Category Archives: Art

Actually

Art, Large Events, mur, Places

I’m actually leaving home.  The idea of How To Leave Home started as a simple thought while I was in Seattle for a pizza party.  Circa May 2014.  I wondered to myself, what exactly is the process of changing everything?  With all the joy and optimism I could muster, I threw myself into a project I did not fully understand.  My gut knows.  When I follow my gut, the story progresses.  Gut-wrenching though it may be.  Speaking of that, here’s the actual map of my road trip across the United States.

Screenshot (13)

I’m doing some research on stopping points and days on the road but I’m going with an optimistic 3-4.  44/8 = 5 8-hour shifts plus 1 4-hour shift.  Stop off in Santa Fe.  Watch the sun rise over the Grand Canyon.  Sleep near Sacramento.  I doubt I’ll stop in Portland but you never know.

How much does FedEx charge to overnight cats?

Roach Hell

Art, P & H Cafe

I did it. I broke the seal on my savings account and started the inevitable outward flow of liquidity. It’s in exchange for the momentum to head west. I’m comfortable where I am. I like the people and things in my life. I’m settled in a way I’ve never known before. If it wasn’t for all the hard work past me put into this Seattle thing I could be tempted to stay. Sitting comfortably on my pile of savings, watching it trickle away.

So I sent the deposit check and won’t think about it again till I’m there. Just how I planned my wedding. This is the closest to seizing the day I can get. I’m still in shock. I have a permanent grin and everything is brighter. I am already moving, ever so slowly, and more perceptive people can tell. I’m known for disappearing but I don’t know how anyone could miss this train. I’ll be pulling out of the station for at least 3 weeks.

A month ago, I started treating every time I see someone like it could be the last. I might never stop doing that.

Porgasm

Art, Book, Future Plans, mur, Reasons for Things

I pop zits.  I know I’m not supposed to but I do anyway.  Nothing makes me crazy like a bump.  I’m not particularly vain, It’s a textural thing.  Same compulsion that makes me pick at scabs.  Unlike scab-picking (which hurts) zit-popping has a visceral element of relief.  A gooey white glob of gunk erupting from the peak of a tiny, engorged pore.  An effect I can only call gratifying.  I’m not too concerned admitting this since I suspect facials are a Brazilian way of doing the same thing.  Continue reading Porgasm →

Wuh?

Art, Quick Thoughts, Random

Withering wisened widows watch wunderkind
Knowing the maid doesn’t make her your friend
Wombs wantonly whispering western works
Next on Broadway: Aborted Baby Monologues
Wrinkled women wistfully weep while wasted
Heavy pour for my dead dogs and aching knees
Whales willingly wallow weighted with wanderlust
Rent is the cost of sleeping closer to happiness

Art, mur, Quick Thoughts, Random

Sauntering by, so sure
The gang of boys
Good boys, old boys.
If you only knew

I see you.
The weak you.
The wanting you.
I see you in a dark room before you fall asleep.
Cuddling. Comfort. Care. Caress.
I can provide these things.
But first you have to do me a service.
Touch me where they said don’t touch.
Wiggle my squiggle with soft attention.
Let me know
That you know
I’m different.
Not you.
Just into you.
Hoping I’m the one.
The prize mare
You choose to breed
And feed
Unbridled affection
For your hopes dreams and desires.

The desire unfulfilled
Yields more empathy
And the story not told
Suspends empty disbelief

Victimism

Art, mur, Quick Thoughts

When asked about your pain on a 1 to 10 scale, always say 10.
(If you worry about opinions, try to ham it up a little.)
The person paid to care dispenses tablets
The rats learn to say it always hurts.
Do we really know pain?
Savoring the searing tattoo needle
Wincing at a sharp word.
Teaching mortals the way of least resistance
Daring heroes to dance with the devil
Deepening dependence on material cures
Numbing the squishy awkward parts
Until there’s not even a seam between the two
Personalities colliding overhead
On the bench, from behind, with 2 fingers.
No Clue.  It’s a game we call Snatch.
Don’t tell them it hurts, just scream.
Only feeling pain, the hunger goes away.
A dull heart beats, aching agony all-consuming.
Just remember no one cares and go to sleep.
This broken system won’t stop working.
Gonna have to break it to get a new one.

Art

Crying out in a silent voice
I wonder if whales could hear me
Nonsequitering through conversations
When the keyboard stops swaying
I realize it’s my own tempo with gravity
Able to discern the thoughts I’m most intersted in
Being in my body doesn’t always translate to awareness.
Bring on the court and let me plead
My case is a simple one.

Let go of your misery.
Alone, looking at your phone
On the misshapen couch you call a bed.
Stop.
Look
Listen.
The creaks aren’t all in the walls anymore.
That blue glow lighting your face
Only attracts vampires.
Head up.
The things you want are within reach.

Clipped wings preventing hidden genius.
Don’t penalize those of us that got there first
Just be glad our numbers are growing.

I was alone for the first part of my life.
The more wrong I’m proved
The less I feel cheated.

Relativity Speaking

Art, mur, Quick Thoughts, Random

Here’s what I think.

When it comes down to it, we don’t get to choose very much. From birth, thousands of decisions are instantaneously made for us.
Age, sex, location.
Name, address, SSN.
Size, weight, color.
Income level, insurance company, citizenship.
DNA map, eventually.
Seemingly unimportant, mostly indisputable, these are the tiny clear rods that Doozers use to build our fragile identities.

After that is just years of abiding by the choices of your literal guardian.  Can’t choose your parents, can’t choose your siblings.  Stuck with whatever blood you have in your veins.  A ticket in the mandatory lottery of existence.  By the time you’re old enough to have dreams most of them are out of reach. Cultivating a culture devoid of artists, minds numbed by aptitude tests and network television.  Remake everything until you can’t remember whose idea is was in the first place.

The medium doesn’t change the message, just how powerfully you get to ram things down throats.  Choking on tropes stuck in the back of my throat.  Holding high standards is relative to your idea of rock bottom.  I giggle at funerals but didn’t murder anyone.

Finished always looking over my shoulder.  God gets to judge His children and I hope not to be here when that happens.  Nothing personal.

First 15

Art, Daily Life, First Impressions, Games, Quick Thoughts, Reasons for Things

If you like to play games, check out this web series.

Deep down, we all love games in some respect but it’s easy to get lost in the frills of lights, color, marketing! From sports jerseys to quarters in a pool table, money spent on fun is often intrinsically linked to a game in some way.  And money is only the surface cost of the recreational aids we choose.  There’s the time and energy devoted to pastimes once considered only for “kids”.  When MMORPGs emerged, full-grown adults lost jobs due to the siren’s call of DING.  Games make us feel rewarded and satisfied with ourselves.  Tangible goals and achievements used to brighten the barren landscape of daily living.

Most of what I understand of gaming as an industry is tempered through the lens of Tycho Brahe of Penny Arcade, an unconventional think tank of creativity and marketing based in Redmond, WA.  Tycho’s way of phrasing things generally blows my mind about once or twice a year, on average. He provides consistently incisive perspectives that target the human element of gaming and amplify it for effect.  Tycho, joined by his heterosexual life partner Gabe, also regularly appears in a PATV series called First 15 which I directed you to earlier.

Video games come in so many different formats it’s hard to like them all and yet Penny Arcade manages to play all the fields. Marketers of the marketers, they provide an environment that filters through all the nonsense and reduces all gaming to the fundamental question – is is fun?  From innocent, easy games developed to help children with learning disabilities communicate are weighed on the same scale as the most recent megacorporate flagship release part IV.  It’s a refreshing oasis in a world that is literally dedicated to horsing around.

If you don’t believe me, just watch this one video.  It’s the First 15 for Crypt of the Necrodancer – a game I would never even glance at before but now I’m interested in playing.  During the video you get to watch Gabe face something he admittedly sucks at and by the end he’s at least given it a fair chance.  It blows my mind to watch human nature unfold like that.  At the end, Gabe an Tycho summarize their opinions thusly:

“I think that’s something from a nightmare realm” – Gabe

“I want to invest some time in playing co-op by myself.” -Tycho

And yet the game itself is not crucified for not pleasing everybody.  And trust me, some of the games they play are put on a cross and left to die – justly.