Saturday, July 7, 2012
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Back in the break room we talked about babysitters.
He and his brother had one that tortured them, threatening to slit their throats and who he one day "moon"d. This gained him little favor, but made him feel better.
I don't tell him about "Sayword R.", the 16 year old Pittsburgh suburbanite with the weird name and fascination with our Michael Jackson's Thriller record. Her penchant for following me around and into the garage, only to catch me eating chocolate covered pretzels out of the deep freeze which, in the morning, I'd discovered she finished off.
I was twelve at the time and she didn't look much older than me. This caused some resentment, of course.
She went on to total the family car and probably have a bunch of her own obnoxious children. Such is life.
However, I do confess Veronica. Who is, after all, the best and most important one.
The first night she was over one of my parents homemade wine bottles exploded all over the kitchen. She spent half the night cleaning it up and was mortified.
Later, she would bring over "Joey" from time to time. Her scummy dago boyfriend. Sometimes her younger brother Allen would babysit when she was unavailable. Allen was 17 or 18 at this point and kind of cute and I'd woo him with my parents rock record collection. He lamented that we didn't own Pink Floyd's "The Wall".
Veronica's smile and spirit and laugh were infectious. She told us about a class trip to Spain- Valladolid. She had asthma real bad and wheezed. She chewed gum occasionally. She may have had freckles.
When she was younger she hallucinated snakes and spiders on some shitty allergy medication and feared them interminably.
I saw her one afternoon, over in her tiny room in her family's trailer, trying on for me her royal blue satin prom dress with the gold chain for the strap. Her firery red hair flowing past those same pale shoulders. I thought I was looking up at the queen of all my dreams.
And finally the blow of her last visit. The last one I remember.
I am much older. My mother has asked her over for some reason, to give her something maybe. Or she is in the neighborhood and wanted to stop by.
I am excited to see her. But the wind goes out of my sails as soon as I do.
She is massive. She has blown up in size to rival that of her mother. Well over 200 pounds. Maybe she is pregnant too. On top of all this, she has a blonde 2-3 year old boy in tow. I feel insulted by this entire scenario. The boy pounds on our piano and wants his mother's attention constantly while she's talking with my mother, which my mother tolerates as she gives it to him. No discipline. I observe all this, and I guess that's what I see.
There seem to be a bunch of icky feelings I was wrestling with at that moment.
I took Veronica to be much prettier than fat. I didn't think she deserved it. I thought she'd go on to travel some more and take over the world. Proof that I could get out of here and do the same thing.
It doesn't matter. People can't get away from their families, and they want what they want.
Wherever she is now, I just hope she's happy. And healthy.
I don't tell him about "Sayword R.", the 16 year old Pittsburgh suburbanite with the weird name and fascination with our Michael Jackson's Thriller record. Her penchant for following me around and into the garage, only to catch me eating chocolate covered pretzels out of the deep freeze which, in the morning, I'd discovered she finished off.
I was twelve at the time and she didn't look much older than me. This caused some resentment, of course.
She went on to total the family car and probably have a bunch of her own obnoxious children. Such is life.
However, I do confess Veronica. Who is, after all, the best and most important one.
The first night she was over one of my parents homemade wine bottles exploded all over the kitchen. She spent half the night cleaning it up and was mortified.
Later, she would bring over "Joey" from time to time. Her scummy dago boyfriend. Sometimes her younger brother Allen would babysit when she was unavailable. Allen was 17 or 18 at this point and kind of cute and I'd woo him with my parents rock record collection. He lamented that we didn't own Pink Floyd's "The Wall".
Veronica's smile and spirit and laugh were infectious. She told us about a class trip to Spain- Valladolid. She had asthma real bad and wheezed. She chewed gum occasionally. She may have had freckles.
When she was younger she hallucinated snakes and spiders on some shitty allergy medication and feared them interminably.
I saw her one afternoon, over in her tiny room in her family's trailer, trying on for me her royal blue satin prom dress with the gold chain for the strap. Her firery red hair flowing past those same pale shoulders. I thought I was looking up at the queen of all my dreams.
And finally the blow of her last visit. The last one I remember.
I am much older. My mother has asked her over for some reason, to give her something maybe. Or she is in the neighborhood and wanted to stop by.
I am excited to see her. But the wind goes out of my sails as soon as I do.
She is massive. She has blown up in size to rival that of her mother. Well over 200 pounds. Maybe she is pregnant too. On top of all this, she has a blonde 2-3 year old boy in tow. I feel insulted by this entire scenario. The boy pounds on our piano and wants his mother's attention constantly while she's talking with my mother, which my mother tolerates as she gives it to him. No discipline. I observe all this, and I guess that's what I see.
There seem to be a bunch of icky feelings I was wrestling with at that moment.
I took Veronica to be much prettier than fat. I didn't think she deserved it. I thought she'd go on to travel some more and take over the world. Proof that I could get out of here and do the same thing.
It doesn't matter. People can't get away from their families, and they want what they want.
Wherever she is now, I just hope she's happy. And healthy.
Friday, June 1, 2012
eleven.thirteen.eleven
Today I burned the last stick of incense my grandmother brought back from Japan many many years before she died. I watch the smoke uncurl at halfway and the ashes meet those of a dollar bill in a white ceramic bowl.
Yes, I am trying to call a phoenix...
Tonight I'm the little match girl in high heels. Too-large wool coat and tied up hair about to be let loose. Tiny sparks for jewelry, the pumps are wearing nervous sparkles onto my skin- baby blisters- that won't be so big I can't handle them in the time it takes me to get home.
My clutch: lipstick, pen, paper, money, tissues.
There was a woman I passed on the city street a while back.
The cords of her earphones were neatly tucked
underneath the strap that held the breathing mask/air barrier to her face.
She made eye contact with me. Her eyes told me that from under that mask, she wasn't smiling back.
Yes, I am trying to call a phoenix...
Tonight I'm the little match girl in high heels. Too-large wool coat and tied up hair about to be let loose. Tiny sparks for jewelry, the pumps are wearing nervous sparkles onto my skin- baby blisters- that won't be so big I can't handle them in the time it takes me to get home.
My clutch: lipstick, pen, paper, money, tissues.
There was a woman I passed on the city street a while back.
The cords of her earphones were neatly tucked
underneath the strap that held the breathing mask/air barrier to her face.
She made eye contact with me. Her eyes told me that from under that mask, she wasn't smiling back.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Wood Fears Metal - Notes on Desire
I've written so much to you. A lot of words you'll never see. You might never "see" these words, either.
Are you afraid of people? You say you're lonely.. why do you keep so hidden?
I can't shake this idea that you're bad for me. Yet I still want you. Better judgement says I want you more than you want me.
And why? You philosophize, yet you have no practice. You understand duality intellectually, yet the real exquisite terror of science is that when it looks in the mirror, it sees poetry.
The paradox of this is that any (assuredly volatile to some degree) partnership between us could still possibly be hi-functioning and mutually beneficial.
But nobody, Nobody, can make another person want something they don't.
Do I write this more for myself, than for you? Maybe. It doesn't matter.
Either way my skin demands to be articulated. My path, my pretext, conceived.
I do and do not struggle to hear all my raw desire in the wake of you. Desire that is not judgement. Desire that is not expectation.
Desire for warmth. True intimacy.
A pact of non-aggression is still a call to action.
Sometimes, a woman is encouraged to be a thing without a past. I certainly do not intend to give my legacy away.
I am the best writer I can be right now- as a feature of my will and the sum of my parts.
My own loneliness and sadness, interlaced the twine of a few bad decisions, are not regretted.
Their edges have been explored much much more than once.
Still more, they've been found expertly fathomed. My eyes see more clearly after tears have washed them.
The "you" I speak to is the great elusive love. The soul mate in the traditional sense- lovely, strong, and in the male form.
It would be arrogant to say "I am ready for you". I am only truly prepared to say "I am worth loving, and so are you."
So, are you?
I'll keep calling out into the dark, knowing you will come.
Are you afraid of people? You say you're lonely.. why do you keep so hidden?
I can't shake this idea that you're bad for me. Yet I still want you. Better judgement says I want you more than you want me.
And why? You philosophize, yet you have no practice. You understand duality intellectually, yet the real exquisite terror of science is that when it looks in the mirror, it sees poetry.
The paradox of this is that any (assuredly volatile to some degree) partnership between us could still possibly be hi-functioning and mutually beneficial.
But nobody, Nobody, can make another person want something they don't.
Do I write this more for myself, than for you? Maybe. It doesn't matter.
Either way my skin demands to be articulated. My path, my pretext, conceived.
I do and do not struggle to hear all my raw desire in the wake of you. Desire that is not judgement. Desire that is not expectation.
Desire for warmth. True intimacy.
A pact of non-aggression is still a call to action.
Sometimes, a woman is encouraged to be a thing without a past. I certainly do not intend to give my legacy away.
I am the best writer I can be right now- as a feature of my will and the sum of my parts.
My own loneliness and sadness, interlaced the twine of a few bad decisions, are not regretted.
Their edges have been explored much much more than once.
Still more, they've been found expertly fathomed. My eyes see more clearly after tears have washed them.
The "you" I speak to is the great elusive love. The soul mate in the traditional sense- lovely, strong, and in the male form.
It would be arrogant to say "I am ready for you". I am only truly prepared to say "I am worth loving, and so are you."
So, are you?
I'll keep calling out into the dark, knowing you will come.
Monday, May 7, 2012
List: Band Names
Dicky Listless and the Affairs
Heart Ache and the Bummers
Meta Phor and the Dislikes
Like Or As
Code Perfect
Meat Drawer
Sex Bunker
Petti Theft and the Pilfers
The Lonesome Bulldogs
The Long Midnight
Hot Noise (first album title: Hardup For Stereo)
Undercover Youngbloods
Dead Push Music
Covitous Ov
Mick Lixx and the Jolly Pops
Tab Lloyd and the Bad Publicity
Word Gun
Talking Tape Gun
The Daring Cut Lables
Satanic Carwash
Jefferson Leopard Lovestory
Grant Asylum
Mint Hoax Yawn
Plastic African
Pukeowski
Mechanical Bullshit
Occultocaust (Its a Dog Eat God world...)
The Reverend Bartender Headache
The Waitress Union
Glib Contour
Sleepy Dirt
Foxy Moron
Ultimate Beef (saw this spraypainted on the side of a building/restaurant)
Barking Jeanius
Double Death
Soft Sword
Jayjee Ballad and the Bombs
Hot War
Idiot Electron
Creative Fighting and the Anything Dangerous
Shugar Skhull
Napoleonic Code
Wet Magnet
Teen Murder Composition
The Glued-Ons
Deena Martini and the Crass Pack
Fierce Decible
Dick Nigger and the Badasssssses
Alphabet Tapedeck
Kilometer Frame
The Constantly Tinys
Bystander Effect
Light and Moth
Frankfurt Motor (had a dream about this one: "meat and bones animal deathfuck porn band")
...Up for grabs, that is, if you feel like starting a band(!)
And if you think you've heard any of these before... let me know.
xo!
Monday, April 2, 2012
Evidence, Relevance, Consequence, Action.
When commercials become too much to take, simply imagine the blowhard actor/voicetalent to be a cold-blooded murderer. Mass murderer, even. Something out of 'Nam. Whitey in flagrante delicto.
Then its all terrible giggles from there. Seriously. The ad loses all context and bleeds entirely any absurd integrity it may have had.
I thought of all this over a cleaning product spot. Corona nearly shot out of my nose. Bartender probably thought I was bananas. Effective.
Then its all terrible giggles from there. Seriously. The ad loses all context and bleeds entirely any absurd integrity it may have had.
I thought of all this over a cleaning product spot. Corona nearly shot out of my nose. Bartender probably thought I was bananas. Effective.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
In proportion to your intelligence is your perception of pain
My mother's mother passed away on Friday. The last of the matriarchs to go...
I saw her just a few weeks back, and have no urge to go to funeral services.
However, in a silly twist, in a week or so I'll be taking on an acting gig that involves being a mourner at a mock funeral...
It is there that I intend to do a lot of crying for no good reason.
One day when I was little, I found I could cry on demand. I think I had something in my eye.
My mother was dually impressed with this. She'd say things like: You could go to Hollywood with tears like those.
Now, I simply lower my eyes and try to think of something that makes my nose tingle and my face itch like an allergic reaction, and soon I'm weeping.
But these salty jewels don't come cheap...
A little while back, I watched Wings of Desire. A German film by Wim Wenders, and it made me cry. Or moreso that I cried for watching it. It occurred to me then to make a list of all the things that have ever moved me to tears.
This is a work in progress, of course...
-
Old Photos, sometimes, like movies.
The love of my mother, and things that have made my mother cry out of sympathy for her.
The death of my father's sister last summer. The death of my grandfather, and his incredible send off.
Often, the plight of others. Lost families during wartime.
Videos of people, kids especially, getting puppies for christmas.
Octavia Butler:
Went to write to her after I saw her at a reading in 2005. That's when I found out she'd passed away.
Mother Teresa, and her confiding to a priest with whom she was close late in life, that she was no longer able to hear the voice of God. And that even if he'd given up on her, she hadn't given up on him.
My brother, singing a song I'd written about love in the hospital.
The short story Girl Pool by Kurt Vonnegut.
The children's story The Velveteen Rabbit.
Every single boyfriend, especially the ones that drove me crazy, and the romantic love they offered.
LAIKA, the first dog (Russian) in space, who did not come back- "We did not gather enough data from the mission to warrant the death of the dog."
-
I hope you can find a reason to be thankful for your humanity and compassion today, and tomorrow...
and
tomorrow!
I saw her just a few weeks back, and have no urge to go to funeral services.
However, in a silly twist, in a week or so I'll be taking on an acting gig that involves being a mourner at a mock funeral...
It is there that I intend to do a lot of crying for no good reason.
One day when I was little, I found I could cry on demand. I think I had something in my eye.
My mother was dually impressed with this. She'd say things like: You could go to Hollywood with tears like those.
Now, I simply lower my eyes and try to think of something that makes my nose tingle and my face itch like an allergic reaction, and soon I'm weeping.
But these salty jewels don't come cheap...
A little while back, I watched Wings of Desire. A German film by Wim Wenders, and it made me cry. Or moreso that I cried for watching it. It occurred to me then to make a list of all the things that have ever moved me to tears.
This is a work in progress, of course...
-
Old Photos, sometimes, like movies.
The love of my mother, and things that have made my mother cry out of sympathy for her.
The death of my father's sister last summer. The death of my grandfather, and his incredible send off.
Often, the plight of others. Lost families during wartime.
Videos of people, kids especially, getting puppies for christmas.
Octavia Butler:
Went to write to her after I saw her at a reading in 2005. That's when I found out she'd passed away.
Mother Teresa, and her confiding to a priest with whom she was close late in life, that she was no longer able to hear the voice of God. And that even if he'd given up on her, she hadn't given up on him.
My brother, singing a song I'd written about love in the hospital.
The short story Girl Pool by Kurt Vonnegut.
The children's story The Velveteen Rabbit.
Every single boyfriend, especially the ones that drove me crazy, and the romantic love they offered.
LAIKA, the first dog (Russian) in space, who did not come back- "We did not gather enough data from the mission to warrant the death of the dog."
-
I hope you can find a reason to be thankful for your humanity and compassion today, and tomorrow...
and
tomorrow!
Saturday, March 3, 2012
dont you wish you had those nights back? the ones you paid rent for, but didn't stay?
don't mention the fog.
bring silk instead into the bed.
the place where our minds could be.
don't lean against the doors
when you could be under the covers.
-
Dawn...
coming like a message
hemorrhaging pink under Venus.
-
From the wide windows, sky.
A view of the high elec cables sine wave.
Cigarette ash in the upturned beer bottle cap.
Clean wide brown
paint brushes dried and
upturned.
Three in a clear jar with a wide mouth.
Glass tarnish
shimmy the light back toward
crumpled paper and crumb tatters
of gold leaf.
Sunset falls,
long and final
over the worktable.
-
Remember
Those times when
deja vu
doesn't feel like anything
other than a wave
of extreme perfection?
I feel that
every day
around you.
-
Cloudy Tuesday. Rainy warmth hangs in the air like a deceptive blanket. the threatening insulator.
I went into a tea shop and drank white tea. Slow, and with air. It provided a stillness and a clarity that let me see colors and hear the city sounds with more purpose. As in a film. The cinema of my mind is vast. It makes me smile! It swirls inside me and spreads peace... or maybe it's sloth instead? My movements feel sluggish as if I was just aroused from rest.
The end of December. Already the bright retainer of spring thrusts itself into view. It is about to be deceived but it doesn't care. Even in deference, it is grateful.
People go out to breath heavy. Boys and girls move their bodies to music. Whatever becomes the light in them?
-
The board. The larder. The pantry. Empty.
Almost completely. I don't mind the look of it, all individually wrapped crackers and box of cereal with one bowl left.
I cannot eat the sound of my drum being played. I cannot unspin a curtain into spaghetti.
Coffee plays an uncertain cadence over my heart.
I dated a caffeine addict whose cum tasted like the coveted roasted cherries of that naughty insurgent bean. The grit and the flower of its taste. Pressed like saliva from bark. Rain run-off juice from a washed city. Burned rebel-drink. A bad substitute for prunes.
It's a thing that makes a tummy feel more empty after awhile. Hungry for grease.
I cannot whip toothpaste into eggs, over hard. I cannot breathe and take in the air like milk. I must fill myself another way.
bring silk instead into the bed.
the place where our minds could be.
don't lean against the doors
when you could be under the covers.
-
Dawn...
coming like a message
hemorrhaging pink under Venus.
-
From the wide windows, sky.
A view of the high elec cables sine wave.
Cigarette ash in the upturned beer bottle cap.
Clean wide brown
paint brushes dried and
upturned.
Three in a clear jar with a wide mouth.
Glass tarnish
shimmy the light back toward
crumpled paper and crumb tatters
of gold leaf.
Sunset falls,
long and final
over the worktable.
-
Remember
Those times when
deja vu
doesn't feel like anything
other than a wave
of extreme perfection?
I feel that
every day
around you.
-
Cloudy Tuesday. Rainy warmth hangs in the air like a deceptive blanket. the threatening insulator.
I went into a tea shop and drank white tea. Slow, and with air. It provided a stillness and a clarity that let me see colors and hear the city sounds with more purpose. As in a film. The cinema of my mind is vast. It makes me smile! It swirls inside me and spreads peace... or maybe it's sloth instead? My movements feel sluggish as if I was just aroused from rest.
The end of December. Already the bright retainer of spring thrusts itself into view. It is about to be deceived but it doesn't care. Even in deference, it is grateful.
People go out to breath heavy. Boys and girls move their bodies to music. Whatever becomes the light in them?
-
The board. The larder. The pantry. Empty.
Almost completely. I don't mind the look of it, all individually wrapped crackers and box of cereal with one bowl left.
I cannot eat the sound of my drum being played. I cannot unspin a curtain into spaghetti.
Coffee plays an uncertain cadence over my heart.
I dated a caffeine addict whose cum tasted like the coveted roasted cherries of that naughty insurgent bean. The grit and the flower of its taste. Pressed like saliva from bark. Rain run-off juice from a washed city. Burned rebel-drink. A bad substitute for prunes.
It's a thing that makes a tummy feel more empty after awhile. Hungry for grease.
I cannot whip toothpaste into eggs, over hard. I cannot breathe and take in the air like milk. I must fill myself another way.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
A Moment In 2007 (for Heather and Christian)
Two Nineteen.
I am 27 today. And lonely. (In Maine).
On Hobson's wharf, in Becky's diner, warming my hands with half-decaf and thinking about how surreal a kind of day like this spent alone can be.
The odd years are always the best, but they start out so casual, so understated..
When I turned 21 by the end of the day I was crying. That day was supposed to be spelling my name in the sky. The day that followed instead, was much much better. And I guess that's how I'll feel tomorrow... relieved that the pressure is off.
I do currently have the best boyfriend ever. Supportive and sweet and calling me and sending messages. He is also lonely and we're a little heartsick for one another. Even as that situation won't remedy itself for another couple weeks, its still bittersweet knowing that a short few hundred miles away, someone is down with me.
The sun is so bright, it's hard for me to not want to be outside. But the wind: an icy and unforgiving witch.
I walk around town dropping off applications to everywhere I can think short of laundromats (and I might just break out the phonebook and do that later this week.)
No bites yet, but we're close. Hard to get a part-time gig in this town.
In hopes of a more positive experience with birth control and condom-free sex, I put in a "nuva ring" today. A little plastic hormone delivery system. More news on that later, I hope.
Guys to my rear rap about basketball and I think of a friend in PA with his family. Called me at the beginning of the weekend in anticipation of Monday off. Yes, today is also president's day. Me and Lincoln- we're taking on the world at every turn.
Volunteering at the TV station tonight. A show at the Strange Maine- a little hodge podge shop with music and movies. I only went there once and the cashier looked like every member of TV on the Radio combined. Having a phone conversation about something either extremely personal or very illegal.
The math professor sends me an email:
"And remember, 27 is the last prime cube you will ever achieve as a birthday."
Yep. 27. Your life is amazing. Right down to the split ends.
I am 27 today. And lonely. (In Maine).
On Hobson's wharf, in Becky's diner, warming my hands with half-decaf and thinking about how surreal a kind of day like this spent alone can be.
The odd years are always the best, but they start out so casual, so understated..
When I turned 21 by the end of the day I was crying. That day was supposed to be spelling my name in the sky. The day that followed instead, was much much better. And I guess that's how I'll feel tomorrow... relieved that the pressure is off.
I do currently have the best boyfriend ever. Supportive and sweet and calling me and sending messages. He is also lonely and we're a little heartsick for one another. Even as that situation won't remedy itself for another couple weeks, its still bittersweet knowing that a short few hundred miles away, someone is down with me.
The sun is so bright, it's hard for me to not want to be outside. But the wind: an icy and unforgiving witch.
I walk around town dropping off applications to everywhere I can think short of laundromats (and I might just break out the phonebook and do that later this week.)
No bites yet, but we're close. Hard to get a part-time gig in this town.
In hopes of a more positive experience with birth control and condom-free sex, I put in a "nuva ring" today. A little plastic hormone delivery system. More news on that later, I hope.
Guys to my rear rap about basketball and I think of a friend in PA with his family. Called me at the beginning of the weekend in anticipation of Monday off. Yes, today is also president's day. Me and Lincoln- we're taking on the world at every turn.
Volunteering at the TV station tonight. A show at the Strange Maine- a little hodge podge shop with music and movies. I only went there once and the cashier looked like every member of TV on the Radio combined. Having a phone conversation about something either extremely personal or very illegal.
The math professor sends me an email:
"And remember, 27 is the last prime cube you will ever achieve as a birthday."
Yep. 27. Your life is amazing. Right down to the split ends.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Addressing Busters
"The State is for Man. NOT Man for the State." - Jacques Maritian
It's an election year, and I owe my friend Patrick an apology...
Back in '08, swept up in Obama fever, I shot an email out to friends and family drumming up enthusiasm, or at least sharing my own, for the upcoming election.
I was excited for much of the same reasons that others were, including voting for the first time in a place other than Western PA, and was- as I still am- a resident of Chicago, Illinois. Ground Zero Obamaville.
When I talked to my friend Pat about who he was voting for, he said: "No one. I'm not voting."
I then proceeded to give him a bunch of shit for it.
I'm not even sure I remember his reasons for not voting. But time, and experience, teaches.
Perhaps he knew something I didn't, and was afraid to tell me for fear I wouldn't listen.
My point being, I'm not sure whether I come to this out of the peculiarities of a generation so generally and swiftly jaded by a broken, static system, maybe each one feels more estranged than the last...
Although for me it was late 20's, I'm sure it's a more personal timeline for everyone. Some people never get to confronting that coarse of injustice that facilitates a nihilistic outlook on what is, at large, a wholly dysfunctional option.
But, to Pat and to whom it may concern: I'm there. I've arrived.
You were right, and now we have Occupy fever.
To digress a moment, my last two partners have been "Baby Busters". They were, are, 48 years old.
In speaking with the first one day, I had a realization that I should have had a long time ago, which was that this system and its politics are cyclical like anything else. The same samsara-trap set, the same trap going off again and again.
What scam that involves selling our rights back to us comes next is our only guess- "universal health care" seems like the likeliest candidate.
And the latest admitted a paradox, because the current Mr. President is himself a "Buster", a generation also plenty jaded with politics.
However complex the variables and outcomes, the primary conclusion is herein momentarily being: I've decided to divorce myself from voting.
No ballot casting ever again, for anything local, state, federal, international, universal.
Voting distracts.
And besides, don't we just vote every day anyway with a thing politicians are more interested in anyhow?
Money.
It's an election year, and I owe my friend Patrick an apology...
Back in '08, swept up in Obama fever, I shot an email out to friends and family drumming up enthusiasm, or at least sharing my own, for the upcoming election.
I was excited for much of the same reasons that others were, including voting for the first time in a place other than Western PA, and was- as I still am- a resident of Chicago, Illinois. Ground Zero Obamaville.
When I talked to my friend Pat about who he was voting for, he said: "No one. I'm not voting."
I then proceeded to give him a bunch of shit for it.
I'm not even sure I remember his reasons for not voting. But time, and experience, teaches.
Perhaps he knew something I didn't, and was afraid to tell me for fear I wouldn't listen.
My point being, I'm not sure whether I come to this out of the peculiarities of a generation so generally and swiftly jaded by a broken, static system, maybe each one feels more estranged than the last...
Although for me it was late 20's, I'm sure it's a more personal timeline for everyone. Some people never get to confronting that coarse of injustice that facilitates a nihilistic outlook on what is, at large, a wholly dysfunctional option.
But, to Pat and to whom it may concern: I'm there. I've arrived.
You were right, and now we have Occupy fever.
To digress a moment, my last two partners have been "Baby Busters". They were, are, 48 years old.
In speaking with the first one day, I had a realization that I should have had a long time ago, which was that this system and its politics are cyclical like anything else. The same samsara-trap set, the same trap going off again and again.
What scam that involves selling our rights back to us comes next is our only guess- "universal health care" seems like the likeliest candidate.
And the latest admitted a paradox, because the current Mr. President is himself a "Buster", a generation also plenty jaded with politics.
However complex the variables and outcomes, the primary conclusion is herein momentarily being: I've decided to divorce myself from voting.
No ballot casting ever again, for anything local, state, federal, international, universal.
Voting distracts.
And besides, don't we just vote every day anyway with a thing politicians are more interested in anyhow?
Money.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
No Comment.
I want a cigarette after that sex.
I'm on my period and its messy. Brown like nutrient rich earth after a good rain.
My phone never rings when I'm available and my legs will never shave themselves.
I will know when the time is right... why do I always want to rush it?
The plastic jangles. I forget my earrings are there @ the sides of my throat, until I brush them accidentally.
These actions coincide with my phone not ringing and the remembrance of needing to pluck eyebrows.
I ask my boyfriend not to drink so much at happy hour so he can pick me up tonight. He won't make any promises. It's Friday.
I start a new book.
The book store, there are so many people to write to, lonely. Only one person responded to my ad. I like forgetting that I've done those kinds of things.
If I was different, would I make new friends?
My hair works its way into my ear like a pressure, a thought that tickles the side of my reality. Quiet hair dusted and stuck, made loud against strands grown from the top. Brothers and sisters of another topography.
I'm eighteen.
I want to drink cold pink wine with my boyfriend in a bedroom in my hometown. I want him to visit me in his past so I can say his name & kiss him and call him my boyfriend. ...and then he can melt away in the morning.
I don't wear socks that often. And I don't have a reason why, other than it looks real cool, and I guess my feet like to get intimate with the sides of my shoes.
I wear a skirt today. Winter feels good on all the things I'm not covering.
The ballad radio at twelve twenty five.
My chin crushed into the pillow, staring at the rain.
That girl I remember from many previous summers in her bedroom on her bed watching the rain thinking about her dead pet. I pushed her door open and walked past and took the glance of her from behind that she'll never know.
From that I have all this- a head full of bedrooms and ballads. A piece of rain shuddered against glass near long brown hair and ass in denim.
Sometimes its so curious how we have all in one day, a noon and a night.
I'm on my period and its messy. Brown like nutrient rich earth after a good rain.
My phone never rings when I'm available and my legs will never shave themselves.
I will know when the time is right... why do I always want to rush it?
The plastic jangles. I forget my earrings are there @ the sides of my throat, until I brush them accidentally.
These actions coincide with my phone not ringing and the remembrance of needing to pluck eyebrows.
I ask my boyfriend not to drink so much at happy hour so he can pick me up tonight. He won't make any promises. It's Friday.
I start a new book.
The book store, there are so many people to write to, lonely. Only one person responded to my ad. I like forgetting that I've done those kinds of things.
If I was different, would I make new friends?
My hair works its way into my ear like a pressure, a thought that tickles the side of my reality. Quiet hair dusted and stuck, made loud against strands grown from the top. Brothers and sisters of another topography.
I'm eighteen.
I want to drink cold pink wine with my boyfriend in a bedroom in my hometown. I want him to visit me in his past so I can say his name & kiss him and call him my boyfriend. ...and then he can melt away in the morning.
I don't wear socks that often. And I don't have a reason why, other than it looks real cool, and I guess my feet like to get intimate with the sides of my shoes.
I wear a skirt today. Winter feels good on all the things I'm not covering.
The ballad radio at twelve twenty five.
My chin crushed into the pillow, staring at the rain.
That girl I remember from many previous summers in her bedroom on her bed watching the rain thinking about her dead pet. I pushed her door open and walked past and took the glance of her from behind that she'll never know.
From that I have all this- a head full of bedrooms and ballads. A piece of rain shuddered against glass near long brown hair and ass in denim.
Sometimes its so curious how we have all in one day, a noon and a night.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
"Cleanup Crew" - Chapter One, part 1
We called ourselves "The Cleanup Crew".
We'd go out on duty early early morning & late at night. Always 2, sometimes 3 of us. 1 or 2 to hold back the homeless person, or subdue them with a taser, the other to dump out their "belongings", and sort them into either usables or recyclables. Some homeless were quite patient, and they'd just watch us pull out plastic bags and jesus tracts one from the next.
"Duty" was always educational and we did it to help people. We only had to kill one person, and that's a long story for later.
Sometimes we'd get their good things down to one bag- show it to them & give it back. One man we took to an all night diner & listened to him over coffee for nearly four hours. He was early on, and I think we saved both our lives.. again, another story for a bit later.
Mini Van bumper sticker soccer mom came thru once and got her business in ours, other than that we'd be pretty discreet and move locales if we had to.
Inspiration for the beginning of the cleanup crew began with Mina.
We'd moved into the neighborhood from another part of the city and it wasn't a week before we saw her- big puffy new bright red coat at the beginning of fall when everyone was still out sporting shorts. She'd mill around the pizza place up the block when outdoors and we'd constantly see her passing the downstairs window.
Jake gave her chow from time to time even tho' she wasn't asking for it, or even asking for money. She'd smile & nod and talk to herself- a mumblespeech which was sometimes animated with ticks and retorts from imaginary friends. Her silent, profound emoting led us to believe that maybe she was an actress in another life.
She was off the street at night, but we could only guess at where she slept.
Two months pass, and we see her with a greater and greater infrequency, to the point of our thinking maybe she'd been arrested. Each time we spy her she seems sad. Stooped with disappointment. Dirty and downturned in the mouth. Then the baggage.
Each one bigger than the last and filled with a large amount of detritus. Then we'd see her sleeping on the street with a trail of trash leading up to her. She'd become this stinking eyesore you could find anywhere without looking very hard.
She passed out on our doorstep early one evening in December during a first snow and we knew something must be done immediately...
We'd go out on duty early early morning & late at night. Always 2, sometimes 3 of us. 1 or 2 to hold back the homeless person, or subdue them with a taser, the other to dump out their "belongings", and sort them into either usables or recyclables. Some homeless were quite patient, and they'd just watch us pull out plastic bags and jesus tracts one from the next.
"Duty" was always educational and we did it to help people. We only had to kill one person, and that's a long story for later.
Sometimes we'd get their good things down to one bag- show it to them & give it back. One man we took to an all night diner & listened to him over coffee for nearly four hours. He was early on, and I think we saved both our lives.. again, another story for a bit later.
Mini Van bumper sticker soccer mom came thru once and got her business in ours, other than that we'd be pretty discreet and move locales if we had to.
Inspiration for the beginning of the cleanup crew began with Mina.
We'd moved into the neighborhood from another part of the city and it wasn't a week before we saw her- big puffy new bright red coat at the beginning of fall when everyone was still out sporting shorts. She'd mill around the pizza place up the block when outdoors and we'd constantly see her passing the downstairs window.
Jake gave her chow from time to time even tho' she wasn't asking for it, or even asking for money. She'd smile & nod and talk to herself- a mumblespeech which was sometimes animated with ticks and retorts from imaginary friends. Her silent, profound emoting led us to believe that maybe she was an actress in another life.
She was off the street at night, but we could only guess at where she slept.
Two months pass, and we see her with a greater and greater infrequency, to the point of our thinking maybe she'd been arrested. Each time we spy her she seems sad. Stooped with disappointment. Dirty and downturned in the mouth. Then the baggage.
Each one bigger than the last and filled with a large amount of detritus. Then we'd see her sleeping on the street with a trail of trash leading up to her. She'd become this stinking eyesore you could find anywhere without looking very hard.
She passed out on our doorstep early one evening in December during a first snow and we knew something must be done immediately...
Monday, November 28, 2011
Seven Years Old- true story transcribed from a letter
I see a little boy in my thoughts and he is alive. He listens to Dr. Seuss on an old record album that his mom bought him and he reads along with the story. It is around Xmas because I see the lights twinkling from the tree. He is 7 years old and full of hope and joy. He does not know that his parents are fighting in the kitchen. His dad sits him down on the couch and explains as well as he can that he has to go away. The boy just thinks it is temporary. I'm sure that he was not aware that his life was just starting to fall apart and so he grows up not knowing anything. His father finds companionship as does his mother. He continues to grow.
His stepmother yells at him. His dad is not aware, the boy does not care. His life is OK. The boy loves his family and he is happy by himself. His father gives him his guitar and he plays and plays that guitar. That guitar made his dad depressed because he used to play songs to his wife.
Both families live, and die, in good health, and the boy lives on to become something great.
The End.
"I always wonder what this world would be without artists. It would not be original, it would be generic and boring. Perhaps hell is a world without art and music. My life is art, heaven is art, forget this all."
-I. Bonnet
His stepmother yells at him. His dad is not aware, the boy does not care. His life is OK. The boy loves his family and he is happy by himself. His father gives him his guitar and he plays and plays that guitar. That guitar made his dad depressed because he used to play songs to his wife.
Both families live, and die, in good health, and the boy lives on to become something great.
The End.
"I always wonder what this world would be without artists. It would not be original, it would be generic and boring. Perhaps hell is a world without art and music. My life is art, heaven is art, forget this all."
-I. Bonnet
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Sometimes Model - a random portfolio, a short essay
The rose is without why.
It blossoms because it blossoms.
It blossoms because it blossoms.
Dear Riva-
As regards your question from Sunday concerning what the model is thinking about while working, or "on stage":
A swarm of things wants to come out of me in response to this question- none of which takes precedence other than.. sex.
I suppose male models can't really indulge in thinking about it for catching an erection, (and I've had some "models only" dinner parties, but seemed to have failed to ask this question.) But thinking about it gets me out of my body faster than anything else.
Not that escape or even "meditation" of some sort is the ultimate goal. Sometimes I try to not get too relaxed or I'll start to fall asleep.
My fears with modeling include, superficially, getting a flat ass and/or a weak heart from all the sitting- but that's why I have a responsibility to yoga and cardio, and to eat well- but also the times when modeling will not be the work I choose to do anymore for whatever reason (bad joints, poor health, new job, etc.) It seems to be such a fulfilling thing to be doing at this time in my life, I suppose I just don't want it to end. Maybe that's simply a fear of change that rules all of us to some degree.
I feel more a part of this community than I have the community for my own art form (writing poetry), and in a big city too! I'm from a small town and strange rivalries and friendships are made on every level of expertise. I don't sense it, but is there a Northside/Southside art rivalry? Maybe they are completely (almost) separate worlds? I think my process could benefit from exposure to this on a large scale, having come from the country (western PA).
Anyway, I'm getting off base here.
I don't feel personally hypersexual or preoccupied with sex itself as a subject, even tho' I'm sure I have quite a lot to say about it.
It tends to enter into my mind on its own more often probably for my occasionally forcing it there to launch myself out of some pain I may have to endure for as long as 20 minutes.
Being a model (and my dyslexic self causes me to switch the last two letters of that word constantly) has caused me to deal with pain differently.
As regards your question from Sunday concerning what the model is thinking about while working, or "on stage":
A swarm of things wants to come out of me in response to this question- none of which takes precedence other than.. sex.
I suppose male models can't really indulge in thinking about it for catching an erection, (and I've had some "models only" dinner parties, but seemed to have failed to ask this question.) But thinking about it gets me out of my body faster than anything else.
Not that escape or even "meditation" of some sort is the ultimate goal. Sometimes I try to not get too relaxed or I'll start to fall asleep.
My fears with modeling include, superficially, getting a flat ass and/or a weak heart from all the sitting- but that's why I have a responsibility to yoga and cardio, and to eat well- but also the times when modeling will not be the work I choose to do anymore for whatever reason (bad joints, poor health, new job, etc.) It seems to be such a fulfilling thing to be doing at this time in my life, I suppose I just don't want it to end. Maybe that's simply a fear of change that rules all of us to some degree.
I feel more a part of this community than I have the community for my own art form (writing poetry), and in a big city too! I'm from a small town and strange rivalries and friendships are made on every level of expertise. I don't sense it, but is there a Northside/Southside art rivalry? Maybe they are completely (almost) separate worlds? I think my process could benefit from exposure to this on a large scale, having come from the country (western PA).
Anyway, I'm getting off base here.
I don't feel personally hypersexual or preoccupied with sex itself as a subject, even tho' I'm sure I have quite a lot to say about it.
It tends to enter into my mind on its own more often probably for my occasionally forcing it there to launch myself out of some pain I may have to endure for as long as 20 minutes.
Being a model (and my dyslexic self causes me to switch the last two letters of that word constantly) has caused me to deal with pain differently.
Breathing into it to explore it, finding what muscles surround it to shift into to get out of it or away from it. Stretching on a break, or putting ointment on it to confront it.
Lauren Levato mentioned she notices that I reveal my true(er) self when I model... who knows, maybe the artist who is looking carefully can tell when I go away, then come back into myself.
Right when you asked me this, it was the first break, and earlier I'd been thinking about my aunt, father's older sister, who is quite sick and may die very soon.
Those very questions of morality, philosophy and great thinking lead to, sometimes, a preoccupation on the stand with a line or two of poetry. Most likely something new to compose.
Very rarely also a song will stick in my head- it happened once & I had the occasion to tell an artist about it and he went online and ordered a cheap CD of it for me right then. It was great!
Lauren Levato mentioned she notices that I reveal my true(er) self when I model... who knows, maybe the artist who is looking carefully can tell when I go away, then come back into myself.
Right when you asked me this, it was the first break, and earlier I'd been thinking about my aunt, father's older sister, who is quite sick and may die very soon.
Those very questions of morality, philosophy and great thinking lead to, sometimes, a preoccupation on the stand with a line or two of poetry. Most likely something new to compose.
Very rarely also a song will stick in my head- it happened once & I had the occasion to tell an artist about it and he went online and ordered a cheap CD of it for me right then. It was great!
But that's an overview of a little bit of my mindset during figure work... photography is a whole other beast we'll have to talk about someday.
xo-
Dana
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Blast Fortune
2 Years ago, I started this blog, "Four Letter World", as an outlet for writing and other personal art/ephemera.
Today I celebrate the further potentialities by changing the name to coincide with a .blogspot address:
blastfortune.blogspot.com.
Also, a fantastic ebook from Pangur Ban Party has just been released with a story of mine in the line up. Pretty proud to be part of this crew:
verybeautifulwomen.blogspot.com
Hope all is well with you and yours.
See you post Halloween.
Xo-
Dana Jerman
Today I celebrate the further potentialities by changing the name to coincide with a .blogspot address:
blastfortune.blogspot.com.
Also, a fantastic ebook from Pangur Ban Party has just been released with a story of mine in the line up. Pretty proud to be part of this crew:
verybeautifulwomen.blogspot.com
Hope all is well with you and yours.
See you post Halloween.
Xo-
Dana Jerman
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Thank Others For Your Sanity Daily- 28 Feb. 1998
"NO, fuck! That's my birthday too, dude! I just turned 18!!"
I offer my hand in a high five he was too stunned to complete right away as he sat across from me in the well-lit bottom floor of Duquesne Towers.
That's how it all began, though.
The exchange of the fact of the shared birthday- us and Smokey Robinson and Seal (black vocalists, this one no different) and our same destination! Toga party @ Binh's.
"A quarter? Sure. For an apple pie?"
I smiled my stupid smile in a fresh-from-Sam-Goody Korn T-shirt. Reading the blue "How to survive your freshman year" booklet.
Tip 1: Bring alotta booze.
Jill arrives in the blue Toyota @ 10 instead of 9. We're pissed, but just glad she's here. Wendy dressed up almost naked in peter pan toga garb. She delivered us safely home, all thanks to tolerance.
Jill- the 23 yr old grad student- in Devil Red. Her oily white blond pixie cut shining from glittery face powder like Wendy.
123 in the South Side. Smile where I fucked you last.
Many beautiful individuals, past the glow room, the kitchen, the bathroom. Standing beside the sink. "Wanna go for a walk?" (This is me to Eugene.)
Outside into the many blocks of winding streets. Down to the corner with the white car and opposite the convenience store. February in Pittsburgh. I lean into his big jacket, on the car listening to his words, loving every melody of motion they created. How suddenly I'd found someone special.
Past Nick's Fat City on the main drag to Tuscany on the corner.
Lemon and Orange and Cinnamon. His colors and the coffee shops and mine.
Paid for my house blend and we sat in the back. Too briefly.
Back to the party. Then home. Home sweet dormroom.
Megan in "I'm dying!" mode. Wendy in hyperdrive. Me between Arturo and Eugene in the back seat: in heaven.
Crawling into the elevator to the 7th floor. Playing doctor to Megan and girlfriend to Eugene until 3am. I smiled and kissed him, he smiled and kissed me back. Only the presumptuousness of youth scared sober with love causes one to laugh nervously as they ask: "Do you want to see my dick?"
Another nervous laugh from me as I say "No."
Vampires in the bathroom. Jessica polishing off the VDK with her friends.
Sitting in silence with the Xmas lights on. People screaming up the street below.
Christmas on a cracker, it was a good night.
I offer my hand in a high five he was too stunned to complete right away as he sat across from me in the well-lit bottom floor of Duquesne Towers.
That's how it all began, though.
The exchange of the fact of the shared birthday- us and Smokey Robinson and Seal (black vocalists, this one no different) and our same destination! Toga party @ Binh's.
"A quarter? Sure. For an apple pie?"
I smiled my stupid smile in a fresh-from-Sam-Goody Korn T-shirt. Reading the blue "How to survive your freshman year" booklet.
Tip 1: Bring alotta booze.
Jill arrives in the blue Toyota @ 10 instead of 9. We're pissed, but just glad she's here. Wendy dressed up almost naked in peter pan toga garb. She delivered us safely home, all thanks to tolerance.
Jill- the 23 yr old grad student- in Devil Red. Her oily white blond pixie cut shining from glittery face powder like Wendy.
123 in the South Side. Smile where I fucked you last.
Many beautiful individuals, past the glow room, the kitchen, the bathroom. Standing beside the sink. "Wanna go for a walk?" (This is me to Eugene.)
Outside into the many blocks of winding streets. Down to the corner with the white car and opposite the convenience store. February in Pittsburgh. I lean into his big jacket, on the car listening to his words, loving every melody of motion they created. How suddenly I'd found someone special.
Past Nick's Fat City on the main drag to Tuscany on the corner.
Lemon and Orange and Cinnamon. His colors and the coffee shops and mine.
Paid for my house blend and we sat in the back. Too briefly.
Back to the party. Then home. Home sweet dormroom.
Megan in "I'm dying!" mode. Wendy in hyperdrive. Me between Arturo and Eugene in the back seat: in heaven.
Crawling into the elevator to the 7th floor. Playing doctor to Megan and girlfriend to Eugene until 3am. I smiled and kissed him, he smiled and kissed me back. Only the presumptuousness of youth scared sober with love causes one to laugh nervously as they ask: "Do you want to see my dick?"
Another nervous laugh from me as I say "No."
Vampires in the bathroom. Jessica polishing off the VDK with her friends.
Sitting in silence with the Xmas lights on. People screaming up the street below.
Christmas on a cracker, it was a good night.
Sunday, September 4, 2011
TEN OUT- THE 9/11 NOTES
On September Eleven, Year Two Thousand and One, I was in college in Indiana, Pa.
Went to class that morning, which was promptly cancelled. The instructor had friends in NYC whom she'd just been with the week prior. She couldn't get hold of them via phone, and was visibly distraught. A TV was on in a lounge, and I watched it with some others for a little while.
Outside. Headed back to my dorm room. Then I discovered all classes were cancelled for the day.
I decided to go to my mother's office (in now nonexistent Gordon Hall) instead.
A TV had been brought into her space. She had work to do so she wasn't watching that intently, but her boss and I were when the 2nd plane came thru.
It was then I opened my notebook and started taking notes.
I worked part-time at a radio station back then, and knew I'd have to be there in the evening, maybe into the next day after this. I took notes the whole time.
The following are the transcriptions of the few pages I kept of things heard and observed.
There is no pattern.
There is no peace.
-
911
Men walking into the white dust
Fire, Police, ATF.
("We saw on Television")
Cloth in the window.
Eyewitnesses.
Media incompetence/inflated speculation- since 2000?
1991 clip faked- misdirected hostility
FOX best footage sensationalist
Black smoke and cameramen
110 stories
Surrounding buildings collapsed- Man carrying other's bags
American flag still wavering on TV
Gulianni on Telephone "Democracy is our Future"
Reiterate the Facts.
Mayhem 9am-11am
BUSH SPEAKS- Placated statement
Flight 11
Flight 77
Boston to LA hijacked by suicide "damage"? terrorists
Eyewitness bodies
Firetrucks demolished by debris
(Saviors go in to die)- Lost Firefighters
Western Pa Seword, H-city, PowerPlant Area
Comparison to Pearl Harbor
Gaping hole- dramatic smoke (on the water)
Both collapsed
Evacuate thru basement
Company sponsored terrorist acts! (this bomb brought to you by Verizon)
Oliver North - Al Haig - WAR!
Pentagon, F to A, plane collapse
-Have something to do with Gore and Clinton!
Stock markets closed/ never opened
economic carnage
2:05 pm Evacuated - bomb threat- taped and cautioned off
United and American Airlines
2- 757
2- 767
#'s 77, 11, 175, 93
Bush- from FLA to Lou. to Nebras. to
more than 50,000 people in center
Osama Bin Laden?- Afghanistan/Iraq/Middle E./Israel-Palistinians
Land dispute- Libya, Syria, Sudan
Taliban
Voice Recorder "The Black Box"
Flights bound to LA- most fuel, least amount of time between conveniences
THREAT CON DELTA- highest formulated response for FBI & CIA alert Military
gravity kills
threat received against presidential mansion/residence
Yasser Arafat announcement- excited PLA
"The lure of the innocent"
Fed. Emerg. Response plan
Washed out holocaust film footage
abandoned bike
The Nature of Credible Threats
calling in threats
4 hijacked and are missing = 8 total?
asbestos/toxcicity/clothes blown right off
stoney creek township
where did #5 go down?
Somerset- shot down by apache helicopters? (coming 45 degree angle)
Newark to San Fran
No chunky debris, 45?ft crater, clipped trees, smoke, fire
Def Con 4
Capitol- car bomb
Camp David/White House intended target
FBI/Tom Ridge Press
9:58am call from bathroom
turned at Cleveland
Ignored warnings from associates of unpresedented US attack (blowback)
Cold War- well defined enemy
walking out of (US) on racist conference
boxcutters & knives- back of plane.
Tom Brokaw/Peter Jennings/Dan Rather
WTC
1,200 businesses
99 elevators
1976- Architectural edifices 1,350 ft. tall
6 stories of rubble
9/12- Noon. Somerset FBI Press Conference
6,000 body bags on standby
10:_ - President Address
Chuck Schumer (D.NY)- "New Era- Middle Ages clock)
US- the new colonialist Europe- (suitcase Nukes)
Progressives vs. Leftists?
diplomacy vs. nationalism!
"Orientalist" standpoint
Peace talks to back heritary regimes
Sanctions as govt?
American economy=people are money.
Taliban- "student", erected in 79- Russian conflict- 2/3 afghanis made refugees
Majority German or Russian NE US Policy Makers
"triage"- multicolored tags- red, yellow, green and black.
Went to class that morning, which was promptly cancelled. The instructor had friends in NYC whom she'd just been with the week prior. She couldn't get hold of them via phone, and was visibly distraught. A TV was on in a lounge, and I watched it with some others for a little while.
Outside. Headed back to my dorm room. Then I discovered all classes were cancelled for the day.
I decided to go to my mother's office (in now nonexistent Gordon Hall) instead.
A TV had been brought into her space. She had work to do so she wasn't watching that intently, but her boss and I were when the 2nd plane came thru.
It was then I opened my notebook and started taking notes.
I worked part-time at a radio station back then, and knew I'd have to be there in the evening, maybe into the next day after this. I took notes the whole time.
The following are the transcriptions of the few pages I kept of things heard and observed.
There is no pattern.
There is no peace.
-
911
Men walking into the white dust
Fire, Police, ATF.
("We saw on Television")
Cloth in the window.
Eyewitnesses.
Media incompetence/inflated speculation- since 2000?
1991 clip faked- misdirected hostility
FOX best footage sensationalist
Black smoke and cameramen
110 stories
Surrounding buildings collapsed- Man carrying other's bags
American flag still wavering on TV
Gulianni on Telephone "Democracy is our Future"
Reiterate the Facts.
Mayhem 9am-11am
BUSH SPEAKS- Placated statement
Flight 11
Flight 77
Boston to LA hijacked by suicide "damage"? terrorists
Eyewitness bodies
Firetrucks demolished by debris
(Saviors go in to die)- Lost Firefighters
Western Pa Seword, H-city, PowerPlant Area
Comparison to Pearl Harbor
Gaping hole- dramatic smoke (on the water)
Both collapsed
Evacuate thru basement
Company sponsored terrorist acts! (this bomb brought to you by Verizon)
Oliver North - Al Haig - WAR!
Pentagon, F to A, plane collapse
-Have something to do with Gore and Clinton!
Stock markets closed/ never opened
economic carnage
2:05 pm Evacuated - bomb threat- taped and cautioned off
United and American Airlines
2- 757
2- 767
#'s 77, 11, 175, 93
Bush- from FLA to Lou. to Nebras. to
more than 50,000 people in center
Osama Bin Laden?- Afghanistan/Iraq/Middle E./Israel-Palistinians
Land dispute- Libya, Syria, Sudan
Taliban
Voice Recorder "The Black Box"
Flights bound to LA- most fuel, least amount of time between conveniences
THREAT CON DELTA- highest formulated response for FBI & CIA alert Military
gravity kills
threat received against presidential mansion/residence
Yasser Arafat announcement- excited PLA
"The lure of the innocent"
Fed. Emerg. Response plan
Washed out holocaust film footage
abandoned bike
The Nature of Credible Threats
calling in threats
4 hijacked and are missing = 8 total?
asbestos/toxcicity/clothes blown right off
stoney creek township
where did #5 go down?
Somerset- shot down by apache helicopters? (coming 45 degree angle)
Newark to San Fran
No chunky debris, 45?ft crater, clipped trees, smoke, fire
Def Con 4
Capitol- car bomb
Camp David/White House intended target
FBI/Tom Ridge Press
9:58am call from bathroom
turned at Cleveland
Ignored warnings from associates of unpresedented US attack (blowback)
Cold War- well defined enemy
walking out of (US) on racist conference
boxcutters & knives- back of plane.
Tom Brokaw/Peter Jennings/Dan Rather
WTC
1,200 businesses
99 elevators
1976- Architectural edifices 1,350 ft. tall
6 stories of rubble
9/12- Noon. Somerset FBI Press Conference
6,000 body bags on standby
10:_ - President Address
Chuck Schumer (D.NY)- "New Era- Middle Ages clock)
US- the new colonialist Europe- (suitcase Nukes)
Progressives vs. Leftists?
diplomacy vs. nationalism!
"Orientalist" standpoint
Peace talks to back heritary regimes
Sanctions as govt?
American economy=people are money.
Taliban- "student", erected in 79- Russian conflict- 2/3 afghanis made refugees
Majority German or Russian NE US Policy Makers
"triage"- multicolored tags- red, yellow, green and black.
Friday, September 2, 2011
Hype Alert!! - Introducing Modern Artists
A while back, way before I got into this modeling racket, a friend from high school, Brad, asked me a very astute question: where could he start buying art.
Real modern art with investment value with which he could fill out a budding collection.
Often, from working so closely with artists, I think the whole world is composed of them. I don't realize that there are potential buyers out there my age and even younger who are really hungry to establish for themselves a solid collection.
Most of us "stumble upon" the things we like. The internet has fucked with this kind of culture in repeated ways, some good most bad, but fortunately there is still nothing in the world like going into an antique or thrift shop and entering a different world. Becoming enamored of an object (or three!) of often pragmatic but certainly always aesthetic, value, and enhancing your life or the life of someone else thru a gift.
This is slightly harder to do in the "show at the gallery" culture. All the artists I know are true this way- they would much rather be making art and working in their studios than standing around talking about said piece or process in a crowd of people. If you want to get to know an artist personally, this is not the place to do it. Find a way to contact them and make an appointment. Altho' artists (sensitive, compassionate, etc.), these are still business-minded individuals and this means "time is money."
This is not to say that the gallery opening is not ideal. Good art sells. Period. And it is a buyer's market right now. Go early so you can see what you like. Visit again when you've turned over the image in your mind and the crowd is away. The art won't be available for you to take home until the show comes down, so you'll have about a month to decide where said piece fits amongst your belongings. There is no such thing as buyer's remorse when you support those who dare to define culture thru a singular articulate vision.
With this in mind, I would like to introduce you all to some artists whom I consider to be masters of their craft. Some teach. Most are based in Chicago. I have been privileged to work with each on at least one occasion.
These artists are the living canon. All of them are prize winners, and some have work in the permanent collections of museums. Their work and the work of others like them accurately represents the majesty of not just the figure (their subject matter varies), but also the magnificent possibilities of the mediums in which they work (mostly oils, but sometimes watercolor, pastels, wood, etc.).
Best of luck!
-
Bruno Surdo - Founder of the School of Representational Art in Chicago and mentor to countless artists, budding and established alike. A man enamored of craftsmanship and wit, Bruno paints with an eye for the timely metaphor and purpose of pose. Very much in demand.
http://www.representational-art.com/biobruno.html
Mike Rubenstein - Here is an artist who reveals a story inside of every single piece of work. Exuberant, luxurious, and a modest observer of the 80s with a penchant for the feminine form.
http://www.michaelrubenstein.org/
Andy Conklin and Helen Oh - A husband and wife whose bodies of work couldn't be further from one another in scope and scale, and this is what makes them so dynamic as a pair. Instructors at Harrington College of Design, they must be seen to be believed.
http://www.ohandconklin.com/
Tom Robinson - A star of the current issue of New American Paintings, Tom's work is sweeping in scale, edgy, sexy and celebratory of the feminine. The complexity of his woodwork is always new, always amazing.
http://tomrobinsonartist.com/art/drawing/index.shtml
Richard Halsted - Portrait artist for the individual and the family. Never have I seen work so well done by students, or someone as passionate about teaching. "Radiant" and "Intuitive" are two words that come to mind immediately for Richard.
http://www.halsteadportraits.com/
Mary Qian - Here's a woman who would teach if she could tear herself away from her own canvas for a minute. Paint, breath, sleep, eat- in that order. Her work is gaining international attention, and the prices are going up because of it!
http://www.maryqian.com/
Amanda Johnson - Young, beautiful, electric. Amanda has studied art all over the world and it shows. With massive abstracts or gentle interpretations of nature, she too is fast gaining attention and moving lots of work.
amandajohnsonfineart.com
http://amandajohnsonfineart.blogspot.com/
Stephan Gianinni - Stephan's work rings a beauty that aches to be seen (Girl-in-Subway painting above). I'd swear actual, physical love comes thru this man's brush. An adept restorations expert with a mean case of wanderlust, find a way to own something this soft genius touched. You won't be disappointed.
http://stephangiannini.com/
Stuart Fullerton - A driven "plein air", or outdoor, painter, Stuart's work is subtle magic. Very active with the Palette and Chisel Academy of Art, and shows frequently. There is something here for anyone with a pulse.
http://stuartpainter.fineartstudioonline.com/
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Linda H. Jerman (Huntley) d. July 2011
How fortunate that you have been called away so soon into the void! Your duties done in a manner fitting. Your race run fast enough.
This body having failed you, perhaps the next will be more generous. Better.
The Japanese of ancient Zen held to the notion that 50 years was a life span. It was all that could be expected, and to go beyond it in any way was reward. This is no consolation, only a reminder of your success in achieving years almost to 60.
I write to you on a cloud-coated Friday morning in the moody summer of 2011, Chicago, IL. Your only nephew, my only brother, has left for the train station to go home after visiting me for almost 2 weeks. It was not a drawn out goodbye: we leave each other with the notion that soon we will meet again to celebrate your life on the occasion of your passing.
Last night, I pulled photos of you from an unorganized collection. I imagine my mother, your brother's ex-wife, doing the same on the other side of Pennsylvania. We think of you. We are away from you, but never very far.
You surprised us all with every bit of a strangely satisisfying kind of love. We may never find it again. But we are the lucky ones.
This body having failed you, perhaps the next will be more generous. Better.
The Japanese of ancient Zen held to the notion that 50 years was a life span. It was all that could be expected, and to go beyond it in any way was reward. This is no consolation, only a reminder of your success in achieving years almost to 60.
I write to you on a cloud-coated Friday morning in the moody summer of 2011, Chicago, IL. Your only nephew, my only brother, has left for the train station to go home after visiting me for almost 2 weeks. It was not a drawn out goodbye: we leave each other with the notion that soon we will meet again to celebrate your life on the occasion of your passing.
Last night, I pulled photos of you from an unorganized collection. I imagine my mother, your brother's ex-wife, doing the same on the other side of Pennsylvania. We think of you. We are away from you, but never very far.
You surprised us all with every bit of a strangely satisisfying kind of love. We may never find it again. But we are the lucky ones.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Old Dreams Come True Without Warning (Summer 2k8)
She has avoided capture for the past few days. I have been less-than-diligent in my morning pursuit at her favorite coffeeshop. All the baristas in black aprons + visors know her. They smile when I mention her name. Helen.
My Helen of Troy I wish to capture and take on my boat to navigate history. Her last name is still unknown.
4-pronged walker and plastic bag filled with god-knows-what. Dressed like its 30 below.
She hands me a girl scout moment as I go to lock up my bike:
"Will you walk me across the street?"
This as my dehydrated roommate was eight seconds from passing out back on Lincoln St.
I ask if I can carry anything and she protests saying only that she wants someone with her- trusting the traffic in this town to slow and stop as much as I do, which is to say not at all.
Escorting her finally to caribou coffee's door, she confides for the second time amongst all the teasers for old stories pouring out of her: "I took the spurs off the bullets during the war."
I can only guess it was the 2nd World war, which makes me think about this country having been in war more than out. During the whole of its 230+ year existence. The 3rd one well underway.
Which only allows for a big history hard-on raging in my brain that wonders why in the hell I went to the gym rather than sat down with granny Helen and demanded stories.
But hunt her down again I fail to do, it being a thing that would get me up at crack-of-five to be at the damn java joint in time to catch her wizened bespectacled irresistibly magnificent talkative smile.
My Helen of Troy I wish to capture and take on my boat to navigate history. Her last name is still unknown.
4-pronged walker and plastic bag filled with god-knows-what. Dressed like its 30 below.
She hands me a girl scout moment as I go to lock up my bike:
"Will you walk me across the street?"
This as my dehydrated roommate was eight seconds from passing out back on Lincoln St.
I ask if I can carry anything and she protests saying only that she wants someone with her- trusting the traffic in this town to slow and stop as much as I do, which is to say not at all.
Escorting her finally to caribou coffee's door, she confides for the second time amongst all the teasers for old stories pouring out of her: "I took the spurs off the bullets during the war."
I can only guess it was the 2nd World war, which makes me think about this country having been in war more than out. During the whole of its 230+ year existence. The 3rd one well underway.
Which only allows for a big history hard-on raging in my brain that wonders why in the hell I went to the gym rather than sat down with granny Helen and demanded stories.
But hunt her down again I fail to do, it being a thing that would get me up at crack-of-five to be at the damn java joint in time to catch her wizened bespectacled irresistibly magnificent talkative smile.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
sexy memory from a long time ago --
The only problem with the movie was that it had a hot girl and a lot of sexual tension. It was an old flick I'd rented on a whim from the free library and had Vincent Price in it. I suppose it was a decent watch aside from the result which was unrelenting horniness for the both of us. I can't remember if we were drinking tequila or St. Pauli's Girl beer, which is something you'd think would matter. Like mixing that piece of information would have a bearing on the evening. We were drinking. That's the point, I guess. We are a dubious pair. We used to date, and now we live together out of a means to stay alive. Neither of us could afford rent anywhere else. It was a Tuesday and breezy and lazy and what else did any of us have but time? So we watched this movie. We were waiting for the girl to get nailed. We didn't so much as see a breast. He told me that there was porn on the computer upstairs, porn his old roommate had downloaded. Snippets of video with some illicit audio to accompany. We looked at everything & ached for someone to jump on. It simply could not be each other. Had this been two years ago, it might have worked. But there's something in time that sobers you up from love. You take a deep breath- compose yourself. I'll never forget the look we gave each other- strangers with the same mind. And we went downstairs and retreated to our separate rooms to masturbate.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Adaptation of Lines
Dear Garrett-
Please take it as a compliment when I say I liked your poem enough to fuck around with it.
See changes below.
PS. Going to the Slam at the Green Mill on the 31st. Will perform. See you there?
X0-
D.
-
Entente of your skin - embers.
Silk of your skin - uncut.
How you always wore a dress
In concordance with your pensive curves.
When I was bound within your arms
The earth became superfluous.
Here, I turned water into words;
I turned love into a mechanical song.
Brushed what was left upon your lush lips
Like makeup- things of oysters, flakes of skin.
Silent once more as the earth grows
Against stress the press of your open mouth,
As indents of skin pressed upon gallantly,
Each labor of your cunt made force
To force the crisis
Of pulse.
-
In a burl of perpetual bloom, curr
Of curls unfurled, locks
Bloom to salubrious tongues,
Unwithered in these tender mornings.
Such a dry land
Dry hands,
And dry dying thighs.
Of this thicket is asked:
‘Will ever there be a bloom?’
Of roads and grass blades have known
So many mornings when the sun,
So much sun and drafts
Kissed and hugged the pillowcases
Ears, shoulders, toes in turn;
Our lids, lashes and dripping noses
Dropped atop tea and shared toast,
Glancing coffee with cigarette smoke.
---
Across a rug, she-
spread and spared of questions.
Her brine eyes brown
eyelids ebb upon her eyes
lazygazing up toward
the bloom of a rotten sun.
Please take it as a compliment when I say I liked your poem enough to fuck around with it.
See changes below.
PS. Going to the Slam at the Green Mill on the 31st. Will perform. See you there?
X0-
D.
-
Entente of your skin - embers.
Silk of your skin - uncut.
How you always wore a dress
In concordance with your pensive curves.
When I was bound within your arms
The earth became superfluous.
Here, I turned water into words;
I turned love into a mechanical song.
Brushed what was left upon your lush lips
Like makeup- things of oysters, flakes of skin.
Silent once more as the earth grows
Against stress the press of your open mouth,
As indents of skin pressed upon gallantly,
Each labor of your cunt made force
To force the crisis
Of pulse.
-
In a burl of perpetual bloom, curr
Of curls unfurled, locks
Bloom to salubrious tongues,
Unwithered in these tender mornings.
Such a dry land
Dry hands,
And dry dying thighs.
Of this thicket is asked:
‘Will ever there be a bloom?’
Of roads and grass blades have known
So many mornings when the sun,
So much sun and drafts
Kissed and hugged the pillowcases
Ears, shoulders, toes in turn;
Our lids, lashes and dripping noses
Dropped atop tea and shared toast,
Glancing coffee with cigarette smoke.
---
Across a rug, she-
spread and spared of questions.
Her brine eyes brown
eyelids ebb upon her eyes
lazygazing up toward
the bloom of a rotten sun.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
P O S T 42
- Summer Is The Poet's Season -
Summer is the Poet's season
outdoors the Poet's habitat.
The Poet's preferred position supine
for riding the side of a world which
on a bicycle then with uprightness and glide
the poet does no waiting but watching.
Before her eyes the summer passes-
a high bird flying the long flight of time.
Summer is the Poet's season
outdoors the Poet's habitat.
The Poet's preferred position supine
for riding the side of a world which
on a bicycle then with uprightness and glide
the poet does no waiting but watching.
Before her eyes the summer passes-
a high bird flying the long flight of time.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Voyeur Poetry Manifesto by Unknown Anonymous
To find words over a shoulder- the poet as voyeur. I flew a kite with him once before his dad shot him.
Call it dada, sampling, voyeurism, piece meal postmodern overheard prose, anything. Undertheorized, oversimplified, like looking at mountains you'll walk, that's the point- it's simple. People say the most (in)sight full things. My sister's birthday's in August. When I was little I thought, how the hell does that work. Doesn't make any sense.
It's in the words, falling from between teeth every day, spastic, crowded, and existing like land. Maybe Language for you. Whatever you want. For me it's just there, the syllable making up moments in bars and gas stations, days, and waiting to be listened to, spied on, then maybe written down, twisted out. The frame to be broken. Thrills me. Fuck the property out of it. And the pretense that poetry's from the soul. It's out there. Breath, right? Nobody's words are there own, so rip them off. Then build with them.
Montage. Pieces of language as material. Plural. Words put next to words. Not some falsity of dialect, either. The real thing overheard. Get them down, hear it, write it, graft them, juxtaposed for strength or hollow, or verbatim. Transcription, but interrupted. The way you put it together becomes disjunctive. Or not. Build from your skull a collective head - voice over voice or on. Sick, dripping, gorgeous, whatever. Make them yours.
Conversational stealing 'a la x. A searching through language.
Because it's all just like dirt - there and brilliant in mounds.
Call it dada, sampling, voyeurism, piece meal postmodern overheard prose, anything. Undertheorized, oversimplified, like looking at mountains you'll walk, that's the point- it's simple. People say the most (in)sight full things. My sister's birthday's in August. When I was little I thought, how the hell does that work. Doesn't make any sense.
It's in the words, falling from between teeth every day, spastic, crowded, and existing like land. Maybe Language for you. Whatever you want. For me it's just there, the syllable making up moments in bars and gas stations, days, and waiting to be listened to, spied on, then maybe written down, twisted out. The frame to be broken. Thrills me. Fuck the property out of it. And the pretense that poetry's from the soul. It's out there. Breath, right? Nobody's words are there own, so rip them off. Then build with them.
Montage. Pieces of language as material. Plural. Words put next to words. Not some falsity of dialect, either. The real thing overheard. Get them down, hear it, write it, graft them, juxtaposed for strength or hollow, or verbatim. Transcription, but interrupted. The way you put it together becomes disjunctive. Or not. Build from your skull a collective head - voice over voice or on. Sick, dripping, gorgeous, whatever. Make them yours.
Conversational stealing 'a la x. A searching through language.
Because it's all just like dirt - there and brilliant in mounds.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Brad: On Memory and his Father
I don't remember very much from when I was a kid.
A few little images here and there, more like sound bytes than memories. But I can remember feeding apples to a horse with my dad so clearly that the images wash over me and eclipse the present, and I'm six or so again, and sitting in the back seat of the car, driving to my grandparents house in Delaware.
We're taking this back road, and we keep flitting in and out of the shadows of big, lazy trees.
The road vaguely follows a small river, and occasionally on one side or the other a meadow opens up along its banks, and in one of these meadows there are three horses. Big brown animals with long faces and swishy tails, standing near the road and grazing on bright green grass.
My dad pulls us over and we hop out and walk up to the barbed wire fence. The sun shines in my face, and the pleasant white noise of a place with water- swishing trees, occasional cicadas- sort of hums behind my ears.
My dad pulls out a few apples from his pockets (I don't know how they got there), and he reaches over the fence and holds one out to the horses. He gives me one, too, after they meander over, and I'm not tall enough to reach over the fence, so I put my hand through the wires and hold up the apple.
One of the horses swings its head toward me, and he is so big!! And he snuffles at me a little, and sniffs the apple, and the peels back his lips and bites in.
This warm mix of juices from the apple and the horse's mouth drips down onto my palm, and I feel the slipperiness of his lips, and even the outsides of his teeth pressing into my skin. I keep holding my hand up through the fence, even after the apple is gone and the horse trots away, until my dad tells me it is time to go.
Now, my grandparents are all dead, and they've all been dead since I was 11.
Sometimes I wonder what I'll think about my dad when he is dead, too, and I don't really know.
But I'm pretty sure its going to be mostly these images I have:
Him mowing the lawn in the summer and the buzzing sound of the lawn mower, or me opening my wallet when I'm sixteen and finding some money in there that wasn't there before, him appearing at the top of the stands during a swim meet just as I'm about to race and then leaving right after I finish fifth...
him taking me over to feed apples to horses.
-
Epilogue:
Carl L. Leneis of Wynnewood, PA, died over a year ago in February 2010. He was 63. Brad is his second son- now 30 years old this year.
Carl was the very definition of a "good man", and is sorely missed.
Here's to a very happy and thoughtful Father's Day to the Leneis Family.
With wishes of love-
Dana J.
A few little images here and there, more like sound bytes than memories. But I can remember feeding apples to a horse with my dad so clearly that the images wash over me and eclipse the present, and I'm six or so again, and sitting in the back seat of the car, driving to my grandparents house in Delaware.
We're taking this back road, and we keep flitting in and out of the shadows of big, lazy trees.
The road vaguely follows a small river, and occasionally on one side or the other a meadow opens up along its banks, and in one of these meadows there are three horses. Big brown animals with long faces and swishy tails, standing near the road and grazing on bright green grass.
My dad pulls us over and we hop out and walk up to the barbed wire fence. The sun shines in my face, and the pleasant white noise of a place with water- swishing trees, occasional cicadas- sort of hums behind my ears.
My dad pulls out a few apples from his pockets (I don't know how they got there), and he reaches over the fence and holds one out to the horses. He gives me one, too, after they meander over, and I'm not tall enough to reach over the fence, so I put my hand through the wires and hold up the apple.
One of the horses swings its head toward me, and he is so big!! And he snuffles at me a little, and sniffs the apple, and the peels back his lips and bites in.
This warm mix of juices from the apple and the horse's mouth drips down onto my palm, and I feel the slipperiness of his lips, and even the outsides of his teeth pressing into my skin. I keep holding my hand up through the fence, even after the apple is gone and the horse trots away, until my dad tells me it is time to go.
Now, my grandparents are all dead, and they've all been dead since I was 11.
Sometimes I wonder what I'll think about my dad when he is dead, too, and I don't really know.
But I'm pretty sure its going to be mostly these images I have:
Him mowing the lawn in the summer and the buzzing sound of the lawn mower, or me opening my wallet when I'm sixteen and finding some money in there that wasn't there before, him appearing at the top of the stands during a swim meet just as I'm about to race and then leaving right after I finish fifth...
him taking me over to feed apples to horses.
-
Epilogue:
Carl L. Leneis of Wynnewood, PA, died over a year ago in February 2010. He was 63. Brad is his second son- now 30 years old this year.
Carl was the very definition of a "good man", and is sorely missed.
Here's to a very happy and thoughtful Father's Day to the Leneis Family.
With wishes of love-
Dana J.
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