Filmed another skit last sunday. If they end up half as funny to watch as they are to make then I'll b happy. The following clip documents our strict composure on set...
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Theme Park
why did we pay for this?
this backlot tour
behind the facades propped up by sandbags and two by fours.
we learn how to light a scene
and wish that we hadn’t,
wish we hadn’t learned how many unimportant parts
go into achieving a polished whole.
i suppose we wanted magic deconstructed
because it was painful to want it so much.
we see, from the backside, how the doors and windows
are actually not to scale,
that the fire hydrants and vending machines don’t actually work.
once we’ve seen window dressing we can’t un-see it.
we can’t forget how movies changed America,
that every little scenario is trying to be a
an action scene,
a romantic interlude,
and therein the poet,
the prison psychiatrist,
the biologist sees the backlot unmercifully,
that the clothes are propped up
by prints and starch,
that the people are rigged and gaffed
by news feeds and widgets and apps.
already starring in their own lives,
among their own circle of celebrities,
nobody cares to listen to each other,
all of us industry insiders.
nobody cares how we all glimpsed god one day on set
or that each of us, having taken on the part of a burnout creative
is now having a hard time shaking the character.
we all dutifully get only green M&M’s
and bottles of Evian for whatever
overpaid, ego tripping personality requires it.
we know that we must maintain several illusions for many people
in order to keep production on schedule.
it makes for short conversation.
one of us asks another about
The Way Things Are
and the other answers back, bored,
The Way Things Are?
i DP’d on the T.W.T.A.,
i PA’d,
i did CGI for the SFX.
Talk about something else.
the car rides,
errands and tedium continue,
taking us on a cursory tour of the truth
past animatronic sets herking and jerking
through a dated Epcot Center, or Pirates of the Caribean,
through training videos prepping us on what temperature
to keep sensibility at so that it does not
cross-contaminate our decisions.
the slow clanking of tourist track might roll
you by a stuffed yeti or Sasquatch posed against a matte painting,
the truth only rumored now,
debunked on science shows
while sightings of it are laughed at and left up
to crackpots and artists
who are themselves like pinky toes, on the way out,
no longer required for the comprehensive, sure footed step
of the modern empirical human.
truth’s power is no longer in its veracity
but in wielding it,
gavel-like, however transitory it may be.
meaning’s decay makes an hourglass
of our fumbling grip.
truth makes for a screeching symphony of squeaky wheels,
so we greased it up,
got it so quiet you can’t hear it.
our rush hour of urgent appetite for something authentic
makes the film frames of our lives
loose leaf in high wind.
the scene on any drive,
at any job or living room is pregnant,
its water breaking,
the delivery constantly, infuriatingly absent.
potential is the elephant in the room.
worse,
it is the you in the room,
did you know that?
can you conceive of that,
being in denial of your very existence?
wanting more makes you seem entitled.
wanting less makes you seem dead.
we settle for an expansive, luxuriously furnished grey area,
proudly nihilistic,
yet still tellingly eager to get back on some Epcot, World of Tomorrow ride
and watch a robot Socrates solve in palsied, cyclic patterns.
to watch a musician,
a scientist,
a philosopher,
chop their frozen robot limbs over polystone discoveries,
thinking there must be more than spectating
and someone cracked it once,
and it could still be you.
it could still be you.
hey, look!
there’s an animatronic you up there,
ten years ago,
splitting the atom of whatever
impossible equation ailed you back then!
and that is a very sad tombstone
until you decide to recall the trick of participation.
having seen that,
suspiciously,
we suddenly “outgrow” the movies,
that’s when we quit going to theme parks,
because we claim we don’t deal with death well.
get serious.
get real.
it’s life we suck at.
this backlot tour
behind the facades propped up by sandbags and two by fours.
we learn how to light a scene
and wish that we hadn’t,
wish we hadn’t learned how many unimportant parts
go into achieving a polished whole.
i suppose we wanted magic deconstructed
because it was painful to want it so much.
we see, from the backside, how the doors and windows
are actually not to scale,
that the fire hydrants and vending machines don’t actually work.
once we’ve seen window dressing we can’t un-see it.
we can’t forget how movies changed America,
that every little scenario is trying to be a
an action scene,
a romantic interlude,
and therein the poet,
the prison psychiatrist,
the biologist sees the backlot unmercifully,
that the clothes are propped up
by prints and starch,
that the people are rigged and gaffed
by news feeds and widgets and apps.
already starring in their own lives,
among their own circle of celebrities,
nobody cares to listen to each other,
all of us industry insiders.
nobody cares how we all glimpsed god one day on set
or that each of us, having taken on the part of a burnout creative
is now having a hard time shaking the character.
we all dutifully get only green M&M’s
and bottles of Evian for whatever
overpaid, ego tripping personality requires it.
we know that we must maintain several illusions for many people
in order to keep production on schedule.
it makes for short conversation.
one of us asks another about
The Way Things Are
and the other answers back, bored,
The Way Things Are?
i DP’d on the T.W.T.A.,
i PA’d,
i did CGI for the SFX.
Talk about something else.
the car rides,
errands and tedium continue,
taking us on a cursory tour of the truth
past animatronic sets herking and jerking
through a dated Epcot Center, or Pirates of the Caribean,
through training videos prepping us on what temperature
to keep sensibility at so that it does not
cross-contaminate our decisions.
the slow clanking of tourist track might roll
you by a stuffed yeti or Sasquatch posed against a matte painting,
the truth only rumored now,
debunked on science shows
while sightings of it are laughed at and left up
to crackpots and artists
who are themselves like pinky toes, on the way out,
no longer required for the comprehensive, sure footed step
of the modern empirical human.
truth’s power is no longer in its veracity
but in wielding it,
gavel-like, however transitory it may be.
meaning’s decay makes an hourglass
of our fumbling grip.
truth makes for a screeching symphony of squeaky wheels,
so we greased it up,
got it so quiet you can’t hear it.
our rush hour of urgent appetite for something authentic
makes the film frames of our lives
loose leaf in high wind.
the scene on any drive,
at any job or living room is pregnant,
its water breaking,
the delivery constantly, infuriatingly absent.
potential is the elephant in the room.
worse,
it is the you in the room,
did you know that?
can you conceive of that,
being in denial of your very existence?
wanting more makes you seem entitled.
wanting less makes you seem dead.
we settle for an expansive, luxuriously furnished grey area,
proudly nihilistic,
yet still tellingly eager to get back on some Epcot, World of Tomorrow ride
and watch a robot Socrates solve in palsied, cyclic patterns.
to watch a musician,
a scientist,
a philosopher,
chop their frozen robot limbs over polystone discoveries,
thinking there must be more than spectating
and someone cracked it once,
and it could still be you.
it could still be you.
hey, look!
there’s an animatronic you up there,
ten years ago,
splitting the atom of whatever
impossible equation ailed you back then!
and that is a very sad tombstone
until you decide to recall the trick of participation.
having seen that,
suspiciously,
we suddenly “outgrow” the movies,
that’s when we quit going to theme parks,
because we claim we don’t deal with death well.
get serious.
get real.
it’s life we suck at.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Is This What Adults Do?
So we're trying to be funny. It's a comedy troupe that has no name yet, but we've started filming skits anyway just to get to work. So far it's Aaron Baker, Reid Bangert and myself, including more or less anyone that wants to be involved in the skits and can stomach the off color material. Here's some on set photos, with more to come. We should be posting skits within a month and a half I believe.
I told Zach and Marguerite last minute that we were filming a skit about a %&*# that gets @#$% when you &*^% until finally it &*%# and they were all in.
Greg, Courtney and Anna showed at the last minute to help out and were totally game even though we told them we might %^$# %&*( %$#@!^ %&^$# %^^$#@. But seriously, they really helped make it special.
how about these transformations?
Monday, February 13, 2012
Buried in Bullets
the two girls at the deli said
i hate to think that my mom and my brother will go to hell
but i can’t help them with that
and
when your car broke down and cost three hundred dollars
i prayed for you
and
i don’t want to have sex,
i mean, but i almost did.
i’m scared of that.
i was in the back of his car, i had my shirt off
and the cops busted us.
it was totally funny, i mean it wasn’t
but it was
and
i drink sometimes,
a lot sometimes
but i really struggle with that
and
they like, go to church, like, on sundays
but, like, they aren’t really devoted to god
and
she can’t find the right person
and i pray for her
and
they keep heaping munitions on this pacifist.
i hate to think that my mom and my brother will go to hell
but i can’t help them with that
and
when your car broke down and cost three hundred dollars
i prayed for you
and
i don’t want to have sex,
i mean, but i almost did.
i’m scared of that.
i was in the back of his car, i had my shirt off
and the cops busted us.
it was totally funny, i mean it wasn’t
but it was
and
i drink sometimes,
a lot sometimes
but i really struggle with that
and
they like, go to church, like, on sundays
but, like, they aren’t really devoted to god
and
she can’t find the right person
and i pray for her
and
they keep heaping munitions on this pacifist.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Overslept
this is me writing about nothing.
‘cause the opposition had me overwhelmed,
i admit it.
i gave up struggling against those ozone layers not yet identified
whose diminishment seem to allow our frozen stockpiles of
spirit to dwindle.
it seemed the earth must be a rotisserie,
turning us in the ash and and acrid musk of our own breath,
bringing us face to face with that which we have eaten,
which explains the smell.
the people appeared too over spun to note,
sagging and dry on the pottery wheel
to such an extent that i stopped commenting on them,
as we seldom mention dirt
or garbage.
it’s just that counting sheep on the streets
made me so sleepy,
so fatigued,
and so disparaged to discover
that thick pelt of curly white wool sprung
across my back.
this is me,
writing about nothing,
‘cause the wheels are padded in elastic polymer,
making their travel a circuitous rubber room,
making going anywhere just plain crazy.
this is me writing about nothing
‘cause sensibility and hope
loomed thin into protective spells
has spun them into atmosphere that we barely notice,
with dreams recycled and refurbished,
copied and dragged into folders so buried
that the deepest of the unconscious
sits atop them blinking, from the sudden flood of light.
this is me, writing about nothing,
‘cause i forgot how to speak,
stunned into silence by a pit so deep it made
Proles look like go-getters in airborne zeppelins
atop a desperate dog pile so vast and perverted
that mass graves seem quiet and dignified by comparison.
this is me writing about nothing,
what with nowhere to go,
what with everyone a fiend,
addicts on disastrous escapes from themselves,
the straight edged people mistaken as well, cutters really,
surgeons, making zippers of their needs.
this is me, writing about nothing,
cause the corporate giants put me out of business for a while there,
that is,
there was nothing i could offer you
that you couldn’t find cheaper and easier somewhere else.
this is me writing about nothing
because it’s still better than nothing,
because i can’t allow myself to become one of those wretched people,
you know,
the ones wearing headphones?
the ones that turn people’s ears into glory holes for their glory days?
i want to blame abduction and fluoride but i can’t.
still, i know something important happened,
that the culture shifted and took me with it.
still,
i recall that ladies
were not born
to be a spittoon
for the jocks
with wads of chaw in their pants.
i recall that gentlemen
were not born
to be handy men,
to retile or renovate the dollish hopes and vaginal canals
of females.
i recall that electro shock treatment powers our leisure,
every device a remote electrode,
every invention a greased up conductor,
the options and upgrades rubber bite guards while we act as diodes,
passing current through the economy.
i know that once again,
finally,
i do not trust the life that comes my way,
like a shady coke deal-
i don’t know where the coca was grown
and i don’t know how many times
what you’re telling me
or what you are doing has been stepped on.
i don’t know where it came from,
who told you this,
who taught you this,
i don’t know what kind of fevered regret or spineless hesitation your opinion might be cut with.
this is me writing about nothing,
as i’m not as expert anymore on what to to talk about-
the reality was so much stranger than the fiction:
all the little second rate magicians
sawing themselves bloody, in half,
just to draw a crowd.
today’s Springer show
featuring creationists and atheists
administering a paternity test on life itself,
trying to figure out who the daddy is.
the silly totem pole,
those at top dizzy and stupid
with altitude sickness,
those at the bottom squat, changed forever
by the crush depth pressure of their habitat.
the latest silicon valley
robot with its tiny proprietary blog and links to insight by association.
the people that consider themselves XXX
who are really rated G for very, very general audiences,
the people trying to remain as good as they used to be and
better than who they’re gonna’ be.
this is me writing about nothing as
there’s little to discuss-
the world violates and perverts all our language so that words,
by the thousands, become those which
Must Not Be Named,
lest we invoke or awaken the evils of which we speak.
this is me, writing about nothing.
genius is not in demand.
i didn’t know who to tell anymore,
tired of rubbing my thumbs raw on each particular permutation of
every person’s child proof cap,
tired of those who’ve have had their hearts ripped out
and have thus installed a swinging door
in their chests to expedite the process.
those who’s hearts no longer beat with free will and blood
but rather respond to outside influence like ear drums.
those who cannot stand the suspense
and have taught themselves
to turn to the last page in every relationship.
i gave up for a while there because it’s difficult,
when it comes,
not to feel swaddled by the cave in,
hard not to come to know the collapsed i-beams and rebar
surrounding you as a kind of reliable bassinet,
the wreckage still swinging from a half destroyed ceiling
a familiar and decrepit mobile.
it’s hard not to know rock bottom as a sure and comfortable thing,
as there’s nowhere left to fall
and yet after time your noble and nihilistic little foxhole
begins to resemble more and more,
a grave,
and what lullaby is played in that grave,
what warm milk administered and by who?
you.
you roofied yourself
because Rohypnol is the only way you’ve found you can bear to
pat yourself on the back.
i just woke up,
but please, no applause
and goddamnit no help either.
i just found out the sandman is unlicensed and running amok with propofol.
i just found out the tooth fairy takes our teeth so that we cannot chew against the cage.
i just woke up.
i’m pretty sure i still have my hospital gown on,
IV’s dragging
and i don’t have my wits about me just yet and
this is me writing about nothing.
it ain’t much,
but it’s a start.
give me a few seconds will ya?
i don’t have anything to say.
i just got up.
‘cause the opposition had me overwhelmed,
i admit it.
i gave up struggling against those ozone layers not yet identified
whose diminishment seem to allow our frozen stockpiles of
spirit to dwindle.
it seemed the earth must be a rotisserie,
turning us in the ash and and acrid musk of our own breath,
bringing us face to face with that which we have eaten,
which explains the smell.
the people appeared too over spun to note,
sagging and dry on the pottery wheel
to such an extent that i stopped commenting on them,
as we seldom mention dirt
or garbage.
it’s just that counting sheep on the streets
made me so sleepy,
so fatigued,
and so disparaged to discover
that thick pelt of curly white wool sprung
across my back.
this is me,
writing about nothing,
‘cause the wheels are padded in elastic polymer,
making their travel a circuitous rubber room,
making going anywhere just plain crazy.
this is me writing about nothing
‘cause sensibility and hope
loomed thin into protective spells
has spun them into atmosphere that we barely notice,
with dreams recycled and refurbished,
copied and dragged into folders so buried
that the deepest of the unconscious
sits atop them blinking, from the sudden flood of light.
this is me, writing about nothing,
‘cause i forgot how to speak,
stunned into silence by a pit so deep it made
Proles look like go-getters in airborne zeppelins
atop a desperate dog pile so vast and perverted
that mass graves seem quiet and dignified by comparison.
this is me writing about nothing,
what with nowhere to go,
what with everyone a fiend,
addicts on disastrous escapes from themselves,
the straight edged people mistaken as well, cutters really,
surgeons, making zippers of their needs.
this is me, writing about nothing,
cause the corporate giants put me out of business for a while there,
that is,
there was nothing i could offer you
that you couldn’t find cheaper and easier somewhere else.
this is me writing about nothing
because it’s still better than nothing,
because i can’t allow myself to become one of those wretched people,
you know,
the ones wearing headphones?
the ones that turn people’s ears into glory holes for their glory days?
i want to blame abduction and fluoride but i can’t.
still, i know something important happened,
that the culture shifted and took me with it.
still,
i recall that ladies
were not born
to be a spittoon
for the jocks
with wads of chaw in their pants.
i recall that gentlemen
were not born
to be handy men,
to retile or renovate the dollish hopes and vaginal canals
of females.
i recall that electro shock treatment powers our leisure,
every device a remote electrode,
every invention a greased up conductor,
the options and upgrades rubber bite guards while we act as diodes,
passing current through the economy.
i know that once again,
finally,
i do not trust the life that comes my way,
like a shady coke deal-
i don’t know where the coca was grown
and i don’t know how many times
what you’re telling me
or what you are doing has been stepped on.
i don’t know where it came from,
who told you this,
who taught you this,
i don’t know what kind of fevered regret or spineless hesitation your opinion might be cut with.
this is me writing about nothing,
as i’m not as expert anymore on what to to talk about-
the reality was so much stranger than the fiction:
all the little second rate magicians
sawing themselves bloody, in half,
just to draw a crowd.
today’s Springer show
featuring creationists and atheists
administering a paternity test on life itself,
trying to figure out who the daddy is.
the silly totem pole,
those at top dizzy and stupid
with altitude sickness,
those at the bottom squat, changed forever
by the crush depth pressure of their habitat.
the latest silicon valley
robot with its tiny proprietary blog and links to insight by association.
the people that consider themselves XXX
who are really rated G for very, very general audiences,
the people trying to remain as good as they used to be and
better than who they’re gonna’ be.
this is me writing about nothing as
there’s little to discuss-
the world violates and perverts all our language so that words,
by the thousands, become those which
Must Not Be Named,
lest we invoke or awaken the evils of which we speak.
this is me, writing about nothing.
genius is not in demand.
i didn’t know who to tell anymore,
tired of rubbing my thumbs raw on each particular permutation of
every person’s child proof cap,
tired of those who’ve have had their hearts ripped out
and have thus installed a swinging door
in their chests to expedite the process.
those who’s hearts no longer beat with free will and blood
but rather respond to outside influence like ear drums.
those who cannot stand the suspense
and have taught themselves
to turn to the last page in every relationship.
i gave up for a while there because it’s difficult,
when it comes,
not to feel swaddled by the cave in,
hard not to come to know the collapsed i-beams and rebar
surrounding you as a kind of reliable bassinet,
the wreckage still swinging from a half destroyed ceiling
a familiar and decrepit mobile.
it’s hard not to know rock bottom as a sure and comfortable thing,
as there’s nowhere left to fall
and yet after time your noble and nihilistic little foxhole
begins to resemble more and more,
a grave,
and what lullaby is played in that grave,
what warm milk administered and by who?
you.
you roofied yourself
because Rohypnol is the only way you’ve found you can bear to
pat yourself on the back.
i just woke up,
but please, no applause
and goddamnit no help either.
i just found out the sandman is unlicensed and running amok with propofol.
i just found out the tooth fairy takes our teeth so that we cannot chew against the cage.
i just woke up.
i’m pretty sure i still have my hospital gown on,
IV’s dragging
and i don’t have my wits about me just yet and
this is me writing about nothing.
it ain’t much,
but it’s a start.
give me a few seconds will ya?
i don’t have anything to say.
i just got up.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
FRAP! (Or, Clear the Room, Somethin’ Died Inside of Me)
looking around
I have to wonder
was it the catered lunch
or the fast food
of this easy way out
that’s caused the indigestion?
or was it the decay of
the young rebel breaking down
from wishing on stars
to begging of cruel reality,
breaking down
to cabbage compost
and finally to the comical joke of flatulence that he is today?
what we used to be, decomposed into what we are now
creates a zeppelin of compressed gas
twisting your intestines into abstract balloon sculpture,
turning your sphincter into a deep space airlock,
a gasket cracked and about to give,
a tea kettle bucking with steam,
a child trying not to laugh.
christ, man, aging is enough on your plate,
and now you come across some spoiled brat,
a close friend that turned fast and easy like milk,
some rotten disposition,
some old prick
whose wisdom molded and not at all like cheese or wine.
here’s some processed, pasteurized bullshit.
some synthetic, triple filtered nothingness,
some jack hole trying to pass off memorization and recall as comprehension.
it doesn’t agree with you.
well that’s it.
your water just broke.
you’re crowning.
some swollen capsule of your guts
has held onto something like tupperware in the back of the fridge,
curing something furry and rancid,
something now liquified that seeks its own level.
you realize that the call of nature is much, much more than number one
or number two
and it has elevated to number eighty-three
which is a totally explosive expulsion of everything you have done, been and learned.
it is suddenly, urgently clear
that rush hour is but an unsupervised train car
to a think tank
or respected and fashionable
camp of concentration.
on top of that
the calcified tradition and fossilized systems have crystallized into
a belly full of gravel,
a bladder full of buckshot and
your bladder is a hot spring,
a garden hose straightening out inside you
and the pharmacy is out of Vicodin.
this whole thing,
this betterment,
this fitting in
is a bug they didn’t have in your country,
in your hometown,
it’s a microbe their third world morality does not filter for,
a hygiene their dark aged simplicity
does not practice
which, upon contraction
will have you praying for something so simple
as IBS, Crohn’s disease or Montezuma’s,
‘cause the nearest stall has no door and no toilet paper.
or maybe you’re stuck in line at the drug store
and a stupid old diabetic lady precedes you
with forty two liters of orange drink and twice as many coupons.
that is, there’s nowhere to put the swollen combustible you’re carrying.
it’s uncivilized and unrefined to talk about it,
to drop it,
to unburden yourself of everything you’ve taken in.
look, i’m talkin’ about art here,
so go get your sewing machine
or guitar
or canvas
or whatever it is that you do
and tell your friends and family to light a whole box of matches,
to ready the lysol spray and fire up the exhaust fan.
tell em’ somethin’ died inside of you,
and that you need some time alone with your toilet crossword book,
your new Saltwater Sportsman magazine.
tell ‘em life didn’t turn out as planned
and it killed you a little bit.
tell them you gave in,
like everybody else,
to the western Shangri-La of the all night, all you can eat buffet
and now you gotta cut weight.
you know,
for a fight.
i mean,
the rest of your life.
I have to wonder
was it the catered lunch
or the fast food
of this easy way out
that’s caused the indigestion?
or was it the decay of
the young rebel breaking down
from wishing on stars
to begging of cruel reality,
breaking down
to cabbage compost
and finally to the comical joke of flatulence that he is today?
what we used to be, decomposed into what we are now
creates a zeppelin of compressed gas
twisting your intestines into abstract balloon sculpture,
turning your sphincter into a deep space airlock,
a gasket cracked and about to give,
a tea kettle bucking with steam,
a child trying not to laugh.
christ, man, aging is enough on your plate,
and now you come across some spoiled brat,
a close friend that turned fast and easy like milk,
some rotten disposition,
some old prick
whose wisdom molded and not at all like cheese or wine.
here’s some processed, pasteurized bullshit.
some synthetic, triple filtered nothingness,
some jack hole trying to pass off memorization and recall as comprehension.
it doesn’t agree with you.
well that’s it.
your water just broke.
you’re crowning.
some swollen capsule of your guts
has held onto something like tupperware in the back of the fridge,
curing something furry and rancid,
something now liquified that seeks its own level.
you realize that the call of nature is much, much more than number one
or number two
and it has elevated to number eighty-three
which is a totally explosive expulsion of everything you have done, been and learned.
it is suddenly, urgently clear
that rush hour is but an unsupervised train car
to a think tank
or respected and fashionable
camp of concentration.
on top of that
the calcified tradition and fossilized systems have crystallized into
a belly full of gravel,
a bladder full of buckshot and
your bladder is a hot spring,
a garden hose straightening out inside you
and the pharmacy is out of Vicodin.
this whole thing,
this betterment,
this fitting in
is a bug they didn’t have in your country,
in your hometown,
it’s a microbe their third world morality does not filter for,
a hygiene their dark aged simplicity
does not practice
which, upon contraction
will have you praying for something so simple
as IBS, Crohn’s disease or Montezuma’s,
‘cause the nearest stall has no door and no toilet paper.
or maybe you’re stuck in line at the drug store
and a stupid old diabetic lady precedes you
with forty two liters of orange drink and twice as many coupons.
that is, there’s nowhere to put the swollen combustible you’re carrying.
it’s uncivilized and unrefined to talk about it,
to drop it,
to unburden yourself of everything you’ve taken in.
look, i’m talkin’ about art here,
so go get your sewing machine
or guitar
or canvas
or whatever it is that you do
and tell your friends and family to light a whole box of matches,
to ready the lysol spray and fire up the exhaust fan.
tell em’ somethin’ died inside of you,
and that you need some time alone with your toilet crossword book,
your new Saltwater Sportsman magazine.
tell ‘em life didn’t turn out as planned
and it killed you a little bit.
tell them you gave in,
like everybody else,
to the western Shangri-La of the all night, all you can eat buffet
and now you gotta cut weight.
you know,
for a fight.
i mean,
the rest of your life.
Spectrum 18 is out
Spectrum 18 came out months ago, that's how negligent I've been at the blog. Anyway it's a fantastic book, self-promotion aside, it's gorgeous and bursting with top notch art. Available on Amazon. Additionally, Spectrum Live is happening this May 18-20. I'll try to keep updating on that event, and, you can look it up online. Should be a pretty exciting deal. Mike Mignola, (creator of Hellboy.) representatives from DC, Marvel, WETA, ILM and disney among featured guests...
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Spectrum Film Jubilee!
All I can do is reprint things you can read in a much more informative link. Short version? This is really going to be a huge event, with big name guests as well as representatives for portfolio review from Disney, Lucasfilm, WETA, and more! Filmmakers and artists of the fantastic take note and submit! I'll be both an exhibitor as well as running the Film Jubilee, so get involved, it should be a really fun three days!
http://www.spectrumfantasticart.com/spectrumfantasticartlive/?page=sfal_film_jubilee
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
The Vibe: A Memoir
The bachelor greeted me in the pitted gravel parking lot. He pointed out a particularly chunky red stain on my bug splattered windshield and asked Did you hit a tampon on the way here? That was the vibe. I looked up at The Bearded Clam resort sign, yanking coolers and duffel bags out of the back of the jeep. Tree choked hills surrounded us. The sun was a bright white reflection, broiling. We were somewhere near Arkansas. I didnʼt know, I never pay attention.
We hauled this latest load of gear to the poorly titled suite, a three bedroom accommodation that would be housing seven men for the next day and a half, all of it the color of a dirty cigarette filter in low light. The flooring was coated in a buzzed green carpet, the short kind of industrial grade material you might find on heavily trafficked stairs, not intended in any way to match the yellow, stained glass drapes or wood paneled walls. Humidity had wrinkled the starving art in their frames and the floor flexed with each smashed bag of ice, each drunken stumble, as though we were only holed up in a balsa wood replica of luxury. The bathrooms were always sodium vapor yellow as though lit by streetlight, revealing pubic hair and mold packed into the grout between tile and plastic trim. One of our party emerged from one of these bathrooms, claiming to have sprained a testicle trying to pass pizza and two pounds of bacon. That was the vibe.
Outside, the second floor walkway was fenced in with white railing, enameled in dried drips of chipped white paint, the nails all sweating rust. Air conditioning units sagged inside window mounts, their slats bent and grimacing in the one-hundred plus degree heat, drooling condensation like pit stains onto more of the utility grade astroturf. (This carpet had an unintentional, unconscious effect on our class and status. As weʼd each arrived in our own time, instead of red carpet we carried our duffle bags across this stuff, this wet velcro made to withstand sun, booze and vomit.) Dumb, buzzing insects motored into things blindly, as though theyʼd been there long before us with a head start on the drinking. We started out in flip flops, but as the booze came we went barefoot, thoughtless of whatever damp human dandruff, how everything was a bucket seat pooled with the waste and pasts of all the tenants that had come before us.
From the balcony, the pool was visible, a cloudy milk bath into which no sober person wanted to lower themselves, but impaired groups would later happily cannonball. Beyond that squatted the modest bar: a concrete patio, tables, chairs, a stage and a small shingled island from which to buy a drink.
The beers came from coolers, from the refrigerator, from the hands of friends, from the bar, the hi hats of popped tops hissing as though the beverages were sizzling against the heat. Frost covered elixirs came from the freezer and later, little plastic ramekins from the bar, the alcohol all a mixing media, a homogenizing solution blurring one place, one sentence, one person into another: there were no corners, no turns and no segmentation but for the streaking carousel of everything being one place, one time.
The lake was a lake and it served its purpose, primarily as an exercise in abandon, deprogramming the civilized mind. No thinking person could swim that vast, wet deposit with any degree of awareness or concern. No one could float atop a hole in the earth filled with dark stew and rumors of piranha, ball-biting pike or VW sized catfish. It only followed that after suppressing such prehistoric anxieties, one would drink to excess and use too little sunscreen, attempt foolish dives and handle propane drunkenly, the whole scene an experiment in surrender. We discovered our boat had no anchor, as if weʼd needed anymore indication that the group was letting go the grind for a spell. There, on the pontoon boat, a folded six-pack box became a make-shift spatula. Fumbled packages of brats splashed into the water, feeding whatever horrors lurked beneath our butts floating like fish food in inflatable doughnuts. We all P.P.M.ed there, or Parts Per Millioned, or more simply, pissed in the lake with an albeit more scientific name, referring to the total parts of urine per parts of water. Get on the boat, someone would say. Canʼt, someone would say back, Iʼm Parts Purrin. That was the vibe.
Finally, the bar, the getting of a third or fourth wind. We changed clothes, sliding that one nice pair of jeans over the still tacky film of sweat and sunblock, pulled on fresh tee shirts, hoping their over-washed cologne of detergent would be enough to approximate a shower. The sun went down and the band got up, doing a respectable Steve Perry or Roger Waters.
Inevitably, in this semi-wild preserve of a getaway, the women showed up. These ladies might have had a story, a history, a reason for being there, but it didnʼt really matter. Somehow, someway, it had to happen. It was natureʼs doing. Overdressed in heels and dresses, skirts and cowboy boots, there was a sudden and major gravitational shift in climate, each of the men feeling the greater skies above us, suspecting that we had driven all this way not to see friends, not for a bachelor party, but rather we were summoned there to suddenly take part in a nature documentary that was beyond our consent. They stomped their pumps into the dance floor like elegant, hoofed beasts that could charge but had no need as the matadors would always come to them. They took shots, they sang with the band, they jumped in the pool clothed, they did whatever they wanted. Our night of men was suddenly invigorated and also ruined as a total pole reversal took place in the mind and glands of males that could not be undone. Though we were half of that sticky gender sandwich, we also suddenly did not belong and would spend the rest of the night trying to fit in and to be loved, to find the proper orbit around those country road house celebrities.
At last, it was dark. The women had wrecked the place, cut a peacockʼs warpath and removed themselves. The nature documentary was over. Stumbling, we decided to return to the black water, blacker now but for the shattering of moonlight bobbing upon it. The guest of honorʼs father was ever present, looking like an old timey burleyman, stocky, bald with grey mustache and goatee. He paced his consumption in the manner that age requires and wisdom affords. That sounds like a terrible idea, he said, but let his son go, knowing that as the dominant species, men must be allowed to prey on themselves every now and again.
On the lake, the bachelor didn’t look so good. I think I better go Roman, he said. One of our pack spotted a figure getting into a boat and claimed it was a Sasquatch, heckling the poor silhouette, calling him or her out as a marine enthused Bigfoot until they slipped away into the dark, irritated. I see you Sasquatch! You can’t hide from me! He continued to yell from his floating pink lounger with cup holder, the claims skipping across the water and on up the hill to tenants trying to sleep. The bachelor repeated, I should probly go Roman, looking back across the dock, estimating whether or not he could make it in time. One among us started a stranger’s speedboat and we talked him out of it only minutes before the rather large and rightful owners showed up to take it out. I’m gonna go Roman, the bachelor decided. He came back sweaty, pale, with jaundiced, yellow eyes, having induced vomiting. He claimed, I feel so much better, all the while swaying on his feet, grinning. (Was this gross excess? Perhaps, but only in answer to the anorexic amount of indulgence daily life affords us.) Another of us reviewed photos from the bar, reliving the second hand reproductions of close encounters with women, not yet done with the narcotic rush of attraction. He laid on the dock, drunk and slightly dyslexic, slurring out across the lake, Wait ‘til jew shee all the tig bitty pictures I got! Abruptly done with all things lake, one of the group started throwing our possessions and rafts and beers into the water, done with them in an executive decision only sensible to his own booze flooded brain, among them a blowup doll. As we watched her drift away, arms permanently outstretched, mouth open in a puckered pocket of pink nylon, he claimed She’s starting a new life and this had a gut wrenchingly sad and erie quality that hung over the silent lake.
Staggering back to the room, we picked up a lone wolf, a trouble maker who can only be remembered as some kind of supernatural wraith, some possessed representative of the unknown sent to test us, to dampen us. I first spotted him publicly urinating in deep country shadow, wide stance, and he seemed drawn from that darkness, a fouler magnetized to the light of our good cheer. (This image of the man would later summarize the altercation, him with a wide stance, brazen, marking territory.) He followed us back to our room under friendly pretenses and then attempted to remain there in disruptive, passive aggressive defiance meant to disarm and antagonize. The guest of honor pushed him out the door at which point he latched on in a sloppy, drunken bear hug. He held on in the most unsettling display of strength and resolve. I remember him in black clothes, with long greasy black hair, a malignant barnacle. Perhaps we were only drunk and it was made this much more psychedelic, but this man seemed to be death, to be sadness, to be feebleness manifested as though if he could, he would maintain his grip and drag us back to the lake and under. He was every accident weʼd narrowly avoided, every blown tire and neck-snapping pool dive come to collect. Only something as audacious as evil dared saunter alone into a room full of men and be a villain there. We threw him down a flight of stairs and got on with the night. This was total victory. This was how we dealt with evil, with death. We threw him, no, cast him down and out.
Adrenaline subsided. Gulps and swallows turned to sips turned to drooping eyelids. Someone was asleep on the floor in spite of the numerous beds and I realized suddenly that this was, at its heart, a slumber party. An infomercial warned us about the sizes of our dicks and sold a remedy to it. This seemed a perfect punctuation to the day, just fitting that a motel room full of drunk, fighting men would be faced with this. We watched in defiance. We couldnʼt show that God-damned commercial any insecurity or self-doubt until someone finally mumbled change it, and I abruptly had the notion that this was the theme of the occasion. Weʼd dodged the temptresses, dodged the violence, dodged the accidents and so far, dodged ourselves, our insecurities and pasts. Somebody was getting married.
Change it.
That blowup doll had started her new life.
Or maybe we had.
That was the vibe.
We hauled this latest load of gear to the poorly titled suite, a three bedroom accommodation that would be housing seven men for the next day and a half, all of it the color of a dirty cigarette filter in low light. The flooring was coated in a buzzed green carpet, the short kind of industrial grade material you might find on heavily trafficked stairs, not intended in any way to match the yellow, stained glass drapes or wood paneled walls. Humidity had wrinkled the starving art in their frames and the floor flexed with each smashed bag of ice, each drunken stumble, as though we were only holed up in a balsa wood replica of luxury. The bathrooms were always sodium vapor yellow as though lit by streetlight, revealing pubic hair and mold packed into the grout between tile and plastic trim. One of our party emerged from one of these bathrooms, claiming to have sprained a testicle trying to pass pizza and two pounds of bacon. That was the vibe.
Outside, the second floor walkway was fenced in with white railing, enameled in dried drips of chipped white paint, the nails all sweating rust. Air conditioning units sagged inside window mounts, their slats bent and grimacing in the one-hundred plus degree heat, drooling condensation like pit stains onto more of the utility grade astroturf. (This carpet had an unintentional, unconscious effect on our class and status. As weʼd each arrived in our own time, instead of red carpet we carried our duffle bags across this stuff, this wet velcro made to withstand sun, booze and vomit.) Dumb, buzzing insects motored into things blindly, as though theyʼd been there long before us with a head start on the drinking. We started out in flip flops, but as the booze came we went barefoot, thoughtless of whatever damp human dandruff, how everything was a bucket seat pooled with the waste and pasts of all the tenants that had come before us.
From the balcony, the pool was visible, a cloudy milk bath into which no sober person wanted to lower themselves, but impaired groups would later happily cannonball. Beyond that squatted the modest bar: a concrete patio, tables, chairs, a stage and a small shingled island from which to buy a drink.
The beers came from coolers, from the refrigerator, from the hands of friends, from the bar, the hi hats of popped tops hissing as though the beverages were sizzling against the heat. Frost covered elixirs came from the freezer and later, little plastic ramekins from the bar, the alcohol all a mixing media, a homogenizing solution blurring one place, one sentence, one person into another: there were no corners, no turns and no segmentation but for the streaking carousel of everything being one place, one time.
The lake was a lake and it served its purpose, primarily as an exercise in abandon, deprogramming the civilized mind. No thinking person could swim that vast, wet deposit with any degree of awareness or concern. No one could float atop a hole in the earth filled with dark stew and rumors of piranha, ball-biting pike or VW sized catfish. It only followed that after suppressing such prehistoric anxieties, one would drink to excess and use too little sunscreen, attempt foolish dives and handle propane drunkenly, the whole scene an experiment in surrender. We discovered our boat had no anchor, as if weʼd needed anymore indication that the group was letting go the grind for a spell. There, on the pontoon boat, a folded six-pack box became a make-shift spatula. Fumbled packages of brats splashed into the water, feeding whatever horrors lurked beneath our butts floating like fish food in inflatable doughnuts. We all P.P.M.ed there, or Parts Per Millioned, or more simply, pissed in the lake with an albeit more scientific name, referring to the total parts of urine per parts of water. Get on the boat, someone would say. Canʼt, someone would say back, Iʼm Parts Purrin. That was the vibe.
Finally, the bar, the getting of a third or fourth wind. We changed clothes, sliding that one nice pair of jeans over the still tacky film of sweat and sunblock, pulled on fresh tee shirts, hoping their over-washed cologne of detergent would be enough to approximate a shower. The sun went down and the band got up, doing a respectable Steve Perry or Roger Waters.
Inevitably, in this semi-wild preserve of a getaway, the women showed up. These ladies might have had a story, a history, a reason for being there, but it didnʼt really matter. Somehow, someway, it had to happen. It was natureʼs doing. Overdressed in heels and dresses, skirts and cowboy boots, there was a sudden and major gravitational shift in climate, each of the men feeling the greater skies above us, suspecting that we had driven all this way not to see friends, not for a bachelor party, but rather we were summoned there to suddenly take part in a nature documentary that was beyond our consent. They stomped their pumps into the dance floor like elegant, hoofed beasts that could charge but had no need as the matadors would always come to them. They took shots, they sang with the band, they jumped in the pool clothed, they did whatever they wanted. Our night of men was suddenly invigorated and also ruined as a total pole reversal took place in the mind and glands of males that could not be undone. Though we were half of that sticky gender sandwich, we also suddenly did not belong and would spend the rest of the night trying to fit in and to be loved, to find the proper orbit around those country road house celebrities.
At last, it was dark. The women had wrecked the place, cut a peacockʼs warpath and removed themselves. The nature documentary was over. Stumbling, we decided to return to the black water, blacker now but for the shattering of moonlight bobbing upon it. The guest of honorʼs father was ever present, looking like an old timey burleyman, stocky, bald with grey mustache and goatee. He paced his consumption in the manner that age requires and wisdom affords. That sounds like a terrible idea, he said, but let his son go, knowing that as the dominant species, men must be allowed to prey on themselves every now and again.
On the lake, the bachelor didn’t look so good. I think I better go Roman, he said. One of our pack spotted a figure getting into a boat and claimed it was a Sasquatch, heckling the poor silhouette, calling him or her out as a marine enthused Bigfoot until they slipped away into the dark, irritated. I see you Sasquatch! You can’t hide from me! He continued to yell from his floating pink lounger with cup holder, the claims skipping across the water and on up the hill to tenants trying to sleep. The bachelor repeated, I should probly go Roman, looking back across the dock, estimating whether or not he could make it in time. One among us started a stranger’s speedboat and we talked him out of it only minutes before the rather large and rightful owners showed up to take it out. I’m gonna go Roman, the bachelor decided. He came back sweaty, pale, with jaundiced, yellow eyes, having induced vomiting. He claimed, I feel so much better, all the while swaying on his feet, grinning. (Was this gross excess? Perhaps, but only in answer to the anorexic amount of indulgence daily life affords us.) Another of us reviewed photos from the bar, reliving the second hand reproductions of close encounters with women, not yet done with the narcotic rush of attraction. He laid on the dock, drunk and slightly dyslexic, slurring out across the lake, Wait ‘til jew shee all the tig bitty pictures I got! Abruptly done with all things lake, one of the group started throwing our possessions and rafts and beers into the water, done with them in an executive decision only sensible to his own booze flooded brain, among them a blowup doll. As we watched her drift away, arms permanently outstretched, mouth open in a puckered pocket of pink nylon, he claimed She’s starting a new life and this had a gut wrenchingly sad and erie quality that hung over the silent lake.
Staggering back to the room, we picked up a lone wolf, a trouble maker who can only be remembered as some kind of supernatural wraith, some possessed representative of the unknown sent to test us, to dampen us. I first spotted him publicly urinating in deep country shadow, wide stance, and he seemed drawn from that darkness, a fouler magnetized to the light of our good cheer. (This image of the man would later summarize the altercation, him with a wide stance, brazen, marking territory.) He followed us back to our room under friendly pretenses and then attempted to remain there in disruptive, passive aggressive defiance meant to disarm and antagonize. The guest of honor pushed him out the door at which point he latched on in a sloppy, drunken bear hug. He held on in the most unsettling display of strength and resolve. I remember him in black clothes, with long greasy black hair, a malignant barnacle. Perhaps we were only drunk and it was made this much more psychedelic, but this man seemed to be death, to be sadness, to be feebleness manifested as though if he could, he would maintain his grip and drag us back to the lake and under. He was every accident weʼd narrowly avoided, every blown tire and neck-snapping pool dive come to collect. Only something as audacious as evil dared saunter alone into a room full of men and be a villain there. We threw him down a flight of stairs and got on with the night. This was total victory. This was how we dealt with evil, with death. We threw him, no, cast him down and out.
Adrenaline subsided. Gulps and swallows turned to sips turned to drooping eyelids. Someone was asleep on the floor in spite of the numerous beds and I realized suddenly that this was, at its heart, a slumber party. An infomercial warned us about the sizes of our dicks and sold a remedy to it. This seemed a perfect punctuation to the day, just fitting that a motel room full of drunk, fighting men would be faced with this. We watched in defiance. We couldnʼt show that God-damned commercial any insecurity or self-doubt until someone finally mumbled change it, and I abruptly had the notion that this was the theme of the occasion. Weʼd dodged the temptresses, dodged the violence, dodged the accidents and so far, dodged ourselves, our insecurities and pasts. Somebody was getting married.
Change it.
That blowup doll had started her new life.
Or maybe we had.
That was the vibe.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Book 'O Poetry
At last, it's out. "Down, Down and Away," a collaborative book of poetry whose hundred pages is split between Jason Ryberg and myself is now available at Prospero's Books. I don't usually get too excited about my projects, but this is a really solid product. This is definitely Jason's strongest collection of work to date, in my opinion. Swing by there and pick up a copy. I can mail editions if needed. I have to give particular thanks to John Deuser for helping to make this possible...
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Indrid Cold Perhaps?
Found this outside of work today. The wings were as big as my fist, with fat, furry little wriggling legs and two plush, stuffed animal beady black eyes. I've never seen anything like it, anywhere. It was huge and substantial. Of course, the crappy picture does not do it justice.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
This Confounding Flourish
things snag.
a satchel strap catches on a gear shift
a tee shirt arm winds around a washer spindle
a coat gets caught in a door jamb.
shoelaces will come untied three times a day
and yet an electrical cord will knot itself
in half a dozen places with no assistance,
each of these objects possessing a will of their own.
things are barely what we know them as
barely the names we give them.
any ornamentation beyond a simple shape is a flagellum.
a bathrobe belt is a barb,
a bra strap a snare,
a spool of kite string a gaff,
a finger a hook,
a car,
a possession,
a keepsake,
an environment
all bait and tackle,
all coral reefs to filter the ebb of life.
cellophane is cilium.
scarves are cilium.
arms and legs and necks are cilium.
despite moving parts and thoughts
the cars and brains and products are protozoa,
the city is a milk bath,
a water breaking,
the streets umbilical,
the alleys dilated canals,
the spindles of cells,
the spokes of bacteria meshing, absorbing,
assimilating,
cross breeding,
our deep thoughts and big ideas
a spectral, fine web,
catching against the mesh of others,
all of us stuck upon it,
bobbing and scaling
this fine, wet gearbox,
the trees nodding, tapping our scalps,
the mud with seeds in it
riding the tread of our shoes like suckerfish,
the exhaust in our lungs,
breathing each others waste,
stealing each others air,
not telegraphing and sending a signal nonetheless,
screaming outrageously and saying nothing,
the helicopters and planes are seeds in light carriages and pods,
a rainfall of fertilization,
the air is every bit as much a pesticide as it is a nutrient.
the tree bark is stamped so lightly into our eyes
it is hardly there,
the atoms of it do not touch us
and yet the pattern goes somewhere,
stores somewhere and comes back out of us as
a brand new way of designing vacuum cleaners.
someone says hello
or excuse me
and it is not those things.
you see a commercial
or use a toilet
and yet they are not those things.
we think and it is a pin,
a rod,
an axis,
a stamen
a carpel
we give and take
unisexually,
our fears and complexity
our lifestyles
and legacies
all orbits
and trajectory,
merely the shape of
our function,
the brand of our mission
and the ants have no idea what they are doing.
a satchel strap catches on a gear shift
a tee shirt arm winds around a washer spindle
a coat gets caught in a door jamb.
shoelaces will come untied three times a day
and yet an electrical cord will knot itself
in half a dozen places with no assistance,
each of these objects possessing a will of their own.
things are barely what we know them as
barely the names we give them.
any ornamentation beyond a simple shape is a flagellum.
a bathrobe belt is a barb,
a bra strap a snare,
a spool of kite string a gaff,
a finger a hook,
a car,
a possession,
a keepsake,
an environment
all bait and tackle,
all coral reefs to filter the ebb of life.
cellophane is cilium.
scarves are cilium.
arms and legs and necks are cilium.
despite moving parts and thoughts
the cars and brains and products are protozoa,
the city is a milk bath,
a water breaking,
the streets umbilical,
the alleys dilated canals,
the spindles of cells,
the spokes of bacteria meshing, absorbing,
assimilating,
cross breeding,
our deep thoughts and big ideas
a spectral, fine web,
catching against the mesh of others,
all of us stuck upon it,
bobbing and scaling
this fine, wet gearbox,
the trees nodding, tapping our scalps,
the mud with seeds in it
riding the tread of our shoes like suckerfish,
the exhaust in our lungs,
breathing each others waste,
stealing each others air,
not telegraphing and sending a signal nonetheless,
screaming outrageously and saying nothing,
the helicopters and planes are seeds in light carriages and pods,
a rainfall of fertilization,
the air is every bit as much a pesticide as it is a nutrient.
the tree bark is stamped so lightly into our eyes
it is hardly there,
the atoms of it do not touch us
and yet the pattern goes somewhere,
stores somewhere and comes back out of us as
a brand new way of designing vacuum cleaners.
someone says hello
or excuse me
and it is not those things.
you see a commercial
or use a toilet
and yet they are not those things.
we think and it is a pin,
a rod,
an axis,
a stamen
a carpel
we give and take
unisexually,
our fears and complexity
our lifestyles
and legacies
all orbits
and trajectory,
merely the shape of
our function,
the brand of our mission
and the ants have no idea what they are doing.
Monday, May 2, 2011
clear conscience
it’s sad,
most people are a uniplegic-
they have no use of their bodies above the neck.
christ’s cross was dismantled and refurbished
into arm chairs
that we are not so much nailed to,
but just too comfortable to get out of.
the stakes were melted down into paperclips and pen filaments
so that we are not fixed to our burdens,
but rather we staple, and collate our instincts into to do lists.
the notorious cry for help
has been lengthened into a very long, articulate run on sentence
we now know as conversation.
given the couch potato condition of the average person,
the humid dirt and fecundity of their turnip brains,
even as people appropriate one another in microscope slideshow
sideshows of
supply and demand
they rest easy,
digesting all the nut jobs and fruitcakes,
knowing full well
that despite the gorging and excess,
they are still vegetarians.
most people are a uniplegic-
they have no use of their bodies above the neck.
christ’s cross was dismantled and refurbished
into arm chairs
that we are not so much nailed to,
but just too comfortable to get out of.
the stakes were melted down into paperclips and pen filaments
so that we are not fixed to our burdens,
but rather we staple, and collate our instincts into to do lists.
the notorious cry for help
has been lengthened into a very long, articulate run on sentence
we now know as conversation.
given the couch potato condition of the average person,
the humid dirt and fecundity of their turnip brains,
even as people appropriate one another in microscope slideshow
sideshows of
supply and demand
they rest easy,
digesting all the nut jobs and fruitcakes,
knowing full well
that despite the gorging and excess,
they are still vegetarians.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Here Kitty
although
we are sure that no god
is hurrying home from its cocktail party to feed us,
or thinking of us, slipping away from its soiree
to let us out anywhere special so that we might empty that bladder of
our discontent,
it is possible that
as we make our way
with crude senses,
we pass through
the territories of
Other Things.
imagine that a higher being
attempts to cluck its tongue at us
in the form of wind,
or that the darkness of the basement
is a demigods crude attempt at replicating our dark age as a means
to communicate in a way it guesses we might understand.
the cliffs with sheer drops and the
invite of an open road with no destination might
be only
The Thing,
huge and far away,
beckoning us with a bowl of something from its kitchen
that it guesses we might like
and for moments we are frozen mid hunt and gather,
making ourselves still and quiet,
trying to reduce ourselves into something average
and paltry that no larger beast might want.
we make ourselves tasteless and roly poly,
playing possum in the most glamorous version we can invent.
as the moment of suspicion passes
we climb into coats and cars
like puffed fur,
like raised luxury hackles,
and go about our bitter surety,
and sullen safety.
we are sure that no god
is hurrying home from its cocktail party to feed us,
or thinking of us, slipping away from its soiree
to let us out anywhere special so that we might empty that bladder of
our discontent,
it is possible that
as we make our way
with crude senses,
we pass through
the territories of
Other Things.
imagine that a higher being
attempts to cluck its tongue at us
in the form of wind,
or that the darkness of the basement
is a demigods crude attempt at replicating our dark age as a means
to communicate in a way it guesses we might understand.
the cliffs with sheer drops and the
invite of an open road with no destination might
be only
The Thing,
huge and far away,
beckoning us with a bowl of something from its kitchen
that it guesses we might like
and for moments we are frozen mid hunt and gather,
making ourselves still and quiet,
trying to reduce ourselves into something average
and paltry that no larger beast might want.
we make ourselves tasteless and roly poly,
playing possum in the most glamorous version we can invent.
as the moment of suspicion passes
we climb into coats and cars
like puffed fur,
like raised luxury hackles,
and go about our bitter surety,
and sullen safety.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Spectrum
Finally. Finally got into the Spectrum Fantastic Art annual publication. Be in there with some graphic novel artists whose work I buy and read on a regular basis. Been submitting for three years, but kept sending them unsuitable material. Finally sent them the right stuff I guess. It looks like either of my paintings, "Down Down and Away,"
or, "Manguish,"
or both will be featured in there with a ton of other people from around the world. That's all. I'll post a self-aggrandizing pic or something later when I have the edition. Funny, this was going to be my last year submitting. I was going to give up. Because, well, after three years, delayed gratification really just turns into blue balls.
This was last years edition.
or, "Manguish,"
or both will be featured in there with a ton of other people from around the world. That's all. I'll post a self-aggrandizing pic or something later when I have the edition. Funny, this was going to be my last year submitting. I was going to give up. Because, well, after three years, delayed gratification really just turns into blue balls.
This was last years edition.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
The Savage Beats (a short film)
This is the latest short finished by my brother Zach and I, although none of this stuff ever really gets finished without every single extra, favor and helping hand throwing in. This was really a group effort, from Gilhouly's bar allowing us to shoot on their off day, to people holding rolls of duct tape, to Aaron's excruciatingly patient post work. I am most excited by and proud of the four original and local songs by Aaron Baker, (me), Nate Charlson, and Jerame Gray. I have this fixation on originality and getting new shit and I had vague ideas for what I wanted from the songs and really, these guys fleshed 'em out just perfectly and professionally. Anyway...
The Savage Beats from Josh Rizer on Vimeo.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
This is Not the Truth: Part 2
I’m interested in the idea of “emotional corporations.”
In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, billboards are expanded in size in order to continue to be dominating and legible as traffic moves faster in his dystopian future.
Well, instead of faster traffic, it is our minds that are moving quicker. The billboards have stayed the same size. In order for companies to be sure that their products stay at the forefront of our short attention spans they have had to braid products irreversibly into our subconscious, into our lifestyles so that these material things are no longer items we pick up while living our lives, but rather they are our lives. They become less companies and more ideas and ideals that we are meant to identify with, thus we adhere ourselves to them in massive percentages of populace, thus we are corporately, not just collectively, minded. I don’t mean simply that we have them on our minds, but more that individuals are grouped together and identified by products. As business got slicker, tapping into our ideologies and insecurities, they intertwined with our unconscious. There are massive quantities of people that are Pepsi or Coke, Mac or PC and they use this to identify what types of people they are. (Oddly, the common advertising trick is to sell the idea to the consumer that they are an individual and free thinking for buying into these products.)
More importantly and more sinister is the concept of branding, which is the practice of a company to define themselves and their service or product with an immediately recognizeable identity such as green or hip. I’m seeing this trend more and more on a personal level, with people branding themselves according to what they wear or use. Fashion, as a trick of commerce, was already devious enough in making people modern or outdated depending on what a person was wearing, but it now defines what type of person we are. People are in effect emotionally branded and have succumbed to a corporate takeover of their identity. Even terminology and emotions are used to telegraph an effect, to elicit a response, more than they are felt or practiced. You might have someone tell you who they are. They may inform you that they are studying vigorously, reading a certain book, or of their quick temper. This is essentially their logo, typically followed by several iterations of a tagline, a jingle or a slogan.
Now, we have reality, as mysterious and unknowable as ever with a populace more removed from it than ever, essentially product placing themselves within the meta-reality of their own corporately inspired franchises. They might tell you which bar they were at, which movie they watched, who they they saw or spent time with. Reality is but a weak, posh Jerry Bruckheimer stage into which people place themselves for notoriety and sales opportunity. There’s a Mac in a summer blockbuster. There’s Jeff in the hot new after hours locale. Meanwhile, less personal efficacy, less tactile experience, less authenticity. People are but helium balloons, typing updates on their doomed altitude. They are websites, not even monetized, just accumulating hits. The more frequently a person changes their interests or favorite band, the more they resemble a bank being bought out every other month.
Additionally, hot button issues have had a way of scattering the slow, deliberate mind into choosing sides when neither option might be perfectly suitable. This could be analogous to a brutal financial market, scaring smaller entities into buying or selling in order to survive. Hostility and insanity has been turned up loud enough that people are quickly absorbed into right or left (In any field of debate. Not only talking about politics here.) and these polarities are cleverly woven into our emotions and more specifically into a type of person we want to be. Consequently you may see people telegraph their brand via a political stance as it sells them as a certain quality of character. This often has more to do with identity than conviction.
We see this same polarity with entertainment, with consumers siding with a character or season of shows. With the Twilight franchise, fan websites are littered with Team Jacob or Team Edward. Lost had these same camps. Every franchise does. This is exactly why films started producing individual movie posters for every major character in their films, such as they do with Pirates of the Caribbean or Tron: Legacy. Each character is a brand, meant to snare a certain demographic who then waves this character flag to describe themselves. Emotionally, a person might be romantic or bullied or hopeful with a complicated history that explains this, but it ends up culminating in the block-headed summary of Team Jacob. Emotionally corporate.
I have a repetitive habit of trashing the Coen Brothers and their films. I’m just not very impressed. But I say this to have an effect. I’m describing myself according to what I side with instead of an ability to define my spirit or demonstrate it. It’s contrarian, to be sure, but it’s more than that. It’s garish neon instead of braille. It’s the Cliff’s Notes to my soul. It’s a Nike emblem, it’s an obscure import beer, it’s a thrift store trucker hat. Whatever it is, it sure isn’t me. Where is my voice coming from? Who am I other than a commodity, a stock that gets traded to whichever company holds my interest? Beyond the pop culture politicking, it’s difficult to know.
I’m sure of this: I like both Wars and Trek. I can’t tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi. Put a beer in my hand. I don’t care what it is and if choosing one over the other makes me a public share for share holders than I refuse to choose.
Because I’m totally liberal.
In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, billboards are expanded in size in order to continue to be dominating and legible as traffic moves faster in his dystopian future.
Well, instead of faster traffic, it is our minds that are moving quicker. The billboards have stayed the same size. In order for companies to be sure that their products stay at the forefront of our short attention spans they have had to braid products irreversibly into our subconscious, into our lifestyles so that these material things are no longer items we pick up while living our lives, but rather they are our lives. They become less companies and more ideas and ideals that we are meant to identify with, thus we adhere ourselves to them in massive percentages of populace, thus we are corporately, not just collectively, minded. I don’t mean simply that we have them on our minds, but more that individuals are grouped together and identified by products. As business got slicker, tapping into our ideologies and insecurities, they intertwined with our unconscious. There are massive quantities of people that are Pepsi or Coke, Mac or PC and they use this to identify what types of people they are. (Oddly, the common advertising trick is to sell the idea to the consumer that they are an individual and free thinking for buying into these products.)
More importantly and more sinister is the concept of branding, which is the practice of a company to define themselves and their service or product with an immediately recognizeable identity such as green or hip. I’m seeing this trend more and more on a personal level, with people branding themselves according to what they wear or use. Fashion, as a trick of commerce, was already devious enough in making people modern or outdated depending on what a person was wearing, but it now defines what type of person we are. People are in effect emotionally branded and have succumbed to a corporate takeover of their identity. Even terminology and emotions are used to telegraph an effect, to elicit a response, more than they are felt or practiced. You might have someone tell you who they are. They may inform you that they are studying vigorously, reading a certain book, or of their quick temper. This is essentially their logo, typically followed by several iterations of a tagline, a jingle or a slogan.
Now, we have reality, as mysterious and unknowable as ever with a populace more removed from it than ever, essentially product placing themselves within the meta-reality of their own corporately inspired franchises. They might tell you which bar they were at, which movie they watched, who they they saw or spent time with. Reality is but a weak, posh Jerry Bruckheimer stage into which people place themselves for notoriety and sales opportunity. There’s a Mac in a summer blockbuster. There’s Jeff in the hot new after hours locale. Meanwhile, less personal efficacy, less tactile experience, less authenticity. People are but helium balloons, typing updates on their doomed altitude. They are websites, not even monetized, just accumulating hits. The more frequently a person changes their interests or favorite band, the more they resemble a bank being bought out every other month.
Additionally, hot button issues have had a way of scattering the slow, deliberate mind into choosing sides when neither option might be perfectly suitable. This could be analogous to a brutal financial market, scaring smaller entities into buying or selling in order to survive. Hostility and insanity has been turned up loud enough that people are quickly absorbed into right or left (In any field of debate. Not only talking about politics here.) and these polarities are cleverly woven into our emotions and more specifically into a type of person we want to be. Consequently you may see people telegraph their brand via a political stance as it sells them as a certain quality of character. This often has more to do with identity than conviction.
We see this same polarity with entertainment, with consumers siding with a character or season of shows. With the Twilight franchise, fan websites are littered with Team Jacob or Team Edward. Lost had these same camps. Every franchise does. This is exactly why films started producing individual movie posters for every major character in their films, such as they do with Pirates of the Caribbean or Tron: Legacy. Each character is a brand, meant to snare a certain demographic who then waves this character flag to describe themselves. Emotionally, a person might be romantic or bullied or hopeful with a complicated history that explains this, but it ends up culminating in the block-headed summary of Team Jacob. Emotionally corporate.
I have a repetitive habit of trashing the Coen Brothers and their films. I’m just not very impressed. But I say this to have an effect. I’m describing myself according to what I side with instead of an ability to define my spirit or demonstrate it. It’s contrarian, to be sure, but it’s more than that. It’s garish neon instead of braille. It’s the Cliff’s Notes to my soul. It’s a Nike emblem, it’s an obscure import beer, it’s a thrift store trucker hat. Whatever it is, it sure isn’t me. Where is my voice coming from? Who am I other than a commodity, a stock that gets traded to whichever company holds my interest? Beyond the pop culture politicking, it’s difficult to know.
I’m sure of this: I like both Wars and Trek. I can’t tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi. Put a beer in my hand. I don’t care what it is and if choosing one over the other makes me a public share for share holders than I refuse to choose.
Because I’m totally liberal.
This is Not the Truth: Part 1 (3 people like this)
We once had religion as dogma. It was the primary (And to some, arguably still is.) means by which one person judged, ordered or informed another.
As science is slowly coming to replace religion, utilizing a fact based, quantifiable legitimacy over the more fable based guesses of religion, it has also taken on its dogmatic arrogance.
If we stand back from either form, or whatever format so called knowledge takes, we can deduce one thing: the human being needs a method by which to know things and to hold those things in combat against others. We would assume that science is much more stable and reliable as it bases itself upon a system of investigation whereas religion relied upon superstition, so we would conclude that one was imaginary and the other is lawfully accurate. But in the hands of humans, they seem to provide the same function: armchair haughtiness. Again, science is granted a new credibility as it’s based on...atoms and microscopes and microns. This is well and good but the most unreliable ingredient is the lens of the human mind. There is still a gaping hole in that we assume the human mind is able to deduce where and what to go to for truth and veracity. The most chaotic, unstable particle in science is the human psyche. Simply because a human discovers something it is assumed to be a concrete puzzle piece to a larger truth. But we know from another field, psychology, that the mind will almost always seek out that which completes its own idea of how things ought to be or that which is most comfortable within the framework of what one has already learned. Political polls can be slanted and so can quests, so can appetites.
This part of the critique is admittedly based on observation, which as I have just stated, may be flawed coming as it does through the filter of my unconscious, but we commonly see athiests now and this impoverished, rabid group of blustering cripples is as wildly excited to sit over the red button of annihilation as are religious fanatics. The joy of an atheist is in denouncing that which others believe in. Being contrary. This is to say that I am not convinced the atheist's conclusion is one found at the end of an exhaustive and relentless search for truth, but rather at this point, it’s just a fun way to be play devil’s advocate after an age of religious authority. Again, we must ask why the atheist chooses this belief, just as we must look at the hateful church attendee and ask why have they decided upon these convenient explanations? It is not the result of logic, but of a need to believe in something specifically tailored. The atheist, I believe, enjoys the individuality, the self-reliance, the illusion of independence. (It’s hardly distant from the Anarchist, standing around in a leather jacket, holding a switchblade and a can of spray paint who’s conviction and dedication are actually very shallow.) We could say that at this stage of human development, human beings have reached a teenage rebellion, driving away from the parents house in an agnostic huff, only to surely discover later the wisdom in all that they have rejected. We find as few humble, quiet athiests as we do fervent creationists and this is telling. The claim that there is no god, that we have no meaning or purpose is barely different from the alcoholic or smoker who professes to be proud of their nihilism. It’s juvenile and near sighted.
We have entered an age of information and this is the new currency, just as religion was the primary traffic of thought once upon a time. As such, information, as is commonly quipped, is power and everyone wants power. Consequently we have people everywhere acting as human hard drives, reading and memorizing data in the belief that this is a search for truth and accuracy when in fact it is only the latest version of the thigh bone wielded by this still very primitive species. I come to this point by way of reading too many Facebook updates and the abundance of amateur political reporting done there. These “updates” and bristling comebacks found underneath are equally impartial. They come from a place of defended identity, not unbiased deduction. It reminds me that we do not seek to inform or share or alert, but rather to posses the knowledge. The cutting power of these infobytes is typically held in their contrary nature, depending on the stance of the informant. I hate to say it, but liberals are as guilty as conservatives in this area. And in this age of information, everyone is equally equipped with the same data base, leveling the playing field and creating a cold war where individuality is concerned, as it’s become extremely difficult to differentiate ones’ self by cornering a new market of information. Consenquently we have a population of snots instead of thinking people. We see it with grammar, (Don’t you mean “whom?”) vocabulary (Ignorant idiot said irregardless!) and trivia/current events. (That soy milk is actually bad for you.) In a sense, this is all the opposite of sarcasm. Sarcasm is a generally mean spirited exaggeration whereas these are mean spirited facts.
When I was eight years old, I got stuck with two of my mother’s friend’s children, both younger than me, who proceeded to push Christianity on me. We walked an empty sewer bed for what seemed like a long time and the argument got heated. I was very indignant over the assertion that I would go to hell if I did not believe in god. My final, continuing argument was if there is a god, may he strike me down right now with lightning. Because it didn’t happen, I felt right and powerful, but I also didn’t feel accurate. Simply because I wasn’t struck down didn’t really prove anything. In the end, both arguments were designed to be right, they were vindictively crafted to scorch the higher ground that neither of us were an authority on.
There is an ancient question that asks how do you describe a river? Is it the water, is it the banks on either side that make it a river? Is it the the land that butts the banks up against it? Is it the wetness, the direction or speed of the flow? There is no way to definitively encapsulate exactly what it is. We can only describe it. Religion might call it a spiritual artery, geography or cartography or biology would call it something else. We really don’t know, though, it’s a matter of perspective. It would be a shame to prematurely limit the thing and our understanding of it or anything else with an arms race-style looting of what little knowledge we have so far. What we have is an age-old need to superimpose a framework over the mystery. Religion certainly did this. Science does it. Health and politics does it. So does anorexia and OCD and other pathologies. While I wouldn’t suggest not trying to understand, I would suggest trying while at the same time always carrying that open ended fact in the backs of our minds: We don’t know. This is what we share in common, this mysterious experience. Instead, we find ourselves in a time where each person, desperate to distinguish themselves, is an island of fanaticism, trying to convert constituents with comebacks and bumper stickers and Facebook updates.
As science is slowly coming to replace religion, utilizing a fact based, quantifiable legitimacy over the more fable based guesses of religion, it has also taken on its dogmatic arrogance.
If we stand back from either form, or whatever format so called knowledge takes, we can deduce one thing: the human being needs a method by which to know things and to hold those things in combat against others. We would assume that science is much more stable and reliable as it bases itself upon a system of investigation whereas religion relied upon superstition, so we would conclude that one was imaginary and the other is lawfully accurate. But in the hands of humans, they seem to provide the same function: armchair haughtiness. Again, science is granted a new credibility as it’s based on...atoms and microscopes and microns. This is well and good but the most unreliable ingredient is the lens of the human mind. There is still a gaping hole in that we assume the human mind is able to deduce where and what to go to for truth and veracity. The most chaotic, unstable particle in science is the human psyche. Simply because a human discovers something it is assumed to be a concrete puzzle piece to a larger truth. But we know from another field, psychology, that the mind will almost always seek out that which completes its own idea of how things ought to be or that which is most comfortable within the framework of what one has already learned. Political polls can be slanted and so can quests, so can appetites.
This part of the critique is admittedly based on observation, which as I have just stated, may be flawed coming as it does through the filter of my unconscious, but we commonly see athiests now and this impoverished, rabid group of blustering cripples is as wildly excited to sit over the red button of annihilation as are religious fanatics. The joy of an atheist is in denouncing that which others believe in. Being contrary. This is to say that I am not convinced the atheist's conclusion is one found at the end of an exhaustive and relentless search for truth, but rather at this point, it’s just a fun way to be play devil’s advocate after an age of religious authority. Again, we must ask why the atheist chooses this belief, just as we must look at the hateful church attendee and ask why have they decided upon these convenient explanations? It is not the result of logic, but of a need to believe in something specifically tailored. The atheist, I believe, enjoys the individuality, the self-reliance, the illusion of independence. (It’s hardly distant from the Anarchist, standing around in a leather jacket, holding a switchblade and a can of spray paint who’s conviction and dedication are actually very shallow.) We could say that at this stage of human development, human beings have reached a teenage rebellion, driving away from the parents house in an agnostic huff, only to surely discover later the wisdom in all that they have rejected. We find as few humble, quiet athiests as we do fervent creationists and this is telling. The claim that there is no god, that we have no meaning or purpose is barely different from the alcoholic or smoker who professes to be proud of their nihilism. It’s juvenile and near sighted.
We have entered an age of information and this is the new currency, just as religion was the primary traffic of thought once upon a time. As such, information, as is commonly quipped, is power and everyone wants power. Consequently we have people everywhere acting as human hard drives, reading and memorizing data in the belief that this is a search for truth and accuracy when in fact it is only the latest version of the thigh bone wielded by this still very primitive species. I come to this point by way of reading too many Facebook updates and the abundance of amateur political reporting done there. These “updates” and bristling comebacks found underneath are equally impartial. They come from a place of defended identity, not unbiased deduction. It reminds me that we do not seek to inform or share or alert, but rather to posses the knowledge. The cutting power of these infobytes is typically held in their contrary nature, depending on the stance of the informant. I hate to say it, but liberals are as guilty as conservatives in this area. And in this age of information, everyone is equally equipped with the same data base, leveling the playing field and creating a cold war where individuality is concerned, as it’s become extremely difficult to differentiate ones’ self by cornering a new market of information. Consenquently we have a population of snots instead of thinking people. We see it with grammar, (Don’t you mean “whom?”) vocabulary (Ignorant idiot said irregardless!) and trivia/current events. (That soy milk is actually bad for you.) In a sense, this is all the opposite of sarcasm. Sarcasm is a generally mean spirited exaggeration whereas these are mean spirited facts.
When I was eight years old, I got stuck with two of my mother’s friend’s children, both younger than me, who proceeded to push Christianity on me. We walked an empty sewer bed for what seemed like a long time and the argument got heated. I was very indignant over the assertion that I would go to hell if I did not believe in god. My final, continuing argument was if there is a god, may he strike me down right now with lightning. Because it didn’t happen, I felt right and powerful, but I also didn’t feel accurate. Simply because I wasn’t struck down didn’t really prove anything. In the end, both arguments were designed to be right, they were vindictively crafted to scorch the higher ground that neither of us were an authority on.
There is an ancient question that asks how do you describe a river? Is it the water, is it the banks on either side that make it a river? Is it the the land that butts the banks up against it? Is it the wetness, the direction or speed of the flow? There is no way to definitively encapsulate exactly what it is. We can only describe it. Religion might call it a spiritual artery, geography or cartography or biology would call it something else. We really don’t know, though, it’s a matter of perspective. It would be a shame to prematurely limit the thing and our understanding of it or anything else with an arms race-style looting of what little knowledge we have so far. What we have is an age-old need to superimpose a framework over the mystery. Religion certainly did this. Science does it. Health and politics does it. So does anorexia and OCD and other pathologies. While I wouldn’t suggest not trying to understand, I would suggest trying while at the same time always carrying that open ended fact in the backs of our minds: We don’t know. This is what we share in common, this mysterious experience. Instead, we find ourselves in a time where each person, desperate to distinguish themselves, is an island of fanaticism, trying to convert constituents with comebacks and bumper stickers and Facebook updates.
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