more unwilling to cease."

"Are you going to tell me or what."

"Fine, but I didn't want to. Everyone is dying. I know, we're all dying, no, I mean everyone is diseased, and has been for a long time, without ever knowing it, they just found out a few days ago, and some men in grey suits started announcing it on the streets, coming into offices, Starbucks, and wherever people are, they told us, with a serious look about them in their serious getup that we were all going to have to leave, that something bad has happened but the worst is over, and that there is no need to panic because it was already too late for that. Probably not the best choice of words, but surprisingly, not a lot of people panicked as if everyone just accepted whatever was coming for them, their fates sealed."

"Is that why everyone was so cold and distant?"

"Yeah, that was probably why."

"And what about you, why aren't you with them, why did you look me in the eye, and why did you give me a moment of your time?"

"Because...", he pauses, searching for the words inside himself. "Well, this is going to sound ridiculous but you were different, I had been seeing people that had no hope, no dreams, no will to live and yet they just carried on, mindlessly for days, I got sick of it, I didn't want to go, I wanted to stay, but we couldn't, I didn't want to be a part of that, "we", I was me, alone, like the day I was born. And then I saw you, I didn't feel alone anymore, you were not hopeless, you had dreams, you had a will to live, and so I assumed, and finally I decided about a minute ago that this is all true. Am I crazy, am I completely nuts or is this just me using the line, 'if the world is going to end in the next couple of days, rather then tip-toeing around surviving on our own, let's just stick to each other'. I don't know, all I do know is that I'm not alone. You aren't either."

You think about the boy's strange words for a while, he looks at you in fear without looking nervous, just unsure if he had said the right words or if it was the right moment, I mean, you just met him, who says things like that without spending at least a day with someone. But there was a strange truth to his words, that as odd as they were, and how they were said, it did make sense. And somewhere in all that wondering you realize that you didn't feel alone around him either. In the crowd, surrounded by people, they say you feel most alone, pick the right company and you'll never feel alone with them.

"Ok, you win, let's, 'stick to each other'." (with an implied, whynot in your tone)

"Thanks. Finally, I'm not alone anymore."

"Shut up."

"Ok."

He heads in a direction and you decide to stick with him, who knows what will happen. The two of you carry on in the opposite direction the crowds of people were heading in, you sense you are heading towards trouble, you ponder if you should trust this lad, but you have a feeling it is ok, that he is fine, and perhaps even harmless as he looked. I could kill him if I really wanted to you told yourself, it was true, you could totally kill him if you wanted to. Over the next few days things get crazy, I'm not sure if you were ready for this, but it happens either way.

To be continued...

Time We Disappear

2011-09-18T12:17:00.006-04:00

(Untitled Image, 2011)

Is It Live or Is It. Is it live, or is it? A man sitting at his couch, at least I believe it is his and that he is in his home listening to some music and is being blown away by a force which we, the viewer, do not see. What is this force, is it music, what kind of music, is this force violent, in the next frame are we going to see this man being blown away ripped in half with blood and bits flying in the air in this brilliant timeless moment or is he smiling or trying to smile as his lips and entire mouth are blown open by the winds of something greater than him, or you, or me, or anybody? Is it live, or is it? Are we alive or is it? Are you being blown away, by what, I'm not quite sure myself, all I know is that something trembles, something deep down inside of me, and perhaps even you, I'm not sure if it does in you only because I don't want to assume it does but for now I would like to imagine it does, it does tremble like it does for me in you, and it is very deep deep inside, something is awakening the sleeping giant, it opens its eyes, they glow in devilish red and they are hungry, someone woke the baby and he is now crying.

"You do it."

"No, you do it."

"Well, it was kinda your idea."

"Yeah, but you agreed to do it."

"I agreed to do it if you did it with me."

"I'm with you, now do it."

"I can't go first."

"Well then put it there, and I'll do the same."

"Count down from ten."

"No, that's too long, I hate waiting, let's just count down from three."

"Three."

"Wait, I'm not ready yet."

"Two."

"Ahhh, come on!"

"One."

A slick and thin piece of sharpen steel runs its course through soft pale flesh, it meets very little resistance. A pause as the flesh is gaped, white inside. The two await, looking at each other's self-inflicted wounds, no blood yet. As soon as the word, blood, leaves the mind there it is, rushing, creating an instant pool of it within the cut and as it fills it spills over in thick and sticky lines racing down towards earth. There is a tingling sensation, and the two start to feel a fiery burn where blood is leaving their bodies. Trickle down. Drop by drop. Pools form, and a daze of lightheadedness becomes them. Falling on to each other they form one, holding each other, whispering something like, "no regrets", I can't be sure I can't quite hear well especially faint voices from few feet away. They look into each other's eyes, watching the blackness of the retina swallow the soul alive. Eventually they will die, their clothes were drenched in blood when I decided to call 911. I never left a name for myself, how else would I explain passively watching two kids attempt to kill themselves together, why I was an adult and silently observed the act. I would struggle to convey what an interesting and once-in-a-life time moment to bare witness to, plus they never even saw me, I was a ghost living invisibly outside of their world, their little sphere of an infinite moment, I could neither interact as just as they could not interact with me, I could only watch them, and eventually call 911. When the ambulance arranged I hid inside the walls, I wasn't done watching all of this unfold, a pair of paramedics came in, gloves already on, lifted the girl first on to the gurney then the boy, and wheeled them off into the ambulance waiting outside. I listened to the siren cry out down the street, echoing on forever until it disappeared. I left the comforts of the wall and stood over the pools of blood left behind. I knew they'd live, but surprisingly there was a lot of blood there, perfectly sitting there. Alone sitting in the floor of an abandoned house, it looked beautiful in this moment, like some surreal painting that gives no sign of time and place, just this moment that has escape the reality of the universe, existing right then and there for a moment just long enough to be captured in the human imagination. And like that the blood disappeared. Perhaps it found its way back to its owners, bringing them back to life. I didn't know what to expect anymore, all I know is that after they left I knew they'll never be returning here again.

The house grew silent, I grew lonely, and wondered the hallways by myself, again. I had grown used to having visitors come and go, never staying for too long, but some stayed for long enough for me to grow comfort for them, as they became a part of me, and then they left. I'd become alone again, and this was normal. When I first started doing this I felt something be shivered, something forcibly pulled out of me like someone had given me teeth, let me use them without any indication of how long I can continue to use them, and after many days, weeks, and even years of being used to having and using these teeth, out of the blue they pay me a visit like the mob collecting mob tax and they pull tooth one by one until there is nothing left, sometimes mistaking what I had already had for their own. After it happens, I was going to feel empty and alone either way, I become used to it, and so when everything was taken away, I grew a profound sense of oneness. All I had was one. One being the lonely number you ever knew.

I watched the birds fly outside, I watched the seasons change, and sometimes I'd be reminded of the times before this house was abandoned. In all vagueness I remember moments of laughter, of good times, of a family or even families living here, having moments together, as they grew, the kids growing up and the parents becoming old and older before they realized they were fairly older then and that their kids were leaving them. They moved out, with plans to move somewhere warm, this house does get quite cold in the winter, I'm surprised I manage to survive each and every year, and to spite my constant survival, in the coldness of it all I still think I'm going to die, be frozen to death, and that this is the most depressing way to go.

Somebody eventually comes, two men dressed like painters wearing masks come to clean the dry blood, they complete the job within an hour, leaving the room with brown stain, a mark of history (I have many of those), and vanish never to return and perhaps they'll soon forget the incidence altogether (I can only imagine they do this quite often by the way the present themselves and how they handle their business).

Time goes on endlessly in this house, where the Monday seamlessly bends into Tuesday, and so forth into eternity. During times like that I blend into the walls, hide when there's nothing to hide from, and become part of the house because I can no longer stand this monochromatic display of everyday. Occasional a beam of light shoots across the floor and on to the wall, glowing gold with sunlight. I can't help but feel something good, see a face or two, and be taken away from this overly-ordinary tomb. Where I go is somewhere far but near, bright and dark, full of light and shadow, and the feelings are all mixed, disjointed from their original host as a vision is presented before me. I was once alive, living in the reality those two young adults were living in, just as foolish, just as fearless. I walked with style, barked like the howl, smoked the air around me. I was cool back then, and I had this thing, yes, thing, this girl, she was wild, I swear we robbed banks at some point if my memory hasn't receded so far back over the generations I have lived in this house. This damn house. In the vision I saw her bathed in that golden beam of light, in fact, she was that light, that warmth, she danced around in it, naked, soft flesh kissed and blessed by the light, it existed for her and her alone, she danced in such a way for me, and for me alone as I looked back briefly to see if there was anyone watching, no, it was just us, right then and there, alone, wild as can be, naked, yes, I was too, and dancing alongside her.

A flash when off in my mind, I was still in the vision, but then the present came into being, I remembered the couple that had attempted to kill themselves, I saw us in there, the sunbathed gold girl and me, I forgotten but now reminded that we once had the same pact, to die, in that same house. For some reason I knew she was alive, so that assured me we hadn't killed ourselves. I remember pledging to end it all to spend one last moment together, that death would seal us forever, as we dug ourselves into a well and gave the thumbs up to the construction men above, ok to pour the concrete down, just be fast with it I don't like the fact of drowning in concrete anymore than you do. But our fates were not sealed then, in this vision, this moment that did happen but had happened in another life, well beyond this one, no, we decided not to. I remember the words, "never, let us do this", the look on her face she gave me, I had never seen her more serious before. And after that moment everything, for years to come had this feeling, this atmosphere, hovering over it all and giving even the most mundane moments something worth fighting for, it was that each moment came so close to never happening, that all of this just may as well be a fantasy, a dream, but it wasn't, it was happening, that was the point after all. The closer you are to death the closer you are to life as some wise person once said. We lived each moment one by one, with new eyes, and new hearts to appreciate it.

The vision ended, the room grew dark again, pale and simple sat around looking bored. I sat beside them and sighed.

"About time I disappear", I said to the walls.

I took one step towards the wall, checked myself, took a breath and entered into the physically solid wall now melting away to the force of my body. Air rushed by, my ears were whipped by my uncut hair swirling around, and my clothes rustled against the wind. Another step taken, this one for not mankind but for me, me alone. My lips blew open and my mouth hallowed out with the rush of air, I struggled with each step but I kept moving, going forward. Step by step, my clothes being ripped off. I could hear the noise of different items in the house be thrown against the walls, somethings more fragile smashing, somethings more bulky producing loud dry slams. By the time I reached the other side my flesh was tore up, my clothes all gone, and my hair with it. I hadn't felt this fresh since the day I was born (not that I could remember it). When I got where I was going I remember a vague thought, something worth enough attention to commit to memory if I hadn't just woken up and replaced a dream reality with a reality reality.

The house was empty when I woke up, I was naked, but still had hair and my skin wasn't torn up. There was light everywhere like beams of light jetting out of a giant diamond. I sat listening to the tunes playing from my radio alarm clock, by the time I realized I was awake I was already running down the hallways. In my mouth was yelling at the top of my lungs. Naked, alone, yelling, running, happy, and never going to let this morning determine if today was going to be good or bad before it ever started it. No, I will not let that happen, not while I am alive.

Or is it?

Just

2011-09-14T15:22:00.004-04:00

(Noch Again, 2011)

You fall. I tried to catch you, but you spill out of my fingertips. You're on the ground. I'm half-way between standing and crouching, but I am heading towards you on the ground. You're spread out on the sidewalk. I'm sitting myself down beside you. You're shaking from your cuts, you are bleeding. I place my butt down, find a flatness that agrees with me and rest the rest of my body on that point where I sit. You know you're going to have a million bruises, bruises that are already forming. I bring my feet closer to the rest of my body and start taking off my shoes, starting with the left foot then the right. Your legs that you tried so hard to keep clean of marks and bruises are now camouflaged with blood gathering darkly, you look around you and feel embarrassed, you look at me and see that I'm the only one who saw you fall, you still feel embarrassed. It's been a long day I tell you, that you're tired, I'm tired, and we both needed a rest, so here we are, resting, our bodies forced us to rest, so let us do that. You take off your shoes too, your socks have snails and slugs drawings on them, I've never seen them before. It isn't just the bruises or the embarrassment of having someone see you fumble down and cut yourself, it is something universal, grander in portion and meaning, that this fall is a representative of your eternal struggle.

"Punch me", I tell you.

"Punch you? Why?"

"Just do it, right here." (I point to my calf on my right leg, pulling back my pants to reveal my unbruised flesh)

"I don't think I can right now"

"If not now, then when, this is the perfect time."

You punch me.

"Harder!"

You punch me harder.

"Punch the hardest you can, put it all in there." (pointing to my calf again)

You punch me really hard. But stop, I'm laughing, not at punch, it hurts, but it's just ridiculous, you punched me as hard as you can.

"Don't stop." I muster from all the laughter.

You keep punching me, each time I try to look away, there's something scary about seeing a fist in an arm readying itself up two and half feet in the air and seeing it come flying towards your flesh only to stop dead-on in a slam.

I start to cry, from laughter, you start to laugh too.

"Don't stop, baby."

I almost pee myself when I can't bear anymore, I'll either lose all feeling in my leg or wet myself, I think you must stop.

"Ok, ok, that's enough for now".

You stop, but then steal one more punch. Slam. Knuckles. My calf.

We'll have to wait to see if there's any bruises, usually the next day. And the next morning we wake up and examine my leg like its Christmas. No bruises. Disappointed we decide to stay on the sidewalk for the rest of the day, walking people pass by, looking at us. I wonder to myself, I hope it's been long enough time since Radiohead's music video for "Just", and that they don't confuse us lying on the sidewalk as a reference to that award-winning 90s music video. I want the moment to be pure, that we are both here because you fell and I wanted to fall to, though I just sat down gently beside you. A few hours pass, we rest with our bags as pillows, and I thought of a way to get me to bruise.

"Kick me." I tell you.

"What, really, that's going to really hurt".

"That's fine, I can deal with pain, physical pain is easy."

You ready up your leg and pause in mid-swing.

"Wait, where do you want me to kick you?"

"Anywhere, really, just not in the face...or stomach, or balls, please not the crotch."

You kick me in my right calf, and continue to kick, and with each kick you increase the force. After a while I stop laughing and you start stumping down on it like it was some dance move. My meat is getting tender, and before you realize it I'm passed out. It is the first time I passed out in my life, from what, you wonder, I'm not quite sure myself why I am passed out. You stop stumping my leg, and left your foot up from my calf, there is blood, dirt, and white ripped flesh. The sight disturbs you, you're in stock at how far you took it without realize you were going anywhere. I'm not conscious to tell you it is ok, that it was my idea in the first place, and that I am glad that you went as far as you did, you just have to help me get up and walk. You start to cry, and wonder if you killed me, you didn't and it is impossible, but I look dead, especially with that bloody calf.

"Open your eyes, please." You say in a frantic voice.

(no response)

"Talk to me, please, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

You get down on the ground, and you find a place for your butt that agrees with it, and you rest your entire body on that point, you then curl up beside me and grab me. You put me in your arms, and hold me there. I am still out cold, but somewhere in that unconscious state I feel safe, secure, warm, and no longer afraid of the darkness that surrounds me. Night falls, and we spend anyone evening on the sidewalk. Eventually an overwhelming urge takes over me, my eyes open for the first time in hours, you're asleep, and without thinking I say,

"I'm hungry".

Nothing Does It Better

2011-09-12T22:40:00.004-04:00

(Sum Fishing in Kaua'i, 2011)

The tide rolled in, white water foaming into white splatter rolling off of my feet. A tan-line marks the straps of my slippers that are now occasionally gone, removed, and perhaps I am too, removed, from it all, something about that white sea foam resembles me, or at least, what I have become, or becoming. The sand beneath my feet cave in, slowly but surely swallowing me whole one centimeter at a time. My ankles are now gone, and where the sand has taken my body I can no longer feel. I know it is there for I am still standing, but it just doesn't exist in my sensory, in a blank field of nothing. Nothing. Void. My knees were next, the sea rolling in, then that foam, it was me, my movement, it rolled back into the ocean, and it too was being swallowed alive. Waist deep, I no longer could shake this off if I had any will to move in the first place. Everything below started to grow cold as it lost feeling, and somewhere in all that lack of pain I felt relieved, like something was taking away all my burdens, my body was the biggest burden of them all. Chest deep, I struggled to breath at first but soon realized my lungs met no resistance, no solid wall of sand, I no longer had lungs they existed in status, an infinity, the blackness of a void. My neck, my chin, I let out a few last breathes and watched my vision fade grain by grain. My hands moved around on their own, floating as I felt my hands removed from their body for the first time, they were free. Fingertips, then nothing. Absolutely nothing. Overhead, looking down the beach where I once stood is now just an ordinary beach scene, without any trace of a human, just a mystic landscape, crashing and rolling, foaming all on its own.

Looking out from the cliff, headlights shooting off the edge and disappearing before a couple as they sip whiskey from the bottle, bums warm from the engine cooling below us. She doesn't give a face when she hits the bottle, he's impressed, taking another hit and letting the liquor warm him up. His eyes stare off, the city below glows, it makes them feel cold being so high and isolated and yet able to view it all. Down there it wasn't as beautiful, it was fast moving, buildings towering over them, the rush of traffic, the heat melting the concrete. In comparison, high above they were all chilled out, he pulled off his leather coat and wrap her body in it. She moved closer and let her body fall upon his, he put his arm around her and kept her there, ensuring her he knows how beautiful this lazy city is, the lights shimmering just for them, it's true the entire city decided to leave their lights on tonight because they knew they were coming, and they wanted to make sure they had something beautiful to see, to make it that much more remember able. He thanked them silently like a person praying to his or her self, careful not to be caught, one hail Mary like a scratch on shoulder, then the other shoulder then bottom of the chest and below the chin, another scratch it was itchy. Eyes glowing, they melted in place, he remembered a time in high school, this sort of place, these sorts of sight that spell romance like H.O.L.L.Y.W.O.O.D spell out Beverly Hills. There was something there, a feeling that landscapes like this create, the person you're with, what you both had on your minds, something boiled below that rough exterior, something raw, sweet, and maybe pure. It oozed down the mountain that night, the pureness, the lover's sap, it came slowly down, in a creep, in a silence, it took trees 20-30ft high in one gulp, then cars, and then houses, people screamed and ran with their hands in the air. One by one the floating stars of the valley disappeared. They saw it in our minds, their eyes closed, breath, breathing, hot jets, reservoirs forming, a rush, a flood, one by one they all fell down. The lights carried on, burning into the night, and no one could see, they were swallowed up in their mess, disappearing in the ooze, their fingertips as their last struggle to be, gone. The sound of the door slapping behind them, the breath that seemed to come from deep down inside, hot and sticky, wild, eyes in a daze, the walls of their reality had faded, replaced by something that is neither real or of dreams, but something lost in a surge of hormones and youth. It continued to ooze down, it fell into the sewers and popped manhole covers as it made its way to the center of the city. The stars were disappearing like the coming of daylight, they were still there but blanketed by a nothingness. Sounds in a car are loud, nothing to allow air to flow as it vibrated back to its source, it just bounced back into your ear and reminded you it is small in here, the only thing that exists was them.

The final light to disappear was a glowing clock of a clock tower, it read 11:11 the moment it disappeared. No one saw this, so no wishes were made, therefore no more wishes could be left undone. Time stopped for everything but the interior of that car, it was protected by something that neither existed in dreams or reality, it simply just did, exist that is. Two became one, a singularity floated in space, surrounding by nothing, absolute nothing, not even light could enter this dimension. The windows of car frosted up from the coldness of space, somehow there was a heat source within the backseat of the car that kept the car from turning to stone.

The ooze would eventually stop flowing, many years would pass and what was once flowing liquid would be rendered into a solid, this solid would eventually crack and part amongst itself over and over until fine grains of sand would form. What moisture that ooze once had been dissolved into atmosphere, waiting to return back into it's former form. The Earth rained for a week solid, where valleys had formed from dry seas now filled with water again, ponds turning into lakes, lakes turning into oceans with rivers and such in-between. The car that once stood in free-floating space met water and floated just above the surface. A thick layer of ice had formed around the surface of the car, and from within one can see a light flicker in a pulse.

Pump-pump went the heart. Pump-pump. Slower. Pummmmp. Pummmmp. . . Pummmmmm-ump. Pummmmmm-ump.

I opened my eyes, I'm sitting in a chair in a room filled with overwhelming white, like a flash of light, but I could see the form of the room, the corners form the end of one wall and start of another. I felt like I'm was in trouble, waiting in the hallway of the Principal's office, he was never going to come and tell me what I did wrong, I was all alone, my punishment was to wait, in this white-white-white room. A clock ticked on the wall like the pulse of the room, time was all I had. For all I knew beyond the room was nothing, absolute and pure. I waited and waited, for something to happen, for something to change, but no change was had happened. It felt like days, I hadn't slept or felt the need to sleep, my state never changed I just waited. For a long time, a month maybe, a few hours, something did happen, but the room itself remained the same, it all happened within me. Flashbacks of memories came to me in a vortex of colors and sensations, something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey, I was sucked up into this brilliant spectrum of color transforming into mathematically patterns until I saw myself in the shapes, and instead of seeing an image I was flashed by emotions. Everything inside of me was shook violently, I felt loss, an overwhelming emptiness that made my eyes tear up as if my soul was being pressed against my body, my eyes being the softness thing they bled tears as result. After that I felt my soul be torn apart, a violent shift in my everything was happening, and then the final flash was the oldest of the feelings it had no physical pain my mind felt disoriented as if I was being flipped upside down, everything I once knew and saw was shifted upside down with it. I looked down to my feet, I was still sitting, still in that overly white bright room, and yet I was on the ceiling, hanging upside down. The room soon disappeared, and my eyes opened.

The car battery was dead, it was early morning when they woke up. The world was back to normal, people working their jobs, delivery men delivering packages, nothing seemed effected from last night's blob invasion. The two walked down the mountain road, the girl still wearing his leather jacket, it was big on her. Somewhere in this universe some rock is floating, it is about to be hit by another rock much larger in size and it will push the other rock off it's course and send it slowly but surely towards earth. The rock is 40miles long and will take about a hundred and forty-four years to finally meet its end on the surface of Earth. By then the couple will be long gone, they will have many many more memories together and all that they will do in their life and everything they influenced will be erased from all memory. And perhaps it is something that has happened, that there is a history outside of the human memory, and traces and markings of evidence left behind that carries on, that something has happened, it scratches deeper than anything we are able to comprehend and that it marks into time itself. With a broken Earth and lava flowing over land, seas turning to vapor, the sky no longer blue but a fiery red, something hovers, something stays, forever, that it is impossible to destroy, that something has happened, and will always remain, not forgotten, and never to change, crystallized in the hardest and softest of all things, time, time itself.

The boy and the girl hitch a ride in the back of a truck, the sun sprinkles their faces as light passes through the trees. Wind is blowing the girl's hair, it dances and the boy looks off, inside of him he feels like this is going to be wonderful, everything, not knowing what the future is like, but sure of one thing for the first time in his life that everything is going to be not only just OK, they are going to be gggggggreat!

Off The Map

2011-09-12T18:14:00.003-04:00

The wonderful folks at Off The Map did an interview on me and my work, where I explore topics such as atmosphere, mental landscapes, ghost stories, skinwalkers, memories, memories, and my rap career (former, but potentially returning...). You can read the interview here.

Global Yodel

2011-09-11T23:46:00.003-04:00

I was asked a little back to do a short photo/story about the place I currently reside in, here it is, Global Yodel is quite a wonderful project, taking stories from all over the world, and giving them an image and a face.

Shadow's Deep

2011-09-11T22:36:00.007-04:00

(The Lookout, 2011)

Take a knife from the kitchen, put it in your backpack, come over now, bring a flashlight, a lighter as well, some rope would be great too. We'll hide out in the woods, we'll live there for a while. We'll disappear, we'll fall off the face of the earth. Together, yes, together. For. ever.

I called my mother, I told her I'd be going for a while, where she asked, I didn't know, just somewhere far. She tried to say more to me but I cut her off, and told her to just trust me. Trust me. I knew what I was doing. Did I? I did everything I was told, I had my backpack packed, brought a book too. I put my hiking boots on and I left. I looked at my bedroom, said goodbye. It was more of a farewell, I'll never see you again, and if I do, and I hope I do not, then that would be really disappointing, I was finished with you the day I closed my door on you, farewell.

In the night I roamed the streets, in search of her shadow, her shadow being exactly her, in all physically aspects, but something would be off, oh yes, her everything, her essence, her character, but I'd fool myself into thinking it was her. Yes, I would, and maybe I'd just hold the conversation for the both of us, me being me, and me being her at the same time. I pictured us running away, then when I got sick of her, her being the shadow, I'd find another shadow and I'd keep on piggy-backing from one shadow to another. It went in this endless cycle in my mind, and then I wondered if it would perhaps be easier just to have the real thing. For some reason I made up my mind, we cannot meet yet, there must be some time in-between, I wondered why I thought this way, I wanted to see her all the time, I wished I saw glimpses of her throughout my day, but nothing came close, everything falling short, sad, pathetic, not even reminders.

During those days women would float like phantoms through my life, all would stay for at least the night, we'd talk, and I tried to force their faces into her shape. In the back of cars, in a lot somewhere far away, with no one looking, their faces always came close, but fell short. And with each attempt I felt emptier, missing something vital to my survival. I always considered myself a very solitary creature, I knew in all my survival training that if everyone were to die of mass infection, or a nuclear explosion, that I could survive on my own, in the woods, hunting and gathering, my eyes getting duller by the day. I'd be looking into that fire, the same fire early humans made to keep themselves warm and to cook food, in that fire I would eventually see her face, somewhere in the flames, and when that happened I wouldn't be able to be alone anymore. I'd have to leave my hand-made shelter of branches and logs, leaves and stones, hidden against the background of forest, I'd have to go and seek, to leave my shelter and say farewell, but a farewell that says we are not complete, that I want to come back but I know I will die looking for her, farewell.

When I arrived at her house, I saw her face through the window in the kitchen, I looked from the bushes, I waited till she turned off the lights. I checked each window to see if they were open, none were. The backdoor was unlocked, almost inviting, in fact, it was totally welcoming, telling me to come in, particular-but-not-at-all open. I entered without a sound, it was dark, shadows and faint light from street lights covered the walls and the ground. In the living room appeared to be someone watching TV, the TV was off, and there was no one there, but in the shadow there she was, looking watching, she even smiled like her, waved her hand, and gave me a peace sign. As I approached the scene she disappeared. I passed on by, and entered the hallway. The photos on the walls were portraits, and of course they were all her, she gave out each and every one of her memorable expressions, the ones I grew to cherish, and as I approached them closer the reflection off the glass showed my face, each and every single of the photos did the same thing, my face, and when I saw my face it looked wild, I hadn't shaved in weeks, my eyes weighed down by a set of heavy bags, my glasses broken, I didn't see myself in them, just some stranger. I passed through the hallway to a room at the end. A warm light glowed in the gap below the door, and enchanted me, danced with my eyes, I felt warm, this was her bedroom, the one she grew up in, it was where she became a girl, and where that girl had started to become a woman. It was where it all started for her and I could touch the door knob, I can turn it too. Bring the knife. Why did she want me to bring a knife. I touched the door knob. Bring some rope too. Why did I need rope, to tie her down. I turned the knob. I pictured the knife in my hands, I'd have to let go of it as soon as possible, before some nightmare took over my hand then my arm then my mind and leave my sight so I can watch in horror. I wished I hadn't brought that knife, or the rope, the flashlight was useful, I used it earlier to find my way through the forest behind the house. I wanted one of those Bill & Ted moments where if you think of something, to remind your future self to not do it will be done, but this wasn't a movie, it was real, I was holding a knife, I was opening that door, I was letting my world be flooded by wicked, wonderful, and warm, warm, warm light. I was overwhelmed, I pictured heaven being so bright, I let go of my hands, they flew before me, I couldn't see anything but white, warm, yellowish, white, and there were figures, moving around, but they existed in my mind, the white light did as well. The room too, the knife stood in space, floating, my hand no longer holding it, it dripped, it fell forwards and hit the floor with a loud thump. I closed my eyes, I was sure it was a dream, I wanted nothing but a dream right about now, the chills of reality were running beads of sweat down the back of my neck. What have I done. Echoing like karaoke, this is the end, my friend. The shadows creep all around and gathered, each looked like her, but they all fell short, they were always missing the most important part.

In the forest, I returned, my shelter still there, I entered, and closed my eyes, I rocked myself over and over like my closed legs were a rocking chair. My eyes opened even though they were open to begin with, the world around me had disappeared and was replaced by a beach. All my clothes were gone, the sun was blinding, a dog started to bark at me, kids were there, they totally saw my junk, then their parents saw their kids, then me, then their kids in stock, and looked back at me, dog still barking away, spit flying out his mouth and on to my face. I picked myself up and ran, where, I wasn't sure, I just started to run, into the forest, on to the road, into the street, on pavement, on gravel, on earth, and over water, I kept running, running like it was what I was born to do, the only thing I could do, and I have yet to stop. My heart races on, my dreams are a mess, I'm not sure which world is real and which one isn't, and I don't know where all my clothes I have disappeared. I keep running, and the only thing I know is I'm running from shadows, I'm running towards the light that produces them.

Parallax

2011-09-11T11:18:00.005-04:00

(Daydreamer, Faint Light, 2011)

Girl, We Couldn't Get Much Higher. Come-on Baby, Light My Fire.

When she woke up, she realized that she was somewhere different from the place she first rested her eyes. All around her was a fiery glow, and at time she thought the world was on fire. At last, the Apocalypse...

She got on her feet, small volcanic rocks fell from her back, she looked down to see the sea, she looked up to the sky only to see there was no longer a sun, just the colors of a sunset, permanent and unchanging. She admired her skin in the faint light of sunset glow, it was the softest light she had seen. High above the clouds she breathed with shivers, she was cold, and dizzy, in the spectacle all around her. It was all beautiful but frightening, chills, yes, it was scary, and to be alone, up there, all alone.

There is something about sharing a moment, seeing and experiencing something absolutely beautiful and mysterious and full of wonder, with someone else. Perhaps its ensuring, that you have experienced this thing, and when you tell others they will never quite get it, their skin remaining non-goosepimpled, no shock, instead as you try to convey to them about such places where it is fixed in permanent sunset you come off as crazy. Your hand gesture explodes, aliens are beautiful-like, and yet they're left scratching their head, wondering what on earth you're talking about. They don't understand, it's not their life, it wasn't their eyes. They are outsiders, so are you, to them, an outsider. But to be with someone else when all of it goes down, to share something like that, they are there with you, just as crazy as you, just as blown away, you can scream at each other, that is perfectly fine, they understand, they are just as speechless, just as dumbfound, they have that.

Somewhere in all of her loneliness she invented him, she woke up on top of that volcano with him beside her, still sleeping, peaceful and stupid-looking, not knowing how he got there nor what to expect when he opened his eyes. She sat there looking over, it had been understood and respected by the time she was waking up again, in this restart of her first morning/afternoon/evening in the place of infinite sunset. He woke up, first looking at her feet, she was standing, seeing the glow on her flesh, then looked above, seeing her stand beside him, then see it is darkish, the world was on fire, he thought. He grabbed her ankle, said good morning, and let go. He got up on his feet but quickly fell. He coughed, breathing deeply, he wasn't himself, or at least his body wasn't as he looked off into nothing, his eyes lost. She came down to meet him face to face and saw he was sick. He coughed some more, his face had lost the color it once had, he was blueish, ghost-like. She panicked, wondering if he was going to disappear, his flesh was turning white and whiter. He was once a well suntanned man, looking brown and golden, blessed by the sun itself, now that was all a concept. She spoke to him, asking him if he was fine, but he looked confused, struggling to talk, holding her hand, and shaking all over. Perhaps this wasn't best idea bringing him up here, maybe it was the climb that made her body adapt to this climate, he hadn't done that, he just appeared here, without effort, without earning his place in the house of the sun. His eyes dulled, looking off into infinite, she held him in her arms, and he just sat there quietly, whisper things she could barely hear, but what she heard sounded like,

"I'm going home, it's too cold here, the air is too thin and almost non-existent", "I'm going to die, die, die", and one final phrase passed by barely audible, "Smell ya later".

His body disappeared in her arms, she looked confused, so did he, but he wasn't he anymore, just a pile of clothes that hugged her with emptiness. She wondered where he went like this sort of thing happens to them all the time, she wondered if he would appear somewhere public and be naked since he hadn't gone with his clothes. She smiled at the image she produced of him appearing at the beach, a family having fun, kids playing in the sand, the dog playing fetch in the ocean, mother and father looking over at all of this and relaxing for the first time in a long time and then a naked man appears from the cosmos, hairy and flesh, blindingly-pale skin in his bathing suit area, him cupping his balls as he awakes from a cold slummer of space/time travel. Everyone around him freaks out, the dog runs up to him, barking, "You freak, you, where's your clothes, get the fuck away from my family, you fiend, you pervert, I'll bite it off!". This is horrible, someone get him out of here, teleport, teleport, teleport, or just run, run, run. He runs off into the surrounding forest, penis flying in the wind, butt as white as a ghost face, and he's gone.

She feels alone again, and thinks a lot. During this whole time her notion of time is lost, there are no differences of light throughout the day and night, it is all sunset, without a sun, and she just thinks and thinks until she falls back to sleep. Tomorrow she will wake and see this world for the first time all over again, she will transform the earth around her and create him out of thin air, he will disappear in her arms, and she will do this over and over for the next week before realizing it was all a dream.

She wakes up in her bed, she's in the city, there's an ambulance racing down the streets below, she is back. What a dream she wonders, and as she exits her bed she notices fine grains of sand, against the black of her sheets they look like stars, the constellations themselves, each one is there, and she thinks to her self, when was the last time I saw the stars, when was it...

Half A Man Point

2011-09-07T23:46:00.006-04:00

(Wondergist, from Barking Wall, 2011)

It ain't the same, Sandy, nothing will ever be the same.

It is quiet, with little sounds interrupting the silence, the occasional car, and then I realized my ears are already used to the footsteps from the floor above, the train passing, even the air has a buzz to it, it is quiet but it's moving, it's being pushed by something, machine-like, from far away. Another truck passes. It hits me harder here. I close my eyes and try to think, to recall the last 48 hours.

The city was asleep, I passed by familiar sites on the way to the airport. I saw Tiffany's, in an orange glow, I remember, then the biker bar, the karaoke joint, yes, there too, and then underneath a building a place where faces are hidden, men with high-heel women disappear. I never ended up ever going back, I don't think I could after what happened. That night calls me out of peaceful nothing dreams into a vortex of sexual fantasy, perhaps to mysterious, too hidden and unknown, and something along the lines of a sexual nightmare, neither good nor bad, fun and sexy. I keep telling myself it was just a dream, if only.

We set off on a mission, Sandy and I, my mother told us about the Korean red light distinct, warning us, never to go there at night, strange things happen there, no good. No good at all. And that only seemed to make us want to go there even more, to see it with our own eyes, we even doubted my mother's words, thinking it was only speculation, has she ever gone there at night, talked to those people, sat in that bar, and saw anything before her very own eyes. Never. And so we went one night. We walked through the streets on the road when the sidewalk disappeared, we held hands and looked like a couple looking for some trouble, something exciting, and wild. It was all quiet in this little town on this small island, everyone seemed to go to sleep at a certain time and then the glow of the island seen from high above with dim into nothing, a few stars in the sky of an ocean. Some things in that city never sleep, they creep in the night, hide in dark corners, or in this case underneath an abandoned building, where men go, women wait, and counting stacks of bills. Approaching the building only made me nervous, I didn't want to be there, it felt real, like a scene out of a movie, the stereotypes of bar fights and nasty folk conjured up in my head, it wasn't too far from that, we just passed by handlebar-sporting bikers by the bar across the road. She held on to my hand tighter, she was wearing the balls for both of us. And I remember cycling the thought of why I wasn't comfortable with all of this, nothing has happened, no men with guns occasionally flickering from behind their coats, no dog-eyed stares, if anything it was uneventful, and yet I was uneasy. Girls in sequin dresses and high heels clicked clicked clicked in wait, a fat lady sat at a fold-out table, holding money, and a couple approach, smile intoxicated smiles, one white guy with silver hair in an aloha shirt first ten buttons open chest hair everywhere and a young asian woman with a butt float a few inches behind waiting for a pair of hands to grab it enter the joint. None of them eyed me, I was expecting one of the woman for sale to at least look at me, ask me out with their eyes, only for me to go, I'm not interested as awkward as I can muster by looking down in shame. No, none of that. Sandy let out of my hand, she jetted into the building leaving behind as the gaping door represented one reality to another. As the door stood open I looked in, saw a dead scene of booths with the flicking glow of televisions, odd combinations of neon colored things, from the booths to the walls to the cups and the floor. At the bar the bartender looked on, a fat bouncer looked at Sandy approaching him, then looked back up at the TV uninterested. The door closed, and I stood there looking at a portal that had disappeared. Suddenly the sounds of money being flipped through shot up from behind me, some barking sounds from one of the girls, and my back burned a tingling sensation, telling me I had to get out of there, I looked to my left I looked to my right, I couldn't go, the only place direction was forward, into that door, into the unknown. I grabbed the handle, felt like I was touching each hand that had been places on people I never wanted to knows bodies, I wished I had a tissue, opened the door, entered into a bizarre scene from Twin Peaks. I took a deep breath.

I looked around to see if I could find Sandy, at the corner of my eye I saw her head move abruptly to the lift and disappeared through a door, I looked to the left only to see a mirror. The right. I calmly passed the bouncer and bartender, who never gave me a moment of their time, and jetted into the door. After the door came a long hallway, red walls, and for a moment there I thought they were bleeding, it could have happened too it wouldn't have changed the situation. Spaced out every ten feet were doors, and as I passed each one moans of male and female parties resonating through wood and into the hallway. It reminded me of this time a few of my buddies and I went running around this notoriously haunted hotel in Galveston, looking for ghosts, in the hallway we heard moaning, like a ghost speaking of its troubles, it got louder and louder as we approached, all of us completely silent, even our footsteps made not a sound, closer and closer until the door was inches away, it was a couple fucking.

A door opened to the right of me, a hand came out before I could see, and I was taken into a dark corner of the universe. The door closed behind me, this shadow disappeared into the darkness, I couldn't tell if it was close or far, my eyes tried to adjust but there was simply nothing to adjust to, it was too dark. Warmth came over me, I felt it rush through my blood and I started getting hard. Lips were pressed up against mine, moist contact, slippery with tongue, we were reading each other, and once we came to an understanding things picked up from there. It was dark but I'm assuming it was a girl, she grabbed the back of my head, pulled some hair, and I was so turned on in the moment it didn't hurt, I just went forward, and her legs wrapped around me, taking me on this fall. We were together, where we land, if we land at all, could have been a pit, my mind yelled this is Sparta as we entered the void, and we hit the bed, her legs spread, my body in the right spot, kissing each other furiously. Grabbing my body, running her fingers against my back, I felt crazy, she was crazy, we were both crazy. Hands started to explore each others bodies, things were grabbed, pulled on, poked, pushed, and things got wet. Motion happened, moans were produced, faint, struggles to breath and yet breathing just fine, air that only left the body in a erotic moments, steamed, a hand pressed against a window, moaning louder, faster, things slip in, bodies make one, that good old feeling, my mind leaves and is replaced with that of animal, I almost forget but I completely remember. Faster and faster, a smooth motion, we were an ocean, gliding like surfboards, completely smooth and yet there's fiction, we were floating away, and hitting rock bottom all at the same time. Louder and louder, more intensity. Sweat sweating, darkness all around. Time slips, the warmth boiling, bodies fuse, breath, spit, nothing outside of this moment matters, the people we knew, the places we've been to, the things we had to do, all responsibilities, everything forgotten, out the window, just that motion, that togetherness, the warmth, and steamy cloud like nesters of emotions and sensations, and moans. Eventually climax.

We both just lay there, I could hear her breathing, I can hear myself breathing. She rests her head on my chest, and we sleep. Sum hours later I wake up, alone, naked in a room, it is a different room from where I closed my eyes because it was now lit from a florescent light above. It was disgusting in there, stains on the wall, a lime-green paint with plastered up holes, off-set paint, the sheets of the bed suddenly looked dirty, I get up and put my clothes on fast. I open the door and looked both ways before entering the hallway. I couldn't tell if it was night or day, I wasn't sure how long I had been in that room, or if anything had happened. In my pocket I find a few condom wrappers, it only confirmed some certainty as I make my exit. Into the bar, I see from the exit that it is still night, but this time the bartender looked at me, the bouncer got up from his seat like it was the first time that night and looked right at me. No words until I passed him on my way out.

"$70 bucks"

I stopped and held there, like a hook had just sunk into my back.

"3 hours, $70 bucks".

I turned around, grabbed my wallet without thinking of another opinion, pulled out eighty in twenties, hand it, the bouncer who nodded to the bartender the bartender nodded back, hit the cash register and produced a ten. I grab the ten from the bouncer, then once the exchange was done the bouncer returned back to his seat, looked up to the TV and the bartender continued drying cups.

At home, I find Sandy sound asleep, I wanted to ask her questions, but she looked too peaceful. I went the bathroom, cleaned myself off, and got into bed. I closed my eyes and think to myself, it must've, I really hope it must've. In the darkness of the room I felt my body be removed, taken, and replaced. A call from the wild, I looked up the sky, it was a full moon, I whisper, "Do you know what that means". [Silence] "It means I ...[HOWL]." A fog left my mouth as I howled like a mad man, like wolf, like a coyote. Perhaps I was all of the above, I ran, I ran huffbeat stagger fearless and with a craze about me. Beat in my chest, I let out another howl, it felt good.

The Last Fight

2011-09-05T04:37:00.004-04:00

(Nine-Eleven, from We Soon Be Nigh!, 2011)

YOU BIG DUMB IDIOT YOU MAKE THE WORLD AROUND YOU MELT INTO PUTRID TRASH, THE SAME TRASH AS YOU.

DO YOU REALIZE THIS?

My heart's a-racing, I can't remember the last time I was this pissed, it's not my fault. I lived most of my life as a passive, fight-avoiding-at-all-cost citizen, I considered myself polite and nice, but every so often some jerk, no, some big old idiot comes around and ruins the harmony of life. Deep down inside of me my nasty vocabulary is ignited, I say all kinds of things, most of which don't make sense and are completely negative, I become negative. He's yelling at his girlfriend again, she's crying, struggling to carry on, he has his hand on her arm, grabbing it hard, carrying the pace for the both of them. Every now and then he yells at anyone within 30ft of him. There's a woman with a small dog, bark bark bark goes the man, a mother with a scroller, another bark, a skinny guy with headphones, bark again. I wonder what makes him so mad, how can anyone have a reason to be that insanely furious, did his mother, after struggling with cancer for many years finally die, with him at the bedside, holding her hand? No, I doubt that, you'd be sad, at least I'd be sad if that happened, rage would be the last thing to come to mind. Did the world seriously fuck with this guy, no, in my guts it did not feel that way at all, this was different, he wasn't just rotten. My driver's license says I weigh 147lb, I'm 5' 11'', but closer to 5' 10.6", I hadn't been in a fight since middle school, and my demeanor would never work to prevent fights by appearing to be threatening, I was quite the opposite, I looked sweet and nice. I never got mugged or given any trouble, maybe I did look tough, or maybe the half-asian in my appearance gave others the suggestion I may or may not know kung-fu, whatever it was, I was both friendly and non-targetted, a happy medium. This happy medium of mine was now engulfed in the spit of an angry idiot. I keep as calm as I could, I even look him in the eyes. My eyes naturally get a little glassy when being yelled at, it's loud sounds, at concerts if I'm too close to the drummer each snare hit makes my eyes blink, if I'm with a pretty girl I fight each blink, keeping my eyes open, each snare hit, ranging from a 90-130bpm drum loop, irritated my eyes or more precisely something deep in my mind that didn't like loud sounds. I also had exceptionally sensitive ears, able to hear high-pitch rings that only people half my age could hear, I often thought that attributed to my sensitive disposition.

He was 15ft away, his girlfriend's eyes adverted, I knew she needed me, ego aside, she was looking for some brute to shut him up, and perhaps this sort of thing happens with them a lot, that he'd go on a blind rampage through the street, and eventually he'd bark at the wrong fella or lady, and he'd get shut up. I wondered if I was the one, the fella, the lady, the character born to aid this task. I felt a rage growing in my belly, I looked as mean as he did at this point, I could sense his doubt in his brief pauses he'd take, like we was thinking things over in his head, can I take this guy, he might thinking I know kung-fu or some chinese shit. I told him I did with my eyes, piercing his soul, giving him this message, I am very much not one to be messed with, now am I going to have to show you a lesson. I rolled my sleeves up to my elbows and soon realized that the bulky veil they produced over my thin forearms were now defeated. I tried to keep my cool, I was still winning this fight, or at least I thought I was. He stepped closer, I stood there, chest out like Superman.

"COME ON, TOUGH GUY, YOU AIN'T SHIT", he spits out.

I say nothing looking at him without a blink. I stood there with an invisible wind blowing my invisible cape, I swear for a moment I was invincible.

He comes closer, I don't budge, I hold my ground. Closer and closer. Before I knew it I could see the insanity in his eyes, for a flicker of a moment I saw fear in myself, I quickly collect myself, keeping it together. I lower myself, keeping my knees bent, legs fluid, moving, arms ready to grab, his fists were drawn, I should cover my face but I figured I could dodge or take a blow and let the adrenaline take over as I lock this prick and throw him to the ground. I waited for that chance, all I needed was one opening. He left go of his girlfriend and came at me faster than I'd imagined, I realized I wasn't wrestling someone but going against a fist-throwing maniac.

A punch thrown, kissing my ear, I raced to his body, swung my arms around his neck and catching underneath his armpit, I locked my hands together and squeezed in the gap, swinging my whole body to the ground taking him with me, his legs gave resistance so I move to the side, he stopped yelling, just grunts, which sounded even more threatening over my shoulder, out of sight not out of mind. Eventually I brought him down to the ground, he was a lot stronger than me, I felt my body give to the force a few times, and each time I struggled to pin him down. Eventually he subsides, he seems as calm as belligerent fool could be, and after a minute of listening to his girlfriend tell me to let him go, and him telling me to let him go, I do. The tables turn so fast that all I could remember is the sensation of falling when I was perfectly confident in standing, as if the carpet beneath my feet was pulled, a white-out and a ringing noise followed, nothing broken just me on the ground, and in shock. When was the last time I was punched. He started to kick my stomach, and I hold myself together, tightening every muscle in my body like armor. Some people run over to the site, I can't see them, just hear them as this whole commotion unfolds, I feel like I was watching a movie with my eyes closed, imagining what this and that character looks like, what expression they have on their face, where they were, what they were holding, eventually I hear the idiot's voice, it is farther than before, I hear it echo down the street, my body still curled together. I feel more embarrassed than anything, I just got beaten up, I mean it happens but it's probably the most degrading thing ever, worst than having your pants pulled and your underwear goes down with it, and everyone sees your penis, strangers and a lot of them, and you're blind with embarrassment. At least then you can run away, but where I rest, I have to first get up, and face those who saved me before I can do anything, then I walk away in shame, face all messed up. I decide to stay there, looking at the world through the gaps of my arms, I see bodies, no faces, just arms and waists, I could read their body language, they're losing interest. I just want them to go away, I'm thankful but I just want to be alone right now.

They don't leave, eventually I get out of my conscious coma, and face them, they help me up, I'm not sure if that makes it worst or not, but I figured at this point my balls could be out for all to see and it wouldn't matter I'm a mess and most pathetic sight for sore eyes. I pick up my glasses, they're all scratched up, and I thank them and take none of their offers, I just want home. I walk home, think about a lot of things, and try to ease my nerves. I could really use a woman right about now, make me forget about this night, or rather the night I had before meeting up with her, we could do whatever, just take me away from my thoughts, just give me that much. I reached my apartment, looked up, my light was off, why would it be on, I decided to walk passed, I walked and walked, across a bridge, passed a neighborhood, into a park, into the sea, into the abyss, into the darkest regions known to man, into hell, and back again, raising from the sea covered in seaweed, looking swampthing, looking like a something, I walk endlessly until the sun kisses the horizon, I looked down at my feet, they ache, I limp on, and eventually falling on a bench, sit there looking at the sky, the same sky that I've seen a million times, transform, the same transformation I've seen half a million times, I look endlessly, I shiver, I'm not cold, at lease physically, no, I was cold deep down inside, too far for any comfort blanket. I swallowed my thoughts, I look on, and can't remember the last time I saw dawn. The craziest of nights always end like this I think to myself, I try to think of something profound to say, to encourage myself, to rebuild myself, but instead I just looked on, not thinking about anything. Blank, for the first time in a long time.

How We Are Thirsty

2011-09-03T22:36:00.004-04:00

(Mystic Sister, Otherworld, 2010)

Often while dancing I lose control, a certain control that I hold on to most of the time, it helps me coordinate throughout my day, and is the central system that operates my basic motor moment. All of this is thrown out, I forget how to walk or run or jug all together, I just let my foot loose. Over the years this form of losing control on the dance floor has developed and been refined, gaining deeper response to my emotional state as well as the groove in both my heart and mind, as well as the air. Certain air is no good for dancing, to spite how good the dancer is, and factors of the air depend on the music and the people occupying the dance floor. Of course even those factors can be thrown out the door as well when it comes to the presence of the right dance partner. This essentially is the strongest influence to my dance routine, and the wildness that happens with both my legs and arms are thrown into a fury of projectile movement. As my legs and arms move in a furious matter the precaution of outsiders gains my partner and I ground space to fully commence in dance. Somewhere in the universe an invisible beam of energy, a ban of light that is neither infrared, x-ray, or gamma, and effects only dance moves and is caused by the allining of certain planets, and once this event happens it reaches into the souls of whoever is dancing and takes the lack of control into a whole different level, this is the birthing of a dance off. If the surrounding crowd wasn't far enough already from the two engaged dancers they are now miles away, hiding in their shelters, some are curious and look on, some try to carry on in their weak excuse for dancing, ocassionally looking over to what is transpiring as they whisper regrets into each other's ear, shame.

I swear I let it all out, any bit of angry, happiness, sadness, it is all there, on the dance floor, it is in how my leg appears to be made of jelly and yet it is strong enough to support a raging tornado. I kick, my leg jets fast then slow, then pause, swirl around as my other leg follows, I do a spin as my hands act like guilds to help an approaching airplane into terminal, I rock it some more, I feel my body form a layer of sweat throughout, and through the collar of my dress shirt I feel venting steam jet. A few lost moments pass, and I grab my partner's hands in mine, our legs never touch, they come close but never meet, just reflecting each other's feelings. I am gauging her movements she is gauging mine, we smile, look into each other's eyes, we are looking directly into each other's pupils but they aren't looking back, they are lost, voodoo trance like, sweat covers our faces, we have a fever, jungle fever, and our bodies are a disco inferno. My heart is pounding, my thoughts are lost to how to describe the rest, of how to give detail to the fury of the eye of the storm. With each beat I die a little, with each swing, sudden pull of the right arm bringing my partner towards me, away from me, around me, and dipping her as I look down, beads of sweat kiss flesh of her chest, they form vapor which enter my nose and intoxicate me. I black out from here, when I return to it I'm still moving, looking at her, she is wild, crazy, beautiful, I'm not sure if I can handle it and yet I am still here, still in one piece. I am surpassed, my glory as a dancer is now to the glory of her name, I call out to her like a cowboy calling to a wild stallion, what is her name I ponder, something that cannot be tamed nor captured, something that is beyond me, or understanding, majestic upon majestic, a mystery to all. When the song ends the dance ends, the world returns, it is no longer us as we realize we just scared off half of the club, the bouncers are dogging us, but they can't touch us, for that moment and that moment alone we are invincible. My hands have never let go, we are still engaged, out of breath, hair all stringy and wet like we were running in the rain, purple rain. We shared something that no one else will ever again share in the history of the world, it happened just tonight, and will remain in our hearts forever. The mirrorball is shattered, the light is dizzy and bent, our feet throb, and our mouths are thirsty. We are thirsty. I ask her for a name, she replies, Sandy. Sandy Beaches. This is how we met. And so it begins.

Meet Him Or Delete Him

2011-09-02T03:50:00.002-04:00

A few years ago I started having friends approach me, often while out of breath from the run they had to do to reach me and tell me something immediately. They'd say something like they said hi to me only to find out it wasn't me, they'd grab them my the shoulder and shake him, yell my name at him, but some were wiser, knowing it wasn't me, and would simply report they had a BGK doppleganger experience. All but one account actually reached me in a matter that is beyond knowing that there are people that look, even dress, and sometimes talk like me. I used to wonder how many versions of me are there, are they clones, am I am a clone? Why couldn't we just get together and form an amazing band or create something fantastic that I've always thought if there were more of me I'd be able to do. This one account was recent, the one that shook me, made me wonder if I should seek him out, find out where he lives (somewhere in Brooklyn, he is already that much cooler, hipper, than me, probably has the same clothes, but the next price bracket up in branding from me, and worst of all, he probably paid the same as me). When I find him, what then? I had this gut feeling we wouldn't get along, thinking of how when I used to want to meet half-asian half-white people like me, building in my head that we would relate, be best of friends, finding someone that understands your situation, but no, I felt friction instead, and leaving me even more alone on this planet. What would meeting someone that looked just like me, maybe they even had the same smell and voice as me, even spent some time in Texas and could even do the accent. Then I went through a list of things that we both had in common, all the flaws and quarks, everything that made me me, what then I wondered. One of us would have to be the evil one and the other is the good one, a fight would ensue. Someone would have a gun pointed at us, they'd look down the barrel and into the crosshairs, she'd be switching it back and forth, me or him, him or me, again and again.

"He's the evil one!"

"No, he's the evil one!"

"Stop it you're only confusing her!"

"That's something the evil one would say to cover up his clearly evilness!"

"Hey, wait, what if she wanted to kill the good one?!"

"He's the good one!"

She fires, killing one of us, on the ground, one shot to the heart, blood running from his chest, he tries to speak, tries to look into her eyes, something comes out of one our lips, too faint to fly with the wind, too late to try to make a mends. In the end who knows which survives and which one died there that day, one of us went home with that girl, and one of us gave the shifty eyes behind her back then put his index finger over his lips and shhhhh... to an invisible crowd, there goes the third wall, or was it the fourth, what happened to the second and the first?

"YOU'LL NEVER KNOW!"

(evil laughter)

(endless echo)

(the end of Thriller)

MISC Magazine.

2011-09-01T03:46:00.003-04:00

(if you subscribe to a certain Nathan Cyprys' blog then this post is pretty much the same, but about me, not him, 2011)

You can catch me in the fall issue of MISC Magazine, link, based in Amsterdam. Special thanks to both Alex McLeod and Ashley Perez for all their help and interests on this one. If you read the fine print you'll discover a fancy of mine most do not know about (until now...). The publication is quite beautiful, I look forward to having it in hands, leafing through the pages in awe and wonder, such wonderful things.

Jokes and Trials pt. VI

2011-08-31T01:10:00.008-04:00

(Untitled, 2011)

I got her back. That's all that matters, the moments leading up to seeing her face, curvy blown hair running over her face, sleeping, gone, goner, and her body in fetal, silent like the night she met. I tried to imagine nothing had happened in the past forty-eight hours, but it did, I felt it everywhere, my blood still carried the signs of distress, and wondered how fragile this very moment was. I sat at the edge of the bed and ran my fingers through her hair, they caught and I gently removed them. She budged a bit, as if digging her face into sand. I tucked her in and started cleaning the room, then the rest of the apartment. After that I went out to grab a few things: food, a couple of books, and some fresh fruit grown from all around (they were there for the taking).

After San Juan and I parted ways, which was sometime after the hospital visit, we met back up that very night, we returned to the bar lost in the valley, and this time we met no resistance, it was clear and obvious Sandy was there, I knew it the moment San Juan led us there the night before. The bartender from the previous night wasn't there, the bouncers were though, and instead of dog-eyed stares we were greeted with passive exchanges, like we somehow gained their respect. San Juan approached the replacement bartender, I was introduced to Carl G., but we never shook hands, he just led me up to the rooms upstairs. San Juan stayed downstairs, and Carl G. stopped at the top of the stairs, pointing to the open door at the end of the hallway. As I approached the door I took small breathes, thinking that she might not be there, I had to ready myself for disappointment, like I often do and I am not proud of it it's just a mentality I've gained over the years; self-defense. Through the doorway flesh met the eye as a toe grew into a foot a foot grew into a leg a leg grew into a bum and a bum grew into a waist and the rest followed. I was reminded of the first time I had seen her, she had a wicked bod, enough to fall for, but I didn't, I resisted it as I made my way over to talk to her first, feeling like there is much more. There was more. I entered the room as if it were a crime scene, I pictured a camera panning overhead like the climax of Taxi Driver, though without the blood or dead bodies, just the discovery of something that happened throughout the night.

I carried her on my back all the way up the mountain path, had to take breathers now and then, put eventually we made it. I laid on the bed, watching for any sign she was able to move, to grab my hand, to even blink, she just stared endlessly into my eyes, crazy eyes. She gave me some signs she was still with us, she spoke softly, with words rolling off of her tongue delivering every statement as a question. They were the words spoken, broken through the philm of one world into another, a sleepwalker, errr, sleep-rester in her case. She'd roll over to one side then to the next, her movement seemed foreign, and occasionally she'd get up to go to the bathroom and return back to bed. Everything scared me at first, like she was possessed, something else was powering her body as it moved, her words were otherworldly, and though I had found her she was still lost.

In town I checked the PO BOX, in there I was surprised to see a letter from an old friend. When was the last time I had heard or seen Philip, the memories between then and now rushed by me in a gust of wind, in that vision I saw a long and windy road which represented my runaway with Carla, the cities we saw, the hotels we stayed in, sleeping in the bed of my El Camino, the endless and monotonous road, then it crawled into darker regions, the end of one life and the beginning of another, Sandy Beaches, that one was still fresh, still slapping around the boat trying to escape, I bite it by the neck and held on for while being slapped in the face, the pain reminded me my hold is an illusion eventually it will have to be let go. I headed back to the apartment and read the letter on my walk.

Dear Jorge,

First things first get ready for an unpleasant letter. As you hold this piece of paper you may or may not be ready to read what is going to be said, in the mean time I'll just lighten it up with my formal response to you. Thanks for your letter, it reached me, and I looked up to the moon and howled a bit. It has been too long, amigo. I don't want to say anything generic here, but I hope you're doing well, I'm sure you're in trouble, the good kind of trouble. You remember that saying, I remember you strutting down the street, singing then whistling, "Trouble with a capital T, ya know you don't wanna mess with me-he-he-he". I miss those days, and the one thing that keeps all those memories from fading is I know our time, our good times are no where near to end. I'm sorry I can't make it out to you, not now, not for a while, I got too much work on my hands, and I got myself a girl too. No kids, no where near that, but you know, bro, eventually, right? So with that outta the way, the rest of this is shit, it will probably ruin your day, and I hope with me telling all of this it lessens the stock.

Carla is dead. Car accident. Ran off the highway, off of a cliff. Nowhere near here, no, this was far away, and the only way I found out about it was a letter I received from the state trooper's office in Nebraska saying your car had been destroyed, and that the person in it was now deceased. There were more details, I included that letter in the attachments. They did find alcohol in her blood, but the way it happened it could have been a plain out accident, that she just didn't see the road, it was a dangerous one too, I checked on streetview. Look, I am sorry to have to tell you all of this, but I knew I had to tell you, for you to know, you must know, she was your past, and your past never dies.

Come visit, me and the guys miss you, you should see Theo, wouldn't recognize him.

-Philip

I stood there, lost, confused, something deep down inside of me which laid dormant and silent woke up. The lower half of my heart felt a sharp pain. I continued to walk, lost in thought. I had twenty minutes to forget all of that, my past did die, I did not want to enter that room with any of it on my hands, on my mind, in my heart, no not my heart. I found it hard to remember Carla's face, her smile, the way wind moved her dress as we drove on. The feelings never did come back, just the shivered ends wiggled around on the ground like fallen power lines. I had successfully cut that part of me, now all that remained was a bitterness in its place, an alcohol produced from an end of terms. When I reached the apartment I reached a peace with myself, all I wanted was to honor our cherished moments. Hidden away a box of photographs collected dust in the closet, many of which were taken on the road with Carla. I looked through them all. I saw the photos as an outsider, I was a different person then, this, as I pointed to a picture of myself smiling, wasn't me, nor the one with me pissing off the side of the road, he was old familiar someone I used to hang out with but now I couldn't stand him, or what he believed in. The fool.

I don't know what possessed me to show Sandy a part of my past, especially an old dig, but those moments still meant something to me, it made up who I am today, through success but mostly failure. Sandy barely moved, I just set things down beside the bed. At times I'd have to leave, something stuck the sadness in me, seeing her like that, the glow was gone or too dim to see. I knew it wasn't the end, no, it was the valley between two peaks, where we're both lost, and yet we're still in it together. Mud and all, stick by stick.

It had been about two weeks, I started to work a week ago, I made my rounds by the apartment as much as I could, Sandy remained the same, confined to the bed. In hidden moments she looked through the photographs and did the best job she could making sure it appeared to be untouched. I knew she was moving around, she wasn't dead, she just wasn't herself, or perhaps the self I wanted her to be. At night I'd take these walks, walking up the mountain, it was a little scary but at the same time I felt safe, like no harm would come even if a panther suddenly appeared out of the bush it would look me in the eyes and I'd look back, telling it I did not fear the reaper in a moment of telepathy, we came to terms with each other, a sort of momentary respect as I understood his kingdom of the jungle and he understood my kingdom of the village. Dark circles were gone, replaced with longing, oh I longed, and longed I did. That spark, that feeling we had, put on hold, she was the beginning of my summer, she was the end of it as well. Alpha and Omega, cosmic tango, electric field safari, come fly me to the moon, and spring on Jupiter. I closed my eyes, set myself up for sleep on my half of the bed. I looked out the window until all was gone, I felt myself drift away.

A light switch flick sound, soft foot steps, a dip in the bed, and arms suddenly around me, her face pressed up against swallow of my back, an energy which took me, I was taken, I was flying. My heart ran a steady slow tick as I felt her fingers interlock with mine, no words, no thoughts, just silence, just this. Like a surfboard catching the wave, it starts to glide over water like butter on hot toast, it is the perfect grind, friction, friction-less, the feeling that rushes your toes, makes its way to your heart, it pumps and it goes, oh-oh-oh how wonderful, like kissing the blades of swelling water and being a part of the force for one moment, for one ride, I turned around and faced her, I was absolutely sane, I was totally insane, for her.

We. were. back. And so ended summer, frozen moments shattered, a tidal wave crash, a mystic moon on the banks of the horizon, hovering and diving, diving, dip and float, the air in the night, the mountain so high, I can feel it all, yes, I say with my smile, singing like some scene from the Sound of Music, I am Julie Andrews, these are my kids, let us dance, and sing, under the stars. The Hills Are Alive (with the sound of music). And These, my friends, are a few of my fav-vor-rite things.

Edge of the Pimple

2011-08-30T21:03:00.004-04:00

(a picture of a waterfall from a distance, shrubs and flowers in foreground, bright day, a house resting just above the waterfall farther up the cliff, 2011)

Holding on to the railing, feet locked into the gaps, I looked beyond and what I saw is water falling from great height. I didn't take me much effort to get there, no hiking involved, I didn't even have to drive (my father did). I made my way passed a vendor, a man with his belly out selling seashell creatures, after a few exchanges of the eyes I moved on to the railing, there I just stood there, looking. Around me were tourists, not much different from the ones earlier, to the other waterfall we had visited that day, also requiring no walking, just parking, which was at capacity. I looked and I looked over the edge of the road at rushing water, cameras snapping all around me, I wondered what this site meant to them, what it will mean to them when they upload their images, look at them on their glowing computer screens, maybe this site will end up as a desktop background, maybe they'll even print it, it might even end up as a larger print, a whole 11x14 printed on canvas will spill over on the edges. Just maybe. And what will it be then, what that image will be when floating in their living room, on their desktop background, will they remember their time away, maybe the love they had or had not in their hearts, their resort room, the beaches, chasing waterfalls, or will they just see a waterfall, just some water finding the path of least resistance and then plummeting to a small lake where it gathers, collecting itself, and moving on in a river like matter. What gathers so many people to places like Niagara Falls, so many newly-weds, what do they see in falling water, or perhaps its the place, it has been manufactured for their devotion, to make the best of their time, the landscape has bent its back backwards. Perhaps that asteroid from space that hit the Niagara region some x-amount of years and attributed to the formation of the Escarpment had love in its interest, that it was a love stone being thrown at fearsome and fiery speeds towards the not-then-but-is-destined-to-be the US-Canada border.

I once biked that region, it's damn hilly, hard if you're not used to hills, which I'm not, and harder after a long day of biking, not fun. But it is beautiful, it is something to behold, to see in your lifetime at least once, if you can get around doing so, I mean don't come all the way from China to see it, if you live close then sure, come check it out, not the town, but the region, do some hiking, make sure you come in the summer, but make sure it's not too hot, there's surprisingly a fair amount of hikers, or rather tourists that decide to walk for a few miles, that die of dehydration, which reminds me, bring plenty of water, the right shoes, or rather hiking boots. Leave only foot prints, unless you seen a fancy rock, and you're the only one doing it, and make sure no one sees you doing it because you might just start a trend. That rock will sit in your pocket, it shines, it shimmers, it is a deep black and reflects a rainbow like oil in water, a dark water at that. I once found a rock like that myself, up in the foothills of Navajo Lake, CO, I was running around, and exploring nature as a kid when something called to me, I dug my hands into the a pile of pine needles, loose leaves, and smaller rocks and pull out that same exact rock. I knew without a doubt it was a meteorite, I knew what those things were and looked like, I was all about space, aliens, fearing abduction, and korn back then. It was heavier than any other rock its size, it always felt cool, it was metal, but yet it was a stone. What it also was was smooth, and gentle on my hands for something so hard. I looked at it in my hands the entire way back to our house in Gallup, NM, about 200 miles south of the lake. We were driving this Dodge Ram van that my father and I turned into a RV, I remember my sisters not being there on that trip, and I had the entire living room/dining room/backseat to myself. I laid back, and fell asleep as the boat of a van rocked and rocked on the asphalt sea.

Somewhere in space, that rock, the same as the one the tourist that likes to walk for a few miles has in his or her pocket travelled far to get there, in his or her and my childhood pocket. It made me think of how every atom in my body, and every atom I'll ever encounter in this lifetime has travelled far to get where they are now, and how when I think of a romantic time on the beach, I think of how that girl and I travelled the cosmos together without ever realizing it, we met in space I whisper into her ear in my sexy voice, she doesn't hear me at first and says what, "What". I begin again, and wind blows sand into our eyes, we kiss, and that's the end of the story.

Why do people chase waterfalls, why, why, why?

Jokes and Trials pt. V

2011-08-29T02:50:00.005-04:00

(High and almost above the Clouds, Just Not Yet, 2009)

I kept having that dream, over and over. Sometimes twice a day. I'd hover out of the room, float down the stairs, out through the bar, down the road, over the water, into the water, through an impossible tunnel of air, into the ocean, then I'd die. I piggy-backed on Jorge's back as he hitched me back to our little apartment. In his eyes it dawn on me how sad that place must have been for him without me there, I was caught in a moment where I wasn't sure if I was being selfish or having to take care of myself. At the apartment he left me on the bed, I could not move my body, I think I was paralyzed. For the next couple of weeks my only sights were out the window from bed-height, the books Jorge would provide me (mostly upon my own request), a growing photo collection, and my dreams. It felt like I was sick at home, my mother would take care of me, leave for work, and check in on me throughout the day, as I lived on my bed. Three times a day he came home, never late never an appointment missed, he'd move me around to prevent bed sores, and it felt nice to feel someone touch my body, my flesh laid there motionless, it needed some stimulus. He was also really good at massages, though I could tell he was getting boners every time my body was between his legs. I could tell he was hungry, and I was afraid I could not give him more than some kisses.

The dreams in repetition started to blur my sense of reality, I slept twelve sometimes fourteen hours a day, day became night, night back to night. Occasionally I would wake up at 3am or 4am, restless, watching Jorge sleep, unsure where I was, if he was a dream, or if the dream was a dream. I'd read for a bit, looked at the photos Jorge took or found from the day, and I'd study them. Each image gave me a sense of escape, I felt like I was walking down into the grove, approaching a farmer, looking at his face, seeing each and every wrinkle, his voice was my own as I imagined what he had said, how his day was going, the weather, where his kids were, how he buried his wife, and how he was surviving, alone, no, he said, he's got plenty of help. Most of the photographs were taken far from this island, places Jorge had lived and visited, the people he cared and some that he loved. An El Camino at a cliff with a road that vanished, a Mexican man with two boys sitting in the back of a truck smiling, a baggy of joints with finely written comments on them (too small to read in the photograph), a man standing beside Jorge both holding rifles behind their heads (they both had red eyes), mountains obscured by clouds, a woman smiling (she looks breathless in this moment), a dog with three legs, a sad-looking apartment, some strippers working the poles (I don't know why he gave me that), it just comes on and on. I wondered why kind of life he lived, I've seen some of his world, what he chose to show of it, to keep with him, and each photograph meant something to him, that they were dear, and if I were to lose just one he would feel something deep down inside of him be lost. He trusted me, he wanted to share his life with me.

The dreams aren't all the same, the pain of dying is less and less, and though I feel like I'm definitively dying each and every time, I find a calmness growing. The impossible tunnel burrows deeper each time too, and a few nights ago I noticed the tunnel doesn't just end when it reaches the sea floor, it now curves back to the shore. I started to sleep more, I was working that tunnel with my mind, I knew it, if I stretched out I could expand it, only to die in the end. Somewhere in the chronicles of my life I remember a web-based game that was popular in the early twenty-hundreds (2000s) where you controlled a skier going down hill, you can hit ramps and catch some major air and you had to dodge trees. No matter how good you got, how far you reached you'd be eaten alive by an abominable snowman. I kept playing that game over and over, feeling like I got farther each time, death didn't bother me, I felt that there was the faintest possibility of not dying, of reaching the finish line, and when I did get there there would be no abominable snowman, nor a crowd applauding me, I would fade to white, the game would never end, I would ride on forever into infinity.

When Jorge grabbed my dead body at the bottom of the sea I noticed a cloaked door that replicated everything around it. All but the edges showed the slightest signs of distortion. I tried to tell him, to move my arms to point to the door, he was beginning to ascend, I wasn't going to let him, I screamed as loud as my non-working vocal cords could muster, I forced my limp body in every direction it go, and finally I heard Jorge say ouch in the most nonchalant way, he stopped and looked at me, I then motioned to the door. Jorge in his deep-sea diver suit lifted the door, which worked more like a portal, the water stopped at its opening. He grabbed my still limp body and gently laid me on the grounds of a dark, moist, and dippy cavern. It was pitch dark but we could see enough, as if we had night vision, and so on Jorge's back I was carried down hell's hallways. At the end we reached a stairway made from volcanic rock. With each step I could hear Jorge's breath pant as he continued to carry me higher and higher. I wished I could walk, to even help him up the stairs but my body was still a life-less mess. Time was frozen as it appeared, the darkness gave no signs to the passage of time, it just gave the impression it was endless, like the void itself. Jorge took breaks every so often, laid me down on some steps. I couldn't even talk to him, I felt like a mermaid, he was a man from the world of land, he had caught biggest catch of his life, he was taking me home. Taking me home.

We reached the top and met a hatch door, with the last remaining strength he had, Jorge gave it one heavy hit to loosen it, then he pushed it open. We both when blind from spilling light, we reached the surface, we were out of the darkness, there was air. My eye balls were on fire, and by the time my eyes recovered I felt my hands over my eyelids, I was able to move them again, I tried moving different parts of my body and they too moved. Joy rushed throughout my body, I was alive again, and in all my excitement I had forgotten about Jorge, my savior after all. He laid flat on his back, one arm covering his eyes, I moved his arm to recover his face, it fell lifeless down in a giant thump. His eyes were teary, and that's when I realized he was now lifeless himself, that perhaps he had given me his strength. I didn't know how to help him, he was too heavy for me, even with all my strength back. His eyes looked into mine, his face was frozen with that stupid serious face he does, and I could tell he wanted me to continue, to continue for the both of us. I didn't want to anymore, I wanted to stay there by his side. He said go with his serious face, GO, be free. His face disappeared, his body vanished soon after, all that remained was his deep sea diver's suit. Alone, I looked around me, all white, I wondered if it was some sort of heaven, and as that thought occurred the white veil lifted to a semi-transparency, I was on top of the mountain. Down beyond I could see the valley, directly across was the western mountain, and south of that was the mountain Jorge and I lived on, and then I realized I was on top of the Eastern Mountain, which had no access to being too steep and rocky to climb. I thought I might have been the first person on top of here but then realized that someone must have built that twisted little passage up here. I continued to look off, I wondered for a long time, with my back to the viewer my eyes ventured to the unfolding landscape before me, I held a contemplative stance as the sea of clouds passed by, what a marvel it was, the stuff of dreams, or in remembrance of Jorge, The Milk of Dreams. Yes, The Milk of Dreams.

Jokes and Trials pt. IV

2011-08-28T02:22:00.005-04:00

(Smell Ya Later, 2011)

I swear I could hear his snoring, him rambling in his deep sleep, I awake and see there is no one there. The room is unfamiliar and I realize I am in a hotel room. I turn to my side and look out the window, the sky is bright already, I can feel the sea breeze hit me. I just want to stay here all day. I grow chills from last night, that feeling, it was inside of me, it has always been there, but now it was awake it had a face. I couldn't shake the feeling, it distracted me from whatever it is I was going to be doing today.

I close my eyes and wondered back into that familiar realm.

I feel my body lift into the air, it hovered in place for a moment, but then is taken down the hallway, down the stairs, into through the bar, no one there paid attention to my hovering glowing body as it exited the building and ran down the off-road path down to the bay. There it decided which path to take a fork, it goes the unbeaten path, it is alright I am floating in mid-air after all. We arrived at the shore, it is day, the magic that was last night isn't there anymore, instead it felt dream-like, like I was looking through someone else's eyes, remotely. My body continued to hover out into the sea, then stopped. I lingered there, wondering what is going to happen next. I felt my body drop and instead of hitting the water I hit more air, looking up I see a tunnel of water form Mose-like as I decent. I try to maneuver my body to see what was ahead, if the water was being parted before my body or if there was a large tunnel already cleared away for me but I couldn't move. The deeper and deeper we go the more I wondered how deep this tunnel goes, I was sure we'd reach ground, we weren't that far off shore, I've dived from out here, it's not this deep. I wondered. Stop. I waited for what happens next, did we reach the sea floor? The opening to surface was far now, it was a smallish hole where clouds pass by, a window into another world. The sea around me moved normal, with the occasional fish passing by, curious. All of a sudden my stomach ached, I knew something was wrong, that's what my stomach does when somethings off, like a cat running away just before an earthquake. I looked up to that window to the surface, my eyes teared up, it vanished. What happened next was broken up into bits and pieces, I remember the roar of the ocean, the air being squeezed out of the tunnel, it was like hearing thunder for the first time as a child, it rocked your entire. Some flashes of drowning, struggling, then giving in.

Instead of waking up I died. My body rested there, with an entire sea weighing it down. Somewhere in all that darkness I thought of Jorge. I saw him in a deep-sea diving suit circa 1930s, brass and all, looking like he belonged in an aquarium. He held me in his arms, I felt safe, safer than I had in a long time. Since I could remembered... My body was light, the rush of water on my flesh gave me life again as we ascended. I smiled uncontrollably, I was happy. What was taken, what was realized what was lost, what was missed, what was reconciled, and what was found all rushed by me, the ocean sounded louder and louder, flooding my ears with a mixture of water and air cavitating. When we reached the surface we never stopped, we were flying high, then higher. Jorge's deep-sea suit disappeared, his hair was longer, golden, his body more built in the dreamiest of matters, and his face was covered in beard, also golden. He sung something beautiful, holding me in his arms as we ascended to the heavens above. It sounded something like Con Te Partiro, but I couldn't tell, it was beautiful. In the brilliance of a new day, our bodies, high above contoured to each other, we were slugs, we were forming one, but at the same time we were two, just perfectly fit within each other, and then a glow started to flicker from the briefest of gaps between us, it formed a flower, it grew and grew and grew and and and...

When I woke up I heard his snoring, I turned over on my other side and pulled the blankets he had stolen from me somewhere deep in his sleep. My last thoughts were what will I dream of this time...

Hot Dog

2011-08-27T03:14:00.003-04:00

(What A Mess, 2011)

There are certain things, a lot of things, omitted. Mostly because it becomes too personal, without the abstraction of fiction hiding what is said here. The truth is I am a good liar. Because I don't realize I am lying anymore. With the words to follow after that statement, I need you to trust me again. I've been telling the truth this whole time. I keep telling myself that. This is all true, down to the last ridiculous detail. The names have been changed to protect the identities of the people involved in each and every story. Their new names manifest a life of their own, and in turn start to grow beyond the memory of the person they are based off of. In this process they are immortalized, continuing to change, to speak, to live. They will travel the world, they will fail, they will fall in love, they will lose it all, only to come back at the end. It is all about that, the end. Sometimes you can write the most nonsense things, and as long as you wow them in the end you're safe, you're ok, you're doing fine, you got them, they leave the theater to realize it is night, what they are feeling is good, satisfied, with new thoughts in their heads. They just sat down through 100 minutes of garbage, but they last remember the 20 minutes of everything coming together, finding peace, everything is resolving, the world is fixed again, it all makes sense, we can love each other. The end is never complete, it leaves you wanting more, or it leaves you full enough to carry the story away, to let it continue to live, to change, to develop in your mind, as life continues to grow and die and grow and die, one dying cell being replaced with a new cell, and it goes back and forth forever.

Somewhere in all this I meant to say you are here, will always be here, and you are there, and you may or may not always be there, but you'll always be here. (Right here).

Jokes and Trials pt. III

2011-08-26T01:48:00.006-04:00

(Test image from The Barking Wall, 2011)

We have something in common, you and I. I held his photo in my hand, I would say his eyes were his best physical feature, hazel and clouded in mystery. Jorge had something deep and secret about him, and at the same time he was the most honest person I had ever been with. If I saw this same photograph before I knew him the way I knew him I wouldn't have imagine myself running away with him, he looked unique but something didn't pop him out from a crowd. He used to say he never encountered any problems crossing the border, has never even had a traffic ticket to spite being pulled over a few times, there was something about his face, his demeanor that could do no harm. And perhaps that was the trouble, when he goes on like he does, goofing around, never really serious, and when he is with new people I'm never quite sure when he is going to be shy or the life of the party. What took him out of the crowd was how easy it was to talk to him, he had a cool-without-being-cool presence, and I know he felt most comfortable around me. Why I decided to leave in the middle of the night was because we had been living with each other, unplanned-just-happened-upon, for over a month, I didn't think I could go back to that lifestyle, not now at least. I had lived with someone for years and years, having them always around, I always had that comfort but at the same time I didn't have my solitude, even when I was given my solitude, the place we shared when I was alone always felt like something was missing. And even though I knew what that something was, it still felt more ambiguous than it really was. It was when I realized it wasn't my boyfriend at the time who was simply missing from the empty apartment, it was the fact that I felt empty towards him, and so I left. I wanted to disappear for a while, start dating again, be free, maybe even be wild. I danced around in my panties one night singing girls just wanna have fun (I didn't really).

When I met Jorge, he seemed to be that wild that didn't cramp my style, he wasn't heavy, looking for a relationship, he was fluid, we were both fluid, looking to flow, go with each moment, never over-planning, just enjoying what time we had, and when we said goodbye he'd awkwardly say goodbye and linger for a moment then leave.

I left him in the middle of the night, I escaped the same time I usually left for my evening run up and then down the mountain. But this time, I didn't run up or down that mountain, I decided to leave for a while, just wonder. I didn't know if I was coming back, but I left all my things anyways, I didn't need anything I had enough on my mind. I ran toward the valley, hopped a few fences, and made my way to Locos, a local bar lost in the valley where not even cops venture to. I checked into a room and took off to the beach at the bottom of the valley, there there was a black beach. I took off all my clothes and ran in, carelessly like the wind. The moon was full, and the surface of the water formed a conveyer belt of blades sparkling in the night. For the first time since I can remember I felt free and alone, in my own space. I didn't have someone holding me, kissing me, telling me sweet things, I was just here, goddamn it felt good. If I had clothes on I'd rip them off at this point so instead I just screamed at the top of my lungs until I started to cry. The waves crashed over me, my body lost all the urge to stand and I felt my body crash to the bottom of the sea. When I surfaced I floated there for what felt like infinite, watching the moon shine through passing clouds, water flooded my vision and made the moon, the clouds, the milky luminance look even more beautiful in the distortion. I felt my heart crush, I whispered to myself, I am, I am, I am, freeeeeeeee....[splash, splash, splash, happiness!]

The ocean returned me back to where I belong, I awoke on the shore, it was what Jorge called, The Hour of the Wolf, or coming to the end, I could see a deep violet just beyond. That deep violet moved higher in the sky and what replaced it was a red, then orange, and yellow. I wondered if Jorge could see this, he was probably still sleeping. I thought to myself, if I were to return he probably wouldn't have noticed I left, and that all of this, would just be a secret I would keep to myself.

I return to the bar, went to my room and slept. There wasn't time for thought, or to appreciate the firmness of the bed, I just fall asleep like a stone.

We are connected somehow, there's something about time spent with you that I can't quite quit, if it wasn't for our bodies our days would be 48 hours, even longer. I think I needed someone like Jorge, he was there but I could be here, and I think that he was fine with that, no lingering, no longing, we could survive without each other. I think. For the first time in my life, I missed him.

Lonely Boy (B&R.I.S.D)

2011-08-24T23:57:00.005-04:00

(Meghan, 2011)

There will be no sequel after this. Mark my words. The old man shut up, grabbed his cane and walked away heading back into the desert. It was becoming dark, and I wondered if I'll ever understand that old kook's words of wisdom before it was too late. Tonight, I told myself will be a good night's sleep. It wasn't, for the more part, I tossed and turned, finding no comfort in a comfortable bed that no one found more comfortable than me. My mind was filled with poison, I starred at the swirling fan above, it moved so fast and yet it made little noise, it was one of those modern conveniences you don't realize until moments like this, when everything is disturbance. I can hear that damn dog across the street, it's barking again, dark images flash in my head, then the street light reigns into my room, like it always does every night but tonight it was unbearable. When the morning came I found peace then in knowing there were fourteen good hours to spend, that they had no value and as I took my shower I started to sing Just Like Paradise. I got out, put the running shoes on, listened to Bob Marley on the run, and I felt further and further from last night's sleep. I cut through Fort York, a historical site just behind the building I live in, and I realize it is still very much summer, that notion, automatically, made everything that much better. I dreaded the thought of the cold winter ahead, feeling the cold from last winter hit me, I realize I biked in some of the most ridiculous conditions, and now that I stepped away from it I realized how insane I was. I decided to think of lighter things, warmer things, thoughts of winter are forbidden on times like these. I looked ahead, smiled, I couldn't help it, I felt great.

With no work today I decided to write a few letters, I took the old typewriter out and started to click away. The sound reminded me of when I had a curfew on typing in a place I lived in as a student, nowadays I just typed freely, but it made me realized I wasn't so into it anymore, I just used it because I didn't want to buy another printer ever again in my life. When I typed, I thought of what to say just seconds before I typed, I was trying to keep up with my fingers, and that's one thing I like about typewriters, you can't type fast, therefore your thoughts are more concentrated.

A flash came across me, it was from months prior, when I was at home, visiting my parents. My dad asked me to come along with him to see him skate, I was reading a book, and knew I had to do some work on the computer, I didn't feel like bringing all my things there, I was too warped up. In retrospect, I regret that, it wasn't one of those moments you realize you will regret it when it is happening, but one of those moments that take time to give you that turn in the guts, I wish I could have done it differently. I remember writing a paper on regrets in my first year of university, I was all philosophical then, starting off the paper saying I had no regrets, that every decision was made the way it was supposed to be, it was preconceived, I felt freewill, and did what felt right or within my ability at the time, but it was all an illusion. I look back, and see myself today, writing that same paper. Regrets, what I didn't do with my father was one of them, another one was now changing the course of time, making distances harder to bare, and setting two hearts on fire. Of course I didn't have this ability, but the thought lingered, I could have done more, with fun and smiles, I could have been less timid. I wondered why I hesitated, the moment was barely there, but it was there, and yet I let it slip by, waiting for some sort of sign, usually the right eye contact, but that rarely happens. When things are going so well, why change them I told myself, but there again, the timidness spoke. I looked down at myself in that memory, covered in dirt, laughing, I couldn't even see through my glasses.

Often the universe is in place for us, that everything is in the right place at the right time, and we don't realize it. We see the things happening now, and as the universe plays a cosmetic-scale magic trick we are focused on the slight of hand, looking to his left while his right hand is doing all the work. With our eyes adverted we never see the carpet slip from under our feet, and we fall, or our watch is temporarily stolen, that is our card, and the rabbit that had disappeared moments before which vanished from the universe is still alive and is in front of our eyes. Trying to make sense of this magic trick is puzzling, if not maddening, and to put the stick down and stop examining the dead body that washed up we'd be better off not knowing, not trying to figure out the universe let alone our lives, there are things that happen that make absolutely no sense in the scheme of things, that they are meant to throw us off, only to remind us that we are trying too hard to figure it all out. I take my shirt off, then I drop trou, I throw my body into bed and land in the exact spot I had planned to. Will I dream or will I not, will I find sleep or will I linger, linger, find dark circles of the universe, and fall into them until I find sleep. It doesn't matter, the day will always end, and the night will come, and then the day will be born again, and with or without us it will keep on happening like this, over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. It keeps on going on and on and on and on. Strangers. Avenues. Streetlights. Midnight train. Going. Anywhere.

Jokes and Trials pt. II

2011-08-24T04:22:00.005-04:00

(Hurry, The Night Is Coming, 2010)

Tired, beat, hungry, and getting delirious I yelled to San Juan ahead, I told him this mountain is not where Sandy hides, lives, rests, or even lying dead in, she simply wasn't there. San Juan takes a deep breath through his nose and holds that for a while. Longer than expected he eventually exhales with jets of cool air turning to fog. He nods and we reach an understanding. Something tells me he knew already, that he knew even before we came to this mountain, that he agreed to help me, and that he didn't once voice his opinion about how he felt, nor what he knew about coming here when there was nothing to be found, he saw through my blind stubbornness like a hot knife through room-warm butter. When I felt like arguing I would argue for the sake of arguing, I get it from my father, my gut feeling get obscured in moments like this, and that night spent in the mountain searching for her was only just a cool off for me. San Juan knew this as he kept his cool, like he always does, and when I was down to his level, when I was chilled out, he asked me what I felt, and just before I could ask him what he meant he took another deep breath through his gapping nostrils, I knew what he was saying then. I emptied my thoughts, they would only betray my feelings, these feelings that brew deep within all of us, and when I closed my eyes I saw a swirling light, and as I approached the light I felt a direction form. The wind took up and I felt my hair being blown part and soon I heard the palm leaves rustle, I turned my head in the direction and there it was, the valley below, with the moon found perfectly between two mountains like a silver dollar necklace between two large breasts. I looked to San Juan, he smiles, I was learning, man I felt like a man.

We take off to the valley below, we gave chase to a woman we're not entirely sure will be there, the only thing we got are our guts, and perhaps that's all we ever had. The mud splashes everywhere, and I call upon another memory to give me fuel. In the valley ahead I remember one single moment best, and I use it as my guide to give my feet and endurance strength. We took this hike out there, Sandy and I, I knew the path, but it had been a while since the last time I took it. We travelled close to the river, I told her this valley is haunted to see if it gave her chill or spook. Nothing. I tell her about the hour of the wolf, the hour before dawn, and how the dogs all howl during that hour, every night. The legend goes that the spirits rise to the sky, they are being freed like they always are freed every night. The image in my head is of the original Fantasia with the Night on Bald Mountain sequence, it scared me as a kid, the combination of the Mussorgsky and the visuals demons, ghosts, and skeletons hovering in the sky, in all of that darkly-lit and eerie animation that could never be made today. The night before I had to leave the bed we shared, I wondered off to the rooftop, I rested on my back looking towards the full moon, I watched the clouds crash into the moon, saw how the light shattered across the clouds, and remembered when I used to worship the moon, it seemed to always be there for me. I was looking at the most beautiful scenes of my life, I realized there could be no words, no photograph, or video that could ever quite capture this. The dark circles that had kept me awake disappeared for that moment, I sat there for a few more minutes and made my way down the ladder and back into bed without Sandy ever realizing anything had happened. The next day we found ourselves against the rocks, her face covered in her hair, and all I could think of was one thing. My words jumbled, I didn't care for them, they were air, filling in the gaps. I parted the hair that had fallen in her oral region and fired away, and at first I hadn't felt anything, silence, no response, I fought the dark circles from living in the daylight and went again. Something caught, the wind of the valley shot by, it almost spoke, I guess this is da kine I wondered. On the corner of my eye I thought I saw ghosts rise from the white water being stirred in the river. She didn't believe me, I saw it with my own eyes, I wanted to believe and so I saw something to believe in. We walked back to the car, with little words, I felt her hand grab mine, and suddenly we both felt safe, from what, the ghosts of the valley (did she believe a lick of word I said, I wondered...).

We took off in San Juan's jeep, he hit the fog lights and the rocked our way down a path only he and few locals knew. The car made all kinds of noises as the overgrown branches and palms hit the sides of the car, and crashed into the window leaving artificial scratches on the surface. The sky was starting to grow a deep purple, the day was still a concept then but it was dawning on us. Before I realized it San Juan took us to all the way, without a peep from me and my intuition, we made it to a saloon like bar with a bed and breakfast, there were a few trucks parked outside, and some high-heeled woman in sequin dresses, their faces looking slightly distorted, I couldn't tell if they were once beautiful or just strange in that strange way that attracted strange men to them, they were made for each other. Inside San Juan warned me not to ask questions, it felt like one of those bars in movies where everyone looked at you, even wanted to start a fight with you, and that I should proceed to the pool table and make sure I had a pool stick just in case. We went in, it was empty, a few fat mexicans sat at the bar, never looking back, they just seemed to not care about anything. San Juan smiles to the bartender, she has jerry-curled hair and a demeanor like she had seen a lot of people go throughout her life, and in my head I pictured her seeing all the loves and cares of her life come and go, she always stayed there, working the bar, with her dreams behind the counter, hidden from the client. I was introduced, her name was Clarence, I said my name, she looked uninterested, and then realizing she was done giving me all the eye contacted needed to be introduced she looked back to tall strong San Juan and asked what he will be having.

"Dry tonight, looking for something."

"Oh yeah" (runs her long red finger nail against his manly hand resting on the counter) "What kind of something?"

"A woman"

"Oh!" (surprised and disappointed at the same time) "What kind of woman, there's plenty of meat hanging outside"

I come into the conversation, I put my foot down, and look straight into her eyes, she gives me her eyes, and then I tell her how it is.

"Sandy, tell me where she is"

I thought of this person I had become, I wasn't really sure what to think, all I knew was that I knew what I wanted and had no time to play games.

"Well...", she replied, "Let me see, Sandy, S-a-n-d-y, doesn't ring a bell".

Another foot gets put down, I am close to her face, with a fiery determination glowing in my eyes".

"Now I'm going to ask you once, and I'm going to ask you nice, WHERE THE FUCK IS SANDY".

My words echoed through the bar, the music must've stopped at some point because it is deadly quiet, and I start to step away from my words. The message was received, and it was received well because the three fat mexican fellas got off of their seats and slowly approached San Juan and I, one popping his knuckles and I couldn't help but want to warn him that habit will cause arthritis but I don't think it mattered anymore. San Juan whispered real close to me, telling me to follow his next move. His next move: he looked down to the stool behind him, and gave me a nod, I was ready, my adrenalin was running, all that aggression stored deep down inside me was finally being let out. The first hit was dealt by San Juan, one after another, when one of them tried to come in with a cheap shot from the side I grabbed the stool with full force and landed it on the center of his back. He shot up with pain painting his face and landed on the ground, one of them saw this and ran over to him, San Juan finished the one he was working on and pushed him down. We both realized one of them was seriously injured, and he looked to me, I gave an awkward smile before we both looked down again.

"My brother has a bad back, man, you hit him too hard."

"Well, shit man, what do you expect, coming into a fight with those conditions..."

"Hey man, that's our job, bad back you still gotta make a living, got mouths to feed."

"Listen, I didn't mean to, had I realized..."

"Shit, it don't matter now homes, we gotta get him help"

San Juan and one of the bouncers helped the fallen bouncer into the back of his jeep, and we took off to a doctor's house on the other side of the island. The two bouncers thanked us in an awkward moment where once we were in a fist-fight then suddenly helping out complete strangers. The fallen bouncer slept for most of the way, when he spoke he spoke like that of a daydreamer, not realizing he was speaking to an audience on the other side of reality, then he fell silent again. San Juan told me his name was Cesar, and he didn't know about his back problems. He told me not to feel bad for hitting him in the back with the stool, it was the right thing to do to end something that wasn't right. It was just too bad about sleeping beauty Cesar in the back knocked out.

We reached the doctor's place, an old run down school that was once painted white but was covered in volcanic red dust. I knocked on his door three times and waited, looking back at the two waiting at the jeep, headlights on me. Just as I started to knock again the doctor opens the door, San Juan waves, and the situation is realized by the half-awake and irritated doctor. The doc grabs a plank of wood, and San Juan and I lift Cesar on to the plank, and with all three of us we carry Cesar off into the schoolhouse. The doctor named Phil tells us to wait outside, and so we leave. Outside we watch the sky transform into morning. I can't remember the last time I saw this forgotten portion of the day, just like I couldn't remember looking up at the stars before I moved to this island. And even then, I often forgot them. I remember a morning once long time ago, when a stranger came into my life, and in one of those moments happen when you're tired, but stay awake with them, talking the whole night through, dozing off here and there, and then you open your eyes again and it is the beginning of the day. You have that moment shared, and because you're sharing it with someone else it becomes something that is given from the nature of things, the majestic and the wild, the happenstance and chaos of life, see through two different eyes at the same time, the same light that has travelled across the solar system hits both of you at the same time. I turned to San Juan, and ask him what will be get ourselves into today, the word, Today seemed to trail off into the landscape being painted by pinks and oranges, and a bit of yellow, in a cyan-cast, another moment impossible to capture with any camera.

The Aftermath

2011-08-23T23:42:00.004-04:00

(Joe, 2010)

For years I used to say friends taste was something I could lose if I had to lose a sense. I didn't care for fine tasting food, gimmicks worked just as well, some $50 steak in comparison to a good $5 burger were the same, they satisfied, but one didn't leave me broke, one had cheapness added to the flavor. I could live my life without taste when it came down to it, up until a point. The taste of another human being, no I wasn't eating them, the taste of their alive flesh, their spit, in combination with all the other senses created a memory of someone, and since you had your hands on their breasts they were close to you, that secrets naturally unfolded, and memories deep down inside from a small portion of the deepest recesses of your mind were recovered and explored. You could be you with those types, that you no longer had to put on a mask, or dance a certain way, you could go wild, real wild, the wildness, with that particular human being. I was calling about the wildness, I was doing all the ripping and tearing, I was hungry for more. My patience was being tested, and I grew to know my limits as a man, as a human being. I got into new age methods from my mother, I'd close my eyes with my legs crossed like a yogi, hands resting with pinches at the end of my fingertips, the soft sound of a native american singing something ancient and timeless was playing in the background with the occasional sound of a synthetic meteor shower. I was transported somewhere far, far away, in a time of old, where all the most beautiful landscapes of my life are forged together making the ultimate terranova for my spiritual feet to explore. I would spend days here, in silence, playing in the garden with kids that sported tibet-monk gowns. My father started growing worried of my behaviors, wanting to take me fishing, I said, when I did speak, that I no longer eat fishhhhh as my words trailed off in something profound. I felt like I gained the ability to float, my feet just seemed to glide from one end of the house to the next, I didn't even open my eyes, I knew exactly what was coming my way, where I was going, not a thought in my conscious mind. I made it to the kitchen, cut myself an organic apple, and then thanked the apple for giving itself to me. I roamed the garden to feed the fishes, I whispered to them how much we loved them, the "we" was suggestive, and meant, the universe, which had found itself within me over the week. I drew cosmetic scenes, sang Andrea Bocelli on the roof with the morning doves. I swore I was the happiest I had ever been in my life. I was bald, I wore sandals everywhere, my pants were all hemp, I even met the farmer who harvested the hemp, and his son who made a business of making itchy clothing, they were both sweet humans, I wished to spend a night on their farm, camping, and helping them with their labor but they said they had all they needed there. I bid them farewell, and that was the last I saw of them. My mind echoed a certain rhythm that dictated my day, and before I realized it, I had forgotten what all this way for, all of my ways, my new vision, what it all meant. After two weeks of living like a new ager, I realize it was only because I needed to distract myself. I looked down to my hands, they were dirty, I had spent the entire night in the garden planting an herb garden that would last all year long. I wondered what I was doing, I told myself, Jesus I had lost it. I longed, yes, I was lost, I was independent, but felt empty. Alone on an island, people come and they very much go, those who remain are either unwelcomed guess or here to roam the desert and hills, with a red powdery sand beneath their eyes. They call them the zombies, I call them the locals. I bore a tan and a beard, I tried to talk like them, breaking up my words and using slang, I felt like a white person from the burbs trying to rap. Here is where I did not belong. I tried to remember my life before this one, and it didn't really call up any sort of cohesive reality to judge one life from another. I was lost, as I said. The jungle heat, the desert heat, the sun's heat, all had melted my mind, I didn't know what was before or after. I danced in a voodoo trance, I saw the devil and spoke only to be spoken to, I dared not to look into his eyes, and when he said something in satanic verses I understood he had no interest in me and that I was free to go. I hopped on to the airplane, told my folks I loved them, and vanished into the thin air, literally. In the sky I thought of a week of wildness, how it transformed me from beneath my radar, that I was charmed, and somehow managed to keep my cool, I was a boat rocking over the ocean, pure coolness. The rest of my time I spent doing something I'd rather not mention to my friends back home.

Jokes and Trials Pt. I

2011-08-23T03:21:00.005-04:00

(Lookout!, 2011)

Have we not found enough. Are we not worth saving. Is this where one path ends and another starts. I close my eyes and feel a change start shifting, I am complete and yet I am unfulfilled, the parts of me I know, knew, are fading before my eyes, I am being replaced with a newer I. I look to the future, yes, that brimful of asha, still smoking, still jivin' after all these years. I call up to San Juan, a tall mexican fella of 6 something-high, he looks down at me and gives a giant of a giant's smile, looking all stupid and sweet at the same time. He grabs me and puts me on his shoulders, from here I could see just about everything I couldn't see from below, my eye balls must be at 11ft, what a different it makes to be this high. All around us is a milk of fog, we were looking for Sandy, who had disappeared into the mountain the night before. She had gotten herself into climbing this mountain, alone, at dark, without a flashlight, and though I had complete confidence in her and her ability to navigate through the woods, and along the mountain path in all but moon light she had never gone away for this long. Maybe in all that panic and worry I also was selfish, feeling something missing before my very eyes, the world felt too quiet for too long.

For years I lived close-to-a-hermit, not in proximity, but in lifestyle. I worked in town for most of the week, I did all the photo transfers for the paper, it paid well, and I spent most of the day alone, in a room only I entered and worked in. When I finished work I'd occasional meet up with the guys, we'd hit up the peepshow, make a round of catcalls, then drive drunk home, which was one long stretch of nowhere going nowhere (not to sound poetic, it just was). I lived just outta of town, had the boons to myself, my place more cabin than house, full of hunting and fishing equipment, had a video camera on tripod in case I found myself a fancy. I got into making videos of the women of my life, nothing erotic, though the camera on tripod in the bedroom wasn't rare, it was the most intimate place in my cabin-house, where we'd laugh, re-enact our favorite movie scenes, and get drunk and kiss and all though things to follow. I wasn't much of a lover, just had love to give, but not a lot of those to give it to. Often called, AHARDMANTOUNDERSTAND. I didn't think so, my heart was either in it or it wasn't, I had no choice to spite the gal, how charming she was, or wasn't, no matter the beauty or the breasts, I worked in ways I didn't even understand. Anyhoot, about these videos, well I used to use a Hasselblad years ago, gave it to this young photographer starting at the paper, and never took a photo again, in video I was able to capture something closer to the real thing, there was life, there was honesty in motion. And though I couldn't stare at it for hours on end, and hold it in my hands, hide it in my wallet, I liked the fact that for a brief moment I saw a flicker that once happened, and then it ends, like a real good record you can't just have in the background while you iron your shirts or take a bath, no, you gotta give it your full attention because when it ends there's nothing but a world of static (reminding you it is over, for now, goodbye, until we meet again). Never got too big on re-watching 'em videos too much, only once in a while in a pit of loneliness. I didn't mind how quiet it was up there, nor did I mind being alone, it's just nowadays that I can't stand it. When something comes around and colors your life with something, something with all the poetry I read, wrote, and was planning on reading and writing, nothing could explain nor define what this something was. I guess I could just let myself be careless, wonder the world with a hand in my own, and be a teenager, be an adult, be whatever, whenever, disregarding any rules I made, any plans I had, and sometimes even friends, I call her my great distraction.

I hit the earth hard, San Juan asked if I was ok, I said yes, and I followed him as he cut down a path with his machete. If anyone knows this forest, or nature in general it was San Juan, who can man-track like no one else, he made for some of the best company camping, and he also knew the right drug to take depending on the location, the time of year, the weather, the energy that would resonate between us and nature, and something to do with the stars. He was a real mystic, claiming to be half Aztec-descent, with a bit of Spanish and Navajo, and he had some of the most beautiful brown eyes I had ever seen, they were deeper than any ocean, and upon a daze of mushrooms I made sure never to look into them, swearing to myself I'd lose my soul in there. A whack, a crack, and the sound of leaves being step on carried on for endless moments, time was slipping from my conscious with thoughts of where she was, what she was doing, and was she okay. In a chest of worry, I put my insecurities in there, hollow doubts and ponders of who I was, how important, and did I do something wrong, all into that chest. I buried it a few yards behind us, and carried on. It made me feel lighter.

We reached a clearing, where a crown of trees gathered. We were high enough for the clouds to hit these fields, and with them a deep fog covered the land. I remember this place too well. All night I had been slipping in the mud, but I had brought hiking boots, and it was dark and I was too distracted to see nor care about all the mud on my boots, pants, and ass. I remember the first time we came up here. I remember being alone, hiking, climbing altitude and finding my breath, but never once stopping the conversation I was having with her. We had all this around us, it was unbelievably surreal, and yet, disappointing if you were looking for a dream, some sort of escape because the very ground we stepped on was firm, hard, taking to your weight, and we were not floating, this was real, and in a way it only made it better (I was done with dreaming). I was a man before those moments, but I was still a boyish dreamer. I know the exact date I stopped being a dreamer.

In a waste on the side of the highway, Carla and I had been a sour mood all day, we fought the days before, I saw her cry too many times, and I remember the last time I saw her cry, and realized it no longer hurt me to see her cry, that I was too mad, too furious to feel that spark, and need or want to cry myself. We found ourselves a hotel for the night, on the second floor, and she wondered off in the middle of the night. She had gotten herself stuck on the roof of this building, and when I found myself in a frantic conversation with someone who lacked any rationality. She had gone over the edge, lost all sense of sensibility, and was a ruin up too far from my reach. All I had were my words, I called to her, to tell her to stay there, that she should not try to climb into the window (the window that was impossibly too far to reach). I told her to promise to me to stay there, to wait for me to return with a ladder. I had her promise on me, on all we had (a shitty El Camino, a few dollars, and some bruised hearts). When I returned with the ladder she was gone. I looked around, in fear of finding her body somewhere, all mangled and stock-shit-dropping-with-a-bottomless-pit-in-the-guts, but she was no where to be found. I looked up, called her name, nothing. A pair of hands covered my eyes, there was cheeriness to her voice when she said, "guess who". I peeled her hands from my eyes, put my hands into my pocket without ever looking back and proceeded to the hotel lobby. I checked out, then walked to the dinner across the street and sat there sipping coffee for oh-i-don't-know-how-long. There wasn't a thought in my mind other than what could happen any minute, Carla coming into through the door, saying something about being sorry, I had planned to give her the keys and say, "It's all yours". If I could I'd rip my heart out from my chest and hand it to her, but knew it would never be enough for a gal like that, never enough, chasing a dream. The word of the day was somewhere between Fuck and Idontcarenomo'. I was a stone. But to spite all those feelings stirring around, I felt relieved. Something had been lifted from my chest, I felt free, realizing I wasn't free for years prior. I believe they call those moments, moments of clarity, some call it Eureka, I call it being a moody blue rolling the stone don't the street, and I wasn't Flashy Jack-Jack-Jack, I was just outta of gas-gas-gas. I never looked back from that day. And since, I have become not necessarily stronger, but better, getting to know the self of me that was meant to be. I felt right.

Lost in the clouds, we helped each down the mountain, we were covered in mud, everything but my white shorts. It took Sandy and I almost twice as long as the climb, but I didn't mind, it was all worth it. In the end none of us fell, to spite all the slips and running mindlessly down hill, we got back to the car with something profound within each one of us. It was different for me as for her, and I knew that right then and there I could never fully realize what it was. Even to this day I still don't know, perhaps I will once I see Sandy again, wherever she was, lost on her merry way, she may not even be on this mountain, she could be far away, in her own corner of the world, alone and full, sleeping, talking, writing, and reading, learning, and losing, losing it big, and losing it small, gaining it all, all, all back, and over and over, someday we'll find you, I'll hunt you down, down, down.

San Juan takes a deep breath, this is the first time I hear him sigh.

Firebearer

2011-08-21T23:09:00.005-04:00

(Jonny in the Magical Garden, 2011)

"I think I needed to see how small the world is"

One.

A-two.

A-one.

Two.

Three.

(whispers) Are you ready?

The microphone is extended over the crowd, I can no longer sing the rest of this song, a song I've been singing for a long time, long enough for you, the crowd of mixed ages, genders, and races, you that got into me yesterday, today, back-in-the-day, and never heard me before, I need you to help me, lift me, raise me, across this stage, and across this place, and dump my body once I'm there, where is there, there is there. There there.

Cooling out by the beach, if I smoked cigars now would be a great time to smoke cigars, instead I keep my head down, looking at my shadow being cased on my notebook. I am writing. I think of the many memories shared this past week, I whisper to myself, "oh boy...what a time". Yes, what a time indeed I reinsure myself. If I could I'd pat my back, I'd sing a song worth singing, but I don't know anything that go beyond just the chorus lines, nor do I know how to sing. I used to rap, but now I write. I stripped all the gimmicks out of my life, I rest bare, naked, hairy and hairless, I am a boy, I am a man, I call to no one, I call to you. I ache from pain, yes I do, I feel hollow, sometimes I do, today, I say, "Today", yes, "I am alive". I tell myself this every morning, I am alive, just to remind myself I am not dreaming. Carlos once told me he made a girl pregnant, he said he told the girl he was fine with that, he was old enough, probably too poor, but he was ready, the girl never ended up having his baby, nor did they end up together, having a happily little ever. No, instead he realized he was an adult, for the first time in his life he knew that his carelessness had a limit, his vision reached beyond just the horizon, and that he was happy. Happy for what I asked Carlos, he replied, "oh, you know, life". The words, l.i.f.e, rolled off his tongue with a slight mexican accent, it stirred and echoed in my mind, I wondered the deeper meaning to his subtle and sample words and dug for something hidden. His demeanor left me empty, thirsty for more, but Carlos never goes too far with his words, he's the sort of meet-you-half-way fella. To think of him now, with his two sons is to think of a boy in comparison to a man, they were once the same person, they are two different people.

Sandy came to me in a dream. I knew her before we met. And those first moments of seeing something you've seen before but seen with a different set of eyes take something away from you, you're watching a previous image be replaced with a new one. Slowly everything I would knew of Sandy would be replaced, and replaced again, with almost each day, each moment a different shade explored, a new face. Now, in this moment of contemplation I think of that sunset from high up above. We stayed at the top of a volcano once, we felt the rumble of the earth rage beneath us as the sun fell beyond view. We could see the entire world from up there, along with a hundred tourists, with the occasional flash firing off in the distance. I grabbed a blanket from the car and put it around Sandy, I whisper something like, "cause I like you hot", into her ear, and disappeared into the darkness. I sat there at the edge of the earth, the sun was now gone, and I felt alone for a moment. I remember thinking to myself how beautiful she looked with that sunset glow on her face, and then I thought I better remember that site for sorry eyes because it was one of those things you can never photograph. The chill of my shirtless back froze me in spot, I wondered if I could freeze time, I wondered what Sandy was thinking, knowing that for the first time in our lives we were looking at the same sunset. The tourist slowly disappeared with the light, I approached Sandy and told her we had to stay, that the best moment was about to happen. She stayed, we stood watching something beautiful transform into something even more beautiful, the darkness of space was fading to the orange of light being bent and slowed down, the deepest of violet took the sky, I held her hand with fingers crossed and folded within each other. In my heart sang a song of a silent heart beat, I didn't know at the time but this heart beat was an ancient rhythm of times long past my very own existence, the beat carried on for days to pass, it would dance blood throughout my body.

The night came, we found our campsite, and I started a fire. It was the first fire I had ever made, I struggled over it for twenty minutes and knew with each and every minute I could lose, I could lose real bad, and then there wouldn't be a fire. Something so simple meant so much, I fought as quietly and peaceful as I could with those embers, I wanted to see them grow, to burn brightly, to have kids, to build a house, to burn it all down, I wanted fire to engulf us all, only for a moment, only in that little campfire just so we can have the glow in our eyes, only to feel like a real man. A real man. We drank whiskey with the stars, we listened to horrible jams coming from the bros across the way, it would've been impossible to shut them up, we felt sorry for the foreign family camping beside them. I pictured myself dressed in a fur suit, face painted black, with red glowing eyes, I wanted to bark at them from a distance, let them catch my silhouette in the moon light, only for a moment long enough to stir up myths of creatures that roam these legendary woods. I knew I wouldn't stop there, that I would keep on returning to their site, just before my legend faded from their consciousness, I'd return and take one of them. One by one they'd disappear into the woods. Sandy would tie them down as they came, knocking them out with a large log or a rock. Soon with only a few left they'd try calling their pickup on their cellphones, but they're no reception, no one to save them now, not even the pissed-off foreign family, they want your blood just as much as we do. But we leave them there, just the three of them, with their radio off, sniffling, crying, calling for their mothers, yes, Sandy and I tell ourselves, we sure taught them a lesson of camping in peace. We rest, and have the best sleep ever.

In the morning the ranger wakes us up, she sits me down and tells me about the law I just broke, that there's no campfires here. Somewhere in all that talk I could already tell I wasn't going nowhere, getting into no trouble, I had this feeling, it was there when that fire first started to grow, no, it was there long before that, it was this feeling like there could be nothing that stands behind us, I rose up from my seat with the ranger, I told her my name, where I was from, and she told me everything is fine, that there was no trouble here, that I and I alone was allowed to start campfires here, and then she left, disappearing into the woods where she came from. I went back into the tent and said nothing. I wanted to close my eyes but I was too awake. I just grabbed Sandy and held her, I knew that it was the beginning something wonderful of a day. I knew the feeling, I was the feeling, here we go.

(In the far distance a faintly glowing pair of eyes wonder off, they are the same color as blood, they were hunger, they were gone, gone, gone. Fade to black.)

[Fade to Black]

Da Boom Na Da Noom Na Namena

2011-08-21T03:11:00.004-04:00

(The Bridge to America, from That Bike Trip to Montreal, 2010)

A static. No. A lack of sound. No. I can hear the buzz of the fridge, I can smell myself, and myself alone. All is quiet, it is now too quiet. I can hear a child playfully yelling at something from the house across the way, I can hear the wind of cars passing by from a distance, the geckos chipping, and what may be a bird but I'm not quite sure it is dark outside calling.

A wave has hit me, crushed me, pushed me aside, over and over, the ocean has run through my body, leaving me sea-salty and wet, and most of all tired. As if the ocean's current absorbed a certain type of energy from me, and though I can walk and talk fine, I can even run if I needed to run, I feel tired. Something hit me hard, harder than the wave, and the surge has left me with a feeling that is too complex, too new, for my brain to start unravelling. I want to keep it collected, organized in its current form, but I know it will come undone, and expose a light that is from many bright and enduring moments. For now I hold this crumbled up map of experience in my pocket, I feel its warmth entice me, I feel light in the head, I feel like something is there but isn't, watching me but as I turn the corner it is not there, I feel it, and yet I cannot place a name to this feeling.

A blind man approaches me, he is guided by two young fencers, they look about twelve, the blind man somewhere in his forties, he is handsome, and at first I don't realize he is blind, just looking down (I think it's because I'm used to the Ray Charles sunglass-wearing blind). In the air of this moment, and in their presence, I feel a static, it strikes my flesh with an impulse of manliness. I rip my shirt off, I roar at the top of my lungs, I look down to see the three in fear, I get on all fours and start to chase. The two fencers run and the blind man remains, his face unchanged, he is aware of my hasty approach and yet he decides to stay. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do when I reach him, nor do I know why my legs and arms are in such a rush, all I have is a feeling that is unmarked by experience nor classification. I am now moments before meeting this man head on when I look up from his knee-height and see his pupils. The thought races through my head that perhaps I am the first to have ever seen his eyes, and in this current moment, sitting on my laptop on my couch at my parent's place at 9.20pm, I cannot remember the color of his eyes, nor if they were strange looking either, all I remember is a large flash, followed by a cloud of gray smoke, and once all the chaos cleared he was gone.

When I got home I put on a new shirt, and started yelling all types of curse words. I am bad at goodbyes, I am bad at goodbyes. Mainly because when they are needed, when they have a build-up to them, and you know something is about to end, like a really good book that takes you on this epic adventure full of beautiful landscapes and a flurry of emotions, or a movie that does the same but with visuals, and sounds, and special effects, well you don't want it to end, you want time to freeze in place. Just before, just before it ends, and to have one more day, then tell yourself the same the next day, just one more day. Until infinity is achieved, and the world ends, the world which surrounds you, but a bubble remains, that's for you and whoever you want that moment to continue with. This is a moment. This is a feeling you share. This is a to-be-continued, and you're now holding the arms of your armchair firmly with your hands, your mind is in a fuzz, and you are cliffhanging on a cliffhanger.

The curtains fall, the truth is revealed, and that moment that carried into another moment, upon another moment ends. It ends. It stops. It ceases to exist. And true it has stopped in its tracks, that the gravy train is now cooling off somewhere behind us now, it is growing skin, and crystalizing. Eventually it will start up again, it will no longer be gravy, nor will it be a moldy mess, but it has taken on a new form, it is something completely new, and when it arrives into town, it surprises you with how familiar it is, and yet how new it feels. Refreshing, yes, refreshing with an "ahhhhhhh", yes, "ahhhhhhh I know this, and yet it is refreshing, emphasis on the fresh".