Young Firestarters

(A Collection of Bouquets and Farewells on Route, March 26th 2009)

Let’s start a fire. With this careless dance of ours we’ll fire guns into the sky as we laugh with intoxicated joy. We’ll run down the streets, causing terror amongst our neighbors. We’ll drive big and loud, chromed in glorious shine, motorcycles, ripping pistons and smoke down America’s highways. We’ll run from the law, cause a scene, and be handcuffed only to escape. Oh! We’ll make them remember us, I want to remember, you want to remember, all of this, we’ll burn it into our histories and whoever comes our way. We’re listen to Slayer and grow our hair out so we can achieve the perfect head-bang. We’ll be unstoppable as kids walk by with their parents see us, afraid at first but then look up to us as they go back to their regular lives, realizing they no longer want to be like their parents. We’ll be the story of many, we’ll carry on a message. And what would that message be? Everything for freedom? Free birds, Eagles, and Falcons? Or just do whatever our hearts desire because there’s only one thing for certain, we’ll die, and we may never live again.
Let’s be bandits one more time.

This Is How I Deal With My Loneliness

(Test Image for The Natural Wonders, 2009)

Hello stranger, here we are, these moments in-between, where we acknowledge each other, and for the briefest of moments we are no longer strangers. And perhaps afterwards we are even friends, even if we haven't met, we have shared something, something greater than just a handshake. We have reached a common ground; being alone, in front of a computer, with an atmosphere of people talking, clapping and making various noises in their search for b for their a, and c to their d as we float to the glow of virtual communication. I would like to put a record on; the static hisses before the strings pull in to make a nice somber, Impressions of Japan: Rising Sun. We'll hover over the earth, we'll be twilight in the sky, smoking red clouds, and drink with the capsized moon. More red wine we'll yell to the stars, we'll wish for falling stars, for showers of meteors and hope the sun will never return. The ocean sings the song of the tropics as well float away from the city, we'll dip our toes into the water before it rolls back to the sea, we'll start fires only to leave them soon after, who know's, what and where. For no longer we care, in this night, as we float, and this will be how we deal with our loneliness, from afar, you nameless stranger, you friend of circumstance, come along, there is much night left.

How Much of Me Matters

(Untitled Study of Objects and Landscapes, 2008)

Woof said the dog.
And yet his words did not reach her.
Woof said the dog.
And no reply as she carried on, looking down at her pet.
Woof said the dog, as he brushed his face into her leg.
And she walked down the hall to finish what she was doing.
Woof said the dog, as he followed her along, looking for any sense of need.
And she walked, stopped and looked at the dog.
Woof said the dog, and he smiles as dog do and put forth both paws and bowed.
And she kneeled down, pet his face, and heard a sound, and walked away.
Woof said the dog, and he got up, and ran to her side.
And she moved in a way that acknowledged something else, something the dog may never understand, as he pressed his face into her leg before she was gone.
Woof said the dog.

idontknow (again)

(One Line Conceptual Image, a photographic sonic tetraicosaptych installation, c-print, plywood, paper cup, and string, 2009)

Peel back the layers and I still don't

With arms reaching forward and I still don't

Open my heart and I still don't

I can't stop and I still don't

I tell everything, word for word, and leave little behind and I still don't

Fallen apart and organized again, and I still don't

Everyday, again and again, over and over, I still don't

What leads to this and what leads to that, what string connects me to her, and to him, and everyone I see, touch, and feel, and where does the string end, we're all tripping over it. Some get buried alive in it, some reel it in and put it on to spools in a small collection of memories. Some get dragged along, some pull. Along the wire you can hear the voices of many, and though there are too many to tell what one is saying, as a whole; a bath of noise, you can hear the small subtleties, and the tones of all these voices, miniture to their flesh and blood, but true to them. I ask what this all means, and they all wait in silence for the other to answer. Nothing.

So what can be said, why all these connections, why are we connected.
Maybe it is right now, when we both acknowledge each other, we feel each other's hearts to read for a pulse, and we know we are alive. It isn't the future, for we can reach all we want but can never touch it, and by the time we make it there, we'll still be here, in the present.

Your heart beats with mine, and I still don't

Break, Stop, Shatter, Crumble, Tremble, and Fall

(Fred & Doreen George with Company Upon Return from The War, 1940's)

Breaking through the textures, the surface seems to bend in compliance to this force. I call the wind a sudden rip, a knife through the water, bumbles cavitate a sound of swiftness. You were made for such travelling, the world over. I limp as lame, holding my cane, seeing you off, telling you to remember me upon your travels. You will see the world over and over, and share with me, and those you meet, the many stories you hold dear. How do you remember? If I were to ask of all the people you have known, you would gather two chairs, sit me down, and speak before me for many hours. Painted images, each as vivid as being there. I won't tell you, how thankful I am, like those who have heard your many stories, I will be silent as humble as I press my ear to your words, and listen ever so carefully without a thought in mind, keeping each and every, close, and closer to me, and to mind, and to heart I will keep your stories there. Where are you now, as I look beyond my window, of cloudless skies, without a moon in sight, and the dim lighting of a city about to sleep? I can hear laughter across the street, as lone couples walk without their eyes following mine. I wonder what stories you are telling right now, with your company, to whoever they may be, and I wonder, and wonder as my eyes fall back into a world where we first met. What stories are you telling now, as you break, stop, and shatter into the world of mementos and reminiscence, of milky reverie as my eyes close, my world starts to crumble, my skin trembles, and I fall into the milk of my dreams. Only to find you.

We Have To Talk

(Untitled #01, The Untitled Collaboration of Brendan George Ko and faye mullen, 30x40" c-print, 2008)

Today I had a really good talk with a friend about the document of photography. How it is a challenge to see a photograph as a true representation of the moment. How we struggle over and over, again and again with a new challenge for each fold of repetition to preserve a moment. I have become obsessed with the documentation of my life, not in the sense of representation of my existence but rather the existence of others. There have been so many people in my life that hold a permenance within me, that have changed the fabric of me by their influence, and I am held humble to have knowing them, but also to have been graced by their presence. Maybe I am too honorable, perhaps even hopelessly devoted, but I want to remember certain details of my life forever; passing my lifetime, and beyond as the memory of those I have known are encapsulated behind the layer of film. This layer presents the end of tangibility of change to happen as we look at the photograph's stillness, and it is this layer that preserves the moment from the erosive nature of time. And in time, even those memories will fall to nature as they decay like my own memory; as a childhood is forgotten to a new age. It is in this repetition of representation, of those I have known and the places I have been, that my history is remembered. Leaving my ideas of an artist behind, I see only a camera as a form of utility; a reflex of my desire to remember, as everything in-between shifts the focus of who I truly am, and my passions, making me into something else. What can the image of our past say once we are gone? Does it matter, once we stop, we are only photographs; captured memories. A truthful portrayal is death, as the moments that happen in-between the frame, moments uncaptured by silver, are what continues once we are shadows, and in a sense, we live, eternally, as unspoken mysteries to the world we leave behind.

Infinite Moments

(Test 01, My Favorite Things, 2009)

We may never see the end of this. A stretch of road extends between us, you're leaving, I'm leaving, we're departing only to test our strength, and for what reason? We seek the bitter in our sugar-coated coffee, we look for the original pain we felt before we were we, and the days were cold, snow-filled, and we were lost. And were we ever found? In each other's arms, in an engagement on my floor as we looked at the world outside of our moment through the holes of an afghan blanket. The words I had for you then were no different from my words for you now as I shallow my past and speak. Addressing each moment, I yell to your distance, finding no response, and reloading my faith as I yell more for some, each with their own weight, and their only response is their crash to the dirt-dry road before me. You are a million miles away, and yet I could see you with squinted eyes. The heat raises from the pavement, making your arms look as if you are waving, your legs are dancing as you walk away. And in a beautiful way I know it is the end, and in a beautiful way I know it will all start over again. We will hide away like bandits, finding our own hideouts until the heat dies down. Our weapons are our eyes and words, and when we return to our meeting place, we'll lie of where we've been, we'll hug, and talk of future prospects, and the snow will fall again. The days will become cold, colder, and the coldest, and then you'll tell me it is Spring as I jump out of heated closet to the street, running to your open arms. We'll trip, we'll fall, we'll get cuts and bruises. I'll tell you are special. You'll tell me I am the same but so much more. And I'll smile like a joker and tell you of my schemes. We'll rob banks, we'll shoot the sky when we're running with bags of crossed S's and bucks flying to the curb. See you tomorrow, see you tomorrow.

Wait. I Wasn’t Finished Yet.

(Palms on Big Island, from The Untitled Landscapes, 2007)

But then it was too late, I had concluded things back on the ferry, when we kissed, and how the headlights of a car behind us illuminated us as if it was the climactic moment in a movie where the two young actors, heart-throbs at that too, kiss for the first time, they had survived this whole adventure, all two hours of it, and now as I thought in my head as my mental eyes panned back, I knew the camera would dolly out of the tight shot of us together, face to face, into the surrounding cars, then it would go out farther until the ferry was seen in the sea, and then the camera would go back farther than that as it showed the sea and how tiny the ferry was in it, and the moon-lit sky, and the audience is instantly hit with a feel-good one hit wonder, maybe that New Radicals song, You Get What You Give.
I wanted to believe, the voice over would go.
That this moment will last forever… We will remain even when this night turns to day, when things are supposed to return to normal. They will never as long as you’re here. And that is how it will be, for the rest of our lives.
The credits begin to roll, and the audience leaves feeling great, there are a fair amount of couples in the crowd and they feel great, and will probably go out to get a late snack and decide the itinerary for the rest of their evening on the warmth glowing from within. There is a lonely man in the audience, he goes to romantic movies alone because they make him feel like he is no longer lonely, that the protagonist is him, that when the young heart-throb goes through pain, he feels it himself, as his heart fills with sorrow for the first time in a long time, and when the People’s Hottest New Actors This Year number 4 feels love in a complicated way in the third act of the film, he feels a sharp pain in his heart too. He goes home and writes in his journal. We are one in the same, we live these complicated lives and the only thing we want is the one thing that we struggle for the most. Love.
The movie theater is left sticky and thrashed from a weekend premiere as the teenage theater clerk cleans up the mess of lovers, lonely men, and the stray movie-goer. He thinks of his first date, how it was in a movie theater not too different from this one, how the movie was exactly like this one, and then he realizes that he still feels warmth in his heart when he thinks of that girl he shared that memory with. He wonders where she is right now, and then he thinks what if she is thinking the same exact thing he is. Maybe even she is a teenage theater clerk and she is cleaning a movie theater from a long weekend, and is holding her broom ever so close as she feels a forgotten warmth in her heart generate for the first time in years. And for just a moment, maybe they are both thinking of each other, and just for a moment they can talk to each other, through their hearts in a telepathic connection between past lovers, and they hold each other, even if it is for the last time before they forget each other again until the next big movie premiere where they are left cleaning up after what appears to be zoo animals.