Learning To Love Yourself (More) pt.4

(Reconfiguration of Before & After, Smash, 2009)

Toughen Up!

You care too much and you know it. When they do something wrong to you, you find it too hard to be mad at them. But what happens when you have flowered them with kindness to the point that they don’t realize what they’re doing to you?

Inside you feel bad, and sometimes frustrated; you want it to change, I do too. But change won’t happen until you apply it to your life.

The hardest thing to do is to look them in the eyes and try to be mad at them. It’s the world between being mad and just wanting to hold them; telling them never to leave, and wanting to them to be nicer. You’re afraid of losing them, that if you tell them you’re upset or disappointed about something they did they’ll be upset because of what you said, and now you feel like an ass. But listen, you’re not, and they should know it, and if they know it they also know they did ya wrong. …And if they get mad, and look at you like you’re nothing, then don’t worry, it is better that way; as you see them for their true colors. But listen, if they really give a damn about you they should stay, I hope so. The truth is you don’t know. And so you keep these things inside of you, and they accumulate over time until you are left with only frustration in your time alone. This will destroy you if you don’t find some output for this, and the only way you can is by telling them; at this point you pretty much have to or else they are no longer those wonderful people to you.

That saying caring is sharing has a flip-side, and this is it, so tell them how you feel.

“Honesty is the best policy.” – My Mom

The Most Honest Thing

Listen, I’m no expert. In fact, I’m amazed you’re actually reading this. I am the worst candidate to be an author of any self-help, but this is helping me with my own life, and all the crap that happens in it. With this I see through all the bad, even if half of what is written on these pages is bullshit, perhaps that is my way of seeing advice on self-produced positivity. I want you to know, I have a hard time taking advice about living a happier life, especially when I think life is out to get me, but we need each other sometimes. And if you haven’t gotten anything from all of this so far (I don’t blame you), then I want to share one thing with you: when life gets really fucked up, when you just don’t care to wake up because dreaming seems like a better way to live, and you don’t feel like you have anyone to talk to, at the moment see how ridiculous it all is, and then laugh. Laugh at your life, laugh at the people in it, laugh at the Gods, and laugh at yourself. And the only tears that should follow such well-deserved laughter are from laughing so hard. Hopefully by then you feel better, because you know you’re not alone, you have yourself to help you back up, and you will always be there for yourself at the end of the day and the start of another. But I’m not going to lie, I’d rather have someone I love to comfort me, telling me everything is going to be ok, as I fall asleep like a drunk baby in their arms.

I want my happy ending to spite the cliché, and I want my love too. But things aren’t going to be that way all the time, and they rarely are, so I’ll settle for something else, anything to keep me going on this lone journey through life. As I learn to love myself more, I learn how much I matter, even if it is only to myself, that’s all I got to offer.

Learning To Love Yourself (More) pt.3

(Two Week's Worth of Memories (According to One Camera), 2009)

How To Dull The Brightest Star
This is the hardest thing to learn. To make that person you love or loved, and who is no longer in your life, dull and no longer special. To make the sight of their image, especially new ones, seem like nothing, that they don’t attack a little place in your chest every time you see them, and you know they are alive, somewhere else, happy perhaps, and without you. Don’t think they are with anyone right now; that will just make it worse.
Deconstruct their face, see it for the flaws. She has those eyes that look away, always fascinated with the world around us never just me, or he has a greasy forehead, I used to love that about him, her fascination with the world made me love her more, but now these are all things you need to give up. You need to remember, they aren’t here, with you now, as your heart aches at their very sight. You are alone, and you need to conquer this pain because it serves no use. Take these details about them, and laugh. Laugh out loud, even if you are in a library right now surrounded by people studying their computer screens, the more the merrier. Every time you see their image laugh, to make it all better and to make it all go away. Tell yourself that you have yourself, and your humor, now laugh some more.
You’re still holding on, and your hands are formed to the shade of your love for them. You are holding on to their waist, their left leg, or hand, but look down to discover you are holding yourself. That all these things you hold on to are memories, wonderful, sad, triumphant, and amazing; and now that they’re gone it’s all feels so empty. But remember who you were in those moments, you were happy, you can still be, and you were wonderful, you still can be wonderful.
Remember the time you had an imaginary friend, what was his or her name. It’s ok, I don’t even remember mine, but it is just like that. You’re an adult, I know, but you are still the same soul, just in an older body and more chip on your shoulder. Now reach out and hold on to something else but the past. Hold on to this moment happening right now, jumping from this island of thought to the next, and keep going. The future you’ll tell yourself as you lay down in a field of your choice; of tall grass, of dirt, or a shallow sea with fish and such swimming beneath your floating body, and just smile and know that this is all happening right now, you are wonderful. You are the brightest star.

Looking For Pity, Look No Further
Here is where you should stop. You should shallow your pride, and forget that you have lived all these sad moments, and that your life is this giant tragedy that Shakespeare himself wished he wrote, and tell yourself you aren’t that. You are not the sad moments of your life, and you are not your past, as if it made you stone and who you will be in the future. Right now is the moment you need to realize it ain’t shit, and that holding on to sadness is like holding on to mercury or lead for too long: poisonous, maybe even carcinogenic.
Forget telling others why, what, and how to explain yourself and your mood, and just do something completely random and exciting to impress them instead. Don’t cry in their arms, but take their hand and run down the street, listening to the wind pass by your ears, and scream loud and proud at the top of your lungs, and hope they are on your level, that they are just as crazy. Do somersaults and jumping jacks, jump into the water, dive down and grab a rock to give her, or him, to prove you aren’t about pity.
You should smile as much as possible, and keep doing it until it is natural and you can’t help but smile, even if you accidentally soil your pants (which would make me smile even more). And then the next time someone talks of pity, you think in your happy little head that you forgot what that word means, and so you look into a dictionary and see it means; sympathetic sorrow: compassion, something to be regretted, and you wonder off into your fun and exciting life that things are crazy (as if pity was a far off planet that is so faint and distant that it could only be seen on the clearest of nights with the world’s most powerful telescope and “luck” says Galileo from his grave.)

Learning To Love Yourself (More) pt.2

(Darcy, The Great Escape, 2008-2009)

Nine Ways To Lie To Yourself
A reflection is a hard thing to face because you can't lie to it. You're not lying to yourself, you're lying to a person you have known your own life. And sometimes you're only friend once everything feels lost.
Tell yourself that it doesn't matter, and that everything will be ok. And it will, with time, and lie about that too; that tomorrow will be a better day. Tell yourself that he or she will realize what they are missing, and in your head make up a scenario of how exactly that will happen; because that is how it will. From now on, things will be better. And then promise yourself, to let go. You will meet someone that will change you forever; that will take care of you when you feel like how you feel today. Misery is an illusion, and soon it will fade away like a storm parting to show you how much warm the sun is just before sunset. You will feel like going on adventures, and your heart will feel alive again. You no longer have to force a smile to meet the day. You're walking on your own, you're happy, and that is all that matters. You're great, you can do this all on your own, and then lie to yourself some more. Because the truth is you never needed anyone like you needed to believe in yourself. You don't have to tell yourself how good you are, because no one else knows more that you.

A New Start
Right now. No, not in the morning after a nice sleep to give you a fresh start. Right now, you want change, well change ain't waiting, you gotta do it now. Sorry for being demanding, but look, you gotta get up. It all starts now, you want it, I want it, we all want it, but it ain't starting until you're ready. Are you ready? Ok, let's do this. Change.
Forget about what you want, what you think you need because those are the things that got you wanting change in the first place, right now, move forwards, even if you don't know what direction you want to go in. It's all about moving, and keeping it up, and every thing else will find its way. You will learn new languages on the road, you will meet new people, and they will last after your handshakes and salutations. They will ask you your name, we should give you a new name. This will make it more exciting, and it will be symbolic to this new change in your life, you are a new (man or woman), and most importantly, your new life. Your handshake is firm and tells everyone new in your new life that you are sure and confident, now smile. They see it in your eyes now, and it's attracting more, look. They'll invite you to their homes, you'll get to meet their kids, they're nice folk, and you'll tell them all stories over a warm dinner, and then the kids will go to sleep, and the adults will converse some more. They won't be able to get enough of you, you're fun and exciting, full of knowledge and adventure, and you're doing a great job keeping all these stories going, even if they're not true. You tell them how you are a writer, and that you're currently writing a book. They ask what it is about, and after two hours and eight glasses of wine they are hooked on you. There will visits to the cottage, and camping trips, you'll bust out survival tactics, and bring your own box of knives, telling them each one is instrumental to surviving off the fat of the land. They'll begin to look up to you, seeing you as someone who is daring and has life in the palm of their hands; you have conquered life and yet you still seek out struggle and excitement. You're amazing! And you will look in their eyes, and see the life you have created, and how wonderful it is; you're out in nature. And for a moment you will glimpse into the past and remember how things once were, how it was far different from this, and you will see how far you have traveled. You will grow tears, and your audience will grow a profound emotion that cannot be described in words as they gasp. This is of course just the beginning, and as you imagine on, I will leave it up to you to write the rest of this story. This is your life, you're the author of it.

Learning To Love Yourself (More) pt.1

Instant Running
Start off the day by running. Not by getting out of bed, brushing your teeth, showering, looking through your closet and plotting your outfit for the day, then preparing your running shorts and shirt, and putting your shoes on after a cup or two of water before running. I mean, as soon as your eyes open, jump! on to the floor, with your feet in runner's-about-to-do-what-they-do stance, and right when you realize you are awake, you run. It doesn't matter if you fall to the ground having just achieved two or three feet of distance, or that you hit the door to the bathroom for your morning pee (or poo). All that matters is you're feeling good, and this is the most important thing.

Feeling Happy
In your head, make a list of all the things you are good at. If you need help, just remember all the shining complements you have received for something you did or do, or are. You have value, and people know this, even if the person who said it is a total asshole, that should be extra points since an asshole like that said something nice! Once you have compiled a list of things that you are good at tell yourself you have talent and you have value, and that you are important to people, and then tell yourself you should be happy.

R.A.K (or "RAKing")
At this point you should plot out ways to make others happy; this in turn maintains your happiness. My personal favorite is the R.A.K, Random Acts of Kindness. These are best applied to strangers, the stranger they are the better, with caution to sending the wrong signs to creeps, they require the professional RAKers with years under the belt.
Plot out ventures into your friend's lives, doing crazy nice things for them, helping them out, and/or surprising them with love and lovely things made from love. Spread the love! And last but not least, i.R.A.K; impulsive Random Acts of, well you know. These are the best, honestly, you are walking downtown and you see a man with a frown, asking for change and you think in your head, I just bought some apples!, and you stop after passing him and you turn around and you give him an apple and say something like, "Got no change, but would you like an apple?" There should be nothing planned about this level of R.A.K, and this is for the best. Impulse is clouded and smeared with bad credit; when used properly, it's a really really great thing, and makes you feel good inside, and that's where it counts!

Words That Count
Sharing is caring. Keep on doing the good stuff, and never let a rainy day mess with your mood. And for those assholes messing with you, just tell them thank you, because you need those assholes to know that you're not one of them. Keep on truckin' and keep on lovin', even if all you got is yourself, because no one knows how to love you more than your own self.

*in the wake of Miranda July stopping Learning To Love You More, I decided to create a guide for those who don't have anyone to love but themselves. Of course you could use this guide if you have someone to love, because we all need self-love some times too.

I Don't Know You

(Orphan Image for Adaptation, 2009)

I don't want to know you. I don't want to learn of your childhood, and your "firsts". I don't want this feeling of loving a stranger for being exactly that to fade away. And let's keep it like that. I won't tell you my name and I won't ask for yours. We'll promise each other to spit words of now, looking into each other's eyes, holding the flesh of the other, and pulsate at the beat of our souls. We won't have friends. Fooling around, drunk and stupid. Running down the street, screaming. I curse this, you curse that, we'll curse each other, create a moment, destroy a moment, cry and laugh, drink some more, watch the black-black turn blue before pink, and we'll spend the morning with each other. It will feel like love for a moment. Shut up mind. I'm not the past.

She.

No.

And I'll ask for silence, as I grab your hand tighter and scream this moment.

Now.

Now.

Again.

And we'll see each other soon. I haven't met you yet. But I have already fallen for you.

Burn It Twice

(Beverley, The Great Escape (Expansions II), 2009)

Kill a bird, then two, with a stone, a rock, or even a pebble. Cover the cadaver with tricks of disappearence; once you see it and now it is gone. The times are passing, here, here, gone. In a flash, in a strike of magic, with swift hand movement, the slight of hand, look here while I do this with the free hand, showing you illusions. I am only playing a game of entertainment. I am only keeping you here, dancing with tap-shoes with raining scalp and burning legs. For you to stay. Keep coming back. And to satisfy.
This show ends and begins with you. With magic on one side, as I keep you thrilled and wanting more, I feed you my heart on the other side, telling you it is the wing of bird, the shell of fruits, and the texture is only a technique of masking the substance. It is after the show, when you come find me in the backroom, with hair down, bowtie loose, and buttons undone you ask the secret of my tricks. To others I say a magician never reveals his or her tricks, for the magic would be gone; replaced with the salt of everyday rationale. But to her, I say, everything, in the greatest detail; accounting each stroke of the brush. I confess all until her eyes form slow lakes and ponds, and there is lost deep inside her. I took something away from her. And the blame is not in the curious, but in the holder of the truth.
Guilt is when I don't hold regret, I don't back down, and be tamed by my actions in remorse. Guilt is having no other way. At the end of the day, I can rest, I can sleep; knowing that I no longer lie each time I see you; knowing something you don't. Something you should know. Something I can't escape for it is beyond me. And as my words fly passed your ears, I know by your confusion they are also beyond you.
For each stone to be thrown. A bird must fall, for you to know the truth. To sink, to fall, as I fall apart.

Upon A Pond

Here you go, and here you go.

T.L.W.O.T.M.N.D

(Slow Death (in stereo), Adaptation, 2009)

"I see", said the Blind Man to the Deaf Man who tapped on the shoulder of the Man Who Lost All Feeling. They all looked at each other with fever in their eyes and thought of their friend who was lost somewhere down the way. They buried the Man Who Knew Everything But Could Not Share A Word (For He Was Mute). His hands were no longer used for writing, and his face displayed fear and courage all at the same time. They often wondered what he had seen, heard, and touched that made him so complicated to understand. They saw him through the haze of jungle heat in an aura of mystery. And they knew all their questions would never be answered, and in turn this would form a barrier of silence around him. Each step he took was noted, each object touched was seen as blessed and cursed. Vegetation grew and died as his skin slicked the surface of earth, and he mumbled to himself over and over. He was insane, he must've lost his marbles. And so he died alone, as the four turned to three, and walked on, leaving a kneeling man to find peace and war, the stars and skies, and the last remaining word to choke the throat.
On an island, on a desert plain, in a sequence of events, the three walked on with slumped over backs, resting on their hips as their heads bopped to the rhythm of their pace. The heat would melt the first layer of skin away, peeling it back like rosebuds in bloom. When thirsty they'd drink each other's urine. That was the only thing they learned from a survival guide the Man Who Lost All Feeling had with him. They grew old walking the earth, seeing the sunset and sunrise, the desert transform into rich jungle sweet with moisture and life, and mountains and hills, valleys and rivers, everything and everything as they passed by, like mourners. Together they might have shared the meaning of life if only they weren't heart-broken loners; thieves of other men's wives, and cigar boxes of stories to boot. No, they gave up hope a long time ago, their stories were told over and over in blues melodies accompanied with sad harmonica rhythms. There would be others to join them and then eventually they would part ways, and they too were miserable loners looking for existence sadder than their own. They found home with the three old men walking their eternity away.
Eventually this must all stop, that this world must end as soon as your eyes desire change. They'll close over and over for the briefest moments and the world will still be here when they open again. You will do this billion times before you die. I tried to hold her hand, and tell her everything is going to be ok. And then I continued to walk, I had friends now.

Introducing Bogard, The Homeless Devil

*some meat to keep you coming here, you are very important, without you, none of this would happen. Keep with me, I got something good in the works. -b

The Sound of Your Voice (Without You Being There)

(Untitled #03, Philm, 2009)

Rob Pauly and I were once held at gunpoint. We were fifteen.

Sitting on a bench, I remember wearing sunglasses and feeling older as I told this story to strangers who invited me to live with them. This would be my first place I would live on my own. They didn't bother to call, one of them, who I had forgotten his name years ago, said they wanted someone older. And this memory just came to me like the smell I haven't smelled in years, and I can instantly remember when the last time I smelled that smell.
Elephant hills are hills common in New Mexico that slope and then ascend with nearly doubling the adjacent slope in degree of angle; this was easier to explain with my hand forming a wave of pavement sloped down and then pinching upwards sharply like an airplane reaching to high altitude. I flew in the air and broke my wrist on an elephant hill once. I was twelve.

"You know more about me than my mom does." -Mr. Ghost

I wanted to stop the soundtrack of your voice, it was the beauty that made me sad. I rested my head on the bridge of crossed arms, and I looked down to my feet, and thought you were half an inch away from biting my leg and the fur that covers it. Instead you licked my elbow and said we were playing Sharks. I said Tremors. You replied to my words with a question, and I explained to you that in the movie, which starred Kevin Bacon, Tremors, there was an on-going act of jumping from one giant rock to another, and furniture to furniture because these giant worm things would rip through the ground or floor and eat you! Some kids called the game "Lava", you called it Sharks. I wondered what your childhood would've been like. I told myself I would trade my entire childhood just to know every detail of yours. I realized how much you mattered and it made it worst. Your voice continued, that made it unbearable as I listened on. I was confused. I looked for you around my shoulder, underneath me, and perhaps in the bathroom as I knocked on the door. No response.
My words felt so small to your voice; you spoke in poetry without trying. You were honest, naive, and just you. I knew I couldn't be that, that my words were all attempts to get closer to you. The soundtrack ends and loud upbeat lounge/club music reminded me you left a while back. The room fell silent as I paused the player, and thought of writing a response to what you left me. This is the only way I could tell you how much the record of your voice and your stories mean to me.

Did you hear me say goodbye before the elevator door closed, I said it this time, as I walked back, feeling indescribable. Am I still a phantom, am I still a ghost? I was twenty-three.

GUNZ

(Bamboo Forest, Maui, HI, 2007)

Perhaps now more than ever I should tell you this. And this is how I will feed you clues, hints, or stabs at something that perhaps I don't even know yet. But we'll get through this.
Was the image attractive enough, was the title alluring? Either way you're reading this, right now, and my hands are no longer typing away, I don't know what they're doing.

It is up to you if this next paragraph exist, if you are giving that much more, giving me the time to finish what I just might say, what I might get at here. I almost lost you there just now. Thank you for staying with me.
It isn't just the factor of the stranger or the anonymous, and how I escape your name, my faceless reader, it is an act of bearing everything I have, without knowing truly why, and just an act of action. It is the way the words come out, as if a thought ran its way across my body and through my fingers in these dexteral movements; pressure here and pressure there, as these characters appear. It is how their represented, how the formation of them is iconic, and how they escape aesthetics and mediate on exactly what they are, language of communication. I want to talk of communication, how a stone is thrown in the air and travels to another surface to scratch it, to push it, to make its mark, and to transfer a movement and energy once completed within it and now is transcended through its direction, its collusion course to another rock, and that rock is now moved; taken in by the energy of another, as it now moves where one stone stopped. I ask what is this whole system, this dance, for? The stones eventually erode each other until they are frail and can no longer bare the impact of another, but their will to stop does not hold back the world around them, and with or without that frail stone's approval, another stone will come flying at that aged surface and crack and break apart that stone to dust. What remains is not lost, but the reminiscence of this dance, and when we look closer we can see the kiss of every stone to fade this surface to dust. We see the places this rock has been, the earth of distant lands, and the many rocks that have crashed into it. We start to see the history of an existence as we study its age and experience, and through all of this that pile of dust and tiny pieces of stone are put back together and taken with us as we collide with other surfaces, chipping away, and resonating with the world as our bodies echo a dance that has been going on for just about forever.

I wanted to share this to you.
Thank you for coming this far.

A Little Lost

(Where Am I Again?, Big Island, HI, 2007)

Mid point; an archor without a sea bottom. The waves crash into the ship, reminding us that what we have built to escape doesn't belong here, and yet we hover in this world in-between.
I could still see the light from the island, we set everything to flame. The cover of fixed housing; meant only for the temporary but became our lives for nine months, were burning like everything else. The flames did not care for what was more important to us, as each piece of our time there vanished into floating black spider webs in the air. I could see the glistening layer of reminiscence in the crews' eyes as they looked to a flicker in the darkness; it was waving us goodbye. That's when John decided to flip the bird to the island that turned us into manly men. I was shocked for a moment, not expecting such an offense but then I saw his eyes, and they were as cold as the rest of us. I hated that goddamn place too, but I also loved it. Damnit, I could've stayed there for the rest of my days, but we were forced there, taken away from our lives, ripped away, maybe even stolen to sleep under the stars, to fear the unknown once more like young boys, and to survive or parish.
Tim pissed his pants, and I did expect that. I think he never wanted to leave, but since we were all leaving he'd rather be on a miracle-to-float-let-alone-survive-the-untamed-sea/suicide journey than to be alone. For a moment I tried pissing my pants too, but thirty-four years of conditioning myself to hold it in I couldn't let a drop go.

Farewell I said in a whisper, and then I noticed Ryan had heard me. He looked at me and smiled. He knew I was crazy, and now he thinks I'm soft. I didn't have scars on my face like him, I didn't have guns like him, but I am just as strong, just not all muscular. It didn't help I wore glasses, that I used to be a quote-on-quote taxman. We all started a new life on that island. And now we were leaving it, as if this vessel that thinly separated us from the sea was our passage into the afterlife. I wondered how it would feel to fly on a cloud, would a cloud in the wind be the same as a ship on the ocean? Since no soul has flown a could and shared their experience with others, I imagined that we were all floating away on a cloud.

Night and day passed by uneventually, and we were happy for that. Food was well supplied since we ended up waiting months for the next opening to leave the island, and we managed to overthink our journey to the unknown. We were leaving everything we had known, for something that we once knew, but had forgotten when we started to adapt to our abandoned island ways. I was afraid of seeing people that weren't part of the eight bearded men I had been surviving with for the past months. How would I talk to them about this? I think I'll just be quiet, I could even put on an exotic accent to my family and friends. I had an excuse to be different, that this experience and departure made me someone new and exciting. But I wouldn't be too exciting if I didn't talk. Maybe I could just speak seldomly, and when I did, I really had something worthwhile to say. And then it would take a lifetime to tell of all nine months of my shipwrecked days instead of spilling it all out in two or three late evenings around a fireplace. I thought of my father, and when he came back from Nam, and how he was different. I don't think he ever killed anyone, but yet he seemed different, and now that I think of it, he may have just found an entry point to be a new person. It seemed to be the most refreshing way to live your life after something crazy happened. I'd be a tough guy, who puts on the most intense camping trips ever, and I'd keep the beard, and wear shirts with ripped off sleeves, and carry a knife with me at all times.

The sun was burning a hole in my back and my feet floated in the water as I sat at the edge of our raft. Today it was Sam's turn with the sunglasses, which meant he also had to be our watch out. He had black eyes, so the sun isn't as bad to him as to my green eyes but I don't think he knew how bad I had it. I watched the entire afternoon go by just looking down into the water, just thinking. I came up with about fifty different "what if" scenarios in my head, one was about a shark, another about a sea turtle, and this one about a herd of jellyfish, all attacking my submerged feet. I came up with reasons for going back, whether I should even go back to the place I came from. After being away for so long you pretty much don't care about your stuff, it was probably given away, and they made an empty grave with your name on it. But if I showed up in their backyard at night covered with flower, and told them they have to live their lives without regret; to do everything they ever wanted to do. I wondered...

I wanted to make my death to everyone I knew meaningful, not for it to be an end; a hump for them to conquer and move on, slowly forgetting my face. I wanted to make them happy, happier than when they were when I was alive in their lives.

It was dark, and another day passed before me as we continued to sway with the ocean, helpless obeding its current and moving along the wind above it.

When I think of that raft I spent a week and a half on with eight bearded men who I called brothers of the sea, I remember the most peaceful days of my life. When I think of a small volcanic island inhabited by no one, and how it must still be smoldering, I think of returning to that island. It would never be the same without my brothers of shipwreck, and no matter how much I want it to reoccur it will never happen. Instead, I live in a small town in Ohio where I do taxes for the elderly, and I have barbeques with my family and friends, and though everything may be operating in the same order as before the shipwreck, one thing is different. I talk in an exotic accent and hold my stories of island life for one moment at a time as I keep my audience on the edge of their couches and lazyboys.
I showed up at an old girlfriend's house at night standing in the middle of her backyard and I waited there for hours until it rained. She never saw me, and she probably was sleeping the whole time, and I smile every time I think of sharks and jellyfishes biting off my legs as I sit at the edge of our rift. I'm still adrift.

Answers to Your Questions

(Test Image from The Painted Landscape, 2009)

It's a stupid question.

I've been asking it for years, almost out of reflex. I'll shut up about it. Pretty soon, all of this will pass, and I'll forget for a little while, and then when I'm buying milk at the grocery store, I'll see the soy milk, and think of that time I started buying soy milk to perfect my tea making abilities for your interests. And then it will be too late, I'll be thinking of you, the small squares in your eyes, the texture of your hands, those noises you make in-between words, you looking down, and you looking up, every detail brings me down more and more closer. Closer to what, you're no longer here. I'll be rubble, I'll be rubbish, down to the last detail.
It's a question of how do I just live with myself, how do I live with knowing.

I wonder what the statute of limitations is for your memory.

A question of knowing you are still out there, with a beating heart, a voice that speaks of so many special stories, eyes that pierce the soul, lost feet, and a face that changes at each moment. I can't seem to...

Forget it.

I haven't finished yet. Every detail, every grain that you have exposed, all the stones you have lifted over, and revealed the creeps and crawlies that were once my own details are now open wounds, are broken seals, film covered parishables. Harden, soften, broken down, consumed, and left behind. You'd call me crumb if you were here, you'd call me peddle, dust, chalky figure.

It's a question I try to forget. Swallow it down, and leave it to the decomposition of time.

Am I crazy? I'll come back to this and regret it. Meaning or meaningless, I don't want to forget, and alone these memories will be the faint light that lost animals follow. I'll point to the unknown, I'll speak of something no one will ever understand, and I will leave.
Hope.

No Mountain Too High

Right now. Press the reset button, this world will fold, and be swallowed up by the abyss. We’ll run like criminals from Johnny, we’ll scream at the top of our lungs. We’ll breathe fire, and sweat bullets. We’ll rename each other. We’ll forget everything. I can’t wait for another life. I can’t keep going with this one. My feet are on the earth now, they’re telling me I’m growing each and every day. The wind carries me halfway there, as I start walking. I remember that time, and this time, and all of those moments. I say I should forget everything, but I lied. I’ll just keep you.
In a shell, in a dune, under skin, and beneath a field of moss you will find my skin, shed like the tears I once grew. No goodbye, no notice, just a trace of once was, and now gone. I call your name in the wild, to see if you will come find me. I never stop. I take two steps now, and know whatever will, whatever can, and whatever is supposed to happen…
It just will.
Once the stone has been thrown, the ripples will follow, the stone will sink into the darkness, and I can say I will remember, I can say I can change. But the ripple will follow, the current will flow, and I will be consumed by it all.
Press the button, get us out of here before it is too late. Find me, hidden and lost. Waiting for you.

How I Remember

Strangers & Duets

At it again.

After preparing my second curatorial package, Circus, I decided to pick up a side project in the mean time. Along with my fascination with history and memory is my study into the stranger and alienation. The work for Strangers & Duets focuses on the odd combinations of two unlikely elements to form a harmony through the image. From photo-montage, and everyday objects displaced in a natural scene, to the "third-leg" inserted between two lovers and their intimacy, and the figure of a person lost or found within these small portions of nature in the urban landscape, these themes are repeated over and over as they become a statement of how we feel; displaced, as integrated; hovering in-between one world to the next, from comfort to estangement, familiar to alienated. There is a harmony in it all, as if the unlikely and even constructed, are natural in some way.

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.